A significant Kerouac-related birthday of note

Justin W. Brierly

On this date -- September 3 -- Justin W. Brierly was born in 1905. Brierly appeared in several Kerouac books: as Denver D. Doll in On The Road, Justin G. Mannerly in Visions of Cody, and Manley G. Mannerly in Book of Dreams.

Brierly is particularly noteworthy in the Kerouac saga as he was instrumental in grooming a young Neal Cassady during his Denver years. Brierly was a Columbia University graduate, and it is no stretch to say that he was responsible, at least in part, for Cassady and Kerouac connecting at Columbia (where Jack also attended). Another Columbia student, Hal Chase, was a Brierly protégé and he (Chase) introduced Cassady to Kerouac.

No Cassady-Kerouac connection, no On The Road, and so . . . no Brierly, no Kerouac. At least as we know him.

Today's Kerouac-related birthday of note

David Kammerer

For those of you steeped in Beat lore, the name David Kammerer needs no explanation. For those of you new to the subject or with only passing Kerouacian knowledge, Kammerer was the man killed by Lucien Carr (stabbed to death with a Boy Scout knife) and Kerouac -- in trying to help him cover up the crime -- was arrested as an accessory after-the-fact and ended up in jail (which resulted in Jack marrying Edie Parker to get bail money from her parents when his own father, Leo, wouldn't spring him, but that is another story).

Kerouac recounted this story in several works, and Kammerer appeared in Visions of Cody as Dave Stroheim, Vanity of Duluoz as Franz (Swinburne) Mueller, The Town and the City as Waldo Meister, Ramsey Allen in And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, and Alfred in The Haunted Life (Source: Character Key to Kerouac's Duluoz Legend).

My point? Kammerer was born this date -- September 2 -- in 1911. So even though he (allegedly) stalked Carr around the country and was murdered as a result, we remember him on his birthday as playing a significant role in the Kerouac saga.



P.S. As I was on the road for the last 5 days, I missed pointing out that Chandler Brossard died on August 29, 1993. We wished him a happy birthday on July 18 so you can read the Kerouac connection in that post (click here).

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 Anonymous comments will not be published.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.