Hash Oil Factory Part 1

South Milwaukee, Wisconsin was in the deep freeze during the winter of 1983, everything froze up, it was impossible to get a pizza delivered without it turning to ice before it came to your door. Figaro was working part time at the Harley Factory on Juneau Avenue, spray painting Harley tanks, fenders and side covers as they flowed by, strung on wire hooks and chain. $8.75 a hour and no benefits. FL lived in a room in a old south side factory, with no heat or electricity. There was Fig and big Mikey, AKA his 'countship'.  To survive we set up propane heaters and slept in our snow mobile suits with space blankets. If the propane heaters ever blew, our snow suits would fire up like spark in dry pine. We would use bedside buckets at night to pee because the only toilets in the old factory were frozen thru. 

Fig and big Mikey were working for the drug lord of Milwaukee,  Jimmy,  AKA the 'Chemist'.  On the second level of the old factory, sitting on the mighty 100 year old scantling, sat a 200 gallon stainless steel drum that the Chemist had welded up as a hash oil distillery.

Fig and big Mikey were paid $225 cash a day. A hefty sum for us poor south-side boys. Figaro was stashing the money from work at the Harley Factory and hash oil still to "flee da holy by Jesus"  out of deep freeze  Milwaukee for paradise, Mexico City.

Working at Harley spray painting tanks was awful on Figaro Lucowski's lungs, It was as though the tradition of  'The Wisconsin Death Trap" the rugged wooden cross of self destruction, socialism and Jesuit teachings, meant that as young men, both Fig and big Mikey would do dangerous work selflessly. After work, all young Jesuit south-side socialista were required to  destroy their bodies even further, doing boiler makers (shots of well whiskey dropped in large steins of Blatz).  Smoking filterless cigarettes, only Luckys and the rare pack of Camels were true to form.

The work with the giant 200 gallon stainless steel hash oil still was extremely dangerous. Using canisters of propane run through copper piping to stoke the slow burning flame under the drum. Boiling dried, shredded ganja mixed with butane and flaxseed oil, in minutes a supercritical fluid extractio, hash oil seeping through. The Chemist would show up from time to time, like a Wehrmacht engineer, with a pointer, quantifying, lecturing, shacking his head stiffly, not enough hash oil. Fig and big Mickey knew the still didn't have enough ventilation, one spark, boom and out like two fleshy fire balls.  The metal work, tightening, welding, wiping the drum clean, had to be done before loading the ganja mix and firing up. Once fired, Fig and big Mikey wrapped up in green army flannel. Any mental; belts, chains, keys, crucifixes, engineer boots removed. "Smoke em if you got em" filterless, Luckys dipped in Hash Oil outside the factorium meters from the still. There was allot of in-between or downtime, listening to blues & jazz on a ghetto box, powered by a small Honda gas engine generator.  Three or four meals a day, Meatball and Tuna subs from Subway,  Cheesy Dans Pizza and coffee from the Coffee Trader.

Fig was working the spray paint line at Harley, it was burgundy flake day, at break time FL got a  call on the Harley factory phone from a the Chemist. Using code he said that the newspaper had been shut down because of lack of circulation, telling Fig to pick up his shit, paycheck and beat it. The still wasn't producing enough hash oil to cover expenses. Jimmy was making so much money as Milwaukee's number 1 coke supplier, the hash oil scheme was a jape, a five minute coca vision.

Aside: The Chemist eventually got busted after Figaro Lucowski was long gone from the hash oil scene. He did five years in a Federal pen and roomed with the Reverend Jim Baker. He later told Fig that Jim Baker was the most impossibly anal person in the world. Baker's job at the pen was cleaning toilets, wiping every one of them personally. After the Chemist did his time, he used the coca money he stashed in a locker at the "YWCA"  to buy up real estate on Milwaukee's Eastside. He was a great guy really who invented the phrase "sport fucking" and  never got  involved in any violence in all his years of dealing coca. 

Lucowski in the earily eighties would buy his clothes in the hispanic neighborhood of Milwaukee's South-side, Leo's Wholesale. Pants with color, burgundy, brown, purple. Long pimp loafers, red and brown, lumber man boots in winter. Knee length brown or black leather coats, shirts, open collar of all colors, and always the essential fashion accessory, a Harley leather wallet with chain. With hair died black to his waist, Figaro Lucowski was a rare breed of white-bread peacock, biker, junk and pimp. 

Figaro was out of a job and broken hearted after breaking up with his platinum haired beatnik old lady Pearl. With a healthy stash of cash, Lucowski would venture into dark caverns of gothic night and fuel bars, snorting coca mixed with heroin, drinking cognac to keep warm in still winter. He would prey on goth geishas using coke and hash oil, laying Trout lines, Gold-fishing, skilled at breaking down tough exteriors with false words of love, he could fuck women and girls every night of the week, Still dead inside, missing Pearl.

Lucowski had  one VCD. He watched it over and over, he memorized the lines, it was his touchstone, his bible and savior, his personal lotus charm. 'The Night of the Iguana' the John Huston film, screenplay by the brilliant Tennessee Williams. FL was bi polar with brain endings that needed kick starting.  He loved watching the opening scene, Richard Burton as Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon breaking down as he delivered his sermon to his flock of grey faced puritans. Lucowski would watch Shannon breaking down over and over again, as though 'the something' that was breaking down in Shannon was breaking in Lucowski as well.

Aside: Religion for me is personal and subjective, it does not need to be hung from a crucifix, memorialized in Rome, participate in unholy wars or wear payot.

