I’m currently sitting in the dark in Kerouac Park writing what just happened . . .
I came to Jack’s hometown of Lowell with lots of hopes and anticipation of magic sacred spots and moments. The top dream I’ve always had was getting inside the Pawtucketville Social Club — the very private bar that Jack went to and his dad Leo was a President of for a time.
But I know there’s no Pawtuckin way you’re getting in there. I learned about social clubs living in the Village in Manhattan. There’s a reason they’re private — and that means — Don’t Even Think about Crossing The Threshold.
I never made it over there during JackFest cuz things were always too crazy.
Monday morning I’m debating whether to check out of the hotel or stay one more night. I decide to order one more round. (I think this is actually the key to life. But I digress.)
Then it’s off on a mission to find spots I hadn’t hit during the high time of the fest — and I Neal Cassady the city all afternoon rackin’ off stuff like …
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At 4PM the final Bill Walsh walking tour was supposed to be returning to The Old Worthen, and I stop in there to hang but nobody’s home, so I go hit sumore hotspots — until the continuing Adventure-surfing had me whoosin’ back by the Worthen once more around 5:00 — and sure enough! — there’s Bill, Steve and Rick (who I hadn’t seen since Michael McClure) — the last standing soldiers in the Kerouac Army. Scout Hassett reporting in.
We riff n rap, and I ask ’em for some recon details I hadn’t tracked down yet, including where the Pawtucketville Social Club was. Before they even tell me the location, lifelong Lowellite Bill Walsh makes sure I realize, “NOOOObody gets in there.”
Understood, old boy. After the info and hugs get exchanged, Reverend Steve actively kicks me out of The Worthen Gardens to go work the last hour of daylight.
Boom boom boom — next thing I know I’m parked beside the Social Club — and then across the street taking some shots . . .
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As I’m taking them, two guys come out of the propped-open front door and start staring at me. The sidewalks are empty — I’m the only guy in the sunset hood — and they’ve got their eyes on this photographing stranger in a strange land.
I hesitate where I am — I don’t want to get close to these guys — they look scary as shit. One’s a brush-cut muscle-shirt Republican redneck type, and the other guy looks like ZZ Top’s long-lost uncle who’s been living in a cave for the last 50 years — Tom Hanks at the end of Cast Away — like a grizzled Hell’s Angel, but with a Godfather vibe.
I have to cross the street to get back to my car, and they’re staring straight at me, side-by-side like sentries blocking the drawbridge. It’s O.K. Corral time with nobody on the street.
I think, “Fuck it — just go for ’em. Do or die.”
So I cross the road right at ’em — thinking at least through the challenge I can peak over their shoulders into the place. And I draw first. “Hey! I just came by here cuz Jack Kerouac used to hang out here — and I think his dad was the president at one time.”
And they nod slightly and silently in the affirmative, but just keep staring at me like I’m, maybe, a second away from a painful death. So I riff some lifesaving more — “I’m in town for the Kerouac festival . . . always heard about this place . . . it’s like, an historic site . . . “
And somehow through the riffing innocence of experiences they’re not telling me to fuck off. We have a bit of an actual exchange, and after a while, I say (what the hell, they haven’t killed me yet), “Could I possibly just … see inside?”
And the crewcut weight-lifter immediately shakes his big tough head saying with his expression, “No fuckin way, kid.” But ol’ ZZ Top backhand taps him on the bicep and says — “It’s alright. He’s Kerouac.“
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I’ll never forget that line the rest of my life.
He meant, of course, “The guy’s a Kerouac fan” or some such. But he said — “It’s alright. He’s Kerouac.” 😀
And thus he ushers me across the forbidden threshold . . . into the front just to have a peak. And it’s exactly as I pictured it — an ancient, dark, cluttered, history-stacked bar — like a man-made old-growth forest.
He tells me it’s the second oldest drinking establishment in Lowell after The Old Worthen. And it’s fulla scary ancient people, lemme tell ya! The Four Seasons this ain’t.
And they’re smokin up a storm in there — cuz ya still can in a private club.
And after an appropriate time smoking it in, I mean soaking it in and appreciating what I’m seeing, but not overstaying my welcome, I ask the big question — “Are there … pool tables here?”
The second to last film footage in existence of Jack is of him shooting pool here in 1967. It was home-country CBC that came to town doing a show on him and his French-Canadian roots, and as the story goes, they came by this place to get some background footage of his haunts — and Jack just happened to be in there shooting pool!!
And Godfather Grizzly goes — “Yeah. It’s in the back,” and points in that dark direction. And then God Bless The Universe — he starts walking there for me to follow!!
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We pass through the crazy bar past everyone, who are definitely eyeing me like “Who the fuck is this guy?” But I’m with ol’ ZZ Top so I seem to be not getting shot.
Then he leads me into some dark room . . . and I’m like, “Uh-oh … Pesci in Goodfellas . . .” . . . then — Boom!
— he turns on the lights — and there it is! — Jack’s pool table!
And of course I’m freaking out — but don’t want to totally let on. But I bet I did a little. And I know this place is super private and secret, but I just go for it, what the hell — “Do you think you could take a picture of me here?”
And scary Grizzly Adams goes . . . “Yeah, sure.” (me: ahhhhh!) “Wanna get some balls out and grab a cue to make it look like you’re playin?” (ahhhhh!!)
“Yeah!!” sez I, barely holding on to functionality during this out-of-body-experience. And he starts cupping balls out of the pockets and rollin’ them out on the table. I look for the white cue ball but don’t see it anywhere — and I’m not about to get particular.
And as I hand him my camera, he goes, “I don’t know what this is.” I tell him how it works, and he goes, “Alright . . .” and looks at it some more. . . . Then . . . “Send this to the Kerouac people,” he says as he lifts it up to shoot.
Boom!
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I’m thinkin, don’t push it — don’t ask for more than one. But suddenly he becomes Annie freakin Leibovitz and starts walking around the table — “You want one from here? . . . What if I shoot from the end?”
“Yeah, that’d be fine,” says the radiating adventurer.
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And then we just start hangin in the pool room, and I mention how papa Leo was once president, and he says, “Yeah, that’s right. I’m the current president.” Whaaat?!?! And he says his name and sticks out his tanned weathered hand for a shake just as his girlfriend comes in wide-eyed at this complete non-one-of-us suddenly in the inner sanctum. She can’t take her eyes off me — like I’m an alien being . . . talking to her boyfriend like we’re brothers.
I’m quite sure all three of us were freaking in agreeance at how completely weird this was.
And he tells me the whole history of the place — how the pool table is definitely the Brunswick here since the ’50s and the one Jack played on — and how the club was originally just the bar part, and there were a couple other stores that were part of the building, but they gradually bought each part until it was nuthin but them. And how the pool room used to not have a divider but was big enough for two tables — and you could see the other dark pool room through a open window in the new dividing wall. He shows me the giant back room that was built after World War II for the returning veterans. And I’m looking around freaking out at the old Lowell characters, men and women alike, smoking, playing cards, talking, and now not giving me a second glance because apparently the Prez sez I’m okay.
Or here’s a reading of “the San Francisco epiphany” part of On The Road with Kerouac’s principal musical collaborator David Amram from the closing Sunday of LCK 2015 …
Or here’s a crazy impromptu staged reading of part of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” riffed at one of Jack’s old drinking holes, The Old Worthen, as part of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!
The first time I came to Lowell in 1983 you couldn’t find any indication Jack ever lived here. I asked all around and finally found a bartender who said the only guy in town who knew about him was his old Reverend. The afternoon barkeep even looked up his number in the Lowell phone book for me, and I called him from a payphone and was surprised he sounded just like the French people back home in Canada. He said he couldn’t come out that afternoon to show me around, but gave me a detailed description of how to find Jack’s almost unmarked grave in Edson Cemetery.
Today, not only is there a giant headstone and commemorative parks and parts of libraries named for him and walking tours and festivals, but even the Reverend I was talking to on the phone has got a street named after him!
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When I was checking into the Motel 6 on this visit, the woman behind the desk quite proudly said of my room, “You’ve got a view of the pool!”
In some insane world, that I’m coming to learn is Lowell, this is the pool she was referring to:
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Mondays with Michael
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Gettin’ Things Done in Lowell
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First thing, I immediately zip over to the AAA to pick up some local maps — until the young clerk says AAA just stopped making Lowell maps and they can’t get any more. What?!
Then this older woman overhears what we’re talking about and goes, “I think there’s one more left,” and pulls out a drawer, and I go, “Alright! Perfect synch!” and give the air a victory punch. And then she goes, “Oh, no, it’s gone.”
Aaaahhhhh … So close!
So I ask the young clerk about any waterfalls in the area, and she says, “You should talk to Julie,” and nods to the woman still digging through the drawer. “She knows this area better than anyone.”
So I go over to drawer-diggin’ Julie who’s flipping through file folders n shit, and she says, “Why? What are you doing in Lowell?” “I’m here for the Kerouac festival.” “Ohhh — that’s one of my favorite things to do every year!” WHAT?!?! “Yes — I got my degree in English — love him.” (!)
Suddenly — “Oh look! Here it is!” As she pulls out the last copy of the last map of Lowell from the bottom of the drawer!
Then on top of that she starts raving on about the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac (LCK) festival for the next ten minutes! We realize we’ll be seeing each other again in a couple days, so I grab the last chance map and bolt out of there to head over to UMass for the Michael McClure reading — his first appearance anywhere off the West Coast inyears.
Get there — small visitor parking — the only non-permit lot for miles around, and would you believe me if I told you I got the very last open parking space on the campus? It’s true!
And now it’s a nice sunny afternoon Moosehead walk through a classic tree and architecture rich American campus to the Allen House! Yes, of course. We’re going to celebrate Jack at Allen’s house with Michael.
Right off the Beat bat there’s Stan the haiku man, the fellow crazy-early arrivee who says he’s been coming to these LCK fests for 15 years.
And there comes Aaron Lantz, The Kansas Kid, who flew all the way from there to Boston just for this McClure show. And not only that but the guy holds the land speed record for reading my book — start to finish in 3½ hours! And he’d been askin’ me all these questions about Michael so I thought — here’s your chance, kiddo. And boy he leapt at it!
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And then we realized we were standing in the middle of the new Jack exhibit that isn’t even scheduled to have it’s ribbon-cutting opening until three days from now! Boom!
There’s his old writing desk . . .
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There’s his chotchkies . . .
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There’s his handmade cat carrying cases for his beloved furry family . . .
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There’s an old manual typewriter, the same make and model as Jack’s last instrument . . .
And I’m typin’ away on the thing, and trying to fix the right margin that doesn’t seem to want to adjust, and along comes this woman who also grew up with these instruments and the two of us work on it for a while but can never find the lever to move the margins. Turns out the woman I’m collaborating with on this writer’s recovery job is none other than Judith Bessette, the new Prez of LCK! — on what will hopefully be just the first of many collaborations.
And there’s the room where Michael’s going to be addressing the assembled . . .
. . . students and scholars and pranksters and roadsters who’ve made the pilgrimage from across the campus or across the country.
Then the man of the hour shows up and whaddya know delivers what may be my favorite appearance by him of the so many I’ve seen! He’s come up with a whole kinda lecture thing called “On Kerouac, Shelley and Mountains” !!
Usually he’s just reading his poetry — often with that late great Keyboard of Perception — but this was storytelling improvisation with a structure — and loads of Jack, plus Shelley, plus the power of nature, which was always something he and I shared a passion for. He read the opening of Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” then segues that directly into Jack’s “Desolation Blues,” and then into his favorite choruses of “Mexico City Blues” including one of the last ones, 239, which he called a Buddhist love poem.
And all the while and in between he’s telling stories like about the first time he met Jack at the legendary Six Gallery reading, and how he couldn’t believe Jack’s level of understanding of Buddhism after he’d read “Some of The Dharma” in manuscript form — because Buddhist teachings were so hard to come by in the ’50s — he couldn’t fathom how Jack had learned all of this. And he tells the story of how he happened by the lion enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo with Bruce Conner, and he performed some of his human beast language poetry, growling sounds of life eternal.
And then it ends, and I’m talkin’ to Judith and it’s the usual end of show schmoozethon, and The Kansas Kid is just standin’ around next to me. I tell him, “Hey! Get over there and talk to Michael! This is your cue, Kid!”
After a while I head over to where the lion’s holding court, where he wasn’t that swamped since it wasn’t that big a scene, and I just move right in and start riffin’ away with him as The Kansas Kid is still holding back in his Midwestern shyness. It takes Michael a minute before he remembers me, then we’re off, talking about our mutual love of the Earth, and how cool it was that he made it a central theme of his talk today. I asked if he was doing anything for the sixtieth anniversary of the Six Gallery this week — and he goes, “It is? I had no idea. I’ll have to drop Gary a line.”
And I tell him about my new book about Boulder ’82 and how his chapter is one of the most popular among readers, and I’m finally able to give him his own copy. At some point I say, “Hey, we should get a picture together — we never did before,” and he goes, “Oh, I’m too old for pictures anymore.” Which was an echo of Carolyn in her later years.
After we had a nice memory lane run, I tell him about The Kansas Kid who’d come all the way from his home state just to hear the lion roar, and both of them couldn’t be happier as they met and took off talking about the difference between projective verse and free verse and metric verse, the young poet looking for and getting answers from the octogenarian vegetarian.
And as others mosey in for an autograph or question, Michael keeps thinking of new tips and books for Aaron to read, who’s now become the center of the collective conversation. It was so nice to see the old bard taking an extended proactive interest in the young cub, and since they seemed to be getting on so well I decided to go say hi to Amy, Michael’s longtime partner.
She tells me she’d been looking at us talking and thinking, “Who is that guy? I know him …” I hand her a copy of my book and she looks at the front cover and after a second starts tapping the chest of my picture going, “That’s the guy I remember.”
And we start having a good old chin-wag like we always did which always made for good hangs with Michael cuz her and I would be just as happy to riff all night while others were basking in the light of her rock star husband. And on this day, as all the autograph seekers and young and old fans eventually drift away, it was just the four of us left in the big empty room with the glass doors that filled it with bright afternoon light and we all sat down for a comfortable post-show chat, the two Kansans on one side, me & Amy swappin stories on the other. When I told her about The Kansas Kid comin’ all this way to see Michael, she said with a big smile, “Oh, isn’t that lovely. Well we’ll just sit here for as long as that takes.”
She asks about Boulder ’82 and how it came about, and when I mention the part about Allen getting the Grateful Dead to fund it, she said it’s just like the time they were hanging in New York with Allen when he unexpectedly blurted out, “We have to go see the Grateful Dead tonight.” One of the original Beats was in a bad way, and Allen had to talk to Jerry, and there they were in the dressing room after the show, and by the end of the hang Jerry calls some guy over and tells him Allen needs $10,000 and that was that.
And a wonderful thing was — for this whole long hang, there was never anybody standing around waiting to kick us out or move us along. Both pairs had an eternity of afternoon sunlight to explore the unexplored, and that’s just what we did. And it was funny — after it was over, Aaron told me Michael kept bringing their conversation back to political engagement. Another reason I luv the guy. It’s not enough that you enjoy or study or write poetry — what’s important is if you’re engaged in the world and working to make it a better place.
Here was Michael spending this important time with his young acolyte challenging him to be involved and to not spend his life with his nose in a book. I almost pinned on my “Abbie Lives!” button before heading over — and after hearing this I wish I had.
Eventually it all winds down and we watch from the majestic Allen House stoop as Michael & Amy drive off into the sunset and their visit to Walden Pond tomorrow. And of course ol’ Aaron is just beaming after a whole afternoon with his hero. Then I suggest in the giddiness of the moment we go prank about and explore this old 1854 mansion before we leave the hill . . .
