bus stop no loitering - foto by Smith

I don’t participate in a lot of MySpace flow like apps and tags, but Christie*~Ordained Princess of Poetry~* has been very sweet to me and she said pretty please and I do have a soft heart so here are 10 truths about me. But I won’t tag others - just like I’d never pass a chain letter on in the old days.

1 - I was born in 1946 in the Bitterroot range of the Rocky Mountains in the Idaho panhandle, raised on a 40 acre farm on Paradise Prairie 20 miles east of Spokane Washington. What future poet could ask for better metaphors than being born in Bitterroot, raised on Paradise Prairie?

2 - An excerpt from our unpublished memoir CRIMINAL by Smith & Lady:

When I was nine, the doctor pulled my foreskin back over my penis head. It hurt like heck because the foreskin had never been stretched before. Doc explained I had to wash under the foreskin every bath, or head cheese would develop. So I did. I washed it. A lot.

One night while reading and fondling my penis, I had my first climax. I didn’t understand what happened. No one had told me about sex. All I knew was it was wrong to touch myself, and I figured I’d broken something essential. Thinking it was God’s punishment, I wiped away the clear sticky goo, lay down in the dark, and waited to die. Next morning, still alive, I touched it some more. Made it break again. I broke it over and over.

Few years later, doctor said, “Your left testicle has dropped considerably lower than your right. That’s usually caused by playing with yourself too often.” I burned in shame, but kept on breaking my penis two or three times a day anyway. I must have had the most broke dick in town.

3 - In 1960 when I was 14, we moved from the farm to the city, and this 18 year old boy taught me to steal stuff from unlocked cars. I knew it was wrong but it was exciting. Couple months later I missed the last bus across town and couldn’t get home. I thought “If I can take from the glove compartment, I can take the whole car” and went into a church parking lot and found a 5 speed Fiat. Pushed it out of the lot and down the hill (I was 6 foot 3 inches tall), figured out how to make it work, drove it home. That night going 70 mph, I lost control, went off the road into a golf course where the car flipped upside down and tore one heck of a divot in the grass. Unhurt I walked home, then stole 12 more cars before I got caught and spent 9 days in juvenile detention and a year on probation. They figured it wasn’t my fault because I was getting straight As and loved my parents who loved me, so they blamed it on my older friend and made him join the Army.

4 - As a Midshipman in the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1965, I resented being made to march to Chapel every Sunday, especially since all the Officers and Midshipmen slept through the sermon, so one Sunday I took a large wind-up clanging alarm clock, set it to go off 20 minutes into the service, and wrote “THE YELLOW PHANTOM STRIKES AGAIN” in black magic marker across the face. I dropped it by the front of the Chapel as we marched in. Our guest preacher that day was Billy Graham. The alarm went off, echoing everywhere in the great stone dome while Officers and Midshipmen startled from sleep popped up and frantically looked about like jack in the boxes, and Billy Graham paused maybe three beats and continued on as if nothing had happened.

5 - In 1968 I was one of 12 Midshipmen kicked out of Annapolis for smoking marijuana. Since I had come in through the back door as an enlisted man, they either had to Court Marshall me or give me an honorable discharge. They didn’t want the publicity (we had already made the front page of the Washington Post) so the gave me an honorable. When I enlisted in the Navy in 1963 I explained I was joining the program where the Navy paid for one year of college for every two years I served. They said “Fine.” When I got to boot camp they said “Ha ha, you have to be 21 for that program, you’re only 17, so screw you.” I went to 3 months boot camp San Diego California, 9 months electronic school Memphis Tennessee, 9 months U.S.N.A. prep school in Bainbridge Maryland for the Naval Academy, 2.5 years at Annapolis, got kicked out and had the G.I. bill pay for two more years of college at Loyola in Baltimore. So, who screwed whom?

6 . When I left the Academy, I swore there were two things I’d never do - take LSD because I was crazy and it’d push me over the edge, or use a needle. Within two weeks I’d done both.

