We missed National Ice Cream Month, and International Pancake Day (but only by a day, so we were close), but I’m damn certain we’re not going to blow National Poetry Month, even if I’m pretty sure I’ll live to regret that vow.
I’m still debating how to celebrate this exquisite holiday which begins, appropriately enough, on April Fools Day. I’ll probably shout some “whoops” and maybe eat a cupcake–neither of which full under the purview of this blog, so I guess that each day I’ll post a poem I like.
Now, the folks who brought you NaNoWriMo are bringing us the equally titillating NaPoWriMo–and however tempted I may be to say I’ll participate, I’m
also old and wise enough to know better than to accept a job I know I can’t finish–I’m a slow poet, and far from prolific–I don’t have a shot at it, but will certainly support those who are, and who aspire to the challenge.
I”m sure I’ll come up with some other suitably themed celebratory posts–maybe I’ll boost the number of reposts, or note some cool poetry links. We’ll see
Quite possibly the most gut-wrenchingest, funniest SNL skit of all time. If anyone has a copy of this video–which I’ve been unable to find–send me a link, drop me a line, let me know and I’ll be eternally grateful.
Sprockets
Announcer…..Phil Hartman
Dieter…..Mike Myers
Jimmy Stewart…..Dana Carvey
[FADE IN on the “Sprockets” opening, with the nuclear bomb and city scenes.]
Announcer: Shprockets. Shprockets. Vest German television presents, “Shprockets.” Vith your host: Dieter.
[SUPERIMPOSE “LIVE SHOW” and then FADE to Dieter.]
Dieter: Velcome to “Shprockets,” I am your host, Dieter. Tonight our guest is vone of America’s foremost poets of anarchy and rebellion. An obsessed outcast, whose dark visions drag us to the edge. His book, “Jimmy Shtewart and His Poems”… [holds up book] …is filled with biting images that assault the senses, unmasking both reader and poet alike in a macabre dance of despair. He has also appeared in films. Please velcome Jimmy Shtewart!
[Audience cheers as Dieter stands up, claps stiffly, and then sits again. Jimmy Stewart finally dodders onstage in a dark gray suit and dark-rimmed glasses. He takes a seat next to Dieter.]
Dieter: Mr. Shtewart. Critic Graus Greck, in the latest issue of “Verdkunst,” described your book as an asylum, vhere man meets his Creator and screams.
Jimmy Stewart: Well, uh, thank you, Dieter. That’s, uh… Y’know–y’know, Gloria and I are big fans of YOURS.
Dieter: In your poem, “Old Rocking Chair,” you write: “You sit in the corner/Old rocking chair/It makes me feel good/To know you are there.”
Jimmy Stewart: Yeah…
Dieter: I feel emotionally obliterated.
Jimmy Stewart: I’m glad–glad–glad to HEAR that, y’see, good poetry is about DESTRUCTION.
Dieter: Under vhat conditions does a man experience such raw truth?
Jimmy Stewart: Well, Dieter, it’s no picnic, I can tell you that right now. I was holed up in a Mexico City slum. I hadn’t eaten in weeks, and what few pesos I had, I’d spent on alcohol. Some cheap crap called chocho. I was down and out. That’s when I wrote “Good Old Rockin’ Chair.” You see, you’ve gotta go through the PAIN.
Dieter: And vhat of your poem, “Funny Little Pooch”?
Jimmy Stewart: Yeah. There’s a rather interesting story about that “Funny Little Pooch” thing… There was a period of intense creativity for me, Dii-eter.
Dieter: Dieter.
Jimmy Stewart: Dooter.
Dieter: Dieter.
Jimmy Stewart: Yeah. yeah. You know, I’d been hitchhiking through Paraguay when I finally settled in Bella Cristo with a 15-year-old WHORE. For a week straight, I was either having sex or hallucinating. Yeah… And then I woke up one morning and she was GONE… she’s just–just GONE. And she’d taken all my stuff, and I–I just got crazy paranoid for a minute–well–you–know–how it can be. And I just curled up on that floor like a little baby, and just bawled my eyes out. And–and then a very interesting thing happened. I realized that I was just a speck of crud in a godless VOID. And twenty minutes later, I’d written “Funny Little Pooch.”
Dieter: Jimmy Shtewart: you are a running sore. Running from yourself, yet your scab heals us all.
Jimmy Stewart: Yeah. Yeah. Well, y’know, I just do what I do.
[laughter]
Dieter: May I read a passage from “My Kitten, My Pal”?
Jimmy Stewart: Well, I’d be HONORED, Dau-Daughter.
Dieter: Dieter.
Jimmy Stewart: Dooter.
Dieter: Dieter.
Jimmy Stewart: Yeah.
Dieter: [reading] “My kitten, my pal/You sit on my lap–”
Jimmy Stewart: Well, well, now–now–wait a minute. Now, now, you gotta read it–you gotta SCREAM it, like it’s a matter of life and death, you, can-can I show you… how, here… [takes book from him]
Dieter: Go right ahead.
