Poems For David Carradine

Fuck. The After-Life has just added yet another of the great ones to its collection. David Carradine: is dead. The CNN headline initially published on Wednesday reported that he was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room ‘Hanging In Closet’, which pissed me off, because, you know, it’s just sort of a really bullshit way to put it. Show some respect you fucking assholes.  He was one of the Good Guys. You don’t go announcing his death to the entire world by saying he was found hanging in a closet, as if he were some sort of rumpled travel suit dangling in some misunderstood hotel room tucked between a complimentary hotel bathrobe, a combination lock 3x4 foot hotel safe, and some moderately priced prostitute’s misplaced wedding dress. Show some class. The man was a superhero. He deserved better than that.

One of the editors at CNN must’ve felt the same way, because ten minutes later when I returned to the website to re-read the article the phrase ‘Hanging In Closet’ was replaced with ‘Hanged in Closet’, which for some reason, obviously reads better. ‘Hanged’ beats out ‘Hanging. They’d fixed it. Or whatever. Hanging or hanged, it still doesn’t change what’s happened. The only facts that we have at this time are that the man is dead, and the circumstances are cryptic at best. But we won’t go into that…

The first heroes I can remember looking up to as a very tiny child were Captain Kangaroo and David Carradine. I found them both comforting and baffling at the same time. Who the fuck was Mr. Green Jeans? Why did the Captain have half a moose for a roommate? Where the fuck did all those ping pong balls come from? Where’d he get that red jacket? And as far as Carradine goes, I would watch Kung Fu obsessively whenever it came on the TV. I had no idea what the fuck was going on or, not knowing what a flashback was at the time, why it was that in some shots he was bald while in others he seemed to have hair. I just knew this guy was the definition of cool, whatever cool was. I wanted to do that. Whatever he did.

I wanted to have adventures and not talk much and wear a cool hat and kick anyone’s ass that got in my way and when I got tired I wanted to go hang out at Captain Kangaroo’s house and tell ping pong ball jokes and put my feet up and relax until the sun would eventually rise again the next day and I could tell the bottom torso-less moose to go fuck itself and bust out the old prop door, where a new days worth of Kung Fu adventures would begin…

But tonight, I am sad. The Captain left us a few years ago. And now, David Carradine’s gone too. Which brings us to this week’s poetry blog assignment: I’m asking everyone who’s mourning to write a poem for David Carradine (we’ll honor the Captain in poetry maybe later on down the road). As always, when you’ve completed your assignment post it on the website, hang it on your best friend’s fridge, bring it to the Burnt Toast Open Mic on Wed night, or any other open mic you happen to be attending, and read it out loud.



                              “Your side always was a bit lonely. But I wouldn’t sit anywhere else.”  
                                                                   --David Carradine in Kill Bill Vol 2

We miss you David Carradine.

until next week,

iloveyou,

Rob