Chamblee54

Smash Cut by Brad Gooch, turned up at the Chamblee library. The subtitle is “A Memoir of Howard & Art & the ’70s & the ’80s.” The cover has a picture of Brad Gooch and Howard Eric Brookner. The 1979 picture shows BG (google does not know his middle name) and HEB is a small, well used kitchen. Someone wrote, and then scratched out, “at the Chelsea Hotel.” In the notes, we see that BG and HEB were boyfriends in 70s and 80s Manhattan. At some point, HEB got AIDS.
April 27, 1989, was HEB’s last day on the planet. I was 16 weeks into not drinking. HEB was seven days older than me. There are many other parallels between my life, and the concurrent Brad/Howard story. Their story has a lot more famous people involved.
HEB was a filmmaker, with wealthy Jewish parents. He met BG at a bar in Lower Manhattan in 1978. They go back to Howard’s place, drink vodka, and crash. They quickly become boyfriends, and have a terrific time together when they aren’t quarreling about who is fucking who. Howard is working on a movie about William S. Burroughs. When you hang out with Mr. Burroughs, it is considered good manners to take heroin. This becomes a problem for HEB.
Meanwhile, BG was in grad school at Columbia, finishing a PhD in English. He wound up as an English professor at some college. You kind of wonder how BG had time to write a PhD dissertation, while diving into the full tilt sex and drugs of pre-aids Manhattan. Nor do we ever find out how they paid for all this high octane living.
BG becomes a model, hanging out in Europe for a while. HEB decides he doesn’t want to be BG’s boyfriend anymore. That continues off and on for a few years, until that day in 1987 when HEB finds out he is HIV positive.The first year it doesn’t really cause that many problems, but then it does. The last 40 pages of this book are incredibly tough to read. HEB goes into the hospital, it seems like he’s never going to come home. BG gets a job as a professor, and publishes a novel, in addition to being there for HEB. Eventually, HEB got another o.i., and moved on.
Smash Cut is the third book by BG I have started. The Flannery O’Connor book is excellent. The Rumi book has too many unpronounceable names. SC is an fun read, full of gossipy stories about people like Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Keith Haring. The publicity machine is already cranking up for book that BG wrote about Mr. Haring. If the last 40 pages of SC are too difficult, you can skip over it. You already know how it is going to turn out. Pictures today are by The Library of Congress