1/5 Interview with Ervin Wilson

1/5 Transcript: Ervin Wilson (00:21): Blue budha to make their pies from over there, but that's all right. Don't hubs in. Marcus Hobbs (00:31): Hi. Ervin Wilson (00:32): That's a cute Marcus Hobbs (00:33): Hat. Thank you. Do you'd like it? Where Ervin Wilson (00:36): Did you get Marcus Hobbs (00:37): That? I got it at Hermosa Beach where all the cowboys roam. Ervin Wilson (00:42): Yeah. Do you want a hay straw? Marcus Hobbs (00:45): Yep. Put me to work, baby. Just tell me what you need. Want. Yep. I got shovels. I'm ready for anything. Hell even plant some marijuana Ervin Wilson (00:55): Crops here, right? Huh? Marcus Hobbs (00:56): That's right. Ervin Wilson (00:58): A little income supplementation Marcus Hobbs (01:00): Going and some bullshit. You got to plant some, put Ervin Wilson (01:03): Out all this stuff for these insurance people. Oh, for the fire abatement. The fire people? Yeah. Wow. Irv. Where is an outlet? An electrical Marcus Hobbs (01:19): Outlet. We don't mean like a creative outlet. No. Ervin Wilson (01:23): Well hair. Try the nostrils. Oh boy. I'm just sort water parts. Gary David (01:43): It's 1962. I just found it. I went to that event when I was living in San Francisco. Ervin Wilson (02:00): Where was this theater? 1962. That was before I actually met. Gary David (02:12): Well, let's Marcus Hobbs (02:12): Talk like this about Gary David (02:14): You. By meeting him, Ervin Wilson (02:19): You said it price. Hang on to it. Gary David (02:25): I like this picture of him surrounded by his instruments. Ervin Wilson (02:52): And then one point Roberts up past Seattle, this little point reason it's called Point Roberts is because there's quite a large inland lake there, ocean there. And to get there, you have to go into Canada and then cut down. And the way they cut the boundaries, the United States, Canada, they just cut a line straight across. It just so happened that right out on a point that just holds of a few thousand people that is sticking like little peninsula out into the lake there. And you have to go into Canada to get back onto the point. And then you have to exit Extens. Then you're back to the US again. I can get it to the porch here. I use the word loo here Speaker 4 (04:50): Sec. Lemme get Ervin Wilson (04:55): These tapes ready. We'll see one. We'll see two. I'm amazed I didn't, so they won the word plett. I usually try to put the word plethora somewhere and everything I ride. Ah. Sort of like a, and then of course call just innocently and they just a throwaway word. Speaker 4 (05:23): Throwaway word. Ervin Wilson (05:24): The throwaway word. Yeah. Just as Speaker 4 (05:38): Even got religious here you said, good heavens. Ervin Wilson (05:41): Where Speaker 4 (05:42): My heavens. My heavens. As opposed to your evidence. Ervin Wilson (05:47): Well, at least it's a plural. Yes. There's a whole click of it. I don't mind using the word gods. Gary David (05:59): Yeah, gods for the ceiling. Stephen James Taylor (06:05): In a small Jeep. Ervin Wilson (06:07): There are gods everywhere. Who knows that that stone down there doesn't have an intrinsic flicker of consciousness in Stephen James Taylor (06:16): It. You won't get an argument from me. Ervin Wilson (06:22): I haven't had Stephen James Taylor (06:26): My Ervin Wilson (06:26): Coffee yet. Stephen James Taylor (06:27): Oh, boil it up, bro. We're fired up. We're here all day. Gary David (06:32): The reason I showed you this up is it this way of thinking, which is very poetic, would be really good for much of what we're going to do today so that someone who knows nothing about you would get some kind of a theme. Ervin Wilson (06:49): Oh, Stephen James Taylor (06:53): If you insist, Ervin Wilson (06:55): I'll say everything in haiku. There Stephen James Taylor (06:57): You go. There you go. Remember, Ervin Wilson (07:05): Every day before I even get out, I write a haiku. I'm not joking. Stephen James Taylor (07:13): Do you really? Ervin Wilson (07:15): I've been doing that lately. Just taking things that pop out of my mouth. Stephen James Taylor (07:21): So you've got a pretty good collection of them Ervin Wilson (07:22): By now. And write them down and see, can I transform this into a haiku? And amazingly, once I get the ideas down on paper, I can juggle them just a little bit. Insert a couple of syllables here or reverb it. And I've got a very, very workable haiku using ordinarily ordinary, overworked English. Stephen James Taylor (07:55): That's what we wanted. Ordinary, overworked, English. Ervin Wilson (07:59): But if you are actor, you will sit and listen to