Since we've expended nigh 9% of the 21st century already, here's a 21st Century poem I wrote back in the 20th Century.

21st Century Schizoid Man

I’ve got certified rats in my rafters
Of legally voided mind waste
So excuse please these cancerous laughters
This spewing of petrified paste
Vague seekings through demented hereafters
I can’t find my mind’s been misplaced

Electron wails mournful my nay brain
Err trails its zinc aftertaste
This drivel due mad jolting sane pain
Embraces thy sameness posthaste
Dying I burp up my madness again
I can’t find my mind’s been misplaced

of when of where of what am i o god of whom of why
for seeketh then thou me thou see the be that thou belie

 - Steven B. Smith, 1973

I wrote this in Loyola College in Baltimore after reading Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

The poem's three stanzas each represent one second:

1 - The second before electroshock therapy

2 - The second during electroshock during which the brain is scorched and the patient dies

3 - The second after electrodeath as the confused soul rises from the dead body into the aftermath.

I stole the title from a King Crimson's song of the same name on their 1969 album In the Court of the Crimson King.

I don't often explain poems because what I put into them frequently doesn't equal what people will see or read in them since we each bring our own experience, expectation, perception and view to the equation. This is just to show you what I was thinking at the time. Whatever poem you read here is just as valid as the poem I wrote.

This has nothing to do with me or mine except for my brain loving the alien beauty of it, but here are 18 gorgeous high-speed close-up fotografs by Corrie White of milk drops falling into water and splashing up.

telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/6507577/Splash-Droplets-of-water-and-milk-photographed-by-Corrie-White-using-a-macro-lens.html

And that should make up for this, my latest headline harvest from this soap opera mill we call life on Earth in the early 21st century.

~ ~ ~

Dead Bunny Toss Canceled, Town Outraged

Man Stuffs Mouth With 16 Cockroaches In Record Bid

The Unusual Sex Lives Of Sea Horses

Deer Swims Laps In North Carolina Pool

DOGS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING

Dog Spends $62 While Owners Sleep

Why Don't We Eat Pets?

LED Eyelashes Put A 'Twinkle' In Your Eye

What Do Blind People See When They Dream?

Are Womb Transplants The Next Frontier In Fertility?

"Restless Vagina Syndrome": Big Pharma's Newest Fake Disease

Bolivia's Witch Markets Offer Llama Fetuses And More

Most Halloween Candy "Demonic," "Prayed Over By Witches"

Muslim Woman Slashed Husband's Throat For Being Too Western

77-Year-Old Man Beats Up Mugger With 2-Liter Bottle Of Pepsi

Is Junk Food As Addictive As Heroin?

Epic Forklift Crash Ruins Estimated $150,000 Of Vodka, Cognac

Sex without nippless

Dick Cheney Ogled My Wife's Breasts

Breasts On Phone Bill: Customer 'Flashed' By Topless Photos

Jeremy Piven: Soy Milk Gave Me Man Boobs

Dolly Parton & Jessica Simpson Talk Big Boobs

Nicole Kidman: I Tried 'Strange Sexual Fetish Stuff'

Man Gets 3 Years In Prison For Having Sex With A Horse

Lady lamented things were getting a bit too surreal with her failing computer.

I replied I loved milk and surreal with bananas.

She called me a "silly man."

Now I'm thinking that would make a great book title.

Or a poem line.

Or the name of a law firm.

Or a comedy team.

Maybe a rock band.

Milk, Surreal & Bananas.

Be a great way to lose weight as well - call it the Seriously Surreal Diet.

Here are five of Lady K's pieces, three made in Croatia in early 2007, two in France from late 2007.

I taught Lady my collage/painting/assemblage secrets January 2006 and she immediately started creating top-shelf pieces with her own vocabulary and got her first piece in an art show 3 months later. She had her first one-woman show in October 2007 when we returned to the U.S.A. the first time (she sold 6 or 8 pieces, more than I ever sold in a show).

I've taught two others my art tricks of the trade - my suicided brother Cat Smith and my dead mom Mother Dwarf. Both had serious shows and good press along the way - and like Lady, mom always sold better than I did.

In all three cases, a lot of folk prefer their art to mine.

Paint and corrosion applied in thick layers with repeated iridescent white water washes. Highly textured. The grayish blob near the center is translucent, looks like ice. The three ways of water are solid, liquid, gas.

I found these two ceramic color swatch test slabs in the garbage, glued them down and splashed paint all around to create my idea of a psychedelic bar code.

