Beat Generation

This is a new green press initiative from Jack Magazine, offering editorial services and expanding into a small press. See the site: Moon Willow Press.

August 29
Shelldance Orchid Gardens, 2000 Highway 1, Pacifica, CA 94044
(650)355-4845
http://www.shelldance.com

Free & open to the public. 3 pm until 9 pm

Featuring ROCKPILE Pre-amble Pt. 2 with David Meltzer, Michael Rothenberg, Terri Carrion, and The Rabbles, Leah Lubin, Terry Adams, Natascha Bruckner, Camincha, Andrew Mayer, Nancy Cavers-Doughtery, Mark Eckert, Mary Hower, Jym Marks, Erica Goss, Jennifer Barone, Eileen Elliot, Toni Partington, David Madgalene & Judy Irwin

Music by Bassist Steve Shain
MC’s: David Madgalene and Christopher Luna
Visual art by Leah Lubin, Anna Teeples, and Uma Rani Iyliv

Complete schedule and bios (PDF)

David Meltzer was raised in Brooklyn during the war years. He performed on radio and early TV on the Horn & Hardart Children’s Hour. He was exiled to L.A. at 16, and at 17 enrolled in an ongoing academy with artists Wallace Berman, George Herms, Robert Alexander, and Cameron. David migrated to San Francisco in 1957 for higher education with peers & maestros like Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Joanne Kyger, Diane DiPrima, Michael McClure, Lew Welch, Philip Whalen, Jack Hirschman, and a cast of thousands all living extraordinary ordinary lives. (more…)

Chris Hickey wrote to me saying, “I recently wrote and recorded a song, each day, for about three weeks. The result is “Razzmatazz” – 16 songs, just vocal & guitar, recorded in my bedroom on a hand-held voice recorder.” So I checked out one of the songs, “Kerouac” and like it quite a bit and want to help plug the album. You can download Kerouac for free or order the album with Paypal or a credit card.

Chris has three previous solo records, was a member of the bands “Uma” and “Show of Hands”, and has appeared on records by Joe Henry, Michael Penn, Indigo Girls, and more.

P.S. I ordered the album, and I absolutely love it.

My main reaction to Kerouac estate’s fake will is that I wonder what Johnny Depp looks like in Jack Kerouac’s raincoat, which Depp spent $50,000 on at one point. Here is a silly photoshop I did to amuse myself and sate my curiosity. I really don’t know if this is the same coat, but the original photo was of a young Jack Kerouac.

A native Californian, Joanne Kyger became part of the San Francisco poetry world in 1957 when she left Santa Barbara where she had attended both high school and the University of California. She arrived at the height of the Howl obscenity trial, where a friend introduced her to The Place, the bar that served as headquarters for Jack Spicer and other poets of the San Francisco Renaissance. (more…)

I wrote a review of this at Jack Magazine recently, and just learned that the film by Henry Ferrini is online now.

The old theme broke, which rarely happens, but did sometime in the last couple weeks, so I apologize for the lack of anything appearing on the front page. Hope we’re back now.

The new Big Bridge is finally out, and it looks fabulous. I could spend a year there, and still not read everything. I am actually working on the New Orleans special, which is way huger than Michael or I thought it would be. I will have it up by January and will also be helping with the next issue of Big Bridge, as well as Jack’s summer 10th-anniversary issue (which I’m now accepting submissions for).

Not much is new. It has been the summer of vacation, including a road trip and lots of wine, to the great vineyards of British Columbia’s interior as well as hiking in cougar lands and seeing some really neat old pictographs. Then we had a heat wave in Vancouver, so were spending a lot of time in the pool, to the point I think my hair resembles Peter Frampton’s, or maybe Cousin It’s. It has also been a summer of work, when not road-tripping around.

I have received, thanks to Jerry Aronson, The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg, which I will be watching soon. This reminds me also that I’m greatly looking forward to Howl. I love James Franco, have ever since Freaks ‘n Geeks.