The lead singer of the Fugs passed away yesterday. The revolutionary hippie group never had a hit. I loved their music. No commercial value.No sell out.
Tuli was famous for his surviving a suicide attempt off the Manhattan Bridge. Most people thought that the anarchist poet had leapt from the Brooklyn Brodge. That span is more romantic.
Ted Berrigan recounted the story with Ann Waldman in their prose poem “Memorial Day 1971”.
“I asked Tuli Kupferberg once, “Did you really jump off The Manhattan Bridge?” “Yeah,” he said, “I really did.” “How come?” I said. “I thought that I had lost the ability to love,” Tuli said. “So, I figured I might as well be dead. So, I went one night to the top of The Manhattan Bridge, & after a few minutes, I jumped off.” “That’s amazing,” I said. “Yeah,” Tuli said, “but nothing happened. I landed in the water, & I wasn’t dead. So I swam ashore, & went home, & took a bath, & went to bed. Nobody even noticed.”
Tuli later said that he was surprised that everyone asked him about the death attempt like it was an Olympic feat.
He was just glad to have survived and so were his fans.