WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.280 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.280 --> 00:00:05.060 align:middle line:84% 7th of this month, which is a Sunday afternoon, that 00:00:05.060 --> 00:00:09.020 align:middle line:84% will be our contest awards reading in the University Art 00:00:09.020 --> 00:00:10.120 align:middle line:90% Museum. 00:00:10.120 --> 00:00:11.870 align:middle line:84% But there are several other readings which 00:00:11.870 --> 00:00:14.270 align:middle line:90% I'd like to announce to you. 00:00:14.270 --> 00:00:18.590 align:middle line:84% This Sunday night will be the regular Lamplight 00:00:18.590 --> 00:00:25.280 align:middle line:84% reading with Gloria Myers, Will Inman, and Randall Tease. 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:30.320 align:middle line:84% And next Wednesday night in this auditorium Writers at Work 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:32.360 align:middle line:90% will have their next reading. 00:00:32.360 --> 00:00:40.820 align:middle line:84% Nancy Mairs and Ann Cummins among other things 00:00:40.820 --> 00:00:45.410 align:middle line:84% will be sponsoring a reading on March 12th. 00:00:45.410 --> 00:00:47.150 align:middle line:90% That's a Saturday night. 00:00:47.150 --> 00:00:48.980 align:middle line:84% And the reader is Charles Alexander. 00:00:48.980 --> 00:00:53.490 align:middle line:90% 00:00:53.490 --> 00:00:57.250 align:middle line:84% At the end of spring break is the three-day Tucson Poetry 00:00:57.250 --> 00:00:57.750 align:middle line:90% Festival. 00:00:57.750 --> 00:01:01.230 align:middle line:90% 00:01:01.230 --> 00:01:04.830 align:middle line:84% And I brought a big stack of these newsletters 00:01:04.830 --> 00:01:07.380 align:middle line:84% and put it out on the book table for you 00:01:07.380 --> 00:01:10.140 align:middle line:84% which announces the times and places for all 00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:12.360 align:middle line:84% of those readings because I know you can't 00:01:12.360 --> 00:01:15.000 align:middle line:90% remember all of those things. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:16.590 align:middle line:90% We have books on sale tonight. 00:01:16.590 --> 00:01:21.900 align:middle line:84% And also Sonora Review has on sale their most recent issue 00:01:21.900 --> 00:01:25.860 align:middle line:84% and back issues of that beautiful magazine. 00:01:25.860 --> 00:01:30.060 align:middle line:84% Plus copies of Barbara Anderson's Junk City. 00:01:30.060 --> 00:01:30.810 align:middle line:90% I love that title. 00:01:30.810 --> 00:01:34.860 align:middle line:90% 00:01:34.860 --> 00:01:38.610 align:middle line:84% Junk City is Barbara's second book. 00:01:38.610 --> 00:01:42.930 align:middle line:84% Her first book was a chapbook from Porch, wasn't it? 00:01:42.930 --> 00:01:46.440 align:middle line:84% Porch Press called Ordinary Days. 00:01:46.440 --> 00:01:51.690 align:middle line:84% And Junk City was Robert Pinsky's choice for the 1986 00:01:51.690 --> 00:01:54.690 align:middle line:90% National Poetry Series award. 00:01:54.690 --> 00:01:58.690 align:middle line:84% Barbara's been a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford. 00:01:58.690 --> 00:02:02.610 align:middle line:84% She's received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. 00:02:02.610 --> 00:02:05.190 align:middle line:84% And her work has appeared in many anthologies 00:02:05.190 --> 00:02:09.157 align:middle line:84% and little magazines in addition to the two books. 00:02:09.157 --> 00:02:10.949 align:middle line:84% She's teaching at the University this year, 00:02:10.949 --> 00:02:13.580 align:middle line:90% teaching the composition. 00:02:13.580 --> 00:02:17.758 align:middle line:84% In addition to her poetry she's also working on a novel. 00:02:17.758 --> 00:02:19.300 align:middle line:84% Barbara was teasing me the other day, 00:02:19.300 --> 00:02:22.740 align:middle line:84% and she said, I always say so and so comes to us from, 00:02:22.740 --> 00:02:28.350 align:middle line:84% so Barbara comes to us from Stewart Street in Tucson. 00:02:28.350 --> 00:02:30.270 align:middle line:84% And it's a great pleasure to introduce 00:02:30.270 --> 00:02:32.013 align:middle line:90% Barbara Anderson to you. 00:02:32.013 --> 00:02:35.394 align:middle line:90% [CLAPPING] 00:02:35.394 --> 00:02:42.160 align:middle line:90% 00:02:42.160 --> 00:02:47.597 align:middle line:84% Well, my book, I was just scared by my own voice. 00:02:47.597 --> 00:02:49.180 align:middle line:84% Actually I was getting kind of nervous 00:02:49.180 --> 00:02:51.520 align:middle line:84% about this reading, the home game and all. 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:55.270 align:middle line:84% It's really easy to go in front of a bunch of strangers 00:02:55.270 --> 00:02:57.465 align:middle line:84% and just be anybody or say anything. 00:02:57.465 --> 00:02:58.840 align:middle line:84% And I was getting really nervous. 00:02:58.840 --> 00:03:01.910 align:middle line:84% I was just coming out in the lobby coming in here to read 00:03:01.910 --> 00:03:03.355 align:middle line:90% and I saw my son and he said-- 00:03:03.355 --> 00:03:05.480 align:middle line:84% I thought HE was going to maybe come to the reading 00:03:05.480 --> 00:03:08.440 align:middle line:84% and he says, mom I need $5 because I want to go-- 00:03:08.440 --> 00:03:11.210 align:middle line:84% said, I want to go play to video games. 00:03:11.210 --> 00:03:13.345 align:middle line:84% And that just shook me back to reality. 00:03:13.345 --> 00:03:19.810 align:middle line:90% 00:03:19.810 --> 00:03:21.190 align:middle line:90% I'm going to begin by-- 00:03:21.190 --> 00:03:22.810 align:middle line:84% I guess about half the reading it's 00:03:22.810 --> 00:03:24.502 align:middle line:84% going to be from Junk City, my book, 00:03:24.502 --> 00:03:26.335 align:middle line:84% and the other half is going to be new poems. 00:03:26.335 --> 00:03:29.560 align:middle line:90% 00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:32.650 align:middle line:84% The first poem is called The Coat. 00:03:32.650 --> 00:03:35.740 align:middle line:84% I'll give just a little background on this. 00:03:35.740 --> 00:03:41.380 align:middle line:84% It mentions Mad Magazine Upside Down Year, which was in 1961. 00:03:41.380 --> 00:03:44.800 align:middle line:84% I remember going to buy Mad Magazine which 00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:45.920 align:middle line:90% I bought every month. 00:03:45.920 --> 00:03:48.400 align:middle line:84% And it said 1961, the Upside Down. 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:50.230 align:middle line:84% You could turn the magazine upside down 00:03:50.230 --> 00:03:52.520 align:middle line:90% and still says 1961. 00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:56.020 align:middle line:84% And it said it was the first upside down year since 1881 00:03:56.020 --> 00:03:59.230 align:middle line:84% and there won't be another one since 6,009. 00:03:59.230 --> 00:04:03.315 align:middle line:84% I remember just-- it just seems somehow imbued 00:04:03.315 --> 00:04:05.440 align:middle line:84% with some kind of significance but I couldn't quite 00:04:05.440 --> 00:04:08.680 align:middle line:90% figure it out then. 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:11.680 align:middle line:84% And this poem also mentions a New Year's Day 00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:13.210 align:middle line:84% which was a big deal in our family 00:04:13.210 --> 00:04:15.766 align:middle line:84% because my parents took us to Times Square 00:04:15.766 --> 00:04:17.349 align:middle line:84% every New Year's Day in New York City. 00:04:17.349 --> 00:04:19.870 align:middle line:90% 00:04:19.870 --> 00:04:22.120 align:middle line:84% For some reason we used to go these little cafeterias. 00:04:22.120 --> 00:04:26.255 align:middle line:84% My father really was just fascinated with drag queens, 00:04:26.255 --> 00:04:28.630 align:middle line:84% with people in drag and they were always in Times Square. 00:04:28.630 --> 00:04:31.060 align:middle line:84% And after we ate dinner or lunch, 00:04:31.060 --> 00:04:34.240 align:middle line:84% we used to follow them around for some reason. 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:38.005 align:middle line:84% The whole family, two middle aged parents and their kids. 00:04:38.005 --> 00:04:44.080 align:middle line:90% 00:04:44.080 --> 00:04:45.920 align:middle line:84% That just vaguely mentions this one. 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:48.820 align:middle line:90% OK, The Coat. 00:04:48.820 --> 00:04:52.000 align:middle line:84% The first time I noticed the blue on the white snow 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.970 align:middle line:84% was the day my father found a $20 bill on the way 00:04:54.970 --> 00:04:56.810 align:middle line:90% to the subway and cautioned me. 00:04:56.810 --> 00:04:58.060 align:middle line:90% I'm going to start that again. 00:04:58.060 --> 00:05:00.070 align:middle line:84% I substituted my mother for my father. 00:05:00.070 --> 00:05:02.470 align:middle line:90% I've always done that. 00:05:02.470 --> 00:05:05.560 align:middle line:84% The first time I noticed the blue on the white snow 00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:09.160 align:middle line:84% was the day my mother found a $20 bill on the way 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:12.280 align:middle line:84% to the subway and cautioned me to walk always 00:05:12.280 --> 00:05:16.120 align:middle line:84% with my head to the ground if I ever expected to find anything 00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:18.070 align:middle line:90% in this world for free. 00:05:18.070 --> 00:05:19.810 align:middle line:84% It was the first day my father wore 00:05:19.810 --> 00:05:22.450 align:middle line:84% the enormous brown overcoat, all he 00:05:22.450 --> 00:05:24.190 align:middle line:90% had left of his dead brother. 00:05:24.190 --> 00:05:27.940 align:middle line:84% The coat I was afraid of because I believed my father walked 00:05:27.940 --> 00:05:31.210 align:middle line:84% everywhere like a ventriloquist, wisecracking 00:05:31.210 --> 00:05:33.610 align:middle line:84% to his fat unfunny brother like they 00:05:33.610 --> 00:05:36.370 align:middle line:84% always had on Sundays around the kitchen table 00:05:36.370 --> 00:05:40.160 align:middle line:84% while my mother basted the chicken or peeled the potatoes. 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:43.510 align:middle line:84% It was New Year's day 1961, the upside down 00:05:43.510 --> 00:05:45.460 align:middle line:84% year I turned over and over again 00:05:45.460 --> 00:05:48.880 align:middle line:84% on the cover of Mad Magazine while my father got drunk 00:05:48.880 --> 00:05:51.040 align:middle line:84% on the subway and joked and cried 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:53.320 align:middle line:84% for his brother, who he would never see again, 00:05:53.320 --> 00:05:57.040 align:middle line:84% not for auld lang syne, not for all the coming emptiness 00:05:57.040 --> 00:06:00.940 align:middle line:84% of 1961 which turns over and over like my uncle's 00:06:00.940 --> 00:06:03.820 align:middle line:84% inscrutable riddle about the weight of gold or feathers 00:06:03.820 --> 00:06:09.040 align:middle line:84% that I had to answer before he'd give me $1 or a chocolate kiss. 