the price of fame and fortune...

Sunday, December 16, 2007

The Price of Fame and Fortune What if... December 17, 2007 I often hang out at a café with the laptop to work on my novel. I sip espresso, nibble dark chocolate, I write. While a single voice will grate and annoy, the cacophony of a crowd energizes me. I rarely talk to anyone, but I do notice faces. When a bookish woman with librarian-styled glasses approached me the other day, I knew she came here often. She scribbled on manuscripts with a red marker, always holding a large coffee drink topped with whipped cream. the light now streaking through the forest...it be so nice to walk down the hill and go into the starbucks and have a warm coffee but the snow has been iced over and to move down the hill would end in disaster...I just lost the lens cap to the camera...it rolled right down the hill...i've been drinking cheapies and taking pictures for hours...it's a price paid for fame and fortune...occasionally taking breaks to have a cigarette and pay more closely to John Doe's music...I have always greatly respected him but lately even more so when he said his latest album was inspired by the woods...imagine that, and here I am in the woods getting blasted and tripping out on the light on the landscape... the moment becomes surreal when the junior high which is down the hill lets out and I watch this girl slwoly make her way up the hill...it must be surreal for her too when she finally looks up when she reaches where I am...she had been so busy chopping through the ice that she hasn't seen me so when she looks up a look surprise registers on her face...after all, here is this man with shades on, listening to an ipod, smoking a cigarette with a camera and cans of crushed beers by him...she keeps it cool and goes on her way... the beer runs out and there's no choice but to go back in the house as it would be impossible to go down the hill and besides the fact that i have no cash...a small price paid to be able sit in the woods all day getting great shots of the landscape... so I walk into the house and turn on the tv...and there is Ben Cheevers, the writer, who hosts a local cable access show based on the writing life, saying how most people don't get published but nonetheless it was still important to write so as to make sense of the chaos... a small price paid for fame and fortune...

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power to the people

Millwood Matters: Impressive Turnout for Uncontested Vote

Hala Makowska on election night

By Gene Nadel
December 14, 2007

Supported by a remarkable turnout for an uncontested election, Hala Makowska won a five year term on the Millwood Board of Fire Commissioners (BOFC) on Tuesday as 149 concerned fire district residents exercised their franchise and cast their ballots for the sole candidate. An additional 16 voters expressed their choice by write-in votes for Norman Hay, the retiring commissioner who chose not to stand for reelection. The typical turnout for an uncontested election for this office is rarely more than two to three dozen.

power to the people...alhtough are they honest with their hearts?...do they support expression or just this issue concerns them to speak up FOR THEIR RIGHTS...not universal rights...this journal censored me back in October from taping Peter Appelbombe at a class on citizen journalism...I thought it was funny how Susie Pender was touting the expression of the people and then in a heart beat stifled mine...

but the internet is a funny place these days...social media does not respect arbitrary authority...it is power to the people...and if it is denied in one place it can surface just as quickly in other...even easily co-opting the other media..

the charge of the light brigade is on now...errol fynnn...olivia de havilland...set in india...oh what a racist gay film...you wouldn't see this shit today so obviously although the same vibe is going down stronger than ever thankz to the american military industrial complex with its bombs and terror over Iraq and it's pilferirng of natural resources...

so I say, power to the people...long live the new social media and web 2.0...lord only knows what beast slopes towards bethlehem next....

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Dedicated to Walter Wright

dedicated to walter wriight who turned me onto nieiztsche so many years ago at clarke...22 to be precise...I have returned many times to Neittzche to find strenght for my travlels on this globe...here in the winter, racist movie on the tube, alone, under the pale light, stumbling around on the internet, sexless, too paranoid to sneak downstairs and smoke some more...letting the words flow...god is dead...wondering if that will make raja nod in agreement or fly off in a fit of anger...

having worked all day on the christmass show....edit after edit to get it right...to have faith one more time....

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We are living in the nigger of...

We are living in the nigger of indifference
photoblur orgasmtron snapshot of mind
the radio dream becomes the videopem
lonely nights spent in forgotten gutters
with winos, drug addicts, drifters, hustlers
indifferent hipsters, mad laid off union
workers, the latest installment of hip,
madness, meds, conniving slam bam poets,
pussy's, cunts, chewed fingernails,
boring football, even worse announcers,
cold wind blowing up the hill, I was ahead of
my time not behind it...

yellow streaking light through the woods...beautiful sight in this time of indifference...social media the expansion of though beatnick style...if no one reads it, is it real?...the same ol' isolations...the kids are down but they lose attention so fast...the older people don't even have the intentiion to begin with...they have heard it all...seen it all...what have you done for me lately their eyes beg the question....still, fascinating these times of gutenberg expression....

