Neighbours & Fences

If it's me, I'd like one more round
with the lights turned down,
and not a sound,
escaping our lips while we try to escape,
lying quietly
contemplating eternity
and what it means to be an open sore
weeping on the streets
of concrete jungles with nothing
but a paper cup, or an over-turned hat
collecting pity from the passers by.
They'd ask themselves why
doesn't he just move,
without stopping to ask him
why he's stopped.
If it's me, I'd call it like it is,
just another tragic game of
neighbours and fences.

Sarah Palin is a political jockey looking for a better horse

If the way she carried herself in the 2008 presidential campaign wasn't evidence enough, Sarah Palin's recent announcement that she's stepping down to concentrate on a 2012 run for the nation's top job more than proves she's nothing more than a political jockey looking for a better horse.

All throughout the 2008 campaign - and this is all I'll mention because kicking a dead horse isn't fair - it seemed that Sarah Palin was confused as to which job she was on the ticket for.  She was vying for Vice President, but President looked so much better.  And the nation took the 'she's a heartbeat away from the Oval Office' seriously because John McCain's an old warhorse - whose probably more effective in Congress than in the White House, anyway - and looked like he was ready to keel over (sorry John).

I side with those who called her nomination for Vice President like it was, part symbolic gesture, part appearance-on-the-ticket-necessity.  That was then.

In the end Sarah Palin is counting her chickens before they hatch.  Leaving a Governorship merely 8 months after the last general election in order to place herself as the front runner is only a mechanism of distraction.  The public has heard about misuse of Alaskan tax dollars, misuse of campaign funds, passing off complete ineptness as folksy, and of course, the Tina Fey skits.  

By announcing this, Palin is attempting to polish her image in the eyes of the American people by projecting one of readiness, goal-oriented, and perhaps in her twisted logic, leadership.  Will it work, not if Bobby Jindal has anything to say about it. 

 

Campaign Talk

Hi, I’m Jon Thomas, but some people call me Dick.

Dick?

As in Van Dyck --

Van Dyck, try as in Head.

They don’t talk about me behind my back do they?

Sir, not only do they talk about you behind your back, but they do it on television, on the radio, and, on the front page of my morning paper. Why are you talking to them, before talking to me?

You think I’m new at this? Don’t be stupid...this is my fifth trip around the sun.

Yeah?  Well, you’ve been getting too familiar with the scenery.

I appreicate the enthusiam of the voters.

That’s nice...enthusiam...Stop taking in girls from the press gaggles. 

Why?

Because somebody’s gonna notice, and they all have video cameras, and they all want to tell the public something they don’t know.  

Are you pissed?

The veins of my forehead have turned into the mighty Colorado, what gave it away?

I’m telling you, you’re going to pass out.  Your face is turning all red.  

No it isn’t.  Stop looking at it.  Do I look over your shoulder while you’re trying to take a piss?  Get off me...Jesus!

Listen, how bout we sit for a minute, eh.  Maybe, grab a drink...calm down a little.  You’re shaking.

It’ll go away. 

Yeah, well so did my mother-in law, but she had to fall down a flight of stairs first.  

Ouch. 

Not that hard head.  Damn she was an idiot. 

No, sir, we’ve wandered far from the point.

Which was?

  Stop saying ‘and some people call me Dick.’

I heard you, and I asked you why.

Because it makes people think about why some people would call you a dick, and we need people thinking you’re a hero.  NOT a dick.  Get it?

Yeah.  I get it.

Jesus

I heard that.

If I didn’t mean you to, I would have said it quietly.  

Success is all in the F**k-up: the Toxic Celebrity

The real secret to success in the entertainment business isn't winning an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Grammy, or any other prize that marketers dream up to sell more dvds and movie contracts.  The real secret to success isn't working hard with an acting coach or editor to achieve the big-time status most of us dream about. 
The real secret to success is fucking it up royally.  PS: if it's in the public eye, even better. 

For the average person, if you mess up, you learn from it and move on.  There's no big story here, nothing particularly alluring about falling off your bike while learning to ride it.  You fall until you learn how to stand.  However, if you're a Hollywood celebrity like Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears, your train-wrecks draw people in.  You keep the spotlight, people find you interesting. 

