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The show is called the Peace and Pipedreams show
and we are hosted at Fearlessradio.com
Host: Jimmy Peace

So, it's looking more and more like I have to put on hold my whole interest in a more country-sounding vibe (more like Violent Femmes meets Jerry Jeff Walker or something, or like if old-timey fiddle and banjo and pedal steel got into White Light, White Heat) due to lack of ability to find the right musicians here in the SF Bay Area (though, who knows, manna does sometimes fall). This search has been going on since the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, because yeah the best songs I've written since then don't really come through in the 'standard' rock band format that the old Continuous Peasant pulled off.
The 18 month failure to find a new band to pull it off while living alone, and primarily relying on Craigslist, had a lot to do with why I moved to The Creamery, so I can't really blame my 4 months in the Creamery for these frustrations. I'm just kinda sick of kicking against the pricks here.

Part of it ain't even musical differences, but things like people breaking my instruments in the public practice space, or shows in which bands named Apache and such smash young women's heads with guitars, or other musicians who are really into Sabbath-like riff rock (some of which are better than others), or speed-metal, just shooting me innuendos like I'm a "wussy" for liking, say, Merle Haggard or Gil-Scott Heron (even if that sound I hear in my head, when played solo, sounds more like Billy Joel). That kinda crap can make one defensive (and move one's broken electric piano to his little room as a result), and start saying how their bands suck too, or at least how their bands only attract male audiences and how, regardless of the force and loudness, there ends up being something MUZAK about what they do---but it takes strength to hold onto the "unity in diversity" dream, and I gotta stick to my so-called guns, and make the best of what I can find socially here---coz hey I can do my songs in a lot of different ways, And there's still some amazing possibilities.

After 4 months, the most creative social music times (socially creative? Creative socially? Both) have often been these weird jam sessions that happen after the shows, have not so much been my serious rehearsals, with very good musicians who are very busy and it tends to get a little uptight, but the loose, freaky, fun, jams that happen around 3PM when the "official" party stuff is just about ending. Don't want to sound too cocky, but I had a feeling that three people banging on a drum in a loose way (but nonetheless with a backbeat), and some atonal noisy guitar, along with my songs and voice, made a damn good combination that people responded to, and was fun, light, and perhaps this is the most important thing even if on some level I still cling to, I fear we won't be 'taken seriously," or that it can't be made central, that we will be "unacknowledged legislators," a step backwards. Ah, to play the fool!

So, I'm gonna keep shooting for the sideshow, coz, hell, people wanna have fun, and even if we can't always pull off the fun vibe,
At least it's weird, and helps mellow some of the "church" like vibe of the various 'serious' musics that aren't into what I call songwriting, whether riff-rock or even avant-classico-jazz stuff, or the DJ-culture. The serious songs, well, they can wait a little longer, or I can pull them out if the situation presents itself, but I'm sick of forcing it (it feels like I'm fighting fate or god, sometimes, so better to go for the open door).

I still pray to the muses that a band that feels right will come before too long, but in the meantime, yeah, I'll try to go to those Hotel Utah open mics (at least twice a month), and damn it was great fun going up to JON MOLDOVER'S house and jamming with him, and Mike and others, last night. What was especially great about it was that I got to focus more on vocals, like playing with an established band that I don't have to worry about putting together, a band with a drummer, bass, and guitar playing riffs that allows me to improvise on VOCALS. Because my vocal style is so quirky, I've never answered adds for vocalists on Craigslist, but yeah I know that's what I can bring to a band even more than my so-called 'coveted' piano skills (I just ain't feeling the sideman role much these days, though I will do it a little, as a kind of community service, as long as I don't keep getting the short end of the stick for it)---and, frankly, I can put a hell of a lot more into vocals and vocal melodies when I'm not also worrying about holding the band together with the 'rhythm piano' chords.

