Brianland

poster art by Grant Goodwin

.

I was asked to be part of the Hunter Thompson GonzoFest 2026 in New York City to talk about how he connected to the Beat Generation.  We ended up doing a kinda roundtable jam on the subject with an all-star cast — Kurt Hemmer moderating, biographers David Wills & Peter Richardson, and Hunter pal & GonzoFest founder Ron Whitehead.  I videotaped it, so it’ll be up on YouTube eventually.
.

“Hunter & the Beat Generation” panel at GonzoFest — l to r — Kurt Hemmer, Peter Richardson, David Wills, yours unruly & Ron Whitehead — photo by Erin Hemmer
.

We just free-formed a conversation, but these were my notes on some of the many connections between Hunter and the Beats — some of them riffed on stage, some of them not . . .

SOME WAYS HUNTER & THE BEATS ARE CONNECTED & THE SAME . . .

The proof of Hunter’s connections to the Beats is — every person I know on this panel & in this room — we began our friendship over the Beats!

THAT’s why Hunter is a Beat.

WE are the proof of the connection.

We’re all Beats.

We all made the pilgrimage to this room to honor & celebrate Hunter!

It’s not my Deadhead friends — not my Shakespeare friends — not my film friends . . . it’s my BEAT friends who made the trip and filled this room.

I drove 500 miles to be here —­ which is the shortest distance traveled by anybody on this panel!!

We’re Beats who are showing our love in 2026 for Hunter. 

That’s the physical real-life  proof-in-this-room  of the Beat connection.

=======================================

I have an expansive view of Beat.

Everybody I know in this room is Beat.

Some people really try to box it in — Gregory Corso said everybody who came after him in 1950 wasn’t part of it.  😂 

I think Walt Whitman was Beat . . . Dylan Thomas for sure.

Mark Twain wrote about going On The Road and discovering America.

Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Patti Smith are sure as hell Beat.

Hunter wasn’t a founding member of “The Beat Generation” — but he’s one Beat cat.

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness …”

could have been written by Hunter.

And Kerouac could have written Hunter’s:

“The edge.  There’s no honest way to explain it.  Because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over it.”

Jack & Neal & all the Beats certainly lived that.

Furthur —

Chuck Berry & Little Richard & Buddy Holly & company invented rock n roll —

Are you gonna tell me The Beatles or the Stones or the Dead aren’t rock n roll?

Just cuz you weren’t there the week something was invented doesn’t mean you’re not part of it.

Is Dexter Gordon not a bebop player cuz he wasn’t there at Minton’s Playhouse in 1947?  It’s ridiculous.

Hunter was the Beats’ spiritual heir — their spiritual offspring — the natural progression — the rebel’s next chapter.

They both knowingly / intentionally played to / appealed to the same general audience of misfits and freaks and party people.

Like the Beats, Hunter wrote about the bohemians and the searchers — looking for the meaning of America On The Road — looking for hope on the campaign trail — looking for kicks on Route 66 — the motorcycle — the great white shark — the road.

=======================================

At the NYU Beat conference in May 1994 – when I first met Ron Whitehead —

Hunter was there, and so was The Beat Museum and Counterculture Museum founder Jerry Cimino, and he recorded it and quoted Hunter as saying:

“Jack Kerouac was a great influence on me.”

“I would never have become a writer if it were not for On The Road.”

“I was convinced what I was writing was too far out there to ever find a publisher.  After I read On The Road I realized if Kerouac could find someone to publish that book then I could find a publisher, too.”

 

*  Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas is On The Road on psychedelics.

Two guys go On The Road in search of the American dream.

Hunter wrote “Fear & Loathing” books —

Jack wrote more – “Fun & Loving” books.

=========================================

Hunter is the Mount Rushmore of the Beats — in one man —

Burroughs — the drugs & guns & cynical unromantic attitude.

The wanderlust of Kerouac – autobiographical prose — blending real events with fiction.

