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





Heads Up: Good quality Sativa Shake is available at Re-Leaf Herbal Clinic at $30 the eighth.


Grass Roots is featuring a number of strains at between $30 and $40 an eighth.
i can't attest to the quality of this new line but a high-end gram ( $18 ) of their Blackberry
Kush still goes a long way.

So now might be time to try to conjure some recollections of,

A Beat New Year's Eve

For my own memory's sake i'm going to set up a time line here.

At the very end of my Basic Training at Fort Dix ( i ended up platoon leader ) i contracted pneumonia because of a maniacal Second Lt who insisted i crawl through, rather than around, a large puddle of water. So instead of going to Tank School in Fort Knox Ky i went to the hospital. Upon my release i returned to my old platoon barracks which was empty, awaiting a fresh wave of trainees.
However every day we were sent to what essentially was an Army shape-up, where indigent bodies were assigned to various tasks, usually manual labor. That's where i met Frenchy LaBoy.

Somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas i got high with Jack Kerouac, smoking the boo Frenchy helped me score. i had also built some confidence as a poet appearing at a number of Village readings as well as the weekly show uptown at the Seven Arts which had built heavy momentum.

At the same time i was reassigned to the Personell Center where i met Jim Butler who was reading On The Road. We bonded. Jim had an apartment in NY. It was there Jack, Jim and myself wrote our free-form poem with a pencil.

Okay, so maybe a week later Barbara Moraff, the poet who scooped Jack in the first place, and whose Gothic charm made her a reigning social diva, grandly plugged her New Jersey gang-Ralph Pine, Margot Shnee and myself-into Leroi Jones New Year's Party.
At the time Jones, along with his lovely wife Letty, edited an influential Literary Magazine called Yugen. Later he reincarnated as Amiri Baraka, the teacher, activist, and controversial Poet Laureate of New Jersey.
During that period going to any New York party was heady stuff, much less a real Beat, Greenwich Village New Year's party.

A side note: Margot drove. We stopped in Jersey City to pick up my date Sarah who had asked me to pretend i was Jewish. Fine. i met Sarah's mother, chatted about her son's upcoming Bar Mitzvah, then Ralph, Margot, Sarah and me proceed to the party where Barbara was already holding court. We were early and things had yet to warm up.
Leroi was a bit dubious about his new guests until i mentioned i had a bit of pot. There were two joints left of Frenchy's boo. Leroi rolled. He gave me one and we smoked the other.
From then on everything was mellow. Leroi played some jazz, more guests arrived, and we drank some red wine. Gil Sorrentino was there as was Joel Oppenheimer and Gregory Corso. Jack Kerouac showed up, Allen Ginsberg wandered about before finally getting naked (he did it at every party ) "Allen's taking off his clothes again!" Barbara called out. Lots of colorful people flowed into the cramped railroad flat that night.
In the midst of it I was talking to Jack when Allen came by.
On our first meeting I had confided to Jack that I sometimes walked past Allen G's house in Paterson NJ. So when Allen came up to say hello Jack scolded him. "This kid walks past your house. You should kiss his stomache."
And Allen humbly did.
Shortly before midnight Ralph handed me a Dexadrine and i soared into 1959.
I recall early in the morning hearing the sound of snoring coming from a roll-top desk. Joel Oppenheimer had curled up, pulled the top down over himself and gone to sleep. I also recall dancing with Sarah to Way Out West by Sonny Rollins, the speed giving me new insights into jazz.
After the party Margot drove me, along with Sarah, back to my platoon at Fort Dix. At maybe 5a.m. i entered a bleak, deserted barracks and lay on a cot coming down hard from my first Dexadrine pill. The euphoria i experienced during the party gave way to the grim realization that i was stuck in the Army for the next two fucking years.
And i was out of pot.



Coming Soon: Bob Dylan Sleeps On My Floor

Suggested Viewing: Lush Life with Jeff Goldblum