William S. Burroughs: A Man Within Page #3

quite a lot, emotionally.

Do you want to be loved?

Mmm, not really.

It depends...

Mm-hmm.

By who or what.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

By my cat, certainly.

Mm-hmm.

There was something essentially

alien about William,

and I think when it

came to his physicality

and his romantic life,

he was one of the most

awkward people in the world.

While there was this

facade of a gentleman,

there was a very

lonely man underneath

that three-piece suit.

And it was only once that

I really heard him speak

of someone...

he was genuinely interested

and obsessed with, Mark Ewert,

who he described as,

"A young man having skin

like alabaster."

One night I was, like, you know,

I should tell this guy

I love him, right?

It was late at night,

and I wasn't quite sure if

he'd already fallen asleep

for the night or not.

So I kind of nudged him,

and said, "William. William."

[ Mutters ]

- "William. William."

- "Yeah?"

I said, "William, I love you.

I love you, William."

He said, "Huh?

You love women?"

I said, "No, no.

I love you, William."

And what did he say back?

He was like,

"Oh. That's okay."

Or something like that.

And kind of patted me.

But then the question is,

what did he feel towards me,

or what did he feel towards

other human beings in general?

I remember reading

this interview with him.

He was talking about

nuclear war.

And he said that,

all of a sudden,

he just starting sobbing.

Which, first of all,

it was really hard for me

to picture him sobbing, period.

What he was sobbing about is,

he said he'd all of a sudden

been thinking about nuclear war,

and then he was struck with

this horrific thought of,

"What would happen to my cats,

my six cats, if I died?"

And that just wrecked him.

You can just see the cats

were kind of these pure,

spirit beings for him.

And I remember some of

our very first conversations...

the first night

I met him were about

endangered species,

and about lemurs

that he was really into.

And I think it was... That

was just a really safe place

for his love to flow.

And I don't think that meant...

I don't think that...

So like his animals

and his cats and these lemurs.

I don't think that means

that that love was false,

but I definitely

had the sense...

that it was all

kind of flowing in this

fairly narrow channel...

that would probably

have been too hard for him,

in this lifetime,

to show for other people.

And I hope in whatever his

next lifetime is nowadays...

that it's easier for him,

and it's not so threatening.

All right.

All right, you two.

I'll get you some food.

[ Continues, Indistinct ]

[ Meows ]

[ Dennis Dailey ]

On one side, he's

this kind of...

loosey-goosey liberal

of his time,

where sexuality is free-spirited

and all that sort of thing.

I don't think he engaged

in that all that comfortably.

I think he had conflict around

his sexual orientation.

I don't think that

was always clear to him.

I think he struggled

with homophobia, like

lots of people his age.

There are areas of his life that

he himself never understood.

Quite clearly a number

of things happened to him

when he was very little.

He was possibly abused

by his nanny's boyfriend,

and things like this.

And he spent a lot of time

in psychoanalysis trying to

find out about these things.

But, um...

And he has talked about it,

but it's just too deeply buried.

He was never really able

to find out.

[ P-Orridge ]

We first met him

in the '70s.

He was living in London,

and it was an Irish hustler

called John...

who was sharing

the apartment with him,

who used to hang out

in Piccadilly, you know, um,

doing something or other

sexually to get money.

And William always

seemed to prefer...

young hustlers,

because there was no need

for an emotional attachment.

There was no danger

of being embroiled...

beyond a controllable point.

So I think that was one of

the reasons that he began to,

almost exclusively,

look for sexual pleasure

amongst professional,

young hustlers.

There was too much

fear of pain...

to go into a relationship

form of love.

[ Woman ]

William had a very uneasy

relationship with women...

in the sense that there

weren't too many women around.

But I felt that I had a very

nice relationship with him,

and maybe it was because

we really weren't

gender identified...

when we were together.

Uh, we traded recipes.

But I would say that

in that world,

particularly if you're,

you know, at the Bunker...

and you're going

into the bathroom...

and you're looking at

Keith Haring's drawing

of the penis...

It's not the world

that you would expect.

I had the biggest crush

on William.

Really a big one.

And I used to even daydream

about, you know,

he would fall in love with me

and we would get married.

I mean, I had a huge crush

on William, so...

And he knew it too,

and it didn't bother him at all.

When the two of us

were alone, he'd say,

"Well, my dear,

it's the end of the night.

Let's hear a little

'Bobby Shafto, '"

And I would sing him

the little song.

Bobby Shafto's gone to sea

Silver buckles on his knee

One fine day he'll marry me

Pretty Bobby Shafto

Ah, there was another one.

Oh, dear,

what can the matter be?

Dear, dear,

what can the matter be?

Oh, dear,

what can the matter be?

Johnny's so long

at the fair

And he encouraged me to sing

before I sang publicly.

[ Voices, Indistinct ]

I think, actually,

William loved Brion Gysin...

more than anybody.

[ Burroughs ]

"He was my friend

of many years...

painter, writer, musician

and raconteur extraordinaire.

Boy, could he tell a story.

His studies of North African

music and magic,

of Japanese

and Arabic calligraphy,

and well as his own

painting and writing,

were influential

upon a whole generation

of creative individuals...

who went on to launch

the cultural revolution

of the '60s and '70s.

He was at ease

with the Rolling Stones,

the musicians

of ancient Jajouka,

with the princesses

and duchesses of Europe,

and the young migrs...

who flocked to the Beat Hotel

in Paris in the 1950s...

when we lived there

and began our collaboration.

Brion invented the Dream Machine

and the cut-up method,

"and his ideas were crucial

to my own development

as a writer."

The cut-up was invented by

Brion Gysin in the Beat Hotel.

He wanted to set up

a board for his artwork,

and he had some

newspapers on a table.

And he cut through the board

using this Stanley blade,

and he cut through

the newspapers.

And when

he looked at the newspapers,

he realigned the pages of type,

and he could see that words

made a particular kind of sense,

almost like a telepathic sense.

And he felt that he had

discovered something

truly fantastic...

and showed it

to William Burroughs.

And he was just so inspired...

and was able to really do

terrific cut-ups.

In fact, William produced

three cut-up novels.

You know, William

had read a lot in philosophy,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes