The LITERATURE INTERVIEW
LUIS VALDEZ : WRITER
by Joshua A. TRILIEGI
Luis VALDEZ changed The Entire Literature Landscape with his Fierce Hit Play, "ZOOT SUIT". Here in Southern California, The Play is much more than words. And It is Now Playing at The Los Angeles Downtown Mark Taper Theatre.
The Play is a personal and positive Idea that gave many people the inspiration to do something with the things they saw, not only in their homes and neighborhoods, but to reclaim what was happening in the media, to own the stories that they were being told and to simply reclaim what was rightfully theirs to begin with: Their Own Family Stories. In This Interview Bureau Editor Joshua TRILIEGI and Luis VALDEZ discuss his career, his working process and the development of a powerful force that continues to inspire millions of Indigenous People around the World and teaches everybody else.Mr Valdez went on to create The Film "LA BAMBA", which told the very important story of Latin Musician & Songwriter, Ritchie Valens. Fueled by the proliferation of 1950's Retro Nostalgic Films such as American Graffiti and its follow up Happy Days, as well as The Musical Biographical genre's popularity of projects like The Buddy Holly Story, Elvis and the like: LA BAMBA was the perfect project that entirely launched the energy and force of ZOOT SUIT into the stratosphere of popular media and culture, finally a story that rightfully claimed, explained and honored The Latino Experience, or as Luis Valdez might put it, "The Chicano Experience" in popular music history. The film itself touches on the family paradigm in both mythical and real circumstances. A beautiful & entertaining film that holds up today just as it originally did upon its creation. In the same way that Zoot Suit gave us the career of Edward James Olmos, 'The Chicano Bogart', La Bamba gave us a multitude of talent in front of and behind the scenes: Lou Diamond Phillips, Esai Morales, Los Lobos & Others. Since then, Mr Valdez has continued his influence as The Worlds Leading Latino and Chicano Playwright traveling everywhere, all the time, sharing his great wealth of knowledge and experience with a world thirsty for truth, experience & entertainment. We are proud to bring you Luis VALDEZ, unexpurgated, uninhibited and unbeaten.
Joshua TRILIEGI: First of all, It is a pleasure to share your experience with our readers. We attended the Los Angeles Anniversary screening of Zoot Suit and later bought and re read the play. There is so much in it: reality, folklore and a fierce power as well as a genuinely hip musical element, could you share with us how that piece originally formed in your mind and how you developed it into the groundbreaking Broadway play ?
Luis VALDEZ: In the Fall of 1977, I was commissioned by Gordon Davidson, artistic director of the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum in LA, to write a play based on an infamous chapter of Los Angeles history, specifically the Sleepy Lagoon Case of 1942 and the subsequent Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. Although hardly forgotten in the Chicano barrios, the Pachuco Era had been buried in the dust bins of oblivion by Anglo officialdom which preferred not to commemorate painful past embarrassments. An entire new generation born after World War II hardly knew anything about the pachucos, though inevitably, in the mid 60s, young Mexican Americans began to call themselves Chicanos, as the legacy of their zoot-suited barrio forbearers kicked in, inheriting their racial pride, urban slang and cultural defiance.
The generational difference was that many of these Chicano(a)s were now speaking their patois in colleges or universities. But the painful sting of the Zoot Suit Riots and the Sleepy Lagoon Case still persisted in the barrios, like an old suppurating wound that was taking decades to heal. My play thus inadvertently became a way to deal directly with the psychic damage inflicted on the East LA barrios by the Zoot Suit Riots by opening up the old racist wound and airing it in the public arena of the theater. The truth of this became evident when the play sold out at the Mark Taper even before it opened, and when the public followed the play to the Aquarius Theater in Hollywood. It ran there for eleven months, and in the end, more than 400,000 people came to see it. Half of them were Chicanos, most of whom had never seen a play before. This then motivated the move to the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City in 1979, where Zoot Suit became the first Chicano play to make it to Broadway.
The roots of the play, however, lie far from the Great White Way. I was born in a farm labor camp in Delano, California in 1940. In those days Delano was a hot spot in the San Joaquin Valley, and we had our own pachucos in the “Chinatown” barrio on the westside. One of them was my cousin Billy; another was his running partner C.C.. Billy spoke a fluid pachuco patois, so he taught me to call myself “Chicano” even thought I was only six. I learned a lot about the pachucos, including their slang and style of being, in this most intimate and familial way. Tragically, Billy died a violent death in Phoenix, eighteen knife wounds to the chest. But his running partner C.C. survived, joined the Navy and came home one day to marry and settle down. In 1965, when I told my mother in San Jose that I was returning to Delano to form a farm workers theater with the grape strikers, my Mom said: “Oh, you’re going to work with C.C.?” “C.C.?” I said, “Is that vato still around?” “Mijo,” my mother responded, “Don’t you know who C.C. is? He’s Cesar Chavez.”
In 1970, El Teatro Campesino, the Farm Workers Theater born on the picket lines of the Great Delano Grape Strike, produced my first full length play since college. It was called “Bernabe,” with a character called “La Luna” appearing in a bit part as a mythical Pachuco in a suit of lights. The character was so intriguing, I knew right away that he deserved a play of his own. Seven years later, when Gordon Davidson asked me to write about the Sleepy Lagoon, I chose to make El Pachuco the mythical central figure, both as master of ceremonies and alter ego of Henry “Hank” Reyna, the protagonist and leader of the 38 Street Gang. Above all, El Pachuco became the guide, the storyteller, so that the history of the Sleepy Lagoon Case and the Zoot Suit Riots could be told through a Chicano POV. The rest, as the saying goes, is American theater history.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Something about your work is so very true, genuine and original, at the same time, you speak for a good many individuals in the community. Would you talk a bit about staying true to one's vision and at the same time tapping into a larger truth, for not only our own communities, but for the world.
Luis VALDEZ: I wrote my first plays at San Jose State, graduating in ’64 with a BA in English with an emphasis in playwriting. It was not the most practical choice for a son of migrant farm workers, much less a Chicano, but I was determined to follow my heart. I had gotten hooked on theatre in the first grade in 1946, when I was cast in the Christmas school play. I was to play a monkey wearing a mask my teacher made, turning my brown taco bag into paper maché. I was exhilarated. Then the week of my great debut, my migrant family was evicted from the labor camp where we had overstayed our welcome. I was never in the play. A great hole of despair opened up in my chest. It could have destroyed me. But I learned early on that negatives can always be turned into positives. I took with me two things: one, the secret of paper maché, which allowed to make my own masks and puppets; and two, a deep, residual anger for my family’s eviction from the labor camp. Twenty years later, I went to Cesar Chavez and pitched him my idea for a theater of, by and for farm workers. And so the hole in my chest became the hungry mouth of my creativity, into which I have been pouring plays, poems, essays, screenplays, books, etc. for almost 70 years.
Joshua TRILIEGI: The Los Angeles and California scene has changed, grown and developed into a much stronger unification than ever before, [ Since the 1970's ] when ZOOT SUIT made it's initial impression. Your work is a big part of that growth.Tell us about your humble beginnings making plays and skits locally, before unveiling some of your opus masterworks.
Luis VALDEZ: The challenge of creating theater with striking campesinos was a humbling experience. Cesar had warned me from the start: “There’s no money to do theatre in Delano,” he told me. “There’s no actors, no stage, no time even to rehearse. We’re on the picket line night day. Do you still want to take a crack at it?” “Absolutely, Cesar!” I responded. “What an opportunity!” I was, of course, thinking about spirit of the movement he had started. But he was absolutely right. By necessity, El Teatro Campesino was born on the picket line. In time, we began to perform at the NFWA’S Friday night meetings. The National Farm Workers Association may have been rich in spirit but it was dead broke. After college, I had joined the San Francisco Mime Troupe for a year, performing in city parks, learning the improvisational techniques of Commedia dell Arte. This knowledge proved to be more useful in Delano than all the theater history I had learned at SJS. But my greatest revelation came from the campesinos themselves. As actors and audience, they taught me to stay down to earth; to stay away from all the pretentious artsy crap and to get to the point with actos that were clear and hard hitting. Above all, to stay positive and hopeful. “Don’t talk about it, do it!” became an essential Teatro precept. Later when we began to stage Actos about the Chicano Movement, the Vietnam War and racism in the schools, we found our audiences in LA, Chicano and New York no less responsive to our basic simplicity than the original grape strikers. “Zoot Suit” came about a dozen years after the birth of El Teatro, but the roots of my musical play like those of the original pachucos reach deep into the barrio earth.
Joshua TRILIEGI: I attended the auditions for LA BAMBA at Los Angeles Theater Complex in the Nineteen - Eighties. The excitement around the project was, and still is, very much alive and entirely current. Tell us a bit about that experience.
Luis VALDEZ: Before it was a film, LA BAMBA was originally going to be a stage musical by me and my brother Daniel. It was actually conceived on the Opening Night of Zoot Suit in New York. We were at the Winter Garden Theater on Broadway, and as I made my final rounds before curtain time, I dropped into my brother’s dressing room on the second floor. As the lead actor in the play with Edward James Olmos, Daniel was in high spirits. We both were. We had came a long way from Delano. Celebrating our success, we pledged that now that we had brought the 40s to Broadway, we should bring the 50s. But how, with what? At that exact moment, we heard mariachi music. Looking out the dressing room window, down toward Seventh Avenue, we spotted a gilded, fully suited band of mariachis playing up toward us. We didn’t know it at that moment but the President of Mexico had sent mariachis to serenade us on opening night. Daniel and I recognized the tune immediately. It was the answer to the question we had just posed to each other about our next musical. We simultaneously laughed and said the words to each other: LA BAMBA!
It took five years to bring the project to fruition. The biggest problem turned out to be the lack of biographical material about Ritchie Valens, born Richard Valenzuela, in 1941 Los Angeles. There were a few articles in old magazines, but no published book or biography. What’s worse, Daniel had no success at all in finding surviving members of Ritchie’s family. They were long gone from Pacoima in the San Fernando Valley, where they lived in the 50s, 60s and 70s, and in the early 80s, before the internet, there was no social network to tap into. Without direct contact with the family, LA BAMBA was turning into a pipe dream. Somewhat dispirited, Daniel came back from Los Angeles to San Juan Bautista, home base of El Teatro Campesino, vowing nonetheless to keep on searching. Then one night, as life’s ironies would have it, he finally met Ritchie’s older half brother, Bob Morales. He met him in San Juan Bautista in Daisy’s Saloon! It turned out that Bob and most of Ritchie’s family now lived fifteen miles away in Watsonville, and he occasionally frequented Daisy’s with his biker friends. One thing quickly led to another. Bob took Daniel to meet Connie Valenzuela,Ritchie’s mom, then Daniel took me to meet the entire family. Within days, we took the story to our old friend Taylor Hackford in Hollywood, who agreed to option Ritchie’s story as a biopic for the big screen with Columbia Pictures. I wrote the screenplay over the winter and once we got a green light, I directed the picture the following summer, with my brother as associate producer. In the end, our biopic ended up grossing more than 100 million world wide. Very few movies come into being quite so precipitously. But there were twists of fate. We had originally intended the part of Ritchie Valens as a vehicle for my bro, But by the time we got the green light, Daniel graciously conceded that at 37 he could no longer pass as 17. So for all of his efforts, he generously created an opportunity to make a star out of Lou Diamond Phillips.
Joshua TRILIEGI: A writers experience with his or her collaborators is rather important, in your case: Los Lobos, Edward James Olmos, Lou Diamond Phillips to name a few. Will you talk about how much input you had at the time these projects were in development in choosing these fellow artists.
Luis VALDEZ: During the casting of Zoot Suit at the Mark Taper Forum in ’78, our greatest dilemma turned out to be the part of El Pachuco. I wrote the script with my brother Daniel in mind, though I saw him as both Henry Reyna and El Pachuco. The issue of nepotism aside, we had been collaborating within El Teatro Campesino for a dozen years before Zoot Suit came along. So it was only natural for him to serve as my unique role model for the play. Unfortunately,unlike film, he could not play two roles onstage simultaneously. So we set out on our quest to find one or the other. After an exhausting two weeks in LA, unable to find an alternate Henry or Pachuco among hundreds of actors, I took the weekend to be with my wife Lupe back in San Juan, where she was recuperating after giving birth to our third son Lakin on the very day I finished the script. Daniel continued with the auditions. A day or so later, he called me with subdued excitement: “Guess what?” he said, “I found El Pachuco!”
It turned out that after another disappointing day in LA, my bro met a a trim Chicano actor with a Bogart face strolling down the halls of the Mark Taper Annex across from the Music Center. Daniel asked him if he was there for the auditions. The Chicano Bogie responded: “What auditions?” Apparently, he knew nothing about Zoot Suit, but he was willing to read for a part. So Daniel read him. I had given my brother the option to play either of the two leads, but once he saw and heard Edward James Olmos read, he knew he had found El Pachuco.
A spirit of creative collaboration is always a necessity in the theater, but given my experience with El Teatro, “Zoot Suit” could not have come about any other way. Eddie Olmos created El Pachuco, as surely as El Pachuco helped to create Edward James Olmos the movie star. The fierce intensity of his stage presence no doubt came from his very being, but Eddie had a “killer instinct” that captured the essence of the pachuco phenomenon in the 40s. Oddly, in a similar way, Lou Diamond Phillips captured the killer instinct that made Ritchie Valens a rock star; though in Ritchie’s case, it was mixed with the residual innocence of a 17 year old. This innocence is the key to the enduring poignancy of “Donna,” a classic teenage lament of long lost love if there ever was one. Finding this mix of guilelessness with ferocity was the challenge in casting the star of LA BAMBA. We literally auditioned over 600 actors from Los Angeles to New York. Finally in Dallas, Texas, we found an actor who had been making Christian films. He came in with a certain intensity to read for Bob, the role he obviously coveted. But under all that bravado was an unmistakably poignant heart. So Lou Diamond Phillips became Ritchie Valens, and Ritchie became Lou, with all the innocent ferocity that made him reach for the stars.
None of this, of course, would have been possible without my musical collaborators. In the case of “Zoot Suit,” I owe a debt of gratitude to Lalo Guerrero, the Godfather and Gran Maestro de la Musica Chicana. With his permission, I tapped directly into five of his classics from the 1940s to turn my play into a kick-ass form of cabaret theater, if not into a full fledged musical. Lalo’s music is unquestionably the Pachuco soul of “Zoot Suit.” Similarly, Ritchie’s music is the soul of LA BAMBA, but it could never have come back to life without Los Lobos. We were friends long before their first album, “Just Another Band from East LA”launched their remarkable career. But working on the film’s sound track with Los Lobos, featuring the voice of David Hidalgo as Ritchie’s, was a collaborative joy. LA BAMBA took them to the top of the charts for the first time, but they’ve been up there many times since then. So has the great Carlos Santana, another of my collaborators on the movie. It is his subtle, penetrating guitar solos that follow Ritchie’s emotional trajectory throughout the film. Let’s face it. Genius in the barrio is genius everywhere. ¡Ajua!