7 - I’ve ruin from the cops 10 times, got away 9. The one failure was my second and last armed robbery. Was sentenced to 11.5 to 23 months in prison. After serving 10.5 months, the Warden and the guards went to the Judge, said I didn’t belong in jail and got me released one month early. One of the guards gave me his badge as I left. (Jail is the reason I went back and graduated from college, to show I was on a better path).

8 - The happiest moment of my life was my first sky dive. After free falling almost 2 miles I pulled the ripcord and hung in total silence a mile above a gorgeous green earth, watching the sunlit slow moving farms fields woods lakes below.

9 - Saw rabbits dance in the Michigan woods one night in 1976. A male rabbit danced slow courtship circles about the female rabbit. Suddenly a second male rabbit came along and the two males started to fight dance around each other. After awhile the female got bored and hopped off. Eventually the males noticed she was gone and hopped off in different directions.

10 - Here’s the Cliff Notes of my life:

Smith 2009

9 March 1946 / Wallace Idaho / 6′ 3” / 175
poet 46 years, artist 45 years, ArtCrimes publisher 24 years,
AgentOfChaos.com 7 years, Walking Thin Ice co-blogger 3 years

1950s
farm boy cow milker chicken/rabbit/hog waste remover
hod carrier

1960s
paper boy
car thief
house wrecker
sailor
electronics technician
poet
USNA midshipman
artist
hippie
life insurance salesman
husband

1970s
chemist
armed robber
prison cook
bankrupt
graphic arts salesman
bethlehem steel extraman
snow cone flavor delivery man
college graduate
newspaper film/music critic
milkman
avant-garde theatre manager
women’s shoe salesman
divorced
computer operator
drug dealer
carnival laborer
adulterer
church janitor

1980s
programmer analyst
drunk
condo owner
publisher/editor
celibate

1990s
near dead
sober
european traveler

2000s
unemployed
agentofchaos.com
cancer
remarried
walkingthinice.com
expat
criminal by smith & lady
repat

skin deep - foto by Smith

detail Smith journal cover late 1970s - foto by Smith

When I went out this morning for the Sunday paper, I met a stoner on the street who when he heard I’d been down in Mexico for 15 months suddenly said he had some “kind” and would I want a taste and pulled out a small bushy plump bud of marijuana riddled with golds and greens and little tiny sticky hairs.

I didn’t really want to because I have to do manual labor this afternoon and the two don’t mix, but it was so pretty and unexpected it would have been a shame not to add it to my database of experience, so indulged.

Had two tokes. It was good, gentle in taste, kind to the throat, very effective, and of course quite expensive, prohibitively so. Were I working and collecting a weekly paycheck, this is the way I would go. As it is, I enjoyed the treat but passed on the purchase. My drugs these days tend to be two cups of coffee first thing each day.

Clearing out our 3 year self storage I found this description of a drug test I took in 1997 which led to my getting fired as a computer programmer consultant to BP:

“This time I worked three months and reluctantly agreed to sign up for another twelve months to forever as real people employee with benefits. Reluctant cuz they demanded drug test and nasty forms filled out Gestapo-wise. Tried to pass drug test. Took bus out to Broadway porno shop and bought Vales Original Formula De-Toxifier for $35. Hadn’t done any chemicals for a week. Bought this product cuz guy I was transitioning told me his brother had passed four times with Vale’s. This was July 13. Drug test was July 17. De-tox box said I needed to be drugless for two days. Drug test was four days away.

“Went home and took two black speed pills and one tall (talls are yellow oblong opiate extreme pain pill marvels). Two hours later dropped another black, another tall. Each speed good for eight hours, each opiate for seven. Two hours later took two blacks and one tall. I love to be able to maintain a high, although these drug amounts push beyond high into more an amiable chaos wave amenable to manipulation.

“Sunday just smoked. Monday began 48 hour detoxification regime 17 hours early. No coffee no diet coke no candy no vinegar and found it takes three days to get over coffee depression (marvelous drug). By the time of my drug test my urine was designer water clear. Thought I would pass.

“Walked out of test, took two black speeds, one tall, smoked a joint and went for a cup of coffee. It was a gorgeous summer magic day out on edge of county with trees and birds and sunshine.”

