Jason E. Hodges Quotes

Writers live within their mind for their flesh and bones are stuck in a far worse place.

Sometimes people just can't take how real the world can be. Even if they're your friend they’ll drop away from you like petals to a dying flower to keep their own sanity. 

A poet writes what they see every day, what they know, what they’ve lived or barely lived through. 

Sometimes the rules of writing get in the way of a good story told.

A shovel is the greatest motivational teacher I know.

Sleeplessness and being a writer seem to go together hand in hand. 

If you’re not going to immerse yourself in your work as a writer then don’t write. But beware, if you’re a writer who does not write, you stand a good chance of drowning in the world that surrounds you. 

For some folks the world is filled to the top with hurt.

For the writer that has truly suffered, their pen, their words, their art will become as important as breathing.

Lies are served like a fine delicacy. But beware, the truth of it all will sour, lodge in your throat, and choke your very existence if you continue to believe them.

Sweat, blood, and tears mean nothing in your writing if you’re not willing to burn what doesn’t work.

The Mailbox : A book by Jason E. Hodges

The Mailbox is my first eBook on Amazon. It took three years to make it there. Writing is never the hard part, it’s the rewriting over and over along with my crazy life that seemed to slow its journey at times. Click the link below the cover photo and info to take you to Amazon.

Thanks, J

Jacob moved from the edge of nowhere, the Okefenokee Swamp, to the transient sometimes twisted town of Gainesville Florida. He was following his dreams of becoming a writer. Jacob wanted words to flow from the scroll of his pen in the same county as his literary idols Harry Crews, and Marjory Kinnon Rawlings. But sometimes following your dreams can be more cumbersome than one would imagine. Trying to make it as a writer while living in a trailer park filled with misfits, retirees, man eating monitor lizards, and pit bulls would be enough to distract the best writer. Especially when they come to Jacob to salve all of their problems. But add in a young beautiful amputee named Ronnie with a violent past that haunts her, Jacob has his hands full finding time to write and get his first book published. Things really begin to spin out of control when Ronnie’s past follows her to the trailer park, all while Jacob falls helplessly in love with this mysterious one armed woman, knowing he might not be able to save her from what’s to come.  

Jason E. Hodges follows in the footsteps of his mentor and friend Harry Crews to spin a quirky hero tale of trial and redemption in the hardscrabble blood and guts world of a gritty North Florida trailer park that is stalked by insanity, loyalty, pit bulls and beauty in all its mutilated forms. A fifth-generation Floridian, Hodges embraces his freak-and-geek Greek chorus with a touching humanity, and weaves a story of life lived right at the marrow of the bone.

Janis Owens, author of My Brother Michael, The Schooling of Claybird Catts, Myra Sims, and American Ghost.

Jason E. Hodges has a way with words that cuts clear to the bone. 'The Mailbox' vividly seeps lucid grit and underbelly grime. Hodges had created an unsettling yet disturbingly charming story that kept me coming back for more.

Liz Worth, author of PostApoc and Treat Me Like Dirt

The Mailbox can be found here.

Skating Subcultures And Memories

Charles Bukowski said, “Beware the average man, the average woman, beware their love, their love is average, seeks average… Not being able to create art they will not understand art…” No truer words could have ever been spoken. I’ve seen this in the art/skateboarding world time and time again, or I should say, the rest of the world’s involvement with us.

Something I’ve noticed about skateboarding, it seems to draw in many creative types. It’s a subculture artist can move about freely in without being judged. I’m a strong believer that creative people will find each other in our world. Like magnets we are drawn to one another. Whether you’re a writer, painter, musician, photographer, sculptor, skateboarder, or surfer, to me it’s all under the umbrella of art.

Skating also draws in others trying to find their niche in the world, but they usually leave after the first few falls or when the scene no longer fulfills their needs of popularity. In other words, they don’t speak the language for very long.  

The strangest encounter I had was at my dentist’s office. I was lying there waiting for the dentist to begin drilling my tooth and his assistant asked me, “Are you a skater?” Her brow lifted upwards. I had noticed her looking at the years of scars on my lower legs. She had also been looking at my shirt which had some sort of skate logo on its front. I answered, “Yeah I skate.” Then she said, “I’m a skate groupie.” “Ummmmmm, cool,” I said because all words had escaped me. Her boss, the dentist, looked like he was going to fall over. Needless to say, it was an awkward visit. Picture, the two of them only a foot away from my face sticking sharp objects and drills in my mouth; him embarrassed; her wide-eyed and all smiles; me, um, yeah…               

When my friends and I skate the topics of conversation naturally revolve around art and music. One such day my friend Sean Garrity, who played with the punk band, Billy Reese Peters, started talking to another friend, Mario about a Charles Mingus documentary he’d watched. Mingus had calmly fired a shotgun into the ceiling of his home while being interviewed. Mario laughed and said, his dad knew a lot of those guys like, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, from the Jazz scene back then.

