#29

in What Rough Beast!

#29 connects with George Burns' wonderful appearance on The Muppet Show in Season 2.  I was told this poem reads like "the ravings of a mad man."  I guess that about sums it up, but I'll try and go a little deeper...


& Living in San Francisco for over 6 years, I came to find out that the Golden Gate Bridge is actually orange. Wait. Why is this important?

& The opening tagline/epigraph is from the dialogue between Statler and Waldorf at the end of the episode.  It ends with "O GOD!," which is a movie that Burns played God in.


& America's local news services are suffering, and companies are beginning to get a firm grasp around media outlets.  This poem is really more about shape than content, because it obviously reads like a riddle, but that's how I feel when I'm reading the news.  This poem has marquee headlines selling you propaganda, and they act as borderlines.  The news exclusives at all the different capitals, written by the news reporter, Genuine Phony, are very intimate letters addressed to "you" (aka the United States of America).



& The reasoning for media critique is because the new Muppet, Fleet Scribbler, is introduced in this ep.  He is a reporter for The Daily Scandal.  He will twist words and sensationalize stories for print without any thought of responsibility or honor.  Our atrocity of a president started the “fake news” jibe, but it was a deceitful ploy to distract people from both seeing the (cough) truth to that concept, while at the same time, drawing attention away from his countless lies.  


& The mainstream media is systematically linked with the government.  The current law in this country, as it stands, is that broadcasting propaganda to the American public is completely and totally LEGAL, and there is a lot of government-funded programming.  Six corporations control 90% of the media in this country.  All international think-tanks and NGOs define a country as authoritarian or totalitarian when there is complete state control in ownership over information in direct or indirect ways.  


& The second volume in my series, Outsider Works (Orange Wood), is really all about opening doors of perception in order to break down walls.  I wrote this piece to address issues of territory and separation, and to write something with a political edge because the trouble is every time I turn to the news I find myself disgusted.

 

& This episode's opening number takes place south of the border.  Miss Piggy sings,“Cuanto Le Gusta,” a song by an American lyricist, Ray Gilbert, and a Mexican songwriter, Gabriel Ruiz.  I don’t speak Spanish, and the first time I heard the song, I didn’t know if  Piggy was saying cuánto or cuándo, but how much would you like it and when would you like it was in my head.

 

& All the coming comes from Burns in the film, The Sunshine Boys. That should make it (somewhat) easier to enter.

 

& George Burns burns goes through cigars like the smoke won’t stay in the curtains.  The saying, “close, but no cigar,” started from failing to win a prize at American carnivals.  Cigars are the invention of Central America.  I think if u think u don’t know every fact completely, then it discourages u, making it seem pointless to try & I enjoy the burning of banded cigars from both ends & it’s a different view watching from the inside & there is always and forever a brand new machine to tell us what to fight about & George Burns crossed every border, from vaudeville, to radio, to television, to film.

 

& In this episode, “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” is performed on platform 29.  This being my 29th muppoem was a synchronicity for me.



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IN INDOLENT BOOKS'


WHAT ROUGH BEAST!