PRESSURE PRESS ARCHIVE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY CONTINUATION SKETCH Chronologically, I've mis-placed a lot of the years in the 80's. What the 80's were was raising 2 infants 6 years apart, married to Diane, working in the Plastic Shit-hole, & exploding with Poetry & Art. I believe in 1980, or '81, John Elsberg invited me down to D.C. to read at The Writer's Center. I took a bus from Erie at like 4 a.m., pint of Seagram's in my bag, which I hit on & shared with a young couple behind me who gave me a big cheese sandwich. I had never read in public before, & hadn't yet met the Trinity in person. John met me at the bus-station: He stood there with a copy of BOGG at his chest, so I'd know who he was. There was a gathering at David Greisman's condominium. I met these Poets & editors, but generally felt out-of-place. The reading, looking back, was a bad one. I kept my eyes down, monotone, softly reading thru some of the poems GARGOYLE, ABBEY, & BOGG had published by then. I don't think there was a response. I felt alone. Played with a cat outside the door. I left the room fast. But Kevin Urick drove me over to Sandy's place in College Park. That's the last I've seen her or heard from her. Previously, Diane had a shit-fit because I was still writing to Sandy even tho I was NOW MARRIED. We lightly kissed goodbye. I went back to the utter insanity of Injection Molding in an ugly Erie, Pennsylvania, working for pennies admist crazy assholes in a disintegrating little box of a factory steady 2nd shift. I had a writing room off the livingroom in this bottom flat on 26th st., dark & mangy decaying flat. Things started appearing on the walls; poems & drawings & memorabilia. I spent time waiting impatiently for any word or issue from the Trinity. After a year or 2 we found a pretty little house for rent only a few blocks from the factory, & the rent was cheap. I had my own room upstairs which soon filled & spilled everywhere with materials. This is where NORTHERN PLEASURE was created on the shop's copying machine, spread out on the kitchen floor, collating it while Rachel sat chittering about Strawberry Shortcake & Alvin & ballerinas. Submissions were daily. Correspondences grew dramatically. I'd come home drunk & stoned from the shit-hole & drink more beer & smoke dope & write & do shit. The other upstairs room was designated Rachel's playroom. In the day before work, since it was Rachel & me while Diane worked as a waitress first-shift, I'd be in my room playing & Rachel wld be in her room playing too. Much was accomplished in the early 80's. New magazines kept springing up. I spread out the word as best I cld, & people connected. Rick Peabody wrote in GARGOYLE something like I had a profound effect on the small mags back then, but I'm not sure how. I simply hooked poems to compatible magazines, & then all kinds of inter-meshing occurred. Many of us were "starting out" in those years. It all seemed a beer-guzzling, dope-smoking community rebelling against floral Literature & soft Poetry. We were we & we were wild. Friendships developed thru the mail. I think it was 1984 when Ken Sutherland, Editor of MOCKERSATZ, a new & eclectic mag, drove up from Virginia in a station-wagon he bought for $100 off a neighbor. We drove to Chicago. We smoked a lot of pot. We stayed with Steve Doering & his mother, hit some bars, got too wild, & it was decided we get a room at a motel where we partied & wrote on the wall. Todd Moore came over to Steve's. I remember interjecting into a conversation that we shld "start a revolution" & Todd enthusiastically asking how?how?, but I didn't know. Steve & Ken & myself did a tape I wonder if Steve still owns. It was a magical recording, spontaneous, flowing. On the way out of Chicago Ken informed me he had one hit of acid, & I didn't want to take none, so he swallowed, driving. I packed my pipe. We were heading East to Detroit to meet Kurt Nimmo. We had to stop at a rest-stop. Ken cld not control his giggling & laughter among all the people all around. He seemed ok driving. He rattled & spoke about all kinds of strange, mystical, extraordinary things. He was "fact man" & I cldn't tell whether anything he was saying was true. We veered, spiralled, into Detroit in the early evening. I phoned Kurt, who directed us to a bar nearby. By then Ken was coming down, & seemed about as stoned tired as me. We didn't sleep much in Chicago. Kurt's car drove up to the parkinglot. He got out. He wasn't smiling. He looked like a mean biker, black leather & boots & biker-cap, beard. We weakly introduced ourselves & followed him down bombed-out streets to his upstairs flat where the toilet did not work, nor the shower. The kitchen was wrecked with dirty dishes & glasses & garbage & beer-bottles & cans. His other 2 rooms were packed & over-flowing with books & mags & paper & art-supplies & stereo &...we smoked dope, talked, drank some beer. We had booze too. Near midnight we walked down some dark streets to a train-track, bridged, & we're sloshed. I was swigging off a bottle of black-berry brandy I believe. I forget what Ken & Kurt had. An enormous train tornado-ed by us. Kurt sd he came here often in the night. We smoked more dope. We passed out fast. I had the floor. Ken & I typed in a slew of poems & a manifesto into Kurt's computer. Kurt's flat was robbed afterwards, so I doubt any of that remains. The station-wagon made it all the way to Painesville, Ohio. I forgot to mention we lost the whole exhaust system just getting out of Chicago. The car sounded like a tank, like farm equipment. Ken sold the car, which wld not start at a gas-station we made it to, to some old farmer who stopped there, for $25 & a 6-pack. Diane drove the 70 miles from Erie to pick us up. Ken hitch-hiked down to Virginia from here. Then came the Pittsburgh readings. Harry Calhoun had a magazine titled PIG IN A POKE there. He organized a reading, & many came. The Trinity even came up from D.C., & it was a fun reading. I felt comfortable & the audience was receptive. I