First published in Spider magazine, Vol 1, No 7, 13 October 1965. Collect Telegram From A Mad Dog. Some say this is poetry and some say it’s not. I reckon it is and I’m interested in what you folks think. Mail me at hstbooks@gmail.com or leave a comment.
Not being a poet, and drunk as well, leaning into the diner and dawn and hearing a juke box mockery of some better human sound. I wanted rhetoric but could only howl the rotten truth Norman Luboff should have his nuts ripped off with a plastic fork. Then howled around like a man with the final angst, not knowing what I wanted there Probably the waitress, bend her double like a safety pin, deposit the mad seed before they tie off my tubes or run me down with Dingo dogs for not voting at all.
Suddenly a man with wild eyes rushed out from the wooden toilet Foam on his face and waving a razor like a flag, shouting It’s Starkweather god damn I Know that voice We’ll take our vengeance now! McConn, enroute from L.A. to some rumored home, killing the hours till the bars opened stranded on Point Richmond when they closed the night before, thinking finally he had come among friends or at least one.
We rang for Luboff on the pay phone, but there was no contact Some tortured beast of a bad loser has already croaked him, said McConn We’ll have a drink. But the Mariners’ Tavern was not open for twenty minutes, so we read a newspaper and saw where just about everybody had been fucked in the face or some other orifice or opening, or possibility for one good reason or another by the time the Chronicle went to press before last midnight.
We rang for the editor but the switchboard clamped him off. Get a lawyer, I said. These swine have gone far enough. But the lawyers were all in bed. Finally we found one, limp from an orgy and too much sleep Eating cheese blintzes with sour cream and ginon a redwood balcony with afine exposure. Get your ass up, I said. It’s Sunday and the folks are in church. Now is the time to lay a writ on them, Cease and Desist Specifically Luboff and the big mongers, the slumfeeders, the perverts and the pious.
The legal man agreed We had a case and indeed a duty to right these wrongs, as it wereThe Price would be four thousand in front and ten for the nut. I wrote him a check on the Sawtooth National Bank, but he hooted at it While rubbing a special oil on his palms To keep the chancres from itching beyond endurance On this Sabbath. McConn broke his face with a running Cambodian chop, then wedrank his gin, ate his blintzes But failed to find anyone to rape and went back to the Mariners’ Tavern to drink in the sun. Later, from jail I sent a brace of telegrams to the right people explaining my position.
Mr Flynn, I trust you are well.
It’s more like drunken stream of consciousness scrawled down in a notebook in between Margaritas with Beer chasers. Certainly, a fine piece of writing, exhibiting more life through it’s use, or abuse, of a ragged approach to sentence structure and grammar. Almost like the writer wanted you to experience the writing process, the heady scene that was being sampled at the time. Like Gonzo taken one step further, subjective journalism that draws in the reader in raw and edged way.
In summary, it reads how a Steadman picture looks, chaotically serene, beautifully ugly, well-informed ignorance. A sneak attack on your senses.
Keep up the blog, it is a great service you do us.
Your friend,
Simon
Mr. James, I am fine thanks.
What a great take on this piece. I got to thinking, would more of Hunters writing be similar to this if it were not for the editors?
Also a great comparison between Ralphs and Hunters work, there is an eerie similarity between their own unique forms of art.
Thanks for the comment Simon, stay in touch.
Mr Flynn,
HST was famously protective of his copy, so I don’t think editors affected his copy too much in the prolific days, maybe earlier on. And rightly so. No editor would be able to tap the subtlety of his language or the subtext of what he wanted to be heard. Great portions of Campaign Trail and FLLV were dictated and and then read back to him to ensure he got across exactly what was intended. To edit HST without direction would be to draw a Hitler moustache on the Mona Lisa and expect that the Maestro be happy with it.
Simon