The page ends there, but the story doesn’t. Week later I got a call from a doctor in California who said “We found marijuana in your blood. How did it get there?” “Second hand smoke?” I answered. “Not in these concentrations. This is the highest we’ve seen.” Two days later I was fired.

I don’t understand. They were looking for drugs. They found drugs. Wouldn’t that mean I passed?

1997 was my last big drug binge. Alcohol free 18 years now, chemical free 12. These days a rare third cup of coffee is living the wild side of life.

detail Smith postcard 1990s - foto by Smith

that’s me in the back seat - foto by Smith

I missed my 18th anniversary of not drinking alcohol, which means I’m one week into my 19th year of sobriety. April 21 1991 after 14 hours of vomiting blood, EMS carried me down to the ambulance where I died and came back, then rushed me to intensive care. I remember the doctors standing around after they’d put 5 units of blood into me and one doc asking the other, “Where’s it going?” They decided to give me a sixth unit of blood, and if that didn’t bring my blood pressure back up, they’d have to check for internal bleeding.

4 days later they let me out and I walked home. haven’t had a drink since, although for the first 6 months I turned into a Nyquil junkie because Nyquil is 25% alcohol, plus it’s got enough drugs in it to keep you seriously stoned. I traded the Nyquil habit for a year of cocaine before dropping everything and taking off to Europe for the first time.

I’m not tempted to drink. The only thing I miss is its legality - it’d be nice to be able to legally get high simply by walking into a bar or a liquor store. If they’d just legalize grass, I’d have it made. So would the government because of the taxes. Right now our government conservatively estimates 40% of Americans have smoked marijuana at one time or another, so it’s not like they don’t know what’s going on. (Me, I’ve smoked it one time and another and most the moments in between for 42 years).

Oh, there were two times I was tempted to drink.

In Liznjan Croatia, a small fishing village on the Istrian tip of the Adriatic Sea, all the villagers made their own brandy from the fig/orange/lemon trees growing in their yards. Every place we’d stop, they’d immediately pour us each a small glass of their own homemade brandy, and I’d watch with longing as Lady drank both of them. We were on bicycles for one of these visits and she was hilariously happy and loosely balanced as she wove away on her two thin tires.

The second place was Oaxaca Mexico - I wanted to try some of their bootleg Agave cactus Mezcal.

But I can’t because 18 years is too long a straight stretch to break. Longest I ever went without grass was 10.5 months in county jail in 1970 - although I did do speed once and heroin once while there. The speed was given to me by an nark posing as a guard. He swore me to secrecy and told me he was an undercover cop, trying to find how the drugs were getting into the jail. Then he told me how after each bust, he’d steal a little of the drugs for himself. He reached into his pocket and said, “Here, here’s some of it,” and handed me a tab of speed. I learned from that to be more careful what I told friendly strangers, and that it’s NOT advisable to do speed when locked behind bars because your insides are moving right along but your outside got no place to go.

new era - foto by Smith

Nulvoid, 1995, 6″ x 9″, by Steven B. Smith - foto by Smith

I’ve reworking our letter of inquiry to potential literary agents in an attempt to get our book started down the publishing chute. Here’s my latest opening line. What do you think, would this catch your eye:

“Criminal - My Life & Crimes 1946-2006 by Smith & Lady: a true story of armed robbery, stolen cars, alternative art, mainstream poetry, underground publishing, robbing the cradle, and leaving the country.”

The previous first line I had in the letter that a good 40 literary agents ignored or rejected was:

“I ran run from the cops ten times, got away nine; stole 13 cars when 14, spent nine days in jail; was part of the largest group ever kicked out of the U.S. Naval Academy for marijuana in 1968; committed two armed robberies, spent a year in jail; am a poor boy from the west who ended up in the Society Register in the east.”

Now that I reread that sentence, I wince at its awkwardness. I tried to get too much info into too small a space.

