S.A. Griffin as: Biff Yodel, Monk Esophagus, Oh Marlon Brando, The Notorious Bald E. Bald
Doug Knott as: Riverboat Lawyer, Dig Kot, Mr. Stinky Ass, The Wigme
Mike M. Mollett as: LA Mudfather, The Queen, ShiekRattle&Roll
Bobbo Staron as: Robert, My Name Is Trouble, Lost Bobbo, Bob
Scott Wannberg as: The Bigme, Kid Mingo, The Navigator, Shotgun Hey Now!
and for openers Ellyn Maybe as: The Giggling Goddess of Word!!!
Sometimes Skooter as: Neal Taylor, Pope John Paul George Ringo I and Sir Fez
Influences
Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, The Grafeful Dead, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Cadillac, Allen Ginsberg, Steve Goodman, Ken Kesey, classic flicks, Thoreau, Malcom X, X, our wives and significant others, Spencer Griffin, John Prine, Bob Dylan, John Cassavettes, Leadbelly, Paul Krassner, Firesign Theatre, Duke Deal, Monty Python, Hunter S. Thompson, quantum leaps in time, Stephen Hawking, yo mama, Scot Kelman, Diane di Prima, wake 'n bake 'n I hey-yelped, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Henry Miller, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, Page Smith, The New York Times, Ed Ward, macaroni 'n cheese, The Venice Beats, Tom Peters, Gregory Corso, Jack Brewer, Linda Albertano, Bob Flanagan, Ellyn Maybe, The Water Gallery, Larry Lake, Wanda Coleman, The 1st Amendment Hallelujah Chorus, the cat's pajamas, Dutton's Books, Baroque Books, the economy and politics.
Sounds Like
Wheels turning, trains moaning, the kitchen sink being scraped by dull knives, bright thought, gamblers from the inside, a new deal, one bongo beating, one heart laughing, a cereal box banjo, syllables agreeing to be free, scott masturbating to the sounds of john handy on the radio.
The Carma Bums are a bunch of middle aged and older weirdo poet types who spout, shout and sputter spontaneous poetic prose, bop prosaic verse, music, poetry and satire. The core group of The Bums met at a long gone cafe in Hollywood was upon a time known as The Water Espresso Gallery, which served up dysfunction and not much else for a few brief years in the shadow of the old Lhasa Club at the corner of Hudson and Santa Monica Blvd. across the street from the old Kit Kat Klub. At The Water Gallery, we all held court on Wednesday nite for the open poetry reads, and over time we all lost our hair, our minds, all sense and donned imaginary capes to become The Lost Tribe. The Lost Tribe were and are: Mike Bruner, S.A. Griffin, Doug Knott and Mike M. Mollett. The Tribe functioned as a crack perofrmance poetry group, toured a bit, and peaked by appearing on the old Gong Show, winning first place with the lowest score ever: 8. Then, after The Notrious Bald E. Bald (aka S.A. Griffin) visited mile high Denver, returning to the city of lost angels inspired by what he smoked and heard at mile high Denver and made some phone calls... enter The Carma Bums! The Carma Bums were and are: Mike Bruner, S.A. Griffin, Doug Knott, Mike M. Mollett, Bobbo (Robert) Staron and Scott Wannberg. Bobbo left the group by 1990, but returned for the Lost Tour in '92. We are and were a combination of punk, beat, folk, weed, bad acid, a 1959 Cadillac named "Farther", a broken down bus called "Onword", Thoreau, Denny's, The Royal 8 Motel, more dysfunction, Scot Kelman, Yale, Missouri, San Francisco State, USAF, Pasadena, the projects, the world as told from the other side, gamblers from the inside, a primal laugh, a primal scream, a wake dream, Leonard Cohen, Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Groucho Marx, Diane di Prima, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Jung, wigmes, pygmies, bigmes and digmes, lost maps, backwards dancing, Jeffoto, Jack Brewer, Ellyn Maybe (lone Carmababe), The Onyx Cafe, more weed, smooth scotch, Neal "Skooter" Taylor, Lon Speigleman, Dadaland, ZtZu, Blue Satellites, The Iguana Cafe, Lorraine Perrotta, Ron Maxson, The First Amendment Hallelujah Chorus, Page Smith, Eloise Smith, Philip Levine, Laurel Ann Bogen, Henry Miller Library, Big Sur, Little Armenia, Middle America, big love, small tokens, duve, start from zero, secret tours, no seat belt tours, international superhighway tours, and remain words without end... to be continued.
