An excerpt from my upcoming book (Sept. 2018) — On The Road With Cassadys & Furthur Visions —
This bit is about 2001’s 50th anniversary of Kerouac writing his On The Road scroll — and a show we put on for the occasion in L.A. on the day he finished it, April 22nd, after one held in NYC on the day he started it (also covered in the book).
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I arrived at the Short Stop speakeasy well before showtime and it was already a chaotic circus of crazy creatives carving up the scenery, led by the director of today’s movie, S.A. Griffin.
Amazingly, he’d had a shirt made emblazoned with the classic OTR line about “… the mad ones … DESIROUS of Everything AT THE SAME TIME …” written in creative font-smashing text covering his chest — broadcasting its meaningful message in a playful style, perfectly reflecting his prankster essence.
The club was already a buzzing hive full of L.A. actors and poets and show people decorating the large performance space with bodies and actions — a room that looked like a fancy Goodfellas’ lounge from the ’50s or ’60s with almost no lighting so the celebrities and gangsters and cops could discreetly entertain in deep red booths surrounding the open dance floor in the middle — the only lighting being flickering candles in large red-tinted translucent holders on every table as well as lining the perimeter of the stage.
In the middle of the dance floor lay a giant 3-foot-by-4-foot photo of the first part of The Scroll — and scattered all around it like fallen leafs were page leafs of On The Road that throughout the celebration people would pick up any random one and read it from the stage, a la Burroughs’ cut-up method, except whole pages to collage the poetry of the prose into a swirl of images and passages and dialog and details jumbled together proving how powerful and consistent the wordsmithing was that you could hear chapter 1 or 51 and it would still fit together like a matching set.
S.A. created something I’ve never experienced at any Jack show before or since — a massive mad celebratory krewe of joyous orgasmicly LOUD participatory audience–stage–melding dancing dingledodies — AND I mean, LOUD! It was MAD high energy at 6PM on a Sunday like it was a midnight on Saturday night at Mardi Gras.
The room became more than packed. The pages on the dance floor were soon blown up to the lip of the stage as it filled with men & women floor-dancing in floor-sitting crosslegged positions, and the doorways crammed with faces peering in.
And like the rock star he was, Cassady came strolling in just before showtime with his latest babe on his arm and perpetual smile on his face. He was laughing and she was beaming and the party was screaming and I felt like I was dreaming.
From the moment S.A. stepped to the microphone to open it — and he’s one guy who doesn’t even need a microphone to fill a room with his booming performer’s voice — the souls he’d assembled soared and roared like an arena rock show.
I kicked it off with the beginning of the original Scroll text that I’d transcribed from the two photographs of it that had been published by 2001, and right from the first line people were Howling “Go!” and “Yeah!” and “Wow!” and laughing and cheering. And the next readers began improvising off-script and working the room, the audience riffling in lines in harmony with Jack’s in a collective kaleidoscopic recreation of the creation of the Beats. As loud and orgasmic as new life comes! with beaming faces and embracing hugs and love and sweat and knowing twinkles between bubbling souls.
There were no rehearsals, no memorized scripts, just the chaos of people running to the microphone with parts of the Scroll or part of the Book in what S.A. coined “Bop Bingo!” And people were yelling “Go Go Go!” from the swirling booths, and S.A. copping “the mad ones” line in this mad hang-out as it blazed from his chest in case anyone missed the obvious.
Then one of his crazy Carma Bums co-conspirators, Scott Wannberg, stepped up to speed-read Jack at the tempo he probably typed, causing even faster “Go”s from all over the room.
Then Michael C. Ford drove into the spotlight all high-energy — the Grammy-nominated spoken-word artist who performed with Jim Morrison back in the L.A. day, and recorded with all the other Doors since — he took the wild Slim Gaillard club show part of On The Road out for a playful right-orooni ride, getting all Putti-Putti all-rooti, as the audience started laughing-orooni with all the be-bop-orooni a-la-vooni shim-sham jimmy-jam thank-you-man howdy-doody, all-rooti! The room was howling and the stage raging and spirits dancing and Jack’s typewriter clacking a thousand miles an hour as the high-powered Ford fired on all cylinders to crack the code and break the barrier and spike the sound and remind us all that — “To Slim Gaillard the whole world was just one big orooni!”
Then John and I took the stage, the Bebop Brothers flip the page, bringing back the driving sage, pinning needles on the gauge.
Johnny riffed on how his Dad was just a big grown up kid, and how he’d come home and be fun and funny as hell, often bringing strange gifts, like a little hollow wooden pig he brought back from Mexico that if you put a live fly inside it, would actually cause it to walk across the table. (!)
And how he loved his Dad, and even if other people claimed Neal was off having Adventures with them, it felt to John like his Dad was home all the time. And how his Mom had to be the disciplinarian, and how he grew up with a fairly idyllic childhood — one parent providing the roof over head and meals on the table, and the other being a big playmate.
And we traded off On The Road readings, John partial to the jazz joint riffs, punctuating them with personalized details and comedic asides. “Everybody was rocking and roaring. Galatea and Marie with beer in hands were standing on their chairs, shaking and jumping.” — “What a party! Where was I?!”
And every time Jack would quote his Dad yelling, “Whoo!” or “Go!” to the jazz, the audience would yell it back to John creating a call-and-response song out of a prose-and-participate book.
And sitting right in the front was a gorgeous cross-legged L.A. woman dancing from the waist up, arms flowing in hypnotic figure-eights, fingers snapping … then exploding like slow-motion fireworks, all in an above-waist interpretive dance — part sign language, part snake-charming seduction.
And Sugar Magnolia, as I took to calling Aurora, was half the time on the side of the stage, half the time against a wall in the light in our joyous view, and half the time at one of the tables taking notes.
And John & I hit The Road together — reading the Jack & Neal car-riding “IT” section from On The Road that George Walker & I would later appropriate and open every one of our 20 shows together 20 years later, but this was the first time either John or I ever duetted it, and he had the Neal rhythms down. Naturally.
“… everybody knows it’s not the tune that counts — but IT!”
And speaking of tunes, the most musical of all the Cassadys, Johnny C. Goode, broke out his electric guitar and filled in the colors as I read the part of On The Road after his Dad dropped off Uncle Jack in the California sister city of San Francisco and he started to have hunger-induced hallucinations. “I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm …” as Johnny accented the “wonderment” with his crystalline lines.
And with the Ken Burns’ Jazz series having just aired on PBS, we thought we’d offer up Jack’s own history of jazz in one of the OTR riffs that Kerouac’s principal musical collaborator David Amram remembered as one of Jack’s favorites that he liked to read aloud — the “children of the American bop night” paragraph that begins, “Once there was Louis Armstrong blowing his beautiful top in the muds of New Orleans …” where he lays out the whole evolutionary tale in one page that Ken Burns took 20 hours to tell.
And Johnny picked up on the Johnny B. Goode echoes when Jack wrote of “Charlie Parker, a kid in his mother’s woodshed in Kansas City, blowing his taped-up alto among the logs, practicing on rainy days” and how that was captured so similarly by Maestro Chuck — “Way back up in the woods by the evergreens, There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood . . . He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack, Go sit beneath the tree by the railroad track,” as John melted Bird and Berry into a single rockin Bebop-a-Lula, and oh boy that little country boy could play!
Ragtime became Swing became Big Band became Bop became Rock n Roll became the Acid Tests became Woodstock became a million bands that burned burned burned like fabulous roman candles across the land.
Then John & I took a trip “to see George Shearing at Birdland in the midst of the long, mad weekend,” as Jack opened another of his favorite On The Road passages that he read to Amram’s backup back in the day, now with a Cassady in on the tune, and Johnny warmed up, effortlessly pealing off riffs, “slowly at first, then the beat went up, and he began rocking fast, his left foot jumped up with every beat … his combed hair dissolved and he began to sweat!”
The audience was now howling like a collective mad Moriarty yelling for us to “GO!!” as Cassady soared and the audience roared with every new chord that felt like a sword pulled from a stone! Excalibur!
“There he is! That’s him! Oh God, Oh God, Cassady, Yes! Yes! Yes!” And Johnny was conscious of the madmen in front of him, he could hear every one of their gasps and imprecations!
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 in print.
Like Jack . . . . the band had a prolific career whose output spanned multiple genres and decades, had many different co-conspirators, and found inspiration in the mythical characters of the West and the open Road. And they both considered Neal Cassady their driving force — in fact he literally drove each of them On The Road.
Both the Beats & the band had a core member who drank himself to an early grave, and others who spent considerable time & effort exploring the benefits of psychotropic drugs. Both groups were largely based out of San Francisco, and both had New York as their other home. And in fact, it was the very same neighborhoods of both cities — North Beach and Greenwich Village — where each came of age before growing out into the rest of the city and world.
San Francisco has a centuries-old history of radicals, rebellion and reinvention. From Jack London to John Muir, Haight-Ashbury to Silicon Valley, the Bay Area has nurtured iconoclasts and outcasts, fostering new paradigms since its founding, be they environmental or cyber, free love or free jazz, gay rights or immigrant’s plights.
Hence, when Carolyn Robinson first moved to the city and planted the flag that would beckon her future husband Neal Cassady years before Lawrence Ferlinghetti or any other Beats ever set foot in the place, it was a town that already personified everything the burgeoning movement was about.
It was an outsiders’ oasis, a North American version of a European masterpiece of architecture to inspire every walking breath, a multi-hilled town of innumerable little villages, each with a thousand stories pouring out of every 3-story Victorian house.
And Jack fell in love — not only with Carolyn and his life-brother Neal — and so much so that he actually moved there briefly with his mother in 1957 — but also with the mirror city spirit of his beloved New York — the jazz clubs, the neighborhood bars, the openness and effervescent ever-changing characters and concepts that sprung from every 5-cent coffee or 10-cent beer.
And just as the Beats’ work brought this open-minded life-embracing sense of Adventure to the rest of the world — so too did the music that manifested there in the mid-’60s.
Bob Dylan may have gone electric on the East Coast, but the real electricity of the kool-aid of cool rock n roll came from the West, young man.
The Dead were proud flag-waving Beats who were keeping the beat in a whole new way.
Just as Jack took a novel approach to novel construction, the Dead did the same with song structure. Just as Jack soloed on the keys stretching his flow and ideas to places heretofore unseen, so did that other “J” — Jerry — play his lines into a whole new space unheard in music save for the best of Jack’s beloved Be-Bop.
The Dead were not only the natural progression of the music of the Beats — but also of the very city that was home to both. In fact, Jack was so comfortable with each, he easily recast The Subterraneans events from New York to San Francisco in just three days of storytelling.
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Unlike most bands and authors, both the Grateful Dead and Kerouac’s popularity only grew after their primary heartbeat stopped — with the Dead’s 2015 Fare Thee Well shows in Chicago breaking TicketMaster, pay-per-view, and Soldier Field all-time records — and Kerouac having roughly four times as many books in print today as he did the day he died. Not to mention the thousands of Dead-based bands playing around the world as you’re reading this, . . . or the hundreds of copies of On The Road that will be bought somewhere every day that you have this book in your hands.
Yet they both had inauspicious professional debuts (the Dead’s first album and Jack’s The Town and The City) — which, in most cases, would have presaged an undistinguished career — and certainly not be indicative of an artist who would end up changing their medium and worldwide culture.
And both had an unusually strong affinity for the other’s form. Garcia was a voracious reader of books, and few novelists lived a life with as strong a connection to music as Jack. And the Grateful Dead were the only band that either Jack or Neal ever sat in with.
Really it was — as it always seems to be — Neal Cassady at the center of the whole damn thing. No other rock band can claim anywhere near as close a connection to any one of the key Beats as the Grateful Dead can with their brother Neal. He lived at their house, ate at their table, drove their bus, performed on stage with them, and directly inspired some of their most oft-performed songs — including ‘The Other One‘ and ‘Cassidy.’ Not to mention that ‘Truckin” is a musical On The Road, or ‘Wharf Rat’ is their Big Sur, or ‘Attics of My Life’ their Book of Dreams, or that ‘Mexicali Blues’ echoes Mexico City Blues, or ‘China Cat Sunflower’ could have been lifted from Old Angel Midnight, and on and on.
But Cassady . . . Cassady . . . Cassady . . . the guy Jack most wanted to impress, ditto Allen — the Mighty Muse — and just as with them, he was there from the beginning with the Dead — on the bill or on the stage at many of the original Acid Tests including their now-legendary first big-venue gig — The Trips Festival — at the Longshoreman’s Hall in good ol’ S.F. in January ’66.
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Then this goes on for many pages including lots of quotes by Garcia, Robert Hunter, John Perry Barlow, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Rock Scully, Dennis McNally & many others.
You can order the book here that also includes pieces the great Holly George-Warren, the British Beat scholar Simon Warner, film & record producer Jim Sampas, the British jazz scholar Jim Burns, the On The Road manuscript specialist Matt Theado, the longtime American music scholar Pat Thomas, and many many more.
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 Kerouac or knew him well . . .
(to be added to and modified as we go)
David Amram – composer & jazz bandleader
Cliff Anderson – author and Jack’s friend in St. Petersburg
Nikita Angelakos – Lowell resident
GJ Apostolakos – Lowell resident
Ken Babbs – original Bus-riding Merry Prankster – Intrepid Traveler – author
Tommy Belkakis – Lowell resident
Ron Bevirt – original Bus-riding Prankster photographer
Paul Blake Jr. – son of Jack’s sister Nin
Helen Bone – knew Jack in Rocky Mount, NC
Gary Boyle – Lowell resident
Bonnie Bremser – author and wife of Ray Bremser
Nancy Bump – Lowell resident
Cappy’s Copper Kettle owner – bar owner in Lowell
Caleb Carr – son of Lucien Carr
Ethan Carr – son of Lucien Carr
Francesca “Cessa” Von Hartz Carr – wife of Lucien Carr
Simon Carr – son of Lucien Carr
Cathy Cassady – daughter of Neal & Carolyn Cassady
Jami Cassady – daughter of Neal & Carolyn Cassady
John Allen Cassady – son of Neal & Carolyn Cassady
Phil Chaput – Lowell resident
Ann Charters – biographer
Anthony Countey – Northport neighbor, band manager, event producer
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 people. Jerry Seinfeld recounted this very subject from his last conversation with George Carlin — how neither of them ever really knew what was going to work until they put it in front of an audience.
Over the decade, a bit to my surprise, the five most popular stories on the site have been, in order —
The most popular piece just started as a list of a few names created after someone I knew said to childless me something like, “People who don’t have children have no value.” . . .
Oh yeah?
I’ve periodically returned to it over the years — like when a famous person’s obit mentions they had no kids — and it’s gradually grown to nearly 350 people you mighta heard of from philosophers to rock stars.
It’s now linked all over the internet, and I think it’s the top result if you Google the subject. There hasn’t been a day glo by in years that a bunch of people haven’t read it.
Funny thing is — it started out as a response to one person’s one comment — and now tens of thousands have read it! 🙂
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The Carolyn Cassady Tribute caused me to be contacted by the New York Times, the L.A. Times and all sorts of people. It was the first announcement on the interwebs that she had passed.
Her son John was living with her, thank goodness, when she fell ill on a Sunday night, and by Friday she was gone. John was sending out daily emails to about a half-dozen family members, of which I was gratefully considered one after spending so much time with both Carolyn and John. I guesstimated that her kids would be too caught up in what was happening to also be writing a tribute to her. And I loved that woman — despite us having our differences like any two people who love each other do. So, during that week, as the news was not improving, I started a tribute to her just in case, and thus was able to post it within an hour or two of receiving John’s final fateful email that Friday.
Levi Asher published it on his LitKicks website, and told me it’s also one of the top five most-read stories on his site.
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The Detroit Red Wings 2008 playoff lineup page — I have no idea what’s behind this post’s popularity. I mean, they were a GREAT team and all, and it’s a really well done detailed roster by position and everything, but jeez, I dunno why people keep coming to it. But they do. I think this story about sneaking on the Penguins’ bus is a much more fun hockey piece. 🙂
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The Henri Cru story’s popularity also blows my mind. I mean — how many people know who Henri Cru is? Well, apparently a lot. 🙂
Henri was a good friend of Jack Kerouac’s, and then became a good friend of mine — another of Jack’s old pals, like Carolyn and Frankie Edie Kerouac Parker, who I came to really love. As I say in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac describing Jack’s other friends I met at the historic Boulder ’82 On The Road summit — “There was this constant commonality among most of the people in ol’ JK’s life. Odd ducks. As a novelist, Jack magnetized to these people as fodder for his fiction.”
