Poet Jesse Bernstein was a latter-day Beat, a true outsider and “difficult person” who nevertheless drew people to him. In his own words, he was “unemployed until the age of six; since then he has worked as a seeing eye dog for the spiritually impaired and as an emergency storm drain.” Empathetic and probing at the same time, this portrait is true to the complexity of its subject. Bernstein survived polio as a child and mental institutions as a young adult; later his peripatetic life gradually took him north along the Pacific coast from Los Angeles to Seattle. Along the way he wrote songs for the Holy Modal Rounders, opened shows for Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney (he was the Godfather of Grunge), and recited poems with a mouse in his mouth. With an astonishing range of archival material and an engaging supporting cast of former collaborators, friends, and ex-wives, this is a deep dark look at a troubled American iconoclast.  TBW