Category Archives: Journal

AURAL Heather hits the road

Journal

July 5, 2008

Trying to focus as I listen to the sounds of this bloody hotel, a persistent and burrowing whir—a fan perhaps—cleaning staff and some screaming brats using the hallway for a playground. This is the least of my hotel tales. Back to yesterday, which seems like a long time ago, always the case when traveling, no? Spent the day tying as many loose ends as possible. Roderick called me from the airport to let me know we were on different flights! It hadn’t occurred to me that the agent at Flight Centre would do such a thing. I have no idea whether it was intentional or not but in the middle of my packing, I had to call West Jet to switch flights and pay $50. for the privilege. I would have been late too had I not been alerted as the flight she had me on was leaving a half hour earlier.

Then as I was closing up the suitcase my niece had given me in exchange for a larger one she needed after a shopping spree wouldn’t allow her to close it up, only to discover the zipper was broken! I had to scurry down to the crawl space and find another bag, a much heavier one and one that I don’t relish boosting up into the overheads on the plane. I have been meaning to find and purchase the ultimate carry-on bag but I haven’t had time. As I always say, it’s on my list. In any case, I managed to get to the ferry on time, catch a cab in Horseshoe Bay and get to the airport. I had to check bags this time because I needed to bring our merch-CDs and my book. Red eye to Toronto a typical red eye, awful airline food and too cramped to sleep. I usually bring my own food but guess what, I didn’t have time. Therefore, we were pretty bagged by the time we landed, collected our luggage at the baggage carousel and collected the rental car, both endeavours taking a painfully long time, party due to the clerk and I haggling over car models, insurance and gas. They always try to sell you on a more luxurious model, an *upgrade* and scare you into buying their insurance. Checked in after a hairy drive through rush hour traffic, hotel entrance seemingly inaccessible with all the one-way streets, a lot like Vancouver in that respect. Our fully paid for room was not ready so they put us on the fifth floor after I insisted I would not wait in the lobby. We settled in a bit, decided to go deal with the equipment rental, found a pleasant little cafe along the way that served delicious huevos rancheros and coffee. I am trying hard not to pig out, eat too much, been eating half the serving, wrapping up the rest and eating it later. Restaurants serve such huge servings. it’s ridiculous. In this case, Roderick finished my eggs for me as he polished off a side of sausage.

Walked the rest of the way to Long & McQuade to rent the gear. It was hot, we were tired and the store was typically filled with aspiring rock gods wanking on guitars, loudly. Fortunately the store had the pedals we needed, and the amp, and the guitar. Roderick likes play a Telecaster. We were barely holding it together, figuring we would crash when we returned to the hotel but when we got back to the room we were serenaded with loud tapping and drilling sounds from above. Roderick called down to the desk, we both tried negotiating but they claimed they didn’t have another room available. It’s infuriating when you know you are being bullshitted. So much for Hilton hospitality. Continue reading →

Two takes on a triumphant launch of the nutty Princess

Journal,

Post Princess Nut CD launch at the Media Club in Vancouver. Feeling relief and gratified that we’ve arrived at the next level, this level-our act together, taking it on the road. It hasn’t been easy. We’ve persevered through windstorms, computer meltdowns and neurotic or drug-addicted colleagues. Logistics are daunting, to say the least, with both of us living on islands but I felt triumphant the other night onstage. I am proud of us, excited about our sound and where we have evolved to.

We are performing spoken word songs, or spongs for short. I recite a poem to music that Roderick has brilliantly composed and arranged, with various parts sung or spoken. (I am so lucky to be working with Roderick.) Recently we wrote two songs with a more traditional approach but they are still adaptations of poetry. One, Sun Hee, is jazz-influenced though I swore we would never play that stuff. Actually, I love jazz, have listened to a lot of it, but I cannot abide omnipresent, clichéd neo-beat performed with saxaphones, bongo drums and berets. This song just came out jazz-singed however and Roderick says it’s due to the intervals I’m singing. Oh well, it’s an organic process, intuitive. I shouldn’t be surprised by jazz’s influence, or Roderick’s for that matter. He is well-schooled in it. Hmmm. Much the way I worked with previous guitarists, I wrote the melody and then Roderick came up with a chord progression. The other, Nipples, is rather Sonic Youth or Joy Division-ish. I vocalize throughout—verses and choruses—but they are quirky, dictated as they are by the cadence of the poem, producing a song lyric that is highly imagistic, peculiar.

