Date: 11/2/2023
Location: Notting Hill. United Kingdom.
Attendees: Terry Wilson (interviewee), Ana Collins (interviewer).
Ana: Here we are at the Notting Hill home of Terry Wilson who had a friendship with Ira Cohen which spanned continents and consciousness. Good afternoon Terry. How did you first come across Ira Cohen’s work?
Terry: Well, I first met Ira in 1982. William [Burroughs] and Brion [Gysin] and I and [John] Giorno had just done [performance event] The Final Academy in London which was a week long affair in Brixton. That had ended and Ira arrived just after that as I remember. He was exhibiting at the October Gallery.
I don’t think I was all that aware of his work before that time. Maybe, it’s just a long time ago. I probably must have been, to some extent. But anyway we attended his show. I remember calling at first. I gave him a call at the October before meeting him, saying what a pity it was he had come just about a week too late for the big Final Academy. It turned out to be an expensive phone call ’cause I got an endless rant about how he’d got his own show together now and he didn’t need anybody else’s show. Okay, alright. So I went along to the vernissage and we got along very well together.
Ana: What were your first impressions of Ira?
Terry: Suspicious.
Ana: You or him?
Terry: Him. Wary, suspicious, wanted immediately to talk to me alone without any of the October people. We sort of sat facing each other with a desk between us. He was kind of wary, suspicious, but wanting to be friends. I could see that.
Ana: Ira had already met Brion quite some time before that?
Terry: Yeah, well he was aware of my book with Brion, Here To Go. Honestly, I find it very difficult to talk about Ira because anything one could say about him can give the impression that he was rather excruciating, and he could be, but that was just Ira.
Ana: A very unique individual.
Terry: Yes, he was unique. My personal opinion of his work was that he was a genuinely great photographer. Iʼm not too keen or easy with poetry of any kind. Itʼs a personal opinion but I think poetry should have died out with Rimbaud and Verlaine. Of course, you have these people: Eliot and Pound, Auden. It was actually I who encouraged Ira to move a little more into writing prose. That produced Minbad Sinbad—I know thatʼs been published in French.
Ira and I were in Tangier in 1990. He was noting things down all the time, endlessly noting down everything that everybody said, you know…whenever anyone could get a word in. But he was not a man who did not listen, it was just that he had a lot to say all the time. But I suggested that I thought his notes were frankly more interesting, at least to me, than his poetry work—which is very good. As I say, itʼs just a personal opinion. He really took that on it seems, he found it very interesting. He said, “Well all of this is just kind of non-sequiturs, you know…” I said, “Yeah, thatʼs good.” I think he did start to write a good deal more prose after that. At least he acted on my suggestion quite fast and that produced Minbad Sinbad. That is an account of that period in Tangier when we were visiting Paul [Bowles] and all the rest of it.
Ana: I came across a part of your book which perhaps refers to the same time you are describing; this is also relating to Jim McCann: “Jim was working his way up to allegedly setting up an exhibition of Brion Gysinʼs big paintings–the Makemono–in Morocco, which was why Philippe Baumont and I were in Tangier in 1990. Though Jim said in an interview, very shortly before we arrived, that he was sending his special team to Morocco to organize tribesmen in the Rif mountain to overthrow the king…”
Terry: Yes, that was a great help for Jim to make that statement. You can imagine the reception that we received when we—we did have trouble with the authorities and stuff that went nosing around because McCann just couldn’t help shooting his mouth off.
Ana: Being so provocative.
Terry: Yes, of course he wasn’t organizing anything. What he was supposed to be organizing with us was an exhibition of Brionʼs last big painting, the Makemono. Of course, he neither did that nor overthrew the King or anything like that, The exhibition didn’t happen, well partly because Jim ended up in jail in Germany.
Ana: I saw some reference to that too but then later in the passage from your book you mentioned, “Then Ira Cohen and his son Raphael arrived. Jim was paying for it all and Ira was filming and writing everything down in his notebook and we were plunged into this crazy scenario.”
Terry: What do you expect? Jim couldn’t help being malicious, even to people who were kind of allied with him.
Ana: Could you tell me a little more about Jim McCann and the role of patron which he played. For example, I understand he was a sponsor of the Here to Go Show, which was in Dublin and was of course inspired by the book of interviews with Brion Gysin, which you contributed to.
Terry: Well, Jim firstly was a great benefactor to quite a few people, including me, but especially to Brion Gysin. You know he obviously had this reputation, a lot [of] which was spread by himself—a fabulist in other words—but certainly he had been a logistics man working with Howard Marks and the Howard Marks organization. Youʼre aware of that?
Ana: Yes, Iʼm familiar with the story having read Mr Nice. [Bestselling biography of the notorious British cannabis trafficker.]
Terry: All that, yeah. So he had that as a past. But at the time I met him he had a kind of mirage called the Academia Foundation, but it was not a mirage as far as him generously handing out money. I was with Brion once—I suppose it must have been—I had no idea—Brion kept things very compartmentalized so…
Ana: He could be quite discreet about certain things.
Terry: Oh yes. Just as well with somebody like Jim, who was the least discreet person in the world. I think Jim is still around. He must be in his eighties by now. Anyway, so I was with Brion and I had no idea of the existence of Jim McCann but Brion had no money and then heʼd been putting me up in a hotel around the corner, a whoreʼs hotel as he called it.
Ana: This is in Tangier or Paris?
Terry: No, in Paris. Brion was in his place opposite the Pompidou Centre and he put me up in this run down old dump of a hotel around the corner from where he lived. Paris was full of those type of places in those days.
Ana: Delightful.
Terry: Yeah, lovely. Anyway, Brion had run out of money and I didn’t have any you know. So I was going to have to leave the next day on the cheapest ferry back [to] here, and we didn’t know what to do, really, except I was going to have to go because…
Ana: There were no funds available.
Terry: No! Anyway there was a knock on the door—just like that—and I went to the door and opened it and in he came snorting fire like a Belfast bull, Mr. Kennedy! He was calling himself James Kennedy McCann at that time. I mean he had numerous aliases, about as many aliases as passports.
Ana: As suited his profession.
Terry: So he strode straight in past me and I just pottered around the place. He went into where Brion was and I just kept out of the way, none of my business, all this, and I could see this could be a troublesome personality, to put it mildly.
Ana: Turbulent.
Terry: Yes. Excitable. He was always coked up.
Ana: Agitated.
Terry: Anyway, so I left them to chat away to each other and then Brion called me and said, “Come in. Come in.” I walked in there and Jim just said, “Brion needs you, stick around.” So he reached into his pocket and gave me a bundle of notes, like that. I left the two of them alone but I remember, as I was leaving myself, I couldn’t resist reaching into my pocket and checking out the wad. I thought maybe being lucky heʼd given me a hundred pounds or something but it was nearly a grand.
Ana: A random fistful of notes.
Terry: His loose change. It was about 700 or 800 pounds. Weʼre talking about the early Eighties so that was quite a lot of money. I remember I was so taken aback, I actually dropped it in the corridor outside Brionʼs. I couldn’t believe how much money heʼd given me. When I saw Brion the next morning—I was going back to my little hotel—I could see him grinning. He knew what had happened, how much money it was. Iʼm presuming that Jim had given him a hell of a lot more than that, I would imagine.
Ana: But he was clearly very happy with the outcome, that you were staying.
Terry: We were all very happy.
