Shapiro's Child

This morning, reading Alex's latest thoughts, looking at her latest photo, listening to the wonderful music that accompanies it, I looked at her prose, and as is my custom, I saw the poem hidden within it. Her thoughts, my thoughts, follow:

Still Reflecting, Still Inherent, Still Ready

In the stillness,
arms folded
midst the silence,
yet never quiet,
the wind has lips
and it whispers
my name,
and yours;
can you hear it?

The brave sun appeared
midday
to eradicate
the mist rolling in
off the restless sea,
and hung out
for me,
bright yet cold,
on this fruitful
winter’s day.

I stood transfixed
and bundled,
taking in
salt air and wet wood,
and breathing out
doubt;
feeling that calm
that always comes
from watching
the pale radiance
of a January day
dip below the edge
of my island.

Yes, now
I can smile
into the pastels
of twilight
because I feel
movement
within my core,
within my chest,
wanting recognition;
music
whose notes demand
birth, demand
respect, and
identity;
but never fear
natal notes
for I am
your mother.

Glance at the photo
now, and gather to you
the scene here
an hour ago
at sunset.

My brain and spirit
are infused
with the positive sonic
chaos
of a new piece
nearing
the double bar;
(another double malt,
puhleeze?).

How good
to be able to sit
quietly
at this place
and collect…
no, herd, actually
my thoughts.

Glenn Buttkus for and by Alex Shapiro

A new day.
A new week.
Creativity is loose,
and the music is afoot.

Postscript: I sort of promised that this poem, her thoughts and mine would reside on her blog alone, there quietly on NOTES FROM THE KELP. But as the morning moved along, the words kept dogging me, the poem kept nudging me, and so I became an Indian Poet, and I took it back, without permission, and placed it out here too. The poem wanted to make new friends. Who am I to deny poetry its due?

Glenn

Victor Borge of the New Millennium

For those of you unfamiliar with Lane Savant, he is the alter ego of Doug Palmer, eccentric erratic, intelligent and unique blogmaster of FEEL FREE TO LAUGH, and of course, co-blog mate on this site. Sometimes his imagination is really out there, which then kicks mine into gear. Here is a bit of wit and fluff for your edification.

Imaginary music

"Invention for soloist and five conductors";

Five audience members are chosen to be conductors to "conduct" while the soloist trys to follow.

"Cage for a golden bird";

For prepared piano narrator and dancer.Narrator announces the piece then apologizes for the lateness in arrival of the pianoNarrator describes the modifications made to the piano which start as simply as deadened strings and tacks on the hammers and escalate to the bizzare and impossible, The "dancer" is waiting by the entrance to the stage waiting for the piano to arrive.Narrator looks querulously several times at dancer as if wondering where the piano is. Dancer shrugs.Finally, dancer smiles and mimes pushing piano on stage. Narrator and dancer sit and audience listens to this piano of our minds.

"Fuga Petrum";

A fugue especially designed for stone hall made of several sub-halls of varying lengths tuned for specific echo delays so that one need only play the first subject on the organ and the various halls will echo in at the proper intervals and create not only the answering counterpoint but even create new subjects.Grants are being sought as we speak.

posted by Lane Savant


Alex Shapiro said...

Doug, you are the Victor Borge of the New Millennium, with a little Stockhausen and Schicklele thrown in.Thanks, because we desperately need one!That's great about the upcoming Salon presentation...

butch said...

Oh yes, I can see it clearly now. Like Elton John sang,"There's a boat on the reef --it has a broken back--and I can see it clearly now!"

There it will stand, the newest edifice, the incredibly futuristic structure that made Frank Lloyd Wright turn over in his coffin, made those idiots in Ballard who are trying to hold back a developer from tearing down a boarded up old Denny's because it's architecture is in the style of Century 21 and the Space Needle, wet themselves with excitement, created another message from beyond from Emily Dickinson, brought Alex Shapiro and her significant other down from the islands, brought Sherman Alexie in from his office on Aurora, shook Butch out of his doldrums and made him drive all the way up to the Emerald City, the Jet City, the Seven Hilled City, to Seattle, to that hilltop above Madrona where THE PALMER PALACE OF THE ARTS has been erected. And of course the inaugural event would be the Palmer set of original compositions that has made critics tear their hair out, and has made Lane Savant, the Artistic Director into a celebrity and media whore over night!!!

INVENTION FOR SOLOIST AND 5 CONDUCTORS could be a show stopper, rife with humor, and a definite challenge for the musician. Because each night the audience members would change, then the music would change, different styles, and depending on the instrument we would listen to the blues, classical riffs, boogie woogie, rock and roll, and yes even be bop and rap and maybe even stripped down disco, capped by jazz; jazz violin, jazz piano, jazz then flamenco guitar, saxophone gone berserk, clarinet blowing its reed, cello heating up its thick strings and pounding on the floor, acoustic then electric guitar, sitar, organ, banjo, french horn, tuba, flutes, trumpets, fluggle horns--Christ, what a happening, with the audience clapping, laughing, yahooing, stamping their feet, pulling off their clothes, dancing in the aisles and on the backs of the seats, fist fighting, screaming, giggling, howling, and here and there in the dark corners having sex. The Palmer Palace will become an international event and sensation based on the one, this first piece.

CAGE FOR A GOLDEN BIRD would be a stab at humor, at mime, at the stroking of and the hammering of audience imagination. You might send out peanut vendors and hot dog salesmen during the lulls, and use scrims with slides of every kind of piano, and a laser show without music as the dancer and the narrator/pianist sits and stares directly into the befuddled faces of the audience, barely settled down from the first compostion; this is a fine follow up, letting them catch their breath, scratch their heads, turn off their cell phones, exchange confused looks, smile, frown, or go to the restroom.

FUGA PETRUM sounds fascinating, but have you thought how you would transport the audience to the stone hall from the main auditorium? Maybe that will be yet another innovative aspect to the PALMER PALACE, an anteroom, an alernate auditorioum that the audience is actually physically ushered into by usherettes in mini skirts, push up bras, and blond wigs, wearing tiny red hats cocked at clever angles, just like the usherettes of the old movie palaces. And once the audience has settled into the hard wooden benches and metal folding chairs, the stone walls all begin to light up in different colors, and curtains rise in ten directions, and the sub-halls present themselves, and we meet the organist, and see a magnificent pipe organ that would make a Mormon weep with envy, and with one hand, not looking at it, just smiling at the audience the organist hits "some" notes, and the great echo experience begins, augmented by a light show, wind and sounds of the surf, and suddenly the audience becomes aware that the walls of the sub-halls are adjustable, and can be turned vertically or horizontally to create different pitchs and tones.

Then from the ceiling a platform, with a cage of golden and chrome bars drops down, and there is Lane Savant feverishly working a motherboard, and creating an echo concerto, a fugue for the ages; dropping down like the doppleganger for the Wizard of Oz, the real "Man Behind the Curtain". A man in a zoot suit walks out onto one corner of the stage, and stands in a spotlight, holding a mike, and he says,"Do not pay any attention to the man in the cage." He repeats this several times, in several languages, and then otherworldly music, sythesized stuff, pours from hidden speakers, and Cirque acrobats pour into the auditorium, doing hand springs and tumbling down the aisles, making their way to the stage. Colorful balloons are released from the ceiling, the hot dog and peanut vendors return, hawking their wares in French, in Italian, in Russian, in Chinese.

Ropes drop down from the rafters, adjacent to Lane Savant who is still conducting the fugue, cirus acrobats leap from the audience in street clothes and grap the ropes and begin to do routines in time to the organ music, the Savant composition, and we hear a pretaped full orchestra playing circus concertos, like in a Fellini movie. A mime comes out on a unicyle. The acrobats do several intricate pyramids on the stage, the motor cycle group from Seattle, the Cossacks come out from behind a curtain, on their Harleys, already doing their famous human pyramid; the sounds of the many languages, the Harley motors, the full orchestra, the vendors, the organ fugure, all intermingle into a masterful cachopany of sound, and then Lane Savant lifts a red baton, and on the downswing, complete silence is at hand. The man in the zoot suit enthusiastically says, "Fuck Paul Allen." Everyone bows, and up come the house lights.

