Not Another Rock ’n’ Roll Poet

Toward the end of the 1980s, Richard Meyers found himself looking for work. It was a familiar situation. Over the years, he’d been a stock boy at Macy’s, a door-to-door magazine subscription salesman, a shelver at the main branch of the New York Public Library, a taxi driver, an office temp, a mail sorter, a longshoreman, a construction worker, and a clerk at various bookstores up and down Manhattan. Jobs had been plentiful and rent was cheap, so he never stuck around for long. His decade as a rock star, with occasional writing and acting gigs, was the lengthiest tenure of employment he’d ever had. But in 1984, he gave that up, too.