I needed to wallow in a post-show funk for a few days but finally got up the nerve to watch the video of the debut show. I dread watching myself on video, as useful an exercise as it is. Surprise, surprise, I didn’t hate it. The video we shot is so bad though we won’t be able to post it on Myspace or YouTube—the audio is crappy and the colours washed out—but I thought Aural Heather performed well. We “dazzled” according to Pam Southwell of RPW Records and several other people in the audience. I will post a video my dear friend Tom Konyves kindly shot of Nipples. The audio on it isn’t great either but it captures mood well and gave me an idea for harmony parts to add to our backing tracks.

What a night! Audiences don’t know us but if even half the people that said they would come had shown up the place would have been packed. By the end of the evening the club was full though, with a festive, lively atmosphere. I dutifully arrived at the club at six pm for sound check and then waited for Roderick. Sound man Shawn, unlike most, was very friendly and enthusiastic. He played soundtracks from I’m Not There, which I saw and enjoyed very much, and Across The Universe, which I want to see having been highly recommended by several friends.

It’s been a long time since I sat in a rock club waiting on my band. I had nearly forgotten my feelings about sound check, which is that while necessary, the room never sounds the same later in the evening filled with bodies and chatter. Thank god it looks different too. In the dark, with the lights on, a nightclub has ambiance. In afternoon light it just looks shabby and depressing, not to mention the funky smell. Feeling antsy, despite all the chamomile tea I drank, I put on my slippers and continued waiting. New shoes, long-coveted Fluevogs were already hurting my feet. I don’t know how women do it, walk around in high heels all day. Thought I would try to get over my stiletto dread but it didn’t work and turned out to be a bad move, along with the new vintage dress which looked beautiful but wasn’t really appropriate stage wear, mainly because I didn’t feel comfortable so naturally was inhibited. So I will stick to skirts and boots or heels that don’t hobble. Is there such a thing?

Roderick arrived at last, with his lovely paramour, artist/sculptor Lynn Demers. They were staying at the Sheraton Wall Centre so I can understand why they were slow to leave. I heard Roderick ran around their hotel room like a kid, jumping up and down on the bed naked. We set up and worked through sound check. Pam arrived with a box of cds and we documented the momentous occasion with photos. I tried not to pick it apart and just enjoy deliverance at last. I fear the text might be too small, hard to read. The colours are good but the image on the front seems a little distorted, as if you’re looking at it through the bottom of a glass. I could be imagining things. Overall though, it’s beautiful, I have to say.

It was hard to sit and wait all night and our start time kept getting pushed back. I was distracted from my angst by stellar performances by Susan Cormier, Beth Southwell and her band and Kedrick James. Went to the green room for a while, paced, changed my stockings that had already had runs in them. Another torture device—pantyhose. My niece Lisa and her boyfriend Rafael capably manned the merch table. Went back out to visit with friends who made the trek out, some from far away, many distinguished, older men, writers. Hmmm.

Kyle did a swell job of emceeing and was enjoying himself, I could tell. Finally, we got up to do our set. I was pretty nervous but I’m better able to quell my fears now with a mantra and focus on the work at hand. My art. My baby. It was hard to hear and I think I ended up having to shout, feared I may have been a little off key on a couple of tunes but it’s still hard to tell even after watching the video. I need to speak/sing at a normal level, not strain or shout, whether I can hear myself in the monitors or not, otherwise all nuance and inflections are lost. A gaggle of drunken yahoos came in off the street near the end of the set, danced to our last *spong* Whore In The Eddy and demanded an encore. It was hilarious. They would not let us off the stage! I protested that we aren’t a dance band but they were having none of that. We decided to repeat Nipples, just for them. At one point Roderick plied the mike stand with his guitar and they went bonkers. It made for a most memorable launch, a funny topper to the evening.