I first met Henri through Edie, who had been Henri’s girlfriend until he made the mistake of introducing her to Jack. 🙂
You know that TV show Hoarders? Well, way before we got to look inside those people’s homes and learn about the disease, there was Henri Cru. This was probably 1983 or ’84, and Edie and I had become friends, and she told me about Henri and how he was cleaning out his apartment at 116 MacDougal Street up above the Kettle of Fish and the old Gaslight Café. When I got there to help the first time, I met a guy out front who told me, “When we get upstairs, just remember, we’ve been hauling stuff out of there for three weekends now.”
When we got up to the fourth floor of the walk-up and opened the door, that was about all you could do. It was literally floor-to-ceiling stuff. One person (me) would climb up on top of it into a little maybe 18-inch high crawl space along the ceiling (!) and would pass stuff out to a waiting person back in the doorway as we hacked our way down through the glacier. It was like an archeological dig — including cuz we were looking for treasures, which he did have in there (like an unpublished manuscript by he and Kerouac, and a case of unopened Jack Daniels bottles from about 1963). I remember digging and digging, until we would uncover the top of a door frame. “Hey! I just found another room!”
Henri had recently lost half a leg to diabetes and had to move to a building with an elevator, which, when he first moved in, was as pristine and empty as any new apartment would be. By the time he died a few years later, it had come to look like MacDougal Street, but with a maze of poles crisscrossing the room like a spider web that he could hang stuff from.
At some point in the journey, Henri was turning 70, and wanted to do sumpthin special, and asked me to write a story about the night for him as a birthday present. I did this, and somehow it survived all the years since, and there must have been a digi copy that didn’t get lost in all the various crashes and program updates and obsolescence that plagued the early computer years, and back in 2010 I republished it (after it ran in a couple different Kerouac/Beat magazines).
“Feature my surprise” (as Henri would say) — of the 200+ stories on the site, that his birthday night would be the 4th most-read of all-time!
Plus, I like that it both captures an historic moment with Kesey’s Bus returning to Yasgur’s Farm for the first time since 1969, but also that it set in motion a series of events and friendships whose storylines are still being written.
I realize that visually it’s an old format, but ya’know? I hate it when websites change. You learn how one works . . . and then they change it. Well, my site’s been functioning the same way for 10 years now 🙂 just with a few more categories and a shit-ton more material. What the heck.
For all those who’ve been here before — I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride!
Al Franken is a great writer of our times. When you read even just the first chapter of this book — “Why I’m A Democrat” — it’ll make you wanna throw every one of his sanctimonious accusatory quasi-republican Democrats off a cliff — not under a bus, like they did him.
I really enjoyed his Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, and his equally precise Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, as well as Oh, The Things I Know!: A Guide to Success, or, Failing That, Happiness — and to my knowledge this is the first time he’s written anything resembling an autobiography.
Al was one of a small group first hired to launch a new experimental TV show called Saturday Night Live back in 1975, along with his comedy duo partner Tom Davis. And he was hired as a writer — which he expanded into multiple characters and books and screenplays by the time he left.
Maybe there’s somebody else who was a writer by profession when he was elected a United States Senator, but I can’t think of one.
Reading this made me realize Al Franken may be my favorite living writer. He is SO smart . . . and funny . . . still — in his mid-60s.
I’ve read several books on the creation and operation of SNL (including his partner Tom Davis’s great 39 Years of Short-Term Memory Loss), and now finally after all these books and years, we get Al’s take on it through three of the first chapters. It you haven’t read about what happened at 30 Rock, you’ll certainly learn a lot here. If you are well familiar with how that show works, you’ll love this take by one of their primary political writers, who for 15 years laid the foundation for the satire we’ve all been enjoying during the national nightmare of the last couple seasons.
But what no one has read is a clever professional writer’s account of a 57-year-old running for political office for the first time — and getting elected to the U.S. Senate by 312 votes (out of 3 million!)
If you thought you were a fighter — wait’ll you read the tale of a real warrior. Not only has this guy been on the front lines of every battle of our lifetime, he was still doing it up until the day Kirsten Gillibrand and a handful of other meanly-mouthed democrats stabbed him in the back over a rub on the backside.
Thank God he wrote this while he was still kicking ass and naming names in the Judiciary, Health, and Energy Committees, oftentimes being the most articulate and effective opposition on any given panel.
This book is SO well written … and I’m pretty particular about that kind of thing. You don’t hear me saying that very often. At times he sounds like Dave Barry with running jokes and faux officiality, and other times like Obama’s self-depreciating confessional honesty in Dreams From My Father. And if you liked Dylan’s Chronicles, it’s got shades of that, too.
All of it is crisp and “punched up” as he would say. It’s playful, elaborate, intricate, comedic word sculpting.
The book is funny, evolved, thoughtful, goofy, fast-paced, quirky, twisted — and it’s gonna make you love footnotes!
It’s the first book I’ve picked up that I couldn’t put down in ages.
It’s such a beautiful work of art, at times I was brought to tears — so grateful to be reading something so exquisitely done — at such a timely moment.
And it also works as an excellent primer for anyone not in politics to run for office. There’s a funny and smart (like everything in this book) description of his quandary about using humor or not in the course of his job. I mean, this guy is the Merry Prankster of politics, for sure. And he’s a Deadhead to boot! 😀 He even makes Congressional hearings and writing legislation funny!
The book also includes a beautiful touching you-won’t-forget-it tribute to the late great Paul Wellstone, the Minnesota Senator whose seat Al fought for and now holds, who died tragically in a small plane crash in 2002.
And there’s even a fast-paced and entertaining recap of our political times from Bill Clinton to Obama . . . and ultimately into the current nightmare we’re living.
For this reader, there may have been a smidge too much detail on the initial Coleman campaign in ’08 that first got him elected, but even that was funny, insightful, dramatic, sometimes nail-biting (re: the recount) and sometimes touching (re: his wife since college, Franni).
What we need in life — especially now — is inspiration. These are dark times. And there aren’t a whole lotta people shining a whole lotta light. Despite what the Democratic Party did to one of their own, his voice and vision are alive in print, and I assume he’s about to begin a whole 3rd Act in American public life.
He was a pinpoint precise observer and satirist of the political process before he ever became a functioning part of it. And this book proves (as do all of his, really) where his ethics and ethos lie.
He’s been playing the game and working the machine the last eight years — and now he’s unencumbered from holding his tongue — which he was never much good at anyway.
As much as we may like Colbert and Stewart and Kimmel and Meyers and SNL‘s comedic takes on the horrors of drumpf, there’s now a new force entering the public arena who may be able to inspire even more people to rise up — and how to go about it — than he was ever able to do as a sitting senator.
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My first attempt at a selfie — during the Repugnant Convention in Cleveland. 🙂
I’ve loved Van Gogh since the big Metropolitan Museum of Art show “Van Gogh in Arles” in 1984 and the “Saint-Remy and Auvers” show in 1986, and reading his Dear Theo book of letters to his brother around the same time. Those shows and that book changed my life by showing me first the dedication a serious artist has to his work, and what a body of work could look like, and secondly how it could change a room and a person’s life. Which was also connected to another artist I identified with, Jack Kerouac, who similarly created one vast body of work, that when taken in totality, is knee-buckling in its vastness and awe-inspiring in its beauty.
If you haven’t heard, this movie is largely hand-painted with oils in Van Gogh’s style.
It’s like the “Red Roses, Green Gold” musical I saw last month in New York with my same two Art Adventure-mates Sky and George Walker in that it takes existing works (songs in that case, paintings in this) and builds a story around them.
In Loving Vincent, they’ve tapped into a 2011 Van Gogh biography that explores whether he in fact committed suicide or perhaps it was something else. Whether that book and its conspiracy-theory propheteering nonsense contains a shred of fact is beside the point here — because it makes for a fun dramatic mystery that the narrative of the movie is based around.
