All language subtitles for The.Source.The.Story.of.The.Beats.and.The.Beat.Generation.1999.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-SCOPE

♪

Whereas Allen Ginsberg
has made a lasting impact

as a poet and a scholar,

and whereas his candor
and scholarship

has served as an inspiration
to an entire generation,

now therefore I,
mayor of the city of Boulder,

do hereby designate
Sunday, July 3rd,

as Allen Ginsberg Day.

[applause, cheering]

♪

"With the coming
of Dean Moriarty

began the part of my life

you could call
my life on the road.

In the bar I told Dean,
'Hell, man, I know very well

you didn't come to me only
to want to become a writer.

And, after all, what do
I really know about it

except you gotta stick to it

with the energy
of a benny addict.'

Because the only people for me
are the mad ones,

the ones who never yawn
or say a commonplace thing

but burn, burn, burn like
fabulous yellow Roman candles

exploding like spiders
across the stars

and in the middle you see
the blue centerlight pop

and everybody goes, 'Aww.'"

♪

[phone dialing]

♪

Hello, Ed.

Ladies and gentlemen,
we're honored to have

on the line
from Lawrence, Kansas,

a great American writer
whose brilliance

and incomparable satire
[unintelligible].

Let's welcome
William Burroughs.

[cheering]

How many people are there?

Town Hall is packed.

The Beat goes on, Bill.

I've often been asked
if I had some words of advice

to young people.

♪

If you are doing business

with a religious
son of a bitch,

get it in writing.

His word isn't worth a shit,
not with good Lord

telling him
how to fuck you over.

[laughter]

♪

Gregory Corso and I
collaborated,

almost inadvertently,
in building a--

building a whole mythology
of a generation.

-When Sputnik went up--
-Yeah, we did a chain poem.

A chain poem made
in Amsterdam.

And we took a rest and went
downstairs to the bathroom

and this owner of the hotel,
what do you think he thinks?

Two guys, right,
four legs,

they're having sex,
they're indignant.

And I say, "Hey,
we're smoking a joint, man.

We ain't having sex."

[laughter]

♪

"There once was a place,

perhaps, where all was light,

which once was the place,
pray tell,

some non-manmade god
hung out.

And so tra-la, tra-la,

it's fin de siècle again,
my dears,

and the music
of the spheres,

some kind of mad,
mad laughter."

[applause]

♪

[dog barking]

♪

[distant siren]

Space.

Like, the final frontier, man.

These are the voyages
of the hip Starship Enterprise.

Captain, permission to beam
Lawrence Ferlinghetti aboard.

Permission, like, granted.

[laughter]

Where are we headed, man?

To, like, the Planet Bongo.

They were the lonely voices
of dissent in the 1950s.

Outsiders,
and proud of it,

they were the artists
who called themselves Beats.

Hear the sound,
hear the sound.

Zoom, zoom, zoom.

[muttering]

Oh--zoom, zoom, zoom.

Fallout shelter,

Sputnik,

H-bomb,

explosion, explosion,
explosion.

Bang!

[applause, snapping]

♪

There's been
a revival of interest

in the Beat Generation.

Poetry readings are back
and being performed

at coffee houses
straight out of the '50s.

Even MTV now
has poetry programs

that would make
Jack Kerouac proud.

♪

I feel all dead inside.

♪

Backed up in a dark corner.

♪

And I don't know
who's hitting me.

Shorty! Shorty, get me
that fight from Quinn.

I want money.
Do you understand? Money, money!

I forbid, I forbid. Better
buy a guy and shoot yourself.

You need money to buy a gun.

♪

It's my first day in school,

some kids got around me,
white kids.

They said, "Hey, who are you?

Is your father a monkey?"

I was dumb,
I smiled and said, "No."

Well, they wiped that smile
right off my face,

they beat it off.

I had to get beat up
a couple of more times

before I found out
that if you're colored,

you stink.

♪

♪

In the '40s, the bomb dropped.

The entire planet
was threatened biologically.

When suddenly the realization,

"Why are we being intimidated
by a bunch of jerks

who don't know anything
about life?

Who are they to tell us
what we feel

and how we're supposed
to behave,

and why take
all that bullshit?"

[typing]

We're at Columbia University
now,

and the connection here
with the Beats

is that this is
where Jack Kerouac

and Allen Ginsberg met

and the catalytic reaction began

that became the Beat Movement,

and that was one of the forces
that helped create

and I think shaped
the movements of the 1960s.

Now, Kerouac comes down
from your own fair state

of Massachusetts,
from Lowell.

He's a working class guy.

From a very early age
is interested in writing.

He is a great football player
at Lowell,

and they offered him
a football scholarship.

The man who shook up America
with the Beat Movement was--

basically began
as a jock.

Until he hurts his leg.

And at that point
he meets Allen Ginsberg

from Paterson, New Jersey,

father a high school teacher,

poet of minor note.

And they're not talking
too much about football.

They were interested
in something very corny,

trying to find truth
and meaning in life.

We weren't trying to make a
social revolution, particularly.

We were just trying to propose
our own souls to ourselves.

Were they lovers?

We felt very close
to each other just intuitively,

but, uh, you know, without
any overt sexual thing,

except that I was in love him.

I had a crush on him,
I had a crush on everybody.

♪

They found African American
culture fascinating.

They related to weird people
like William Burroughs.

Jack and I went out
to investigate your soul

because we both really thought
you were a religious thing

and dignified
and weird but intelligent.

Jack said, uh,

"Bill is the most intelligent
man in America."

Did they take a lot of drugs?

Did they take
a lot of drugs?

Cannabis, datura, coca...

I had a habit, and that...

♪

...kept me occupied.

They were searching,
they were searching.

They knew they weren't satisfied
with what was.

And that's why we're here
at Columbia

trying to inhale
the atmosphere

that once nurtured people
who dared to be different.

♪

Burroughs began exploring
Times Square.

to sort of see
the lumpen population.

He was interested in the
different varieties of the bars.

♪

He'd met Herbert Huncke,

and Huncke was living
around Times Square,

practically on the street.

They'd come
strolling down the street

with books under their arms.

We thought you had some
kind of secret knowledge.

It's just good, healthy activity
in a funny way.

We'd pick up some grass,
smoke,

and observe the phenomena
of the red light

over the roof-combs
of the buildings

that indicated some
kind of apocalyptic,

end of millennium consciousness.

Those were all justifications.

-For what?
-For what?

For what? For an interest
in the whole thing.

Sometimes you lose sight
of the fact

that these were basically
college kids,

except for Burroughs,
who was a little older.

These were basically
young people

who were kind of broken off
in public, in a way.

They were out getting loaded
and they were just

making a lot of conversation
that they could build on.

♪

"Did I tell you my poem about
the Empire State Building

that had not doomed
the dumb eyes of New York

all the time?
'That was pretty good.'

He says, 'Hey,
I've got a new poem too.'

All these poets
struggling to be poets.

Same time if they want to,

they turn a little
purple moonlight pages

in which their secret naked
doodlings do show.

♪

Secret scatological thought.

♪

That's why everybody
wants to see it."

"America, I've given you all.

Now I'm nothing.

America, I used to be a
communist when I was a kid.

I'm not sorry.

I smoke marijuana
every chance I get.

Whenever I go to Chinatown,
I get drunk and never get laid.

My mind is made up,
there's going to be trouble."

I have told you that
I will offer my beliefs,

my affiliations,
and everything else

for the American public,

and they will know
where I stand

as they do
from what I have written.

-Stand away from the stand.
-I have written

for Americanism
for many years and I shall...

Stand away from the stand!

...fight for
the Bill of Rights--

Officer, take this man
away from the stand.