Had a drink at last and caroused the rest of the evening with all my kooky friends-Randy, aka RC Weslowski, Kedrick James, Rhonda Milne, Susan Cormier, Kyle Hawke, Mark Perrault, Steven Sherer and my main man, Josef. We closed down the Railway, tried to find another nite spot open while we waited for a cab and I ranted, or bitched rather, about the sad state of this one-horse town. We found a Chinese restaurant open. Others in the group claimed it was a gangster haven. I didn’t care, we all went in. It had a weird vibe all right and crappy food. Some dudes against the wall eyeballed us until one came over and said his friend the dentist loved redheads and that I had to come over and meet him. I tried to shoo him away but he was very persistent even though Josef looked him straight in the eye and said, “Yeah, I like that redhead a lot.” Rhonda was already on her way over so I went and said Hello. Creepy guys. I started to panic, said “Okay, well nice meeting you, I’m going back to have something to eat with my husband now,” while Rhonda gabbed with them a bit more. Back at the table she said, “Those guys were weird.” Yeah, no shit sharky. Apparently the dentist reached over and tugged on her dress to look at her breasts! I would have slugged the jerk which could have resulted in an ugly altercation. Good thing I left. Rhonda is adorable and was wearing Kyle’s black top hat that everyone agreed suited her better. With his long, curly, flowing, dark locks Kyle looked like Slash and one Slash is enough!

Kedrick’s singular take on the evening:

In the perpetual Spring, Heather blooming aural heather,
took to the Media Club, brought books and CDs and friends her style
not as Bowen Island but as still so concrete cool, taking a sharp
ended wit to her musical duo’s grinding scronk crunch and broken
howls that take on worlds in their clatter astral baggage, the duo
rocking out a highlight of word zone wilding, best in show.
In true Vancouver fashion we got started late but worth the wait
to see triptop Vancouver poets attend, Jamie Reid, Tom Konyves,
RC Weslowski (what a great audience member, as well) among
them, and so it was, with Susan Cormier kicking things off with her
verbal sculptures all Rauschenberg-like, reading that macaroni letter
of past adventures to rob mclennan (before he gets it) a future pastagram,
and then a band, but I’m bad and went to the smoking pit to prepare
my mind, so I can’t say, and then a perverse warred selection of my
new poems from the endless spew that is my poetic zoo, and then
to Heather’s post-punk-pre-apocalypse perfection. Met wonderful
Vancouver artist Steven Shearer and we all headed off for drinks
at the Railway, chatting with Kyle the stalwart MC DJ jackpot crackpot
spark plug live wire, and kept bevvies abundant till we crawled home
to escape the dawn. In all, a wonderful time-island of word and sound it was.

Photo of Kedrick and a recording of his reading at the launch here:

http://www.kedrickjames.net/poetry/mediaclub/mediaclub.html

The eternal struggle to look good, recent bird spottings, Charles’s MFA in film

Journal, , , , , , , ,

I know why some women “let themselves go.” Looking good is a lot of work! My weight for example. Take my weight. Please. I’ve been struggling with it all my adult life, especially after hitting forty and peri-menopause, which wreaked havoc on my metabolism, mainly by slowing. The pounds creeped on imperceptibly. One day I got on the scale and the needle flew, way, way, way over 150 pounds. At 5’8”, I think my ideal weight is 140 pounds.

I had been thin/pure but was too young and dumb to realize it, always feeling like I was never thin enough, always feeling inadequate in other words. At least I had time to shop and though I couldn’t afford designer labels, was very resourceful and adept at finding highly stylish things to wear. Life was simple. Not so anymore, not with a kid and home schooling and running a household, like this woman in the van in front of me, full of wee ones, including a newborn. She has a look in her eye, like prey. Guess I’ve always suffered from a lack of self-esteem, boo hoo, and now I get to factor in aging as well. Buck up. As they say, aging is not for sissies. At least I have perspective along with the sore feet. My innate fashion sense and high quality garments are more important than ever, thus I spent hours and hours downtown looking for a dress to wear onstage. I’m wiped out!

Thunderstorm last night. Does it explain the vivid dreams I’ve been having? In this one Junior and his pals were seated on a Murphy bed. I was alarmed when I didn’t recognize two of them and asked Junior who they were. He, they, wouldn’t tell me. I got frustrated and closed the bed up, with them inside. I asked Junior to open it again, to give me the key. He laughed, said he didn’t know where it was. He found this very amusing but I was getting scared, on the verge of panic. I couldn’t open it!

