Roxy and Judy Gordon Fest @ Lit Hop 2024
Saturday, July 13
6-9 pm @ Top Ten Records
338 Jefferson Blvd in the 75208
Joseph Flaten | Roderick Richardson | Veronica Pamindanan | Michael Helsem | John Slate | Chris Merlick | Insecto-Ray Orchestra | Opalina Salas
“Roxy Gordon” By Robert Trammell (From Hot Flashes #2 – January 1986)
The first time I met Roxy was when he & I were doing a reading together at 500 Exposition about 5 years ago. That night he read a longish poem “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night, Alive As You Or Me,” a real angry, hostile bit of writing & I assumed that was who Roxy was. I was prepared not to like him. That was stupid of me. My own work is at times violent & it really puts me off when people think therefor I am. Maybe I am, maybe Roxy is too but we both exorcise those demons mostly thru our writing (but the gun is real). As it turned out Roxy and Judy are about the most generous people I’ve ever met. They are honest and direct.
I’ve come to respect them both. I’ve also become a fan of Roxy’s no nonsense writing style. I learn from him & his work (he also paints & draws), am provoked & inspired by him to write from the heart as he always does.
Starting young, in 1963 he won a Talpa-Centennial High School Letter Jacket for writing. He may be the only person to have ever been so honored in Texas.
At the U. of Texas he was editor of Riata, the school’s literary mag. Soon after graduation he wrote Some Things I Did (Encino Press, Austin, 1972), made some money & got some notoriety. The book had a lot to do with his living on the Ft. Belknap Indian Reservation in Northern Montana. Roxy is a Breed, part Choctaw. His work often reflects that heritage. In the ‘70s he published, edited & wrote for the small but influential monthly mag Picking Up The Tempo. Lots of his friends (Townes Van Zandt, Butch Hancock, Billy Joe Shaver, Richard Dobson, Jimmy Gilmore & the Lubbock-by-way-of-Fresno Terry Allen) still write songs. That makes sense cause, till now, this state has sure turned out better songwriters than poets. In 1984 Place of Herons Press published Breeds, his most important collection/book. In 1985 Judy Gordon started her Wowapi Press & published his most recent book Unfinished Business. He has had work in Greenfield Review, Omaha Rainbow, The Sun, Art Magic (which he published) & Earth Power Coming.
Roxy & Judy have been building a kinda Comanchero camp/house/enclosure near Talpa. They call it the HouseUp. They spend as much time as they can out there but still have to make a living in Dallas. They grew up together & both of their families still live there. Judy’s father runs an old-fashioned ranch & traps game. While we were visiting he trapped, skinned & gave me the pelt of a Ring Tail Cat. He can only get $3 for them. They are sent to Russia & made into mittens. Roxy nailed it to a board, cured it with formaldehyde. It’s on my hall wall next to the rattlesnake skin to remind me as Roxy & Judy always remind me that Dallas is just a stopping place on their way back home to Coleman County.
Roxy and Judy Gordon Fest 2024
Joseph Flaten | Roderick Richardson | Veronica Pamindanan | Michael Helsem | John Slate | Chris Merlick | Insecto-Ray Orchestra | Opalina Salas
Joseph Flaten is a writer, actor and vocalist who grew up in a family of Dallas artists and their friends as extended household. These included Roxy and Judy Gordon and their sons Quanah and JC Gordon. As a child and into his teen years, Flaten performed in numerous Dallas productions, such as stage work with Laney Yarber, Caravan of Dreams, and worked with directors Kenneth Anger and James Hong. He performed Giving up the Farm, Part 2 Skincare in Roxy and Judy’s living room. After graduating from University of Texas he moved to New York and continued his film work, appearing in films by John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation). Flaten also appeared in Caouette’s All Flowers in Time, starring Chloe Sevigny. The film was showcased at Cannes. He’s also been featured on The Sopranos, Mike Judge’s Idiocracy, and a Tribeca Film Festival selection, directed by Dallas native Ash Christian. In 2009, he moved to Asia to merge his performance and writing skills with global business. In Bangkok he joined a gospel-soul choir to benefit tsunami orphans and sang at the Aksra Theatre, sponsored by the US Embassy, later traveling with the choir throughout Thailand. On Ko Samui Island, Flaten collaborated with Peter Dougal at the Den of Dionysus Theater to create and perform in original multimedia stage performance. He is committed to honoring the legacy of Roxy and Judy Gordon as part of his essential Dallas arts roots. He is pictured here with Quanah Parker Gordon (1991.)