Why?  Because beautiful is boring, and completely alien to the bottomless-pit that is Ugly.  One can only be so beautiful.  People see billboard pictures, look back in amazement, but don't ask any more questions because it's just another beautiful person, up there, in Times Square (or where ever) being beautiful.  The story is about as deep as a rain puddle.  But Ugly.  Ugly is like an onion: it has layers. 

This is the real reason why people still give a shit about Lindsay Lohan, for example.  She is as destructive as a hurricane, and in any other career won't be able to land a job. (Wait, she hasn't released a film since 2007.)  The money most people want to spend on their dream-home, Ms. Lohan has spent on rehab.  And yet, all around the world, people want to talk about her.  Who she's sleeping with, who she's drinking with, what she drinks, how much she drinks, when she drinks, where she drinks, if she's sober, who she dates.  None of this talk revolves around her career as an actress. 

But enough dumping on Ms. Lohan, because, though it is fun, it's just too easy, and admittedly, a little unfair.  My screw-ups aren't public.

The old adage in PR is that, "there's no such thing as bad press."  When you consider that publishers and production companies go after people who are able to draw a crowd, and thus drive up sales, this is probably true.  It seldom matters what the crowd looks like, or the demographic, so long as there are many, and they have money.
When Howard Stern started out on the airwaves, he was vulgar, he defied his bosses, he ignored the rules of broadcasting, but he was popular.  Why?  Because people couldn't wait to hear what he was going to say next.  This helps explain the popularity of the 'toxic celebrity,' People want to see what they're going to do, say, throw, smash, snort, drink...next.

Toxic celebrities don't care about their career.  They want to remain in the spot light, and the best way to do that, is keep the train-wrecks coming, and make them bigger and hair and panty-free, each time. 

What The Bachelorette is Really all about

Okay, I hate to admit this, but I've watched the last two episodes of the latest vomit-inducing installment of the 'reality' show, The Bachelorette.   Starting off with twenty-five suitors to choose from, usually ranging in age from early 20s to mid 30s, this year's lady of the hour is Jillian Harris.

Ms. Harris, having had the unfortunate experience of being eliminated from the latest installment of that other show, The Bachelor, is now the center of attention.  Each night, the men burn and pine and in the grandest of cliched gestures, compose half-assed ballads played underneath her window.  She reaches for a tissue and cries, I reach for my bucket and vomit.

But enough of the hating.  

After watching the show, I feel the need to inform Ms. Harris she's still second fiddle.  But this time not to another woman, to a flower.  Think I'm wrong?  Watch the show for yourself.  You can hear the guys during their retrospective interviews in between segments.  

"I hope I get a rose."

"Who's going to get a rose tonight?"

"If I don't get a rose, I'm going to be pissed."

"If you're here for the wrong reasons, you don't deserve a rose."

Sorry Ms. Harris, it's all about the rose.  

This is...

This is the part where I hold my tongue.

This is the moment where I let the battle go unwon.

This is love but it feels like war.

Don't have the energy to pick my feet up off the floor.

This is the part where we make emends.

This is the moment where we quietly hold hands.

And stare at the icebergs as they filter down from the cold,

under the sun only to melt into the waters off the coast.

This is the part where we wonder if the ocean water's bored,

of constantly crashing on the rocks that won't have her,

still she keeps coming back for more.

This is the moment held with a tight squeeze.

This is the part where I can feel the weakness in your knees.

This is the moment where I realize that time has no reverse.

Precious memories pass me by in a black Cadillac hearse.

Is this just life, or part of the curse?

This is the part that makes life a never-ending story.

In America it's called a truck, and in England a lorey.

This is the moment of break-through in group therapy.

This is the part where life is grand.

This is the moment of the last stand.

Where we walk away and claim there's a difference we can see,

sometimes it's real, sometimes it's make-believe,

still this is the part where it gets to me.

This is the part with the tea party at the bottom of the pool.

This is the moment where you realize her new guy's a tool.

And you laugh yourself to sleep every night,

faux-boxing in the mirror drenched in new morning light,

this is the part where you understand that this won't make it right.

Your only enemy is yourself in this intra-ego fight.

This is the part where you draw a line in the sand.

This is the moment where dare cross the bridge to a new land.

This is the part where you join a band.

Five different people, but they all understand.

You quit the drugs but not the excuses,

this is the part where you realize confession is fucking useless.

This is the moment that does you wrong.

This is the part where you live the verse,

but not the chorus of the song.

