Thank The Supreme Court And Ferd For This Post (contains explicit language)

Gentle Readers,

Given the subject matter in this blog, we tried to find a nice ‘lunatic’ image but ended up with an image of a ‘luna kit’ and since it is a cool image we may as well just go with the flow and take what our graphics department comes up with!

Why a lunatic? Ferd is quoted here, that’s why the lunatic!

Ferd does not have a computer and does not even have an email address. We told him we were writing about him several times but he has never taken the time to look at the screen to see what we say. That said, let us consider that the Suprme Court recently took all penalties off of using foul language and determined that is is perfectly legal to write, type or speak the words ‘fucking asshole‘.  We find this reassuring to know that when we are pulled over for yet another traffic violation, we are allowed to exclaim, “Thanks a lot, you fucking asshole” to the ‘officer’ who has cited us.

Thanks to our cultural heroes, it is now legal to curse in public and it is with the blessings of the High Court that we relate the following:

One recent hot, sunny Summer day, we found ourselves at the door of Ferd’s domain. Outside and sitting in the sun with no water and not enough leash to reach the shade was his cat, Willie. After pounding on the door, waking and berating him, he unhooked Willie and took her inside (“her” because Willie is short for Wilhelmina). Willie flopped on the floor, exhausted. We questioned Ferd on the lack of water for Willie, at which point he filled a bowl and Willie immediately started to lap it up. Feeling sorry for poor Willie, Your Humble Narrator looked at Ferd and called him a fucking asshole.

Many people would take humbrage or offense to such a remark but Ferd took it in stride. In fact, he complimented me on it. He recounted a day, some 40 years earlier, when Your Narrator was with a group of school friends and Ferd. Pot was pretty unavailable and five of us stood in a circle while the bowl was filled with our last remaining stash. Putting a light to the bowl, we took the first toke and passed it to Ferd, who immediately dropped it on the ground, where the remains could not be recovered.  Everybody cursed him, even himself. This incident had long been forgotten, albiet in the the mind of Ferd. He recounted the occasion and how we had called him a fucking asshole forty years earlier.

“You know,” said Ferd, seemingly amused at being insulted, “Do you remember that time I dropped the bowl?”

“No,” we countered, “and what does that have to do with anything and why can’t you take care of your cat?”

Blowing off the bit about the cat, he related the story of the dropped bowl. “You sound exactly the same calling me a fucking asshole today, as you did when you called me a fucking asshole forty years ago. I can close my eyes and it is like going back in time.”

Great, we thought, a fucking asshole in a timeless warp…or ‘Ferd…An Asshole Through the Ages’…

We thought this was humorous enough but, more recently, we were moved to refer to Ferd as ‘an imbecile’ and he objected strongly to the remark. He had his reasons. He said that being an imbecile was a part of normal human development and that he had passed that stage.  As he put it, “You are born, and from the time you ‘come out of the shute’ you are an imbecile. Then, later you develop into an idiot, until you become a moron. These are the stages of a child’s brain development. I read it in a book!”

We are not sure what book Ferd had his nose in that time – or what he had his nose in before he looked at the book – but  we actually searched the internet to see how he could have come up with such a classic way of distinguishing between inbecility and idiocy. Being a master of both, we almost hoped to find something to support his jive but could not find a single thing to back him up.

He must be a moron. 

 

Beatdom Books, Exclusive Pics, Edgar Allen Poe and Other Things

     Readers, Tweeters and Brain-Feeders,

     At left you see an exclusive photo of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs.  It was taken by affable filmmaker Jerry Aronson, who brought us the wonderful movie, The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg.  Jerry, in his kindness, allowed us to use five rare photos (four previously unseen in print) to illustrate the review of his DVD re-release of the work, which include an extra DVD with tons of great material – a review of which will be found in Beatdom Issue Nine, The Drugs Issue.  Look for Issue Nine and the review next month.  Also see www.allenginsbergmovie.com

     If you have been on the Beatdom website, you will know that we are celebrating the Fourth Anniversary of Beatdom, the world’s most popular Beat-themed literary journal.  We are also celebrating the birth of Beatdom Books,  a new publishing concern which will be publishing books by literary gadflies Spencer Kansa and David S. Wills, who will both publish novels on Beatdom Books this year.

     Kansa’s offering,  Zoning, will be a welcome addition to the book collections of fans of William S. Burroughs.  Burroughs, in fact, praised the work by Kansa and even provided him with a photo for the cover, which we will be using.  Kansa’s voice, though new and original, channels some of the old, guttural Burroughs panache in it’s own way.

     When we say “we” in this case, we are not referring to the ‘editorial we’ (as used in The Big Lebowski) but the “we” as in David S. Wills and myself, Your Humble Narrator. 

     Mr. Wills has spent three years in Asia, literally sweating over his long-awaited ‘asian rum diary,’ The Dog Farm, which is sure to win him a whole new cadre of Korean critics.  Mr. Wills and myself will be partners in Beatdom Books.  Having spent a drunken fortnight in discussion of all things written and worldly with Mr. Wills last August, we found him to be a most agreeable and far-sighted man, and we are happy to form this new company with him.  He even gave me a hot tip on an asian casino stock which has taken care of my real estate taxes for this year and the next.  That is a good partner.  Cheers, David!

     Now we get to the ironic part.  In digging around the grey matter, looking for a snappy title for this blog, we hit upon the word ‘beat’ and thought we would use a line from Edgar Alllen Poe’s great story of terror, The Telltale Heart.  From the bookcase, we plucked a copy of The Assignation and Other Tales by Poe.  The book is a Claxton Edition,  printed (perhaps) in the 1800s by Belford, Clarke & Company.  There is no year of publication in the book anywhere.  Belford, Clarke was a Chicago-based company but a tiny note in print says the volume was printed by Trow’s Printing and Bookbinding Company of New York.  It may be valuable – perhaps for it’s place in print history.  Though not having exhausted the internet with a search as yet, this brings back memories of last Spring, when we tried to find the value of a couple copies of The Outsider, a hand-printed literary journal published in New Orleans in the early 1960s.

     Google led me to an article on a film, The Outsiders of New Orleans: The Loujon Press, made by Wayne Ewing in 2007.  The article led us to write an email to the author, who happened to be David S. Wills.  While the value of The Outsider (Issues 2 and 3), has yet to be determined, the idea was to sell them and clear some shelf space.  As it happened,  we were invited to write an essay for Beatdom and have been a regular there ever since,  becoming Assistant Editor while working on Issue Eight – The Sex Issue.  When the book collection started, we never considered what trouble it would be to get it out of the house.  Now it is growing organically, with books holding our own work taking up even more space!

     Irony is the way of the world and it always is amazing to see how one thing can lead to another.  A year ago, serious writing was a thing of the past.  Within the last year, we have published in three issues of Beatdom, wrote requested material for a live, naked performance celebrating women Beats, Lit Undressed, held in Omaha, NE, and have embarked upon a new endeavor in the world of publishing.  This being our 54th year on this sphere, we are happy with ourselves and with you,  Kind Readers, for your continued support!