Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (73 page)

Don't hear from Burroughs but was pleased he mentioned I named
Naked Lunch
(remember, it was you, reading the manuscript, mis-read “naked lust” and I only noticed it) (interesting little bit of litry history tho). James Wechsler has come out with his book
Reflections of an Angry Middle-aged Editor
where he excoriates me (maybe you too) for political irresponsibility and complicating up America with poetry. [Al] Aronowitz will come out soon I guess, I got mad at him for million mistakes, I straightened out a lot of them (mostly about me but some about others).

Well what am I living for? all I'm good for now is to graipe gripe gripe like this?—if I could only have a month alone, and smile and talk to myself quietly in French in a flowery sad Mexican midnight study, with a big garden wall with lizards maybe . . . by god I'll do it! don't tell anybody! Of course, in the Fall, new energy will come to all of us. I'm really afraid to go to India because we may be caught here in a big Red Chinese invasion and wind up emaciated torturees in prison camps because we won't admit to insects in the snow. Now, no, I'll buy a five hundred acre mountain and build a cabin on the southern slope of it. Tom Payne wants to go on a big gay Paris trip with Scott Fitzgerald women in the Fall, I dunno. I've been making wonderful tape recordings off the radio jazz, FM, and have hours of jazz. Just wrote a column on jazz for
Escapade
all about Seymour Wyse. Previous column about Zen, mentions you and Peter. But mainly, I'd like candlelight novel now. But, you know, it seems I'm getting to be like the old Kerouac of 1944, when Lucien and you talked and I just sat brooding, remember, because I was bored and confused. Maybe that's better for rest of my life that silly Zen Lunatic yakking on Brandeis stages I don't really mean anyway—yes—but I love you, Allen, don't bug me when you come back to New York about all your enthusiastic plans to go here, go there (like the fiasco of taking me to the Living Theater when I wanted to go hear jazz and I got in trouble with Butch [Frank] O'Hara)—just a gag—but forgive me and love me, if I seem not to share your particular enthusiasms, and those of poor dear Gregory, I just don't care the same way any more, I am going to become now a hairy loss old man with not-thoughts and no-talk almost. I'm trying to stop drinking—my soul is deeper than ever maybe because emptying—all you write in “Aether” is true and forever true. Pray for everybody, I guess. And Old Neal is out—wow—but I don't want to see him because, in the past he scorned me for being a drunken yakker, now he'll also laugh at me for making money at it (tho I know he has serious Jesuit undergarments where he knows I'm just a funny humble priest). But here's to our Birthday! Much love.

Come back soon

Ti Jean XXX

 

Editors' Note:
While Ginsberg was away, Kerouac continued to struggle with alcoholism. In July he went to Ferlinghetti's cabin in Big Sur to try to dry out once and for all. He was unsuccessful, but while in California he saw Neal and Carolyn Cassady for the last time.
Big Sur
is based on this period.

Allen Ginsberg [New York, New York] to
Jack Kerouac [n.p, Northport, New York?]

Sept 19, 1960
170 E 2 St NYC

 

Dear Jacky:

You home? You home? You home? Leave home again! Fly to the Congo! Rush to Tibet! Be with Cuba! Jump underneath Algeria! Flop on Taiwan! Screech to a stop on the Isle of Weight! Warble!

Well all's the same here, except Huncke moved up to Hotel Belmore Lex and 25th St., but down on cocanyl intake to one bot a day and sold a story (Cuba) to Seymour Krim at
Swank
. Carl Immemorial Miel Solomon comes out weekends and so's stayed at my apartment drinking tranquillizers and talking all night, mostly complaints about his identity. I laid on him the fact that he is the one who is making up all these here identities but it don't seem to penetrate much. Anyway he's less violent than he was.

Thank you for the love of God which arrived by telegram from Frisco followed next day by a green pill from [Bob] Kaufman who lies upstairs but doesn't bother me, a pill he said they give to people the night before they go into gas chamber in Alcatraz, I sat down at desk 3 p.m. last Wednesday and did not rise except to pee till 9 p.m. Thursday nite, having typed up complete
Kaddish
manuscript adding in various Shelleyan hymns written in sob-racked exhausted trances, and took it to 33rd St. post office to mail to Ferlinghetti special delivery Saturday nite at 4AM, that's done.

Gregory in Berlin asks me should he come home? Bill writes he is sifting and panning thru cut-ups of his prose for the gold and joining them together with virus glue. I think he hasn't been laid so long he's going fruity . . . however latest letters are very sweet and kind, he even cut up and typed out some of my poems to show me how he's working. So Peter and I cut up some of our magic psalms to shuffle rearrange and send him. Just having a little fun mother.

