Thanks For The Mammaries
....coming soon....
.much to do with the early '70's and later Canadian literary scene, and music internationally, along with personal reminiscences, letters and photos of Irving Layton, Gwen MacEwen, John Newlove, Al Purdy, Milton Acorn, Allen Ginsberg, Levon Helm, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, John Hammond, Paul Butterfield, John Lennon, The Beatles, and more etc., etc., aided by the fact that I kept diaries through out the entire time .... Thanks For The Mammaries© Dean J. Baker
PUBLISHER wanted: Contact me.
1
In the beginning, there was my mother softly crooning songs to me when I was nothing more than a human tadpole. My father standing back watching, and leaning in to nuzzle, hug, and kiss me as I felt his love, care and strength surge through every fibre of my being. I have faint memories of my mother playing the piano while my father would join in on violin to serenade their child.
I don't recall my first introduction to books, only the thrill of captured images and remembered spoken words now on a solid, substantial page. My first love: the order and discipline of aligning the universe into something not only manageable, but different and new, unique and magical. Lives, emotions and victories that could be lived and relived endlessly. The music in that combination sang brighter to me in its fertile silence than anything.
This obvious enthrallment led to my father promising to buy me a book for every one I read; at age four, I had enough to surround myself in a homemade 'fort' of over 40 books, most of which I still have today.
Through many incarnations involving music, my mother's singing and hope, my father's gentle soul and tough exterior, all leading me through the fields of working independently at paper routes from age seven onwards to singing in plays and acting; by way of piano playing, ballet, love of nature and dogs, through to guitar playing and a love of beautiful women, this creativity led me to admire those who worked fiercely and better than most at its incipience. I was blessed by a feeling of appreciation for genius in whatever forms in which it appears.
2
Music came first. The melodic and hard driving rock of the late 1950's and early 1960's. And then one evening my brother couldn't wait to get me to hear a group, not an individual singer, on his crystal radio. Stretching the wire out from the lamp to which he had clipped it for better reception, he offered me the earplug and I heard 'She Loves You' without knowing the name of the group. Wow - it was rock, it was melodic, it was addressed to me, and it was talking about a girl, and she loved me. The Beatles: the world was new, again.
As much as I heard however there wasn't one group, or singer, who could effortlessly and with lyrical ability articulate everything in one go; what they lacked in articulation and thought was formed in the melodies and the beat. A poor substitute for wanting to be confronted with intellectually stimulating lyrics.
At this time, I didn't listen to Bob Dylan, simply for the reason that everyone seemed to be listening to whatever he said and worshipping. I wanted to form my own opinion and didn't feel I could do so in that atmosphere. While I heard snippets of his songs over the next decade or so, it wasn't until 1977 that I sat down and actually bought an album of his at the urging of my first girl friend with whom I lived.
Then there was Leonard Cohen - somber and polite, but without incorporating that personal fire that said these are my opinions. His work, while magical, did not have the stamp that said these are my thoughts; in fact, it seemed to go out of its way to not do so: to purportedly allow the reader to entirely form his own opinion. All that did was merely focus on the fact of interpretation. There seemed to be no commingling of thought, and thought provoking lyrics and verse without a concomitant degradation of poetic quality anywhere.
But, wait a minute. Who was that with the wavy hair and black leather jacket, impassioned and articulate, making ultimate sense and fomenting for the pearls of wisdom by irritating and provoking listeners, now appearing on the Pierre Berton Show, on programs with Morton Shulman, being quoted extensively in the media - and not some talented wise-ass with a turn for music and the flash of what appeared to be contemporaneity?
Irving Layton. Whose poetry I'd read in high school as part of an English class. A real, live poet! Not British, not dead, not dusty and in the past by decades. Alive, articulate, and full of fire. And he had taught Leonard Cohen at University - and they were pals! Now this I had to hear more of as soon as possible.
3
The first time I met Irving Layton came about in an inauspicious manner, much as everything good has come to me, or I have searched it out.
I was out of work, it was a cold Winter, my father and I were not getting along; and justifiably he was worried that I would likely sit around reading and writing poetry, and playing music until I grew barnacles. One day everything of that nature erupted, and he started chasing me around the house, attempting to give me a 'lesson.' Well, he chased me towards the front door, I grabbed my coat and scarf off the nearby chair, and went out and kept going.
Of course I headed for downtown where I knew I could always manage to sit in a movie theatre for hours to stay warm, hit a department store that had a cafeteria and snag some food, and generally just keep occupied until I figure my Dad's Vesuvius-like temperament had cooled down enough to return home.