Ana: So that was how Jim rolled, so also during the time you were in Tangier with Ira and Raphael?
Terry: Yes, Jim wanted to set up a team. So he paid for all of that, and then did absolutely nothing but maybe he would have done more, maybe, if he hadn’t got busted in Dusseldorf.
Ana: It could have all been quite different.
Terry: Although, not really with Jim. I mean he was Mr. Chaos, a catastrophe on two legs. I mean one could go on forever and ever and ever about Jim.
Ana: Coming back to the Here to Go Show, I understand that Gordon Campbell funded the show…and he was also somewhat affiliated with Howard Marks and Jim McCann.
Terry: Yes, certainly true. Jim was of course in the Dusseldorf jail, or wherever he was by then, and so the idea at first was—Gordon had contacted me at first and actually told me what had happened.
Ana: So you weren’t there at the time? I thought Iʼd read somewhere in an article that you were in Germany at the time and heʼd left you high and dry.
Terry: Yes, oh yeah. No, he left me high and dry once in Berlin.
Ana: That was another incident?
Terry: No, in Dusseldorf I left him high and dry as a matter of fact. He was getting so crazy—coked up. I mean you could see, it was almost as if he was asking for—
Ana: He was losing it.
Terry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, less than a week before he was arrested, a few days prior, I said, “Iʼm sorry man; this is just crazy.” Thatʼs another story. I was supposed to be there [in] Dusseldorf for Christʼs sake because he was supposed to be filming [Terry’s book] Perilous Passage. He took out a full page advertisement in Screen International announcing [it]—he was in Cannes and all that—so he had the manuscript of Perilous Passage in Dusseldorf.
The funny thing was—this is according to Jim—there were loads of letters from Jim, which of course the cops picked up with him. You see, he collapsed in the hotel room and some idiot called the cops instead of the ambulance, or called both. So the cops arrived there and you know heʼs—
Ana: They found some material and cash in the room.
Terry: God knows how many passports and a load of coke. Thatʼs all. They tried to get him on conspiracy, you see, conspiracy to do what? They never managed to clarify. That was just something to hold him with, but the funny thing was, according to one of Jimʼs letters from prison, they had also managed to get hold of the Perilous Passage manuscript which was a heavily Cut up book.
Ana: So that was evidence of conspiracy or they couldn’t make heads or tails of it?
Terry: The Germans thought it was all in code. The idea of these German cops trying to decipher it all. It would be interesting what conclusion they came to.
Ana: Yes, what they made of it all.
Terry: So when Gordon contacted me and told me what had happened…then we came up with the idea, Gordon came up with the idea really, of doing a kind of benefit for Jim. That was the original idea of Here To Go. But that benefit idea got lost pretty fast when Gordon had the idea he was a great entrepreneur and Gordon (who died a few years ago now) was always a kind of imitation Jim McCann. So now it was like he had usurped the Grand Man like that. So in a way it was kind of a love/hate relationship between the two of them. I think hate might be a bit too strong but there was a rivalry—Gordon was always in awe of Jim.
Ana: But couldn’t quite fit his shoes.
Terry: No, no! Acted like him and all the rest of it. So, in a certain way, I donʼt think he was all that upset about Jim being out of the way for a while. Of course, nobody wanted to see him in such condition. I think he was kept in solitary for about two and a half years which was ridiculous. Okay, he was in possession of some coke and passports and all that, but—I mean—the conspiracy aspect was complete nonsense.
Ana: Completely fabricated.
Terry: He got away with it after a while because all of this conspiracy was supposed to have happened in a house in the Rue du Bac in Paris—all of that—and these undercover cops, or informers, or whatever they were, claimed to be there and had infiltrated the conspiracy and all that. But the lady who owned the place—actually it was a very famous house on Rue du Bac. Apollinaire had lived there. She had the original plans. So, eventually, when the trial finally came, they kept it for as long as they could without trial, I suppose. Anyway, she came with McCann to the house and proved that these people, who said that they were there, with all this conspiracy, theyʼd never in their life been in that place. All this conspiracy was totally fabricated because the Germans wanted to nail him.
Ana: Wanted to stitch him up.
Terry: I mean he was such a celebrated escape artist. He always got away with it.
Ana: So was Ira aware what had happened to Jim?
Terry: No. I introduced Ira to Gordon Campbell and Frank Rynne, who was in on all that as well. No, we just all got the idea that we could gather together some people and do this show which, as I say, was supposed to be a benefit for Jim.
Ana: But also a tribute to Brion and Burroughs.
Terry: Oh yes! So, yes, it happened like that but it was certainly a goodly crew that Gordon paid for because we had Hamri there, all the musicians, who else? Peter Lamborn Wilson—Hakim Bey—heʼs left us now. All sorts of people came to this situation. There were lots of other people hovering around in Dublin who did not officially take part, Marianne Faithfull for instance. I met her for the first time and she was talking about whether she wanted to do something, but she felt that Gordon wanted everything—for her to get up and dance on the table. She wasn’t very… Also, I think there were undercurrents there that she perhaps did not want to be associated with. I mean Marianne had lived in Ireland for a while at that time, of course. She was very much aware of people like Jim McCann and Gordon Campbell.
Ana: Were there any particular logistical challenges with getting the Master Musicians there? Was Ira closely involved with the organization?
Terry: No, he was not. Not for want of trying I would have to say. Ira was always a little difficult when/if he was involved in a project which was not directly connected, entirely connected with Ira. He liked to be the star of the show. But aside from the Here to Go Show, he did get an exhibition of his own work, of his photography running concurrently in Dublin with the Here to Go Show.
Ana: I understand that the late Joe Ambrose was also closely involved with bringing about the Here to Go Show in Dublin and he also co-directed with Frank Rynne Destroy all Rational Thought, the documentary made about the event.
Terry: I mean, frankly, Ambrose was one of the most unpleasant persons I have ever met in my life. He really was a sociopath who detested other people. I mean a nasty piece of work. He was an appalling man and Frank was about the only person who could tolerate him, I think, but even Frank couldn’t tolerate him after a while.
Ana: I understand that Joe Ambrose also fell out with Brion Gysin. There was a quote from Ambrose which I came across online saying, “The late Joe Ambrose was quoted as saying in an interview, ‘Gysin was a more dubious character and I regret to some extent my own association with him.’”
Terry: [Laughing] Joe had no connection with Brion. Neither he nor Frank, who I get along with. I get along with Frank reasonably okay, but neither of them had the slightest connection with Burroughs, Gysin, Jim McCann. All of that is absolute fabrication. Ambrose resented the fact that all of this was about Brion. Everything with Joe had to be about Joe—nothing else.
Ana: And their music group the Islamic Diggers?
Terry: Yes, Baby Snakes—he was supposed to be their manager, you know. Yeah, the Here to Go Show was really very difficult because you had all these egos shoved into one little Dublin. I perfectly understood why Marianne sort of backed out of it. I took Ambrose around to see her and she was not very happy that I had done that. So I think she got along with Frank, more or less.
Ana: Iʼm aware there was some controversy with the Master Musicians of Jajouka between Bachir Attar and Hamri, the artist of Morocco. What was your understanding about that rift?
Terry: Sure, yeah, yeah. Well, I’m afraid the master musicians have always had—it seems to me—bad luck as far as their managers are concerned, you know. I mean, the whole thing has always been, as it always is in the music business or—I suppose—in the publishing business, the manager takes most of the money. I think the fact is, of course, that maybe Jajouka—they’re farmers, you know.
