Schmoozing with the poets October 12, 1985

  

I woke up late this morning.

It might have helped if I had gone to sleep earlier than seven. But alas, these weekend blues are destroying me.

I’ve been overworked for a while. But only last night did I realize just how much I need a vacation.

Part of this has to do with the news that Orson Wells died and all the talk about his younger days, his stretched-out genius he had when he first started in entertainment. And I stayed up to hear all about his life and why people think he’s great.

While the media accounts tell us about how much Hollywood loved him, in truth, few people in Hollywood actually did.

He was too much his own man, and as in politics, the entertainment world revolves around a hierarchy of who owes who, and if you’re too independent, people don’t trust you.

Wells bucked too many established Hollywood doctrines, and so never really was accepted, and his success despite this made the situation worse. No one could forgive him for being successful without the help of the Hollywood elite.

Although he proved too powerful for them to destroy, they could never forgive him.

Unfortunately, Hollywood isn’t the only industry where this kind of thing takes place. If you don’t kowtow to the system, the system eventually works to destroy you.

Wells is being honored today because he managed to transcend the system of petty people, his unique genius allowing him to thrive and more, overcome. He created masterpieces that could not be denied.

Unfortunately for those like us with far less genius (if any at all), the way to get ahead is not to buck the system, but to play the game.

This is something all artists should know.

This is why Michael has failed with other poets, in particular with those groups of poets he would most like to be accepted by. He wants to be among them, yet at the same time, separated from the intense favoritism that comes with being together with them.

In some ways, I’m worse. I tend to see the artistic social scene as a waste of time. All I want to do is write.

I like other poets and writers more for their art than their gift of gab. So, when it comes to a choice between socializing and creating, I create. I want to be around other writers because they inspire me, especially if they happened to be better at the craft than I am. I take them as a challenge and try to bring myself up to their level.

I’m also aware that the social scene doesn’t guarantee success.

When I first arrived at William Paterson College, the predominant literary figures there were Michael Reardon, Joel Lewis, and the editorial staff of the literary magazine. Lewis tended to be a prominent socialize. Reardon was more studious and the darling of the English Department, seen as the next great poetic talent. But Reardon got too heavily into socializing, taking up with the St. Marks poetry scene in Manhattan where he and Lewis encountered the upper crust of the Beat scene, including the likes of Allen Ginsberg. Lewis was particularly adept at flattering these superstars of the underground poetry scene and playing the proper political games that allowed him to walk among them, huge names in the Beat movement that contributed to his magazine and gave him credibility few poets could get on their own. Reardon, a super star on campus, became a minor celebrity at St. Marks, though made his living teaching back here at the community college.

Michael envies their success, and would like to be part of that cabala, but they would not invite him, partly because of their own inflated sense of importance, but largely because Michael is too much like Orson Wells, wanting to be apart, but also wanting to maintain his personal status as a Maverick.

The irony in all this is that Lewis and Reardon have invited me instead, and I have the Groucho Marx philosophy in which “I don’t want to be a member of club who would have someone like me as a member.”

I ought to be flattered. I know there is much I could learn from Reardon and Lewis, who are indeed great poets, but I’m put off by the social aspect, this need to schmooze, to waste time I might better use creating something.

Move over Orson, I just hope I have enough talent to make it anyway.

 

1985 Menu


email to Al Sullivan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An old nemesis December 11, 1985

Image
    Surisky hated me from early on in grammar school, although “hate” may be too strong a word to describe his reaction to me. I was simply available to him for abuse, Third grade was pivotal for both of us. Prior to that, we were simply feeling our way through Catholic School routine, emerging eventually as whole personalities from the muck of early childhood. He came across as a thug, trying to convey the image of a tough guy. He wore a leather jacket and spiked boots, and snuck into see James Dean movies. Third grade was tough on everybody, including the teachers, who considered us the worst class in the history of the school – even in the safe grades of Kindergarten, First and Second. Two of the three nuns retired after passing us on. But it was in the third grade that we began to work our magic, driving even the stout-hearted nuns crazy. Later, the nuns tried to break our spirit. But we fully represented our age and had the full impact of the 1960s behin...
Read more

The clock is ticking July 18, 1985

Image
  We’re talking love here – silly fictional love with all the connotations of disaster. I seem to be on the meat chopping block with Safire looking for qualities in me that are lacking in her husband. The fact that there is a husband in the first place greatly disturbs me. All this said, I’m uncertain as to why I haven’t ended this already, except to know she is too much like my ex-wife to pass up without a closer examination. Even the way she thinks: slow, methodical, going from point A to point B. It has only been a week since she blurted out drunk that she wanted me in bed. It seems like much longer. And she hints of something more permanent, suggesting that I might fill in for her husband for a much longer duration. The night before last she suggested I come see her in her trailer, as if she is legally separated from her husband, when in fact she is supposed to be biding time until he finds them both a place to live in Baltimore. This is the same kind of smoke and...
Read more

Pauly leaves Passaic for the final time July 24, 1985

Image
    Pauly is leaving Passaic again. This comes after two years of us rubbing shoulders after he had been cast out of paradise in Towaco, after his goddess, Jane, went and married that man Pauly calls “a bum.” This has been a tough two years, filled with Pauly’s typical manipulation, his usual shaping of reality to his own needs often at other people’s (mine) expense. When Pauly first came I had Fran’s cultist brother as a temporary guest and Pauly spent most of his time trying to push me into getting that guest out. A few months later – in November – Fran got the ax from her ex and changed her mind about moving in with me after I had committed the spare room to Pauly. He assumed she meant more to me than he did and was already packing when I told Fran no. She had no place to go except for her father’s house, a father she had a love/hate relationship with, and she held it against me, even though we continued to see each other romantically. Pauly being Pauly drove ...
Read more