(Credited to Depp Impact)
The following text is from the catalog of a Basquiat exhibition (Paris 2003)
Basquiat Paintings-for Enrico-under the influence of pork
by Johnny Depp
On a turbulent flight out of Vienna, en route to Paris, I was asked to write a couple of pages about the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The passengers on this bumpy journey-Enrico Navarra, Sebastian Moreu, and myself were in the throes of what happened to be an enormous Austrian pork hock...at least we hoped it was. We'd acquired the beast at a small, run down, carnival-like market on the edge of Vienna. Our feast was primitive and ferocious. Speaking for myself, I can honestly say that it had been at least 24 hours since any solid had slithered down my gullet and my appetite was ravenous. And now, here we were, bearing down on this greasy pig meat and all to grateful for it, even as the plane dipped and jilted us around like kewpee dolls.
The brain has been fed well that day, having just seen a collection of Jean-Michel Basquiat's works and then on to another museum for a quick peak at a huge Warhol exhibition. All this information, in the matter of a few hours, is enough stimulation to drive any man to the nearest carnival-like market and throw down all of his coin for as much pork as humanly possible. So we did just that...
Between bites, Enrico brought up the idea of me writing something for the new and updated of the big book of Basquiat paintings he was about to re-publish. He said that if I wrote the piece, I should, at all costs, try to avoid writing about Basquiat's life. Everyone, it seems, has a tendency to write more about the man than the work itself. This seemed fair enough, especially since I didn't know the guy and had never met him, so the only thing that I really have is my opinion and my take on the legacy of what he left behind... in art. That, and of course, we seemed to share the same affinity for pork products. However, it is almost impossible to speak about his works without it becoming a crude dissection of the man. On any canvas or drawing, he spilled himself... maybe even without wanting to. His thoughts, his feelings- however fleeting, unfinished or incomplete are captured in that moment when he connected with his target. Early drawings show that he even literally shed his own blood onto the paper as proof of his commitment to the piece, his art... an acceptance of his destiny. A blood fusion, like a voodoo ritual, making the man and his art inseparable, an unholy bond merging the two into one.
If we really get down to brass tacks here, we can begin by saying that Basquiat is not for everyone. Much like pork is not for everyone. You either get it, or you don't. One either loves with a passion, or despises with a vengeance. I've never heard of anyone saying , Well, he's okay, I guess... No, to my knowledge, that doesn't happen with Basquiat.This is a very difficult result to achieve in any art form. The capability of not merely floating nicely in the middle, like a medium-tempered, semi-well-intentioned, virtually-invisible neighbor, whose passivity grates on ones very being, but rather, the ability to speed like a bullet into the brains and bodies of the many jaded, and therefore ruined, intellectual art-hag and simpleton alike. That is the objective. It is a game of hit or miss. And when this motherfucker hits, he hits hard, on many levels.
There are some of his works that kill me and some that do absolutely nothing for me.But once you are touched by him, you are burned into either a kind of emotional stillness, or you may find yourself on the verge of doubling over into a painful belly laugh. Because as much honesty and history and life experience that he spewed into his drawings, paintings, objects, writings, whatever... he had a killer sense of humor. Even in some of his most poignant works, his devilish sense of the absurd came through like gangbusters, completely unfiltered. As did his heartfelt disappointments in the human race, and his hopes for it. The signature imagery that comes to mind: the crown, the halo of thorns, portraits stripped of flesh, vital organs pumping blood- blue veined or devoid of any life, his childhood heroes Hank Aaron and Charlie Parker, etc..., sainted for all eternety, the homage to his ancestry, endless references to his childhood...he splayed himself open like a can of sardines for all of us to pick at, as he, in fact, devoured us. He was never truly able to hide his feelings or influence in the work. He openly acknowledged Cy Twombly, Picasso, the word juxtaposition of William Burroughs and Brian Gyson , Andy Warhol, Leonardo da Vinci, Be Bop Jazz, T.V. programs and cartoons. He sometimes even used the drawings of his friend's children as inspirations. His deep understanding and profound confusion with the American culture that he practically drownd himself in, was also an infinite reservoir from which he could draw upon for his chaotic assaults.
Looking at these works, one cannot escape without feeling the almost perverse sense of care taken to raw detail with what seems an acute distracted concentration. However crude the image may be or how fast it appears to have been executed- every line, mark, scratch, drip, footprint, fingerprint, word, letter, rip and imperfection is there because he allowed it to be there.
His paintings and drawings come alive for me every time I look at them, and if Jean-Michel Basquiat had stuck around for a bit longer, I like to think that he might have eventually moved into animation, for a time at least, combining his music, his language and drawings into an arena seemingly more palatable to the rank and file, but one that would have opened the floodgates for his massages to attack the masses. Something akin to Lenny Bruce's Thank You Mask Man , an ingenious weapon that enabled him to scatter his divine tirades out into the world without the hammer of censorship slamming him hard.
Had Jean-Michel Basquiat lived through the fatal times that eventually took him away from this world, there's no telling what he would've been able to do. The possibilities are endless.
Nothing can replace the warmth and immediacy of Basquiat's poetry, or the absolute questions and truths that he delivered. The beautiful and disturbing music of his paintings, the cacophony of his silence that attacks our senses, will live far beyond our breath. Basquiat was, and is music... primitive and ferocious. J.D.
Introduction by Johnny Depp
I arrived in New York City late, somewhere around 11.30 p.m., from Europe. With just enough jet lag to keep my peepers wide open for one too many hours - my brain crowded with the threat of Mr. Sun's arrival, knowing that soon he'd nudge me out of my snooze and into the world. I shut my eyes tight with the hope that he might be tardy.
Woke up the following morning - or rather, a couple of hours later - with a very prompt Mr. Sun stabbing through the black protection of my eyelids. The rotten bastard had found me.
I pitched and tossed and turned and spun - doing my best to avoid him - until I just couldn't take it anymore. I forced the heavy lids up and open and stared the eyeballs straight into the beastly light. I dunked my face into the pot of hot coffee and dove out the window and thus began the day. Things to do... Up. Awake. Onward. Forward.
I made my way downtown to St. Mark's Place to a bookstore of the low-down, the lowbrow, the bohemian, the subterranean-counterculture-drop-out types. My mission - to get my paws on some fine literature suitable for... well, you'll find out. First and foremost, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by the good doctor himself, Dr. Hunter S Thompson - a must for anyone and everyone... especially anyone in need of a serious excursion from their four walls. Second on the list, Tarantula by Bob Dylan - we need say nothing about him or his genius. Third, Kerouac - anything at all by ol'Jack... On The Road being the Bible. And why not throw in a little taste of Burroughs and Ginsberg while I'm at it.
I was taking these fine books to prison, to Otisville Federal Correctional Institution, to be specific. I was to meet up with one George Jung, a guest of said facility, Federal Inmate #19225-004.
The ride upstate took a coupla' few hours - I used this time to get through the several thousand questions that swirled inside my head, destined to be received by Mr. Jung. I pondered the answers and then threw them out of the window as I arrived at the prison.
