From HARPER’S MAGAZINE, January 1990, Readings
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE
[Reprinted from “The Puritan and The Profligate,” an interview with Allen Ginsberg in the December issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture , published in Rockford, Illinois. The interview was conducted by John Lofton, a former columnist for The Washington Times.]
JOHN LOFTON: In the first section of your poem “Howl” you wrote: “I saw the best young minds of my generation destroyed by madness.” Did this also apply to you?
ALLEN GINSBERG: That’s not an accurate quotation. I said the “best minds,” not “the best young minds.” This is what is called hyperbole, an exaggerated statement, sort of a romantic statement. I suppose it could apply to me too, or anybody. People who survived and became prosperous in a basically aggressive, warlike society are in a sense destroyed by madness. Those who freaked out and couldn’t make it, or were traumatized, or artists who starved, or whatnot, they couldn’t make it either. It kinda cuts both ways. There’s an element of humor there.
LOFTON: When you say you suppose this could have applied to you, does this mean you don’t know if you are mad?
GINSBERG: Well, who does? I mean everybody is a little mad.
LOFTON: But I’m asking you.
GINSBERG: You are perhaps taking this a little too literally. There are several kinds of madness: divine madness—
LOFTON: But I’m talking about this in the sense you spoke of in your 1949 poem “Bop Lyrics,” when you wrote: “I’m so lucky to be nutty.”
GINSBERG: You’re misinterpreting the way I’m using the word.
LOFTON: No. I’m asking you a question. I’m not interpreting anything.
GINSBERG: I’m afraid that your linguistic presupposition is that “nutty” as you define it means insanity rather than inspiration. You are interpreting, though you say you aren’t, by choosing one definition and excluding another. So I think you’ll have to admit you are interpreting.
LOFTON: Actually, I don’t admit that.
GINSBERG: You don’t want to admit nuttin’! But you want me to admit something. Come on. Come off it. Don’t be a prig.
LOFTON: I’m just trying to understand what you meant by what you wrote. But this question of madness.
GINSBERG: There’s also another background. In Zen Buddhism there is wild wisdom, or crazy wisdom, crazy in the sense of wild, unlimited, unbounded. Or as in jazz, when someone plays a beautiful riff or extemporizes, they say, “Crazy, man,”
LOFTON: But I am interested in this question of your possible madness. It’s not a gratuitous question. There is a history of madness in your family.
GINSBERG: Very much so.
LOFTON: Your mom died in 1956 in a mental institution. Before that. in 1949, when you were twenty-three. you spent eight months in the Columbia Psychiatric Institute. What was this psychiatric disability and why did you spend just eight months in this institute?
GINSBERG: Well, I had a sort of visionary experience in which I heard William Blake’s voice. It was probably an auditory hallucination, but it was a very rich experience.
LOFTON: This happened while you were masturbating, right?
GINSBERG: Yes, but after.
LOFTON: I want to ask you about this psychiatric disability.
GINSBERG: No, no, no. no, no, no, no, no. Sir, first of all your tone is too aggressive. You have to soften your tone, because there’s an element of aggression here. There’s an element almost like a police interrogation here.
LOFTON: But that’s not all bad. The police, in some instances, do a good job, particularly in dealing with criminals.
GINSBERG: Sir, in this case it’s a little impolite. You’re being a little harsh and unfriendly and making it very difficult for me to relate to you gently and talk unguardedly and candidly.
LOFTON: There’s no doubt that from what I’ve read about you, I don’t like what you have stood for over the years. I don’t like your politics, the kind of sex you engage in. So if you mean there’s a hostility here toward what you are, absolutely there is.
GINSBERG: But you’re talking to me as if I’m an object of some kind and not a person in front of you, I’m asking you, in a sense, to watch your manners.
LOFTON: That’s interesting, because I’m not asking you to respond in any particular way. Why are you telling me how to ask questions? So, can we return to my question? What was this psychiatric disability that put you in an institute for eight months?
GINSBERG: Well, I’m not sure it really was a disability to begin with. So I can’t answer the question the way you pose it.
LOFTON: But I’m asking you if it’s true, that you had this disability?