Modern day religion; preceding, out of touch, restraining mother earth and human kind from breath taking spirituality and transcendence. If Jesus, Mohammad or Mose came back to earth they would all be appalled! You could liken this to Norman Mailer's metaphor on NASA rockets blowing spent jet fuel into space, disturbing the angels highly tuned sensitivities. 

Aside: I wrote the preceding statement a year ago and have since become a atheist who holds tight to fantasies of angel names like:  Galgliel- Haamaih- Jophiel- Lailah- Manakel- Trgiaob

It was March in Milwaukee, still winter. Lucowski had watched "The Night of The Iguana" a couple of thousand times. Figaro was unemployed, broken hearted over the loss of platinum haired Pearl, so cold that he could feel it in his bones, sitting on $10,000, he figured it was time to make a pilgrimage to Mexico City. Lucowski could remember winter vacation with his family in Mexico in1968. One such flashback went like this, as written in Lucowski's diary.

My best Christmas memories are unconventional and have nothing to do with garlands, cozy fires and egg nog.
In 1967 I spent Christmas in Mexico with my family. We were staying at the Las Hamacas Hotel on Acapulco Bay. In front of the hotel, on the bay, there was a small taco cafe that had a juke box with a few gringo hits, topical music of the time. Psychedelica: The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones and Beatles.


On Christmas Day, I met a Californian surfer dude with blond shoulder length hair and his younger sister from Malibu, they were also staying with their parents at the Las Hamacas. We shared a common interest, scoring some marijuana. We were told to look for a local Mexican by the name of "Maestro Magico". The process of scoring was like a pagan ritual. When we found the Maestro, we scored a few fingers of "Acapulco Gold" wrapped in paper sack.

We Three Kings went back to the Las Hamacas, hid in the toilet and turned on. It was my first time; we sat at the pool and threw small stones in, watching the water ripple outwards as ringlets, expanding , each ripple a Sacred Malady of life.
When we got bored with the pool we decided to go body surfing. We were fithteen and seventeen, but the Mexicans on the beach sold us all the Corona and tequila we wanted. Corona was great in those days, comparable to german beer in thickness. We were smashed in a seconds, we smoked our Acapulco gold openly on the deserted beach.


After the sunset, we went back to the Los Hamacas to crash. I passed out with my surfer friend’s sister in their room.  Joy, blind without her oval tortus shelled specs, long sepia hair, pear like breast exposed allot in her macramé bikini. She was a angel. We  fumbled and managed to get it on somehow. I didn't know where her vagina was for sure, guessing it was somewhere between her legs. Back then in the late sixties, tongue swallowing kissing, was the best thing happening.


Through a mescal golden haze later that night, I realized I missed Christmas dinner with my family. When my mother got hold of me, she verbally hammered out the "riot act" in triplets. Then she smacked the shit out of me, punching me a few times, calling me a little shit. She was a tough old Army RN for sure. The discipline was energizing, in a few years at sixteen I left home. 

But I am going to tell you, the ass kicking I got was worth it.  For those who may breeze through the diary of scared beast, that groundbreaking Christmas was the best on record. No church or crucifix, garland or colored light, no cozy fire place, no fat dinner, could make me as happy as the parting of: Virgin angelica and sacrifice, I enjoyed the night.

Some times dreaming on mescaline, Lucowski remembered reading "The Night of The Iguana" was filmed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He wondered if the dried leaf roofed and cheap brick beach houses were still there? FL visualized, hoping somehow, that the players were all in place, interacting.  Some local Mexican actors could have taken over and carried on, play acting the parts as the windmill churned, a memorium playhouse or ghost hotel:

(T Lawrence Shannon, shit canned by the Anglicans, holding his crucifix spatially in the face of demons, busted on a tequila bender, guileless, working as a guide for  a cheap ass tour company, breaking down, living between heaven and hell, bringing puritan church ladies to a blah blah's dumpy banana leaf and coconut tree resort, with gay pimp marimba beach boys, a opium smoking chinaman cook, wasted, lying on a Parrot fishbone, a white haired 90 year old Brit poet, not unlike Frost reciting Orpheus's Exit, left over drunken Argentinian Nazis nudist saluting 'hail Hitler', cocks at attention, enjoying gay sex and tequila orgies in the jungle AS SEEN THROUGH THE PIERCING NIGHT EYES OF A LONLEY IQUANA ---PATHOS PAUCITY---- TIED UP ON A PIECE OF TWINE…….)

One day, oh about, the middle of May in 1983, it was still cold in Milwaukee. Lucowski began to sense that something was breaking inside him, and that all the beer and pussy in the city couldn't warm him up. A few days earlier, platinum Pearl gave Figaro a VCD for his birthday. Pearl thought he was behaving weirdly; mishegas-shlimazel-messiah-savanthood disorder she called it. The VCD  starring FL's idol Richard Burton and Richard's inamorata immortal Elizabeth Taylor was 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" by the great Edward Albee. Figaro dropped some mescaline to tune into the screenplay. The dialogue was brilliant, but astrally damaging on mescaline. He had to drink a bottle of cognac to shake it off. Like a bent green twig, bent too far, Lucowski snapped towards the middle of the fourth act as Martha said to George "you make me puke", George replies, "Martha, in my mind you're buried in cement right up to the neck. No, up to the nose, it's much quieter". The sixth act propelled Lucowski into the stratosphere, somewhere between proper mental hygiene and "talkin to the Devil",  George's soliloquy did him in---"You take the trouble to construct a civilization, to build a society based on the principles of... of principle. You make government and art and realize that they are, must be, both the same. You bring things to the saddest of all points, to the point where there is something to lose. Then, all at once, through all the music, through all the sensible sounds of men building, attempting, comes the Dies Irae (Latin: mass for the dead). And what is it? What does the trumpet sound? Up yours !--- George's existential, academically astute cynicism didn't mix well with Lucowski's mescaline trip.  ~FL~  Monday, May 24, 2010

MESCALINE AND MEXICO CITY Part 2 of HASH OIL

On June 1, 1983, it snowed, rain and snow in Milwaukee. It was not a true winter snow, fifteen feet of torturous snow that you dig your way out of like the trenches of Verdun. It was sickening slop. After six months of being cold all the time, seeing the sun rarely, you felt as though the ichor in your bones was frozen and your soul was industrial soot.