I also likened this movie to On The Road — the 2012 adaptation of the Kerouac classic. When first seeing that movie, it was fun in that as each new scene would open, you’d realize, “Oh, it’s THAT scene,” and then settle in and enjoy the visual dramatization of some moment you’d only read on a page. Similarly, here we go from one Van Gogh masterpiece to another without any idea of what’s coming next.
If you’ve spent any time at all appreciating Van Gogh’s works — particularly his last years in Arles, Saint-Remy and Auvers — you’ll recognize every scene and work — which suddenly come to life. Crows leaping out of corn fields, trains chugging by in the distance, candle lights flickering their illumination, smoke wafting up in the face of colorful storytellers, and faces that were once static coming to life with voices and mannerisms we could only imagine while standing in a museum or flipping pages of an expensive art book.
The movie also uses flashbacks to convey the backstory, which are shot in live-action with actors, then run through a filter that makes them look like black-&-white/ sepia Van Goghs from his early “Potato Eaters” phase. [EDIT: see first comment below.] This has the effect of not only telling the story and giving faces to young Vincent and his brother Theo etc. but also gives the viewer a respite from the blazing colors of the moving canvases, not unlike the white walls of a museum give your eyes a rest before you move to the next eye-popping landscape or portrait.
The movie is sadly missing Madame Ginoux (one of whose portraits is on permanent display at the Met) but Dr. Gachet coming to life in brilliant blazing blue with facial expressions in oils to rival the most subtle actor is a cinematic explosion to rival Star Wars — except in Van Gogh’s explosive oils.
The fading transitions back & forth from the sepia to the full-color action makes you feel like the acid is just kicking in every time. Suddenly a black & white world is swirling in dizzying colors and people become moving paintings and colors appear where there were no colors before.
Artists like to control their work. They have visions and work hard to execute them exactly as they see them. That’s where discipline and practice and trial-&-error come into any effective artist’s work. And painters have the blessing of not having rote copyeditors or album “producers” or ego-maniacal studio heads messing with their work.
But once their bodies have stopped ticking and their hands stopped creating … the life’s work is done.
I think in 2017, a century after old Vinnie bit it in a wheat field with crows, he would be happy to see the “Loving” repurposing of his work in this way, just as I believe Jerry Garcia would get a kick out of his songs being reenvisioned as a musical, or Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady would appreciate how George Walker & I are bringing their words to life on a stage.
There are those rare artists in history who transcend their medium and their era to become something that is the world’s, that is bigger and even more transcendent than the works they first created. If you can create a painting that can become a movie, or songs that can tell a grand unified story, or create characters on a page that can become alive on a stage, you have left the world a rich fluid palette more valuable than any single “masterpiece.” Few artists create such lasting multi-medium works, but we are lucky to be living through a time when innovation and reflection allow us to experience some of the greatest works of the past in entirely new ways while still truly reflecting the original vision.
I like to think of Vincent, Jerry and Jack sitting back and rejoicing in a corner booth at a cafe/bar in heaven, looking from on high as us mortals still dab their wet palettes, still expand the songs they left behind, still bring their characters to life.
I think that’s what any artist wants to bestow to this world. Not just what they got finished before they checked out, but to know that all their hard work with accompanying depressions and addictions and rejections actually produced the inspiration for others to build upon their constructions.
Creating great somethings out of vast nothings is hard enough to generate appreciation in others. But when your work can become new work, you have become a Great Creator, a God, a deity of art, turned water into wine, paint into people, air into emotions, and hard work into eternity.
Hear ye! Hear ye! Behold — a re-imagining of the Hunter-Garcia songbook. New life. New arrangements. New band. New set. New stage. New story.
If you’d like a fresh way to approach Grateful Dead music — go to this show.
If you like the Dead and theater — go to this show.
If you like the Dead and musicals — go to this show.
If you’re not sure — go to this show.
Just as the Grateful Dead broke pretty much every rule there was in showbiz — their music and this production turns a New York theater show into a dancing concert. However long you’ve been going to the theater, you’ll be breaking the rules you’ve learned to live by. This isn’t hushed-in-your-seat passive theater going. This is a collaboration between band & audience, just like Grateful Dead shows were since their birth at the Acid Tests. You’re encouraged from the opening to sing along and get up and dance. Which, once one person breaks the ice, a Dead show breaks out. 🙂
By my count there were at least 17 classic Dead songs used to tell the tale of a kooky crazy saloon set sometime in the nebulous Old West. There’s a narrator — Jack Jones, the Doodah Man — who’s kinda like the Stage Manager in Our Town helping guide the audience through the Twelfth Night-like comedy of interconnected couples and conflicted love and bad intentions and double crossings — but really it’s all just a vehicle to reinvent Robert Hunter’s rich storytelling lyrics in a playful, funny, high-energy dramatization.
Original Merry Prankster George Walker and myself (and others) caught the third-ever staging of this (outside of rehearsals) and were lucky enough to talk to pretty much everyone involved from techies to the producer, from Jeff Chimenti the musical director to the on-stage stars, and there’s very much a feeling of the Grateful Dead themselves in their earliest days. The clay is still wet, the canvas not fully painted, and the arrangements still in organic growing glowing flux.
This is eight relatively unknown musician/actors who are sculpting something new out of something established and familiar. All of them are good, but Scott Wakefield is the father-figure both in the show, and probably off, and has a mid-career Rip Torn vibe with under-the-surface dangerous energy goin’ on. Debbie Christine Tjong as Bertha is a firecracker with a little of Shaky Willie’s Shrew and Kathy Griffin’s petite explosions. The mother–daughter characters played by Natalie Storrs and Maggie Hollinbeck do a touching show-stopping duet on Brokedown Palace. And Brian Russell Carey as the clueless comedic foil Dudley has the audience laughing out loud just about every time he opens his mouth. But the breakout to these eyes was Michael Viruet in the central character of Mick Jones — not unlike Berger in Hair, the bad guy / good guy, the Neal Cassady of this sidways adventure.
The choreography is positively playfully Twyla Tharp. And the set and prop design is someplace between M.C. Escher and Dr. Seuss, with a cameo by Bart Simpson on skateboard.
And the seconding of musicians is second to none. I don’t think one of them played less than five instruments all night. Besides the eight voices, a partial list I noticed included — a violin, acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, accordion, ukulele, upright bass, drums, upright saloon piano, electric guitar, electric bass, conga, cajon box, tambourine, chimes, cowbell, shakers, and a cello!
Besides all the full songs, there were a bunch of Deadly instrumental mood-setters sprinkled throughout, and no two were ever played by the same lineup. And if that ain’t turn-on-a-dime unexpected Grateful Dead, I don’t know what is.
The old-timey instrumentation reminded me of Phil Lesh’s recent collaboration with the String Cheese Incident — the original jugband / bluegrass music that Garcia & Hunter were born out of. Authentic. Timeless. Americana.
The costumes (especially the skeleton suit and Garcia’s American flag top hat detail) and broad staging is top-notch New York theater, but performed in a little one-block alleyway playhouse down in the Village, infused with that neighborhood’s spirit and grassroots organic non-uptown mindset. When I lived around the corner in the ’80s, I second-acted Balm In Gilead there about 15 times just to experience Laurie Metcalf’s 14 minute monologue. It’s as cool an Off-Broadway experience as you’re gonna have, on an ancient New York lane and street (both called Minetta) you might not even know exists, which also includes Serpico’s apartment from the movie.
Gratefully, this is not Cats or The Lion King — but more a Prankster Production — except with money and rehearsals and pros behind it.
What it is, is Fun.
Occasionally there’s a smidge too much exposition of a too convoluted plot that’s ultimately unimportant — cuz it’s the exuberant freshly-delivered songs and their productions and the joyous Spirit of the whole thing that you’re gonna take away from it.
Do it with friends. Make a night of it in the Village. And get the special dancing seats if you’re so inclined, wink wink.
Other than extreme purists who can’t listen to this music without Jerry, I can’t imagine a Deadhead walking out of this theater without a beaming Cheshire grin on their face. Cuz that’s all I saw all night.
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Bumping into some of the cast on the streets of Village
after they finished at the Minetta and
we finished our Jack & Neal show at The Bitter End.
