I remember reading Kerouac’s On The Road (again) on a plane to the US a few years ago. Some find it a depressing read, others are inspired by it. Over the years of reading it various emotions came to me for each different time. This time I got a feeling of optimism, not for how life is or the way things are in this world (no hope of that,) but for the future of what we know as the Beat Generation.

The are numerous schools of thought when it comes to defining this generation. They have been called agitators, malcontents, leftists, the list goes on. Where, to a point they were some of these things , they did bring a freedom and freshness to the world of writing and reading. As the decades passed they became less relevant to some because of the pressure on people to conform, or harmonize if you like. The material lifestyle gained strength, and as it did the Beat life lost some of it’s momentum. As a result the Beat Generation was, and to a lesser extent still is faced with the dilemma of the conservative rock and the literary hard place. But thanks to the likes of Beatdom the Beat is alive, well and on the up, encouraging the junior beats to grow and new Beat talent to unfold.

I believe quality of writer and not quantity is the key to keep clawing back the times of great prose and poetry, all be it with a modern twist. The biggest factor in maintaining the rise is the small but dedicated group of self-publishers constantly grafting, pounding the streets, and beating a path through the internet, doggedly getting their message across, reaching out in a quiet but successful effort to keep the Beat Generation energized. This is of huge importance in keeping this literary soil fertile, all for little or no profit.

One of those publishers would be Kevin Ring of Beat Scene Magazine. Kevin’s publication has being going for over 20 years and has played a huge part in keeping the Beats alive. You can see his site here.

The publisher I’m focusing on here is David S. Wills. DS as I call him is the founder and editor of Beatdom, a magazine dedicated to The Beat Generation and it’s ilk. The reason I’m going to focus on DS and Beatdom is to bolster my points made above.

DS is a twenty something, Scottish school teacher living in Korea. His passion for the Beat word is admirable. Apart from being an avid reader he is another self-publisher of a Beat Generation magazine. Since 2007 he has succeeded in gathering a group of  writers and poets of all ages, all talented in their field with varying histories. Some just starting out and some experienced. His methods are key to keeping the Beat momentum going. A mixture of youth, energy and experience are the key. The hiring and utilizing of youth and energy to bring a neoteric flavour to the scene and experience to give a foundation. To give you an idea of the Beatdom reach here are a few stats…

It has over 30 contributers, 5 different folks concerned with art and graphic design. It has interviewed such folks as….

Merry Pranksters Ken Babbs and Paul Krassner.

Carolyn Cassady.

Barry Gifford.

Zane Kesey.

Rob Epstein and Jeffery Friedman (Directors of Howl) and many more..

Beatdom is not profit driven, it’s mission is to drive Beat literature into the future with new and passionate talent while keeping the significance of Kerouac, Ginsberg and all the others. Not an easy task, but to the outsider looking in, DS and his cohorts do it with apparent ease and agility. My two cents? The only way the Beat ilk will keep a foothold in these times of information overload, and game console distraction is if folks like David S. Wills and Kevin Ring keep the interest going. I suppose modern times call for modern measures.

The Issue.

Issue 5 of Beatdom hit my hall carpet yesterday morning complements of Edaurdo Jones. I managed to unwrap the mangled package that was jammed through my letterbox, complements of a careless postman with anger problems.

Edaurdo (the voice of the doomed) is on the Beatdom staff as art director and regular contributer. He’s 34 but writes like a old-timer with a grudge. He has been through more crap in his 34 years than most people would care to think about. He is a caustic writer for the most part but he also has the ability for what I’d call straight writing. I told him the other day that he was a writer in the poetic sense where I am more of a commentator (straight writer) and limited within the scope of news, reviews, reporting etc, although with a twist of satire and mockery. Jones is lucky that he can do both (I believe.)

Anyway in issue 5 his piece is Deep Fried Duct Tape and Sushi Knives. It is a memoir of sorts detailing some quite unsettling experiences of a life led not so long ago in biographical terms. The piece is written with an honesty some folks would prefer to leave in the closet.

Another interesting article is Lady Beats by Hanna Withrow. An interesting, decent sized article about ladies of the Beat Generation. Covering Diane di Prima, Hettie Jones, Joyce Johnson and more.

Also some interesting news on the battle for Kerouac’s estate. And a great feature on Burroughs’ 50th anniversary of Naked Lunch.

The Poets.

There are some great poems in the magazine. Words from Josh Chase, J.S. Mitchell, Michael Shorb, and George Wielgus. Great reading in this section by talented poets.

In General.

All told with the fantastic artwork, great setup, great writing and glossy cover with brilliant artwork by Isaac Bonan of Allen Ginsberg, issue 5 is full of entertainment. I must stress though that Issue 6 is already out, when I get a copy I’ll shout.

The Links.

Here are some of the links connected with Beatdom, just click on the names.. Beatdom, Beatdom on Facebook, Twitter, The Beatdom Blog, Edaurdo Jones, Kyle Chase, City of Recovery Press the publisher of Beatdom.

After a few months of numerous computer problems Kevin Ring’s site is back in business. Even with the problems Kevin has been working behind the scenes churning out chap-books and of course Beat Scene Magazine. Head to his site here for updates on what is coming and back issues.

I remember the birth of Beatdom back in 2007, I was supposed to submit an article about the influence of jazz on the Beat Generation but injured my back and was non compos mentis due to the pain killers. I was disappointed not to get the chance to be part of issue 1 but David gave me a cool mention anyway.

I have been following Beatdom’s progress since the beginning and as an outsider looking in I can see it morphing into a juggernaut of a brand. The difference with this brand though is the fact that it doesn’t seem to be one feeding from the money trough, but one that feeds on the enthusiasm of the founder David, and that of its subscribers.

The latest issue of Beatdom (#5) is due for release on January 31. You can get all the information here including back issues, where to get them, and all you need to know about Beatdom. Issue 6 looks to be a good one too, it will have a focus on travel in relation to the Beat Generation. Be sure to check the site too for regular updates and news.

Kevin Ring has out-done himself with this issue, it is stuffed with features including my review of Outlaw Journalist and my interview (4 pages) with William McKeen called A Sensible Take On A Weird Life: plus my reviews of Hunter S. Thompson: An Insiders View of Deranged, Depraved, Drugged out Brilliance and Driving Hunter S. Thompson. By Jay Cowan and Ed Evans respectively.

Also inside is The Girl Who Kissed the Gun and the Bullet that Ate Her: The Life of Joan Vollmer By Christopher Carmona. Jack Wrote in French by Malcolm Reid. Was Jack Ever Here? By Harry Burrus. Nanao Sakaki… a wandering poet recalled by Pauline Reeves. Also inside is Kevin Ring’s great account of when he went to see kerouac’s scroll, and a nice piece by Kevin called Kerouac’s Pictorial Review Jackson. A piece by Jim Burns about R.V Cassill (Jim has also written about Hunter related things in previous issues of Beat Scene.) The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. Steven Taylor. A Beat Englishman in New York an interview by Simon Warner. Plus a lot more.

In the Beat Scene Review section there’s reviews about Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Mezz Mezzrow, Jack Kerouac, Jack Spicer, Anne Waldman, Edmund Wilson, William Blake, Charles Olson, Hunter S. Thompson.

As always you can buy this issue or subscribe here http://www.beatscene.net/

Coming in the next issue of Beat Scene Magazine. Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, Nanao Sakaki (A fine Japanese poet, died last December), Richard Seaver, Joan Vollmer who was the wife of William S Burroughs, she died in Mexico in 1951, shot by Burroughs (an interesting article on that shooting can be found here  http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2008_03_06_archive.html  ) Some unpublished material from Gary Snyder and Lew Welch, Steven Taylor on Ginsberg, RV Cassill and Kerouac, and my review of Outlaw Journalist The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson By William McKeen +my interview with Mr McKeen where he talks about his book and a little about HST.

