THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD IN VERSE
Dear Readers, I have tried to cover the salient features of this True Story in free flowing verse mainly with end rhymes. If you read it loud, you can hear the chimes! Due to the short attention span of my readers I had to cut short this long story, and conclude with the
Golden Era of Hollywood by stretching it up to the 1950's only. When TV began to challenge the Big Screen Cinema seriously! I have used only a part of my notes here. Kindly read the entire poem and don't hesitate to know many interesting facts - which I also did not know! I wish there was a provision for posting a few interesting photographs for you here. Best wishes, - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.  

                 THE LEGEND OF HOLLYWOOD :
                        THE AMERICAN  DREAM
                             BY RAJ NANDY

           A SHORT  HISTORICAL  BACKGROUND
Since the earliest days, optical toys, shadow shows, and ‘magic
lanterns’, had created the illusion of motion.
This concept was first described by Mark Roget in 1824 as  
the 'persistent of vision'.
Giving impetus to the development of big screen cinema with its
close-ups, capturing all controlled and subtle expressions!
The actors were no longer required to shout out their parts with
exaggerated actions as on the Elizabethan Stage.
Now even a single tear drop could get noticed easily by the entire
movie audience!
With the best scene being included and edited after a few retakes.
To Thomas Edison and his able assistant William Rogers we owe the invention of Kinetoscope, the first movie camera.
On the grounds of his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory, Edison
built his first movie studio called the ‘Black Maria’.   (1893)
He also purchased a string of patents related to motion picture
Camera; forming the Edison Trust, - a cartel that took control of
the Film Industry entire!

Fort Lee, New Jersey:
On a small borough on the opposite bank of the Hudson River lay
the deserted Fort Lee.
Here scores of film production crews descended armed with picture Cameras, on this isolated part of New Jersey!
In 1907 Edison’s company came there to shoot a short silent film –
‘Rescue From an Eagle’s Nest’,
Which featured for the first time the actor and director DW Griffith.
The independent Chaplin Film Company built the first permanent
movie studio in 1910 in Fort Lee.
While some of the biggest Hollywood studios like the Universal,
MGM, and 20th Century Fox, had their roots in Fort Lee.
Some of the famous stars of the silent movie era included ‘Fatty’
Arbuckle, Will Rogers, Mary Pickford, Dorothy and Lillian Gish,
Lionel Barrymore, Rudolph Valentine and Pearl White.
In those days there were no reflectors and electric arch lights.
So movies were made on rooftops to capture the bright sunlight!
During unpredictable bad weather days, filming had to be stopped
despite the revolving stage which was made, -
To rotate and capture the sunlight before the lights atarted to fade!

Shift from New Jersey to West Coast California:
Now Edison who held the patents for the bulb, phonograph, and the Camera, had exhibited a near monopoly;
On the production, distribution, and exhibition of the movies which made this budding industry to shift to California from
New Jersey!
California with its natural scenery, its open range, mountains, desert, and snow country, had the basic ingredients for the movie industry.
But most importantly, California had bright Sunshine for almost
365 days of the year!
While eight miles away from Hollywood lay the port city of Los Angeles with its cheap labour.

                        THE RISE  OF  HOLLYWOOD
It was a real estate tycoon Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daeida from
Kansas, who during the 1880s founded ‘Hollywood’ as a community for like-minded temperate followers.
It is generally said that Daeida gave the name Hollywood perhaps
due to the areas abundant red-berried shrubs also known as
California Holly.
Spring blossoms around and above the Hollywood Hills with its rich variety,  gave it a touch of paradise for all to see !
Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903, and during
1910 unified with the city of Los Angeles.
While a year later, the first film studio had moved in from New
Jersey, to escape Thomas Edison’s monopoly!    (1911)

In 1913 Cecil B. De Mille and Jesse Lasky, had leased a barn with
studio facilities.
And directed the first feature length film ‘Squaw Man’ in 1914.
Today this studio is home to Hollywood Heritage Museum as we get to see.
The timeless symbol of Hollywood film industry that famous sign on top of Mount Lee, was put up by a real estate developer in 1923.  
This sign had read as ‘’HOLLY WOOD LAND’’ initially.
Despite decades of run-ins with vandals and pranksters, it managed to hang on to its prime location near the summit of the Hollywood Hills.
The last restoration work was carried out in 1978 initiated by Hugh
Hefner of the ******* Magazine.
Those nine white letters 45 feet tall now read ‘HOLLYWOOD’, and has become a landmark and America’s cultural icon, and an evocative symbol for ambition, glamour, and dream.
Forever enticing aspiring actors to flock to Hollywood, hypnotised
by lure of the big screen!

                     GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD
The Silent Movie Era which began in 1895, ended in 1935 with the
production of ‘Dance of Virgins’, filmed entirely in the island of Bali.
The first Sound film ‘The Jazz Singer’ by Warner Bros. was made with a Vitaphone sound-on-disc technology.  (October 1927)
Despite the Great Depression of the 1930s, this decade along with the 1940s have been regarded by some as Hollywood’s Golden Age.
However, I think that this Golden Age includes the decades of the
1940s and the 1950s instead.
When the advent of Television began to challenge the Film Industry
itself !

First Academy Award:
On 16th May 1929 in the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard,
the First Academy Award presentation was held.
Around 270 people were in attendance, and tickets were priced at
$5 per head.
When the best films of 1927 & 1928 were honored by the Academy
of Motion Production and Sciences, or the AMPS.
Emil Jennings became the best actor, and Janet Gaynor the best actress.
Special Award went to Charlie Chaplin for his contribution to the
silent movie era and for his silent film ‘The Circus’.
While Warren Brothers was commended for making the first talking picture ‘The Jazz Singer’, - also receiving a Special Award!
Now, the origin of the term ‘OSCAR’ has remained disputed.
The Academy adopted this name from 1939 onwards it is stated.
OSCAR award has now become “the stuff dreams are made of”!
It is a gold-plated statuette of a knight 13.5 inches in height, weighing 8.5 pounds, was designed by MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons.
Annually awarded for honouring and encouraging excellence in all
facets of motion picture production.

