Your book is a page turner of improbable adventures and characters — one crazy one after another. The writing is high spirited and matches the unlikeliness of it all!!!
Enjoying it immensely.
Teri McLuhan – author, filmmaker and Marshall’s daughter
Congratulations on a book that has continuing liveliness.
What an exceptional conference and a dear pleasure to have had the opportunity to talk with those people.
A bunch of my friends now know about your book. A terrific fertile read. So alive.
It brought back lots of memories including my own introduction to On the Road.
Your book is an exquisite piece of literary history made so by your absolute engagement and your eye. I figured I would like it — but I fell in love — beginning with “Meeting Your Heroes 101.” Beautiful portraits. Brought back my first glimpse and experience hearing Herbert Huncke. As you wrote, he was so nice. Actually nice squared.
Something that will stay permanently in my mind is your description of Babbs at home with his engaged children. Pure inspiration.
And I want to thank you for something that tickled me — when you referred to me as a radio alchemist. Lovely fun.
It appears that you have made a wonderful and fertile life for yourself. And well earned.
Len Barron – Colorado radio & theater legend
YOUR BOOK IS FUCKING GREAT!!!
I was reading your recent Lowell post … or was it somewhere else … and noticed the land record clocked in at 3½ hours …. shit man … I could’ve smashed that record if I didn’t want to savor the moment. I limited myself to a chapter … or two … a night … and had a bit of postpartum upon completion.
Where is the video from your Shindig presentation on this??? I was shooting Richard Meltzer at the time and missed it. [edit: Here’s the Shindig vid. 😉 ]
Anyway … where was I … oh yeah that Lowell post … fucking ace!!! I keep saying one of these years I’ll get there and that has to stop. But the timing is bad for me … the harvest calls … tho perhaps next year is the year.
I went down to L.A. a couple of weeks ago for the Bob Kaufman film. Spent the afternoon with S.A. Griffinand I was telling him a few of my tales from the recent months, and he then says that you and me are kindred spirits and our stories are equally as mad to live and talk and it reminded me I needed to write and tell you about your book.
Keep going furthur!
Tate Swindell — record producer & filmmaker
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With Levi Asher, Jami Cassady & Walter Raubicheck performing “The Professor in The Park” section at the Kettle of Fish in Greenwich Village, June 14, 2016.
Merry Prankster George Walker’s intro at the Family Reunion, Saturday, May 6th, 2017 —
“Alright Pranksters, listen up. Welcome to the Beat Cafe.
Why ‘Beat’ you might ask. Well, all this Prankster stuff that we’re doing, that seems to endure for decade after decade, it all began with the Beats, with Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and all their friends, and all their strange intuitive literary works that endure to this day. In the spirit of that, were the Merry Pranksters, beginning in the ’60s, with Neal Cassady joining with Kesey and me and the rest of the Pranksters, there was a flow of energy that was continuous, and it continued on year after year, as it does to this day.
I remember a time, 1982, Kesey & I & Babbs drove Kesey’s old beat-up green Pontiac convertible all the way from Pleasant Hill, Oregon, to Boulder, Colorado, to a place called Naropa which is an institute studying Buddhism and the Beats’ influence and things of that sort. It was for a conference held on the 25th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac’s famous incredible novel On The Road. And we were there to take part in this as we’d in some way inherited the mantle, as it were, of this movement, this literary and psychic ongoing freeing event that we were all participating in.
We got there late, of course, as we almost always did. The fact that we got there at all was somewhat amazing in that beat-up old car. We didn’t quite make it home. I think we had to finally tow it a little bit, or at least it was howling and dripping oil — I know cuz the week after we got back I had to go to the nearest junk yard and get a whole rear end out of a Cadillac and put that into the Pontiac so he could keep driving it! But that’s not the point.
The point was that while we were there we met a man — a young man, who although young in years was broad in mind and clear of vision. So clear of vision, that he hitchhiked all the way from Vancouver, Canada — about 500 miles furthur than we had come — and of course it had only taken him about two hours more time to get there hitchhiking than we did driving non-stop straight through.
Brian Hassett is that man. And Brian, over the years, has taken that experience and has made it his life’s work to continue to present to us all of the insights of the Beats and the Pranksters and all the history, all the important things, that came out of that and have been perpetuated by the incredible vision, the incredible energy, of Brian Hassett, who is now one of our prime spokesmen, and we are so fortunate to have him with us here today.”
I luv your book! 😀
Sandy Troy — author of “Captain Trips: A Biography of Jerry Garcia“
I’ve just finished Brian’s book, and I highly recommend it. Even though I was there for the entire conference and did many interviews with those same greats in attendance, the more than three decades since have led me to forget much of what happened, so Brian’s book really jogged my memory. I don’t think a more definitive account of that time exists! Thanks for writing this, Brian. I’m betting it will be required reading in the future for people studying the Beats and this conference.
I just finished this most excellent book and must say Brian really nailed it. I was at the same event, reporting on it for a newspaper and wire service, and our paths must have crossed many times during that magical gig. Brian writes with an obvious love of his subjects — and because I was interviewing and photographing the same great people — I can assure you he captures the excitement of the event, and the living essence of a group of people we were honored to be around. The Beats are just about all gone now, but you’ll definitely feel like you know them a little better after reading this Hitchhiker’s Guide. He writes with a youthful excitement, and he didn’t get anything wrong.
It was a pleasure reading this because after more than 30 years, I’d forgotten so much about the event. It was a magical time, and while reading Brian’s book, it was almost like we were seeing this once-in-a-lifetime production through the same set of eyes!
It’s a great read and you will find out a million things about Jack, Allen, Gregory, and all the other Beats you didn’t know. My hat’s off to Brian for a superb job!
Lance Gurwell — journalist / photographer
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Your beautiful book just arrived and I’m already reading it. It’s great. What a valuable document. And I love all the photos. You were a real doll back then. I bet Allen didn’t give you a moment’s peace.
This is great reportage and prose — really smartly written. Very concise yet vivid. It really takes you there. You’ve got a real ear for dialog and eye for detail.
Raymond Foye — Beat chronicler and historian
Dawn is a huge fan of yours and loves The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac — and so do I! — and she uses it as her inspiration to bring Jack to new generations!
Thanks for loving him like we do!
Howard Neville — Kerouac sculptor
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Reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide with David Amram & Kevin Twigg at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac, Oct. 9, 2016.
Congratulations! I loved the book! It’s so … You! Could not have been written by anyone else, and surely no one else would have had that kind of adventure. So many wild moments.
It’s a truly fantastic tale! Honestly. The hitchhiking — the journey you went on — the fact you were invited back to Kesey’s place. And how you went out to see the International Harvester. It’s all so great.
I read it in one go — 3 or 4 hours straight through while on vacation. It was perfect.
Brother Tom was my favorite character in the book. I loved how you met him! And then going to stay in his house but he’s not there. Sad he died so young.
I loved the whole thing about Kesey and Kerouac being on the same bookshelf and all those other similarities. And all the Beat / rock n roll connections. And it was cool to read Neal Cassady’s offspring’s intro.
I didn’t know about Kerouac being so out of fashion in 1982. By the mid-’80s when I was in university his star had started to rise again by that point. I guess this conference was sort of the beginning of the resurgence. It really makes me want to read more Kerouac besides On The Road.
Barnaby Marshall — music executive and web designer
Brian Hassett’s book “The Hitchhikers Guide to Jack Kerouac” is the best new reflection on the Beats in the last 25 years! It’s a wonderful place to start for anyone knowing a bit about rock n roll and not so much about literature. It explains (better than anywhere I have found) how Jack Kerouac and other Beats influenced the culture that has become our world!
I have learned so much in the process. This book hascontributed so much to making Jack & company real to so many who are following in the footsteps without fully knowing.
Dale “Gubba” Topham — Merry Prankster
I’m really enjoying your book! The way you write is so fun! I feel like you’re telling me the story the way you would if we were face-to-face and I love that. It makes for a speedy read!
When someone asks Ken Kesey if he has any regrets and he says not being with his father at the end — I’m so glad you included that. My parents mean the world to me, but a reminder is always good. I especially love it because this whole “no regrets” notion is part of the free spirit ideal, but I just never agreed with that fully. Regret is a natural feeling, it seems to be you can’t choose to regret or not regret something any more than you choose who you love. I like feeling regret when I make a bad choice. I think that feeling is the most motivating to change. So, thanks for adding that.
I’m having so much fun reading your book right now and it’s so cool that the author is just a message away. ♥
Eliza Goehl — student of Bernie, Beats & Bob
This is the best book I’ve read in a long time. Cant wait for the next one. Thanks for writing your story.
My girlfriend was asking me for a good book to read tonight, so I handed her my copy and she’s had her nose buried in it without a word for hours!
She got to “the professor in the park with a knife” chapter and started laughing … haha.
Can’t wait for our next gig. I still to this day get asked who that guy rapping Kerouac with us was. 🙂
Sunny Days — musician in Still Hand String Band
I finished the book last night — very fun. I wanted to read it in small doses — not just race through. I still haven’t read all the “Dessert” at the end because I want to let it soak in.
