Talk:Bruce Conforth

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Ghmyrtle in topic Promotional content

Heather says...

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This article somehow became the home of a blog-type entry of reminsicences about Conforth from an ex-girlfriend. I have incorporated a small amount of her material, but i am porting most of it here, along with the images she supplid. The images seem to be copyright-free donations on her part, but she did not attest to theat when uploading them, so they were taken down and commented out. Anyway, here is the "Heather says" portion of the page, for future historical reference:

Image with unknown copyright status removed:

File:Bruce at his apartment 1976.jpg
Heather: I took this polaroid of Bruce at his apartment 1976

Image with unknown copyright status removed:

File:Bates and Hawkins with Bruce on the Left 1976.jpg
Heather: I took this picture Bates and Hawkins at a train station Bruce is on the left

Image with unknown copyright status removed:

File:Grad school 1980.jpg
Bruce at Indiana University

Image with unknown copyright status removed:

File:Conforth today.jpeg
Bruce Conforth from his Rate My Professors page

"Heather" says: I'll post my entries on here as Heather (the name he gave me in his novel). I dated him at this time, in fact I was the main female character in a novel he wrote. Bruce showed me pictures of him with deKooning, whom he called Bill, and Bill gave him a drawing that he had framed and I believe still owns. It was a very cool drawing of a human figure with what looked like a hatchet and maybe various body parts.

"Heather" says: One band I know he played in was called Ruby and the Dykes and they played all over: New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Asbury Park, Upstate New York, just all over the place. I know this because I went on tour with him a number of times. There were about five females who kind of lived with the band, but they weren't groupies, just women who lived with them, although I'm sure the band had groupies. For some reason an East Coast motorcycle gang "The Breed" kind of adopted the band as their own and used to show up at their jobs, which was always a hoot. You never knew what was going to happen. I know he played with other bands too. One was called The Shook, and I know he knew the MC5 because he took me to a club in New York called Dynamite and introduced me to John Sinclair, their manager.

"Heather" says: I remember Bruce calling John up and shortly after he got a letter from John and Yoko, it contained their "Declaration of Nutopia" which is what was published in Slowglass. It was a declaration of a new, peaceful country and state of mind and was signed by both of them.

"Heather" says: I sang backup on one song on the Bates and Hawkins album and we used to go a lot of the places this entry mentions. When we'd hang in the Village he used to introduce me to lots of musicians: a great fiddler named Kenny Kosek (who is also on the Bates and Hawkins album), a banjo player Jack Baker, Dave Van Ronk, the poet Allen Ginsberg. He took me to Dave Van Ronk's apartment on Sheridan Square in the Village. I remember you entered into a large living room with what seemed like a lot of couches and Dave would hold court there. We also used to hang out a lot at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street in the Village. It was his favorite bar and was where the poet Dylan Thomas drank himself to death.

"Heather" says: I went to visit Bruce in Bloomington before he got married for the first time. It was our last time together but he was still playing a lot of music then and was just starting to work on the Gellert material. He also had a band called The Extremes.

""Heather" says: He was involved. He knew a lot of people back then because nobody was really "famous" like they are today and you could hang out with anyone. I remember hanging out with Bruce and Frank Zappa in Greenwich Village in probably 1967. Frank and the Mothers were playing at The Garrick Theater on Bleeker Street for an extended stay.

"Heather" says: This time period was when I last saw him, but I remember him talking on the phone with Tim Leary about coming out to Radford to be an affiliate of the program Bruce taught it. He also sent me some photos of him from the Himalaya. But he was getting involved with his soon-to-be second wife. I never really saw him again after about 1982.

I have also edited the entry for style, wiki-linked it, and spiffed it up as best as i was able. cat yronwode, not logged in 64.142.90.33 (talk) 06:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

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Promotional content

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Unfortunately, this article has been, and remains, subject to a large number of apparently self-promotional edits by an IP whose address directs to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Many of the edits - indeed, large sections of the article - are unsourced or poorly sourced, and promotional in style. There seems to be a strong possibility that the article falls foul of WP:AUTOBIO. I've removed some of the most obviously promotional material but, really, the article needs to be re-created from scratch, based on independent, reliable, published sources. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:06, 18 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

The pattern of edits is continuing, with (apparently) the same IP seeking to remove from the article all mention of public accusations against Conforth. Sources here, here, here, etc. The question arises of whether this article should be protected from further IP edits. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:19, 29 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

PS: Unfortunately I wholly missed this discussion as I was away and didn't pick up on it when I came back. I can't promise to be the person who re-edits and trims this article, but someone needs to do that, particularly in view of the statement by the article subject confirming that he "made up some of the material". Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:45, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

PPS: For clarity, Conforth has now said: "I created that page (under the user name Emmetman) as a vanity issue. I made up some of the material and anything else does not constitute worthy notability. This page was created by me solely as a self-advertisement." The 2008 version of the article that Conforth created is here - though there have also been many later questionable edits by Ann Arbor-based IP accounts. At first glance I don't think that much of the 2008 article remains in the 2021 version, but it does need to be checked. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply