Just heard the news about Cap’ain Red, literally as his Undercut Your Uppercut was going up as the lead on Smoke Signals. I wrote him an email several days ago to let him know, but decided to surprise him instead. »

Deep in the bowels of sorrow, in the songs of the hard-laboring, slow-growing, painful life that is mortality, there's a concept shared among country and blues writers and musicians, called High Lonesome. »

A small dinner was set up for William Burroughs when he returned from England in 1974, at El Quixote, the funky Spanish restaurant in the Hotel Chelsea. . . My husband Gianfranco was invited, but instructed not to bring Renfreu. . . »

It’s a long road from a childhood in rural Michigan to being the sort of man who gets invited to a thirty-seven-course lunch. But, above all, a gourmand is one who is able to keep eating when no longer hungry, and a gourmand without a rich sense of the comic is a pathetic piggy,... »

There was something about the way the cow was laying in the Johnsongrass that piqued Terry Southern’s interest and made him laugh. The animal was just lying out there on its stomach, that hot summer day, its head on the dry scrub brush, a dazed, loopy expression on its face. »

FUCKED, indeed. This election was a perfect example of exactly what the Founding Faths feared the most about power-to-the-people Democracy, and has guaranteed to dramatically change the world we know and live in, into . . . into. . .well, a mantra to hope for the best, expect the worst, »

Back at the Café Au Go Go arrest in New York, Lenny had told a fantasy tale about Eleanor Roosevelt, quoting her, “I've got the nicest tits that have ever been in this White House…” The top of the police complaint was “Eleanor Roosevelt and her display of tits.” »

Sal screams, and slaps the knife out of her roomie's hand. Then pushes herself up off the bed, as Jill picks up the knife. By that time Sal, in a trail of flying blood, is stumbling out the door, calling for “HELP”, as she goes rolling off the porch into the snow... »

from SUICIDE NOTE FROM A COCKROACH The republican party / the democratic party / con edison general electric / gillete razor blades playtex general motors and all / those other deadly odors blessed by the daily news/... »

D'Army Bailey, a Memphis lawyer and judge who turned the Lorraine Motel into the National Civil Rights Museum, died July 12 at the age of 73. This excerpt about his relationship with Malcolm X is from his memoir THE EDCUATION OF A BLACK RADICAL. »

Once upon a time, technology was the answer, but unfortunately it was never the question. The question that was left out of the equation was How was the machine to ultimately avoid contempt for the inferiors it was serving? Without that question built into the equation the superiority of the machine would eventually lose... »

She began going home with the clients. Not to screw, or fuck, but just to not be alone. Just to save herself that ache, those solemn hours when it is not quite morning and yet not quite night. When everything hangs in the balance, when the ghosts come out to play. »

Between the surreality of pitching and the quagmire-dream state of La La Land itself, our protag is witness to a shocking nervous breakdown by an infamous screenwriting guru that will foreshadow the realization that he's so strung out by the hustle again that he's plotting to pitch Altman his projects in the middle of... »

"You're gonna get fucked on the first one," he avuncularly explains to me. "You're gonna get fucked on the second one too. Then you're gonna get fucked on the third one. By that time, if you get that far, if you keep your mouth shut, they'll think you're a good fuck,... »

Though they probably don't have the balls to do it, the best opportunity Trump will ever have to be trusted by the great majority of Americans would be by using MLK's 86th birthday to name who’s really responsible for the assassinations of JFK-MLK- RFK, before bad-politics-as-usual buries the truth again forever… »

She promptly dragged him to the far blue wall, and chained him, facing the chamber, to the St. Andrew’s cross. Then she called in her fellow dommes, who traipsed in a great herd of clattering and stomping, some in corsets, some in lounge-wear, and attacked: Jeers and taunts and jabs, snickers and lowblows... »

  the illusion is that you are simply reading this poem. the reality is that this is more tha… Read the rest »

That night he was woken by her long nails scratching lines of blood down his stomach and across his groin, a violent gesture which she repeated even as she pulled him inside her, locking her legs around his waist as if she wanted to break him in two. For the rest of the night, she... »

The Tar Baby is an inanimate character from the 1946 Disney film, Song of the South, the animated segments of which are based on the Uncle Remus stories compiled by Joel Chandler Harris. Jim Dickinson, the godfather of postpunk mutant funk, was a long time Uncle Remus protege, and one of the last great... »

"In the cellar there was a restaurant with dancing and a Brazilian samba band, on the ground floor a French restaurant, on the next floor a soul food restaurant and blues bar, with Hazel Scott on the piano, and on the top floor there was a Russian nightclub called Chez Vodka, with a balalaika... »

On one of my birthdays, Girodias offered me an impromptu party at the Russian restaurant, ordering up chocolate soufflés and champagne, and telling the Russian orchestra to play any song I requested. Because he had no actual gift to hand me, Girodias picked up a wine glass and ate it, gazing into my... »

In a stroke of journalistic brilliance -- madness? -- Esquire magazine, sensing that the Democratic convention in Chicago might well be a historic event, invited three world-famous writers, all published by or associated with Grove, to cover the convention: the satirist Terry Southern, author of The Magic Christian. . .William Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch. . . and Jean... »

Like Afghanistan I’m full of corruption. My friend McGuane once said, ”I’d gladly commit a hundred acts of literary capitulation to keep my dog in Alpo. “ The little ones needed dental braces and flutes, cars and houses. Off and on I’ve had this dangerous golden touch like a key to a slot machine streaming 20-dollar gold pieces. It was so... »

At about six in the morning I really started cooking on the alleged “Manchester passages”. . . “. . . wan, and wholly bereft, she steals away from the others, moving trancelike towards the darkened rear-compartment where the casket rests. . . She gasps, and is literally slammed... »