The Paper: Pineapple Princess interview (photos), Opening the Mouth

I was hired to take photos of his memorabilia for cards. Trina Castleberry was a poetry student of mine. She was killed in a car accident not long after I took these photos.

Obligatory Hug, Sept 1983, Franklin St. Clubhouse, Santa Rosa (Maureen Hurley & Charles Entrekin)

7 POEM FRAGMENTS, no date, end of summer 83?

Music running across prairies
under milky trees and golden silence,
it roars across the evening sky
and shakes the essence of night from the trees.



On the hillsides, raspberry bushes
overlook the meadow. The birds sing.
Tonight, the moonlight shines in the trees,
last night of summer.

1983?


Seedlings push earth in musical notations
A violin breaks the glass
A worm dances to the music.




Spiders huddling
over corpses of the dead
wringing their hands





 Eating rabbit looks like a skinned cat
and taste like dry chicken
Tougher stomach muscles than the chickens
Eating rodents, Romans eating dormice,
sleepy mice kept in clay pots
for the fattening winter



Outside the quiet classroom
children yelling
floating sound resonates in the air
like the loneliness of a fever.



So sorry I broke into your glass house
but I fell off the stairs I needed a bath.
The door was open and the cat
hadn't been fed in three days
and it was a stone's throw away from the fridge.




Floral clocks of darkness
are singing to the rocks of love
and fish sleep out of the rainbow
and petals fall from the teeth of poetry
while I sit looking pretty writing poetry.

September 1983?
added 9/15/2016
I probably wrote these in class, teaching CPITS
(next poem is Her mask of attention slips...if that helps)


SHORT POEMS 81-85

MASK OF COUNTERFEIT HEIGHTS

Her mask of attention slips
as she turns toward the sun
Clocks of sovereign weight
sit in rapt attention
Through her open window
a radio blares
to the rhythm of flapping laundry
next door
The judge's mask slips
Who gave her reason
to tilt volumes of abysmal trees
on their sides
don't they know she is a financier
of earthquakes?

alas, no date.

RRWG reading, Franklin St. Clubhouse, Charles Entrekin, Maureen Hurley

ELEGY FOR MARY WALSH

ELEGY FOR MARY WALSH
The atomic bomb was developed under the code name of the Manhattan Project.
Those involved with the project died within three decades of cancer.
—to Jane Walsh Reilly

Grandma said:
Julia took the kids:
Mary, her sister, and the boy twins
to Colorado for a better education.

There wasn't much in Nevada,

and there was some trouble with the marriage.

My grandmother's half-cousin Bill was a handsome man.

He was the number-one son

and ran the Home Ranch in Austin, Nevada.

Julia O'Leary came out from Bantry to marry Bill.

The family was deadset against the marriage,

They were first cousins, you know.

And Mary's sister was brilliant too

but she was institutionalized in Denver.

Darwin's parents were first cousins too.

There was something off about his sister as well.

It works that way with marriages between first cousins

genius and idiot: flip sides of the same coin.

Maybe that's the Almighty's way of keeping things separate.

It was during the war years, I remember,

Mary was chosen right out of high school

to work on a secret project for the government.

When they were testing for mathematics and science,

Mary got one of the highest scores in the country

and she went to work back east.

It wasn't until later we found out

it was the Manhattan Project

one of the government's best kept secrets.

No one knew anything about it.

We didn't hear from her for years,

and learned of her death announcement

when it appeared in the papers.

Here I was, first cousins to her,

and even I didn't know.

There was one short line about her work.

I heard, all who worked on it died,

but no one blamed the project.

The first time I saw Mary at Home Ranch

was back in the '20s the little toddler

standing by the adobe wall

and Julia talking, talking, talking

I was dazed because that child,

her voice was like a bell.

She was so perfect,

I thought I'd seen an angel.

And Julia, looking at me so quizzically

That was the pity of it. I didn't explain.

And her, Mary, clinging to her mother's skirts

as if she'd done something wrong,

crying hysterically,

Mommy, mommy, I'm not a bad girl. Mommy.

9/83

The Scatman comes to town. DATE.

IN HONOR OF SCATMAN 
BY MAUREEN HURLEY

People crowded outside River Inn Friday night: "Hey look. I don't believe it, there's the Scatman eating dinner." The focus of the starstruck, 73-year-old performer and veteran TV and movie star, Scatman  Crothers—in town, hangin' out, havin' a bite to eat at the local diner before accepting The Jazz Note award from the Russian River Creative Arts Foundation at the River Theatre Centre next door.

