 I knew Allen Ginsberg very well for over 20 years and admired him very much, not only for his poetry but for his ceaseless defense of freedom of expression. You know, few people know really that I think that he gave so much time and energy, money to defending cases that came up by connecting people with lawyers, giving benefits, collecting helping people in all kinds of ways. And I think one of the reasons that's very interesting, the way he connects freedom of expression with I think what he considered the most important virtue and that was candor. He was always urging candor people in private life to talk about their desires and who they really were and to not feel afraid to say what they felt. And also urging candor in public life. I think in these times now where candor in public life has sunk to an all-time low, I really miss Allen Ginsberg a lot. And I wish that he were still around so that we could hear his dynamic performances confronting John Ashcroft and the whole Bush regime. I'm going to read from Howell, which has been challenged on many grounds, obscenity, promoting homosexuality, well, what else, treason, anti-Americanism, you name it, covers the bases. So tonight in the spirit of today's patriotism, I'm chosen to read America. America, I've given you all and now I'm nothing. America, $2.27 January 17th, 1956. I can't stand my own mind. America, when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don't feel good. Don't bother me. I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind. America, when will you be angelic? When will you take off your clothes? When will you look at yourself through the grave? When will you be worthy of your million trotskietz? America, why are your libraries full of tears? America, when will you send your eggs to India? I'm sick of your insane demands. When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks? America, after all, it is you and I who are perfect, not the next world. Your machinery is too much for me. You made me want to be a saint. There must be some other way to settle this argument. Burroughs is in Tangier. I don't think he'll come back. It's sinister. Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke? I'm trying to come to the point. I refuse to give up my obsession. America, stop pushing. I know what I'm doing. America, the plum blossoms are falling. I haven't read the newspapers for months. Every day, somebody goes on trial for murder. America, I feel sentimental about the wobblies. America, I used to be a communist when I was a kid. And I'm not sorry. I smoke marijuana every chance I get. I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet. When I go to Chinatown, I get drunk and I never get laid. My mind is made up. There is going to be trouble. You should have seen me reading Marx. My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. I won't say the Lord's Prayer. I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations. America, I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia. I'm addressing you. Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine? I'm obsessed by Time Magazine. I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candy store. I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious, but me. It occurs to me that I am America. I'm talking to myself again. Asia is rising against me. I haven't got a Chinaman's chance. I better consider my national resources. My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana, millions of genitals, an unpublishable private literature that goes 1,400 miles an hour and 25,000 mental institutions. I say nothing about my prisons. They're the millions of underprivileged who live in my flower pots under the light of 500 suns. I have abolished the whorehouses of France 10 years the next to go. My ambition is to be president despite the fact that I'm a Catholic. America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? I will continue like Henry Ford. My trophies are as individualist as automobiles. More so, they're all different sexes. America, I will sell you trophies, 2,500 bucks apiece, 500 down on your old trophy. America, free Tom Mooney. America, save the Spanish loyalists. America, Sacco and Vanzetti must not die. America, I am the Scottsboro boys. America, when I was seven, mama took me to communist cell meetings. They sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket. It cost a nickel, and speeches were free. Everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers. It was also sincere. You have no idea what a good thing the party was. In 1935, Scott Nearing was a grand old man, a real mensch. Mother Bloor made me cry. I once saw Israel amped her plane. Everybody must have been a spy. America, you don't really want to go to war. America, it's them bad Russians. Them Russians, them Russians, them Chinese, them Russians. The Russia want to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take our cars, promote our garages. Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs are Red Readers Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our filling stations that no good. Ugg, him make Indians learn, read. Him need big black niggers. Ha! Her made us all work 16 hours a day. Help! America, this is quite serious. America, this is the impression I get from looking in a television set. America, is this correct? I'd better get right down to the job. It's true. I don't want to join the army or turn lathes in precision parts factories. I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway. America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.