Brianland

The Setting: The new Bob Center is in Tulsa Oklahoma because the Woody Guthrie Center is there, and because both were paid for by the OK billionaire philanthropist George Kaiser. Tulsa is remarkably like the midwestern town of Winnipeg I grew up in — flat farmland, low-rise, about a half-million people — and both with […]

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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, […]

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  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 […]

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The Chad Allan Story . When I was in grade 7 at St. John’s Ravenscourt school, a teacher, Bernie Beare, told me I could write well.  I didn’t know what-the-hell good that was gonna be, but apparently it was something I could do. So I started to focus on it, and pay attention in English […]

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. Everybody’s known for ages that Jack Kerouac’s 100th birthday was coming up on March 12th, 2022, but it was still the dark Covid times, and I hadn’t been On The Road in over two years — not since the New Hampshire Democratic primaries in February 2020 — plus I was really in no mood […]

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When The Good Guys Win — Head To The Skyscraper Rooftop .   A wee rooftop Adventure excerpt from Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy  . . .  The Democratic Party victory party at the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan in 1996 . . . New York City is a very liberal and a very Democratic town.  […]

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Stay Stopped Smoking . For all my friends who struggle . . . These are the handwritten notes I’d read any time I was feeling an urge:  Whatever’s bothering you will NOT be made better by drawing smoke into your tender  living lungs. Drawing smoke into your lungs doesn’t make anything better. Don’t die for […]

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The Play’s The Thing 113 different Playbills that survived. An approximate history of my life in theater audiences . . . Some of the highlights . . . which you can see the Playbills of in chronological order starting at the top . . . Mousetrap — London — 1972 — the longest running play […]

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From Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy: Adventures in Politics 1980 – 2020 From the chapter — “Fun & Loving on the Campaign Trail 2020 — A Prankster’s Primary”.   . The next day — Tuesday, February 4th, the day following the night of the Iowa caucus vote-counting debacle — I pulled off three rallies: Biden, Tulsi […]

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Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy I spent the afternoon getting all gussied up in my black velvet tails and Ben Franklin knickers with knee-high socks topped off with a top hat, accented with colorful Obama buttons, and everything underneath my waving homemade Obama pennant flag with a little red & white Canadian one on top.  All […]

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