Joshua TRILIEGI: In the neighborhood that I grew up in, at that time, there were several different camps and schools of thought that became represented by imagery and eventually posters in the rooms of our friends: Farah Fawcett, Bruce Lee, Led Zeppelin, Gerry Lopez, David Partridge and of course the Incredible Image of Artist IGNACIO GOMEZ who designed the image for ZOOT SUIT. That particular Image always has and always will mean something very special to many of us. Talk with us about IMAGE and TEXT and that very important relationship between artist and writer.
Luis VALDEZ: The first poster for ZOOT SUIT was created from a drawing by José Montoya, the late great Chicano poet, muralista, and maestro from the Sacramento barrios. With both paint and ink, José had been capturing the Pachuco Image for decades, in poems, lithographs and silk screen posters. In 1973, he and his homies at the R.C.A.F. (the Rebel Chicano Artists Front that playfully dubbed themselves the Royal Chicano Air Force ) even staged a piece at the Third Teatro Festival in San José called “Recuerdos del Palomar.” Decked out as pachucos in zoot suits with their huisas in mini skirts, José and his cronies did not pretend to present a play as much as offer a form of performance art. Characteristically, José’s pachuco images were always imbued with a tinge of self-deprecating humor; which was exactly the quality of the first ZOOT SUIT poster. This image represented the play in its first draft, a two week workshop production run as part of the “New Theatre For Now” series at the Taper in Spring ‘78.
When I rewrote the play to open the main season that Fall, the Center Theatre Group hired Ignacio Gomez to create a new image more in concert with the growing impact of the production. More or less styled on Edward James Olmos’ interpretation of the role, El Pachuco now became a towering figure straddling City Hall. More in line with the mythical dimensions of the lead character in my play, the image was elegant, stark and grand. Almost immediately, thanks to Nacho’s brilliant skill as an artist, El Pachuco became iconic. As seen in newspapers, magazines and on the sides of municipal buses, the image seemed to burrow its way into the public’s consciousness, especially in the Chicano community. With all due respect and modesty, it remains a perfect example of how an artist and a playwright coming together can create a powerful symbol that speaks across multiple generations, perhaps even helping to heal some old psychic wounds in the City of the Angels.
Joshua TRILIEGI: The trajectory of a career has its own pulse and arc. You have continued to stay busy with collaborations of all sorts: El Teatro Campesino, San Diego Repertory Projects, PBS great Performances and so on. Tell us about the recent Ancient Goddess Project and the role that Kinan Valdez has taken on since 2006.
Luis VALDEZ: El Teatro Campesino will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2015. After a half century of uninterrupted artistic and cultural activism, we are proud to declare ourselves a multi-generational theater family. We could not have survived any other way. My beloved wife, Lupe Trujillo Valdez, joined El Teatro in 1968. As an activist at Fresno State University, she was the daughter of campesinos, a supporter of the United Farm Workers, and the first college-educated Chicana to “run away with the circus.” We were married in ’69, as much for love as for our shared political beliefs. We have three sons – Anahuac (’71), Kinan (’73) and Lakin (’78) – all born into the Teatro family, all artists and activists in their own right, all devoted to the betterment of the world around them through social justice and the arts. Other 40 year plus members and founders of the Teatro, such as my biological brother Daniel and spiritual brother Phil Esparza, have also raised their children and grandchildren within our family of families.
Cesar Chavez died in 1993, signaling the beginning of an organizational change in the Chicano Movement that El Teatro Campesino began to naturally undergo in the mid nineties. It was nothing more or less than the passing of leadership from one generation to the next. The older generation continued to serve on the Board of Directors, but the younger Generation took the reins of day to day operations. In this regard, my son Anahuac was the first the serve as the new General Manager of the company. In due time both Kinan and Lakin became associate artistic directors, until Kinan assumed full leadership as Producing Artistic Director in 2007. During all this time, they continued to write, direct, produce and act in new plays of their own creation. They staged Teatro classics such as “La Gran Carpa de los Rasquachis” and took full responsibility for the Christmas plays in Mission San Juan Bautista. Working with other young artists in the company, they staged world theater classics like Alfred Jarry’s “Ubu Roi” and Bertolt Brecht’s “The Measures Taken.” Experimenting with musical forms, Kinan also wrote and directed a goddess play called “The Fascinatrix” and another quasi-satirical work called “I Love You, Sam Burguesa.” Their objective was obviously to expand the range of El Teatro’s work, but with other works they consciously stuck to the political core. To wit, in 2010 Lakin wrote and directed a piece called “Victor in Shadow,” about the martyred Chilean folksinger Victor Jara. The three brothers then collaborated on three plays based on Mayan CreationMyths, including “Popul Vuh – Parts One and Two” written and directed by Kinan; and “Popul Vuh – Part Three, the Magic Twins” written and directed by Lakin. More recently, this summer in 2014, Kinan and Lakin collaborated with the La Jolla Playhouse/San Diego REP, playing the leads in “El Henry,” Herbert Siguenza’s raucous adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV part one.
Joshua TRILIEGI: You are considered The Godfather of Latin Theater Worldwide. Has there been pressure to create a certain type of work with that mantle attached ? And how do we as writers, as artists, as performers retain that same vitality and spontaneity in our work, after the fame and notoriety ?
Luis VALDEZ: In 2010, I was invited to Mexico City by the CNT ( Compania Nacional de Teatro) to translate and direct the world premiere of ZOOT SUIT in Spanish. As far as I know, no other Chicano playwright/director had ever been offered such an honor, so I accepted with the humility of a long lost orphan given the chance to finally come home. Ironically, I was not born in Mexico. Neither were my Mom and Dad, who were born in Arizona early in the Twentieth century. The real immigrants in my family were my abuelos – my grandparents and great grandparents - who crossed the border from the northern state of Sonora before the Mexican Revolution over a century ago. Why then did I feel like an orphan? Because all my life, despite myAmerican birth, I had been treated like a Mexican. Here then is another example of how negatives can always be turned into positives. As an indio-looking, hyphenated Mexican American, I had no choice but to declare myself a Chicano; which if you see it my way is a Twenty-first century New American with a hemispheric identity. I did not buy into that fictitious line drawn in the desert called the border that separates rich from impoverished, white from brown, “America” from “Latin” America. So despite all the fame and notoriety my career has brought me, I remain brown and indio-looking. I feel no more pressure to remain Latino than to be an Anglo. I just am who I am, and that’s all there is to it. In the final analysis, assimilation is hardly a one way street. The world’s cultures have been assimilating each other for centuries. Sooner or later, most people in this hemisphere will realize that we are all New Americans. Until then, I rely on the struggle for social justice to keep my work spontaneous and vital.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Your public appearances are totally off the cuff, unrehearsed and down right bold. I love that about you, there is no lie. Not unlike The Zoot Suiter finding his power once he actually takes off the suit and finds himself underneath the costume. To whom would you attribute that particular trait in your earliest influences ?
Luis VALDEZ: My earliest influences no doubt came from my immediate family – my parent, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and their compadres. They were a vital, crusty, earthy lot. But as a kid I couldn’t help but notice right away that something was not right. Life was rigged somehow. Despite all our sweat and back breaking labor in the fields, we were always jodidos, poor as hell and out of gas, with nothing to do but move on to the next menial job. I hated stoop labor, not because it was unbearably hard but because it was humiliating. All the more because wages were dirt cheap. My folks kept their spirits up by developing a wicked sense of ironic humor, but I quickly realized that this was the only way they could tolerate the shit pies in the face that fate was giving them. Despite the constant looming despair, they kept me and my siblings in school, knowing it was our only way out. In due time I discovered that working with my hands did not prevent me from using my imagination. So even though I was picking cotton, potatoes, cherries, prunes and apricots as fast as I could, my mind was automatically running riot with ideas for bilingual stories, jokes and songs. With this kind of daily mental exercise, my school lessons became easy, a way to prove my worth to my teachers and myself in the face of discrimination. Like my uncles and cousins, I learned to defend myself with stinging ironic humor using the Pachuco slang of the barrio, but I also developed a proficiency in English.Mentally code-switching back and forth between Spanish and English, I eventually developed a spontaneous fluidity of expression that can only come from a well-exercised brain. Like I say, any negative can always be turned into a positive. I won a scholarship to attend San Jose State College in 1958, as a Math and Physics major my first year. By my second year, I knew what I really had to do. I had to set my imagination free by releasing all those stories, jokes and songs still zinging in my head. I had to admit to myself that I was an actor and a playwright, despite the fact that a career in the theater was totally impractical. So I switched majors to English, and never looked back. I became what I always wanted to be – a Chicano playwright.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Thank You so much for taking the time to share your experience with our readers. How can the public support current and developing projects and productions by ETC ?
Luis VALDEZ: This summer El Teatro Campesino is producing my latest full-length play, VALLEY OF THE HEART, in our playhouse in San Juan Bautista. It runs from August thru September, before moving on to other venues as part of our Fiftieth Anniversary celebration. If you come on Labor Day weekend, you can see both VALLEY in our theater and POPUL VUH outdoors in the park. If you can’t make it to San Juan, you can help us by donating online through our website at elteatrocampesino.com. But please support any of the Latino theater productions in your area. We fervently continue to believe that “Theater is the Creator of Community, and Community is the Creator of Theater.” For as our ancient Mayan ancestors believed: CREER ES CREAR. ¡Si Se Puede!
DOUG PRAY: FILMMAKER
We are extremely pleased and proud to bring you inside the mind of one of America's leading documentary filmmakers with a catalogue of films that each speak to the culture and subculture of America. Since the mid 1990s Doug Pray has been creating substantial and succesful films with a built in audience documenting subjects that have grown in popularity since their initial inception. He has covered Surfing, Street Art, Rap and Rock Music, Trucking, Advertising and Modern Art. In this Exclusive and deeply Educational Conversation, Doug Pray describes his career, his films, the process and development of each project in extreme, in depth detail. Doug Pray's films seem to hit a chord that fits right in with our readership and we can think of no better way to say how very happy we are to have him as our Guest Filmmaker in this Edition.
Joshua Triliegi: Most of your films directly speak to many of our readers’ interest. Lets talk about how a film like SURFWISE, about the famous Paskowitz Family, was created.
Doug Pray: SURFWISE was a story that had to be told by someone, and I felt lucky when its producers presented it to me as a potential project. The Paskowitz family is, and was, such a rare, living example of an idealistic dream fully realized. An experiment that went all the way. We can all claim to want to get away from society and live life on our own terms. Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz and his wife Juliette did it. Not for a day, or a week, or a month – for decades. And with total purity. When Doc passed away just a few weeks ago, he was still at it, living a dynamic life at 93.
Though the Paskowitz family had attained media attention and notoriety in the ‘70s and ‘80s – both for being a world-famous surfing family and for the children’s later successes as champion surfers, rock musicians, artists, models, and more – the whole story, beginning, middle, and end, had never been told. That complete story was two burning truths, the collision of which made for an exciting, emotional movie.
The first truth was the dream. A Stanford-trained doctor is repulsed by the unhealthy lifestyles being taught and practiced by the medical establishment. He drops out of society, falls in love with the perfect woman (willing to join his mission), raises 9 children, lives in a camper on the beach and pursues a lifestyle more in sync with the natural human beings we used to be (exercise/rest/sex/diet befitting animals in the wild), and less like the disgustingly unhealthy creatures we’ve become. For the next 20 years he carries out this experiment with his family: surfing every day, healthy living, no school, a nomadic “off-the-grid” type of existence, a close, loving family. It was beautiful. And the kids were better for it! Homeschooling and surfing made them strong and smart. Today they are the brightest, most dynamic, full-of-life folks you’ll ever meet.
The other truth, the downside, is that to pull this off, one has to be a domineering extremist. Like many narcissistic, visionary leaders, Doc’s inspiration was only as strong as his ego and his blinders. He was, at times, abusive to his family and in fulfilling his personal vision for the family he created a lot of pain and turmoil. And the kids, even though they had this seemingly wonderful upbringing, were not well prepared for the “real world” and they struggled terrifically as a result. As a filmmaker, I was grateful this film came to me with built-in conflict. Normally I’m trying to drum up conflict with editorial finessing to make a story more dynamic.
Plus, though I’m not a surfer, I was allowed to celebrate this incredibly rich subculture from deep inside its heart, with its ultimate spokesman, Doc Paskowitz (R.I.P.). I got to explore his philosophies of surfing and show the healing power of the ocean waves first hand. I was able to prove to the world the power of surfing and to discard the half-assed surfer stereotypes we get from movies and popular culture. I’ve tried to do that in all my films.
Joshua Triliegi: Your films seem to touch on a truth about American cultural moments in time and place. SCRATCH takes us into the Hip Hop scene of the early 2000's.
Doug Pray: SCRATCH, more than any of the seven films I’ve made about American subcultures, is one we were actually shooting at the very moment it became part of the zeitgeist. We were filming hip hop DJs and “turntablists” in 1999-2000 but it felt like we were witnessing the birth of jazz. There was this rediscovery of hip-hop’s improvisational, and uplifting roots. The movement recaptured the energy from the late ‘70s South Bronx and upped it. And it happened at a time when mainstream rap music had become so commercialized and meaningless by bling, gangster violence, and bloated stars. It was one of those cyclical moments in culture when people say, ‘WTF! Let’s take this back to the beginning, to move forward.’ Hip hop was started by DJs. So filming them as instrumental wizards of the 1’s and 2’s at the front of the stage (again) was as profound to its original inventors (like Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Mixer DXT, and Jazzy Jay), as it was to the new generation, like Qbert, DJ Shadow, and Rob Swift, flipping it on its head.
Always the outsider, and a newcomer to hip hop, I fell in love with the energy of this music at the same moment many others were. The vibe I was able to capture on film felt so fresh (Fr Fr Fr Fressssh, that is). The performers knew it. The audiences knew it. My cinematographers knew it. And I had a blast editing it. It’s one doc where my filmmaking style itself was fully inspired by the subject, musically and editorially. My assignment with SCRATCH was to blow away audiences in the same way people go nuts when their DJ drops an impossibly great track on the dance floor: surprise and exuberance, regardless of whether or not you liked hip hop or knew the song. Playing the role of intermediary or translator is something I’ve also tried to do in all my films. I love taking something that is very insider, underground, or misunderstood, and making it so that it’s actually felt by all viewers.
