THE BEATNICK'S BEATNICK - NYTimes. GUILTY OF EVERYTHING. The Autobiography of Herbert Huncke. New York. Paragon House. As a triple threat - narcotics addict, gay hustler and petty thief - at times Mr. Huncke became a pariah even to friends who were outcasts themselves. During a stretch in Dannemora State Prison in New York, he recalls, ''not one person in a period of about five years so much as sent me a penny postcard.'' For all that - or precisely because of it - Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac declared him innocent of something. They placed him at the heart of the Beat mythology (though Neal Cassady made by far the greater legend). Kerouac claimed to have borrowed the very term ''beat'' from Mr. Ginsberg regarded him as the prototypical hipster, a seminal figure of alienation and suffering, more sinned against than sinning. Huncke's autobiography does not breathe literary gossip on every page. Nor does it possess anything resembling Mr. Norse's graceful prose or fastidiousness. It reads like an oral history of urban survival and offers an uncommon tale of the streets from which the 7.
He headed straight for Times Square and, when not in jail over the next decade or so, made 4. Street his headquarters. A sparrowlike man of astonishing endurance, Mr. Huncke became a ubiquitous figure in the midtown tenderloin, darting through its hidden alleys and hanging out with such colorfully nicknamed grifters as Russian Blackie and Detroit Redhead. Burroughs, who turned up hoping to sell a shotgun and some morphine. Huncke initially distrusted the future author of ''Naked Lunch,'' suspecting him of being an F. B. I. Burroughs, he met the other future luminaries of the Beat Generation and became, in the words of Mr. Burroughs's biographer, Ted Morgan, ''a sort of Virgilian guide to the lower depths.''. During the good times - to stretch a phrase - Mr. Huncke dealt drugs to support his habit, forged prescriptions, broke into cars, burgled apartments and turned tricks. He also shipped out briefly as a merchant seaman in what seems to have been his only legitimate occupation besides recruiting interview subjects for Dr. Alfred Kinsey, the sex researcher. During the bad times, he wandered the snowbound streets of Manhattan with ''shoes full of blood,'' as Mr. Ginsberg subsequently described him in ''Howl,'' a harbinger of today's homeless legions. Huncke writes: ''I lived in cafeterias and slept in all- night movie theaters, trying to stay away from the cops on their beats. I'd walk the underground tunnels down around Penn Station, into the station restrooms, nodding on toilet seats. Sometimes I'd roll a stray drunk, maybe steal a suitcase . I only wanted a place to live or die in out of the cold; not to be found a corpse crouched in a doorway.''. It is a mind- bending irony that he now longs for the old days, lamenting the increased sordidness of the current drug scene like any New Yorker complaining about a decline in the quality of life. He not only recalls when a dapper addict ''used to be a role model'' - an ethos that apparently has gone to hell - but he wonders, ''What's become of the enthusiasm, the interest in doing new things, in trying to further mankind?''. For the record, ''Guilty of Everything'' is largely a rewrite of ''The Evening Sun Turned Crimson,'' Mr. Huncke's collection of autobiographical vignettes published a decade ago by a small press. Herbert Edwin Huncke (January 9, 1915 – August 8, 1996) was an American writer and poet, and active participant in a number of emerging cultural, social and. Herbert Huncke, the charismatic street hustler, petty thief and perennial drug addict who enthralled and inspired a galaxy of acclaimed writers and gave. Januar 1915 in Greenfield, Massachusetts; . Metro, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-928282-00-X. Some of the stories about his Chicago childhood, his Times Square experiences and the counterculture poets of the 6. Huncke's life remain maddeningly vague, this is an honest book, as Mr. Burroughs notes in the foreword, and ''never more entertaining than when recounting some horrific misadventure.'' There is no lack of those. I wasn't out a month when I was picked up again. Jail in the beginning was an experience and then gradually it became a way of living for me which took up long periods of time. I adjusted to it and accepted it as part of my routine. Watch Huncke (1990) Online - Free Huncke (1990) Download - Streaming Huncke (1990) Watch Online in HD now.I established a daily pattern for existence while laying up in the cell awaiting my trial date. I developed a prayer system wherein I kept asking for God's help and, at one point, requested a miracle. What happened was exactly this. My lawyer advised me, because I told him I was compiling my writings presently into a journal to be published the following year, to make a statement to the effect that the purpose of my book was to have it act as a warning against using drugs. I made the statement and apparently delivered the goods since the judge passed sentence of six months - suspended the sentence - and I walked out of the courtroom. Herbert Huncke - Wikipedia. Herbert Edwin Huncke (January 9, 1. He was a member of the Beat Generation and is reputed to have coined the term. Early life. Huncke's life was centered around living as a hobo, jumping trains across the vast expanse of the United States, bonding through a shared destitution and camaraderie with other vagrants. Although Huncke later came to regret his loss of family ties, in his autobiography, Guilty of Everything, he states that his lengthy jail sentences were a partial result of his lack of family support. Huncke left Chicago as a teenager after his parents divorced. New York City and Times Square. He was dropped off at 1. Broadway, and he asked the driver how to find 4. Street. For the next 1. Huncke was a 4. 