March 25th 2008 Jack Kerouac on Steve Allen
Steve Allen wasn’t the only person who read prose or poetry on his show. In this clip, Jack Kerouac (King of the Beats, March 12, 1922 - October 21, 1969) reads a passage from his book, On the Road. This is what Kerouac said later about this experience:
“remembering that awful time only a year earlier when I had to rehearse my reading of prose a third time under the hot lights of the Steve Allen Show in the Burbank Studio, one hundred technicians waiting for me to start reading, Steve Allen watching me expectant as he plunks the piano, I sit there on the dunce’s stool and refuse to read a word or open my mouth, “I don’t have to REHEARSE for God’s sake Steve!”—”But go ahead, we just wanta get the tone of your voice, just this last time, I’ll let you off the dress rehearsal” and I sit there sweating not saying a word for a whole minute as everybody watches, finally I say “No I can’t do it” and I go across the street and get drunk)(but surprising everybody the night of the show by doing my job of reading just fine, which surprises the producers and so they take me out with a Hollywood starlet who turns out to be a big bore trying to read me her poetry and won’t talk love because in Hollywood man love is for sale)”
In the 1950s, Kerouac followed Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady to Berkeley and San Francisco, where he became close friends with the young Zen poet Gary Snyder (I’ve met him, yes!). Ginsberg and Snyder became underground celebrities in 1955 after the Six Gallery poetry reading in San Francisco. Since they and many of their friends regularly referred to Kerouac as the most talented writer among them. However, Kerouac never was taken seriously during his lifetime. As the beatniks of the 1950’s began to yield their spotlight to the hippies of the 1960’s, Jack took pleasure in standing against everything the hippies stood for. He supported the Vietnam War and became friendly with William F. Buckley (November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008).
Finally, Kerouac moved to St. Petersburg, Florida where - his health destroyed by drinking - he died at home in 1969 at age 47.
