THE ULA CRITIQUE

independent underground Poetry breach the social contract in a big way

2009-06-06T16:30:00.006-04:00

FROM, POETIC ARTS PERFORMANCE PROJECT W/

THE IRREPRESSIBLE
SKRAPPY LA CROIX HAS IT BOTH WAYS

BESIDES: THE LAST WORD FREE EVERY THURSDAY AT ART NOIR, GALLERY, 7175 OGONTZ AVE

Rippered from the pages of LETTERHEAD2 : CHRISTOPHER ROBINS' Western poetry wire-wash section preface/ manifesto!

2009-05-24T00:26:00.010-04:00

The

West-Coast

Poetry Scene

The West-Coast writers I chose for this issue all have different backgrounds and writing

styles, but I believe they often share a common theme—keeping poetry socially relevant

while never finding it necessary to be overtly political. Though it is certainly hard to

generalize, since among this California group of writers are teachers, social workers,

performance artists, community activists, linguists, film makers, playwrights, musicians,

actors, crafts makers (and the list goes on), as a community, we are determined to make

our voices heard (in a society that has relegated poetry to the lowest form of art), and we

possess the open-mindedness to share criticism as well as ink: editing, writing reviews,

publishing each others books, etc.

In 2003, Nicole Henares, a San Francisco high school English teacher and writer of short

stories and poetry, introduced me to many of these writers, though as synchronicity

would have it, a few of us had known each other through the mail for many years prior to

this. In the summer of 2004, she chose a group of us to read at the North Beach Festival

in San Francisco, on the poetry stage that had been in existence there for nearly fifty

years. Though there were many established and well-known poets performing that day,

many of us, myself included, had never performed on stage before. On the second day of

performances, the microphone was unexpectedly cut off by the police due to complaints

from nearby vendors over “obscenity” (probably in part due to some very graphic and

comedic poems about the human experience by Oakland poet Joe Pachinko and some

incendiary anti-war poems by local poet Jack Hirschman). Needless to say, even without

the public address system, our group of Santa Cruz and Bay Area poets continued to read

to a fired-up crowd. It was then I realized that poetry in the twenty-first century can still

be a relevant, threatening, and enlightening tool for speaking the truth about our

neighborhoods, the ongoing war, and our economic struggles.

Later that year, along with Brian Morrisey (a Santa Cruz transplant from the East Coast,

and the publisher of Poesy), I started a weekly reading called the Wired Wash Open Mic

in a local coffeehouse/laundromat. He and I invited poets from Santa Cruz, as well as

from the Bay Area, to feature once a month. Eventually, poets came from as far away as

the East Coast and the Midwest for the paltry sum of twenty dollars for gas money, an

opportunity to sell their books, and all the wine they could drink at either my house or

Brian’s following the reading.

Over the years, the Wired Wash venue became a haven for street people, musicians,

academics, storytellers, college students, punk rockers, and local characters; and our

patrons ranged in age from seven to eighty-nine. Through technical difficulties, the

cacophony of espresso making and spinning washing machines, unexpected closings,

police patrols, blackouts, fist fights, high staff turnover, chaos, and magic, the Wired

Wash persevered for four years until it closed in June 2008 (when someone allegedly ran

off with the rent money).

Over the last five years, many of us have lectured on zines and small magazines in

schools, attended small press festivals, hosted and performed in readings in San

Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Los Angeles, New Mexico, and even Las Vegas, been

featured on cable access TV and pirate radio, and produced spoken word CDs and poetry

DVDs, all the while sharing resources from Northern to Southern California and keeping

the news of our efforts alive through email, snail mail, telephone, and chance meetings in

downtown Santa Cruz.

I hope you enjoy the following selection of poetry and visual work from the underground

poets of California’s west coast…

–Christopher Robin/Zen Baby

Daydreaming Past the Exits

Those days cold and bitter in the city

when they cut off my dental

and she couldn’t get a job

those days of nicotine relief and huge belly laughs….

knowin’ our kid was probably retarded----

when my sis was in & out depressed---maybe on meth

when our favorite potheads nearly killed our cats-

when Pam died and I woke up at the Kern River

that was magic

I cried in the tent all night

not because of the ants----

I obsessed about the country/any country but mine/anything but this apartment

full of shimmering toys/ electrical excess /skull lights/clowns that went off

with no prompting/fart machines/the illusions/distractions/consume/consume….

I worried about scabies, staph infections, the swine flu, mental retardation…..

solar showers….composting toilets, did I have enough flashlights?

I played endless internet games, I played the anarchist fake

I stayed in bed----A LOT

I helped mother, played Scrabble on Saturday nights with my girlfriend

and ailing father

those were the days when we couldn’t tell the ruse or the fascism or the legit

is this it, the big one, martial law? what are we still doing in the city? why are you planning

a degree? do we have a future? are they closing the borders? why are we still here?

her: head buried in calculus book

me: head buried in internet games, lawsuits, lottery tickets

him: couldn’t shower couldn’t focus couldn’t learn

on the porch with cigarettes on a rare warm evening: “what’re we gonna do?! the kid’s a total liability!!!!”

oh precious laughter & vhs movies & country drives/abandoned houses/ghost towns/our trips south/our trips north/oh precious kisses/I didn’t know when I’d met her/she’d be my steady/my thinker/my rock/

unlovable criminal country/beautiful/beautiful girl

flooded with ideas but no concrete plans

endless stream of daily drama, letters and phone calls-

no real salvation

I want to make soap! I want you to whittle! how can invisible numbers carry us through a swine flu epidemic?

I want a dog/I want real weather/I want to be too cold/too hot/anything to feel

I knew I needed wheels & a lot of propane

I knew my camping skills would someday surpass my skills

at paying credit cards on time….

and that Starbucks was laying off workers

and it could only mean the end of civilization…..

the gunshots in my neighborhood real and the southern borders tight

I didn’t want to raise an astronaut

but a gang member either

I wanted to do more than sleep/ happy to get by/in a comfortable ruse…..

I surrounded myself in foolishness

all my business was suspect

but so were the headlines…..

as they raced to prophecy….

the animals evolving from benign creatures

into genetically engineered super-germ-monsters

I daydreamed past the last exit…. my coffee and bath running cold…

renlightenment: standing up, in Philly benefit and solidarity around artist and activist Anita King

2009-04-06T23:04:00.007-04:00

Rotunda covered all angles:geekgonzo supercedes old school punk

2009-03-14T20:42:00.016-04:00

Matters "SquidLing" does the machete ladder while Jelly boy talks the walk with genuine folk ballyhoo aplomb...

Ebony Collier was there one of genuine "new" poets of Philly come up in the Naughts, Devin D'Andrea, doing the SUPERCOIL was there holding down the fort for the redemption of all our mortal souls with the backing keyboard improv of WEST PHILTH PRODUCTIONS' Matt Broomfield, so was the amazing MY IMAGINARY BAND along with the passionate ST. SKRIBBLY LA CROIX, AND foxy SISTER BLU there were tones of samples to imbibe, the "goods" zeenes and metazines like AMERICAN DISSIDENT, THE SLUSH PILE, CITIZEN 32, LETTERHEAD I, THE IDIOM ANTHOLOGY, COVERT PRESS JOURNAL, THE COLLECTIVE PRESS, and a good sampling of the ULA/LITVISION PRESS line of books...

Mark Baird and JJ Petrolino III skold forth the "idiomatic" volcano!

Another complementary 7/8ths profile from the editor and publisher of the Anthology

Steve McNamara lays into the Poetry whore muse.....
King Wenclas bangs out Totem and Taboo to the concern of the poetry police
Mark again with a piece of his mind intact and dangerous...

Shaun Terreri aka "Alabaster" breaks a movement body language not just mere words...

Rebecca cuts the strings as the "Matriot" transforms literally time and space...

Play this over and over until you can here what our parents and grandparents heard over the racket of the traveling circus midways

A team, Eric and Betty Bloomerz, worth the price of admission tho the Rotunda show was generously open and free to the public which came in droves throughout the evening. The aspect that made it all worth while was the mix and diversity of ages, the relative sobriety of the student rovers, but most of all the number of ethnic Philadelphians of colour and their families including kids that stopped in... and stepped out. Real populist audiences for real underground literature and arts...

New sweet package "long poem" rant from J.J. Petrolino III, published by ULAer Mark Brunetti "Baird"

2009-03-11T20:25:00.007-04:00

Inside- pocket "trade paper" back book neo-beat epic by John Petrolino published by ULAer Mark Brunetti under his Piscataway House Publishing "side project" but notedly beholding to the Idiom Magazine brand, with a cool catchy forward by Mark, and ordering info as follows go to www.idiommag.com for the secret handshake or P.O Box 1102 Jackson, N.J. 08527, or right to JJ his lonesome at PO Box 353, Middleton, N.J. 07748; Printed by Mirror Image America beautifully close to if not at typeset quality, perfect bound, 60 pp. $? but this purviewer nearly stole it for 5 bucks, table side at the incredible action reading/ side show enhances/ performance art possession by gonzo mondo whereas the ULA presented the Idiom Mag Anthology Break Thru "party" venue, 4014 Walnut the whole of West Philly sounded like it was going nuts probably as Spring Break broke loose and the, coincidentally the big Beer Fest was crashing the barricades. On the inside besides all the great performances and lit- freaks rocked the stage for a sizable and ever changing attending audience for which at the Rotunda this past Saturday while outside the inclusive most excelentinsugencyPetrolino shone as one of the poetic highlights, not to mention The Idiom/ Walking English working Volcano setting the Rotunda's fire alarm system akimbo ( our hearts as always, go out to Gina Renzai!) and provoking the heroic theatrical entrance of the Philly Fire Department, replete with axes, upon the main stage, for a brief but exciting shtick!

This poem is good old fashioned crazed beatnik litany gaff of a open wide eyes subject riding the long breath of the collective American mind about none- other than America and covers open armed what we should be doing at all times besides remembering where we came from and might feel like going to and that is getting away with everything we can by way of mouth, heart, sensibility, and genitals, together or hiding behind the dive bar alone in the fizzing fluorescence that is the A-dream we'd imagine or just poke around in our brains, and even our livers should the pursuit of happiness trip us up in that manner. And free associative fantasy.

As a litany or what some might call the laundry list school of composition (never disparagingly) there are somewhat durations that may become monotonous but Petrolino reves up and going at it catches his breath at the hint of that skillfully and gets the reader going again too with renewed interest by hitting us with, time and time again, in beautifully composed complexes of images and sound effects affecting our sense and especially our sense of just about everything that may shock, taunt, and maybe tickle the fancy of the American literate reader/writer, leading them on, daring them to test the freedoms and liberties we may have been told about in school or by the talking heads but too much take for granted.

So, genuinely, Congo Lights is a book to read for now, with all the lines drawn and the belief systems collapsing let alone the economy, so called,
A kind of Anarchist Cookbook in Whitmanesque vers libre--- hey, after all it's New Jersey!--
that guides the guile-less observer toward irrevocable acts of civil and political and hygienic individualisms...
gestures of subversive but constitutionally protected by the merchant marine!

Steve Henn's new zine outta Albany plus more good graces of Christopher Robin and ZB

2009-02-17T20:19:00.009-05:00

Received a packet--- pure crack jax box but with a number of secret surprises inside-- from underground prodigy ULAer Christopher Robin of Zen Baby fame with this ‘zine therein-- at a magical moment of some import. I had been knocked for a loop by the most recent love interest (in fact the first in many years ) in my sorry life and (luckily) for me the young creature was on her way back to her parents’ house in the Shenandoah foothills of the Carolinas. When I yanked this ‘zine out of Christopher’s CARE- package the resemblance of the cover to countenance of my aforementioned infatuation calmed my troubled heart which had the additional effect of reminding me how indebted I am to the “glorified nobody” for consistently putting the underground literary fire to my feet.

POPULAR REALITY, SPECIAL REPORT. P.O. Box 66426, Albany, NY. 12206

Henn publisher provocateur . $3.00.

A cheap even rickety “traditional “zine’ out of the post-industrial rust belt upper state New York does what it does unabashedly and will suceed in raising the spirits if not the hackles of the underemployed minimum wage Darma bum. Better than television by a long shot. American idol, “Lost” and many of the talking head pseudo- science journalism “news” shows swamping the air-waves of these end-times are the paradigms herein superceded. Cases in point follow from cover to cover which domain must occlude the front cover which might be considered obscene, approximately dirty if it weren’t so deliciously ridiculous.

Surreal news “articles” like “Christ Kills Two, Injuries Seven In Abortion- clinic Attack”, a report from Pine Tree State Mind Control, a lovely and provocative MySpace Survey from none-other than Misti Rainwater-Lites that is worth at least three bucks.

Reprints of old and recent news articles from the vague past as well as the sorry-ass present: what really caught my attention for obvious reason was the derive tweaked “MOTHER SUES AFTER LEARNING CITY GAVE SLAIN SON’S BRAIN TO PENN”.

The longer “feature-op ed like assays ans analyses into the heart of ridiculous darkness such as pieces by Boram, The Refrigerator’s Ritual Infection I by Nadine Halley, Hope For Homos, and then again the longer pieces that may be best described as non-non fiction to the order on the order of, “The Suicide Of Everyday Life, a wage slave dreams by Lee Reiherzer, and “We Are Scientists” the state of shit, were especially poignant. But over all this crazy “zeen” is not only touching to certain prevalent mentally disturbed types but definitely “touched” all by its lonesome.

FDW. West Philly. 2/22/09.

Bruce Isaacson, DUMBSTRUCK AT THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY, 2008.

Zeitgeist Press, 96pp.perfect-bound. soft cover book. 12.95 US

Reviewed by FDW, ULA.

Nice guy spoils himself with the writing poetry and turns into a pretty cool writer of poems.

The writing is worth reading and keeping to read again the narrative vignettes grow on one particularly.

Also worth getting to get a handle of what kind of literary action is out there in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Isaacson and his family reside as one may wonder about such things whenever Las Vegas is brought up for the usual reasons in a conversation. Special attention should be paid to the prose-poem, "The Old Poet" which entertains

a viable folkloric story thread about what might easily be an American archetypal apprehension regarding the poet as mythopoeia figure. With extreme insight.

Parabolic for the people and having a subtly disturbing Gothic edge that underscores Isaacson's Yankee culture and higher education. "Teenage" is very representive

of this ambience.

DUMBSTRUCK is damn- straight and righton solid stuff. Often in these without exception interestingly titles poems, the humor and the sight gags may seem a bit deliberated and irksome to one but not really as the reader will be rewarded for their patience after seeing through the poem. The good spirit that directs the angle of incidence and the warmth of the bread at hand consistently make the experience worthwhile. Tho some of the shorter poems may seem like cloying ploys, but so what. The whole book vibrates with competents and the certainly that is rooted in an actual creative competence and fortitude and many of the shorter pieces act as rest stops to give the reader an opportunity to cool down between the "heavier" swinging more expansive compositions. Here is roving organic poetries, good solid vers livre/libre-- spring board off of what Aldington (1915) declares, "We fight for its [vers livre ] as for a principle of liberty." -- good examples here: "Blood Sugar Blues", "Going Back To Brenda" are worth every second and the savor of each with an easy seamless flow and emotional rewards that are the reason we read if not write poetry, To begin with.

Tracking the wave of the most effective and representive, "How Are You Doing", p12 and the incredible "Carousel", pp. 14-17, placing the theme ("theme" because there's a dialectical or two) succinctly riding the crest of emotional import, a human one a deeply humane one in situations we may have guessed at-- before coming to Isaacson's book-- in the actual world, including business, of relationships, and more.

Steve Henn, THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY WARSAW COMMUNITY COMMEMORATIVE BOOK BURNING,

Pudding House Chapbook Series, Pudding House Publications, Columbus, OH. quarto-sized chapbook

(2007) staple-bound, 32pp.

A sweet and oft powerful tome of advocacy and advocacy and witnessing,

whereas the title poem is a fine piece of madness.

Notice: this poetry is important for people who neither like for reasons that are moral as they claim poetry nor read the oracular art as well, as those who do and do, because these poems are to a piece significant swan songs for the domineering News and of the contemporaneous truth of underground lit. And fun as Hell and as sharp to partake.

This Henn cat has a chip on his shoulder and never far off the mark his every fiber refuses the chip the Power tries to put into his poets' head. Maybe because it's there in black and white on the cover and reiterated within this too slender chap, the mention of Ambrose Bierce sold me on wanting to write this up beat review. That and the fact that Christopher sent me a free review copy. Seriously this some the best most worth while and surreally humoress array of outsider poetry this one has had the pleasure to peruse so far ao good this year. This poetry speaks for itself not from a soapbox or podium but from the stage of stand-up and vaudeville cut-ups of what most gets under the skin of a reader of American poetry these days. Or imbibe of slam for that matter. Good stuff for peanuts at ten bucks.

".. fifteen minutes of scraping ice, take

the wife's, the boss bitching

'bout twenty minute late,..." --- "REALTY TV". A most excellent and pleasant word play but at hip-hop speed! "Royal Rumble: Gay Pride Parade And Klan Demonstration", is a excellent low down yellow journalismo a la fin de siecle but as funny as the Marx Brothers. Also plus plus to checking out "How To Turn Yourself

Into A Stalker ", screwball purple-prose socked into a fluorescent straight jacket of wham- bam verse. See these poems as just plumb good advice in the form of a quick fix manual of blue-prints and still every inch a book of poetry.

Brian VanRemmen, THE OPTIMIST, Hip Pocket Books. Buffalo, New York. (2007) w/ a preface by Brian McMahon. tough soft-cover, perfect-bound taped-

spine, pocket digest-book, with twenty-one ct. 4-color collage/montage most with 'texte'. 100pp.

A note on the title- frontispiece indicates these poems were writ in DC.

Takes kindly from life at first at least in the first half of this well put together compact book withdrawn but happily disaffected and then kicking and

screaming with optimal affect in the second half. The Trimania 2005 gathering of Buffalo artist and poets is cited as pivotal to the organization and context of the THE OPTIMIST . Influences besides comrade Hip Pocket notables, Johnt, Poerhn and McMahon are and evidenced in the faculties of the poet as well. There's besides

the important influences of Jack Spicer, WCW, and Kerouac and "confessional" influence via Robert Lowell informed by real personal history.

Negative capability snaps into action-ventures in the winding and unwinding of great representative pieces such as: "Thru The Trapdoor". Most successful

are Robert Duncan-esque, less Creeley-esque, are "Final Friday" and the sharp journalese of pp. 67 through 71, and pp. 55-59.

VanRemmen when opening up to composition by 'field' should allow and just leave well enough go of adjective or adverb or connective conjunction as these kinds of words naturally tend to fall away and fray at the edges of such compositions. "The Poison Apartment" and "The Relapse" for example would benefit.

