01 Beach Generation

feat. Jack Kerouac

Lyrics:

Host:
The subject for tonight’s discussion: “is there a Beat Generation?”

Jack Kerouac:
The question is very silly, because we should be wondering tonight “is there a World?”.

There is really no World – sometimes I’m walking on the ground and I can see right through the ground.
There is no World – there is Beat Generation.

Context:

Jack Kerouac starts this albums as he was probably the first person to coin the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948.

Sources:

  • “Is there a Beat generation?” is a recording taken from a symposium sponsored by Brandeis University which was held at the Hunter College Playhouse.

    (Verve LP #15005, January 1960)

02 Finale

feat. Alan Watts

Lyrics:

Alan Watts:
In music - on doesn’t make the end of a composition, the point of a composition.

If that was so the best conductors would be those who play it fastest.

And there would be composers who wrote only finales.

People would go to concert just to hear one crashing chord - cause that’s the end!

We thought of life by analogy with the Journey, with a Pilgrimage, which had a serious purposes at the end, the thing was to get to that end.

Success or whatever it is, or maybe Heaven, after your death…


But we missed the point the whole way along - it was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or dance, while the music was being played.

Context:

It wouldn't be quite correct to call Alan Watts a beatnik... Nevertheles his figure was quite influential inside the group - it would be fair to say he was kind of a spiritual guru for them and undoubtely his lectures had great impact on their art.

Sources:

  • Excerpts from Alan Watts lecture:

    Learning the Human Game

03 America

feat. Allen Ginsberg

Lyrics:

Allen Ginsberg -
(excerpts from)
America:

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
When will you take off your clothes?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
I don’t want to die young, I wanna die old and unhappy.
You made me want to be a saint.There must be some other way to settle this argument.
I'm trying to come to the point.I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.

My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.

America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
The American flag is absolutely meaningless to me still just as it was in the thirties.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.

I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.I read it every week.
Time Magazine is always telling me about responsibility.
Businessmen are serious.
Movie producers are serious.
Everybody's serious but me.

It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again.

Context:

Allen Ginsberg is probably on of the most recognizable figure of Beat Generation and piece above is not involved in any specials contexts that are worth explaining.

Sources:

  • Excerpts from Allen Ginsberg poem America,
    written in Berkeley, Jan. 17, 1956.

    (Recorded at Town Hall Theatre, Berkeley, Mar. 18, 1956)

04 Wichita Boastful Sutra

feat. Allen Ginsberg

Lyrics:

Ginsberg:
I search for the language
that is also yours -

Trump:
I know words, I have the best words - I’m very highly educated.

Ginsberg:
I lift my voice aloud,
make Mantra of American language now,

Trump:
I know words, I have the best words - I have the best courses in the world.

I Donald John Trump

Ginsberg:
I here declare

Trump:
… that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will…
I will be the greatest president that God ever created, I tell you that
… so help me God
… so help me God

Ginsberg:
Let the States tremble,
let the nation weep,
let Congress legislate its own delight,
let the President execute his own desire

Trump:
when it comes to great stakes - I have just raised the steaks!
Trump’s steaks are the world greatest steaks and I mean that in every sense of the word
I know words, I have the best words

Ginsberg:
this Act done by my own voice,
published to my own senses,
blissfully received by my own form

Trump:
Trump’s people are the most incredible

Ginsberg:
approved with pleasure by my sensations

Trump:
Best tasting and most flavourful beef you’ve ever had - it’s the best of the best.

Ginsberg:
manifestation of my very thought

Trump:
They love me! Do you believe it?!

Ginsberg:
accomplished in my own imagination

Trump:
The largest bank in the world is my tenant - I’m really rich.

Ginsberg:
all realms within my consciousness fulfilled

Trump:
I will build a Great Wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me
Best in the economy, by far, best in leadership
They love me, you believe it?

Context:

This is a melt of excerpts from Wichita Vortex Sutra #3 - a text primarily composed on a tape recording in a Greyhound bus in early 1960's -
and Donald Trumps - let's say - "boastful sutras"

Sources:

  • Excerpts from Wichita Vortex Sutra #3
    Allen Ginsberg - Wichita Vortex Sutra #3

  • Various excerpts from media
    Donald Trump

05 Fourth Dimensional Clay

feat. Neal Cassady & Diane Di Prima

Lyrics:

Neal Cassady:
We’re actually fourth dimensional beings
in a third dimensional body
inhabiting a second dimensional world...

