Join
the Kicks Books crew in celebrating the publication of BENZEDRINE HIGHWAY by
America's last standing, guns-blazing, full throttle roadmaster versificator Charles Plymell at a very special evening at NYC’s historic
Jefferson Market Library NYPL on Friday, November 8, at 7:30 PM. 425 Sixth
Avenue, NYC (at 10th Street)!
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Charley
Plymell, goin' to Kansas City 1950
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Gerard
Malanga
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Charles
Plymell will be introduced by his friend, fellow legend, poet, artist, and
photographer, Gerard Malanga, who's been there and back. We're gassed to
have him aboard.
Admission
to this event is free to the public. Books will be available for purchase. Come
meet Charles and Gerard!
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Poet/author/artist/small press publisher (legend!) Charles
Plymell roared out of Kansas with tires blazing while the Beat scene was
still in training wheels. Weaned on jump blues, true grit and Dr. Gimmy Gommy’s
Goodies, Plymell redefined the fast track with blunt force, map zap and brute
strength forged of desperation and
attitude.
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Born
on the high plains in Finney County, Kansas in 1935 in a converted chicken coop
during one of the blackest dust storms of the day, he would spend his sprouting
years kicking up even more sand. His father was a cowboy born in the Indian
Territory; his mother was of Plains Indian descent. Life on the loose held more
appeal than classrooms for young Charles, who dropped out after ninth grade. He
worked at various laboring jobs throughout the western states, then racing the
highway between Los Angeles and Kansas City during his hipster years, stoked on
hillbilly howls and race music-- R&B, blues, and
jazz.
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Charles
Plymell lived in San Francisco in the early 1960’s, sharing a house with Allen
Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. His writings from this period were published in his
first book APOCALYPSE ROSE, which appears complete in BENZEDRINE HIGHWAY, along
with his killer roadmaster autobio THE LAST OF THE MOCASSINS.
Plymell
raised a lifelong ruckus with a wild bunch that included friends Ginsberg,
Cassady, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac-- and a cast of
thousands.
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Charles
Plymell eventually settled in upstate New York. He has published, printed, and
designed umpteen underground magazines and books with his wife Pamela Beach. He
put Ray Bremser and Herbert Huncke, whom he identified with from the hipster
1950s, into print, and was influential in the underground comix scene,
establishing artists such as Robert Crumb and S. Clay Wilson, whom he first
published in Lawrence, Kansas. Plymell was the first printer of Robert Crumb's
Zap Comix.
Charles
Plymell opposes the National Endowment for the Arts and has criticized it in
print, claiming it has become a politicized, unjust system feeding on its own
mediocrity and self-contradiction. His views were mentioned in the New York
Times in "Notes on People" and again in "Washington Talk". He was subsequently
blacklisted and has never received any funding from any federal, state, or
academic agency to pursue his
creativity.
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RADIO
BALLYHOO! Dig honkin' rhythm & blues sounds "Picked By Plymell" as he chats
live with Fool's Paradise Show host Rex and the Kicks/Norton crew at
WFMU on Saturday Oct. 26. The show begins at 1 PM (EST), and Charles is
scheduled for a 2 PM call-in. We are EXCITED! Tune in for this segment -- direct
from the Wichita Vortex!
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Kicks
Books is the world's only publisher to issue a fragrance with each book. Two
fragrances are available for BENZEDRINE HIGHWAY . LOSER represents LAST OF
THE MOCASSINS and is aimed for gents. The fragrance, APOCALPYSE ROSE is
available in four different floral packages for the ladies, one for every
mood.
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Kicks
Books now presents BENZEDRINE HIGHWAY, which includes the first ever
republication of Plymell’s long out of print first book of poetry, APOCALYPSE
ROSE, his first prose book, LAST OF THE MOCASSINS, and a new autobiographical
introduction which speeds you into the wild world of Charles Plymell where his
words warp one’s horizontal, and stand one’s vertical on its pointed little
head.
Benzedrine Highway is
published by Kicks Books, Box 646 Cooper Station, NYC 10276
For
further information, or to arrange an interview with the author, kindly contact
Paige Turner at Kicks Books
headquarters.
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Also
by Charles Plymell:
Apocalypse Rose, Dave Haselwood
Books, San Francisco, CA, 1966. Neon Poems, Atom Mind Publications, Syracuse,
NY, 1970; The Last of the Moccasins, City Lights Books, San Francisco, CA, 1971;
Mother Road Publications, 1996; Moccasins Ein Beat-Kaleidoskop, Europa Verlag,
Vienna, Austria, 1980; Over the Stage of Kansas, Telephone Books, NYC, 1973; The
Trashing of America, Kulchur Foundation, NYC, 1975; Blue Orchid Numero Uno,
Telephone Books, 1977; Panik in Dodge City, Expanded Media Editions, Bonn, W.
Germany, 1981; Forever Wider, 1954-1984, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ, 1985;
Was Poe Afraid?, Bogg Publications, Arlington, VA, 1990; Journals From Lysidia,
synaethesia press, 1999; Hand on the Doorknob, Water Row Books, Sudbury, MA,
2000; Some Mother’s Sons, Cherry Valley Editions, Cherry Valley, NY, 2005; Choix
de Poemes, Wigwam, Rennes, France, 2007; Mindeater, Verlag Peter Engstler,
Germany, 2009; Eat Not Thy Mind, Glass Eye Books/Peace Eye Library, Northampton,
MA 2010; Animal Light, Peter Engstler Verlag, Germany, 2011; Tent Shaker Vortex
Voice , Bottle of Smoke Press, Dover, Delaware, 2012; Benzedrine Highway, Kicks
Books,
2013.
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