The Creeley influenced segues are good for domestic and closet dramas but VanRemmen might be better advised to be more sensitive to the fact that resistance becomes friction unless the proven failures of an admitted master be purged from the work of the student at some point the sooner the better in the development of that student's self sufficient "voice". Where this self - management directive is apparently working is when VanRemmen

like an alchemist engages diverse raw material at his command, a true bricoleur. The stuff of Constuctivism's (Russian Futurism, i.e.), namely, "phrasical verse" (sorta like the 'samplings' of our hip hop rap dj brethren and sisters?), branded texte, emails, mixed stencil-typography, over all shifts in confabulated emphasis, etc. So that the willing reader is enabled to intensively drift along these intersections and alternative routes of VanRemmen's heart and mind. Retro (because essentially radical subjective extrapolations from none other than the American confessional school) Futurist, since a lot of the work here is composed with "free" disassociative associations violent but not agressively so (in other words 'fun"), praxis, nexus, and loci of the perception in turn personal memory. Also visionary, visuals like in "Cradle Of America", "Note From The Verge". Day dreaming/day tripping out side and inside, "Eternal Sequence Of Rt. 23A", "Love Among The Ruins" again algebraic'ly not mathematically calculated arrangements.

The foot-loose 'uncouth' savor suggestive of spontaneity will attract the reading/writing public and overall underground while flaming the ill-literate company poets and Establishment fakes. Bravo, Brian, on an achievement well-tempered.

Flash from European tour, KellyWH#, Oasis 1st Friday, calls frmo CPMag/Chris Robin, NAD, The Am. Dissident Winter Issue,

2009-01-04T23:20:00.001-05:00

Update: from Eric "Jelly-Boy The Clown"

eric broomfield

to me

show details 8:31 AM (14 hours ago)

great poem frank.
[ the poem he is referring to is this year's annual Candlemas incidental 3 part verse, IMBOLC which will be published by Mike Grover's online e-zine Covert Poetics' Journal, #5 ]

we are alive!

How are things at the house with Kali and any one that might come around

How is wig wom

Betty and I are in berlin right now we just got off the bus and fairie from london
Matt and charlean are in spain.

there are so many stories to tell and things we have learned.

cant wait to see you next week

Jelly boy the clown

also see Punk-Saint Tim "Tiger" Dunn's notice of First Friday Art Show at the A-SPACE on Baltimore Ave, next to the Mariposa Food Cooperative, below!

VVVVVVVVVVVVVV VVVVVVVVVV VVVVVVV

Here's a prime one from our ULA trailblazers and and an exchange twixt most Jelly- Boy and Andrew Lovatt, ex-pat Irish Diviner and chief ed. of the most excellent DeadDrunkDublin.com and some good pointers per the realty of Dublin arts nd performance cultural underground:

matthew broomfield

to me

show details Jan 25 (6 days ago)

Nice one on the post Frank.

Hello ULAers who are out there

Be on the look out for Pete Missing from Berlin via NYC

Petemissing.com

we perfomed at the Kranenhouse, an old age home turned into a community center contracted squat, in Crouch End London last night for an overpacked party. beer, vodka, ketamine, blouks and the like. Unholy Sideshow was screened all night in a side cinema hospital room.

Wicked basement and rooftop. large surround walled in field. a group of young thug crouchenders started a fight, trying to break in through a window in one of the living area wings which was the backstage. we climed the walls onto the parked vans jumped down and created a wall. joing the other squaters below. squaters vs. crouchenders. all was handled without the squaters throwing a punch but getting punched. formed a line and sent them backwards.

the crowd was tough and cheeky. but the sideshow thrilled them into a frenzy. we performed a long and brutal show. pulling out all the stops. sparing no expense.

on tuesday we head back to amsterdam for two more shows. a brief parting, sharleen and I go to spain. roc, jelly and betty to ireland or straight to berlin. we all meet in berlin for two more shows and our parting party. fly from berlin to london. stay in the airport for a few our hours and fly to NYC. back to the states.

much to discuss about the position of america in the UK and in Europe on our return. please give me some info about the home front.

meta mita

matters

From: Andrew Lovatt <editor@deaddrunkdublin.com>

Date: 26 January 2009 10:46:05 GMT

To: jellyboy_theclown@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: getting to ireland

Hi JellyBoy,

Yep, I know you're a performance act - and your explanation of fit with headline bands is a good one! You have Derek Nally's email - so let me know if he bites (with interest even). Very pleased to here London is starting to treat you right. I wudda thought... I mean they like to party and they sure like something different.

Listen - long time ago, but still true I think, the best experimental bands/acts would turn up at St Martins Art College, Ealing Art College - basically any of the art college scenes. If you haven't heard about them yet, see if you can do a web search and come up with some contacts. The folks in the art colleges could become your strongest evangelists. A lot of the punk and art bands from the 80s started on the art college circuit. They're a natural for your antic play, get it right away and should groove into it.

Lemme know how it goes! If there's any follow up needed with Derek let me know also & I'll pursue.

Andrew

On 25 Jan 2009, at 17:40, eric broomfield wrote:

things are much better in london. we did a smashing party last night at a squat and are doing anouther next saturday as well as going to amsterdam for two shows thursday and friday. things are looking up. did and watched some street shows here in london. the most important thing you need to know is that we are not a band. we are a circus side show with key boards and a sampler. the show is comedy and stunts and audience interaction. we would fit with any band that had a draw or just be interesting because we are circus wierdoes.

I will contact who you say and we will see what we can mannage.

jelly boy the clown
--- On Sat, 1/24/09, Andrew Lovatt <editor@deaddrunkdublin.com> wrote:

From: Andrew Lovatt <editor@deaddrunkdublin.com>
Subject: Re: getting to ireland
To: jellyboy_theclown@yahoo.com
Date: Saturday, January 24, 2009, 8:38 AM

Hi JellyBoy,

Just got off the phone with Derek Nally, who handles Whelan's bookings. A good fellow, the razor was quick & as painless as poss - he said it straight: it's impossible to get the audience if the band aren't known in Ireland. It takes radio play, press and posters - like a whole campaign. Even the few underground scenes would find it hard - they usually ask the band to sell X number of tix themselves. He asked "do they have a record label?" That seems to make a small diff. Some indi labels carry an audience with them.

All the same, Derek liked the sound of you - as best I put it - and I've sent him a mail -- current email addy) as he would like to have a look & listen. He may email back some other ideas, but right now I would say it is looking slim to thin ice. The scene over here is very small -- about one 50th the size of London. So if you're not breaking into playing n paying gigs there... I'm outta touch with London, but would have thought there were more anarchic art venues there. By contrast, here there ain't much underground like that. Philly would scare the be-Jesus out of most Dubs, or they'd dive right in (more likely). But getting anything like that going in Dublin doesn't look likely... yet.

Derek mentioned PitchforkMedia.com - if you know it or go have a look - which gives an idea of always-commercial edge prevailing in the Irish scene.

Lemme know how you fair in London - can't believe there isn't a spot for you there.

very best,

Andrew

On 22 Jan 2009, at 22:05, eric broomfield wrote:

So I called whelans and got a dial tone. We want to come to dublin the first few days of febuary. would you be able to make a call on our behalf?we have a show at the cheese factory in london january 31st. so sunday monday tuesday or wedsday would be good for us in Dublin. the first week end of febuary we are back in Berlin to do two or three more shows. any help would go a long way. we arent trying to make a lot of money eather, just trying to get there and off to the next spot. it would only be three of us as well. the other two are going to spain in that time. all we need is for someone to squeeze us into a spot or two.

please let me know as soon as you can.

Jelly boy the clown

--- On Sat, 1/17/09, Andrew Lovatt <editor@deaddrunkdublin.com> wrote:

From: Andrew Lovatt <editor@deaddrunkdublin.com>
Subject: Re: getting to ireland
To: jellyboy_theclown@yahoo.com
Date: Saturday, January 17, 2009, 9:57 AM

Hi Eric,

I'm snookered til the first week of Feb -- too much going on, that can't be avoided either. So I'm out of picture til then. Your best route is to phone Whelan's. I'll try get you some other numbers too. I say this 'cos I'm sure a lot of folks are slow to deal with email, whereas a phone call is right in their ear & you've got their attention. They can then go see your email and check out MySpace.

Let me know if you reach Whelan's. I'l try find you some more phone & emails.

How's London treating you? There should be lots of places to play there. It's a huge scene compared to hereabouts.

very best,

Andrew

On 17 Jan 2009, at 14:35, eric broomfield wrote:

hey Andrew. no one is responding to us from the dublin clubs. I don't know why. I realy want to go and meet you and see ireland. I don't know if you can help first hand. we should do a side show and a ULA reading together at a pub. we have no phone and are staying at a squat in london now. hope to hear from you soon.
Jelly boy the clown

--- On Wed, 1/14/09, Andrew Lovatt <editor@deaddrunkdublin.com> wrote:
From: Andrew Lovatt <editor@deaddrunkdublin.com>
Subject: Re: getting to ireland
To: jellyboy_theclown@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 7:57 AM

Hi Eric,

A friend here - who promotes punk music (mostly) - Frank Cronin, has given the name of contact at Whelan's. Browse

Do you know anyone at Whelan's? OR any idea who they might contact for gigs?

-Try Derek Nally,
either www.whelanslive.com or www.thevillagevenue.com

Been there and this is the info for BOOKINGS:

Whelans

25 Wexford Street

Dublin 2

General Enquiries

Venue Bookings

Leagues O'Toole

Derek Nally

Julie Cooper

Have a look at them on the web - both sites, and email Derek (you can say Frank Cronin passed you his contact). You can try call Derek on the main number, though he's likely not to be based there (judging from his email addy not being a Whelan's one) - but you could reach Julie Cooper most likely.

Let me know how goes!

very best

Andrew

THIS JUST IN FROM TIM DUNN AND THE A-SPACE GALLERY AND COMMUNITY CENTER! ::

tim dunn

to me

show details 10:21 AM (13 hours ago)

Hey Frank,
Thanks for keeping me aware of such happenings. I'M HOSTING AN OPENING AT A-SPACE ON FRIDAY.

[ Anarchist Community Space 4722 Baltimore Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19143 215-727-0882 leave msg a-space@defenestrator.org ]

MOSTLY ABSTRACT PAINTINGS BY JEAN-PAUL STANLEY.
STARTS AT 6PM. THERE'S A FUNNY NUDE WITH GREAT TEXTURE. IT LOOKS LIKE THERE'S THICK VEINS ON TH E THIGH OF THE FIGURE. I KNOW THE MODEL, TOO, SO I'LL PROBBLY TEASE HER, BUT NOT TOO HARD, 'CAUSE SHE'S GOT CANCER! BTW, I HAVE A CRAZY PERSON COMING IN FROM HAWAII W/ AN UNKNOWN MALE...Y'KNOW ANY PLACE THEY CAN STAY??
LOVE,
timmy

For the hungry and hep dedicated DYI, Kulchur Undergounders this just in from the reigning belle femme of the West Phildephia alternative arts' scene, CALI MILES CLARKE, with equally stunning Jess McKay Hummel, Anna Christie, Et al. an amazing open house of one of a kind arte-facts, underground games and call for live poetry (this ULAer will for one thing be reading his EAPoe- try and annual Candlemas verse.... ). Bring money and other valuables to buy and trade at this rad bazaar!::

Below the insightful and lit credible manifesto invitation on the verso of the above flyer by 'autist' Cali::

Here's a Philadelphia "First Friday" art and lit happening with an emphasis on a community's social-conscience, put forth by the good friends of the ULA at OASIS, a division of Philadelphia city's Department For Human Development, Lori Bartol and Pat Lyons, Dir. A good place to start yr. FF itinerary before heading up to GERM BOOKSTORE (independent purveyor of fine ULAPress books!)www.germbooks.com on Frankford Ave, to se their opening exhibit of authentic HEX signs :::

The Asian Arts Initiative and Oasis Arts and Education present: PORTRAITS IN EMOTION and SELF AS ANIMAL. An exhibition of two bodies of work completed in 2008 as a result of residencies with Philadelphia artists Deborah Caiola and Elisabeth Nickles through the Oasis Artist in Residence Program. This exhibition is presented as part of the pilot of the Asian Arts Initiative's Community Curators program.

Portraits In Emotion is an exhibition of paintings and texts. Led by resident artist Deborah Caiola, this exhibition brings together eleven Philadelphia artists who openly reflect upon personal experiences with mental illness and the process of art-making. Also on exhibtion is SELF AS ANIMAL. Oasis Artist in Residence Elisabeth Nickles along with six Oasis participants explore animal representations of the self in works on paper and in clay. Ms. Nickles reflects on the experience in working with this group of unique individuals through a series of six sculptures based on her interpretation of their perceived animal selves.

This exhibition will be presented at the Asian Arts Initiative, 1219 Vine Street, from February 6 through March 15, 2009. An opening reception will be held on First Friday, Feb. 6 from 5:30-7:30.

THE CURRENT ISSUE OF G. TODD SLONE'S THE AMERICAN DISSIDENT WHICH FEATURES POETRY BY DOUG DRAiME AND THE ULA'S FRANK WALSH... A MOST EXCELLENT AND IMPORTANT PUBLICATION THAT ANYONE WITH LITERARY DISSIDENT LEANINGS IS ENCOURAGED TO SUBSCRIBE TO!
CHOCK FULL OF PRIME SATIRE, HARD CORE REPORTS ON AND HEATED EXCHANGES WITH ESTABLISHMENT MAVENS AND BAMBOOZLERS.
GET WITH IT AND PAY THE PIPER!

http://www.theamericandissident.org/Subscribe.htm

Also, as a "scouted" (by GERM's David Williams via the ULA's Lisa Falour by way of Paris) copy of famous NYC undergound 'zinster ANGELO PASTORMELO'S new super odd and fascinating meta-zine/book, replete with plenty of great vintage photographs, HUBERT'S DIME MUSEUM & FLEA CIRCUS, AN UNDERGROUND HISTORY BY MORTY BUSHMASTER, is also in the hands of the ULA as evidenced below, get it or get square!::

http://www.vintagesleaze.com/books-reference-huberts.html

Below, main man of sideshow, Ward Hall, back cover of Angelo's break though publication::

right, the ominous shadow of MB at Coney Is.

http://www.vintagesleaze.com/books-reference-huberts.html

subtext: GERM is currently sporting a single copy of Lisa's BIKINI GIRL, one of the most famous and ground- breaking underground 'zines of all time!

Here's a great new "free" public literary service from the University Of Penn's Kelly Writers House, put it in yr. black books, check it out, take the plunge ::

215 746-7636

or: 215 746-POEM

Happy '09 from all of us at 3805 Locust Walk in Philadelphia. With the new year we launch another new project. Call the phone number above any day, at any time, and hear

1) what's happening tonight or very soon at the Writers House

2) highlights of upcoming events

3) a featured poem read at the Writers House, from our archives

4) a featured recording of Writers House-affiliated students

We urge all friends and fans of the Writers House to add this number - which we call "6-POEM" - to their contacts list, speed dial, and address book.

"What's happening" will be updated almost every day. The other features will be updated frequently.

Once again, best wishes for the new year,

- Al

Al Filreis

Kelly Professor

Faculty Dir., Kelly Writers House

Dir., Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing

University of Pennsylvania

A CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS PER AMERICA'S FAVORITE CUT UP AND UNDERGROUND SMALL PRESS REVIEWER, OF THE ONE AND ONLY ZEN BABY, ULAs christopher robin::

--- On Sat, 1/10/09, Scot Young <scotdyoung@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Scot Young <scotdyoung@gmail.com>
Subject: hey all this is a call
To: "Misti Rainwater-Lites" <ebulliencepress@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, January 10, 2009, 1:48 PM

hey friends
A.D. sent me a poem (actually) to a list to publish. So, with that in hand I have put up an online zine--Rusty Truck-- to publish the best poetry and flash from the best writers. I actually have been thinking about this for some time. I plan on doing a print version also, but that is just a plan right now. I will list a call for submissions at OW and some other sites, but I want to establish this as one of the best, so if you are so inclined I would love for you to send me something.submissions to

rustytruckzine@gmail.com

If you are able to post this call for submissions, let me know and I will send you the blurb--

my best
Scot Young http://rustytruck.wordpress.com/

Finally but not by any means least: MGD is calling for submission for CPJournal #5,
if your stuff is authentic genuine with a sense of social justice and polotically clinking but most is grounded in love and the religion of poetry by all means SUBMITT with the guidlines to one of the best hard core literary e and hard-copy underground literary endeavors of these our post-apocalyptic times::

Submission Guidelines

We don't care who you are.
We don't care who you know.
We don't care where you've been published.
We only want the best poetry out there.
We don't care if it's previously published,
Or if it's submited somewhere else.
It's not our Poem it is yours.
Send 4 or 5 poems to covert.poetics@gmail.com

THE SQUIDLING BROS.CIRCUS SIDESSHOW ULA/ULAPRESS PROPAGANDA IN TOW HEADS FOR EUROPE

2008-12-31T22:42:00.034-05:00

recent Email reports from the European Continent as the Alliance's enfant terribles Matt and Eric Broomfield and the rest of their performance arts troupe, Betty Bloomerz, the Penguin Boy, and Roc Rocket hit Amsterdam, Berlin, London, and Dublin, checking out rad independent bookstores emporiums and ex pat writers, the para- punk rock underground and squatters movement, without reservations...

MONDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 29TH, 3818 SPRING GARDEN STREET, PHOTO@FDW

eric broomfield

to me

show details Jan 5 (12 days ago)

Frank

Amsterdam was great fun, tell you all about it when we get back. we took the train to Berlin yesterday and are staying in an old squat in the ceter of town. Next week we are going to London. from there we dont know yet. How are things in philly

Jelly boy the clown

[staunching break: see and comment on ULA renaissance-man, TOM HENDRICKS' , anti- band musician and purveyor of MUSEA zeen, tongue lashing of NPR lit/crit elite nepotisimo...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96699408
the full monte concerning the above can be linked to from www.literaryrevolution.com main page courtesy of Pat Simonelli who in fact has bombshell of an MR currently posted on site!]

eric broomfield

to me

show details Jan 6 (11 days ago)

the spot in amsterdam was called pacific parc.nl

mean while for two weeks in mid December last year, 2008, continuing right after Christmas in Manhattan and Brooklyn (Ripley's Believe It Or Not, The House Of Yes),
They made all their connections and then some to blaze a trail in Oregon, California, and Nevada setting the stage for further exploits and public spectacle breaking into the consciousness of mobbed dive bars and rough neck underground club venues, performing sword swallowing, dangerous broken glass high jumps and punk pogo barefoot, playing with fire, blockheaded piercings, burlesque acrobatics, dark clowning, human chopping block acts and much more , while wrapped in the front talking and ballyhoo of ultra cool spiels that among other things represent the traditional yet reborn folk literature combined of the American circus sideshow phenomenon.
As for the best laid plans of the ULA regarding confronting the fortress of the Over Dawg apparatchiks in San Fransisco another important...

jelly boy and betty bloomerz parry in Las Vegas, NV, last port of call, in the late December 2008, of the West Coast tour after performing in Portland, Oakland, and San Fransisco with film-maker, human chopping-block, "glass-man", bro' Madders Squidling, photo@betty blomerz. myspace

... coincidentally another element of the Underground Literary Aligned Resistance was seeded with a significant independent specialty bookstore-emporium owner by Matt and Eric (stay tuned to the ULA "network" for updates!) during the annual Santa Clause pub and bar crawl in the heart of San Francisco...

But also no one will be able to say nor able to say more so at the Cabaret Babylon, Sinferno Cabaret, and Dante's Inferno venues there, that the Portland (where they braved three circus-stage performances with the help of local sideshow performer, Noah Micking) audiences aren't tough but appreciative when satisfied though by Matt's description near deadpan and dry humoured; interestingly parallel to the type of Vermont wry serious no frills civil facetiousness toward visitors even them from New Hampshire!