The country had gotten
energized into this--

the war effort
of the Second World War.

And, uh,
when the men came back, uh,

one thing--there was
the G.I. Bill was there,

a lot of people
went to school that

never would have
gone to school,

went to the universities.

Uh, uh, there was
a feeling of, uh,

that--that America
was getting a fresh start,

was getting a real start.

Three years or so
after the end of the war,

the draft is back, uh,
the Korean War then,

the early '50s, uh,
the McCarthy hearings,

the House Un-American
Activities Committee,

the execution
of the Rosenbergs,

the sense of a status quo,
business as usual,

a kind of stolid,
even comfort.

That it's the fattest
civilization around,

the best ever.

And, in reality, there was
an incredible provincialism

and a very strong sense
of conformity

and a stultifying feeling

that you had to get along
with Life Magazine,

as, you know,
what Ginsberg says,

"I don't want my emotional life
to be read by Time."

Eisenhower's intention was that
we should try to settle down

to some nice, quiet,
American pursuits

and not rock the boat,

and it was time for us
to ease off a bit.

He accomplished that,
the country was pretty quiet.

We ask every citizen
to immediately report

any information
regarding espionage,

sabotage,
or un-American activities

to the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.

♪ That made him such a flop

♪ Was he beeped
when he should have bopped ♪

It was such
a schizophrenic distinction

between a private world
of what everybody knew

and talked about,
like black culture

or teahead culture
of those years

or just sexual culture
or gay culture,

there were all these
marginalized cultures

which were never represented
in public.

♪

It was friendship,
affairs, intermarriage,

and a sense of, uh,
a community.

♪

They were the jazz musicians,

and they were related to
the abstract expressionists.

♪ Oh, you did it again

But that wasn't the only thing
that was going on then.

The poetry scene
was important,

but there was also
the Living Theater

was going on then.

[rattling]

♪

Good morning, recruits.

John Cage was important.

[high-pitched bubbling]

♪

Happenings were happening then.

♪

There was a joy
and an optimism.

♪

The music reflected that.

Charlie Parker
and Dizzy Gillespie

were breaking down those walls.

It's all insane,
then you look back,

you look away, around,

everything is coming in
from everywhere

in the sound of the jazz.

"Hi," "Hey."

We were our own audience.

I mean, Kerouac wrote
seven books--

or 14 books before
they were published.

We were more or less united,
I would say,

towards increased awareness.

♪

Increased freedom.

There were little connections
that we're making

and they were building.

What you had here,
as near as I can tell,

was a collection
or a gathering

of very, very great
intelligence.

♪

Dostoyevsky's
Notes from the Underground

is the model of a lot
of these people,

the guy who--who lives
in some kind of hole

and rails at what's going on
around him.

Many of us,
without knowing Dostoyevsky,

thought that was our role.

To write poetry,
to write music,

to paint, to act,
to dance,

to dare to dream.

♪

Allen had this vision,

these Blake visions,

and he suddenly said,

"We're taking over
the universe."

♪

Well, Beat got the beat--
got the bebop beat

so that you have
a sense of timing.

♪

Then there's the Catholic thing
of beatitude.

♪

You know, like sacred and holy.

Huncke gave it as the one
I would usually give it,

if somebody wants to tell you
their problem and all that,

you say, "Not now, man,
I'm beat."

When the Sputnik went up
and they said,

"Oh, these guys
are out of this world,"

Beatniks.

Beatniks, nutniks,

they all act like they was
behind the door

when the brains
was handed out.

[laughter]

I met Mr. Ginsberg
maybe about two months

after I had left prison.

19--what? '49?

♪

You said '50.

♪

It was the beginning of 1950.

Girl, sorry for
one fucking little mistake,

stay out of it.

♪

Women were pretty much ornaments

for the men and the Beats,

and they were the caretakers.

They got away with murder

because what
they were proselytizing

produced the male artist hero.

Pattycake, pattycake.

Sylvia...

Did you see me wave
my zen stick?

♪

And there was a look
all the women had,

a certain look.

It was hard to tell them
from each other.

♪

I don't think we were
particularly machismo.

Actually, Burroughs
and I were queer,

very sensitive
and literary.

Well, some of my best friends
were women.

♪

Most of them were gay
except Jack,

now Jack had tough time
with women in a way,

and I got in trouble with him

and he got very unhappy
that I fucked his girl.

But that was the time
when I did not know Jack.

I was just introduced to him.

It wasn't as if I fucked
my best friend's girl.

[dog barking]

"It's the Beat Generation,
it's beat,

it's the beat to keep,
it's the beat of the heart,

it's being beat
and down in the world,

and like old time lowdown

and like in
ancient civilizations

the slave boatmen
rowing galleys to a beat."

♪

♪ Pull my daisy,
tip my cup ♪

We didn't expect to be
represented in public.

We just wanted
to represent ourselves

and write for heaven, you know,

building up treasures
in heaven.

I think Kerouac despaired

of ever having
his work published.

I read the book
and I was simply stunned.

I said then I believed that it
was as perfect an expression

of a generation as Hemingway's
The Sun Also Rises.

Kerouac was a writer.

That is, he wrote.

The difference being
a bullfighter who fights a bull

is different
from a bullshitter

who makes passes
with no bull there.

Truman Capote got jealous
I went on The Tonight Show

and said it wasn't writing,
it was typing.

Yeah, fuck him.

And now Truman's at the great
Tonight Showin the sky

still wearing his white coat
while Jack's 15 books

are translated into 11 languages
all over the world.

[applause]

Life Magazinecame around
to interview us

for an article
on the Beat Generation.

And I thought,
"Jesus,

if they think
that we have anything to say,

they must be scraping
the bottom of the barrel.

They must be
pretty desperate."

♪

♪ Now the lesson is over,
get on your feet ♪

♪ And go to town
and dig the beat ♪

[applause]

Jack, uh, got a couple
of square questions,

but I think the answers
will be interesting.

How long did it take you
to write On the Road?

-Three weeks.
-Three weeks.

That's amazing, how long
were you on the road itself?

-Seven years.
-Seven years.

I was on the road once
for three weeks

and it took me seven years
to write about it,

sort of the other way around.

I've heard that
you write so fast

that you don't like to use
regular typing paper

but instead you prefer to use
one big long roll of paper.

-Is that true?
-Yeah.

When I write
narrative novels

and I want to change
my narrative thought,

I keep going...

♪

Wonderful part of Jack's
On the Roadwas when he said,

"Our battered suitcases were
piled on the sidewalk again.

We had longer ways to go,
but no matter.

The road is life."

"I'd often dreamed of going West
to see the country,

always vaguely planning
and never taking off.

I left with my canvas bag

and took off
for the Pacific Ocean."

The whole nation
was tilting westward.

♪

It was like a drink
that had been stirred

with the Second World War
and it hadn't settled down yet.

"Somewhere along the line
I knew there would be girls,

visions, everything.

Somewhere along the line,

pearl would be handed to me."

♪

There's just nothing like
being out, uh,

on an American road.

♪

You get outside,
something happens to ya,

and when you're traveling
through outside,

the wind goes over
the top of your head

and you get a static charge.

You'll see people with their
hair standing on end like this

'cause they've been
driving a long time,

and their eyes kind of wild.

It's a high.

♪

The center of gravity
of our imagination in poetics

moved off the East Coast and
came out into these grasslands.

♪

There was the expansion
of a heart

to learn and to enjoy
all of America.

And that included, as you see in
Jack's work and in Allen's work,

the lives and minds
of ordinary people.

♪

"We arrived at Council Bluffs
at dawn.

♪

All winter I'd been reading

the great wagon parties
that held council there.