what other people are saying and how they say it. Good actors do that all the time. Stephen James Taylor (08:15): Yeah, the cadence Ervin Wilson (08:17): That is just astonished. But you just listen to what they say and how they say it. What is going on out there in the real world? You have acting that surpasses any academy artist right down Stephen James Taylor (08:35): There. Yeah. Ervin Wilson (08:39): I've heard there was a kid from Argentina. No, no. Yeah. Lived down there for a while and his buddies would come up and visit him for his younger brother, so forth. I couldn't help hearing him. And I realized that aside from the words they were saying, the most extraordinary things like the younger brother was saying to the older brother, and I won't try to explain why I wrote it and don't try to understand it. You'll get the drift. Timothy McVay flawed. Goding resurrected quickly, accepted by United States Marines rose up through the ranks, battleships and armored tanks. He commanded them, awarded the silver star posthumously, pinned his bud, his blood spilled by friendly fire screaming in the wind. Stephen James Taylor (10:02): I have absolutely nothing to say. What can you add? Wow. Ervin Wilson (10:11): Not for children. Stephen James Taylor (10:12): I see that's a bedtime story, huh? A bedtime story. Ervin Wilson (10:19): Not for children. No, but I have some, let's see, I've got some lines I haven't used yet, but here I think I've got one. Oh, I finally came around to this and parts of it quite good, but parts of it are not quite continuous in my imagination. You are loving me. But in the real world it could have fit right there. Gary David (11:00): Yes, Ervin Wilson (11:03): But in the real world, you're loving your woman. She carries your child. His name is Green Corn Dancer from oca. His eyes are like the jaguar. His penis is green (11:35): Now, this was just, okay. There are rattlesnakes in Columbia Pacheco. They shake their rattles. They too have the right to live. We do not kill them. I shoot and shoot the penis and rattlesnake be to a bottle of so tall. Can I get a repeat performance of that one? Yeah, yeah. Once we got light looks good, I shoot and shoot the pins and shoot the penis and shoot the penis and rattlesnake meat to a bottle. So cold. That's 5, 5, 5 7. I've taken license with that. You're using fives and sevens, but over here, Ryan McCarney, you need a host of angels guarding over you and a second watchdog host for backup duty. (12:45): Hey, can I wire you? Wire me? This is a microphone already over there. Over there. Oh yeah. Fire going on right down there. Sometimes it's just the, when people were out from Ohio visiting Bruce Didi's father who lived over there, ballerina, and she's does and does some acting. And her father came out visit and there was a big bunch of helicopters over going around and around and he was quite upset. What's going on? I says, well, there's a police station right down there and there's university over there having a big ball game. And then there's a high school over there where they're probably having a political activities going on. (14:11): Bruce was getting more and more ated, ated, consternated with all of this air activity here out there in Iowa. You don't see helicopters overhead all the time. No, but I have seen some very, very strange things too, such as coming over the, I have a perfect view of the traffic patterns and when the traffic patterns change, I can't help noticing if all of a sudden there's an influx of transport planes that go out that right after another Air Force just take, I hate anybody, try them down. I take my duty to spread a little bit of sunshine somewhere. That's good. Whether they want it or not, it's infectious. I just go out and spend a little bit every sunshine there a well there now I've done that. I can go back to being grouchy. Okay, Gary, whenever you're ready. I can go back to suffering. Are we doing things now? Yeah, we're going to start, Gary David (16:14): Actually, we Ervin Wilson (16:15): Just go ahead and clap. Oh, I see. Are you recording, mark? Yep. Just clap it. Clap again. Wilson Gary David (16:23): One. Wilson one. Ervin Wilson (16:26): That was good. Isn't that cool? It's for people who can't play spoons but always wish they could. What is it supposed to be? A music instrument? Gary David (16:52): Yeah. Ervin Wilson (16:56): Spud Murphy died. Gary David (16:58): Yeah, he did. That's why I found that out yesterday. Ervin Wilson (17:03): Did you see the photograph in the newspaper? Had had all of his people and stuff standing around him. He was by a keyboard and he was