We’re actually fourth dimensional beings

Diane Di Prima:
Marble figurines carved in a mantelpiece.

Neal Cassady:
We’re actually fourth dimensional beings
in a third dimensional body
inhabiting a second dimensional world...

Diane Di Prima:
Marble figurines carved in a mantelpiece.

Neal Cassady:
We’re actually

Diane Di Prima:
Marble figurines carved in a mantelpiece.

Neal Cassady:
in a third dimensional body

Diane Di Prima:
And the clay began to talk and became human - one part man one part woman.

Context:

Cassady was a model for Dean Moriarty character from "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. This recording comes from THE Road Trip, where Neal Cassady was a driver and didn't stop ranting for even a tiniest moment.

But Beat Generation wasn't "the men only" movement - there were quite a few women beatniks, that unfortunately stayed in the shadow of that supposedly very progressive males.
In the track above - Diane Di Prima and collate excerpts from their poems with Neal Cassady acid's rant.

Sources:

  • Neal Cassady - talking while driving "Magic trip" bus

  • Diane Di Prima - She is the wind poem

06 Oh Man

feat. Joanne Kyger

Lyrics:


Voice synthesiser:

Oh Man is the highest type of animal existing
or known to have existed
but differs from other animals

Well when I think of man
I think of them in a sexual manner
Otherwise, I don't notice the difference, you know

Context:

Oh Man is in a way quite characteristic piece for beatniks movement - in a simple, acute and somehow indifferent manner brings a posthuman or maybe simply Buddhist perspective to a western order.

Sources:

  • Joanne Kyger - Oh Man is the highest type of animal existing poem

07 Beatnik Sputnik

feat. Herbert Huncke

Lyrics:


Herbert Huncke:
The term Beat-nik was introduce just at the time when the Russian have sent up satellite Sputnik

Beat, I was beat
Beat, I was beat
Beat, I was beat
Beat, I was beat

I was Sputnik

I was tired exhausted, worn out…

That’s what I meant…

Beat, I was beat
Beat, I was beat
Beat, I was beat
Beat, I was beat

I was Sputnik

Context:


Herbert Huncke is another person to whom coining the term "Beat Generation" is being attributed. Living for years on streets of New York, being a so called "Mayor of 42nd Street" there are no doubts he must felt beaten.
His experiences with demi-monde, street life and drug addiction became and inspiration for Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac, who pictured him as Elmer Hassel character in his "On the Road".

Sources:

  • Herbert Huncke - recording from a meeting in Brugge, Belgium, July 1994.

08 German Expressionism

feat. Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lyrics:


Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
excerpts from a poem:
Expressionist history of German Expressionism:

The Blue Rider rode over The Bridge into the Bauhaus
On more than one blue horse
Franz Marc made his blue mark
On the blue scene
And Kirchner cantered through the dark circus
On a different dark horse

And Meidner painted the Apocalypse
Feininger traced a Tragic Being
And fingered skyscrapers
Which fell across the Atlantic
(And the Bauhaus in its final antic
Fell on Chicago)

Meanwhile back in Berlin
Hitler was painting himself
Into a corner
And his ovens were heating
As a Tin Drum began beating

Context:

Probably the last living beatnik - in March 2019 he turned 100. However he doesn't consider himself a Beat poet - in 2013 documentary he said: Don't call me a Beat. I was never a Beat poet.

Sources:

  • Lawrence Ferlinghetti Poetry Reading. From the MICA Mades Audio Cassette Collection.

09 On The Trip Ad

inspired by On The Road mythology

Lyrics:


excerpts from a novel -
On the road:


Then came spring, the great time of traveling, and everybody in the scattered gang was getting ready to take one trip or another.
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!”

TV commercial:
Hello I’m Truman Bradley speaking for your local Chrysler dealer.
Notice how your neighbours look with admiration as you drive out in your new Chrysler

excerpts from a movie
Magic Trip:

- so, we decided to go travel across the country
across the united states
go to the world's fair,
and come back across,
just to experience the...
the american landscape
and heartscape

Why was the idea of a road trip so appealing?

TV commercial:
Because we believe that 15 minutes here - can change 15 years of car buying habits...
But let’s spend a saturday morning with the owners of this slick new power style Chrysler

Magic Trip:
we weren't old enough
to be beatniks,
… a little too old to be hippies.
but everybody i knew had read On the road,
and it opened up the doors to us
just the same way drugs did.