One thing that hit me was that it was an interesting juxtaposition of a story when you were 21 and all those insights you had then, but also filtered through the mind of someone writing about it 30 years later with all the experiences and wisdom you’d picked up over that time.
Here’s a review I wrote . . .
I can think of two types of people who would love this book — those that are big Beat Generation fans, and those that want to learn about the Beat Generation.
The author, Brian Hassett, has his own On The Road adventures and relates them in a freewheeling, psychedelic style reminiscent of the times. You can hear the soundtrack by the Grateful Dead emanating from the pages.
Bitten by the Kerouac bug at an early age, the author makes his way to the event that is the centerpiece of the book, a Jack Kerouac conference in Boulder in 1982. He’s the New Kid in Town, and not only meets many of his heroes, but is immediately accepted as a friend and peer. Although a young man at the time, he already had many experiences and was not exactly a wide-eyed innocent.
What makes the book most appealing is that it was written more than 30 years later so is filtered through the prism of a mature man who has lived through many adventures and gained wisdom along the way. The book covers a lot of ground both literally and figuratively.
There’s portraits and anecdotes of the famous and less-than-famous, multi-talented and somewhat talented, poets, writers, musicians, filmmakers, big hearted souls who open their doors and lives to every hitchhiker, trips to Kesey’s farm, San Francisco, and points in between, the intersection of the Beat and hippie cultures to name but a few landmarks. It’s a fun and revealing book and proves the road goes ever furthur.
Marc Spilka — Cassady family friend
This book is such a great read. So many elements put together so well. Serious and fun, with the perspective of time. Fantastic.
Jeanne Masanz – Jack fan from the Heart land
Just finished reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac … It was like saying goodbye to an old friend.
If you’re suffering from the winter blahs, pick up this book … it will put a huge smile on your face.
I’ve read almost everything written by the Beats … was a member of LitKicks for a long while … although I am not a writer, I loved to read the articles on the site … and from there I saw Brian’s book on the web. Had to have it. It’s the trip I always wanted to make … still might do it one day. Thanks for writing this story ….
Pierre Bouchard — the French Connection
It was a blast hearing you read the book in person at the Kettle of Fish. I’ve been reading it ever since and am enjoying the hell out of it!
I’m happily inching my way thru it — it’s so full of new info, great quotes, things to ponder, and your enthusiastic, unpretentious, COMPLETELY FELT and therefore insightful take on things literary and worldly. Thanks for writing this!
Bryan Lurie — working musician in New York City
Inside The Kettle of Fish, New York, June 14, 2016.
Fuckin’ awesome, Bri!! Nic & I are taking turns reading the book aloud in bed.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Yer killin us ….. we’re crying reading the Abbie–Gregory showdown. 🙂
We both agree this is the best book about the Beats we’ve ever read — and we have shelves full.
We’re halfway through and don’t want it to end. It is so fun and funny and soooo informative.
You are a natural.
That you capture these illustrious Beat pioneers in spirit as well as physical appearance — firsthand by being there — is beyond important.
The descriptions of Kesey & Babbs are killer! We ordered a copy today to send to Diane D.
Oh and because you spoke so admiringly of John Clellon Holmes, we’re now re-reading “Go” which we both read years ago, but were not impressed. You make such a good point about how “Go” allows one a different perspective on the Beat characters Kerouac introduces to us. And we both dug how Holmes had a writing workshop in a small classroom and had about only 25 people!
Here’s the Amazon review we just left . . .
The greatest book about the Beats that I’ve read in some time and I have a library full of the Beats and about the Beats. A 21 year old Canadian pilgrim/narrator/writer takes us with him to the Jack Kerouac Conference in Boulder, Colorado (July 23 to August 1, 1982), hitchhiking all the way from Portland, Oregon (where he’s arrived by bus from Vancouver). A more upbeat, intrepid traveler/narrator would be difficult to imagine.
His on the road is one ‘Pee Wee’s Great Adventure’ from inception to the Kerouac Conference and beyond to the Kens’, Kesey and Babbs, manors in Oregon. Brian standing in the dark by the side of the road with his cardboard sign. Brian sharing weed with a trucker who picks him up. Brian sitting next to Huncke on a porch. Brian at the Red Rocks Grateful Dead Concert high on Brother Tom’s acid groovin’ to the Dead at the Rocks. Brian recording his rolling and rollicking accounts of the events. The interlopers Timothy Leary/Abbie Hoffman/Ken Kesey ’60s participants and the ’50s original Beats, the entire then living pantheon, all come to life in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide‘. Gregory Corso hurling insults at Abbie Hoffman, who’s onstage winning over the audience there to honor Kerouac. Carolyn Cassady, Joyce Johnson, and Edie Parker, Anne Waldman, Diane diPrima — the great Beat broads … they are all present speaking in their own voices thanks to Brian’s omnivorous capacity to welcome it all in with wonderment and acceptance and delight, and thanks also to the small tape recorder he carried with him on the road.
The book has many photos and facsimiles of Brian’s hitchhiking notes, posters, and Beat ephemera. It’s an exciting, vivid read right to the very end, where you learn about where they are now and what those still living are up to. I’ve yakked on enough here. Get this book and begin at the beginning: watch Brian kiss Carolyn Cassady’s hand, visit Furthur as if it’s a person …. There’s no putting it down. You’re with one helluva great inkslinging hitcher armed with laughter and serious scholarship.
Sloy & Nic — two lifelong Jackster Beats
Everybody needs to know the name Brian Hassett — an amazing writer and public speaker.
The Fabulous Fab — P.A. Merry Prankster
Can’t say it enough … this book is GREAT!! Soooooo good!! Loved every minute of it!!
If you are a Kerouac fan or a Kesey fan or a fan of the Dead you will definitely enjoy this book. The author takes you on his wild ride to the Kerouac conference of ’82 where he hangs with practically all of the great writers of the Beat Generation as well as members of the Dead and Pranksters.
I bought this book a few weeks ago but saved it till I was on a bus heading to NYC. It was a great read to fuel my journey and has set my soul ablaze. The author carries the Beat torch forward lighting the way for future writers, artists, and Pranksters.
Aside from Kerouac I have never read a book so inspiring to keep myself going on the road or on the bus towards experiencing life to the fullest.
Jason Pacheco — longtime Massachusetts Jackster
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Everybody loves your book, Brian. It’s fucking great!!!!!
It has to blow your mind that one of the first things that people do is equate you with your subject. Bet you didn’t see that one coming!
I read things like “Brian doesn’t just write about Beat writers — Brian is a Beat writer.”
You have much to be pleased about. You have done some amazing things and put a wonderful piece of work into the world that will serve not only the legacy of those you so admire, but it has also placed you among them.
Few writers have ever accomplished this feat.
I am really not surprised though. When speaking with you at Yasgur’s farm, I was immediately impressed by the way you recall details.
I remember exactly where I had that realization. It was in Sherry and Rick’s RV and you were talking about places you had lived and the people you lived with. Your ability to put me in the rooms of these people’s houses convinced me then & there that you had what it takes to be a great writer.
Paired with your enthusiasm for the subject and quick wit — how could this not be a hit? Added to that is my sense that the timing could not be more perfect in my mind. I just knew you had lightning in a bottle.
The Wizard of Wonder — Merry Prankster supreme
Started Hitchhikers finally. So damn good. The writing is superb. It will be an inspiration for years to come.
J.H. Mendenhall — West Coast Beat
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I am loving Brian Hassett’s book! This freeform style of writing is so interesting to read because you not only get the story from it, but you can actually pick up on the thought patterns of the author after a couple pages.
Everyone talks about how Kerouac’s writing always came alive when he would write about music. He could write about it so well you could almost hear it just from his words on the page.
Brian is that way when writing about authors and poets. Every time he talks about a lecture or reading he heard that he really enjoyed, or a poem he loves etc., his writing comes alive in that same way — the passion jumps right off the page. And the passion is so strong that it’s contagious. Writing about music well is hard — but I’d imagine it’s even harder to write about writing and still keep it interesting …. I am really quite impressed!
David Stewart — Vancouver Deadhead of cinema
Brian Hassetts book is a valuable resource on the meanings behind the myths of the Beats as well as a voice keeping the flame alive.
Luther Parris — Kesey sculptor and lifelong Beat
This book is great!
I just completely melted at the end of chapter 4.
You’ve certainly followed the Light, my brother. So inspiring.
This is like crack!
How you kept this journey to yourself so long is unreal!
I can’t quit turning the pages… ahhhhh!
Lyndsi Bennett – Indiana Prankster
Enjoying this book — it’s a real good read. You captured it.
I had no idea Sam & Ann Charters were an item. Re: Winnipeg, I thought your “show me state” thing was hilarious. (page 286)
I love the bouncing between the historical connections and your own experiences. So well done.
Jim Robbins — Toronto musician and lawyer
I finished your book this weekend. I really enjoyed it. I could hear you. Thanks. I’m better now!
I missed a lot of the event this past weekend because I didn’t want to leave my book. Ha!
I laid there (in the van) and read the whole thing — dyslexic and finished a book in a few days! Means the world that the font and flow was so easy to retain. I felt there. Man, what a time!