This issue shoud be available in the next couple of weeks, for deails on how to get it go to http://www.beatscene.net/ 

Between April 2008 and Feb 2009 my friends JR and Lu had been finding books for me and keeping them safe in Colorado so I could travel there and pick them up. Some of them were too rare to ship and it was a perfect excuse to travel to Colorado and pick them up, not that I ever need an excuse, apart from a slice of Key Lime pie, maybe? Well I bought a Key Lime pie while I was there but never got any of it, my wife and JR scoffed it.

I have known JR for a long time and my regular visitors here know he helps me out with various stuff around the site.  I don’t believe I have mentioned Lu here before. Lu is from Connecticut and moved to Colorado 4 0r 5 years ago. She has been around books all her life, and between her and JR there’s no one better to look after my books. So thanks to JR and Lu for helping me find these fine books and guarding them for me. And Lu, the next time I’m there, and you head for Vole City or try some climbing maybe I can tag along.

First book is Smokestack El Ropo’s Bedside Reader which was made into a hard cover book and signed by master bookmaker Walt Bartholomew. This has to be seen to be believed. The scan above is the soft cover (on top) and Walt’s creation below it, with a black leather spine with gold color lettering inlayed.

The scans above with the hard cover on the left don’t do Walt’s work justice but at least you can get an idea of the differences. The hard cover also comes in a teal color, hard slipcase. I have mentioned Walt here before. He is the man behind Red Shark, Fire in the Nuts and many more. His site is at http://www.eliotbooks.com/index.htm Many thanks to Walt for doing this, and thanks to JR for setting it up.

Next is Driving Hunter S. Thompson. (left) It’s a neat little chap-book size, telling the story of a journalism student in the late 70s who is charged with collecting HST from the airport and delivering him in one piece to a lecture appointment. Needless to say the trip didn’t go according to plan. It’s written and signed by Ed Evans who was the student in question.

On the right is a Rum Diary advance readers excerpt. It’s in fine condition with a stiff, clear cover. Basically it is the first three chapters of the book, there could be minor differences between this and the published book, eg typos etc but I’m not sure, nor am I bothered as it adds to my Rum Diary set, of an advance readers copy, proof copy, UK and US first editions hard and soft covers, Spanish, Italian, German and Hungarian versions.

Then a signed 1st UK edition of Dear Me by Peter Ustinov. I picked this one up in a charity shop.

Another charity shop find was The Town and the City by Jack Kerouac. It’s a 1st Edition 1950 copy, soft cover published by Universal Library and cost me 50 cents. Also a 7th print of Richard Brautigan’s The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 which cost me a buck. 

Beat Scene Magazine 57 is out now.  On the cover is a picture of Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky. The Hunter Thompson pieces inside are as follows, Sophia Nitrate’s review of “Conversations With Hunter S. Thompson,” my review of “The Kitchen Readings” and a piece called “Gonzo Returns” where Kevin Simonson talks about the book “Conversations With Hunter S. Thompson” which was edited by Simonson and Beef Torrey. 

Also inside a great piece by Jim Burns on Paul Monash, called “How Brave We Live.”

“Kerouac to Come Home” by Kevin Ring is a interesting read on the possibility of a couple of Kerouac novels being published in the near future inFrench. 

“Beat Haiku” is another interesting piece by Jack Foley to correspond with the recent release of Kerouac’s “Book of Haikus.”

As usual it’s full of interesting articles and reviews and great photos. You can buy it here http://www.beatscene.net/

Over the last few weeks I have been getting emails asking will I be doing more on the Beat Generation. To that end we will be expanding a little on what we have here about the beats.

For anyone interested in this sort of read it’s always good to have a regular source of articles and news so one can keep up with things. For me it’s “Beat Scene magazine” published by Kevin Ring. I asked Kevin if he would send me a little about his magazine and it’s history. He sent me the piece below which gives some interesting details about how it got going and the folks featured in it. Kevin’s site is at http://www.beatscene.net/index.asp .

In issue No 57 coming at the end of November there will be a small piece (by me) about “The Kitchen Readings”. Also there will be a review of Beef Torrey and Kevin Simonson’s book “Conversations With Hunter S. Thompson”, by Sophia Nitrate.

BEAT SCENE is the magazine of the Beat Generation. That’s Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Richard Brautigan and co. For those that don’t know us – we are a paper magazine – 64 pages at present – devoted to the Beat Generation and associated writers, artists, musicians and whomever. We have been publishing for twenty years and the magazine has grown in that time. We consider it primarily an information magazine. We list addresses, web sites, publishers etc. Consequently we try and publish interviews and features by and about those writers we rate highly.

Beat Scene magazine was started in 1988. I had been interested in the Beat Generation, in particular Jack Kerouac, since around 1971. News of the books, many of which were out of print in those far off days, and the writers in the English media was pitiful, sporadic and patchy. Finding out about Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti and the others was a difficult thing to do, they were not the media favourites they are today, relatively speaking. Serving a long apprenticeship by reading all the books they published prior to and following I began to feel that they needed better coverage and support in England, a place that would act as some kind of focus for keen observers of the Beats. But it took me a long time to get going. First of all I started Satori Books in 1982, with the name stolen from Kerouac’s novel SATORI IN PARIS. (Satori – sudden illumination or kick in the eye – Jack Kerouac).

Beat Scene number one was a modest A5 booklet, as were the next four issues, but it was a beginning. Andy Darlingon, Jim Burns and John Platt, who ran Ludd’s Mill, Palantir and Comstock Lode magazines provided me with inspiration to produce a specifically Beat Generation magazine. Ludd’s Mill was an eclectic Yorkshire based fanzine that featured the Beats periodically. Comstock Lode also featured the Beats amongst the obscure music articles that seemed to be its chief staple. I’d also have to say that Rick Peabody’s Gargoyle magazine, based in Washington DC, was something that filled my head with ideas and ambitions. Incidentally Gargoyle still runs to this day and Rick is still in there. He has my utmost admiration. More on Jim Burns later.

But back to Beat Scene and Andy Darlington provided the cover art for that first issue which included stuff on Kerouac, Burroughs, Snyder, John Clellon Holmes, John Fante, Paul Bowles, Charles Bukowski, Nanao Sakaki, Patti Smith and more – so nothing has really changed has it. A mere 200 copies were collated and stapled on my kitchen table and they went very quickly. Subscription for 4 issues cost the astronomical sum of £6. I hear some rare book dealers are charging £40 or $50 a time now for that issue. You ought to be ashamed.

No 2 arrived in mid Summer 1988 and Carolyn Cassady’s sketch of a young Kerouac was our cover artwork. The mix was just as Beat with Lord Buckley, James Jones – one of Jack Kerouac’s famous drinking buddies (FROM HERE TO ETERNITY etc), Chet Baker, Burroughs, Charlie Parker, Ginsberg and Neal Cassady in Texas, Zappa, Jack Kerouac’s rucksack in the mix. As we said on the back cover – really cool man.
I borrowed the artwork for No 3 from an early paperback edition of Kerouac’s THE DHARMA BUMS, everything then was done on a shoestring – nothing has changed there either and the contents of that Autumn 1988 issue boasted Brautigan, Lew Welch, Raymond Carver, Gary Snyder’s sister Thea talking about Gary and Jack, Charles Bukowski and more.

No 4 was a funny one. I’ve always thought this one really got the magazine going, plenty more people started to show an interest, and sales started to increase sharply as word got around. Tom Waits, Phil Ochs, Steve Wicks in Kerouac alley, stuff on the newly created Kerouac monument park in Lowell, I was lucky enough to attend that opening and met Joy Walsh, who ran the Kerouac newsletter Moody Street Irregulars for years, and the maker of the monument Ben Woitena, one of the nicest blokes I’ve ever met and who had a keen passion for chocolate milk shakes and The Sir Douglas Quintet. A nice afternoon talking with him, while Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg chatted in the next booth in Brighams in downtown Lowell.
The only problem with that issue of Winter 1988 was that I took it to the printers not having prepared a cover, it just slipped my mind. So a hastily concocted affair done in the colours of my football team Coventry City resulted. An image of Kerouac from the Lowell Sun graced the cover. Well, as George Formby used to say, it turned out nice again didn’t it. And four issues in one year! Like how did I do it?