Movies During the Great Depression Era (1929-1941):
Musicals and dance movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers provided escapism and good entertainment during this age.
“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She just did it
backwards and in high heels,” - the Critics had said.
This compatible pair entertained the viewers for almost one and
a half decade.
During the ‘30s, gangster movies were popular starring James Cagey, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson.
While family movies had their popular child artist Shirley Temple.
Swashbuckler films of the Golden Age saw the sword fighting scenes of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn.
Flynn got idolized playing ‘Robin Hood’, this film got released in
1938 on the big screen!
Story of the American Civil War got presented in the epic ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939) with Clarke Gable and Vivian Leigh.
This movie received 8 Oscars including the award for the Best Film, - creating a landmark in motion picture’s history!
More serious movies like John Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and
John Ford’s  ‘How Green Was My Valley’, were released in 1940 and 1941 respectively.
While the viewers escaped that depressive age to the magical world
of  ‘Wizard of Oz’ with its actress Judy Garland most eagerly!
Let us not forget John Wayne the King of the Westerns, who began
his acting career in the 1930s with his movie ‘The Big Trail’;
He went on to complete 84 films before his career came to an end.
Beginning of the 40s also saw Bob Hope and the crooner Bing Crosby, who entertained the public and also the fighting troops.
For the Second World War (1939-45) had interrupted the Golden Age of Hollywood.
When actors like Henry Fonda, Clarke Gable, James Stewart and
Douglas Fairbanks joined the armed forces temporarily leaving
Hollywood.
Few propaganda movies supporting the war efforts were also made.
While landmark movies like ‘Philadelphia Story’, ‘Casablanca’, ‘Citizen Kane’,
‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, were some of the most successful movies of that decade.  (The 1940s)
Now I come towards the end of my Hollywood Story with the decade  of the 1950s, thereby extending the period of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Since having past the Great Depression and the Second World War,  the Hollywood movie industry truly matured and came of age.

                        HOLLYWOOD  OF  THE  1950s

BACKGROU­ND:
The decade of the ‘50s was known for its post-war affluence and
choice of leisure time activities.
It was a decade of middle-class values, fast-food restaurants, and
drive-in- movies;
Of ‘baby-boom’, all-electric home, the first credit cards, and new fast moving cars like the Ford, Plymouth, Buick, Hudson, and Chevrolet.
But not forgetting the white racist terrorism in the Southern States!
This era saw the beginning of Cold War, with Eisenhower
succeeding Harry S. Truman as the American President.
But for the film industry, most importantly, what really mattered  
was the advent of the Domestic TV.
When the older viewers preferred to stay at home instead of going
out to the movies.
By 1950, 10.5 million US homes had a television set, and on the
30th December 1953, the first Color TV went on sale!
Film industries used techniques such as Cinemascope, Vista Vision,
and gimmicks like 3-D techniques,
To get back their former movie audience back on their seats!
However, the big scene spectacle films did retain its charm and
fantasy.
Since fantasy epics like ‘The Story of Robin Hood’, and Biblical epics like ‘The Robe’, ‘Quo Vadis’, ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘Ben-Hur’, did retain its big screen visual appeal.
‘The Robe’ released on 16th September 1953, was the first film shot
and projected in Cinema Scope;
In which special lenses were used to compress a wide image into a
standard frame and then expanded it again during projection;
Resulting in an image almost two and a half times as high and also as wide, - captivating the viewers imagination!

DEMAND FOR NEW THEMES DURING THE 1950s :
The idealized portrayal of men and women since the Second World War,
Now failed to satisfy the youth who sought exciting symbols for rebellion.
So Hollywood responded with anti-heroes with stars like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Paul Newman.
They replaced conventional actors like Tyron Power, Van Johnson, and Robert Taylor to a great extent, to meet the requirement of the age.
Anti-heroines included Ava Gardner, Kim Novak, and Marilyn Monroe with her vibrant *** appeal;
She provided excitement for the new generation with a change of scene.
Themes of rebellion against established authority was present in many Rock and Roll songs,
Including the 1954 Bill Hailey and His Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
The era also saw rise to stardom of Elvis Presley the teen heartthrob.
Meeting the youthful aspirations with his songs like ‘Jailhouse Rock’!
I recall the lyrics of this 1957 film ‘Jailhouse Rock’ of my school days, which had featured the youth icon Elvis:
   “The Warden threw a party in the county jail,
     The prison band was there and they began to wail.
     The band was jumping and the joint began to sing,
     You should’ve heard them knocked-out jail bird sing.
     Let’s rock, everybody in the whole cell block……………
     Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone,
     Little Joe was blowing the slide trombone.
     The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang!
     The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang,
      Let's rock,.................... (Lyrics of the song.)

Rock and Roll music began to tear down color barriers, and Afro-
American musicians like Chuck Berry and Little Richard became
very popular!
Now I must caution my readers that thousands of feature films got  released during this eventful decade in Hollywood.
To cover them all within this limited space becomes an impossible
task, which may kindly be understood !
However, I shall try to do so in a summarized form as best as I could.

BOX OFFICE HITS YEAR-WISE FROM 1950 To 1959 :
Top Ten Year-Wise hit films chronologically are: Cinderella (1950),
Quo Vadis, The Greatest Show on Earth, Peter Pan, Rear Window,
Lady and the *****, Ten Commandments, Bridge on the River
Kwai, South Pacific, and Ben-Hur of 1959.

