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In November of 2013, I wrote in Scene4: “For those who are lucky enough to read what Oklop wrote in Serbo-Croatian (now Serbian),
it will be wonderful news that four of his novels, spanning from 1981 to 1989, are about to be re-published sequentially in Belgrade, ultimately appearing as a set for the first
time: CA Blues—which has had multiple editions—Video, Metro, and Horseless.”
So I am delighted to report that Dereta Publishers in Belgrade forged ahead with this project in 2013, and the important re-publication of all
four novels—as a fine-looking set—was completed this year:
 Dereta, recent image of Oklop’s four novels, Belgrade.
Some of you have been following Oklop’s English-language writings since Scene4 started publishing them in 2011. For you, Factory Sealed is a chance to re-visit some familiar, complex
territory. Others of you may be reading his work for the first time; for you, the present story serves as a terrific introduction to his concerns, style, and humor. But Factory Sealed is also
unlike anything else Oklop wrote, so it will be new for everyone.
There are some idiosyncrasies in Oklop’s writings that are so recognizable they qualify as “his style.” One of those is his
abbreviations—thru, ½, SA, BMW—which serve to replace an earlier notion of dramatic “urgency” with today’s tedious “being
in a hurry.” Presumably, the world around him is in a Big Hurry, and the author is trying to keep up by snipping a millisecond
here or there off his writing time. Other eccentricities include fitful capitalization of names, for example, or of unemphasized
words; the use of real names (and sometimes addresses!) of people in a story; references to people, places or things without
explanation, as if we’ve all grown up together (do you know what a stritch is? who Robert Zimmerman is?). A favorite quirk of
mine is Oklop’s invented words: there is a time period called “in-between,” that he and the jazz greats inhabit; and the words
“uncourteous” and “uncouth” blend into the useful “uncoutous.”
Oklop always speaks directly to the reader. This often gives his writing a “confessional” tone. He talks to us about his
punctuation, and writing problems, and his attempts to tell “a little story.” This notion of the “confessional” also helps us
understand the figure of Glenyce in Factory Sealed. Glenyce is the Keeper of the Record Albums, in the American Embassy in
Belgrade. Glenyce is the one Oklop tells his most fervent wishes to, the one he apologizes to for his misdeeds. His Goddess of LPs
dispenses records freely, and occupies a different plane he can only hope to reach. But even when Glenyce administers records,
she “hands them over,” as if she’s been in possession of goods that have always been rightfully his. Note that Ferlinghetti,
whose pronoun is capitalized as if he were also a deity—Him— also “hands over” his album as if returning a stolen item to its owner.
A characteristic of Oklop’s works—and one that makes them so satisfying—is that they cover so much ground. At different
points in any given story, his tone is heightened or colloquial; his subjects are both historical and personal, his language both
accessible and cryptic, his world both rich and barren. But this also means we have to be on our guard: so often, just when we
are settling into the pleasures he evokes in terms of family, work, music, friends, he is about to explode them with profanity,
insanity, grief, aggression, transgression. In this story, he makes the personal-professional connection he yearns for when he
finds someone who can withstand his preposterous, Surrealist-inspired, taboo-breaking, flagrantly vulgar pronouncement. Not
because that’s all there is, but because it cannot—must not— be denied that it is.
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Oklop had a naturally interdisciplinary temperament as an artist, and he was prodigiously restless in his experiments with form.
And this was lucky, because his was a cultural period when many artists were interested in re-combining the arts, always looking
for more and newer fusions. In the many sketches and stories Scene4 has published (see links below), we’ve seen Oklop mix
poetry and prose, for example, as well as roam over multiple fields and genres. On a smaller scale, but in the inter-arts spirit
of his nature and his times, we saw Oklop on video (in Sketches from Faxvel, November 2013) reciting to a jazz saxophone.
