Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born June 3rd, 1926, and died April 5th, 1997.
Today is his 88th birthday.
Ginsberg, along with Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, is a preeminent figure in the 1950’s Beat Generation counterculture — i.e. the Beatniks — and if you’ve ever wondered what, precisely, these women and men stood for, it is really just the garden-variety, hippy-dippy, neo-Marxist’s dogma. Indeed, the following and more famous 1960’s hippy movement was a direct outgrowth of the Beats:
They opposed capitalism — or what they called “economic materialism” — sexual repression, military force, and all the other usual suspects.
In 1956, Ginsberg, already semi-famous, was catapulted into the international limelight, when his wildly popular poem “Howl” first appeared.
“Howl” is a long, sprawling, loose, baggy monster, only partly intelligible, in which Ginsberg bemoans, among other things, “the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked …”
“Howl” is essentially a protracted denunciation of what Allen Ginsberg saw as the “destructive forces of capitalism” in the good old United States of America.
There is also the undeniable theme of non-conformity running throughout his most famous poem, and, for that matter, his entire oeuvre.
But the Ginsberg line I’ve always enjoyed most — and have quoted it here before — isn’t from “Howl” or any of his other poems. It’s from a 1986 interview he gave to the Newark Review. I trust you will find it as edifying as I do:
“We talk about our assholes, and we talk about our cocks, and we talk about who we fucked last night, or who we’re going to fuck tomorrow, or when we got drunk, or when we stuck a broom in our ass in the Hotel Ambassador in Prague — anybody tell one’s friends about that?”
The following questions were submitted to me some time ago by Mr. Maxwell Hoaglund, of Slagheap magazine, which unfortunately closed its doors before this penetrating Q & A appeared. I publish it here with Mr. Hoaglund’s full knowledge and permission. Q: Congratulations on the success of your novel More and More unto the Perfect Day. Where can we read an excerpt?
Ray Harvey: At my website.
[Editor’s note: You can also hear an excerpt here:
Q: If your finger isn’t typing, where is it?
Ray Harvey: It’s on the pulse of the people.
Q: Are you really a bartender?
Ray Harvey: Yes.
Q: What is your signature cocktail?
Ray Harvey: The Harvey Fingerbanger.
Q: It sounds fantastic.
Ray Harvey: You have no idea.
Q: What all’s in it?
Ray Harvey: Two parts finger, three parts banger. The rest is secret.
Q: Working in the food and beverage industry — has it made you into a foodie?
Ray Harvey: Perish the thought!
Q: Do you have dietary restrictions? Vegetarian? Vegan?
Ray Harvey: No, no, no. Not that which goeth into a man can defile him but only that which cometh out; for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Gourmandizing of any kind is one of the surest signs of stupidity. The food snobbery of the vegan or the food snobbery of the vegetarian or the food snobbery of the organic-only cult, no matter how shabbily dressed, is every bit as beastly as the food snobbery of the rich and famous.
Q: As an anti-environmentalist —
Ray Harvey: I’m not primarily an “anti-environmentalist.” I’m primarily an anti-authoritarian. Environmentalism is just one of many species of the genus Authoritarianism, nothing more, nothing less.
Q: As an anti-statist, are you stalking your victims? If so, doesn’t your tendency to shoot from the hip startle them?
Ray Harvey: On the contrary, it lulls them into a false sense of security.
Q: Your article on Postmodernism, including the comments, created a small sensation in our office. What, may I ask, is reality? Can you prove existence?
Ray: Reality is existence. And existence is that which exists. Reality is that which is. The only alternative to existence is non-existence. But non-existence does not exist. There is only existence. In the words of Victor Hugo: “There is no nothing.” Regarding whether we can prove existence: yes. Proof, by virtue of what it is, assumes existence. How so? Existence must necessarily come before proof, because of what proof actually is: i.e. the preponderance of evidence which admits no other alternative. Evidence means that something exists. The very proof of existence is existence itself, to which there is only one alternative: non-existence. But non-existence does not exist. Only existence exists.
Q: Where do thoughts go when one is not thinking?
Ray Harvey: Where does the wind go when it’s calm? Said Voltaire.
Q: Who or what have been your biggest literary influences?
Ray Harvey: Karl Shapiro, Dostoevsky, Blood Meridian and Suttree [by Cormac McCarthy], Nine Stories [by J.D. Salinger].
Q: More than once, you’ve been accused of declaiming, as you’ve also been accused of ribaldry.
Ray Harvey: Paraphrasing Nabokov, Conventions and cliches, particularly of the sexual variety, breed remarkably fast: the blotchy buttock, the bulbous breast, the baggy balls, phony moans of bliss, the endless talky-talky of dick this, ass that, vagina this, oral that — it’s worse than primitive: it’s boring. The lack of style in these discussions of various copulation techniques is enough to wilt the most tremendous of boners.
