Edgar Allan Poe: American legend who's inspired untold millions of shitty teenage poets.

Edgar Allan Poe was a seriously disturbed, alcoholic genius. Without him, the dark, shadow filled room may have gone un-feared. The mysterious tappings, rappings, and scrapes would've gone unnoticed, and the world would have been far less beautifully terrifying.
The troubled man, although many came before him, paved the way for a new generation of mopey, depressed, teenage American poets, yet so few have ever met Poe's standard, and few of Poe's works reached the beauty of The Raven.
The Raven is a poem written rhythmically, drawing the reader, or in this case the listener, into each scene, each thought, in a way that can draw tears, get hearts pounding.
Who better to read such a brilliant poem than the man with perhaps the most recognizable voice in the world, James Earl Jones.

Late Night Confessions: by Henry Rollins

Look, I'm a huge Henry Rollins fan. Those who know me often recognize the Black Flag t-shirt I've worn into near oblivion. Black Flag rules in a way only Black Flag is allowed to, but Henry Rollins... he's smart, he's constantly boiling over, the sinew in his neck constantly twisting and turning his head in such angrily determined gestures intended to scare people have given hints to who he really is.
He's a little boy. He's a little boy who scares the other kids into liking him. Sure, he's good, great even, but is that why he has such a strong following and has had for thirty or so years?
Okay, yeah, maybe, but how many within that following are willing to say what everyone is dying to get off their chest?
He's an arrogant bastard, forcing us to laugh at his dick jokes. Yet, he has taken that dick joke, put it in a way that makes us laugh at it, to think about it. Isn't that, in its own way, truly poetic?

Rockets still fly and children still die (continuing the Gil Scott-Heron tribute)

There was more to Gil Scott Heron than just revolutions. There is a relevance to his poetry that even the staunchest of pigs cannot shake. He didn't write for black folks, he wrote AT black folks. He wrote to white people not believing they'd hear him, but hoping.
Hear him they did, and the Man has done everything in his power to delegitimize everything about him, turning him into a sideshow, a freak, a joke.
Are you laughing too?
Do yourself a favor and accept this Gil Scott-Heron slap in the face.
You deserve it.
Everyone deserves it.

"Gil Scott-Heron is dead" brought to you by Coca Cola.

It ain't cute, and it's even less funny.
No reporting has been released as to exactly how he died last week, but we can bet how it happened. Gil Scott Heron was a severe drug addict/ alcoholic, having fallen victim to the heaviest weapons in the Man's arsenal, dead at 62. He became the classic representation of what his poetry was about, but he was no punk. Did he know? Did he know he was walking through Right Wing Whitey quicksand?
Of course he did. He just lost hope.
Just look at us. Just look at America. What was left for a man like Scott-Heron to live for?
What are you proud of?
What is your positive take on America?
What's the other side of your argument?
Do you know what the fuck you are talking about?
Probably not, because after all, you're an American.
The revolution has not, will not, and cannot be televised.
Why would it be?
It's on fuckin' Facebook.

This is the poetry the lunatic, murderous, hypocrite right wing is bitching about.

The other day the rapper Common was invited to a poetry reading at the White House. Like most rappers with any cred at all, Common raps about things that make him, as well as anyone with a brain and a heart, angry. Apparently that's more than the right wing, and especially Bill O'Reilly can handle. In some of Common's poetry he talks about using a gun to make the cops run, and it has the pigs in a tizzy. In their opinions anything that comes into the Whit House should be censored thoroughly, therefore Common should have never let anyone into the White House.
I hereby challenge my reader(s) to find how many ways this is completely hypocritical, because, first off, they have automatically insinuated that killing Muslims is okay to talk/sing about, but not cops. That's bad. All the country music hillrods that had their own revolving door in and out of the Bush stolen White House were a bunch of racist inbred morons. How was that okay?
I think we all know that it wasn't, that is, it wasn't okay IF what Common's poetry said was not okay. Censorship sucks no matter what house it's in.

Sometimes, you just gotta chill, baby. Langston Hughes makes it easy.

I've never posted music on this blog before, but there's a first time for everything. I knew that it would just be a matter of time before I did, because sometimes we forget the old cliche that rather than simply hearing music, we need to listen to it. We need to feel what the musician feels and to take in the author's message. If you take the time to listen to any blues at all this year, listen to Langston.

Megan Lane: brilliant poet, gifted musician, on what it's like to be gay.

The gay community around the world is constantly faced with disapproving eyes of the ignorant. It's viewed as a "choice" and unnatural. So, many take it upon themselves to make sure the gay community knows just how bad they are by backing them into corners, away from being able to turn not only the children of the ignorant into "gays", but the ignorant themselves.
It seems the most vocal, the most outspoken against the gay community are the most needing of a good long look in the mirror. Let's face it, these people are likely gay themselves. For them it is a choice, but it's not about being gay, it's about being straight. So many of these people are living a lie, acting out on their natural urges in secret at night, while during the day screaming about hellfire.
Remember Larry Craig? http://voices.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2007/08/larry_craig_still_not_gay.html

Anyway, listen to Megan. She's just got a way of puttin' it.