Sky — Deep South Prankster
I very much enjoyed the conversational style and evident enthusiasm and humor.
I could relate to so much of what you wrote because I grew up in Marin in the ’70s — lived or Sonoma County for 40+ years — and I love Kesey, the Beats, Jerry and the crew, and had quite a few contacts (I lived on Shakedown Street — at the Bermuda Palms !) with Lesh & Jerry back in the day, and have met some of the surviving Beats — including Carolyn Cassady, Al Hinkle and Michael McClure. I’ve collected Beat lit for about 30 years. I’m a huge Lew Welch fan. I think the Catholic Church should canonize K — he’s already “beatified.”
Here’s a review I wrote —
This is an exciting and interesting trip across the country with a natural-born raconteur. Brian Hassett’s book on the historic 1982 Jack Kerouac Conference in Boulder is funny, insightful and informative. I thought I was a Beat aficionado but Brian’s book exposed me to all kinds of new and interesting links to Kerouac’s influence throughout the music and publishing worlds. Written with verve and zest, Brian’s breezy style is funny and conversational. His enthusiasm and love of his subjects is clearly evident.
Howard McFarland — California Beat
Just finished reading Brian Hassett’s new book ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac‘ — and I really highly recommend it! Really loved it …. fantastic job.
Really enjoyable to read … especially the style of writing! It felt like I was there on the journey with him!
Swee Lee Gorman — British Beat
Your book was great, providing a wonderful chronicle of what has become a springboard event in the Kerouac “revival.” My brother is reading it now.
Since I read it I know a little more about water.
I like the effect of the red neon on the cover. It gives your hair even more glow of the reddish-brown “Irish” tint you had.
Nice you got to see Abbie Hoffman before he passed. One of a kind and so energetic.
Roger Cant — in an old-school hand-written snail-mail fan-mail from a Massachusetts Beat
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This is a fun book! I’m at the part where the Grateful Dead are playing Red Rocks. I love all of the stories and the fun way it’s written. It’s probably one of the best collections of stories about the Beats themselves ever written. I’m excited to see what you write next, Mr. Hassett.
Albert Kaufman — New Yorker in Portlandia
This book is incredibly exciting to read. Not just the literature and it being one of the most interesting reads in a very long time, but the large font made it so easy to breeze right through. We read it on the road between Oklahoma and Illinois in a 1959 VW Bus and highly recommend it.
Peter & Sky — Merry Pranksters at large
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Hey Brian, your Hobbit here wanting to let you know I loved, loved, loved your book. You inspired me in so many ways. Will be buying it and reading it again if & when it’s available on Kindle. I’m working on finding used copies of the books about the women as well. Thanks so much for writing this!
Hobbit
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Hobbit — it’s now out on Kindle — which also means all the 60+ photos are in full color. 🙂
But in retrospect there were some early warning signs I’d rationalized and dismissed: The tollbooth clerk I had a happy election exchange with but when asked who she was voting for answered, “I don’t tell people that.” Or the random middle-aged poor guy in the New York deli who volunteered, “I like Trump. That guy tells it like it is.” Or the two women in the Democratic heart of NBC’s Democracy Plaza wearing “Trumplican” t-shirts. Or the young cool-looking hippie-rebel dudes outside Trump Tower spending their days holding up pro-Trump signs. Or when I left my Beat buddy’s apartment in Brooklyn in full Democratic regalia on election day, not one person responding positively — so unlike walking the New York streets in Obama gear in ’08. Or when I was leaving the Port Authority Bus Terminal for the Hillary victory party at the Javits Center some construction worker type guy said as I past, “I pray to god you fuckin’ die.”
Another sign was when I asked a Clinton campaign worker in the afternoon about the evening’s planned fireworks over the Hudson and he told me they were TBD. Then around 8:00 I was talking to a high-level security coordinator straight outta Scorsese Casting and he told me they’d been canceled.
It still didn’t dawn on me.
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Just to set the scene — it was glorious. I got to the Javits about 3:00 — and by 5:30 was outside with thousands of fellow Democrats at a block party on closed-off 11th Avenue next to the glass-ceilinged building.
Oh and a funny thing — during my pre-scout the day before, when I saw how small the main room was inside the Javits and learned there would be a big outdoor party scene, I also noted how there were no seats or benches out there. So when we were inside the airplane-hanger-like holding pen . . .
I spotted a woman pushing a cart stacked with folding chairs, buttonholed her, asked if I could have one, and managed to talk her into it! “Okay, but don’t tell anyone where you got it.” So now I was the only guy in a crowd of thousands with a chair! Then when we went thru security, I folded it up and carried it with me! When we were going out the door to 11th Avenue and I still had it, a cluster of cops were looking at me and the only woman in the bunch said, “Hey you can’t take that outside.” And I said, “Yeah I can — they gave it to me to use.” Ha! 😀
So now I’m outside with the one & only chair on the avenue!
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Another funny thing was, the party space was this long rectangle — 4 or 5 blocks of 11th Avenue — and the first of us to arrive went to the stage that was about 7/8ths of the way down. It was positioned sideways towards the camera risers on the sidewalk, so there was only a small area in front it — which was of course immediately sardined. But those of us who arrived first went to the little area just beyond it that very few people seemed to know was there and we had all this whole space to ourselves — oddly right next to the reporter’s pen.
I went straight to the boom camera operators . . .
and told them how I needed the chair, and they let me fold it up and put over their barricade whenever I wasn’t using it.
I could see the images from the boom cameraman’s monitor that the crowd was just subways-at-rush-hour packed all the way north from the stage. But those of us who broke on through to the other side coulda played frisbee back there! You can see a picture of me in the open space in this Norwegian national news service story.
Then it hit me — this very Javits Center is where I first raised my hand and became an American citizen!
As the oath was being administered.
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And now a woman was becoming President in the very place where my mother’s dream for me came true — and where her dream of woman’s equality was finally shattering the last glass ceiling!
At 7:00 they turned on the giant two-sided movie-theater-size screen that faced both up and down the avenue — and suddenly we collectively had a news feed with blaring audio. They started with CNN, and every 10 or 15 minutes would flip between that and NBC, ABC or CBS. So it was kind of like being at home except some omnipotent hand was holding the remote control.
It was around this time my old Prankster friend Lucy popped in and beautifully colored the evening from here on out — including psychedelic perspective and big-picture grounding much later when the storyline changed.
Prior to election night, with the polls looking good, I was so convinced Hillary’d win 322–216 . . .
(end of the day I only got 5 out of 53 wrong)
I drove nine hours to be at the party. I only qualified my optimism by saying, “I’ll feel better when I start to see the first actual numbers come in around 7 or 8:00.” And of course that’s precisely when things started to look less than positive.
And oh yeah — when I was talkin to one of them describing the contrast to when Obama won, I worked in “that was a whole night of strangers stopping strangers just to shake their hand.” Just sprinkling a little Grateful Dead magic into the election night media ether. 😀
“Democracy isn’t something you have, it’s something you do,” as the great folk hero Granny D put it. Politics is not a spectator sport. And just as I was active and visible in person and online throughout the year of the primary and months of the general, election day & night is not a time to be bland and blend in but rather dress up and rise up.
And talking to the hard working journalists of all stripes from all over the world who were out there racing against deadlines to get the story I thought about the ridiculous “mainstream media” haters from donald trump to the Berners who parrot the meme that everyone who’s a reporter is part of some grand imaginary global conspiracy. Many of the press haters are the same people who consider themselves too “smart” to vote for Hillary Clinton or think that “it’s all rigged.” But of course most of them have never been in the presence of a Congressperson or working journalist in their lives — yet they know everything about the profession — and sound a lot like the guy not named Hillary running for President.
And here we were surrounded by them — from print to television to web-based, from 20-somethings to septuagenarians, from New Jersey to China, from the time I arrived until the time I left around 1AM — all working their butts off to capture the moment.
Unknown journalist working hard on his story at 1AM
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Another of the early warning signs that things weren’t going well came around 9:00 when the first reporter asked me how I was holding up considering what was happening. “Why — what’s happening?” I thought. I didn’t know the depth of the bad news, so I improvised an answer about Democratic-leaning precincts not reporting yet, but could tell by her reaction that she knew I was grasping — and I knew she was onto something.
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And another crazy part of the night was — the few people who got inside Javits figured they had the catbird seat. But the funny thing was — nobody including Hillary ever spoke to the crowd in there — and all the people who made appearances at the event did so at our little stage outside (!) which was broadcast onto the giant screens both inside and out. And being in the secret little enclave just past the stage, I was about 10 or 20 feet from all of them all night.
Katy Perry
Gold Star father Khirz Khan
Senator Chuck Schumer
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Governor Andrew Cuomo
Mayor Bill de Blasio
Mothers of victims of violence (police and otherwise)
But even without us knowing the final outcome like I think some of the speakers already did, there was a distinctly perceptible inauthenticity in their voice as they said, “We’re going to win!” to flag-waving cheers.
Luckily I saw Lucy again around 10 o’clock, making that twice tonight, and she was blazing in my head clearly.
