William Burroughs Live - Side 1

The speaker discusses various issues, including a locked lavatory being used as an operating room, a doctor performing surgery with unconventional tools, the absence of Dr. Benway at a convention, a conversation about snakes and assassins, the trouble caused by people who can't mind their own business, the threat of Proposition 6 in San Francisco, and the dangers of fundamentalists. The speaker expresses strong opinions on these matters. A little short selection along the same lines from Naked Lunch. The lavatory's been locked for three hours solid. I think they're using it for an operating room. Nurse, I can't find her pulse, doctor. Dr. Benway looks around and picks up one of those rubber vacuum cups at the end of a stick they use to unstop toilets. He advances on the patient. Make an incision, Dr. Lemp. He says to his appalled assistant, I'm going to massage the heart. Dr. Lemp shrugs and begins the incision. Dr. Benway washes the suction cup by squishing it around in the toilet bowl. Nurse, should it be sterilized, doctor? Very likely, but there's no time. He sits on the suction cup like a cane seat, watching his assistant make the incision. You young squirts couldn't lance a pimple without an electric vibrating scaffold with automatic drain and suture. Soon we'll be operating by remote control on patients we never see. We'll be nothing but button pushers. All this skill is going out of surgery, all the know-how and make-do. Did I ever tell you about the time I performed an appendectomy with a rusty sardine can? Once I was caught short without instrument one and removed an uterine tumor with my teeth. That was in the upper appendix. And besides, the incision is ready, doctor. Dr. Benway forces the cup into the incision, works it up and down. Blood spurts all over the doctors, the nurse, and the wall. The cup makes a horrible sucking sound. I think she's gone, doctor. Dr. Benway, well, it's all in a day's work. He walks across the room to a medicine cabinet. Some fucking drug addict has cut my cocaine with sani-flush. Nurse, send the boy out to fill his Rx on the double. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll see some fabulous teenagers out there. Larry River's entourage. All right. Thank you for attending this final session of the NOVA convention. And I'm speaking on behalf, of course, of Dr. Benway. Dr. Benway, Professor Burroughs, and the NOVA establishment, in particular, the NOVA police and NOVA intelligence, which work together very closely, very closely indeed. Now, as you probably know, Dr. Benway was to have been co-chairman or chairperson, or perhaps chair-thing might be the term of choice, since with Benway, one never really knows exactly how the old cookie or the theater or the human condition is going to crumble. They'll crumble at will, we can rest assured of that. Now, Dr. Benway was unable to attend because he was detained in Jonestown for reasons which are not entirely clear at this time. However, we are very fortunate, very fortunate indeed, in having with us tonight the man of whom it is said by many in the know, who is the brains behind Benway, the eminence, the great grey eminence behind Benway. A poet and prophet, a man who prophesied Jonestown and prophesied Meli and the fascination of popular leaders and corruption, monstrual corruption in very high places, while there was still merely a gleam in the eyes of these perpetrators, great poet and prophet, and perhaps the most influential writer of our times, grand, groovy, and beloved, William Burroughs. Thank you. Well, I'm sorry that Dr. Benway can't be here in person, but he does send a message. I am a practitioner of medicine. I learn from my patients and my patients learn from me. I'm glad to report that everything is now well under control in Jonestown and I have a few more calls to make tonight. This is Kim Carson, Uncle Kess. The old man didn't seem to hear. He spoke to the air in front of him. Your hand and your eyes know a lot more about shooting than you do. Just learn to stand out of the way. His empty eyes, old, unbluffed, unreadable rest on Kim. City boy, did you ever see a dog roll and carry him? Yes, sir. I was tempted to join him, sir. Did you ever see a black snake pretend to be a rattlesnake? The scene flashed in front of Kim's eyes. Ellisor and Kim had chased and cornered a six-foot black snake. It was a fall day and there were leaves on the ground and the snake coiled itself, opened its mouth, vibrating the tip of its tail in the dry leaves. And both boys saw immediately what was happening. He's pretending to be a rattlesnake, trying to scare us off. How does he know not to do that? What do you think, Kim, the old man asked? Do you think he once saw a rattlesnake scare someone? No, sir, I think he just knows about other snakes. Kim, if you had your choice, would you rather be a poisonous snake or non-poisonous? Oh, poisonous, sir, like a green mamba or a spitting cobra. Why? I'd feel safer, sir. And that's your idea of him, feeling safer? Yes, sir. Is