I was a junior at a midwestern public university in 1986. That year, I tagged along on a road trip to Dallas, with some people I knew to see a reading at a place called the Caravan of Dreams. The author was William S. Burroughs. Knowing nothing about him, my memories of the reading are at the end, when audience members were lined up for autographs. One young woman let out a "Woo!" I was mesmerized my the admiration for this author. A guy with his leg in a cast stood aside of Burroughs and asked him if he didn't "have anything nice to say?" What a goofball. One of the people I came with (and who knew the guy putting on the event) asked this heckler (and who heckles an autograph signing?) if he wanted him to break his other leg, his arm... The guy who put on the reading said to the burnout, "He's not a nice guy." There's something odd about a situation such as this, happening in a decade such as the 1980s. What had William Burroughs become to those willing to waylay a dumb guy in a cast?
Back at school, someone I knew on the school newspaper asked me to write a review of the the author's performance. I don't remember if anyone knew...that I was unaware of William Burroughs' legacy, or even that he was a Beat. So I wrote this. What he does is...make ex-hippies laugh. Every other word that came out of this...guy's mouth was "fart" and "s---" and "a------" and "f---." The ex-hippies really dug Wailing Willie. I mentioned his shoes. I described one fan taking a photo with Mr. Burroughs as a dork with an obnoxious hat and cheesy moustache... (Didn't I have anything nice to say?) Sounds like me, but my uninformed perspective was so out of tune, it's delicious. If the campus newspaper received any death threats, they never mentioned to me. The reaction to my review showed me that, if nothing else, this author most likely had much less in common with Willie Nelson that I thought.
And I haven't seen Willie Nelson live either. A decade later, I would enjoy the film version of Naked Lunch. Regardless, none of this came to mind when I went to see Burroughs: The Movie, a one-time screening in town. At the beginning of the film, Burroughs describes the places where he is holding readings as "punk rock clubs." It follows him on a trip back to a St. Louis suburb of his childhood. Joining him on this stroll, on a beautiful day, is his personal assistant and significant other. Together with Burroughs' other friends, this guy strikes me as an odd man out in his sock tie and slacks, the aloof way he talks about feeling like Burroughs' son. We see Burroughs with his older brother on wire chairs surrounded by the green of a garden. The physical difference is striking. His older brother sitting next to him appears somehow ten years younger, filled out, healthy. Out from under the spotlight, Burroughs looks gaunt, frail. The way he hangs on tight to family photos the pair are looking at, he almost looks timid. Out front of his parents' old home, he remembers learning to "call frogs." St. Louis amused him, but he says that the social life would not have allowed him to live there. Yet more than one of his friends in the film describe his decency, with an original fellow Beat telling us that he probably has the same values as the Boy Scouts of America.
I remember someone helping Burroughs out of his chair in Dallas. The guy with the cast asked him if he had any children. He replied, quietly, that he had a son. Had. His son had just passed away a few years before, during the making of the film. There's a scene where he visits Burroughs in an apartment. His son had his own appreciation of the streets of America, and collected his insights in manuscripts which were discovered after his death. The entire film, especially the scenes from NYC, feel like some kind of time capsule. My memories of that goddamned decade still plays through my own head. Had I in fact found William S. Burroughs? In this film, he strikes me as moving though his life apart from the events depicted. He is taken for photos with Laurie Anderson, shown the way to the stage, gently encouraged before he recounts stories from a party decades past. Perhaps I reacted to this in my newspaper review. When he does interact with life, it's through his work. It's when he will walk onstage and sit at a desk with a light and a glass of water... And when he spoke, he knew how to wail.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
OMNI, August 1980
If we think of Hollywood as a great and giving ocean, and every genre a bay into which it washes, there is no inlet more polluted than science fiction. ...Kirk Douglas...has given us a pair of science fiction films this year. ...Saturn 3... "I wanted to be able to do a science-fiction picture of some kind, and this...intrigued me. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon, including myself." ...while we can allow Douglas the commercial zeal that helped put $11 million worth of sludge on the science-fiction screen, it is harder to justify...The Final Countdown.
