Tin

[Marius Hancu]

Hello:

"Hunka tin?"

"Shake Man" - could it be "enforcer?"

"Hangs" - could it be "murders?"

"Six shooter," this must be a gun, isn't it?

----------
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man in the
industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln Park. So one
night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots and a black vest
with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his shoulder."

So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'

"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls out
an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park, bullets
cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail him.
I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."

William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. 4
---------

Thanks,
Marius Hancu

[Maria C.]

Post by Marius Hancu
"Hunka tin?"
"Shake Man" - could it be "enforcer?"
"Hangs" - could it be "murders?"
"Six shooter," this must be a gun, isn't it?
----------
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man in
the industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln Park.
So one night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots and a
black vest with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his
shoulder."
So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'
"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls out
an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park, bullets
cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail
him. I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. 4
---------

I'd think that "hunka tin" means a badge, a "tin star" -- something that
a sheriff or marshal would wear in cowboy movies.

As for "shake man": That sounds like a worker at a McDonald's -- the one
who prepares the milk shakes.

"hangs three fags" could be smokes three cigarettes (rather unlikely
since he's running) or kills three people known to be "fags" --
homosexuals.

I hampered by the fact that I've never read "Naked Lunch"; I'm just
guessing.

[Marius Hancu]

Post by Maria C.

Post by Marius Hancu
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man in
the industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln Park.
So one night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots and a
black vest with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his
shoulder."
So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'
"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls out
an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park, bullets
cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail
him. I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. 4
---------

I'd think that "hunka tin" means a badge, a "tin star" -- something that
a sheriff or marshal would wear in cowboy movies.
As for "shake man": That sounds like a worker at a McDonald's -- the one
who prepares the milk shakes.
"hangs three fags" could be smokes three cigarettes (rather unlikely
since he's running) or kills three people known to be "fags" --
homosexuals.

The latter, I think.

Thank you both.
Marius Hancu

[Barbara Bailey]

Post by Marius Hancu
"Hunka tin?"

"hunk of tin": a badge, in this case, probably a sherriff's badge, most
likely a fake.

Post by Marius Hancu
"Shake Man" - could it be "enforcer?"
"Hangs" - could it be "murders?"
"Six shooter," this must be a gun, isn't it?

Yep. A revolver that carries six bullet in the cylinder when fully
loaded.

Post by Marius Hancu
----------
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man in
the industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln Park. So
one night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots and a black
vest with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his shoulder."
So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'
"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls out
an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park, bullets
cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail
him. I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. 4
---------
Thanks,
Marius Hancu

[Pat Durkin]

Post by Marius Hancu
"Hunka tin?"
"Shake Man" - could it be "enforcer?"

Could be anything. What "industry" is he the best in? A "shakedown
artist" would be an extortionist: http://tinyurl.com/5fgrt2 definition
#3. If the discussion is of the work of the mob (Mafia or other
organized criminal enterprise), the Vigilante gets money out of his
victims (targets of the mob) by means of threats. That is extortion, or
"shaking someone down".

(I agree with all the other definitions provided.)

Post by Marius Hancu
"Hangs" - could it be "murders?"
"Six shooter," this must be a gun, isn't it?
----------
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man in
the industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln Park.
So one night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots and a
black vest with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his
shoulder."
So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'
"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls out
an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park, bullets
cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail
him. I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. 4
---------
Thanks,
Marius Hancu

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

Post by Marius Hancu
"Hunka tin?"
"Shake Man" - could it be "enforcer?"

Could be anything. What "industry" is he the best in? A "shakedown
artist" would be an extortionist: http://tinyurl.com/5fgrt2
definition #3. If the discussion is of the work of the mob (Mafia
or other organized criminal enterprise), the Vigilante gets money
out of his victims (targets of the mob) by means of threats. That
is extortion, or "shaking someone down".