GINSBERG: It’s neither true nor not true.
LOFTON: But it is true that you were in an institute?
GINSBERG: Yes, I was. I had a kind of visionary experience relating to a text by William Blake, “The Sick Rose.” It went: “O rose, thou art sick! / The invisible worm / That flies in the night / In the howling storm, / Has found out thy bed / Of crimson joy, / And his dark secret love / Does thy life destroy.” So, it’s a very mysterious, interesting poem that keyed off a kind of religious experience, a visionary experience, a hallucinatory experience—whichever way you want to interpret it. All three descriptions are applicable and possible. Reality has many aspects.
LOFTON: Were you using drugs while you masturbated and had this experience?
GINSBERG: Not at all. I had been living very quietly, eating vegetarian diets, seeing very few people, and reading a great many religious texts: St. John of the Cross, the Bible, Plato’s Phaedrus , St. Teresa of Avila, and Blake, So I was In a kind of solitary, contemplative mood.
LOFTON: Did you put yourself into this institute?
GINSBERG: More or less. Because I questioned my own sense of reality and I couldn’t figure out the significance of the illuminative experience, whether it was a kind of traditional religious experience, where there is a sudden sense of vastness and ancientness and respect and devotional awareness or sacredness to the whole universe. Or whether this was a byproduct of some lack-love longing and projection of my own feelings, or some nutty breakthrough.
LOFTON: Do you think you were better when you got out of there?
GINSBERG: I think they said I wasn’t ever really psychotic or crazy, just an average neurotic.
LOFTON: Did you go to anywhere else besides this institute?
GINSBERG: Oh, later—I’m going to a psychiatrist now.
LOFTON: I assume you’re going to a secular humanist-type psychiatrist.
GINSBERG: I never inquired about her religious beliefs.
LOFTON: Really? So you’re going to someone whose religious beliefs, whose presuppositions, you know nothing about?
GINSBERG: I know some, through body language and the response to the immediate situation in front of me, which is what I am really interested in, rather than, say, this conversation. I’m dealing with you in terms of how you display yourself here, not the history of your thoughts. I’m trying to deal with the evidence or manifestation of how you present yourself here—your harshness, aggression, and insistency and—
LOFTON: Why not call it my perseverance? Isn’t that a nicer word? Or guts? Or tenacity?
GINSBERG: I would say there is a little element of S&M in your approach. Power.
LOFTON: No. I would say this is more like the kind of sex you like.
GINSBERG: And I would say this is the kind of power relationship you like, judging from your behavior.
LOFTON: Well, that’s certainly what S&M is all about—power.
GINSBERG: And you seem to like that don’t you? Have your sexual fantasies ever involved that kind of power relationship?
LOFTON: No, not to my knowledge, I’m a Christian. So I don’t fantasize.
GINSBERG: Do you ever have sexual fantasies?
LOFTON: No.
GINSBERG: None at all?
LOFTON: No, I said I am a Christian.
GINSBERG: You’ve never had any sexual fantasies!
LOFTON: Before I was a Christian, I had them, absolutely.
GINSBERG: And since you’re a Christian you don’t?
LOFTON: No.
GINSBERG: And when you had them, did they involve any dominance/submission fantasies!
LOFTON: Mine were pretty orthodox heterosexual kinds of fantasies. But there’s no doubt they were bad. And I am so glad that Jesus Christ delivered me from them.
GINSBERG: You have no erotic dreams now, at all, that you remember!
LOFTON: None that don’t feature my wife, no.
GINSBERG: Yeah.
LOFTON: It’s an amazing thing what Jesus can do for a person.
GINSBERG: Uh-huh.
LOFTON: Let’s talk about some of your feelings over the years and see if they should be respected. In 1978, when you were on a Boston TV show, you shared your sexual preference for “young boys,” and this caused an instant irate reaction from mothers who had children home on vacation from school. Is it true that you have a sexual preference for “young boys”?
GINSBERG: No, no, no. It’s not accurate in the context of the broadcast.
LOFTON: Did you say you had a sexual preference for young boys?
GINSBERG: We’re not on trial here. I’m trying to explain.
