In the 49th year of his life, the poet would rather not beg for bus fare, but it happens. How did it get to this? His life savings is one dollar, in his pocket. Spare change is not just something found in the couch; it means eating dinner tonight.
“I am basically a failure,” the poet wrote on his MySpace page. “I am very poor and am eager to make money with poetry any way I can. I love to get out and I’m willing to read anywhere.”
The poet may have little, but he has his words. They mean everything to him. Adjectives don’t just modify nouns, they penetrate like daggers deep into his prose. Metaphors turn the abstract into color and melody.
He even has the lyrical name of a poet: Thaxter Elliot Douglas III. On the Chicago music scene, he is simply Thax, the rock ‘n’ roll poet. On most nights, Thax–an imposing figure with circa-’70s glasses and a Santa’s beard–lurches onto the stage of a local rock show, gazes into his notebook and reads a poem he wrote just for the band about to play.
Some in the audience will get it, some won’t. But for 30 seconds, Thax and his words hold court.
His resume includes Wilco, Billy Corgan and countless important bands Chicago has given to music. Thax performed for out-of-towners, before The Flaming Lips’ set at Lollapalooza this year. Some consider him Chicago’s poet laureate.
“Thax has a VIP pass to the city,” said Tim Tuten, co-owner of the Hideout. “I know for young bands, when Thax shows up, he’s like a seal of approval.”
When Thax performs onstage, he is home. The unpaid rent … that’s the last thing on his mind. He doesn’t think about the crudely made sign his landlord gave him, stuck to his bedroom wall: “(no money) + smell = sidewalk.” That a city he has given so much to, he said, still views him as a one-trick pony.
Or that he loved someone but has never been loved back.
How did it ever get to this?
Thax grew up in suburban Woodridge in the 1960s, a rural village where gossip carried across town with the wind.
An only child, Thax spent entire days in his bedroom, finding solace in music. He collected vinyl 45s–his first record was Ritchie Valens’ “Donna,” a nickel at the corner drugstore.
Thax’s relationship with his parents, Ted and Gabrielle, was tenuous at best. When he was 10, something changed. He stopped listening to pop music and gave away all his records. Now he wanted to be a composer. He listened to classical music, mostly works by German composers. That’s what his mother heard growing up in World War II-era Germany, in the shadows of the Nazis.
Two years younger than his classmates (he skipped to the 3rd grade), Thax fell deeper into his reclusive world. He eventually moved into the basement. It all could have been typical teenage rebellion and angst … but those images in his head … those demons acting out twisted fantasies … well, this he knew wasn’t normal. Thax drowned them out with Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.
At Downers Grove South High School, he played trombone in the marching band and acted in theater. Thax played the Wizard in “The Wizard of Oz” and Murray the cop in “The Odd Couple.” He came into his writing style at 15–strange, non-linear, stream-of-consciousness short stories that flowed from his imagination through the tip of his pen. These words, he thought, held power.
Thax hid a secret from his few friends: he was gay. In the early ’70s, in a small community, homosexuality was hardly accepted, and in turn, society conditioned Thax into thinking he had a mental disease. He wanted nothing more than to be cured of liking other boys.
His parents were sympathetic and hired a psychiatrist for Thax, but the man told Thax to keep his secret to himself.
So he told no one, but those other thoughts … ones he tried to drown out … would not let up.
Thax was 17, and the edge of the cliff was in view. He spiraled into an incessant cycle of questions he could not answer: why it made his life a waking nightmare, why it made him not like girls, why he was overweight, why it made him think about those violent, sexual fantasies that pervaded his dreams.
On a Saturday night, as his parents watched “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Thax went into the bathroom and swallowed a handful of his mother’s prescription pills. When he awoke three days later in a hospital room, his father was clutching his hand.
Doctors suggested Thax be transferred to a psychiatric hospital, where he stayed for a month, his parents said. Thax was given shock therapy, the theory being his mental state might improve after inducing brain seizures.
Electrodes were planted on Thax’s head. His whole body went numb and his consciousness went last. When he came to, those hideous thoughts vanished, and they have not come back since.
– – –
Humboldt Park, July 2006.
