![\"jessebernstein.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/jessebernstein.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Speaking of himself in the third person, Jesse Bernstein once noted that he was “unemployed until the age of six; since then he has worked as a seeing eye dog for the spiritually impaired and as an emergency storm drain.”
\nPoet, performance artist, playwright, actor and friend of what he called the expendable people, he killed himself in 1990 in Neah Bay at age 40. <\/p>\n
Photo Alice Wheeler<\/a><\/p>\n A well-edited collection of the range of his best work has yet to appear, although a posthumously released Sub Pop CD titled Prison<\/i><\/a> briefly lit up the charts after selections from it played over the open sequence of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers<\/i>. <\/p>\n Peter Sillen’s recently completed documentary on Bernstein, I Am Secretly An Important Man<\/em><\/a>, opens at The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival<\/a> in North Carolina on Friday. It will screen as part of a Creative Capital film festival<\/a> at the Museum of Modern Art on May 15 & 27. Sillen is still working on a Seattle release.<\/p>\n More Noise Please!<\/p>\n I live on a street<\/p>\n where there are many\n<\/p>\n many cars\n<\/p>\n and trucks\n<\/p>\n and factories\n<\/p>\n that pump\n<\/p>\n and bang and\n<\/p>\n grind all night\n<\/p>\n and day.\n<\/p>\n It is a miracle\n<\/p>\n that I can write poetry\n<\/p>\n or sleep or\n<\/p>\n talk on the telephone\n<\/p>\n or that\n<\/p>\n my lover will\n<\/p>\n visit me here.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n There is\n<\/p>\n so much noise.\n<\/p>\n Every few minutes\n<\/p>\n a jet comes in low\n<\/p>\n or a prop job\n<\/p>\n swings down like\n<\/p>\n a kamikaze.\n<\/p>\n There is an airport\n<\/p>\n at the end of my street.\n<\/p>\n The new age people say\n<\/p>\n that you choose\n<\/p>\n all these things –\n<\/p>\n choose the cars\n<\/p>\n and trucks and\n<\/p>\n airplanes – me and\n<\/p>\n all of my neighbors.\n<\/p>\n Maybe this is true;\n<\/p>\n maybe we can’t live\n<\/p>\n without\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n all this goddam noise.\n<\/p>\n Maybe I need the noise\n<\/p>\n to write poems\n<\/p>\n make love and eat.\n<\/p>\n I’m going to hang a sign\n<\/p>\n out my window\n<\/p>\n that says:\n<\/p>\n More Noise Please!\n<\/p>\n or:\n<\/p>\n Thank You For Making Noise!\n<\/p>\n Maybe we are the kind of people\n<\/p>\n who need to have\n<\/p>\n what we don’t want\n<\/p>\n just to get along,\n<\/p>\n to do the basic things.\n<\/p>\n Myself,\n<\/p>\n I could not sleep\n<\/p>\n last night,\n<\/p>\n and I could not\n<\/p>\n close the window,\n<\/p>\n either. I tried\n<\/p>\n to tear the window\n<\/p>\n out of its frame\n<\/p>\n and put it\n<\/p>\n in a closed position,\n<\/p>\n banging and ripping\n<\/p>\n with the hammer\n<\/p>\n and a screw driver,\n<\/p>\n standing on the window ledge\n<\/p>\n in my socks\n<\/p>\n three stories up.\n<\/p>\n But, the window\n<\/p>\n wouldn’t come out\n<\/p>\n and the factory was screaming\n<\/p>\n and the trucks were rumbling\n<\/p>\n and the whole world\n<\/p>\n was praying for silence\n<\/p>\n and it was up to me\n<\/p>\n to shut the window\n<\/p>\n and I couldn’t\n<\/p>\n get it down.\n<\/p>\n I was just making\n<\/p>\n more noise.\n<\/p>\n A jet went by\n<\/p>\n and all the people waved.\n<\/p>\n Thanks, I yelled\n<\/p>\n as the shifts changed\n<\/p>\n without a lull in production\n<\/p>\n at the big plant\n<\/p>\n across the street.\n<\/p>\n The workers lined up\n<\/p>\n at the bus stop\n<\/p>\n watching me with my hammer\n<\/p>\n in the window.\n<\/p>\n I put sponge stoppers\n<\/p>\n in my ears,\n<\/p>\n but I can’t stand those things\n<\/p>\n for more than a few minutes.\n<\/p>\n Finally,\n<\/p>\n I put my head\n<\/p>\n between two pillows.\n<\/p>\n It is the same\n<\/p>\n every night.\n<\/p>\n I love it\n<\/p>\n I need it.\n<\/p>\n Without you I could not live,\n<\/p>\n I would not have written\n<\/p>\n this poem,\n<\/p>\n I yell,\n<\/p>\n the window dangling\n<\/p>\n half on half off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Photo via) Speaking of himself in the third person, Jesse Bernstein once noted that he was “unemployed until the age of six; since then he has worked as a seeing eye dog for the spiritually impaired and as an emergency storm drain.” Poet, performance artist, playwright, actor and friend of what he called the expendable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"alicewheelerjesse.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/alicewheelerjesse.jpg\")
Most of his friends remember him not for his tragedy, which included mental illness, alcoholism and drug addiction, but for his talent, his generosity, his steadfast loyalty and gleeful charm when the debilitating fog of illness lifted.
\nSmall with bow legs and tattoos running up his arms, Bernstein had a
\ngravelly voice that became slurred when he neglected to put in his teeth
\nfor his late-night phone calls to many willing and semi-willing
\nlisteners.
\nThey rarely needed to say anything. On the phone he said it all, ranging
\nacross the history of poetics, the crimes of the Central Intelligence
\nAgency, the need for cheaper breakfast cereal and the search for a
\nsustaining form of God’s grace.<\/p>\n