Spainhammer’s gone, of course.
Flattop blond muscleman Viking male stripper and street hustler who wrote for Curtains’ ReSurface, grumbling about not getting paid, and mad at Crazy House Press publisher Enoch Poorboy (whom he threatened with a syringe of his own AIDS blood ) – that was the event of Floyd Lice’s “ironic” Hitlerian performance rant at the Bijou, where my Japanese friend Tony Amida ran into the famous Satanist’s daughter “who was surprised they let Asians in.”)
I liked Mick Spainhammer and sat on Tony’s back porch 1988, both of us smoking cigarettes, as he discussed the “art nazis” framed within the kitchen door at the party which included Floyd Lice in usual arrogance, holding the hand of a razor-thin Aryan punkette in a dress with a lowcut back that showed her asscrack, that “new cleavage” that still hasn’t quite caught on. Mick was still ready for his close-up, Mr. DeMille, with no sign of the ravages to come, not just to him but to our city, our day jobs, our planet.
The most amazing story about Mick Spainhammer was told to me by Tony 25 years later, reminiscing about this old San Francisco that was evaporating before our eyes.
Spainhammer was fisting a trick and Spainhammer was on acid. The trick farted and a spray of blood went all over Mick’s chest. On acid. It definitely took our hustler to another realm – staring into the Abyss, so to speak. Still, he didn’t freak out or go on a bummer. That was something you had to respect.
Marc Olmsted has appeared in City Lights Journal, New Directions in Prose & Poetry, New York Quarterly, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and a variety of small presses. He is the author of four collections of poetry, including What Use Am I a Hungry Ghost?, which has an introduction by Allen Ginsberg with praise from Michael McClure and Diane di Prima. Olmsted’s 25 year relationship with Ginsberg is chronicled in his Beatdom Books memoir Don’t Hesitate: Knowing Allen Ginsberg 1972-1997 – Letters and Recollections. Find more of his work here.