Bird enchantment report: I spotted a new species by the feeder yesterday though this guy was on the ground. I thought it was a sea bird but looked it up in my guidebook and found out it was a woodpecker, a female. I get such a thrill every time I successfully identify a species. I can see why people get hooked on birding. Apparently, though most woodpeckers spend most of their time in trees, some will forage on the ground for insects. I was surprised to identify an exotic bird that resembled a parrot as an Evening Grosbeak. The poet in me is equally enchanted with bird names and categories: Loons, Grebes, Shearwaters, Petrels, Boobies, Gannets, Bitterns, Egrets, Spoonbills, Limpkins, Rails, Coots, Lapwings, Plovers, Skuas, Jacanas, Oystercatchers, Stilts, Terns, Skimmers, Auks, Cukoos, Nightjars, Trogons, Tryrant Flycatchers, Shrikes, Vireos, Larks, Wrentits, Verdins, Creepers, Nuthatches, Warblers, Gnatcatchers, Thrashers, Bulbuls, Accentors, Wagtails, Pipits, Tanagers, Towhees, Longspurs, Weavers.

Enjoyed an evening with new friends Tina Schliessler and Charles Wilkinson at their house in Deep Cove where they were celebrating his MFA in film from UBC. Tina is the artist whose phainting graces the cover of our new Aural Heather new cd, Princess Nut. I had the privilege of meeting their many intriguing and fabulous friends and family, including one of Tina’s favourite subjects, her son Pablo. I chatted with Charles about Tina’s enormous talent, humility and ability to put her subjects at ease. He said my face looked different in the flesh. I hope he meant it in a good way and there you have it, the afore mentioned insecurities roiling to the fore once more. Later Charles screened a documentary he directed called Down Here, a portrayal of several women that reside in the downtown eastside. The subject has been covered before yes, notably by my dear friend Lincoln Clarkes’ Heroines project, but Charles’s approach was equally uncompromising, authentic and quite striking with excellent cinematography and editing.

The latest

Journal, poems, , ,

I’m tracking six eagles soaring high above, wondering why they have made an appearance. I learned recently that eagles are scavengers as well as predators and so that circling, like vultures, can indicate the presence of death and decay, as in my poem My Mountain below. (Roderick does a stellar job of narrating this piece on Princes Nut.) My bird feeder is such a popular spot I am topping it up every day now. Sometimes and with a guilty conscience, I will chase off the band-tailed pigeons. They are huge and come in droves.

Just as were recovering from an attack on our mail server by a Russian spammer my hubby’s back went out, spazzming as he puts it, for the first time in a over a year. I had succumbed to a rotten cold after several long weeks of allergy afflictions. Great timing. It was our first weekend alone together in months and we were both screwed up. Continue reading →

Blog entry or bust

Journal,

Listening to Cornell Hurd band on Soma Fm Boot Liquor “your ex-husband sent me flowers ‘cause he feels sorry for me.” I love country music lyrics. WHAT DID I DO TODAY? Fed everybody including wild birds, have noticed red-winged blackbirds dive-bombing the cowbirds, both species recent visitors to the yard. I worked out with weights, tried to catch up on email but Junior’s computer is infected with a virus so no outgoing mail, big pain in the butt. Researched and ordered a Facebook ad for the AURAL Heather cd, Princess Nut, bought a gift basket of goodies for a friend recovering from cancer surgery, picked up the kid whose allergies, like mine, are horrendous. He didn’t want to stay in school and I can’t blame him. Made burritos for dinner, worked on a new song, melodic but abrasive and tentatively titled Big Nipples, (just in time for Mother’s Day) folded laundry while watching the Daily Show and after finally completing a book proposal for a publisher, as requested, received an email back saying they weren’t accepting manuscripts right now. Christ. It is a curse, I swear, being a poet. Adjusting to my new glasses, I hope, and recuperating from a hectic weekend/full house. Lucas had three buddies over for two nights and the niece came to visit with her new boyfriend in tow. Actually, it’s been a hectic month, swamped with tour planning, cd artwork and production. ‘Tis a critical period, rehearsing as much as possible, working on/in new material too. Went to the Burning Word festival on Whidbey last weekend, performed solo as we couldn’t get our P2 visas together in time…to be continued…I have to crash.

Birdlife enlivens my poetry

Journal, poems, , , ,

Here on Bowen Island my feeder attracts red-eyed towhees, house finches, stellar jays, dark-eyed junkos and fox sparrows. Robins are here now and don’t seem to partake. A few hummingbirds have been buzzing by lately which surprises me because I didn’t think we had enough bright blossoms on our property. The jays are right on it of course, seem to wait for me to put the food out in the morning. I’ve been taking the feeder in when it gets dark to foil the local rat population. I hate rats. Why don’t my terriers get rid of them?

