Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press

Postscript: What Became of Them

POSTSCRIPT: WHAT BECAME OF THEM In 1994, Louise participated in another tribute to the Loujon Press, helping with the production of two fine art prints designed from original printing blocks from the Outsider. Commissioned by Ed Blair, they were printed by New Orleans printmaker Francis Swaggart from blocks Blair“retrieved from a damp French Quarter attic.” Blair did not see Louise for four or five years after Jon’s death, but his friendship with her never wavered, and he never lost his admiration for the romance of Jon and Louise’s life together. Through the years Blair was always a rock for Louise to rely on. He had long wanted to publish a tribute to Jon, and in 1983 he toyed with the idea of a memorial book which would follow the line of Jon’s creative life. The book would begin with excerpts from The New Day and Four Steps to the Wall, and include a long section on the Outsider and the Loujon Press, correspondence between Jon and Bukowski or Jon and Henry Miller, a section on Jon and Louise’s travels, and a Bukowski short story about the Webbs. While the memorial book did not materialize, the fine prints were published and well received. Louise not only inspected the work as it was being done, but added contextual annotations. The prints were designated Skyscraper and Ursulines, after the two New Orleans addresses where the Outsider was published. This was fine work, done on “heavy cotton, acid-free paper, with black and terra cotta ink on cream, and fine additional Japanese colored papers.” William S. Burroughs was among the first to order a set of prints. A review noted that “the significance of the Outsider, and its regeneration through Skyscraper and Ursulines, is both historical and contemporary , a timely reminder of what was and what is.” Jon, Jr., idolized his father and considered him a genius. There was a wall between them that was never quite breeched: “He had quite a temper and I couldn’t work too close to him sometimes because he couldn’t stand some of my mistakes.” Even so, “at a distance we were great.” Jon, Jr., did not see his father again after the visit in Las Vegas. He was devastated by Jon’s death and, about a year later, began writing him a series of letters. It was almost like they were there together, drinking a beer, with easy talk between them. He recalled his long-ago hitchhike to New Orleans and the good times there with Jon and Louise. It was a grueling trip, but “I wanted to come to you. I have always felt that way . . . always wanting to come to you . . . I guess that 165 ❖ Postscript: What Became of Them ❖ New Orleans thing in the forties is the only time we ever were together, that I can really say was together. It didn’t last long.” Jon, Jr., mused over the film he shot of Jon and Louise in Tucson. The movie showed the pair “prancing around looking cheerful. Yet, since then, as I replay those movies, Lou and you sure looked other than cheerful in some of the runs. Though you clowned a lot, as I do, when being photographed, you had a very serious and tragic hint in some of the shots, quickly corrected in the camera’s sweep on you. Prophetic? Lou had the same thing.” Jon Edgar Webb, Jr., remained in California and had a successful career as a doctor of chiropractic medicine. In 2003, Beat Scene Press published his brief memoir, Jon, Lou, Bukowski and Me, and he has other Loujon- and Bukowski-related projects in various stages of development. Jon became a widower in 2005 with the death of his beloved Lore. Other players in this story went their own ways. David Goodis left Hollywood soon after his involvement with Four Steps to the Wall ended. He returned to his hometown of Philadelphia, where he lived with his parents and wrote more than a dozen successful novels describing the tawdry lives of down-and-out men and the women they desire. Books like The Blonde on the Street Corner, The Moon in the Gutter, and Of Tender Sin sold well but failed to establish their author beyond the pulp fiction market. His biggest seller was probably 1951’s Cassidy’s Girl, which reportedly sold more than one million copies in paperback.Eleven of Goodis’s books or stories have thus far been adapted...