 

“I went in—smelt funny the halls again—up elevator—to a glass door on a Woman's Ward—to Naomi—two nurses Buxom white—they led her out—Naomi stared—I gaspt—

too thin, shrunk on her bones—age come to Naomi—now broken in white hair—loose dress on her skeleton—face sunk, old!—cheek of crone—

Heaviness of early 40s and menopause reduced by one heart stroke—one hand stiff—a scar on the head, the lobotomy, her ruin—the hand dipping downwards to death—

O Russian faced, woman on the grass, your long black hair is crowned with daisies, the mandolin is on your knees

Communist beauty, all this summer promises to share its flowers everywhere you have your hand

Holy mother now you smile on one you love, your world is born anew, your children run naked in the field spotted with dandelions—

eat in the plum tree grove at the end of the meadow and play their games near the cabin of a white-haired Negro who shows them the mystery of his rain barrel—

sister of exile the new age is yours, your happiness is the Revolution and your hope is the only war no one will lose

Blessed daughter come to America I long to hear your voice again, remembering your mother's music, in the song of the Natural Front

O glorious Muse that bore me from the womb, and taught me talk and music—whose pained head gave me Visions—O mad hallucinations of the damned

that drive me out of my own skull to seek Eternity till I find peace for Thee—O Poetry!—and for all humankind call on the Origin—O beautiful Garbo of my Karma, your face of old movie stars—white flowers in your hair—

now wear your nakedness forever, no Revolution might destroy this maidenhood—with all the teachers from Newark—nor Elanor be gone, nor Max wait for his specter, no Louis retire from his High school.

Back! you! Naomi! skull on you! gaunt immortality and revolution come—wrinkle cheeked, lip sure—and ashen eyes of hospital indoors, ward greyness on skin—small broken woman—

This come to you now?—what I'll be when I'm mad as your hair in future 90s, when I scream on the rooftops of Synagogues, bearded toward Heaven?”

 

So I sent all that to City Lights. I still have to assemble type all other poems—this is already forty pages, maybe I'll put two books out at once. Sent him “Laughgas” for
Beatitude
and crazy Orlovsky-Corso-me chain poem on the moon writ in Amsterdam. Peter's going out to take Laf to NY State Unemployment office to inquire about special part time jobs for him and Laughcadio is going along all dressed in brilliant black, agreeable, they're leaving door right in a minute.

I'm writing intro to [Ray] Bremser's book.

Took a lot more ayahuasca and realized I AM the emptiness that's movie-projecting Kali monster on my mindscreen, projecting mindscreen, even. So not scared anymore. But I still can't stop the appearance of the fucking mindscreen, I mean I can't quiet my organism to total silence. I'll have to study yoga or something, finally.

If Castro pays, I will go for two weeks to Cuba late October to dig that revolution. My laughing gas uncle dentist who's a liberal but not a radical spends his vacations down there last twenty years just come back and says everybody is all happy and amazed and enthusiastic and big money revolution is going on, social progress, schools, works, etc. and U.S. newspapers are mainly full of shit. LeRoi [Jones] says same. Both agree big Marxist nasty enthusiastic mind-control is also going on, but isn't so mean yet as former dictatorship nor so savage when weighed against U.S. hysterical mind control. My book'll be done so I'll go on short weird Cuba trip and come back and write big revolutionary poem attacking Red China and U.S. and then go to India and shut up.

So that's me, bubbles. I read long sections of
Visions of Cody
to Stanley Gould who had a nervous breakdown in my kitchen due to excess goof balls and he said it was the finest thing he heard ever, even he stopped being mean to Neal. How's Neal? What happened? You saw him I heard from Whalen I think. I still haven't written him, tho I wrote long poem to/about him three years ago that I finally typed up this week. Is Neal just the same or soberererer?

Peter has been sad all week. Oh also he's making it with nice nineteen year old Janine [Pommy], sometimes I jump in bed with both.

Taking Lafcadio to see Marcel Marceau tomorrow night, pantomime at City Center. Going with Robert and Mary Frank. He's done with Babel picture almost, next wants to make full length. I said why don't you do
On the Road
? He said good idea but Jack wants to sell it to Hollywood. I said who knows. I saw
Subterraneans
it was no good. Why don't you give it to Frank free (on profit-sharing % basis) on condition he make a naked epic? Otherwise he wants maybe to do
Journey to End of Night
. Or write a script for a movie, new, for him.

[ . . . ]

Well, let's see. I have money. How're you doing, need a loan $2 bucks? Tell your mother you're the man in the moon. God I'm having trouble with Poppa over
Kaddish
he wants me to excise interesting parts about his own private life, about an affair he had with grocery man's wife twenty years ago. Doesn't even want to appear human. Well I'll excise. He's retiring this January and plans to trip to Paris in September. Also wants try mescaline. Wrote his doctor asking advice and a prescription for mescaline.

[ . . . ]

Lucien, he moved, same phone, Peter and Laf and I went over for huge days of painting his walls white. Then I went home and painted my apartment dazzling white too. All new and clean where I live with Chinese scrolls hanging on wall. Threw out TV set and a lot of other unworkable junk.