So, yeah, my words were often silly while playing with JON MOLDOVER last night, but that didn't matter so much. Or maybe out of those silly words, the fun comes through more, and if ever anything more came out of it, like we made those things into real songs that we'd perform officially or record, I could always make the words better in solitude. That would be fun, creating a song from those kind of jams. It was great when MIRIAM JACOBSON, then, took the microphone and did some freestylin herself (and I switched to casio and tambourine for that), and then the two of us did some counter-melody vocalizing. I've always been more of a fan of that (perhaps because it's easier for me to do) than harmonies---oh, to give a famous example, like in "I Got A Feeling" when John and Paul take their two melodies and cross them (Sleeter Kinney used to be good at that, or of course, Hotel Bloedel by The Fall). Ah, maybe nothing will come out of it, but I always like jamming over at Jon Moldover's, and it was a good, and necessary, break from the sometimes over-pressure-cooker environment of my live/work warehouse space.

Ever hear "What Makes You Think You're The One" (off the Fleetwood Mac Tusk album?). It's one of those songs that's primarily a collaboration between Buckingham and Fleetwood, the early 70s folky turned mid-70s arena rocker now galvanized by new wave and/or aspects of punk, with one of the most powerful, melodic, drum parts ever put into a simple pop song structure. Not long ago, Royce Seader had this urge to play the song "Tusk" (which I dutifully tried to learn on trumpet), and Chris Johnson, of Drunk Horse fame, and Royce were playing drums simultaneously, which got into all kinds of cool polyrhythms, but then I said how about this other song from that album---and Chris started playing an almost perfect imitation of what Fleetwood did. It opened up all kinds of doors for me about the possibility of utilizing my strengths, the simple melopdic song, a voice that sounds better when it doesn't have to strain over a loud noise guitar, but yet still rock in a minimalist way. Yeah, the drummer/keyboard duo often nowadays gets called the "White Stripes thing" or the "Quasi thing," but here was a new (old) take on it.
Other shared covers we bonded on included "All Sold Out" (67 era Rolling Stones) and "Sexy Sadie" and "Cry Baby Cry," and wow I started thinking about how much of my sense of piano rock actually comes from Lennon. It's werid that I never thought too much of that before, partially because Lennon did so many other things and isn't thought of as primarily a piano player (nowadays of course "Sexy Sadie" could be called The "Karma Police" thing)...Chris Johnson also excelled on a forceful version of "Get Ready" (Smokey Robinson; hit: Temptations) So, we'll see where it goes...
Hopefully we can get bassist (maybe Caitlin) on board, and I'm still thinking Rik Murray on guitar could work, but I could see this being a three piece (with maybe the ocassional melodic guest).

Because my portable electric keyboard has an awful piano sound though (it sounds muddy), I'm trying to figure out which sounds work best. I tend to find that, in playing originals, Chris and I come up with a better groove when I use the harpsichord sound. Now, I don't wanna overuse it, but it is kinda cool. Some originals that seem to work
well so far include "In Between Or No Way Out," "Abstract Halfway House," the "Ab Thing" (no title yet), "Not In Relation," "I Don't Care/Spit It Out" "In Time Just To Set" "I Break For Scaffoldings," my feeling is the slower, quieter, songs, or the more country-inflected ones ain't gonna work so well with this lineup, but if I can get another lineup together that focuses on that stuff, I won't mind so much. Also, depending on whether a guitar can jell in this situation, my dream that I could never realize with previous Continuous Peasant lineups of doing some freak-out art-rock jams like Velvet Underground's "The Gift" (spoken word before that phrase became silly) or No Trend's "Teen Love," now seems within reach. It would be cool to rock again, and Chris is definitely one of the best drummers I've worked with so far.

What's usually meant when people say we live in a 'consumer society,' or a 'service economy,' is the idea that 'lower prices' (or 'convenience') often have been invoked to bust workers' movements or, taken to the extreme, even the consciousness that most people are at least as much of a 'worker' as they are a 'consumer.' But the media focuses on your spending power, your so-called 'free time,' as if you can be more yourself there than you can at your day job. In the process, labor, whether your own or another's is considered to be at least as peripheral to one's identity as sleep or dreams, maybe even more, even though you probably spend more time doing it. Yet many people are so dissatisfied with their jobs, when it's over, they'll do almost anything not to have to think about it; it's 'work to eat' rather than 'eat to work,' a resignation that you can't change things in a big way, but by buying things you may not really need (and that may, in reality, make you even more of a slave to your bad job), you may at least get a momentary high.

