Friday, July 08, 2011

More ULAer Bad News

UNDERGROUND WRITERS ARE BEING KILLED BY THIS SOCIETY

As if Steve Kostecke's death wasn't bad enough. . . .

I've just received word about two other great ULAers. (Underground Literary Alliance, which was a phenomenon from 2001 through 2007 but lately has been inactive.)

First, that poet Frank D. Walsh, a modern day Francois Villon, is living in a flophouse, I believe in New York City, and has lost or had stolen his precious cache of manuscripts. Unbelievably dynamic poems, some of the best written anywhere the past fifteen years. Most aren't anywhere online.

Second, young beat writer and carny performer Eric Broomfield, aka Jellyboy the Clown, who accompanied me on my walk into the Den of the Privileged during the ULA's 2006 Columbia University "Howl" protest, was trapped in a house fire in Queens. As of earlier this week he was on life support.

Unbelievable. I've been talking for years about the conditions in which many talented underground writers exist in this country. These latest incidents exemplify this.

As of now I have no other details, hospital, etc., but hope to attain some.

Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. . . .

2 comments:

Patrick S. @ RedFez said...

Hi King. The Squidling's facebook page posted this on Friday the 8th:

"On saturday morning July 2nd, Jelly Boy The Clown from the Squidling Brothers Circus Sideshow was burned in a Queens Apartment (not performance related). Coming off a long day of working at Ripley's Believe it Or Not as a sword swallower. He was crashing at a friends apartment for the night. He woke up to a house fire and was unable to get out until rescued by the new york city fire department. That night he was meant to be at Coney Island with his other Squidling brothers and Coney Girlie Freakshow putting on a memorial show for the late JT of Cha Cha's bar. Jelly has sustained burns on 15 percent of his body and is living off of a respirator to support his badly burnt lungs. At this point he is day to day with a 90% chance of survival."

Not sure what to do for Frank. I'm living in Illinois and quite broke right now. Thanks for posting this info.

King Wenclas said...

Thanks, Pat, for the update.
Let's all say some prayers for Jellyboy!