Crothers, a Terre Haute, Indiana, native, best known as the Scatman, has been in film for over 60 years. 

Most of his fans know him as Louis from the TV series "Chico and the Man." He starred in "Roots"' and was the piano player Sam in the "Casablanca" TV series. Piano isn't one of the instruments Scatman is used to playing but he knows where the notes are. "I've been in the business long enough to know where my hands are supposed to be," he said grinning. Crothers sings and plays guitar.

Crothers was the first black to hit television, in 1948. Besides TV, Crothers starred in several dozen films as a character actor. Some of the films are The Shining, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The King of Marvin Gardens, all with Jack Nicholson; Steven Spielberg's Twilight Zone, and The Shootist. He also appeared in five movies with comedian Jerry Lewis.

Scatman doesn't keep track of it all. His manager Ron Graham does. Graham is currently working on a documentary on Scatman for cable TV. Graham reminisced, "He didn't even know who (Director Stanley) Kubrick was when he was asked to act in The Shining. He's more interested in playing music. Music is his life." And that contribution to music is why the Russian River Creative Arts Foundation chose to honor the illustrious performer.

When asked after the show how he felt about receiving awards, Scatman's modesty was apparent. "It's nice always to receive anything," he said. "Of course, it's better to give than to receive. I ain't no better than you and you ain't no better than me. We're all God's children and everybody's a star."

SIDEBARS

They were hot. And cool. Brubeck, Viva Brasil, Morgana King, Cornelius Bumpus and 3000 people a day grooved at the 1983 post-Labor Day Russian River Jazz Fest.

Temperatures soared over 100 degrees and the KJAZ All-Stars greeted Saturday's crowd followed by Brubeck, Bumpus, Napata Mero, Kitty Margolis Cole. Sonoma County Sheriffs estimate Sunday's crowd was larger than Saturday's and ticket sales confirm it.

Though the Guerneville Fire Department made a few first-aid calls for heat exhaustion, saxophonist Stan Getz was the first real casualty of the 1983 jazz fest. Getz, scheduled to highlight Sunday's lineup, collapsed last week after doing a show with Brubeck at the Hollywood Bowl. 

Getz is under medical care at a Whittier hospital. Sunday's schedule was altered, and Brubeck returned and again teamed with Richie Cole, filling the Getz spot. The duo's 12-minute version of Brubeck's immortal "Take Five" brought the crowd to its feet. One jazz fan from Berkeley, a lawyer, told ticket takers Sunday he was going to sue the CAF because Getz failed to show; ticket takers smiled and gave him a refund.

*.      *.     *

Jazz was once thought to make one promiscuous, drink alcohol and take or smoke dope. Liking jazz meant one had fallen into the dark hands of debauchery and despair. That's changed. When asked why they liked jazz, robust and healthy festival fans said, "because it's intellectual-visceral-it allows you to think, unlike rock and roll."

As jazz moved closer to Main Street, rock and roll became the musical power of darkness. And as inevitably happened jazz and rock began to influence each other (fusion jazz). Now quite conservative, jazz purists were outraged

Clarinetist of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Bill Smith said, "Fusion jazz is not two separate things. It's two different aspects of the same thing. Rock & Roll and the blues are two different dialects of the same tongue. Music.

Dave Brubeck said, "Jazz is strong all over the world. The Russian River is like the Mississippi of California bringing us jazz."

Brubeck's jazz is often dubbed "mainstream" or middle of the road. In the '50s it was "modern" or "progressive"way off on the road's shoulder. Fusion has crept into the Brubeck group via the presence of Brubeck's sons.

Scatman Crothers, actor and singer, doesn't dig fusion. "Sorry, but I love the true sound. Chemical sounds don't do anything for me. Fusion jazz is mechanical—-that ain't music."

Jazz pianist Don Haas said the definition of fusion jazz came from the audien-ce. "To the average lay person, Count Bassie may seem vanguard. With fusion jazz, it depends upon who's talking and who's listening." To define it lies within the ear of the beholder.

Note bene: I spent a memorable evening with the incomparable Scatman Crothers at the Guerneville Diner next to the Rio Theater. After his concert, we all piled into a booth at the coffeeshop and gossiped the night away. I don't remember why he was in town (an award). Before that night I had never heard of him. He was a great storyteller. Man, the stories he told—we were riveted to the booth until way past closing—3 AM. What I remember is Scatman imitating Cab Calloway's famous song, with a Heidi heidi hei. I took notes, it appeared in The Paper with photos. The waitress closed up around us, but the Scatman was on a roll. And she had the good sense not to mess with that.

