America and Her Darkness

I would have done this as an audio-if the chaos around me could have been paused, and I could have perhaps paused that chaos, if I were just a bit more devious than I already am. But for now, I’ll let the chaos live, and type away for you instead.

There’s been a few trivial things that I keep reminding myself to mention, but unfortunately I usually forget them. For example, I’ve seen a few interesting movies lately. Last weekend I saw One Missed Call, which was better than I expected. I’m sure I would enjoy the Japanese 2004 version, Chakushin Ari, more because we’re huge fans of Japanese horror. Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to find J-horror here. Maybe one day, I’ll meet a very generous Japanese pen pal that will send as much J-horror as I want. maybe. I also watched Lars and the Real girl, which instantly became one of my top 20, if not top 10 favorite movies ever!  Ryan Gosling was absolutely perfect-and you definitely should see this movie. Being John Malkovich was excellent too, and not just because I adore John Malkovich.It’s one of the movies that I’ve had DVRed for ages, and finally made the time to watch.  I watched Airplane two days ago too, which  never fails to make me laugh.

I think that’s it as far as movies go; onto books: I was reading a book last month called The New Writer’s Handbook, and Erica Jong did the preface**. Somehow, I had managed to float through life without ever hearing of her before, but from the things she said and the way she said them, I was inspired to find out more. Luckily, the library had Fear of Flying. This book is officially one of my favorite books ever!  She’s honest, she’s real and a good as Henry Miller (that’s a HUGE compliment by the way-so you know she must be good!). It’s fascinating to discover a woman that doesn’t tiptoe around the issues, but proudly charges straight through them. The content of the story was very close to me, for the most part, and upon finishing it, I desperately wanted to thank her for writing something very similar to my own life (sans the character’s time in Germany with her Asian husband ). I visited her site and discovered that she does spoken word too-which you can hear a bit of on her site-so have a look and a listen. I want her to be my new Mother, Sister, Aunt or life counselor at least..

I was talking to a friend today about my inspiration for spoken word. This was the inspiration:
In the winter of 1991, I was staying at my friend’s house, the one I’ve mentioned in a past entry-the big guy  who was kind enough to sing me to sleep. The apartment was a 2 room roach motel sort of place, and I was about 3 months pregnant. I was cold, with basically no food, and I was alone. There was a huge snowstorm, and I had nothing to do to pass the time or distract my attention from the morning sickness. I had no books, and I’d grown tired of the borrowed David Bowie/Iggy pop albums (yes, they were Vinyl!). So I listened to a college radio station on my thrift store clock radio. There were two stations actually, one that played nothing but classical music, and one that played NPR shows, like a Prairie Home Companion, and then from Midnight until 6 a.m. played all sorts of ‘college’ music such as Captain Beefheart, Bauhaus, and even some little new group called Nirvana, [who refused to leave me alone so I could stop humming their damned song in between bouts of morning sickness!] Considering my friend/roommate had driven back to Louisville to stay with family over the holidays, I had full reign of the two rickety roomed dump. So 24 hours a day it was a nice combination of classical music and NPR and stomach ick, thanks to N-the wonder child. The central heating was a joke, and I froze most of the time-until I got the great idea to use the oven as a heat source. The gas oven. I was young, guys-and had NO experience with gas appliances…So perhaps it was the oven that seduced me into a warm, snuggly half sleep one night. But within that strange half sleep, I heard a voice saying: “America, I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.” I remember opening my eyes, and lying very still as the voice continued: “…I can’t stand my own mind…I don’t feel good, don’t bother me. I won’t write my poem until I’m in my right mind…”  People often talk about religious experiences-This was my experience. And This was the beginning of a very important one-sided love affair.

As soon as the sun began slaughtering the snow the following morning, I wobbled quickly and carefully to the library and I checked out everything they had by Ginsberg. He became a substitute for Father-afterall, they had the same beard, the same crazy eyes. Sure Ginsberg was gay, but still there was a slight fragrence of a full blown Electra complex forming and it was very nice!

This affair was the inspiration for my spoken word…As a matter of fact, I was doing spoken word on the day Ginsberg died. Back then it wasn’t on the internet-but a phone system, primarily for people looking for wild sex or missionary style partners, but there were a few of us that had begun using the system for creative outlets. Your Lucia happened to get more calls than any of the other several thousand weirdos-which was quite an accomplishment for me at the time. I was so loved that the man that ran the whole thing made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: He’d cancel my $15.00 monthly subscription fee if I would be the system’s spokeslady. I was told to say things like : “Hey guys are you looking for a hot, busty 48 year-old for wicked, wet fun?”  Yeah, it was that bad, and I felt a bit whorish for working for the mere $15.00-but I needed that $15.00, and honestly, I enjoyed the attention…Anyway, let’s get back to Daddy Ginsberg.

