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BURROUGHS_LOST

                                             January 12, 2022

On the occasion of William Burroughs
death, there was a smattering of            The "noise" list, the internal
comments in a discussion group I was        mailing list for KZSU DJs.
frequenting at the time, including one
woman who remarked:                           Later shut-down by station
                                              management to keep the
   "Good riddance."                           volunteers from colluding with
                                              each other too much, I suspect.
From this, I think we can safely
assume that she was someone who
doesn't look kindly on guys who
shoot their wives in the head and    The Burroughs apologists at wikipedia
get away with it.                    kept insisting on calling this an
                                     "accidental shooting"-- I kept
There were some points I             pointing out we couldn't *know* it
thought to make about this,          was an accident.  They eventually
but I don't think I did-- in         shut up when it was pointed out
effect my take on Burroughs          Burroughs was literally convicted of
is that he really *wasn't*           homicide in Mexico.
any sort of nice guy, and
later attempts at turning him
into some sort of hero or
role model really didn't make
any sense.

   There wasn't any reason to take
   anything he said at face value--             Back in the 1940s, the
   to my eye, he was spinning all               nascent beats would do
   the time, one eye always on                  improv theatricals in John
   manipulating the suckers, which              Vollmer's apartment, and
   is to say, you and me.                       one of Burroughs favorite
                                                characters was a female
   Doesn't Burroughs seem a lot like            european con-artist intent
   someone was always asking himself            on taking the naive
   "What would Doctor Benway do?"               Americans rolling in cash.
   Doesn't that fit?

   Burroughs was a guy with a pretty
   slimey head, but what he had going
   for him as a writer was the
   willingness to let that slime ooze
   out on the page...

    NAKED_LUNCH
                                    (I've covered most everything I wanted to
    BURROWING                       say already, in bits and pieces, here
    BURROWING_LOWER                 and there...  so let's close with this
                                    small directory of Burroughsism...)
         GANGSTERISM

                                 LOOKING_FOR_JOAN_VOLLMER
          BEAT_BREAK                            TRACERS
                                 ESLICED.html">NOVA_EXPRESS_RESLICED
                                                            ZEN_FLESH

                                ROLLICKING_FUN_DISCUSSIONS
                                SCIENCE_AND_SANITY

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