Growl @ AMERICAN DIGEST

February 24, 2008

Growl

by Gerard Allen Van der Ginsberg

For Karl Rove Solomon

I SAW the second-best minds of my not-so-Great Generation destroyed by Bush Derangement Syndrome, pasty, paunchy, tenured, unelectable, and not looking too sharp naked,

bullshitting themselves through the African-American streets at cocktail hour looking for a Prozac refill,

aging hair-plugged hipsters burning for their ancient political connection to the White House through the machinations of moonbats,

who warred on poverty and Halliburton's Wal-Mart and bulbous-eyed and still high from some bad acid in 1968 set up no-smoking zones on tobacco farms in the unnatural darkness of Darwinistic delusions floating a few more half-baked secular notions like "Let's all worship Zero!",

who bared their withered breasts and, he or she, bleated their vaginas' mawkish monologues to John Kennedy's ghost under the capitol dome and french-kissed Mohammedan agents in the gore-drenched redrum rooms of Guantanamo,

who passed gas and on into universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating President Al Gore and Vice-President Noam Chomsky envisioning world peace among the masters of war and stayed on and stayed on and stayed on sucking off the great teat of academe in upaid student loans and over-paid professorial positions the better to molest the minds of children for decades with every third year off for bad behavior,

who were embraced by the academies and hired by the New York Times for crazy & publishing obscene odes or anything else that trashed George W. Bush without regard for truth since there were no consequences for these posturing poseurs of puke,

who cowered in their marble-countered plasma screened media rooms in underwear which was no longer Victoria's Secret, burning their money by donating it in carloads to every half-assed Democratic PAC that promised impeachment in a nano-second without the losing proposition of actually holding an election and listening to Rush Limbaugh through the wall,

who got bombed at public wine-tastings by chugging the slops bin and referencing Sideways, returning to their summer house in the Hamptons where they ate smoked salmon, smoked $200 marijuana, wore $250 denims, and bitched about how the economy was a mess but did not really, as they claimed, send their $36,000 tax cut back to the government, and continued to suffer the secret shame of Affluenza,

who breathed fire and bile about "that crooked administration" among their friends and shut up around people with real jobs and drank turpentine to get through "A Night with Gloria Steinem", claimed bogus ego-death, and Ab-busted their torsos night after night,

with dreams of real electoral victory without elections, with seven different mood-soothing drugs, with waking Birkenstock nightmares of Bush, Bush, Bush, alcohol Jello shots and the soon to be sanctified Holy Matrimony of cock and endless balls,

who blathered continuously about the Florida "theft" for the entire ninety-six months of the two Bush terms while the Evil One put one, two, maybe three or even four justices on the Supreme Court, causing a million fatal air-embolisms during consenting acts of mutual humm-jobs,

a lost battalion of a multi-million man and mom marching platonic conversationalists jumping to conclusions about WMD off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon, yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering "BUSH LIEEEEEEEEED!" and moronic memories and false anecdotes and eyeball kicks and yearning for the electroshocks of hospitals and the briefness of jails and the endless Bush wars .... oh my sorry little schmos.... ,

who wandered around and around at midnight at the Democratic National Committee wondering where Howard Dean hid his dildos, got the address of his love nest in San Francisco and went there with fresh batteries, and found Barbra Striesand drooling in the alley set on leaving no child behind,

who had double-standard visions while their baby seals died, turned into a pair of mucklucks by Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton,

who thought they were only mad when BushHitler appeared in the clouds above their Iowa Caucuses proclaiming "Neener, neener, neener,"

who in humorless protest turned Cindy Sheehan into their personal hand-puppet, which she enjoyed, and complained that she looked far too much like the devil spawn of Howdy Doody and Alfred E. Newman,

who scribbled celebrity porn from scuffed kneepads in the offices of Vanity Fair and collected and shaved stray cats far into their barren Pecksniffian nights until that bleak dawn when, waking from their stupor, rolled over in bed and discovered they had slept, not with their sixth spouse, but with Ward Churchill, and thought, "Well, that's an upgrade,"

who dreamt Hilary Clinton hectoring and shrieking in the White House until in galactic luminosity that crass and shabby woman stood revealed on "Fleece the Nation"in her SupportHose of pallid played-out policies, while being frisked by a thousand agents of Barrack Obama, super avenging angel of the Democratic Party, now and forever recreating the syntax and measure of poor human prose, Oh Hope!, Oh Change!, Oh Yes we can!, and then all of them in their faded glory standing before you speechless and pseudo-intelligent and shaking with unshamed shame, a whole once proud party now unable to get elected to high-school treasurer, reduced to bribing judges with dinner parties and invitations to Hollywood "events,"rejected yet confessing to the rhythm of thought in its naked and endless head as it proclaimed its new positive program for "Mourning in America," "Yes, yes, yes, like our patron saint George Soros, we too have a two-inch political penis, give us your money, give us your votes, give us THE POWER, we and we alone can promise you appeasement, defeatism, pacifism, penury, and death!",

and rose reincarnate in the tattered rags of bluster and blabber in the goldhorn shadow of the ballot box and blew the suffering of America's lumbering liberals' lust for unearned power into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone bleat still pandering for the Jewish vote, as the people, no fools they, shived the elite in their entrails and blew them off again and again right past the last bus stop of democracy

with the absolute loss of political significance butchered out of their own body politic good to lose a thousand years.

