Joy in the here is my chief engineer

Poet and filmmaker James Broughton wrote a memoir of his first 65 or so years, Coming Unbuttoned. Now I'm working on the Big Joy Project, which will be a website and a film about his life and times, and the whole idea of living Big Joy.

Malcolm Dorn and Lee and Ann Katzenbach helped me kick off the project at James's gravesite in Port Townsend, where James lived the last 10 of his 85 years and became known to many as "poet laureate" of the sleepy mill town which once saw itself becoming the Seattle of the Northwest.

Malcolm reads from Broughton's "Packing Up for Paradise" as dog Chester Wallydoodle crouches in excitement and we sip champagne

Rocky Friedman, owner of the Rose Theatre, is also helping me with the project. He found the amazing filmmaker Ian Hinkle, who jumped in right away and filmed our opening ceremony.

Ian Hinkle films Malcolm Dorn lighting candles at James Broughton's gravesite

I'm so grateful for all the support I'm getting for the project so far. (Don't worry, I'll be making a pitch for funding soon.)

It's a new dawn, a new day, time to give thanks

"Adventure, Not Predicament" is the epitaph on James Broughton's phallic stone marker. And, this poem:

In the arms of lover I
lie in eternity
clutching the secret of holy excess

Joy in the here is
my chief engineer
over and unto and once upon Yes

Joy in the here is
the nature of nature
touching the habit of daily caress

in the arms of lover I
leap in eternity
over and unto and once again Yes