{"id":2384,"date":"2014-08-27T08:42:47","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T15:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alteritas.net\/GXL\/?page_id=2384"},"modified":"2020-06-13T14:40:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T21:40:56","slug":"the-making-of-road-house","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/GXL\/?page_id=2384","title":{"rendered":"The Making of Road House"},"content":{"rendered":"

18 July, 2011<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Red
Red Dog and myself performing Road House at the Throw-Down<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Poesis is the making of things, and as I look back at the process which produced\u00a0Road House<\/span><\/a>\u00a0I realize how aleatory the making of these kinds of things is.\u00a0 Also how compelling, once you tap into them.<\/span><\/p>\n

As much as I have enjoyed the time devoted since March, 2009, to\u00a0The Devil\u2019s Workshop<\/span><\/em>, it increasingly seems that there are greater pleasures to be found in other activities. \u00a0My friends Paul and Chris lamented that I was spending my time on Facebook rather than on this blog, but something else happened, no total migration to FB. Instead, something of a miracle occurred, one which will alter future posts in this slot.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll leave it to others to judge if the miracle is only internal — one whose truth belongs only to me — or instead something that might be measurable and appreciated from the outside.\u00a0 But\u00a0Road House\u00a0<\/span>is such a radical departure from the kinds of writing I have done and has such thorough-going implications for my sense of self that I need to call it a miracle, as opposed perhaps to a fit of craziness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Miracle or craziness, whatever, the experience has been shared with my cousin John Young, whom I knew in my youth as Johnny Mack and who now goes by the handle of Red Dog.\u00a0<\/span>Roughly, this is how things transpired.<\/p>\n

Alert readers might have noted that back in March I revised and posted into my\u00a0Archives<\/span>\u00a0some old\u00a0lecture notes<\/span><\/a>\u00a0from the first graduate seminar I gave in Edmonton in the autumn of 1987 (Pre-Eighteenth Century Travel Literature<\/span>). Those notes captured what I had to say about Horace\u2019s\u00a0Satira<\/span>\u00a0V, i, usually known as\u00a0Iter Brindisium<\/span>, in particular of the conventions and\u00a0topoi\u00a0<\/span>(commonplaces) of travel writing therein exemplified.\u00a0Iter Brinidisium<\/span>\u00a0was one of ten texts I asked my students to read, a gamut which included almost all continents and classical cultures and concluding with the travels of\u00a0Olaudah Equiano<\/span>, an eighteenth-century African from what we now call Nigeria, in some people\u2019s minds the prototype of abolitionist narrative.<\/span><\/p>\n

One afternoon, in a flash — one of those legendary bolts of lightning poets long for — I wrote out the first 25 lines of a \u201cred-neck travelogue\u201d, which I imagined would recapitulate and update Horace\u2019s journey along the Appian Way to Brindisi, Sparks City as I re-baptized it in some dimly perceived and defined southern landscape —\u00a0brindisi<\/span>\u00a0meaning, among other things,\u00a0sparks<\/span>\u00a0in Italian<\/span><\/p>\n