The last of the smaller format was No 5 and I broke the obsession with Kerouac by putting cartoonist Robert Crumb on the cover. Dharma Bum John Montgomery wrote for that issue. For those of you youngsters out there, John was Henry Morley in Kerouac’s THE DHARMA BUMS and a real Beat scholar and eccentric wit that I corresponded with for a long time beginning in the early 1970s. I met up with John late in the 1970s. He proved to be as genial and eccentric as his letters. Jim Burns, who has written for the magazine since day one, again produced a reliable article on John Clellon Holmes. Jim was editor of his own magazines in the 1960s and 1970s, I discovered Jim when buying his Palantir magazine in the mid 1970s. The Beats were regular events in that excellent publication and it often included new poetry from people like John Clellon Holmes.
Looking back these issues of BEAT SCENE were obviously primitive and basic things but full of enthusiasm for the Beats and all the associated writers, musicians and whomever that are forever linked with them.
Really going for it, number 6 was the first full sized edition, it appeared in Spring 1989 and it was where I started to actually play a minor role in typesetting the magazine. which was produced at a little design place in an old refurbished warehouse, under the guidance of Bea Haston, who used to cycle to my house with proof pages and the very shy Rizvana Vadaria. I don’t know how they put up with me as they got me going on Apple Macintosh computers. I must have driven them mad with all my corrections and alterations. The issue was dedicated to Mary King, a friend I’d made in Kerouac’s hometown of Lowell who was murdered that year. Rick Peabody of Gargoyle was the first USA correspondent for Beat Scene with that issue, the cheque is in the post Rick! Rexroth, Ricky Lee Jones, Philip Whalen, Kerouac, Burroughs and their hippos were among the cast.

Michele Engel where are you? Michelle did the cover art for No 7, again it was Kerouac. Michelle, with all the boundless energy of a teenager, was mad on Kerouac and I’d met her at a great Kerouac event at a little college in Northampton in 1981, she subsequently put on a play about Kerouac a few years later. I recall driving up the M6 on a bitterly cold night in the dead of winter, after a day teaching and with a raging cold, battling against a blizzard and arriving to see the play just as the actors were saying their final lines. So I’ll never know. But thanks Michelle. Included in that one were Kathy Acker, a real Kerouac interview, a profile of North Point Press, Dexter Gordon, Burroughs and more.

Number 8 had glossy covers for the first time and Bea Haston and Rizvana designed the best cover so far, I’m not saying any of them were brilliant, far from it, but in Beat Scene land it was a step forward. We interviewed Carolyn Cassady, we had articles on Robert Frank, Gregory Corso, Diane Di Prima, Jack Micheline, who proved to be very prickly and more.

Always I had included Charles Bukowski, I had to have something about him in Beat Scene and around the time of No 9 he wrote to me out of the blue with a huge packet of unpublished poems that he wanted me to consider for publication in my ‘curious little magazine’ as he called it. He was a nice bloke. Even then, 1989, he was pretty famous, notorious even, able to command big bucks for his writing – and here he was asking me, a tired teacher running a tinpot magazine if I would consider his poems? I still can’t believe it. He had some black and white photos taken by his wife Linda in the garden of his home in San Pedro, one holding his cat was used on the front cover, where I introduced a colour for the first time, garden shed green, lovely. Some of the Bukowski poems went in that issue, as far as I know it was only the second time that Bukowski had been published in England. Jim Burns knows all about the first time and it is another story.
We did an interview with Lydia Lunch in that issue alongside one with William Burroughs.
It was a giant leap for me with the full colour cover of number 10, Allen Ginsberg on a promotional visit to London and was that the year he also read in Newcastle and crowds of people walked out halfway in response to Allen’s explicit reading that night, I stuck it out to the bitter end. I have to confess that I included some material in this issue that really had no place in a magazine about the Beats, but the issue did include that Jim Burns interview with Ginsberg, poetry from Jack Micheline, more from Bukowski, Nelson Algren and Charles Plymell.