2nd Street regular and became known as the . During World War II, Huncke shipped out to sea as a United States Merchant Marine to ports in South America, Africa and Europe. He landed on the beach of Normandy three days after the invasion. Aboard ships, Huncke would overcome his drug addiction or maintain it with morphinesyrettes supplied by the ship medic. When he returned to New York, he returned to 4. Street, and it was after one such trip where he met the then- unknown William S. Burroughs, who was selling a sub- machine gun and a box of syrettes. Their first meeting was not cordial: from Burroughs' appearance and manner, Huncke suspected that he was . Huncke also became a close friend of Joan Adams Vollmer Burroughs, William's common- law wife, sharing with her a taste for amphetamines. In the late 1. 94. Texas to grow marijuana on the Burroughs farm. It was here he renewed his acquaintance with the young Abe Green, a fellow train jumper and much later on in the early beatnik scene, a regular reciter of his own enigmatic brand of spontaneous poetry. Despite his comparative youth, Green was often referred to by Huncke as . Huncke valued loyalty and it is thought that Abe Green was of . He was interviewed by Kinsey, and recruited fellow addicts and friends to participate. Huncke had been a writer, unpublished, since his days in Chicago and gravitated toward literary types and musicians. In the music world, Huncke visited all the jazz clubs and associated with Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon (with whom he was once busted on 4. Street for breaking into a parked car). When he first met Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, they were interested in writing and also unpublished. They were inspired by his stories of 4. Street life, criminal life, street slang and his vast experience with drugs. Huncke was immortalized in Kerouac's . In the late 1. 94. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Melody and . Later, after the formation of the so- called Beat Generation, members of the Beats encouraged Huncke to publish his notebook writings, which he did with limited success in 1. Diane Di. Prima's Poet's Press. Huncke coined the phrase in a conversation with Jack Kerouac, who was interested in how their generation would be remembered. Kerouac used the term to describe an entire generation. Jack Kerouac later insisted that . However, it is thought that this definition was a defense of the beat way of life, which was frowned upon and offended many American sensibilities. His autobiography, titled Guilty of Everything, was lived in the 1. In 1. 99. 1, Herbert Huncke was crowned King of the Beaux Arts Ball. He had been living for several years in a garden apartment on East 7th Street near Avenue D in New York City, supported financially by his friends. In his last few years, he lived in the Chelsea Hotel, where his rent came from financial support from Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, whom Huncke never met. Quotes on Huncke. Tortured by sidewalks, starved for sex and companionship, open to anything, ready to introduce a new world with a shrug. John Clellon Holmes described Albert Ancke, his representation of Huncke in Go in Chapter 1. A sallow, wrinkled little hustler, hatless and occupying a crumpled sport shirt as though crouched in it to hide his withered body. Admired by David Wojnarowicz in his personal diaries, In the Shadow of the American Dream, where their meetings/dates are documented. Frank Mc. Court mentions knowing Huncke in Chapter 1. Teacher Man. His voice is deep, gentle and musical. He never forgets his manners and you'd rarely think of him as Huncke the Junkie. He respects law and obeys none of it. He also starred in his only acting role in . ISBN 1- 5. 57. 78- 0. Guilty of Everything (excerpt) Edited by Raymond Foye. Edited by Diane Di Prima, foreword by Allen Ginsberg. The Herbert Huncke Reader edited by Ben Schafer (New York: Morrow, 1. ISBN 0- 6. 88- 1. X. Huncke 1. 91. 5- 1. New York: Jerry Poynton 1. Includes original texts.)From Dream to Dream (Dig It! Music & Words, Netherlands, 1. Herbert Huncke - Guilty of Everything. Double- CD of Huncke's 1. Ins & Outs Press, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Co- production released by Unrequited Records, San Francisco (2. References. The Portable Beat Reader. ISBN 0- 6. 70- 8. Holladay, Hilary. American Hipster: A Life of Herbert Huncke, The Times Square Hustler Who Inspired the Beat Movement. ISBN 9. 78- 1. 93. Mc. Court, Frank. Mahoney, Denis; Martin, Richard L.; Whitehead, Ron (ed.). A Burroughs Compendium: Calling the Toads. ISBN 0- 9. 65. 98. Mullin, Rick, Huncke: A Poem by Rick Mullin. Illustrated by Paul Weingarten. Seven Towers, Dublin, Ireland. ISBN 9. 78- 0- 9. Huncke interviewed in Arena documentary on Burroughs, BBC TV 1.
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