Group photo from the 1982 On the Road Jack Kerouac Conference in Boulder WITH UPDATED KEY 1-3-17

As The Daily Beat readers know, an epic Kerouac event occurred at the end of July in 1982. Held in Boulder, Colorado, "On the Road: The Jack Kerouac Conference" took place at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus and was sponsored by The Naropa Institute. The conference, in celebration of the 25-year anniversary of the publication of On the Road, featured almost every living Beat celebrity/scholar and Kerouac-related person of note (as evidenced by the posters below).*

But you knew all that. However, you may not have seen the following picture from the conference. It was recently sent to me by attendee Gerry Nicosia, author of Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac (he's in the front row with legs crossed, two over from Burroughs).

Group photo of the speakers at the 1982 On the Road 25-year-anniversary Kerouac conference. Photo by Lance Gurwell, courtesy of Gerald Nicosia. Click here to purchase an original from the photographer.

Gerry provided the following key to the photo. If you can fill in any blanks, let us know.

Back row: from left: Paul Jarvis (son of Charles Jarvis from Lowell, who wrote Visions of Kerouac); unidentified man (with face partially obscured); Clark Coolidge (with glasses); Jack Micheline; Ann Charters; Sam Charters; Paul Krassner (standing slightly forward of Sam Charters); Timothy Leary; unidentified woman; unidentified man (tall, with glasses); Abbie Hoffman

Middle row: from left: Anne Waldman; Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Fernanda Pivano (Italian translator of Kerouac and Ginsberg); John Clellon Holmes (seated); Robert Creeley (seated); Peter Orlovsky (seated) ; Allen Ginsberg (seated); Al Aronowitz (journalist who did the first major 12-part series on the Beats in the New York Post) (seated)

Front row: Larry Fagin (seated cross-legged on floor); Fran Landesman (seated on long sofa); Carolyn Cassady (seated on lap of Fran's husband Jay); Jay Landesman (with sunglasses, holding Carolyn); Gerald Nicosia; Regina Weinreich; William S. Burroughs

Gerry plans on writing up his memories of the conference for a future post here at The Daily Beat. We can't wait.



*Attendee Brian Hassett even wrote a book about the event titled, The Hitchhiker's Guide to Jack Kerouac (available at Amazon).

Did Jack Kerouac say Merry Christmas?

I was thinking just now that this might be my last post before December 25, which is known by some as Christmas Day. Others don't acknowledge this except to say that it is an affront to non-Christians to wish someone "Merry Christmas." Nevertheless, we feel duty-bound to extend some sort of holiday greeting in advance of the big day, so let's look at it through a Kerouac lens.

Here at The Daily Beat we try to stay away from conflict as much as possible, but one does wonder how Jack Kerouac would view the "war on Christmas." This metaphorical war is not as new as you might think if you believe Politico, which points out that Henry Ford complained about it as did the John Birch Society as far back as 1959 (when Jack was still alive).

Some argue that the abbreviation, "Xmas," is part of that war, a blatant effort to remove Christ from Christmas (never mind the historical reality that Jesus was likely not born anywhere near December 25). Well, Jack used that abbreviation (e.g., see his letter to Lucien Carr postmarked December 14, 1957). But, he also spelled it out (e.g., see his letter to Philip Whalen dated December 16, 1960). Some will point to our lead-in graphic as part of the war on Christmas, Santa Claus being a secularization of the holiday.

There is no dispute that Jack was a Catholic (a Christian) through-and-through. In his piece in the New York World Telegram on December 5, 1957, "Not Long Ago Joy Abounded at Christmas," he writes that "Christmas was observed all-out in my Catholic French-Canadian environment in the 1930s" (click here for an excerpt or read it all in Good Blonde & Others). But also in that piece he bemoans the loss of celebrating Christmas with a "naive and joyous innocence" as it had been before World War II.

