Monday, November 19, 2012

letter to New Yorker

Anthony Lane's review of "Lincoln" misses the powerful social import of the film. The film is, as David Denby points out in his much better review of the film on your blog, momentous. Tony Kushner has beautifully framed one of the great moments of U.S. history within our own. Seeing this film released simultaneously with Obama's second term feels like kismet. The fact that this movie was written by a gay playwright underscores the parallels between what is happening with gay rights now and what happening with racial equality then. The fact that Obama stood up in support of gay marriage has a potency similar to Lincoln's anti-slavery support. As 50 Cent, perhaps the biggest and baddest of the largely anti-gay hip hop world, said, "If the President is endorsing that, then who am I to go the other way?"

Monday, November 12, 2012

loryl

Hey Loryl. See below in caps.

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 4:04 PM, Loryl Mcbride <lorylmcbride@aol.com> wrote:
Oshima
Loryl Mcbride
Adam DeGraff
12 November, 2012

               During this reading much like the last one, I had a hard time focusing on

each character. Maybe I was bored with the reading, or maybe it just didn't

interest me. However, the one way that I did connect with the reading was

about the darkness.

                 When I was a little girl I was terrified of the dark due to the fact that

someone had broke into my bedroom window three times. Since then I am still

terrified of the dark. A lot like this character I find myself wondering what

every noise is, who is out side my door or window. Are they there to hurt me?

Will they break in too murder me? This is something the effects my every day

life because I have these feelings every single night.

             At the end of the story I felt very disturbed and disgusted of what I was

reading and couldn't wait for it to be over. I don't enjoy reading about rape;

even more so when it's rape about a family member. It made me ask my self

"why is he having us read this" . I feel that the whole story was very random and

all over the place. Not my favorite story at all.


THIS STORY IS AN ACCOUNT OF A PERSON WHO IS FACING HIS OWN FEARS. AS A MALE THE IDEA OF RAPING YOUR SISTER OR MOTHER, EVEN IN YOUR DREAMS, IS ABOUT THE WORST THING YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE (JUST AS BEING RAPED AS A WOMAN BY YOUR FATHER MIGHT BE FOR A FEMALE CHARACTER.) IN THIS CASE THE STORY IS ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY AND THEREFORE THE CHARACTER LOOKS AT ONE OF THE WORST ATROCITIES IN HISTORY AND IS ABLE TO CONNECT HIS OWN FEARS TO IT.

AT SOME LEVEL LITERATURE IS ABOUT OVERCOMING YOUR FEAR "OF THE DARK", WORKING THROUGH WHAT IT MEANS, AND THEN USING THAT INFORMATION TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS. TO NOT MENTION RAPE EVER IS TO IGNORE IT, WHICH MEANS NEVER UNDERSTANDING IT, WHICH MEANS IT KEEPS HAPPENING. THIS IS SOMETHING THE CHARACTER IN THIS STORY IS CONFRONTING, AND THEREFORE SO IS THE READER. IS THIS DISTURBING? YES, OF COURSE! BEING DISTURBED IS OFTEN A QUALITY OF UNCOVERING TRUTH.  BUT NOT FACING IT WOULD LEAD TO SOMETHING EVEN MORE DISTURBING.  DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?

YOU ACTUALLY HAVE A BEGINNING OF GOOD PAPER HERE, IF YOU TOOK THE FOCUS ON YOUR OWN FEAR OF DARKNESS, RELATED YOURSELF TO THE CHARACTER THROUGH IT AND THEN TIED IT INTO YOUR NATURAL PERSPECTIVE OF HORROR OF RAPE AS IT PLAYS OUT FOR THE CHARACTER  IN THE STORY. THAT COULD BE A POWERFUL TAKE ON THE STORY.

ALSO, TRUST THAT IN LITERATURE, ESPECIALLY, NOTHING IS RANDOM.

Monday, October 29, 2012

A couple of my students asked to analyze one of my poems for class. I gave them a few (coming soon as a SUBPRESS book!)

Response to one of my student's essays:

I have to say I appreciate your astute ability to talk about this narrator as separate from myself, as if the narrator is a character, or maybe even "everyman". You helped me narrow in on what this poem is about in a fresh way and I appreciate that too. There is a kind of turn around in this poem, what you call a "redirection", and the clue of the surfboard is there. Some kind of weird conflation of light and water too?