Yes, oh yes, I can hear it all, see it all, and what an evening you have provided us with. Like Teatro Zinzani, you will create both a musical and cultural event, laced with your essence of humor, intellect, and irreverance.Thank you for an unforgettable evening. I thank you, God thanks you, Emily thanks you, even MP thanks you. We clapped until our hands bled. We hollered until we became hoarse. You are an original, sir.

Butch

Lane Savant said...

Jeeeez Butch, it's dangerous to excite your imagination.


Perhaps it is dangerous, or pehaps it is just inevitable; either way it is an artistic party and a hell of a lot of fun, enit?

Glenn Buttkus

All The Things You are

I have become a convert to reading Alex Shapiro's web site, NOTES FROM THE KELP, every day. She is such a passionate and intelligent and approachable human being, many of us forget that she is also an award winning composer who just happens to live north up there on San Juan Island. She has published lots of her thoughts in several magazines and publications. Following is one that I enjoyed a lot, for its levity, humanity, and practicality. It was published on NEW MUSICBOX, the web magazine of the American Music Center.


All The Things You Are: Five Suggestions for Composing Your Happiness
By Alex Shapiro

Published: November 14, 2007

Musicians love to talk and write about lots of things related to our work. We talk and write about music. We talk and write about the tools we use to make music. We talk and write about how to make money with all that music we talk and write about.

But few of us talk and write about the bigger picture of how our musical and tactical efforts are guided by three distinctly non-musical concepts that don't get talked and written about often or openly enough: positive vision, abundant thinking, and a sense of self-worth. Thanks to technology, we now live in a world of vast possibilities and our music can reach millions of people, even if we choose never to rise from our chair. The key to making full use of these extraordinary powers lies with tapping in to the extraordinary joys within us.

Welcome to the musicians' philosophy toolbox.

Artists are communicators, and the world of communication has changed immensely in the past decade. Yet the way artists perceive themselves in the world has been slow to adapt to the freedom and power we now possess. We're most likely to have a viable career with our art if we ignore some of the paralyzing rules, paradigms, and myths from the past that are no longer relevant.

Our perceptions play an enormous part in how our life unfolds. Choices we make about everything from note placement to state of mind are determining factors in our careers. If we choose to focus on obstacles and disappointments, it's likely that we'll attract more of exactly those problems, because a bitter outlook tends to repel good people and opportunities.

Conversely, when we center our thoughts on positive events, we project a sense of well-being that resonates to others and brings wonderful things much closer to us.

Here are five suggestions that apply not only to our music careers, but to our personal happiness throughout life:

1. Reconsider the way you perceive yourself and your worth in society.
2. Reject negative assumptions.
3. Change your reality by changing your perceptions toward abundant and positive thinking.
4. Embrace the notion that art is not a competitive business.
5. Remember the spark and the joy that made you decide to be a musician in the first place.

Following these suggestions can lead toward a vital and viable music career. We'll begin by talking about self-worth, because everything we do hinges on our sense of it.

Self-Worth

There has never been a better time to be a composer or musician. Artistically, there's no dominant style to which to adhere; technically, the internet has given us outstanding tools with which to share our work across the globe; and financially, we can publish our own music and recordings and reap one hundred percent of the rewards. Even physically, many of us can choose to live and work anywhere in the world armed merely with a laptop and a wireless connection.

But all of the amazing gifts presented to 21st-century musicians require a sense of self-worth in order for us to fully make use of them. We are the product we are distributing. Our music is one of the most personal things we have to offer, and it stems from our uniqueness as individuals and our desire to communicate to others. The first and most important declaration of our music's worth must come from us, whether we are giving it to people or selling it to them.

As artists, we can't fully exploit this enormous power without deeply believing in our work. If we're seeking to make a living from our music—not every artist chooses this, but many of us do—then we must believe that we deserve to earn money from our output: that it is worthy, and that we are, as well.

As media expands and musicians self-publish, the contemporary music community has gradually released its expectation that artists can only survive if tethered to academic institutions, Carnegie Hall premieres, and glowing New York Times reviews. Yet there remains a lingering impression that when it comes to art, money is a four-letter word.

This would almost be quaint were it not so damaging. We have tools enabling artists to take full control of their careers and benefit greatly from their work. But quietly imbedded in the subtext of our culture is a sense that artists don't have to make money because we love what we do and would do it anyway, and that the moment one tries to make money from art, it transforms that art into craft for commerce. These assumptions are not only outdated, they're entirely untrue.

Each of us knows what we deem to have value and merit. We know what we're willing to pay money for in our lives. So naturally, if we don't place a value our own work, then we're not meeting our own standards of what's valuable. Ouch! That hurts to read, doesn't it? If we believe that we're doing good work and living up to our standards, we then have to ask the tough question, "Why do I feel reluctant to ask for proper compensation for my work?" Notice the choice of the wording: not "receive" proper compensation, but "ask." Is it because of the myths outlined above? Is it because of subtle messages sent to us by society or teachers early on? And here's one to make you squirm: is it because as long as we hold on to limiting beliefs, we have a reasonable excuse for not making more money?

Creating a career is like choreographing a dance. Our gesture is our music, and the responding gestures come from everyone around us. Each dance begins with what we envision we want. In many negotiations, we end up receiving a little less than what we initially asked for: all the more reason to begin with a healthy and reasonable evaluation of our worth, since if we start at a higher number, we'll end at a higher number. This is important, because this axiom unfortunately works remarkably well in reverse.

The cycle begins with us, not with the outside world. It has to do with our positive attitude, which in turn has a lot to do with our expectation of how the transaction will proceed. If we clearly envision what it is that we seek, we are in a marvelous position to make it a reality. The more specific the detail of our vision, the better. Each of us possesses far more power to determine an outcome than we realize.

Suggestion #1: If we think what we create is valuable and we are willing to commit to it, then others will feel our commitment and believe that what we create is valuable, too.

Creating Need

Some claim that no one wants what we create. But, think about the advertising business: until we were told that we needed this toothpaste and that deodorant, we had no idea we needed or wanted them. Through the persistence of positive marketing and media presence, the message of need gradually seeps into our consciousness, and soon we find ourselves wandering down the drugstore aisle casually slipping a new item into our basket, willing to try it.

Sound like an approach that could be paralleled in our new music business? Composers and musicians can do a better job seeping into the consciousness of the society around us. We can begin by ensuring that the tone of our message is an engaging one.

If we state that the general public doesn't like new music, then we're internally absorbing an expectation that our work, no matter how wonderful, won't be enjoyed. We're setting ourselves up for a frustrating experience, and we're transmitting this negative message to the very people we'd like to reach. If we change our thoughts, instead choosing to say that there's always a niche market that can be created somewhere for what we have to offer, no matter how inside or outside the box it is, it's highly likely that such a niche will appear. Not out of the blue; we can't just sit back, eat bonbons, and await inevitable success. But by beginning with a positive assumption, we create the frame within which we can work hard at all the things necessary to build a career.

No matter how ardent our efforts, we will never be fully effective if we give ourselves negative messages about the unlikelihood of success while we're knocking ourselves out reaching for it. But if we take the private positive message we learn to give ourselves, and make it a public one, then just like advertising executives we can find ways to communicate about our musical product in such an enticing way that more people will want to try it.

Suggestion #2: Reject the myth that composers and musicians can't do well. We are all worthy.

Abundance

When we think positively about our lives and are kind and supportive to others, there's a far better chance that positive and kind things will happen to us. Just being aware of the internal statements we silently make during the course of a day, and catching ourselves when we veer to the bitter side, can produce a hugely positive shift in our productivity.