Ana: Yes, it’s agricultural. Ksar el-Kbir. [The region of Morocco where Jajouka is located.]
Terry: The manager will rip you off in every direction. Except that there is no money without the manager. You know, they…
Ana: They’re quite precarious in their lives.
Terry: Yes. Brion, of course, discovered them.
Ana: Originally brought them from the village to play at the Thousand and One Nights restaurant in Tangier…with Hamri.
Terry: Absolutely. Hamri was in charge, you know. He was, of course, a cousin, I guess, if I get this right, a cousin of the Attar family. So Bachir, of course, was the actual…
Ana: The son of the leader of the master musicians, who was his father.
Terry: That’s right. So he was legitimate like that. But it developed into… You know, Hamri was…
Ana: Hamri the painter….
Terry: Well, I think the thing was, as far as I understand it, he gambled away the money that he… You know, which should have belonged to or should have been distributed…
Ana: Amongst the musicians.
Terry: Amongst the musicians. And that was Hamri, and he was also a powerful drinker. And you know what the Moroccans are like, they stop smoking and start drinking. Yes, absolutely. You see, Hamri was in heaven in Dublin. I mean, all these bars.
Ana: Yes. Because there’s a famous picture that Ira Cohen took of Hamri and the master musicians in Temple Bar, which I believe is where the event took place.
Terry: Yes, Temple Bar.
Ana: You know, pub central.
Terry: Yes, yes. So then the big deal was to get—which Brion could arrange—was to get Brian Jones from the Stones to…
Ana: To come down to Jajouka to record.
Terry: Yes, so he had arrived in Morocco with…
Ana: With Anita [Pallenberg] and Keith [Richards], and they were staying at the Minzah.
Terry: Yes, with Robert Fraser and people like that and I think…well, I don’t know. Had Robert been arrested by then? I think that was later when he was busted with the Stones, wasn’t he?
Ana: Was that the Redlands bust.
Terry: He was in a shattered condition after that.
Ana: Yes, shell-shocked.
Terry: He was the only one who went down, of course. Even though the Stones managed to…buy their way out of it, but poor Robert went down with a vengeance.
Ana: And I believe Christopher [Gibbs] was there that night, too.
Terry: Was he? I didn’t know that.
Ana: Yes, I understand.
Terry: So he got away with it as well. I think George Harrison was there as well, as a matter of fact…but poor old Robert was the only… Anyway, but of course the Brian Jones thing just didn’t work out at all. Nobody…Nobody liked Brian Jones, for one thing. I mean, for all that you might read, Gysin couldn’t stand him.
Ana: Ah, he was quite difficult, I understand. Could be.
Terry: Well, Brion didn’t like the way he treated Moroccans. So Brian Jones was sort of a little nobody from Cheltenham who suddenly had too much money and started acting like he was a…
Ana: A golden god.
Terry: Oh, yeah. And the worst thing, of course, is he started promising, making all sorts of promises that he could not back up or had no intention of backing up. You know, it was all going to be paid for by Rolling Stones records.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Terry: Well, Jagger wouldn’t honor his—Brian Jones’s promises.
Ana: He was less enthused by the master musicians and sacred trance.
Terry: I think he was also very wary of Brion Gysin. I mean, they were on friendly terms, but he could see that—like Andre Breton could see with the Surrealists that Brion tended to take over an entire situation, if you let him in. Brion was just such a staggeringly, overwhelming personality.
Ana: Very dynamic and charismatic.
Terry: And Lucius now has it—but I had a taped recording of Brion and Jagger talking to each other, and Jagger was just saying, “You know, you become their publisher; I’m not going to honor Brian Jones.” Brian Jones [had] died by then, of course. Drowned or whatever.
Ana: Mm, yes.
Terry: And so I suppose that sort of came to be the end of Hamri, you know, because all of these fortunes never came in. So then I suppose, Bachir—who was growing up—I remember Bachir as a little boy.
Ana: Yes.
Terry: And I remember his father very well, a magnificent old man.
Ana: Yes, Blanca Hamri mentioned that Paul Bowles introduced Cherie to Bachir, and she rather described it as Paul Bowles liked to play games with people, and, you know, it was almost a bit of mischief on Paul Bowles’ part.
Terry: So Jajouka and Hamri was Brionʼs thing.
Ana: Yes.
Terry: There’s always been that rivalry between Paul and Brion. As if, again, on more or less good terms, but certainly Tangier was not big enough for the both of them. And so Paul started promoting Cherie and Bachir as a rival group and the real Jajouka. And then it went on, but Hamri changed, extended slightly with somebody called Ricky Stein.
Ana: Yes, I’ve heard about Ricky and Frank’s mentioned him, of course, because I believe they still work together.
Terry: Maybe, I’m not sure.
Ana: He stayed in Morocco quite a long time.
Terry: Yes, so he kind of took over from—Ricky was very close to Hamri and not so close to Brian, but Hamri—they got on with each other—but I don’t know what happened. That kind of didn’t work out, I suppose. I don’t know. I mean, it’s just gone on like that.
Ana: And so it’s boiled down to Frank managing one crew, and Cherie and Bachir still with the other crew.
Terry: What the financial situation is now, I imagine that the Jajoukas, from my imagination, are probably still complaining.
Ana: Yes. I mean having just been there two weeks ago, that was my impression, and I did talk to some of the musicians, and they were still feeling rather hard done by.
Terry: Yes, though I get the impression that Frank has done a lot for them. The money situation, I just don’t want to know about.
Ana: No, but I mean they headlined—they were at Glastonbury this year.
Terry: Yes, and Venice, I mean he’s put them all over the place. So, I don’t think Bachir has done that.
Ana: No, I mean, although he has his own projects, which are international. I must say, when I was in Tangier, I contacted Cherie Nutting, who I knew previously, and requested to interview her about Ira and his friendship with Paul Bowles, and she responded quite sharply to me that she and Bachir had nothing nice to say about Ira Cohen, and that he had really hurt them very deeply, and that Ira was also not a friend of Paul’s at the end, and that when Ira came around, they had to lock up Paul Bowles’ library.
Terry: Well, that sounds a bit over the top, but Ira had a certain larcenous…
Ana: Quality. I’ve heard this from many people; he was quite well known for it. You know, there’s a poem by Penny Arcade, “All those books and all those steaks you stole.” He was quite the proud, glad-handed, five-finger shopper.
Terry: Yes, I remember an unfortunate visit that Ira and I paid to Felix Topolski.
Ana: Was this in Paris or London?
Terry: No, it was in London. He had this studio under the arches near Waterloo, and we went in like that. I mean the place was stacked full and Ira just couldn’t resist on the way out shoving something into his pocket. I expect that probably happened quite a lot with Felix, but I don’t know.
But he could be a bit much. Because he always took somebody along with him, you know, in this case it was me. So, on occasion he’d—I don’t know—it could have been the other guy, couldn’t it? Yeah, on one occasion I prefer it if the other guy wasn’t me, if you don’t mind.
Ana: Yes, rather. So your impression was that Paul Bowles and Ira had a quite amicable, fond relationship?
Terry: I’d never heard of it, no. As I say, I haven’t seen anything of Paul since—the last time I saw Paul was in 1990. They were certainly on very, very good terms and Ira was also on very good terms with Mrabet. Maybe that might have caused a bit of a—you know—because Paul and Mrabet, as we were saying…
Ana: Yes, there was some resentment towards the end, and yes, Mrabet felt very fondly to Ira, and also had good memories of Ira and [his son] Raphael visiting.
