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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:24,894 --> 00:00:34,904 ♪ 4 00:01:01,844 --> 00:01:05,456 Whereas Allen Ginsberg has made a lasting impact 5 00:01:05,500 --> 00:01:07,893 as a poet and a scholar, 6 00:01:07,937 --> 00:01:11,419 and whereas his candor and scholarship 7 00:01:11,462 --> 00:01:15,814 has served as an inspiration to an entire generation, 8 00:01:15,858 --> 00:01:19,122 now therefore I, mayor of the city of Boulder, 9 00:01:19,166 --> 00:01:22,169 do hereby designate Sunday, July 3rd, 10 00:01:22,212 --> 00:01:24,258 as Allen Ginsberg Day. 11 00:01:24,301 --> 00:01:26,782 [applause, cheering] 12 00:01:26,825 --> 00:01:35,573 ♪ 13 00:01:35,616 --> 00:01:37,662 "With the coming of Dean Moriarty 14 00:01:37,706 --> 00:01:39,273 began the part of my life 15 00:01:39,316 --> 00:01:42,493 you could call my life on the road. 16 00:01:42,537 --> 00:01:45,931 In the bar I told Dean, 'Hell, man, I know very well 17 00:01:45,975 --> 00:01:48,847 you didn't come to me only to want to become a writer. 18 00:01:48,890 --> 00:01:50,675 And, after all, what do I really know about it 19 00:01:50,719 --> 00:01:52,503 except you gotta stick to it 20 00:01:52,547 --> 00:01:54,765 with the energy of a benny addict.' 21 00:01:54,810 --> 00:01:58,247 Because the only people for me are the mad ones, 22 00:01:58,292 --> 00:02:01,295 the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing 23 00:02:01,338 --> 00:02:05,908 but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles 24 00:02:05,951 --> 00:02:08,954 exploding like spiders across the stars 25 00:02:08,997 --> 00:02:11,261 and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop 26 00:02:11,305 --> 00:02:13,829 and everybody goes, 'Aww.'" 27 00:02:13,872 --> 00:02:19,095 ♪ 28 00:02:19,139 --> 00:02:21,576 [phone dialing] 29 00:02:21,619 --> 00:02:30,106 ♪ 30 00:02:30,150 --> 00:02:31,760 Hello, Ed. 31 00:02:31,803 --> 00:02:33,327 Ladies and gentlemen, we're honored to have 32 00:02:33,370 --> 00:02:35,894 on the line from Lawrence, Kansas, 33 00:02:35,938 --> 00:02:38,549 a great American writer whose brilliance 34 00:02:38,593 --> 00:02:43,163 and incomparable satire [unintelligible]. 35 00:02:43,206 --> 00:02:45,295 Let's welcome William Burroughs. 36 00:02:45,339 --> 00:02:46,949 [cheering] 37 00:02:46,992 --> 00:02:48,516 How many people are there? 38 00:02:48,559 --> 00:02:50,257 Town Hall is packed. 39 00:02:50,300 --> 00:02:53,085 The Beat goes on, Bill. 40 00:02:53,129 --> 00:02:56,088 I've often been asked if I had some words of advice 41 00:02:56,132 --> 00:02:57,525 to young people. 42 00:02:57,567 --> 00:02:58,743 ♪ 43 00:02:58,787 --> 00:03:00,397 If you are doing business 44 00:03:00,441 --> 00:03:03,444 with a religious son of a bitch, 45 00:03:03,487 --> 00:03:05,576 get it in writing. 46 00:03:05,620 --> 00:03:08,666 His word isn't worth a shit, not with good Lord 47 00:03:08,710 --> 00:03:11,147 telling him how to fuck you over. 48 00:03:11,191 --> 00:03:12,366 [laughter] 49 00:03:12,409 --> 00:03:13,671 ♪ 50 00:03:13,715 --> 00:03:17,240 Gregory Corso and I collaborated, 51 00:03:17,284 --> 00:03:19,155 almost inadvertently, in building a-- 52 00:03:19,199 --> 00:03:21,462 building a whole mythology of a generation. 53 00:03:21,505 --> 00:03:23,768 -When Sputnik went up-- -Yeah, we did a chain poem. 54 00:03:23,812 --> 00:03:26,423 A chain poem made in Amsterdam. 55 00:03:26,466 --> 00:03:29,948 And we took a rest and went downstairs to the bathroom 56 00:03:29,992 --> 00:03:34,605 and this owner of the hotel, what do you think he thinks? 57 00:03:34,649 --> 00:03:37,173 Two guys, right, four legs, 58 00:03:37,216 --> 00:03:39,262 they're having sex, they're indignant. 59 00:03:39,305 --> 00:03:42,091 And I say, "Hey, we're smoking a joint, man. 60 00:03:42,134 --> 00:03:43,440 We ain't having sex." 61 00:03:43,484 --> 00:03:44,398 [laughter] 62 00:03:44,441 --> 00:03:45,355 ♪ 63 00:03:45,399 --> 00:03:46,748 "There once was a place, 64 00:03:46,791 --> 00:03:49,316 perhaps, where all was light, 65 00:03:49,359 --> 00:03:52,101 which once was the place, pray tell, 66 00:03:52,144 --> 00:03:55,583 some non-manmade god hung out. 67 00:03:55,626 --> 00:03:57,976 And so tra-la, tra-la, 68 00:03:58,020 --> 00:04:00,936 it's fin de siècle again, my dears, 69 00:04:00,979 --> 00:04:02,894 and the music of the spheres, 70 00:04:02,938 --> 00:04:06,333 some kind of mad, mad laughter." 71 00:04:06,376 --> 00:04:08,857 [applause] 72 00:04:08,900 --> 00:04:13,557 ♪ 73 00:04:13,601 --> 00:04:16,081 [dog barking] 74 00:04:16,125 --> 00:04:22,349 ♪ 75 00:04:22,392 --> 00:04:24,829 [distant siren] 76 00:04:30,095 --> 00:04:31,575 Space. 77 00:04:31,619 --> 00:04:34,317 Like, the final frontier, man. 78 00:04:34,361 --> 00:04:37,886 These are the voyages of the hip Starship Enterprise. 79 00:04:37,929 --> 00:04:42,456 Captain, permission to beam Lawrence Ferlinghetti aboard. 80 00:04:42,499 --> 00:04:43,935 Permission, like, granted. 81 00:04:43,979 --> 00:04:45,807 [laughter] 82 00:04:45,850 --> 00:04:46,895 Where are we headed, man? 83 00:04:48,505 --> 00:04:52,248 To, like, the Planet Bongo. 84 00:04:52,292 --> 00:04:55,556 They were the lonely voices of dissent in the 1950s. 85 00:04:55,599 --> 00:04:57,427 Outsiders, and proud of it, 86 00:04:57,471 --> 00:05:00,343 they were the artists who called themselves Beats. 87 00:05:00,387 --> 00:05:03,172 Hear the sound, hear the sound. 88 00:05:03,215 --> 00:05:08,308 Zoom, zoom, zoom. 89 00:05:08,351 --> 00:05:09,918 [muttering] 90 00:05:09,961 --> 00:05:14,139 Oh--zoom, zoom, zoom. 91 00:05:14,183 --> 00:05:15,358 Fallout shelter, 92 00:05:15,402 --> 00:05:16,446 Sputnik, 93 00:05:16,490 --> 00:05:17,752 H-bomb, 94 00:05:17,795 --> 00:05:20,755 explosion, explosion, explosion. 95 00:05:20,798 --> 00:05:22,800 Bang! 96 00:05:22,844 --> 00:05:24,715 [applause, snapping] 97 00:05:24,759 --> 00:05:29,938 ♪ 98 00:05:29,981 --> 00:05:31,287 There's been a revival of interest 99 00:05:31,331 --> 00:05:32,593 in the Beat Generation. 100 00:05:32,636 --> 00:05:34,638 Poetry readings are back and being performed 101 00:05:34,682 --> 00:05:36,945 at coffee houses straight out of the '50s. 102 00:05:36,988 --> 00:05:39,643 Even MTV now has poetry programs 103 00:05:39,687 --> 00:05:42,080 that would make Jack Kerouac proud. 104 00:05:42,124 --> 00:05:54,876 ♪ 105 00:05:54,919 --> 00:05:56,659 I feel all dead inside. 106 00:05:56,704 --> 00:05:57,748 ♪ 107 00:05:57,792 --> 00:05:59,315 Backed up in a dark corner. 108 00:05:59,359 --> 00:06:00,751 ♪ 109 00:06:00,795 --> 00:06:02,405 And I don't know who's hitting me. 110 00:06:02,449 --> 00:06:04,799 Shorty! Shorty, get me that fight from Quinn. 111 00:06:04,842 --> 00:06:06,540 I want money. Do you understand? Money, money! 112 00:06:06,583 --> 00:06:08,585 I forbid, I forbid. Better buy a guy and shoot yourself. 113 00:06:08,629 --> 00:06:10,152 You need money to buy a gun. 114 00:06:10,195 --> 00:06:12,894 ♪ 115 00:06:12,937 --> 00:06:14,199 It's my first day in school, 116 00:06:14,243 --> 00:06:15,549 some kids got around me, white kids. 117 00:06:15,592 --> 00:06:16,506 They said, "Hey, who are you? 118 00:06:16,550 --> 00:06:17,812 Is your father a monkey?" 119 00:06:17,855 --> 00:06:19,727 I was dumb, I smiled and said, "No." 120 00:06:19,770 --> 00:06:21,337 Well, they wiped that smile right off my face, 121 00:06:21,381 --> 00:06:22,773 they beat it off. 122 00:06:22,817 --> 00:06:24,166 I had to get beat up a couple of more times 123 00:06:24,209 --> 00:06:25,472 before I found out that if you're colored, 124 00:06:25,515 --> 00:06:26,951 you stink. 125 00:06:26,995 --> 00:06:28,475 ♪ 126 00:06:29,563 --> 00:06:30,912 ♪ 127 00:06:30,955 --> 00:06:33,218 In the '40s, the bomb dropped. 128 00:06:33,262 --> 00:06:35,917 The entire planet was threatened biologically. 129 00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:37,527 When suddenly the realization, 130 00:06:37,571 --> 00:06:39,747 "Why are we being intimidated by a bunch of jerks 131 00:06:39,790 --> 00:06:41,618 who don't know anything about life? 132 00:06:41,662 --> 00:06:43,011 Who are they to tell us what we feel 133 00:06:43,054 --> 00:06:44,578 and how we're supposed to behave, 134 00:06:44,621 --> 00:06:47,015 and why take all that bullshit?" 135 00:06:47,058 --> 00:06:49,452 [typing] 136 00:07:07,035 --> 00:07:09,167 We're at Columbia University now, 137 00:07:09,211 --> 00:07:11,692 and the connection here with the Beats 138 00:07:11,735 --> 00:07:14,434 is that this is where Jack Kerouac 139 00:07:14,477 --> 00:07:16,740 and Allen Ginsberg met 140 00:07:16,784 --> 00:07:19,874 and the catalytic reaction began 141 00:07:19,917 --> 00:07:22,703 that became the Beat Movement, 142 00:07:22,746 --> 00:07:26,271 and that was one of the forces that helped create 143 00:07:26,315 --> 00:07:28,491 and I think shaped the movements of the 1960s. 144 00:07:28,535 --> 00:07:31,712 Now, Kerouac comes down from your own fair state 145 00:07:31,755 --> 00:07:34,366 of Massachusetts, from Lowell. 146 00:07:34,409 --> 00:07:36,630 He's a working class guy. 147 00:07:36,673 --> 00:07:39,502 From a very early age is interested in writing. 148 00:07:39,546 --> 00:07:42,940 He is a great football player at Lowell, 149 00:07:42,984 --> 00:07:46,335 and they offered him a football scholarship. 150 00:07:46,378 --> 00:07:50,426 The man who shook up America with the Beat Movement was-- 151 00:07:50,470 --> 00:07:52,689 basically began as a jock. 152 00:07:52,733 --> 00:07:55,518 Until he hurts his leg. 153 00:07:55,562 --> 00:07:58,695 And at that point he meets Allen Ginsberg 154 00:07:58,739 --> 00:08:00,567 from Paterson, New Jersey, 155 00:08:00,610 --> 00:08:02,177 father a high school teacher, 156 00:08:02,220 --> 00:08:05,006 poet of minor note. 157 00:08:05,049 --> 00:08:08,662 And they're not talking too much about football. 158 00:08:08,705 --> 00:08:11,273 They were interested in something very corny, 159 00:08:11,316 --> 00:08:14,842 trying to find truth and meaning in life. 160 00:08:14,885 --> 00:08:18,410 We weren't trying to make a social revolution, particularly. 161 00:08:18,454 --> 00:08:23,415 We were just trying to propose our own souls to ourselves. 162 00:08:23,459 --> 00:08:24,852 Were they lovers? 163 00:08:24,895 --> 00:08:27,681 We felt very close to each other just intuitively, 164 00:08:27,724 --> 00:08:30,988 but, uh, you know, without any overt sexual thing, 165 00:08:31,032 --> 00:08:33,121 except that I was in love him. 166 00:08:33,164 --> 00:08:35,602 I had a crush on him, I had a crush on everybody. 167 00:08:35,645 --> 00:08:37,472 ♪ 168 00:08:37,517 --> 00:08:40,563 They found African American culture fascinating. 169 00:08:40,607 --> 00:08:44,087 They related to weird people like William Burroughs. 170 00:08:44,131 --> 00:08:47,875 Jack and I went out to investigate your soul 171 00:08:47,918 --> 00:08:52,009 because we both really thought you were a religious thing 172 00:08:52,053 --> 00:08:55,230 and dignified and weird but intelligent. 173 00:08:55,273 --> 00:08:56,753 Jack said, uh, 174 00:08:56,797 --> 00:08:59,582 "Bill is the most intelligent man in America." 175 00:08:59,626 --> 00:09:01,236 Did they take a lot of drugs? 176 00:09:01,279 --> 00:09:03,238 Did they take a lot of drugs? 177 00:09:03,281 --> 00:09:07,155 Cannabis, datura, coca... 178 00:09:07,198 --> 00:09:08,896 I had a habit, and that... 179 00:09:08,939 --> 00:09:10,811 ♪ 180 00:09:10,854 --> 00:09:13,291 ...kept me occupied. 181 00:09:13,335 --> 00:09:14,945 They were searching, they were searching. 182 00:09:14,989 --> 00:09:18,122 They knew they weren't satisfied with what was. 183 00:09:18,166 --> 00:09:20,603 And that's why we're here at Columbia 184 00:09:20,647 --> 00:09:24,738 trying to inhale the atmosphere 185 00:09:24,781 --> 00:09:28,916 that once nurtured people who dared to be different. 186 00:09:28,959 --> 00:09:33,877 ♪ 187 00:09:33,921 --> 00:09:37,664 Burroughs began exploring Times Square. 188 00:09:37,707 --> 00:09:42,016 to sort of see the lumpen population. 189 00:09:42,059 --> 00:09:45,019 He was interested in the different varieties of the bars. 190 00:09:45,062 --> 00:09:46,498 ♪ 191 00:09:46,542 --> 00:09:48,457 He'd met Herbert Huncke, 192 00:09:48,500 --> 00:09:51,025 and Huncke was living around Times Square, 193 00:09:51,068 --> 00:09:52,679 practically on the street. 194 00:09:52,722 --> 00:09:54,594 They'd come strolling down the street 195 00:09:54,637 --> 00:09:56,639 with books under their arms. 196 00:09:56,683 --> 00:09:58,598 We thought you had some kind of secret knowledge. 197 00:09:58,641 --> 00:10:03,167 It's just good, healthy activity in a funny way. 198 00:10:03,211 --> 00:10:06,301 We'd pick up some grass, smoke, 199 00:10:06,344 --> 00:10:10,435 and observe the phenomena of the red light 200 00:10:10,479 --> 00:10:12,524 over the roof-combs of the buildings 201 00:10:12,568 --> 00:10:15,963 that indicated some kind of apocalyptic, 202 00:10:16,006 --> 00:10:18,792 end of millennium consciousness. 203 00:10:18,835 --> 00:10:21,229 Those were all justifications. 204 00:10:21,272 --> 00:10:22,752 -For what? -For what? 205 00:10:22,796 --> 00:10:26,147 For what? For an interest in the whole thing. 206 00:10:26,190 --> 00:10:28,410 Sometimes you lose sight of the fact 207 00:10:28,453 --> 00:10:30,542 that these were basically college kids, 208 00:10:30,586 --> 00:10:32,675 except for Burroughs, who was a little older. 209 00:10:32,719 --> 00:10:34,721 These were basically young people 210 00:10:34,764 --> 00:10:38,594 who were kind of broken off in public, in a way. 211 00:10:38,638 --> 00:10:40,290 They were out getting loaded and they were just 212 00:10:40,335 --> 00:10:45,079 making a lot of conversation that they could build on. 213 00:10:45,122 --> 00:10:48,822 ♪ 214 00:10:48,865 --> 00:10:51,912 "Did I tell you my poem about the Empire State Building 215 00:10:51,955 --> 00:10:54,349 that had not doomed the dumb eyes of New York 216 00:10:54,392 --> 00:10:56,003 all the time? 'That was pretty good.' 217 00:10:56,046 --> 00:10:58,048 He says, 'Hey, I've got a new poem too.' 218 00:10:58,092 --> 00:11:01,008 All these poets struggling to be poets. 219 00:11:01,051 --> 00:11:02,662 Same time if they want to, 220 00:11:02,705 --> 00:11:06,709 they turn a little purple moonlight pages 221 00:11:06,753 --> 00:11:09,886 in which their secret naked doodlings do show. 222 00:11:09,930 --> 00:11:13,847 ♪ 223 00:11:13,890 --> 00:11:16,545 Secret scatological thought. 224 00:11:16,588 --> 00:11:18,286 ♪ 225 00:11:18,329 --> 00:11:20,070 That's why everybody wants to see it." 226 00:11:20,114 --> 00:11:22,029 "America, I've given you all. 227 00:11:22,072 --> 00:11:23,726 Now I'm nothing. 228 00:11:23,770 --> 00:11:25,859 America, I used to be a communist when I was a kid. 229 00:11:25,902 --> 00:11:27,730 I'm not sorry. 230 00:11:27,774 --> 00:11:30,211 I smoke marijuana every chance I get. 231 00:11:30,254 --> 00:11:33,083 Whenever I go to Chinatown, I get drunk and never get laid. 232 00:11:33,127 --> 00:11:35,912 My mind is made up, there's going to be trouble." 233 00:11:35,956 --> 00:11:38,654 I have told you that I will offer my beliefs, 234 00:11:38,698 --> 00:11:41,004 my affiliations, and everything else 235 00:11:41,048 --> 00:11:42,266 for the American public, 236 00:11:42,310 --> 00:11:43,615 and they will know where I stand 237 00:11:43,659 --> 00:11:45,139 as they do from what I have written. 238 00:11:45,182 --> 00:11:46,706 -Stand away from the stand. -I have written 239 00:11:46,749 --> 00:11:48,490 for Americanism for many years and I shall... 240 00:11:48,533 --> 00:11:49,970 Stand away from the stand! 241 00:11:50,013 --> 00:11:51,449 ...fight for the Bill of Rights-- 242 00:11:51,493 --> 00:11:53,538 Officer, take this man away from the stand. 243 00:11:53,582 --> 00:11:56,063 The country had gotten energized into this-- 244 00:11:56,106 --> 00:11:58,239 the war effort of the Second World War. 245 00:11:58,282 --> 00:12:01,285 And, uh, when the men came back, uh, 246 00:12:01,329 --> 00:12:03,418 one thing--there was the G.I. Bill was there, 247 00:12:03,461 --> 00:12:04,506 a lot of people went to school that 248 00:12:04,549 --> 00:12:05,899 never would have gone to school, 249 00:12:05,942 --> 00:12:07,248 went to the universities. 