And, of course, now it was
only cute suburban cottages

all laid out
in a dismal gray dawn.

Then Omaha,
and, by God,

the first cowboy I saw

in a ten-gallon hat
and Texas boots,

looked like any beat character

of the brickwall dawns
of the East

except for the getup."

"America, this is quite serious.

America, this is
the impression I get

from looking in
a television set.

America, is this correct?

It's true, I don't want
to join the Army

or turn lathes
in precision parts factories.

I'm nearsighted
and psychopathic anyway.

America, I'm putting my queer
shoulder to the wheel."

♪

And away we go!

"Into the interior,

a vast subdivision,

antennae of television
to the meaningless sky.

♪

In lifeproof houses

they hover over the young...

♪

...sop up a little
of what they shut out.

Only the young
bring anything in,

and they are not young
very long."

♪

"Just ahead,
over the rolling wheatfields

all golden beneath
the distant snows of Estes,

I'd be seeing
old Denver at last.

There were smokestacks, smoke,
railyards, red-brick buildings,

and the distant
downtown gray-stone.

I stumbled along with the most
wicked grin of joy in the world,

among the old bums
and beat cowboys.

I felt like an arrow that
could shoot out all the way."

"A high tower on a wide plain.

If you climb up
one floor

you'll see
a thousand miles more."

♪

Right over those knolls
over there,

something wonderful
is going to be.

Uh, but you found out
the more you went

there was just more knolls.

"So in America
when the sun goes down

and I sit on the old
broken-down river pier

watching the long,
long skies over New Jersey

and sense all that raw land
that rolls

in one unbelievable huge bulge
over to the West Coast,

and all that road going...

I think of Dean Moriarty, I
even think of Old Dean Moriarty,

the father we never found,
I think of Dean Moriarty.

I think of Dean Moriarty."

[applause]

[typing]

Well, I don't think
there is any real Neal.

Kerouac's, uh, I think had a--

had a sort of
an idealized figure

of Neal as this
On the Roadcharacter.

I mean, he's sort of
the On the Road,uh,

personified.

But there's such
an overwhelming trip...

[laughs]

...Cassady, I don't know,

it's hard to even know
what to say about Cassady,

he was so singular.

He was the first person I met
who he himself was the art.

♪

A lot of people thought
he was crazy, you know,

a lot of people
were afraid of him and--

a lot--most people I know
didn't understand him at all,

you know, yeah,

but he was like
a musician.

He was like Charlie Mingus.

He played the bass line,

whatever else happened

was happening around
his bass line,

and he used
[unintelligible].

♪ Jack was sittin'
poker faced

with bullets backed
with bitches ♪

♪ Neal hunched at the wheel,
puttin' everyone in stitches ♪

♪ Braggin' 'bout
some nurse he screwed

while drivin'
through Nebraska ♪

♪ And when she came
she honked the horn ♪

Cassady was a sort of
self-taught prison boy

who came here to New York
to go con Kerouac

into teaching him
how to write.

He was a great driver.

And I don't mean a fast driver,
I mean a great driver.

His, uh,
page was this highway.

And his writing, too,
was one of these cars.

All right, here we go,
one-handed delight.

Ah, no, no, no,
that's masturbating.

No, no, no.

Nothing in the world
he liked better

than getting about six
scared kids in the car

and bring 'em back
about three days later

and their eyes
looked like fried bolts.

His special thing was
that he could remember

the chain of thought
that went before

that led up to a moment
of conversation.

Came in here yesterday and, uh,

jumbling and jittery around,

and I sort of looked
like I was high,

so I just let people
think I was high.

Everybody has forms,
and everything's known

and the forms are changing,

there's no life in the forms.

Just his whole body language
and everything

was so communicative,
it was just amazing.

♪

It's already too late,

the Pentagon is taking care
of it all,

we're doing this deliberately
as far as that goes.

♪

The Pentagon is doing
what deliberately?

Well, I don't know who's
running the country, do you?

♪

♪ Look out, California

"We began rolling in
the foothills before Oakland

and saw stretched out
ahead of us

the fabulous white city
of San Francisco.

'No more land,' yelled Dean.

'Can't go no further 'cause
there ain't no more land.'"

♪

The war displaced everyone,

and, uh,
they didn't go back home.

It was a little
like after any war,

and it was certainly
like after the Civil War

when people like Mark Twain
were displaced

and ended up
in San Francisco.

He was a carpetbagger
in a way,

just like the East Coast Beats
were all carpetbaggers,

including myself.

We're in a tradition
of dissidence.

So we started City Lights.

The idea was to create
a literary meeting place.

There was already cultivated--
a San Francisco renaissance.

There always way an anarchist,
pacifist, anti-Stalinist,

anti-authoritarian, literary,
Bohemian, anti-war circle.

People want to be themselves,
basically.

People want to remain true
to their very being.

People who don't wanna
play the game.

People who wanna
be whatever they are.

And that manifested itself
in literature and painting,

in Bohemian parties,
poetry readings.

I would go into a macho bar

and jump on the pool table
and read some poems.

Now, either I got beat up
or I made $50,

most of the times I made $50.

It was a cold night
in the big city

where love is the roar
and death is the beat

and I yell like a madman
at the top of my voice.

Everybody sing,
everybody sing.

Started to sing a song
about pretty flowers

and then the men in their white
coats came with their jackets

and I told them
to sing also.

Let's sing a song,
let's sing a song.

And they took me
away, away, away

from the roar and the beat,

the beat, the beat,

let's sing a song.

Like, uh,

man, I'm here and, I mean,

I've met a swinging group here.

I like--I like, uh,

I like Frisco the most, man,

because, I mean,
the town jumps, you know?

I mean, there are a lot
of scenes, man,

and, uh, so, I mean,
it's like that, you know?

Uh-huh.

Kenneth Rexroth
was sort of, uh,

the philosopher,

the anarchist philosopher

who preceded us
in San Francisco,

said that San Francisco
was to the artists

as Barcelona was
the Spanish anarchists.

I guess it was a haven
for thinking and feeling people.

In those days,
we were all outlaws.

Anybody who had feelings
of their own

or had their hair
a little bit too long

or had an idea of their own

or wanted to experience
new states of consciousness

or to deepen themselves
or to grow a soul

or to feel anything
out of the ordinary, uh,

was a renegade.

♪

I'm Steven Ronin,
Beat historian.

Here I am at 3119 Fillmore,

location of the former
Six Gallery,

where poet Allen Ginsberg
debuted his poem Howl,

and history hasn't been
the same since.

Rexroth had been invited
to organize a reading

at the Six Gallery.

He suggested to McClure
or myself that we organize it,

and it fell to me.

And Rexroth gave me
Gary Snyder's address.

Snyder was a student studying
Chinese, Japanese, and Zen.

♪

Allen and I
lined up that space

with the idea
of holding a reading

for our various relatively
unpublished friends.

♪

What we were interested in
was our own writing

and talking with people
who were also trying

to write and paint
and whatever else.

And, uh, trying to get our way
someplace else,

get--get a new start

that would gently replace
a lot of this slobber.

And we stepped out
on the stage.

With Kerouac in the audience,

with Neal Cassady
in the audience.

We didn't know
who would be there,

we didn't know who to expect.

"I followed the whole gang
of howling poets

to the reading at Gallery Six
that night,

which was,
among other important things,

the night of the birth

of the San Francisco
Poetry Renaissance.

♪

Scores of people stood around

in the darkened galleries,

straining to hear every word

of the amazing poetry reading

as I wandered
from group to group

urging them to glug
a slug from the jug,

or wandered back and sat on
the right side of the stage,

giving out little wows
and yeses of approval."

