A Flaw in the Motor

working writing fighting

2011-08-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

The Poetic Labor Project Presents :

*** WORKING *** WRITING *** FIGHTING ***
A Gathering on Labor, Art & Politics
this Sunday, September 4, 1pm to 6pm
at the Niebyl Proctor Marxist Library
6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA

This labor day weekend, please join us for a convocation on the intersecting themes of writing, work and activism.

Confirmed participants include : Brian Ang, Jasper Bernes, Lindsey Boldt, Chris Chen, Chris Daniels, Owen Hill, Tim Kreiner, Bill Luoma, Melissa Mack, Sean Manzano, Michael Nicoloff, Steve Orth, Margaret Rhee, Jill Richards, Wendy Trevino, Dana Ward, Brian Whitener, and Laura Woltag.

We'll meet for presentations at 1pm, have several panels interspersed with breaks, take a break for dinner, and then those who wish can reconvene for a facilitated collective conversation on the day's themes.

This event is free and open to the public. Please distribute this announcement as widely as you see fit.

Any questions ? Write to David Brazil at dzbrazil@yahoo.com.

on Clyfford Still

2011-06-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

This first appeared in Try magazine. Thank you, David and Sara.

I was between apartments and Simmons, a painter friend, knew another painter friend who had once dropped out of SFAI and had moved into a house in Santa Cruz, or actually out on the road to Felton. Simmons did what he jokingly called tchotchke art—gathering up trash and gluing it together. He’d gone to Davis and had lived in Humboldt—the kind of artist that drives a truck and listens to Merle Haggard.

The SFAI dropout was a different sort, I’d been told. He was following his wife to Japan, some sort of residency. Had dropped out of art school after a row with a painting teacher. This was years ago, when people were more apt to let big ideas interrupt careers. We could live cheaply, then, and MFA’s didn’t mean as much. He did big paintings that I probably wouldn’t get. Or so my De Forest/Wiley trained friend said, with a smirk. I didn’t take that well. I knew a little about art. I read High Performance, I went to openings, saw student films…

Do you get them, Simmons ?

I get them. I just don’t like them. I’m not saying you’re stupid—but he came up through minimalism and most of the canvases are like that, although now he’s taken things in a different direction. More content. But probably just colors to you . Anyway they need a cat sitter and they’re partial to poets. If you don’t get the work just pretend it’s the wallpaper—that’s not much of a stretch.
I thought about arguing, but at that point I was playing Boswell to Simmons’ Dr. Johnson. I let it go. He’d hooked me into a free place and all I had to do was feed a couple of cats. I was grateful.

The house was pretty ramshackle. Getting the toilet to flush was a real project, and the water was hot and then cold at minute intervals. The cats ran with raccoons and other small mammals—everybody used the cat door and shared the food bowl. The painter’s wife did something with performance—pieces of costume were everywhere, things that were probably used as props, in that performance-artist/theater way. A kind of friendly squalor covered the floors and hid in the corners.

But the walls!

You entered through a side door, the kitchen. No art there—then, around through the living area, the minimalist stuff. Gray-blue, big—the thing (I learned, looking for hours) about minimalist canvases is that they are always changing, not just with the light but with changes in mood, or whatever feeds perception. That speck becomes a bird, becomes a big idea, becomes…until there’s this constant state of becoming, and then not, and back again. I’d play at naming the things that I “saw”, as a writer that came natural. And then, a state beyond naming. The paintings allowed me to go there—they had this openness.

There were a couple of bedrooms. No Studio. I don’t know where he painted.

The bedrooms had what I assumed was the newer stuff. He’d changed, completely. He was taking control. Through jagged lines and dramatic changes in color he pushed my brain where he wanted it to go. I never got to know him, have run into him a few times through the years, but amateur psychology is impossible to avoid here. He was in his thirties, pushing forty, and he wanted control—wanted to lay down the law. The bedroom paintings possibly weren’t as good, but I found, to my surprise at the time, that I was more drawn to them. Surprised, because at the time I thought of myself as leaning in some vaguely Zen direction—and here I was drawn to the more “western”—in that awful west coast pop usage of the word—type of art. Not so much balance—a knife fight! And I wanted to see more art like that, but even more dramatic—and the best of it. If you’re going to free the doors from their jambs, I thought (had been reading Whitman), you have to push, pull, and kick…hard.

2.

The old SFMOMA on Van Ness was a strange-ass building for an art museum—galleries that looked like hallways, weird little side rooms, and that huge light filled center that was too big for just about everything. I loved it—so obviously inappropriate, but dramatic, and the shows were great. This particular visit we were going to look at the Manuel Neri that they had in the stairwell—no, really. It was just there on a landing, where nobody looked. A painted torso, pretty indicative of his work, which is to say, exquisite.

I told Simmons that I wanted to look at something big, dramatic and abstract.

Well you know the players. But the best stuff’s in New York, except for the Stills.

They gave Still a room, off to the side, kind of on the way to the cafeteria. Bench in the middle, not too many paintings. And it was like a Sistine Chapel—that same catch in the breath and a dizziness. When I walk into places like that I’m so grateful to be an atheist. Because, once free of theological baggage you clearly see the coupling of imagination and action that makes the work bigger than the one. From the artist, out…

3.

Frank O’Hara called him a force of nature. There’s that ambivalence that comes out of the “artist as force of nature” idea. Oh, come off it…but then, how do you work big? You kind of have to think of yourself as big, too—involved in that struggle for immortality. Especially embarrassing, in these self-consciously unpretentious times.

I admit that I hate that the paintings aren’t really titled. I’m a writer, I want a clue in words. I understand—the Grand Canyon didn’t name itself. But I’m bothered by it, and begin each looking “session” trying to name and describe before succumbing to awe.
I guess I’m in love with them (“I think I am in love with painting”) and the struggle is part of that.

I look at those paintings and they beat me up—or I fight them, fight even appreciating them, fucking jags of color. There’s a real abyss there, Grand Canyon sized drop—but also the possibility of flight. Reading interviews with Still—kind of opaque. Not much patience with other artists—their lack of integrity. But knew he was one of the great ones, so, here it is, take it or not. Makes me think that great art is always somewhere out beyond caring. The ocean does not mean to be listened to, as the poet said.

Difficult paintings , overwhelming, and cruel sometimes, but not stingy. Singular and great—is anybody doing that, now?

Union Steward (conclusion)

2011-05-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

I was in the yard playing with the dog when the phone rang in the kitchen. I ran in to catch it—this was pre answering machine. It was Ernie, sounding a little nervous. First the good news—the Op Manager had been fired. Then-and I’ll never know how this was worked out-- he said that my back pay would include severance pay, but that I really wasn’t being fired, I could just call it a leave of absence and after a year or so I should call him and he’d fix me up with something. “Finish school, travel, have fun. Hell, you’re not even twenty-one yet. Why work full time?” I decided in a second that I’d had it with the airlines. I must have been mad at Ernie but that’s not what I remember most—I remember feeling relief, and a funny kind of pride. I’d been blacklisted. A real revolutionary!

I decided to drop out of school and travel until the money ran out.

My last act as a lame duck was to call people and strongly suggest that my friend the Brit anarchist be elected the next steward. She was, and she raised hell, from what I heard.

The crew threw a nice goodbye party for me and I was presented with something that I kept for years—God, I wish I could find it now. Why didn’t I frame it? Someone in middle management—I think I know who, but she never copped to it—had broken into the personnel files and found my application for employment. Scrawled across the front, in red letters: DO NOT REHIRE! UNION TROUBLEMAKER!

Union Steward (part five)

2011-04-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

The airlines seemed intent on firing my co-worker.

Things went back and forth for a week or so. When the Airlines agreed to allow a grievance hearing I thought we had them on their knees. We still didn’t have a contract, but management had agreed to negotiate and things seemed to be moving. Raises were coming soon, we were assured. The crew was happy—morale was high. I remember some great parties during that period.

We met with Ernie and the lawyer at a Marriot in Century City. Went over strategy—that the clocking in rule was a form of intimidation and that employees tried in good faith to show up on time. I was to argue the case but Ernie and the lawyer would be there to watch my back. Were they grooming me, or throwing me to the wolves? I’ll never decide.

The rules regarding the grievance process are pretty ambiguous, at least with regard to transportation workers. Common sense would call for an arbiter, or at least a referee. This was backroom stuff—a couple of union reps, management, the accused, maybe a witness. No rules of order—you scream it out. And management makes the final decision, or at least they did at that point since we had no contract. I blew up when Ernie sketched out the “rules” a few minutes before the meeting, but I calmed down. What could I do? The accused just shook his head, leaned over to me, said, “I’m getting out of this bloody fucking country”.

That ride out from the terminal to the office in the blue and white tram then into a conference room that seemed too big for the occasion. We waited, then someone came in and said that the plans had been changed and that the meeting would be in Mr. Harlen’s office. Down a hall and up one flight of stairs. Big window facing the Pacific. The beach, the ocean, big planes heading off toward Asia. Very nice. We waited awhile—such an obvious strategy but the obviousness makes it more effective. Something like, “this guy is fucking with me because he can.” And the psych worked on me—I remember thinking, “we’re dead”. But Ernie chuckled and smiled that horizontal smile, said, “this is so fucking bush league”.

Harlen came in looking like The President of the United States. I’d never seen an expensive suit close up but I knew he was wearing one. Tall, with graying temples. A Skycap had told me that he was once a ticket agent and that he’d worked his way up the ladder. I’ve learned since that they’re the worst kind. Scab mentality. Think and grow rich, win friends and influence people. We all shook hands. I caught an eye roll from my defendant.

