Seattlest Remembers: That One Allen Ginsberg Reading
In this week's Stranger, Franklin grad Brendan Kiley remembers getting hit on by Allen Ginsberg at a 1994 reading.
Here's a fact that not many people could tell you--Dan Wilson's first career home run came on the same night. Seattlest was out in Pioneer Square that night, too. Of course, if you know anything about Seattlest, you know we were at the Mariners game. But we did make it back to the reading in time to have Ginsberg draw a penis on our friend's cardboard pig.
It was Turn Back the Clock Night at the Mariner game, back when teams wearing retro jerseys was an original and exciting concept. We were with our good friend Pauls Toutonghi, who's now some sort of big-shot novelist.
Before the game, we decided to have a "who can buy the stupidest thing" contest. Pauls won outright with his purchase of a "Port-a-Pig," a cardboard cutout of a picture of a pig. We brought it to the M's game as our talisman.
Dan Wilson had already had something like 200 major league at bats without a home run, so we were really rooting for him. With the pig's help, he did it--a 7th inning blast to left-center off of Ron Darling.
As soon as the ball cleared the fence, Seattlest ran to the silent auction table (they were auctioning off the retro uniforms after the game) and bid $500 on Wilson's now-historic uni. We lost, thank God, because had we won we couldn't have afforded to go to college.
After the game, we sprinted--not ran, sprinted--back to Elliott Bay, Pauls still clutching the Port-a-Pig, hoping to catch a glimpse of the great man. Pauls ran in, and as he started down the stairs, nearly collided with Ginsberg.
"Mr. Ginsberg," he said, "will you sign my pig?"
There are two categories of authors--those who, when asked to sign a cardboard pig, back away slowly and signal for security, and those who embrace the experience as part of life's great pageant. Ginsberg was one of the latter.
Without missing a beat, he took the pig from Pauls' hands, drew a penis and testicles between its legs, and gave it a speech bubble with the word "om" inside. "Om," we've since learned, was his mantra. And, subsequently, the pig's.
Oh--incidentally, the Mariners won 6-3. Chris Bosio got the win, Bobby Ayala the save. Blowers, Griffey, Wilson and Tino Martinez all homered.
