Always cheers me up when one or two of these get in the media, reminding me that I was once an eager beaver little hipster in various loops, although not a major player.
The Telegraph Saturday magazine has a Flashback feature with a big photo of Mike Horovitz and Allen Ginsberg taken in 1965. I had met, and come to know a bit, Ginsberg six or seven years earlier when he passed through Oxford, and Mike a year or two before that when he had treated me kindly spotting a likely lad. Ginsberg was a charming, kind-hearted and very intelligent man, far too bright for example to try his luck with non-homosexual admirers.
By the time of the Roundhouse gig mentioned in the copy with that photo I was quite busy with other things, but I went to the gig, arriving late. Ginsberg was onstage when I arrived bawling at the top of his voice a line from one of his poems: "F*** me in the ass!". Tsk, I thought, Allen's still at it... Also in the copy is a reference to the Beatles who fancied themselves as hip. Lennon is quoted as hissing disapprovingly at the naked Ginsberg: 'You don't do that in front of birds.'
Tsk. Narrow little provincial mind, no class at all (fair amount of talent though).
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>> The Telegraph Saturday magazine
9 May, not the one from last Saturday.
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Have heard of Lennon........
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>> Have heard of Lennon........
Yeah, well, you may be quite young and not very literary.
Mike Horovitz was in the running for Poet Laureate a couple of years back and I tried to promote him on this site. He wasn't a real front runner though. Ginsberg was tremendously famous back in the day, and gave many readings in London and elsewhere of his main poem 'Howl for Carl Sandberg' usually known as 'Howl'. Along with others he was known as a 'beat writer'.
You probably don't know who William Burroughs was either. Read The Naked Lunch if you can stomach it. It will make your blood run cold. A little dated now, but only because those people's stuff has entered the language.
Tchah! Ever heard of Jack Kerouac and his novel On the Road? Just the thing for this site I would have thought.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sun 17 May 15 at 22:23
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On the Road is in my to-read bookshelf...spotted it there yesterday when looking for one of the six missing items I referred to in the other thread.
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"Just the thing for this site I would have thought."
Not for the zero tolerance to driving and drinking brigade. Mind you Kerouac eventually succumbed to booze I think. He probably enjoyed his life though. The bit he remenbered anyway
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>> those people's stuff has entered the language.
Remembering a minor argument here a couple of days ago, I'm not certain what the language should be called. American probably. In Horovitz's case, English.
RP: On the Road is a good read, and Ginsberg and Burroughs both appear in it under pseudonyms. It's not great literature though, slapdash in style. The beats in general were scornful of anything resembling pedantry. As for driving drunk at 100-plus through garage forecourts in stolen Cadillacs and so on, 'drunk' didn't begin to cover it... Yee-hah, doubledy-clutch, doubledy-clutch (yes, that's how Kerouac spelt it!). Neal Cassady, the real-life model for Dean Moriarty, the talented driver in on the road, was married and I met his widow briefly in London.
Burroughs, who didn't regard himself as a 'beat' writer, was the nearest thing to a 'great writer' I've ever met. He isn't everyone's cup of tea though, controversial life and controversial as a writer, cat lover, gun freak and of course junkie. People of moralistic outlook see him as a 'bad man'. But I knew him a bit and he didn't seem bad to me, quite the contrary indeed. He was horrified by the heroin habits acquired by some of his admirers and wrote a piece in Transatlantic Review urging them not to. For what it was worth!
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 18 May 15 at 00:49
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Spotify has a number of beat poet albums, and I listened to the man himself doing a 30 minute version of Howl the other week. I don't know exactly when it was recorded. The audience seemed to like it but I found it hard work.
There's also an album called something like The LSD Voices, with the usual suspects like O'Leary whacked out of their heads giggling and babbling for 45 minutes. I stuck that one too for reasons I don't understand myself.
They don't make records like that any more.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Mon 18 May 15 at 06:52
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>>
>>
>> Burroughs, who didn't regard himself as a 'beat' writer, was the nearest thing to a
>> 'great writer' I've ever met.
You, Tarzan? :)
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Any discussion of the Beat Poets and the Beat Generation should include a mention of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a great exponent of dark humour in his writing. His press published Beat writing, including Howl, which, with its publisher, was the subject of an obscenity trial. The hugely publicised case, which was thrown out, brought Ginsberg and the other Beat Poets to a much wider audience than might otherwise have happened.
It was Kerouac who coined the term "Beat Generation". A major literary movement in the States and beyond. A reaction against Modernism as represented by writers like T.S.Eliot.
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"On the Road" is a happy book but doesn't have much else going for it. As far famous people go, Joe Farman, who went on to discover a hole in the ozone layer, was a school contemporary; as was John Quinton, who did well later as boss of Barclays Bank and was knighted but then (I believe) rather badly. "Dis" Disley was a messmate in the Army. He could only strum a few chords on the guitar at that time and I got the shock of my life a few years ago, when he performed on stage locally with Stephane Grapelli and Didier Lockwood.