Joshua Triliegi: Early on, documentary filmmakers tend to follow a subject they have an interest in, such as HYPE!, your film on the Seattle music scene. Later, offers come in to cover a certain event, such as your most recent film, LEVITATED MASS. Tell our readers a bit about the journey your career has taken.
Doug Pray: I’ve never really wanted to do any of the films I did, initially. I wasn’t enough of a fan or just didn’t understand the subject at first. Yet there’s always been something after a few months of consideration that hooks my curiosity in a deeper way and makes me feel like I just have to make the movie, like an assignment that I must accept.
HYPE! was my first film and I fought against it the hardest, because it seemed like bad idea and my producer and I started filming too late to do the “real” Seattle music scene justice. Ironically, it made the most sense of any project for me to direct because my college roommates were members of the Young Fresh Fellows who were one of the more influential Seattle bands in the mid-‘80s (not famous, not grunge, but beloved and highly inspirational to other bands and labels in the area). Thanks to them, and the band Flop (for whom I’d directed music videos) I already had access to this super vibrant, authentic, and wonderfully ridiculous music scene. It just hadn’t occurred to me to make a film about it.
Sometimes the best subjects for documentaries are right in front of you and you don’t recognize it. Because, while I was digging my friend’s bands, this “grunge rock” thing was becoming the next global rock phenomenon all around us. A ton of bands like Mudhoney, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Sub Pop and other labels, and the world’s media, created what was the world’s last, definable, local music movement. The grunge scene was so strongly identified with Seattle it may have even killed – forever—the notion of a city music scene ever happening again. I eventually realized that the hyping of Seattle was the story itself, and the transformation from “underground-authentic” to “exposed-labeled-exploited” needed to be shown and told.
I’m not sure if it’s because I was influenced by my three much-older brothers, or because I was a sociology major in college, but I’ve always wanted to know why underground movements start, and how they get processed by mainstream culture. I have an innate desire to delve into a widely misunderstood culture and try to get people to appreciate it for what it really is and where it really came from. And the more “out there” or abstract or intimidating it is, the more I enjoy building a bridge to it.
Certainly that was the case with my newest film, LEVITATED MASS. The way Michael Heizer’s boulder was hyped and labeled and became something completely different to hundreds of thousands of people during its transport, than what the sculpture was itself.
SCRATCH hooked me after I talked to Mix Master Mike one night and suddenly realized how completely wrong my stereotypes about hip hop were. I wanted to right that. INFAMY, an emotional portrait of the lives of six notorious graffiti writers, is about the most dominant and present art forms on the planet, but completely misunderstood; seemingly loved or hated for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to humanize the artists. Not trying to make them likeable but relatable. The advertising geniuses in ART & COPY, like illegal taggers, were similarly vilified (advertising being the devil’s work, and all), but their creative struggle was the same: success gained only by taking huge risks. To me, even the very people who were creating mass media seemed to be frustrated outsiders, with a lot to say.
My fourth film, BIG RIG began as a mindless celebration of chrome and ‘70s trucker songs (which I loved). But after I found out that fun wacky culture didn’t exist, it morphed into a 25,000 mile moody journey into this rather depressed community of workers who carry the nation on their backs and get little or nothing in return. Independent truck drivers aren’t artists or musicians, but they are maverick individuals who are often extremists in their behavior or beliefs, not unlike Doc Paskowitz or Michael Heizer or life-long graffiti writers. They are people who have set out to make bold statements, who are independent.
With each new film I thought was rebelling against my last film. After SURFWISE I knew I’d never do another surf film. After INFAMY I didn’t want to do another graffiti film. Yet the more I tried to change the channel away from my last subject– just to keep life interesting – the more each documentary found similar themes. Only today, looking back, can I see these patterns for the first time—a formed constellation of what I thought were disconnected stars.
Joshua Triliegi: BIG RIG takes us on the road in a behind-the-scenes style of 18 wheel truck drivers coast to coast. Discuss the building of trust when covering documentary subjects.
Doug Pray: It is hard for me to defend the importance of trust when making documentary films because it is so essential. It’s as important as having air to breath. I think trust, between director and subject (just as it is between a director and actor) is essential, and makes for good interviews and good films.In some ways, I have it easy: I don’t make overtly political films. I don’t have to interview enemies. I admire people who can go into war zones and get the truth from all sources, even those not trusted. I respect filmmakers who have the guts to confront their most hated adversaries (so long as those privileges aren’t abused and quotes taken out of context for purely sensational edits, which backfires and annoys me to no end.)I have no enemies in my movies, nor do I judge my subjects. I leave that to the audience. I believe every individual on the planet is equally fallible and lovable, and—in some small way—can be relatable. I’m always grateful that they are letting me film their lives and thoughts. They’re giving me a gift and it’s never the other way around. My whole approach to an interview subject is geared to gain trust. A small example: I rarely ask someone to sign an interview release form before their interview starts, even if I know I’m taking that person to places that are extremely uncomfortable. I tell them to feel free to stop or rethink or delete whatever they’re saying while we’re talking. This approach fosters trust and results in more in-depth, uncensored responses than I might get if there was mistrust. We are working together and not in a hunter-prey situation (no pun intended), their degree of comfort directly results in more honest responses. Despite my last name, I am not very religious. But I was raised as a Quaker and one of the interesting things about their history is that they assumed trust.
This played out in courtrooms where they refused to take oaths when in court. After all, if you were always telling the truth, why would you separate out a certain part of your day to swear that you are going to be telling the truth? Why would I expect someone to sign a release if I wasn’t going to reciprocate and treat them with respect? With BIG RIG trust had to be gained in a matter of seconds. There was no pre-casting or research to find characters. We found all of our interview subjects in truck stops parking lots. Most truckers are in a hurry and the last thing they want is to be solicited in a parking lot (I quickly learned that the only people who do are prostitutes, drug dealers, and documentary filmmakers). I needed to spend a few hours or half a day in a truck with a driver so I had to have my pitch down to 10 seconds flat, like speed-dating. I’d immediately tell them who I was, what I wanted, and how it would work. I had to be completely transparent. I’d joke about how absurd it was that a filmmaker from LA was approaching them at this moment, disarming them with self-deprecation. I held the camera in my hands so they saw it and knew it was real. I had a flyer that made it legit. My producer and I were still chased out of numerous truck stops by cops, owners, people with broomsticks… but about one out of ten let us into their truck, and once they were rolling and I was rolling, let me into their lives. I told them we could talk about anything they want. They needed to trust that I was not trying to abuse or exploit them and that I didn’t have a political agenda. I just wanted the truth about life on the road and their lives themselves. I said that to every trucker. They said loads of things that were compelling, sometimes crazy, and other times personally disagreeable, but that only made them more interesting to me. More than any other I let that film write itself, in the same way a hitchhiking journey finds its own route.
Joshua Triliegi: Tell us about your graffiti film INFAMYand how you actually became a documentary filmmaker?
Doug Pray: INFAMY is the most hands-on, scrappy film I’ve ever done, and maybe my favorite because it demanded more immediate, thinking-in-the-moment filmmaking skills from me than any other film. I was shooting illegal activities, and underground figures who like to stay anonymous and aren’t used to throwing up interviews. We couldn’t show up with a four-person crew or have the apparatus of typical location filming. So I’d shoot and interview at the same time, and wanted to be able to ditch the camera (and myself) if caught in the act of graffiti.
Though it’s a lifestyle choice they’ve made early on, there’s nothing easy or fun about most hardcore graffiti writers’ lives, once they’ve dedicated their lives to it. INFAMY brought up a lot of pain, regrets, and emotion. It also was a blast (danger is, after all, fun). The careening unpredictability of their lives allowed me, as a filmmaker, to be freer and find the story on the spot – what to film, where to go, and what lives to focus on. This idea of writing while you are filming and writing while you are editing (though I didn’t edit INFAMY) is what I love about making documentaries.
I’m terrible at inventing stuff out of thin air. I’m useless with a blank page and have never been able to write fiction. Movies, to me, were something you had to do – they were never some “big idea”, they were assigned by life. After taking a few film classes at Columbia College in Chicago and making some completely confusing shorts, I moved to San Francisco and started working for a documentary film producer named Woody Clark. I was in charge of shipping for a whole year, and sent 16mm prints of the first-ever documentary about sexual harassment in the workplace to hundreds of companies suddenly worried about lawsuits (the phrase had just been coined). So, the first lesson I learned in the “biz” was wrong: you can make a lot of money on socially relevant documentaries. Woody did, and it threw me off for life!
At that company I got my first break, editing and producing a semi-corporate but gut-wrenching documentary project for a hospital in Virginia that treated children with traumatic brain injuries. That got me into the UCLA Producers Program and from there I snuck into their directing-production program. I went there for four years but never took a documentary class. Instead I learned about working with actors, getting performances, cameras, lenses, lighting—all of which made me a better non-fiction director—and film structure, the most important skill I ever learned.
After graduating, it took me a year to realize that I’d never write that great American screenplay, that I wasn’t actually Francis Ford Coppola (which was a shame), and that nobody gave a damn that I had an MFA. This whole time, a fellow producer, Steve Helvey, was bugging the hell out of me, wanting to make a film about the Seattle music scene. I hated the idea and kept putting him off until I was, in fact, directing that film, HYPE!, my first feature doc.
Joshua Triliegi: ART & COPY is all about advertising, art and ideas for sale, When do you know you have enough material, interviews and images for your documentaries?
Doug Pray: You don’t ever realize. There is no moment when you are done shooting. There is no magic moment when you realize you are done editing. You can keep doing it for the rest of your natural life, and we’ve all met filmmakers who do just that. Usually you just have to stop you’re so exhausted and depressed, occasionally because you’re happy with the cut.
You start with a rough idea of all the things you think you need. Then you set up a production plan and figure out how you will go about getting it all. For my films, it’s usually been about five or six weeks of shooting spread out over six months or a year. We’ll usually edit rough sections as we accumulate footage, and once we have a full rough cut, it becomes much clearer what we need to tell the story that we don’t yet have. I’ll go shoot more interviews and that later footage often becomes the essential glue to hold things together.
For ART & COPY we knew who the advertising legends we wanted to interview were. In each case the request was similar: I wanted an in-depth interview, possibly a follow-up interview, and a half day with them shooting b-roll. It was while shooting b-roll that I’d often get freer, better quotes, stuff that might not have come out in the interview. For example, I met George Lois in his apartment in New York City and we did a two-hour interview. Then we went to the West Bronx and he walked around his old neighborhood and we just had a conversation. He talked about getting into fights as a kid, of being an outsider, and his quotes and this neighborhood and the energy of the city supported this idea that he was a fighter throughout his whole life. From 1960s protests to his in-your-face ad campaigns which punched you in the gut.
After we’d shot most of ART & COPY and were deep into editing I got frustrated that it was all talking heads. I wanted this film to operate on a higher, more inspirational level, since the whole movie was, after all, about creative inspiration, taking risks, and big ideas. I wanted to get out of these advertising campaigns and physically show how these people are affecting our daily lives without just running a bunch of ads. I wanted to see the mechanics of mass communication, not just talk about them. My producers and I brainstormed and this led to the idea of showing communications satellites. Within a few months, we were in French Guiana shooting a massive satellite being launched. The justification? Ads pay for TV. TV comes from satellites. But editorially, the rocket launch gave a subtle, building structure to the whole movie, a climax and a payoff.
I must say, most docs could use a rocket launch. Too often people forget that feature documentaries are still movies. Regardless of the subject they ought to be cinematic and entertaining. That extra two or three months of finishing (re-editing, re-writing, re-structuring, re-working my sound-design until it rocks) is my favorite part of the whole process.
Joshua Triliegi: What are you working on now?
Doug Pray: LEVITATED MASS was my seventh feature doc and there’s something about the number 7 that is allowing me to change things up. So, aside from supporting its theatrical release this fall (LEVITATED MASS is coming out on iTunes, DVD and other digital platforms this month), I find myself involved in a number of projects and acting more as a producer than a director. At the moment, I am executive producing and editing a music-based project that Allen Hughes (of Hughes Brothers fame) is directing for HBO. I’m working with the producers of ART & COPY to make a non-fiction television series about the results of creative thinking around the world, filming innovative individuals, organizations and businesses in Detroit, Peru, and elsewhere. I’m working with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on a film for their 50th anniversary. I’m doing some exciting commercial work with Bob (Bob is a company, not a person). I am also helping a filmmaker named Patrick O’Brien finish his ten-year-long feature-length documentary about his life with ALS. It is called TRANSFATTY LIVES. At first I just brought on an editor for him (Lasse Järvi who cut INFAMY and SURFWISE), but now I’m heavily involved as a producer and post supervisor. It’s not my film, but Patrick is an amazing, magnetic personality and I’ve enjoyed helping him realize his documentary. He lives in Boston and is completely paralyzed but with a lucid, brilliant mind. His movie is fairly crazy and super emotional and it’s been a wonderful challenge. It will premiere in 2015.
Joshua Triliegi: Do you foresee an evolution into non-documentary filmmaking?
Doug Pray: It’s funny to me that I ended up having a career directing non-fiction film. I love working with actors. I love directing actors to the point where they seem like they are not performing at all, as if they are in a documentary. I also love getting “performances” out of non-actors and working that grey area. Years ago I used to imagine making dramatic films that were unscripted but based on providing a set of motivations for the characters who are journeying through documentary locations. Some would argue this is the definition of reality TV, but I was more interested in making loose, emotional features. More and more great filmmakers are doing exactly that today. To that end, there are three dramatic films I’m currently developing for me to direct. They are open-ended enough to allow for strong non-fiction texture and influences. Stepping back from the documentary genre as a whole… the changes in the last 25 years since I started directing are so outstanding it’s hard to imagine where we’ll all end up. It used to take $100,000 and lots of meetings with investors to even consider mounting the most raw documentary because you had to pay for processing, film stock, and the mechanics of post. Being a filmmaker in the ‘80s seemed very special and rare. Today’s filmmakers have to compete with thousands more like them, which is a drag, but they also can. They have crowd-funding, small cameras with superb imagery, and distribution venues so prevalent it’s annoying. Everyone is a cinematographer, everyone is an editor, everyone is an director. This is Silicon Valley’s dream, that we are all masters of our destinies, fulfilling our unique potentials and creating beautiful little films about ourselves through our devices and apps. It’s kind of fun, but ultimately kind of narcissistic and meaningless to me. In the end, great stories, well told, are the only things that last. This has been true for 20,000 years of human history. Whether it’s a six-second Vine video or a four-hour linear doc, it only matters if the story moves us.
Joshua Triliegi: What is the single most challenging aspect of creating a documentary, in your experience?
