R.I.P. Frohnmayer

The former U of O President indirectly influenced me when he was Oregon Atty Gen in the 1980s.

My play Christmas At The Juniper Tavern was widely assumed to be a satire about the Rajneesh in Oregon. In fact, it was an expansion of my one act The Death of Teng Yen-feng, written long before the ashram in Oregon. But no one believed me.

We had a mole in rehearsal! A week before opening, a Rajneesh attorney wrote the theater with plans to sue if we opened - and had specific quotations from script to make their case of defamation. How in hell did they get a script? The ploy was ridiculous - but almost worked. An actress single mother on food stamps got scared and was ready to quit, crashing the play. But Frohnmayer came to the rescue, offering to rep everyone free if it went forward. The Oregon Atty Gen took a stand!

We opened and no suit. A mega hit that went to public TV - and no suit.
Frohnmayer probably saved the play, the biggest hit of my career at the time.

Opinions are like assholes ...

... everybody has one.

Science in an Age of Opinion: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Truthdig/~3/JMhP2XX9LVQ/

Idiots of the day

Republicans Propose Dress Code For Obama Daughters : http://crooksandliars.com/2015/03/republicans-propose-dress-code-obama

Body Art

Body Art

my dad was just a kid
lying to join the Navy at 16
escaping the paper mill in NJ

just a kid sent to China
in the 1930s before revolution
seeing so much poverty he later
endorsed communism as improvement

just a kid who one night
probably drunk though he never said
put a large tattoo on each bicep
which he regretted the rest of his life

and so I grew up to a litany
on the idiocy of body art
and it's no wonder I find tattoos
distasteful to this day

which makes watching basketball
a challenging experience
when so many illustrated men
and illustrated women
are playing the game

and I keep envisioning how ugly
their body art will become
on old shriveled skin

why don't they just use decals
if their fragile egos need
a fashion statement?

but it's a fruitless question
just pointing out how much
the culture has changed
and how out of place I've become
without body art

and with an unfashionable propensity
to ride "the fiery chariot
of his contemplative thought"
even into the sunset

R.I.P.

Melt down

Long overdue ... now for a battery charge ... lobotomy ... gift from the gods ...
.

O brave new world ...

Neuroscientists successfully implant memories into sleeping mice: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheRawStory/~3/OZSOlSgUHkg/

Isn't this just great?

Perspective

How sad I have to sit here alone at two in the morning to find a little peace and quiet in this world.

First take

Good vibes with agent ... he will make proposal this week. He suggests selling sooner rather than later because we're in a seller's market. Tick tock.

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Confession

for many years
I looked forward
to old age
as peaceful, mellow
having no idea
how unsettled
how stressful
how disruptive
it would be

yet another example
of my failure
to see things clearly

will I never learn?

posted from Bloggeroid

Big day, too much so

First meeting with a real estate agent ... boxes for vets to haul out to end of driveway ... get serious about taxes ... entertainment, try to shoo away stress ... lawn work with midweek rain coming ... help H on a couple things, SI copies, drivers license hoops ... whatever happened to a peaceful retirement?

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American mythology

The Myth Destroying America: Why Social Mobility Is Beyond Ordinary People’s Control: http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/86584894/0/alternet~The-Myth-Destroying-America-Why-Social-Mobility-Is-Beyond-Ordinary-People%e2%80%99s-Control

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Mind your own damn business

Fox News host suggests taking own life is a ‘cowardly plan’ for terminal cancer patient: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheRawStory/~3/1mCQqojjs8k/

posted from Bloggeroid

Skills

Maybe I'm not so hot mowing any more but I still bake a great loaf of bread ... rye out of the oven, trying cracked rye flour.

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Mowing the yard

In the past I've looked forward to taking out my classic reel mower each spring and pushing it around the yard. Almost something Americana about it. The sound, the smell. Loved it.

This year it feels like work. I avoid it. Old age, I guess.

posted from Bloggeroid

Two films

"Harvest of Empire" & "Dirty Wars" Among Films Honored by American Library Association: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/democracynow/hVoT/~3/1QY1qEfQ9ZA/harvest_of_empire_dirty_wars_among

The good fight

Fifty Years After Bloody Sunday in Selma, Everything and Nothing Has Changed: http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/86590158/0/alternet~Fifty-Years-After-Bloody-Sunday-in-Selma-Everything-and-Nothing-Has-Changed

Happy?

The Happiness Conspiracy: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121242/enforced-idiot-optimism-worse-rational-pessimism

What a fun upset!