a poisonous snake really safer? Not really, but he must feel good after he bites someone. Safer? Yes, sir. Dead people are less frightening than live ones. Young man, I think you're an assassin. I want to be one, sir. He does make the grade. Now, this is the class of any major currency that would bring down the whole economic system. Watergate is bringing down image currency on a worldwide basis. Actually, get some bulldozers in here and clean out all this crap. Deal with us, Potter Future. See what we owe to old George, his slimy reincarnation of Eleanor Roosevelt. This is the space age. We are here to go, but there are those who want to keep us from going anywhere and make existence here insufferable in the meantime. Yes, this world would be a pretty easy and pleasant place to live if everybody could just mind his own business and let others do the same. But a wise old black faggot said to me years ago, some people are shits, darling. I was never able to forget it. Yeah, most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business because they have no business of their own to mind any more than a smallpox virus. The mark of a basic shit is that he has to be right. And right here we just make a diagnostic distinction between a hardcore virus-occupied shit and a plain mean no-good son-of-a-bitch. And some of these sons-of-bitches don't cause any trouble at all, just want to be left alone. Others cause minor trouble like barroom fights and bank robberies. To put it country simple, former narcotics commissioner Harry J. Anslinger diseased with an obligate shit. Jesse James and Dellinger and Billy the Kid were their sons-of-bitches. I guess this is the most directly political piece that I've written. It was written just before the vote on Proposition 6 in San Francisco. Proposition 6, as some of you may know, was a law put forward by someone named Senator John Briggs that would make it obligatory to fire any teacher who openly admitted to being homosexual or who said that homosexuality was a viable way of life. And this piece is called The Whole Tamale. Proposition 6 is obviously a spurious issue. What 6 pretends to be about and what it actually is about are as different as the conman's pattern in his actual hidden intentions. All right, Bible Briggs, by their fruit ye shall know them, and not by their alleged intentions. Make no mistake, Proposition 6 is a potentially deadly threat to all minorities. And Senator Briggs said it himself, I'm not picking on homosexuals only, I'm after the whole tamale. Well, I think it's about time that Neither Bryant nor Briggs and such people met up with their constituents. And here is Arthur Thom Rowe, T-H-O-M, Chairman of the White People's Committee to Restore God's Law, editor of a lurid tabloid called The Torch, published in Bass, Arkansas. And he's a good old boy, too. He's one of the finer men in Bass, Arkansas, an old Thom Rowe. After praising the courageous Anita, he gets down to committee business. The White People's Committee is not embarrassed to admit that we endorse and seek the execution of all homosexuals. God's law calls for the death penalty, but faggots slime the whole filthy lot of them. Now old Thom is just warming up. He doesn't stop there. Neither Briggs is after the whole tamale. He is also the publisher of a book called The Negro Beast. And his rag is replete with references to, quote, rabid, sex-perverted Jews. He's going to apply God's law to the Jews, the blacks, the Hispanics, and the Chinese. He's going to bit himself off quite a tamale. He's going to kill some of whom might even resist. In plain English, he's talking civil war. And what would the Russians and the Chinese be doing while the Army and the Navy and the Police Departments of America are fighting block by block through riot-torn, burning cities as power stations and reservoirs go up and guerrilla bands range through rural areas and arms port across the borders? Wouldn't this be a great invitation to invade the United States of America? Now, of course, Senator Briggs will say, it has nothing to do with nuts like Thom Robb, doesn't he? Wherever Briggs or Anita Bryant can find an audience to listen, you will find people in that audience who agree with Thom Robb. People will kill a queer for Christ stickers on their cars. These people are your constituents, Briggs. Without them, you would be talking to an empty house. Senator Briggs and people like him are appealing to the most ignorant, bigoted, and downright bestial people in this country. I'm not a politician. I'm not running for office. And I don't have to respect anybody's stupid opinions. Now, Briggs says homosexuals can't expect to be treated like normal people because they aren't normal people. Well, I say the same thing about fundamentalists. They can't expect to be treated like reasonable people because they aren't reasonable people. They're dangerous lunatics. And also, they are basically unreliable and dishonest. And they have a lot to do with these people. And I've never known a righteous Bible beller who