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:13.300 align:middle line:84% On the first day of 1961, my father cried on the subway 00:06:13.300 --> 00:06:15.190 align:middle line:84% as my mother took the whole family 00:06:15.190 --> 00:06:18.280 align:middle line:84% to see Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty fall 00:06:18.280 --> 00:06:20.890 align:middle line:84% in love in a small town in Kansas 00:06:20.890 --> 00:06:23.860 align:middle line:84% in a time my mother said she couldn't remember, 00:06:23.860 --> 00:06:26.890 align:middle line:84% the brief good years before the Depression. 00:06:26.890 --> 00:06:29.680 align:middle line:90% She was my age then, 13. 00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:34.330 align:middle line:84% On January 1st 1961, it was so cold on the balcony 00:06:34.330 --> 00:06:37.420 align:middle line:84% of the Loew's Valencia my mother allowed my father 00:06:37.420 --> 00:06:40.600 align:middle line:84% to give me a sip of the brown liquor, and then another, 00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:44.350 align:middle line:84% and another, as Natalie Wood ran hysterical from a classroom 00:06:44.350 --> 00:06:46.570 align:middle line:84% after losing her first love and reading 00:06:46.570 --> 00:06:49.450 align:middle line:84% a passage from Intimations of Immortality. 00:06:49.450 --> 00:06:52.720 align:middle line:84% Words about loss and strength I memorized as the theater 00:06:52.720 --> 00:06:55.060 align:middle line:84% went dark again and we all rode home, 00:06:55.060 --> 00:06:56.800 align:middle line:90% a little drunk and silent. 00:06:56.800 --> 00:06:59.860 align:middle line:84% And the artificial midnight lighting of the IRT 00:06:59.860 --> 00:07:01.600 align:middle line:90% where I wrote my first poem. 00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:04.780 align:middle line:84% And my mother counted her change like feathers or gold. 00:07:04.780 --> 00:07:07.420 align:middle line:84% And my father fell asleep on her shoulder, 00:07:07.420 --> 00:07:11.970 align:middle line:84% snoring, with his ghostly brown coat wrapped around them. 00:07:11.970 --> 00:07:12.470 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:07:12.470 --> 00:07:17.230 align:middle line:90% 00:07:17.230 --> 00:07:20.830 align:middle line:84% Next poem is called, There and Here. 00:07:20.830 --> 00:07:24.160 align:middle line:84% Someone's lost and someone turns on the light. 00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:26.260 align:middle line:84% In the middle of the night, the boy 00:07:26.260 --> 00:07:29.920 align:middle line:84% rushes into his parents' room but they are not there. 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:31.900 align:middle line:84% Only the rustle of his mother's night 00:07:31.900 --> 00:07:36.430 align:middle line:84% dress as she packs his father's shirts and books, binoculars, 00:07:36.430 --> 00:07:40.150 align:middle line:84% and the paperweight faces of the old poets, magnified 00:07:40.150 --> 00:07:41.290 align:middle line:90% under glass. 00:07:41.290 --> 00:07:44.620 align:middle line:84% Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Whitman, 00:07:44.620 --> 00:07:46.150 align:middle line:84% a gift from the woman they argued 00:07:46.150 --> 00:07:49.030 align:middle line:84% about when his father returned home from a trip. 00:07:49.030 --> 00:07:51.550 align:middle line:84% Thank you, the woman had written on the note with a hotel 00:07:51.550 --> 00:07:52.510 align:middle line:90% letterhead. 00:07:52.510 --> 00:07:55.000 align:middle line:84% His mother packs that away too and what 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:58.270 align:middle line:84% is hers in another carton and the child's in a third, 00:07:58.270 --> 00:08:02.500 align:middle line:84% and the words, there and here, in thick black print on a line 00:08:02.500 --> 00:08:05.140 align:middle line:84% tablet from the first year he learned to read. 00:08:05.140 --> 00:08:08.560 align:middle line:84% His teacher wanted him to know the difference. 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:12.940 align:middle line:84% The distance from school to home from this morning to afternoon 00:08:12.940 --> 00:08:16.270 align:middle line:84% when he fell asleep for so long he thought no one could find 00:08:16.270 --> 00:08:19.360 align:middle line:84% him, until his mother took him out to feed the ducks 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:21.190 align:middle line:90% in the park. 00:08:21.190 --> 00:08:23.080 align:middle line:84% Really she wanted to tell him that now he'll 00:08:23.080 --> 00:08:25.930 align:middle line:84% have two homes, one here and the other there. 00:08:25.930 --> 00:08:28.300 align:middle line:84% And her finger pointed away towards the mountains 00:08:28.300 --> 00:08:29.770 align:middle line:90% on the other side of town. 00:08:29.770 --> 00:08:32.380 align:middle line:90% There, in that direction. 00:08:32.380 --> 00:08:34.030 align:middle line:84% He didn't cry and his mother bought 00:08:34.030 --> 00:08:36.789 align:middle line:84% him metal soldiers with cannons that shot out 00:08:36.789 --> 00:08:38.380 align:middle line:90% if you pulled the lever. 00:08:38.380 --> 00:08:41.140 align:middle line:84% Soon they would be packed away or broken. 00:08:41.140 --> 00:08:43.400 align:middle line:84% Isn't childhood really a form of insanity? 00:08:43.400 --> 00:08:44.980 align:middle line:84% said said his mother's new friend. 00:08:44.980 --> 00:08:47.740 align:middle line:84% And the night to come when he would sit with his father 00:08:47.740 --> 00:08:50.530 align:middle line:84% and look down through the binoculars to the city lights, 00:08:50.530 --> 00:08:54.350 align:middle line:84% a place that is neither here nor there. 00:08:54.350 --> 00:08:58.552 align:middle line:84% The next poem is the title poem of the book, Junk City. 00:08:58.552 --> 00:09:00.010 align:middle line:84% And it's written during a time when 00:09:00.010 --> 00:09:02.097 align:middle line:84% I was a single parent and living up in Palo Alto 00:09:02.097 --> 00:09:03.055 align:middle line:90% when I was at Stanford. 00:09:03.055 --> 00:09:05.830 align:middle line:90% 00:09:05.830 --> 00:09:09.070 align:middle line:84% And one morning I was trying to write. 00:09:09.070 --> 00:09:10.930 align:middle line:84% I had some free time and I was just 00:09:10.930 --> 00:09:13.697 align:middle line:84% spend a day trying to write and it just wasn't working. 00:09:13.697 --> 00:09:15.280 align:middle line:84% And my son kept on coming into my room 00:09:15.280 --> 00:09:17.447 align:middle line:84% and asking a whole bunch of questions 00:09:17.447 --> 00:09:19.780 align:middle line:84% and telling me that he had some really great to tell me. 00:09:19.780 --> 00:09:21.730 align:middle line:84% That he and a friend had a plan and he 00:09:21.730 --> 00:09:23.230 align:middle line:90% had a dream about this plan. 00:09:23.230 --> 00:09:25.645 align:middle line:84% And I sent him away and tried to write 00:09:25.645 --> 00:09:26.770 align:middle line:90% and he kept on coming back. 00:09:26.770 --> 00:09:29.830 align:middle line:84% And finally I decided to listen because I wasn't doing anything 00:09:29.830 --> 00:09:30.490 align:middle line:90% really. 00:09:30.490 --> 00:09:33.400 align:middle line:84% And he told me this wonderful story and part of this poem 00:09:33.400 --> 00:09:34.940 align:middle line:90% is from the story he told me. 00:09:34.940 --> 00:09:36.525 align:middle line:84% He helped me write this in a sense. 00:09:36.525 --> 00:09:37.900 align:middle line:84% I think that's why he's not here, 00:09:37.900 --> 00:09:39.692 align:middle line:84% why he went to play video games, because it 00:09:39.692 --> 00:09:41.860 align:middle line:84% talks about when he peed in his bed when he's seven. 00:09:41.860 --> 00:09:43.870 align:middle line:84% Don't tell him I told you if you see him. 00:09:43.870 --> 00:09:45.537 align:middle line:84% I'm sure he'll be back for the brownies. 00:09:45.537 --> 00:09:48.370 align:middle line:90% 00:09:48.370 --> 00:09:51.382 align:middle line:84% Also since I used his title as a title poem for my book, 00:09:51.382 --> 00:09:52.840 align:middle line:84% he said he wants some money from it 00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:56.418 align:middle line:84% like I'm going to make a lot of money from this. 00:09:56.418 --> 00:09:58.960 align:middle line:84% That's the first thing he said is, how much do I get of that? 00:09:58.960 --> 00:10:01.990 align:middle line:90% 00:10:01.990 --> 00:10:06.220 align:middle line:84% The child speaks as a persona poem, Junk City. 00:10:06.220 --> 00:10:08.830 align:middle line:84% This morning when I asked my mother why I pee in my sleep, 00:10:08.830 --> 00:10:10.360 align:middle line:90% she said not to worry. 00:10:10.360 --> 00:10:11.540 align:middle line:90% It's just a mystery. 00:10:11.540 --> 00:10:13.000 align:middle line:90% It's not anything. 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:15.160 align:middle line:84% Just a mystery, like whether there's a God 00:10:15.160 --> 00:10:19.480 align:middle line:84% or not, or whether people came from the ocean or not. 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:22.120 align:middle line:84% My dad believed something like that. 00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:24.430 align:middle line:84% He lives in the desert and drinks red wine 00:10:24.430 --> 00:10:29.140 align:middle line:84% and lets me sleep with him and we don't pee in our bed. 00:10:29.140 --> 00:10:31.120 align:middle line:84% But my mother likes to sleep alone. 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:33.460 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I hear her praying through the walls 00:10:33.460 --> 00:10:36.850 align:middle line:84% in a constant voice like she's saying the alphabet, 00:10:36.850 --> 00:10:39.340 align:middle line:84% talking to herself like she's singing to a baby, 00:10:39.340 --> 00:10:42.100 align:middle line:90% and she knows I hate babies. 00:10:42.100 --> 00:10:44.080 align:middle line:84% Today at school, Greg and I were talking 00:10:44.080 --> 00:10:47.140 align:middle line:84% about making a city of garbage, a kind of junk 00:10:47.140 --> 00:10:51.490 align:middle line:84% city of rusted nails, bent paper clips, ripped up bushes 00:10:51.490 --> 00:10:53.110 align:middle line:90% that no one wants. 00:10:53.110 --> 00:10:55.510 align:middle line:84% Last night I had a dream about a scavenger hunt 00:10:55.510 --> 00:10:57.700 align:middle line:84% in junk city where everything was dead 00:10:57.700 --> 00:10:59.710 align:middle line:84% and we were looking for something alive, 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:02.650 align:middle line:84% like a walking screwdriver or a buffalo. 00:11:02.650 --> 00:11:05.500 align:middle line:84% There were shoes starving of starvation, 00:11:05.500 --> 00:11:08.530 align:middle line:84% a dinosaur could be alive and so could a broken chair, 00:11:08.530 --> 00:11:09.850 align:middle line:90% but a kid could be dead. 00:11:09.850 --> 00:11:10.705 align:middle line:90% It was like that. 00:11:10.705 --> 00:11:13.510 align:middle line:90% 00:11:13.510 --> 00:11:16.480 align:middle line:84% It was raining hard outside and I kept on being thirsty. 