I must add that during the first few years of Beat Scene I published a completely independent music magazine called ZIP CODE. It ran for 17 issues. Initially I had a partner, Steve Wicks, for the first three issues. Steve bailed out at that point, a little acrimoniously sadly. I produced another fourteen issues and had some fun with music when really I was far too old to be doing it. Interviews with an unknown Kurt Cobain and people like John Martyn kept me going when really producing two publications was draining the life out of me. ZIP CODE died about 1993. If it had continued I think I would have died instead, I nearly did shortly after.

Number 11 was a nice Kerouac cover, that famous one with a young Joyce Johnson (Glassman) in the background. There was an interview with Bukowski, I did that myself and stuff on Neal Cassady from his old buddy Charles Plymell, who shared a house with him in San Francisco. Lenny Bruce featured and we really must do more on him. Anne Waldman, who has always been supportive, was interviewed.

Flexi Records. We included one with No 12 and it wasn’t just any old record. Charles Bukowski ( He asked me to call him ’Hank’ when I kept addressing him as Charles in letters) – allowed me to produce one. He asked for no fee – which shows his nature – and I sent him $100. Which he probably spent at the races. Well I know he did because he wrote and told me so. The flexi was expensive for me at the time. Again the rip off rare book dealers are having a field day selling this issue for $50 upwards. Don’t do it. I have copies in a box here for a modest fee!
No 13 had John Fante on the cover, a writer that I’ve tried to promote for years through the magazine and who well deserves it. Interviews with Michael McClure, Robert Creeley, Ed Sanders, Ted Joans, Charles Plymell, new and unpublished poems from Bukowski, Richard Farina. Reflecting on it that’s not a bad lineup is it?
I’m quite pleased with No 14. Visually at least. Neat full colour photo of David Cronenberg and William Burroughs on the cover, around the filming of NAKED LUNCH. I managed to get The Shadow, Jim Carroll, Richard Brautigan, Hunter S. Thompson, Bukowski, Whalen, John Giorno and more into the issue. One of my favourites.
A jigsaw Jack Kerouac graced No 15. I think it looked good. A little bonus with that number was the Bukowski poetry broadside we gave away to subscribers. It is something that it would be nice to do more of for subscribers, many of whom have been there since day one. But limited resources make it difficult.

Ken Kesey was on the cover of No 16, Ken actually signed a copy for me. We upped the print run considerably. Bukowski let me publish a section of his last book (in his lifetime) PULP, again I owe him a lot. Dizzy Gillespie, Beat Women (by Jim Burns), Brion Gysin. I have a feeling that the Jim Burns article on Beat Women sparked off the interest in these shadowy figures and in a small way moved people like Rick Peabody and Brenda Knight to produce books on the subject.
Everyone always asks who is that kid with William Burroughs on the cover of No 17? Well its someone called Spencer Kansa (doubt if that’s his real name). Taken at the Burroughs home in Lawrence, Kansas at the time. He did a bit on Burroughs for me, going to the Burroughs house in Lawrence, Kansas. And then disappeared. That issue was very nearly the last as the magazine was basically bust, I was bust, quite heavily in debt. I refuse to take any advertising, feeling that it compromises the magazine and simply I don’t want the hassle it brings. But this financial strategy does cause problems as I rely upon sales alone.

I had to go to another, much cheaper printer for No 18 and frankly it shows as I hate that issue and am very glad it’s sold out. It looks cheap and nasty. (That’s Ken Kesey holding a copy of it). However the contents were ok with Neal Cassady, Carl Solomon, Allen Ginsberg and others keeping the beat. But I didn’t waste any time in going back to my original printer Kevin Bowes to get some quality back.
Number 19 – Burroughs featured prominently in this issue, as he does in a lot of the issues, we looked at his recordings. The second part of our Neal Cassady story was included, first hand reporting from Mr Charles Plymell who shared a house with Neal in San Francisco. Lord Buckley – well what can I say, I love him, he was in there. Listen to his THE NAZZ and prepare to laugh yourself silly. And an obituary for Bukowski.
Number 20, I wish I could do it again but tons better. The Bukowski tribute issue. There are no more copies believe me. Our biggest selling issue by far and fast too.

