at that moment. That’s what I practiced; and that’s what I still am. And that’s what I will die as—a junkie.
Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper (with Laurie Pepper), 1979
Herbert Huncke
(1915–1996)
Herbert Huncke’s life was a relentless adventure: hobo wanderings in the Depression, pre-war junkie hustling, wartime Merchant Marine service, and serving as tribal elder to Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac, in whose books he appears as a character. A peerless raconteur, Huncke published his journals in 1965, followed in 1980 by the collection The Evening Sun Turned Crimson. This selection from that volume evokes a Times Square bop age version of a salon.
Spencer’s Pad
S PENCER HAD a pad on 47th Street. It was one of the coziest pads in New York and one which it was an experience to visit for the first time and to always relax in. It existed in a period when the world was particularly chaotic and New York exceptionally so. For me it represented the one spot at the time where I could seek surcease from tension and invariably find a sense of peace.
Spencer had gone to some pains to make it attractive. He painted the walls a Persian blue and the woodwork a bone white. He kept the lighting soft and had placed big comfortable chairs around his main room. Along one wall he placed his Capehart with records stacked to one side. Long soft rose drapes hung across his windows. A chest sat between the two windows and opposite a fireplace was a studio couch (the same shade as the drapes) faced with a long coffee table.
Spencer presided over all this with great benevolence and good will, making each of his guests welcome and concerning himself with their wants.
Spencer never used drugs—although I have seen him try pot and recently he told me he had sniffed heroin. But anyone was quite free to use whatever he chose and Spencer always managed to maintainenvironmental conditions conducive to the fullest realization of whatever one happened to be using.
The Capehart was exceptionally fine and acted as a sort of focal point in the pad. Great sounds issued forth from its speaker and filled the whole place with awe inspiring visions. I can recall one incident clearly when the people on 47th Street stood along the curb listening and some were dancing and they were laughing and we were in the window watching while music flowed out on all sides.
At the time the streets of New York teemed with soldiers and sailors—lonely and bewildered—and many found their way to the pad—where for a little while at least life took on some meaning. Often they gave love and always found it. Some discovered God and hardly knew of their discovery. There many heard the great Bird and felt sadness as Lady Day cried out her anguished heart.
Others came also—42nd Street hustlers—poets—simple dreamers, thieves, prostitutes (both male and female), and pimps and wise guys and junkies and pot heads and just people—seeking sanctuary in a Blue Glade away from the merciless neon glare.
There were young boys who came and swaggered and talked wise and then spoke of their dreams and plans and went away refreshed and aware of themselves as having an identity.
Spencer accepted them all and gave of himself freely to each. The pad was his home and in it he could accept any confession, any seemingly strange behavior, idea, thought, belief and mannerism as part of one, without outward show of censure. Within the confines of his home one could be oneself.
Spencer lost his pad partly because the people in the building in which it was located resented his show of freedom and partly through a situation which developed out of a relationship with a young man.
Vernon was a young man who came to New York in search of a meaning to life. He wanted to write, he wanted to act, he wanted to be loved, he wanted to love, he wanted anything and everything. His background was somewhat more interesting because of having been raised by a father who was a minister of
Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper (with Laurie Pepper), 1979
Herbert Huncke
(1915–1996)
Herbert Huncke’s life was a relentless adventure: hobo wanderings in the Depression, pre-war junkie hustling, wartime Merchant Marine service, and serving as tribal elder to Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac, in whose books he appears as a character. A peerless raconteur, Huncke published his journals in 1965, followed in 1980 by the collection The Evening Sun Turned Crimson. This selection from that volume evokes a Times Square bop age version of a salon.
Spencer’s Pad
S PENCER HAD a pad on 47th Street. It was one of the coziest pads in New York and one which it was an experience to visit for the first time and to always relax in. It existed in a period when the world was particularly chaotic and New York exceptionally so. For me it represented the one spot at the time where I could seek surcease from tension and invariably find a sense of peace.
Spencer had gone to some pains to make it attractive. He painted the walls a Persian blue and the woodwork a bone white. He kept the lighting soft and had placed big comfortable chairs around his main room. Along one wall he placed his Capehart with records stacked to one side. Long soft rose drapes hung across his windows. A chest sat between the two windows and opposite a fireplace was a studio couch (the same shade as the drapes) faced with a long coffee table.
Spencer presided over all this with great benevolence and good will, making each of his guests welcome and concerning himself with their wants.
Spencer never used drugs—although I have seen him try pot and recently he told me he had sniffed heroin. But anyone was quite free to use whatever he chose and Spencer always managed to maintainenvironmental conditions conducive to the fullest realization of whatever one happened to be using.
The Capehart was exceptionally fine and acted as a sort of focal point in the pad. Great sounds issued forth from its speaker and filled the whole place with awe inspiring visions. I can recall one incident clearly when the people on 47th Street stood along the curb listening and some were dancing and they were laughing and we were in the window watching while music flowed out on all sides.
At the time the streets of New York teemed with soldiers and sailors—lonely and bewildered—and many found their way to the pad—where for a little while at least life took on some meaning. Often they gave love and always found it. Some discovered God and hardly knew of their discovery. There many heard the great Bird and felt sadness as Lady Day cried out her anguished heart.
Others came also—42nd Street hustlers—poets—simple dreamers, thieves, prostitutes (both male and female), and pimps and wise guys and junkies and pot heads and just people—seeking sanctuary in a Blue Glade away from the merciless neon glare.
There were young boys who came and swaggered and talked wise and then spoke of their dreams and plans and went away refreshed and aware of themselves as having an identity.
Spencer accepted them all and gave of himself freely to each. The pad was his home and in it he could accept any confession, any seemingly strange behavior, idea, thought, belief and mannerism as part of one, without outward show of censure. Within the confines of his home one could be oneself.
Spencer lost his pad partly because the people in the building in which it was located resented his show of freedom and partly through a situation which developed out of a relationship with a young man.
Vernon was a young man who came to New York in search of a meaning to life. He wanted to write, he wanted to act, he wanted to be loved, he wanted to love, he wanted anything and everything. His background was somewhat more interesting because of having been raised by a father who was a minister of
Similar Books
