I wasn’t surprised

when Raindog told me someone had stolen a copy of The Riddle of the Wooden Gun off the book sale table at the Berkeley reading. It wasn’t the first time someone had lifted a section of DILLINGER. I don’t know how many people have complained that their copies of The Name Is Dillinger, Dillinger’s Faces, Billie F, and Dillinger’s Thompson had come up missing. Books about outlaws just tend to go south if you don’t keep your eyes on them. Books about outlaws have something illicit, taboo, and tempting about them. Books about outlaws just ache to be stolen.

Someone once explained it to me this way over a beer. The guy held up The Corpse Is Dreaming, flipped through the pages, then set it down and said, owning a book like this is like having Dillinger right where you can touch him. Right where you can talk to him and have him talk back to you. You got his skin, you got his blood, you got his dreams. So, why not make it juicier and somehow steal the book because by stealing the book you steal the essence of the outlaw. And, in some marginal way, you also become an outlaw.

Still, there is more to stealing Dillinger than just stealing the book. There is the man, the blood, the history, the look, the mythos. The sheer act of writing about Dillinger is the complex act of theft. Anyone who has written creatively about Dillinger has either attempted to steal a piece of the corpse or has tried to reinvent the entire body of the man.

you were a handsome guy,
not like the rest of those
ugly bastards who went around
on killin sprees,

from Dillinger, Ed Galing, Big Hammer No. 13

A piece of the corpse, the body of the man, maybe his soul, but if you are ambitious enough and tough enough and you think maybe you have that special touch of genius, then you go for all of it. You try for the style, the history, the arrogant sprawl of outlaw, the myth because once you have the myth you also have the darkly shattered dream of america.

The key to Dillinger is that he always changes, he never stays the same. It doesn’t matter how many biographers have carefully delineated his life or at least what we know of it, no one really knows who he was. The one thing we can be sure of is that he was a force, he was like a wind that came up out of dustbowl Kansas and blew the shit out of everything. He was like a tornado that swept into northern Illinois and just simply levellled main street. That much we do know, that much we can be sure of.

The fact that he was a trickster, that he was always shape shifting into something else is maybe the most important clue to both Dillinger the man and Dillinger the metaphor. Because he was a metaphor. He was as much a gesture as the hand sign for gun or as the wooden gun itself. He was a meaning all unto himself. He was what Humphrey Bogart longed to be as Roy Earle and Duke Mantee. He was what Johnny Depp hopes he has become.

The thing is you can steal all of Dillinger. You can make off with his gunhand, you can swipe his hat the straw boater or the snap brim stetson, you can jack his machine gun, you can shoplift his comb his 380 auto, you can hang one of the original wanted posters of him up on your wall right next to the felt portrait of Elvis or the James Dean poster where Dean is leaning back against a car in his most memorable fuckyou pose, but do you have him? Do you have Dillinger? Do you really have the Dillinger that you dream of? That you long for? That you would like to steal and put him into a book of your own?

Dillinger is the anarchic essence of the american outlaw. You can see that from nearly all of his photographs. Take a look at the Dillinger pose on the paperback cover of Dary Matera’s book DILLINGER. The photograph is really the classiest mug shot that I know of. Dillinger is seated. He’s wearing a dark vest, a loosened tie that lies all twisted against a white shirt. He’s giving the photographer one of his get fucked stares. But the most interesting aspect of this snapshot is the way he holds his hands and arms. He is using his right hand to loosely hold his left arm at the elbow. My question is did he borrow this pose from the old western film actor Harry Carey or was it just simply a spontaneous way of appearing? Next time you watch THE SEARCHERS focus on the way John Wayne poses at the end of the film, the way that Huston has framed him in that doorway. Wayne stands with his right hand crossed over and is using it to hold his left arm. And, where did that stance come from? Harry Carey, obviously. But, isn’t it interesting to speculate that it might have come from both Carey and Dillinger?

Dillinger is the essence of cool while in he’s custody in Crown Point, Indiana. In this snapshot he’s leaning on prosecuting attorney Robert Estill’s shoulder as he makes the sign of the gun across the man’s lapel. Of course it’s a setup and Estill is the patsy. Dillinger is the essence of hot when he poses holding a Thompson sub machine gun and the wooden gun in his father’s yard. And, sometimes even when Dillinger is not holding a gun, he becomes the metaphor for all guns, always. Bogart shooting it out with Cagney, Warren Oates opening up with a Thompson, Johnny Depp vaulting over a bank counter with his sleek machine gun. These are all variations of the biggest dream that america could ever know. And the dream is the movie of outlaw and you can taste it. You can taste all of it.

