Fantastic piece! Although it should of course be mentioned that the Beats' association with Neal Cassady dated back to before Cassady's San Francisco years. New York, 1947, when Cassady met Kerouac and Ginsberg, then subsequent road trips involving all three at various points -- to and from Denver, to and from Texas, then on to San Francisco -- predated their west coast association in the '50s.
very informative video although I feel like some more works of that time should be included and also what the poems of the beats generation were like instead of only mentioning the howl so briefly. But all in all very good. Thanks !
I remember the Beat Generation of the 1950’s and the beatniks who read Kerouac and listened to the cool jazz of Chet Baker. I was just a little kid in the 1950’s but I learned to stay away from teenage beatniks. Beatniks were mean sadistic violent teenagers who liked to hide and beat me up and knock me and other little kids down on the sidewalk. They were a bunch of cowards when 5 teenage beatniks had to beat up a little 8 year old boy to get their kicks. And these beatniks all worshipped Kerouac books so whenever I saw one of his books in a library or bookstore I tore out the pages and defaced his books as much as I could when no one was looking. It made me feel good to do this to the books of the beatniks god, Kerouac. The beatniks also liked the cool jazz of Chet Baker snd whenever I saw one of his records in a record store I would slash the record with a knife when no one was watching. The beatniks hated me and made fun of me because I liked early jazz as a kid and bought 78’s by Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke in a Salvation Army store. The teenage beatniks would wait for me walking home with my jazz 78’s and grab them from me and break them on the sidewalk then beat me up. I have hated Jack Kerouac and his mean sadistic violent followers my whole life. They are cowards who get their kicks beating up little kids like I was in the 1950’s. I just wish that as an adult I could have run into the god of these sadistic mean violent beatniks, Kerouac just once.
@@shelbyspeaks3287 beatniks I knew as a kid growing up were anti social mean sadistic teenagers into Chet Baker cool jazz and didn’t like me because I liked Louis Armstrong. When I was coming home from my Salvation Army store with old jazz 78’s I bought for a penny and had in my little red wagon they would hide and wait for me and knock me down on the sidewalk and kick and beat me and break my records on the sidewalk and laugh at me. These guys were in high school and I was a little elementary school kid. Also their god was a writer named Kerouac. I never forgot that. I just wish that just once when I was an adult I could have encountered that Kerouac or Alan Ginsberg in a dark alley somewhere and had a baseball bat. I would have said, “it is payback time now for all the times your lousy disciples knocked me on the ground and kicked a little kid and beat me. See how it feels now.”
@@shelbyspeaks3287 I don’t know about Antifa. Only Beat Generation beatniks. Those teenage beatniks who beat me up in the late 1950’s were an exception to that generally tranquil time. No riots, protests and violence where I lived in California. But I have found that tranquility was not everywhere in the country. Black people were fighting for their rights in the South and got abused badly just for wanting to eat at a lunch counter or ride a bus or go to a college. They got beaten and hosed. Many years later when I was in college some black civil rights activists were speaking at the school and describing the discrimination and violence their people endured in the 1950’s. When they said no white person knows what it is like to be kicked and beaten I yelled at them, “I am white and I was beaten and kicked in the 1950’s. I suffered too and you guys can go to hell for saying no white person knows what it is like to be kicked and beaten because I am white and I sure was!”
I’m in my 30s and smack dab in the middle of the Millennial Generation. Over the years the more I study and learn about the Beat Generation and subsequent drug culture of the 60s, the more disdain I have for these people. These folks started the decline of American (and more broadly Western) culture.
@@michaelquinones-lx6ks That has nothing to do with those movements it is the increase of shallowness and corporate takeover of our society as well as the continual wars for other countries lands and resources.
So the Beat Generation is about taking dangerous drugs. No thanks, I've got something to live for. The Beat Generation basically just had too much time on there hands and nothing to do.
No they were not about taking dangerous drugs. They were antiwar and were the first to protest the Viet Nam war. They were against materialism and racism for example. They were a movement of literature and expression. They created Beat Poetry. Some not all experimented with drugs. They challenged the status quo. Of greed and shallowness. A number are still alive and even a couple of beat poets not mentioned here.
Because their selfish nature was on full display. I will grant that at least they were straight forward towards hedonism. Now days this type would have to disguise that type of mantra,, because of how disgusting it is on its face, hence we must now introduce such stupidity lightly. Get it??
