Homage to the San Francisco YMCA
by Richard Brautigan
Once upon a time in San Francisco there was a man who really liked the finer things in life, especially poetry. He liked a good verse.
He could afford to indulge himself in this liking, which meant that he didn’t have to work because he was receiving a generous pension that was the result of a 1920’s investment that his grandfather had made in a private insane asylum that was operating quite profitably in Southern California.
In the black, as they say and located in the San Fernando Valley, just outside of Tarzana. It was one of those places that do not look like an insane asylum. It looked like something else with flowers all around it, mostly roses.
The checks always arrived on the 1st and the 25th of every month, even when there was not a mail delivery on that day. He had a lovely house in Pacific Heights and he would go out and buy more poetry. He of course had never met a poet in person. That would have been a little too much. One day he decided that his liking for poetry could not be fully expressed in just reading poetry or listening to poets reading on phonograph records. He decided to take the plumbing out of his house and completely replace it with poetry, and so he did.
He turned off the water and took out the pipes and put in John Donne to replace them. The pipes did not look too happy. He took out his bathtub and put in William Shakespeare. The bathtub did not know what was happening.
He took out his kitchen sink and put in Emily Dickinson. The kitchen sink could only start back in wonder. He took out his bathroom sink and put in Vladimir Mayakovsky. The bathroom sink, even though the water was off, broke out into tears.
He took out his hot water heater and put in Michael McClure’s poetry. The hot water heater could barely contain its sanity. Finally he took out his toilet and put in the minor poets. The toilet planned on leaving the country.
And now the time had come to see how it all worked, to enjoy the fruit of his amazing labor. Christopher Columbus’ slight venture sailing West was merely the shadow of a dismal event in the comparison. He turned the water back on again and surveyed the countenance of his vision brought to reality. He was a happy man.
“I think I‘ll take a bath,” he said, to celebrate. He tried to heat up some Michael McClure to take a bath in some William Shakespeare and what happened was not actually what he had planned on happening.
“Might as well do the dishes, then,” he said. He tried to wash some plates in “I taste a liquor never brewed,” and found there was quite a difference between that liquid and a kitchen sink. Despair was on its way.
He tried to go to the toilet and the minor poets did not do at all. They began gossiping about their careers as he sat There trying to take a shit. One of them had written 197 sonnets about a penguin he has once seen in a travelling circus. He sensed a Pulitzer Prize in this material.
Suddenly the man realized that poetry could not replace plumbing. It’s what they call seeing the light. He decided immediately to take the poetry out and put in the pipes back in, along with the sinks, the bathtub, the hot water heater and the toilet.
“This just doesn’t work out the way I planned it,” he said. “I’ll have to put the plumbing back. Take the poetry out.” It made sense standing there naked in the total light of failure.
But then he ran into more trouble than there was in the first place. The poetry did not want to go. It liked very much occupying the positions of the former plumbing.
“I look great as a kitchen sink,” Emily Dickinson’s poetry said.
“We look wonderful as a toilet,” the minor poets said.
“I’m a perfect hot water heater,” Michael McClure’s poetry said.
Vladimir Mayakovsky sang new faucets from the bathroom, there were faucets beyond suffering, and William Shakespeare’s poetry was nothing but smiles.
“That’s well and dandy for you,” the man said. “But I have to have plumbing, real plumbing in this house. Did you notice the emphasis I put on real? Real! Poetry just can’t handle it. Face up to the reality,” the man said to the poetry.
But the poetry refused to go. “We’re staying.” The man offered to call the police. “Go ahead and lock us up, you illiterate,” the poetry said in one voice.
“I’ll call the fire department!”
“Book burner!” the poetry shouted.
The man began to fight the poetry. It was the first time he had ever been in a fight. He kicked the poetry of Emily Dickinson in the nose.
Off course the poetry of Michael McClure and Vladimir Mayakovsky walked over and said in English and in Russian, “That won’t do at all,” and threw the man down a flight of stairs. He got the message.
That was two years ago. The man is now living in the YMCA in San Francisco and loves it. He spends more time in the bathroom than everybody else. He goes in there at night and talks to himself with the light out.
The photos on the cover of Trout Fishing In America
Richard Brautigan’s writings are known for his humorous and vivid imagination. He was, and remains, very popular among the Beat Generation of Poets.
The Return of the Rivers, in 1957, was Brautigan’s first published poetry book. In 1958, and 1959, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker and Lay the Marble Tea were published.
