can * nois * seur ( Kan' us sur'), n. one who is competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannibis.





Today's quick visit to the Alternative Patients Cooperative @ 833 Mission Street proved fortuitous..
We were able to scoop the last dregs of Love Potion. ( see July 29, 09 )
Thus armed we will light up and try to go back in time.



Part Two: i get high with Jack Kerouac



Two weeks after my adventure in the South Bronx i hopped a weekend ride to New York for the regular Saturday night Poetry Reading at the 7 Arts Coffee Shop at 43rd and 9th, way off the downtown radar.

My New Jersey pals Barbara Moraff and Ralph Pine, both exciting young poets, were with me.

Regular guests included Jack Micheline and Ray Bremser ( an unrecognized virtuoso of the word). Another poet was Roberts Blossom who later gained fame as a film actor in Home Alone.

The place was run by John, a jovial, generous, true believer and his assistant Arnie, a painter who sometimes lived in the coffee house. We filed up the stairs every Saturday, feeling really underground and beat.
But that Saturday night was different. That night all the big guys came uptown, having heard there was a strong new scene. Right there were Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, LeRoi Jones ( later Amiri Baraka, New Jersey's controversial Poet Laureate) and a host of Greenwich Village luminaries.
Suddenly i was terrified of reading my stuff before this crowd. Ray Bremser kept passing me a wine bottle saying "have some Tokay, it's heartless" quoting from a Ginsberg line. i got a bit drunk, threw up. John, bless him, told me it was okay, just go out and read.
i was third up.
My poem started, "I am twenty three years old and my relatives keep asking me what I intend to do about it..."
There was nice applause and I went home to New Jersey, relieved i made it through.
On Sundays i usually had dinner with my parents then went back to NY to catch my ride to Fort Dix.
But that afternoon i got a phone call.
Barbara had hooked up with Jack Kerouac and taken him back to her house in Paterson NJ for a night of innocent debauchery. Her parents were away that weekend. Truth be told I was itching to meet Big Jack my own self.
So when the phone rang and Barbara whispered, "Thirty-Third Street now," i sailed out the door.
Sure enough, heavily hung over, was Jack Kerouac himself. Turns out Barbara's folks came home earlier than usual and she was passing him to me for safekeeping.
Jack wanted to get a drink but Paterson was buttoned up tight on Sundays. i told Jack there was plenty of wine at my house and few blocks away and he let me lead the way.
My mom was a great cook and would feed anyone within twenty yards of her kitchen so guests were never a problem. i got Jack a glass of wine and we sat in the living room chatting while my dad read the Sunday Times. Abruptly my father ( who always wore his tie in the house )
put down his paper and said, "You know you're a bum?"
Undaunted Jack, who knew how to hurt a guy, replied, "You come on like a bus driver. I made thirty-five thousand dollars last year."
Mom served dinner just in time and Jack ate a little, drank a lot and talked about his own mother. Mom told Jack he should "settle down, you don't find nice girls in coffee shops." a line i included in a later poem.
An entire gallon of Gallo was consumed by the time we headed back to New York.
While waiting for the bus it came to me. i was still holding the pot i scored two weeks back. And i had papers. Unfortunately my rolling skills were not yet there. Jack's were and he rolled and we smoked a J right on the corner.
When the bus arrived Jack showed me the proper technique for sleeping on a bus (you curl up and wedge your feet against the arm rest) and promptly fell out.
Upon arrival Jack immediately looked for a drink and found the Terminal Bar across the street from the Port Authority Terminal in the heart of sleaze city.
Over scotch Jack confided that my pot was very strong. In his words, "I came in my pants." As we drank an energized Jack kept pointing things out such as, "there's a pimp, look at that gold chain on his vest," or, "look at the way that girl smokes her cigarette, see the tracks on her wrist..."
It was part street tutorial and part lesson in observation for the young writer. In search of more booze we went to my friend Jim Butler's pad where
i was due to catch our ride back to base and the bleak reality of Army life.
Jim was napping. "I'm here with Jack Kerouac,' I whispered.
"Yeah sure," Jim said grumpily. He broke into a beaming grin when he saw the legendary Jack sitting in his living room. Alas Jim had only a modicum of wine and a single piece of paper in the house.
Jack drank the wine then decreed we should all write a poem together, each taking a stanza.
It was tough rounding up a pencil but finally we went to work.
Jim took the first stanza, me next and Jack anchored. This is the poem...

Late night strangers
(both only a little)
How better, awake!

Palms flip silver dollars
watching people with
wet coats

Pissing in the cold
tenement toilet
I smoke my cigarette

And that's the tale of the day i got high with Jack Kerouac.




Suggested reading: Poems of Holy Madness by Ray Bremser.