DuluthCommunityNews

I'm living in a board and care. It's kind of like an exalted mission. I have my own room there. I'm on the verge of section 8 housing. They're nice apartments really cheap. I've been kind of jumping through the hoops in order to be an artist in America.

I've had some problems, you know, like writer's problems. Timothy Leary, when they told him he had six months to live, he's like "Yes! I'm out of here! See ya!" There are times I've felt like that. I was gonna kill myself once because I had read everybody that sounds interesting. But, not anymore.

I started writing in the early 90s in Montana. I'm originally from New York. My family was Irish Catholics. The Irish were such great writers because you need something to rebel against. Joyce couldn't have written anything if his parents were hippies.

I went to Syracuse University for about two months. Then I took a two-week vacation to Yellowstone. I never went back.

The best thing about college is that you get to hang out with like-minded people and you don't have to go to work. The great thing about Yellowstone was that it was like college, only there weren't any academics.

I spent eight years working there with 500 other drunk lunatics. Everybody was on the road. Everybody was out searching. It was a lunatic convention of travelers and wanderers that really weren’t quite content with the mall and their visa cards and all the things that seem to make people comfortable today.

I was fired at Glacier National Park, ended up at the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. "Land of the great hearts, bad livers, and incredible left hooks." That's why I started writing. I was 31. I wanted to before, but you know, as a baby you learn to speak by listening. To write, you read. As Bukowski says, "you don't choose it, it chooses you."

I ended up as a Bouncer at the third toughest bar in the country. The Bab Bar.

I had a unique situation because there were no poets from Dartmouth at that Indian bar in Montana.

The first thing I wrote was: Sorry, honest I'm not white, I'm Irish. Hearts of gold, livers sadly so old. Blackfeet nation, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Once mighty warriors now only a six pack now going back we stold all you hold your motherly earth cries alone. Give me a home where the Buffalo used to roam now only white highway crosses where they wreck, highways only brought you losses. Blackfeet nation my sincerest apologies.

In the mid-90s I was a skid row drunk. I was pretty depressed. My parents had died. I was drinking heavily. A girl blew me off for Jesus. So I ended up on the streets of Seattle for a few years. It was right around when Kurt Kobain blew his brains out.

Through my writing is what really saved me. My first book of poems," Women are from Venus, Men are from Bars," got published in '97 at a literary contest. After that I started a vintage clothing store. That didn't work out.

In business, in art, and in life, you need a goal. You need a plan. The plan in business would be to own the building. I wasn't that ambitious. It started falling apart. I stopped paying the bills.

I left town on a bicycle and headed to Portland. I hung out there for a while and then decided to ride East. The problem with the West Coast is if you want any help you have to wait five years to get into low income housing. It's so overloaded. I knew the people's republic of “Money-sota,� especially off the beaten path here in Duluth would be a tramp's holiday.

I had asked a lot of old rail riders, too. They said, "Duluth, bro. Go up there. Free donuts."

I was a little isolated for a little bit. I've sort of settled in now. I'm doing a reading on the sixth at Carmody's Irish Pub.

I'm not going anywhere. My road ends here. There's no place I'd rather be. I don't mind cold. I don't mind wind.