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s Brautigan was living in San Francisco, California. He handed out his poetry on the streets and performed in poetry clubs. During the 1960’s Brautigan became a part of the counterculture scene, often performing in poetry shows and in activities with the “left-winged” group the Diggers. He worked as a writer for an underground newspaper, Change, which was created by Ron Loewinsohn.
In the summer of 1961 Brautigan took his family camping in the areas around Snake River in Idaho. They had bought an old station wagon. He and his wife Virginia packed two crates of books, Coleman camping supplies, a tent, diapers for their daughter Ianthe, and a Royal typewriter that Richard borrowed from his barber. Brautigan was quite fond of fishing and fished many of the creeks around the Snake River in Idaho. While camping he completed A Confederate General from Big Sur and Trout Fishing In America. A Confederate General from Big Sur became his first published novel, and it brought about only a small amount of success. In 1967 however, when Trout Fishing in America was published, Brautigan quickly became an internationally known writer, “Literary critics labeled him the writer most representative of the emerging countercultural youth-movement of the late 1960’s. Trout Fishing in America has sold over 4 million copies worldwide (1).”
In Watermelon Sugar and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace were both published in the 1960’s. Also, during the 1960’s, Rolling Stone Magazine published 23 short pieces written by Brautigan.
During the 1970’s Brautigan published five novels and Revenge of the Lawn, a collection of short stories.
His popularity in the US waned during the 1970’s and the eighties; however in Europe and Japan he remained popular. He lived for several years in Japan and was married to a Japanese woman for a brief time. During the 1980’s his published works were The Tokyo-Montana Express (1980) and So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away in 1982.
Brautigan’s friend, Pierre Delattre, tells a story in “Brautigan Done For” where he describes Brautigan as a “great fisherman.” Apparently he had a knack of quickly catching fish. He also describes Brautigan speaking about his writing and typewriter. “Quiet”, he whispered to Delattre, as he looked at his typewriter. “ My new novel’s in there. I kind of stroll in occasionally, write a few quick paragraphs, and get out before the novel knows what I’m doing. If novels ever find out you’re writing them, you’re done for. “(2)
As for his attire, and outward expression of his personality Brautigan generally dressed like he did on the cover of Trout Fishing in America. In Michael McClure’s book “Lighting the Corners :On Art, Nature, and the Visionary” he writes that : “Richard’s style was shabby- loose threads at the cuff, black pants faded to gray, an old mismatched vest, a navy pea-jacket, and later something like love beads around the neck. As he began to be more successful he was even more fearful of change (3). “
Throughout his writing career Brautigan suffered from alcoholism. It had a large effect on his life his life, his two marriages and caused him much despair.
By the spring of 1984 Brautigan had bought home in Bolinas, California with his earnings from earlier writings and was trying his hand at screen play writing. During the fall he fell into a severe depression. He spoke with his ex-girlfriend Marcia Clay on September 15th and told her he needed to find a piece of writing he wanted to read to her. She told him she would call again in ten minutes. When she called back he did not answer. “She called repeatedly, each time getting only the answering machine. (4)
It is believed that Brautigan died on Sunday, September 16th after calling his friend Don Carpenter. When their conversation ended he said “I love you. Goodbye.” (5) He then turned up his radio, stood looking out the window facing towards the ocean and shot himself in the head. He was only 49. As friends called over several days the batteries of his answering machine ran low. On October 25th, a friend who had hired an investigator sent over Robert Yench to check on Brautigan. His badly decomposed body was found with a gunshot wound to his head.
Brautigan was buried in the Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Bodega, California, under the shade of trees. Ianthe Brautigan, his daughter, has said that her father spent “much time avoiding the sun.” She has not yet erected a marker for his grave. She decided “That I don’t take having the last word lightly.”(6)
What a tragedy, to have lost such a gifted writer, at such a young age. Through the years I have been to Brautigan birthday poetry celebrations and met many others who have enjoyed, and celebrate his life and work. I have expressed to friends that reading Richard Brautigan was like a mini- vacation. Within a half an hour he’d take me to various places. They might be Tokyo, San Francisco, or Montana. There would be times when we traveled where I swore he must have taken a lot of LSD to write that story. I found it refreshing and a release from my usual day to day activities to read such a strange story.
I think one has to have a sense of humor to read Brautigan. In the beginning getting used to him is like a wild ride, you never know where he is going to turn, yet after a while you start to understand and accept that you are on an unexpected journey and you start enjoying it. Then you look forward to it, and feel as if he is your friend.