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:19.210 align:middle line:84% But when I went back to sleep, I was in Junk City again 00:11:19.210 --> 00:11:22.810 align:middle line:84% making something dead or alive whenever I wanted it. 00:11:22.810 --> 00:11:26.140 align:middle line:84% I could be born in 1974, the real year. 00:11:26.140 --> 00:11:29.920 align:middle line:84% Or the time that God made the first pterodactyls fly. 00:11:29.920 --> 00:11:33.310 align:middle line:84% Junk City is so big it could cover the living room rug. 00:11:33.310 --> 00:11:37.510 align:middle line:84% Buildings made out of tin foil catch on fire. 00:11:37.510 --> 00:11:39.190 align:middle line:84% In one dream the first president's name 00:11:39.190 --> 00:11:41.260 align:middle line:84% was Junk Washington and he put out 00:11:41.260 --> 00:11:42.730 align:middle line:90% the fire in the other dream. 00:11:42.730 --> 00:11:43.690 align:middle line:90% It was like that. 00:11:43.690 --> 00:11:45.790 align:middle line:90% I got older and Greg got older. 00:11:45.790 --> 00:11:48.730 align:middle line:84% Making Junk City so big, we started 00:11:48.730 --> 00:11:50.950 align:middle line:84% building it under the ocean like a tunnel, 00:11:50.950 --> 00:11:53.710 align:middle line:84% using all the ocean junk like tangled seaweed 00:11:53.710 --> 00:11:56.350 align:middle line:84% and rotted shark's teeth, rusted jewels 00:11:56.350 --> 00:11:58.180 align:middle line:90% from a pirate's treasure chest. 00:11:58.180 --> 00:12:00.430 align:middle line:84% We made castles for eels and crowns 00:12:00.430 --> 00:12:03.880 align:middle line:84% for mermaids out of junk rubies and junk diamonds. 00:12:03.880 --> 00:12:08.080 align:middle line:84% It was so good that I tried so hard not to wake up. 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:10.240 align:middle line:84% So hard did I hold my breath that the tunnel 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:12.130 align:middle line:90% gave way and water rushed in. 00:12:12.130 --> 00:12:15.100 align:middle line:84% So hot I didn't know whether it was cold or not. 00:12:15.100 --> 00:12:16.880 align:middle line:90% But last night was different. 00:12:16.880 --> 00:12:19.190 align:middle line:84% I usually like to dream my dreams awake 00:12:19.190 --> 00:12:20.690 align:middle line:90% to make them come true. 00:12:20.690 --> 00:12:22.700 align:middle line:84% It's like thinking about Junk City 00:12:22.700 --> 00:12:25.640 align:middle line:84% so long you can move inside it and no one will ever 00:12:25.640 --> 00:12:29.000 align:middle line:84% call you back home again and no one can make you leave it. 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:33.105 align:middle line:84% Whenever I put my head up I hear my voice going up. 00:12:33.105 --> 00:12:33.605 align:middle line:90% Let's see. 00:12:33.605 --> 00:12:38.667 align:middle line:90% 00:12:38.667 --> 00:12:41.000 align:middle line:84% Do I sound like I'm going up and down like [INAUDIBLE].. 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:45.100 align:middle line:90% 00:12:45.100 --> 00:12:45.880 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:12:45.880 --> 00:12:50.430 align:middle line:90% 00:12:50.430 --> 00:12:53.590 align:middle line:90% The next poem. 00:12:53.590 --> 00:12:54.840 align:middle line:90% I wonder if you could hear me. 00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:56.880 align:middle line:84% If anybody could hear me without. 00:12:56.880 --> 00:12:58.110 align:middle line:90% I'll just keep it. 00:12:58.110 --> 00:13:00.780 align:middle line:84% If my voice sounds like it's going up and down too much, 00:13:00.780 --> 00:13:03.360 align:middle line:90% I don't know, send me a note. 00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:04.110 align:middle line:90% Is it OK? 00:13:04.110 --> 00:13:06.750 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:13:06.750 --> 00:13:10.800 align:middle line:84% The next poem is about my son's diabetes. 00:13:10.800 --> 00:13:13.020 align:middle line:84% My son, when he was three years old 00:13:13.020 --> 00:13:15.330 align:middle line:84% was diagnosed as having juvenile diabetes. 00:13:15.330 --> 00:13:18.922 align:middle line:84% And when they first found out, a doctor 00:13:18.922 --> 00:13:20.880 align:middle line:84% misdiagnosed him and thought he just had a flu. 00:13:20.880 --> 00:13:24.960 align:middle line:84% And the next day he went into a coma 00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:27.330 align:middle line:84% and he was in this coma for seven hours 00:13:27.330 --> 00:13:30.960 align:middle line:84% and they weren't sure if he was going to make it. 00:13:30.960 --> 00:13:33.540 align:middle line:84% But he did and and he's doing fine. 00:13:33.540 --> 00:13:37.820 align:middle line:84% And after a while, I decided it was me who had most problems. 00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:39.570 align:middle line:84% I had more problems adjusting than he did. 00:13:39.570 --> 00:13:41.153 align:middle line:84% And this is a little poem about really 00:13:41.153 --> 00:13:43.170 align:middle line:84% about me adjusting to the diabetes 00:13:43.170 --> 00:13:48.390 align:middle line:84% and also about letting him go when I have to. 00:13:48.390 --> 00:13:50.310 align:middle line:90% That didn't sound good. 00:13:50.310 --> 00:13:52.860 align:middle line:90% It's called Sugar. 00:13:52.860 --> 00:13:55.380 align:middle line:84% He was three years old and growing smaller. 00:13:55.380 --> 00:13:58.170 align:middle line:84% Seven hours in a coma while the nurses probed 00:13:58.170 --> 00:14:02.010 align:middle line:84% his tense white skin until the silvery life of electrolytes 00:14:02.010 --> 00:14:03.750 align:middle line:90% and insulin kicked in. 00:14:03.750 --> 00:14:05.550 align:middle line:90% He'll make it. 00:14:05.550 --> 00:14:09.810 align:middle line:84% I asked for Valium and stepped outside where the question 00:14:09.810 --> 00:14:14.220 align:middle line:84% moon suggested vertigo beyond blood numbers, digital, a wind 00:14:14.220 --> 00:14:16.680 align:middle line:84% beyond those cubicles of artificial light. 00:14:16.680 --> 00:14:19.810 align:middle line:90% Diabetes mellitus will make it. 00:14:19.810 --> 00:14:22.050 align:middle line:84% Breathe it in, the doctor said without apology. 00:14:22.050 --> 00:14:23.760 align:middle line:90% Put it in your lungs. 00:14:23.760 --> 00:14:27.150 align:middle line:84% We moved around some, got adjusted, fragrant autumn 00:14:27.150 --> 00:14:29.190 align:middle line:84% nights he leaves the back door open. 00:14:29.190 --> 00:14:32.160 align:middle line:84% He says he likes the way it looks to let the outside in, 00:14:32.160 --> 00:14:34.620 align:middle line:84% to see nothing but the glow in the dark astronaut 00:14:34.620 --> 00:14:38.550 align:middle line:84% poster, and the luminous Earth from where he falls gracefully 00:14:38.550 --> 00:14:39.570 align:middle line:90% through space. 00:14:39.570 --> 00:14:42.420 align:middle line:84% Isn't it beautiful, he says, to be almost blind? 00:14:42.420 --> 00:14:43.620 align:middle line:90% And he's fine now. 00:14:43.620 --> 00:14:44.850 align:middle line:90% I can say it. 00:14:44.850 --> 00:14:47.700 align:middle line:84% Even when I touch his 11-year-old needle toughened 00:14:47.700 --> 00:14:51.090 align:middle line:90% skin, I only feel my own fear. 00:14:51.090 --> 00:14:54.270 align:middle line:84% It's me who's growing smaller, wondering how he sees me 00:14:54.270 --> 00:14:58.050 align:middle line:84% by day as he drifts slowly down the hill alone on his way 00:14:58.050 --> 00:15:01.320 align:middle line:84% to school, waving to me as though my face were 00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:04.200 align:middle line:84% the Earth and he the luminous astronaut floating 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:05.685 align:middle line:90% beyond the gravity of home. 00:15:05.685 --> 00:15:30.560 align:middle line:90% 00:15:30.560 --> 00:15:31.880 align:middle line:90% For My Therapist. 00:15:31.880 --> 00:15:34.700 align:middle line:90% 00:15:34.700 --> 00:15:37.530 align:middle line:90% On the subject of my pain. 00:15:37.530 --> 00:15:39.830 align:middle line:84% First of all, it is not an object. 00:15:39.830 --> 00:15:43.490 align:middle line:84% I put my finger on the center of an imaginary lightly dotted 00:15:43.490 --> 00:15:48.590 align:middle line:84% square, like a road map's D5, parallel to my hip bones. 00:15:48.590 --> 00:15:51.920 align:middle line:84% It doesn't smell like anything except maybe a place where 00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:55.340 align:middle line:84% a rainstorm has evaporated on black asphalt. 00:15:55.340 --> 00:15:58.280 align:middle line:84% My son's been there but he was too small to remember. 00:15:58.280 --> 00:16:00.740 align:middle line:84% We used to share the same symbols for mountain peaks 00:16:00.740 --> 00:16:01.790 align:middle line:90% and time zones. 00:16:01.790 --> 00:16:05.900 align:middle line:84% He was smaller than a green fist of space set aside for a park. 00:16:05.900 --> 00:16:09.320 align:middle line:90% We were healthier together. 00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:12.530 align:middle line:84% Once I had a lover who said he could feel it like a spider. 00:16:12.530 --> 00:16:15.230 align:middle line:84% His mother was a suicide so I believed him. 00:16:15.230 --> 00:16:18.620 align:middle line:84% A one car high speed late night accident. 00:16:18.620 --> 00:16:20.420 align:middle line:90% I held my breath while coming. 00:16:20.420 --> 00:16:22.640 align:middle line:84% I didn't want him to know too much about me, 00:16:22.640 --> 00:16:25.670 align:middle line:84% to peel back the fabric of skin and lace and web, 00:16:25.670 --> 00:16:27.980 align:middle line:90% to know the exact spot. 00:16:27.980 --> 00:16:31.070 align:middle line:84% I know you think I'm not being specific enough when addressing 00:16:31.070 --> 00:16:32.330 align:middle line:90% the subject of my pain. 00:16:32.330 --> 00:16:36.980 align:middle line:84% That I'm not saying, dear pain, you are useful in my love. 00:16:36.980 --> 00:16:39.920 align:middle line:84% I've done the other exercise for pain five times today 00:16:39.920 --> 00:16:41.810 align:middle line:90% and it still comes out the same. 00:16:41.810 --> 00:16:44.180 align:middle line:84% The right hand holds all the good memories, 00:16:44.180 --> 00:16:48.410 align:middle line:84% all the ex pretty, the ex years, the mock empty Christmas gifts 00:16:48.410 --> 00:16:50.435 align:middle line:84% department stores showcase in their windows. 00:16:50.435 --> 00:16:53.310 align:middle line:90% 00:16:53.310 --> 00:16:56.400 align:middle line:84% The left hand rattles the dulled silver of the train. 00:16:56.400 --> 00:16:59.250 align:middle line:84% The noise the pain makes as it grinds over the track 00:16:59.250 --> 00:17:02.580 align:middle line:84% can lull the race track loser to sleep with only train fare 00:17:02.580 --> 00:17:03.240 align:middle line:90% home. 