And maybe a metaphor with poetry. Like the surf is life and the paper is the surf board.

The Steven King Crouch End thing intrigues, but you have to explain. I haven't read it so not sure what you are referencing.

The "S" idea you need to explicate. (maybe the wave itself? S is a wave.)

The "I" idea you get nicely.

The sadness is interesting. You point to the stray cat as a clue and I like that. The word stray does imply "from something".

You mention the poem's loneliness, and though it is there, I think there is something in the "emptiness" that is not lonely, which leads to the wave, to the poem.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Shane the horse

Shane the horse


I went through the desert on a horse with no name
actually he did have a name
his name was Shane

It was a shame
nobody knew Shane's name

Shane! Come back!

He's gone and he thinks nobody knows his name

In the desert no one can hear you complain

I rode through the desert on a horse with a name
I wish I had known the horse's name was Shane
It gives my heart pain to think he had a name all along
to think that under the desert sea was a lovely star
in the sea breeze rippling and schools of fish
jumping and rotating cylinders...

and there was a whole life
under the sea
that we could not see
that we did not know
and now we're killing it off

How low can you go?

Richard Branson wants to know
he's gonna hire himself the know how
to get down to depths no man ever done

Reach, last stars to reach
the earth to breach

I went through the desert on a horse
whose name was Shane

He had a mane
of purple
and grapefruit
and pineapple

he had a tale as long
as the run of this song
and longer
and fatter
and stronger
and sadder

what are you eating
my daughter?

Sunday, September 30, 2012

fullness

D Note basement w/ Matthew reading Night 9 from 1001 Nights, watching Rushdie talk about Midnight's Children, dancing hard to G.A.M.B., watching commentary to Quadrophenia, then watching last Louis of season "New Year's Eve" and it is the best TV episode ever. (maybe). Next day Susan Howe's "My Emily Dickinson" and Kailin Yong on the violin at the D Note. Great...

Monday, September 24, 2012

poem by Matthew DeGraff and myself post cabin party






Mountain Love D Style

Elks bugling
To the new moon
Uncontrollable jowling out
On Molly's mushroom
I spilled the spirits (12 year old)
Being high in the upper valley
Escape to organica
Kill it with the now
Before we leave these woods
We have to exchange numbers
In the sea of red cups you will know
Tub Proust candle party

Friday, September 7, 2012

SPECULATIVE POEM (in C Sharp)

shit man, i lost my game

for reals

but still

the world doesn't know from lame

Friday, August 10, 2012

will to power

I took Sofia (who prefers to be called Sasha) and Analucia to the Martin Acres Park. Sasha was running around talking to strangers while I was feeding Analucia. I saw a group of three boys, about 5 years old. One boy was leading the other two in a game of pretend. They were pretending a large metal structure was a dinosaur fossil. When the leader touched the fossil the dinosaur came to life and the boys ran away screaming. Boys are obsessed with dinosaurs and trucks. Why? Because they are big and powerful. A few minutes later and the leader is picking up sand in his hands and says, "This is power. Here, have some". He pours a little power into each boys hands. One boy picks up a pinecone and says, "this is MY power". The leader says, "that isn't power! This is power," and he picks up some more sand in his hands. He tries to give some to the boy with the pinecone, but the boy doesn't want it. So the leader gives away some of his power to the third boy who takes it. Then the leader offers his sand once again to the boy with the pinecone. This time, not wanting to be left out, the boy drops the pinecone and takes some sand. At this point a fourth boy, maybe three years old, comes over and holds out his hands for some power. The leader gives him some. A few minutes later, as the first three are already off doing something else, the fourth younger boy is still standing there looking down at his power, smiling. This is the way our minds and societies are formed from its earliest stages of development. Its a primal will to have and control power. No wonder.

A grandfatherly gentleman comes over and sits on our bench. He says hi and then out of nowhere, "Are you between jobs?" I want to say, this is a job! But I just say I work from home and am therefore lucky enough to be able to take a break and hang out with my girls in the park. He says, "Well, you're doing it right. You're treating them like children instead of little midgets. That's the reason my three year old grandson is living with us, because my son treats him like a little midget."

