thank you mr christian....

Thank you Mr. Christian 

Recollection: when I was in junior high school I had a teacher named Dennis Christian

He was one of the most important people ever in my life

He was the first teacher to recognize I had some sort of creative spark 
I was a naturally good athlete but had never slowed down enough to write anything I felt good about

He had us little seventh grader's do a writing exercise in a very unique and cool way: he walked into the classroom – we knew it was time for English – 
he walked in eating a banana and just looking at us with a amused look on his face

The whole classroom was going "Mr. Christian are you going to say anything?" "Mr. Christian what are we supposed to do?? "

He ate the banana sat on his desk and just looked at us

I raised my hand and asked ... 

Mr. Christian are we supposed to write something about you eating a banana? 

He kind of smirked and indicated an expression of "that's not a bad idea"

So we all started tentatively at first, writing.
 I handed mine in which was called – I remember to this day-"Joe banana-private eye"  a junior film noir sketch

When we came back to class after the weekend he said the essays and responses were all very interesting and he projected a few of them on the overhead projector

The first one there in illuminated light was my first page – with drawings – of Joe banana private I

I had a tremendous feeling of acknowledgment and encouragement and made me realize there was something going on my head besides a pinball bouncing back and forth

Sometime later Mr. Kristin came up to me and said Mike I want to talk to you – he said "these guys that you're hanging around with – they're a bunch of bums – they will do you no good and they will probably be an Audi home or jail at some point

I was kind of shocked but I knew he was telling me the truth – I almost immediately cut off ties with these indeed bunch of bums 

Another time he told us to bring in a poem and a piece of music – and that we were going to record ourselves reading a poem with the music in the background

This was technically a very big deal in 1967

I remember bringing in an album – it was a lush extremely lugubrious orchestral version of Jalousie  -a orchestral tango album

I listened to it a lot for a while - it sounded mysterious and other worldly and hinted at some kind of passion I was quickly becoming aware of 

The poem I picked was Emily Dickinson's "I heard a fly buzz when I die"

The poem sounded dark and cool 

and since I had a father who was talking about dying all the time

it made sense to me

Reading that poem with that music playing in the background- he I was @ 12 years old recording Dickenson over a Tango record

what could be better

 and hearing it in the playback it just made sense to me on the deepest level- I was in the deep end and Mr Christian was the Lifeguard...

It felt like I had created some kind of real art. Not ART.   Just something COOL and .... me

I like the sound of my voice 

I liked the words of the poem encompassed by the lush background

I'd love to find that recording somewhere

All my art shows with multi media and music and painting and performance etc. all stems from that moment