"Show It at the Beach".

For those of you who think Shel Silverstein wrote only for children.

SHOW IT AT THE BEACH

Oh, they won't let us show it at the beach.

No, they won't let us sho it at the beach.

They think we're gonna grab it if it gets within our reach.

And they won't let us show it at the beach.

But you... can show it in your parlor to most anyone you choose.

You can show it at a party with your second shot of booze.

You can show it on the corner wearin' overcoat and shoes,

But they won't let us show it at the beach.

No... they won't let us show it at the beach, friends.

Ah... they won't let us show it at the beach.

Oh, they're sure we're gonna grab it if it gets within our reach.

So they won't let us show it at the beach.

But you can show it at the movies on the cineramic screen.

You can show it in the most sophisticated magazine.

You can show it while you're bouncing on the high school trampoline,

But they won't let us show it at the beach.

But if you've got a gun, it's legal to display it on your hip.

You can show your butcher knives to any interested kid.

But if it's made for lovin', then you'd better keep it hid.

And they won't let us show it at the beach.

Read more!

Mark Twain dies today...100 years ago.

"The reports of my death have been

greatly exaggerated."

- Mark Twain, American author and humorist

Read more!

F. Scott Fitzgerald's epitaph. And other stuff.

This is a rubbing from author F. Scott Fitzgerald's tombstone. A former co-worker gave it to me a couple years ago. He was gonna toss it. I thought it would be a cool thing for a writer to have on his wall.

I emptied out my storage space today and loaded all my personal belongings - everything, aside from what I'm putting in my car - in readiness for my move back to Wisconsin. Brother Jas is coming in a week and a half, have some play time here then drive back to WI.

My stuff. I'm a pack rat. It looks like there's more than what was in my 5 x 10 space.

Read more!

"I bought Earl Hamner, Jr., lunch".

Above: Earl Hamner, Jr. and I in his office in Studio City.

Or, "Earl thinks I look like Rod Serling" or "One of the most fulfilling lunches I've ever had". Any of the three will do.

Earl is the creator of the hit television series, The Waltons, the retelling of his life growing up in the town of Schuyler, Virginia. It spawned from the television movie he wrote, The Homecoming - which was a book, then a play. Earl has been a mentor, of sorts, to me. The character John Boy (in The Waltons, and the real Earl Hamner) was the inspiration for me to become a writer (and major in Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater).

Earl also wrote 8 episodes for the classic TV series, The Twilight Zone, among them "Black Leather Jackets", "The Bewitching Pool" and "The Hunt". Matter of face, it was Rod Serling who gave Earl his first break in writing here in LA. Funny - Earl mentioned to me that I reminded him of Rod Serling - he's never said that before and we've talked on several occasions. Funny - when I was performing in the musical "Blood Brothers" as The Narrator here in LA, many people said my character reminded them of Rod Serling's "narrator" in The Twilight Zone.

So we had lunch last Friday and we talked about writing and Earl regaled me with his own stories growing up on "Walton's Mountain", and he asked about my writing and my plans to move back to Wisconsin. At 86, Earl could pass for a man in his 60's. As we chit chatted in his office - an office he's had in Studio City since 1960, mind you, he mentioned he's found a market for some short stories that he's working on and what a treat it was that he can still write at his age. I watched Earl at his desk and I thought, "that's me, Earl is me". Writers have to write, it's that simple.

Earl showed me some of the things he'd written on his blog (see website here) - we writers love to talk about the ideas we're working on.

As I readied myself to leave, I told Earl that I'm not saying "goodbye" to him...more like "see you later". I will see him when I visit California. " 'Night, Earl".

Read more!

Gonna keep my eye on this one = Kelly Killoren Bensimon.

You know I saw her picture in the magazine, Emmy, and I thought she looked familiar. She'll be featured on the new The Real Housewives: New York. Then I remembered - she wrote a book called, The Bikini Book, about two years ago. She's an author, model and the founding editor of Elle Accessories - and now, another victim of a dumb reality show (which I may just watch now). She's either separated or divorced from her husband, photographer Gilles Bensimon, who's 64.

He supposedly has a thing for models.

Read more!

Geno the Propman...Salute!

