Ah, James,

What a sweet man.  I always enjoyed his great sense of humor. 

And I always thought he got short shrift in the faerie community, being overshadowed by Harry Hay.  I always remember this 'rift,' if indeed that is what it was, between Harry and James over who was the original RadFae.  Certainly Harry won the popular vote, but I've never been truly sure.  And I'm not sure it matters. 

James, in my mind, has always held equal footing as a Founder.
And I think he equally embodied the spirit of Fae - a different flavor than Harry - but equally fine.  James always seemed a little more Zen about things (or was that drugged?  I'm not sure.) 

James' poetry clearly stands out for me, with the "This is It..." poem at the top of the list. 

 This is It
and I am It
and You are It
and so is That

and He is It
and She is It
and It is It 
and That is That ...

Truth, humor, delight.  That's the case for the poem, and that's how I remember James.

much love,
Pala / Jack Harvey

David Michael told this story recently:

I’m a harpist in Port Townsend, was a good friend of James.

I met James in 1991, the first year I was here. Sometimes in those days, a captain on the ferryboat would not let me play on the boat. I had been locked off the local ferry, but I was allowed to busk in the Flagship Landing, right next to the ferry dock.

So I was playing my Celtic harp there, and along comes this man who gave me the biggest smile, and he gasps and says, “Oh, I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

Then he flopped himself on the ground, laying in front of me, blocking traffic. He was sighing and gasping with joy. Finally, he gets up and throws his arms around me, and says, “Oh, darling, I love your music! I’m a poet and I would love to get together with you and do a collaboration!”

And I’m thinking to myself, who is this guy? “Uh, maybe I could see some of your poems first?”

And he says, “Well, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m James Broughton, and I’ll go get you a book out of my car.”

And I said, “Oh, you’re James Broughton. Oh, wow!” OK, and I’m thinking to myself, I know I’ve heard of James Broughton, and it was the Alan Watts book. I knew that poem, “This is It.” I was just putting that together when he came rushing back with a book of his poems [Special Deliveries], and he gave me a big hug and we exchanged phone numbers.

I went home that night, and I just could not put this book down. I called him the next day, and said, “I love your work, too. Let’s get together and do something.”

So we did several performances, entailing him reading a poem, and I’d improvise a vignette for 10 or 12 seconds, and I was like the bookmark between his poems. After he got to know my music better, he would sing to my tunes. What a remarkable meeting!

The Big Joy Project is announcing our animated poetry video contest!

“More bubbly please,” were some of James' last words just over 11 years ago. This year, to commemorate the anniversary on a cloudy spring morning just over a dozen people, including James life partner Joel Singer, gathered with poetry and champagne to bury the remainder of James ashes next to his Port Townsend graveside monument.

Poetry, champagne, costume, and song were the order of the day. People shared stories of sparkling moments they had had with James, what they loved about him— such as how his exuberance seem to make everything else come alive. Poems were read. And others spoke of how James was still affecting them positively even a decade after his death.

One young woman shared how she had never met James but had discovered his poetry in college. His words had been so pivotal to her that many years later, when she discovered his gravesite in Port Townsend, she was so touched she had made it a regular stopping point on her daily jogs. She told us how often she stood next to the epitaph, arms wide open to the sky, looking down the hill to the Puget Sound and sang or shouted poetry and thanks to the world. And that’s just what we did that day.

Below are a few photos from the graveside ceremony of Big Joy.

One of the great experiences in my life was being charmed, flattered and bamboozled by the amazing poet James Broughton. I was at my hard-body workingman studliest; he was a wrinkled troll of 80. After a few minutes of his absolutely shameless poetic flimflam, I'd have willingly rolled over on the ground for him like a love-starved golden retriever bitch pup.

Then he stroked my tit and said "It's been very sweet, my boy." and walked away. I realized that as the expression goes "He'd had his way with me..." further that I'd liked it and wanted him to do it again; furthermore that he'd refined his skills as a romantic seducer, poet and storyteller to a fine art. He did do as he pleased with me, and I wanted more.

I realized suddenly that I wasn't always going to be studly. I'd better get my act together in the direction of being warm, deep, and wise if'n I wanted to be valued for who I was when the envelope of meat part got soft and wrinkled. Who was I going to be?

How could I behave so that the man I am inside could still be perceived? I'm happy with my life as constructed, it works for me now. I have both amusing and painful stories about what didn't work in my life and family. I am sincerely interested in knowing how you got to where you are now and who you are. It usually takes more than one word comments to convey that. At Thich Nhat Hanh's monastery in France they ask that question with "What wind blew you here?"

