Thursday, May 29, 2014

Call Me Slash



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Call Me Slash

Horror movies would not exist unless people
went out to see them--& they always will.”
--Joss Whedon.

Recently I was recruited to write movie reviews on a Horror Movie 
Website. Joining a spirited staff of younger writers, I soon discovered
that the torture porn slasher splatter Indie horror films were the primary
focus of the reviews; which I was cool with.

Back in the turbulent awakenings during the 60’s-70’s, when I was an
actor, as a lark I chose a stage name, Slash Phuque, as a sarcastic
response to the actors named Rock, Rip, & Tab. My theatrical friends
still call me Slash, so now my horror film reviews are written under
that lauded moniker. 

But my new avocational pursuit made me wonder about myself, &
millions like me, right across the age spectrum that really enjoy
graphic violence, nudity, & action in movies; always did. If you recall,
the violence in the movies of the 40’s-50’s was pretty tame, even lame.
Then the cultural revolution in all the arts blossomed in the 60’s, & wham,
we suddenly had nudity in public, mainstream porno theaters, kung fu
& yakuza & samurai & Black Exploitation & Italian Western movies
flooded the screens & altered our consciousness. 

Which transitioned into the 70’s-80’s where mass murderers ran up
phenomenal box office bucks & spawned new horror series that soon
aped the success of the old monsters, the Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy
films of the past--new characters that were blood thirsty & inexorable, with
names like Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorheas, Chucky,
Pinhead, Leatherface, & Jigsaw--producing sequel after sequel, clones &
contrived extensions of their personas, where the killers favored cutting
tools like knives, machetes, axes, hatchets, cleavers, & saws. 

The horror eggheads broke down our attraction to, & the popularity of this
genre, & found solid psychological & homo-erotic tendencies to be the culprits;

Catharsis: Where we can find an expression or a release or a confrontation of
many of our primal fears regarding bodily injury, being devoured or buried 
alive, or even from personal, vocational, political, or social fears.

Recreation: Within action splatter slasher horror films we actually can 
experience a physical thrill, something visceral, like a carnival roller 
coaster ride, or driving on bald tires at 130 m.p.h, rock climbing, or keeping 
a python as a pet. 

Displacement: This is the primary one for me, understanding that
audience member's sexual desires can be displaced onto the 
characters in the film--why cops get fired for looking at porn in
their squad cars, why 12 year old kids can watch porn in public
libraries, & their right to do so is protected by law. 

Ever notice that after driving over 100 m.p.h. for a few minutes,
one loses the sense of speed, gets used to it quickly & becomes
desensitized to the actual danger? The same can be said for the
die-hard fans of horror torture porn, where a constant exposure to
explicit violence juxtaposed with explicit sexual scenes seems to
blunt our emotional response to both violence in films, video games,
& even reality--leaving us less disturbed by reoccurring scenes of extreme
violence & degradation directed at women. The Armed Services love
recruiting young gamers, since their reflexes & mental states are
primed & conditioned to be functional within the techno-warfare
they are consumed with. 

Misogynistic
imagery does fuel intense
hormonal responses. 


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

In Memoriam



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In Memoriam

“Can it be in a world so full & busy, that the loss of just one
creature makes a void so wide that only the depth of eternity
can fill it up?”--Charles Dickens.


Memorial Day should always be
                       an epochal event,
but out here
in the smog, mid-maze, in full rodent frenzy,
we tend to let the shadow people,
                                          those behind
                                          or in charge          of the media
pile our mental plates with impiety,
                                          impenetrable dark bile,
racism, sexism, saber rattling, & milkbone doggy-lies,
as events & stories are presented to us without warmth;

like the twenty zealots who have camped out
                                      in a corner of the Mojave
for the past year, patiently waiting for the Messiah,
their eyes glazed,
their hopes luminous,
their efforts ludicrous;

like the stupid yet fresh debate regarding
                                       Michael Jackson’s vitilgo, that perhaps
only pedophiles suffer from it--
                                       propping open the doors of ignorance
with green-glass bottles
                                       and teletubbie back packs;

Like Kesha Rogers, a black woman, trying to lasso the Democratic
nomination for the Senate in Texas,
                                       her political platform consisting of
comparing Barack Obama to Hitler,
                                       & ObamaCare to Nazi cruelty:

like Ms. Ann Hornady of the Washington Post writing about
how the Frat-Boy Persona is depicted
                     in Hollywood movie “college allegories”,
                     where kids are all supposed to enjoy unbridled
Sex, Fun, & Pleasure.”
& that this kind of ridiculous celluloid mindset,
                     might have influenced
                     22 year old mentally-disturbed
Elliot Rodger to embark on his deadly
                      killing spree, his vendetta
against all those “spoiled bitches & college cunts!”