There's a short post over at Monsterama on my friend, Geno Mattos - illustrator, artist, screenwriter and all-around good guy. He's the prop illustrator for my company's animated show, SECRET SATURDAYS (Cartoon Network).

I was in a reading at Geno's pad in Van Nuys last Saturday - I read the part of ANTON (the lead bad guy) in Geno's screenplay, PSYGNATURE (a sci-fi, psychological thriller with one bad-ass monster).

Good script. He got some tremendous feedback from the reading, actors and other guest, which is the purpose of any reading.

Read more!

So - um...do you happen to have a nude picture of the poet Walt Whitman on ya? Want one?

Didn't think so. Wanna see one?

Arguably one of the strangest things I've seen on the Web. No - I wasn't surfing for naked pictures of Walt Whitman. I was researching one of his poems for a one-act play of mine that I'm editing. Who finds this stuff? And why did Walt Whitman have a naked picture taken of himself? Was he a man ahead of his time? Interesting stuff - on the Web.

Read more!

"Imagine", by Monica Small.

My friend Monica authored and illustrated this children's book, Imagine. Imagine being a child in some far off land where you don't have a bed to sleep in, or food to eat, water to drink - or where you are unloved. Imagine helps to remind children of what they are blessed with while at the same time illustrating that there a many children who aren't as lucky as they.

Left: Imagine in use - sort of.

All proceeds from book sales are donated to Children Without Borders. Children Without Borders is a non-profit organization that provides life-saving medical care to children and preventative health education for families in underserved countries.

Read more!

Origami No. 16. "To V.W."

"To V.W."

This person –
Her demeanor entrances me
Anxiously I ponder her being
Not having met
Kept from me
She radiates beauty
Gushes with passion
In her I see myself –
Vibrant, vivacious, vexing
Inherent in complexities
Numb to anything but “the now”
Gregariously grateful. Me.
Copyright © 2008 by Jeffrey James Ircink

Origami is sort of my catchword for a featured blog entry that highlights my original writings - could be an excerpt from one of my plays, a poem, a song, a rant, a rave, a cursing, etc. Origami is the art of folding paper (the word is of Japanese origin). So, within the folds of this particular blog feature you may find something really beautiful, meaningful or poignant.

Read more!

Origami No. 15. "Lucid Love".

We have never touched but I feel something for her.
Our world is confined to a shiny, black, concave surface,
Our expression of LOVE
Is four quick taps of an “L”, an “O”, a “V” and an “E”.

She is my spring when I fall.
She is a light when I find that I am in the dark.
As if an errant leaf - she flittered in where I could see no trees.
Yet I feel we are from the same branch.

She dreams of me and, in lucid attempts, tries to touch me.

Doubt. Fear. Love. Lust. Longing.
I feel that I know her; still she remains a stranger.
Is she my betrothed that I never married?
Is she the daughter that was never bore?
A sister lost in my mother’s womb and unseen by my eyes?
I can not explain what mine eyes have not yet seen.

We have never touched but I feel something for her.

Copyright © 2008 by Jeffrey James Ircink


Origami is sort of my catchword for a featured blog entry that highlights my original writings - could be an excerpt from one of my plays, a poem, a song, a rant, a rave, a cursing, etc. Origami is the art of folding paper (the word is of Japanese origin). So, within the folds of this particular blog feature you may find something really beautiful, meaningful or poignant.

Read more!

Origami No. 13 "Untitled" by Katja Grace.

This poem was written by a very special person in my life - Katja Grace. She wrote it especially for me.


The dirt wore into the linen
always in the field
There were quiet signs of light
shining through the August tree line
The man stood upright
adjusted his collar to the bone
looked up to see a lady coming
down a dragged and filtered path
They stood there in the dream
the house beside them
towering like an American Taj Mahal
It was how hard his father had worked
labeling the effort seen by the years
And that he'd passed with little more than 'Goodbye'
was on the soil where they now laid each other down
Then – away with a lonesome cloud
the dream slipped from their hands
Although they held tight and tried
the roots where bound to earth
were released into the sky
And they woke on separate pillows.
One of well worn linen
the other a
tightly woven factory cotton
bleached out
against her head
suffocating the dream of that land
with Its worn and dirty hands


Origami is sort of my catchword for a featured blog entry that highlights my original writings - could be an excerpt from one of my plays, a poem, a song, a rant, a rave, a cursing, etc. Origami is the art of folding paper (the word is of Japanese origin). So, within the folds of this particular blog feature you may find something really beautiful, meaningful or poignant.

