Happy Birthday, William S. Burroughs

Today is William S. Burroughs' birthday. Daily Beat readers need no introduction to Bill, who was Old Bull Lee in On The Road and appeared in several other of Jack Kerouac's books.*

We've mentioned Bill over 30 times in past posts. For example, see this synchronicitous post on his birthday in 2009. It's kind of weird that Neal Cassady died the day before Bill's birthday. Or maybe it's not weird at all. As Bill reportedly said, 

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. 

Happy Birthday, Bill. 

*Check out Empty Mirror Books for a useful Kerouac character key.

Love Always, Carolyn

I just learned about the film, Love Always, Carolyn, from Kerouac scholar, Audrey Sprenger. Looks like something well worth checking out to me. Definitely watch the trailer - there are some great clips in there!

Neal Cassady died this date in 1968

Jack Kerouac's muse, Neal Cassady, died on this date in 1968 at the age of 41 (4 days short of his birthday). Circumstances surrounding his death seem unclear, but you can read what his wife, Carolyn, has to say about it here. Neal's death must have come as a shock to Jack Kerouac, who lived an additional 1 year, 8 months, and 7 days before his own untimely death at the age of 47.

Now, 187 is slang for murder, and I have posited here on The Daily Beat in the past that I wonder sometimes if Jack wasn't, in effect, technically "murdered" because of the beating he took not long before he died.

Anyway . . . RIP, Holy Goof.

Jade Leaf Willetts

Jade Leaf Willetts is a UK-based writer who maintains a blog titled, What would Neal do? The banner on his blog features the classic photo of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady with their arms around each other.

Jade is trying to promote his writing, and he contacted me via e-mail to see if I would create and post a video of me reading one of his poems. Beats stick together, so of course I said yes. Here is the result.

Top 10 Posts of All Time on The Daily Beat

The Daily Beat has had almost 40,000 visitors and 70,000 pageviews since inception in 2008. Dr. Audrey Sprenger, a legitimate Kerouac scholar, got me thinking about making lists in this Tumblr post. I decided to make a list of the top 10 posts of all time here on The Daily Beat. The question is: according to what criteria?

Two different approaches came to mind. One is to use Google stats and report the 10 posts with the most pageviews. The other is to comb through all 758 posts by hand and decide on my own favorite top 10.

Given to indecision, I have decided to do both. I have provided hotlinks to each post for you who wish to delve beyond the lists themselves. Picking my favorites was no mean feat, but it was fun to reminisce. I could have easily included a top 20 or 30. Tomorrow I might review my posts and come up with a different list.

Top 10 Posts of All Time on The Daily Beat Based on Number of Pageviews

1. Kristen Stewart topless in On The Road movie, August 7, 2011
2. Kerouac tattoos, October 12, 2010
3. Pics from On The Road, February 13, 2011
4. March 25: On Rucksacks, March 25, 2009
5. Kerouac tattoo, August 3, 2011
6. Actress Alice Braga discusses her role in On The Road, January 11, 2011
7. Jack Kerouac's 1942 Naval Reserve photo, November 12, 2011
8. Jack Kerouac, Kristen Stewart, nudity, tattoos, rucksacks, and pictures, January 2, 2012
9. Naked women serving coffee, February 26, 2009
10. How to write like Jack Kerouac, November 16, 2008

Top 10 Posts of All Time on The Daily Beat Based on Rick Dale's Opinion

1. Interview with Al Hinkle, January 31, 2012
2. Interview with Helen Weaver, November 17, 2009
3. Compassion Doesn't Discriminate, May 12, 2009
4. Why Kerouac?, March 9, 2009
5. Kerouac, Krishnamurti, Burroughs, and the number 23, December 18, 2008
6. Warning: Kerouac myth #2 spoiled, December 23, 2008
7. Autodidacticity, January 1, 2009
8. Review: Helen Weaver's The Awakener, November 11, 2009
9. Interview with Travis Tribble: Beat Hero #1, August 15, 2011
10. Interview: Kerouac's Dog Magazine, October 27, 2011


As you can see, the lists are mutually exclusive. I hope that, over time, some of my picks will end up on the top 10 list based on Google stats. It's obvious I have a bias toward interviews, isn't it?

What's your favorite post of all time on The Daily Beat?

Review of Kerouac: Visions of Rocky Mount

Last night I finished John J Dorfner's Kerouac: Visions of Rocky Mount, and, like his other book, Kerouac: Visions of Lowell, it kept me engaged from start to finish. It includes many pictures from actual places in and around that part of North Carolina where Jack lived and wrote some of his famous works. Dorfner took the time to search out and take pictures of specific houses, intersections, and even the kinds of trees that Jack mentioned in such novels as On The Road, The Dharma Bums and Visions of Cody. Reading it made me want to visit the area so I can see the places for myself. Dorfner's other book was especially fascinating for me because I've spent a bit of time in Lowell.

The introduction is a concise bio of Jack's early years and then his time in North Carolina. The numerous pictures are accompanied by Dorfner's musings as well as various Kerouac quotes referencing those particular places around Rocky Mount, NC, where Jack occasionally lived with his sister, Nin, her husband, Paul, and their baby son, Paul, Jr. It's the place Jack refers to as being in Testament, Virginia in On The Road, where he and his mom (Memere) were visiting when Neal (Dean), LuAnne (Marylou), and Al Hinkle (Ed Dunkel) showed up from out west in the '49 Hudson and used it to move furniture to New York City in a mad frenzy of driving and talking courtesy of the Holy Goof.

If you've ever wanted to see actual images of some of the places around Rocky Mount that Jack wrote about, this is an essential edition to your Kerouac collection. That it's a fun and informative read is icing on the cake.

Kerouac enthusiasts will want a copy, and the best way to do that is to contact the author at johnjdorfner@gmail.com. His website is http://www.johnjdorfner.com/.

Neal Cassady finally gets his high school diploma

Al Hinkle just posted this article on his Facebook page (have you liked Al's page yet?) about Neal Cassady being awarded his high school diploma from Denver East High School.

Well now-ah-ahem-yass, yass, you've arrived, Neal, and it's absolutely necessary er-um, of course, to raise a glass in your honor at exactly er-uh eight-fourteen this very evening.