Allen Ginsberg, whose raw, angry verse epitomized America's beat literary movement in the 1950s and '60s, has untreatable liver cancer, his friends and a spokesman said Thursday.

I'm surprised that there is no transplant maneuver available for such a famous, and no doubt moderately rich, bastard such as our poet laureate from Patterson, NJ. Or at least close to money. Surely there was more to the poet's general health than a bad liver.

Given the nature of this post, I suppose I should step into the batter's box, and tell my own Ginsberg story. I have two, actually, a long phat one and a short all too familiar one...

Originally posted on Sat Apr 05 08:25:18 1997