On-line interview with ?

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

I don't know if T. Stanton thinks he agrees with me or if he thinks he's  correcting 
me, but I guess I wasn't clear in my post.  I agree copmpletely w/ what you say 
about drugs and the creative process.  My point is, why mention it all, unless it is in 
some way to diminish the creative process, which is what I feel Siegal tries to do to 
P.'s work w/ repeated digressions into P,'s alleged drug use.  I think that is very 
uncool.  

jogn m (see--too fucked up to spell my own name!!!  Jist say no, kidz!!!!!)

>
>I have always chuckled at what sounds like indignation over the fact TRP
>might have smoked a little pot to fuel the writing process, and the
>gullibility
>of anyone who believed the brag "I was so fucked up I dunno what I was
>doing, but
>it was brilliant when I did it..." Let's get real folks, writer, poets,
>painters,
>et. al. have abused "substances" & created great work, whether on the
>substance
>or as an after effect. People who make their living critquing these
>works don't
>usually want to brag to their peers that the subject of their thesis or
>book 
>is a confirmed pot head (although I find the insider drug jokes funny &
>one 
>of GR's more endearing qualities). Conversely, anyone who has done more
>than 
>"skimmed" GR cannot dismiss it as the ravings of a paranoid pot head,
>except from
>pure meaness. GR is a heavily crafted work of art that you may like or
>dismiss
>on its own merits. The art world is full of alcoholics, addicts, wife
>beaters,
>and other abusers, but the one quality they posessed was the ability to
>create
>great work in spite of (or as a consequence of) their respective
>afflictions. 
>If TRP's only crime was rollin' up a splif to loosen up his Puritanical
>up-
>bringing, he would be no worse than millions of us who did precisely the
>same
>thing during the 60s & beyond.
>