Portrait of an Artist as a SIngle Dad - Sleep Overs

The incoming texts bleep both girls’ phones. Heads down, thumbs dashing off messages. They both look up and ask, “Can we have sleepovers?” At first I am leery. The last multi-girl sleepover entailed me losing at least two years off my life just due to casting spells to reassure youngsters that no witches could get into the house. “No, I have mad magic skills, kiddo, and have established a dome over the house which no witch can breech even while riding a switch.” One fearful youngster asked, “Have you ever killed a witch?”

To which I said, “That is not a question to ask, but no. My magic is soooo powerful that they don’t get close enough.” Relief in a child’s face is like coin of the realm.

I am sure great Diogenes would pass me by with his lamp, but he never hosted a sleepover like this. But that wasn’t all! Dinner and then breakfast and all the snacks consumed could have supported a village in some foreign country like Texas. Damn, but girls can pack away the food. My youngest will say, “I’m not hungry,” and then consume an entire flat of strawberries.

My girls stare. Thumbs hovering over respective phones as if repelled by magnets. “Who?” And then it comes out that they want to go over to someone else’s house and have a sleepover. Each girl to a different house. I pause for 7/11s of a second. Just enough time to visualize me alone in the house for just one night. OMG as the text goes.

I have visions of #BourbonForDinner #PantsoffandWriting #BlastingRachmaninov #RratedMoviesonNetflix. “Yes!” I say, trying to contain my exuberance of being lost, drunk and naked in the dining room eating steak and swilling fine Kentucky spirits as I type out a memoir of misspent youth of trying to do the right thing. If there were a gold medal for artistic debauchery, I’d be trying to win it.

So, “Yay,” they say and the thumbs fly. Thumbs like that could kill a fella. “Yay!” I say in my head so as not to let it out, planning a trip to the supermarket. For my diabolical plan to come together all I’ll need are charcoal, bourbon, steak, and coffee. Shopping list done. So little for such a grand scheme. The Ockham’s Razor of evenings.

But then part of me goes, “When was the last time you went out to a bar?” But no! Alone in the house within earshot of the train’s distant horn like the muse of travelogues and instability. I go back and forth. Bar, home, bar, home. But nothing will get written in the bar and one must keep one’s pants on, but noise and clatter of adults clinking glasses and the faraway laughter like the buzzing of neon lights from which I might create some story, some tale not yet told. Home, bar, home. I really want to write.

But comes the call. Maddie says she and her friend can’t have the sleep over at the other girl’s house, but if it’s okay with me, they can sleepover here. Oh those small twists in the pursuit of creating art. #GiggleBoxes #GirlsDancetoMozart #WritingAnyway #Home.

Portrait of an Artist as a Single Dad - Girls in the Kitchen

The pot’s about to boil. It’s about to billow steam. The first curls rise from the surface and beads of air cling to the sides of the pot. I am held in that moment where it is too early to drop in the linguine, but too close as to set it down. The sauce is already done and why did I not get the water boiling earlier? I am notorious for getting some things ready ahead of time, while lagging getting some ingredients prepared. You know, trying to get all the garlic out of its little husk and diced as the onions are sauteing and then caramelizing and then getting a little scorched or realizing the coals in the Weber will not even be remotely ready when the potatoes are mashed and the veggies steamed. Ah, dang it anyway. Luckily for me, my girl posse has some shadow of patience and not to mention, will raid the fridge for strawberries in a pinch to ward off the hunger. I am lucky too that my girls do like to cook with me at times. Especially when we are making the World’s Best Guacamole.

They each have their own ways of being in the kitchen and each has the thing they like to do and each has dislikes that are of course in tune with whatever the other likes. They are sisters after all. Maddie is one of the few kids I know who will spend her allowance on fresh fish or octopus and has since she was eight. In fact she told me I needed to learn how to make sushi and she’d chip in on the fish cost. What a kid. Sophia likes to blend spices and herbs and use a mortar and pestle to grind ingredients together. She likes the bold flavors, while her sister likes more subtle flavors. They are each their own artist.

The editor, poet, and awesome friend, Mary Carroll-Hackett once said to me: “Cooking is your other poetry, Writer Man,” and indeed it is.

I never thought about it in terms like that before, but an interesting observation by my former poetry teacher Peter Makuck was that poetry was like spices in good cooking. Balanced, flavorful, and nourishing for the mind and the body.