I mapped out my case and made my argument. Ernie backed me up but it seemed that his heart wasn’t in it. Harlen didn’t present any kind of argument. There was lots of sage-like nodding, ahems and uh-hums. At times he’d look out the window and nod, or follow the flight of a 747. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking but I didn’t, I just kept talking. First, I tried to show that a superhuman attempt was made to comply with the rules. I asked the accused a few questions, got the answers I expected, but there was no attempt to cross-examine, or whatever you’d call it in this situation. Then I questioned the rule itself. Harlen leaned forward, slowly, half-smiled, said, “but we make the rules Mr. Hill.” I got a blank look from Ernie. Instinctively I put a hand on my comrade’s shoulder. I figured he’d blow soon. But he didn’t. We’d been hung out to dry. I quickly reached that kind of anger where you feel steely and calm. This must be where people start shooting, I thought. Harlen straight at me, said, “Do you think I’m wrong, Mr. Hill?” and I felt, still feel, the ramifications. Morally wrong, destructive, evil, but correct in his statement. They made the rules. But I looked back at him, said, “yes, you’re wrong” and started a speech. Ernie cut me off with a look that could kill. Harlen said he’d “reach his decision” in a day or two.

The tram was usually a quiet place. I mean, it was noisy on the runway but people didn’t talk much. They were on their way to or from work, that funny transitional time. Lean back, rest your head against the window and enjoy a few minutes of freedom . We probably made that tram pretty uncomfortable for the others—yelling at Ernie Mogg. A double tirade—me calling him a trader and my friend bringing Kropotkin into the fight. Ernie waited it out, rope-a-doping us until we were out of insults. The word that seemed to wake him up was “scab.” I don’t remember who said it. He shook his head. No. He was big to begin with and he seemed to get bigger, and the lawyer, who had been playing the “I don’t know these people” game, joined the fray. They’d both been through hell for the union, really, and they lets us know it. Lost jobs and fistfights and jail time. The phrase I remember is “this is how we survive”. They hated the game too but they knew how to play, and if we’d just shut up and listen…

A few days later Ernie called me at home. “Harlen’s going to tell you that nobody will be fired over the rule, that he’d ease up on it. There will be a two week suspension without pay. When you talk to him, thank him. “ And he hung up. The call came and I did what I was told. My friend went back to England but his sister stayed on. She said she liked the states despite the sorry politics.

Contract negotiations dragged on for months but the intimidation eased off. Ernie would call occasionally and asked what I thought of this or that point. Mostly I agreed with him—happily surprised by some of the accommodations. They hadn’t gotten around to flight benefits but the proposed raise was substantial, also more sick and vacation pay and a more structured grievance procedure. Finally I got the call that a contract could be signed. The union rented a large suite at the Marriot, really swank, and called staggered meetings so that the whole crew could show. I was given a sick day to stay all day. The contract was good, solid. It included back pay dating from the day we signed our cards. The flight discounts were small and hard to obtain. Still everybody, even the “scabs”, voted yes. Money talks.

Union Steward (part four)

2011-04-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

I feel bad that his name escapes me. Thirtyish, working class Brit accent—a young Michael Caine would play him in the movie. He had moved to LA with his sister. I don’t remember what brought them over. The first anarchists I’d met—this was a couple of years before my punk period. Together they were a terror. Calling the bosses on their games, disgusted with us for being such wimps. Management put up with them, I think because of their accents. Gave the place some class. And they were white and I may as well say it—you could get away with more if you were. It was all about presenting at the airlines. Still is, but it was clunkier then. You could see the strings. The Corps are smoother now. They know how to use tokenism and when to cover their tracks.

He’d clocked in late after missing the tram. The Op Manager had taken a lot of shit from him, had had it. His paycheck had been stamped Termination. But not mine, this week. I gathered up my quarters and called Denver. Funny how memory works—I still remember the phone booth, graffiti’d and stuffy in the LA heat. Ernie wasn’t in but a woman on the phone gave me the rote instructions. Stay cool, send him home, wait it out. But my anarchist friend didn’t want to stay cool. He wanted to take the tram out to the office and bust some heads. I couldn’t physically restrain him, he was tougher than me. I suggested we go out and get a drink, cool off and make plans. I risked going home early. The shift supervisor was on the clock, pro union so I could get away with playing sick.

We knew an unlicensed limo driver. Nice guy—we’d steer people to his car and get a five buck kickback. He drove us to a Hyatt that had a nice hotel bar. We needed to get out of LAX. My comrade was livid. I was pretty scared. I don’t think “going postal” was a term we knew yet, but I feared that. I decided on a dubious strategy: I’d get him settled into the bar and feed him drinks. Of course alcohol can have any number of effects—I prayed that it would work as a sedative. He raved on and I bought the drinks. It must have cost me a week’s pay, and, get this: a few weeks later Ernie had the BRAC pay me back for those drinks. I’d done the right thing.

I was trying to protect what we’d put together. I knew if we got to the office we’d rip it up, probably get arrested. Me too, because I would have felt obligated to stand with my co-worker. No questions, either. I think, once, it was in people’s blood to feel loyal to co-workers. Well, many people. And I think that’s a lost value now. God, I hate this—sounding like an old fart, complaining that the world has gone to hell in a hand basket, but as I try to wrestle with the decline of organized labor I keep coming up with this, that it’s a character issue and something is missing, at least in the USA.

We were drinking well drinks, whatever they put in the gin and tonics. They started to do the trick. We reached that point where alcohol is a truth serum and we told our life stories. I wish I could remember the details but I think it was all pretty hardscrabble. I do remember him telling me that he liked animals better than people. He had a couple of dogs. He did have a passion for politics that came out of some love, or lost love, of humanity. I’m from a blue collar background myself so I’m loath to romanticize the “working class”. But this guy was the real thing. Perhaps we should have gone in there, torn up an office, knocked some heads…
We moved beyond the confessional phase and into something sloppier. He agreed to try things my way, to let the union pull him out of the fire. They’d done it for me. I trusted them.

I called our limo friend. He took us home for the cost of a tank of gas. Dropped of my co-worker first, in Inglewood, then took me southeast on the freeway to my house in Gardena. I was feeling that elated type of drunkenness, top of the world. I’d headed off a nasty situation and here I was, back seat of a big black Lincoln Continental, a labor leader.

Union Steward (part three)

2011-04-28T09:18:00.000-07:00

They threw out their nets—that is, they enforced every rule and wrote new ones. We were ordered to clock in ten minutes early for every shift. Difficult, because the trams didn’t run that often. I’d either clock in a couple of minutes late or come in half an hour early and hang around. Doesn’t seem like much but if you work five days a week you don’t want to waste that much time. People would try taking the later tram and running to clock in. They’d miss by a couple of minutes and find themselves on suspension, or fired. We were still negotiating a contract and it was tough to defend people while we were in that gray area. A couple of our best people just gave up, quit, and of course that played into management strategy.

I was fired, repeatedly, and I’d have to call Ernie Mogg and take the tram out to the office. Next day I’d be back on the job, but the intimidation was eating at me, at all of us. Pay checks were “lost” or “delayed” and managers from the offices staged surprise “inspections”. Pro-management workers were taken out for pricey dinners and given extra vacation days for “work well done”.

I was outside of baggage service on my break, hot late summer LA night, beautiful, people rushing by to catch a midnight flight to Dallas. Just enjoying the urban-ness of it all, even the scent of gas and jet fuel held some romantic mystery. All that movement! A Sky Cap came by and gave me a signal that said Let’s walk and smoke and we went out to the restaurant that looks like a Disney vision of some future that will never come. He lit up a joint and after he passed it he looked me in the eye and said “now you really have to watch your ass because Harlen is coming in from Chicago. He has one job in the system. He breaks unions. Listen, man: That’s ALL he does. He flies around and crushes people like you. We’ll back you up where we can but we’re facing layoffs. We can barely keep our people. Same with the mechanics.” I was young and naïve and therefore shocked, but also pissed off and as I write this years later I’m still pissed off, and I can feel the tension that I felt and that my rank and file felt that summer and fall.

If you work for a living you’ve felt that tension.

Union Steward (part two)

2011-04-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

2
We were contacted by the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks.

For some reason we were allowed to have a meeting at LAX. I think the union worked this out, possibly as a way of showing their influence. We sat at a conference table in the office building. There was a coffee urn and pitchers of water. That stagnant air and those funny acoustics. Everybody looked nervous. Our union rep had just flown in from Denver, Ernie Mogg. He was too big for his suit and had a horizontal smile—kind of Buddha-like. Next to him sat the union lawyer. Can’t remember his name but he was quite the stereotype. Unlit cigar, barrel chest, red-faced. I’m not making this up. They went through some set speeches and promised a few things—raises of course, and some sort of flight benefit. They were vague on that. I arrived at the meeting a little pissed off because the manager had been riding me, had threatened to “have my job”. I proposed that we not sign off on anything unless the BRAC promise to have the Operations Manager fired. To my surprise they readily agreed. I felt powerful—revenge is sweet.
Ernie and the lawyer collected our cards and just like that were in the Brotherhood (although there were more women than men in our rank and file). Ernie told us to elect a steward and three vice stewards, one from each shift. Everybody looked at everybody else then everybody looked at me. Ernie said, “just do it now since we have a quorum. You don’t need speeches. You all know each other.” One of the guys with a Muslim name nominated me. He said, “they’ll listen to Owen because he’s white and he doesn’t have a record. If I go in there we’re fucked.” A backhanded compliment if there ever was one but it was true.

And so I was elected. My deputies were plenty tough. A British anarchist for the day shift, a tough-as-nails dyke (haven’t seen her in years but I think she’d be pleased with that description). Her brother also worked the shift, and somehow they kicked the day people into line—by intimidation, mostly. Swing shift rep was a theology student at Loyola Marymount , my introduction to lefty Christianity. He was soft spoken but he was happy to fuck up management. I often wonder what happened to him. Graveyard shift belonged to my Muslim friend, who I can only remember as Gary because I met him before went for the skinny ties, shiny shoes, short hair and wrap-arounds.

