An 18-month-old runs his fingers over the strings of a tiny acoustic guitar. His four-year-old brother, on the other side of the room, is directing dinosaurs to roar and crush buildings in a choreographed scene.

Next scene: Peppers and cilantro and tomatoes and greens and golds and reds form a rich mosaic on the menu, while diners are greeted with smiles and recommendations for pairing tequilas and wines with the spicy-scented food sizzling in the kitchen.

Scene 3: Out guitarist and his pre-Oscar-directing brother are fast asleep, while Mom grades papers and puts away paints and guitars and toys. Dad quietly dips into other worlds, sculpting musical notes, storyboarding film scenes, or tapping the keys on the computer to dip into the “lives” of his poems.

Creativity is everywhere for Drew Moss, a New York restauranteur/entrepreneur, filmmaker, musician, freelance writer, poet, husband, and co-producer of two sons. Drew introduced Troubadour 21 readers to “cowgirl” in fall of 2009, and talks to us about the creative inspirations in his life.

Your website (www.drewmoss.com) says you are an entrepreneur, journalist, musician, filmmaker and poet. How did you come to each of these?

Like all artists (right?), I’m in the restaurant biz. I am part of a restaurant partnership that cranks out some of the area’s finest “new wave” authentic Tex-Mex. www.panchostexmex.com. And everything works off of that, and my family of course.

I studied journalism as an undergrad at Johns Hopkins, and earned an MA in Cinema from NYU after that. I worked in film in NY and northern California after film school, with mixed results. Only recently have I started to truly discover my directorial voice. I anticipate doing more cool things in film and video moving forward.

I’ve been in bands all my life since junior high school; playing drums, bass, guitar in several different projects – I’ve played drums in a few grateful dead tribute bands, having taken lessons with some of the New York area’s finest drummers including Mike Sorrentino, Joe Chirco and Dom Fomularo. Currently my main musical co-conspirator is Chris P. Cauley, who’s a triple threat in his own right – a total force of an artist. We play together in Goliath, and in the wickedly strange Reverend Mofo (the reverend mofo) and I’m proud to be playing bass in his new CPC collective.

A poetry teacher (is there really such a thing, other than life itself?!) at Hopkins once gave me a C- in a poetry class. I think it was because I regularly toasted him on the basketball court or because I showed up twice to class, not entirely sure. But since then I have been pretty much turned off to poetry.

Sometime in the late 90’s, I was playing drums in a NY underground-ish cool project called Pants (pants) – and we used to get into a lot of improvisational word play. you know, write a line, pass it on to the next guy, don’t put too much thought into it type of exercise – and this really lit a fire. This is when – for me – word sculpture was born. That’s where I’m at as a poet.

With your multiple tasks, what is a typical day and week for you, or is there such a thing as “typical?”

I’m Mr. Mom. I have two delicious young boys (4 and 18 mo.) at home during the day (my lovely wife is a teacher) – so typical is way relative. But I get the big guy off to pre-school, do home stuff (shop, laundry, clean – really), all with my little guy, then pick the big guy up, the misses comes home and I go to the restaurant. The creative stuff happens late at night. I sleep very little.

Who are your favorite poets? Do any of them influence/inform your poetry? Who are your favorite musicians? Do any of them influence your work?

To me, Bob Dylan is the most important poet of our time, maybe ever. To imply direct influence is infer parity where there is none. He is unparalleled. But I will say that his freedom with words, his willingness to hallucinate on the page – that model is an affirmation – a green light that says writers can – “go there.”

Robert Hunter with the grateful dead is another total legend, an underrated master, even John Perry Barlow – who wrote for Bob Weir. Neil Peart of Rush is a huge influence, as a writer, musician, an advocate for the free thinkers and the kind-hearted everywhere. I don’t know if these guys are lyricists as opposed to poets? I can’t make those distinctions.

Bukowski, Kerouac, even Sartre to me was a poet. I have a line in one of my poems, where an Ali McGraw type character is in an intellectual debate with a Steve Mcqueen -esque hero and she says “Sarte is not poetry to me.” Well, he ends up showing her the door. Prose is poetry – any time it sings. Maybe Sarte actually did write poetry? I don’t even know. The Tao is poetry for sure. Krishna Das composes these transcendent Buddhist hymns that soar. Warren Zevon, Lou Reed, these guys are the poets for me.

Just from the poems submitted to Troubadour 21, you have written about music (“soft steel” and “rachmaninoff” and “guitar gods in training”,) a treasure of cultural richness and creative talent in an off-the-path place (”st. mark’s place”) and the ’secret world’ of a woman (”cowgirl”.) Are there subject that come up over and over in your poetry? What inspires you? What is the most off-the-path topic you’ve written a poem or song about? What is the last topic you wrote a poem about?

Lately I’ve been taking on characters. Cowgirl (”cowgirl”) for instance. I just did one called “laundry” – where I get into the last days of a methed-out couple. I take snapshots and stretch them out with words, that’s my favorite little move. To me this is out there, because I’m as far as one can be from a methed-out husband or a drunken single mother – but that’s what I’m writing about now.

I’ll channel surf and get real numb – somehow everything for me seems to start with that vapid, corrupt, asleep at the wheel world out there as portrayed on TV. From there – I cannot say what happens. Something strikes me – and I go.