Food and poetry. The sonnet of spaghetti. The villanelle of venison. The pantoum of parsley. The sestina of seafood. But I digress. So here I am in the kitchen trying to bring it all together. Form, function and the higher calling of art. What greater art can we practice than sustenance? What style or flair do we bring? What balance or unity? Because when it is out of balance, things don’t work out right and I’m not just talking about overflowing the food processor with the juice of chickpeas during Operation Hummus either. Oh no.

I am talking about waiting for that moment when the water bubbles and the linguine is released like a helicopter-rappeller from the skid. Into the heat that is. In the heat of the kitchen. In the heat of the moment. In the heat of creation. In the heat of living like an artist. In the heat of love and life. To keep at it and mindfully practicing it and, with the help of the girls, bring all the ingredients together in a satisfying way before they rebel and seize all the strawberries. The barbarians at the refrigerator door.

But in the end the dinner makes its way to the table. A simple pleasure of flavors, serve hot. Enjoy.

Portrait of an Artist as a Single Dad - Look at the Light!

I awoke. The light streamed slantwise through louvre style blinds across the double bed for one. Groggy and reaching for the iPhone, I knock over the wine glass. It falls and hits the carpet with the thump of a cat paw. At night, I have a glass of wine or a bottle of beer or a cup of bourbon as I process the day and read after I’m done writing. Right now, I’m reading Gunter Grass. Peeling the Onion. About memory and of course complicity in being a part of atrocity. I am a part of atrocity too. I am in a democracy that waged war that we still try and pretend is WWII, but that is another story. I am a part of an atrocity that supported coups and death squads. I am part of an atrocity that colored the world with red, white and blue watercolors and will make you feel like a piece of shit for not supporting it.

I was the loud American. But that is another story.

I am a dad. I am a single dad. I am an artist who schedules 10:00PM to Midnight to write, drink a glass of beer and finally hit the rack with the head a buzzing with words or so exhausted when Friday hits, passes out sitting in the chair because I won’t stop at midnight and push the edges of my own darkness. I am an artist who takes an old film camera into oilfields and will lay on the dirt to get a shot of a ball of cable, a set of broken steps with no house, a pump-jack pumping or stand on the roof of his truck as oil hands stream by wondering what the fuck I’m up to. But that is another story.

I am the guy who woke with light streaming across the bed. Me and a cat. Me and one of my daughters’ cats. I am an artist. I am a single dad. I will arise and knock on bedroom doors. I will arise and wish I could sleep more as I have always been the guy who prefers to stay up for sunrise and wake for sunset. But that is another story. I will rouse girls from sleep. They will mumble go away. They will want me to forget they need to go to school. They will say go away, but bring me a bagel or an English muffin, or pancakes, or a banana and yogurt, or whatever with juice, milk, water. I will bring it and they will eat in bed and then get up. They will dress. They will fuss about with books and backpacks and smart phones. And as I toast or flip or stir or pour, I will write a few lines. I am an artist after all. I am a writer. I will take some minutes in the morning between the prepping the girls for school and me heading off to the oilfields to write a sentence, a paragraph, a scene…

and then look forward to the Ten to Midnight shift.

I will load the girls in the truck. We will back out of the drive way. We will crest the hill overlooking the sunrise over windmills and a town hammered between the mountains and the desert. I will point and say, “Look at that light. Look at that light. It slants the clouds. Look at the texture of those fucking clouds dragging down the sky. Look at the light breaking out and how it burnishes the mountains. It takes hold of everything in the sky and owns it. Look at that darkness between the sky and the land and how it gives us great swathes of beauty.”

I will say, “On his death bed, Goethe’s last words were, ‘I need more light.”

They will say, “Oh Dad is at it again. What with the light and the beauty and what was that poet and Degrees of Gray, and how its transient quality fills in our souls and kisses the divine. Oh Dad, you will make dorks of us all.”

That is the story.

A Conversation with Harun Mehmedinovic

My friend and fellow Jack Kent Cooke scholar Harun Mehmedinović has started his second Kickstarter project, Persona. His first book Seance became one of the top ten Kickstarter campaigns for a photography of all time. His photography features amateur models wearing flowing gowns or costumes that inspire feelings of wonder and incongruity within the settings. The settings range from the coast of Malibu, National Battlefields, old farms, mountains and deserts, New York's Times Square and the L.A. County Museum of Art.