Video/The Arts, by Stephen Demorest
...home video has crept into the middle class. ...Universal and Walt Disney Productions brought suit against Sony...against the sale and manufacture of the video copier... The court denied the plaintiffs... Now you can saunter into Macy's, check out 75 varying models tagged as low as $700 - about the cost of a decent stereo system... Last fall Billboard published its first Video Top 40...Fotomat inaugurated video-cassette rentals ($8 per movie); and Time-Life fanfared its brand-new mail-order Video Club.
Repeaters/UFO Update, by James Oberg
The only reason why UFOs were discussed at the U.N. at all was that Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy of Grenada has insisted upon bringing various UFO specialists to the U.N. under the umbrella of his...nation's delegation. When Gairy was deposed in a surprise coup d'etat last year, the topic of UFOs vanished quickly from the world body's agenda...
Continuum/Wind Farm, by J.D.
The Boeing Engineering and Construction Company, with the Federal Department of Energy (DOE), NASA, and the Boneville Power Administration (BPA), is constructing a "wind farm" at Goodnoe Hills... Right now the DOE has other wind generators - all test models - running in New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Puerto Rico and Rhode Island. ...the Boeing generators...will be the world's biggest and will produce the most power.
Universe Red, by Craig Covault
...the news media fail to grasp the economic and functional importance or aerospace technology. When did you last see anything on television dealing with Soviet space research? During the last three years the Russians have learned to accommodate humans in space for long periods. This new ability furnishes the USSR military and civil powers... A new Soviet killer-satellite system now threatens several of our low-altitude spacecraft.
Tanking, by John Gorman
...the Isolation Tank. Paddy Chayefsky's book Altered States tells me I'm heading into a chamber of inner horrors. Dr. John Lilly, developer of the isolation tank, says I will find the perfect sublime setting for, in Shakespeare's words, "Mending the ravelled sleeve of care." Robert Tynhurst, managing partner of Samadhi Tank Works, which has sold more than 1,000 tanks in the past few years, calls isolation tanking, "the opportunity for complete privacy" that will "someday be found in every skyscraper and home." "The sensory-isolation experience," Dr. Jay Shurley, a psychiatry professor at Oklahoma Medical School who has worked with the tanks for 25 years, says, "should be part of the curriculum growing up, offered in the late teens or early twenties to persons who want to facilitate their own personal growth. In a world where 'future shock' is a growing problem..."
Interview/Denis Hayes, by Eric Rosen
Omni: What's slowing the solar transition?
Hayes: There's enough blame to go around. ...for promising tax credits and then dawdling around for eighteen months before passing them. Lots of people postponed their decisions...others are now waiting for their states to pass supplementary credits. ...government...delays have forced many small solar firms into bankruptcy. Some of the early solar installations leaked; some froze; some melted; some were installed backwards. Many solar firms viewed the market as limited to wealthy and upper-middle-income folks who like to be venturesome. So they advertised solar technology as sexy and daring. ...it must be acknowledged to be just one more appliance like a refrigerator or an air conditioner...
SPACE The 'Cancelled' Frontier?
...the United States "is not" taking full advantage of the new age of industries and settlements in space.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
January 2015
...he would say to himself, "you're designing the sexy machines."
"A plug. You gotta have one." It was the age of specialists. Should the machine turn on with a key or a button? He drew portraits of members of the team, ones to whom he had scarcely ever said good morning. He knew their hobbies. "The postpartum depression on this project is gonna be phenomenal. These guys don't realize how dependent they are on that thing to create their identities." - Kidder
If I could display poems in my head...it would be the apartment I lived in or the woman I had been with. Instead of words it would be a room, an abandoned house with dozens of syringes on the floor and no water. It would be me looking into this really dirty mirror all the time. People are asking too much - they want some piece of me and... ...I don't feel like I am worth giving a piece to anyone. The poetry was honest but everything else wasn't. Coming from a place where I put myself so far away...and then there is that moment: when I am not that guy asking for money and there is that connection. I don't know how to get that. I don't get it from drugs or idle conversation. I get it from music. I get it when I talk to my youngest son. ...maybe...it is spiritual... Poetry is the truth in a half way decent vocabulary. How can you strip down your soul and serve it up to someone?