Actor Seth Rogen fired back an angry Tweet:
                       “How dare you even imply that me getting
                        girls in movies caused a lunatic 
                        to go on a rampage!” 

Meanwhile, on a quiet corner of the page,
within a few rushed moments on early morning broadcasts,
          we honored this country’s Veterans,
          who have given “the full measure of devotion”,
a solemn ceremony at Arlington;
          and as I stared at VA Director Shinseki
standing at attention on the dais with President Obama,

I couldn’t help but wonder
why the hell Kate Middleton received more press
yesterday when a helicopter rotor wash
                             blew up her pretty dress
                             exposing her shapely bare butt,
then those hundreds of Veterans
                             dead or dying, 
who sit on damn waiting lists while
                             cowardly bearuacrats cover their own asses,
& the very people we were supposed to be honoring
are rotting on the VA vine
like strange fruit.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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Thursday, May 22, 2014

Banging With the Bitches



image borrow from bing


Banging With The Bitches

“Decisions are like making a choice between which
bridge to cross & which bridge to burn.”--Frank Matobo.

Sometimes it be like stranded with a flat
tire in the ditch,
                clenching                    your fist,
realizing that your fortune
                              and your luck ain’t squat,
while those fat cats chase pussy on their big yacht,
while too many homies
                         be barking bullets with SWAT;

like cooking up bullshit road kill in a wok,
those hollow points
                             scream out wop-wop-wop,
no fucking drummer &
                              no fucking urban rock--
cuz my hood is considered a bloody blot,
                                                          where no fucking
lawns are fed with Scott
                              where innocent brothers be wearing
a cop-garotte,        where any dog
with sass can get shot,     god damn riot police be 
rushing in like a blue juggernaut.

Ain’t much of a life, I know,
as rich assholes
                     be driving a Renault,
us bangers just rats in the garbage below
their money, guns, & lawyers--
too many funerals, too many crying mothers;

little bangers trying to be so Mod,
roll of cash in their jeans a sweet wad,
                       makes them forget
they be downtrod;

                       The fucking Man always be on top,
with us carrying all the weight of the heap,
only loyal to our best
                          peeps,    sheeeit, we
always have to be
                          ready to rock,
always be willing to treat or trick,
             cuz way too many beautiful faces
be dead,
             before they ever see twenty,
and hell, you might say that’s morbid,
but I say
        we just being more than ready
        to be that bright flash of black light,
that fucking fireworks in the bare-ass night,
that ever present newspaper crime statistic,
while just being absolutely realistic,

fuck yeah, much cooler to burn out hot
                         and not just fade out forgot,
just another sad Ho
                         with 3 crack kids we never see,
                                             riddled with disease,
haunted by smart phone Vids
                          of children killed in their own yard
who never fucking heard of the Bard,
                          who will never dance no gavotte,
whose baby blood just marks the spot
                          where another life was wasted
before pleasure & parenthood could be tasted.

Why can’t all you all privileged mutha-fuckers
just
   dig the truth--we will quit fighting
& dying when we find a decent job,
    & move the fuck out of the project shitholes
you gave us,
                 that could make us stop robbing
cuz we finally got what we really needed--
                 some solid respect for our sweet souls. 


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

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Monday, May 19, 2014

Speed



image borrowed from google


Speed

“Speed, it seems to me, provides the one
genuinely modern pleasure.”--Aldous Huxley.

I am here to tell you,
speed can be an opiate.
I experienced a taste of it
driving beater muscle cars during the 60’s,
blasting more than 100 m.p.h.
             at two in the morning, on
                       whatever that day’s designated
                                              urban drag strip was;
Dual quads,
400 horsepower,
4-speed transmission,
bald tires,
shitty brakes,
no posi-traction,
no good sense,
              mere inches from
                                  destruction,
                                  demons,
                                  danger, even
                                  death,
but a couple of stiff speeding & reckless driving tickets
sobered me up like a quick dip in an ice pond;

but what that screaming, highly revved time
did for me was to help me fully understand 
other’s cravings for speed, even 
those obsessed folks who have to prove
that wheeled vehicles, without leaving the ground,
                                     without leaping into the sky
                                     without piercing the stratosphere
can now achieve supersonic speeds.

It all started in August 1902
in Albis-St. Arnoult, France
where American William K. Vanderbilt
drove a Mors at 76.08 m.p.h.