One of his many images of the day from Vogue Italia.

I've known Harun for a few years now. I first knew him as a student filmmaker who was in the process of making his future critically acclaimed film In the Name of the Son, which he made while working on his MFA at the American Film Institute. The film, drawn from his experiences as a boy surviving the Siege of Sarajevo, received the first exclusive screening for congressional officials for a short live action film.

I admired not only his skill with the camera, but his ability to connect to people through art and by extension to attract backers for his project. I myself was in the process of publicizing a book and had written a screenplay I had developed a budget for and thought about Kickstarter, so watched Harun's project with both the passion of a fan and professional curiosity. And like all good fans, when it succeeded, I felt as if I had succeeded.

When Harun started his second Kickstarter campaign I became curious about what he had learned from the first one to apply to the second project and also about his influences.

Harun Mehmedinović
The lesson of last Kickstarter is without at least 8-10 hours of work a day, nothing happens that day.

Jerry D. Mathes II
Wow. Good to know.

Harun Mehmedinović
Three days I took off in the last two campaigns. Two of them I had $50 for the day. The other day was $150. Without hour after hour of work, nothing happens. 3000 personal messages translates into maybe 100-150 donations or so at best

Jerry Mathes Author Reading at Rediscovered Books November 21st at 6 p.m.

Ahead of the Flaming Front reading and discussion Start: 11/21/2013 6:00 pm End: 11/21/2013 7:30 pm Join me on Thursday, Nov. 21st at 6pm at Rediscovered Bookshop located at 180 N. 8th Street Boise, ID 83702 for a reading, signing, and discussion about Ahead of the Flaming Front. Here's the write-up: Jerry Mathes is a local author published through Idaho's own Caxton Press who fought wildfires for fourteen seasons. He has taught writing at the University of Idaho and at the Southernmost Writers Workshop in the World at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica. From the book bio: In Ahead of the Flaming Front, Jerry D. Mathes II takes readers into the heart of wildfires from the forests of Idaho to the deserts of the Mexican border—and directly into the lives of the men and women who face the terror, beauty, and hardship of life on the fire line. His story testifies to their extraordinary camaraderie, forged by thunderstorms that scatter lightning and hail, high summer heat and shivering nights in which bears prowl through wilderness camps, and quiet days of reflection, waiting for what may come next. I hope to see you all there! - Jerry

Life long library goer remains connected.

I received a Tweet that my book, Ahead of the Flaming Front: A Life on Fire was Book of the Day at the Ketchum Community Library last week. The first time I had a book in a library it was the McCall Public Library when I fought fire with the Krassel Heli-rappellers on the Payette National Forest. In conjunction with the local bookstore, the library hosted a reading for me. The book at the time was my collection of poems The Journal West. As fate would have it, the order for my books was delayed and not present at the reading. I ended up taking the names of people and sending them copies later and donated one to the library It is a great thing. For as long as I can remember I have been going to libraries. In the third grade I appeared in a newspaper photograph for an exhibit on reading books about cowboys. There I was my little reader self. Over the years my father took us to some isolated areas in the American West because of work. I always found my way to the library or wherever the bookmobile would pull up and sometimes it was quite a hike. It is a fine testament to the vision of Benjamin Franklin and the building of community that in those remote outposts I was able to read for free about any subject I wanted. Not only that, but the belief that we can contribute to the society to make it better and not worse. People can check out books for free, read them and turn them back in so others can read them. Almost sounds like a 20th Century Socialist idea and not a 18th Century notion of spreading knowledge for the common good. No matter. As a working class kid off in remote areas, the library was my portal through which I traveled to learn how others lived and had lived whether they be cowboys, firefighters or Founding Mothers. Now my book is in a great library in a region loved by other famous writers, notably Earnest Hemingway. I too love the fall. But importantly, even in the age of connectivity, someone who is unconnected can stroll in and take my book off the shelf and read it. Hey stranger, this is what happened to me. Why even this week I checked out books on China and the American Gold Rush, researching a project no amount of internet connectivity can give me. Books go deep while the internet skims as it were and besides, I cannot afford to buy those books. The library, giving a connectivity not dreamed of or possible in your own privatized internet. There I am. The life long connection I've had with libraries expands and turns and now I am both borrower and contributor, but still yet the curious kid.

Reading: Author Jerry D. Mathes II