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 paper so he didn’t have to stop writing every 11 inches . . .
Or no it all started when Neal Cassady came to New York, Christmastime 1946 . . .
Which really flips back to Denver’s Hal Chase coming to Columbia University and telling all his new soon-to-be-Beat writer friends about this catalytic conman he knew from Colorado . . .
Which waves back to Twain’s playful Huck or Shakespeare’s pranksterish Puck or eternity’s Irish luck . . .
But what I can tell you for sure is this — pretty much all the Merry Pranksters — from their Perry Lane / Stanford writers’ birthplace to the Bus-painting bohos of Ken Kesey’s house in La Honda — had read Jack Kerouac’s On The Road . . . before collectively taking their own Road trip with the real life Dean Moriarty hero of the book, Neal Cassady.
As Kesey used to say when asked how someone becomes a Prankster — “We just recognize each other.” And one of the traits — one of those recognizable admission requirements — was that you’d read On The Road.
As Kerouac & Grateful Dead scholar Dennis McNally opens the Cassady/Acid Test chapter in his definitive book on the Dead et al, A Long Strange Trip, “Neal Leon Cassady was ‘Dean Moriarty’ in On The Road, a fundamental document of the cultural odyssey that all the members of the Grateful Dead would travel.”
They had also all heard of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl because of the internationally reported on obscenity trial in 1957 that was extra prominent in the local West Coast newspapers, although not many of them had actually read the book, and none of them cited it as a breakthrough work for them. But it sure made everybody aware there was some chit goin on.
Nowadays there are over 50 Kerouac-written books in print, and gawd-knows how many biographies … and Allen books … and books by members of the Beat Generation who were never known of in the late ’50s and early ’60s. But back then there was really only one book.
It’s hard for us in the present to imagine a world with only one Beatles record — but effectively that’s what it was for pretty much all the original gelling Pranksters and Dead. It wasn’t “Beat” like we know it now — not a group show at the Whitney or de Young, or the latest hardcover collection, or multiple major motion pictures. It was one book. Even though by the early ’60s, The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, Big Sur and more were in print, not one of the living Pranksters has ever mentioned to me any one of them being read in their pre-Bus-trip years. It was an On The Road mindset that changed everything. It was a way people were beginning to think. “It wasn’t a club, it was a way of seeing,” as Prankster bandleader Jerry Garcia phrased what “Beat” meant to him.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
At this point this story goes very in-depth with quotes by Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Robert Hunter, Paul Krassner, Ken Babbs, Dennis McNally, Robert Stone, Sterling Lord and Paul Foster,
plus new interviews with Wavy Gravy, Mountain Girl, George Walker, Anonymous, Roy Sebern, Mary Microgram & Kesey biographer Robert Faggen —
One other connection that I have no proof of — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true — is that the central character in the central book of Kesey’s canon is the same central character in the central book of Kerouac’s canon. The Chief tells us Randle’s story, and Sal tells us Dean’s.
Knowing of Kesey’s association with Cassady, I assumed for years that Randle Patrick McMurphy in Cuckoo’s Nest was based on Cassady — until I found out it was written and published long before Neal ever showed up in Ken’s driveway on Perry Lane in 1963 — the reason for his unexpected arrival never disclosed to Kesey or anyone else, although Dennis McNally says of Cassady and that moment in A Long Strange Trip, “He’d read One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and felt a spiritual kinship with Randle Patrick McMurphy, and indeed there was a bond.”
McMurphy was a charismatic good-looking fast-talking Irish jailbird conman and master manipulator who had a way with women. He instigated road trips, and stole a boat for a joyride in place of a car. He had the gift of gab and unflinching confidence. He loved to play and goof and get away with whatever he could between the cracks. He sure seemed like Dean Moriarty in On The Road to me. “McMurphy” & “Moriarty” even sound alike. And not fer nuthin but Jack Nicholson coulda played both with manic aplomb. 🙂
Kesey told Faggen in the Paris Review interview, “The Irish names — Kesey, Cassady, McMurphy — were all together in my mind as well as a sense of Irish blarney. That’s part of the romantic naiveté of McMurphy. But McMurphy was born a long time before I met Neal Cassady. The character of McMurphy comes from Sunday matinees, from American Westerns. He’s Shane that rides into town, shoots the bad guys, and gets killed in the course of the movie.”
And indeed, both Cuckoo’s Nest and Road end on sad notes for their heroes. Or antiheroes. Yet their lives as recounted lifted them to legend.
And legend and myth are a big part of it. “It happened even if it isn’t true,” Kesey would say with his leprechaun twinkle. Or there’s his oft-quoted, “To hell with facts! We need stories!” Kerouac called his collected work “The Duluoz Legend” — unabashedly mythologizing and fictionalizing his real life. Playing with reality is both an author’s and a Prankster’s mission. As is having fun and Adventure — and capturing it. As is “tootling the multitudes” and practicing “first thought best thought.”
Kerouac wrote on an endless scroll. Kesey filmed an endless movie. Both were shaking up the conventions of America, which by 1964 was still not much different than 1954. The Beats were the blooming and the Pranksters the fruition. The Beats were the sprouts from the garden earth and the Pranksters the flowers that turned black & white to color and became something you could wear in your hair and turn round from square.
Kerouac captured the discovery of America by post-WWII modes and means . . . and the Pranksters turned it into a Bus with beans. Kerouac made literature fun … and the Pranksters made living funny. Kerouac opened up possibilities and the Pranksters closed the deal.
On The Road was the cardkey pocketbook you needed to pull out of your back pocket to get through the door of The Bus. Neal Cassady was the guy who drove Kerouac on the most important Road trip of his life, then did exactly the same for Kesey — in case anyone missed the obvious. Kerouac lived through and captured the birth of BeBop, and Kesey created the Acid Tests that birthed The Grateful Dead and the psychedelic revolution. Kerouac and Kesey are next to each other in most alphabetical lists of great 20th century authors — but they were also 1, 2 in a much bigger chronology. And so much of the world is still On The Road and On The Bus.
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Here’s the first time the book appeared before a microphone . . . unexpectedly at a small club show in Toronto just before the Fall On The Road 2017 tour began . . .
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
To find out about how this is all playing out in live shows and where you can see them — go here.
For The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac — go here or here.
For reaction to The Hitchhiker’s Guide … check out here, here and here.
For a Hitchhiker’s excerpt about first meeting Ken Kesey — go here.
George Walker & Brian Hassett first met in Boulder Colorado in July 1982 at the historic Jack Kerouac On The Road 25th Anniversary Conference — where Hassett ran the projector for their multimedia “Cassady” show — and then hung again the following month at Ken Kesey’s home in Pleasant Hill, Oregon.
Flash-forward to 2015 and Walker is given a copy of Hassett’s new The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac (about that very summit in Boulder!) and “read it cover-to-cover as soon as I got it – and loved every minute of it!”
This led Walker to read numerous other Beat and Prankster stories on Hassett’s website, prompting him to write, “I often wonder why I go on this damn thing [the internet] and then every once-in-a-while I find something like this!”
The following summer of 2016 they met up for the first time in 34 years on the tour for the “Going Furthur” film they both appear in.
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Walker was holding court with a half-dozen people behind the theater when Hassett first walked up after all these years, prompting him to blurt out to his crowd, “Now here’s somebody I look up to!”
An hour after they first saw each other again — already jammin deep
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Followed by a side “trip” to the Church of Sacred Mirrors (COSM)
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They next came together at the Merry Prankster / Twanger Plunker Family Reunion in May 2017 where Hassett opened the weekend festivities with a spoken word / theater performance, after which Walker said in bug-eyed amazement — “I’d never seen you on a stage before! That was unbelievable, man!”
That afternoon, hanging in their mutual friend Spirit’s motorhome,
Walker mentioned he could bring Neal to life real well, prompting Hassett to say, “Well, we should do something together. You read Neal and I’ll read Jack. We could do that ‘IT’ part from On The Road where they’re sitting in the backseat talking like crazy,” and Walker’s face was bouncing up and down, “Yes Yes Yes!”
The next day, 15 minutes before the show, Walker read that part of On The Road for the first time in 30 years . . . and was Neal from the opening line of a cold read-through.