No doubt Jack was raised quite Christmas-observant, and it is certain that he wished others a "Merry Christmas." In a December 18, 1966 letter to Jim and Dorothy Sampas, he wished them a "pretty Christmas in Iceland." In a December 13, 1967 letter to Nick Sampas, he concluded with "Merry Christmas."*

The latter is pretty solid evidence of Jack's practice. And so, as is our wont, we shall defer to this question (the thesis of my book) -- "What would Kerouac do?" -- in figuring out how to convey holiday greetings to our readers. We wish you a Merry Christmas, with the understanding that we intend no offense to atheists, Buddhists (like Jack), Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus. or followers of the other 4,200 religions in the world. Our thing is Kerouac, and we bend to that reality to a fault.

We'll leave you with a teaser. Given this post, if we post between December 25th and 31st we will have posted at least once a week for a year. That will make a good "streak" for us, and we hope to keep it up in 2017. Thanks for your readership, and look for a year-ending post next week. What a year it was....



*We avoided getting into Jack's novels for evidence for obvious reasons: roman à clef novels cannot be depended on for accurate reporting of facts. Letters, on the other hand, are quite dependable as representative of a person's actual words. By the way, if you have other examples, written or recorded, of Jack saying "Merry Christmas," let us know in the comments.

Jack Kerouac and Search Engine Optimization

I think I have posted at least once a week for the entire year (so far), and there aren't many weeks left in 2016. Thanks go to my friend, Kathleen Thompson, for inspiring me with her motivational book, The Project-Driven Life: How To Figure Out What You Want To Be When You Grow Up (click here to buy it). While you're at Amazon ordering Kath's book, think about ordering my book, The Beat Handbook: 100 Days of Kerouactions (click here). They both make great gifts -- something to think about for the approaching gift-ridden holiday.

I guess for this to count as a post and not a self-serving advertisement, I need to include some content of one sort or another. Hmmm.... Let me think.

Well, how about a screenshot of the first few things that come up on Google when I search for "Jack Kerouac." Keep in mind that Google searches are customized to the user, so if you search for that term your results will likely vary. Anyway, here is what my results look like. How are yours different?

Interestingly, I went 20 pages in on this search and still hadn't seen a single result from this blog, which I claim is the most Kerouac-obsessed on the planet. And that is despite over 22,000 pageviews last month. But perhaps blogs don't typically rise to the top of Google searches.

Just for fun, I Googled a specific blog post title (Jack Kerouac and the Tao of fried eggs), and it was the first search result. Specificity helps.

The top four search results -- Jack's Wikipedia entry, UMass Lowell's Kerouac page, The Academy of American Poets, and The Beat Museum -- make sense earning top search honors. Hell, they have Jack Kerouac in their URL. That can't hurt. Plus there are other mystical and magical things that web managers do -- all unknown to me -- to move their sites' search rankings to the top. It's called Search Engine Optimization, and it's a business. Everything is a business. In today's economy you could monetize used toilet paper with the right inside knowledge.

Which brings me to an idea: I think I'll add a permanent section to the sidebar of this blog that contains links to what I consider to be authoritative Jack Kerouac websites. That is, places to go for information about Jack that you can depend on (mostly -- there is no certainty in this life).

That's it for today (or this week). If you haven't done it yet, Google "Jack Kerouac" and see what comes up. Let us know in a comment.

Jack Kerouac and the Tao of fried eggs

TRIGGER WARNING:

QUASI-POLITICAL RHETORIC APPEARS IN UPCOMING PASSAGES.

I was eating fried eggs for breakfast Saturday morning and I caught myself thinking about how much I liked the yolk. Next thought (a question): Why couldn't an egg be all yolk -- wouldn't that be perfect?

Answer: Of course not. It's a yin/yang thing. No good without evil, no light without dark. No love without hate. No yolk without the white.

Which brought me to Kerouac -- as Kerouac seems to be my religion -- and speaking of religion and Kerouac I decided to page through Some of the Dharma (Penguin, 1997), a book one does not simply sit down and read straight through (at least I don't, or can't). Quite a few passages jumped out at me in my skimming and I thought I'd share them.

I don't want to be a drunken hero of the generation suffering everywhere
   with everyone---
I want to be a quiet saint living in a shack in solitary meditation
   of universal mind---  (p. 63)

What Jack aspired to and what he did were in conflict, but weren't they just the yolk and the white -- party-mad boozehound and ascetic religious hermit -- in one  person?