LOFTON: But in a way, we’re all on trial.
GINSBERG: Well, then you must excuse me if I don’t adopt the submissive attitude you wish. I got on the air and said that when I was young I was approached by an older man and I don’t think it did me any harm. And that I like younger boys and I think that probably almost everybody has an inclination that is erotic toward younger people, including younger boys.
LOFTON: How young were the boys?
GINSBERG: In my case, I’d say fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
LOFTON: That you had sex with?
GINSBERG: No, unfortunately I haven’t had the chance. [laughs] No, I’m talking about my desires. I’m being frank and candid. And I’m also saying that if anyone was frank and candid, you’d probably find that in anybody’s breast.
LOFTON: But why? Why do you persist in imputing your own rottenness to other people?
GINSBERG: One moment. Your question is: Why do I persist in imputing my own rottenness to other people?
LOFTON: That’s right.
GINSBERG: You realize that you’re using language that could he considered insulting.
LOFTON: I hope so. I think it’s a rotten preference to want to have sex with young boys. And I don’t think it’s true that most people want to have sex with younger people.
GINSBERG: I didn’t say that. You’re putting words in my mouth. What I said was that most people have erotic desires for young people.
LOFTON: You mean a fantasy they don’t want to act on?
GINSBERG: Most don’t act on it. Of course not. But most people have in their breasts an erotic pleasure for younger people. This is a part of the general spectrum of human charm and emotion rather than sin or rottenness.
LOFTON: Do you now have a desire to have sex with young boys?
GINSBERG: I have a sexual desire for them, I must say, yes.
LOFTON: Still?
GINSBERG: Oh, the older I get, the more.
LOFTON: And after years of therapy, too. This therapy must really be doing a good job.
GINSBERG: You know what the therapy does?
LOFTON: It probably tells you it’s fine, just get comfortable with it right?
GINSBERG: No, not quite. Usually it’s a discussion of where this comes from and trying to find the origin of it. And find what conditioning affected me that I arrived at this particular orientation. That’s all.
LOFTON: How about sin? Is it a possibility that you are a sinner?
GINSBERG: That doesn’t come into play. The attempt is to understand the situation, not categorize it with knee-jerk words like sin.
LOFTON: But this sexual preference for young boys doesn’t seem to be something you want to be delivered from. You smile when you talk about it. You don’t want to he cured of this, do you?
GINSBERG: I should say my sexual preference is not just for boys, but also for middle-aged men, straight men, and women. I’ve occasionally had fantasies about making out with trucks as well as beasts. And maybe I’ll be making out with you, before it’s all over. [laughs]
LOFTON: Well. maybe I could drive that truck while you make out with it, perhaps an eighteen wheeler, with the pedal to the metal.
GINSBERG: Now there’s your fantasy. [laughs]
LOFTON: Excuse me. but you raised the idea of having sex with a truck.
GINSBERG: You extended it.
LOFTON: I’m just trying to accommodate you. I even offered to drive the truck. And you attacked me. But to hell with you. I won’t drive the truck. Get your own truck.
GINSBERG: Oh, you can’t get out of it that easily. You’ve already driven the truck in my mind. Gosh, you’re funny. But you’ve got this sort of contentious obsession—God knows what’s underneath all that.
LOFTON: Well, yes, He does know.
GINSBERG: You’ve got to remember that I’m talking on the basis of the experience of remembering my unconscious. And maybe you’re not as aware of what’s going on in your mind as I am about what’s going on in mine. And therefore when you condemn impulses or fantasies that I’m willing to be candid about you may not be so familiar with your own mind as to know that you do contain—
LOFTON: Mr. Ginsberg, the Book of Jeremiah says that the human heart is desperately wicked. You don’t have to tell me—a born-again Christian, Calvinist, Reformed, Puritan—about the variety of evil fantasies human beings have. I read the Bible, sir.
GINSBERG: But you don’t read your unconscious, the contents of your mind, very carefully. You don’t remember your dreams, your day-dreams, subliminal thinking.
LOFTON: You know why?
GINSBERG: Why?
LOFTON: Because I’m not like you. You’re a heathen who imagines vain things. You have an overactive imagination, a mental cancer.
GINSBERG: No, it’s not quite like that. Do you know anything about meditation practice?
[At this point Ginsberg offers to show Lofton how to meditate. Lofton agrees but asks Ginsberg if he plans to take off his clothes. Ginsberg says no. They meditate. They resume the interview.]LOFTON: The 1970 Current Biography says that you aren’t a proselytizer for homosexuality. What does that mean?
GINSBERG: I’m observing my own mind and consciousness and reporting on that and trying to be candid. Walt Whitman, who was a very great poet and, incidentally, gay, said he thought that for poets and orators of the future the great quality would be candor, frankness, truthfulness.
LOFTON: Well, Walt Whitman suffered from, if I may say so, what might be called terminal candor—not unlike yourself.
GINSBERG: You don’t like Whitman?
LOFTON: No.
GINSBERG: Have you read Whitman?
LOFTON: Some.
GINSBERG. Do you remember the name of the poem you read?
LOFTON: Yes, one that says something like: “So I make mistakes. I contradict myself. So what? I contain all things,” This is absurd. Talk about arrogance.
GINSBERG: Dig this.
LOFTON: I’m diggin’ it.
GINSBERG: He says: “Do I contradict myself? Very well. I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes,” Do you know what he meant by that?
LOFTON: Probably nothing good. And I doubt if he knew what he meant.
GINSBERG: Yeah, he did. I know what he meant.
LOFTON: How do you know what he meant?
GINSBERG: [laughs] Because I am large. I contain multitudes.
LOFTON. But you might contradict yourself.
GINSBERG: Yes. And I certainly will contradict myself.
LOFTON: This will be one of your multitudes the ability to contradict yourself.
GINSBERG: That’s what Whitman is saying.
LOFTON: It’s gibberish.
GINSBERG: That our own minds are so vast that we can wind up contradicting ourselves without having to freak out about it. It’s very similar to what the poet John Keats said about negative capability. He said the quality of a very great poet like Shakespeare was his ability to contain opposite ideas in the mind without an irritable reaching out after fact and reason. Meaning that that part of the mind which judges, and irritably insists on either black or white, is only a small part of the mind. The larger mind observes the contradiction, and contains those contradictions. The mind that notices that it contradicts itself is bigger than the smaller mind that is taking one side or the other.
LOFTON: You speak very confidently about this. Where do you get your ideas about what the mind is?
GINSBERG: By direct observation through meditation practice.
LOFTON: But at most this would tell you only about your mind, wouldn’t it? You were making statements about the mind.
GINSBERG: I should say I noticed this about my mind and John Keats noticed it about his mind. Sure, you might want to check our which side is right but when you get irritable about it and insist on one or the other, black or white, it’s likely you’ll eliminate some information from both sides.
LOFTON: Is nothing black-and-white?
GINSBERG: Nothing is completely black-and-white. Nothing.
A Nice Place 
There is no way in hell I’m reading all that.
Unless of course you count a black hole of course!
Lofton reminds me of Keljeck 😛
Do not make me make a Leave Ginsberg Alone Video! I’ll do it, I’ll pull a Chris Croker!
LEAVE GINSBERG ALONE!
A truly enlightening text.
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While interesting in the abstract, the actual exchange is a rather lurid exercise in recreational antagonism, featuring a crusty old fuck and a furry old freak. both of whom had long since been reduced to caricatures long before this odd spectacle. Ginsberg revels in masturbatory fantasies while Lofton resents his own penis. So, what exactly have we learned here?
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It’s like a mermaid dancing with a shark.
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Black holes actually leak. They too are radiant (how else do you affect your surroundings?)
v. fine interview
There’s no reading in Hell, “Billy.” And, of course, you do not have to believe in Hell to go there.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
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You see Johnny, can I call you Johnny? You see Johnny, here’s the funny thing about that: I’m Jewish. I don’t believe in hell, nor do I have reason to consider its existence.
