Don't You Rock Em, Daddy-O!

     This short story is a parody of the Beat poetry scene, the Slam poetry scene, and how some coffee bars charge exhorbitant prices for fancy coffee that tastes like swill. The ending is a parody of the ending of Jack Kerouac’s brilliant, dazzling novel, On The Road. Incidentally I have all three of Kerouac’s poetry collections and they are not that good. He was a mediocre poet, but a brilliant novelist. And the beat goes on…. 

     Albert Greensberg was a Beatnik, plain and simple. Or at least a Neo-Beatnik. He had the requisite goatee, sunglasses, beret, black turtleneck, khakis, Beatle Boots and hipster attitude. He was trey-chic, or so he thought. Now all he needed was the talent, his poetry was fochacta, for shit! No visions of angel-headed hipsters or sugarplum faeries danced in his head. The truth was that Albert was a lousy poet, as his Playground Manifesto, his one great gesamstkunstwerke, would attest to. Basically it espoused the need to stay young and immature and never grow up or get a job, at least until the checks from his parents stopped coming! And Albert knew his writing sucked and that he would never approach the greatness of the true Beat writers, but he just loved the Beat culture so much that he tried to model his life on Neal Cassidy and Jack Kerouac and that other, more famous A.G., Allen Ginsberg. So Albert continued to live his charade, visiting all the haunts in San Francisco and Greenwich Village. Albert would hang out at his favorite coffee house, The Filthy Hippie, and catch a poetry reading while nursing a $7 Mocha Java Latte Double Cappuchino Espresso (it was a bottomless cup of course). He would snap his fingers in approval at all the cool, hip, chic poets and their cool, hip, chic poetry, and drop names of famous Beat writers into every conversation, the way a religious fanatic would mention Jesus 300 times in one sentence.

     One night the management of The Filthy Hippie decided that they needed to spice up their poetry nights, as the poets rarely bought copies of other poets' work, and everyone was only interested in hearing themselves perform their own work. And the management noticed that the poets in the audience sure would nurse their Mocha Java Latte Double Cappuchino Espressos and not buy much else the rest of the evening. So the managers of The Filthy Hippie decided to inaugurate a Poetry Slam Night, as poetry slams seemed to be all the rage these days, and it would bring back excitement, electric vibes and sparring contests, pump new life into the listless crowd. Word got around fast, and the old school Beatniks, neo-Beatniks and hipsters were mortified. "Say it ain't so, Daddy-o!", Albert pleaded to Sal Minnow, the manager of The Filthy Hippie, "Poetry Slams are just a way to show off no-good talent with verbal gymnastics and fast talk jive, man, it's just another way that the military-industrial complex is trying to assassinate the Kennedys of Beat poetry, man, you dig? It's just another way for The Man to put us down, you dig?" Sal barked "Nonsense, lighten up Al, we gotta survive too you know, this isn't a soup kitchen charity, you know." So Albert slinked off into a dark corner, lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and muttered, "Nuts, man."

     One week later the first Poetry Slam Night at The Filthy Hippie premiered, with much anticipation by all sides of the poetry community, The Beatniks, The Neo-Beatniks, The Unbearables, The Mau-Mau Flak Catchers, Radical Chic Hipsters and Punk Poetry Slammers all turned out for this Main Event, along with a few Sewing-Circle Middle-America poets obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a real mixed bag. "This oughtta be real good, Sal laughed to himself, almost peeing his sneaks as everyone paid the $10 cover charge and filed in.

     First up was a neo-Beatnik, to ease into the slam event by way of bringing on the old school. He had a flute player and a bongo player with him, and as he began they whistled and tom-tomed a soft steady flow of jazzy noodlings behind the poet, who read: "Lotus flower, rotting in the sun like the teeth of my grandfather, all good vibes spring from you in my Boddhisattva Spring, your tantric petals pull off one by one in a forget me not she loves me she loves me not, I mash you into dandelion wine and drink a toast to your passing…" The poet was heckled and booed off the stage by some really vocal members of the audience, they hated him, oh how they heckled him! Sal the manager was grinning a shit eating grin from ear to ear, delighted with the controversy and pleased that the old school was on its way out. Albert shook his head in despair and started to sweat. Next up was a punk slam poet, who had bleached blonde hair with dark roots and streaks of manic panic blue in his hair. He approached, no, he commandeered the microphone stand and read his untitled poem with such sheer manic force and speed and wildly gesticulating hands that no one knew what the fuck he was saying. It was all to great effect, as if he was putting on a show or a comedy routine, not caring about the words, man, the words. Albert shook his head in despair, gulped the last of his Mocha Java Latte Double Cappuchino Espresso, and headed out towards the door and downtown towards his other favorite coffee house and bar, The Happy Idiot. He knew this was a safer haven for poets of his kind, and who knows, maybe he might even catch Corso or Plymell or one of the few other surviving Beats and have a game of pool with them over some beer. As Albert walked the sparsely populated streets in a dazed dream towards his other favorite old haunt The Happy Idiot, he breathed in the cool night air, and watched the long long skies over New Jersey and the complete night that blesses the earth and darkens all rivers, he thought of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy, he even thought of Old Jack and Neal, the fathers he never found, he thought of Jack and Neal…

Ralph Haselmann, Jr. edits the critically lauded Lucid Moon Review Poetry Website, (www.lucidmoonpoetry.com) which has been called the best poetry website on the internet, a valuable resource for poets, and is highly rated by Google. His first two poetry books, Wounded Heart, Naked Soul and Scattershot Haze, are available at Xlibris at 1-888-7xlibris, www.Xlibris.com , www.Amazon.com , www.BarnesandNoble.com , and www.Borders.com . In October 2001, Ralph was in a horrible, serious, near-fatal car accident, which left him paralyzed below the waist and in his right writing hand. Ralph is not wallowing in anger or self-pity, rather he is rededicating his life to promoting and publishing the works of others and himself. Remarkably, he can type with an adaptive keyboard and use a mouse pad to work on his website. Ralph is a member of The Writer’s Bridge, a group which will help place his writings in magazine markets that will pay him. Ralph is also a proud member Peta, not People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals, but the other one, People Eating Tasty Animals! Ralph has given poetry readings at The Shaker Café in Flemington NJ and The Back Fence in NYC. If you would like to reprint his writings or correspond with him, he can be reached at: ralphylucidmoon@yahoo.com , www.lucidmoonpoetry.com.

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