Eyewitness Glimpse as told to Jessa Lynn and Lee Kidd
December 1994
[reprinted from SQUAWK Magazine, Issue #54]
One of the great poems of the 20th century, no doubt, is Ginsberg's Howl. It was a wonderful break that they got when they were indicted on the West Coast for obscenity. Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti's City Lights Bookstore got such attention. Ferlinghetti had gotten some deal to have the book printed in London. When the boat carrying this cargo of books returned stateside, it was stopped at the docks in San Francisco. One of Comstock's heirs read the book, got an erection, and figured, "This damn thing is no good."
Now Comstock was an interesting guy. He started out in the church and religion, somewhere in New England, though he functioned mostly in New York. Through some manuevering, he got himself appointed chief inspector of mail at the U.S. Post Office. I think he also got Margaret Sanger arrested for having condoms and contraception information sent through the U.S. mail. In any regard, the word "comstockery" was coined after him and the influence he had asserted.
But there's a long history of pornography in America, which goes back to the 18th century. It started with English imports–like Fanny Hill was a best seller for l00 years. Generally, they were morality tales, where a reformed prostitute would tell about her life, mostly in words, no photos–until they started to make them in this country. The farmers really liked them, so peddlars would travel the countryside to sell their wares. This has been a tradition in America for a couple centuries.
One story that particularly amuses me is about the painting, "September Morn," which depicts a woman with wings in Victorian dress, bending over, with her breasts hanging out. In time this painting was to become the logo of some soft drink company. But since there were no art magazines then, they used to sell prints by displaying them in store windows. So some book print dealers on 5th Avenue put the original of September Morn in the window. Then they hired a couple of newsboys to look at it, and made a call to Comstock to tip him off, "There are these kids looking at a woman's breasts up on 5th Avenue." Comstock wankd to protect children from such pomography. So he sent the cops over, and they arrested the picture. This got incredible publicity; it became the largest selling print in American publishing history–and they had planned the whole thing. I don't think they had planned it with Howl, but maybe City Lights Bookstore owes its continued success to all the fuss that was made over Howl, because it became Ginsberg's bestseller.
So it just shows to go you, that one man's porn is another man's fortune. It's sort of manipulating the media to do that; instead of having the media manipulate you. Of course, today you'd probably get sent to jail for ten years, or you'd have to be in jail before your trial. Of course, there's porn–and then there's porn. We only like the even-all-around pom. When the pages start to stick together, you got to throw them out. You can get videos now with sex abstractions, hard core videos in New York, and that's the end of the print media. Though Bonnie Ross is printing Victorian porn–so there's still a market for it.
Ed Sanders and I were talking last night about our upcoming schedules. We're going to Sweden for a week in January; two stops, one in Stockholm, and other in Guterburg, a big industrial town on the southwest coast. We're going to read as the second-billing for a Swedish production based on Ginsberg's Kaddish. I said, "Do you want me to center it around the play?' The producer of this play said, "No, just be very 'Beat."' So I can do whatever I want. I guess he's fascinated with American culture. Well, theyll have a funny idea of what 'Beat' is by the time I get through.
This past spring, Ed and I went to a Beat Festival in Italy. It was held in a town called Cessena, sponsored in part by the University of Bologna, near the Adriatic Sea, in a really beautiful part of Italy. There were only a few live acts, mostly film, but it was a big deal that ran for a month. I hadn't been there for a long time, and really got to see again how great most the Italians are to be with. When they played the Internacionale, the young people got up and stood at attention, with their hands on their hearts. They also played that at someone's birthday party. We had a good time. The FUGS were there. The band, in all, is five people, which includes three good musicians, Ed, and me. From Italy, we went on to Scandinavia.
The FUGS have been playing through the eighties; we reconstituted in '84, and have played out occasionally since then. We're out on CD now. The first reissue is called "The FUGS First Album," with a lot of material that was never released. Ed did a wonderful history of the FUGS with pictures in it. The second one is out too. Then there's "Live at Woodstock." The CD's have kicked up a lot of interest, so we might be doing more European cities because they've expressed an interest.
Ed and I each write our own songs. Not counting the re-releases, I'd say there were seven or eight total, which came out sporadically; first in the sixties, and then again in the eighties. Although Ed did a couple of single albums, and I did a single album in the early seventies. The solo album, called "Tuli and Friends," includes "The Belushi Blues," released by Vanity Press; it's a mix of some material I did 25 yrs. ago, and the rest is from the new album. The button on the front cover says, "Have you hugged your country today?
We were going to play at Woodstock in Saugerties this past summer, but MTV bought the rights to film the day that we were going to play, and they didn't want us. I wonder why! So instead we went to this wonderful place nearby, the Byrdcliffe Bam; it's an art colony, in a redone 100+ year old barn. We've played there many times, and always have a great time. We sell out there because it only has 150 seats.