Doug Pray: It is almost always just after I arrive at the first rough cut of a new movie. This is the first big “step-back” from the project, the first time my producers or collaborators get a decent look at the fruits of our labor, it’s the single biggest moment of assessment in a doc. And it just never looks, sounds, or smells any good. For me, it is awful and heartbreaking. All that great footage is actually in there and none of it seems to work. I always feel like I made a huge mistake in taking on the project but at that point it is way too late to turn back. What’s worse is that I KNOW this is going to happen and then it does, yet again, each time. Why? I don’t know, there must be some law laid down by the gods of creativity. (maybe it’s the “blood on the pages rule”: that scripts which do not have actual blood or perhaps tear stains on the pages aren’t worth reading). Regardless, it’s at this point in a project’s life that I will inevitably need an outsider – usually a producer or writer or advisor – to come into the editing room and basically kick my ass and force me to rethink the film in a bigger and better way. I have to hit bottom for me to start re-finding the film. Sometimes it’s a different film than I thought I was making in the first place, sometimes it’s a reaffirmation of exactly what we were after in the first place. The most challenging moment on my film LEVITATED MASS wasn’t during the edit. It was during production when, no less than six months into production, I finally met my main character, the reclusive and amazing American land-artist Michael Heizer, and suddenly realized that he had absolutely no interest in being interviewed or letting me film his personal life, and that he would not compromise. I had to rethink the whole project and figure out how to make it as compelling as the film I’d originally set out to make. In the end, it worked out well—Heizer generously gave me access to his work and his process, but while his backstory is a key part of the film, it’s not about him. That realigning… just like rewriting your film’s edit, it’s never easy. And it’s an essential component of all non-fiction filmmaking.
Joshua Triliegi: Where did you study and what advice would you give young readers and filmmakers?
Doug Pray: I studied sociology at Colorado College (liberal arts undergrad) and received an MFA from the UCLA School of Film and Television. I don’t think film school is required, at all, for people to become professional filmmakers, but I needed it for sure and I loved every minute of it. It gave me the confidence to call myself a director and the knowledge to be one. Some directors know exactly what they want and how to get it without school. Marc Webb, a good friend of mine (who directed 500 Days of Summer and the last two Spiderman movies), didn’t need one minute of film school. He knew how to teach himself and studied other directors and their styles and had enough initiative to work his way into becoming one of America’s more prolific music video directors, which led to his first feature. Whether by crewing, or just directing your own low-budget DIY feature, or going to film school, or writing a script, or making a doc about your cat, there are many many ways to become a filmmaker. And… many, many filmmakers. So the question remains: what do you have to say, and are you a good story teller? Pencils and paper have been around for hundreds of years: did the availability of those tools result in many more great novels?
But aside from story, I ultimately think the main difference between people who are successful in non-fiction and those who are not, is tenacity. They persist. They don’t quit. They get through the downs and the depressions and they keep on trying to make it work. Whether they have to keep shooting, keep editing, bring on another editor, or change their story altogether. They bury their ego, face the truth, and find a way to make it work. They are able to re-access their initial passion and energy for the project. Again and again. There have been, sadly, a number of projects I had to walk away from in my career, for various reasons (usually myself to blame). They were failures and it’s painful for me to think about them. They were all great stories about real lives, they featured real people whom I admired and had (nearly) committed to. Trust had been built, but then things didn’t work out. Those are the sad anomalies, the exceptions that prove the rule, that—in fact—directing documentaries is an absolutely wonderful adventure. I feel pretty lucky. Visit The Official Doug Pray Website to learn more about current releases: http://dougpray.com
ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL
Part One in a Series of Reports on The BORDERS by J. A. TRILIEGI 2017
All along the border, double fences topped with barbed wire, trail across the land like so many scars on the flesh of a beaten horse. Humans of all shape and size, age and color, wander on either side, like ants, gathering bits of this and that, simply to survive. The border itself is well fortified. Giant steel posts thrust upwards in a multiple vertical fashion, cold, grey, metal, blocks of concrete and men with guns, stand on either side, they are doing time, they are doing their job, they are taking orders, by a government, by a policy and by a code of service, which may very well, hurt their families, their future and themselves. As for international relations, well, "We The People …," have got some real work to do.
Rain trickles down, unlike finances, in abundance, on both sides of the border. Drops of h2o feel the same from either side. This reporter walks across the great divide, entering simply to see, to observe, to experience and to meet the people of Mexico, or at least, the people of Baja California, which is not exactly, 'M - e - x - i - c - o,' in the same way that, Ellis island, is not exactly, 'A - m - e - r - i - c - a.' And yet, there they are, offering this gringo a taxi ride to and fro. I am on a budget, no publisher or editor or local or national or international publisher would sponsor this sojourn, so I have travelled by bus, a simple twenty dollars from Downtown Los Angeles into Baja, and another 200 pesos, which is ten dollars, gets me into the tourist port town of Ensenada. A destination for the Princess Cruises. In olden day, frat boys, surfers, and tourists of all types descended upon this lovely destination in search of debauchery, coastal beauty and artifacts such as clothes, furniture, objects of value, offered, for much less than anywhere else. Decades of taking have left its mark on this locale, and yet, the new world, the world of technology. the world of commercial enterprise, the world of modern banking has emerged, and stands side by side with the ancient world, we have mythologized about this great land, the land of the Maya and the Spanish Conquistador, mixed, long ago, to create this special race of people, we know as Mexicans and their country: Mexico. History tells us of a country that once sprawled much further north, into the continent that we, as Americans, now inhabit, California, Arizona New Mexico, Texas, etc… The Southwest border states, where, we are now told, that a wall, will be built. As we drive south, over the first hurdle of hills into Ensenada, I can see a double fence, so high, that my eyes have trouble actually measuring its vertical height. Were I forced to estimate, I would guess that the swirling, jagged, barbed wire top sits at least some twenty or so feet in height ? As we drive up and over, I recall the early days of visits to Mexico, taking this same route, with my father, to see the bullfights, with my friends to Surf the coast, and as an artist, simply in search of something different in culture, lifestyle and respite. Since that time, I have been told, by my government, by my friends and by highly propagandized stories of struggle, anguish and fear of overlords, that this place is not safe to visit.
The Western Coast and indeed, the California route from North to South, has a beauty, that is unrivaled and Baja California is no exception. Choose any one mile section of Carmel or Big Sur or Malibu or Baja, and, you will find, they are identical. The earth, the flower, the fauna, the water, the light are all the same. Green valleys peppered with long stretches of two lane highways, merge into gold, rust and creme colored edges that jut downward into rocky cliffs, bays, full with blue, turquoise and white topped waves that careen into the coastal edge. I am on a tourist bus, for the first time in my life. I focus on the coast, as my fellow passengers watch some such film being projected on a television screen, mounted high above their heads. American actors faces dubbed into spanish incongruously describe a false drama that does not relate to the landscape of the earth, the coast, the real beauty of a continent that we share with others. We share this continent with more than one country, that is clear to me, the politics of borders and policies and current views, are not at all as clear as the very FACT, that We share this continent with others.
The tour bus pulls into Ensenada proper, and already I can see a great indian past, the textures of Baja Mexico, are not at all unlike those of Rome or Tokyo or Bangladesh, the history is evident. The street corners, bus stop benches, and even the surface of the streets themselves speak to the viewer, "Where have you been and where are you going ?" I have no answer. I am seeking simply to see what is here now, and what I see are thousands of people walking to and from their homes, their jobs, their responsibilities to whomever and wherever and whatever. Then it comes to me, "Why I am here?" Some time ago, I jokingly told a group of Mexican maids that if Mr. Donald Trump becomes the President of the United States of America, that I will be in Mexico on the day that this incident occurs, and so, I kept my promise, for in less than a day, this man will become the next President of our great country.
Besides occupying my time as a Journalist of some fledgling notoriety, I also write literature of a varying style and length: Screenplays, Short Stories and a Novel, so far. It comes to mind that many in the industry including, Matthew McConaghy, Matt Damon and Ryan Gosling, all very white men of some talent, are married to women with descendants of the latin variety, men whom derive from Texas, from Boston from Canada. A symbol of the sharing of this continent, we call, America. And still we are told that a wall will be built: A Wall. A fence guards against entry, a wall blocks ones view, in obscuring views, perception and reality can be manipulated, like blinders, does this new government wish to obscure our views of one another ? To block our vision ? To control our vista's as well as our Visa's ? It appears so. The Great Wall of China, The Berlin Wall, Pink Floyd's song lyrics from 'The Wall,' explains something about this policy, that most likely, a scared white man in power is, "… Just Another Brick in The WALL."
Like much of America, during the banking bailouts, some eight years ago, Mexico too has been pervaded by a proliferation of Banks. All over Mexico, young upwardly mobile individuals have been employed by this new modern system of checking and deposits, transfers and exchanges. A map of Mexico displays and amazingly flourishing economy of some sort, while on a near by television screen, an attractive young lady speaks excitingly about the new opportunities and services offered by this new technological wonder of modernity. Though this particular town has always had its own economy, and, long before these new technological advances gave them surveillance, invasions of privacy and the desecration of anonymity, this little town had and still retains the old ways of knowing who is here, what they have with them and where they are going, with whom and why. The gained or earned - through - experience, survival skills, of any port or pirate town that, for over a hundred years, has found ways to survive its visitors, its inhabitants and even, it's conquistadors. In this particular case, the Indian past, sits side by side the technological future, old world and new world meet, they make eye contact, they understand one another, they may even assist one another.
Pacific Coast Highway is not Malibu, just as Santa Monica is not Los Angeles and Big Sur is not Northern California. Suffice it to say, that the Coastal Section of Ensenada is not Baja California, by any means. And certainly Baja as a whole, is not at all a representation of Mexico, though, it is safe to say, if you speak to individuals, a bank teller, a bus driver, a casual man or woman on the street, you are indeed talking to a real Mexican, with real human concerns about a very real world that they are living in. I check into my hotel, the room is roughly 12 US dollars and some change, laundry is washed, dried and folded just across the way for under a dollar, fresh food at the local market is priced as such that I find myself giving bags I have purchased for mine own, to those I meet along the way. The first evening passes quickly, rain whips through the town, the streets flooded with over a foot of water in the lower regions.
Inauguration day arrives without much fanfare here, the television in the hotel lobby displays little about Mr Trump. I am beginning to realize that, the populist of Mexico have already been prepared for this new leader, they understand that American Presidents and most likely all leaders of major powers in the world, then and now, are what they are, a symbol, a face, or, if we search for the latin derivative source: simply a Facade. One need only walk a mile or so east, to find that Mexico, is not unlike any other place in the California's. Middle class neighborhoods lined with houses on either side, one and a half cars per home, some folks living at a higher elevation in the upper middle class areas and those whom own businesses, land and expanses of property of all variety. It is much like any place in the world, some people have money and some people do not. We have heard the new American Presidents criticism's over the past year regarding this country, its people, its past, it's problems. Something comes to mind, as I walk through town, a question arises, " Does any Country in the world send us their best ?" and conversely, "Do we send any other country our best ?" Australia's history tells a story of disbanded and exported individuals whose personal history was somewhat sorted, at least by its own monarchy's point of view, and yet, they seem to have created a land of promise, fortitude and originality, and within that, ab-origin-ality too. Yes, this is digressive, but worthy of note, very worthy.
My clothing is soaked, from top to bottom. I carry my possessions over the shoulder. I am in a country that is not my own. I have little finances, neither a job, nor, a relative in town. I do not speak the language fluently. In essence, for this brief moment in time: I am a Mexican in America. Now I am beginning to understand the beauty, the stoic and sometimes exhilarating aspects of searching to find something more. In this case, I am seeking to learn more about the border, it's realities, it's myths and it's challenges, while many of those among me, are looking for, a better job, some more income, possibly an opportunity, wether imagined or real. I drop off my clothes at the laundry. By the time I pick them up, an hour or so later, several locals are sitting on a couch, watching the television, which displays Mr. Donald Trump uttering the words, "…So help me God." Within a week, he has ordered the building of a wall, the closing of EPA protections and reopening an Oil Pipeline straight through America. My clothes are clean, my conscious is clear and my country is in trouble.
VISIT THE NEW BUREAU FICTION SITE with Novelist and BUREAU Founder J. A. TRILIEGI to Hear The Recent in AUDIO ...
" ELMER'S WILL "
" MARTINE'S CROSS "
and
" ERNIE'S POLICY "
" ERNIE'S POLICY "
BUREAU INTERVIEW: GARY CALAMAR
KCRW 89.9 FM L A Disc Jockey and
Music Supervisor for Television
Q:What led you to becoming a DJ ?
A: I've always been a big music fan and I love sharing music with people. I grew up in New York listening first to WABC AM Top 40 radio and later moved on to WNEW FM free form progressive radio. I loved listening to the dj's almost as music as the great music.
Q:You have always had a kind of kooky or somewhat comedic take on pop music, what drives you to select the tracks you do ?
A: Kooky … Kooky, how ? Do I amuse you ? Ha, that's my Joe Pesci impersonation. I don't know, I like to have some fun with the music every now and then. Putting certain sets together in interesting ways. I just do it for myself really. I 'm surprised that people catch some of the connections.
Q:Do you pick all your own tunes at this time ? Explain that process when designing a set of music ?
A: Yes, I pick all my own music...at the same time I definitely consider the KCRW audience that I'm playing to and not go all heavy metal or something like that. Only my fellow dj, Henry Rollins. can pull that off. I've been a music fan for a very long time. I've worked in record stores (check out my book Record Store Days), managed bands, and I've been to countless shows so I have a lot of music swimming in my brain to choose from.
Q:The days of the talking DJ have come and gone and returned again, how much of that comes into play for your style ?
A: I don't really think about it too much. I basically try and play great music and then tell the listeners what they have heard.
Q:Does being a DJ actually support your lifestyle and if not what else do you do ?
A: I work one day a week as a dj at KCRW so no, that is not my only means of support. I'm also a music supervisor (True Blood, Dexter, House, Weeds, Entourage, Six Feet Under...) which helps to pay the bills. I'm also a songwriter and will be releasing an album on Atlantic in the fall. I love the music business (for the most part) and happy to work in many different aspects of the business.
Q:If you were not a professional disc jockey, what would you be doing professionally ?
A: Presidential food taster.
Q:You have done extensive work in Film and Television. share with us that process,
for example how you fit a song to a cable series or movie and give us a detailed example.
A:It works in many different ways. Basically I collaborate with the producers of the show to get an overall feel of the type of music that would be appropriate for the production. Some shows like to be obvious with lyrics that comment on the scene and other shows are looking for a texture to help "color" a scene. ....
Who is your favorite disc jockey in history ?
I'm going to have to say Cousin Bruce Morrow. His style is completely different from mine but it sounds like he loves what he does and has a great relationship with his listeners, with Rock and Roll being the common language.
What acts did you personally discover and could you tells us any stories in relation to bands going out of their way to get you recordings ?
