Early 90s a friend of mine was some kind of Teamster working on the Sony Studios lot in Culver City. I was in town visiting and invited out one day to the set of some stupid show but I met William Devane and he was cool. So, Sony was shooting the treehouse set for the movie Hook on a stage near by. It was a secured set bc the studio didn't want photos getting out but my buddy knew a guy that snuck us both in. We were in the wings checking out this thing and noticed a group of Japanese executives taking a tour, stereotypical looking, black suits, thin black ties but NO CAMERAS. After a just few moments it became apparent that Robyn was on set and he had gathered together some crew members armed with poles, brooms, a boom mic and we watched him march these guys in front of the Sony execs while all whistling the theme to The Bride on the River Kwai. It was eyewatering hilarious but the 3 of us held it together until we got out of there. True story
Categories:
teamster, funny, inspiration, power, surreal,
Form: Free verse
It’s a romanticized picture
hanging on my dining room wall,
1907 lumberjacks,
one perched atop lumber stacked tall.
It’s winter, and they have a sled
pulled by two horses, looking bored,
twelve-foot pile of logs they pull,
one teamster with long reigns aboard.
It’s somewhere in the wilderness,
the nothing of northern New York,
four men on foot stand alongside,
dressed in wool for cold winter work.
One holds an axe, that one looks young,
all wear bootpacks over their pants,
with hats and mustaches of old,
looks like a job for a real man.
The trees are dyed in sepia,
the colors are gradings of gray,
it’s the type of nostalgia that
just takes a worried mind away.
Compared to typing on a screen
it seems quite appealing to me,
then I stop and remind myself
most of them never reached sixty…
Categories:
teamster, history, horse, imagery, nature,
Form: Rhyme