Aldous Huxley interview-1958 (FULL)

August 16, 2014

August 16, 2014

As a poet, I have two role models, not due to their writing, but mostly due to their lifestyle.   French poet Jules Laforgue and Los Angeles poet Charles Bukowski.   When I wrote my first book of poetry, that was published around 25 years ago, I pretty much just wanted to describe my interior as well as exterior life I had at that time and moment.   The thing is, or the problem, if I can be frank, was that my exterior life was interfering with the peace and quiet of my interior life.  At the time I had a strong love for Impressionist painting, and I somehow wanted to portray that element in my poetry.   As my wife once pointed out to me, she always felt that Impressionist painting was due to poor eyesight from both the painter as well as the viewer.  I don’t know if that is true or not, but in my case, I think my reading of impressionist poetry and painting was fuzzy at the very least.  More likely due to the excessive drinking at the time.  This is where the influence of Charles Bukowski kicks in.

At the time I was writing my poetry, I always sat in front of my Underwood typewriter with the blank paper staring back at me, in fact, I could say that it was actually mocking me.  Nevertheless I only had two albums at the time, and it was consistent soundtrack to my series of poems.  Bill Evans’ “Sunday at the Village Vanguard” and Kevin Ayers’ “The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories.” Again, I love the music by these two artists, but what impressed me is again, their lifestyles.  The fact that Evans was a heroin addict and looked so incredible, especially in the late 50s to early 60s, and Ayers…. A man who ran away from success whenever he can and when he heard a wine bottle being opened on some sunny beach.  So with the combination of Charles, Jules, Kevin and Bill, I was in excellent company.  But still, the page remained blank in front of me.  It was at this time that I realized that I have to listen to my interior world, and if I must use the images and sounds of the exterior world, then do so.

A poet is required to pull things out of their imagination and life to produce their work. It is not all that far off from Felix the Cat, who had a bag of tricks, where one can make the bag into an airplane, a car, or a flying carpet. In fact, among those above, Felix is a major influence on my writing - again, due to the image of that specific kitty cat.  When I am stuck on an idea or frustrated with a line in my poetry, I have a tendency to get up and walk around my typewriter.   Usually with my hands behind my back, head down, deep in thought - which is a movement that Felix made famous in his cartoons.  I felt that if I imitate his movement, it will somehow inspire my work.  The writer Aldous Huxley was quoted regarding Felix that “what the cinema can do better than literature or the spoken drama is to be fantastic. ”

Right now I’m attempting to write my first poem in 25 years.  I basically write on a round white table in my living room in Silverlake, and I have a portrait of Jules on my left side and Charles on the right side of the MacBook Pro.   Felix is gone, but I always have an image of him in my mind, and sadly I lost the vinyl copy of Kevin and Bill’s album many years ago.  So that too, needs to be from the memory.  Which by the way, is a perfect tool to use for jumping into the imagination and see what can be dragged from the murky waters.  Wish me luck.

July 26, 2014

July 26, 2016

Ever since I was a child, I was drawn into the nighttime world, which the Blake Edwards’ show “Peter Gunn” expressed my need for shadows and cool jazz.    As a teenager, I imagine my life as Gunn, where I had a beautiful mid-century apartment, with a gorgeous fuckable girlfriend who seems to visit him in the middle of the night.  Gunn seems to be only active in the night, where he frequents a jazz nightclub called “Mothers” in a city that is not defined, but it appears to be a dock town.  The surroundings strike me as being unnatural, even fake-like, which made me love the TV series even more.  Throughout my life I tried to find a jazz club like “Mothers, ” but realized that’s impossible, because here, the imagination rules, and I follow the rules of dream logic than the waking man’s reality.

I love the idea of a contained environment, for instance the Korova Milk Bar, where one goes to get loaded on milk laced with drugs, where one can drink the milk with knives in it.  It will sharpen you up.  I went there to take mescaline, and as I sat on a couch that resembled a woman’s ass-cheeks and back, I let my mind wander into a shapeless world, and just waiting for my ego to break down. That, will never happen. Nevertheless I left Korova and went to the Owl Drug store on Beverly and La Cienega to look at the displays of shampoo, hair creams, combs, and all sorts of beauty products.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I felt I was really seeing these objects in a new ‘enlightened’ light.  “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.  For man has closed himself up.  Till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.” The essence of moving among the buildings in the night, clearly I was looking for happiness, but one knows that “happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

Around 3:30 in the morning I arrived at my home, which over time, I tried to design it as Peter Gunn’s apartment, but I neither have the money or the shopping skill to make this work.  Yet, my attempt to reproduce what I saw on television, it became a new interior.  Not even influenced by, but more of a tribute that only I can see.  I put on the song “Sonny” on the turntable which was written and performed by Bobby Hebb, but I much prefer the Manfred Mann instrumental version.  Hebb wrote it as a reaction to the John F. Kennedy assassination but also to his brother who was killed a few days after the Kennedy death.  He was inspired to write something that was ‘light’ and uplifting when his world (and others) went to hell.  I admire the beauty of someone changing their perception of the world, because if there is going to be a real change, one needs to start with themselves.   Or, we flow with the crowd, but that I don’t recommend whatsoever.