"Heaven was only half as far
that night,

listening to the burnt phrases,

when I heard the poet
have rhyming erection."

When Allen read Howl,uh,

we all knew that a line
had been drawn in the sand.

We decided that
we would put our foot

on that line
that Allen drew.

I was there, and the next
morning I sent a telegram

to Allen Ginsberg saying,

"I greet you at the beginning
of a great career.

When do we get the manuscript?"

I had a conversation
with Rexroth the next day.

I said,
"Gee, I'm gonna be famous

in San Francisco,
or North Beach."

And he said, "You're gonna be
famous from bridge to bridge."

The first edition
was printed in England,

but it was seized by the U.S.
Customs in San Francisco.

All during the trial,
we were still selling it.

We never took the book
out of the window.

There were a series of trials
in the late '50s that, uh,

liberated the work,

and that meant a whole spiritual
liberation after that.

It's really hard to get
that kind of publicity.

♪

What I've always loved
about Allen

is precisely his bravery.

I once wrote a poem about him.

It went like this,

"Sometimes I think
that ugly little queer,

that four-eyed kike is
the bravest man in America."

[typing]

"I saw the best minds
of my generation

destroyed by madness,

starving hysterical naked...

-Angelheaded hipsters...
-Angelheaded hipsters

burning for the ancient
heavenly connection

to the starry dynamo
in the machinery of night.

Who poverty and tatters
and hollow-eyed and high

sat up smoking in
the supernatural darkness

of cold-water flats

floating across the tops
of cities contemplating jazz...

♪

Who cowered in unshaven rooms
in underwear,

burning their money
in wastebaskets

and listening
to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic
beards returning through Laredo

with a belt of marijuana
for New York,

who ate fire
in paint hotels

or drank turpentine
in Paradise Alley, death,

or purgatoried their torsos
night after night with dreams,

with drugs,
with waking nightmares...

Peyote solidities of halls,

green tree cemetery dawns,

wine drunkenness
over the rooftops,

storefront boroughs
of teahead joyride

neon blinking traffic light,

sun and moon
and tree vibrations

in the roaring winter dusks...

♪

Who talked continuously
seventy hours

from park to pad
to bar to Bellevue

to museum
to the Brooklyn Bridge,

a lost battalion
of platonic conversationalists

jumping down the stoops
off fire escapes

off windowsills
off the Empire State

out of the moon,

yacketayakking screaming
vomiting whispering facts

and memories and anecdotes
and eyeball kicks

and shocks of hospitals
and jails and wars,

who loned it through
the streets of Idaho

seeking visionary
indian angels

who were visionary
indian angels,

who howled on their knees
in the subway

and were dragged
off the roof

waving genitals
and manuscripts...

♪

Who wandered around
and around at midnight

in the railroad yard
wondering where to go,

and went,
leaving no broken hearts,

who lit cigarettes in
boxcars boxcars boxcars

racketing through snow
toward lonesome farms

in grandfather night,

and rose reincarnate in
the ghostly clothes of jazz

in the goldhorn shadow
of the band...

Carl Solomon!

I'm with you in Rockland

where you're madder than I am.

♪

I'm with you in Rockland

where we wake up electrified
out of the coma

by our own souls'
airplanes roaring over the roof

they've come
to drop angelic bombs

the hospital illuminates itself

imaginary walls collapse

O skinny legions run outside

O starry-spangled
shock of mercy

the eternal war is here

O victory
forget your underwear

we're free.

♪

I'm with you in Rockland

in my dreams you walk
dripping from a sea-journey

on the highway
across America in tears

to the door of my cottage
in the Western night."

♪

[applause]

The poem had
an immense effect on me.

And I thought immediately
that Ginsberg was

at the least a major poet,
and maybe a genius.

I had no idea
that it would be famous.

I had no idea that it was of
such value to other people.

Apparently it was.

I just had never, uh,
read any poetry

that was that charged, that
intense, that extraordinary.

And I knew he was gonna
make a revolution

in the consciousness
of his time.

So the Six Gallery's
still there,

it's just in a different place.

[siren wails]

♪

Once a month,
we will book a comedian

who will offend everybody.

[laughter]

There are words
that offend me, uh,

let's see, "Governor Faubus,"

"segregation" offend me.

Uh, and "night time television"
offends me.

Some night time television.

Both rabbis
and priests S-H-I-T.

Only one F-U-C-Ks.

Are you, uh, what is
loosely called a Beatnik?

No, I am a poet
and a painter and sculptor.

Hm, in other words,
you're out of work?

That's right.

"Come to be healed,
come to be saved.

Screaming and laughing
down the beach,

strangling each other,

devouring flesh
and gnawing

on fingers broken
and bones of splintered.

Voices heard in Venice."

They're dirty,
they never clean up,

and then their mode of living

is with their free love

and their free meals
and their free, uh,

pads, as they call them.

"You have sometimes done it
as if you always knew

how it was properly done.

You knew it was there and
you knew that you were there

and that you had done it better,
in a way,

than anybody in a long time."

♪

Don't you ever feel tempted

to occasionally
write for money

instead of just writing
for the news?

Well, I sometimes--
I write home to my father,

he sends me some money.

♪

"Dear Allen:

There is an end-of-the-world
feeling in Tangier,

with its glut
of nylon shirts,

Swiss watches,
scotch, and sex.

The whole town is a trap.

You will see it closing,

but there will be no escape.

No place to go."

♪

♪ The wayward wind

♪ Is restless wind

These are
the San Francisco shipyards

at China Basin.

Jack Kerouac
worked near here

in the railroad
switching yards

and Allen Ginsberg
came nearby here

to write his famous
Sunflower Sutra.

The Beats didn't just, uh,

continually travel
on the road.

Those who could
ordered freighters

like American Kestrel
down there

to head out on the open ocean
and, uh,

give in to their wanderlust
internationally.

♪ In a lonely shack
by a railroad track ♪

"Dear Allen:

Mexico is home to me
and I can't go there."

♪ Make him a slave
to his wanderin' ways ♪

"Got a letter from my lawyer.

I am sentenced in absentia."

♪ Is a restless wind

♪

♪ A restless wind

I think she said to Bill,

"Well, shoot that off my head."

♪ To wander

I knew that the ugly spirit,

which is always the worst part
of everyone's character,

would take over and that
something awful would happen.

Just an absolute
piece of insanity.

♪ Wayward wind

It was then
that he began writing.

[typing]

♪

♪ Yow

♪

♪ Yow

Who are you?

I'm Bill, who are you?

I'm Tony.

Where are you, Bill?

I'm in a 1920 movie, Tony.

[beeping]

Who are you?

I'm Tony.

Who are you?

I'm Bill.

I was born February 5, 1914,

in St. Louis, Missouri.

♪ I've been around
for a long, long year ♪

So I was sort of
a WASP washout.

We will not listen to you.

We have had enough
of your con and bullshit.

♪

I left the United States, uh,

because of, uh,
I was in trouble.

My whole life has been
resistance to the ugly spirit.

♪

I live with it
day and night.

Uh!

...risk getting
in any trouble,

'cause I don't like violence.

There is no thing to fear.

There is no thing.

He's probably
the only guy I know

who was really
just full-out junkie

who managed to come back,
kick it, and is still around.

Very rare.

There's all kinds
of addictions.

Power is one
of the principal addictions.

Whether they got the power,
they look sleek.

Satisfied.

They're getting it.
getting it steady.

Thou shalt not blow pot-smoke

into the face of thy pet.

♪

He could punch a typewriter

or he could punch
the tape recorder to death

in shorter time than any man
than I've never known.

He had such enormous energy
in those days

and such enormous intention
behind what he was doing.