-- Brightheart

Radical

Unearth your roots

Shake ‘em at the sky

Uphold your traditions

Hold up your radical

Hold down your fort

Breathe easily, not queasily

*

Find and mine what’s obvious

By opening your eyes wider

Wide enough to take in

What you thought was forever outlawed

Wide enough to put out

A part of you you forgot

*

Love more

Love your weird self

Love what’s aching to come out

Love what struggles to get in

Unbind your weariness

And offer it to the sunrise

Express your weird self but

Keep it simple

Don’t be afraid to ask

And unlearn whatever’s holding you back

-- Stephen Silha, April 9, 2010 (my 60th birthday)

I met James Broughton right after The Man Who Fell In Love With the Moon was published. I’m not sure if it was the hard cover book tour or the paperback tour.

I’d heard of James. I’d seen his movies This is It and The Bed somewhere down off Canal Street when I lived in Manhattan. But I didn’t really know him. Hadn’t read his poetry, not yet. Then one day I get a letter from him, James Broughton. He’s invited me and my partner to his home in Port Townsend. This is almost twenty years ago.

It’s not really until I meet James that day that I understand who he is. Really such a big bright sexy man he was. Physically beautiful and a powerful man. Quite overwhelming really.

Even though he was getting old.

Old the way I’m getting.

And it’s only now that I am getting old that I can really appreciate what James Broughton did for me that day.

He opened up his house, he gathered friends and family together and threw me a feast for Kings. What’s most important though is that day that I visited him and stayed with him that night in his house—it was in the afternoon in his garden, how he touched me. He took my hand in his and he held my hand and those bright sparkly eyes of his looked into mine and he told me what a wonderful writer I was.

Of course, I was very flattered. Pretty much overwhelmed, but still I didn’t get it. Lots of people were telling me how great I was after that book came out. It’s only been the past couple of years, now that I am getting old, that I know what it is to see a young talent, and the energy and the humility it takes to go to him, to throw a feast for him, to take his hand and look him in the eye.

And tell him that his work is full of spirit. What an incredible gift that is for an elder to honor a younger man like that.

After the day was over, after the feast, James was tired. He told us all to go out to the hot tub and love our bodies and love each other---he was going to bed. It wasn’t that easy a thing for me to get naked and to get in the hot tub. I was raised Catholic. Joel Singer, James’ life mate, was in the tub. Joel saw how I was awkward and took me by the arm. It was one of the first times I’d ever felt I belonged somewhere.

After my next novel, In The City Of Shy Hunters, came out, I got a letter from Joel. He told me that James had made a vow that he would not die until the next Tom Spanbauer novel came out.

James had died in 1999, two years before Shy Hunters was published.

I can’t tell you how much I wish he’d have lived long enough to read it.

And it’s really only not until now that I can fully understand the gift of joy that he gave me.

(read by Tom Spanbauer at the Big Joy Fundraising event in Portland, OR, 28 March 2010)

I met James and Joel in the mid-80s in Portland, Oregon when I projected a program of James' films. They both came up to the booth before the screening to check out the projection and we chatted for a few minutes. What I cannot forget about him was his eyes and his smile. His look was not one of confrontation but of welcome. His smile was impish. Yet there also seemed a shyness just under the surface. None of this information prepared me for the films to come, especially 'Godbody.'

When the films were over I came down from the booth for Q&A. The theater manager was all wound up, going on about how offensive Broughton's films were and how several people had walked out expressing their disgust. He even suggested that films like this should not be allowed to be seen.

I was flabbergasted. These reactions made absolutely no sense to me. James' films included some of the freest (and freeing), luscious, explicit, romping, and most joy-filled work I had ever experienced. His work made me immensely happy. I saw it as a hand held palm-upward, suggesting "you too can hold this possibility."

And then it dawned on me: many people are afraid of freedom, of the unsettling possibilities of discovery, of pleasure expressed openly and uninhibitedly. This was the moment I realized how utterly revolutionary James' work was. Seeing the few clips on the Big Joy site reminded me how revolutionary his work remains. The truly revolutionary aspect of his work, for me, is its celebration of love in any and every manifestation.

I am thrilled to have discovered this project honoring such a joy-filled and impish person.

-- David Bryant, Portland, OR

SHARE YOUR STORY OF JAMES HERE!

