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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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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The Play’s The Thing

April 30th, 2021 · 2 Comments · New York City, Real-life Adventure Tales

The Play’s The Thing 113 different Playbills that survived. An approximate history of my life in theater audiences . . . Some of the highlights . . . which you can see the Playbills of in chronological order starting at the top . . . Mousetrap — London — 1972 — the longest running play […]

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Beat Versus Beatnik

March 3rd, 2021 · 29 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats

21st Century Beatniks versus Hieroglyphic Caricatures . There’s long been a debate about the word “beatnik” — originally coined by a sensationalist San Francisco gossip columnist in 1958, playing on the Yiddish suffix “nik” and the first Russian satellite launched in September ’57, colloquially known as “Sputnik.”  Jack and Allen & company hated the word […]

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En-Cora-gement: Give The Kids The Vote – by Dale Topham

January 31st, 2021 · 7 Comments · Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy, Politics

Here’s a beautiful inspiring story about proactively engaging young people in democracy.  And I mean young people under 18! It’s a story about generosity and generations, empowerment and inclusion, doing the right thing, and putting your good where it will do the most (as Ken Kesey used to advise). It’s told by a fellow Canadian […]

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Brian Hassett – Adventures in Print

January 26th, 2020 · 21 Comments · Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy, Kerouac and The Beats, Politics, Real-life Adventure Tales, Weird Things About Me

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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Kerouac in Provincetown

December 4th, 2019 · 37 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats

  How History Could Have Been Different Kerouac’s and Otherwise   . It was a quiet day in Facelandia when my Beat / Deadhead friend Steve Silberman posted: “Social media is amazing sometimes. In response to my posting a Cape Cod Times article about Kerouac’s time there, a woman posted a previously unseen photo of […]

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Ode to Neal

October 31st, 2019 · 14 Comments · Kerouac and The Beats

. 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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Paul Krassner 1932 – 2019

July 22nd, 2019 · 9 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Merry Pranksters, Real-life Adventure Tales

. Here’s the chapter on the now late great Paul Krassner from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac about the time I met him and a buncha his croanies at the big Kerouac summit in 1982. I sent him this chapter when I was finishing up the book and he gave it his thumbs-up. . ch. 23 […]

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