CALLING DR BURROUGHS

THE LAST INTERVIEW I WILL EVER DO

BY VICTOR BOCKRIS

© Victor BOCKRIS

Victor Bockris and William Burroughs - Lawrence - September 1990

This text is published by Interzone Editions in the first tome in English of The Time of the Naguals : pdf on line Around Burroughs and Gysin:

In French in "Le Temps des Naguals - Autour de Burroughs et Gysin" : Version pdf on line

 

VB : Were you ever in your life what you would describe as a frightened person ?

WB : (Sitting up straight and shooting a hard, almost petulant look across the table) ARE YOU MAD ?

VB : Well, no, I do not think of you as frightened at all.

WB : Like most people I live in a continual state of panic. Most people do if they have any sense. Maybe they think they're not, but they are. We're virtually threatened every second. This is a very unfunny decade, a very grim decade. Grim and nasty. (We are sitting around the table in the living room of William Burroughs house in Lawrence Kansas, James Grauerholz, Bill Rich, William and myself. Cats sit in our laps or sprawl on the floor. We have returned the previous day from a visit to L.A. for the opening of Burroughs show at the Earl McGrath gallery. Just before I'd left for my hotel the night before William had thrust two books into my hands - Quandrill and his Civil War Guerillas by Carl W. Brethan and Majestic, a novel by Whitley Streiber. In 1989 Burroughs visited Steiber seeking to make contact with aliens Steiber had written about in Communion and Transformation).

VICTOR BOCKRIS : How did you get to know Whitley Streiber ?

WILLIAM BURROUGHS : It is very simple. I was very interested in his first books and I have convinced that this was somehow very authentic. I felt that it was not fraud or fake. Then Bill here, who is very very skeptical, I gave him the books to read and he said, "After reading it I believe every word of it." I said I was convinced this was about a phenomenon. On the basis of that I wrote a letter to Whitley Streiber saying that I would love to try to contact these visitors. And Ann Streiber wrote back saying, "Well we have to be sure, we get a lot of crank letters, that you are really you." And I wrote a letter back saying "I am indeed really me,"
and then she wrote back she said "We, after talking it over, would be glad to invite you to come up to the cabin." So we spent the weekend there. I had a number of talks with Streiber about his experiences and I was quite convinced that she was telling the truth.

VB : What does he look like ?

WB : Well, he's a medium height, 5 ft 10 ins, medium built. The strange thing about him is that this part of his face (from the forehead to below the nose) has a sort of mask like effect.

VB : Does he have a tranquil presence ?

WB : No it's not very tranquil at all although it's not disquieting. In the first place he's a man with tremendous energy and always busy. Since I've seen him he wrote a whole book, Billy, which is now going to be a motion picture and soon. He's always working, always busy, and walks around the property, a very active person you know, quite clear, quite definite. He seems a very hospitable and sensible person. I can't say that I experienced anything. And he told me this : when you experience it is very definite, very physical, it's not vague it's not like a hallucination, that they are there, is I didn't see anything like that.

VB : (Dismissive) There's no way you would have under those circumstances.

WB : What! What do you mean ?

VB : You were a visitor going into the neighborhood as a journalist.

(The interviewer, suffering from three days on the road in the role of journalist, starts screaming) YOU WERE THE PRESS !

JAMES GRAUERHOLZ : (Soothingly) Right...

VB : YOU WERE THE PRESS YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE ! ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT THE FUCKING PRESS. I HATE THE PRESS ! YOU WERE THE PRESS!

WB : (Calmly) I was not.

VB : (Sneering) Yes you were the journalist in the situation, and those fucking people wouldn't come down and even talk to you.

WB : (Dignified) I have never been a journalist.

VB : Well come on, you're always talking about the press, the press, the fucking press...

WB : You're crazy man !

VB : Of course I'm crazy !

JG : You're lashing out Victor. You have been unjustly accused of representing the press...

 VB : But it's interesting, there's some relevance to what I'm saying...

 WB : No, no, no...

 VB : No, but William excuse me...

 JG : William was a seeker, he was looking too hard.

 VB : Of course he was !

 JG : Look too hard and you can't find it.

 VB : No, what I am imagining is you came to him as a writer, he obviously knew you as a writer, under those circumstances it seems to me kind of unlikely that some great thing would happen.

