Brianland

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

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How The Beats Begat The Pranksters

September 17th, 2017 · 3 Comments · Grateful Dead, Kerouac and The Beats, Merry Pranksters

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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Falling In Love in The Summer Of Love

July 30th, 2017 · 46 Comments · Grateful Dead, Kerouac and The Beats, Merry Pranksters, Weird Things About Me

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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Long Strange Trip – Grateful Dead doc review

May 2nd, 2017 · 16 Comments · Grateful Dead, Movies

. 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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Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac – reviews and reactions Part 3

December 10th, 2016 · 10 Comments · Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac, Kerouac and The Beats, Weird Things About Me

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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The Republican Convention, Cleveland, 2016

July 17th, 2016 · 11 Comments · Politics, Real-life Adventure Tales

. Lesson One going into the streets of Cleveland — as hipped by my poli-warzone-brother Mitch — If you hear fire crackers, don’t assume they’re fire crackers.  Get behind cover. Roger that. Mitch and I met in 1983 thru him being a music reporter in Winnipeg and me managing to some success one of the […]

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Going Furthur film review

June 3rd, 2016 · 6 Comments · Grateful Dead, Merry Pranksters, Movies

. 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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Merry Prankster Reunion

May 15th, 2016 · 23 Comments · Merry Pranksters, Real-life Adventure Tales

A Secret Space of Dreams . . Somewhere in the Universe, Pranksters are gathering. It’s fireworks, calliopes and clowns, And everybody’s dancin’ . . . On fifty acres through country woods, with ponds and trails and fields and split-rail fences and immaculate stables and barns in fresh but classic rusty red . . . Now […]

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Bernie Sanders Rally Bloomington Indiana

May 5th, 2016 · 17 Comments · Politics, Real-life Adventure Tales

Front Row for The Revolution . Photo by Jeremy Hogan . It all started waking up on New York et al election day in Ken Morris’s house in Cleveland the day after we pre-scouted the city for the upcoming Republican Implosion.  I mean, Repugnant Convention.  There were 3 different messages in my in-box about a […]

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Rolling Stone Book of The Beats, Power of The Collective

March 6th, 2016 · 5 Comments · Grateful Dead, Kerouac and The Beats, Merry Pranksters, New York City

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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Pranksters in Wonderland

May 10th, 2015 · 19 Comments · Grateful Dead, Merry Pranksters, Real-life Adventure Tales, Weird Things About Me

. Somewhere in America . . . Pranksters are gathering . . . and in this case it was Wonderland. A dozen acres of wilderness hills and valleys, with a sunken natural amphitheater on the highest point of land in sight. 150 or so Pranksters came from across the land, traveling by every mode there […]

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