Terry: Yes, certainly, certainly. I never visited Mrabet. I only ever saw Mrabet at Paul’s place, but certainly that Ira and Raphael were also visiting him and his family. So, I think the stuff about Ira maybe snatching stuff from Paul, I think that’s probably over the top. I don’t think he would have done that.
Ana: Hmm, yes.
Terry: Not from Paul, no. I think they were very, very close friends. Yes, I mean… He certainly had a tendency for that type of…
Ana: Yes, exactly. I must say that when Cherie mentioned that I wasn’t surprised.
Terry: That’s it, shoplifter, he was quite a shoplifter.
Ana: He had a real talent for it, and it was sort of habitual…so, yes. Could you provide some background on your impressions of the relationship between Ira and Brion? Because they shared common interests in experimental art and the exploration of altered states of consciousness.
Terry: Yes, yes, yes, yes, I just found that Ira and Brion came to be extremely close friends.
Ana: Yes, many people I’ve spoken to cite Brion Gysin as a key influence on Ira.
Terry: Oh I would say that, yes, but Brion couldn’t help it. Brion had this thing, he had a horror of being seen as a teacher or anything like that, but he was a bad man who just could not help teaching people. He just couldn’t help it. He was so impressive and imposing and all of that. Ira was certainly in awe of him. I mean it was kind of difficult not to be.
Ana: And the mylar chamber photographs were no doubt influenced somewhat by Brion’s Dream Machine which he created with Ian Somerville.
Terry: Yes, so Ira would always say that, and I suppose the mylar artwork were influenced by that, although a different thing, of course.
Ana: And Ira was also interested in the sacred trance of Morocco.
Terry: Well, yes, they both were. Have you read Brionʼs book The Process?
Ana: I’m familiar with parts of it; I haven’t read the whole of it.
Terry: Ira is Lenny Levine in The Process.
Ana: Okay, that’s fascinating. Yes, I’ll have to read it thoroughly.
Terry: They’ve got the Hamatcha Brotherhood all splitting their heads open and whatnot. Yes, well, they were both—that was something that Ira and Paul and Brion all shared, this intimacy with the various magical, musical brotherhoods.
Ana: Yes, the Sufi and the sacred trance.
Terry: Yes, Sufism in other words.
Ana: Yes, magic, along with mektoub, destiny, masks and mirrors were all themes and motifs that appeared frequently in Ira’s work. Have you any memories to share regarding these fascinations, sort of the magic and the altered states of consciousness with Ira?
Terry: Not really. I mean, we used to get stoned a lot, especially in Morocco.
Ana: With majoun?
Terry: Oh, don’t you know? I had a terrible time once with majoun in Morocco; I must have overdosed.
Ana: Yes, well, it’s difficult to judge the dosage of these things.
Terry: These cookies are great. I’ll have another few of these and before you know it….
Ana: Yes, rather. Very easy to do and, yes, once it’s inside there’s nothing to do but just go with it, really. So Ira’s relationship with Hamri, his wife Blanca mentioned that Hamri had a nice friendship with Ira and that Ira had been very helpful with Hamri getting his book about the folklore of Jajouka published in the States.
Terry: I don’t know anything about that, actually. I would say that Ira and Hamri seemed a bit wary of each other in Dublin but the whole thing in Dublin, as I say, was full of such personalities and egos where everybody—it was a very difficult occasion like that. Anything that’s being run by Joe Ambrose is bound to be full of friction because he’s such a…
Ana: Contentious fellow?
Terry: Yeah, I remember Ramuntcho Matta was there—the son of the painter Roberto Matta—who’s apparently on his way here also. He’s coming, I suppose, for my reading. I don’t know.
Ana: Oh, that’s super. That should be very interesting.
Terry: Yeah, and we haven’t…I would say there was some slight friction between Hamri and Ira—and I mean slight—as there was sometimes more than slight friction between everybody and the Here to Go Show. It was not a happy situation.
Ana: Yes, that’s interesting to hear. You write, and Brion writes, about Massa Bedaya Ibrahim, his alter ego. Was that alter ego part of the friendship with Ira? Because you mention that Ira was a character with a pseudonym in Gysinʼs The Process. Is Masa Bedaya Ibrahim also a character in it?
Terry: I called Brion “Bedaya” because that’s one—I suppose—of the transliteration, is that the word? You know, he wore a traditional Moroccan waistcoat and robes most of the time.
Ana: Ah, yes, like a ghandoura or djellaba.
Terry: Yes, I asked him what it was called once and he would not repeat the word. He would not utter the word. He wrote it for me. Yes, so it was something…
Ana: In Arabic calligraphy?
Terry: No, no, just B-E-D-A….Bedaya but he wouldn’t pronounce it. He was full of mysteries like that.
Ana: Yes, and I mean certain incantations shouldn’t be voiced.
Terry: I don’t really want to go into it, but he did refer to himself once—I believe—as the Piyah-i-Bedaya, which I later realized is a play on Bedaya, which is the wakeful sage or something. I think it’s Persian Arabic. [Bedaya means Beginning in Classical Arabic.]
Ana: Ah, I see, a Sufi reference.
Terry: Yes, the one who does not sleep or something. The one who’s always aware.
Ana: Yes, ever alert.
Terry: So I just used that as a name for him and [it’s] in my book quite a lot.
Ana: Yes, I’ve come across that reference. I understand many of your adventures in Tangiers appear in The Perilous Passage. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to read it but I’ve read some excerpts from it online.
Terry: Well, I think the thing is…
Ana: It’s not so easy to get hold of.
Terry: Well, it looks as if all of these books are going to be republished now, you see.
Ana: Ah, super.
Terry: Because I did, as you know, the show and reading at the Cut-Up conference in—
Ana: Paris recently, yes.
Terry: Recently because Moloko were republishing Dreams of Green Base. So I did that to promote the book, and apparently…well, the show and the reading were a success and it was a very nice, enthusiastic group of people.
Ana: Yes, I’m very sorry we weren’t able to attend. We were in Rome that weekend. Unfortunately, the event clashed with the tribute to Gregory Corso that was being held in Rome at that time.
Terry: The reading there was arranged by Luzius Martin, who kind of handles my affairs.
Ana: Yes, and who purchased your archives.
Terry: Yes, yes, yes. I didn’t really want to do it. I’m not all that keen on doing this thing on Tuesday. I just feel so old and tired of all these things, actually. But Lucius said, “You do this thing now and the whole thing will blow wide open.” And I thought, “All right, he’s paying for it.”
Ana: Attending the Paris Cut-Up Festival.
Terry: So, yeah, it worked, and apparently Moloko sold all of their first editions.
Ana: Well, that’s brilliant. Very encouraging.
Terry: Anyway, so Luzius was flying me back. I went on to visit his place in Basel after Paris and look at this magnificent collection he’s got. It’s a huge collection. You should take a look sometime.
Ana: That sounds very interesting.
Terry: You can see he has an awful lot of stuff. Letters from Ira to me and all that sort of stuff. A lot of stuff. But anyway, so we were flying back here, or back on Gatwick Express I suppose it was, to London. And then Moloko is on the phone to Luzius saying, “This is great. We want everything we can get.”
