All Jack really wanted and truly needed was affirmation and emotional support. He got lost along the way, all he needed was a little sunshine to light the way through his darkness.
I am feeling sad too. So sad such a beautiful man (on the inside and the outside) is gone and no longer walking through life. There should be more of you Jack. You were (and are still) a rare, beautiful butterfly.
Me too !!!!! I can't keep from crying every time I watch it !!! And this year, it's Jack's centenary, so I wanted to watch it again, and here I am, with tears in my eyes, again !! Anyway, I dig so much your comment !!! :)
"We never met, but I know your work, I seen the impact on the world, both then and since. I see the images flash by, from way back when, I see in your eyes a sparkle, and your hands as they move, they can't hide the personal inner struggle, the urge to be free, they show me who you were, a life so vivid, the birth of a movement, it set mankind free, as it tore down the barriers put up generations ago, written in stone, you broke and demanded us to rebuild. Yet you were a instrument of the universe, willing or not, you followed the drumming to the new beat. I moved from the country to the city, like you once did. I don't think you knew, but we started to know, how to interact with the universal soul. The struggle we shared alike, the distest of money and profit, unless it liberates the soul. I look again at the past, through flickering pictures, I see the resemblence, but also the difference. And with strife and sadness I see the path laid before you, that you should end your struggles, at the bottom of an empty bottle. Drink up Jack, you deserved your rest. Let us that came you after, be put to the test, to finish what you started."
This video and music combination is perfect. When you read enough Ginsberg and Kerouac, you feel like you know them. Their writing was so naked and personal, this video just reinforces that. It's like being on that street corner with them.
I read On The Road when I was 15. Of course I had to go and thumb across the country after I read it. You can learn a lot from hitch hiking. The greatest teacher is experience.
Beautiful footage of a beautiful life and time of a beautiful man with a brilliant mind existing with other beautiful people... now here we are as beautiful people watching this beautiful video! Ah beautifulness!
I love his lively vibes he creates, his aura and the thrist to live (more and more). Those are so strong, someone can recognize them even from a video. Sorry for my english
Oh [.....] I don't know what just happened. This made me cry. I love Jack Kerouac. I really really do. And this innocent sweet little film of the beats hanging out infront of a bar on the sidewalks in the universe just shows they were just people. They don't seem real to me , they seem like such fairy tale tragedy heros but this film shows they were just people like you and me.
You are so deluded about that footage...children led around by drunken adults for starters. He's no hero. Follow the entirety of his drunken life. If you see a hero you are lost, cousin.
Jack came and he went...never conceding...never caving...his way and his way only till the end...which was nothing short of a new beginning...for Him !
Kerouac has fascinated me since I came across On the Road over 40 years ago.He was so gifted and so honest - his writing seemed to spring from his heart and his soul with no filter or editing. He had such a capacity for joy, but was also pursued by demons of guilt and self-doubt. Sadly he couldn't handle the belated fame and success that came to him after On the Road was published. He wanted to be recognized as a writer not a celebrity, or cult figure or spokesman for the "Beat Generation."
happy birthday, jack... here's a poem my Dad wrote: --- The twelfth of March Nineteen twenty two Ninety years ago On Lupine In lonely Lowell Memory Babe Born a babe Lost in the woods Centralville to Pawtucketville to Boston to New York to Chicago to Ozone Park to San Francisco to Desolation Peak to Mexico City to Raleigh to Tangier to Orlando to Algiers to Clear across America All the way to The end St. Petersburg All in a Jumpin Jack flashed Forty seven years
Now that's the old NYC, a nice classic bar on the corner of 3rd Ave. and East 9th street. When I head back to the city in August I have to check out and see what it is now. My guess is a Starbucks.....
@Tye Tyson Ha! Too funny. Depending on which corner it was, it's either a Shake Shack, an NYU alumni Hall, or a parking garage. I live here now so I've seen it personally, but if you type East 9th St. and 3rd Avenue, Manhattan in to Google search, a street view comes up. Interesting.
This should be nominated for some kind of award. It's epic. Wow. Who did this amazing thing? Thank you. This feels like the soundtrack for Jack Kerouac's life.
