Some of the dancers of the Pennsylvania Ballet getting ready for the 17th Shut Up & Dance benefit for MANNA performed Saturday night at the Forrest Theater for one night only. The benefit features original choreography by the dancers themselves.
~the room was full of drunk poets and I don’t know what. (fr. Jonas Mekas NYdiary1958)
Right before I met Vincent in 1959 the year Billie Holiday died
whose last performance I attended and whose lifeand death hangs me out still. I lean against the outcry
mourning the death of jazz singing Pissed off and absurd we of the Mercury lounge reading.
I hate NY readings when it turns into a bloodsport.
but we swigged it out
Jacko was there and gCorso,
and Allen, of course, Burroughs (who invited
me) They were with me on
that stage back to front 7:30Read read read
by 7:40 (what is that line in AllAboutEve)
about there being a ‘MacBethish air.’7:45,
my body, my heart, my flask.
TJean was past soused/Corsosososo, & Gerald was doing the Malanga all night long, & had the best beats
though everyone was too smashed
to really drink it
except Allen diagonally always there was Allen
breathing heavy
presided over the fallout
was the voice of wetbrain sobriety
& Leroi knew when to exit
a Columbia celebrawl/div>
some even took it as livingdead theater
more like a pissing match
it got ugly loving each other’s work
of loving each others work
we took off our dukes and
found out that we hated each other
after all. I was called a fouffyfaggot
repeatedly, and Allen kept laughing
he lives for stuff like that.
Hardly a put down, he was penciling
in the holes for Howl
Oh, those Beats
They really can be crashing bores
not to mention act like a bunch of pimpless whores
Kerouac yells to me
“You’re ruining American
Poetry O’Hara”
and I yell back
“That’s more than you fuckin’ ever did for it.”
So TiJean love, I’m not going to Frisco
…
I’m staying here
It’s going to be a bubonic plague of a summer
To say that I hate everybody almost
as much as I hate myself would
be too dramaqueeny.
And then John said fuck off you poseur
I stumbled over Allen’s busted sandal,
then dropped my shot
and attempted an escape
Gerald kept frugging as Edie looked on
then I met Vincent
there swaying on the sweaty threshold
he asked me to dance
Anyway
and fell out the door
with Gerald’s last verse
flying in our ears
like a bolt from Mercury
Alternatetakes2 