Steve Richmond / Mr. Viced Honest (1 Viewer)

I went through a Bukhead phase and read everything Charles Bukowski published. Everything I could find. I met Al Berlinski in 1992 and bought his Sun Dog Press book 5.0 L Poems (1991) by Steve Richmond because it had a curious back cover blurb by Bukowski: "He remains fascinating, this Santa Monica Artaud." Soon I got a copy of Earth Rose (Earth Books, 1974) with the excellent Foreword by Bukowski, followed by other Richmond books including Gagaku (Planet Detroit Chapbooks, 1985), which features another Buk blurb: "I am sympathetic with Richmond's poetry because here, a good 20 years older, I feel much the same way."

Richmond and I corresponded.

I wrote that I wanted to publish a poetry anthology called STOVEPiPER--would he care to contribute? He promptly submitted a stack of 300 poems, all typewritten originals. I accepted 33. Steve Richmond would have the Wormwood Review-style center section...

I wrote to Bukowski in 1992 and asked for poems. Amazingly, he sent five with S.A.S.E. I accepted them and requested drawings to go with the poems. He sent five. "No need to return these, no matter what happens," he wrote.

STOVEPiPER: Book One came out in late '94 after Bukowski had passed away. I sent copies to Linda. Richmond had signed and numbered the first 73 copies in honor of Bukowski's 73 years. (I'd brought them to Richmond's "cave" for the signings. That was interesting.)

STOVEPiPER0001.jpg


Richmond completed the manuscript for Spinning Off Bukowski (Sun Dog Press, 1996) in '95 and I commissioned him to write a memoir about Jim Morrison. The proposed title was Door of Doors. One could say I was a Doorshead at the time.

Richmond wrote a few dozen chapters, I paid an advance in three installments, and (at my request) he sent photos and relevant poems to print with the prose. Unfortunate Epilogue: The book never happened. I returned all materials, "wrote off" the advance, and we lost touch. I saw Spinning Off Bukowski in the window of Red's Hollywood bookstore and lamented the fact that his Morrison memoir didn't make it. . . .

Fast-forward to earlier this year: I Googled "Steve Richmond Gagaku" and discovered Ben Pleasant's Hollywood Investigator story/interview "Twilight of a Dope Fiend Poet." [A title that Pleasants had not intended, I later learned from the author.] I was shocked. That photo! Was he still alive? This man who signed so many letters to me, "Stay Alive,"?

He was. He is. We have since corresponded.

Before seeing that startling Steve Richmond Update (originally posted January 13, 2007), I had been working on a kind of lyrical tribute to him. The poet. The man. The "part of history" Bukowski himself acknowledged.

Inspired by the "Mr. Mojo Risin'" anagram Jim Morrison made out of his own name, I had made an anagram out of the name "Steve Richmond"--"Mr. Viced Honest"--and wrote some lines about the personage:

l_b7be5bb606b40bd377897355a3ac9d6a.png


The lyrics have progressed since this draft, which was initially published as a free broadside by Valley Contemporary Poets in May 2008.

The plan is to present a live performance piece in honor of the man (and demons) Charles Bukowski saw so much vitality and importance in.

Here's the MySpace profile that will feature future recordings for free listening and download:

http://www.myspace.com/mrvicedhonest

Mike
 
very cool.
i have a spoken word lp by buk and richmond you might be interested in hearing. if only i had time to transfer it to my computer...anyhow, welcome!
 
Bill, proprietor of Bottle of Smoke Press, old friend whose books I still own, yes! Good to see you still serving it up.

james, I haven't heard the Bukowski=Richmond LP and am interested. I have a cassette player in my car. I repeat, I have a cassette player in my car...

bright: I agree. Hitler Painted Roses is pre-punk post-punk at its finest.
 
Just received a copy of Stovepiper , book one, edited by Mike Daily.
Just in the first few pages, I read something beautiful by our own David Barker..., called "Lost", and something else titled "Tell me". Just beautiful!

Great little book, Mike !
I am flying here.
 
Ah, you're too kind. I should dig out my copy again. I remember it was very nicely produced, excellently edited. Mike did a great job on Stovepiper.
 
the escapade of illusion, by Charles Bukowski


the end of grace, the end of matter.
the eye in the bottom of the bottle
is yours
winking back.
old voices, old songs become a
snake which crawls
away.

men go mad for empty faces
why not?
what else is there for them to do?
I too have done it.

the eye in the bottom of the bottle
winks back.
it's all a trick.
everything is.
there is something else occurring.
but where?
where?
not here.
net there.

slowly one drinks toward imbecibility,
welcoming it like a
lover.

I weary of this contest with myself.
but it's the only sport in town.
 
Thanks for the info, i always found him interesting this "fuck hate" - richmondGuy.

