For Enquiring Minds...
Personal Third Person Stuff |
Arts and Entertainment |
Rodeo |
Football and Other Sports |
Boxing
Personal Third Person Stuff
- Is W.K. Stratton the Author the same person as W.K. Stratton the Actor?
- No, although W.K. Stratton the Author did do some acting. Sort of. W.K. Stratton the Author was an extra in that cinema, a-hem, classic Fast Charlie, the Moonbeam Rider, starring David Carradine and Brenda Vacarro and produced by the great Roger Corman. If you look carefully (although why anyone would want to look carefully at that particular film is a puzzle), you can see W.K. Stratton the Author in two crowd scenes: He throws a hat into the air in one scene and jumps up and down in another. He made $35 for his work, plus got breakfast and lunch out of the deal. More important, during the filming, painter Ken Watson introduced him to L.Q. Jones and R.G. Armstrong, who co-starred in the film. In the mid-1970s (as well as today), Sam Peckinpah was one of W.K. Stratton the Author's artistic heroes, and both Jones and Armstrong were members of Peckinpah's unofficial stock acting company (along with Jason Robards, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Dub Taylor, and Slim Pickens). He also got to see David Carradine cut his foot on an empty Thunderbird bottle that had been smashed on the sidewalk outside Carradine's trailer.
W.K. Stratton the Actor has had a long career in film and television. Among other accomplishments, he was a semi-regular on The Rockford Files, which is one of W.K. Stratton the Author's favorite TV series from the 1970s. If you want to contact W.K. Stratton the Actor, try the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles.
They are not related.
- So what's up with this W.K. Stratton business anyway. I knew him as Kip Stratton.
- The full name is William Kip Stratton. Friends and family have always called him Kip. After a lifetime of frustration caused by explaining and re-explaining in numerous telephone conversations that his name was not Skip, not Tip, not Rip, not Pip, not Ken, not Kim, etc., and explaining in other conversations that Kip was not a nickname for anything but a given middle name ("Sir, the bank requires you to use a real name, not your nickname, for your account!"), he gave up and made the decision to use his initials as his "official name." Friends and family still call him Kip.
- Native of the Southwest?
- Yep, born at Benedictine Heights Hospital (later Alverno Heights Hospital, later an abandoned building) in Guthrie, Oklahoma, on a chilly November 4th. Was brought kicking and screaming into the world by Dr. Robert L. Ringrose, the father-in-law of the great fiddler Byron Berline, who played on records by Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, the Byrds, the Rolling Stones, Bill Monroe, Stephen Stills, The Band, James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, and Rodney Crowell, among many others. The official State of Oklahoma birth certificate is wrong, by the way. It says his childhood doctor, James Petty, delivered the lad. However, when the actual blessed event occurred, Dr. Petty was out fishing and Dr. Ringrose filled in.
- Education?
- Guthrie High School, followed by the University of Central Oklahoma (at the time known as Central State University), B.A. and M.A. in English. Referred to UCO/CSU as "Harvard on the Highway" in Backyard Brawl, which elicited a snort or two from a retired faculty member.
Arts and Entertainment
- Ten - no, make that twelve books on a desert island?
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
Fat City by Leonard Gardner
Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers by Larry McMurtry
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Black Elk Speaks by John Gneisnau Neihardt
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
That's the list for right now. It could be different tomorrow.
- Favorite poet?
- Richard Hugo
- Favorite singer/songwriter?
- It's a tie. Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan
- Ties aren't allowed. Favorite singer/songwriter?
- Sigh. Bob Dylan
- Album?
- Blood on the Tracks by a nose over Blonde on Blonde
- Favorite band?
- Los Lobos
- Favorite actor?
- Very tough, but Harry Dean Stanton wins by a nose over the rest of the pack
- Favorite movie?
- Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch
Rodeo
- Best all time rodeo songs?