It was the last thing I’d ever written. I think it was 2009 or something like that. I’ve just done nothing else except all of these Cut-up images.
Ana: So these are recent works in fact, or relatively. You’ve been focusing more on the Cut-up images.
Terry: They date back to about 2013 or something like that. Yeah, some of them are this year, very recent. I don’t know if there’ll be any more. But the Moloko guy, he was on the phone to Luzius saying, “We thought we were going to have to try and sell this, because what I really wanted [was] one more book, but without words.” We knew that he—Ralf Friel is his name—wanted to do D-Train.
Ana: Of Moloko press.
Terry: And he’s on the phone to Luzius anyway. He really wants to do a Cut-up, a visual, a book of Cut-up images, which I never thought would be done, at least while I was alive. So he seems at the moment, you know, we should see, but I believe he’s gone into a second edition of Green Base already, because he kind of had to.
Ana: Yes, as it’s sold out.
Terry: Why am I doing this on Tuesday, if there are no books to sell? So I believe he’s getting, oh, I hope so.
Ana: Hopefully getting them hot off the press and ready for you.
Terry: Yes, this one I think, because D-Train–the cover of that is–have you seen this?
Ana: No, I don’t believe I have.
Terry: I can give you a copy if you like.
Ana: That would be very kind.
Terry: I have lots of copies of this and none of the others. I’ll get one from the other room when I’m using this one. You see, that’s when Ira did my bandage poet.
Ana: Oh, yes, wonderful. So you did a bandage poet too. Fabulous, yes.
Terry: What happened to all of that, the masks and all that? Do you know that?
Ana: Well, that was with Ins and Outs Press in Amsterdam, and I’m not sure what physically happened to the masks, but the photographs were released by Ins and Outs as a postcard series.
Terry: Oh, yes. Bandaged poets. Brion with his foot and all that.
Ana: Yes, and Burroughs with his hand. Yes, Corso and Ginsberg. Yes, but I believe the rights for those [works] would still be owned by Ira’s son, David. I’m not sure if there’s been a re-release, but I know that they’re still…the postcards—for example—the images are still circulating.
Terry: I’ve met Raphael, of course, but is there a David as well?
Ana: Yes, there’s Rafiqa, David, Raphael, and Lakshmi.
Terry: And Lakshmi, of course.
Ana: Yes. Raphael tended to travel with Ira more frequently as an adult, while David was already kind of off, living his own life, but David is the executor of the will and therefore manages the copyright.
Ana: So, for example, with the book that we’re doing, David has given his approval for the publication.
Terry: Oh, I see. Presumably they could all be exhibited, those masks, couldn’t they?
Ana: Yes, I’m not sure. It’s a very interesting thing. I’m not sure if the physical masks are in fact—if anybody knows where they are. It’s a very interesting question.
Terry: Before I forget it, I’ll get you a copy in the future.
Ana: Yes, thank you. Wow, thatʼs a cool photo. Where was that done?
Terry: Avebury.
Ana: The Standing Stones.
Terry: Yes. It was an incredible experience. I think there was a film of that as well by somebody called—that’s a still—I mean that’s not from David de Lara.
Ana: Ah, David de Lara, okay.
Terry: And I believe that—it seems to me that that—I think that’s a still. Ira, he was, I forget the other people involved.
Ana: Doing this at that time at Avebury? Because I know Carolyn Gosselin, who was Iraʼs partner, did the original masks in Amsterdam.
Terry: No, I think Carolyn was there.
Ana: Was there in Avebury too?
Terry: I remember there was a photograph, which is with Luzius these days, of me in the back of a car where I think it must have been Carolyn who was pasting my face with all of this. But there is a film of all that, done by this guy, David de Lara. But this is a long time ago and I’ve never heard another word from David de Lara, or whether he’s still alive. I’m not sure.
Ana: I know there are some beautiful photographs of Ira at the Standing Stones, black and white photos by Ira Landgarten that I imagine might have been taken at the same time.
Terry: Yeah, sure. You know, Avebury is very—it’s not far from Stonehenge.
Ana: Yes, I’ve been to Avebury. I’ve even parked up in a van next to Avebury on the way to festivals and so on.
Terry: Itʼs quite a magical place.
Ana: Yes, absolutely, and much less visited than Stonehenge, and you can go right up and touch the stones all the time, which is…
Terry: And in D-Train there is some kind of—there was a reference to that—the section called “Face I’m Afraid” or something like that, anyway that’s why it’s on the cover.
Ana: Yeah, that’s brilliant, delightful.
Terry: It’s a big reoccurring scene, you know, the face masking.
Ana: Well, exactly, and you know, masks and mirrors were particularly such a recurring motif through Ira’s photographic and cinematic work.
Terry: Ira was really, really pissed off, though, because William and Brion both, neither of them would let Ira do their faces. That’s why Brion offered his foot, you know, and Burroughs’ his hand.
Ana: Yes, because he was missing a toe, wasn’t he?
Terry: I think maybe it was two toes, I’m not sure. Yes, it was an accident at John Hopkins, motorcycle accident, but Ira could be a bit bitter with things like that because they had every right—they came along and it was like it was a refusal on magical reasons. They figured that Ira was up to psychic tricks by taking people’s image.
Ana: Well, it’s a bit like a death mask as well.
Terry: Ira did not take that very well. “One has to acquiesce to the whims of old queens,” he said, which was not very nice. Neither Burroughs or Gysin were old queens, no. He could get pretty unpleasant if you didn’t do what he told [you to.] They didn’t trust him enough to do a life mask.
Ana: Yes, I can understand that in terms of shamanism and even guruhood. Some people have mentioned that Ira would sometimes shift into this role of the guru and it would depend [on] who he was engaging with. Perhaps that was part of the—because Gysin was also very interested in shamanism.
Terry: Oh yeah, sure. Well, the thing is both he and William had extensive connections with Native American shamanism. I mean, obviously Burroughs was in Peru practically before anybody else.
Ana: Yes, the Yage letters.
Terry: Yes, all of that, but Brion had—part of his childhood was living in Canada with his…
Ana: Yes, with the Native American traditions.
Terry: As far as I can understand his childhood friends—boys and girls—were Native Americans and they drank a lot of mushroom tea in the winter to keep warm, so he was really into all of that from quite an early age.
Ana: Yes, almost fell in the cauldron as a baby, so to speak. Very interesting. How do you see Ira Cohen’s legacy in the context of contemporary art? His ongoing influence?
Terry: Well, as I said, I think his photography is phenomenal. I think he was one of the main, best photographers of the 20th century, and I would hope that that would be recognized eventually.
Ana: Yes, absolutely. I think it’s perhaps high time for a retrospective of his photography.
Terry: Because if it were only just the scope, there was practically nobody on this whole scene that he didn’t encounter and photograph.
Ana: Yes, he was constantly taking photos and documenting things.
Terry: Well, you see an awful lot of people take an awful lot of photographs. Of course, some of them are pretty good. I mean, if you take thousands of them. It wasn’t like that with Ira—every one was more or less a gem. I suppose all photographers overdo it. I thought that one was a silly thing—Burroughs and Giorno are pissing in some urinal somewhere. Ira just couldn’t resist taking a back shot, which I thought was a bit juvenile actually. But the thing is, he didn’t need to take thousands of photographs like that, just so he could get one or two good ones.
Ana: Yes, to get a really classic image.
