Beatdom

Beat
dom
dern beats • from the news desk • buddhism and the beats • bob kaufman - the unsung beat • walt whitman and the beat gen
er and son: allen ginsberg and bob dylan • the significance of vagrants on american literature • beat books • what do jack
ter s. thompson and jesus have in common? • the nanotechnological red bull oxycodone assessment • know your beats • seven b
uth, justice and the international super highway • beats online • a beaten dream? • eat at joe’s- the american dream? • harry p
death of literature • interviews with steve mcallister, ken babbs, paul krassner, zane kesey and barry gifford •ganga chip adv
ter goodfriend • new york lights burning bright • modern beats • from the news desk • buddhism and the beats • bob kaufm
ung beat • walt whitman and the beat generation • father and son: allen ginsberg and bob dylan • the significance of vagrants o
literature • beat books • what do jack kerouac, hunter s. thompson and jesus have in common? • the nanotechnological red bu
e assessment • know your beats • seven beat tales • truth, justice and the international super highway • beats online • a beaten
t at joe’s- the american dream? • harry potter and the death of literature • interviews with steve mcallister, ken babbs, paul
e kesey and barry gifford •ganga chip adventure • banter goodfriend • new york lights burning bright • modern beats • from
k • buddhism and the beats • bob kaufman - the unsung beat • walt whitman and the beat generation • father and son: allen
bob dylan • the significance of vagrants on american literature • beat books • what do jack kerouac, hunter s. thompson and je
ommon? • the nanotechnological red bull oxycodone assessment • know your beats • seven beat tales • truth, justice and the
al super highway • beats online • a beaten dream? • eat at joe’s- the american dream? • harry potter and the death of literatur
ws with steve mcallister, ken babbs, paul krassner, zane kesey and barry gifford •ganga chip adventure • banter goodfriend • n
ts burning bright • modern beats • from the news desk • buddhism and the beats • bob kaufman - the unsung beat • walt whit
beat generation • father and son: allen ginsberg and bob dylan • the significance of vagrants on american literature • beat book
ack kerouac, hunter s. thompson and jesus have in common? • the nanotechnological red bull oxycodone assessment • know y
ven beat tales • truth, justice and the international super highway • beats online • a beaten dream? • eat at joe’s- the american
y potter and the death of literature • interviews with steve mcallister, ken babbs, paul krassner, zane kesey and barry gifford •ga
enture • banter goodfriend • new york lights burning bright • modern beats • from the news desk • buddhism and the bea
fman - the unsung beat • walt whitman and the beat generation • father and son: allen ginsberg and bob dylan • the significan
nts on american literature • beat books • what do jack kerouac, hunter s. thompson and jesus have in common? • the nanotechn
bull oxycodone assessment • know your beats • seven beat tales • truth, justice and the international super highway • beats o
en dream? • eat at joe’s- the american dream? • harry potter and the death of literature • interviews with steve mcallister, ke
l krassner, zane kesey and barry gifford •ganga chip adventure • banter goodfriend • new york lights burning bright modern bea
news desk • buddhism and the beats • bob kaufman - the unsung beat • walt whitman and the beat generation • father and s
berg and bob dylan • the significance of vagrants on american literature • beat books • what do jack kerouac, hunter s. thom
s have in common? • the nanotechnological red bull oxycodone assessment • know your beats • seven beat tales • truth, justic
rnational super highway • beats online • a beaten dream? • eat at joe’s- the american dream? • harry potter and the death of lit
rviews with steve mcallister, ken babbs, paul krassner, zane kesey and barry gifford •ganga chip adventure • banter goodfrie
k lights burning bright • modern beats • from the news desk • buddhism and the beats • bob kaufman - the unsung beat • walt
the beat generation • father and son: allen ginsberg and bob dylan • the significance of vagrants on american literature • bea
t do jack kerouac, hunter s. thompson and jesus have in common? • the nanotechnological red bull oxycodone assessment • kn
s • seven beat tales • truth, justice and the international super highway • beats online • a beaten dream? • eat at joe’s- the a
am? • harry potter and the death of literature • interviews with steve mcallister, ken babbs, paul krassner, zane kesey and barr
nga chip adventure • banter goodfriend • new york lights burning bright • modern beats • from the news desk • buddhism and
b kaufman - the unsung beat • walt whitman and the beat generation • father and son: allen ginsberg and bob dylan • the sig
agrants on american literature • beat books • what do jack kerouac, hunter s. thompson and jesus have in common? • the nan
cal red bull oxycodone assessment • know your beats • seven beat tales • truth, justice and the international super highway • bea
beaten dream? • eat at joe’s- the american dream? • harry potter and the death of literature • interviews with steve mcallister, ke
l krassner, zane kesey and barry gifford •ganga chip adventure • banter goodfriend • new york lights burning bright • moder
m the news desk • buddhism and the beats • bob kaufman - the unsung beat • walt whitman and the beat generation • father
n ginsberg and bob dylan • the significance of vagrants on american literature • beat books • what do jack kerouac, hunter s. th
jesus have in common? • the nanotechnological red bull oxycodone assessment • know your beats • seven beat tales • truth, ju
international super highway • beats online • a beaten dream? • eat at joe’s- the american dream? • harry potter and the death of
erviews with steve mcallister, ken babbs, paul krassner, zane kesey and barry gifford •ganga chip adventure • banter goodfrie
k lights burning bright • modern beats • from the news desk • buddhism and the beats • bob kaufman - the unsung beat • walt
the beat generation • Created by Kirsty Bisset and David Willss • the significance of vagrants on american literature • beat boo
ack kerouac, hunter s. thompson and jesus have in common? • the nanotechnological red bull oxycodone assessment • know y
ven beat tales • truth, justice and the international super highway • beats online • a beaten dream? • eat at joe’s- the american
y potter and the death of literature • interviews with steve mcallister, ken babbs, paul krassner, zane kesey and barry gifford •ga
enture • banter goodfriend • new york lights burning bright • modern beats • from the news desk • buddhism and the bea
fman - the unsung beat • walt whitman and the beat generation • father and son: allen ginsberg and bob dylan • the significan
nts on american literature • beat books • what do jack kerouac, hunter s. thompson and jesus have in common? • the nanotechn
bull oxycodone assessment • know your beats • seven beat tales • truth, justice and the international super highway • beats o
en dream? • eat at joe’s- the american dream? • harry potter and the death of literature • interviews with steve mcallister, ke
issue one | summer 2007
1
contents
contents
3
4
18
50
68
Regulars
Letter From the Editor
Notes on Contributors
Poetry
Photography
Modern Beats
7
44
80
88
94
Features
Buddhism and the Beats
Bob Kaufman - The Unsung Beat
Walt Whitman and the Beat Generation
Father and Son: Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan
The Significance of Vagrants On American Literature
16
30
54
56
57
66
72
74
98
Articles
Beat Books
What Do Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson and Jesus
Have in Common?
The Nanotechnological Red Bull Oxycodone Assessment
Meet the Beats
Seven Beat Tales
Truth, Justice and the International Super Highway
Beats Online
A Beaten Dream?
Eat at Joe’s: The American Dream?
Harry Potter and the Death of Literature
Alcoholic Depravity
34
60
70
78
94
Interviews
Steve McAllister
Ken Babbs
Paul Krassner
Zane Kesey
Barry Gifford
46
84
96
Fiction
Ganga Chip Adventure
Banter Goodfriend
New York Lights Burning Bright
12
14
Beatdom
Letter From the Editor
Greetings, friend, and a warm welcome to the first issue of Beatdom... And it truly is a warm welcome, at
least on my end of this pleasantry...
A heavy-aired city night, the room illuminated by
many a stolen candle and the glow of the laptop that
overheats on my knees; the smoking ashtray by my
side that still exhales smoke, puffing away by my
beer: the only damn cold thing in the room...
And the warm sense of satisfaction that comes with
looking down upon the first words of the first issue of
the magazine you now hold in your hands, the result
of years of appreciation of Beat literature, ideals and
the counterculture stories that have become legend,
and of the life lead by such influences, and with the
aid of the acquaintances made through such living,
that resulted in the inevitable conclusion of following
in the paths of the subjects of these tales and plunging
into the literary world of today through studies of that
of the past and of the contemporary... And here, we
have, Beatdom.
Beatdom is, as I see it, an exercise in self-indulgence.
It is a chance to revel in the world of the people that
most would deny have influenced so much of our lives
as citizens of the twenty-first century. The current of
obsessions with tolerance and eco-friendly living are
just the tip of the iceberg, friend. Rights and freedoms
are the concern of more people today than ever before, and they are both granted with an unprecedented
ease and frequency, and yet are as under threat as always. We must not forget the ideas that gave us the
freedoms of today, for by doing so would allow them
to be taken away with a far greater pace than through
which they were gained.
And so Beatdom examines these important lessons,
basking in the near mythical banter that makes up the
lives of those so famous (as well as of those not so
famous) Beat generation heroes: Jack Kerouac, Allen
Ginsberg, William S Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Bob
Kaufman... Beatdom is an excuse to study the prose
and poetry that Beat-enthusiasts love, and therefore to
gain a greater understanding of what it was about, to
look at modern equivalents of such works, as well as
of their authors, and their lessons.
This first issue brings you interviews with figures
associated with the Beats, who have personally met
the legendary figures that inspire Beatdom. We have
features and articles on Beat books and tales and resources. We have poetry and fiction and photography
by previously unpublished, underground artists. We
are what Beatitude was and more.
So, from one half of your devoted editing team, please
enjoy reading Beatdom.
David S Wills
Beatdom
Beatdom Contributors
editor,
head writer,
staff writer,
guest writer,
staff photographer,
guesteditor,
photog
ic
designer,layout
designer,
font
designer,
illustrator,
renderer,
digital
co
,igital
guesteditor,
photographer,
outsource
photographer,
researcher,
copywriter,
head
de
conceptgraphic
artist, editor,
head
writer,
staff writer,
guest writer,
staff
riter,
head
designer,
designer,
layout
designer,
font
designer,
illustrator
writer,
staff photographer,
guest
photographer,
outsource
photographer,
resea
er,
illustrator,
renderer,
digital
editor,
concept
artist,
editor,
head
writer,
staff
rapher,
researcher,
copywriter,
head
designer,
graphic
designer,
layout
designe
writer,
staff writer,
guest writer,
staff photographer,
guesteditor,
photographer,
outso
yout
designer,
font
designer,
illustrator,
renderer,
digital
concept
artist,
rapher, outsource photographer, researcher, copywriter, head designer, graphi
we couldn’t have done
it without . . .
Beatdom
issue one
James Barnett - Sydney-based photographer
From the warped minds of Kirsty Bisset and David Wills
David Wills - Founder, Editor, Writer... Author of
Godless: Fragments of Contemporary Society and
Who Is Rodney Munch?
Lives on a remote island off California and plans to
‘take a wife’.
Kirsty Bisset - Founder, Photography... Law graduate, Ms. Bisset, is one of the two founders of Beatdom.
Ross Napier- Head designer, Graphics ... Graduate
in Product Design, educated at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design.
Anne Strachan - Ganga Chip lover, co-writer of
‘Ganga Chip Adventure’.
Steve McAllister - Author of The Rucksack Letters
and the article, ‘What Do Jack Kerouac, Hunter S.
Thompson and Jesus Have in Common?’
‘Mike’ - Mysterious, rude and ellusive MySpace
Nathan Dolby - Bob Dylan obsessive, Marxist, poet.
poet.
Kenn Babbs - Merry Prankster. See interview for
Jordan McGill - A crazy Seatle student and one of more bio, and poetry section for Guantanamo.
our poetry contributors.
Paul Krassner - Merry Prankster. See interview for
Rich Cormack - Dundee art student responsible for more bio.
numerous artwork featured throughout this issue.
Zane Kesey - Son of Ken Kesey, author of One Flew
Jameel Ameer - Former Marine from Louisville, KY. Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and first class asshole.
Now a poet, who performs in cafes and churches.
How many mushrooms did you eat to forget the interview, Zane? See interview.
Ting - Photography. Responsible for Silver Buddha
photo.
J.T. Ryder - Dayton journalist... Wrote The Nanotechnologic Red Bull Oxycodone Assessment.
Steven Peterson - Paranoid Gonzo writer, Steve
wrote the articles Truth, Justice and the Internation- Barry Gifford - Author of Jack’s Book and well
al Super Highway and A Beaten Dream?
known fiction writer. See interview.
Beatdom
grapher,
outsource
photographer,
researcher,
copywriter,
head
designer,
oncept
artist,
editor,
head
writer,
staff
writer,
guest
writer,
staff
photographer,
esigner,
graphic
designer,
layout
designer,
font
designer,
illustrator,
photographer,
guest
photographer,
outsource
photographer,
r,
renderer,
digital
editor,
concept
artist,
editor,
head
writer,
staff writer,
archer,
copywriter,
head
designer,
graphic
designer,
layout
designer,
writer,
guest writer,
staff photographer,
guesteditor,
photographer,
er,
font
designer,
illustrator,
renderer,
digital
conceptgraphic
artist, editor,
ource
photographer,
researcher,
copywriter,
head
designer,
designer,
editor,
head
writer,
staff
writer,
guest
writer,
staff
photographer
ic designer, layout designer, font designer, illustrator, renderer,
additional thanks go to . . .
Ammon Baker - Gonzo writer
Paul Kay - Currently writing a book about being
young and crazy in New York. Excerpts appear here
as New York Lights Burning Bright.
Rodney Munch - Guerrilla artist, most famous for
crashing the 2007 Duncan of Jordanstone Degree
Show. Contributed poetry and fiction.
Diane di Prima - Legendary Beat poet...declined
to be interviewed, but gifted Beatdom with signed
copy of Revolutionary Letters.
Paul Maher Jr. - The definitive Kerouac biographer...
His support did not go unnoticed.
Chris Felver - Beat photographer and biographer...
His support did not go unnoticed either.
Carolyn Cassady - Neal Cassady’s wife. Spoke to
Beatdom briefly via e-mail and offered a little connection to a true Beat.
Martin Flynn - Potential Beatdom contributor, but
seriously injured and unable to submit to first issue.
His article should appear in the second issue, so keep
reading.
Tony Parker - University of Dundee lecturer that inspired David Wills’ American studies.
Tim Morris - English professor at University of Dundee. Massively influential upon David Wills’ writing
career.
but we did do it without . . . Virgin Media - You tried to stop Beatdom from being published, you cheating swines.
Usman Khushi - Humours himself with delusions of
grandeur. Feigned interest in financing Beatdom to
impress his friends.
Beatdom
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William S. Burroughs’ Crack...
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Image © 2007 Rich Cormack
&
Buddhism
the Beats
David S Wills looks at the
Eastern influences upon the
Beat Generation
Jack Kerouac… “He was the first one I heard chant- word spoken by his friends, was the absolute truth.
ing the ‘Three Refuges’ in Sanskrit, with a voice like This would have us believe that Kerouac first enFrank Sinatra.”
countered the Buddhist religion in 1954, through
Dwight Goddard’s A Buddhist Bible, which he disSo said Allen Ginsberg in an interview with Peter covered in the San Jose Library. His initial exploraBarry Chowka way back in April 1976, as printed tions of the religion are described in The Dharma
in the New Age Journal. The interview revealed far Bums, where he explores the relationship between
more than this little quote… Ginsberg in his element, Snyder and himself, and between the solitude of the
descending into Buddhist discussions on a great mountains they explored together and the city lights
manner of topics, from his own experiences and life, that were the ecstatic backdrop to so much of the
to the very nature of Buddhism, to whether or not Beat Generation and its literature.
Bob Dylan could be considered Zen-like.
Paul Mayer Jr.’s book, Kerouac: His Life and Work,
But we shall come to all of this later. Of course, as which is my favourite study of all things Kerouac,
Ginsberg suggests, Kerouac inspired his religious goes into seemingly endless details about his life,
understandings, at least to an extent. So perhaps trying to draw on letters, quotes, books, journals,
it would be wiser to began with the man largely, that provide some insight into the his philosophical
though not necessarily accurately, credited with the and spiritual motivations. Mayer tries to explain the
influence of Eastern and Buddhist teachings in the balance between Catholicism and Buddhism that
Western World in the latter half of the twentieth cen- constituted Kerouac’s mind, and eventually settles
tury.
on the idea of Kerouac as complex and uncertain…
After that, we shall look at the Beats most frequently A conclusion that Kerouac himself seemed to conassociated with Buddhism, Gary Snyder and Allen stantly come upon.
Ginsberg, before continuing on to Roxroth et al.
The Dharma Bums is probably the most obvious
starting place in any study of Kerouac and Buddhism. A Buddhist parable, it is also testament to
Snyder’s influence on Kerouac, on Western interpretations of Buddhism, and on the Beat Generation.
It also shoots your dear author in the foot for his
selection of Jack Kerouac as the starting point of his
feature…
But hell, Kerouac it is. We’ll get to Snyder in due
time and give him the credit and study he deserves
simply for leading the life he did.
To return to Ginsberg, albeit briefly, he described
Kerouac as, “a French Canadian Hinayana Buddhist Catholic savant.” Kerouac described himself
as a “dharma bum,” although he would probably tell
you, at least in his later days, that he was a Catholic, heavily influenced by Eastern philosophy, rather
than a practising Buddhist.
As we all know, most of Kerouac’s life was clouded by fiction. He wrote versions of himself and his
friends and things that happened to him, and therefore what he said must be verified by way of other
sources to provide an accurate view of any situation,
if that is what you want… And so it may never really
be known how exactly Kerouac came to be influenced by Buddhism… But let’s pretend what we all
want to pretend, that every word he spoke, and every
Beatdom
Image © 2007 Rich Cormack
Jack Kerouac
The biographical studies of Kerouac: His Life and
Work draw on Kerouac’s journal entries that ponder Buddhist concepts, written well before his first
encounters with the religion. Kerouac’s infamous
womanising and intoxicant consumption, far from
the glamorous portrayals in his novels, are a source
of shame and sent Kerouac into deep musings about
the nature of life and self and suffering, and he be
In December 1953, Kerouac fell out with the Cassidy’s over his greed and selfishness, as well as
through their diverging spiritual notions. Yet it was
during this time that Neal Cassidy encouraged Kerouac to read Hindu and Buddhist texts, and although
their interpretations differed greatly, both men were
highly influenced by their reading sessions in the
San Jose Library.
Unwelcome in the Cassidy household, Kerouac
stole a copy of Dwight Goddard’s The Buddhist Bible from the library and got a bus home. He read fervently and added his own Catholic ideas, developing
many new thoughts, which he wrote down and sent
to Ginsberg. Ginsberg dismissed both Cassidy and
Kerouac’s beliefs as a waste of time, but felt that any
knew ideas were worth reading, and read Kerouac’s
suggested texts.
Basically, Mayer presents the story of a young man
who thinks so much that it troubles him; a man divided in his own mind and caught in a cycle of vices,
from which he constantly sought some form of escape.
So, we know where Kerouac got some of his Buddhist understandings from, and that her struggled to
reconcile his life with these beliefs, as we come to
The Dharma Bums. The novel details the influence
of Snyder (Japhy Ryder) on Kerouac (Ray Smith)
and the contrasts between their respective differences in opinion. Smith ‘wrestles’ with Buddhism,
struggling to subdue his sexual desires, which he
sees as an obstacle, while Ryder is comfortable in
his beliefs and does not view pleasure as being in
conflict with his Zen ways.
Ginsberg appears in the novel as Alvah Goldbrook,
who respects the Buddhist traditions, but views them
as in conflict with the life he wishes to lead.
Allen Ginsberg
However, Kerouac’s depiction of Ginsberg occurred
early in the poet’s Buddhist life, and was during his
early experiences with the religion, which he viewed
then as more of a trend, than of the wise life choice
he later came to embrace.
Tony Triligio, in Jennie Skerl’s Reconstructing the
Beats, reveals the turning point in Ginsberg’s beliefs, from dismissive, albeit curious, poetic usage,
to understanding and appreciation. The event was
the protest before the 1968 Democratic National
Convention in Chicago… Ginsberg up on stage,
chanting to calm and unite the crowd… The police
charging about violently… “Om! Om! Om!”… A
note is passed to him by an Indian observer, inform-
ing Ginsberg he is pronouncing “Om!” wrong.
Ginsberg realised then that Buddhism was to him
a song, and not a matter of concentration. He was
focusing on the sound of a mantra, rather than the
meaning, and he spent thirty years trying to reconcile the two values. The conflict between sound
and meaning serves as a vehicle for the differences
between Eastern and Western values, philosophies,
influences, and audiences. Ginsberg was using mantras to convey messages written during car journeys
across America, as well as using Western poetic
form to impress upon his listeners and readers the
Eastern values he had come to accept, or at least to
consider.
Ginsberg was introduced to Buddhism mostly
through Kerouac and Snyder, as well as through
some limited reading of his own. Cleary his original
discoveries and understandings were more considerations than beliefs, but something changed. Formal Buddhist practise became the focus of his life by
the seventies, when he would spend weeks on end
in silent meditation, learned from the Buddhist guru
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and started the Jack
Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Trungpa’s Naropa Institute in Boulder Colorado, where
Ginsberg would teach over the summer months.
But it was a chance meeting with Trungpa on the
streets of New York, when they both hailed the same
cab, that threw Ginsberg into his formal studies,
which would become the focus of his life and a major influence on his poetry. According to the Chowka
interview, Ginsberg introduced himself to Trungpa
with the Padma Sambhava mantra and said Namaste. This was in 1971, when Ginsberg’s father fell on
the street and he wished
to get the old man off
his feet. Trungpa and
Ginsberg clicked, with
Ginsberg later stating
that it was because they
were both poets.
The rest is history, as they
say, and Trungpa came
to be Ginsberg’s
mentor, teaching
him about inner
peace, and encouraging the
poet to improvise, trusting
himself more.
It
becomes
obvious
Beatdom
through reading Ginsberg’s work and letters and
interviews, that after meeting Trungpa he became
heavily influenced by his guru’s teachings.
But Trungpa was neither Ginsberg’s first Buddhist
influence, nor his first spiritual guide. In the early
sixties, he visited India, and although he maintains
the trip was not a spiritual one in any great sense, he
sought out and learned from all the holy men he could
find, like Gylawa Karmapa and Dudjom Rinpoche.
These proved of some use, but not of as major significance as those of Trungpa or Swamis Muktananda and Bhaktivedanta, who were more ‘spiritual
friends’ than teachers. They each gave Ginsberg
mantras to chant. With Muktananda’s mantra, Ginsberg sat chanting for a year and a half of contemplation, and with Bhaktivedanta’s Hare Krishna he
practised it in public readings, helping publicise the
Krishna movement.
solitary contemplation that make up Buddhism.
So here we have another seemingly natural Buddhist, as it were. What I mean is that Snyder was
never forcibly pushed into his beliefs, nor did he lift
them straight from a book. Like Kerouac and Ginsberg, Snyder felt and thought much of what learned
and trained Buddhists feel and think, and therefore
his transition into the life of practising Buddhist appears organic.
But of course traditional influences come into the
picture, otherwise his adoption of Buddhism as a
‘religion’ would have been beyond coincidence…
In fact, down right freaky and on as supernatural a
plane as to justify irrational thinking and spontaneous conversion to Zen schools of thinking…
But I digress.
Snyder returned to living with Whalen and the
two explored Buddhism together as Snyder began
studying Oriental culture and languages at the University of California, Berkeley, and took to reading
the works of DT Suzuki, who wrote and translated
texts on Eastern philosophy and religion. Later, he
worked on his own translations of ancient Chinese
poems, including the Cold Mountain poems by the
reclusive Han Shan.
In 1956, Snyder lived with Jack Kerouac in a cabin
Mill Valley. Their co-habitation of peaceful living
and Buddhist values were recounted in The Dharma
Bums, as was Snyder’s three day leaving party. When
he left Mill Valley, Snyder headed off to a monastery
(Above) Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky
in Japan.
Between 1956 and 1968, Snyder spent much of
Gary Snyder
his time practising and translating in Japan, first at
Shokuku-ji and then at Daitoku-ji in Kyoto. During
The subject of The Dharma Bums, such was his in- the early sixties, he also visited India with his wife,
fluence on Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder impressed his the poet Joanne Kyger, Allen Ginsberg, and his lover
Beat contemporaries with his calm Zen demeanour. Peter Orlovsky. He also lived on an island with JapaKerouac’s portrayal of Snyder as Japhy Ryder ex- nese drop-outs, gathering their food and living off
plores the poet’s view of himself as part of a bridging the land.
of Eastern and Western cultures. He was the rough In the late sixties Snyder moved back to California,
and rugged outdoorsman in the style of Thoreau, first to San Francisco, and then to a home he and
brought into the urban backdrop of the Beat Genera- friends built in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
tion and the San Francisco Renaissance by his association with Kenneth Rexroth, then Ginsberg and Kenneth Rexroth
Kerouac.
Snyder lived with Philip Whalen and Lew Welch The man responsible for introducing Ginsberg to
at Reed College, two students who may well have Snyder, and therefore Kerouac to Snyder, and who
been influences on his Buddhist and poetic ideas acted as M.C. for the famous Six Gallery reading,
later in life. After graduating in 1951, he worked was Kenneth Rexroth. Rexroth was, however, never
on the Warm Springs Indian Reserve and as a fire- a fully fledged member of the Beat Generation, or at
lookout at Desolation Peak. Such experiences least so he claimed. But his connection was undeniseem to have taught Snyder much about nature and able. He was a part of the Beat movement, whether
10
Beatdom
Image © 2007 Ting
he lived it or not. He thought of himself as more the
documenter than the subject.
But a Buddhist? He may have not been a self-confessed Beat, but in the eyes of history he was one.
And while he may not have been a fully-fledged
Buddhist, his association with it was certainly undeniable. Certainly, his poetry was influenced by Eastern culture. He translated ancient Chinese poetry
and pretended to translate ancient Japanese poetry,
but it later emerged that he was the author. Rexroth’s
poem, Aix-en-Provence, exemplifies Buddhist notions of nature through his depiction of its interdependent components.
Hell, maybe his lack of connection to Buddhism was
part of his perennial status as an outsider. He was
neither Beat nor San Fran Renaissance man, neither
Catholic nor Buddhist.
Bob Kaufman
Kaufman also had a variety of religious influences in his life, including Catholicism, Judaism, Voodoo and Buddhism. But ultimately, his religion of choice would be Buddhism.
In 1963, upon witnessing the assassination of John F.
Kennedy, Kaufman took a Buddhist vow of silence
that lasted until the end of the Vietnam War.
And so there you have it in a nutshell… It could
be said that the Beat Generation was one lost
in a mad world, desperately trying to carve out
their own space, and more importantly, trying
to make sense of the world around them. Catholics and Jews fought between their ingrained
notions and right and wrong, while seduced by
the peaceful and free ways of Buddhism. The
influence of these religions and the conflict between them in the lives and heads of the Beat Generation is
evidenced in many of their poems and novels and interviews.
Beatdom
11
beatbooks
Some good books written about the Beat Generation,
Beat literature and counterculture life
Caveney, G., Screaming With Joy: The Life of Allen life. Beautifully laid out and illustrated, with images
Ginsberg (Bloomsbury: Verona, 1999)
and words blending together like the writing and the
stories that were, in fact, Burroughs’ true legacy after
Screaming With Joy is epitomised by a photo of his death, The Priest They Called Him is not a book
Ginsberg carefully watching Bob Dylan sit playing for squares. No, friend, this book is as stylish as the
guitar. There are so many photos of Ginsberg and subject and almost as entertaining. Scholarly, it may
his legendary contemporaries interspersed with the not be, but interesting and wild, it certainly is.
sort of stories that make Ginsberg such a loveable
figure.