'Jobs' or 'Careers'

There are a few things that perpetually occupy the mind of a recent university graduate.  The first is: how am I going to pay off all those loans?  The second is, what I am going to do from 9-5?  If you're anything like me, you have big plans, but don't quite know how to realize them.  Or, perhaps more correctly, you don't understand how what you're currently doing (work wise) is going to get you there. 

If you consulted career columns or books on this type of advice, they'd probably tell you what you must do in order to market yourself effectively.  Their advice usually goes like this: put this on your cv; never put that on your cv.  If you get an interview, play up how you can help the company, or organization achieve its goals: play down what you expect from the company or organization in return.  

And for the most part this is solid advice. 

However, after two years slumming in the post-graduate scene, I've come to understand that success in the working world is really just a frame of mind.  Rather than focusing on what type of job or career you want, start focusing on whether you want a 'job', or a 'career.'  

The way to begin is realizing that yes, there is a major difference between the two, and yes, having your mind on the 'job' track, or the 'career' track, can have an impact on the paths you take in your working life.  

So what am I talking about?  

A 'job' implies something to fill that space between 9-5.  You don't necessarily take it home with you, and it isn't necessarily that difficult.  (For you professionals already standing on firm ground in the working world, think about what you did in high school.)  It fills your wallet to provide and pay the bills, but it isn't fulfilling.  Now, this doesn't mean that it doesn't require an education, or thought to do.  But generally speaking, this is a short term gig.  Think about all the famous actors who had several odd 'jobs' during the early days.  Jobs as I have defined them, aren't necessarily something you can directly build upon.  However, and this is a big however, you can take the skills you learn, and apply them elsewhere.  But they don't always help you plant your feet in a different area of the working world.  'Careers' on the other hand, are different.  

If you are looking for a 'career', you're looking for something you can directly build upon.  By that I mean you can keep working in the same area, but move on and often move up.  Getting bigger contracts, working within a wider network.  Go from regional to national.  When you approach the working world in this way, looking for a 'career' can actually maximize your potential to achieve what you want to achieve, or change whatever it is you want to change.  And you continue to build.  This is the key difference between 'jobs' and 'careers'.  The former may build your experience indirectly.  But the latter will build it in a more direct way.  

Approaching the work force with a 'career' in mind will help you quickly identify the occupations you want to avoid, and move you closer to getting on the road to success (my apologies for the unavoidable cliche).  

Hope(full)

The trouble with hope is that, sometimes, you think it's something that can be found at the burning tip of a cigarette, in the mystic vibrations of a body-buzz, or in a dried up lump of hard rock lined up on a fancy glass table in a hotel suit.  But they say hope floats.

Humans do a bizarre many things in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasure - rarely stopping to think about the traffic accident they're about to cause, until they cause it.  Then you have to look back across the bloodied pavement, pick up your baggage, walk across the two-lane highway and stick your thumb out.  

You could be broke, or divorced, or broke and about to get divorced, or you could be just another sinner begging whomever for just enough energy to make it through the day.  This is the way most of us feel - we walk around all day, in our skin, praying that nobody will find out what really lies beneath this civil disguise.  

Remember the stand-out, down-on-his luck guy on the bus.  When everyone's holding their brief cases and coffee cups and are headed to work, he's the guy taking the bus to a different corner because the cops told him to leave and the shop-owners told him to get his ass of their property.  It isn't nice, but it's real.  You could lie to yourself and pretend this stuff doesn't happen, but it does.  Maybe the movies are getting too real.  Maybe life doesn't provide us with enough wiggle room.  

But hope, there's always tomorrow.  

Beautiful is Boring

Beautiful is boring.

It has no story to tell,

no funny smell.

His Ghost

Being the President

must be like walking with your guardian angels

everyday  Except you could

talk to them, hear about their days,

maybe get to know their families  You’d see their 

faces as they dove over top of you  Looking

back as the shots rang out  Shock waves

rang out and spattered you  On the pavement

your angel gets his wings  You are alive

and his soul just left the solar system  No more

talk of ordinary days or afternoons on the stoop

No more wedding photos or Graduation celebrations,

birthdays, or nice chat at the end of the drive way

Your bullet got him cold,

as you covered your eyes

you didn’t see who was falling for you  NO surprise

No you were not caught by surprise  U turned into 

somebody who would stop bullets so the President 

could cast a vote in your favor  You weren’t alive 

to see the President take over your home  Deal away

your job over a game of Poker with the Other Guy

But you were still his angel  He walked behind you

so people could walk behind him  Walk behind him

don’t run after shadows  Don’t turn into 

a shadow of a man who’s so willing give up his ghost.