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Famous old-boys:
Pope Adrian IV
The Zombies
Stephen Hawking
Sir Tim Rice
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My school has a mixed record on old boy clerics. It didn't produce a Pope and Saint Henry Walpole was put to death for his Catholic faith in 1595, but it did go on breed a number of Protestant bishops. In other fields, Nelson went on to do well in the Navy. James Brooke ran away but ended up as Rajah of Sarawak (and possible model for Conrad’s Lord Jim).
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>> My school has a mixed record on old boy clerics. It didn't produce a Pope
>> and Saint Henry Walpole was put to death for his Catholic faith in 1595, but
>> it did go on breed a number of Protestant bishops. In other fields, Nelson went
>> on to do well in the Navy. James Brooke ran away but ended up as
>> Rajah of Sarawak (and possible model for Conrad’s Lord Jim).
The ONLY person of note from my old school, is the recently released from jail, phone hacker Andy Coulson.
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I didn't realise you were Essex man Zero. I nearly bought a house 2 minutes walk from your school.
I was in the same form as, and sometimes shared a desk with Lord Pannick (or Dave, as we knew him). Alan Davies (comedian) was there after I left, and Wikipedia lists a few other famous people but none are household names. Another form mate was a solicitor called Henri Brandman who has popped up on the news a few times when defending sports and entertainment slebs (Jim Davidson, Nigel Benn, Fashanu, Rooney, Sheringham, Ince, Michael Barrymore).
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>> I didn't realise you were Essex man Zero. I nearly bought a house 2 minutes
>> walk from your school.
Essex boy from '58 to '71
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Sportsmen mainly.
Cricketers Hedley Verity and Brian Close. Rugby - Nigel Melville.
Singer Marc Almond is the other notable.
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I don't have any famous friends
Quite a few contemporaries from my old school are reasonably famous...Bradford Boyz Gramer Skool. I hated school. Really really hated it. One of the happiest days of my life was when I left. Never been back. Refused to join the Old Boys Association. As for school reunions, you gotta be joking.
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Geezers from my schools lean toward the infamous.
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>>Bradford Boyz Gramer Skool.
I might have gone there but failed the entrance exam for which I was entered as an insurance against failing the West Riding's grammar school selection. By then WRCC had turned away from an eleven plus exam, instead continuous assessment was used across what would now be year six. Managed to scrape through that.
Bradford has an impressive list of alumni though:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Grammar_School#Alumni
The equivalent girls school gave us Barbara Castle.
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I shared classes with some of those impressive aluminiums for several years
They might even have bought cigs off me during break time
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Rudyard Kipling easily the most famous of the alumni from one of the schools I attended (it changed its name though between our respective bouts of porridge).
As for my other school, nobody of note really (it's only 100 years old). But it's heartening to see the old(ish) traditions being upheld in recent years (with extreme apologies for linking to the Daily Fail, I shall forever shut up about others doing the same):
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-488510/Eton-boys-taken-hospital-rugby-game-punch-state-school.html
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My primary school had three brothers called Gibb. I think they turned out as musicians of some sort.
Also, years after I left, a lad called Rattle.....but we don't talk about him !
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Gerry Cottle ran away from my school to join the circus.
And John Major left early before joining another kind of circus!
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I can't think of anyone I was at school with who is now famous or notorious, but since I went to eight schools in various places it's possible there may be some. I met my famous friends during my brief and disgraceful sojourn at university, and later in London. Ginsberg came to Oxford in 1957 or 58, and stayed on the floor in the Christ Church rooms of an American friend, a Marshall Scholar doing a second or third degree after Harvard. He was and still is an academic, the son of an academic, of Southern plantation gentry extraction (North Carolina).
In London I sought Burroughs out in the sleazy hotel he stayed in. He was only too happy to have people to talk to and smoke dope with. I used to get him dope in the East End. Like Ginsberg he was a kind man and too intelligent to get heavy with non-homosexuals. Later he found some gay young hipsters in Cambridge and I didn't see him so often. But he remembered me.
It was one of many privileges in an undeserving life to have met these people, and I value it greatly.
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>>I can't think of anyone I was at school with who is now famous
I looked at Wiki and made no real progress,
>>
>>...... or notorious
>>
Francis Robert George Henry James 'Flossie’ Forsyth
Was in my year for a few weeks before going to another school.
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I must have gone to the wrong school, I have no famous friends only one called Lud.....
Pat
PS I put petrol in Gary Linnekers car once while he sat posing in the driving seat, does that count?
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>> no famous friends only one called Lud.....
