Blowing my own horn

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, an elder of mine (not a relation) - who often offered unsolicited advice about this and that - proffered that my bluegrass band was not as busy as it could be because we did not "blow our own horn" enough. I guess self-promotion must run against some of the values my parents instilled in me, because whenever I do it, some sort of guilty creepy feeling trickles down the back of my neck and deposits itself in my guts. I know for a fact that avoidance of that feeling kept me from capitalizing on many opportunities to sell my book. On the other hand, ignoring it brought me some wonderful opportunities. I would never have traded books with David Amram had I paid attention to my conditioning. Instead, I did the opposite (just like George Constanza in that brilliant Seinfeld episode) in a few instances and reaped some interesting rewards.

I was just checking my Sitemeter stats and realized that The Daily Beat is approaching 20,000 visitors (I started tracking visitors on October 25, 2008). That's pretty cool, I think. I haven't been posting of late as often as I did for the first year after my book came out, but I've been trying to average a post a week or even more. I noticed the other day that someone from Norway spent 24 minutes on The Daily Beat, and someone from the Tulane University server spent a few minutes as well. Perhaps they opened the page and went and made coffee (or got rid of coffee), but I can fantasize.

Anyway, I am wondering what kind of celebration might be in order for hitting 20,000. If you think of something cool, let me know.

On The Road unlikely to debut at Cannes in May

According to this article, the film version of On The Road is unlikely to makes its debut in May at Cannes this year. The article also contains some additional information of interest to fans. For example, contrary to early expectations, it will not be in black-and-white (good choice by director Salles). It features a great supporting cast (Viggo Mortensen, Steve Buscemi, Amy Adams, Alice Braga, to mention a few). They brought in some beat generation writings (Ginsberg, Burroughs) that weren't in Jack's novel. And, they tried to create 3-dimensional women characters (more kudos to Salles for that).

I, for one, cannot wait.

A poem for our "Governor"

Jack being a poet, I thought I'd share this poem I wrote today.

A Poem for “Governor” Paul LePage
by Rick Dale

To our petulant pompously presumptuous postulant potentate
Who perniciously proposes Presidential perdition
Who prevented poetic participation in his political pomp
Whose predecessor now appears profusely polished
Who prattles about his plutocratic pursuits
Who prefers people press lips to his portly posterior
Who pines to poison preschoolers with plastic
Who perpetuates patriarchy
Who pilfers paintings to piss off the populace, then plays in paradise
Who proffers preferential privileges for the presently prosperous

Pardon my peevishness
But I pray and plead:
Promptly part from your political position
Please!

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!

More On The Road film news

It looks like we'll get to see Kristen Stewart, playing Marylou, in the buff in the upcoming film version of On The Road. Click here for more info.

I'm not a big K-Stew fan, but I guess seeing her naked isn't a total turn-off (it remains to be "seen"). Let's look at the bright side, maybe this will spur an extra number of moviegoers to give the film a try, which will help lead to a revival of interest in Kerouac, which will lead to a huge uptick in sales of The Beat Handbook on Amazon.

In other words, Kristen Stewart naked = good news for The Beat Handbook.

See how my narcissism helps me see the bright side of things?

Six Degrees of Jack Kerouac: Harry Houdini

A big influence on young Jack was The Shadow, a popular pulp magazine of the 30s featuring a ghostly detective who could become invisible at will (allegedly via hypnotism). Today is Harry Houdini's 137th birthday (this fact brought to me courtesy of Google's graphic specific to this date), and I was wondering how many degrees of separation there are between Kerouac and Houdini.

Jack would have been about 4 years old when Houdini died, so they were not contemporaries in any meaningful sense. I don't remember if Jack mentions Houdini in his novels or letters (perhaps a Daily Beat reader can enlighten us); however, I did learn that the author who popularized The Shadow was Walter B. Gibson, and Gibson also wrote a couple of books about Houdini.

So there's your connection between Jack Kerouac and Harry Houdini. I wonder: Given his voracious reading habits, did Jack read any of Gibson's Houdini books?

Happy Belated Birthday, Jack Kerouac

Obviously, I have too much going on right now because I completely forgot to post about Jack's birthday on March 12. Perhaps it is of minor consolation that on that auspicious occasion I was in Hallowell partying at the Mardi Gras celebration with Crystal, a behavior Jack would definitely support. If you're jonesing for something to read about Jack's birthday, I posted more thoughtful entries on March 12, 2009 and 2010. Feel free to check those out.

Happy Belated Birthday, Jack. Maybe next year I'll make a pilgrimage to Lowell on your birthday weekend in an effort to make amends for my forgetfulness. Jack would have been 89 this year, so next year is a big one (90)!