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.