The first thought that ran through my mind was a Henry Rollins interview I had seen years earlier on the Dennis Miller Show. Rollins who once fronted the now legendry punk band, Black Flag told Miller about the musicians he listened to growing up, Sonny Rollins, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk. When I watched this interview in 1992 I was impressed. I knew the association the Beat writers had with Jazz but now for me they were connected with someone like Rollins.

As time went by I talked to Mario about his father’s musical career. The more I learned the more intrigued I became. Yeah, the Internet is filled with his father’s achievements as a musician but it didn’t have the insight someone like his eldest child, Mario would have.

Mario’s father, also named, Mario Rivera, was born July 22, 1939 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He passed away August 10, 2007 in New York City after a long battle with cancer. He was a world renowned Jazz musician. Starting off as a saxophonist, eventually he would master playing 27 different instruments. He played with Tito Puente for many years. Their song, Oye Como Va would eventually be covered and recorded by, Carlos Santana. Rivera recorded an album with Stanley Turrentine, The New Shuffle in 1967 and one with Dizzy Gillespie, Afro Cuban Jazz Moods in 1975. He appeared in two films, The Mambo Kings and Calle 54. In 1988 Rivera would play with Dizzy Gillespie in the United Nations Orchestra. He also perform with his own bands, The Mario Rivera Saxtet and The Salsa Refugees. In March of 1996 Rivera put out an album called El Commandante.

The info in the previous paragraph is the common info I ran across doing research on the web. But the more human side came from sitting down with my friend Mario after a long session of skating. His eyes grew wide as he talked about his father being a father.

He said his father was a firefighter back in Dominican Republic. That he had put together a band and his first gigs were covering Buddy Holly songs. We talked about photos that came to his mind of his father playing with Chubby Checker. “I saw the pics when I was about ten to twelve.” With a slight grin he remembered his father teasing him as a kid about missing Aretha Franklin stopping by their home. Mario reflected that it was a common thing for folks like her to pop in. But the best for me as we talked was seeing the kid-like glee line Mario’s eyes as he told me how impressed he was that his father knew how to play games like Tops and Marbles. That his father spending time with him not only playing the games but knowing how they were played meant the world to Mario at that time. “Man, I thought that was cool,” Mario said followed by a wide smile.

By the end of the interview I decided it shouldn’t be an interview at all. It should be a blog about one friend telling another friend about the memories of his father. All while hanging out in our subculture of skating…

His Night In London With Anais Nin

“It’s always nice to wake up and see a photo of Anais Nin... It goes well with coffee.” I wrote this to my good friend Ellis Amburn after he posted a photo of her on my timeline in the wee hours of the morning. If you’re a writer you know these hours well…

 

Ironically, I’d just finished reading, Under A Glass Bell by Anais the previous day... I've been reading a lot of Nin’s work lately... So I found it interesting that Ellis sent me a photo of her… 

 

Ellis is a great writer and is among good company as a writer of Florida. Folks like Janis Owens, Ernest Hemingway, Harry Crews, Marjory Kinnon Rawlings, and Donn Pearce to name a few… A group used to pouring out every ounce of energy through the scratch of a pen, all while blanketed by the thick humidity of the day falling into night.

 

Along with being a writer, Ellis was Jack Kerouac’s editor… He has had many encounters with Hollywood types and other famous writers. So, naturally when we have lunch together or talk on the phone my eyes are wide and my mind eagerly awaits stories from his past. People he has run across in his lifetime,  like my first crush as a kid, Kim Novack. It was a surreal moment to be talking to him about her. Shelley Winters, May West, and of course Anais Nin were also topics of conversation…

  

So, I thought it would be fun to ask Ellis questions about a dinner he once had with Anais for my blog… Cool stuff, like did she still have an accent when she talked? Or did she wear perfume? Was it the kind a poet like her would wear?  Did her eyes pin him with a gaze that made him forget all about his dinner?

 

Ellis, being gracious as he always is, took the time to tell the tale of his time with Anais once again for my blog. He is a true wealth of knowledge and life experiences few only dream of… 

 

Here is his night in London with Anais Nin

 

Hi, Jason. Here goes: Anais Nin was as gentle and beguiling as a butterfly, enhancing and endorsing rather than challenging. I could see at once, when she greeted me at the door of her London townhouse, why men like Henry Miller had fallen in love with her. Without smiling, she had an expression that took you into account as a human being and specifically as a man, making you feel not only accepted but original and . . . tall. Her voice was soft, matter-of-fact yet friendly, her touch firm, letting you know she was yours for a moment. I don't recall any perfume other than the metaphoric one--congeniality--surrounding her and the subdued, elegant party she was hosting. And hosting well: She introduced me to two of her guests I would never forget. Young Christopher Reeve, who was in London shooting "Superman" but loved talking literature, and Luise Rainer, who had won two best-actress Oscars but wanted to discuss (and evoke) the horror of Kent State, which had just happened. "Oh, you poor, poor thing," she said, oozing geuine compassion, when I told her I was an American. What a contrast between the two women--Luise, as intense as she'd been in her famous phone scene in "The Great Ziegfeld" when she said, "Oh, Flo," and Anais, exuding serenity. Both lovely in radically different ways. That's for your blog, my friend, and have a wonderful day.

