Audio of Jack Kerouac is priceless and so we’re very happy to feature this weekend (courtesy of Counter Culture Chronicles and the remarkable Ubu Web
As Ubu Web notes:
“Counter Culture Chronicles has released on cassette a rare recording of Jack Kerouac at home in Northport, (Long Island), where he lived from 1958 to 1964. We hear Kerouac reading from his work while getting drunk and occasionally singing along with Frank Sinatra records that are being played in the background. Kerouac is clearly having a good time and takes the listener on a lucid deconstructionist trip, in which American popular culture is turned upside down and inside out. The recording covers the full ninety minutes the material. Have a seat and get filled to the brim with Kerouac’s intoxicated mind. You won’t get up again.
Side A of “The Northport Tapes” can be heard here
Side B can be heard here
Jack’s Last Call – Say Goodbye to Kerouac, written by Patrick Fenton and directed by Sue Zizza, with music by David Amram, a dramatization based on these tapes may be listened to here
George Wallace’s account of Jack Kerouac in Northport, in Polarity magazine, can be read here – and his video – a tour of Kerouac’s Northport -can be viewed here. (Fenton’s tour of Kerouac’s Queens, incidentally can be accessed here)
Here’s further background (from Christopher Twarowski & Spencer Rumsey) in the local paper – Jack Kerouac – The Long Island Years
Great writing! I love Jack Keruoac!!
My Father, Neal Cassady, named me after his two best friends at the time, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. But they called me “John.” In fact, that is the name on my Birth Certificate. I asked my Mom, Carolyn, about it once. She said, “I asked him the same question, and he said, ‘Well, if you say it fast, it sounds like “Jackassady,” and no one is going to call my son a jackass all is life! Just think of the kids teasing him in school!'” Mom’s all, “whatever.” It’s funny, but whenever “Ginsy” and I were “On The Road” together, he would introduce me as “Allen Cassady.” Everyone knew that I went by “John,” but they humuroed him. (I wonder if bass player Jack C. (Jefferson Airplane/Starship), ever got razzed about his name? Probably not. He would have just smacked them with a “Hot Tuna,” ha ha). Stay tuned for more goofy “Prankster” tales to follow. “Keep The Beat,” John Allen Cassady
It’s a pleasure to read these stories about the protagonists of ‘ On the road’, Visions of Cody’ and other works. When I read these stories all seemed to me so far in the space and in the time. Thank you so much to make these people still alive and real. Thank you for this gift!