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:06.060 align:middle line:84% I swear for a small amount of morphine, 00:17:06.060 --> 00:17:08.310 align:middle line:84% for the liquor slick throat of anyone 00:17:08.310 --> 00:17:12.780 align:middle line:84% for the flesh and the light, I'd retreat into the tunnel. 00:17:12.780 --> 00:17:14.460 align:middle line:84% The pain which is dedicated to me 00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:18.210 align:middle line:84% would perfectly fold into itself and we would both sleep side 00:17:18.210 --> 00:17:21.960 align:middle line:84% by side like indifferent parallel necessary mates 00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:23.939 align:middle line:84% navigating our way across the country. 00:17:23.939 --> 00:17:26.704 align:middle line:90% 00:17:26.704 --> 00:17:27.869 align:middle line:90% Have a slight cough. 00:17:27.869 --> 00:17:34.800 align:middle line:90% 00:17:34.800 --> 00:17:38.460 align:middle line:84% The next poem is loosely based on the time when 00:17:38.460 --> 00:17:41.460 align:middle line:84% I was living in San Francisco and teaching 00:17:41.460 --> 00:17:44.520 align:middle line:84% at the University of Santa Clara, which 00:17:44.520 --> 00:17:47.250 align:middle line:90% is a Jesuit college. 00:17:47.250 --> 00:17:51.920 align:middle line:84% I was divorced at the time and there 00:17:51.920 --> 00:17:54.420 align:middle line:84% was this priest who was head of the English department named 00:17:54.420 --> 00:17:57.870 align:middle line:84% Father Phipps who look kind of like a Jesuit Cary 00:17:57.870 --> 00:17:59.010 align:middle line:90% Grant in a sense. 00:17:59.010 --> 00:18:02.220 align:middle line:84% And he used to have these really lavish parties. 00:18:02.220 --> 00:18:05.640 align:middle line:84% And he used to say, everybody bring 00:18:05.640 --> 00:18:07.128 align:middle line:90% your husband or your wife. 00:18:07.128 --> 00:18:08.920 align:middle line:84% But he never could say bring your boyfriend 00:18:08.920 --> 00:18:10.378 align:middle line:84% or your girlfriend, he always says, 00:18:10.378 --> 00:18:13.080 align:middle line:90% bring your significant others. 00:18:13.080 --> 00:18:15.810 align:middle line:84% Bring your husbands and wives or significant others. 00:18:15.810 --> 00:18:19.725 align:middle line:84% And in this University there was a dress code for teachers. 00:18:19.725 --> 00:18:23.460 align:middle line:90% 00:18:23.460 --> 00:18:26.310 align:middle line:84% I mean, you weren't allowed to wear jeans 00:18:26.310 --> 00:18:27.955 align:middle line:90% or-- it's not like here. 00:18:27.955 --> 00:18:30.330 align:middle line:84% You weren't allowed to wear jeans or just casual clothes. 00:18:30.330 --> 00:18:31.788 align:middle line:84% And one time actually Father Phipps 00:18:31.788 --> 00:18:34.200 align:middle line:90% called me into his office. 00:18:34.200 --> 00:18:36.990 align:middle line:84% The way he told me I wasn't dressed right was he said, 00:18:36.990 --> 00:18:41.190 align:middle line:84% I think that you're dressed a little youngish. 00:18:41.190 --> 00:18:43.620 align:middle line:84% And he said what he meant is that the students like role 00:18:43.620 --> 00:18:44.850 align:middle line:84% models and they don't just want to see 00:18:44.850 --> 00:18:46.230 align:middle line:90% anybody who looks like them. 00:18:46.230 --> 00:18:48.840 align:middle line:90% 00:18:48.840 --> 00:18:51.600 align:middle line:90% They want to look up to us. 00:18:51.600 --> 00:18:53.640 align:middle line:84% The famed composition department. 00:18:53.640 --> 00:18:56.720 align:middle line:90% 00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:01.860 align:middle line:84% And then I used to go home and get out of all my fancy office 00:19:01.860 --> 00:19:03.298 align:middle line:90% girl clothes. 00:19:03.298 --> 00:19:05.340 align:middle line:84% Kelly girl, he liked us dressed like Kelly girls. 00:19:05.340 --> 00:19:07.260 align:middle line:84% And get out of my Kelly girl clothes 00:19:07.260 --> 00:19:10.920 align:middle line:84% and just put on the latest San Francisco garb 00:19:10.920 --> 00:19:12.567 align:middle line:84% and go down to the punk bar and dance. 00:19:12.567 --> 00:19:15.150 align:middle line:84% I used to feel wonderful, just having those two kind of lives. 00:19:15.150 --> 00:19:19.380 align:middle line:90% 00:19:19.380 --> 00:19:23.160 align:middle line:84% The persona of this poem is of course fictitious. 00:19:23.160 --> 00:19:26.373 align:middle line:84% I mean really, I didn't go to this length. 00:19:26.373 --> 00:19:28.290 align:middle line:84% I know too many people here, I don't want them 00:19:28.290 --> 00:19:29.655 align:middle line:90% to think that I'm like this. 00:19:29.655 --> 00:19:33.330 align:middle line:90% 00:19:33.330 --> 00:19:41.190 align:middle line:84% Ex-students, good friends, significant others. 00:19:41.190 --> 00:19:44.730 align:middle line:84% At the right-- let me-- wait before I start. 00:19:44.730 --> 00:19:47.100 align:middle line:90% My throat is really bad tonight. 00:19:47.100 --> 00:19:50.940 align:middle line:84% At The Rite Spot, a corner bar between Folsom and 17th, 00:19:50.940 --> 00:19:54.840 align:middle line:84% I'm caught again half drunk in mid-sentence between Tuesday 00:19:54.840 --> 00:19:57.210 align:middle line:84% and the story of his life these days. 00:19:57.210 --> 00:20:00.270 align:middle line:84% This oriental stranger who shines paper or something 00:20:00.270 --> 00:20:01.440 align:middle line:90% for a living. 00:20:01.440 --> 00:20:04.920 align:middle line:84% Snakeskin shirt and eyes, ruby studded lapel, 00:20:04.920 --> 00:20:07.740 align:middle line:84% he's jazzed on something not for sale, something 00:20:07.740 --> 00:20:10.080 align:middle line:84% I get if I go with him and slow dance 00:20:10.080 --> 00:20:12.270 align:middle line:84% to the rusted music on the jukebox, 00:20:12.270 --> 00:20:16.650 align:middle line:84% if I answer his senseless come ons about love. 00:20:16.650 --> 00:20:17.640 align:middle line:90% Who knows? 00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:20.040 align:middle line:84% Maybe I dress like I should go with strangers 00:20:20.040 --> 00:20:22.470 align:middle line:84% up and down the lumpy spine of the city, 00:20:22.470 --> 00:20:24.720 align:middle line:84% praying to the marquee of light at the Roxy 00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:27.930 align:middle line:84% where they're featuring Marilyn Monroe in her last year, 00:20:27.930 --> 00:20:31.170 align:middle line:84% bolt upright with fright and sleeplessness, plump 00:20:31.170 --> 00:20:32.520 align:middle line:90% and almost ripe. 00:20:32.520 --> 00:20:35.580 align:middle line:84% The drunker he gets, the more he babbles about Japan 00:20:35.580 --> 00:20:38.550 align:middle line:84% where the symbol for suicide is the cherry blossom, 00:20:38.550 --> 00:20:40.770 align:middle line:90% live briefly but gloriously. 00:20:40.770 --> 00:20:43.980 align:middle line:84% Who has time for early warnings, for the fur and diamond 00:20:43.980 --> 00:20:47.340 align:middle line:84% aura of movie stars, for the traffic and receipts? 00:20:47.340 --> 00:20:48.990 align:middle line:90% She died by accident. 00:20:48.990 --> 00:20:51.960 align:middle line:84% Love, isn't there another subject, another place 00:20:51.960 --> 00:20:53.790 align:middle line:90% to go without sleep? 00:20:53.790 --> 00:20:55.950 align:middle line:84% Come morning he'll guide my American heart 00:20:55.950 --> 00:21:00.030 align:middle line:84% and portable shoulders and walk me down to the vacant Pacific 00:21:00.030 --> 00:21:03.600 align:middle line:84% where ocean liners are getting ready to disembark. 00:21:03.600 --> 00:21:05.700 align:middle line:84% This side, the highway is stalled 00:21:05.700 --> 00:21:08.610 align:middle line:84% in its recent memory of evenings when things run out. 00:21:08.610 --> 00:21:12.330 align:middle line:84% The heart fails, sleep seizes the wheel, the disappointed 00:21:12.330 --> 00:21:14.340 align:middle line:90% lovers and insomniacs. 00:21:14.340 --> 00:21:16.920 align:middle line:84% Saturated, he rubs his belly like a stupid 00:21:16.920 --> 00:21:19.860 align:middle line:84% Buddha, fluffs out his lap, and calls me over. 00:21:19.860 --> 00:21:21.780 align:middle line:84% It's obvious, he doesn't have to ask. 00:21:21.780 --> 00:21:23.835 align:middle line:90% He knows my type. 00:21:23.835 --> 00:21:24.960 align:middle line:90% Dedicated to Father Phipps. 00:21:24.960 --> 00:21:29.550 align:middle line:90% 00:21:29.550 --> 00:21:30.090 align:middle line:90% Let's see. 00:21:30.090 --> 00:21:38.628 align:middle line:90% 00:21:38.628 --> 00:21:39.420 align:middle line:90% I went through it-- 00:21:39.420 --> 00:21:41.130 align:middle line:84% I guess I'm still going through a time I 00:21:41.130 --> 00:21:44.640 align:middle line:84% really like reading biographies of movie stars 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:48.300 align:middle line:84% and famous people, especially old movie stars. 00:21:48.300 --> 00:21:50.580 align:middle line:84% I know movie stars, like '40s movie stars. 00:21:50.580 --> 00:21:53.520 align:middle line:84% Particularly Montgomery Clift, I read those two biographies. 00:21:53.520 --> 00:21:57.000 align:middle line:84% And also the James Dean one which I'll 00:21:57.000 --> 00:21:58.290 align:middle line:90% talk about in my next poem. 00:21:58.290 --> 00:22:01.230 align:middle line:90% 00:22:01.230 --> 00:22:03.360 align:middle line:90% And it's kind of nice. 00:22:03.360 --> 00:22:07.470 align:middle line:84% I noticed that the two times I was interested in movie stars 00:22:07.470 --> 00:22:10.290 align:middle line:84% so to speak is I think that they're basically 00:22:10.290 --> 00:22:13.230 align:middle line:84% for adolescent girls and the very married. 00:22:13.230 --> 00:22:18.030 align:middle line:84% It's nice to be very married and have this kind of safe romance, 00:22:18.030 --> 00:22:22.470 align:middle line:84% vicarious romance with Montgomery Clift who's dead. 00:22:22.470 --> 00:22:25.663 align:middle line:90% Your husband never minds that. 00:22:25.663 --> 00:22:26.580 align:middle line:90% In fact, I must admit. 00:22:26.580 --> 00:22:28.140 align:middle line:84% I have a wall in my study and I have 00:22:28.140 --> 00:22:31.230 align:middle line:84% pictures of like Montgomery Clift, and James Dean, 00:22:31.230 --> 00:22:36.390 align:middle line:84% and Bruce Springsteen, and Richard Gere. 00:22:36.390 --> 00:22:38.805 align:middle line:84% And my husband one day I came into my study 00:22:38.805 --> 00:22:40.680 align:middle line:84% I noticed my husband put a picture of himself 00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:41.730 align:middle line:90% amongst the stars. 00:22:41.730 --> 00:22:44.490 align:middle line:90% 00:22:44.490 --> 00:22:45.315 align:middle line:90% I left it there. 00:22:45.315 --> 00:22:50.340 align:middle line:90% 00:22:50.340 --> 00:22:51.930 align:middle line:84% Anybody's invited to see the gallery. 00:22:51.930 --> 00:22:54.480 align:middle line:90% 00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:57.750 align:middle line:84% I read a quote by this San Francisco poet named Steve 00:22:57.750 --> 00:22:59.535 align:middle line:90% Abbott and I really liked it. 00:22:59.535 --> 00:23:00.660 align:middle line:90% It's about the biographies. 