The Art of Our Necessities

MICHAEL RIDER is a poet, musician, writer, and actor. He has a long list of professional stage, film and television credits, best known for his appearances in ROAD HOUSE and STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION. He studied acting at Juilliard with classmate Robin Williams, film-making at NYU, and poetry writing at UCLA. His autobiographically inspired stories are of riverboats, jailbreaks, backtracks, heartbreaks, motorcycles, barrooms, and backstage dramas - moving from the funky upper west side of New York City and Juilliard Drama of the 1970s, to the glamour and chaos of the Chicago theatre scene, to the rough and tumble of Hollywood. Whether it’s surviving the rivers and canals of the midwest as a deckhand on a working boat; driving a taxi cab in New York; negotiating his release from a rural Mexican jail, making a war movie in war-torn Africa; or fighting on set with Sam Elliot and Patrick Swayze filming ROAD HOUSE, Rider retells these adventures with all of the practiced panache of an accomplished raconteur. Much of Rider’s poetry is lyrical, and deeply, if darkly, spiritual. His imagery is startling, as he seems to be listening-in on the conversations of revenant bards. In addition to THE GHOST ACCORDION and Other Poems, (a survey of his work over the last decade), selections are also included from Rider’s spaghetti-western inspired allegorical poem, EMPIRE OF THE GUN.