A Good Cast Deserves Repeating

Last night, I dreamt that I was
a United Artist
and everyone in the breezy gazebo
and everyone on the liberal terrace
and everyone near the ice sculpture swan
including Fairbanks and Flynn
tipped hats and raised glasses to me
perhaps mistaking me for a Nihilist fresh out of UFA
or imported from Svensk
and Lon Chaney gave me a conical cap
and Valentino gave me a sabre in need of sharpening
and Harold Lloyd taught me how to take a fall
Gish, Bow and Pickford
all professed their undying love for me
but declared their leading men jealous rivals
with no patience for co-players, famous or otherwise
or Europeans.
So i flared my nostrils on fish-hooks,
leaped from a balcony to swing from a crystal chandelier
and crashed through the elaborately set dining room table
rotating just before impact
to displace the blow
but they were not impressed
and would not lean in for a kiss to melt an Audience
of a Nation.
D.W. proposed a toast to my Apathy
but i, ashamed, refused to drink to it.
Otto Preminger and G.W. Pabst offered me work
but i declined.
Frank Capra wrote some clever jokes with which to woo
on a cocktail napkin
but he tore them up when i confessed that i could not pay
or give him credit.
He over-tipped the waiter and we were friends.
Fatty Arbuckle loudly announced that he knew plenty
of nice girls who would accompany me to a hotel room
for a few hours
but grew disgusted and left when i used the word "love."
And when the roaring engine of William Wellman's wings
stole the crowd's attention away, i knew the end of a good evening
had arrived, and was bitter.
Surely enough, i was instructed not to talk or to sing
or to dance or to reference myself
(earlier in the evening, they'd lynched Vertov for that very offense).

I was only to watch.

And Murnau told me i'd never work in this town again
when i asked where Sergei was
and i went home, escorted by a Lumiere brother on each arm
to eat popcorn and play my organ
in a dark room
with lights on the floor

And Melies came over in search of a shoulder to cry on.

...
wrote that one about eight years ago, give or take. the TCM Classic Film Festival starts in Hollywood today, and i thought this a fitting invocation.
-andy