The door to the poet’s room only opened halfway. The windows were shut. The fan turned off. The room, no larger than an office cubicle, was squalid and stifling.
Thax sleeps on the floor, because his back aches. Every night, he lays his head on a filthy black pillow. He sleeps beside a garbage bag that’s full, a stereo, a stack of albums and headphones to lose himself in the music.
“I can’t live in poverty like this anymore,” Thax said. “I can’t go begging people for a dollar to take the bus home every day. I’m sick of it.”
He’d pay rent if he had a steady income. Poetry was a labor of love. He was fired from his last job, transcribing radio ads for businesses, nearly nine years ago. To support himself, Thax gave plasma twice a week for six years. Food stamps helped for a while.
Friends said Thax is at his lowest when he’s not performing, which is most of the day.
“He lives life like [he’s] waiting for the government check to come,” said Rich Szczepanski, a good friend of Thax’s. “He feels trapped … he has to lie low and the only place that can be is at home.”
Rich has had countless conversations with Thax about getting a day job, but those usually end in an argument.
So his schedule goes like this: Thax stays up past midnight, reading thick books of Russian poetry and listening to the radio. At 4:30 a.m., he watches “The Andy Griffith Show.” “The BBC World News” at 6, “Saved By The Bell” at 7. As the day begins for most, Thax calls it a night.
“I sleep all day and get up at 4, go to work …”
Thax caught himself midsentence and pursed his lips.
“Heh … go to work … that’s a weird slip.”
“But in a way, I do go to work. The bohemian ideal is that your life is sacrificed for the art and you do what you have to do.”
That night, he’ll perform at Wicker Park’s Subterranean, and it’ll take 45 minutes to walk there. A torrential downpour drenched the city and Thax waited until the clouds cleared to leave home.
– – –
The shock of turning 30 shook Thax Douglas to the bone. He had tried three different colleges, still lived with his parents and was working at a hospital admitting emergency-room patients. He felt his life had not been defined.
Thax had been attending the Green Mill Poetry Slam in Uptown. A day after his 30th birthday in 1987, he mustered the courage to perform in front of a crowd. It took 45 minutes to write 191 words.
It began: “It’s wet outside–is it still raining out there? Each raindrop was a tender special aesthetic pointillistic moment that I would have liked to examine in detail–to see what made it tick, but I had a poem to write … “
The audience of 40 or so gave him a hearty round of applause, and that was the moment Thax knew he had something to rely on. His words.
And so began an on-again, off-again relationship with poetry that lasted throughout the ’90s, including Thax hosting a poetry and music variety show called “Thax After Dark” at local clubs. Some of his poems were recorded in studio with renowned Nirvana producer Steve Albini.
His fame took off in 2001 when Thax bought a bus pass and followed the indie-rock group Guided By Voices, reading poems before every show. The endless touring, the different cities, the loud music still ringing in his ears the next morning–this was Thax’s idea of rock ‘n’ roll.
One summer night, Thax was walking out of a North Side grocery store when a couple approached.
“Excuse me, are you the guy that does the poems?” they asked. “We really like it.”
Thax could only mutter a “thanks,” but inside, he was beaming.
“It was a very happy moment,” Thax recalled. “When it started happening every day, that became a positive force.”
He started showing up at local shows nightly. His name grew bigger. The acts he read for grew bigger. Yo La Tengo, The Flaming Lips, The White Stripes, the names went on and on. Thax asked the bands if he could write them a poem and then perform it. The bands would almost always say yes.
But he was seldom paid, and Thax correlated compensation with self-worth. He knew his words couldn’t be quantified in dollars and cents, but still, a man’s got to live. He was taking weekly shots for what doctors called “cerebral allergies.” Certain foods made him sick to the point of affecting his mental health. (Thax stopped taking the shots several years ago.) His frustrations began to surface.
In May, when the Chicagoist blog mentioned Thax, some commenters called him “half baked” and “rambling.”
Thax wrote an angry response: “You dorks are jealous because I’m actually doing something creative. … You jealous [expletive] are pathetic.”
Said friend Mitch Marlow: “For anybody who’s part of the music scene, he’s absolutely respected … but Chicago didn’t really get behind him as much as they could have.”