If you work ardently at what you do and believe you are good at it, and if you have peers who are successful, then there is little reason why you can't be successful as well. There is room for everyone, because inherently, every artist offers something unique. Negativity is an effective excuse to avoid taking responsibility for your own happiness. An abundant view of the possibilities in your career will usually result in a happier journey through the process of building it.

We tend to get what we expect to get in life. Not always, but often. There's tremendous power in our ability to envision what we want, because once we can describe it, we can manifest it. Many of us do this in our musical work. We envision what projects we want to focus on, and we draw them to our lives. We then begin the creative process by defining the new undertaking, e.g.: Who is it for? Who are the personnel involved? What are we trying to communicate? What approach are we using? Much of our work naturally has to do with determining parameters. Imagine defining the parameters of what you would like your life to look like, just as you might define what you want a new piece to sound like.

It's a lot more enjoyable to go through life being kind, open, trusting, and generous than it is to be tense, negative, wary, and hoarding. Our state of mind tends to be reflected back to us. When we're angry, it ultimately hurts us a lot more than it hurts the target of our unhappiness.

Everyone else goes on with their lives, meanwhile we walk around with a dark cloud eating us up. Finding ways to release negative emotions is important. We're incredibly lucky to have an outlet in music.

Sometimes it seems like there are thousands of composers and musicians wanting to make their mark in the new music world. And you know why? Because there are! And this is the most wonderful thing for the state of our art and for our place in society. What better way for us to become significant to our communities, than to infiltrate them by sheer numbers! This is not something to find professionally threatening.

Suggestion #3: Turn any negative thinking into abundant and positive thinking, and change reality by changing perception.

No Competition

Jealously and competitiveness feel terrible and they're destructive. When a colleague of ours does well, we should all celebrate, because what's good for one artist often ends up being good for our art. It doesn't matter how many competitions there are, or how few slots exist on a season's worth of concert programming: the only person you should ever be in competition with is yourself. That's right. You're best off when you set a personal goal based solely on your art and your vision of what you wish to create and share with others.

It also doesn't matter what your peers are doing, because if they're the same kind of genuine artist you are, they're marching to their own vision, too. The whole point of composing and performing "art music" is that presumably we each have something original to say. The more we say it and stand behind it, the larger our fan bases will become. Listeners respond to sincerity and truth. Authenticity rules.

Many of us have been on both sides of the competition fence: as the submitter to some, and as the panelist in others. While these contests are often frustratingly subjective, art is subjective, which is what makes it different from, say, calculus. If we've done our best work and know that it has worth, then we submit it and either it will speak to the condition of the judges at that particular moment of that particular day, or it won't. The result often has little to do with whether our music is worthy or not. Most of the time there will only be a few slots available for awards or grants, but there are many times more solid, deserving applicants. So the lesson is to not take these things personally, and instead be glad that a few more people around a table now know about what you do. This is how a career is built: through familiarity.

Sometimes when people think about abundance, they think of success as it might be defined by the outside world. But the only definition that matters is a very personal one. We can't compare our careers with anyone else's, and we can't define success by any one else's terms. We will always have the greatest success when we pursue the things that we're most excited by and driven to, as opposed to pursuing what we think—or often, what we're told by others—we "should" be doing to advance our careers. It's easy to get caught up in the external world's expectations. With a broad view of the many possible paths we might choose, we can find the one that will lead us to a success that is uniquely ours.

Kindness and generosity toward others is one of the greatest traits a person can have. The same abundant approach goes for sharing information that we come across and helping our peers network with wonderful colleagues. If we've banged our heads against the wall trying to learn on our own how to do X, Y, and Z, then there's no reason for anyone we know to have to reinvent the wheel and go through all of that again. If we've figured something out, we should be happy to share that information. What someone else does with it will still be different from what we do with it, because our music and inspirations are all different. The better educated and prepared our colleagues are, the better for all of us.

This is painfully true on a business level. Because colleagues before us have been willing to do the same work for free, or nearly so, it sometimes appears to be a challenge to be appropriately paid. When a precedent is set in which creative efforts don't have to be properly remunerated, the entire community suffers. Be part of the larger community and think about how your decisions impact others.

Suggestion #4: To be a professional artist does not mean you must be competitive.

Joy

We all wear so many hats these days. With professional demands pressing from all directions it can be overwhelming, and it's not hard to lose sight of how we initially came to the conclusion that we were meant to be music-makers. It's helpful to take a moment and reconnect with our personal stories of first inspirations. Recalling that early glee will fuel us through times that are sometimes bizarrely disconnected from it.

We work hard at what we do. Any independent composer who does not have a day job and is not on faculty anywhere, has days that are often 18 hours long, five, six, and occasionally seven days a week. Between the composing work, and all the administrative work that comes with being self-published, there's just never enough time. But despite working a 90-hour week, one can still feel energized and absolutely happy in these manic pursuits. We're completely driven to do what we do; otherwise, we shouldn't be doing it! It's too hard, and the monetary rewards are often out of proportion with the amount of hours and sweat invested. So if creative work feels more often like a chore than a joy, don't do it—at least, not as a profession.

But sometimes we truly love what we do and it still doesn't feel joyous. We often feel overwhelmed, under appreciated, and very tired. This is where the concept of being a whole person, not just a musician-on-legs, comes into play.

Filling our lives with pursuits that are separate from music, and finding joy in other parts of our existence, whether with family, friends, hobbies, or volunteerism, is a way to be refreshed and to make sure we always see the big picture. By being more interesting and more well-rounded people, we become better artists because we have more to communicate and more emotional experience from which to draw. All of this adds to the joy in our lives as musicians and keeps us in touch with basic happiness.

Suggestion #5: Realize that artists can—and deserve to—be happy.

It's All Related

Now that we all feel warm and fuzzy about our music and the world around us, how do we actually put these philosophical concepts into action? How do we use them to earn a decent living pursuing what we love? Everything discussed here prior to now has focused on the inside: what makes us tick as people and how that relates to our musical life. Now it's time to look to the outside, and to how we can build a viable career that connects us with others around the world.
An enormous part of our work is based on the relationships we nurture. Networking with people is vital; the intimacy and immediacy of physically meeting colleagues is something that will never go out of style. With the 21st century, artists have gained a significant additional power: the internet, which completely transcends the way we can promote our music. Although we can't be present with people 24/7 or in several countries at once, our internet presence can.

The World Wide Web is the most effective tool with which to rapidly create an international career. For music artists willing to spend the time necessary to create thorough websites and cultivate professional relationships, this medium is unrivaled and can dramatically alter our artistic and financial profile. Via email correspondence that links to our web presence, we're able to collaborate with artists and connect with audiences no matter where they live, and often, no matter where we live.

When you establish an internet presence, you are advertising for yourself and for your work. You are letting people across the planet know about what you create and what you presumably care a great deal about, and you are simultaneously putting forth a persona. Your sense of self-esteem will be called upon, and almost always bolstered, by publicizing your music. Many people around the world who until now didn't know about you, will be delighted to have discovered your work. And the process leads to self-discovery as well, because in order to tell others about what you do, you have to carefully define it for yourself.

The serendipity of the internet is one of the greatest gifts to our profession. The meritocracy it has created encourages each of us to do our best, knowing that we can determine our own path, make our own choices, and be far more responsible for our outcomes.

Reject the myths, the limiting beliefs, and the old paradigms that created preconceptions about how artists are supposed to build careers and conduct business. In only a few years we've evolved from a longstanding status quo of the rules and behaviors devised by then-necessary gatekeepers, to a new sense of self and self-determination that has made those rules and gatekeepers irrelevant. There is tremendous power and also great joy in being positive, in clearly envisioning and communicating what we wish to achieve, and in having an open and abundant approach to everything we do and toward everyone with whom we come in contact. There has never been a better time to be a musician, and the world is available for everyone's notes.

