William S. Burroughs is one of my favorite writers. I was introduced to him by reading Jack Kerouac's On the Road. That book, by the way, may be solely responsible for my decision to take writing seriously, but that's a tale for another time. After I'd read the parts about all of the weird shit that went on at Bill Burroughs's ranch, I had to look the guy up.
My first exposure was intentionally going to be Naked Lunch, but of course the nearest bookstore to me at the time (a Hastings in Hutchison, KS) didn't have it. All they had was Junky, but I wasn't complaining. I picked the book up and read the first 40 or so pages of it that night. I loved it. I'd never read anything like it, replete with it's vignettes of collapsed veins, rolling drunks in the subways, and trading illegal firearms for morphine. Not even On the Road, which at that time had pretty much been the sauciest, sexiest, drunkest thing I'd ever read, could touch it. By the time I'd put that book down I was a staunch admirer of the insanity that was Burroughs.
The gun thing was a huge part of the mythological persona of Burroughs. I tend to visualize the man in a dapper suit on a heroine nod with a shotgun cradled in his arms. If I recall correctly, in a previous post I mentioned that he shot his wife in the head during a drunken, high-out-of-their-minds game of William Tell. That actually happened. That incident, by the way, is probably the most polarizing aspect of Burroughs, because you either love him, hate him, or have never really read or heard of him. There are many out there who consider the man to be a murderer for what happened to his wife, Joan. I just listened to a documentary on Burroughs on the This American Life podcast. It was really good, actually. Iggy Pop narrated and John Waters and David Bowie made some appearances. One of the detractors said that the "artistic apologists" seem to overlook the fact that Burroughs killed another human being, if only accidentally, and that makes him a despicable killer. I'm not sure what to believe really, but I do know that I love the man's work. An exhibit of his art was held at the Arts Center here in Lawrence not so long ago, and the stuff was about the kind of crazy chaos you'd expect from the man. I was not disappointed.
There's a sort of correlation with the insane and highly talented American writer and the love of guns. When I think of such figures, I'm immediately struck with two who also happen to be a few of my favorite writers ever; Hunter S. Thompson and Ernest Hemingway.
Anyone familiar with these two will know that Thompson was a drug abusing lunatic and Hemingway was a manly alcoholic. They were both suicides in the end, as it turns out.
I guess it goes to show that inner turmoil, a propensity toward insanity, addiction, and the love of all things destructive are a perfect recipe for genius and an untimely end.
The last thing on the list for tonight, before I get back to typesetting, is the addition of tabs linking to the various pages on this blog. Those tabs can be found just below the title, so even I will be able to navigate to those pages! Alright!
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