Brianland

. 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 […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

. Satori in Lowell   — The Intentional Nothingness of Everything . Every year the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival is five blissfully crazy days of non-stop events from early morning to late night — from David Amram performances and other concerts to movie screenings and art shows to walking and bus tours to guest speakers and […]

[Read more →]

. 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 […]

[Read more →]

. Here’s some early songs in sound and light . . . My tribute to the late great Carolyn Cassady on the one year anniversary of her passing … . Or “The Pranksters Invade the Woodstock Museum” . . . . Or here’s opening the Marry Prankster Reunion weekend in 2016 . . . . […]

[Read more →]

“On The Road” Comes Home — The New York Premiere The day of the “On The Road” premiere in New York (Dec. 13th, 2012) I was up at the NYPL trying to get through the doors of the hermetically sealed vault of the Berg Collection, home to a gazillion literary papers from Emerson to Shelley […]

[Read more →]

Part I, The Author’s Song   The passing of the scroll … It’s gone to a good place … . . . with an iconoclastic, white-tie wearin’ John Lennon lovin’ “huge Bob Dylan fan,” spirit of the 60s, buddy of Brinkley’s, crony of Thompson’s, and owner of the Indianapolis Colts (my new and forever favorite […]

[Read more →]

Making better time On The Road So, I get to the Ryerson Theatre in Toronto at 7PM for a 9:00 show (on Sept. 6th) and there’s already a whole scene.  It’s the World Premiere of the new and forever “On The Road” — the first-ever screening of the director’s revised and final cut. There’s a […]

[Read more →]