Let me just say right here and now how proud I am of Congressman Barney Frank; it is so wonderful, so affirming, to finally see someone standing up to these RETARDS at a town hall meeting! Town hall lunatrons out of U.S. now!!!!!

Intelligence, tits, or GTFO of our town halls!!!!

I’m sitting here at the Flying Star Cafe, on Silver St., in downtown Albuquerque, doing some job-hunting, resume-firing-off, and email-checking, and reading the news. It looks as though, from reading the Daily Kos and other sources of facts on the web, that the “Birthers” seem not only to be keeping up their nonsense about President Barack Obama not being a citizen of the United States, but in fact are melding together with the “teabaggers” and the town hall loonies trying to shut down Democratic health care town halls across the country.

It is with a very heavy heart that I must now begin to wonder aloud if it isn’t time to start enslaving the wingnuts, birthers and teabaggers. And, when I say “enslave”, I don’t mean this is a metaphorical sense; I’m truly wondering if now is the time to begin actually throwing these teabaggers, “patriots”, birthers, and all all-around wingnuts directly into slavery. If you look at a lot of the pictures of the wingnuts at the town halls, you’ll see that many of them appear to be relatively young and in decent, physical shape. Strong enough to force into labor camps that can produce the nation’s goods at no cost to the government, thus saving loads of money and, hopefully, getting all of us out of this horrific recession.

It pains me to have to suggest this, and I appreciate that many of you may feel that this could be an excessive, harsh, or even overboard solution to the nation’s current economic crisis. But, looky here: given that these self-styled “patriots”, birthers, wingnuts and racist lunatrons don’t really seem to care about their country, I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest that the government deploy the military to pick up these losers and convert them into free, hard-working slave labor for the common good.

Thoughts?

The far-right conservative factions in this country have me worried.
Because of the conservatives, people like Patrick Buchanan, people
Like Ann Coulter, people like Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity,
I have learned some frightening things about President Barack Obama;
I’ve learned that he apparently comes from a small planet called Iraq;
I’ve learned that he is trying to push through a health-care reform bill
that will FORCE THE ELDERLY TO PERFORM ABORTIONS IN KENYA.

When I hear right-wingers or birthers or wingnuts or whatever you want to call them telling me these things about President Obama, I try as hard as I can to force myself to think these creeps have been misguided, that their worries are “coming from a good place”, but I can’t fool myself anymore. These horrid, racist lunatrons are looking for blood. And, given the shape and arrogant, bigoted tone coming from these birthers, I’d say it’s fair to surmise out loud that what they are looking for in particular is a black man’s blood.

Today, it was all over the news channels: the “birthers” and the wingnuts and the “teabaggers” are ramping up their bloodlust and retard rage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POC0Ky9y_ik) and working themselves into this looney frenzy of disrupting town meetings all over the country, hoping to rattle and embarrass various Democratic congressmen. It all just seems so cheap and idiotic and racist and FUCKTARDULOUS. And they don’t even understand their own arguments, either. They just want to see themselves railing and raging against “Big Compassion” and “Big Progress”.

I have seen various progressive-leaning bloggers suggesting that people on the left of the aisle need to go to the town meetings, too, and go expressly with the purpose of getting in the face of the right-wing shithooks who are there to disrupt the proceedings in defense of Holy America. While I think this is a good start, I don’t think it goes nearly far enough. You’ve heard of the term “swift-boating”, right? When you go out of your way to dig up and try to discredit and prove false someone’s past achievements? I think it would be a great Idea to go to one of these town hall meetings and take pictures of these mental cases, and take down their licenses, too. Get to work on an individual basis against these assholes. Hire a private investigator. Hell, be a private investigator and make life a living hell for these douchebags.

Do this in the name of true patriotism; it’s the right thing to do.

Beginning on the night of August 4, 2009, the city of West Palm Beach, Florida will be witness to a literary event unlike any it has ever seen before. The city will be flooded with poets from all over the country, poets who have come to participate in a national competition and also to take in everything a city that is new to them has
to offer.

Those of us who have been watching the changes taking place within
the national “slam family” over the many years of its existence know that every
year, there will always be poets who have come to the Nationals with dreams of perfect scores in their eyes, dreams of the relative stardom that an individual slam championship can confer upon them, dreams of a badass community infamy earned with their words to strangers in a strange new city. Those of us who have been watching the Nationals for years also know that there are many poets who are hoping that, with their words, they can make a change in the world, hoping that
they can bring light, or hope, or bring about unity with the poems that they take with them to the stage.

I’m writing this letter to all of you poets going to the 2009 National Poetry Slam to remind you all that it’s not about your words bringing about peace, or hope or what truth you think the world needs, or light. And it’s also not about the scores that you earn, either singly or with your team. It’s never been about that. Please remember that as we poets, we are there to bring to the audience visions that they cannot comprehend, stories involving puppets, scenarios that will
confuddle them, images that will startle them directly into another beer. Please remember that, as important as it may be that your words speak into existence the truth, it is far, far more important that you force the audience members before you to have to picture a startled parakeet, surprise in its face, after having a handful of wet pizza flour
thrown at it. The National Slam is the place and the time to force slam attendees to see crying firemen, in their mind’s eye, grinding suggestively against yellow fire hydrants.