Recently, Theodore Shank, Oklop’s playwriting teacher and friend—himself a playwright, director, photographer, author, teacher, actor, and editor of Theatre Forum—found a letter
Oklop sent him in June of 1978. Updating Ted on his work, Oklop says he’s just finished a novel: “I may go straight into
another one, a one 5000-word long sentence on Schumann’s [Bread & Puppet Theater] visit to Davis.” He goes on:
“Here is what I’m heavily into right now… I want to put together an enormous theatrical show called THE LAST THEATRE
SHOW and I want to include over fifty people in it. What I need are contributors of any sort: playwrights, scene designers,
painters, musicians, engineers, actors, dancers, poets, costume designers… from all around the world. People who will help with
bits of writings, drawings, costume devices, scores, etc. […] I don’t have a precise idea what this show will have to look like, it
is an open uncertainty… with NO limits.”
These inclusive-disciplinary ideas kept being important to Oklop, even after he changed his main focus from theatre to
writing—“I find it somewhat easier than writing a play, concerning coherency and technical devices.” But he was faced
with an aesthetic problem: how to bring “performative” fusion to a piece of writing that isn’t a play? To a two-dimensional piece of paper? And this brings us to Factory Sealed. Because Factory
Sealed is not only an entertaining and challenging prose memoir about his Life in Jazz; it is an experiment in making a piece of jazz music in prose.
Consider the basic jazz structure. First the melody, or theme, is played in a straightforward form. Then it’s followed by a series of
variations, by multiple different versions of it. Syncopation is key. When the versions get improvisational, there are always cues or
markers to keep the player on track so he doesn’t lose the melody altogether. This is important because sometimes the
music gets so abstract that it becomes pure sound. At the end of the piece, the player returns us to the recognizable melody we
started with, but also leaves us with a new perspective on it.
Factory Sealed follows this structure. He wants jazz. The opening paragraph states the basic terrain Oklop will cover:
displacement, living between cultures, the beloved music that never quite bridges them, the impossible expectations of those
back home, the culture shock that never dissipates or loses its bite, no matter what country he is in.
Variations: Oklop was going to buy a CD for a friend back home in Belgrade. He couldn’t buy it easily. At home, he had met U.S.
jazz musician Kirk in a club. He got jazz records from the Embassy, shared and ruined them. The ruling Communists let
him play jazz on the radio for political reasons. He met Mingus. He listened to Mingus listen to Kirk. He met Miles Davis. San
Francisco has jazz but the Pacifica library has no jazz encyclopedia. An overview of jazz greats. His children listen to
interviews with jazz greats. He met poet Ferlinghetti. He went to S.F. clubs with poet Rexroth and playwright Sam Shepard.
Here we have a coda: a confession—“Let me confess”; then a
concern that he might have gotten off track—his story is “not organized” and “chaotic”; and then the descent into pure sound:
“Jazz Iz. Iz Jazz?” He closes with a re-statement of the opening “melody,” wanting jazz, and then adds: getting it opened an unexpected chasm of disquiet.
You may even feel the syncopation as you read, the way Oklop writes against the “downbeat.” The downbeat in writing is like
when you hear the typewriter’s little ding! as you reach the right margin of your paper, swing the carriage lever to the right to go
left, and hit TAB for a new paragraph, a new start. Just as in jazz, Oklop buries those downbeats mid-paragraph: hear him come out blowing a whole new riff. On the offbeat.
*
Oklop with Mingus LP just after his return to California in the 1990s.
FACTORY SEALED
I got a letter from Belgrade (Yugoslavia) the other day. It had travelled somewhat longer than letters before, but it did arrive.
“Before” means that I’ve been on and off in the Bay Area for the last twenty years. First as a Drama graduate student at UC Davis
back in the mid-seventies. I did have letters coming in on a regular basis then. Anyway, an old friend of mine, Willie Jacko,
the Bluesman, was asking me to provide him with a CD by Roland Kirk entitled “The Man Who Cried Fire.” Great title.
“When you get it, send it over to our friend in Budapest. He’ll forward it to me.” That’s what Willie said. I gave the same line to
a Sales Associate at the Musicland store. The lady was nice but was quick to admit that she’d never heard of Rahsaan Roland Kirk in her entire music-involved SA life.
