Blow By Blow Introduction
By Johnny Depp
I arrived in New York City late, somewhere around 11.30pm, from Europe. With just enough jet lag to keep my peepers wide open for one too many hours – my brain crowded with the threat of Mr Sun’s arrival, knowing that soon he’d nudge me out of my snooze and into the world. I shut my eyes tight with the hope that he might be tardy.
Woke up the following morning – or rather, a couple of hours later – with a very prompt Mr Sun stabbing through the black protection of my eyelids. The rotten bastard had found me.
I pitched and tossed and turned and spun – doing my best to avoid him – until I just couldn’t take it anymore I forced the heavy lids up and open and stared the eyeballs straight into the beastly light. I dunked my face into the pot of hot coffee and dove out the window and thus began the day. Things to do… Up Awake Onward. Forward.
I made my way downtown to St Mark’s Place to a bookstore of the low-down, the lowbrow, the bohemian, the subterranean-counterculture-drop-out types. My mission – to get my paws on some fine literature suitable for… well, you’ll find out. First and foremost, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by the good doctor himself, Dr Hunter S Thompson – a must for anyone and everyone… especially anyone in need of a serious excursion from their four walls. Second on the list, Tarantula by Bob Dylan – we need say nothing about him or his genius. Third, Kerouac – anything at all by ol’Jack… On The Road being the Bible. And why not throw in a little taste of Burroughs and Ginsberg while I’m at it.
I was taking these fine books to prison, to Otisville Federal Correctional Institution, to be specific. I was to meet up with one George Jung, a guest of said facility, Federal Inmate #19225-004.
The ride upstate took a coupla’ few hours – I used this time to get through the several thousand questions that swirled inside my head, destined to be received by Mr Jung. I pondered the answers and then threw them out of the window as I arrived at the prison.
A thick comfort of snow lay on the ground – the sun still pointed in my direction – I found myself standing outside the fence of a bland-looking institution with the benign fa