Are You Cute?: A Visit with Allen Ginsberg by John Langsdorf ranks up there with the best writing ever on New York, or for that case, on the American literary scene.
He captured the 'uncool' so well.
Fame was a poisoned well.
Bold, hay?
You may remember the novel The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carrol and the movie based on it that Leonardo Di Caprio starred in.
There's none of that sentimental crap in John's work.
Just read Down at 410 to appreciate that.
When the going gets hard, he just keeps on writing.
Cold turkey, roast turkey, it was all the same to John.
As the editor and friend of the writer says, 'in another world, he might have been the one calling the shots.'
Content with a packet of Pall Mall and perhaps a six pack of beer, John Langsdorf plied his trade. Even the shame of poverty couldn't get in the way of his hard-hitting prose.
Mark Rogers said he decided to edit out some of the more vitriolic stuff in this volume.
To that, I say, I'm not racist, I just hate every nationality equally.
And I really think that rang true for John who didn't have time for snowflakes.
So in some ways to see parts of his writing cut out is sad, but alternatively, says the editor, you can read it in John's earlier books.
I really wasn't offended by his racist slurs.
It was the editor's original intention of leaving them in to show another layer of the writer.
The editor still believes John wasn't a racist which I wholeheartedly agree.
Maybe if he was a 'bigger' writer, he'd go down in history as a bigot, perhaps, but without the might of The New York Times 'Best Seller' or polite company behind him, John Langsdorf 's work barely rates as a footnote.
Who am I to judge?
I'm just a humble reader.
His work does grow on you.
It grabs you by the balls and it won't let go.
Months later, the words are still seeping up from the gutters.
That's how powerful our man is.
In many ways, you could say that John was a victim of circumstances.
Who hasn't been caught between a rock and a hard place?
But you don't see too many people rise above it with such certainty of his destiny.
'I am poor, fucked up and totally addicted, but I am writing.'
And writing he did.
Kudos to Mark Rogers for generating interest in this writer.
He dreamed himself out of squalor by writing about it.
Now that's transcendental.
Perhaps it's a clue as to why John religiously churned out the 'word' which we are reading posthumously.
He wrote to contain those black dogs that were constantly gnawing at his ankles.
Writing gave him the dignity that his life couldn't.
That he didn't give a fuck what people thought of him, he was written off a long time ago. But he harbored a little secret, it was his writing world, a place where he could finally find solace.
And may you find that solace also in Johnny of West New York, not only a memoir but a dreamscape of possibilities.
His was not a conventional life.
'Pop kicked off when I was six. He died alone, sailing into a Sunday dawn full of morphine.'
See, I told ya!
He captured the 'uncool' so well.
Fame was a poisoned well.
Bold, hay?
You may remember the novel The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carrol and the movie based on it that Leonardo Di Caprio starred in.
There's none of that sentimental crap in John's work.
Just read Down at 410 to appreciate that.
When the going gets hard, he just keeps on writing.
Cold turkey, roast turkey, it was all the same to John.
As the editor and friend of the writer says, 'in another world, he might have been the one calling the shots.'
Content with a packet of Pall Mall and perhaps a six pack of beer, John Langsdorf plied his trade. Even the shame of poverty couldn't get in the way of his hard-hitting prose.
Mark Rogers said he decided to edit out some of the more vitriolic stuff in this volume.
To that, I say, I'm not racist, I just hate every nationality equally.
And I really think that rang true for John who didn't have time for snowflakes.
So in some ways to see parts of his writing cut out is sad, but alternatively, says the editor, you can read it in John's earlier books.
I really wasn't offended by his racist slurs.
It was the editor's original intention of leaving them in to show another layer of the writer.
The editor still believes John wasn't a racist which I wholeheartedly agree.
Maybe if he was a 'bigger' writer, he'd go down in history as a bigot, perhaps, but without the might of The New York Times 'Best Seller' or polite company behind him, John Langsdorf 's work barely rates as a footnote.
Who am I to judge?
I'm just a humble reader.
His work does grow on you.
It grabs you by the balls and it won't let go.
Months later, the words are still seeping up from the gutters.
That's how powerful our man is.
In many ways, you could say that John was a victim of circumstances.
Who hasn't been caught between a rock and a hard place?
But you don't see too many people rise above it with such certainty of his destiny.
'I am poor, fucked up and totally addicted, but I am writing.'
And writing he did.
Kudos to Mark Rogers for generating interest in this writer.
He dreamed himself out of squalor by writing about it.
Now that's transcendental.
Perhaps it's a clue as to why John religiously churned out the 'word' which we are reading posthumously.
He wrote to contain those black dogs that were constantly gnawing at his ankles.
Writing gave him the dignity that his life couldn't.
That he didn't give a fuck what people thought of him, he was written off a long time ago. But he harbored a little secret, it was his writing world, a place where he could finally find solace.
And may you find that solace also in Johnny of West New York, not only a memoir but a dreamscape of possibilities.
His was not a conventional life.
'Pop kicked off when I was six. He died alone, sailing into a Sunday dawn full of morphine.'
See, I told ya!
