Jory Sherman - In All His Glory (1 Viewer)

M

MULLINAX

Some of you might remember Jory Sherman's book "Friendship, Fame and Bestial Myth" in which Sherman seeks to desperately prove that he was Bukowski's bosom buddy after all. Sherman started out as a North Beach Beat poet. He then drifted off into another sphere of literature, as attested to below.

Now it seems that he's got a web-page out there, trying to justify the fact that he has become a (GULP!) writer of cowboy stories. Here it is:

***

By Jory Sherman

"We are the long-stilled voices of your ancestors speaking from the past. We are echoes of those who were already here in the New World and those who came after and settled these now United States. We are the Native Americans who roamed the West, first on foot, and later on horseback. We are the explorers, the fur trappers and traders, the soldiers, the men and women who rode in wagons across the Great Plains and left our bones on silent prairies and in frozen mountain keeps.

We are the people with long memories who sat by lonesome campfires and listened to the stories told under the stars. We are the ones who first saw the greatness of the land and the mingling of peoples, who found the gold and the timber and the oil, who saw life and death and greed and avarice and theft and slaughter. We are those who remind you of who you are, where you came from and where you are going.

We are your conscience and your guilt. We are those who surveyed the unnamed places and put names and measurements to towns and cities and rivers and streams and mountains and valleys. We are those who followed the buffalo and the eagle, who first spoke to the Redman in sign language and died on trackless plains with dreams in our hearts and prayers on our lips.

We are the chroniclers of those times when our nation was raw and young and untamed and restless and without boundaries. We are the voices of all who came westward and we speak to those now living and to those who will come after and wonder what the land was like, and who the people were and what happened over the centuries of blood and violence and progress.

We are those who paint pictures with words, who relate the forgotten stories, who look into the dark caves and light a torch so that all may see what lies inside and beyond.

We are those who live part of our lives in the past and ride a horse called History and who bring life to everything and everyone who died on the westward trek.

We are who you really are if you will but look in your hearts and wonder. We come from everywhere and come in all sizes and shapes. We are people born of another time and place who inscribe our stories in your hearts. We are those who write down the names on tombstones and mark the olden trails so that you who read us might trace the steps of your fathers and mothers, your grandfathers and grandmothers, your great grandfathers and great grandmothers and see what they saw and wrote down in their diaries and told their children who told their children who then told us.

We are the observers of both fate and destiny; the alchemists who transform the lead of the past into the gold of the future. We are the bearers of tidings, both ill and good. We are the keepers of the flame who refuse to let the old campfires die out.

We are those who write down what we see and hear and feel, taste and touch so that all may know what the West really was and what it means to all future generations. We are those who never die, who live as long as words are spoken and ears will hear. We are those who see through the mists of time and walk through the valleys of shadows and wander the long prairies of memory so that you will know that we passed by all those places that are now paved over and gouged out and dammed up and slashed down and scarred and vacant of all former life, where the old footprints have been obliterated.

We are those now called Western writers and we are proud to carry the label. We still ride the West on a horse called History, singing our old songs and telling the grand stories of yesteryear."

YEE HAW!
 
someone already did...
Brokeback Mountain!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHHAAAHHAHHAAHHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!!


uh....nevermind.....gotta go....
 
Good stories are good stories. "Western" may be a tired genre, but as Father Luke points out by mentioning the late, great HBO show Deadwood, it doesn't matter what the genre is, as long as the characters and story are compelling.
 
Yes, Thank you, Digney. That was enlightening.
and This: Jory wrote:
"Bukowski had great courage and determination. He was never daunted by what the critics said about his poetry or his short stories. He gave of himself and his work without flinching and he didn't give a damn that he was laying himself open like an animal in an abbatoir. All of the boils and scars and wounds showed in his work, and few saw the tenderness that was in the man, or sensed his humanity. His world was populated by pimps, whores and drunks, the very dregs of L.A. society, yet he had a quiet dignity about himself and those few of that group who read his poetry, thought he nailed them just right and were proud of him."

Jory is still his friend.
 
ok, back to redeem for the bad joke....

there are many great westerns. some offbeat ones you may enjoy are Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand, any western by Sam Peckinpah (and although Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is not technically a western, it has a very "western" structure and is a bizarre twisted masterpiece) and my personal fav, Once Upon A Time In The West.
oh, and Jim Jarmusch's (sp?) Dead Man is an horribly underrated film, and could be considered a western.
and yes, the recent Sherman reflections on Buk are touching.
 
Just saw No Country For Old Men and it's the best film I've seen in years. Like most genres, westerns are 99% crap but I've read a few good ones.
 