The image, to my mind, being that of a big kid who holds a little kid
upside down and shakes him so that that the change he claimed not to
have falls out of his pockets.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Society in every state is a blessing,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |but government, even in its best
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |state is but a necessary evil; in its
|worst state, an intolerable one.
***@hpl.hp.com | Thomas Paine
[phone]

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[Marius Hancu]

Post by Marius Hancu
----------
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man in the
industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln Park. So one
night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots and a black vest
with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his shoulder."
So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'
"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls out
an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park, bullets
cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail him.
I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. 4

I forgot to ask:

"You wig already?"
could this mean:
"Are you informing (the police) on us already?"

Thanks.
Marius Hancu

[Donna Richoux]

Post by Marius Hancu

Post by Marius Hancu
----------
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man in the
industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln Park. So one
night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots and a black vest
with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his shoulder."
So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'
"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls out
an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park, bullets
cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail him.
I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. 4

"You wig already?"
"Are you informing (the police) on us already?"

That's not American slang.

Cassell's has a bunch of 1950s meanings for wig as a verb. It can refer
to a rather large range of emotions or states, and I think the clue is
that "wiggy" and "wigged out" meant intoxicated on narcotics. My guess
is that the the speaker meant "(Are) you high already?"

Clearly you're going to need something like Cassell's to get through
this 1950s vocabulary. It's cheap as big references go.

[John Dean]

Post by Donna Richoux

Post by Marius Hancu

Post by Marius Hancu
----------
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man
in the industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln
Park. So one night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots
and a black vest with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his
shoulder."
So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'
"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls
out an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park,
bullets cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the
fuzz nail him. I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. 4

"You wig already?"
"Are you informing (the police) on us already?"

That's not American slang.

It *is* American slang though I've seen it more commonly as 'wig out'. OED
has:

3. [perh. f. prec. or wig n.3 1.] intr. With out. To be overcome by
extreme emotion; to be stimulated to the point of imbalance; to go mad,
'freak out'. U.S. slang.
1955 Amer. Speech XXX. 305 He wigged out at the prof's gag. 1968 P.
Welles Babyhip xx. 139 'The Boss Pornographers,' he said, 'it's LSD Music,
to wig-out by.' 1975 Time 27 Oct. 70/3 Some in the startled crowd recall
him saying, 'The company is now in God's hands.' One executive wondered if
Goshorn had 'wigged out'.

So Bill is asking if the Vigilante has lost his marbles, gone crazy or
freaked out.
Just to confirm the rest of it - the 'hunka tin' is a law officer's badge, a
'shake man' is a shakedown artist ie one who extorts money. In this case, he
extorts money from homosexuals (they are 'working the fags') and, yes, he
hangs three of them (this is a drug fantasy after all and hanging was one of
Bill's obsessions) presumably because they don't pay up. The six-shooter is
a revolver with a revolving cylinder holding six bullets, this being the
archetypal cowboy weapon.
I always liked Burroughs despite the fact he killed his wife trying to shoot
a water glass off her head in the mistaken belief he was as good as William
Tell. Look out for him as a junkie priest in "Drugstore Cowboy."
Though you may not have a lot of leisure in the near future given that
you're probably going to have to visit here twice per page.

[Donna Richoux]

Post by John Dean

Post by Donna Richoux

Post by Marius Hancu

Post by Marius Hancu
----------
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man
in the industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln
Park. So one night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots
and a black vest with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his
shoulder."
So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'
"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls
out an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park,
bullets cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the
fuzz nail him. I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. 4

"You wig already?"
"Are you informing (the police) on us already?"

That's not American slang.

It *is* American slang though I've seen it more commonly as 'wig out'.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. To use "wig" in any form to mean "to
inform the police" is not American slang. I don't know if it means that
anywhere else; usually Marius has some basis for his guesses.

Certainly "wig out" in its various forms means to go crazy -- that one I
knew about before I looked it up in Cassell's. What Cassells said was
that it also meant a great many other things, meanings that I would say
are not known or are current today but apparently were in the 1950s. One
was to be intoxicated on narcotics.

This gets complicated because Cassell's has a series of entries for
various forms of "wig". I'll copy out the ones that relate to state of
mind:

---

wig, adj. [1960s] (US teen) great, wonderful

wig, v. ...[1930s+] to annoy, to irritate
[1950s+] (US) to become nervous, hyserical, overly
stressed, mentally unbalanced (cf WIG OUT)
...[1950s+] (US) to be in good spirits, to enjoy

wigged out, adj. (orig.. US) 1 [1950s-60s] (drugs) intoxicated by a
drug
2 [1950s+] eccentric, insane, deluded, out of touch

wiggy, adj. [1960s+] 1 odd, bizarre, unpleasant, disturbing. 2.
pleasing, enjoyable, exciting and up to date. 3 (US drugs) intoxicated
with narcotics

---

Post by John Dean
3. [perh. f. prec. or wig n.3 1.] intr. With out. To be overcome by
extreme emotion; to be stimulated to the point of imbalance; to go mad,
'freak out'. U.S. slang.
1955 Amer. Speech XXX. 305 He wigged out at the prof's gag. 1968 P.
Welles Babyhip xx. 139 'The Boss Pornographers,' he said, 'it's LSD Music,
to wig-out by.' 1975 Time 27 Oct. 70/3 Some in the startled crowd recall
him saying, 'The company is now in God's hands.' One executive wondered if
Goshorn had 'wigged out'.
So Bill is asking if the Vigilante has lost his marbles, gone crazy or
freaked out.

That's the only meaning the OED records, but we've seen that it is not
very complete on American slang.

It could be that the speaker simply meant "Are you crazy," but given the
"already," and the extensive drug overtones of the excerpts, my guess is
that it was the more specific "Are you high." "Already" suggests a state
that is both temporary and expected.

By the way, as to

and, yes, he hangs three of them (this is a drug
fantasy after all and hanging was one of Bill's
obsessions)

I would have to stress that the hanging must also be fantasy, part of
this Wild West vigilante motif. People didn't really wander around the
parks of New York hanging other people. This guy liked to pretend he was
in a movie.

[Django Cat]

Post by Donna Richoux

Post by Marius Hancu
"You wig already?"
"Are you informing (the police) on us already?"

That's not American slang.
Cassell's has a bunch of 1950s meanings for wig as a verb. It can refer
to a rather large range of emotions or states, and I think the clue is
that "wiggy" and "wigged out" meant intoxicated on narcotics. My guess
is that the the speaker meant "(Are) you high already?"

Curious. Somewhere along the line I've picked up 'wig out' as musician slang
for getting totally involved in a wild improvised solo, especially on rock
guitar. A year or so ago I found myself saying to a fellow muso something like
"you get the solo here and wig out for ten bars". I then realised a) the guy
was giving me a hard look b) he hadn't heard the expression before c) he was
completely bald. I won't be using it again.

DC
--

[the Omrud]

Post by Marius Hancu
"Hunka tin?"

Sheriff's badge. A hunk of tin.

Post by Marius Hancu
"Shake Man" - could it be "enforcer?"

Don't know.

Post by Marius Hancu
"Hangs" - could it be "murders?"

It could mean he hanged them, but the context seems to imply shootings.

Post by Marius Hancu
"Six shooter," this must be a gun, isn't it?

A revolver with six chambers.

Post by Marius Hancu
----------
"Recollect when I am traveling with the Vigilante, best Shake Man in the
industry. Out in Chi... We is working the fags in Lincoln Park. So one
night the Vigilante turns up for work in cowboy boots and a black vest
with a hunka tin on it and a lariat slung over his shoulder."
So I says: 'What's with you? You wig already?'
"He just looks at me and says: 'Fill your hand stranger' and hauls out
an old rusty six shooter and I take off across Lincoln Park, bullets
cutting all around me. And he hangs three fags before the fuzz nail him.
I mean the Vigilante earned his moniker...."

[Django Cat]

Post by Marius Hancu
"Hunka tin?"
"Shake Man" - could it be "enforcer?"

I go for that - in the criminal context, yes?

Post by Marius Hancu
"Hangs" - could it be "murders?"

Yup... I fear it's probably meant to be taken literally, too. Maybe the
Vigilante is into lynching, and leaves his victims hanging from the trees in
the park. There's a lot of weird stuff about this sort of thing in the Naked
Lunch.

DC
--