Sick and tired of all the celebrity blather.
There are many books to read I would rather.

Perhaps it’s time for a Mulligan
Going back to the days of Ed Sullivan.

Every nasty, hateful thing ever written or said
By a celebrity is hereby pronounced dead,

Never to rise from the grave
On the promise that they all behave.

No arguments ad hominem,
No statements to harm any her, him or them.

If you can’t write without a personal attack,
Better be ready to be stabbed in the back.

Tell the truth as best you know it.
Otherwise you better just stuff it.

Be careful of e-mail, Twitter and Facebook
And before hitting send, take a close look

At what you have written.
Better to delete than be future smitten

Like losing a sitcom gig
Or finding out that up is the jig.

So, celebrities, take the Mulligan
Or be prepared to be fired again.

The following is a note I sent to an acquaintance “on the way to being an e-mail friend.” Normally we send e-mails about books, authors, etc. My acquaintance is incredibly well read, especially in the era of “the beats” and has shared some stories about the likes of Kerouac, Kesey, et. al. and the poets of that era. The topic veered in the direction of sociology and economics. The below is a somewhat edited version:

I don’t have questions about welfare to individuals (whatever skimming and gaming the system goes on doesn’t amount to a hill of beans and people do what they need to do to survive); I have questions about lack of care into the plight (growing bigger everyday) of the poor and why they must resort to such behavior and remain stuck in it.

Studies have been done; solutions have been offered, but endemic and systemic greed (lobbyists, legislators and huge money to vote for legislation to keep money in the hands of the 1%) rules the day.

Studies have shown that there is little fraud and that the racist myth of the black “welfare queens,” is exactly that, a scapegoating myth conjured by a racist power structure.

The reality is that the poor in America are for the most part “rural and white,” and guess where drug abuse is helping to finish off what poverty doesn’t. Yup — the poor towns in rural America. And, of course, there is the perennial/perpetual Horatio Alger’s myth coined in a phrase attributed to Steinbeck but written by some Canadian academic: “The poor believe they are but one misfortune away from being millionaires.”

The deck is stacked and the poor still don’t get it — in despair, they put their hope on dope.

And desperate young blacks on the west and south side of Chicago die from bullets shot from guns brought in from nearby Indiana and the President points a race-bating finger at it and the scared, white, working class base cheers and whites and blacks are pitted against each other while the ever-wealthier citizens of the new Gilded Age laugh all the way to the bank.

I have questions about federal and state aid to the biggest (by far) welfare recipients: multi-national corporations who bleed taxes from anemic budgets where tax revenue is down because Republican legislatures keep voting that way under the illusion that citizens keep more money for themselves so they can buy the products of all the corporations relocating to the state — corporations who will be hiring people thus reducing unemployment and increasing income.

Michigan is now a giveaway state living under the leadership of Republicans who believe falsely that if they give away the farm in credits and tax subsidies, the corporations will flock to such fertile ground. Wrong. Sure corporations want tax breaks but studies have shown that employees of corporations want good schools and a well-maintained infrastructure so they can get around the state in their free time and the corporations want good roads for their eighteen-wheelers to move the products.

Guess what? Betsy DeVos has been doing her best for years to take down public education in Michigan and the state ranks dead last in infrastructure maintenance. A recent poll listed Michigan somewhere in the mid-twenties in quality of K-12 public education, which is better than I would have thought only because we hear so much about the destruction of public education in metro Detroit, a truly abominable example of targeting low-income minority districts with charter schools, school vouchers and school choice for residents who have no choice but to continue to send their children to rundown public schools.

Now, would you like me to tell you how I really feel about this? 🙂

Bob

Big, brawny bull in a china shop
with a bass voice that would boom
across the room;
massive, bald, shiny pate
that would glisten in the sun or
under a spot light in a pulpit
fit for a potentate.
Indomitable, imposing, a force
with which to contend, if one
dared, most were scared.
He fell, shattering a hip,
fell again severing an Achilles tendon,
aging, his Achilles heel.
From a beach house
to a condo, top floor,
lots of views and fresh air
to a retirement home
to assisted living
to a wheel chair
to round the clock care,
“Where to from there?”
he asked in a soft, soft
almost whisper to which the nurse
half jokingly replied,
“For a man of your stature,
maybe a nice, big, black
hearse.
But let the orderly
get the bed pan first.”