To continue... in 1994, we, The Bums, forking over alot of money we didn't have, all travelled to misty northwestern territories of The University of Washington at Seattle for what has become known as The Summer of Natural Born Killers. At the time, Mike Bruner was completing his masters programs in rheotric and communication theory and had become friendly with Klockner, the computer nerd that ran that particular game at the campus facility. Long story short, Bruner was convinced after some dialogue with Herr Klockner, that we needed to be surfing the net. Indeed he was correct, and ultimately, we did. So, for a mere $3,000 investment we would get set up and running. In time, this adventure would become The Carma Bums International Superhighway Tour of Words. We all winged our way up there, lived in the campus dorms for a week and spent countless damned hours slaving over the mysterious computers, hacking information and teaching ourselves how to create html computer code just in order to input text! Sheeee-it!!! Outside of raging passive aggressive behavior while sitting on his barefoot ass, Klockner did nothing but rage, rage, rage against the coming of The Carma Bum light! However, we did benefit from the incredible artistic genius of Robert Telck, who created the wallpaper image you see here now. He was our savior. So, with a lot of help from Telck, by 1995, The Bums were up and running on the net with what is believed to be the very first interactive poetry website ever on the net. The site included sound files, which included our radio show, "Attack of The Giant Burrito", which you hear playing now. The pages also included hyperlinks, unheard of at the time, oodles of poetic text, and hordes of incredible images created for us by the most noble Master Telck.
We surfed U of Washington's server for about a year or so and were taken down. Soon, we were moved to USC's server where my then girlfriend now wife, lovely librarian Lorraine Perrotta, was working in periodicals. That lasted about a year or so as well. Then the pages came tumbling down... That is when we bought our first serious computer ~ a Gateway as I recall. Now we rock on Mac, Mac baby... It was with the purchase of our Gateway that I began to sit down with another librarian friend from USC who began to tutor me in the Dada realities of cut and paste and the net. In the beginning, there was porn. Porn and the academy.
Holy fools, angels and ministers welcome... your presence is hereby requested! Bring your love and bring your good time. It's 4:20 somewhere.
McCAIN & PALIN..OH MY GOD!!! CREATIONISM - ABSTINENCE THE STAFF & THE ROD.
LOOK OUT YOU SINNERS SARAH'S GOT HER GUN SARAH BARRACUDA GONNA SHOW YOU SOME FUN
NO PILL ON THE HILL NO ROE V.WADE YOU BETTER GET MARRIED "HONEY" BEFORE YOU GET LAYED THE BEST BIRTH CONTROL IS CROSSING YOUR LEGS THERE'LL BE A SHOT GUN WEDDING.. REAL SOON.WOULDN'T YOU SAY.
(CHORUS) AND SHE'S A BEAUTY QUEEN..YEAH..YEAH.. OF THE RIGHT..RIGHT WING..OH YEAH LIPSTICK PITBULL.SAY..SAY.SAY BEAUTY QUEEN ON E-BAY
"VOTE REPUBLICAN" !! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR EVER LOVING PEA PICKING MIND!
