What I’m Blogging

Buddha’s Big brother

The holidays are a time for family. A time to get together, share a pint and a laugh, catch up on things. Hope you are enjoying yours too…

Can you feel the love in my career? Well the nail has finally been put in the coffin of the contract neotiations. For extra safety, we drove a stake through its heart. The deal is done, signed, sealed, delivered, I’m theirs.

…exactly where I wanted to be…

So now I get to go back to the mayhem that is the TV Station for another four months at the money I originally asked for oh so long ago. I was told that it would never happen, I was told that I would be out on my ear. I accepted all of that and now look where I am, exactly where I wanted to be.

Funny how things go.

Now to enjoy the holiday - Wassail anyone?

It’s the birthday of the bohemian poet Kenneth Rexroth, born in South Bend, Indiana (1905). His father was a wholesale drug salesman, and Rexroth was offered a position in the business and that would have eventually made him one of the top executives. He spent a couple days thinking about that job offer and finally decided that he’d rather try to go off and become some kind of artist.

… I try to say, as simply as I can, the simplest and most profound experiences of my life…

He wasn’t sure what kind of artist he wanted to be, but in the 1920s he was drawn to the artistic community in Chicago’s West Side, where speakeasies with names like the Dill Pickle Club and the Wind Blew Inn were full of politics, theater, jazz, and poetry. It was there that Kenneth Rexroth became one of the first poets to try reading his poetry to the accompaniment of jazz music.

He eventually settled in San Francisco, and California changed the way he wrote poetry. His early poems had been full of references to Greek mythology and philosophy, but after his arrival in California, he began to write poems about camping trips and fly fishing and love affairs, in addition to politics.

Kenneth Rexroth said, “I’ve never understood why I’m [considered] a member of the avant-garde. … I [just] try to say, as simply as I can, the simplest and most profound experiences of my life.”

The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth came out in 2002.