"Take the enclosed copy
of this letter,

cut along the lines,
rearrange,

putting section one
by section three

and section two
by section four.

And you will hear my voice."

Brion had made these cutups
of various magazines.

First cutups
were very, very funny.

♪

Then it wasn't so funny anymore.

Life is a cutup.

Every time you look
out the window

and when you walk down
the street,

you're continually being cut
by random factors.

This is a fact
of human perception,

and the cutup
simply made this explicit.

♪

How does it seem to you now?

-How does it seem to you now?
-Good.

-Thank you.
-Good.

Look at that, thank you.

[screeching]

Surrealism is a kind of
automatic writing.

Rimbaud's phrase was
a "systematic derangement

of the senses,"
and the idea being

that the senses are
to some extent

ideological formed
by external pressure.

Towers, open fire.

[screeching]

And so you shatter that,
break it up:

drugs, extreme experiences,
kinky sex.

In fact, the official definition
of surrealism

is to make a work
without any a priori

moral or aesthetic
considerations.

"Blast of trumpets:

The man wriggles.

His flesh turns to
viscid, transparent jelly

that drips away in green mist,

unveiling a monster
black centipede.

Waves of unknown stench
fill the room,

searing the lungs,
grabbing the stomach."

♪

Over a series of years,
from '53 to '57,

Burroughs sent me the letters
with all these--

the chapters or routines
of Naked Lunch,

and then by '57,
there was so much material

that I had and he had
that it was time

for me to leave San Francisco
and work on it with him

to shape it into a book.

Kerouac had started the typing.

We arrived with
all this new material,

shuffled it around,
typed it up.

We had about 500 pages of notes,

so Brion Gysin, Sinclair Beiles,
and I sat down

and assembled this.

A chapter went to the printer,

we said we would
figure out the order later,

but when I came back
from the printer,

we took one look and said,

"There's no necessity
to make any changes."

Burroughs said,
"I'm not American Express,"

if the readers ask
to take him from Tangier

to Paris in one jump,

he'll have
to get there himself.

If you want to be cool,
you gotta read, you know...

-Naked Lunch.
-Naked Lunch,you know,

'cause, you know,
that's a cool book.

They made a movie out of it.

They put it on trial.

It's about drugs.

♪ Woo-hoo

♪ Oh, yeah

♪ Get on down

There's certain requirements.

If someone can't stand
hours, years of solitude,

sitting in a chair
alone in a room,

he should look for
another trade, I think.

I tried to read Naked Lunch
and I read halfway through it

and I pitched it, it didn't
make too much sense to me.

It just sort of disgusts me.

"Thou shalt not be such a shit,

you don't know you are one."

Mr. Burroughs, do you regret
anything in your life?

♪

"I have no precise memory
of writing the notes

which have been published
under the title Naked Lunch.

The title was suggested
by Jack Kerouac.

The title means exactly what
the words say: naked lunch,

a frozen moment
when everyone sees

what is on the end
of every fork.

♪

I can feel the heat closing in.

I feel 'em out there
making their move,

setting up their devil doll
stool pigeons,

crooning over my spoon
and dropper I throw away

at Washington Square Station,

vault a turnstile,

two flights down
the iron stairs,

catch an uptown A train...

Young, good looking,
crew cut, Ivy League,

advertising type fruit
holds the door back for me.

I'm evidently his idea
of a character.

You know the type:
he comes on with bartenders

and cab drivers,
talking about right hooks

and the Dodgers,

call the counterman in Nedick's
by his first name.

A real asshole.

And right on time,
this narcotics dick

in the white trench coat--

now imagine tailing somebody
in a white trench coat.

Trying to pass as a fag,
I guess.

I can hear the way
he would say it,

holding my outfit
in his left hand,

right hand on his piece:

'I think you dropped
something, fella!"'

But the subway is moving."

"They call me
'the Exterminator.'

At one brief point
of intersection

I did exercise that function
and witnessed

the belly dance
of roaches suffocating

in yellow pyrethrum powder.

My present assignment:

Find the live ones
and exterminate.

Not the bodies but the molds,
you understand?

But I forget.

You cannot understand.

♪

The Meet Cafe occupies
one side of the plaza.

It's a maze of kitchens,
restaurants,

sleeping cubicles,
perilous iron balconies,

the basements opening
into the underground baths.

On stools
covered in white satin

sit naked Mugwumps,

sucking
translucent-colored syrups

through alabaster straws.

Mugwumps have no liver

and nourish themselves
exclusively on sweets.

These creatures secrete
an addicting fluid

through their erect penises

which prolongs life
by slowing metabolism.

Boat whistle, foghorns,

sky rocket burst
over oily lagoons.

Penny arcade open into a maze

of dirty pictures.

Ceremonial cannon
boom in the harbor.

A scream shoots down
a white hospital corridor

out along a wide, dusty street
between palm trees,

whistles out across
the desert like a bullet,

a thousand boys come at once
in outhouses,

bleak public school toilets,
attics, basements,

treehouses, Ferris wheels,
deserted houses,

limestone caves, rowboats,
garages, barns,

rubbly windy city outskirts
behind mud walls,

smell of dried excrement,

black dust blowing over

lean copper bodies.

Coming over a hill
of rusty iron

we meet a group of natives.

We throw gasoline on 'em
and light it.

White flash!

Mangled insect screams.

♪

I woke up with the taste
of metal in my mouth

back from the dead...

...trailing the colorless
death smell.

No, no more.

No más.

Tangier, 1959."

♪

"Dear Allen,

Made connection with

the unassuming
little witch doctor

who prepared me some yage.

It is the most powerful drug

I have ever experienced,

that is, it produces

the most complete
derangement of the senses."

I felt, you know,

pulling together like that.

Horrible feeling,
horrible feeling.

Why do you put yourself
through all that torture?

What are you talking about?

You want to take yage,
you take yage.

Smoking hashish
and sniffing cocaine,

it struck me as being a very
glamorous and easy life.

Little did I know.

♪

"Clear...

the senses bright,

sitting in the black chair,
rocker.

The white walls reflecting
the color of clouds

moving over the sun."

I would have never written
Cuckoo's Nestwithout LSD.

I think a lot of that stuff
that was written

by all of these guys
would never have happened

if they'd have just stayed on

the get up early
in the morning,

drink a lot of coffee,
and do what you can.

"Intimacies.

The rooms not important,

but like divisions
of all space,

of all hideousness and beauty.

I hear the music of myself."

What might be
a negative experience

for--for someone else

can be a very positive
experience for a writer.

The damage to health
from addiction is minimal.

But it has done things
to your soul.

[chuckles]

It was my protector.

It was something
that loved me, and I loved,

and I wanted, and there it was.

"I pass fantasies
as they sing to me

with Circe-Voices.

I visit among the peoples
of myself

and know all I need to know."

"The ancient goals
which we follow

can be defined
in modern terms

in the metaphors of the present

as turn on, tune in,
and drop out."

I was a psychologist.

I was running a big project
at prison.

So, naturally,
I used this new chemical,

this new vegetable
which gave insight,

and in one minute
the prisoner could see,

"Shit, I've been playing
that loser game all my life."

We are now in
the psychochemical age.

In the future,
it's not gonna be,

"What book do you read,"

but, "Which chemical do you use

to open your mind
to accelerate learning?"

And they were saying,

you know, LSD would make you
jump out of windows.

My answer to the head DA guy
was, "The rule there is

never take LSD
over the first floor."

"I pass into the room.

There's a golden bed
radiating all light."

"If we want to
discourage use of LSD

for altering our attitudes,
we'll have to encourage

such changes in our society
that nobody will need it

to break through
the common sympathy."