Lucowski felt radio waves of Morris Code in Spanish that adrenalized him.  FL put some shit in his clutch. The Kerouac uniform: all cotton, polyester was way too fucking hot for Mexico. He used the same boy scout duffel bag with emblem, that he used when he left home at 15. It was a talisman and lucky charm.

FL had phobic fear of flying. He hated everything about flying. He hated the formality and ass kissing, the feeling of being a cow led to the slaughter-house. The air host & hostesses were like prison guards in his eyes. Worst of all was a the torture of getting a window seat next to the wing. On continent to continent flights over Atlantic or Pacific, when the plane would hit turbulence, Lucowski would gaze from his wooden overcoat at the wing and wonder how the rivets, as big as nails could keep the wings from busting up and falling into the sea.

And the safety bull (instructions before the Trans-Atlantic flight) he knew all the fucking inflatable tarps and life vest, barf bags, brave airline stewardess, skilled pilots couldn't  save your ass if you went down in the middle of the Atlantic. "Tuck and cover," kiss your ass good bye.  A half hour of highly pitched terror, last minute rights of passage and mea culpa unimaginable.

While everyone else was praying and posturing on the way down, FL imagined running to first class and securing a bottle of cognac, glomming on a raven haired, winsome and beauteous stewardess while draining the sauce, cascading to ground zero.

So, flying to Mexico City was out, and taking a Grey Hound bus to San Diego was in.  Pearl would drive him to Chicago. She had a new boyfriend, Winchell Cromwell, a young bartender at "Skull &Bones" he also worked at "Killer Fuel Cafe". Pearl had long naturally white unpigmented hair which she wore in Sioux braids or up wrapped with a chopstick. She was a beatnik poetess who knew and corresponded with Allen Ginsburg on a regular basis. She lived with her daughter in a small room over " Killer Fuel Cafe." Her room was painted sea green, mother earth, "hip to the bone".

Pearl refused to take on his (Lucowski's)  psychodrama any longer. She let FL drive her old Volkswagen while she sat shot gun, driving south on the Wisconsin Turnpike, they smoked skunk weed with the windows open. Pearl gave Lucowski a farewell blow job.

The Chicago Greyhound Bus Station was near Maxwell Street (where parts of the "Blues Brothers" were filmed), and near the Belushi family greek restaurant "Olympia". Pearl dropped FL off with little adieu.  She hugged FL and said "ta-ta-ta" a Gary Snyder Zen beatism, put into words: a rose is a rose is a rose (or) first you see the mountain, then it disappears, then you see the mountain again. Lucowski could never seem to see the  mountain at all.

The Greyhound Bus Station gave Lukowski the same feeling he would get in jail, grey. Most people riding buses couldn't afford to fly, being at the bottom of the food chain. Figaro had the usual first aid kit of dope and booze in his duffle bag.  In the eighties you could ride a Greyhound with any kind of dope you wanted, because you weren't driving. The secret of successful Greyhound Bus riding was to keep your mouth shut, but be discerning when you did start up a conversation. You could keep a nice buzz on. Bring plenty of brown heroin, symmetrically snorted with gulps of Vodka. Lucowski would buy a can of King Edward snuff, empty it, and put heroin in. 

(Goin south with the bus window wide open, blowing sweet air in your face, in reverie, fantasia and REM. Pleasing the mind, more than a plane ride on Nazi Airlines).

Ebony sisters were the sable queens of the bus line. I think it had to do with their marvelous pure-breed genes, look at Ray Charles's mother, she loved the blind child like a RAY of moonlight, raising him to take the edge off the world's heart, the blessed black Jesus. Lucowski at times would ride the bus for hundreds of miles, tweaking out on heroin, drinking vodka with sable sisters, even making out with and enjoying jasmine scent of sweet sisterhood.

FLs Greyhound reached Texas seven days later. For Lucowski the ride was so so: A Greyhound in hooplets that would expand slowly at a snails pace, navigating the United States. As he looked out the open window, blinded slightly in opium vapor, he was a white black man, RAY, feeling sable sisters wrist and loving, smelling desert and tropic air, seeing yellow haze and red Georgian mud outside, sometime his mind going deep inside, into creek and Song Hong River bed of glory amuse.

When the Greyhound bus reached Lubbock, Lucowski was junk sick and itching some, feeling heroin and diesel poison in his gut, nauseaum. Spewing his guts out in the nefarious and execrable bus toilet. He bought out the whole supply of Bromo-Seltzer from the bus station store.  427 miles to San Diego, the bus was full of young white guys, dumb yokel cowboys with pimples, on their way to Camp Lajun. His love, sable and jasmine soul sisters, long gone, exiting at Georgia and Arkansas. The young recruits rubbernecked the strung out Lucowski like, "Sid Vicious on a  the subway in New York City" a vile, half conscious sick vermin. FL still had an ounce of skunk weed Pearl gave him, he made a quick trip to a liquor store and bought chocolate liquor and vodka to mix with canned milk. FL would go on the booze and weed maintenance program the next 427 miles. 2000 miles of hooplets expanding, yellow heroin, unveiling secrets of the soul and beautiful vision, in the end, opium beat the shit out of him every time.