00:23:00.660 --> 00:23:02.520 align:middle line:90% He says, I read biographies. 00:23:02.520 --> 00:23:05.535 align:middle line:84% The woes of geniuses and stars cheer me up. 00:23:05.535 --> 00:23:09.000 align:middle line:90% 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:11.010 align:middle line:90% I confess. 00:23:11.010 --> 00:23:14.490 align:middle line:84% Because fantasy has no gravity and old boyfriends 00:23:14.490 --> 00:23:17.580 align:middle line:84% are like a row of motels without marriage, 00:23:17.580 --> 00:23:19.260 align:middle line:90% I sit in my living room-- 00:23:19.260 --> 00:23:20.520 align:middle line:90% my voice has gone. 00:23:20.520 --> 00:23:23.790 align:middle line:84% I sit in my living room of stale perfume, late movies 00:23:23.790 --> 00:23:26.460 align:middle line:84% for a background, fondling the biographies 00:23:26.460 --> 00:23:29.580 align:middle line:90% of a '40s actor gone wrong. 00:23:29.580 --> 00:23:32.220 align:middle line:84% Now dead, his life a public property. 00:23:32.220 --> 00:23:34.110 align:middle line:84% They can say what they want, the way 00:23:34.110 --> 00:23:36.000 align:middle line:90% you do about old boyfriends. 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:39.180 align:middle line:84% The one who looked so much like Montgomery Clift, people 00:23:39.180 --> 00:23:40.890 align:middle line:90% stopped him at luncheonettes. 00:23:40.890 --> 00:23:42.870 align:middle line:90% Don't I know you from some war? 00:23:42.870 --> 00:23:46.200 align:middle line:84% And he made me feel as glamorous as Elizabeth Taylor, 00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:48.780 align:middle line:84% a debutante when so obviously I wasn't. 00:23:48.780 --> 00:23:51.360 align:middle line:84% And our own famous story obviously nothing 00:23:51.360 --> 00:23:54.730 align:middle line:84% more than a grade B fantasy run to death. 00:23:54.730 --> 00:23:57.240 align:middle line:84% And then there was the convict I loved. 00:23:57.240 --> 00:23:59.970 align:middle line:84% Of all my old boyfriends, for only one or two would 00:23:59.970 --> 00:24:01.620 align:middle line:90% I lay myself down in the gutter. 00:24:01.620 --> 00:24:04.170 align:middle line:84% Could I imagine confessing anything and then 00:24:04.170 --> 00:24:06.570 align:middle line:84% emerging like the convict on the front page who 00:24:06.570 --> 00:24:09.360 align:middle line:84% admitted hating himself every minute of his life 00:24:09.360 --> 00:24:10.650 align:middle line:90% and the judge who pronounced. 00:24:10.650 --> 00:24:13.980 align:middle line:84% But everyone's terrific at hindsight and he was right. 00:24:13.980 --> 00:24:16.830 align:middle line:84% Who's to say who's wrong or who will have the last word? 00:24:16.830 --> 00:24:19.290 align:middle line:84% Who's to say if we'll be remembered like Monty? 00:24:19.290 --> 00:24:22.140 align:middle line:84% For being a lousy lover or having bad credit. 00:24:22.140 --> 00:24:25.890 align:middle line:84% Or would we maybe be spared to float down pleasure river 00:24:25.890 --> 00:24:29.790 align:middle line:84% forever, meeting old boyfriends unexpectedly in the emergency 00:24:29.790 --> 00:24:31.410 align:middle line:90% room of dreams. 00:24:31.410 --> 00:24:33.600 align:middle line:84% Who's to say what's to become of the past? 00:24:33.600 --> 00:24:35.670 align:middle line:90% Those perfectly edited stories. 00:24:35.670 --> 00:24:38.280 align:middle line:84% All those histories of false confessions. 00:24:38.280 --> 00:24:40.920 align:middle line:84% I'd rather watch it on the movies sitting faithfully 00:24:40.920 --> 00:24:45.030 align:middle line:84% on my mauve sofa like some Hollywood guru of self-denial, 00:24:45.030 --> 00:24:48.727 align:middle line:84% of glamour and passion gone wrong or just gone. 00:24:48.727 --> 00:24:50.310 align:middle line:84% I have to get a cough drop, excuse me. 00:24:50.310 --> 00:24:59.947 align:middle line:90% 00:24:59.947 --> 00:25:01.780 align:middle line:84% Next part of the reading will brought to you 00:25:01.780 --> 00:25:02.755 align:middle line:90% by Halls Cough Drops. 00:25:02.755 --> 00:25:17.620 align:middle line:90% 00:25:17.620 --> 00:25:22.300 align:middle line:84% The rest of the poems are new poems after the book. 00:25:22.300 --> 00:25:25.540 align:middle line:90% This is my James Dean poem. 00:25:25.540 --> 00:25:27.817 align:middle line:84% Just a little bit about James Dean. 00:25:27.817 --> 00:25:29.650 align:middle line:84% The only thing you really have to know-- you 00:25:29.650 --> 00:25:32.108 align:middle line:84% don't really have to know this but you may as well know it. 00:25:32.108 --> 00:25:34.480 align:middle line:90% 00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:36.910 align:middle line:84% The little bastard in the poem is the Porsche 00:25:36.910 --> 00:25:38.680 align:middle line:84% that Dean was killed in on his way 00:25:38.680 --> 00:25:40.930 align:middle line:84% to Salinas to race it because he was a race car driver 00:25:40.930 --> 00:25:43.930 align:middle line:84% and just killed in a regular auto-- 00:25:43.930 --> 00:25:45.550 align:middle line:84% I think this high speed auto accident 00:25:45.550 --> 00:25:48.965 align:middle line:84% when he was 24, going up to race this little silver Porsche 00:25:48.965 --> 00:25:49.465 align:middle line:90% Spyder. 00:25:49.465 --> 00:25:52.870 align:middle line:90% 00:25:52.870 --> 00:25:56.665 align:middle line:84% He was stopped twice on the way for speeding tickets. 00:25:56.665 --> 00:26:01.270 align:middle line:90% 00:26:01.270 --> 00:26:04.570 align:middle line:90% It's called Over Easy. 00:26:04.570 --> 00:26:07.600 align:middle line:84% From zoom to pause and I in the vacant mirror 00:26:07.600 --> 00:26:12.370 align:middle line:84% door am almost the public voice like not quite there. 00:26:12.370 --> 00:26:16.450 align:middle line:84% To be everybody at once is hard work and nobody loves you. 00:26:16.450 --> 00:26:19.510 align:middle line:84% In media res, in the long unfolding dream 00:26:19.510 --> 00:26:23.980 align:middle line:84% of yesternight evening, it's the dream actress again playing me. 00:26:23.980 --> 00:26:25.930 align:middle line:84% This time planted somewhere north 00:26:25.930 --> 00:26:30.790 align:middle line:84% on the DNA double twist of California Highway number 1. 00:26:30.790 --> 00:26:34.480 align:middle line:84% Yes, she's fine when the silver Porsche Spyder pulls up 00:26:34.480 --> 00:26:35.980 align:middle line:90% alongside. 00:26:35.980 --> 00:26:39.110 align:middle line:84% The little bastard, it's my hour-old boyfriend, 00:26:39.110 --> 00:26:42.160 align:middle line:84% who struts majestically out wearing James Dean's 00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:44.350 align:middle line:90% famous horn rimmed glasses. 00:26:44.350 --> 00:26:47.650 align:middle line:84% And when he gets out, she impersonating me, 00:26:47.650 --> 00:26:50.200 align:middle line:84% gets one of those dreamy dream hugs, 00:26:50.200 --> 00:26:54.460 align:middle line:84% putting her definitely outside her body map. 00:26:54.460 --> 00:26:57.250 align:middle line:84% Exactly like him another in the passenger seat 00:26:57.250 --> 00:27:02.020 align:middle line:84% bangs his hand to the music of the '50s against the dash. 00:27:02.020 --> 00:27:03.580 align:middle line:90% Am I jealous? 00:27:03.580 --> 00:27:05.740 align:middle line:90% Do I need two hugs? 00:27:05.740 --> 00:27:09.280 align:middle line:84% Do I think that James Dean is everybody's old boyfriend? 00:27:09.280 --> 00:27:12.790 align:middle line:84% And am I jealous if they sell his life sized poster 00:27:12.790 --> 00:27:15.520 align:middle line:84% in every store so as anybody who wants 00:27:15.520 --> 00:27:17.830 align:middle line:84% one can have him and dance with him 00:27:17.830 --> 00:27:20.260 align:middle line:90% and kiss him when necessary? 00:27:20.260 --> 00:27:23.020 align:middle line:84% Or is there a pill that feels like a hug? 00:27:23.020 --> 00:27:26.410 align:middle line:84% I want to know in other words, if say one morning standing 00:27:26.410 --> 00:27:29.320 align:middle line:84% behind the red vinyl light of the shower curtain, 00:27:29.320 --> 00:27:31.960 align:middle line:84% can I touch some secret inconspicuous spot 00:27:31.960 --> 00:27:35.530 align:middle line:84% and get a hit of that old ubiquitous razzmatazz. 00:27:35.530 --> 00:27:39.340 align:middle line:84% That and the power to will the likeness of my well- vacationed 00:27:39.340 --> 00:27:42.280 align:middle line:84% form skidding down the sleepy now slide 00:27:42.280 --> 00:27:48.790 align:middle line:84% happily zap me through the most ordinary of unprecedented AMs. 00:27:48.790 --> 00:27:50.980 align:middle line:84% And then on the mirrored restaurant wall, 00:27:50.980 --> 00:27:55.900 align:middle line:84% my life screened again, behind, above, below. 00:27:55.900 --> 00:27:58.030 align:middle line:84% The waitress tagged "Nicey" brings me 00:27:58.030 --> 00:28:00.850 align:middle line:90% my coffee and over easy. 00:28:00.850 --> 00:28:02.560 align:middle line:84% Tomorrow, unless they've changed it, 00:28:02.560 --> 00:28:05.890 align:middle line:84% supposed to be real bad again through smeared unfocused 00:28:05.890 --> 00:28:07.630 align:middle line:90% lipstick about the weather. 00:28:07.630 --> 00:28:10.960 align:middle line:84% My spider mouth opens wider in anticipation, 00:28:10.960 --> 00:28:14.510 align:middle line:84% zinging in acceleration, my rhythm the silverware shocks 00:28:14.510 --> 00:28:15.010 align:middle line:90% cold. 00:28:15.010 --> 00:28:27.990 align:middle line:90% 00:28:27.990 --> 00:28:30.420 align:middle line:84% This poem I wrote after watching a real live murder 00:28:30.420 --> 00:28:32.010 align:middle line:90% trial on cable TV. 00:28:32.010 --> 00:28:36.130 align:middle line:84% It's called Meat Never Cooks in the House of the Murderer. 00:28:36.130 --> 00:28:39.070 align:middle line:90% 00:28:39.070 --> 00:28:42.420 align:middle line:84% It's a lousy thing when it's not a movie. 00:28:42.420 --> 00:28:46.650 align:middle line:84% Exhibit 41 A, a small jawbone from a pack rat's nest 00:28:46.650 --> 00:28:49.770 align:middle line:84% that her mother had to say was her, was hers. 00:28:49.770 --> 00:28:52.680 align:middle line:90% And the dented black Z car his. 00:28:52.680 --> 00:28:55.380 align:middle line:84% And more than coincidentally scarred just the right shade 00:28:55.380 --> 00:28:59.550 align:middle line:84% of guilty pink from the bicycle she never returned home riding. 00:28:59.550 --> 00:29:03.780 align:middle line:84% Evidence more damning than any derelict alibi, like a place 00:29:03.780 --> 00:29:07.020 align:middle line:84% he could have crashed when the sun went down by his time 00:29:07.020 --> 00:29:09.690 align:middle line:90% at the homeless park. 00:29:09.690 --> 00:29:12.630 align:middle line:84% And that personal sense of time was everywhere 00:29:12.630 --> 00:29:15.480 align:middle line:84% as was the inscrutable miracle hearsay. 00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:21.870 align:middle line:84% Mass witnesses, mass remembering September 2 years ago. 00:29:21.870 --> 00:29:24.750 align:middle line:84% A late afternoon, nobody fully attended. 