 JG : They're like watching ,they're like in the saucers, they're like...

 VB : Yeah, if we really accept Whitley Streiber's account, which I am certainly open to accept, right, why the fuck would they rush out when some writer comes up for a couple of days ?

 WB : For every reason. Every reason why...

 VB : What do you mean ? (Sneering again) Man, you really think they'd recognize who the fuck you are ?

 WB : I THINK I AM ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THIS FUCKING WORLD...

 VB : (Jump in) Well, I agree with you...

 WB : ... and if they'd had any sense they would have manifested.

 VB : I agree with you...

 WB : So that's all I'm saying.

 JG : Well, they did manifest to Streiber.

 VB : That's the crux of my point ! William Burroughs is one of the most important people in this fucking world and he went up there to meet with them and they did not manifest, and I'm serious I say "Hey !" If up comes X character who is really open saying, "I am coming here to connect," and does not connect - let us ask ourselves what this means ... !

 JG : I think it means the swami has a headache.

 VB : No, I don't think that's what it means...

 WB : Now wait a minute...

 VB : That's bullshit man; that's a bullshit answer...

 WB : ... wait a minute now, hold on, don't be so stupid and unattractive. It may mean all sorts of things. It may mean it was not propitious for them to come and pick me at that particular time. It may mean that they would contact at a later date, or it may mean that they look upon, me as an enemy.

 VB : (Devoted) I don't see anyway they could do that.

 WB : Well, why not ? We don't know who they are... I'm telling you ... Listen, we have no way of knowing what their real motives are. They may find that my intervention is hostile to their objectives. And their objectives may not be friendly at all... Just like when the great white gods came to the Indians in Central America and they were Spaniards. The Indians said, "Here they come," and the Spaniards cut their hands off. Yeah, so you don't know what their intentions are.

 VB : I would have thought that William's intentions are fairly clear se I would have thought any aliens who visited the planet would have had an openness to William's visit.

 WB : Not necessarily. You are thinking that they think like we do, like I do. We have no idea how they might think or how they might evaluate or what they want ! We haven't a clue. One of them said, "We are re-cycling souls." So we're proceeding with no information...

 VB No, listen man, you don't have to persuade me, I'm a complete...

 WB : All right...

 VB : (Raising voice) BUT !

 WB : (Speaking slowly and clearly in the calm, patient but firm voice of a doctor)

Clam down man, calm down. You're getting way too excited, way too strident, and I think that you should just calm down and take it very, very easy, because you're obviously - you know - concerned and upset about this whole subject. Now let's calm down and talk calmly, you are getting...

 VB : I'm upset about the whole invasion thing, because I have a very strong sense of being invaded.

 WB : Who doesn't ! You are no more invaded than the rest of us. When I go into my psyche at a certain point I meet a very, very hostile, very strong force. It's as definite as if I'd met somebody attacking me in a bar. We usually come to a stand off but I don't think that I'm necessarily winning or loosing.

VB : I am suffering from a strong sense of invasion. I've been fighting it...

JG : Well, you're with the doctor...

WB : That's why I told you to calm down, because I know you're being troubled. Now listen just (whispering) calm down. Bring it to me. (Shrugs) I am an old doctor. After all I've been ... listen baby, I've been coping with this for so many years and I know this invasion gets in. Listen, as soon as you get close to something important that's when you feel this invasion and that's the way you know there's something there... I've felt myself just marched up like a puppy to go up and do something that would get me insulted or humiliate<d. I was not in control. Then the ultimate dream I had, I saw my body walking out of the room - this is in Chicago - bent on some deadly errand and I'm just up o the ceiling sort of fading out with no power at all. That's the ultimate horror of possession. There are all degrees of possession. It happens all the time.

What you have to do is to chart, to confront the possession. Now you can only do that when you're wiped out the words. You don't argue, you don't say "Oh, I ... it's unfair ! bla bla bla" You confront the invasion. If you are firmly in control that will...

JG : You admit it, you allow it to challenge you so that you can repulse its challenge. You have to admit it. As long as it has you flailing, keeping it away from you, you never confront it.