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The night prior, he and I made a sunset dash to Jack’s gravesite with its new headstone . . .
and tonight at exactly the same time we made a mad dash to the Kerouac Commemorative Park so he’d have that under his memory belt before he left town tomorrow. And as we arrive, raging against the dying of the light, I spy the only open parking spot in town which also happens to be the closest possible spot to the park and pull a mid-traffic U-ey to snag it, prompting my navigator to exclaim, “This is a time the Gets Things Done sign should be on the front window.”
It’s so cool hanging with someone who can make jokes referencing your own book!
The Kansas Kid ready to quick-draw his six-shooters
And we each got to pick our passages to be photoed by —
Aaron at Mexico City Blues, which Michael had been reading this afternoon
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Me at The Scripture of The Golden Eternity
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And on the corner of the park is the classic Sal Paradise Diner!
But sadly this Paradise is mostly Lost — only being open 6AM till noon daily.
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As Aaron’s trying to find the location of Jack’s Grotto on Google, I decide to bolt us over to his famous library where he learned the words of the world. We get there and I se somebody comin’ down the stairs and realize it was still open, so we dashed up two at a time in order to see the new Young Prometheans section they’d just recently set up in honor of the Dead Poet’s Society type group-of-the-mind that Jack and Sebastian Sampas had imagined themselves as being part of as youths.
Which is right next to . . .
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And not fer nuthin but — this library is freakin’ gorgeous!
No wonder Jack fell in love with books!
Discovering the library’s open till 9, we dash back out past the poster for this week’s JackFest
to soak in the final red rays of the red brick town of the railroad earth
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The City Hall clocktower
And all of a sudden there’s this spectacular sunset goin down . . .
But I gotta get elevation . . .
Can’t catch the sky from the sidewalk . . .
and I’m suddenly running around downtown Lowell looking for anything I can climb on! I try a green recycling container but the lid starts to cave in while I’m on it and I jump off just as it’s cracking to my death. Boom! Dash around the corner, lookin for perspective . . .
Run around the back of some giant building into a schoolyard, trying to get the obstacles out of the way, when . . .
ah-ha!
A fire escape on the back of some big-ass church er sumpthin! Boom!
Climbing those creepy creaking century-old iron slats, watchin carefully for them to bend or break — up to the first floor — take some shots — creep up to the second — take more shots — the windows behind me all seem closed so sneak up to the third — may as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb — yeah baby — so far, so good — snap snap, scurry hurry — race, race against the dying of the light . . .
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Then, of course, it became a mission to the missions — Find out what those two churches were outlined on the skyline. Wandering through the yards of the redbrick row-houses we come out at the base of the dome of the Hellenic Orthodox Church of The Holy Trinity — to which encyclopedic Aaron immediately recalls that Sebastian Sampas going to a specifically Greek church in Lowell and thinks he remembers Holy Trinity as part of its name.
Then anothur furthur wander and we’re outside the pointed gothic spire we’d spied and sure enough it’s another old St. Patrick’s.
Since we hadn’t been able to find Jack’s grotto on Aaron’s phone, and we’d spotted what looked like a cool room on the second floor of the library, we decide in the now-dark night to return to the light. As we stealthily enter the majestic second floor reading room and are making our way to its center to take in its full grandeur I hear someone say quite distinctly, “Hey Brian … ” and think how funny it is that someone else here at the library is named Brian.
I start looking around to see what this alternate me looks like — and there walkin’ through the middle of the room right towards us is — Tony Sampas! And the first words out of his mouth — “Glad you could make it! Here, let me show you the motherlode.” 🙂
Motherlode?!?! And he takes us over to the massive Jack stash!
A HUGE section of books you can take out, and another huge section you can only read there.
And on top is another nice plaque with a mock-up of his library card.
And he proceeds to give us the whole history of the place since he’s been workin’ there for years and loves his history. The building opened in 1893, and it was really built as a monument to the local men lost in the Civil War, only over the decades has the library grown from its first home in the basement to eventually taking over the whole building.
And wouldn’t ya know it but they have wall-size action paintings of none other than good ol’ General Grant! My favorite battlefield figure of the war!
“President Lincoln, I have to inform you General Grant has been seen drinking on the job.” “Well, whatever he’s drinking, serve it to the rest of the troops.”
And since Tony’s excitedly telling us stories, and I’m excitedly asking questions, and this is technically a reading room not a talking room, he suggests we adjourn to the hallway / foyer / balcony in this gorgeous palace of a building. And I’m like, “Oh wait — while I gotcha — is that Holy Trinity Greek church the one Sebastian went to?” And he sez Yeah. And the Kansas Kid strikes again!
And Tony offers, “Those two churches, that’s where Jack described Sebastian as walking between them and pointing to each, saying, ‘Gothic immensity — Byzantine sensitivity.'”
As always, Jack capturing the poetry of his friends.
And then I remember — “Hey — where’s Jack’s grotto?” And he proceeds to draw us a map. And says the local waterfalls I’d been asking him about a few days earlier were right near there. What?!
Then I remember ol’ Tony’s a pretty serious photographer so I tell him about the crazy adventure up the fire escape to capture it, and our local guide promptly informs me, “You’re lucky you didn’t get shot.”
“Yeah — but I got some great photos!”
“I was shooting it, too — out the window here.”
“Nice! . . . Wait a minute . . . you were shooting the sunset out the window? I was shooting the sunset on the library — gawd — wouldn’t that be cool if I caught you at the window in a shot?!”
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And with that, the Canadian Cowpoke and the Kansas Kid hit the trail again — this time armed with a hand-drawn Sampas treasure map to hidden hollows and thunderous falls!
After a quick pit-stop to grab some cold you’re-not-going-to-believe-the-name-of-it beer —
it was on to Jack’s grotto at night . . .
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One of The Stations of The Cross
Then we drive around to look for the potential waterfalls, and Aaron’s saying “Maybe this is something you should do tomorrow.”
And I’m like, “No. It’s right here.” I knew it. I could sense it. I could hear it . . . I just couldn’t see it.
And we go out on the busy dark bridge and look over … but there’s nuthin.
Then I notice even in the dark that the water’s goin’ downstream on this side — and insist we sprint like mad hares through a momentary break in bridge traffic and land on the other side and look over and BOOM! Waterfall and rapids as far as you can see!
And ol’ Aaron from flat Kansas is duly impressed and givin’ some rare Wows to the universe! And then ol’ Gets Things Done is spying down below at some sorta lookout spot . . . part of the gatehouse or whatever of the bridge, and I’m like, “Let’s get there.”
And of course everything’s all shuttered down but I spy along the concrete walls back by the shore a white picket gate . . . that with a goodly push in just the right spot — pops open! . . . and now we’re climbin’ down some cement stairs along a canal in the nearly pitch dark . . . and cross some little bridges and I spot about an 18 inch wide “sidewalk” going along the outer rim over the water hugging the building . . . and insist young Aaron go first for the unencumbered view of the upcoming Adventure, but he thinks I’m insisting cuz I think it’ll collapse and he’ll fall in first.
Out we roam into the unknown . . . water raging beneath us . . . until at the end of the walkway we get to a little open balcony hanging right over the falls.
The perfect place to debrief on the arc of the day and night . . . and how Aaron flew all the way from Kansas to meet Michael who gave this fabulous colorful wide-ranging reading and talk — and their whole long private yak afterwards. And then I’m like — “Wait a minute!! The McClure chapter in my book ends with a waterfall!!” Ha!!
And the Grand Synch we’d been surfing all day came perfect circle.
Or for a video featuring several fellow Roadsters at this very Lowell celebration, check out this group effort bringing part of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” alive in Jack’s old hometown bar . . .
Or here’s a video of reading “the San Francisco epiphany” part of On The Road with Kerouac’s principal musical collaborator David Amram . . .
A few years ago I became friends with this cool 70-year-old German woman who lived a few doors down.
It was one of those: recognizing each other from the moment we met — another member of the tribe — kindred travellers – explorers – pranksters – leprechaun twinklers.
And as the trip unfurls . . . turns out, her favorite author is Jack Kerouac!
And not only that — she’s got a shelf-full! — from Town & The City to Book of Dreams — front & center in her living room — the only author in her entertaining social center of the house so honored.
I mean — I live in a sleepy little out-of-the-way town . . . and 3 doors from me is this little wiry full-of-energy living ruth weiss . . . with a shelf fulla Jack!
So we hung, and talked road, and her adventure life out of Germany, and having the wanderlust — which is of course a German word — and how Jack spoke to her, and how he got her on the road and was the voice that inspired her — The Dharma Bums, Desolation Angles, On The Road, she even liked Satori In Paris because it was the one book set in places of her youth.
And I got to show her an advance proof copy of my “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” — but I knew she was a super literate reader — who was actually already reading e-books over print — and so I had to wait to get her a finished copy after the big week-long book release party in Indiana — that turned into a 3 week book release party!
She had the keys and was checkin on my house n stuff — and because I’d been so focused on producing the book, I hadn’t even thought about actually performing it — but had jotted down a few notes on what parts might work — then left town without them. Once I realized I was expected on stage (!) I had to email her to go into my mad writing studio and find a specific note in a specific pile in front of a specific lamp — and find it she did! and typed it out and emailed it to the site and the writer got it just in time and dashed to rehearsal in the Bertha Bus and turned in a performance that is truly dedicated to her because without her it never woulda happened!
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And she was planning a book release party for me at her house — and everything was going along fine — and then all of sudden — early May — I’m still away on this same trip — when I could tell everything changed. It was a rockin ride up to that point — her and I as exuberant and pro-active as teenagers — both of us bouncing in our seats at a combined 120 years. And then it stopped. The emails, the phone calls — and it was one of those rare times you hoped it was something you said.
But it wasn’t. And I knew it.
And shortly after came the call she was in the hospice.
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I’d just gotten back from 3 weeks On The Road — Marin, S.F., and Chicago for the Grateful Dead’s Farewell — where I’d written this quote into the story I wrote about it that I knew she’d lived — and I thought of her when I included it — and I read it to her on her deathbed:
“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one well preserved piece, but to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out and shouting, ‘WOW! What a ride!!’”
To which she was smiling, from before I even started reading it and all through the set-up cuz she knew … she knew where I was going with this — I almost didn’t have to read it — it was such an obvious articulation of what we both already knew — and lived — and just seeing the joy in her face . . . one week from her body saying No More — there she was beaming at the truth of The Adventure — the whole point of life.
“That’s it,” she said. “Enjoy every day you’ve got to the max. Life is good.”
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And then her daughter Karen came by, and we had this challenge of tryin’ to track down Uta’s friend from Quebec — and we finally Get It Done — but her husband tells us she’s out at The Rolling Stones concert!
So — here’s one of Uta’s friends sitting beside her just back from three Grateful Dead shows, and her other friend’s out dancing to The Rolling Stones!
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And then there was the part where she couldn’t drink alcohol once the cancer was diagnosed, but in her fridge she always had alcohol-free Beck’s, as well as regular for visitors. And she’d be hip to crackin’ ’em at the crack of noon!
And so was her brother! One day at the hospice, he and their sister were arriving from Germany at the same time I was from Bronte. And among other things, I explained to them how the communal fridge works, and how I wrote Uta’s name on a buncha the real McCoy Beck’s I brought over cuz she wanted ’em now that there was no turning back. So I take Homes over and show him the fridge and beer, and he goes, “You give me one now?”
“You want one now?” I ask in noon nursing-home hospice disbelief.
“Yes,” he says, in that German-English way, where it goes up at the end.
And Boom — we’re off! Sis is there. They’re working out shit. Talkin’ in German a mile-a-minute. I’m in the corner on the laptop surfin hospice wifi — the ball boy at the tennis match, the “runner” in showbiz, on hand for whatever needs doin’ — as they keep riffing tales in their native tongue, the three siblings united. And every once-n-a-bit old Otto or whatever his name was, wanted to go out for another smoke, and we’d cluster with beers n butts at the creek-side gazebo and he’d tell me stories about how she was always different, and they knew she’d never stay grounded at home, and she never did, and how she was always the big sister that they watched in amazement at all the things she was doin’. All life long. “Life is good.”
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Her son-in-law said to me at her memorial — Uta was one of those people who always saw life as the glass half full.
I corrected him. “No — she saw it as three-quarters full — and she was topping it up while you were busy asking the question.” He liked it so much he put it in the center of his eulogy.
And then . . . the most amazing part was . . . her family wanted me to have her Jack books!
And thus, beatifically — this German Adventurewoman who ‘got’ and lived Jack will live on as these are preserved and celebrated in her honor. And if a young Uta should cross my path, and I see the same sparkle in the eye that’s there from youth to sign-off, I can pass on these secret sacred texts, the Road map, via Uta, to the young ones following in her path just as sure as she did Jack’s.
North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive galvanizing Americans’ opposition to the war . . .
The Beatles open their Apple Core . . .
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test . . .
The Prague Spring and Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia . . .
2001: A Space Odyssey . . .
Johnson says he won’t run for re-election . . .
Hair opens on Broadway . . .
Madison Square Garden opens on 33rd Street, and the Fillmore East on Second Avenue . . .
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In debuts on TV . . .
* And that was all before the political conventions hit! *
And boy – did they hit!
Although the three television networks were broadcasting in color, almost no one had color sets at home — it was still an absurd luxury — B&Ws continued to outsell colors until 1972.
And of those three networks, late start-up ABC was so far behind the others, as someone joked in Best of Enemies, “They would’ve been 4th, but there were only 3.”
To try to do something different than the rote “gavel-to-gavel coverage” of Huntley & Brinkley on NBC and Walter Cronkite on CBS, the new kids came up with the smart low-budget idea of putting talkative spokesmen for the right and left in chairs next to each other and let them go at it for each of the two single weeks covering the Republican and Democratic conventions.
This decision was to become as legendary and transformative in its field as Dylan plugging in at Newport a couple summers earlier. But sadly, just as that gutsy maneuver led to Ted Nugent and comedically adolescent showmanship, this initially admirable and bubbling-with-possibility idea similarly led to a lowbrow Crossfire hurricane of right-left hate-speech that’s dominated American political coverage for decades.
This now-famous tete-et-tete between two reigning intellectuals on either side of the ideological spectrum has taken on a sort of Lincoln-Douglas mythological status. But just as a transcript reading of those 1858 debates reveals — they were both far from civil or high-minded. In fact this more recent Great American Debate Legend was bitter, petty, vicious, uncomfortable, conniving, mean-spirited — and absolutely riveting live television.
ABC’s ratings spiked through the roof — even as the roof of their cheaply-built “studio” at the convention hall in Chicago literally collapsed on their heads. But network television, much like Hollywood, is nothing if not a rip-off-and-replicate industry. And thus the no-budget Point/Counterpoint style of belligerent blowhards yelling over each other was born.
And this documentary — made by the same team as the magnificent recent Academy Award-winning 20 Feet From Stardom — time-travels you back to the summer of ’68, but with 21st century perspective from the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Frank Rich, Dick Cavett, Andrew Sullivan and loads of erudite others. And it’s really fast-paced — running through the whole set-up, ten “debates” and the aftermath in less than 90 minutes.
The entire movie is just smart filmmaking — opening with dramatic old aerial footage of the Italian coastline that looks like unused B-roll from To Catch A Thief taking us to where pondering Gore Vidal lived and paced for decades — and ending with a machine-gun-collage of clips of shows that were born out of this television summer of ’68 — from Jon Stewart telling the Crossfire hosts, “You’re doing theater when you should be doing debate,” to, presciently, this summer’s talking-head star Megyn Kelly. They use the ring of a boxing bell to start each round of “debate,” and a perfect piano and cello-based soundtrack by Jonathan Kirkscey that sounds a lot like Philip Glass at times. In fact, there’s a real harmony here with Glass’s work on another great documentary, The Source (1999) by Chuck Workman, about how the Beat writers changed history.