talking animatedly about it and Chuck Johnie was there. I'd seen the same picture before in the LA Times where it was just about Spud Murphy, but Chuck Donkey was in the picture and I commented on it. I didn't call Chuck yesterday to tell him that I'd seen him in the obituary section. Gary David (17:41): Spud Murphy one. Remember I used to study with him a long time ago Ervin Wilson (17:46): And Chuck Janke did as well. That's why I Gary David (17:49): Know Spud had hopes that we could, that I guess Chuck and I could bring what you do and what he did together. I never could find a way. Ervin Wilson (18:00): The only way I could bring them together is if I started charging the same that he does. And what was it, seven 50 for two hours was it? And so I've decided from now on I'm going to charge eight 50 for two hours. No, I'm just joking. I would rather charge anything for two hours. Gary David (18:32): Tell us a little bit about when you were growing up, what your life was like. Ervin Wilson (18:39): I was born in 1928. Gary David (18:43): It's okay. Okay. Ervin Wilson (18:44): I was born in 1928, June the 11th, 1928 in the Colonial Pacheco Chihuahua, Mexico. And I was actually born in a covered wagon. Gary David (19:05): I didn't know that Ervin Wilson (19:07): The Mormon type covered wagon. My parents had come down from Salt Lake City in that wagon and they'd traveled circuitously until they could finally get across the Colorado River. They found a ferry and that would bring them across and we'd pretty well demark the trail. And they got down there. My father got up to that little valley, and it was just that time of the year when everything was green, green, green. And the poor man thought that he had died and gone to heaven. (19:49): But on top of that, so we settled on a little piece of ground there and that's where I was born. But the reason why we settled, first of all, the exodus, all of the people had left there because Pancho Vie had been wandering around creating a ruckus. And the early Mormons had to just leave. They didn't have among the very first return. So there was a wide open land and we took the spot, a spot that hadn't been settled by anybody. The beauty of it was that it had a ditch, a place where ditch could come out of the river and bring running water to us. And my father repaired the ditch and we had running water. We had a big water wheel. We could do all kinds of things with that water wheel. But shortly after, but my parents just camped out on the place still and they care a wagon until after I was born. And then Gary David (21:06): How many children were there? Ervin Wilson (21:08): I was the second child and my first child was named Lyman and he was there at the time. So my parents decided, well, it's time to build a house. We got another baby after Lyman. It was born. Nobody came very long for four years. And finally my mother went down to president to, I'm not sure if he was an a polygamist official, he was a polygamist. But he had held a high place in the church down in Corona Dubland. And he gave her a blessing. He blessed her and promised her that she would have a baby Gary David (21:56): And that was you. Ervin Wilson (22:00): And catch this a child of promise. And sure enough, she got pregnant and had me. Gary David (22:14): There's a five syllable beginning of a new haiku, a child of promise. There Ervin Wilson (22:20): You go. But that gives you the expectations there at the very beginning. Gary David (22:28): How many children did they have altogether? Ervin Wilson (22:30): 10. 10. 10. Right. At the last reading, the direct descendants of my father and my mother exceed 200 and going, oh God, Gary David (22:46): Direct sentence, Ervin Wilson (22:47): Direct de sentence, 200 and more being born every day, no attempt whatsoever ever on anybody's part to control the inevitable Fibonacci series. (23:09): But they just think it's ridiculous. Lord will provide, he takes care of the smallest sparrow, but the heck. Anyway, my earliest memories are of being actually in the house. I don't remember being in the camp wagon, that's just the two. But in the house, I remember the first thing I remember was actually, believe it or not, nursing for my mother, which means I can remember pretty far back less than 1-year-old when she'd had me laying on her arm like this. It was uncomfortable when I leave there, and I dunno, it was, I remember it somewhat uncomfortable lying on her arm. But then for some reason that memory is still embedded there. The first memory I recall of sounds was the sounds of the wind howling through the adobe cracks had been making