Cynglish Beat audio, for the first time. Great crowd, great venue, terrific recording (even without the bongos).
Recorded by Dale Herrington at the monthly poetry slam at The Auburn in Calgary. August 27, 2009.
If that doesn't work, try this:
http://calgaryspokenword.podbean.com/2009/08/31/august-aburn-slam-open-mic-timothy-reynolds/
Monday, 31 August 2009
Saturday, 15 August 2009
From "The Cynglish Beat" by Tim Reynolds
MIDDLE GROUND
We’ve lost the middle ground.
Either we sit around the campfire of burning hate literature singing Kumbaya, holding hands and reciting the mantra “We are the world”...
...or we take out a gun and shoot a young couple for parking in front of our house while they go visit our neighbours with their newborn baby.
The middle ground is no longer around, or a square. It’s become a null and void rhomboid of confusion and contradiction...
DON’T PAINT IT BEIGE
...but spank a diapered bum and suddenly you’re serving six months to one, for a beating that never was;
But spare the rod, lower the hand and put away the fly swatter and by the time they’re four you can’t take it anymore.
By the age of eight, an asylum looks great.
Before they’re eleven it’s time for boarding school heaven, even if it means selling the Harley so you don’t have to daily deal with the snarly, disrespectful, foul-mouthed version of the cousin you never invite for dinner, let alone educate and clothe and feed and buy the X-Box for.
There IS a ‘U’ in “educate”, but they won’t let you educate your own children.
Educate them in ‘cause and effect’, ‘crime and punishment’, ‘action and reaction’.
‘Reaction’, not ‘inaction’.
Not all passive no aggressive.
More ‘Highway to Hell’ and less ‘Kumbaya’.
Love is good, love is great, but it’s just the flipside of hate.
Not “I’m-better-than-you” hate, but ‘I hate tofu”, “I hate Wisteria Lane” or
“I hate people who are afraid to voice an opinion for fear of being shoved aside and beaten down by the Love Police, the Co-operation Cops, the self-appointed picket-fencers doing a destructive epee and riposte against harsh words, raised voices, rights not to be left outside the bubble.
The bubble.
The social anti-bacterial soap bubble keeping us from catching conversational colds or fractious-friends flu or watch-what-you-say fever.
We’ve gone from ‘faster, slower, higher, lower” to “beige --- I think I’ll paint it beige”.
But beige is just paint, covering sins, hiding crimes, keeping us all on an even keel on waveless seas for one more verse of Kumbaya, one more flight to Cloud Nine.
Trading vanGogh and Picasso for Hello Kitty and Care Bears.
Well, Smurf it! Let there be “I love Thrash Metal” or Folk or Baby Beluga; and let there be hate ---
I hate rude drivers, I hate cowardly terrorists, I hate the victimizers and will not hold their hand and welcome them into my paint shop for a coat of concealer, a killer coat of beige.
I will scream “Faster faster faster... slower, yes, slower... now a little bit higher and a whole lot lower.”
Make a few friendly waves and then surf that curl all the way to “Don’t Be Such A Beach”.
If you take a stand in the middle of the road
Expect to get run over by those of us unafraid to have Drive.
Follow the Instinct Interstate away from Beige Boulevard
And straight toward Express-myself Expressway.
We’ve lost the middle ground.
Either we sit around the campfire of burning hate literature singing Kumbaya, holding hands and reciting the mantra “We are the world”...
...or we take out a gun and shoot a young couple for parking in front of our house while they go visit our neighbours with their newborn baby.
The middle ground is no longer around, or a square. It’s become a null and void rhomboid of confusion and contradiction...
DON’T PAINT IT BEIGE
...but spank a diapered bum and suddenly you’re serving six months to one, for a beating that never was;
But spare the rod, lower the hand and put away the fly swatter and by the time they’re four you can’t take it anymore.
By the age of eight, an asylum looks great.
