thehefner | one of the few things they already know

So Herr Direktor

slaversbane invited me to tell a Hefner Monologue as an opening act before yesterday's production of FAUSTUS (where

jcsbimp, not I, would be playing the title role). He thought it would be good experience for working with a crowd, and I agreed. Then the stuff with my father happened.

Right around that time, a few days ago,

disc_sophist announced that she was giving away an extra ticket to the live performance of A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (the actual live broadcast, not the movie) at Wolf Trap, at the same time as FAUSTUS. Now, Garrison Keillor is one of my true heroes, alongside Christopher Titus, Billy Collins, Denis Leary, Spalding Gray, and Bill Cosby, and I've attended love Wolf Trap performances of his at least twice in the past.

So after much conflict, I decided to go ahead and do the Hefner Monologue. I reasoned that it'd be better for me to get experience doing the thing I love, getting up on that stage and throwing myself into it, and that I'd certainly see Keillor again someday. It was a tough decision, but that's what I decided upon. And besides, I don't like Wolf Trap. Too crowded, and in 95 degree muggy DC-area weather? Gross, no thank you. I would be better off listening to the performance as it happened in my AC-filled car.

So as I turned on the radio, just about to hit the beltway for the commute to Laurel, I hear Keillor and company live from Wolf Trap, where he announced that their special guest that night would be Billy Collins.

Now.

Most of you probably don't know who Billy Collins is (hint: he's NOT Billy Connolly). I wrote about him a while back; he's the former Poet Laureate of the U.S. Now again, I didn't gave a crap about modern poetry for the most part, but when he came to my college to do a reading, I felt obligated to go, since he was kind of a big deal. And I was blown away.

His poetry isn't really all that deep. His poetry will never be studied in schools; there's no real depth to his work or anything. What there is is just a Hemingway-like mastry of simple English, to the purpose of Steven Wright-ish surreal comedic observations on the world. And he's absolutely best when he's performing his poetry. His live CD is introduced by Bill Murray, to give you an idea (which I REALLY need to own).

Let me post some examples of his work here. NOTE: If you hate hate HATE poetry, modern or otherwise... definitely give these a read. Read them aloud, slowly, carefully.

Flock

It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenberg Bible
required the skins of 300 sheep.

I can see them
squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed.

All of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike
it would be nearly impossible to count them.

And there is no telling which one of them
will carry the news
that the Lord is a Shepherd,
one of the few things
they already know.

Introduction To Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Thesaurus

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.

Man, aren't those great?

So, with that in mind, when Keillor announced Billy Collins as his guest, perhaps you'll understand why (even though I was much, much better off hearing it from my cool car, not watching it from afar on a muggy, crowded, grassy hill) I released a good long "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!"

disc_sophist, you lucky whore, you.