Back in 1975 I shook hands with The Man. I was a teaching assistant and was getting paid for that. ½ of the money went for
the rent, and another ½ was spent at KEYSTONE CORNER. Tickets, coffee, and red wine. He was strong in his appearance
and in his blowing: he killed me a couple of times with his stritch and manzello. I believed he was playing my anti-communist
childhood thru his nose flute. I just had to get up and walk to the stage. Told him, “Thanks, man,” and shook hands with him. On
my way back to my seat, I realized he was holding my hand while blowing both instruments at the same time. Most people would put an exclamation point here, I don’t.
In my case, being on and off in the Bay Area means that I have been spending the in-between in Yugoslavia. I worked for a TV
station there and had my weekly Radio-show on Monday nights. There were no records at that time, so I had to invent my own
resources. The American Embassy had a library with a record section in Belgrade. Now, in order to walk inside, become a member, and ask them for some books/records you had to pass
by eleven Comm. Gov. paid policemen, agents, and who knows who. I wanted to play Mingus on the air badly. I asked for ANY
of Charles’s records. The lady in charge (Glenyce from Rochelle, NY) handed me over three albums. I took them home and
played them for my friends over the phone. Uncoutously enough, I played them five hundred times before I brought them to the
station. Of course, they were all worn out and scratched. Sounded great on the air, though. By the time I was due to
return them to Glenyce, I had to invent at least several apologies for returning them in such bad shape.
I think the reason the Yugo Commies let jazz music float on local radio stations was that they accepted it as a rebellion against
imperialism. They somehow figured that the black people of this country could play a great role for free in telling the rest of the
world how American imperialism sucks. But then, my listeners were first caught up in the rhythm. Barely any of them spoke an
English that could explain “Stormy Monday Blues” or “Shiny Stockings.” Most of them had learned from James Brown that
LA means Lower Alabama, and it stayed that way. Anyway, in the fall of 1973 I brought Mingus to my apartment. He’d had a
great concert in Belgrade and we proposed to meet him afterwards. Willie the Bluesman was the father of the idea. He knew Karen Krog, a Norwegian jazz singer thru his underground
connections and she persuaded Mingus to join us after the concert. I don’t have a story about him, I have a picture: the 250
-pound gentle giant hopping into my Fiat 600 and me taking him to my top-of-the-wrong-hill apartment. Danny Richmond, the
drummer, stayed at the hotel, so it was me, Charles, Karen, Willie and positively 20 other people (the other 60 kept banging
on my door). We played music from my Revox tape recorder, drank some sour wine, and smoked. BMW was in charge of rolling the joints, but he finally quit when the speed killed him.
He just couldn’t roll ‘em that fast. I played Kirk’s KIRKATRON album and Mingus said: “He never faked, man. If he decided to
blow five horns at a time, he could do it EASILY.” Another friend of mine took him to the airport, where Mingus autographed his
latest album, “Let My Children Hear Music.”
Funnily enough, I’ve seen more jazz musicians live (clubs or concerts) back in Europe than here. The reason is easily
explainable: I had my small and handy Radio Belgrade pass, which opened all doors for me, even for backstages with the
heavyweights relaxing in-between or after gigs. Miles was a bitch. He wouldn’t talk to anyone after the concert (this was the late
November one with K. Jarrett on piano), so most of my colleagues left after hearing him mumble something like “fuck
off” or “poodle off.” I stayed and waited in front of his dressing room. Whenever someone opened the door I could see him
snorting the white powder out of a spare mouthpiece box. Finally, I went up to him, his back turned to me, of course, and I
said: “Mr. Davis …. If you let me talk to you for a couple of minutes, I may be able to make $70 when I deliver the tape to
my boss at the radio station. And, seventy would get me through the whole month. ALL the way up to Christmas.” I must have
pronounced those lines in twelve seconds. He just said: “Oh, yeah?” There was a life-long 2-second pause after his oh-yeah
number. “Can we do it on a no-question-no answer-basis?” God, now I WAS talking to him, but I wasn’t supposed to ask any
questions. “Sure,” I said. “That’s exactly what I wanted to do. You see, I want to tell you something … Elizabeth Taylor came
around to my apartment complex last Tuesday. She asked me to take her around the back. I had to chew her clitoris for seven
hours … Got media rash all over my body …” He LOOKED at me, then started laughing. “What’s this white trash you’re throwing
at me?!” We talked for over an hour afterwards.
