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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.