A band or musician may be more of a producer than a consumer, depending on what it means to be 'professional,' but in terms of the marketplace, most musical acts are treated like a consumer. In order to make music, we're told, you must buy gear, buy recording equipment, or recording time, rent rehearsal spaces, buy vehicles to transport your gear, and we haven't even touched on the many distribution and promotional services that promise 'results' for your hard-earned money. These 'services' may often be fly-by-night organizations, but their success (however temporary) is based on the notion that the music business is one of insiders, 'in the know,' and outsiders, and any musical act who feels they've created something at least as good as many bands who have managed to get notoriety and a modicum of economic solvency, but who does not understand the mystique of the business angle, may be more readily seduced by them. There's enough mediocre musicians with expendable cash out there for these organizations to succeed.

As P.T. Barnum put it, "there's a sucker born every minute," but one can't entirely blame the gullible musician for falling for the smooth/slick/or sweet talk of these 'services.' And while I am still willing to be convinced that not all of these organizations have chosen the irresponsible path of the short-term profit motive over a long-term mutually-beneficial collaborative partnership, I have yet to find one, despite all their high-talk of 'promotional muscle,' 'integrity,' and having access to 'industry ears.'

So when someone approaches you through email and phone and tells you 1) he has connections and people in the industry respect his taste and integrity and 2) that he is very selective and loves your music and knows that, even in a worst case scenario, it can get much more national (and even international) media attention than you were able to get on your own with your first album's Do-It-Yourself campaign and 3) that, in addition, he also has connections with licensors so it's likely your promotional campaign will pay for itself, since he has a proven track record and knows what he's doing, it seems like a risk worth taking. That was the essence of the pitch Mr. David Silva of Track Star Media, Wishing Tree Records and Empyrean Records made to Continuous Peasant in the winter/spring of 2005, and we took the plunge, on the basis of the (spurious) maxim "you have to spend to make."

I'm not going to bore you by going through all the documentation and correspondence which proves that Mr. Silva repeatedly did not provide the evidence he promised that he even 'worked' the album with follow-up calls. Nor will I waste pages of ink on fruitless speculation as to whether Mr. Silva's intention was to consciously deceive and scam, or whether, like so many in the music business who put themselves forward as people adept in the 'left-brained' business side of things, he's just as 'spacey' and 'right-brained' as the musicians he seduced. But I do know that if I was in Mr. Silva's shoes, I would find it hard to sleep at night, feeling guilty, hypocritical, even irresponsible. For two years, I tried to take the high-road, but it's clear that after trying to settle the matter privately, that Silva has continued to make promises he can't, and/or won't, keep (even after we both reluctantly agreed in a legally-binding document to a compromise settlement which, he, once again, failed to honor). And, even in writing this, I know I risk coming off as petty and self-righteous. But the main thing I want to take from this negative experience with David Silva, in an attempt to try to make it a positive, is to try to prevent others from making a similar mistake.

I certainly don't expect Mr. Silva to come clean (my hunch is he probably won't last that much longer in the music business anyway, if he treats others the way he treated us), nor does it currently seem feasible (lacking economic resources or business acumen) to go back to the Do-It-Yourself method of promotion. Despite the fact that some bands I really admire have achieved success through the D-I-Y method, increasingly it has created a climate in which many 'indie' or 'alternative' bands' music has refused to take risks as the focus on the business of music has lead to self-censorship or at least a lot of musicians thumbing through business-school catalogues instead of devoting their 'free' time to working on new songs or sounds or getting their act together. Sure, I'd still like to 'succeed' as a musician, and I would certainly be willing to 'play the game,' if it was really clear there are rules. But, when I look back at the heroic tales of the successful musicians I most admire (from an allegedly bygone era), I reawaken my conviction, despite strong contemporary evidence to the contrary, that a musician can stand his or her ground as a producer, and devote even more time to the craft of music, even if we're still playing at little 'inconsequential' cafes where the 'right' people don't go. At least, if you fail this way, you can know that your labor is unalienated labor, and no mere hobby. It's certainly better than spending so much time trying to build a D.I.Y. megaphone, that by the time it's finished you forgot or lose what you had to say! And, if others see my point, maybe we could even take back the music industry (or bring at least a little of the 'devil-may-care' attitude to it) by not falling for the schemes of people like Silva who so joylessly usurp the role of the creator (despite what ever 'good intentions' they might have had at one time).