this incredibly beautiful music when they, and the cracks are still there and the wind still house through them. And it still makes this beautiful music, this waves and whales and moves so organically and that sound more than any, it has haunted me all my life. (25:06): And then we would get the sounds of the Mexican singing late at night driving, riding their donkeys or their boos or just walking back and forth late at night, just drunk singing to the tops of their voices. These beautiful, beautiful Mexican melodies. I remember particular, they mark Escalante. He would ride down by the river there. We lived by a river. And next to the river is just, we were on an east side hill, no, overlooking some flats by where the water riverbed had gone and left. Nevertheless, rich Loy fields out there and down to somewhat a ways where limestone outcroppings, we call the ledges. And there were signs of hidden activities in the caves and the ledges, little sort of places where they could grind the acorns or whatever. They grinding the little holes, pestles and the rocks. And you can see where they built fires there. And then on top there was this story that the Indians used to gather there. But the top of that hill was important to us because the early morman prophets and mission and elders of the moment church had gone to that hill and right under a gigantic oak tree there. They had prophesied that someday the words of the Lord would spread from that point. (27:04): And I don't know if they ever specifically said that a temple would be built there. But we took that and I think it pretty well indicated that a very, very large temple built that the, with a full on view of where the temple would be. That's why, another reason why my father settled at that spot and all of our lives, we were allowed to believe that someday a temple would in fact be built there. But later on, still when I was very young, but I recall it happening, my father went down there, they built a ice monument at the spot and my father cast a bronze plaque. He got, went around and gathered all the bronze that anybody had, Mel it down, just old pieces of car or something, anywhere you could get blood melted down and had nothing to make a plaque stating exactly who prophesied what Len were in the days embedded the plaque in the monument. (28:29): And there you see the mission work starting to the imprints, the expectations. As a child, I was very much influenced by the early Mormon hymns, and I do have a copy of the hymn book we used when I was a very, very young child. And it has some beautiful old hymns, some of the hymns written by very, very gifted people. How did you hear them? We would just sing them. We were there in Sunday school on the town site was accompanying instrument of any kind. Sometimes there was a piano. We had a piano up there, but it was always out of tune. My brother Liman, just older than myself, was one of the tuners and he didn't know how to drink piano. Nobody ever had a tin of cattle. And it had the most marvelous out tune sound imaginable. And so I remember the Mormon hymns. (29:45): I remember a lot of the Mexican songs, particularly the Well, and I remember folk songs that the kids used to sing that they had learned. And I learned, remember songs that people had composed on the spot and these early hymns were an influence. The early Mexican music was an influence. The early Mexican music was particularly a rich influence because it had a mixture of Spanish influence and indigenous influence. Plus the Spanish influence may have been rich. And Moish influence. And gypsy influence in terms of intonation as well to Yes. The interesting thing is that there to this day, people, if they just sing or whistle without any accompaniment, will sing or whistle something that is off the keyboard, absolutely off the, it has almost nothing to do with the scale that we play on the piano or the guitar, or especially the digitally equalized piano or synthesizer where the piano is placed in. Well, even Stravinski objected to that tuning his stravinski, as you know, started using some doing compositions. He had a very helpful young man helping him. One day the guy decided not to change the subject, but an example of how even good musicians hate that tuning. One of his assistants decided to tune the piano and got out to ranch and Stravinski fairly screamed at him, put that down, don't you change a note? He wanted his sounds where they were supposed to be. Anyway, it was always out of tune than heavens. Gary David (32:12): I recall you telling me that you used to make flutes at that time when you were a kid.