Dominic Mance, the man behind the scenes who makes Pop breathe, was born in L.A. in 1953. At the age of 32, he walked away from a prominent banking career and into knockabout years of wanderlust living a million different lives in a million different ways.
He lived in libraries by day and streets and back
houses and barrooms and cars by night.
He called the beach, the mountains, the country, a boat
and trailer, and the laundromats and half-way houses
halfway to hell and back, his home.
Poet, bum, barfly, health-nut, naturalist, drifter
of a million miles, hippy, born-again Christian, fugitive...
Long hair, short hair, no hair. In suits, in jeans, in rags. Clean or dirty or shaven or bearded. Sometimes
strong and tan, sometimes neither.
His work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, radio and TV; and his art has been galleried. His life story has also been broadcast worldwide on the longest running radio drama in history.
The dreams of adulthood, the overpowering need to leave some sliver of beauty behind,
to create diamonds from this coal of my soul, to reach deep into the sea,
to seek the caverns of the hallows,
to paint a picture as big and lovely as the world laughing
one summer night on a stone...