This is tragic. I only met Adrienne Shelley once, while she was an actor in my friend Dave Rosenthal's off-Broadway plays, but she was a great actor in some of the best movies of the last 15-20 years (Hal Hartley) and more recently a director herself.
According to David, she was writing in her West Village apartment and went downstairs to complain about the noise of a worker in the flat beneath hers. He got angry and strangled her; she wasn't dead, but out of breath. Fearing the consequences of his action, he decided he'd try to make it look like she killed herself, so killed her to cover up the fact that he strangled her. He has since confessed, but still a senseless tragic loss of a woman who still had so much more to give.

The Onion should really stick to satire. When it makes its pronouncements about culture and politics in the "serious" part, it makes me wonder whether it's just cashing in on the hipster cred its at-times extremely brilliant and insightful humor makes. I should probably write a long essay about this someday, but the gist is this: the depth of the satire in The Onion at its best invites the kind of social analysis and critical thinking that implicitly delves into root causes; unfortunately, this is severely lacking in the "AV Club." In this week's column, the anonymous op-ed piece (published presumably with the blessing of The Onion's national office) laments the defeat of Proposition 86, and then adds that at least SF voted overwhelmingly in favor of it, and (smugly) that SF should succeed from the state or the union. Proposition 86 would have imposed a $2.60 tax onto cigarettes making the average retail price for a pack $7.60ish. The Onion, along with many other "progressive" papers were adamantly against it, on the grounds that it helps Big Tobacco. But the tax would be passed on to smokers, rich and poor. Oh, sure it's a vice, but is the tax going to stop people from smoking. Is it going to delve into the causes as to why people smoke?
Where was the money going to go? Allegedly to help defray medical costs.

Medical costs are way too high. Many people--myself included---cannot get the basic healthcare we need, but proposition 86 wasn't going to come close to offering universal healthcare. If it had, perhaps it would have had a better chance of succeeding. I certainly would have been more willing to vote for it (even as a smoker). But it's another "feel good" stop-gop measure that doesn't really accomplish much (like San Francisco's ban on guns).
Why is it even out of the realm of possibility that ADVERTISEMENTS FOR HOSPITALS."Health coaches," HMO, should be taxed, or banned, and that THAT money
could be used for better, more affordable, healthcare? It is a question that needs to be asked. It wasn't that long ago when hopsitals did not advertise, when the notion of hospitals advertising on TV, Radio, Billboards, Newspapers, Direct Mail campaigns, etc, would have been laughable or even inconceivable. Yet, now, it's taken for granted by Democrats as well as Republicans in the mainstream of American life. It's like car advertisements, the complex interdependent economy of American white collar life would fall into chaos if we got rid of advertisements for healthcare. In fact, many people who currently don't have affordable healthcare coverage might be out of a job if we got rid of those advertisements. Hmmm....

Yet singling out cigarettes is so much easier, singling out "Big Tobacco" as if it's significantly more corrupt than commercials for Kaiser Permanante that hypocritically tell people to "thirve," and surely it wll contribute to the health of this nation.

TEN TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY



1) Most everyone who simply "ducks and covers" when buildings
collapse are crushed to death. People who get under objects, like
desks or cars, are crushed.



2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal
position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural
safety/survival instinct. You can survive in a smaller void. Get
next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that
will compress slightl y but leave a void next to it.



3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in
during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of
the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival
voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated,
crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks.
Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete
slabs.



4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs,
simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed.
Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes,
simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of every room
telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of
the bed during an earthquake.



5) If an e arthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting
out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal
position next to a sofa, or large chair.



6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is
killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls
forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the
door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In
either case, you will be killed!



7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different "moment of
frequency" (they swing separately from the main part of the
building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously
bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes
place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up
by the stair treads - horribly mutilated. Even if the building
doesn't collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely
part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not
collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded
by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even
when the rest of the building is not damaged.



8) Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If
Possible - It is much better to be near the outside of the building
rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the
outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that
your escape route will be blocked.



9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above
falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly
what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz
Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed
inside of their veh icles. They were all killed. They could have
easily survived by getting out and sitting or lying next to their
vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able
to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the
crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars
that had columns fall directly across them.



10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper
offices and other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not
compact. Large voids are found surrounding stacks of paper.



Spread the word to everyone YOU care about and save someone's life!