They were carrying on
a tradition,

an American tradition.

It is, in effect,
instant insanity.

When the time comes,
the wave comes, it happens.

Do they know the difference
between right and wrong?

-They do not.
-Do not know.

They do not know
the difference

between right and wrong.

You've got a much better chance

of walking from--walking
from a murder

than a drug charge.

"The air is full of silver
hangings and sheathes.

I smile to myself.

I know all there is to know."

I basically believe

that drugs are here
to help human evolve,

to help us to grow
in intelligence.

I think we're primitive.

We don't even know
how to use them.

You can misuse them.

Assholes will always do
everything in their power

to fuck everything up,
you know?

It's like everything else
in life.

I mean, you can
overdose on sushi.

But still, they're there
for a purpose,

and I think the challenge
of an intelligent life

is to learn how to use drugs
without abusing them.

Uh...

There are a lot of drugs
I don't use

more than once a year,
I try to take

every illegal drug once a year.

That's like a Catholic
does that,

but no big deal.

♪

[tapping of typewriter keys]

Good evening, fellow members
of the Beat Generation.

♪

Well, it's too piercing,
man, it's too piercing.

-Well, I got [unintelligible].
-No, man, it's too piercing,

like, I don't dig loud noises.

-Well, you ruin the whole...
-Yeah, well, tough.

I'll take my bongos
and go, man.

♪

"Only God can make a tree."

[cymbal resonating]

♪ They called you
Beat Generation ♪

-I'll buy that.
-And I don't want

any of that beatnik stuff
during dinner, either.

And, Richard, I don't want
to see you smoking

any of those funny cigarettes.

♪

[speaking gibberish]

Man, like how square
can you get?

There was a kind of
beatnik craze

around the end of the '50s...

Well, the reason
we look for love

is to protect ourselves
from hate.

...which became parodied
and co-opted.

Well, if that's true, then,
the reason you look for hate

is to protect yourself
from love.

So, Gregory Corso went to Paris.

Burroughs stayed
in Tangiers and Paris.

Kerouac became more retired
at home after having

a great deal of venom
and mockery laid on him.

There's not enough time
to read all the books,

to see all the great paintings,

to hear all the music,

to think all the great thoughts

or just meet everybody,
but you've got to try.

I've got to try.

You need a girl, Leo.

Peter Orlovsky and I
disappeared into India,

basically went around the world

and stayed away
for three years

and studied something new.

♪

Buddhism is intellectually

an extraordinary
accomplishment,

a strikingly generous,
compassionate,

and persistent institution...

So you're like the tree--
the tree sitting there.

...practically speaking,

offering real teachings,
meditation...

Your muscles are hanging
from the trunk of the tree.

...how to see and understand
one's own mind...

Mouth closed.

Shoulders relaxed.

...and in the world,
make us remember

that our society includes
the non-human people.

So now, why don't we sit
doing nothing?

I was never really
heavy into Buddhism.

Get Allen Ginsberg
to talk about that.

He can go on and on and on.

♪

It's a big picture,
it's a big heart.

Do you think the Buddhists
see what I see?

Maybe they do see what I see.

Who the fuck knows?

They may just well
see what I see.

Thank you for your patience.

That was fucking beautiful.

[applause]

[chanting]

I guess it's like the argument
that Allen and I always have.

To me, Buddhism is
another form of metaphysics.

I'm a materialist, you know.

My view is that
the fundamental thing

that exists
is matter in motion.

If I can have your heart,

if I can have your prayers,

if the good Lord is willing,

I will continue to try
to lead this nation

and this world to peace.

♪ Lookin' for adventure

♪ And whatever comes our way

By the time I got back in '63,

the war was raging already,

and rather than--America,
rather than being

sort of enlightened
by the possibility

of some open world,
was trying to inflict

a Catholic dictator
on--with the Vietnamese.

♪ Heavy metal thunder

♪ Racin' with the wind

-React to what?
-React to the greatness

of the march and the day
as a victory or what?

You happy with it?

[speaking foreign language]

♪

We were beatniks,
we reveled in it.

We never called
each other beatniks.

Then, all of a sudden
in late 1966, early '67,

Ginsberg and Gary Snyder
and others

organized these--this big,
huge be-in in San Francisco.

♪ We can fly so high

And right after the be-in,
all of a sudden,

you were no longer a beatnik.

You were a hippie.

♪ Born to be wild

♪

So I really didn't have
any friends

all through high school
and college.

There was nobody
I could communicate with

and, yet, I knew

that I couldn't be
the only Martian.

♪

♪ I'm always swell

♪ The action is
I blow my mind all day ♪

♪ While on Long Island's
tennis courts ♪

♪ The blonde suburbans play

♪ Truckin', got my chips
cashed in ♪

After the first thing
called the "Human Be-In,"

that thing, it was like,
yeah, there is a community.

We were all those people
who were the weird ones,

you know, and it was
all of a sudden,

you discovered all these people
who were like you,

influenced by the beatniks.

Don't eat those, Ma.

They're Alice B. Toklas
brownies.

Mm, I love you,
Alice B. Toklas.

We would all like
to be able to live

an uncluttered life, you know,

and, like, think about moving

the whole human race
ahead a step.

These young people were
looking for a spiritual way

to rebel against
the American values,

almost as an extension

of what we'd begun
doing in the '50s.

They--they sort of
looked on us as the, uh...

...as the elders of the tribe.

What is your whole attitude
to life?

When you meet somebody, what is
your attitude towards them?

I don't like them.

-You don't?
-No.

Sometimes the caring
manifests itself as anger

or other feelings

that you might think of
as negative.

Anything that has
a strong charge

is where your heart is lying.

I think that
the Vietnamese War

is nothing but a plot
between the North Vietnamese

and the South Vietnamese
who are cousins

to get Jeeps in the country.

They're not very good plotters,
are they?

Well, they got a lot of Jeeps.

We were rebelling against
a kind of rigidity

in the culture, and the Beats
seemed to point out

that there were lots of room
in the U.S. Constitution

for more freedom.

We are going to Chicago.

About a quarter of a million

of young, energetic
love buddies...

...to engage in a Youth
International Party,

a sing-in, grope-in, love-in.

[shouting]

♪

...which has really
heightened the consciousness

with today's action.

-Are they expecting trouble?
-They expect to march.

We expect trouble all the time.

A whole generation was
systematically cut off

from outlets
to personal meaning.

We could play the game,
but what was it about?

No one knew.

The policeman isn't there
to create disorder.

The policeman is there
to preserve disorder.

So, we went with our
more non-conforming impulse.

[chanting]

The Beats were
originally non-political.

Others who were political

were really following
the Beat movement

to its logical conclusion.

Om, he was wonderful.

He was--he was
an honored presence.

They had a vision
and the vision was truth,

justice, and the American way.

Just like the guy
with the cape,

they were the Supermen
and Superwomen of our era.

♪ ...off of my face

[siren wailing]

The ground was really set
in the way by the people

who had helped us realize

that we didn't have to follow
what our elders told us

if we really didn't think
it was right.

I couldn't get naked
on somebody's front lawn

and get myself arrested,
it wasn't my style,

but I really admired that.

Born of distant dark
planet names,

I, woodwoman,

I spell it away!

Mega, mega, mega, mega,
mega, mega, mega, mega,

mega, mega, mega!

[unintelligible shout]

♪ Knock, knock, knockin'
on heaven's door ♪

There's a time when
the operation of the machine

becomes so odious,

makes you so sick at heart
that you can't take part.

[gunshot]

♪

But I always thought
that what we were doing

was a patriotic act.

Who has always been out there?

Old crazy coots
that keep out on the edge

of where civilization
is going.

