For the song “Just One Fix,” Jourgensen included audio from speeches and readings given by legendary writer and junky William S. Burroughs. When Ministry finished the album and their label were seeking clearances for the samples, they had a problem. No one seemed to be able to clear the Burroughs samples. Wary of a lawsuit, the label tried in vain to reach Burroughs camp, which delayed the release of Psalm 69 by two months. When Burroughs manager James Grauerholz read an article in which Jourgensen explained the delay he became incensed and tracked down Ministry’s frontman. "He called me and said, ‘Nobody asked us for sample clearance. We never said you can’t use that stuff. As a matter of fact, why don’t you come to Lawrence, Kansas where Bill lives and we’ll do new stuff.’ "
Thrilled with the idea, the band, representatives from Ministry’s label and management and a video crew headed to Burroughs’ home to record new audio and shoot a video. Everyone arrived on time except Jourgensen. He was three days late. “There were a couple reasons I kept Bill waiting,” he explains. “First, I had to finish up a Revolting Cocks mix that I was already late doing because we had been working on Psalm 69.”
More problematic to Jourgensen were the travel plans that had been booked for him. He was scheduled to fly out on the 23rd, but he refused to take a plane because he was superstitious about traveling on that day. So Jourgensen compromised and agreed to travel by car with a friend from Chicago.
“We stopped off in Kansas City, knowing we didn’t have enough dope to last us our trip,” Jourgensen says. “We figured Bill would probably want some. We went to this ghetto neighborhood and drove around looking for someone on a corner or something. We got chased out by the cops because we were two white guys in this ghetto area — it was pretty obvious what we were trying to do. So we said, ‘Fuck it. Let’s just go to Bill’s house.’ We drive down to Bill’s, knock on his door and he answers. The first thing he says is ‘Are ya holding?’ He didn’t even say hello. Then he said, ‘I can smell a junkie a mile away.’ We only had enough to keep ourselves from getting sick. So I was like, ‘No,’ and he slammed the door in our face.”
Figuring the key to admission at the Burroughs estate was smack, Jourgensen drove 35 miles back to Kansas City and cruised the ghettos again. This time he found a kid on a street corner who sold him $800 worth of heroin. Pleased with his success, Jourgensen headed back to Burroughs’ house.
“We knocked, he opens the door and is like, ‘Oh, it’s you again.’ He knew he had to do a video with us for ‘Just One Fix.’ He had already agreed to it. We were like ‘No, no, no. It’s different this time. We scored. We’re holding.’ He says, ‘Come on in.’ We go into Bill’s living room and right away he goes to the bedroom. Bill was like a giddy little kid because his manager James usually prevented him from using. He was strictly on this methadone program. He wasn’t shooting and he hated coke. So James would keep him on the straight and narrow. But James had the flu and Bill was taking advantage of this – kind of like daddy’s away so I will play. We go to shoot up and he brings out this, like, Pulp Fiction 1950s’ leather belt with 1950s’ needles – really old school. It was comical. We had our little normal needles and he had this elaborate setup. We all shoot up and pass out for a while. I still haven’t said anything to this guy and he hasn’t said anything to me. Then I wake up and I see a letter from the White House — the fucking White House — on his table, unopened. I was like ‘Bill, you got a letter from the White House.’ He is like ‘Eh, so what? It’s junk mail.’ I said, ‘Are you going to open it?’ He said, ‘No.’ I asked if I could open it. He said, ‘Whatever you want to do.’ So I open it and it is a letter from Bill Clinton saying he wanted Bill to come do spoken word at the White House. I was pretty impressed by that. I was telling him that and Bill says, ‘Who’s the president now?’ He didn’t even know it. He didn’t know it was Clinton. Not a fucking clue. And he didn’t give a shit. When I read him the letter he was like, ‘I never heard of Bill Clinton.’ He said he wouldn’t go and he never did.”
Uninterested in contemporary politics, Burroughs spoke at length about his garden, griping about the raccoons that were destroying his petunias. "He said he would try to shoot the animals with a pellet gun but they always got away. He wasn’t allowed to own a real gun because he accidentally shot his wife back in the 1950s. So he was trying to kill these raccoons, but the pellet gun didn’t fire fast enough. I said to him, ‘Bill, you’re on the methadone program, right?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, so what?’ And I said, ‘Well, why don’t you put out methadone wafers for the Raccoons to eat. That way, maybe it’ll slow them down enough so you can get them with your pellet gun.’ "
That was pretty much the end of the conversation, so Jourgensen and his friend headed to the hotel to meet up with the band and video crew. The next day they showed up at the location for the “Just One Fix” video shoot and Burroughs wasn’t there yet. Four hours later he arrived with a broad smile on his face.
“William Burroughs was the grumpiest bastard I had ever met,” Jourgensen says. "He never seemed happy about anything. But he was in a great mood from the moment he walked in. He comes up to me and he says, ‘You’re an astute young man. Your idea was magnificent. I shot two stoned raccoons today!’ Right away, I was on Bill’s friend list and it was a short list. And all because he took my suggestion of feeding these raccoons methadone wafers so he could slow them down and shoot them. Up until the time of his death, he would call me about once a week and we’d talk. But the real reason for his call was to bitch at me for doing coke. His exact quote was, ‘Why would a person do a drug that keeps you up all night twitching? Stick to heroin, kid.’ "
Remembering William S. Burroughs
February 5th 1914 - August 2nd 1997
This is hilarious!!! Video by Peter Christopherson btw.
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