Consequently, the text flies along at some speed, Maher Jr., P., Kerouac: His Life and Work (Revised
moving from story to story to story with seamless and Updated) (Taylor Trade Publishing: Maryland,
endeavour. Little is really elaborated on in great 2004)
depth, but such fleeting references and brilliant
statements evoke greater feeling, although they may Shortly after Beatdom’s creation, following the comlack the facts and ideologies of other Ginsberg bi- pletion of my book, Who Is Rodney Munch?, and the
ographies. It also creates a matter-of-fact narrative return to a life lacking creativity and productivity,
of Ginsberg’s life, which makes the book read more I decided that one way to motivate myself to write
like fiction, and recalls the autobiographical nature about the Beats was to purchase an informative and
of the poet’s work.
substantial book about the subject… An investment
Screaming With Joy is one of Beatdom’s in-house in my writing and in the magazine… Something to
reference manuals. It is essential reading, as far as inspire me to write, to study, to get my act together.
we are concerned, although there may be more thor- A trip around Borders bookshop, out by the Reading
ough sources available. But as with Dylan’s music, Rooms on the edge of town, resulted in my purchasthe genius is that the words reflect more than they ing of Paul Maher Jr.’s Kerouac: His Life and Work.
say, and that you never doubt their significance. I needed something about a specific Beat figure that
Ginsberg knew it, and Caveney knows it.
could be used as research for a variety of articles and
features, and there was a lack of anything about Burroughs or Ginsberg or anyone else.
Caveney, G., The Priest They Called Him: The Life And Kerouac has served its purpose. The book deand Legacy of William S. Burroughs
tails the Father of the Beat Generation’s life beautifully and in frightening depth. There’s not much
Another book by Graham Caveney, this Burroughs worth knowing about Jack Kerouac that isn’t in
biography is as great a piece of art as a study of his there somewhere, backed up by meticulously sought
12
Beatdom
By David S Wills
references and loving analysis.
But had I known more about Paul Maher Jr., I
wouldn’t have been so pleasantly surprised. Firstly,
he has the same degree as I do: in American Studies
and English; the sort of blend of study that inevitably leads one to modern and controversial, as well
as politically and culturally significant, American
literature. Secondly, he is the author of three additional Kerouacian studies: Empty Phantoms: Interviews and Encounters with Jack Kerouac (2004),
Home I’ll Never Be: Jack Kerouac and On the Road
(2007) and The New Vision: Jack Kerouac in the
1940s (2009); as well as of Miles on Miles: Collected Interviews with Miles Davies (2007) and a
forthcoming book scheduled for 2009 about the life
of Henry David Thoreau.
Maher can therefore be considered as a bit of a Kerouac expert, with an appreciation of related musical
and literary influences.
Originally entitled Kerouac: A Definitive Biography, this book certainly lives up to both of its names.
‘Definitive’ is right, although concerning his works
in addition to his life.
Lee interviewed numerous figures in Kerouac’s
life, from Ginsberg, Burroughs and Hunke, to old
schoolfriends and relatives.
The result is a superb addition to the volume of Kerouac biographies, and certainly a unique addition at
that. It reads more like something Kerouac would
have put together himself than some of the heavygoing scholarly books of facts and dates.
Barry Gifford’s work was brought to my attention
by an e-mail from a friend, who directed me to the
author’s website, where I found his e-mail address
and entered into correspondence with him, resulting
in the interview later in this magazine.
Ann Charters (ed.), The Portable Beat Reader (Penguin: 1992)
Anne Charters edits together a collection of Beat
texts to offer a literary-historical study of the Beat
Generation. Included in this collection are excerpts
from On the Road, Howl! and The Naked Lunch, as
well as writings by Diane di Prima, Bob Dylan, Herbert Hunke and Gregory Corso.
The Portable Beat Reader is a nice starting point in
Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee, Jack’s Book: An an exploration of Beat literature, though perhaps a
Oral Biography (St. Martin’s Griffin: New York, little pointless to well-read Beat enthusiasts. Nev1978)
ertheless, it’s one of those ‘nice-to-have’ books that
you’d happily read again and again if you couldn’t
Now a bone-fide Kerouacian classic, Jack’s Book find your own full copies of the included texts.
takes oral interviews with friends and associates
of Jack Kerouac and combines them to draw a distinctive biography of the Beat legend. Gifford and
Beatdom
13
What do Jack Kerouac,
Hunter S. Thompson and
Jesus have in common?
No, not the beginning of a joke made in poor taste, but the musings of Steve
McAllister, author of The Rucksack Letters. Written in response to editorial recognition of his influences, this essay explores subjects touched upon in his book.
In the preface to the first edition of my book, ‘The
Rucksack Letters’, I introduced my three most precious guides as Jack Kerouac, Hunter S Thompson,
and Jesus Christ. I loved Jack for his wandering nature and search for truth and beauty, Hunter for flow
of thoughts and comedic lifestyle, and Jesus because
he illuminated the most vital essences of anyone
I’ve ever called a Hero without ever having to write
a word.
to use their gifts with great glee and take them to
new heights of Success and Happiness. But I have
also seen those, like myself, who are mired in a pit
of stagnancy, somehow unable to tilt the balance of
happy, productive moments in a day with those that
are glum and boring.
I fear that one reason for this may be that we are
under diagnosing. Often, we label people with one
diagnosis, such as in this case of Attention Deficit
I considered for a while not trying to resonate too Disorder, but often miss the fact that there is also
strongly with the Beat movement and its course of a case of Depression. To say that this whole popuaudience due to both of their dismal demises. And lation of under-achievers should be diagnosed with
I still had some reservations about aligning myself Depression may seem like an audacious claim, but
with some of the followers of my greatest Hero. But looking at the world around me and the distractions
I finally realized that Jesus was pretty Beat.
from happiness which capture the minds and hearts
of so many otherwise good people, I have come to
My whole journey toward coming to grips with this the conclusion that there is a great bout of some form
situation is recounted in ‘The Rucksack Letters’ so I of insanity throughout the greater population.
won’t go into it here, but it really started for me with
the Attention Deficit Disorder diagnosis. I knew I Are we Depressed? In many senses, yes. In many,
thought differently. I was just having a rough go of we are just Beat.
finding the strengths in those differences when so
many were telling me they were weaknesses. At that From a Beat, though harsh and pounding, comes the
point, I started questioning the nature of good and basis by which we make our music. For sound is
evil as well.
the momentary meeting of one entity with another
and the beautiful conflict that ensues. Some bring
I could have more easily grasped the splendiferous what we call Music. Some bring what we call Pain.
joy of being blessed with a though process some- Some light or darkness. Some blessing or destructimes referred to as Attention Deficit Disorder if tion. Some loud or quiet. If you are Beat, you find
I were not also dealing with a lesser realized De- your rhythm in the dance, and turn to face the partpression. In looking at people with Attention Def- ner that most attracts you. You dance a song of trills,
icit Disorder, I have seen some who have learned thrills of words, and move to the next partner. Some
14
Beatdom
dances jostle you more than other, and you can get ness, and looked deeper into what was really imporbeat pretty bad. But you find the beauty in it and do tant. The voices which screamed and shouted with
what you can to show it to others.
great fervour, picked up acoustic guitars and started
singing at a depth that was largely ignored in the
Jesus was Beat. Jesus was Beat bad. But he Rose and previous generation. Causes became more worthy
inspired generations to come to do the same thing. and Charity became a way of life again.
Spending only thirty-three years on the planet and
only three in assumedly recorded history, he man- Our next phase is that of Acceptance before we stare
aged to split time in half, and elicit some of the most into the face of Reason and see through to Love.
cherished ideas on Love, Joy, and Peace without Though we are Beat, those we have been called
ever having to write in anything but the sand. He the dregs of society, though we have been shunned,
had nothing. He wanted nothing but to play his role ridiculed, and abused, though we stand at the maws
in the rhythm.
of an Angry World that seems to be forever being
drawn into the lower levels of Fear, Grief, Apathy,
That’s as much as any of us can do.
Guilt, and Shame, though we are Beat, we have
every opportunity to raise the levels of Human ConWhen the time is right
sciousness toward the greater senses of Love, Joy,
when the hearts are right
and Peace.
when the minds are right
when the world is right
In this generation, there have been explosions of
we will write
thought relating to people who thought differently.
we will write the world
We’ve developed Indigo’s, ADD kids, Generation
and beat out a rhythm
Y, Cultural Creatives, and many more, but I think it
by which music will flow
all starts with a Beat. To create the music of life by
which we will serve as co-creators in our future, we
This was the task of Lucifer, the Angel of Light, be- must start with a Beat.
fore he is rumoured to have become enraptured by
his own pride and sought to overthrow God. I don’t
care how far you think you can throw, you ain’t
gonna throw farther than God. But Lucifer was the
patron angel of music. I’m not so concerned about
Lucifer as a person, but I must consider the idea that
ran through his head which garnered him the unfathomable consequence of Separation from God?
Pride. It’s right between Anger and Courage in the
Scales of Consciousness developed by Dr. David
Hawkins. In his book Power vs. Force, Dr. Hawkins
states that on his scale from 0-1000, Mankind collectively rose over the 200 mark in the Eighties, just
past Pride and on to Courage.
There is no doubt that Pride was a major factor of
consciousness in the Eighties. Our music had reached
a new pinnacle of Loud. Our rebels were wearing
makeup and glitter, making love to their guitars, and
inviting all sorts of new colours into their wardrobes.
It was called the ‘Me Generation’. With all the Stuff
that we created under the guise of self expression,
there was much to be proud of.
In the Nineties, we touched on the nut of Sobriety,
moderating our excesses, subsiding our impulsiveBeatdom
15
16
Beatdom
The
Nanotechnological
Red
Bull
Oxycodone
Assessment
The holy scroll that was to become
the seminal work in American
cultural history, hammered out
in a scant three weeks, changed
the outlook of a new generation
through a rebellion of will. Does
the manuscript, Jack Kerouac’s
scream of consciousness On the
Road, contain the same primal
congruence that once forced a
generation filled with silence to
be heard? If the book were to
have been published today, would
it have the same, if any, impact on
youth of today as it did throughout
the immediate decades following it’s inception? Would it have
even been published in this modern market and, more importantly,
would it have ever been written at
all?
From the depths of Dementia
Praecox throughout the convoluted spires of drug induced deceptions and truths, this hallowed
writ came to be, scrolled from the
mind and brought to life by the
hand of perception. Yet, had Jack
Kerouac started his adventures today, the outcome, I believe, would
be quite different. The first and
foremost being the state of his personality, which would have been
detected and diagnosed very early
in his life by some well-meaning
teacher, counselor or doctor. He
probably would have joined the
legion of Prozac Monkeys, placidly smiling their way through
life’s daily routines.
Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that he wasn’t drugged
into drooling acquiescence as the
majority of the “free thinking”
world is, would his work even be
considered worthy of a publisher’s glance? Probably not. His is
not the commercial grade Pablum
pushed upon the populace by Oprah and her ilk; spoon-fed sophomoric pap produced to tantalize
and enthrall the reader with its
soothing Chicken Soup soul.
Unable to even experience a fraction of the events that transpired
on the road back in his age, the
closely written notebooks would
have yielded little of interest to
even warrant a novel, let alone
a blog entry. The landscape of
America has turned quite thorny
towards the individual wishing to
throw conformity to the wind and
open themselves up to the breeze
swept road and the hail of stars
cut so brightly into the night’s sky.
This corporate country does not
smile down upon the individual
who would rather trod the tarmac
in search of himself instead of to
a Starbucks for a Double Mocha
Latte. There must be something
wrong with a consumer who does
not consume, who would rather
have the memory of a lightning
forked downpour saturating them
on a lonely stretch of Albuquerque
highway than to recline in their
La-Z-Boy while watching their
wide-screen, plasma television
spewing out their opinions for
them.
Let’s say that Jack’s work was
self-published on the
internet. Would there be the same
feeling of identity that the past
held while it turned the cheap,
yellowing pages? This is where
things fall down a bit. I don’t feel
that the emotionally challenged
world of today would even recognize an original thought beyond the scope of instant entertainment. How can a child of the
new world find comfort within the
musty, pulp pages of a book that
they cannot even begin to hold
as a wishful yearning when that
world, that era, that experience
just does not exist anymore. Why
hold the tattered pages of another
soul’s scribed scream when there
is so much more to experience this
very instant. How can a child open
themselves to the cry of freedom
when they do not even know what
that word truly means.
The youth, eugenically altered
from lifetimes past, possess an
inherent inability to experience
events, even within their most
private thoughts; they do not own
the ability to be free. Decade after
decade of conscious control has ingrained a Pavlovian salivation for
all things tangible while breeding a
pensive disdain for individual reasoning. This lack of freedom cannot be expressed more succinctly
than through this youth’s clamorous protests as to their genuine individuality. All things that define
them are through appearance and
ownership, not through any sub
stantive difference in mindset or
beliefs. Past generations held the
mawkishly misinformed notion
that they were striving for a universal harmony, a whole world
of acceptance and understanding, when they really did not
have any concept as to how large
the world actually was. Time has
since shrunk the planet considerably and most kids today have
friends online from Malaysia,
South America, Russia, wherever,
yet they do not encircle the same
ideological precept of a world as
something to be experienced.
This is not in any way, shape or
fashion a hate-laced rant against
the child of today. This is an ownership of what has been done, an
acknowledgment for what has
been perverted. We did this. We
did this to our children. With each
incremental step of every subsequent generation, sociological
shifts and rifts within the fabric
formed; a growth of identity and
hope. With each passing year, the
hope was quelled and the growth
stunted until the human animal
ceased trying to be, to become and
to attain. What we are witnessing
is the result of years of striking
blows to the psyche of freedom
and redemption, the wound that
never truly heals.
by J.T. Ryder
Beatdom
17
Jameel Ameer
18
Mental Melodies
When My Pen Cries…
I’m not hip-hop or R&B
Just hope you’re hip to the hops
That are in me
Been known to jump ship
And set sail to the dreams that are in me
I’m not southern soul or upstate flare
Know my soul will go south
If I don’t get spiritual flare
I’m not country music or Beethoven’s classic
But in the countries of my mind
Music is classic
I’m not rhythmic jazz
Or rolling with rock
Have my own pizzazz
That’s solid as rocks
I’m not chamber music or easy listening
My mind chambers its own music
Making life easier for listening
I’m not ethnic drum sounds
Beating against isolated winds
People of my own ethnic sound
Have become my isolated friends
I’m not stringed guitars of the West Indies
Or the original rude boy
Yet when my strings of dollars become pennies
Everyone becomes a rude boy
I’m not Asian melodies being led by flutes
My mind plays flagrant melodies
Of my childhood roots
I’m not theatrcal folklores
Being played with ukuleles
My mind takes musical tours
From the new millennium back to the 80’s
The melody of my mind is its own beautiful music
My mind creates its own sounds
Toots it own horn
I am me
Therefore my own sound is born…
…Hear my voice.
This is what it sounds like
When my pen cries
Somewhat like a symphony on paper
Translating the unseen tears of my eyes
Pain comes out in poetic lullabies
Symphonized by ink
The feelings I think
Have become very superstitious writings
The more the ink bleeds
The more I’m internally dying
These ink splatters have become
Writings on the walls of my head
Pen and pad going head to head
Scribbling what the voices said
The regrets left unsaid
Pain that won’t fall in the form of tears
Pain that’s been locked away for years
My frustrations and my fears
Orchestrated into a rhythm
Jotted down on paper
Becoming my relaxing system
This somehow feels safer
Rather than letting it fall down my cheeks
Or letting it come out when I speak
I write
About the many situations in life
Those with good attributes
And those that contain strife
I write
About the hurts that I deny
About the reasons I can’t close my eyes
Thinking of jumping off buildings
Knowing that I can’t fly
Writing is the only way
The only way I know to get by
This is what it sounds like
When my pen cries
Beatdom
poetry
2/12
Day full of cold flurries and warm hearts
Backsliding and restarts
Visions of a victorious tomorrow
On the eve before another daily dedication
Another chance to fulfill one’s passion
Life
The only chance to turn words into actions
Tomorrow I will endure reactions
To the previous days infractions
Playing catch up from procrastination
Impregnation of my mind with motivation
Yet frustrations have me stationed
Finances have me stuck in positions
Positions that are non-fitting
And still admitting
To being one of my many faults
Daymares of empty vaults
Shelves that are stricken with famine
Now examine the inner me
Find the enemy
Opposing
Trying to bring the end of me
Lord please enter me
And reactivate the spirit
Remove the taste of cocktails and spirits
Take negativity and spear it
Jubilee
Yes Lord I can hear it!!
As ships set sail to open oceans in my mind
Father…
Let thy light shine
Let thy light shine.
A collection of Beatthemed, countercultureinspired, alternative, stylish poetry from around the
globe.
Beatdom
19
Nathan Dolby
Alcatraz Minus Five
“I am Chaos,” I yell
At 3am I saw Dylan Thomas, alive before my eyes
He handed me a knife, “cut into your soul,” he
said
I smiled and he walked through my mind, opening
doors and looking for the operating theatre
The Surrealist Demon, smoking a light bulb,
throws bricks at the Silent Preacher, who ducks
and dives
The Agony Squad hunts the Bible Seller, who has
stolen the harmonica from the desk
Dylan Thomas hides the harmonica in his heart,
safe and sound
77 Dualists dance on the exposed brain of The
Hobo. The Hobo laughs as he tracks down The
Shadow
The Midnight Angel, whose eyes are soaked in
blood, declares war on my Madness! “You are
Chaos,” she whispers in my darkened bedroom
Socrates has overthrown my Personality
Jason the Florentine saw Fame pass him at Noon
It laughed at him and threw dollars
Sat at my desk, my heart is searching for my
harmonica, my head in search of my reflection in
the opaque bottle
They aren’t there
Brought and Sold
I do not know who I am anymore!
I have lost myself
I am forever lost
Lost within my despair
I think madness has finally engulfed me!
I am walkin’ through my mind
Walkin’ through the darkness
I see so many things
Electronics
Ballot Papers
Scars
20
Beatdom
Lost Hopes
Repressed memories
Buzzers
Flashing neon lights
Endless reams of paper!
I get a lot of headaches
Maybe this will help!
I hate metallic moving stairs
I despise silver dust
I tried to hang colourful pictures, but the faceless,
evil, maniacal, hateful beasts deny me of my right!
Everyday I see Rambling Soldiers and I sit on
Rumbling Buses,
So many questions fly around me.... “Why?” which
has so many answers! Complex answers!
The Red Dragon flies around my room spinning
hysterically asking for vodka and demented hats
It spits numbers and vowels at me!
Miss L smiles at me, she knows it hurts, my
heartaches- does she not care?
I listen to BD and smile- I love his harmonica
playin’
I talk to Lady M and she makes me feel great!
I have had enough of the senselessness of it all! I
don’t know who I should talk to!
I have the Blues and they have Nathan!
I can’t wait till Halloween is over! I have been
wearing this mask for 12 years....It weighs heavily
on my brain
Now I’m hitting the harder stuff! The little green
pill isn’t strong enough! I am having bad dreams
again.....
So I’ll finish with this:
Why am I on the picket?
poetry
Jordan McGill
10/7/06
Creative flows
Prose
No match for a brain on overload
System knows no bounds, no limits, no frowns
22
Only twisted grins
Twisted sins from black listed men who’ve been
hissed at again
They know no law, no qualms with fifth amends,
wait!
The snakes bait the freight
Bake the weight
They take more and skate
On oil-thin ice while the green in they back-pockets
soils the flag bright
With the burning of a country
With the burning of a man
Maybe these extremists would stop burning all our
land
Plant a new suburbia
Drive around in vans
Kids who play soccer
Hear Death in all our plans
The Man’s gone
Too far this time
Crossed too many lines
Lost too many lives that shined
Bright as the muzzle flash, lost in the abyss
Those tan brown deserts cause most to shoot and
wish
Hope that they hit something
Not get sent home as a gift
Wrapped in purple packaging
Walking with a limp
The Gimp cried
Kids fried
Bush Lied
We’ve died
We all just swipe our cards now
Grimace at the price
$2.50 sounds so good as compared to $3.oo
They might
Change it all back up again
Comes back at dawns first light
Too bad the green we smoke today is cash
Pheened by the Right Wing who might lean upon
a priest and say
“Fucking boys is good and all, as long as you’re
all straight”
Not the way the Bible says to live
Amazed they claim their platform based on those
pages
It’s a sieve
All the worst parts soaked through
The Devil is here in form of all IN Control now
Stab me, wake me, kill me quick
Earth has gone KA-BLAOW!
Saw the V today
Reminded me of cold death yet to come
Redundancy!
Scythe approaching on gray robed winds
Breathing through my spine
The horseman soon comes
Bringing with him an army of tainted razor drops
cutting into feeling
Depressing
A funk
James Brown couldn’t even dance to.
One by one
Slowly shuffle in
Transfuse the blood and juices of lifeless carriages
Keith Richards
Re-fueling again and again and again
Keep on rockin’ me, baby
Keep climbing to the stage
Played on by men in white shirts
Ties hanging loose around necks
Patterned nooses
Briefs
Chained and cased to hands
Frozen stiff cadavers placed on dry ice
They never stop pulling in
Lifeless monsters and minds
The Death of the American Dream…
Beatdom
21
Jordan McGill ‘Mike’
22
The Slinger
Pork Rinds
Cowboy’s cattle come and go
Munching on oats varying in price from day to day
Most are the same
Worthless meat nobody cares about
Social-securities non-existent
Social class medium-rare
Prime for getting eaten alive by the banditos who
run slave-driven chain-ganged
OIL FIELDS
Who wear black suits with red and blue ties
Hiding in caves hidden behind White Marble
A cowboy
An outlaw
Hating these men
Wishing nothing more than to hunt them down
Six shooters blazing bullets
Piercing the armor of a poorly run saloon
Girls upstairs covered with crabs
Whisky’s gone sour
Piano Man who controlling the mood of the room
Got his fingers burned off
Branded
Losing
Credibility, Integrity, overall General Stability
Hey Bartender
Pour me another
Head out back
The Man who just walked in, stopped the music
and made the heads turn
Is about to drag some bodies behind stampeding
tailgates of
Rams, Mustangs, and Wranglers
a fellow beast
their goodness is airy
and sinful, unstoppable
gobbling godzilla crunch
fat and salt
fried into heaven and
cloud-mouthed textured
ecstasy, brain-brined
popcorned, preying mantis nests
eye roll back
orgasm
Beatdom
Ken Babbs
Guantanamo
Yo soy un hombre triste que me paso la vida
muy alegre.
What the hell does that mean?
I am a sad man who passes my life very happily.
As if that is going to do any good.
Cuba is a Lizard.
Havana is the eye and
Guantanamo is the asshole.
poetry
Rodney Munch
Magdalen Green
On the waterfront
Last cast into darkness
When night falls,
And always red at dawn
But light enough to see
And to drink,
Shadows from the trees
And lights bouncing on the Tay
And darkness on the grass,
Cold and damp ground
And the occasional rush of a train
Or whisper of a car,
But silence prevails mostly
And talk is easy and hushed
And cigarettes burn quietly,
Cider is sipped and red wine
From the bottle, or beer
And a joint,
All are passed hand to hand
And passed on again readily
And mostly in silence,
Facing south to see the dim lights
Of Fife countryside and villages
And cars on small, windy road,
And not behind – to Dundee proper
With its noise and neds
And offensive everything,
And over to the bandstand to sit
Or stand on the rails, balancing
And sitting drinking,
24
And swinging and laughing
And jumping into the bushes
And talking,
On the bandstand in Magdalen Green,
In summer.
Balgay Park
Standing atop a miniature mountain
I see the Law,
Climbing hillsides with a broken foot
And new shoes,
Photographing trees in the light
And their leaves in shadow,
Running across open grass like that bit
From Jurassic Park…
Posing for photos in sunglasses
Under mighty oaks,
Spinning on rocks over the whole
Damned City!
Jumping in the long-grass but
No velociraptors,
Stopping to look at thistles
Above the grasses,
And the one red flower in
A sea of green,
Before heading up the road to the summit
Somewhere above,
And up there the whole city so clear
Yet so far,
The stacks and the tower blocks
And the Tay,
The tenements and the dereliction
And the Law,
Roads and rails and car parks
And trees,
And me on the hill,
Lying on the grass,
Rolling down the slopes,
Then sitting and looking,
Then walking on again,
Then more sitting,
And more looking,
Before walking down the hillside
To a road,
A collection of tenements
On rolling green grass,
And a dozen kids running about,
And washing hanging on lines,
So we bolt through a close and onto
The road,
And in Dundee you can always find
Your way home…
It’s downhill.
Beatdom
23
Rodney Munch
All that’s unwritten
24
I have so many things
I’m too lazy to write
That I keep in my head
For minutes and hours
And days and weeks
And months and years
But that die away.
Time not spent writing
To me, at least
Is time wasted,
But that’s wrong,
I know that’s wrong,
But still I feel
I’ve wasted time.
So many poems
And whole novels
And short stories,
So much to give
And so much forgotten
Trapped in the back
Of my lazy head.
A few lines of gold
On an LCD screen
Is enough living for me,
I sometimes think,
But without life
Without the thoughts
There are no words.
Books of my best
That I come to regret
Having not even said
Nor noted down,
That are better than those
I manage to put
Beyond my fingers.
Time not spent writing
Is time thinking about writing
So time writing
Is spent not thinking
So I get drunk
And write as a drunk
I think that’s right.
So much crap
Comes out of my head
When my hand is forced
By, of course, my head
Into unwilling labour
Upon computerised paper,
So much crap.
Writing as you think
And thinking while you write
And not thinking about writing
But instead writing about thinking,
In the same mindset
As that you write,
I think that’s right.
And so much gold
On the way to the shop
Or walking to class
Or sitting, too stoned
Or too damn busy
With unimportant things
Like most of life.
If drunk, and writing
Writing about being drunk
Then you are drunk
And you are writing,
Then you are right,
Combining the two,
I think that’s right.
Beatdom
poetry
The paper reflects you,
It reflects your thoughts
And does so exactly
And so you write gold
The gold that you think
When you think
About writing gold.
So I should relax
And keep thinking thoughts
And walking and sitting
And getting drunk
For the thoughts come
And they will go
But they will remain.
It matters not, then
What you think but don’t write
For you think and write together,
Combining the two at one time
Whilst separating later
But just don’t think
About not writing.
But that which is not written
Still exists in some place
Somewhere in my mind
Rehashed and reformed
And reused, or just used,
To make the gold
I had feared lost.
So do I ever lose them,
Those thoughts and ideas
I feared I’d forget,
Lost in my non-memory
But still a part of me,
And so ready to create,
To write down, finally?
Once thought they form
A part of the mind
And thus can create
In another form,
As part of my creativity
And of my mind
When expressed, finally.
Pavements
Pavements are great places to sit
and think
and watch the world pass,
and pass judgements
because that is your right
as a free thinker
not to change people
but to observe
Beatdom
25
Rodney Munch
To Dundee
To the people and the planners of Dundee,
To the customers and management of
Poundland,
In life and in death may you all burn in some
form of hell.
You ignorant, arrogant, incompetent, malicious
swine,
Fuck you and your monstrous ways,
No amount of eloquence could adequately
summarise my loathing of you all,
No punishment I could think of could suffice as
revenge for your impact upon my life,
No amount of effort on your part could redeem
yourselves in my eyes.
Fuck you.
Fuck Dundee.
Fuck Poundland.
My contempt for you exceeds even the combined
contempt of Dundonians for civility and human
decency.
Your wretched kids are swine with no hope
And they loath you and everything else.
Fuck them, too.
I hope you all die, scum. Fuck off!
I am your servant by occupation,
And you mistreat me, and so revenge is due
And could never be unjustified.
You deserve your rank houses and poverty,
Your swinish kids and your hideous demeanours,
Your body odour and idiotic clothing,
Your perception of the world as nothing
To be cared for,
So I reiterate: Fuck you, Dundee!
Reading Rooms
Drunk and pilled at the Rooms:
Midnight blues and jazz and more
And cold seats outside ‘til dawn,
26
Beatdom
Smoking cigarettes and blunts
Under the noses of uncaring doormen.
Inside, a tiny bar sells bootleg booze
At jacked-up prices
But no one cares.
No one cares –
Cheap and easy drugs abound
Inside in and inside out –
Passed from hand to hand
In darkness by doormen, bargirls
And drunken revellers.
Banter Goodfriend and Lady Banter Goodfriend
Dance for hours and hours
On blue and white happy-pills
To whatever the kind DJ will play,
Pulling shapes and inventing
Free form Kungfusion snaps
And jumps in an old chapel.
Outside we all sit under the
Moon and stars in clouds of purple smoke.
Pink fluorescent braclets
Glow bright and leave trails
As they charge about the garden –
Gifts from the Rooms to her patrons.