Birds and birdlife manifest in my poetry all the time. Here are two poems from my forthcoming book, “Window Seat.”

Habitat

We plan like architects to bring the outdoors
in, parrot like realtors the charms of a tree
house, for up on this hill, birdsong

is tangible. We always get
what we want, camouflaged in our mossy
cabin, high above the threshold

of discovery. Open sky. 360-degree view.
Proximity to water. Reliable food sources. Plenty
of nesting material. Gravel flies

from under the foot of a rabbit
fleeing a resident eagle. Ravens and stellar jays
battle over kibble, shit bomb the deck.

They want in. Past the windowpanes
that trick them. Frenzied. Talons flashing,
they enter through a door in the firmament.

I guide them outside, stunned at the feel
of wing bones. Banging hearts. A hummingbird
goes stillborn in the cup of my hands,

then, buzzers off, leaving a tang
in my throat, a ring of ruby dust
on my finger, incriminating as pollen.

Year of the Monkey

Full house. Madhouse. Ill-fated deejay,
jester fixed to his back, grinding out tunes
in celebration of our new digs, life,
in the forest, despite the clear-cutting
a hundred years ago. There is talk

of the I-Ching. This will be
an extremely progressive time predicts
a guest with faith enough to practice.
Monkeys are shrewd. Agile.
You will find great success in 2004.

Happy New Year! A toast. To the pileated
woodpeckers, heard more than seen. Cheers!
To the deer phantoms, droppings molding
in the front meadow. Where do they go
in the winter? Why don’t I know these things?

We make clumsy attempts at lighting a fire,
heating the house. Woodstove couched
and cold-shouldered as a guerilla soldier
brooding over such hatchet-challenged wimpiness.
We brave the Jacuzzi. January. Naked ape it

on the deck, body sculpting with our bare hands,
pale-faced moon playing peek-a-boo
with the ridgeline, a breeze stroking our backsides.
An owl hoots, hunting through lushness.
Red-eyed towhees flit through a labyrinth of sword

fern, mist the only smoke around here,
desires in the mirror, smudges of dread
surfacing on its beveled edges
whenever we’re not looking.

Twin cedar sentinels stand guard
against the cougar I saw mounting our pup.
When it began stalking the neighbour’s pony
I knew I would need a rifle.

I’m evolving. From a dinky urbanite on all fours,
to a big, eagle-eyed, straight-shooting, cause-
committed, river-of-life channeling, chainsaw-
hung, 4 by 4 pickup piloting Homo Erectus islander.

For more birds and bird-themed works in the blogosphere check out I and the Bird which Mike Bergin owns and publishes every two weeks. http://10000birds.com/iandthebird/

AURAL Heather coming to your town!

Journal, ,

I hope! Booking a tour, not my forte, though through sheer grit and determination, I’m getting it done. Weird, frustrating day. Oh why do I worry so much? Worked all afternoon on the AURAL Heather tour, feel like I’m getting nowhere fast. We have the Canadian part of the back east tour booked, playing Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal but I’m running into obstacles and dead ends in the U.S. Kurt has put me in touch with some people in Chicago and I’m waiting to hear back. Sent emails to leads and clubs in New York and same thing, playing the waiting game now. I will run out of time soon as I have to apply for a P2 visa and they can take up to four months to process. This is the query I’ve been sending out.

Dear _________;

I am a poet referred to you by my good friend and associate ______. We are AURAL Heather, a duo from Vancouver, Canada performing spoken word songs and touring in support of the release of our new cd, “Princess Nut.” We are in Eastern Canada/US this summer and in your neighbourhood July 17, 18. Could you kindly take a look/listen and consider us for an event at your righteously cool venue?

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Best regards,

H
H

AURAL Heather may be heard at:

http://www.heatherhaley.com

http://www.reverbnation.com/auralheather

http://www.myspace.com/mediapoet

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Pam Southwell-RPW Records
604 463-8339
rpwrecords@hotmail.com
http://www.rpwrecords.com

P U N K * P O E T * P R I N C E S S

Vancouver, BC, April 6, 2008-Old School and proud of it, Heather Haley and RPW Records are gearing up for a spring release of her groundbreaking AURAL Heather cd of spoken word songs, “Princess Nut.”

