Brianland

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

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Kerouac in Provincetown

December 4th, 2019 · 37 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats

  How History Could Have Been Different Kerouac’s and Otherwise   . It was a quiet day in Facelandia when my Beat / Deadhead friend Steve Silberman posted: “Social media is amazing sometimes. In response to my posting a Cape Cod Times article about Kerouac’s time there, a woman posted a previously unseen photo of […]

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Pranksters for Proactive Politics

November 30th, 2019 · 1 Comment · Merry Pranksters, Politics, Weird Things About Me

. Original Merry Prankster George Walker & author-performer Brian Hassett team up to make elections fun again. Soon to be joined by an unlimited cast of players and Pranksters crisscrossing the United States in a new version of Ken Kesey’s original psychedelic Furthur Bus — and this one is going to go even Farthur! After […]

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Ode to Neal

October 31st, 2019 · 14 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats

. Neal Cassady — by Carolyn Cassady (courtesy of the Cassady fam) . From Dean Moriarty . . . to Dead immortality, The street-kid who read . . . was a legend in bed, But more than the lays . . . he inspired a blaze In the hearths of the writers . . . […]

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Ode to Jack

September 30th, 2019 · 11 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats

. . Jack fights back from off the Beaten track still alive at 100 as if any of us ever wondered if THAT would happen  after his track star sprint  — through the pages of history, seeing around corners like Neal at the wheel, knockin over grammar cops and blowin past the door stops to […]

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Woodstock 50th Anniversary in New York

August 23rd, 2019 · 28 Comments · Music, Real-life Adventure Tales, Weird Things About Me, Woodstock

A Festival of Festivals . I said somewhere on social media leading up to the Woodstock 50th that it should and would be experienced by people in different ways all over the world. “Friends not corporations create Woodstock.” There was no required location or situation. As Jerry Garcia said of the Beats — “… it […]

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Paul Krassner 1932 – 2019

July 22nd, 2019 · 9 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Merry Pranksters, Real-life Adventure Tales

. Here’s the chapter on the now late great Paul Krassner from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac about the time I met him and a buncha his croanies at the big Kerouac summit in 1982. I sent him this chapter when I was finishing up the book and he gave it his thumbs-up. . ch. 23 […]

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Holy Cats! Dream-Catching at Woodstock ’94 — how it opened

June 30th, 2019 · 5 Comments · Weird Things About Me, Woodstock

Excerpt from Holy Cats! Dream-Catching at Woodstock — from Thursday evening as it was just beginning . . . It was 10 PM, the gates had just opened, and beaming faces were exuberantly discovering the field by the thousand.  Fresh hay had been laid all over the natural amphitheater and it glowed like cashmere in […]

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Brian Hassett Set Lists

May 31st, 2019 · 12 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Kerouac and The Beats, Merry Pranksters, Weird Things About Me, Woodstock

    Midwest Tour — May 2019 . Thomas O’Shea House Party — Berea, outside Cleveland Ohio – Friday, May 10th, 2019 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac – the Marin Epiphany – from ch 26 – The Airplane Hanger in Marin The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac – ch. 3 – Dancin’ to The Boulder Boogie […]

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Bill Cannastra & Joan Haverty’s Loft

April 21st, 2019 · 37 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats, New York City

The Home of The Scroll & The Girl Newly uncovered photos and corrections to history. “Bill felt completely at home on the rooftops of Manhattan.”Joan Haverty-Kerouac on Bill Cannastra I knew I loved this guy! 🙂 . To all in Beatlandia — Pretty much nobody’s ever seen these buried Beat family photos in a hundred […]

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Woodstock ’94 Concert Opening

March 31st, 2019 · 8 Comments · Music, Real-life Adventure Tales, Woodstock

. While I was stopped behind the stage carefully taking notes on the human traffic flows, I heard the promoter John Scher start talking from the stage. “Holy smoke! It must be 10:00!” I realized. “Sounds like he’s opening the show!” In the press kit they gave us at the Friar Tuck I noticed a […]

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