He’d first spontaneously channeled his good friend Cassady back in 1973, reading him aloud at fellow Kesey/Cassady pal Ed McClanahan’s house, whereupon everyone stopped what they were doing and listened to their old friend appear in the room. Walker says he’s been trying to find a way to bring Cassady to life on a stage ever since.
Hassett has been performing Kerouac since at least 1994 when he started producing, hosting and performing in a series of Kerouac-inspired shows in Manhattan, L.A., Amsterdam, London, Toronto and elsewhere. Although duetting with countless others over decades of shows, he’s never had a stage partner until now.
The duo flourished because it was loving magic from the first moment they got near microphones.
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And since things had gone so well the first time, they did it again on the outdoor stage the next night.
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And since that had gone so well, and Hassett was already booked to do his “Beat Café” show at the world-famous Beat Museum in North Beach San Francisco on Friday June 2nd to kick off the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, that became the first Hassett–Walker full show.
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Which brought more people into The Beat Museum than any event they’ve ever put on in their history (other than a memorial for a fallen giant). And for the first time, the duo improvised on stage in character as Jack & Neal.
The show killed.
Here’s most of it on video. Part 1 — with Jerry Cimino’s intro, The Shindig Sutra, the poem intro to the “The Power of The Collective” from The Rolling Stone Book of The Beats, and excerpt from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Jack Kerouac, and the start of the “IT” section from On The Road . . . 😉
Here’s part 2 with the rest of the “IT” section duet, then Brian performs the bus trip chapter from Jack Kerouac’s Pic — only the second time it was ever performed anywhere — then George tells the story of the 1964 Bus trip across the country and about the last time Jack & Neal ever saw each other, at the Prankster party in Manhattan . . .
And here’s part 3 where Brian and George improv as Jack & Neal bumping into each other at The Beat Museum —> the Nebraska road section from On The Road . . .
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Walker, Hassett & Mountain Girl (Carolyn Garcia) in the Haight, June 2017
Hassett was also booked at the landmark Tsunami Books in hometown Prankster headquarters Eugene Oregon, which then became the second Hassett–Walker show.
Mountain Girl introduced the pair . . .
with her daughter Sunshine Kesey and Ken Babbs in the audience laughing and clapping, the show prompting Tsunami owner Scott Landfield to blurt out, “You just had that audience entranced for two hours. That doesn’t happen. You can’t do that with just spoken word.”
The show killed. Video to follow.
Which prompted the duo to book a Portland show, and with a week’s notice, packed the classic Kerouacian American roadhouse, The Rosebud Cafe, which turned out to be the real birth of the duo. For the first time, in a venue far far away, they both found their voice and rhythm on a whole ‘nuthur level.
The show killed. Video to follow.
Which segued into the climax of the West Coast Summer of Love Tour in the home of the very first Acid Test — Santa Cruz.
Hassett, Roy Sebern, Walker, John & Jami Cassady, Angela Chesnut
And they were joined by Neal & Carolyn’s only son John Allen Cassady . . .
Gate 403 — Sun. Oct. 1st 7PM — Brian solo sneak-peak show with Trevor Cape & The Field (403 Roncesvalles) — Toronto, Ont., Canada
Lowell Celebrates Kerouac — Sat. Oct. 7th — 2 shows — 12:30 George & Brian / Jack & Neal duet at Jack’s old Pollard Library (401 Merrimack St.) — and 4PM Brian Hassett’s Road Show at The Old Worthen (141 Worthen St.) — Lowell, Mass. — admission: Free
Lowell Celebrates Kerouac — Sun. Oct. 8th — 1:30 — the Amram Jam — upstairs at The Old Worthen (141 Worthen St.) — Lowell, Mass. — admission: Free
The Bitter End — Sun. Oct. 15th — Doors 4:00 – Show 4:20–7:30PM — 147 Bleecker St., Greenwich Village, New York City — including special guests Gerd Stern, Levi Asher, Aaron Howard, Toronto’s Trevor Cape, and Tico Chango the 3D UV visual artist — admission: Free
The Woodstock Mothership — Sun. Oct 22nd — 7PM — (6 Hillcrest Ave.) — Woodstock, N.Y. — plus the great Beat poet Andy Clausen – admission: Free
The Colony — Mon. Oct. 23rd — 8PM — (22 Rock City Road) — Woodstock, N.Y.
Harmony Music Wok & Roll — Tues. Oct 24th — 8PM — (52 Mill Hill Rd.) — Woodstock, N.Y. — admission: Free
Keystone Harvest Test — Sat. Oct. 28th (4:20PM) and Sun. Oct 29th (3PM) — (The Homestead — 1230 Beaver Run Dr.) — Lehighton, PA — admission: $45 — tickets available here
Junction City Music Hall— Fri. Nov 3rd — 8PM — (2907 Dundas St. West) — Toronto, Ont., Canada — with Trevor Cape & The Field — admission: $10
Friday Oct 6th — 12:30PM — “Jack & Neal Ride Again” — at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac — at the Pollard Library – 401 Merrimack St. — Lowell, Mass.
Sunday Oct 8th — 6:00–9:00PM — “Jack on Film Take 2” — Lowell Celebrates Kerouac — The Luna Theater – Mill Number 5 – 520 Jackson St. — Lowell Mass.
Thursday Oct 12th — 7:00–10:30PM — “Jack & Neal Ride Again” — followed by a jazz trio — Berlin in NYC — 25 Avenue A — Manhattan
Friday the 13th — Prankster Acid Test in Manhattan featuring George Walker, Brian Hassett and The Mighty Manatees Band from Pennsylvania — show details coming soon
Wednesday Oct 18th or Thurs the 19th — 7:00–10:00PM — “Jack & Neal Ride Again” – likely including Will Hodgson and some Manatees — The Dharma Bums tavern — New Hope, PA
Friday Oct 20th — Pennsylvania Acid Test — private location in the Worcester area
Friday Oct 27th — Toronto Beats & Prankster Acid Test — PENDING
= = = = = WEST COAST – SUMMER OF LOVE TOUR – 2017 = = = = =
3. Brian Hassett’s Beat Cafe — The Beat Museum, San Francisco, CA — Fri. June 2nd, 2017
Jerry Cimino intro
Brian: Shindig Sutra excerpt
Brian: Rolling Stone Book of The Beats — The Power of The Collective poem
Brian: “The Prankster Address” (for M.G.) Brian: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac— start of San Francisco chapter (27)
Duo: On The Road — “IT” passage
Brian: Kerouac’s Pic — Bus / Road chapter
George: Story of the final Jack-Neal meeting in New York in 1964 —>
George reading excerpt from his Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind about Jerry Garcia & Neal Cassady on the road
Duo: improv on Jack & Neal bumping into each other at The Beat Museum —> the “Nebraska” road trip passage from On The Road (debut) Brian: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac— climax of San Francisco chapter
4. Kerouac & Cassady Ride Again — Tsunami Books, Eugene, Oregon — Sat. June 17th, 2017
Mountain Girl intro
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
George: Trouble Ahead Trouble Behind — ending (debut)
Brian: Hitchhiker’s Guide — ending – arriving at Kesey’s (ch. 28-29)
Duo: On The Road – “Hinkle’s Party” (debut)
George: storytelling
Brian: Hitchhiker’s Guide — Babbs’s house —> Kesey’s Bus (ch. 30)
Duo: improv —> “Nebraska” from On The Road
George: Spit In The Ocean Kesey tribute — buying the first Bus story
Brian: Hitchhiker’s Guide climax & ending poem (ch. 31-32)
Duo: improv —> Kerouac’s “Hearing Shearing” —> On The Road – “Driving South” from New York (debut)
5. The Walker Estate, Scappoose, Oregon — Wed. June 28th, 2017
Duo: On The Road “IT” — with Lee Taylor on tenor sax
Brian solo: Be The Invincible Spirit You Are (debut)
6. Rosebud Cafe, outside Portland, Oregon — Thurs. June 29th, 2017
Albert Kaufman intro
Duo: On The Road “IT” — with Lee Taylor on tenor sax
Brian: Hitchhiker’s Guide— how it began (ch. 1)
George: Trouble Ahead Trouble Behind
Brian: Al Hinkle–Neal trapeze circus story —>
Duo: On The Road — “Hinkle’s Party”
Brian: Hitchhiker’s Guide— in Oregon & On The Road (ch. 2)
George: “Poem For Neal” (debut)
Duo: improv —> OTR “Nebraska”
7. Radius Gallery, The Tannery Arts Center, Santa Cruz — Mon., July 3rd, 2017
John Leopold intro
Duo: On The Road – “IT”
Brian: Hitchhiker’s Guideexcerpt, Carolyn/Jan/Edie (ch. 21)
