Your Life is the Big payoff

[Wayne Johnson]

Byron.  You have nothing to regret.  Why golly whiz you have led a life of
so much more interest...and integrity...than thousands, nee millions of
others who preferred to remain dutifully in grips of Disneyfied Americana!
What would you have if you had become a tenured professor at Agribusiness U?
Count your blessings, for while you have had some ups and downs and around
about the round-a-bouts, you have done things and seen things that literally
millions of people in our dear beknighted US can only read about or dream
about.

One request:  start you goddamn oral history now!  Get your life on record,
everything, and get that record to someone or someplace where it may be
enjoyed by those who still might choose to live a life that isn't business
or government controlled!

I am very serious about this.  By the way, have you ever read much Charles
Bukowski?   Honor and I knew his wife, Frances Dean and their kid when we
lived iin LA the first time.  We shared a friend, a poet named Michael C.
Ford.  If you can get some of their literary works, take a look.  Also, of
course, Philip Levine.  Stylistically, John (CB) might have something to say
to you.

wayne j



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Byron Black" <blacky@cbn.net.id>
To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 8:10 PM
Subject: Dead student, Draft card ate, no payoff


> Hey Mike,
>
> The only slightly burning aspect is that in years following when I tipped
my
> violin out of its case and began to sorrowfully recount how a budding
> academic career had been permanently fucked, and how I was a political
exile
> on the run, with the FBI and CIA after me, I'd just get this sorta blank,
> puzzled, faintly disinterested look.
>
> "Draft dodger? Veetnam protestor? Huh?"
>
> When I left Fresno it was for Tokyo, where I'd been hired to work as Japan
> Correspondent for Cycle World Magazine. I had a one-year visa and like a
> fool did not suspect that the US Embassy there would put the squeeze on
the
> obedient Nips to force me out.
>
> Investigators hovering around my place, repeated immigration "inquiries"
and
> finally 24 hours to get out of the country. The obsequious Japanese gave
in
> and it was either Vancouver or Stockholm and I often wonder what kind of
> Swede I'd have made (ha).
>
> I know what kind of Canadian I made: an annoyed one. Ten years later I
left
> for Asia, pretty much never to return.
>
> I would have retired on full pension from the California State University
> (read: California State College) system in 1999 or so, like a couple of
the
> people I stay in touch with in Fresno. But the thought of teaching those
> agribusiness morons for 20 years is simply incomprehensible.
>
> One of the huge hand-markered banners I flew at a Resistance demo on
campus
> read, rhetorically, 'HOW MUCH MEAT DO YOU NEED FOR YOUR MACHINE?' They
> didn't get it; they didn't even want to get it. Armenian grape barons and
> their loutish offspring.
>
> I also wonder whether knowing an alternative path through life is itself
not
> an impossible concept to grasp in depth. What if...
>
> BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Eisenstadt" <michaele@HotPOP.com>
> To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
> Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2004 2:28 AM
> Subject: Re: My dead student, Eating the draft card
>
>
> > Fantastic letter, Byron. Fantastic story. Likewise your
> > Eating the Draft Card. Keep them cards and letters
> > coming! The wonderful coincidence of having known
> > a Viet Cong martyr back at Fresno State is the sort
> > of plot line that makes life worth living. Like consorting
> > with Ho Chi Minh when he was a pastry cook in Paris
> > in 1914.
> >
> > And earlier, your account, with photos, of your medical
> > scare, I dont think i got a round to thanking you for
> > sharing your travails with us. Especially when it had
> > a happy ending and you got better.
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Byron Black" <blacky@cbn.net.id>
> > To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
> > Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 8:40 AM
> > Subject: My dead student
> >
> >
> > > If I ever get to Vietnam I'll go visit the street named after a
student
> I
> > > had at Fresno State College in 1967.
> >
> >
>
>
>