250 00:12:07,291 --> 00:12:10,164 Uh, uh, there was a feeling of, uh, 251 00:12:10,207 --> 00:12:13,254 that--that America was getting a fresh start, 252 00:12:13,297 --> 00:12:14,777 was getting a real start. 253 00:12:14,821 --> 00:12:17,519 Three years or so after the end of the war, 254 00:12:17,562 --> 00:12:20,783 the draft is back, uh, the Korean War then, 255 00:12:20,827 --> 00:12:24,874 the early '50s, uh, the McCarthy hearings, 256 00:12:24,918 --> 00:12:27,355 the House Un-American Activities Committee, 257 00:12:27,398 --> 00:12:29,836 the execution of the Rosenbergs, 258 00:12:29,879 --> 00:12:33,796 the sense of a status quo, business as usual, 259 00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:37,626 a kind of stolid, even comfort. 260 00:12:37,669 --> 00:12:39,584 That it's the fattest civilization around, 261 00:12:39,628 --> 00:12:41,282 the best ever. 262 00:12:41,325 --> 00:12:45,155 And, in reality, there was an incredible provincialism 263 00:12:45,199 --> 00:12:48,028 and a very strong sense of conformity 264 00:12:48,071 --> 00:12:50,813 and a stultifying feeling 265 00:12:50,857 --> 00:12:53,337 that you had to get along with Life Magazine, 266 00:12:53,381 --> 00:12:54,991 as, you know, what Ginsberg says, 267 00:12:55,035 --> 00:12:57,951 "I don't want my emotional life to be read by Time." 268 00:12:57,994 --> 00:13:03,173 Eisenhower's intention was that we should try to settle down 269 00:13:03,217 --> 00:13:06,742 to some nice, quiet, American pursuits 270 00:13:06,786 --> 00:13:08,526 and not rock the boat, 271 00:13:08,570 --> 00:13:11,660 and it was time for us to ease off a bit. 272 00:13:11,703 --> 00:13:15,142 He accomplished that, the country was pretty quiet. 273 00:13:15,185 --> 00:13:18,101 We ask every citizen to immediately report 274 00:13:18,145 --> 00:13:20,669 any information regarding espionage, 275 00:13:20,712 --> 00:13:23,411 sabotage, or un-American activities 276 00:13:23,454 --> 00:13:25,282 to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 277 00:13:25,326 --> 00:13:27,763 ♪ That made him such a flop 278 00:13:27,807 --> 00:13:31,027 ♪ Was he beeped when he should have bopped ♪ 279 00:13:31,071 --> 00:13:32,942 It was such a schizophrenic distinction 280 00:13:32,986 --> 00:13:34,901 between a private world of what everybody knew 281 00:13:34,944 --> 00:13:37,947 and talked about, like black culture 282 00:13:37,991 --> 00:13:41,037 or teahead culture of those years 283 00:13:41,081 --> 00:13:43,300 or just sexual culture or gay culture, 284 00:13:43,344 --> 00:13:45,389 there were all these marginalized cultures 285 00:13:45,433 --> 00:13:47,522 which were never represented in public. 286 00:13:47,565 --> 00:13:50,003 ♪ 287 00:13:50,046 --> 00:13:52,440 It was friendship, affairs, intermarriage, 288 00:13:52,483 --> 00:13:55,530 and a sense of, uh, a community. 289 00:13:55,573 --> 00:13:56,661 ♪ 290 00:13:56,705 --> 00:13:58,402 They were the jazz musicians, 291 00:13:58,446 --> 00:14:01,797 and they were related to the abstract expressionists. 292 00:14:01,841 --> 00:14:03,668 ♪ Oh, you did it again 293 00:14:03,712 --> 00:14:06,802 But that wasn't the only thing that was going on then. 294 00:14:06,846 --> 00:14:08,891 The poetry scene was important, 295 00:14:08,935 --> 00:14:09,936 but there was also the Living Theater 296 00:14:09,979 --> 00:14:11,111 was going on then. 297 00:14:11,154 --> 00:14:13,635 [rattling] 298 00:14:13,678 --> 00:14:15,637 ♪ 299 00:14:15,680 --> 00:14:18,031 Good morning, recruits. 300 00:14:18,074 --> 00:14:19,554 John Cage was important. 301 00:14:19,597 --> 00:14:22,035 [high-pitched bubbling] 302 00:14:22,078 --> 00:14:25,255 ♪ 303 00:14:25,299 --> 00:14:26,604 Happenings were happening then. 304 00:14:26,648 --> 00:14:30,695 ♪ 305 00:14:30,739 --> 00:14:33,568 There was a joy and an optimism. 306 00:14:33,611 --> 00:14:34,525 ♪ 307 00:14:34,569 --> 00:14:35,831 The music reflected that. 308 00:14:35,875 --> 00:14:37,180 Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie 309 00:14:37,224 --> 00:14:39,879 were breaking down those walls. 310 00:14:39,922 --> 00:14:41,271 It's all insane, then you look back, 311 00:14:41,315 --> 00:14:42,533 you look away, around, 312 00:14:42,577 --> 00:14:43,795 everything is coming in from everywhere 313 00:14:43,839 --> 00:14:45,145 in the sound of the jazz. 314 00:14:45,188 --> 00:14:47,234 "Hi," "Hey." 315 00:14:47,277 --> 00:14:48,713 We were our own audience. 316 00:14:48,757 --> 00:14:50,933 I mean, Kerouac wrote seven books-- 317 00:14:50,977 --> 00:14:53,457 or 14 books before they were published. 318 00:14:53,501 --> 00:14:55,764 We were more or less united, I would say, 319 00:14:55,807 --> 00:14:57,548 towards increased awareness. 320 00:14:57,592 --> 00:14:59,202 ♪ 321 00:14:59,246 --> 00:15:00,900 Increased freedom. 322 00:15:00,943 --> 00:15:02,771 There were little connections that we're making 323 00:15:02,814 --> 00:15:04,251 and they were building. 324 00:15:04,294 --> 00:15:07,036 What you had here, as near as I can tell, 325 00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:09,212 was a collection or a gathering 326 00:15:09,256 --> 00:15:12,259 of very, very great intelligence. 327 00:15:12,302 --> 00:15:14,870 ♪ 328 00:15:14,914 --> 00:15:16,654 Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground 329 00:15:16,698 --> 00:15:18,352 is the model of a lot of these people, 330 00:15:18,395 --> 00:15:21,398 the guy who--who lives in some kind of hole 331 00:15:21,442 --> 00:15:24,793 and rails at what's going on around him. 332 00:15:24,836 --> 00:15:26,534 Many of us, without knowing Dostoyevsky, 333 00:15:26,577 --> 00:15:27,709 thought that was our role. 334 00:15:27,752 --> 00:15:29,189 To write poetry, to write music, 335 00:15:29,232 --> 00:15:31,147 to paint, to act, to dance, 336 00:15:31,191 --> 00:15:32,496 to dare to dream. 337 00:15:32,540 --> 00:15:33,889 ♪ 338 00:15:33,933 --> 00:15:35,499 Allen had this vision, 339 00:15:35,543 --> 00:15:37,023 these Blake visions, 340 00:15:37,066 --> 00:15:38,372 and he suddenly said, 341 00:15:38,415 --> 00:15:40,374 "We're taking over the universe." 342 00:15:40,417 --> 00:15:48,512 ♪ 343 00:16:03,701 --> 00:16:07,749 Well, Beat got the beat-- got the bebop beat 344 00:16:07,792 --> 00:16:09,316 so that you have a sense of timing. 345 00:16:09,359 --> 00:16:10,708 ♪ 346 00:16:10,752 --> 00:16:13,233 Then there's the Catholic thing of beatitude. 347 00:16:13,276 --> 00:16:14,451 ♪ 348 00:16:14,495 --> 00:16:16,279 You know, like sacred and holy. 349 00:16:19,326 --> 00:16:22,633 Huncke gave it as the one I would usually give it, 350 00:16:22,677 --> 00:16:25,985 if somebody wants to tell you their problem and all that, 351 00:16:26,028 --> 00:16:28,117 you say, "Not now, man, I'm beat." 352 00:16:28,161 --> 00:16:29,466 When the Sputnik went up and they said, 353 00:16:29,510 --> 00:16:32,034 "Oh, these guys are out of this world," 354 00:16:32,078 --> 00:16:33,165 Beatniks. 355 00:16:33,209 --> 00:16:35,037 Beatniks, nutniks, 356 00:16:35,081 --> 00:16:37,474 they all act like they was behind the door 357 00:16:37,518 --> 00:16:39,128 when the brains was handed out. 358 00:16:39,172 --> 00:16:41,348 [laughter] 359 00:16:41,391 --> 00:16:43,393 I met Mr. Ginsberg maybe about two months 360 00:16:43,437 --> 00:16:45,265 after I had left prison. 361 00:16:45,308 --> 00:16:47,484 19--what? '49? 362 00:16:47,528 --> 00:16:48,833 ♪ 363 00:16:48,877 --> 00:16:50,226 You said '50. 364 00:16:50,270 --> 00:16:53,273 ♪ 365 00:16:53,316 --> 00:16:55,449 It was the beginning of 1950. 366 00:16:55,492 --> 00:16:58,017 Girl, sorry for one fucking little mistake, 367 00:16:58,060 --> 00:16:59,409 stay out of it. 368 00:16:59,453 --> 00:17:01,368 ♪ 369 00:17:01,411 --> 00:17:03,979 Women were pretty much ornaments 370 00:17:04,022 --> 00:17:05,589 for the men and the Beats, 371 00:17:05,633 --> 00:17:07,069 and they were the caretakers. 372 00:17:07,113 --> 00:17:08,983 They got away with murder 373 00:17:09,028 --> 00:17:11,247 because what they were proselytizing 374 00:17:11,290 --> 00:17:14,511 produced the male artist hero. 375 00:17:14,555 --> 00:17:17,513 Pattycake, pattycake. 376 00:17:17,558 --> 00:17:19,125 Sylvia... 377 00:17:19,167 --> 00:17:21,257 Did you see me wave my zen stick? 378 00:17:21,300 --> 00:17:22,780 ♪ 379 00:17:22,824 --> 00:17:24,955 And there was a look all the women had, 380 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:26,393 a certain look. 381 00:17:26,435 --> 00:17:28,263 It was hard to tell them from each other. 382 00:17:28,308 --> 00:17:31,920 ♪ 383 00:17:31,963 --> 00:17:34,662 I don't think we were particularly machismo. 384 00:17:34,705 --> 00:17:37,926 Actually, Burroughs and I were queer, 385 00:17:37,969 --> 00:17:39,884 very sensitive and literary. 386 00:17:39,928 --> 00:17:42,235 Well, some of my best friends were women. 387 00:17:42,278 --> 00:17:43,932 ♪ 388 00:17:43,975 --> 00:17:45,803 Most of them were gay except Jack, 389 00:17:45,847 --> 00:17:48,893 now Jack had tough time with women in a way, 390 00:17:48,937 --> 00:17:51,026 and I got in trouble with him 391 00:17:51,070 --> 00:17:53,811 and he got very unhappy that I fucked his girl. 392 00:17:53,855 --> 00:17:57,119 But that was the time when I did not know Jack. 393 00:17:57,163 --> 00:17:58,729 I was just introduced to him. 394 00:17:58,773 --> 00:18:01,384 It wasn't as if I fucked my best friend's girl. 395 00:18:01,428 --> 00:18:03,038 [dog barking] 396 00:18:03,082 --> 00:18:05,301 "It's the Beat Generation, it's beat, 397 00:18:05,345 --> 00:18:07,956 it's the beat to keep, it's the beat of the heart, 398 00:18:07,999 --> 00:18:09,653 it's being beat and down in the world, 399 00:18:09,697 --> 00:18:11,742 and like old time lowdown 400 00:18:11,786 --> 00:18:13,266 and like in ancient civilizations 401 00:18:13,309 --> 00:18:16,007 the slave boatmen rowing galleys to a beat." 402 00:18:16,051 --> 00:18:22,840 ♪ 403 00:18:22,884 --> 00:18:24,886 ♪ Pull my daisy, tip my cup ♪ 404 00:18:24,929 --> 00:18:27,454 We didn't expect to be represented in public. 405 00:18:27,497 --> 00:18:29,151 We just wanted to represent ourselves 406 00:18:29,195 --> 00:18:30,718 and write for heaven, you know, 407 00:18:30,761 --> 00:18:32,415 building up treasures in heaven. 408 00:18:32,459 --> 00:18:33,721 I think Kerouac despaired 409 00:18:33,764 --> 00:18:35,810 of ever having his work published. 410 00:18:35,853 --> 00:18:39,466 I read the book and I was simply stunned. 411 00:18:39,509 --> 00:18:43,731 I said then I believed that it was as perfect an expression 412 00:18:43,774 --> 00:18:48,953 of a generation as Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. 413 00:18:48,997 --> 00:18:50,781 Kerouac was a writer. 414 00:18:50,825 --> 00:18:52,957 That is, he wrote. 415 00:18:53,001 --> 00:18:57,179 The difference being a bullfighter who fights a bull 416 00:18:57,223 --> 00:18:58,833 is different from a bullshitter 417 00:18:58,876 --> 00:19:01,401 who makes passes with no bull there. 418 00:19:01,444 --> 00:19:03,316 Truman Capote got jealous I went on The Tonight Show 419 00:19:03,359 --> 00:19:05,144 and said it wasn't writing, it was typing. 420 00:19:05,187 --> 00:19:07,058 Yeah, fuck him. 421 00:19:07,102 --> 00:19:09,017 And now Truman's at the great Tonight Showin the sky 422 00:19:09,060 --> 00:19:11,062 still wearing his white coat while Jack's 15 books 423 00:19:11,106 --> 00:19:13,195 are translated into 11 languages all over the world. 424 00:19:13,239 --> 00:19:15,502 [applause] 425 00:19:15,545 --> 00:19:17,330 Life Magazinecame around to interview us 426 00:19:17,373 --> 00:19:19,549 for an article on the Beat Generation. 427 00:19:19,593 --> 00:19:21,072 And I thought, "Jesus, 428 00:19:21,116 --> 00:19:23,466 if they think that we have anything to say, 429 00:19:23,510 --> 00:19:25,512 they must be scraping the bottom of the barrel. 430 00:19:25,555 --> 00:19:27,514 They must be pretty desperate." 431 00:19:27,557 --> 00:19:31,039 ♪ 432 00:19:31,082 --> 00:19:34,173 ♪ Now the lesson is over, get on your feet ♪ 433 00:19:34,216 --> 00:19:37,480 ♪ And go to town and dig the beat ♪ 434 00:19:37,524 --> 00:19:39,178 [applause] 435 00:19:41,441 --> 00:19:43,573 Jack, uh, got a couple of square questions, 436 00:19:43,617 --> 00:19:45,009 but I think the answers will be interesting. 437 00:19:45,053 --> 00:19:47,403 How long did it take you to write On the Road? 438 00:19:47,447 --> 00:19:49,231 -Three weeks. -Three weeks. 439 00:19:49,275 --> 00:19:52,103 That's amazing, how long were you on the road itself? 440 00:19:52,147 --> 00:19:55,542 -Seven years. -Seven years. 441 00:19:55,585 --> 00:19:57,239 I was on the road once for three weeks 442 00:19:57,283 --> 00:19:59,633 and it took me seven years to write about it, 443 00:19:59,676 --> 00:20:01,025 sort of the other way around. 444 00:20:01,069 --> 00:20:02,679 I've heard that you write so fast 445 00:20:02,723 --> 00:20:05,247 that you don't like to use regular typing paper 446 00:20:05,291 --> 00:20:08,381 but instead you prefer to use one big long roll of paper. 447 00:20:08,424 --> 00:20:10,383 -Is that true? -Yeah. 448 00:20:10,426 --> 00:20:12,907 When I write narrative novels 449 00:20:12,950 --> 00:20:15,431 and I want to change my narrative thought, 450 00:20:15,475 --> 00:20:16,650 I keep going... 451 00:20:16,693 --> 00:20:19,827 ♪ 452 00:20:19,870 --> 00:20:23,657 Wonderful part of Jack's On the Roadwas when he said, 453 00:20:23,700 --> 00:20:27,661 "Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again. 454 00:20:27,704 --> 00:20:30,446 We had longer ways to go, but no matter. 455 00:20:30,490 --> 00:20:33,232 The road is life." 456 00:20:33,275 --> 00:20:36,147 "I'd often dreamed of going West to see the country, 457 00:20:36,191 --> 00:20:39,412 always vaguely planning and never taking off. 458 00:20:39,455 --> 00:20:40,717 I left with my canvas bag 459 00:20:40,761 --> 00:20:42,806 and took off for the Pacific Ocean." 460 00:20:42,850 --> 00:20:45,331 The whole nation was tilting westward. 461 00:20:45,374 --> 00:20:46,810 ♪ 462 00:20:46,854 --> 00:20:48,943 It was like a drink that had been stirred 463 00:20:48,986 --> 00:20:53,034 with the Second World War and it hadn't settled down yet. 464 00:20:53,077 --> 00:20:55,210 "Somewhere along the line I knew there would be girls, 465 00:20:55,254 --> 00:20:57,517 visions, everything. 466 00:20:57,560 --> 00:20:59,214 Somewhere along the line, 467 00:20:59,258 --> 00:21:00,824 pearl would be handed to me." 468 00:21:00,868 --> 00:21:02,565 ♪ 469 00:21:02,609 --> 00:21:05,220 There's just nothing like being out, uh, 470 00:21:05,264 --> 00:21:06,787 on an American road. 471 00:21:06,830 --> 00:21:08,789 ♪ 472 00:21:08,832 --> 00:21:11,618 You get outside, something happens to ya, 473 00:21:11,661 --> 00:21:13,837 and when you're traveling through outside, 474 00:21:13,881 --> 00:21:15,883 the wind goes over the top of your head 475 00:21:15,926 --> 00:21:18,233 and you get a static charge. 476 00:21:18,277 --> 00:21:20,844 You'll see people with their hair standing on end like this 477 00:21:20,888 --> 00:21:21,976 'cause they've been driving a long time, 478 00:21:22,019 --> 00:21:24,370 and their eyes kind of wild. 479 00:21:24,413 --> 00:21:25,849 It's a high. 480 00:21:25,893 --> 00:21:32,856 ♪ 481 00:21:32,900 --> 00:21:37,165 The center of gravity of our imagination in poetics 482 00:21:37,208 --> 00:21:41,561 moved off the East Coast and came out into these grasslands. 483 00:21:41,604 --> 00:21:42,692 ♪ 484 00:21:42,736 --> 00:21:45,521 There was the expansion of a heart 485 00:21:45,565 --> 00:21:50,047 to learn and to enjoy all of America. 486 00:21:50,091 --> 00:21:54,138 And that included, as you see in Jack's work and in Allen's work, 487 00:21:54,182 --> 00:21:56,750 the lives and minds of ordinary people. 488 00:21:56,793 --> 00:21:58,360 ♪ 489 00:21:58,404 --> 00:22:00,275 "We arrived at Council Bluffs at dawn. 490 00:22:00,319 --> 00:22:01,363 ♪ 491 00:22:01,407 --> 00:22:02,756 All winter I'd been reading 492 00:22:02,799 --> 00:22:05,324 the great wagon parties that held council there. 