- The late William S. Burroughs was a counterculture icon: In more than two dozen books, including the landmark novel Naked Lunch, he laid down an original vision that influenced everyone from political activists to punk rockers, filmmakers to sci-fi writers.
He was also the original trustafarian. Unlike the others, he freely admitted this at the beginning of the book "junky". He was holding his last trust fund disbursement check and realized that was it, so he had to quit heroin permanently. Let's also not forget that his grandfather, mentioned in the story, invented the press release. The guy's life was as much about the promotion of his creativity as it was about the actual creation. That said, I miss him. His bitterness and perseverance came from surviving his hero journey, becoming a man apart from his origins. He could bore you, but he wasn't lying about it. He wasn't hoping to fake you out: he was showing you his brain and America's. Take a listen to this prayer he composed for the Dial-A-Poem Poets.