Monday, December 30, 2013

Gulping Gargoyles!

Uncanny!  Daniel Radcliffe and Allen Ginsberg 
The eldest son went into momentary shock last night.  As usual, the SJG had to come to his rescue with a cookie and a reassuring hug.  "It'll be okay, honey. It's just a movie." I did my best to warn him about "Kill Your Darlings." I offered a riveting lecture on the Beat Poets, a topic I know very little about, but managed to wing it, anyway. I put on my best beret, spouted poetry and snapped my fingers. Trust me, I was the epitome of cool, as I regaled him and the other two in the room, the youngest son, the hubby, about the time I interviewed Allen Ginsberg when I was a reporter on the Daily Bruin. Had I interviewed John Wooden, I think they wouldn't have dozed off. "Start the movie, Ma," someone hogging the sofa commanded. And so, after we accepted all the legalese and promised not to commit piracy, "Kill Your Darlings" began. A quick recap: Ginsie gets into Columbia, meets some iconoclastic dudes who dig Yeats, drugs, alcohol and ciggies. Allen Ginsberg goes from Nice Jewish Momma's Boy (nothing wrong with that) to Oy Vey, He's Breaking Into the Library. If that's not criminal behavior, what is?  Murder.  But that takes place later.  Not that murder rattles the eldest. He's been shooting at people since he first got hooked on violent video games like "Counterstrike" in the Early Aughts. (I know, I've done a wonderful job. Thank you for noticing.)  So, no, murder wasn't the issue.  Half-way through "Kill Your Darling," Daniel Radcliffe as Ginsberg locks lips with an alluring people-user named Lucien Carr.  At the moment they kiss, the eldest, an open-minded individual, took a sudden detour into, "Oh, no, he didn't," and cried out, "Harry Potter!  No!" I would've sent him to his room, but he doesn't live here anymore, a fact I'm still trying to reverse.

2 comments:

  1. So, what did you think of Ginsberg when you interviewed him? I met him when we had him for a spoken word performance at my university, back in the very early 90's (or maybe late 80's). I found him to be a complete...well, I shouldn't write the word here...but it starts with "a" and ends with "hole". I do hope he came across better when you dealt with him.

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    1. He was really strange. He was doing a spoken word performance at UCLA... this was in the mid-70s. We didn't exactly bond!

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