Everything

Everything is a situation we cannot control;

everything is losing it's mind. 

Everything is lost, few things are found,

everything is up, even when it's down. 

Everything looks picturesque, and pure;

everything misbehaves.

Everything is good and bad, 

everybody goes to confession to lie,

everything is born, just to die. 

Everything is awake,

but breathing rather quiet;

everything is moving, and remaining still. 

Everything always surrounds the moment,

everything is alive.

everything is blanketed by the stars at night,

and on a sober morning, blinded from the sun.

Everything is short, and sometimes sweet;

everything is messy and incomplete. 

Everything laughs and everything cries,

everything lives and everything dies. 

Everything goes back to school, every single day;

everything is nothing new.

Everything is lost waiting to be found,

everything watches, everything listens.

Everything seeks, and everything hides,

runs from the machine, and walks the line. 

Everything comes from something else, 

everything is unoriginal.

Everything is borrowed, everything is new and old. 

Everything is weak, and almost bold,

everything is hollow, and everything is full;

with all the wrong ideas, we're running with the bulls. 

Everything is made, but not always sells, 

everything returns to the earth to rot.

Everything falls, and everything stops falling.

Everything is an answer, and a really good question.

Everything makes the news,

and the news makes everything;

everything has a shape, but not a name.

Everything has direction, but very seldom purpose. 

Everything is bollemic and hugging the toilet.

Everything is lost, everything's make-believe.

Everything is a future, present and past, 

Everything covers the earth like a cast,

everything is recycled, 

and rebuilt to last. 

Emily Post's NHL

Polite hockey retired when Wayne Gretzky stepped of the ice in 1999, and jumped behind the bench in Pheonix. These days its seems the professional hockey world can't stop talking about New York Ranger right winger, Sean Avery. Okay, it's not a mystery why. He's said some things that perhaps sound better on a 1-900 line, not the third line of the Dallas Stars.

However, Sean Avery doesn't play the game any differently than did Bob Probert, Terry O'Reilly, Marty McSorley, or any other tough guy from NHL history. While most in the business consider him a liability, a whirl-pool of anger, Avery is actually a PR dream! He brings the flare that brings people to hockey areas wherever he plays. Like prize fighting, the NHL still thrives, and in this economy, survives, on being entertainment. That's why fighting is a issue caught between a rock and a hard place. While the sport can do without the accidental, unpredictable injuries, hockey can't live without the flash and flare of a heavy-weight bout.

But this isn't another justification for violence in hockey. When its side effects spill over into pee-wee hockey areas, causing parents to literally kill other parents, it's a tough case to be made for keeping the boxing in hockey. Sean Avery on the other hand.

Like him or not, Avery plays the game with passion. When he scores goals -- more often than Dennis Rodman making a field goal, or Shaq making a free throw -- he jumps around with the same flare and excitement that Ovechin displays when he scores goals. In the case of Ovechin, it happens alot more often, so we could be sick of it, but the fact is, fans love it. Fans love to see a professional athlete who loves to play the game. While you're watching, you get the feeling they would play the game regardless of how many thousands per game, and millions per year. That's the thing about Avery. When he scores, the building erupts with a jovial recklessness that happens when you're watching somebody do what they love.

This is good for the game. Sporting events in a sense are thrillers, packed with the same drama as say Cry Freedom, or Forrest Gump, less significant to be sure, but nonetheless thrilling. I truly believe that fans come to see Avery for the same reason people listen to Howard Stern: they want to see what he'll do/say next.

Stay tuned. I know you will.

Nights and Stars

Laying down

breathing in night & stars

counting lights on the

jets overhead

trying to imagine

the colour of dreams

as they float

inside the heads

of the passengers

and crew keeping

watch over the flight

children awakes

the seat in front of her

with a violent kick

jars the man loose

of a dream he almost held

in his hands

combed over the years

have thinned his hair

his eyes have seen too many

stars

his face the notches of progress

and grief and laughter

hiding pain

and helpless love

for the woman

in the picture frame

The World at Lunch

With the world at lunch,
I am left to contemplate the silence
of the office.
Idle pens stand at attention
in the suvenier coffee mug;
the phone cord sleeps stretched
out on the desk like a sunning snake
on a sheet of limestone;
the curser blinks with impatience
because there's nobody home
to move her.
With the world at lunch,
the office festers with hunger.