AURAL Heather is Heather Haley, Roderick Shoolbraid and “a unique, sublime fusion of song and spoken word.” Shoolbraid is a dazzling guitarist, composer, sound designer and DJ. Haley is a maverick poet, singer, author and media artist often found pushing boundaries and always on the vanguard. “A Canadian national treasure,” Haley started writing verse in high school influenced by poets like bp Nichol, ee cummings and Susan Musgrave. Her life as a bona fide artist began on the stage of the infamous Smilin’ Buddha fronting the all-girl punk band the Zellots. She was a member of The 45s with Randy Rampage and Brad Kent of DOA and the Avengers. Later she formed HHZ-Heather Haley & the Zellots-praised by music critic Craig Lee as one of “Ten Great LA Bands”. She has made a commitment to honesty, feeling, craft and a sense of the absurd. “Supple and unusual”, her work asks all the questions a nice girl’s not supposed to ask.

Haley is a gutsy and compelling performer who enjoyed a stint as an official BC Transit busker and has appeared at the Vancouver International Writers Festival, Crush Champagne Lounge, the Lamplighter Pub, Rime, Thundering Word, the Art Bar in Toronto, Words & Music in Montreal, the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, Red Sky Poetry Theatre in Seattle, Shakespeare & Sons in Prague, the Roar Lit Crawl with Edmonton’s Raving Poets band and on CBC and Book Television. In 2004, she teamed up with Roderick Shoolbraid to produce a series of live shows and their first cd, Surfing Season. As Haley returns to her roots, their sound has evolved into the spoken word songs of AURAL Heather . This is “brawny, uncompromising language from a voice that demands to be reckoned with” and there is nothing precious or flowery about the poetry on “Princess Nut.” It rocks, in more ways than one!

Praise for Surfing Season:
“Beautiful. A credit to the genre.”-Ian Ferrier, Wired on Words
“Great job! An auspicious disc. One of the best albums of its kind.” -Kurt Heintz, e-poets
“Important work.”-Poseybeat

Come celebrate at the official AURAL Heather, “Princess Nut” CD launch, Thursday, May 29 at the Media Club in Vancouver with Susan Cormier, Beth Southwell and her band, Kedrick James, AURAL Heather and emcee Kyle Hawke. Poet and publisher Warren Dean Fulton will be selling pooka press wares including one of Heather ‘s poems featured as part of the photo booth broadside series.

Further information on AURAL Heather and Heather Haley is available through her website, http://www.heatherhaley.com as well as four tracks from “Princess Nut”

# # #

Spring fever? Videopoem proposal

Journal

Spring fever? Can’t be, I’m still wearing my winter coat as much as I’d like to retire it for the season. I can’t focus, I’m running out of Kleenex and so tired and achey all I want to do is lie down. Tried to work on a poem this morning. Forget it. Will go and fine tune AURAL Heather stuff as everything is coming to a head, or fruition which sounds like the more positive take. Roderick is delivering the master later today. We have to nail down the order of the (spoken word) songs and I think we nearly have nearly reached consensus. We will probably be in this phase for a week, preparing the artwork and master before it goes to the manufacturer. I’m getting nervous as we near the date of the cd launch, May 29. A critical time, need to make sure I see the graphic layout before it gets printed. Final steps ahead, cannot go back.

I was wearing my videopoem director hat for two days preparing a proposal:

How To Remain In The Saddle
Free riding lessons for starving transients

How To Remain

How to remain
thin. Abstain. Abstain from eating
food. Calories kill
the fat rats first. If she could say No
and balance Belgian truffles
on her tongue briefly before spitting
them out, she might remain. Live
long. Enjoy fruition. By shunning urges,
she could linger—dainty as a colt’s
foot—deploying her charms raw,
dogtrotting a straddled chocolate Arabian
through mazes of lane. She could retire
to her body.

Alas, ankles thicken, braids recede,
the old mare conjured whenever she dare
to look. Fight back. She may be forced to
cover the grey, yellow, but refuses to swallow
diet pills. Amphetamines in the olden days.

Still, dinner in the garbage rouses niggles
of guilt. She snuffles it out before Buddy can,
barfing rather than blowing
calories on fusty pizza
or molding, olive oil-sopped arugula.