Before they’re eleven it’s time for boarding school heaven, even if it means selling the Harley so you don’t have to daily deal with the snarly, disrespectful, foul-mouthed version of the cousin you never invite for dinner, let alone educate and clothe and feed and buy the X-Box for.
There IS a ‘U’ in “educate”, but they won’t let you educate your own children.
Educate them in ‘cause and effect’, ‘crime and punishment’, ‘action and reaction’.
‘Reaction’, not ‘inaction’.
Not all passive no aggressive.
More ‘Highway to Hell’ and less ‘Kumbaya’.
Love is good, love is great, but it’s just the flipside of hate.
Not “I’m-better-than-you” hate, but ‘I hate tofu”, “I hate Wisteria Lane” or
“I hate people who are afraid to voice an opinion for fear of being shoved aside and beaten down by the Love Police, the Co-operation Cops, the self-appointed picket-fencers doing a destructive epee and riposte against harsh words, raised voices, rights not to be left outside the bubble.
The bubble.
The social anti-bacterial soap bubble keeping us from catching conversational colds or fractious-friends flu or watch-what-you-say fever.
We’ve gone from ‘faster, slower, higher, lower” to “beige --- I think I’ll paint it beige”.
But beige is just paint, covering sins, hiding crimes, keeping us all on an even keel on waveless seas for one more verse of Kumbaya, one more flight to Cloud Nine.
Trading vanGogh and Picasso for Hello Kitty and Care Bears.
Well, Smurf it! Let there be “I love Thrash Metal” or Folk or Baby Beluga; and let there be hate ---
I hate rude drivers, I hate cowardly terrorists, I hate the victimizers and will not hold their hand and welcome them into my paint shop for a coat of concealer, a killer coat of beige.
I will scream “Faster faster faster... slower, yes, slower... now a little bit higher and a whole lot lower.”
Make a few friendly waves and then surf that curl all the way to “Don’t Be Such A Beach”.
If you take a stand in the middle of the road
Expect to get run over by those of us unafraid to have Drive.
Follow the Instinct Interstate away from Beige Boulevard
And straight toward Express-myself Expressway.
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Bus Driver's Lament
Jammed up, crammed up, nerve-fraying rush hour traffic;
Perfume-bathers and their throat-tearing, eye-tearing, floral-acid stench;
Shower-avoiders and their throat-tearing, eye-tearing, armpit-acid stench;
Traffic-jamming bus stop parkers;
Unfair fare scammers;
Seat-slicing vinyl vandals;
Drunk punks, hammered homeless, sloshed salesmen, bombed bitches wearing come-do-me pumps;
Junior high flirts with senior high cleavage;
University girls full of their own self-importance... and senior high cleavage;
Old buses that can’t climb hills in the sweltering summer burn;
Geriatrics who can’t walk or hold on but just have to shuffle shuffle shuffle past six empty seats to sit at the back while... we... all... wait;
Cranky old schedule-memorizing clock-watchers late for mall-walking club;
Turn-signal-challenged yahoos, idiots and gene-pool-cleansing dumb-fucks;
Bottle-pickers with torn and tattered, beer-leaking, bus-stinking plastic bags of recyclable refuse;
Bicycles needing rides but no bike rack to oblige;
Jaywalkers stepping out and bike messengers swerving in;
Toxin-smoking, cloud-wearers dragging fumes on board to share with one and all;
And iPod isolationists cutting off the world at volume beyond understanding.
Kids from college full of knowledge and educational enthusiasm;
Toddlers full of giggles and wiggles and moms glad to just sit for a bit;
Seniors glad to be out and about and commuters glad to sit back and relax...and let someone else deal with Rush Hour Madness;
Homeless folk happy for a warm ride and a welcoming stranger’s smile;
And harried, clock-challenged, bus-chasers thankful for a driver who saw and stopped
and gracefully accepted their gratitude before taking them on down the road, home.
~
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