Q: What is the real difference between Democrats and Republicans?
Ray Harvey: There is no real difference: the difference is purely superficial. Death by taxation, or death by so-called tradition; death by property expropriation, or death by middleclass morality. Take your pick.
Q: I see —
Ray Harvey: But I’d like to say a little more about that, if I may: if you’re going to call yourself liberal, or if your going to call yourself conservative, fine. At the very least, though, have the decency to refrain from calling yourself a proponent of freedom. Freedom is one thing and one thing only.
Q: Yes?
Ray Harvey: That absence of compulsion. Freedom does not does not guarantee wealth. It does not guarantee success. It simply means that you are left alone. Freedom means no entitlements, no minimum guarantees, no help (or hindrance) at all, no public education, no “free” health care, no drinking laws, no illegalization of drugs, and so on.
Q: What exactly do you mean?
Ray Harvey: I mean that everyone believes in freedom — until everyone finds out what freedom actually means. Then no one believes in it. Freedom does not mean “freedom until it comes to legalizing drugs.” Nor does it mean “freedom until it comes to doing away with speed limits.” It does not mean “freedom until it comes to recycling.” It does not mean “freedom until it comes to a woman’s right to decide what happens to her own body, and what lives off that body.” Freedom does not mean “freedom until liquor stores are open on Sunday.” It does not mean “freedom until it comes to no drinking-age laws.” Freedom doesn’t mean “freedom until a war breaks out, at which time you can lawfully be drafted.” None of that is freedom.
Q: What is justice?
Ray Harvey: Justice is the legal recognition of the fact that each and every human being, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, color, class, or creed, is individuated and sovereign, and no human or government institution may therefore infringe upon another’s property or person.
Q: Why is justice important?
Ray Harvey: The path of the just is as a shining light, which shines more and more unto the perfect day. But what is the alternative? Only injustice. We are each born free. Freedom is a birthright.
Q: Gordon Gano once said “Happiness is a word for amateurs.” Do you think that’s true?
Ray Harvey: No, I do not.
Q: What is happiness? A chocolate turtle?
Ray Harvey: Yes.
Q: Would it be fair to say that you see life as a funny but cruel joke?
Ray Harvey: No, it wouldn’t fair. That question has the unmistakable shimmer of inanity. Life is neither inherently silly, nor inherently angst-ridden. The only alternative to life is death. I suppose you could say death is what gives life meaning in the sense that death is what life constantly strives against. But it’s not the other way around: from the perspective of the dead, life obviously doesn’t carry any particular relevance. I think you may be confusing me with the walleyed Existentialist Jean Paul Sartre, or one of his ventriloquist dolls.
Q: Where is The Good located?
Ray Harvey: The Good ultimately resides inside the human brain, which is conceptual by nature and operates (therefore) by means of choice. There can be no good nor evil if there is no choice. Thought is not automatic. Thought requires effort; it requires an act of will. Quoting the psychologist Rollo May: “When we analyze will with all the tools that modern psychology brings us, we shall find ourselves pushed back to the level of attention or inattention as the seat of will. The effort which goes into the exercise of will is really effort of attention; the strain in willing is the effort to keep the consciousness clear, i.e. the strain of keeping attention focused.” That is where The Good resides. That is ultimately the source of all good and all bad behavior: the choice to pay attention or not. The rest is just an elaboration on this.
Ray Harvey: BartenderThe following interview, which was brief but I think penetrating, was conducted January 27, in Aspen, Colorado, and appeared in the February issue of Cunning Stunts. The questions were put forth by the interviewer, Ms. Eileen Appleton, who has graciously allowed me to reprint it here:
If he’s anything — and there does seem to be some question about that — he’s difficult to pin down. We finally caught up with him outside a Starbucks (not that one, the one down the street), near 31 Flavors, whereupon he invited us in for what he calls a spot.
It was 3:00 pm on a wintery afternoon in late January, the sky overcast but luminous. He prefers to sit inside these days, basking, he says, in that artificial air. When asked why, he demurs, a lackluster backhand, and then more or less says that he’s not one of the people who eats and drinks uncompromisingly al fresco. We believe him.
Muscular, mid-to-late thirty, Harvey has repose; he never touches his face. We sit near the slablike window that commands a view of the outlying plains. The telephone poles fall away into an intricate horizon. Distant semis flash….
Q: First things first: Bon Scott or Brian Johnson?
Harvey: Bon Scott.
Q: Why?
Harvey: Because he’ll win the fight.
Q: Ronny James Dio or Ozzy Osborne?
Harvey: Ronny James Dio.
Q: Why?
Harvey: Because he’ll win the fight.
Q: How was your trip in? We heard rough.
Harvey: Actually, I found it tame.
Q: Many readers have noted a sort of subterranean preoccupation with the ribald in your writ—
Harvey: The what?
