Brianland

An excerpt from my upcoming book (Sept. 2018) — On The Road With Cassadys & Furthur Visions —  This bit is about 2001’s 50th anniversary of Kerouac writing his On The Road scroll — and a show we put on for the occasion in L.A. on the day he finished it, April 22nd, after one held […]

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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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. Just as when Gifford & Lee created Jack’s Book in the ’70s, and Allen Ginsberg did the Jack Summit in 1982 and all those documentaries were made — it was all because there were people alive who knew Jack well. Now there are very few. Here’s a list of Living People who either met Jack […]

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. Ten years ago this month BrianHassett.com was launched. I’ve published at least one new story every month since it was birthed — except once! when I unexpectedly fell in love & went on tour in the same month (June of last year).  🙂  One thing about writing — you never know what’s gonna connect with […]

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. I love Loving Vincent. I’ve loved Van Gogh since the big Metropolitan Museum of Art show “Van Gogh in Arles” in 1984 and the “Saint-Remy and Auvers” show in 1986, and reading his Dear Theo book of letters to his brother around the same time.  Those shows and that book changed my life by […]

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How The Beats Begat The Pranksters . Beat Carolyn & Prankster Babbs, Boulder ’82 . It all started on September 5th, 1957 when a certain book got published . . . Or no . . . it all started in April 1951 when a guy sat down at a typewriter with a long scroll of […]

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George Walker & Brian Hassett Present Jack Kerouac & Neal Cassady . . Click here to jump to the Fall 2023 Tour dates & Locations Click here to skip to Show Set Lists with Clip Links Click here to go to Bios . George Walker & Brian Hassett first met in Boulder Colorado in July […]

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Falling in Love in the Summer of Love . Yeah — it can still happen.  To anyone anywhere anytime.  Me mid-50s, she just over 40. We’d met a year earlier at a Prankster Family Reunion.  I thought she was stunning.  But she had this boyfriend.  It was one of those couples that didn’t seem to […]

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. Let There Be Songs To Fill The Screen . . I remember when I first saw the long-in-the-works Beat Generation documentary “The Source” at its premiere in Manhattan with McClure, Amram and all these other luminaries and we all went to the afterparty at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and everybody was freaking out that […]

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. . 15 minutes before this show I was lying on the ground behind the Cassady’s booth trying not to lose consciousness. . . . An hour into it I was running around the stage playing Gregory Corso on a football team.  The build from wounded wobbly to careening comedy is completely crazy. Everything had been […]

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