Finley Plays Central Park

If you go to YouTube, and type in Paul Simon / Central Park.........

You will get to witness a moment in time that is nothing short of astonishing.

The concert was legendary, and I'm sure many of you recall it, but do you remember the scale of the concert grounds?

Do you really have a mental image of its magnitude?

The opening shot shows a stage from an aerial view.

The stage is set way back in the park, and the camera pans back to reveal that their is an ocean of people, I mean numbers so large, it would be impossible to even speculate the attendance.

About a football field in front of the stage is a jumbo-tron so the people 2 football fields away can get a glimpse of Paul and the band......

And a football field in front of that is yet another jumbo-tron for the people 3 football fields back.

All this technology -

All this attention -

Aimed in the direction on an unassuming little guy wrapped in a charcoal colored sports coat that he might of picked up at the Salvation Army.

Paul strums, sings....and you can feel the pressure mount.

At the 3 minute mark of this video, the camera zooms in as he delivers the line......

"There's a girl from New York City, she calls herself the human trampoline."

When the words "New York" pass his lips, the crowd are already anticipating this.... they pretty much go bat shit crazy.

If you watch real close, Paul smirks quick, and from this point, his countenance changes, a rough edge has worn off.

I think part of this is for no other reason than.......

At this exact moment, Paul Simon found his element.

He found it.....realized it, and then I'm guessing he savored it for a bit.

It is a wonderful image, and I have carried it in my thoughts for years.

Last Sunday afternoon, I witnessed something that was eerily similar.   

Sure, it might not have been on a stage the same size, in fact, the stage I'm talking about was barely big enough to hold 2 people.

What I'm referring to was the book launch of "OUT FOR A LARK", the newest project released by Finley and me.

We threw a party/reading at the SubText Bookstore in Saint Paul, and I gotta tell ya, the intimate space was packed wall to wall.

The counter was lined with graham crackers and boxed wine, it was a class event.

I've been on stages before where the crowds were bigger, but I gotta tell you.......

I've never read-cooked or preformed in front of a group that threw off a more loving vibe.

So many people came out to support us.

I don't say this often, but it is almost hard for me to find words to describe the moment because so much of it was surreal.

To me, the special part of this accomplishment was that I got to do this gig with Finley.

 And much like Paul Simon, there was a moment, maybe for a second or 2 when I saw the same look in Finley's eyes.

He had found his element too......

I hope he finds a way to put that fleeting memory in a bottle......

God that was a good day.

Possibly Finley's Finest Moment..................

University Club Svengali

The Poet Finley stood irreverent

Bypassing the podium

Insensitive to protocol

Replacing verse

With an account of loss

The stage became a confessional

Of which he took full advantage

By starting off the evening

Announcing he’d fired God

He didn't qualify as agnostic

He didn't convert to atheism

He fully believed in a supreme being

And terminated this companion

In ceremony and silence

Half the audience became unnerved

Pointing out, that heresy starts off

When manners become unleashed

But the rest of us fell into a trance

Knowing what our dear friend had lost

Finley Drops the "F" Bomb...in Guideposts?

I think it was 100 below zero last night, and pretty much the entire state of Minnesota is in hibernation.

I knew that my calling was to go to the gym, but that little cartoon devil that lives over my left shoulder whispered in my ear.......

"Call Finley, he'll be home, and who knows...he might distract your intentions and you might not have to go back into the cold."

The conversation started with....

"Hello, Mike Finley here."

But in no time flat, we were discussing the unthinkable.

I think it started with a joke about a religious book of poems. A parody where Christ and his friends would be featured in a roast like fashion.

Perhaps the project would start off with the Jews getting hyped up before the big Psalm Sunday / Passover Parade, you know....the one where Jesus enters into the city on a donkey while everybody tosses leaves into the street..

The Jews (from my recollection) weren't that excited about heaven as much as they wanted to see Rome pushed off the rails......

Anyways, Finley suggested that a good title might be.......

"Christ Without An Ass."

And in our featured story, we would talk about the pain even a Messiah can encounter when they suffer the equivalent to us losing their car keys on the moment of a big event.

I guess you had to be there, but none the less.....we were entertained, and I would like to think a host of angels smiled as well.

Then we starting talking about Billy Graham, and both of us voiced our concern as to his current state.

It's been awhile since his upstart kid took over the ministry, but for whatever reason....the Billy Graham Foundation seems to be pulling the old buck out for photo ops, and truth be told......

The pics that the shooter is getting of are not all that enticing.

These images appear like cardboard cut outs of a confused and bumbling man.

It's hard for me to hold them in contrast with..................

The man who led crusades across the planet -

The man who served as spiritual advisor to American Presidents -

The man who saw beauty in Nixon -

The man who answered the little girl who asked "Do puppies go to heaven?" to which he replied "If you want them to, I'll bet they do." -

So now Finley shifts the topic once again........

"Remember his publication Guide Posts? I wonder if they even publish that anymore, anyways...I actually had one of more stories published in Guide Posts."

So now I just sit there in the hum of silence, because in person Finley can lead you down the trail of well intended deception, but over the phone......

I remarked how much I enjoyed reading about Martin Sheen's conversion. It was appealing to me since Guide Posts seldom pointed towards Catholics, they were more "Born Again" in ideology. So when they reported on How Sheen (a.k.a. Captain Willard) had a real life heart attack, mental breakdown and survived a typhoon, all on the set of Apocalypse Now...I really dug this.

Finley listened to my entire take, but when I was finished, he returned to his own..................

"In the submission I sent to Guide Posts....I had the word (FUCK) in my story. As you can guess, they edited it out, but the process was awkward. They knew I was a professional writer, and they knew that the (FUCK) word made sense to the story, but Guide Posts is Guide Posts which meant they had to take a moment to contact me and act unaffected by the editing."

I can't tell you how hard I laughed, in fact...now I felt justified for skipping my workout.

"Only you would F-Bomb Guide Post." I said, but Finley returned a logical explanation....

"It's not like I wrote the story specifically for them, so when I sent it out, I never stopped to think they would be getting a story with the word fuck in it."

Over the course of the next hour, we talked about other world changing topics, but I think you've heard enough for now.

The following is the story that inspired the F-Bomb story....however, the obscenities have been removed for your comfort....enjoy.


Sometimes the future and the past switch places in our lives. What went before foretells what is to come. And the future smiles back, and explains the past. My family experienced a tragedy when I was 11 -- my sister Kathy, who was born with a leaky heart valve, passed away. Her life had been tough in many ways. She could never exercise, her baby teeth never fell out, and her skin was grayish from poor circulation -- she was called a "bluebaby," and kids made fun of her for that. It's a condition that medicine found a simple cure for, to be administered at birth -- a few months after she was born. Kathy was a girl of great gentleness and sweetness. She was a painter and drawer, and a lover of horses. All my childhood, my job, and my brother Pat's, was to run and fetch things for her, because she did not have the strength. She was a sophomore in high school when she went into a coma and died. Her death made for a stormy adolescence for me. I stopped going to church, I got into trouble with the law, I became a bit of a hard case. Now fast-forward into the future, to my 15th high school reunion, in 1982. I returned to my small town with a bad attitude, determined to show people how far I had come -- not financially (I was broke) but in daring and worldliness. I drank with old girlfriends, I kissed my old prom date on the lips. I pissed off their husbands, on purpose. I had too much to drink, and I saw, at the bar, a big kid I remembered from grade school, Jack Mussina. He was the class psycho, built like an adult even as a kid, with a brutal jawline and a dead look in his eyes. In sixth, seventh, and eight grades, Mussina made my life miserable, chasing me on the playground, throwing me up against walls, and slapping and pummeling me. He hated me for some reason I didn't understand, and saw me as an appropriate victim. That's what bothered me the most -- I did not want to be a victim of anything. Taking courage from the liquor, I challenged him. "Mussina, what made you hate me so much in grade school? I wasn't a bad kid. What did I ever do to you?" Mussina winced. "Hey, man, I'm sorry. I was so crazy in those days. I had all kinds of problems." But I wouldn't let him off so easy. "OK, but why me? Why did you choose me to pick on?" He looked at me levelly, and I could tell something still bothered him. "Because you laughed at your sister's funeral." I flashed backward. I was excruciatingly self-conscious the day of the funeral. I was upset about Kathy, and I didn't want people peering in on our problems. But the funeral was a big event in the town. My whole school, St. Joseph's, was taking time off to attend. I remember glancing about during the service, looking for reassurance from my classmates that they wouldn't always know me by this moment. That this wouldn't mark me forever. I'm sure I tried to smile. It was a terrible day. Back to 1982. "Jack," I told him. "I wasn't laughing. I loved my sister, but it was no one's business but mine. I must have smirked, but you have to know I was dying inside. " "I know, Mike. I loved her, too." So that's what it was. When all the other kids called Kathy bluebaby, or warned her about the purple people eater, Mussina was her avenger. He beat up a dozen kids, and some of them must have said something. He showed his devotion the only way he could -- with his fists. When she died, he transferred his enmity to me. Out of love. Mussina went to Vietnam and was a behavior problem there, spending time in the brig. Now he was better, and counseled other vets with emotional disorders. And me, after what seemed like a lifetime of being alone, I met and married my best friend Rachel. Rachel, too, went through the mill, losing her father at 16. It's been an interesting marriage, because we are so gentle with one another, so aware of the old pain. Sometimes it seems like we are brother and sister. Now fast-forward to the present. My daughter Daniele, whose face so resembles my sister, is now her age, when she died. When I think of my sister's terror at that age, I can't help crying. I have a good one about once a month. And as I try to prepare Daniele for the long future ahead of her, I am so grateful for her health. You can not believe how rosy her complexion is, on a crisp December day like today. Or how embarrassed her brilliant color sometimes makes her. Or how beautiful it looks to me.

-   the end   -

Diane Arbus

"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know."