493 00:22:05,367 --> 00:22:07,848 And, of course, now it was only cute suburban cottages 494 00:22:07,891 --> 00:22:10,503 all laid out in a dismal gray dawn. 495 00:22:10,546 --> 00:22:11,982 Then Omaha, and, by God, 496 00:22:12,026 --> 00:22:13,332 the first cowboy I saw 497 00:22:13,375 --> 00:22:15,377 in a ten-gallon hat and Texas boots, 498 00:22:15,421 --> 00:22:16,683 looked like any beat character 499 00:22:16,726 --> 00:22:18,685 of the brickwall dawns of the East 500 00:22:18,728 --> 00:22:20,556 except for the getup." 501 00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:23,211 "America, this is quite serious. 502 00:22:23,254 --> 00:22:24,647 America, this is the impression I get 503 00:22:24,691 --> 00:22:26,301 from looking in a television set. 504 00:22:26,345 --> 00:22:28,825 America, is this correct? 505 00:22:28,869 --> 00:22:30,697 It's true, I don't want to join the Army 506 00:22:30,740 --> 00:22:32,960 or turn lathes in precision parts factories. 507 00:22:33,003 --> 00:22:36,224 I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway. 508 00:22:36,267 --> 00:22:39,358 America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel." 509 00:22:39,401 --> 00:22:40,489 ♪ 510 00:22:40,533 --> 00:22:42,578 And away we go! 511 00:22:42,622 --> 00:22:45,146 "Into the interior, 512 00:22:45,189 --> 00:22:47,540 a vast subdivision, 513 00:22:47,583 --> 00:22:52,719 antennae of television to the meaningless sky. 514 00:22:52,762 --> 00:22:53,763 ♪ 515 00:22:53,807 --> 00:22:55,809 In lifeproof houses 516 00:22:55,852 --> 00:22:57,767 they hover over the young... 517 00:22:57,811 --> 00:23:00,770 ♪ 518 00:23:00,814 --> 00:23:05,384 ...sop up a little of what they shut out. 519 00:23:05,427 --> 00:23:07,864 Only the young bring anything in, 520 00:23:07,908 --> 00:23:11,390 and they are not young very long." 521 00:23:11,433 --> 00:23:15,263 ♪ 522 00:23:15,306 --> 00:23:17,570 "Just ahead, over the rolling wheatfields 523 00:23:17,613 --> 00:23:21,225 all golden beneath the distant snows of Estes, 524 00:23:21,269 --> 00:23:23,314 I'd be seeing old Denver at last. 525 00:23:23,358 --> 00:23:27,449 There were smokestacks, smoke, railyards, red-brick buildings, 526 00:23:27,493 --> 00:23:30,713 and the distant downtown gray-stone. 527 00:23:30,757 --> 00:23:33,847 I stumbled along with the most wicked grin of joy in the world, 528 00:23:33,890 --> 00:23:36,719 among the old bums and beat cowboys. 529 00:23:36,763 --> 00:23:40,157 I felt like an arrow that could shoot out all the way." 530 00:23:40,201 --> 00:23:43,726 "A high tower on a wide plain. 531 00:23:43,770 --> 00:23:46,947 If you climb up one floor 532 00:23:46,990 --> 00:23:49,819 you'll see a thousand miles more." 533 00:23:49,863 --> 00:23:54,824 ♪ 534 00:23:54,868 --> 00:23:56,913 Right over those knolls over there, 535 00:23:56,957 --> 00:23:59,568 something wonderful is going to be. 536 00:23:59,612 --> 00:24:01,570 Uh, but you found out the more you went 537 00:24:01,614 --> 00:24:03,572 there was just more knolls. 538 00:24:03,616 --> 00:24:08,055 "So in America when the sun goes down 539 00:24:08,098 --> 00:24:09,926 and I sit on the old broken-down river pier 540 00:24:09,970 --> 00:24:13,408 watching the long, long skies over New Jersey 541 00:24:13,452 --> 00:24:15,454 and sense all that raw land that rolls 542 00:24:15,497 --> 00:24:18,935 in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, 543 00:24:18,979 --> 00:24:21,982 and all that road going... 544 00:24:22,025 --> 00:24:24,506 I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty, 545 00:24:24,550 --> 00:24:28,684 the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty. 546 00:24:28,728 --> 00:24:32,035 I think of Dean Moriarty." 547 00:24:32,079 --> 00:24:34,908 [applause] 548 00:24:34,951 --> 00:24:37,388 [typing] 549 00:24:45,962 --> 00:24:48,574 Well, I don't think there is any real Neal. 550 00:24:48,617 --> 00:24:50,619 Kerouac's, uh, I think had a-- 551 00:24:50,663 --> 00:24:52,752 had a sort of an idealized figure 552 00:24:52,795 --> 00:24:56,625 of Neal as this On the Roadcharacter. 553 00:24:56,669 --> 00:25:00,411 I mean, he's sort of the On the Road,uh, 554 00:25:00,455 --> 00:25:02,196 personified. 555 00:25:02,239 --> 00:25:05,547 But there's such an overwhelming trip... 556 00:25:05,591 --> 00:25:06,896 [laughs] 557 00:25:06,940 --> 00:25:08,594 ...Cassady, I don't know, 558 00:25:08,637 --> 00:25:09,943 it's hard to even know what to say about Cassady, 559 00:25:09,986 --> 00:25:11,640 he was so singular. 560 00:25:11,684 --> 00:25:15,339 He was the first person I met who he himself was the art. 561 00:25:15,383 --> 00:25:16,732 ♪ 562 00:25:16,776 --> 00:25:18,299 A lot of people thought he was crazy, you know, 563 00:25:18,342 --> 00:25:20,649 a lot of people were afraid of him and-- 564 00:25:20,693 --> 00:25:24,000 a lot--most people I know didn't understand him at all, 565 00:25:24,044 --> 00:25:25,001 you know, yeah, 566 00:25:25,045 --> 00:25:27,351 but he was like a musician. 567 00:25:27,395 --> 00:25:29,005 He was like Charlie Mingus. 568 00:25:29,049 --> 00:25:31,399 He played the bass line, 569 00:25:31,442 --> 00:25:32,661 whatever else happened 570 00:25:32,705 --> 00:25:34,054 was happening around his bass line, 571 00:25:34,097 --> 00:25:38,145 and he used [unintelligible]. 572 00:25:38,188 --> 00:25:40,277 ♪ Jack was sittin' poker faced 573 00:25:40,321 --> 00:25:42,453 with bullets backed with bitches ♪ 574 00:25:42,497 --> 00:25:46,849 ♪ Neal hunched at the wheel, puttin' everyone in stitches ♪ 575 00:25:46,893 --> 00:25:49,156 ♪ Braggin' 'bout some nurse he screwed 576 00:25:49,199 --> 00:25:51,898 while drivin' through Nebraska ♪ 577 00:25:51,941 --> 00:25:54,422 ♪ And when she came she honked the horn ♪ 578 00:25:54,465 --> 00:25:57,991 Cassady was a sort of self-taught prison boy 579 00:25:58,034 --> 00:26:01,864 who came here to New York to go con Kerouac 580 00:26:01,908 --> 00:26:03,649 into teaching him how to write. 581 00:26:03,692 --> 00:26:05,694 He was a great driver. 582 00:26:05,738 --> 00:26:09,089 And I don't mean a fast driver, I mean a great driver. 583 00:26:09,132 --> 00:26:13,572 His, uh, page was this highway. 584 00:26:13,615 --> 00:26:16,618 And his writing, too, was one of these cars. 585 00:26:16,662 --> 00:26:19,012 All right, here we go, one-handed delight. 586 00:26:19,055 --> 00:26:21,231 Ah, no, no, no, that's masturbating. 587 00:26:21,275 --> 00:26:22,581 No, no, no. 588 00:26:22,624 --> 00:26:24,060 Nothing in the world he liked better 589 00:26:24,104 --> 00:26:26,802 than getting about six scared kids in the car 590 00:26:26,846 --> 00:26:28,978 and bring 'em back about three days later 591 00:26:29,022 --> 00:26:32,112 and their eyes looked like fried bolts. 592 00:26:32,155 --> 00:26:34,418 His special thing was that he could remember 593 00:26:34,462 --> 00:26:36,769 the chain of thought that went before 594 00:26:36,812 --> 00:26:39,032 that led up to a moment of conversation. 595 00:26:39,075 --> 00:26:40,686 Came in here yesterday and, uh, 596 00:26:40,729 --> 00:26:42,035 jumbling and jittery around, 597 00:26:42,078 --> 00:26:43,514 and I sort of looked like I was high, 598 00:26:43,558 --> 00:26:45,560 so I just let people think I was high. 599 00:26:45,604 --> 00:26:47,301 Everybody has forms, and everything's known 600 00:26:47,344 --> 00:26:48,432 and the forms are changing, 601 00:26:48,476 --> 00:26:49,869 there's no life in the forms. 602 00:26:49,912 --> 00:26:51,610 Just his whole body language and everything 603 00:26:51,653 --> 00:26:54,351 was so communicative, it was just amazing. 604 00:26:54,395 --> 00:26:55,439 ♪ 605 00:26:55,483 --> 00:26:56,789 It's already too late, 606 00:26:56,832 --> 00:26:58,529 the Pentagon is taking care of it all, 607 00:26:58,573 --> 00:27:02,142 we're doing this deliberately as far as that goes. 608 00:27:02,185 --> 00:27:04,100 ♪ 609 00:27:04,144 --> 00:27:06,233 The Pentagon is doing what deliberately? 610 00:27:06,276 --> 00:27:08,496 Well, I don't know who's running the country, do you? 611 00:27:08,539 --> 00:27:10,541 ♪ 612 00:27:10,585 --> 00:27:12,848 ♪ Look out, California 613 00:27:12,892 --> 00:27:14,720 "We began rolling in the foothills before Oakland 614 00:27:14,763 --> 00:27:16,286 and saw stretched out ahead of us 615 00:27:16,330 --> 00:27:18,854 the fabulous white city of San Francisco. 616 00:27:18,898 --> 00:27:21,074 'No more land,' yelled Dean. 617 00:27:21,117 --> 00:27:23,424 'Can't go no further 'cause there ain't no more land.'" 618 00:27:23,467 --> 00:27:26,775 ♪ 619 00:27:26,819 --> 00:27:30,170 The war displaced everyone, 620 00:27:30,213 --> 00:27:33,129 and, uh, they didn't go back home. 621 00:27:33,173 --> 00:27:35,001 It was a little like after any war, 622 00:27:35,044 --> 00:27:38,265 and it was certainly like after the Civil War 623 00:27:38,308 --> 00:27:41,398 when people like Mark Twain were displaced 624 00:27:41,442 --> 00:27:44,575 and ended up in San Francisco. 625 00:27:44,619 --> 00:27:47,056 He was a carpetbagger in a way, 626 00:27:47,100 --> 00:27:50,277 just like the East Coast Beats were all carpetbaggers, 627 00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:52,888 including myself. 628 00:27:52,932 --> 00:27:56,762 We're in a tradition of dissidence. 629 00:27:56,805 --> 00:27:59,329 So we started City Lights. 630 00:27:59,373 --> 00:28:02,376 The idea was to create a literary meeting place. 631 00:28:02,419 --> 00:28:06,032 There was already cultivated-- a San Francisco renaissance. 632 00:28:06,075 --> 00:28:09,688 There always way an anarchist, pacifist, anti-Stalinist, 633 00:28:09,731 --> 00:28:15,606 anti-authoritarian, literary, Bohemian, anti-war circle. 634 00:28:15,650 --> 00:28:18,218 People want to be themselves, basically. 635 00:28:18,261 --> 00:28:21,351 People want to remain true to their very being. 636 00:28:21,395 --> 00:28:23,745 People who don't wanna play the game. 637 00:28:23,789 --> 00:28:26,574 People who wanna be whatever they are. 638 00:28:26,617 --> 00:28:29,751 And that manifested itself in literature and painting, 639 00:28:29,795 --> 00:28:33,146 in Bohemian parties, poetry readings. 640 00:28:33,189 --> 00:28:34,713 I would go into a macho bar 641 00:28:34,756 --> 00:28:37,541 and jump on the pool table and read some poems. 642 00:28:37,585 --> 00:28:40,719 Now, either I got beat up or I made $50, 643 00:28:40,762 --> 00:28:43,156 most of the times I made $50. 644 00:28:43,199 --> 00:28:45,767 It was a cold night in the big city 645 00:28:45,811 --> 00:28:48,161 where love is the roar and death is the beat 646 00:28:48,204 --> 00:28:51,730 and I yell like a madman at the top of my voice. 647 00:28:51,773 --> 00:28:55,734 Everybody sing, everybody sing. 648 00:28:55,777 --> 00:28:59,215 Started to sing a song about pretty flowers 649 00:28:59,259 --> 00:29:02,697 and then the men in their white coats came with their jackets 650 00:29:02,741 --> 00:29:04,873 and I told them to sing also. 651 00:29:04,917 --> 00:29:07,746 Let's sing a song, let's sing a song. 652 00:29:07,789 --> 00:29:10,705 And they took me away, away, away 653 00:29:10,749 --> 00:29:12,707 from the roar and the beat, 654 00:29:12,751 --> 00:29:13,969 the beat, the beat, 655 00:29:14,013 --> 00:29:16,711 let's sing a song. 656 00:29:16,755 --> 00:29:19,061 Like, uh, 657 00:29:19,105 --> 00:29:20,715 man, I'm here and, I mean, 658 00:29:20,759 --> 00:29:22,108 I've met a swinging group here. 659 00:29:22,151 --> 00:29:24,066 I like--I like, uh, 660 00:29:24,110 --> 00:29:25,546 I like Frisco the most, man, 661 00:29:25,589 --> 00:29:27,504 because, I mean, the town jumps, you know? 662 00:29:27,548 --> 00:29:29,115 I mean, there are a lot of scenes, man, 663 00:29:29,158 --> 00:29:31,334 and, uh, so, I mean, it's like that, you know? 664 00:29:31,378 --> 00:29:33,075 Uh-huh. 665 00:29:33,119 --> 00:29:35,251 Kenneth Rexroth was sort of, uh, 666 00:29:35,295 --> 00:29:36,557 the philosopher, 667 00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:38,298 the anarchist philosopher 668 00:29:38,341 --> 00:29:40,648 who preceded us in San Francisco, 669 00:29:40,691 --> 00:29:43,694 said that San Francisco was to the artists 670 00:29:43,738 --> 00:29:46,828 as Barcelona was the Spanish anarchists. 671 00:29:46,872 --> 00:29:49,962 I guess it was a haven for thinking and feeling people. 672 00:29:50,005 --> 00:29:51,746 In those days, we were all outlaws. 673 00:29:51,790 --> 00:29:53,356 Anybody who had feelings of their own 674 00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:55,228 or had their hair a little bit too long 675 00:29:55,271 --> 00:29:56,882 or had an idea of their own 676 00:29:56,925 --> 00:29:59,275 or wanted to experience new states of consciousness 677 00:29:59,319 --> 00:30:02,017 or to deepen themselves or to grow a soul 678 00:30:02,061 --> 00:30:05,455 or to feel anything out of the ordinary, uh, 679 00:30:05,499 --> 00:30:06,805 was a renegade. 680 00:30:06,848 --> 00:30:09,198 ♪ 681 00:30:09,242 --> 00:30:11,810 I'm Steven Ronin, Beat historian. 682 00:30:11,853 --> 00:30:14,725 Here I am at 3119 Fillmore, 683 00:30:14,769 --> 00:30:17,206 location of the former Six Gallery, 684 00:30:17,250 --> 00:30:20,819 where poet Allen Ginsberg debuted his poem Howl, 685 00:30:20,862 --> 00:30:23,778 and history hasn't been the same since. 686 00:30:23,822 --> 00:30:26,781 Rexroth had been invited to organize a reading 687 00:30:26,825 --> 00:30:29,088 at the Six Gallery. 688 00:30:29,131 --> 00:30:32,439 He suggested to McClure or myself that we organize it, 689 00:30:32,482 --> 00:30:33,962 and it fell to me. 690 00:30:34,006 --> 00:30:37,096 And Rexroth gave me Gary Snyder's address. 691 00:30:37,139 --> 00:30:40,273 Snyder was a student studying Chinese, Japanese, and Zen. 692 00:30:40,316 --> 00:30:41,578 ♪ 693 00:30:41,622 --> 00:30:44,668 Allen and I lined up that space 694 00:30:44,712 --> 00:30:47,976 with the idea of holding a reading 695 00:30:48,020 --> 00:30:51,980 for our various relatively unpublished friends. 696 00:30:52,024 --> 00:30:55,375 ♪ 697 00:30:55,418 --> 00:30:57,812 What we were interested in was our own writing 698 00:30:57,856 --> 00:31:00,206 and talking with people who were also trying 699 00:31:00,249 --> 00:31:02,861 to write and paint and whatever else. 700 00:31:02,904 --> 00:31:06,560 And, uh, trying to get our way someplace else, 701 00:31:06,603 --> 00:31:08,649 get--get a new start 702 00:31:08,692 --> 00:31:11,957 that would gently replace a lot of this slobber. 703 00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,133 And we stepped out on the stage. 704 00:31:14,176 --> 00:31:15,612 With Kerouac in the audience, 705 00:31:15,656 --> 00:31:17,832 with Neal Cassady in the audience. 706 00:31:17,876 --> 00:31:19,181 We didn't know who would be there, 707 00:31:19,225 --> 00:31:20,661 we didn't know who to expect. 708 00:31:20,704 --> 00:31:22,924 "I followed the whole gang of howling poets 709 00:31:22,968 --> 00:31:25,057 to the reading at Gallery Six that night, 710 00:31:25,100 --> 00:31:27,276 which was, among other important things, 711 00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:28,712 the night of the birth 712 00:31:28,756 --> 00:31:31,628 of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. 713 00:31:31,672 --> 00:31:32,673 ♪ 714 00:31:32,716 --> 00:31:33,935 Scores of people stood around 715 00:31:33,979 --> 00:31:34,980 in the darkened galleries, 716 00:31:35,023 --> 00:31:36,677 straining to hear every word 717 00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:38,331 of the amazing poetry reading 718 00:31:38,374 --> 00:31:40,333 as I wandered from group to group 719 00:31:40,376 --> 00:31:43,031 urging them to glug a slug from the jug, 720 00:31:43,075 --> 00:31:45,468 or wandered back and sat on the right side of the stage, 721 00:31:45,512 --> 00:31:48,428 giving out little wows and yeses of approval." 722 00:31:48,471 --> 00:31:51,344 "Heaven was only half as far that night, 723 00:31:51,387 --> 00:31:53,868 listening to the burnt phrases, 724 00:31:53,912 --> 00:31:57,393 when I heard the poet have rhyming erection." 725 00:31:57,437 --> 00:31:59,352 When Allen read Howl,uh, 726 00:31:59,395 --> 00:32:02,659 we all knew that a line had been drawn in the sand. 727 00:32:02,703 --> 00:32:04,400 We decided that we would put our foot 728 00:32:04,444 --> 00:32:06,968 on that line that Allen drew. 729 00:32:07,012 --> 00:32:10,841 I was there, and the next morning I sent a telegram 730 00:32:10,885 --> 00:32:13,279 to Allen Ginsberg saying, 731 00:32:13,322 --> 00:32:15,672 "I greet you at the beginning of a great career. 