Innovation and the Ideas Economy

Looking back through the political and cultural zeitguist of the Twentieth Century, one can point to several ideological trends that have guided thought, progress, and mid-wifed revolution. In the 1930s, it was the New Deal. In the 1960s it was the fight for civil rights. In the 1980s it was the superstar athlete. In the 1990s it was the internet, and digital music and photography. And now, looking back over the first decade of the Twenty-First Century, it is terrorism, nationalism, conservationism, activism, the smart consumer, and most importantly, in the 21st Century, it is innovation and ideas.

From our position in the eye of the largest economic recession since the Great Depression, we can turn our heads and notice a great diversity of problems that need our attention, and a great diversity of talent waiting to help. If Thomas Homer Dixon is right, if there really is an upside of down, then problems such as renewable energy will be the new challenge for a heroic idea yet to be explored, and the very challenge that molds a cure.

Around the world, our leaders are quick to point to the red sky at morn, and they are quicker still to worn us that it is innovation that will solve these problems. This must lead to thoughts of where this innovation will come from. Will it come from the billions around the world that live on $2 or less a day? Whatever the problem, our leaders are quick to point out that the cure, or big fixes, demands nurishing innovation.

Nurishing innovation begins in the schools around the world, where children have access to the type of stimulating environment that supplies perhaps the most fundamental element of innovation: inspiration! Whether you are looking at a painting, rehearsing a play, playing a muscial instrument, looking at molecules through a microscope, or disecting a fetal pig, the classroom is the breading ground for the ideas that this world needs.

However, during such economic times, it seems that education is being treated like the cherry on the sunday of life. If it is not a job that creates a product that people buy, that in turn creates disposable income for somebody else, it doesn't seem to matter. Take for example, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. This past weekend, CNN's John King, during his program State of the Union, interviewed the Governor about her embattled state. Michigan, the blue collar driver of the American automotive industry is doing whatever it can to help ease the pain of job losses and industry cut-backs. In reorganizing Michigan's economy, the Governor pointed out that school funding for art and music was cut to put money elsewhere.

Now, don't get me wrong, it is hard to argue against saving people's jobs in favour of funding a child to play musical instrument. But the symbol is more important. In a world so heavily reliant on the next big idea, education funding should be the last thing touched. Opportunities such as allowing a child to look through microscopes, or play musical instruments provide inspiration needed for real innovation. If we take these opportunities away, what are we left with?

Driving Through Memories

Driving through memories,

I get lost in their black & white 

picture frames    contains a shutter 

full of you & me.

Follow me down, 

down this trail with me,

past the coffee shops,

bus stops shelter me 

from the fall into the summer

time and play-ground swings   Under

the clear-night sky,

counting kisses and promises

spread out into the unknown of night

Driving through memories, 

at the place I've seen before   Though

I try not to notice their 

silent voices still ringing in my head   I get 

lost in the echos of the things we used to say

while daring the stars to blink back.   

The Activist

You're painting your face in the rain,

and it's getting you no where.

People comment on your pretty colours

as they disappear in the run-off 

that drowns your feet.

They don't understand you,

so they shoot you dead

stares

as they walk past.

Forgetting

Forget about that time

I made you go.

Forget about what

I made you throw.

Forget about the images you see,

and the shadows you hear.

Forget about the bodies,

they simply got in the way.

Forget about the shrapnel

still stuck in your knee --

that's not pain you feel,

it's strength and honour.

Forget about that flag you wear

and try to forget

you were ever there.

Beijing Spring

Open wounds of revolution
weep through pages of scar literature.
Days of Red Guard youth
stand beside her like a shadow.

Liberal innovation was a cancer,
her life’s work, an open wound;

doors of perspective slammed shut.

The quiet mysteries of rural life
muted by Central People’s Broadcasting Station’s
authoritarian voice.
In the end four evils –
Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, Wang Hongwen.

Healing hands of Wei Jingsheng
were not idled by incarcerations.
From bursting clouds of hope,
rain drops fall in Beijing Spring.

The Perfect Photograph

Find the perfect photograph --

capture the air in black & white.

Sun's rays slipping through

blankets of clouds.

Afternoon's automobile shifts 

to evening,

as Van Gogh's stars fall out 

the back 

leaving sparkling eyes

scattered around the stardust.