JESUS GOING ON UTUBE...

Well, I guess I have to get over my fears of being a boring talking head in a movie. I have been writing skits, plays, stories, etc... for a long time, and the general rule with me has been that two characters sitting there talking all the time is fine in conversation, but not in a movie, story, etc... There has to be a lot more going on, or you might as well be writing an essay. Metahpor and poetic language add something to the story, as do visuals to films. My first forays into video poetry, about fifteen or more years ago, turned out nice because I read short stories while the camera was focused on a fantastic art collection my old roomate had put together. There were soulful pencil drawings, etc... from all of these art students he knew. This dude started the collection in high school and really has them framed well, etc. The drawings took away my need try to make facial expressions and what not when I read.

Later, when I started going out and reading a lot in public, and then finally got my own show and learned how to read well in public (for years, I got so nervous that my poetry barely came off the way I wanted it to... I also studied under Joel Lipman who insisted that the words on the page should be read almost without inflection, so the words, not the performer, was the star. This has kind of been done away with in modern poetry, especially here in Chicago, where Poetry Slams are all the rage, and performance poetry often relies less on words than shocking subject matter and acting. The great few do something so well that their immitators come in waves, until those immatotors finally start doing their own thing with what they learned from their predecessors, and inspire the whole process over again.

So, sitting here looking into a camera and reading will at least make me a better reader. I do not sit around and watch videos of myself giving readings. I never listened to the radio show when I was on... until later, and I did enjoy it more than I thought I would. Acting all those characters, and some of the embarrassing shit I did, made people laugh but it wasn't always the most pleasent experience for me. Though when a show went great, like when we had a live audicence that was laughing their asses off, there really was nothing like it. The hit of the audience is a great way of finding out what is communicating, but it is also a great censor... I have never pandered, obviously, in my quest toward documenting the times and expressing my opinions.

My motto is, stay out of jail... other than that, fuck with the world in whatever way it make you... with love, or guns.

You will find my comedy toward the back of my blog http://theelvesattic.blogspot.com, or http://thereligiouspsychokillersshitlist.blogspot.com

Google John Scott Ridgway for other works.