732 00:32:15,716 --> 00:32:17,283 When do we get the manuscript?" 733 00:32:17,326 --> 00:32:19,720 I had a conversation with Rexroth the next day. 734 00:32:19,763 --> 00:32:21,113 I said, "Gee, I'm gonna be famous 735 00:32:21,156 --> 00:32:23,854 in San Francisco, or North Beach." 736 00:32:23,898 --> 00:32:26,727 And he said, "You're gonna be famous from bridge to bridge." 737 00:32:26,770 --> 00:32:28,990 The first edition was printed in England, 738 00:32:29,034 --> 00:32:32,907 but it was seized by the U.S. Customs in San Francisco. 739 00:32:32,951 --> 00:32:35,823 All during the trial, we were still selling it. 740 00:32:35,866 --> 00:32:39,435 We never took the book out of the window. 741 00:32:39,479 --> 00:32:43,352 There were a series of trials in the late '50s that, uh, 742 00:32:43,396 --> 00:32:44,919 liberated the work, 743 00:32:44,963 --> 00:32:48,227 and that meant a whole spiritual liberation after that. 744 00:32:48,270 --> 00:32:51,230 It's really hard to get that kind of publicity. 745 00:32:51,273 --> 00:32:53,797 ♪ 746 00:32:53,841 --> 00:32:54,929 What I've always loved about Allen 747 00:32:54,973 --> 00:32:56,800 is precisely his bravery. 748 00:32:56,844 --> 00:32:58,541 I once wrote a poem about him. 749 00:32:58,585 --> 00:32:59,934 It went like this, 750 00:32:59,978 --> 00:33:06,027 "Sometimes I think that ugly little queer, 751 00:33:06,071 --> 00:33:10,075 that four-eyed kike is the bravest man in America." 752 00:33:10,118 --> 00:33:12,555 [typing] 753 00:33:25,003 --> 00:33:28,223 "I saw the best minds of my generation 754 00:33:28,267 --> 00:33:30,660 destroyed by madness, 755 00:33:30,704 --> 00:33:35,970 starving hysterical naked... 756 00:33:36,014 --> 00:33:38,190 -Angelheaded hipsters... -Angelheaded hipsters 757 00:33:38,233 --> 00:33:41,193 burning for the ancient heavenly connection 758 00:33:41,236 --> 00:33:45,806 to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night. 759 00:33:45,849 --> 00:33:49,853 Who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high 760 00:33:49,897 --> 00:33:53,074 sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness 761 00:33:53,118 --> 00:33:55,337 of cold-water flats 762 00:33:55,381 --> 00:34:00,429 floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz... 763 00:34:00,473 --> 00:34:02,649 ♪ 764 00:34:02,692 --> 00:34:06,348 Who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, 765 00:34:06,392 --> 00:34:08,697 burning their money in wastebaskets 766 00:34:08,742 --> 00:34:11,788 and listening to the Terror through the wall, 767 00:34:11,831 --> 00:34:15,922 who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo 768 00:34:15,966 --> 00:34:19,100 with a belt of marijuana for New York, 769 00:34:19,143 --> 00:34:21,362 who ate fire in paint hotels 770 00:34:21,407 --> 00:34:25,280 or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, 771 00:34:25,324 --> 00:34:30,632 or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, 772 00:34:30,677 --> 00:34:35,072 with drugs, with waking nightmares... 773 00:34:35,116 --> 00:34:38,815 Peyote solidities of halls, 774 00:34:38,859 --> 00:34:42,080 green tree cemetery dawns, 775 00:34:42,123 --> 00:34:46,127 wine drunkenness over the rooftops, 776 00:34:46,170 --> 00:34:49,348 storefront boroughs of teahead joyride 777 00:34:49,391 --> 00:34:52,219 neon blinking traffic light, 778 00:34:52,264 --> 00:34:55,876 sun and moon and tree vibrations 779 00:34:55,918 --> 00:34:59,140 in the roaring winter dusks... 780 00:34:59,184 --> 00:35:00,794 ♪ 781 00:35:00,837 --> 00:35:03,623 Who talked continuously seventy hours 782 00:35:03,666 --> 00:35:06,321 from park to pad to bar to Bellevue 783 00:35:06,365 --> 00:35:08,671 to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge, 784 00:35:08,715 --> 00:35:12,632 a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists 785 00:35:12,675 --> 00:35:15,156 jumping down the stoops off fire escapes 786 00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:18,028 off windowsills off the Empire State 787 00:35:18,072 --> 00:35:19,639 out of the moon, 788 00:35:19,682 --> 00:35:23,338 yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts 789 00:35:23,382 --> 00:35:25,688 and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks 790 00:35:25,732 --> 00:35:29,518 and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, 791 00:35:29,562 --> 00:35:31,912 who loned it through the streets of Idaho 792 00:35:31,955 --> 00:35:34,393 seeking visionary indian angels 793 00:35:34,436 --> 00:35:37,135 who were visionary indian angels, 794 00:35:37,178 --> 00:35:39,528 who howled on their knees in the subway 795 00:35:39,572 --> 00:35:41,226 and were dragged off the roof 796 00:35:41,269 --> 00:35:44,751 waving genitals and manuscripts... 797 00:35:44,794 --> 00:35:46,187 ♪ 798 00:35:46,231 --> 00:35:49,495 Who wandered around and around at midnight 799 00:35:49,538 --> 00:35:52,802 in the railroad yard wondering where to go, 800 00:35:52,846 --> 00:35:56,154 and went, leaving no broken hearts, 801 00:35:56,197 --> 00:36:01,202 who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars 802 00:36:01,246 --> 00:36:04,901 racketing through snow toward lonesome farms 803 00:36:04,945 --> 00:36:07,382 in grandfather night, 804 00:36:07,426 --> 00:36:13,301 and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz 805 00:36:13,345 --> 00:36:17,523 in the goldhorn shadow of the band... 806 00:36:17,566 --> 00:36:19,307 Carl Solomon! 807 00:36:19,351 --> 00:36:21,527 I'm with you in Rockland 808 00:36:21,570 --> 00:36:23,877 where you're madder than I am. 809 00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:28,186 ♪ 810 00:36:28,229 --> 00:36:30,231 I'm with you in Rockland 811 00:36:30,275 --> 00:36:32,799 where we wake up electrified out of the coma 812 00:36:32,842 --> 00:36:37,282 by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof 813 00:36:37,325 --> 00:36:40,328 they've come to drop angelic bombs 814 00:36:40,372 --> 00:36:43,113 the hospital illuminates itself 815 00:36:43,157 --> 00:36:45,725 imaginary walls collapse 816 00:36:45,768 --> 00:36:48,771 O skinny legions run outside 817 00:36:48,815 --> 00:36:52,210 O starry-spangled shock of mercy 818 00:36:52,253 --> 00:36:54,124 the eternal war is here 819 00:36:54,168 --> 00:36:58,128 O victory forget your underwear 820 00:36:58,172 --> 00:36:59,913 we're free. 821 00:36:59,956 --> 00:37:04,222 ♪ 822 00:37:04,265 --> 00:37:06,398 I'm with you in Rockland 823 00:37:06,441 --> 00:37:09,444 in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey 824 00:37:09,488 --> 00:37:13,318 on the highway across America in tears 825 00:37:13,361 --> 00:37:17,278 to the door of my cottage in the Western night." 826 00:37:17,322 --> 00:37:19,237 ♪ 827 00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:21,674 [applause] 828 00:37:24,503 --> 00:37:26,679 The poem had an immense effect on me. 829 00:37:26,722 --> 00:37:29,899 And I thought immediately that Ginsberg was 830 00:37:29,943 --> 00:37:32,206 at the least a major poet, and maybe a genius. 831 00:37:32,250 --> 00:37:35,078 I had no idea that it would be famous. 832 00:37:35,122 --> 00:37:39,866 I had no idea that it was of such value to other people. 833 00:37:39,909 --> 00:37:41,259 Apparently it was. 834 00:37:41,302 --> 00:37:43,435 I just had never, uh, read any poetry 835 00:37:43,478 --> 00:37:46,002 that was that charged, that intense, that extraordinary. 836 00:37:46,046 --> 00:37:47,352 And I knew he was gonna make a revolution 837 00:37:47,395 --> 00:37:50,311 in the consciousness of his time. 838 00:37:50,355 --> 00:37:52,182 So the Six Gallery's still there, 839 00:37:52,226 --> 00:37:53,619 it's just in a different place. 840 00:37:53,662 --> 00:37:56,099 [siren wails] 841 00:37:58,667 --> 00:38:15,336 ♪ 842 00:38:15,380 --> 00:38:18,078 Once a month, we will book a comedian 843 00:38:18,121 --> 00:38:19,558 who will offend everybody. 844 00:38:19,601 --> 00:38:20,907 [laughter] 845 00:38:20,950 --> 00:38:24,214 There are words that offend me, uh, 846 00:38:24,258 --> 00:38:25,999 let's see, "Governor Faubus," 847 00:38:26,042 --> 00:38:27,740 "segregation" offend me. 848 00:38:27,783 --> 00:38:31,439 Uh, and "night time television" offends me. 849 00:38:31,483 --> 00:38:33,093 Some night time television. 850 00:38:33,136 --> 00:38:35,791 Both rabbis and priests S-H-I-T. 851 00:38:35,835 --> 00:38:38,446 Only one F-U-C-Ks. 852 00:38:38,490 --> 00:38:41,580 Are you, uh, what is loosely called a Beatnik? 853 00:38:41,623 --> 00:38:45,366 No, I am a poet and a painter and sculptor. 854 00:38:45,410 --> 00:38:47,716 Hm, in other words, you're out of work? 855 00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,544 That's right. 856 00:38:49,588 --> 00:38:52,504 "Come to be healed, come to be saved. 857 00:38:52,547 --> 00:38:55,028 Screaming and laughing down the beach, 858 00:38:55,071 --> 00:38:56,421 strangling each other, 859 00:38:56,464 --> 00:38:58,205 devouring flesh and gnawing 860 00:38:58,248 --> 00:39:02,383 on fingers broken and bones of splintered. 861 00:39:02,427 --> 00:39:06,387 Voices heard in Venice." 862 00:39:06,431 --> 00:39:08,607 They're dirty, they never clean up, 863 00:39:08,650 --> 00:39:10,130 and then their mode of living 864 00:39:10,173 --> 00:39:12,001 is with their free love 865 00:39:12,045 --> 00:39:15,396 and their free meals and their free, uh, 866 00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:17,267 pads, as they call them. 867 00:39:17,311 --> 00:39:21,097 "You have sometimes done it as if you always knew 868 00:39:21,141 --> 00:39:23,186 how it was properly done. 869 00:39:23,230 --> 00:39:27,147 You knew it was there and you knew that you were there 870 00:39:27,190 --> 00:39:30,237 and that you had done it better, in a way, 871 00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:32,457 than anybody in a long time." 872 00:39:32,500 --> 00:39:37,810 ♪ 873 00:39:37,853 --> 00:39:38,898 Don't you ever feel tempted 874 00:39:38,941 --> 00:39:41,074 to occasionally write for money 875 00:39:41,117 --> 00:39:43,468 instead of just writing for the news? 876 00:39:43,511 --> 00:39:45,687 Well, I sometimes-- I write home to my father, 877 00:39:45,731 --> 00:39:46,993 he sends me some money. 878 00:39:47,036 --> 00:39:50,170 ♪ 879 00:39:50,213 --> 00:39:52,346 "Dear Allen: 880 00:39:52,390 --> 00:39:56,263 There is an end-of-the-world feeling in Tangier, 881 00:39:56,306 --> 00:39:59,658 with its glut of nylon shirts, 882 00:39:59,701 --> 00:40:04,445 Swiss watches, scotch, and sex. 883 00:40:04,489 --> 00:40:07,448 The whole town is a trap. 884 00:40:07,492 --> 00:40:10,146 You will see it closing, 885 00:40:10,190 --> 00:40:13,062 but there will be no escape. 886 00:40:13,106 --> 00:40:15,978 No place to go." 887 00:40:16,022 --> 00:40:18,677 ♪ 888 00:40:18,720 --> 00:40:22,245 ♪ The wayward wind 889 00:40:22,289 --> 00:40:25,423 ♪ Is restless wind 890 00:40:25,466 --> 00:40:27,033 These are the San Francisco shipyards 891 00:40:27,076 --> 00:40:28,556 at China Basin. 892 00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:30,123 Jack Kerouac worked near here 893 00:40:30,166 --> 00:40:31,733 in the railroad switching yards 894 00:40:31,777 --> 00:40:34,083 and Allen Ginsberg came nearby here 895 00:40:34,127 --> 00:40:36,477 to write his famous Sunflower Sutra. 896 00:40:36,521 --> 00:40:37,870 The Beats didn't just, uh, 897 00:40:37,913 --> 00:40:39,741 continually travel on the road. 898 00:40:39,785 --> 00:40:41,439 Those who could ordered freighters 899 00:40:41,482 --> 00:40:43,005 like American Kestrel down there 900 00:40:43,049 --> 00:40:45,965 to head out on the open ocean and, uh, 901 00:40:46,008 --> 00:40:49,185 give in to their wanderlust internationally. 902 00:40:49,229 --> 00:40:53,668 ♪ In a lonely shack by a railroad track ♪ 903 00:40:53,712 --> 00:40:55,844 "Dear Allen: 904 00:40:55,888 --> 00:41:00,545 Mexico is home to me and I can't go there." 905 00:41:00,588 --> 00:41:04,505 ♪ Make him a slave to his wanderin' ways ♪ 906 00:41:04,549 --> 00:41:06,507 "Got a letter from my lawyer. 907 00:41:06,551 --> 00:41:10,163 I am sentenced in absentia." 908 00:41:10,206 --> 00:41:12,818 ♪ Is a restless wind 909 00:41:12,861 --> 00:41:13,993 ♪ 910 00:41:14,036 --> 00:41:15,734 ♪ A restless wind 911 00:41:15,777 --> 00:41:17,257 I think she said to Bill, 912 00:41:17,300 --> 00:41:19,041 "Well, shoot that off my head." 913 00:41:19,085 --> 00:41:20,652 ♪ To wander 914 00:41:20,695 --> 00:41:23,263 I knew that the ugly spirit, 915 00:41:23,306 --> 00:41:26,875 which is always the worst part of everyone's character, 916 00:41:26,919 --> 00:41:31,271 would take over and that something awful would happen. 917 00:41:31,314 --> 00:41:33,360 Just an absolute piece of insanity. 918 00:41:33,403 --> 00:41:34,883 ♪ Wayward wind 919 00:41:34,927 --> 00:41:37,233 It was then that he began writing. 920 00:41:37,277 --> 00:41:38,974 [typing] 921 00:41:39,018 --> 00:41:39,845 ♪ 922 00:41:39,888 --> 00:41:40,759 ♪ Yow 923 00:41:40,802 --> 00:41:41,977 ♪ 924 00:41:42,021 --> 00:41:43,326 ♪ Yow 925 00:41:43,370 --> 00:41:45,285 Who are you? 926 00:41:45,328 --> 00:41:47,374 I'm Bill, who are you? 927 00:41:47,417 --> 00:41:48,854 I'm Tony. 928 00:41:48,897 --> 00:41:50,638 Where are you, Bill? 929 00:41:50,682 --> 00:41:52,727 I'm in a 1920 movie, Tony. 930 00:41:52,771 --> 00:41:53,815 [beeping] 931 00:41:53,859 --> 00:41:55,991 Who are you? 932 00:41:56,035 --> 00:41:57,645 I'm Tony. 933 00:41:57,689 --> 00:41:58,907 Who are you? 934 00:41:58,951 --> 00:42:00,256 I'm Bill. 935 00:42:00,300 --> 00:42:03,259 I was born February 5, 1914, 936 00:42:03,303 --> 00:42:05,479 in St. Louis, Missouri. 937 00:42:05,523 --> 00:42:09,788 ♪ I've been around for a long, long year ♪ 938 00:42:09,831 --> 00:42:11,964 So I was sort of a WASP washout. 939 00:42:12,007 --> 00:42:14,009 We will not listen to you. 940 00:42:14,053 --> 00:42:17,447 We have had enough of your con and bullshit. 941 00:42:17,491 --> 00:42:18,492 ♪ 942 00:42:18,536 --> 00:42:20,929 I left the United States, uh, 943 00:42:20,973 --> 00:42:23,366 because of, uh, I was in trouble. 944 00:42:23,410 --> 00:42:29,329 My whole life has been resistance to the ugly spirit. 945 00:42:29,372 --> 00:42:32,462 ♪ 946 00:42:32,506 --> 00:42:34,726 I live with it day and night. 947 00:42:34,769 --> 00:42:35,814 Uh! 948 00:42:35,857 --> 00:42:37,903 ...risk getting in any trouble, 949 00:42:37,946 --> 00:42:39,992 'cause I don't like violence. 950 00:42:40,035 --> 00:42:43,604 There is no thing to fear. 951 00:42:43,648 --> 00:42:45,867 There is no thing. 952 00:42:45,911 --> 00:42:50,437 He's probably the only guy I know 953 00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:54,397 who was really just full-out junkie 954 00:42:54,441 --> 00:42:57,662 who managed to come back, kick it, and is still around. 955 00:42:57,705 --> 00:42:59,577 Very rare. 956 00:42:59,620 --> 00:43:01,317 There's all kinds of addictions. 957 00:43:01,361 --> 00:43:04,059 Power is one of the principal addictions. 958 00:43:04,103 --> 00:43:07,062 Whether they got the power, they look sleek. 959 00:43:07,106 --> 00:43:09,151 Satisfied. 960 00:43:09,195 --> 00:43:11,589 They're getting it. getting it steady. 961 00:43:11,632 --> 00:43:14,026 Thou shalt not blow pot-smoke 962 00:43:14,069 --> 00:43:16,202 into the face of thy pet. 963 00:43:16,245 --> 00:43:17,551 ♪ 964 00:43:17,595 --> 00:43:19,031 He could punch a typewriter 965 00:43:19,074 --> 00:43:21,120 or he could punch the tape recorder to death 966 00:43:21,163 --> 00:43:23,601 in shorter time than any man than I've never known. 967 00:43:23,644 --> 00:43:25,559 He had such enormous energy in those days 968 00:43:25,603 --> 00:43:29,519 and such enormous intention behind what he was doing. 969 00:43:29,563 --> 00:43:32,784 "Take the enclosed copy of this letter, 970 00:43:32,827 --> 00:43:36,352 cut along the lines, rearrange, 971 00:43:36,396 --> 00:43:38,659 putting section one by section three 972 00:43:38,703 --> 00:43:41,488 and section two by section four. 973 00:43:41,531 --> 00:43:43,925 And you will hear my voice." 