A thick comfort of snow lay on the ground - the sun still pointed in my direction - I found myself standing outside the fence of a bland-looking institution with the benign façade of any Department of Motor Vehicles. And that's exactly what the place felt like inside... that is, until the first set of steel doors. Loaded down with many packets of filterless Camels for Federal Inmate #19225-004, the books purchased on my earlier mission and a pocketful of change for the soda pop machine (one of the very few luxuries allowed at visiting time), I was taken through the congested maze of inmates and their wives, children, lawyers and guards to a small room surrounded by reinforced glass, more steel doors, more buzzing, more clanging, etc. Within a minute or two of waiting in my fishbowl I was introduced to Inmate #19225-004. He stepped up with e crooked half-smile, deep squinted eyes and the weathered, broken, damaged soul of a pirate who'd seen too many days at sea. We greeted each other casually, if a bit warily, and within three minutes - and from then on, he was George and it was as if we'd known each other for a thousand years... or more.
For the next several hours we talked intensely... him doing most of it. I listened and watched him like a hawk spewing tale after tale, esoteric analogies, fact after fact, each one topping the previous. He was generous, he was gentle, he was hilarious, he was heartbreaking, he was all too human - a kind of outcast Zen Master who'd grabbed hold of life by the short and curlies and swung it around for all it was worth. Life, then, snuck up on him and bit him hard on the ass.
Among the many amazing wisdoms that George so generously shared with me, there is one in particular that haunts my thoughts constantly: 'One is the number and two is the one'. The most frightening thought of all is that I'm pretty sure I know what he means.
It's very rare in life that any person opens up their heart and soul to you with unlimited access to their most profound thoughts, dreams, fears, regrets, intimacies... even more rare when you've just met that person and, because of the obvious predicament, it's highly unlikely that you will be spending too much time with them in the near future. So for this and more, I owe a great debt of gratitude to George. And also for the honour of meeting him, knowing him, learning him and learning from him. All of this, along with the opportunity to portray George, was made possible courtesy of Ted Demme and Nick Cassavetes, who were the guys who had the nuts to take the ball and run with it in the first place.
I was asked to write an introduction to a book - a book that I know nothing about. They tell me it's a book of photographs and that these photographs were taken on the set of Blow. I don't know how to write about that. What I do know is, anything that happened on the set of that film only happened because of George... so I wrote about him. And although he was the one major ingredient that was physically missing from our set, his strength, his energy and his spirit was omnipresent.
To the Federal Government, George Jung is nothing more that a whopper stack of papers shoved into a filing cabinet collecting dust, another notch on their belt.
To Otisville Federal Correctional Institute, he is merely inmate #19225-004.
To his daughter Kristina, he is the father that she was never given the possibility of knowing or loving.
To me, he is not a number, he's not a convict, and he's not a criminal. He's a great man whose wisdom and knowledge, unfortunately, was greatly overshadowed by the choices and mistakes he made all those years ago when he hadn't even had time to brush himself off from the conditioning wrought upon him by his parents.
As I write these words and as you read them, George is almost definitely sitting on his bunk in a 4 x 8 foot cell, dreaming of the day that he, too, can be standing outside the fence of that bland-looking institution, far away from the clanging, buzzing steel doors of the inside... a thick comfort of snow on the ground, the sun pointed in his direction... Up. Awake. Onward. Forward.
May the wind always be at your back
And the sun upon your face
And the wings of destiny to carry you aloft
To dance with the stars...
Johnny Depp
France
Friday 13 April, 2001
Christie's Catalouge
For the sale of Personal Property of Marlon Brando
by Johnny Depp
OF ALL THE LEVELS OF CONNECTION, the most consistent was humor. Humor, often meaning practical jokes. There was no one more gifted in this arena or as skilled a craftsman as Marlon. He possessed the sense of humor – which we both shared – of a child. I once asked him why it was that farts were always funny. He replied, “Because they are blatantly anti-social.”
He once asked if I would play a small part in a film he was going to do in Ireland. I agreed and asked if I shouldn’t maybe take a look at the script. He advised me not to worry about it; I was simply going to play a journalist from ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine in New York. Simple enough, I concurred.
Friday evening, upon arrival, I was invited to dinner at his place. I had hidden in my pocket a brilliant little rubber device that, once mastered and properly lubricated, would emit the most genuine-sounding farts in the history of counterfeit fart noises.
He graciously greeted me at the front door and welcomed me in. As we approached the den, I put a firm squeeze on the contraption. BRRRTTTT. A quizzical look from Marlon. “Very good, John.” We sat on the couch. “Sorry, I ate something weird on the plane, I’m having a little..." BBBZZZRRRTT! once again. “Jesus, John, what the hell did you eat???” PPPHHHHRRRTTT!!!
I kept him going on for a good half-hour and only let up when his laughter turned to an expression of worry and he was reaching for the phone to get a doctor. “Ah... that’s not normal, John, you’re not well. You’re sick. You’re ripping about three beauties a minute and… ah, that’s just not right.”
My own tear-filled laughter gave up the charade. I reached into my pocket and revealed the culprit. Marlon’s face lit up like a Christmas tree, the smile of a five-year-old. I handed the fart unit to him, he held it up to the light and exclaimed, “I've found God!!!” I was so proud that, after a couple of years of being on the receiving end of Marlon’s practical jokes, I was finally able to swing back and connect big-time. But we were both winners, as the fart machine became a source of entertainment for many years.
After dinner, he informed me that since I was to begin shooting the film on Monday, I would need to meet the director tomorrow, Saturday. The next afternoon we went through a few costume possibilities and I was introduced to Tom, our director.
“How do you do? Nice to meet you. How’s the accent coming?”
“What????” I can still feel the look on my face and the panic that surged through my body. “What accent??!!” Tom looked at me quizzically; he recognized my panic as well as I did.
“The Dublin accent. Didn’t you read the script? You’re playing a reporter from Dublin!" I, officially, now had less than a day and a half to come up with a decent Irish accent before 5 a.m. Monday. Marlon nearly split himself in two laughing. He'd been planning this rotten trick for months.
Introduction by Johnny Depp
WHEN I THINK OF HUNTER, which is often, the floodgates open and I am instantly, easily and willingly overcome by a great deluge of memories. Memories as diverse as the man himself soar through my mind. Images of some of our less publicized adventures:
A dawn shopping expedition for magnum handguns...
A 3:00 A.M. head shaving appointment, duly and gingerly perfomed by the Doctor...
Delicately nursing ghastly hang-overs -- feeding each other Fernet Branca while taking turns hitting from an oxygen tank (neither worked)...
The sheer fascination of watching him salt and pepper his food (it could take up to an hour, but no less than twenty minutes)...
Our thankfully short lived and nearly fatal impromptu decision to take hillbilly brides -- long distance...
The two of us, cackling like mad, chasing an escaped mynah bird (Edward -- a gift from Hunter and Laila Nabulsi) through my house...