Nickels and Dimes
Alone I speak to dozens people each day
In my best "I am a nice guy I swear to God" voice
My hat (if I have one) held humbly in my hands
Nickels and Dimes
About one in fifty stop and listen to me
...among the throng of clones
A couple who understand...
Or a bright eyed girl walkin' with her man
Who rolls his eyes, checks the time, glares at me
And makes sure I see him put his hand on her ass
Eric Richter Johnson, a.k.a. "Fuzzy"
September 2, 1973 - November 20, 2014 - Denver Voice, 1/2015
It's the second day of 2015. I'm at the train station at a quarter to 5 AM. Some haggard looking guy with a dark, dirty face gives me a wave with a cigarette in his hand. I walk away. The day after is the first Saturday I can remember, in which I don't have to be at work in a plant in the morning. It's been a lot of years working many businesses, but the new owners of my company have discontinued production on Saturday. And the things which I have missed... Down my street around 9:30 AM are a couple of police cars with their lights on, and a section of street blocked off with the old yellow tape. The following morning, I would see on the local news that there was a couple blockaded in a home behind the house of someone I work with. They would surrender to SWAT an hour later. They fled a home invasion a few streets north of where I live, not far from the house of someone else who I work with.
Sources of revenue are in the hands of speculators who use the [government] party to mask monopolies... The economy is the very foundation of society... The government must destroy all the obstacles standing in the way of economic development, must abolish all forms of monopoly and speculation... ...should put an end to all forms of human exploitation... Then...society will be reconstructed...
...nations...will...move in their own ways and in their own time toward human freedom and political democracy. The diffusion of power is the basis for freedom... It will be victory of men...over...forces which wish to...exploit...aspirations of modernization. - Raskin and Fall
In 1994...the city's first light-rail line, came through the area... "All you could do was ride it downtown or to Littleton." The train..."made the area more attractive for developers, but harder to redevelop. It took out a lot of parking, and a lot of mom-and-pop...businesses actually struggled right after the light rail came in... It certainly wasn't the panacea people had hoped it would be." ...the neighborhood's blight designation went through, the Colorado Department of Local Affairs...handed out $287,000... Most of which went to six private consultants doing "a comprehensive study of which kind of development would work...and why," says...an economic-development specialist... From their work...a thirty-page Community Vision Plan and 140-page Revitalization Strategy Report outlining the area's existing infrastructure and the community's...vision... "...market analysis, development and feasibility plans." ...public money invested..."has...created a reasonable base for some future use. The task is now figuring out what is a reasonable use." The area's demographic is changing as quickly as its aesthetic. ...you can't create an economically viable redevelopment around what was. ...the city's...Landmark Preservation Commission..."believes that our landmarks can and should be altered and modernized... ...in today's financial environment, you have to build to accommodate density..." - Westword, 1/8-14/2015
The process of urbanization...is extending to the so-called underdeveloped areas. ...under capitalism and in areas of socialism. It seems to be...inescapable...of growth and population increase. Urbanization in this nation is different only in degree and detail... It is, of course, too soon to assert that movement back to the central city is a major trend. We are developing heavy concentrations in the central cities of the poor, the old, the discriminated against. Our cities, by their very nature, tend to inhibit...mobility...when the fare box will not support a good transit system, service is cut back. ...in the last decade about fifty or sixty cities have lost all forms of mass transit. - The Urban Complex, by R. C. Weaver, 1964
As Americans we believe we are from an essentially good nation and our government would never do things governments is lesser countries would. And so to challange that belief is to challenge our identity. We have what's called a "sacred mythology" that explains who we are and why we're doing what we're doing. - Washington Park Profile, 1/2015
...the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance (IHO)... ...ensure that developments are...in "geographically appropriate locations"... - Washington Park Profile, 1/2015
Someone on my neighborhood social network website reports that they had their 2002 Jeep stolen out of their driveway. "Love this neighborhood," he writes. There is a bank up the street which may not even be a year old. It was robbed. On Wednesday, I am at a bus stop at 4:30 AM, waiting for a crosstown connection. A construction guy sows up. He recognizes another one in the bus shelter. "Where you been?" "Same place you have! I've been sick. I'm never sick. My roommate is always sick. He goes out at night. Stays out until one in the morning. He's out in that night air."