NOTE: By request, "Growl" is now in PDF format and suitable for printing: Download Growl Here [Back because whatever Larwyn wants, Larwyn gets... ] HT to Dinocrat's Howl 2006 Posted by Vanderleun at February 24, 2008 3:02 PM

Comments:

HOME
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Dear Gerard,
As promised, I finished my chores and poured a fresh cup of coffee to enjoy while I savored your new inspired work.
That was my error - I now have sinuses filled with coffee - I was trying desperately to not spit it all over the freshly laundered throw.

MARVELOUS AND WONDERFUL AND HAVE NOT THE GIFT OF WORDS TO ANNOINT YOU WITH KUDOS.

IT IS CERTAINLY A CLASSIC AND I WILL TREASURE AND SEND TO ALL.

I will add the link for your inspiration today:
Dinocrat's "Howl 2006"
http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2006/03/23/howl-2006/#respond
Click here: Dinocrat » Blog Archive » Howl 2006

Posted by: LARWYN at March 23, 2006 2:18 PM

Wow, like WOW you can make with the words, baby.
You've expressed my feelings on so many points far better than I could in prose. That, daddy-o is poetry!

Posted by: M.L.Johnson at March 23, 2006 4:13 PM

There's a door, to a bookshop, on Columbus, just off Broadway, in San Francisco. It's a shrine, let's face it. Now, who has the balls to paste this thing right on it? Not me. I'd be lynched on the spot. Or stoned with copies of Daily Worker.

Posted by: Breaks not Beats at March 23, 2006 4:38 PM

"Speaking truth to power" to me means holding up a mirror to fat-cats, plutocrats, et al - and if you think they are all in one political party, then you are eating your side's shit and proclaiming it fine chocolate.

While I am conservative, my parents are that rarest of breeds, blue-collar liberals. Showed this to my Mom and she burst out laughing - in delight. Keep up the awesome work.

Posted by: Californio at March 23, 2006 4:55 PM

Gerard:

Maybe the best you have ever done. What does it feel like to have a burst of creative energy like that? I bet you sat down and wrote that without stopping - one long brrrreeeeaaatttthhh.

Posted by: Chester at March 23, 2006 6:01 PM

Sorry to burst your bubble of creativity but the blogger Iowahawk already did something extremely similar over a year ago. It was a paean to Howard Dean's Iowa scream. Here is the link. It might be inadverent but this post is the blogging equivalent of plagarism.

Posted by: John in Tokyo at March 23, 2006 6:23 PM

Well, John in Tokyo, since I never saw that post what you've just done is wrongfully accuse me of plagarism. There's no "equivalent " to plagarism, there just is and is not. If you are a decent human being you'll apologize and at the same time recognize that with 20 million blogs on the planet and one of the most parodied poems of all time, there just might be a bit of a parallel running at times, at all times.

If you wanted to spend about an hour going through my archives you'll see that I don't need to copy anybody. It is all I can do to keep up with the headful of ideas that is driving me insane and by the way its a shame the way they make me scrub the floor, I ain't...... Oh, wait a minute. Where have I seen that before?

Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun at March 23, 2006 6:39 PM

OMG, this is totally priceless!

"aging hair-plugged hipsters burning for their ancient political connection to the White House through the machinations of moonbats,"

I know who that is. HAHA

Posted by: Maggie45 at March 23, 2006 6:43 PM

I danced, envying Ballet Pacifica (if you lived in Laguna Beach, you know what I mean) yet knowing there was life beyond. Then, 9/11 happened. And nothing..nothing was the same.
I voted for a President the second time I never could have the first. I pray on my knees & many hours, for our troops, whose names I will never know...and I reach out in my heart... to those who have been just as shaken as I-and yet who are so torn. But we come this site----because there here is a sane voice we cannot deny....

Posted by: teri at March 23, 2006 6:50 PM

"There's a door, to a bookshop, on Columbus, just off Broadway, in San Francisco. It's a shrine, let's face it. Now, who has the balls to paste this thing right on it? Not me. I'd be lynched on the spot. Or stoned with copies of Daily Worker.

Posted by: Breaks not Beats at March 23, 2006 04:38 PM"

Yes!!! That's a great idea and I just might give it a try.

Posted by: at March 23, 2006 7:40 PM

Shame it's too long for a t-shirt. I think it would make a really fabulous embroidery sampler. How great would it be framed hanging over the hearth? Too bad I can't sew. Maybe I'll have to learn, just for this project. You've inspired me.