Roderick Earl Richardson was born on February 28, 1972, and grew up in Calvert, Texas. Richardson graduated from Tarleton State University in 1995 with a BS degree in Mass Communications and minors in English and journalism. He has worked for several newspapers, including The Big Spring Herald, The Palestine Herald-Press, The Kilgore News Herald, and freelanced all across Texas. In 2001, Richardson left his career in journalism in 2001and moved to Arlington, Texas. However, his passion for writing never faded, and around 2006, he began performing at poetry open mics and slams all over the DFW Metroplex. He is the author of two chapbooks, Caterpillar Blues and Day by Day and co-wrote Points of View with Devorah Titunik. His poems and short stories have appeared in Mad Swirl and DFW Poetry Review.
Veronica Pamindanan is a poet, leader, event planner and more. She has been writing since elementary school and performing since she was eighteen. Pamindanan teaches creative writing and performs in Dallas schools. She writes on religion, Filipino heritage, and American culture. Pamindanan hosts a monthly open mic in the DFW area. She strives to be an outlet for upcoming artist and hopes to use her talents to touch others on a national scale.
Michael Helselm writes “m. h. was born in dallas in 1958. shortly afterwards, fish fell from the sky” for his promo bio. WordSpace would like to add that Helselm is a seminal collaborator and contributor to the Dallas poetry scene and author of many books. Some are in “constructed” languages, such as Esperanto. He was co-creator of what might be considered Dallas’s first grassroots poetry festival, the Eisteddfod. It took place in the 80s at the Bath House Cultural Center. A bit younger than the Gordons, but in the stir of some of their literary mixes.
Chris Merlick and his Duchampaphone. Merlick is a visual artist, musician and performance artist. For Roxy and Judy Gordon Fest, he brings his iconic Duchampian found-object bicycle wheel sculpture and morphs it into a captivating musical device. Literally spinning out beats and songs with true Dada-esque fervor and mad invention! Merlick is the artistic director of Top Ten Records nonprofit site. He has performed in numerous Dallas bands and on citywide galleries and stages. In May 2024, Merlick appeared with Lithium Xmas at the Starck Club 40th Reunion Party at the Kessler Theater—another one for the history books.
Insecto-Ray Orchestra features the immensely talented Marco Villalobos and his awesome musical partner Werner Heimlich, They are a neo-psychedelic mutant jazz spoken word disco dance band constantly overstepping musical boundaries and endlessly improvising and experimenting. This is only possible and intriguing due to the virtuosity of the players and their immense talents. Get ready!
John H. Slate has presented multiple Salons for WordSpace at Dee Mitchell’s home. “Confessions and Revelations of a Teen Punk Fanzine Editor” was an uber-entertaining evening of powerpoint, handouts and reconteurship relating to his years in Austin as a teen punk zine editor and some commetary on his appearance in the iconic film Slacker. Other Salon topics he’s tacked for WordSpace include “Outlaw Poetics” featuring the work of Bonnie Parker, Candy Barr and others. Slate is the archivist for the City of Dallas, where he is responsible for historic city government records in the Dallas Municipal Archives. Slate is the author of “Lost Austin,” in the “Images of America” series. “Lost Austin” records some of the city’s rich and unique history and most of the images depicted in the book are of seminal Austin places and institutions that no longer exist but that played an important role in shaping Austin’s special character. He is also the author of “Historic Dallas Parks” and “Dealey Plaza.”
Opalina Salas is a poet, performer, and founding host of the popular Poets on X+ reading series. She lives and creates in her beloved Dallas Oak Cliff neighborhood. Her collaborative performances include Tejana Cosmica, a feminist spoken word trio and plays synth/sampler in Your Loving Son, a spoken word duo with poet Carlos Salas. She is the former co-owner of Oak Cliff Notes bookstore, editor of the femme lit zine, Let It Bleed and a regular contributor to The Mad Swirl, an online literary forum. Salas has been featured in numerous literary festivals, including the Texas Beat Poetry Festival, Forest Fest, and New Orleans Poetry Fest. Her 2019 book Black Sparrow Dress (MadSwirl, 2019) garnered critical acclaim.