McGovern’s campaign manager — “Hunter wrote the the most accurate and least factual account of the campaign”

They both wrote about real events and then added fictional elements — and with readers of both writers, many thought it was ALL factual.

The political reportage of Allen — always wanting to be on the front lines of newsworthy cultural events and then writing about them.
Plus the born promoter and entertainer and Prankster.
And both Allen & Hunter were friends with Kesey & the gang.

And Gregory‘s habit of being a social disruptor just for the sake of raising hell.

===========================================

Hunter was “Beat-adjacent” — as his pal & scholar Curtis Robinson put it on the Hunter Gatherers podcast.

Both Hunter and Jack began their writing careers as sports journalists.

Both are distinct unique powerful prose stylists.

Some other commonalities:

Both — in the main — are not embraced by academia.

Both loved their extracurriculars – drugs and alcohol – to excess.

Both Allen & Hunter covered events in the zeitgeist culture.

Both Jack & Hunter deteriorated probably more from hard booze than anything.

=====================================

Important people & artists who embraced both the Beats and Hunter —

The Doug Brinkley connection — one of most prominent historians in America was Kerouac’s posthumous editor — then also Hunter’s literary executor and editor of his Gonzo Letters books and all-round champion.

Like Malcolm Cowley — from the Lost Generation to the Beat Generation,

or Neal Cassady carrying the torch from the Beats to the Pranksters.

Harmony.  Transmission of legacy.

Johnny Depp had a deep affinity for Jack & Beats … and Hunter.

And Bob Dylan — was connected to the Beats — and Hunter dedicated Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas to him . . . and his music’s all thru the Breakfast With Hunter doc.

============================================

Both the Beats & Hunter made it cool and respectable to read books,

and be literate and be a writer.

Not many authors fit that bill.

Hunter & the Beats are also connected by being the writers “the cool kids” have read more than any other.

=================================

How they’re both mythologized . . .

How quotes Jack & Hunter never wrote or said have become memes on the internet —

famously the “skid is sideways all used up — Wow what a ride!” that’s become a widely-circulated meme but no one can find it anywhere in his writings or interviews.

You can read a cool detailed search for the original source of the quote here —
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/06/26/safe-journey/

How people who have never read them, say that they have.

This is not common among many authors.

Or people who read a few pages of On The Road or Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas pretend they’ve read the canon —
and there’s nothing wrong with that.

There’s a perception that it’s cool to like Kerouac or Hunter —

so people go around ‘being’ them – the Kerouac on-the-roadster – or the drug-loving Hunter character — as portrayed by Johnny Depp in Terry Gilliam’s movie.

Hunter to BBC in 1977: “The myth has taken over.”

Both the Beats and Hunter spawned a cultural character.

There aren’t people going around pretending they’re Truman Capote or Norman Mailer —
who in some worlds still rank higher than Hunter or Jack.

T-shirts — I don’t see a lot of people wearing Hemingway or Sun Also Rises shirts — but I see a lot of Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas shirts . . . and Kerouac’s face and/or quotes 

being worn with the proud allegiance of fans of a sports team.

People want to show the world they’re fans them.

So that’s something that Hunter & the Beats have in common —

they both became pop culture icons like James Dean or the Beatles or Kurt Cobain.

It’s very rare that authors enter this Marilyn Monroe / Elvis Presley iconic stratosphere.

=====================================

PARTICIPATORY journalism & autobiographical fiction —

None of these writers were practicing A.P. objectivity.

Hunter wrote about real events and then put his own spin on it — and it’s all a Beat spin!

It’s wild . . . it’s ‘tea’ and drinking-filled . . . it’s people having Adventures in real-world contemporary America . . .

The Beats did not have any unified writing style — it was the subject matter and point of view that was a unifier . . . and that’s where Hunter comes in — he saw the humanity in the downtrodden from the Hell’s Angels to hitchhiker’s to food workers.

===============================================

Hunter stretched language — invented words, gave words new meaning.