However Taking The Entire Decade Of 1950s Collectively,
The Top Films Get Rated As Follows Respectively:
The Ten Commandments, followed by Lady and the *****, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Bridge on the River Kwai, Around the World in Eighty Days, This is Cinerama, The Greatest Show on Earth, Rear Window, South Pacific, The Robe, Giant, Seven Wonders of the World, White Christmas, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Sayonara, Demetrius and the Gladiator, Peyton Place, Some Like It Hot, Quo Vadis, and Auntie Mame.

Film Debuts By Rising Stars During The 1950s :
The decade of the ‘50s saw a number of famous film stars making
their first appearance.
There was Peter Sellers in ‘The Black Rose’, Marlon Brando in
‘The Men’, and actress Sophia Loren in ‘Toto Tarzan’.
Following year saw Charles Bronson in ‘You Are in the Navy Now’,
Audrey Hepburn in ‘Our Wild Oats’, and Grace Kelly, the future
Princess of Monaco, in her first film ‘Fourteen Hours’. (1951)
While **** Brigitte Bardot appeared in 1952 movie ‘Crazy for Love’; and 1953 saw Steve Mc Queen in ‘******* The Run’.
Jack Lemon, Paul Newman, and Omar Sharif featured in films
during 1954.
The following year saw Clint Eastwood, Shirley Mc Lean, Walter
Matthau, and Jane Mansfield, all of whom the audience adored.
The British actor Michael Cain appeared in 1956; also Elvis Presley
the youth icon in ‘Love Me Tender’ and as the future Rock and Roll
King!
In 1957 came Sean Connery, followed by Jack Nicholson, Christopher Plummer, and Vanessa Redgrave.
While the closing decade of the ‘50s saw James Coburn, along with
director, script writer, and producer Steven Spielberg, make their
debut appearance.

Deaths During The 1950s: This decade also saw the death of actors
like Humphrey Bogart, Tyron Power and Errol Flynn.
Including the death of producer and director of epic movies the
renowned Cecil B. De Mille!
Though I have conclude the Golden Age of Hollywood with the 50’s Decade,
The glitz and glamour of its Oscar Awards continue even to this day.
With its red carpet and lighted marquee appeal and fashion display!

CONTINUING THE HOLLYWOOD STORY WITH FEW TITBITS :
From Fort Lee of New Jersey we have travelled west to Hollywood,
California.
From the silent movie days to the first ‘talking picture’ with Warren
Bros’ film ‘The Jazz Singer’.  (06 Oct 1927)
On 31st July 1928 for the first time the audience heard the MGM’s
mascot Leo’s mighty roar!
While in July 1929 Warren Bros’ first all-talking and all- Technicolor
Film appeared titled - ‘On With The Show’.
Austrian born Hedy Lamarr shocked the audience appearing **** in a Czechoslovak film ‘Ecstasy’!  (1933)
She fled from her husband to join MGM, becoming a star of the
‘40s and the ‘50s.
The ‘Private Life of Henry VII’ became the first British film to win the  American Academy Award.  (1933)
On 11Dec 1934, FOX released ‘Bright Eyes’ with Shirley Temple,
who became the first Child artist to win this Award!
While in 1937 Walt Disney released the first full animated feature
film titled - ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarf ‘.
The British film director Alfred Hitchcock who came to
Hollywood later;
Between 1940 and 1947, made great thrillers like 'Rebecca', ‘Notorious’, ‘Rear Window’, and ‘Dial M for ******’.
But he never won an Oscar as a Director!

THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD:
This award began in 1944 by the Foreign Correspondence Association at
the 20th Century Fox Studio.
To award critically acclaimed films and television shows, by awarding a
Scroll initially.
Later a Golden Globe was made on a pedestal, with a film strip around it.
In 1955 the Cecil B. De Mille Award was created, with De Mille as its first
recipient.

THE GRAMMY AWARD:
In 1959 The National Academy of Recording and Sciences sponsored the
First Grammy Award for music recorded during 1958.
When Frank Sinatra won for his album cover ‘Only The Lonely’, but he
did not sing.
Among the 28 other categories there was Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie
for his musical Dance Band Performance.
There was Kingston Trio’s song ‘Tom Dooly’, and the ‘Chipmunk Song’,
which brings back nostalgic memories of my school days!

CONCLUDING HOLLYWOOD STORY  WITH STUDIOS OF THE 1950s

Challenge Faced by the Movie Industry:
Now the challenge before the Movie Industry was how to adjust to the
rapidly changing conditions created by the growing TV Industry.
Resulting in loss of revenue, with viewers getting addicted to
their Domestic TV screen most conveniently!

The late 1950s saw two studios REPUBLIC and the RKO go out of business!
REPUBLIC from 1935- ‘59 based in Los Angeles, developed the careers of
John Wayne and Roy Rogers, and specializing in the Westerns.
RKO was one of the Big Five Studios of Hollywood along with Paramount,
MGM, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Brothers in those days.

RKO Studio which begun with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the ‘30s,
included actress Katherine Hepburn who holds the record for four Oscars
even to this day;
And later had Robert Mitchum and Carry Grant under an agreement.
But in 1948, RKO Studio came under the control Howard Hughes the
temperamental Industrialist.
Soon the scandal drive and litigation prone RKO Studio closed, while
other Big Four Studios had managed to remain afloat!


PARAMOUNT STUDIO:
Paramount Studio split into two separate companies in 1950.
Its Theatre chain later merged with ABC Radio & Television Network;
And they created an independent Production/Distribution Network.
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope had been Paramount’s two biggest stars.
Followed by actors like Alan Ladd, William Holden, Jerry Lewis, Dean
Martin, Charlton Heston, and Dorothy Lamour.
They also had the producer/director Cecil B. De Mille producing high-
grossing Epics like ‘Samson & Delilah’ and ‘The Ten Commandments’.
Also the movie maker Hal Wallis, who discovered Burt Lancaster and
Elvis Presley - two great talents!