Being locked in a San Francisco hotel room with him for five days and nights (a vast accumulation of condiments, fruit plates, club sandwiches, shrimp cocktails, and yes...grapefruits, stacked precariously high in the corner of the suite towering up to the ceiling)...
Hours and hours of intensely lyrical tete-a-tetes -- reading miraculous passages from his many inspired and legendary works...
There were snappy, split-second, spot-on, hilarious observations that would buckle anyone's knees, endless moments of hysterical rage, hilarity and rantings that most times rendered me fetal, feeble and weeping on the floor with painful laughter.
Yes, he did have a knack, our good doctor. He had the uncanny ability to ruffle feathers while simultaneously charming anyone into anything, or out of anything that he might have had his sights on. All the while, and always, maintaining the story (because there was always a story). Keeping a keen eye to the happenings around him. Ever the observer, the gift of his genius never taken for granted. His nature was to observe and dissect any and all situations, so observe and dissect he did with an inexorable fervor. He lived it, breathed it, and celebrated it, all of it. And if you were lucky enough to prowl alongside him on any of his escapades, so did you, to the absolute hilt.
Every document, scrap of paper, newspaper clipping, cocktail napkin and photograph were sacred to Hunter. What lives in this book, are essential threads of his life's tapestry, pieces of the puzzle that had been diligently packed away, safely and surely for posterity. They form major insight into his life and work. Wandering these pages, it seems clear that Hunter was indeed more than well acquainted, and even in concert, with what destiny had in store for him.
Within minutes of hearing the devastating news of Hunter's decision to end his life, I was on the phone with Laila in a pathetic attempt to make some sense of what had happened, which of course was impossible. We wept and consoled one another as best we could under such horrible circumstances. And then suddenly, a realization took hold, as if the Doctor himself had nudged us out of our tragic haze. At the exact same moment we both blurted out, "WHAT ABOUT THE CANNON?" "Oh, God... The monument..." In that very second the focus slowly began to change. We were very well versed with what Hunter's expectations were, and they were not small. "Nothing Dinky!!!" seemed to be the prevalent instruction from our departed friend. The initial drawings and design commenced the following morning and construction of the beast followed within the coming weeks. His request had been for a 150 ft. monument/cannon to blast his remains into the sky over his beloved Owl Farm. Simple. Not simple. I had been advised to abandon any hopes of this mission ever coming to fruition. Not only impossible, but completely insane, I was told. We forged ahead. During my research into how to make this impossibility possible, I discovered that the Statue of Liberty was 151 FEET TALL!!! shit..."Dinky" and Hunter's monument seemed to be converging. Knowing that detail was everything to him and that this was a detail that needed to be addressed pronto, the decision was made to up the stakes and the design was changed for the monument to be scaled up to 153 ft. Two feet higher. Why? Because in death, as in life, Hunter would have to exceed the American Dream (and its comely representative) by more than just an inch or two. If you could drive a car on 40 lbs. of air pressure in each tire, Hunter would drive on 100 lbs., just to be sure. Sure of what, only he ever knew. It was a Hunter thing. The Monument team and crew worked non-stop for months bringing Hunter's final wish to life, making the impossible possible. We all stayed focused and driven even in the face of potential total failure, which loomed perilously close throughout the entire process. It wasn't until quite a bit later, once we were all wholly consumed with the project that I realized a grand part of Hunter's scheme was to distract those closest to him by handing over such an enormous task. Somehow, he knew that once his loved ones dove into the stringy muck of building the cannon, their mourning period would be distracted by such a mammoth undertaking. He was a subtle one that Dr. Thompson.
Reminiscing about the good doctor has always conjured up more than a few choice moments to chew on. Even now, nearly two years since he made his exit, I still get as keyed up when I think of him as I always did. And though I know he won't be calling and that bastard phone won't be ringing off the hook in the middle of the night I clearly hear his voice. I hear him "WHOOP!!!" every time "One Toke Over the Line" creeps up on the radio, I feel him puff up when "Sympathy for the Devil" kicks in. He calms and ponders the gravity of "Mr. Tambourine Man".
He appears when he is needed.
He arrives when absurdity peaks.
I imagine he always will.
Col. Depp
Los Angeles, September 5, 2006
Foreword by Johnny Depp
In the winter of 1989, I was in Vancouver, British Columbia, doing a television series. It was a very difficult situation: bound by a contract doing assembly line stuff that was, to me, borderline Fascist, (cops in school... Christ!). My fate, it seemed, lay somewhere between Chips and Joanie Loves Chachi. There were only a limited number of choices for me: (1) get through it as best I could with minimal abrasion; (2) get fired as fast as I could with slightly more abrasion; (3) quit and be sued for not only any money I had, but also the money of my children and my children's children (which, I imagine, would have caused severe chafing and possible shingles for the rest of my natural days and on through the next few generations of Depps to come). Like I said, this was truly a dilemma. Choice (3) was out of the question, thanks to extremely sound advice from my attorney. As for (2), well, I tried, and they just wouldn't bite. Finally, I settled on (1): I would get by as best I could.
The minimal abrasions soon became self-destruction. I was not feeling good about myself or this self-induced/out-of-control jail term that an ex-agent had prescribed as good medicine for unemployment. I was stuck, filling up space between commercials. Babbling incoherently some writer's words that I couldn't bring myself to read (thus having no knowledge of what poison the scripts might have contained). Dumb-founded, lost, shoved down the gullets of America as a young Republican. TV boy, heart-throb, teen idol, teen hunk. Plastered, postered, postured, patented, painted, plastic!!! Stapled to a box of cereal with wheels, doing 200 mph on a one-way course bound for Thermos and lunch-box antiquity. Novelty boy, franchise boy. Fucked and plucked with no escape from this nightmare.
And then, one day, I was sent a script by my new agent, a godsend. It was the story of a boy with scissors for hands - an innocent outcast in suburbia. I read the script instantly and wept like a newborn. Shocked that some one was brilliant enough to conceive and then actually write this story, I read it again right away. I was so affected and moved by it that strong waves of images flooded my brain - dogs I'd had as a kid, feeling freakish and obtuse when I was growing up, the unconditional love that only infants and dogs are evolved enough to have. I felt so attached to this story that I was completely obsessed. I read every children's story, fairy tale, child psychology book, Gray's Anatomy, anything, everything... and then reality set in. I was TV boy. No director in his right mind would hire me to play this character. I had done nothing work-wise to show that I could handle this kind of role. How could I convince this director that I was Edward, that I knew him inside and out? In my eyes, it was impossible.
A meeting was set up. I was to see the director, Tim Burton. I prepared by watching his other films - Beetlejuice, Batman, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Blown away by the obvious gifted wizardry this guy possessed, I was even more sure that he would never see me in the role. I was embarrassed to consider myself as Edward. After several knock-down-drag-'em-outs with my agent (thank you, Tracey) , she forced me to have the meeting.