Poem : The Fox

One morning I see two eyes peering my way

Glowing bright from the dull gray cast of my headlights

Illuminating the dark shadows of winter

Much like the glow of two fireflies chasing one another

Through the hot humidity of southern summer nights    

Yes, the eyes of a fox glowed that morning

Pinning me with her gentle gaze she did

As I drew closer

She stood motionless underneath the undergrowth

Of lime green leaves now frosted

From winter’s white wind wiping their surface with ice  

Her breath shows in the cool air escaping through flared nostrils

The fox seems unbothered, yet keenly aware of my presence

Her gaze, piercing, as if she knows me

Like she’s carrying a message

Then my mind wanders for a moment

I think of my friend from a faraway land

She’s been there for me when I was alone

I reached out with my tattered life

She listened then sewed my frayed existence with kind words

Holding me together with strings from her heart

With positive energy

She cast a stone ever so softly

Into the dark waters that had become my life

Making these waters ripple with hope

With understanding

With support

With friendship

With kindness  

Good energy transferred through time and space to heal

So I thought, as the fox broke from her cover  

Her tail wildly whipping in the wind

Could the feelings and support of another

Be transferred through the sighting of a fox

Or a hawk calling overhead

With its speckled wing mass cutting the blue skyline in two

These creatures crossing our path to remind us of the ones

That send positive thoughts our way

Their words and feelings carried from a faraway land

To ours on the backs of these wild messengers

Yes, I believe so

Poem : Marilyn

Oh Marilyn with your sweet stare so sad

Oh how you put on a show for us all

Your lips were the color of

Red twisted licorice

Your skin so soft

Like silk

As you lay stretched across the flip page of a centerfold

Your body

Your breast

Your hips so curvy

Your legs dressed with stretched diamond netting

You were every man’s perfect obsession

But it was your eyes that told your true story

The gaze of the lonely never lies

You knew, your bargaining chips of beauty would fade with time

Old age slips into our lives like a thief

Steals what once was

The fear that comes from not being loved

To becoming the most loved

Then knowing old age would eventually take it away

Had to be a burden to carry

A weight, unbearable to lift

For rejection is a demon that haunts with great regularity

Spreading his fear in your mind like a wildfire spreads through the forest

Engulfing all of your thoughts if you’re not careful

So you fought these feelings of fear 

The pills and smooth swigs of whiskey work well at first

Like candy they comfort

With their sweet outer shell they slide down with ease

They made your worries slip away for a moment

But the pressures of the past always come back

Abandonment is a scar that runs deep

After your mother left for the asylum

Life was never the same

Walking out of your world

Your mother would eventually walk the streets of my home town

Walking the streets of Gainesville

Listening to the voices in her head

Oh Marilyn, I understand your frustration

My sister and grandmother heard the same voices

Maybe there’s more voices to hear in this town

Or maybe some are chosen to hear the ones no one has time for

Oh Marilyn, with your sweet smile and beauty

I can see why it was easier to be numb to the demands of the world

Numb to your past

Living life in the flash of a camera could not have been easy

Trading one lonely world for another

It all takes a toll in the end

A pill to wake up, a pill to fall asleep

A pill for the everyday demands

If two pills fix what’s wrong on Monday

Three surely will fix Tuesday’s problems

This thinking catches even the beautiful

Oh Marilyn, at least you’ll never grow old

And have to listen to the voices of the city

You’ll live on, young, in still photos

With a smile and loneliness clouding your eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem : God Ran Out Of Parchment

Last night
I looked up
In the pale blue sky
Submerged in the darkness of life
Dotted with stars that sparked like pinholes of light
Through the worn and tattered curtain
On the stage of our world
Light from the beginnings of time
When God picked up coals from his fire
Then blew them from his palm
Into the universe
Creating the heavens above  
I sat in silence as the moon’s dull light washed over me
And tried my best to think of nothing at all
As the cold wind blew through my bones
Finally
Exhausted
I was ready to sleep
I awoke the next morning
And a thought crossed my mind
As I stepped out
To face the world once more
I think
God must have ran out of parchment
For it looks like
He colored the sky with a crayon
Scribbling zigzag lines of gray
Splitting the sky in two
Down, down, down
These lines did fall
To the red top horizon
Mirroring itself just before me
Yes, today
God used the sky as his canvas
Splashing spotted specks of pink and blue paint
On the backdrop of our world
Creating some colors
I can’t even describe    
Yes, today I believe
God ran out of parchment