Our comment policy: A reminder

Given that I just deleted 357 comments as spam, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind readers of our comment policy (posted over there on the right hand side for all to read).

1. Anonymous comments will not be published.

2. Comments unrelated to the target post will not be published.

3. Snark and ad hominem comments will not be published.

I am not going to read hundreds of comments to distinguish one that might be legit from spam, so the rule about no anonymous posts is for my convenience. If I scan down the list of comments and don't see a name (as opposed to anonymous), I can mass delete 100 attempted posts with two clicks.

To be clear, you may well try to post something relevant and non-snarky/non-ad hominem and it will likely get deep-sixed because it was posted by "anonymous."

Sorry about that, but logistics are logistics. And I don't want to reinforce anonymous postings on the Internet.

Happy Birthday to Gerard Kerouac

Jack Kerouac's brother, Gerard, was born on this date -- August 23 -- in 1916. As regular readers know, Gerard was Jack's inspiration for Visions of Gerard, a holy book in the Kerouac canon, and he (Gerard) appeared in several other Kerouac works. We blogged about Gerard's death date on June 2 (click here).

In honor of Gerard Kerouac's birthday, you may want to read some (or all) of Visions of Gerard sometime today.

Catching up with Kerouac-related August dates

Given our travels (that's Crystal and me in front of our new Winnebago part-way through our recent 11-day trip), I have been neglectful of posting Kerouac-related birth and death dates for August, so below are some in bulk in order to catch up.


August 1     Ramblin' Jack Elliott born 1931 (Jack Elliott in Book of Dreams)
August 2     William S. Burroughs died 1997 (Old Bull Lee in On The Road, etc.)
August 5     Leo Kerouac born 1889 (Emil Alcide Duluoz in Visions of Gerard, etc.)
August 6     Diane di Prima born 1934 (not sure she appeared in a Kerouac work)
August 8     Herbert Huncke died 1996 (Elmer Hassel in On The Road, etc.)
August 14   David Kammerer died 1944 (Dave Stoheim in Visions of Cody, etc.)
August 15   Bea Franco died 2013 (Terry "the Mexican Girl" in On The Road)
August 23   Gerard Kerouac born 1916 (Gerard Duluoz in Visions of Gerard, etc.)

Today's date -- July 31 -- is a Kerouac "two-fer"

Elise Cowen (L) and Gore Vidal (R)

Today's date -- July 31 -- is Kerouac noteworthy for two reasons. First, it is Beat poet Elise Cowen's birthday (1933). She appeared as Barbara Lipp in Kerouac's Desolation Angels. Read about her here (a website I just discovered).

Second, on this date in 2012 writer and bon vivant Gore Vidal died. He appeared in The Subterraneans as Arial Lavalina and in Old Angel Midnight as Gore Bedavalled. Read about him here.

JAPHY license plates came today!

Our license plates for the camper came today and I put them on (as you can see). It's an homage to my favorite Kerouac book, The Dharma Bums, and, of course, the main character in the story, Japhy Ryder (real-life Gary Snyder). Of the available plates, most of the Kerouac and related permutations were already taken. We could have had ONTHERD, for On The Road, but this way gives us a name for the camper, which is apparently a "thing" in the RV world.

Happy Birthday to Chandler Brossard

On this date -- July 18 -- in 1922, American writer Chandler Brossard was born. He would have been 97 today. Brossard appeared as Chris Rivers in Jack Kerouac's and William S. Burroughs' And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks. Some claim Brossard's Who Walk in Darkness (1952) was the first Beat novel. Brossard was not pleased with being associated with the early Beat writers, but given the content of Darkness it is hard to dismiss the connections. I wrote about that book here.

So Happy Birthday, Mr. Brossard, wherever you are!

Happy Birthday to Robert LaVigne

On this date -- July 15 -- in 1928, artist Robert LaVigne was born. LaVigne (I've seen it with the V capitalized and not capitalized) was Guy Levesque in Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels.

A well-known story about LaVigne is that it was his portrait of Peter Orlovsky -- his model and lover -- that caused Allen Ginsberg to request an introduction to Orlovsky, beginning a life-long relationship.

LaVigne has papers archived at Columbia University. See http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4079553/ (this resource includes a concise biographical sketch).