I flew to Los Angeles and went straight to the coffee-shop of the Bel Age Hotel, where I was to meet Tim and his producer, Denise Di Novi. I walked in, chain-smoking, nervously looking for the potential genius in the room (I had never seen what he looked like) and BANG! I saw him sitting at a booth behind a row of potted plants, drinking a cup of coffee. We said hello, I sat down and we talked... sort of - I'll explain later.
A pale, frail-looking, sad-eyed man with hair that expressed much more than last night's pillow struggle. A comb with legs would have outrun Jesse Owens given one look at this guy's locks. A clump to the east, four sprigs to the west, a swirl, and the rest of this unruliness to all points north and south. I remember the first thing I thought was, 'Get some sleep', but I couldn't say that, of course. And then it hit me like a two-ton sledgehammer square in the middle of my forehead. The hands - the way he waves them around in the air almost uncontrollably, nervously tapping on the table, stilted speech (a trait we both share), eyes wide and glaring out of nowhere, curious, eyes that have seen much but still devour all. This hypersensitive madman is Edward Scissorhands.
After sharing approximately three to four pots of coffee together, stumbling our way through each other's unfinished sentences but somehow still understanding one another, we ended the meeting with a handshake and a 'nice to meet you'. I left that coffee-shop jacked up on caffeine, chewing insanely on my coffee-spoon like a wild, rabid dog. I now officially felt even worse about things because of the honest connection I felt we had during the meeting. Mutually understanding the perverse beauty of a milkcow creamer, the bright-eyed fascination with resin grapes, the complexities and raw power that one can find in a velvet Elvis painting - seeing way beyond the novelty, the profound respect for 'those who are not others'. I was sure that we could work well together and I was positive, if given the chance, I could carry out his artistic vision for Edward Scissorhands. My chances were, at best, slim - if that. Better-known people than me were not only being considered for the role but were battling, fighting, kicking, screaming, begging for it. Only one director had really stuck his neck out for me and that was John Waters, a great outlaw film-maker, a man both Tim and I had huge respect and admiration for. John had taken a chance on me to spoof my 'given' image in Cry-Baby. But would Tim see something in me that would make him take the risk? I hoped so.
I waited for weeks, not hearing a thing in my favour. All the while, I was still researching the part. It was now not something I merely wanted to do, but something I had to do. Not for any ambitious, greedy, actory, box-office-draw reason, but because this story had now taken residence in the middle of my heart and refused to be evicted. What could I do? At the point when I was just about to resign myself to the fact that I would always be TV boy, the phone rang.
'Hello?' I picked up.
'Johnny... you are Edward Scissorhands,' a voice said simply.
'What?' flew out of my mouth.
'You are Edward Scissorhands.'
I put the phone down and mumbled those words to myself. And then mumbled them to anyone else I came in contact with. I couldn't fucking believe it. He was willing to risk everything on me in the role. Head-butting the studio's wishes, hopes and dreams for a big star with established box-office draw, he chose me. I became instantly religious, positive that divine intervention had taken place. This role for me was not a career move. This role was freedom. Freedom to create, experiment, learn and exorcize something in me. Rescued from the world of mass-product, bang-'em out TV death by this odd, brilliant young guy who had spent his youth drawing strange pictures, stomping around the soup-bowl of Burbank, feeling quite freakish himself (I would learn later). I felt like Nelson Mandela. Resuscitated from my jaded views of 'Hollyweird' and what it's like to not have any control of what you really want for yourself.
In essence, I owe the majority of whatever success I've been lucky enough to have to that one weird, wired meeting with Tim. Because if it weren't for him, I think I would have gone ahead and opted for choice (3) and quit that fucking show while I still had some semblance of integrity left.
And I also believe that because of Tim's belief in me, Hollywood opened its doors, playing a strange follow-the-leader game.
I have since worked with Tim again on Ed Wood. This was an idea he talked to me about, sitting at the bar of the Formosa Cafe in Hollywood. Within ten minutes, I was committed to doing it. To me, it almost doesn't matter what Tim wants to film - I'll do it, I'm there. Because I trust him implicitly - his vision, his taste, his sense of humor, his heart and his brain. He is, to me, a true genius, and I wouldn't use that word with too many people, believe me. You can't label what he does. It's not magic, because that would imply some sort of trickery. It's not just skill, because that seems like it's learned. What he has is a very special gift that we don't see every day. It's not enough to call him a film-maker. The rare title of 'genius' is a better fit - in not just films, but drawings, photographs, thought, insight and ideas.
When I was asked to write the foreword to this book, I chose to tell it from the perspective of what I honestly felt at the time he rescued me: a loser, an outcast, just another piece of expendable Hollywood meat.
It's very hard to write about someone you care for and respect on such a high level of friendship. It's equally difficult to explain the working relationship between actor and director. I can only say that, for me, Tim need do nothing more than say a few disconnected words, tilt his head, squint his eyes or look at me a certain way, and I know exactly what he wants from the scene. And I have always done my best to deliver that to him. So, for me to say what I feel about Tim, it would have to be on paper, because if I said it to his face, he would probably cackle like a banshee and then punch me in the eye.
He is an artist, a genius, and oddball, an insane, brilliant, brave, hysterically funny, loyal, nonconformist, honest friend. I owe him a tremendous debt and respect him more than I could ever express on paper. He is him and that is all. And he is, without a doubt, the finest Sammy Davis Jr. impersonator on the planet.
I have never seen someone so obviously out of place fit right in. His way.
Johnny Depp
New York City
September 1994
Burton on Burton (Revised Edition)
Foreword by Johnny Depp
Many a moon has passed since the days of my brief brush with TV stardom, or whatever one might dare call it. I mostly think of them as the do-or-die years: picture, if you will, the confused young man hurtling dangerously towards the flash-in-the-pan at sound-breaking speed. Or, on a more positive note, forced education, with decent dividends in the short term. Either way, it was a scary time when so-called TV actors weren't eagerly received into the fickle fold of film folk. Fortunately, I was more than determined -- even desperate -- to break away from my ascent/descent. The chances were nearly impossible, until the likes of John Waters and Tim Burton had enough courage and vision to give me a chance to attempt to build my own foundation on my own terms. Anyway, no time to digress ... this has all been said before.
I sit here, hunched at the keyboard, banging away on a ratty old computer, which does not understand me at all, nor I it, especially with a zillion thoughts swirling through my skull on how to proceed with something as personal as an update on my relationship with old pal Tim. He is, for me, exactly the same man I wrote about nearly eleven years ago, though all kinds of wonderfulness has flowered and showered the both of us, and caused radical changes in the men we were and the men we've become -- or, at least, the men we've been revealed as. Yeah, you see, Tim and I are dads. Wow. Who'd have ever thought it possible that our progeny would be swinging on swing-sets together, or sharing toy cars, toy monsters, even potentially exchanging chicken pox? This is a part of the ride I had never imagined.
