This blog has no title. It's like The White Album. What's up?

First things first, for all of you tennis fans, Agassi beat Blake in a fifth set tiebreak. The Semi's will be aired Saturday (12pm-6pm) on CBS.

Agassi beat Xavier too :)

The above was my first technological smile. It is probably my last. Except when I mention that Jim's Whole Milk will be published by Effing Press :) That was the second.

Now onto a response to Jim's post. Jim said:

"...Blogging is about community. Pirooz believes people are excluded here (maybe he will comment on this), but I see it very differently, I see this place as one of the most inclusive places I have been. How often do you walk up to someone of the same sex and say hello? I don’t do it very often. And honestly, when I am on the street minding my own, I don’t like it when others do it. But here, we can always say hello. I like it when people come over and visit. then I can go and see them and meet their friends. I think the community is getting larger..."

In this context, it seems like I'm against blogging. That is not the case. I am not against anyone connecting with people. No, what I was commenting on, specifically, was the literary world, and, on a much broader sense, the exclusion present in all artistic genres.

What do I mean?

Well, I'll tell you. It's about language, baby. Language. For me, language is the key to any situation. In a job, if you got JobSpeak down, you get the job. You got WhopperTalk flowing, you talk Whoppers. If there's some HeartSpeak on the dash, well then dash that out. Right on. Straight up now tell me...

Now my issue, and this is my thing, so take it or leave it, is that my language, my writing language is funky and fresh. It likes to take a dip in uncharted territories. It likes a good car wash. It doesn't mind giving a shout out to Eskimo Pies or Transformers. In short, I dig writing aka language that connects to me and my crew. Mainly, me, so far, and you, my crew, who are reading this.

Now when I go visit other blogs, other circles, if you will, most won't respond to anything I say. They're like, "What is he saying?" My complete guess on this is that I write like I'm doing here. If you've visited this site once, you know I can delve into various voices. Some are a bit more WHACK than other, or like Michelangelo says, "you talk like a little kid and someone stuck in the 50's."

Now you take this G money fake sound chink the change roll busting, and throw that mustard jargon onto an uninformed, or better yet, strange environment, and people tend to dismiss certain comments. They're like, "Hmmm. He is from South Pole. Most abort. Must take sequence A to square root of major silliness."

This judgment factor, which is a fact of reality, has got me thinking about language in general. That maybe, the true unifier for our country lies not in race, religion, etc., but in language. That if we were all given an equal chance at adopting a certain level of language, we would be less inclined to turn certain people off, because they like to sing, "Nothing but a G thang, baby. Two loped out niggaz goin crazy. Death Row is the label that pays me."

Or, better still, have an artistic community that is open to language outside the traditional poetic discourse. That can jam it sideways with a hammer on the porch of goodness. That will say, "I just didn't like the poem. It was too cotton mothball which way wild on the freeloader."

In other words, or Shortspeak:

Wouldn't it be great if I could write a query or memo that starts with Yo? Wouldn't it be easier to write a poem without deciphering astericks marks and back slashes, and just have a line like, "I like milk. Whole milk." It's that simple for me.

I am calling out to the world with my simplicity. I am not excluding anyone. There is nothing wrong with poetic discourse. I simply wonder how change is possible with language. That the true change in our political framework is in direct relation to how we view language within certain settings (academic, government, corporate), and our willingness to subvert old modes of political correctness/propriety/and unwritten laws for the mustard inside all our hearts i.e.

Memo 201.673
Re: This Poem

Yo! Frank

You get my memo? I gave it to Susie. I made it into a Chinese star. You can throw it and everything. I bet it could go through a window. It's sharp. I used cardboard. Well, hopefully, you got it. We got that board meeting at 3. Jim wanted you to use his poem for the presentation. He says if they don't get what you're saying just throw it at Fillmore. His numbers have been slipping. It will send a message.

Anyway, hope it goes well. Let me know if you need another poem. This one took a long time to write. I might use an envelope next time. I think I can use the metal clasp. It will make the Chinese Star that much better.

I'll see you at the meeting, P.

11 comments:

Posatko said...

Pirooz,

I know you better than this. This ain't Heartspeak. It's Heartsuggest, or Heartquestion, or perhaps Heartwonder. You've got something to say here, and it reeks of breakthroughity, so say the shit!

Academic poets and me (I?) don't co-mingle. I'd like to meet some, but I'll be damned if they're not harder to find than vampires. What's the point of writing poetry, or any form of written expression, when you write it for a small community of singularly focused individuals? I still have to get back to The Waste Land one of these days, and I'm not sure I'll ever comprehend even 40% of it, but I know there's people out there who do get it and these people are from all walks of life. If you're a good poet and/or writer, get your shit out there, for the betterment of our society, please!

I'm done lambasting you now. You're my roommate and my brother. O Captain! My Captain! See? Right there - everybody can identify with that. I don't know about asterics and back slashes and whatnot.*

*Good for footnotes, at least.

Dylan Hock said...