[She makes it all seem so logic, so straight forward. Her enjoyment of her island, and walking the beaches, and relating to Nature is certainly reflected in her music, and her prose, and her life. She is quickly becoming a Northwest treasure; and artist who loves the Northwest, transplanted from California, who uses the San Juans as a jumping off place to pursue her international career; lucky us. She seems to be here for the long haul. Give yourselves a treat, and read her blog site, and become a Kelphisto; respond to her comments, let her get to know you. You will not be sorry. Glenn Buttkus 2008]

I Hated Tonto (Still Do)

I love this older essay by Sherman Alexie. It gets to the bone about stereotypes, cowboys and Indians, cowboys who dress like Indians, and Indian who dress like cowboys, and white folks who suffer valiantly with Indian Wannbe disease.

I HATED TONTO ( STILL DO)

by Sherman AlexieLos Angeles Times, June 28 1998

Commentary: Sherman Alexie recalls growing up with stereotype movie Indians — and loving them, wanting to be them. (Well, most of them.)

I was a little Spokane Indian boy who read every book and saw every movie about Indians, no matter how terrible. I'd read those historical romance novels about the stereotypical Indian warrior ravaging the virginal white schoolteacher.

I can still see the cover art.The handsome, blue-eyed warrior (the Indians in romance novels are always blue-eyed because half-breeds are somehow sexier than full-blooded Indians) would be nuzzling (the Indians in romance novels are always performing acts that are described in animalistic terms) the impossibly pale neck of a white woman as she reared her head back in primitive ecstasy (the Indians in romance novels always inspire white women to commit acts of primitive ecstasy).

Of course, after reading such novels, I imagined myself to be a blue-eyed warrior nuzzling the necks of various random, primitive and ecstatic white women.

And I just as often imagined myself to be a cinematic Indian, splattered with Day-Glo Hollywood war paint as I rode off into yet another battle against the latest actor to portray Gen. George Armstrong Custer.

But I never, not once, imagined myself to be Tonto.

I hated Tonto then and I hate him now.

However, despite my hatred of Tonto, I loved movies about Indians, loved them beyond all reasoning and saw no fault with any of them.

I loved John Ford's "The Searchers."I rooted for John Wayne as he searched for his niece for years and years. I rooted for John Wayne even though I knew he was going to kill his niece because she had been "soiled" by the Indians. Hell, I rooted for John Wayne because I understood why he wanted to kill his niece.

I hated those savage Indians just as much as John Wayne did.

I mean, jeez, they had kidnapped Natalie Wood, transcendent white beauty who certainly didn't deserve to be nuzzled, nibbled, or nipped by some Indian warrior, especially an Indian warrior who only spoke in monosyllables and whose every movement was accompanied by ominous music.

In the movies, Indians are always accompanied by ominous music. And I've seen so many Indian movies that I feel like I'm constantly accompanied by ominous music. I always feel that something bad is about to happen.

I am always aware of how my whole life is shaped by my hatred of Tonto. Whenever I think of Tonto, I hear ominous music.

I walk into shopping malls or family restaurants, as the ominous music drops a few octaves, and imagine that I am Billy Jack, the half-breed Indian and Vietnam vet turned flower-power pacifist (now there's a combination) who loses his temper now and again, takes off his shoes (while his opponents patiently wait for him to do so), and then kicks the red out of the necks of a few dozen racist white extras.

You have to remember Billy Jack, right?

Every Indian remembers Billy Jack. I mean, back in the day, Indians worshipped Billy Jack. Whenever a new Billy Jack movie opened in Spokane, my entire tribe would climb into two or three vans like so many circus clowns and drive to the East Trent Drive-In for a long evening of greasy popcorn, flat soda pop, fossilized licorice rope and interracial violence.

We Indians cheered as Billy Jack fought for us, for every single Indian.

Of course, we conveniently ignored the fact that Tom Laughlin, the actor who played Billy Jack, was definitely not Indian. After all, such luminary white actors as Charles Bronson, Chuck Connors, Burt Reynolds, Burt Lancaster, Sal Mineo, Anthony Quinn and Charlton Heston had already portrayed Indians, so who were we to argue?

I mean, Tom Laughlin did have a nice tan and he spoke in monosyllables and wore cowboy boots and a jean jacket just like Indians. And he did have a Cherokee grandmother or grandfather or butcher, so he was Indian by proximity, and that was good enough in 1972, when disco music was about to rear its ugly head and bell-bottom pants were just beginning to change the shape of our legs.

When it came to the movies, Indians had learned to be happy with less.We didn't mind that cinematic Indians never had jobs. We didn't mind that cinematic Indians were deadly serious. We didn't mind that cinematic Indians were rarely played by Indian actors.

We made up excuses."Well, that Tom Laughlin may not be Indian, but he sure should be."

"Well, that movie wasn't so good, but Sal Mineo looked sort of like Uncle Stubby when he was still living out on the reservation."

"Well, I hear Burt Reynolds is a little bit Cherokee. Look at his cheekbones. He's got them Indian cheekbones."

"Well, it's better than nothing."Yes, that became our battle cry."Sometimes, it's a good day to die. Sometimes, it's better than nothing."

We Indians became so numb to the possibility of dissent, so accepting of our own lowered expectations, that we canonized a film like "Powwow Highway."

When it was first released, I loved "Powwow Highway." I cried when I first saw it in the theater, then cried again when I stayed and watched it again a second time. I mean, I loved that movie. I memorized whole passages of dialogue. But recently, I watched the film for the first time in many years and cringed in shame and embarrassment with every stereotypical scene.

I cringed when Philbert Bono climbed to the top of a sacred mountain and left a Hershey chocolate bar as an offering. I cringed when Philbert and Buddy Red Bow waded into a stream and sang Indian songs to the moon. I cringed when Buddy had a vision of himself as an Indian warrior throwing a tomahawk through the window of a police cruiser. I mean, I don't know a single Indian who would leave a chocolate bar as an offering. I don't know any Indians who have ever climbed to the top of any mountain. I don't know any Indians who wade into streams and sing to the moon. I don't know of any Indians who imagine themselves to be Indian warriors.

Wait -I was wrong. I know of at least one Indian boy who always imagined himself to be a cinematic Indian warrior. Me.

I watched the movies and saw the kind of Indian I was supposed to be.

A cinematic Indian is supposed to climb mountains. I am afraid of heights.

A cinematic Indian is supposed to wade into streams and sing songs. I don't know how to swim.

A cinematic Indian is supposed to be a warrior. I haven't been in a fistfight since sixth grade and she beat the crap out of me.

I mean, I knew I could never be as brave, as strong, as wiser as visionary, as white as the Indians in the movies.

I was just one little Indian boy who hated Tonto because Tonto was the only cinematic Indian who looked like me.

Sherman Alexie 1998

Poet Laureate of Skid Row

Henry Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was an influential Los Angeles poet and novelist. Bukowski's writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles. He is often mentioned as an influence by contemporary authors, and his style is frequently imitated. A prolific author, Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories, and six novels, eventually having more than fifty books in print. He is often remembered as "The Poet Laureate of Skid Row

Bukowski died of leukemia on March 9th, 1994 in San Pedro, California, at the age of 73, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp. The funeral rites were conducted by Buddhist monks. His gravestone reads: "Don't Try".

Film and television

Henry Charles Bukowski and his works have been the subject of several films. The earliest is "Tales of ordinary madness" (original title: Storie di ordinaria follia) by Italian director Marco Ferreri and starring Ben Gazzara and Ornella Muti. The movie, which is largely based on some of Bukowski´s tales, was not very commercially successful, possibly because of its uncompromising style.