Read more!

Two of my Venice Canal shots featured on "Californication"

In anticipation of the 2nd season of Showtime's Californication, I just finished re-watching the first season. I'll cut to the punch - star and executive producer David Duchovny is brilliant (recently won a Golden Globe) in his turn as Hank Moody, a novelist who moved to Venice, CA to from NYC in order to see his name on the big screen, but it turns out he hates LA, lost the woman of his dreams that he had a love child with, and drinks, smokes and screws everything in sight - this show is not for kids. That being said ('cause I'm no kid), the writing, acting and music is an A+ all the way through. It's one of the smartest shows on TV.

I'll give you a little taste - three clips you have to watch: 1) select scenes from Season 1, Episode 1 http://youtube.com/watch?v=4zarPHvSd1A, 2) Hank Hates You All http://youtube.com/watch?v=7C7E_Z81uR8 and 3) http://youtube.com/watch?v=IWJhAOnJIzI Hank knows how to sweet-talk a woman on the first date.

Truthfully, perhaps one of the reasons I'm attracted to the show is that I identify with the character of Hank. Could be a little of me in Hank. Or is it a little of Hank in me? Maybe it's David Duchovny. Anyway, I love the show, though I shouldn't really make that public. One of the last shows I loved was Rome on HBO and it was yanked after two seasons.

Which brings me to these pictures. I took them last summer along the Venice Canals. The one above is featured in my book, PASSION = TRUTH, A photographic essay on life's truths (see right panel for order information). BOTH vistas are featured in Episode 9, "Filthy Lucre" at about the 14 minute mark. You can see the boats in the picture above in the master shot below, at the left base of the bridge. See?

None of this means anything. Just thought it was funny when I saw the shots in the show. Like minds...you know.

Stay tuned for a post on the women in Hank's life and more YouTube clips from the show. "Dude, dude...she's gonna blow."

Read more!

Twain's "To the Person Sitting in the Darkness" (1901)

This is an excerpt from the essay, "To the Person Sitting in the Darkness", which Mark Twain wrote in 1901 - in response to the U.S. involvement in the Philippine-American War. The "person" was the country, The Phillipines. It was Twain's tongue and cheek way of protesting United States' imperialism and its annextion of the Phillipines. Twain had previously written:

"...I have read carefully the treaty of Paris [which ended the Spanish-American War], and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."

The exact excerpt you're seeing was placed in the programs of the musical HAIR when it was running in New York City in the late 60's...undoubtedly to call attention to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Click on it to enlarge it. Read it. Sound familiar today?

If you're wondering where I stand on the issue - I'm not entirely sure. I believe the U.S. needs to protect its interests overseas and be the "Big Brother", in a way, helping to keep other countries in check, sort of say. I also think that we often stick our nose in places it doesn't belong - for whatever the reason. With all due respect to President Bush and the Office of the Presidnet of the United States, I don't believe he's as effective as a leader as some of his predecessors. We have problems with our country that need dealing with. Yet, we're spending billions of dollars on a war in Iraq that the American people, as a whole, DO NOT WANT; a cause our soldiers are dying for and a cause where a mutual resolution between Iraq and the U.S. seems as far-fetched as my worker's compensation suit getting settled in my lifetime. The U.S. sends millions of dollars to countries overseas who need our help for this disaster and that conflict and whatever else, yet we can't seem to get our own house in order - the city of New Orleans isn't where it should be since Katrina; millions of Americans don't have proper health care; we have an immigration crisis that is not getting fixed - something I blame as much on our politicians and Corporate America as I do on the illegals themselves. And yet illegal aliens come here to have anchor babies and get free healthcare and other benefits and that's allowed by our government because it's the humanitarian thing to do.

This country has problems - and still it's the best country in the world. But this country has serious problems and unless we do something now...unless our politicians (who I believe are a pustule this country can't do without and that's why I believe the party system as we know it is archaic) quit playing party politics and do something that's for the good of the country and not their own legacy, this U.S. will resemble every poor, 3rd world country we're helping or have ever helped - only who will help us when we need it?

Read more!