Last night, a fellow poet by the name of Cherisse Raghoo posted a comment on my wall on Facebook. All it said was, “Rugby Poets Club?”. Of course I had no idea what that was so I asked. What I got was a link to a Facebook page by Ralph Lauren.

Ralph Lauren has a line called “Rugby” which has recently launched a campaign to find the “next great poet” through a contest on Facebook. According to the Rugby website and Facebook page:

Rugby Poets Club
Presents

The Hunt for the Next Great Poet

Like this page then submit your poem below for a chance to win a $1,000 Rugby Wardrobe and to be crowned Rugby's Next Great Poet. Check out the competition and vote for your favorites. Four runners-up will receive $500 Rugby Gift Cards.

After that, they have three videos featuring an award winning spoken word poet, a classic Beat poet and a female poet. I won’t spoil it for you by telling you who. All you need to know is that one of them is dead and the other two can only be heard, not seen in the blatant commercial that each video is. All you get is pretty people wrapped in Ralph Lauren clothing that the average poet can’t even afford while pretty words are being heard.

You don’t even see the poet in the commercial! The two living examples are perfectly good looking people who they could have put some Rugby clothes on and had them actually in the video. You get the name of the poem and the name of the poet at the beginning of each video, but these days, exposure should require a little more. Especially if I am letting you take one of my works and using it everywhere.

Because the prizes are clothing and gift cards. They are not paying you for your work in the traditional sense. Exposure is great, but are you going to talk about my website and everything else I have done? If you are not going to pay me royalties or even a lump sum, give me that much. Give me a million hits to my website, not clothes that I wouldn’t wear or can’t even fit me.

Another thing that irks me is what they are portraying a poet to be. I know that while I dress up occasionally, I look nothing like that. And I certainly do not write while looking like a Ralph Lauren model. Poets have their own style. Each and every one dresses differently. I know most of the poets entering this contest do not dress like that. Most of them probably can’t even afford the clothing in that line (I know I can’t).

The poet writes in their pajamas, late at night. They write in their work clothes on the subway. They write in their jeans on their way to class. A poet does not just dress like a Ralph Lauren model. I bet very few play Rugby.

This brings up many questions in my head. I was thinking about entering for a second, but then I had to really stop and think what this would mean for me as a poet. We all want to be known for our writing, but at what price? Is Ralph Lauren exploiting poets? Would this bring more exposure towards poetry and spoken word? Can a poem sell clothing? Is this really about the poetry?

What are my rights as a poet entering this contest? Is my poem still mine? Is it still my intellectual property? Or does it become stagnant and frozen on this Rugby contest page? Are you going to do a commercial like the ones on the page and then call it a day? What is the extent of my exposure? Will you choose me based on my work or my look? Will it matter that I am not a Ralph Lauren person who dresses like that everyday? Who are you really selling to? Who am I as the poet in this venture?

I have made the decision to not enter, though I certainly have work that fits the theme and it would be great to a certain extent if I was chosen. I rather find something else that would give me exposure and is actually about poetry than try for something that seems to be about just the clothing. They just didn’t want to use music and thought this would give it more depth.

I agree with my fellow poet Cherisse when she said in a Facebook comment, “I don't care for the clothes, but if a poet should be affiliated with a brand and a brand with a poet, their ideals should match.”

When I was looking for a picture of Marsha Ambrosius' album, I came across an ad to see The Floacist's new video "Let Me" on the Singersroom.com. The word controversial got my attention. So I clicked on the ad and saw this gem! She is topless with her nipples covered up. It's a very seductive and artistic video. After I finished watching it, I started to read the comments on YouTube. Most were compliments, but others were negative comments on her breasts. Some called her breasts saggy! 

Wow...when I read that, I was appalled. What woman with natural breasts doesn't have sag? Are we so use to seeing the girls in bras that when they are out and dancing in front of us (and a possible lover) that they become repulsive? The Floacist (aka Natalie Stewart) has a beautiful body. So imagine if I did a video like this? Then the critics would really have to talk about sag. And themselves because we all got it. Even if they are perky now, they will fly down south eventually. 

Surprisingly both men and women were criticizing her breasts. Are our views of beauty that distorted? Wait, that is a dumb question, of course they are! 

I could go on and on, but I won't because this is a Write Discovery and not a Write Rant...(uh oh, I think I just created a new category!!!), so I'll say just watch the video and enjoy. And I'll end with a question that you can leave your answers to in the comment section:

In arts and media, would you prefer to see a natural body or a made up one? Should more artists go for the natural look in music videos like in this one?

How open are our music tastes? If we are open, do we know where to look? Do we even know where to look when they are closed to everything except a genre or two?

