A story about Allen Ginsberg
I met Allen Ginsberg once, and have seen him several times. Born and raised near San Francisco I was maybe ten years old the first time I remember seeing him. It was at an event that I believe was stagged by the infamous “Diggers” if I’m not mistaken, and it was called “The Death of The Hippie” – a sort of funeral for the Haight Ashbury ‘scene’ that was pretty intense at the time.
Ten years later or so (late 70’s) I was behind the “Temple Beautiful”, a run down Jewish Synagogue that was in between “Fillmore West” and the old Jonestown “Peoples Temple” where we used to have Punk Rock shows. I was drinking “Old English 800” and offered him one, not surprisingly he declined the offer, which didn’t phase me one bit in fact it was more for me (I was a drunk then)
Allen Ginsberg and I hung out back there and talked about “Punk Rock” for about 30-45 minutes as I recall- he asked me lots of questions, and we discussed spiritual concepts which was a very unusual conversation to be having in those days. At the time I was an atheist, never having the slightest inkling that I’d one day be interested in the subject. Even then it struck me as odd but I found his conversation to be very interesting. He brought up a couple of things that haunted me after that meeting for many years that followed.
I remember another aspect of the conversation was him going into some detail as to why the “Punk Rock” movement was like “Kabuki Theatre” – something I knew as little about then as I do now, but interesting none the less.
It was one of the oddest and most interesting meetings I’ve ever experienced.