And speaking of the Beats … who are these guys and why do they keep following me?
Not seven minutes into the film do we get Buckley walking and pontificating next to a four-foot-high photo of Allen Ginsberg! — wearing the “Pot is Fun” sandwich board, no less! Which then goes into a slow “Ken Burns pan” up the photo until it’s resting on Allen’s face (!) as Buckley’s voiceover spews his dopy Ayn Rand-ian gobbledegook, “As long as liberalism suggested that it could bring happiness to the individual, then people tended to look to government agencies for those narcotic substitutes for a search for happiness and contentment which they ought to have found in their religion, in their institutions, and their culture themselves.”
And of course on the streets outside the Chicago convention hall where Buckley and Vidal were debating, Allen was leading the crowds with chanting and other non-violent protests, alongside Jean Genet, Ed Sanders, Terry Southern, and William Burroughs who was there covering it for Esquire.
And then Allen shows up again when he was a guest on Buckley’s Firing Line! And of course any casual Kerouac fan knows of the author’s legendary appearance on that same show — which was — get this — the very first episode the next week! Immediately after this historic smackdown that would define Buckley’s television career (much to his chagrin), Kerouac was in the Vidal seat taking the flamethrower’s heat — and as he told his agent Sterling Lord afterwards, “Buckley kept kicking my shoes and telling me to shush.” (And the Ginsberg episode was on just 3 weeks after this!)
Then of course there’s the part where Jack wrote in The Subterraneans about meeting Gore Vidal at the San Remo in the Village in the summer of ’53 — when they either did or didn’t have sex, depending on whom you ask. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but Gore says they did, and Jack says they didn’t. In fact, Jack wrote his gay pal Al shortly afterwards, not raving about some rapturous night together but dismissing Vidal as “such a pretentious little fag.” And he wasn’t too keen on his writing either! — penning Allen the year before their 1953 encounter that it was “so ugly transparent in its method” and “regressing to sophomore imitations of Henry James.”
And there’s not just Beat cultural references.
This particularly inclusive & colorful doc also features Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, Muhammad Ali, Sunset Blvd., Aretha Franklin, The Flying Nun, Norman Mailer, The Best Man, Woody Allen, Playboy After Dark, Henry Gibson, Ben Hur, Paul Newman, Saturday Night Live, John Lithgow and Kelsey Grammer voicing the authors’ respective left / right writings . . . and on and on appropriately appropriating mass culture into this political news philosophical debate story because it really was the beginning of the blending of the two.
Prior to this, television news was formal, staid and nonpartisan. Yes, there was a time when journalists reported news objectively. But this was televised New Journalism — just as was being invented in the literary form at the same time by Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, Norman Mailer and others.
ABC’s slogan for their unexpected hit broadcast was “Unconventional convention coverage” — and this documentary captures every part of it — from the executives’ initial decisions to the carpenters rebuilding the studio roof that collapsed just before showtime. It sneaks inside the minds of both the two prize fighters in the ring, as well as those in the rings of repercussions rippling out from the splash in still waters these two giants made.
Aaron Sorkin (of West Wing, The Newsroom and The American President fame) has signed on to write a feature-length dramatization a la Frost/Nixon, and every network has pledged to give you the same on-the-verge-of-violence “debates” for the next 18 months of Presidential campaigning.
Make sure you see this movie soon or I’m going to sock you in your goddamn face.
Home of the Beats, home of The Dead, home of the wild. The United States of San Francisco. The city that makes its own rules . . . and that’s that.
Of course we’re coming home. To the Museum that Jerry built. Cimino, that is. The Beat Museum. Of course there has to be a Beat Museum. How could there not be?
Just like that other Jerry from San Francisco started another institution that never died — Jerry 2.0 has finally put brick-&-mortar to an idea that was always in the air there.
The Dynamic Duo – minutes after first arrival Photo by legendary S.F. photographer Dennis Hearne
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And just as The Museum was his lifelong dream — so too was having a summit a la Boulder ’82 that he almost came to but missed by a hair.
And like a fat book that reads really fast, the million events and people in this weekend orgy of words and ideas passed in the blink of some beautiful eyes.
First there was the pre--opening party. I mean, it was all about the parties, let’s face it. And a company that accents beautiful eyes — Warby Parker — the high-end glasses shop named for a couple different character names the Jack-loving owner’s noticed in Kerouac’s notebooks at the NYPL show — decided to throw us a Welcome-to-Town Party complete with jazz trio and poetry readings and a typewriter to riff your own spontaneous bop prosody.
Mutt n Jeff, Hilary Holliday & Tate Swindell
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But things really kicked into gear Friday night with the official Opening Night Party that took over the entire 2 floors of this action-packed Museum, with all the wine and craft beer you could drink. Tom Waits, the Dead and ’50s jazz played from the speakers in every ceiling corner. And filling every floor corner were Beats new and old.
There’s ruth weiss! Finally! Never met her before — with her blazing blue-green-tourquoise hair — an idea she got from a movie called “The Boy With The Green Hair” that she saw as a 20-year-old — and was still dancing on the balls of her feet and bopping with more energy than the 20-somethings.
There was Gerd (pronounced Gaird) Stern — the man who did NOT lose The Joan Anderson Letter — who I was hosting his talk tomorrow and had just met a couple days earlier on this secret sacred houseboat The Vallejo which he lived on at one time and was still in the same harbor he called home in the ’40s & ’50s. And there’s him and ruth seeing each other for the first time in 50 years!
And there’s Big Al Hinkle! Who’s not quite as towering as he once was but is still a giant of a man at 88. He was of course a star attraction — “The Last Man Standing” — the only guy who was in the car On The Road who’s still here to tell about it. And tell about it he does with a great memory and all his faculties and senses with him.
with Al Hinkle and Jami Cassady
And there’s Next-Gen Merry Prankster Moray who brought the original Anonymous who got On The Bus in Calgary as a 15 year old after having just read On The Road and, as she says, she was born “on the bus” — and was as tickled to be hanging with the Beat Founders as any of us.
There wasn’t even a bridge between the Beats and the Pranksters
— it was just a loving embrace.
And there’s Levi Asher — my old brother of the Greenwich Village Beat scene shows of the ’90s and 2000s — who I helped produce the big celebration for his web-pioneering LitKicks — their 5th anniversary at The Bitter End in 1999 with a symmetrical 9 hours of non-stop show . . . from a drumming sage-burning opening to John Cassady leading an all-star jam closing at 4AM.
And this weekend was the same damn thing — non-stop from Friday til . . . Tuesday, to be perfectly honest.
And there’s long-time Beat Neeli Cherkovski in the role of Gregory Corso — the portly disheveled poet always surrounded by a coterie of confederates on some mischievous mission of madness.
And there’s Chris Felver workin’ the room — the unofficial official Beat photographer and one of the five who were here in 2015 and there in ’82.
And there’s Dan Barth another of the Boulder ’82ers who read there at Allen’s Oracles on the closing Sunday night and became the Poet Laureate of Mendocino County and travelled down from The Great Green North to spread his Zen Beat poetry in the city lights.
And if you’re wondering — David Amram and Dennis McNally were the other two ’82ers — but they wouldn’t appear until tomorrow.
And there’s Hilary Holladay who founded the Kerouac Studies program at U. Mass. in Lowell, and just wrote the Huncke book, and brought out a bunch of her students from Virginia who were smart, polite and Beat to their core.
And there’s Tom Galasso who lived with Edie Kerouac in Detroit and is one of the few around I can swap first-hand stories with of Jack’s first long-term love.
And then Tom Lake appears — the major Beat player online … known the guy for years … never met ‘im … until I hear somebody say, “I’m Tom Lake,” and I turn around … and it’s the blind guy with the white cane!
Wait — what? The guy I’ve been interacting with online for years … is blind?!
No.
But yes! And we bond like brothers and he ends up being a playful prankster sidekick for this entire Shindigian Adventure!
Which also included of course hangin’ at the Hudson . . .
and getting him to take photographs . . . (!) a blind guy’s photography . . . making art that he can’t experience except by hearing other people’s reactions to it.
And there’s my Wight brother Orville, another longtime onliner I’m meeting for the first time and who’s been On The Road forever, dancing on both sides of the Jerry–Jack fuzzy line …
And there’s the beaming Shelly Musgrove who I first met over photos from Vesuvio’s and has been on a crash course in Beatlandia, including devouring my book in one sitting, and traveling halfway across the state to be here.
And this whole packed-Museum opening-night cocktail-party is running effortlessly because of beatnik-clad show producers Otto & Baby Doe, who’ve been doing off-Beat events for decades, and have rounded up an army of volunteers and liquifying sponsors, and weaving it all seamlessly in with the Museum’s inner cabinet of Brandon the visual design guy, and Bob the poetry organizer, and E.T. the novelist from another planet, and Niko the sharp-dressed man disguising the nature-loving poet revolutionary that all these Museumistas seem to be.
And all the first-time meetings and long-time reunions by so many segued naturally into a late night hang at Vesuvio’s across the street in a dance of interactive eye-blazing joy and story sharing across the universe.
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Saturday — the first full day — was huge: Dr. Philip Hicks, the psychiatrist who Allen credits with giving him permission to be himself, spoke in public about that landmark diagnosis for the first time. Current San Francisco Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguía riffed his imagistic word magic as a harmonizing echo of Kerouac’s paeans to The Mission’s downtrodden. The brilliant funny modern-day Lenny Bruce / Mort Sahl of contemporary North Beach — Will Durst — laid down his political and cultural stand-up routine.
When I told him about the hitchhiking adventure of the book, he looked me deadpan in the eye and advised me — “You’re crazy, you know that?”
Director Heather Dalton screened her new “Neal Cassady – The Denver Years” film in its West Coast premiere. Local Beat authority Jonah Raskin brought the history of the city to life in a multimedia show. The perpetually beaming Tate Swindell and his brother Todd made sure Jack Micheline and Harold Norse made it to the Shindig through film clips and audio recordings and first-hand stories. Neeli held a poetry workshop. Felver riffed on Ferlinghetti. And Amram performed his patented Jack music & storytelling revue.
3 of the 5 Boulder ’82ers — me, Dave Amram & Dan Barth
with Mike Wurm, Jerry & Levi
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And sitting outside in the secluded Fort Mason enclave that we took over along the northern shore of the city with Alcatraz in the distance were a bunch of late-’40s Hudsons bringing the material machines into the mindful mindfields of poetry and prose.
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Inside the main building was this giant party room with a poetry & jazz stage; and all sorts of bookstores with tables of cool stuff; as well as the Cassadys set-up with Carolyn’s easel and paintings and stuff;
and there was a bar selling perfectly cold beer and wine. Across the outdoor atrium was an excellent cafe / restaurant with all sorts of healthy California delights to stay or go. What I’m sayin is — we were set! Self-contained. You could take a hundred trips without leaving the farm.
I hosted the Gerd Stern talk — of Joan Anderson letter fame — The Holy Grail by The Holy Goof — the letter that blew open the doors for Kerouac’s writing and did NOT blow off a houseboat in Sausalito — like Allen Ginsberg pinned on Gerd sixty years ago when in fact Allen had submitted it someplace and just forgot!
Howling with Gerd
As I say, I first met him a few days earlier on this famous giant historic houseboat called the Vallejo that was home to Alan Watts and all sorts of interesting people over the decades and where I had to sign a non-disclosure release just to step on board that said I wouldn’t tell anyone where it is or even take any cell phone pictures that might reveal its location by GPS.
We got along like two buds in a joint right from the git-go — jammin out the crazy storyline of his crazy life, so when we hit the stage that afternoon we were already makin’ beautiful jokes together. We went through the whole sequence of what happened, when and where, from his first meeting Allen and Carl Solomon at the Psychiatric Institute in New Jersey in 1947, and how he gave the manuscripts back to Allen in ’53, and his thoughts on why the story came into existence, and the whole yak was videotaped so that’ll be out before long. It was a packed room — and Levi Asher was in the front nodding in grooving agreement the whole time, and by all accounts it was a joyous jam.
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As soon as this was over I had to bolt upstairs to the main theater to be part of the Cassady Family Panel with Al Hinkle and Jami Cassady, who asked me to be on it cuz I was pretty close to Carolyn n all. Brother John was supposed to be there, and we kept thinking he’d suddenly come bursting through the curtain and onto the stage but it never happened.
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Good ol’ Levi was hosting, which I thought was great since we’d known each other for 20 years — until I realized — Al’s known Jami since her birth day! He’s seen her grow from a baby to a child to a mother to a grandmother . . . so he really knew the whole arc of the Cassady clan . . . and was the first person any of you ever heard of who met Neal!
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And get this — he & Neal were actually a circus act for a while!
When they were both around 13, they were going to the same YMCA in Denver. Both of them were uncommonly strong for their age, and “that Y had the only high-wire circus act program in the country,” Al said. “The big net, the trapeze, the whole schmear. And I found out later it had been donated by the great uncle of Hal Chase. (!)
“I thought it would be fun. The first thing you had to do was climb up and jump and land in the net — on your back if possible, so you’d bounce right up. And then they taught you how to roll over and use your hands and get off onto your feet. Then they had us swinging on the trapeze and dropping to the net.
“They said to me — because I was almost six feet tall then, and I was thin and had a little muscle — they said why don’t you hang from the trapeze by your knees and see if you can catch somebody. They have a rope to the trapeze, and they pull it back, and get you going, and then they have another trapeze going the other way, and they’d have a guy there, and the only one that could do it was Neal.
“And then they wanted him to somehow do a flip, a roll, and then I’d catch him . . . and it seemed like that was pretty easy to do! We’d catch each other’s wrists. He’d catch my wrists and I’d catch his — and it seemed like … we could do it! And we practiced and practiced and got so we could do it most every time. And they had some other acts — I don’t remember — they had a tumbling act, and a human pyramid, I remember that because I was on the bottom of the pyramid.
“So . . . we put on two shows. And people’s parents were there. And we had a dress rehearsal type thing. I was supposed to catch Neal twice in each show. And I did on the first one — I caught him both times — and I missed him once at the second show. I think he came out of the summersault wrong or something, and he just went down — Boom! But he landed good.
“And then when summer was over, he was going to one school and I was going to another. I didn’t even know his last name. We lost track of each other, and I never saw him again until we were both about 19 years old, and Jimmy Holmes, who was an old high school friend, he introduced us at Pederson’s pool Hall.
“I was just back from the Merchant Marines, and one day I’m walking down the street and bump into Jimmy. I had a 1936 LaSalle convertible with a straight-8, and Jimmy had me come pick him up one Saturday, and I parked about a block away from the pool hall. And of course Jimmy knew everybody there, and we played a game of pool, and he was practically running the tables, just kinda showin’ off, and we’re just hanging out there, and then who comes in the back door, but Neal! And I looked at him, and he looked at me, and it didn’t register at first. And I kept thinking about it, and I guess he was thinking about it, too. And then we finally made the connection.
“Then at some point I made the mistake of saying I have to go move my car, and right away he went, ‘You’ve got a car?!?!'” and Al laughs heartily at the memory. “Now I’m his best friend!”
“He says, ‘Would you mind if we took a drive to the drive-in? My wife works there.’ On the ride over we reminisced about the circus together. Anyway, we get there and LuAnne’s working as a car-hop. And I’m thinking, ‘Boy she is a beautiful girl!‘ . . . but really young. I guess she was 16 at the time … and they were married. And we have a Coke or something, and then we go back to the poolhall, and Neal and Jimmy start playing pool, and then these two girls come in the back door, and Neal goes over and gives one of them a big kiss, and introduces me to his girlfriend!!
“Those were the first two times Neal and I hung out together.”
And all sorts of stuff like this is going down. And once again the whole thing is on video, and as soon as I get time I’ll get it out there.