20th CENTURY FOX:
Cinema Scope became FOX’s most successful technological innovation
with its hit film ‘The Robe’. (1953)
Its Darryl Zanuck had observed during the early ‘50s, that audience  
were more interested in escapist entertainments mainly.
So he turned to FOX to musicals, comedies, and adventure stories.
Biggest stars of FOX were Gregory Peck & Susan Hayward; also
stars like Victor Mature, Anne Baxter, and Richard Wind Mark.
Not forgetting Marilyn Monroe in her Cinema Scope Box Office hit
movie - ‘How to Marry a Millionaire’, which was also shown on
prime time TV, as a romantic comedy film of 1953.

WARREN BROTHERS:
During 1950 the studio was mainly a family managed company with
three brothers Harry, Albert, and Jack Warren.
To meet the challenges of that period, Warren Bros. released most of
its actors like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Oliver de Havilland, -
Along with few others from their long-term contractual commitments;
Retaining only Errol Flynn, and Ronald Regan who went on to become
the future President.
Like 20th Century Fox, Warren Bros switched to musicals, comedies,
and adventure movies, with Doris Day as its biggest musical star.
The studio also entered into short term agreements with Gary Copper,
John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Patricia Neal, and Random Scott.
Warren Bros also became the first major studio to invest in 3-D
production of films, scoring a big hit with its 3-D  suspense thriller
‘House of Wax’ in 1953.

MINOR STUDIOS were mainly three, - United Artists, Columbia, and
The Universal.
They did not own any theatre chain, and specialized in low-budgeted
‘B’ Movies those days.
Now to cut a long story short it must be said, that Hollywood finally
did participate in the evolution of Television industry, which led to
their integration eventually.
Though strategies involving hardware development and ownership of
broadcast outlets remained unsuccessful unfortunately.
However, Hollywood did succeed through program supply like prime-
time series, and made-for-TV films for the growing TV market making
things more colorful!
Thus it could be said that the TV industry provided the film industry
with new opportunities,  laying the groundwork for its diversification
and concentration;
That characterized the entertainment industry during the latter half  
of our previous century.
I must now confess that I have not visited the movie theatre over the last
two decades!
I watch movies on my big screen TV and my Computer screen these days.
Old classical movies are all available on ‘You Tube’ for me, and I can watch
them any time whenever I am free!
Thanks for reading patiently, - Raj Nandy.
**ALL COPYRIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR RAJ NANDY OF NEW DELHI

Baby, free me from the
terror of waking up and finding
Not you near me again
and the denial of your existence
Is choking and suffocating me because
I simply can't say no
to a thought that drives me thinking
Of you, again and again,
what a hopeless dreamer I am,
I know you'll never keep in your
heart someone like me,
but baby, free me.

entering year 2000
rewinding vhs tape
installing napster client
anticipating victorious gore
bursting dot-com bubble
blocking tomorrow's nostalgia
commemorating festival tragedy
examining supersonic concorde
watching election coverage
recounting inconvenient truths
puzzling interface design
booing nuc-u-lar president

rising black monolith
editing non-linear encyclopedia
feeling inaugurally bushed
reliving century's dawn
unchanging state flag
processing royal massacre
escaping insane asylum
sensing impending collapse
perusing city guide
collapsing contemporary structures
initiating quixotic peacekeeping
ignoring conscription threats

entering year 2002
reporting unfortunate pearl
relaxing shotgun porch
exploding roadside bombs
addressing thousand followers
hugging financial meltdown
writing resembling skylines
shocking archipelagic bursts
processing theatrical disaster
tightening homeland security

entering year 2003
proliferating elegant telegnosis
rejecting freedom fries
blazing wartime trails
toppling dictatorial statue
unfurling "mission accomplished"
handling continental blackout
ejecting coronal masses

entering year 2004
flashing multiple sobriquets
populating dorm-roomy website
high-grossing aramaic movie
generating tunnel vision
rushing national anthem
parading goth athletes
letting games begin
accepting soviet passports
continuing obscure flumadiddle
lunar-eclipsing world series
two-terming republican regime
declining personality cult
glowing orange revolution
eroding periglacial drumlins
inundating lacustrine basins
exciting geomorphological processes
enduring tumultuous tsunami

entering year 2005
blasting "galvanize" repeatedly
unforgiving cyclonic scenario
printing controversial drawing
sketching cartoon prophet
overturning hurricane alphabet
rigging medal count
preparing new horizons
rejecting flash sites

entering year 2006
setting plutonian destination
synchronizing new horizons
sighting stellar foison
maintaining feudal system
emerging microblogging service
reading ancient tweets
rotating golden statue
mounting social debt
protesting planetary demotion
forecasting catastrophic recession
executing "innocent" dictator

entering year 2007
declining share prices
building ruby railroad
lifting presidential term-limits
perpetuating oil-rich dictatorships
falling interstate bridge
slugging giant bonds
clothing blackwater mercenaries
disappearing internet personalities
unforgiving writers strike

entering year 2008
stealing variable thunders
relaxing domain names
letting games continue
exploding sunrise propane
requesting birth certificate
electing another suit
disappointing orthodox republicans
microblogging maximal meltdown

entering year 2009
inaugurating new president
encountering bear markets
cackling risible laughter
dying pop king
deleting neolithic internet

entering year 2010
collapsing presidential palace
prospering cinematic avatar
pronouncing eyjafjallajökull effortlessly
"kettling riot police
flaming cop cruiser"
blasting text-based vuvuzelas
leaking diplomatic cables
fading pre-twitter memories
self-immolating street vendor

entering year 2011
"enervating nine-point quake
propagating harbor wave
inundating nuclear plant
irradiating unclear fates"
raging mid-eastern spring
throwing body asea
locating trojan asteroid
penetrating financial throughfare
resonating oral amplifier
blazing verdant material

entering year 2012
rising chubby dictator
gentrifying weird twitter
exploding next month
intriguing "fake" passport
proliferating single-hued avatars
surging sandy cyclone
inhabiting alternate universe
manipulating another election
rigging people's ballots
perpetuating manipulated world
fulfilling megalomaniac urges
surviving previous apocalypse
surviving another baktun

entering year 2013
descending rogue meteor
encoding festival weekend
obfuscating's very own
approving snow den
searching yaya island
soaking wet veld

entering year 2014
missing plane geometry?
annexing peninsular territory
printing powdered medication
forecasting meteoric boomtime
prevailing monochromatic identity
avoiding aviation accidents
determining auspicious date
revising deactivation plans

It’s common in the human race,
They helped their son to death.
Might as well have covered his face
And robbed him of his breath.
They gave him everything he wanted
The dear child of their hearts.
But their bestowal of gifts, a bit vaunted
Were about them from the start.

