Poet Harry Scifres Robins at Third Thursday Poetry
By Blake More
Point Arena Third Thursday Poetry presents a virtual Third Thursday Zoom Poetry reading at 7:00pm on Thursday, November 18. This month features San Francisco Poet Harry Scifres Robins, with open mic to follow.
Harry S. Robins (born November 28, 1950), known as "Hal", is a man of many talents in the visual, literary and performance arts. As an American voice actor, Robins is best known for his vocal work in the Half-Life series of computer games, and has made a return as the voice of "Tinker" in Dota 2. He is also a prominent member of the Church of the SubGenius as Dr. Howland Owll. In that persona he voiced the narrator in Arise! The SubGenius Video and made brief appearances in Grass. His official title within the Church of the Subgenius is "Master of Church Secrets."
As a radio personality, he can be heard on KPFA FM on a show called 'Puzzling Evidence' that started back in 1982. He describes the show as “deranged “edits” [that] segue into a cascade of echoing glossolaliac madness, the voicing of lyric ruminations from the free-falling brains of disintegrating personalities. And some people, demented individuals, obsessively record every word and squealing sound effect. Of course, you may just hate it."
Robins has his own podcasted live radio show on Radio Valencia.FM in San Francisco. The show has a national audience which listens live (10PM Friday nights PST to 1:00 AM Saturday morning) but may be downloaded at any time from the Radio Valencia Podcast Page: http://www.radiovalencia.fm/podcasts/?show=ask%20dr%20hal.
As a screen writer, Robins co-wrote the film Kamillions with director Mike B. Anderson, in addition to playing Nathan, the Wingate family patriarch, he also played the dangerous, though benevolent mad scientist. He appeared on a television show, The Conspiracy Zone, for two seasons in 2002, on now-defunct TNN, in which he was the announcer and made several on-camera appearances. He also appeared as one of several underground comic experts in the documentary film, God's Cartoonist: The Comic Crusade of Jack Chick.
As Dr. Howland Owll, Robins contributed to The Book of the SubGenius and Revelation X: the "Bob" Apocryphon. His short story "The Smoker from the Shadows" appears in the anthology Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob". He also contributed to the SubGenius comic book, "Bob's" Favorite Comics (a rarity, of which most copies were burned in a warehouse fire). In addition, Robins' work appears in the 2006 SubGenius book, Psychlopaedia of Slack: The Bobliographon.
Robins is also know for his Ask Dr. Hal! Show, a live night-club show which begun in 1998 and continues to this day.
In addition to these many talents, Robins is also a renowned graphic artist, painter and illustrator. His exhibition Dragonolatry in 2996, curated by the Fuse Gallery in New York City, led to his inclusion in the international exhibition, Draw which traveled to countries around the world and last exhibited in the Museo de Ciudad de Mexico.
His comics and cartoons have appeared in R. Crumb's Weirdo magazine and various comic books, including Legal Action Comics II and Alien Apocalypse 2006. Many of his horror comics were anthologized in Grave Yarns. He also wrote and illustrated The Meaning of Lost and Mismatched Socks published by Frog, Ltd. (a division of North Atlantic Books), which also published his book Dinosaur Alphabet. His work also appears in popular trading card sets, including Dinosaurs Attack by Topps, and Tune In For Terror from Monsterwax Trading Cards.
To watch or participate as an open mic reader, please email blake@snakelyone.com. Third Thursday Poetry Zoom continues to be supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.
Third Thursday Poetry Zoom made possible by the Arena Theater and continues to be supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.