The airlines stalled even though the law was on our side. A few weeks went by before the union called to say that negotiations had begun and that a meeting had been planned.

The day before the meeting we were fired. Me, the vice-stewards, one brother and a couple of fellow travelers.

The Op Manager approached me as I entered the locker room. Handed me a check. TERMINATED/LAST PAYMENT stamped across the front. I almost punched him—and as I write this I wonder how that would have changed my life. Another drop of adrenalin and I would have killed him without remorse. I had never felt the weight of that kind of power structure before—at least not in a personal way. And lashing out is, I think, a sane reaction. But I guess we don’t want to kill people…
He had me turn in my blazer and go home. I handed it over and boarded the employee tram back to the terminal, unemployed. I stopped in baggage service to inform my comrades. Borrowed a bunch of change, went to a phone booth and called the BRAC. Stay cool, go home, wait it out. Last thing I wanted to do but I went back in, took the tram out to the lot and drove home.

Getting fired sets up a strange psychology. Even if it’s management’s fault, a form of intimidation, whatever, you’re left with that kicked in the chest feeling. I shared an old house on the Torrance/Gardena border. We had a dog, a black lab mix and I remember walking the dog and feeling really low, then saying it’s not my fault then it is/it isn’t/it is. So strange, that we identify with our oppressors and give them all that power. But it happens, it’s a human trait.

The union acted, fast. I got an early morning phone call from Ernie Mogg, everything was fixed, we could report to work that evening. I guess they had some muscle, back then.

I got to work a little early and one of the mechanics met me as I entered the locker room. They had threatened to walk out, and so had the Sky Caps. The place was swarming with union reps. Coming from a union family I knew about strikes but I’d never encountered this—it certainly wouldn’t have happened at the Taco Bell in Redondo Beach. I clocked in and went out to baggage service and one of the Sky Caps—the union steward—shook my hand.
“ You may get your tires slashed and you shouldn’t take the tram alone. And record everything—write everything down!” and I have to admit that I was a little smug, didn’t believe him. And I was young and felt strong—could take care of myself.
But, just like he said, next morning, 3am I’m in the Employee lot changing a tire. At least they’d only slashed one. And I was scared and didn’t fell so young and strong.

From then on it was a war.

Union Steward (part one)

2011-04-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

1

I was nineteen when I was elected union steward. Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks. I had been hired out of high school to work in baggage service, checking claim stubs, tearing the tickets off bags, filling out lost luggage forms, taking guff from bagless passengers. After that first wave of hijackings—mid- seventies—the FAA had x-rays and metal detectors put in. The airlines needed cheap labor to run the operation. They hired fly-by-night security companies to handle things, then bought the companies and gutted them. For the cost of a few cheap blazers, some minimum wage workers and a couple of managers they could check bags well enough to satisfy the FAA. The old baggage service crew was laid off, but we were told that we could apply for jobs with the new company. Lower wage, cheaper suit, more work, no benefits. The latter cut was the hardest. We lost our flight discounts.

I wasn’t real employable, and needed something that fit with my school schedule—so I re-applied, picked up my cheap red blazer, and became a PSR (passenger service representative is what they called us). This meant spending half my shift in front of an x-ray machine, looking for weapons. I had never seen a real weapon, and the training session was an hour long joke. A bunch of us shared a joint before hand, hiding behind that stupid looking restaurant in the LAX parking lot. We were the first wave in the anti-terrorist army.

I reported for work at 6pm and worked ‘till 3am. An interesting time to be in an airport. It was tough work early in the shift. Lots of flights, lines of cranky tired people. After midnight there were two flights, outgoing to Dallas and incoming from JFK. A quiet airport is a strange and desolate place. I liked it, then, romanticizing everything like you do at that age.

A crew of about fifty covered all the shifts at Terminal 4. A ragtag group. I remember being shocked, and I have to say a little excited that there were so many ex-cons. Wasn’t there a screening process? I got along well with them. They were earnest, and, understandably, afraid of getting fired. Most of them were taking classes, nursing, business, the trades. They were surprisingly respectful of my literary pretensions—they loved poetry, or at least the idea of poetry. Odd that it was a place where I felt perfectly comfortable being a poet, unlike the office and retail jobs that followed. There was another faction on the staff—people who wanted to go up the ladder, become flight attendants and ticket agents, then move into management. They didn’t have a chance. It was like jumping from semi-pro softball to the major leagues. Management didn’t take us seriously—they saw us as a drain on profits, part of a boondoggle, a product of government regulation. Who needs the FAA? And they knew we were various brands of loser—Junior College students, ex cons, older folks who couldn’t afford retirement, artsy types. All the same to them.

If you do something every day you find a way to take pride. With no help from management, we got to know the x-ray machines. A dark bar at the bottom of the screen could possibly be a knife, especially if it showed lighter at one end. A co-worker with an interest in guns tutored me on the various types, shapes and sizes. We developed a system of signals, mostly to identify troublesome passengers. This wasn’t discussed, but over time I guess people decided that it was just better to do a decent job. I’ve seen it a lot in my working life—an esprit de corps that develops at the low end of the pay scale. Helps make things tolerable. Management tries to promote that, of course, with their pizza days and casual Fridays but when it’s fake it’s fake and everybody knows it. I didn’t, still don’t, like the idea of working in law enforcement but this seemed different. Who wants guns on an airplane? We moved the passengers through quickly and we confiscated some weapons, and at the end of the shift when we stopped at the Jolly Roger Coffee Shop we felt OK about the work.

If you work for a living you experience these clampdowns. A new middle-manager, a drop in profits, or just somebody bored at the top—the reasons are often a mystery to the working stiff. It’s like a stretch of bad weather, it passes but when it does things are a little worse than before. This guy had one of those typically ambiguous titles—call him Operations Manager. I imagine now that he had a military background—just back from Vietnam? The time would be about right. It wasn’t my first experience with the breed. In high school I worked frying tortillas at the local Taco Bell. My manager was a typical dumb-ass spit and polish type. One morning, after giving the prep crew some shit about shining fixtures, he had a war flashback fueled breakdown. Should have burned that draft card.
Our new Operations Manager was a little more polished on the surface but also kind of brittle. He fired a couple of people in his first month, picking off people who weren’t quite making the grade. Flexing his muscles. Then he hired a few people who seemed like old friends. Not really a strategy, just something that you expect out of a new boss. We complained amongst ourselves, and at first it didn’t go anywhere. Then things got closer to home. Good people were fired. People we counted on to show up and get the job done, friends. The airlines lost money and the company was fined a few hundred thousand for making illegal campaign donations—bad economy, bad publicity, nervous execs. Layoffs without notice or severance, increased work load, if you work you’ve been through it.

I’d like to say that my entry into union organizing came from some deep concern for the worker, or that I had worked out some sort of Marxist based philosophy, but, really I did It for love. The woman I was living with was in a car accident. Not too serious, but scary. I called in sick from the hospital, but I was too late. We were supposed to call in at least twenty-four hours in advance. Somebody in the personnel office transferred me to the operations manager, who gave me a good, military style dressing-down. I started to try and explain, then decided, what the fuck, and told him to go to hell. It felt pretty good so I elaborated a little and finished with a healthy fuck you. Didn’t wait to hear “you’re fired”, but I assumed it would be like that.

Next evening I showed up at work, thinking it would be my last day. Somehow word had gotten out—a hero’s welcome! Then a call from the office, and a ride on the employee tram out to the headquarters. I loved that ride, even if it meant going to some boring or painful meeting. The tram wound through the runways, under the wings of the big jets and the smell and the noise represented movement, world travel, escape. I felt afraid but also a little proud. An exciting job, and now I was getting fired. A true rebel.

But they didn’t fire me. I think I know why now—I was a workhorse, took on extra jobs, volunteered for overtime. Mostly to cut the boredom, but also because I was green. I thought it mattered, I guess. I think their idea was to break me, make me into a valuable asset. And I was a good candidate—the supervisor sensed this. So I got off with a lecture and some sort of demerit—don’t remember what system they used. Probably meant that I’d have to stay on the 3am shift, which didn’t bother me.
The guy who came in with the union cards was a student at The People’s Law School in LA. It really exists! He said I inspired him, but he was probably flattering me to get me on board. It worked—and it was easy to get my shift mates to sign up. The 3am shift was like the group W bench. A tough bunch. Cynical, too. They didn’t expect much to come of it but they appreciated the effort. Me either, at first, but I was pissed off beyond caring. They “elected” me to represent the shift at our early meetings.

The meetings were drinking and/or smoking sessions early AM, between graveyard and the morning shift. Lots of complaining, then, what do we do now? Followed by arguments and, sometimes, agreeing to disagree. The day crew was toughest. They were itching to move up in the world. But eventually, mostly, they came around. The Op Manager had made too many enemies, and maybe they sensed that there really wasn’t much for them to lose.

We didn’t have to hold elections. We just needed to get a majority of the employees to sign union cards. Old law—a nineteenth century victory by the porters’ union. They died for our sins—union elections are nasty affairs. Getting people to sign the cards was pretty easy. A little argument, a little bribery (free drinks), perhaps a little intimidation. Conditions were terrible and the boss was mean, so everybody was disgruntled. Still, there’s this anti-union sentiment that I believe is uniquely American. “I’m not a joiner.” Everybody’s John Wayne. I guess that’s our heritage—a blessing and a curse.

American Airlines was-is-known as anti-union in the extreme.

"There'll be times...

2011-02-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

... when the only refuge is books. Then you'll read as if you meant it, as if your life depended on it."

— Ken Bruen (The Killing of the Tinkers: A Novel)

F.A. Nettelbeck (1950-2011)

2011-01-24T16:52:00.000-08:00

Hermosa was a surfer town, still is, but now the surfers work well-paying day jobs. They have to—property values shot through the roof in the 80’s and they haven’t come down much. In ’76 I was sharing a house on Eighth Street—one of those cheap rent stories that old bohemians brag about. I was paying about a hundred a month for a nice room in a falling-apart beach house. Fireplace, enough of a yard for Emily, my lab mix, eight blocks from the beach and about three blocks from the bookstore.

I began my education in the Either/Or bookstore on Pier Avenue. I was attending classes at El Camino College and sneaking into others at Long Beach State (poets taught there), but I fed my head at Either/Or. Marx, Paul Goodman and I.F. Stone for my agitator side. McClure’s Meat Science led me out of the mainstream—thank you, Michael. I’d come in from the bright LA light and hit the politics sections, check out the fiction section for Bukowski or Bowles, look at poetry—Wanda Coleman was a favorite then. But I gave these shorter shrift--I was headed back behind the register, to a dimlit (nice contrast to all that beachy sunshine) small press section. An alcove, really. Mimeo, local stuff, handmade limited editions. Issues of Invisible City edited by Paul Vangelisti and John McBride, a long poem, The Burning of Los Angeles, by Jack Hirschman, mimeo edition with illustrations. Bertrand Mathieu’s translation of Season In Hell, intro by Anais Nin, illustrations by Jim Dine—I hear that translation in my head when I think of Rimbaud, “I sat beauty on my knee and I roughed her up…” SoCal poets some nearly forgotten—Locklin, Koertke, Steve Richmond, Stephen Jama. But also some that went on to “bigger” publication—Amy Gerstler, Dennis Cooper, Tom Clark, Elaine Equi…

I don’t remember the book, or the poem but at some point I stumbled onto F.A. Nettelbeck. Some permeation of Bug Death, in some mimeo, probably. I read it before I’d read Burroughs, possibly didn’t know about cut-ups—I met Harold Norse a year or so later, I think. That’s ok. I didn’t need historical context to appreciate the poems. Either way they would have taken the top of my head off, as the poet said. His filtering process was scary perfect. The thing that most sours me on “experimental” poetry is that, with most, there are so many more misses that hits. Too much wasted time, too many wasted words. Too much ego—why did they leave that in? I think, as I try to read. Nettelbeck never wasted time. Staccato little lines, hard hitting, a film-noir kind of feeling but not at all retro or clichéd: tribes rehearse the /ritual for the/videotaping/(the raper.) forcing/pink legs apart-after/this instinct settles/slowly like mud into/a dried out skull. Leafing through his work now I’m amazed at its rigor. Rigorous isn’t a word you’d usually associate with his “type” of poetry—the “road to excess” school. But, really, it takes a kind of stubbornness to stay on the road—it’s a long way to the palace. The street signs fly by. Who can read them, let alone choose those that matter and set them down in discernable (sublime!) order? One hell of a job—a life’s work.

Something like eighty per cent of Americans see themselves as middle class, which is a lie of course, there’s the oppressor class and then there’s the rest. I think, among the “middle class”, there’s a sneaky realization of that lie, like an itch you can’t scratch—or maybe a cancer. Some become more aware of the lie—and for some of us, at a certain age—late teens? Early twenties? There’s this search for authenticity—often embarrassing—white boys trying to sing the blues. Most give it up—possibly not a bad thing—society needs ballast, and it’s tough to keep up mortgage payments when traveling the road to excess. But I’m fascinated by those that stay true, or try. I’ve had long stretches on the road, but I’ve also stayed too long at the rest stops. Nettelbeck’s work had that blues singer/jazz musician/pirate quality, fascinating yet embarrassing to the middle class. Should we leave it be and stay bland? Appreciate from a distance? Jump right in and risk a life on the outside? Authenticity is a tough nut.

warm alcohol glow known
as god we are almost
home they say
repeat, give me something
warm—your arms clinging

I was working at Logos Books and Records in Santa Cruz when Americruiser came out, early eighties. After work I’d go to the Teacup Bar, in an old Chinese restaurant on Pacific Avenue. The earthquake of ’89 flattened the place. Nettelbeck drank there, but we didn’t talk that much. We had a mutual friend, Bill Simmons, a visual artist and if Bill was there I’d join in on group discussions. Mostly, I think, Nettelbeck went there for quiet drinks—me too—so we sat at opposite ends of the bar. It’s strange but kind of great to be immersed in the work of an artist, to see him or her in passing, watch from a distance. Possibly more to learn that way than from asking direct questions. He had a nice way with the bartenders—the Teacup hired young women, mostly of the punk persuasion. Those were Big Book years for me—athletic reading. Russian novels, Melville, lots of Gertrude Stein. And Joyce. A good way to go for awhile, until it becomes like too much rich food. Nettelbeck seemed to chew that stuff up and spit it back out at you. Not that those others haven’t stayed with me, and often nourished me—but, in a way, Nettelbeck has had a bigger effect. Or, more visceral at least—I saw what he was seeing. Living in Santa Cruz sans car meant taking Greyhound a lot, to San Francisco or Oakland to get a little taste of the urban. Nettelbeck sucked the poetry out the greyhound rides, the stations, and all that “real” stuff. And, reading back the previous sentence I realize how clichéd it can seem—“the only ones for me are the mad ones”. That searching for the real in the dark corners is, perhaps, an inauthentic practice for those who will probably return to the “middle class”. And, yet, the alternative is to ignore what’s going on—all that awful unruly stuff, all that depth. What’s a middle class boy to do? I don’t think Nettelbeck wrestled much with that one—he seems pretty aware that he’s part of the oppressed class, probably never thought of himself as middle anything. At least, that’s what his poetry says—more like, look at this sucker! Isn’t that an interesting bug?

'I have talked to mentally crippled idiots, holding good jobs.'

I imagine he never had a “good job.” The road to excess probably doesn’t allow for that. Another tough nut of an idea. Occurs to me that I’ll probably never enter the palace of wisdom—I worry too much about my retirement.

I think beginning in the eighties his poetry just didn’t get considered. I think people who did know about him saw him as a kind of Burroughs knock-off. I know they were pals, but I don’t see too much overlap, stylistically. But, mostly, I don’t think people of the eighties avant ilk read or thought about his work. I find this really fascinating—that he wasn’t picked up by the avant or post-avant. There was a fork in the road, somewhere, and the cutting edge became less edgy, more refined maybe but the visceral was given a wide birth. There was a lower gross out factor. And the pros and cons of having a good job didn’t get discussed. The cutting edge didn’t threaten the man in the gray flannel suit. Real life issues were left out of focus—like trickle down or the foreign wars. Nettelbeck’s poetry points to the elephant in the room. Hell, he scared me! To stretch the zoo animal metaphor, he was like those monkeys that throw their own shit at the patrons. Take that! The message being: I’m in a cage, fucker. Let me out! (or, Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!). This is dangerous stuff—enough to make most get off the road to excess at the next off ramp. One good way to avoid the issue—marginalize the whole thing by declaring it out of fashion—or doing a Gertrude Stein—“that doesn’t interest us”.

Sen Bernie Sanders Amazing Speech!

2010-12-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

Hardboiled for Hard Times

2010-10-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

PM Press is sponsering a slew of readings around
the Bouchercon convention at the Embarcadero Hyatt.
I get to read with all these great crime writers. I'll
read a little from Incredible Double but will also
mix in something from a new novel.

Also--don't spread this around, but there's a private
party Sunday 10/17--a chance to drink with the cream
of lefty noir. Email me and I'll give you the lowdown.

Tour Dates Below--more info at pmpress.org:

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010:
7:30pm
Kim Stanley Robinson
Terry Bisson
Gary Phillips
Counterpulse

Thursday, October 14th, 2010:
7pm
Gary Phillips
Summer Brenner
Benjamin Whitmer
Michael Harris
The Green Arcade

Friday, October 15th, 2010:
7pm
Lars Mars and His Men
Jim Nisbet
Sin Soracco
The Green Arcade

Saturday, October 16th, 2010:
7:30pm
Gary Phillips
Summer Brenner
Benjamin Whitmer
Michael Harris
Kenneth Wishnia
Owen Hill
Pegasus Books Downtown

Monday, October 18th, 2010:
7:30pm
Benjamin Whitmer
Michael Harris
Jim Nisbet
Owen Hill
Summer Brenner
Moe's Books

Tuesday October 19th, 2010:
7:30pm
Benjamin Whitmer
Michael Harris
Summer Brenner
Pegasus Books Downtown

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010:
Barry Eisler
Owen Hill
Benjamin Whitmer
Michael Harris
Counterpulse

Frank O'Connor Festival

2010-09-08T15:42:00.001-07:00

Flying to Ireland tomorrow to read at the Frank O'Connor short story festival. I'll be reading at the Metropole Hotel in Cork Thursday Sept. 16th at 9:30. The invitation came as quite a surprise--my last two prose books were the crime novels. A couple of short stories were published in magazines in recent years--tiny mags with small circulation. My only book of short fiction, Loose Ends, is out of print--I'll be lugging my copies to the festival, since they aren't available. Reading a couple of new things, actually trying them out for the first time, a little nerve wracking. Lots of Quality Lit Types are reading at the fest--we'll see how my stuff plays out of Berkeley.

Beyond Parody

2010-09-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

Anybody out there read Tables for Two in The New Yorker? Best over the top (table top?) food writing ever.