Listen, we have seen, over the course of the last several years, too many poets trying to change the world with the Truth that is nestled in their URGENT POETRY. But the time is upon you to cast such things aside and bring what matters to the fore: elderly dogs in sneezing fits outside of gross fast-food restaurants, depictions of men taking showers that last for several hours at once, close-up references to armpits and nipples being lathered and cleaned with foamy bath oils, televangelists having accidents at the podium. Please, poets, remember that in the short time you have at the microphone, you are there to pinch the listeners in their groinbones with poetry that confuses and causes trepidation. We, all of us, only have a short time to make an impact when we hit that Nationals microphone. Please, don’t waste it by trying to change or save the world with the UNSTOPPABLE, applause-worthy HONESTY of the words you have shed tears over. Instead, remember to force the attendees of the National Slam to have to think about the politics of body odor, gonzo journalist porn, and tricycle abuse.

We only get one shot at this.

Please remember that.

On the topic of Professor Henry Louis Gates being arrested on his own doorstep by the Cambridge police:

Doesn’t anyone else think it’s weird that whoever placed this phone call didn’t just notice the suitcases and say, “Well, looks like someone’s come home.”? I would to assign blame for this racist horseshit, here and now, not just to the Cambridge Police, but also to the idiot that made the damn call. I mean, you are either a racist or a RETARD, for not SEEING THE SUITCASES and simply, like any normal person, concluding that someone was RETURNING HOME.

On the topic of the “birthers” and their freaking out of the “controversy” about President Obama’s birth certificate:

I see this clip of this idiot woman from Delaware and I feel shame for having been given thumbs by the Creator. Honest to Christ IN A THONG, how does that woman navigate the microwave? For fuck’s sake, the President is an American, you RETARD. And don’t think I didn’t notice that when you said “I want my country back!” it sounded more like, “I want WHITE country back!”.

RETARD.

Dear Guy Who Had To Open His Shitmouth And Be All Like, “DOYYYYY! What About Teh Unborn!??!?!?!”:

You are a RETARD. You are a moron. You DON’T LIKE WOMEN. You are a DILLHOLE. You are going to hell, where gross-ass body odor demons will make slow, painful, unwelcome love to you for all eternity.

My Own Undeniable Truth: Mortality, Celebrity & Solipsism (A Primer On Basic Philosophy)

All this incessant talk about Michael Jackson, and the bemoanful fact of his dying,
has got me to thinking, hard, about mortality, yours and mine.
I watched all those people, the famous and the dirty,
the press, the wealthy and also those who are sinners,
all assembled there this afternoon in that colossal memorial amphitheater
and as I did so I couldn’t help but realize that none of them have ever come to know ME.

Yes. I’ll say it: it’s a shame that Michael Jackson died, but only in the same way that it is
generally a shame that a person has to die. Anybody. Think about it.
How much did we even know, really, about Michael Jackson?
Some say he was a pedophile. But no one knows that for sure.
There isn’t anyone on this whole planet who knows anything at all about it.
Not even two words. Some say that he had little children over the house, inappropriately,
overnight, from time to time. There isn’t any way to prove that. There are some
who say he was an entertainer. Really? How do you know that? Some even say that
he made “music that will last forever“, but no one can really say for sure.
All we have are recordings, photographs, and eyewitnesses.
Everything, and I mean everything now, can be doctored.
We’ve finally come to that place. The soft white room we deserve.
I’m crying as I write this, because I saw on the news today
how no one at CNN knows who I am. Like they care.
And I cannot help but think about the Taliban, and how they don’t seem to give a shit
about what I need in my life. I need a job. I need fun and games. Nintendo keeps
releasing all of these really cool games for the new Nintendo DSi, and yet all I seem to be
hearing nowadays is that such and such a celebrity died, and will be missed.
I mean, come on, doesn’t anybody just, you know, stay alive anymore?
Maybe Michael Jackson will be missed. Maybe he won’t. That’s not for me,
or for anyone else to say. In my thinking tonight about death, I think about
Iran, and all of the people who drink too much and then get on the public bus
with me. Why? What have Iran and I done that was so hurtful, so cruel, so unfeeling
that both me AND Iran have to deal with drunks on the bus? DRUNKS WITH
FRIGHTENING TATTOOS. CNN WITH FRIGHTENING TATTOOS. But why?