77 miles outside of Lubbock the bus stopped in Honkeville. Lucowski went into a western shop and looked at cowboy boots and hats. He liked the straw style cowboy hat that your needed to role up, step on, rub in cow shit a few times before it was wearable. FL looked at some brown soft leather calf skin boots. He had done part time work one summer as a kid, on a ranch in Nebraska. FL loved riding fence for miles and miles, he could mend barbwire or string it, pound post, string wire over a creek. He loved being in nature alone on a horse or a dirt bike.  

Ranching, raising cattle for sale, putting hamburgers on the plates of America was appalling to Lucowski. He can remember the sinking feeling he would get during round ups and branding. Fig would look in the cows eyes and see terror. He loved animals.When he asked the foreman if it bothered him that all these lovely animals were headed to the slaughter house, the old grizzled cowboy would spit some red man and say, "Son it's just commerce". 

Lucowski worked the other end of animal slaughter as science fiction horror and commerce as well. He worked as a packer at a Swift Meats slaughter house on the South Side of Milwaukee. Figaro, at the end of the slaughter and commerce line, loading skinned and frozen half torsos, cattle carcass that should be buried with full rights, not eaten, into refrigerated semi-truck coaches. You could see the rivers of blood leading to and flowing from the killing floor.

As the Greyhound bus pulled out of Honkeville, FL left with a new straw cowboy hat that didn't smell real good, he left the "calfskin" boots at the cowboy store. He passed out in his seat, he smelled like shit, none of the Marine recruits would get near him.  He drank himself into a backwash of unconsciousness to get through junk sickness.

The bus driver had to throw a few cups of water in Lucowski's face at the San Diego Greyhound station. He told FL that he thought he was bum, to go get some coffee. The driver told Lucowski he smelt like vomit: "fucking hippy take a bath" and "don't ever get on  a Greyhound bus again". The recruits were long gone headed to Camp Death, Lajun.  Lucowski thought to himself, those poor bastards (Marine recruits) don't know what they are getting into. As well as, what in the hell happened on this bloody bus? He could remember little of it?

A few blocks away from Greyhound  FL was walking on the sidewalk with his duffle bag heading nowhere (erehwon). Figaro could feel "rays glorious" of sun light, smell papaya flowers, tropical air and ocean blue. He hitch hiked to Ocean Beach and wiggled his toes in the sand,  stripping down to his boxer shorts, FL dived into the Pacific Ocean. Lucowski body surfed for hours, it was like being baptized, given a new life,  no longer junk sick, headed to Mexico City. Figaro was screaming for joy inside, he had chicken skin, re-birthed and free at last from frozen tundra and factorium of the "Milwaukee Death Trap", Jesuit and socialist hell.

After swimming he cruised downtown San Diego on foot.  FL ate bean burritos and rice, smoked a joint in the alleyway.  He got a tattoo of a celtic cross embellished with a red heart on his forearm. He had his mothers name inscribed on a banner wrapped around the heart "Pauli Mae RIP". 

That night he got a taste for mescal with the worm in the bottle. FL went into a Chicano bar under a beltway overpass. Hector's had one bartender, cantina music that was deafening. The place was packed with migrant workers, men and women in flannel shirts, green and khaki chinos. Dark skinned from working their fingers to the bone picking grapes or oranges in the sun. It was a friendly atmosphere and Lucowski got on well with the Mexicans. A colossus brown man, who was over 6 feet tall and weighed at least 330 pounds approached Figaro, sitting at the bar. He asked "gringo what are you doing here"? He had long hair down to his back and a "fu man chu" chops. It turned out he was a member of the Hells Angels, not wearing his colors. Lucowski rolled a joint and he and Chico went outside and got high in the alley. The two hit it off well, FL showed proper respect and didn't bullshit Chico. Talking, Figaro told Chico about his years working at Harley Davidson and in the Hash Oil factory in Milwaukee. At bar time Chico and FL were blasted. Chico said Lucowski could crash at his and his old ladies digs. FL put his duffle bag into the back of Chico's pickup. 

Death metal turned up full volume, FL rolled a joint. 

Chico's house was a typical Southern California stucco track style house. He kept his Harley and tool box in the garage. He had two kids and his wife worked as operator for Ma Bell. He was a Hells Angel, who rode with his chapter when the time came, but was a good family man. The next morning Chico's old lady made a Mexican breakfast and we talked with his two daughters until school time. 

Chico thought it would be a good idea for FL to buy a cheap used car in San diego, cross the boarder, drive it till it died and dump it . Lucowski bought a 68 Dodge, ugly sepia color, the floor was rusting so bad that Chico and Lucowski had to saw and bolt pieces of plywood on ther rusted out floor, so your feet wouldn't fall through to the road. Chico asked Lucowski if he would give two farm workers a ride to Tijuana, a married couple. The three of us left from Chico's house at 9am on a Sunday Morning,  San Diego time. The farm worker couple were sweet and appreciative to get the ride. Their names were Maria and Juan De Jesus. We loaded up the rusted out Dodge boot with FLs duffle bag Maria and Juan's cardboard grape boxes, wrapped in plain cord. God only knows what was inside, it could have been raw uncut Columbian blow for all Lucowski knew. We all gave our friend Chico a hand shake and gave him a pat on the back. He had his Hells Angels colors on. Chico's chopped Harley was on the front lawn, for a last minute check over before going to a meeting at the club house and on a ride up north. 

