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Beat Poet Frank Rios: The Holy Three

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Frank Rios was born in the Bronx, promptly abandoned living in a foster home, and was unable to speak until the age of 6. At 12 he became addicted to heroin, before taking to the way of the gun and eventually ending up in prison. On his way out, Rios felt "guided" to move to Venice, where he met the two people that changed his life: beat poets Stuart Z. Perkoff and Tony Scibella. The three of them were self ordained as the "Holy Three" and became the backbone of the poetry scene in Venice. Rios' life underscores the pull that Venice had, not only for artists but for social dissidents alike, and the intricate relationships shared by these groups in the 1950s.

Watch the videos above to hear Rios talk about his arrival to Venice, and his life in the beatnik scene of the 1950s-'60s.

Frank Rios - Coming to Venice

Coming to Venice
"I was born in New York. I was a throw away, given up at birth."

Frank Rios - Venice and the Beatniks

The Beatniks
"The 'Beatniks,' like the Life Magazine article, they came down to the beach in fucking droves looking for the Beatnik. Beatnik was somebody who lived outside of society... it's freedom, you didn't work, vote, pay taxes, drove a car, you're completely free outside of society. The reaction is a natural reaction against the whole second World War and the whole thing of the white picket fence because in truth we knew -- I knew -- it wasn't true. I'd seen too many guys come into my house that were thrown away, beat, burned, not loved, not touched, and society didn't care."

Frank Rios - Beat Poet

Lawrence Lipton
"Lawrence Lipton would try to record the history, the beginning of the Beat generation on the West Coast. And he was a square, but he embraced us, and Nettie, his wife, fed us. He'd record us, we'd go there, he'd have mics hidden in the pillows, in the couches, he was always recording us and we didn't know, 'Is he recording us?' And he'd get us there and feed us, give us money to get high, and then he'd have the tape on, recording us, talking to us, trying to get us going."

Frank Rios - The Holy Three

The Holy Three
"Me and Stuart did time together in the federal joint, so we talked a lot, walked the yard for years, and talked about the poem, the magic, and the lady. We had a great conversations about books, and what we were reading. Now, me and Tony, we were together for almost 40 years and probably the amount of words we said to each other could fit in one hand, but we had a great telepathy thing going, we were really close friends. Words, all words are lies anyway."

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