I saw Allen Ginsberg for six bucks at my alma mater, Michigan State University's Erickson Kiva, on November 19, 1986. My ticket stub tells me it was a Wednesday.
My motivations boiled down to four lowest common denominator reasons. Well, first,paying six bucks to see Ginsberg was infinitely cheaper than the $15, $20 and $25 tabs that major bands were already demanding.
Second, because it might break up the week nicely. Wednesdays around any college town aren't less flat, gray and predictable than Wednesdays anywhere else across the Midwest. Whatever else I'd planned, I could skip it without guilt. DAMN THE TORPEDOES! LOCK UP YOUR SONS, DAUGHTERS AND EVERYBODY ELSE WITHIN REACH! SCREW NIGHT CLASSES, TERM PAPERS, AND GRADES! ALLEN GINSBERG'S COMING! DO I NEED ANY OTHER REASON?
As a Clash fan, I felt naturally curious, because he'd graced “Ghetto Defendant,” this dark, slithering beast of a track that provided – for me, anyway – one of COMBAT ROCK's lasting highlights, although I could understand the furrowed brows and frowns flashing from the fans expecting LONDON CALLING (PARTS 1-10).
Thinking back on it, hearing Ginsberg intoning those ponderous couplets over the now-statutory Clash-goes-to-Kingston backbeat made an initially disorienting experience for my best high school buddy and I (though we weren't expecting Parts 1-10, believe me).
I mean, here's the band that gave us “WHITE RIOT, AH WANNA RIOT, WHITE RIOT, A RIOT OF MAH OWN”, and now, they've got a Beat poet, OF ALL PEOPLE, reciting...
“Dark necropolis...” Cue the spindly reggae beat: BOINK-A-BOINK-A-BOINK, BOINK-A-BOINK-BOINK!
“Do the worm on the Acropolis...” BOINK, BOINK, BOINK-A-BOINK-BOINK! “Slamdance the cosmopolis...” BOINK-A-BOINK-A-BOINK, BOINK-A-BOINK-BOINK!
“Enlighten the populace...” BOINK, BOINK, BOINK-A-BOINK-BOINK! And so on, and so forth...you get the idea. How much sense did it all make? Not a lot, probably, but the novelty factor was enough to carry it over. (My buddy, who would soon make the transition from punk and New Wave to amps-go-up-to-11 poodle metal was less moved...that's showbiz, I suppose.)
Mind you, I wasn't expecting to hear that lyric performed live, but getting involved with The Only Band That Matters surely boosted those credibility points.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot reason four: I thought, “Kerouac's dead, William Burroughs is scaling the precipice of age, Gregory Corso's in Obscurityland opening for Nico somewhere, how many Beat poets are alive and working these days?” That was well down my list, but you know what I mean.
Overall, Ginsberg's night out proved to be a pretty entertaining experience, one mixing the “I'm here to shock ya, maaaan” type of stuff -- he did a song whose chorus ran, “Everybody's a little bit homosexual, whether they like it or not” -- and his more serious expressive efforts. About his Buddhist affectations, I couldn't have cared less, but that wasn't really the draw, anyway, so none of that mattered.
He read quite a bit from THE WHITE SHROUD, his latest 'n' greatest collection of the time, and proved handy with the harmonium, as well, even if his musical abilities began and ended with one, two, OK, maybe THREE chords flopping back and forth. As I recall, he ended with an extended improv of a William Blake poem, which had the crowd singing, “And all the hills echo'd...and all the hills echo'd...”
But that was just the proverbial frosting on the experiential cake, if you like: my favorite memory happened well before Ginsberg took the stage.
The afternoon of the gig, Ginsberg did a book signing session at Jocundry's, one of my hangouts of the time, one of countless indie bookstores consigned to the memory hole. Instead of Howl, or any other Ginsberg tome, I decided to bring my copy of COMBAT ROCK -- 'cause he's on “Ghetto Defendant,” right?
Now, just try to imagine this scene, if you will -- all these Ginsberg wannabes, stuck in the larval worship stage, clutching those books they'd read once a year (at best) -- and I'm cradling a Clash album under my arm.
OK, the line snakes down the block, then dribbles down, bit by bit, we're finally in the store, and it's my turn to proffer my object to the great man himself...
...who starts to frown, because the ballpoint pen he's using isn't making a great impression on the glossy cover.
He tells me, “Hey, man, I can't write anything with this.”
He started handing my album back, which prompted me to say something like, “Hey, man, you're the great Allen Ginsberg, you can do anything!”
I get another blank squint, and I'm thinking, “Ah, shit, here we go -- I'm gonna get 86'd from this place, without even the signature I came to get!' But somebody from Jocundry's saw what was going down, and slid over a fountain pen, yielding the desired Pavlovian response: "Allen Ginsberg: 11/19/86."
As soon as I passed the cover, I grabbed some Scotch tape, and triumphantly slapped it on the appropriate spot. The “19” is now a “9,” but other than that...time has been pretty kind to the rest of my souvenir.
Clash Book Dispatches
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ALLEN GINSBERG, THE CLASH & ME