Deemer/New Poems

CD unleashes his voice again at Writing Life II with a blast of new poetry, always a good thing.

We published In My Old Age last year.













TS

Now You Know

Now you
know what it is like
to profess to
be a literary man

They're all dead
smoked themselves
to death
took their own lives

Lived hard without
rules and paid the price
of literature
lived the dream

Now you know
what it is like to live
like this in a world
that doesn't give a shit

Now you know
that literature is second
to the popular culture
that these poets died

Lived their lives elsewhere
and turned to motes
gave it their all
turned mean

Inward where living
roughed them up like children
playing in a field
of illusion

Where nothing
not even a settling sun
could save them from the
choice of their reason


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Frederick Exely

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Jack Kerouac

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e.e. cummings

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T.S. Eliot

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Dylan Thomas

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Publishing News!

I agree with this assessment.

A clear and concise piece.

Obama's drone wars are just as fucked, so this is a non-partisan issue.  This is about whether this country will ever elect a leader with balls.

As it stands, we've elected a string of shitbirds without remorse.

Nothing is going to change next year either, given our choice between a bad ass clown and a dumb ass intent on being a bigger clown.


TS

Love & Money

Throughout most of the 1980s I had difficulties finding pop music that I liked.  Then, in 1988, this Scottish band caught my attention.

James Grant had a helluva voice and the drummer was tight with a big, rhythmic kick that pricked up my ears.

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Monday

What a day...

I'm doing my editing chores and making headway, but not feeling right.  I feel a little congestion coming on like I had last year around this time.  I had to go on antibiotics to knock that out.  I hope I don't have to relive the scenario.

You can't drink and carry on like an ass when you're on antibiotics, and that kind of austere life just doesn't fit my style.

I feel light-headed. (Oh, shut up!)

I love how shitty the health-care system makes you feel when you don't have a regular doctor and have to line up with the rabble to see an overwhelmed clinician in a crowded room of fellow paupers.

It's all about triage.  Those with insurance form a line here.  The rest of you?  Good luck.

Small wonder people choose denial and death.

But getting old is exactly about that for most people.  Coupled with not being the most health-minded sort, I guess I'm getting what I've paid for, suffering the existence I've created.

Who doesn't feel at times that their friends who have passed on are the lucky ones?

My film is floating around inside my head.  Its ancillary themes of death and degradation are all too clear to me. The script is not there yet.  It is the most difficult project I've taken on in my life.  I wish I'd started it 20 years ago, but then it wouldn't be what it is now.

The life I lived 20 years ago is not this life.  It's not that I've captured wisdom, I obviously haven't.  Something is creeping in and I'm not sure what it is.

I just sneezed, never a good thing.

Didn't a poet once say that "grey" is grayer than "gray?"

I'm thinking Sorrentino, but I'm likely wrong.


TS

Nick Cave

Bob Thomas sent me links to some old Judy Collins and Patti Smith this morning.  Two different but equally inspired artists.  Good stuff all around.

It's been awhile since I listened to them, so thanks, Thomas.

Collins could handle the soaring, sweet ballad like few others in her early years.

Patti Smith defined the earliest manifestations of punkish clairvoyance.

I remember the first time I heard this Nick Cave ballad.  It knocked me out with its opening line.

"I don't believe in an interventionist God,
But I know darling that you do..."

A music-dominated morning.  Always a cool thing.


TS

A Parade and No Rain

I live in an apartment overlooking the roof of a private school for wealthy children as well as a parking lot in the near distance.

A couple of trees partially obstruct the view of the parking lot across the street from the First Unitarian Church on 12th Avenue, but I can usually make out the chaos that erupts in the parking lot whenever a big event happens in town.

The lot is sort of cramped and many drivers I witness simply lack the skills it takes to park there without growing frustrated and confused.

In a car society it's frightening how many people don't know how to take command of that ton or more of steel and metal between their legs.

Parking is an ordeal that is fun to watch as one moron after another slaves to inch into a space they'll triumphantly pay $7.00 for when they've shot their last frustrated ounce of good sense.

Tonight Portland is celebrating its annual Rose Festival Starlight Parade, a tradition among this city's most escapist and dumb denizens.

On the avenues, people were conspiratorially setting up their viewing areas along the parade route by noon today to watch this great, silly tradition.

Arriving early is part of the parade's tradition.  To claim a sidewalk viewing space is of paramount importance to many Portlanders and tourists, but  a few years ago Portland's City Council deigned to make it illegal to set up early in the day and claim a spot along the sidewalk.

No duct-taping allowed.

Portland is a liberal town, still attempting to achieve the unobtainable fair and equitable deliverance of sidewalk viewing of its parades.

More socially uninhibited chaos has resulted.  More law-breaking, animosity and good fun.

As with the laws governing Metro's transit fares, you're only fined if you get caught cheating under the city's ordinances.

People set up on the street and wander away.

I could have nabbed a few free lawn chairs today, but the neighborly sorts were eyeing me closely as I passed.  The early setup is a private, clubbing affair, a shared movement among lawbreakers who watch each others' backs like common thieves.

The parade is passing near my street as I write this and people are having a great time, whooping and yelling at the paraders.

I hear a marching band playing an old saw.

The city's buses are at a standstill as the parade passes.

A helicopter is hovering above my building, which always pisses me off.

I have no cause or desire to be out there.  I've missed the Portland Rose Festival Starlight Parade once again.

Just hearing it is too much for my being.


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Moondance/Van Morrison

I stumbled across this by accident, one of nearly a million viewers. I'll declare the colors and abstraction of this piece amaze me.  

Better late than never, I share it with you.

TS  

Talk Radio

Portland's Tad Savinar wrote the original stage play.  Oliver Stone directed the movie based on Eric Bogosian's development of the NYC stage production.

This is one of my favorites by the uneven and sometimes portentous Stone.

Talk radio is still out there for any idiot who wants to listen to it.


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On Air

The college baseball post-season started today.

I'm listening to and occasionally watching the stream of the Oregon/Austin Peay game from PK Park in Eugene.  The video stream's audio feed is from the radio broadcast and between innings you can hear both the ads and the hot mics of the broadcasters.

I don't think the announcers are aware that the stream is picking up their voices between innings during the commercial breaks.

I'm waiting for something awful to happen and I'm excited.  One of these guys will say something he later regrets.

Ah, technology!  Its potential to please us is immeasurable.


TS