Coyote in a Graveyard NoHo: Homeless Shelter Epic Poem Memoir

“Coyote in a Graveyard NoHo” is an EPIC POEM because it is more than 10,000 words. By the time I finished adding captions to the pictures and adding my comments in ITALICS… it came out to 20,193 words. I’m confident it is more than 16,000 words, so it’s an epic poem. When I was a kid if something was really fantastic story we called it, “EPIC.” I hope you think my epic poem is “Epic!” This poem represents my bewilderment of being trapped in the Coyote In A Graveyard rock opera I performed in 1984 and 1985 in Los Angeles night clubs. Inspired by a failed romance and the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, this 1984 rock opera became a hit show and was heralded by Stephen Spielberg and Michael J. Fox who performed onstage with us. I performed lead vocals and Rickenbacker bass for the couple years we performed my rock opera. The original Coyote In A Graveyard rock opera story was written when I was homeless in 1984 on purpose. I was working at LAX as a Union Carpenter and decided to save my money to launch my Shaolin Records independent record label that year in September 1984 with the vinyl album titled "Temptation" by Richard O'Connor & The Rich. During those years from 1985 to 1987 I was a student in the UCLA film school and this rock opera became a screenplay for New World Pictures. In the screenplay they asked me to rewrite the ending from a tragedy into a happier ending in which the drugged up hospital patients escape. Then in 2018 I was hospitalized after a surgery in the Martin Luther King Hospital in Compton, California and after 5 months of recuperation there was transferred to the NoHo Homeless Shelter of this Epic Poem story. I was supposed to only be in the shelter for "three weeks" and get my Section 8 housing subsidy but just like my 1984 rock opera it became apparent I was a captive because they were making a huge profit by keeping me there. So eventually, I decided to be homeless and escape this shelter. So in this weird twist of fate I WAS LIVING WITHIN the rock opera movie I wrote in 1984. During the year I lived in the NoHo Homeless Shelter I was performing in nightclubs as the "Kung Fu Cowboy" playing my rock 'n' roll flute style that sounds similar to Jethro Tull and playing my Fender Stratocaster electric guitar. I was also performing libraries, book stores, coffee shops and theaters as "Richard Del Connor Philosopher Poet" in which I would perform a couple poems then conclude with a solo song on my flute. This book includes some of the other poems I wrote and performed in 2018 and 2019. So this book Coyote in a Graveyard NoHo Skid Row -- A Rock Opera Epic Poem Memoir documents my homeless life in a homeless shelter and performing two or three days a week trying to become a POET STAR WHO PLAYS FLUTE. Then in October 2019 I got a Section 8 apartment and the Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdown ended my performance career. But now I've got a computer and here's my book. I hope you enjoy this view of homeless life and are inspired or enlightened by my insights and poetic criticisms. I read at least 20 books per year and write a couple books of my own each year... so now my goal is to publish these first 74 books I've written over the past couple decades, then go back to performing as the Kung Fu Cowboy again. I've released a few songs under my artist name, "Kung Fu Cowboy." Check me out. Buy my books. Buy my albums. Cheer me on. My next goal is to live in a house that I own.