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Another Country

Another Country...listening to city watch on wbai...the discrepancy between what is reported and what is...insights into how Bloomberg manipulates the media with his contacts with all the Editors....a reason why he is viewed more favorably than Guiliani even though he is decimating affordable housing...another country...the scene when he is walking down Broadway and looks into the bar and see's all the fake persona's...

our voices are not heard....democracy a sham...the businessmen riding on the death express are immune to your concerns...the rise of corporate fascism...grows on the virus of hipster indfference...tap that cellphone...play that videogame...name drop that person...wear that fashion...it's all good, but what do you really know?...

don't mean to preach...just letting the words flow...here beneath the grey sky on a cold winter forgotten day...

another country...as James Baldwin would say...

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the sucker of drink...

the sucker of drink he became the fool of his freinds cold iron bounds who has done anything for me?...in this time of information, the children's senses overload by a bewildering array of images coming from them at every angle, their insecurity so great...you never know when some accountant is going to come along and downsize your job or you're going to get fired because you went on a picket line to protest for your fair share of profits...while I was the stairmaster I watched a show along the lines of lifestyles of the rich and famous accept it was local in manhattan and it portrayed all these upscape professional in these amazing downtown lofts one guy had a sweet buddha looking serenly over his pool as I watched the expressions of the journalist faun over him and all I could think of was what kind of suffering that man must have evoked to earn that kind of bread to own a spread like that, what terror he must have invoked in the third world as his company came down and swooped up that country's resources and in cosmic serendipity later on in the car on WBAI I heard a journalist talk about the politics of oilin Africa and it was nothing like you hear on the fox report with its tales of great poverty and the pregame and after game interviews of football players and the entire importance the country places on such meaningless drive so to escape the dread this invokes in my system I turn to the drink and become the sucker of it and in hence become vulnerable and foolish to my so called freinds who live like ostriches with their heads buried in the sea of indifference so this blog has no point accept to blog and perhaps get good at it and find somekind of angle so I can stumble the glory of google adsense words...

PJ Harvey performs To bring you my love

Pj raw and heavy mad in the new york night calming my raw nerves after a blistering afternoon of serious drinking no one is out there listening...no one cares...pj's music to calm the nerves..

Videopoem: Sunflower Sutrashow

A new Videopoem for this week although it will not be on in Manhattan since the camera wouldn't take. A show featured around Roger reading Allan Ginserberg's beautiful poem "Sunflower Sutra." In this poem Ginsberg in Blaken fashion subtly denounces the stifling nature of the industrial revolution with a simple ode to a withering Sunflower. I went around with my camera and took still to iluustrate the poem while Roger with his able voice did a great reading of the poem.

Continuing in that vein I put Dave Pollock on reading an original piece of his mocking the false sensualtiy of today's world. For good measure I threw in some of my Radio Dream to show the kids I still could read.

Rounding out the show are my old freinds the Sprinkle Genies with two pieces of theirs. Hope you enjoy the show.

Tyler Sid.

Videopoem: Rooftop Morning...

This weeks Videopoem features a robust line-up. Opening up wtih old time favorites the sprinkle genies(sprinklegenies.com) who perform their song "Hey Fuzzy What's Up" a strong anthem to the rock n' roll lifestyle. Next follows Greg Sanders with a delightful parody of the American conquest of the buffalo. Then singer/songwriter Steve Espinola who is a gifted perfomrer performs his song "Rejection." After him we have Danielle Winterton reading atop her rooftop at dawn s very sensous piece. For the encore we have the sprinkle genies return singing their masterpiece about modern alienation "Office Blow Boy."

I hope you enjoy the show and feel free to offer any comments.

Poverty

The new Videopoem focuses the discussion on poverty. With George Ortega, former host of the Happiness Show, we bring up such points as how the United States only gives one percent of its GDP to foreign aid and how corporate America controls the media so American citizens receive a false impression of our role in the world.

Both those ideas are ongoing themes of the show. One where we explore the forgotten Aemrica and the other on the domination of the media by corporate interests.

Although a depressing topic, the show itself was fun to make. George knows his material and it was a pleasure to interview him. It had been awhile since I had appeared before the camera and its takes a little gettting used to the bright lights and making your points into an impersonal camera. After the initial anxiety I caught the flow and things went smoothly. The show was also fun because I keyed out the blue curtain that was taped behind us and put in images of down and out individuals. I had wanted to achieve and original looks and get away from the talking head cable access look. I think I achieved it although I didn't get alll the blue out. I actually like the streaks feellng it gives it an abstract expressionist painterly touch. Big words I know but the show has been had a fondness for big words and large concepts. Why not as John Doe said to me?

So the show will be on in all three of its markets-the 'qua, White Plains, and Manhattan-this week as well as streaming on the web. I know it's a lot for all of you to sit through and listen to us bandy these ideas about but if you give it half a chance you might actually enjoy the slow pace of the show in counter to the fast pace nature of Aemrican life these days.

John Doe

I met John Doe last week over at Maxwell's in Hoboken. He was very down to earth and didn't mind that I taped the concert and had no probelm with me putting it on my cable access show. His backup band Dead Rock West were pretty cool too so I included a number from them in the show. It is incredible how much energy that man still plays with.

Now I am doing my usual city ritual outside Dunkin Donuts on 10th and first. It is a warm warm august night with the people bustling about with that New York city energy.

Earlier, we had a great barbecu dinner over at Danielle's garden while some actors staged Shakespeare's "The Tempest." A pleasent even in deed.

thursday's night show...

watched thursdays night show down at Jeff's apartment. Andy, Dave and Danielle showed up. It was entitled "Shine" and was a dedication to Bowie and may the free spirit "shine" on...throughout the show I featured many blends which created some wild crazy color effects. Also we had an oldie but a goodie from the Sprinkle Genies who performed "Springtime" from a show at 169 two years ago.

qua woods set to pigpen rap

in the morning before the stink of american noise...I took walk into the emersonian air digging on his concept of self representative man...it's a heavy rap which he gave back to the harvard school of divinity back in the day...basically, he's arguing for a transcendental experience of life and was protesting against the gross materialism already rampant in american culute...the paterns of light are influenced by the mid hudson river painters with their emphasis on chairoscuro...in the woods at that time you can see amazing shifting patterns of light in a bat of an eye...just as witht he dead with pig at the helm...when he was at his best, he bought out raps which make these gangsta kids look like little babies...

in the bars...

in the bars along Avenue C...when did this become like a frat party. Andy Ras Vegas said about ten years ago...long island japs and jersey bitches crawling mugwumps over the barstools...my grey hair makes it fucked for me even to fuck the hip chicks who pretend to like ideas but dream of a financial analyst to come and swoop them away to the castle of their dreams...

it's a long way from the days of expression of being...many of the people I started the journey out with are dead and roam the globe as spectral ghosts...still, the urge to create still percolates strong within my spirit...I can't help myself...I love the flow of words and resonance of ideas...

in the car outside the 'qua train station drinking ice coffee with indian cigarette listening to hugh hamilton rapped on the injustices of the immigration system...it is a rightous wrap but sends me deeper into depression as no one in Westchester will get this information and it makes me feel that just more alone...

in the garden they read deep poetry...very deep indeed...I taped it for my cable access show, Videopoem, which no one watches...there's no sex on it nor violence or information about how to make money, the only thing that concerns people these days..certianly not bars as I make way in the bars...

in the time of image and information

in time of image and information overload the god of so what yawns bored with all but the most fanciful images..it is a time of connection and networking and who can crawl to the top of the pyramid...
we are a long way from don quixote...
a long way from kathy acker...
we are in time of the google kids, the spreadsheet kids, the homogenized kids...
what's your angle kid....?...
who you trying to hustle?
sex, money, drugs? Is that it?
Leftist politics? Rightist politics? God politics? Wall street Politics?
Are you a hip young rocker with a brand new tattoo?
Aging rocker bitter with passing time?
Do you were a brooks brother suit and wake up so in love with life ready to get on the train a whole department at your command, real estate, assets, equity a successful life?
I write the words as a discipline...there is no audience, a grave error in the writing game...one of the first dictums is to say, know your audience...but there ain't no fucking audience out there for me...i took a wrong turn off the highway and left the rest of the gang back at the exit...some are dead...most are burnt...but I keep on keepin on like a bird flew, in the magic june night, even thoiugh my insides are changing, a hard change, when time seems to fly by in seconds, sand washed on the sea, loveless, jobless, homeless, the richest homelessman in america...
and it feels so good to spill the words, even, if, there is no one to read them in the time of image and information...

New Springtime

The Sprinkle Genies on St. Patrick's day...a forgotten moment of a nowhere movie...call that anti-folk...shreds of discarded celluloid...burnt out tires...broken hub caps...Raja's suicide...McConnell's death...Donny dead...my expression carries on...rewriting the script in the cocoon of the qua...weeping leaves gone....but not me...

shine on...

the new bridge is entitled "shine on."...takes you from the airplane singing other side of this life through the genies "springtime" to floyd's "shine on" and ending with rocks's "spiritual #10."

at night...

at night watching lousy television...whose landscape is it anyway?...

the new show

videopoemtv...experimental televsion...based on aesthetics...we welcome your comments...in the night...still, listening to the lies of corporate tv...no mention of biodiesel fuel...no talk of impeachment of George Bush...up the dial, sex...down the dial, violence...5 versions of law an order...four of csi miami...have you had enough?...