This weeks review of Ma Peche on 56th street is a prize winner. First time I've seen juxtaposing used in a food review--thought the word was reserved for undergrad English papers. Reviewer is referring to a mix of "voluptuous twists of raw fluke" with strawberries and pistachios. Sounds like the bottom of my trash can! Also described: Tripe and jowl thrown into a frisee salad (from across the room?), and gooey chunks of pig's head...stuffed into a breaded parcel (!)

There's a note about the rice fries, whatever they are: regular fries need not fear imminent redundancy. Now I know what fries talk about when they visit their therapists.

I love the New Yorker.

Let them eat gooey pigs head!

The emperor isn't just naked--he's spread eagle and has peed himself.

blood and

2010-06-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst!

Moby Dick

Oil

2010-06-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

...the pursuit of whales is always under great and extraordinary difficulties...

the wine dark (and edgy) sea

2010-06-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

Last month I reviewed a short story collection for the LA Times. Established literary authors, mostly, doing crime fiction. I couldn’t give it a bad review. The stories were deft, fun—vacation reading. The setup—todays great authors write about sex and crime. Dark, edgy…hmm.

Last year I went to one of those dinners that book buyers occasionally get to attend. It was at a really nice restaurant in Rockridge (Brooklyn West—cute eyeglasses, baby strollers…). The author had come up from the ranks, big time school, Yaddo. Paris Review, other major journals that nobody reads. Stories in the New Yorker. Well crafted stuff. Pre dinner chat, before the author came in, was dominated by somebody from the publisher, proclaiming the novel “dark and edgy”. She lowered her eyes before making the claim, hunched her shoulders, then looked up, between “Dark” and “Edgy”, eyes wider. During dinner (fresh, local ingredients. Of course) I heard the word “dark” half dozen times. In the world of mainstream publishing dark was the new black.

I’d read the novel. It held my interest—a going away to college, coming of age in the ( 60’s, or 70’s or fill in your own decade, hair style, slang terms….) book. Featured a possibly psycho student, but not too psycho. This was a literary novel, not crime fiction. It was well written, in that MFA way. No big mistakes.
Dark and Edgy?

I’ve recently read some dark and edgy novels—Nothing Left for the Dead by M. Cazadores, the reprint of Sin Soracco’s Low Bite, last year’s I-5 by Summer Brenner. I’m going to do more reviewing in this blog, so I’ll get to these. But for now—I’m sitting at my desk with the New Yorker’s Under Forty issue. I’ve read some stories, parts of others. They read as one long work— could have been written by the same person. This amazes me, considering the cultural and racial diversity of the writers. Why so? A sort of studied, nonchalant style, a nod to their various cultures—lots of nodding, actually. Serious enough to be dubbed “dark”. Small gestures. Small. The author photos (drawings, actually) tell me something. Nobody’s throwing caution to the wind here. Everybody’s groomed. Subtle nodding in the direction of identity—she could be Hispanic, he could be gay, he went bald had to shave his head….I so often think of the Burroughs quote about hippies—“not a decent fuck in the entire generation”. I can’t imagine these people having over-the-top sex, and, likewise, I think, I can’t imagine these people saying the wrong thing at an awards dinner, embracing an unpopular cause—or, also likewise, twisting the living shit out of a sentence, tossing off a line that they may regret later, following a blind narrative ally, going on a little too long, cutting something off short—all important elements in writing fiction.

Mainstream American “literary” fiction is, mostly, bland, forgettable, throwaway stuff.
Am trying to understand why this is true—and why it’s esp. true in the U.S. Or maybe it’s only true in the U.S.—I don’t have the knowledge to know this, but I sense it, for instance, when I read Bolano.

I don’t think I get it, but then maybe I do.

It’s over for America. We’re on the skids. Undeniable fact. It’s breaking down. Most people have sensed this for twenty years or so, in a theoretical way. Lately, it’s real and it’s here.

Tough trying to make a living in quality lit—with the economy (hell, the entire culture) doing a fast crash. If you’ve got that MFA, and the New Yorker wants you… tough to rock the boat. Especially tough to rock a boat that’s so obviously sinking. Fifty years ago, when Krim wrote Making It, things were different. Those guys (mostly guys) were going for the big prize, taking big, arrogant swings. These people are holding their shit in, hoping to stay afloat. First instinct—the survival instinct--is to keep floating, a little longer—maybe somebody else, somewhere, will save us.

But perhaps a strong survival instinct is a bad thing, in the arts. Perhaps, at times, the most responsible thing a “literary” writer can do is to, at first, seem irresponsible. Maybe it’s time to kick a bigger hole in that leaky boat. Sink it, see who swims to shore, see who can build a new boat.

As mentioned before, I’ve read some fiction that does this. Somewhere, between the literary mainstream (ugh) and the avant guarde (yuk!) there’s dark, edgy stuff. And also some light.

2010-03-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

San Francisco Zen Center Presents:
The Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project Exhibition

Friday, April 2
7:30 - 9:30 pm
300 Page Street

San Francisco The San Francisco Zen Center is proud to announce the first US exhibition of the al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project—in its entirety of 130 works—commemorating the 2007 car bombing of Baghdad’s al-Mutanabbi Street. Please join SFZC on Friday, April 2 for the exhibition opening, featuring a poetry reading by contributing authors from the anthology Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, including project founder, Beau Beausoleil.

As the historic center of Baghdad book-selling, al-Mutanabbi Street—named for the famed 10th century classical Arab poet—is a winding street filled with bookstores and outdoor book stalls. It had been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community. Though it ran through an area that primarily consisted of Shia and Sunni Muslims, the street was visited by all Iraqis.

Letterpress printing has historically been the platform by which many cultures found out about current events. Put up quickly in the places where people walk and gather, their visually bold and easily accessible messages spread the word simply and concisely. The Al-Mutanabbi Street collection, which includes works from artists around the globe, likewise announces that this attack on culture took place, establishing its inclusion as part of a cultural community that has no geographic bounds. These Broadsides provide a visible starting place for our collective grief or aspirations for a more just society; the al-Mutanabbi Street Broadsides ask what it means to erase culture.

The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition has been organizing readings and other events since April 2007. Over 130 letterpress printers have contributed broadsides to this project that speak to the enduring power of poetry and art.

TICKETS: This event is free and open to the public. Any donations will go to Doctors Without Borders.

and this just in

2010-03-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

Double was just reviewed on the Urban Outfitters blog.
Not sure what to think about this--will I be on their
book table, next to the cat books, sex books, drinking
games...is this my big chance to corrupt the youth of
America? and who is this Molly person?

The Incredible Double

Corporate tricksters, poets, conspiracy theorists, nutjobs and cult members all figure into Owen Hill's mystery novel The Incredible Double, released by the tiny (but well-regarded) PM Press. The book's description is its own endorsement.
-Molly

two by Darrell Gray

2010-03-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

These are from Halos of Debris, Poltroon Press,1984

Always loved the feel/design of this book. Also the cover photos by Kathryn Sylva. My copy is a little worn--I'm afraid to open it too wide, might split--will have to hunt down another.

FEARING WHAT WE WISH

A bird
flies backward
to become the first sign of morning

Time simmers
and runs
like young un-
requited love

I too am young-
so young my fingers fuse
into one blob when I try to write

I have been told
the very old
dance at the violet center

FLYING COLORS

Some day, if you are good enough
They'll run you up the pole
And in full view
Of helicopters
And routine nuns
You'll be the gentle monster
they once knew
Alone and on display
With flying colors

Crime in the City: Crime/Noir writers

2010-03-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

Crime in the City: Crime/Noir writers

Wed., March 17, 7:30 pm (free)

CounterPulse
1310 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 626-2060

"Crime fiction is almost like a product of capitalism. It's about social inequality" --Ian Rankin, best-selling crime novelist

Join four of the finest exponents of crime and noir as they discuss how fiction is not just a mirror to the seamier sides of life, but the
proverbial hammer with which to shape it.

Owen Hill is the author of two novels and many books of poetry. Of his latest, The Incredible Double, David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times said,"...here we have the essence of noir, a life lived at the edges". He lives in Berkeley, where he works as a bookseller and curates a reading series.

Jim Nisbet, long regarded as one of fiction's best kept secrets, is about to claim 2010 as his own, with the publication of two new novels, and the reissuing of ten of his previous classics!
novel of sex-trafficking, I-5 made numerous book of the year lists for 2009, and is an underground best-seller.

Peter Maravelis is the best-selling editor of San Francisco Noir and San Francisco Noir 2. He has worked at City Lights bookstore for many years as the readings co-ordinator.

Co-sponsored by PM Press.

thoughts on LOC part 2

2010-01-25T16:14:00.000-08:00

Perhaps (I hope) LOC will add some energy toward a future Darrell Gray Collected (or at least a selected, or reprints of a book or two). I know lots of poets who would appreciate his work--who,sadly, have never or barely read him.

Until then I think I'm going to (without permission) retype some of my favorites, at random:

A Tone Diverts The Summer

The lights are at risk in the unconscious effort
One thinks of their movement
As mutable tables are covered with tiny wings
In rooms reproduced on the hillside

A girl with the gaze of an angel
Today might not be invisible
When the lightning unfastens its silvery bone
And the moment becomes a system of docks and tears

The tables support an effort of mutable risks
The lights flow over the flesh
The wings reproduce a silence over the docks
As a bedroom appears in the morning

The Light Is Not Wrong

The night is not wrong
to have covered so simply

the one downcurving branch
so late in the evening

Moving

There comes the time
moving its house
the yard and the cat
that can't come back.

The dark was big. The car
went through,
And what they thought
they thought they knew--

the yard, the house,
the car, the cat.
Goodbye, goodbye. It
seemed so real.

These are from Something Swims Out, published by Blue Wind Press, with collages by
Tim Hildebrand and George Mattingly (the publisher). Beautiful book--hard to find.