Next came his own autobiographical screenplay for the 1987 film Barfly. In the documentary, Bukowski: Born Into This, he offers his opinion that the Mickey Rourke portrayal of him in Barfly was "misdone".

2005 saw the release of the movie Factotum starring Matt Dillon; the movie is based on the novel of the same name, which centers on Henry Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of Bukowski, as he struggles from one job to the next, all the while pursuing his true interests: alcohol, women and writing. This latter film appears to be a second attempt at verisimilitude in depicting a portion of his life even though it makes no pretense of occurring in the appropriate decade. Whereas in Barfly the focus is more on women, drinking and bare-knuckle boxing, in Factotum it is the writing which receives greater emphasis.

In February 2007 it was announced that Gabor Csupo will be producing How the Dead Love, an animated film which will use four of Bukowski's short stories. There are rumors that Johnny Depp will voice this film's main character and will also produce the film with Csupo via Depp's production company, Infinitum Nihil.

Bukowski is also mentioned in a scene in the movie Glory Daze, starring Ben Affleck.

He was mentioned in Adult Swim, as one of their poet choices.

He is mentioned in Peep Show; while Jeremy is buying items from a supermarket, drunk, he claims he must look like Bukowski.

He is mentioned by Paul Giamatti as the character Miles in Alexander Payne's "Sideways" (2004).

Bukowski is also mentioned on Gilmore Girls, when Rory, Jess and Paris discuss literature (Season 2, Episode 'There's the Rub').

Californication, a dark comedy which began airing on Showtime on August 13, 2007, makes several direct and indirect references to Bukowski and his life. The show is set in Los Angeles and the main character, played by David Duchovny, is a misanthropic, struggling writer with addictions to alcohol and women.

And following are some of his poems, which kind of speak for themselves:

the riots

I've watched this city burn
twice in my lifetime
and the most notable thing
was the arrival of the
politicians in the
aftermath
proclaiming the wrongs of
the system
and demanding new
policies toward and for the
poor.
nothing was corrected last time.
nothing will be corrected this time.
the poor will remain poor.
the unemployed will remainso.
the homeless will remain
homeless
and the politicians,
fat upon the land, will live
very well.

5/5/1992


a smile to remember

we had goldfish
and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me,
"be happy Henry!"
and she was right:
it's better to be happy if youcan
but my father continued to beat her
and me
several times a week
while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame
because he couldn't
understand what was attacking him
from within.
my mother,
poor fish,
wanting to be happy,
beaten two or three times a
week,
telling me to be happy:
"Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?"
and then she would smile,
to show me how,
and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw

one day the goldfish died,
all five of them,
they floated on the water,
on their sides, their
eyes still open,
and when my father got home
he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor
and we watched as my mother
smiled

©2001 Linda Lee Bukowski reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


back to the machine gun

I awaken about noon
and go out to get the mail
in my old torn bathrobe.
I'm hung over
hair down in my eyes
barefoot
gingerly walking
n the small sharp rocks
in my path
still afraid of pain
behind my four-day beard.

the young housewife next door
shakes a rug
out of her window
and sees me:
"hello, Hank!"
god damn!
it's almost like being shot
in the ass
with a .22

"hello," I say
gathering up my Visa card bill,
my Pennysaver coupons,
a Dept. of Water and Power
past-due notice,
a letter from the mortgage people
plus a demand from
the Weed Abatement Department
giving me 30 days
to clean up my act.

I mince back again
over the small sharp rocks
thinking,
maybe I'd better write something
tonight,
they all seem
to be closing in.
there's only one way
to handle those motherfuckers.
the night harness races
will have to wait.

©2001 Linda Lee Bukowski reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


Carson McCullers

she died of alcoholism
wrapped in a blanket
on a deck chair
on an ocean
steamer.

all her books of
terrified loneliness
all her books about
the cruelty
of loveless love
were all that was left
of her
as the strolling vacationer
discovered her body
notified the captain
and she was quickly dispatched
to somewhere else
on the ship
as everything
continued just
as
she had written it

©2001 Linda Lee Bukowski reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


congrats, Chinaski

as I near 70
I get letters,
cards,
little gifts
from strange people.
congratulations,
they tell
me,
congratulations

I know what they mean:
the way I have lived
I should have been dead in half
that time
I have piled myself
with a mass of
grand abuse,
been
careless toward myself
almost to the point of
madness,
I am still here
leaning toward this machine
in this smoke-filled room,
this large blue trash
can to my
left
full of empty
containers
the doctors have
no answers
and the gods are
silent

congratulations,
death,
on your patience.
I have helped you
all thatI can
now one more poem
and a walk out on the balcony,
such a fine night there

I am dressed in shorts and stockings,
gently scratch my old
belly,
look out there
look off there
where dark meets dark
it's been one hell of a crazy
ballgame

from "Third Lung Review" - 1992


curtain

the final curtain
on one of the longest running
musicals ever,
some people claim to have
seen it over one hundred times.

I saw it on the tv news,
that final curtain:
flowers, cheers, tears, a thunderous
accolade.
I have not seen this particular musical
but I know
if I had
that I wouldn't have
been able to bear it,
it would have
sickened me.
trust me on this,
the world and its
peoples and its artful entertainment has
done very little for me,
only to me.
still,
let them enjoy one another,
it will
keep them from
my door
and for this,
my own thunderous
accolade.

from The Olympia Review - 1994


me and Faulkner

sure,
I know that you
are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme
over and over again, it's
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them,
it's done by everybody
because everybody is
of a different stripe and form
and each must work out what is before the
mover and over again because
that is their personal
tiny miracle
their bit of luck
like now
as like before and before
I have been slowly
drinking this fine red wine
and listening to symphony after
symphony from this black radio to my left
some symphonies remind me
of certain cities and certain rooms,
make me realize that certain people
now long dead
were able to
transgress graveyards
and traps and cages and bones and limbs
people who broke through
with joy and madness and within
surmountable force
in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles
and even now after decades of listening
I still am able to hear
a new work
never heard before that is totally
bright,
a fresh-blazing sun
there are countless sub-stratas
of rising surprise from the
human firmament
music has an expansive
and endless flow
of ungodly
exploration
writers are confined
to the limit of sight and feeling
upon the page
while musicians leap
into unrestricted immensity
right now it's just old Tchaikowsky
moaning and groaning his
way through symphony #5
but it's just as good
as when I first heard it

I haven't heard one of my favorites,
Eric Coates, for some time
but I know that if I keep drinking
the good red and listening
that he will be along
there are others, many others
and so
this is just another poem
about drinking and listening to
music
repeat, right?

but look at Faulkner,
he not only said the same thing over and
over but he said the same
place
so, please, let me boost these giants of our lives
once more:
the classical composers of our time and
of times past
it has kept the rope from my throat
maybe it will loosen
yours

from "Third Lung Review" - 1992


gamblers all

sometimes you climb out of bed
in the morning and you think,
I'm not going to make it,
but you laugh inside
remembering all the times
you've felt that way, and
you walk to the bathroom,
do your toilet,
see that face
in the mirror,
oh my
oh my
oh my,
but you comb your hair anyway,
get into your street clothes,
feed the cats,
fetch the
newspaper of horror,
place it on the coffee table,
kiss yourwife goodbye,
and then you are backing the car
out into life itself,
like millions of others
you enter the arena once more.

you are on the freeway
threading through traffic now,
moving both towards something
and towards nothing at all
as you punch
the radio on and get Mozart,
which is something,
and you will somehow
get through the slow days
and the busy days
and the dulldays
and the hateful days
and the rare days,
all both so delightful
and so disappointing because
we are all so alike
and so different.

you find the turn-off,
drive through the most dangerous
part of town,
feel momentarily wonderful
as Mozart works
his way into your brain
and slides down
along your bones and
out through your shoes.
it's been a tough fight
worth fighting
as we all drive along
betting on another day.

