http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/paul-krassner-remembering-tuli.html
14 July 2010
Paul Krassner
And about those rumors...
Remembering Tuli
[Tuli Kupferberg, beat poet, singer, and a founder of the outrageous
and iconic underground band, The Fugs, died Monday, July 12, in New
York City. He was 86. Kupferberg was also a contributor to The Rag,
Austin's 60's underground newspaper. Carl R. Hultberg wrote about
Tuli on The Rag Blog yesterday, July 13. Paul Krassner was his friend
and frequent co-conspirator.]
Tuli Kupferberg is better off dead.
My friend and countercultural icon had been suffering from a couple
of strokes, hospitals, breathing tubes, feeding tubes, anemia,
infections, blindness, catheter, hearing aids, wheelchairs,
psychosis, memory loss, diapers, constipation, anti-depressants,
sleeping pills, fatigue, and a chronically bed-ridden life that
seemed to be no life worth living.
Tuli was a dedicated truthseeker, and I'd like to honor that quality
with a couple of truths.
There was a rumor that Philip Roth had lifted the onanistically
obsessed idea for Portnoy's Complaint from a song by the Fugs -- a
band on the cusp of rock and punk, named after Norman Mailer's
euphemism for fuck in The Naked and the Dead -- but this notion was
disavowed by Fugs leader Ed Sanders, who assured me, "Philip Roth did
not plagiarize a Fugs song. He came to a Fugs show in 1966, and I
think he was inspired by Tuli, in top hat and cane, singing 'Jack-Off
Blues.' Many times in reunion concerts, introducing Tuli singing that
song, I have suggested that Roth got some of the impetus for
Portnoy's Complaint from that time he was inspired by the Tuli tune."
And then there was Allen Ginsberg's famous poem, "Howl," in which
Tuli had been the inspiration for this passage: "...jumped off the
Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and
forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley ways &
firetrucks, not even one free beer..." Friends reacted: Rex Weiner
claims, "It never actually happened that way, but Tuli happened, and
that's all that matters." And Michael Simmons says, "It actually was
partly true. Tuli did jump and survive, but it wasn't the Brooklyn
Bridge (Williamsburg, I think), but he was worried about wrongly
influencing young people, so he'd refuse to talk about it later in
life. I know because he told me."
Thelma Blitz, Tuli's devoted sidekick, corrects the myth in "Howl"
that "Tuli just walked away after jumping off a bridge. In fact, he
was taken to a hospital, severely injured, and wanted the world to
know this so that no one would take a similar chance."
And we can all be grateful he survived for all these years.
Finally, from his daughter Samara:
We have arranged to hold a service for Tuli at St. Marks church in
New York from 12-3 on Saturday, with a reception following shortly
thereafter. We will have a viewing in a separate room at the
beginning of the service for anyone who wishes to see him. We are
still working on the details for the reception and will let you know
shortly. There will be no religious element to the service, and Ed
Sanders will be one of the main speakers, after which anyone who
wants to can talk, sing, recite poetry, or whatever they like. Tuli
will be buried at Greenwood cemetery in Brooklyn on Monday morning at
9 a.m. You are welcome to tell anyone who asks, the funeral is open
to whoever wishes to attend.
--
[Paul Krassner, himself a countercultural icon, edited The Realist,
America's premier journal of cutting edge social and political satire.]
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