Book review: 'The Incredible Double' by Owen Hill

2010-01-20T15:04:00.001-08:00

Los Angeles Times

Jacket Copy

Book review: 'The Incredible Double' by Owen Hill

Posted using ShareThis

thoughts on Life Of Crime--part 1

2010-01-15T14:59:00.000-08:00

Life of Crime (Poltroon Press)

1

I was in Junior High, or what the Torrance Unified School District called Middle School.

Tricky Dick was coming to LA (I believe this was ’69). Big demonstration. I told my parents I would be spending the day at the beach. We hooked a ride with somebody’s older brother. He and his girlfriend tried to be protective (“stay away from the cops, and RUN…”), but they kept giggling. Stoned, I guess.

We parked, walked, sat on the grass in Exposition Park and read the dirty parts of the LA Free Press. Talking to the (mostly older) demonstrators, I felt like a rube from the suburbs. They were smart, combative, full of juice. Probably full of shit, too, but that’s part of being young. They cared about stuff.

Things got pretty rough. People were being beaten. It was routine by then—a year after ’68
.
I remember thinking that the cops looked bored. In my imagination I recall hearing the sticks make contact with skulls, but maybe not….as ordered, we stayed outside the hot spots. The older kids (especially the girls) watched out for us, and we loved the attention.

I remember hiding my face when a TV camera looked my way. My parents watched the news every night—would be hard to explain.

Later that summer, on the beach in Redondo, I remember feeling (first time?) the bland isolation of the suburbs, and also feeling that things were passing me by. Our older brothers and sisters were on the front lines, and I (we) would never know that kind of excitement. It’s a kind of Mister Roberts feeling—the war was somewhere else. I’m not quite the Ensign Pulver type—or maybe I am and I haven’t reached that boiling point, or I did once and nobody noticed.

2.

Have been reading Life of Crime, the collected newsletters from the Black Bart Society, pub. 80’s, having that feeling. At the time I was living in Santa Cruz, working at Logo’s Books, splendid isolation. I was pretty avidly reading stuff from both sides. Was drawn by personal taste to the Darrell Gray side of things. Used books would come into Logos—things from Toothpaste press, or copies of L=, and I’d read them both together, sort of weighing both sides. Not that my opinion counted—I wasn’t part of either coterie, didn’t publish (except a few poems in issues of Atticus out of San Diego). It just seemed important do know about it all. Such different approaches to poetry! You had to be one or the other. I went for the other. They seemed tougher, scruffier. And I had political reasons. Everybody with half a brain saw the rise of the right—this was when R-ism was taking hold. And all these people with lefty histories (editing socialist rags, etc), who could have formed an alternative voice in the arts, chose to retreat into Theory. I saw that as an act of cowardice—but I was young, naïve. They were just trying to take care of themselves, as people will do. Not that everybody had to write agitprop—I’ve never believed that—but some sort of resistance seemed called for—something beyond “the subject is language”. The Life of Crime people weren’t exactly overtly political, but there was an attitude that said, “Fuck this”—something that I related to Punk, Anarchy, things that I identified with.

The times just called for a “no-holds-barred” attitude. So many poets/artists wimped out. We know how the academy will set down that period. Profs won’t be assigning Paradise Resisted, even though it nailed the times as well as any book out of that period. Perhaps some of the New Narrative books will get some attention—they were probably the best pure writers—but I wouldn’t bet on it. I think of the eighties as one of those periods in US history when we lost a chunk or our collective soul—a few poets saw this and tried to grapple with it. Sadly, some of the best minds of that generation read postmodern philosophy, in translation, and will be assigning that junk until retirement. The war's lost, or it's someplace else.

3

If you’ve been a nihilist, and you’ve survived, you’re going to have to suffer some embarrassment.

God, the things I did/said at Punk shows, readings and in my own mags. Sour grapes, revenge, hurt feelings, spur-of-the-moment bad taste…

Mostly LOC’s pretty Don Rickles, no way you’d take it seriously, and the social context that I’m trying to get a handle on is subtext. There, though. Current poetry wars are missing that—hard to tell the flarfers from the slowpos without a program, and despite Dale Smith’s attempts to make it real, they’re mostly arguing over style. I long for a little more pettiness, mixed with delusions of grandeur. It’s war! Not a debating class.

As I read LOC I either think, Glad I didn’t say that! Or (sometimes of the same piece) Wish I’d said that! Just letting go and saying anything—a great feeling, at the time. Sometimes it makes for great art. There are few pieces in LOC that transcend the times. The Lives of the Poets entries are crack-up funny, there’s a piece by Nanos Valaoritis that is quite beautiful—and lots of funny stuff by Codrescu and Keith Abbot. A Bob Kaufman poem, and a great poem by Gray. A little digression: When, Oh When, will somebody publish a Darrell Gray collected? So much of his work is hard to find. HE IS AN IMOPRTANT POET!

4.

Day six with LOC on my desk and I can’t stop reading, dipping in and out. I’m a poet, and poets love this shit. I think all this conflict is reassuring in a way—proof that somebody gives a shit. Because, if you give your life to poetry (a form of religious fanaticism) few people outside the subculture are going to care. Your’e in a lonely place. If somebody attacks your work you can assume they’ve read (at least some of) it. Might be fun, to be attacked by the likes of Tom Clark or Alastair Johnston. At times, reading LOC, I feel a little jealous. I published a couple of mags, and tried to be scurrilous, but nobody’s ever written “your magazine is an hysterical mishmash of pointlessness.” What’s Pat Nolan got that I don’t have?

news flash

2010-01-08T17:39:00.001-08:00

I will be reading at Cafe Azul, 521 Fourth St., Santa Rosa Sunday at 2pm and at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge, Sunday 1/24 at 2pm.

Also interviewed by Kevin O'Neill for Mary, the St. Mary's Lit Mag:

http://dithyramb.org/mrry/content/reviews/3.htmlAn Interview with Owen Hill
dithyramb.org

Hallowed Rewind 2

2010-01-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

4/98

city
keeps me awake
turn on Brahms
then the tv
homless
singing
outside
15 days into
spring
no flowers
in view
what do irises
look like
almost
imagine
snapdragons
bird of paradise
scent of gardenia
comes to mind
honeysuckle
is I think
edible

sinbad
the sailor
could save
his love from
deadly poison
if he could bring
a blue rose
or so the genie
told him and so
he battled various
movie monsters
across landscapes
of painted sand
blue flower
at the end of a maze
behind glass doors
he could not enter

hitches a ride
on a low-tech
special effect
monster bird
you could almost
see the wires
and strings
disembarks
with a red rose
says to his love
imagine this blue
and they do
and the genie
is a fool
or is fooled

strange
conversations
imaginary friends
outside and down
I like pink carnations
best they don’t
look real
artificial turf
has long been
a fascination
forever green
and almost
lovely
so little care
with a little
imagination
the lawns
aren’t phony
and all is well

fortune cookies part 1

2009-12-11T17:17:00.000-08:00

the future's in your lap
so keep it warm

--Flo and Eddie

Hallowed Rewind--part one

2009-11-16T11:09:00.000-08:00

I was at a poetry party. Pretty big party--Eileen Myles was the guest of honor, so there was lots of factional crossover. 21 Grand types, flarfers, 4th gen langpo--I feel embarrassed listing them because I'm so out of it now that I can't recognize the categories, let alone the players. Where's my scorcard? But it was pretty comfortable--or as comfortable as parties can be, for me. I thought, I'm a poet, they're poets, lots in common. But---

Talking to a younger poet--I really like her work. She's read in the series I curate, knows me as a buyer for the store. But said--"I didn't know you wrote poetry." Seemed quite surprised. She knew about the novels.

I realized that I haven't published poetry in years--except for two exceptions, David Brazil's mag, Try, and one chapbook on Blue Press. I've wanted to publish more, but my poetry seems miles behind (or ahead, or just outside) what other poets are doing now.

Lateley (to quote William Talcott) my ego's been barking. I've been rewriting old poems, and writing new ones. Would like to have a "New and Selected" published, but doubt there would be much interest. So--I'm going to post stuff as I finish, starting with early rewrites. Next party--I'll just point 'em to my blog.

Hallowed Rewind
new and selected poems

Loose Ends

We were on the roof gray day
The sky blended in with it
Saw a bird kind of slate
Said maybe we could go out
Get a drink or something noticed
A gray pole and a broken antenna
A rope wound around knotted
At the end knot made a clanging

Saw some blue beyond the clouds
Then didn’t you said what movie
Is this something foreign judging
By the slowness of the plot your
Head was in your hands then
You straightened stood stretched
Drifted to the edge

Secret Agent Man

People who wear exotic clothes
Often have conventional minds
I’ve decided to dress like a clerk
For the rest of my life

I once considered taking a vow
Of silence but feared I’d attract
Too much attention as a mute

I go to an office and file until lunch
Go for a sandwich at a sandwich place
Return to the office and file some more

I Wish They All Could Be

God only knows what I’d be without you
Shiver bow my head walking the avenue
Where people routinely bounce off the walls
Like bumper cars then fall in heaps
At the end of the street just like the plague

Only to be carried away in flatbed trucks
Crying 96 tears into 98 wounds

The Reviewers speak--all two of them

2009-10-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

we all come into this world
with our little egos equipped

with individual horns now
if we don't blow them who

else will

--George Sanders

Tough to get reviewed these days--especially hard for small press writers.
The New York Times passed--also TLS, New York Review, um--SF Chronicle, Rain
Taxi...but a couple of nice feature pieces the Express and Daily Planet.