And, this is really what we all want to steal. Forget about shoving that book under your coat and concentrate on stealing the mythos of Dillinger because that is what we are all after, if we are searching for the dream of all dreams in america. It doesn’t matter if you are a biographer, a novelist, a film director, or a poet. What you want above everything else is that one book, that one film that somehow catches the key to it all, the dark and prevailing myth of the outlaw in america and even that mysterious that apocalyptic america itself.

You want to do what Herman Melville did, you want to do what William Faulkner did, you want to do what John Ford did, you want to do what Raoul Walsh did, you want to do what Sam Peckinpah did, you want to do what Charles Bukowski did, you want to do what Cormac McCarthy did. You want to do what Dillinger did. You want the man Dillinger, you want the myth Dillinger, you want the poem DILLINGER. Because if you are alive in the man, the myth, and the poem,

you are an outlaw.

Todd Moore books are available here…

some related articles are listed below:

1. todd moore | stealing the fire, stealing the shadow
2. todd moore | the dillinger convergence: three ways of dreaming the outlaw
3. todd moore | when dillinger
4. todd moore | dillinger was
5. todd moore | the name is dillinger
6. todd moore | dillinger stood…
7. todd moore | dillinger stepped
8. todd moore | i’ll play dillinger
9. todd moore | everything changes when dillinger arrives
10. todd moore | dillinger posed
11. todd moore | dillinger, the coyote, and the wolf
12. todd moore | writing dillinger in the eye of the hurricane
13. todd moore | dillinger, outlaws, writing, and murder
14. todd moore | love, longing, dillinger, disaster
15. todd moore | outlaw
16. todd moore | scorched trinity: dillinger, billie, and machine gun love
17. todd moore | the sign of the outlaw
18. todd moore | going to meet the outlaw
19. todd moore | shadow of the outlaw
20. todd moore | outlaw poetry
21. todd moore | working the outlaw wind
22. todd moore | washed in the blood of the outlaw moon
23. todd moore | falling asleep in outlaw country
24. todd moore | the outlaw poet and those killer eyes
25. todd moore | coyote death mask outlaw
26. todd moore | outlaw bonfires and dillinger’s blood
27. todd moore | the last good reading from the outlaw dark
28. todd moore | machine guns, guernica, and the outlaw poem
29. todd moore | mythic blood, psychic movies, outlaw dreams
30. todd moore | dillinger and the riddle of the wooden gun
31. todd moore | dillinger, death, and the high mountain air
32. todd moore | living at the movies with dillinger and depp
33. todd moore | danger beyond danger, where the outlaw lives
34. todd moore | outlaw poetry, psychic damage, the survival of wounds
35. todd moore | dying with dillinger in the corpse is dreaming
36. tony moffeit | scorching the darkness: the channeling of dillinger
37. todd moore | the second
38. todd moore | i was
39. todd moore | when…
40. todd moore | just before
41. todd moore | i want it all and i want it now
42. todd moore | we cut
43. todd moore | how come
44. todd moore | i don’t want
45. todd moore | I don’t
46. todd moore | this
47. todd moore | red
48. todd moore | what I want to know
49. todd moore | right after…
50. todd moore | the kid
51. todd moore | just
52. todd moore | i love
53. todd moore | cindy was
54. todd moore | what haunted
55. todd moore | dynamite
56. todd moore | the mystery
57. todd moore | peckinpah took…
58. todd moore | the perfect
59. todd moore | the bank…
60. todd moore | lucky
61. todd moore | fucking
62. todd moore | burning the…
63. todd moore | the question
64. todd moore | coleman is
65. todd moore | the bottle
66. todd moore | they’re coming
67. todd moore | the house
68. todd moore | reading
69. todd moore | hemingway
70. todd moore | tyler’s
71. todd moore | burning
72. todd moore | all the way to the fame
73. todd moore | lisa was…
74. todd moore | frito stopped…
75. todd moore | parker shot
76. todd moore | rd armstrong | reads
77. todd moore | taking on bukowski
78. todd moore | i write in the blood
79. todd moore | the sentences are burning
80. todd moore | walking around in the blood
81. todd moore | the blood of america
82. todd moore | jack wilson
83. todd moore | the nightmare talking
84. todd moore | devouring the shadow
85. todd moore | the nightmare of poetry is war
86. todd moore | working on my duende
87. todd moore | billie licked…
88. todd moore | shotgun blues
89. todd moore | geeshie wiley