It is my goal to adapt this poem from my forthcoming book, Window Seat, to create a videopoem . The audience is along for a wild ride in How To Remain In The Saddle with an infatuated compulsive, an obsessed protagonist resolutely heading toward an elusive goal of perfection, perpetually struggling to stay on, to stay thin. She fails but ultimately, and in a fluky manner, finds transcendence. A maiden no more, she is a hapless Calamity Jane who persists nonetheless in getting back in the saddle, despite an unruly horse—an Arabian stallion in the beginning—until ultimately finding her destiny and achieving grace upon a winged Clydesdale.

How to remain in control is at the heart of anorexia and bulimia. Ubiquitous images of the ideal woman provide pressure and anxiety. In How To Remain In The Saddle, instead of her body disintegrating, her beloved horse slowly withers away, imperceptibly at first. Its ribs start to protrude as it becomes increasingly emaciated until finally disappearing. *poof* She falls to the ground. (I want to do a live action piece but this part will likely require either animation or CGI.) After more shenanigans and misguided side-trips, our heroine survives to land on the back of a solid, stable mount.

Though eating disorders are serious subject matter, this story is really about facing our all-too-human mortality. They are a red herring, if you will. How to remain is our secret desire. I plan to render the story as farce for it is folly to attempt to halt the inexorable march of time. I will employ a whimsical style, adopt a comic Keystone posture to emphasize the absurdity of her futile pursuit. How To Remain In The Saddle will spoof on classic myth as in the adventurous hero Bellerophon arrogant enough to believe that he, a mortal, can reach Mount Olympus. If you will recall, an outraged Zeus causes Pegasus to rear up, throwing Bellerophon back down to Earth. Just such ambition fuels our heroine’s quest for power, eternal youth and beauty, i.e., immortality. She is in a race. A horse race. A rat race? Or a labyrinth, her body goddess-perfect and everlasting at journey’s end. Along the way she is frequently tossed off and pulled back to reality by gravity. Reel time will accelerate as it does in real life, an allusion to “amphetamines” and the way time seems to fly by with advancing years as we move toward the time of our inevitable departure. Of course how we live and how we depart are both crucial parts of the story, not just the middle and the end.

I strive to be visually inventive. I start with a shot list, then a storyboard, as in a conventional film, but like to improvise during shooting and incorporate the element of chance. Working with a talented director of photography, we will have the opportunity to experiment with the medium and in post-production as well, with a good editor. I don’t have to shoot in video but I have in the past because of its affordability. I like its history of experimentation, a fundamental aspect of the medium. Video lends itself to hybridization. I haven’t felt like I was compromising quality by using digital video.

Whether an audio or video project, my collaborator, musician/sound designer Roderick Shoolbraid and I, are meticulous about voice production, carefully weighing inflections through the lines of the poem, graphing the centre of pitch to avoid linear monotony. We strive to create terrain, a sense of place in the sound. In any case, Roderick Shoolbraid has composed original music for this piece. In addition, I am doing research, scouting locations and crew members and have started work on a shot list and storyboard.

Hard knocks school, poem in progress

Journal

Why do I have to learn everything the hard way? Why couldn’t a poet friend have warned me not to send my manuscript to just one publisher? Yes, I would have listened to that. I wasted an entire year, learning at the end that bad manners or not, a writer has to submit simultaneously. We need to organize more in this area but many writers are starting to protest and demand electronic submissions. Talk about going green. And do they think we live forever, have the time to wait six months or a year for a lousy acknowledgement.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have been able to help me poor mum. I have learned through experience, the hard way, what depression and anxiety are. I see now that she was suffering from both and it’s obviously genetic, why I’ve been afflicted as well. She was an undiagnosed mess. They did catch the adult-onset diabetes which she pretty much ignored. My mother was miserable, wouldn’t quit drinking and smoking, couldn’t quit I suppose. As far as she was concerned, she had nothing to live for with all her kids gone.

Out my window, chameleon clouds are tinged pink in the west, layered grey and azure to the east. I woke up to sunshine streaming through the windows. A few hours later it was snowing, heavily. Then the sun came out again. This cycle lasted all day. I heard it was hailing in the city. Wacky west coast weather! A snowing sun, snoring hounds at my feet.

