I'm the Outsider Poet In My Own Heart

Sometimes song lyrics just rub people the wrong way. Jenny was playing Mungo Jerry "In the Summertime" this week, and when I told her many people hate that song she asked why, and I said take a look at the lyrics. 

Later in the week we went out to Severson Dells to get out of the house, and I usually write a little something when we go there, and this time was no exception. I know response songs were big in the 50's and 60's, and I had a response poem to some lyrics that always got my goat.

I'm The Poet In My Own Heart

When I build my house
You'll come by?

No, when I build my house
I'll install fixtures
That are newer and shinier,
And believed in me from the start,
But you'll still be the rented
Woman in someone else's
Home.

I got a really nice copy of Scream and Scream Again on VHS this week, too, and I just watched it here at the apartment. I'm having my final cup of tea of the night, and I look up and it's August again. The Cubs had an amazing comeback win tonight, and it's the first time I've been here in weeks. Had to pay the bills for August, now I have a couple of hours to just blog and shoot the breeze. 

Dr. Millard Rausch: Scientist, Lover, Outsider Poet

Dr. Millard Rausch: Scientist, Lover, Outsider Poet is a new documentary opening Sep 6th in Rockford about the scientist and poet Dr. Millard Rausch, and his amazing travels after the 2nd Zombie Apocalypse of 1978. 

After warning America that the new species of zombies were dangerous and must be destroyed on sight, Dr. Rausch was completely ignored, leading to the deaths of over 150 million Americans. In the waning months of the epidemic Dr. Rausch simply left the WGON studies, got in his sports car, drove to a private airport, and flew to Vermont to join a group of scirntists, farmers, doctors, and artist including his lifelong friend Dr. Henry Wolfsburg, where they waited out the ZA, and re-emerged a decade later.

During that decade Dr. Rausch and his merry band worked in their particular specialties, ranging from alien psychobiology to endocrinology to minimalism. An alternative to zombieism was discovered. It was called thinking. At first few of the remaining humans were willing to try it, but after seeing the remarkable results the remaining humans began to ask for the cure. 

Dr. Henry Wolfsburg demonstrates one of the innovative cures for zombieism that were developed at the Outsider Poetry Depot in Vermont. 

The documentary covers not only those years at the Outsider Poetry Depot, but his formative years as a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Corps and his stint as a professor at Copenhagen University. His stormy romantic life is also explored, including affairs with poets Rod McKuen and Karen Finley. 

The documentary will open in twelve American cities September 6th. 

It's Official: Bub the Zombie Joins Rockford Pages Outsider Poetry Team

It is official: Bub the Zombie, star of Day of the Dead, has joined the Rockford Pages Outsider Poetry Slam team. Rockford poetry may never be the same again. It was originally thought Bub the Zombie may have eventually died of natural causes after the end of Day of the Dead, but it was later learned he had actually escaped the Seminole Underground Storage Facility and wandered the Earth organizing the living dead, teaching them, preparing them for an eventual confrontation with Homo Sapiens. 

Bub the Zombie has joined the Rockford Pages Outsider Poetry Slam team. His arrival will help replace the loss of outsider poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg to the Chemung Shamans. It is not known how Bub will react to an eventual showdown with Dr. Millard Rausch in week 7 at Albuquerque, but it is expected to be entertaining. 

Bub brought down the house in a guest appearance for the Kokomo Oralists when he read his epic poem "Hello, Aunt Alicia?" at a bout last May. Asked whether he harbors any ill feelings about the zombies eventual defeat in the war of the Living Dead he said it was a setback, but he feels good that eventually some sort of lasting peace can be achieved. 

The Best Dishwasher In All the World

This is a poem I am working on for Jesus Correa.

The Trash

I watch the best poet of his generation
Toss garbage in a dumpster
Behind a Vietnamese restaurant
On Seventh Street, 
I pull his book from the shelf and read
By what moonlight an alley
Like this still allows a man
Foolish enough to publish such a book.
Just before dawn I'll go down there
And do the world a favor by tossing my own
Poems in that dumpster, 
Including this one.