My favorite new discovery is an Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett. Check her out. She is a brilliant lyricist and performer.I found the Sia song "Breathe Me" for Six Feet Under and she has been doing very nicely since. I have also put together some nice collaborations on new recordings for True Blood. I brought Nick Cave and Neko Case together for a cover of the Zombies song "She's Not There" Eric Burdon and Jenny Lewis for "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and Iggy Pop and Bethany Cosentino for a song I co-wrote "Let's Boot and Rally". These have all been really fun experiences and turned out some great recordings.
Would you create a list of best songs for this Summer ?
Jonathan Richman "That Summer Feeling"
The Best Coast "The Only Place"
B52's "Deadbeat Club"
Beach Boys "Do It Again"
NRBQ "Ridin' In My Car"
X "4th of July"
The Last "Every Summer Day"
Katy Perry & Snoop Dogg"California Gurls"
Bruce Springsteen "Girls In Their Summer Clothes"
Patty Smith "Redondo"
Warhol Lips:
WELCOME to The SPECIAL Music Edition of BUREAU of ARTS and CULTURE MAGAZINE. The BUREAU Guest ARTIST INTERVIEW Realist Painter CHRISTOPHER STOTT . This New Edition Contains The BUREAU MUSIC ICON Essay: HANK WILLIAMS . PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAYS and ARTICLES BY THE INFAMOUS MR. ART SHAY . MATHEW BARNEY at MOCA LA Plus BUREAU PROFILE : ANDREW HOLDER . The BUREAU PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW with LAURA STEVENS in PARIS . BUREAU FILM : BLUE VELVET at THIRTY . ART of MILES DAVIS "The SHAMAN" . PRINCE TRIBUTE plus MUSIC INTERVIEW with Singer-Songwriter: JOSHUA TATE . SOUND ARTIST : CÉLESTE BOURSIER - MOUGENOT with CHRISTOPH COX . DESIGN : ITS ABOUT WALLPAPER . COMEDY INTERVIEW with Andre HYLAND . John DOE . Aimee MANN . Chris STAPLETON . BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL : KWAME BRATHWAITE'S New HARLEM RENAISSANCE . DANNY LYON at THE WHITNEY MUSEUM + R. CRUMB at SEATTLE MUSEUM . Reviews & New Online Articles All Year Round at The New BUREAU CITY SITES RAP MUSIC'S : TUPAC and ICE CUBE with PHOTOGRAPHER Mr. Mike MILLER . BUREAU TRIBUTE TO " LEGENDS OF THE FALL'S," WRITER : JIM HARRISON . Plus BUREAU ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAYS, REVIEWS and ARTICLES
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HANK WILLIAMS
by J.A. TRILIEGI
HANK 'King' Williams is possibly the most prolific songwriter that America has ever created. He had a rough childhood, he wandered about, learned to play the guitar from an African American local blues singer, whom became a good friend, back in those days, that was sorta taboo. So, it makes sense that his son, and his grandson, are rebel souls to the end. Hank I, Hank II and Hank III have seriously royal credibility with the American Spirit, which also means, they don't give a shit, what you think of 'em, but, they do hope you like the songs. Today, we pay our respects to Country's Greatest Singer - Songwriter, The One and Only : Mister Hank Williams.
Good writers often come from tragic situations, that's just the way it often is folks. That is not to say that, a good life will make you a bad writer, but, lets face it, sorrow is one heaping ingredient for good lyrics, good storytelling and the will to tell it like it is. Hank Williams came from deep poverty, and that led to many, 'first hand,' experiences. His father had worked as an engineer for the railroads, was a Mason, had served in World War I, fell from a truck, and was later hospitalized for long periods of time, leaving the young boy to find his way, elsewhere in the community. The family lived throughout the Southern region of Alabama and eventually settled in Greenville and later, Montgomery. Young Hiram, who later changed his name to 'Hank,' received his first guitar and began taking informal lesson from the local blues man, Rufus "Tee-Tot" Payne. Hank never did learn to read music, which delayed some progress with the formal gentry of Country Music's Grand Ole Opry and the entire Nashville crowd. It is often stated that his drinking and wildcatting with the ladies held up some progress in this regard, though, to study his lyrics, there is a good chance that the mix of religious references and wild lifestyle choices, within the subjects of his songs, was enough to bother some. In one phrase, he'll mention, 'The Lord,' and in the next, he confesses to having, 'The Honky - Tonk Blues.' In Hank Williams' life, there is, the official story, there is, the gossip's story and then there is, the real story. Somewhere among the three is the truth. His mother's boarding house, while father is away, was ripe for conjecture, Lots of people, coming and going, made little time for young Hank to gain a mother's love. Hank was starved for attention, and eventually, through singing and songwriting, he got more than he may have been able to handle. As a performer, Hank had dazzle, he was real folk and his lyrics were basic, though, he was no, 'simple man.' According to interviews, his hero, Roy Acuff, told him, "You have a million-dollar talent, son, but a ten-cent brain," referring to Williams hard living, hard driving and hard drinking lifestyle. Acuff could never know that what drove Williams to drink and take pain killers was a sickness that derived from a spinal disease, that eventually led to a major operation, fusing the young singer-songwriter's discs together. Besides the fact that Hank had survived a broken home as well as a childhood during the Great Depression, with no father in sight for eight formative years, the boy had found his way, without formal training, a natural.
Hank is barely fourteen years of age and he's already penned a tune entitled, "The WPA Blues." He receives fifteen dollars, a first prize in a local contest at the Empire Theatre, buys a Silvertone guitar, which he plays incessantly, along the sidewalks of town, and eventually, receives a radio spot, which leads to a regular bi-weekly showcase. At sixteen years of age, Hank drops out of school to work full time, with his new band, The Drifting Cowboys. He tours extensively throughout the South, which includes movie houses and honky-tonks in Georgia and Florida. The band was managed by his mother and Hank continued the radio show when not on tour. Because of the need for playing new songs every week, his output is prodigious. By 1945, at twenty-three years of age, Hank Williams publishes a songbook of lyrics to ten of his best tunes, which led to a recording contract with Fred Rose and eventually, he garnered the attention of MGM records, breaking through the Country Western gatekeepers with the money making hits, "Lovesick Blues," and "Move It on Over." By 1949, Hank finally graced the stage of The Grand Ole Opry, receiving more encores than any other performer ever, he was only twenty-seven years old.
"I'm a rollin' stone all alone and lost
For a life of sin I have paid the cost
When I pass by all the people say
Just another guy on the lost highway"
- Hank Williams / Lost Highway Lyrics
That same year, he travelled to England and Germany, wrote seven hit tunes and birthed his only son. The family move to Louisiana, which led to East Coast exposure via The Louisiana Hayride Show and tours in Eastern Texas guaranteed him a place in Country Westerns most important states and national Radio Exposure propelled Hank Williams into a category that is, to this day, untouchable. Hank created a completely alternative character for his more religious, storytelling style, by the name of, "Luke The Drifter." It was the equivalent of a popular writer, publishing stories under another name, Hank was brand savvy, and it worked. The real problem with all of this, 'Success,' was that young Hank Williams, who was really just a very down home fella, who enjoyed hunting, who loved fishing, enjoyed drinking and was bent on loving and living, was working himself to death. By 1952, he had done just that, leaving the planet, at twenty-nine years of age. Hank Williams had written, recorded, broadcast and performed, well over a hundred songs, throughout his entire life, not to mention his many collaborations and other writers work.
Hank's legacy continues through his son, Hank Junior, and his grandson, Hank III. Each are equally rebellious, full of American grit, each songwriters, each performers, each willing to fight to retain the legacy that belongs to only them. Both have friendships and affiliations that will indeed bother somebody, somewhere in this world. Hank Junior has spoken his mind on various occasions and even lost an important commercial contract, due to politics. Well, fuck politics. The Hank Williams Family is pure American musical royalty. If there had never been a friendship between Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, who knows what may have happened to the divisions in this country all those years ago ? American Music is meant to be the place where we all meet in the middle, a sacred spot, the location where we Americans are allowed to say and do anything we damn well please.
"A prodigal son once strayed from his father
To travel a land of hunger and pain
And now I can see the end of my journey
I'm going to Heaven again"
- Hank Williams / The Prodigal Son
Hank Junior describes approaching his inheritance, in this way, "So you're a little bitty boy, that can barley touch the keys of your father's piano, ya know, and, my gosh, you're a little over three when he passes away… You get a little older, heres Jerry Lee Lewis, heres Ray Charles, heres Fats Domino, heres Carl Perkins. I better know how to play some instruments. Because, they all had number one [ hits ] with one of daddy's songs… Joe Stafford, Perry Como, Tony Bennet, and believe me, the list goes on, all the way to [ today ]. So, here I am in this wonderful situation. Then people say, 'Just do your father's stuff, just imitate,' I'm not gonna do that. It's wonderful to have an American Anthem. Daddy had several of them, I'm lucky, Ive had a couple of them." Hank Junior has inherited some of his father's tragedy as well as his talent. Back in the day, Hank Junior fell down a mountaintop, splitting his face in two. It took seventeen operations to put him back together. Years after the accident, and his subsequent recovery, Hank Junior explains, "When I woke up, theres June Carter and Johnny Cash, their there. They covered eighteen hundred miles… in the middle of nowhere, to be there. They were really, really, really, special. How could it get any better than that ? June Carter and Johnny Cash … ? Thats America ! I'm all about America, Baby. I'm all about it"
On The subject of songwriting, Hank Junior explains it, plain and clear, "I don't go to writing sessions with five other people. A writing session ? You mean you all are all going to get together and write ? Uh, I don't think so. That ain't how I do it. I am a Williams, ya know." His son, Hank III, is equally as outspoken and conscious of the family traditions, maybe even more rebellious. Hank III pulls no punches. He has opened concerts for Public Enemy, gigged with David Allen Coe, Johnny Paycheck and George Jones, to name a few, and explains his philosophy in these words, "I'm not into pop country, Im not into looking pretty, Im not into shaking my ass, and worrying about the bottom dollar, Im just into playing music." On Songwriting, "We just do what we do… We don't write songs for the radio… We write 'em for us." When his father Hank Junior was recently asked what makes a good song, he pondered the question a moment, then replied, "Good is Good, wether Its Rap or Bluegrass or …" he holds up his hands a second, mimicking a classical quotation, then continues with the final punctuation of the word that has defined his life since before birth: "…Country." As his song states: "A Country Boy will Survive."
"When tears come down
Like falling rain
You'll toss around
And call my name"
- Hank Williams / Your Cheatin' Heart
Hank III was raised by his mother, discovered the music on his own, finding energy in the rock music of Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, at nine years old. He sites Henry Rollins of Black Flag and bands such as Public Enemy as influences, though, he also has credentials with some of the more open minded Country folk, and has been embraced by The New Outlaw set, which once included The Late Great Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and of course, his grandfather, who, it could be argued, accidentally started the movement long ago. There may even be a verifiable link between what Hank Williams did, 'energy-wise,' and what led to Elvis Presley's Rock and Roll Revolution, which brings us back to Bob Dylan, who too, was inspired by the King's charisma. So then, what is Country music and who owns the right to claim it as their own? As far as this writer is concerned, The Hank Williams Family, is front and center. Hank III, while offering his many musical influences, broke it down, in this fashion, on stage, to a live audience, just before introducing his set of new music, "If You Don't Think This is Fucking Country, Right There Is The Door…" As far as we could tell, nobody used the exit. That is why, on this day, we Honor Hank Williams I, II and III.
For surely, if there ever were, an American Country-Western Royal Family : They Be IT.