John Wieners much better lives with Irving [Rosenthal], wrote a book called
Jewels
. So we went to a party he all dressed up, over 8th St. Bookstore, he's so hard up, drunk there, loning like an elegant alcoholic, not the cockroach of last year, so he starts feeling me up, I drag him in the bathroom blow him, he's under the sink and can't even come. I say, “alright skeleton art thou not yet disillusioned with they orgasmal corpse?” He says “Long ago” and pulls out his false teeth and shows me his death's head. We sit laughing on the bathroom floor over our decaying bodies, me pointing to my balding skull. What a gas all this is! what a weird eternity we live in!

Peter moans, John isn't satisfied, May's the same, Irving longs, Bill cuts up, Gregory wrestles Berlin, Laf gets dressed, Janine she lays, Huncke hides, are you not tender today? Some more strange young spectral kids appeared on scene hang around 2nd Ave. and 8th St. broke near Jazz Gallery wait for Monk to walk up street to buy a paper and gape gently on'm. Peter met them while I was in South America, one's named Turk, one is Mickey, they read
Alice in Wonderland
and take ashmador powder you buy it in drugstore for asthma if you eat it you go blind, hallucinate cigarettes and doors, think you're walking on the street when in bed, they watch the weird, for twenty-four hours, then are OK again.

I have a 1½ foot long knee drum someone brought from Africa, and play it well after two months practice at odd moments every day. Has a nice sound, best drum I ever had near.

OK I'll shut up.

Love

Allen

 

 

Jack Kerouac [Northport, New York] to
Allen Ginsberg [New York, New York]

 

Dear Allen: (Sept 22 60)

Yes, just got back, big TWA Ambassador flight tax deductible with wine and champagne and filet mignon and Chinese Tapei ambassador's wife in front of me etc. New York seems cowed and nasty after anarchistic crazy freewheeling Frisco. Saw everybody. Neal greater than ever, sweeter by far, looking good, healthy. Walks to work in Los Gatos now as tire recapper—would be willing to play Dean in
On the Road
movie, anything better than tire recapping. SP railroad won't take him back but want ME back (Al Hinkle reports) (because all read “Railroad Earth”, forgetting what a lousy brakeman I was). Much to tell you about Neal and everybody. Gave Neal money in crisis, he very glad now, crisis was solved and he got fine new rubywine Jeepster with good motor—gave him 100—(for rent) (he was fired). He got new job he walks to. Had love affair (I did) and almost got married with his mistress Jacky [Gibson] but I was drunk. Prior to drunkenness I was alone three weeks in woods in fine quiet fog with animals only and learned a lot. Have changed, in fact—Am quieter, don't drink as much, or so often at least, and have started new quiet home reading habits. For instance had 11th edition of
Encyclopedia Britannica
mailed to me (35 bucks whole price) 29 volumes containing 30,000 pages and exactly 65,000,000 words of scholarly Oxford and Cambridge prose (65 million that is) and last night stayed up till 5 A.M. amazed in that sea of prose—looked up Logia where Jesus is reported to have said (on old Egyptian papyri dating to 2nd century) that one must not cease seeking for the kingdom and WILL WAKE UP ‘ASTONISHED' in the kingdom! (just like my bliss-astonishment of golden eternity faint). Apocrypha, Shmapocrypha!—Thought I'd also look up bats as there was a bat in Big Sur kept circling my sleeping bag every night til dawn, was referred to
Chiroptera
(
chirop
is Greek for “hand,”
tera
“wing”)—found what amounts to a small volume of complete technical explanation with pictures and diagrams. This is the prize of prizes! I've been waiting for this 29 volume edition since I first saw it age sixteen in Lowell High Library. It's possible to make complete studies in Theology of ALL religions, for instance, or study of all Tribes in the World, or all Zoology, all History to 1909, all Campaigns till then in detail, all Biography till then, all Mysticism, all Kabbalas and Shmabbalas, all rare scholarly treatises on Old and New Testaments, all about Buddha, Hindus, rare exotic Malayan religions, visions, all Ornithology, Optometry, Pasometry, Futurometry and in other woids ALL. I simply can't believe such an Ocean as the Pacific any more'n this encyclopedia—so my new reading habits: also bought fifty bucks worth of books from Ferling and have those (Pound, etc.)—and soberly studying now, writing new book (started anyway)—doing exercise (headstands, snake pushups, bent bow and knee bend and breathing)—feeling fine—lost ten or fifteen pounds—only got drunk once since home two weeks. Wanted to get new novel in or underway before calling you but made a false start. Had to keep Henri Cru away who went and got himself job as electrician in Northport (!) and wanted to inundate my life as usual with all the ridiculous trivialities of his fancy—so he mad. But I can't worry about every tom dick and harry who used to leave me alone to write
Visions of Neal
at my lonely happy rolltop desk in the early fifties.