“Beat” meant one thing in 1945 — and something different by 1955.

“Gonzo” meant one thing in 1965 — and something different by 1975.

============================================

Both Hunter and the Beats’ lives were interwoven with musicians.

Hunter counted Warren Zevon, Lyle Lovett, Jimmy Buffet & others among his friends – and befriended the Jefferson Airplane back in the day,

and wrote for the Rolling Stone music magazine.

Allen — with Dylan, Paul McCartney, Patti Smith, Philip Glass, David Amram

Burroughs — Kurt Cobain, David Bowie, Lou Reed and Tom Waits

Neal Cassady and the Grateful Dead

That’s not something you’d say about most other famous authors.

=========================================

Both adapted well to the cinema —

Pull My Daisy . . . Heart Beat . . . Naked Lunch . . . Howl

The Last Time I Committed Suicide . . . On The Road . . . Big Sur . . . Kill Your Darlings

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Where The Buffalo Roam
Rum Diary

Hunter & his neighbor Don Johnson came up with the idea for Nash Bridges.

As Hunter said to the BBC in 1977 — “I want to learn about film.”

Curtis Robinson said he was always thinking about his books as movies.

===========================================

Jack & Allen & Bill & Gregory & Neal . . . and Hunter — they were all one-offs.

There are imitators of all of them . . . but they each broke their molds and never another cast would be made.

======================================

Hunter and Allen are both FUN . . . and they both got along with Kesey . . . because he’s FUN.

Hunter met Allen & Neal at the Hell’s Angel party at Kesey’s on August 7th, 1965 — they went out to buy beer together and the cops pulled them over — and they became life-long friends.

=====================================

Both the Beats and Hunter lived outside of the law.

Both were arrested & prosecuted & persecuted . . . but beat the raps in both court & in history.

America treated neither the Beats nor Hunter well.

And both challenged their editors and publishers:

Allen & Burroughs censorship trials & content

Kerouac — neologism — portmanteau – blending words

Hunter — deadlines, length, content.

=======================================

The way Jack was a conservative mother-loving home-body behind-the-scenes –

but a drunken wild-man in public — who did things just to get a rise out of people.

And as so many have said of Hunter —

he was a charming sensitive chivalrous Southern Gentleman at heart —

but had the same wild public persona — and was a practiced professional provocateur.

====================================

The Colorado Connection —

there’s a lot of states in this country — and you can expect major artists to have associations with New York and S.F. and L.A. and Nawlins . . . but Neal Cassady grew up in Denver, Allen wrote the Denver Doldrums,

the state features prominently in On The Road

and Boulder was the site of Allen’s Naropa and the ’82 super-summit I wrote a whole book about.

Hunter could have made home in any number of central or western states . . . but he chose the same one the Beats did.

======================================

There are a lot of great writers in American history —

from Poe to Whitman to Lincoln to Twain to Elliot to Hemingway to Fitzgerald to Faulkner to Thurber

to Kerouac, Ginsberg & Burroughs

and Hunter is one more car on that long train . . . of thought.

.

======================================

Here’s video of the panel as it was jammed at GonzoFest in New York on July 17th, 2026 . . .

 

 

.

==================================

.

Here’s a cool recent interview that kicked off the Generation Beat series by Simon Warner out of England . . .

My Inaugural Interview for “Generation Beat” – incl. Kerouac, Ginsberg, Kesey & Beat Women

 

Or here’s a piece with videos of a bunch of times David Amram and I shared a stage . . .

David Amram & Brian Hassett On-Stage Collaborations

.
Or here’s a great in-depth riff on the only photo ever taken of Jack Kerouac actually writing — something I  unearthed a few ago . . .

Kerouac in Provincetown

.

==================================

.

by BrianHassett.com

karmacoupon@gmail.com — BrianHassett.com

Or here’s my Facebook page if you wanna join in there —

https://www.facebook.com/Brian.Hassett.Canada