George: Trouble Ahead — opening
Duo: On The Road — “Hinkle’s Party”
Jami Cassady: Off The Road excerpt
George: Trouble Ahead — ending
Duo: improv —> On The Road — “Nebraska”
John Cassady: two pieces from his Visions of Neal chapbook
Brian: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac — Neal Cassady tribute by Grateful Dead members (ch. 13)
Duo: improv —> OTR – “Driving South”
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= = = = = NORTHEAST – FALL 2017 TOUR = = = = =
Unannounced Pre-Tour Pop-Up Show — Grateful Sunday with Trevor Cape & The Field — Gate 403 Club — Toronto,Canada — Sun. Oct. 1st, 2017
Trevor Cape intro
Brian with Trevor Cape & The Field: How The Beats Begat the Pranksters — opening & closing (debut)
Brian with Trevor Cape & The Field: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac — On The Kesey Bus
8. Lowell Celebrates Kerouac — Walker & Hassett Present Kerouac & Cassady — Pollard Library, Lowell — Sat. Oct. 7th, 2017
Steve Edington intro
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
Duo: On The Road — “Let’s Go To Italy” (debut)
Duo: The ’64 Party in New York — Jack & Neal’s last time together (debut)
Duo: On The Road — “Hinkle’s Party”
Duo: On The Road — “Mexico” (debut)
Duo: On The Road — “Chicago Jazz” (debut)
Duo: On The Road — improv —> “Nebraska”
Duo: On The Road — “Driving South”
10. Lowell Celebrates Kerouac — The Amram Jam — The Old Worthen, Lowell Mass — Sun. Oct. 8th, 2017
Brian — with David Amram Quartet (Kevin Twigg, Rene Hart, Adam Amram): The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac — “Song Of The Road I Sing” (ch. 32) How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — “Be The Invincible Spirit You Are” (ch. 14)
George — with Amram Quartet: “Poem For Neal” —> Kazoo – Jazz – Jam
11. Kerouac & Cassady Ride Again — The Bitter End, NYC — Sun. Oct. 15h, 2017
Brian: Beats Begat Pranksters — opening & closing
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
Brian: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac — Abbie Hoffman–Gregory Corso Showdown
Duo: On The Road — “Road North” (debut)
Duo: On The Road — “Driving NYC to North Carolina and back” (debut)
Brian: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — “Be The Invincible Spirit You Are”
Aaron Howard, with Ghost Lee Pat: “Safari”
Duo: On The Road — “New Orleans”
Levi Asher / Marc Stein: “Fisherman’s Wharf”
Duo: On The Road — improv —> “Nebraska”
Gerd Stern & George Walker: The Joan Anderson Letter, Neal Cassady, The Beats & The Pranksters
Duo: On The Road — improv —> “Chicago Jazz”
Duo: On The Road — “Hinkle’s Party”
Duo: On The Road — “Driving South”
Trevor Cape & The Field — musical climax — The Other One (with George Walker on Axe-o-phone) —> Road Trip —> Uncle John’s Band —> The Golden Road To Unlimited Devotion —> Not Fade Away
12. The Mothership, Woodstock, NY — Sun. Oct. 22nd, 2017
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
Duo: On The Road — “Nebraska”
Duo: On The Road — “Chicago Jazz”
Brian: How TheBeats Begat The Pranksters — opening & closing
Duo: On The Road — “Road North”
Andy Clausen: “My Name’s Neal Cassady, What’s Yours?”
George: Beats Begat Pranksters — meeting Neal
George: “Poem For Neal”
Duo: On The Road — “New Orleans”
Duo: On The Road — “Hinkle’s Party”
13. The Colony, Woodstock NY — Mon. Oct. 23rd, 2107
Duo: On The Road — “New Orleans”
14. Harmony Wok & Roll, Woodstock, NY — Tues. Oct. 24th, 2107
Mike Platsky intro
Duo: On The Road — “Driving South”
Duo: On The Road — “Road North”
Duo: On The Road — “Driving NYC to North Carolina and back”
Brian: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac — First Arriving at Kesey’s Bus (ch. 30)
George: Truncated Trouble — (from Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind) — debut of new performance version
15. The Keystone Harvest Test, Lehighton, PA — Sat. Oct. 28th, 2017
Uncle Joe intro
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
Duo: On The Road — “New Orleans”
Duo: The ’64 Party in Manhattan — Jack & Neal’s last time together, including accounts by Allen Ginsberg, Ken Babbs & Ken Kesey
Brian: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — opening & closing
George: Truncated Trouble — (from Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind)
Duo: improv as Jack & Neal —> On The Road — “Nebraska”
Duo: On The Road — “Hinkle’s Party”
The Keystone Harvest Acid Test on video — part 1 — “IT,” “New Orleans,” the ’64 Party in Manhattan, How The Beats Begat The Pranksters
The Keystone Test — part 2 — George’s Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind, “Nebraska,” and “Hinkle’s Party” . . .
16. The Keystone Harvest Test, Lehighton, PA — Sun. Oct. 29th, 2017
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
Duo: On The Road — “Road North”
Brian: Kerouac on Record — “The Grateful Dead: Jack Manifested As Music”
George: Neal Cassady August ’48 letter on spirituality
George: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — First Meeting Neal
Duo: On The Road — “Chicago Jazz”
Duo: On The Road — “Driving South”
Brian: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — Be The Invincible Spirit You Are
17. Kerouac & Cassady Ride Again — Junction City Music Hall, Toronto Canada — Fri. Nov. 3rd, 2017
Trevor Cape intro
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
Duo: On The Road — “Driving NYC to North Carolina and back”
George: Truncated Trouble — (from “Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind”)
Brian: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — opening & closing
Duo: On The Road — “Nebraska”
Duo: On The Road — “Chicago Jazz”
Brian: Kerouac on Record — “The Grateful Dead: Jack Manifested As Music”
George: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — First Meeting Neal
Duo: On The Road — “New Orleans”
Duo: On The Road — “Hinkle’s Party”
Brian: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — Be The Invincible Spirit You Are
encore:
Duo: On The Road — “Driving South” — with Trevor Cape & The Field (debut of duo with a rock band)
18. Kerouac & Cassady Ride Again — Iroquois Ridge Public Library, Oakville, Ontario — Thurs. Nov. 9th, 2017
Justine Gerrior intro
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
Duo: On The Road — “Road North”
Brian: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — opening & closing
George: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters — First Meeting Neal
Q & A — “Do you see the Prankster / Beat scene alive today?”
Duo: On The Road — “Driving NYC to North Carolina and back”
Q & A — “Did Neal talk about Jack?”
Duo: On The Road — “Chicago Jazz” (debut of amalgamated version)
19. The Bloomington Writers’ Guild Presents “The Brian Hassett Road Show” — The Blockhouse Bar, Bloomington Indiana — Thurs. May 16th, 2019
Duo: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
Duo: On The Road — “Road North”
20. The Merry Pranksters / Twanger Plunkers Family Reunion — Wonderland, Bloomington Indiana — Friday May 17th, 2019
Opening Ceremonies:
Duo: On The Road — “New Orleans”
Duo: On The Road — “Chicago Jazz”
21. The Merry Pranksters / Twanger Plunkers Family Reunion — Wonderland, Bloomington Indiana — Saturday May 18th, 2019 Kerouac & Cassady Ride Again:
Brett Chamberlain intro
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
Duo: On The Road — “Hinkle’s Party”
Duo: On The Road — “Go To Italy”
Duo: On The Road — “Nebraska”
Duo: On The Road — “Road North”
Duo: On The Road — “Driving South”
22. A Beat Prankster Party — with George Walker & John Cassady — The Beat Museum — San Francisco, CA — Thursday, June 20th, 2019
Jerry Cimino introduction
Brian: On The Road with Cassadys — “The Scroll Auction”
George & Brian: On The Road – “IT”
George & Brian: On The Road – “Road North”
George & Brian: On The Road – “Driving South”
George Walker: tells Neal story
Jerry Cimino: “America” by Allen Ginsberg
Brian on Al Hinkle
George Walker, Brian Hassett & Niko Van Dyke: On The Road – “Hinkle’s Party”
John Cassady — Neal by the bus stop story; the Go-Kart Story; Midget car races
Brian & John: growing pot; Neal couldn’t fix anything; Amsterdam; High Times parties; Anne Frank House; Rembrandt’s house
Brian: On The Road with Cassadys – “The Queen & The White Knight”
John on going back to 29 Russell St.