The following seemed instructive:

Only 2 things to do and 1 to be: 

      1. Necessity
      2, Teaching
      3, Be kind (p. 73)

Not a bad credo and of late we could certainly use number 3, at least in America.

Speaking of America, this passage resonated:

If, as Burroughs insists, "Buddhism is not for the West," then I get a great vision of the whole Western World filled with the ignorant and simple-minded (p. 101).

I'll let that speak for itself in light of recent events here. Later on, Jack says, "BOYCOTT IGNORANCE." Twice (on p. 166).

I wish.

How about Jack's "A B C' s of Truth"?

A    Creamy thighs of beautiful young girl =

B     Baby crying because it doesn't want to be born = 

C     Corpse decaying in the grave (p. 159)

Ouch. We're born just to die.

Speaking of death, on p. 257, out of the blue, Kerouac says, "Walkin in Jerusalem, just like John...". I assume he was thinking about the old spiritual (which I know from the bluegrass genre), but, specifically, was he thinking about John's exhortation to be ready for judgment day when the New Jerusalem comes down from above (foreseen by John in Revelations)? Or was Jack thinking about where Jesus walked on his final day, and of the Stations of the Cross in Lowell that he prominently featured in some of his writing? In any case, it's an odd bit to appear suddenly within the context of Buddhist teachings unless one understands the yolk of Catholicism and the white of Buddhism that made up Jack's spiritual essence.

Like the yolk and the white, there's life and there's death. Hope and fear. Knowledge and ignorance. Kindness and it's opposite, whatever that word may be. 

We get to choose what we focus on. Do we focus on the negative or on the positive? This is a bitter pill for me to swallow right now as I am admittedly seeing the glass half full. What I particularly need to do is make sure I don't drift toward depression and end up with the black dog following me around again. 

Toward that end, I will seek refuge in loved ones, friends, and things that make me smile like cats and beer and books and music and I will seek to limit my exposure to the dark stuff. Limit, not exorcise completely as there is work to do and one must be informed in order to do it.

Love is all! Whoever said that must have been a pretty smart person.

You. Happy Sunday to you.

The Jack Kerouac Facebook Group

If you're looking for a place in cyberspace that is all-Kerouac-all-the-time, think about joining the Jack Kerouac Group on Facebook. You'll see pictures like the above (allegedly Jack drinking outside the Kettle of Fish in the West Village on MacDougal Street in the fall of 1957). You'll see tributes to Jack. You'll see pictures of places Jack used to live. You'll see discussions of various Kerouacian matters that range from the academic to the sublime. You'll see a video archive, a photo archive, and a files archive, the latter including a variety of informative documents such as a Kerouac discography and a guide to Lowell places. You'll see over 8,000 members!

Dave Moore, Kerouac scholar extraordinaire from the U.K., is the main administrator of the group, and he contributes frequently. Other respected names in the Kerouac community are likewise well-represented.

If you want to be a member, and I hope you will, just visit this page and request to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/70595431200/.

If you're already a member, I give you the Kerouacian secret salute.

Jack Kerouac and The Hobo Ethical Code of 1889

Lee Marvin as hobo "A-No. 1" in Emperor of the North, a classic that may have been loosely based
in part on Jack London's The Road

Regular readers of The Daily Beat need no edification on the connection between Jack Kerouac and hobos (or hoboes, if you like -- both terms are acceptable). Back in 2010 we published a post containing a link to The Hobo Code, the hobo visual language used to communicate important information to each other (click here). That blog post also contains a list of hobo lingo. The former is from the National Hobo Museum and the latter is from Wikipedia. I have investigated the veracity of neither. Nevertheless, both may provide interesting glimpses into hobo culture.