- "Amarillo By Morning" by George Strait (easily the best of the batch)
"Ro-Deo-Deo Cowboy" by Jerry Jeff Walker and the Lost Gonzo Band (easily the second-best of the batch; written by Farmer Dave Gilstrap)
"Someday Soon" by Judy Collin (her version is the best of this oft-covered song, even better than Ian and Sylvia's original, and it's also the best thing she's ever recorded)
"Freckles Brown" by Red Steagall (sentimental choice because of my fondness for Freckles)
"I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart" by Patsy Montana (which could be about a rodeo cowboy)
"Rodeo Cowboys" by Mike Lopez and the Vaqueros (for its general weirdness)
- Favorite rodeo quote?
- Joan Crawford: "Don't fuck with me fellas. This ain't my first time at the rodeo."
- Favorite rodeo?
- The Pendleton (Oregon) Round Up
- Favorite rodeo movie?
- Junior Bonner
Football and Other Sports
- Favorite football player of all time?
- Joe Don Looney. Good have been one of the all time greats in both college and the pros, but he chose a different route. Popular myth makes him out to be a flake and a jerk. In fact, he was a complicated guy with a lot of intelligence. Endlessly fascinating.
- Favorite pro football team?
- When I was in college in the 1970s, it was the Oakland Raiders, hands down. I lost a lot of interest when the team moved to L.A. and it hasn't been rekindled since the relocation to Oakland. I'm probably more interested in the Denver Broncos than any other team right now.
- Favorite college team?
- I don't have one.
- Really?
- Seriously, I don't. I find the long, strange trip that comprises the history of college football at the University of Oklahoma to be very interesting, both in its ups and its downs. But I'm not an O.U. fan.
- But how can you not have a favorite team?
- The levels of various levels of hypocrisy in college football are so great now that I can't invest enough of myself into it to have a favorite team. The same is true for collegiate men's basketball.
- But you wrote a book about college football...
- Well, sort of. Backyard Brawl really is more about a clash of cultures than it is about college football. The cultural stuff fascinated me; the football was secondary.
- What sports do you like?
- Boxing. And I enjoy going to University of Texas women's basketball and University of Texas baseball games.
Boxing
- Boxing? Really?
- Yes.
- But how can you like something so brutal, so corrupt?
- Boxing is indefensible, so I won't try to defend it. You either get into it or you don't. I fully understand why some people find it deplorable.
- Is it true you train as a boxer?
- Yes.
- Where?
- Richard Lord's Gym
- Why?
- I always wanted to learn how to box. I also thought it would be interesting to see if I could learn how to do something like that while I'm in my 40s.
- Do you know how?
- I've learned how it's supposed to work. It's much more complicated than most people think it is. It's not for nothing that it has been called "the sweet science." Am I able to do it? A little. I understand the principles. And sometimes when I'm doing mitt work or sparring I actually pull something off the way it's supposed to be done.
- Favorite football book?
- Hands down it's Pete Gent's North Dallas Forty. Unless you consider Fred Exley's brilliant novel A Fan's Notes a football book. Hmmm... maybe A Fan's Notes should go on my desert island list.
- Baseball book?
- Pat Jordan's masterpiece A False Spring followed closely by Roger Kahn's classic The Boys of Summer.
- Boxing book?
- Well, there are so many, aren't there? Mailer's The Fight (about the Rope-a-Dope fight in Zaire) is an unsung masterpiece of reporting. Shadow Box is George Plimpton's best book and not regarded highly enough. Joyce Carol Oates, my buddy John Schulian, F.X. Toole (Jerry Boyd), A.J. Liebling (of course), Budd Schulberg, Gay Talese, W.C. Heinz, Gerald Early, the late Mark Kram, Jack Newfield, Pete Hamill, Jose Torres, the late Phil Berger, Ralph Wiley - all have written books or sections of books that I consider to be essential reading about boxing. But I have to stick with the novel that's on my desert island list, Leonard Gardner's Fat City, as my favorite boxing book.
- Favorite boxing movie?
- John Huston's film adaptation of Fat City.