Before I could ask him exactly what he meant by that he got a call on his cell and was off.

Will To Power

I took Sofia (who prefers to be called Sasha) and Analucia to the Martin Acres Park. Sasha was running around talking to strangers while I was feeding Analucia. I saw a group of three boys, about 5 years old. One boy was leading the other two in a game of pretend. They were pretending a large metal structure was a dinosaur fossil. When the leader touched the fossil the dinosaur came to life and the boys ran away screaming. Boys are obsessed with dinosaurs and trucks. Why? Because they are big and powerful. A few minutes later and the leader is picking up sand in his hands and says, "This is power. Here, have some". He pours a little power into each boys hands. One boy picks up a pinecone and says, "this is MY power". The leader says, "that isn't power! This is power," and he picks up some more sand in his hands. He tries to give some to the boy with the pinecone, but the boy doesn't want it. So the leader gives away some of his power to the third boy who takes it. Then the leader offers his sand once again to the boy with the pinecone. This time, not wanting to be left out, the boy drops the pinecone and takes some sand. At this point a fourth boy, maybe three years old, comes over and holds out his hands for some power. The leader gives him some. A few minutes later, as the first three are already off doing something else, the fourth younger boy is still standing there looking down at his power, smiling. This is the way our minds and societies are formed from its earliest stages of development. We have a primal will to have and control power.

A grandfatherly gentleman comes over and sits on our bench. He says hi and then out of nowhere, "Are you between jobs?" I want to say, this is a job! But I just say I work from home and am therefore lucky enough to be able to take a break and hang out with my girls in the park. He says, "Well, you're doing it right. You're treating them like children instead of little midgets. That's the reason my three year old grandson is living with us, because my son treats him like a little midget."

Before I could ask him exactly what he meant by that he got a call on his cell and was off.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Memoir notes

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Long epic day and too tired to get much of it down (occupational hazard). Dragon boat races with Sofia and Lucia and Gen. Then head to the D Note for Red Cross fire victim benefit and get to dance with Sofia to the Clam Daddys. Then home for nap. Then back to D Note. Monica gives me cute lady bug dress and game called Alphabet Squiggle for the girls. Maryn and Marley rock "We Will Rock You" on the drums in the D Note basement. Then picked up Dante and took him to ball park, watched a random game and yelled encouragement to random kids. After game we put together a funny little parkour film in the ballpark, with sound effects. Dante also helped me plot out the next few chapters of my Secret Universe novel as he practiced driving his great grandfather's Crown Vic around a giant parking lot. Then I head back to D Note (again!) to hear great set by punk irish band Big Paddy. Old friend Bennett comes in and catches me up with his life. I tell him the long strange story of Analucia's name. He gives me a bag of cassette tapes for my car, which includes the Royal Trucks album THANK YOU.

Monday, June 11, 2012

2nd epiphany of the day

Poetry is about taking you to the place of rapture. It is not about uncovering trauma, unless it is to transform that trauma into beauty.

Catching up on East Bound & Down and it has me thinking. It is the childish behavior of Kenny Powers that makes the show fun to watch. Yet the behavior leads to hard learned lessons, to redemption. Is every narrative arc about becoming humbled? A story allows us to live the crime, vicariously, but also doles out the punishment. It is cathartic, a way to have your cake and eat it too. In order to pull you into the story, the story has to sin, and to get you out of the story the story has to deliver you from your sins. In this way the story is a hypocrite, knowing before the fun begins where it will end. You are hooked anyway. We will go back to the story over and over. On the flip side the story allows you a glimpse into the heart of hypocrisy in all of us, leads to sympathy for the devil, and in doing so leads toward compassion. Stories are strange machines.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

day book-ended by Jack White and Mozart

Woke up at 7pm and went to the gym. I fueled up and got mean on the elliptical machine. Jack White's Blunderbuss kept me cranked up. And I sweated as I ascended into a morning bliss. Then a day with the daughters and trying to hold onto their ages, Sofia 2 yrs, Lucia 5 months, and almost too much goodness to bear. Then off to teach class and saw an advertisement for a book talk happening at the same time as the class on "Zombies On Kilamanjaro". Since we read "Snows of Kilamanjaro" in class this seemed like a nice serendipity and so I took the class to the talk, which turned out to be fantastic. The author took us on a slide show, book reading, up the Mountain and the writing was so good, especially with the visuals, that the whole class took the journey with him. It is amazing how often these portals will suddenly open. Another on the way home listening to Mozart. I'm so grateful for all of them.

