Cake

But wait
Is it really just too late
All that was bright
Now endless night
As shock and awe
Eagerly unleashed
In the venal vacuum
Created to obscure
The wanton waves
Of the few who have chosen
To plunder the planet
For power and jack
And overcome the rest
With withering confusion
And subtle subterfuge
The world now spinning
A deadly centrifuge
Separating paparazzi
From their bulbs
And wealth from nations
Rotting fruits of their labor
Or the riches of their resources
Until it is just all gonzo
And nothing’s left
But a piece of cake?

Jack

What coulda woulda shoulda
By now all but just a toke
If it weren’t such a joke
A lifelong poke so to speak
Not to have had the Jack
To see us through
And do what’s right
For all those left
In the lurch
With a naked lunch
No eggs in the benedict
For heaven’s gate
Or a light to follow
A path to take
Until it’s too late
And we’d be excess weight
My word if only anyone knew one
Would be all that’s gone down
Since the promise interred
Would seem fraught with naught
Nixonian or Reaganomic or
Bushwhacked now since Clinton
Gave us a glimmer
But couldn’t stay
A generation’s dreams
Chipped away
Soddenly soiled
Since JFK.

Altman

LOS ANGELES Nov 21, 2006 (AP)— Robert Altman, the caustic and irreverent satirist behind "MASH," "Nashville" and "The Player" who made a career out of bucking Hollywood management and story conventions, died at a Los Angeles Hospital, his Sandcastle 5 Productions Company said Tuesday. He was 81.

From Reuters:
by Arthur Spiegelman

Many of the actors who worked for Altman loved him, but Warren Beatty who starred in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," once said that he thought of killing him.

According to film journalist Craig Modderno, co-author of "I'll Be in my Trailer: The Creative Wars Between Actors and Directors," Altman and Beatty feuded over whether Beatty was trying to steal a scene from newcomer William Devane.

Altman told Modderno , "Warren has never said a kind word about 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller' even though he got the best reviews of his career from it. When I die if that egotistical bastard says anything nice about me, then you know he's lying, but I'll haunt him to his grave for the unprofessional way that he treated me and our cast and crew.

"Other than him I've loved every actor I've ever worked with. When it comes to dealing with film executives.....well that's a book in itself!"