I am really nervous, and I know why.
And I'll tell you why in a minute, but first of all,
it's getting late.
This is going to be more like a variety show than a reading,
but nevertheless, so if you want to get up and leave, really,
it's getting late, do so, but like one at a time, OK,
or-- this includes me, OK.
I can leave, too.
Anyway, the reason I'm nervous is--
I'm driving to my shrink this afternoon
to get my relaxation session, that I need before readings,
or teaching, or watching TV, or whatever,
and I stopped in at the Toxic Ranch, which is the local punk
record store in town.
So I'm looking through the stuff,
and I say to the guy behind the counter, I say, what's new?
And the guy beside me, looks at me and says, "Guns N' Roses."
And the guy behind the counter takes out
what looked like a frying pan and hit him
over the head with it, really hard.
[LAUGHTER] So this made me nervous.
So I wanted to remain on friendly terms,
so I look at this guy, and I say, what's new?
[LAUGHTER] The other guy's not moving.
He looks me right in the eye, and he says, you mean,
what's now?
And he says, "The Necroambulites."
So not only do I miss my relaxation session
with my shrink, which leaves me nervous now,
but I got like 18 copies, the only 18
in existence of the Necroambulites' only tape,
and I'm selling them after the reading.
This is serious.
This is true.
This is absolutely true.
I'm selling them for $3.
They cost me $4.50, $3 apiece.
Think of it this way, OK, this is
the way you think of it after the reading,
Buzz probably has, I hope, brought
copies of his wonderful novel My Father in Dreams, right.
Buzz, where are you?
What's it cost?
Like probably like-- this hardcover,
so far, is all, right, like $19.95?
$22.50, OK?
So you got like My Father in Dreams, $22.50--
you got to lug it home.
You got the Necroambulites, $3, and Buzz's thing,
you got to like move your eyes when you're doing it.
[LAUGHTER] So anyway, I need to beg your-- whatever
it is people beg and hear.
My shrink made, gave me a copy of a relaxation tape,
that he had made just for general purposes.
I got to hear it before the reading, OK.
If you can't hear it, raise your hands.
If it's too loud, leave.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hello, I am going to take you on a journey, a journey to mind.
First of all, you must lay down.
Don't cross your legs, palms extended.
Now, feel the power, the power of relaxation surge
into your feet, absorb it, like maybe you
would absorb some Coke, or some orange juice,
or milk, or other beverage, if you
would soak it with your mop.
You absorb it with you mop.
Next of all, feel it, feel it, feel it.
Walk, walk up there, walk up your legs,
as maybe a bug would, whether it be a spider, or a ladybug,
or, well, maybe a snail.
Now, it encompasses your lower abdominal region,
and you accept it.
You accept, you accept it, like maybe you would,
maybe you would your mother in law.
Well, maybe you're not your mother in law,
but maybe someone else.
Now, it flows, it flows just, it flows into your upper torso,
your chest, and it flows, like maybe,
like maybe one beverage which if you throw it
into another black.
Yeah.
Now, it clenches to your shoulders and arms,
your upper arms, and you feel it.
And it feels good.
I'm telling you it feels good.
Doesn't it feel good?
Yes, it feels very good.
Now, it goes into your lower arms,
and you feel as if you were a rock.
React as a rock, but you're not made of stone.
You are flying.
I know you aren't really flying, but you are flying.
Next of all, it goes down to your hands
and lays with their out.
And you take it as if you would, maybe, you
were catching a baseball, or a basketball, or maybe,
like a newspaper that someone had just thrown to you.
Now, it embraces your neck, like maybe,
like maybe a vampire would, or a mosquito waiting there,
or maybe--
never mind.
Now, it's, it slithers up into your lower GI area,
and you feel it.
And you like it because it feels very good.
It feels very, very, very good.
You like it.
Now, it smothers your face, smothers,
you feel the need to no longer breathe.
You don't have to breathe, and your eyes, your eyes,
your eyes are shut, just maybe they
had been super glued, or forever cemented, or maybe, just taped.
And now, your whole body, your back,
you're like a piece of paper, floating
through time and space, a piece of paper
with one word written on it, one word-- that word is relaxation,
relaxation.
Boy, does it feel good.
Now, you're completely in a relaxed,
completely in a relaxed state.
I insist upon it.
You are completely relaxed.
you are very, very relaxed.
Thank you for staying in session with me,
and when we do this again tomorrow,
and you try to sleep again, we will do this again.
So until again, sleep well and remember,
you are completely relaxed, completely relaxed,
very, very, very relaxed.
