Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 351

February 2, 2018Simon Pettet

Next week, Neal Cassady‘s birthday.,   On Friday and Saturday, next week, they’ll be the big celebration in Denver (with special guests, Jami Cassady and David Amram – for more information on those celebrations – see here).

Monday,, it’s another Beat birthday – William Burroughs. There’s a celebration of that tonight – Three Rooms Press (publishers of the upcoming Don’t Hide The Madness – William S Burroughs In Conversation with Allen Ginsberg) present, at New York’s Cornelia Street Cafe (starting at 6 o’clock), a William Burroughs Birthday Tribute, featuring Anne Waldman, Steven Taylor, and … Read More

Neal Cassady’s Birthday

February 8, 2014admin

[Neal Cassady – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg c. The Estate of Allen Ginsberg]

                                            
[Neal Cassady – original manuscript for “The First Third”]

Neal Cassady‘s birthday today, “cocksman and Adonis of Denver”. Had he lived, he would have been 88 years old.

Hear him with The Grateful Dead quietly noodling behind him (recorded live at The Strait Theater, San Francisco, July 23 1967)

Listen again, driving the bus for the Merry Pranksters, rapping some more Hear some recollections from some of his friends

Here‘s Beat artist Robert Branaman recalling his friendship with Neal Cassady – filmed by … Read More

Carolyn Cassady (1923-2013)

September 21, 2013admin

[Carolyn Cassady (1923-2013)]

Word just reaches us of the death of  Carolyn Cassady.  Brian Hassett has the report here.  She died peacefully, with her son, John Allen, there, in attendance, close beside her. “She was her regular rockin self”, he (Hassett) reports, “up through Sunday, woke up with a tummy ache Monday morning, had an infected appendix and checked out by Friday”…”She was 90 years old and still drank her white wine and smoked her More menthol ciggies every day. That is to say  – she was living the life she chose, on her own terms, in her … Read More

Happy Birthday Neal Cassady (1926-1968)

February 8, 2012admin

[Neal Cassady … young & vigorous age 29…. surveying North Beach used car lot, he needed new wheels. Bay area Johnny Appleseed of pot from early 1950’s, he worked as conductor on Southern-Pacific Railroad, averted train crash as brakeman years earlier, breaking his ankle, collected insurance, bought his family a ranch-house in Los Gatos down the peninsula, gambled madly & disastrously at horse racetrack, wrote painfully in pencil on his “The First Third” autobiographical manuscript, visited me overnight in rooms on Polk and Montgomery Streets, San Francisco. Sometime March 1955. (Ginsberg Caption for similar image) photo c. Allen Ginsberg Estate] … Read More

Friends and Colleagues Remember Allen

February 23, 2011admin

[Larry Rivers, Jack Kerouac, David Amram, Allen Ginsberg, & Gregory Corso (in hat), during the filming of Pull My Daisy. c. John Cohen, courtesy L Parker Stephenson Photographs]

In today’s Guardian, Hermione Hoby has collected some entertaining accounts from Joyce Johnson, John Allen Cassady, Steven Taylor and Anne Waldman, memories of Allen, that can be read here on the Guardian site.… Read More

Pop Culture Roundup

November 4, 2010admin

[Garrett Hedlund (Neal Cassady/Dean Moriarty in the book), Tom Sturridge (Allen Ginsberg/Carlo Marx), John Allen Cassady, Sam Riley ( Jack Kerouac/Sal Paradise) during the On the Road shoot in Montreal, August 2010. photo via Beat Museum]

“I worked with my friend Tom Sturridge, and he plays Carlo Marx, who’s Allen Ginsberg,” Stewart says, excitement creeping into her voice. “And I would look over at him, and he’s doing this fucking full-on Allen Ginsberg crazy monologue in the corner of some thumping, raving party, and I’m dancing to bebop jazz, and I’d be like, ‘Tom, we’re doing “On the Road.” … Read More