Brianland

The Prankster Woodstock . “I’ve got to get back to the land and set my soul free … “ Two of the coolest events of the ’60s just came together in the 21st century — and I lived it from start to finish. The Merry Pranksters’ Bus, which pulled out of Ken Kesey’s house in […]

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. Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld were the Lennon & McCartney of comedy. That’s the way I see it, anyway. Larry was a Lennon — mercurial, opinionated, sharp tongued, bull-headed, idea generating, creatively uncompromising, a supremely gifted artist born to his medium, with an enormous elaborate expansive vision. And Jerry was the McCartney — an […]

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 Not Fade Away — Birthday Adventure 2014     The start of the Adventure.   Just home from the 5-show birthday blow-out!  Sheesh!  Started with New Orleans’ Soul Rebels outdoors in a park with my New Orleans Soul Brother Ross Perlmutter.  The funky brass-n-drums combo were joined for some songs by Toronto’s own frontline horndogs […]

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“The Taming of The Shoobeedoobie” . . “Next stop, Shakespeare’s Globe,” says the driver downstairs on the red double-decker bus winding its way through the narrow South Bank streets of London. I went early so I could do the official tour of the theater, and of course the guide was extremely well-versed, among other things […]

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 The Northport Report     Whale, we had another Jackfest — dancing with Big Sur by the Sea, My Brothers! — this time in Jack’s wave-lapping hometown of Northport, the idyllic little living Rockwell harbortown where he went to dock near the darkness of the city but still remain a slip away. I’m just back […]

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The Day I Heard The Tambourine Man          I, like others, was whisked away by the Gallatin genie just as I was about to drown in the requirements of my previous school.  If NYU hadn’t had a school-without-walls, I wouldn’t have graduated, if you want a soundbite about it.  The trade-off they offered was that […]

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.   The Boys Who Grew From Northern Lands for my dad — Vern Victor Hassett From playing hockey with homegrown pucks, To riding in the back of pick-up trucks, Under cloudless, beating prairie skies, Chasing the girls with the prettiest eyes, Riding the roads from farm to boomtown, Working the land from Rose to […]

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Every Day Is A Gift   by Brian Hassett Every day you’re alive is a gawd-damned gift.  And that’s the whole shot, as Gregory Corso would say. Try adding up all the times your Indomitable Spirit was challenged but did not topple in a deathly firestorm of adversity.  There’s probably been a hundred of them, […]

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  . May your lights be bright and your resilience strong, May your thoughts be poetry and your voice be song. May your dreams be vivid and your days be bold, May your riches be measured in human gold.     Happy Shopping Daze — 
But the best gift you can give is the gift […]

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. Condolences, memories, and tributes to Enid have been coming in from — Indonesia, Vietnam, Nepal, Oman, Switzerland, Austria, England, Mexico . . . Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Portland, Eugene, Seattle, the Olympic Peninsula, Missoula Montana, Colorado Springs, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Rochester Minnesota, Rochester New York, Phoenix, Dallas, Austin, Louisville, Detroit, Key […]

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