The information on the big screen was trickling in piecemeal. The newsdesk projections were regularly overridden by the speakers on the stage, and the hard numbers on the bottom of the screen were often blocked out by the closed-captioning, and I choose to Adventure without the internet, so it was hard to read the trajectory. But the numbers I managed to catch were not taking the upward turn they needed to be. Suddenly we were seeing 95% of Florida counted and Hillary was still behind by a bunch. Same in North Carolina. And PA. All the states that I figured Trump would win, had already been called. But all the Hillary states were still “too close to call” … and she was behind in most of them. There would be CNN’s dramatic drumroll signaling a projection coming and I’d stop answering some journalist’s question to listen … and it was … Connecticut! A state that’s usually called at about 8:01 for the Democrats wasn’t being “won” until 10 or 11 at night. And Florida was still about 100,000 votes in the wrong direction. And Virginia still wasn’t locked up! And Trump had broken 200 electoral votes and Hillary was still lingering at about 109 or something.
“This isn’t happening.” “This can’t be happening.” “There’s just no way.” — as the numbers on the screen continued to not add up. “It’s just not possible.” But the crowd had quieted down. In fact, it was actually thinning out. “This isn’t good.”
The environmental journalist from Grist I’d been talking to was absolutely ashen. Others along his fence line were calling out for me to come talk to them — wanting the raw grieving parent quote. I shook my head silently “no” and kept my face away from them — and went instead to my buddy Manuel from Switzerland who I’d met in line about eight hours earlier. He was solemn but sanguine — no horse in the race. But he was a calm familiar face and became something of a grounding touchstone.
I finally embarked on a recon mission around the site at 11:30 or 12 — for the first time braving the sardine crowd. But by now there was a single narrow one-body-wide path along the outer rail where a person could just squeeze through the football-field-length crowd stretching up the Avenue — and then it was open space to 40th Street, which was blocked off by dump-trucks to keep the bad-guys out . . .
same as we saw in Cleveland during the Repugnant convention —
I stopped at the porta-potties for a much-needed jazz cigarette break that was supposed to be the celebratory cigar after the victory but was now medicinally deployed. “I gotta change my way of thinking, make myself a different set of rules,” Dylan started singing in my head. And just as I stepped out of the door a ways down the row, cops were beginning a sweep search of the johns starting at the far end! I felt like the guy stepping out of the Port-O-San in the Woodstock movie. “Outta sight, man!”
By the time I headed back through the crowd, the narrow squeeze-through path had grown wide enough to walk your dog. There’d been a steady flow of sad-faced souls streaming from the polls to the exit. When they’d passed over this same pavement in the opposite direction hours earlier they were in the opposite mood — from a celebratory birth day to a grieving funeral in a few hours.
When I got back to my grounding chair and Swiss brother and tried to grasp reality, I felt like Mia Farrow in unscreamable horror in Rosemary’s Baby. “This is really happening!”
Then one of the TV commentators said, “This is one of the biggest upsets in American political history.”
Yeah, . . . see . . . that didn’t help.
The crowd was thinning by the minute. What was once 4 or 5,000 people, was down to less than a thousand. Sometimes the big screen news channel would momentarily cut to the Trump event at the Hilton uptown and they were all partying like we were supposed to be — chanting, “Call Florida! Call Florida!” They were loud and crazy — and we were subdued and cold. “This ain’t right.” Having seen Victory Parties from both sides many times, I knew how this movie was gonna end.
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Now what?
I sat in that chair for a long time unable to come up with any place in New York I wanted to be right now. I had no krewe anywhere. In fact, the only person I knew who was On The Beat was my Beat brother formerly known as Levi Asher … who was already getting on a train home.
And that’s just what I thought of doing. Getting the puck back to Canada. This town was already not feeling friendly before tonight kicked in. Now it’s gonna get downright ugly. And I looked ridiculous. This was gonna be one helluva “walk of shame” home tonight — with a top hat and 97 buttons for the losing team. And there was nowhere to go. But home.
Trump was at 244. A state or two away from crossing the 270 victory line. Some people on both the screen and in person were saying there was still a chance. I didn’t wanna walk out of the moment and miss the greatest comeback in history. I’d wander to the exit starting to leave … then, “Holy shit — it’s not over.” “Yeah … get out of here … this isn’t happening.” “You’ll regret it the rest of your life if you leave and she comes back and wins.” “The streets were really ugly already and I need to get off them before the hounds are unleashed.” … back & forth until finally I split. And Manuel sent me off with, “You deserve your beer now,” knowing my Canadian soul had been pining all night.
Some girl from some internet news station in China stopped me just outside the gates for one last interview. I agreed to a couple of questions, and while I was answering, one of these same guido construction worker guys like who prayed I died earlier, stopped behind her and glared at me with his arms flexing and his eyes bugging out like he wanted to punch the shit out of me right now. And as he lingered in red-eyed seething hate . . . I keep riffing for my life to the good people of China. “It’s pronounced ‘Gina.'”
I’d only reached the borderline of the outside world — and this fist-clenching goombah was what it had already become.
Then it was out into the darkness of Port Authority Hell’s Kitchen where the street lights are still blown out like it’s the 1970s — with nothing but scary nuthin-left-to-lose street people lurking in nightmarish midnight shadows. And I’m all velvet tails and Gatsby top hat with 97 buttons that say “mark”!
It was like leaving a Dead show in some strange city — where all night you’re surrounded by people like your offbeat crazy colorful self . . . and then wander into some ever-darkening streets that ain’t like the world you’re coming from at all.
And this is New York. This is my town. This is my home. And it’s gone. First it was that rabid rat Giuliani — whose nickname in town was “Saddam Hussein.” Then Joe Bruno ending rent control. Then the complete corporate Disneyfication of the whole city. And now the redneck racists have won the championship. They don’t have to be polite to niggers or faggots no more. “It’s clobbering time,” The Things were saying.
And then right at this bizarre point … well, as I answered the cool Newsday reporter Emily Ngo’s question if I thought this result would happen, I said something like, “No. … I’m not religious … but there’s something,” and I looked up into the low lit-up clouds above Manhattan. “There’s something. And whatever it is, I didn’t think it would let this happen. There’s just no way.” And she was nodding and so getting it.
Whatever that thing is — he or she or it took the wheel at this point and I just went along for the crazy ride:
A split-second before swiping my card at the subway to head back to artist Aaron Howard’s studio I heard a cop inside the station tell someone the A/C/E lines weren’t running. So now I had to walk from 8th Avenue right through the madness of Times Square to get to the 6th Avenue lines. And I’m decked head-to-toe in losing Democrats — walking into “the crossroads of the world” where donald drumpf was now the proud flag-bearer of fuck-you.
But halfway there, this young blond-haired Swedish couple came walking towards me under the bright lights of 42nd Street — he wearing a blazing brand new blue Lundqvist Rangers jersey — and as I smiled he said, “They tell everyone this is ‘the city that never sleeps’ — but everything is closed!” And he’s right. New York is now a cartoon of its former self and just sucks. But I’m still a New Yorker, and we take pride in our city, and don’t want anyone to not have a good time, so suddenly it’s my mission to do right by my Swedish Beat brother Johan Soderlund, and for all the great Swedish hockey players, and that admirable recycling-leading socialist-leaning country whose whole vibe and color scheme I love, so I escort them to O’Lunney’s, the very first bar I ever looked into the window of in New York City — but this involved walking through the packed throngs of madness in Times Square, which is ABC’s headquarters, where they’ve built an outdoor studio for the night . . .
Crowdless photo from day before
and it’s just packed . . . with very dark energy . . . and I think of what this was like at this same time 8 years ago . . . and MAN is it different! If not for the Swedish couple I never would have seen the contrast between Times Square when it was like the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup versus now with George Wallace realizing his segregationist dream.
Continuing to 6th Avenue I looked in car windows and saw women blankly staring in stunned shock. “This isn’t good.” Walking south down dark 6th looking for a deli beer to merge with my coffee cup prop, some guidos — and don’t get me wrong, I love Italians, and was effectively happily married to one for six years — but there’s a whole ugly side to that culture that was coming out on election day in spades, as I’m sure they’d love to phrase it. And as I walked down the shadowy Avenue in the abandoned 30s a few of them got out of an SUV and were eyeing me with this vicious “I wanna fuckin kill you” look on their faces.
Once on the subway — take 2 — the train somehow skipped 14th Street where I needed to transfer and suddenly I was at West 4th — my home stop for my first seven years in Manhattan. For some reason I’d been transported to my old home base. “Why are the Fates putting me here?” I was happily headed to Aaron’s and maybe the highway an hour ago. And now two different transportation alterations brought me home.
Greenwich Village post-trump. At least I knew I was safe in heaven alive (to riff on that great Village-mate, Kerouac).
Of course I went straight to the Kettle of Fish, but for once it was not a happy place. Even the owner’s home state of Wisconsin hadn’t gone our way. And it also wasn’t a political hotbed like it had been when Norman Mailer ran for mayor and used its former incarnation The Lion’s Head as his campaign headquarters.
So I continued back into the streets — where people were in shock. We just looked at each other and made the tiniest gestures of acknowledgement. As another Beat brother Tim Moran observed the next day — there was a silence on the streets not heard here since 9/12. Or as another New Yorker put it — 9/11 – 11/9.
I thought of the night the Mets won the World Series in ’86 when I hosted a huge party right there on Washington Square North and how we poured into these same streets full of dancing screaming singing joy as I was supposed to be in right now. But tonight tumbleweeds and depression were blowing down Fifth Avenue.
When I finally got to the L train platform, a 20-something German girl was sitting on the stairs staring into the distance freaking out. When the train came, a middle-aged woman was crying uncontrollably. When we got to the next stop, two different groups of young politically-centric people got on — and immediately merged into one. When they saw me pouring another Heineken into a coffee cup, they toasted me and offered brandy from a flask.
And at the end of the car … two homeless people slept.
Whateverthehell happened tonight … you’re probably sleeping in a better bed than a subway car. As bad as you think things are, you’re alive, you have people who love you, and a million blessings all around you, and you’re functioning, and can make a difference.
You can still be kind to strangers, you can still do the work you were put here to do, you can still be “a warrior” as Ken Kesey called us fighters, and you can still be part of the solution.
Van Gogh didn’t topple a government, Abbie Hoffman didn’t die in vain, John Lennon never remained silent, and neither should you.
This is the only shot each of us is going to get on this run, so may as well leave the bleachers, and Get Things Done.
If you wanna ditch the darkness and dance in the sun, I’ll see you on the field where it’s way more fun.
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 member.
You’ll hear a hundred different stories
all by people beaming in front of you
radiating energy;
coming from England or Germany or France or Canada
or Indiana or Kansas or Florida or Texas
because of On The Road or Maggie Cassidy or Dr. Sax
because of Walt Whitman or America or Dr. Thompson
because of wanderlust or adventure or a Doctoral thesis.
There’s all the guided firsthand tours you wanna ride,
and historians and scholars next to you wherever you roam,
and playful people off the clock just riffin in the beauty of all the assembled happiness.
There’s nonstop jamming and goofing and hugging interaction.
And there’s a million places to go — both on maps and not.
Dr. Sax’s woods
the Merrimack’s banks
the cobblestone streets and brick building labyrinths.
And all the local Lowell Jacksters come out from their hidings —
for the weekend they can let their freak flag fly.
And everybody’s got stories.
And you hear Jack lines you’ve read play back in your head,
as you walk with a krewe of your new best friends
from one scene to another
in places you’ve only imagined
and some you haven’t even!
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And it goes on for days … and days …
From the setting sunlit Worthen afternoon of Thursday —
leading into the epic “bar crawl” of Jack’s joints that climaxes at Cappy’s with David Amram riffin’ Pull My Daisy . . .
Until homeboy Bill Walsh’s final walking tour on Monday thru the secret lairs of Pawtucketville
which weaves back into our Worthen clubhouse
where the worthy who made it all the way
hoist and toast until the jam is done.
It’s Jack in the now.
Not in books.
Not online.
In person.
In front of you.
Right now.
Live it
or
lose it.
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========================================= .
Here’s a playlist of “Brian Hassett’s Road Show” at The Old Worthen Tavern . . .
Every year the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival is five blissfully crazy days of non-stop events from early morning to late night — from David Amram performances and other concerts to movie screenings and art shows to walking and bus tours to guest speakers and Jack pub crawls — and there’s not much time to get off the Beaten path.
So when I finally checked out of the Motel Six Gallery on Tuesday, Destination One was the one sacred site I’d yet to commune with this year — Jack’s gravesite.
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I got there at high noon and didn’t leave until after the gorgeous orange sunset behind the blazing orange trees of a beautiful shorts-&-T-shirt New England October day.
The first thing I do whenever I get there is clean the heck outta the joint — cigarette butts, bottle caps, empty booze bottles, all the obvious garbage. But this visit, since I spent all day there, I went crazy to the point of even chipping out little dime-size pieces of broken glass and other detritus from the peaceful October Earth.
And then — there were all these long grass blades and dead weed stems harshing Jack’s mellow stone. And preferring not to rip life out of the ground, I suddenly remembered I had scissors in the car! The Manitoba farmer in me bloomed back to life, and next thing I know I’m down on my hands-&-knees meticulously snipping unruly blades and errant stems one-by-one with paper scissors.
Being there six hours, if you know anything about pruning, you know new stuff keeps appearing even after you’ve been looking at it for hours. Which I did. And by the end of the day I was back down on my knees with a little baby twig scooping out tiny white pebbles the size of a half a grain of rice from inside the carved letters leaving nothing but the beaming memorial in the breathing earth Jack is resting in in his Golden Eternity.
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But the satori of it all came from having the entire day to hang without anything on the schedule — unlike every day for the last several months. Intentional nothingness. No plans for how to spend the day — and that was the openness I occupied and embraced.
The pacing. The time. The writing. The time. The Being There. Time. The no-one-else Alone-Time. The composing on the laptop on the hood of the Blue Bomber looking Jack-way Time.
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Riffing with no one but God and Jack and the technicolor trees of old Lowell in October of the Railroad Earth . . . pacing the millennia . . . reflecting on the mania of LCK just wrapped — an arc from the Worthen opening Thursday to the Worthen closing wrap party Monday.
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Oh, and I brought Jack a cup of coffee! 😀
People are always bringing and leaving booze bottles — which is okay, because it did give him “ecstasy of mind” as he described it. But it was also what killed him.
As he wrote in a letter to his best friend Neal Cassady immediately upon finishing the famous scroll version of On The Road — “I wrote that book on COFFEE . . . remember said rule. Benny, tea, anything I know none as good as coffee for real mental power kicks. Remember! COFFEE! (try it, please).”
The white (Sal) Paradise Diner cup was courtesy of the Wizard of Wonder — the senior Merry Prankster of the beatitudes who made it here all the way from heartland Indiana — thanks to coast-hopping Beat bro Philip Thomas who I first met at the Beat Shindig in North Beach last year. Oh and we asked the son of the owner who was working at the diner and he confirmed it was always called the Paradise at least as far back as the 1930s, so this could have been at least one of the reasons Jack had the word in his head when naming his character in On The Road.
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But the real satori of the day came from flipping between the sacred silent solitude and the steady stream of the devoted and searching who continued to fall in, all fall day long.
They ranged from 20 to 75 years old — from lifelong Jack readers to bright-eyed students just discovering him — from dreadlocked Berners to bearded Thoreauians — from middle class couples to traveling vagabonds.
Apparently there’s a woman professor in town who’s teaching Jack in a couple different courses at the community college here. And she’s got her students so fired up they’re making pilgrimages to the sacred site on their free time — at about the same age I made mine to Boulder in 1982. (!) And all day long I was the greeter at the shrine — welcoming them, reading Jack aloud for some of them, telling them backstories, and directing them to other local sites. I should get a piece of the action at the Worthen I tell ya!
Over the six hours, there was rarely a 15 minute stretch where I was alone. But I’d take advantage of each one — pacing and thinking and talking and riffing and writing and soaking in the extended solitude moments and finding peace in the open-ended day at a sacred spot. And that’s what it takes to find inner peace — timelessness. Nowhere to be but right here right now. Forever.
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Oh and a P.S. to the story — apparently the students I met told their teacher about me and the next day they played my Carolyn Cassady tribute video in their class! 😀
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Or here’s the performance on Sunday with David Amram and Kevin Twigg upstairs at The Old Worthen . . .
Thirty years ago I remember saying to my Beat brothers at the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village that I thought Vanity of Duluoz was right up there with Jack’s greatest works. And they all looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Yeah, but nobody else thinks that.” 🙂
Years later, Duluoz has gotten its due.
What I’m sayin’ here is — Pic is better than conventional wisdom has it. And funnily enough, years after I said that, Tom Waits told Mojo magazine in 2020 that it was his favorite Jack book! “It’s written like a Mark Twain story, all in phonetic black jargon.”
If you don’t know — this novella was a key moment in the evolution of one of America’s greatest writers. It was written over the summer / fall of 1950 as he was struggling to get his On The Road vision on the page.
Shortly after writing it, in Dec. 1950 he received the now-legendary “Joan Anderson/Cherry Mary” letter from Neal Cassady that broke open his storytelling narrative voice which led to the famous Scroll version three months later.
I know it sounds crazy, but I think the oft-dismissed Pic is one of Kerouac’s most fun (and quick) books. Everything Jack wrote was a thinly-veiled version of himself. This is the only time he ever wrote as someone else entirely — a precocious, adorable, funny, adventurous, wide-eyed 10-year-old African-American boy from North Carolina.
His whole oeuvre, his whole raison d’êtra, his whole “Duluoz Legend” (the breakthrough idea of telling one epic story of one person’s life at his particular point in history) was about writing in the real first person. Pic is Kerouac’s very first work written in first-person (after the third-person Town and The City, Orpheus Emerged, The Sea Is My Brother, et al) and the only book to step into another skin entirely — a key evolution in the author’s expanding execution.
