Hermit d' Frag - For Don Van Vliet

Hermit d' Frag - For Don Van Vliet - 

Im gonna make a gumbo
Then Im gonna lay low

might even make a sofa chair
from the purple plush of a merc montclair

going to drive up to palomar
going to lay low
jabber with sal mineo
make some righteous gumbo.

Stasiland confidential

In the era of the Stasi there was an overarching NSA style apparatus. Projections  were mainly of 'grays and dour greens.' Citizen informants were networked nodes. These were the browser cookies of the time. But they were embedded not in a browser but in a physical world. This was when humans were computers, or computers were humans, have it as you will. It may have been an apex of sorts, though "the jury is still out." The platform as you might say was East Germany, or GDR  (1946-1990). Then and there was created an internet of spies, detecting on their neighbors – on each other – with fault tolerance, high availability and cyclical redundancy checking. Psychological Zesetung, or Brainwave Decomposition, was a common application type. There were 8 Stasi agents for every 5 citizens. Today the file of the concern is available on the world wide zeb. The Stasi Records Agency (BStU) is responsible for making the records of the State Security Service of the former GDR accessible to the public. Every individual has the right to request to view his own personal file. There are files on Michael Jackson.  In 1954, Angela Merkel was born in the West but soon her family moved into Stasiland. Her pater was a Lutheran minister, which made young Angela and outsider in an outside land. Her family's ability to visit the West made her father's connections suspect. Her grade in compulsory Marxist-Lentilist education was 'sufficient – or passing'  (making her a student much like me-oh!) One day Merkel became presient of reunified Germany. When she discovered the U.S. N.S.A. was tapping her cell phone, a slew of 'grays and dour greens' danced in her momentarily fevered and dizzy field of vision.

RENAISSANCE FUNNIES 1

I.

IN THE DAYS OF PIERRE DELLA FRANCESCA, SAYS THE TIMES, THE COSMOLOGIES OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION WERE STILL RECONCILABLE. A BIG LAND SUB LIKE A TROJAN HORSE OR A WIENER MOBILE WOULD TRAVERSE THE TOWNS DRIVEN BY SCIENTISTS AND PRIESTS BOTH.

Hull Gumbo Variations at Kingston Gallery

Jeff Hull Gumbo variations | 450 Harrison Ave #43 Boston MA 02118 Kingston Gallery (call for times 617.423.4113) Click to access a brief film of Hull's  drawings.

Now a message...

There were a couple of good  'poetry-inspired' commls a few years ago.. then it became a rote meme - blah and destroyer of poesy. I think with this Super Bowl Commercial, Great Muse Bob Dylan took back the metre! Yeah, again, Bob !

Elvis was riding his last summer

Elvis was riding his last summer

in limousine

through Madison Wisconsin

and on a corner

he saw two high school kids

fighting.

he said 'stop the car'

got out

put up his fists

threw some karate fakes
and he said c'mon

i'll take you both on.

they looked at him

a king robed in splendor

they couldn't consider it

they couldn't hit

Elvis.

so he says 

see!

there's no need to fight!

now shake hands.

i got a show tonight. 

-Jack Vaughan, 1977

When I was visiting my old home town of Racine, Wis. in the summer of 1977, I was standing on Main St one night with some friends, and one tells me the recent story of Elvis, in Madison, stopping a street fight. Maybe a month later on a similar summer night in Eureka Calif (Robert Cray and Albert Collins were playing), again with Wisconsin friends, there came the word that Elvis died. Somewhere along the way I started writing this poem. I was looking for a picture of Elvis in limo and actually found a reference to this incident, which, for all I knew, was urban myth. Pop culture and myth were what the poem was about. Elvis was bigger than Gilgamesh - and this story was a viral thing on a street corner to me.. Little did I know but it was to be 'retold many times' in multiple biographies. Anyway, it's out there now.

A superbowl half time dream I dreamed again

A superbowl half time dream I dreamed Oh boy Lord buckeley Horray for snodgrass It was great! Im doing a review of the alternative super bowl half time show It dint happen But god There they were The big rodeo cowboys came in It was such a gas There were the boggs There was The street singers rube wadell and Trudell pitched in too – john trudell with the whole sick crew With kevin costner playing the part of rube in a graveyard of odd shaped footballs Hitting flyballs to britney spears Where Mouths were agape How would they react to leonard cohen in fact? When he started doing sail on ship of state america And that world wearniness kicked in like a zamboni driver on a cake It just grew and grew up from the lungs And all the particpants were wondering some Katos were flying and the holy modals sang ah lordy my man And then came the South Mississippi All Star Marching Band With the North Mississipi All Stars too Their knees pumping Their heads rocking In unison in lines doing Alabama jubilee! There was some heckofagood Advertisments But we will never forget John sinclair Paying tribute to houston stackhouse Blind lemon jefferson played by refrigerator perry At the super bowl half time show that I want to see It was in a hopper and on the fence Some may say director scorcese’s direction was Over tHe top and too much self referential but what do they know I’d say nay save for the segment with irish coffins uploading at a civil war port Yes that drew A few Boos Heck it was too frigging funny But robert deniros apearance as the boxer jake la motta again with britany spears in tow While the slim whitman (see below) float’s chorttle began to waft The love song of the waterfall that beat the martians

That stuff Qualmed the crowd With Eye candy for the ear Beyonce upon The genetic engineering float With espn ticker playing infuries laterally A sculpture of Rosalind frankilin aboard as well Made completely of tawainese styrofoam Singing on the float a message to you ruthie the reconstituted specials fronted by shane macgown and millie small backed further by the horns of the skatellites Da-da-dat-da-dat-da Da-da-dada-lat. - Jack Vaughan 2005
Being at - the alternate superbowl halftime show