Then a fellow named Malcolm Campbell got into the fray;
in 1926 he drove a 350 h.p. Sunbeam at 150.87 m.p.h.,
in 1928 at Daytona Beach he drove the Blue Bird at 206.96 m.p.h.,
& in 1935 on the Bonneville Salt flats driving Blue Bird at 301.39 m.p.h.,
close to the limits of internal combustion engines.

In August 1963
Craig Breedlove on the Bonneville Salt Flats
drove the turbojet Spirit of America at 407.44 m.p.h.;
returning there in 1965 to drive at 555.48 m.p.h. 

Today, the Guinness World land speed record
was set in October 1997, out on the Black Rock Desert,
where RAF fighter pilot Andy Green
drove the Thrust SSC turbofan 
at an astonishing 763.03 m.p.h.;

but wouldn’t you know, this isn’t enough 
for the plucky Andy Green, who in 2015 
will travel to the NW corner of South Africa,
where his team is already working with 
special laser-guided precision graders 
to create a perfect surface.

He will drive a multi-million dollar 7 ton supersonic vehicle
called the Bloodhound SSC, 
a jet & rocket powered monster
rated at 187,000 horse power,
designed to go faster than 1,000 m.p.h.
at Mach 1.4, faster than a bullet 
fired out of a .357 Magnum.

So all ye speed freaks out there,
                          let’s start praying right now
                                             for a successful run;
hoping that pilot daredevil Andy Green
will not crash through death’s door
before he shatters his own speed record. 


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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Thursday, May 15, 2014

To the Tens



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To the Tens

“Science never solves a problem without
creating ten more.”--George Bernard Shaw.

A flower will still bloom,
even amid thorns;

smile.

************************************

Wood fences will rot, but
barbed wire

rusts.

***************************************

Totem thunderbirds have
large fierce

eyes.

****************************************

We have the Higgs Boson,
particle

proof.

******************************************

Love those odd places where line
and texture

meet.

********************************************

Many plows have become
just yard art;

truth.

*********************************************

A carved pumpkin gets
respect just

once.

**************************************************

Ivy can tether those
behemoths

snug.

****************************************************

Sunflowers mid-morning
are yawning

still.

****************************************************

Old rocking chairs can make
flower pot

stands.

*****************************************************

Dying the year I was 
born, still we’re

one.

****************************************************

God appears in the heart
of morning

mist.


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Panhandling



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Panhandling

“What will happen is they’ll go without, or they’ll panhandle,
or they’ll steal.”--Roger Miller.

“Who the hell are you?”
asks the homeless,
               the panhandler,
                     the downtrodden,
                           the oppressed,
                                 the suppressed,
“Why do you have & I have not?”

“The answer, sir, is simple, archaic yet futuristic;
I am you,
              another old soul on another
life journey.
I am a seeker, who
                        searches for tattered shreds
                                                                     of the Big Truth;
like that guy who walks for hours in a field
with his metal detector, 
& becomes elated
when he finds a Civil War belt buckle.
I am all the choices I’ve made,
             the effort I expended, 
             the people
whose lives I have impacted;
I am your teacher & your student,
        your brother & your father.
I am judge,
                 love,
        dissident, 
                 friend
        clenched fist,
                 compassion,
        kick from a work boot,
                 confidant,
        competition,
                 companion,
        team member,
                 empathy,
        loose cannon,
                 samaritan,
        observer,
                 helping hand,
        disobedience,
                 sympathy,
        adversary,
                 generosity,
        roadblock,
                 rebellious,
        hope,
                 impediment
        & laughter.”

“What?”

I have been black, white, red, & yellow,
practiced several religions,
been crucified, 
been burned at the stake,
been canonized & excommunicated,
stood with the crowd on the mount
listening to Jesus, rode with John Brown,
& have spent time in Buchenwald, 
                                  Atlantis
                                  Alexandria
                                  Babylon
                                  Boston,
                                  Havana 
                                  & Chicago.”

“Bullshit.”

I sense that I have been an ancient tree,
a spirit guide,
a slave owner & a slave,
no stranger to the sting of the lash,
the weight of the chains,
a white wolverine,
a red-tailed hawk,
a warrior who stood proudly with Spartacus,
                                                     William Wallace,
                                                     Garibaldi, 
                                                      Juarez & Patton.”

“Christ, you make my head hurt.”

“ I am nothing, yet everything,
no one yet everybody--
I’ve had wings, hooves, & claws.
I wrestle my demons
I am God,
as most certainly
you are.”

“But do you have any spare change?”

“ No, but what I do have for you
is a pair of hamburgers, some coffee, & a hug.”

“Fuck you.”

“ But gosh, we hardly know each other.”

“ Leave me alone!”

“ Be careful what you wish for.”



Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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