Terry: He just sort of hit the nail on the—I suppose it’s the eye that a photographer has. I’m a lousy photographer, for one thing, but I don’t think Ira…
Ana: He understood how it worked.
Terry: I don’t think Ira could take a bad photograph if he tried, he just had the eye, you know.
Ana: Yes, rather. And did you ever come across Petra?
Terry: Petra, no.
Ana: Okay, just out of interest.
Terry: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Ana: Because I’m also very interested in the period in Kathmandu, which was a very rich, creative period.
Terry: I knew Hetty MacLise
Ana: Ah, that’s interesting.
Terry: But not Angus, of course.
Ana: Yes, and Ossian, the son.
Terry: Well, I had no idea, I mean, that sounds to be a complicated story there, but no, I didn’t. Of course, you must have seen that incredible photograph Ira took of MacLiseʼs—
Ana: Hair at the cremation? Yes, absolutely. It’s a very—and he wrote some wonderful poetry around the time of MacLiseʼs passing in Kathmandu, as well.
Terry: Yes, the [Ballad of the] Gone MacLise.
Ana: The photo here, the Cut-up of Ira is from a photo by Ira Landgarten. Did you know him also?
Terry: Oh yes, of course. Yes, there are several of those. Some of them are not in that collection. Yeah, because Ira Landgarten took the—it was Ira Cohen’s idea. So we joined up with John Michel and did the three monkeys thing.
Ana: Which was which? Was it Ira Cohen with the hand over the mouth or the ears or the eyes?
Terry: We alternated.
Ana: Yes, took turns.
Terry: So there were about, I don’t know, three or four photographs like that. And I just cut them all up. Played with them.
Ana: Yes, very interesting. The Jilala album Ira did, do you know anything about that?
Terry: Oh, well, wasn’t that recorded with Paul Bowles?
Ana: Yes, I believe it was something that had been recorded earlier.
Terry: Yeah, I did have a copy of it. Yeah, but I think that’s also in Basel.
Ana: Yes, with Luzius.
Terry: Yeah, I think that was recorded by Ira. Was it recorded by Ira?
Ana: I don’t think it was recorded by Ira.
Terry: Maybe not.
Ana: I think Ira just was enthusiastic about it because of his interest in sacred trance and Sufism. And so he released it.
Terry: Yeah. But it was, you know, Paul and Brion, I think, [who] recorded it at the same time.
Ana: Yes, something like that. So when did you last see Ira?
Terry: It would have been the last show he gave at the October Gallery.
Ana: Ah, when he came with Raphael.
Terry: Yes, I suppose it was with Raphael at that time. It might have been, but Ira was getting very shaky at that time.
Ana: Yes, I understand he was suffering health difficulties at that time. Ira wasn’t really on form at that stage.
Terry: Yes, yes.
Ana: So Ira often came to Paris or passed through Paris?
Terry: Oh, yes, sure. Sometimes. I don’t know. I remember he was at the October Gallery once. One of his shows—I don’t know which year this was—but Ira carried practically his whole—it seemed like his entire belongings with him, in cases and cases and cases of Mylar.
Ana: Yes, a bit of a pack rat.
Terry: But anyway, the show at the October was just about over and so he was on his way to Paris. And he was carrying so much stuff, and he said, “If I stake you, can you help me carry all this to Paris?” So we got the very latest ferry, like late at night, across.
Ana: Yes, the red-eye to Calais.
Terry: The cheapest way to do it in those days and I helped him to…
Ana: To shift all these things.
Terry: To shift all these things across the channel and, well, this is just a pure Ira story. He talked all the way across, all the way on the train to Dover or Felixstowe or wherever, all the way across the channel, all the way to Salazar.
Ana: Running monologue.
Terry: It was an incredible performance and I actually—I mean this sounds like a joke of course—but I actually, on the ferry at one point, I just suddenly went to sleep. My God, when I woke up he was still talking. It didn’t bother him at all.
Ana: Unfazed, completely.
Terry: Yes, but that certainly could be—I mean really it was logorrhea. It got to be increasingly like, you know, because he just got to the point where he just could not keep quiet at all. I think that was kind of accentuated towards the end. Although I didn’t see him after that show, I was in touch, but I didn’t see him again after that final October show.
Ana: Yes.
Terry: Then I noticed he wasn’t quite so talkative because he was aware, you could see, suddenly he would stop himself; you could see that he was aware that he wasn’t quite in control of what was coming out of him.
Ana: So he’d start to self-censor, to filter himself somewhat. Yeah, I think that was a difficult period for him, definitely.
Terry: Well, I think after that the impression I got is—I’ve seen bits and videos of him at home after that when he perhaps just had a few months to live and he was obviously pretty far gone.
Ana: Yes, quite frail, which, you know, Ira was practically never frail and fragile before but he became very vulnerable in fact.
Terry: Yes, I can imagine that.
Ana: Did you ever see, I mean, you saw him perform on various occasions?
Terry: Yes, many, many readings and things like that. Yes, he was a hell of a good reader. He just held everyone’s attention.
Ana: Yes, he could project a commanding presence.
Terry: Words were his element. Yeah, he was an extremely powerful performer. Was there a Gysin retrospect? He did some of Gysinʼs with—I forget—probably with John Giorno. I mean, performing…
Ana: Spoken word poetry with music?
Terry: Gysinʼs permutations, rub the word out, erase it, you know, they did that type of thing. You know, Ira was a wonderful performer. Non-stop.
Ana: Yes, absolutely, and in all contexts.
Terry: 24 hours a day. Yes—yes—yes! And how did Ira get on in Morocco? Because he lived there initially during the early ‘60s, I believe. And you mentioned, for example, that Brian Jones didn’t get on so well with the people, but Ira was quite adept at fitting in to different culture or contexts.
Yeah, I think Ira seemed to get along very well with Moroccans in general. You know, Moroccans always appreciate a good bullshitter.
Ana: Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Terry: No, Ira certainly never could be criticized on that one. But Moroccans are also very tolerant people like that. I mean they don’t care if somebody’s Jewish or not. They just want to sell you a carpet or something.
Ana: Yes.
Terry: Yeah, he seemed to have great times, sort of launching into kind of endless conversations with old boys in djellabas on the street and all of that.
Ana: Yes, happily yarning away.
Terry: They understood each other very well.
Ana: Did he speak some Darija – Moroccan Arabic?
Terry: Yeah. I don’t know to what extent, but certainly. Well, that book Minbad Sinbad–Minbad means, to put it politely, go away, I believe.
Ana: Ah, Minbad means like, later.
Terry: Is it?
Ana: Yes. It’s sort of like, maybe later.
Terry: Oh, I see yes.
Ana: But it is a bit like, not now, maybe later kind of thing.
Terry: That’s what he said to some Moroccan hustler who was getting on his nerves, you know, Minbad Sinbad.
Ana: Yes, exactly. Well that’s if someone, you know like, “See ya later alligator.”
Terry: I’ll speak to you later.
Ana: Yes, that’s it. It’s like, “If you’re lucky, mate.”
Terry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got the impression looking at Iraʼs film of the Kumbh Mela.
Ana: Yes, the [film] Kings with Straw Mats is very interesting because you really see how he’s interacting with the Naga babas, with the Sadhus.
Terry: Yes, you see he has no problem with that type of integration. Actually though, I found Kings with Straw Mats—the actual film—rather disappointing because I had seen hours and hours and hours of Ira’s original footage, which I thought…
Ana: Because Ira Landgarten was the cameraman, wasn’t he?