Q: The ribald.
Harvey: Sex in movies, sex in books, sex in blogs — I find it all really too tedious to talk about. Let us, for once, beg off.
Q: Okay. If, as you’ve said, “there is no order in the universe apart from what man himself puts there,” how, then, do you explain the symmetry of the universe?
Harvey: Order is an epistemological word; it applies only to the conceptual mind. The universe is neither orderly nor disorderly. Man imposes order, like legends on a map. The universe simply is. It could be no other way.
Q: No?
Harvey: Yes. Matter does not possess a will. Matter, therefore, must act as it does.
Q: Your name–
Harvey: Yes?
Q: In many people’s mind, it’s inextricably associated with the fight for freedom.
Harvey: I don’t know that that’s true, but I have no objection to it.
Q: But what is freedom? Isn’t it just a word?
Harvey: No. Freedom is the absence of force. I am opposed to force, in every manifestation. I believe only in the voluntary, the consensual, the chosen.
Q: What’s force?
Harvey: Force is a fist up your motherfucking ass.
Q: Do you really loathe environmentalism as much as you say, or is it partially put on?
Harvey: The truth is, I loathe environmentalism more than I could ever say.
Q: Why so?
Harvey: Because environmentalism is a lie. It’s bandwagon thinking. It’s non-thinking. Environmentalism — and I once, clear back in high school subscribed to it and so I know — is at its root a bastard philosophy, very seductive to some, but predicated upon entirely spurious premises. Environmentalism is repackaged Marxism. Surely everyone knows by now that Marx has been discredited.
Q: By whom?
Harvey: History has discredited him.
Q: In what way?
Harvey: Every communist regime has failed; no socialist regime has ever flourished. The only societies that have truly flourished are those that have been free, or relatively free — by which I mean: to the extent that a society is free, both economically and politically, is the exact extent to which they flourish.
Q: Others have commented upon your conspicuous concern with the lyrical, even as you rail politically.
Harvey: What of it?
Q: It has struck many of us as incongruous and almost quaint. Is there anything you care to say about that?
Harvey: Yes. Poetry is language at its best. It is concentrated speech. Poetry is style. It is density of expression. Poetry is writer’s writing. Poetry is advertising — in good faith.
Q: Who is your favorite poet?
Harvey: Karl Shapiro.
Q: What is your favorite novel?
Harvey:The Possessed.
Q: Who is your favorite character in literature?
Harvey: Stavrogin.
Q: How do you feel about form in poetry?
Harvey: Form is technique, and prosody is skill. Scansion is symmetry. To say that form is an artificial construct is like saying that chess is artificial because it has rules. I feel very good about form.
Q: But where are the rules for poetry? Are they in the sticks and stones? The sea? The sky?
Harvey: The rules “live in the masterpieces,” as Shapiro said. Rules are rooted in the nature of the human mind, which seeks order.
Q: How does one learn to write?
Harvey: Imitate.
Q: Where do you write? In what sort of space?
Harvey: Standing near the window, where the light is strong. You could say I write in a cold sweat, or a whitehot fever.
Q: And yet?
Harvey: And yet? Yes. And yet. And yet I love the nighttime, when the moon rages and the lovers lie abed with all their griefs in their arms.
Q: Rewriting?
Harvey: Writing is rewriting.
Q: Haiku?
Harvey: You can make it tough.
Q: What is beauty? Is it anything?
Harvey: It is everything. Beauty is symmetry. Beauty is the bah-bah in black sheep. It is the esthetically pleasing, it is the lovely. Beauty is not, finally, ineffable, but it is elusive.
Q: Some have said you’re obsessed with the body human. Would you say that characterization is true?
Harvey: The body human is my deepest obsession. Why? All that’s born, dies, and as the flesh without spirit is dead, so is the spirit without flesh dead. The spirit is a wind that passeth away and cometh not again. Therefore, whatever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest. And remember: Sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds. Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
Q: Is human talent innate?
Harvey: No. It is completely willed.
Q: Come, now! Completely?
Harvey: Yes. You decide, you act. Or not.
Q: What is your opinion of vigilante justice?
Harvey: Relatively low.
Q: Speaking of which, are you yourself highbrow, as you’re sometimes accused?
Harvey: Hardly.
Q: By default?
Harvey: If at all.
Q: You would agree, though, man’s understanding of the eternal, is iffy at best–
Harvey: No, I wouldn’t. There’s no real mystery about the eternal, even though it’s made out to be so very mysterious. Time, like order, is epistemological. It happens inside the human brain. As such it only pertains to humans. Time is specifically the human way of measuring movement. Take the human brain out of the equation and there is no such thing as time: there’s only movement. Movement of what? Things. Planets, particles, dust, matter — all these things do not truck with time. The universe is out of time in the literal sense. It is non-temporal. It is timeless.