I’m not saying Pic is Road — but it does contain many scenes he either used (in a different form) in On The Road or in the Scroll version or elsewhere that never stayed in the published editions. There’s the longest take of the Ghost of the Susquehanna; there’s the Prophet of Times Square and other vivid New York scenes; there’s the most detailed bus trip description of his many times riding in one; and there’s the whole story of two “brothers” going “on the road” together.
This is the only time this stunningly gifted writer ever branched into another voice. And boy, I love it!
And just to clarify the “stunningly gifted writer” part if anybody doesn’t get it, and I know some don’t:
What I might suggest anyone do is read the On The Road Scroll and Old Angel Midnight and The Dharma Bums and Big Sur and get back to me. Kerouac captured a compassionate vision of the world, and an embrace of all peoples — black, white; gay, straight; rich, poor; city hipsters and country farmers. He articulated the wanderlust that so many have, whether they act on it or not. He wrote prose like a poet, and novels like a storyteller sitting next to you in a bar (as he himself described his goal as a writer).
His output was a herculean effort in a very short 47-year life that was filled — except for about one week in 1957 — with mostly rejection. There’s a body of work here that’s rivaled only by his fellow giants. Besides being a novelist, he was a chronicler, an historian, a poet — a visionary in the sense that he saw the future and knew the value of what he was doing — and that people are still devouring what he created is proof he was right. I mean, You’re reading about him Now!
It was a Van Gogh-like commitment in the face of all rejection. And God-damn-it that hard booze and insulting dismissals mowed him down in mid-life.
And in this whole massive masterful output, Pic has not gotten the props it deserves — just like John Lennon’s “Sometime In New York City” didn’t. As a Lennon fan, I was always perplexed by the accepted conclusion that this album was no good. I had it. I listened to it. I knew it was great. In fact, it rocked!
And so, like everybody else in Jackland, I’d dismissed Pic (until I reread it recently) because … it was dismissed. It’s barely touched on in any of the biographies. Sure, it’s unfinished, sure the dialect may not be a perfect linguistic transcription, but this is his Catcher, his Huck — his comical, colorful young-person’s voice and story.
I’ve said (as I’m sure others have) that On The Road was Huckleberry Finn in the 20th century. In fact, even Jack described this early attempt at Road as, “a kind of Huckleberry Finn of today.” Only thing is — Huck was written in dialect, and Road wasn’t.
This is the only time this monster talent tried a long-form dialect piece. Besides the Midnight /Sax /Vanity variety of voices he captured . . . here he is a thousand miles out of his comfort zone — not writing in his native French, nor his mastered English, but actually “becoming” the black American he confessed to wanting to be in On The Road — “At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night.“
And there’s this neat symmetry how this first first-person novel perfectly mirrors the last one he wrote (Vanity of Duluoz) in that they’re the only two books addressed throughout to one person — Pic to “Grandpa” and Vanity to “Wifey” — the most direct one-on-one communication from author to imagined reader.
I’m not sayin Pic is Toni Morrison or James Baldwin or Langston Hughes — but I’ve never read Norman Mailer or Tom Wolfe or Hunter Thompson even attempt this kind of range.
It’s a testimony to his creative courage and ear-to-hand gifts that he went there long-form — that he inhabited this other place. Whether he caught every phrase just right, I don’t know or care. I “got” it. I was there with him. I was that kid. Going On The Road. Discovering New York. Digging the Ghost of the Susquehanna. Savoring all of America that he was gulping in for the first time. Appreciating how this was Jack’s Road vision . . . just before he Scrolled it.
And he had (wisely?) returned to it in the last months of his life — dashing off a quick ending that doesn’t satisfy but at least didn’t leave it mid-tale.
Which brings us back the goddamned tragedy of him dying. Alcoholism is as much a biological disease as cancer. I’m so sad John Lennon was taken from us by a mental disease, and Jack by a physical one.
Where would he have gone as an author?
I like to think Pic was a hint of one of the places this master storyteller might have taken his readers in the decades he and the rest of us were robbed of.
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Here’s a reading on the bus trip chapter from Pic that I did at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac in 2016 . . .
For most of ’80s I lived in Phyllis & Eddie Condon’s palatial apartment on Washington Square North. The NYU Program Board from where I ran the concerts was in the Loeb Student Center on Washington Square South — about a 3-minute walk away — if you didn’t dawdle in the continuous circus that was Washington Square Park. I halfway lived over there in what was my first “office” — and could do anything I wanted.
At this point I knew very little about American politics or how government worked at all, having grown up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
The first time any of this entered my fort-building hockey-playing childhood was the Watergate hearings that preempted all four of our TV channels that summer of ’73. Then there was the newsflash of seeing the giant “NIXON RESIGNS” headline in a newspaper box in as big letters as the “WAR IS OVER” or “MAN ON MOON” headlines I’d seen in books — and realizing this was the first historic event of my young conscious life.
We were taught virtually nothing about American politics in Canadian schools. Prolly about as much as Americans were about Canada. I knew they had Presidents, and George Washington was the first, and 1776 was a big deal for some reason, but that was about it.
Unlike all my friends in Winterpeg, after reading Rolling Stone and other music magazines, I knew I wanted to live in America — a universally unpopular opinion in a small Canadian prairie town. As soon as I finished my mandatory service in high school, myself and a couple buddies loaded up the van and drove to Californey with visions of bikini beaches and waving fields of pot dancing in our heads.
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The First Presidential Candidate
At one point on that crazy trip we were down in San Diego and climbed over the wall to sneak into their famous zoo there. Just after we got inside, who should come walking right past us in that spring of 1980, but Presidential candidate John Anderson! The white-haired bespectacled Republican had just started running Independent as a counterpoint to Reagan’s ultra-right-conservatism. But we weren’t really too hip to the details. All we knew was he was throwing a monkey wrench into American politics and that was good enough for us.
My fellow Canadian runaway, I’ll call him Joey, was about the only other person I knew who was really into American politics & culture, and of course we’d never seen a real-life American Presidential candidate in the flesh before and rushed right over in our 18-year-old enthusiasm and shook the hand that shook the hand of P.T. Barnum and Charlie Chan. Even got me a bumper sticker from his entourage of maybe a half-dozen people — my first bone fide campaign ephemera!
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World War III
A week or so after that, we found ourselves in yet another first — hanging with a real-live Vietnam War veteran — something that just didn’t happen in Winnipeg.
We were at his house somewhere around L.A. on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. It was only 5 years since the end of that failed war, and a few more since Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, and we all knew the government lied to us and was up to no end of nefarious no good. This vet was much older and wiser than us, and had fought in the heart of one of their most heinous lies, and he was filling our impressionable young minds with fresh sinsemilla and juicy details of the latest conspiracy theories.
He kept all the lights low as though he was still hiding in the dark in the jungle. And as he was regaling his wide-eyed captives with elaborate tales of how the world really worked, the silent flickering rabbit-eared TV in the corner suddenly broke away from the regular late night broadcast with Breaking News of a secret rescue mission to free the American hostages in Iran that had gone horribly wrong. Or was it really an invasion? Helicopters crashed, soldiers were dead, and another war maneuver by the U.S. government had ended in death and disaster. We sat up for hours in a pre-CNN world manually flipping the round channel knob to get any information we could. We were sure, in our vividly stoned Everything-Has-Meaning minds, that there was a grand “reason” why we were hanging with a real front-line war soldier the night World War III started.
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The Reagan–Carter Debate
A few months later — the fall of 1980 — was the Presidential debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Rayguns. In more Le Grande Synch Dept.: It just so happened that their one-&-only debate was scheduled on one of The Grateful Dead’s only two nights off during their 8-show run at Radio City Music Hall — which I was attending pretty much all of.
I knew I had to experience this because it seemed to be a very big deal in this new country I found myself — one month into what would become a decades-long Adventure in America. And I was determined to understand this place.
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I went to the historic counterculture Judson Church residence hall on Washington Square South and watched it on a big tubed 1970s TV in the common room full of smart young politicos making observations so far beyond me that I realized I was an utter neophyte in a very complex but exciting world. I still remember where I was sitting — on the right side, about half-way back — as I listened for the first time to a roomful of funny, wise-cracking American college students with politics and history surging thru their veins. I’d never been immersed in that culture before — or even really knew there was such a culture! Politicos — in the flesh! “So this is what that world’s like!”
I barely had a clue who the candidates were — but I knew if that crazy right-wing geezer got elected things were gonna be really bad.
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And that was about it. 1980 thru ’84 was a sex drugs & rock n roll frenzy in college in Greenwich Village — while still pulling off 13 As and cranking out NYU in 3-and-a-half years insteada 4 so I could pay them less money and get out into the real world sooner. During those years I rarely spent any time thinking about politics. Reagan was President, yuppie greed was “cool,” and it was all pretty depressing. Plus, I thought the whole science of politics was so far beyond me — and it seemed like something we had no control over anyway. Turns out I was wrong on both fronts.
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The Moment Everything Changed
One day in early 1984 — yes, that “1984” that living under Reagan really felt like — I was finishing up some stuff in the concert production office on the main floor of the Student Center, when I heard someone talking through a loudspeaker coming from LaGuardia Place — the little sidestreet off Washington Square South. But loud speakers and loud noise were pretty much the norm around Washington Square Park — there was always crazy shit going on.
