rocket to nowhere: the Gopoian method

1989. 9th grade. My junior high decided to abandon the regular class schedule for a week, and instead run everything around a theme. The theme was space. We took English, math, physical education, science, and social studies classes about space and space travel.
During that week, I started drawing the “rocket to nowhere.” I haven’t stopped.
My mother taught 8th grade English at the same junior high school. She wanted something special and space-themed for her homeroom, so she asked an artist/musician friend of ours, Lanny Fiegenschuh (who had an incredibly large collection of LPs), if he could make her a mix tape of songs about space. He provided her with 90 minutes of Space Tunes.
When the week was over, I inherited the Space Tape.
1989-1997. I listened to the tape regularly, and drew the rocket on everything (within certain legal limits).
1998. I had the rocket tattooed on my left deltoid.
1999. My girlfriend and I moved to Chicago. A couple of months later, she and I went out of town for Xmas, and I inadvertently left the Space Tape in her car. The car was broken into, and the Space Tape was stolen. I was heartbroken.
2000. My mother tracked Lanny Fiegenschuh down to Oklahoma City, OK, wrote him a letter, and asked him if he could reproduce the Space Tape. He replied that he had unfortunately been forced by circumstance to get rid of his incredibly large collection of LPs. But then he remembered that he had made master copies of all the mix tapes he had made. He still had those. He not only sent my mother the original 90-minute Space Tape, but also a second 90-minute tape full of songs about space, as well as a third 90-minute tape which contains songs about nuclear power and atomic weapons. My mother gave me the tapes for X-mas.
2001. I started writing down bits of lyrics from the songs (“All the girls will wear bikinis, except those who wear blue-jeanies”). I don’t know why I started writing them down, and I didn’t know what to do with them until I found . . .

The Gopoian Method (named after a good friend of mine, Rebecca Gopoian, who has created several beautiful pieces of writing this way–one can be found here)

1. Pick a phrase. It should be vague, but suggestive.
2. Write the phrase at the top of a blank page in your little notebook.
3. Move as far away from the source of the phrase as possible.
4. Meditate on the phrase.
5. Allow a thought to enter your mind.
6. Write that thought down.
7. Allow that thought to leave your mind.
8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 until the page in your little notebook is full.
9. Do not worry about making sense.
10. Let the writing sit for at least 24 hours.
11. Edit, but minimally.

I used The Gopoian Method to create seven pieces of writing from some of those aforementioned bits of lyrics for a class I was taking.
2005. I posted those seven pieces of writing (plus the songs whence the bits of lyrics came) on my blahg: rocket to nowhere.

[Over the next seven posts, I will be sharing some writing and some mp3 files with you. If you are using a PC, you can download the mp3s by right-clicking the link and choosing "save link as." If you're using a Mac, you can press the "ctrl" button on your keyboard, click the link, and choose "save link as," or you can press the option button on your keyboard and click on the link, which will automatically download the linked file. Enjoy!]