But then the deal was — John Cassady was supposed to be on the panel — then we were gonna drive-like-Neal from there to the Dead show in Santa Clara — basically back to San Jose where he lives. . . . But the guy never shows up!
And I dunno how this happens — just the magic of the universe — but I’m in the post-show hang with people in front of the stage and mention to somebody I gotta get from Levi’s panel to Levi’s Stadium . . . in a hurry. And this girl overhears me and says, “I wanna go there, too. You don’t have an extra ticket, do you?” Well, as a matter of absent-John-fact, I think I do. “Well I’ve got a car.” BOOM! Dun and Duner. And Weir outta there in Flash!
Just like ’82 — The Grateful Dead are playing smack in the middle of this Big Beat Conference. Who are these guys, and why do they keep following me around?
So we have this whole massive insane Adventure . . . the Dead’s opening night of their Farewell to home-base California — prophet on the golden shore and all that — but it’ll take about two days to tell you that whole story … I mean, bunch of stories, sheesh!! If you really wanna hear a Farewell Dead riff, here’s a Grate story about Chicago.
But get this — not only did this girl wanna drive from the Cassady Panel to the Cassady Band — but she was staying in frickin’ Chinatown!! — so was driving all the way back to about two blocks from where I was staying in North Beach!!!
I dunno, but sometimes the lights all shinin’ on me . . .
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Anyway, next thing you know it’s Sunday Sunday Sunday — the day of the big “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” show. Thank god, ol’ Bill-Graham-Jerry moved it to the 4 PM slot so there was time to recover n all.
But first in the day — I mean it was unreal — there was Jerry doing a show with Dave Amram with the usual colorful storytelling and all that jazz. And the authentic rare living Beat poet David Meltzer was there doing his funny poetry and mesmerizing storytelling. And there was the great Beat filmmaker Mary Kerr screening her movies from North Beach in the ’50s. And the artist Eric Drooker who did all the animation in the movie Howl putting on a whole show. And Brenda Knight who did The Women of the Beat Generation book among other things — and there was more stuff to do than any one person could.
Plus! Dennis McNally was there! — who I still think wrote the best biography of Jack, Desolate Angel, not to mention The Official History of the Grateful Dead, and he’s riffin on the great Wally Hedrick who I’d written about fairly extensively in my Hitchhiker’s book.
Which led me to meeting this poet / professor, David Rollison, who was good friends with Wally, an artist who vociferously shunned the spotlight.
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And it was David who set me up on a whole other series of adventures just before the Shindig happened — including taking me to the very house I stayed in on the Marin detour in the Hitchhiker book,
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And turning me onto the people who live in the Dharma Bums house where Jack & Gary Snyder stayed for a while,
Lying down in front of Jack’s old headboard.
and all sorts of other sacred and weird places in Mighty Marin.
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And a cool thing had developed by Sunday where this area outside the main front doors became this perpetual groove center — where everybody went in or out . . . but there was me and whomever else at any given time just hangin on the loading dock landing that looped around the entire building — and in a way this was the most fun time and place of the whole Shindig Shabang. Besides our late nights at Vesuvio’s, this was the most Beat scene of the summit.
I of course arranged for us to go to the nearest cold beer store and come back with four armfuls loaded for bear. And we could smoke jazz cigarettes in the cool San Francisco Bay breeze, and there was this constant flow of people, all of whom would stop for a while, and some of the most interactive subject-leaping conversations of the weekend took place on that stoop. Coulda been New York in the ’50s.
One’a the Stoop Groups – TKG, Levi, yours unruly, James Stauffer, Dan Barth
There was the great S.F. poet James Stauffer who I finally got to meet after we tried to put together the huge “Holy Fools” festival in the Mid-West about 20 years ago . . .
and that colorful Beatific artist Philippo LoGrande from Mexico who’s been floating around all conference drawing me and all sorts of other people in the ongoing jam of it all . . .
and there was Dan Barth, my Boulder ’82 brother, finally with time to hang and groove in poet’s grove down by the docks of the city . . .
and Tate Swindell and Jerry and Gerd and Levi and James and . . .
. . . holy shit! — I still have a show to do!
And then this crazy thing happens where — everything had been going perfectly — but sometimes I get these fainting spells where if I don’t get horizontal as soon as I feel it coming on, I’ll black out and drop like a stone. And sure enough, I hadn’t really ate much (or slept much after the Dead Spectacular) and when I picked up a box of books to help somebody move — BOOM it hit! . . . And this was 45 minutes before I’m supposed to be “on” — and there I am lying on the floor seeing stars behind the Cassady’s table . . . !
Way to go, B! You’re passing out 5 minutes before showtime. What? — you trying to pull a Kerouac? I know yer into the guy — but do you really have to be unable to stand before you go on stage?! I don’t think that was his strongest attribute, I’m thinking, as the ceiling’s spinning like a merry-go-round.
I very gradually rise to the occasion, and frailly and slowly make my way to the room with the help of Dr. John Wight — and there waiting for me is the unspoken superstar of the conference, Brandon from The Beat Museum setting up to do the visual show with the laptop. And there’s a whole room fulla people! . . . as I’m one wrong breath away from falling over.
So . . . it was a wild trip. But as people noticed, including me, I was gradually gaining strength as the hour-and-a-half show progressed . . . and about half-way through it started to feel like I was coming back. It was cool talking to people afterwards . . . that the audience could see this happening . . . almost like a Dead show where the first half / set was basically warming up, then the second half killed. I was actually up and running around the stage, and at one point, I don’t know what the hell story I was telling, but it required me running across the stage and smashing into the far wall! I have no idea. But I do remember hitting this wall and seeing the paint microscope-close to my eyes and thinking, “Well, I must be feeling better.”
Anyway, the whole thing’s on videotape — and this is starting to feel like Steve Goodman’s song coming to life.
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But at least I was a hundred percent for both Gerd and the Cassadys, and that’s what really matters. Honoring your elders and extended family. Which is really what this whole conference was for all of us.
But of course it was no where near over yet!
After my show’s done, a bunch of us encamped on the stoop again, and hung there in a most festive space until it got dark, then hung sumore. And then ruth weiss came on for the final performance of the conference up in the main theater where we did the Cassady Family show the day before, and we all went up and man, she was great! She had an upright bass, sax, and her partner on a drum, and she read this very Beat stuff … as in, with a beat, the same kind of breath lines as Jack blew, and about finding freedom and yourself in a sea of blandness and conformity.
And very cooly, she pulled out all this stuff from her repertoire that dealt directly with Beat subjects — poem-stories about meeting them, and about their lives together back in the day. I know she’s continued to write since the ’50s, the more recent of which is what she normally performs, but for this shindig she specially and thankfully selected all her original Beat-based material and quite rocked the house — with more energy than I’ve seen in performers a quarter her 80 years.
And this was naturally followed by more jazz cigarettes and cold Sierra Nevadas on the stoop while everybody mill-valleyed about, and by now me and ol’ Blind Tom had become a somewhat inseparable duo — he was so observant — and I convinced him to not leave the next day but stay for the aftershow glow when everyone’s relaxed and radiating with the meter off and it’s Vesuvio’s time. 😉
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And so ol’ Blind Tom wisely does this, and we have a whole day’s Adventure . . .
And I’m encouraging him to write up his Shindig story cuz he’s about my age when I did the first one and it would be so amazing to read how he perceives everything — how he can’t see but he’s all ears — and the way he so highly functions and learns geography and is so self-reliant and Getting Things Done is just mind-blowing.
And we happily bop all over North Beach, including hanging with Paul Kantner at the vividly historic Caffe Trieste and I tell him about staying in his old house in Marin, and he sits there reading that whole section of the book just like Phil Lesh couldn’t put it down a week earlier …
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But the coming night was one of those Classics you play for.
It began with the official debriefing hang with the core crew at Vesuvio’s — just as I had prophesied to Jerry we’d do months ago — that beaming lingering evening when we’re no longer looking at our watches after months of planning and deadlines — Bill & Chet, as he & I started jokingly calling ourselves, honoring the two great San Francisco promoters — and debriefing we did! — including with old show-producing New York partner, Levi Asher …
. . . taking over the best booth in the best bar in town — right on the street, right on the corner, right under the Kerouac Alley sign, right inside the door, everything wide open and wild!
And off we riffed on the vibe that was pulsating from the opening night party to the closing night stoop; on how so many people met each other for the first time; how Gerd and ruth were like two playful kids even in their 80s; how cool the Prankster presence was and how natural the blend was with the Beats; how effective the big party room was except maybe we should have the poets’ stage somewhere else so it’s more focused; and how taking over Fort Mason was so perfect, giving us our entire own world in the middle of downtown San Francisco; how glitch-free everything had rolled; and how everybody got home safe.
And suddenly I remembered — “Oh Wait! There’s a super-important scene in the book that takes place here! I sat in here in ’82, right above where we are,” I pointed up. “This exact spot, except on the second floor! We gotta go there!” So I Pied Pipered the crew upstairs just before they closed it off for the night, and we took over the very table where me and Croz met that actor! (ch. 27) Another one of those sites from the book I hadn’t been to in 33 years!
And dig — right under Levi’s chin you can see the Kerouac Alley sign outside! That certainly wasn’t there in ’82; but the historic Tosca Cafe above my peace sign certainly was.
And after a few more rounds, responsible Bill Graham bids us adieu — and it’s pretty much a wrap on the wrap party. And outside in the aforementioned Kerouac Alley, Levi and I have a perfect fare thee well moment, where the giant arc of the rainbow came down just like it did over Levi’s Stadium, from East Coast to West, from our first deciding to do this and getting together for the first time in years for this perfect Adventure in Beatlandia, and now the rainbow arc ends in Kerouac Alley between Vesuvio’s and City Lights — the bar and the bookstore with Jack the bridge — the only two Shindiggers who did both the conference and the Dead shows hugging goodbye, so much happier than Dean & Sal at their sidewalk farewell in On The Road.
And now there were three . . . amigos in the alley . . .
And I figured we had to figure out once-and-for-all exactly where that famous Robbie–McClure–Dylan–Allen photo was taken. And ol’ wiz-bang Brandon pulls out his smart-phaser and beams up the photograph and zooms in on the doorframe and a-ha! GOT it! Nailed it. Know it. Now.
So we gotta take the fer-sure pictures in the fer-sure spot — and so Yes! We reprise the Blind Tom trick and have him take the photo!
Outside the door in the Dylan-Beats shot. Photo by Tom Lake.
And eventually brilliant Brandon bolts for the boonies, and I walk my new Brother Tom home — this Beat conference’s Brother Tom, reprising the real-life character so central to the first one — back to his Green Tortoise Hostel a half-block from The Beat Museum — in itself one of the coolest places in North Beach — a center for off-Beat Travelers and Adventurers since the mid-’70s.
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After the drop-off, I was still way too jazzed n burnin’ to remotely sleep, and there was a whole city left to explore! Suddenly I was on my own, no direction home, free to roam under the starry dome.
I hung a right up some little alley next to The Beat Museum towards The Saloon — since 1861 the longest continually operating bar in San Francisco and home to all the desperadoes since Jack London and Jesse James. Or something. But by now it’s already past the last call for alcohol and they’re not lettin people in the door. But I look closely and there’s ol’ Per (pronounced “pair”) — my Danish Deadhead brother who’d flown here from Copenhagen for the Fare Thee Well shows — and actually was at the historic Tivoli show on the Europe ’72 tour! We’d been beaming all over North Beach ever since we both arrived about the same time, and together we could do a lot of damage.
So I see ol’ Per sittin there, and this seems to be enough for the Wild West Saloon cowboy doorman to let me slip through the swinging doors, and ol’ Per’s just laughing his Danish head off that I found him, and of course it’s time for another Adventure.
We pour outta there, and fall in with this whole German crew who are similarly prowling the streets of No Good, and head round the corner past the closed Trieste and back out to Columbus where we got caught up in the whole strip-bar scene with these hookers and whatevers and guys & dolls of all ages and ethnicities working the hungry sidewalks for a mark & a buck, the full-on hustle of end-of-night scores and hook-ups and tricks and trades and what a circus!
We linger in the swirling scenery of barkers and colored balloons — because life is a carnival, two bits a shot. But then we remember our mission for beer and continue back to Broadway where the Danes and Germans hold a curbside summit to determine the next drinking hole. But it takes this Canadian to break the news it’s a hard 2 A.M. cut-off in this town — and if Vesuvio’s and The Saloon have had last call on a Monday, there ain’t nuthin more late-night than them.
I looked at the deli on the corner and the watch on my wrist and told ol’ Per — “That’s the last beer in town, mate. And it closes in 15 minutes.” He doesn’t wanna believe me, so we sit down on these iron bolted-in bus stop chairs they have, and have a smoke to think about it, watching the open deli door as the minutes tick by. And sure enough, since ol’ Per hasn’t come up with a better plan, at 1 minute to, we grab a half-dozen Rolling Rocks, which Per has some crazy elaborate backstory on about how he discovered them on some mad mission in America way-back-when and they hold some special power for him — secret energy juice — and I’ll go along with anything for a night.
So we happily load up my road bag and head for my office — this outdoor patio place just down Columbus at Kearny — the perfect setting for the sunset of the trip.
As fate and geography would have it, we had to pass Specs on the way — the other historic hideaway bar in North Beach that’s been there forever.
I get us to swing left sweet chariot on ol’ Saroyan Alley to the tiny bar you’d never know was there . . . unless you did.
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And sure as you’re born — the door’s standing wide open. And as I start to walk in the empty space, the barkeep calls out, “We’re closed!”
“Yeah — I just wanna look around” I say, all wide eyed I am — and completely knowing the play I’m playing.
And he lets us wander in . . . and I stay in character . . . the scholarly studious student of history . . . appreciating said bar . . . painstakingly exploring every inch of the framed history on the walls . . .
. . . buying time . . . showing interest . . . while Per goes over and starts talking to the last lingering local at the end of the bar . . . who I actually happen to already know as he’s the sometimes doorman at Vesuvio’s, the guy who told me how the scene around North Beach had changed so much for the better with the announcement of the Dead shows . . . their first in 20 years . . . and how he, as a street barometer, had noticed a visible change in the hugs and love of strangers stopping strangers just to shake their hand that had been missing for a long time in this Times Square of Bohemia.
And so, with everyone duly occupied, and me tossing out the occasional inquisitive question to the clearly erudite bartender . . . the desired bond seemed to be developing . . . and as the last of the now-drinkless locals wafted out the door . . .
. . . sure as you’re born I hear The Magic Words: “Could you go close that door and lock it?”
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Where everything changed
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BOOM! DONE! In. The coolest tiniest bohemianest bar in S.F. . . . the greatest POSSIBLE moment and place to be . . . the old The-Bar’s-Closed-And-The-Drinks-Are-Free Routine.
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And it turns out this bartender, Michael, is a doppelganger for the comedian Colin Quinn — accent, heritage, looks, mannerisms, humor, thoughts . . .
And he re-fills my pint without asking whenever it’s thirsty, and as he’s putting everything away and cleaning up, he says more than once — “If you were 5 minutes earlier or five minutes later, this wouldn’t have happened. . . . But you came in right in that window.” We both knew the routine, and were mutually happy to have worked it together.
And boy, was he smart. A classical music and film scholar, he starts playing all these obscure movie scores that are positively Vivaldian! And as he’s putting stuff away he stops and POUNDS out the beats on the bar like a teenager does rock n roll — and fist-pumping the air at the crescendos. The guy got his B.A. in film, minored in religion and African studies, and one of the refrains our many-pints-long conversation keeps returning to is — “respect your elders.” And it was that I respected the history of the bar that was my pass into this world — as he reverently tells me about the legendary eccentric owner nicknamed “Specs” who was a jukebox of one-liners — “If I’m not in bed by midnight, I go home” —
and how he made their business cards double purpose that can also be used to protect female customers . . .
