Benicia handyman, poet Peter Bray thrives after company life – Occasions-Herald
Benicia resident Peter Bray rose to some notoriety after one of his songs, “Laid Off American Man,” was featured in a Herb Caen column. Bray wrote the song in 1994 after being fired from Bechtel.
BENICIA >> 20 years ago, Peter Bray left the corporate world with a song in his heart. It brought him a ton of fame.
Yes, the longtime Benician wrote and recorded a song after being fired from Bechtel. It was titled “American Man Fired”. He sent a cassette copy to legendary San Francisco Chronicle gossip columnist Herb Caen, who reprinted the lyrics and called Bray “my hero today.”
“He gave me the top six inches of it,” said Bray, a cheerful handyman and regular of the Benicia poetry group.
there is more Within a week, Bray said he received a postcard from well-known folksinger Pete Seeger in upstate New York that read, “I’ve just read Herb Caen. How can I get a copy of your song?” I thought, “How cool!”
Two weeks later, Bray received another message in the mail from Seeger asking for a second copy.
“I was like, ‘Okay, he liked it, he sends it to Arlo Guthrie, Arlo records it and I’m free at home! I’m rich and fat and famous!” “
Alas, “It didn’t happen,” giggled Bray. “It’s fun, but I fix toilets.”
Bray, 71, still enjoys poetry and songwriting. He’s been at it for more than 40 years, filling scraps of paper – and later notebooks – with rhymes about his children and other things that piqued his interest. He still performs at open mics, where he uses humor to connect with listeners.
“If you can get the whole room to shut up and go quiet because you’re ‘really speaking in a low voice and bring it up’, you can get the whole gathering of 30 people to move with you ‘ Bray said. who has self-published three volumes of poetry since 1972. “And they slide in something funny and make the same 30 people laugh, that’s just a kick in the butt!”
A native of Walnut Creek, Bray earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966. He worked in the defense industry for a number of years designing missiles before becoming a freelance designer and graphic artist. Eventually he got a job at Bechtel in San Francisco, where he was a graphics manager. After 10 years he was fired during a major downscaling.
“So I wrote Laid Off American Man,” said Bray, who has been involved with poetry since the early ’70s. The song begins like this: “I make windows, I make floors, I make hallways, I make doors, I do everything I can, I’m a fired American!”
“I had a cassette, I had a cover and I sent it to Herb Caen,” Bray said. “And about a week later I called one of my designers (at Bechtel) after I was gone and said, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ He said, ‘PR’s on alert.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about ?” He said: ‘You didn’t see Herb Caen this morning? You better.” So I went down to Raley’s and got the Chronicle, opened it up and it put all my lyrics in it.”
The last verses read: “I was the executive vice president of BD, with a mission statement and a cell phone, a company watch and a company loan, I was a vice president in charge of BD. Now I’m a gardener in the promised land, all my tools are in a one man van, now I make windows, I make floors, I make hallways, I make doors, do everything I can, I’m a laid-off American !”
Not everything Bray writes or performs is funny. “Weeping at Starbucks” conveys his pain in the hours after his daughter’s death from Crohn’s disease in February 2012. Here we go: “After house coffee and apple sales and ten thousand messages of condolence via email, cell phone, cards and letters, it boils down to this to cry at Starbucks while the soft chatter and overheard music compete.
What drives his creativity? “It’s therapeutic for me and it’s self-sustaining,” Bray said. “And maybe… it’ll be helpful to someone else.”
Contact Tony Burchyns at 707-553-6831.