I've been watching a lot more YouTube since acquiring my netbook. I finally have the capability to watch videos without my computer shutting off. This gift comes the sudden awareness of ignorance. Sometimes I look at the comments people leave on videos for pure entertainment. YouTube people say the darnest things! (Yes I have just created a pilot for a show in one breath). Sometimes though, they say stuff that crawls up into my skin and refuses to die.

Here is an example of one incident:

I was watching (really listening, it wasn't a real video) A Fine Frenzy - Liar, Liar. The first comment I see is beyond retarded and shows how much music this person really listens to.

"You don't really hear music like this anymore. It has to be all jazzed up and some sort of mixture of rap. No offense to those who like that. I'm just saying that not many people sing with music like this."

EXCUSE ME?!? A Fine Frenzy is in an absolutely different genre than rap. This comment makes me think that this person thinks that she emerged smack dab in the middle of the hip hop world and that there are no other genres in the world or that they once were, but died along the way. Okay maybe that's an exaggeration, but that's how I feel when I read that.

What does this person listen to for them to say that? There is a lot of bad music in all genres out there today, but each genre certainly has enough people in each one. You can't say you don't hear music like this anymore because everything has some sort of rap in it. There are plenty of artists like her. Just have to explore.

This makes me think of how much do we really know about the music we listen to. How wide are our tastes even in our own favorite genre? I know that I will never know every artist out there, especially because I dip into a lot of different genres. There are even some classics that I don't know about and everyone else does. But will I ever be as unaware as this commenter on YouTube? Hope not.

The point to this blog entry...umm be aware? Ha...there is a point of course, but I just needed to rant mostly. And hey, it's another blog post so hooray!!! Maybe when I am not in rant mode, I can come up with a more in depth post to these questions.

For now, back to my regular scheduled program of job hunting, research, and wasting time on the internet.

"Taxi, taxi, taxi...cab, cab, cab...do you need a cab miss?"

Every neighborhood has its own pet peeve that is a part of the everyday hustle and bustle of the neighborhood. For the residents of South Ozone Park/South Richmond Hill, it's the taxi cab drivers that stand on the corners of Lefferts Boulevard and Liberty Avenue. One group stands on the corner right by the stairway of the Lefferts Blvd/Ozone Park train station of the "A" train. The other group is stationed on the opposite corner in front of a bakery/pizza shop.

Everyday these cab men and women stand there, saying the same six or seven words that seem to be the only ones in their vocabulary. "Taxi, taxi, taxi...cab, cab, cab...do you need a cab miss?...do you need a cab sir?" They are standing by the train station steps, calling up to peoplewho have just gotten off the train, who are trying to hurry down the steps to catch the Q10 or the Q112, bus stops which are either around the corner or right by the train steps respectively.

After traveling on the train and being at work or school all day, this can be rather annoying. They are very persistent unless you say no or quickly shake your head as you try to dodge them and quickly try to catch your bus or trying to walk away to be on your way to home or to the stores on the avenue. They are in your face, pointing their fingers at you all while saying "Taxi? Cab?". And this happens all the time.

"Getting asked if I want a cab during the day when I just got off the bus is pretty annoying," said Sara Subedar, a 23-year-old college student who lives a few blocks away from the station. "They shouldn't be allowed to pester people. But there seems like nothing can be done about it, so we have to deal with it."

Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done. They are not commiting a crime. They are doing their job. One could only wish that they would do it a little more nicely and consider the people they are trying to get as potential customers. One could be pretty sure that these taxi cab drivers would not like it if they had to face the same thing everyday.

Every person has a pet peeve that they have to obsess and write about. This blogger is no different from the rest. The video below is about these little orange fruit balls that plague our sidewalks and streets. This fruit may seem harmless until you catch a whiff of their putrid insides that spill out once they break apart or get stepped on. For years, the name of these little horrid fruits were nameless, but after doing some research, though this is not confirmed, it is suspected that these fruits are called the Ginkgo fruit.

The ginkgo according to Wikipedia is "also known as the Maidenhair Tree after Adiantum, is a unique species of tree with no close living relatives. The ginkgo is classified in its own division, the Ginkgophyta, comprising the single class Ginkgoopsida, order Ginkgoales, family Ginkgoaceae, genus Ginkgo and is the only extant species within this group. It is one of the best-known examples of a living fossil, because Ginkgoales other than G. biloba are not known from the fossil record after the Pliocene."

Seems a little heavy, but that's the official defintion of ginkgo. There is also an article about the ginkgo in the New Yorker from the summer of 2008. You can check it out here. That may simplify things for you.

Now check out the amateur masterpiece below. It may be corny, but it works for this blogger.