wasn't a thief at heart. When you're doing business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing because his word isn't worth shit. Not with the Lord telling him how to fuck you on a deal. Fundamentalists are a menace to everybody on spaceship Earth. They should be segregated into nuthouse or encouraged to become snakehands. Get in a shipment of king cobras and black mambas and bushmasters and tiger snakes, you old boys, dig in and test your faith. In 1968, I wrote a piece called The Coming of the Purple Better One concerning a purple-ass baboon who runs for president on what seemed at the time an ultra-conservative ticket. Ladies and gentlemen, it's my coveted privilege and deep honor to introduce to you the distinguished senator and former Justice of the Supreme Court, Homer Mandrell, known to his many friends as the Purple Better One. No doubt most of you are familiar with a book called African Genesis written by Robert Ardray, a native son of Chicago, and I may add a true son of America. I quote from Mr. Ardray's penetrating work. When I was a boy in Chicago, the Sunday school of a neighborhood Presbyterian church, I attended the school. I recall our Wednesday night meetings with the simplest nostalgia. We'd meet in the basement. It would be a short prayer and a shorter benediction. We'd turn out all the lights and in total darkness hit each other over the head with chairs. Great fun, man. Mr. Ardray's early training tempered his character to face and make known the truth about the origins and nature of mankind. Not in innocence and not in age was mankind born. The home of our fathers was the African highland. On a skyscraped savanna glowing with menace. The most significant of all our gifts was the legacy bequeathed to us by our immediate forebears, a race of terrestrial flesh-eating killer apes. Raymond A. Darke, University of Johannesburg, was a strident boy from South Africa. He would prove the sudden ape to be the human ancestor. Darke put forward the simple thesis that man emerged from the anthropoid background for one reason only, because he was a killer. And he said that since we had tried everything else, we might, in last resort, try the truth. Man's original nature imposes itself on any human solution. The aggressive southern ape, sir, glowing with menace, fought your battles on the perilous belts of Africa 500,000 years ago. Had he not done so, you would not now be living in this great city, in this great land of America, raising your happy families in peace and prosperity. Who more fitted to represent our glorious Siamian heritage than Homer Mandrell himself, a descendant of that illustrious line? Who else can restore to this nation the spirit of true conservatism that imposes itself on any human solution? Actually, there can be only one candidate, the purple better one, your future president. Well, I think if Tom Rove ever got upon his white horse, he'd make Homer Mandrell look like a middle-of-the-road liberal. The aggressive southern ape, glowing with menace, may block your way to space. This is precisely his function. The human species is about a million years old, but only 20,000 years have really been accounted for. It's a long question mark. Perhaps a number of previous civilizations disappeared without a trace, destroyed by destructive use of a technology that could have led to the exploration of space. Instead, the human species reverted to its glorious Siamian heritage. It could happen again if we let that ape take the wheel. This time, we want the whole tamale. This is the NOVA Convention. Welcome to the NOVA Convention. This is a test. On tonight's agenda, in alphabetical order, will be William Burroughs, Don Sanders and the BBC Troop, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Allen Ginsberg, Ann Waldman, Ed Sanders, ladies and gentlemen, William Burroughs. Well, first I would like to express my appreciation for the artists and producers and helpers who made this event possible. And people have asked me what the whole NOVA Convention is about. And this is what it is about in very few words. This is the space age, and we are here to go. However, the space program has been restricted so far to a mediocre elite who, at great expense, have gone to the moon in an aqualung. Now, they are not really looking for space. They are looking for more time. Like the lungfish and the walking catfish, they weren't really looking for a new dimension, a dimension different from water. They were looking for more water. But some of them found that they had taken an irretrievable forward step and, for better or for worse, left their gills to their makers. And as we leave the aqualung of time, we may step into an epoch comparable to the days when the early mariners set out to explore an unknown world. I can see all manner of spacecraft, some of them obviously lethal, preparing to take off. Only those who are willing to leave everything they have ever known in time need apply. It is necessary to travel. It is not necessary. And becoming increasingly difficult to live.