“The Talking Asshole” from Naked Lunch

One of many FZ side projects was his presence at The Nova Convention in NYC where he recited “The Talking Asshole” written by William Seward Burroughs. He was an American novelist, essayist, social critic, painter and spoken word performer. The Nova Convention took place in 1978 and was devoted to readings, panel discussions, film screenings and performances. The New York Times wrote at the time: “sought to grapple with some of the implications of the writing” of William S. Burroughs.

FZ and William S. Burroughs

At the event FZ took stage at today known as Village East Cinema and read chapter from novel Naked Lunch. At the very start he states: “I'm not the kind of a person that reads books, I've said this before many times, I'm not fond of reading. But, I do, I have in the past made exceptions and this part of the book that I'm sure you know called Naked Lunch and I've received permission to read the part about the talking asshole.” After he recites from Naked Lunch:

Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down, you dig? Farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard. This 'ass-talk' had a sort of gut frequency. It hit you right down there, like you gotta go. You know when the old colon gives you the elbow and it feels sorta cold inside, and you know all you hafta do is 'turn loose'? Well, this talking hit you right down there. A bubbly, thick, stagnant sound. A sound you could smell. This man worked for a carnival, you dig? And, to start with, it was like a novelty ventriloquist act. Real funny too, at first. He had a number he called 'The Better Oh', that was a scream, I tell you. I forget most of it, but it was clever, like, "Oh, I say, are you still down there, old thing? 'Nah, I had to go relieve myself!'"

After a while, the ass started talking on its own. He would go in without anything prepared and his ass would ad-lib, and toss the gags back at him every time. Then it developed sort of teeth-like, little raspy in-curving hooks, and started eating. He thought this was cute at first, and built an act around it. But the asshole would eat its way through his pants, and start talking on the street, shouting out it wanted equal rights. It would get drunk, too, and have crying jags, nobody loved it, an'...and wanted.. and it wanted to be kissed, same as any other mouth.

Finally, it talked all the time, day and night. You could hear him for blocks, screaming at it to shut up, and beating it with his fist, and sticking candles up it. But nothing did any good, and the asshole said to him, "It's you who will shut up in the end, not me. Because, we don't need you around here any more. I can talk, and eat, AND shit".

After that he began waking up in the morning with a transparent jelly, like a tadpole's tail, all over his mouth. This jelly was what the scientists call "un-D.T.", undifferentiated tissue, which can grow into any kind of flesh on the human body. He would tear it off his mouth and the pieces would stick to his hands like burning gasoline jelly, and grow there. Grow anywhere...on him... Grow anywhere on him, a glob of it fell...So, finally his mouth sealed over, and the whole head would have amputated spontaneous..

Did you know there is a condition occurs, in parts of Africa, and only among negros, where the little toe amputates spontaneously?...

...Except for the eyes, you dig? That's the one thing the asshole couldn't do, was see. It needed the eyes. But nerve connections were blocked and infiltrated and atrophied, so the brain couldn't give orders any more. It was trapped in the skull, sealed of. For a while, you could see the silent helpless suffering of the brain behind the eyes. Then, finally, the brain must have died, because the eyes went out, and there was no more feeling in them than a crab's eye on the end of a stalk.

Music is without a question as much about representing subcultures as representing sounds. Nevertheless, many music groups would never exists without most significant writers and/or thinkers.

A lot of Burroughs' work is semi-autobiographical, taken from his experiences as an opiate addict, a medical condition that determined his last fifty years of his life. He was a fundamental member of the Beat Generation, an avant-garde author who influenced famous culture as well as literature. In 1984, he was chosen to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and obtained profound impact on music. FZ was inspired by his satirical anti-authoritarianism.

William S. Burroughs