4 MORE..LIKE THE LAST 8 OUR TRAIN HAS SKIPPED IT'S TRACK WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE PEACE TRAIN WE WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK TAKE YOUR GRAND OLD PARTY AND YOUR TOKEN CHICK WHAT WE WANT IS CHANGE NOW NOT MORE RHETORIC
CRASH..BANG..THE BANKS CAME DOWN WHERES THE MONEY.. SEND IN THE CLOWNS HAVEN'T YOU HEARD OF THE KE-TEN 5 HERE WE GO AGAIN TAKEN FOR A RIDE
Hey The Carma Bums This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Or not.
Let me challenge you: Download the album 'Walkthrough' - it's on the top of my page - and listen to it exactly 4 times. Read the lyrics. It's mandatory :)
I give you a solemn promise that you will feel, see and hear things that will make you smile deep within for the rest of your life. If it doesn't happen I'll switch to selling ice-cream.
If you need a downloading assistace, send me a message.
Here is a doc we shot back in 1994 that had SA Griffin, Scott Wannberg, The American Hotel and Traction & 3rd St. featured... Pretty Little Lonely # 13, A Musical Documentary Premiere Screening!!!!- This Thursday, March 27th, 8PM $5 Echo Park Film Center 1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd) Los Angeles, CA 90026 213-484-8846
In 1994 ex Carnival Art front man Michael Petak released his critically acclaimed album "Pretty Little Lonely", produced by T Bone Burnett, on Slash Records.
"Pretty Little Lonely # 13, A Musical Documentary" is the video companion to the CD. Petak, his dog Diggity and a handful of friends traveled across the Southwest loaded with Canon L2 High 8 cameras and a DAT Machine, interviewing all walks of life about love while also shooting music videos for most of the songs on the album. This will be the first time the documentary will be screened to the public, so buckle up and come join us for the ride...
THEY PRINTED MY "XMASS IN BERK." SONG IN THE EAST BAY EXPRESS..HOW COOL IS THAT..
IF YOU GOOGLE "XMASS IN BERKELEY"
ITS ON THE 2nd. PAGE....
EAST BAY EXPRESS
Our Favorite Letters of 2007 Readers comment on tree sitters, Paris Hilton, the Jeff Tedford conspiracy, Gum Arabic products, the next soda giant, RepubliCrats,
December 19, 2007
Each year we compile some of the more memorable letters, phone calls, and press releases we received during the prior twelve months. In the interest of verisimilitude, all spelling, punctuation, and grammar are the writers' own.
"IT'S XMASS IN BERK"
ITS XMASS TIME IN BREKELEY AND, THE WHOLE TOWNS TURNING GREEN ELECTRIC CARS..ACOUSTIC GUITARS,& OF COURSE RECYCLING. NO PRESENTS 'NEATH ..THE XMASS TREE
NO JEWELS..FO' SURE.. NO FUR COATS... INSTEAD TO A FAMILY IN AFRICA, IN YOUR NAME..THEY SENT A GOAT.. IT NEVER SNOWS IN BERK. I'M HOPING FOR SOME RAIN.. SHINING STREETS,BABBLING CREEKS, PEPPERMINT CANDY CANES.
DECK THE HALLS WITH LED LIGHTS, THE TREES AND MISTLETOE.. TOFERKEY..YUM.. FRUIT CAKE SOAKED IN RUM.. ALL VERY ORGANIC..YA KNOW..
A YR NOW SITTERS,SITTING IN THE TREES.. FENCE UM UP..YOU CAN'T GET UM DOWN. ON THE CAMPUS OF BERKELEY..
BERKELEY'S SHE'S ALL DECKED OUT.. FOR THE XMASS AND NEW YEARS BALL.
JINGLE BELLS..JINGGLE BELLS PEACE ON EARTH TO ALL.
So it's a capital 'T' that's been hanging you up? Don't worry, it's only paint. And paint is easy to remove. If I was your mother and you were my daughter, you would be sleeping already. I wear these pajamas only on weekends. And you think that's healthy? People don't listen to their body until it's too late. I am not dramatic, I am merely being practical.
