Look and Listen

Biography

Grew up in Chicago. Found myself in the jungles of South East Asia at 19. Got through that. Returned to the Windy City and bought a typewriter. Little did I know that it would take years to develop a style, a voice, let alone get anywhere with it. Headed West soon after: L.A. and that madness. Was a furniture mover, delivered phone books door to door, drove a taxi, was a movie extra, worked in a factory, painted apartments, did TV repos even; sold rebuilt mattresses to Sunset Strip prostitutes and out-of-work Hollywood actor types.

Inspiration

Knut Hamsun's Hunger, Pan, Victoria; James M. Cain's Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice; Ferdinand Celine's Journey To The End Of The Night; John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy Of Dunces; Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Iceman Cometh, others; Carson McCuller's Ballad Of The Sad Cafe; Elie Wiesel's Night, others; Nathanael West's Day Of The Locust; Charles Bukowski's Ham On Rye, Post Office, South Of No North, Notes Of A Dirty Old Man, most of his short stories, a third of his poetry; Jack Kerouac's On The Road; Tenn Williams' Sweet Bird Of Youth, Streetcar Names Desire; Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell To Arms, Vincent van Gogh's Dear Theo; Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar; the plays of August Strindberg; Nelson Algren's The Man With The Golden Arm, short stories; Jack London's Martin Eden; the films of Akira Kurosawa: Seven Samurai, Ikiru, High And Low, others; John Huston's Fat City, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, others; the films of Sergio Leone: Good, Bad, Ugly, others; films of John Ford: Grapes Of Wrath, others; the films of Elia Kazan; Edgar Allen Poe; Vincent van Gogh's art; James Ross' one and only novel: They Don't Dance Much; Chester Himes' If He Hollers Let Him Go; Donald Goines; Iceberg Slim; Eddie Bunker; Elvis Presley; Roy Orbison; Janis Joplin; Eva Cassidy Carmen McRae; Ottmar Liebert; Don McLean; Frank Sinatra; Stan Getz; Paul Desmond (Take Five); Zoot Sims; Chet Baker; all the great jazz artists; all the great blues artists; Motown; Al Green; Michael McDonald; opera great Kiri te Kanawa; some classical: Camile Saint-Saens' The Swan from Carnival Of The Animals, etc.