By: posthumous
[2002-09-11]
The Poetry of Pandering
a New York story
In my experience, if a stranger comes up and starts talking to me s/he wants one of three things:
+ directions
+ to save my soul
+ money
If their want is not obvious after 5 seconds, then it narrows down to money.
This morning, a guy came up to me and started informing me that he wasn't weird or crazy. I don't know about you, but that strikes me as a weird, crazy thing to say to a complete stranger. He then proceeds to explain that he's not homeless either, not that he's got anything against the homeless. He's a poet. And he only wants money if I like his poem.
There's that word I was waiting for: money. I haven't stopped for this guy, mind you. He's walking right along with me. I passively accept his challenge. He asks me what the poem should be about, apparently to display his improvisational bravura, but then proceeds to give me only two options, light or darkness.
I opt for darkness. This is the morning, after all, and I'm not a morning person. He then proceeds to ramble and rant such illiterate crap that I cannot remember a single phrase of it, though some words I remember: "engrave" and some form of the word "skeleton." And I'm sure he used "dark."
When he was done half a block later, I said, "I'm not going to give you money for that."
At which point he replied, "but I've been in the Def Poetry Jam."
And then I replied back, "A lot of lousy poets have been in the Def Poetry Jam." Not that I specifically know what the Def Poetry Jam is, but I had a feeling. He didn't respond because he stopped walking with me once he knew the money wasn't coming.
I wish I could say this was a satisfying moment for me, this opportunity to voice my opinion to one of the rank pseudopoets that are doing their darnedest to destroy poetry, but instead I felt a terrible agitation.
I think that what I really wanted was to be able to talk to this guy, in a non-economic context, just two poets talking. Maybe I could help him, explain to him the beauty and power of language. Maybe somehow his experience with oral performance (so to speak) could coalesce with my language skills in a mutually beneficial way.
I was angry, angry that it couldn't happen. I could not talk to him because he was out for money, not poetry. And it's not his fault that he needs money. I need money, too, and I do things I don't particularly want to do in order to get it. It's the system's fault! Or it's our fault for sucking the system's cock too enthusiastically. Or it's nobody's fault, it just sucks.
Or maybe I couldn't talk to him because of my own cynicism and lack of faith. Regardless, I descended into the subway station and growled as I paid my toll.
One time, a friend took me to see what I think must have been Sean Connery's first film, because he was very young in that film. The part of the story that I remember best was that he was a "mad poet" who ran afoul of the establishment, and some experimental neuropsychiatrist decided to try out a new lobotomy technique to squelch Connery's poetic soul. The camera assumed the POV of the anesthetized lobotomy victim regain focus/consciousness on the surgeon's face; no sooner was focus established than Connery's fist smote the oppressor! The audience cheered: "Yaaaaaay!" The spirit is intact! Indominatable! But sometimes I too am accosted by those sorts who by appealing to my sensitivity and demonstrating their own poetic nature seek to convince me that a) I'm sensitive, b) they are too sensitive to let suffer, and c) therefor, I should GIVE THEM MONEY! Often, an effective counter to this tactic is to begin discussing the taxidermy of small mammals. New York City homeless junkie winos will hit you in the head with a brick for no apparent reason, so it's best not to turn your back on them. Also, act like you are WAAAAAY crazier than they are, and tote a bucket full of carrion.
If I didn't know I hadn't written that I would have thought I had, but I didn't. Apart from the saving peoples souls and the directions its fundamentally correct.
People only talk to me when they want something, they never just say a cheery hello, its always for money, and whats worse is they have to drive me insane by carrying on with an inane diatribe before they ask me for the money.
I once was accosted by a guy who sold poems for money, he gave me the same poem twice about how macdonalds was evil.
The worst thing is once you've started hating everyone it really loses all meaning. If I hated people any more it would involve a mass murdering shooting spree thing and I'm not quite crazy enough to justify that just yet. So instead I have apathy, which is quite comforting in between vicious bouts of bitterness, hate, depression, euphoria and insanity.
The only woman who ever cared about me was a hooker who I met when I was wearing my long black coat and walking around dark alleyways near the (hideously scary at night)gothic anglican cathedral in the more dangerous area's of Liverpool.
Her first words were, "Are you ok? Are you looking for someone?" said in a very soft and caring tone and then "Are You Looking For Someone" said in a much more haughty way shaking her permed brown locks around, it was a dark alley so I didn't see what she was like but she had big hair.
I met a lot of hookers that night but she was the first one that ever propositioned me. The first of many infact. Another asked me for a fag, but thats the strictly british slang for cigarette, which I happily obliged, after all a cigarette shared is a lung cancer halfed as my grandmother used to say.
We used to name the hookers, they all hung out by a boarded up butchers shop which proudly proclaimed "FRESH MEAT" across from the catholic girls school which was surrounded by tall iron fences painted blue. One of the regulars was called finger licking good.
perhaps you'd like to share some of your poetry with us, oh dark coated gothic stranger
..is too dark for you! I AM IN TOUCH WITH MY DARK SIDE!!! HURR HURR HURR.