That's Tammy Faye Baker's face in the middle from a 45 rpm record I had of her singing "The Ballad of Jim and Tammy" (written and produced by Tom T. Hall, for you old country fans). The shiny pieces are mirror shards and holographic jigsaw puzzle pieces. The blue is copper corrosion.

. . . and they say I'm insane

EVER NOW

I'm normally normal
but just not now
and it's always now
there're two times:
there's now,
and
not now

today,
and
not today

it's never tomorrow

that's why I'm nearly normal
nominally now

 - Smith & Lady 2005

Movies help form public opinion, so let's see which films have so resonated with the public mentality that they've spawned innumerable sequels, prequels and remakes, thus morphing into Famous Film Franchises.

It's somewhat scary that there have been 6 Rockys and 4 Rambos, but at least some serious quality triumphs with the five Attacks of the Killer Tomatoes.

(This list is an amalgamation of several online lists and may contain serious errors - after all we all know the internet lies. I did spot checks and frequently got dissimilar answers from different sites.)

Sherlock Holmes -  98 different films
Tarzan - 89
Hopalong Cassidy - 66
The Three Mequiteers - 51
The Bowery Boys - 48
Charlie Chan - 47
Godzilla - 34
Carry On - 31
Blondie - 28
Range Busters - 25
The Lone Wolf - 24
James Bond - 23
Scoobie Doo - 22
Taboo - 22
East Side Kids - 21
Barbie - 20
Debbie Does Dallas - 20
National Lampoon - 18
Andy Hardy - 17
The Falcon - 16
Jungle Jim - 16
Dragonball Z - 15
Little Tough Guys (Dead End Kids) - 15
Mickey Mouse - 15
Keystone Kops - 13
Land Before Time - 13
Mothra - 13
The Muppets - 13
Friday the 13th - 12
Gamera -12
Pokemon - 12
Winnie the Pooh - 12
Asterix - 11
Dr Slump - 11
Henry Aldrich - 11
Pink Panther - 11
Star Trek - 11
The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley - 11
Young and Dangerous - 11

Halloween - 10
Ma and Pa Kettle - 10

Nightmare on Elm Street - 8

Batman - 7
Police Academy - 7
Star Wars - 7
The Howling - 7

Alien - 6
Harry Potter - 6
Hellraiser - 6
Planet of the Apes - 6
Rocky - 6
Saw - 6
Texas Chainsaw Massacre - 6
The Thin Man - 6

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes - 5
Benji - 5
Child's Play - 5
Death Wish - 5
Dirty Harry - 5
Ernest - 5
Hannibal Lecter - 5
Herbie the Love Bug - 5
Night of the Living Dead - 5
Superman - 5
The Exorcist - 5

American Ninja - 4
Amityville - 4
Die Hard - 4
Final Destination - 4
Highlander - 4
Indiana Jones - 4 
Jack Ryan - 4
Jaws - 4
Lethal Weapon - 4
Predator - 4
Psycho - 4
Rambo - 4
Scary Movie - 4
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 4
Terminator - 4
The Bad News Bears - 4
The Fast and the Furious - 4
Flash Gordon - 4 <<<
The Karate Kid - 4
The Lord of the Rings - 4
The Mummy - 4
The Omen - 4
Vacation - 4
X-Men - 4

3 Ninjas - 3
American Pie - 3
Austin Powers - 3
Back to the Future - 3 
Barbershop - 3
Beverly Hills Cop - 3
Blade - 3
Bourne - 3
Care Bears - 3
Crocodile Dundee - 3
El Mariachi - 3
Evil Dead - 3
Free Willy - 3
Friday - 3
Home Alone - 3
House Party - 3
Ice Age - 3
Iron Eagle - 3
Jurassic Park - 3
Look Who's Talking - 3
Mad Max - 3
Major League - 3
Meatballs - 3
Missing in Action - 3
Mission: Impossible - 3
Ocean's 11 - 3
Oh, God! - 3
Pirates of the Caribbean - 3
Poltergeist - 3
Porky's - 3
Resident Evil - 3
Return of the Living Dead - 3
Robocop - 3
Rugrats - 3
Rush Hour - 3
Scream - 3
Shrek - 3
Smokey and the Bandit - 3
Spider-Man - 3
Spy Kids - 3
The Godfather - 3
The Matrix - 3
The Mighty Ducks - 3
The Naked Gun - 3
The Santa Clause - 3
The Work and the Glory - 3
Transformers - 3
Transporter - 3
Underworld - 3
Witch Mountain - 3