Comments on: Where Can an Old Junky Get Some Good Balls These Days?

Where Can an Old Junky Get Some Good Balls These Days?

John of Michigan — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:22:22 -0800

Suddenly a warm flood pulsed through his veins and broke in his head like a thousand golden speedballs. William S. Burrough's A Junky's Christmas. Warning: The color scheme will make you turn to heroin to stop the pain.

Link to a download of the video.

By: CitrusFreak12

CitrusFreak12 — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:27:25 -0800

Firefox users: View -> Page style -> No style. You're welcome.

By: steef

steef — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:17:45 -0800

Thank you, CF12!

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:44:22 -0800

It's my legs, senor. Cramps. And now I am without any medicine.

By: everichon

everichon — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:25:38 -0800

That was fun--I've never seen this iteration on the Burroughs ur-narrative. And now I want me some morphine.

By: Ogre Lawless

Ogre Lawless — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:30:16 -0800

PMcD --you, like me, were confusing A Junky's Christmas with "The Priest" They Called Him, another great hit for your Christmas comps.

By: Ogre Lawless

Ogre Lawless — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:34:39 -0800

Shit...maybe not. Youtubery: one, two.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:08:09 -0800

Deliberately so, Ogre, because Burroughs re-writes this same story over and over again. I'm pretty sure that this phrase made its first appearance in Dead Fingers Talk -- which was, in its turn, compiled highlights from Soft Machine and Nova Express along with a bunch of other half-finished stuff he had hanging around. It's actually one of the things I like most about him.

By: rifflesby

rifflesby — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:32:58 -0800

I highly recommend the album linked to on that page (the "hip-hop version" link). Also, if you can find it, the game The Dark Eye, which features Burroughs reading Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death". There's just something about that gravelly, crusty old voice that I've always loved.

By: kozad

kozad — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:10:55 -0800

When I discovered Burroughs, I told my parents (this was long ago! 1972.) and my mother said something along the lines of "Oh, that horrible man!" Turns out the author and I grew up in the same wealthy St. Louis suburb of Ladue, and my grandparents were friends with Wm. Burroughs' parents. My mom knew him as a homosexual heroin addict who had killed his wife. Not a good resume, I guess. I don't read him much now, but he totally rocked my aesthetic world for a while, and made me who I am now as an artist, in some ways. And it is a kick reading his novels and recognizing the names of the streets we both grew up on.