"Hitler painted roses", exactly!

hi, in the Stovepiper,
you'll find over 30 poems by Steve Richmond,
white letters printed on black paper. I just got this beautiful little book
and it is very well made.
Abe has a few, maybe Mike has many more...
 
here's another ricmond interview by ben pleasants. i haven't read the whole thing yet. it appears to be recent, but i'm not sure...

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/a-small-improvement-upon-the-truth-reading-charlene-rubinski/

edit: it's a recent interview. pleasants mentions the show "californication" going into a second season. he also mentions that marina bukowski is on the show. is this true? i've never seen it.

at least it's good to know richmond is still alive somewhere...
 
She's not in the show. The show may have certain Bukowski like themes and elements that resemble parts of his life (or the fictionalised version), but I wouldn't agree with Richmond that its a show 'about [Bukowski], and his wife, and his kid'.
 
Well that was useless.

But this was funny: "Tell me how you came up with the idea for Charlene Rubinski? I never saw this before and I'd heard about it, it has become kind of legend. But I think they are trying to squelch it. So that nobody will ever get to see it again. It is my purpose to republish it."

Squelch it, yeah. There's a big move afoot to suppress that work of genius. Right.
 
yea, it was a pretty difficult and long read. but there were a few tidbits here and there. i only got through one page of the other interview that was linked at the end of this one...
 
There were some bits of info I did'nt know about in the article. In the other interview that was linked at the end of this one, I found this bit here:

BP: You're the lawyer [laughing]. There was one thing he did, that I think was very bad: he wanted to leave all of his money to his daughter...

SR: Yeah, but his daughter married a black kid, and he didn't like blacks, you know...

BP: He was from India. That's right, but in the end he left her nothing.

- Bukowski did'nt like blacks? I never heard that before! Hmm...

Thanks, James!
 
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Interesting interview, thanks for the link. Steve is spilling more beans in here. I read Charlene Rubinski in Leo Mailman's reprint edition and thought it was pretty good. Haven't read it since, but my memory of it is very favorable. But then I've always been on the bench, cheering for Richmond. I'm partial to his Gagaku and all.
 
I read Charlene Rubinski in Leo Mailman's reprint edition and thought it was pretty good. Haven't read it since, but my memory of it is very favorable.
A longer quote from the "Zelda Fullbright" chapter in Charlene Rubinski you can read in buk scene #1, page 53 (Gagaku Meat, The Steve Richmond Story.)

Also on page 53, John Martin's response: "I never heard about Charlene Rubinski by 'Gretchen Willits' until now! I guess Steve kept it quiet from Hank and myself?"

Here is the first part of the interview: http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/american-rimbaud-an-interview-with-steve-richmond/

Pleasants on page 4 : "this woman in Montreal".
 
I got my copy of Charlene Rubinski from Leo Mailman, the editor of Nausea etc. I don't think I realized until recently that Leo was reprinting it from Steve's original edition, although Leo may have told me as much. Leo also had dealings with Bukowski and published him in a few issues of his magazines. He was one of the key people in the poetry scene in Long Beach during the 1970s, along with John Kay, Gerry Locklin and Elliot Fried.
 
Hi Mike,
I still think that Steve Richmond is underrated and that we forget how special of a poet he is.
Thanks for the great article in buk scene1.
I am painting him at the moment in the middle of a large mandala.
I will post it on this thread when I am done.
 
I've just finished reading "Gagaku Meat: The Steve Richmond Story" by Mike Daily, in "Buk Scene 1" ... excellent (I highly recoomend it) and I'm now looking for more of Richmond's writing ... DaP
 
Richmond is incredible. A vast amount of poetry, always entertaining. He doesn't know how to be dull, something he shares with Bukowski. By nature, the man is worth listening to. His mind is always working, coming up with wild shit.
 
I've been trying, over the past 15 years or so, to appreciate Richmond's writing, but I think after Buk Scene I finally have to admit that I can't.

The articles about the guy are always interesting, I'll grant you that. But man, sitting down and reading his work - at the risk of alienating the last 3 people on earth who don't think I'm a dick - pisses me off. It isn't even just that I don't care for it, it actually makes me angry. It's such casually tossed off bullshit.

To me.

But he's a perfect example of how a lot of people who read Bukowski's poetry think they can also get away with writing about every fart or hair on their toe and it will be fascinating. It's not. You have to have a unique talent, voice and style to pull that off. For me, Richmond ain't got it. None of it.

I know, nobody asked. But his name keeps coming up, and my fingers still work on the keys here somehow, so there you go.
 