Walls keep out the others –
Police know to stay back –
And the city is faraway.
An empty fountain eats roaches,
And tented benches keep burning embers dry,
While the dancers rest and talk,
Talk excitedly about dancing,
Chins a-droppin’ and eyes a-poppin’
Until the butt burns and cold chills
And inside we go again,
Ready to throw shapes in the dark
Until three o’clock and taxi-time,
Back to Step Row for cider and banter
And Pearl Jam and The Libertines,
And sleeping on the couch ‘til afternoon.
poetry
Thirty-Eight Days
Cigars and kicking balls
On the bandstand in summer
And three am snow
In Magdalen in winter.
Smacking chocolate donuts
And jumping bushes
Waiting for weed
And the old man at the window,
The one that takes photos at night
Of stoned students
Drinking and smoking
And laughing and singing,
Playing guitar and reading
In the morning or afternoon
And football and cider
In the evening time.
Magdalen Green is home
And near home
But far from the city
In spirit if not presence.
Walking alone in winter,
In the dark and white snow
Passing cars alarming
When smoking joints and drunk
And wielding hacksaws!
And half-trees in hand
Chasing neds who start fights,
But that was long ago
And things have mellowed
And now it is solitary walking
And silent smoking
By trees and bushes
And on the wet grass
Away from streetlights and noise
And the city proper.
Standing smoking cigars
No drugs
Kicking a football
Back and forth
And running to get it
When it flies away
Into the green expanse
Of the Green.
Wholesomeness and depravity,
Mixed beautifully
Drugs and fun and exercise
And memories and creativity
And inspiration
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Wrote here,
And so did I
In my own little way,
Thinking and running home to type
Frantically and happily
Day or night
And then returning for more,
More inspiration,
More banter,
More bandstand chat and hijinks
And looking at the Tay and Fife
And the great green beyond
The city.
City Limits, these places are,
Escape from the void
And repetition of neon nights
And pill-popping mundanity,
Drinking at home
And at the same damn joints
Every night of every week
All year round,
But it’s better on the edge –
No one knows that
Beatdom
27
Rodney Munch
Except those who’ve been there
And come back into the fray
And regretted it
But lived on happy to know
That there’s more,
There are limits to the city,
Where the shit meets the sea
And blue and green
Outweigh oppressive grey
And wholesomeness can be achieved
And depression put on hold
And Dundee is great,
It’s what the same used to be
Before it became the same:
Bars and pubs and clubs
And drink and music and drugs
And shouting and dirt
And the new fantastic sensations
You get as a wild adult
Lost in the New World
Of intoxicating city-life.
Fuck that now,
But my god back then
It was awesome..
So now to break the mould
We escape to the fringe
And just sit or stand
Just to know there’s more
Something else to aim for,
After we are pushed too far
And have to leave the comfort
Of samey samey same
The usual shit.
California is out there…
Not long now…
Hold on to your sanity…
Farming and peace…
No more excess, for a while.
28
Beatdom
But in the meantime it’s back home,
Friends round and it’s great
But it’s all been done a thousand times
In a hundred places
And I’ve had enough
Even though I love it,
It can hardly explain the tedium
That accompanies excessive indulgence
In what you love.
YouTube and joints and cookies
And music and four friends
Sitting together and content
But still I think of California,
Thirty-eight days.
Thirty-eight days of work
Thirty-eight days of drinking
Thirty-eight days of smoking
Thirty-eight days of talking
Thirty-eight days of music
Thirty-eight days of writing
Thirty-eight days of Dundee
Thirty-eight fucking days.
poetry
Poundland
Fuck you,
Fuck your management
Fuck your customers
Fuck your broken shit
Your stupid rules
Your faulty knives
Your cheap thieves
Your CCTV
Your aisles of crap
Your old fools
Your hellish kids
Your ignorant foreigners,
Fuck you, Poundland!
Ten months of my life
Have been lost to you
On tills and in your warehouse
And stacking shelves
Lifting boxes
Cutting myself
Breaking my foot
Getting migraines
Conning people
Lowering myself
Cheating myself
Fucking myself over
And getting shit
From scumbag junkies
And S____ G__,
You fat bastard,
You crooked wank,
You cheap cunt,
You condescending prick,
You ignorant cretin,
You ‘friend of mine’
You scummy shit!
I want running water
And heating
And human rights
And a decent wage
And respect
And laughter,
Decent coffee
The chance of a future,
Some basic dignity,
Or escape
Or sick pay
Or holidays
Or breaks.
Lions led by sheep,
Ignorant senior sales
And crooked fucks above,
Bossed by junkies
And swinish masses
Ready to riot
And steal
And stab
And shout
And argue
And fight
And murder
And rape
And dump us in it,
The shit they create.
Everyday up at dawn,
Shattered and hungover
And walk a half hour
For no thanks
And barely enough money to live
And time passes agonisingly
Until home,
Too tired to sleep,
Too sore to move,
Too angry to talk,
Too sick to write,
So fucking sick of it all,
But it’s sleep and then back again,
Everyday
Because I have to pay bills
And all that nonsense.
Beatdom
29
There are a whole lot of ways to define the Beat Generation, from friends to like-minded artists, from
Black Mountain to Times Square to the San Francisco renaissance… and in doing so one could include or exclude dozens of poets, writers, artists and
bums. But this is not the article to deal with some
concerns… Here, we present to you a selection of
people commonly associated with the Beats. Complaints on a postcard…
Richard Brautigan
Moved to San Fran in ’55 and published his first
poem, becoming part of the Beat movement. Gained
popularity in late ‘60s with Trout Fishing in America
and In Watermelon Sugar.
meet
the
beats
Gregory Corso
One of the Big Four (with Burroughs, Ginsberg and
Kerouac). Published before Ginsberg and Kerouac
with his The Vestal Lady on Brattle and other poems.
Impressed Ginsberg with his involvement in social
and political change.
Elise Cowen
Massively underrated female Beat poet. One of
Ginsberg’s few female lovers, and stylistically and
social part of Beat circles.
Robert Creeley
Charles Bukowski
Editor of Black Mountain Review, and helped link
Never really a Beat, but a great writer with a few the Black Mountain poets with the Beats.
connections to the central figures of the Beat Generation.
Kirby Doyle
Central to North Beach literary scene, heavily into
William S. Burroughs
his drink and drugs, and appeared alongside KerThe author of The Naked Lunch and Junky, Bur- ouac and Ginsberg in print.
roughs was an outlaw and drew obscenity charges
with his work. He loved guns and killed his wife in Robert Duncan
an ill-fated game of William Tell.
Part of San Francisco renaissance and Black Mountain poets. Gained fame in the ‘60s, but first pubLucian Carr
lished in the ‘40s. Early critic of ‘Beat’ label.
Friends with David Kammerer and William S. Burroughs. Introduced Ginsberg and Burroughs, and Bob Dylan
then Kerouac and Burroughs. Killed David Kam- Influenced by the Beats, embodying Beat values in
merer after his homosexual advances.
his music, and associated with Ginsberg. Not a Beat,
but close.
Neal Cassady
Star of On The Road and friend of Kerouac. Cassady William Everson
wasn’t much of a writer, but he certainly lived the Also known as Brother Antoninus and The Beat Frilife and inspired the others.
ar. At the centre of the San Francisco renaissance.
30
Beatdom
A who’s-who
of the Beat
Generation
By David S Wills
troversial African-American political activist artist
David Kammerer
Friends with Burroughs. His attraction to Carr resulted in his own murder.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Important poet and owner (with Kenneth Rexroth)
of City Lights bookshop, which was synonymous
with the Beat movement.
Bob Kaufman
Jazz poet heavily inspired by music and the language
Allen Ginsberg
of the street. He wrote Golden Sardine, but preferred
Legendary poet inspired by Blake, Whitman and not to write his poems down, instead reading them in
Carlos Williams. Ginsberg wrote the epic Howl and cafes and traffic jams.
read it at the infamous Six Gallery reading.
Jack Kerouac
Brion Gysin
The Father of the Beat Generation, Kerouac coined
English writer who re-discovered the cut-up tech- the phrase and lived the life. He wrote many Beat
nique and taught it to Burroughs in the Beat Hotel, classics, including On The Road and The Dharma
Paris. Helped edit much of Burroughs’ work.
Bums, and died of alcoholism when only forty-seven.
John Clellon Holmes
Occasional member of the Beat Generation. Pub- Ken Kesey
lished Go, about Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg, Perhaps not strictly a Beat, but that hardly matters.
well before most Beat texts. It was Holmes to whom He fits the profile: a great novelist, part of the counKerouac gave the phrase ‘Beat Generation’.
terculture, and acquaintance of Cassady, Kerouac
and Ginsberg. Wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoos
Herbert Huncke
Nest and Sometimes a Great
Times Square career criminal. Got involved with Notion.
Burroughs through drugs, and impressed Ginsberg
with his lower-class ways.
Tuli Kupferberg
Founder of The Fugs, as well as Birth magazine.
Ted Joans
Satirical counterculture poet. Allegedly appears as
Jazz poet, surrealist, inventor of outagraphy, and Brooklyn Bridge jumper in Howl!
friend of Kerouac and Ginsberg.
Joanne Kyger
LeRoi Jones
Gary Snyder’s wife and fellow practitioner of Zen
Or Amiri Baraka or Imamu Ameer Baraka. Influ- Buddhism. Travelled to India with Snyder, Ginsberg
enced by Beat Poets, and founded Totem Press, and Orlovsky.
which published both Kerouac and Ginsberg. A conBeatdom
31
Philip Lamantia
Surrealist and Beat, Lamantia was one of the poets
in the Six Gallery reading.
Denise Levertov
Born in Europe, but moved to America and joined
the Beat poetics and humanitarian concern. A prolific female Beat poet.
Michael McClure
Read with Ginsberg, Snyder, McClure and Whalen
at the Six Gallery reading and protested with Ginsberg at the ‘Human Bein’.
Harold Norse
Stayed with Ginsberg, Burroughs, Orlovsky, Gysin
and Corso in the Beat Hotel in Paris, where Ginsberg wrote Kaddish, Burroughs wrote The Naked
Lunch and Corso wrote Bomb. Norse wrote the cutup novel Beat Hotel.
Frank O’Hara
At the centre of the New York School of poetry, and
a spontaneous, absentminded poet.
Peter Orlovsky
Ginsberg’s ‘husband’, and poet in his own right.
Published by City Lights bookshop, with his Clean
Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs. Ginsberg’s lover over four decades, until Ginsberg’s
death in 1997.
Kenneth Patchen
Denied his relations to literary movements, but his
work contains similarities to Surrealists and Dadaists,
and foreshadowed the
Beat poetics.
such as Riprap.
Carl Solomon
Met Ginsberg in a New Jersey psychiatric hospital
in 1949, and Ginsberg pressured Solomon into convincing his uncle, A.A. Wyn, owner of Ace publishers, to published Junkie,by William S. Burroughs, or
William Lee.
Joan Vollmer
Burroughs’ lady… There at the beginning… By all
accounts an interesting and intelligent woman, privy
to many events and conversations… Killed by Burroughs in a game of William Tell…
Anne Waldman
Co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa. Widely translated, prolific
poet. Accompanied Bob Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Revue.
Lew Welch
One of the famous trio of Reed College roommates,
with Whalen and Snyder. Never enjoyed the same
success as his friends and killed himself in 1971.
Philip Whalen
One of the Six Gallery reading poets and college
roommate of Gary Snyder and Lew Welch. Whalen
was a significant player in the San Francisco Poetry
Renaissance and also a Zen Buddhist Monk.
William Carlos Williams
This is a stretch, because Williams was never really
considered a Beat. But he was inextricably linked to
the Beat movement in that he personally mentored a
number of Beats, including Allen Ginsberg. Could
be viewed as the father of the Beats.
Kenneth Rexroth
Founder of City Lights bookshop (with Lawrence (Below) Gregory Corso
Ferlinghetti) and the San Francisco Poetry Centre.
Translator of Japanese poetry.
Ed Sanders
Seen as the bridge between the Beats and the Hippies. Shared many traits with Beats, but came later
on. Founder of The Fugs and Fuck You: A Magazine
of the Arts.
Gary Snyder
Buddhist, ecologist, Beatnik, poet… Snyder inspired
the character Japhy Ryder in Kerouac’s The Dharma
Bums. Wrote about the wilderness in collections
32
Beatdom
(Main)
On The Road Again
© Steve McAllister
(Inset)
Cover of The Rucksack Letters
© Steve McAllister
Beatdom
33
Th
St e
M ev
In cA e
te l
rv lis
ie te
w r
e r
Th tho
au
k
of e sac
Th ck rs es
Ru tte ng
Le cha
e
ex few ac s
s.
a Sp ge
y
a
ill
M ess
W
m th d S
wi avi
D
From: D.S.W
Date: Jun 27, 2007 6:41 AM
Steve,
I read the prelude to your novel, and some of the
brief descriptions of it that you give, and I’m impressed. I’d love to give the whole book a read... For
a variety of reasons. One, I’m a writer myself. I’ve
written a few books (one published, but sold badly)
and some other stuff. Two, I love Jack Kerouac and
have always wanted to cross America On The Roadstyle.
34
Beatdom
Anyway, I didn’t just contact you to flatter you or
ramble on myself... No, the reason I contact you is
to ask if you are interested in some free publicity
(while helping me out).
I have recently started a magazine with a friend, and
we have managed to gain some impressive sponsorship through an acquaintance, and so are now in the
process of creating the first ever issue of our entirely Beat-themed magazine. It’s called Beatdom and
everything in it is about the Beats.
So, well done me, I know. But like I say, I didn’t write
to gloat. What I write for is to ask you if I could bask
in your accomplishment by way of interviewing you
or writing a review of your book for this magazine.
Or anything.
Hell, I really respect what you have done (more unnecessary flattering) and I’d like to incorporate it into
the magazine in someway. Maybe you could even
write a shorter version of it or something... A few
thousand words for the sake of shamelessly whoring
your name out like all good writers...
computer screen, I have recently posted the entire
book on my website. Feel free to scan it for an interview or read it for a review. Or both.
Thanks.
Steve
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: D.S.W
Date: Jun 28, 2007 6:25 PM
You’re of course welcome, Steve. Praise is heaped
where deserved, where I’m concerned. And speak of
deserved praise, I had a little look at the first chapter
of The Rucksack Letters... So far, so good.
And your idea for an article or feature is excellent.
I’ve got a book of ideas I’ve come up with for the
magazine which I think are great, and your idea is
the equal of any of the best of them. It had completely gone over my head the fact that this year is
Anyway, I guess there was no specific united point in the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the
all this, other than to ask you if are interested in let- Road... The last thing I really took note of relating to
ting me read your book and use your idea to further this was the 75(?) birthday of Kerouac, earlier this
my magazine (a magazine I imagine you’d like).
year.
So, debate and discussion open. Please continue.
So I’ll take a look at the rest of your book when I
get the chance, and we’ll see what I come up with.
David S Wills
Hell, maybe we could incorporate an interview and
a review in the same article... You opinion and mine,
a blend of storytelling and critical analysis...
----------------- Original Message ----------------Ideas, my friend, ideas.
From: Steve McAllister
Date: Jun 28, 2007 12:42 PM
Thank you, David, for the rampant flattery, the unabashed gloating, and the candid offer of whoredom. I
am truly flattered, only have one hand free from patting my own back, and would be honored to whore
myself out to your magazine.
David S Wills
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: D.S.W
Date: Jun 28, 2007 6:25 PM
You’re of course welcome, Steve. Praise is heaped
where deserved, where I’m concerned. And speak of
I was actually intending this week to write a bit about deserved praise, I had a little look at the first chapter
the Beat movement in honor of the 50th anniversary of The Rucksack Letters... So far, so good.
of ‘On the Road’s first publication. It’s September And your idea for an article or feature is excellent.
5 so I’m hoping to capitalize on it and bring a lit- I’ve got a book of ideas I’ve come up with for the
tle more attention to what that movement was about magazine which I think are great, and your idea is
and the spirit that lives on through me and many oth- the equal of any of the best of them. It had comers like yourself.
pletely gone over my head the fact that this year is
the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the
I’ll tell you what, if you don’t mind reading from a Road... The last thing I really took note of relating to
Beatdom
35
this was the 75(?) birthday of Kerouac, earlier this
year.
So I’ll take a look at the rest of your book when I
get the chance, and we’ll see what I come up with.
Hell, maybe we could incorporate an interview and
a review in the same article... You opinion and mine,
a blend of storytelling and critical analysis...
Ideas, my friend, ideas.
David S Wills
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: Steve McAllister
Date: Jun 29, 2007 10:14 AM
Great. Keep reading.
What kind of distribution do you have in place for
the magazine? Will it be available in the States?
It seems that a lot of magazines these days are getting their start on the Internet. One, it cuts a lot of the
costs of printing and paper. Two, it would seem that a
lot more people are actually using the Internet to get
their reading material, especially if its short bursts of
information like a magazine and such. It might be a
lower cost way to get started than by printing out a
bunch of magazines with nowhere to send them.
Are you getting business sponsors? When I was in
Denver a few years ago, there was a travelling tour
for the Beats sponsored by Pontiac or something. At
first, I thought it a bit ironic that a movement such
as the Beats was being sponsored by a corporation,
but the more I thought about it, the more I realized
that it’s a different world than when Jack first put
his thumb out. Corporations are legally people now.
They operate as individual entities. I think there is
an aspect of the Beats that stood against that sort
of thing. Then again, Ginsberg later went on to do
ads for The Gap. Maybe that’s the Buddhist ideal of
transcendence.
Is there a website that has some more information
about it?
Are you really located in Scotland? Is there much
appreciation for the Beats over there?
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: D.S.W
Date: Jun 29, 2007 5:01 PM
Hey,
Distribution is uncertain as of yet. We’ll have to
work that one out with our financiers... I’ll keep you
informed, though.
There’s not a website yet. I’m trying to get the home
thing going on paper and on my computer. I could
send you some samples of the work so far if you
want?
David
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: Steve McAllister
Date: Jun 29, 2007 3:16 PM
Yeah. I’d love to read some of it.
36
Beatdom
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: D.S.W
Date: Jun 29, 2007 6:30 PM
Hey,
I’ve had the idea of starting a magazine in my head
for a long time, but never actually got round to doing it. I’d always thought about publishing on the
internet, because I appreciate the modern world we
live in (and that Kerouac et al were adapting to the
very modern world they lived in) but if possible I’d
like the magazine in print. There’s something about
holding your work in your own hands.
But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be an online
presence... We could even post a few articles etc on
a website for extra publicity.
Basically, I’ve wanted to make a magazine for years,
and especially one about the Beats. But it was only
when I found my friend Kirsty, who also loves the
Beats, that I actually went for it. We’re co-editing
the magazine right now, trying to find writers and
artists to help us.
We live together, and our flatmate is friends with the
guy that owns TressPass Co., and he’s offering to
bankroll our operation.
I liked the idea of self-publishing as very Beatnik in
its own little way - a few copies for friends etc... But
who can say no to fame and fortune? Hahaha.
Just kidding. But why not go for the cash and have
something pretty and readable, eh?
print, I completely understand. Print it out. Spread it
on the bed and make love on it. But don’t sell yourself short on the possiblities of an online presence.
Paper only travels so far. Online communication is
global and instantaneous. The communique we’re
having right now is proof of that. I’m in Sarasota,
Florida and you’re in freaking Scotland, yet we’re
exchanging ideas in a matter of minutes.
I have no doubt that if you truly have an affinity and
I guess the magazine will be based in Scotland, but a desire to get a magazine in inked print that it will
I’m moving to America in two months (hence a short happen, but don’t hold so closely to your desire and
deadline) and so maybe I could hook things up on your pride that you turn away from what is readily
both ends.
available to you. The money that your benefactor is
offering could be more aptly put to use in marketing
I liked what you said about Pontiac and the Gap. an online zine to generate more traffic and advertisYou’re so right. That’s an article idea right there... ing revenue than it could in printing out a magazine
That’s the thinking we need. I want the magazine to that will only be read by a small population. Build
study the Beat literature and the classics, but also to gradually. Use what you have. Jack knew that and so
relate Beat life to the present.
did every Beat of consequence. That’s why they’re
still alive today. They beat the hell out of everything
David
that came their way.
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: Steve McAllister
Date: Jun 29, 2007 4:48 PM
Where in the States are you moving to? Please tell
me it’s not Kansas. God help you if you ever make
it to Kansas.
I love the Beat generation. I love the words they
used and the spirit that ignited them. However, my
respect only goes so far as Jack died of alcoholism at
quite a young age. What we have to do is glean what
we can from the wisdom they offered and learn from
the folly that capsized them.
Jack never thought much about the future. He just
kept writing. I admire him for it, but it killed him
just the same. There’s a beauty in letting the road
I hear you about wanting to hold something in your lead you to wherever it goes, but it’s a little unnechands. There’s an great privilege in writing some- cessary when you can draw your own map. Look to
thing of consequence, but there’s an overwhelming where you want to go, see what’s available to you at
surge of accomplishment when you can actually each stop, and take one step at a time.
hold it in your hands. I wrote my first screenplay on
a computer in a month for the first Project Green- If you’ve got a vision, write down every aspect of it,
light competition (I got 2 out of 3 greenlights), and and beat the hell out of it.
it was a really satisfying accomplishment. While I
was travelling and when I was in LA, I wrote screenplays on a manual typewriter. Holding them in my
----------------- Original Message ----------------hands wasn’t just satisfying, it was almost orgasmic.
There’s a beautiful thing about print on paper.
From: Steve McAllister
Date: Jun 29, 2007 4:48 PM
However, in the publication trade, many of the things
you’ll get out in print you’ll never see. I don’t think
John Grisham handles close to every one of the mil- By the way, I hope you’re saving all of this diatribe
lions of books he sells, but I’m sure he still feels the because our interview has begun.
satisfaction of writing a best seller.
If you want the sensation of feeling your work in
continued overleaf . . .
Beatdom
37
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: D.S.W
Date: Jun 30, 2007 2:03 PM
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: Steve McAllister
Date: Jun 30, 2007 5:34 PM
I was goint to say... Your other e-mail was very articulate and made a lot of sense, and I was just wondering how to fit it together into something meaningful
to the magazine other than just the planning stage...
I hear you. Go both ways. I’ve never read an online book. I don’t think I would want to sit in this
chair for this long. I can barely stand to sit in this
chair long enough to read my own stuff much less
someone else’s. However, the brevity of magazine
And I agree with you entirely about the internet. Cer- articles makes it a little easier. But even with that, I
tainly, to ignore the possibilities of online publishing much prefer the comfort of breezing through an aris damn foolish, but to overlook the opportunity to ticle sitting on the throne than sitting in front of this
publish traditionally is also daft.
computer. Nevertheless, there are still many who
spend hours in front of this machine and don’t read
I feel that the world has not yet endorsed online anything that doesn’t come from it.
publishing. I’ve only ever read on e-book (The Rum
Diary), and I didn’t like reading it off the screen. Do both. Online and print. That’s the safe way. That’s
So maybe it’s my own prejudice, but if forced to the fun way. These days, that’s the only way.
choose, I’d go for traditional over online... But I
don’t see myself being forced to choose at all. I think
that funding or no, I could push this magazine into
----------------- Original Message ----------------print in both realms.
From: D.S.W
With online, even with no financing, it would be pos- Date: Jul 1, 2007 6:23 PM
sible to spread Beatdom across the world in some
pdf format. And with hardcopy, it would be a purely
local affair.
Okay Friend,
Hell, I’m confident about this venture regardless.
I’ve put my every free second into gathering my
minions and creating something I’m proud of (although it’s far from finished).
So I don’t really think that the choice between online
publishing and hardcopy is an important issue at this
moment in time. Yes, it is a concern - something to
consider - but it is only that. What is an important
issue, I believe, is the content and structure of Beatdom. Publishing details can wait until the end of the
process when they can really be decided.
The only way in which I am interested in publishing
right now, and in which it is of concern to the magazine, is with you... That is to say, regarding your
book, which is the subject of the apparent and rambling interview in which we are both participating,
an issue in your authorship is the decision to publish
your work online. Therefore, the debate is valid in
some sense at this point in time, but specifically in
regards to Beatdom, it is not.
38
Beatdom
And so we continue the letters regarding The Rucksack Letters. It appears we’re treating this collection
of messages as an extended interview… Well, I like
that. It’s very The Paris Review… And was not The
Paris Review one of the first literary institutions to
admire Jack Kerouac?
Yes it was. But we don’t want to mimic, and I don’t
believe The Paris Review ever used MySpace as an
interviewing tool. Their loss… Our gain. We are
modern writers and we use the tools at our disposal,
whether that means e-mail, MySpace, MSN Messenger or txt msgng. Hell, your book itself was created from e-mails sent during your journey. And you
are publishing it online.
But enough with that angle. Let’s get down to brass
tacks, as they say. Tell me more about the book that
brought you to the attention of this magazine editor…
The Rucksack Letters is your account of a trip you
made across the United States. You mention in the
synopsis that the trip was made in the spirit of Jack
Kerouac. Certainly, the notion of travelling across
America in search of something seems Kerouacian,
but The Rucksack Letters strikes me as more in the
vein of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas… The pursuit of the American Dream through a number of
wild adventures. The adventures make good reading,
and they build images from which meaning can be
drawn in the search for some notion of belonging.
And sticking with Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson… Your writing style seems to draw influences
from both. Your everyday, down-to-earth dialect
provides a matter-of-fact narrative that is engaging
and informative. It rids your work of unnecessary
imagery and explores the philosophical and factual
elements of the story. Your short and sharp verse reminds me of Thompson and Hemingway; the lack of
unnecessary imagery brings to mind the Modernists;
the building of ideas and thoughts reminds me of
Ginsberg and Whitman.
So, back to you. Tell me more about your influences
and style. Critique the critic, if you will.
David S Wills
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: Steve McAllister
Date: Jul 3, 2007 1:21 PM
many were telling me they were weaknesses. At that
point, I started questioning the nature of good and
evil as well.
I could have more easily grasped the splendiferous
joy of being blessed with a though process sometimes referred to as Attention Deficit Disorder if
I were not also dealing with a lesser realized Depression. In looking at people with Attention Deficit Disorder, I have seen some who have learned
to use their gifts with great glee and take them to
new heights of Success and Happiness. But I have
also seen those, like myself, who are mired in a pit
of stagnancy, somehow unable to tilt the balance of
happy, productive moments in a day with those that
are glum and boring.
I fear that one reason for this may be that we are
under diagnosing. Often, we label people with one
diagnosis, such as in this case of Attention Deficit
Disorder, but often miss the fact that there is also
a case of Depression. To say that this whole population of under-achievers should be diagnosed with
Depression may seem like an audacatious claim, but
looking at the world around me and the distractions
from happiness which capture the minds and hearts
of so many otherwise good people, I have come to
the conclusion that there is a great bout of some form
of insanity throughout the greater population.
You are very astute. In the previous introduction
to the book, I introduced my three most precious
guides as Jack Kerouac, Hunter S Thompson, and
Jesus Christ. I loved Jack for his wandering nature
and search for truth and beauty, Hunter for flow of
thoughts and comedic lifestyle, and Jesus because
he illluminated the most vital essences of anyone
I’ve ever called a Hero without ever having to write
a word.
Are we Depressed? In many senses, yes. In many,
we are just Beat.
My whole journey toward coming to grips with this
situation is recounted in ‘The Rucksack Letters’ so I
won’t go into it here, but it really started for me with
the Attention Deficit Disorder diagnosis. I knew I
thought differently. I was just having a rough go of
finding the strengths in those differences when so
Jesus was Beat. Jesus was Beat bad. But he Rose and
inspired generations to come to do the same thing.
Spending only thirty-three years on the planet and
only three in assumedly recorded history, he managed to split time in half, and elicit some of the most
cherished ideas on Love, Joy, and Peace without
From a Beat, though harsh and pounding, comes the
basis by which we make our music. For sound is
the momentary meeting of one entity with another
and the beautiful conflict that ensues. Some bring
what we call Music. Some bring what we call Pain.