974 00:43:43,969 --> 00:43:48,321 Brion had made these cutups of various magazines. 975 00:43:48,364 --> 00:43:50,018 First cutups were very, very funny. 976 00:43:50,062 --> 00:43:53,631 ♪ 977 00:43:53,674 --> 00:43:56,285 Then it wasn't so funny anymore. 978 00:43:56,329 --> 00:43:58,200 Life is a cutup. 979 00:43:58,244 --> 00:44:02,030 Every time you look out the window 980 00:44:02,074 --> 00:44:03,684 and when you walk down the street, 981 00:44:03,728 --> 00:44:06,818 you're continually being cut by random factors. 982 00:44:06,861 --> 00:44:09,168 This is a fact of human perception, 983 00:44:09,211 --> 00:44:12,127 and the cutup simply made this explicit. 984 00:44:12,171 --> 00:44:14,782 ♪ 985 00:44:14,826 --> 00:44:17,002 How does it seem to you now? 986 00:44:17,045 --> 00:44:18,786 -How does it seem to you now? -Good. 987 00:44:18,830 --> 00:44:19,831 -Thank you. -Good. 988 00:44:19,874 --> 00:44:21,093 Look at that, thank you. 989 00:44:21,136 --> 00:44:23,704 [screeching] 990 00:44:23,748 --> 00:44:28,317 Surrealism is a kind of automatic writing. 991 00:44:28,361 --> 00:44:30,711 Rimbaud's phrase was a "systematic derangement 992 00:44:30,755 --> 00:44:32,670 of the senses," and the idea being 993 00:44:32,713 --> 00:44:34,584 that the senses are to some extent 994 00:44:34,628 --> 00:44:38,153 ideological formed by external pressure. 995 00:44:38,197 --> 00:44:40,808 Towers, open fire. 996 00:44:40,852 --> 00:44:43,202 [screeching] 997 00:44:43,245 --> 00:44:45,117 And so you shatter that, break it up: 998 00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:49,251 drugs, extreme experiences, kinky sex. 999 00:44:49,295 --> 00:44:52,907 In fact, the official definition of surrealism 1000 00:44:52,951 --> 00:44:57,999 is to make a work without any a priori 1001 00:44:58,043 --> 00:45:01,786 moral or aesthetic considerations. 1002 00:45:01,829 --> 00:45:03,439 "Blast of trumpets: 1003 00:45:03,483 --> 00:45:05,659 The man wriggles. 1004 00:45:05,703 --> 00:45:09,315 His flesh turns to viscid, transparent jelly 1005 00:45:09,358 --> 00:45:12,361 that drips away in green mist, 1006 00:45:12,405 --> 00:45:15,974 unveiling a monster black centipede. 1007 00:45:16,017 --> 00:45:18,846 Waves of unknown stench fill the room, 1008 00:45:18,890 --> 00:45:22,197 searing the lungs, grabbing the stomach." 1009 00:45:22,241 --> 00:45:24,243 ♪ 1010 00:45:24,286 --> 00:45:27,550 Over a series of years, from '53 to '57, 1011 00:45:27,594 --> 00:45:29,857 Burroughs sent me the letters with all these-- 1012 00:45:29,901 --> 00:45:34,035 the chapters or routines of Naked Lunch, 1013 00:45:34,079 --> 00:45:36,385 and then by '57, there was so much material 1014 00:45:36,429 --> 00:45:39,824 that I had and he had that it was time 1015 00:45:39,867 --> 00:45:43,349 for me to leave San Francisco and work on it with him 1016 00:45:43,392 --> 00:45:46,004 to shape it into a book. 1017 00:45:46,047 --> 00:45:48,702 Kerouac had started the typing. 1018 00:45:48,746 --> 00:45:50,399 We arrived with all this new material, 1019 00:45:50,443 --> 00:45:53,751 shuffled it around, typed it up. 1020 00:45:53,794 --> 00:45:57,232 We had about 500 pages of notes, 1021 00:45:57,276 --> 00:46:01,802 so Brion Gysin, Sinclair Beiles, and I sat down 1022 00:46:01,846 --> 00:46:04,109 and assembled this. 1023 00:46:04,152 --> 00:46:05,632 A chapter went to the printer, 1024 00:46:05,675 --> 00:46:08,461 we said we would figure out the order later, 1025 00:46:08,504 --> 00:46:10,855 but when I came back from the printer, 1026 00:46:10,898 --> 00:46:12,378 we took one look and said, 1027 00:46:12,421 --> 00:46:14,815 "There's no necessity to make any changes." 1028 00:46:14,859 --> 00:46:16,948 Burroughs said, "I'm not American Express," 1029 00:46:16,991 --> 00:46:19,472 if the readers ask to take him from Tangier 1030 00:46:19,515 --> 00:46:22,040 to Paris in one jump, 1031 00:46:22,083 --> 00:46:25,478 he'll have to get there himself. 1032 00:46:25,521 --> 00:46:28,133 If you want to be cool, you gotta read, you know... 1033 00:46:28,176 --> 00:46:29,874 -Naked Lunch. -Naked Lunch,you know, 1034 00:46:29,917 --> 00:46:32,093 'cause, you know, that's a cool book. 1035 00:46:32,137 --> 00:46:33,094 They made a movie out of it. 1036 00:46:33,138 --> 00:46:34,704 They put it on trial. 1037 00:46:34,748 --> 00:46:36,489 It's about drugs. 1038 00:46:36,532 --> 00:46:38,665 ♪ Woo-hoo 1039 00:46:38,708 --> 00:46:40,841 ♪ Oh, yeah 1040 00:46:40,885 --> 00:46:43,322 ♪ Get on down 1041 00:46:43,365 --> 00:46:45,063 There's certain requirements. 1042 00:46:45,106 --> 00:46:49,763 If someone can't stand hours, years of solitude, 1043 00:46:49,807 --> 00:46:52,722 sitting in a chair alone in a room, 1044 00:46:52,766 --> 00:46:55,856 he should look for another trade, I think. 1045 00:46:55,900 --> 00:46:58,293 I tried to read Naked Lunch and I read halfway through it 1046 00:46:58,337 --> 00:47:03,255 and I pitched it, it didn't make too much sense to me. 1047 00:47:03,298 --> 00:47:06,127 It just sort of disgusts me. 1048 00:47:06,171 --> 00:47:08,913 "Thou shalt not be such a shit, 1049 00:47:08,956 --> 00:47:10,958 you don't know you are one." 1050 00:47:11,002 --> 00:47:14,092 Mr. Burroughs, do you regret anything in your life? 1051 00:47:14,135 --> 00:47:16,877 ♪ 1052 00:47:16,921 --> 00:47:20,272 "I have no precise memory of writing the notes 1053 00:47:20,315 --> 00:47:23,797 which have been published under the title Naked Lunch. 1054 00:47:23,841 --> 00:47:26,756 The title was suggested by Jack Kerouac. 1055 00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,456 The title means exactly what the words say: naked lunch, 1056 00:47:30,499 --> 00:47:33,851 a frozen moment when everyone sees 1057 00:47:33,894 --> 00:47:37,071 what is on the end of every fork. 1058 00:47:37,115 --> 00:47:38,943 ♪ 1059 00:47:38,986 --> 00:47:40,988 I can feel the heat closing in. 1060 00:47:41,032 --> 00:47:42,903 I feel 'em out there making their move, 1061 00:47:42,947 --> 00:47:46,211 setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, 1062 00:47:46,254 --> 00:47:49,083 crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away 1063 00:47:49,127 --> 00:47:51,129 at Washington Square Station, 1064 00:47:51,172 --> 00:47:52,652 vault a turnstile, 1065 00:47:52,695 --> 00:47:54,262 two flights down the iron stairs, 1066 00:47:54,306 --> 00:47:56,482 catch an uptown A train... 1067 00:47:56,525 --> 00:47:58,658 Young, good looking, crew cut, Ivy League, 1068 00:47:58,701 --> 00:48:02,444 advertising type fruit holds the door back for me. 1069 00:48:02,488 --> 00:48:05,360 I'm evidently his idea of a character. 1070 00:48:05,404 --> 00:48:07,885 You know the type: he comes on with bartenders 1071 00:48:07,928 --> 00:48:10,104 and cab drivers, talking about right hooks 1072 00:48:10,148 --> 00:48:11,671 and the Dodgers, 1073 00:48:11,714 --> 00:48:13,978 call the counterman in Nedick's by his first name. 1074 00:48:14,021 --> 00:48:15,544 A real asshole. 1075 00:48:15,588 --> 00:48:18,504 And right on time, this narcotics dick 1076 00:48:18,547 --> 00:48:20,158 in the white trench coat-- 1077 00:48:20,201 --> 00:48:24,902 now imagine tailing somebody in a white trench coat. 1078 00:48:24,945 --> 00:48:27,295 Trying to pass as a fag, I guess. 1079 00:48:27,339 --> 00:48:29,776 I can hear the way he would say it, 1080 00:48:29,819 --> 00:48:32,257 holding my outfit in his left hand, 1081 00:48:32,300 --> 00:48:34,389 right hand on his piece: 1082 00:48:34,433 --> 00:48:37,827 'I think you dropped something, fella!"' 1083 00:48:37,871 --> 00:48:42,397 But the subway is moving." 1084 00:48:42,441 --> 00:48:45,923 "They call me 'the Exterminator.' 1085 00:48:45,966 --> 00:48:47,881 At one brief point of intersection 1086 00:48:47,925 --> 00:48:50,231 I did exercise that function and witnessed 1087 00:48:50,275 --> 00:48:52,886 the belly dance of roaches suffocating 1088 00:48:52,930 --> 00:48:55,280 in yellow pyrethrum powder. 1089 00:48:55,323 --> 00:48:56,890 My present assignment: 1090 00:48:56,934 --> 00:48:59,980 Find the live ones and exterminate. 1091 00:49:00,024 --> 00:49:04,289 Not the bodies but the molds, you understand? 1092 00:49:04,332 --> 00:49:06,334 But I forget. 1093 00:49:06,378 --> 00:49:09,033 You cannot understand. 1094 00:49:09,076 --> 00:49:11,209 ♪ 1095 00:49:11,252 --> 00:49:14,342 The Meet Cafe occupies one side of the plaza. 1096 00:49:14,386 --> 00:49:16,170 It's a maze of kitchens, restaurants, 1097 00:49:16,214 --> 00:49:20,261 sleeping cubicles, perilous iron balconies, 1098 00:49:20,305 --> 00:49:23,786 the basements opening into the underground baths. 1099 00:49:23,830 --> 00:49:26,615 On stools covered in white satin 1100 00:49:26,659 --> 00:49:28,922 sit naked Mugwumps, 1101 00:49:28,966 --> 00:49:31,316 sucking translucent-colored syrups 1102 00:49:31,359 --> 00:49:33,100 through alabaster straws. 1103 00:49:33,144 --> 00:49:35,059 Mugwumps have no liver 1104 00:49:35,102 --> 00:49:38,801 and nourish themselves exclusively on sweets. 1105 00:49:38,845 --> 00:49:41,630 These creatures secrete an addicting fluid 1106 00:49:41,674 --> 00:49:43,545 through their erect penises 1107 00:49:43,589 --> 00:49:47,636 which prolongs life by slowing metabolism. 1108 00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:49,247 Boat whistle, foghorns, 1109 00:49:49,290 --> 00:49:52,424 sky rocket burst over oily lagoons. 1110 00:49:52,467 --> 00:49:55,949 Penny arcade open into a maze 1111 00:49:55,993 --> 00:49:58,386 of dirty pictures. 1112 00:49:58,430 --> 00:50:02,564 Ceremonial cannon boom in the harbor. 1113 00:50:02,608 --> 00:50:06,351 A scream shoots down a white hospital corridor 1114 00:50:06,394 --> 00:50:11,182 out along a wide, dusty street between palm trees, 1115 00:50:11,225 --> 00:50:14,837 whistles out across the desert like a bullet, 1116 00:50:14,881 --> 00:50:18,972 a thousand boys come at once in outhouses, 1117 00:50:19,016 --> 00:50:22,323 bleak public school toilets, attics, basements, 1118 00:50:22,367 --> 00:50:25,544 treehouses, Ferris wheels, deserted houses, 1119 00:50:25,587 --> 00:50:30,027 limestone caves, rowboats, garages, barns, 1120 00:50:30,070 --> 00:50:34,335 rubbly windy city outskirts behind mud walls, 1121 00:50:34,379 --> 00:50:36,946 smell of dried excrement, 1122 00:50:36,990 --> 00:50:39,514 black dust blowing over 1123 00:50:39,558 --> 00:50:42,517 lean copper bodies. 1124 00:50:42,561 --> 00:50:44,519 Coming over a hill of rusty iron 1125 00:50:44,563 --> 00:50:45,955 we meet a group of natives. 1126 00:50:45,999 --> 00:50:48,001 We throw gasoline on 'em and light it. 1127 00:50:48,045 --> 00:50:49,133 White flash! 1128 00:50:49,176 --> 00:50:52,005 Mangled insect screams. 1129 00:50:52,049 --> 00:50:54,051 ♪ 1130 00:50:54,094 --> 00:50:56,792 I woke up with the taste of metal in my mouth 1131 00:50:56,836 --> 00:50:59,273 back from the dead... 1132 00:50:59,317 --> 00:51:02,102 ...trailing the colorless death smell. 1133 00:51:02,146 --> 00:51:03,408 No, no more. 1134 00:51:03,451 --> 00:51:05,932 No más. 1135 00:51:05,975 --> 00:51:08,978 Tangier, 1959." 1136 00:51:09,022 --> 00:51:12,460 ♪ 1137 00:51:12,504 --> 00:51:14,549 "Dear Allen, 1138 00:51:14,593 --> 00:51:16,160 Made connection with 1139 00:51:16,203 --> 00:51:19,032 the unassuming little witch doctor 1140 00:51:19,076 --> 00:51:23,471 who prepared me some yage. 1141 00:51:23,515 --> 00:51:26,170 It is the most powerful drug 1142 00:51:26,213 --> 00:51:29,129 I have ever experienced, 1143 00:51:29,173 --> 00:51:31,131 that is, it produces 1144 00:51:31,175 --> 00:51:34,787 the most complete derangement of the senses." 1145 00:51:34,830 --> 00:51:37,137 I felt, you know, 1146 00:51:37,181 --> 00:51:39,096 pulling together like that. 1147 00:51:39,139 --> 00:51:42,229 Horrible feeling, horrible feeling. 1148 00:51:42,273 --> 00:51:44,188 Why do you put yourself through all that torture? 1149 00:51:44,231 --> 00:51:45,624 What are you talking about? 1150 00:51:45,667 --> 00:51:47,974 You want to take yage, you take yage. 1151 00:51:48,017 --> 00:51:51,325 Smoking hashish and sniffing cocaine, 1152 00:51:51,369 --> 00:51:56,113 it struck me as being a very glamorous and easy life. 1153 00:51:56,156 --> 00:51:57,766 Little did I know. 1154 00:51:57,810 --> 00:52:01,248 ♪ 1155 00:52:01,292 --> 00:52:03,555 "Clear... 1156 00:52:03,598 --> 00:52:06,297 the senses bright, 1157 00:52:06,340 --> 00:52:10,301 sitting in the black chair, rocker. 1158 00:52:10,344 --> 00:52:13,956 The white walls reflecting the color of clouds 1159 00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:16,133 moving over the sun." 1160 00:52:16,176 --> 00:52:20,398 I would have never written Cuckoo's Nestwithout LSD. 1161 00:52:20,441 --> 00:52:22,182 I think a lot of that stuff that was written 1162 00:52:22,226 --> 00:52:25,403 by all of these guys would never have happened 1163 00:52:25,446 --> 00:52:26,491 if they'd have just stayed on 1164 00:52:26,534 --> 00:52:27,970 the get up early in the morning, 1165 00:52:28,014 --> 00:52:30,886 drink a lot of coffee, and do what you can. 1166 00:52:30,930 --> 00:52:32,236 "Intimacies. 1167 00:52:32,279 --> 00:52:34,847 The rooms not important, 1168 00:52:34,890 --> 00:52:37,676 but like divisions of all space, 1169 00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:39,939 of all hideousness and beauty. 1170 00:52:39,982 --> 00:52:42,594 I hear the music of myself." 1171 00:52:42,637 --> 00:52:44,161 What might be a negative experience 1172 00:52:44,204 --> 00:52:46,685 for--for someone else 1173 00:52:46,728 --> 00:52:49,209 can be a very positive experience for a writer. 1174 00:52:49,253 --> 00:52:54,127 The damage to health from addiction is minimal. 1175 00:52:54,171 --> 00:52:58,044 But it has done things to your soul. 1176 00:52:58,087 --> 00:52:59,219 [chuckles] 1177 00:52:59,263 --> 00:53:00,742 It was my protector. 1178 00:53:00,786 --> 00:53:02,831 It was something that loved me, and I loved, 1179 00:53:02,875 --> 00:53:05,138 and I wanted, and there it was. 1180 00:53:05,182 --> 00:53:08,359 "I pass fantasies as they sing to me 1181 00:53:08,402 --> 00:53:10,448 with Circe-Voices. 1182 00:53:10,491 --> 00:53:13,538 I visit among the peoples of myself 1183 00:53:13,581 --> 00:53:16,236 and know all I need to know." 1184 00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:18,151 "The ancient goals which we follow 1185 00:53:18,195 --> 00:53:20,501 can be defined in modern terms 1186 00:53:20,545 --> 00:53:22,808 in the metaphors of the present 1187 00:53:22,851 --> 00:53:27,247 as turn on, tune in, and drop out." 1188 00:53:27,291 --> 00:53:29,684 I was a psychologist. 1189 00:53:29,728 --> 00:53:33,079 I was running a big project at prison. 1190 00:53:33,122 --> 00:53:36,343 So, naturally, I used this new chemical, 1191 00:53:36,387 --> 00:53:38,867 this new vegetable which gave insight, 1192 00:53:38,911 --> 00:53:40,782 and in one minute the prisoner could see, 1193 00:53:40,826 --> 00:53:44,351 "Shit, I've been playing that loser game all my life." 1194 00:53:44,395 --> 00:53:48,486 We are now in the psychochemical age. 1195 00:53:48,529 --> 00:53:49,574 In the future, it's not gonna be, 1196 00:53:49,617 --> 00:53:51,010 "What book do you read," 1197 00:53:51,053 --> 00:53:52,359 but, "Which chemical do you use 1198 00:53:52,403 --> 00:53:54,492 to open your mind to accelerate learning?" 1199 00:53:54,535 --> 00:53:56,842 And they were saying, 1200 00:53:56,885 --> 00:54:00,846 you know, LSD would make you jump out of windows. 1201 00:54:00,889 --> 00:54:05,198 My answer to the head DA guy was, "The rule there is 1202 00:54:05,242 --> 00:54:08,114 never take LSD over the first floor." 1203 00:54:08,157 --> 00:54:10,725 "I pass into the room. 1204 00:54:10,769 --> 00:54:14,860 There's a golden bed radiating all light." 1205 00:54:14,903 --> 00:54:17,036 "If we want to discourage use of LSD 1206 00:54:17,079 --> 00:54:19,038 for altering our attitudes, we'll have to encourage 1207 00:54:19,081 --> 00:54:21,606 such changes in our society that nobody will need it 1208 00:54:21,649 --> 00:54:23,434 to break through the common sympathy." 1209 00:54:23,477 --> 00:54:26,132 They were carrying on a tradition, 1210 00:54:26,175 --> 00:54:28,134 an American tradition. 1211 00:54:28,177 --> 00:54:31,529 It is, in effect, instant insanity. 