Hot and loud and vulgar music, non-stop for five hours

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To the older generation rock 'n' roll came to mean Teds and violence. There was a riot in Berlin. Some countries banned rock 'n' roll altogether. In Singapore police were called in to stop British soldiers jiving in a cinema foyer after a midnight premiere of Rock Around The Clock. The Rev. Albert Carter of Nottingham denounced rock 'n' roll from his pulpit: 'The effect of rock 'n' roll on young people is to turn them into devil-worshippers; to stimulate self-expression through sex; to provoke lawlessness, impair nervous stability, and destroy the sanctity of marriage.' In Miami, Florida, the head of the local censorship board described rock 'n' roll dancing as 'nothing more than shoving boys and girls around' and 'vile gyrations'! Racialist Asa Carter of the North Alabama White Citizens' Council was scared too: 'Rock 'n' roll is a means of pulling down the white man to the level of the 'Negro'. It is part of a plot to undermine the morals of the youth of our nation. It is sexualistic, unmoralistic, and the best way to bring people of both races together.' Many older musicians hated rock 'n' roll: 'Viewed as a social phenomenon, the current craze for rock 'n' roll material is one of the most terrifying things ever to have happened to popular music ... Musically speaking of course, the whole thing is laughable ... Let us oppose it to the end.'

He tore pages from the Holy Bible to wipe his rectum

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I find myself re-reading one of my favorite showbiz memoirs, a book that got almost no attention here in New York when it was published back in '97 (I assume it must have made a stink in L.A. because when I was there in '97 living at the Chateau Marmont just a mention of Gilmore's name would send folks into seismic frenzies of denial), but I assure you this is a book you want to read: Laid Bare by John Gilmore. Gilmore's clear eyed, lucid prose captures Janis Joplin years before fame as a down and out North Beach tramp ("She fucks like a truck," he said. "She wants to get on top and jam up and down. She practically busted my rib cage.'') , Hank Williams at the Opry on the verge of superstardom and then pissing his pants months before his death, the only account of James Dean I've ever read that made him seem like a real person, scathing looks at Steve McQueen ("I'd see him stealing tips from bars and from tables in coffeehouses."), Dennis Hopper, the underbelly of Hollywood - the Black Dahlia, Manson, Mickey Cohen, and wait, a side trip to Tucson to cover the trial of Charles Schmidt, the Pied Piper Of Tucson, sleaze galore from Barbara Payton and Franchot Tone, sad sack Tom Neal, the sadly forgotten John Hodiak, Brigitte Bardot in Paris, Jane Seberg, Lenny Bruce, Vampira, every page of this book is fascinating. I can't remember who turned me onto it, I've given away a dozen copies over the years and have read every other book Gilmore's written, but Laid Bare is something truly special, a tell all that tells the truth, and it is written so well it sparkles like jewels on the page. I'm going back to my sick bed for a few days, I suggest you hunt down a copy of Laid Bare for yourself.- The Hound.

Burroughs knew where to find the best absinthe in a section of Paris he called "the sewer," and I went with him and another poet named Frank Milne, from Hoboken, who wore some sort of turban on his head with a bunch of fake jewels stitched to the front above the eyes. Burroughs kept staring at my crotch and almost obscenely licking his lips, or making strange remarks about "a penis colony in the desert." He drank quickly, painfully, and at one point began sweating and shaking. His eyes rolled up like an epileptic's, and he seemed to go into a kind of fit. I got up and away from him when he started frothing at the mouth and shitting his pants.

listened to this strange, seductive, angry, hate-filled bluegrass

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"Listen kid," he went on, "that record is no good. In fact it is evil. It caused a lot of trouble while it was around. Women left their husbands. Husbands left their wives. Children ran away from home and were never seen again. There were sunspots on the moon. Revolutions started, massacres happened, suicides and alcoholism went sky - high, wars started, monsters were seen on the Edge, it was bad, kid. It was bad. Maybe it would be better for you if you didn't hear it again. I mean I just feel like I gotta tell ya that, kid. It's dangerous for anybody your age to get interested in things like that."

He had pills in his hat band, his guitar, pills everyplace

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The motion-picture deal also meant that Hank had to wear toupees again.The remaining hair on the crown of his head was shaved off yet again, and he went for several fittings. In Pasternak's office, Jim Denny, himself the owner of a lot of hair that nature hadn't given him, told Hank to take his hat off. Pasternak saw the toupee and asked Hank if he had any hair. "Hell,yes," he said, "I got a dresser drawer full of it."