The day that he died, I left a million different recordings-tributes to this wonderful creature for the horny salivating pervs and the goth boys and occasionally curious girls that listened to my rambles. Some pretended to care about my Ginsberg litanies, others just left voice messages of heavy breathing. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we had an audio comment feature on WordPress??

 One of my litanies was called Father Ginsberg. When I’m through typing this, I’ll go have a look for it in my room-and if I find it, I’ll show it to you.

My GinsbergCDs are with the rest or at least 98% of my personal belongings- rotting in an overpriced storage unit at the moment, so for you, and  for Ginsberg, I’ve found the original recording of America on Soulseek. Its taken me ages to download and I’ve had to make it smaller because dial-up is the devil’s internet, but at least you can hear what I heard that night-( I pray you aren’t pregnant, starving and freezing-not to mention foolishly drowsy from the gas oven when you listen to it). If there were no Ginsberg, Kerouac & and to some extent Jim Morrison, (for opening so many doors for me to other great artists) there’d be no ME.

Besides America, I’ve left you another soundtrack song..(what are we on, #4??)  So, have a listen to Miss America, but first, let me set it up for you: Around the same time I discovered Those Gods of Poetry, I also discovered that I had a voice-not that voice, I mean I discovered that I could make a difference-or at least I thought I could; I began going to rallies for things like the legalization of marijuana-though I was honestly just a contact buzz sort of girl. I even participated in the distribution of what were supposed to be Herbal ciggies at these rallies, meaning I passed out rolled…herbal bliss, while the pigs…while the ‘officers of the law‘ stood by helpless and dumb. I also began protesting for gay rights, because by that time, 99.9% of my friends were men that usually didn’t make passes at me.usually. In other words, I became a little firecracker speaking whenever I could for my ‘fellowman’ and gaining the noteriety among some  as the coolest loud-mouthed anarchist in town, which didn’t say much considering at that point I lived in a town called Covington-across the bridge from Cincinnati in N. Kentucky. But an anarchist I was, and my (film making John Waters wannabe) friend Terry ( a wannabe in the sweetest  sense possible), began calling me America-which I detested, of course.

So years later, when someone gave me this song, Terry and my wild hellfire days sprung to mind. The song manages to be both funny and a bit sexy and does indeed sound like a soundtrack song. So have a listen, and think of me and perhaps you’ll not be able to get it out of your head for days either..

And finally, one more America-related bit of news; I’m currently working on…more like toying with a piece called American Darkness-which, and as I told Eric earlier, I probably shouldn’t admit to,(but am shamelessly doing so anyway), is a very autobiographical piece. When I’m finished with American Darkness, I will have probably covered every low and high point of my life-so far-which means you may love me or you may hate me, I’m not sure…Darkness is another of my nicknames, compliments of G aka safetycopy, so the title is a very fitting one in the end. After I’m finished with typing this for you, I plan on working into the morning on Darkness a bit more because she’s dying to be spoken and heard!  If I feel good about what I’ve done later, I’ll put up an excerpt. I’ve already tested the waters a bit by sending an excerpt to Eric, and He and G  both say that it  seems promising. we shall see. Eventually I would love to see American darkness become something as huge as Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’, but who knows what Darkness will do?? And this time, I won’t tell you when I’ll post again-because I never post when I say that I will. There’s several reasons for that and most are beyond my control-such as four other people vying for the effing trickle of internet access… Have I mentioned that I’m lousy at sharing? But being offline at least pulls me away from the emailing madness and puts my ass back to work, right? So-perhaps in an hour or a day or two days, I’ll leave you something…

And I’ve gotten some very cool things this week from you–music, more photos, and a few other treats… Thank U!

Never let it be said that I don’t love you madly-I’ve downloaded America THREE times-in order to get the right recording for you-So U better love it!

P.S. I’ve found that listening to America, immediately followed by Miss America, is a very interesting experience-so try it that way!! ~13

America

Miss America (soundtrack song #4)

darklucia13@yahoo.com

 

**Excerpt of Jong’s preface:

“If you are born to do this-poor you. And if you hope to get rich by doing it, double poor you. But if you understand that writing is about the possibility of altering, by one iota, the brains of people as yet unborn, then go for it. You may wind up poor, jailed or even assassinated for your ideas, but you will have spent your life in a galliant pursuit. I believe that nothing else matters.”