The parents wanted everyone to see
How well they treated their kid.
But when it came time to say ‘no’
They went someplace and hid.
They ironed out the bumps in the road
So the kids never had to learn
What they should do when that road
Takes a sudden calamitous turn.

So, the kids, ignoring all good sense
Listened to their peers instead
And started finding external means
To fill up the inside of their head.
They learned life could be postponed
And so could ever growing up.
They could find some kind excitement
In something rolled or in a cup.

And who was there to stop their plunge
Into a kind of lost weekend life?
It certainly wasn’t their father for sure
Or his confrontation-free wife.
No, they didn’t want to **** the kid off
Because that would mean strife.
Let’s just leave the kid alone and watch
As she meets her demise over life.

It all started out when parents chose to
Become their kid’s best friends.
So, who was there to teach them things
Like hard work and discipline?
Who showed them the rewards to be found
In learning to postpone gratification
When they were sitting in front of the TV
Grossing out on mental *******?

Time is so valuable
We don't stop for long
We barley sleep anymore

And yet
Netflix is the top grossing app

Time with means
Real routes of simplicity
True to our senses, and the irony we glean
As shrewd as a call to it is, the role of indemnity

Places we hid, a source of bright news
Tastes of humility and dour forces, to live
With a grossing guess, the exaction of an excuse
Well to say, the known desire of almost, even and is

Torture to an average soul, waiting in another's light
Tradition and the marvel of success, a toil in cares
So far away from the risen more, right now, might
The collapse of heaven, in our hands be the gift that fairs?

Weak treasure, in the name of a doting virtue
Taken for a fool every time, if a lip has seen it all
In the grip of enemy's sublime, or the muster of curiosity
Known to be, the guidance of essences and riches, of the fall...

Worthy little key, saving me from a lucky reality
Paces of in and its atone, to live once more, is my stead
The count of urges and the jump to sight's welling in heat?
Of a new friendship of labor, if not the callous reproach, we saw us, in the cares we lead...

You see the lies slide off his tongue,
Like that bald, bearded singer guy slid into her DM,
The bespectacled minister of mendacity,
And cyber media in a frenzy over their announced engagement;

We have been here before,
History making a case for repeating itself,
The curious darkness that enveloped the airport,
And the magic of that Dubai exchange of vows;

It is two years on this train,
The tracks heading off into the distance,
The origins of this journey we know,
But halfway there the engine sings a different tune;

After holding Nigeria spell bound by their chemistry,
On the sequel of the highest grossing movie in Africa,
We are called to witness the crystallisation of a well hidden romance,
It's always beautiful to behold, something magical;

So here we are on the eves of two great milestones,
A delayed love story playing out real time,
And a commanding life hanging in the balance,
Will the past be dragged into the future

chukkie choke:

baha / ars
replica - res cog.
pap.                                502 error message bypass, now for
                            the actual content:

