“This is one of the great dangers with overpopulation… the absolute proliferation of morons.”—William S. Burroughs

I’ve long given up on seeing another decent documentary on William S. Burroughs. One that’s not full of talking heads of people who barely knew him—I could not give a shit about hearing Michael Stipe or Iggy Pop’s well-rehearsed soundbites about WSB, again—and footage that you’ve already seen ten gazillion times before. Not since Howard Brookner’s Burroughs:The Movie—made over 30 years ago—has there been a good Burroughs doc.

So I’m happy to have stumbled across this utterly DELIGHTFUL short “Burroughs & Lawrence” produced and directed by Chris Snipes. It’s episode 7 of Our Town, a series of films about Lawrence, KS, the university town where Burroughs lived the longest of all the various places he’d lived around the world.

Not only have I seen almost zero of the footage contained in the film, it’s full of charming and intimate stories about the notorious Beat writer in the September of his years, anecdotes told by people who really knew the man. Featuring footage of Burroughs reading in a local bookstore. Wonderful stories about Burroughs driving a car. The hilarious “cat butt” scene (trust me, it’s LOL). Clips of Timothy Leary, Marianne Faithfull and Allen Ginsberg celebrating the Beats in 1987 at the River City Reunion event. Patti Smith singing at Burroughs’ gravesite and plenty of mundane, but funny/fascinating details about Burroughs’ day-to-day life in Lawrence.

Highly recommended. In fact, I recommend that you get high and watch this.