©2001 Linda Lee Bukowski reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


two kinds of hell

I sat in the same bar
for 7 years,
from 5 a.m.
(the day bartender let me in 2 hours early)
to 2 a.m.

sometimes
I didn't even remember going back
to my room
it were as if
I were sitting on the barstool
forever

I had no money
but the drinks kept
arriving
to then
I wasn't the bar clown
but the bar fool
but at times
a fool will find a greater
fool to
admire him,
and,
it was a crowded
place

actually,
I had a viewpoint:
I was waiting for
something extraordinary to
happen
but as the years wasted on
nothing ever did unless I
caused it:
broken bar mirrors,
a fight with a 7 footgiant,
a dalliance with a lesbian,
many things
like the ability to call a spade a spade and to
settle arguments that I did not
begin and etc. and etc. and etc.

one day I just upped and left theplace
like that
and I began to drink alone
and I found the company
quite all right
then,
as if the gods were bored
with my peace at
heart,
knocks began upon my door:
ladies
the gods had sent
the ladies to the
fool
and the ladies arrived
one at a time and when it ended with
one
the gods immediately--
without allowing me any respite--sent
another
and each began as a flash of miracle--
even the bed--and the
good ended up
bad

my fault,
of course, yes,
that's what they told
me
but I remembered
the 7 years in the bar,
I hardly ever bedded
down with anybody
the gods just won't let
a man drink alone,
they are jealous of
his simple strength and salvation,
they will send the lady
knocking upon that door
I remember all those cheap hotels,
it were as if the women
were one:
the delicate little rap on the wood and then:
"oh, I heard you playing that music on your radio...
we'reneighbors,
I'm down at 603
but I've never even seen you in
the hall..."
"come on in..."
and there go your balls
and your sanctity,
Men's Liberation,
they say,
is not needed
and then you remember the bar
when you walked up behind
the 7 foot giant and knocked his
cowboy hat off his head, yelling:
"I'll bet you sucked your mother's nipples
until you were12 years old!"

somebody in the bar saying:
"hey, sir, forget it, he's a mental
case, he's an asshole, he doesn't know what he issaying!"
"I know EXACTLY what I am saying
and I'll say it again:I'll bet you sucked..."
he won
but you didn't die,
not at all the way you died
when the
gods arranged to get all those ladies
knocking and you went for
the first flash of miracle
the other fight
was more fair:
he was slow, stupid and even a
little bit frightened
and it went well
for quite a good while,
just like with the ladies those gods
sent
the difference being,
I thought I had a chance with the
ladies

from "Third Lung Review" - 1992


magical mystery tour

I am in this low-slung sports car
painted a deep, rich yellow
driving under an Italian sun.
I have a British accent.
I'm wearing dark shades
an expensive silk shirt.
there's no dirt under my
fingernails.
the radio plays Vivaldi
and there are two women with
me

one with raven hair
the other a blonde.
they have small breasts and
beautiful legs
and they laugh at everything I
say.
as we drive up a steep road
the blonde squeezes my leg
and nestles closer
while raven hair
leans across and nibbles my
ear.

we stop for lunch at a quaint
rustic inn.
there is more laughter
before lunch
during lunch and after
lunch.

after lunch
we will have a
flat tire on the other side of
the mountain
and the blonde will change the
tire
while
raven hair
photographs me
lighting my pipe
eaning against a tree
the perfect background
perfectly at peace
with
sunlight
flowers
clouds
birds
everywhere.

©2000 reprinted with permission of Black Sparrow Press


rhyming poem:

the goldfish sing all night with guitars,
and the whores go down with the stars,
the whores go down with the stars

I'm sorry, sir, we close at 4:30,
besides yr mother's neck is dirty,
and the whores go down with the etc.,
the whrs. go dn. with the etc.

I'm sorry jack
you can't come back,
I've fallen in love with another sap,
3/4 Italian and 1/2 Jap,
and the whores go
the whores go
etc.

from "All's Normal Here" - 1985Ruddy Duck Press(originally appeared in Wormwood Review 1963)


Three Oranges

first time
my father overheard me
listening to
this bit of music he asked me,
"what is it?"
"it's called Love For Three Oranges,
"I informed him.
"boy," he said,
"that's getting it
cheap."
he meant sex.

listening to it
I always imagined three oranges
sitting there,
you know how orange they can
get,
so mightily orange.

maybe Prokofiev had meant
what my father
thought.
if so, I preferred it the
other way
the most horrible thing
I could think of
was part of me being
what ejaculated out of the
end of his
stupid penis.

I will never forgive him
for that,
his trick that I am stuck
with,
I find no nobility in
parenthood.

I say kill the Father
before he makes more
such as
I.

from ONTHEBUS - 1992


the schoolyard of forever

the schoolyard was a horror show:
the bullies, the dragons, the
freaks
the beatings against the wire fence
the eyes of our mates watching
glad that they were not the victims
we were beaten well and good
and afterwards
followed
taunted
all the way home
to our homes of hell
full of more beatings

in the schoolyard the bullies ruled well,
and in the restroom
sat the water fountains
they owned us and disowned us
but in our way we held
never begged for mercy
we took it straight on
silently
we were trained within that horror
a horror that would later hold us in good stead
and that came around
as we grew in several ways with time

the bullies gradually began
to deflate,
lose power
grammar school
Jr. high
high school
we grew like odd plants
gathering nourishment
blossoming
as then the bullies tried to befriend us
we turned them away

college
where a sun of wildness
and power arrived
the bullies melted entirely
we became
and they un-became
there were new bullies
the professors
who had to be taught something
beyond Kant
we glowed madly
it was grand and easy
the coeds dismayed at our gamble
but we looked beyond them
to a larger fight out there

but when we arrived out there
it was back against the fence again:
new bullies
deeply entrenched
almost but not quite worthy
they kept us under for decades
we had to begin all over again
on the streets
and in small rooms of madness
it lasted and lasted like that
but our training within horror endured us
and after so very long
we out
edoblique to their tantamounts
we found the tunnel at the end of the light

it was a small minority victory
no song of braggadocio
we knew we had won very little
against very little
that the changing of the clock
and the illusions beat everybody
we clashed against the odds
just for the simple sweetness of it

even now we can still see the janitor with his broom
in his pinstripes and sleeping face
we can still see the little girls in their curls
their hair so carefully washed and shining
and the faces of the teachers
fall and folded
the bells of recess
the gravel on the baseball diamond
the volleyball net
the sun always up and outspilling over us
like the juice of a giant tangerine
and Herbie Ashcroft
his fists coming against us
as we were trapped against the steel fence
as we heard the sounds of automobiles passing
but not stopping
as the world went about doing what it did
we asked for no mercy

and we returned the next day
and the next and the next
the little girls so magic
as they sat so upright in their seats
in a room of blackboards and chalk
we began badly
but always with a disdain
for occurence
which is still embedded
through the ringi-ng of new bells and ways
stuck with that
fixed with that:
a grammar school world
even with Herbie Ashcroft
dead

from "Third Lung Review" - 1992

In summation, I whipped up a little poem too.


Mickey is the Man

Odd about that.
I have never seen Bukowski
on film,
or heard his voice,
so in my mind
Mickey Rourke comes closest
to my image of him,
my imperfect imaginary picture.
Matt Dillon is just too damned
pretty,
and too tall,
and though I am sure he can be
mean,
just not cantankerous
enough;
not dirty enough.

Mickey Rourke can go days,
weeks,
without washing his hair,
and he used to be a professional boxer
just for the hell of it,
while he was still being
an actor.

Matt Dillon is just not
Bukowski
in my mind's eye.
I don't quite know why.