00:29:24.750 --> 00:29:28.860 align:middle line:84% Just a pink blur on adobe and the more focused pink smudge 00:29:28.860 --> 00:29:31.920 align:middle line:84% from his car that experts agree to be the pretty pink 00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:35.130 align:middle line:84% from her bicycle or one taken from an identical source 00:29:35.130 --> 00:29:38.490 align:middle line:90% so help her God. 00:29:38.490 --> 00:29:40.800 align:middle line:84% It's because the world comes in extremes. 00:29:40.800 --> 00:29:43.650 align:middle line:84% One witness's voice beamed through to my living room 00:29:43.650 --> 00:29:46.380 align:middle line:84% where I sat sipping Coca-Cola, listening 00:29:46.380 --> 00:29:48.480 align:middle line:90% to the snaps on cable TV. 00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:53.820 align:middle line:84% The cause of death, the fact of death, death by misadventure, 00:29:53.820 --> 00:29:55.230 align:middle line:90% and that brilliant duck. 00:29:55.230 --> 00:29:58.260 align:middle line:84% His lawyer offering you the intimacy of his entire 00:29:58.260 --> 00:30:01.800 align:middle line:84% magnified cratered face like a father. 00:30:01.800 --> 00:30:03.400 align:middle line:84% You hear me what I'm saying to you? 00:30:03.400 --> 00:30:04.320 align:middle line:90% You hear? 00:30:04.320 --> 00:30:05.940 align:middle line:84% But whatever it was I've done wrong 00:30:05.940 --> 00:30:09.330 align:middle line:84% I couldn't remember that whole realm 00:30:09.330 --> 00:30:10.890 align:middle line:84% of standing on the edge of things. 00:30:10.890 --> 00:30:13.920 align:middle line:84% The railroad tracks, the breakwater, the precipice 00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:16.110 align:middle line:84% of an ancient futuristic urban ruin 00:30:16.110 --> 00:30:18.390 align:middle line:84% are things that would invade my dreams, 00:30:18.390 --> 00:30:21.660 align:middle line:84% things I couldn't talk about but recognized, deja vu. 00:30:21.660 --> 00:30:23.310 align:middle line:84% And the hungry hollow eyes of the 00:30:23.310 --> 00:30:26.490 align:middle line:84% accused and also in the eyes of the dead girl's mother 00:30:26.490 --> 00:30:32.010 align:middle line:84% broadcasting revenge, which is a hungry feeling too. 00:30:32.010 --> 00:30:33.780 align:middle line:84% The night before they found him guilty 00:30:33.780 --> 00:30:36.600 align:middle line:84% and sentenced him to die, I dreamed I was his girl 00:30:36.600 --> 00:30:39.210 align:middle line:84% and trapped in an apartment while a hunk of meat 00:30:39.210 --> 00:30:42.360 align:middle line:84% rotated in his family's rotisserie, luminous 00:30:42.360 --> 00:30:45.390 align:middle line:90% like a real live TV. 00:30:45.390 --> 00:30:48.930 align:middle line:84% They made us watch, said we were witnesses who couldn't move. 00:30:48.930 --> 00:30:51.330 align:middle line:84% Meat would not cook in the house of the murderer. 00:30:51.330 --> 00:30:54.870 align:middle line:84% It didn't cook, its bruised surface like a pink verdict, 00:30:54.870 --> 00:30:58.170 align:middle line:84% like a handball of bones and steel and anger, 00:30:58.170 --> 00:31:00.180 align:middle line:84% and a smashed bicycle, and a bumper 00:31:00.180 --> 00:31:03.315 align:middle line:84% from a car in the hard edge lines of madness and luck. 00:31:03.315 --> 00:31:11.913 align:middle line:90% 00:31:11.913 --> 00:31:13.830 align:middle line:84% Lois said that since this is a poetry reading, 00:31:13.830 --> 00:31:16.760 align:middle line:84% I can't read any part of my novel. 00:31:16.760 --> 00:31:18.530 align:middle line:90% Yes, you did. 00:31:18.530 --> 00:31:19.160 align:middle line:90% I remember. 00:31:19.160 --> 00:31:21.560 align:middle line:90% I have the date and time on it. 00:31:21.560 --> 00:31:23.270 align:middle line:90% So I'm going to cheat a little. 00:31:23.270 --> 00:31:26.910 align:middle line:90% 00:31:26.910 --> 00:31:32.415 align:middle line:84% I'm working on a novel basically about-- 00:31:32.415 --> 00:31:34.040 align:middle line:84% it's a first person novel about a woman 00:31:34.040 --> 00:31:38.015 align:middle line:84% obsessed with those kind of hard core late night talk shows. 00:31:38.015 --> 00:31:41.120 align:middle line:90% 00:31:41.120 --> 00:31:44.180 align:middle line:84% The hard core sense, it's not that kind of hard core. 00:31:44.180 --> 00:31:47.630 align:middle line:84% It's a psychiatrist on the radio. 00:31:47.630 --> 00:31:48.540 align:middle line:90% It's an 800 number. 00:31:48.540 --> 00:31:50.570 align:middle line:84% And you call in to the psychiatrist. 00:31:50.570 --> 00:31:54.290 align:middle line:84% And these are people who really, really are in pain. 00:31:54.290 --> 00:31:58.188 align:middle line:84% People who are like paranoid schizophrenics, and psychotics, 00:31:58.188 --> 00:32:00.230 align:middle line:84% and people who have attempted suicide, et cetera. 00:32:00.230 --> 00:32:03.110 align:middle line:84% Multiple personalities have been a few of those. 00:32:03.110 --> 00:32:06.020 align:middle line:84% And I know I've been listening to this for-- 00:32:06.020 --> 00:32:08.690 align:middle line:84% I just came upon it accidentally about a few years ago 00:32:08.690 --> 00:32:11.660 align:middle line:84% and I'm sort of addicted to listening to these shows. 00:32:11.660 --> 00:32:17.900 align:middle line:84% And people talk real poetry, just spontaneously it seems. 00:32:17.900 --> 00:32:20.468 align:middle line:84% And I would occasionally copy down really nice lines 00:32:20.468 --> 00:32:21.635 align:middle line:90% and save them in a notebook. 00:32:21.635 --> 00:32:26.000 align:middle line:90% 00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:27.603 align:middle line:84% And so what I did, actually I started 00:32:27.603 --> 00:32:29.270 align:middle line:84% working on a series of what I call poems 00:32:29.270 --> 00:32:32.400 align:middle line:90% but they weren't quite poems. 00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:34.400 align:middle line:84% The novel is also about this woman's adventures, 00:32:34.400 --> 00:32:36.330 align:middle line:90% I won't go into that. 00:32:36.330 --> 00:32:39.380 align:middle line:84% But what I decided to do is make this series the sort 00:32:39.380 --> 00:32:40.370 align:middle line:90% of dramatic monologues. 00:32:40.370 --> 00:32:41.810 align:middle line:84% So sort of not poetry and not fiction. 00:32:41.810 --> 00:32:42.977 align:middle line:90% I mean, they're phone calls. 00:32:42.977 --> 00:32:47.210 align:middle line:90% 00:32:47.210 --> 00:32:49.160 align:middle line:84% There's no precedent for that so I could 00:32:49.160 --> 00:32:51.920 align:middle line:90% be as sloppy as I want here. 00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:53.730 align:middle line:90% I'm going to read three of them. 00:32:53.730 --> 00:32:55.340 align:middle line:90% Some of them are kind of long. 00:32:55.340 --> 00:32:56.630 align:middle line:90% The first one is actually-- 00:32:56.630 --> 00:32:58.950 align:middle line:84% I wrote this about a year and a half ago. 00:32:58.950 --> 00:33:00.290 align:middle line:90% It's the shortest one. 00:33:00.290 --> 00:33:04.700 align:middle line:84% And it's not very typical of basic poems. 00:33:04.700 --> 00:33:07.380 align:middle line:84% The basic-- excuse me, phone calls. 00:33:07.380 --> 00:33:08.630 align:middle line:90% But I'm going to read through. 00:33:08.630 --> 00:33:10.030 align:middle line:84% I'll start out with the short one 00:33:10.030 --> 00:33:11.280 align:middle line:90% and then I'll read two others. 00:33:11.280 --> 00:33:17.990 align:middle line:84% And I wanted to give a short-- a brief reading and I'll do it-- 00:33:17.990 --> 00:33:19.460 align:middle line:90% hope my voice holds out. 00:33:19.460 --> 00:33:22.737 align:middle line:90% 00:33:22.737 --> 00:33:24.320 align:middle line:84% The only thing you really have to know 00:33:24.320 --> 00:33:26.585 align:middle line:84% is the doctor's name is Dr. Alan Berman. 00:33:26.585 --> 00:33:32.600 align:middle line:90% 00:33:32.600 --> 00:33:34.910 align:middle line:90% Good evening, Dr. Berman. 00:33:34.910 --> 00:33:38.390 align:middle line:84% I'm a first time caller and you know, nervous. 00:33:38.390 --> 00:33:39.530 align:middle line:90% It's these doctors. 00:33:39.530 --> 00:33:42.380 align:middle line:84% You see they keep telling me to put endings on these dreams 00:33:42.380 --> 00:33:44.090 align:middle line:90% like I'm a winner. 00:33:44.090 --> 00:33:47.030 align:middle line:84% Really, I'm only a woman, 34 years old 00:33:47.030 --> 00:33:48.350 align:middle line:90% and living in this night. 00:33:48.350 --> 00:33:51.260 align:middle line:84% Jesus Christ, I don't know why I'm sleeping. 00:33:51.260 --> 00:33:54.170 align:middle line:84% This man comes to my door, black and shiny, 00:33:54.170 --> 00:33:56.540 align:middle line:84% in a red satin outfit and little hat, 00:33:56.540 --> 00:33:59.630 align:middle line:84% who says he wants to kill something, me. 00:33:59.630 --> 00:34:02.150 align:middle line:84% Sometimes he's only a flat and sweaty face 00:34:02.150 --> 00:34:05.000 align:middle line:84% propped on my doorstep like falling apart 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:08.000 align:middle line:84% in slow motion and the dark time before which 00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:10.400 align:middle line:84% goes on and on like a bingo game where 00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:13.190 align:middle line:84% they call all the numbers and still no one's winning. 00:34:13.190 --> 00:34:15.469 align:middle line:84% And then I hit Dunkin' Donuts knowing how 00:34:15.469 --> 00:34:17.210 align:middle line:90% everyone wants a piece of me. 00:34:17.210 --> 00:34:18.920 align:middle line:84% Those characters with their always 00:34:18.920 --> 00:34:21.710 align:middle line:90% in trouble personalities. 00:34:21.710 --> 00:34:24.260 align:middle line:84% Just for the fun of it, they can rip me apart, 00:34:24.260 --> 00:34:27.110 align:middle line:84% go through my bag and body and still not know 00:34:27.110 --> 00:34:30.860 align:middle line:84% how my days borrow endlessly through the grocery aisles. 00:34:30.860 --> 00:34:33.230 align:middle line:84% Dr. Berman, I'm telling you this from my heart. 00:34:33.230 --> 00:34:36.170 align:middle line:84% Killing alone doesn't seem to satisfy some guys. 00:34:36.170 --> 00:34:40.850 align:middle line:84% This is why I can never die, why I can never be satisfied. 00:34:40.850 --> 00:34:43.610 align:middle line:84% In tonight's dream I'm driving through this deserted Sunday 00:34:43.610 --> 00:34:44.239 align:middle line:90% town. 00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:47.300 align:middle line:84% A red and shiny convertible pulls up alongside me. 00:34:47.300 --> 00:34:50.780 align:middle line:84% Baby, says the red and black man, baby I want you. 00:34:50.780 --> 00:34:52.460 align:middle line:84% And I'm wanting him too, the music 00:34:52.460 --> 00:34:54.530 align:middle line:90% exploding from his car radio. 00:34:54.530 --> 00:34:57.680 align:middle line:84% The whole town looking like it would through red sunglasses. 