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The place is like the original Kettle of Fish in New York — just a bar — no TVs — no frills, no nuthin ‘cept music and people and drinks — because what else do you need? I search for the authenticity in everything — the real, the core, the truth, the root, the undoctored, the natural in both the outdoors and the indoors — and this place is bona fide, certified, Beatified real.
With Per — the Wavy Gravy / Chet Helms / Ken Kesey of Copenhagen at the legendary Table of Tyranny in Specs
And after we have this glorious perpetual-pint-refilling classical music class and North Beach history lesson, ol’ Michael’s about finishing his chores, and I can read music on the wall and knew this score was coming to its natural resolution, and knowing not to overstay our gracious welcome, I suggest to my Danish Dangerman that we continue on to my office, cuz we’ve still got that 1:59AM purchased six-pack of Rolling Rock to play us through the nocturnal groove-down.
Back on the desolate angel streets of deserted North Beach, America, the only two Beatniks still beating the conversational adventure drums on this sleepy Monday night in June, euphoric in our score of an after-hours bar that looked so impossible when we were last roaming these empty streets of newspapers blowing . . . as we whooshed around the corner to my corner office with a view.
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Quite ecstatic in the ecstaticness of the 4AM universe — we’ve pulled it off! From slipping into the closed Saloon to find him hours ago, to the magic moment in the coolest Kettle this side of 1957, we surfed the waves of this Beach like masters of the never-bored.
And as you can just barely see in the picture, I’ve pulled out my notebook . . . and am readin’ my notes and writin’ new ones . . . cuz if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s — you gotta write it when it happens.
As me and Per are taking the talk for one last loop around the track, I know I got work ahead of me. Gotta get this down. Now.
So we walk back to the hotel weir both staying in and met over Grateful Dead t-shirts in the lobby, and bid each other goodnight.
Now, ya see — when I’m burning, I smoke. And I gotta have a space to write and burn. Normally it’s the street — but this is crazy half-lawless North Beach at 4 A.M. When I write, I leave the planet. But one needs to be alert and monitoring the radar systems when you’re out in war zones. And I could not leave earth and be safe with my instrument on the sidewalks of this crazy.
And then — ol’ Levi came flashin’ back. Of course, as The Grand Fates had it, I was hanging out front when this brother-from-another-mother arrived to stay in the same joint. And having experienced Brian in New York, Levi asks as I’m walking him to his room, “What’s the roof like?”
I say, “There’s no way up.”
He goes, “Whadda you mean? There’s always a way up.”
Now, A) he’s not right about that, but B) the moment he says this, we walk past a hallway with a window at the end . . . and a fire escape ladder going up . . . hmmm . . .
The conversation immediately leapt to another subject, as he and I are wont to do, but the snapshot was logged at CentCom for future reference. “Roger that.”
Back to the room — download everything — meaning leave in room everything you don’t need; pack for Adventure: laptop; cold beers from mini-fridge, replaced with the last Rolling Rock; glasses for long range optical enhancement; camera so I can see what we captured from tonight; notebook for retrieval; I.D. because I’m anticipating being caught, and have the whole honest play in my head — “I’m just a writer visiting from Canada and it was my last night, and gosh, I’m sorry, but there were no signs saying you can’t take the fire escape to the roof.”
BOOM — like Batman, I’m climbing up the side of the building, in the 4AM dark of Big City, America, and sure as shit, it takes you right up!
POW! On the roof! Scout it out. Walk softly and attract no attention.
It’s a bit cold, but I’m puckin here! And to prove to anyone maybe watching me from higher buildings, I go and sit and get right to work on the roof hatch cover — the only “seat” on the roof, coming up from a locked room and locked hatch below.
Safe on Heaven’s roof.
I’m freaking out I’m here — but I got shit to do. And I start writing the story you just read. But it’s really hard cuz the Coppola Building is hauntingly hovering above me, and Coit Tower’s beaconing on the horizon, and Washington Square Church is looming right in front of me . . . and I’m on a roof in North Beach . . . so it’s all happening, but I’m forcing myself to get the story down — no hope for full sentences — just exact images — I’ll weave ’em together later — as I look around again — surveying the two fire ladder routes to the roof — the only two access points for any enemy to appear — and they’re both a long way away — as the city lights are painting moving abstracts on the fog — “So this is where psychedelic light shows come from!” — and . . . “quit lookin around” — Boom — back to the flashes of story images in sequence — get it down, get it down — even though it’s also see-your-breath cold — and see your life-flash-before-your-eyes visual — and the computer screen’s fogging with unreadable mist in this rainforest San Francisco Bay moisture — adverse conditions at their best — but write on, muthrbruthr, write on . . . .
And then suddenly — Oh Shit! — I’m interrupted by — the pitch black beautiful sky beginning to turn . . . a smidge off black . . .
“Oh no — it’s getting light . . . “
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Which quickly gave way to … “Oh my God! It’s getting light!!”
Reviews, feedback, and other buzzes over the transom . . .
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Brian Hassett had the presence of mind to pack a good old cassette recorder in his rucksack back in 1982 when he was alerted to the Jack Kerouac Conference being staged in Boulder, Colorado. The real spark to get him travelling across country to be there was Ken Kesey and The Grateful Dead. Brian was 21, knocked out by Jack Kerouac’s writing, and the Beat Generation as a whole, when he hitched his way there, thousands of miles, having incredible luck in obtaining lifts as he went. He blagged his way into being part of the conference set-up — there seems to have been a little Neal Cassady-ish conning going on — but it got him at close quarters with all the major participants at the event, presented by The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.
There was Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, John Clellon Holmes, Herbert Huncke, Ken Kesey, Anne Waldman, Timothy Leary and hordes more. Panels, discussions, debates, films — it went on for ten days. And Hassett was at the centre of it all, recording on his cassette player as he went: Kesey recalling his regret at being in England while his father died; John Clellon Holmes telling the real story of the birth of On The Road – who knew because he was the first person Kerouac let read the scroll version. Holmes explained the true genesis of it all.
The book is a youthful memoir with all the never-to-be-recaptured frantic zest of a young man. Everything is wonderful in the Hassett world, even bad luck. Every cloud he sees has a silver lining. This attitude takes him far as he finds himself pals with Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey. Kesey’s wife Faye tells Hassett as the conference winds down that her husband thinks Hassett is a great guy. Bursting with happiness, and the thought that Kesey rates him, sustains him. Especially given the fact that he idolizes Kesey like no other.
It’s the sheer unbridled enthusiasm that pours from Hassett that is so engaging. His close up portraits of Kesey, Ginsberg, Holmes, Huncke, Gregory Corso, Ken Babbs, Jack Micheline, Michael McClure, and others salvaged from his cassette recordings in themselves are wonderful on-the-hoof artifiacts, as the Beats relax outside the formal panel discussions which were the staple of the conference. Because they’re so important, you forgive the eager young Hassett the sometimes intrusive ‘cool’ slang he uses throughout the book. He hasn’t airbrushed it out to his credit. That’s how people often talked.
This is the Beat Generation colliding with the rock world of The Grateful Dead. I wasn’t aware that the band helped finance the event and were willing participants in the ten-day jamboree. They all knew of Kerouac, he was part of their history. They knew him through Neal Cassady, whose ex-wife Carolyn was there — as was Jack’s daughter Jan, and his first wife Edie Parker.
Then there’s the story about possibly being given a lift by Steve Jobs … or was it Bill Gates?
This is a brilliant read.
— Hilary Finch, Beat Scene magazine (out of England)
Knowing where it’s at and being there is a gift for you. That you are such a fine writer and take us with you is a gift for us.
— Chris F.
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
— Will Durst
Here’s a rollicking-good wide-ranging radio interview I did for The Jake Feinberg Show —
And here’s another wildly-riffing wide-ranging one in print for that Blues site out of Greece that goes into the meaning of Beat and the meaning of life.
I just finished a cherished early printing of this book … and it is a mind blower!
Brian has both the credentials (he spent time with ALL the Beats that were still around in 1982), and he has the chops! He not only writes about the Beats … but he is the best “Beat writer” I have encountered in a long time — riffing from page to page like a wild be-bop jazz musician.
Brian’s story is about attending a pivotal Jack Kerouac conference in Boulder Colorado in 1982. Using his experience with concert promoter Bill Graham the summer before (on the Rolling Stones 1981 Tour of America), he segues from being a conference participant to a job helping stage the event. For him it is like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. He finds himself accepted into the core group of his heroes — and he brings us along on his wild ride.
My favorite chapter came as a surprise. It happens to be 17 which is a number with much significance in this book! It’s a conversation he had with Michael McClure on a stroll after a screening of Robert Frank’s Rolling Stones documentary. The discussion wanders between poetry and philosophy and brings incredible clarity to the question of what impact the Beats had on today’s culture. It goes on to a very serious discussion on drug use from a man with a depth of personal experience, who has lost many friends to a wide variety of substances. The youth and enthusiasm of Brian, plus the wisdom of age and experience from Michael, make this chapter alone worth the price of admission, particularly for anyone looking for words to talk to kids about drugs. Not heavy folks … just wise!
For two days, in the middle of the conference, Brian attends Grateful Dead concerts at Red Rocks. This puts us all in that scene, running with the Deadheads! But it all fits. The Dead do a show honouring Jack and their buddy Neal who of course drove Ken Kesey’s bus. “The bus came by and I got on / That’s when it all began.”
Brian connects more dots than anyone before between our beloved popular culture and its roots in the Beat world. Anyone interested in Jack, Neal, Allen, Bill and the gang needs to read this riveting account of chance meetings and lifelong friendships with so many of the principals in the movement.
He draws lines between Jack Kerouac and much of the pop culture that he influenced over the last half century! This book is the best addition to Beat literature in many years!
He IS a Beat writer … not just writing about the Beats. Riffing like Dizzy and Bird!!!
Hoping to get my copy signed in the near future.
— Dale T.
This is good stuff.
— Zane K.
Here’s the part where Phil Lesh couldn’t stop reading it.
“This is top level. It’s breezy and friendly and fun to read. It’s naturally gripping stuff, full of personality, and it works. There’s a nice rhythm – chunky, meaty, bouncy, like a good Grateful Dead road song. Plus, the book is offering valuable original material.”
— Levi A.
Speechless!
As an avid reader of the Beat writers I was a bit dubious regarding this title.
How do these subjects correlate? Another wannabe? Another boring perspective? Another academic trying to prove something? WRONG!
I was attending a gathering where this author would be present so I thought I should read it.
First off, the writer knows his stuff. Very informative.
What happened to this generation of people? Read on ….
How do all these things tie together? It’s in here.
This book is not the tedious standard fare re: Kerouac et al.
The writer takes you on an interesting adventure, with a wonderful cast of real characters, while somehow making you feel like you’re along for the ride. Hassett’s prose is lyrical and refreshing. A hands down must-read for Beat fans. I enjoyed the whole book in one sitting. And I walked away smiling.
Thank you, Mr. Hassett!
— Shelly M.
My hero you are.
— Mitch D.
What’s so significant about book is that — there are a lot of very good books that come out about the Beats, Jack, Allen etc. — but this IS a Beat book.
It’s an addition to the Beat canon. This is not only a book about the Beats — it’s a contribution to the literary legacy of the Beats.
It is a Beat book. It’s the perfect merging of subject matter and author. The two come together so naturally. And it reads as though you are in the room telling the reader the story.
— Prof. R
“It reads wonderfully. The stories of your adventures are always intriguing and fun. Despite what’s going on in the moment — you have an outlook on the world that is just joyful. And I love your play with words ”
— Jerry C.
I blew through it in one weekend, and came out the other side with a new appreciation for this eternal Prankster and his visions of Jack and that natural progression to Kesey (and The Bus), to the Dead, and the ideology that continues to bring in the Tribe.
I need to take the trip all over again.
This is action writing as Jack Kerouac intended.
And Hassett is certainly no bench jockey!
The energy, desire for experience, and the ultimate in “living” while in constant movement makes this book a must for anyone that wants to know and understand what Jack so eloquently stated about “the ones that never say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn ….”
The anecdotes, the life on the road, the Boulder Conference, the Kesey farm visit, and the characters and heroes in between reads like some wicked dreamscape of Beat-Hippie Nirvana.
This book is past the point of a professorial doctorate dissertation. This effort is what happens when an intelligent, no-holds-barred, experience-soaking sponge comes out on the other side after decades of looking for, chasing after, and acquiring the elusive “IT”.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide is first rate storytelling and a very important addition to that sagging bookshelf called Jack Kerouac.
— Ken M.
“A Wonderful Ride”
5 stars
This amazing story is, on the surface, about a crucial Beat conference in Colorado in 1982, but in reality it is about the entire history and spirit of the Beat Generation writers and how they passed this history and spirit on to Ken Kesey, Jerry Garcia, Abbie Hoffman— and Brian Hassett, who here takes his rightful place as a true carrier of the torch.
Once you hear Hassett’s unique voice you won’t want to stop reading — and laughing — until the book, unfortunately, comes to an end … but you will have had a few new worlds opened up to you before it does.
— Walter R
My granddaughter is RIGHT NOW reading YOUR book!!! My son visited yesterday (first time since the Beat Shindig). He FLIPPED SIDEWAYS!!! He saw her reading it and took the book. After looking at it asked, “Who is this guy?” I knew he was a Dead fan but had no idea he knew all about Neal!!! His best bud was at the concert the same night you went. And his last name is Cassidy. (!) Telephone calls fly back and forth between them. Picture of your book sent. Both ran out to get it!!!! My granddaughter tells him I met Jami Cassady (thank you!) Craziness ensues. The energy level in this house is knockin’ on heaven’s door. Thanks to Jack. Thanks to you.
— S.M.
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I find it remarkable that you can write of your life’s journey with such joy and detail with such a lack of ego!!
The facts of the trip speak for themselves, you relate that whole process. For those of us that have not journeyed physically across country, etc, it’s sheer fun to read about. And of course, the conference, the spontaneous meetups, etc. I think my favorite part is the personal conversations. The fact that you taped a bunch of that stuff, wow! I mean, there is no guessing as to what was said. It’s kind of like Visions of Cody, you know?And your descriptions of people you interacted with — really fun — and I can see those people.
I dug the book! 🙂 I truly did. It’s sitting on my little table next to my dining room sofa waiting to be reread. It’s that kind of book.
And you’re right — it’s meant to be read in a big gulp. Next time I’ll try to do that.
I hope you sell heaps and heaps of this fun and thought-provoking book.
That poem at the end and your reading it with the band — I love that!!!
— J.M.
THIS is a great book … loving it! Great job . . . fantastic! Just read the first 133 pages in one setting. Can’t put it down.
I found myself saying “Yup” to myself a whole lot. And I dug Cassady’s foreword … sounds like John.
This is making me realize why I love Kerouac so much. It’s a great read … I’m loving it so much … bringing back so many great memories … you have NO idea … but then again you know because we’re both on the same Kerouac/Cassady/Burroughs/Ginsberg/Kesey and all the rest wavelength. You really made me realize again why and how much I love Jack and Neal.
I can’t thank you enough for writing this book. It was a God Send. It really was.
Your book made me want to write again.
Here’s what I posted to Amazon . . .
A fantastic book … for any fan of the Beat Generation, this is a must read. Mr. Hassett has a way with his words to make you feel like you’re right there hitchhiking with him, on his way to Boulder, CO. You will meet Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs and all the other characters that Jack Kerouac spent so much time with. You will journey with Hassett to Ken Kesey’s farm and feel the warmth of the ole bus, Furthur, as the author takes it all in. Again, a fantastic trip … a great journey … a must read book.
— John D.
Magnificent stories and insights on the Beats
5 stars
This book is incredibly good. The author attended the big Kerouac conference in Boulder in 1982 as a young man. He got free entrance for volunteering. Brian took along his tape deck and finally made a fantastic book albeit 30 years later. He saw the Grateful Dead play Red Rocks midweek and has some vivid recollections. Loved it!
