| this is oh so blue A MAGAZINE OF FICTION, POETRY & MORE! |
| black |
| this is black shadow |
| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ISSUE #32 $O.OO |
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| Jan. 2005 |
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| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ***BIO*** Bill King says he's wanted to be a writer as long as he can remember, but he got side-tracked when he joined the Navy in 1972 on the spur of the moment. They tried to give him a clerical job but he wouldn't have it. Instead he worked at the air terminal at the Naval Station in Rota, Spain, towing and fueling jet airplanes while on duty and running wild in Spain, Morocco, London, and Greece the rest of the time. He didn't get much writing done at the time, but now he's making up for it with gusto. He doesn't like to give specifics about his past escapades, preferring to let his stories speak for themselves with some blurring between reality and fiction. Bill lives in Jacksonville, FL with his wife, son, and toy robot. **LINK** to Bill King's website: http://billectric.org/ |
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| © 2005 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
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| Naked, Stoned, and Stabbed #7 |
| They are a multi-talented duo - Lightning Rod, also known as Clay January, and Doreen Peri, also known as Doreen Peri. They are musicians, writers, poets, performers, creators of the variety stage show Cabaradio, and now, designers & hosts of the Studio Eight Community website. Their spoken-word &music CD, Oral Sets, is described by critic Bob DeWitt as, “A concept piece beginning with the bitchin' in the kitchen of Genesis, and culminating at a Waiting for Godot Trailways terminal outside of Marfa” (site of the mysterious Texas sky lights)“in the medicine fields, original garden visitors left behind with the promise of a trip home, like ET...and in between…man's physical self scrutiny and the pondering of the meaning of his efforts in life and a woman's scrutiny of the gift that did not come from the apple…that wonderful delicacy called emotion....then they both pick out a tune on the freshly sharpened scythe of Mr. Grim, and go catch the bus to get out of here. The performances on this recording are impressive. The production is really good. The mixing and tonal control that the producer put on your performances is the work of a polished craftsman. I mean that in the sense that he could hear the work. Lightning Rod and Doreen Peri come across with range and control that makes a good listening piece even without the physical theatrics that they are known for – but so much of it does come across on the listen. They should find a trust fund dedicated to exposing pliable minds to new, fresh, exciting, provoking poetry, and hit the schools by day and the clubs by night.” Here is my conversation with Lightning Rod (Clay January) and Doreen Peri: Lightning Rod - Bill, first I’ve got to say, I miss you and don't get a chance often enough these days to tell you what a so-and-so that you are. Billectric - Well, thanks, Lightning. I wish I could see you and Doreen more often. I had a blast at your house in Virginia, working with you two on the Cabaradio in Washington, DC, and also in New York at the Bowery Poetry Club. One of these days we’ll get together again. In the meantime, you can call me an old “so & so” on the Internet anytime. So, are you staying busy? LR - It's been nuts around here at LRWH (Lightning Rod World Headquarters). Work and the Poet's Eye column and Studio Eight plus family and the presidential debates. Bill- Before we get into politics, I want to ask about your music and art. You know how much I like your CD, Oral Sets. One of my favorite parts is your piece, LR, "Verbose Encounters", with the UFO stuff. Have either of you seen a UFO? Doreen - No. Bill – Gee, Doreen, such finality in that reply. Lightning Rod, I know you must have seen strange things in the Texas skies, right? LR - Only in my poems, but I'm still hoping. Maybe they'll tell us what kind of carburetor to use to get warp speed. Bill - Well, your UFO description of it sounds very convincing. What were you doing at the time? LR - As I recall, I was eating peyote buttons. Bill- Tell me about Studio Eight Internet community. Why did you create it? Doreen – I know so many very talented people. Doing the Cabardio shows actually inspired the creation of the site, which is still in the works. I have the feeling it will be an ever-growing thing. When we get together artists of many genres, the air is electric! It's a beautiful thing. So, why not do the same type of thing online? Studio Eight is a site about artistic collaboration. We are publishing the works of visual artists, humorists, columnists, storytellers, poets, musicians, songwriters and other creative people. By showcasing these works all in one spot, there will be a wide variety of artistic talent to partake! So far, we have the Visual Artists Section launched.