Lucowski backed out of the drive and headed for Turnpike 666, heading directly south to Tijuana. The old Dodge moved pretty good,  Juan sat shot gun with FL and Maria went to sleep on the back seat. We must have been a sight: two migrant farm workers and a gringo, driving slowly in the right lane. The old rusted out  car needed new piston rings, it wouldn't rev faster than 79 rpm. Within a few hours we reached immigration at the Mexico border. The square jawed US Custom's dicks told us to pull over to the side. It was a peice of cake for the cretan imbeciles to check the floor board for dope, all they needed was a crescent wrench to take out the plywood flooring Chico and FL had put in. No dope or Mexican midget wrestlers hidden under the floor board.  Figaro had a few unopened bottles and cans of chocolate liquor, vodka, evaporated milk and Bromo-Seltzer in his duffle bag. The Bromo-Seltzer had to be litmus tested. Reaching high water mark, the dicks saw the card board boxes in the boot of the dodge. Lucowski didn't know what was in the boxes and hoped it wasn't dope or severed heads in plastic bags. The Hells Angels had a bad rep to some. The dicks opened the boxes, Figaro crossed himself over his heart three times. The boxes were filled with pumpkin and watermelon seeds to be planted on Maria and Juan De Jesus's ranchero.

Once in Tijuana, Maria and Juan invited Figaro to stay on at their small ranchero?  He gave the old Dodge to them. They all hugged each other, Lucowski said thank you, but he had "important business" to take care of in downtown Tijuana.  He headed straight to the "Gringo Diabalo" cantina. FL's drink of choice in Mexico was mescal by the bottle, straight shots. He could see soft dark girly faces smiling from the shadows of the bar.  Lucowski brought his drink and sat down next to a middle aged Mexican scarlet women. Her painted purple lips, ovoid, seductive, an open invitation for oral sex. FL could see a roll of tissue paper by her side. After getting off in Molly's mouth, he drank a few more shots of mescal and headed with his duffle back to the bus station.

Lucowski bought a third class bus ticket to Mexico City. He could drink openly on the Mexican bus. Weed and dope were out of the question for now. Mexican mafia dressed as cops could bust you for booze money. FL had to get to Mexico City to score dope. He loved the farmer buses, they were safer than deluxe buses, which were newer and faster. The deluxe Mexican coach drivers had big egos and drove at great risk on the winding mountain roads. 

The 79 Chevrolet Sierra bus: with orange and red Santa Maria's on flat blue faded paint and yellow trim, not unlike the tour bus of the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon. Lucowski took a seat next to an old Mexican women with snow white hair, olive tanned skin and deep facial wrinkles.  Her look was stoic and composed, a shaman who Lucowski knew to treat with the utmost respect and reverence.  He offered her a drink of mescal from a flask, she pulled a Lime out of a straw basket and quartered it. They shared a drink together. She was  90 years old, a healer and seer called Jopheil (an angels name). The two new pals began to get wasted together, in a few hours it was night in the flat desert. Lucowski felt the lovely lady nudge his arm, she put a small woven sack filled with dried mescaline buds in his hand. The two friends ate the buds.

Lucowski and Jopheil never spoke more than three words to each other, listening to the sound of shifting gears and  bus tires on the flat and cold desert roads.  Lukowski and Jopheil began to tweak, astral traveling to the Upper Room, flying with angels, peeking on the mescaline buds. They were in pure white light energy together at Satan's tomb. Jopheil got off the bus at La Rosa Casa, a small Mexican town were the desert meets the hills of Antigua. Lucowski rolled up a US Thousand dollar bill and gave it to her.

When the bus reached the edge of Mexico City FL felt like he was on the edge of hell riding through a ring of fire. The city was a cavernous underworld. FL needed to rest and shake off the antecedent nights astral session with Jopheil. Figaro got in a taxi and told the driver "Plaza De Revolucion". At the Plaza Lucowski gave the driver 200 pesos, grabbed his duffle bag and started walking. 

It was 9pm, Lucowski went directly to a large, 200 year old black stone and old brick antigua Catholic Church, "Santa Pedro". Figaro was a satanist who studied the occult teachings of Aleistar Crowley and astral projected on mescaline, but he never missed a chance to walk into a Mexico City church and "shake of the devil some". It gave him balance. The church terrace was full of women dressed in black, lights strung across the promenade, a festoon of orange, read and crimson flowers. Everyday Mexican people praying for a miracle to deliver them from their holdrum and hackneyed life.

Lucowski sat int the front pew, the air was adorned with the chanting sounds of low whisper praying in Spanish. He fell to his knees and kow towed before a beauteous and beatific Jesus on crucifix. He took out his flask and washed down a few left over mescaline buds in his pocket. Figaro stared at the face of Jesus, Jesus's lips started to move, Jesus lowered his head, Lucowski could feel heartfelt humanity. Lucowski elevated to the upper level of consciousness, sitting at a campfire with Jesus in a forrest. Jesus was chastened and self effacing reading from a book. 

After church, Lucowski picked up a Mexican whore and spent the night with her in his hotel room in drunken reverie, on a whim he thought it would be nice if Jesus could come down off the cross and be entertained by a Mexican whore and enjoy some Tequila with Lucowski. Jesus always seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, stooped over, having to carry that heavy wooden cross for eternity. Figaro missed his pal Jopheil as well, maybe he would go back to La Casa Rosa tomorrow and find her, they could party some more.