Of all the world’s cities, San Francisco has the most predisposition to be a total musical town (capitol). I hope that I
don’t have to explain the reasons. But there are still the Record store Sales Associates and Librarians that cool me off. I live in
Pacifica now, love the place but the library just cannot provide an Encyclopedia of Jazz. There’s a lot of material on how Joan
Baez waited for Robert Zimmerman’s late night call; there are volumes on the nipple of Madonna’s left breast being slightly
smaller than the one on the right; and one with a photo of Garth Brooks next to President Clinton. Being a white anti-communist,
someone may wonder: what would my jazz roots be? How did I get into Mingus, Miles, George Coleman, Dizzy Gillespie, Kirk,
Art Blakey? I loved their music and was honored to talk to them (I play some of my interview tapes for my kids—their favorite is
Blakey—we talked about everything but jazz—he spoke about his orphanage days with the drummer Kenny Clarke—or this was
his only jazz talk?) In a way, I was introduced to the Bay Area jazz scene thru Ferlinghetti. I did translations of some of his
poems (“Autobiography,” “The Statue of St. Francis,” “The Populist Manifesto”) and I insisted on meeting Him. When I saw
him in the fall of 1975 (his office on Grant Street then), he handed over a copy of his “Poetry Readings in the Cellar” album.
I remember asking him: “Is it factory sealed?”
 Oklop’s son reading his father’s newly re-published novel in Belgrade, 2013.
I started discovering jazz spots in the city, listening to musicians unheard of—talked to K. Rexroth, sneaked into The Purple
Onion or El Matador, using the same line over and over again: “I’m a foreign student here ON A FULBRIGHT GRANT, doing
research”… On what? Jazzsearch, of course. The next one who helped a lot without intending to do so, was Sam Shepard. We
met at UC Davis the same year Sam was making some $$$ as a guest lecturer in the Drama Dept. He lived in Mill Valley, at the
time also doing a nice job at the old Magic Theatre. We used to meet at THE PALMS on California Street and then go to
Keystone K. Last time we went out together it was to hear Jack DeJonette, Sam didn’t dig him at all. Being an ex-drummer
himself, I suppose JDJ was too unreasonably loud or something for Cowboy Sam. Of course thru the years I’ve learned to be
selective. I have my favorites now, but still follow the same path to discovering new names and sounds. And then, right when I’m
halfway along—the jazzalgia hits me. It may sound like a medical expression but this is my kind of nostalgia. Let me confess that I am way more nostalgic than required.
Why did I write all this in the first place? It’s not organized and sounds rather chaotic and syncopal. Jazz Iz. Iz Jazz?
All I wanted to do was to tell a little story about me and Mrs. Glenyce from Rochelle, NY. She handed me over three brand
new albums of the late Charles Mingus back in the early seventies. Brand new, meaning: factory sealed. She even offered more. I asked her to open them for me. She WAS astounded:
“Can’t you peel off the cellophane yourself?” I told her that I’d never held a brand new LP record in my entire life. She laughed
and said, truthfully: “We Americans never think of that!”
* * *
Note: For the jazz-like, syncopated experience of typing on a
1958 manual typewriter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAkuWRvQRMg
Oklopdzic’s works in Scene4 Archives
The Former Future: first complete publication
Amerika for Beginners: first complete publication
Sketches from Faxvel: first publication
Gray: first publication in English
Cover photo: Oklop in Davis, California in the 1970s
© 1994/2007 The Oklopdzic Estate
© 1994/2007 Lissa Tyler Renaud, Editor
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