Some light or darkness. Some blessing or destruction. Some loud or quiet. If you are Beat, you find
I considered for a while not trying to resonate too your rhythm in the dance, and turn to face the partstrongly with the Beat movement and its course of ner that most attracts you. You dance a song of trills,
audience due to both of their dismal demises. And thrills of words, and move to the next partner. Some
I still had some reservations about aligning myself dances jostle you more than other, and you can get
with some of the followers of my greatest Hero. But beat pretty bad. But you find the beauty in it and do
I finally realized that Jesus was pretty Beat.
what you can to show it to others.
Beatdom
39
ever having to write in anything but the sand. He
had nothing. He wanted nothing but to play his role
in the rhythm.
That’s as much as any of us can do.
When the time is right
when the hearts are right
when the minds are right
when the world is right
we will write
we will write the world
and beat out a rhythm
by which music will flow
dregs of society, though we have been shunned, ridiculed, and abused, though we stand at the maws of
an Angry World that seems to be forever being drawn
into the lower levels of Fear, Grief, Apathy, Guilt,
and Shame, though we are Beat, we have every opporunity to raise the levels of Human Consciousness
toward the greater senses of Love, Joy, and Peace.
In this generation, there have been explostions of
thought relating to people who thought differently.
We’ve developed Indigo’s, ADD kids, Generation
Y, Cultural Creatives, and many more, but I think it
all starts with a Beat. To create the music of life by
which we will serve as co-creators in our future, we
must start with a Beat.
This was the task of Lucifer, the Angel of Light, before he is rumored to have become enraptured by his
own pride and sought to overthrow God. I don’t care
----------------- Original Message ----------------how far you think you can throw, you ain’t gonna
throw farther than God. But Lucifer was the patron From: D.S.W
angel of music. I’m not so concerned about Lucifer Date: Jul 7, 2007 10:42 AM
as a person, but I must consider the idea that ran
through his head which garnered him the unfathomable consequence of Separation from God?
Steve,
Pride. It’s right between Anger and Courage in the
Scales of Consciousness developed by Dr. David
Hawkins. In his book Power vs. Force, Dr. Hawkins
states that on his scale from 0-1000, Mankind collectively rose over the 200 mark in the Eighties, just
past Pride and on to Courage.
There is no doubt that Pride was a major factor of
consciousness in the Eighties. Our music had reached
a new pinnacle of Loud. Our rebels were wearing
makeup and glitter, making love to their guitars, and
inviting all sorts of new colors into their wardrobes.
It was called the ‘Me Generation’. With all the Stuff
that we created under the guise of self expression,
there was much to be proud of.
In the Nineties, we touched on the nut of Sobriety,
moderating our excesses, subsiding our impulsiveness, and looker deeper into what was really important. The voices which screamed and shouted with
great fervor, picked up acoustic guitars and started
singing at a depth that was largely ignored in the
previous generation. Causes became more worthy
and Charity became a way of life again.
Our next phase is that of Acceptance before we stare
into the face of Reason and see through to Love.
Though we are Beat, those we have been called the
40
Beatdom
Thanks, that makes for a pretty decent article in itself. I like the combination of Hunter S. Thompson
and Jack Kerouac, coupled with some religious influence. It keeps in with the sort of feature we’ve
been working on and commissioning so far.
Yet most of our Beat and religion ideas stem from
the influence of Buddhism on the Beats, and not that
of Jesus. Of course, Kerouac was caught firmly in a
personal battle between his commitments to Catholicism and Buddhism, something you seem to have
experienced, but which appears to have been less of
a battle than a consideration. You clearly appreciate
Buddhism (as evident in your chapter, entitled ‘Buddhism’) but ultimately Jesus trumps Buddha in your
personal faith.
“I’ve heard it said that Jesus was Buddha for the
West, as Buddha was Jesus for the East. Like the
young monk, I can only point out that the message
of peace, love, and acceptance inherent in both when
used as a philosophy and way of life are far more
beneficial to the human condition than the legends
and stories that have been written about them since.
The monk and I were better off discussing the similarities than squabbling over which one is right.”
Too true. I cannot claim to have any faith myself, but
I do agree with you in this point. Religion has been
responsible for a lot of shit in this old world, but
with the right point of view the messages taught
can be extremely useful. Both Buddhism and Christianity teach morals and rights and wrongs and ideas
and lessons that make the world an easier place to
live in. Perhaps if more people bought into the notion of each religion teaching shared values, rather
than killing each other over the differences… Well,
things wouldn’t be so bad.
But I’m getting a little off topic. Tell me more about
the visit that lead to your encounter with Buddhism,
and perhaps a little more about your previous experiences with, and thoughts about, Eastern philosophy.
David
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: Steve McAllister
Date: Jul 9, 2007 6:29 AM
Hey Dave,
I don’t think that the Beats were influenced by Jesus
much at all other than using him every so often as a
literary allusion. Kerouac was heavily mired by his
childhood rearing in the Catholic Church, but that
really doesn’t have a whole lot to do with Jesus.
When you think of the Catholic Church, you think
of nuns, priests, liturgy, and all of the garments and
rituals that are associated with the rites of passage.
I think Jack was seeking a more simple and honest
approach to life and so he looked to Buddhism because Jesus has been so washed over by generations
of misguided followers. A large part of Buddhism
consists of the same of teachings of Christ which
he shared in parable and symbolism without the
garish hierarchy and politics of the Church. Jack’s
consternation, among many others, with the Church
was that they took that symbolism, congealed it into
some kind of mechanical organism, and made the
finger the focus instead of what it was pointing to.
I went to Buddhism for the same reason Jack did.
I came from a Southern Baptist background, and
where the Catholics bowed to Jesus and gave their
loyalty to the Pope, the Protestants did the same with
Paul. It seemed to me that so much of Chrisitianity
was about evangelism and getting people to agree
with you, but so little about the simple acts of faith,
hope, and love that Jesus expressed throughout his
ministry. Both Buddha and Lao Tzu have messages
very similar to that of Jesus without being attached
to as violent a civilization as the Israelis.
I’ve heard it said many times that religion has been
the cause of all kinds of wars and strife, and while I
think its definitely been a cohesive color in the tapestry, I can’t say it was actually the cause. I think the
suffering is caused by desire as the Buddha said. We
have the desire to be right. We have the desire to be
among the prevailing party. We have the desire to
have things our way. And even when we give ourselves over to a larger collective such as a religion or
government, we are still fighting for our own desires.
Religion’s got nothing at all to do with the strife in
the Middle East. That’s about a sibling rivalry where
each son desires the father’s estate.
I think the Beats were trying to transcend all of
that. And I think there’s still a large population out
there today that are transcending that, so much so
that they’re not aligning themselves with any group.
They’re just stepping lightly upon the earth and going peacefully in the search for truth. I don’t think
I’m really looking for a renaissance of the Beats.
I’m not worried about carrying their torch, but I do
want to see a resurgence of their spirit reflected in
the light.
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: D.S.W
Date: Jul 9, 2007 11:32 AM
Steve,
I certainly get what you’re saying about the problems of the church and the lack of relationship with
Jesus that modern Christians face. And I dig your
finger metaphor as representing such problems.
But I reckon Kerouac was always concerned with
Jesus, although his constant distance from hardline
Catholicism was probably to do with the aforementioned discrepancies between Christ and the modern
church. I think the rules and bullshit of organised
religion was of little interest to the Beat Generation,
but that the notion of Jesus and other figures was really quite significant.
The Beats were about breaking from the old ways,
and meant the traditional world of the church; but
they were about the ideas that the church was once
concerned with, albeit without the church’s rules
and structure.
continued overleaf . . .
Beatdom
41
Well, I think we might have enough talk here to
call this a pretty decent interview. I enjoyed reading
The Rucksack Letters, and I’m glad to have learned
a little more about the book and its author. When I
first read your advertisements for the book, I was
interested as I felt there was a definite Beat rationale
behind it, and a whole lot more that really grabbed
me.
And I was right.
This has been a productive debate, and I feel we’ve
created something new and exciting in the boring
old world of interviews and reviews.
I’m sure that The Rucksack Letters will bring you
the recognition you clearly deserve, and I certainly
hope that this dialogue is not the last contribution
you make to Beatdom.
----------------- Original Message ----------------From: Steve McAllister
Date: Jul 9, 2007 9:12 AM
Thank you, David. I wish you the best with your
endeavor. Feel free to let me know if there are any
other factors that TRL brings up you would like to
discuss, or if there are any other aspects of the Beats
you would like my thoughts on.
I wish you the best in your endeavor and look forward to seeing the finished product.
Steve
All the best,
David S Wills
The Rucksack Letters can be purchased through
Amazon.com
For more information about the author and to
preview his books, visit www.inkensoul.com or
www.myspace.com/inkensoul
42
Beatdom
Scum
THE
THE MORE FLIPPANT SIDE OF THE NEWS
ON THE ROAD...
TO RECOVERY
Jack Kerouac, 47 (+1), author of On the Road, is
alive and well after making a full recovery from
his recent bout with death.
The Dharma Bum is back on the road, with one
bystander sayin, ‘He still looks hunky and mad.’
Friends reckon he’s already back on the booze
and drugs and heading for a second early grave.
And reports suggest he’s dating supermodel Kate
Moss.
Other Beat Generation authors are also reported
to have mysteriously been brought back to life.
Bad Boy Burroughs Busted Again!
Junkie William S. Burroughs was busted yesterday
for possession of heroin. Burroughs, 83 (+1), has
two lifetimes worth of previous drug convictions.
The dirty old man is set to face prison or rehab when
he comes to trial next Tuesday.
Our pictures show Old Bull Lee looking thin and
weak, prompting some to suggest he has contracted
AIDS from sharing dirty needles with other junkies.
Kerouac’s A Racist!
Jack Kerouac’s publishers are being threatened with
lawsuits after claims he used the words ‘coloured’
and ‘Negro’ in some of his books.
Although the books were written fifty years ago, the
racist author looks certain to be arrested for his racial
slurs, only weeks after coming back from the dead.
This is a massive shock to the world, after the recent racist outbursts from a number of dopey Big
Brother contestants. (See pages 2-89 for BB Special
Feature!)
Friends say girlfriend Kate Moss is set to dump the
boozy bad boy.
Gay Ginsberg
Goes Nuts!
Homo hero Allen Ginsberg, 70 (+1), lost his cool
recently at an anti-war demonstration, breaking
into Buddhist chants to mock other protesters. The
crazy poet was not content with the riots and burnThe frantic madman was arrested and thrown in jail
ing effigies, and instead sat down and chanted... or
yesterday after being caught speeding.
‘Howled!’
It’s unknown how fast Cassady, 41 (+1), was going,
Bystanders ask, ‘How’s that gonna change stuff?’
but knowing the star of On the Road, it was most
and question the former mental patient’s sanity. A
likely 110 mph.
number of recent reports suggest Gay Ginsberg is
Having been dead for so long, it’s unlikely Cassady
dating legendary fag George Michael.
still has his famous driving skills.
Crazy Cassady Arrested
Beatdom
43
44
Overview
Biography
It always baffles me to find Bob Kaufman omitted
from a great many books and documentaries and
websites and talk about the Beat Generation. For
me, Kaufman is the embodiment of Beat. That
is not to say that the more well known names
and faces did not embody the spirit they are most
widely credited with creating and fulfilling, but
rather that Kaufman was as Beatnik as any of
them, and people today forget that all too easily. Hell, many critics argue that it was Kaufman
who actually coined the phrase “Beat”, and not
Jack Kerouac.
What would Kerouac say? Kerouac and his
well-known Beat Generation contemporaries
respected Kaufman as much as anyone, but he
has been downplayed by later critics and fans. In
France, where his largest following existed, he
was known as the ‘Black American Rimbaud”.
Maybe there is a simple explanation for this apparent amnesia… Kaufman only wrote his poetry down on paper when forced to, preferring
instead to read it aloud in public, or to indulge
in a little guerrilla poetry, posting notes on shop
windows, criticising society and the police. He
preferred to recite his works in coffee shops
and on the streets, once reading to Ken Kesey
before the two knew each other, and frightening
the young Kesey with his mad appearance, but
impressing him nonetheless. Consequently, little
accurate biographical information is available
for willing scholars, and Kaufman remains for
most a mythical Beat figure.
“My ambition is to be completely forgotten,” he
once told Raymond Foye, editor of his collection
of poems, The Ancient Rain.
His poetry had many of the influences of the
works of other Beats, primarily jazz and Buddhism. He also had drug problems and run-ins
with the law. And his life consisted of stories
the equal of those that made famous. For example, when John F Kennedy was assassinated,
Kaufman took a vow of silence that he never
broke until the end of the Vietnam war. When he
spoke, he recited a poem he had written, entitled
“All Those Ships that Never Sailed.” Although
he did speak after this, he remained more or less
in solitude until his death in 1986.
The following bio is drawn from an extremely
wide selection of reading, containing a number
of conflicting dates and stories. Although this
is testament to the wonderfully elusive life and
times of the poet, it also means: Take the info
with a pinch of salt, friend.
Beatdom
Bob Kaufman was born in New Orleans in 1925,
to a German Jewish father and a Martinican
black Catholic mother. His grandmother was a
practitioner of Voodoo, while he was active in
both Catholic and Jewish traditions, and later he
became a Buddhist. It could therefore be stated
that he was influenced in one way or another by
a variety of religions and had an unusual and diverse racial heritage.
To add to these experiences, Kaufman joined the
Merchant Marines when only thirteen, survived
four shipwrecks, and travelled the world, meeting Jack Kerouac. He read widely and studied
literature at New York’s The New School, where
he met William S Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. He led unions and spoke on the docks on
both coast, and was friends with Charlie Parker,
John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk
and Charles Mingus. In 1944 Kaufman married
Ida Berrocal, in 1945 their daughter, Antoinette
Victoria, was born, and in 1958, he married his
second wife, Eileen Singe.
So when he moved to San Francisco in 1958,
with Ginsberg and Burroughs, it would be fair
to say that he had gained quite a bit of life experience. He met Ferlinghetti and Corso in San
Francisco and helped develop the local literary
Renaissance. Here he devoted himself to spontaneous oral poetry that flowed to the beat of
jazz and bebop, the music that pulsed through
the dives and haunts of the Beatnik North Beach
area. He often took his son, Parker (named after
Charlie Parker), into coffee houses and cafes, to
“hold court”.
With Allen Ginsberg, John Kelly and William
Margolis, Kaufman founded Beatitude magazine
in North Beach, in 1959 (or ’65 or ’75 depending
on the used resource). The magazine today exists
in name and memory through Beatitude Broadside and Beatitude Press. Coupled with this accomplishment, and the creativity of his poetic
performances, Kaufman read at Harvard and was
nominated for the English Guinness Award.
Work
However, as with so many Beats, Kaufman found
himself addicted to drugs, in financial strife, and
in frequent trouble with the law. Then when arrested in New York City for walking on the grass
of Washington Square park, he was arrested and
forced to undergo electro-shock therapy. So, with
the assassination of JFK, Kaufman withdrew
into silence. After the end of the war in ‘Nam,
he regained some creativity, but soon went into a
sort of retirement until his death in 1986.
He published three volumes of poetry, Solitudes
Crowded With Loneliness, Golden Sardine, and
Ancient Rain: Poems 1956-1978. He published
Golden Sardines, as well as a number of chapbooks in the mid-sixties, through City Lights. He
also founded Beatitude and a variety of ‘Abomunist’ texts, including the Abomunist Manifesto.
Bob
Kaufman:
The
Unsung
Beat
By David S Wills
Kaufman’s poetry blends high English with
street language, the structure and rhythm of African-American speech, surrealism, and the beat
and improvisational qualities of jazz. He would
recite his poetry aloud in the Coffee Gallery or in
diners or during traffic jams, rarely writing them
down, except perhaps in loose note form on napkins. Many listeners state that his best performances were done alongside a jazz musician.
Naturally, for a poet so obsessed with the orality
of his poems, Kaufman’s work reflects speaking
patterns – and not just through reciting his poems aloud. The words that make up his poems
are everyday words, and the rhythms reflect everyday speech, in keeping with the style of Walt
Whitman, although imbuing it with contemporary streetwise language.
He frequently features in volumes of AfricanAmerican and avant-garde poetry, but seems forgotten in the predominantly white world of Beat
history. But I guess that although he embodied
Beat ideals and poetics, he was extremely unique
within the bohemian world and was so occupied
with new poetic ideas that he is of greater interest to more specific schools of thought than the
often overarching generality of Beat literature
studies. Of course, more likely than that is the
fact that he preferred to not write down his poetry. Conflicting sources would have us believe
that Kaufman’s wives wrote his poems down on
his behalf, and also that they encouraged him to
write them down himself. Either way, published
collections of his work only reveal a small section of the full body.
However, although it is mostly true that he was
averse to writing down his poetry, a handwritten manuscript was found by incredible fortune
in the burning rubble of a hotel fire, from which
Kaufman had narrowly escaped. Many of these
poems went into The Ancient Rain.
But back to the poems… And Kaufman is frequently compared to twentieth century surrealist
painters for his appreciation and use of strong
and madly juxtaposed imagery. His use of symbolism is incredibly vivid and sensual. His Whitman-esque use of lists to build images imbued
with sound, colour and feeling also draws upon
Pound and W.C. Williams in its minimalist economy and effective conveyance. ‘Jazz Chick’ is
a great example of such devices, and is easily
available to read online.
Beatdom
45
Ganga Chip Adventure
By David S Wills and
Anne Strachan
We sat in the Phoenix, Anne and I, trying to decide
how exactly Ganga Chips would fit in with the whole
Beat theme of Beatdom, since we’d agreed straight
out to include their spicy goodness – nay, immortalise their spicy greatness – on the pages of our greatest method of communication with the world.
Ganga Chips had become somewhat of a legend in
the saga of our little lives in Dundee. More than just
a plate of spiced chips and orange coloured sauce,
Ganga Chips are in fact the best damn food in Dundee. Some say they’re chips spiced with Piri-Piri and
paprika, but those are foolish notions. Some say the
potatoes and spices are grown in the gardens of the
gods, laced with the addictive qualities of smack,
and cooked by a crack team of saints. That notion
is less foolish, but I’m still unconvinced. They are
truly indescribable. Bebo pages were awash with
Ganga references and plans to break out of commitments and sit in the Phoenix for a drink and a plate.
They were there for so many conversations and saw
us all through our exam-time slack-fests. Morning,
noon or night, the friendly old hippy-looking gent
behind the bar – who we had long since decided was
Timothy Leary’s younger brother – would take our
orders with a smile, and five minutes later we’d be
gorging ourselves in a booth.
But as far as I know, Jack Kerouac never ate Ganga
Chips. Neither did Ginsberg, Burroughs, Snyder or
any of the Beats. I can’t be entirely sure whether they
were invented with thought given to some Beatnik
philosophy, but I doubt they were. Even Google offered me no clues to their origins or existence, so
I could not even philosophise about their relation
to counterculture, except to say that the barman,
46
Beatdom
whose name I don’t know, looks like a hippy, and
that Ganga is similar to ganja, which means marijuana…
But Anne wanted desperately to include Ganga
Chips in the magazine, and I did too. But it seemed
so illogical. The idea was doomed to failure.
And it was with this sad thought that we stood to
leave. I handed our empty glasses to the balding barman, who wasn’t our hippy friend, and said thanks.
Earlier he had laughed at our enthusiasm for Guinness and Ganga Chips, saying “That’s a combustible
combination! Jamie Oliver would not approve!” We
left our bowls on the table – mine empty, and Anne’s
with a few remaining Ganga Chips left sad and alone
at the bottom of the dishWe wandered out onto the Perth Road, opposite
Groucho’s and Andre’s, and headed for town. Anne
had put a spool of photos into the shop an hour earlier, and we needed the collect them. The plan was
to do that first, then go to an art shop to buy a giant canvas (having read up on Jackson Pollock that
morning and become thoroughly obsessed with the
notion of imitating his frantic style of Beat art – reflecting the modern world with the madness in his
style reminiscent of the chaotic nature of the new
twenty-first century, much like Howl in paint).
We walked on down past the hairdressers, slowly,
milking the mid-afternoon sun for its rare glimpses and rays and shining spheres cast upon passing
windscreens. I glanced around to see the hippy barman exiting the pub, putting on a leather jacket and
speaking to a man who was obviously his friend, and
who was standing smoking by the door. It was just
a glance, but he’s an interesting character – one to
take notice of.
We walked on towards the traffic lights – the EastWest divide of the city, where Perth Road and the
West End Bubble meet the City Centre – and as we
stood, the two men approached and came to stand
right behind us. Anne and I looked at each other and
tried to listen in to the conversation the two men
were having, interested in the life of someone we
had never seen outwith his place of work.
But it was too noisy. They were five feet away, but
the offensive Dundee rabble and dialect, coupled
with the roaring traffic, drowned out any civilised
banter. We strained to hear, and pretended to have
our own conversation.
When the traffic produced a gap, the crowds on either side of the road switched places, and we headed
towards the Overgate, still followed at a distance by
the two men.
“Let’s slow down a bit,” Anne said, as we walked
past the doors of H&M. Pretty soon the two guys
overtook us, paying us no attention as we switched
places and began to follow them instead. “Let’s see
where they go.”
We pushed on through the crowd, but it wasn’t difficult to follow the pair. Our prime target was in
leather jacket and jeans, with a great grey beard and
pony-tail, whereas most of the population of Dundee
are clad in tracksuits and baseball caps.
We entered the continental market, where earlier I
had purchased a pan-au-raisin and Anne had bought
a necklace. The two men veered left, and walked on
by the photography shop, from where we needed to
pick up the photos. But we let that slide for the moment, and continued in our adopted mission.
“Maybe they’re going to stock up on Ganga Chips,”
I joked.
We followed the men past the McManus Galleries,
up by the Wellgate and round back, to the bottom
of the Hilltown. We slowed down as we exited the
fringes of the town centre and came to walk streets
that were quieter and less crowded, because we
knew that the hippy knew us well enough to recognise us and question the co-incidence of our converging journeys.
When we came to the traffic lights at the top of the
steps at the back entrance of the Wellgate, Anne and
I quickly turned and walked halfway down the steps
and hid behind a large planter. Neither of the men
saw us rush away and hide, and continued to cross
the street and head up the hill.
We slowly climbed to the top of the steps and stood
watching as they headed up the hill. We had not yet
managed to listen in on their conversation, which
made the stalking all the more exciting, as for as far
as we were concerned, they were not simply walking
home or to the pub, or some such mundane thing,
but instead they were on a mission to get their stash
of Ganga Chips for the pub. But they were certainly
deep in conversation, having never had the presence
of mind to look back or around.
When they came in line with a car park a quarter
of the way up the hill, and we had established there
were not enough people on the pavements to lose
them, we crossed the busy road and, with our heads
down, continued the hunt. We followed them up to
a weird one-way system at the top of the hill and
through the Hilltown area, hoping desperately that
neither Anne or I, nor the hippy or his friend, were
mugged or assaulted. But we weren’t, so we continued on and to the foot of a high-rise tower block.
Here, Anne and I waited as the two men went on
through the broken front door and inside the building. We agreed that things were now a little serious,
as were we to have been spotted anywhere up until
this point, we could have easily passed it off as an
insignificant co-incidence. But now we were stalkers, and in strange part of town.
And strange it was. I know Dundonians, and I’ve
lived in Dundee for four years now; I’ve met the
Hilltown community at work; I’ve seen the nightlife
turn mad and horny and bad-crazy; I’ve wandered
through the backstreets at night and run in fear…
But it was still strange. Being from the West End,
you see your fair share of student dives and grotty
hellholes. Yes, you see piss on doorsteps and trash
spewed across the dark alleyways. But in the West
End one don’t have to expect rape and murder and
assault and robbery in the alleys… One doesn’t have
to watch one’s step for fear of treading on an AIDSridden hypodermic needle... Fuck that, and fuck the
East End rabble and their dank, scabby homes.
So with this in mind, we gave a few seconds and
crept closer to the busted door. We waited until the
footsteps within subsided as they moved on up, presumably up some stairs. And when they were sufficiently quiet, we snuck inside and over the ‘foyer’,
such as it was. It was rather a pink room, dark, dirty
and stinking of piss. But we crept on to the bottom of
the rank stairs and followed the men up, slowly and
keeping a safe distance.
Thirty floors up we heard a door open and close, and
we went up faster. We found we’d reached the top
and there was a metal door leading to the roof. We
Beatdom
47
cracked it open just a little, enough to see the empty
roof. There were a bunch of satellite dishes and TV
aerials.
We stepped out, confident the men were no longer
around. Maybe they’d taken a door on a previous
floor, we thought. But then we noticed a small shed
on the far side of the roof. It sat on the South side, in
front of the pleasant view towards Fife and the Tay
river and green rolling hills… Dundee has plenty of
great views. In fact, it’s set in an wonderful place,
and if you rise literally above the shite and buildings
and scummy masses, you’ll see green hills and trees
wherever you look.
And we walked towards the red shed, expecting it to
seem bigger and bigger as we got closer. It looked
tiny and out of place. We’d seen similar shed on an
allotment in a nicer part of town on a walk back from
the Balgay hill a few weeks earlier.
But it didn’t get any larger, and when we came to
stand by it, the whole shed rose to only five feet tall.
The door was closed, but Anne stepped forward and
opened it a little and looked in.
We both stepped in and the door swung closed behind us as we stood and stared dumbfounded before
the awesome sight – A giant warehouse, roughly
the size of Tesco Riverside, containing hundreds of
tonnes of what appeared to be uncooked, unspiced
chips, and several great vats of orange coloured
sauce, with dozens of dwarves riding around in tiny
JCBs, shovelling chips about into piles and crates. In
the far off distance we could see the two men walking towards the end of the building, and another tiny
shed.
We followed them, through the middle of the warehouse, drawing absolutely no attention from the
dwarves on their little JCBs. And we could see them
crouch down and go through the little door of the
shed, and it looked even smaller than the first one –
maybe about four feet in height. They never stopped
to look back.
When they had disappeared, we continued on towards the red shed. It was the same as the first, only
smaller. Again, we opened the door and crawled
48
Beatdom
through. In this second warehouse, there was nothing. Well, not nothing… We could see the two men
wandering away, in the middle of a warehouse even
larger than the first – perhaps the size of Tesco Extra on the Kingsway. And at the very far end, even
though it was hard to see, we could make out a spiral staircase, leading up to a door with a window, in
which there shone a light.
So we followed at a distance, and to the right, where
there was little light. The two men continued on in
silence, still not looking back. We went on, too. The
journey took several long minutes, such was the size
of the place.
And they went up the stairs and through the door, and
we followed. We climbed the staircase, and stood
outside the door, peering through the window. By
this time we no longer cared about getting caught.
Curiosity had set in on an unprecedented level, and
our eyes practically rubbed against the glass.
We watched as the two men walked through the
small and almost empty, but well lit, room. They
came to stand in front of a small steel safe. They
looked at each other and nodded, and then sat down,
cross-legged. The hippy gent took a great gold key
from his pocket, stuck it in a hole in the front of the
safe, and turned it. The second man took a smaller,
silver key, and put turned it in another hole. Then
they each put their hands on the top of the safe and
chanted something incoherent.
The safe opened.
Inside, we could make out two small vials and a the
worlds tiniest set of scales. The men, together took
the items out and sat them on top of the safe. Then
they proceeded to pour an unimaginably small quantity of red dust from the blue vial onto the scales.
The men looked at each other and nodded again.
The hippy took a small blue box from his pocket,
and the other man poured the red dust into it, and
the hippy stuck the box on top of the safe. Then they
repeated the process, carefully, with the green vial,
and an orange powder.
Then the hippy’s friend picked up an umbrella and
opened it up. The handle came off in his hand, and a
tube popped out, and they poured the contents of the
two boxes into the tube, in separate compartments.
He closed the umbrella and stood up, holding it
tightly. The hippy locked the safe and stood as well,
and together they walked towards us.
Just in time, we managed to dart down the stairs
and hid under neither in the shadows. We held our
breaths as the two men came down the stairs and
disappeared across the giant warehouse and through
the door.
We loaded up and ran back to the smallest door, as
the two men walked back out towards the roof. We
no longer needed to follow them, as we had found
the secret of the magical Ganga Chips.
So we ran back to the tiny red shed and crawled
through the door, into the warehouse. But the stairs
and the light were gone. There was no door. Surely
this was the wrong place. Instantly, we turned and
crawled back through the door… And found ourselves on the roof. The first warehouse was gone and
we were on the roof, and it was evening now: the
sun dying and the moon rising, high and clear, and
across it the faint shape of a great bird, rising from
the fires of the sky, and sat atop it the figures of two
men.