Garrett Caples' review in the Guardian got bumped:

Double Penetration

The Incredible Double
by Owen Hill
PM Press

review by Garrett Caples

Poet, bookseller, reading series curator at Moe’s Books in Berkeley, Owen Hill is among our under-recognized literary talents. Like Kenneth Fearing before him, Hill has turned to the detective novel as a genre befitting a poet’s love of phrasemaking. The Chandler Apartments (2002)—an actual building around the corner from Moe’s—introduced readers to book-scout-turned-unlicensed-PI, Clay Blackburn, who returns for a new novella, The Incredible Double (PM Press, $13.95). This phrase, initially referring to sex when a man comes twice before withdrawing, accrues many significations, from doppelgangers to double agents to group sex, suggestive even of Clay’s bisexuality (much meditated on, though consummated in Chandler, not here).

She was a bundle of clichés, but again, I wasn’t noticing. Or maybe it’s that in Berkeley we live with a different set of clichés.” Here Clay announces Hill’s great achievement. For Berkeley seems a recalcitrant city for noir aesthetics. Yet Hill finds what he needs; Telegraph bums become informants, anarchists gun-toting muscle, Trieste a suitably low-key clandestine rendezvous. A trip to Orinda evokes all the disdain of Marlowe’s visit to Burlingame in The Big Sleep. Hill’s style is tasty but not overblown: in the first paragraph, on Route 24, Clay “wagged a middle finger”—a phrase so wrong becomes more right, like the dog that “screamed” in Stephen Crane’s “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky.”

The plot—involving a Wal-Mart-like organization’s attempt to penetrate the Bay with evil retail—isn’t quite perfunctory, though it’s more a premise for Clay to muse on his obsessions: poetry, sex, wine, espresso, etc. As it grows more fantastic, the book heads in the direction of David Meltzer’s Agency Trilogy, a fine direction indeed, exceeding pulp much as Meltzer amps up pornography to where it explodes. All in all, Double is an excellent contribution to the tradition of poets’ pulp fiction.

Also, a review/post on Andrew Goodwin's excellent blog, Professor of Pop:

Owen Hill's first novel, The Chandler Apartments, was a page-turner, read literally in one frenzied Saturday morning. Declaration of (minor) interest: Owen is a friend of a friend (& once kindly gave me discount @ Moe's but don't tell anyone that.)

Here's the opening para from his new novel The Incredible Double, words that will draw you in like a punter to a strip club -- ok then problem drinker to a dive bar -- if you read them aloud:

+++

"My '87 Tercel is in great shape, only a hundred thousand miles and almost new everything, but it does have trouble with the Bay Area hills. Coming out of the tunnel on 24, leaving Berkeley, heading toward the suburbs, I was losing speed and the SUVs were losing patience. I shifted it down into second and wagged my middle finger. My best friend Marvin says that driving slow in a small car is a revolutionary act. Maybe's he right. A woman in a Hummer, no lie, who probably weighed in at 97 pounds, half of it hair, gave me a look that could kill and, waved her phone at me. When you think of spoiled little brats in military vehicles careening through the 'burbs, you know how rotten the twentieth-century will be."

+++

Most important 2 words: no lie. That gives you the genre for cert & tells you that while our narrator has some ironic distance on Marvin, they are perhaps (or were) ideological cousins. Owen isn't afraid of cheap shots if they're funny & tell you something ("half of it hair") because he knows he's been freed by genre. The prose never drifts into agitprop but it's constantly hinted at it, as if this were an Op-Ed piece in Socialist Worker, written by a poet with an acute sense of humour. The first para immediately sets up the dystopian world we are about to enter but you don't feel trapped in it exactly. You just know that the mise-en-scene for wherever our story & our narrator are headed is going to be "rotten".

And this rotten-ness dear voyeur from cyberspace is happening right here right now in river city as Berkeley gets increasingly comfy with being a rich town (a security guard asked Susan to move her bag from where it might be stolen last night @ about 6pm... on a main throughfare in mf Rockridge) where even the south side (site of the Historic POP Homeland) has monster homes and monster cars and of course therefore monster peeps.

Like The Chandler Apartments, The Incredible Double captures a time & a place perfectly: here, now. But that would be boring because it would be too obvious, so Hill never forgets that you make it interesting (& significant) if you pepper the story with nostalgia for times passed.

He does, after all, drive an '87 Tercel.

Raymond Williams once described literature as a record of lived experience which is of course not always the case since neither lived nor experience are really the correct terms for a lot of contemporary fiction. But in the case of the savvy crime-thriller, if you can set the noir against the nostalgia then you have one powerful vehicle (if you're a poet) for evoking the time & the place that is the fag-end of Berkeley as we now know it.

And anyway, whether or not you care about that (& you should), Owen Hill has written another page-turner.

+++

WCW

2009-07-23T13:12:00.000-07:00

"resist

the cracking

weather

on all fronts"

"Revolutionary" Letters

2009-07-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

"I think I'm so educated
and I'm so civilized cuz
I'm a strict vegetarian..."

never felt so normal

as at the anarchist

demonstration

steps of sproul

tried to read

your crazy shaved head

attracted in spite

if you took the factory

it would stink

in that great

unshowered

tradition

like Henry Miller's

crotch

tarzan tarzan make

me a home in the trees

ape man fantasies

the pure joy

of the coconuts

as they fall

in imagined

slow-motion

split some lousy

skulls

in the room the women

come and go

(and the guys

too) the names

of six big

commie theorists

dropped in as many

minutes in my own

living room

if we took the factory

we couldn't make shit

I think I get it

go slowly

eat locally

seems somewhat

revolutionary

one last tomato

please oakland

grown no more

mozzarella di

bufala unless

they milk those

poor beasts

in golden gate

park

and that's

a different

kind of bufala

anyway

at the Claremont

farmer's market

in the DMV parking lot

no lie

I suck on a nectarine

dreaming of imported

cheese

I have suffered like Che

Pancho Villa and Malcolm

O give me a home where di

bufala roam

and the prosciutto is cured

down the block

Personal Poem

2009-07-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

catching the rise

of the rhythm wave

out the door

wind hits left side

of my face

turn left on the avenue

a walk among the bogus

Running on Fumes Part 1

2009-07-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

There are a couple of places in The Long Goodbye where Marlowe has nothing to say, and Marlowe as narrator says just that--I let it ride...I didn't say anything at all. Other places where the hardboiled wisecrack is called for but passed over--as if Marlowe (or Chandler) was tired of the sound of his voice.

The similes are also less frequent. I just started rereading the middle novels--not sure how the the progression works--but between Big Sleep and Long Goodbye you can feel a difference in the rhythm. There are more similes per page in Sleep, making for a boom-boom-boom forties give-and-take--William Powell, or Bogey.

Long Goodbye is sick, sad and world weary. Chandler working on fumes. The movie was just right--Gould/Marlowe is tired in that I can't go on I'll go on way.

The color of stepped on gum
is the color of our times.
The light of our times is
the light in the 14th St.
subway at 2 a.m. The air
of our times is the air of the
Greyhound depot, Market
& Sixth. It is prime time. A passed
out sailor sits pitched
forward like a sack of laundry
in a plastic bucket seat
his forehead resting on
the movie of the week. The Long Goodbye.

Tom Clark

I'm trying to understand why that's so appealing. There's
something that Tom said once--we were talking about F.A
Nettelbeck, and Tom said that he writes like he just doesn't
care. I almost took it wrong, then understood--Nettelbeck
doesn't seem to care what the reader thinks--he seems
beyond career goals, proving a point, or doing the right thing...
I think the thing I hate most about contemporary writing
(when I'm hating contemporary writing) is the earnestness--
poets "care" too much. The caring disease seems to infect
all schools. The chips aren't allowed to fall, even (or especially)
in the most "avant" work.

A key word: Anymore. As in, "I just don't give a shit anymore",
or, "I can't go on anymore, I'll go on." (apologies to Beckett).
Why/how does that feeling of exhaustion--universal, open up the soul (ouch!),
somehow let the light in. And the word anymore, which has a sad
open-then-closed, three beat sound to it.

What I'm reading: Obviously Chandler, Tom Clark's blog
Beyond the Pale: tomclarkblog.blogspot.com, proofs of the
new Lethem novel.

the fish in this barrel lack flavor/part one

2009-07-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

OK

... so I'm following along--reading the poetry blogs. Slo-po-con-flar-po, whatever--happy to not have to take sides. Telling myself that I don't care but after coffee and the Times I'm reading the blogs. All the various arguments are old news but the personalities are an interesting study--I've met the players, most of them have read at Moe's. I think they see me as the guy who sets up the mic, I don't push my own work--don't think they'd be that interested. They're mostly a generation or two younger than me, and I can't help thinking of them as nice kids. They're all quite professional, have good manners. You couldn't tell a flarf from a slowpo if you saw them coming down the street--mostly from the middle classes, or if not they've learned to "pass". Lefties, intellectual, socially concerned. Hard working--teachers, tech writers. Can talk the talk and for all I know they walk the walk (throw trash in the right bins, bike to work, eat locally grown...). The kinds of folks I like, feel comfortable with. And yet...something's not quite right.
Too good to be true...

Remember Teflon? Been replaced by other nonstick surfaces, but I'd bet that the new ones are just as toxic. Teflon still works as a metaphor, though, esp. now that we have another Teflon prez.

There's something that I believed when I was younger (and gave up on) that is coming back around to haunt me now--will (possibly over) use the Teflon meta. to try and explain: good poetry comes out of the gunk, the stuff that sticks to the pan. Great poetry comes when the pan isn't properly cleaned. Stuff grows there, and it smells bad--unpleasant, sickening maybe--but it changes perception--could even cause ecstatic hallucinations--but, also, fever, sickness...

I don't want to believe this--want to write it off as a late-middle-age (temporary) return to romanticism. I've kept my nose clean--kept those nasty bits hidden away, washed the "pan" whenever possible--

Troubling...

