Brianland

. 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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Finding Kesey . Following the November 2016 election I knew it was time to get my own house in order.  A year had been lost to a losing campaign, added to five years of On The Road domino-tumbling madness that had passed since my mother had passed in 2011, and there was a lot of […]

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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac Reviews & Reactions — Part Three . Here’s the first round of incoming reviews. Or here’s a whole second round. .  I am bathing in the pages. Your book is a page turner of improbable adventures and characters — one crazy one after another.  The writing is high spirited and […]

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Election Night 2016 in New York City . . It was such a beautiful fall Tuesday in New York. We were all in such a good mood. But in retrospect there were some early warning signs I’d rationalized and dismissed: The tollbooth clerk I had a happy election exchange with but when asked who she […]

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. On The Bus and On The Road . . “Put your good where it will do the most,” …….. as Ken Kesey said, and Wavy Gravy recounted in the luminous new documentary, Going Furthur. This movie is really funny — and not in a you-had-to-be-there way.  A huge part of the Merry Band of […]

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Floating Universities  — The Power of The Collective in Art . Give me your befuddled masses, Your rejection slips, pink slips, verbal slips, all; Knock down the gates, throw open the bars, The artists are havin a ball. Teach me, show me, let me in; Challenge me, push me, help me win. Athletes have their […]

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Then Along Comes Kesey . .  Excerpted from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” available now.   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 […]

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The Prankster Woodstock . “I’ve got to get back to the land and set my soul free … “ Two of the coolest events of the ’60s just came together in the 21st century — and I lived it from start to finish. The Merry Pranksters’ Bus, which pulled out of Ken Kesey’s house in […]

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An excerpt from  “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” The Adventure of the Boulder ’82 On The Road Conference — Finding Kerouac, Kesey and The Grateful Dead Alive & Rockin’ in the Rockies     I guess I haven’t mentioned who all was here yet . . .  This was the biggest gathering of Beats […]

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