Okay, say you’re right and I wind up in your definition of Hell which as far as I can gather is probably a place with fire and a dearth of reading, or for a more testable account, the age old definition we’ve come to know from Dante’s Inferno. There’s open tombs spewing fire, the condemned pushing giant rocks for all eternity, demons, monsters, and the like. I arrive in this place, confused, what with having just died, and blinking, step into the inferno, where there is more to see than can ever be seen, more to do than can ever be done… no wait…that’s the Lion King.
Anyways, So I arrive in hell, but it’s not my definition of hell, because if I don’t believe in something, I can’t exactly have a definition of it. Would I then form a definition of this as hell? It’s possible. But between now and the time I die, is it possible to see something worse? If past experiences have proven anything, yes. So I would have arrived in Hell to you, and to others, but to myself, that’s still unknown.
But say then, I were to create a hell of my own, that I do believe in some afterlife of suffering. Then for the sake of this experiment assume we’re surrounded by an infinite number of Alan Ginsburg impersonators and followers, and they’re making love to all manner of beasts, vehicles, and there’s even one proposing to an F-15 jet-fighter.
As we arrive in this place in whatever form, feeling very odd considering we just died, and see this spectacle, would we consider it hell, and if so, what then? Would our hell become converting to this way of living? Would it be merely having to drive the trucks? Or would it be a suffocation, a process in which we slowly go mad for all eternity? Would it then be hell, or just another continued existence?
Still, I suppose this would be up to whoever has the unfortunate luck to actually experience it. If your or my hell does exist, and I should happen to go there, and on the off chance I don’t decide to wed a motorbike or burn for eternity, then perhaps then I’ll consider reading the entirety of your interview. Until that time, Happy Third Night of Hanukkah!
I met John Lofton years ago, maybe 1994. He was castigating Pat Buchanan for having a homosexual (Justin Raimondo, now of VDare fame) on his staff (Raimondo had been, I believe, Buchanan’s California Campaign Chair in 1992). Lofton handed me some of his writings and encouraged me to listen to his CB radio “ministry,” if I recall correctly. His writings were hateful gibberish to me even then, when I was a die-hard Buchananite.
This interview shows clearly the result of allowing your mind to atrophy in the glib assurance of ideology. Ginsberg’s no hero, but Lofton’s an ingrate who has managed to internalize the Bible’s rare and infrequent condemnations of homosexuality while utterly ignoring “Judge not lest ye be judged,” “cast not the first stone,” etc. Lofton can’t recognize the beam in his own eye because to do so would shatter his precious, infinitesimal worldview.
Pathetic, but instructive. There are a lot of people on the right who think this way, and with this same thoughtless assurance.
To “Billy Crystal”: Galatians 6:7-8: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
God’s Word, in both the OT and NT, denounces homosexuality as an abominable crime worthy of the death penalty — not exactly a “rare and infrequent” mention. Besides, God has to say something only once to make what He says a command. As for judging, Jesus says to judge righteous judgment (John 7:24). Scripture contains no blanket prohibition of judging. Read your own post; it’s full of judging — but not, of course, according to God’s Word.
“Besides, God has to say something only once to make what He says a command.”
So John, did you dutifully stone your children to death when they refused to eat their peas, as per Deuteronomy 21:18-21? Of course you didn’t. You’re no more willing to live according to the actual word of the Bible than any of the rest of us. So get off your high horse, read that fantastically flawed book with the same critical eye you would apply to any other human-written tome, and try to absorb the parts about forgiveness and charity this time. (I’d say “you can’t miss ’em,” but clearly YOU can.) I guarantee you’ll be happier, have more friends, and be much less likely to trip over bags of flaming dogshit on your porch.
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Oh, ye of little faith.
Hello Internets,
Here we have John Lofton, commenting on his own interview. This is the act of a man desperate for attention. How low you have fallen, from harassing intelligent famous men to harassing anonymous internet avatars. Congratulations.
Thanks,
-DJ
Did a little googling after watching this pathetic, abusive excuse for a Christian on an old Crossfire episode (He was flogging Frank Zappa and getting PWND). Thanks for posting this transcript. This kind of “Christian” will never understand. He can quote all kinds of arcane OT scripture, but he completely trips up when he gets to the Beatitudes. This is the type of guy that would crucify Jesus all over again if He returned today.