in my years as a hermit i could really appreciate
any and all interactions on the internet,
esp. those ones that were exchanged in a written
medium...
at school we never managed to get a programme
going: of having pen-palls in either Germany
or France...
i guess it would have been sort of: nice...
                since emerging from my hermit state
going back among people, into the workforce...
i'm finding... conversations over the internet:
unnerving... seriously unnerving:
all this walking on eggshells from time to time...
you never know who'll end up talking to...
in my training as a steward at football matches...
a scenario:
i'm paired up with someone pitch-side...
for an hour the hypothetical person in a hypothetical
scenario is going-on-about
how the team i support are ****...
London rivalry between the east and the north...
the east and the west...
i'd love to see a time when West Ham meet up
with Millwall: if i were totally honest...
but the training states...
talk to the person that's ******* you off...
first... before seeking help from your supervisor...
on the internet there's that easy button
to press: the block button...
not even at school was i able to be liked by
everyone... so... no surprises...
i much preferred being: reasonable than being
liked... nice lesson to learn in your
formative years...
that's the hypothetical scenario...
in real life?
me and Danny stood pitch-side about two weeks
ago at Craven cottage...
he supports Arsenal, i told him: i "support" West Ham...
the old West Ham when they could play
really good football against the high tier
teams... while at the same time
underestimating the teams below them...
he was ashamed of Arsenal, or rather: didn't care...
i told him... it's not like i could ever be
a fanatical supporter... have the team's scarf...
have the team's jersey, know the chants...
i just like watching the game... the per se closure
and opening...
local patriotism, for me... is a borderline between
London & Essex...
both get beef from the rest of England...
esp. Devonshire... western *******...
always the pompous ones...
but it's never a local patriotism that could
be translated to a support for a football team...
what an alien concept.... no... not even the need
for the people to have it: it's more effective than
religion... it's for the rich, it's for the poor...
the intelligent and perhaps the less so...
not my place to discuss the need for people to support
football teams: if they're happy...
i'm also very happy on the job
when i hear them chanting, being so engaged...
considering that i attended Catholic Mass when i was younger:
i had to... to attend a Catholic primary school
i needed to attend mass... have my first communion...
pretend to go to a confession: where i lied...
i had to think up of something...
by a Catholic high school...
i "forgot" to get confirmed... all the other peers
were confirmed in at Brentwood...
i was reading up on the Gnostic Heresies...
my mind was made up then and there...
so seeing the lack of energy of the crowd in a church
as mass... comparing that to... the energy at a football
match?! wow... people need to feel something:
however trivial it might be...
better it be as trivial as a football match...
year in, year out...
it's good to know people can simulate a passion
for something...
they splinter up into their local patriotism...
yet at the same time: if they're called up...
they rally up together...
my second shift at Fulham i was actually smiling at
their passion...
impossible to fault it...
right...
               in my hermit years i would really cherish
exchanges on the internet...
then i was banned, excluded, banned somewhere
else... probed...
i knew the gig was up...
someone who had beef with me didn't resort to
allowing me elaborate, so that we could establish
a discussion... the first mistake of sorting out
a hostile situation...
currently?! A SOCIETY OF ******* SOCIOPATHS
AND LITTLE DESPOTS! CRY-BABIES!
with Danny we ended up talking about
his interests and passions... mostly crypto-currency...
he asked me for mine: music, mainly...
and cycling... he too was an avid cyclist once
before crashing into a tree...
but mainly talk of crypto-currency...
oddly enough we remained in-earnest throughout...
taking out time as a hermit allowed me
to become extroverted when otherwise
i wouldn't be...
i still like periods of introversion but i never
managed to have too much capacity for small-talk...
i guess spending time alone for over a decade
has allowed me to learn this skill...
time alone can teach you all manner of things...
your observational skills, esp...
a heightened sense of alertness...
although i have to say... initial small-talk is still
as painful as ever... the nicety of greeting people...
o.k. o.k. let's get it sorted...
we're not here for coffee... let's get into our roles...
then it's a breeze...
oddly enough i love the cushion of hierarchy...
why?! ha ha...
i can easily cover my back... do the Pontius Pilate
like... it's a ritual of pouring myself a glass
of milk... i am responsible for so little it would seem...
passing down the message to a supervisor is
a silent giggle in tow...
i grant myself all the benefits of returning to people:
it's so impossible to live without people:
esp. in a professional environment,
in undertaking a role...
in giving a cigarette one minute,
then asking the same person if they can bring you
a free bottle of water, which they willingly bring...
it's impossible to live alone...
i'm not implying having friendships,
i'm more prone to the allegiance to a professional
relationship with people: in stating boundaries:
in keeping them...
i was supposed to go on a date with this fellow
worker tomorrow, she texted me that she's not
up for it, a bout of flu: or is it flute?
no problem, get well, blah blah etc.
maybe some other time...
also a learning curve... first experience solipsism:
a thought experiment of an actual
condition that plagues autistic boys & girls...
then return to interaction... refreshed...
yet what i've experienced on some platoforms:
no one should experience...
people are unable to talk, "all of a sudden"?
they need to be supervised?
how about the block button? if that's ultimately
necessary?
society doesn't have to become this: rigid authority
seeking...
sometimes when writing... hell...
writing is primarily nuances / nuanced...
it seriously can't be taken literally...
a poetry platform: em... metaphor?!
listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations (BMV 988)
on my part a statement:
I'M THINKING ABOUT EATING YOU...
what harm?
said recipient only identified that statement
as referring to cannibalism...
sure... i was thinking of... the eloquence of
Hannibal Lecter... i might have been thinking
of cannibalism for the fun of...
the unknowable comparison:
closer to beef, or closer to chicken,
closer to mince beef or steak meat?
prawn?
             a texture that combines... almonds with
butternut squash?
do i look like a cannibal?
i heard that cannibals have really small teeth...
milk-teeth... and if the cannibal
is of an African disposition: their teeth are
not the ebony-envy... but that they're yellow...
like the teeth of a piglet aunt up north...
well... there's also the Kuru disease of New Guinea...
killer protein... killer proteins are also mentioned
in cases of Alzheimer...
Alzheimer being therefore something akin to...
an acne resurrection attack (acne, being dead
white blood cells) of brain cells... last time i heard
the brain was mostly fat... so... protein eating up fat...
or...
hours later... i was ******* to photographs
of Alexis Texas' *** being eaten... literally...
this one guy had his entire face... enclosed in between
her ****-cheeks, almost like a face-hugger
scene from the film alien...
well... i filter out ******* when i'm tense...
the sound is ever hardly on...
mostly photographs...
   is it so terrible to ******* to pictures of women
getting pleasured?
on the rare occasion that i manage to find
a pregnant girl *******...
i'll put the sound on... or...
hardly a need for scented candles & a comfortable
chair...
more like... take a ****, take a ****... *******...
take a shower... a Lester Burnham in reverse...
at the end of the time... today's closed chapter...
i sometimes try a morning routine
but i limp off since it feels like...
the sort of **** that might be associated with
having your beer spiked with a ******...
- i used to love internet interactions...
now... it's like an agreed observation i shared
with my grandfather... i'd love to chat...
but... over the phone?
i need to see your face, i need to see your hands...
i need to be invited by your idiosyncratic
gesticulations! over the phone it always felt like:
oh, you have a voice? well done...
there's clearly a scale of escalation...
one user does not agree with another user...
options available?
1. block them...
2. talk to them... clarify the problem...

the 3. option of making a complaint...
we're talking about platforms!
anyone can publish... that's the idea!
and they can publish anything they deem fit
within the platform's regulations...
i'm backing up my argument...

come to think of it... i trust people in real
life more than i do online...
it used to be the complete opposite...
people online how become hyper-sensitive:
authority riddling their own, ahem...
"safety"? oh... i see them...
later in life... the sort of Sarah Everard types...
frothing at the mouth... authoritarian:
getting other people's accounts suspended
online... invisibly "powerful"...
little despots, pseudo-sociopaths... mimics...
echo chamber half-wits...
yet in the great big world...
gullible little children...
it's that same joke...
a wannabe-sociopath meets a real-life sociopath...
their first date is always their last, date...
there's always a hierarchy...
there's always something in place
for whatever karma can be translate as:
in terms of... lessons to learn / to be learned...
it's always too late...
that microcosm of a build up...
people never go over the edge over things
of great importance...
it's always the little things that push them
over the edge... thereby? making
their lives all the more grandiose...