Thursday. There's trouble on the bus headed up the street at 4:30 AM. As we approach the stop for the crosstown bus, I hear someone in back say, "Let's go, c'mon. You're driving this bus at fucking twenty miles an hour." When he gets off at his stop, he gives the admonition that "Buses suck..." We get off at the connecting stop. The crosstown bus shows up from the north, instead of the west. Either there is a detour, or he went the wrong direction. I hear someone onboard yell "Go!" I get on to see the driver consulting a map. It seems to me as if he hauls ass to the stop across from the train, as if perhaps he is behind schedule. A new driver? He's one who I don't recognize. The passenger (who I presume yelled "Go!") says, "Well, there's my train." He's missed it. "Now I have to wait because of a STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!" He's referring to the driver. The driver responds into his microphone, "We're not going to start having these problems, are we? Have a nice day." The passenger has some more words for the driver, ending with, "...YOU HEAR ME BITCH?!" One middle-aged guy up front is on his phone, telling someone that there is a passenger yelling on the bus. "It's same one as yesterday."
Ready to write something for publication? That's awesome. Because the outdoor industry needs to hear from more fresh, exciting voices... ...allow me one simple plea... Please don't be boring. Please don't...avoid revealing something...personal... And most of all, please don't worry about pissing me off. The next writer who refers...to any spot where they...drink beer, panhandle...as "the local's secret," should have their Wi-Fi blocked for a month. - Elevation Outdoors, 12/2014
Tuesday of the following week. I am at a train station after work, shortly after nine PM. When the bus shows up, a young woman gets on with a guy. She appears to be dressed for a night out on the town. He appears to be wearing a hoodie. As she rummages through her purse for bus fare, the guy sits and watches her. The driver asks her, "Have you got the fare?" She tells him to hold on, that she is digging out all her change. The pair leaves before we take off. Thursday morning, around 6 AM, I am on a bus to work. A waitress gets on and recognizes a friend. It turns out that they both work where I have been going for a few mornings for breakfast before work. The first is talking about not getting home until after midnight the night before. "We got so fucking busy. An eight-year-old kid called me a piece of shit. Her parents said, 'Is that how you talk to the waitress?' The kid was like, 'No, but I don't care.'" Friday morning. 4:30 AM. At the bus stop across the street is the small middle-aged lady in the red coat. The woman who I always see smoking, who doesn't wear her hood on cold mornings, who sometimes doesn't have bus fare. This morning, she gets on the bus and tells the driver that she lost her bus pass. I wonder where it is that she goes each morning? The next day, I am on a train after work, headed home shortly before 7 PM. Seated across from me are a well-to-do pair of middle aged ladies. One has frosted hair, and the other has a scarf which looks like an American flag. They are discussing dog breeding and "rednecks." The frosted one is talking about someone she knows who complains all the time. "Everyone has financial problems, but if that's all you talk about, then you sound miserable all the time." The other one mentions a relative or friend who is elderly. "I have a leg brace," she lampoons this senior, "I have a walker..." The frosted one tells the other that perhaps "it's time to take her out behind the barn and shoot her." As I get off at my stop, they both break into cackles.