Not only that, he is needlessly rude, judgemental, offensive and hateful – all cloaked with religion, but missing the true elements of Jesus Christ: compassion, love, acceptance, patience, meekness.
You can bet that there are some TRULY SCARY skeletons in Mr. John Lofton’s closet.
John,
I thoroughly enjoyed your interview with Frank Zappa as he continuously picked your flawed rhetoric apart with simple and well processed logic. As I have done more and more research on you, I find nothing different, but the same ol bible thumping, Jesus loving, hate spewing vomit splattered all over your poorly led interviews.
Its a pity that you might actually have fans, or god help us all… a following. What I really would like to know is… whats your goal? Is your goal to pick apart people on things that YOU don’t like about them? To crucify people for their own beliefs, sexual orientation, or freethinking? Is your goal to have an interview with someone and stuff your religious beliefs down their throat without allowing them to swallow? I don’t really understand what your purpose is… and I assume many, many people who have come across your garbage writings and interviews probably wonder the same.
John, we are all soooo sorry that we can’t be as great as you.. a God fearing man (with a horrible comb over), who wants to pound the wrath of God into anyone he meets. I wonder.. do you have any friends? Friends that don’t think like you? Believe in what you believe in? Friends that have their own opinion? Do you lead a weekly bible study at your house, send out invites to people and end up all alone… with no one to talk to? That’s sad.. very sad.
I agree with half of the people on these postings that you probably do have some scary stuff in your closet.. Did you get a hard on when you and Ginsburg were talking about little boys? I bet you did…I bet you wish your wife would dress up in a little sailor uniform.. don’t you? Do you want to be spanked John? Oh… I forgot.. you don’t have ANY sexual fantasies anymore do you? You might as well cut it off and pee through a hose that you can tape to your little man balls… you don’t need it.. right?
I bet you have taken it up the ass before.. and you don’t want anyone to know about..But… God knows.. right?
You’re pathetic, and no one cares about what you have to say. I can’t wait for an interview to go bad and someone beats the white flabby fat off that big gobbler neck of yours. Hopefully then you will get the point that you are an ignorant fat fuck.
Loser…
This is pretty funny, but the Zappa video on crossfire is much better.
Wizard or logic and reasoning, John Lofton, explains things like they really are. Hitler used words. Rock music uses words. Hitler killed 6 million people. Rock music will kill 6 million people. It’s a simply equation. Lofton is a genius. Who knew that such a simple formula was staring us right in the face. He must have felt like Isaac Newton.
“were you masterbating”…. “were you taking drugs will you masterbating”…
*while you were.
..riddled with typing errors. i’m sticking by it.. I have an excuse. I stopped that crossfire interview a few minutes in because it was getting so good, rolled up a fat joint, and sucked it back.
John Lofton humiliates himself. Round 2.
John Lofton is an arrogant blowhard with a selfish, narcissistic personality. Watching him on occasion, Lofton would deliberately taunt, badger, bully “opponents” then mock them when they exploded in exasperation.
Lofton would whistle, interrupt, roll his eyes. Clearly, a pampered brat who never had to work or take orders in his life. Another Fred Phelps, using religion as a vehicle to express meanness and promote irresponsible social backwardness.
Like most religious nuts, Lofton probably hides his own sins. A search of Maryland court cases reveals items on Lofton:
http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/inquiry/inquirySearch.jis
Type in Lofton, John, Davidson — should bring up his legal issues (possibly battery).
kevin_lamphier@hotmail.com
So Lofton has no sexual fantasies – I bet he would claim he doesn’t masturbate (though he sure does seem interested in it) – you know what Mark Twain said about that…99% of people masturbate – the other 1% are liars. This was a distasteful rude interview by Lofton.
Ginsberg and Lofton have one thing in common: both are self-righteous, though Lofton more blatantly.
Of course lofton lies when he claims never to have had sexual fantasies. If he isn’t lying, then he lacks imagination.
Lofton can never tolerate criticism.
What a great interview. I’m impressed with Ginsberg’s calm and control, which Zappa unfortunately didn’t have when he was met with the same outrageous hostility.