i could have been pushed over the edge
a few times...
we're talking about platforms...
not publishers... at the same time...
we not talking internet service providers...
we're not talking about
electrical companies, are we?
so if we're not talking publishers...
we're not talking internet service providers...
electrical companies...
this one where: he said, she said, behind closed
doors? **** it, publish everything!
i think this a way to implore these mediums
to take into account:
their absolute inauthenticity when caving
to one party's demands / concerns...
without fully exploring the other side of the story...

last time i checked... i checked out
as a minor presence on a platform... 3K views:
my highest grossing poo'em...
now?! in at 41K... i've recently been to
Wembley Stadium for the Women's FA cup final...
in attended... 43K... well... then...
i have perspective what circa 40K looks like in real life...
it doesn't matter what it reads on a screen...

tomorrow i'm going to paint my room,
refresh it... take all the books out... clean them...
take out the vinyls... the compact disks...
i just can't wait for the 14th of December...
i hope the woman who does my mother's
manicure / pedicure brings her one year old
daughter with her... and all the albums i lent her...
oh i don't care if her friend with a Scandinavian
physique / physiognomy comes along...
who's looking for dating...
i just care that she bring that little bundle
of joy with her...
planning ahead is never right...
you plan ahead: you're bound to come against
disappointments...

a flu, for example...

but i'd love to play with an onomatopoeia and
the basic foundations of speech with this
rugrat... (furgrat chimpy - a googlewhack...
oops)....
   obviously i wouldn't be thinking about
vowels and consonants...
i'd be thinking about syllables... about Katakana...
they say MA-MA first, no?
i'd love to explore her response to syllables,
syllables come first, as what's to be deciphered first...
sounds or gurgling are not exactly
qualification to make distinction of vowel or consonant...
man begins speaking / man becomes understandable
via the system of syllabary...
much later... the atomic vision of A... B'eh / beta...
for that matter... Na: that's sodium / natrium...
since my serious date bailed on me this coming
Monday... the 14th... that's Tuesday...
i'm really hoping for a date with this lady barely
a year old,
i'll put on some vinyl and we'll pretend to talk,
or... we'll end up talking a little.

Rejected because of prejudices
Landed in Hongkong in search of opportunities
Unicorn Chan had his CV distributed
Finally landed the role he desired

Raymond Chow just parted
With the legendary Shaw Brothers
Started his own company
In Golden Harvest

Bruce and the Shaw Brothers
Regarding payment at loggerheads
Golden harvest invested
In Bruce Lee's talent and Skill

2 film deal signed
$ 15000 the amount
Shoe string budget
Filming in Bangkok targeted

Starred in The Big Boss
Ice factory worker
Investigating drugs and ******
Stunts like never seen before
Ready for release by October
Made on a budget
One hundred thousand dollars
Was an instant hit at the box office success
50 Million at the global box office
500 times the cost recovered

Fist of Fury
Added more glory
To Bruce lee
Same team reteamed
Used Nunchaku for the first time
Holding audience spellbound
Story of revenge set in Shanghai
Japanese colonization the backdrop
Budget of one hundred thousand dollars
Boxoffice receipts over 100 million dollars
1000 times the  investment
Bruce became his own competition

The Way of the Dragon
Showcased his complete talent
Apart from starring in the film
He also wrote produced choreographed and produced the film
Living in Rome Italy
Threatened constantly
To leave the property
By the mob boss and his flunkies
They appeal to their uncle directly
Bruce Lee arrives in Rome
And gets the job done
Climatic Battle with Chuck Norris
Filmed at the Colosseum lasting 9 minutes
The greatest fight sequence
The whole world will reminiscence
Made on a budget of  130000 dollars it grossed 130 million dollars
1000 times the investment
Global Superstardom attained


Enter the Dragon
First Hollywood production
Warner Brothers distribution
Poetic justice done his prediction
Sent to an island fortress suspected of corruption
Under the guise of a Martial arts tournament
Goes there to do an investigation
Gets the job done with complete anhilation
Revenges death of sister
Befriends John Saxons character Roper
Action blitzkrieg
Never before seen
Scene after scene
Making the audience scream
Hall of mirrors ******
Till today packs the impact
Greatest Martial arts movie of all time starring
The greatest Fighter of all time
850000 dollar budget
Grossing 350 million
Returning 400 times the investment

Game of Death shot the climatic battles
Every floor of a building
A different opponent waiting
Each using g a different style
Against Bruce Lee, 's no style
Greatest action scenes ever filmed
Audience still surprised inspite of watching his earlier films
Different versions available
Wiyh an alternate title
Grossed 43 million when it came out
The yellow jump suit he wore
Mimicked in films to the core
Final film to get a release
Stardom reached beyond belief

i want to write i don't write i'll write anyway,
luxurious escapades of the tongue
crafted to make suitor letters and somewhere
a diligent me takes care to be
a...
                ah blah blah...

     from hearing the offensive god
and somehow a somewhat off nothing that's
similar...

the sweet scented air of Poland come the onslaught
of May, Spring...
that recollects both magnolias
and bez (without): bzu - lilac...
         bzdura: nonsense...