90. todd moore | the blood of the poet
91. todd moore | the old man’s waiting
92. todd moore | nightmare frenzy
93. todd moore | donny shot…
94. todd moore | the treehouse reading
95. todd moore | a conversation with raindog
96. todd moore | black rain
97. todd moore | inventing the nightmare
98. todd moore | gimme a shotgun
99. todd moore | road testing the kid
100. todd moore | nightmare splender
101. todd moore | largo slapped
102. todd moore | gimme danger
103. todd moore | the dark country
104. todd moore | tasting the blood
105. todd moore | reading the dark
106. todd moore | blood and fate under mad stars
107. todd moore | I work the shattered line
108. todd moore | and the gunfight at dodge city
109. todd moore | leaving a little blood on the floor
110. todd moore | fighting death for the poem
111. todd moore | the machine gun blood of the poem
112. todd moore | the dark side of america
113. todd moore | death rides the blood
114. todd moore | that terrible shaking in the blood
115. mera wolf & todd moore | read
116. todd moore | what are the stakes in american poetry?
117. todd moore | damage, genius, courage
118. todd moore | the coyote trickster and the wooden gun
119. todd moore | night blood, red hands
120. todd moore | billy the kid in the theater of blood
121. todd moore | falling in love with danger
122. todd moore | cold fire, molten ice
123. todd moore | the great american poem
124. todd moore | writing poetry, burning the house
125. todd moore | patrick mckinnon and the drunken shamanic
126. todd moore | scratching it out street level for the poem
127. todd moore & Lawrence welsh | poetry reading
128. todd moore | hustling for drinks, praying for lines
129. todd moore | the long way home and the blood on the floor
130. todd moore | dave roskos, the editor’s editor
131. todd moore | all the dark talking to the angel of death
132. todd moore | the fevers and sweats of the nightmare poem
133. todd moore | reading the movies, watching the poems
134. todd moore | dreaming the dream, paying the price
135. todd moore | the murder and the ecstasy of the everlasting dream
136. todd moore | love & death & teeth in the blood
137. todd moore | american metaphors, visions, and nightmares
138. todd moore | the exalted scar and the annointed cure
139. Todd Moore (1937 – 2010) | A Memorial Reading | Vox Audio
140. todd moore | machine guns, movies, culture, dreams
141. todd moore | gary goude and that crushed rotting dawg
142. todd moore | into the open madness: the poetry of kell robertson
143. todd moore | blind whiskey and the straight razor blues
144. todd moore | the rat’s blood had glued my hand shut
145. tony moffeit | american blues outlaw poetry anarchic dream
146. todd moore | pure blood primal: the poetry of kell robertson
147. todd moore | the volcanic death song of baby face nelson
148. todd moore | blood calls to blood
149. todd moore | what’s
150. todd moore | burning
151. todd moore | 45 auto
152. todd moore | coming out of…
153. todd moore | jerry’s old
154. todd moore | the fever of writing
155. todd moore | the nightmare of reading
156. todd moore | doing shots with ben smith in air à boire
157. todd moore | play it & judy christopher
158. todd moore | stories, ashes, and fire
159. bone | poetry by todd moore & rd armstrong
160. todd moore | dancing in the fire with s.a. griffin
161. todd moore | the last good movie I made was a poem
162. todd moore | chasing jack micheline’s shadow
163. todd moore & dennis gulling | shotgun weather
164. bill nevin | todd moore, cinematic poet on the outlaw’s trail
165. todd moore
166. tony moffeit | outlaw
167. lawrence welsh | outlaw waiting
168. tony moffeit | outlaw consciousness
169. tony moffeit | the outlaw revolution
170. the outlaw bible of american poetry
171. tony moffeit | outlaw: the roots
172. wolfgang carstens | for todd moore
173. todd moore & john macker
174. rd armstrong | todd moore and lummox press
175. daryl rogers | near full moon | …for todd moore
176. todd moore | las montanas de santa fe: visions of the spirit country
177. todd moore | the sea, the poem, and the house of all possible myths: the poetry of milner place
178. todd moore | the central avenue rundown jazz radio show
179. john dorsey & s.a. griffin | the dead zone trilogy by todd moore
180. todd moore | how to survive the coming night: the poetry of john yamrus
181. todd moore | the gold cane, van gogh’s ear, and the gun in the casket: wandering down this crooked road
182. todd moore | saturday night desperate, don winter, and the black mitten of poetry