00:34:57.680 --> 00:35:00.150 align:middle line:90% Every storefront window on fire. 00:35:00.150 --> 00:35:02.210 align:middle line:90% And my desire so immense. 00:35:02.210 --> 00:35:03.620 align:middle line:90% But I can't say yes. 00:35:03.620 --> 00:35:07.220 align:middle line:84% But Jay Carney says, baby you can do anything in a dream. 00:35:07.220 --> 00:35:09.950 align:middle line:84% Then I shut my eyes as tight as they go, turn 00:35:09.950 --> 00:35:12.720 align:middle line:84% down the volume of my radio till something clicks. 00:35:12.720 --> 00:35:15.200 align:middle line:84% And I pick up the receiver, smooth back my hair, 00:35:15.200 --> 00:35:17.210 align:middle line:84% and call in your show like I'm a winner. 00:35:17.210 --> 00:35:18.115 align:middle line:90% Oh, I forgot to say. 00:35:18.115 --> 00:35:20.240 align:middle line:84% My name is Patricia and I'm calling from Baltimore. 00:35:20.240 --> 00:35:25.880 align:middle line:90% 00:35:25.880 --> 00:35:28.250 align:middle line:84% The next one is going to be kind of difficult to read 00:35:28.250 --> 00:35:31.460 align:middle line:84% because it's a guy named Bill and he's a kind 00:35:31.460 --> 00:35:33.212 align:middle line:90% of country and Western guy. 00:35:33.212 --> 00:35:34.670 align:middle line:84% I don't even want to pretend that I 00:35:34.670 --> 00:35:36.378 align:middle line:84% could talk like a country and Western guy 00:35:36.378 --> 00:35:40.935 align:middle line:84% so you're just going to have to pretend that I am. 00:35:40.935 --> 00:35:43.310 align:middle line:84% I tried it at home but it was just too embarrassing, even 00:35:43.310 --> 00:35:44.185 align:middle line:90% in front of a mirror. 00:35:44.185 --> 00:35:50.830 align:middle line:90% 00:35:50.830 --> 00:35:52.315 align:middle line:90% These two are very, very new. 00:35:52.315 --> 00:35:55.000 align:middle line:90% 00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:56.832 align:middle line:90% Bill. 00:35:56.832 --> 00:35:58.540 align:middle line:84% I want to say right off that I've learned 00:35:58.540 --> 00:36:00.100 align:middle line:90% a lot from your show, Alan. 00:36:00.100 --> 00:36:02.140 align:middle line:84% I wish every damn fool would listen because I'm 00:36:02.140 --> 00:36:03.610 align:middle line:90% one of them damn fools. 00:36:03.610 --> 00:36:07.390 align:middle line:84% But like they talk about in country songs, a fool for love. 00:36:07.390 --> 00:36:09.950 align:middle line:84% You see, I love women and I can't resist 00:36:09.950 --> 00:36:11.650 align:middle line:90% the one I might make happy. 00:36:11.650 --> 00:36:13.600 align:middle line:84% You think that would be a good thing in itself 00:36:13.600 --> 00:36:16.810 align:middle line:84% to love, to stand on the street corner in your eelskin boots 00:36:16.810 --> 00:36:18.460 align:middle line:90% and see what's happening by. 00:36:18.460 --> 00:36:19.000 align:middle line:90% Shoot. 00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:22.090 align:middle line:84% I was married a few times and had me a few kids. 00:36:22.090 --> 00:36:24.070 align:middle line:84% Take off the wheels and put down the bricks, 00:36:24.070 --> 00:36:25.660 align:middle line:90% mobile home kind of life. 00:36:25.660 --> 00:36:28.630 align:middle line:84% For 10 years, 15 years, that happened. 00:36:28.630 --> 00:36:30.220 align:middle line:84% Until it got what I personally came 00:36:30.220 --> 00:36:33.490 align:middle line:90% to call that pulling feeling. 00:36:33.490 --> 00:36:35.680 align:middle line:84% At first I thought it was magic being pulled 00:36:35.680 --> 00:36:38.860 align:middle line:84% by I don't know what, when I looked up for my coffee 00:36:38.860 --> 00:36:42.190 align:middle line:84% at this beautiful waitress with permanent wave black hair 00:36:42.190 --> 00:36:44.770 align:middle line:84% and a happiness so direct like 3D 00:36:44.770 --> 00:36:47.410 align:middle line:84% I wanted to reach out and touch it. 00:36:47.410 --> 00:36:50.530 align:middle line:84% That was the sexiest thing I've ever seen. 00:36:50.530 --> 00:36:53.110 align:middle line:84% For a year after it was her and nothing else. 00:36:53.110 --> 00:36:56.260 align:middle line:84% She was the white stuff and I was a drug addict. 00:36:56.260 --> 00:36:57.820 align:middle line:84% Sure, there was always this point 00:36:57.820 --> 00:36:59.890 align:middle line:84% where I tried to clean up my accents, 00:36:59.890 --> 00:37:03.280 align:middle line:84% where I try to clean up my act some, be a real citizen, 00:37:03.280 --> 00:37:07.040 align:middle line:84% be on time go home, but there was nothing else in the world. 00:37:07.040 --> 00:37:09.550 align:middle line:84% But before I knew it, it would happen to me again. 00:37:09.550 --> 00:37:12.040 align:middle line:84% I turned the corner at the Kmart and be at the mercy 00:37:12.040 --> 00:37:13.480 align:middle line:90% of some pretty little thing. 00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:14.320 align:middle line:90% Goodbye. 00:37:14.320 --> 00:37:15.820 align:middle line:90% It was off to the races again. 00:37:15.820 --> 00:37:16.780 align:middle line:90% It was all over. 00:37:16.780 --> 00:37:18.310 align:middle line:90% See what I mean? 00:37:18.310 --> 00:37:20.500 align:middle line:90% I was having all this bad fun. 00:37:20.500 --> 00:37:22.660 align:middle line:84% I was the saddest song on the radio 00:37:22.660 --> 00:37:24.580 align:middle line:84% and I needed more than I could handle. 00:37:24.580 --> 00:37:27.540 align:middle line:84% It was like trying to fill this big old hole in my belly. 00:37:27.540 --> 00:37:31.150 align:middle line:84% And I need hundreds of them and still wake up empty and alone. 00:37:31.150 --> 00:37:33.490 align:middle line:90% It was a sad song and I danced. 00:37:33.490 --> 00:37:35.470 align:middle line:84% Well, I would say seeing three at 00:37:35.470 --> 00:37:39.790 align:middle line:84% once until I made them too much like me for me to want them. 00:37:39.790 --> 00:37:41.980 align:middle line:84% It was like I neutralized them or something 00:37:41.980 --> 00:37:44.320 align:middle line:90% until they didn't mean a thing. 00:37:44.320 --> 00:37:46.870 align:middle line:84% Then I do all the right things and see 00:37:46.870 --> 00:37:48.040 align:middle line:90% lawyers and the shrinks. 00:37:48.040 --> 00:37:50.830 align:middle line:84% And as it turned out, I had this problem ever 00:37:50.830 --> 00:37:52.940 align:middle line:90% since I've been on Earth. 00:37:52.940 --> 00:37:55.270 align:middle line:84% I'd open doors and they'd change the locks. 00:37:55.270 --> 00:37:58.420 align:middle line:84% And so it turns out what with all these women and rooms, 00:37:58.420 --> 00:38:00.200 align:middle line:84% that I'm as homeless as they make them. 00:38:00.200 --> 00:38:02.170 align:middle line:84% So I call my old man in New Zealand. 00:38:02.170 --> 00:38:05.050 align:middle line:84% He moved there three years ago when I was a pup. 00:38:05.050 --> 00:38:07.870 align:middle line:84% Because I remember that one time I asked him simply like a kid 00:38:07.870 --> 00:38:11.260 align:middle line:84% asks, what was the best thing, I meant of everything? 00:38:11.260 --> 00:38:14.500 align:middle line:84% Hell, he scrunched up his face and said "women," just as plain 00:38:14.500 --> 00:38:15.340 align:middle line:90% as a curse. 00:38:15.340 --> 00:38:18.160 align:middle line:84% You can't live with them and you can't live with them. 00:38:18.160 --> 00:38:20.140 align:middle line:84% And I had always just remembered him 00:38:20.140 --> 00:38:24.130 align:middle line:84% as a big fat bulbous nosed drunk, ugly as a pooch. 00:38:24.130 --> 00:38:27.580 align:middle line:84% So now like 35 years later I call long distance 00:38:27.580 --> 00:38:29.150 align:middle line:90% and tell him my problem. 00:38:29.150 --> 00:38:32.290 align:middle line:84% So he asked me matter of fact like nothing's happened, what's 00:38:32.290 --> 00:38:33.580 align:middle line:90% the best thing for me? 00:38:33.580 --> 00:38:35.710 align:middle line:84% And I go well, hell, it's got to be 00:38:35.710 --> 00:38:37.570 align:middle line:84% whatever particular girl I happen to be 00:38:37.570 --> 00:38:40.510 align:middle line:90% with in any particular moment. 00:38:40.510 --> 00:38:42.820 align:middle line:84% And even over the phone I hear him scrunch up his face 00:38:42.820 --> 00:38:44.170 align:middle line:90% and he goes, it's OK. 00:38:44.170 --> 00:38:45.220 align:middle line:90% You'll be all right. 00:38:45.220 --> 00:38:46.810 align:middle line:90% Bob's your uncle. 00:38:46.810 --> 00:38:47.310 align:middle line:90% Bob? 00:38:47.310 --> 00:38:47.810 align:middle line:90% What? 00:38:47.810 --> 00:38:49.480 align:middle line:84% I say because I don't know no uncle Bob. 00:38:49.480 --> 00:38:51.370 align:middle line:90% And he goes, Bob's your uncle. 00:38:51.370 --> 00:38:54.340 align:middle line:84% It's New Zealand talk from the airline pilots. 00:38:54.340 --> 00:38:56.950 align:middle line:84% I think it means piece of cake, everything will be all right. 00:38:56.950 --> 00:38:58.780 align:middle line:90% Something like, live it all out. 00:38:58.780 --> 00:39:01.120 align:middle line:84% It all adds up to the same thing. 00:39:01.120 --> 00:39:03.550 align:middle line:84% Kind of like Johnny Cash but less intellectual. 00:39:03.550 --> 00:39:07.960 align:middle line:90% 00:39:07.960 --> 00:39:11.680 align:middle line:84% But in the end Dr. Berman, all that philosophical stuff 00:39:11.680 --> 00:39:12.520 align:middle line:90% ain't nada. 00:39:12.520 --> 00:39:14.890 align:middle line:84% When that pulling feeling gets its claws in me 00:39:14.890 --> 00:39:17.380 align:middle line:84% and I start to feel something like a giant, 00:39:17.380 --> 00:39:20.350 align:middle line:84% I want beautiful women to explode inside me. 00:39:20.350 --> 00:39:22.540 align:middle line:84% You know, that's a good description of it. 00:39:22.540 --> 00:39:24.730 align:middle line:84% I want to be the biggest guy on Earth, the one who 00:39:24.730 --> 00:39:28.780 align:middle line:84% takes care of all the women, the one whose only problem that is 00:39:28.780 --> 00:39:30.880 align:middle line:84% that his cup so to speak runneth over 00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:33.520 align:middle line:84% instead of the big daddy crying in his beer. 00:39:33.520 --> 00:39:36.700 align:middle line:84% I can't resist making certain female type individuals happy 00:39:36.700 --> 00:39:38.230 align:middle line:90% if that's a problem. 00:39:38.230 --> 00:39:41.360 align:middle line:84% I myself think that the answer is in the eyes of the beholder. 00:39:41.360 --> 00:39:43.780 align:middle line:84% But I need someone professional like to second me. 00:39:43.780 --> 00:39:46.021 align:middle line:90% What do you think? 00:39:46.021 --> 00:39:49.360 align:middle line:90% [CLAPPING] 00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:53.180 align:middle line:90% 00:39:53.180 --> 00:39:53.875 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:39:53.875 --> 00:39:55.250 align:middle line:84% This is going to be the last one. 00:39:55.250 --> 00:39:58.810 align:middle line:84% I decided I wanted to make this short reading because I 00:39:58.810 --> 00:40:02.020 align:middle line:84% appreciated Joy Williams-- as one 00:40:02.020 --> 00:40:04.450 align:middle line:84% of you I appreciated Joy Williams' short reading. 