Another "western" you folks might enjoy is "Near Dark", a 1987 horror film about a band of outlaw vampires travelling the modern-day West.
 
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly? One of the best movies of all time...Eli Wallach as Tuco should have won an Oscar.

Funny thing about BrokeBack...I think Larry McMurtry wrote it, also wrote Lonesome Dove, another great western...I still don't think I will watch Brokeback though.
 
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly? One of the best movies of all time...Eli Wallach as Tuco should have won an Oscar.

Funny thing about BrokeBack...I think Larry McMurtry wrote it, also wrote Lonesome Dove, another great western...I still don't think I will watch Brokeback though.

Annie Proulx wrote it.
it's a good movie.

yes, Eli Wallach was great in that. well, he's usually great. sort of like Gene Hackman for that generation.
 
Bukowski Lost Respect For Jory Sherman When Sherman Turned To Writing Cowboy Stories

Good stories are good stories. "Western" may be a tired genre, but as Father Luke points out by mentioning the late, great HBO show Deadwood, it doesn't matter what the genre is, as long as the characters and story are compelling.

Agreed, but Sherman's books are formulaic yarns filled with cliches and cheap sentimentality. The woman are always "buxom wenches bursting out of their bodices" (not that that's something to dislike) and the men are always of the "few words and a fast draw" type. Cowboy stories. And Sherman is pretentious enough to state that he and other writers of his ilk "ride the horse of History". More like the horse of "royalties".

If you enjoy obvious books that excite gullible adolescents then "Tucson Tom and the Texas Two-Step" and "The Tales of Phoenix Phil and Albuquerque Al" are for you.

Now then, where's my Zane Gray collection?
 
One can only respect Sherman for his prolific output and perseverence in a rough business, but are you as sickened as I am by the following self-congratulatory tripe?

"...As for my writing, I keep raising the bar as I have for 50 years in the business. So, the writing keeps getting better with each story and each book. As for production, I can still keep up with the young there. I write a new short story every month, many of which are posted on http://www.amazon.com/ in the Amazon Shorts section. My last novel was 309 manuscript pages and I wrote it in 21 days. And, it's one of the best I've ever written. I am working on a major series right now wherein each novel will run 1000 to 1200 pages. And, I plan to write 8 of them. This is a fantasy series I'm calling THE GATES OF DESTINY. I also want to write a Young Adult fantasy novel called THE EDEN TREE. And, I have a number of other projects I'm passionate about, including a mainstream novel about a single divorced mom who raises an autistic son, and a private eye mystery series set in Branson. And, so on..."

The reference to writing a novel in 21 days seems to remind me of a certain book written by a certain author. Hmm...
 
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Man O man, this can place be a funny place
I will see you all in that special place in hell.
Now if we could find a movie about a gay autistic cowboy
 
One can only respect Sherman for his prolific output and perseverence in a rough business, but are you as sickened as I am by the following self-congratulatory tripe?

"...As for my writing, I keep raising the bar as I have for 50 years in the business. So, the writing keeps getting better with each story and each book. ... [snip] ..."

Of course, editiors may disagree. That is a bit sickening. You'd think that raising the bar that often might mean he'd have broken out of the western genre long ago (not that there's anything inherently wrong with westerns).

I've never read any of his stuff, aside from his Buk memoir, so I'm just mouthing off mindlessly here, and not to be taken seriously.
 
"...As for my writing, I keep raising the bar as I have for 50 years in the business. So, the writing keeps getting better with each story and each book.
Of course, editiors may disagree. That is a bit sickening.[/QUOTE]Well, that's a different type of fish, someone who is comfortable plainly stating how great they are. Ha. Usually very creative people will think of a less obvious way to say it. ;)
 
Well, that's a different type of fish, someone who is comfortable plainly stating how great they are. Ha. Usually very creative people will think of a less obvious way to say it. ;)

Or, they'll even have doubts that they are any good, fear they are losing their powers, think their stuff is getting worse, not better, and pray nobody notices. Bukowski had confidence in himself as an artist, but he also was thankful that the miracle kept arriving -- he didn't blow his own horn too loudly.
 
"...As for my writing, I keep raising the bar as I have for 50 years in the business. So, the writing keeps getting better with each story and each book..... ZZZZTTTTTT.....


Poor, desperate old man.
 
Here's a couple books by a "Jory Sherman" (are there more?) from an ad in the October 11, 1968 issue of Open City. You could either visit the Hollywood Shopper on Sunset Blvd or mail your order in.

brown bagging it,
bp
 

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