The next Friday we returned to the Phoenix at lunchtime with Kirsty and Amera. We went into our favourWe followed, going through the door and again into ite booth in the corner and sat down. We looked up
the first warehouse. We could see the men standing, to see the hippy gent standing behind the bar, watchtalking to one of the dwarves. We dashed left and ing us. He smiled and gave a wink, as four plates of
hid behind a mound of uncooked, unspiced chips. Ganga Chips appeared before us, unordered.
We watched the men negotiate the purchase of three
tonnes of chips and one ton of sauce. Then they left,
without any money changing hands.
“Do you think we should take some chips?” Anne
asked.
“Definitely,” I said, already filling my pockets with
the wet, cold chips.
Beatdom
49
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Beatdom
Image © Kirsty Bisset
(Opposing Page)
Buddhist Photo
by Kirsty Bisset
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Image © James Barnett
(Background)
[Title Unknown]
by James Barnett
Beatdom
51
52
Beatdom
James Barnett
A collage
of photographs
taken by professional
photographer Jason Barnett.
These were all taken in
his hometown of
Sydney,
Aus.
© Jason Barnett
Beatdom
53
7
Seven
Beat
Tales
The Beat Generation was famous for its literature, and much of that literature told stories from the lives
of the Beats. But many other stories of events that happened to members of the Beat Generation were
not written down, but still became the stuff of legends… And in either case, whether the stories were
true or not is really not that important, so here are six of Beatdom’s favourite Beat based tales.
Bob Kaufman’s Vow of Silence
William S. Burroughs and William Tell
[This story is told twice in this issue of Beatdom because it is my personal favourite Beat
tale – D.W]
William S. Burroughs’ drug problems were legendary. But when a series of letters between him
and Allen Ginsberg were discovered by the police, he decided he’d had enough of American
drug laws and skipped to Mexico to see out the
crime’s statute of limitations.
Burroughs took with him his common law wife,
Joan Vollmer, and their two children. In 1951
Burroughs and Vollmer put on a show at a party
above a bar in Mexico City. The show was ‘William Tell’. It went wrong, and Burroughs shot
Vollmer dead.
He spent thirteen days in jailed before trying to
bribe witnesses for trial, and eventually skipped
the border back to America.
Burroughs maintains that it was only after killing Joan Vollmer that he decided to become a
writer.
After numerous run-ins with the law, various
drug problems, and time spent in a mental hospital, Bob Kaufman grew highly disaffected with
the society around him. So in 1963, after witnessing the assassination of John F. Kennedy,
the poet took a vow of silence that he never
broke until the end of the Vietnam War.
Upon breaking his vow, he walked into a café
and recited a poem called ‘All The Ships That
Never Sailed’.
Now whether or not this story is entirely true…
Well, it’s still a good story. My only problem
with it is that Kaufman had three volumes of poetry published in the years between Kennedy’s
assassination and the end of ‘Nam. Surely he
must have said a few words or at least signed
his name…
54
Beatdom
By David S Wills
Writing On The Road
Six Angels in the Same Performance
The story behind Jack Kerouac’s On The Road
has him travel the country and live the wild life,
The Six Gallery reading was the birth of the
before loading up on coffee and Benzedrine and
San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, where Alembarking upon a three day marathon writing
len Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure,
session, typing the manuscript in one burst of
Philip Whalen and Philip Lamantia read to an
creative energy onto a one hundred and twenty
audience of one hundred and fifty fans.
foot scroll.
Jack Kerouac sat in
The book itself tells most of
the crowd, drunk, havGinsberg
vs.
Communist
the tale, and the manuscript
ing whipped around for
Dictatorships
is flying around America on
enough spare cash to by
an On The Road tour, so the
jugs of wine for everyIn 1965 Allen Ginsberg visited
story seems pretty sound.
one, and beat the botCuba
and
was
deported
for
voicBut it’s not that simple. Kertom of a bottle like a
ing opposition to the country’s
ouac plotted out the novel on
drum and cheered on his
anti-cannabis laws and their perhis travels through a series
friends.
secution
of
homosexuals.
He
also
of journals and notebooks.
Allen Ginsberg stole the
insulted high-ranking officials by
And he spent a great deal
show with the first part
calling
Che
Guevara
‘cute’.
of time and effort drafting
of ‘Howl’, only written a
In the same year he was also deand redrafting the text until
few weeks before. It was
ported from Czechoslovakia after
it got published. But he did
his first poetry reading,
being
declared
‘King
of
May’.
The
type onto a one hundred and
and had Kerouac in a
government labelled him an ‘imtwenty foot scroll of paper
mad frenzy and Rexroth
moral menace’.
in tears.
Upon returning to America, GinsAfter the show, the group
berg found himself the subject of
got drunk and went to
an FBI investigation. Clearly, the
bed. When they woke
Neal and Jack
anti-Communist
administration
up, they were local cedidn’t care to recognise the lack of
lebrities.
Neal Cassady never pubrespect for Ginsberg in Communist
lished a book in his life, but
governments.
it was his enthusiasm and
rapping that changed Kerouac’s writing from old to
Ginsberg and Kesey vs. The Hell’s Angels
new. And Kerouac in turn
taught Cassady to write ficA 1965 protest against the Vietnam War went ahead in San Frantion, and although not many
sisco because of the courage of Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey.
appreciated it, Kerouac was
Earlier protests in the area had been violently disrupted by the
in awe. The two embarked
Hell’s Angels, who loathed the anti-war sentiment and denounced
upon a cross country jourthe protestors as communists.
ney that would become On
When Ginsberg and Kesey went to
the Road, and their friendvisit Sonny Barger, leader of the
ship would inspire most of
Hell’s Angels gang, they managed to
Kerouac’s later books.
impress the bikers so much that they
However, Kerouac got caught in the grips of alcoholism
agreed not to attack the protestors,
and grew old beyond his age, while Cassady hooked up
and developed an extremely high
with hip new counterculture icons in the making and again
opinion of the two writers.
crossed America. The two had grown so far apart that they
Rumour has it that Ginsberg bribed
fell out during a reunion.
the Hell’s Angels with vast quantiCassady died 3rd February, 1968, after falling asleep, drunk,
ties of LSD, but the truth of this idea
on railway tracks. Kerouac died 21st October, 1969, of an
is unknown…
internal haemorrhage brought on be alcohol.
Beatdom
55
Truth, Justice and the
International Superhighway
Steve Patterson brings you along on his paranoid Gonzo journey to the heart of the truth
of these damn swinish rumours!
56
The International Super Highway is about to give
every Mexican, Canadian and other non-U.S. nationality an EZ pass to the Promised Land. Yet
somehow, the power lizards in Congress have kept
us unaware of what lies ahead. The Prime Minister of Canada and el Presidente down Mexico
way are rumoured to have signed an agreement
with our new King George, allowing the construction of a Super Highway stretching from Mexico
City, through Texas, the Midwest and up to Maple
Leaf country. Border patrols will be a formality
and the highway’s opening will coincide with the
debut of the “Amero” a new multi-national currency much like the “Euro” only worth 1/3 less.
the need to count higher than three to keep score.
No parties involved will admit to the Super Highway’s proposed existence, yet why did “W” recently
vacation with the ruling suits of our northern and
southern neighbours? Clearly it was a Corona, Budweiser and Molson fuelled celebration of the signing
of the alleged agreement. Of course construction
costs will be paid by middle class U.S. tax dollars.
Who else pays for anything around here? There
will be no need for illegal labour, thanks to workers
being paid in Ameros. The highway will also help
import more drugs, chaos and much needed excitement into our ADD addled society. Registered Drug
Lords, Holyburton Inc. and their subsidiaries and a
new chain of All Amero Burgers featuring the “Triple Decker Border Buster” will be the highway’s
chief beneficiaries. And though there’s nothing the
average Juan, Dick or Hoser can do about it, thanks
to the Border Buster burgers, people will be living
larger than ever. The rich get richer, the poor get
poorer and the fat, they are not getting any skinnier.
Which brings us to an important rest area on the International Super Highway, the office of The Censor,
who have little time nor patience for non-sanctioned,
un-sanitized, so-called truths and “emotions”. Furthermore, The Censor is not a big fan of the media
either. But luckily most big media are more concerned with the next celebutante scandal than stories
about the little man and his puny efforts at making a
difference. After all, what can one man do anyway?
Unless he can organize at the grass roots level and
spread the word that freedom is a responsibility and...
Hey is that Paris Richie skydiving naked into the
Playdude swimming pool? Now that’s what I call
an XXX-box! What was I saying? Oh, never mind.
I wonder what Christian rock video is playing on the
new Hymn-TV. Nothing too explicit, inspiring or
original I hope. Hey, this is just like the old MTV!
The International Super Highway and Constitution 2.0 are just two steps towards what some
fear is a single, elitist and imperial “new world
order”. Money controls the Church, the Church
controls politics decide what’s best while we
watch reality TV and sleep comfortably thanks to
new Fruity Pebbles flavoured Ambien. And don’t
worry about getting lost in your own thoughts or
wandering off to the beat of non-COA (Church of
Amerocorp) approved music. Government Issued
GPS chips and badass bar code skin grafts will
have you back on the happy track in nothing flat.
That said it should be clear what our corporate masters are up to and how the need has never been greater
for education, pure and unbridled. We can end ignoNow, what good is a freedom Super Highway with- rance with the power of the pen. Let your ink flow
out a brand spanking new Constitution to go with it? like water until it becomes a tidal wave to wash away
Minus those pesky Bill of Rights of course. Noth- the new world order with a newer, more worldly oring official yet, but remember you read it here first der! Spread the word, put it to paper and give it to
when announced during halftime of next year’s Bowl your neighbour. Otherwise, the Holyburton trucks
Grande, the championship game we now know will be rolling on an International Super Highway
as the Super Bowl, soon to be played soccer-style paved with our bones, liberty and a curious coheto eliminate gratuitous displays of violence and sive substance, once known as the American Dream.
Beatdom
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Beatles. And when you hit your local
bookshop, you’ll maybe find one copy
of On The Road and one of The
Naked Lunch. But the internet lives up to its reputation of having a little of everything,
for good or for ill. Everyone is free to surf the net,
and to post messages, and to set up websites… And
Beat fans are no different. Beat fans may not make
up the required numbers to dominate the idiot-box or
the big-name bookstores, but we are numerous and
dedicated enough to create for ourselves an impressive array of websites and online resources relating
to all manner of Beat Generation interests.
And it is important to remember that Beat websites
are very often the products of the minds of Beat fans,
and not of big corporations and publishing companies (like with many modern writers). These sites
are often poorly made and break innumerable copyright laws, but the love is evident, and testament to
members.aol and your MySpaces and so on…
The rise of the internet and of the power of the reader through such methods of interaction, thus eliminates much of the institutionalised scholarly interpretations from Beat studies. Now we have every kid
who’s read On The Road posting their interpretation
on messageboards and chat rooms and Bebo pages…
Ok, I’m a fan of the tradition book-based, heavygoing, stuffy and pretentious, room-full-of-old-men
kind of literary forum, but I can sure appreciate the
value of an intellectual open market. I guess that’s
my up-bringing, though – four years of Literature at
university, but in a world of wireless broadband and
eBay shopping.
So, with all that in mind, I present to you a collection
of online Beat Generation websites. They’re a mixed
bunch, so I won’t try and summarize them for you
under some umbrella description.
Beatdom
57
{
{
{
The Allen Ginsberg Trust
Found @ www.allenginsberg.org
The Allen Ginsberg Trust was established prior
to the poet’s death to deal with the usual problems emerging from death, such as taxes and
memorials. But the Trust also helps share Ginsberg’s work and resources pertaining to his work
and his life. They also publish his work from
time to time, and continue and initiate projects
based on Ginsberg’s literary interests.
The website is basically the Official Allen
Ginsberg Website, although they don’t state this
so bluntly. And Ginsberg apparently said when
founding the Trust, that it wasn’t founded to
‘make a museum out of me.’ And, I suppose, his
vision has been not realised. A museum, it most
certainly is.
The website handles news relating to the poet,
such as DVD and book releases, links to other
Beat websites, reviews of Ginsberg-themed
books, a library of online materials, and a simple lifeline of events.
Most interesting to me was the collection of
PDF manuscripts, including Things I’ll Not Do,
written days before Ginsberg’s death.
The Beat Page
Found @ www.rooknet.com/beatpage
The best Beat resource on the net? In my opinion, yes. Why? Because it has a little of everything. There are sites out there with more information, more poems, more pictures… but The
Beat Page has a simple and impressive range of
pages to browse.
There are twenty seven Beat writer biographies as I write this, and a few other pieces of
information linking Beats to books, films and
religions. Each writer’s bio is accompanied by a
selection of excerpts from their work.
Jack Kerouac’s San Francisco Blue Neon Alley
Found @ www.neonalley.org
I like the name.
I like the content.
I don’t like the layout.
This is a cheap looking site... But not cheap
in the gaudy and free-wheelin’ Kerouac style.
58
Beatdom
Rather it seems the work a well-versed fan with
no computer skills. Crude flashing neon banners and low-resolution motel signs make some
form of heading, and random and unorganised,
though entertaining quotes follow.
There are many valued links and interesting
resources, but it’s all so damn lost in the badly
made pages that the site loses much of its purpose.
{
The Museum of Beat Art
Found @ www.beatmuseum.org
A simply magnificent triumph of a website. The
start and end of Beat information on the internet,
with a host of resources and links. Make this
baby your homepage and be constantly updated
with anything new that crops up, and learn about
a rotating list of random Beat artists old and
new.
The website divides its space between writers
and visual artists, reminding us that the written
words wasn’t the only outlet for Beat artists.
An impressive range of writers and artists are
listed on the left hand side of the homepage,
linking to in-depth biographies and further links
of interests relating to the chosen subject.
{
The Beat Museum
Found @ www.thebeatmuseum.org
Note the subtle difference between the urls of
this site the previous one. Both sites are well
laid out and Beat-o-centric, but they’re pretty
different.
The Museum of Beat Art is an online collection
of Beat material – mainly photographs – while
The Beat Museum is more of a guide to the
whereabouts and events surrounding a physical
presence – An actual Beat Museum of sorts.
{
Literary Kicks
Found @ www.litkicks.com
Lit Kicks is a website that tries to prove reading
isn’t about relaxing, but rather getting enthusiastic about a book. Consequently, although the site
isn’t strictly a Beat one, it focuses perhaps more
on the Beat Generation than any other writer or
group of writers.
{
{
{
It isn’t the easiest site to navigate around, being
more of a blog and a discussion board than anything, but if you look hard enough, you can find
plenty of decent biographical information.
{
UBUWEB
Found @ www.ubu.com
Again, not strictly a Beat website. If fact, not
really a Beat website at all. But it’s a great resource for Beat enthusiasts.
UBUWEB is a collection of media resources
that relate to literature, and because sound and
video recordings ain’t so old, most of the resources tend to relate to literature of the last
half-century. Consequently, figures like Ginsberg and Burroughs, who thoroughly embraced
new technologies in furthering their own work,
are well represented.
A number of recordings of Beat figures are
available for free download. Most feature poetry
recitals and debate. There are also films, such as
interviews and short film excerpts.
{
PENNSound
Found @ www.writing.upenn.edu
PENNSounds is very similar to UBUWEB
– both being collections of literary related media
files. But this website focuses on contemporary
writers, with fewer Beat resources.
However, the Allen Ginsberg selection alone
makes it worth mention. There are two Ginsberg
readings from the 50s and one from 1995. There
is also a copy of a record made by Ginsberg
(with Orlovsky) in 1969, and released in 1970,
of him singing Blake’s Songs of Innocence and
Experience. It’s truly awful, but awesome at the
same time.
Modern American Poetry
Found @ www.english.uiuc.edu
This website offers excerpts from scholarly texts
for a number of modern American poets. Included in this list are Ginsberg, Corso, Kaufman,
Rexroth and Snyder.
The studies include biographical notes and critical interpretations of the poets’ works. This is
heavy-going at times, but unrivalled in quality
and reliability.
{
Kerouac.com
Found @ www.kerouac.com
Amazon and eBay probably have more Beat
stuff kicking about, but Kerouac.com has it all
in the one place. You wouldn’t expect it from
the Kerouac site, but all that’s here is a collection of things to buy. Sad, yes. But useful nonetheless.
Beatitude
Found @ http://members.aol.com/gethep/
I found this website when researching the Bob
Kaufman feature for this issue of Beatdom.
Evidently, this collection of ‘Resources for a
New Beat Generation’ takes its name from Bob
Kaufman and Allen Ginsberg’s attempt at a Beat
magazine, called Beatitude.
Beatitude in this case is a very simple but
elegant website, offering a range of obscure
trivia, quotes, articles, historical resources, and
excerpts from Beat Generation texts. There’s
quite a bit here, and the site is definitely worth
bookmarking.
And just to add one more paragraph for promotional purposes, because I firmly believe in
advertising worthwhile causes for free, I will
mention that as visited on 05/08/07 Beatitude
only has 7770 hits… And it deserves more.
Beat Books
Found @ www.beatbooks.com
Like eBay for the counterculture, Beat Books is
a swap-meet of literature, magazines and posters from the 50s, 60s and 70s. It’s not the most
impressively designed website, but a good idea,
and practical, too. There’s a whole lot of stuff
for sale, if you can find it.
}
Beatdom
59
Ken
Babbs
An
Interview
with
60
Beatdom
By David S Wills
With the success of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s
Nest, Ken Kesey decided to travel to New York for
a number of reasons: To see the World’s Fair;
to throw a party for the release of his new novel,
Sometimes A Great Notion; to turn America on to
LSD and mind expansion; to hold summit talks
with Timothy Leary; and to make a movie about
the group that he would travel with, the Merry
Pranksters.
The Merry Pranksters consisted of Kesey, Ken
Babbs, Mountain Girl, Wavy Gravy, Paul Krassner, Stewart Brand, Paul Foster, and a few others.
They are best known for their road trip to New York
in 1964.
The trip was taken in a psychedelic-painted bus
named ‘Furthur’ or ‘Further’, fitted with sound
systems, couches and a vat of LSD-laced orange
juice. They played pranks and turned folks on, but
were never arrested, partly because of the legality
of LSD at this time.
One of their aims was to meet with Timothy Leary.
Leary and Kesey were leaders of rival factions in
the counterculture movement, and disagreed over
the uses of LSD. The Pranksters hoped to resolve
these differences, but found Leary recovering from
an acid binge, and unable to communicate with
guests.
One of the Pranksters on that trip to New York was
Neal Cassady, the Beat hero. He drove most of the
way, reminiscent of his Dean Moriarty character in
On The Road, a phenomenal driver.
In New York the Pranksters met Jack Kerouac,
who apparently was extremely unimpressed with
the Pranksters’ ways, considering them unpatriotic, and disliking their use of harder drugs than
those he had personally used.
The Merry Pranksters fell between the Beat Generation and the sixties counterculture, and linked
with, and participated in, to an extent, both. They
furthered the Beat movement and helped create
the psychedelic movement, mainly through their
attitude towards drug use. Also, many of the wellknown hippie expressions and ideals were originally conceived of by Kesey et al.
Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Allen Ginsberg all wrote about the Pranksters’ relationship
to the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang, to whom the
Pranksters supposedly introduced LSD.
With the criminalisation of LSD in 1966, Kesey
faked his own death and escaped to Mexico, fearing a prison sentence for possession. In 1968, Neal
Cassady died. However despite such troubles, the
Merry Pranksters toured America intermittently
until Kesey’s death in 2001.
Beatdom
61
Ken Babbs, Ken Kesey’s best friend and fellow
Prankster, was known as the Intrepid Traveller of
the Pranksters’ road trips. He had a “voice that put
cops to flight” and led the group whenever Kesey
was absent.
He served in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot, and
claims that it took him six weeks to realise he
shouldn’t have been there. Nonetheless, Babbs
maintains that he learned some important lessons
in Vietnam: “Being humble. Respect local customs, learn the language, and helping does more
good than hurting.”
Babbs is currently promoting Kesey’s Jail Journal Art, a collection of the late writer’s artistic endeavours, which he created while incarcerated. He
is also the Captain of the Sky Pilot Club, writing
poetry, making music, and trying to change the
world.
It was during my research into the aftermath of
the Beats that I stumbled across the stories of the
Merry Pranksters, and eventually found my way
onto Babbs’ own website. Here, I found his e-mail
address and decided to revisit the style of interview
pioneered by Steve McAllister and myself earlier in
this very magazine.
KapnKen, as he prefers to be known, was extremely
laid back and formal in our short exchanges, encouraging me to ask whatever I wished to know,
despite my apprehensions at interviewing such a
significant figure for only my second ever interview. My e-mails to him rambled on into pages and
pages, while his replies were never more than a
sentence or two. I liked that. And when we neared
the end of the interview, he began revisiting his old
answers and elaborating upon them, editing him
own words in the way I hoped this new form of interview would allow.
62
Beatdom
D.W: How did you first meet Ken Kesey?
K.B: We met at Stanford in the graduate school
writing class. We were both O boys. He came from
Oregon, I came from Ohio. Oddly, we both had
Woodrow Wilson Fellowships. Wallace Stegner, the
head of the writing department, had a cocktail party
for all the people in the writing class. Kesey said,
“I’ve heard of you. You’re the guy who goes to the
place up on North Beach on Blabbermouth Night
and harangues the Beats.”
“Yah,” I said. “Aren’t you the guy writing some book
called Zoo, all about North Beach characters?”
We became firm friends and cohorts for 43 years.
D.W: How did you first meet Neal Cassady?
K.B: A Cassady Pome
by Ken Babbs
Ever hear of Neal Cassady?
the Beat Generation legend
Best friends with Jack Kerouac
On the Road was Jack’s book
and Cassady was the character
named Dean Moriarity,
the man who bridged time
between the Beats, the Pranksters
and the Psychedelic Revolutionaries
The drug agents weren’t impressed
They called him Johnny Potseed
and he did two years
for two joints
and when he got out
he drove to
Kesey’s house on
Perry Lane across the street
from the Stanford golf course
talking all the time
and never repeating himself once,
the rear end went out
of his jeep station wagon
and he spent all weekend
repairing it while the
neighborhood croquet game
went on around him
and he enlightened them
with mystifying quips
we’re fourth dimensional beings
inhabiting a three dimensional body
living in a two dimensional world
black and white, good and evil
with a touch of grey
D.W: What can you tell us about the relationship D.W: Could you tell us a little about how you peryou had with Cassady?
ceive your role in the transition from Beat Generation to Psychedelic Generation?
K.B: Wary at first but later we became friends.
I talk all over the place
K.B: Kesey and I fell in the crack between the Beat
sometimes only to myself
and Psychedelic generations. Too young for one,
but as cassady once said
too old for the other. Cassady was the link between
that way you can have
the two. He introduced us to the Beats and was with
an intelligent conversation
us during the Psychedelic Revolution. We rode the
psychedelic wave, were on the crest, along with
D.W: What can you tell us about the relationship thousands of others. The wave continues to roll on,
you had with Cassady?
probably all the way to Kansas by now. Our role is to
keep the spirit alive, freedom reigns on us all, savor
K.B: Wary at first but later we became friends.
it.
I talk all over the place
sometimes only to myself
D.W: In New York, the Pranksters met the Father
but as cassady once said
of the Beats, Jack Kerouac. What was his opinion
that way you can have
of the Merry Pranksters?
an intelligent conversation
K.B: Jack was tired. He’d been through a lot by 1964.
D.W: Cassady influenced many of the key figures Any time someone is said to be the spokesman for
of the Beat Generation, and clearly was still influ- something, it takes a lot out of you, either denying it
ential to later writers and artists. Did you see much or trying to rise to it. I’m sure Jack had seen plenty
of Dean Moriarty in him?
of shenanigans the like of the Merry Pranksters, so
our cavorting was nothing new to him. He was kind
K.B: Not really. Dean Moriarity was a character in and gracious, very patient, but after a while he left
a book. Cassady was a real life person and I never the apartment where Cassady and Ginsberg and Pecompared him to the character in the book. It is al- ter Orlovsky had brought him to meet us. I definiteways interesting to read other persons’ takes on Cas- ly, after it was all over, had the sense the torch was
sady. He was a unique American genius combination being passed.
of rough childhood, brilliant mind, literary aspirations, spiritual astronaut, sexual overdrive, used the D.W: Have you met any other Beat figures?
car and racing patter as an allegory of life. Go to
www.key-z.com for CDs and DVDs of Cassady K.B: Yes. Ginsberg. Burroughs. Huncke. Corso.
talking for the real stuff.
Robert Frank. Ferlinghetti. Bob Kaufman. Anne
Waldman. David Amram. John Clellon Holmes. Al
D.W: It’s said that Further was most frequently Aronowitz. Kesey and I attended Jack Kerouac Condriven by Neal Cassady… His driving skills were ferences at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado
legendary… So how good a driver was he?
and met many of them there. We also had two poetic HooHaws at the University of Oregon in the mid
K.B: Coming down off the Blue Ridge Mountains in seventies and Ginsberg and Burroughs were two of
the dark of the night with no brakes, a masterful per- the featured speakers.
formance of downshifting and completely calm, afterwards Cassady was knighted: SIR Speed Limit.
“Kesey and I fell in the crack between the Beat and
Psychedelic generations. Too young for one, too old
for the other.”
Beatdom
63
D.W: What were your ideas regarding drug use D.W: You’ve described yourself as falling between
back in the Prankster days, and have they changed the Beat and Psychedelic generations. So how were
since then?
you influenced by the Beats, and how did you influence the counterculture in the years following the
K.B: Didn’t ever intellectualize the whole biz then bus trip?
and still don’t. Only real meaning in drugs is search
for higher intelligence, according to Leary. Expan- K.B: We are on a path to far away that came across
sion of consciousness is main thrust. Blow out your the seas to commingle with the indigents already here
old outmoded conceptions and open up to wider in order to formulate great literature and spiritual
understandings to include kindness and mercy and awakening exemplified by the writings of Melville
awareness of infinite solutions to finite problems. and Poe, and the transcendentalists, and Whitman,
ahem.
Jack London, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Steinbeck
and Hemingway and
D.W: The Beat movement was extremely linked to Faulkner and Kerouac and Mailer etcetera etcetera;
the idea of travelling – travelling America, travel- not to forget the other arts of dance and painting and
ling the world – and so was the generation follow- music etcetera etcetera. The beat goes on. Expanding
ing it, and which you were a part of… From On through psychedelic awakenings and awarenesses
The Road to Further. Would you agree with this? of spantaneous eruptions of joy and glee in order to
And if so, why do you think travel had such an ap- puncture the balloons of stuffy rigid necked spouters
peal?
of ancient ugly
arguments they keep alive with hot air, having too
K.B: The car had a tremendous impact on our lives. much money along with utter disregard for the sancThe word peon means pedestrian. The car was an tity of life of those who are poorer, dumber, differenabler. Enabled us to travel in meatspace, the wind- ent, another color or religion; all that old malarkey
shield, our TV screen, a constantly changing pano- the counterculture thumbs its nose at while practisrama as we raced out of the past through the present ing the disciplines that will save this world from deand into the future. Signs in bars said, Free Beer To- strucktion. so ther.
morrow. It’s time travel on the surface of the earth
and you can stop and get out whenever you want. D.W: How would consider the Pranksters’ and the
True liberation. All the modern accouterments of Acid Tests’ roles in modern American culture?
trains planes and the internet are okay but nothing
beats piling the kids and dog and luggage and camp- When I was a kid, world war one was over forty
ing gear in the car and taking off for a few weeks of years ago and it seemed like it was another century,
intense bonding excitement bounding between hell- another time. Ancient history. Now, all the action of
ish and exultation and providing stories that last for the 60’s that happened over forty years is still alive
years to come when
and well. I speak all over the place (sometimes only
family members get together to rehash old times. to myself, but as Cassady said, “That way you can
Works with gangs of kids, too. Road Trip!
have an intelligent
conversation) and everyone wants to hear the stories, what our motivations were, was what we were
doing something meaningful, does it have enduring
importance that people today (especially the kids
asking) can use in their lives. This being the fortieth
anniversary of the summer of love, the questions and
answers are being
re-examined once again, down to the nitty gritty, just
like the jug band. Speaking of that, where did Steely
“It’s time travel on the
Dan get its name? Inspector John Rebus in the new
surface of the earth
Ian Rankin novel supplies the answer. The only role
that matters is jelly roll, thus we have morton. When
and you can stop and
it rains it pours. Make like a duck and let the water
get out whenever you
run off your back. These and many other secrets will
be revealed.
want. True liberation.”