Uh uh just using this "my" space to brainstorm on this idea while listening to sports talk radio and thinking of Air America Randi Rhodes Ed Scultz Al Franken (in terms of sheer personality Franken's the stiffest of the three)---a love hate thing, Fox Sports Radio itself (humourously?) claims "the following programme is close captioned for the thinking impaired"---Then there's the serious political talk of NPR or KPFA Pacifica, both of which are more 'old school' serious. When books come up, more often than not, if serious books in serious but also superficial discussion, and when poets come on more often than not it's worse in sanctimoniousness--it's cooler on KPO0, yes---but it could be cool experiment to take the intelligence of drunken party late night discussions about poetry or even about Shakespeare and emphasize some of the theatrical shout-down aspects of the right wing talk stations which have been appropriated by Schultz et al over at Air America, or the stuff of sports talk, and put a call out for 3 or 4 local people to do a podcast (also a call for someone to be the technical person) that is entertaining as hell even to those who don't like books---it's a really simple idea, but why ain't it done? Oh, maybe because it's done in college insofar as cool freaky personality teachers are still hired? Yes, and who are/were, your favorite, aside from Chris Stroffolino? But if there' s less of that these days, the podcast can bring it out in the public sphere? And even if that's still there in teaching, one could tape the class discussions of Chekhov'e "Story Of A Nobody" for instance, on a good day, like the Grateful Dead or Lenny Bruce as 20 people......

Dig this---
heres a guy who doesnt want to be labeled
yet he wants to be on a label

so dont mind the label, embrace it even (if you can
but know you cant put your arms around a memory

Im takin my time this time, aint gonna rush it
out or off
its not so perishable
and dont have to go stale

Hey Dave Gowans, lets float through the industry
as we float through the song trance
often not completely submerged

like farming,
husbandry
the field doesnt mind
if youre not really watching it
most of the time
at least in the expensive fertile lands
where the weather suits our clothes

but heres this guy and when he sees a sign that says todays special
well, you just know his first thoughts gonna be no, its not
and he knows hes so clever, knows hes so special
in kneejerk cynicism

but it is, of course, or can be
especially when
you got nothing to do
but winding down
---oh thats right
they call it vacation
but it doesnt come on schedule
might only last one day this time

but strangely getting more done

no feeling of need to write
a song as some kind of proof of existence

those already happened
and most people havent even heard em yet
but the chair cared

for the snake to sell the dead skin
that others find beautiful
he needs mortal man
if not me
I aint buyin
Im pure snake

not endless writhing venom slither
but mellow snake chillin on a pier
knowing it can slowly
detox from yesterdays
coffee & too much food

daydreaming way too many
album title possibilities

(the word inefficiency
doesnt even begin
to tell lifes stories)

Oh Damn, Chris (he allows
himself to laugh with the obvious
summary for a second
like an Abbott & Costello weekly service ritual)

you just started this album marketing notebook
and now this
thing youre writing
might be closer to a poem
(you thought you could leave us behind,
youre more one of us than ever.)

And what about your advice column?
Pages of unanswered letters and email printouts
on your desk, the floor, under your futon

Heres a postcard:
Dear Chris: Do you really think Earth Fart is a better name than Lard?
Your urgent reply requested, Jello Biafra

Heres an email printout:
Dear Chris: Why should I get a Myspace account?? I interviewed Snoop Doggy Dogg!!!!
(and, no, Chris, its not Snoopy Dogg Dogg), oh, and Chris, Doot Doot A Doot Doot.
Dear Nard Wuar: Doot, Doot.

Im an honorable man, but see how tedious!

The snake had to knot all up to write it
He wants to lie at attention!
Hes gonna stretch out again

But the workaholic is a passionate force as well
And he needs a little closure
So, yes, dash off a quick reply to the kid who asked if
Born To Crack was a good album title
tell him we all crack, for better or worse,
and ultimately more better than worse

(though who are you to speak of ultimates
todays special
--but yesterday and probably tomorrow
you pay).
Tell him its a better title than
Todays Special
but maybe not as good as Karaoke From Muskogee

and then ask him if you can use it for your album

If he says no, then you know its good.for him..