There was, as some observers described, a one-sided feud with Wilco, an act Thax had read for many times. But when he showed up unannounced in New York a few years ago, hoping to read before Wilco’s set at Madison Square Garden, Thax didn’t get to. A long, irate posting on a Wilco fan site by Thax did not help relations (when confronted by the band, he originally denied writing it).
Thax showed up at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago last month. The temperature that day crept past 100. Thax had a backstage pass, but wanted to go inside the air-conditioned field house. Organizers said that was for performing artists only. He left without reading a poem.
“There’s just a lot of ambiguity as to what Thax Douglas means to Chicago,” says Thax.
“That’s why I’m leaving.”
– – –
Thax is adored by bands, club owners and more than 2,200 friends on his MySpace page. Still, Thax has never experienced a real relationship.
Years ago, he fell in love with an author. He was offered a job outside Chicago, moving expenses and all. But Thax said no because he thought this man was the one. He fought hard through shyness to tell him how he felt. But not only did he not love Thax back, but . . . Thax stopped and said he doesn’t want to talk about it.
“I’m not going to fall in love anymore. It’s not for me. I’m tired of trying.”
A few times a year, he’ll visit his parents, who now live in southern Wisconsin.
“If he was a Nobel laureate, I’d be proud of him, but what he’s doing now, I’m proud of it too,” said his father, Ted, a retired engineer. “As long as he’s happy doing what he’s doing … I wish he had some luck.”
Many view him through the lens of novelty, as the guy who reads poems before rock shows. Thax just wants to be known as a poet. For his words.
And so it has come to this. The week after Labor Day, Thax will leave Chicago. A fresh start is in order, and New York is where artists go to follow their ghosts.
There, he plans to record with a small band backing his poetry. He’ll sleep in the studio for the first few weeks.
“Usually when someone from Chicago is successful, it’s because they’re validated outside of Chicago,” he said.
Thax is happier than ever, but he feels he’s exhausted his city of 48 years.
“People like Thax Douglas are doing something more important than a 9-to-5 job,” said Justin Baren, bassist for The Redwalls. “It might be a good step for him. It’s where Thax would probably be more appreciated.”
– – –
After the rainstorm passed, Thax arrived at Wicker Park’s Subterranean and climbed the stairs into a dimly lit, cavernous room, his tote bag in tow.
“Thax!”
Through the dark, people immediately recognized him.
Thax found Chad Matheny, in town from Florida with his band Emperor X. Thax spoke up in his quiet, plaintive voice.
“I want to do a poem for you.”
“Oh God, yeah! I would be honored.”
Thax sat by the merchandise table with his spiral notebook and pen, deep in thought.
Then he stepped stage center, a man alone and his words.
“Turned ship winks a wake like a locust rush up to a curious eye island. The eye revels in the shower of luminous eye icons, the eye party being so much fun the original ship is forgotten, even though that’s what the eye island was searching for.”
“He totally understands,” Matheny said. “It just made sense. Anyone who writes lyrics knows exactly what he’s doing when he writes.”
The few dozen in the crowd applauded Thax’s efforts. He stepped off and stood near the front of the stage. As the music began, his head bobbed side-to-side to the thump of the bass. He tapped the top of his belly in rhythm. Then, without an encore for band or poet, amidst the sounds of tired patrons filing out, the show ended, and the poet began the long walk home.
– – –
FAREWELL CHICAGO’
flooded by the lake but you won’t drown —
the “real” lake is actually a reservoir for all the lakes in storage that can be whipped out like tablecloths
to be nibbled at by the lungs of mice that’ll stay Chicagoan til all the lakes are baked away for good or they move away.
By Thax Douglas, 8.2006
– – –
Farewell shows
Thax Douglas will be reading poetry the following nights before leaving Chicago.
– 7 p.m. Friday at Mercury Cafe’s open mic, 1505 W. Chicago Ave.
– Before bands, reading starting at about 9:30 p.m. Aug. 24 at Subterranean, 2011 W. North Ave.
– About 8 p.m. Aug. 27 at Lilly’s, 2513 N. Lincoln Ave.
– About 8 p.m. Aug. 31 at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia Ave.
–Kevin Pang
———-
kpang@tribune.com
