to be a writer. >> he was a junkie before he was a writer. >> as so many of us were. >> a place to think of yourself as a writer you would come here and somehow working within a romantic tradition. >> yes. >> burroughs said right up front, writer to me lounged around in a smoking jacket or a caftan and smoking littered with sleeping boys. >> yes. >> or girls. >> to what extent did that world exist and to what extent was that world created by the people that showed up with that expectation? >> since bill departed, iep, dear, wonderful, marvelous man, he's gone, it's tame now. >> it is tame. >> well, he was -- >> genteel now. >> he was the very opposite of genteel. he was an outlaw of every society. >> my husband knew him very well and he was saying that i cured him of being a drug addict. i said how? he said, i turned him into an alcoholic. >> who smokes hashish at this table? please raise your hand. >> is the camera on? >> put your hand up, bianca.