Faugh! Enough of your flattery Pat! I was never famous.
Many would say I was a groupie really, although that would be a bit harsh. Didn't stop Herself from calling me one though a few years back. Of course she regarded the 'famous person' concerned as pretty appalling, which he was in some ways...
(Can't help wondering whether FMR was a Stalky type, a Beetle type or the other bloke type. No need to doubt that he was horrid to teachers though).
:o}
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I was the repeatedly expelled type.
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There was a cat at my last school, Bulfield by name, a contemporary of mine but not an intimate, who got 10 wickets at Lord's (only against the Oratory though).
He was or became captain of the school, but no one minded because he was a) personally inoffensive and b) a sporting legend in local terms.
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Damn. Old thread suddenly resuscitated, didn't notice the date.
AC, on the one hand he who loses posts, can also raise others from the dead. :)
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>> Rudyard Kipling easily the most famous of the alumni from one of the schools
>>
United Services College, Westward Ho! wasn't it?
Stalky & Co., one of my favourite childhood stories.
I didn't realise you were a military man, Alanovic ?
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Think the only famous one from my school was the guy in my tutor who went down for murder after a fairly high profile case
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>> >> Rudyard Kipling easily the most famous of the alumni from one of the schools
>> >>
>>
>> United Services College, Westward Ho! wasn't it?
>> Stalky & Co., one of my favourite childhood stories.
>>
>> I didn't realise you were a military man, Alanovic ?
>>
I was told that the school used to be called Imperial Service College, it changed names and moved sites between Kipling's days and mine, and it didn't have a military connection any more in my day. Doesn't get more tenuous really, but for even greater tenuosity I could annoy AC by letting on that I knew John Lennon's best mate's son when I was a nipper and we used to go and spend weekends at Lennon's mansion in Sunninghill when he wasn't there. Never got to meet him myself sadly.
I have a relative who is very senior in the military at the moment, my sister was a Captain years ago, but I was always too lilly-livered to join. Not my bag.
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Hang on, no, it was Ringo Starr who was my mate's Dad's mate. Show how much I cared. Although Lennon owned the mansion in question before Ringo did. This place:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tittenhurst_Park
My fondest memory of the place was finding an abandoned and derelict old red lorry in the woods - spent hours playing on that. Far more important to me at the time then some soppy pop star. Although I remain grateful to Mr Starr for his hospitality, obviously!
Last edited by: Alanović on Wed 20 May 15 at 12:17
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Oh, the edit limit. SHOWS how much I cared. THAN some soppy pop star.
I can't type.
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>> an abandoned and derelict old red lorry
>>
>>
Abandoned when they had the better idea for a yellow submarine.
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>> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tittenhurst_Park
>>
>> My fondest memory of the place was finding an abandoned and derelict old red lorry
>> in the woods - spent hours playing on that. Far more important to me at
>> the time then some soppy pop star. Although I remain grateful to Mr Starr for
>> his hospitality, obviously!
>>
There is reference in that link to an abandoned gipsy caravan being found after 40 years. Would that have been your lorry - or no?
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A friend of mine went to school with the original Milky Bar Kid. That's about as close as I've come to kow towing with the great and good.
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My late father in law went to school with Captain Birdseye, so there :-Þ
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Sounds suspiciously fishy to me.
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You've fingered him there, Dave.
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>> You've fingered him there, Dave.
Arrrh Matey.
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>> You've fingered him there, Dave.
Any more like that and he will get battered.
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>> My late father in law went to school with Captain Birdseye, so there :-Þ
What plaice was that?
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And what stream was he in?
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>> And what stream was he in?
Whichever it was he was Floundering. But then it's all a matter of scale.
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Is he your sole claim to fame?
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>> And what stream was he in?
The salmon ladder, to maintain the codology...
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>> >>
>> The salmon ladder, to maintain the codology...
>>
That's a red herring.
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>> That's a red herring.
Forgive me if I'm wrong RO'R, but aren't you a Kipper?
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>>Forgive me if I'm wrong RO'R, but aren't you a Kipper?
You're thinking of Zero, he's a Bloater.
:-0
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>>
>>
>> Forgive me if I'm wrong RO'R, but aren't you a Kipper?
>>
No, and I'm not a Sturgeon either.
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>> I'm not a Sturgeon either.
The caviar Scotnat... slippery little thing.
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I was waiting for someone to take the bait on your "Are you a kipper" question.
"Don't tell him, Pike".
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Nah, doubt it Duncski. The lorry in question was a sort of flat bed with cab affair, 1930s/40s vintage.
This sort of jobbie - www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/forum/phpbb/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6109 - don't think that would be confused with a gypsy caravan. Wish I'd found the caravan though, that would have a been a blinding discovery for a 9-year old!
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Famous friends - Armel Coussine
