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Thanksgiving - William S. Burroughs
Here's some of the juicy quotes:
Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shat out through wholesome
American guts.Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison. Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot. Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.Thanks for the KKK.
For nigger-killin’ lawmen,
feelin’ their notches. For decent church-goin’ women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces. Thanks for “Kill a Queer for
Christ” stickers. Thanks for laboratory AIDS. Thanks for Prohibition and the
War Against Drugs. Thanks for a country where
nobody’s allowed to mind his
own business. Thanks for a nation of finks. Yes, thanks for all the
memories– all right, let’s see
your arms! You always were a headache and
you always were a bore. Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.
Modified by eDrek at Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 16:25:01
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It's all undermined by the fake news that AIDS was made in a lab.
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Yes, that is true. But, this video and poem was made in 1986.
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When the idea that AIDS was created in a lab came out, one of the tabloids in the UK asked me to look at some 'evidence' they had that demonstrated that AIDS was indeed created in a lab. As a microbiologist, they wanted me to compile the evidence and make the case for it. I can't remember what the evidence was now - just a few paragraphs of speculation really. There was a front page ready to be written to expose this dramatic news. I turned them down. It was an eye-opener for me at the time, how news gets created sometimes - think of a story that would make great headlines, then go and look for bits of evidence you could confabulate...
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wow! and good for you turning them down. not many people would do that - it does a lot to explain how fake news gets made doesn't it.
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The evidence was so thin, I'd have struggled with the story.
They did get me to do another mad task though. They wanted to run a competition where contestants had to guess where a place was. The place was some tropical beach, a few palm trees and the sea. According to the rules about running competitions, they couldn't just pick a place and decide that's where it is, for the sake of the competition. They knew I'd been sailing, and they seemed to think that I could apply navigational skills to identify the beach. Well, I could and I did, assuming the date/time the photo was taken, the angle of the shot and the height of a palm tree. I produced some spurious maths which no-one would check, and they gave me £200. And that was the extent of my career as a journalist. 
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how funny  beaches palm trees quirky maths and 200 quid seems like a good career in journalism to me.
do you know if anyone guessed your beach and won the competition?
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I don't even know if they ran it.
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Wow, so first of all you are a microbiologist! You are like a James Bond kind of guy. Are you also a spy? Maybe concert pianist?
Yes I am very familiar with that type of journalism. They look for stories rather than truth, because that is what sold papers in the past and what gets clicks with pre-roll video ads today. I have been the victim of that several times. But once I played them and that was fun. I fed them a bit of nonsense which they actually printed.
But that is not the same as fake news. Fake news, before it became the term to describe any news you don't like, referred to literally fake or very dodgy websites/platforms that pose as news publications and print totally dubious articles with the intent of creating havoc.
Its origins really are the domain of spy craft, though the distinction between that and some fringy domestic sites has gotten pretty blurry. I know you weren't calling that fake news, Leslie did, but I didn't want to make two posts.
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Haha. I actually applied to do medicine. My exam results were good enough but it turned out my relationship with my headmaster ruined my chances. On his very first day as our new headmaster my dad phoned him to enlist his help in beating the cult out of me. Right after his first morning assembly which left us all thinking oh shit, what are we in for now, I was called to his office and caned. I'd just turned 16.
The next 2 years at school was like a war between me and him. I'm sure it was his report on me that ensured no university offered me a place.
So as soon as I could I just left home and hitched round Europe. It was my dad that enrolled me in microbiology. He phoned some friends i was staying with in Italy where I'd run out of money, and as there was a grant available in those days I accepted. It was better than working.
I got a degree, but not a very good one. Too much time spent hitching round Europe going to festivals.
My son qualified as a doctor a few weeks ago. Like any parent, I was pleased and proud, but I had reason to be even more pleased.
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that is a very powerful story, John, beautifully told. thank you, xox.
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Wow, what an interesting story. And a tear jerk ending. My story is a bit similar, when less melodramatic. I was going to become a physicist. Instead I became a stupid marketing guru. The end.
Modified by aunt bea at Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 10:51:54
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Succinct. I'll buy it.
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I was going to become a cook, instead I became a swimming teacher.
thanks for the background to the term fake news. I can vaguely remember that now, the idea that the Soviets had planted fake news stories and how shocking that was because we believed the BBC announcer implicitly.
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What do I know about this man off the top of my head (no joke intended) without refreshing my memory via google...an infamous old junkie; an 'icon' of the counter culture, though I saw a photo of him once wearing what looked like a £3000 Savile Row suit, so not as short of a bob or two as most counter culturalists.
He did a William Tell number on his wife whilst wrecked, put an apple on her head, shot at it with a revolver, missed & killed her. That was in Mexico. I don't know what happened to him as a consequence.
It seems to me that he could be considered a personification of the betrayal of human dreams, all by himself, no need to drag the rest of America down there with him.
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I did go and have a little rummage on google - first he said he had balanced a wine glass on her head, then he said the gun had fell and accidentally went off as it hit the table and then reading through his introduction to Queer it looks like he is sort of confessing it happened on winds of hate and malevolence. I looked up Denton Welch who he says he was in spiritual communication with and who is listed on Wikipedia as having a partner called Eric so I just have to guess Burroughs was gay, semi in denial, don't I?
looks like he was beset by guilt over shooting her but didn't get into trouble with the police, he talks at length about Mexicans killing each other all the time and about the police being so easy to bribe.
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I hadn't heard about the William Tell thing. There's no excuse for that. He can be as poetic as he likes, I don't care. Just nuts.
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I had heard the name but not read anything of his before reading the poem which is a beacon of clarity compared to that intro I read yesterday where I could barely follow what he wants to convey, it's almost word salad in places.
but now I am thinking about it he did tell a lot of his story - he said that while he was a junkie he was pretty docile, all he really thought about was his next shot but when he went into recovery then it was like ripping off a bandaid and he was facing the demons it had covered. and that's when he got dangerous.
so yes. as my ex used to like saying - he never asked to be born. and he's right - we are all consequences of what has come before. but it's not an excuse for what he did, is it.
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Well, I'm glad you all enjoyed the poem.
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until Pat ruined it for all of us. Oh well. I know, you are just the messenger Pat.
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