TV commercial:
And that is especially true if you now drive one of two major competitive cars in Chrysler price class

Magic Trip:
a new way to look at america, and it stirred us up.
just the same way drugs did.

TV commercial:
In fact - everyday more and more folks just like you are making the big switch to the exiting new 56 Chrysler

Magic Trip:
why was the idea of a road trip so appealing?

TV commercial:
The new power style Chrysler emphasises the forward look of power in motion

Looks like its still moving
Even when it stops!

On the road:
because the only people for me are the mad ones,
the mad ones
the mad ones

TV commercial:
He knows what he is talking about
Everywhere people notice you:

On the road:
and everybody goes ”Awww!”

Magic Trip:
On the Road
Brings you that big wide door opening
The same way drugs did.

On the road:
…the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,

TV commercial:
Looks like it still moving
Even when it stops

Magic Trip:
The same way drugs did

On the road:
burn, burn, burn

Magic Trip:
Big wide door opening

On the road:
burn, burn, burn
the mad ones
...Ad ones…

TV commercial:
Looks like it still moving
Even when it stops

On the road:
and everybody goes ”Awww!”

TV commercial:
You find most all of these same features in a low price custom and custom 300 fords too. Plus features you can get in other cars only if pay the deluxe model’s prices.
Be a comparison shopper yourself - check the new kind of Ford against the others.
You’ll find that 57 Ford gives you more value per dollar than any other car

Context:


This one is tricky: in 1964 Ken Kesey set off on a legendary cross-country trip to the New York World's Fair. Inspiraton for such an endavours was of course "On the road" (1950) by Jack Kerouac. And in this particular trip a bus driver was no one else but... Neal Cassady / Dean Moriarty character from "On the Road".
They intented to make a documentary from that trip. Unfortunately the film was never finished but...
in 2011, based on a original footage Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood made a documentary movie titled "Magic Trip".

This track is a medley from excerpts from that movie and "On the road" audiobook, supplemented by fragments from TV commercials from the time.

Sources:

  • "Magic Trip", 2011 movie by Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood

  • "On the road" audiobook (couldn't find credits for it...)

  • Car commercials from the 1950s

10 Holy Anthony

feat. Ginsberg, Kerouac & ... Jackson

Lyrics:

Jack Kerouac:
Now it's Jazz. The place is roaring.

Allen Ginsberg:
Berkley 1955

Old Metropolitan Band:
Święty Antoni (Holy Anthony)

Allen Ginsberg:
Holy, Holy

Old Metropolitan Band
Święty Antoni, Święty Antoni
Serce zgubiłem pod miedzą
(I've lost my heart near balk)

Jack Kerouac:
...the place is roaring.

Allen Ginsberg:
Holy

Old Metropolitan Band
Ach co to będzie, święty Antoni,
gdy się sąsiedzi dowiedzą...
(Oh! what it will be, holy Anthony
when the neighbours will realise...
)

Allen Ginsberg:
Holy the Growling saxophone
Holy the Bop Apocalypse

Old Metropolitan Band
Achhhh, ohhhhh

Allen Ginsberg:
Bop apocalypse!

Jack Kerouac:
...and everything is going to the beat!

It’s the beat generation, it’s beat,
it’s the beat to keep, it’s the beat of the heart,

Allen Ginsberg:
Holy Kearuoac, Holy Cassady

Jack Kerouac:
it’s being beat and down in the world and like oldtime lowdown

Allen Ginsberg:
...holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars

Jack Kerouac:
It’s the beat generation, it’s beat,
it’s the beat to keep, it’s the beat of the heart,

Micheal Jackson:
So beat it, just beat it!

Jack Kerouac:
It’s the beat generation, it’s beat,
it’s the beat to keep, it’s the beat of the heart,

Allen Ginsberg:
Holy, holy, holy, holy
Holy, holy, holy, holy

Jack Kerouac:
...and everything is going to the beat!

Micheal Jackson:
beat it!
beat it!

Jack Kerouac:
...the the heart...
Now it’s jazz, the place is roaring, all beautiful girls in there,
one mad brunette at the bar drunk with her boys.

Micheal Jackson:
They told him don't you ever come around here!

Context:

It is rather pointless to explain this joke - if it is not self explanatory, then it means that author must have failed to fulfill his idea,
or he simply had a bad idea... that strikes only his own sense of humor...

