Part Beat, part hippy, part punk: the gay life of John Giorno

John Giorno, who died last year, was a natural acolyte: he needed a superior being to set him in motion. Part Beat, part hippy, part punk, he was a gay, sexually active poet who tells us that he loved to do it ‘endlessly’. He was therefore very popular among New York’s avant garde, many of whom were gay and passive: ‘I was young and beautiful and that got me what I wanted, and all I wanted was sex. I had all the money I needed; my parents gave me an allowance and paid my bills.’ Such boyish candour sets the tone of this memoir, which is a feast of exuberant emotion and indiscretion.

The first superior being he met was Allen Ginsberg (‘It was like being struck by lightning’), followed by Jack Kerouac: ‘Just seeing him fulfilled something in me.’ Then came a real biggie, Andy Warhol: ‘We looked into each other’s eyes. Something happened, a spark.’ It was Warhol who put Giorno on the map — as he did so many — when he cast him as the sleeper in Sleep, his first film, a work which changed the parameters of modern cinema. But the two fell out over a later role. ‘Andy made Blow Job, starring somebody else. I was deeply offended. That was supposed to be my movie.’

Then it’s William Burroughs: ‘…he left me speechless and in awe.’ And Brion Gysin: ‘I was at my sexual peak and the LSD blew me open’ but ‘we became each other’s demons.’ Next stop, the artist Robert Rauschenberg, ‘someone I so revered… nine inches hard… It was like making love to Alexander the Great or Emperor Hadrian.’ Eat your heart out, Alma Mahler. But Bob was vain and moody, and it’s not long before John is with Bob’s ex, Jasper Johns: ‘I was in awe of Jasper.’