first met Cheryl Townsend then. Harry had a party at his apartment afterwards, & there were many Poets there. I smoked a corn-cob pipe of Hal Daniel's home-grown on the front-porch, drank & carried on, etc.... There were a few Pittsburgh readings which makes it difficult to separate occurrences & meetings. Pat Mckinnon of POETRY MOTEL came in with his wife, staying at Bart Solarcyzk's, where there was another party. This time Sutherland brought a tank of Nitrous Oxide with him. I think I met Mckinnon earlier, in like '84, when him & Bud Backen drove into Erie from Duluth. He bubbled with Energy. Jack Micheline came into Erie for a reading at the Erie Art Museum organized by Rick Lopez & Lonnie Sherman, who did KANGAROO COURT here. I believe I met Lonnie at the first Erie reading. Lonnie was heavily into the Beats. Lonnie & Rick also brought in Todd Moore. They began publishing Mr. Moore's "Dillinger" masterpiece. Lonnie went to a couple readings with me in Pittsburgh & Buffalo, New York. I consider Lonnie one of my best friends in Erie. He is a True Beat Poet, but loves anonymity & discretion. NORTHERN PLEASURE published his first published poem. We have spent many joyous & wild times in the World of Writing. Another "best friend" of mine is Bart Solarcyzk, from Pittsburgh. Him & his wife, Tami, drove up to Erie in the early 80's after Bart had submitted poems to NORTHERN PLEASURE, & friendship ensued. We drank & smoked a ton. Every time I see Bart, after some dozen years, we always drink & smoke a ton. He's been the Editor of BURNT ORPHAN PRESS since like '85, '86. There are a ton of stories to tell about our adventures together over the years. It's a book in itself. The ultimate title for it wld be "Dope-smoking Poetry Alcoholics", the title to a manuscript we wrote on our trip in '89 to Dearborn, Michigan where Kurt Nimmo organized a weekend thing at his house in a much more upwardly neighborhood than he previously lived -- again, there were many Poets there, all meeting & reading & partying. Collectively, after some 15 years, I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on phone-calls, I imagine. Tens of thousands on stamps. All in the Name of Poetry. I've fallen out of touch with some writers, but those like Nimmo, Cheryl, Bart, Mark Weber, Paul Weinman, Mckinnon, Steve Richmond, Todd Moore, Dean Creighton, (the list continues), are in it for the long haul, or so I hopefully hope. Much has happened I can't recall. Much I'm avoiding telling about for numerous reasons. But whatever the holy Hell has happened, here I be. 10/23/948 a.m.- noon I've met my share of assholes in this New Underground Poetry Scene, & I fully admit my own asshole ways sometimes. I consider myself a student of Nimmoesque Philosophy: Ultimately, it don't mean fuck. But Futility is an Energy too. The Madness is ok & superficially as relevant as any Brain Conclusion. I enjoy playing with the danger of taking myself & Poetry too seriously; why not? If Freedom is ANYWHERE, I demand it be in The Underground Press, otherwise, let's all suck guns. The Mass Suicide of Amerika's Poets wld certainly enhance our Validation, maybe. The God-fearing wld suck blanks, & there'd be Justice in the Injustice that our Country be left with Assholes & Pussies as the Remaining Poets. Fortunately, I know more Good People out-number the Assholes, & that's why I stay in & support the Underground. Bart Solarcysk saved my Life once in Buffalo. I believe it was my first Buffalo reading. Michael Basinski invited me up. Bart drove up from Pissyburger to get me there. I remember getting to the correct street about an hour early; enough time to smoke 3 joints parked down a side-street, & then ascending up an old staircase to like a floor of law offices. Bart wrote in soap on one of the bathroom mirrors ANDROLA IS THE ANTI-CHRIST. It was a small & a good reading. I do recall reading my 2-voice poem "blue moose snow" with Bart, but I've never been able to find that poem again. We killed a 12-pack there. Bart drove about 20 miles out of Buffalo & we found a motel with a bar, called our wives to tell them we weren't going to drive home tonight, & got obliterated. I think I drank screw-drivers. We had a room with 2 big beds, & I remember I had to lie down without even taking off my jacket & boots. I had a cigarette burning in my fingers, & then Bart's shaking me yelling RON RON WAKE UP YOU FELL TO SLEEP WITH A CIGARETTE BURNING ON YR CHEST, & I JUST SAVED YR LIFE! A few years later, Bart instigated my death-hoax. He wrote a very serious letter to Cheryl Townsend that I had died in a fire on my couch due to a reckless cigarette. I know we were drunk on the phone when he mentioned he had this idea, & all blasted I sd go ahead you motherfucker. Cheryl believed it. Other people believed it. A few weeks after my obituary appeared in Cheryl's IMPETUS magazine people were sending in a couple bucks at a time to my widow. I sheepishly phoned Harry Calhoun saying "Hey, I ain't dead!". I felt miserable Bart's shenanigans had evoked such Grief in friends. Bart still hoots about it. Many more outlandish stories revolve around Bart. His friendship has been my utter escape sometimes, my sanctuary in Pittsburgh. Tami, his wife, chuckles about some of the mis-haps she knows about, but she must really worry at times we get together we end up jailed under Federal Investigation or something. "Dope-smoking Poetry Alcoholics" we titled that Dearborn manuscript writing about Cheryl's red-haired pussy &..., well, you get the visions. All the time firing pipes upon pipes along Amerika's Gold-lined Interstates. Bart is Pure Polish Ancestry, 2nd generation family in the Steel-mills of Pittsburgh. He's one year younger, & I have much more hair on MY head. We're Brothers. & I hereby admit the fact Bart can out-drink me, most of the time. He's a large man, fairly gigantic, a monster Polish Buddha, & he'll kick yr asshole apart if I ask. I've referred to him as "My Poetry Body-guard", so don't fuck around. Large friends are important. 10/28/94