Burroughs/Bradshaw painting

epiphany and regrets

William of course repeated stories, one about the interview where he was asked if he had any regrets, where he responded with horror, (my guess horror that one felt it should be asked). I can hear him growl, ” regrets yes. yes”.

I find it odd that so many people thought that the only way William could redeem himself was to negate himself, his writing and be an asshole.

His stories would change, like everyones, except pedantic anal ass holes. His stories would change more because as a story teller, he might tell the story from a different universe than the last time he thought about it.

I have been reading posts from the old BeatL list. What a good thing that someone linked me to it. Thanks Rinaldo for just adding to the great mine that is that site, it is like a atomic time shotgun, evoking both memories and new paths for me.
http://www.beatsupernovarasa.com/Lectures/BEATLT.htm
Which gets me to epiphany and regrets. I remember meeting Paul Maher on that list, and how he acted, which was just disgusting. When I posted, he attacked, called names, felt free to express his loathing and to express his crazed paranoiac rants that I was in Nicosia’s camp. I thought he was just a absolute nut. But over the years I came to realize that it was a nut case stand that served him. When I just laughed at him, and twitted him over his obvious hatred of my being, I got such strange back channel emails, dire warnings, nasty threats, and just plain bathroom abuse. One warning still tickles me. That if I persisted in taking Gerald’s side, which I saw as just not liking Paul, that I would have a great deal of trouble publishing. That advise may have been well intentioned, but since I was not an academic, I thought it missed the mark. I found Nicosia, a belligerent, never shut up kind of guy. I have come to respect the man and the spirit, I always respected his writing and scholarship. I think it would be better for him if he had been a quitter, but not better for the world. I am probably also wrong about wanting him to have a different path, he walks his path. I thought he would do well to keep to the points and not to fall into the gutter arguments being presented.

But I regret heeding to any of the advise to temper my remarks because they might reflect somehow on William, or ruin the Beat L list. The list was ruined when treachery and insult replaced discourse. I can sit with people who believe in people from Saturn but not if they believe they must destroy those that disagree with Saturnists, I think the compulsion to not have the fight killed more than the list, it helped kill scholarship. I know thieves, I don’t hate them. Some I even love, but I don’t loan them money I need.

So yes I have issues with Paul Maher, I think he is a side winding liar. He wants no criticism, no honest retort. He attacks with brutality and bile. I regret so many back down from that. Maybe most have to back away, they have their life, their own dreams, what nonsense to fight crap. But I am not busy, so I should just get in the face of that type of bullying. I know that if I don’t I will regret it. I think I haven’t the time to reconcile myself to taking crap, without saying, hey that is a might load of crap.

One of my regrets, reading over the posts and looking at my journal is what a sloppy writer I was. I was not careful to use my tools well. I am appalled at how bad some of my posts were. Which is no excuse for the grammar police to dismiss the message.

Denise Low, former Kansas Poet Laureate

http://deniselow.blogspot.com/

I think you’ll find this site interesting…

we all have fantasy movies

I feel asleep to a Jodie Foster biography  and dreamt Jodie played Joan to Weller’s burroughs.  I saw them in bed with William’s odd clumsy grace. Jodie playing beautiful Joan, funny as hell, witty, fast, in the apartment with Edie and Jack. The excitement of meeting and being with people that are so bright and talented and on the cusp.  The times in Texas on that damn farm trying to grow weed between the crop rows and hosting family and friends visiting.  The slowly decaying intense dance of William and Joan, forcing themselves to intimacy.  The flight to Mexico with the dance of drugs, dispaiir and now going nowhere, trapped within their tightening circle, going further inside, no break, nothing but drunk and their intensity expoding between them, no outlet.   I see Weler waking up from that bloody dream, clawing his way up the typewriter keys.  Never forgiving himself and yet never coward enough to look away from that moment.

i am just silly

Oh oh oh charley forgive me.

Paul Maher Jr.

Recently a guy I don’t like called me a cyber stalker, I commented on his Kerouac book being pablum on a couple of sites and mention in the discussion page on his Wickepedia entry that this guy stole a lot of books from libraries and got caught.  I didn’t comment on his Barry Miles book cause I thought it was pretty good.  But Barry Miles was good and Paul didn’t prance himself through it,  When Paul wrote up Kerouac, it wasn’t that Kerouac wasn’t  a good subject or that Paul didn’t have access to good information, he had greater access than almost any one else,  It was the odd slushy slant the book had.  It was like reading a very carefully crafted paper by a high school senior,  It had been agonized over to hit all the points he thought the grown ups would want but still smelled of the teen. Now if Paul Mahers was a teen and not some sort of weasel I might of liked it.
Patricia
http://www.litkicks.com/KerouacEstateBattleAgain%20/

old times dog days

When I was a kid,  we had a building material  salvage yard in our back yard.  We had three German shepherds.  Later when I was in college some guy talked about visiting the yard with his dad  and being scared of the vicious junk yard dogs.  Those dogs were the most useless watch dogs in the world.  My dad swore they helped the neighbors haul off the best lumber.  We had horses and we would ride the horses, the four of us kids, the dogs loping along side, down the highway to the river.

I heard one of the dogs growl once, at my dad when he was yelling at my sister.  My sister was always the dogs’  favorite.  Taver Jane was the most maternal creature I had in my life.  She would tilt her old head and those eyes would just forgive you and forgive you. She had pups  a lot, 6 to 8 at a time. We would crawl under the porch with her and just hang out with the litter.  Gypsy , the younger boy, always thinking yippie, look the kids are home. let’s run back and forth.  Bruno, the hunk, big serious dog.  he was the one who growled at dad.  Big enough so the kids would try to ride him,  With great dignity he would lie down and ignore us.  He and gypsy would flush rabbits from the big pipes, one barking in one end and the other lurking at the other end, crouched ready to chase.  They never bit anyone, sometimes they would growl when out with us and our horses, other dogs would come up and try to bother us.

My sister had a floppy kitten called rags.  It took to laying on Bruno’s head. that vicious junk yard dog.  Bruno would be so careful.  When he walked around the kitten just stayed put.  The cat grew and would hang over his head like one of those Peruvian hats you see now.

I never was dog crazy, I am a little cat crazy but growing up, any cat in the house would go for my sister. I prefer to think of myself as being impressed by certain dogs.  Those singular guys that looked me in the eye and said howdy somehow.  One of those guys, pretty old, is in the hospital with a stomach problem, his name is bebop and he is in my thoughts.  The impression I had of him, when I met him,  he lives in Cherry Vallley,was he is one of those dogs with sense.  He also has  a joyful heart.  There was a rhythm to his lope He once went up and down  a mountain side with me and a friend.  You know all those walks one takes, the train rides, the car tearing across geography, how different things stand out, I remember the mountain as Bebop running ahead of us and back again.  Another memory of the walk is my friends’ hand reaching into a pouch and leaving seeds and nuts along the way. 

Now my head wraps around those memories and I have an image, those seeds on the Appalachian hill , lit jewels able to be seen  from space, the pawprints of Bebop stepping inside  the footprints of Washington, all twining and  turning left to the Catskills.

Bill hatke

I have been asleep for almost a year.  It is chancy to wake up.  What did I do last night, o, before I slept.
Mourning, Then Kansas sunrise, I harvested.  I mean I picked my first ripe tomato off the vine by the front door.
You all should visit my old friend Bill Hatke, he is a necronaut now.
http://billhatke.wordpress.com/

Bill Hatke reading some of his poems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JZCK-uld0o

writing 1

I’ve agreed to write a piece about the personal side of William. This is good but bad. I recently went to dinner with the boys and it was a good time, but I made a little fool of myself. I was asked if I followed one of the guys to Texas and responded that he had followed me. Neither was true, neither of us would of followed each other across town, but deciding not to refute the romance I refuted the friendship. My ego sometimes is so huge, my need to appear one way gets in front of being the person who can actually remember what was before I present the picture of what wasn’t.
This is all tied up in the memory of being with William. The public remarks and perceptions of my being friends with William might get in the way of what I say. I will practice in this blog, of keeping to the bone. I will try to get all the business of who I am out of the way so I can later write about this man I met. The first time I met William was in Texas. We had a good time, he had just gotten off the plane and was full of stories and wanting to just chill out. I love people when they just get in from a journey. I am always interested in the details, rather if it is plane or medical or love, or business. I want personal details and I like to find the humor that can twist a moment in the absurd business that makes life just bearable and also bare-able.