Diane Arbus (1923-1971), U.S. photographer. Quoted in Patricia Bosworth, Diane Arbus: A Biography, Preface (1985).


Hello Friends,

Recently I have been working on a poem that Diane Arbus makes a cameo in. This inspired me to spend some time looking at her art work and reading a little more about what she was about.

My question of the day is................

do you agree with her statement, and if so, would this apply to your poetry as well?

Finding Your Angle

If 10 poets are looking at a woman sitting on a bus bench.....

The exact same woman, and then Finley takes these 10 poets to the Dublinger...........

And everybody sidles up to the bar..............

Then the bartender pours this crew not 1, not 2....but 3 beers........each

And all of a sudden, out of nowhere.....tablets and pens are produced........

 Then Finley hops on top of the bar, stomps his feet and says..............

"I want each of you to please write a poem about that women on the bus we passed."

I wonder, would all these poets write similar poems.

Of course we'll never know the answer, but every once in awhile I run across a work that is written from a P.O.V. that simply blows me away.

EXAMPLE -

Ms. Szymborska “looks at things from an angle you would never think of looking at for yourself in a million years,” Dr. Cavanagh said on the day of the Nobel announcement. She pointed to “one stunning poem that’s a eulogy.”

“It’s about the death of someone close to her that’s done from the point of view of the person’s cat,” she said.

That poem, “Cat in an Empty Apartment,” as translated by Dr. Cavanagh and Mr. Baranczak, opens:

Die — You can’t do that to a cat.

Since what can a cat do

in an empty apartment?

Climb the walls?

Rub up against the furniture?

Nothing seems different here,

but nothing is the same.

Nothing has been moved,

but there’s more space.

And at nighttime no lamps are lit.

Footsteps on the staircase,

but they’re new ones.

The hand that puts fish on the saucer

has changed, too.

Something doesn’t start

at its usual time.

Something doesn’t happen

as it should. Someone was always, always here,

then suddenly disappeared

and stubbornly stays disappeared. 

-   END   -

For once I'm going to shut up, I going to hold back opinions, I want to hear from you....the seasoned poets, do you, should one...try to find different branches in the tree to sit on when writing a poem?

Can You Answer This Question???

If you had to pick just one, and there's no middle ground on this topic......

If you had to be one of the following, which would it be, and why?

#1 -

A poet with too much ego

#2 -

A poet with not enough ego



I await your tribal wisdom.



Happy New Year from Klecko and your friends @ Lief

The Newest Finley Truth

In 1991 the band Naught By Nature owned the #1.....

ARE YOU DOWN WITH O.P.P.?

What those 3 initials stood for stirred up quite a bit of controversy, but I will let you guys do your own research to dig up what that was all about.

I believe its the book of Ecclesiastes that says "Nothing is new under the sun".......

I wonder if Solomon was implying that one day Mike Finley would resurrect the 3 initials that put America on it's ear over 20 years ago.

Our story starts where so many of my afternoons end,

In the parking lot of the gym, just prior to me getting a lift in.

Usually during these moments I've taken a "Pre-Lift" drink that really jacks your system, causing it to feel as if you are on some kind of heavy speed.

As my adrenaline was at it's peak, I figured I should run in and attend to my workout so as to maximize my buzz, but instead I thought about something poetry related and decided to call Mike.

Truth be told, I don't even remember what was so important, but I do remember getting a hold of Finley, and somewhere we discussed a post I had written (on a subsequent Blog) that talked about me on the verge of an altercation at the Grandview Theater on Christmas day.

I was with my family who had outvoted me, and therefore they selected Les Miserables.

In the concession line, just ahead of me was an equal sized lout who started gaffing off and talking about what a douche Russell Crowe was and how he was going to mess up this epic film.

Not that the "Gladiator" needs me to cover his back but.....

I interjected to this thug who chose to wear sunglasses even though it was18 degrees and overcast outside that he might want to keep his thoughts to himself.

What many of you may not know is that us "Big Guys" have a Big Guy club, we don't pay dues, but the code is observed across the globe, and rule #1 is.......

Don't ever talk crap about another Big Guy.

Anyways, the guy rolls his eyes at me, and when he did this, I mentioned I was just giving him a little honest grief, but if he wanted to roll his eyes.......

Dude grabbed his box of Milk Duds and scurried into the show hall.

My Blog Post that focuses on this story goes much deeper into detail concerning this moment, but before I digress, let's go back to the parking lot of Snap Fitness.

Finley comments...................

"That story you described, or rather your actions in it, well.....they were like a poem in itself."

Klecko responded......

"Huh?"

"Well when you stood in line, the first thing you did is what all poets should do. you OBSERVED. Next, after the guy made his senseless remarks about Russell Crow, you PONDERED. And when that part of your process was completed.....you PROCLAIMED.

OBSERVE

PONDER

PROCLAIM

I am down with O.P.P.

There I sat, in my bread truck, rushing through scenarios like........

Can you Observe and just move on to proclaiming?

Or can you simply skip the first 2 steps and soley