Seeing Tim as proud Papa is enough to send me into an irrepressible weeping jag, because, as with almost everything, it's in the eyes. Tim's eyes have always shone: no question about it, there was always something luminous in those troubled/sad/weary peepers. But today, the eyes of old pal Tim are laser beams! Piercing, smiling, contented eyes, with all of the gravity of yesteryear, but bright with the hope of a spectacular future. This was not the case before. There was a man with, presumably, everything -- or so it seemed from the outside. But there was also something incomplete and somehow consumed by an empty space. It is an odd place to be. Believe me ... I know.
Watching Tim with his boy, Billy, is an enormous joy to behold. There is a visible bond that transcends words. I feel as if I'm watching Tim meet himself toddler-size, ready to right all wrongs and re-right all rights. I am looking at the Tim that has been waiting to shed the skin of the unfinished man that we all knew and loved, being reborn as the more complete radiant hilarity that exists full-blown today. It is a kind of miracle to witness, and I am privileged to be near it. The man I now know as a part of the trio of Tim, Helena and Billy is new and improved and completely complete. Anyway, that's enough of that. I'll step off the Kleenex box and get on with things, shall I? Onwards ...
In August of 2003 I was in Montreal, working on a film called Secret Window, when I received a phone call from Tim asking if I could make it down to NYC for dinner the following week to discuss something. No names, no title, no story, no script -- nothing specific. And, as always, I said that I would be there happily, 'I'll see you then', that type of deal. And so I did. When I arrived at the restaurant, there was Tim, tucked away in a corner booth, half in darkness, nursing a beer. I sat, we enjoyed for the first time the fantastic, 'How's the family?' exchange, and then zoomed immediately to the subject at hand. Willy Wonka.
I was stunned. Amazed, at first, by the outrageous possibilities of Tim's version of the Roald Dahl classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but even more floored that he was, in actual fact, asking me if I would be interested in playing the role of Wonka. Now, for any kid who grew up in the 70's or 80's, the first film version starring Gene Wilder (who was a brilliant Wonka) was an annual event. So there was the kid in me who was giddy that I should be, in this case, the chosen one for the part. But there was also the 'thespian' in me who understood very, very well that every actor and their mother and that mother's brother's uncle's third cousin's pet iguana's goldfish would have hacked each other up into tiny morsels -- or at best, gladly knocked each other off in a more civilized fashion -- clamouring, gagging for the chance that was being presented to me by one of the people I admire most. I was also keenly aware of the many battles with many studios that Tim had had to endure over many years to secure my involvement on the various films we'd alread done together, and it made every kind of sense to me that he'd probably need to take the gloves off for this one. I couldn't believe my luck ... I still can't.
I think I probably let him finish a sentence and a half before I blurted out the words, 'I'm in.' 'Well', said he, 'think about it and let me know ...' 'No, no ... if you want me, I'm there.' We finished our dinner with more than a few titbits and amusing ideas about the character of Wonka and, of course, traded the occasional nappy-changing story, as grown men who are dads are wont to do. We ventured out into the night with a handshake and an embrace, as grown men who are pals are wont to do. And I then handed him the complete set of Wiggles DVDs, as grown men probably shouldn't do, but do anyway and deny later. We said goodbye and I then wandered off back to my day-job. Several months later, I found myself in London to begin the shoot.
Our early discussions of Wonka had been incorporated and we were ready to play. The idea of this solitary man and the extreme isolation he'd inflicted upon himself -- and what effect this might have -- was a colossal playground. Tim and I had explored many areas of our own pasts with regard to the various layers of Wonka: two grown men in serious consultation, debating the merits of Captain Kangaroo versus Mr. Rogers, even spicing things up with a dash of, say, a Wink Martindale, or Chuck Woolery, two of the finest game-show hosts ever to crack the boards. We were navigating through territories that would eventually wind up bringing us to tears, laughing like teenage school chums. Sometimes we even travelled into the arena of 'local' kiddie-show hosts, who in some cases could be defined as being just this side of mimes, or carnival clowns. We braved some treacherous possibilities and discarded all things unnecessary. My memories of the process are a gift that I'll treasure always.
The experience of shooting the film with Tim was as good as anything gets. To me, it felt as if our brains were connected by a blistering hot wire that could have generated sparks at any minue. There were moments in certain scenes where we'd find ourselves precariously high on an unbelievably thin thread, trying to work out just how far the limits were, which would only give birth to more absurd notions and mirth.
To my surprise, while shooting Charlie he invited me to play another part in his stop-motion feature Corpse Bride, which he was working on simultaneously. The size and scope and commitment level of these projects if taken on one at a time would have been enough to drop a horse. Tim glided effortlessly from one to another. He is an unstoppable force. There were plenty of times when I was unable to fully grasp his inexhaustible, almost perverse energy.
All told, we worked hard and had an absolute ball. We laughed like mad children about everything and nothing, which is always about something. We shamelessly swapped imitations of some of our favourite entertainers of days gone by, such brilliant individuals as Charles Nelson Reilly, Georgie Jessel, Charlie Callas, Sammy Davis Jr (always), Shlitzy (from the Tod Browning film Freaks), et cetera. The list could go on and on and on, ad infinitum but, the names would get more and more obscure and our readers might just derail. We'd dive into these deep philosophical conversations concerning whether or not the guests of the Dean Martin Roasts were actually in the same room together when the show was taped -- and became really super-worried that maybe they weren't.
His knowledge of film is staggering, far into the obscure and downright scary. For example, in conversation one day at work I happened to mention that my girl, Vanessa, has a thing for disaster films, and preferably bad ones. Right away, Tim's side of our gabbing became incredibly animated, the hands waving and zigzagging dangerously through the air. He rattles off a list of things I'd never heard of in my life. We settled on a couple of humdingers that Tim tracked down from his personal library for us -- titles like The Swarm and When Time Ran Out. And then, for good measure, he'll break out something a bit more soothing like Monster Zero, or Village of the Damned. The point is, his relationship with cinema is not, even in the slightest sense, jaded. He has not tired or bored of the process. Each outing is as exciting as the first.
For me, working with Tim is like going home. It is a house made of risk, but in that risk, there is comfort. Great comfort. There are no saftey-nets, for anyone, but that is how you were raised in that house. What one has to rely on is simply trust, which is the key to everything. I know very deeply that Tim trusts me, which is an amazing blessing, but that is not to say that I am not always paralytic with the fear of letting him down. In fact, that is first and foremost in my thinking as I am approaching the character. The only elements that keep me sane are my knowledge of his trust, my love for him, and my profound and eternal trust in him, coinciding with my hefty yearning to never disappoint him.
What more can I say about him? He is a brother, a friend, my godson's father. He is a unique and brave soul, someone that I would go to the ends of the earth for, and I know, full and well, he would do the same for me.
There ... I said it.
