Brianland

the Best in Kerouac & the Beats, Adventure, Politics, Music, Movies, Poetry & other Lifejoys

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Magic Trip movie — Introduction and Background

September 29th, 2024 · No Comments · Merry Pranksters, Movies

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.  We might have it streaming live on my YouTube channel if you can’t be there — https://www.youtube.com/@BrianHassettVideos/streams ============================================ This is the original Merry Prankster […]

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Anne Murphy’s “Tripping With A Viper” about Neal Cassady

May 4th, 2024 · 15 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats, Merry Pranksters

. Beat & Prankster fans rejoice! A new firsthand memoir has just been released of life with one of the Mount Rushmores of both the Beat Generation & the Merry Pranksters.  That doesn’t happen very often, and there aren’t many options left. Anne Murphy (who later reverted back to her birth name Anne Marie Maxwell) […]

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Taylor Swift, the Grateful Dead and The Beat Generation

November 30th, 2023 · 28 Comments · Grateful Dead, Kerouac and The Beats, Music

. 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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Jack on Film: Take 2 and Lowell Celebrates Kerouac (LCK) 2023 videos

October 31st, 2023 · 11 Comments · Brian on YouTube etc., Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Interviews, Kerouac and The Beats, Movies

Jack on Film: Take 2 at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac . Here’s a YouTube playlist with great video of the entire Jack on Film show — . =========================================== Here’s a riffing interview with WCAP in Lowell about all things Kerouac — and the new “Jack on Film: Take 2” show — with nearly a hundred photos […]

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Fireworks in Oakville

May 31st, 2023 · 8 Comments · Real-life Adventure Tales

Fireworks in Oakville or The Day Florida Moved to Canada . . . What a riot we had last weekend in Oakville! A buncha teenagers came to my little harbourfront neighbourhood cuz it has a corner Variety store that’ll sell anything to anybody including fireworks to kids.  We had a little to-do here a couple […]

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The Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa

April 30th, 2023 · 5 Comments · Music, Real-life Adventure Tales

The Setting: The new Bob Center is in Tulsa Oklahoma because the Woody Guthrie Center is there, and because both were paid for by the OK billionaire philanthropist George Kaiser. Tulsa is remarkably like the midwestern town of Winnipeg I grew up in — flat farmland, low-rise, about a half-million people — and both with […]

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Writing “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac”

February 20th, 2023 · 13 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Kerouac and The Beats, Weird Things About Me

You wake up one day and your whole life changes just by the chance seeing of a picture. Much the way it might with a chance spotting of a poster on a bookstore wall. As Jack says, “My books are my children.”  And as Mama always preached — pregnancy can happen in an instant. Unlike […]

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The Beats, The Beatles & The Brotherhood

January 31st, 2023 · 3 Comments · Weird Things About Me

The Beats, The Beatles & The Brotherhood . . This month I met a fellow Toronto-area author, John Arnone, who’s just written a book about The Beatles and Canada — Us and Them: Canada, Canadians and The Beatles.  In fact, in keeping with our Canadian heritage, we met after a ball hockey game and then […]

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Revival69 — Documentary Review about John Lennon’s Toronto Concert in 1969

December 31st, 2022 · 14 Comments · Movies, Music

Revival Revived   Klaus Voormann’s drawing of the 1969 plane trip   The most important musical event that ever occurred in Canada — and one of the most important concerts in history — took place at a university football stadium in downtown Toronto in 1969.  It’s true! London had The Beatles’ farewell on the rooftop, […]

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Lowell Celebrates Kerouac (LCK) – Videos, Stories & Photos – 2015–2022

October 30th, 2022 · 7 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats, Real-life Adventure Tales

  Stories, videos and photos from the annual Kerouac hometown festival over the last several years I’ve been going. Edie Parker-Kerouac called and told me about the the initial commemorative dedication in July 1988 — which birthed LCK — saying that she, Henri Cru and “Big Tim” Moran were driving up for it, and that […]

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