Monday, April 2, 2012

3 Moon morning

Triple synchronicity this morning centered around The Who, who was, in its way, centered around Keith Moon. First watching a Who documentary on Netflix, then reading Barry Fey's book (which he gave me last week when he spoke at D Note) and coming across his account of time spent with The Who and, third, a text from my brother Matthew, an article by Penn Jillette, about, in part, The Who. Read article below...

"I first saw The Who on TV. I was watching with my parents, and when Pete, Roger, and Keith started smashing their instruments, my family was appalled. We were just barely middle class. My dad was a jail guard and we lived in a nice neat little house that my parents had built with their own hands. I loved music and I had a newspaper route, and I mowed lawns. I was taking drum lessons using a practice pad, and all my money was being saved to buy a used drum set so I could join a rock and roll band. At my rate of earning, it would take me decades to afford Keith Moon's drum set and I didn't understand its destruction on TV. How could Keith do that? How could he have such little respect for music, for the TV show he was fortunate enough to be on, and for me and my family?

My parents didn't like the music or the act, but they still tried to console me. These rich rock stars just didn't understand what money meant to us common folk. Then in a flash everything changed. I started to cry. Right then something happened and I understood The Who. I understood that passion and art could be more important than money. I went from sad and disgusted to exuberant. It was the first time I had ever understood real beauty. I loved The Who. I loved rock and roll. I loved life. It was at that moment I became an artist.

I use Teller's broad definition of art -- "Whatever we do after the chores are done." There's one show business and Bach, Dylan, Ron Jeremy, and the guy at the mall in the Santa suit are all in it. By that definition The Celebrity Apprentice is art, and, for my sins, I am on it.

I've done a lot of TV, but one of my proudest moments in my career was shown this week on The Celebrity Apprentice. I didn't watch it, but I was in it. I don't know how it was edited, but I was there and it was beautiful. The Celebrity Apprentice is all about watching people argue and lie while they covet money and success. Those are the artistic ideas. Donald Trump scowls and passes judgment and we all suck up and rat out to win more time on TV and get money for our charities. The theme song is the O'Jay's "For the Love of Money," used as awkwardly as "Born in the USA" at a political rally. It's not the most likely show to have something beautiful happen, but the Blue Man Group can make beautiful anywhere.

Some of the "tasks" on the show are measured by money, so if you bring in a rich famous person to buy a sandwich for 10 grand, you have a better chance of winning. I've have been a fan and friends with Blue Man Group, since we were all working in NYC. They make my heart soar. They make me proud to work in the arts. They are the best of us. They've also got some money, so I called them, told them I was doing this TV show and did they want to donate some money to charity? They said yes before finding out what charity or how much I wanted because Blue Man Group is like that. They do charity all the time. They really deeply care about people and they do a lot for many charities. They are the best of us.

BMG asked if I wanted them to show up and do something. Oh yes, please. After weeks of sitting on "boardroom" sets pretending to do business, I really wanted something beautiful.

"Can you deliver the money in a fun way?" I asked them.

That was the problem. In the Blue Man world, money doesn't exist. For then Blue Man money means nothing. The values that they've established in their art don't include avarice. The Blue Men donate tons of money out of the blue make-up, but in it, well, they're not above money, but they're beside it. It doesn't exist. They asked me to give them some time to think of something beautiful. A couple days later they sent me a video of them filling a balloon with tens of thousands of dollars in tens and blowing it up with a leaf blower. It was beautiful and it delivered money, without the Blue Men having to respect it. It was so beautiful.

I really wanted to save their appearance and money for "my task" and my charity (Opportunity Village for people with intellectual disabilities, a charity that BMG helps a lot), but I was on Dee Snyder's team and he asked me to help with more money on his watch. I ran the idea by all our team members, the production company, and NBC. Everyone signed off. Blue Man Group would march up, with a loud parade and giant puppets and they would blow up a balloon full of money with leaf blowers and fill the air with 10-dollar bills that the Blue Man wouldn't care about. Whatever our team could gather out of the wind, we would have to score for out team. Teller would join BMG and add 30 grand of his own money, not blown around, but handed politely to our cashier, American Idol, Clay Aiken. Clay takes The Celebrity Apprentice very seriously and plays the game for all it's worth.