Met with RPW label head Pam Southwell Tuesday to work on fund raising but found we had a long list of items to take care of, everything from cd production to promotion to tour planning. She gave me some pointers on ReverbNation and I gave her some regarding grant writing. We shared our dread of budgets, numbers and math phobia stories. Hers involved a bellowing father, mine a cruel teachers. I assured Pam, that she needn’t be intimidated by the process, that in my experience budgets are largely bullshit and that it could be fun actually, to imagine what your organization needs money for, which often winds up re-purposed.

A dear friend has been hit with pancreatic cancer. Last year started off with a friend dying of lung cancer. Our lifestyles are catching up with us. Am I next? Knock on wood and I swear not to be superstitious. Sitting in the hair salon for too long yesterday I saw the People magazine with a story about Patrick Swayze’s diagnosis and was not encouraged by what I read. She is being very brave between bouts of anguish and terror. I’m trying to be as supportive as possible but I wish there was more I could do.

I’m currently reading Shot In The Heart, Mikal Gilmore’s book about his brother Gary Gilmore, convicted murderer, executed by firing squad. I used to see Mikal in the LA Weekly offices when I worked there many moons ago. Wish I could talk to him about his book, commiserate. Apparently we were both raised by hillbillies. My family wasn’t quite as dysfunctional, my father not as violent but my mother took up the slack. Who wants to rate these things anyway? Still hard for me to go there in my mind which might explain why I can’t complete my bloody novel. Managed to work on a new poem and enjoy a bit of solitude though feeling frustrated at my efforts. Here it be, a work-in-progress and such as it is:

Green Wedding

Parser.
Professional.
Daily fixes, micro problems solved.
Weekly patents.
Annual Seuss tourist
in search of beneficence.
Identifies closely with SamIAm
though he is far more shy,
still, prepared to walk the plank
for love. He felt justified in groveling
one afternoon standing in a queue
next to a slender, flinty girl in diaphanous skirt
as she read a novel. This did not give him an In.
Though quite familiar with mythic archetypes,
the only fiction he might have time to read
was speculative. So, he offered her a chip.
She licked off the gravy and thanked him.
Mathematicians rule.

It was cute, the way they emailed each other
in the beginning of their romance, he surprised
to be receiving steamy emails,
uppercase renderings of undying devotion.
I’m not used to getting personal messages at work,
which she could only find endearing.

Planning throes for a wedding in emerald oaks
they could easily ignore water cooler talk
of Bush deployments and citizen reporters.
They spoke only of sunspots and three-tiered cakes.
Guest list growing too long he complained.
His jobless Sidney brother who shakes his head
at their astounding fidelity.
Her estranged twin sisters in their push-up bras.
Easy to pull out he thought.

True crime, guilty pleasure

Journal,

My kid is driving me crazy! Spring break is way too effing long. Felt like jumping out a window for Christ’s sake. Happy Easter. Oy. Ugh. Urf.

Got to love the Internet. In the process of clearing my In box today and going through Google alerts, I came across a call for poetry submissions from a dude in LA named Rodger Jacobs. Hemingway’s Shotgun is an online magazine devoted to all manner of poetic verse but with a particular emphasis on poetry on the topic of literature, books, and reading. Googled him naturally and it turns out Jacobs is a rather interesting fellow with an intriguing past, an award-winning screenwriter, journalist, documentary producer and journalist whose work has appeared in myriad national publications. The site looked cool so I sent along some poems, several of which were set in Los Angeles, having resided there for many years. As I mentioned in my previous post, true crime is my guilty pleasure and we share a fascination with the Wonderland murders, the story of which he compares to “Raymond Chandler on crack.”

I was also interested in what he had to say about POD—publishing on demand—as he is well schooled in e-commerce. Long Time Money and Lots of Cocaine is the title of the book he’s written about the murders which contains an edited and annotated version of the court transcript for John Holmes’ preliminary hearing. As he explains it, there is so much interest in the subject he decided to self-publish and keep a larger piece of the action/residuals. Lulu Press provides a free storefront, affordable set-up costs and fair royalties. The author pays for the ISBN which gets the title into other markets, in both real and virtual worlds. I’ve been considering going that route with my novel but right now, I can’t find the time for the revisions it needs. So if you secretly read true crime as well, check it out:

http://www.lulu.com/content/130126