Bad day for beatniks (that means all of us)

Yeesh. First Harvey Pekar goes, and now comes news that Tuli Kupferberg, the writer and poet and anarchist and guiding spirit of The Fugs and so many other vital artistic movements and moments has passed away at age 86. In the picture at left, that's Tuli at right, with Fugs co-founder and all-around polymath Ed Sanders ("a saint and a genius"—Robert Christgau), who still breathes, I'm happy to say. Some of you may remember the bit in Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" that goes "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer." That was about Tuli. I often think about him, younger then, and the alleyways and firetrucks of a vanished New York, and it always makes me smile to remember that Tuli lived through that and eventually got to forge an existence that was both insane and somewhat, well, celebrated. He can be seen cavorting and declaiming throughout Dusan Makavejev's immortal WR: Mysteries of the Organism, perhaps the only film sufficiently radical and free to contain him, as it were.I met him once, when he appeared on a public-access television show I had some small involvement with in the '80s, Beyond Vaudeville. It was something of a postmodern freak show, and he knew it, and didn't much care; being a professional freak was part of his job, such as it was. This was a guy who kind of redefined the whole "if I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere" ethos, inasmuch as he ever considered it; in a sense, he lived his whole life in the role of the New York that can't be tamed by real estate moguls and hypocritical puritan politics. God rest his soul, and I wish I had bought him a beer. I'm sure many others did, eventually. 

Comments

[Ben Sachs]

A friend of mine recently told me about a You Tube video that Mr. Kupferberg made in the last year or so. In it, he showed a picture of Hermann Goering and delivered the quote "Whenever I hear the word culture I reach for my gun." Then he put down the picture and said, "Whenever I hear the word gun, that's when I reach for my culture."

A fine truism. May he rest in peace.

[Grant L]

Insane and anarchic, yes indeed, and at the same time wonderfully charming and goofy in the very best sense of the word. I put on the CD reissue of the Fugs first album tonight and had plenty of giggles at the assembled snippets of his personal worktapes that close the CD out: "Hyyypothalamus, Hyyypothalamus, Hyyypothalamus, THAT's the gland for me!"

[The Jake Leg Kid]

Have you ever noticed that bad people (and I don't mean bad in the Cramps "Bad Music for Bad People" sense but rather bad in the world is objectively better off without them sense) never seem to die in pairs or in threes the way people who bring some enlightenment or pleasure or beauty to our lives do?

[Rob]

Indeed Jake: reggae legend Sugar Minott also died over the weekend at only 54.

[Chris O.]

I'll never forget, about fifteen years ago, I was helping one of my college music professors catalogue his scores, books and records. Among all of the cerebral modern classical vinyl I stumbled upon a record by The Fugs. I asked him about it and he said "Oh yeah, The Fugs. They're great." At that moment, another professor -- a prim & proper, classy 50-ish female pianist -- walks in to ask him something, but he stops her.
"Hey... you wanna hear 'river of shit?'"
"No, thank you."
"All right... how about 'Boobs A Lot?'"
"No, that'll be fine."
The look on her face was priceless. Then it was back to business. I don't want to read too much into it, but it was actually a profound moment for me.

[Glenn Kenny]

So, to update. Harvey Pekar, Tuli K., and Sugar Minott constitute the Departed Trio of the Good. And I saw while I was on the treadmill that George Steinbrenner just kicked it. Hmm.

[Chris O.]

Well, you know what they say, these things happen in infinities.

[Rob]

Glenn, you've been corrected from beyond the grave: http://comicscomicsmag.com/2010/07/time-capsule.html.