Sources:

  • Allen Ginsberg, excerpts from "footnote to Howl"

  • Jack Kerouac, excerpts from "The San Francisco Scene"

  • Micheal Jackson, excerpts from "Beat it"

11 Angels Howl

feat. Allen Ginsberg & Al Pacino

Lyrics:

Allen Ginsberg:
I’m an old man now and a lonesome man in Kansas

Roy Cohn (Al Pacino):
- Mr. Wizard - why the fuck are you telling me this?
Mr. Wizard - why the fuck are you telling me this

Allen Ginsberg:
- I’m not afraid to speak my lonesomeness in a car

Roy Cohn :
- why the fuck are you telling me this?

Allen Ginsberg:
- Not only my lonesomeness - it is ours: all over America

Roy Cohn:
- … it aflicts mostly homosexual. … and drug addicts
Homosexual are men who know nobody and who nobody knows,
does this sounds like me? does this sounds like me?
And this is not hypocracy - this is reality
Roy Cohn is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is a heterosexual man, Henry, who fucks around with guys

Allen Ginsberg:
Come to my lonesomeness presence into this Vortex named Kansas, into this Vortex named Kansas, into this Vortex named Kaaaansaaaas

Dorothy from Wizard of Oz:
- We’re not in Kansas anymore

Roy Cohn:
Mr. Wizard - why the fuck are you telling me this
Say it!

Dorothy:
- we must be over the rainbow

Roy Cohn:
Say, Roy Cohn: “You are a homosexual”. Say it and I will proceed systematically to destroy your reputation and your practice, and your career
Homosexual, Gay, Lesbian - you think these are the names that tells you who someone sleeps with? They don’t tell you that.
They tell you one thing and one thing only: where does the individual soul indentify fit in the foodchain

dr Henry:
Roy Cohn, you are… you’ve had sex with man..

Allen Ginsberg:
Who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclist

dr Henry:
… many many times

Allen Ginsberg:
and screamed with joy

dr Henry:
many many times

Allen Ginsberg:
Who blew and were blown by this human serafin

dr Henry:
many many times

Roy Cohn:
I’ve had sex with man but unlike nearly every other man of whom this is true: I bring the guy I’m screwing to the Whitehouse. And President Regan, simles at us and shakes his hand

Richard Nixon:
A constitutional duty as old as republic itself

Roy Cohn:
simles at us and says:

Richard Nixon:
You’re from Kansas, right?

Roy Cohn:
And president Regan tell you one thing, one thing only:
not, who I fuck, or who fucks me
but who will pick up the phone, when I call

dr Henry:
The president?

Roy Cohn:
Better! His wife.

Allen Ginsberg:
… Carl Salomon

Context:

This is clearly a huge mix of topics and few so called facts may come handy while going through this:
Roy Cohn, portrayed in Kushner's play was a real character, who died from AIDS-related complications
Age-wise - he was the same generation as beatniks, however from a totally different political spectrum.

Wizard of Oz and road from Kansas towards the Rainbow became an important LGBT motiv.

Allen Ginsberg's Howl is probably the most famous poem from the Beatniks' era, with its focus around homosexual relations.

Howl is dedicated to Carl Salomon - a writer, friend of Ginsberg


Rest of the story is up to you

Sources:

  • "Angels in America", a movie by Mike Nichols based on Tony Kushner's play

  • Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" poem

  • Wizard of Oz - excerpts from a movie

  • Richard Nixon voice

12 Ordinary War

feat. Alan Watts

Lyrics:

Alan Watts:
When people fight wars - I trust them
I trust them
If the reason for which they fight the war
Is to expropriate somebody else possessions and women
Because they’ll fight a merciful war:
They will not destroy the possessions and the women they want to capture - they want to enjoy them
That’s a war based on simply, ordinary, everyday human greed
simply, ordinary, everyday human greed

Lyndon B. Johnson:
This is a different kind of war -
There are no marching armies or solemn declarations
But this is really

Alan Watts:
human
greed

Lyndon B. Johnson:
War
War
War

Richard Nixon:
Good evening, my fellow Americans

George W. Bush:
Good afternoon

Lyndon B. Johnson:
I’ve today ordered to Vietnam an air-mobile division

War
War
War

George W. Bush:
On my orders, the US military has begun strikes against Taliban regime in Afghanisthan