     Still working that poem around a little bit. I see here that I've diverged from the obvious and pained extended comparison to Howl, just made an initial reference, then tried to make it my own poem. I'm still trying to make it more factual by saying thr alley is behind Block Five, and the story is almost word for word the truth. I don't have a paper copy of this poem to throw away, and Jesus isn't working tonight. I see he was playing with his band The King of the Demons at Mary's. 

This is the book of his that I published, so I actually can pull it off the shelf and read it while I watch him throw garbage in that dumpster, which five bars and restaurants on Block Five share. I have only taken a picture of the view of that alley from my window one time, and it was a bad picture I can't find now. 

This is a picture from the first winter I was here. You can see where the dumpster originally was, and where it is now. I didn't remember that it had ever been anywhere else, but they moved it. There was even a beach that first summer in the alley. One of the bars hauled in a couple tons of sand and had shows out there. That would have been just to the right of this picture. 

Lightning! 

I love having been here seven years now. 

Game of Thrones Actor Peter Dinklage To Join Rockford Pages For 2017 OPSLA Season

Caution: spoilers.

Avert your eyes Game of Thrones fans, but actor Peter Dinklage's character, Tyrion Lannister, has been written out of the 7th season by show runners, according to Variety, and will be joining the Rockford Pages Outsider Poetry Slam League of America team. 

Team spokesperson Anderson Anderson Peterson said Dinklage would be concentrating more on short forms like haikus, clerihews, and limericks, but could take on longer narrative forms if needed. 

The Rockford Pages went winless in the 2016 OPSLA season, but have high hopes for the 2017 season, especially after the addition of Dinklage. Other cast members from Game of Thrones have also expressed interested in joining OPSLA teams, with the league champion Rancho Cucamonga Kookamungas expected to have the best shot at signing the celebrity poets, as Sean Penn, Christopher Walkin, and Loyd Bridges all made guest appearances for the team during their historic 2016 season.

In other league news, two televised bouts at the Rockford Metro Centre were agreed upon for 2017. With eight new teams joining the OPSLA, a sixteen team tournament will be held in May in Rockford. 

Rockford Poet Named MVP of Outsider Poetry Slam League

Even though the two teams he played for, The Rockford Pages, and the Chemung Shamans,  finished in last place, Rockford poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg was named the most valuable player of the Outsider Poetry Slam League of America Friday night in a press conference in Kokomo, Indiana. The announcement was made by league commissioner Dr. Millard Rausch. Vaultonburg, the founder and publisher of Zombie Logic Press, accepted the award with some surprise, noting that his teams were not about to win a single OPSLA match this season, but he was honored to be thought of in the voting, which is done by OPSLA poets and fans.

This is a rendering by artist Andrew Davis, of Shitdickers and Gentleman Brothers, of outsider poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg on vacation in New Orleans in 2016. Vaultonburg received the Bukowski Award as MVP of the Outsider Poetry Slam League of America Friday. 

Rockford poetry has been given a shot in the arm by the lack of success of the Rockford Pages slam team, and the upshot is an explosion in interest in the written and spoken word in America's 3rd most miserable city. Vaultonburg has received some flack for his gaunt stature as he is pulling down the nation's 6th fattest city standing, but Vaultonburg is unapologetic about not having yet eaten at the Portillos. 

The Chemung Shamans and Rockford Pages both released statements congratulating Vaultonburg on being named league MVP, and the Shamans released Vaultonburg later in the afternoon saying they couldn't afford an MVP in a place like Chemung. It is unclear which team(s) Vaultonburg will compete for in 2017, but rumors have been circulated he might go to Rancho Cucamonga to be re-united with Tom Stotes, who he recorded a spoken word album with in 2003. The Rancho Cucamonga Kookamungas went undefeated and beat the Kokomo Oralists in the Championship bout August 7th.