FL got the feeling his "Pilgrimage to Mexico" had ended as it was supposed to.

~FL~ Saturday, June 5, 2010

DENNIS HOPPER USA ICON DIES

Written in April of 2010

Dennis Millard was born May 17, 1937, on flat ground, outside of Dodge City, Kansas. It was spring time on the small farm, tiny green grass sprouts that would turn into endless tarmac were beginning to break out. Dennis's mother,  Marjorie Mae Millard was a beautiful poetess of the soul who loved to swim rivers and lakes in summer time.  

The Millard family really wasn't a stand out, in Dodge City, they seemed distracted and tuned into a radio wave, looking westward somehow. Dennis has always had that look about him, looking forward through everything and onward.

Marjorie Mae dearly loved young Dennis, he was her blessed soul connection. She would spend hours holding him in the breezy groves of his fathers Hemp farm. John grew Hemp to make rope for the war effort. Summer was the sweetest  time on the Millard farm, their front porch was covered with books. Marjorie Mae home schooled Dennis until they moved to California. She taught Dennis to read Whitman, Carl Sandburg , Tolstoy, Abraham Lincoln and Shakespeare.  

Dennis could swim by the age of two, Marjorie Mae would take the boy swimming in rivers and creeks. By the age of 7 Dennis was already working with John to bring the hemp crops in. The flower farmers would can  jelled chicken soup stock, wild bird meat, fruit, berries and vegetables (which they raised themselves organically). The flower unit was self sufficient, the tornado cellar was always larded to the max to survive the Kansas winters on desolation row.

Dennis never really thought about cutting loose until the Millard family loaded up their 48 Pontiac. The V8 car had a trailer knob on the fender to hook up their small Airstream. The trailer was nice for siestas on country roads.  The flower unit was now headed west riding radio waves to California. 

(ASIDE: I realized while editing , that the story begins to bust loose and get down some as the Millards drive to La Mesa! So I am busting loose in the 1950s with Dennis Millard. The inconstancy and lack of tenor is hardly the hallmark of a true PRO. Vonnegut writes all over the place but he is a one of a kind American legend, so he can! Fuck it anyway, EVERYTHING IS IN YOUR SOUL. It flows outside and around time zones into the present, from Heaven into Hell, more on Lee Strasberg methodism latter.) 

The Millards enjoyed a steady drive to La Mesa. Dennis's father John or poppy, was on his way to a new job as post office manager there. Young Dennis kept busy in the back seat of the Pontiac, reading Hemingway,  Shadow comics and eating chicken sandwiches and Clark bars while poppy drove. The flower unit was driving through Texas, northwest, on Highway 90 hugging the Mexican border. Hank Williams and Bob Willis were on the  radio along with devilish bits of cantina music coming out of Juarez. The potent mix of  southwestern music, black bean smell from the greasy spoons, and dry night air tantalized Dennis. It  filled him with wild gringo energy and vision. It made him feel like busting things up somehow. Later Dennis would relate the story of the trip to James Dean, it emboldened both of them to say, "fuck off man" to wonder bread America, circa 1950. 

The Millard's bought a three bedroom pink deco style house that was on the edge of an orange grove in La Mesa. John settled into his job as post office 91491 manager and Marjorie Mae got a job as a life guard instructor, she looked sweet in a the red tank top swim suits. 

Dennis went to Helix High in La Mesa. He was not an uninspired student exactly, but he hated authority figures. Amazingly he was very sociable, coming out of the cloistered environment he was raised in, on the Kansas hemp collective.

Dennis discovered a passion for beautiful women at Helix High School, which he has to this day. Later,   he married and divorced Michelle Phillips for eight days just to fuck her. Hopper preferred to spend time at the swimming pool and surfing, and rarely studied. He was voted "most likely to succeed"  which rang true. Poppy and Marjorie Mae never bothered pushing Dennis much in formal academia, they new he was on his own radio bandwidth. Marjorie Mae's home schooling of Dennis on the Kansas Hemp collective was superb. Dennis didn't need more formal education in a high school.

Besides discovering " the world of  pussy" at Helix, Dennis connected with a desire to express his feelings and thoughts on stage. He also loved the attention and praise he felt on stage. Dennis earned a scholarship to San Diego's Old Globe Theater. He proceeded to hone his acting chops on Shakespeare and Camus. After graduating form high school Dennis moved to LA and began acting in the Pasadena Playhouse. He invented his stage name "Hopper" which was purebred Hunkeism circa 1950 Times Square scene, to be 'hopped up' on speed. 

In reading  Hopper's bio on Yahoo, it seems the 'breaks' the average Joe busts his balls for just happened for Dennis. Dennis is hugely talented, Great Spirt given. I don't think he is the type who works at it much, but he is a hard worker. Further evidence of Hopper's extreme talent is in the type of roles he attracts, he was given insane roles from the start.

Dennis Hopper's debut on national TV in America was a guest spot on the NBC show "Medic" in the early 50s. He played an epileptic soldier no less. I can visualize Dennis sweating and shaking in army fatigues on Black and White TV saying,an "no man, I can't ". The epileptic soldier would come back to Dennis in roles to come. One was the photo journalist in the black out war epic "Apocalypse Now".