– We also have the Writers Section launched. – There are a lot of talented people featured! I hope a lot of people will take a look. The discussion boards are also open and we're doing some fun stuff there like Word Jams. -It's only been open 4 months and the place is alive with great discussions about the arts and many other topics. I'm very excited about this project! LR – Imagine Studio Eight as a virtual art gallery, literary magazine, nightclub, and call-in radio show. It has its static parts. Those are the pictures on the wall. It has it's interactive parts, so that the viewers can participate and add to the experience. Plus, I'm publishing my columns there, so I got to love the place. Bill – I always read your column, The Poet’s Eye. Sometimes I catch it on Brian Fugett’s Zygote E-zine, other times on the Fountainheads.com, and now on Studio Eight, but I never miss it. So, before Studio Eight you were doing the live Cabaradio shows both on stage and television. When is the next Cabaradio? How did the idea for Cabaradio come about? LR – The idea came about because I've always had a secret desire to be David Letterman. I'm anxiously waiting for the next one. I don't know exactly when it's going to be. As soon as I get my Viagra in the mail, I'll be ready for anything. If it lasts more than 4 hours, you'll have to call my doctor. Doreen – We've been doing them about every 6 months, so I suppose it's about time we planned another one! The last one we did was at Arlington Independent Media cable TV station in June. Perry Lindstrom will use portions of it for his "Poetic Eye" TV series. The idea for Cabaradio came about from both of our passions for performance arts. We thought combining many different types of performance arts would be an interesting concept and a lot of fun! We do the show in a talk show format. LR is the host and I'm his Gracie Allen-type sidekick. We have a Cabaradio band, spoken word poets, stand-up comics, dancers, and other performers. Plus, we try to incorporate a visual arts show to coincide with the event. So far, we've had a great reception for these shows. The audience seems to have a terrific time and after the shows, we get approached by people who ask when we're doing the next one. It's like a variety show and revue but also includes spoken word. We think Cabaradio is a unique concept and we very much enjoy doing these shows! Bill - You two really seem to be a perfect match, both in your writing and music and also as a couple in love. How did you meet each other? Doreen - Ahhh. This is one story I love to tell because it's so cool to me! Meeting a romantic partner on the Internet may be a common practice these days to some, but it was certainly extraordinary to us! It was March 2002, and I'd been hanging out on the Litkicks.com message boards writing poetry for about a year and a half or so. In my profile on the site, I had written something about having a dream to one day own a poetry cafe, where there would be music and poetry performances combined with other arts performances like dance and experimental theater. Lightning Rod tagged one of my posts in the discussion forum with two short sentences. He said, "I read your profile and love your dream. One day, I will play music in your cafe." (Oh yeah? I thought! Who IS this guy?) LR - We met sort of like gypsy moths meet. Gypsy moths can find their mates by scent in a radius of about ten miles. I saw Doreen typing out her answer to this question and I'm sure she gave chapter and verse including flight itineraries, but I'll just say that we were connected before we met. It's a remarkable thing to get to know someone from the inside out. Doreen - He started making comments to my poetry which showed me he appreciated my use of language. After I read a few of his pieces, I was also impressed with his writing. Soon we began exchanging emails and writing spontaneous poetry with each other by Instant Messenger. We became inseparable online within a month. Isn't this romantic and corny? We both knew we were falling in love, sight unseen. I went to visit him in Dallas at the end of May, and again in July. Then, in August, he bought a one-way ticket to Virginia to come "visit" me. We've been together ever since! Getting to know him from the inside out – his thoughts, his poetic words, his ideals, his values, his opinions, his feelings – it was such a beautiful thing! When we first saw each other in person, we KNEW it was a very good thing! The chemistry was incredible! This doesn't happen often, from what I hear, when people first meet on the net. We knew then and know now how special it is! Had it not been for the miracle of the media of the Internet, our lives probably never would have crossed. After all, we lived1500 miles away from each other. It still amazes me! And God, I love my memories of our initial poetry and email exchanges and the first time we set eyes on each other. It was quite romantic. Still is. Bill - That whole CD, Oral Sets, seems like an amazing capsule of all the salient life questions that people contemplate, composed and phrased in a very hip style. Doreen - Hmmm. Really? You got that from it? Wow! Cool! Well, thanks so much, Bill! We sure didn't plan to cover major life questions or anything. Bill – I’m thinking especially of the track “Are We There Yet?” where you ask a series of questions that many couples might ask. Like – what will we do with our lives? Will more money make us happy? Success? Recognition? “are we there yet? what about having a new baby, a wide eyed wonder reaching for milk with an open mouth? maybe that would save you and me or maybe we should go down south of Texas to Mexico, send exports via FEDEX, have sex incognito with ourselves, launch a website to sell hand painted American Indian crafts, or better still, fill up carafes with frothy coffee at the mall, figure out how to stall cancer cells from growing, win the Pulitzer Prize for showing the world what Avant-garde truly means – but hasn't all that been done before?” Doreen– Yes, that piece was about unnecessary striving, not