00:40:04.450 --> 00:40:07.130 align:middle line:90% 00:40:07.130 --> 00:40:12.782 align:middle line:84% This is a more somber person but it's the last person. 00:40:12.782 --> 00:40:13.615 align:middle line:90% Her name is Dorothy. 00:40:13.615 --> 00:40:20.910 align:middle line:90% 00:40:20.910 --> 00:40:25.200 align:middle line:84% Dr. Berman, I'm a faithful listener and first-time caller. 00:40:25.200 --> 00:40:27.540 align:middle line:84% I know that other people still need you-- 00:40:27.540 --> 00:40:28.950 align:middle line:90% let me start that again. 00:40:28.950 --> 00:40:32.730 align:middle line:84% Dr. Berman, I'm a faithful listener and first-time caller. 00:40:32.730 --> 00:40:35.250 align:middle line:84% I know that other people still need your solution so I won't 00:40:35.250 --> 00:40:37.500 align:middle line:90% take up much of your time. 00:40:37.500 --> 00:40:41.220 align:middle line:84% My circumstances are that my father died in '75, 00:40:41.220 --> 00:40:43.260 align:middle line:84% though actually he's still in the phone book. 00:40:43.260 --> 00:40:46.890 align:middle line:84% My mother in '80, and my brother died of suicide in '81, 00:40:46.890 --> 00:40:48.330 align:middle line:90% though I predicted that. 00:40:48.330 --> 00:40:51.450 align:middle line:84% For years I woke up with this feeling like a raw egg. 00:40:51.450 --> 00:40:53.770 align:middle line:84% When you wake up into a sort of amnesia, 00:40:53.770 --> 00:40:55.620 align:middle line:84% not remembering exactly who you are 00:40:55.620 --> 00:40:57.690 align:middle line:84% or what's been happening in your life. 00:40:57.690 --> 00:40:59.730 align:middle line:84% And then you force yourself up and snap up 00:40:59.730 --> 00:41:02.160 align:middle line:84% the shades just to prove it to yourself you're not 00:41:02.160 --> 00:41:04.350 align:middle line:84% trapped in one of those layers of sleep 00:41:04.350 --> 00:41:06.600 align:middle line:84% where you think you're awake but you're not. 00:41:06.600 --> 00:41:10.410 align:middle line:84% And the sun, well, it's a little like being electrocuted. 00:41:10.410 --> 00:41:13.500 align:middle line:84% I don't know if you've ever been electrocuted or not. 00:41:13.500 --> 00:41:15.630 align:middle line:84% It involves the surge from survival 00:41:15.630 --> 00:41:18.270 align:middle line:84% to get away quick but also this more intense 00:41:18.270 --> 00:41:21.540 align:middle line:84% urge like an orgasm in a magnetic field to stay put. 00:41:21.540 --> 00:41:26.152 align:middle line:84% In other words, it's like a thrill of fear, it weakens you. 00:41:26.152 --> 00:41:28.110 align:middle line:84% But I don't want to get off the point too much. 00:41:28.110 --> 00:41:30.720 align:middle line:84% I sometimes think I'm psychic because I see things 00:41:30.720 --> 00:41:31.920 align:middle line:90% that no one else does. 00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:35.100 align:middle line:84% I can sense shapes and such in the dark, spirits 00:41:35.100 --> 00:41:36.420 align:middle line:90% and evil passions. 00:41:36.420 --> 00:41:38.760 align:middle line:84% It's the way I pay my debt though I see them 00:41:38.760 --> 00:41:40.660 align:middle line:90% for what they are. 00:41:40.660 --> 00:41:43.020 align:middle line:84% I could put on the light but the fear is still there. 00:41:43.020 --> 00:41:46.230 align:middle line:90% I saw it, it's like that. 00:41:46.230 --> 00:41:48.090 align:middle line:84% I was a kid when I first discovered this. 00:41:48.090 --> 00:41:49.890 align:middle line:84% I used to feel there was a part of me 00:41:49.890 --> 00:41:51.870 align:middle line:84% that no one else could see, some aura 00:41:51.870 --> 00:41:54.090 align:middle line:84% made of light beams and invisible currents. 00:41:54.090 --> 00:41:56.970 align:middle line:84% Something that lacks the substance to die. 00:41:56.970 --> 00:41:58.770 align:middle line:84% I remember walking around the neighborhood 00:41:58.770 --> 00:42:01.950 align:middle line:84% thinking I could never die because I was never not here. 00:42:01.950 --> 00:42:05.280 align:middle line:84% I simply remembered too much that no one could account for. 00:42:05.280 --> 00:42:08.160 align:middle line:84% The first time I felt this was when I saw The Wizard of Oz. 00:42:08.160 --> 00:42:09.960 align:middle line:90% It explained a few things to me. 00:42:09.960 --> 00:42:12.450 align:middle line:84% And the strange thing was I had braids at the time 00:42:12.450 --> 00:42:15.030 align:middle line:84% and my name was originally Cecilia Dorothy, 00:42:15.030 --> 00:42:17.190 align:middle line:90% then Cecilia, then Dorothy. 00:42:17.190 --> 00:42:19.620 align:middle line:84% Because of the movie I changed it to just Dorothy. 00:42:19.620 --> 00:42:22.050 align:middle line:84% You see, even then I was always chipping away 00:42:22.050 --> 00:42:26.010 align:middle line:84% little pieces of myself and I lived in the moment. 00:42:26.010 --> 00:42:28.170 align:middle line:84% I know you're probably thinking how silly I am, 00:42:28.170 --> 00:42:29.850 align:middle line:90% that it all sounds so silly. 00:42:29.850 --> 00:42:31.020 align:middle line:90% But it's all I had. 00:42:31.020 --> 00:42:33.360 align:middle line:84% I had no friends to speak of or anything. 00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:36.720 align:middle line:84% But I remember skipping to school pretending 00:42:36.720 --> 00:42:39.240 align:middle line:84% to be Judy Garland singing that ditty, Lions 00:42:39.240 --> 00:42:40.320 align:middle line:90% and Tigers and Bears. 00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:41.070 align:middle line:90% Oh my. 00:42:41.070 --> 00:42:43.320 align:middle line:84% And then I'd start thinking, Oh my. 00:42:43.320 --> 00:42:45.750 align:middle line:84% The kids always teasing me about being too skinny 00:42:45.750 --> 00:42:48.180 align:middle line:90% and wearing thick glasses. 00:42:48.180 --> 00:42:50.010 align:middle line:84% And when I'd cry the teacher would say, 00:42:50.010 --> 00:42:52.110 align:middle line:84% Cecilia, turn off the waterworks, 00:42:52.110 --> 00:42:54.840 align:middle line:84% which of course made me cry more and them laugh more. 00:42:54.840 --> 00:42:56.670 align:middle line:84% Till the time came when I'd skip home 00:42:56.670 --> 00:42:59.520 align:middle line:84% thinking, thinking, thinking, oh my. 00:42:59.520 --> 00:43:02.460 align:middle line:84% Danger would appear everywhere suddenly like flies. 00:43:02.460 --> 00:43:04.307 align:middle line:84% And then of course like the movie, 00:43:04.307 --> 00:43:06.390 align:middle line:84% everything from behind the block and in the bushes 00:43:06.390 --> 00:43:10.710 align:middle line:84% was watching me, was scratching and howling and blowing up. 00:43:10.710 --> 00:43:13.860 align:middle line:84% By the time I was a teenager, I felt sure everything 00:43:13.860 --> 00:43:15.090 align:middle line:90% was spying on me. 00:43:15.090 --> 00:43:17.340 align:middle line:84% Everyone knew a secret and they weren't telling. 00:43:17.340 --> 00:43:18.900 align:middle line:84% And the faces in the shopping malls 00:43:18.900 --> 00:43:21.330 align:middle line:84% became grotesque and horrible masks, 00:43:21.330 --> 00:43:23.220 align:middle line:90% and the masks became the faces. 00:43:23.220 --> 00:43:25.500 align:middle line:84% And with my own eyes I looked at the merchandise 00:43:25.500 --> 00:43:28.140 align:middle line:84% on the counters become animate and dangerous. 00:43:28.140 --> 00:43:31.380 align:middle line:84% Boxes of band-aids opening like mouths. 00:43:31.380 --> 00:43:34.740 align:middle line:84% And outside, hallucinations stalked the streets of town 00:43:34.740 --> 00:43:38.190 align:middle line:84% until I was sure I was being followed around by a magician. 00:43:38.190 --> 00:43:39.900 align:middle line:90% That's what it came to. 00:43:39.900 --> 00:43:42.242 align:middle line:84% Maybe the bottom line came when everyone died 00:43:42.242 --> 00:43:43.950 align:middle line:84% and I got this heaven obsession that I've 00:43:43.950 --> 00:43:45.690 align:middle line:90% been falling into lately. 00:43:45.690 --> 00:43:48.690 align:middle line:84% Heaven as a kind of movie where the illusions are real, 00:43:48.690 --> 00:43:51.750 align:middle line:84% where the illuminated specks throat floating 00:43:51.750 --> 00:43:53.580 align:middle line:84% through the darkness are really the stars 00:43:53.580 --> 00:43:57.060 align:middle line:84% you see suffering, laughing, emoting on the screen. 00:43:57.060 --> 00:43:58.920 align:middle line:84% A kind of negative Earth where the souls 00:43:58.920 --> 00:44:00.490 align:middle line:90% are turned inside out. 00:44:00.490 --> 00:44:03.120 align:middle line:90% And that's what's visible. 00:44:03.120 --> 00:44:05.760 align:middle line:84% Maybe I've come to think of it as some giant Hollywood 00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:08.220 align:middle line:84% with floodlights and romance, the whole bit. 00:44:08.220 --> 00:44:10.980 align:middle line:90% And everyone desirable and 30. 00:44:10.980 --> 00:44:13.770 align:middle line:84% I'm 40 years old already and figure if anything interesting 00:44:13.770 --> 00:44:17.310 align:middle line:84% was going to happen, if anyone, well, it would have. 00:44:17.310 --> 00:44:18.810 align:middle line:84% You see, I'm not calling for help. 00:44:18.810 --> 00:44:21.330 align:middle line:84% I've tried everything you have to offer, church, God, 00:44:21.330 --> 00:44:23.760 align:middle line:84% sex, drinking, trying too much of everything, 00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:25.740 align:middle line:90% the way Judy Garland died. 00:44:25.740 --> 00:44:27.840 align:middle line:84% What I'm calling for is a say in public 00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:30.060 align:middle line:84% that I've tried it the other way, that slowly 00:44:30.060 --> 00:44:32.110 align:middle line:90% killing yourself for years way. 00:44:32.110 --> 00:44:35.820 align:middle line:84% And so I know there's a seven second delay in the radio show. 00:44:35.820 --> 00:44:38.490 align:middle line:84% But I hope sincerely you won't cut me off or try 00:44:38.490 --> 00:44:40.620 align:middle line:90% to convince me to save myself. 00:44:40.620 --> 00:44:42.420 align:middle line:84% And especially I don't want to be saved 00:44:42.420 --> 00:44:45.450 align:middle line:84% and especially don't want to be saved again and again, which 00:44:45.450 --> 00:44:47.460 align:middle line:84% I have been already to this extent 00:44:47.460 --> 00:44:49.770 align:middle line:90% over and over again saved. 00:44:49.770 --> 00:44:53.580 align:middle line:84% I'm tired of saying 2 plus 2 equals 4, I can't stand it. 00:44:53.580 --> 00:44:55.590 align:middle line:90% 2 plus 2 equals 22. 00:44:55.590 --> 00:44:56.550 align:middle line:90% Isn't it marvelous? 00:44:56.550 --> 00:44:57.580 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:44:57.580 --> 00:45:01.010 align:middle line:90% [CLAPPING] 00:45:01.010 --> 00:45:22.110 align:middle line:90% 00:45:22.110 --> 00:45:23.990 align:middle line:90% Thanks a lot. 00:45:23.990 --> 00:45:37.424 align:middle line:90%