Steven Jesse Bernstein

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Steven "Jesse" Bernstein (December 4, 1950 – October 22, 1991) was an American underground writer and performance artist who is most famous for his recordings with Sub Pop Records and close relationship with William S. Burroughs. Bernstein's substance abuse issues and mental illness contributed to his provocative local celebrity, though they ultimately culminated in his suicide.

Steven Jay Bernstein was born in Los Angeles, California. He moved to Seattle, Washington in 1974 where he adopted the moniker Jesse, and began performing and self-publishing chapbooks of his poetry (the first chapbook was Choking On Sixth, 1978). Bernstein would become something of an icon to many in Seattle's underground music scene. Notable fans included Kurt Cobain and Oliver Stone. Bernstein's mental illness was not as alarming as it might have been off the stage, as his drug-reinforced manic episodes were harnessed and channelled into engrossing, often perverse, entertainment. According to one Seattle newspaper, he opened for music acts such as Nirvana, Big Black, Soundgarden, U-Men, and the Crows:

He read poems from a stage with a live rodent in his mouth, its tail twitching as baseline punctuation. He tried to cut his heart out in order to hold it in his hands and calm it down. He once urinated on a heckler and tended to throw things: beer bottles, manuscripts, drumsticks, his wallet, a sandwich.[1]

The concept for the Bernstein album Prison was for Jessee to do a raw, live performance at Monroe, Washington State Penitentiary Special Offenders unit in 1991. Jesse went with his manager Barbara Buckland, Bruce Pavitt from Sub Pop Records, Grant Alden, then with Seattle's Rocket Magazine, now known as the co-founder of No Depression Magazine, photographer Arthur S. Aubry, and various tech people. None of the session except for the photos taken by Aubry was usable, however, and SubPop later contracted Steve Fisk to finish the project. The album was intended to be produced along the same lines as Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison, but [2] Fisk later decided to score the recordings with jazz and ambient music. The album was only partially completed when Bernstein committed suicide by stabbing himself in the throat three times with a knife. He was 40 years old when he died - about a month and a half before his 41st birthday.

Prison was released on April 1, 1992. In 1994, one of these recordings, Me and Her Outside (No No Man),was used in the film Natural Born Killers.

I am Secretly an Important Man, a collection of poetry, short stories, and spoken performances, was released in March of 1996 by Zero Hour Publishing.

Me and Her Outside (No No Man)
by Steven Jesse Bernstein
(from the book more Noise Please and the CD Prison)

It is midnight and the sunglasses twirl
my injuries a deaf plant warped
in a Hollywood rockery
of juice cans and hypodermic needles
You're so cool baby you don't know what you need
If the jaundice comes up
get out of the traffic.
A girl with an ass that makes me hurt
all over again
I know that girl's ass hurts
glass and pebbles crunching under her shoes.
The movie goes on and the men go inside
hiding their bottles
These men look confused
like fish getting clubbed on the pier;
what they see in there is better than me.
Pick a needle out from the burnt matches
and test it
blow through it
make a little bubble
There's the whazoo of the strip
put it in with the dust
In the pocket the cigarettes the key the muffled
bottom of the storm
Pull down my eyelids with my fingernails
in a window not made to look in or out of
or to be used as a mirror
though it works as a mirror
There is a yellow line it is jaundice
There is not a yellow line
It is not jaundice
No
The ass that makes me hurt
made to make me hurt
turns
showing breasts that make me hurt
but a face like a butcher board
eyes smeared on
worn out red elastic mouth
the mouth of a sock
waiting to get used
hurts
is a tender thing in the dark
under the shorts
leaky pelvis all over the sheets
Yo baby gotta no-no?
No no-no.
Sick animal glare in skin of the pavement
Oh I do wanna go down right here where they threw the mop head
the paper towels and rubbers
Gotta no-no whistle is all
Can't make music with that.
Movie inside is big as the wall of a building
and so bright it'd make you throw up
but they watch it
the men
and they eat
and drink
and eat
and drink.
Actually it is not just the two of us
her and me
There are the cops
and me and her
in the good for nothing windows
and brown suits and grey suits and blue suits
cars that stop and ones that go
There are palm trees
and people leaning on the palm trees
scratching reading looking at the trash
which is empty (believe me) from being looked at
And gargoyles of human beings
hung on the ugly architecture
of wobbling lurching bodies
coming down fast
like dying empires
after the sun is already dead in their eyes
Rooms full of spooks drunk on dish soap
spiked with whatever was left on the tables
when the bar closed
An animal over there with spotted pants
dreams googleplex like the chopped up palm
and the broken wall
and is just lost, ohmygod
moving like a range of dusty mountains
dead with nothing to hold it down
moved by earthquake or rain that swallows
the stars and moon
Get out of the way off the curb
He pukes in the garden and slams
sideways into the stucco
What are the cops waiting for here
lined up in their cars staring
at their clipboards and microphones
We got some people scratching themselves,
a man looking at his eyeballs
up under his shades
and a woman with a poochy ass
who keeps turning around and around
Find the hurt place and don't ever let it heal
Get that fucker hanging on the wall
and tear him loose
The stars are coming out
There is a tv set in a window
it says
"the stars are coming out"
look up in the brassy sky and there they are
like gloomy pocket change you bet on something
you wish you had ten thousand to bet on
something where the odds are good
Betting all those stars
you don't win shit
not even a dollar
And there is a movie
and another movie
At least she is not ugly
really
And she shares you know
Or if something wrong happens you know
she will...
You are asking me now if this is the whole world
and I am saying it is
Check your own fucking eyes
Doesn't it hurt looking down the sidewalk at night
If that mountain falls on me it's gonna get you too
and the cops squashed in their cars gurgling
into their dead microphones
an ocean of mud.
I had a girlfriend
and I never had a car
new jeans that I wore and wore
and I was not good with the plans
because no one
could've planned it like this
But then the same
you might say
is true of whoever
is responsible for history,
and a wide black belt
and all sorts of hats
The stars were much more valuable
when I was a boy
Now it is just
what the no-no man wants
that is valuable
which is green and covered with fingers
What the woman turning and twisting
sees in the night of pockets on the floor
while she hides only those parts of her nakedness
too scarred to look at.
Let's pretend she is my girlfriend for now
and she is doing that sidewalk dance
just for me
and there is no pain in her breasts
and our bodies are not battle zones
the stars are worth a fortune
you don't have to look at tv to know
I got a little cigar and I can hear the music
it's playing right outta that door
There's a man and he's smiling remembering
"Why don't you kids go down to the beach where
it's dark"
and we get on the bus and there's nobody else
And outside the palm trees
the houses and lights
Shit what world is that
Don't ask me to remember that
I got a runny nose
and the ticket taker
looks from one to the other of us
then to the black and whites
bites a sandwich in hate
The bite that sets
the universe in motion
A dog
A man covered with fortune telling signs
Two in white coveralls
Three clean women
getting out of a car
going into a door
One of the cops looks at me
and I shake my head "no"