Was born Theodore Sandoval Sharton but legally changed his name to T.S. when he was three. His parents were of the middle class and each made very comfortable livings. They were raising their only son with the beautiful and sensible values of the middle class. Sharton was sent to an east coast prep school when he was 13. When he graduated, Sharton attended community college and loved taking creative writing, which he flunked repeatedly. He began reading his Doof inspired poetry in the campus cafeteria, standing on the table and grabbing everyone’s attention by reciting with strange accents, high squeaky voices and various sound effects. He sometimes staged fake fights to break out in the middle of a poem. All these antics caused his reputation and his self confidence to grow. Sharton came west to California when he was just seventeen. He was lured to San Francisco by tales of writers, coffee shops and community colleges. He wanted to be part of the Beat Generation after reading about it in the college newspapers. When he finally got there, he found out he had just missed the first reading of “Howl” by Allan Ginsberg.
Aside from reading all the Beat writers, Sharton fanatically read pulp magazines, and especially enjoyed the writings of D. Maylock and Clancy Webster. Sharton became obsessed with the Doof at an early age. His father owned a few Doof things and bought the magazines that the young Sharton would read and reread. Oddly, instead of finding comfort in the Doof image, Sharton was repelled by it. He felt that it haunted him and drained him of his humanity. This negative energy fueled Sharton and he produced in his lifetime many poems, plays, short stories, rantings and obituaries. Sharton once wrote poetry for 43 days straight without a break. Sharton ended up in the hospital with exhaustion after using up 45 reams of typing paper. The paramedics had to shovel the paper aside in order to find the unconscious Doof poet. His live poetry readings often had Sharon still screeching his words at high falsettos but now dressing in odd costumes, sometimes wearing capes and always leaving the stage before he finished. To better himself as a writer Sharton work at numerous jobs to gain life experience. Sharton worked as a gas station attendant, welder, delivery boy, fruit picker, carpenter, fluffer, plumber, cashier, spar partner, beach comber, dock worker, department store Santa and dishwasher. Sharton also tried all religions but proclaimed to be an atheist, but because of being a devout drunkard, he became a born again christian.
Although he did not play an instrument or could read music, Sharton loved to sing in the shower and was under the impression that he had a nice singing voice. Sharton once sang for Bob Dylan in his shower after the drunken poet crashed at the singer’s apartment during a spring visit to New York. Sharton attempted to record his poems to music. In 196-- He recorded three albums, working with who he thought were the best musicians at the time. He met a young Johnny Winter and found his guitar work extraordinary.
He wrote a drama, Forbidden Fruit, Forbidden Doof, under the pen name of Saul Mckowen. It never premiered on Broadway or New York for that matter, but made its premiere at his mother’s drama club in 1969.
His first collection of prose and poems, Listen to the Doofbird, was publish by the first firm Sharton sent his manuscript to, Abandon Press. The quirky writings made a few reading lists of community colleges English departments, but Sharton was always restless and never settled on one publisher.
Sharton’s personal life was always in upheaval and he went through one torrid affair afternoon with members of both sexes as well as a farm animal or two. He had a brief affair with the Doof exotic dancer, Abigail Lombard. He married twice, once to a ballerina from Bulgaria so that she could become a U.S. citizen. After the wedding, she disappeared and Sharton fell into a deep depression. He used the money he got from selling all the wedding presents to finance his Broadway musical. The musical, Doof opened and closed in one week, a complete box office disaster. Rumor had it that Sharton’s backers were looking for something so awful that it’s failure was a great tax write off.
Sharton then entered years of hibernation and a shocking refusal to work. He claimed that the Doof had final come home and taken his soul. Then some ten years later, Sharton was forced by a small group of young fans to start up his career again. They sent him to an artist residency in Wyoming for two weeks in December. the Wyoming winter was extremely harsh and sent Sharton into a deep depression and he went on a writing frenzy and ended up with his finest work, A Collection of Doofs. 25 pieces of superb self reflection, touching and revealing subjects deep within Sharton’s soul.
His fondness for drinking ultimately cost him his live performances. He was drinking so heavily that he could not get through a set without throwing up on someone in the performance. The only places that would book him were punk clubs. The punks thought Sharton’s performances and vomiting were ultra Dada. He soon tired of the hostility
and eventually removed himself from the public eye. He moved to Idaho in 1995 and built himself a one room cabin to shut himself and his work off from the rest of the world. Sadly, in 2004, he ended his own life, leaving the world a cabin filled to the rafters of hundreds of poems, plays and anything else that you would think to write.
Below is a sample from A Collection of Doofs. It is entitled, Everywhere.
DOOF!
DOOF!
doof!
DOOF! I Hate DOOF!
EVERYWHERE
DOOF!
Stop it
Stop them
DOOF!
It's staring at me
It's staring in me
It's staring through me
DOOF!
It's worthless
useless
colorless
SACK OF SHIT!
DOOF!
easy to draw
easy to paint
easy to ignore
DOOF!
Doof
I hate you
leave me be
go away
Do not call me
DOOF!
poof.
Sharton with his on again off again companion, Comrade Peter, who owned Revolution Press. Sharton published his book, Doof Boy with Revolution and was quietly praised for the work in the free newspapers.
No comments:
Post a Comment