Jimmy Stewart: All right… [reading] “My kitten, my pal/You sit on my lap/You’re a friendly sort of chap.” [muttering] I’m a little… thirsty here…
[Jimmy picks up a bottle of tequila and swigs from it.]
Jimmy Stewart: Now… GOOD.
[sets bottle down between him and Dieter]
Jimmy Stewart: [reading] “A little bit of gray and a little bit of white/I’ll tell you, little kitten/You’re doing all right.” Yeah.
Dieter: That poem pulls down my pants and taunts me.
Jimmy Stewart: Well, that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do. Yeah, it’s not rare when something happens like–I wrote that one on a piece of toilet paper, after waking up in a puddle of my own SICK.
[laughter]
Jimmy Stewart: Now, it wasn’t pretty, wasn’t pretty.
Dieter: Is it true that you vonce killed a man?
Jimmy Stewart: N-now, now, wait a minute there, Daughter. No–
Dieter: Dieter.
Jimmy Stewart: That’s right, Dieter. No man ever really dies by the hand of another, you see, every man’s responsible for his own DEATH. And by the way, you haven’t asked me if I want to touch your MONKEY.
Dieter: I thought it beneath you.
Jimmy Stewart: Well, Dieter, if that monkey knew where I’d been, he wouldn’t LET me touch him.
Dieter: Then touch him. Touch him! Touch my monkey! [babbles in German] Touch him, LOVE HIM!
Jimmy Stewart: [walks over to monkey] All right, you little pal, let’s go–
[Dieter’s monkey squeals and jumps off his pedestal after Jimmy touches him.]
Jimmy Stewart: [yanks back hand] Oh! Oh, son of a bitch BIT me!
[Jimmy leaps back to the table and breaks off the top of the tequila bottle.]
Jimmy Stewart: [brandishing broken bottleneck] C’mon, monkey, let’s see what’s in that belly of yours!
Dieter: [standing up] Now is the time on “Shprockets” when we dance!
[The theme song starts up as the other dancers join Dieter and dance stiffly. After a moment, Jimmy squats down and starts doing the Charleston.]
Dieter: That’s all the time we have on “Shprockets.” Our guest has been Jimmy Shtewart. My name is Dieter. Auf wiedersehen.
[Dieter trots up close to the camera and dances in front of it.]
Jimmy Stewart: Hi, Gloria! [waves] I’ll see ya in six weeks! I’m making a pit stop in Turkey!
[FADE to black over applause.]
I did find this (the real deal)–Jimmy Stewart doing Jimmy Stewart is almost as good as Dana Carvey:
Like a lot of these videos, this is more brillance from the eighties, which weren’t at all like cheese-eating high schools kids who watch cable replays of “Pretty In Pink” think they were like. The Violent Femmes were a taut little Indie band from Wisconsin who wrote short, sweet, sometimes angry, sometimes sad, sly little songs with a throbbing bass and a unique–for the time and the genre–electrified acoustic sound. “Blister in the sun,” “Add it up,” “Kiss off,” and this one, “Gone daddy, gone,” were their big singles. I recently heard this one as part of the “roadie music” between sets at an Old Crow Medicine Show/Avett Brothers concert and was delighted how good–and not dated–it seemed. Enjoy.
And she thinks Neko is pretty fetchin’ swell, too. And if you can’t stand the music your kids bring home, you can probably add yourself to the list….
“When I hear auto-tune on somebody’s voice, I don’t take them seriously. Or you hear somebody like Alicia Keys, who I know is pretty good, and you’ll hear a little bit of auto-tune and you’re like, “You’re too fucking good for that. Why would you let them do that to you? Don’t you know what that means?” It’s not an effect like people try to say, it’s for people like Shania Twain who can’t sing. Yet there they are, all over the radio, jizzing saccharine all over you. It’s a horrible sound and it’s like, “Shania, spend an extra hour in the studio and you’ll hit the note and it’ll sound fine. Just work on it, it’s not like making a burger!”
Go ahead, tell me that’s not epic: Yet there they are, all over the radio, jizzing saccharine all over you. That says it all, right?
Now, to get on with the theme (and hide the fact that this entire post was pretty much a device to share that quote) let’s keep with the fan worship. I like this Neko picture because, at first glance, the first time I saw it, I thought she was wearing an engineer’s uniform for Star Trek. Okay, it’s a bit of a stretch, but you see what I mean, right? She would absolutely make a fantastic cameo as some dry-witted, uber-competent veteran Captain–that’s right, Captain Case who’s got neither time nor patience for Kirk’s juvenile tom-foolery.
And that’s why they don’t let me write Star Trek scripts (even though I’d KILL at it); because I’d pen in cameos for my favorite singers to come in and say the word “tomfoolery.” Hell yes, I would. But Neko has even better outfits. I saw her in a very nice dress in photos from the Grammy Awards, but I like this one best:
I just followed Neko on Twitter. After this post, how long before she blocks me?
“You give workers only as much as they basically need to survive. Thriving is something that management should do and that workers don’t have a right to do.”
–George Pullman
[FADE IN on the “Sprockets” opening, with the nuclear bomb and city scenes.]