Belmont is a collection of 3-pt shooting fools. They hit 15 and upset a better team, Murray State, by a point, with the first ticket to the Big Dance.

SI cover

Mellow!

Is there a more mellow sport than baseball? The last slow dance, I called it in NW Mag 40+ years ago. Listening to Mariners and loving it.

Yard wotk later. Sigh. Getting too lazy for it.

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Computer puts Mariners in WS

Hey,

Check out this Mariners article:

http://is.gd/gJMtea

(Sent via Seattle Baseball News for Android by ZenMobi - http://zenmobi.com)

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Greensboro Coliseum

Watching ACC women's tourny ... court in huge complex that includes a theater space, where a play of mine was done in 1980s. They flew me in for a week, talks at three colleges, treated like a bigshot. My first "tourist" request - not the civil rights five and dime, not the O Henry house - the basketball court! The male actors loved it and we partied together.

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Mariners bats coming alive this season?

Check out this Mariners article:

http://is.gd/cGvfzG

(Sent via Seattle Baseball News for Android by ZenMobi - http://zenmobi.com)

posted from Bloggeroid

Perfection

awake at the darkest
hour of the morning
I send my thoughts
far back in time
to another hour

a woman beside me
stirs and enters
the vast silence
of the universe

and together
half asleep
we make slow
and comfortable love

without language
without personality
perfect

(I wish I comprehended
this at the time)

posted from Bloggeroid

Hmm

A New Kind of Mental Disturbance? Drone Pilots Are Quitting in Droves: http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/86458612/0/alternet~A-New-Kind-of-Mental-Disturbance-Drone-Pilots-Are-Quitting-in-Droves

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Doesn't surprise me

American College Students Spend Less Time on Academic Pursuits Than All But One European Country: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121234/americas-college-students-are-graduating-unprepared

posted from Bloggeroid

Tournament time

Many women's bball tournaments in action, more choices than I've ever had, but short on west coast teams. But I'll find something. And track and field finals ahead.

Alienation

the older I get
the less I engage
the world at large

too much noise
too much commotion
too much atrocity

I prefer stillness
I prefer silence
I prefer myself

if my friends were alive
we'd laugh together
at so much absurdity

but I outlived them
and must laugh alone
not the same thing

I make great effort
to distract myself
from "nightscape in empire"

with Homer and Mailer
Shastakovich and Brahms
track and baseball

anything to drown out
the constant barrage
of bad news, worse news

the older I get
the less I engage
the world at large

----

"nightscape in empire" comes from a poem by Terry Simons

posted from Bloggeroid

Race

From Crispus Attucks to Michael Brown: Race and Revolution: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Truthdig/~3/mw80IsMcS3c/

Americans flip out

Here are 9 social panics that gripped America, were totally false, and did lasting damage: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheRawStory/~3/YMuw8Vdn2r8/

Sports

ACC women's bball tourny on K Fire TV, no sound; Mariners game on K Fire tablet, audio. Not a bad way to go.

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Seattle Mariners

First spring game on tablet/radio!

Harriet's adopted son ...

... made the cover of Sports Illustrated!

http://www.si.com/nba/2015/03/04/wilt-chamberlain-aaron-levi-a-giant-shadow-son-secret

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Icing

I heard from two of my former grad students on the same day! Makes for nice moments. I like to see them doing well.

Two tributes

http://whitepantiesanddeadfriends.blogspot.com/2010/06/poet-bill-deemer.html

http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/in-zen-manner-bill-deemer.html

Birthday wish

For his 70th birthday this week, my brother has asked me to delete all his poems from my blog. I think it's important to honor a request like this. Not sure I can find them all. And his published poems are scattered so widely in used book outlets, no way he can erase the record of his considerable art. James Otis destroyed his life's work and the man John Adams called the First Patriot is forgotten by most but not by scholars.

I want one

Fear of a Radical Pope: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121168/pope-francis-conservatives-battle-us-catholic-churchs-future

Landscapes

Landscapes

waking from a nightmare
filled with usual demons

I turn on BBC news
to find ironic relief

the horror here and now
far worse than dreams

nothing in dreams compares
to modern human butchery

and whoever thought demons
would be welcomed as comfort?

NCAAW: Oregon upsets Stanford

Shocking win for the 11-16 Ducks.

Chores!

Home alone much of the day, which makes for catching up time: packing, banking, cooking, cutting grass, paperwork, with a backdrop of small time sports when inside. Look forward to it!

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