No 21. I’m out in London with my lovely wife, she has long arms from carrying heavy cases full of Beat Scene on regular trips to London. Debating with snotty people in some poxy shops in the capital about whether they’ve sold 4 or 5 copies of the last issue, they can’t find the receipt, can we come back next week? Against a wall of some squalling grunge band record, my idea of hell. It rains all day – it is very cold, we struggle to get paid, except for good old Compendium Bookshop – Chris Render, Mike Hart, good blokes. Get home tired, drained, cold and there was a nasty cutting letter waiting for me about the third and final part of our Neal Cassady profile. I’ve never spoken to the well known lady who criticised me for ‘jumping on the bandwagon and making lots of money’ – since, what a joke. A sick and very bitter one. Totally dismayed I think about getting off the Beat ‘bandwagon’ but stuff her, I carry on. Why are some people so nasty and negative?

Hank and Georgia Hubbard and a fridge were the cover stars of No 22. I understand Georgia is no longer with us. A candid shot of Bukowski and a friend. Great photo, if a little cursed. That’s a very long story that I’ll tell sometime.
Number 23 was back to Kerouac, that famous photo of him in Merchant Marine uniform taken by Edie Parker graced the cover. We looked at the recordings of Allen Ginsberg, believe me there are a lot. We talked to John Martin who ran Black Sparrow Press and published Bukowski and we had articles on Greenwich Village, City Lights, Kerouac and more.

Jan Kerouac, she was really stiched up in her short life. Her and Gerald Nicosia tried for years to gain control or at least have some say in her father’s estate, alleging that wills were forged and so on. She wanted to maintain all of Kerouac’s documents in one place but the long winding and very bitter legal battle went against her. Sadly it seems the forecasts that the estate would be sold off gradually seem to be coming true and the archives of one of America’s greatest and most compassionate figures will be spread far and wide. I thought this would happen but hoped it wouldn’t. Jack wanted his estate to go to his nephew Paul Blake, I have a copy of his letter to Paul stating this fact, written the day before he died. Sad and that’s why at the time Beat Scene tried to provide coverage of the legal wrangle. But money talks doesn’t it. Jan Kerouac was on the cover of No 24. She died in her mid 40s of kidney failure & complications. All so very sad. (Postscript – September 2001 – the Kerouac archive now resides in the Berg Collection at the New York City Public Library – so there is a god.)

Beat Scene 25 featured William Burroughs in Paris heavily. As you probably know Burroughs, Ginsberg and Gregory Corso spent much time in Europe in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Indeed Burroughs lived in Europe, rarely going back to the USA til the late 1970s, see Barry Miles book THE BEAT HOTEL for excellent lowdown on that.

No 26 was where the magazine came into contact with American photographer Larry Keenen. You may have seen Larry’s photo of Michael McClure, Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson and Allen Ginsberg in San Francisco in 1965? The photos were scheduled to be the album cover of Dylan’s next recording but somehow didn’t make it. Larry took a lot of pictures in the mid 1960s of people like Neal Cassady, Ken Kesey, Ginsberg, Philip Whalen and Michael McClure & others. We featured an interview with him in issues 26 & 27 & some of his priceless Beat photos. My own favourite is Michael McClure & Bruce Conner coming down the steps of a house in SF, somehow it seems to beautifully capture things. Or is that just my fevered imagination? Well, do you want to hear the inside story on every single issue? I thought not, so I’ll skip them here and jump ahead to almost the present.

WE are still here, we published No 56 in August 2008 and we will be publishing No 57 in late November 2008. And I must mention we have revived our little Transit magazine, No 20 came out in August.