Then all of a sudden there were huge cheers for something — bigger than normal. So I got up from my desk and walked into the lobby — which was about 8 feet above street level — and through the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows I laid eyes on my first political rally.
There was a man standing on a little stage at the end of the street with his back to Washington Square Park, facing south down the urban canyon packed with enthusiastic faces. I can’t remember if he was on a trailer or if they did some quick stage set-up or what — cuz I don’t recall anything being there when I walked into the building. But now the whole block was filled with excited, fist-pumping rock n roll people. And they were cheering for what some guy was saying — not what he was playing. But it sorta made sense cuz the dude looked kinda Kennedy-cool and was riffing with some cocky Mick Jagger confidence.
I’d been working in rock n roll since I was 15. I knew this scene. The stage, the PA, the crowd, the cameras, the screaming fans. Done. Except I was looking at somebody who could be running the country.
This was the same crowd — the same energy — the same showmanship — as everything I’d ever done in my life. It’s showbiz, man. But this was for the man who could be the leader of the free world. That’s even bigger than The Rolling Stones!
Turns out the guy’s name was Gary Hart. This was not the “Monkey Business” campaign — that was 4 years later. This was his first — which was actually a lot like Bernie Sanders’ in 2016. He was a little-known Senator from a non-major state who galvanized the young while going up against the obvious party favorite — Walter Mondale — who’d been Vice President 4 years earlier and was the de facto nominee.
I got swept right up in it. The underdog’s struggle. The new ideas. The new voice. The challenge to the system. The “volunteers of America.”
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Looking out that window, on that unexpected sunny spring afternoon in Greenwich Village — my life changed.
I walked down the steps into the cordoned-off street in open-mouthed awe — taking in something I “knew” but had never experienced. Like Judson Church, I remember exactly where I stood against the building next to the old white-haired guard I knew who let me stand there, as I looked left to the rock star on the stage, and then right to the block-long crowd listening and cheering. This was rock n roll. This I understood.
These people had the same passion in their faces, the same guttural thrill in their cheers, the same intangible electric energy as all the best music shows I ever worked or attended. It’s a buzz that can also be felt in a large sports crowd when the home team scores. Or in a Baptist church on a Sunday morning. There’s a few places to experience this collective positive-minded celebratory energy. But a political rally is definitely one of them.
And I’ve been actively participating in every primary election since.
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As I riff this reflection in September 2016, a new alternate reality of this energy has manifested in rallies by the most prominent bigot since George Wallace or David Duke (who supports him). I’ve even heard some scary seething in some Democratic ranks this campaign. This fear-based conspiracy-centric vitriol may have been part of the political world in every cycle since forever, but it’s never been this extreme.
We’re living through an existential crisis as a nation — and there’s no grand simple quick fix. But one place we can start is — not being part of the problem: Focusing at least equally on positive things — and not the negatives about somebody you hate. Being pro, and proactive. Not no, and not active. We gotta change the vibe in the room. We’re better than this.
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And this politico / historian / storyteller’s long-range viewfinder tells me a year from now we’re gonna be in a much better place. I’m already living there.
And 50 or 100 years from now every voter alive is gonna wish they’d lived through this Shakespearian campaign. So soak it in. Be part of it. Live it. There’s never gonna be another one like it. And we’re gonna win in the end. 😉
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Holding up my hand at the swearing-in as I became an American citizen.
Or for a whole Adventure book written in this same colorful language about a slightly different subject — check out “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac.”
The 2016 Presidential and Congressional elections will be a win for Clinton because . . .
— Trump continues to be unhinged for the next 3 months;
— his racism / bigotry comments & viewpoint continue to reappear;
— there’s a 3-month continuous drip-drip-drip of negative Trump business stories;
— the Republican party will not fully employ its party-based ground operations due to Trump’s negative perception with voters and within the party brass;
— Trump’s rally yahoos aren’t really registered active voters;
— moderate Republican voters stay home;
— moderate Republican women secretly vote Hillary;
— independents and swing voters turn out en masse to stop Trump;
— independents and swing voters break for “the first woman President;”
— Democrats turn out for a third Obama term and second Clinton administration;
— Obama’s favorables stay above 50%;
— the debates will be a slaughter, and he’ll be humiliated worse than Ford in ’76 or Quayle in ’88;
— Trump’s tax returns are leaked;
— the voter suppression laws recently struck down in 5 states (including swing states North Carolina and Wisconsin) result in many more Democratic votes . . .
if those things happen — not one of which is far fetched and all are, in fact, quite likely — November 8th will be a hell of a night! 😀 Even ConspiracyBoy won’t be able to say it was rigged.
How Trump could win — (meaning a higher voter percentage than either Romney or McCain received)
— he’s significantly under-polling due to respondents not willing to admit (even to anonymous pollsters) to voting for a known racist;
— a serious non-debatable negative Clinton revelation appears (about either Hillary or Bill);
— Trump hires and then actually follows the advice of top strategists and pivots to a traditional general election campaign for President;
— he becomes a reasonable, stable, convincing centrist — ie; he becomes / plays the character of a President, and people buy it;
— the Republican establishment comes around and strongly supports him, including delivering their ground game votes / organization;
— he finally launches an air attack (TV & radio ads) that turns out to be effective;
— with the aid of local redneck Mike Pence he catches on in the economically depressed rust belt;
— he’s somehow perceived to win one or more of the debates;
— Obama’s favorables drop below 50%;
— there’s a series of terrorist attacks at home and/or abroad — but again, this could help her as the more experienced, sane & stable candidate.
And just as I said above of the Clinton wave — how none of those events are far fetched — frankly, all of these are far fetched, or at least unlikely, or are external events Trump has no control over.
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If Gary Johnson gets 3% of the final vote or Jill Stein gets 2, it’ll be almost news.
When I tried starting this story last night immediately upon arriving home around 4 AM . . . this was all I got writ —
Republicans are loons …
😀
But boy, I just had the greatest time! Sheesh! This was like the 4th of July for a week! As I said before — now I know why they’re called political parties!
Somehow the definitive moment for me was dancing at night in the fountain at the Public Square, led by a super-skilled drummer named Freedom who I just became friends with a couple days earlier.
It was right before Drumpf’s speech on the final night and security had secured the week, done their job & it was pretty much over, and Freedom picked right up on the freedom and started a tribal, festival-like, Grateful Dead dance party at the very heart of the city. Just one of the many people I met here who I’ll probably be friends with for life.
The post-drum circle group hug – courtesy of the great photog Jeremy Hogan
Another definitive moment was experiencing Trump’s speech on 4th Street, which was interestingly/ironically being broadcast by MSNBC.
You could read into this that Fox didn’t set up a giant screen viewing area to broadcast their party’s words to the city. But MSNBC thought people should see this! 😉
4th Street is a one-block-long narrow former (Kerouac?) alley that’s evolved into a pedestrian street lined with bars & restaurants on both sides. It’s the coolest block in the city and was the go-to place for everyone not in the arena.
The street was pretty much packed from one end to the other, and what was funny/striking was how unenthusiastic and non-responsive people were. The paid prop poobahs inside would cheer and applaud each line on cue, but outside it was mostly falling on deaf ears. In a street full of Republicans.
Here’s one’s reaction at the table next to me . . .
And these two were standing in front of me for a bit . . . reading their phones . . .
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This should have been like being in the crowd at a home team’s victory — like Cleveland just celebrated last month with the Cavaliers basketball team bringing the first national championship to the city in 50 years — but instead it was like being at a home team loss. The silence was deafening as the applause-track from the arena played to nonplussed indifference. In Cleveland. To Republicans.
These conventions are like the Woodstock of politics. Every star in the political world is here, there’s non-stop “shows” on multiple stages all over the festival site (city), and people are partying like there’s no tomorrow. Which, in the Republican’s case, is true.
Instead of smiling I was busy telling Chuck Todd how he was Tim Russert’s living legacy. And boy did he appreciate that.
Mika & Joe
Me on MSNBC behind Al Franken 🙂
Van Jones doing a beautiful riff with the crazy Infowars guys.
Fellow Canadian David Frum — who observed Cleveland is like Toronto in the ’60s and early ’70s … lakeside city with great old architecture, and relatively untouched.
And another David spotted in the mix
John Lennon’s guitar he played Revolution on as well as The Beatles’s last gig on the Apple rooftop — at the “Louder Than Words” politics & music special exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Another reporter captured in the afternoon sun-speckled wild
With Hugh Hewitt. Fraternizing with the enemy 🙂
Another smart young political reporter whose name I can’t remember, but I never forget that face. p.s. – just remembered – Olivia Nuzzi. 🙂
Joy Reid having a good time on 4th Street
With Robert Smigel and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
MSNBC host Chris Hayes – taken by the great Beat photog Jeremy Hogan
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza
And the Post’s Dana Milbank
Meeting all the Washington Post writers, I had a good entry line with, “I’m a big fan and longtime subscriber …” which always seemed to buy me extra time and a genuine connection. These guys who can stay so focused and get the story with new angles and insights and deadlines day after day, year after year, impresses the hell out of me and makes me laugh every time I see someone dismissing the MSM.
