The Night I met Allen Ginsberg
By Johnny Depp
An appreciation of Kerouac, Burroughs, Cassady and the other bastards who ruined my life
There I was, age thirteen, eyes shut tight, listening intently to Frampton Comes Alive over and over again, as some kind of pubescent mantra that helped to cushion the dementia of just how badly I wanted to whisk Bambi, the beautiful cheerleader, away from the wedge of peach melba that was the handsome, hunky football hero. …
I was daydreaming of taking her out behind the 7-Eleven to drink Boone’s Farm strawberry-apple wine and kiss until our mouths were raw. ZZZZRRRIIIPP!! was the sound I heard that ripped me from that tender moment. My brother Danny, ten years my senior and on the verge of committing fratricide, having had more than enough of “Do you feel like we do?,” promptly seized the vinyl off record player and with a violent heave chucked the sacred album into the cluttered abyss of my room.
“No more,” he hissed. “I can’t let you listen to that shit anymore!”
I sat there snarling at him in that deeply expressive way that only teens possess, decompressing too fast back into reality. He grabbed a record out of his own collection and threw it on.
“Try this … you’re better than that stuff. You don’t have to listen to that shit just ’cause other kids do.”
“OK, fucker,” I thought, “bring it on … let’s have it!”