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It was even worse in Prague [than in Cuba] The only reason they got upset with me — I was in Prague for a month, went to Moscow for a month, trained then to Poland for a month, and went to Prague to leave for New York I got back to Prague on April 26 — the same day I was put on the FBI Dangerous Security List — was elected King of May on May 1, was followed around Prague until May 7, arrested, kept incommunicado, and put on the next plane to London because the minister of culture and the minister of information disapproved of an American gay beatnik, pot-smoking, mantra-chanting Buddhist (or something) being a model for Czechoslovakian youths — Allen Ginsberg, interview   He’d been in Cuba sunning, fucking But he’d only hugged and kissed Fidel Reek of cigars! rum! In that embrace, two of the great beards of our time had grown into each other: Allen’s and Fidel’s, they became inseparable Grew intertwined, then knotted Uncomfortable for all involved Finally Castro had to call his chief executioner, the executioner came with his chief machete but instead of cutting off Allen Ginsberg’s head a hipsterheaded angel of Yahweh arrived in sunglasses and porkpie hat to redirect the blade to only sunder their beards   Fidel put Allen on the first flight to Czechoslovakia Allen brushed his smokestained suit before disembarking He still had Fidel’s hairs on his lapels, that’s what he declared to Customs   Students of the Polytechnic School, even a few faculty members, remember: the first sign they had of Allen’s coming was the beard It was edged out the window of the plane Out the window of the taxi from Ruzyně (airport), as if a flag for a new order, his novy kingdom But he was not yet King It was still April   Allen’s beard was not a religious beard, yet neither was it a beard of dereliction, of dissolution, a lazy facial hirsuteness — the mark of a man who did not care about appearance It fell under none of those categories, contra surveillance and Nomenklatura speculation Truth is, Allen’s beard had always been there, and his face grew from it