— Grateful Dead Books
Just got this yesterday and read the whole thing, and it is more than fascinating. It’s a great book! 400+ pages of excellent memories, and he sounds just like a friend of yours.
It’s a great mix of Beat writers, Grateful Dead folks, Canada, Colorado, Manhattan, all over the map, Merry Pranksters, road stories, tips and tricks for higher living skills, advanced literary shenanigans, and a most interesting life trajectory. I went through it pretty fast.
I’ve written four non-fiction books myself, and I greatly appreciate the amount of thought and effort that it takes! You should be very proud of this remarkable achievement, especially as it provides so much really absorbing insight into so many important topics and fascinating people — really a road-map of modern thinking in not only the Beat and music worlds, but also of great interest to anyone with a brain and a heart.
— Sam S.
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“You made lightning strike.”
— Brad K.
Started the book around 5PM, and made it thru chapter 5 still in the sunshine … read the rest that night in one long uninterrupted flow!!!
Loved it!A fantastic, exciting and informative tale of adventure, inspired by and written in the style and soul of the Beats themselves. No doubt Kerouac himself would approve!!
Hassett is the real deal, having begun a love affair with the Beats at such a young age back in 1982 and following through with an epic trip “on the road” to attend and participate in the Jack Kerouac Conference in Boulder, Colorado. We soon find out that Hassett is not only there but throws himself into it head on, and ends up actually helping organize and run the event itself. Making contact with everyone from the main participants, relatives of Kerouac and Cassady, to fellow “road” travellers, he takes the reader on a magical journey covering thousands of miles, a detailed account of the conference, Grateful Dead concerts, mishaps, adventures, and the amazing face to face meeting with the King of the Merry Pranksters Ken Kesey. It’s all a wonderful read.
The spirit of Neal and Jack hover over every page of this epic adventure!!
— Joe M.
“I think you nail Herbert perfectly. I can hear him say those lines in my mind’s ear. And nice job on Edie and Henri. This book might help give them the credit they deserve.”
— Tim M.
If you’re a fan of Jack Kerouac, The Beat Generation, or The Grateful Dead, then you’ve probably heard stories — legends even — of the great Jack Kerouac conference of 1982, in Boulder, Colorado. You’ve probably heard stories like “Jan Kerouac was up on the panel! …. That’s a sight I’ll never forget.” Or, “Oh yeah, Corso was at it again!!!” Or, “The Grateful Dead played at the Kerouac conference …. What a trip!!!”
But unless you were one of the lucky few who had the good fortune to be there, you just flat-out missed it. Either you weren’t born yet, or were too young to appreciate it, or too far away, or too tight for cash, or too busy, or you just didn’t know about it until it was too late … whatever it was, you missed it, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. The biggest, grandest meeting of the Beats plus concerts by The Grateful Dead all rolled into one rollicking adventure!!! But you missed it. Or did you……?
Here’s the thing … a mad scientist genius angel poet by the name of Brian Hassett has recently invented a time machine to transport you back in time, just before the convention started. Even cooler, this brilliant alchemist has cleverly disguised this time machine as a book, and it’s really easy to use!
All you have to do to get the time machine started is open the front cover. This will immediately engage the system and you’ll be transported back to the summer of ’82 where you will encounter a young man who will accompany you on a wild ride, hitchiking from Canada to Colorado for the conference. He will gladly show you around all the different lectures and panels. He will introduce you to the likes of Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg puttering owlish over his schedules and list, and running around shouting contradictions to the skies.
He will show you the magnificent allure of Anne Waldman as she holds the crowds in awe. He will point out William Burroughs mumbling on the sidelines. And he will take you to the concert of The Grateful Dead. You will attend every one of these lectures, every one of these parties. You will have conversations with Herbert Huncke. You will be gifted with advice from Michael McClure. You will witness facets of Ken Kesey’s character rarely seen before, and experience the grandeur of Carolyn Cassady alive and shining with the brightest of stars.
I won’t say any more here, so as not to spoil too much of what’s ahead, but if you have a touch of road fever, then there’s nothing more satisfying and exciting than to pick up this book and to read it in one delicious blazing eye burning whirlwind reading tornado. You will not be disappointed.
-A. Lantz
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You have left me breathless, speechless and totally smiling. Way way more than excellent…… Absolutely Wondrous!!!!!!
— Carol D.
Loved the book …
Besides your voice — which I’ve dug ever since the first short story I read back in ’84-ish (about you helping someone move) — I remember saying to you then that you’d already developed a unique voice for a narrator … and you’ve never lost it — you’re just painting on a much bigger canvas now.
What I liked best about the book is how you skillfully wove everything you’ve learned about the Beats SINCE 1982 into the story of the summer of 1982 so that the effect is seamless. We never feel that a 50-year-old narrator is commenting on a 20-year-old adventurer …
in other words your perspective now on what happened then and your memory of how you felt then merge beautifully.
This book should be the definitive statement for all Beat lovers and scholars on a definitive Beat event.
This is the book you were meant to write. No one else could have written this. Your 30 years of accumulated knowledge shines through.
I thought (at first), as an English professor, that the structure was wrong and it should have ended on the big Saturday night at the conference. “Oh no — there’s another hundred pages – what’s this?” But then I was surprised I didn’t not like it — and in fact did like it. It was honest and what really happened — like Jack wrote.
And I loved that you didn’t romanticize Kesey.
It’s just so alive and fun to read.
And the expository chapters were great — they were what the book was about.
You hit the ball out of the park.
And you’re a damn good writer.
— Dr. R.
Just finished the book and totally dug it! I’m still processing it … and my reading list has just gotten longer.
Practically had a flashback during the Red Rocks chapter. And the class with Holmes … Go, man, Go! You’re lighting my fire!
Hell, I might even read it again! What a trip! I was totally into Kerouac and the Beats around that time (’82) … brought back so many memories … felt like I was right there with you.
— Bob B.
1:07 PM – Just started reading it from the beginning … no jumping ahead….. Man — the way you set up your “17” paragraph — Brilliant!!!
2:01 PM – On page 86 …. this is making me feel alternately even more furious than before that I wasn’t around then — yet elated that the writing is so clear and realistic. You were around my age when this all starts — and this really gives the reader the feeling of being present for all this amazing stuff.
4:31 AM – Finished, in one blazing, eye burning read. Great book! Spectacular. Lots of cool accounts of these remarkable writers! After reading about this event I now feel like I was there myself — couldn’t be cooler!
Also you’ve got a great, clear prose voice, man, like Jack’s.
— Aaron L.
I dip in to some of my copy every single day.
— Karen N.
I’m knee deep into your book and I’m fascinated with your story.
You are an incredible writer and you capture every essence of the Beats.
I have been a songwriter for 35 years with my band, Change To Eden. I come from the School of Jack Kerouac, Jim Carroll, and Taoism.
With that as my reference, I can truly see how much you ARE the Beats — and a big thank you for keeping the stories vibrant and alive.
It matters greatly, and you’ve done a magnificent job of capturing your experience and the grander picture of it all. I admire and respect you greatly, Brian.
I hope to hear you speak some day soon — and just know the kindred spirits out here are paying attention.
May your journeys remain magical and profound!
You keep writing and I’ll keep reading with a voracious appetite for your stories.
— Mark S.
This book is awesome Brian! I’m really enjoying it. The screenplay for the movie should be next!
— Craig M.
Ah, I loved this book!
It has the inside scoop on the 1982 On The Road Boulder Conference which united the Beats with the Grateful Dead, those joyous jammers.
Written by a young man who was there for the whole conference and had the foresight to bring his tape recorder. This is important, because he got to have fascinating conversations with the poets, writers, movers and shakers who were present at the conference, due to his working as a production manager at the event.
He starts his story with how he found out about the conference and how he gets there, hilarious tales of hitchhiking. When he arrives and talks himself into the managing gig, we are along for the ride with him, able to feel his exhilaration and appreciation of all the inspiring people he gets to meet. And the private conversations are some of the best parts. After-hours parties, etc. You get the drift.
This could have been a name-dropper book, with a morsel of gossip here and there. But it isn’t. It’s a fun ride … oh yes it is. Lots of humor and A-Ha moments. Coincidences — but are they really? It has a bit of that, “Wow, am I really experiencing this?!” kind of vibe.
This is a book with great heart and positive thoughts.
— Jeanne M
Happy Earth Day, Brian. This is a true gift to the planet.
— David W.
Having just binged on yer book I had to write and tell ya … your writing makes me smile. Best Jack impression I’ve ever come across.
Thanks for the insights into where his world revolves these days. One step higher than Ann Charters… and I can’t pay it a higher compliment.
Many of us look around each day and are amazed by the fact that Weir still here … and … tellin stories.
You spin a nice tale in a warm way.
— Dennis O.
“I don’t want to give you this book back.
I’ll give you $20, but I’m not giving you this book back.”
— Manley
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I’ve dabbled in some reading about various Beat generation luminaries, but I’m certainly not that well versed in the literature.
Nevertheless, I found Brian’s memoir of his trip to the Boulder ’82 “On The Road” Conference made for compelling reading. He recounts hitchhiking to the conference, becoming immersed in helping to run the conference and meeting many of the Beat icons (too numerous to name). He even spent time at Ken Kesey’s farm in Oregon on the way home. Brian saved all his notes, photos and cassette recordings from the trip and they’re used to complement the text as you read along. He interviewed many of the participants at the conference and also did research with archival materials.
Brian tells his story in a casual friendly style.
Something else I really liked about the book is that the type size is nice and large. It makes for easy reading. Your eye floats effortlessly across the page.
A wonderful achievement, and great reading. Highly recommended.
— Sharry W.
Best book I have read in a long time. Thanks Brian!
I’m so stoked to be getting back into some good reading after being reminded of all those old books that started my crazy adventures.
You’ve rekindled my love of well placed words!
— Sunny D.
It was 1982 when the 21-year-old narrator was in a Vancouver bookstore buying a copy of ON THE ROAD for a friend’s birthday and spotted an event poster that “changed his life.”
When he saw the poster, Hassett got on the phone to the coordinator. (Neal Cassady’s family nicknamed Hassett, “Gets Things Done.”) He had no money, but he had a long list of production credits and he heard the magic words, “Yeah, we could use you. Come on down.”
A bus, 17 rides, and two days later he was in the midst of 300 participants and 3,000 attendees. At one point he says, “It was the Super Bowl of the Beats, and The Grateful Dead were playing the half-time show.” He describes the panels, interviews, and just plain hanging-out with those who touched Kerouac’s life.
Hassett took along his cassette deck, and his readers get 1982 conversations taped verbatim. Among the many are Herbert Huncke, John Clellon Holmes, Ken Kesey (who invited him to the his farm after the conference), and a crazy, fun encounter involving Al Aronowitz (who introduced Dylan to the Beatles), Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Micheline.
The Guide isn’t limited to Beats and counterculture figures. We’re in the passenger seat listening to many drivers who pick him up; for example, a cab driver (or a cab thief) in a New York City Checker with a gorgeous babe, who might have been a working girl, in the backseat smoking a joint. Later going to Kesey’s farm, he gets in with an “Ernest Borgnine-looking guy” going to Cheyenne who snarls, “Are you a hippie? You look like a hippie.” When Hassett says he’s from Canada, the guy says, “Canada? What the hell is there in Canada.”
Some chapters are written with the non-stop enthusiasm of the 21-year-old that Hassett was in 1982. In others his voice is that of the thoughtful man he is today whose love for the Beats has not diminished. And there are some 60 photos throughout.
The book ends with Dessert: “In Memoriam,” (the departed conference participants). “Love the Living in Your Life” (surviving participants and what they are doing now), and The Five Documentaries Shot at the Summit.
TREAT YOURSELF!
— Mary E.
“What a fresh light you’re shining on the Beat Scene. And in a loving, lyrical style. Showing, in a way no one has before, how those around Jack influenced him and helped preserve his work for us. Your book will be an important addition to the ongoing Saga of Jack.”
— Cor v.d.H.
Your timing is perfect. Things couldn’t be better lined up. Prankster events — the Beat Shindig in S.F. — Dead shows in Chicago … with the band that personified “On The Road” … it’s just all right.
The world is so ripe for this book. It’s like people went to Yellowstone as a kid, and now you’re taking them back as an adult.
You’ve baked a delicious pie and put it on the windowsill — and there’s a hungry world just waiting for something like this.
And it’s not some scholar-sounding university dissertation with big words and a bad attitude. This is a romp … it leaves no one behind.
You deserve everything that’s coming to you.
— Wizard of Wonder
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First and foremost, Brian Hassett, is an outstanding writer and you feel you are a part of this legendary journey. He is a brilliant storyteller.
The presence of Kerouac is felt throughout this book. You can sense his wanderlust and the impact he had on so many of us in the post-Beat era.
Somewhere in the mist, Jack sits quietly, nodding his head in approval. All the Beats are widely recognized and discussed in this book. You’ll have to read it to get the whole picture. Just know the picture is accurate, profound and presented with the insight of a young man who knows his Kerouac.
Hassett delivers a tasty and exquisite tribute to the movement, writers and poets that changed America.
The Beat philosophy is alive and well — and we are all much better for it!
Who all was there … of which John Clellon Holmes said, “More of us were together than had ever been in one place at one time before.” And it never happened again.
I saw the best minds of many generations, dancing, hysterical, naked … at the Farewell send-off of the Gratest live band in history.
While The Grateful Dead were breaking the all-time attendance records for Soldier Field stadium in Chicago — I was seeing them in a small venue from about 5th row center. I was so close I couldn’t get all the band members in a single frame of my camera, and had to turn my head from left to right to watch Trey signal Hornsby and Bruce receive it.
I’d “won” the mail-order lottery — a 1-in-10 chance — and had requested pit / orchestra tickets for opening and closing nights, and then an expensive side seat for the middle July 4th show.
I’d just finished two weeks in the Bay Area — everywhere from the Kerouac–Snyder Dharma Bums house in Marin to the “Dear Jerry” show in Santa Cruz, while also headlining 3 appearances at The Beat Shindig put on by The Beat Museum in North Beach, and catching the opening Santa Clara show — with some carefully-timed discipline, on the Thursday leading into the final weekend shows I stayed grounded and writing and in transition. There were non-stop incoming calls & messages going off like a blinking Christmas tree promising grate presents in the presence of my GD and Merry Prankster families arriving from all over North America, but I paced myself knowing there were entire days of non-stop standing and dancing coming up for this 50-something geezer who had to actually practice walking again just to be in shape for this very real 3-day-long Acid Test in Chicago.
And the opening day it was even worse in The Distractions For Fun Dept. Everybody was gathering everywhere around this massive ancient coliseum of warrior Soldiers, and everywhere was a song and a celebration. But I had this idea — “What if I went in as soon as they opened the gates? Maybe there’s a chance I could actually get somewhere good on the floor … get to know the people around me … and see it from someplace I could see it.”
I went ahead and got in the early-entry line while my phone was still going off with “Meet me here” messages — and scootilee-doo — I end up inside the stadium well before the 70,000 other people arrived.
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The open chair-free floor was divided in half at the 50 yard line — the back half being TicketMonster General Admission floor tix, and the front being the mail-order winners. The front section was also divided in half down the middle of the field, and I first went over audience right (formerly Jerry side) and immediately realized I wanted to be Phil side, so I went to the back of the soundboard where there was the only passageway between the right-left sides, and motored my way up to the still nearly empty front of floor.