I thought of a friend I'd recently met at the drop-in place across the street in the park, and how he'd said he would be working at the Y, at 'Stopover;' a free night's lodging and breakfast. I went to see if he was there after it grew dark and late, and he was. Prior to this I had phoned York University where I discovered Layton was teaching, and was told tomorrow was one of his days. I said hello to Steve, and he invited me to stay the night, get a free breakfast and then go see Irving Layton. I asked him if I could borrow some paper as I had left without any poems, and I really wanted to show some of my work to Irving. Not being able to recall any, I wrote for a few hours, came up with 13 poems, and settled into a restless sleep.
Waking to The Rolling Stones blaring, Steve hustled me over to the breakfast, and said to come see him after I'd seen Layton because if I had to I could stay at his place.
I got on the subway, took it north, then west, and then a bus, all of which took about an hour and a half. I searched out Irving's building, and then his office. Saw he wasn't in, and proceeded to pace. Christ, Irving Layton. The Great Poet. And me coming from the Y, with few hours' sleep, hand-scribbled poems, and anxious yet anticipatory as well. Hmm, what'll I say. My mouth's dry. Better pace back down the hallway and around the corner again, maybe then he'll be in his office and I won't run into him here - oops! Layton, striding down the hallway, in his full-length black leather coat, eying me.
4
I stumblingly introduced myself, said I'd read his work, loved his poetry, that I wanted to meet him, and he invited me into his office to sit down. Asked me if I wanted coffee, if I was a student at York. No to the coffee, no to being a student. He asked if I had some poems for him, and asked to read them. Commented generally that they were very good, recited a line or two that he liked, and said he had to get ready for class, did I want to sit in? Then said they had to fill out a form for the University and I could help him by filling it out since I didn't attend and that it would "fuck them up."
We went to class, he gave me the form and stood in front of me while the rest of the class filled it out, muttering, "go ahead, fill it out, that's it." Afterwards, we talked about whether I was in school or not, if I should be, about night classes, and going to university, and he invited me to come back and talk anytime I wanted, yet to " make sure you bring me some more of your poetry."
Little did I know this one meeting would lead to us becoming good friends, meeting around the environs of Ontario at cafes, movies, reading;, me acting as his booking agent for a time, and unofficially helping him teach his Graduates' Honors Creative Writing class by slipping "our poems" into those they were to officially critique at one point when I had as yet no degree.
I would come into contact with sweet souls; and assholes like R.P., a backstabbing hypocritical shit whose smallness is only exceeded by his spiteful and cowardly pettiness, a side he makes sure to never show whenever there might be consequences: such as being seen as so undignified and intellectually dishonest.
That jerkoff laughed about buying books I had to sell, to get money for food; he masqueraded as R.Plant and mocked me publicly in front of his friends, not an unbiased group, because of some superficial resemblance to a real artist I supposedly have, saying - and this is a guy I had coffee with who never said a thing to my face - "that guy thinks he's so-and-so"; also laughed at me when I showed up for a public tribute to a friend - because he was with a former friend, another writer, J.R. R.P. is just a tiny self-righteously belated hollow blot of self-promotion of no lasting significance. J.R was another winner - a friend at first, he then tried to jump a girlfriend I had at the time, when I was sick, and took offence that I said he betrayed my trust and that I'd like to 'punch his loaf in.' He got angry saying 'who bought you so many cappuccinos, who was your friend.' No acknowledgement, no apology - ever. He also stole a title of one of my prose poems for one of his books.. saying "that 's a great title, I'm going to take it.". And having said he'd give me credit for editing one of his books, during which I literally re-wrote certain paragraphs and a few pages at his house, neglected to mention until he was showing me the book itself one night that a girl he wanted to jump also got credit. What had she done? Looked at it.. "you know, she wants to get into the business." Neglecting to mention he then gave her first credit and for all my work and trust I ended up with a co-credit. His vindictiveness went as far as ignoring me when I said hello to him at a reading. The poor hurt take-the-offence-so-your-own-shitty-lack of character doesn't show up attitude, rather than any reality, or become revealed as the true object of contention.
But without a book, or position, whereas these two sad excuses - turds - without character and having the morals of cowards, have both in Canadian literature to a small degree, who'd want to listen to or believe such things. Certainly not the parasites clinging to some derived position of association. In these memoirs, I'll deliver things in clear sight, without prejudice.
And that's the first and the last of overt unpleasantness regarding such non-entities.
5