Dear Alan Ginsburg Alan Ginsburg, I can never remember where I’ve heard your name always said twice, but for the longest time his name has always exited my lips in the double incantation, conjuring you up with a nod and a smile from whatever plane you now exist on. He had his strange ideas, but Alan Ginsburg Alan Ginsburg often appears like the grown up in the beat room, age has nothing to do with it, Kerouac and Cassady, his peers never seem to be very adult, they are eternal boys – Huckleberry Finns, but Ginsburg, he had a sense of time and responsibility. He was a documenter, a supporter, an intellectual, a poet. Ginsburg saw the value in the present moment, and for that I admire him – he was aware. The Ginsburg recordings from Dylan’s San Francisco and San Jose shows, backstage, at the show, interviews with fans, listening into Bob’s interactions, are a treasure trove of little snippets of conversation, letting us into the big secret that Bob and the beats were very much like all of us, talking about Marlon Brandon, incense and the same mundane shit we all do, just with a bit more style. We learn that Brando is just “a very plain Nebraska cat”, that the young Dylan could throw a temper tantrum with the best of them, shouting that “(he) didn’t want to see her!” trying to avoid a “Bonnie”, his friends insisting he remember that he told them to tell her that they couldn’t find him in some high-school high-jinx game of avoid the girl you slept with last night. Poor Bonnie, whoever you are. If you find yourself in need of some good company, a background buzz, admiring Ginsburg’s forethought in recording what he probably thought no one then would want to hear, but knowing in the future, after he was gone, there would be people who would dig being privy to these rooms at that time. Thank you Alan Ginsburg Alan Ginsburg may you glitter peacefully where ever you are!
Culture, San Francisco, Poetry, Music, Reviews, Short Stories and Life