Dennis's seizures were so realistic, that it earned him the attention of Hollywood's elite, setting the stage  for the rise of the phoenix out of the the ashes of golden era TV, circa 1954. Others to rise from the ashes were Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen and James Dean. Hopper was offered auditions all over Hollywood. He did an audition for Harry Cohn, the hard ass head of Columbia Studios.  Harry told Dennis to pick a 15 minute bit from any play he wanted and perform soliloquy. Dennis picked a short sonnet from "Othello". At the end of the audition Cohn told him to drop the Shakespeare crap and get real.  Dennis looked Cohn straight in the eye, with the intense and shameless Billy stare he used in "Easy Rider" and said what else? "Go fuck yourself man". He was immediately eighty-sixed from Columbia Studios, (big fucking deal he hardly needed Cohn).

What does a screaming giant of talent do if he gets eithty-sixed from Colombia Studio? Go to Warner Bros. Hopper immediately got a job as a stand in for James Dean in the film "Rebel Without a Cause" circa 1955, and a bit part as one of the "juvenile delinquents" in the film. Jimmy and Dennis immediately became best pals. They would smoke dope together in the bath room of Dean's Airstream on the set, putting towels in the cracks to keep the "odious" smoke from the attention of Warner Bros. security. The two friends would talk for hours about beat stuff, writers, Camus,  Sartre, and Carlos Williams. They loved music of all types, Monk and Miles Davis, as well as Country and Rockabilly. Both precocious farm boys were living life in full color, trying to bust out of the grind. After shooting they would hit jazz clubs in LA and play conga drums. 

Both Hopper and Dean landed roles in the film "Giant", (a film about Texas oil money in circa 40s) Jimmy got the primo part of Jet Rink (a Howard Hughes type bad boy). Dennis's role was very untypical for him. He played a clean cut kid who was very anonymous. They both were in love with Elizabeth Taylor, who they thought "had the most beautiful tits in the world". The three would sit around in Giant's Texas set compound, and talk about life, laugh, smoke dope and drink wine .  

After Giant,  James dean bought a Porsche 550 Spyder for racing and off track driving. Everyone knows how Jimmy died in the famous auto crash. Dennis Hopper was bummed out by Deans death. He felt like he had lost a true soul brother. Some people think Dennis was the heir to Deans rebel throne. Dennis did become a counter culture hero later in his own right, not because of his best pals accident.

Dennis went on to do some Western's including "Half way to Texas, Hell USA" circa 1958 directed by Hath Hathaway. Hathaway was a hard driven alcoholic director with a red pin cushion nose. He resented Dennis's beatific manhood and took it upon himself to whip it out of the boy. He didn't take to no "improvising" and decided to bust Dennis up like a wild bronco for not following the script to the tee. During a scene I am sure Dennis would rather forget, Hath made him do 80 takes and some push ups. The experience was not good for Dennis. He wasn't over the death of his  friend James Dean and was suffering from "too much too fast". Hath later predicted wrongly " why the boy will be corralled out of the industry". The red neck director ended up getting shit canned by some drunk Navajos while on a drunken weekend. This is what happens to people who try to destroy others because the others are scary.

Dennis did get shit canned from Warner Brothers after "Halfway to Texas, Hell USA". With enough money and some time on his hands he decided to go to Manhattan and study methodism with the  Lee Strasbourg… Ooh la la . The method is to let your soul out without letting the script get in the way. In New York Dennis met people that were more on his wavelength than the red neck western directors at Warner Bros. Chris Harrington and Andy Warhol were key influences on Dennis's expanding concept of art and film in the 60s. 

Harrington introduced Dennis to Roger Cormen who was directing a low budget acid flick called "The Trip" with Peter Fonda in LA. Dennis took over co-writing duties from Cormen  writing the script with Peter Fonda.  The Lee Strasbergs were closer to an acid trip than "The Trip". There were some nice touching freely scenes in the film, today you would call "The Trip" retro. 

At the time Cormen was working on another low budget film, a nut-so vehicle for the Monkees called "The Head". "The Head" was being screen written by Jack Nicholson, and to be honest it was going in a zillion directions, splintering and expanding, because  Nicholson was spiking Cormen's and the Monkee's Cool-aid with Purple Owsley. Dennis was a guiding light in bringing the forces together to finish "The Head". Had Dennis not stepped in when he did Nicholson, Cormen and The Monkees might still be on acid filming "The Head" today.

After "The Head" Hopper decided to direct himself. He had directing experience with Andy Warhol in the factory, on such films as "Skin" and "Aluminum Potato".  Dennis was also studying photography. 

Back in LA one night Dennis went to the "Whiskey" on Sunset with Michelle Phillips to hear The Doors play. Dennis planned to met Peter Fonda and Terry Southern. Southern looked liked Norman Rockwell with his short hair and Meerschaum pipe. He was totally out of place at the Whiskey in the 60s, but he was a wacko genius. Southern met Dennis during the filming of "Giant". Peter Fonda showed up at the Whiskey that night in his white leather pants, no real biker would wear shit like that man. The dude made an impressive entrance on his blue metal flacked chopper . You would have to say there was something in the brew that night. While Jim Morrison sang "Back Door Man," Hopper, Fonda and Southern put down the outline for a film to be called "Easy Rider".

"Easy Rider" circa 1969, was ground breaking in more than a few ways. Firstly there was not much pre ordained script to speak of, only an outline. Terry Southern was famous on the "road set" for shaking the script at Hopper and Fonda, trying to keep the film on track. Secondly there were only real drugs to be used as props and ingested on the set. Hopper and Southern did the script writing duties on the fly. Dennis played the protagonist character "Billy". Peter Fonda was Captain America.  Fonda insisted that only Harleys would be used in the film. Other uses of creative genius included using real life "red necks" with no acting experience in the film. And of course the 16 mm acid scene in the New Orleans grave yard, filmed by Dennis. 

