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The Chris Chandler Show

  • The United States of Generica

    The United States of Generica





    I seen Jack Kerouac

    in the back

    parking lot of a stop and go.



    He was pouring wild turkey

    in a Slurpee

    sittin on the hood of a Yugo.



    We went on the road on a changless scene,

    headlights rolled past my eyes like the rolling flash of a Xerox Machine.



    Have we all gone blind

    from polysterene signs?

    Endless repitition of strip mall situations,

    fast food attitudes

    and telemarketing platitudes?



    What have they done to my road?

    What have they done to my America?

    The interstate made The United States

    The United States of Generica.



    I seen Walt Whitmann, and Woody Guthrie

    on the front seat of a '74 Camero.

    The were goin down the road feelin bad - from bad burgers,

    orderin food from a drive through window.



    With Holy sincronicity, and the luck of a tramp

    we found our selves on the same off ramp

    serendipity.

    We ran

    our Caravan

    into the parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly.



    We all stared in awe at a postage stamp of Elvis.



    We all believed

    that he was the king

    and agreed

    that poetry

    has got no time for monarchy.



    I heard a street corner poet say, "Rock and Roll was once a threat,

    but these days, Rock And Roll is a Time Life Anthology.



    Rock and Roll will live for ever, Jack.

    It lives on in the form of Muzak.

    That's why I am shopping for eternity.





    Walt Whitman went wild

    on the Pharmisotical isle it was number 21

    He did depart

    with a shopping cart

    full of multi colored condoms

    as he said, "I sing the body electric,

    but I do it safely."



    William Blake hitch hiking on old route 66,

    I said is it better out there in the sticks

    where there is not a sign of a K Mart?

    Did Ma and Pa sell the family store are the now employed at the Wall Mart?

    He said, "Don't dispar,

    there is poetry everywhere."

    we flipped on the windows and clicked on the air

    and told storys about hitch hiking quoting Boudlear.

    Who said, 'If your gonna get drunk ...

    stay drunk...

    ...on wine on virtue...

    ... on poetry."



    William Blake once said,

    "I had an ephinay looking in a singlel grain of sand."

    We could all see eternity in a single grain...

    ...of Neutra sweet.



    So I'm goin down the road feelin' bad.

    but Woody Guthrie, like you taught me, I ain't gonna be treated this a-way.





    Credits:

    Poem: Chris Chandler and Phil Rockstroh

    Song: Woody Guthrie