I think a lot of this comes
from Cassady and from Kerouac.

Cassady was our driver.

He knew that this was going
to be the best stage

he was ever gonna have
to do his number.

Never mind all that reflection.

Let's see who we are.

Let's turn the thing on
as bright as it will go

and then see what kind of
shadow we cast.

♪ Knock, knock, knockin'
on heaven's door ♪

"I put my back toward
the screen and then spun

and let the momentum
carry the panel

through the screen and window
with a ripping crash.

The blast splashed
out in the moon

like a bright, cold water
baptizing the sleeping earth.

♪

I put my hand on the sill
and vaulted after the panel

into the moonlight."

[shouting]

♪

Mr. Kesey, do you feel
that you have the right

to do what you want,
whatever you want,

and still live in this world?

[shouting and laughing]

I feel that man has the right
to be as big

as he feels it in him to be.

[laughs]

♪

[indistinct chatter]

This is the death
of Neal Cassady

at San Miguel de Allende,
where he died

walking along
the railroad tracks

after getting stoned
and whatever.

And the uppers and downers
at the same time.

[indistinct chatter]

♪

He wasn't destined
to grow old.

He was always young
and he always will be.

A hundred years ago,
he would have been on a horse,

but his--his hot rod
was his horse.

♪

"Delicate eyes that
blinked blue Rockies,

all ash.

Nipples, ribs I touched
with my thumb are ash.

Mouth my tongue touched
once or twice,

all ash."

♪

Our existence is so brief,

as we understood it,
that it becomes more poignant

and more emotionally rich

knowing that it's like a dream

that is already finished,
as Kerouac once said.

Life is a dream already over.

♪

Jack, suddenly, one morning,
had a hemorrhage,

apparently brought on by, uh...

...years and years
of consuming alcohol,

which I guess is the typical
alcoholic's death.

The American
by his day was sick.

Hard-heartedness
had taken over.

So I would say America
broke his heart.

♪

You just have to read
the reviews

of his books in those days.

He was put down,
it was, you know, knifed

and, yet, he was writing
about enthusiasm and delight,

and he was being treated
like some juvenile delinquent.

♪

Now, Jack, Mr. Kerouac,
to what extent do you believe

that the Beat Generation

is related

to the--to the hippies?

What do they have in common?

Was this an evolution
from the one to the other?

We're just the older ones.

I'm 46 years old,
these kids are 18.

It's the same movement
which is apparently

some kind of Dionysian movement

in late civilization,

in which I did not intend
any more than I suppose

Dionysus did
or whatever his name was.

Ha-ha!

Hey, that was good, wasn't it?

I'm good all the time, boy.

Give that man a drink.

Spent all the night
with poets and so on.

He drank and all that.

And, well, I said,
"Aren't you afraid of hell?"

He says, "Oh, no," he says,
"I'm concerned with heaven,"

he says, "I'm thinking
about heaven all the time.

I want to see Gerard,
my little brother."

"He'd already scribed
a thousand dreams,

a thousand pages of dharma,

a million words that sounded
like a million ears.

His heart was tender.

He'd already died
and become a recording angel."

Jack Kerouac, the novelist
who wrote On the Road,

reached the end of it today.

The 47-year-old spokesman
for the Beat Generation

died of a massive hemorrhage

in a St. Petersburg,
Florida, hospital.

♪ And what love endures

♪

♪ All my thoughts of you

♪

♪ For I'm so completely yours

♪

All the people that leave
this stuff here,

it's their way.

You know, it's their way
of coming here,

it's part of their path,
you know?

It's like 13-year-old kids,
college kids,

guys my age, old-timers.

Wicked spectrum.

♪

So, this what's gonna
happen to you?

No, I want to be
in an unmarked grave.

♪

What do you think Jack
would have felt

about all this--all this?

Yeah, he would have grooved
on this stuff

because--because this stuff
comes from the heart

and that's where
he was coming from.

I believe in order,

tenderness, and piety.

Well, then your point
was that a movement

which you conceived
as relatively pure

has become ideologized.

No, a movement that was
considered what?

Pure.

Yes, it was pure in my heart.

♪ Don't explain

♪

Belief and Technique
for Modern Prose

by Jack Kerouac.

"List of essentials:

One, scribbled
secret notebooks

and wild typewritten pages
for your own joy.

Two, submissive to everything,
open, listening.

Three, try never get drunk
outside your own house.

Four, be in love
with your life.

Five, something that you feel
will find its own form.

Six, be crazy
dumbsaint of the mind.

Seven, blow as deep
as you want to blow.

Eight, write what you want

bottomless
from bottom of the mind.

Nine, the unspeakable visions
of the individual."

"Dean was in a trance.

The tenorman's eyes
were fixed straight on him;

he had a madman who
not only understood but cared

and wanted to understand more

and much more than there was.

The tenorman wore
a tattered suede jacket,

purple shirt, cracked shoes,

and zoot pants without press.

He didn't care.

His big brown eyes
were concerned with sadness,

and the singing of songs slowly

and with long,
thoughtful pauses.

His mouth quivered.

He looked at us, Dean and me,

with an expression
that seemed to say, "Hey, now,

what's this thing
we're all doing

in this sad brown world?"

Then it came to the end
of his song,

and for this there had to be
elaborate preparations,

during which time you could
send all the messages

to Garcia around the world
12 times

and what difference
did it make to anyone?

Because here, we were dealing
with the pit and prune juice

of poor beat life itself

in the god-awful streets of man.

Sat in the corner
with a bunch of boys

and paid no attention to them.

He looked down and wept.

He was the greatest.

♪

I had put the light out,

so, in the dark, dancing,
I kissed her.

♪

It was giddy,
whirling to the dance,

the beginning,

the usual beginning
of lovers kissing,

standing up in a dark room,

the room being the woman's
the man all designs.

Quick to plunge, bite,
put the light out,

hide my face in shame,

make love to her tremendously
because of lack of love

for a year almost

and the need pushing me down,

our little agreements
in the dark,

the really should-not-be-tolds,

for it was she who later said,

'Men are so crazy.

They want the essence.

The woman is the essence.

There it is
right in their hands

but they rush off erecting
big abstract constructions.'

But I cannot
in this confession

betray the innermosts,
the thighs,

what the thighs contain.

The thighs contain the essence,

yet though there I should stay
and from there I came

and will eventually return,

still I have to rush off
and construct,

construct, for nothing,
for Baudelaire poems."

♪

This is just his bones here.

His spirit is around us.

♪

[tapping of typewriter keys]

♪

I'd like an omelet, plain,

and a chicken salad sandwich
on wheat toast.

"Sixteen years ago,
we were put down

for being filthy beatnik
sex commie dope fiends."

Now, all you have to do
is hold the chicken,

bring me the toast,
give me a check

for the chicken salad sandwich,

and you haven't broken
any rules.

You see that sign, sir?

Do you see this sign?

"Sixteen years later

Allen's the respect
of his elders,

the love of his peers."

Do you have nostalgia
for the '50s and '60s now?

None at all,
it's more interesting now.

I mean, it's the s--
the '50s, '60s, '70s,

same thing as now.

It's eternity all the time,

so there's no point
having nostalgia for eternity.

"Bill, Bill is ever Bill,

even though he stopped drugging

and smoking cigarettes."

I'm pleased tonight
to introduce a man

who, in my opinion,

is the greatest living writer
in America.

"Me? I'm still considered

an unwashed beatnik
sex commie dope fiend."

Want a hit?
I don't have a light.

"Dear Audience, we early heads
of present style

and consciousness
are the Daddies of the Age."

The Beats, in standing up,

got laughed at
by the civilization.