[APPLAUSE]
Boy, do I feel nervous.
[LAUGHTER] This is actually part of the tape
that will be available to you after the reading.
I'll read you two or three old poems,
meaning poems that I wrote when I was young.
Let me first read a poem that--
I always read a poem for Steve Orlen,
and sometimes for Gail Orlen, and sometimes
for Steve and Gail Orlen, when they're here at the readings.
But-- see, this is the truth--
Buzz, Steve told me to tell you this, too.
Steve calls me up about half an hour before the reading.
He's my best friend and the head of the Creative Writing
department, and he says, I can't come to your reading.
I said, OK, I'm not going to yours.
That's fine.
And he says, he says, I have to tell you the reason.
and I said, you don't bother.
It's OK.
I understand.
You've heard me read before.
He says, you got to tell Buzz, so I'm telling Buzz.
This is the reason.
He had his teeth cleaned today.
He had what's called a deep clean down on them.
This is the truth.
So [LAUGHTER] the poems that I read
for Steve and Gail, or Steve, or Gail
are always like sentimental poems or poems about our past,
which is questionable, et cetera.
What I'm going to read tonight is a poem that--
I have a kind of a selected poems
out of, my editor talk me out of including this poem
in that book, and he was wrong.
I realize now.
It's an odd poem though, and it's for Steve,
in the sense that it's for Steve's dog.
About 1970 or so, when I was living in Portland, Oregon,
I had--
my wife Barbara and I had a dog by the name-- who was actually
her dog before it was mine.
I was always jealous in some ways--
named Houdain, who was a German shepherd.
And Steve and Gail, who were coming to, who had--
Steve had a sabbatical.
He was going to come up and stay with us for part of the year
that year--
also had a dog, a very large dog, as mine was.
His was a Labrador, a Newfoundland Labrador, I think,
whose name was Tooley.
Well, we rented a house that had a very, very small yard to it.
We didn't like walking the dogs, so we built an enormous fence
around the yard, maybe six, seven feet high, or whatever.
And after numerous attempts at escape, by going over the fence
and getting caught in the middle of the fence, both dogs,
we realized one day, we're trying
to make their escape by going under, rather than over.
They were digging a hole, and, this also is the truth,
every time we went out in the yard, one of them
would lie in the hole, so we couldn't tell.
But they were digging the hole parallel to the fence, OK.
Another dog came by--
this again, I swear is the truth--
another dog came by and dug them out from the other side.
And they took off, and they run amok for two or three days,
and finally the police brought them back to us.
This is a poem about that.
It's written in fake middle English, which I
have no idea how to pronounce.
So I have to read it kind of like with a brogue,
with a potato in my mouth, or something like that.
But it's a little ballad.
It's for Houdain D. Dog, my dog who's passed on,
and I am proud to say his last act, before he died at 14,
was to, the night before he died, dragged home
a sack of garbage and eat it in the front yard.
This is for Houdain and for Tooley Orlen.
"Ye dog, O'Toole, who hath not worked at love,
nor art, nor goeth school--"
I have to start again to tell you something.
My dog looked like, our dogs reflected
what were then our personalities, in certain ways.
Tooley liked to lie around a lot, yeah.
And he was big.
Now, I'm big, but Houdain my dog looked worried all the time.
It was like he had advance news of dog death or something
like that.
So this involves those personality characteristics
of the dogs.
"Ye dog, O'Toole, who hath not work at love, nor art,
nor goeth school, sayeth with fart at golden rule.
Be a bitch, or biscuit, or platter, or stew,
your palate alone shall guide you.
Ye dog, Houdain, forgoeth bone nor doth disdain to moon,
for wind, and rain, yer snow, and fog,
your seasons sunned and world roll on, but your days a dog
be not long.
Brothers two, you slim Houdain and fat O'Toole,
beneath fence diggeth hole.
Into your world, your brothers dance
nor would return your fat O'Toole or slim Houdain.
Soon as report, brothers two doth run amok in neighborhoo.
Cautions O'Toole, Houdain, you may bark,
may scowl, and be rude, but do not
bite your hand what giveth dog food.
Though all complain of brothers two, no win,
no rain doth drive them home.
Then sayeth Houdain to brother O'Toole,
though we hath been friends through thick
and thin, dog needeth some love from mine.
So end this song of brothers two, away they had flown
and back they flew, reclineth in yard
through seasons and sun, to wind,
and rain, your snow, your fog, O'Toole, Houdain,
you brothers dog."
[APPLAUSE]