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Robert “Dick Head” Ritchie one year ago – foto by Smith

I’ve been asked to give the initial eulogy for Robert “Dick Head” Ritchie at his memorial service this Friday 7:30 pm in Lincoln Park. Guess they figured one ex-bad boy poet artist should send off Cleveland’s all-time champion bad boy artist poet.

Dick head was a punk poet performer publisher druggy alky artist-provacateur, probably from the late 1970s because when I met him in 1982, he was already in full anarchic bloom. Thanks to Robert, I read poetry and showed art at dozens of dark underground punk clubs where I wasn’t very well received..

When I finally bleed to death from alcohol and woke in intensive care in 1991, Robert was the first to call to see how I was. When I told him the doctors said I couldn’t drink anymore or I’d die, he screamed into the fone, “Then why don’t you die! I’d rather die than not drink!” I decided to live and haven’t drank in twenty years, while Robert continued on his wet path. I guess we both got what we wanted.

I met Robert in 1982 when there was a loud banging on my metal fire door in the downtown warehouse where I was living. I slid the door open and there was a drunken Robert whining, “You got any drugs?” I said no, but come back if you find any, and within the hour he was back, with drugs.

Robert was the reason Mother Dwarf and I got our first answering machine because when he got falling down drunk in the wee hours, my fone was the only number his brain could remember, and we got many a call. He was also one of only two folks Mother Dwarf didn’t like, and she liked everybody; Jack Micheline was the other.

I asked him why he called himself Dick Head and he told me that’s what his grandmother always called him.

He was a great cartoonist, a good artist, not the best father or husband, and he often failed as a human being. But he was loyal to friends, always happy to see you, generous with his drugs and alcohol and possessions and art, usually interesting, always original, and frequently funny.

He always told people I was his mentor . . . sometimes sincerely, sometimes sarcastically, although with Robert it was difficult to differentiate. Over a period of 25 years he published my poems and collages in Clevebland Rag-o-zeen and I published him thirteen times in Artcrimes.

He lived decades longer than most of us thought he would, abusing himself all the way; yet he died in his sleep on a friend’s couch, so I’d say that’s the best that can be expected and he won that game. As obnoxious as he could be, it’s amazing someone didn’t beat him to death. I believe he was in his mid 50s, but looked older, wizened, elfin.

It had to be hard being Robert . . . interesting yes, strange, much adventure in places most folk won’t go, but a hard road to walk nonetheless.

When fellow artist Wilcox was told of his death, he said, “Well as much as he could be a pain in the ass, he certainly did provide color for our little scene.”

That he did. Believe I’ll tell my dead frog cow intestine story Friday night.

Here’s a video of Robert reciting Ooey Gooey at the Literary Cafe in 1992. This is about as sober as I’ve seen him.
youtube.com/watch?v=U14B9XQcmOo.

This is Robert’s 5 minute avant garde piano solo at the Literary Cafe in 1992 (it actually works for me because it’s realtime emotion with a great ending).
youtube.com/watch?v=RxlOa0v8zLc

And finally a video of him at the end of his opening set for Jim Carroll at the Babylon A Go-Go in 1991; he says he’s too drunk to continue, takes off the rubber breasts and loin cloth (which is all he’s wearing), dons a leather jacket, picks up his poetry and leaves the stage.
youtube.com/watch?v=uznCy29j_VI



Robert & me, Tremont art walk October 2010
me wearing his handmade t-shirt I just bought for $10
fotos by Lady K

3 Responses

  1. I knew Robert back in the late 1970s, he was a couple of years younger than me, I was 20 in ’78. He used to hang around the Cooper School of Art and befriended me and my buddy Mike Friend. We were the Three Punkskateers for a while. Robert was clear headed in those days, *I* was the one working on a drinking problem, lol. He had a pet boa constrictor, I can’t remember it’s name. I still have some BW photos I took of Robert with the snake in the Arcade Building downtown, as I was the budding photographer.

    I’m sorry the booze got the better of him, but he’s part of a long list of artists that have grappled that daemon. I’ll always have this memory of him walking down the street in downtown CLE, carrying a huge bag with all his worldly possessions in it and his snake around his neck. He was an interesting guy and I never forgot him.

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