All the academic--
you don't know how much hatred

there was for these guys
and sneers,

and teachers would snicker.

Police, you may as well open.

The moment The Beard
first opened in Los Angeles,

every night,
city vice squad detectives

arrested the cast
and the producer.

When are we gonna get
controversial again, Allen?

It's all getting too sedate,
don't you think so?

How many years has it been
since you've been busted?

I mean, we're in trouble here.

I was busted
just three weeks ago.

Of course, of course,
there you go.

[shouting]

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not
gonna take it anymore!

I'm mad as hell!

I'm not gonna take it anymore!

I'm mad as hell,
and I'm not gonna take it--

I'm not gonna take it anymore!

I'm mad as hell!

Literary Movements for $200.

-Jeopardy, TV program.
-Oh.

Burroughs, Kerouac,
and Ginsey are accepted

-in a literary...
-On the contrary, Gregory.

-Bullshit.
-The point is...

Those three were the big ones

and anybody afterwards is...

-That's all right with me.
-But it ain't all right with me

'cause they don't know
where to place me.

I had my book published
before his.

Yeah, but, Gregory,
you seem very bitter,

and your poetry and your work
is so joyful and happy.

Bitter? I'm not a bitter man.

Bitter?

I bet my poems
top all your shots.

Watch the game, you don't
even know what's gonna happen

eighty years from now.

These fuckers may be niente.

[indistinct chatter]

♪

Gregory Corso.

[cheering]

Whereas Lowell-born author
Jack Kerouac

is known as one
of this century's

most important figures
in American literature.

Now everybody says,
"Oh, I went to school with him.

Oh, yes, I knew him very well!"

"Dear Daddy Jack,
I am your real daughter

that you never found.

Love everlasting,
Jan Michelle."

♪

They have totally shat upon
the whole premise

of the Beat Generation
which is to be free,

and free speech,
and it's Kerouacgate.

♪

[tapping of typewriter keys]

♪

[humming]

♪

Ladies and gentlemen,
an American hero,

American bard,

American genius.

You can't see on the left,

it says "All proceeds
for this image

go to the Jack Kerouac
School of Poetics

in Naropa Institute,
Boulder, Colorado."

Oh, that's great,
this goes to the--

I got my alibi.

Oh, that's good.

-I, uh...
-That's a good cause.

I have my alibi
for not selling out.

Not many people do.

No.

♪ Teacher Death

♪ I do thank you

♪ For inspiring me

♪ To sing this blues

♪ Father Breath

"Allen died April 5th, 1997.

He said to me, 'I thought
I would be terrified,

but I'm exhilarated.'

His last words to me."

♪ Time will tell

♪

"Larry was another.

I talked till ten
the night of his death.

He said, 'Why not?'"

"I saw God in the sky,
in the form of huge, gold,

sunburning clouds
above the desert.

He seemed to point a finger
at me and say,

'Pass here and go on.

You're on the road to heaven.'"

♪

Let us pray.

"Our Father,
whose art's in heaven,

hallowed be Thy name

unless things change."

Keep the fire alive.

Keep love alive, brothers.

Keep love alive.

Do you still write poems
and things, too?

Me? I never stopped in my life
writing poetry.

When I feel like
writing a poem,

I write a poem,
how can you stop?

Can you give us a line
of the newest that you wrote?

A line, a line?

All right, "Death is a rumor
spread by life."

How's that?

Come again?

♪

[siren wailing]

♪

It's continuing a tradition.

You know, it's continuing
a tradition

and finding our antecedents.

I mean, so we have to look back

before we can look forward.

"You should be putting me
out of my misery!

Give me some smack
and a case of blackjack,

and I will save us all
from a world of shit!"

"His legs were left in Vietnam!

His arms were found
in Sing Sing!

His scalp is on Nixon's belt!

His blood paints
the streets of the ghetto!

His eyes are still
looking for Jesus

to come down from some cloud,

and make everything all right
when Jesus died in Attica!"

♪

[siren wailing]

♪

They just stepped
right off the edge

and we're--we're
on the edge, too.

We need a light right now.

I say, now or never right now.

Give us our sight right now.

Give us our light right now!

Now or never right now!

Yeah!

Talked about the hot sperm seed
being spilled on the ground

and how the birds fluttered,

and, you know, I was 16
and I knew what that was about,

and you didn't talk about it,
you know.

And it--it let me feel okay,
it let me feel okay.

"Bashful beneath her T-shirt,

draped across shoulder blades
and collarbones,

pushes straw hair
from hollowed eyes and asks,

'Am I beautiful to you?'"

♪

"I could clearly see
revealed the connection

of her black-seam stockings
and her red garters,

like two deadly circuits
fused to activate a device

of total annihilation."

[speaking foreign language]

All the mambo kings
and cumbia queens,

Aztec lords, Inca princesses,

every Hernandez and Fernandez.

♪

It's time to make our move.

♪

Don't tell me about it,
I don't want to know about

six-year-old black girls
getting raped by 12 pigs

in KKK uniforms,
carving up her belly

and throwing her out
in Staten Island

like some kind of
sack of garbage

in a plastic sheet.

"Oh, MTV, you must shine
like a beacon,

for I am getting old
and my knees are creakin'.

Please give these young people
some food for thought.

You really should,
you really ought."

I read Kerouac and I feel
that what he's saying

is that he's not looking for
universal meaning to life,

but he's saying, "Fuck you,
I'm gonna make my own meaning,

and if you don't like it,
then kiss my ass."

♪

I was mute, tongue-tied,

burdened by shadows
and silence.

Now I speak

and my burden is lightened,

lifted free.

♪

"I know this body is impatient,

I know I constitute
only a meager voice and mind,

yet I loved.

I love.

I want no sentimentality.

I want no more than home."

♪

A young person
will come up to me

and he'll be standing there,
maybe he'll have a mohawk,

or maybe he'll have
one side of his head shaved

and the other side in, uh,

in dreads,
and he and I are sharing

many of the same thoughts,
he's anti-war,

believes in the environment,

and that person will say,
"Whatever happened to the--

whatever happened to the Beats
and to the '60s?

Did they just get run over
by the steamroller

of the corporations?"

And it makes me want to laugh

because this kid
is so much like what...

...so many people from
that period made possible.

He's standing there
in his own natural,

much freer body
asking me those things,

and it's kind of funny
because I think, you know,

"You're us."

♪

'Cause we're the source.

♪

"What is that feeling

when you're driving away
from people

and they recede on the plain

till you see their specks
dispersing?

It's the too-huge world
vaulting us,

and it's goodbye.

But we lean forward
to the next crazy venture

beneath the skies."

♪

♪ Hey Jack Kerouac

♪ I think of your mother

♪

♪ And the tears she cried

♪ They were cried
for none other ♪

♪ Than her San Francisco
beat boys ♪

♪ You were the favorite

♪ Now they sit
and rattle their bones

and think of their
blood-stoned days ♪

♪ You chose your words
from mouths of

babes got lost in the wood ♪

♪ The hip flask
slinging madman ♪

♪ Steaming cafe flirts

♪ In Chinatown
howling at night ♪

♪

♪ Allen baby

♪ Why so jaded

♪

♪ Have the boys all grown up
and their beauty faded ♪

♪

♪ Billy

♪ What a saint
they've made you ♪

♪ Just like Mary down in Mexico

on All Souls' Day ♪

♪

♪ You chose your words
from mouths of

babes got lost in the wood ♪

♪ Cool junk booting madmen

♪ Street-minded girls

♪ In Harlem howling at night

♪

♪ What a tear-stained

shock of the world ♪

♪ You've gone away
without saying,

saying goodbye ♪

♪