The raison d'être of this blog

The raison d'être of this blog was originally to hawk my 2008 book, The Beat Handbook: 100 Days of Kerouactions (click HERE to get your own copy). Over time, it morphed into simply a Kerouac-obsessed blog. The Daily Beat, the title (which was suggested by my partner Crystal), can be misleading because except for the first few months I have not posted every day. I have posted a total of 1,946 times (including today) and this blog has seen 1,086,941 pageviews since I started tracking them (some time in October 2008, I think).

All of which is to say it's been a long, strange trip indeed. Along the way, I've sold books all over the world, reviewed other's books, interviewed famous and not-so-famous Beat characters, honored real-life characters from Kerouac's books on their birth and death dates, curated my Kerouac bookshelves, reprinted each day of my book with the accompanying passage from On The Road or The Dharma Bums, cited various resources, waxed eloquently about many Kerouac-related topics from professional wrestling to his death being a murder, recounted trips to Kerouac locations like Lowell, MA, and NYC and San Francisco, held a Beat poetry contest, quoted from Kerouac's books and had readers guess which one, made New Year's Resolutions ("Kerouac-o-lutions"), noted Kerouac items in the media, hosted guest bloggers, celebrated milestones such as reaching a million pageviews, made various "Today in history" posts, rewrote The Dharma Bums in one sentence per chapter, suggested Christmas gift ideas, and so on to the tune of 1,946 posts. There's much more and it's all available for reading by exploring the "Blog Archive" over there on the righthand side.

Thirteen years and counting and we're not done by a long shot. See you in my dreams . . . .