"They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" " [ Jack Kerouac, On the road ]
What a flashback to the golden age of the Village JACK was my hero but looking back at this and having read his history He was also a bit of a creep to the women who loved and supported him. RIP TO JEAN KEROUAC
JACK KEROUAC GINSBERG LOS BEAT UNA ÉPOCA DE SUEÑOS DE ESPERANZAS UN TIEMPO INMORTAL FRENTE A LA RUINA DE UNA GENERACIÓN ACTUAL QUE LANGUIDECE EN LA NADA
Maybe it's just because I'm currently rereading the combined correspondence of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, but...I'm pretty sure this is the best video I've ever seen online :) At least for me personally, just really amazing. Thanks.x
Just finished On the Road. Thank you for this video which allows comments unlike the other video with similar footage. Now reading The Haunted Life because it's all this library has of Kerouac's work. No Visions of Cody or Gerard :(
Desolation angels, Gerard, v.of Cody, some of the Dharma, vanity of dolouz, an Mexico City blues are my faves...and tristessa, lonesome traveler, an subterraneans....all classics ...
I see that michelle giallo posted already: He is talking with Mary Frank, she is a sculptor and the wife of Robert Frank, a noted photographer who documented many of the Beat movement's luminaries.
I want to be a good woman And I want for you to be a good man And this is why I will be leaving And this is why I can't see you no more I will miss your heart so tender And I will love this love forever I don't want be a bad woman And I can't stand to see you be a bad man I'll miss your heart so tender And I will love this love forever And this is why I am leaving And this is why I can't see you no more This is why I am lying When I say that I don't love you no more 'Cause I want to be a good woman And I want for you to be a good man
@esemoose He is talking with Mary Frank, she is a sculptor and the wife of Robert Frank, a noted photographer who documented many of the Beat movement's luminaries.
I'm reading "on the road", it's a wonderful book...but...I just red "baby driver from JAN Kerouac, it's a marvel, I've never loved riding book that much! ps: sorry for "my english" , it is not my mother language...
Yeah, it's sad. The music that is. Jack lived his life the way he lived it.. We all do. But if you are always looking back, you probably will miss what's in front of you. There's a NAtive American saying : Yesterday is ashes, today is wood. Tomorrow is what you make it. Well, I said the last part. For me - my interpretation , Life is all the miracle I need. Just look up on a clear night at the numberless stars and sing and know the whole she-bang is a miracle. The rest is busy work.
I love this footage, and great song by Cat Power. I agree with AidanA994 that bop or anything up tempo or jazzy would not have worked for this video. The mood, the feeling, vibe of the song (the lyrics really have nothing to do with the video but that's ok) works well for some footage of friends just hanging out, and obviously friends with a lot going on inside them, as was the case for these fascinating folks. Thanks for this.
Where did you get this video? It it simply amazing. It's rare that we see any of these guys with a child. Kerouac has such a love for the young ones even though he denied his own daughter)...he remained that lost child until he drank himself to death. Good choice of music. Thanks for sharing this
To think, what these handful of writers did and their impact to the world especially music...there is no Dylan without these cats; or there is and he's very different, Lennon doesn't stop writing about heartache and start writing about being a nowhere man w/out Dylan, Jerry Garcia doesn't get slammed in the head by On The Road, Ken Kesey doesn't know who Cassidy is, and on and on it goes....
@Gedu1988 I am reading the Jack Kerouac and Ginsberg letters to each other. I can already see by the length of the book how much they meant to each other. And I love this footage with the music. I like to see the actual footage of the people I like. There is authenticity to how they really are when its them rather then actors. We get to flashback to the past rather then with footage with actors, fabricated sets, and black and white film to make the footage look old.
I think you're right. There were also similar sorts of sub-cultures in other countries posing similar challenges to the status quo: the Existentialists in France, the Angry Young Men in Britain, the Sydney Libertarians in Australia.
This is a wonderful video. I wonder where the beats would find respite today? It wouldn't be NYC or San Francisco I know that for sure. Not gentrified as they are with 2-3k a month rents...
Marwan: Is that an Arabic name? I just wondered if there are many Arabic fans of Kerouac and the Beats and for that matter, 20th cent. American fiction and poetry. I don't know about Arabic writers, but I'm a big fan of the Persians, Rumi and Hafez.
"I am only an Apache, smoking hashi in old cabashi, by the lamp" -kerouac....actually though, myself, part Cherokee, mixed with east Europe born n raised in amerika.. interesting and awesome to see how far Kerouacs work reach is, on the road changed my life also, yet now I'm a fan of most every book he wrote...love how this song an video create an almost indescribable nostalgia