Pilot's Wife. Mother of five. Business owner. Author. Motivational Speaker. Life Coach. Radio Host. And I am just getting started! - Colorado Parent, 1/2015
In the early morning of Sunday (yesterday), one of my vehicles...was side swiped. I installed cameras a few months ago...to see that it happened at 3:33 am by a vehicle just FLYING...wit no headlights... The vehicle...ran into a trash barrel and dragged it in front for at least 300 feet before the barrel was pushed into my daughter's vehicle... Trash was strewn all over the place... I tried to file a police report online but it was rejected since they classify it as a collision... - "Another day in paradise," Nextdoor Westwood, 1/19/2015
...the truth shall burst forth in irresistible waves of hatred on the part of...people... It shall sweep away the ignominy and all the injustice... ...we don;t wish, in all sincerity, that our Fatherland should have to live through these perilous days... ...we have...let the Executive act as it wished. But now is the time of the essence... - Raskin and Fall
"Right after 9/11, I remember talking to my women's group and saying I just don't think this could have happened without someone knowing about it and allowing it to." A retired psychotherapist...sent a summary to her Representative...and met with the congresswoman's executive director. "He took me very seriously, and that got me on a roll. You have to look in a scientific way at the theories and ask: which one does the evidence support?" - Washington Park Profile, 1/2015
Monday. Martin Luther King Day. I'm at the train station at 5 AM. A young guy shows up in the dark. He is wearing hospital scrubs and has a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. At his left temple are a couple of bloody knots. We get on the same train car, and before we get to my stop, perhaps because I carry a duffel bag to work, he asks me if I have an extra coat. I am without an extra one. We both get off at my stop, and he disappears into the same dark.
Wednesday. I am staring down another payday at the end of this week. It feels as though two weeks have vanished somewhere. This morning, at 4:30 AM, I am on a bus up the street, As we get within visual range of the infamous crosstown bus, I hear a passenger quietly say, "There it is." As if they are awaiting the resurrection. When it appears that we have a chance of catching this other bus, someone shouts, "Honk at that bus!" A honk from one bus to another is a signal that passengers want to transfer. A chorus of voices join the plea for a honk. The driver begins madly honking his horn. Where I work these recent weeks, I'm in an entirely different world, miles from my neighborhood. In a coffee shop next door, a woman is asking a clerk about renting the shop for her Rotary Club. Back in my store, I listen to a couple of customers discuss having "to be mentally tough all the time." I decide that they are talking about a new movie about a U.S. Army sniper.
Friday. I'm at the bus stop across the street from where I live. There's a guy who I've never seen before. He's in a hoodie under a leather coat. He says something about, "Hey bro, the bus comes at 4:26 AM." That sounds about right. He's shuffling slowly around. He heads over to the gas station and then comes back again. He says the same thing to the next guy who comes along. A chilly wind blows. It's been a icy month. The bus comes. He gets on and slowly lumber to the back. From the bus to the train to the bus. At one stop, a pair of middle-aged guys each have a bike. One of them asks the driver something. Perhaps they have no fare. As one of them walks away, the driver says, "C'mon." They put their bikes on the rack and get on. The younger one is carrying a pair of work boots, tied together at the laces, over his right shoulder. I get out of work in the early afternoon. It's a beautiful afternoon. Across the street from the bus stop are a couple of guys with a dolly. A passing truck honks at them and one of them throws something at it. They get the bus, and a ways up the street, the guy who threw something at the truck gets off. He tells the other, "Be safe and shit."
Hello all
does anyone have any details about the shooting and victim that happened Friday afternoon (in my neighborhood)? - Nextdoor Westwood, 1/25/2015
Saturday. After being called in to work all day on my day off, I am at a train station around 7:30 PM. There is a Caucasian guy listening to techno hip hop. He has ink on his left hand, a 32-oz. cup from Wendy's in his left, and a jacket with embroidering on the back. "db Drive By." Off the train, I am at a bus stop with another pair of guys with bikes who appear homeless. One is telling the other, "I know Missoula. I was district manager..." The bus comes and takes me back to my own neighborhood. Waiting at a stop for my last bus, around 8 PM, a loud woman comes along with her boyfriend. She asks someone if they have a light. When the bus comes, I get on and walk past a kid in a seat. He's reading "Combat Magazine." His mom has on a knit cap with little mouse ears. Just before the bus takes off, she realizes that this is their stop.
Tuesday. It's fifteen after four in the AM. I head across the street behind a couple of guys, one of whom is pulling a suitcase on wheels. In their down jackets, they could otherwise be just a couple of dudes headed to the airport. But they way in which they shuffle along belies their countenance. They head over to the gas station to look into the trash can. The one without a suitcase goes out into the middle of the parking lot and inspects the ground. They both turn south and disappear into the dark. A guy comes along and waits at the stop. He's wearing red pants and what appears to be a college sweatshirt, and he is doing some stretching.