Others seen on the scene but unsnapped — Rick Santorum; NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt; their super-professional campaign reporter Hallie Jackson; former RNC Chair Michael Steele; Jonathan Capehart; Howard Fineman; Campbell Brown & Dan Senor; Politico’s bespectacled Mike Allen; Mother Jones writer and breaker of the Romney 47% story David Corn; Republican strategists Mike Murphy, Barry Bennett, Jack Kingston and Alex Castellanos; Roland Martin, Larry Cutler, Ron Fournier, Joan Walsh, Tucker Carlson, Samantha Bee, and that enormous Repugnant pig Frank Luntz.
One thing I found for sure — every writer or senior Republican operative I talked to all week saw the same writing on the wall. More than one of them used the phrase “This is a shitshow” to describe what was happening, and the party chairman of one of the largest states in the union put it simply — “We’re fucked.”
This was the demise of the Repugnant Party I came to witness — and boy, the Donald did not disappoint!
Plagiarism, disconnection, disloyalty and dictatorial were the words to sum up each of the four days in sequence.
I’ve been in a lot of crowds at a lot of awe-inspiring concerts & other large-scale events over the last 40 years and know what happy fans look like. The delegates and others leaving the arena looked like they were walking out of a funeral. They should have been dancing in the streets after their team just put on the greatest show on earth . . . yet they were stumbling as though they just wanted to get home and bury their head under a pillow.
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I’ll add more photos (and thoughts) to this as time & energy allows. Took a Jack notebook fulla notes and 500 snaps. I’m sure there’s a couple good ones in there. 🙂
And I just have to mention — from his countenance on TV, I always thought David Frum was some depressingly dour frump. But he was prettymuch the friendliest, funniest, most talkative, interesting, coolest guy I met from the other side in Cleveland. It just goes to show ya — people aren’t always what they seem.
And a shout-out has to be made to my Beat brother Ken for not only hosting my 24-hour madness for a week, but being an Adventure Buddy and cameraman-in-a-pinch!
Ken, Freedom & me, in the fountain in the Public Square, 10PM Thursday night
As the crazy circus rolls on that is the Repugnant National Coronation of their favorite racist bigot who is now their official “standard-bearer” after years of less obvious assholes — the playful sense of humor of many sensible and silly Americans is still on display. In places.
Multiple Uptight Citizens Brigade Theatre-like groups have been staging sketches and songs on the streets all over town.
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And another group brought hundreds of tennis balls to protest the convention banning them (!?) while allowing people to open-carry guns.
As you can see by this photo, as is pretty much always the case, the cops outnumber the protesters about 10-to-1. It’s the strategy of “overwhelming force” — so nobody even thinks of doing anything wrong.
Note the pink & yellow tennis balls being held high
Beeg protest (!)
There has been nothing I’ve seen resembling actual violence or real threats by any civilian in Cleveland, but the cops have been overhired with our tax dollars and get all dressed up in their hot & heavy Play War gear every morning, and after a couple days of smiling and playing nice, they’re now ready to crack some heads and kick some ass.
Check out these stormtroopers!
What was once a cool, friendly, welcoming scene has devolved into an over-policed aggressive unfriendly vibe.
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Do you know who Robert Smigel is? He created the TV Funhouse cartoon shorts on Saturday Night Live, and the puppet character Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, and he and I spent some time together at a Kerouac event at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery many years ago where he absolutely killed making fun of us as Triumph. Really funny guy.
He’s been out on the campaign trail at Trump rallies (for instance saying to a heavyset Drumpf supporter, “I think he needs to build a wall between you and McDonalds,” which made even the guy laugh) and doing his level best to keep people lighthearted during this ugly period in American history.
He organized a comedic parody of a protest at the Public Square — one of the designated gathering places in town — with such inflammatory protest signs as . . .
And positively positive absurdist messages like “God Hates Morning People” . . .
We were there for this, and it was obviously a really funny joke “protest” playing on the Jesus freaks [who are everywhere here] and other peaceful sign holders.
But the cops obviously missed the joke. The Square was peopled with nothing but Smigel fans, curious bystanders, and about a bunch of official (and non) reporters with cameras. Again, maybe because they feel like they have to do something since there’s 50 million of them everywhere doing nothing but standing around in the 80 degree sun, they called in reinforcements and systematically cleared the entire square, pushing people back using bikes, riot gear, and barking voices.
On the stage platform was a satiric comedy routine. A gag. A goof. But they brought in the armed forces. Although they didn’t fire, it was painfully reminiscent of the peaceful May 4th protests at Kent State, the site of which I just visited Monday. This was authorities in uniforms not at all understanding what was happening in front of them — and overreacting.
I guess they got all dressed up in their war gear and had to show these pranksters their muscle.
And a very strange sub-set among the citizens-assembled are both young and older mostly males walking around filming what they see and describing their strollabout. If you overhear them they’re describing things as though everything in front of them is terribly nefarious, and disaster is about to strike. They’re narrating their reality as a death trap, and damn but they’re going to have their cameras rolling when Armageddon hits in the next few seconds.
But besides even the cops and camera loons, if there’s one thing that’s killing the buzz in downtown Cleveland it’s the Jesus freaks with bullhorns yelling at everyone. I didn’t know the guy, and neither did anybody else know, but he seemed to be generally about peace & love, not unlike a lot of his other fellow longhairs. But listening to these bloviating blowhards he sure sounds like some mean judgmental fascist dictator who was telling everyone they weren’t as good as he was. The whackjob extremists yelling about him seem to have gotten The Bible about as wrong as some Muslims have gotten the Qur’an. It’s no wonder so many people are turned off religion these days.
As a Christian friend of mine said of these assholes, “Welcome to the U.S. ‘Christian Right’ … aka anti-Christ.”
You can read about the two days leading into the convention here.
Monday July 18th
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Holy shit! What a first convention night in Cleveland! This town is throwing A PARTY! Wow!
I mean, the cops and all levels of security are being so freakin nice!
At one point, ’round midnight, I needed to know if this certain exit from the Quicken perimeter was the only one, and I go over, and this Secret Service agent spends 5 minutes figuring out the answer for me.
Unreal.
I’ve seen police forces here from California, Michigan, Texas, Georgia …
and there’s armies of them!
After three days at the core of it, tonight, once, I heard the only cross words spoken between two people. It was between a local and a Republican supporter. And frankly, the guy on my side was out of turn. He was just taking out his anti-Repugnant anger on this one guy. But I’ve been around thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, for days, and have only heard this one angry exchange between any two people.
How many huge political gatherings can you say that about?
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Bizarrely and depressingly, I decided to start my day by visiting the nearby site of the Kent State massacre in 1970.
When people talk about how bad things are in our country today — at least the National Guard aren’t shooting unarmed student protesters.
The university has done an amazing job of honoring the fallen, with the spots where each of the four died permanently marked off, and interpretive signs all over the area that walk you through each step of that terrible day, plus an entire museum dedicated to it that’s spectacularly tastefully and effectively rendered. It brought me to tears. And I can’t have been the first one — because look what they have for viewers in the film room.
And it seems like the lessons have been taken to heart. I had a lengthy discussion with the Deputy Police Chief about all things security, and at the end when I asked if I could get a picture with him, he asked if I minded if he put his arm around me while we take it.
Which was proceeded by hanging with leading alternative / anarchist presidential candidate Vermin Supreme.
And me and my convention buddy Ken even got some quality one-on-one time with the Donald himself!
Where there had been really no protesters to speak of during the entire weekend leading into the convention — when the town was as full of delegates and reporters as it would be during the convention — by Monday all the characters and costumes were out in full color.
And the thing of it is — this is Prankster protesting by committed Groucho Marxists. Abbie Hoffman would be proud. I mean, there was even a Kesey-like psychedelic Thunder Machine.
This is not a rocks and Molotov cocktails crew — it’s more your flowers in the ends of gun barrels. And comical condoms.
The convention and city have become a giant art show with installations all over town — both official —
and un —
There are characters . . .
and clowns . . .
The real (insane) Roger Stone, backed by the real intrepid “Roger, stoned.”
I mean, at times I couldn’t tell if I was hanging with Pranksters or protesters.
Or exactly whose convention I was attending.
At one point I said, “I think there’s more Democrats in this town than Republicans.”
Ken, Panther, Freedom, and your friendly Beat peacenik
But for sure there were the best political reporters and minds in the country — including the great John Stanton who knows more about the details and machinations of American politics than I’ll ever master in a dozen lifetimes. This guy is such a hero of mine — and I’m so glad I got to tell him so!
And besides us writers on hand, the whole scene is being captured and broadcast live to the world on things like this $100,000 steadicam.
But of course nothing says “democracy” like miles of steel fences . . .
and platoons of cops with cameras on their heads!
As our two friendly Beat reporters on the beat capture the corner table at the corner bar at the key corner in all of Cleveland — 4th & Prospect — ending the night like the Fourth of July with fireworks, calliopes and clowns.