We Support, Honor and Promote
COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME® AND MUSEUM
222 5th Avenue South Nashville, TN 37203 615.416.2001
THE BUREAU SOUTHERN USA http://bureauofartsandculturesouth.blogspot.com
Tap the Link Above to Visit The BUREAU SOUTH USA Site
Season Two Opening Chapter
Each Chapter was Written in a Twenty - Four Hour Period without Notes Published Consecutively by Joshua A. Triliegi
SEASON TWO / EPISODE ONE / CHAPTER 23
L I G H T
Each Chapter was Written in a Twenty - Four Hour Period without Notes Published Consecutively by Joshua A. Triliegi
SEASON TWO / EPISODE ONE / CHAPTER 23
L I G H T
Louis was beginning to see the light in a whole new way. All day, things appeared different. Every object in the cafe seemed more colorful, he was seeing details and distance like never before. He stared at the chrome napkin holders, ketchup bottles, mustard containers, forks, knives, spoons and napkins as if they were sacred objects: studied their details, using his new found eye sight to take in the landscape. Why had he waited so long to get the operation ? If Junior hadn't returned, Louis may have never seen the light. He would have just slowly faded into the darkness with old age, maybe eventually seeing nothing but a clouded world of tunnel vision or worse: total blindness. It was Juniors idea to have the cataracts removed, he paid for the operation, Louis thought about all the years the boy had been ignored, all the years and months and days that nobody in the family, neither he, nor Celia or their extended family wrote a letter or visited. When Celia married Chuck, he had became the son, totally replaced Junior. Now that Junior returned, everything seemed to be changing. Louis was grateful to his son in a way that he could not describe. He seemed to care for the man in a way that was different than Celia or Chuck, he cared for the man in a direct way, not as some sort of responsibility, but because he loved him. Louis hadn't been loved since his wife died, really truly loved and cared for, he'd actually forgotten what that was like: to be loved. The Cafe was busy, the strike in the harbor was over, trucks were moving in and out, waitresses were working double shifts, when they asked if Louis could stay on a few more hours, he agreed. He had always agreed when his employers had asked for this, asked for that: How had he become so damn compliant through the years ? As a young man, he had fire in his gut, even a sort of bravado, a keen sense of rebellion. But that was long ago and when they asked, he did as he had done for the past twenty- five - something years, he answered, "Yes". Besides all the usual conversations like, "Louis, they need water on table seven." and his reply, "I Got It" or "Clear off the corner booth honey, I got a family of five waiting' out front" and his reply, "You got it." There wasn't a whole lot of talk in his daily routine. So, whenever somebody actually took the time to stop and converse with Louis, it was often a memorable experience that he would think about after the fact, at the end of the day or some time later. As things settled down that late afternoon, Louis was clearing a table along the windowed booths. Ma Fritters was a mid century establishment with big red booths along the front window and a counter to the rear with tables strewn all across the center and sporadically along the walls. A television was mounted above the counter, though it usually was turned off, on this day, due to the recent controversial decision in a high profile legal case and the controversy surrounding the decision by an all white jury, the TV was on, the volume was turned down. The Cafe was located just between the Harbor City Hall and adjacent to the truck stop port authority, so all types of people frequented the place. Gum shoe private detectives, lawyers, bailiffs, cops, an occasional snitch, or the recently paroled, or those who were proven innocent and plenty who were proven guilty and done their time accordingly. A familiar face sitting in a booth next to the table Louis was clearing sat and watched the silent television, a now, iconic image of a man being beaten by a circle of cops played on the screen, followed by images of four men in suits walking down a long row of steps, followed by angry groups of people screaming at the camera, then shots of helicopters and angry protestors who seemed to be standing in the middle of the streets, running wild. It's a shame whats going on down there, ain't it Louis ? He was referring to the television. Louis looked up at the TV expecting to see a football, basketball or baseball game of some sort. As he glanced at the screen, the shot of a man fleeing a pawn shop with a musical instrument, a red electric bass guitar flashed across the screen, followed by a group of people, smashing the windows of a liquor store, prying open the accordion metal gates and ransacking the place. Louis never payed attention to current events and hadn't been following the case very closely, so he was surprised to see the footage of what looked to be the beginning of a full on riot. He figured it was happening in another country or city, "Wheres that ? " he asked the customer, "Thats Downtown." Louis looked again. They watched a news reporter on the street, stores were going up in smoke. The sun was setting now and the color orange permeated the harbor. "Well, thats what happens when you got an abuse of power, at least thats what happens, some times." The man gestured for Louis to sit down, Louis looked around, the place was empty, so he put down his white rag and bucket and sat with the man. "I heard Junior finally got out, hows he doing ?" "Very well, he's doing good" he replied The man continued, " Its a god damn shame what happened to that boy, god damn shame." Louis noticed that the man was a little stoned, maybe drunk."That boy had everything going for him, he was handsome, smart, had a great little girlfriend, I remember that boy very well, very, very well." Louis looked at that man, really looked at him, stared at his face, his eyes, listened to the voice and something began to click, something in the man's voice was suddenly quite familiar. " It was too bad that nobody had found out about that other kids car. You remember that other boy that night ? He was a good kid too, but the law is the law, and Junior would have never done time if only someone had reported the facts." Louis couldn't entirely understand just what the man was trying to say. "Ya see, the regulation on those cars are very specific, that boy was hot rod crazy, he had all kinds of unregulated gear on that vehicle. Now, it is not illegal to have say, dual manifolds or even dual carburators, but if a car flips over due to the height of a vehicles unregulated distance from surface to passenger weight capacity and entry position than it is a fact of science and it can't be refuted. Did you know that in Juniors case the other boys car was three and a half inches higher than the regulated stock car height ? Furthermore …", The man stopped for a minute and chewed his sandwich, Louis now realized that this guy was a lawyer of some sort, but he couldn't exactly pinpoint why he seemed familiar. "Furthermore, it was noted on the legal evidence and recognized by all the officers and District Attorney's office that the boy who died drove a vehicle that was not street legal and may have had everything to do with the cause of those kids death. Why was that not brought up in the case ? Why ? You wanna know why?" Louis looked at the man and nodded, "Cause I am, well, I was once, one of the best damn prosecuting lawyers in this port and I made damn sure that that little fact was not brought to the juries attention. But that was my job, thats what I was payed to do. Juniors lawyer should have done better, Juniors lawyer took a dive, they rail roaded that kid and all they had to do was mention the deregulated vehicle inspection forms and case closed, over, done with, end of the story. Every single cop on the scene knew that kid's car was not street legal, all of 'em. If people had known, they'd be doing exactly what there doing now, out there on the streets, they'd have been rioting for your kid." Louis just looked at the man. The waitress brought over the check and refilled the man's coffee cup, Louis looked up at her but did not move from his seat, he turned back to the man. Now he realized who this man was, this was the rat bastard son of a bitch that prosecuted his only son. Threw him away, tossed him in the trashcan of life, the sewer for fifteen years. 'Cabron', he thought to himself. He stared at the man one last time, looked at his face, his cheap polyester suit, his wrinkled tie, his unshaven face, he smelled the cheap cologne, the years of unwashed bull shit that had surrounded the man's very aura and simply stood up, grabbed his rag and bucket from the table next to him, placed the plastic tray along side the edge of the man's table and cleared it entirely, except the coffee cup, in one complete gesture. The man blinked. Louis didn't say a word. He was not an important man in town, he wasn't worldly, he didn't speak the best english, he was one of millions of little men who worked hard every day of his life so that his kids and grandkids could have a better life: all of that was true. But this little man knew what trash looked like, this little man knew when the meal was over and this little man cleaned that table, wiped it down and walked away from that man's table like a professional and never once looked back.
Junior had been told to get out of town and take a breather, no one expected him to leave the country. He hadn't been to The Ranch in decades & needed to see his home land. It had been his grand fathers farm back when Juniors father Louis was born there and his fathers before that and so on and so forth and on down the line. Louis had been renting it in a partnership deal that hadn't paid off in the past decade, he himself had not been to the ranch in over ten years, simply stopped visiting ever since his wife had passed away. It hurt too much to see that land. Originally, he had rented the plot to a man and his family who were simple farmers, the lease came with a dozen cows, an orchard of about 100 mango trees, a handful of goats, chickens, sheep, pigs and a couple old dogs. When Junior was a boy, every Summer from the time he was five to the time he was fifteen, he would learn things from locals. He had learned to bullfight, he had learned to dismantle a cow, he had learned to irrigate, plant and even skin a pig. Junior loved the traditions of his heritage: simply had farming in his blood and related to it deeply. At the end of each Summer, the boy would sit high atop a mountain just to the North of the property, they called it The Mesa, because it was shaped like a table top and he would cry. He did not ever want to return to America. McDonalds and Bugs Bunny and Coca Cola held no sway with his spirit. He was an Indiano Puro! He would tell his parents, "I want to stay here with grandpa, he needs my help, let me stay please, please, the boy pleaded with his parents. But returned he did, every year. It was always a painful transition. He would dress his room in blankets, ropes, artifacts he had found on the ranch or nearby. Once he had been given a sacred bowl by a local Indian that had bears carved all along the sides. He would bring mangoes, a chicken, some corn to the Indian every day and eventually, the Indian repaid him with the sacred bowl. Recently, while digging through the garage, he found a box of things that belonged to him from the Summer of 1976, the year he had been sent away. Nestled in the center of the box was the Bear medicine bowl. Also in the box was an eight track cassette player with a bunch of the family music they had once listened to: Greatest Hits of 1976, Freddie Fender, Pedro Infante, Santana, Ritmo Latino, Novenas De Amore, Recuerdos Romantico, someone in the family had even taped the skits and early films of Cantinflas. They would load up the car and drive to The Ranch every Summer until the Summer of 1976, when everything had drastically splintered their lives into nothing at all. Junior installed the eight track player into his car. Loaded up the car with pillows to sleep along the way. He hadn't said a word to anyone about the trip and suddenly realized that he didn't want to go alone. Junior packed up a few of his fathers regular items from back then, his old wooden guitar, a foldable wooden lawn chair, a hammock, his fishing poles and a big straw hat as well as the Indian Bear Bowl. Junior drove into The harbor towards his dads place of work and noticed Chucks Patrol car pulling out of the parking lot as he was pulling in. Junior simply waved his hand and parked the car right up front. Louis was staring out the window thinking about what the lawyer had said as Chuck drove off. And suddenly, Junior pulled into the driveway "Dad, I've come to take you home". "OK", Louis replied, "Are you hungry ?" "Lets get sandwiches to go." While Louis gathered his things in the back room, Junior walked up to the work schedule that was posted in the hallway and looked for Louis' name, he took out a pencil, and erased Louis' scheduled work days and scheduled in the other two busboys names Franky & Paulo sporadically during the week. When Louis finished gathering the sandwiches Junior was already in the car and the motor was running. When Louis got in, Junior said he had to go use the restroom, he reentered the Cafe, and shouted to the waitress, "Hey sweetheart, make sure someone calls Franky to remind him of the schedule changes." She looked at him kinda funny. He took out a ten dollar bill and thanked her, "Your Dad don't have to pay for those". "I know, it's for you babe.", he smiled and headed for the door, "Call Franky and Paulo, good nite." As he turned to the door she put the bill in her apron and headed towards the hallway where the schedule was posted. By the time they pulled out of the lot and up to the stop sign, he could see her pick up the phone. The eight track cassette began to play an old familiar ranchero they had often listened to while driving down South back in the old days. The song started with one of those fast mariachi style riffs with a big oomp-pa-pa base and drum line, a fast fiddle with a quick stop and suddenly the singer would howl like a Rooster at sunrise, "Aaahhhhh - Haaaaaaa - Haaaaaa - Haaaaaaaaaa" and suddenly the song would do double time into a frenzied pace. "Where the hell did you find that ?" Louis asked his son. Junior just smiled and turned the music up, he put the petal to the metal and they roared down the coastline. When they hopped on the freeway instead of the normal route home, Louis, turned down the music and asked, "Where are we going ? ", "We are going HOME dad, home, our real home, were going to The Ranch. Junior looked at the kid and laughed. "Are you f*%+ing crazy?" He shook his head in disbelief, looked back at this kid of his, this beautiful boy who had endured fifteen years of captivity and simply laughed until the laughter stopped. Then he wiped a tear from his eye, turned the music back up and said, "All right then, Vamalos."
Louis was thinking hard about what that lawyer had said, he kept stealing glances at Junior and could feel nothing but regrets. He suddenly thought about work, "But what about my job, I am on the schedule all week.", Junior assured him, "I spoke to the waitress back there, she's calling those other busboys right now with a new schedule. I knew if I told you ahead of time, you would never have come with me." Louis looked at Junior and just shook his head, "Your just like your mother, you know that ?", "Yeah, I know." Junior reached into the back seat, pulled off the Indian blanket, revealing Louis' things: His hat, fishing poles, chair, clothes, sandals and together they laughed all the way to the border. One of their traditions was to stop and fill up the gas tank as well as several other tanks with the gas on this side of the border and buy water and any other items needed while traveling. Junior decided that he should make a call and let his circuit know where he was going, he used a phone booth and said he was leaving town as directed. When he told them where, he was put on alert, given directions & an assignment while he was visiting. That was exactly what he didn't want to do, just wanted to visit the ranch, see the old property. What Junior didn't know was that every thing had changed and some surprises were up ahead, if he played his cards right on this one, there would be some serious rewards, if he did not, the results could be devastating or worse. They told him that when he got to the ranch, not to be surprised by any of the changes and wear a long sleeve shirt, buttoned from top to bottom. They had been trying to put the squeeze on the people who had been partners with the family that rented the ranch, they would toss Junior and his dad a serious bone if everything went well He was also directed to be at the border exiting and reentering at a particular time and place, it was very important that he be there on that exact date and at that exact time, no matter what. They asked him if he understood and he did. Then they said he was to stop in at a particular spot with a very specific address and have his upholstery redone. When he told them that he already had leather seats in perfect condition, they told him that it was strictly business and he would be rewarded later. Junior agreed and understood what he needed to do, he listened intently as they explained in detail what was happening and what he needed to do to make sure that nobody was hurt and that they ended up with the profitable side of the exchange. By the time they hung up the phone Junior was completely sobered by the conversation. He also called his sister Celia explaining that he and dad were going fishing for a few days. When he got back into the car, Louis noticed his composure, "Is every thing all right ?", "Yeah, everything is cool. I just forgot to call Celia and let them know that we would be out of town for a few days and I wanted to make sure everything was o.k.", "Well, is it?" Louis asked again. "Yes, every thing is going to work out fine." As they drove up over the border, they both noticed how different everything was. What was once a gateway with tiny wood kiosks strewn across an invisible line in the sand was now a chrome plated machine that looked like a giant row of appliances, the border had changed and so had they. They looked at one another and drove on in. Entering in the old days meant simply driving across, now they were asking questions and asking for identification sporadically, Junior grabbed a long sleeve shirt covering his ink from top to bottom. When they got to the borderline, Louis did all the talking, he was always good with people, especially his people. Louis answered several questions and then they struck up a conversation about a particular district they both knew of with an old fishing spot. Louis waved to the man in the kiosk and suddenly they were on their way. Junior understood spanish to a certain degree, but he couldn't follow everything. "What did he say?" Louis slapped his son on the back hard, "Welcome!"
The journey to the ranch is a twelve hour drive, Louis slid the seat back and slept through the last six hours. When they got into town, they went directly to the property, but passed it twice because it was so unrecognizable. There was now a giant security gate, with an intercom and an eight foot barbed wire fence around the entire front section all along the highway. Originally the property itself was about ten acres split into thirds,: one part for cattle, one part for mangoes and the other for corn, livestock and living quarters. The original house sat to the North with an adobe to the West & another to the East, just after the hilly entryway. When they rang the buzzer, a voice answered that was unfamiliar to Louis. " Is Rafael there ?", he asked in spanish. "No, are you making a delivery?" "No, I am the property owner from America, my son and I are here to visit the ranch." The gate buzzed and it slowly opened inward, they drove the car up to a check point and immediately Louis was flabbergasted by the modernity of the place. Six visible silos, water tanks on every hillside, lush rolls of mangoes, machinery that he had never seen before, a large tractor the size of his guest house back home. Louis turned to Junior, wider eyed, "Take it easy, this is your place, your the American, your part owner, don't give away your power so easily dad. Were going to take a tour, then were going to talk business, I have some friends back home who told me all about these guys, don't worry about anything at all." Louis said nothing, he just couldn't believe his eyes. "When it comes to business, you let me do the talking: yes ?" and Louis replied, "Yes, son, absolutely, yes." They drove up through the cattle section past a pack of beautiful cows, where there was once a dozen cows , there were now easily a thousand. On the hillside, grazing, were dozens of goats, in corrals, a half a dozen horses, in pens, dozens of pigs and an entire barn that had been modernized for chickens, easily a thousand. The original house was still intact and had been kept up, it looked as if the roof had been recently replaced. Louis was amazed at the entire set up, he was a very wealthy man and yet minutes ago had absolutely no idea how wealthy he actually was. By the time they got up to the main house and out of the car, several employees had come out to greet them. Rafael was no where in sight. "Welcome, a man with a cowboy hat and boots exclaimed. We've been waiting to hear from you for quite some time. How long will you be staying ?", Junior stepped in, extending his hand, he had been told to keep his shirt sleeves rolled down until the proper time. " I am Louis Junior, my father and I just came down to do some fishing and we have been so busy with our businesses in America that we have not had much time in the past few years." "What kind of business are you in there ?" the man in the cowboy hat asked, Louis replied, "Comida". "Yes, my father has his own restaurant in the harbor and my partners and I are diversifying stocks." he continued, "The economy in America is going through some interesting changes and we think that Mexico is going to be in for a big surprise with some new trade deals on the table. But, lets not talk business so early in the morning. We just got here.", "Thats exactly right, lets have breakfast and we will take you and your Padre on a tour. Later, we will call up Rafael and we can discuss many things that will be of a concern to you and your fathers property."
They sat and ate one of the best breakfasts they had both had in several years. Everything they ate was made fresh on the ranch: juice, eggs, meat, tortillas, everything. Louis was simply amazed. Junior kept calm and played it cool, just the way he was directed. After all, It was this same kitchen that Junior sat with his grandfather every year. Louis and Junior took a grand tour of the property by jeep and when they returned Rafael was waiting at the main house. "Don Louis, Oh my god, it has been so long, what a wonderful surprise." The men entered the house and sat in the library, drinks were served. Rafael, the man with the hat, Louis and several other men sat in large leather chairs, several smoked cigars. Everybody imbibed except Junior. "I like your son's style, he's all business and has a great head on his shoulders.", he said in spanish. "Yes, he has learned of the worldly ways in America." Rafael started in, "So, you must be wondering about the transformation of the ranch ?" "Yes, of course.", Louis replied. "Do you remember the old indian who lived on the other side of the Mesa ?" Rafael asked. "Yes, my son was very close with him. As child, Louis Junior felt a very strong natural affinity with the locals here." He continued, "Well, one day, about ten years ago, he showed up at our door with a machete and said that he and his people needed food and that the owners of this property had always been helpful to the man and his family. He promised that if we supplied his family with food for the season, he would share many ancient secrets with us that would double and triple our fruit trees, our cattle stock and our vegetation. I had never been a real believer of such tall tales, but I felt sorry for the man and so, I gave him what he needed, when he needed it. He, in return did many things that somehow did seem to deliver his original promise and within five years we began to transform the property into what you see today. My own son went to University in Mexico City studying science, biochemistry and modern horticulture, with his help and the help of a few of his classmates family investments, we have what you see here today.", "Amazing", Louis replied." Junior chimed in, "Tell me more about the old Indian, what exactly did he do ?" "Well, this is going to sound crazy, but he and his family dug three natural water pits at the top of each hillside where the water towers now stand and then he simply danced for one week straight, I promise you, in the middle of a drought, it rained on this property for seven days straight, he then dug an irrigation canal and splintered the mango tree branches from single flowering stems to triple flowering stems, he trimmed the trees so they produced more fruit, he kept the cows away from the bulls until certain moon phases, he planted and picked on days that were specific and then just like that, he was gone, they all left, just like that." When my son Rafi came home from university, we added many of the machines with the profits from what the old indian had provided the place. We now have some very wealthy investors and contracts with three major exporters."
Now, it was Juniors turn. He pulled the Bear Bowl from the inside of his bag and sat it in the middle of the table. "This was given to me by the old Indian. My friends and partners in America come from both the stock market and the streets and there is soon going to be a total transformation of the American export business in the next five years. Right now a plan is in force to bring American goods to Mexico that is going to make things very difficult for the local farmers. Junior slowly reached down, unbuttoned his left sleeve cuff and rolled up his sleeve, revealing a world of imagery that when read by the men in the room, seemed to give him the floor. He went on, "My father and I highly respect science, machinery and everything you have done with this ranch. But we have seen no profits in ten years, we know you have investment costs … ", he rolled up the right sleeve, which was equally as daunting as the left. These were not roadside tattoos, nor army or souvenir images, this was straight out, hard core prison symbology. "So, we want to make it easy for you to continue everything your doing. But we are going to need to see some serious money as well as a renewed partnership as of now. We also want you to know that, although we have no intention to do so, at any time, we can take this property with the improvements you have made and end this contract within a ninety day period as per my fathers original agreement. Junior looked out the window towards Mesa Mountain. "Funny how that old Indian just disappeared, aint it? His people had been living on that property for generations." One of the men took his cigar and ashed it into the bear bowl. Junior looked at the man from top to bottom. First he eyed the boots, they were un-scuffed, had never seen a horse or a dirt road in their lives. Then he looked at the man's hands, soft, no scars on the knuckles, he noticed that the man's shirts were pressed professionally. He knew what he wanted to do the man and instead, he lifted the bear bowl, walked into the kitchen, washed it out, walked back into the room, grabbed the handkerchief from the man's suit coat pocket, wiped the entire bowl clean, handed him back the soiled fabric and sat the bowl down in the center of the table. "Someone could make it very difficult to get trucks in and out of here if someone had decided to ever do such a thing." Junior then rolled his sleeves back down and began to describe a plan that was acceptable to both himself, his father and his partners in America. The man did not ash the cigar a second time and by eight o'clock that evening, a crisp contract was hand delivered by a hot shot lawyer arriving for Don Louis to sign then and there. In a single day the busboy had died and Don Louis had been reborn. For Junior this was only step one, he still had work to do. He hopped on a horse and rode to the top of The Mesa Mountain, there were no teardrops this time. He looked over the horizon wondering again about the Indian.
Originally Published at BUREAU of Arts and Culture Sites in: New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, Santa Barbara and The Bureau International Literary Site Friday August 1, 2014 Written by The Bureau Editor Joshua Triliegi Thousnads of readers Tuned in Here Every day Mon to Fri Fine Art Paintings by Painter David FeBLAND with a featured Art Interview The Summer Edition Get The Entire Novel FREE by Download at:
KANAYO ADIBE
The BALTIMORE PHOTO ESSAY
From The Street Scene Photographs of Everyday Life in Baltimore to The Weddings & Parties of Washington DC, Kanayo Adibe has gone from utilizing a cell phone to a professional camera and launched an unexpected career in less than a few years. He has a bold eye for balance, time and place. His subjects inhabit their city with a flare for life. His images capture the goings on in a way that is alive and well. He has a growing catalogue that is both valuable and interesting. We discovered his work through a special program at The Baltimore Sun Newspaper and have become a solid part of his growing audience. Today, we give you Five Questions, a Photo Essay from Mr. Kanayo Adibe's Black & White Images and a glimpse inside Baltimore.
Joshua TRILIEGI : Discuss how you approach photographing a Wedding versus a Street Shoot ?
Kanayo ADIBE : Photographing a wedding is pretty straightforward, there is a storyline, all the characters are present and all you have to do is work the timeline and capture the moments as they unfold. You are able to help shape the story, you are able to enhance it through great imagery or manipulate it by adding in poses. With street you are forced to find order in variability and chaos. You rely on variables beyond your control to tell a story as you see it. You have to act quickly when you find a moment unfolding or anticipate something occurring and hold your composition till it does.
Despite the differences between wedding and street photography a lot of the skills carry over, there is an unscripted part of weddings that remain naturally occurring and random. The difference is they occur frequently and the more attentive you are the more of them you capture. In the streets it’s a lot harder to find those moments because there are no predetermined characters to follow or a defined storyline, you have to pick and choose your subjects and hope that the right elements come together to give you that image you are looking for.
Joshua TRILIEGI : How important is representing our communities in America today and give us some examples in dealing with your subjects, creating relationships and being a strong part of the diAspora in America's culture today ?
Kanayo ADIBE : I think it’s really important to represent our communities accurately, not leaning towards what is more popular or less favorable just to get a rise out of people. As we know the traditional media is skewed in it's representation of certain demographics and usually just say and show things for higher ratings. As for my street work, I honestly photograph anything that stands out to me, good or bad. I’m not in constant search of that angle that will draw more attention to my work; I just shoot from the heart. It could be a special moment between strangers, amazing architecture, a homeless person on the street, it doesn’t matter. As long as it gives me that feeling, I will create that image. Relationship building is important, I have formed lots of bonds with other creatives, some of which have helped me grow creatively and as a business, I have also made new friends in my commercial subjects, my street subject still remain anonymous to me. As a Nigerian living in America and having to deal with the culture as it stands today is pretty interesting, I’m no different from any African American in the eyes of everyone else, so whatever they experience, I experience.
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BOOKS: SEEROON YERETZIAN
It would be too easy to say that Seeroon Yeretzian is the Armenian Frida Kahlo, but then again, it' s almost too difficult not to mention the similarity. Both female painters spring from a culture dominated by men, masculinity and machismo. Seeroon pulls no punches, neither does this incredible publication with color plates from the early nineteen eighties to the present time. I have been lucky enough to spend time with Seeroon, exhibit her work and hang out at her gallery in Glendale as well as the Family bookstore ABRIL BOOKS which published this full length catalogue. An early painting, dated 1983, entitled, ' The Mattress ' depicts a homeless man sleeping on the street in stark black, white & grey tones. A brave look at a decadent decade, when the divide between rich and poor was staggering, few artists turned an eye to the subject of homelessness at the time.
"Seeroon pulls no punches, neither does this incredible publication with color plates from the early nineteen eighties to the present time."
There seems to be a trifold of influences: Socio-economic, Feminist & Religious. A diverse an odd grouping to say the least. Seeroon is a master painter, a real humanist, when compared to other Armenian artist's, she' s a radical feminist.Back to the Kahlo comparison, her husband, Haroutioun Yeretzian founded the first all Armenian bookstore in Southern California and was a powerful individual in his own right. This book is posthumously dedicated to him. He was a host to cultural events surrounding the Armenian community for decades. Artists, Poets, Film makers and of course writers of every sort always made a stop to ABRIL Books as a pilgrimage to Southern California. Seeroon Yeretzian, the wife of this influential man, did not by any means play second fiddle, it appears that she kept up with the Armenian Boys Club.
"Seeroon Yeretzian, the wife of this influential man, did not by any means play second fiddle, it appears that she kept up with the Armenian Boys Club. "
The subjects of her works, the female form, the burden of femininity, child birth and identity mixed with the crucifixion tell a larger story of the spirits need to prevail. Seeroon spent time in the refugee camps at an early age. Many of the paintings present themselves in haunting imagery that express those memories. I have to admit, that while hanging around her gallery for a time, I have found myself in tears, the two of us connecting on some level as artists, as humans, as people. Not to say that all the work is heavy, but like Frida, much of it has an earthy biography like storyline that tells us a certain truth about our personal history.
"Seeroon spent time in the refugee camps at an early age. Many of the paintings present themselves in haunting imagery that express those memories."
To balance things out, there is plenty of graphic based art that interprets as well as honors Armenian, Jewish and European biblical traditions through the alphabet. These are detailed, amazing works that intertwine letters, animals & architecture as well as symbology. Her works are highly sought out and collected world-wide. The day I walked into her life, I had no idea who I was connecting with, now that were friends, contemporaries even, I feel honored to have her in my circle and as a supporter of The BUREAU of Arts and Culture Magazine, Gallery and Cinema.
415 E Broadway #100, Glendale, CA 91205, USA
ROSLIN ART GALLERY was founded by Seeroon Yeretzian in 1995 in Glendale, California. It was Seeroon’s desire to establish an art gallery dedicated to propagating Armenian art and artists to the cosmopolitan city of Los Angeles and the greater Armenian diaspora community. The namesake is an homage to the greatest medieval Armenian illuminator and father of modern Armenian art, Toros Roslin. As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, we gratefully acknowledge all patrons, artists, and supporters, who have made Roslin Art Gallery the longest running Armenian art gallery in the United States. Join us at the opening reception of our new location next to Abril Bookstore.
SEEROON YERETZIAN’s irrepressible manner has made any visit to Roslin Art Gallery a memorable experience, always taking her time to share her knowledge of art and recount first-hand memories or anecdotical stories relating to artists. In the course of twenty years, the gallery has exhibited the works of hundreds of Armenian artists, ranging from modern day masters to upcoming contemporary artists, and, in turn, sold thousands of artworks that are now in the possession of private collectors world-wide.
WHY JIM HARRISON IS NOT DEAD
By Joshua A. TRILIEGI for BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE MAGAZINE 2016
"It’s hard to think about, but by the time I die, if I make it another twenty years, wouldn’t it be wonderful to stand out here, hidden from view, in this big jungle of bushes and wildflowers? That’s my idea of, a nice thing."
- Jim HARRISON 1986
Jim Harrison is not dead. He is simply, hidden from view, in a big jungle of bushes and wildflowers, where he came from to begin with. The American Author, originally from Michigan, but eventually adopted, around the world, is not the type of guy who will die. He will not go softly into the night, nor will he squeak and moan under the wheels of a government tractor. Jim Harrison is currently soaring high above the river of life, that uncontrollable force of nature, that can sometimes be damned, but never controlled.
Jim Harrison came from a family that adored and revered Literature: "My Family were obsessive readers…" The famous story goes, that, at a dinner table discussion, his family were talking about Norman Mailer's first success on the world stage and his book, entitled, " The Naked and The Dead, " young Jim responded to the conversation with the quick and curious question, "Does it have Illustrations ?" Laughter ensued and the beginning of his particularly curious, yet grounded, stoic, although humorous, celebratory whilst at the same time cautionary literary style is born. He explains years later that, "So much of my material comes from generalized wandering around the U.S. Travel, and walking, I never get an idea standing still." Jim Harrison was first published as a poet in national magazines such as NATION and POETRY and later by Denise Nembertoff at W.W. Norton in the 1960s Harrison wrote the now classic Book, "Legends of the FALL," in nine days, and later changed only a single word. When pondering that experience, decades later, he could not remember what Word had been changed.
The author of thirty some books of Prose and Poetry, often written concurrently, had a deep understanding of the process of writing, of nature, of tribal law and of humanity at large, was truly the best teacher to writers, although, he found it impossible to do so officially. Having once tried to teach at Stoneybrook, with the likes of fellow writers such as the great Philip Roth, Harrison did not have the temperament. He ultimately did not believe in many of the College programs and famously railed against the, 'safety,' and 'comfort,' of the Universities.
Harrison was a fan of Katherine Ann Porter early on and found great strides in short novels throughout his entire career. " I don't like needless expansiveness," he exclaimed. While the Publisher's often thought that if many of his novellas had been longer, he may have become a wealthier writer. Though Harrison preferred a dense, short form style, as opposed to the long-winded form, and felt that it gave his audience room to participate in the reading. "I don't know where, 'The Voice,' ever comes from, Ya Know ? Every book is quite different, but maybe not stylistically," he pondered over a glass of red wine some years ago. Harrison was revered in France, had nine best seller's there, and had grown up with good french literature: Flaubert, Baudelaire, Maupassant. Some had been passed down from his father's library, others having discovered early on in high school. When asked by fledgling writers what was the secret to good writing ? Jim often replied, "You have to give your entire life to it." After years of Book Touring, that often included 23 cities in 29 days with 30 interviews a week, he gave that part of the business up. Explaining, "I like what Miles Davis said: 'It's All In my MUSIC. What Do I have To Say About IT?'