Johnny Depp
May 2005
Dominica, West Indies
Rolling Stone
A Pair of Deviant Book Ends
by Johnny Depp
"Buy the ticket, take the ride." These are the words that echo in my skull. The words that our Good Doctor lived by and, by God, died by. He dictated, created, commanded, demanded, manipulated, manhandled and snatched life up by the short hairs and only relinquished his powerful grasp when he was ready. There's the rub. When he was ready. That is what we are left with. We are here, without him. But in no way are we left with nothing, far from it. We have his words, his books, his insights, his humor and his truth. For those of us lucky enough to have been close to him, which often meant rather lengthy and dangerous occasions that would invariably lead to uncontrollable fits of laughter, we have the memory of his Cheshire grin leading us wherever he felt we needed to go. Which, by the way, was always the right direction, however insane it may have seemed. Yes, the doctor always knew best. I have, seared onto my brain, the millions of hideous little adventures that I was blessed enough to have lived through with him, and frankly, in certain instances, blessed to have lived through. He was/is a brother, a friend, a hero, a father, a son, a teacher, a partner in crime. Our crime: fun. Always fun.
In December 1995 I was vacationing in Aspen, Colorado... The fucking town is just lousy with "beautiful people." My first instinct was to stay inside and drink grog, or as the twinkling jet set refers to them, "hot toddies." My time in Aspen was spent as far from the madding crowd as humanly possible until, in spite of my self-induced seclusion, I ran into Alan Finkelstein. Alan, being no stranger to fun, sprang the news on me that Dr. Hunter S. Thompson lived nearby, and would I like to meet him that night at Woody Creek Tavern?
A few of us wandered out into the snow and waited for lightning to strike. Somewhere around 11 PM, an unusually loud noise stole my attention and then demanded the room's attention - a hush on one side, fearful murmurings on the other, were replaced by mounting screams, as what appeared to be an electric saber swung wildly near the entrance of the bar. A deep, raspy voice was hollering for people to get out of his way, threatening to shock the living shit out of any swine who lingered in his path.
Tall and lanky, wearing a woolen Native American-looking knit hat that trailed down past his shoulders, the ubiquitous aviators tight to the face attached to that smile - a massive hand shot toward me. I placed my hand in his firm hold and gave back what I got. The beginning, I knew, of a long and deep-rooted friendship.
He plopped himself into a chair, laid his armaments on the table - a giant cattle prod and a hefty Taser gun. We had a few rounds, talked about this and that and connected on more than a few levels, not the least being the discovery that we both hailed from the same dark and bloody ground, the great state of Kentucky. That fact alone sent Hunter into eloquent tirades ranging from Southern chivalry to hillbilly moonshine-running to our fellow Kentuckian Cassius Clay. Within no time, the group was invited back to Owl Farm. Hunter's fortified compound just up the road from the tavern. Upon arrival, we were greeted by Hunter's assistant, Deborah Fuller, who would later become known as the Vitamin Queen, because of her painstaking and meticulous nursing of Hunter - and myself when I moved into the house. Her daily delivery of B's, C's, D's, and E's and general TLC kept us as healthy and alive as was within reason, bless her.
Hunter and I hunkered down in the kitchen, better known as the "command center," babbling ourselves silly, when I paid him a compliment concerning a smart-looking nickel-plated shotgun hanging up on a rack. Before I knew what was what, I found my hands wrapped around a rather large propane tank, and he was meticulously instructing me to duct-tape a fist-size box to the side of it. While in the process of this bizarre ritual, I inquired as to the box's contents. "Oh, yeah... that??? Uh... nitroglycerin." Panicked, I instantly and deftly heaved the cigarette I was smoking into the kitchen sink and continued the job.
At roughly 2:00 AM, we strolled out to Hunter's back yard. My larger-than-large propane bomb sat approximately fifteen yards dead ahead. The Good Doctor was off to my right coaching and coaxing, giddy with anticipation. Shotgun firmly in hand, I pumped a shell into the chamber and leveled the beast at our preposterously explosive target. Pitch-black night, a thousand million stars in the sky, dead calm, the neighbors safely tucked in for a pleasant nighty-night and then, BLAMMO! A direct hit and the target exploded into an eighty-foot fireball. "Good shooting, man!" Hunter feverishly screamed. "That was one hell of a shot... Hot damn! Yes!"
Sometime later, I was working in New York City. One morning at about 5:30 AM, slugging it out with a treadmill on a radical incline, huffing, puffing, sweat roping off me, training like a bastard for the film Donnie Brasco. The phone rang. Hmmm. Odd time for someone to be calling, I thought. "Hello?" "Johnny.... Hunter. What's wrong with you, you sound sick!" Good God, there was no way in hell that I could've explained a treadmill to him at this time, far too mortifying. I jumped into the conversation: "Nothing, no... just getting ready to go to work. How are you?" "Fine, fine... listen, if they were going to do a film of the Vegas book... would you be interested? Would you want to play me?" I was stunned. I hopped off that dastardly whore of a treadmill and tried to gather myself. "Well...what about it? Are you in?" Of course I was. Who wouldn't have been? I was beyond interested. We spoke a bit more about it, the hows, the whos, the whens, the whys, etc. It was then that I learned that there really weren't any - no script, no director, no production at all. It simply didn't exist. Not yet, anyway. He'd inquired for his own edification. He did that sort of thing a lot. Hunter was always way ahead of the curve - even in what appeared to be absolute chaos, he was all too aware of exactly where the chips would fall.
After a gathering in New York to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or as he called it, "the Vegas book," a handful of us ended up at Hunter's hotel suite for several nightcaps. I took advantage of the opportunity and cornered the Good Doctor to say that if I was to do the film, I would first need his blessing - if he was comfortable giving it - and that if I did even a remotely decent job playing him, there was a damn good chance he might well hate me for the rest of his life. Bang. Those black eyes shot into mine, twinkling like stars. I remember the smile on his face like it was yesterday. Cheshire. "Well, what the fuck ... buy the ticket, take the ride, eh?... And let's hope for the best, hee, hee... for your sake."
The "Vegas film" finally got set up, and the time had come for some serious soul-stealing. I flew into Aspen and was greeted at the airport by Hunter in his '71 Chevy convertible, a.k.a. the Red Shark. I was sporting a woolen toque on my head, having already done the initial razoring to my skull. Hunter was leery to see what I was hiding under my cap. "Oh, Jesus... Let's see it," he reluctantly said. I whipped the fucker off and felt the wind on my bald pate. "Holy Christ! You look terrible... Fuck man... put that hat back on, it's making me sick!"
We serpentined our way through the mountains and arrived at Owl Farm, where I was swiftly invited to put my things in the basement. Hunter and Deborah had, very kindly, set up a room for me and gave me access to pile after pile of manuscripts, work notes, trinkets, bars of soap from Vegas and other holy relics. I lived in that basement for much longer than was planned and grew to be kind of comfortable with the brown recluse spiders I shared the room with.