You are an artist and a musician as well as a poet. Do you find your artist’s eye influencing your music and poetry? Do you experiment with musical themes and rhythms and wording in your poetry? Do your poems ever land in music or lyrics?

I co-wrote “sparks and flames” and “i get busy” with Cauley for Goliath (goliath). and I wrote a bunch of lyrics for Pants (pants) back when. I think the music is the engine that drives the boat, everything good feeds off that. Autumn Leaves (“autumn leaves”) is a cool example. The song to me is so elegant and wonderful:

watch it grow
out of a feeling
that i share – with the world

Wonderfully opaque, yet literal. And I think the video takes on a similar character. A loose theme of nature vs. technology began to emerge when shooting and cutting that piece – sparked by the sounds for sure.

I think my poems are rather a-musical. I don’t read them aloud very often so I can’t tell for sure. I can feel rhythm in them, but it seems highly optional to me – I’ll land on a cornball couplet right in the middle of things at times, if the words fit – I’ll use ‘em. I have little to no regard for any rules whatsoever when it comes to writing word sculpture.

Tell me about Pancho’s Mexican Grill. How did that job come to be? Does your creative brain sometimes land in decisions or ideas for the restaurant? Do your coworkers and patrons know about your journalistic and creative work?

Food is art, so – no question. We like to play with color and palette, beer pairings, tequila pairings, cool specials. My partners have been at it for nearly 30 years, true masters in their own right. www.panchostexmex.com.

For better or worse, I have been known to cut out of work an hour early to play a gig here and there, so my secret life is no real secret to the Pancho’s folk.

Many of your journalistic efforts are about music and sports. How do your other pursuits inform you in the research you do and the questions you ask your interview subjects? What interview questions have you asked recently that are influenced by the scope of work you do?

Brilliance – an interview question about interview questions. Someone call Godard. I like to ask people what they’re listening to, what their biggest limitation is artistically, professionally or what have you – and where they want to take their projects – how far can they/do they want to go? Because I want to go as far as spirit will take me as well.

Composers compose, musicians play concerts, filmmakers film, restaurateurs run restaurants. How will your poetry get “out into the world” outside of Troubadour 21?

I aspire to complete a book of poetry and get out there to do some readings etc. The former and current Suffolk county poet laureates; Dr. David Axelrod and Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan have been instrumental in getting that ball rolling, as has Dennis McNally, historian, author and publicist for the Grateful Dead.

You have a wife and children. What are their creative pursuits? How do you encourage their creativity? Are there artistic things you do together? What role do they play in your creative pursuits?

My little guy will sit for a good fifteen minutes strumming an acoustic guitar on the floor. That’s an eternity for an 18 mo. old. He loves to bang on his toy piano like Phillip Glass, too.

My big guy has his dinosaur and transformer drawings hanging all over the house. And he’s very directorial. He coordinates battle scenes on the playground with total strangers, gets the adults involved, fearless and assured – total vision. He’s like Kubrick doing “Paths of Glory.”. I’m biased, but I think they’re both brilliant. I do nothing to encourage them other than to stand aside and enjoy. And I provide them with the tools; instruments, plenty of markers, paints, crayons and paper. The rest is all them.

This is actually my wife’s biggest gift and blessing – she gets the kids going and really brings out the fun, creative side of life for them – even more than me. My wife is a brilliant piano player, a dancer, and a very gifted educator. I’m beyond blessed.

Tell us about your film efforts. How do your films reflect both your subject, and your point of view as an artist? Is there anything you’ve learned from business, from visual art, from poetry that influences the way you go about making a film?

I feel like I’m doing abstract collage work with film right now. It’s immediate, accessible and natural for me. I feel like (a poor man’s) Picasso when making films, even Pollack.

The last narrative film I did was over a decade ago, though I see that coming back soon – I’m writing a movie. The videos for goliath are love letters – a fragmented, yet somehow unified thread of inspired expression.

The second part of this question is great. Business has taught me one terrific thing that filters into everything else. Time has real value. It’s not to be wasted. I pride myself on being inspired and productive more than most. I also had a near death experience in 2003 – which changed the way I go about my business forever.

What was your first poem? How old were you? What was it about? What was the last poem you wrote, and what was it about?

Can’t remember my first poem. I mentioned “laundry” which is the last thing I wrote – a few weeks ago. I’ve been doing a lot of freelance journalism recently (that’s my goal – to become a full fledged journalist), so poetry is not front and center at the moment. But the next piece is never more than a news report and a cold beer away.

Speaking of…

Drew Moss Poetry
Published in:
Long Island Sounds Anthology 2008, 2009
Hofstra University’s Artists Against Bias
Troubadour 21
Max Wheat’s Winter Poems 2009
George Wallace’s Poetry Log, Winter 2009

Film/Video
Mismatch, 1996 dir./prod. – Honorable Mention, Original Short Film, Huntington Film Festival
Sequence 01, 2006 dir./prod. – Electro-Music Fest, Philadelphia, PA for the reverend mofo
500% (I Get Busy), 2007 dir./prod. – rock video for Goliath
3 Chords, One Mission, 2008 dir./prod. – PSA for Rock and Wrap It Up!
Autumn Leaves, 2009 dir./prod. – rock video for Goliath