And again San Fran's Sandicon Commedians who swarmed the bill with gay abandon at the Club Deluxe dive bistro where the Squidling road show packed the house with local neo-beatniks and eccentric bohemians...
The same was to be said for Oakland and a couple House shows and culminating in a sold out gig at the Stork Club another colorful spacious dive but sporting punk and thrash bands the likes of "Japanese Baby", a Cure cover band, "Sisters of Mercy"...
... while after much tap- dancing, burlesque fan-fares, and accordion players, Jelly Boy and Betty Bloomerz headed up to Las Vegas just in time for a rare snow storm and connected with The Swing Shift Sideshow and entrepreneurs, Selso Zileh and Andrew S, for a knock down drag
out melee at the Double Down Saloon that besides what one might imagine we are told there's a couple of vintage pool tables, hard times punk house bands and an authentic mosh pit...

OH YES, THEN THERE IS EUROPE! :

Amsterdam,

http://www.thehospages.com/index.php?page=galleries&urlid=116

matthew broomfield

to me

show details Jan 7 (10 days ago)

frank

thanks for the forward. keep us up to date on ireland. we are checking in with one burlesque club in dublin. we´ve three to possibly five gigs in berlin and 3 in london. also we´ll be returning to amsterdam for 1 to 3 more shows.

till the next time.

-matter

http://www.thehospages.com/index.php?page=galleries&urlid=
AMSTERDAM: INSIDE THE PACIFIC PARC.NL

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 9:54 AM, matthew broomfield <westphilth@yahoo.com> wrote:

whats up walshie? i´m at an internet cafe in berlin staying at one of the last standing squats in central part of the city. about 90 people and 50 dogs. amazing old building still alive since world war II. the newer fancier berlin built up all around it. an anarchist paradise fortress collective. we were in amsterdam for a week the new years show was a big success. the dutch are polite but a bit

The invaders: Jelly-boy The Clown, Betty Bloomerz, "The Penguin Boy", Madders Squidling...
stuffy. berlin feels much more like home but it is very cold, like canada or upstate new york kind of cold. we will be performing about 4 or 5 different shows here and then moving on to london or spain, all depending on what we can set up. Is everything good at the house?

Andrew Lovatt

to me, matthew, eric

show details Jan 7 (10 days ago)

Hi Frank... and Matthew & Eric too...

I've passed Matthew's email to Brendan Hickey (info@ontheverge.ie - see http://www.ontheverge.ie) and to Michael Lovatt (mlovatt@redmoonmedia.com - see http://www.elektrodouche.com or search Elektrodouche on MySpace). We're still trying to find contacts at WHELAN's, which is *the* old rock pub in central Dublin - will send your way soon as we find.

Matt, feel free to contact the aboves. We'll see what else who else we can dig. If you're still in Berlin give Rhea Boyden a call ------ or email --------- . She's been living there yonks and knows the scene.

Enjoyed watching your Carnivolution video on MySpace at Tiberino's old place. Capt Beefheart lives!

very best,

Andrew

The versatile Penguin Boy promo-shot...

matthew broomfield

to me

.show details Jan 6 (11 days ago)

F
we will be returning on the 9th of Feb. so the 28th shouldn´t be a problem. thank you much for keeping care of wig wam. try not to give him to many treats, he´s kind of a crack head for that kind of stuff. it messes with his character you know. the squat here is a true fortress. great people from all over living there. a few months ago the cops tried to raid the building and failed on getting one foot in the door. it is one of last bastions for true anarchicts! there is a great german aranchict b
ook store close by that we went to. it is fucking cold here but it´s worth it. the name of the party in amsterdam is pacific parc. it is a restaurant and venue. you can find it online with pictures from the party and location info. i believe the area is called westerparc or something like that. it´s on the west side of central amsterdam. they turned this old oil refinery factory on one of the larger canals into a bunch of restaurants and shops. pacific parc is located in this building.

more later.

matter

Aerialist/ s word-swallower/fire-breather, the beauteous Betty B

On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 8:18 AM, matthew broomfield <westphilth@yahoo.com> wrote:

F

we will be returning on the 9th of Feb. so the 28th shouldn´t be a problem. thank you much for keeping care of wig wam. try not to give him to many treats, he´s kind of a crack head for that kind of stuff. it messes with his character you know. the squat here is a true fortress. great people from all over living there. a

few months ago the cops tried to raid the building and failed on getting one foot in the door. it is one of last bastions for true anarchicts! there is a great german aranchict book sto close by that we went to.

ROC ROCKET strong man promo-shot...

matthew broomfield

to me

show details Jan 14 (3 days ago)

F

thanks for all the links to folks out here. we´re working on dublin with andrew, nothing happening yet though.

we´ve performed two show out of four so far here in berlin. you would love it out here. so many anarchists and punks. Tons of grafiti all over the buildings. but not shitty tags, really good art work. the city is a mix of new and old, american and german. big ass, efficient shopping malls that are just as disgusting as they are in the states. food is cheaper here, but the produce is better in the states than in the northern european countries. we found one ULA recruit, Pete Missing. he´s from NYC, expatriot. lived on the streets and sqwats most of his life. really big in the punk and New York hard core scene in the ´70´s.

tonight we perform at the sqwat, the Koepi. we have to be as brutal but PC as possible. strange that punks are so closed minded even though they understand other things about the anarchist way of life. ah well it´s always been this way. we met some really great people who run a warehouse space here that we helped organize and put together. this is the place we performed at on saturday night. I believe they will be very helpful for our carnivolution crew in the future. they organize summer festivals in berlin and istanbul and were very grateful for all the work we did in helping them organize there space.

hope all is well in philthy and your staying as warm as you can. looking forward to our return and the story telling. we´ve still got another 4 weeks. we´ll be off to london on friday and be there for 2 weeks. after that we´ll be returning to amsterdam and then back to london for more shows. we´re trying to fit in dublin and a brief get away to Sharleen´s parents apartment in Oviedo (northern Spain). i´ll send word about the next couple of shows.

what´s the political, economic climate like right now? the inaugaration is soon eh?

-matters

********************** ************* *******
[ www.woodenshoebooks.org ]

Philly's premier Anarchist Bookstore sews up another great free public event, literally:

Sunday of the weekend of the Two ULA sponsored The Beards Anthology readings--- the first, Friday, November 21 st at the now defunkt Robins Bookstore formerly located at 13th and Sansom, the second held in a new gallery space in the Ellen Tiberino Memorial Museum, 3819 Hamilton Street, Saturday--- one of the few bright spots in the crazy underground lit weekend mix happened to be the Book Making/Binding workshop facilitated by the generous and talented Amy Opsasnick (who is also a member of the steering committee of the cooperatively managed, anarchist bookstore, on South 5th above South St.).

Philly's City Paper "PICK" of the week, November 19th, 2008.

The itinerary this Sunday was to check out the workshop and then hike down South across Broad to the Tritone Lounge to lend ear to jazz keyboarder Rashid's new Jazz Ensemble as Rashid has had a history of being willing and able to do accompaniment/ improv with underground poets, specifically ULA poets, in the recent past ( didn't stay long but got to touch base with the seasoned jazzman and get a decent feel for the sound and drift of the new band which turned out to be a big full bodied number the TEXTURE of which was unexpectedly "boss" ). However the book binding hands-on experience proved so much fun and informative and affected the disappointment that lingered regarding the overall experience of the two Beards readings--- the jury to my mind has just only come in on this sociopathic miasma, and will be addressed in the next few days-- that the whole workshop was embraced in its entirety ... ... The center open floor space of the Wooden Shoe proved sufficient to accommodate both the good number of the economically diverse public attending and the tables chairs and materials for the DYI, hands on experience. With the kind skillful instruction and excellent follow- through provided by comrade Opsasnick, we steadily gained in competency what we more or lacked in manual dexterity completing our hand-made "do-si- dos" wielding traditional bookmaking implements of the noble trade such as the bone-fold, embroidery thread and embroidery needles, as well as transferring xerox/ photocopies images and designs, for the most part, as explained by our workshop facilitator, generated from the archives of the Wm. Wagner Free Institute of Science, located near Temple U's main campus, on West Montgomery, where she had been interned as an artist and craftsperson, using "acetone"and linseed oil loaded dispensing pens of the Chartpark Blendeez P-O brand and of course scissors and #1 drawing pencils... ... of couse and especially while shooting the breeze with Amy
after the workshop about her familiarity and savvy enthusiasm for zines, particularly "mail art" the wheels of this ULAer were spinning as the "do-si- do" triptich reverse folded format wherewith our completed artefacts consisted of only three 8.5 X 11 20# bond and a sheet cover stock double- reverse "scored" by Amy prior to the workshop yet contained technically 2o pages by virtue of the format! What a great presentation of independent well crafted zeens and "chapbooks" the do-si- do suggests as it can be with its three-dimensional zig-zag switch back structure stood up on end on say a bookstore or coffee-shop counter-top to promote itself and the reading material therein. Jeff Potter especially but many other ULA members and then those who are currently engaged in the American zine phenomenon like say Jessica "Disobedience" Wilbur for sure would get hepped over this kind of thing... ... the Wooden Shoe is taking off the last year or so with holding frequent events in the store like the Bookmaking Workshop including live music, socially...
RIGHT:Attendee Zoe and her mom and dad happy doing their "Do-Si-Do"s

... contented film, and once and a while even poetry readings, which bring ever more people into the bookstore and prove good for the survival of this ultra-independent bookstore which heavily favors radical zines and DYI publications. After all a good sampling of the ULAPress line of books happen to be for sale at the Wooden Shoe, so if the sabot fits wear it!
...

the Beards uncut, cut loose// Grover's report on KC Poetry Barbeque, June//ULA begins its "wiegh in" on Nobel Lit Prize Committee scolding of US ...

2008-10-24T10:47:00.016-04:00

The Beards Anthology is finally done despite the death

of the original publishing company. Details at http://www.beardspoetry.com/Release Dates:November 20th: New York City/The Bowery Poetry Club 6:00November 21st: Philadelphia/Robins Bookstore 6:00A second show is in the works for Philly on Saturday. Let you know the details

Here is a list of performers for this traveling circus act!
John Dorsey currently resides in Toledo, OH. He is the author of "harvey keitel, harvey keitel, harvey keitel" with S.A. Griffin and Scott Wannberg, Butcher Shop Press/Rose of Sharon Press/Temple of Man, 2005. In Hartford, CT he is well-known as the Ambassador of The Beards and can usually be found book whoring at archerevans@yahoo.com.
Michael D. Grover is a Florida born poet. As a drifter has lived all over the country.Michael's poetry has been published all over the literary underground. Michael is now living in Toledo, Ohio where he is a resident artist at The Collingwood Art Center. He co-hosts a reading there every Tuesday night. He also hosts the website www. covertpoetics. com, co-edits CP Journal, and runs Covert Press. He was elected President of The Beards in a disputed election in Connecticut. His newest chapbook is titled ". . .And Death Is All Around Us".
Dan Provost's sixth chapbook Fallen Empathy has been published by Covert Press. He lives in Worcester, Massachusetts.....
Kathryn Erlinger (aka Katie Kaboom) writes and reads and makes stuff. She has been published in Off Beat Pulp, Zygote In My Coffee, and has a chapbook entitled "Explosive Devices for Girls". In addition, she is a member of the poet's group the Beards and will be featured in an upcoming collaborative effort. She is also an activist and a literature student at University of Missouri Kansas City. She avidly self-publishes via myspace: Katie Kaboom.
Jacob Johanson has been published by all the usual suspects. he is the literary editor of the online zine Off Beat Pulp and was recently included in The Feedbag, a chapbook with john dorsey, s.a. griffin, jason neese and david smith, which he is ridiculously proud of. with any luck his forthcoming chapbook will be coming out soon enough (echoed mythology and other poems). in the meantime he will continue to write, draw and paint in an effort to make all the voices go silent for just a little while longer.
Lester Allen: Although he has been writing most of his life Lester Allen is a new comer to the underground poetry scene. In that time he has built an impressive resume being published in places like Red Fez. net, Gloom Cupboard, CPJournal, Offbeat Pulp, Kill Poet, and more. Lester lives in Harrisburg, Pa where he lives with his wife and their cats. He is a member of the loved and hated performance group The Beards.
blue lives as cb crane in San Francisco. She teaches art to 3rd graders. She rides a bike and a skateboard and often ponders the moon. She has been published in Offbeat Pulp and the CP Journal and soon the Toronto Quarterly. A chap book will soon appear via Covert Press. She's tall.

The Beards Anthology now available on Deadbeat Press!

Michael Grover to me show details Jun 28 Reply
Here's the rest Frankie. Saturday night really was amazing. Saturday 6/21/08: We Beards were seen at a overpriced Kansas City barbeque this morning eating breakfast with Jensine (Lester Allen's wife),and Cleveland poets C. Allen Rearick and Steve Goldberg. After that we went to the Salvation Army Thrift Store where Dorsey scored a reallynice hat. After that they went to see Indiana Jones. Juice and I refused to go in so we called back to the house and Bucho came out and picked us up.(Much thanks to Bucho.) The show that night promised to be one of the greatest poetry shows ever, and it lived up to it. It was at the Metropolitan Ensemble Theaterin Kansas City. The night kicked off by Elly, a poet from New Mexico. She was good. Next was Calamity Jane (Justine Middleton), from Los Angeles.After her I was due up. During my first poem I tried to grab the mic and walk around. If you know me I do not stand still and read. The soundmantold me the feedback was from moving around. So I put the mic back on the stand. Looked at the theater, it was a big room, but the acoustics wereperfect and I can read pretty loud. For my second poem I stepped out from behind the podium and went micless. I finished the reading without themic and I think it went pretty well. Following me was Lester Allen. He was calm, cool, and collected as his style is. He still attacks poetry with a wide eyed enthusiasm. AfterLes was David Smith aka Handsome Duke Deal. He was all dressed up in his bartenders clothes, and gave a memorable performance. After David was John Dorsey in his new hat from the Salvation Army. John is a great writer and a great performer, and does it with a great energy. There are not a lot of poets out there that could top John Dorsey. If anyone could do it, it would be S.A. Griffin who was next. He came complete with theatrics, reading flaming poems, having women come on stage and kiss him. This was great stuff. At the end of his set he was joinedby his friend Michael Bruner. They sung a couple of songs together and Bruner performed. He actually made me part of his performance interactingwith me in the front row. Next up was Luc Simonic. The highlight of his reading was The Jesus Rap, as he performed my style and was all over the stage without the mic.He did it with a lot of energy and it was a great performance. Could anyone actually follow this show so far? Frank Reardon would have to try.He did very well and turned in a solid performance. Fellow Beard Juice was next and he is definitely an up and coming poet to watch. His poems and performance are solid and he does it all withgreat passion. Seth Elkins read after him and he was good. After that was an open mic which featured Katie Kaboom, Iris Applequist, and C. Allen Rearick. It does not get much better than this poetryshow. Watching it you got the sense you were watching poetry history, and it was an honor to be a part of it. We closed off the night in an after hours jazz joint. This was totally authentic and the perfect close to a perfect night. Sunday 6/22/08: The barbeque in the park was hard to find, but our host Mike was happy to show us the way there. We were deep back in the park.There was a huge lake there that we walked to where Katie and Ginsine took a swim. There was much drinking and socializing. We all ate too much,then it was time for the closing of the festival. The open mic at the barbeque. This was kicked off by our other host and fellow Beard JacobJohansen. He kicked the open mic off right. Next was Kill Poet editor J(Syn) Neece. Katie Kaboom gave a memorable performance. After that LApoet Amelie Florence performed. After her one of the most memorable performances of the festival Angel aka The Brown Recluse performed his Japanese death poem. It was brilliantbut I noticed it did not get everyone's attention. It should have. After Angel I read. I did something I had just written at the barbeque a couple of hours before. It's a good poem. I was followed by John Dorsey who gave another flawless performance. Next was Frank Reardon who didhis Madman poem, one of his best. Next we had a special treat as Jensine read for the first time. Her stuff was very good. She was followed by S.A. Griffin who rocked as healways does. After that Stacey Mangiaracina read two very emotional poems, and honestly I feel she was more relaxed and gave a much better performancethan she did Friday night. After that our host Mike read and he was good. I enjoyed his stuff. Up next was Lester Allen, and he was solid and consistant as he always is. Boxy was pretty good. I liked his reading Friday night better. After him was another of the best and most emotional readings of the whole festival as David Smith aka Handsome Duke Deal read his broadsideThe Genocide Sutra. This was amazing. The sun was going down and we were all tired. Juice finished off the whole festival kicking ass in trueJuice style. I liked the informality of the open mic and it was the perfect way to close the festival. Back at the house we said our goodbyes to Lester, hiswife Jensine, and John Dorsey. It was sad, we knew we would not see each other again for a while. Juice slept outside with the fireflies in a sleeping bag, I slept on the floor on a mattress. The next morning I was packing my suitcase. I was the only one in the house that was up. Frank Reardon barged in for breakfast telling us GeorgeCarlin was dead. This was sad news indeed. Juice and I went to the airport together driven by Jacob and had one last political discussion on theway. From there we sadly left Kansas City.

Michael Grover to me show details Jun 21 Reply
The show last night at the writers house started off strong. The house was packed for poetry which is always a good thing. Jacob Johanson kicked the whole damned festival off the way it should be started. With a bang and words of passion. By the end of the night this would be the best performance.Iris Applequist started off slow but really got into her rhythm after a couple of poems and kicked ass. Some great and good poets followed like Katie Kaboom, and Boxy. At this point the host ruined the reading by putting on a few local poets who were not planned and were not that good. The reading went downhill and the crowd began to thin. By the time poets like C. Allen Rearick made it up to the mic which was a shame. Oh well. It was a good show.

On 6/21/08, Michael Grover <covert.poetics@gmail.com> wrote:
The show last night at the writers house started off strong. The house was packed for poetry which is always a good thing. Jacob Johanson kicked the whole damned festival off the way it should be started. With a bang and words of passion. By the end of the night this would be the best performance.
Iris Applequist started off slow but really got into her rhythm after a couple of poems and kicked ass. Some great and good poets followed like Katie Kaboom, and Boxy. At this point the host ruined the reading by putting on a few local poets who were not planned and were not that good. The reading went downhill and the crowd began to thin. By the time poets like C. Allen Rearick made it up to the mic which was a shame. Oh well. It was a good show.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

magico-social- suprarealism ?

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.
Counters the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation: "Put him in touch with me, and I'll send him a reading list."
As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year's award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said it's no coincidence that most winners are European.
"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States," he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
He said the 16-member award jury has not selected this year's winner, and dropped no hints about who was on the short list. Americans Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates usually figure in speculation, but Engdahl wouldn't comment on any names.
Speaking generally about American literature, however, he said U.S. writers are "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," dragging down the quality of their work.
"The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," Engdahl said. "That ignorance is restraining."
His comments were met with fierce reactions from literary officials across the Atlantic.
"You would think that the permanent secretary of an academy that pretends to wisdom but has historically overlooked Proust, Joyce, and Nabokov, to name just a few non-Nobelists, would spare us the categorical lectures," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker.
"And if he looked harder at the American scene that he dwells on, he would see the vitality in the generation of Roth, Updike, and DeLillo, as well as in many younger writers, some of them sons and daughters of immigrants writing in their adopted English. None of these poor souls, old or young, seem ravaged by the horrors of Coca-Cola."
Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the foundation which administers the National Book Awards, said he wanted to send Engdahl a reading list of U.S. literature.
"Such a comment makes me think that Mr. Engdahl has read little of American literature outside the mainstream and has a very narrow view of what constitutes literature in this age," he said.
"In the first place, one way the United States has embraced the concept of world culture is through immigration. Each generation, beginning in the late 19th century, has recreated the idea of American literature."
He added that this is something the English and French are discovering as immigrant groups begin to take their place in those traditions.
The most recent American to win the award was Toni Morrison in 1993. Other American winners include Saul Bellow, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.
"phlipant rot"

As permanent secretary, Engdahl is a voting member of and spokesman for the secretive panel that selects the winners of what many consider the most prestigious award in literature.
The academy often picks obscure writers and hardly ever selects best-selling authors. It regularly faces accusations of snobbery, political bias and even poor taste.
Since Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe won the award in 1994, the selections have had a distinct European flavor. Nine of the subsequent laureates were Europeans, including last year's winner, Doris Lessing of Britain. Of the other four, one was from Turkey and the others from South Africa, China and Trinidad. All had strong ties to Europe.
Engdahl said Europe draws literary exiles because it "respects the independence of literature" and can serve as a safe haven.
"Very many authors who have their roots in other countries work in Europe, because it is only here where you can be left alone and write, without being beaten to death," he said. "It is dangerous to be an author in big parts of Asia and Africa."
The Nobel Prize announcements start next week with the medicine award on Monday, followed by physics, chemistry, peace and economics. Next Thursday is a possible date for the literature prize, but the Swedish Academy by tradition only gives the date two days before.
Engdahl suggested the announcement date could be a few weeks away, saying "it could take some time" before the academy settles on a name.
Each Nobel Prize includes a $1.3 million purse, a gold medal and a diploma. The awards are handed out Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.
__

Alison Flood
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday October 01 2008 13.08 BST
Article history
'Assiduous labour' ... Fredrik Persson/AP
The Nobel prospects of Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates may have been dashed after the prize's top jury member described American writing as insular and ignorant.
Permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Horace Engdahl told the Associated Press that US writers were "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture", which he said dragged down the quality of their work. "The US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," Engdahl said. "That ignorance is restraining."
"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world ... not the United States," he said, later adding that "what I said expresses a conviction resulting from more than 10 years of assiduous labour". Toni Morrison was the last American to win the prize, in 1993.
Contacted by guardian.co.uk this morning, Engdahl claimed a misunderstanding had occurred and that the Swedish Academy strictly adhered to Alfred Nobel's wish "that in awarding the prize no consideration whatsoever be given to the nationality of the candidates". He added: "It is of no importance, when we judge American candidates, how any of us views American literature as a whole in comparison with other literatures. The Nobel prize is not a contest between nations but an award to individual authors. It is essential to remember that when national feelings run high." He maintained that there was "no reason for any particular author to get upset by my observations.
This year's winner is expected to be announced in the next few weeks and has not yet been selected, according to Engdahl, who told AP that "it could take some time" before the academy settles on a name.
Engdahl, a professor of Scandinavian literature and a literary critic, has been permanent secretary since 1997 of the secretive committee of 18 Academy members who select the winner. Over the course of a year, the Academy will whittle down nominated authors from 200 to a shortlist of five, which is not made public. An author must receive more than half of votes cast to take the prize.
Ladbrokes' frontrunner is currently the Italian scholar Claudio Magris, who is 3/1 favourite to take the SEK10m prize, trailed by the Syrian poet Adonis at 4/1. Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth are the highest placed Americans, at 7/1, while Don DeLillo is at 10/1 and Thomas Pynchon at 20/1; Ladbrokes is also offering 40/1 odds on the generally reclusive Pynchon both winning and attending the prize-giving on December 10.
Last year's winner was the UK's Doris Lessing, a rare female choice. Over the last 10 years the Nobel laureates have had a distinct European flavour, with Turkey's Orhan Pamuk, the UK's Harold Pinter and VS Naipaul, Austria's Elfriede Jelinek, Portugal's José Saramago, Hungary's Imre Kertész, France's Gao Xingjian and Germany's Günter Grass all taking the prize. South Africa's JM Coetzee won in 2003.
In 2005, Knut Ahnlund, a member of the Nobel committee, resigned over the choice of Elfriede Jelinek as winner, describing her writing as "whining, unenjoyable public pornography". Engdahl gave no indication as to what he might do should an American author take the prize this year.

American writer Philip Roth. Nobel prize for literature judge Horace Engdahl has described American writing as 'too isolated, too insular'. Photograph: Orjan F Ellingvag/Dagbladet/Corbis
Sorry, John Updike. Don't get your hopes up, Joyce Carol Oates. And Philip Roth, what were you thinking? It's been 15 long years since an American author was honoured with a Nobel prize for literature. Judging by the low opinion the head of the award jury holds of American writing, it is not going to happen this year.
Yesterday, the literary world on this side of the Atlantic reacted with bemusement and anger to an extraordinary tirade against American writing by Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Nobel prize jury.
"There is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world ... not the United States," he told the Associated Press. "The US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature ...That ignorance is restraining."
The black-and-white views guaranteed Engdahl a wide audience for his confident dismissal of an industry that published more than 50,000 works of fiction last year. Unsurprisingly, his remarks elicited a variety of strong responses from members of America's writing community. Few of them could be described as abject or crushed.
Harold Augenbraum, who oversees the National Book Awards, told AP he was thinking of sending Engdahl a reading list. "Such a comment makes me think that Engdahl has read little American literature outside the mainstream and has a narrow view of what constitutes literature in this age," he said.
Michael Dirda, the Pulitzer prize-winning critic at the Washington Post's Book World, conceded that Americans do overwhelmingly read works in English rather than translation. But he added: "My general reaction is that he is just betraying an insular attitude towards a very diverse country."
The New Yorker's David Remnick accused the Nobel committee of being eternally incapable of recognising good writing when it saw it. "You would think that the permanent secretary of an academy that pretends to wisdom but has historically overlooked Proust, Joyce and Nabokov, to name just a few non-Nobelists, would spare us the categorical lectures," he told AP.
Stunt
Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion, registered Engdahl's comments with a degree of detachment. He noted that other Nobel committees are due to announce their prizes next week, in medicine, peace and economics, and that Engdahl may have been trying to generate some publicity.
"It reminds me a little bit of the Apollo space programme that Uganda instituted under the rule of Idi Amin, where they had rockets and so on, except that they were made out of balsa wood," he said. "It strikes me as a kind of publicity stunt for a prize that in recent years has demonstrated its fatuousness and political complexion with one political laureate after the next punctuated now and then by a VS Naipaul just to lend a patina of credibility."
The US literary community has long had an ambivalent attitude towards the Nobel prize - not helped by the long drought. The last American to win a prize for literature was Toni Morrison in 1993. In the years since then, Europeans have been recognised nine times, including Britain's Doris Lessing.
The Nobel committee has also had a patchy reputation for recognising genius. Although the reputations of such US winners as TS Eliot and Ernest Hemingway have survived, other laureates such as Sinclair Lewis and Pearl Buck have fallen in popular regard.
Oates and Roth have been mentioned for years as worthy candidates, without getting the nod. Updike presumably decided he never had a shot anyway when he created his character Bech and made fun of the prize.
It could be also that American writers, or anyone writing in English, may not need the recognition to achieve lasting fame, although the $1.3m (£650,000) award and gold medal would be nice.
"The Nobel has the great glamour. It also has the burden of being a kind of kiss of death. Many writers think it crowns your life effort and nothing that you do afterwards is as good," said Dirda. "It is a mixed blessing. But your name is in the history books."
· This article was amended on Thursday October 2 2008. The editor of The New Criterion is Roger, not Robert Kimball. This has been corrected.
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A one-wordsponse t Engdahl
Nobel prize
Don't judgeby its country a book

: In Sweden, inclusiveness rules
Apr 17 2008
Response: Sweden's

Dec 13 2007
Liza Minnelli collapses on stage

Prodded by Nobel Prize, the New Yorker Introduces Readers to Laureate's Work

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» Links to this article Associated Press Monday, October 20, 2008; Page C05
NEW YORK, Oct. 19 -- Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, little known to American audiences before being named the winner of the literature prize, is getting another introduction to U.S. readers: His work is appearing for the first time in the New Yorker.
"We thought lots of people would be very interested to see what his work was like," said New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman, whose translation of the short story "The Boy Who Had Never Seen the Sea" will appear on newsstands Monday. "We also wanted to move fast and publish it while people still remember his name."
Le Clézio, 68, was praised by the Swedish Academy for his "poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy" in such works as "Terra Amata," "The Book of Flights" and "Desert." Although he is ranked among the greatest living French writers, even leading American critics -- including Treisman and New Yorker editor David Remnick -- acknowledged they had not read his work.
A week before the award was announced, Academy Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl told the Associated Press that the United States was too insular and ignorant to challenge Europe as the center of the literary world; Remnick was among those who objected.
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Originally published in "Mondo et Autres Histoires" ("Mondo and Other Stories"), a 1978 collection, "The Boy" tells of a young loner and boarding school student named Daniel whose passion for the sea leads to his mysterious disappearance and raises him to mythical heights among those who knew him -- and among the many who didn't.
"We talked about the usual school things," Le Clézio writes, "our math problems, our Latin translations, but always we were thinking of him, as if he really were a kind of Sinbad, still making his way around the world."
Treisman said that after the Nobel was announced on Oct. 9, she contacted Le Clézio's publisher, Gallimard, which gave permission for the New Yorker to publish work from "Mondo." Treisman said she chose "The Boy" for its language and narrative and imaginative power.
Asked why she had never read Le Clézio, even though she is fluent in French, Treisman laughed and responded: "I do have an awful lot to read. I try to keep up with what's happening, and I'm aware of quite a few writers in France right now, but I had no particular reason to read his work before" the Nobel was awarded.
"So this was a big prod from the Nobel Prize committee."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>> >>>>> >>>

as advertised in GEORGE SOLOMOS' FIBA-FILMBANK.UK @2008

Wholly Toledo! AND UPO (underground-poet- outlawers )CITE CLEVELAND-ING! ! ! ! ! furthermore: GERM BOOKSTORE FEATURES CULTURE MAVEN THIS SATURDAY!

2008-10-24T01:12:00.001-04:00

******** bonus breaking news from Jeff Potter
follows title highlights !!!!!

POW WOW OF OUTRE POETRY POSSES AS AMERICA SPINS ITS WHEELS
MORE FINE TUNING AND THE ROSTER ROLLS COMING ON HOT AND HEAVY
SO KEEP IT REAL AND STAY TUNED FOLLOW on by AS OHIO BEBOPS
TO THE BEAT OF TRANSFORMERS...

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THE UNDER LITERARY ALLIANCE WILL BE IN THE HOUSE HERE AND THERE,

THE ULA AND THE ULAPRESS WILL REPORT ON THE POST- INSURRELECTION EVENTS IN BOTH CITIES!

www.myspace.com/taintedclevelandreading

@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@@

This in from David Williams owner and proprietor of Germ Bookstore-- proud carrier of the ULAPress zeen-novels!-- on the 2000th block of Frankford Avenue of Philadelphia::

EXCLUSIVE EAST COAST BOOKSIGNING SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 7PM BOYD RICESTANDING IN TWO CIRCLES: THE COLLECTED WORKS OF BOYD RICE(edited by Brian M. Clark) Who is Boyd Rice? (actual quotes) "Boyd Rice is a black pimp."–Charles Manson "Boyd was my mentor."–Marilyn Manson "Boyd is an iconoclast!"–Anton LaVey, Church of Satan "Boyd Rice has crossed over into the realm of being a pop icon, not unlike Andy Warhol, Tiny Tim, or Charles Manson. His face is like a corporate logo synonymous with a specific type of worldview. When you see Boyd it's as though you're gazing upon the Golden Arches or the Swastika. Or both."–Shaun Partridge, The Partridge Family Temple STANDING IN TWO CIRCLES is the first definitive and comprehensive compendium of the works of BOYD RICE, one of the most provocative and controversial underground figures of the post-punk era. A pioneering noise musician and countercultural maven, from the late 1970s to the present Rice has worked in an array of capacities, playing the roles of: musician, performer, artist, photographer, essayist, interviewer, editor, occult researcher, filmmaker, actor, orator, deejay, gallery curator and tiki bar designer, among others. First coming to prominence as an avant-garde audio experimentalist (recording under the moniker NON), Rice was a seminal founder of the first wave of industrial music in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, through collaborations with Re/Search Publications, Rice further established his position in the underground with recountings of his uproarious pranks and the promotion of “incredibly strange” cult films and “industrial” culture. Rice’s influence on subculture was further exerted through his vanguard exhibition of found photographs and readymade thrift store art, as well as his adamant endorsements of outsider music, tiki culture and bygone pop culture in general. Rice is also notorious for his public associations with nefarious figures both infamous and obscure, including friendships and ideological collusions with the likes of cult leader Charles Manson and Church Of Satan founder Anton LaVey, among others. His work continues to profoundly affect the countercultural underground at large, inspiring and enraging in equal measure. STANDING IN TWO CIRCLES includes over 30 provocative essays on subjects ranging from Mondo Films to Charles Manson, Savitri Devi to the Hellfire Club, Cocktail Culture to African Atrocities, and from Abraxas to Rape. Of the 33 essays contained herein, 11 appear here for the first time ever. Of the remaining 22 previously published texts contained in this volume, most are revised, updated and expanded from their original versions. ALSO INCLUDES THE COMPLETE LYRICS and ART & PHOTOGRAPHY (38 original plates)! HEY… are you too far to visit, or “going to a wedding” or something lame like that? Send GERM $27 (a bit extra to cover postage) via Paypal (at germbookstore@aol.com ) and we’ll MAIL you an autographed copy. If you wish, we’ll even ask Mr. Rice to personalize it for you. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Germ Books + Gallery, LLC

2005 Frankford Avenuebetween Norris

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215-423-5002

Breaking Underground News ***** From Jeff Potter, publisher, ULAPress:

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Jeff Potter wrote:

Hi all...

I look forward to a new phase, starting now. I plan to keep in regular contact with the nation's indy bookstores.

I envision sending them brochure mailings every now and then as newsletters. I'll number them, etc. I can include news items that we dig up.

In one way of looking at it, if we can excite the bookstores then we can excite the readers. They are our major interface.

Karl used to talk about setting up our own distro network, to cut out the middleman.

_________ ______ ____

I've personally often gotten along just fine with store owners. They really want something fresh, that will sell, that deals with the reasons why they became bookstore people---the love of books. Clerks on the other hand have often been sullen, resentful. But with the ULA all boats rise. : ) No one is left behind.

For instance, how many publishers say that a big part of their mission is the uplift of ALL indy biz and art?!

I'm not just trying to sell books with this ULA PRESS campaign---I'm trying to save US indy culture---and indy shops are a big part of that. I think other ULAers and ULA allies are on that page as well.
_________________ ________

That might be nice, but it would take replacing it all with our own network of middlemen---our own zeenshops. That would take a huge amount of work, talent, capital. It's an impossibility, in short. The bookstores are already there. Why not try to make them our friends and allies? More than anyone, they'd love to spark up an interest in reading again!

Now, their clerks are another story, but even they are not without hope. They like to be fashionable. Maybe we'll catch on as a hot new fashion.

I think --- moreover --- that our BOOKS and ART show this. It's not just a biz policy coming from me. It's in our content. I dunno about the rest of the small press scene, but our work stands up for the little guy. I personally see a lot of minor (indy) literary action as being part of the hyper-personal MFA vibe which is in turn part of the elite vibe which will include mostly novels about fantasy scenarios and exotic travel and quirky trysts. Hopefully that's not always the case. But our populist vibe is directly in favor of indy shop uplift. Maybe we are stand-outs in that way. I hope so. If we are, then that's another reason for indy shops to be our pals.

I'll also be sending these folks a regular email newsletter.

So we can see ULA outreach as going to readers...and to writers...and to artists of all kinds...and now to indy biz owners as well.

Basically, I'm starting a magazine that's going to indy shop owners. Let's see if they're receptive as an audience!

I've personally had quite a few indy shop owners get excited and into the OYB message. I think the ULA message should work as well. It's basically the same message.

New Pages sells a list for all this for $90. I'm a bit short, so I cobbled together the list for this past first mailing. It's missing all the NEW shops. About 25% of them are new as of 4 years ago, say. (Amazing, really.) I'm now going to dig back into my list and try to glean out email addresses and see what I have. If anyone wanted to spring for the real deal list, lemme know! I'd put it to good use.

**************
Jeff Potter
publisher, ULAPRESS.com
Underground Literary Alliance
bringing excitement, authenticity,
relevance, independence and activism
to literature in America.
Zeensters rock! Folk writing lives! Outsiders are in!
*U*plift *L*iterary *A*merica now!
New Century -> New Reading -> New Writing!

