A Thanksgiving Prayer
(courtesy of William S. Burroughs)
When I was younger, I revered the Beat writers. Today, I know better. I can admire some of their literary output while still recognizing how despicably they often lived their lives (I’m looking at you, Allen Ginsberg).
For example, each year — on the fourth Thursday in November — I listen to “A Thanksgiving Prayer” by William S. Burroughs. And I nod along to lines like this:
“Thanks for the American Dream — to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through…”
Watch it here (about 2 minutes):
But I do not let this moment of appreciation blind me to the reality of Burroughs’s depravity, e.g. this excerpt from a published 1955 letter written by Burroughs in Tangiers and addressed to Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac:
“The Italian school is just opposite, and I stand for hours watching the boys with my 8-power field glasses. Curious feeling of projecting myself, like I was standing over there with the boys, invisible earthbound ghost, torn with disembodied lust. They wear shorts, and I can see the goose pimples on their legs in the chill of the morning, count the hairs. Did I ever tell you about the time Marv and I paid two Arab kids sixty cents to watch them screw each other — we demanded semen too, no half-assed screwing. So I asked Marv: ‘Do you think they will do it?’ and he says: ‘I think so. They are hungry.’ They did it. Made me feel sorta like a dirty old man…”
Sorta?
Contrary to the protestations of swooning men on the Left, none of the above is edgy and underground. It's not genius or innovative. It's criminal, predatory, and pathological.
To discuss Burroughs as a culturally influential icon and canonize his work without mentioning his sexual assaults on children is to support and sustain the rampant, ever-increasing pedophile culture.
Our silence and inaction help keep this debased system strong by rendering it virtually invisible.
So, my 2022 Thanksgiving Prayer might begin with “Thanks for a country where children are not targeted and preyed upon by a weakening and dying Parasite Class™.”
I could go on for pages adding to that prayer but I’d first be curious to hear what you’re praying for today…
What I like about you Mickey is your sense of balance and fearlessness to stare truth in the face and say, “give me your best shot.” You don’t whitewash or mentally block out the negatives of our societal “icons.” You share the truth and I’m loving your newsletter.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I had 2 thoughts reading this the first is a memory of my Dad. He was what one would call a “conspiracy theorist” and never hesitated to say the truth good, bad or ugly out loud. I remember when my children were young he gave me the advice “never trust adult men who take an interest in children, it’s not natural” The other thought is how grateful I am to be with my daughter who 10 years ago swore she would never marry or have children. Last week her and her husband became a family as they welcomed their daughter into the world. She told me yesterday “I didn’t know I could love something so much” Happy Thanksgiving Mickey!