Hangin' with the Dharma Bums

I remember the first City Lights black-and-white softcover that caught my eye. It was Gregory Corso's Gasoline, and it cost something like $2.50. It was the mid 1970s and I can guarantee, without a doubt, that I was the only young teenage Catholic girl in the city of Philadelphia who was scoping out Robins Bookstore for City Lights titles by Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti, and Kerouac.

It was listening to Dylan's Blood On the Tracks that first opened my mind--opened it way beyond my comfort zone at the time. Remember, I was only 14--and a sheltered, innocent 14 at that. Before Dylan, I'd thought that John Lennon was the ultimate intellectual rock god. But Dylan was a whole new world. I wanted to know everything he knew. To be inspired by everyone and everything that inspired him. He was my new guru. But I had to keep it a secret, for fear of humiliation among the girls in the hood.

In smoky, seedy Robins Bookstore on 13th & Market--where dirty old men with cigars and trenchcoats used to buy their porn, across from the big old church--St. John's, I think--I'd indulge in my deep, dark secret--poetry, the poetry of the Beats. It felt irreverant, exciting, scintilating. Corso wrote about things that shouldn't have been written about--like "Greenwich Village Suicide"--in such a powerful, real, no-bullshit way. It was refreshing--and a little scary.

Fast-forward 14 years or so. I'm hanging with Allen Ginsberg--a friend of a friend who I worked with in the music biz--overhearing him whisper in his sweaty, porno-intellectual voice about the charms of "pretty young boys." I am mortified, pretending to be asleep, and that same day, my hero, Rick, the proverbial nice guy come to life, rescues me from the admittedly literary, often gentle--but absolutely profane--reality that is Ginsberg. Rick walks in, nonchalantly, smoking a cigarette, and chats with Allen--who is wide-eyed and immediately taken with him. They talk for a sec about Bob Dylan, then somehow the small talk meanders to desserts (one of Rick's favorite topics). Rick's talking about apple pie, cake, and ice cream, as the most famous poet in the world sits mesemerized, fascinated, smitten by this sweet, unassuming guy--a rock-and-roll legend.

Then Rick cuts the chit-chat short with an amiable, "Alright Allen, see ya later, Buddy," and we leave. A minute or so of silence as we walk, then Rick gently admonishes me: "That's no place for you." In hindsight, it was quite endearing.

But this Beat journey of mine was just beginning. A few weeks later, at a poetry reading/book fair in the Village, a vodka-soaked, dirty, toothless, track-marked Gregory Corso, a literary rebel I'd admired from afar for so many years, is groping at me and, before I can react, I feel his hand on the small of my back, when I turn around and grab his arm, and yell in the South Philly dago accent I forgot I had, "Oh!!! Whadaya doin?!" As genteel as a nobleman, he takes the stack of books that I have, in my naivete', brought for him to sign, and autographs every one of them. The one I remember most vividly says: "Carol--I'd love to shove a rose up your heart--without thorns."


Somehow, I was able to handle myself with him. I guess that was the Beat way of saying "hello." And, in a strange way, I admired the fact that Gregory was real--his poetry was a true reflection of him. Plus, his name was Gregory--my brother's name--so he had to have goodness in him. We actually became friendly for a while and I ended up booking and promoting a poetry reading for him in Philly. By that time, he was calling me "Kiddo" and when he autographed my last of his books, he wrote "Thanks for a nice time in Old Philly. Be Good--love Gregory."


When I told Rick about the book fair, he reminded me that instances like that were one reason women had knees. Then he said "How do you get into these situations?"

All these years later, that's what I'd like to know.