Brianland

. The Grateful Dead were Jack manifested as music. Their essence was born of the road and adventures.  They worked in improvisational music like spontaneous prose. They broke every rule of showbiz … then broke every concert record there is — just as Kerouac broke every rule of grammar — then had over 50 books […]

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. Just as when Gifford & Lee created Jack’s Book in the ’70s, and Allen Ginsberg did the Jack Summit in 1982 and all those documentaries were made — it was all because there were people alive who knew Jack well. Now there are very few. Here’s a list of Living People who either met Jack […]

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. Ten years ago this month BrianHassett.com was launched. I’ve published at least one new story every month since it was birthed — except once! when I unexpectedly fell in love & went on tour in the same month (June of last year).  🙂  One thing about writing — you never know what’s gonna connect with […]

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How The Beats Begat The Pranksters . Beat Carolyn & Prankster Babbs, Boulder ’82 . It all started on September 5th, 1957 when a certain book got published . . . Or no . . . it all started in April 1951 when a guy sat down at a typewriter with a long scroll of […]

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George Walker & Brian Hassett Present Jack Kerouac & Neal Cassady . . Click here to jump to the Fall 2023 Tour dates & Locations Click here to skip to Show Set Lists with Clip Links Click here to go to Bios . George Walker & Brian Hassett first met in Boulder Colorado in July […]

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Falling in Love in the Summer of Love . Yeah — it can still happen.  To anyone anywhere anytime.  Me mid-50s, she just over 40. We’d met a year earlier at a Prankster Family Reunion.  I thought she was stunning.  But she had this boyfriend.  It was one of those couples that didn’t seem to […]

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. . 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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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. . In the Spirit of Jack — a spontaneous love ode that just flowed out … to that thing they do in Lowell . . . What’s cool about LCK is — everybody’s there for Jack . . . but all on their own terms. Everybody has a completely different relationship with their family […]

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