Brianland

Here’s part of the script I’ll be riffing from when I introduce the movie “Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place” at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac on Sunday October 13th.   Edit Update  —  Here’s video of the event . . . . Here’s the post-screening Q&A . . . ============================================ This is the original […]

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. Sphere & Laughing in Las Vegas   photo by Jay Blakesberg for Dead & Company . This is the Acid Tests … in a two-billion-dollar spaceship! I’d been reading about The Sphere for years before it was ever built.  It sounded too wild to be true!  And of course I immediately thought how perfect […]

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. TOTALLY DRAMATIC . . It wasn’t just a big-screen spectacular — it was a nail-biting drama! An old brother of ’70s shenanigans flew from Winterpeg to my place in Southern Ontario because I lived on the Path of Totality for the 2024 solar eclipse. We had invites to a big acid test weekend with […]

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. Why this Deadhead Beatnik Beatlemaniac loves Pop’s Princess   I’ve been into Taylor Swift since a New York Times profile in 2008 talked about her confessional songwriting and use of social media — at the time, MySpace.  (!)  Her second album Fearless was set to come out (and would go on to win Album […]

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Imaginestock . photo by Christy Worsoe . Imagine, if you will, a place where music and love fill the air, and every person works for free to build a utopian kingdom. Imagine a secret island hideaway whose location is only shared to people who’ve earned an invitation by a lifetime of good deeds. Imagine a […]

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A lot of people got discouraged during 2016 — first the Berners supporting Sanders in the primary, then most of the nation with “the perfect storm” of the November electoral college disaster. Twice in my lifetime has this antiquated 1700s electoral college voting concept resulted in the loser of the vote becoming President. And both […]

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40 YEARS IN PRINT . A CHRONOLOGY OF THE PUBLISHED REAL-LIFE ADVENTURE TALES . . 1977 – May — writing a song with Guess Who founder Chad Allen – not in print as of yet, but it is on my website here. 1980 – April — John Anderson in San Diego – Blissfully Ravaged in […]

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. Neal Cassady — by Carolyn Cassady (courtesy of the Cassady fam) . From Dean Moriarty . . . to Dead immortality, The street-kid who read . . . was a legend in bed, But more than the lays . . . he inspired a blaze In the hearths of the writers . . . […]

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. Here are a few different print, radio & video interviews and stories and such . . . . Here’s the President & CEO of the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Debbie Tosun Kilday, and myself in September 2024 shortly after being presented with their Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate Award.  As part of it, I read […]

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. The Grateful Dead were Jack manifested as music. Their essence was born of the road and adventures.  They worked in improvisational music like spontaneous prose. They broke every rule of showbiz … then broke every concert record there is — just as Kerouac broke every rule of grammar — then had over 50 books […]

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