I agree with mjp, Richmond just couldn't connect often enough...one of the comments above said Richmond sent 300 poems and 33 were accepted...I think that says a lot. At one time I owned Hitler Painted Roses and the book was amazing, the production was beautiful, the size, the quality of the paper, the photos and of course the great intro by Bukowski, which is why I, and probably most people, bought it. I thought maybe three poems in the whole book were good...they were crazy, yes, but I didn't get much out of them, just one-offs from a drug-addled mind. So many "mad" poets forget to just be human...Also I hate the name Gagaku, reminds me of a baby babbling, which is like a lot of Richmond's stuff, so it's appropriate I guess...not for me...
 
The link doesn't work, I forgot the L
Works: http://www.eatmytangerine.com/dwang.html


The drawing you find back on the page before the endpaper of the book.
It seems to be a logo. Joseph Solman is the artist.

STOVEPIPER booktwo was in the planning but never made it.
Daily was so kind to send us STOVEPIPER booktwo material
to use for buk scene.
And voila, 2 unpublished poems of Linda King appeared in the first issue.
 
I've been trying, over the past 15 years or so, to appreciate Richmond's writing, but I think after Buk Scene I finally have to admit that I can't.

The articles about the guy are always interesting, I'll grant you that. But man, sitting down and reading his work - at the risk of alienating the last 3 people on earth who don't think I'm a dick - pisses me off. It isn't even just that I don't care for it, it actually makes me angry. It's such casually tossed off bullshit.

To me.

...You have to have a unique talent, voice and style to pull that off. For me, Richmond ain't got it. None of it.

Well, didn't B. say something along those lines in "300 poems" or somesuch? I think to recall B liked Richmond's early poetry but did not particularly enjoy his gagaku material.
 
I would tend to agree that the gagaku becomes annoying after the second example. Richmond is well-represented in Wormwood Review and that would tend to lend some creedence, but not in my eyes.

But, he did do the FUCK HATE thing with Buk, and I will always admire that; one of the best things ever put into print. So he gets a pass, albeit awkwardly, from me. Kinda like hitting a grand slam in a world series game 7, down 5-2, ninth inning with two out and two strikes, but being a lifetime .219 hitter.
 
July 15 (just before taking a book of Bukowski with me to my favourite bar, where I hope to served a pint or two by my favourite bartender)

I, for one, understand the thought about not liking the word 'gagaku'. It does not roll off the tongue easily and everyone is to be forgiven for wondering what it means. However, I note that Mike Daily's article on Steve Richmond in "Buk Scene 1" had a short comment by Gerald Locklin that helps: " ... [Richmond's] trademark gagaku: spontaneous lyricism under the influence of Asian music." (page 54) This explains to me why I cannot follow the flow of them ... one would have to hear the music, relate to it and somehow get into the flow ... for me, it ain't going to happen, most of the time ...

I suspect that, especially for readers like me, Richmond's most accessible work is "Spinning Off Bukowski" ... I recall reading it with some pleasure, far too long ago ... cheers! DaP
 
mjp: your point of view on Richmond is as valid as mine or anyone else's. It doesn't work for you. It has always worked for me. I never felt he was trying to imitate Bukowski. He seems to be in an entirely different place. He does idolize, honor, obsess on, envy Bukowski. But the poetry functions in a way that Buk's doesn't. A different form of lyricism. The drugs are tragic, a waste of a brilliant mind and huge talent. His subject matter, autobiographical content is not the draw for me. It's the words, how they come together. I am always surprised. I love Richmond's writing in spite of the drugs and the redundant bullshit and all that. The guy is off by himself, all alone in America. He is unexpected. You couldn't make up a Steve Richmond as a fictional character. And if you were just starting off as a poet and had high literary ambitions, you'd never think of becoming Steve Richmond. I still don't understand how he happened, where it came from. He's way high in my book, at the top just below Bukowski. But that's only my take. Like I said, your perspective is just as valid.
 
you have to be in the mood for Richmond,
It works for me most of the time.
Yes, there are quite a few poems that can appear like repetitions to some but still, under the numerous Gagaku titles, appear some little gems. Reading from Earth Rose, I think that his sense of description is accurate,
or is it acute?. I like his colorful observations on little creatures such as bugs, birds, animals, whatever surrounds him. I find him genuine and personal.
You can also detect his desperate search for love among the ruins
and horrors of his daily life.
I am positive about his work and appreciate it for its uniqueness.
 
Yes it does :)

Maybe they "dance around the rare book market leaving Richmond's erotic demons on the shelf" because they feel the same way about his writing as I do. I mean...

Hey
Hey, I woke up today!
And there was the sun again
shooting in through the shades
and spearing me in the eye!
And the clock! Still alive!
and the rug was not on fire!
and the lawn! The trees! The gutter!
All there! Once again!
Today!

...is pure crap.
If you've got nothing to say, you should not take 9 lines to say it in.
A poetry rope-pissing exercise.

Bold poem! Strong poem!
(works for me.)
 

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