1212 00:54:31,572 --> 00:54:35,097 When the time comes, the wave comes, it happens. 1213 00:54:35,141 --> 00:54:37,099 Do they know the difference between right and wrong? 1214 00:54:37,143 --> 00:54:38,144 -They do not. -Do not know. 1215 00:54:38,187 --> 00:54:39,145 They do not know the difference 1216 00:54:39,188 --> 00:54:40,233 between right and wrong. 1217 00:54:40,277 --> 00:54:41,408 You've got a much better chance 1218 00:54:41,452 --> 00:54:45,064 of walking from--walking from a murder 1219 00:54:45,107 --> 00:54:46,979 than a drug charge. 1220 00:54:47,022 --> 00:54:51,853 "The air is full of silver hangings and sheathes. 1221 00:54:51,897 --> 00:54:53,725 I smile to myself. 1222 00:54:53,768 --> 00:54:57,337 I know all there is to know." 1223 00:54:57,381 --> 00:54:59,992 I basically believe 1224 00:55:00,035 --> 00:55:04,344 that drugs are here to help human evolve, 1225 00:55:04,388 --> 00:55:06,651 to help us to grow in intelligence. 1226 00:55:06,694 --> 00:55:08,087 I think we're primitive. 1227 00:55:08,130 --> 00:55:10,219 We don't even know how to use them. 1228 00:55:10,263 --> 00:55:11,830 You can misuse them. 1229 00:55:11,873 --> 00:55:14,180 Assholes will always do everything in their power 1230 00:55:14,223 --> 00:55:16,225 to fuck everything up, you know? 1231 00:55:16,269 --> 00:55:17,923 It's like everything else in life. 1232 00:55:17,966 --> 00:55:20,360 I mean, you can overdose on sushi. 1233 00:55:20,404 --> 00:55:23,929 But still, they're there for a purpose, 1234 00:55:23,972 --> 00:55:26,627 and I think the challenge of an intelligent life 1235 00:55:26,671 --> 00:55:30,065 is to learn how to use drugs without abusing them. 1236 00:55:30,109 --> 00:55:32,546 Uh... 1237 00:55:32,590 --> 00:55:33,895 There are a lot of drugs I don't use 1238 00:55:33,939 --> 00:55:35,897 more than once a year, I try to take 1239 00:55:35,941 --> 00:55:37,377 every illegal drug once a year. 1240 00:55:37,421 --> 00:55:38,770 That's like a Catholic does that, 1241 00:55:38,813 --> 00:55:41,555 but no big deal. 1242 00:55:41,599 --> 00:55:44,732 ♪ 1243 00:55:46,168 --> 00:55:48,562 [tapping of typewriter keys] 1244 00:55:58,093 --> 00:56:01,836 Good evening, fellow members of the Beat Generation. 1245 00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:05,536 ♪ 1246 00:56:05,579 --> 00:56:07,538 Well, it's too piercing, man, it's too piercing. 1247 00:56:07,581 --> 00:56:09,801 -Well, I got [unintelligible]. -No, man, it's too piercing, 1248 00:56:09,844 --> 00:56:11,411 like, I don't dig loud noises. 1249 00:56:11,455 --> 00:56:13,195 -Well, you ruin the whole... -Yeah, well, tough. 1250 00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:15,676 I'll take my bongos and go, man. 1251 00:56:15,720 --> 00:56:17,286 ♪ 1252 00:56:17,330 --> 00:56:19,898 "Only God can make a tree." 1253 00:56:19,941 --> 00:56:21,769 [cymbal resonating] 1254 00:56:21,813 --> 00:56:25,947 ♪ They called you Beat Generation ♪ 1255 00:56:25,991 --> 00:56:27,514 -I'll buy that. -And I don't want 1256 00:56:27,558 --> 00:56:30,169 any of that beatnik stuff during dinner, either. 1257 00:56:30,212 --> 00:56:32,258 And, Richard, I don't want to see you smoking 1258 00:56:32,301 --> 00:56:34,042 any of those funny cigarettes. 1259 00:56:34,086 --> 00:56:35,827 ♪ 1260 00:56:35,870 --> 00:56:38,220 [speaking gibberish] 1261 00:56:38,264 --> 00:56:42,399 Man, like how square can you get? 1262 00:56:42,442 --> 00:56:44,183 There was a kind of beatnik craze 1263 00:56:44,226 --> 00:56:45,750 around the end of the '50s... 1264 00:56:45,793 --> 00:56:47,273 Well, the reason we look for love 1265 00:56:47,316 --> 00:56:49,710 is to protect ourselves from hate. 1266 00:56:49,754 --> 00:56:53,018 ...which became parodied and co-opted. 1267 00:56:53,061 --> 00:56:56,238 Well, if that's true, then, the reason you look for hate 1268 00:56:56,282 --> 00:56:59,328 is to protect yourself from love. 1269 00:56:59,372 --> 00:57:02,810 So, Gregory Corso went to Paris. 1270 00:57:02,854 --> 00:57:05,813 Burroughs stayed in Tangiers and Paris. 1271 00:57:05,857 --> 00:57:08,816 Kerouac became more retired at home after having 1272 00:57:08,860 --> 00:57:12,516 a great deal of venom and mockery laid on him. 1273 00:57:12,559 --> 00:57:15,127 There's not enough time to read all the books, 1274 00:57:15,170 --> 00:57:16,215 to see all the great paintings, 1275 00:57:16,258 --> 00:57:17,216 to hear all the music, 1276 00:57:17,259 --> 00:57:18,870 to think all the great thoughts 1277 00:57:18,913 --> 00:57:21,350 or just meet everybody, but you've got to try. 1278 00:57:21,394 --> 00:57:24,092 I've got to try. 1279 00:57:24,136 --> 00:57:26,094 You need a girl, Leo. 1280 00:57:26,138 --> 00:57:29,402 Peter Orlovsky and I disappeared into India, 1281 00:57:29,446 --> 00:57:31,186 basically went around the world 1282 00:57:31,230 --> 00:57:32,492 and stayed away for three years 1283 00:57:32,536 --> 00:57:34,755 and studied something new. 1284 00:57:34,799 --> 00:57:40,369 ♪ 1285 00:57:40,413 --> 00:57:42,023 Buddhism is intellectually 1286 00:57:42,067 --> 00:57:44,156 an extraordinary accomplishment, 1287 00:57:44,199 --> 00:57:48,334 a strikingly generous, compassionate, 1288 00:57:48,377 --> 00:57:52,251 and persistent institution... 1289 00:57:52,294 --> 00:57:55,820 So you're like the tree-- the tree sitting there. 1290 00:57:55,863 --> 00:57:57,343 ...practically speaking, 1291 00:57:57,386 --> 00:58:01,739 offering real teachings, meditation... 1292 00:58:01,782 --> 00:58:05,786 Your muscles are hanging from the trunk of the tree. 1293 00:58:05,830 --> 00:58:09,224 ...how to see and understand one's own mind... 1294 00:58:09,268 --> 00:58:10,835 Mouth closed. 1295 00:58:10,878 --> 00:58:14,055 Shoulders relaxed. 1296 00:58:14,099 --> 00:58:17,015 ...and in the world, make us remember 1297 00:58:17,058 --> 00:58:20,888 that our society includes the non-human people. 1298 00:58:20,932 --> 00:58:26,111 So now, why don't we sit doing nothing? 1299 00:58:26,154 --> 00:58:27,939 I was never really heavy into Buddhism. 1300 00:58:27,982 --> 00:58:31,203 Get Allen Ginsberg to talk about that. 1301 00:58:31,246 --> 00:58:34,032 He can go on and on and on. 1302 00:58:34,075 --> 00:58:36,687 ♪ 1303 00:58:36,730 --> 00:58:39,559 It's a big picture, it's a big heart. 1304 00:58:39,603 --> 00:58:40,734 Do you think the Buddhists see what I see? 1305 00:58:40,778 --> 00:58:41,822 Maybe they do see what I see. 1306 00:58:41,866 --> 00:58:43,128 Who the fuck knows? 1307 00:58:43,171 --> 00:58:45,086 They may just well see what I see. 1308 00:58:45,130 --> 00:58:49,526 Thank you for your patience. 1309 00:58:49,569 --> 00:58:51,528 That was fucking beautiful. 1310 00:58:51,571 --> 00:58:53,530 [applause] 1311 00:58:53,573 --> 00:58:56,489 [chanting] 1312 00:59:02,103 --> 00:59:05,150 I guess it's like the argument that Allen and I always have. 1313 00:59:05,193 --> 00:59:09,894 To me, Buddhism is another form of metaphysics. 1314 00:59:11,635 --> 00:59:13,724 I'm a materialist, you know. 1315 00:59:13,767 --> 00:59:16,640 My view is that the fundamental thing 1316 00:59:16,683 --> 00:59:19,164 that exists is matter in motion. 1317 00:59:19,207 --> 00:59:21,383 If I can have your heart, 1318 00:59:21,427 --> 00:59:23,995 if I can have your prayers, 1319 00:59:24,038 --> 00:59:25,692 if the good Lord is willing, 1320 00:59:25,736 --> 00:59:29,827 I will continue to try to lead this nation 1321 00:59:29,870 --> 00:59:32,612 and this world to peace. 1322 00:59:32,656 --> 00:59:35,528 ♪ Lookin' for adventure 1323 00:59:35,572 --> 00:59:37,356 ♪ And whatever comes our way 1324 00:59:37,399 --> 00:59:39,619 By the time I got back in '63, 1325 00:59:39,663 --> 00:59:41,969 the war was raging already, 1326 00:59:42,013 --> 00:59:44,798 and rather than--America, rather than being 1327 00:59:44,842 --> 00:59:47,801 sort of enlightened by the possibility 1328 00:59:47,845 --> 00:59:51,239 of some open world, was trying to inflict 1329 00:59:51,283 --> 00:59:55,809 a Catholic dictator on--with the Vietnamese. 1330 00:59:55,853 --> 00:59:58,812 ♪ Heavy metal thunder 1331 00:59:58,856 --> 01:00:00,074 ♪ Racin' with the wind 1332 01:00:00,118 --> 01:00:01,815 -React to what? -React to the greatness 1333 01:00:01,859 --> 01:00:04,035 of the march and the day as a victory or what? 1334 01:00:04,078 --> 01:00:05,558 You happy with it? 1335 01:00:05,602 --> 01:00:08,039 [speaking foreign language] 1336 01:00:08,082 --> 01:00:10,345 ♪ 1337 01:00:10,389 --> 01:00:11,956 We were beatniks, we reveled in it. 1338 01:00:11,999 --> 01:00:14,567 We never called each other beatniks. 1339 01:00:14,611 --> 01:00:18,484 Then, all of a sudden in late 1966, early '67, 1340 01:00:18,527 --> 01:00:20,791 Ginsberg and Gary Snyder and others 1341 01:00:20,834 --> 01:00:25,056 organized these--this big, huge be-in in San Francisco. 1342 01:00:25,099 --> 01:00:27,798 ♪ We can fly so high 1343 01:00:27,841 --> 01:00:29,408 And right after the be-in, all of a sudden, 1344 01:00:29,451 --> 01:00:31,192 you were no longer a beatnik. 1345 01:00:31,236 --> 01:00:32,237 You were a hippie. 1346 01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:35,849 ♪ Born to be wild 1347 01:00:35,893 --> 01:00:38,547 ♪ 1348 01:00:38,591 --> 01:00:39,679 So I really didn't have any friends 1349 01:00:39,723 --> 01:00:40,941 all through high school and college. 1350 01:00:40,985 --> 01:00:42,464 There was nobody I could communicate with 1351 01:00:42,508 --> 01:00:44,118 and, yet, I knew 1352 01:00:44,162 --> 01:00:46,686 that I couldn't be the only Martian. 1353 01:00:46,730 --> 01:00:50,995 ♪ 1354 01:00:51,038 --> 01:00:52,387 ♪ I'm always swell 1355 01:00:52,431 --> 01:00:55,826 ♪ The action is I blow my mind all day ♪ 1356 01:00:55,869 --> 01:00:58,306 ♪ While on Long Island's tennis courts ♪ 1357 01:00:58,350 --> 01:01:00,700 ♪ The blonde suburbans play 1358 01:01:00,744 --> 01:01:02,659 ♪ Truckin', got my chips cashed in ♪ 1359 01:01:02,702 --> 01:01:04,791 After the first thing called the "Human Be-In," 1360 01:01:04,835 --> 01:01:06,924 that thing, it was like, yeah, there is a community. 1361 01:01:06,967 --> 01:01:09,143 We were all those people who were the weird ones, 1362 01:01:09,187 --> 01:01:10,623 you know, and it was all of a sudden, 1363 01:01:10,667 --> 01:01:12,930 you discovered all these people who were like you, 1364 01:01:12,973 --> 01:01:14,801 influenced by the beatniks. 1365 01:01:14,845 --> 01:01:16,063 Don't eat those, Ma. 1366 01:01:16,107 --> 01:01:17,543 They're Alice B. Toklas brownies. 1367 01:01:17,586 --> 01:01:21,808 Mm, I love you, Alice B. Toklas. 1368 01:01:21,852 --> 01:01:23,592 We would all like to be able to live 1369 01:01:23,636 --> 01:01:25,464 an uncluttered life, you know, 1370 01:01:25,507 --> 01:01:26,944 and, like, think about moving 1371 01:01:26,987 --> 01:01:29,076 the whole human race ahead a step. 1372 01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:33,733 These young people were looking for a spiritual way 1373 01:01:33,777 --> 01:01:36,518 to rebel against the American values, 1374 01:01:36,562 --> 01:01:38,129 almost as an extension 1375 01:01:38,172 --> 01:01:40,000 of what we'd begun doing in the '50s. 1376 01:01:40,044 --> 01:01:43,830 They--they sort of looked on us as the, uh... 1377 01:01:43,874 --> 01:01:45,397 ...as the elders of the tribe. 1378 01:01:45,440 --> 01:01:47,051 What is your whole attitude to life? 1379 01:01:47,094 --> 01:01:48,705 When you meet somebody, what is your attitude towards them? 1380 01:01:48,748 --> 01:01:49,749 I don't like them. 1381 01:01:49,793 --> 01:01:51,359 -You don't? -No. 1382 01:01:51,403 --> 01:01:54,885 Sometimes the caring manifests itself as anger 1383 01:01:54,928 --> 01:01:57,148 or other feelings 1384 01:01:57,191 --> 01:01:58,758 that you might think of as negative. 1385 01:01:58,802 --> 01:02:00,934 Anything that has a strong charge 1386 01:02:00,978 --> 01:02:03,197 is where your heart is lying. 1387 01:02:03,241 --> 01:02:04,895 I think that the Vietnamese War 1388 01:02:04,938 --> 01:02:07,419 is nothing but a plot between the North Vietnamese 1389 01:02:07,462 --> 01:02:09,073 and the South Vietnamese who are cousins 1390 01:02:09,116 --> 01:02:11,292 to get Jeeps in the country. 1391 01:02:11,336 --> 01:02:13,468 They're not very good plotters, are they? 1392 01:02:13,512 --> 01:02:16,733 Well, they got a lot of Jeeps. 1393 01:02:16,776 --> 01:02:18,996 We were rebelling against a kind of rigidity 1394 01:02:19,039 --> 01:02:21,128 in the culture, and the Beats seemed to point out 1395 01:02:21,172 --> 01:02:23,957 that there were lots of room in the U.S. Constitution 1396 01:02:24,001 --> 01:02:26,003 for more freedom. 1397 01:02:26,046 --> 01:02:28,005 We are going to Chicago. 1398 01:02:28,048 --> 01:02:29,354 About a quarter of a million 1399 01:02:29,397 --> 01:02:33,750 of young, energetic love buddies... 1400 01:02:33,793 --> 01:02:38,537 ...to engage in a Youth International Party, 1401 01:02:38,580 --> 01:02:41,496 a sing-in, grope-in, love-in. 1402 01:02:41,540 --> 01:02:44,673 [shouting] 1403 01:02:44,717 --> 01:02:47,415 ♪ 1404 01:02:47,459 --> 01:02:50,157 ...which has really heightened the consciousness 1405 01:02:50,201 --> 01:02:52,116 with today's action. 1406 01:02:52,159 --> 01:02:55,206 -Are they expecting trouble? -They expect to march. 1407 01:02:55,249 --> 01:02:57,295 We expect trouble all the time. 1408 01:02:57,338 --> 01:03:00,994 A whole generation was systematically cut off 1409 01:03:01,038 --> 01:03:04,128 from outlets to personal meaning. 1410 01:03:04,171 --> 01:03:08,741 We could play the game, but what was it about? 1411 01:03:08,785 --> 01:03:10,351 No one knew. 1412 01:03:10,395 --> 01:03:13,050 The policeman isn't there to create disorder. 1413 01:03:13,093 --> 01:03:15,704 The policeman is there to preserve disorder. 1414 01:03:15,748 --> 01:03:20,187 So, we went with our more non-conforming impulse. 1415 01:03:20,231 --> 01:03:22,537 [chanting] 1416 01:03:22,581 --> 01:03:26,150 The Beats were originally non-political. 1417 01:03:26,193 --> 01:03:28,326 Others who were political 1418 01:03:28,369 --> 01:03:30,154 were really following the Beat movement 1419 01:03:30,197 --> 01:03:32,243 to its logical conclusion. 1420 01:03:32,286 --> 01:03:34,288 Om, he was wonderful. 1421 01:03:34,332 --> 01:03:36,377 He was--he was an honored presence. 1422 01:03:36,421 --> 01:03:39,119 They had a vision and the vision was truth, 1423 01:03:39,163 --> 01:03:41,078 justice, and the American way. 1424 01:03:41,121 --> 01:03:42,906 Just like the guy with the cape, 1425 01:03:42,949 --> 01:03:46,518 they were the Supermen and Superwomen of our era. 1426 01:03:46,561 --> 01:03:48,302 ♪ ...off of my face 1427 01:03:48,346 --> 01:03:51,044 [siren wailing] 1428 01:03:51,088 --> 01:03:53,481 The ground was really set in the way by the people 1429 01:03:53,525 --> 01:03:55,788 who had helped us realize 1430 01:03:55,832 --> 01:03:58,660 that we didn't have to follow what our elders told us 1431 01:03:58,704 --> 01:04:00,445 if we really didn't think it was right. 1432 01:04:00,488 --> 01:04:03,622 I couldn't get naked on somebody's front lawn 1433 01:04:03,665 --> 01:04:05,885 and get myself arrested, it wasn't my style, 1434 01:04:05,929 --> 01:04:08,148 but I really admired that. 1435 01:04:08,192 --> 01:04:11,848 Born of distant dark planet names, 1436 01:04:11,891 --> 01:04:13,762 I, woodwoman, 1437 01:04:13,806 --> 01:04:15,547 I spell it away! 1438 01:04:15,590 --> 01:04:19,812 Mega, mega, mega, mega, mega, mega, mega, mega, 1439 01:04:19,856 --> 01:04:21,509 mega, mega, mega! 1440 01:04:21,553 --> 01:04:25,426 [unintelligible shout] 1441 01:04:25,470 --> 01:04:29,778 ♪ Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door ♪ 1442 01:04:29,822 --> 01:04:33,173 There's a time when the operation of the machine 1443 01:04:33,217 --> 01:04:35,175 becomes so odious, 1444 01:04:35,219 --> 01:04:38,787 makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part. 1445 01:04:38,831 --> 01:04:40,789 [gunshot] 1446 01:04:40,833 --> 01:04:42,182 ♪ 1447 01:04:42,226 --> 01:04:44,141 But I always thought that what we were doing 1448 01:04:44,184 --> 01:04:46,621 was a patriotic act. 1449 01:04:46,665 --> 01:04:49,668 Who has always been out there? 1450 01:04:49,711 --> 01:04:52,714 Old crazy coots that keep out on the edge 1451 01:04:52,758 --> 01:04:55,369 of where civilization is going. 