The TV reality show guy
said something like
celebrities are huge
narcissists, wisely
exempting the talk-
show host on whose
program he was inter-
viewed. Then he said
something really in-
teresting. He said
celebrities who can’t
get their attention fix
suffer from “soul death.”
Strange. If that is true,
the president has the
most “alive” soul today,
but it seems that the
“soul death” preceded
the absence of attention
and that would make our
president the star of
a “zombie apocalypse”
in our country right now.
At least the apocalypse
is covered by American
Home Shield, according
to the commercial. I’m
happy to know something
is covering this unnatural
disaster.

I try to be alert
but I only had one
political science
course in college
and it was taught
by an old, addled
ambassador to
somewhere whose
chief accomplish-
ment was that he
could deliver the
scotch booze to
the generals. I
didn’t do well.
And so now, as I
sit and listen to
romantic jazz, I
try to stay alert
to the threats
to our republic from
the outside in comp-
liance with inside
and there is no
doubt that the
fragility of
our democracy
is in a clear and
present danger and
I don’t know what to
do but cry out,
“PLEASE VOTE; PLEASE
VOTE to the beat of
the romantic jazz;
freedom depends on
our votes. It’s the
genius of represent-
ative democracy —
the vote!!! or all
is lost……..It
could be Germany
Redux, bebop,
bebop, it
really could,
as we are lulled
to the sweet beat
of romantic jazz
or Wagner’s thump,
thump, thump of
the hooves of
the flight of
the Valkyries
in Germany.

Over the years, total depravity was erroneously
interpreted as something being totally bad or full
up to the brim with sin. At least, that’s how I
got it initially. However, total is in reference to
all things meaning a totality is tainted as in
there is no completely pure thought or action. We
live with mixed motives. It is a nice idea in advancing
humility not low self-esteem.

The only place I can see there would be an untainted
act would be an instantaneous action in response to
an emergency, e.g. jumping onto the tracks to save
a person who has fallen from the platform as a train
is arriving or from today’s news from London about
the man who scaled several floors of an apartment
building to save a child dangling from a balcony
or a soldier suddenly throwing him or herself
on a tripped grenade to save fellow soldiers.

Total Depravity —
     akin to total insanity.
Unconditional Surrender —
     a total wreck or just a fender bender.
Limited Atonement —
     makes for the sad state of alone-ment.
Irresistible Grace —
     a heavenly embrace. I wanted to say "gone without a trace."
Perseverance of the Saints —
     my heart faints. This one gets no complaints.

If Henny were alive today
perhaps this is what he would say,
“You take the president; take
the president, please,” to paraphrase.
And while on that disturbing subject,
the more I think of the culprit,
the more I become misanthropic.
Once outgoing and gregarious,
I view life as more and more nefarious —
seeing the growing dark night
and only a little light —
(A night view of Edward Hopper’s
or a screaming scene of Edvard Munch?)
wary of Coney Island mobsters
and thoroughly corrupt coppers.
I insult Hopper’s paintings
but he captures my sad feelings
about the narcissistic, egotistical dealings
that have left our nation reeling.
And from Henny, a parting one-liner
for the McDonald’s diner,
“If you had to live your life over,
make it overseas,” Please!

I hear a sad song and
I cry.
I hear nostalgic music and
I cry.
I hear heartfelt jazz and
I cry,
I hear classical music and
I cry
And wonder why.
I hear elevator music and
I cry
And know it is time
To figure out why
I cry
And then I think
About Donald Trump
And I know why
I cry.

from fifty-seven
to eighty-seven
in a nano second —
a midwest temperature rise
in a couple of days
(or a instant acceleration
at the indy 500)
has nothing to do
with the climate’s fade.
it’s all just god’s will
for a carbon saturated
planet
which actually we
plundered
while watching
the indy 500
because those race cars
are actually
cleaner than ours.