I never met James Broughton, but I feel him peering over my shoulder each time I make a movie, write a story or pen a poem. He's given me the simple magic of speaking my language and believing in my work - when those affirmations were hard to find.

The secret to a long life, James Broughton told me, is to drink two big glasses of water first thing each day.

We know James through his amazing body of work, Stephen's stories, and working with the Big Joy Creative Team. It's delightful to learn more about James and his influence on so many, watch some of his films, and read his poems. We had no idea he was so prolific -- and so disciplined in his art.

Many years ago we first encountered "This Is It" on Stephen's wall. We liked it, but didn't appreciate its Zen brilliance until much later. Read it aloud and see what we mean.

"Adventure, not Predicament" has become more than a saying at our house -- it's a way to remember to reframe our drama trauma as a daring adventure when things get tough or tacky.

"Follow Your Own Weird" adorns the rear bumper of our vintage Toyota and brings a smile whenever we head out. We hope it also brings a small burst of cosmic fun to those on the road behind us.

Recently we heard the first part of "The Bliss of With," one of James' poems from Packing Up for Paradise, and fell in love with it. He's captured the essential joy and deep acceptance of our almost 35 year marriage in these few lines.

The Bliss of With

You have come to me out of the antiquities
We have loved one another for generations
We have loved one another for centuries

You teach me to trust the voice of my voices
You teach me to believe my own believings
You touch the palpability of my possibles

Together we reflect what our mirrors conceal
Together we upgrade the sun in our meridians
We remain open night and day to transcendence

You are incompletely disguised as a mortal
You are the eternal stranger I have always known
I saw your wings this morning     I saw your wings

Dear Spiral & BB Ha!

I am so excited to hear that you are working on a biography project for James.

I never had the privilege to meet James (or even know about his poetry) prior to his death. His life, and the fruits of it, have touched me on so many levels.

The first Breitenbush faerie I had a deep recognition with was a good friend and maybe even a devotee of James. The first Radical Faerie I fell in love with designed a "unicorn corral" for James' garden. In both of these faeries I see a playful audacity that I have since come to learn is related and influenced in some ways by James.

James writing and poetry then became an inspiration and companion as I wrote the thesis for my master's degree. His words reminded me that I could not risk my soul by killing spirituality in dry academic words, but instead needed to push the boundaries, take risks and keep it alive. His words (poetry and prose) help demonstrate some of the paradoxes of spirituality and the inherent simplicity that escapes explanation.

Best of luck on your project and please let me know if there is anything I can to to help you birth this project.

Hugs and kisses
Morgain Lessloss (aka Michael Anhorn)

The very week I met James Broughton, I had complained bitterly to members of my writing group that I had no mentors, that the older writers who had encouraged me when I was in my 20s had died. Then a close friend, with no idea of my sense of loss, invited me to join him for a weekend at the woodsy Port Townsend spirit house inhabited by James Broughton and his partner Joel Singer.

That weekend changed my life. James and I shared instant rapport; I found in him a friend, a mentor, a playmate, a muse, a shamanic clown. I also saw how Joel’s loving devotions enabled James to blossom into the sage he’d become.

Actually, I’d met James’ work before. At the Museum of Modern Art in New York one day, I stumbled upon his films. In an almost-empty theater, I sat enraptured for hours. I watched a California cowboy in “The Pleasure Garden” befuddle the fuddy-duddies who tried to rout out joy, sex, and spontaneity from people in a park. I watched a little boy born from a tree chase a red ball around his neighborhood while a gentle voice resounded:

And years later I heard him read his poetry—or was it sing, or playfully preach to the choir?—at a Sunday morning service at a Radical Faerie gathering, where men meditate on connections between spirituality and sexuality:

I had learned a lot from his work—lured in by its deceptive simplicity only to be surprised by its resonant and sometimes disturbing complexity. But it was different going to his house, and having him ask me, a recovering journalist, if I would help him [ital] write prose. He was writing his autobiography, Coming Unbuttoned. “Only if you help me with poetry,” I said.

We began a series of conversations, visits, revisits. I watched him get up at 5 a.m., when he was in his late 70s, to write poetry, work on his journals, and struggle with prose. He critiqued my work, sometimes very subtly, sometimes not so. Sometimes not at all. He read me his drafts, and we talked about what worked and what didn’t.

It became the mentorship I’d prayed for. James wrote prose like this: “My mother once confessed that giving birth to me was the orgasmic highlight of her life. In fact, she and I got along better in her womb than we ever did after I came out of it.”