1452 01:04:55,413 --> 01:04:58,938 I think a lot of this comes from Cassady and from Kerouac. 1453 01:04:58,982 --> 01:05:00,548 Cassady was our driver. 1454 01:05:00,592 --> 01:05:02,986 He knew that this was going to be the best stage 1455 01:05:03,029 --> 01:05:05,075 he was ever gonna have to do his number. 1456 01:05:05,118 --> 01:05:06,946 Never mind all that reflection. 1457 01:05:06,990 --> 01:05:08,426 Let's see who we are. 1458 01:05:08,469 --> 01:05:10,863 Let's turn the thing on as bright as it will go 1459 01:05:10,907 --> 01:05:13,170 and then see what kind of shadow we cast. 1460 01:05:13,213 --> 01:05:18,088 ♪ Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door ♪ 1461 01:05:18,131 --> 01:05:21,178 "I put my back toward the screen and then spun 1462 01:05:21,221 --> 01:05:23,310 and let the momentum carry the panel 1463 01:05:23,354 --> 01:05:27,445 through the screen and window with a ripping crash. 1464 01:05:27,488 --> 01:05:30,535 The blast splashed out in the moon 1465 01:05:30,578 --> 01:05:34,278 like a bright, cold water baptizing the sleeping earth. 1466 01:05:34,321 --> 01:05:35,975 ♪ 1467 01:05:36,019 --> 01:05:40,675 I put my hand on the sill and vaulted after the panel 1468 01:05:40,719 --> 01:05:42,460 into the moonlight." 1469 01:05:42,503 --> 01:05:44,462 [shouting] 1470 01:05:44,505 --> 01:05:46,551 ♪ 1471 01:05:46,594 --> 01:05:48,945 Mr. Kesey, do you feel that you have the right 1472 01:05:48,988 --> 01:05:50,990 to do what you want, whatever you want, 1473 01:05:51,034 --> 01:05:52,731 and still live in this world? 1474 01:05:52,774 --> 01:05:55,690 [shouting and laughing] 1475 01:05:55,734 --> 01:05:57,910 I feel that man has the right to be as big 1476 01:05:57,954 --> 01:05:59,999 as he feels it in him to be. 1477 01:06:00,043 --> 01:06:02,480 [laughs] 1478 01:06:02,523 --> 01:06:12,272 ♪ 1479 01:06:12,316 --> 01:06:14,753 [indistinct chatter] 1480 01:06:18,235 --> 01:06:19,627 This is the death of Neal Cassady 1481 01:06:19,671 --> 01:06:21,803 at San Miguel de Allende, where he died 1482 01:06:21,847 --> 01:06:23,457 walking along the railroad tracks 1483 01:06:23,501 --> 01:06:27,374 after getting stoned and whatever. 1484 01:06:27,418 --> 01:06:30,682 And the uppers and downers at the same time. 1485 01:06:30,725 --> 01:06:33,119 [indistinct chatter] 1486 01:06:34,816 --> 01:06:38,037 ♪ 1487 01:06:38,081 --> 01:06:41,258 He wasn't destined to grow old. 1488 01:06:41,301 --> 01:06:44,522 He was always young and he always will be. 1489 01:06:44,565 --> 01:06:49,048 A hundred years ago, he would have been on a horse, 1490 01:06:49,092 --> 01:06:52,138 but his--his hot rod was his horse. 1491 01:06:52,182 --> 01:06:53,835 ♪ 1492 01:06:53,879 --> 01:06:57,100 "Delicate eyes that blinked blue Rockies, 1493 01:06:57,143 --> 01:06:59,624 all ash. 1494 01:06:59,667 --> 01:07:04,324 Nipples, ribs I touched with my thumb are ash. 1495 01:07:04,368 --> 01:07:07,936 Mouth my tongue touched once or twice, 1496 01:07:07,980 --> 01:07:10,200 all ash." 1497 01:07:10,243 --> 01:07:12,376 ♪ 1498 01:07:12,419 --> 01:07:15,727 Our existence is so brief, 1499 01:07:15,770 --> 01:07:19,209 as we understood it, that it becomes more poignant 1500 01:07:19,252 --> 01:07:23,213 and more emotionally rich 1501 01:07:23,256 --> 01:07:26,825 knowing that it's like a dream 1502 01:07:26,868 --> 01:07:30,394 that is already finished, as Kerouac once said. 1503 01:07:30,437 --> 01:07:32,657 Life is a dream already over. 1504 01:07:32,700 --> 01:07:40,099 ♪ 1505 01:07:40,143 --> 01:07:44,886 Jack, suddenly, one morning, had a hemorrhage, 1506 01:07:44,930 --> 01:07:47,585 apparently brought on by, uh... 1507 01:07:47,628 --> 01:07:51,023 ...years and years of consuming alcohol, 1508 01:07:51,067 --> 01:07:54,853 which I guess is the typical alcoholic's death. 1509 01:07:54,896 --> 01:07:57,160 The American by his day was sick. 1510 01:07:57,203 --> 01:08:00,467 Hard-heartedness had taken over. 1511 01:08:00,511 --> 01:08:03,688 So I would say America broke his heart. 1512 01:08:03,731 --> 01:08:05,690 ♪ 1513 01:08:05,733 --> 01:08:06,865 You just have to read the reviews 1514 01:08:06,908 --> 01:08:08,171 of his books in those days. 1515 01:08:08,214 --> 01:08:12,566 He was put down, it was, you know, knifed 1516 01:08:12,610 --> 01:08:15,395 and, yet, he was writing about enthusiasm and delight, 1517 01:08:15,439 --> 01:08:18,833 and he was being treated like some juvenile delinquent. 1518 01:08:18,877 --> 01:08:20,531 ♪ 1519 01:08:20,574 --> 01:08:24,229 Now, Jack, Mr. Kerouac, to what extent do you believe 1520 01:08:24,273 --> 01:08:27,146 that the Beat Generation 1521 01:08:27,190 --> 01:08:30,062 is related 1522 01:08:30,106 --> 01:08:32,456 to the--to the hippies? 1523 01:08:32,499 --> 01:08:34,066 What do they have in common? 1524 01:08:34,110 --> 01:08:36,112 Was this an evolution from the one to the other? 1525 01:08:36,155 --> 01:08:37,852 We're just the older ones. 1526 01:08:37,896 --> 01:08:40,594 I'm 46 years old, these kids are 18. 1527 01:08:40,638 --> 01:08:42,509 It's the same movement which is apparently 1528 01:08:42,553 --> 01:08:46,818 some kind of Dionysian movement 1529 01:08:46,861 --> 01:08:49,647 in late civilization, 1530 01:08:49,690 --> 01:08:52,997 in which I did not intend any more than I suppose 1531 01:08:53,041 --> 01:08:55,478 Dionysus did or whatever his name was. 1532 01:08:55,522 --> 01:08:56,871 Ha-ha! 1533 01:08:56,915 --> 01:08:58,524 Hey, that was good, wasn't it? 1534 01:08:58,568 --> 01:09:00,353 I'm good all the time, boy. 1535 01:09:00,397 --> 01:09:03,617 Give that man a drink. 1536 01:09:03,661 --> 01:09:06,228 Spent all the night with poets and so on. 1537 01:09:06,272 --> 01:09:07,881 He drank and all that. 1538 01:09:07,925 --> 01:09:11,582 And, well, I said, "Aren't you afraid of hell?" 1539 01:09:11,625 --> 01:09:14,106 He says, "Oh, no," he says, "I'm concerned with heaven," 1540 01:09:14,149 --> 01:09:17,196 he says, "I'm thinking about heaven all the time. 1541 01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:19,764 I want to see Gerard, my little brother." 1542 01:09:19,807 --> 01:09:22,245 "He'd already scribed a thousand dreams, 1543 01:09:22,288 --> 01:09:24,290 a thousand pages of dharma, 1544 01:09:24,334 --> 01:09:27,467 a million words that sounded like a million ears. 1545 01:09:27,511 --> 01:09:29,252 His heart was tender. 1546 01:09:29,295 --> 01:09:33,865 He'd already died and become a recording angel." 1547 01:09:33,907 --> 01:09:36,911 Jack Kerouac, the novelist who wrote On the Road, 1548 01:09:36,955 --> 01:09:38,522 reached the end of it today. 1549 01:09:38,565 --> 01:09:41,481 The 47-year-old spokesman for the Beat Generation 1550 01:09:41,524 --> 01:09:42,960 died of a massive hemorrhage 1551 01:09:43,004 --> 01:09:44,962 in a St. Petersburg, Florida, hospital. 1552 01:09:45,005 --> 01:09:49,228 ♪ And what love endures 1553 01:09:49,272 --> 01:09:51,099 ♪ 1554 01:09:51,143 --> 01:09:55,495 ♪ All my thoughts of you 1555 01:09:55,539 --> 01:09:56,844 ♪ 1556 01:09:56,888 --> 01:10:01,893 ♪ For I'm so completely yours 1557 01:10:01,936 --> 01:10:03,503 ♪ 1558 01:10:03,547 --> 01:10:05,418 All the people that leave this stuff here, 1559 01:10:05,462 --> 01:10:07,942 it's their way. 1560 01:10:07,986 --> 01:10:09,901 You know, it's their way of coming here, 1561 01:10:09,943 --> 01:10:12,164 it's part of their path, you know? 1562 01:10:12,208 --> 01:10:16,647 It's like 13-year-old kids, college kids, 1563 01:10:16,690 --> 01:10:20,303 guys my age, old-timers. 1564 01:10:20,346 --> 01:10:22,261 Wicked spectrum. 1565 01:10:22,305 --> 01:10:25,482 ♪ 1566 01:10:25,525 --> 01:10:27,484 So, this what's gonna happen to you? 1567 01:10:27,527 --> 01:10:30,269 No, I want to be in an unmarked grave. 1568 01:10:30,313 --> 01:10:32,097 ♪ 1569 01:10:32,139 --> 01:10:33,228 What do you think Jack would have felt 1570 01:10:33,272 --> 01:10:34,882 about all this--all this? 1571 01:10:34,925 --> 01:10:36,841 Yeah, he would have grooved on this stuff 1572 01:10:36,884 --> 01:10:39,191 because--because this stuff comes from the heart 1573 01:10:39,235 --> 01:10:41,148 and that's where he was coming from. 1574 01:10:41,193 --> 01:10:43,674 I believe in order, 1575 01:10:43,717 --> 01:10:47,068 tenderness, and piety. 1576 01:10:47,112 --> 01:10:49,157 Well, then your point was that a movement 1577 01:10:49,201 --> 01:10:53,161 which you conceived as relatively pure 1578 01:10:53,205 --> 01:10:55,163 has become ideologized. 1579 01:10:55,207 --> 01:10:57,557 No, a movement that was considered what? 1580 01:10:57,601 --> 01:10:58,732 Pure. 1581 01:10:58,776 --> 01:11:01,126 Yes, it was pure in my heart. 1582 01:11:01,169 --> 01:11:03,868 ♪ Don't explain 1583 01:11:03,911 --> 01:11:08,089 ♪ 1584 01:11:10,396 --> 01:11:12,398 Belief and Technique for Modern Prose 1585 01:11:12,442 --> 01:11:14,182 by Jack Kerouac. 1586 01:11:14,226 --> 01:11:15,706 "List of essentials: 1587 01:11:15,749 --> 01:11:17,969 One, scribbled secret notebooks 1588 01:11:18,012 --> 01:11:21,059 and wild typewritten pages for your own joy. 1589 01:11:21,102 --> 01:11:24,715 Two, submissive to everything, open, listening. 1590 01:11:24,758 --> 01:11:29,110 Three, try never get drunk outside your own house. 1591 01:11:29,154 --> 01:11:32,244 Four, be in love with your life. 1592 01:11:32,288 --> 01:11:35,900 Five, something that you feel will find its own form. 1593 01:11:35,943 --> 01:11:39,599 Six, be crazy dumbsaint of the mind. 1594 01:11:39,643 --> 01:11:42,602 Seven, blow as deep as you want to blow. 1595 01:11:42,646 --> 01:11:44,603 Eight, write what you want 1596 01:11:44,648 --> 01:11:47,389 bottomless from bottom of the mind. 1597 01:11:47,433 --> 01:11:51,742 Nine, the unspeakable visions of the individual." 1598 01:11:51,785 --> 01:11:54,092 "Dean was in a trance. 1599 01:11:54,135 --> 01:11:57,050 The tenorman's eyes were fixed straight on him; 1600 01:11:57,094 --> 01:11:59,663 he had a madman who not only understood but cared 1601 01:11:59,706 --> 01:12:01,665 and wanted to understand more 1602 01:12:01,708 --> 01:12:04,276 and much more than there was. 1603 01:12:04,320 --> 01:12:06,844 The tenorman wore a tattered suede jacket, 1604 01:12:06,887 --> 01:12:08,672 purple shirt, cracked shoes, 1605 01:12:08,715 --> 01:12:11,022 and zoot pants without press. 1606 01:12:11,065 --> 01:12:13,023 He didn't care. 1607 01:12:13,067 --> 01:12:16,070 His big brown eyes were concerned with sadness, 1608 01:12:16,114 --> 01:12:17,724 and the singing of songs slowly 1609 01:12:17,768 --> 01:12:20,684 and with long, thoughtful pauses. 1610 01:12:20,727 --> 01:12:22,032 His mouth quivered. 1611 01:12:22,076 --> 01:12:24,775 He looked at us, Dean and me, 1612 01:12:24,818 --> 01:12:27,603 with an expression that seemed to say, "Hey, now, 1613 01:12:27,647 --> 01:12:28,605 what's this thing we're all doing 1614 01:12:28,648 --> 01:12:31,303 in this sad brown world?" 1615 01:12:31,347 --> 01:12:33,349 Then it came to the end of his song, 1616 01:12:33,392 --> 01:12:36,090 and for this there had to be elaborate preparations, 1617 01:12:36,134 --> 01:12:37,918 during which time you could send all the messages 1618 01:12:37,962 --> 01:12:39,833 to Garcia around the world 12 times 1619 01:12:39,877 --> 01:12:41,835 and what difference did it make to anyone? 1620 01:12:41,879 --> 01:12:44,316 Because here, we were dealing with the pit and prune juice 1621 01:12:44,360 --> 01:12:45,577 of poor beat life itself 1622 01:12:45,621 --> 01:12:48,364 in the god-awful streets of man. 1623 01:12:48,407 --> 01:12:50,278 Sat in the corner with a bunch of boys 1624 01:12:50,322 --> 01:12:52,237 and paid no attention to them. 1625 01:12:52,280 --> 01:12:54,500 He looked down and wept. 1626 01:12:54,544 --> 01:12:56,197 He was the greatest. 1627 01:12:56,241 --> 01:12:58,156 ♪ 1628 01:12:58,199 --> 01:13:00,027 I had put the light out, 1629 01:13:00,071 --> 01:13:02,900 so, in the dark, dancing, I kissed her. 1630 01:13:02,943 --> 01:13:04,335 ♪ 1631 01:13:04,380 --> 01:13:06,294 It was giddy, whirling to the dance, 1632 01:13:06,338 --> 01:13:09,210 the beginning, 1633 01:13:09,254 --> 01:13:11,125 the usual beginning of lovers kissing, 1634 01:13:11,169 --> 01:13:13,867 standing up in a dark room, 1635 01:13:13,911 --> 01:13:18,306 the room being the woman's the man all designs. 1636 01:13:18,350 --> 01:13:21,875 Quick to plunge, bite, put the light out, 1637 01:13:21,919 --> 01:13:24,443 hide my face in shame, 1638 01:13:24,487 --> 01:13:26,706 make love to her tremendously because of lack of love 1639 01:13:26,750 --> 01:13:28,925 for a year almost 1640 01:13:28,969 --> 01:13:31,668 and the need pushing me down, 1641 01:13:31,710 --> 01:13:33,844 our little agreements in the dark, 1642 01:13:33,887 --> 01:13:36,455 the really should-not-be-tolds, 1643 01:13:36,499 --> 01:13:38,544 for it was she who later said, 1644 01:13:38,588 --> 01:13:40,327 'Men are so crazy. 1645 01:13:40,371 --> 01:13:42,200 They want the essence. 1646 01:13:42,243 --> 01:13:44,245 The woman is the essence. 1647 01:13:44,289 --> 01:13:46,030 There it is right in their hands 1648 01:13:46,073 --> 01:13:50,773 but they rush off erecting big abstract constructions.' 1649 01:13:50,817 --> 01:13:52,471 But I cannot in this confession 1650 01:13:52,514 --> 01:13:55,909 betray the innermosts, the thighs, 1651 01:13:55,952 --> 01:13:58,434 what the thighs contain. 1652 01:13:58,477 --> 01:14:01,132 The thighs contain the essence, 1653 01:14:01,175 --> 01:14:03,439 yet though there I should stay and from there I came 1654 01:14:03,482 --> 01:14:05,702 and will eventually return, 1655 01:14:05,745 --> 01:14:08,487 still I have to rush off and construct, 1656 01:14:08,531 --> 01:14:12,577 construct, for nothing, for Baudelaire poems." 1657 01:14:12,621 --> 01:14:13,884 ♪ 1658 01:14:13,927 --> 01:14:15,625 This is just his bones here. 1659 01:14:15,668 --> 01:14:18,192 His spirit is around us. 1660 01:14:18,236 --> 01:14:23,110 ♪ 1661 01:14:23,154 --> 01:14:25,591 [tapping of typewriter keys] 1662 01:14:25,635 --> 01:14:34,513 ♪ 1663 01:14:34,557 --> 01:14:36,514 I'd like an omelet, plain, 1664 01:14:36,559 --> 01:14:39,562 and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast. 1665 01:14:39,605 --> 01:14:41,607 "Sixteen years ago, we were put down 1666 01:14:41,651 --> 01:14:45,698 for being filthy beatnik sex commie dope fiends." 1667 01:14:45,742 --> 01:14:48,179 Now, all you have to do is hold the chicken, 1668 01:14:48,222 --> 01:14:50,050 bring me the toast, give me a check 1669 01:14:50,094 --> 01:14:51,530 for the chicken salad sandwich, 1670 01:14:51,574 --> 01:14:53,793 and you haven't broken any rules. 1671 01:14:53,837 --> 01:14:55,534 You see that sign, sir? 1672 01:14:55,577 --> 01:14:58,362 Do you see this sign? 1673 01:14:58,406 --> 01:15:00,278 "Sixteen years later 1674 01:15:00,321 --> 01:15:02,715 Allen's the respect of his elders, 1675 01:15:02,759 --> 01:15:04,543 the love of his peers." 1676 01:15:04,587 --> 01:15:07,067 Do you have nostalgia for the '50s and '60s now? 1677 01:15:07,111 --> 01:15:08,982 None at all, it's more interesting now. 1678 01:15:09,026 --> 01:15:11,637 I mean, it's the s-- the '50s, '60s, '70s, 1679 01:15:11,681 --> 01:15:12,856 same thing as now. 1680 01:15:12,898 --> 01:15:14,510 It's eternity all the time, 1681 01:15:14,553 --> 01:15:17,817 so there's no point having nostalgia for eternity. 1682 01:15:17,861 --> 01:15:20,428 "Bill, Bill is ever Bill, 1683 01:15:20,472 --> 01:15:21,865 even though he stopped drugging 1684 01:15:21,907 --> 01:15:23,867 and smoking cigarettes." 1685 01:15:23,910 --> 01:15:26,260 I'm pleased tonight to introduce a man 1686 01:15:26,304 --> 01:15:27,697 who, in my opinion, 1687 01:15:27,740 --> 01:15:31,091 is the greatest living writer in America. 1688 01:15:31,135 --> 01:15:32,876 "Me? I'm still considered 1689 01:15:32,919 --> 01:15:36,009 an unwashed beatnik sex commie dope fiend." 1690 01:15:36,053 --> 01:15:38,621 Want a hit? I don't have a light. 1691 01:15:38,664 --> 01:15:42,886 "Dear Audience, we early heads of present style 1692 01:15:42,929 --> 01:15:47,193 and consciousness are the Daddies of the Age." 1693 01:15:47,237 --> 01:15:48,587 The Beats, in standing up, 1694 01:15:48,630 --> 01:15:50,502 got laughed at by the civilization. 