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The Reluctant Poet Laureate of Long Beach |
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By Steve Irsay (appeared in the Grunion Gazette, Nov. 3, 2005) Staff Writer
Raindog is settled into a back table at the Pike Restaurant and Bar, a home away from home of sorts for the local poet, publisher and bluesman. (Try not catching him dining, drinking or performing there.)
He's talking about the Lummox Journal, the poetry and literature magazine he's published for the past 10 years - something of an achievement in the "alternative small press" world.
In fact, the Lummox Journal - a black-and-white collection of poems, short stories, illustrations and interviews – almost disappeared two years ago when funds dwindled.
But several of its nearly 200 worldwide subscribers rallied, sending donations that kept the magazine afloat.
“It was kind of a mixed blessing," Raindog said between sips of beer. "I was also thinking 'oh great, I gotta do it another year.'"
Raindog is admittedly concerned about sounding too miserable. (The unending soundtrack of Smiths songs on the jukebox behind him probably isn't helping).
But Raindog is not one of those cringe-worthy woe-is-me poets. His self-deprecating sense of humor (he named the Lummox Journal after himself: "big and slow, just like me," he said in his best Eeyore) makes him a rather loveable lummox.
He's a reluctant poet laureate of sorts: a relatively well-known fixture in a local literary scene he ostensibly could do without. Then again, his decade-long dedication to the Lummox Journal and other Lummox Press ventures suggests otherwise.
Raindog, who's "54 and a half or so," was born in Indiana and has spent most of his adult life in the South Bay area. A house painter and repairman by trade, he moved to Long Beach in 1998.
He had been writing poetry for some time as a way of keeping his head straight, he said, not knowing there was an audience for it.
"I did not realize there was a whole bunch of people writing it to read it in public and get it published in magazines," he said.
. He took the name Raindog, a.nod to one of his idols, Tom Waits (whose 1985 album entitled "Rain Dogs" led some fans to adopt the phrase as a nick-name), and began attending readings and submitting pieces to small magazines.
His own Lummox Journal started in October 1995 as a one-page photocopied "rant" against a Long Beach poetry festival that Raindog said ripped him off.
Subsequent issues were "a little less stupid." The magazine matured into a monthly venue for writers, new and established, to have a relatively free forum. Asked about the title's mission, Raindog pointed to the cover tagline: "Examining the process of creating."
"It's almost like I have become the Zen poetry monk," he sighed. "I just am the poem now. I don't even have to write it down. Oh, that's great."
In the meantime, he has focused on music, playing
regular blues sets at the Pike, Portfolio Coffeehouse and Claire's Cafe
at the Long Beach Museum of Art.
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