One night I was sitting on my bed having a smoke and going through some of Hunter's notes from the Vegas days and brilliant scenes that, for some reason, were edited out of the book. I placed my cigarette in the ashtray that was sitting on the nightstand. For some reason, I began to examine the nightstand, a barrel of sorts... wooden slats, steel bands, the whole bit. As I scrutinized it a bit more, a wave of fear hit me, the likes of which I'd never experienced. My nightstand was a keg of gunpowder. Sprinting up the stairs as fast as a cheetah, I located Hunter sitting at command central. "Hunter... you've gotta come with me... I need to know if... come on, come downstairs!" He looked confused but humored me and walked down to my room. "What's gotten into you, Colonel? Is it those filthy little brown recluses again?" "No. It's that thing!" I pointed to the offending object and begged him to tell me if it was actually full and active. A look of recognition came across his face. "Oh, God, that's where it is! I've always wondered what happened to it."
"YIKES! Is it full?" I was flipping.
"Fuck, yes, it's full! Holy shit, that goddamn thing could've blown us all off the map, especially with you smoking near it! Ye gods, man. What's wrong with you?" He giggled for weeks, even years about that. So did I. I'm still giggling.
For days and nights on end, we would sit in that command center, and talk about anything and everything from politics to weapons, our home state, lipstick, music, Hitler's paintings, literature, sports. Always sports. We were talking one night about which ones he preferred and didn't. We were watching plenty of basketball and loads of football, so I asked him if he was ever a baseball fan, to which he replied flatly, "No. Baseball is like watching a bunch of angry Jews arguing on the porch." Once, a year later, we'd made a bet on the World Cup soccer tournament, France vs. Brazil. He was positive that Brazil was going to cream France. I took that bet, one thousand dollars. We teased and prodded each other for weeks leading up to the match. The outcome bent in my favor; he promptly wrote me a check and sent it with this letter:
WELL, COLONEL, I TOLD YOU THE FUCKING GAME WAS FIXED. I just didn't think those prissy quadroon boys would go totally into the tank. They acted like stupid animals. They shit all over themselves and disgraced a whole nation of gutless whores in the eyes of the world. And it taught me another good lesson in WHY amateurs shouldn't fuck around with gambling on games they know nothing about.Anyway, here's a check for $1,000.
Thank you very much for yr. business. I'll be back.
Okay,
Doc
His generousity was astounding. Never once did he try to wriggle away from my never-ending barrage of questions. He was always exceptionally patient and very giving. He was totally open regarding the details of his exploits and personal experiences, even the more intimate particulars of his past. The more time together, the more intense the bond. The connection was profound and becoming more so.
I used to tease him that we were becoming a perversely twisted version of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, which really made him uncomfortable. I had, by this point, purloined an impressive amount of his clothing from the Vegas period and adopted the same mode of dress: the aviator shades, a bush hat, short pants, athletic socks, Converse sneakers, cigarette holder clenched tightly between the teeth. We'd saunter out of the house to take a drive in the car like freakish twins.
So, for good or ill, there we were, a pair of deviant bookends on the prowl.
Truly, the man should be sainted for putting up with my continual scratching away at the layers of his life. He stuck it out like a champion and couldn't have been a better friend.
When the film was done, a fresh print was put on a fast horse to Aspen for Hunter's consumption. This was it, the moment of truth. I feared that our friendship would come crumbling down as a result of my interpretation of him and his work. I pulled up my bootstraps and made the call, more than half expecting him to either not pick up or chew me out in a hideous finale that would've crushed me. "Well, Doctor... do you hate me?" His diagnosis was calm and dazzling. "No, no... Colonel, I feel good. Watching the film was like an eerie trumpet call over a lost battlefield." My elation at not letting him down shot skyward.
There are endless other moments and experiences that I was fortunate enough to have gone through with Hunter, far too many to write about at this time. I cherish the seconds and milliseconds I shared with him. I was well aware that it was all going to happen only once in a lifetime. These were fantastic experiences. Some of the best moments of my life were happening to me and, luckily, I knew it.
Speaking as a fan: You owe it to yourselves to not be cheated, or shortchanged, by believing merely the myth. Read the work. Read his books. Understand that his road and his methods were his and only his. He was, in no way, irresponsible when it came to his writing. He lived it, breathed it - twenty-four hours a day. There are those of you, based on Hunter's journeys and the mad stories that surround his life and memory, might think that because of his lifestyle, the excess and the wild rantings, he was simply some hedonistic lunatic, or as he always put it, "an elderly dope fiend." I promise you, he was not. He was a Southern gentleman, all chivalry and charm. He was a hilarious and rascally little boy. A truth seeker. He was a hypersensitive medium who channeled the underlying currents of truth, concealed in veils of silken lies that we have become accustomed to swallowing.
Hunter was a genius who revolutionized writing in the same way that Marlon Brando had done with acting, as significant, essential and valuable as Dylan, Kerouac and the Stones. He was, without question, the most loyal and present friend I have ever had the honor of knowing. I am privileged to have belonged to the small fraternity of people in his life who were allowed to see more than most. He was elegance personified. I miss him. I missed him when he was alive. But, dear Doctor, I will see you again.
(An appreciation of Kerouac, Burroughs, Cassidy and the other bastards who ruined my life)
by Johnny Depp
There I was, age thirteen, eyes shut tight, listening intently to Frampton Comes Alive over and over again, as some kind of pubescent mantra that helped to cushion the dementia of just how badly I wanted to whisk Bambi, the beautiful cheerleader, away from the wedge of peach melba that was the handsome, hunky football hero. ...
I was daydreaming of taking her out behind the 7-Eleven to drink Boone's Farm strawberry-apple wine and kiss until our mouths were raw. ZZZZRRRIIIPP!! was the sound I heard that ripped me from that tender moment. My brother Danny, ten years my senior and on the verge of committing fratricide, having had more than enough of "Do you feel like we do?," promptly seized the vinyl off record player and with a violent heave chucked the sacred album into the cluttered abyss of my room.
"No more," he hissed. "I can't let you listen to that shit anymore!"
I sat there snarling at him in that deeply expressive way that only teens possess, decompressing too fast back into reality. He grabbed a record out of his own collection and threw it on.
"Try this ... you're better than that stuff. You don't have to listen to that shit just 'cause other kids do."
"OK, fucker," I thought, "bring it on ... let's have it!"
The music started ... guitar, fretless stand-up bass, flutes and some Creep pining away about venturing "in the slipstream ... between the viaducts of your dreams. ..." "Fuck this," I thought, "this is pussy music -- they're not even plugged in! Those guitars aren't electric!" The song went a bit further: "Could you find me ... would you kiss my eyes ... to be born again. ..." The words began to hit home; they didn't play that kind of stuff on the radio, and as the melody of the song settled in, I was starting to get kind of used to it. Shit! I even liked it. It was a sound I hadn't really ever given any attention to before, because of my innate fear of groups like America, Seals and Crofts, and, most of all, the dreaded Starland Vocal Band. I didn't give half a fuck about a horse with no name, summer breezes or afternoon delights! I needed space to be filled!!! Filled with sound ... distorted guitars, drums, feedback and words ... words that meant something ... sounds that meant something!