That first version aimed at a five-beat line.\u00a0 I am generally in favor of recognizable poetic forms, which doesn\u2019t necessarily mean ones which already exist.\u00a0 I quickly realized that hexameters in the sense of flexible six-beat lines would work better, and also captured\u00a0 the proclivity of southern speakers towards dactyls (DA-da-da: descending feet, e.g. IN-sur-ance), spondees (DA-DA), and dropped syllables (syncope<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0apocope<\/span><\/a>) . \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The metric pattern I devised can be discerned in the present version of that passage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Vir<\/span>gil and\u00a0<\/span>me<\/span>\u00a0set\u00a0<\/span>off<\/span>\u00a0to\u00a0<\/span>Sparks<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Ci<\/span>ty with the\u00a0<\/span>two<\/span>
\n<\/span>fat<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>cats<\/span>\u00a0who\u2019d\u00a0<\/span>bank<\/span>rolled the\u00a0<\/span>op<\/span>e<\/span>ra<\/span>tion and in<\/span>sist<\/span>ed on
\n<\/span>tag<\/span>ging a<\/span>long<\/span>\u00a0for the\u00a0<\/span>ride<\/span>.\u00a0 That\u00a0<\/span>ci<\/span>ty, which it\u00a0<\/span>ain\u2019t<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>sucks<\/span>.
\n<\/span>The\u00a0<\/span>stops<\/span>\u00a0a<\/span>long\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0<\/span>way<\/span>\u00a0thems<\/span>elves<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>leave<\/span>\u00a0con<\/span>sid<\/span>erable
\n<\/span>to\u00a0<\/span>be<\/span>\u00a0des<\/span>ired<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>de<\/span>tails of\u00a0<\/span>which<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>y\u2019all’ll<\/span>\u00a0shortly\u00a0<\/span>hear<\/span>.
\n<\/span>Now\u00a0<\/span>Virg<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>not<\/span>\u00a0since\u00a0<\/span>ten<\/span>der\u00a0<\/span>youth<\/span>\u00a0him<\/span>self<\/span>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>vir<\/span>gin
\n<\/span>his\u00a0<\/span>name<\/span>\u00a0e<\/span>voke<\/span>s,\u00a0<\/span>ma<\/span>ybe for\u00a0<\/span>that<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>ver<\/span>y\u00a0<\/span>rea<\/span>son
\n<\/span>fix<\/span>ated on\u00a0<\/span>li<\/span>berating\u00a0<\/span>oth<\/span>ers\u00a0<\/span>from<\/span>\u00a0that<\/span>\u00a0sor<\/span>ry\u00a0<\/span>state<\/span>,
\n<\/span>con<\/span>sequences\u00a0<\/span>be<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>damn<\/span>ed,\u00a0<\/span>had<\/span>\u00a0a\u00a0<\/span>num<\/span>ber of\u00a0<\/span>things<\/span>
\n<\/span>oc<\/span>cu<\/span>py<\/span>ing his\u00a0<\/span>mind<\/span>, which\u00a0<\/span>works<\/span>\u00a0o<\/span>ka<\/span>y on a<\/span>\u00a0sing<\/span>le
\n<\/span>track<\/span>\u00a0but enc<\/span>oun<\/span>ters\u00a0<\/span>di<\/span>ffi<\/span>cul<\/span>ty when\u00a0<\/span>is<\/span>sues sur<\/span>pass
\n<\/span>two<\/span>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/span>three<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>Leaves<\/span>\u00a0were\u00a0<\/span>pop<\/span>pin\u2019\u00a0<\/span>out<\/span>\u00a0all\u00a0<\/span>ov<\/span>er.
\n<\/span>It<\/span>\u00a0was\u00a0<\/span>glo<\/span>rious\u00a0<\/span>Spring<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>time<\/span>. Dis<\/span>trac<\/span>tions were\u00a0<\/span>ma<\/span>ny.
\n<\/span>Like\u00a0<\/span>In<\/span>dian\u00a0<\/span>pain<\/span>tbrushes\u00a0<\/span>su<\/span>dden<\/span>ly\u00a0<\/span>un<\/span>clad<\/span>, the\u00a0<\/span>lad<\/span>ies
\n<\/span>were\u00a0<\/span>do<\/span>ing their\u00a0<\/span>damned<\/span>est to\u00a0<\/span>show<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>and<\/span>\u00a0were\u00a0<\/span>show<\/span>ing\u00a0<\/span>well<\/span>\u00a0—
\nad<\/span>ver<\/span>sity\u00a0<\/span>which<\/span>\u00a0can\u00a0<\/span>drive<\/span>\u00a0a\u00a0<\/span>man<\/span>\u00a0to\u00a0<\/span>for<\/span>tify\u00a0<\/span>him<\/span>self
\n<\/span><\/span>with\u00a0<\/span>hard<\/span>\u00a0liquor,\u00a0<\/span>this<\/span>\u00a0to\u00a0<\/span>keep<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>thoughts<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>down<\/span>\u00a0to a\u00a0<\/span>few<\/span>
\n<\/span>and in\u00a0<\/span>man<\/span>ageable\u00a0<\/span>rows<\/span>, which\u00a0<\/span>Virg<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>me<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>wise<\/span>ly fore<\/span>seen<\/span>,
\n<\/span>pack<\/span>ing prov<\/span>i<\/span>sions for the\u00a0<\/span>trip<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>hip<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>flasks<\/span>\u00a0of\u00a0<\/span>bou<\/span>rbon
\n<\/span>plus<\/span>\u00a0some\u00a0<\/span>ext<\/span>ra\u00a0<\/span>bricks<\/span>\u00a0of the\u00a0<\/span>fine<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>pro<\/span>duct, the\u00a0<\/span>weed
\n<\/span>we\u00a0<\/span>hop<\/span>ed to\u00a0<\/span>turn<\/span>\u00a0a\u00a0<\/span>de<\/span>cent\u00a0<\/span>mar<\/span>gin\u00a0<\/span>on<\/span>\u00a0in\u00a0<\/span>Sparks<\/span>\u00a0City,
\n<\/span>we\u2019d\u00a0<\/span>ca<\/span>mouf<\/span>laged<\/span>, a<\/span>long<\/span>\u00a0with a\u00a0<\/span>gun<\/span>, under a\u00a0<\/span>lot<\/span>\u00a0of\u00a0<\/span>junk<\/span>
\n<\/span>piled<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>on<\/span>\u00a0in the\u00a0<\/span>pic<\/span>kup\u00a0<\/span>truck\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0locked\u00a0<\/span>tool<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>box<\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I am going to save most of this kind of talk for later (sometimes mock or parodic) pieces of scholarly literature on\u00a0Road House<\/span>\u00a0(including a \u201cfeminist critique of the \u201clogo-phallocratic\u201d bias in this poem, forthcoming in\u00a0Hysteria: A Journal of Radical Feminist Thought<\/span>). \u00a0<\/span>What I want to talk about here is how the collaboration between Red Dog and myself came about, in particular how collective\u00a0poesis<\/span>\u00a0happens.<\/p>\n