I will be forever grateful to Brautigan since his writings helped my daughter, Emily, find her way out of a really rough depression as a teenager. This proves that a man can still help raise a child, even long after his life on earth has ended. Emily was reading books and watching several movies about artists or performers who had committed suicide while she was in this depression. It was frightening to see and I kept trying to reach her and the struggling continued. Finally I found a book by Ianthe Brautigan about her relationship with her father and his struggles with his drinking. The book was titled “You Can’t Catch Death.” As I was reading it I told Emily about it and I also tried to see if I could get her to read some of Richard Brautigan’s writing. I felt that his writing would help inspire her. I began leaving several of his books out, lying around the living room area. Finally she picked one up and started her own journey with Brautigan! Her transformation out of her depression was almost instantaneous. She suddenly had a new lease on life, one that was bold, unique and downright quirky. She’s always had an expressive, creative voice inside of her, it was just that she had sunken into a type of abyss and lost her ability to carry it to the surface. Plus finding the connection with Brautigan’s writing showed her how he had been embraced by a beatnik culture that had celebrated his thinking outside-the-box. That of course, gave her the freedom to express her own voice.
I have inserted two drawings Emily, my daughter did in this post. One is of Richard Brautigan, the other is of Lee Mellon, a character in his book A Confederate General From Big Sur. At the end of this post I am posting an untitled poem by Emily Owens, my daughter, that shows Brautigan’s influence upon her own writing. Those of you familiar with his writings will know how he liked to use numbers in his stories. In honor of Emily’s love for Brautigan she has a small tattoo on the inside of her wrist that says “Trout.”
Well I hoped you enjoyed this post on Richard Brautigan’s life and writing. I plan to get to another outfit post or two soon. Foot surgery was changed to September 4th so I am getting ready for next Friday! There is so much to juggle getting ready for three weeks of staying home with my foot up!
Richard Brautigan drawing by Emily Owens
Untitled Poem by Emily Owens
the factory was torn down. It sat there for thirty years, dreaming otherwise being fairly sedentary.
They rammed and busted into it, knocking down everything with a fierce growl, like the punt of a soccer ball when the player is very determined to destroy team he opposes.
They knocked down with machines larger than the men who welded them and picked up the rubble with the same machines again + left some behind also because they were sloppy like those sort of “jobs” tend to be.
After that they burned the ground. The construction worker’s wife had left him. It’s illegal to burn your wife in Colorado so he burned the factory’s plot of land instead, (in it’s absence, I am a firm believer this land still belonged to the factory, even if only in spirit.) it wasn’t something he was supposed to do on the job but everyone joined him and they laughed and poured beer and the factory smoldered and became less of what it was.
The construction worker felt good and the ghost of the factory was a little bent up about it because that’s how factories tend to feel after being torn down and burnt afterwards.
6 months went by and nothing happened.
No one came to visit
The factory (honestly) didn’t mind too much.
On the first day of what would classifiably be considered the seventh month, a flower popped up, right where the factory had stood.
and then 7.
And then 28 & then more
Until the field where the factory once lived was full of flowers (28,971,600) no one would have ever been able to tell that it was once upon a time, a place anyone would destroy and then burn down an laughed through gated anxiety as they distracted themselves from their ex-wife at the bar while their friends placed peanut after peanut down their throat, systematically smiling down the pretty bartender & pretending to still pay attention.
I mean, there were so many.
There’d be no way to tell except some remnant we won’t discuss now because there isn’t enough time and the flowers are busy growing.
(& no
one
can tell you today
because this is a
very old story you have
heard just now
for the very first time.)
-For Richard Brautigan, on June 30th, June 30th. And for me, On June 30th, June 30th.
Drawing by Emily Owens of Lee Mellon. He is a character from A Confederate General From Big Sur.
(1). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Brautigan
(2). Pierre Delattre’s “Brautigan Done For. Episodes” (pg. 53-54)
(3). Michael McClure, Lighting the Corners: On Art & Nature, and the Visionary. (pg.39)
(4). William Hjortsberg’s JubileeHitchiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan. (pg.811)
(5). http://www.brautigan.net/chronology1980.html, Sunday, Sept.16th,1984Ianthe Brautigan’s, You Can’t Catch Death. (pg. 134-135)
(6). Ianthe Brautigan’s, You Can’t Catch Death. (pg. 134-135)
All photos here from Flickr and written material by Marilyn Lavender. © Marilyn Lavender, 2015. “All rights reserved.”
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