When magazines regularly come and go, I feel Beat Scene and our other publications are a minor miracle. Without getting the sad violins out, the magazine survives without advertising or sponsorship and sometimes it is a struggle to get by. BUT, Beat Scene is more than a commercial enterprise – to me it helps in the documenting of a group of writers who are often marginalised, even 50 years after they first emerged. Just look at Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane di Prima, Gary Snyder and others, do you see them much in Borderstones? Do they elbow T.S. Eliot, the perennial Faber & Faber titles off the poetry shelves, not much they don’t.
I’d say we are hanging on by our fingertips but if we look down we are gone. So get in touch and pick up a copy of the only magazine on the planet that is totally focused on Kerouac, Burroughs & co. People think I’m joking, when, in the little editorial at the start of each issue, I ask them to tell their friends or even go crazy and buy them a copy. But I’m deadly serious. I’m also deadly serious about Beat Scene and see it as a lifetime project.
But more soon, if you can take it!

 News of our other little Beat Magazine – Transit issue 13 came out. McClure, di Prima, Tom Clark, David Meltzer, Plymell, Pommy Vega, Kirby Doyle & more. And not long out is BEAT by Jack Foley, an extended essay on the Beat Generation. One of the most intelligent pieces ever written on the writers of the Beat Generation. One of just 100 copies.  And we have a little side project – The Beat Scene Press Pocket Book Series – with 17 titles so far and number 18 – a Dan Fante chapbook will appear late November 2008.

New York City in the spring of 1951 Kerouac started typing ”On The Road” using teletype paper which he taped together so he could write with a flow and without interruption. It took him 3 weeks to type it, but it took him a lot longer to put it together in his head. One could be forgiven for thinking he just sat down and blurted it out on paper but it probably would have taken a lot of piecing together in his head and from notes he had taken a few years before 1951.  After experimenting with as many as six drafts (to try and please editors) it was finally published in 1957 with the help of his agent Sterling Lord.

One of the most interesting things to me is that some of the text in the original scroll is different to what was published. Some parts were shortened, names had to be changed for fear of libel. The last few feet of the scroll are lost due to a dog eating it. There is a note at the end of the scroll handwritten by Kerouac reading “DOG ATE [Potchky-a-Dog]” Potchky who ate the last few feet of the scroll was belong to Lucien Carr a friend of Kerouac.

Last year Penguin Modern Classics published “On the Road The Original Scroll” which is the text as it was when first typed out by Kerouac in 1951. It’s Edited by Howard Cunnell, he inserted paragraph breaks, corrected spelling but all in all left the scroll as it would be if you had it on your lap. There are also great introductions by Penny Vlagopoulos, George Mouratidis and Joshua Kupetz. They all give fine insights and interesting background reading.

I read the regular “On the Road” (for the third time) on a plane trip to Colorado last April, when I came home I read the “Original Scroll” to see if there was much of a difference. I was not looking for differences such as name changes, but differences in flow or how it read or felt. I’m not going to say that I was “moved” or “felt closer to Kerouac” or anything trite like that. I will say though it was a pleasure to read knowing it is for the most part untouched and how Kerouac probably wanted folks to see it.

On a related note, the latest issue of Kevin Ring’s Beat Scene Magazine is on display next to the original scroll where it is being exhibited in the US. It’s well deserved I reckon considering what Kevin has done over the years to Keep the memory of  Jack Kerouac and keeping the Beat Generation alive. You can see the pictures here http://www.beatscene.net/news.asp

Here is a short video of Kerouac reading from “On The Road” on the Steve Allen Show.

Kevin sent me a copy of “Beat Scene” issue number 16 from 1993 that he found while doing a clear out. Ken Kesey is on the cover. Amongst other things it has a review by Jay Jones of Paul Perry’s book “Fear and Loathing The Strange and Terrible Saga of Hunter S. Thompson.” Another piece that caught my eye was the excerpts from Charles Bukowski’s “Pulp”. Also tucked in with the magazine there is a broadside by Charles Plymell titled “Neal Cassady. As always Kevin Ring’s site is at http://www.beatscene.net/index.asp.