And sometimes you just go on your nerve
But other times you could call it float
(though cool to float sounds like a muzak
built to spill)

Chris Stroffolino 8-06

When I first discovered that one of the thrills of "big city" life was the free weeklies---oh The DC City Paper, The Philadelphia Weekly and The Welcomemat--back in the mid-to-late 1980s
(The Village Voice wouldn't be free for a couple of years)--it was not only a way for an ex-paperboy (and college record critic) for me to have some free 'lite' reading, but also a way to supplement what I was getting from commercial-free radio stations on one hand and more sporadically published punk 'zines on the other hand, to get some handle on the social life of the big cities I knew I wanted to live in, in a way the dailies didn't (also, I didn't have time to read the dailies; I'd usually just get the sunday paper and that would sustain me for a whole week). Sure, because they were free, in a way they were even more beholden to business interests, but often the business were smaller, and I did get some sense of the local scenes through them.

Aside from the basic nightlife listings (remember when Godard Festivals were quite common, ah!), and occasional insightful political articles that usually had deeper analysis than the dailies, the biggest draw for me was always the aspects that combined my two artistic/creative passions with social life: MUSIC and LITERATURE (primarily poetry), and though music is ultimately more commercial---more clubs and record labels take out advertisements, etc---to me both were equally exciting and glamourous as I went about 'looking for heart of the saturday night" or even the loins of tuesday evening, and perhaps because it was the late 1980s and the popularization of poetry that had begun in the 1950s--from a previously rather elite coterie to a more mass cultural phenomena (even if there was some watering down and self-parody necessitated in the process)--was still honored and written about in these papers--in part because this popularization of poetry for many was still considered by many in the 'culture industry' as partly responsible for the opening up of culture---the rise of the so-called 'counter culture' in the 60s and 70s, which in an indirect way were responsible for the rise of the weeklies themselves. Sure, poetry and poetry events was never written about quite as much as music, but it was a PRESENCE in these papers, and thus made me feel that operating in the poetry world carried a cultural relevance beyond academia and crusty-old bars. It also made me feel the editors of the weeklies were indeed tapped in to something.

It's funny to look back on that time with nostalgia now, because in subsequent years poetry is hardly ever a presence in the weeklies, or on community-based college stations. In this sense 2005 is much more like 1954 than it is like any time since. Though one may say that the post 1955 popularization of poetry is ultimately an anomaly and that my expectations were simply too high, and things reverted back to their natural course (poetry never should have gotten mixed up in all that mass media; it made for a lot of bad poetry---true, true; I say, but no worse than the current state of affairs). So, my question for other poets has always been---don't you want to change this? And, if so, how? I'm often met by silence when I ask other poets this, but, I know there are some who would agree with my answer-song (or poem) to the RAMONES' "We Want The Airwaves!" and shout "We Want The Weeklies!" (Hell, we want the Dailies, oh, the 6 O'Clock News too; but the weeklies aren't a bad place to start).

Now, there are many prejudices against poets--some of which may be quite justified--that the hip entertainment editors and journalists may have. Someone said poets are made fun of more than mimes! Oh, they hide in their rooms. They don't spend enough money; they're just not colorful anymore. Who understands them? Or, if we do, they're navel-gazers! And snobs at that! They're not FUN! Not photogenic! All that kind of stuff. But if the journalists really felt this way about poets, well, you think they'd at least want to write the SLAM PIECE. More often than not, there's a DEAD SILENCE, a radio silence, dead air---and not just by the entertainment editors (I can't really blame Kimberly Chun, in her box that accompanied her cover feature on musician--turnen--memoirist Dr. Frank, about other musicians who are also writers for not mentioning me, much less the more famous David Berman or Damon Krukowski or Joe Pernice, and generally ignoring the poet/musician is as VITAL now as it was in the day of Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith), but also by the literary editors.