It's ALL dark on the inside
Unless you have a lightbulb for a bile duct.
That's probably the radiation seed for my prostate treatment.
directions + to save your soul + money = give me all your money!
Wait, that doesn't really work, does it? I guess bad math is like bad poetry, but better, because no one would ask for money for bad math.
That said, I once saw a man outside the Vancouver Art Gallery with the following poem on a placard hung around his neck:
RCMP cunts coast to coast
conceal cyanide murder poisoning
of alaster mackenzie
age 4
He wasn't asking for money, but if he had I would have given him some. You have to make exceptions for the special people of the world.
Les chattes de RCMP marchent à la côte cachent l'empoisonnement de meurtre de cyanure de l'âge 4 de mackenzie d'alaster
Next time someone wants to talk about poetry or wants some actual poetry should ask them if they've been to that room with all of the monkeys and typewriters.
yah, I've been there, I think I saw you there
I'm mortally wounded! We'll have to bomb some more Canuks next training exercise. Accidently, of course.
Are you drunk?
Which was I? A monkey or a typewriter?
By the time you get around to it, the Canadian Forces will have crumbled to bits all on their own.
You are welcome to take out our dictator, accidentally, of course.
City: Vancouver
Population: 1
Resident: Jonas
Which do you want to be? I'm flexible.
which probably makes me the monkey
I think this is from "Pale Typewriter, Pale Monkey" "...Letting go the dream of typewriter and monkey, I saw the possibility of not writing."
It's true, too!
Gawd! Now I need a drink. First, I'll take a nap, then I'll get a litre and get a heater goin'
a Gothic haiku
black coat swings sadly
weeping whores in alley's filth
finger lickin good
If we were on a glacier, I'd think you were trying to push me into a crevasse.
rye coalition?
Pastrami on Rye--great! Now I'm MORE hungry!
Yep, if we were on a glacier, maybe somewhere near Banff, I would start thinking pastrami on rye after a few days. Staniel is probably a big Rye Coalition fan, they're a Jersey band, right?
I've had a hip panhandler rap about the evening for my then-girl and I one time, on Richards St I think. He didn't even ask us for money. Except he tried to sell us marijuana after. Was "No, thank you" the right thing to say?
I wonder if this is how
Bumfights got started?
First Bum: "My pome is purdy!"
Second Bum: "Shee-yit!"
First Bum: "Wull, it is!"
Second Bum: "Yer loopy!"
First Bum: "Yew take that back!"
Second Bum: "Bite my rofty arse!"
First Bum: (breaks bottle of Night Train over First Bum's head, fight ensues...
Two recent public opinion surveys, one of Europe and one of Canada, concluded that about two thirds of the people, OUR ALLIES!, thought that America had it coming. I wasn't surprised to see Palestinians dancing in the streets after 9/11, but only a little surprised about 2/3 of America's erstwhile friends less than gung ho. Why didn't the Christian Right cheer the rousting of the moneychangers? Go figure. Do the corrupt CEO's feel less secure out on the golf course or in the club house at the country club buffet? All of the conspiracy theories were provocative, also. It's all about the oil. Now with all of the self-righteous posturing and public pillorying of Martha Stewart, much of the activity sort of does look like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We've always been at war with Eastasia.
I seem to recall Jerry Falwell saying the US was asking for it by condoning homosexuality. I guess they know not to go after the Jews, at least not yet.
I've heard Rye Coalition, but I didn't know they were from NJ. They seemed pretty ordinary, though.
I have a feeling that if Jerry Falwell had comic books that they would rival the famed Jack Chick. When the Rapture did not occur for Y2K, Falwell did some fancy backpedaling, otherwise Jesus, Inc. would have to go out of business. Who knows what Dubya had in mind when he went before the UN, they are generally pro-Arab, pro-Third World, but the best chance is to get France and maybe Russia to put their Security Council votes behind the US, which is ironic to me, in that the US has declined to subject itself to the authority of the World Court, so the appeal for an international consensus is like putting panties on the lamb chops: the wolf doesn't really need them.
I might get "The Lipstick Game"; I don't have any Jersey bands.
...is Yo La Tengo. Probably.
I think I'm going to get albtraum@lycos.com to write my biography entirely in gothic haiku.
had my name and e-mail address switched there kinda stupid of me ahem anyway
Tears of a Gothic Clown
a haiku
murder the dead world
weeping, putrid autumn night
you want fries with that?
I might try wearing Gothic Clown make-up, but I'd be afraid that someone would mistake me for a mime, and beat the crap out of me!
yo la tengo by far.
1/2 a ton
1/2 a brain
No idea of right from wrong
1/2 Mad Poet drains the good out of anything
