The Needle - a poem by Ken Kesey he claimed was Robert Service's

Cover of the last supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog - click to enlarge

Ken Kesey contributed this poem (among his other curious contributions) to The Last Whole Earth Catalog and supplement.

I read The Needle when it was first published, attributed to Robert Service. It was undoubtedly written by Ken Kesey (maybe in conjunction with Ken Babbs).


Ken Kesey, back then


The Needle
by "Robert Service" but probably by Ken Kesey

First, brothers and sisters and spirits of our sphere,
I wish to make one thing perfectly clear;
During these last ten turnings of a year
I have been
Jacked-up, jerked-off, brought down, strung-out,
And I've
Holed up, come on, cooled off and hung out,
And I've
Rushed and flashed and flushed and twitched
And I've
Sniveled and snorted and bellowed and bitched
And I've
Been spaced out atoms in the heartless void
And a slightly-plotted tightly-knotted paranoid,
I've watched friends grin goodby as I spiraled down the drain?
I've had doctors shake their fingers at the fungus on my brain;
And I have called, friends and doctors, oh I have roared out my soul
From the compass busting bottom of the false magnetic pole,
But it was a place beyond friends or medicine's reach--
A senseless 3-D cry from a binary breach--
And the heartless void can listen but doesn't seem to care
And my call was never answered until the needle turned to prayer.
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The Michael Jackson story (and many others) summed up by Stereotypist

No one explains who did this in the first place, but you can find it here: http://stereotypist.livejournal.com/131545.html
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Poem: Peacekeeper

By Jack Brummet

1
The hawk on a high wall
Is hardened in wickedness

2
A roiling thunderstorm clears the air
Like Wyatt Earp's peacekeeper

3
A bad beginning can be overcome,
But a good end lasts forever
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[2008, revised 2009. This originally appeared in the little magazine Shorts]

According to TMZ, Michael Jackson has died following a heart attack

Breaking: Michael Jackson in critical condtion following heart attack?

Michael Jackson in critical condition? http://bit.ly/15PFWv

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Both Mark Sanford and John Ensign called for Bill Clinton's impeachment following the Lewinsky revelations

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor



Governor Sanford weeps at a press conference yesterday. He also claimed he spent five days crying in a Buenos Aires hotel room after ending his affair.


John Ensign and his playmate (an employee and wife of a friend)

In the days of the Lewinksy-Clinton scandal, both Mark Sanford and John Ensign called on Bill Clinton to resign the Presidency after his affair. So far, they don't appear to be following the same advice. . .aside from resigning from a few positions and committees.

Elliott Spitzer talked about family values. John Edwards talked about the sanctity of his marriage. Both Sanford and Ensign have said plenty of sanctimonious things in their careers. We won't call them former careers quite yet. At least Sanford followed the fifty mile run and took it out of the country. Ensign's affair was with a family friend.


Neither of the two currently in the doghouse have indicated they might Do The Right Thing. Oh, and hey, Mark Sanford. . .did you really spend five days in your hotel room in Argentina crying? Were you crying over having to break it off with the hot Argentine babe, or about having to go home to your wife. And the voters?
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Poem: Sailing To Naxos, or, The Vortex

By Jack Brummet

Sailing the poly-blue Aegean
On a hot day in a steamy haze,
Our ship makes a wide looping turn
A few kilometers off
The white house-dappled shore
Of Naxos, parked in the sea
Like a gem in a finding,
The houses and villas
Strung along the shore
And two layers above
Like a three strand pearl necklace
On the stout and broad neck of a Cyclops,
Waiting to leap from the sea,
And use our ship to beat the sea
Into a churning and foaming
Soup of whirlpools and funnels
That suck everything in sight
Into a sapphire blue vortex,
The water cooling each meter,
As it swirls down and cascades
Into Neptune's drain and picks up speed
As it descends into the dark
And lonely bottom of the sea.
---o0o---

Digital Art: Frunobulax from Zeta Reticula

click to enlarge

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Up in smoke: Republican Gov, Mark Sanford's Presidential Dreams and another nail in the coffin of "Republican Family Values"

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That
National Affairs (and we do mean affairs) Editor


The beleaguered governor and the Ex-President

That wacky Republican, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, 'fessed up Wednesday to an affair. Not only an affair, but an affair with a foreigner. He also just resigned his position as chair of the Republican Governor's Association. All this follows a strange week in which he dropped off the map, and his staff was lying about his whereabouts. During this period, when he could not be located, he was actually south of the border, playing hide the salami with his "girlfriend."

A local newspaper, The State, obtained and reprinted one of his emails to "Maria":

"You have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself ... in the faded glow of the night’s light ... despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.”

Sanford and his no doubt soon to be filing for divorce wife

“I have been unfaithful to my wife. I developed a relationship with what started out as a dear, dear friend from Argentina,” Sanford said in a rambling and often emotional news conference at the state capital in Columbia.

“I’m a bottom line kind of guy I’m just gonna lay it out. It’s gonna hurt and I’m going to let the chips fall where they may,” said Sanford, who, until today, has often been mentioned as a 2012 presidential hopeful.

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Sex for (not with) chips?

An Oklahoma City woman has been fined $1,142 after pleading no contest to prostitution charges.

She was accused of accepting a box of chips for sex. The 36 year old, Lahoma Sue Smith, was busted in southeast Oklahoma City after cops found her in flagrante in a car with a man.

The john told police officers that he knew there were prostitutes in the neighborhood.

The man didn't have any money, Lahoma Sue Smith told officers, so she agreed to accept a $30 case of chips in barter. The man was not charged and, unfortunately, they did not release his name.
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Poem: Limits

Poem: Limits
by Jack Brummet


We like to believe
We could endure anything for five minutes

But that theory, cooked up
In your hermetic study or bedroom,

Comes apart at the seams instantly
When you imagine being on fire

Or having crows feast
Upon your eyes.
---o0o---

Music video: The Young Fresh Fellows play The Kinks' Picture Book

The Young Fresh Fellows have been on my mind after seeing their most excellent show, and buying the just released CD--here is a bent video of their Kink's Picture Book cover. Note: the segment on the steep stairs was shot near my house...it's the stair portion of the walk to the beach at Golden Gardens.



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