Singer, performer, poet, Lucien Zell explains:
“Why “Gone”? Why Now? – In 1955 Ginsberg howled to wake us up. Now we need Ginsberg’s “Gone” to keep us from drifting back into sleep. AI cannot replace an I and YOU. We’re better than our wars. “Forever” is the biggest swear word because it’s the most untrue. As Ginsberg reminds us in “Sunflower Sutra” – ” We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not dread bleak dusty imageless locomotives, we’re golden sunflowers inside”. We need “Gone” because, though our actions go, the legacy of our spirits keeps going.”
Filmmaker, co-ordinator, Mecner:
“I first read “Gone Gone Gone” in the university fifteen years ago and what struck me was its magical rhythm and musicality. I thought to myself, wow! this could make a great song. And it is a great song. Allen and the Beat Generation meant a lot to me because they represented the voice of freedom and they gave us the sense of liberation.”

Check out “Gone Gone Gone” – here
John Allen Cassady (Neal’s son) is interviewed here (part of the series “Beat Meetings” on Simon Warner’s Substack)
On first meeting Allen: “When I was very young…Ha! When I was living in Santa Cruz, Ginsberg would call me whenever he was in San Francisco..He would invite me to a gig that he was doing that weekend or whatever. He knew that I had a car (so I must have been at least 16) and he just needed a ride! He was from New York, and nobody drives in New York.
I would gladly comply, of course, and some of those gigs were legendary”.
and on his namesake (the “John”‘s after Kerouac, the “Allen”, after Allen):
“When Allen would read at City Lights, he would introduce me to everyone as ‘Allen Cassady’. Everyone knew that my first name was ‘John’, but they would humor him. (Lawrence) Ferlinghetti used to chuckle about it.”
Warner’s “Rock and The Beat Generation” continues to be a go-to spot. Warner himself is interviewed (at RockCritics.com) – here
and more rock news (we mentioned it last week but it’s certainly worth mentioning again), the second volume of our Fall of America tribute album will be out in October. Here’s Darryl Norsen‘s once-again captivating sleeve design:
Ai Weiwei last week. We’ll be featuring more preview tracks in the months ahead.