Brian: On The Road with Cassadys – intro tribute to John
Brian & George: The ’64 Party
George’s birthday — “Happy Birthday” to George
George on Neal’s last birthday (Feb. 8th, 1967)
Brian: Holy Cats! Dream-Catching at Woodstock – climax
source: video review
23. The Beatniks Coffee House, Chico, California Wed. July 3rd, 2019
Brian & George — On The Road — Road North
Here’s the little 6-minute clip of it on Facebook video —
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24. The Rosebud Cafe, Scappoose (Portland), Oregon, Tuesday, July 9th, 2019
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
George: Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind — the abbreviated poetry version
Duo: On The Road — “Chicago Jazz”
Brian: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters – with a cameo by George on the Perry Lane part
Benzedrine inhaler / Al Hinkle stories
Duo: On The Road — “Road North”
Duo: The birth of the full “’64 Party” piece, beginning with George & Kesey’s ’63 drive across the country
Brian: On The Road with Cassadys — “I Knew / Not Knew Neal Namaste”
“The Grateful Dead: Jack Manifested As Music”
Duo: On The Road — “New Orleans”
Brian: Holy Cats! Dream-Catching at Woodstock — climax
Here’s the full show — thanks to the mighty Simon Babbs —
25. Outside Kesey’s Furthur Bus, Oregon Country Fair, Veneta, OR, Saturday, July 13th, 2019
26. Quiet Camp Stage, Oregon Country Fair, Veneta, OR, Saturday July 13th, 2019
Duo: On The Road – IT
Duo: On The Road – Chicago Jazz
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27. Beatniks Coffee House & Espresso Joint, Chico, California, Tuesday, June 16th, 2019
Great intro by Randy Turley
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
George: Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind — abbreviated poetry version
Duo: On The Road — “Road North”
Brian: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters – with a cameo by George on the Neal showing up on Perry Lane part
Dedicated to Cathy Cassady who was seeing her first show —
Brian: On The Road with Cassadys — Carolyn Haiku; and I Knew / Not Knew Neal Namaste
Duo: improv riffing — the ’63 drive —> the ’64 Party
Dedicated to the painter Philippo LoGrande —
George: improv storytelling about Neal in Mexico
Duo: On The Road — “Mexico”
Duo: On The Road — “On The Road with Memere”
Brian: Holy Cats! Dream-Catching at Woodstock — climax
29. Kerouac, Cassady, Kesey & Company, Beyond Baroque, Los Angeles, CA, Sunday, July 21st, 2019
Richard Modiano intro
Duo: On The Road — “IT”
George: Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind – abbreviated poetry version
Duo: On The Road – “Road North”
Brian: How The Beats Begat The Pranksters – with cameo by George on the Perry Lane part
Duo: On The Road – “Driving South”
Brian: Holy Cats! Dream-Catching at Woodstock — climax
World Premiere of – “The Pranksters Drive to The Beat Party” – with S.A. Griffin and a cast of contemporary Pranksters
Here’s the full show from the audience handheld liv stream on Facebook by Lonnie Coulter . . .
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30. MeloMelo Kava Bar, Santa Cruz, CA, Friday, July 26th, 2019
Brian: The Prankster Address
Duo: On The Road – “IT”
Duo: On The Road – “Hinkle’s Party”
George: solo storytelling about ’63 New York trip
Duo: On The Road – “Go To Italy”
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31. The Pranksters’ original stage under the Redwoods in back of Kesey’s famous house in La Honda, CA, Monday, July 29th, 2019
Brian: The Prankster Address – from the front porch (video to follow)
Duo: On The Road – “Driving South”
Duo: On The Road – “Chicago Jazz”
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George Walker
George Walker —
a natural storyteller and author of Trouble Ahead Trouble Behind about a fantasy road trip with Jerry Garcia and the ghost of Neal Cassady, and a contributor to the all-star All About Kesey tribute, Walker was there the day Ken bought the original Bus, and became its chief mechanic, as well as one of its drivers along with Neal Cassady on the legendary 1964 trip across America chronicled in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. An active participant in all the early Tests — the puddle The Grateful Dead were born out of — he became one of Cassady’s closest friends through the last years of his life, including taking several road trips to Mexico and elsewhere together. Although his ironic Prankster name was Hardly Visible, he was just the opposite, remaining intricately involved in every Prankster production and Bus trip over the decades, including The Cassady Show; playing the Tin Man in Twister; at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1997; on the Where’s Merlin? tour through the U.K. in 1999; as well as staring in and helping create both the original Prankster movies, The Merry Band of Pranksters Look For A Kool Place and North To Madhattan, and being the live touring Prankster face of the 2016 Going Furthur documentary.
George on teaming up with Brian —
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Here’s a cool interview on Facebook from December 2017 where between roughly the 33 and 44 minute marks George talks about our on stage partnership and new book . . .
For a great movie featuring lots of George Walker, check out Alex Gibney’s masterpiece “Magic Trip” about the legendary 1964 Bus trip across America . . .
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Here’s where Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir talk about George on Tom Snyder’s The Tomorrow Show when he took a Grateful Dead flag and scampered up the Great Pyramid to plant it at its peak during the band’s trip there in ’78 —
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And here’s George as the flag model 🙂 . . . then the actual pyramid-climbing flag-planting escapade captured on a handheld 8mm by the Dead’s dentist pal —
George Walker: “I saw the flag pole up there. We’d actually climbed up it two or three times already. We were young and athletic then. I asked Jerry [Garcia] if he had a Dead flag we could hoist up there. And he opened up his guitar case and had this flag in there with his guitar. He handed it to me, and I never let it out of my hands until we climbed up and flew it. The top pole was really slippery and I had to get help getting up the last part.”
And here he is joyously riffing the story of how The Bus came to be . . . at the Kesey memorial at the San Francisco Library . . .
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Brian Hassett —
author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac about the historic 1982 Kerouac summit, and contributor to The Rolling Stone Book of The Beats and the upcoming Kerouac On Record, Hassett first began producing multi-band multimedia Acid Tests in 1977. He continued in show production, touring with Yes in 1979, and working in the office with Bill Graham putting together The Rolling Stones tour in 1981. He produced the concerts at NYU in Greenwich Village for many years, including a massive Acid Test with Country Joe, Rick Danko, Paul Butterfield & the Joshua Light Show in 1982, which actually won him the Programmer of The Year at the university. He became close friends with Edie Kerouac (Jack’s first wife), Henri Cru (Remi Boncoeur in On The Road), and Carolyn Cassady (the love of both Jack & Neal’s life). He inducted Kerouac into The Counterculture Hall of Fame in Amsterdam, and co-inducted Neal Cassady along with Carolyn and John Cassady. He produced and hosted the 50th anniversary of Kerouac writing On The Road shows in April 2001 in both New York and L.A. (along with S.A. Griffin), as well as numerous Kerouac-themed shows in New York & elsewhere in the 1990s and early 2000s. He’s been a fixture at the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac festival the last several years, and regularly opens the Prankster Family Reunion each summer.
Here’s a Tribute to Neal Cassady put together by Hassett featuring David Amram, Wavy Gravy, and Pranksters George Walker, Ken Babbs, Mary Microgram and Anonymous —
Here’s Hassett’s tribute to his friend Carolyn Cassady, the longtime wife of Neal —
Here’s Hassett with Kerouac’s principal musical collaborator David Amram and his trio doing a written and musical portrayal of each of the Beat primary writers — excerpt from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac —
