I, Rabbit( My Kinship With John Updike And His Character Rabbit Angstrom

John Updike was a friend of mine. In fact, he was like a brother, a father, and a grand shaman wrapped up in one. He was my confessor, my priest and my Rasputin.

His most seminal work was his novel Rabbit Run, about  a former high school athlete whose greatness is behind him, and how he may have peaked too early in his life-- I was that man!

When Updike wrote about Rabbit, he had me in mind. This story goes way back to the early sixties.
I was married, living in Scranton P A with a wife and three kids-- but, I was twenty six, young and had alot of wild oats to sow; and sow them I did. One day, while I was out buying milk for the family, I got this wild hair and decided to go on a soul searching trip to Florida.

Somewhere On The Road, in Wheeling West Virginia, I had the epiphany that I wanted to be a writer. This was followed by a dream I had while in a tormented, fitful, sleep that I was Stud's Turkel-- only I was a bull dog version of the literary giant.

Well, that's appropriate, because at this time I was a dog with a bone and I was chewing on it until my gums turned raw. That early morning, I woke up in an icy sweat an begin writing my first novel on a roll of toilet paper. This book would turn into to the great cult classic called On The Road And Frolicking Like A Jack Rabbit.

It was part long, snaky Beat poem and part guide through the underbelly that was rural America in the early sixties. The book is full of hallucinatory observations on the vexations of the human condition out in the hinterlands between the east an left coast of the USA.

When the book was eventually published, by Pinnacle Books, years later, it met with only minor success. But John Updike's agent picked it up one day, read it, and then handed the dog-eared and loved copy to the author. He read it, loved it and tracked me down through the use of a sleazy dime store PI. We have been friends ever since.

From then on I inhaled and John exhaled. He often quoted from On The Road And Frolicking Like A  Jack Rabbit. It became his Bible, Torah and Koran bundled up like a Christmas present--he idolized me.

It must have been my hep cat cool-- the way I held my Virginia Slim in the cubic zirconium encrusted cigarette holder. Anybody could blow smoke through their nose--but not everybody could gag profusely while they were doing it!

Eventually, John began to dress like me and sported the same kind rakish floppy hat I wore in those days. Well one thing led to another, and he ended up writing Rabbit Run( the fact that he included "Rabbit" in his title was no accident).

You see the more Updike read On The Road And Frolicking Like A Jack Rabbit, the more he became obsessed with rabbits in general. He studied them. Their moving parts. Their scatological waste.

 In a fit of method acting, he dressed up like a rabbit, dipped his fluffy little rabbit tail in paint, and set  up an easel and canvas and did some contour painting-- you know just dabbing his tail here and there on the cloth? He tried to sell that painting to an art gallery in West Hollywood, but was roughly and curtly shown the door. Apparently the gallery owner saw the work of art and vomited all over some valuable Salvador Dali prints. Updike, understandably so, was devastated. But he came to terms with the fact that painting was not his calling and that only steeled his resolve to finish Rabbit Run-- and stole he did, there are practically verbatim passages in his book from On The Road And Frolicking Like A Jack Rabbit. But that's OK. I am happy to know that my book, part confessional, part bromance with the great rugged, individualistic Hemingway  man that is America, was the spark that launched a very lucrative series for Mr. Updike.

All The People I have Been and Loved

I've been Charles Bukowski... I've been Ferlinghetti and Ginsburg... been an angel headed hipster... been Delmore Schwartz, Walt Whitman, and Frank Ohara... I've been Sinatra, Dino, Sammy, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. I've burned through Barstow on a mad dash to Vegas under an itchy bloodshot sunset... I went bust at the Desert Inn and threw up in the Starlight Lounge at the Stardust... got smacked by dancer at the Sands. Got tossed out of Harold's in Reno...I've been Clark Gable, Red Skeleton, Emmet Kelly, Buster Keaton Elvis and Jim Morrison. But today I feel like being Rod Mckuen... is that so wrong?

The Hollywood Sign

We've all seen it.  Those big white block letters, planted in the the hillside overlooking Hollywood and the rest of Tinsel Town. When it was first put up, it used to read" Hollywood Land'. The "Land" part of the sign was removed in 1949. It used to light up as well, but that also changed over time.  What hasn't changed is what the landmark symbolizes: Fame, Fortune and Bloody, Ambition!

I look up at  Mount Lee, at that monolith, with lust in my eyes. Hollywood was a woman I had to have, and ended up conquering. But the conquest came at a price-- one I paid for in blood and soul! The blood was replenished but my soul never returned. This woman, sometimes  gentle lover, but most times, a harpie, took my vitality and squashed it like a grape for fine wine. Then left it in the desert to bleach in the scorching sun. Oh Hollywood you unforgiving she devil! I fed you and clothed you, and you returned the favor by sucking the marrow out of my creative bones and leaving the filament to scatter in the hot Santa Ana wind! As I shield my eyes from the glare glinting off those nine letters, I am reminded of my pal and mentor Murray Lipschlitz.


Murray was a viral man. His frame topped out 6'1 and 210 pounds. Very burly, with a pronounced nose. He was bald on top, but had sterling silver wings emanating from the sides of his head, just above his ears. He was poetry on the dance floor. All the women loved him: his Rasputin eyes, his manly, hairy chest, and those ropey gold chains. Even though he dressed like a Cuban pimp, he wore the duds well.

Murray was also a writer; in the same vein as Sheldon and Robbins. The difference is, he told his tales of passion and greed in the world of swords, sweaty flesh and sorcery.

I write about Murray because he truly understood the symbolism behind The Hollywood Sign. And he was able to highlight those sentiments when he described the lives of elves, orcs, and faeries-- a rare talent that Lipschlitz!

Murray was a soulful white knight walking hip deep through a city of lost humanity. He had a head full of fantastic stories which only met with minor success. But, he was another literary hero of mine.

Which is why, I gaze so fondly today at The Hollywood Sign and treat her with the respect she deserves-- and in some small way, honor my great friend Murray Lipschlitz.

Harold Robbins And Sydney Sheldon

Right now I am standing on my deck looking at the bowl of broth that is the Burbank skyline. People think Hollywood is where all the magic happens, but it's really Burbank. It's the home of The Tonight Show and the home of Universal Studios and Industrial Light And Magic. So, movie magic abounds in this city that's at the mouth of the San Fernando Valley.

Burbank also makes me think of Harold Robbins and Sydney Sheldon. If you were to ask me who influenced me as a writer, I would point directly to those two.

I was captivated by their big stories of the tawdry lives of power brokers and sultry baronesses.

To me the best books ever written were The Betsy and Master Of the Game. They are seminal works of two great literary authors who swung for the fences in life--who dreamed larger than their surrounding environment.

These guys were the old Hollywood war horses-- the men with big sunglasses and fly away collars.

Today we have pimply faced kids on skateboards passing themselves off as the movers and shakers in this business. It was a sad moment when we ceded this great industry to Romper Room.

Well back Sheldon and Robbins, I feel in my writing I channel their spirits--sometimes it's like they take over the keyboard and they are typing the words onto the screen. I can tell, because it's then, my prose drips syrup and molasses. So, that is why I cast a gaze on Burbank and hold a glass to their honor.

It's because Burbank felt like home to these men. It was their seat of power. It was were they built there literary empires and lived like F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think I live like Fitzgerald-- maybe I don't have the wealth, but I have the spirit and soul of that great author-- and so did the Harold and Syd. Their souls and spirits scream out to me up from the smog of the city below and they echo through the brown biscuit hills. To them, I owe great respect.