WB : The last thing the invasion instance wants to do is confront you directly, cos that is an end of it. But invasion is the basis of the fear, there is no fear like invasion. Now look, you see you have for example a Guardian Angle who tells you what to do or what not to do. "Don't go in here, don't do that." There's nothing worse than a reverse Guardian Angel who is inside you telling you all the worst things to do and getting into the worst situations, of course.

VB : The only way I know how to fight it off is to say, "No, no, no, no."

WB : No, that's ... "No, no, no" (laughing) doesn't work. You have to let it wash through. This is difficult, this is difficult, but I'll tell you one thing, you detach yourself and allow this to wash through, to go through instead of trying to oppose, which you can't do.

Everyone has sort of this out themselves. If you can, very few can. And you have, all right here's the whole liberal position. Well, they're possessed but their intellect is not possessed so they can oppose something, which is right in there possessing then. They oppose it intellectually, you see, but they have not dealt with it all on the whole, should we say, psychological and finally molecular level. So you can't as I say, oppose something intellectually, which is quite overwhelming you emotionally, because remember that the chain of command or the chain of action comes up from the visitors to the backbrain and then finally to the front brain. When the front brain tries to reverse this and gives orders to the backbrain, and the viscera it just doesn't work. "Pull yourself together !" (laughing) they say. Well, you can't. The more you try to pull yourself together the further apart you get, of course. You have to learn to let the thing pass through. I am a man of the world, I understand these things, of curse. They happen to all of us. All you have to do is understand them or see them for what they are, that's all. So don't think you're alone, because you are not. Pot is very helpful to confront it and to allow you to detach yourself. That's why it's so heavily put down. I see there was some town in Georgia, there were some people giving yoga sessions and they stopped them. They said, "Well, if you relax your mind as they say of course the devil will come in !" It would occur to them that my God the Lord might come in. Oh no, "The devil comes in !" If you relax your mind for a minute, in comes the devil ! (Aside to one of his cats who has just scampered into the room : "Now how did you get in here, you little beast... That's Spooner"). There's been a tremendous process of a rightist takeover in this country. All right, they don't march in the streets but they march. And they've stolen the march of the, um, liberals or whatever they're called. I hate that term liberals. It sounds so vague. I just think they're, well, Johnsons - reasonable people that have some sort of sense of moderation and common sense and are not in some state of hysterical self righteous anger.

VB : Do you think it's possible that you may have at times in your life done some things that shocked your system and made you look at yourself in a way that caused you to be creative ?

WB : Well of course. I think this is, I would dare say, pretty much a universal phenomena which anyone who is creative. This comes from a serie of shocks in which they are forced to look at themselves. See, that's what it all is? Everything outside is inside and vice versa, but you are making these aspects of yourself available in painting, writing, filming or whatever, but that results from a series of theses shocks where you find yourself doing something that's absolutely awful.

VB : But you don't do really awful things that many times in your life.

WB : You do, you do them all the time. Everyone does them all the time. They may just be your thoughts, they can be all sorts of things. You don't have to massacre millions or drop nerve gas, but how many people in Saddam's place would have done that and worse ? If they had the chance. Well ok now wherever those people are they're doing their little worst everywhere and it's when someone ... well they don't criticize their own behavior because they're completely possessed by these feelings, these hatreds alright...but when the person finds himself acting like these people then he is forced to examine himself in every particular and such examination and recognition is an integral part of the whole creative process.

VB : Is fear part of that process ?

WB : Of course. It is an integral part of the process, because possession is the most extreme form of fear. When you feel yourself possessed to do something that you regard with the most profound horror or repulsion or disgust, that's the basic fear... It comes down to a question of courage.

VB : The courage to be yourself, to do what you are going to do ?

WB : Yes, the courage to reject them.

VB : Is that a conscious mind fight against the possession ?

WB : Heavens no ! The conscious mind is one of your puniest weapons. You have to marshall whatever forces you've got not just here (the head) but throughout the whole organism. See it in its full psychic potential. We have fourteen souls the Egyptians say.

(One of the most significant changes in William's life since moving to Kansas has been his relationship with a number of cats. At many given time over the last few years he had up to five cats at the same time living with him.)

VB: Do you think you've learned a lot from living with your cats ?