Glenn Buttkus 2008

Michael Madsen: Maverick Poet

We all have been watching Michael Madsen as an actor for decades. He has been in like 100 films already; many of them great, most of them straight to DVD quality. Somewhere within the boredom of being on the set, and his turbulent life, he began like 20 years ago to write poetry. I bumped into it a few years ago, and was suprised at how much I liked it. He writes with the passion of Bukowski, the irreverance of Ginsberg, and the rogue imagery of Kerouac. Dennis Hopper wrote the forward to one of his books of poetry, saying that he preferred Madsen to Kerouac; that the poetry was more daring, more dynamic and interesting.

As an actor he could have been better than anyone you could name, playing those masculine losers, those bad boys, and even the wide eyed Dad in the FREE WILLY flicks. Those Robert Mitchum droopy lids, that cigarette dangling from his full lips, that wild hair flying in all directions at once, his green eyes, his raspy voice--part Nick Nolte, part Jim Beam; all are his persona, and most of it shows up in his poetry.

END

I opened the window of my motel room and the December wind
got sucked across the floor under the door of the hallway.
It made an eerie sound. Creepy and slow.

On the TV, they advertised GI Junkie and GI Judas, complete with
back-stabbing action. I'm living to see the destruction of
everything holy, everything hopeful, everything bearded and
everything that ever meant anything.

Christmas has become a media event without consequences. Our
children will suffer long after the snow covered ground

covers us all.

Michael Madsen (2000)

ZIPPO

I pour another shot
of vodka
and see my reflection
on the back
of a silver Zippo.

Like a mirror in
an amusement park,
a little crooked,
a little strange.

Never underestimate
the value of a Zippo.

Michael Madsen.

He prefers to write his name, "michael madsen".

At one point Bradley Mason Hamlin interviewed him:

BMH: Is there any city in particular where the whore of the muse speaks to you more frequently or with greater passion.
MM: New Orleans.
BMH: Many people now believe that the terms "poet" and "poetry" are tired and misunderstood words. Henry Rollins refers to his poetry as "spoken words"; but that doesn't make sense as people are reading his words silently on paper. If you had to give poetry a new handle, what would it be?
MM: Inner dialect.

MOVIES

Remember when all the men on the ship said goodnight
to Mr. Roberts, or when
Shane rode off over the mountain?
Kirk Douglas trying for the note on the trumpet.
Jimmy Cagney screaming on top of the tower.
Bob Mitchum going after those kids and
Humphrey Bogart pulling off leeches.
Marlon Brando finding the dead
Pigeons on his roof.
Gloria Swanson walking down those fucking stairs
andBette Davis testing the weight of a rifle.
Chuck Heston finding his mother and sister
andCharlie Bronson getting shot in the Magnificent 7.
Burt Lancaster with his rose tattoo and
Burt Lancaster on Alcatraz.
Kirk Douglas looking at his dead horse in the rain.
Lee Marvin in the Twilight Zone and
Lee Marvin in Point Blank.
Mr. Blonde dancing and
Dennis Hopper with the gas mask.
Steve McQueen laughing in the backseat of a Mercury and
Steve McQueen smiling at the engine
Tim Roth as the only interesting money and
Harry Dean walking and making Paris, Texas.
WatchingPaul Newman eating those eggs and
Paul Newman telling
George C. Scott that he wasn't getting anymore money.
Karl Malden telling Marlon he was going to hang and
Karl Malden telling Blanch and
lighting that bent cigarette on the waterfront.
Jack playing the piano.
Jimmy Stewart loving Donna Reed and
Jimmy Stewart doing just about anything.
Fonda in the dust bowl and
Fonda, Jr. on the motorcycle.
Lon Chaney with a thousand faces and
Lon Chaney, Jr. running around
with Frankenstein in Creature Features
on T.V. in Evanston.

We are all on the run.
From the richest Maharajah
to the lowest, dirty, stinking pedophile.T
he big, the wrong, the last,
the found,the forgotten,
the remembered,
the free and all the long timers.
All on the run,
one way or another.
Yesterday I was the answer to 46 Down
in a crossword puzzle
in the L.A. Times

-michael madsen

BMH: Many people now believe that the terms “poet” and “poetry” are tired, misunderstood
He has more than 100 screen credits and has had rave reviews for his poetry... yet he is still best known as the psychotic lobe-lopper from Reservoir Dogs. Sanjiv Bhattacharya talks to Michael Madsen about his two dogs, his three wives, his five sons and how Quentin Tarantino (who else?) is set to breathe life into his brilliant career

Sunday April 18, 2004The Observer

Whatever his poems lack in polish, they make up for with stark, evidently cathartic honesty. Take Tuesday, from The Blessing of the Hounds: '
I am lost.
Alone.
And suicidal.
Although not likely to act upon the latter.
/I am some sort of freak.
Admired by other freaks
because I play freaks.'

Yet, though Madsen leans to the dark - he has a machine that plays him storm sounds when he's away on tour - there is levity of sorts. Like his throwaway poem Hammerhead:
'Man, I think the hammerhead shark is the
/most bizarre looking creature I've ever seen./
What is the deal with that head?'

From his poetry, Madsen emerges as a likeable raw nerve - a dude curmudgeon, unprecious to a fault. He is depressed by strip clubs and phoney news anchors and by the fact that people still send the Osmonds fan mail. He misses Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio - any death disturbs him deeply - and he's pretty sure 'acting is not what it's cracked up to be'.

For the most part, his poems are anecdotes - he's a natural storyteller. This morning, he's on a roll, reminiscing about his earliest career in Hollywood right up to the time they found a gun in his bag at Cannes - 'it was only a little .32,' he chuckles. 'They locked me up for a few hours.' He recalls his first job in Hollywood, as a pump jockey. 'My very first customer was Fred Astaire,' he says. 'He gave me a $100 bill to change his tyre. I thought, "Wow, I'm in Hollywood now!"' He remembers his first audition for Thelma & Louise, and how Ridley Scott laughed at him for refusing to play the part of the rapist, and insisting instead on playing Sarandon's loyal boyfriend, Jimmy (it worked).

Number 109

it is not as if the lights were dim
indeed silver is black
and the day as dark
sitting silently
in a sliver of ray
the sun is whole again
forgotten is the excuse of night
he falls responsibly and the day is dark
floating frightfully
from that of grace
a soul is awake again
blind from that which is love
the prism of shackles and chains
darkness becomes the way
easterly dreams seek shelter
from the weak running from rain ... eclipsed

mchael madsen

When asked how he decided to publish his poetry, he said to PREMIERE magazine:

I was gonna build a fire. It was snowing outside and all the f*cking wood was wet. I had this box with all sh*t and I put the f*cking thing in there and I was lighting it up, and she grabbed it and she took a few pages out and started reading it... And she goes: "Michael, Michael, you really shouldn't burn these things." So, I got the idea of giving it to a publisher in New York that I had met. (Premiere)---

Can you talk about some of your other interests such as poetry?

Well, I basically started doing that because I had a lot of free time on my hands. You know I was divorced. When you are in this industry, you spend an awful lot of time alone in motels and trains and airplanes. Strange places and you tend to look around and you spend a lot of time noticing a lot people and things people do and I started writing it down. I started jotting things down. I wasn't much of a reader, but I liked Ernest Hemingway and I liked John Steinbeck. I read a couple of biographies of Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster, and I really just started writing stuff. I would think of stuff and I would write it on a matchbook or f*cking napkin or a paper bag. I wrote one on my leg in the back of a taxi cab in New York 'cause I didn't have a piece of paper. When you think of something, you write it down or you're gonna forget it.

BMH: One of your poems mentioned you always seeing the saddest side of things. Can you give us an example of one of the saddest moments in your life? Happiness is too easy. You could just say, “The birth of my son, Max.” What is true sorrow?
MADSEN: I'd rather keep that to myself until I can put it in writing. I haven't written the saddest poem, nor have I written about the saddest thing that ever happened to me.

Rave on michael madsen, and many of us will hang on every image, every turn of a phrase, every thought or half thought. Thank you for being someone unorthodox, someone who can hurt Quentin Tarantino's feelings one minute, and be his shining star the next.