1695 01:15:50,546 --> 01:15:52,243 All the academic-- you don't know how much hatred 1696 01:15:52,286 --> 01:15:53,897 there was for these guys and sneers, 1697 01:15:53,940 --> 01:15:56,116 and teachers would snicker. 1698 01:15:56,160 --> 01:15:57,683 Police, you may as well open. 1699 01:15:57,727 --> 01:16:00,380 The moment The Beard first opened in Los Angeles, 1700 01:16:00,425 --> 01:16:02,469 every night, city vice squad detectives 1701 01:16:02,514 --> 01:16:04,124 arrested the cast and the producer. 1702 01:16:04,168 --> 01:16:05,952 When are we gonna get controversial again, Allen? 1703 01:16:05,996 --> 01:16:09,826 It's all getting too sedate, don't you think so? 1704 01:16:09,869 --> 01:16:11,262 How many years has it been since you've been busted? 1705 01:16:11,305 --> 01:16:12,568 I mean, we're in trouble here. 1706 01:16:12,611 --> 01:16:13,873 I was busted just three weeks ago. 1707 01:16:13,916 --> 01:16:16,702 Of course, of course, there you go. 1708 01:16:16,746 --> 01:16:18,791 [shouting] 1709 01:16:18,835 --> 01:16:21,620 I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore! 1710 01:16:21,664 --> 01:16:22,752 I'm mad as hell! 1711 01:16:22,795 --> 01:16:24,449 I'm not gonna take it anymore! 1712 01:16:24,492 --> 01:16:26,016 I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it-- 1713 01:16:26,059 --> 01:16:27,931 I'm not gonna take it anymore! 1714 01:16:27,974 --> 01:16:28,932 I'm mad as hell! 1715 01:16:28,975 --> 01:16:30,847 Literary Movements for $200. 1716 01:16:36,592 --> 01:16:38,898 -Jeopardy, TV program. -Oh. 1717 01:16:38,942 --> 01:16:41,553 Burroughs, Kerouac, and Ginsey are accepted 1718 01:16:41,597 --> 01:16:43,511 -in a literary... -On the contrary, Gregory. 1719 01:16:43,555 --> 01:16:44,556 -Bullshit. -The point is... 1720 01:16:44,600 --> 01:16:45,862 Those three were the big ones 1721 01:16:45,905 --> 01:16:47,864 and anybody afterwards is... 1722 01:16:47,907 --> 01:16:50,214 -That's all right with me. -But it ain't all right with me 1723 01:16:50,257 --> 01:16:51,737 'cause they don't know where to place me. 1724 01:16:51,781 --> 01:16:53,521 I had my book published before his. 1725 01:16:53,565 --> 01:16:55,262 Yeah, but, Gregory, you seem very bitter, 1726 01:16:55,306 --> 01:16:59,657 and your poetry and your work is so joyful and happy. 1727 01:16:59,702 --> 01:17:02,008 Bitter? I'm not a bitter man. 1728 01:17:02,052 --> 01:17:03,314 Bitter? 1729 01:17:03,357 --> 01:17:05,664 I bet my poems top all your shots. 1730 01:17:05,708 --> 01:17:07,405 Watch the game, you don't even know what's gonna happen 1731 01:17:07,448 --> 01:17:08,493 eighty years from now. 1732 01:17:08,536 --> 01:17:11,278 These fuckers may be niente. 1733 01:17:11,322 --> 01:17:13,672 [indistinct chatter] 1734 01:17:13,716 --> 01:17:14,760 ♪ 1735 01:17:14,804 --> 01:17:16,370 Gregory Corso. 1736 01:17:16,414 --> 01:17:19,286 [cheering] 1737 01:17:19,330 --> 01:17:22,768 Whereas Lowell-born author Jack Kerouac 1738 01:17:22,812 --> 01:17:24,639 is known as one of this century's 1739 01:17:24,683 --> 01:17:27,380 most important figures in American literature. 1740 01:17:27,425 --> 01:17:31,037 Now everybody says, "Oh, I went to school with him. 1741 01:17:31,081 --> 01:17:34,084 Oh, yes, I knew him very well!" 1742 01:17:34,127 --> 01:17:37,391 "Dear Daddy Jack, I am your real daughter 1743 01:17:37,434 --> 01:17:38,741 that you never found. 1744 01:17:38,784 --> 01:17:42,135 Love everlasting, Jan Michelle." 1745 01:17:42,179 --> 01:17:46,096 ♪ 1746 01:17:46,139 --> 01:17:50,056 They have totally shat upon the whole premise 1747 01:17:50,100 --> 01:17:52,145 of the Beat Generation which is to be free, 1748 01:17:52,189 --> 01:17:55,888 and free speech, and it's Kerouacgate. 1749 01:17:55,932 --> 01:18:03,679 ♪ 1750 01:18:03,722 --> 01:18:06,159 [tapping of typewriter keys] 1751 01:18:06,202 --> 01:18:14,080 ♪ 1752 01:18:14,124 --> 01:18:16,692 [humming] 1753 01:18:16,735 --> 01:18:21,087 ♪ 1754 01:18:21,130 --> 01:18:25,788 Ladies and gentlemen, an American hero, 1755 01:18:25,831 --> 01:18:28,138 American bard, 1756 01:18:28,181 --> 01:18:31,010 American genius. 1757 01:18:31,054 --> 01:18:32,359 You can't see on the left, 1758 01:18:32,403 --> 01:18:35,318 it says "All proceeds for this image 1759 01:18:35,362 --> 01:18:38,017 go to the Jack Kerouac School of Poetics 1760 01:18:38,061 --> 01:18:40,759 in Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado." 1761 01:18:40,803 --> 01:18:42,500 Oh, that's great, this goes to the-- 1762 01:18:42,543 --> 01:18:44,110 I got my alibi. 1763 01:18:44,154 --> 01:18:46,243 Oh, that's good. 1764 01:18:46,286 --> 01:18:48,027 -I, uh... -That's a good cause. 1765 01:18:48,071 --> 01:18:49,812 I have my alibi for not selling out. 1766 01:18:49,855 --> 01:18:51,943 Not many people do. 1767 01:18:51,987 --> 01:18:54,077 No. 1768 01:18:54,120 --> 01:18:56,427 ♪ Teacher Death 1769 01:18:56,469 --> 01:18:59,125 ♪ I do thank you 1770 01:18:59,169 --> 01:19:02,041 ♪ For inspiring me 1771 01:19:02,085 --> 01:19:05,697 ♪ To sing this blues 1772 01:19:05,741 --> 01:19:08,787 ♪ Father Breath 1773 01:19:08,831 --> 01:19:12,617 "Allen died April 5th, 1997. 1774 01:19:12,660 --> 01:19:16,925 He said to me, 'I thought I would be terrified, 1775 01:19:16,969 --> 01:19:19,755 but I'm exhilarated.' 1776 01:19:19,798 --> 01:19:20,755 His last words to me." 1777 01:19:20,799 --> 01:19:24,193 ♪ Time will tell 1778 01:19:24,237 --> 01:19:25,673 ♪ 1779 01:19:25,717 --> 01:19:27,675 "Larry was another. 1780 01:19:27,719 --> 01:19:30,112 I talked till ten the night of his death. 1781 01:19:30,156 --> 01:19:33,116 He said, 'Why not?'" 1782 01:19:33,159 --> 01:19:37,076 "I saw God in the sky, in the form of huge, gold, 1783 01:19:37,120 --> 01:19:39,513 sunburning clouds above the desert. 1784 01:19:39,557 --> 01:19:41,820 He seemed to point a finger at me and say, 1785 01:19:41,864 --> 01:19:43,909 'Pass here and go on. 1786 01:19:43,952 --> 01:19:46,041 You're on the road to heaven.'" 1787 01:19:46,085 --> 01:19:52,222 ♪ 1788 01:19:52,264 --> 01:19:54,790 Let us pray. 1789 01:19:54,833 --> 01:19:58,663 "Our Father, whose art's in heaven, 1790 01:19:58,706 --> 01:20:00,883 hallowed be Thy name 1791 01:20:00,925 --> 01:20:03,886 unless things change." 1792 01:20:03,929 --> 01:20:06,540 Keep the fire alive. 1793 01:20:06,584 --> 01:20:08,107 Keep love alive, brothers. 1794 01:20:08,151 --> 01:20:10,762 Keep love alive. 1795 01:20:10,806 --> 01:20:12,851 Do you still write poems and things, too? 1796 01:20:12,895 --> 01:20:16,376 Me? I never stopped in my life writing poetry. 1797 01:20:16,420 --> 01:20:17,682 When I feel like writing a poem, 1798 01:20:17,725 --> 01:20:19,423 I write a poem, how can you stop? 1799 01:20:19,466 --> 01:20:22,034 Can you give us a line of the newest that you wrote? 1800 01:20:22,077 --> 01:20:23,557 A line, a line? 1801 01:20:23,601 --> 01:20:27,083 All right, "Death is a rumor spread by life." 1802 01:20:27,126 --> 01:20:29,389 How's that? 1803 01:20:29,433 --> 01:20:30,956 Come again? 1804 01:20:31,000 --> 01:20:43,186 ♪ 1805 01:20:43,228 --> 01:20:45,710 [siren wailing] 1806 01:20:45,753 --> 01:20:56,721 ♪ 1807 01:20:56,764 --> 01:20:58,331 It's continuing a tradition. 1808 01:20:58,375 --> 01:20:59,767 You know, it's continuing a tradition 1809 01:20:59,811 --> 01:21:01,508 and finding our antecedents. 1810 01:21:01,552 --> 01:21:03,206 I mean, so we have to look back 1811 01:21:03,249 --> 01:21:04,728 before we can look forward. 1812 01:21:04,772 --> 01:21:06,339 "You should be putting me out of my misery! 1813 01:21:06,383 --> 01:21:08,385 Give me some smack and a case of blackjack, 1814 01:21:08,428 --> 01:21:11,300 and I will save us all from a world of shit!" 1815 01:21:11,344 --> 01:21:13,346 "His legs were left in Vietnam! 1816 01:21:13,389 --> 01:21:15,566 His arms were found in Sing Sing! 1817 01:21:15,609 --> 01:21:17,611 His scalp is on Nixon's belt! 1818 01:21:17,655 --> 01:21:19,875 His blood paints the streets of the ghetto! 1819 01:21:19,918 --> 01:21:21,833 His eyes are still looking for Jesus 1820 01:21:21,877 --> 01:21:23,835 to come down from some cloud, 1821 01:21:23,879 --> 01:21:27,883 and make everything all right when Jesus died in Attica!" 1822 01:21:27,925 --> 01:21:29,797 ♪ 1823 01:21:29,841 --> 01:21:32,800 [siren wailing] 1824 01:21:32,844 --> 01:21:35,934 ♪ 1825 01:21:35,978 --> 01:21:37,414 They just stepped right off the edge 1826 01:21:37,457 --> 01:21:39,371 and we're--we're on the edge, too. 1827 01:21:39,416 --> 01:21:40,721 We need a light right now. 1828 01:21:40,764 --> 01:21:42,505 I say, now or never right now. 1829 01:21:42,549 --> 01:21:43,986 Give us our sight right now. 1830 01:21:44,029 --> 01:21:45,378 Give us our light right now! 1831 01:21:45,422 --> 01:21:47,250 Now or never right now! 1832 01:21:47,293 --> 01:21:48,947 Yeah! 1833 01:21:48,991 --> 01:21:51,732 Talked about the hot sperm seed being spilled on the ground 1834 01:21:51,776 --> 01:21:53,691 and how the birds fluttered, 1835 01:21:53,734 --> 01:21:56,955 and, you know, I was 16 and I knew what that was about, 1836 01:21:56,999 --> 01:22:00,132 and you didn't talk about it, you know. 1837 01:22:00,175 --> 01:22:04,223 And it--it let me feel okay, it let me feel okay. 1838 01:22:04,267 --> 01:22:06,094 "Bashful beneath her T-shirt, 1839 01:22:06,138 --> 01:22:09,184 draped across shoulder blades and collarbones, 1840 01:22:09,228 --> 01:22:12,666 pushes straw hair from hollowed eyes and asks, 1841 01:22:12,710 --> 01:22:14,930 'Am I beautiful to you?'" 1842 01:22:14,973 --> 01:22:20,630 ♪ 1843 01:22:20,674 --> 01:22:22,981 "I could clearly see revealed the connection 1844 01:22:23,025 --> 01:22:26,680 of her black-seam stockings and her red garters, 1845 01:22:26,724 --> 01:22:30,423 like two deadly circuits fused to activate a device 1846 01:22:30,467 --> 01:22:32,295 of total annihilation." 1847 01:22:32,338 --> 01:22:34,906 [speaking foreign language] 1848 01:22:34,950 --> 01:22:37,039 All the mambo kings and cumbia queens, 1849 01:22:37,082 --> 01:22:38,866 Aztec lords, Inca princesses, 1850 01:22:38,910 --> 01:22:41,217 every Hernandez and Fernandez. 1851 01:22:41,260 --> 01:22:42,609 ♪ 1852 01:22:42,653 --> 01:22:44,481 It's time to make our move. 1853 01:22:44,523 --> 01:22:49,486 ♪ 1854 01:22:49,529 --> 01:22:51,139 Don't tell me about it, I don't want to know about 1855 01:22:51,183 --> 01:22:54,795 six-year-old black girls getting raped by 12 pigs 1856 01:22:54,839 --> 01:22:57,189 in KKK uniforms, carving up her belly 1857 01:22:57,233 --> 01:22:58,538 and throwing her out in Staten Island 1858 01:22:58,582 --> 01:23:00,062 like some kind of sack of garbage 1859 01:23:00,105 --> 01:23:01,324 in a plastic sheet. 1860 01:23:01,367 --> 01:23:05,023 "Oh, MTV, you must shine like a beacon, 1861 01:23:05,067 --> 01:23:08,766 for I am getting old and my knees are creakin'. 1862 01:23:08,809 --> 01:23:11,812 Please give these young people some food for thought. 1863 01:23:11,856 --> 01:23:14,728 You really should, you really ought." 1864 01:23:14,772 --> 01:23:16,730 I read Kerouac and I feel that what he's saying 1865 01:23:16,773 --> 01:23:19,733 is that he's not looking for universal meaning to life, 1866 01:23:19,777 --> 01:23:21,735 but he's saying, "Fuck you, I'm gonna make my own meaning, 1867 01:23:21,779 --> 01:23:24,260 and if you don't like it, then kiss my ass." 1868 01:23:24,303 --> 01:23:28,090 ♪ 1869 01:23:28,133 --> 01:23:30,309 I was mute, tongue-tied, 1870 01:23:30,353 --> 01:23:33,356 burdened by shadows and silence. 1871 01:23:33,398 --> 01:23:36,011 Now I speak 1872 01:23:36,054 --> 01:23:38,796 and my burden is lightened, 1873 01:23:38,839 --> 01:23:41,277 lifted free. 1874 01:23:41,320 --> 01:23:43,192 ♪ 1875 01:23:43,235 --> 01:23:46,325 "I know this body is impatient, 1876 01:23:46,369 --> 01:23:50,025 I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind, 1877 01:23:50,068 --> 01:23:51,112 yet I loved. 1878 01:23:51,156 --> 01:23:52,331 I love. 1879 01:23:52,375 --> 01:23:55,117 I want no sentimentality. 1880 01:23:55,160 --> 01:23:57,554 I want no more than home." 1881 01:23:57,597 --> 01:24:16,921 ♪ 1882 01:24:16,964 --> 01:24:18,966 A young person will come up to me 1883 01:24:19,010 --> 01:24:21,621 and he'll be standing there, maybe he'll have a mohawk, 1884 01:24:21,665 --> 01:24:24,233 or maybe he'll have one side of his head shaved 1885 01:24:24,276 --> 01:24:26,583 and the other side in, uh, 1886 01:24:26,626 --> 01:24:29,629 in dreads, and he and I are sharing 1887 01:24:29,673 --> 01:24:32,023 many of the same thoughts, he's anti-war, 1888 01:24:32,067 --> 01:24:33,807 believes in the environment, 1889 01:24:33,851 --> 01:24:36,201 and that person will say, "Whatever happened to the-- 1890 01:24:36,245 --> 01:24:39,291 whatever happened to the Beats and to the '60s? 1891 01:24:39,335 --> 01:24:41,772 Did they just get run over by the steamroller 1892 01:24:41,815 --> 01:24:42,816 of the corporations?" 1893 01:24:42,860 --> 01:24:44,253 And it makes me want to laugh 1894 01:24:44,296 --> 01:24:49,432 because this kid is so much like what... 1895 01:24:49,475 --> 01:24:52,565 ...so many people from that period made possible. 1896 01:24:52,609 --> 01:24:54,698 He's standing there in his own natural, 1897 01:24:54,741 --> 01:24:57,135 much freer body asking me those things, 1898 01:24:57,179 --> 01:25:00,356 and it's kind of funny because I think, you know, 1899 01:25:00,398 --> 01:25:02,227 "You're us." 1900 01:25:02,271 --> 01:25:03,924 ♪ 1901 01:25:03,968 --> 01:25:06,275 'Cause we're the source. 1902 01:25:06,318 --> 01:25:19,288 ♪ 1903 01:25:19,331 --> 01:25:20,637 "What is that feeling 1904 01:25:20,680 --> 01:25:22,682 when you're driving away from people 1905 01:25:22,726 --> 01:25:24,075 and they recede on the plain 1906 01:25:24,119 --> 01:25:27,339 till you see their specks dispersing? 1907 01:25:27,383 --> 01:25:29,733 It's the too-huge world vaulting us, 1908 01:25:29,776 --> 01:25:32,127 and it's goodbye. 1909 01:25:32,170 --> 01:25:34,999 But we lean forward to the next crazy venture 1910 01:25:35,041 --> 01:25:36,609 beneath the skies." 1911 01:25:41,309 --> 01:25:50,406 ♪ 1912 01:25:50,449 --> 01:25:53,148 ♪ Hey Jack Kerouac 1913 01:25:53,191 --> 01:25:56,107 ♪ I think of your mother 1914 01:25:56,151 --> 01:25:57,195 ♪ 1915 01:25:57,239 --> 01:25:59,980 ♪ And the tears she cried 1916 01:26:00,023 --> 01:26:04,463 ♪ They were cried for none other ♪ 1917 01:26:04,507 --> 01:26:07,945 ♪ Than her San Francisco beat boys ♪ 1918 01:26:07,987 --> 01:26:11,731 ♪ You were the favorite 1919 01:26:11,775 --> 01:26:14,647 ♪ Now they sit and rattle their bones 1920 01:26:14,691 --> 01:26:19,434 and think of their blood-stoned days ♪ 1921 01:26:19,478 --> 01:26:23,308 ♪ You chose your words from mouths of 1922 01:26:23,352 --> 01:26:26,746 babes got lost in the wood ♪ 1923 01:26:26,790 --> 01:26:30,402 ♪ The hip flask slinging madman ♪ 1924 01:26:30,446 --> 01:26:34,666 ♪ Steaming cafe flirts 1925 01:26:34,710 --> 01:26:39,237 ♪ In Chinatown howling at night ♪ 1926 01:26:39,281 --> 01:26:54,209 ♪ 1927 01:26:54,252 --> 01:26:56,776 ♪ Allen baby 1928 01:26:56,820 --> 01:26:58,996 ♪ Why so jaded 1929 01:26:59,039 --> 01:27:00,824 ♪ 1930 01:27:00,867 --> 01:27:06,568 ♪ Have the boys all grown up and their beauty faded ♪ 1931 01:27:06,612 --> 01:27:08,788 ♪ 1932 01:27:08,832 --> 01:27:10,834 ♪ Billy 1933 01:27:10,877 --> 01:27:15,012 ♪ What a saint they've made you ♪ 1934 01:27:15,055 --> 01:27:19,103 ♪ Just like Mary down in Mexico 1935 01:27:19,146 --> 01:27:21,410 on All Souls' Day ♪ 1936 01:27:21,452 --> 01:27:23,150 ♪ 1937 01:27:23,193 --> 01:27:26,980 ♪ You chose your words from mouths of 1938 01:27:27,023 --> 01:27:30,549 babes got lost in the wood ♪ 1939 01:27:30,593 --> 01:27:34,510 ♪ Cool junk booting madmen 1940 01:27:34,553 --> 01:27:38,340 ♪ Street-minded girls 1941 01:27:38,383 --> 01:27:42,387 ♪ In Harlem howling at night 1942 01:27:42,431 --> 01:27:56,967 ♪ 1943 01:27:57,010 --> 01:28:00,449 ♪ What a tear-stained 1944 01:28:00,492 --> 01:28:03,755 shock of the world ♪ 1945 01:28:03,800 --> 01:28:08,674 ♪ You've gone away without saying, 1946 01:28:08,718 --> 01:28:13,418 saying goodbye ♪ 1947 01:28:13,462 --> 01:28:18,510 ♪ 132682

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