64
Beatdom
D.W: What influence did Vietnam (both the war
and the country) have in shaping your life and the
lives of your friends?
ten enough you end up with a ventilated spleen.” So
we don’t protest, per se, but we try, in a
humorous creative way, to puncture the balloons of
pomposity and idiocy with our own over-the-top
K.B: Revealed to those whose eyes are open the idi- pomposity and idiocy, hopefully illuminating some
ocy and prevarications of the bunglers in goverment godawful truth. What’s mostly revealed is our poor
so far removed from the lives of us mere mortals pitch, for we can’t carry a tune, let alone a message.
they think they can get away with anything. Well, Two examples of this are The Ballad Of Johnny and
they can. For a while. When I was in Vietnam I tried Jim, and Guantanamo, now
to figure out what we were doing there. Stemming available on DVD from www.skypilotclub.com.
the red horde was the ostensible reason, and it was
a good opportunity for the military to try out new A skypilot is the person who, when you are so high
weapons and tactics, but there had to be more to it you are stuck and can’t get down, comes and gets
than that. Oil or rubber or
you and brings you down safely.
opium. Pristine beaches. Hiltons on the seashore. Elephant tours to the native Montagnard Villages. Ti- To find about more about Ken Babbs in the
ger hunts with crossbows. Camouflage face paint and present day, and to read extracts from this interflapping loin cloths. Book the tour, Granny, we’re view alongside photos of the Grateful Dead and
gonna explore the tunnels. See the light! There, at Jefferson Airplane, visit www.skypilotclub.com
the end. The truth revealed. It shall set ye free. Free
of gummintbungling, of mowing the lawn, of ingesting the poisons. We gonna buddy up, conserve and
share our natchral goodies. We gonna plow the lawn
and plant a garden. Compost our garbage and throw
out the chemicals. Deep six the glamor products and
sharpen the hoe. Thumb our noses at the corporate
propaganda. Give an elbow to the ribs of the knowit-alls like me. Pinpricks to all the hotair balloons
floating out of capitols and courthouses and city
halls all over the land. We don’t have to take back
what’s already ours. We merely have to see it, use it,
dig it, groove, baby, groove. Heaven on earth is here,
or as Cassady said, “It was so simple it eluded me.”
D.W: Finally, what are you doing these days? Tell
us about the Sky Pilot Club and your poetry, music
and protest of the last few years.
K.B. What’s to say. This bumper sticker sums it up:
So many books, so little time. Skypilotclub was a
supposedly brilliant way to pay for a website by enjoining potential members to cough up some bucks
in order to share the costs, while at the same time
accumulating club goodies like patches, decoders, T
shirts and stickers. Also, a lot of the stuff I write and
the vidies I make and the music/rap CDs I
create, are all available online. Every once in a while
I summon up the local prankster/skypilots and we
cobble together a musical skit we perform wherever
we can find a shed or room willing to let us in. What
good does it do to protest? Allows you to vent your
spleen but as Kesey said, “You vent your spleen of-
“
When I
was in
Vietnam
I tried to
figure out
what
we were
doing there.
”
Beatdom
65
beaten
a
by Steven Peterson
What defines counterculture? Dictionary says the
culture and lifestyle of those people, esp. among the
young, who reject or oppose the dominant values and
behaviour of society. I really can’t say, I’ve been told
I’m no philosopher and what a single person says has
no merit in this world unless you are President Ronald McDonald or Vice Corruptor Pilates von Nazi.
What does have merit is history and that’s where I’m
going back into. We wouldn’t have the counterculture of today if it weren’t for the Beats. No ebony
eyed Goths. No anarchy fueled, fist swinging Punks.
No whiny, teary eyed Emo kids. There would even
be no dirty Hippies. There probably wouldn’t even
have been a Hunter S. Thompson (as we know him
anyway) without a Jack Kerouac. And probably no
gay rights movement (as we saw it in San Francisco)
without Allen Ginsburg. In this regard, we should
be thankful for what they tried to accomplish during
their movement.
Accordingly, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and
William S. Burroughs, being the most influential,
were the forefathers of the Beat generation and of
the counterculture today. Kerouac for On the Road,
(the style of the magazine dictates italics) Burroughs
for Naked Lunch, Ginsberg for Howl, and so many
things about free speech it makes you want to sew
your own mouth shut for fear of what might come
out. Come on now, NAMBLA? I understand they
were about sexual liberation and all forms of enlightenment, but where does boy-love tie into Buddhism? It doesn’t. And I can also understand that it
was about free speech, but why does an organization like NAMBLA even exist? Never mind that. I’ll
save that shit for another day. Each led their own bat66
Beatdom
dream?
tles, but influenced each other more than anything.
Beyond the heroin, Benzedrine, pot, numerous hallucinogens, and alcohol, (which probably would
have been a blast, if they weren’t so damned depressed) they still managed to influence generations
to this day. They may have not even realized the
path and decadence and enlightenment they blazed.
From Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison to the many firebreathing, dime a dozen, backyard journalists like
me, everyone knows about, or has been influenced
by, the Beats.
What influenced the Beats though? Not to mention
their own life experience. Boredom and anger with
societal norms, of course, as more people now compared to then are bored and angry with such things.
Religion at the time was very Christian centered,
and it was mainly unheard to practice Buddhism,
but the Beats did. Enlightenment sometimes goes
with decadence, since drug use can cause religious
like euphoria in people. Being Zen through Buddhism, and equally as “Zen” as one can be through
drug use, I suppose one would be at one with some
sort of world. But nonetheless, these experiments in
drugs, sex and religion brought upon a new creativity and ability to be within the story, the story being
your life. In Naked Lunch Burroughs chronicled his
early heroin use and abuse. Characters in Kerouac’s
writings were based on many of the other Beats and
friends. A true Cult of Ecstasy; rivalled only by the
hippies, but for only one simple fact and that is this:
what the Beats were doing in experimentation, they
were unaware of what effects most the drugs would
have, while the hippies were more recreational in
their usage. Hippies knew that the drugs, in essence,
would fuck their worlds up. The true Beats and the
inner circle of such that first participated in these experiments were called “the libertine circle” by Ginsburg. Maybe liberty from social and political refines
was what they were aiming for. What they achieved
was far greater than just some transcendental high.
It was about being “far out” from the norm. While
even having a link to communism, for Ginsberg
spoke greatly of its labour heroes (no surprise, he
wanted to be a labour lawyer, can’t do that writing
poetry all the time) they were mainly apolitical.
Now when most people hear the term “Beat” they
think about the beatniks. This is an improper assumption, though not too far off. Beatniks were
the college students and kids who found it as a fad.
Dressing in black, banging bongos and donning a
goatee does not one a Beat make, nor does smoking pot. It’s a good start, but a poser is still a poser.
This idea was also popularized by satirical, political
and editorial comic strips, which made the “beatnik”
fashion so popular. Young men, angry with the ideal
of their own society, fashioned themselves this way,
much like the Punk movement. Ideas gave way to
the love of the idea which undoubtedly leads to fashion. True Beats were down trodden, broken and truly
beaten people. They were vagabonds and hitchhikers, not white collared slaves. Not like beatniks,
with regurgitated bebop jazz, which wasn’t entirely
original after it began popping up in every coffee
bar on the west coast. Beat is short for, “beaten” like
robbed. The word “Beatnik” was a spin of the word
Sputnik: the Russian satellite and Ginsberg’s ties to
communism. But time won’t stand still, not even for
the Beats.
As all time moves forward, culture changes. And as
the culture got more politically involved so did the
counterculture. Beatniks were taking their berets off
and putting their bongos down and taking up daisies
or rifles. Vietnam or Canada, and those that dared
stay were better off on their communes. White collars and business owners not in the “fold” (being it in
drugs or sex, etc.) were afraid of the new change and
decadence the hippie trail would leave behind. Ginsberg and Ken Kesey even tried recruiting Kerouac
into the Merry Pranksters, but he was ill impressed
and went on to say that hippies were more or less a
bastardization for what the Beats initially stood for.
Ken Kesey, though, was the link between the two
generations. He is quoted saying “I was too young
to be a Beat and too old to be a Hippie.” Kesey is
most famous for writing “One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest” and being written about in “The Electric
Kool-Aid Acid Tests” Never-the-mind, Beat culture
transitioned to Beatnik which died and gave way to
the Hippies. All the experimentation gave birth to
the Flower Children of the sixties, where political
oppression was present in the minds of everyone.
Veterans coming home and protesting and being so
politically involved, that the Black Panther party
was flooded with white members. Ginsberg, as ever
present as this man is, was even friends with Abby
Hoffman, one of this world’s greatest anarchists.
But protests and war gave way to the cold war fears,
disco, cocaine, and loss of the American dream as
America approached the 70’s.
It’s only proper to be feeling beaten while writing
this, or I would have had no inspiration at all, beside
the pot and Vicodin. And thanks to the Beats, I know
how it’s going to fuck my world up. It’s depressing
knowing that they understood their plight, accepted
it, and tried to do something about it. Writing is like
politics, it’s a means to influence ones environment. I
think the Good Doctor said that, and, if it weren’t for
the Beats, he would have only been a sports reporter.
They influenced well more than their own environment, and it’s ever present in today’s countercultures.
The Goths took the black. The Punks took the politics, and tried to turn it to music. The Emo kids took
the tears, pain and poetry. Everyone else scrambled
and fought for the drugs. All that’s left of the American Dream and any flight from this Lost Paradise is
what lay in the stomach of an anorexic teen in New
Jersey, which is half a Coney-style hotdog, a strawberry shake, a handful of Xanax and a few dietary
supplements. Hell, maybe even an energy drink. But
it never stays there long, and it doesn’t look as pretty
on its way into the toilet. Which is what can be said
for counterculture, it changes, never stays long, and
very few leave lasting effects. But most people just
don’t comprehend that now. Apathy is the new “A”
after anarchy. No one believes nor cares about the
transcendence or the rebellion that the Beats stood
for except those that “know” that they were influenced. There are none like the Beats. They understood their doom, and we can all learn, at least, from
that. No matter how Beaten we are, we should never
give up the fight. To struggle is to live, and the pain
is what gives you incentive to stay here, amongst the
insanity and chaos of this unending cycle of savage
mutant infestation. If that’s not wisdom to live by,
or at least read about on the toilet, while evacuating that double border buster with bacon and cheese
from your bowels, then I can’t explain what is… I’m
no philosopher, or a Beat.
Beatdom
67
Modern
Beats
David S Wills takes a look at modern incarnations of
the Beat Generation spirit.
This week, it’s Peter Doherty of Babyshambles and
The Libterines fame.
Allen Ginsberg called the group most frequently
considered Beats – himself, Kerouac, Burroughs,
Cassady - ‘the libertine circle’. He wrote this after
the murder of David Kammerer by Lucian Carr, the
first major scandal to rock the Beats.
The Beats were frequently tied to scandal. They
were famous literary types who indulged in hedonistic and alternative lifestyles, consuming drink and
drugs, having sex and listening to dangerous music.
They were the libertines of their time, in the public
eye and painfully misunderstood by their contemporaries.
Pete Doherty needs no introduction on this side of
the Atlantic. The poor bastard is notorious in a time
when notoriety means front page pics for no damn
reason at all. If he smokes a cigarette, it’s called a
joint, and some oh-so-witty headline is plastered in
red across the top of the page. Every time he’s with a
girl, it’s a date; when he’s tired, he’s on crack; when
he’s on holiday, it’s rehab; when he moves house,
he’s been kicked out. And very little attention is given to his obvious genius, save for the constant, overthe-top swooning coverage given to him by NME,
desperate to cotton on to any new trend. Forget his
music, forget his poetry… He’s taking crack! He’s
painting with blood!
He is the new Jack Kerouac. History’s full of bright
young men with too much talent. They see the world
too clearly to live a normal life. They see the crap
most people just don’t notice, and consequently
they’re forced to live different lives to the rest of the
rabble, and are ostracised and admired in a shocking
concoction of media vulturism and general hysteria.
They’re self-destructive rebels with nothing to lose.
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Beatdom
No scandal will ever bring them down to the level
of ignorance occupied by their fans and detractors,
and only death will gain them the respect and understanding they may or may not desire.
They do what they want because they are smarter
than those that make the rules in the first place,
and because they can see through the crap that the
rest are fed by those in charge. They take drugs to
numb the pain caused by seeing reality too clearly;
to experiment with mind expansion and to shun daft
rules; on principals because it should be a basic and
fundamental right; because they know fine well that
all there is in life that’s worth doing is having fun;
because they are addicted, being only human in spite
of their intelligence; to feel a sense of 69 longing in
a society that cares not for their true talents…
They break the law because they know better than to
take shit from fools in uniforms, upholding the nonsensical and outdated gibberish we call the law. No,
if society must be a hierarchy, it should be one of intelligence, not of wealth and power and radition…
They draw jealousy from society because they are
talented and wild and hedonistic, doing things most
can’t or won’t do, and then writing, painting or singing about it. So the world loves to read ‘Kate Dumps
Potty Pete!’ in The Sun over their buttered toast and
tea, and talk ignorantly about him to their retarded friends in broken English and hideous dialects,
in scummy houses, before going to their crappy
jobs…
And it wasn’t much different with Kerouac or Byron
or Burns or any other the other talented misfits who
have brightened the world even in death. There’s
nothing that soothes the soul like taking some illfounded moral high-ground and spitting down on
your superiors…
But enough of the rebel side of our modern Beat.
Enough ranting and madness and chastising ignorant fools. Who wants the respect of these greasy
fuckers anyway?
Doherty is a learned man and an anti-academic. He
knows literature, film and music. But his are the
modern classics and the same sort of thing that drove
the Beats wild. His poets are the Romantics, his music the rebellious sound of youth, and his films the
dangerous tales of contemporary society. Who cannot see in the punk, post-punk and Britpop eras a
similarity in attitude to the jazz era that lifted the
Beats? And the influence of Blake is obvious in both
Ginsberg and Doherty. Were their earlier works not
separated by almost half a century, surely the list
would go on and on and on. But through literary
nredoM
staeB
Image © http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/
chains we can see the influences upon influences
upon influences that inspire generation after generation, resulting in what we have now, whether the
focus of that is writing or music. And even if they
don’t share the same influences exactly, they certainly share the same sort.
And apart from the general chastisement of the awful ignorant public, radical libertine wordsmiths
have brought poetry to the disaffected youths of
the world and inspired creativity. Remember, ‘three
people do not a generation make.’ The Beats were
heroes to mad young men and women searching for
something outwith the norm. All through history we
see dedicated fans seeking solace in their anguished
idols. And Doherty has certainly brought poetry back
to the sort of people to whom it has been lost for a
long time. The delicious irony is that it’s the loathing
and condemnation of society that drives their young
into the hazy embrace of these mad rebels.
When Doherty was a 16 yr old fledgling poet, he
read at places like the Foundry bar, and still posts
his poems on his website, and does the occasional
poetry festival between touring, binging and jail. He
still reads alongside poets he started out with, often
accompanied by music, and with whom he got drunk
in Moscow on an earlier, councilsponsored, poetry
reading… The comparisons with the café readings,
friend circles and Six Gallery legends are obvious.
Pete Doherty is Beaten man, through and through.
Beatdom
69
Paul
Krassner:
The interview.
An
interview
with
Merry
Prankster
&
editor
of
The
Realist.
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Beatdom
How influenced were you by the Beat Generation?
It was reassuring to see it as a counterculture movement even before the word was invented. I identified with their spirit of irreverence toward authority. And I liked the individuals I met, such as Allen
Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, whose lives were as
poetic as their writing. I think there’s always been a
counterculture, from the Bohemians to the Beats to
the Hippies to the Yippies to the Punks to the HipHop. It probably started during cave-dwelling days;
while the adults were drawing on the walls of their
caves, the kids were out in the field making their
marks on boulders.
How did humour come into the development of
countercultures – from Beat to Pranksters to Hippies?
Humor seems to be part of an innate tradition. It
can be a means of revealing the truth and waking
up people while having fun in the process. For me,
viewing reality through the prism of absurdity has
become a way of life. Humor can relieve tension,
unite people from disparate backgrounds, and medical research has shown that laughter can serve as an
aid to healing, physically & psychologically.
Paul Krassner is ‘a nut, a raving, unconfined nut.’ Or said an FBI report on the counterculture comedian.
Whether or not this description is entirely accurate is uncertain, although Krassner clearly enjoys the notoriety it bestows upon him, as evidenced in the title of his autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined
Nut: Misadventures in the Counter-Culture.
To be fair, the man portrays himself as mad and crazy and offbeat. Hell, he’s a former Prankster and professional comedian. Such attributes are quite a boost for people in these circles.
But when I stumbled across his website when researching Neal Cassady’s ventures into the next counterculture, I found his e-mail address and asked him for a very brief interview. Did I get any sarcastic or madcap
replies? Nope, he was polite and helpful and a perfect gent. Very normal for the man that founded the Youth
International Party and The Realist, and who has constantly shocked and entertained the world.
Krassner was a violin prodigy as a child, and a manic jokester as an adult, and in between he was privy to
many of the legendary moments that made up the counterculture saga.
When Life magazine published a positive review of Krassner’s comedy, they were immediately sent angry
letter by the FBI, from which the quote that inspired the title of his autobiography was lifted.
He worked on early issues of Mad magazine, published the notorious ‘Disneyland Memorial’ Orgy poster,
and wrote the article that suggested Lyndon Johnson molested Kennedy’s corpse aboard Air Force One. He
edited his friend Lenny Bruce’s autobiography, has received numerous awards for comedian and activism
and remains a prolific writer even today.
By David S Wills
How did drugs come into this development of countercultures?
Were you ‘on the bus’ with Neal Cassady in your
Prankster days?
Drugs - like meditation, Zen practice, fasting, pick
a discipline, any discipline - is a way of connecting
the conscious with the subconscious - and when they
are illegal, trying them is a way of breaking through
government propaganda. The Partnership For a
Drug-Free America was founded and funded by the
pharmaceutical, alcohol
and tobacco industries. Why buy Prozac when you
can grow marijuana?
I was too busy editing The Realist, but they all read it
on the bus. I became close friends with Ken Kesey-in 1971 we co-edited The Last Supplement to the
Whole Earth Catalog--and (after Cassady had died)
I went on the bus for a reunion trip and got to know
other original pranksters plus their offspring.
Do you consider yourself a descendent of the Beat
Generation?
I was sort of a missing link: too young to be a beatnik
and too old to be a hippie. I never labeled myself so
that I could be an objective observer, even of those
whose philosophy and outsider roles I could empathize with. In the first issue of my satirical magazine, The Realist, launched in 1958, I published a
parody of Jack Kerouac’s “On
the Road,” figuring it was important for beats to
laugh at themselves.
(And if so) Was Neal really a great driver?
I was told stories about his er um proactive driving
skills, and I heard tapes of his non-stop rapping.
What was your favourite Beat book back then? And
what is your favourite Beat book now?
Terry Southern and Hunter Thompson back then.
“Deer Hunting With Jesus” by Joe Bageant currently.
Paul Krassner’s books are available via his website: www.paulkrassner.com
Beatdom
71
Eat At Joes: The American Dream?
By Steve Peterson
In what abandoned, sidecar styled, and late night
diner did our forefathers leave the American
Dream? They probably left it at “Joe’s”, as in “Eat
at Joe’s”. Joe served them some Rufinol-laden
cherry pie; cherries taken from the very tree George
“The Original American Mason” Washington
chopped down and ran right off into the sunset on
a Nazi Era Volkswagen with Bin Laden and Ted
Turner.
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Beatdom
Another theory is that we’ve already found it, don’t
care to notice and keep looking. Like when you
lose your house keys and they are right in front of
you. Some people even go to the lengths of blaming gremlins for the loss. Not too far off when we
blame the government which is slowly turning
into an abstract entity, for our problems and losses.
And it’s abstract because when we dare to try and
understand something beyond a two party, war
mongering system, we get blasted with a fire hose
or distracted by Paris Hilton’s newest publicity
stunt. It’s just plain sickening. It is so sickening that
it makes poor girls anorexic.
Yeah, I’m blaming eating disorders on the media
and government. We see the commercial for McDonalds, with the giant, red haired, communist
clown telling us that we want a double quarter
pound burger with extra cheese, and this makes us
want to run out and do what the fucking clown told
us to do. Not too far off when we are doing what
the scaly clowns in the senate want us to do everyday. Just be calm and Big Brother will take care of
you, right? That’s also why we have an obesity epidemic. Not enough commercials that make healthy
food appealing; which it really isn’t to begin with,
appealing that it is. They want us to be fat and slow
when they kick our doors in and rape our freedoms
like a drunken prom date. But this nonsense is for
another day; back to the Dream.
limb from limb, we think about what this Dream
really consists of. Its texture would be something
like… motor oil, ignorance and hate, with a half a
teaspoon of free-will, stirred in a cauldron, poured
into a mold and served as Black Licorice Whips.
Ropy, gamy, and hard to chew; just like our politics
and ostriches. Just makes you want to go out and
kick an elderly man in the balls, don’t it?
The American Dream is just another distraction
from our harsh realities. Wait until they broadcast
commercials directly into your brain frequencies.
Then you will wake up wanting to eat your mother.
It will take them some time to perfect the subliminal advertising, and it most likely will drive people
to madness, but I’m not saying it’s not a possibility.
What I am saying is this; Open them eyes, wake
AT JOE’S
:the american dream?
Is it here? I don’t see it, maybe if we look harder.
Here it is! No, that’s just a pipe. Makes sense,
though. Maybe it is indeed a dream, in the pipe
sense. We have done just jaded ourselves to the
point where the Dream is the search itself.
Search for happiness, or the next high,
possibly since they are both one in the
same. Can’t say I blame anyone on
this one besides us as a whole.
What is better than the bliss ignorance can bestow upon a person.
People are more like ostrich,
than sheep. People just don’t
blindly follow; a better chunk
of people would just rather
bury their head in the sand.
the fuck up because the alarm has been going off
for years, and the snooze button is about to break.
Don’t eat at Joe’s, he will try and steal your dream,
too. And if he does, let him have it, don’t go chasing after it. It will come back, someday, when we
are ready to dream again.
So as we pull on back onto
“Joe’s” to help clean up the
place after our forefathers
awoke from their Rufi
naps and tore each other
Beatdom
73
Harry Potter
and the death
of literature
by David S Wills
Image © 2007 Ross Napier
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Beatdom
A short rant originally posted online in response to the ridiculous obsession with the Harry Potter series.
To see almost a thousand angry replies to this article, please browse the various MySpace ‘literature’
forums and groups…
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels have sold in excess of 325 million copies, with the first run of the last
book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, having a first print run of 12 million copies in the
United States alone, making Rowling the highest paid writer in literary history. Her novels have turned an
illiterate generation into avid readers.
Yet she, and other writers such as Dan Brown and Stephen King, seem to have heralded the end of literature.
Their poorly written novels appeal to a DVD generation that wants easy, fast reads with little substance.
Bookshop windows are full of copies of the most popular novels, alongside guides to said novels, and spinoff books. You get biographies of J.K. Rowling and other celebrities, a few cookbooks, a bunch of popular
graphic novels, writers riding the wave of TV shows like Big Brother and Doctor Who, and some travel
guides. My local Waterstones has a ‘Literature’ section smaller than my own little bookcase, with one copy
of each of a small selection of well-known authors’ works, and twice as many of each edition of each Harry
Potter book than the whole ‘Literature’ section put together.
But hell, Waterstones and co. are big businesses that need to make profits. They are just doing what they
have to do to stay a float. When your average shopper wanders in for a Starbucks or Costa coffee and muffin, they don’t want to read innovative new poetry or mad new literature… Sadly, if they were to stock a
thousand copies of Howl! I doubted they sell them in a year. You can’t force the population to get good taste,
all you can to do is give them what they want.
And if the people like Harry Potter, then so be it. Rowling can’t be held accountable for the damage her
books appear to be doing to real literature. She’s created a monster that is unstoppable and subject to the
whim of the readers, and of the manufacturers and businesspeople frantically trying to make as much
money as possible off the back of her success.
Thanks to the widespread love of Harry Potter, every shop wants to be able to sell the latest book in the
series. But of course, competition comes into the picture. Shops must sell the book at profit, or else there is
no point in selling it, and so they all compete for the buyers. And because of this, the companies with the
greatest spending power will usually prevail, at massive cost to those smaller companies who just can’t keep
up. It’s sad, but that’s the way the world goes round.
And when it’s not just bookshops that sell books, then there are even bigger problems for smaller shops to
face. With Tesco and Asda and the rest selling Potter, customers are more likely to buy there, with better
prices and convenience, and the ability to pick up a discount book bargain in the midst of a weekly food
shop. In fact, the big supermarkets can afford to sell the books at lower prices than they buy them, and absorb the cost through the spending of the customers in other departments.
And so we have Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code in supermarkets and in the windows of Waterstones,
and the little bookshops scrape by with the help of readers of real literature, who are dwindling in numbers
are getting little in the way of decent new literature, because every publisher wants the new hit book about
wizards and guns. Why should Bloomsbury want a revolutionary new literary style on their books when
they could as easily print off a few thousand copies of Shilpa Shetty biographies or simply the next in an
increasingly tedious series of uninspiring novels?
The champions of mad new literary forms have often been the small time publishers, and the small time
bookshops. But these are closing and folding under the pressures of a saturated marketplace.
Who can imagine Six Gallery and City Lights being as influential today as they were so many years ago? It
is impossible to see similar organisations having the same beautiful influence in a world where everyone is
home watching Big Brother, and for whom the world of books begins and ends with Rowling and Brown.
There would be little interest in a prophetic poetry reading or cheap little chapbooks that change the readers’ lives.
But no one wants change. They don’t want to read a new style of writing or hear revolutionary ideas. The
people want to be cheaply amused with silly little tales and not have to think too much. Generations of big
ideas and social change have contented and exhausted people into a mass of lazy rabble with no hopes or
aspirations or mad notions.
Beatdom
75
It’s hard to see a generation of idealist radicals ready to make the world a better place stemming from the
cult of Potter. I can’t imagine millions of fans becoming wizards and witches and learning about spells and
potions and the dark arts, in the way Kerouac sent millions ‘on the road’ and Ginsberg inspired massive
social upheaval. I can hardly see brilliant writers of the future (if they come to be) remarking upon Rowling’s influence upon their work. And it’s doubtful English PhD students will be writing magnificent glowing
studies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
But Harry Potter has turned kids onto reading… True, and this is great, if the kids understand that there is
more to books than the merchandise and movies that accompany them. If the kids go back and read Dahl
and Carroll and Kipling and develop wide varieties of interest that spawns new and creative writers, then
that’s fine. If the kids themselves continue a wider spectrum of interest that turns them into a generation of
experimental and thoughtful writers, then that’s fine.
But it’s all about the cult of celebrity and the cheap pacification and the aisles of lunchboxes and t-shirts and
action figures. Harry Potter has become an obsession and created narrow-minded readers with little care for
anything beyond “does he die at the end?” or “do they kiss?”
Critic Harold Bloom argues against the tide of praise, saying “Rowling’s mind is so governed by clichés
and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.” However, the series has mostly gathered critical
acclaim, except for the usual circle of religious and feminist ‘critics’ who apply the same rhetoric to Harry
Potter as to any non-conventional text. Mostly, the criticism from even pro-Potter critics seems to centre on
the rigid structures and plot devices Rowling uses: having Harry start ever novel in the same place, have
clichéd and poorly drawn characters, and similar situations and character responses throughout each book.
But back to Bloom. His 2003 article for the Boston Globe, ‘Dumbing down American readers’, attacks J.K.
Rowling and Stephen King for their awful books, and the literary community of today for rewarding Rowling and King, due only to their commercial success. In savaging her work, Bloom remarks upon Rowling’s
use of phrases such as “stretch their legs” being used dozens of times within a few pages.
