"And when I die . . .

...and when I'm dead, dead and gone
There'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on"

Always loved the Blood, Sweat, & Tears version of this and just learned it was written by Laura Nyro. I was thinking of it when I read that Canadian folksinger Kate McGarrigle just died and they read from Kerouac's On the Road at her funeral. Click here to read the article.

So I guess I'm compiling a list for my "funeral." Not that I even want one; I'd prefer - when my time comes - that anyone who's left that gives a shit just get together and have a big old drunken bash at whatever my favorite watering hole happens to be at the time. But at whatever event takes place, read some Kerouac, play the BS&T song above, play some bluegrass music, and lift a glass of Bushmills (21-year-old single malt) in my memory. If anything else comes to my mind, I'll be sure to let you know.

You can tell a lot about a person by their funeral. Kate McGarrigle, I'm sorry to admit I wasn't clued in on your work while you were living, but now I want to check it out. You must have been something else.

The Beat Handbook author on TV

Dear Daily Beat fans and visitors,

If you want to see a video of yours truly appearing with his bluegrass band, The NitPickers, on TV last Friday night, click here.

The connection to this blog's professed topic? Why, the banjo player wrote a book about Jack Kerouac! How's that for a connection?

J.D. Salinger and Jack Kerouac

J.D. Salinger, who died this past week at age 91, and Jack Kerouac, who died at the too-young-age of 47 in 1969, did have something in common, according to Mike Littwin of The Denver Post:

There was a time when the book [Catcher in the Rye] was in every backpack alongside Kerouac's "On the Road" as textbooks for how to be a young rebel.

Both Salinger's and Kerouac's examples of rebelliousness can seem a bit tame in today's culture of extreme everything, but they both hit a chord that still speaks today to those who would listen to their message and not get hung up on cultural specifics.

I am sad to say that I've never read Catcher in the Rye, although I plan to begin rectifying that as soon as I finish Atlas Shrugged, which should be tomorrow.

I think Catcher was "required" reading at some point in high school, but somehow I avoided it. That was part of how, to my own detriment, my rebellious streak manifested: refusing to read when I was told I "had to." So, now, in my later years, I've become obsessed with Kerouac, who, like Salinger, I'd never read until well into middle age; I'm currently reading Ayn Rand's incredibly dense tome; and, I'm anticipating with relish finding out just who was this Holden Caulfield character, why he was out in a rye field, and what in the Hell he was catching.


P.S. If you want to read a poem I wrote about Salinger, check out my other blog here.

Jack Kerouac, Wendy's chili, and Lowell, MA

I just read in today's newspaper that a lumber truck driver was eating chili from Wendy's when he hit a bump, causing him to choke on the chili and pass out. His truck, at that point without a driver, ran into a house in Jack's hometown of Lowell, MA.

I'm not sure if Jack would have been a fan of Wendy's chili, but I do know this: if he were eating in a moving vehicle, he would have been a passenger, not the driver. As you know, Jack pretty much eschewed driving and never even got a license. His approach is an excellent strategy for avoiding a ticket for eating while driving, which the newspaper reports may be the outcome for the chili-eating truck driver.

Six degrees of Jack Kerouac strikes again.

Another book for the Kerouac shelf

My bookcase devoted to books by and about Jack Kerouac is getting pretty full, but that doesn't dissuade me from collecting. I just learned about a 2006 book called Action Writing: Jack Kerouac's Wild Form by Michael Hrebeniak. According to Westchester.com, it "was praised by Beat scholars and poets" (click here for the quote source and a scheduled reading by the author at Westchester Community College).

Here's a link to the book on Google books.

It's on my Wish List at Amazon! Hint, hint . . . .

Kerouac's time in Detroit

Click here to read a detailed description of Jack's time with first wife Edie Parker and his time spent in Detroit.

Jack Kerouac's FBI Files Part 4 - Conclusion

Here is the final part in the on-going saga of determining whether Jack Kerouac has an FBI file. As you can see by the letter above in response to my FOIPA request, the FBI was "unable to identify responsive main file records." Of course, one must put this in the context of the previous sentence: "We were not able to search all of the manual indices because the Boston and New York indices have been transferred to Headquarters and are not yet searchable."

What does it all mean? Jack Kerouac may have an FBI file and he may not.

One thing is for sure: if he does, I do not have a copy of it.

So much for clear, black-and-white answers to things.