SA Griffin's NUMBSKULL SUTRA PURVIEWED, AND PENETRATING LIT CRIT EXPOSURES

2008-10-18T10:39:00.005-04:00

knuckling down LOS ANGELES

WAY: S A GRIFFIN'S SUTTRANIC VERSES:

THE NUMBSKULL SUTTRA

PURVIEW BY FDW, ula

REPUBLISHED WITHOUT RESERVATIONS

FROM CHRISTOPHER ROBIN'S "ZEN BABY' --NUMERO 19

SAGriffin. Numbskull Sutra, Rank Stranger Press; Mount Olive, North Carolina
300pp. Folio soft cover, perfect-bound. John Dorsey and David Smith, eds.
w/ intro. by Carter Monroe; preface by SA Griffin. 25.00 US

First things first, one was numbstruck by the chance to discover thumbing through the SUTRA the marvelous eye, nose, and throat candy-- and brain candy too why not-- of the multifarious flier and poster art duplicated -- and broadsides too and pics-- throughout that advertised and promoted the readings/spoken word events that SA featured in or was associated nearly with and the places and span and scope these public notices embrace.
Public and invitational recitals mounted by SA Griffin over the years especially that still and will in the far flung future matter to fans and followers.
This book representing now twenty- five years of poetry lived and shared , a legacy and vasty missive not about just so much entertainment and expressive relief-- affects consigned by the surface dwelling middle management to the shallows -- but always and ever more a rough housing of truth and beauty and everyday relevance and redemption through Poetry, while the state of poetry in America may at the same time become clogged and choked with imitators mouthing and bad mouthing the very outwards and outlaw idols being imitated. Still here we have it the illumination of the progenitor going about his working and breaking off pieces to sustain us on our way no matter what in the fall and spring of American. If we are poets deep rooted and down and dirty scrappers with a dog patch shanty in our cosmic-politan harks. Is LA a shanty, for better or for not why not if the words turned such raise the image in the poets eyes all the better to see to the play and the measure of the great city’s parlance. This exactly where SA Griffin stands in mastery of himself and his shadow as the super-beatified bearer of the true news.
Many in the compendium of the NUMBSKULL SUTRA is there an instant where the poems in themselves may not “cross the line” going gone beyond words to a definite savor or a hard stark ambience forebodes the readers and listeners own recollection but it is the line and his facility and welding and wielding the line where SA’s genius resides, genuinely necessary where they go and into and score the page even when those lines are single words especial in compact concise likewise measured stanzaic thought/breath units as one who knows as one must also be reading as if carried along rapids and white water of a current with an unopposed heart. At the same instant in time “reading” and “listening” to the spaces and silences of the white page that caps these necessary lines and their attending measures.
That is to get Griffin’s drift and experience the poetry as one’s own life is experienced as he does equally but uniquely. To the extent not just as a remembrance you are left with but as a pleasure that leads you to another fully engaged in life experience. In the meantime there’s another great poem to get with and plenty available in this husky big-hearted book. Valid even when you may imagine in that moment that you’re on the verge of a west Hollywood intersection left holding the bag but when you open that bag there is THE present. SA Griffin’s soul is bigger than life totally with it and with the reader besides. So then like Bukowski or Micheline on his best behavior so is it with Griffin immersed in soundly in the significant rush of American poetry/spoken word toward not so much simplicity for no proscribed purpose is hereabouts but mystical directness like with d. a. levy and the opening jaw and the unfolding hand. Like Bobby Kauffman too.
All is not lost on the pursuit of us, nor on the others’, no matter what sorry ass state of affairs or crisis even poverty and metaphysical despair, SA Griffin provides for. His poems his raves operate as universal handles on reality. Political and beautiful, since beauty which is just integrity across the board no difference how ugly or “common”, is the most political thing of all.
While politics is personal when looked at in a practical way, unobstructed from relationship makes the whole concept and utility of politics moot and ridiculous. “Weapons Of Mass Destruction” , p. 29; the short and sweet, “Legacy to the poor of LA”, p. 47. ;“I Choose Not To Believe In War Holy Or Not”, [ on a billboard at Hillhurst Ave., a photo of which is in the book] p.85; “American Poem”, pp. 198-200, all bear this out. Humor and the pleasure of swinging surrealism are infinitely more where it’s at for Griffin.
For example, “Kisses In The Wind”, p.224
[From: S.A. Griffin
Subject: Re: SA Griffin's soul is bigger than life totally with it and with the reader besides.
To: glorifiednobody@yahoo.com [i.e., Christopher "Zen Baby" Robin]
Date: Friday, July 4, 2008, 11:02 AM
don't know if you've gone to print with this yet or not, but if it's possible, at the end of the review he has got the title of the poem on 224 as "Kisses To The Wind"... no such critter. the title is "12 Kisses To The Universe". ]

is endowed with the Taoist crazy wisdom regarding the common and the profane and therefore sacred in turn when read silently or out loud to ourselves that becomes clear and present and recollects love as the first cause a if we needed one.
But there is more here in NUMBSKULL SUTRA almost more than can be dreamed of, so at 25 bucks this book is worth more than a barrel of diesel.

###

SA. pict by complements of Mike Grover @ 2008

KANSAS CITY BBQ poets gatheringTHIS PAST JUNE

cf. Mike's report and selected picture coming up next

on the ULACritique

[S.A. Griffin to me show details Jul 4 Reply
Hey Frank,
Just wanted to drop you a note and say thanks for the damned nice review, very much appreciated! The book came out this time last year, so it's a helluva nice way to flash back. Last July I was flying east to N. Carolina to meet the publisher, feast on some damned good bbq and party with some world class single malts. All in the name of poetry. The single malts were at this bar in Raleigh where a Carolina film maker was having a party for his first feature which had a poet as the lead character. They asked me to lay some words on them so I obliged. Turned out the owner of the bar travels around the globe collecting single malts. He found out my penchant for the stuff and was giving me shots of world class scotch the balance of the night. Not a bad exchange for a few minutes of poetry. Not bad at all.
Thanks again.
best,s.a.]

>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>

subtext:
IN THE PAST FEW YEARS OR ACTUAL EVER SINCE ONE BECAME AN ACTIVE ULA MEMBER BACK IN 2003 I'VE BEEN PROGRESSIVELY SICKENED AND REPULSED FANTASIZING WHAT KING OF PERSONALITY LIE BEHIND THE STYLE OF WRITING THAT DOMINATES MC SWEENEY'S MAGAZINES AND EFFECTS AND THEN THE DOMINANT CYNICAL PURPLE PROSE SICKENING SWEET AND NASTY THAT DOMINATED THE LOCAL PSEUDO LIT CRIT RAG THE INDEPENDENT OF PHILADELPHIA BRIEFLY THAT SOME GUY BLEW HIS MONEY ON JUST TO GET IN ON GOOD, DAVE EGGERS AND MOODY ASS KISSED SIDE. WELL HERE'S AN EXAMPLE FROM A MONTH AGO THAT WAS IN THE TIMES UNION OF JACKSONVILLE FL. THAT CONFIRMS MORE WORSE OPINION....

... TWO SNOT NOSE JERK OFFS FROM WHERE ELSE, LIKE NEW ENGLAND TRAVELING AROUND THE COUNTRY DEFACING SACRED LITERATE AMERICAN FOLK ARTEFACTUAL WRITING IN STATE AND NATIONAL PARKS DEFACING THOSE AND JUSTIFYING IT WITH MFA FACTORY MILL PROSPECTIVE ENGLISH GRAMMAR ONCE THE CULTURAL BILLY CLUB WELL RATHER ABIT LIKE TODAY BESIDES OF DEAD ENGLISH KINGS AND SLAVE MASTERS.

WHAT REALLY TAKES THE CAKE AND EATS IT TOO IS THAT THESE BLACKGUARDS ARE ACTUALLY TOUTED AS "MODERN DAY KEROUAC'S" BY NOTHINGLESS THAN NPR AND OR THE SHOCKAGO TRIBUNE (DOES EITHER OR MATTER WHEN EVERY MASS MEDIUM IS A HEIDEGGER ?). ALL A ULAER CAN SAY IS, WELL THAT IS ALSO CONSISTENT WITH THE BS OF THE OVERDAWGS AND AND THEIR MINIONS OF DEMI-PUPPETS IN EVEN THE GOVERNMENTAL SO CALLED PUBLIC BROADCASTING ELITES MASS MEDIA MADE MUSH BY NEO-LIBERAL ELITES.

FREAKING INSULTING TO THE SPIRIT OF JACK AND HIS COMRADE UNDERGROUNDERS........

here's another crackpot who was no doubt an idealist about how noble white neo liberals might thru sacrefice of course to someone they thought below themselves in otherwds THEIR equal
if they allowed it-- how white of them---

Let's pick a fight with the Academy Of American Poets (and by association/conflict of interest, the Poets House and the NEA) by exposing one of the most ridiculous of their propagandists Hattie Jones pictured here above in this small PDF collage
however one really needs to briefly research the propaganda arm -- the speaking tour SS--of the corrupt American Poetry Foundation and begin to connect the names besides Hattie Jones' to get at what this clearly means.
http://www.poetrybranchingout.org/
http://www.poetshouse.org/librariespitbbo.htm
''How I Became Hattie Jones'' follows in the tradition of some other distaff Beats who attempted to tell it like it was from their side of the mattress, not unintentionally claiming a place in the group history.
NEW YORK TIMES, today, Sunday edition.

She published later than other writers in the Beat movement because of the dominating force of men in the group. The female writers who became famous within the movement—DiPrima and Johnson, among them—were, Jones believes, similar in style to the Beats. DiPrima, for one, “wrote like the boys.”
http://thenewcampus.org/nsfp/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=248&Itemid=138 :
The usual New School privileged clap trap but what else is new "its" so called intellectuals preying off/playing up the neo- liberal reactionary elitism while bashing
for other ulterior corporate publishing industrial complexions, real people of the People, in this case The Beats and in the main for her meal ticket and a place at the trough Amiri Baraka specific, smearing him on the bandwagon with the State of NJ (XXX Governor McGreevy who was blowing an Israeli spy at the time having placed that spy in a high position in NJ's Home Land Security!) and windbag hacks like Gerald Stern supposssedly all over Baraka's anti-Semitism (some how mixed up conveniently with earlier poetry of Amiri's "hatred" of white scumbag slumlords in the context of the poet's founding and involvement in not actually "just" the Black Power Movement per se but something more serious and therefore threatening to the Establishment of which Hattie Jones is a willing servitor, the Black Cultural Movement) and the truth and the especially the American parlance-- to speak most to young people FDW believes-- of the transgessing but great Masterpiece, "SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA",.
http://www.amiribaraka.com/blew.html
subtext: Baraka is been published [along with Mike Grover, besides] in the current Citizen 32 with RACE theme
by eds. Toomer and John Hall for a pict cf. the ULAManifest post featuring John Hall concrete poems selection:

http://ulamanifest.blogspot.com/search/label/sampler%20of%20manchester%20poet%20upcoming%20chapbook

Big reading news from Philly and last CARNEVOLUTION OF THE '08 SEASON PLUS JEFF POTTER LAUNCHES NATIONAL independent bookstore mailer and more!!!!!!!

2008-10-07T17:36:00.008-04:00

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 1:01 AM, courtney b wrote:
Please see below for information on the poetry portion of East Falls Rise. If you are able to forward this message to friends or to lists, that would be terrific.

As you can tell by the line up, this will be a great event.All the best,Courtney* E A S T * F A L L S * R I S E *Saturday, October 111:00pm-3:00pm(Rain or Shine)atMcMichael ParkHenry Avenue & Coulter Street, 19129McMichael Park is about halfway between the R8 Queen Lane Station andthe R6 East Falls Station.Come hear poets from East Falls and nearby neighborhoods celebrate thediversity of our community! This poetry event is part of East FallsRise: A Multicultural Extravaganza, happening 11am-5pm and featuringcrafts, music, dance, activities, and food from around the world andaround the block!

Participating poets include:Sydney Coffin is an East Falls native since 1985 except for two years atSarah Lawrence College in New York and one fateful year in Albuquerque,New Mexico, from whence came many poems. A graduate of William PennCharter School in 1988 where he started writing, he spent summers on anisland in Maine, from whence came many more poems. Sydney has been apublic educator for nine years and now teaches English at UniversityCity High School and is a member of the newly formed Poetic Arts andPerformance Project.Mike Cohen is host of the Poetry Aloud and Alive program at the Big BlueMarble Bookstore in Mount Airy. His work has appeared in the SchuylkillValley Journal, Mad Poets Review, Poetry Forum Anthology, and thePhiladelphia Daily News. He has presented public readings in variousbookstores, coffee shops, and libraries. The universe of Mike’s poetryis a funny one, both humorous and peculiar, like the universe itself.Melissa DeGezelle has lived in the Philly neighborhoods of Wissahickon,Roxborough, and now Manayunk with her husband and daughter. Her work canbe found in Shampoo, The Brooklyn Review, The Strange Fruit, and 27 ruede fleurs. She is currently attending the MFA program at Brooklyn College.

Peter Krok, editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal andhumanities/poetry director of the Manayunk Art Center where he hascoordinated a literary series since 1990. Because of his identificationwith row house and red brick Philadelphia, he is often referred to as“the red brick poet.” His poems have appeared in the Yearbook ofAmerican Poetry, and numerous other print and on-line journals. In 2005,his poem “10 PM at a Philadelphia Recreation Center” was included inCommon Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (published by PennState University). His book, Looking for an Eye, was recently publishedby Foothills Press.

Trapeta B. Mayson is a poet, social worker, and workshop leader livingin Germantown. Trapeta works extensively with youth locally andnationally conducting poetry and creative writing workshops. She hasalso worked with the Art Sanctuary and Painted Bride for a number ofyears. Trapeta has received numerous literary and publication honorsincluding a Pew Fellowship, a Leeway Transformation Award, and a PACouncil on the Arts fellowship.

Ashraf Osman is a practicing architect living in Mount Airy. Born andraised in Lebanon, Ashraf has been living in the US since 1998. Hispoetry has appeared in the Mad Poets Review, Schuylkill Valley Journaland Islamica magazine, and has been featured in such anthologies asQueering Language, Outside Voices 2008 Anthology of Younger Poets, andThe Other Voices International Project. His poetry blog, calledarch.memory, has been featured on Blinq, the blog of the PhiladelphiaInquirer; voted amongst the Best of the Web Blogs for poetry, and he wasselected as one of 100 Blogging Poets on the web. In addition to hisblog, Ashraf maintains a website of Philadelphia poetry links andcalendars called PhillyPoetry.com.

Phylinda Reynolds’ poetry has appeared in journals such as The SierraNevada College Review, Riversedge, and Bogg Magazine. She is completingher MFA at Rosemont College in the spring.Hal Sirowitz is the former Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. His firstbook of poems, Mother Said, was translated into nine languages and isthe best-selling translated book of poetry in Norway.Born in Germantown and raised in North Wales, Pennsylvania, YolandaWisher received a B.A. in English/Black Studies from Lafayette Collegeand a M.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry from Temple University. In 1999,she was named the first poet laureate of Montgomery County. Her work hasbeen published in the journals Ploughshares, Meridians, Fence,nocturnes, and Chain as well as in the anthologies Gathering Ground andRinging Ear: Black Poets Lean South. A Cave Canem fellow, Wisher teachesat Germantown Friends School and chairs the Germantown Poetry Festival.Donna Wolf-Palacio has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from ColumbiaUniversity and has been teaching a poetry workshop at the University ofthe Arts for the last several years. She has received grants from theNational Endowment of the Humanities and the Leeway Foundation. She hasdone readings and workshops throughout the Philadelphia area, includingat the Art Alliance, Borders, the Free Library, and City Book Shop. Shehas published in Poetry and several other journals, and has written abook of versions of Chinese poems illustrated by Kitty Capparella whichwon the Academy of Fine Arts’ Print Award._________________________________________________________________Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live.http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/msnnkwxp1020093185mrt/direct/01/

Carnivolution

Category:: Festivals & Fairs
When:: Friday, October 10 2008, 8:00pm
Where:: The Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum
based on 1 review
3819 Hamilton St
Philadelphia, PA
(215) 386-3784
How:: Official Website
Cost:: $7.00
Submitted by:: Bill M. See all Bill M.'s events »
What/Why:: The last Carnivolution of the year!!!

The Hydrogen Jukebox presents Carnivolution
Every 2nd Friday May - October
art exhibits as well as a monthly gathering of Clowns, Musicians, Poetry, Modern Dance, Flameblowers, Artists and Art Lovers.
Meister of ceremonies:
Jellyboy the Clown

Easily one of the best outdoor gatherings in all of Philadelphia. it's one part Carnival sideshow that usually features anything from Firebreathing, sword swallowing, knife juggling, people stapling money onto their body, gratuitous use of rubber chickens, and so much more. The other part is a concert by one of my favorite Philly bands, the Hydrogen Jukebox. They range from jam to punk, to experimental. And they'll even break out some great songs by The Misfits and Ween if you ask them nice enough. with 3 sets by the band, 2 sets of Sideshow mayhem, and the fire and hula hoop dancers that you will see throughout the night you end up with one unique experience. and it all happens within the courtyard of a surreal indoor/outdoor art museum!

MATT BROOMFIELD, ERIC BROOMFIELD, fdWALSH ARE ULAERS OF FOR AND BY THE CARNIVOLUTION..... fdw among other things does love poetry and oracular at this fridays show!!

________

"It should be good now... big national mailing finally under way!"

from:!

**************Jeff Potterpublisher, ULAPRESS.com

http://outyourbackdoor.com/ulapress/

Underground Literary Alliance bringing

excitement, authenticity, relevance, independence

and activismto literature in America. Zeensters rock!

Folk writing lives! Outsiders are in!

*U*plift *L*iterary *A*merica now!

New Century -> New Reading -> New Writing!

interim breaking fresh subvertisments, theaters of operation...

2008-09-25T11:30:00.017-04:00

[ nice new site(s) no nonsense to the point strict cutting edge exegesis of this vital and long-haul voice of the Resistance--- ]

from an edispatch by G.TOD SLONE September 22nd

Check out the new entry in The American Dissident lit blog at wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com. It begins as follows:

Crony Capitalism Paving the Way to Crony Culturalism: the Massachusetts Poetry Festival… Brought to You by State Cultural Apparatchik, Herr Charles Coe

What really pains—deeply pains—is the bourgeois grip upon poetry and the literary milieu. It is an iron grip not unlike that of the Soviet Writers Union under Stalin. It silences dissent effectively. Indeed, if one wants to be a “successful” poet (or poetry editor), one must not upset it, let alone question it. Thus, is the sad state of the literary milieu today in America. The voice of dissent is out there, but it is up against a massive, impervious brick wall. So, for a poet today, the choice must be a conscious, deliberate one, between “success” and failure, repression and truth. For some poets, however, we do not have the choice. Truth is our muse.

Why, one could wonder, was I not invited to the Massachusetts Poetry Festival since I have been a long-time Massachusetts poet and an editor of a poetry journal based in Concord, Massachusetts since 1998? Why, one could also wonder, was The American Dissident, the journal in question, not invited to exhibit at the Festival’s small press fair? Well, the answer to those two questions is simple. Charles Coe, the Festival’s chief organizational apparatchik... (read the rest at http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/).

G. Tod Slone, Ed.

The American Dissident, a Journal of Literature, Democracy & Dissidence

A 501 c3 nonprofit organization providing a forum for vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy,

And for examining the dark side of the academic/literary established-order milieu

www.theamericandissident.org

1837 Main St.

Concord, MA 01742

__________________________________________ _________________

FLASH THIS JUST IN! COMICS AND CLASSICS BOOKSTORE AND EMPORIUM
STOCKING ALL FINE ULA PRESS TITLES FOR SALE ON ITS SHELVES AND DISPLAY TABLES HAS A SPECIAL HALLOWEEN EVENT AND ART SHOW OPENING THIS SATURDAY FEATURING A SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY "MR. LAZARI' WHO THE STORE WILL NOT ONLY ALLOW THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR BUT HAVE GIVEN PERMISSION FOR THE OLD MURDERING GYPSY TO PEDDLE WEST PHILTH'S THE UNHOLY SIDE SHOW DVD, COME OUT AND SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF YOURSELF AND BUY THE MOVIE AS THE STORE GETS A PIECE OF THE ACTION!

OCTOBER 4TH SATURDAY 4 TO 9 PM

1722 3RD STREET NORTH, JACKSONVILLE BEACH, FL.

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SEPTEMBER 17TH:
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN'S BREAKING NEWS CONCERNS ULAer author of the novel SWAMP and the testy poetry of THE URINALS OF HELL, JOE PACHINKO ......

Here are 3 short clips recorded on camera by Ramona Beardsley at the Leaning Tower of Pizza, September 13th where Joe performed The Birth of the Uncool, using lost Instruments, bed pans and a variety of noize-makers-he also shares a poem-
Dave Hite hopes to have the full version on DVD out shortly. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFNRkNgMF8A

if the link doesnt work just put Joe Pachinko into a search-

enjoy!

christopher robin

[ from Queen Sheba out of atlanta, GA.,September 24th, 1:31 PM to ULACritique--

'swoundz like a third party's swinging Southeast way! ]

Events!

Friday Sept 26th

Poetry-Politics & The Polls

@595 North (new building/address)

North Ave and Northside Drive. Atlanta

7-10pm Sharp!

FMI Tommy:678 768 7940

FREE!!!!! queensheba811@yahoo.com

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ULAer MARK SONNEFELD, mail-art artist extrodinaire and one the most important true experiemental poets on the street scene in the whole damned nation has teamed up with
Moscow artist and collagist WILLI MELNIKOV........

[this in from AZIZALOCKDIVA but FIRST besides circle the calenders all culture undergrounders, attend and imbibe this great Philly spoken word Diva's long running poetry music and art series on the edge of Chinatown:
Every First Friday of the MonthBe part of an Art Extravaganza

Spoken Word Music Freestyle*Open Mike

at

Jose Sebourne Graphic Design

1213-15 Vine Street Philadelphia PA 19107

7-10pm $5.00 Cover

azizalockdiva@aol.com ]

subtext: NOTE: the ULA and TheULA Press implicitly supports and advocates causes like this below as causes in kind are obviously incidentally to the original mission statement carved out in 2000 & 2001 and also with ULA actions and the gist of actions by ULA active members for the last 8 years--- socio-cultural fairness and advocacy for the people and the young and their reading/writing livelihoods-- more of the Alliance's real engagement and advocacy and the importance of this becomes front and center as we ourselves proceed forward in transformation. AQUARIUS RISING!

Greetings,

I don't need to tell you how important it is for our children to get a quality education in an environment that is condusive to their own cultural values and norms. I spent the early part of my childhood in West Philadelphia and I wish there had been African School's (like these) that I could have attended. Please support this event if you can.......

The Ijoba Shule Parent Partnership Presents The Free Flow Poetry Jam Fundraiser

Join us for a night of enlightening spoken word and musical entertainment on October 17, 2008 at the Freedom Theater 1346 N. Broad Street.
Some of Philly's hottest spoken word artists are coming together to support the Ijoba Shule, a private 501(c)3 African school in West Philadelphia.

Hear the lyrical styles of Just Greg, True Dialect, Aziza Kinteh and special guest WordSmith Jones from New York. Also featured are vocalist Rhetta Morgan and the soulful poetic sounds of RhapsodE. There will be African drumming by Master Drummer Baba Tyrone, food, vendors and raffles.

Tickets are $20, non-refundable and will NOT be sold at the door. Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.freeflowpoetryjam.eventbrite.com or at the following Black-owned Businesses:
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Here we go-- could the flim flam and whiny 17 year ban this jerkoff tearjerker Berman is making it seem how marginalized and what a victim he is really been bought about by the ULA blowing the whistle on him and his cronies and after calling his bluff on his poetry slam challenge and him chickening out and maybe throwing in the towel with the poor poet scam????

from FOLIOWEEKLY, northeast Florida weekly free tabloid naively drawn out tho compentently by Brian McGregor

last week, 9/17/08, their "UNDERGROUND" interview feature.

ULACritique sez-- "gimme a freak'n' break!"

This poser (variously as a poet in New York, dawling of overdawgs and demi puppets alike....

Well here it is from maven maverick good KING WENCLAS hi'self from the archives of ATTACKING THE DEMI-PUPPETS.blogspot.com...

Saturday, October 22, 2005

"I found amusing and revealing Marcus's

"I found amusing and revealing Marcus's mention in his Harper's essay of the band The Silver Jews as an example of artists marginalized in this society.
The Silver Jews are led by establishment poet-darling David Berman, yet one more American child of extreme privilege. (His father appears to be the owner of Bermanco, one of the more notorious corporate lobbyist firms in Washington D.C.) David Berman has been house poet at the trendy trust fund lit-journal Open City as well as The Believer, the journal Marcus's wife Heidi Julavits edits. David Berman hasn't been marginalized at all. Instead, despite having little musical or poetic talent, he's been pushed, funded, hyped, and lauded (including by the likes of Billy Collins) over and over."

....and then earlier that year ....

Monday, January 17, 2005

Look at who Beller picked to publish as Open City's first book-- trendy trust fund fake poet David Berman (whose Dad is a multi-millionaire corrupt D.C. lobbyist). I can think of few poets who are worse. (The abysmal Liam Rector comes to mind.) There are many great underground poets who kick Berman's ass all over the place-- Cynthia Ruth Lewis, Joe Pachinko, Joe Verrilli, Frank Walsh, many others; poets who actually need some attention and help. But they're not part of the swanky set.
David Berman was supposed to read-off against an undergrounder, but wet his pants and backed out when I came up with the perpetually angry "Mad Dog" Grover as an opponent.

photo credit: King Wenclas, 2004.
The "Grover" mentioned above is center. Pictued here as part of the ULAEast Coast Conclave, South St. Philadelphia, February, 2004.

ULA DALLY IN THE ALLEY RALLY AND RANTS AT DETROIT'S BIG ART STREET FEST

2008-09-10T11:23:00.011-04:00

KING WENCLAS..... AND JEFF POTTER WHO WROTE THIS REPORT AND PROVIDED THESE MOST EXCELLENT PICTURES. ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY BY JEFF IS TAKEN FROM THE EXCLUSIVE INCLUSIVE ULA FORUM FROM HIS POSTS OF SEPTEMBER 7TH, 2:24 PM ARE IN QUOTATION AND BRIGHT GREEN.

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Breaking
news from today!!!!!!!!! Publisher Potter announces first sale, 9/15/08 of the boxed ULA novel / "zeen" line -- all eight books-- replete with special premiums, to 'zinester,

HEATH ROW, check out :http://outyourbackdoor.com/article.php?id=977

Last Edit: Yesterday at 7:42am by ULA Message Board forum Also the poetry & allegorical cartoons
of george tod slone, THE AMERICAN DISSIDENT, over on ULAManifest,
http://ulamanifest.blogspot.com/
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This party venue is wonderful. I bet 10,000 people really were there. It's a colorful neighborhood thing. 4 stages or more. Good music. We were given a prime alley location in a major flow-path by the friendly organizers who were happy to let us slip under the non-prof radar and didn't charge me a late fee.

I had 2 people take pics as I wandered the crowd of a "biker flames" shirt I was wearing with a ULA "boring fiction" sticker on it. --If this kind of thing ever shows up on blogs that would be a good PR thing.

"This is a classic free-flowing Detroit style event --- we could occupy a larger area with performance if we ever wanted. It's no rules, baby. Frank and Jelly could rock the place! They could probably get some stage time, too. "

As you may know, as part of my effort to promote indy culture, I work with the ULA and publish a line of indy novels that seek to break the boring deathgrip that academia and NYC have on literature. This liberation quest is even tougher than my efforts to keep the outdoor sports people hooked ....

"Young and old, rich'n'poor, all colors and types flowed by the ULA table. The table looked its best yet, I think. That banner would've been great to have, tho! I'll try to remember next time. "

[The "banner" Jeff is refering to is the ULA standard bearing the ULA logo created and handsewn and is available for use as a point of gathering for all and every Alliance affiliated event or where ever resistance actions against the literary industrial complex may find it pertinent to the cause... New York, Philadephia, and Cleveland, have already hosted the "banner".]

..... up to their cultural roots.

I know that the outdoor culture buffs who read the OYB website also read literary things (and listen to music), but so far it seems like I've been unable to get much results from my efforts to connect outdoor culture with wider culture. Hemingway had far better luck at it. Jim Harrison does good at it, too. Trout fishing and sailing are classic areas where culture and sport merge well. In "Dirt Rag" magazine the mtbikers cross-over with every issue into beer and music. Obviously, it all goes together. Untold thousands of outdoorsmen made their first discoveries of "big culture" thanks to the likes of ol' Hem and Jack London. Well, times change and new times need new connections.

Contemporary art that integrates with the outdoor action side of real life in an everyday way is not the easiest to find, and I don't see many others doing this kind of wide-ranging hook-up thing. But I'm not just doing this for outdoor folk. OYB is bigger than that. So is the ULA. I'm also interested in showing indy people in general, who are used to seeing the indy spirit triumph in music and film, that literature hasn't been forgotten---and that outdoor action in particular is still a great venue for expressing culture. Hinterlands people shouldn't forget culture---and city folk shouldn't downplay the hinterlands. It's a tough project!

But it's bigger than that even. The biggest goal is to show the general population the overall relevance of grassroots culture.

"There was a freak show "theater" set up, with huge flames, just down the way from us---promoting a huge Halloween party---Detroit goes nuts for Halloween.

There was a Detroit Derby Girls booth --- can't get hotter action than that! : )"

So, I've joined in the literary uplift movement that is the ULA, and I published a series of ULA novels that are far, far more real-world, "hands-on," workingclass, everyday, street in their origins than other lit out there.

With this challenge in mind, I look for public events to get tables at to spread the word about everyday everybody liberation.

In late winter I do an outdoor expo show. Then earlier this summer I got a table at the Allied Media Conference (AMC) radical media conference in Detroit.

Karl Wenclas, an indy lit comrade, helped give my ULA table some pizzaz at the AMC show. He said there was another event in Detroit that would be far better---the Dally in the Alley. He said it's a huge indy arts block party in the Cass Corridor that has 10,000 people---and that the ULA message would stand out and find allies in the diverse crowd. So I looked into it and hooked up with its casual, friendly organizers and got a table.

The Dally in the Alley started as a block party 31 years ago and has grown just a wee bit. It's still a block party, but it includes all the roads and intersections and all the alleys on the interior of the block. There are 4 music stages, a street of food booths, beer and wine booths, and streets and alleys full of arts and trinket booths. People have garage-sale-like displays with used books and clothes.

You may be aware that the Cass Corridor used to be Murder Central of Murder City USA --- it has made the turn-around. I note that Detroit may well have the cheapest rent of any US metro area. This might be the #1 key to turning the city around. Cheap rent draws creative types which then revives a city. Where hasn't it worked out this way? Of course, in a couple decades the artists are then driven out by higher rents. Heck, Detroit even has cheap mansions in neighborhoods that are now reclaimed --- all close to the major city amenities. It's ripe for a major turnaround!

I arrived early and was given a prime spot. I set up my sweet ULA display and met a bunch of friendly booth neighbors.

The traffic and action built up all day long, bigger and bigger.

"Young and old of all kinds and colors flowed on by. Dozens of folks stopped to talk and engage me about the ULA quest for literary liberation. "

Karl showed up in the afternoon and joined in the fun. He's a great salesman. We put up a sign that declared our mission: "Making Reading as Fun as Music and Beer!"

For the first time, the ULA has a coherent range of books to sell, that present a united image of liberation and fun. We also had zeens, literary action-hero trading cards and stickers. Something for every interest and price range.

We sold dozens of books to obviously idea-thirsty folks---mostly young people. We met a bunch of writers---some young ones, one tough professional, a few college professors. We were up for any engagement. We were an exciting tag-team for literature. Karl put on a pair of blinking orange and black Tigers baseball sunglasses---which actually drew people to our table.

I got a kick out of all the young people who hooked up with our ideas with their big eyes. I really hope I hear back from them. I recall a hooded Black Muslim lady who read some of our wildest back cover matter without batting an eye. She said we reminded her of Donald Goines, the famous black ghetto writer. Rockin! Cross the lines.

"I made a big sign that said "Making Reading as Fun as Music and Beer!" --- people liked it and took pics of it as well.

Karl and I evolved some good slogans and team interaction with the crowd.

We interacted with a pro writer, some professors, some young new writers, lots of young excited readers.

Karl was good at aiming a person to the ULA book that would fit them. I slipped into overkill sometimes, but overall I think we hit folks in a potent way. Having a BIG LINE-UP of books really looked great and really gave us a DYNAMITE HOOK for anyone who came up. Also we had things for all incomes --- free fliers --- cheap zeens --- books at good prices. I charged $10 for any book. It does seem that if we had a line of $5 books that that would be great. We would also sell the zeens on a sliding scale --- if a mark (!) looked flush we'd let them run with their own inclination --- some were happy to give us $5. Some kids would plead poverty and we'd sell em a zeen for $1 and they'd go for it. We had the stickers and trading cards for 25¢, just to test for sincerity. "

We'd take breaks and sight-see. Two times people stopped me and took pics of my BMX-flames shirt with a "Why is today's fiction so boring?" sticker on it. That was fun---the message and style was catching on.

Man, the music was good!

As it got dark we thought that people might stop responding to our message, but it was weird: we fit right in with the party. People kept stopping by and engaging us...and buying books! Actually drunk people obviously couldn't focus their eyes much less their minds. But people who just wanted some excitement could easily see the point of what we were doing.

We're rescuing literature from the boring people! We're making it fun again. We publish street writers who've paid their dues, who have cult followings already. But who've been shut out. We're setting them free! ____________

"Karl got the baseball-styled one.

He also wore a pair of blinking Tigers eyeglasses---they helped draw us some customers after it got dark! ...But around 9pm the crowd was too drunk to respond anymore so we closed up.

We saw Leah Smith and had a nice chat. She used to book the stage acts there up til last year. "

The Dally was great fun. We connected with a bunch of non-literary people. And a wide variety of literary people, too, from a wide range of cultures. The goal is to get word of mouth going for DIY lit out there among everyday people. Literature is for them! That's my goal when I have a book table at a big party...and when I show novels to outdoor people

here at OYBDoor.

Best of all were the young people. They're the future, man. And they have the energy for today, too. The trick is to inspire them in an integrated way, not segregated. Our world is so oppressive that the youth tend to segregate and split off. --But some of the art and politics of their scene makes this segregation worse. Let's make this a big tent!

Some librarian or schoolmarm types would stop and say "But reading isn't boring!" We'd say, "Right! But how many people know that? There is a lot of good stuff out there, but there's a disconnect. The whole zine revolution was IGNORED by the lit scene! Sure, most of it was kid's stuff, but a lot of it rocked, and some was really good." Actually, the librarians were easy to hook over to our side. They all were, really. We're not saying to get rid of the fancy lads and academia. We say just don't forget the street!

The intellectuals are reading already. But brainy folks have been turned into just another shopping demographic. Lit hates niches. Our segregating system needs to be busted open! --And exposed. --Its guts layed out for viewing.

Everyday people need to read Lit as much as anyone. Why? To live! Reading is the King art for the Queen muse, Memory. Reading really does matter! But people have to FEEL that in their bones. They need reading that hits for it to work and stick. Reading is how people can know what their options are in a particular culture, it's how culture knows and explores itself. People can more readily connect their particular scene to the rest of culture THRU something like street lit. Folk writing brings people around to Shakespeare and Plutarch and even the postmodernists by showing how it all fits together.

Vernacular writing may not have polish but it's just as full of ideas and life. Plain folks appreciate talent. It's just not where or what they're told it is. They can't be fooled! They'll turn to TV instead. Elitists look down on them, but really the plain folk know the score when they see it. Because it will hit them in a relevant way. The fancy folk are the real fools, in the end. It's the old country reversal.

Face it, a lot of what passes as lit today has blinders on, has biases that cut audiences off, that cater to small groups, to identity groups, to particular social classes. Street lit has the brains, muscle and boldness to aim higher, to connect back to the old greats and point forward to today's potential.

Like Karl told a pro writer who engaged us, when a scene gets too much into polish and refinement it turns into Emerson, Lake and Palmer---which spurs the advent of punk! Punk wasn't everything, but it was needed. It couldn't be stopped. It forged its own new pathways when the existing options rejected it.

"No Yul. I had emailed him a few days beforehand.We thought we saw the doppelganger of Jackman. It was intense! I'm going to phone his MetroTimes office and ask if he has shaved his goatee... It was a thinner, beardless, SCARIER Jackman, if it really was him. Looked drugged. But fashionably dressed with elite Panama and linen blazer in a Summertime 1930's way... Eery! He drifted past us a couple times, lingering nearby... I didn't notify him of my table this time. I thought we might catch him in our driftnet as he was out partying...! "

Out and out and knock-about: Purview of LETTERHEAD meta-zine and periodical from Buffalo, New York. Currently published in Zen Baby # 19 hardcorewise

2008-08-31T20:36:00.028-04:00

PLUS PLUS scatter-brained throughout [subtext] as if it was done to make sense-- all kinds of underground subter-fusion newz that the defunkt mainstream mass media cannot even spell good 'cause it goes beyond the pale of just entertainment and may instigate a change of the literate public heart as if the people were to turn against their tormentors.....

LETTERHEAD, VOLUME 1. Highest Hurdle Press,

(Buffalo New York) 2007

Editors: looks like 4 or 5 who did a great job! 15.00 US

136pp, perfect bound, folio soft cover. Review by FDW, ULA, DDD.com

Right off the bat the only negative- crit of Letterhead (volume 1) is that the first page, writ with propitious spleen by Brian McMahon, following the copious and monumental

Table of contents should have its lead-in parenthetical reshuffled to read: (not not a manifesto) as that tweak would be more in keeping with the auto suggestive this excellent underground literary endeavor engenders on every page between its freaked-out cover.The opening verses printed beautifully on pages 9 and 10 especial the first, “Poetry Rats”

Blamed on Zen Baby perpetrator and ULA member, Christopher Robin, are unalterably top-notch food-stuffs without an iota of pimientos’ aftertaste whereby the lesser olive garden variety poetry chokes.

Covering all bases with “purpose” and “passion” is bound to work and then again when “inclusion” is “operative” out of principle as the Letterhead editors declare rather than squeezed token-ly from a preconceived PC notions like diversity or acceptance of differences. So that with Christopher’s two pieces setting the pace the reader hit’s the ground running and is sustained so the entire experience that is Letterhead, volume 1. No nooks and crannies secreting half-baked chestnuts of cranky wisdom or isolated jaunts of clever virtuosity a reader comfortable with academic literary journals or the posturing whores of the forced “alternative” publications is expected to swallow and process, while here in this Buffalo based meta-zeen, what but lit work and aftefact that “crosses the line”, uses words/images to get beyond words/ images and rides the reader home to his or her rad-subjective desires.

Form is content and there’s no dull systemic excuses otherwise. Parables representative of useless moralities are dumped in favor of the hyperbola-- open at both ended invitations from the artists collected in this no-holds- barred tome. Whereas the reader be striped of devisiveness so that decision liberated of choice can be“made“. The cutting- edge of the Letterhead corresponds to the experience of the reader in time and space.

No small achievement.

Letterhead as is is got to be one of the best most satisfying things of its kind, Zen Baby of course and say the Idiom Mag out of N.J. included, out there right now.
And why not. It virtually pistol whips the corporate co-opted dunderheads of the American twilight, and why not. University MFA slaughter- house milk-toasts aside even in Buffalo, a city that’s been a hotbed of the DYI independent underground literary scenes despite maybe inspite of NYSU. Every piece herein threads it’s needle, with all the ornament and mannerism held in reserve with gestures that seduce and converse rather than persuade or condescend. Just what the doctor ordered! Who could want for anything more out of their underground

cultural sources. Just enough and even share-- an uncontested gratuity that percolates in the Letterhead. Cuts the teeth on the cutting edge whereas, Virginia, the “avant-garde', so called, by comparison, is dead, and reeks of post modern bullshit (like confessional desciptive company-poetry) and back sliding (like L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E ) as it does evermore in the service of the real-estate interests of Immanent Domain, right to our faces!

Yes a lot of what may be technically “experimental” is unabashedly bent that way and this, but in truth experiential when the content is recognized as such to the memory via the perception, (to paraphrase Creeley and the Projectivists). For then the form is content, formerly, when the content is less experiential and runs the risk of coming too close for comfort to not-making-sense. Where cutting-edge say poetry and art stops relying on the excuse of “expression” and in turn becomes exhibitionism, i.e. a sort of “therapy”, or mere entertainment/ diversion for

field & stream magazine, MARCH 2008, HEROES AND VILLIANS BY THOMAS MAcINTYRE. An embarassingly good example of a confessional/descriptive company-poet and their snotty attitude.