Richard Nixon: The question of issue is not whether Johnsons war becomes Nixon’s war
The great question it is “how can we win… America’s peace”

Alan Watts:
The most awful wars that are weighted are the wars weighted for moral principles
You are a lousy communist, you have a philosophy that is destructive to religion and to everything that we value and reverence the most and therefore… we’ll exterminate you to the last man unless you’ll surrender unconditionally

Richard Nixon:
15 years ago North Vietnam launched a campaign to impose a communist government on South Vietnam

George W. Bush:
The name of today’s military operation Is enduring freedom
We defend not only our precious freedoms
But also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear
As we strike military targets, we’ll also drop foods

Lyndon B. Johnson:
These steps, like our actions in the past are carefully measured to do, what must be done to bring an end to aggression and a peacful settlement

George W. Bush:
My fellow citizens, on my orders - the people you’ll liberate, will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military
Your mission is defined, your objectives are clear - your goal is just

To defend the world from great danger
To defend the world from great danger

Alan Watts:
… we can blow up whole cities, wipe people out because we’re not greedy,
we’re righteous

Lyndon B. Johnson:
to do what must be done

George W. Bush:
and cary on the work of peace
we’re supported by the collective will… of The World

Alan Watts:
we’re righteous

George W. Bush:
My fellow citizens

Barack Obama:
never forget to always remember

Lyndon B. Johnson:
War

George W. Bush:
has no regard of morality

Lyndon B. Johnson:
War

George W. Bush:
has no regard of morality

Martin Luther King:
“Peace and civil rights don’t mix” - they say...

George W. Bush:
My fellow citizens

Barack Obama:
never forget to always remember

Lyndon B. Johnson:
War

George W. Bush:
has no regard of morality

Alan Watts:
If you’re going to do something evil - do it for a plain, honest motive - don’t do it in the name of God,

George W. Bush:
We did not ask for this mission, but we’ll fulfil it

Alan Watts:
don’t do it in the name of God -

George W. Bush:
May God bless our country

Barack Obama:
and may God continue to bless the United States of America

Alan Watts:
don’t do it in the name of God - because if you do - it’ll turn you into a monster, that is no longer human

Context:

Surprinsingly it is hard to find beatniks pieces about Vietnam War - of course there are some mentions and general attitude should be quite clear but pointing to a particular text isn't apparently that obvious. The Vietnam War topic however - seems to be one of the most important for that period of time.

Sources:

  • Allan Watts lecture about Wars

  • USA president - Lyndon B. Johnson about Vietnam War

  • USA president - Richard Nixon about Vietnam War

  • USA president - George W. Bush about war in Afganistan

  • USA president - Barack Obama about war in Afganistan

  • Martin Luther King - summing them up

13 Television Dub

feat. David Foster Wallace & Kerouac

Lyrics:

TV commercial:
Take the remote control from its handy storage space
and You're set for hours of pure pleasure...

Jack Kerouac:
Television sets in each living room
with everybody looking at the same thing
and thinking the same thing
at the same time

David Foster Wallace:
One of the reason I can't own a TV
is I sort of became convinced
that there is something really good
on another channel

and that I'm missing...

so instead of watching
I'm scanning anxiously back and forth
for this thing that I think I want
but I don't even know what it is

this thing... that I think I want...

and that I'm missing...

and what it is - is too much good stuff
combined with my sick little head
that thinks there is always something a little better
on another channel

You don't even have to get up to change it

that was the problem - when it became "easy"

TV commercial:
Amazing
Wireless Wizard
Electronic
Remote Control

here is the ultimative television

the supreme acheievement in television engineering

David Foster Wallace:
this thing... that I think I want...

but I don't even know what it is

Jack Kerouac:
Television sets in each living room
with everybody looking at the same thing
and thinking the same thing
at the same time

TV commercial:
Take the remote control from its handy storage space
and turn the volume down
to your taste

Context:

In "Dharma Bums" Jack Kerouac is criticizing a TV and people who watchs it to such an extent that it is becoming somehow repulsive and seems a bit naive or maybe too obvious from 21st century perspective. If Jack Kerouac had an occasion to talk with David Foster Wallace - I guess he would be able to change his perspective diametrically.

Sources:

  • One of the first tv commercial promoting a set with remote control

  • interview with David Foster Wallace

  • excerpts from "Dharma Bums" novel by Jack Kerouac