is
a broadside I try to give away to friends and unsuspecting passers-by.
This is the Web version. As one might infer, all of the poems relate
to television in one way or another. Using the links below you can
view the poems in text format, or in graphics format as they appear on
the broadside. And–should you want to do such a thing–you can click
onthe audio links and hear the poems.
Click here for information about the audio links.
Part 1: “You wouldn’t like me
when I’m angry”
GRAPHICS
TEXT
Part 3: Karma TV
GRAPHICS
TEXT
Part 4: Press It Already
GRAPHICS
TEXT
Part 5: Bolt from the Blue
GRAPHICS
TEXT
Click here for large JPEG graphics files of the broadside:
SIDE1 
SIDE2
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Graphics version
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“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry”
(involuntary TV flashback)
He’d always say it
and you just knew what was coming.
5-minutes later
there was Ferrigno
growling, green and
throwing guys around some
burning lab.No one ever seemed
the worse for wear, though,
and you always knew where you stood
with the Hulk—
either he was tearing through
some doorway or console
to beat the piss out of youor goof-smiling at the little kid,
the last special effect
his shrinking back down
to that brainiac, Banner,
key faculties resumed and
time to move on.Never could trust that Banner guy...
Graphics version
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sound) [alternate
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MPEG-3
audio file (larger file, higher quality sound)
At Home
Next.
OK blondie
you got potential,
that shape I like.Yeah
I’m ready—
strip it down for me,
no imagination.
Not bad.
You got the equipment
the technique
and allbut I
gotta tell you
after a few hours
you girlies are starting to blur.Yeah
time to click
back over to
‘Gladiators’.
Graphics version
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MPEG-3 audio file (larger file, higher quality sound)
0:30
THESE NEW TVS ALL HAVE
BUILT-IN CAPTIONING—
IT COMES ON WHEN I MUTE THE SOUND—
AND I’M NOTICING THAT EVEN IN
SILENT WHITE-ON-BLACK-BOX LETTERS
CANDICE BERGEN IS STILL
DAMN ANNOYING.
Graphics version
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sound) [alternate
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MPEG-3
audio file (larger file, higher quality sound)
Karma TV
There’s no channel 1 be-
cause you never know
where it all starts.2 is the nature channel,
our hairy predecessors
knocking each other
in the head and
other places. The knockers
stay happier.Click over
to some glory days,
Plato’s playthings; what’s that—
a slave in the background? No
incarnation of ours, I’m sure.We’re Caesar, or Pilate, and
the Christian he loved but threw
to the lions anyways, lost to power,
erased from the texts.The first-born son
that didn’t pass the scourge.
The daughter caught
in the plague.Would-be knight who took the sword
the hard way, rather than touched
shoulder to shoulder.
The would-be princess that
never made it, coming out with a face
resembling the Jester
too much more
than the King.Keep clicking the channels, higher,
we have cable now.Mates on the sailing ship
lost to the edge
and horse-latitudes,
never to see landfall again.
Babe in the arms of the captive mother,
jumping off the slave ship’s bow
rather than seeing what chains
would follow.The brother skewered by merely a stranger
in the war of the states.
Street urchin landed on by
the broker, off his low numbers
and high ledge.Little boy backpacked
with explosives in ‘Nam.
The birth-canal AIDS case,
dead in months—remember—this glowing screen
is effect
not cause.We have a long and sordid history,
you and I, and I think it all
is but the preamble.
Graphics version
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quality sound) [alternate
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MPEG-3
audio file (larger file, higher quality sound)
Press It Already
(60’s TV Rerun-in-the-70’s
Flashback)
There’s this Twilight Zone episode
where some weird guy shows up
on the doorstep of our protagonist,
gives him a box with a
big red actuator on it
(I imagine that shade-of-gray
was red anyways)and tells him
“Press this button
and you will receive
a million dollars
in cash; and someone
you don’t know
will die.”Our protagonist of course
sweats it out all night
thinking
what the heck it’s a sham anyways but
what if someone really dies? etc.Well, Serling’s gotta fill
the middle of these things with something and
big surprise
before morning hits he presses—and
nothing happens.Awhile later the weird guy
reappears with the money
and says that the box is going to
“someone you don’t know”
and all thatbut what I really always wanted
to ask that weird guy is
Who the hell are you, anyways?
Graphics version
ASF audio ("streaming" audio,
lower quality sound) [alternate
ASF audio]
MPEG-3
audio file (larger file, higher quality sound)
Bolt from the Blue
Ed
on Northern Exposure
gets hit by lightning
and lives,
and wants something
out of it—psycho-electric power—
fear of a hostile universe—
communion with Gaea—
acclimation with the fact
that it don’t mean shit
that he got hit by lightning
and lived.The bolt itself
isn’t enough.
There’s got to be more,
some transcendency,
some meaning above
the long haul ahead.At minimum;
a linked soul
to echo—
yeah, I’ve skipped a beat
on that one, too.
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Some notes on the audio links:
Near each poem are three audio links which lead to different file-format
versions of the same audio content. The "ASF audio" links
will generate "streaming"-type audio which will download and play at the
same time (no waiting!) This seems to work best with Internet Explorer.
To play "ASF" files you'll need to have installed version 6 (or later)
of the Microsoft media player, which can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com.
With some browsers, clicking on the "ASF
audio" links will still bring up a "Save As..." window (even after
the version 6 Microsoft media player is installed.) If this happens,
use the "Save As..." window to pick a location on your hard drive to save
the file (which will end in ".asx") into; then find the file with the "Windows
Explorer" and double-click on it to download and play the content.
(Granted, this is not the most elegant work-around; but it's still faster
than waiting for the entire audio download to finish before playing it.)
The "MPEG-3 audio file" links allow you to
download a higher-quality MPEG-3 version of the audio (but you have to
wait until the download is complete before playing the content.)
The version 6 Microsoft media player will play MPEG-3 files. The
Winamp
player will also play these. (The smaller-sized "alternate ASF
audio" files can also be played using MPEG-3 players.)
The "ASF" files were generated using the Windows
Media Encoder found in the Media Tools which can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com.