Herbert Huncke

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Herbert Huncke
Huncke in 1985
Huncke in 1985
BornHerbert Edwin Huncke
(1915-01-09)January 9, 1915
Greenfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedAugust 8, 1996(1996-08-08) (aged 81)
New York City, U.S.
OccupationWriter
Literary movementBeat Generation

Herbert Edwin Huncke (/ˈhʌŋki/ HUNK-ee;[1] January 9, 1915 – August 8, 1996) was an American writer and poet, and an active participant in a number of emerging cultural, social and aesthetic movements of the 20th century in America. He was a member of the Beat Generation and is reputed to have coined the term.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

Early life

Born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and raised in Chicago, Herbert Huncke was a street hustler, high school dropout, and drug user. He left Chicago as a teenager after his parents divorced and began living as a hobo, jumping trains throughout the United States and bonding with other vagrants through shared destitution and common experience. Although Huncke later came to regret his loss of family ties, in his autobiography, Guilty of Everything, he states that his lengthy jail sentences were a partial result of his lack of family support.

New York City and Times Square

Huncke hitchhiked to New York City in 1939. He was dropped off at 103rd and Broadway, and he asked the driver how to find 42nd Street. "You walk straight down Broadway," the man said, "and you will find 42nd Street." Huncke, always a stylish dresser, bought a boutonnière for his jacket and headed for 42nd Street. For the next 10 years, Huncke was a 42nd Street regular and became known as the "Mayor of 42nd Street."

At this point, Huncke's regular haunts were 42nd Street and

invasion
.

Aboard ships, Huncke would overcome his drug addiction or maintain it with morphine

David Kammerer
some years later.

During the early 1940s, Huncke was recruited to be a subject in Alfred Kinsey's research on the sexual habits of the American male. He was interviewed by Kinsey, and recruited fellow addicts and friends to participate. Huncke had been an unpublished writer since his days in Chicago, and gravitated toward literary types and musicians. In the music world, Huncke visited all the jazz clubs and associated with Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, and Dexter Gordon (with whom he was once busted on 42nd Street for breaking into a parked car). When he first met Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs, they were interested in writing and also unpublished. They were inspired by his stories of 42nd Street life, criminal life, street slang, and his vast experience with drugs. Huncke was immortalized in Kerouac's On the Road as the character Elmo Hassel.

In the late 1940's, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Melody and Vickie Russell were apprehended after flipping a car in Queens, New York, trying to run-over a NYPD motorcycle cop. Huncke was picked up simultaneously as he was living with Allen Ginsberg. Herbert Huncke was sentenced to a five year term in the New York State Prison System. "Someone had to do the bit," Huncke recalled. Allen Ginsberg, a student at Columbia University, was sent to a mental hospital for six months. Vickie Russell's (a.k.a. Perscilla Arminger) father was a judge in a neighboring state and took custody of her, relieving her of jail time. Jack Melody's mother was associated with the Brooklyn mafia and she took custody of Little Jack.

When Herbert Huncke was released from prison on parole Little Jack's family set him up with a job in an ornamental glass company in Manhattan near 23rd Street. Allen, initially, refused to see Huncke upon release on the advice of Allen's psychiatrist.

Writing career

Huncke himself was a natural storyteller, a unique character with a paradoxically honest take on life. Later, after the formation of the so-called

Diane DiPrima's Poet's Press. Huncke used the word "Beat" to describe someone living with no money and few prospects. "Beat to my socks," he said. Huncke coined the phrase in a conversation with Jack Kerouac, who was interested in how their generation would be remembered. "I'm beat," was Huncke's reply, meaning tired and beat to his socks. Kerouac used the term to describe an entire generation. Jack Kerouac later insisted that "Beat" was derived from beatification
, to be supremely happy. However, it is thought that this definition was a defense of the beat way of life, which was frowned upon and offended many American sensibilities.

Huncke's autobiography, titled Guilty of Everything, was recorded by sociologist Michael Agar in the early 1970s in R'lene Dahlberg's Third Avenue Apartment. The transcript of these recordings were edited by Roger Goodman, head of the English Department at Stuvesant High School and Paul Metcalf (grandson of Herman Melville). Portions of the manuscript was edited again by Raymond Foye's Hanuman Books (1987) and Don Kennison for Paragon Press (1990). A complete transcript of the Huncke/Agar recordings has not been found. Several of the tapes still exist while others have been lost or misplaced.

In 1991, Herbert Huncke was crowned King of the Beaux Arts Ball.[10] He presided with Queen Fay Wray.

Huncke died in 1996 at age 81. He had been living for several years in a basement apartment on East 7th Street near Avenue D in New York City, supported financially by his friends. In his last few years, he lived in the

The Grateful Dead
, whom Huncke never met.

Quotes on Huncke

Jack Kerouac described Huncke in his "Now it's Jazz" reading from Desolation Angels, chapter 77:

Huck, whom you'll see on Times Square, somnolent and alert, sad, sweet, dark, holy. Just out of jail. Martyred. Tortured by sidewalks, starved for sex and companionship, open to anything, ready to introduce a new world with a shrug.

John Clellon Holmes described Albert Ancke, his representation of Huncke in Go in Chapter 14 of part 2:

A sallow, wrinkled little hustler, hatless and occupying a crumpled sport shirt as though crouched in it to hide his withered body.

Admired by David Wojnarowicz in his personal diaries, In the Shadow of the American Dream, where their meetings/dates are documented.

Frank McCourt mentions knowing Huncke in Chapter 16 of Teacher Man:

Alcohol is not his habit but he'll kindly allow you to buy him a drink at Montero's. His voice is deep, gentle and musical. He never forgets his manners and you'd rarely think of him as Huncke the Junkie. He respects law and obeys none of it.

Huncke in film

Huncke was featured in several documentaries about the Beat generation, including Janet Forman's "The Beat Generation: An American Dream," Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams' "What Happened to Kerouac?", John Antonelli's "Kerouac, the Movie", and Howard Brookner's documentary about William Burroughs, Burroughs. He also starred in his only acting role in "The Burning Ghat" by James Rasin and Jerome Poynton.

Works

References

  1. ^ "Herbert Huncke, "Herbert E. Huncke, My Name"". YouTube. June 4, 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2024.
  2. ^ Thomas, Robert McG. Jr. (9 August 1996). "Herbert Huncke, the Hipster Who Defined 'Beat,' Dies at 81". The New York Times.
  3. ^ Herman, Jan (10 June 1990). "THE BEATNICK'S BEATNICK". The New York Times.
  4. ^ Ginsberg, Allen (29 December 1996). "THE HIPSTER'S HIPSTER". The New York Times.
  5. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); 0140151028
    (pbk)
  6. ISBN 978-1936182800
    (pbk)
  7. ^ McCourt, Frank. Teacher Man. Scribner. New York. 2005.
    • Mahoney, Denis; Martin, Richard L.; Whitehead, Ron (ed.). A Burroughs Compendium: Calling the Toads. New York. 1998.
      ISBN 0-9659826-0-2
      .
  8. ISBN 978-0-9562033-7-3
  9. ^ Huncke interviewed in Arena documentary on Burroughs, BBC TV 1983.
  10. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-12-15. Retrieved 2014-02-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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