© 2018 Edwin Forrest Ward
& the IMAGEMAKER
as always for Marcia
September 20, 2018
Cover & Front End Page Photo
© 1978 Marcia Ward
Back End Page Photo
© 1976 Joe Kinneavy
A Piece of Flight
Black Ace/Temple of Man/BOWERY 24
IMAGEMAKER
PASSION PRESS
PASSION PRESS
1216 Forest Street
Denver CO 80220
303 322 9324
theimagemaker@qwestoffice.net
www.theimagemaker.qwestoffice.net
www.theimagemaker.qwestoffice.net
Frank T Rios
I am a man who
stands against the mountain
and thinks of pebbles.
Because
some of the Venice West artists – Jimmy Ryan Morris, Saul White and Tony
Scibella wound up at different times in Denver, Frankie, too, found himself
living in Denver off and on in the sixties, seventies and eighties. His work
was featured in Denver’s premiere literary newspaper, The Mile High and
Underground, and
in many of Larry Lake’s Bowery Publications.
When
Frankie died on August 20, 2018, the world of words lost the man who as he
liked to say, “Invented Black.” He wore black and he wrote about black, the
space, that is, the heavens between the stars. Marcia and I drove to LA for
Frankie’s Memorial in September, and I prepared a eulogy of sorts to share with
friends. Frankie was famous for being a poet, an artist, a drugstore cowboy and
for the last twenty-five years a rock star in the Los Angeles world of
Narcotics Anonymous. My eulogy touches, however, on a side of Frankie that
could easily be overlooked.
Frankie . . . Frank T. Rios
As
are we all, Frankie was many things (dare I say tings): poet, husband, artist, father,
grandfather, drugstore cowboy, friend, and sponsor. But I’d like to add
something to the list: something that reflects my relationship with Mr. Frank
T. Rios, and that is prankster! Who’d have thought?
I
met Frankie in 1979, the inaugural year of the James Ryan Morris Foundation
presentation of the Colorado Arts Awards, The Tombstones, a means of artists
honoring other artists. Frankie was in from Los Angeles along with the
Denver-Venice Beach connected contingency: Tony Scibella, Gayle Davis, Marsha
Getzler, Fred Mason, Bill Dailey, and Saul and Michelle White. Larry Lake asked
me to have Frankie stay with me and Marcia at my house, as Frankie was to
receive the first Tombstone for Poetry. Well I had read all of Frankie’s
published work (and loved it). I also learned how he fit into the Venice
West/Denver poetry world and felt it an honor to have him stay at my house.
Right off we found some common ground aside from poetry: our East Coast
sensibilities and accents. O.K., I didn’t say tree when numbering the principal
muses or counting to five, but our rhythms and cadence were the same.
We
ran around Denver and chilled in my back yard for a few days before heading to
The Mermaid Café in Central City for the awards ceremony. Bob Grey received the
Tombstone for Music, Stan Brakhage
for Film and Angelo di Benedetto received it for Art. And then Larry Lake, the
instigator behind the awards, took the stage to introduce the presenter of the
award for poetry: Mr. Frank T Rios.
I’m
sitting in the back of the café thinking What the fuck? figuring that Larry’s had a wee
bit too much of something or another as Frankie was supposed to receive not
present the award. And then Frankie alley cats his way to the stage and
announces the recipient of the Colorado Arts Award for Poetry: me. Holy
Shit! Larry and
Frankie had completely pranked me. I have never been so bowery baffled! Whereas
Stan and Angelo and Bob had all given sweet and inspirational acceptance
speeches, I, the poet, was utterly speechless. I think I mumbled Damn or No Fucking Way. Four days with Frankie, and the
alley cat never let the cat out of the bag.
Fast-forward
a couple of years, and Marcia and I leave Denver, and after a year looking for
a better city to live in, we return. We rent half of a duplex on Delaware
Street and by months end the talented painter from LA, Joey Patton, moves into
the other half of the duplex to the south and Frankie and Larry move to the
place just north of us. We had our own little bohemian enclave and I feel we
all did some of our best work that year.
Fast
forward a few more years and I’m in LA with Frankie and Larry, visiting Baza
Alexander, the founder of the beatnik quasi-religious Temple of Man wherein I
am an Ordained Minister, shortly before his passing. We’re talking weddings and
ceremonies and that ministerial state of consciousness one enters into to make
such events rituals. And Frankie hips me to the first step to getting there.
The process of dressing for the day: the selection, cleaning, knit picking, and
preparation of the clothing for the ceremony. I’ve done close to a thousand
weddings and I begin each one thinking of Frankie as I polish my boots, roll
off the cat hair from my pants, adjust my belt and bola, sort and put on my
clothes and become the minister I need to be. Frankie had called it Puttin’
on the robes.
Fast-forward
a few more years. Larry’s gone. Baza’s gone. Anita’s gone. Bill Daly’s gone.
Tony’s gone. And Frankie calls me from LA with a request: would I publish his
next little book as I had published Tony’s Kid in America. And now Frankie’s asking me to
do the same for him.
Well
at the time I had a lot on my plate and even more in the pipeline. And I don’t
publish books, I don’t write a check and pay someone to make them, I craft them
by hand: I one finger hunt and peck type them, edit them, typeset them and
design them. I collate them and perfect bind them with paintbrush, glue and a
home-made book press, glue them into covers I score with a butter knife, all
one at a time. Finally I drive across town to trim them with Tom Parson’s one
hundred and fifty year-old gargantuan paper cutter. Tony’s death had made me
realize that I’d better get busy taking care of my own shit, and sadly, I
passed on Frankie’s request, telling him No. I’ve neither the time nor
inclination right now. I knew I’d disappointed
Frankie and I could hear the bafflement in his voice as we concluded our
conversation.
Finally
fast forward to 2010 and the fiftieth anniversary of the Temple of Man. Marcia
and I are in Venice for the Temple of Man Parade from Cabrillo to the beach
with st0ps at the Sculpted in Stone Poems of Frankie, Stuart and Tony.
Everyone’s beatnik-ed and hippy-ed out, meandering and parading when Frankie
appears. I’m not sure what to expect, not sure what he’s going to say when he
comes running up to me and hands me the Temple of Man flag and suggests, Eddie,
go on man, you lead the parade, the perfect Charlie Chaplin gesture, his way of
forgiving me and of reminding me: We’re good. No hard feelings. Brothers we
were and brothers we are.