I recently ran across this piece on Open Culture: The Hobo Ethical Code of 1889. It sets forth 15 rules for hobo living that were supposedly adopted by the Hobo National Convention (they still have one in Britt, Iowa -- click here). Jack, in his travels, certainly lived some of these rules. I'm thinking in particular about #1, "Decide your own life; don’t let another person run or rule you." Jack certainly marched to the beat of his own drummer. And #15 -- "Help your fellow hobos whenever and wherever needed, you may need their help someday." -- reminds me of the time he gave a shirt to a fellow hitchhiker (in On The Road) or selflessly shared his cigarettes, grub, booze, etc. with fellow travelers.* Jack lived other items in The Hobo Code as well. Can you identify them? For sure, Jack ignored #6: "Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals’ treatment of other hobos."

On a related note, if reading about life on the road -- particularly hobo life -- appeals to you, I recommend you read Jack London's The Road and Jack Black's You Can't Win. We've mentioned these books in previous posts. They are fascinating firsthand accounts of the hobo life, and were influential on Kerouac and other Beat writers. You can get London's book here. I didn't find a free version of Black's book on-line, but it's pretty cheap on Amazon and I'm sure other sites. I've read that the Robert Aldrich film, Emperor of the North, was loosely based on London's book and one about London by hobo author, Leon Ray Livingston, who went by the name A-No. 1. I haven't verified the latter beyond Wikipedia. We now live in a post-truth world anyway, so I'll be forgiven if I am perpetuating misinformation. Anyway, here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jn-ZS7g8xs. It's probably not an accurate representation of real hobo life, but I remember seeing it when it first came out and it made an impression on me, mostly because of the testosterone-fueled acting by Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine.

Note that some distinguish the term "hobo" from "tramp" and "bum" in that they see hobos as impoverished migrant workers, tramps as those who work only when they have to, and bums as those who don't work at all. From my readings, I'm not sure those distinctions hold water in reality. I try to explain that to my students all the time: we're a species that lives to categorize and yet those categorizations and resulting labels are not as precise in the real world as they seem in theory.

In any event, Jack Kerouac -- if not a hobo himself - lived a hobo-esque lifestyle at times and was not averse to hanging out with these itinerant masters of living on the cheap, beholden to no one and nothing except The Hobo Code.



*I know, I know. One should not assume that because Sal Paradise does something in On The Road that it actually happened in real life. However, in this case I think we an be confident that this or something like it was a Kerouaction (see The Beat Handbook).

Two new additions to the Jack Kerouac collection

Let the word go forth from this time and place that someone, depending on the timing of things, needs to make sure that my collection of Kerouac and Beat items (mostly books) doesn't get boxed up and given to Goodwill or the like when I leave this mortal coil. There are a number of items in there that are worth holding on to or at least selling. I guess I need to amend my will in that regard.

To wit, on the left above is my recently acquired (thanks, eBay) copy of New Editions 2, which is what Jack Kerouac was reading from at the Village Vanguard in 1957. It contains his piece, "Neal and the Three Stooges." This was printed by Pinchpenny Press in Berkeley and was limited to 1,000 copies. It's in rough shape, so it's worth less than a mint copy would bring, but it's worth a lot more than the $1.00 it cost in its day.

Jack Kerouac reading from New Editions 2 at The Village Vanguard, NYC, 1957

On the right above, and don't tell my grandson Hugh because it is a Christmas gift this year (which means it is still adding to the Dale Kerouac collection), is the KinderGuides version of On The Road. It is pretty neat the way they de-adult Jack's classic -- removing all the drinking, drugging, and sex -- and focus on the friendships, travel, and adventure. KinderGuides has a number of  "early learning guides to culture classics." See https://www.kinderguides.com/.

Oddly, this KinderGuide credits the illustrator, Rose Forshall (who did a nice job) but not whoever wrote the adapted text. See the example below.

Neither is there anything about permissions from the Kerouac Estate for publishing this. Interesting....

If  you have a young one on your shopping list, I recommend this KinderGuide. It's not a perfect re-telling, but it's good. And it's always cool to hold a little piece of history in your hand such as New Editions 2.

Happy reading!



P.S. I know I need to stop buying books and downsize for retirement, and I plan to do that at least with non-Kerouac items. I'm even reading a book on Kindle right now. Oh, the humanity....