Beatniks !!! Dead or Alive ???

Oh beatniks. we're have you all gone ??? I have never truly seen a beatnik. Are you guys still out there ???

 

You mean these kind of people?...



"I shambled after as I've been doing all my life, after people who interested me, 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..." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road

 

Im right here baby

 

yeah. i'm reading that book right now

 

what makes a beatnik ???

 

Biological process, social environment. Really it's an affliction.
Such a person is said to be "beat", as in beat by society, disenfranchised from ones culture.
They are properly called "Beats".
"Beatnics"is a term made up by mass media.(Maynerd G. Krebbs comes to mind, from the '50s TV series "Dobie Gillis")


Kerowac was a nut imho. Get yourself some Kesey. (Ken Kesey)

 

Well...there's a double meaning to "Beat." Beat in that sense, as well as beatific.

 

I remember the Beats quiet well.. if fact that is what cast me into hippiedom in my pre teens.

When I lived in SoCal, I had a neighbor who was 4 or 5 yrs older, she was a Beat, she turned me on to Dave Van Ronk, Odetta, Dylan and several other beat artists.. she had black hair, wore black clothing, and played bongos. I'm sure, as I look back, that she must have smoked the refer but I never saw her smoke any. Penny was her name and she lived in Anahiem.

My Parents had a few Beat couples as freinds also, as I recall. When we first moved to SoCal in the late 50s and settled in Anahiem, there were a lot of Beat looking ppl around, artists, poets and non conformists. I noticed bc they did not look like the ppl I knew in Dallas.

They seemed like they had it together to me, I admired them, I guess bc I was different too. Our move from Texas to California threw me into a wild culture shock. I neve did fit into the neat little Anahiem box.. I said Y'all and everyone else said You Guys. I had a thick southern drawl and freckles to everyone elses taned skin and blonde hair, I was blonde but not the Beach Blonde and my eyes were not blue.

I was persicuted and torrmented by my peers, it was no wonder I took solace at Penny's side, she liked the strange and unusual. She accepted me for who I was. Latter she took me to a coffee house in Redondo Beach and we drank expresso.

I listened as the speakers would talk and the poets would lament..They spoke of injustice and poverty, they cried out for change. They would have plays of political drama. They actually snapped their fingers at the end of each preformance/reading.

They had a language of their own, with sayings like, 'Go Daddy Go, He's a Cool Cat, She's hip to the jive' It was like another planet. I soaked it all up like a sponge.. no one made fun of me there, they understood my opression.

They, The Beats were the begining of The Movement, They opened the door for the Hippies to come through, as the Beats were the thinkers and the Hippies were the Doers. I think the Hippies evolved from the Beat Generation and are massed into one. My hubby calls me a beatnic all the time, altho, I concider myself to be of Hippie nature, but my begining was beatnic.

Bright Blessings
sh

 

Why do you think Kerouac was a nut? So he had a drinking problem and ate speed and wrote for days straight....

 

I'm completely beat...

 

haha .is there any way we can make an online beat club ???

 

That comment on Kesey... AHAHA!

Also, I think someone adressed the fact that it's BEATS not beatniks. How do people not know that yet??

 

Be cool daddy-o hahahahahah

Beatnik is a media stereotype that borrowed the most superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s to present a distorted (and sometimes violent), cartoon-like misrepresentation of the real-life people and the spirituality found in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical fiction.

 

The word "beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958.[4] Caen coined the term by adding the Russian suffix -nik after Sputnik I to the Beat Generation. Caen's column with the word came six months after the launch of Sputnik. It may have been Caen's intent to portray the members of the Beat Generation as un-American. Objecting to Caen's twist on the term, Allen Ginsberg wrote to the New York Times to deplore "the foul word beatnik," commenting, "If beatniks and not illuminated Beat poets overrun this country, they will have been created not by Kerouac but by industries of mass communication which continue to brainwash man."

 

Just to get it straight, it was Herb Cohen, big time music industry cat who managed Zappa, Tom Waits and many others.....(Yes kiddies, pop culture has been being manipulated since before I was born... welcome to the machine!)


Dolly, I don't know, I'm probably being a little harsh with the nut thing. It's just a feeling I get that Kerowac wasn't really one of the beats. He just wished he was. I think the excerpt I posted illustrates this...

"...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..." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road.

He wasn't one of them. He just sought them out.
I think he lived vicariously through his semi fictional characters. He was too heavily instilled with the values of a previous generation,and ended up driving himself crazy trying to change that.He wanted to be like Jack London, and actually do shit, like live in the Alaskan bush, or work on a whaling ship and other macho shit, for which he had neither the physical prowess nor the mental daring.
His style later gave rise to the "Gonzo" journalism of another nut,(but fun to read) Hunter S. Thomson.
Another dude with little-man syndrome......

 

Hunter having little-man syndrome? Care to explain that?

The beats were really a diverse group of non-conformists IMO.
"Such a person is said to be "beat", as in beat by society, disenfranchised from ones culture." I really dig that definition.

Because the beats were just non-conformists I think there are still tons of beat like people still walking around and living the beat life. I would consider myself a beat for a broad definition of myself. I'm much more comfortable saying that than hippy. Although I'd say that hippies are also beats I think theres much more stereotyping of the hippies. I like to think sometimes that hippy is synonymous with beat.

 

Here's Americas most beloved "Beatnic".


http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/lawrence/153/krebs.html

Check out the last line about Dylan being influenced by Krebs! HAHAHA!

 

Not really... I do tend to get carried away sometimes with my pop culture-bashing. I probably need to just chill...

Look I got a new signature!

 

interesting...

 

I am a beatnik in my heart. I am very corporate by my looks but in spirit, I am a beatnik.

But my corporate looks allow me to move my social causes so I guess everything has its tradeoffs.