Deal was — if you bought the expensive I’m Special tickets, you got to go on the floor before us plebes with regular tickets, and these Special folks had laid down blankets and such to commandeer the front-most space. The first roughly 20 feet from the front rail was taken up by these seated picnic basket types eating grapes — but what I was able to do, being a solo flyer, was weave my way between the patchwork floor tapestry and find some place to stand just a few feet from the front rail that wasn’t really on someone’s blanket. If I’d been traveling even as a duo, this wouldn’t have been possible. But since it was just skinny little smiling me, I was able to insinuate myself (to use Keith Moon’s phrase for joining his band) into the picnic basket crowd and immediately start talking to whoever was there … making you, by accepted conversation, one of them.
And following shortly behind me were the rest of the regular Pit ticket krewe, often in groups, who would get to the outer edge of the blanketed floor and stop there. Once they stopped and stood, the people coming after them would stand behind them. So right away there was this dividing line of packed-in standing people, and sitting down blanket people. And I was sure on the right side of that divide — in front of stage right, at the right time. By the time the band came out at 7:30 and blanket nation stood up, I was effectively 5th row center for opening night (!) . . . with tons of room to dance!
Once the show started, if someone tried to crash into where we comfortably and spaciously were, we knew they weren’t one of us (after our two hours of being there) and the improvised leaders in our improvised community would tell the interlopers to go back where they came from.
And another cool thing was — this was not a high stadium stage as used to be the design choice. In fact my eyes were about exactly even with the floor of the stage — which, in cool thing #2, was not set very far back from the front audience rail. Suddenly I was standing maybe 20–25 feet from the front line of musicians I’d flown to Chicago to see.
Except for the width of the stage, this could have been the Village Vanguard or Bottom Line. I like to see the visual interaction between musicians in a band — especially one that’s good enough to improvise as they play entirely different shows and every song live (as this incarnation) for the first time. I don’t know if I was hearing the stage amps or what, but I could look at any player and zone in on an iso audio of their lines. It was the most fun, perfect thing I could imagine. It felt like I was sitting on the stage — watching that freak of nature Phil Lesh conducting the orchestra with his six-string bass — the first ever played in rock n roll that I know of. I remember thinking, “I could read the time on his watch if he’d just turn his wrist a bit.”
And there was the brother-like relationship between Phil and Trey. They both came out of dressing rooms on audience left — the rest of the band audience right — with Bruce & Jeff in one room, and the Core Three in the other.
And on the first night there was obviously serious tension between Phil and Bobby — Phil just wailing away and having the time of his life, and Bobby scowling and with a sour face playing discordant chords as a way to voice his displeasure — a detached self-isolated sourpuss all night. There was Trey and Phil signalling right past him, cueing the keyboard duo stage left, who would respond with popped eyebrow solos whenever stage right tossed them the look — including the memorable moment where Trey called an audible during Franklin’s Tower and gave Hornsby the solo for the last song of the night — a player who’d been way-ignored musically to this point — and for the first time we heard a Franklin’s that was piano-based and not guitar. And everafter, Hornsby and Jeff became infinitely larger parts of the shows than they had been thus far. In fact, this exchange during Franklin’s felt like the moment they really became a band.
Or seeing the playful bond between Mickey & Hornsby. Or between Hornsby and his protege Jeff Chimenti (on Brent’s old B3) — who, not incidentally, is so much more coherent, grounded and versatile than the GD’s final keyboardist ever was.
Note the reflection of the audience in the shiny Steinway.
But mostly it was the ability to hear any instrument at any time. And except for the keyboardists’ hands and Billy being somewhat hidden behind his kit, you could watch-to-hear whatever they were doing string-wise, vocally or percussively.
And the music was as complex and interesting as it gets — jazz soloing; polyrhythmic patterns you could follow any one of while two or three others played simultaneously; soulful vocals that literally brought tears to my eyes more than once; in-the-moment interactions as players were racing all over fretboards at breakneck speed but still locked into one another in a unified whole made of 7 very different parts.
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One odd thing: I’ve been in the audience for all the different band incarnations since Jerry died, and never do I remember really missing The Voice and The Tone and The Soul … until this version. Maybe because those were all known to be new ensembles taking it furthur — and this was so much … The Grateful Dead. Chicago was more of a reflective look back and celebration of where we’ve been than a progression into the future. And although Trey carried the day and was as adept and well-studied and playful and energy-infusing and able-to-handle-it a guitarist as you could find, for the first time since hearing a re-birthed Dead post-’95, to these ears, there was very obviously someone missing.
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But two things that were actually better than the Jerry days were Drums and Space. Although Phil’s an even better player (and now a bandleader) than he was back then, the instrumentalists who have really taken their gig furthur were the drummers. Particularly the first night in Santa Clara (where it clocked in at 22 minutes!) and the middle night in Chicago, Drums became a wildly expanded percussive exploration — and for the first time the audience was able to watch it via a robotic HD camera flying above The Beast, as well as roving handhelds surrounding them. And Mickey, being a smidge more of a ham than the rest of the flannel & Birkenstocks band, played to the cameras at times like Jagger — but all in the service of punctuating the music.
And throughout the show it was interesting to see how often Mickey used wide-fanned brooms (thick stemmed brushes). And just like the way the band started, Billy was totally The Beat, the rock n roll kit drummer who drove the engine, as opposed to much of their career when it was largely both of them. Now Mickey’s not even on a kit, has no cymbals, stands the whole show, and works this array of toms with the versatility of a large orchestra’s drum section but with the passion of a Latin combo at Carnival.
And then Space — which was always performed on a pitch-black stage — was now filled with a subtle but illuminating white light — and especially from my 5th row center spot I was able to see how they worked the non-musical sounds as an ensemble — the three guitarists gronking out whale cries and wolf howls while the drums and keys kept a close eye and added their subtle fills in response.
By the end of that first night, I felt like I’d lived that quote, “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one well preserved piece, but to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out and shouting, ‘WOW! What a ride!!'”
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The middle night — July 4th — I was 11 rows off the floor with a view of the whole spectacle including the massive fireworks they set off not just that night but to open the second set of the final night as well.
The sound and mix in the stadium was as crystalline as it gets — once again the Dead pioneering live sound reinforcement — but instead of the Wall of Sound it was a Circle of Sound — as they employed true 360° surround-sound that added to the surreality of an already very altered space.
And the video screens! Oh my! There were the huge digi hi-def images of the players (on both sides and above the stage) but also a dancing fractal morphing rainbow visual show that was the colors and undulating images of a Grade A acid trip. In fact, the visionary Candace Brightman came out of retirement to do the lights, and she incorporated the original Joshua Light Show era gel projections as part of her palette. No matter where you were in the 70,000-person stadium you were hearing the show like you were wearing earbuds and seeing it in technicolor like you’re on 5 hits. And frankly, these guys don’t get enough credit for discouraging drug use by creating acid trips without the acid! … although, when you do put them together . . .
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For the third and closing night, I figured my front-of-floor routine was a long-shot since everybody else would have figured it out by now — but I went for it anyway — and sure as shootin’ got right to the same 5th row-ish spot Dead center (!) and saw several of the same 1st show peeps . . . and once again —> I was experiencing the Dead’s farewell in a small venue!!
And by this 5th show (and even by the 4th) the band had really gelled into a unified collective. Whatever internal conflicts that were so obvious at the first Chicago show were happily gone, and the keyboard’s background-singer-status had been elevated to full participating players. Y’know — if these guys just stuck with it, they might get somewhere.
From this vantage point — the many-hours-long fond Farewell was beyond my fondest dreams.
And another funny thing — back in my run of a hundred-sumthin shows between 1980 and ’95, every time I saw them they played at least one song I’d never heard them Dew before. But with this very limited 5-show Gratest hits retrospective finale there’s no way they’re gonna play anything you haven’t heard even once over the entire second half of their career … right?
Wrong!
The first night in Santa Clara, they played not one, not two … but five songs they hadn’t performed live since the ’60s (!); the first Chicago had two; the second Chicago had The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion) which was actually the very first Grateful Dead song I ever liked (!) from when I bought their greatest hits “Skeletons From The Closet” album as a curious 14-year-old in 1975 — a “hit single” song they (naturally) never played live again after 1967! And the final night I was absolutely floored on the floor by a 14-minute Mountains of The Moon (!) — that Middle Ages Canterbury Tales-meets-Lewis Carroll ballad written for harpsichord that they played famously on Playboy After Dark in 1969 and never since!
And all that’s not even getting into the scene! which is what made this a Grateful Dead experience and not just a Phil & Friends / Ratdog / Whatever. It always was about the natural mixing of the band and the audience that made Dead shows special, and there’s no band (or anything else) in history that created a friendly party on the scale of the Dead. From every brief elevator encounter in a hotel miles from the venue to the stranger dancing next to you for 5 hours, we were all instant old friends, where a rightly timed smile could convey volumes of truths you’ve both internalized.
And this party went on for miles . . . from the front of the pit through every corridor and seat of this giant stadium; from the grass hills outside to the Shakedown parking lots down the way; from the underpasses with massive drum circles to Grant Park-facing Michigan Avenue that was unabashedly taken over for block after block after block; from Hunter Thompson hotel rooms to the giant Buckingham Fountain in the park in front of The Congress … it was “strangers stopping strangers just to shake their hand” all over town.
Around 2 AM outside the Hilton on Michigan Avenue.
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And another beautiful thing was that the crowd was almost evenly split between those who’d experienced the Jerry Dead and those who’d missed it but who’d somehow internalized and manifested everything that journey was about. And both were an equal joy to share it with — the veterans who knew the score and how to run it up, and “the kids” who were clearly having the time of their lives and gushing with a Christmas morning orgy of rapture.
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If Phish was once a cousin band to the Dead, the two became siblings this weekend. Deadheads gained respect for the very respectful Trey, and Phishheads I talked to had studied the entire Dead repertoire in the months since the announcement. Every player on that stage will continue making live music, and this was just a roundabout in the road that will slingshot each of them into some reinvigorated orbit backed by generations of new listeners.
And how interesting they chose to not include a single “guest star” after being the biggest (by number of members) band inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame, and probably had more people sit in with them than any other band in history — and certainly any that sold out stadiums! But the Farewell didn’t need gimmicks or distractions. It was just some cats playing music — complex “electric bluegrass,” as Crosby calls it — with nary a hit song to their name — but who ended up breaking the all-time TicketMonster record for one event, as well as the most people to watch an online or music-based pay-per-view event in history, while setting a new attendance record at Soldier Field … then breaking it each consecutive night!
And all this while being the most overtly unprofessional act in show business! They start their concerts with the Bang of tuning up for two minutes. The few quasi-hits they have – they almost never play in concert. They wear what appear to be rumpled Goodwill clothes on stage. They never say so much as “Hello” to the audience all night — until Phil comes out after it’s over and asks for your organs. They flub lyrics and cues all over the place … and laugh about it. They take one hour intermissions … and the audience doesn’t blink an eye … about that or anything else — because the music and the high and the vibe and the energy is So Overwhelmingly Positive and Powerful.
And the other thing — this was all one-take stuff. Other than their anthemic Truckin’ that they played once in each city, and Cumberland Blues, which they did once solo Bob, and once group vocal, there were 80-something different songs played once and one time only. Everything one take — just like rock n roll was invented.
This sure has been a long strange trip — and this was one helluvan encore!
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You might also enjoy the time I met Phil Lesh about two weeks before these shows.
It’s the Father’s Day weekend, 2015, and my bassist bud Al Robinson tipped me that PhilZone.com had its countdown clock to the next Phil show indicating Sunday night. That was the only lead I had.
I was out in the Bay Area where, a few years ago, Phil bought a nice large restaurant and performance space in San Rafael, calling it Terrapin Crossroads. Conferring with my local live music confrère Adrienna, we were able to put the two-and-two together of his son’s band, Midnight North, and their Father’s Day booking at his father’s club, and guesstimated that was the spot.
At the time, I was staying down the coast in the Capitola / Santa Cruz area with the Cassadys, but wanted to do a few days in Marin, so it seemed like Father’s Day was the perfect time to transition from Adventures South, to Adventures North.
I stopped in at John Cassady’s in San Jose on the way up, left there about 5:30, and made it to Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael in an hour and 15 minutes. (!) “You could have been waiting in the line for the [Golden Gate] bridge for an hour and fifteen minutes!” locals later told me, in near disbelief at my Cassady-like road time.
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Terrapin Crossroads (TXR for short), is a very large multi-room family-style seafood-leaning restaurant right on the water of the San Rafael harbor, and just a couple blocks from the band’s legendary office / rehearsal space on Front St. It has a separate “Grate Room” for larger shows, but every night (and often daytimes too) bands play on a small, low stage in the main restaurant / bar room.
This being 7PM on a Father’s Day Sunday there was a long line of people waiting to get in. Having never been here before, I thought they were in line for the Phil concert, and I’m like, “Is this the ticketholders line?” To which I got strange responses, cuz, see, there are no tickets … it’s a restaurant, you tourist.
The dining tables were all full, but right in front of the tiny stage were a few high bar tables and chairs, and one of them was empty, except for a guy named Cliff. And if you’ve read “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” you know that’s a sacred name, a guiding light, in my AdventureLife. Soon weir joined by a guy named Jeff, with this table looking right onto the stage. I asked these regulars if they think Phil is going to play tonight, and they point out there’s no big bass rig on the little stage, so they doubt it. “But you never know. We could be sitting here and Phil could come walking right through that door.”
And not three minutes after he says this — it happens!
Here comes Phil, with his wife Jill — and they go sit in a large open unused area up a couple steps behind the stage.
I’m kinda freakin out. There he is. The Man himself. Just a regular dude in a restaurant. About 30 feet away from me.
I’ve already told Cliff & Jeff about my book and how I’d love to talk to Phil and maybe give him a copy.
And pretty much right away, Jill leaves the table they’ve encamped at, and as he’s just sitting there, Cliff says to me, “This is probably a good time to go talk to him. He’s all alone. It’s only going to be busier later.”
Five minutes earlier it looked like a long-shot he would be here, and now, with no prep or no liquid courage to speak of yet, I was suddenly “on.” It was showtime.
Luckily, blessedly, perfectly — a lightning bolt across the skull hit me — a-ha — what I could tell him — how I could start talking to him . . . I had an angle from an angel . . .
With Coach Cliff pushing me into the deep end, I grabbed a copy of the book and jumped off the diving board into sumthin I couldn’t turn back from.
He was sitting with his back to the far wall, facing into this large unused extra room, and could see me coming from the moment I crossed the threshold. I just went for it. Cliff was right. It was early, things were quiet, and this was the best shot in what might become a long, long, crazy, crazy night.
“Hey, Phil.”
“Yes,” he looks at me, not unfriendly.
“I have a story for ya . . . ” I said with a Prankster twinkle, as I dropped down comfortably in a chair facing him. “I just wrote this book about the ’82 Kerouac conference in Boulder where you guys played Red Rocks as part of it, and I actually go into the connection between the band and the Beats more than any other book ever, including Dennis’s or anybody’s,” and I’ve definitely got his eyebrow-arched attention.
“I’m friends with the Cassadys, and was hanging out with Neal & Carolyn’s son John a couple days ago — ‘Neal’s kid’ as you guys called him,” I said, pointing to him and smiling, and he’s nodding yes yes, totally with me. “And … did you know that the very last question Jerry was ever asked on film … was about Neal?” And he makes this “Wow! I didn’t know that!” face.
“John didn’t know either, so I read him — rather dramatically — the answer Jerry gave about his Dad, and it was so moving, John actually got choked up and started almost crying. It was unreal.”
Here’s the part I read to John —
In fact, the very last question in the very last interview Garcia ever gave on camera (to the Silicon Valley Historical Association), was about Neal Cassady. “I got to be good friends with him. He was one of those guys that truly was a very special person. In my life, psychedelics and Neal Cassady are almost equal in terms of influence on me.