I found myself rummaging and rooting wildly through my brother's record collection as if it were a newfound treasure, a monumental discovery that no one -- especially no one my age -- could know about or understand. I listened to it all! The soundtracks to A Clockwork Orange and Last Tango in Paris, Bob Dylan, Mozart and Brahms ... the whole shebang! I couldn't get enough. I had become like some kind of junky for the stuff and in turn became a regular pain in the ass to my brother. I wanted to know all that he did. I wanted to know everything that rotten white-bread football brute didn't. I was preparing to woo that fantastic little rah-rah girl out of the sunlight of the ice cream parlor and into my nocturnal adolescent dreamscape.
And so began my ascension (or descension) into the mysteries of all things considered Outside. I had burrowed too deep into the counterculture of my brother's golden repository, and as years went by he would turn me on to other areas of his expertise, sending me even further into the dark chasm of alternative learning.
One day he gave me a book that was to become like a Koran for me. A dogeared paperback, roughed up and stained with God knows what. On the Road, written by some goofball with a strange frog name that was almost unpronounceable for my teenage tongue, had found its way from big brother's shelf and into my greedy little paws. Keep in mind that in all my years of elementary school, junior high and high school, possibly the only things I'd read up to that point were a biography of Knute Rockne, some stuff on Evel Knievel and books about WW II. On the Road was life-changing for me, in the same way that my life had been metamorphosed when Danny put Van Morrison's Astral Weeks onto the turntable that day.
I was probably about fifteen by this time, and the cheerleader had begun to fade from my dreams. I didn't need her now. I needed to wander ... whenever and wherever I wanted! I'd found myself at the end of my rope as far as school was concerned; there seemed no particular reason for me to stay. The teachers didn't want to teach, and I didn't want to learn -- from them. I wanted my education to come from living life, getting out there in the world, seeing and doing and moving amongst the other vagabonds who had the same sneaking suspicion that I did, that there would be no great need for high-end mathematics, nope. ... I was not going to be doing other people's taxes and going home at 5:37 P.M. to pat my dog's head and sit down to my one-meat-and-two-vegetable table waiting for Jeopardy to pop on the glass tit, the Pat Sajak of my own private game show, in the bellybutton of the universe, Miramar, Florida. A beautiful life, to be sure, but one I knew I was destined not to have, thanks to big brother Dan and the French-Canadian with the name Jack Kerouac.
I had found the teachers, the soundtrack and the proper motivation for my life. Kerouac's train-of-thought writing style gave great inspiration for a train-of-thought existence -- for better or for worse. The idea to live day to day in a "true pedestrian" way, to keep walking, moving forward, no matter what. A sanctified juggernaut.
Through this introduction to Kerouac, I then learned of his fellow conspirators Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso, Huncke, Cassady and the rest of the unruly lot. I dove into their world full on and sponged up as much as I possibly could of their works. The Howl of Ginsberg left me babbling like an idiot, stunned that someone could regurgitate such honesty to paper. Burroughs' Naked Lunch sent me into fits of hysterical laughter, with the imagery of talking assholes and shady reptilian characters looming, always not far behind. Cassady's The First Third rants on beatifically like a high-speed circular saw. The riches I was able to walk away with from these heroes, teachers and mentors are not available in any school that I've ever heard of. Their infinite wisdom and hypersensitivity were their greatest attributes and in some cases --as I believe it was with Kerouac -- played a huge part in their ultimate demise.
I had the honor of meeting and getting to know Allen Ginsberg for a short time. The initial meeting was at a soundstage in New York City, where we were both doing a bit in the film The United States of Poetry. I was reading a piece from Kerouac's Mexico City Blues, the "2nth Chorus," and as I was rehearsing it for camera, I could see a familiar face out of the corner of my eye: "Fuck me," I thought, "that's Ginsberg!" We were introduced, and he then immediately launched into a blistering rendition of said chorus, so as to show me the proper way for it to be done.
"As Jack would have done it!" he emphasized.
I was looking straight down the barrel at one of the most gifted and important poets of the twentieth century, and with all the truth and guts I could muster up, I said in response, "Yeah, but I'm not reading it as him, I'm reading it as me. It's my interpretation of his piece."
Silence -- a LONNNGG silence. Ticktock tickrock ticktock
I was smiling nervously, my eyes sort of wavering between his face and the floor. I sucked down about half of my 5,000th cigarette of the day in one monster drag and filled the air around us with my poison. It was at that point that I remembered his "Don't Smoke!" poem ... oops ... too fucking late now, boy, you done stepped in shit! I looked at Ginsberg, he looked at me, and the director looked at us both as the crew looked at him, and it was quite a little moment, for a moment there. Allen's eyes squinted ever so slightly and then began to twinkle like bright lights. He smiled that mystic smile, and I felt as though God himself had forgiven me a dreadful sin.
After the shoot, we took a car back to his apartment on the Lower East Side and had some tea. He was gracious enough to speak to me about the early years with Kerouac, Cassady and the others. We spoke of many things, from the cost of a limo ride to the high-pitched voice of Oscar Wilde; he actually had a recording of Wilde reading The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He flirted unabashedly and nonstop for the duration of my visit, even allowing me to smoke, as long as I sat next to the kitchen window and exhaled in that direction. He kindly signed a book to me and a couple of autographs (one for my brother, of course), and then I made my way back to the hotel, only to have already received a call from him, inviting me to some kind of something or other.
From that day forward, we stayed in touch with each other over the next few years and even spent time together from time to time. Our communication continued until our final conversation, which was just three days before he passed on. He called me to say that he was dying, and that it would be nice to see each other again before he checked out. He was so calm and so peaceful about it that I had to ask how he felt given this situation. He gracefully said that it was like a ripple on a sea of tranquillity. He then cried a little, as did I; he said, "I love you," and so did I. I told him I would get to New York as soon as possible, and fuckin' A, I was gonna go -- the call came only days later.
Ginsberg was a great man, like his old pals, who had paved the way for many, and many more to come. The contribution of these people goes way beyond their own works. Without On the Road, Howl or Naked Lunch, for example, would we have been blessed with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson and Bob Dylan? Or countless other writers and poets of that caliber who were born in the Fifties and Sixties? Where would we be without modern classics like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or The Times They Are A-Changin'?
So much has happened to me in the twenty years since I first sat down and took that long drag on Kerouac's masterpiece. I have been a construction laborer, a gas-station attendant, a bad mechanic, a screen printer, a musician, a telemarketing phone salesman, an actor, and a tabloid target -- but there's never been a second that went by in which I deviated from the road that ol' Jack put me on, via my brother. It has been an interesting ride all the way -- emotionally and psychologically taxing -- but a mother-fucker straight down the pike. And I know that without these great writers' holy words seared into my brain, I would most likely have ended up chained to a wall in Camarillo State Hospital, zapped beyond recognition, or dead by misadventure.
So in the end, what can anyone ... scholar, professor, student or biographer ... really say about these angels and devils who once walked among us, though maybe just a bit higher off the ground?