One seminal moment was the first Throw-Down in Irvine, a term with\u00a0multiple meanings<\/span><\/a>, but the one Red Dog had in mind when he so dubbed it back in December — a combination of \u201cto party\u201d and the sense derived from the early years of hip-hop and break-dancing). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the last post I linked to the\u00a0YouTube of \u201cLone Star Blues\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 as performed at that first University Hills Throw-Down on our patio in Irvine by Uncle Dave Lang, Red Dog Young and my brother Steve Lang. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first place there was, then, Davo\u2019s rendition of\u00a0 Delbert McClinton\u2019s voice and its down-home manner of addressing the rigors of life in Texas, rigors which were mine until I fled like a bat out of hell at the tender age of 18, rigors which all of the Texans present, and even those who have not been so benighted but have consonant traumas of their own, grasped immediately.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometime in late March I had a chat with Red Dog in which I asked him if he would be willing to be a first reader of the strange poem growing within me, since it was in a language I had lost touch with,Texas Tawk<\/span>, the dialect of English I heard spoken in my youth, its\u00a0pronounciation<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0vocabulary<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0phraseology<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0idioms<\/span><\/a>, even grammar). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, I had a pretty firm sense of the rhythms, and I soon starting hearing within the voice of the character who came to be Johnny.\u00a0 But I did not trust myself entirely because I kept reverting to registers and a vocabulary which could never have been those of a thirty-year old drifter in, say, 1950s Texas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My reflex to consult with Red Dog was spot on, as became obvious the first time we met at the old colonial-style San Clemente Hotel caf\u00e9.\u00a0 I was relieved that there were not too many false notes in the hundred or so lines I printed out for him. But there were some rather egregious ones and in the beginning I had trouble escaping from following too literally the template of\u00a0Iter Brindisium<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Repeatedly, Red Dog urged upon me to go for the concrete rather than the abstract — advice familiar in the prescriptions of twentieth-century poetics but that I have often neglected.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first time we met we were supposed to be talking about the text as language, but the scope of our collaboration rapidly expanded. For one thing, he had some ideas about the characters, Bea in particular, but also Virg and Johnny and the legendary country songwriter, Waldo HubCap Brown. These threads soon became part and parcel of the story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There were only two and a half chapters out of ten at the point in time.\u00a0 As far as action in the here-and-now went, I had the Pimps stomping out of the Poker House Strip Club into what looked like a fight, the Partners following because they couldn\u2019t resist the sight of fisticuffs, or worse. I knew that Bea and Virg had to bound, to put it politely, but I figured that would happen the next day, since, following Horace, I had the three cars and the five characters crossing over some very big river on a ferry, Johnny, the Narrator hung over while they all went out on the stern of the ferry and smoked a joint.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Red Dog\u2019s advice was to compress the action, forget about the river and stay where we were, imaginatively, more or less in East Texas. Make it happen fast and then let the cards fall where they will.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There weren\u2019t all that many times we met in San Clemente, though I love the drive down on the 73 and sometimes arranged a nice Korean lunch for myself afterwards. Each time, though, our exchanges flowed fast and furious, and we separated with very different ideas than those we had brought to the table.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In retrospect, let me set out two major changes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first is that Red Dog suggested I write the last chapter as soon as possible, before I got down to Chapter Three, where we were then. You have to know where you are going in order to go, is what he said.\u00a0<\/span>Those words could just as easily be in a HubCap song as not. And the recognition that almost anything can be converted into poetry or song was instrumental in what happened to us both thereafter.<\/p>\n