My friend and neighbor, Jonathan London had a groovy poem, Hep Cat, he was working on. (Was he with us that night in Guerneville?) Around the time Scatman blew outa town, Jonathan got a nibble from the big publishers who liked Hep Cat, and could he turn it into a children's book? Suddenly hep was in. And so was Jonathan riding high on a long coattail wind. Elucidate. Elucidate, indeed. hep-hep-hurray. He gave me signed copies. I wonder where those books are now?

RRWG Coffee & Co. reading, Marianne Ware, Maureen Hurley, Simone Wilson, Jonathan London, Zara Altair, Zelda Balchowski, Lee Perron,

Whale of a Gala, Poets & Humorists, Pat Nolan, Eula Long, Marianne Ware, Andrea Granahan, Maureen Hurley, Simone Wilson

drawing from Obligatory Hug

ARC Sept/Oct, 1983 4 photos front page: Mike Tuggle, CA Oranges, Ft Ross, kids, fence & rock

AMERICAN HIBAKUSHA

AMERICAN HIBAKUSHA
       —for Carolyn Forché 
         Hibakusha is the name the survivors of Hiroshima gave to themselves.

I.   The violin's slow scale
climbs above the beat
of the metronome,
patterning mountains of notes,
increasing in tempo.

II.   A child under the alders

stares at the liquid leaves
that hide small cones—
brown, like river debris.

III.    A sonic pitch
loosens the violin's strings.

The bow falls slack
and the hand falls silent.

IV.   A pulse of light quickens the sky
The leaves, robbed of their color
sizzle into premature fall. 
Ashes. Burnt decay.

V.  The acrid odor of hair
distracts the woman playing the violin.
Glancing at the mirror,
she watches fascinated,
as the mirror slumps off the wall.

VI.  Vast ridges of light.
No color anywhere—
only a drenched landscape
of saturated light
brushed by fingers of white noise.

 9/1/83 published in nuke notes, Sonoma, county, direct action, coalition, 2/1984, vol. 4, no.6
added 10/16 

2 POEM FRAGMENTS, Napa

The violin's small scale 

climbs above the metronome, 

small bejeweled clicks 

patterning mountains of notes,

increasing in tempo, 

a sonic pitch invades,

the strings lose their time,

the bow loosens 

and the hand falls silent.

9/1/1983

Napa? no date

Ducks slip into births and sleep 

in the shade of trees at noon. 

I feed them raspberries. 

Ducks masticating raspberries 

in a khaki colored lagoon. 

They swim over rotted bull rushes 

the way birds fly over 

invisible boundaries of fences. 

The word trespass is an unintelligible concept 

we see the line fall short of the mark. 

Either we plunge into the murky depths 

shedding drops of light from our breasts 

or we cower silently in the tall rushes 

and listen to the cackle and skirted rustle 

of ducks, afraid of the depths.

9/1/1983

Napa

First draft

the ducks slip out of the shade of trees, 

awaken from their nap by the approach, 

I feed them raspberries. 

They're masticating raspberries 

in the khaki colored lagoon.

They swim away over the bull rushes 

and I am reminded of the way birds 

fly over invisible boundaries of fences, 

barbed, electric, or wood

it doesn't matter.

The signs of no trespassing are not read.

To trespass is an unintelligible concept for birds.

I read the lines and fall short of the mark. 

Even if we climbed into the murky depths 

drops of light from our breasts, 

or we hope her silently in the tall tule rushes 

and listen to the started rustle and clacking 

of ducks afraid of the murky depths.

9/1/1983

Napa

added 10/16

Napa craft lecture, Galway Kinnell and Tess Gallagher, The music of poetry, journal

The rhythm allows a poem to breathe effortlessly, things that seemed impossible before you start writing, to be out of reach, become within reach. Writing is not the last ornamentation, but a part of the poem itself. The music of the poem is the poem. All of life is based on cycles, the becoming and the dying. The rhythm is the first expression of life. To attach to that rhythm, that’s what art does for us, it’s the music first, then the poetry. 

9/1/83 freewrite from a craft lecture with Tess Gallagher and Galway Kinnell

FREEWRITE

Death's feather-fringed angels

White like emily
more gold than gold

endless stream of raw wheat
in the eye of the poem

the same alarm clock stands
on countless night tables
back and forth
across the country
timing trysts. lecture readings
the same hands sweep
the same face unceasingly
like a sea lapping at the shore

9/1/1983? 84?

there's a reference to Mary Rudge in the first line, and Sappho in the third line. I have no idea what it means
added 5/2/2016