Happy Belated Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is no stranger to Kerouac fans, and we here at The Daily Beat missed his 92nd birthday on March 24. Happy Belated Birthday to a beat generation icon!

Happy Birthday, Neal Cassady

Regular followers of The Daily Beat know that today is Neal Cassady's birthday. The "holy goof" would have been 85 today (that's how old both my father and mother were when they died, 20 years apart). Instead, he died at age 41 after attending a wedding in Mexico, cause officially "unknown" but drugs and/or alcohol were likely involved. He was 4 days short of being 42, so even Jack outlived him in age and even by the calendar.

Of course, we all know Neal as the real-life inspiration for the Dean Moriarty character in On The Road and Cody Pomeray in other Kerouac novels. If you haven't yet read Visions of Cody, it's time. Jack credits his writing style to Neal's spontaneous prose he sent to Kerouac in long rambling letters, the most famous one being lost (the "Joan Anderson letter," mentioned in this blog previously). After a falling out between the two, Neal went on to notoriety as the driver of Ken Kesey's bus, Furthur (for a trip into that world, read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe).

I'm currently reading Neal's autobiography, The First Third, and so far it's been an enjoyable glimpse into his childhood. Neal didn't leave behind much of a written literary legacy, but both his writing style and his memory will live on forever in Kerouac's roman a clef novels.

In honor of Neal's birthday today, my best advice to you is be spontaneous and dig life. Go go go!


P.S. By way of coincidence, today is also the birthday of my great friend, Keith, who introduced me to Kerouac in the first place. Synchronicity. HBD, Keith.

55

It seems impossible, but my 55th birthday is fast approaching (Dec. 11). Consequently, I decided to make out my impossible birthday present list.

1. A first edition, hardcover, signed copy of On The Road in mint condition
2. A first edition, hardcover, signed copy of The Dharma Bums in mint condition
3. 50 copies of The Beat Handbook selling on December 11
4. A Jack Kerouac Bobblehead Doll (given out by the Lowell Spinners in August 2003)
5. One of Jack's typewriters
6. An all-expenses-paid adventure trip to Desolation Peak
7. An original, autographed letter signed by Jack (available on eBay for a mere $18,000)
8. Any book written by and signed by Jack
9. A first edition of On The Road: The Original Scroll (Viking, 2007)
10. A review of The Beat Handbook in The New York Times

By the time Jack was 55, he'd been dead for 8 years, so I'll be doing a lot better than him. That rather makes gifts irrelevant, doesn't it?

Happy Birthday, Allen Ginsberg

Today is Allen Ginsberg's birthday, so we beat aficionados will be taking some time out of our day to read Howl or listen to Allen read it (click here).

Today's free-spirited youth wonder what the beat generation has to do with them. How ironic. Allen, forgive them for they know not whence they come.

And happy birthday!

Happy Birthday to me!

Today's post is all about me. It's my birthday!

If you go to Brainy History, you'll see that nothing too spectacular seems to have happened on this date in history.

Well, Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement from baseball on this date in 1951. I imagine that Jack Kerouac paid attention to that news, given his love of baseball.

From Douglas Brinkley's Windblown World, below is Jack's journal entry from December 11, 1947 (referencing his work on The Town and the City):

At 5 A.M. wrote 1500-words. Spent most of the night typing and re-working 3,000 words in the manuscript, and thinking of the structures. The world is a structure of souls, nein? And so on --

I have now officially outlived Jack by 6 years. However, life expectancy when Jack was born was around 57 years. For my birth year - 1955 - it was about 69. So Jack fell short of his life expectancy by about 10 years. I'm not trying to emulate Jack in this regard! That would only give me about 6 more years this go-around.

Oh-kay, enough morbid talk.

What do I want for my birthday? Well, Jack Kerouac books are always a winner. Books of any kind, in fact, as The Beat Handbook points out, make excellent gifts.

Speaking of my book, a fantastic gift would be for you to go to Amazon today and purchase one (or several)! Or, if you already own my book, a 5-star review on Amazon would be Kerouac-tastic! Or, give this blog a thumbs-up on Stumble (and a positive review). Or, I'd be equally thrilled with a happy birthday posting right here on Blogger. Your choice!

Happy Birthday to me! 53 years young today.

Happy Birthday to The Beat Handbook photographer

Crystal Bond, the famous beat photographer who took the picture of me (the author) featured on the cover of The Beat Handbook: 100 Days of Kerouactions, was born this very day. How cool to celebrate your birthday on the day this nation finally elects someone to the white house other than a white male!

Happy Birthday, Crystal. I love you!