The second major change or turning in the road is that, somehow, Waldo HubCap Brown was born, and his songs became Red Dog\u2019s business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew early on that there was a country songwriter hovering over the proceedings, since Virg and Johnny loved his songs, two titles of which having already wormed their way into the poetry:\u00a0I\u2019d Go to Jail for You<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Thanks Ma\u2019am, I\u2019ll Roll My Own<\/span>.\u00a0 I initially had him as \u201cCan-Opener\u201d Brown, but Red Dog told me that every time he thought of him (remember this was still a figment in our imaginations), he would replace \u201cCan-Opener\u201d with \u201cHub-Cap\u201d.\u00a0 HubCap it soon became.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next thing I knew Red Dog delivered the lyrics and the chords of\u00a0I\u2019d Go to Jail for You,\u00a0<\/span>plus a draft MP4 file. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From then things took right off.\u00a0 Red Dog started working on the songs and I sought ways to fit them into the action. I lept ahead to the last chapter, suddenly (SPOILER ALERT) had the vision of the tornado, no doubt in part because of the Jopin, Missouri disaster of May 22 — a useful timeline for the purposes of the poem\u2019s composition.\u00a0 I say\u00a0in part\u00a0<\/span>because, as anyone who knows me intimately knows, I have always been obsessed with powerful weather, tornados, hurricanes, blizzards, you name it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stuff just comes up out of the unconscious and finds its place in what is ongoing.\u00a0 There is much buried here that I shall certainly never talk about except in fiction. All the imagery of houses, yearned after or destroyed, homes, shacks, hovels, trailer houses rose to the surface without my ever thinking about them.\u00a0 \u201cHubCap\u201d itself was a token of the by then well-integrated road theme. That was something I didn\u2019t get until almost the end.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The sighting or siting of two other pivotal scenes in subsequent chapters happened in a similar whoosh. \u00a0<\/span>First, the spell the three fugitives pass at Homer\u2019s place,\u00a0Home<\/span>r\u2019s\u00a0home<\/span>\u00a0way back in the woods, and the back-story of Homer, his link to HubCap and further HubCap memorabilia of which there is more to come.<\/p>\n

Second, Bea\u2019s identity as part Indian and the two chapters built around the the traveling roadshow Swamp Carnival to Nooseton (noose+Houston).\u00a0 Both Red Dog and I were haunted by memories of sideshows and traveling circuses in our youth. The comic grotesque floating in those memories also chimed with the spirit of the poem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no doubt that my scholarly writing on\u00a0Chinook Jargon<\/span><\/a>\u00a0predisposed me to set up aYama<\/span>\u00a0or\u00a0Mobilian Jargon<\/span><\/a>\u00a0sub-plot, one which I feel (fear?) will now follow me into future writing. Bea\u2019s \u201cIndian name\u201d is Moon Woman.\u00a0 The grandmother she shares with\u00a0El-Bak-e-Show\u00a0<\/span>(\u201cNo Arm\u201d) is Water Daughter (Ok-e-Alla<\/span>).\u00a0 The most thorough study of Yama is Emmanuel Dreschel\u2019s\u00a0Mobilian Jargon<\/span><\/a>, but this is an obscure scholarly interest. I probably know or know of most of the individuals out there who might be inclined to pursue it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, the posting of\u00a0Road House<\/span>\u00a0in this kind of form on a website in rudimentary hypertextual form will, I am now convinced, shape what writing is left to me in my present incarnation on Planet Earth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout, Red Dog and I kept referring to \u201croad movies\u201d as the underlying template of our imaginings.\u00a0<\/span>Even if you are writing \u201cliterature\u201d — even if you are writing a \u201csatire<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in hexameters\u201d based on an obscure poem in Latin — you are thinking, these days, in filmic terms. There is a plethora of theoretical texts on the impact of film on literature.\u00a0 I don\u2019t need to quote them anymore, since I am retired from that profession.\u00a0 But trust me, the evidence is clear to all those with eyes to see.<\/p>\n

And, as in cinema, the forms of creativity brought to bear in\u00a0Road House<\/span>\u00a0were intensely collaborative. As I put it in the\u00a0Prologue<\/span>: Red Dog and I were like a tag-team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a fabulous experience, and it is not over yet.\u00a0 Other HubCap Productions are being ramped up, slowly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 July, 2011 Poesis is the making of things, and as I look back at the process which produced\u00a0Road House\u00a0I realize how aleatory the making of these kinds of things is.\u00a0 Also how compelling, once you tap into them. As much as I have enjoyed the time devoted since March, 2009, to\u00a0The Devil\u2019s Workshop, it … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Making of Road House”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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