We were outside selling our bullshit little jive guide books (the sandwich of this week). I gave the signal, and from blocks away, we could hear the parade. BMG with their giant drums, and confetti canons were changing traffic patterns in NYC. They arrived at the park where we were set up to sell our guidebooks. My business partner for my entire adult life, Teller, was in the parade, firing streamers into the air and dancing. Teller had the eyes of Keith Moon in the Who. I had been sequestered on The Celebrity Apprentice with all the complaining, backstabbing, and phony heart to heart talks, and down the street came joy. Pure joy. Honest human joy personified by Teller and Blue Man Group. I started to cry.

They got to our stand, they exploded the balloon full of money, and suddenly the air over the park in NYC was filled with money. Blue Man Group stayed in character and just enjoyed blowing the money around. Their joy was more important than the money or us winning our game. They were there for art and to help the cause, in that order. We all scrambled to pick up as much money as we could. Paul Sr., and Lou Ferrigno held people back, while Dee, Arsenio, Clay, and I tried to grab all we could. Everyone was ready for the money to explode, but, somehow Clay was surprised and disgusted by the chaos. I was still crying with joy and Clay was crying with pure hate and anger towards me and my blue buddies.

Some of the camera people, the producers, the sound people, and crew ran up after the Blue Men had gone and said they had never been prouder of anything they worked on. Some of them were crying with me with joy. They had remembered why they had gotten into the arts. We had been just a few feet from The Who, while they smashed their instruments for America. They proved that art meant more than money. I'm pretty proud of "Penn & Teller," we've done some pretty groovy stuff, but I was exploding with pride at the beauty of my friends, Blue Man Group.

When we had the first break from the cameras, Clay was gathering evidence to take me down for this in the boardroom. He was angry and detailing the humiliation and the injuries he endured in all the beautiful chaos. When I asked him if he needed medical attention, making sure the cameras weren't on, he screamed, "I need you to shut the fuck up!" It was so easy to shut the fuck up right then. Teller and Blue Man Group work without words and they had said more than I could ever say in defense of art. I drifted away in the NBC van, to my childhood and the moment with The Who when I understood that I needed my life to mean more than "Money, Money, Money, Money."

The "boardroom" didn't matter. Clay low-balled how much money we were able to gather, but I didn't argue. Clay said that the Blue Man Group's money that Clay wanted to go to our TV charity had ended up going to some homeless people. Trump joined him, disgusted by the idea that some of the Blue Man Group's money might have gone to people who needed it instead of the people Donald Trump would get credit for giving it to who needed it. Trying to explain to Donald Trump that beauty and art can be more important than money is like trying to explain to Donald Trump that beauty and art can be more important than money. The "contest" was revealed to be very close (in terms of money, beauty wasn't discussed) and Donald Trump tried to make me say that I regretted what the Blue Man Group had done. Clay tried to get me to say that I should have gotten the Blue Man Group to be more responsible, and by that he meant, give us more money so he could win his game.

It was this episode where Donald Trump understood that he didn't understand me, and feeling misunderstood by Donald Trump and Clay Aiken is its own kind of joy.

I thought about some family at home in a small town watching the Blue Man Group on The Celebrity Apprentice like I watched The Who. I thought about many children being disgusted by all that money being "wasted" on the homeless. And I thought about maybe one child, all of a sudden understanding what art can mean and crying with joy.

As The Who sang, "why don't you all just f-f-f-fade away. Don't try to d-d-d-dig what we all say."

Vissa d'arte."

Very nicely put Mr. Jillette.

Goodnight Keith Moon!

Monday, January 16, 2012

this date

A kid hit a drum solo so hard tonight that I cried.
The kid couldn't have been older than 17, the perfect age
for rock and roll. They are still rocking out as I write this.
I love them. The day started with the dimple below the right
shoulder blade on the Venus in Toilet De Venus by Valezquez,
while I listened to "Dusk at Cubist Castle". This lead to work
which lead to here listening to Voltage at the D Note shine.