Terry: Yeah, but the original footage was just staggering. I think it was rather—it seemed to me to be watered down or maybe it was just such a hell of an editing job. God there was hours of it. Well, it just didn’t have the effect watching that raw footage where some of these people are doing the most unbelievable things. You know, sheer insanity in some cases. Whereas Ira seems to be totally at ease in all the rest of them.
Ana: Yes, completely unfazed. Yes, because I’ve attended the Kumbh Mela myself four times.
Terry: Must be incredible, huh?
Ana: Yes. I mean, I went in 2001 which was the huge one, you know, the Maha Kumbh—the biggest in 144 years. That was in Allahabad. Yes, I’ve also been to Ujjain and Haridwar. Eddie Woods wrote a poem about Ira Cohen in Ujjain. India and Kathmandu were a big part of his stories. I’m not sure if he continued visiting India and Kathmandu after Kings with Straw Mats.
Terry: I don’t think so, but I just get the impression that he didn’t for some reason. He was more back to Morocco or something, I suppose, but then he was only in Morocco at that moment–in 1990. He was only really there because of McCann coming up with, wanting to gather a little troupe of characters together.
Ana: To overthrow the King or for the art exhibition? So he’d actually been invited at that time and he’d come to join you intentionally?
Terry: Yes, Philippe and I were there for about a week and eventually Ira and Raphael showed up. But that was all part of Jim McCann’s planning.
Ana: Traveling circus. And ultimately the exhibition didn’t take place.
Terry: No, it never happened. As we said, Jim wound up in prison in Germany, but it probably wouldn’t have happened anyway. I mean the film Perilous Passage was rather a mirage, you know.
Ana: So that was a planned project that didn’t really get off the ground, the film?
Terry: As I say, he had the manuscript in Germany when he was busted.
Ana: When he got nicked, yeah.
Terry: He was always coming on to Hollywood. Well, not in that way. It wouldn’t have been Hollywood in that way. Yeah, Jim put a whole ad in Screen International in Hollywood. I don’t know—I believe he got chased out of America and practically every other place he’s been to as well. Because in Hollywood he appeared as the Hindu Maharaja, multimillionaire, Shiva Shyam.
Ana: Oh really, that was his alias? Yeah, how funny.
Terry: Of course. But, you see, he actually looked exactly like him.
Ana: Yes, he could look the part.
Terry: I think Hollywood decided they had quite enough of him after all.
Ana: Of James Kennedy McCann. Yes. I read a quote from you saying you felt like you rather inherited McCann from Brion, in fact.
Terry: Yes, because he could have easily stopped the money that he was providing Brion.
Ana: The sponsorship, yes.
Terry: Brion wasn’t painting for one reason because he had no studio, lack of money, he was living in a very small apartment and all that. Jim just supplied all of that at the very last minute, not long before—maybe a year, I think—before Brion died. So Jim just paid for the whole lot, paid for the painting and all the rest of it.
Ana: So he was very fond of Brion and obviously had tremendous esteem for his work.
Terry: Yeah, I think Jim really was a sort of… I mean, he was obviously some kind of—maybe still is—some kind of gangster. But he had a genuine—I think he was a frustrated artist himself and had a genuine fascination and like of artists.
Yeah, so when Brion died, he could have easily stopped that allowance, but he just passed it on to me. Of course, all that went down the drain when he got himself arrested. But no, he was—I’m sure he behaved in awful ways to people on occasion—and one hears about this—but no, I’ve never seen it.
And I know he kept Brion alive for the last period of his life and maybe a lot longer than I know about, because—as I said—Brion never mentioned him to me before.
Ana: Before he turned up in Paris and sponsored you as well.
Terry: Yes.
Ana: That’s interesting. And did you keep in touch? I mean, you mentioned letters when he was inside.
Terry: Oh yeah, we were writing letters under false names from the prison, but I never saw Jim again after that.
Ana: After he went inside.
Terry: He came out—he got out eventually and then the old McCann act, you know, “Can you come to meet me in Paris?” And I said, “All right, Jim. Yep.”
[Get to] Paris [and another] telephone call, “Can you meet me in Amsterdam? And I said, “Sorry, Jim. Look—I can’t.” By the time you got to Amsterdam, he would be somewhere else. Heʼs on the run, man, you know what I mean?
Ana: All over the place.
Terry: Youʼd walk into a whole troublesome situation. I [was] caught up with the Mafia—that man in the hole. He got his whole—his family, his wife and kids were kidnapped. Just troubled.
Ana: Gosh. Yes, and I read a reference in, I think, an excerpt from one of your books about, he’d tell you to come to a city and you’d find he had like multiple reservations at different hotels and maybe he wouldn’t be staying at any of them.
Terry: Yeah, he disappeared in Berlin, so that was a time when he ditched me. I tracked him down. I had no money at all and he just disappeared. But I knew what were the hotels he’d booked, so I sneaked into this hotel for the night. Sneaked out again in the morning without paying anything, of course. I didn’t have any money. I had to go from one hotel to another before I found him. God knows what he was doing. It was the time of that Pink Floyd concert The Wall, which he claimed to have been sponsoring.
Ana: Bankrolling, I see. May I ask a little bit more about the Here to Go Show and Burroughs’ involvement with that?
Terry: Well, it wasn’t very much.
Ana: Well, he sent in a video from his garden in Kansas.
Terry: Yes, Corinna MacNeice, who was connected with the October Gallery, visited him in Lawrence. And yes, naturally he wanted to do something because the whole ‘Here to Goʼ thing started—as I said—as a sort of benefit, we thought, from Jim. But eventually it just turned into a tribute, you know, the way things go. Certainly most of the people who were participating, either Hamri or Jajouka or other people like that, they didn’t know anything about Jim, really.
Ana: Yes, but they had this connection with Gysin.
Terry: Yes. Of course, Ira had a connection with Gysin and Jim and all of that.
Ana: Yes, because Frank Rynne mentioned, when I asked about the Here to Go Show,—that Ira became involved—because he knew the story, I guess—about what had happened to Jim McCann.
Terry: Yes, and Ira was quite friendly with Gordon Campbell because I introduced him. Gordon had a hell of a lot of money which attracted Ira no end. Ira was always claiming poverty, maybe it was true sometimes, I don’t know. You can hardly go into any country without finding Ira claiming poverty, but there he was. Wherever you went, there he was.
Ana: Also Blanca Hamri mentioned, “Ira and his Irish friends.” I guess that was maybe Jim or perhaps Gordon or perhaps Frank?
Terry: Yes, yes.
Ana: And Hamri was delighted to participate, to honor Brion. He was still very fond of Brion.
Terry: Oh, yeah. Hamri was still—oh, I remember once—was Brion still alive at that time? Hamri said to her, “That man knows everything about this world and a whole lot about the next.”
Ana: Yes, such great esteem.
Terry: The first time I met Hamri, he was showing at the October Gallery. We knew about each other, so I went up to Hamri and introduced myself. The show was just about to open. This was a typical Hamri story, like Ira—a great showman. So he starts ranting to me in front of all these people, you know, “Where can he get some weed around here?” “I’m sorry, I just–” I really didn’t know.
I mean, I just don’t have any myself. And I’m really kind of like—oh, a great rant, you know, “You live in this city [and] you can’t even get some fucking weed? What the hell are we going to do? What do you think you’re doing?” And he disappeared. The October Gallery was horrified. The show was about to open in five, ten minutes. Of course, all of this is just theatrics.