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I too found this after seeing his stupid ass get bench pressed by Frank Zappa. He reminds me of Wiley Coyote. Always chasing Road Runner, won’t ever catch him and doesn’t even know what he’ll do once he does.
And Lofton, you ignorant prick, Hitler was able to control the minds of Germany not with his words, but the CENSORSHIP of all other words + his words. That’s what happens when you make choices for the people that they should be making themselves! Yay, good times! 6 million dead? Please. That’s ONLY the Jews. Add 5 million more non-combat related murders and you’re up to 11. Then all the soldiers of other countries. Hurray for censorship and information control!
Lofton is one of the most selfish brats.
Story goes, Lofton got booted from his church for slapping someone’s kid for “misbehaving” during worship. John L’s behavior over the years has been worse than any brat’s : shouting, interrupting, mocking, humming, rolling eyes in head, callousness towards real suffering of Minorities, etc.
Google Maryland public records, you’ll see John Lofton and family in legal squabbles. He’s not so holy.
Lofton the Bully, hates the idea of anybody telling him what to do. Lofton dodged miliary service, leaving that to real men and brave women.
Lofton never worked a real job. Just shouting on tv shows, constantly huffing/puffing his opinions, dominating everybody else, gushing out his writings… and getting paid for it. Not real work. …just getting money handed to him to reward self-centeredness.
Like the lazy fat boy that gets paid to sample mounds of Hersheys.
Lofton is a Christian Nazi scumbag. He’s going to burn in hell.
John, you completely missed Ginsberg’s metaphor where he calls you a talentless bore.
I generally agree w/Lofton here, but intesting-the Devil attacks you more when you are in Christ, to attack and try to turn you. Lofton admits to being a Calvinist, which means he thinks man is “Depraved”, even quotes Jeremiah, then goes on to say that asa Christian, he does not have sexual fantazies?? Maybe he does not entertain them, but every man has to struggle against pornographic images. He struggles to do that which is right, by Grace, against evil.
So Lofton contradicts himself-saying that Jesus delivers Christians from sinful thoughts, and that he has none-yet man is depraved and sinful. per Calvinism….???
Wow, just came across this. I grew up in a Calvinist church (actually met Lofton as a boy), and so I can see where he is coming from because I used to think that way (i.e. I told my friends that I didn’t masturbate in high school, although I did but was too ashamed to admit it to anyone because of the strict environment I was in).
Now I see this for what it really is: bigotry. I am still a Christian (after the physical and mental abuse in this type of church, this is a miracle), but I think that these people who stew in this vitriol for so long are blinded hypocrites: you know, the ones Jesus directed most of his anger at – the high minded religious folk.
I think Lofton shows himself to be, not a follower of Jesus, but a “whitened sepulcher” (although I don’t want to judge too harshly – maybe God will open his heart some day).
But this is why Calvinists are almost always engineers, doctors, etc: they are philistines, who cannot understand art or poetry if it hit them in the head. And yet, they want the whole world to be like them (dominion theology) – pretty scary stuff.
Hey, if you want to see how creative Lofton and his ilk are, just check out this video from his grandson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo_x8RCJPMI
and more on Ginsberg, much more on Ginsberg, including links to a whole bunch of other Ginsberg interviews – http://ginsbergblog.blogspot.com/
Lofton has been in trouble with the law but probably tries to avoid talking about it. He is addicted to preaching, yapping, and forcing his religious and political views on any human target. Lofton is comfortable with burning people alive. There is something wrong with John Lofton. Pity his family.
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Well as much as I would like to agree with all the nay John Lofton sayers, I do believe that he tried to make Allen Ginsberg explain himself. And as much as he didn’t, it seemed that he reclined upon his celebrity quite comfortably, a trait that is evidenced in other situations. I have to admit that I don’t quite understand what was so great about him, just saying
This website was… how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found something that helped me. Thank you!
It’s amazing what you come across – I grew up with Mr. Lofton’s children in the 80’s and to be honest he scared the heck out of me – I will say this, he has always’s been a man of his beliefs and even if I cant conceive of a time that I would share them – I remember him fondly as my friends father growing up – I hope that your wife and G,J and A are well
Respectfully,
S.A. Oakley
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