Glenn

Sherman Alexie Vs. Hollywood

I came across this article done by Sherman Alexie in Winter 2000. He had been selected to be a guest editor on an editon of PLOUGHSHARES: The Literary Journal at Emerson College. It struck all the old notes for me, the familiar song, the frustration of any "collaborative writing effort". Just once in my life did I really attempt this. I had written an unpublished (still is) screenplay for a short film that myself and several moviemaker buddies. I called it THE RIDE. There were four of us, the director, the techie, the videographer, and me --the intial writer. I submitted the screenplay, and everyone made their suggestions. It was too short, or it was too long; the language was too raw, I had to strike out the word "nigger", not enough sex, too much sex, not enough action, too much violence, too many scenes within an automobile which would be hard to shoot on a limited budget. After several weeks, lapsing into months, of these meetings, they were starting to go in circles, like the snake eating its tail, and since I kept careful notes, when I pointed out the conundrum, everyone became angry. THE RIDE never came to fruition. The funding fell through. But I can certainly see why Sherman Alexie produced and wrote his own script for his independent seldom-seen film THE BUSINESS OF FANCYDANCING (which I reviewed elsewhere on this blog). So anyway, I love you Sherman, and I know that means I have to stand in line, and take an appointment. Take a gander at his essay:


Introduction: Death in Hollywood
by Sherman Alexie

For the first time in my life, I had writer’s block. This writer’s block was so bad, so pervasive, so debilitating and humiliating (and so pretentiously stereotypical) that I couldn’t write anything. Or perhaps, more accurately stated, I couldn’t write anything with any sort of confidence. The words still filled up the page, but I had lost the ability to tell the good from the bad. (Some might argue I never possessed that ability!) More importantly, I’d lost the courage to ignore the opinions of others. I’d lost confidence in my individual voice and vision. This was true of my poems, stories, essays, novels, and screenplays. I turned down a few lucrative offers to write journalism for magazines and newspapers I admire because I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish the assignments. I missed all sorts of deadlines (like for this Ploughshares introduction, contradicting all the flattering stuff in Lynn Cline’s profile about my effortless work habits) and offered pitiful excuses for my lack of production, none of which came close to the truth, and the truth was this: I was afraid. I was in a personal and professional nightmare and often wondered if I’d ever find my way out. In fact, as I write this, I’m still in the middle of the nightmare. I’m only writing in the past tense out of desperation and hope. So, why all the drama?

My problems began with my work in the movie business. It’s a sad old story. Too many novelists and playwrights have gone to Hollywood and tried to strike it rich, only to be met with crushing disappointment. Hollywood broke Odets right in half, mutilated Faulkner’s spirit, and made Fitzgerald feel like a second-rater. I’m certainly not in those guys’ literary league, so if they could be treated like second-class artists, then Hollywood would certainly have no problem beating the shit out of me. Of course, those beatings are rarely inflicted out of disdain, hatred, or condescension. My writing and I have mostly been received with grace and courtesy by the movie business. Jesus, I’ve been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to work on screenplays I’m quite positive will never be made into movies, so that’s obviously a very sure and strange sign of appreciation. And yes, I’ve met with my share of megalomaniac monsters (mostly directors), capitalistic lowbrows (mostly studio executives), and outright crazies (a broad category of folks), but most of the people in the movie business are decent and hardworking people.

So why am I bitter? Well, I’m bitter because screenplays are written by committee. To be sure, filmmaking is a collaborative art form (don’t let any megalomaniac director or French film critic or Francophile American film critic tell you different), but the writing itself should never be collaborative. At least, that’s my opinion. Or at the very least, it’s how I work and cannot work with others. For those of you who don’t know, this is how screenwriting functions in Hollywood: A writer works for weeks or months, turns in a draft of a screenplay, then waits for weeks or months to receive comments (Hollywood calls them “notes”) from directors, producers, actors, agents, managers, and a cast of thousands, then the screenwriter is supposed to respond to those notes and rewrite the screenplay accordingly. This process might sound simple, but it is exceedingly torturous. For me, it’s torturous because I can never write one word, not even a pronoun or preposition, with the confidence that it will not be changed. I hear “their” voices in my head whenever I sit at my desk to work on a screenplay. I hear “their” voices in my head whenever I sit in a theater to watch a movie. I hear “their” voices whenever I think about movies or moviemaking. And “their” voices always say the same things, all of which can be distilled into the chorus for a song I wrote:

We think you’re brilliant, we think you’re brilliant.
We think you’re brilliant, we think you’re brilliant.
Now, could you change just this one little thing?


If you work full-time as a screenwriter in the movie business, I’m sure there’s a way to successfully negotiate the notes meetings—hundreds have to do it every day—but I’m also quite sure the process chips away at the walls of your artistic soul. After all, I’ve never received a note wondering if I could somehow make the screenplay a little more “difficult,” or that I might want to add a few more literary allusions “in order to give the work intellectual depth,” or that I should include more dialogue, because “frankly, these characters are intelligent and highly educated, so I think we should take advantage of that.” Instead, the notes always, always, always have something to do with making the screenplay more “accessible.” That’s a poisonous word for me, a public-school-educated, Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian boy who grew up on a reservation in Eastern Washington State in the Pacific Northwest. You see, all of those educational, racial, cultural, and geographical distinctions make me the unique, eccentric, iconoclastic, and inaccessible individual that I am. But every one of those distinctions also marginalizes me in some fundamental way. I’ve always lived my life and written my books outside of the power structure. In order to be accessible, I’d have to work within the power structure. And yes, while writing screenplays, I have been working within that power structure, right in the damn middle of that power structure. And yes, the contradiction is killing me.
Yes, this is my brain, a cute little egg, and this is my brain on screenplays, an egg sizzling in a frying pan with ten hypodermic needles, six vials of crack, and a copy of Syd Field’s Screenplay.

So what does this have to do with my writer’s block? Well, I’ve started to hear “their” voices, those Hollywood voices, whenever I try to write anything. I’ve even begun to wonder how I should change this introduction in order to make it more accessible. I worry if I should add more drama in the first paragraph and a few more punch lines in the third paragraph. I wonder which actor will play me when I adapt this introduction for the NBC miniseries. Of course, I’m exaggerating here, but that’s only because I’m again afraid to tell you what’s really happening to me and my work, and what’s happening and what’s going to happen is this: If I don’t get out of Hollywood, I’m going to lose what got me here in the first place—my love of writing. So, near the end, here’s the thesis of this damn thing: I’m quitting Hollywood. I have to finish out a few contractual obligations, but I’m not going to write screenplays for them anymore. I’m still going to make movies, but I’m going to make them in the same way that I write books: all by myself, with all my inaccessible bullshit, all of my good and bad writing, and most of the soul I have left intact. I’m going to make very cheap movies on video, and manufacture and distribute the videos all by myself, free from as many corporate influences as possible. I’ll make movies like I write poems, knowing full well that 99.9% of the world couldn’t care less, but equally aware that a tiny little 0.1% of the world needs and loves poetry.

So, there you go, I want to be a writer, like all the wonderfully talented women and men in this issue of Ploughshares, all of us doing our best, all of us crazy and courageous enough to think that poems and stories matter more than just about everything else.

Copyright © Sherman Alexie

I must say Sherman, for a dude with writer's block, you really came out swinging and made those hard-hitting points like the slugger poet you are. Odd that you ever feel anything but damned lucky to be so successful, but I understand that is relative, to the day, to the moment. Some day I might get the courage to try and meet you in person, maybe driving up to your office in Seattle, or coming to see your appearance on April 23, 2008 over in Shelton, at the Indian Museum. In the meantime, I will just keep reading your books (I'm up to six now, only 8 to go), reading your website, and pounding away on mine.

Glenn