Hell, even Stephen King has stuck the boot in, criticising Rowling’s awful writing style, although admitting
that she, like King, is an engaging storyteller. He even claims that her books only came to be because of
his, which is hardly a compliment outwith the Stephen King readership. It seems as though such popular
novelists don’t care at all about anything but inventing stories as addictive as crack, and with all its educational potential.
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Beatdom
(Opposite)
A familiar scene at bookstores
across the country as fans of
the teen wizard wait for the
final book to go on sale.
King and co. use the same argument as most Potter proponents in regards any real literary criticism of
Rowling’s work, firstly denouncing the critics as elitists, as though actually have a set of principals on
which to base ones interpretations, rather than just “I love it!” were a bad thing; and then they use the tired
old excuse that “at least people are reading…”
Well, here’s the kicker, friend… Watching TV won’t kill you. Maybe if you sit watching shit from morning ‘til night, everyday, and don’t so much as think about philosophical questions and the meanings behind
what you watch, then your brain will indeed turn to sludge and your value to the human species will become
negligible. But if it’s intelligent programming you’re watching, or maybe a well made movie or two, then
that’s better than reading nonsense. You’ll learn more from a documentary or an innovative film than from
a cheap airport piece fiction, and that’s the truth.
So even if Rowling and co. have inadvertently brought about the death of literature, then perhaps the collective intelligence of the human race will live on in other forms, which will in turn fall at the hands of the
ignorant, though it will be tragic to see the day when one cannot find so much as a single copy of The Great
Gatsby anywhere but second hand on eBay.
So I invite you to continue reading the classics, and to actively seek out and support any new and brilliant
young writer, turning your back on any other hyped nonsense that appeals only to fools and the suggestable.
Be a part of the solution, not the problem, friend.
Beatdom
77
Zane K
Z
Kessey
interview
By David S Wills
It wasn’t easy, but I got it… an interview with Ken
Kesey’s son, Zane. And in doing so I got my ‘ass
kicked’, developed the e-mail interview idea further,
and learned a lot about the legendary Prankster and
his oddball son.
Firstly, Zane refused to be interviewed, but when I
suggested yes/no questions, he seemed to get interested. Then, when I suggested he type only y or n, he
got real interested. However, through his website I
learned he was pissed hearing questions to which the
answers were already out there to be found, so I read
up a little common mistake trivia, and fired the following interview his way over a series of e-mails.
I quickly learned that he was more interested in talking about himself, than his dad, and that a lifetime
of having a famous father had turned him into a petulant little cunt. Weeks after the completion of the
interview, and only days before the magazine hit the
presses, Zane stalked me to my anonymous MySpace
account and asked me, “Why insult people?”
It emerged that Zane had confused himself into believing me to be a fictional character called Roby
Cronin, who was compiling some kind of school report…
The saga continues…
D: So, did Ken Kesey consider himself a Beat?
Z: y/n i don’t know? i doubt it?
D: Did he ever communicate with Kerouac again?
Z: ? probably not?
D: When he convinced Ginsberg to perform with
him in 1997, did he consider this a ‘prank’?
Z: that was a part written for allen, many extra parts
were written for famous friends if they ever showed
up!
D: Did his opinions regarding drug use change in
later life?
Z: n...he thought every drug had a use, or could have
that use wasted or abused! he hated white drugs,
but...
D: Did he really fake his own death?
Z: y.
more please
more?
D: So Cassady was a big hero of Kesey, was this because of fictional accounts like ‘On the Road’?
Z: to start with, then he met found that nobody was
like cassady, he was working on so many more levels than anyone we had seen before. on the road is
nearly non fiction...hard to make into a movie?
D: Or non-fiction (word of mouth, friends-throughfriends)?
Z: yes
D: Was he influenced by the Beats?
D: Did you personally ever meet Neal Cassady?
Z: y very...and Cassady was a hero before the bus Z: i still don’t like to drive along cliffs!
ride!
D: Did Cassady really just appear at the Kesey
D: Did he meet really meet Jack Kerouac and Allen home?
Ginsberg in New York?
Z: it was known that he was a hero for dad...so when
Z: y
he was around people arranged the meeting
D: Was the meeting amicable?
D: And did he say he related to the character of RanZ: y with allan not really with kerouac, i think he dle P. McMurphy?
was sad to see cassady taken
Z: ?? don’t know?
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Beatdom
D: Did Kesey really prank the Smithsonian?
Z: well...
millionairs had come to see if dad would give them
the bus and they would donate it to the Smithsonian
a book by dad about the 1964 bus trip was being
published
dad wanted little flip pictures of cassady film in the
corner so when you flip through the pages you see
him move and twitch
the editor said this was too expensive, but if he
brought further to the booksellers convention in vegas he would do it
he thought that impossible
dad saw a bus like the original for sale on the way
home
we fixed and painted
the news came out to film us painting it
the news announced “kesey is fixing the original bus
and taking it to the smithsonian” who were we to
argue with the news....
more news came...networks...newspapers...wanting
to ride this last bus trip to the “east coast”
SURE, COME ABOARD!
we loaded the news and headed for vegas “then to
the smithsonian”
people along the highway waved and held up banners saying goodbye to furthur
when dad was doing a speech at a bookstore the
news went in to watch, us kids “stole” the bus
the plan was to paint it blue and head back to oregon
while the old folks flew home
we found a well lit loading dock in the desert and
started painting it blue...to look like a church bus
the cops came, found us painting a “stolen” bus
we talked our way out of it...cameras rolling
the bus sat for months in the oregon woods hiding
the water base blue paint slowly dripped of to reveal
the true colors
the news pretended they knew it was a prank the
whole time...and acted like we were pranking the
Smithsonian
the smithsonian did not know anything about the
bus...we were pranking the news...i don’t think they
liked it!!!!!
D: Was he the link between the Beats and the Hippies?
Z: i think cassady was!~!!
yer getting me warmed up...
i would kick but on the phone!
more?
D: Perhaps the reason you’ve been kicking my butt
is that I already read all the dispelled rumours on
your website... No point asking something twice.
Z: LOL...i have more
that used to drive dad nuts...when reporters did not
even check to see if the questions had already been
answered a thousand times...
you found many i was unsure on as often my answers
to peoples questions are from
answers i heard dad give
D: Loved the smithsonian story and your diversion
from y/n answers!
Z: well...i have a 2 hour movie that documents it!
D: Did Kesey consider travel an important idea, like
it was to the Beats?
Z: ideas were important MAGIC was utmost...travel
was necessary
D: Is it true you are currently in possession of Further (or Furthur)?
Z: yes...we are working on having it restored to visit
museums
D: Did Kesey consider himself similar to Kerouac in
that they were both jock-writers?
Z: maybe? he wrote a piece on kerouac once saying
that he did not think he was brilliant till he re-read
Kerouac
D: Did Hunter S Thompson introduce Ken Kesey to
the Hell’s Angels?
Z: something like that! i slept through the party
D: Was their meeting amicable, as reports suggest?
Z: yes...humor (pranksters) works well with fear
(angels) they respected them and did not freak out
D: Are you aware of the influence of the Beats on on them...but...were happy to have them move on
your father’s ideas regarding drug use?
Z: no i ma sure it existed!
D: Did Kesey introduce the Hell’s Angels to
LSD?maybe??
D: Did he come up with the name ‘Merry Prank- Z: i doubt that was where they learned about it?
sters’?
Z: babbs
Beatdom
79
80
Beatdom
Walt Whitman
and the Beat Generation
by David S Wills
It’s hard to read Kerouac or Ginsberg and not think
of the father of American poetry, Walt Whitman.
Well, it’s hard for me. I’ve spent four years studying
American literature, and it’s hard to look at anything
post-Whitman without thinking of him. Emerson
called for an American poet, and Whitman answered,
and then defined the criteria for future American poets. The American poet would be knowledgeable of
books, but experienced in the life and nature of the
continent. He (or she) would celebrate the grassroots
of the New World and embrace the people and geography.
Two of the most famous letters in the history of
American literature relate to the introduction to the
literary community of Whitman and Ginsberg by
their mentors. Upon reading Leaves of Grass, Ralph
Waldo Emerson wrote to Whitman,
DEAR SIR--I am not blind to the worth of the
wonderful gift of “LEAVES OF GRASS.” I
find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and
wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am
very happy in reading it, as great power makes
us happy. It meets the demand I am always
making of what seemed the sterile and stingy
nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much
lymph in the temperament, were making our
western wits fat and mean.
I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I
have great joy in it. I find incomparable things
said incomparably well, as they must be. I find
the courage of treatment which so delights us,
and which large perception only can inspire.
I greet you at the beginning of a great career,
which yet must have had a long foreground
somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes
a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion;
but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging.
I did not know until I last night saw the book
advertised in newspaper that I could trust the
name as real and available for a post-office. I
wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much
like striking my tasks, and visiting New York
to pay you my respects.
R.W. EMERSON
Concord, Massachusetts, 21 July, 1855
Without Emerson’s consent, the fame hungry Whitman presumptuously published the above letter in
the New York Tribune on 10th October 1855. This
helped publicise the work for which he had previously had to write his own reviews.
Emerson’s unwitting patronage compares to William Carlos Williams’ foreword to Howl!, which famously began, “Hold back the edges of your gowns,
Ladies, we are going through hell.” Williams had
been friends with, supported and promoted Ginsberg
since their first encounter in Paterson, 1950, when
Ginsberg wrote “I inscribe this missive somewhat in
the style of those courteous sages of yore who recognised one another across the generations as brotherly
children of the muses.” He sent Williams nine of his
poems with the letter. Williams was unimpressed
with the rigid style of Ginsberg’s early poetry, but
delighted with the letter.
Both introductory letters served their beneficiaries
well and bestowed upon them a certain notoriety, as
the proverbial batons were passed from generation
to generation, and a reference of approval was given
to dangerous young madmen by respected literary
figures.
Leaves of Grass, Whitman’s epic collection, beginning with ‘Song of Myself’, created a tradition of
opening up and embodying America, using lists to
build imagery representative of as much of the country and the people as possible, and involving the poet
Beatdom
81
in this celebration of himself and his surroundings.
Kerouac and Ginsberg both clearly display evidence
of Whitman’s influence throughout their work as
well as in their lives. Sometimes such evidence is
obvious, but sometimes it requires a great deal of
searching to find. Certainly the embodiment of an
America free from governmental oppression is inherent in the major works of each, and one cannot
deny the obvious confessional approach in On the
Road and Howl! that is clearly inspired by Whitman.
But perhaps the reason for such similarity in style
and content lies in certain similarities in their lives.
The Beats and the Transcendentalists came one
hundred years apart, but were surprisingly similar
literary and cultural movements, protesting against
tradition, conformity, commercialism, industrialisation and urbanisation. Both sets of poets and writers tended to portray the wilderness as divine, contrasted against the gaudy human nightlife of the city.
And both groups of poets wrote in times when danger loomed: Whitman before and during the Civil
War, and the Beats following World War II, when
the threat of nuclear war became very real.
And so, with such dissatisfaction, the Beats and
Whitman looked for something else, perhaps truth.
Yes, they chastised the cult of possession, but they
also looked for importance in life. Strangely, both
seemed to find god, although in different places from
the masses. In ‘Song of Myself’, Whitman declares
“I hear and behold god in every object.” This compares to Kerouac’s description of Neal Cassady in
On the Road: “Everything amazed him, everything
he saw…” Of course, there are innumerable mentions of Cassady’s love of all things and his worship
of every object and sight and sound and person, the
point being that Cassady and Whitman saw some
spiritual wonder in everyday events and objects and
places.
Leaves of Grass also contains the self-declarations of oneness and openness and self-expression
and communion with nature that one sees in Ginsberg and Snyder and other Beat poets. Most obvious are the sexual descriptions in Leaves of Grass
and throughout Ginsberg’s volumes of poetry. Both
Ginsberg and Whitman were tried for obscenity because of their homosexually explicit lyrics, which
portray their fantasies and sex lives as natural and
something not to be ashamed of. Sex is seen as inseparable from the natural world – “Winds whose
soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you/
Broad muscular fields…” [Song of Myself: 542]
Whitman’s openness inspired Ginsberg, and Gins82
Beatdom
berg’s helped change the world in the latter half of
the twentieth century as people came to discuss taboo subjects and bring about social change.
And in Snyder there are yet more connections to
‘Song of Myself’, when Whitman celebrates the relationships animals have with god, not one of dependence and self-pity, but something pure and natural that he envies. In his celebration of animals and
of humans, Whitman berates the idea of possession
as one of which animals are unaware. All this is evident in Snyder’s poetry. Known as the ‘Thoreau of
the Beat Generation’, Snyder communed with nature
from an early age, working as a fire-lookout, logger
and ranger. His poetry reflects his life and his views,
most famously in his first volume, Riprap (1959).
He presents simple imagery, as free from disruptive
and misleading metaphor as possible, in the style of
Pound and Williams, coupled with a presentation of
harmonious wilderness idolised by Whitman, resulting in crisp, clear scenes of mountain America and
forest life.
But Snyder was obviously not the only Beat to connect with and respect nature. Kerouac’s novels all
highlight a stark contrast between city and country
life, but he seeks the beauty in both. Big Sur is an
example of lonely wilderness and the overwhelming wonders (and some of the troubles) of roughing it in California. On the Road goes further and
shows Kerouac experiencing a oneness with the
whole of America – the people, the city, the countryside, the rivers and mountains and beaches. He
celebrates himself and his Beat contemporaries, and
all of America, and in this respect it is hard to see
any difference from Leaves of Grass. (As a sidenote,
of which most will be aware of, One the Road and
Leaves of Grass have both become American classics.) Both writers strive to see godliness in the minutiae of everyday life.
But it is not only in style and theme that One the
Road can be seen as a descendant of the Whitman/
Transcendentalist tradition. Kerouac’s classic road
novel centres on a loosely fictionalised version of
himself following a loosely fictionalised version of
Neal Cassady around America. Kerouac had read
Whitman as a child, and then re-discovered him
over and over in later life. He read Cassady’s writing and adored its aesthetics, referring to Cassady
as the ‘great Walt Whitman of this century.’ Later,
after reading ‘Children of Adam’, he decided that
Cassady was Whitman’s Adamic man. His depiction
through Dean Moriarty portrays Cassady as a ‘sexual revolutionary’, and coupled with his appreciation of Whitman’s insinuation that humans are mere
nimals, and that sex is therefore an entirely natural thing, On the Road can be seen as continuing and developing a Leaves of Grass worldview.
But like Ginsberg, Kerouac uses simple everyday language to express complex ideas, whereas Whitman’s
simplicity lies in language and message (although his messages may be numerous and conflicting, they are
each in their own way simple). Both Beat writers were influenced in their use of language by Whitman,
whose ‘Slang’ explained that language evolves through the everyday working folks that use it the most.
However, in works such as ‘Sunflower Sutra’, Ginsberg takes this idea and pushes it further, with expressions like ‘tincan banana dock’, that consist of single basic words, but which have no apparent overall
meaning, and can often be read through the idea that they juxtapose images, often contrasting nature and
humanity and government and sex… Of course, Ginsberg’s poems, most notably Howl!, make use of his
idea of structuring lines to the patterns of speech and breathing, and follow Kerouac’s idea of spontaneous
prose.
A ‘Supermarket in California’, however, is perhaps the most obvious Whitmanian influence upon Ginsberg’s
poetry. Ginsberg directly references Whitman throughout the poem, imagining a relationship between them
developing among the vegetables and shoppers, and spreading out into the streets, rueing a Lost America.
Certainly, Whitman’s American vision was one of criticism yet optimism,
rather than the Beat philosophy of laying back and making their
own little space in an essentially doomed society, while
looking back to the past and lamenting the losses of
freedoms and the rolling tide of development
that led to the crushing weight of an uncaring world by the 1950s.
Beatdom
83
Banter
A short piece of fiction by Rodney This is primarily the story of the
Munch.
group of friends known to themselves, and a great many others,
The name Banter Goodfriend as Banter Goodfriend. The stories
emerged last year, during the sum- of the person and of the band are
mer of 2006. It could correctly be inseparable from that of the colapplied to three interlinked enti- lective group, and combined, and
ties: a person, whose sudden met- including a great many other tales,
amorphosis into an icon of intoxi- make up the history of the subject
cated fun bought him legendary of this short story. The history is
status and a place in the heart of fascinating, recording the months
all who partied with him; a collec- between July 2006 and May 2007,
tive term for the group for friends when the story you are now readwhose philosophies and ideals the ing begins. But the history is a
person came to adopt; and the mu- story to be told another day, and
sical collaboration of the various the future - that is to say what will
members of said group, includ- happen between now and the final
ing the person himself, but which word of the final sentence of this
divided into several other named story - is what makes the plot of
collaborations under the collec- this story, and what we shall retive title. Banter Goodfriend, the fer to as Banter Goodfriend, the
person, has mellowed over the story.
past six months and only emerges
under his adopted title on occa- The 06/07 academic year was
sional breaks between his studies. the final year of education and
Banter Goodfriend, the group, life Dundee life for roughly half
has had its ups and downs, with of Banter Goodfriend, the group.
friendships growing and fading, Despite their excesses, each and
but has stayed together through every ‘member’ had passed the
various ties and relationships, and year, and so half of the group
although it is now rare to them all faced a new life somewhere else,
as one, they still remain despite the and the other half faced another
strains of life. Banter Goodfriend, year of Dundee, which had been
the musical collaboration, pro- exhausted during the previous
duced no songs as a band, but still four years to the extent that even
be seen as an organisation of other the fun of Banter Gooodfriend,
projects (Tin Can Banana Dock, the history, was not enough to
Rich Adams and the Drunks, the inspire anything but unhappiness
Snowman Session Band, the Re- at the thought of staying on. The
freshers Week Sessions, and sev- half that was forced into leaving
eral unnamed, and mostly likely by their graduation from the uniunrecorded, efforts).
versity was faced with the equally
84
Beatdom
depressing thought of having to
find a career and settle down or
find a way to fund some other
activity to entertain the feeling
of loss they felt. Of course, they
didn’t want to stay in Dundee,
but they certainly didn’t want to
find themselves at some apparent
crossroads into adulthood.
So perhaps this is why a postcard
from Rodney Munch to a flat on
Step Row, home to six Banter
Goodfriend ‘members’, caused
such a stir in the group. The postcard, which had been sent from
Ecuador, where Rodney had been
for several weeks, said simply
“Check my Bebo page. Rodney.”
And when the page was viewed
by the group, it had a new blog,
which contained only a url. And
when the url was typed into the
address bar, it connected to a
webpage of Rodney’s creation,
containing thousands of words
and dozens of pictures, outlining
a plan that involved each member
of Banter Goodfriend, the group.
The plan was based upon the literary, historical, philosophical and
political interests and studies of
Rodney during his four years in
Dundee. It involved ideas that had
been expressed with whole-heartened intention by various ‘members’ over their time together, yet
that individually always remained
unlikely because of their idealism.
But Rodney’s plan seemed overly
idealistic, too. Yes, it was plausible and in theory quite likely, but
it also seemed too good to be true,
Goodfriend
and mostly these things are as
they sound.
Operation Banter Goodfriend, as
Rodney referred to it, involved
the trip to South America he had
talked about for months, and actually achieved by spending a few
weeks in Ecuador, writing some
novel or other. But now he had
grander plans. Most likely his inability to stay happy had taken
hold and he’d decided to get all of
his friends over and try something
crazy. He wanted them to come to
South America and help him take
control of a small country. They
could live like gods, he claimed,
in mountains of rum, coffee and
cocaine; under the sun and by the
sea, as rulers of a whole nation.
He had the whole plot developed,
and it seemed foolproof. The Banter Goodfriend group were not
needed, but they could help if they
wished, and share in the spoils of
the coup.
The success of the coup, and even
its basic theory, were based on
observations Rodney had made
in his studies of history and politics. Firstly, the US government,
or the CIA, or both, felt the need
to interfere in the running of other
nations, especially if this would
result in the creation of a proAmerican government. Secondly,
Western money controlled the
running of poorer countries, particularly those of Latin America.
Countries that support and befriend America can always be sure
of US aid, and their indiscretions
overlooked for the ‘greater good’.
Thirdly, deprived and oppressed
people look for heroes, and if a
puppet could be found to follow
the instructions of the group, and
embody the spirit of the people,
or pretend to, then the people will
follow.
President Cordoba and his Sandinista government were once again
in power in Nicaragua, although
they had controlled the government even in their absence from
official power. Their chaotic, brutal, corrupt and incompetent regime had earned them contempt
from Washington and elsewhere,
and they had come to power with
only one third of the vote in the
general election. Here, Rodney
stated, was where the revolution
was to occur.
In dribs and drabs over the course
of two months, the whole Banter
Goodfriend
group made their
way to Ecuador. The prospect of
simply sitting around on a beach,
getting drunk, and planning to
do something that would never
actually happen, was enough to
drive them all to raise the money
to spend time in South America.
Rodney had rented a small house
in a sleepy beach-side town, and
they all squeezed in, or slept on the
beach in some cases. They bought
dozens of bottles of rum and used
Rodney’s mysterious contacts in
the town to buy weed and coke,
and took these substances from
morning ‘til night, just sitting,
talking and playing guitar.
“If funding and political support
were available, anyone could
come to power in Nicaragua,”
Rodney told the group, one warm
night on the sand. “All it takes
is the ability to set the wheels of
change in motion. If you know
someone high up in a multinational
company, you can convince them
pretty easily to sponsor a coup
that would result in a government
favourable to them. And they can
influence government policy and
help get CIA support. Of course,
the government cannot be seen to
overthrow a government, but they
aren’t shy about helping others do
it. Anything’s possible with the
right combination of economic
and security issues.
“And I know the right people. The
guy I rent this place from is the
Director of a computer company
in California. He’s very interested
in establishing a division in Latin
America, and could do with tax
exemption, cheap labour and no
competition. He can get us any
money, any contacts… we can do
this.”
Perhaps if they’d all been less
wasted, the idea would have
seemed less plausible. But craic is
a hard thing to turn down, and they
all went for it. The law in Britain
had never done much for the Banter Goodfriend life, and the chance
of pulling all the strings was
agreed as reason enough to overthrow a government and throw a
country into turmoil. Fortunately
there were enough drugs to keep
Beatdom
85
reality from setting in, and the
group sat around much as before,
talking in ‘what ifs’ as Rodney
separated himself from the group
and began talking to strangers
who showed up, orchestrating the
whole affair. And every night, he’d
retire to his room early and type
frantically at his latest attempt at
a novel, smoking and drinking ‘til
he fell asleep.
It was out of the question to have
a foreigner has the public figure,
so Rodney arranged for a Nicaraguan exile to come join them, and
be briefed on the situation. It was
imperative that he know the full
story, so he wouldn’t later object
to being a tool in their scheme.
His name was Miguel. Just one
name. Memorable.
He came and stayed at the house
for three days, helping to plot the
coup. He knew of perhaps thirty
other exiles who he knew would
help out, and the CIA had operatives planting weapons cashes in
the country. Rumours had been
planted throughout the country
and recruits were being sought
with false promises. Paid off congressmen would lobby for ‘freedom’ in Nicaragua, and international criticism would be directed
at the Sandinista government. The
media would report an economic
crisis, and threats of mass unemployment and increased poverty
would be plastered all over the
country. The exiles, as many recruits as possible, and the Banter Goodfriend group, would set
up camp in a small town on the
southern border, and then march
on Managua, where pressure
would be so strong on the Sandinistas that no bloodshed would
even be necessary to take control.
The Sandinistas would be held
to account for their rule, and the
country would turn around. US
aid and investment would flood
86
Beatdom
in, and the Banter Goodfriend
group would be truly free.
“This cannot fail,” Miguel said,
the night before the invasion began.
With the exception of Miguel,
who drank, and then went to bed,
the whole group sat up all night,
smoking pot, drinking tequila and
dropping acid. A little coke may
also have been taken by some, but
its significance was dwarfed by the
quantities of the other substances.
And it was in this state of mind
that the bus left the house the next
day and set off on the long route
north. The binging never stopped
for the group, who passed untroubled through much of Latin
America, often so engrossed in
the banter within the vehicle that
they failed to notice the wonders
of world outside; and often so engrossed in these wonders that they
shut off all communication within
the vehicle, and it was quite.
The bus arrived in the little Nicaraguan town with the group unable to tell if there had been any
trouble since they had left Ecuador. Their minds and bodies were
frazzled and fucked. Madness
seemed to be setting in as the bus
rolled into town, into the midst
of thousands of cheering Nicaraguans, and their minds could not
cope with the sights and sounds,
and suddenly the whole idea
seemed awful. It was all so overwhelming. People banged on the
windows and things in Spanish
that no one could make out. The
bus rolled on slowly.
The exiles piled out of the bus as
it stopped in front of a big town
hall. They walked so that the
white European faces were hidden from the crowd as much as
possible, and the crowd could see
their Hispanic saviours. Miguel
was made noticeable – punching
his fist in the air and shouting to
his people. It was a far cry from
the plotting on the quite beach.
Rodney walked after the group,
his hands in the air and his head
down, thoroughly wasted and acting as the puppet master. His long
hair obscured his face, and his faded jeans, black and grey checked
shoes, and corduroy jacket set
him her apart from his bemused
onlookers.
Inside, the group slept as Rodney,
Miguel and several of the exiles
sat in the head office, planning
their next move. Rodney had not
slept in days and sat in the grand
chair behind the mayor’s desk,
snorting lines of coke, drinking cup after cup of strong black
coffee, and twitching and barking orders like a madman. He
was the mastermind, no matter
whose money and influence came
from America. No one Americans
dared set foot in Nicaragua during
start of the revolution. Suspicions
would be raised later and there
was no need to implicate themselves further.
The Sandinistas would be warned
ahead of time and an announcement would be made to the people,
so that when the march reached
the city, the Sandinistas would
either have already disappeared,
or they would stay put with no
brave enough to defend them. The
marchers would be armed, but
there would be no need to fight.
All the while, the Banter Goodfriend group would sleep off their
journey and wait until all had been
settled in Managua. Then they
would move to the city to help
control Miguel as President.
It was perfect. By the time the
group woke up, roughly thirtysix hours later, the revolution had
come and gone. Blood certainly
had been shed, as the marchers clashed with a small group
of Sandinistas, but not enough
resistance had been put up, and
the marchers simply butchered
stubborn fools and took the city.
Miguel and Rodney, who had
gone with the marchers, took control of the presidential house, immediately informing the world of
their success, by phone.
Formal diplomatic relations were
immediately established with the
United States, and talks of aid
and trade agreements were assured. Miguel had a history of
public speaking and business negotiations, and handled himself
well. Rodney, on the other hand,
locked himself in what he established was his office, sending
lackeys out for booze and drugs,
and barking orders at people over
the intercom. Only the lackeys
with his deliveries ever saw him,
though every member of the new
leadership heard him. Every hour,
Miguel would receive an e-mail
from Rodney, one of which said:
President,
Stick to the plan! I repeat,
hold steady and don’t take
any shit!
I’m sure you will. I have
faith in you, Miguel, my
soldier.
We have accomplished
much together in our
short time.
Don’t run, walk, for fuck
sake!
Be a leader, even though
it is you who is being led.
Demand the Americans
give you what we request.
Talk to the people! They
got you here.
Listen to me, friend, I
am wise, and I am ambitious.
I want drugs! I don’t care
what kind…
Push your drones around,
as I do. You are their
boss,
As I am yours.
Don’t fuck with me,
though I know you won’t.
That was just a warning,
I’m only doing my job.
FUCK! This was a good
idea.
Paradise is only just
around the corner.
Tell the guys. Tell Banter
Goodfriend.
Tell them they have freedom now to do what they
wish.
I will go see them once
the ball is rolling in Managua.
I will only leave the dark
recesses of my wonderful
office
When situation has settled. When power is guaranteed.
I know you won’t fail me.
You have so much now,
and more to gain.
I may pull the strings, but
you are on stage.
You pull the strings of
everyone below you.
Feels good, doesn’t it?
Need more drink. Ensure
that happens.