Sure, recently in the Bay Guardian, Michelle Tea (a local noted poet/writer/celebrity; perhaps more because of the social work/identity politics angle to what she does, which is definitely entertaining and courts the media in a way too many other poets do not, and not because they're 'above' neurotic coterie schmoozing) writes about Melissa Benham's ARTIFACT reading series in the Mission---and I think it's great that Tea used some of her clout to give this series more local notoriety---but then this is only AFTER the national magazine POETS & WRITERS had already written about it. Now, the Artifact series (which according to Tea provides a great service because it combines 'language poets' with 'new narraive' writers; and I won't nitpick with that distinction now---though I could write probably three long essays on why those shorthand terms are not really the most useful) was run out of private house. In fact, a year ago, I got a note from Benham in which she asked whether she should keep it that way or try to make it larger, more public, and at the time there was much more support for keeping it local. But now that it's really blown up, it's going to go public. Some might say that's bad news. Personally, I think it could be a great thing, as long as somebody else can start another house series to fill the void that Benham's series will now vacate. But, equally importantly, in order for it to be a great thing, the SF Weekly or The Guardian, or The Onion, and The East Bay Express, should at least consider a MONTHLY article that would focus on other up& coming literary venues, and not just the venues, but the poets themselves.

I don't see why this can't happen. If 1954 comes, can something like 1955 or 1956 be far behind? Not that I want to recreate the excesses of the Beat ethos, but, hey, it's better than venerating the same old same old Kerouac's, et al, and frankly something has got to be done, and can be done, to effect at least a little more of a cultural awakening. Poetry readings, at their best, can be a heck of a lot more fun, and socially interactive, than much of what the weeklies do write about (Food; dance, etc), and there's many who feel the same as I do.

But beyond the fact that poetry is barely a blip on the weeklies' radar is the fact that, increasingly, even other forms of literature are. I don't think it's because it's a "post-literate" culture or anything. It's more the nature of the kind of analysis that book reviews require usually require more space than the weeklies' have (hence, The New York Times Review of Books), and that the primary audience the weeklies assume is less middle-brow, but more the "on the go" youngish crowd (for whom the faster, occasional aspects, of say a post FRANK O'HARA poetry ethos one would think would find a more ready readership than the latest bulky novel or memoir)---but one thing the weeklies still trot out like an old battle-tested horse every summer, is their summer reading issue, and I was pleasantly surprised to find some really insightful analysis by ANNELI RUFUS in the recent EAST BAY EXPRESS.

Analyzing the MEMOIR CRAZE of recent years, ANNELI RUFUS'S framing device is quite brilliant. "If the ILLIAD were brand-new,...(Homer) would mope about growing up in Chios, the silken tang of olive oil... His book would be all about him. Because that's how it is now. Books are less about what folks do than what folks are."

She (I'm assuming Annali is a female name?) continues:
"Not that it can't be fun, but it says something about us that we'll look even if these authors and their characgers fall overboard or never tunnel out of prison camps. When and why did the open-and-shut matter of identity unseat adventure? Are we that remote from each other these days, that balkanized, paranoid, or pathologically shy?

You could say we're just more curious. Or too overstimulated by real life for giant white whales. Yet under the slick, smooth, seeming passivity of today's look-at-me books lies a subtle aggression, in that the identities they ply prick the privileged and the plain living. Thus most readers emerge feeling guilt-racked or dull. DAMN MY LUCKY ANCESTORS, millions seeth, I COULD'VE BEEN AN AUTHOR!"

RUFUS then goes on to write about 13 memoirs (obviously Rufus had a memoir OD Crisis leading up to these comments quoted above)---by Kamren Nazeer, Narendra Jadhav, Norah Vincent, Dana Reinhardt, Clare Allan, Patrick Neate, Verlyn Klinkenborg, Ruben Gallego, Brian McGinty, Dorothy Wall, Deborah Rudacille, and Hal Niedzviecki--
before ending with "But even among the gleaming nuts and bolts of nonfiction, objectivity went out with legwarmers. Read about gods and gonads and war, but be warned: It's all a game of smoke and mirrors now, without the smoke."

This is really nice analysis. It's not that we're worse than Homer per se, but sure as hell ain't better. Now I just finished a memoir myself---a form of writing I resisted for many years for various reasons I won't go into---but I'm glad I did it, it is at least one of the places where the truth lies. But no less than music of course, and in the same edition of the East Bay Express there are also articles about musicians--such as The Devil Makes Three---a fun old timey (woodsy creature) kind of band Miriam Jacobson turned me on to.
There's still no articles about poets, or even poetry---but the article was written by someone named "J. Poet," a name that even I find really hard to take seriously (and what does that say about me?)--maybe if I meet J. Poet at a party; and when I ask for his/her name, s/he says, "J. Poet," it will be said in such a cool way, that it'll all be okay....