Wednesday. I step out of my front door at 4:15 AM. From down the street comes a couple. The guy is angry. "Fuckin' blah blah fuckin' blah blah... Do whatever the fuck you want to do," he tells her. "That's what you're gonna do anyway. So go do it!" His voice echoes off the buildings and into the dark. They arrive at my bus stop to wait for the bus. He is silent, she is quietly talking.. I see the guy get on the bus by himself.
LAKEWOOD NEWS IN A HURRY
At...the Light Rail station near the Federal Center... ...a man...had exposed himself to her while riding the train. She further indicated that the man was still at the station and pointed him out to the agents.
Where the head goes, the body will follow
Readers are encouraged to send their mental-health-related questions to Ask A Therapist and - space permitting...therapists will answer them. Our brains are wired to react to intimidating situations with...shutting down any systems that are "non-essential"... In today's stressful world it seems intimidating challenges are around every corner. ...stress...makes us sedentary and slouched... It makes us crave junk food...like we need to use mood-altering substances... Set aside time each week...ignoring your responsibilities... - Lakewood Sentinel, 1/22/2015
Friday. 4:30 AM. We are northbound through my neighborhood. At a stop on a corner, a guy with tattoos on his neck, a knit cap, and a water bottle gets on. He wants to know how far north we go. Then he tells the driver that he has less than half the fare. The driver tells him to get off. An hour later I am on my last connecting bus to work. A middle aged guy with headphones and a backpack walks up to the driver. I hear him say something about two buses passing him by. "Jesus Christ," he says. He does not appear to be able to sit still. He changes seats, he slouches, sits back up, twitches. After work, I am on the same bus back north again. It's 11 1/2 hours after my journey began. I spot another middle aged guy who I rode the bus down with. He has a slow, loud voice, as if he is mentally impaired. This morning, he was talking to a couple of young guys about watching cage fighting on TV. "That's real fighting. They go all out," he tells them. He was asking the driver how far it was to various unintelligible stops along the way. This afternoon, he is on his phone with a marijuana place, asking "How much for an ounce?" He claims to know a Ramon Valdez. It is not obvious how this is relevant. He asks the driver how far it is to a particular avenue. Another guy gets on. He looks like a bum. He begins talking about marijuana. At first, I think the mental guy is saying the word "pants." He is in fact telling the other guy that he has 24 "plants," as in marijuana. From what I can make out, he claims that his medical marijuana card allows him to have these. My understanding is, with such a card, one is allowed to cultivate up to six plants. Presumably not exceeding this number. "I go through a lot of weed," he tells the other guy. "I go through a quarter (ounce) a day." He mentions that he does not have a "licence" because he has seizures. I hear him say something in the same sentence about two-by-fours and his head.
Saturday. I take the 4:52 bus up the street with a little guy who sounds as if he is chewing gum. He gets off at my stop. On his phone, he slowly moves between three different corners. When my bus comes, he is still there. Another guy comes along. He walks with a limp and is wearing sunglasses a couple of hours before the sun will rise. Some nine hours later I am again heading north on my street, this time heading home on the bus. At one stop, a guy gets on and waits at the front door. I see a forlorn look on his face. I am sure that he was asked for his fare, and, alas, he is without it. He slowly disembarks. If this happened at 4:30 AM, everyone would be yelling at the driver to "Go!" You hear me bitch?
...knowledge...if often limited by the distance they can paddle or walk in one day. There are "villages" where the ordinary voter may not know the name of his own country, or where it is, or that other countries exist at all. ...his...normal cronies are two baby-faced Chinese communist militants and a fierce little Indian Marxist... I somehow sense that for him the fight is over. More than violence or votes, most...had simply wanted their independence. And now they had it. ...their first own native Paramount Ruler moved into his new palace, a fortress-like mansion... - An Eye for the Dragon, by D. Bloodworth, 1970
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)