Rodney
The Banter Goodfriend group
found its way to the coast, to a
small fishing village by the sea,
and on the edge of what seemed
an infinite jungle. It was beautiful and desolate. The government
agents that delivered them to their
destination had the villagers removed, and the town was now in
the hands of the group. They had
freedom.
animals, and that sex is therefore
an entirely natural thing, On the
Road can be seen as continuing
and developing a Leaves of Grass
worldview.
But like Ginsberg, Kerouac uses
simple everyday language to express complex ideas, whereas
Whitman’s simplicity lies in language and message (although his
messages may be numerous and
conflicting, they are each in their
own way simple). Both Beat writers were influenced in their use
of language by Whitman, whose
‘Slang’ explained that language
evolves through the everyday
working folks that use it the most.
However, in works such as ‘Sunflower Sutra’, Ginsberg takes this
idea and pushes it further, with
expressions like ‘tincan banana
dock’, that consist of single basic
words, but which have no apparent overall meaning, and can often be read through the idea that
they juxtapose images, often contrasting nature and humanity and
government and sex… Of course,
Ginsberg’s poems, most notably
Howl!, make use of his idea of
structuring lines to the patterns of
speech and breathing, and follow
Kerouac’s idea of spontaneous
prose.
A ‘Supermarket in California’,
however, is perhaps the most
obvious Whitmanian influence
upon Ginsberg’s poetry. Ginsberg directly references Whitman
throughout the poem, imagining a
relationship between them developing among the vegetables and
shoppers, and spreading out into
the streets, rueing a Lost America.
Certainly, Whitman’s American
vision was one of criticism yet
optimism, rather than the Beat
philosophy of laying back and
making their own little space in
an essentially doomed society,
while looking back to the past and
lamenting the losses of freedoms
and the rolling tide of development that led to the crushing
weight of an uncaring world by
the 1950s.
Beatdom
87
Ginsberg and Dylan are frequently viewed as a Jewish father and son. Certainly, they were close, and
Dylan has often cited Ginsberg as a massive influence on his life and work, however, they were only
fifteen years apart by birth and five by seminal publication. Of course, this is merely an affront to the
more literal connotations of the father-son description of their relationship, and does not take anything
away from the momentous influence the Beat poet
had on the legendary songwriter.
Dylan certainly viewed Ginsberg as a father figure,
as evidenced in his film, Renaldo and Clara. Here,
Ginsberg plays an advice-offering character known
as The Father. He also appears, watching over Dylan, in the background of the singer’s Subterranean
Homesick Blues.
However, if we are to force metaphors upon their relationship, then perhaps a more accurate one would
as brothers, as although Ginsberg played the role of
mentor, they were closer than such a closed view
would suggest. They found in each other a shared
genius, and collaborated on a few projects, praising
each other over a long friendship.
Dylan would say, “I didn’t start writing poetry until
I was out of high school. I was eighteen or so when I
first discovered Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Frank O’Hara and those guys.” So clearly in the
beginning it was a one way relationship, with Dylan
inspired to write by the Beat Generation.
However, Ginsberg found in Dylan’s songs the same
kind of spirit with which he infused his own poetry.
The protest and mysticism he described in Dylan’s
art as “chains of flashing images” are evident in the
majority of Ginsberg’s volume of work.
The Beginning
Bob Dylan arrived in New York City in 1961, following in the footsteps of Woody Guthrie, and Allen
Ginsberg returned there in December 1963. Through
Al Aronowitz, the journalist and their shared acquaintance, the two poets met.
“I first met Bob at a party at the Eighth
Street Book Shop, and he invited me to go
on tour with him. I ended up not going, but,
boy, if I’d known then what I know now, I’d
have gone like a flash. He’d probably have
put me onstage with him.” (New York, early
1960s)
“His image was undercurrent, underground, unconscious in people ... some88
Beatdom
Father
&
Son
thing a little more mysterious, poetic, a little more Dada, more where
people’s hearts and heads actually were
rather than where they ‘should be’ according to some ideological angry theory.” (San
Francisco, 1965)
Both excerpts from Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995, A. Ginsberg (Harper Perennial:
2001)
Ginsberg praised Dylan’s work as returning poetry
to the human body through the medium of music.
As well as appearing in Renaldo and Clara and Subterranean Homesick Blues, he wrote three poems in
praise of Dylan and wrote the sleevenotes of Desire:
“Big discovery, these songs are the culmintation of
Poetry-music as dreamt of in the 50s & early 60s.”
And according to Mel Howard, “Allen saw Dylan
rightly connected to the whole tradition of the Beat
movement, and through that to earlier poets.”
And on the sleevenotes of Bringing it All Back
Home, Dylan wrote, “why allen ginsberg was not
chosen to read poetry at the inauguration boggles
my mind.”
Burgeoning Friendship
In November 1971, Ginsberg and Dylan collaborated on songs intended for an as yet unreleased album
called Holly Soul Jelly Roll. The songs exist in bootleg form online, and most are available through the
PennSound project (see Beats Online section).
The songs, or album, consist of the jointly written
‘Vomit Express’, ‘September on Jessore Road’ and
‘Jimmy Berman’, as well as William Blake poems
set to music and several poems written by Ginsberg
Allen
Ginsberg
&
Bob Dylan
by David S Wills
himself.
Throughout, Ginsberg takes lead vocals with Dylan
on guitar, harmonica and backing vocals. The songs
were recorded at the Record Plant in New York.
The pair also performed five songs, including
‘September on Jessore Road’ and William Blakes’
‘Nurse’s Song’ and ‘A Dream’, on PBS-TV, New
York. The songs were recorded in the PBS-TV studios in October, and featured Peter Orlovsky and
Gregory Corso on vocals, alongside David Amran
and Happy Traum.
Such joint collaborations further blur the image of
Ginsberg as Dylan’s father, and throws light on their
mutual respect for one another.
However, another perspective of their relationship
is that of Ginsberg doing as Cassady and Burroughs
did and bridging the gap between the generations
and movements of the latter half of the twentieth
century. Whereas Cassady joined forces with the
Merry Pranksters and the Psychedelic Generation,
and Burroughs entered into experimentations with
music and artists of later periods, Ginsberg moved
from the Beat 50s into the Protest 60s, influencing
and working alongside the epitome of protest culture
and social change, Bob Dylan.
Indeed, after meeting Dylan, Ginsberg enter into
a period of unrivalled social and political activism, joining forces with Norman Mailer to defend
Burroughs’ The Naked Lunch, testifying in support of Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures, supporting the movement for the legalisation of cannabis,
demonstrating for freedom of sexuality and against
capitalism. As Graham Caveney said, “If Dylan was
beginning to provide the soundtrack for the counterculture, Ginsberg gave it both a face and the networks which were essential in sustaining its momentum.”
Rolling Thunder Revue
In 1975 Dylan set out upon his Rolling Thunder
Revue tour, which he was to film and turn into Renaldo and Clara. The tour was one of small gigs, no
more than three thousand people, blending theatre
and music, and in between gigs the tour bus would
see filming of scenes and actions that Dylan would
later cut together. The whole film was intended to
cut live concert footage with a story that was written
by a scriptwriter, but diverged and took a life of its
own. Originally it was a collection of images from
Dylan’s life and dreams, told mystically and surrealistically, in the manor of his poetry.
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89
According to organiser Lou Kemp, the original
group of musicians “would go out at night and run
into people, and we’d just invite them to come with
us. We started out with a relatively small group of
musicians and support people, and we ended up with
a caravan.”
On stage, during the opening night, Ginsberg joined
in singing ‘This Land is Your Land,’ and in subsequent shows he would act as both poet and harmonist. However, although Ginsberg accompanied the
Rolling Thunder Revue for most of its run, many of
his poetry readings were cut from the stage to keep
the shows to reasonable lengths. One major exception was the performance in Clinton State Prison,
where Rubin Carter, the boxer about whom ‘Hurricane’ was written, and whose defence case the tour
was raising funds for, was incarcerated. During this
show, Ginsberg’s poetry recitations were included.
Two of the film’s most well known scenes depict
Ginsberg as mentor to Dylan – in Lowell, explaining
the Catholic notion of the Stations of the Cross, and
during their visit to Kerouac’s grave. These scenes
explore Ginsberg’s religious views as a teacher, albeit a Catholic guide rather than as a Buddhist. And
in other scenes Kerouac and Beat poetry are discussed, furthering the image of Ginsberg as a major
influence upon Dylan.
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Beatdom
&
So looking back upon the relationship between the
two poets, it’s hard to stick to the conventional analysis of their relationship as that of a father-son, oneway influence. Rather they can be viewed as akin to
brothers, or hell, why not just call them friends, as
they in fact were? Sure, maybe Dylan learned more
from Ginsberg, but they interacted and collaborated,
and they respected one another. Dylan may have
discovered the works of Ginsberg before Ginsberg
discovered Dylan’s, but Beat poetry was far from
his only influence, and Ginsberg learned much from
Dylan, and together they helped bring the Beat spirit
into the sixties and further a new generation of social
activism and art.
The Significance of Vagrants
On American Literature
by David S Wills
America has always been a nation of expansion, of
travelling and growing and moving… Founded by
explorers from across the Atlantic, pushing West and
South, over deserts and mountains and forests, to the
very limits of the continent… And into this frontier
philosophy falls the place of the hobo, the vagrant,
the bum… The rail-riding, independent, footloose
man of America: as happy in the wilderness as in
the city; as content to watch his nation pass from
the side of a train as watching cars from the side of
the road… These downtrodden and beaten figures
have always been outcasts of society, yet they have
a special place in the heart of the nation as brave
troubadours who have shaped the cultural history of
the country.
American literature and music is rife with hobo writers and characters – Walt Whitman, Jack London,
John Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, Jack Kerouac, Bob
Dylan, Bruce Springsteen… They may not always
be seen as the average American, but their influence
upon America is undeniable. They celebrate and
bring to popular culture the wandering cult of freedom, independence and exploration.
If one can put aside modern, preconceived notions
of what America stands for – greed, aggression, oppression – then what remains is the transcendentalist
idealism of rugged independence, true freedom, and
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Beatdom
communing with nature. This is a far cry from that
which Ginsberg railed against, but certainly informs
the sense of loss that inspired his anger at a government that had turned the world against all Americans.
And before, during and after the Beat period, the
American government certainly appeared to be
seeking out and destroying all that pioneering settlers and founders had dreamt of. Any variation upon
the standard, government endorsed view of national
identity and individual rights, was denounced as UnAmerican and Communist. Yet all through history,
we see the outstanding pieces of literature questioning such ideology.
But the Beat Generation and subsequent offshoots
and related movements leant towards an alternative
approach. They actively sought to create their own
little space in the world, without overthrowing the
dominant views. They wanted a hedonistic lifestyle,
and they didn’t originally protest for the right to live
their way. Rather, they just did what they wanted
and bore the brutal consequences. It seemed useless
to try and to fail by creating a new and wrong regime
that would dictate the lives of the people. “You can’t
fight City Hall,” Kerouac said. “It keeps changing its
name.” It was only really through Ginsberg’s later
endeavours that protest took the form of subculture
disquiet. The Beats tended to write the world as they
saw it – in much the same way as Jackson Pollock
painted in the confused, mad style of the world in
which he lived.
And it was through living the way that they wanted
that texts emerged that celebrated a way of life that
had been American since the beginnings – the wandering free vagabonds that civilised folks looked
down upon, but who so obviously embodied a frightening idealism that took hold in the early days of the
nation’s founding.
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and John Steinbeck’s
The Grapes of Wrath both celebrate a footloose lifestyle free of possession, while critical of government
and dominant views. Of course, the same can be said
of Bob Dylan, though it seems ridiculous to even
need point that out.
And although it is clear to see many Beats’ respect
for downtrodden and free-wandering individuals,
and their disrespect for conformity and a system that
would electro-shock those it deemed mentally unfit
for society, it was most famously Kerouac who accurately and famously documented their existence
and worth.
Starting with On the Road, Kerouac was more than
willing to cast off the shackles of life and throw himself at the mercy of nature and his fellow human beings. He was eager for the life of a man with nothing
tying him down, and with care only for that which
made life worth living. He was content to become
homeless, to ride the rails, sleep on the beach and
hitch rides within anyone who cared to share their
transport. All he wanted was pleasure and company
and excitement in his life. Dean Moriarty was the ultimate hobo – a con-artist and hedonist, riding from
one end of the country to the other, just for shits and
giggles. And ole Sal was happy to come along, to
take work when he needed money to move on, to
experiment with a little fun, and just to be as free
as it was possible to be in America. Kerouac shows
us the world from the perspective of that guy on the
side of the road, or riding the rails, or bumming a
quarter, chasing skirt, getting drunk, smoking tea,
and prowling the negro streets at dawn…
And if we take The Dharma Bums, then we see another sort of hobo. Japhy Ryder, the Buddhist nature
man based upon Gary Snyder, is in stark contrast to
Ray Smith’s (Kerouac’s) city life of drink and drugs
and neon lights. He is happy surrounded by wilderness and free of possession and consumerist culture.
The title itself suggests a strong link between Eastern philosophy and American vagrancy, something
that informed the Transcendentalists a century before. Kerouac clearly sees a spirituality in the life of
social outsiders and homeless wanderers.
“Colleges being nothing but grooming schools for
the middleclass non-identity which usually finds its
perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in
rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television
sets in each living room with everybody looking at
the same thing and thinking the same thing at the
same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness...” [The Dharma Bums: 1958]
In Lonesome Traveller, Big Sur and Desolation Angels, the theme is continued. In the titles alone we can
see a respect for solitude and nature, and a beautiful
link between the two ideas. The connection between
travelling, the American wilderness and spirituality
is impossible to ignore.
No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself
and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
Learning for instance, to eat when he’s hungry and
sleep when he’s sleepy. [Lonesome Traveller: 1960]
Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway,
why not live for fun and joy and love or some sort
of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and
LAUGH... [Big Sur: 1962]
Migrant Mother, Dorothy Lange
These two quotes say it all. They’re hardly necessary to elaborate upon, as Kerouac summarises so
sussinctly the Beat/ Hobo philosphy.
It’s easy to get lost in the accepted ideas of hobos
as mooching degenerates, too lazy to contribute to
society or literature, but they stand as reminders of
something important that was lost, and as something
beautiful that is so casually painted with a distasteful brush. Hobos are as much a part of America as
Guantanimo Bay and George W Bush, and as central
to American literature as prosperity and freedom.
Beatdom
93
By
Da
vid
SW
ill
s
Barry
Gifford is a name
with which many Beat and
film noir fans will be familiar. He
wrote Jack’s Book: An Oral Biography in
1978, and it immediately became one of the
essential Beat reference texts. Jack’s Book takes
the form of a collection of stories from the mouths
of Kerouac’s friends, family and other people that
knew or met him, and it largely cuts through the
facts and dates and critical analysis that other Kerouacian studies have, to reveal an intimate portrait of the man himself. Gifford is also a fiction writer, heavily influenced by both Beat
and noir. His style is said to be that of the
Beats, while the backdrop to his novels
is distinctly one resembling
that commonly seen in film
noir. He is perhaps most well
known for his Sailor and Lula
series, from which Wild at
Heart was adapted to a movie
by David Lynch. Gifford also
wrote the screenplay Lynch’s
Lost Highway. The name Barry
Gifford was suggested to me as
a potential interviewee by someone at Dollyhead Books. I knew of
Jack’s Book, but I didn’t immediately
click to who Gifford was until I did a
little Googling. I found his e-mail address and he gladly agreed to a short
interview.Unfortunately, Virgin Media tried to stop the interview from
going ahead, by cutting our broadband and phone services, over
a bill which had
been
paid…
But that’s another story for
another day…
And
despite
their best efforts, Mr. Gifford was still
willing to be
interviewed after being made
to wait several
days, disrupting his busy
schedule.
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Beatdom
An Interview With Barry Gifford
D.W: How did the Beat Generation literary styles influence your own writing?
B.G: Kerouac and Ginsberg were great inspirations to me. Kerouac took his early style in The
Town and The City from Thomas Wolfe and tried
to conflate it with Dreiser and others. His later style
he adapted from Joyce. I did not follow his autobiographical form, the best of which, other than
his own, was Louis-Ferdinand Celine. The beats
were more of a lifestyle influence and held out the
possibility that anything can happen and should.
D.W: How willing were Kerouac’s friends and associates to be interviewed for the Oral Biography?
B.G: Everyone we found was willing to be interviewed. Only two asked for money, Gary
Snyder and Gregory Corso. Instead of paying Corso, a friend of mine agreed to substitute
his own piss for a urine sample of Gregory’s so
that Gregory could get his methadone in Paris.
D.W: You have said that many figures you
have spoken to who are normally considered
related to the Beat Generation were reluctant to be labelled Beats, but that they needed
to be labelled so to gain recognition. Did do
feel that Kerouac also shared this reluctance?
B.G: At first he did, when he considered it a derogatory term. After he redefined it as stemming from beatitude, he embraced it publicly.
D.W: What would you say of the relationship between film noir and the Beat Generation literature?
B.G: Nothing. I don’t see any connection.
D.W:
your
And finally, could you describe
friendship
with
Allen
Ginsberg?
B.G: I first met Allen in 1966 in London. I remained
friendly with him until he died. He published a book
of poems, Sad Dust Glories, with a small press I
edited with another guy; and of course I edited the
book As Ever, the collected correspondence of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, working on it with
Allen. He was always very generous and affectionate with me, as he was with almost everybody.
Beatdom
95
New York lights
by Paul Kay
Love begins with a big bang. A big bang coming out
of a big beat. A big burst of light is shot out into
the soul of the romantic Thump, thump thump goes
the heart. Follow it. Jive with that beat bursting out.
Take it for a walk.
Strutted down 5th avenue getting a contact high
from every smile passing by. Cracked a laugh at
the tourists from South Carolina looking at me with
wild eyes. I‘ve been turned into the hero of dreams.
A man walking on thin air with nothing out of reach
except good credit. I kept on walking, snapping my
fingers. Gave a cigarette to a blonde girl and she
gave me a kiss on the cheek. Everything can touch
you if you want it to.
Coming up on 30th Street I saw a beautiful woman
sitting inside the Starbucks glaring at me through the
window. I walked in and ordered a five dollar coffee, sat down at the table next to her and pretended
to read. She seemed occupied with her writing, but
kept looking over. She dropped her pen on purpose
and I picked it up.
“You look familiar” I said.
“Oh yeah? I just moved here from France to study,”
she replied.
“What are you studying?”
“Arthur Rimbaud. Are you familiar with his
work?”
“He’s the one who wrote about getting drunk and
pissing in the street.”
“Yes, one of the great romantics.” she said smiling
brighter than ever.
After three cups of coffee she told me her name was
Olivia. Her bright red hair flowed over the tight custom designed flower dress. Her flawless body kept
wiggling in the chair as she spoke. Whenever she
laughed her happiness filled the room. The smile
that Olivia carried on her face was enough to get out
of a hundred parking tickets.
What had I done to deserve an afternoon with her?
The guys at the table next to us were probably wondering the same thing. All of a sudden I started spilling my guts out to her. I don’t know if it was the
caffeine or her charms, but my thoughts poured out
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of me like a drunk to a priest.
“I’m really worried about what I’m going to do after
I get done with school,” I said.
“I’m going to a two year acting school and it’s expensive as hell. I just don’t know what I should do.”
She smiled very calmly while my whole body
twitched nervously. The king of dreams had disappeared and a worried little boy took his place. I
wanted to marry this woman. I didn’t care about dating or getting to know each other. I wanted to marry
her and move into a small house…Oklahoma for all
I care. I didn’t need anything else but her smile and
a record player.
She grabbed my hand and leaned closer to me. Her
blue eyes stared into mine and I was hypnotized. My
breathing slowed down and my heart rate got normal
again.
“You worry too much” she whispered. “Everything
will be okay. Just don’t worry so much.”
As she spoke I realized that she must be an angel.
A person has flaws and problems and she was truly
pure.
As she left the coffee shop I had the same satisfying
feeling one gets after making love with a princess.
My whole world had been changed by just one burst
of light. A new found sense of confidence and hope
for the future. If so much change can happen to me
by just one conversation with a stranger, think about
how much change can happen with ten more.
I couldn’t stop smiling as I started walking down the
street once again. I couldn’t wait to meet the next
angel on my way. I jumped onto the subway heading for Central Park. I am truly alive when meeting new people and sharing beauty with them. Next
stop, eternity.
Eternity seems pretty easy to say till passing the Plaza Hotel’s doorway. Watching all the millionaires in
the depth of a spending spell. Quiet desperation with
enough money to cover up the sadness. Holding onto
their credit cards instead of their hearts. The world is
spinning us all, twisting and turning even the poor.
It takes heart not money to twirl around this giant
burning bright
merry-go-round.
I met up with Mike where we usually hang out in the
park. Sitting cool and calm in his wheelchair next to
the pond. Up on the Gapstow Bridge, children were
running and fighting while annoyed mothers tried to
get them to unwind.
Mike was laughing at them while a stream of smoke
poured from his small cigar and into the heavens.
Never being able to walk hasn’t stopped him from
being king of his universe. King Mike of Manhattan
sitting in his portable throne. He is always the first
to start up conversations with strangers stepping into
sight. Bringing smiles and passion into the night.
“This is my dream and anyone drifting in my direction must be here for a reason” he always says.
Sometimes the conversations he starts sound quite
random, beautiful poetic randomness.
The other day we were on the subway and he noticed
a girl reading a book about finding the right man. He
rolled his wheelchair up next to her and stared into
her eyes.
“You’ll never find the right man if you stay buried in
that book. Look at all the lonely faces on this train.
They all want a girl like you.”
She glared back at him wearing a smile that had been
locked in the closet for years. She had the bright
green eyes of a romantic gone to pieces after too
much heartbreak. Dave’s voice causes all women to
shudder, and he is envied by many of the romantics
in our crowd.
Mike was an angel to many on the New York City
subway trains. He came into their lives for just
enough time to show them hope and then vanishedwheelchair and all. He believed that his dream was
run by the world and couldn’t stick around with one
person for too long. Once he inspired a soul, he had
to move on.
He was always full of energy and light, but not today. As he sat there staring into infinity, it looked
like all hope was gone.
“I’m tired, Paul” he said while flicking his cigar into
the pond.
Mike tried getting up from his chair but fell straight
onto the ground. He began crawling towards the
pond, using his arms as rows.
“What are you doing, man?” I asked.
“Trying to get wet. Wash myself of these troubles.
Maybe the pond will heal me. Holy water.”
“You’re talking crazy. Let’s go down to Desmonds
and get a beer,” I said while trying to get him back
to the chair.
“Get off me! I don’t need your help. I don’t need
anyone’s help.”
Mike seemed very serious about getting into the
pond. He flip flopped around like a caught fish trying to get back into the sea.
“Well I need your help. Just look at me for one second! I had an experience earlier today which I don’t
understand. I had coffee with this girl and I think she
was god,” I said
He stopped dead in his tracks about two feet away
from the water.
“Come on, Mike. Let’s get you back in your chair
and go get a beer.”
He turned around towards me and began laughing.
“God? You think she was god?”
“Yes, I really do. She couldn’t have been human.”
Mike’s laugh got louder and he rolled onto his
back.
“Okay, Paul. Help me back into my chair. I think you
need that beer more than I do.”
We headed back towards 5th Avenue as if nothing
had happened. Mike seemed to know all the answers
to the universe, but I guess even prophets need a little help sometimes. I followed him back to his building and agreed to meet up later on.
I started walking down 5th avenue, the same street
I’ve gone down thousands of times. Smiled again
at the tourists, much like the other times. Snapped
my fingers in the same rhythm as I had the other
times. I began to think about how I made a difference to Mike, a feeling I certainly haven’t felt on
other times. It felt good. An angel of New York.
Snap, snap, snap.
Beatdom
97
Alcoholic
Depravity
By Ammon Baker
“I feel like I’m on to something here,” I mumble before gulping down the rest my Sapphire Gin.
I was on to something; I was on the verge of an entire
new reality. The bare-naked truth of what there definitely was and most definitely was not. The realization that my dreams and aspirations were dead did
not truly take hold until the clock struck two. “LAST
CALL,” the barkeep shouted. There I was in a state
of complete ambiguity, or is that the wrong word, perhaps I was ambivalent, to say the least. In either case,
my alcohol was gone.
Hunter S. Thompson voice. All I needed were the
large pilot glasses and a baldhead hopped up on drugs
running around with a famous biker gang.
I believe it had been service from the bleached
blonde-haired girl that put me in this gonzo attitude.
Bad service among other things has a bad habit of
bringing out the worst in people, and in this case,
sometimes the best. Perhaps it was something as
insignificant as the uneven lighting of room. Most
greatly, however I knew it was my realization of the
depravity of this woman. She believed that she was
humping the American dream in showing off a great
ass, and cleavage for money by horny young males.
All she had to do was bring those horny bastards alcohol and tobacco…maybe a lap dance. MTV would
have her believe that if the opposite sex wants to fuck
her, then she is somehow successful in obtaining that
dream. Sadly, the only interest I had was getting another drink before they locked up the booze. The real
American dream in action.
My skin was red from earlier that day. Some good
idea fairy, hopped up on some sort of drug that can’t
even be described, hit this Bill Clinton hero wanna-be
a few days before. This man set off a chain of events
that led to the total annihilation of all that was good
and pure in those children’s hearts. They poisoned
those kids before they even knew what happened.
Brand new, for a limited time only, green-aprons and
flat soda for everybody, all in the name of shadowiness just like the soul of the beast.
I sat back to take it all in. Recognizing this reality’s
implications is hard to take sober, but much more
Shadowiness describes a whole number of emotions, difficult to take with a head full of gin, huka, and a
lightings, and the mentalities of not only my mood, massive erection ready to rip out of my pants. Even
but the waitress as well…all I want is another drink upon recognizing this certainty, any man would still
goddamn it. The room was a shadow, decorated in be subject to the whims of their gender.
some sort of mix between one of those Americanized
far east restaurants that claim to be authentic, and Despite my gonzo attitude, I really had been on to
one of those American restaurants trying to be hip by something. Nevertheless, the clock struck two and
throwing heaps of shit all over the walls. Luckily, was all the intelligible metaphysical leaps and bounds my
too dark to see this third circle of hell, for it was a brain had comprehended, a completely new reality. A
muted likeness of the society that created it.
brand new world that would make John Stewart Mill
envious, it was on the horizon. Change was in the air
“The only real danger is that you eventually step over and on the horizon of this city on a hill. The only danthe edge,” I mumbled in some sort of terror stricken ger was that I would eventually step over the edge.
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Beatdom
ADVERTISEMENT
Chris Felver
Celebrating the release
of his new book BEAT
published by Last Gasp
For over three decades, photographer and filmmaker Christopher Felver has documented outstanding figures of the Beat Generation, the mid-twentieth century writers and artists whose work shared themes of
spirituality, environmental awareness, and political dissidence. Fifty years ago, the historic publication of
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road heralded a new direction for post-WWII American culture. In poetry, art, and
music, these movers and shakers captured the world’s imagination, and are now regarded as significant
artists, outliving the catchall label, “Beat Generation.” A collection of images, text, ephemera, artifacts,
and reminiscence, Beat celebrates the creative spirit and joyous antics of this extraordinary group. The
personalities that defined this new sensibility, ushered in by Allen Ginsberg’s 1955 San Francisco reading
of his poem Howl, are all present in Beat, with contributions by Kerouac, Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, David
Amram, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, Gregory Corso, William S.
Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, and Diane di Prima.
Beatdom
99
Credo
We are again a beaten generation, suffering amid unrivalled prosperity… Lost in
ignorance in a time of education… Confused and controlled and taught too many
things… Tamed by a world of passivity and
acceptance, obscured by pretensions and
the illusion of revolution… We are tired of
the benefits wrought by the Beats and the
generations and movements they inspired…
Ours is a generation looking to the past, like
theirs, but lost in the present and uncaring for
the future, I suppose, like them… Beatdom
examines the Beat Generation in depth, but
looks at the world around us through eyes
created by our predecessors, and exploits
the talents of people learning from the artists
of the past, struggling to survive in a world
of apathy… Beatdom is indulgence and sorrow combined and confused and seeking
clarity and union and that sense of community that’s garnered by something as simple
as a label… Beatdom is in good company,
downtrodden all, and fighting for the preservation of the past and the highlighting of the
failures and injustices of the present, though
sceptical of even contemplating the future…