WB: Oh heavens! I've learned immeasurably. I've learned compassion, I've learned all sorts of things from my cats, "cos cats reflect you, they really do. I remember when I was out at the stone house Ruskie sort of attacked one of the kitten. I gave him a light slap and then he disappeared. He was so hurt. And I knew where he was. I went out into the barn and found him sulking there, picked him up and carried him back. Just the slightest slap like that. This is his human, his human had betrayed him, slapped him, yeah. Oh heavens yes I've learned so much from my cats I can't tell you. They reflect you in a deep way. It just opened up in me a whole area of compassion that I can't tell you was so important. I remember lying in my bed and weeping and weeping and weeping to think that a nuclear catastrophy would destroy my cats. I could see people driving by saying: "Kill your dogs and cats," and this, you know, I spent literally hours just crying with grief. Oh my God, and then also the feeling that constantly could be some relationship between me and the cats, some special relationship and that I might have missed it. Yes, yes, did I ever. Some of this is in The cat Inside. Some of it was so extreme that I couldn't write it. I could not write it. Did I ever learn from my cats, my God, Oh my God. People, you know, think of me as being so cold - some woman wrote that I was someone who could not admit any feeling at all. My God. I am so emotional that sometimes I can't stand the intensity. Oh my God. Then they ask me if you ever cry ? I said Holy shit probably two days ago. I'm very subject to these violent fits of weeping, for very good reasons. Yes.

 

(Jean Genet was one of the few living writers Burroughs has felt some connection with)

VB : Since we last spoke Jean Genet died. Do you have any memories or reflections on him? Did you know, for example, in the past six years of his life Genet was writing a great book, Prisoner of Love. He was hanging out with the young soldiers in Syria and Jordan.

WB : No, I knew nothing of this, this is fascinating. You see the last time I saw him was of course in Chicago in 1968, but Brion (Gysin) saw him after that, he was in Tangier and they had quite an encounter, but I know nothing about his love for Syrian soldiers, tell me, tell me...

VB : I'll send you the book. It's a beautiful meditation on the plight of the young soldier. His mother tenderly hands him a glass of milk as he walks off...

WB: I'll send you the book. It's a beautiful medication on the plight of the young soldier. His mother tenderly hands him a glass of milk as he walks off...

WB: Do I admire that man being able to keep up an almost adolescent interest, it's really great... (William gets up and leaves the room. Coming back minutes later, he is glowing, gliding across the room) I just had such a tremendous feeling as I walked into the toilet to take a piss of Genet coming in. Genet, Genet, Genet. Oh my God - it was overwhelming !

VB : He was right there in the room ?

WB : No, right in me. He's not just wandering around he was in me. Genet, Genet, Genet, OH !

JG : I am born. Genet means I am born in French.

WB : Yes, that's true, but I just had such a tremendous feeling of his spiritual presence. Wow !

JG : William; if Genet has come into you tonight, can we interview him for just a few questions ?

WB : (Formally) Well, of course. Go ahead.

JG : Monsieur Genet, what is the meaning of this sentence : "There was me and the was the French language. I put one into the other and..."

WB : (As Genet) "C'est fini. That was all that I could do. I could take myself and I could put myself into French language. It is the only language I could put myself in just as I could only have been a French thief. And when I had done that I had done everything that I could do."(Reverts to himself) He died in a hotel. He always lived in sorts of this anonymous...

VB : Do you have a good memory ?

WB : Yes, I have almost a photographic memory.

VB : Even going back fifty years you have vivid images of particular events ?

WB : Wait a :minute, this is quite true. In some instances I'll remember very clearly and others I will not remember at all. My memory for years back is much better than my recent memory. I remember my earliest conscious memory. I came down the stairs and there was a mirror and I was there three years old and I said to the mirror, "Three, three." There was another one, I don't know of it was earlier or later, drinking Whistle in the back yard and it was very hot. I remember the taste of Whistle. I can see the Whistle bottle...

JG: So if I got you a bottle of Whistle today you might, like Proust, have a real flashback.

WB : I doubt it, no, it just was... it wouldn't be the same Whistle.

(Eyes hooded, with a tranquil expression, William looks as if he is seeing something very far away and dimly lit. Humming) Whistle, Whistle, Whistle. Yes...(Silence).

 

BILL RICH INTERVIEW : WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS TALK-TALK - LAWRENCE - Autumn 1981

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