Brianland

the Best in Kerouac & the Beats, Adventure, Politics, Music, Movies, Poetry & other Lifejoys

Brianland header image 4

Writing “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac”

February 20th, 2023 · 13 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Kerouac and The Beats, Weird Things About Me

You wake up one day and your whole life changes just by the chance seeing of a picture. Much the way it might with a chance spotting of a poster on a bookstore wall. As Jack says, “My books are my children.”  And as Mama always preached — pregnancy can happen in an instant. Unlike […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ·····

David Amram & Brian Hassett On-Stage Collaborations

November 30th, 2022 · 6 Comments · Brian on YouTube etc., Kerouac and The Beats, Real-life Adventure Tales

David Amram and I have been performing together since we first started hanging in 1994 after an introduction by Teri McLuhan, Marshall’s daughter.  It was the big NYU Beat conference — I write about it in Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy — I first saw him unloading his congas from his Farm Aid jeep on opening night, […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ·······

Lowell Celebrates Kerouac (LCK) – Videos, Stories & Photos – 2015–2022

October 30th, 2022 · 7 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats, Real-life Adventure Tales

  Stories, videos and photos from the annual Kerouac hometown festival over the last several years I’ve been going. Edie Parker-Kerouac called and told me about the the initial commemorative dedication in July 1988 — which birthed LCK — saying that she, Henri Cru and “Big Tim” Moran were driving up for it, and that […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ·················

Brian Hassett – Adventures in Print

January 26th, 2020 · 21 Comments · Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy, Kerouac and The Beats, Politics, Real-life Adventure Tales, Weird Things About Me

40 YEARS IN PRINT . A CHRONOLOGY OF THE PUBLISHED REAL-LIFE ADVENTURE TALES . . 1977 – May — writing a song with Guess Who founder Chad Allen – not in print as of yet, but it is on my website here. 1980 – April — John Anderson in San Diego – Blissfully Ravaged in […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ···················

The Birth of a Trilogy

August 31st, 2018 · 11 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Kerouac and The Beats, Real-life Adventure Tales, Weird Things About Me

THE BIRTH OF A TRILOGY . I never expected any of it. A few years ago, a few people asked me on a Facebook group to tell them about a Kerouac gathering I was at back in 1982, and my response to the question became a book . . . in eleven days, it took. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ······

Brian Hassett Interviews and Such

July 31st, 2018 · 8 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Interviews, Kerouac and The Beats, Weird Things About Me

. Here are a few different print, radio & video interviews and stories and such . . . . Here’s a March 2024 fun rollicking positive upBeat interview just published on Michael Liminos’s great Blues & Culture site. We riff on happiness and the keys to life, creativity, music, fun, art collectives, kindred spirits, the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ····

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac at The Beat Shindig in San Francisco

March 19th, 2017 · 15 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Kerouac and The Beats, Merry Pranksters, Weird Things About Me

. . 15 minutes before this show I was lying on the ground behind the Cassady’s booth trying not to lose consciousness. . . . An hour into it I was running around the stage playing Gregory Corso on a football team.  The build from wounded wobbly to careening comedy is completely crazy. Everything had been […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ···

Finding Kesey

January 29th, 2017 · 13 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Kerouac and The Beats, Merry Pranksters, Weird Things About Me

Finding Kesey . Following the November 2016 election I knew it was time to get my own house in order.  A year had been lost to a losing campaign, added to five years of On The Road domino-tumbling madness that had passed since my mother had passed in 2011, and there was a lot of […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ······

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac – reviews and reactions Part 3

December 10th, 2016 · 10 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Kerouac and The Beats, Weird Things About Me

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac Reviews & Reactions — Part Three . Here’s the first round of incoming reviews. Or here’s a whole second round. .  I am bathing in the pages. Your book is a page turner of improbable adventures and characters — one crazy one after another.  The writing is high spirited and […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ·····

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” reviews and reactions

December 15th, 2015 · 18 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Kerouac and The Beats, Merry Pranksters

David Amram, Jami Cassady, Al Hinkle holding the book, Levi Asher and the author after the Cassady Family panel at the Beat Shindig in San Francisco . This is an excellent book about Uncle Jack, and also a heartfelt outpouring of love for Mom and Dad, and the Grateful Dead, too.  I just got done […]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··