“consumers” or some such numbers, poetry and art are experiential and invite the reader/audience to participate because the form invites and seduces and conversely “meaning” the great enemy of the senses is suspended in that participation and sensibilitycomes to inform the experience of that art and poetry.

Seasoned (by street and liberality) even more so facile experimental writers like Sonnenfeld ( a ULAer), Pomerhn, Brian McMahon, Cirino, herein, most resist this line of concern about form/content when their forms are revealed to be wound up too tight and beside the heat they give off, more heat than light perhaps, which is something admittedly they as artists for sure and also mostly the reader warm to, the poems and aftefact cry out on their pages to explode and suffuse the white silences with a dangerous and germane fall-out. In Letterhead prodigies like Loraine Campbell supersede all of the above.

And then there are “damn-straight” vers livre tending, finely, to the confessional from Kime, and Verrilli (another ULAer), etc. And “lyrik” with a “k” ‘cause this poetry is wrapt with allowing itself, god forbid, the joy of rhyme in the mix, for example Arnold Skemer and Mimi Moriarty, who-- and this pretty much covers all the visual work in Letterhead especial-- favor the flavors of today’s headlines stoked from our time-bombed World. There are well wrought bridges and glancing blows of prose semi-poetry from Mark Pawlak, Chas. Ries, Harrison, and THE DD OF DR. ROARSCHOCK section-- a grand memorial and testimonial to a late mentor, poet, publisher, injun-guide late up thee in Buffalo Way, Harvey Gardner, whereas wall-paper “tiles” w/ neat texte collages by Pomerhn prepare the reader’s entry into, and in turn the same winds that reader’s mind down with further psycho- typographies of respite and stations of a life. Banners and headlines, closed with another series of reflective “reprieved” collage/montage. Very good is “1997//prophecy”, a wildly mapped iconic praxis. So goes it with typographical topical treatments by Jason Silvi’s “My Friends”, with powerful medicines from VanRemmen for and aft, followed by the exploding street- heads in urbane traffics of Gelsinger, Pomerhn, Lastname’s conspiracies to-be-outside-the-pale. The whole last quarter of the Volume anchored by “Scremo” and “Black Sunday”, Erin Thomas’ red hot run on politico- canticles, in turn tagged by nice haltingly hep pieces of Ian Belknap and very much in there Burt Rashbaum’s redhanded exper-iential lyrik, “Buffalo” , another example of the wealth of pivotal beyond-the -call -of -duty poems throughout Letterhead. and totem and taboo busting constructions from Eric Johnt salting the parlors!

Cool socio-geographical narrative from Lawinger, then Trundell’s damn-straight vers libre , then a stand of pissed-off polis-polemical to remind the reader the outside World’s cluster-fuck is coming up on the event horizon fast as Highest Hurdle Press’ archetypal “meta-‘zine” w/ the obligatory but happily miscreant bios of both instigators and contributors. Easing on into before this occurs tho are plenty of fresh stinging uncompromised plainchant composed by no less than ten what this one takes to be promising young turks and apaches taunting the smoke and mirrors of the Mainstream Establishment.

###

TESTIMONIAL:
...the weekly reading that Morrisey and Robin have turned into one of the premier venues for small press poets on the West Coast. Past featured readers have included: A.D. Winans, Neeli Ckherkovski, Hugh Fox, John Dorsey, S.A. Griffin, Klipschutz, Gerald Nicosia, Joe Pachinko, William Taylor, Jr., Michelle Tea, Raindog, Café Barbarians, Jennifer Blowdryer and so many more... Robin tapes each reading and sells them as DVD’s, as well as sending copies to “The Poetry Collection” at the University at Buffalo / The State University of New York. There the readings are stored in perpetuity, along with the work of hundreds of other small press poets.

"and unfortunately our wired wash venue closed in june, :( more soon!"

-- a recent email from Honolulu by Christopher Robin (sunday 8/31)

FROM WWC OPEN MIC MYSPACE SITE:

The Wired Wash Café Poetry Reading happens every Friday at 7:00 p.m. Posters are put up around Santa Cruz, Berkley and San Francisco prior to each reading. As promised, my name was indeed in a funky lighted sign that was hung outside the Laundromat. The washers and dryers went through their rinse, spin, and dry cycles; as each reader cycled through their five minutes. Dirty laundry, clean clothes, poets, and street people tumbled together

Hey y'all Mike Donnelly (right of Black Francis) the 'murikan literary international vaga bond is back in the States ( San Fransisco, CA. )hanging out with FIBA- UK [George Solomos' major active project located in London], West Coast Desk Correspondent, and videographer, Tom Filmyer. Mike and I co-authored a center spread invesitgative report on and about EZRA POUND that largely contributed to a reactionary furor during an EP and WCW symposium at the U of Penna. back in the early 1980's.He had just got back spending time and conversing with Olga Rudge in Rapallo, Italy. The article was instigated and published in the UNIVERSITY....

"saw Charles from The Pixies (Black Francis/Frank Black) do a concert at The Crepe Place garden full of bamboo and hanging vines"

-- an email from Donnelley while in SANTA CRUZ last week.

.... CITY NEWS (same paoper that set-up and published the Allen Ginsberg interview that can be heard and read on www.literaryrevolution.com ) by Andrew Lovatt, of www.deaddrunkdublin.com, then editor-in-chief of that West Philly biweekly newspaper. Look for some poetry and crazy rants from Mike D. coming up soon on the

ULAManifest. www.ulamanifest.blogspot.com where new ULA member Matt Broomfield, Matt's projects and sampling of his work

is now spectacularly posted!

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

FOR YOUR FIX OF ZEN BABY'S HAND CUT AND ROLLED

FOR YOUR OWN GOODIES

SEND MULLAH, SOMOLIANS, OR EVEN FEDERAL RESERVE RUBBER $$$$

TO:

DARK LORD OF THE ZEN BABY UNIVERSE

PO BOX 1611

SANTA CRUZ, CA.

95061

Donnelley backing the giant sequoias

Amazing self-produced indie tome by a poet...

2008-08-31T15:33:00.009-04:00

.... who goes by the name of GRAYWYLVERN reviewed by the ULA's resident

Renaissance man, active- member, Tom Hendricks. A more formal and qualified Musea Zine (# 72 ) version can be savored at:

Musea Zine art and media zine supports indy artists and indy media opposes corporate art

http://musea.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/musea-art-review-72-the-theory-and-practice-of-oligarchic-collectivism/

Review below
**************

Title: The Theory and Practice of Oligarchic
Collectivism

What is it? : Book, a collection of short thoughts or
comments on different aspects of life by Graywyvern,
an author mostly known for his poetry.

Technical Quality: Good looking trade paperback with
clear easy-to-read printing.

Innovative Quality: High. Fine black and white cover
art is an abstraction by Hileel Memshac. Content is a
collection of short comments showing some very
sophisticated original thinking expressed in a very
poetic way.

Review:
In 1670 Blaise Pascal published his now classic book,
"Pensees", (thoughts). It was a 17th century man's
enlightened reflections of his life and the world
around him.
That classic work has, in my opinion, now it's match
in this new contemporary, self published book by
Graywyvern.
It too is a book of thoughts, 100 pages filled with
short paragraphs. Each one encapsulates a single idea,
maxim, thought, puzzle, vision or reflection.
The best way to review it is to show selections from
it. But before I do some overall reflections of my
own.
Some entries are short and give a quick jolt of
insight. Others are deeper, more complex thoughts
that, for me, required two or more readings. The
author uses simple language much of the time but
delights in the occasional big words, such as:
polyvalent power, quietudinous, eschatology, nexus,
siliqua, and from the title, oligarchic - the
adjective form of the noun, oligarchy, that means a
small group having control of a country or any large
group of people.
His comments often include a poetic example or parable
to illustrate his point. He often talks of the subject
of art with a special emphasis on poems and poets like
himself.
Now for some selections. They are not the worst or
best; but, just a sampling of those I particularly
liked. Or I should say the first 13 short and complete
entries and the first 5 excerpts from longer entries
that I liked. There are many many more favorites. The
book is a mix of about half short entries and half
longer entries, the longer ones being about the size
of a paragraph. And please remember, I don't mean to
in any way suggest these samples cover all the areas
of topics and ideas discussed.

First some short and complete entries:

At the end of his rope is where a poet shines.

The illusion that everything is sayable comes from
having dwelt too long among the things that have been
said.

More than i want social justice, i want a land where i
don't have to hate.

The more intuitive you are, the spookier your world
is. Not more frightening - but more mysterious: & more
inhabited.

The child makes the ritual, the child disbelieves the
ritual (unmakes it) - two powers denied to normal
adults.

I keep struggling against the false belief that to be
something not yet defined is to be useless.

I image a brawl in which ten million poets fight to
the death for access to the last reader of poetry.

A corporation is not so much a machine for making
money, as a device for diffusing responsibility.

Chalk-drawing on the sidewalk is what we are. One good
rain & we're gone.

Is despair like a faith in the impossibility of all
efforts?

Ego is a theory of the introvert in isolation, the
extravert in conflict.

An artist without a community is a lightning rod
without the storm.

Prose is poetry all the air has been let out of.

And here are some excerpts from longer entries:

When i walk down stairs it's a controlled fall, that i
continually interrupt and launch again to sustain the
smooth movement of. This, then, might be a provisional
definition of mature art - whose labor has
disappeared, like scaffolding, and yet it holds to a
line of necessity (the unseen stairs of my path) ...

... Our definitions are as much forced upon us as the
deformations of age, illness, and employment: they are
the surfaces where our bodies touch the hook we all
writhe upon.

... Mankind's only concept of civilization seems to be
to make the ultimate racket & the inescapable reek.

... I think i value this (keeping a journal) more than
the making of art, even if it is less perfect &
useless to others. That other is what i make of the
flies i catch; this is the very web of my spiderhood.

... Story is older than speech.

And two more favorites (I'd give you more but I would
be reprinting not quoting! It's time for you to follow
up and get your copy of the book for more of these
gems.)

I read about the lives of artists; i say, "my god, it
wasn't worth it!" Well, the rest had it just as bad,
and what did they leave?

Without the touch of another, you walk on air

Overall this book is an instant classic, and one of
the best books of our era. And saying anything short
of that is false.
Finding something this sophisticated and special is
rare. I'm glad I was lucky enough to be one of the
first to read and experience this exhilarating and
insightful work - a marvelous achievement! And our
world should be grateful for this addition to its body
of literature.

Contact Info:
http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Practice-Oligarchic-Collectivism-Goldstein/dp/1438212852/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219295094&sr=1-1

Note: FDW has received his review copy of this-- and Tom is not exaggerating the value and "standing" of this cat's work!-- from the author as of last week. He will besides write a review of "Theory And Practice..." very soon and publish such here on the Critique, feeling the compulsion to do so and to spread the word, etc.

Also it must be sd. that the title as GRAYWYVERN notes likewise on the last back page of the book is the title of THE book in George Orwell's 1984.

AMC [allied media conference] roving report SATURDAY, JUNE 21st

2008-06-29T10:16:00.023-04:00

DETROIT'S HALF EMPTY GLASS HALF FULL

BY ALLIED MEDIA CONFERENCE ???

AND THE ula AND ulaPRESS GOT TABLE....

held June 20-22 in the McGregor Conference Center (495 Ferry Mall)
and Community Arts Building on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit

all photos other than kayaking in the grass

below and those 3 of and by yul tolbert

by 'kameelahwrites', flickr.com

report by ULAPress publisher and AMC

attendee, JEFF POTTER

http://literaryrevolution.com/Potter.html

[here's JEFF'S final report from today 7/2/08 with intial drafts to folllow

the Critique feels are fun reading in and of themselves]

Here's my report from the first AMC I attended.

AMC Detroit used to be UPC Ohio. Back in the Ohio day it was big on zines. But times change. I had a new line of novels to release so I hired a table and went to see what's going down.

Here's their homepage: http://alliedmediaconference.org.

What's going down is seminars---which I didn't get to see because I was at my table all day! So this will be a limited report...

There's positive potential hidden in the radical media event experience, but basically, it seems like these young people didn't find Lit to be very compelling. But then no one does nowadays! ...Except perhaps MFA-degree kids, but then they're treating it like Career Day. The ULA is out to change that!

Actually, no one seemed to be all that much into print media of any kind that I could see.

There were several print media tables---including tables from AK and Microcosm, two of the biggest alternative publishers---and it didn't seem like they got much action. It's a post-literate age.

Maybe it was just this event, and not the crowd, what with the layout putting the tables in a side-building near one seminar auditorium. There is a main gathering area that probably isn't quite big enough for the tables, either. What can ya do?

Anyway, the YouTube generation needs something really FRESH and CANDID to get them back into reading!

The AMC is now basically a seminars event. Probably it's also a good party event, as the night-time schedule is filled with music action. Back when it was the UPC down in Bowling Green, zines were fresh. The tables were the main thing. This shift to classes is fine---it's just away from print or tables.

For instance, there was at least one class on silk-screening. That's a great skill and art-form. So the AMC is more about how to silk-screen rather than a DIY showcase for folks to show what they've been doing in silkscreening and to, say, affordably display their wares or to trade with other folks whose work they like. The old UPC was a swap bonanza. But how-to is great, too.

It's just slow for tables. Or, again, maybe it's location, location... Or both!

I think they said 500-1000 people were involved in the 3 days and nights of alt.media action.

Everyone is ostensibly included, but the emphasis is on women, people of color and alt.gender. For the media side it would be music, politics and video/web. Print? Hallooooo? (Can you hear the echo?)

I explained the ULA mission to a couple dozen people in total and got a good reception and sold some books.

As always it was fun to try to dial in a display that catches attention.

Karl Wenclas showed up and was nice to have around. He has a good sales spirit. He didn't mention any future plans for specific action.

Michael Jackman said he might show but didn't.

Karl said that I should've brought Urban Hermitt zeens---I have never seen any, though. They might've been great for this crowd. Microcosm had 2 remaining copies of the Hermitt book, which I vaguely recalled hearing about long ago. I note that AK has a staff of 12 and Microcosm has 9. Good for them!

Yul Tolbert was there most of the time. He was sketching. He's a quiet guy! : ) I think he had a nice time. It's always fun to show your stuff---and he had a big spread of comix laid out. Quite a few people were interested in his work.

Yul and I didn't put up his "controversial" ULA "babe" poster. This was a hard-sell crowd for a "bikini girl." My idea is that transgression is supposed to be endless, but I'm not sure that view is shared by all, especially those who are really into identity and the turf that comes with it. Karl says it's a great poster and that controversy is good. I agree, but I have to see a winning outcome. : ) The jump from hostility to sales isn't always an easy one, eh?

***

My table was mostly a showcase of the main line of the 7 new ULA titles, the AllStar trading cards, and the new poster. They all had a coherent, synergizing look.

I taped up a printed name banner plus 4 posters.

For handouts I had the following: *ULA catalog, *ULA Media Hits flier, *ULA slogans flier, *the "Boring Fiction" sticker.

As I sat there I sensed that the poster didn't relate our main message in a clear enough, punchy way. So I markered up a few more slogan sheets and taped them up, too---thus totally cluttering up our visual impact. Ha.

I'll post my "extra" slogans here that I thought up.

It was funny the things that occurred to me as young people strolled by, as I tried to figure out how to tell them in a phrase who we are.

Free the novel!

Access for writers!

Noise for writers!

Impact for writers!

Popularizing literature!

New relevance for literature!

***

I, for one, did buy and read some neat material at the show. I can relate to the Anarchist/Commie struggle in the Canadian journal "Upping the Anti," but also a major aspect of it seems nuts to me. They are "anti" several big bad things---but why not firstly be "for" truth, justice, beauty? And if you are, wouldn't that cover it all? If you're anti-gender-bias then you're FOR equality. The upshot being that to exclude men and their work, for instance, from anything seems like an internal contradiction of doom.

Then there's the hierarchy that Anti's partake in. They say they're against hierarchy, but the Anti system sets it up anyway. There's always at least a two-part ranking involved, starting with the good guys versus the bad, right? But it grows from there. It's at the root of the schizmatic nature of their scene---all the infighting---and it's the joke of these movements.

One of the journal's articles was by a longtime gay activist who was "critiquing" the privilege of the andro/bendy "queer" anarchists---they hadn't done the hard work of entirely outing their privilege yet. But how does he know what they've done? Really, he's putting himself above them. And he's given himself license to do so. --Privilege even!

I also overhead a guy talking to a lady at the Commie booth about trying to date another Commie lady. She said that a barrier might be the high standards that the lady Commie would have. Yes, this poor man clearly had more work to do to measure up to his erstwhile lady friend. ...And, undoubtedly, she would know it when she saw it if he ever makes the grade.

To me, these critiques have a lot that is compelling. But not the exclusion and hierarchy. They also have an existential confusion going on, I think---mistaking material signs for their inner meanings.

But we can learn from both their pro's and their con's.

So that's my critique of their critique!

***

Our nation once had vibrant art. We've recently gone thru a negative, destructive, exploitive phase in the cycle. A cycle is only natural. It's time again for a change. The next positive future for the literary scene relates as well to any positive future for the critique scene. How can we bring culture to life along with inclusive relevance? How can activists and artists reach out to the mainstream with fresh ideas which are wild but at the same time sustainable and mature? Freedom and creativity are liberating but they're also responsible. They build on and respect the past and their own limits. Our movements can't win by doing things that intentionally cut us off from the larger world, or by preaching to the converted, or by always making the same old enemies.

***

It was also humorous trying to come up with one-liners to describe our books.

Several gendro types caught the Crazy Carl magic and gravitated to his FAT ON THE VINE book then looked a bit tweaked when they read the bit about the "Nixon lesbian" on the back cover---so I had to head them off at the pass with a remark that "this is an outrageously transgressive book that has an amazing heart to it despite it all." Didn't work, but what can ya do.

TEXAS GANG was "a cosmic cowboy, beat western, hippy western."

Steve's WASTED ANGELS was "coming of age but with true candor."

Here are some longer slogans that I had listed on a flier:

New Writing for a New Century!

A Fresh Alternative to MFA Writers!

A Way to Amplify Your Voice!

Antics & Exposes that get Big Media Impact with No Budget!

Breaking out the Underground! Freeing the Book! Daring to publish the untouchables!

Rough, risky, relevant... Candid, exciting, activist!

Every other art form has indy power—it's time for Lit to join in!

The one and only literary activist experience! Join in and take us with you!

Independents Working Together!

Don't Need Badges, Don't Need Permission! Unbought, unbossed!

Outlaws! Outsiders! Folk! Roots! Populist!

Revive Reading!

Up from the Streets!

Zeensters, Readers, Writers, Artists...Joining Together!

***

snap-shots to the right and left above are by the ULAPress' Jeff Potter

****

AT JEFF'S SUGGESTION ALL EARLY DRAFTS AND NOTES FROM THE DAY OR SO FOLLOWING THE AMC SATURDAY 6/21 HAVE BEEN RESHUFFLED BACK TO THEIR SOURCE-- THE ULA PROBOARDS FORUM WHICH IS ACCESSIBLE ONLY TO ULA MEMBERS AND THEIR GUESTS-- EXCEPT THE BRIEF RALLYING CRY BELOW IN ORDER TO REMIND US ALL OF THE SPIRIT AND THE COMMON SENSE WE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES CELEBRATE TODAY, INDEPENDENCE DAY OF 2008.