Maybe I'm working with too little information. Maybe there's an Artaud out there, a real loose cannon who will break away and be brilliant--and who won't be invited to the parties.

related note---Trying to work out why I'm so bored with found texts. Looking back at my own poetry, it's full of the stuff--and I used to really love that feeling I'd get from finding the perfect goofy/scary/poignant line buried somewhere--"I get my best lines from stupid people" -Burroughs. Nowadays I couldn't care less. Perhaps it's the fish in a barrel quality that comes from all the googling (jesus, I do it too--who can resist?). No shock of the new there--on to something else?

what I'm reading: We Did Porn by Zak Smith, Artaud Anthology (ed. Hirschman),
Slanted and Enchanted by Kaya Oakes

R.I.P.

2009-06-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

-- Farrah Fawcett, the blonde-maned actress whose best-selling poster and "Charlie's Angels" stardom made her one of the most famous faces in the world, died Thursday. She was 62.

a little poem for the end of the world

2009-06-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

the fall
came sans
duende

sad
it
wasn't
sad

2009-06-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy doing readings, especially if the book's new. There are always a few "oops" moments--why did I use that word?and now it's published so I can only change it here, at this reading. But the "oopses" are (at least with this book) few and far between. In the three years it took to find a publisher I was able to clean things up, and PM provided a good editor.

Five readings in five nights in NYC--mornings spent at a rather boring and under attended Book
Expo, the publisher's/bookseller's trade show. End of the industry and blah blah blah. Hope not, since bookselling still pays the rent, but I got sick of hearing it from the "suits", people from the big houses who publish mostly crap anyway. America isn't a reading country, never was, and now that readership is split between screen and book...of course business is down. I think the Indies will be the last to die--bookstores and publishers--because they cater to people who really care about books, language, culture. In a country that is made up mostly of morons, it's a small audience--but enough to keep quality publishers/stores afloat. I hope.

Readings were great fun--except perhaps the Bowery Poetry Club, where I'd expected better attendance. Summer Brenner is a great writer with an especially good book, and she reads beautifully. I tried to counter her reading, which was serious noir, with a few jokes. My new novel is kind of a clown act anyway, my secret (now not so secret) homage to Terry Southern--a satire that (I hope) fights absurdity (of the American corporate structure) with absurdity.
I heard a few laughs when I read, so I guess the book's working.

New York is always exhausting, in that this-train-that-train-three-dates-a-night-can you be downtown by 2pm--kind of way. Saw Eileen Myles, Jonathan Lethem, Ramsey (lugging my book and Summer's around town. Thank you, Ramsey), Nikki Leger, Independence Hall (read one night in Philly), Dumbo (noisy, but such a view), a great bookstore called Bluestockings. A Chuck Close show in Chelsea, couple hours in MOMA...well, it was New York.

And next week is the homecoming, reading at Moe's where I spend at least 32 hours a week, then at City Lights, inspiration for poets/writers/troublemakers/beatniks.

Also confirmed a date to read with Eileen Myles at Books & Bookshelves August 18th--a chance to read some poetry--and a little from the novel.

what I'm reading: Call It Thought by Stephen Rodefer, Hylozoic by Rudy Rucker, What You Have Left by James Sallis. Rereading Banshee by Margaret Millar.

Phil Ochs

2009-05-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

Nobody likes William F. Buckley--evil man.

But I wasn't sleepy and I was watching Charlie Rose, and he was replaying Buckley clips because the son was on. There was a late clip of Buckley, looking like a grotesque of himself, like his Buckley mask had melted. He was saying that he'd done everything and that his life was over, but that he couldn't commit suicide, that being a sin. I felt the normal amount of sympathy that you might feel for someone who was a walking bag of shit--thought, he must have suffered from depression. Didn't quite say "poor man" but almost got there---feeling sorry for him, a little. Snapped out of it--oh, yeah, oh, yeah--there are good depressives and there are...walking bags of shit who are depressed.

Immediately thought of Phil Ochs, at first thinking well that's a strange skip, but then, no,

not so much--the sixties, the war...depression, and in Ochs case suicide.

And so I downloaded Rehearsals for Retirement because I don't have it on CD and Amoeba was closed. The opening lines make up the saddest couplet ever, well maybe not ever, but it's like something out of Wyatt, so universal, a perfect articulation of end-of-the-line despair:

The days grow longer for smaller prizes

I feel a stranger to all surprises

A brick wall of a couplet, high art, I think. Disturbing art is somehow (more) uplifting...that someone in such great pain could come out with those lines. Could only come out of intense pain--a kind of last gasp.

I'd read some bios but years ago, so I did a little late-night google research, refreshed my memory--that album cover with his tombstone, died in Chicago '68 (real date of death is, I think, '76)--that he was so torn up by, whatever you want to call it, the failure of the revolution, the death of the American dream (was there one?). His despair, depression, whatever was at least partly rooted in his concern for humanity.

Perhaps despair was (is?) an appropriate response to the times. And is it an essential ingredient in art?

Advertisements for Myself

2009-05-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

I’ll be doing lots of readings this summer and fall. Here’s a partial list(some dates aren’t set yet).

Really looking forward to spending some time in NYC. I was there in '05 but just passing through, on my way to Yaddo. Last read there in '02 at Zinc Bar when my first novel, The Chandler Apartments, was published.

PM Press is an aggressive little publisher--they've put together a full reading schedule. A pleasant surprise--I can't complain that they aren't pushing the novel. If it doesn't sell I'll have to find something else to whine about. World-wide depression? But that shouldn't hurt the sales of such a low-priced ($13,95!) little novel.

I’ll be reading with Summer Brenner, author of the novel I-5, also, coincidentally, from PM Press. Check the various venues for times (Bowery Poetry Club reading is at 2pm):

Thursday May 28th Brecht Forum451 West Street NYC(212) 242-4201

Friday May 29 Wooden Shoe 508 S. 5th St. Philadelphia(215) 413-0999

Saturday May 30 Bowery Poetry Club308 Bowery NYC(212) 614-0505

Sunday May 31st Bluestockings172 Allen St. NYC(212) 777-6028

Monday June 1st Melville House 145 Plymouth St.Dumbo, Brooklyn(718) 722-9204

Monday June 15th Moe’s Books2476 Telegraph Avenue Berkeley (510) 849-2087

Thursday July 23rd Pegasus Books2349 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley (510) 649-1320

Tuesday September 29th City Lights Books 261 Columbus Avenue S.F. (415) 362-8193

The New Rock 'n' Roll

2009-04-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

See all that Jonathan Franzen, Salman Rushdie stuff on your shelf, all those wanna-be Booker Prize contenders gathering dust, all that earnest shit:
BIN IT.Get real, buddy.You wanna know how the world works, get Andrew Vachss.Not intellectual enough?Get James Sallis, he'll fry your cells. Or for downright metaphysical, Paul Auster.Crime writing, bro, it's the new rock 'n' roll.--Ken Bruen, Calibre (2006)

2009-04-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Baffling combustions are everywhere!

At a house reading, listening to Stephen Rodefer read, I felt the back of the neck hairs
stand up straight, had to hold the bridge of my nose to keep the tears from coming. Absolutely stunning reading by a great poet—still, I was surprised by my reaction. I curate a series, hear lots of great readings, but am almost never moved to tears. The poetry wasn’t “sad”, although there were elements of sadness. Just, um, perfect.

My favorite short poem is by Ungaretti—various translations, the one I remember:

Morning

Enormity
Illumines me

My next tattoo. Clay Blackburn, the protagonist of my novels, has it tattoo’d on his arm.

Occasionally some work of art brings on the “enormity” effect. Ilumines me. And then I have to excuse myself and leave the gallery/reading/concert. Experience a kind of exquisite devastation. I’m always baffled/embarrassed when it happens—I’m not the type to make scenes. But I’m grateful for it—release, epiphany, deep connection—whatever the hell it is.
.

allow me to introduce myself

2009-04-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not a huge Robert Lowell fan, but that phrase, "a flaw in the motor" (a fragment of the whole quote, can't remember the rest) pops into my head pretty often. Doesn't just apply to his generation of poets--there's a nice, "we're all bozos on this bus" feel to it.

My publisher suggested a blog. My publisher is PM Press, a very cool press indeed. Morph'd out of AK Press. Politics, Vegan cooking, the BEST noir around, and these great hoodies (I've scored two already--who says writing doesn't pay!). My book is called "The Incredible Double".
Info at pmpress.org.

I started a blog years ago--didn't get very far. It was to be about book buying--I'm a buyer for a Berkely bookstore. Bad idea--the last thing I wanted to do after buying books all day.

This will be more open ended--I've got a bunch of new poems to post, and I'll be doing one of those Indy Press, cheap sleep, Jet Blue tours when the book comes out next month. So--poetry, travel journal, cranky opinions, book reviews...

Allow me to introduce myself:

I've knocked around the Bay Area poetry "scene" for 25 or so years. Did a mag called Blind Date in the eighties/early nineties. Published a bunch of chapbooks with such stellar presses as Words & Pictures, Gas Editions, Blue Press, Angry Dog Press. Read at all the places where poets read. Curate a reading series at Moe's Books, Berkeley. You could call it a career (if you could call it a career). In '02 I published a noir called The Chandler Apartments. It was doing ok when the publisher went belly-up. I believe he is currently on the lamb--or maybe they've caught up with him. I'm hoping PM Press will reprint it--I think it's pretty good.

Allow me to introduce myself:

I live in The Chandler Apartments, corner of Telegraph and Dwight, great old building in a charmingly (I think) down-at-the-heels neighborhood. Two cats--Hilda Doolittle and Zelda Fitzgerald. Work for Moe's Books...enough personal info for now.

So now I can go into "I am a Camera" or "I am a poet" or "I am a mystery writer" mode.

Onward! at least until the motor gives out.