Death By Leisure Poem by gershon hepner

Some think that death that comes by leisure,
lasciviously opulent,
can be a most delightful pleasure,
a Liebestod if copulent,
a word I coin to underscore
that its potential is far greater
than Wagner ever thought of, or
his imitators who came later.

Every day in California,
driving on the freeways, men
regard themselves as being hornier
than those who’re east of them, but when
they leave the freeway on a ramp
they realize that they’re not heading
for love-trysts with a tricky tramp
who’s dying for them on her bedding.

They have no leisure time to spare,
and won’t die in their lovers’ arms,
imploding in polluted air,
since their imaginary charms,
like those of porn sites on the web,
don’t let them surf towards what isn’t,
while in the traffic’s tide and ebb
they’re by reality imprisoned.

Whether they’re in Culver City,
Calabasas or the Wood
of Beverly, the girls are pretty
and willing to do what they should
not do–– “You’re being self-destructive, ”
their mothers tell them––who has time
for recreational love, “seductive, ”
mere fantasy in fiction rhyme.

Oh how I wish that I could come
in leisure, and then die like Tristan,
exhausted having tried to plumb
my mistress with my powerpiston.
If I were opulent, perhaps
I would, but how can I impoverish
myself still further in the traps
tramps set for me when loverish?

Inspired by Janet Maslin’s review of “A Cautionary Tale, ” by Chris Ayres (“Blinded by Opulent Glare in Southern California, ” NYT, February 12,2009) :
When Chris Ayres took his date to a Golden Globes party at the home of a former studio head, she had read about the place ahead of time. “If you push a button in the living room, a 20-foot movie screen drops from the ceiling, speakers rise from the floor and the bookshelf sinks down behind you to make way for a projectionist, ” she said. “If you push a button in my living room, the lights come on, ” Mr. Ayres replied. “It’s incredible. I’ll show you sometime.” Mr. Ayres was then Hollywood correspondent for The Times of London. And he found his life in California to be fiscally confusing. He had grown up in Wooler, a Northumberland village two hours south of Edinburgh, with a father whose proudest achievement was being middle class. But he had relatives who sent him dollar bills as birthday gifts, and the idea of high-rolling American life fueled his imagination. One of the first words little Chris could say was “Lamborghini.” He had done a brief but memorable nine-day journalistic stint in Iraq (the basis for his first book, “War Reporting for Cowards”) before California beckoned. Mr. Ayres moved there and took to his new beat. “It is my job to ensure that the celebrity gossip is put into the correct sociopolitical context and recounted with the appropriate literary metaphors and allusions to Greek mythology, ” he explains at the start of “Death by Leisure, ” his book about time spent partly in the California trenches — and partly in the Hollywood Hills. This book is a comedic account of how California lured him into living large and introduced him to his inner Big Spender. Fast and funny, “Death by Leisure” has the high spirits of a chick book, because its author is interested in chick-lit things: dates, celebrities, vanity and shopping…. Mr. Ayres has a nice way with hyperbolic local color. “Every day, another suburb out in the San Fernando Valley bursts into flames, shutting down important porn Web sites and causing the traffic to set like concrete, ” he writes. Against such picturesque backdrops, he blames disastrous dating for his many escapades. The book also conveys his efforts to get in the Californian spirit (i.e., buying a plasma television he can’t afford) or to trade on Anglophilia when it suits him. The snobbish pronunciation of his name may sound like a British synonym for derrière, but it helps him finagle his way into the gala opening of the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall. On the other hand, he makes sure to Americanize the R in “Ayres” and go native when crashing a movie-business party. Mr. Ayres works overtime to present himself as a hapless movie character. He gives himself a paparazzo sidekick, an assortment of pratfalls and a happily-ever-after finale. He also takes himself to settings heavy on kitsch and voyeurism, though this can also be ascribed to his efforts to cook up newspaper feature stories. There are some cheap-shot locations, like a Las Vegas casino, a brothel in Carson City, Nev., and Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch.

2/12/09