Pirooz, I feel some of what you're saying. I think the whole array is out there, and yes, I would dream for a world where you can start a "professional" memo with "Yo". But what I wanted to say with this comment, is I feel some of what you're saying. In fact, ever since I've been diving more and more into writing poetry again (aside from the prose)I've been self conscious that it's too straight forward, or, as you say, I don't have enough asterisks and slashes, my words aren't arranged all crazy on he page, they just pour out and I write them and see what I have later. Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in all of it, but writing around people such as Kyle, Melissa, and Sara, etc. makes me sometimes feel like I'm not "avant garde" enough. Which I know is a ridiculous thought on many levels. (Disclaimer: this feeling is not a result of anything they've done or said, they're extremely supportive and good friends. It's just my neurosis in dealing with my own writing while simultaneously keeping my eye on what everyone else is doing.) Anyway, I'm sick and loopy right now so not sure if this is getting anywhere. Best to you.
dylan

Anonymous said...

Tilly telly ty tommy knockers knockin on the grass root gas station riot loot vacation. I said I read what you said but whether or not I get is yet to be said. Not and man a cross between, man. NOT AND MAN A CROSS BETWEEN!

I forgive you.

I'm gonna leave this like an interoffice conversation. Not really ending, just kinda fading away slightly awkward semi satisfied.

MK2

Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...

J--I re-read the post. It seems on point to me. There are questions. I have no answers. I am just starting a dialogue.

I hear you that you feel disconnected from academic writers. That was the point of this post. Not to point fingers as much as unite those who also feel outside the academic community, and invite them to bring their concerns forward.

I want to hear what the writers outside of workshops have to say. I value you what you bring to the table. In short, I am interested in how all artists create, and to a further extent, what we are up to as human beings.

I am more interested in the things that inspire me, and these days, in my personal environment, the academic poetry doesn't do it for me. It seems very far from the world I witness daily.

Hollywood is a strange place to be an artist. I am responding from my viewpoint. If I was part of an academic community, there would be other issues.

Now that I am part of reality, there is only one. To connect, uplift, and survive. Some communities may dismiss me, or simply ignore what I have to say, but that is their story. I have mine. I have Hollywood. I have Mars. I have 8 pieces of fried chicken. I have potato salad. I have you. I have Can of Corn, Goldmine, Rebecca, Decheaux, Sara, Werden, INOF, Sparks, GT, Sulli, The Straving Artists, Wayward Boys, Genie, family, friends, and thousands of others I meet daily.

Dylan-I hear you. Innovation is a funny thing. For me, it arises not out of forcing a differene, as much as allowing what is natural to come.

If I wrote in astericks and dashes, (and who knows tomorrow I might start operating like that), and that is what arose naturally, then that would be what I write.

I don't try to control the outcome. I allow the accident. I am excited to turn with the unexpected. I like riding this horse.

My call for simplicity is as futile as a call for complexity. Neither is any better or worse. I know this. I wonder what the rest of the world think though.

What is poetry to people?

If I asked my dad this, he would pull out Rumi or Hafiz.

I would pull out Saadi or S.E. Hinton.

Jim might pull out Spicer.

Michelangelo might pull out The Starving Artists.

and on and on...

It comes down to what inspires us. But what about people outside the art community? The people in my board rooms? What is poetry to them? On the street?

Thank you, friends.

Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...

MKY-

What do you forgive? Interlocker-shocker bad boy rumble?

Anonymous said...

For misquoting and/or powerphrasing me. ::::Michelangelo says, "you talk like a little kid and someone stuck in the 50's.":::: I said your slang was a mixture between like, little kids and someone from the 50's. No big woop. Just a nice space breaker in my statement taster.

Sometimes -

We feel like we're in between the fingers of God and Adam. Other times. . . . .

MK

Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...

I hear you on the funky fresh.

Fizz white and drop out like a goblin being sucked down Super Mario pipes.

Zip! Zip! Zippedy Doo Dawdy!

Anonymous said...

Don't have much to say, just stoped by the blog to see what's on the old Pirooz mind. Missin' Cali, with a positive state of mind who wouldn't. I'll be back as often as I have free time to check out the status of things. Can't wait to read that novel, I forgot to ask for a copy to read on the plane. Sorry, no grand poetry to spew on the blog at the moment.

I've said my peace...I'm outta here.

Mike "from philly" Bell

Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...

Mikey Bell tearing it up six times, go figur. Yes, my horror making filmaker, we is waiting for you to rock Hollywood.

It's good to see you hear. It'll be even better to see you in person. Let me know how I can help with the film.

Best, P.

Kyle said...

don't we all have these sidelong thoughts? do they amount to much more than clearing throats, the space in lungs so words come, be they street funky or tenured clunky? or street flunky and tenured junkie?

the undercurrent though - the academic world ghost comes up maybe because we're its cast off children, msotly bastards, and few think we are ever going back, even if we wish we might? exclusion? certainly crews of homies have languages bound in and thru power.

with any text, its a matter of trust. esp. if its outside our pack, and we have to more actively translate it. i need to trust, if not the text, my reading of it. if we're sensitive, and responsive, we get somewhere. even with difficult academic work. and also with 3 yr old kids.

the world is so wide - even in verse - its daring for me to just sit and listen. always i want to throw up my hands, make some kind of bid for direction, course, control. i take back that always, it has chocolate stains on it.

maybe you call for what you want, and hopefully need. maybe you call to mars. sometimes we call the pizza delivery people. i dont do endings except by signing my name because i dont get how they work i say "bye"?