This publishing process is so frustrating. First, I have an outsider/outlaw story life that violates most establishment folks sensibilities, and they’re in charge of the process. Second, I am a total unknown outside of being semi-famous in my own small neighborhood. Third, the economic times are so bad that two publishing houses are no longer publishing anything at all (just trying to survive instead off their catalog of past successes) while the rest are seriously cutting back.

I think anyone who has read Jack Kerouac or William Burroughs novels or Albert Camus’ essays or listened to Lenny Bruce would be a natural audience for our memoir of my life. On The Road is a so-so written story of a sad and shallow group of people hitch-hiking across country for a few summers while my story is 60 years of outsider life, crimes, drugs, art, poetry, philosophy - all told honestly with humor and NO excuses.

Caged Dice, 1997, 18″ x 18″, by Steven B. Smith - foto by Smith

sacred objects - foto by smith

private journal excerpt December 23, 1973 (I was 27):

I’m broke as per usual. Was in McDonald’s glorious hamburger haven tonight and noticed they had an Xmas tree with the holy three beneath it. So I reached over and stole their ceramic blond haired blue eyed Jesus from right out of his ceramic crib and put him in my pocket. Fear not his bodily absence for he is arisen.

(from Criminal by Smith & Lady)

Let’s put the X back in Christmas.

morberto heladio - foto by smith

me, myself & lie - foto by smith

this excerpt from CRIMINAL has been rather well received. the two poetry venues i’ve read it in so far have laughed a lot - it’s from the Puberty chapter:

The doctor pulled my foreskin back over my penis head when I was nine. It hurt like heck since the foreskin had never been stretched before. Doc explained I had to wash under the foreskin every bath, or head cheese would develop. So I did. I washed it. A lot.

One night while reading and fondling my penis, I had my first climax. I didn’t understand what happened. No one told me about sex. All I knew was it was wrong to touch myself. I figured I’d broken something essential. Thinking it was God’s punishment, I wiped away the clear sticky goo, lay down in the dark, and waited to die.

Next morning, still alive, I touched it some more. Made it break again. I broke it over and over.

Few years later, doctor said, “Your left testicle has dropped considerably lower than your right. That’s usually caused by playing with yourself too often.”

I burned in shame, but kept on breaking my penis two or three times a day anyway. I must have had the most broke dick in town.

here n there - foto by smith

love bait - foto by smith

pre-prince - foto by smith

love shack out back garden - foto by smith

americana - foto by smith

heron - foto by smith

leaf line - foto by smith

breakfast plate in mountain village - foto by smith

more shame from the past - my journal entry from april 4, 1973 - back when i was miserably married to robin redbreast, unhappy with my life and her infidelities, and still massively depressed 2 and a half years out of prison. this will be the last journal entry - i’ve read enough of my old life for awhile.

april 4, 1973

I’m becoming uptight when Robin touches me lately. I find my self becoming tensely irritated when driving along she lays her hand along side my inner thigh and inevitably moves up to my crotch. She also makes throatal noises she believes to be sexual but again turn me way off. It is difficult to live with a girl whom one does not respect intellectually or morally, whom one does not love, know, or care to know.

I shamed myself yesterday. The girl upstairs is a dealer and she left for Florida for a week a few days ago. So I, having a key to her place, went in to look for her stash. I found her bag with almost no difficulty in the window closet. In the bag were four ounces of grass and a black book with sale records and $140. So, I opened up the plastic baggies of dope & took a little out for me from each bag, put the rest & the money back. I went downstairs with about $4.00 worth of bad grass ( I know it’s bad cuz tis the same as last which was bad – in fact, all of her dope has been weak or medium mediocrity. Then I felt so bad that I stole that I went back up and put it all back. The worst of it all is that I wasn’t even tempted to steal the $140, but I stole $4 worth of bad grass. That is sick. I am sickening. Moralistic poet steals. To make it worse I once again onaned this a.m. Robin wants me sexually 2-3 times per day – I frequently find masturbation more attractive because I don’t have to lie next to me afterwards, lying, “I love you.” Lizard shit. As of now, no more masturbation – she would say it was a waste of the creative force. No more soda pops. No more Gino’s hamburgers. No more candy bars. On we go.

cracked dinner plate - foto by smith