Oh, here's a good story about MTV. There was a place called the Mud Club, down on Reed Street; a wonderful street, mentioned in Gore Vidal's novel, Burr (Burr is Vidal's best novel, I think. It's on Aaron Burr, who had his office on Reed Street. Now a knitting factory has just moved to Reed Street, a few blocks away.) So when The FUGS were reconstituting themselves in '83, we played at the Mud Club. MTV was just getting going too, so it was a big musical event. They came around, and interviewed Ed. Then they tumed to interview me; I was wearing a button which said, "Fuck the Draft n So the cameraperson said, "Would you mind taking that button off?" I said, "Yes, I really mind." "Well, then I don't think we can do the interview." I said, "Well, suppose I cover the filthy part," so I put my finger over the word, "Draft." For a moment, she was puzzled, having to think, and finally said, "No, I don't think that would work either." Being puzzled is really good, I think, but then again I was never on MTV.
Now I have a weekly public access show in Manhattan, called "Revolting News," with Lannes Kenfield. We do political commentary; it runs at 2:30 a.m. What I plan to do next to punish the audience is to read my novel, The Fucks, which will take a long time; but it has lots of illustrations and songs in it. Some people say the novel is a spin-ff of my cartoon series, "The Old Fucks at Home," inspired by Stephen Foster. He was only paid $75 a song while he was alive, and he died an alcoholic on the Bowery. I'm also on another access show, which is a call-in. My stuff is so popular and entertaining that people get all riled up, and we never know what to expect.
Lately, I've been doing a cartoon series on journalism, which is more collage with text, and less drawing. Here's one, "Einstein Never Wore Socks," it's really more a poem. Here's another on World War I, "How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print." Here's one on Louis XVIII that Daumier drew, with the king shitting money into a corrupt regime–that lithograph got Daumier imprisoned for six months.
These other cartoons explore various takes on history, or the official historical record. Like, did you know about this group of a couple of hundred Irish immigrants who came to America during the Civil War–they were put on a train, taken to some island, put in uniforms, and sent to war. What a welcome to America! Now with the Mexican War–this was about the same time as the potato famine in Ireland. The Mexican goverment convinced some recent Irish immigrant-volunteers to desert somehow; the whole story isn't told very clearly. But they deserted. The ones that deserted before the war, didn't commit treason. The ones that deserted after the war started, were hung the day after they took Mexico City. (They were about to take Mexico City too, but the peace treaty was signed, so they couldn't take it. The generals were there, so that was it.) These deserters were hung by putting them on donkeys'backs, then pushing the donkey away, and letting them hang by their neck. They had been promised land, and so on, by the Mexicans, but you have to wonder if there isn't another side-maybe some of them thought they were on the wrong side, you know what I mean? They said that they felt maltreated in the American Army, but I wonder if there was more to it than that, because the Irish traditionally side with the underdog. More recently, they 've had a very strong connection with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.
Also, I think most Americans don't know that about the time they stole 3/5 of Mexico's land with people like Sam Houston and Davy Crockett at the Alamo, who stood up to Santa Anna's Army. Well, these guys were outlaws, and Santa Anna was the of ficial Mexican Army. There's enough guilt to go around. Just because you have some trouble with Texas, you don't go in and steal 3/5ths of the country, do you? Is that the answer? The whole question is the nature of the state. You know, the Mexican state was probably not that great either. So here were two people, both supposedly playing by the same rules--namely the rules of state authotity and private property. So according to their rule, the United States was just a thief and liar. But for all we know, I doubt it, but there's a vague chance that the U.S. administration was better in these territories. It's not that clear.
This story also really gets me. The Spanish-American War in 1898 was practically Hearst's war. After two issues in his paper, he got what he wanted. See, Hearst had sent Remington to do drawings of the Cuban rebellion against the Spanish; when the Cubans thought they were going to become independent with th U.S. as their great defender. So Remington telegrammed Hearst, "There will be no war, I wish to return." Hearst replied, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war." Hearst denied he said that later, but who wouldn't deny it! I found that there were two issues in Hearst's Journal, that said, "How do you like the Journal's war." From this, the circulation went up to 400,000. But they took that out after two days; maybe somebody told them it might not be the right thing to say. There was a huge anti-imperialist sentiment that developed then in America, which you rarely hear about now.
But even now with the present Defense Department, there's talk about scaling down our weapons manufacturing. Somebody suggested to just give them their salaries, and not have them build any more weapons; at least we could save money on the raw materials, and we wouldn't be killing people. Much like with farming subsidies. When the GOP talks about building up defense, I have to wonder why do they call it defense? Why don't they call it murder? When I was a kid, there was still a War Department, which became the War Office, which is still pretty offensive.
Last year I was collecting the word "fuck" in different languages. I looked it up in one of the Indian languages, maybe Nepalese. All they had was "when snakes fuck," they didn't have anything for humans. Well, snakes have the incredible activity. Sometimes they do it en masse, like thousands of them come together, and form one huge ball, and they make sounds like growls too. A lot of the snake species do it like that.
Hey, we should do a Boston gig some day, and come to Naked City!