necessarily for couples but for all individuals. I was hoping to say “Here we are. We are always already there. All we have is the NOW.” As far as the "hip style".... as Shel Silverstein said, "It doesn't pay to be too hip," so I'm hoping we didn't go too far with that. I love Shel Silverstein. Bill- When I say “hip” I mean it in the best sense of the word. Aware, fresh, and exhilarating. Was there an overall concept the how you arranged the tracks? Doreen- If I remember correctly, we had decided on two pieces first, then from there, arbitrarily selected a few more that we thought would work well. There was no overall plan to it, other than including material we enjoyed performing and having a mix of collaborations and solo pieces. I'm happy you saw a bigger picture! LR - Oral Sets was a project that allowed us to experiment in long distance collaboration. I'm proud of the CD. I think it's a great document and it's mildly entertaining. Bill - Very entertaining. I’m impressed by the sound quality of "Oral Sets". Your voices are perfect for conveying a heightened sense of wonder or profundity, and the production is top-notch. Doreen - Thank you, Bill! We recorded the voice tracks at Sterling Productions, a commercial studio in Virginia, then sent them off to Barry Gremillion in California, whose idea it was for us to record the CD in the first place. Barry not only created the music and soundscapes for the pieces, but also produced and mastered the CD through his company, Magasun Hall Productions. LR – Barry Gremillion did an amazing job with the soundscapes and music. Barry and I are Siamese Siblings connected at the soul. We have collaborated on several large projects and have worked together for 30 years. We live across the continent from each other but I feel his presence every day. Bill – Doreen, what do you like to read? Doreen - I like non-fiction, philosophy especially. I love Joseph Campbell. I love reading biographies. Life stories thrill me. I also like reading plays. Tennessee Williams kills me. Edward Albee twists my head up. I dig that stuff. Writing that gets into the essence of life, into passion and pain. I used to read a lot but I don't make time for it like I should lately, because I'm working all the time. I read a lot of contemporary, spontaneous work. I read many writers on the web. I read articles, poetry, essays, columns, stories. There are so many fine contemporary writers. Many of them are publishing themselves on the web or being published by others on the web. The web is a miracle for publishing. I'm awed by the amount of talent out there! This is one reason why I was inspired to create the Studio Eight site. But there's something that must be said about taking a good book to bed. I hate reading on the screen sometimes because it's hard on the eyes and it isn't relaxing. A book in print can be your companion, your friend. The best books are the ones which put you in a slump after you hit the last page. You don't want it to end. One day I'll write a book like that. Bill- Clay, what do you like to read? LR - I think my favorite thing to read is the 'amount' line on paychecks. The second best read of my life was Will Durant's eleven-volume The History of Civilization. It stands about three feet tall if you stack it up. I spent a year reading it, but it was one of the greatest journeys that I have ever taken. And hey, I had time on my hands. Bill - Would you care to elaborate on that? LR - I was a guest of the Governor of Texas at the time. Bill – Your interest in the history of civilization is obvious in parts of your poem, “Words Rise From the Page.” “When I look in the mirror, I imagine myself with an Italian name; A flinching Da Vinci, An emaciated Michelangelo, With rich patrons dying for my sculptures; When I look in the mirror, I see calculus, philosophy, Gazing in existential stare; When I look in the mirror, I see the Renaissance needs a shave.” LR – I don't see how anybody who pretends to be aware could not have an interest in history. Bill – So, how do you think the election went? Doreen - I watched all the debates but I had to take a few breaks from listening to them. Both Bush and Kerry slammed each other with so-called facts nobody can prove! The whole election campaign thing was nauseating. Because I hate Bush and what he's done to our country and the world but I wasn't too hip on Kerry either. It scares the hell out of me when Kerry said he was going to "hunt down terrorists and kill them." What kind of talk was that? Sounded like the exact same rhetoric we hear from Bush. I don't trust any of them. They all work for big corporations, not the American people, as far as I can tell. This doesn't mean I didn't vote. I'd vote for anybody to get Bush out of the White House. Unfortunately, I think this election was probably rigged just like the last one. I'm scared for the world. The US is an imperialistic bully. I'm ashamed of our country. LR - When I watched the debates, I preferred Lincoln over Douglas (rim shot!). I was glad to see Bush win because the hens are going to come home to roost and I'd rather it be on Bush's porch than on Kerry's. Bush deserves what he's going to get. Bill – Indeed. |
| Billectric Interviews Lightning Rod and Doreen Peri |
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| The CD cover, Oral Sets |
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| Doreen Peri & Lightning Rod |
| Rehearsing for Cabaradio: Caryn Thurman (Firecracker), Ronnie Klemper (yabyum), Bill King (Billectric), Levi Asher (brooklyn), and Clay January (Lightning Rod) |