Jim Harrison enjoyed medium sized cities such as Seattle, which he likened to, "San Francisco back in Nineteen Sixty-Eight," he also admired Minneapolis and Chicago. Harrison thought that young men and women should see and live in the big cities like New York City and Los Angeles, early on in life, but that nature was where, 'ITS' at. He often quoted author's philosophy's first hand. The French Poet, Rene Char, speaking to the mysteries of writing with the Muse, "You have to be there, when the bread comes from the oven." Jim Harrison's influences are vast and varied, he preferred Faulkner over Hemingway, read French, Chinese, Zen and Native Literature, all the while, he wrote American stories that were translated into International languages of all sorts. He loved the works of his friends and fellow writers such as Ford and Matthiessen as much as he revered and honored Herman Melville and Walt Whitman. When it came to writers who happened to be women, Jim Harrison explains, "I don’t think of women novelists, but writers. Who do I read when they have something coming out ? Denise Levertov, Joan Didion, Joyce Carol Oates, Diane Wakoski, Renata Adler, Alison Lurie, Toni Morrison, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ellen Gilchrist, Anne Tyler, Adrienne Rich, Rebecca Newth, Rosellen Brown, Gretel Ehrlich, Annie Dillard, Susan Sontag. Those come immediately to mind. Also Margaret Atwood. "
The beauty of Jim Harrison is that he is the tough guy who is not an asshole. He is the rugged individualist who has deep knowledge of the tribe. He is a man, with all his flaws and desires, yet openly honors and reveres women. He is a learned seeker of knowledge yet shuns formal education and its weaknesses. Jim Harrison is that great and original writer who reveres others who have walked the path. As he explains about Henry MILLER, " Miller was Very Valuable to Me… a Force in nature, Extremely Powerful." Harrison goes onto explain that he and Miller subscribed to the patterns of napping and refreshing the muse several times a day, through sleep. Something they probably don't teach in College.
Harrison's mother, many years later, while close to death, took him aside and, giving him a compliment, in the great Swedish style, that was her way, "You made quite a Living out of your Fibs…" Speaking to her son's career and notoriety as a Novelist and fiction writer. His grandfather had emigrated in the 1880s from Sweden, to become a cowboy and settled on farming. While many other writers would seek false knowledge from Native American ways, practices and adornments, Harrison did nothing of the sort. He understood early on that Experience and Voluntary Energy donated by The Author, were truly the only way to true experience, that can later be reflected upon, and offered to the reader.
Harrison railed against false new age practices that appropriated exercises from native tribes and he understood clearly, that there was no such thing as a Native American belief system, there were Hundreds of Tribes, each with a name, each with a language, each with an originality. That is one of the reasons why the Lakota and other tribal members respect Jim Harrison. He spoke directly to animals and nature, and in turn, animals and nature, spoke to him. "You have to EARN Knowledge from Nature and it's Ancient culture's," he explained, time and time again, "You can't get more out of nature, than you bring to it yourself." Jim Harrison's time in nature brought him closer to the fine arts, "The more time I spend in Nature, The More I like Mozart… Shakespeare… Stravinsky…" How could a man so deeply ingrained in Native American ways, also love and be loved by European Culture ? Because, we as writers, bring who our ancestors are, without denial of our roots, and along the journey, we also learn about those who once walked, where we walk, and in doing so, we bridge the gap, between past and present, between truth and fiction, between poetry and politics. Jim Harrison did just that. He did it with humbleness, with style and with bravado. His work is bigger on the page, than it is in real life and so, he avoids the celebrity personality that sometimes dogs other writers of his stature, Charles Bukowski for instance.
In his admiration for writers who could speak about everything, all at once, Jim Harrison admired Saul Bellow and went onto explain, "The most sophisticated people are the most primitive, they release their energy in such a way … like Picasso and Matisse, very basic people, with an enormously profound esthetic sense," he added, "I basically write for esthetic reasons."
aesthetic | esˈTHetik | (also esthetic ) adjective
concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty: the pictures give great aesthetic pleasure. • giving or designed to give pleasure through beauty; of pleasing appearance. noun [ in sing. ] • a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement: the Cubist aesthetic. DERIVATIVES : aesthetically |-ik(ə)lē|adverb [ as submodifier ] : an aesthetically pleasing color combination/ ORIGIN late 18th cent. (in the sense ‘relating to perception by the senses’): from Greek aisthētikos, from aisthēta ‘perceptible things,’ from aisthesthai ‘perceive.’ The sense ‘concerned with beauty’ was coined in German in the mid 18th cent. and adopted into English in the early 19th cent., but its use was controversial until late in the century.
This is why, I Exclaim to you, on this day, that, Jim Harrison is Not Dead, he is quite simply, "… hidden from view, in a big jungle of bushes and wildflowers," where he came from to begin with. And, I ask you, with the life you are now living, the way you are now thinking, the things you are now seeing, the way you are now walking, Are You Dead ? If so, Please purchase a Book by my Father in Literature and Life, The Great, But Never Late: Mister Jim HARRISON.
©JOSHUA TRILIEGI FOR BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE MAGAZINE NETWORKS
LINKS TO VARIOUS JIM HARRISON VIDEOS, ARTICLES, BOOKS, LINKS, INTERVIEWS, QUOTES, TOP TEN LISTS and MORE:
Interview with Authors Road :
Extended Jim Harrison Film project 1993 :
Conversations with Jim Harrison:
Jim Harrison Reading Poetry on The LAKOTA:
French TV Interview 2011 with Jim Harrison:
BOOKS By Jim Harrison :
Joe FASSLER The By HEART Series at AT The ATLANTIC 2014 :
The PARIS REVIEW Number 104 / INTERVIEW WITH JIM HARRISON 1986:
Tom BISSELL at OUTSIDE Live Bravely 2011:
Alexander ALTER at The Wall Street JOURNAL 2009:
Jim HARRISON 1964 -2008 Bibliography from The NEBRASKA PRESS 2009:
Jim HARRISON Interview With Alden MUDGE at BOOKPAGE 2002 :
Jim Harrison's Top Ten For Readers:
Courtesy of www.toptenbooks.net
1. The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1872). Dostoevsky’s signature theme —the future of morality and the human soul in a Godless world —takes flight in this harrowing portrait of revolutionary terrorists who have surrendered their humanity to their ideals. The political satire throbs with urgency, but Dostoevsky raises this work to the level of art through rich characterizations of his combative principals: the well-meaning, ineffectual philosophical theorist Stepan Verkhovensky; his true-believing, monomaniacal son Peter; the conflicted, ” serf Shatov; and two vivid embodiments of good and evil —saintly Bishop Tikhon and urbane, satanic Nicolas Stavrogin.
2. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (1913–27). It’s about time. No, really. This seven-volume, three-thousand-page work is only superficially a mordant critique of French (mostly high) society in the belle époque. Both as author and as “Marcel,” the first-person narrator whose childhood memories are evoked by a crumbling madeleine cookie, Proust asks some of the same questions Einstein did about our notions of time and memory. As we follow the affairs, the badinage, and the betrayals of dozens of characters over the years, time is the highway and memory the driver.
3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847). The author’s only novel, published a year before her death, centers on the doomed love between Heathcliff, a tormented orphan, and Catherine Earnshaw, his benefactor’s vain and willful daughter. Passion brings them together, but class differences, and the bitterness it inspires, keeps them apart and continues to take its toll on the next generation. Wuthering Heights tells you why they say that love hurts.
4. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851). This sweeping saga of obsession, vanity, and vengeance at sea can be read as a harrowing parable, a gripping adventure story, or a semiscientific chronicle of the whaling industry. No matter, the book rewards patient readers with some of fiction’s most memorable characters, from mad Captain Ahab to the titular white whale that crippled him, from the honorable pagan Queequeg to our insightful narrator/surrogate (“Call me”) Ishmael, to that hell-bent vessel itself, the Pequod.
5. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922). Filled with convoluted plotting, scrambled syntax, puns, neologisms, and arcane mythological allusions, Ulysses recounts the misadventures of schlubby Dublin advertising salesman Leopold Bloom on a single day, June 16, 1904. As Everyman Bloom and a host of other characters act out, on a banal and quotidian scale, the major episodes of Homer’s Odyssey —including encounters with modern-day sirens and a Cyclops —Joyce’s bawdy mock-epic suggests the improbability, perhaps even the pointlessness, of heroism in the modern age.
6. Independent People by Halldór Laxness (1934). The Icelandic Nobel laureate’s best novel is a chronicle of endurance and survival, whose stubborn protagonist Bjartür “of Summerhouses” is a sheepherder at odds with inclement weather, poverty, society in particular and authority in general, and his own estranged family. Laxness unflinchingly dramatizes Bjartür’s unloving, combative relationships with his step-daughter Asta and frail son Nonni (a possible authorial surrogate)—yet finds the perverse heroism in this bad shepherd’s compulsive pursuit of freedom (from even the Irish sorcerer who had cursed his land). This is an antihero for whom readers will find themselves cheering.
7. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (1936). Weaving mythic tales of biblical urgency with the experimental techniques of high modernism, Faulkner bridged the past and future. This is the story of Thomas Sutpen, a rough-hewn striver who came to Mississippi in 1833 with a gang of wild slaves from Haiti to build a dynasty. Almost in reach, his dream is undone by plagues of biblical (and Faulknerian) proportions: racism, incest, war, fratricide, pride, and jealousy. Through the use of multiple narrators, Faulkner turns this gripping Yoknapatawpha saga into a profound and dazzling meditation on truth, memory, history, and literature itself.
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967). Widely considered the most popular work in Spanish since Don Quixote, this novel —part fantasy, part social history of Colombia — sparked fiction’s “Latin boom” and the popularization of magic realism. Over a century that seems to move backward and forward simultaneously, the forgotten and offhandedly magical village of Macondo — home to a Faulknerian plethora of incest, floods, massacres, civil wars, dreamers, prudes, and prostitutes — loses its Edenic innocence as it is increasingly exposed to civilization.
9. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934). Banned in America for twenty-seven years because it was considered obscene, this autobiographical novel describes the author’s hand-to-mouth existence in Paris during the early 1930s. A later inspiration to the Beat generation, Miller offers various philosophical interludes expressing his joy in life, hostility to social convention, and reverence for women and sex, which he describes with abandon.
10. The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942). The opening lines—“Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday. I can’t be sure”—epitomize Camus’s celebrated notions of “the absurd.” His narrator, Meursault, a wretched little Algerian clerk sentenced to death for the murder, feels nothing: no remorse, love, guilt, grief, or hope. But he’s not a sociopath; he’s just honest. An embodiment of existential philosophy, he believes in no higher power and accepts that we are born only to die. Our only choice is to act “as if” life has meaning and thereby gain some freedom.
Jim HARRISON On Poetry and the Writing Of:
Jim Harrison: "A poem’s rhythm shouldn’t read like the ticking of a box. But people thought Longfellow would be good for teaching children English, so people push that piece of shit on their kids even now. Good poetry’s appeal is more mysterious. I can remember whole lines of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, just because of the beauty of Joyce’s use of language. Roethke’s the same way. These lines stick with you for aesthetic reasons. It’s like you remember songs. You recreate their music in your mind. "
Jim HARRISON on LIFE:
In a life properly lived, you’re a river. You touch things lightly or deeply; you move along because life herself moves, and you can’t stop it; you can’t figure out a banal game plan applicable to all situations; you just have to go with the “beingness” of life, as Rilke would have it. In Sundog, Strang says a dam doesn’t stop a river, it just controls the flow. Technically speaking, you can’t stop one at all.
Jim HARRISON on So-Called Regional Writing:
"What I hate about this notion of regionalism in literature is that there’s no such thing as regional literature. There might be literature with a pronounced regional flavor, but it’s either literature on aesthetic grounds or it’s not literature."
Jim HARRISON on Meeting Jack NICHOLSON:
"… I met Jack Nicholson on the set of McGuane’s movie, The Missouri Breaks. We got talking and he asked me if I had one of my novels with me, and I had one, I think it was Wolf. He read it and enjoyed it. He told me that if I ever got an idea for him, to call him up. Well, I never have any of those ideas. I wasn’t even sure what he meant. I think he said later that I was the only one he ever told that to who never called. A year afterwards, I was out in L.A. and he called up and asked me to go to a movie. It was really pleasant, and I was impressed with his interest in every art form. It was right after Cuckoo’s Nest and all these people tried to swarm all over him after the movie. Anyway, later he heard I was broke and he thought it was unseemly. So he rigged up a deal so that I could finish the book I had started, which was Legends of the Fall."
Jim HARRISON on Writers that happen to be Women:
"I don’t think of women novelists but writers. Who do I read when they have something coming out? Denise Levertov, Joan Didion, Joyce Carol Oates, Diane Wakoski, Renata Adler, Alison Lurie, Toni Morrison, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ellen Gilchrist, Anne Tyler, Adrienne Rich, Rebecca Newth, Rosellen Brown, Gretel Ehrlich, Annie Dillard, Susan Sontag. Those come immediately to mind. Also Margaret Atwood. "
Jim HARRISON on The INDIANS and South American Tribes:
"They [ The Press] don’t even know that those countries down there think of themselves as separate entities. They keep referring to “Central America.” Well, try passing that off on the Panamanians, the Costa Ricans, the El Salvadorans. It’s amazing to me, for instance, how few people know anything about nineteenth-century American history. They don’t know what happened to the hundred civilizations represented by the American Indian. That’s shocking. I’m dealing with that in this book. To me, the Indians are our curse on the house of Atreus. They’re our doom. The way we killed them is also what’s killing us now. Greed. Greed. It’s totally an Old Testament notion but absolutely true. Greed is killing the soul-life of the nation. You can see it all around you. It’s destroying what’s left of our physical beauty, it’s polluting the country, it’s making us more Germanic and warlike and stupid. "
Jim HARRISON on Belonging :
"I feel as foreign as Geronimo at the New York World’s Fair at the turn of the century…The most solid effect of the deaths that I could touch upon was that I must answer to what I thought of as my calling since nothing else on earth had any solidity.”
A POEM by JIM HARRISON on COPPER CANYON PRESS
BROOM
To remember you’re alive
visit the cemetery of your father
at noon after you’ve made love
and are still wrapped in a mammalian
odor that you are forced to cherish.
Under each stone is someone’s inevitable
surprise, the unexpected death
of their biology that struggled hard, as it must.
Now to home without looking back,
enough is enough.
En route buy the best wine
you can afford and a dozen stiff brooms.
Have a few swallows then throw the furniture
out the window and begin sweeping.
Sweep until the walls are
bare of paint and at your feet sweep
until the floor disappears.
Finish the wine in this field of air,
return to the cemetery
in evening and wind through the stones
a slow dance of your name visible only to birds.
from SONGS OF UNREASON,
Copper Canyon Press, 2011,
Buy His Most recent Work at COPPER CANYON PRESS :