Posted by: Sheryl at March 23, 2006 8:19 PM

Bill Kezar sez in gmail, but is flustered by the spam filter (Sorry Bill)

"I know what it takes to create this. I never could, but have tried. Brilliant, eloquent, and the most powerful of everything I have read of what you have written. Putting it in prose form gives it a tremendous power.

I am awestruck. I feel the same way looking at the paintings of the masters."

Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun at March 23, 2006 8:49 PM

"...masters of war..."

Leave Bobby alone.

Otherwise, it's wonderful. It recaptures the 60's disgust for hypocrisy and shallowness, and reconfigures it for the New Establishment. Thanks.

Posted by: Salt Lick at March 24, 2006 6:50 AM

Utter, complete, total, unmitigated, purified sh*t.

You wish you could touch Ginsberg; you wish you could produce something 1/32 as brilliant as any two lines in Howl. You can't, so you piss on Ginsberg's grave. But, alas, it's a weak stream, isn't it? Impotence will do that.

Don't even begin to flatter yourself that Ginsberg's turning in his grave, because believe me, he doesn't even know you exist. Ditto Kerouac, Burroughs, etc. They were arists; you're a salivating Weird Al hack, nothing more, nothing less.

James Joyce said art in the service of partisanship or commerce isn't art at all. Too true. WItness Growl.

Posted by: Nathan Hammersmith at March 24, 2006 4:14 PM

Alas poor neo-nate Nathan... so little humor. It must be because of his downgraded political upbringing.

As a small data point, I would mention that I have touched Allen, albeit in but a friendly and admiring way.

I've even interviewed him for publication at the City Lights' office.

Bumped into him here and there, the Human Be-In, North Beach, New York.

Knew him as a man, not well, but some.

I think he'd understand and even get the joke. As some, evidently, do not.

Posted by: Gerard Van Der Leun at March 24, 2006 5:22 PM

Hey Hammerstein, we will speak in reverent respectful tones of Weird Al. He is an artist savant who posesses more genius than you or me or anyone we see regularly. As Vizzini might say, "Ever hear of Ginsburg, Kerouac, Burroughs? Morons."

By the way, the Lindsay Weir character of Freaks and Geeks fame said it best about Kerouac. To paraphrase, "he sucks".

I'm just saying, there is a wealth, a veritable wealth of litrachur with more value than the above drug-addled dead. Or so I hear.

Posted by: no one of consequence at March 25, 2006 8:11 AM

Gerard,
I apologize for the hasty plagarism accusation. I accept your claim that you never saw Iowahawk's Howl/Howard Dean parody. Odd and random as it is, I can see how 2 people independently arrived at a similar idea, especially in your case, where you have actually met Allen Ginsburg. But I didn't get the joke about scrubbing the floor, head-full-of-ideas. What is that a reference too? I don't need to go through your archives. I've read your blog before and I enjoy it very much.

All the same, now that you are aware of it's existence, shouldn't you acknowledge the previous Howl-Blog-Parody with a link and an update and a short disclaimer?

P.S. Dear Nathan, don't you think Ginsburg is turning in his grave at the idea that the person indignantly defending his literary reputation and Sixties values (i.e., you) is an uptight, humorless, prig?

Posted by: John in Tokyo at March 26, 2006 6:25 PM

Oh, I cop to being a bit stroppy but it hasn't been a good week for plagerists, has it?

The floor, head full of ideas reference is to Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" lyrics that can be found, as can all his lyrics, at bobdylan.com.

As for Iowahawk, I deeply admire him. He's much funnier, more consistently, than I will ever be and he did yeoman like work during the 2004 election campaign.

But as for linking to that parody.... well, if I started that it would never stop.

If you run the string Howl "Ginsberg" parody OR parodies through Google you get 19,600. It is a testament to the stature and impact of Howl that it was able to generate so many parodies. It also points, alas, to the deeply flawed nature of the poem no matter how famous it is. No matter, however, Ginsberg is well established and his Kaddish even reaches the level of greatness.

But in looking at some of the links of the Google search, I find that , alas, not even my title has not been done before.

A Dozen Parodies

Allen Ginsberg's (1926-1997) Howl, the major poem of the beat generation, inspired this collection of parodies called Growl. Like Donald Ogden Stewart's Parody Outline of History, Growl is an anthology of parodies of contemporary writing, this time of the beats such as Gregory Corso (1930-2001) and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919).

Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun at March 26, 2006 8:30 PM

My wife just asked me why I was crying.
I could only sputter, giggle and point at the screen. She rolled her eyes and left me to my mindless snickering.

Gerard. We're not worthy.

It made me ponder if things keep going as they are, there should be an Iliad: The Wrath Of Hillary.

Posted by: David McKinnis at February 24, 2008 4:51 PM