“Neal was his own art. He wasn’t a musician, he was a ‘Neal Cassady.’ He was a set of one. And he was it. He was the whole thing — top, bottom, beginning, end, everything. And people knew it. And people would be drawn to it. He was an unbelievable human being — the energy that he had, and the vocabulary he had of gestures and expressions — oh boy he was funny. Phew! I really loved him.” … were the last words Jerry Garcia ever said on camera.
And John was sitting there shaking with emotion and trying not to totally lose it in front of his friend.
“And then, a while later,” I keep tellin Phil, “Something reminded me of what you wrote in your ‘Searching For The Sound’ which I quoted in my book — you wrote so passionately about Neal — it was so beautiful — so I read John that part — and this time, John started crying almost from the moment I began reading, and so much so, that I started getting choked up … ”
Phil devoted much ink in his memoir to this milestone moment in his life [Neal’s death], including, “It hardly seemed credible that a life force like his, so generously endowed with the rhythm of motion through time, could be smothered and shut down at such an early age. . . . Neal’s death had hit me harder than I knew; I’d been obsessing on the loss of one of the most inspiring people I’d ever known personally. . . . I vowed to myself that in the future I would live up to Neal’s inspirational example.”
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“… and I could barely finish reading it … and the next thing I know we’re in each other’s arms hugging and shaking and crying together.”
“Wow! That’s . . . beautiful!” he says, laser-beaming me in the eye. “Thanks for sharing that with me.”
“I just thought you should know. … You wrote so passionately about Neal … I thought Johnny should hear it,” and we both looked into each other’s eyes in a prolonged moment of respect and reflection.
And with that, I gave him a copy of the book, and said Thanks for making the connection to history like he did, and left him to his privacy, as I walked back out of that room, eyes bulging out of my head that this just happened!
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Back at the high bar tables in front of the stage, where we had a direct view straight into this wall-less room where I’d just talked to him and the guys had been watching me, I was freaking out. I bought a round for the table in gratitude for their coaching, and I felt like my life was now complete. I’d finally written a book about how the Grateful Dead connect to the Beat writers … and had passed on copies to both the Cassady family and the main guy in the Dead.
Done.
And as we sat there, eventually I realized, “Geez, I prolly shoulda gotten a picture with him.” And ol’ Cliff says, “Well, he’s still just sitting there. I could take it for you if you wanted.” And I looked over at Phil, but he seemed all immersed in something, and I didn’t want to disturb him asking a dumb favor. But after a few more moments of reflection and sips of frosty liquid courage, I figured I better do it now — again, while it’s early, pre-show, quiet. So I said Yeah to ol’ Cliff, “Let’s do it.”
And as we walked up the couple steps into the extra room where Phil’s the only person there, I see he’s bent over reading something … and I’m like, “No! . . . there’s no way . . . ” And sure as shit — Phil is sitting there reading my book! I couldn’t believe it!
It certainly made it easy for me to ask, “Hey Phil, can I get a picture with you?”
And he looks up with the biggest smile on his face! “Yeah, sure!” he says with genuine enthusiasm!
And he jumps up for us to do it, then goes, “Wait,” and reaches back to the table and grabs the book and holds it up front and center!
Couldn’t believe it!
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And then the night rolls out, and his son’s band plays their first set — a mandolin–electric–guitar bluegrass–rock amalgam with Grate 4-part harmonies — and luckily for all, as a vocalist, the son did fall far from the tree — as Pops comes and sits right behind us for the set.
Generally speaking — I’m thinking — “This must be heaven; tonight I crossed the line …”
I’m just a beaming Brian, floating on the golden road at the end of the rainbow, with a stage-side seat to some fantabulous music, surrounded by new friends, and a photo with Phil on my camera!
And then during the set break, Jill and some other people come and join Phil at their kinda private table in their kinda private room, basically right in front of our field of vision, and I’m sorta keeping an eye on him every few minutes. And then I notice, he’s not talking to the other people at the table. He’s sitting there, looking into his lap.
“No! . . . no way . . . don’t even think it … ” . . . but I do. And I get up and go to where I can get a clear view of his lap . . . and sure-a-gawd-damned nuff . . . on Father’s Day, with his son’s band in the house . . . on a non-work night out with his wife and their friends . . . he’s sitting there at their table … reading my book!
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And then more crazy shit goes down, there may have been some jazz cigarettes involved, and another set of smokin’ bluegrass–rock-n-roll, and another round of — get this — Prankster beer!!
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And we’re talkin at the table about all sorts of stuff including my book, and this other author named Sandy Troy is there, and Merry Prankster Adrienna, and dancin’ cowboy Harri, and it’s a very High Time with some very hardcore cool Marin County cats, and at some point the jam rolls around to one of the photos on the back cover …
from Halloween night, 1980, right after the final Radio City Dead show — and how I only asked to have the picture taken because I’d just found Molson Canadian in a deli for the first time since moving to America a month earlier!
And … I’m actually wearing a Phil Lesh button in the photo!
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And then I realize — Shit, I should tell Phil this. He’ll never be able to see that that’s him on the button. So, sure as heck, being well-primed with some well-placed Prankster beer, I decide to go over one more time — which, y’know, is verging on being a pest. But when I walk up to his now full multiple tables of friends, he looks up, and as joyously as could be, goes, “Oh, hi Brian!” And this is a guy who back in the day had a reputation for sometimes being a little less than friendly to people. But he was just as nice and open and into-it as a person could be.
So I go on one knee beside him with the book on his lap and point to the picture and start to tell him the story about Halloween Radio City, and he goes, “What year was that?” Kinda blew my mind that he played this historic run at Radio City Music Hall, made two double-albums and one movie from it … and doesn’t have a clue what year it was!
Anyway, I tell him the funny story about why I had this picture taken and the only reason it exists — because this Canadian was just so jazzed he could get beer from the homeland in New York City — and Phil, being an old Heineken man himself, obviously appreciated a good beer story, and as soon as I told him, he popped his head back and let out a huge laugh, and totally got it.
Not only was I not being a pest, but he completely dug why I was telling him this vitally important background.
And then a few days later — while in the middle of another Beat conference — I joined him and 75,000 others at Levi’s Stadium, as this beer-and-book-worm played his band’s Farewell to California . . . including their song about Cowboy Neal at the wheel of the bus to Never-Ever Land.
A dozen acres of wilderness hills and valleys, with a sunken natural amphitheater on the highest point of land in sight.
150 or so Pranksters came from across the land, traveling by every mode there is to play the play like only Pranksters play. No passengers. Everyone here’s a participant, a character — a bunch of characters.
And there were babies, under 10s, tweens, teenagers, 20-somethings and every-somethings through their 70s … everyone interacting on an equal level … no cliques … no divisions … no separation … and everyone in a beaming mood all weekend … nuthin’ but fun on so many levels in SO many locations — the house, the front porch, the covered shed, the clothes painting area, the RVs, the Bertha Bus scene, the sign painting scene, the yurt, the first party tent, the second party tent, the Mad Hatter hat, the 300 section looking down on the amphitheater, the natural balcony level, the stage pit, the bonfire pit, the camping scene, the chess table and other installations in the field — that’s about 17 wink wink different scenes right off the top …
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And then there’s the part where right afterwards people were saying things like . . .
“One week ago, I left New York to see people I’ve never met and to experience something like I have never experienced before. It was by far the most memorable weekend of my entire life, and I cannot express my love enough for each person I met. You all radiated an energy that I can’t even put into words. And you brought the spirits that couldn’t be there right to the party. Sometimes you invite spirits and they don’t show, but with this amount of positive energy and love in the air, the spirits couldn’t help but be there with us!”
Or . . .
“One day at your party was better than my entire vacation in Hawaii last week. It’s one thing to be in paradise, but quite another to be around incredible people.
“I just lost two of my mentors in the space of a few days and I was feeling pretty down about it all … and suddenly there I am standing in front of the stage … talking to some magical people … and seeing this amazing performance art … then in the mist of the music and the night … the message came from the singer on the stage … “anything is possible.”
Or . . .
“I met my best friends that I never met before … I feel so rich.
“I can’t even begin to to describe how much fun being a Merry Prankster has been! I’ve met some of the Greatest People that I would have never known if it wasn’t for taking that chance last summer. I have over 100 New Friends (and some I’m still meeting) from all over the country.”
Or then . . . Original Bus Prankster Anonymous saying . . . “You have no idea … I’m already rebelling and having thoughts of cross-country driving … the wonderful thing is you awoke this sleeper … and nothing is the same anymore ….. ”
It was three days … but really it was five … or two weeks for some … or six months for a few … and lifetime for all. Leading to this place.
Like … up on the hill, a giant 15 foot high top hat … and if you cracked the hidden slit in the side — there was a full Mad Hatter’s tea party going on inside with teapots and teacups and teaspoons and a full compliment of Mad Hatters sitting around speaking Jabberwocky.
Or there’s Grandma Tigger baking cookies by day and blowing fire by night.
Or there’s the kids painting their faces and putting on a play on the main stage. Or there’s Anonymous who jumped on The Bus in Calgary in ’64 holding court with tales of The Road. Or there’s me on stage reading On The Road with the Adam’s Ale soul-swingers, or my own Road Tales with JoJo Stella gettin’ stellar with the groove. Or there’s Aretha’s trombone player blowin’ his rhythmic squonks across the land – sayin, “You made lightning strike.”
Pranksters. Nuthin but Pranksters. And they’re nuts! You know the type. A little too crazy to fit in naturally with regular folk … they’re always on Adventures … and playing … and goofing … and smiling … and hugging. And man! … a first-thought best-thought was to add up how many miles each person travelled to be here. Could you imagine?! East Coast, West Coast, Gulf Coast, Canada … then you know the way sports are covered? — with every hit & shot & everything counted? — what if you counted all the hugs n kisses over this weekend?! We’d be burying Babe Ruth numbers.
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Maybe a lot of groups feel this … and I’ve been in some pretty huggy close families … from Landmark Forum to MTV Networks to Deadheads United … but there was an inhibition-free love here I haven’t experienced before. Cool as the best work family collectives may be, you’re prolly not the You you are on a secret weekend getaway. Or in those self-help groups, you have to buy your way into their advanced programs before you’re in a really special place. But being a Prankster costs nothing. You don’t even have to like the Dead — although most people do. 🙂
It’s a mindset. It’s about being playful and participatory. Maybe you’d find this in a cool theater company’s get-together. Or an invitation-only musicians party. And oh my gawd — the music!
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Part of Wiz’s whole idea, which he worked up with Yoda, was that all the musicians would play together. He hired four killer bands of the kinda players you could listen to all night … and that’s just what the hell happened. Saturday there was no break in the music from about 8PM till 5 in the morning. A non-stop improvised amalgam of jazz-level cats merging in and out of the flow for nine hours. It was musical medicine alright … just as Yoda prophesied. And meanwhile on the hillside next to the stage there’s a dancing psychedelic light show playing out among the trees as people dance in it and dogs run through chasing the lights causing wolfian sculptures of shadows dancing to the Fire On The Mountain. And then an octopus appears . . .
And then there’s this part where everybody paints or performs or pranks or cooks or makes installations or photographs or cleans up … or lots of the above … and it’s this communal gathering with not just people being nice to each other, but everybody letting their freak flag fly and creating whatever it is they do. Maybe that’s playing with somebody and tweakin’ their Twanger. Maybe that’s bringing 50,000 beers and giving them away like Gubba, Uncle Mike and Hootie did — after flying in from Vancouver and Albuquerque. Or maybe it’s tracking down one of the original Bus travellers and flying her in like Moray, the laugh-after-every-line Babbs of the Next Generation, did. Or maybe it’s arriving with a half dozen costumes for a three day party. Or maybe it’s becoming a Butterfly and dance-flying all around the garden.
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Whatever it is — everyone brings it.
And the whole gall-darn point is — it can be done anywhere, by anyone. It’s just upping your Prankster game, and beaming in on those who shine. Weir everywhere.
But of course this one was silly special. The first Family Reunion after the 50th Bus Tour last year that brought all the Pranksters out of the woodwork. And now with The Summer of The Dead … and everything going on in Chicago in July … this is obviously a springtime to feel free to freak freely — “Let your freak flag fly,” as Crosby put it — letting out whatever’s inside that wants to emerge. That’s the Prankster ethos.
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As I talked to people all weekend, from kids to old folks, there was a leprechaun glisten in their eyes, an electric wildtude, a Prankster twinkle. Nobody here was normal. Everyone was touched and screwy in their own way. Didn’t fit in. Reminds me of a line in my own book about Jack’s friends being odd ducks. I dunno, but it worked for him, and it’s working for me. The weirdest and most twinklingly playful people around you are prolly the ones you wanna get closest to.
I was well into Jack — and this whole conference kicked that up a few dozen notches — like it did everybody else — but The Chief and The Boys (the Grateful Dead) — those were the magic beans I wanted to come home with handfuls of. So I immediately parlayed myself into being Kesey’s handler — the guy who was supposed to make sure he was where he was supposed to be. Good luck with that!
His first event was a big press conference with Allen and Burroughs. And of course he’s late. Way late. I’d called him at the house where he was staying, and he promised they were just leaving. Like, an hour ago.
After much pacing and looking back and forth from my watch to the furthest cars driving anywhere near — Kesey finally just “appeared,” all alone, blissfully walking up the sidewalk … and I was quickly learning what was known as “Buddhist time” in Boulder: Things were supposed to happen at a certain time. Unless they didn’t.
You’re immediately struck by his size and stature, and I don’t just mean literary reputation. This was a big man — a wrestler with a tree-trunk neck, a barrel chest, and Popeye forearms; a mountainman with ruddy cheeks and glowing skin; but more impactful than anything was his ever-present smile, his big, easy and infectious laugh, and the Prankster twinkle perpetually flashing in his leprechaun eyes.
“How was the trip here?” I asked.
“Great. We drove 40 hours non-stop,” and he turned and smiled a wide one in pride at their Cassady-like achievement. In fact, I’d hear him tell people this for the next week. “All the way from Eu-gene,” he’d say, emphasizing the first syllable and not the second, like he always did.
This all sounded well and good and very On The Road and In The Spirit and all that, so I never broke it to him that I got here from Portland, which is furthur, in 42 hours — and I didn’t even have a car! Smoke that in your pipe and hold it.
As we speed-walked the sidewalk to the gig, he also shared, “It was a return trip.” I looked at him. “My pa packed up the family and moved us from right near here to where we live now. I was born not far from here. Smack in the middle of the war he up and moved us all to Oregon, been there ever since. But this was my first home.”
And then, oh man! That press conference was sumpthin! I’ll just say straight out — there are very few people I’ve been around who change a room just by walking into it, but Kesey’s one of them. This was just the first of many times I would experience it. It has to do with energy, there’s no other way to explain it. People radiate energy, and I saw the effects of Kesey’s many times. He’d enter a room, and the whole space would change, even for people who didn’t know he was there or who he was. It would get louder and more animated. He was this huge splash in the energy pool and ripples would roll across the room, hit the far wall, and come rolling back again. Mind you, he was also partnered with his Lieut. Babbs, the former Vietnam helicopter pilot and Senior Prankster who’s got a bellowing baritone to match his big Oregon frame. So . . . things change when they walk in a room. As they did to the nines in the Glenn Miller Lounge at this press conference.
Lined up next to each other were Babbs, Ginzy, Anne Waldman, Burroughs and Kesey in front of the microphones and cameras and tape decks and standing-room-only reporters. The first question was to Kesey, and he was off, galloping with words and thoughts and obscure references, and leaning forward into the questions, not sitting back in his chair, and playing the room, merging the artists and audience like the best musician magicians can do.
The one and only time my trusty Kodak Instamatic X-15 screwed up and took multiple exposures was with Kesey and his convertible.
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You can order a copy of the book from CreateSpacehere . . . or Amazon here.
Or you can check out a bunch of performance videos with various musical line-ups here.
