Brianland

21st Century Beatniks versus Hieroglyphic Caricatures There’s long been a debate about the word “beatnik” — originally coined by a sensationalist San Francisco gossip columnist in 1958, playing on the Yiddish suffix “nik” and the first Russian satellite launched in September ’57 known as “Sputnik.”  Jack and Allen & company hated the word back in […]

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Then Along Comes Kesey . .  Excerpted from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” available now.   I was well into Jack — and this whole conference kicked that up a few dozen notches — like it did everybody else — but The Chief and The Boys (the Grateful Dead) — those were the magic […]

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