20 years ago there was this massive expansion
of the European Union...
10 new lands giggled at the expansionary
vision... lackluster because
withholding only a few retained
the monetary communication
of shared investments...

the Czechs still have their coronas
and the Poles still have their gold standard...
but together is the best kept apart...
weltsprechen...

exhausted by the racial hyper-focus
of the likes of Krista Franklin...
because i'm tired of the Afro-American narrative
that brings no one together...
like fathoming the force-feeding of turkeys
before any feast day...
not pouting a sense of critique: not necessary...
but i'm just tired of
people supposedly not getting along...
some vague aloofness some:

a stranger in a familiar land...
i spent so much of my youth among graves
that i've come full blown "circle"
to seeing people as graves...
perhaps if there was as much rigor in me
to drink later after having written..
no writer in me ever to be born...
a good excuse to not watch the t.v.
and and tiredness from adverts
and all that K-POP boom boom...

i could perhaps understand dancing before the pyramids
like it would be a wholesome hope
for... instance... one two three...
mirage of the dictated life
then the non-dictated life
and now this is not me with some
J. K. K. Tolkien ambitions...
no ambition to riddle my efforts with
escapism to tow and tug at fiction...

laptop positioned on a washing machine...
give me the well earned wages of loitering
but not anything associated with
post-literature political of a Harry Potter scoop...
verbiage and misnomers
some feeding ground of peckers and
lazy sleuths... dropping words missed in
casual conversation...

            arbiters of writing escapades
and truths-saying and soothing humming...
by the ordeal of giving love from a heart
like squeezing water from a stone...
perhaps... somewhat hallucinogenic in purpose
or rather escaping with words
that govern and sooth any ordeal
that does not necessarily have to be written about...

grandmother's fetish for Harlequin novellas
because the way she loved supposedly "loved"
my grandfather...
how two men in her abiding: blame who?
seemingly died from malnutrition
because she was so dissolved
this happy feminist junction of happenstance
luckily i am a man with a fetish for
German (tongue) and the ability to cook...

find me: chasing chickens on the village-island
of Kauai...

in those 2 years, imagine... i've travelled
a river's worth a sea's breadth...
yet he with his earnings
grossing an estimate 1 million
became the conclusive
waste of fiddling with possibility: per chance
wasted....

       how he spent those last days listening
to terribly angry music...
i can understand friendless isolation...
i succumbed to listening to music
akin to:

the titans, the elements...
the sound of rain falling on a tin roof...
rhapsody of imitation: knock knock... knock knock...
then the sea waves...
then the air turned into a wind
whirling...
then the earth rumbling... i too ate hunger
and felt a grumbling "inhibition"...
then the sound of the crackling of
breaking of wood in fire....
music devoid / detached from the progeny
of the usage of words...

of(f)...                    terminology of the posit
of "things" to begin with, to end with:
on note...
           my little Nuremberg extravaganza...
no **** poor soul in sight...
but all this weight and height
and all this this... miasma... myopia...
this borrowing of inherited stink
like all the ******* have all the good brown
while all the whites have this *******
sickly sweet albino blah!

     **** the covert tattoos
living among us alias "us"...
             i'm more bored than tired...
then again i'm also bored and tired
and it's under not disguise of "inhibition"
that i get to...               digest these fundamental
loathsome truths of a nocturnal Babylon.

first R-rated billion grossing
movie of all time
and if i read any comic book script:
i so think DC is colluding
with Marvel:
like Batman milked the cinematic
period from: whenever:
seriously Martin Keon is not footballer
but Michael Keaton is an actor:
and like Batman
was the end product of hyped
up anti-masculinity
then Wolverine is Batman:
that hapless drunkkard...
sop story like Jane Austen wish
she had a Batman-Wolverine McNugget
Darcy...
oh wait... now i know...
why did i travel to Edinburgh to study
Chemistry:
i didn't travel to Edinburgh to study
Chemistry:
i spent 3 years in those post volcanic
windy abodes
to? study the ******* Scots!
i went to Scotland to study: Scots!
Batman-Weolverine soppy story
pup pup by the litter...
                     i know London and i know
my heart: splinter of Edinburgh
and splinter of Paris...
  i studied the Scots... because English is shared:
among the Celtic tribes:
the Irish, the Welsh, the Scots...
long distance phonecall to a girlfriend
in either Denmark or Norway...
if heading east: landmarks in Sveedyn...
how much of English was sacrificed to
establish a global commonwealth:
then hope to retract to the piquant poise of
an English village:
how much serious romanticism
of the heart being discovered is there:
in the 21st century hope for narrative?
when i have AI to answer my most dire calling?
ask an AI about a bicycle problem..
hey presto: i don't need to gladly bask in
some human inherent:
inheritance of being passed knowledge:
i can just fathom the readiness of the tool
that's AI: not a personna:
not a non grata...
a new Prometheus... a new fire...
pending ex-machina (#11) for the transcript...
just making sure i have the right sort of
emoticons ready...

Fresh and disciplined?
Focus and method, to serve an hour me?
Safety in a grossing halt of when, silence has come
Through an ironic storm and over the seasons, I see a lead keep

Long in the tooth, if not the use of truth
Suppose and fear, the counting we hold, to live
And let means be are's many, in hopes of youth
We give the news of courage, a new name to since

Properness
And the light of a lucre we afford with evidence
And its moment with love, to compare a wisdom
Of contrivance, to a welcome fury of what was our chances

With time, to till a question in the wind
Meaning a sorts and cohorts we make, in patience served
And patience looking for a nightmares kiss, mind
Us, we have screamed in vanity's ear, but know the price of a turn

Of conscience into a lover of our ideas
Our mystique and its offered job, joy costs an alienation
Priced exactly nothing of strength and cope, in these freedom's
Was a mindful seldom enough to consider any a prayer under our intention's?

God, and the voice of his angel's
Mated with atrophy incarnate, the taste of acceptance of sin
More than ought, and else to whether the silence we knew, fell
From history for a hand of sense and its idea, are we that we are, amends?

Confirmation of a star one night...
From the best and the blessed of meager vice anon
Sanity is a jaundiced hurry with a chastity to righten
Itself among the throng, when all have seen it, the charisma to look among