Ana: Yes, and Hamriʼs shot through to score.
Terry: He’s gone. Then he comes back with a big supermarket bag full of grass.
Ana: Oh, well done.
Terry: As if he’d just got it! Of course he always had it. He gave me half of it—just like that—after giving me a complete dressing down. He just—I mean, it must have been that much in there, half a bag of it. He just scooped it out and was like…all this is going on in front of all these horrified October Gallery [people], who donʼt want to [be] associated quite openly with…. But he just kind of came out like he’d just walked to the pub around the corner, you know.
Ana: Yes. Bought it off a fellow down at the pub, per se. Ay, caramba!
Terry: Hamri was great. Wonderful painter as well. At his best, he was a really very, very good painter. I think he was. Brion admired his paintings tremendously. I think Brion called him the greatest painter since Gauguin or something. In that line, you know, of Gauguin and his work.
Ana: Yes, the sort of the cubist, almost Cézanne-esque work.
Terry: Yes, yes, block houses and all that.
Ana: When I was in Morocco just now, I went to the new Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat. You know, Mohamed 6—the King—has created this new state-of-the-art Modern and Contemporary Gallery, and they had a couple of works of Hamri there, which I found very lovely. And they were of this sort of cubist jumble of architecture, of Tangier, very beautiful work.
Terry: He was a devil. He didn’t get along with the October Gallery. I suppose it was one reason he pulled that stunt to just show that he was not in awe of them, you know. I don’t care if my show is opening in five minutes, but I’m just going out.
Ana: Yes.
Terry: But he was also flogging these things on his own bat, you know. So in the morning, one painting would disappear and there would be another one, perhaps dripping down the wall, that he’d knocked out overnight. He’d sold it.
Ana: Almost before it was dry.
Terry: Yeah, well, I mean, he just substituted paintings, you know. He was a total rogue, no doubt about that, and then, eventually, he was so pissed off when—I think the October Gallery had had about enough of him. No, not really; they admired him, but…then they wanted to do another show with him and it was all fine, except he just didn’t show up. No paintings. He insisted on bringing all the paintings for this one himself. Of course, neither he nor [the] paintings materialized. So there they are, that big event. Everybody came. I arrived to come to the vernissage and all that. There was nothing.
Ana: No Hamri, no paintings. What a letdown.
Terry: I suppose it was his revenge, you know.
Ana: Yes.
Terry: But, of course, he could be terribly erratic, especially if he was drinking. Mmm, yes. He didn’t go into any pub and score dope. I mean, if he went into a pub, he would drink the place dry.
Ana: Mmm, yes. He had a fondness for the demon drink; that was his poison, in fact. Mmm. Coming back to Ira, did you experiment with altered states of consciousness in terms of other psychedelics you mentioned?
Terry: Not with Ira. Not with Ira. No, as I say, we always smoked a lot of dope together. No, I can’t remember anything like that. We never took acid or anything like that together. I don’t think so. Well, I know we didn’t do that. No, I think it was solely a lot of smoking going on between me and Ira.
Ana: Mmm, yes. Paris, London, Tangier.
Terry: Well, yes, especially Tangier, of course. Mmm, yes, it’s always been. I remember we were all staying in the old Villa de France hotel.
Ana: Yes. I know it well and it’s been bought by the Accor chain and renovated now.
Terry: Is it back as a hotel? Oh, I used to love that place.
Ana: Yes, it’s glorious. And I mean, the outlook is still lovely. The view of St. Andrew’s Church and the Matisse View.
Terry: Yes, exactly, the steps through the gardens. I think we changed rooms and managed to get into the Matisse View. Yes, it’s wonderful. I stayed in the Minzah once. I never liked it as much as the old Villa de France.
Ana: Yes, I’m not as fond of the Minzah, although it does have a nice garden.
Terry: Oh, yeah. They’ve got this great big Mrabet in the foyer of the Minzah.
Ana: Ah, I wasn’t aware of that.
Terry: When I was there last, a few years ago, they had a huge Mrabet canvas in the foyer of the Minzah.
Ana: That’s interesting because I was in and out of the Minzah when I was in Tangier in August and I didn’t notice that. They seemed to have more black and white photos of famous guests of the Minzah.
Terry: Rock Hudson and people like that.
Ana: Exactly, yes.
Terry: They seem to be rather fixated on 1950’s Hollywood stuff.
Ana: Yes, sort of the glory days of the Minzah.
Terry: Oh, yeah. Because everybody stayed there in those days.
Ana: Yes, absolutely. While the Grand Hotel de France previously was a more modest kind of a hotel, I believe. And so you stayed there with Ira, in fact?
Terry: Yeah. Who else was there? Ira, Raphael, must be other people.
Ana: Yes, the whole posse. And this was the Jim McCann time.
Terry: Yeah, we were with everybody, so many people. David Herbert. We visited up there with his peacocks.
Ana: On the old mountain.
Terry: On the old mountain. Yes. He was very charming and amusing and kind and all the rest of it. Paul we saw a lot of, I remember. Mrabet , of course. Gavin Young, who was a travel writer who had rented a house not far from Paul’s at that time.
Ana: In that neighborhood in Iberia, yes.
Terry: You know, Margaret McBey.
Ana: Yes, yes, I do. I mean, she was still alive when I was in my time in Tangier. And I remember her funeral. We had one of her paintings. Yes, all the Tangier characters.
Terry: Georges Bousquet, he was a French cultural attaché.
Ana: And you were socializing with him?
Terry: Yeah, he took us to see Jean Genetʼs grave in Larache.
Ana: Yes, that’s a fascinating pilgrimage. I read a reference to that in one of the excerpts from one of your books.
Terry: Yes, Ira took quite a few photographs of Jean Genetʼs grave. With various people posing next to it. Like me, for instance. It was nice. I liked Larache very much.
Ana: Me too, actually, because it was the Spanish territory of Morocco. Larache was the southernmost Spanish town before the French controlled [the] port of Kenitra. It’s interesting you went to Larache and you didn’t go to Jajouka. Because Jajouka is pretty much straight up in the hills above Larache. You go from Ksar Kbir.
Terry: It just didn’t happen. I don’t know.
Ana: It wasn’t the focus on that particular trip?
Terry: No. Bousquet had been close or had assisted Genet quite a lot. While Genet ended up more or less living in Morocco and is buried there.
Ana: In Larache.
Terry: Yes, and Bousquet just wanted to show.
Ana: Pay his respects.
Terry: Yes, just to show us where he was buried and all the rest of it. It’s great because it’s a great old Phoenician harbor, as far as I understand it.
Ana: Yes, absolutely. I mean, you have the archaeological site of Lixus across the way.
Terry: Genetʼs feet are facing the harbor. One side is a prison and the other side is a whorehouse, or was in those days, yes. So it’s just perfect for Genet.
Ana: Yes, absolutely. He was in his element.
Terry: Yes, absolutely.
Ana: So Ira was also very interested in, you know, mythological themes which I guess he also shared with Gysin.
Terry: Yes, very much.
Ana: This fascination with mythical figures and folklore.
Terry: I think a lot of people may have got the impression of Ira as being kind of a rough diamond of a sort, but actually he was incredibly well read. He really knew a lot. He’s read practically everything. Yes, and had a very sort of solid classical knowledge.
Ana: Yes.