![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/breslinnovel.jpg\")
<\/a>Breslin\u2019s comic novel about the mafia, The Gang That Couldn\u2019t Shoot Straight<\/em>, is also an inspiration. It provides the perfect model for the teaching novel I want to write one day, a definitive book, THE BOOK, about teaching high school that no one seem to be able to write. I completed a teaching novel back in 2012 but it never went anywhere\u2014it was an attempt by a rank amateur\u2014and I can see now that its tone and format were the wrong approach, very wrong approach. I think there was one short scene with any humor in it. I see now how important a role humor can play in telling a certain bleak or unjust story, fiction or nonfiction. I certainly plan to inject humor into the book I am writing about my current situation as a newly-minted sex offender who never had sex because at times this story is funny in a black comedy kind of way. I keep reminding myself how funny some of the scenes are in One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/em>. If I hadn\u2019t found humor in my situation, I would have gone down the drain with it a long time ago.<\/p>\nNext Chuck Berry. He died at 90. I saw him in the flesh when he opened for The Grateful Dead at Portland Meadows on May 28, 1995. The sound was terrible and it pushed 90 degrees that day but I got close enough to the stage to see Chuck, in a suit, then in his late 60s, do his thing for 45 minutes. I\u2019ve always wondered what Portland pickup band he played with for the gig. And to think he would he keep gigging another 20 years after this show! Will I gig in my 80s?<\/p>\n
After Chuck, the Dead played one of their final shows before Jerry died three months later. It was completely forgetful performance except for the unforgettable incident where one of my then Hillsboro High School students, buck naked and body-painted, twirled up to me and informed me that she was flying on acid and did I want some? I declined the gift, introduced her to my girlfriend, and then she gave me a big hug and said, \u201cI love you Mr. Love.\u201d Back in class the next Monday, she barely remembered a thing.<\/p>\n
I have listened to Chuck Berry\u2019s immortal rock and roll music my entire adult life. His tunes are littered through most of my 500 or so mix tapes. They are raucous or lilting two-minute sonic novels about lust, wanderlust and social upheaval. \u201cSchool Days\u201d is the best song about high school I\u2019ve ever heard. (Nirvana\u2019s \u201cSchool\u201d is a close second.) It still holds up because it chronicles a certain endless American teenage desire that is exactly the same as it was in the 50s when he wrote it\u2014get me out of class! There is something better waiting for me! Hail Hail rock and roll \/ deliver me from the days of old!<\/p>\n
Chuck Berry was also a superb author. His, autobiography, published in 1987, begins with this sentence: \u201cThis book is entirely written, phrase by phrase, by yours truly, Chuck Berry.\u201d He wrote the first draft in jail, serving time for tax evasion. I consider it the best rock memoir I\u2019ve ever read and I\u2019ve read about a hundred of them. Hmmm, maybe there is something to be said for writing a draft of a potentially great book while behind bars. Maybe I\u2019ve got that going for me now.<\/p>\n
Finally, Chuck Barris. He gave up the ghost at 87. He was the creator of The Dating Game<\/em>, The Newlywed Game<\/em> and The Gong Show<\/em>, which Barris also hosted. Remember The Gong Show<\/em>, with a cocaine-fueled Barris running all over the set and introducing truly bizarre acts? I sure do because I watched it almost every afternoon in junior high when I wasn\u2019t playing sports.<\/p>\n Chuck Barris was also an author of several books, one of which was his 1984 autobiography, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind<\/em>. In the book, (which I have read) Barris claimed to have worked for the CIA as an assassin during the 1960s and \u201870s. George Clooney directed the cinematic version of it (I\u2019ve seen it).<\/p>\n I met Chuck Barris once, in 2007, and I will certainly never forget our three minutes together. It was in the liquorless green room of Wordstock, a huge and boring literary festival in Portland. At the time the event was staged in the Convention Center and had a cavernous, industrial feel to it. I was there promoting my book about the Portland Trail Blazers\u2019 1977 NBA Championship and Barris was there promoting a book I no longer recall. He would have been 77 then and barely stood over five feet. I did a double take when I saw him, but sure enough, it was him! We were the only two authors in the room and he was sitting on a couch drinking a Coke. I got myself a 7-Up and came over to him.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Barris, my name is Matt Love and I am an Oregon author presenting at the festival. May I join you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure, have a seat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n We shook hands and I sat across from him in an overstuffed cartoon chair.<\/p>\n I had only one thing on my mind and it wasn\u2019t his book. It was The Gong Show<\/em>. I launched into a story about me being a high school teacher and having witnessed various student councils raise a lot of money for good causes over the years with The Gong Show<\/em> concept. I thanked him for that and said it probably happened all over the country and was probably happening right now as we spoke. I told him his idea helped a lot of students and made them laugh at the same time. That is an excellent combination to pull off. <\/p>\n Barris waited for a moment. His face appeared a bit puzzled. \u201cNo one has ever said that to me before,\u201d he said. \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n He held out his soda pop and we clinked glasses and it resounded through the empty room. Chuck Barris! I was smiling. He was, too. <\/p>\n I knew he had a gig coming up soon so I got up to leave him alone to prepare. I had a gig, too, same time as his. He was in the big room; I was in a little room.<\/p>\n Barris reached out and shook my hand. \u201cGood luck,\u201d he said. I thanked him, walked out of the room, and went and did my show. I don\u2019t recall a single thing about it. <\/p>\n\n Jimmy Breslin. Chuck Berry. Chuck Barris. These men died recently and I\u2019d like to share my somewhat unique connection to each one of them. Jimmy Breslin first. He passed away at the age of 88 after a long career as a NYC newspaper columnist and author. He wrote probably the most famous column of all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28],"tags":[46,44,45,6,7],"class_list":["post-2517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-writing","tag-chuck-barris","tag-chuck-berry","tag-jimmy-breslin","tag-matt-love","tag-writing","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2517"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2521,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2517\/revisions\/2521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}