Steve Richmond

Rekrab

Rekrab

Usually wrong.
I wasn't aware of the sister, although he may have mentioned her in his work. It just never registered on me. I always got the impression that his older relatives -- parents, grand parents -- didn't take his poetry seriously. He came from a wealthy family and was something of the black sheep of the family. I'm sure his drug addiction didn't help his relationship with them, either. I don't have the sense that any of them, the older relatives, would care about seeing his work continue to be published. Maybe I'm wrong about that. A caring sister might take an interest, however. Just speculating here.
 
MatG

MatG

About 15 years ago, Richmond had abandoned his beach house on Hollister for a mansion (it might have been inherited) and he threw EVERYTHING out. So much for Bukowski Inc.'s being complicit in any "cover up."

My brother and my uncle hauled dumpster after dumpster of magazines, books and papers (yeah I found out AFTER the fact).

My brother was compensated with a large metal structure that looked like a gazebo but with a canvas tarp had been used by Richmond to park his corvette under. The only other thing they had to say about the workday was that Richmond had the biggest swollen abscess on the back of his shoulder that they had ever seen.

I'll be reading Earth Rose tonight, seriously a great book.
 
Rekrab

Rekrab

Usually wrong.
MatG: fascinating story. You left out an important detail: what happened to Richmond's books and papers? Did they take them to the dump? Sell them? Keep them? Give them away? I'm very curious to know if any of his manuscripts survived. Also, did Richmond say why he was throwing it all away? Thanks for the great story.
 
Rekrab

Rekrab

Usually wrong.
That's too bad. I would have loved to go through it all and pull out some stuff. I was hoping to hear someone saved at least the best of it. Once it's gone, it's gone. What I think about are the unpublished poems. Hopefully some of these survive with editors they were submitted to. Or not. With most poets, an editor would mail them back, if not acceptable, or toss them if no SASE was included. But with Richmond, some editors may have held onto manuscripts even if they didn't plan to use them. I wonder what -- if anything - Steve was thinking when he decided it all had to go?
 
MatG

MatG

It went to the dumpsters. I told my brother some of Richmond's archives were worth a lot of money (again, after the fact) and he said that most of it was in terrible condition (downside of living near the beach). Similar thing happened after Buk died, they filled a dumpster of mostly unopened mail, Michael Montfort told me he was weeping as he saw it happen. Again... no conspiracy, just too much stuff to even sort through.

David, about the time Richmond made the move I had tried to get him to come to my (then) gallery to read during the BukShot exhibit of Michael Montfort's photos of Bukowski.

John Thomas, FrancEye and Gerry Locklin read - Montfort or Gerry told me they had contacted Richmond about coming and he had told them "I'm on a Bukowski sabbatical..."
 
Rekrab

Rekrab

Usually wrong.
MatG - thanks for the information. That's tragic. The books and magazines are one thing. Even if rare they are probably not the only copies, and if the condition is bad, no great loss (although the fact Steve owed them would make them of interest), but letters, manuscripts are another. The condition wouldn't matter, at least it wouldn't to me. Their monetary value would be affected by condition, but not the historical/literary value.

Somewhere I have a rare book dealer catalog that lists a bunch of Bukowski books that Steve had owned, most with inscriptions by both writers and also wine stains and generally trashed. I wonder if perhaps these were sold by Steve (or someone else) around the same time he dumped everything else. I always wondered how those came to market.

What was your gallery called? Thanks again for a great story.
 
mjp

mjp

Founding member
Rekrab said:
What was your gallery called?
Click to expand...
coagula02.jpg
 
Rekrab

Rekrab

Usually wrong.
Thanks, mjp.

You gotta think this must happen a lot: writers, artists having their stuff thrown in the dumpster after they die/go crazy/move out to mansions with millions that get blown in 2 years. Something I've noticed in a lifetime of going to thrift stores, yard sales, used bookstores, is that you see plenty of books but almost never a manuscript. In my entire life, I've probably had a dozen manuscript finds, and those were always dull (geology papers was the latest) or bad (poems about why Jesus loved the little girl who was run over by the out of control milk truck). I've never found a single manuscript worth keeping. The good ones all go to either the library archives, the rare book dealers, or the dumpsters. This must be a universal law.
 
mjp

mjp

Founding member
Well, if you were cleaning up old uncle Joe's house after he died, you might keep his "papers" for a while to dig through them, but to most people they are just papers. No difference between an old gas bill and a typed letter when you are using your day off to clear out a house. It's easier and faster to just toss everything and try to catch the last half of the game before it gets too late in the day.

Mat's brother and uncle wouldn't know Richmond was a person of any note, so to them it was just crap that needed to be out of the way. Apparently Richmond didn't value it any more than that himself.

But Bukowski's office papers - Linda knew what could potentially be in the stuff she trashed, but since it was just stuff written to Bukowski rather than by Bukowski, it may have seemed to her not worth the time to sort. Montfort said there were treasures there, and I'm sure there were, but it's also quite likely that 99% of it was fan mail, which I wouldn't blame her for tossing. Why keep that?
 
Rekrab

Rekrab

Usually wrong.
mjp: I understand Linda's distinction between stuff written BY Bukowski and TO Bukowski, but (as you know) that assumes only stuff BY Bukowski has literary/historical significance. Any number of interesting people might have written fan letters to Buk. Some of that might have been worth saving. But like you say, to most people, there's no difference between gas bills and letters.
 
mjp

mjp

Founding member
From what I heard there was correspondence (not fan mail) from some very interesting people in there. But what to do with his stuff was up to Linda, and she decided to shit-can it for whatever reason. Only she knows why. It angered and frustrated Montfort, who was there to clean it out, but there wasn't anything he could do.
 
Black Swan

Black Swan

Abord the Yorikke!
Last October 2008, I got it in touch with Richmond and did receive a couple of letters, very nice letters. He sounded very alive. I started working on a painting from a black and white photo of Steve, taken in the 60's. I was to send him a poster of the painting.
I finished it tonight and too late! He had seen the composition and parts of it that were painted. I heard that the project made him happy.

SR.jpg
 
hoochmonkey9

hoochmonkey9

Art should be its own hammer.
Moderator
Founding member
excellent.

you certainly have your own style, something that says "that's by Jocelyne," which is the the highest compliment I can give.
 
Black Swan

Black Swan

Abord the Yorikke!
Thanks for the feedback.
Difficult to feel the person when you've never seen them move around.
I just hoped that I'd get something of him. I listened to gagaku music and read his poetry.
 
mjp

mjp

Founding member
Yeah, that was a lesser known issue; FUCK HAT. You can see he is very angry at his hat, it is no longer on his head.
 
Bukfan

Bukfan

"The law is wrong; I am right"
Absolutely beautiful! Too bad Richmond passed away before he could see the finished painting, but at least he saw parts of it in progress.
 
Black Swan

Black Swan

Abord the Yorikke!
mjp said:
Yeah, that was a lesser known issue; FUCK HAT. You can see he is very angry at his hat, it is no longer on his head.
Click to expand...

Fuck Hat was intentional ;) , I felt weird sticking the word hate in the middle of a mandala. I suggested the E but hardly visible now, unless you know the author.
 
Ambreen

Ambreen

Sordide Sentimental
I thought the Richmond portrait you e-mailed me was the achieved version, it was already nice in itself. ;)
 
MatG

MatG

My girl just found 9 Richmond books in a box in our garage - I recall now that I sold the ones with Buk contributions on eBay to pay the rent in 1999. Been immersed in these for a few hours Good stuff. Good stuff.
 
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