-- FDW

ULAer YUL TOLBERT above, here, down there!

http://timeliketoons.tripod.com/tlt.html

I read some neat material there---I can relate to theAnarchist/Commie struggle but there's also a lot there that's just nuts to me. They are "anti" several major things---but why not just be "for" truth, justice, beauty---wouldn't that cover the same turf? And wouldn't that be MOST inclusive? When you're "anti-oppression" aren't you basically FOR justice? To me, the "anti" style sets up a false binary---yet much of their material complains of the exact same thing, especially as regards the binary of gender. To me, their tactic seems to be about enjoying excluding and putting down the White Guy in addition to critiquing the System. Well, that seems dumb, mean and like a dead end. It's gotta be inclusive. The positive future in all this seems to relate to the positive future for Lit: how can we reach out to the mainstream with fresh, wild, relevant art and ideas? You can't do it by doing things that intentionally cut you off from the larger world, or by preaching to the converted, or by always making/confronting the same old enemies.

---- from early draft by JEFF

Free the novel!
Access for writers!
Noise for writers!
Impact for writers!
Popularizing literature!
New relevance for literature!

Here are some longer slogans that I had listed on a flier:

New Writing for a New Century!
A Fresh Alternative to MFA Writers!
A Way to Amplify Your Voice!
Antics & Exposes that get Big Media Impact with No Budget!
Breaking out the Underground! Freeing the Book! Daring to publish the untouchables!
Rough, risky, relevant... Candid, exciting, activist!
Every other art form has indy power—it’s time for Lit to join in!
The one and only literary activist experience! Join in and take us with you!
Independents Working Together!
Don’t Need Badges, Don’t Need Permission! Unbought, unbossed!
Outlaws! Outsiders! Folk! Roots! Populist!
Revive Reading!
Up from the Streets!
Zeensters, Readers, Writers, Artists...Joining Together!

****

BLAME YUL TOLBERT AGAIN FOR THE DERIVE ABOVE!

ULA Scoops OW franchise on neo- beat "woodstock"

2008-06-18T01:18:00.012-04:00

MIKE GROVER TAKES A GREYHOUND THERE AND BACK AND DOES IT UP!

WHOSE WHO WHATS WHAT..... AND WASSUP...........

AS THE ULA INITIATES THE NEW CRITIQUE WITH A REPORT ON:

The Connecticut Beat Poetry Festival 2008
Presented by The Spoken Word Series

"Once Allen Ginsberg drew the line after having read Howl, the world was never quite the same.And now a new time has come "

[BUT THE ULA CRITIQUE ASKS THE NEOS WHERE WAS KEROUAC OR DID THEY BLAME THE PRICE OF GAS?]

"Here's the report ....

"I just tried to catch all of the madness and tie it into the shows. There is gonna be a much bigger report in the new CPJournal when it comes out. Probably next month it will be in its new online home."

MIKE GROVER, 6/15/08.

----------------------------- ----------- -------- :

Day 1 Tuesday 6/3/08: This was the first day for me. Technically it was the third day. John Dorsey said
he had caught the show the night before and it was pretty good. I spent Monday on a Greyhound (Who can
afford to drive these days?). I called Lester Allen from the bus as I got close to Hartford. He informed
me that the organizer of the event could not show up to pick me up. It was now his job to do so. He was
just passing through New York City and would not be there on time.
So at this point I'm freaking out. I am arriving in Hartford two hours before my reading, desperately
needing a shower and a coffee, and no one was picking me up. As the bus pulled in I saw the smiling faces
of John Dorsey and Dan Provost outside, and I got so happy.
I had told John what time I was getting in and they figured this may happen as they had heard the tales
of Juice getting stranded at the airport last night. My rescuers and I crammed into Dan's pick-up truck
and we were off.
It was said that Juice was staying at a hotel downtown and Provost thought he could find it, and I could
shower there. The problem was we couldn't find it. By the time I got Juice on the phone and got directions,
we had called Lester and he was at the hotel. It was by the airport. So we got a ticket for an illegal
left turn and we asked the cop for directions to the airport. Dan was not happy.

We got to the airport to call Les and find out it was not the main airport, but the one on Brainard Road.
At this point Dan just lost it. He said I would have to do the reading without a shower as it was about time
to go to the venue. I knew how to get there as I saw the exit on the way in. We called Les to pick up Juice.
The truck was dead silent on the way and I felt bad for the promoter. He had three pissed off poets to deal
with.

Something about Dan Provost that you should know at this point is that he is a big, tough, ex-football
player who is now a coach, and he is not the kind of guy you want mad at you. So we arrived at the reading,
Dan shoots out of the truck, past the historic houses in the front where at one time George Washington planned
the american revolution. Down the path up the back to the barn where the reading was. He pushed the promoter
back in the chest with both hands, and the promoter landed on his ass. Provost then stood over him yelling
as I stood there smiling and the older women putting on the festival looked on with horror.

As Provost walked away, he got up. I looked him in the eye and said, "I need a shower.". I walked back up
the path with Dan who kept apologizing for doing this at my show. I told him it was no big deal. He did what
needed to be done. John Dorsey and I unpacked my bags and suitcase from the back of the truck and Dan said
he would meet us at the tavern on the corner. So Dorsey and I walked into the barn with all my luggage, me with
the stink of two days on a Greyhound. I was like a hobo poet.
The promoter looked at me and asked what I needed to perform. I told him a shower, decent food, and coffee.

He could not do a lot about the shower but he took us to the pizza place on the corner and bought us pizza and
a coffee. I was feeling better after that.
We got back to the barn and the realization hit me that the show must go on. I went and washed off in the
sink as good as I could, put on tons of deodorant, and put on a clean shirt. I was ready to go right? Lester showed
up with Juice and Jim Deuchars. I had my crowd and I was ready.

I'm pretty resilient and all drama aside I put on a perfect show. The crowds reaction showed that. Dorsey and I did
sell a lot of books to the locals that night.
Another highlight of that night was Milwaukee's Amelia Matus. She was beautiful and angelic. She had almost
a hypnotic quality about her. Her poetry was hard and real and you felt whatever she did. At some point during her
reading Dorsey turned to me and said we need to do a chapbook for her. I know John Dorsey knows poetry better
than most and I have never not followed his advice so I agreed.

I went and talked to Amelia about it after the show was over, and she was happy. I introduced her to John.
And with her entourage and my luggage in tow we went to the pub where Dan was drinking and had a great time.

What a night.

Day 2 Wednesday 6/4: This has nothing to do with the festival but sometime in the early morning hours
Juice was outside wandering around the hotel on Brainard when he witnessed the night manager get pistol whipped,
and robbed for forty five dollars.

The guy looked up and saw him and ran, and Juice ran and hid and called us.
Next thing we know a police dog is going though the hall. We're putting all the pot on the window ledge.
Tonight was Jack Kerouac

night at the Charter Oak Cultural Center. I believe the term "Beard" was coined
as we were lost again driving around looking for the place, our friend Jacob Johansen who was reading said
"I'm sure my "Beard" friends are gonna be here." And we did make it, just before the reading started.
Aleathia Drehmer was the first reader, and she was very good. But Jacob stole this show tonight. In true
spirit of me the night before, I believe he was straight off a twenty-six hour drive. And he delivered.
Later there was an open-mic at the Arch Street Tavern. We all ripped it up. Dan Provost, John Dorsey,
Amelia Matus, Juice, Katie Kaboom, Aleathia, Jim Deuchars, Lester Allen, Jacob and myself. I met a woman named Blue
there. This will be important later. After the reading Amelia came up to me, and informed me that her grandmother
that raised her was on her deathbed, and she was asking to see her. She had to leave tomorrow. She asked if I would
sell her chapbooks for the rest of the week. I instantly felt compassion as I just lost my grandmother. We hugged a lot.
She smelled like angels. I had more books to sell.

Day 3 Thursday 6/5: Another thing that has nothing to do with the festival. At some point in the early morning
Dan Provost buys about ten gas station sandwiches from the Shell station on Brainard, and takes them back to the room.
The term "Danwich" is invented.
Tonight we did not get lost going to the Wood Memorial Library. This is different. Lester Allen, and Jim Deuchars
have their features tonight. They were reading with LisaAnne Lobasso. I knew I knew her name, and it probably sounded
like a cheap pick-up line when I asked her if we had met before. But it turns out I had booked a show for her at the
reading I hosted at The Five Spot in Philly a few years ago.
People were beginning to call us "The Beards" tonight. I guess the name stuck. Blue came up to me before the show
and said she had to buy my chapbook. So she did.
Local poet Maggie Greene really impressed me with her feature tonight. In fact this was the first night that everyone
was good. Katie Kaboom and Blue each had a grape soda can that was full of Jim Beam. Katie was passing hers among the
Beards. Lester and Jim each turned it great readings. Lester did great considering the first time he ever read was the
open-mic last night. And Deuchars was very personable and interacted with the crowd alot. He was very animated and gave
a solid performance.
They decided to do an open mic after this considering the talent that they had in town so we took a break before that.
John Dorsey, Jim Deuchars, and I were found behind the shed out back smoking pot with Katie. When we went back Katie began
bringing beers into the library. This just kept getting better and better. This was crazy for a library. This was
"Beardattitude".
The open mic was awesome. There was just a great energy to the place. I know I gave my best performance of the whole
festival, and I believe John Dorsey would say the same. Other highlights were Aleathia, Jacob, Katie and there were some
damned good locals.

Day 4 Friday 6/6: This poetess named Blue and I were seen on the bed of the hotel having a deep drunken conversation all
night, which ended in us making a date for Saturday, and her passing out with her head on my chest.

That night the Beards headed to a pool hall and had a little fun before making it to the Hall Memorial Library where it would
be woman's poetry night and Blue was to be one of the features along with now honorary Beard for her balls at the library the night
before Katie Kaboom,

We arrived at the reading. I checked on Blue's condition first thing which was hung over. She was very nervous about her
reading. I told her she would do great.
Katie Kaboom "The Bearded Lady" was awesome. Her set was animated and full of energy and emotion. There was a Christine Beck
that did a great set of Anne Waldman poems. She was very good. I would have liked to seen her do her own stuff. Blue was last
and she was amazing. Easily out did Katie's performance earlier with all of the same qualities that allowed her to steal the show.

After that we went to some yuppie bar for a party for the Beat Fest where we could not really afford much and did not really
belong.

Day 5 Saturday 6/7: Blue the poetess and I were seen back at the hotel room in the early morning hours at the same exact spot

on the bed that we were the morning before. This time it's not as smooth. John Dorsey and Lester lay on the other bed watching
the whole room just as they did the morning before.
So today was the day of the big date. We got to the first show at The Buttonwood Tree, so I waited outside for her, and she arrived
with Katie and Jacob. As we stood outside George Wallace came up, and John Dorsey and I were talking to him. We went inside and Blue made
sure I sat next to her. This was a great show. Easilly the best I had seen at the festival.
The first poet Kenneth Lundquist was very good. He read a very mystical poem that went over a lot of peoples heads. Lisa C. Taylor turned
in a good set.
The next poet was the highlight of the whole festival

as George Wallace took the stage. I have read his stuff on his blog and knew he was
very good. But I never realized how rhythmic his poems are. How they were all really written to be performed and seeing him perform just put
it all together. He was amazing.
Next was Dan Wilcox who was probably the second best poet I saw all week. His stuff was very strong. The highlight was him changing Ginsberg's
song "Don't Smoke" to "Don't Vote". He was awesome.
At that point I knew the next venue was walking distance from where we were so Blue and I made our way down the street. As we passed restaurants
I asked her if she was hungry, and she said no. It was time for the so called main event which featured the much hyped poems of Frank Reardon and
Rob Plath. I was not sure if they were worthy of such praise. I would find out tonight. That was for sure.

This started with an open mic. All of the Beards participated, Blue read, George Wallace, Zach Moll was featuring tonight, and he read. There was
a lot of energy to the open mic.
The features started off with someone I will not name. It was awful. He was screaming and putting up this macho
front. It was all for nothing. There was nothing behind his work. It was terrible. Blue and I began to talk. I guess he remembered my name from the
open mic and started calling me out. I knew he did not wanna go there. I just ignored him.
Next the host and promoter that got knocked on his ass earlier in the week tried to call Rob Plath up to read. Rob Plath said he could not read now.
Which was strange to me. I said something about an ego, he attacked me from the stage saying

"Who has an ego?"

He asked me and I had no problem telling him. Rob Plath obviously has an ego if the host calls him up and he says no. That did not hurt me one bit.
He then called up Zach Moll from Ohio who is very good for a poet in his early twenties and it is obvious will be a powerhouse some day. His words
rang with truth, emotion, and energy.
Next the promoter called up Rob Plath again. He still was not coming up. I was not gonna say anything. Blue just looked at me and laughed. So he called
up my bearded brother Jason "Juice" Hardung who stole the damn show. His energy, words, and performance was superior to anything that had happened at this
venue tonight, and would be at the end of the night.
He tried to call up Plath again. I can see why he would not want to follow Juice. At that point Frank Reardon read who I was disappointed in I must say.
It's nothing personal, he's a great guy, but when you get up there on the stage you can use a bunch of harsh words for effect, and really say nothing, or
you can say something, and dazzle people with good art. It seemed he chose the first path. I knew one of his best poems from his blog. Blue was asking me
how long he was gonna go on like this. So right before he performed his last poem I told her, "Watch this, he's gonna read a good poem."
She sounded like she doubted it. She said, "Oh really?"
"Yeah, he's got the potential." I said. Then I screamed from my seat "Write Like A Lunatic."
And he said, "Oh you want to hear that one."
He read it and Blue turned to me and said, "Wow you were right." That last poem was awful good.
Next Jack Henry from California read. He seemed to be off to a slow start so we Beards encouraged him, and he really picked things up by the end. It was a
good reading, and I was happy for Jack. I gave him all the support I could.
Now that everyone had read it seemed Rob Plath had no choice but to get up and read. He was in bad shape. On beer and painkillers. He got up and started,
and I hate to say it, but he was not that good. As soon as he realized the crowd was not gonna shut up for his reading, he stopped mid poem and started whining
about it. I am of the opinion that you cannot ask or expect the audiences respect you have to get up and take it. I vocalized this to him.
He continued to read with his wife and some guy that was with them screaming at the crowd to shut the fuck up. And it was a train wreck. You could see Rob
falling apart on the stage. I felt for him. I kept telling them he had to earn respect and not expect it. So when he was done, the last poem he read was a good
one though the performance was shaky. When he was done his wife was yelling, "Come on, one more baby." And he said no he was done.
He got off the stage and the guy that was with them got up. He grabbed the mic and said, "Fuck the Beards!"
Now here I was, right in front of the stage, on a date with a beautiful woman, who would probably get really scared if I were to get up and do something about
this, but fuck it. The bond of the Beards was more sacred than this, so I sprang up out of my chair as he was doing some performance mocking poetry. I screamed at
him, "Fuck the Beards? No fuck you!" And it was on. Lester was right behind me that was all I knew. I could hear the others in the background. I saw Blue get up and
fly out of her chair like she was running from a war zone. The guy got off the stage, and came up and shook my hand. At that point the promoter got up and started saying
stuff about the Beards. I started screaming at him. Les was right behind me. I made a rush for the stage and he was gone. At that point the bartender and owner of the bar
was right behind us. Hugging us, telling us he loved us. It was wild. We took some group shots with him. I apologized to Blue, she said it was fine. What a night of
chaos.

Day 6 Sunday: Early in the morning Lester drove us back to the hotel on Brainard scared as shit because he was messed up on painkillers. We all arrived safely.
Today was the last day and it was kind of sad, but in a way we were kind of ready for it. We were all drained from the week

The first show was an afternoon show at the Twain House. Local poet Kathryn Kelly gave a great and emotional performance. There was so much compassion to what she did.
So much feeling. It was so beautiful.
Rebecca Schumejda gave a really performance also. After the show there was an open mic. It was good. Not as good as others. John Dorsey read an S.A. Griffin poem.
That was really the highlight of the open mic.
After that we headed over to the finale. It was at The City Steam Brewery. John Dorsey was to host a reading dedicated to his former friend Gregory Corso. Dan Provost
was the first feature. He started off the show by banging on stuff. He gave an emotional real performance. One of the best I have seen all week. Provost was on.
The other feature Lisa LaTourette had not showed up so Dorsey had Blue read some of her stuff from his and her new upcoming Zygote flipbook. Blue gave a great reading
of Lisa's stuff.

There was an open mic that featured all the usual suspects from the week. Lisa then showed up and read her own stuff. She was very good.
After the open mic John Dorsey did a feature to close out the festival and John Dorsey is a great writer and performer, the total package, which made for a great and
memorable preformance to end the festival.
What a week. I said my goodbyes to all of my brothers that I had made this week, and to Blue and headed to the bus station for the long ride home. I know this write-up
might have offended some people. I'm sorry if it did. It wasn't personal. I just told the truth

NY poet Wallace, credit this and all photos: MIKE GROVER, CP JOURNAL@2008

THE ULA CRITIQUE

independent underground Poetry breach the social contract in a big way

Rippered from the pages of LETTERHEAD2 : CHRISTOPHER ROBINS' Western poetry wire-wash section preface/ manifesto!

renlightenment: standing up, in Philly benefit and solidarity around artist and activist Anita King

Rotunda covered all angles:geekgonzo supercedes old school punk

New sweet package "long poem" rant from J.J. Petrolino III, published by ULAer Mark Brunetti "Baird"

Steve Henn's new zine outta Albany plus more good graces of Christopher Robin and ZB

Flash from European tour, KellyWH#, Oasis 1st Friday, calls frmo CPMag/Chris Robin, NAD, The Am. Dissident Winter Issue,

eric broomfield

matthew broomfield

tim dunn

Submission Guidelines

THE SQUIDLING BROS.CIRCUS SIDESSHOW ULA/ULAPRESS PROPAGANDA IN TOW HEADS FOR EUROPE

eric broomfield

eric broomfield

matthew broomfield

Andrew Lovatt

matthew broomfield

matthew broomfield

the Beards uncut, cut loose// Grover's report on KC Poetry Barbeque, June//ULA begins its "wiegh in" on Nobel Lit Prize Committee scolding of US ...

Wholly Toledo! AND UPO (underground-poet- outlawers )CITE CLEVELAND-ING! ! ! ! ! furthermore: GERM BOOKSTORE FEATURES CULTURE MAVEN THIS SATURDAY!

SA Griffin's NUMBSKULL SUTRA PURVIEWED, AND PENETRATING LIT CRIT EXPOSURES

Big reading news from Philly and last CARNEVOLUTION OF THE '08 SEASON PLUS JEFF POTTER LAUNCHES NATIONAL independent bookstore mailer and more!!!!!!!

Carnivolution

The Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum

interim breaking fresh subvertisments, theaters of operation...

*Spoken Word * Music Freestyle*Open Mike

at

ULA DALLY IN THE ALLEY RALLY AND RANTS AT DETROIT'S BIG ART STREET FEST

Out and out and knock-about: Purview of LETTERHEAD meta-zine and periodical from Buffalo, New York. Currently published in Zen Baby # 19 hardcorewise

Amazing self-produced indie tome by a poet...

AMC [allied media conference] roving report SATURDAY, JUNE 21st

ULA Scoops OW franchise on neo- beat "woodstock"

Spoken Word Music Freestyle*Open Mike