(ASIDE: The pimple faced drug dealer wearing the funny Kango hat in the opening sequence was Phil Spector. He did the bit for free, even volunteering the use of his haunted Bentley as a prop. He bought it from Keith Richards a week earlier. I will never forget the scene as John Kay starts to wail " 'Pusher Man', well I popped allot of pills " ME TOO). 

"Easy Rider" was  a bust out film for Fonda, Nicholson and Hopper. Jack Nicholson was ready to give up acting because he couldn't find work. He was selected at the last minute to replace Rip Torn as the country lawyer. All these guys had worked with Roger Cormen who was a master at film making on the fly, for cheap.  

"Easy Rider" was so successful at the box office that it put all the guys involved at the pinnacle of their careers. Only Jack Nicholson continued to move foreword at break neck speed. Peter Fonda, petered out for some years. Dennis sunk deeper into drug use and the despair of alcoholism . He was writing the eternal script and did a film called "American Dreamer" circa 1971. Another film from this period  "The American Friend" was a great film about a expat living  in Europe. The character  drove a 58 Cadillac around the streets of Berlin, wore cowboy boots, a Stetson and a garage jumpsuit like Neal Cassidy. Dennis was not shaky and gave a strong and powerfully brooding performance.

As most residents of Taos, New Mexico will know, Dennis Hopper lived there in the 70s. One night he was working on the eternal script in the "hash house" of his log cabin and teepee mansion. All the cocaine and whiskey caught up with him. Dennis drove down to the square in Taos wearing his garage overalls and Stetson, carrying a couple of loaded six guns. He preceded to act out a nervous breakdown in stages, shooting a few caps into the air. To be honest this kind of activity was an every morning wake up call/ritual for Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. But Dennis Hopper is a very sensitive artist and this was no fun for him. Thank the Great Spirit of Taos, no one was hurt, but Dennis sadly hurt himself.

After a some months in rehab and some attempts at Alcoholics Anonymous, Dennis relapsed. One morning he got a call from Francis Ford Copalla (who was an unknown at the time) asking him to play the role of a tremulous X green beret slash photo journalist in a film called "Apocalypse Now"circa 1979. The film was a freaked out dark saga, Joseph Conrad genesis. Dennis was primed for the part in his present state of mind, on the verge of another nervous breakdown. Actually the weirdest shit happened to allot of the people involved in the film. 

Much of the cast was unknown at the time, but are big stars today. Sam Bottoms, Lawrence Fisburne, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall and Scott Glenn. The most bizarre casting was the Reverend Billy Graham's son, Bill Graham. Bill Jr. played a young Army officer whose presence on the set wasn't enough to keep the Devil in check. The experience with "Apocalypse Now" scared the preacher boy so much that he never acted again. Choosing to go home and live with his parents the rest of his life.

Copalla had a nervous breakdown during the film and sweated off 70 pounds. His wife had to help him finish the dark, obsessive work.

In the opening sequence , Martin Sheen (who played the GI sent to kill Col. Kurtz) gets wasted in his Saigon hotel room. This scene was shot by Copalla while Sheen was actually having a stroke. The sadistic director wouldn't cut to get Sheen to the hospital. 

Marlin Brando ( who was paid a huge sum of money to play Col. Kurtz) was "ODing" on food, booze and screwing  too many asian girls throughout the film. 

Dennis got to act out his nervous breakdown again, but this time it was on film. He was brilliant playing Colonel Kurtz's friend, a X green beret photo journalist. He would walk around Col.Kurtz's death camp, long hair, beard, Cambodian rice farmer's PJs and camera. Shaking like the Army epileptic he played on American TV circa 1960, telling anyone in ear range, using broken sentences. " He is a man…. a god, a genius, this is what the man (Kurtz) is about". Dennis did his part 88.5% ad libbed in a very raw emotional state, while wasted. 

Brando was totally out of control in this thing, like a huge Water Buffalo in heat. Marlin refused to take any direction what so ever. Copalla could have used a Hath Hathaway to break Brando's spirit here. As most people know this awesome film was a zillion dollars over budget. I would give Copalla's wife the credit here, the film poured into 300 cans, edited, unedited made it because of her. 

Dennis Hopper  was so prolific as a  actor and director, one would have to tell his story in books from A to Z His work and life is so powerful that trying to put it in a box is like gazing into the sun. By 1981 Dennis got really serious about AA and sobered up. He  has  stayed sober a long time, and gone on to do work with all the great people in the film industry, never losing his weird hipness. Recently Dennis Hopper has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is in bed mostly at his home, hassling with his last wife. No one ever accused Dennis Hopper of not having "balls like a bull".

In closing I would like to explain how I write stories, because I don't want to confuse people who are interested in facts. This story was written in similar, but not the same fashion as Dennis Hopper's  film "Easy Rider". I take a time line or a bio and fill in the blanks writing flow of consciousness, expanding on  facts I have read in my life. So allot of the bullshit in this story is about my own addiction, nervous breakdowns and insanity. Of course, I am no Dennis Hopper, not even close. The man is on fire and this story, which was so hard to write, is only surface. 

What comes out is what you get. You might laugh at this story, it might scare you, or it might leave you cold. That has to do with who your are, not who I am. VB

My  hope is that the Great Spirit of Sierra Madre is folding Dennis Hopper in light and keeps him here with us until he is ready to go, as this is written by VB. 

DENNIS HOPPER DIED AT 74, TODAY MAY 30TH, 2010