Editor's Note: The following poem was read by our friend, the poet Raj Bavnani, on Barry Smolin's "The Music Never Stops" Jan. 7 on KPFK. It is archived and may be heard about 90 minutes into the show here. You will find a photo of Raj at the end of this poem.

So on Christmas Eve I heard a nice lady pastor say that she had gone around the world
And that everywhere she went
Everyone wanted the same stuff
And they were talking about Kobe Bryant in China
And this gave her much hope
Because we’re all alike, you see
But there’s a difference between being alike and liking being
Or as Zappa said, a difference between kneeling down and bending over
And I wanted to tell the nice lady pastor, no, no, this is the problem, not the answer
All the little human greed balls want the same stuff
The same plasma TVs and cigarettes and dope and tattoos and ipods
I am not a pod, I am a free man!
Same is the problem
The world has gone in same
The Internet broke it all down, finally
Broke down borders broke down cultures broke down hearts
And I think we’re all living in a brokedown palace now
I don’t want people in China to talk about Kobe
I don’t want Beirut punks to rap and bob like L.A. gangstas
I don’t want African children with flies in their eyes to idolize
Michael Jackson and Madonna and Britney and Paris
I’ve had it up to the Hilton with Paris
I would like to shave her entire body and imprison her with monkeys
Everyone is caught in the world wide web
waiting to be devoured by corporate government spiders
Eveyone had a blog year everybody had a good time everybody let their hair down everybody saw the scum shine
You don’t have to be a genius to be homogenous
Good God---They’ve homogened us!
Everyone is logging on blogging on IM’ing e-mailing prevailing surveilling unveiling regaling curtailing channel-surfing giving birthing no mirthing what’s the worthing?
People worry about the bird flu and viruses
But I worry about the fact that there ain’t no more papyruses
Newspapers are dropping like flyruses
Everybody’s bloggin’ at me
Can’t hear a word they’re sayin’
Only the echoes of their hinds
Which leaves you with this challenge, as that voice says in the haunted house in Disneyland:
To find a way out!
But there is no way out of this haunted Disneyland
Everyone has been caught in the Internet
Flopping like fish
Slopping like pigs
Tangled like dolphins
Perish the thought, somebody said, and they got their wish
It’s Earth Extreme Makeover, and time for the Reveal!
Yes, the planet is five dress sizes smaller and that recessive chin is just gone and the North Pole is turning into the North Sea and you look absolutely fabulous!
What I want to know is how will this affect Santa Claus?
What we need here is a failure to communicate
What we need here are borders and cultures and lots of no cell phones and of course, Lassie
But none of this will happen, so The Reveal finds us exposed naked by the great carcinogenic Zoomspark, a few billion overly-sense-graced grease smudges on an overgrown meteor caught in gravity in the middle of more nothingness than you find if you look into either of George W. Bush’s ears
Flock of birds herd of sheep look it’s cheap take a leap
Make a wish study Spanish school of fish Petri dish
Stick a pin in New Zealand’s ass and Norway screams
What we need is more discrimination
Discrimination between worth and no worth, scam and no scam, Paris Hilton and Paris France
It’s all good now
‘S’all good dawg
Well, it isn’t all good, I assure you
In fact, most of it is all bad
As the nice lady pastor said everybody wants the same and does the same and you could see it on New Year’s Eve where all over the world everyone shouted the same and enjoyed the same decorative explosions
So everyone surfs the web and we are all nothing but web serfs
Prodded and plotted and milked and bilked
Wipe out!
Hey I heard that the Carlyle Group merged with Coca-Cola merged with Rupert Murdoch merged with General Electric merged with Monsanto merged with Dick Cheney merged with Oprah Winfrey
And I’d say that’s a state of emergency
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse
She died of course
But never mind because we’re all alike and we’re all talking about Kobe so it’s going to be okay
After all, the people in India who help you with your computer and banking needs are named Ralph and Mary Ann now
Hello sir this is Ralph and how may I help you today?
I am changing my name to Biff
Biff Bavnani
Okay, You want to talk about Kobe, Kobe is a ball hog how many times do we have to watch the Lakers down by one point with ten second left and Kobe gets the ball and stands and dribbles down to two seconds then misses a three-pointer with three guys on him what in hell is Phil Jackson doing anyhow?
That’s my Kobe beef
But it's just a cloned beef
Aspiration has been replaced by craving
Imagination has been replaced by raving
Alienation has been replaced by raging
The Internet has loosed monsters from the Id and we are the Krell from “Forbidden Planet” about to be devoured by our own roaring nightmares
They roam the modems of the world feeding on stupidity, hatred, perversion
Nothing is forbidden anymore on this planet
Discourse has become dissing
Applause has become hissing
Give it up! No, I’d rather keep it, thanks
Humankind has become an audience for Rosie O’Donald Trump
And as Waits says, there is nothing kind about humans
On-line? Yes, you are on a line like a bonito
lurching with eyes wide, gasping for just one last breath of American Idol
Now you can join a club dedicated to the revival of the Dodo bird with members in Pago Pago and Reseda
Now you can join a club dedicated to killing all white males with one eye with members in Havana and Bangalore
Now you can join a club dedicated to worshipping the ignited flatus of women between the ages of 30 and 60
So you can ignore the clubbing of the planet by the Carlyle Neocon Mossad Monsanto Christian Muslim McDonald’s CNN Fox Inc.
Keep sailing down that information superlieway
Get naked and have sexual internet
Careful not to get any on the screen
What’s that? You’ve been detained? You’re a detainee?
Honey I won’t be home for a few years. I’ve been detained by the United States of America
Don’t wait up
2006 was a rat’s nest and the rats are still padding it in fact they want a nest surge
To surge, without love
So 20,000 more soldiers will soon Iraq and Roll
Where they play a mean game of Hangman
As the sleeping media continues to write The George Bush Story,
“Iran from the truth.”
Well, that’s Israelity for you
I hear they want the surge soldiers to actually stay in the neighborhoods now, and not go back to their bases at night
That will guarantee a surge in bombs and corpses and probably Bush’s pants
The only surge I want is Sergio Mendez and Brazil ’66 singing “Fool on the Hill”
But it’s all good, dawg
Satellite dishes direct TV wishes DSL riches computer glitches goddamn sonsofbitches
‘S’ all good, dawg
Surges and splurges and dirges and purges
‘S’all good, dawg
Where’s my brain? I must have left it in my cell phone while I was busy inventing weapons of mass destruction
I must have left it in the 7-11 with my Big Gulp or maybe my yoga class or that Justin Timberlake concert
No I know I left it in 1999
The last year in modern history that could pass itself off as an adult
Without being carded
Here’s the reveal
Here’s the reveal
                  ---Raj Bavnani

Poet Raj "Biff" Bavnani pictured here with Delmar Conley,
The Supreme Ruler of the Cosmos.
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