As I watched , helplessly, as the Michael Jackson memorial progressed in its
inexorable march to the end, I noticed that so many there were wearing sunglasses.
Again, this reminded me of death, in the sense that when I was a younger man,
it would not have been acceptable to go to a funeral wearing sunglasses.
I remember. I was right there, with me, all those years ago.
And just look at us now, just watch us go. Times have changed. None of those people
at the “Los Angeles” “Staples Center” today will ever know me, what I write about,
or all of the things I would like to own before I die. And that may be the greatest
shame in all of this. We talk about mortality so freely, such easy, easy poetry;
we talk a good game, all of us, about “what we want to leave behind”,
but it’s all just so many empty words. Nintendo, of Japan,
just came out with this really cool game for the DSi that lets you “find” a new
treasure every time you boot up the DSi near a unique “wifi hotspot”, but all we
seem to talk about is the “untimely death” of a superstar. What does that even
mean, though? I’m not trying to diminish people’s grief over someone they cared about,
and I am also not trying to dismiss other peoples’ concerns about certain “elements”
of Michael Jackson’s life. There isn’t anyone who knows anything at all about
Michael Jackson: doesn’t anyone understand that? Hello?

What I’m trying to get across is that all of these people on television,
all of these Iranians fighting for democracy, all of these mothers out there posing
as teenage boys just to cause a teen girl to kill herself live on” MySpace”, all of these
famous people dying in the months between June and July,
all of these people need to seriously start thinking about me.
And the things that I want and need. It’s really not that
hard to figure out. Al Qaueada doesn’t care about Nintendo, at least right now they
don’t, but maybe, just maybe, they should start caring. Truth hurts, doesn’t it?
Life isn’t that hard to figure out, either. It’s not hard, I mean, when
you put a little “elbow grease” into your thinking. Maybe, and I know this is
a very naïve thing to say aloud, but maybe we all learned something today:
life is not about how many calendars come off the wall before your number is called;
it’s about how you check off the days in those calendars. Life is not about hash marks
crossed on some corporate chalkboard, it’s about remembering to do what you need
to do in permanent ink. Life is not about vicarious triumphs or surreptitious
misdemeanors; it’s about knowing what you want to order when you get to the front
of the line. I am behind you 100%. And I really 100% want to get to my seat in the theater
of living in a timely way, so don’t you take too long deciding what you want for a snack.
None of us, and by “us” I mean ALL OF WE, none of us have forever, my friends.

MORTUERRE ES PATRIS NOCTUS SANGORUM.

July 7, 2009 by Rich Boucher.

I’m somewhat a little laughing at myself today, because of how I was probably sounding yesterday about my chances in last night’s competition. Last night went better than I’d have imagined. For “real”.

Round 1 of last night’s Bout 2 of the ABQ Slam Poet Laureate Competition broke down like this: eleven competitors, all strong poets, and I wound up drawing the “3” in the draw for the first order. Not very promising, and I knew that whatever I did had to be exciting and funny enough to keep me in the minds of the three judges for the rest of the round. I did “Taste the Rainbow” (the “let’s make fun of homophobes candy euphemism poem), had a little trip-up in the beginning, recovered as fast as I could and then tore up the rest of the poem like my junk was on fire. I’m thinking now that it was kind of a risky choice, as I’ve noticed that around here in Albuquerque sometimes I get punished for making fun of homophobia. For that I the judges gave me a 26.5, which outscored the first two poets and several of the following poets as well.

Round 2, the “one-minute” round, gave me even MORE stress than the first round did, because, since I had the third highest score in round one, and since we were going high to low in Round 2, this meant I was up in the “3” spot AGAIN! And my turn at bat in Round 2 was immediately following Danny Solis (a hero and inspiration of mine forever), so I was even more convinced by then that I was doomed. I performed “red”, a one-minute ode to obsession and got a 26.7, a higher score than I got in Round 1, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the game was up for me.

The way last night worked, the scores for Rounds 1 and 2 were added up and the top 7 poets out of the field of 11 advanced on to the final round of the bout. Turns out I had made it to Round 3!
Backstage, we did a fresh draw, and I drew the “4” for the last round. Better odds and I felt a little more at ease. At my turn, 4th up, I did “Maybe It’s Time” (a funny poem satirizing those ubiquitous pharmaceutical commercials and their puzzling “side effects”) and got a 29.4, outscoring the three poets who had gone on before me thus far, which meant I’d secured a spot in the June 13 Finals at the Kimo Theatre. After me, Jimmy Lusero, Tracey Pontani and Danny Solis had yet to go up. I was sure that one of them was going to outscore me, but that didn’t happen. Everyone in that final round performed magnificently. Somehow, my score for “Maybe It’s Time” was the highest score for the round, meaning that I won the thing. How in the Hell did THAT happen?

And so, now, I look forward to the Finals night at the Kimo Theatre in downtown Albuquerque. I have even MORE work cut out for me now, because, because….well…..just LOOK at this list of the poets in the Finals:

• Jessica Lopez
• Danny Solis
• Manuel Gonzalez
• Tracey Pontani
• Adan Baca
• Damien Flores
• Rich Boucher
• Hakim Bellamy
• Carlos Contreras
• Jimmy Lusero
• Sina Aurelia Soul
• Christian Drake

So, in other words, HOLY EFF.

But, hey –

I’m just proud that I made it even this far.

Seacrest Out,

Rich