Talk:Jack Kerouac

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[edit] Great Picture of Kerouac

I hope it can stay. Rimbaud 2 (talk) 21:33, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

You're right to criticize the trivia section and I agree that it shouldn't be there. But we shouldn't, I think, toss away so much information. I've restored the earlier version, but with hopes that at least some of the trivia content might be integrated before the section is rightfully deleted. --ful cleane (talk) 08:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The section that needs to be deleted as overly trivial is, as is so often the case here at Wikipedia, the "in popular culture" section. We do not need to know every single time anyone ever referenced Jack Kerouac in a song or TV show. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 19:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. But even then a wholesale deletion probably not the best way.--ful cleane (talk) 04:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Moved to talk below. If someone wants to actually write for Wikipedia, they can learn to source the trivia and incorporate it into the appropriate section. This isn't a dumping ground. —Viriditas | Talk 04:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Kerouac mentions his best friends George Apostolos and Sebastian Sampas, killed during World War II, on numerous occasions throughout his writings.[1]
  • Kerouac's boyhood friends George Apostolos and Sammy Sampas were the uncle and cousin, respectively, of Ted Leonsis, the prominent businessman.[2]
  • At the time of his death in 1969, Kerouac's estate was worth little more than ninety-one dollars, but by 2004 had grown to an estimated $20 million.
  • Kerouac did not learn to drive until 1956 (at age 34) and he never had a driver's license.
  • Kerouac was related to botanist Brother Marie Victorin (born Conrad Kirouac) from his father's side, while his mother was a second cousin of Quebec Premier René Lévesque.
  • Kerouac invented his own fantasy baseball league when he was a child. He continued playing this game well into adulthood.[3]

[edit] In popular culture

  • The band The Hippos has a song called "Asleep At The Wheel" in which the lyrics state "I've been on the road longer than Jack Kerouac".
  • The band Our Lady Peace song "All For You" contains the line "Jack Kerouac, Kerouac on the road and in my head."
  • The alternative low-rock/jazz trio Morphine has a song called "Kerouac", released on B-Sides and Otherwise. The song sounds like a beat-poetry-style reading with free-form jazz in the background. The lyrics pay tribute to and discuss Jack Kerouac's writing style.
  • The band Rusted Root has a song called "Jack Kerouac" on their Live album.
  • The band Jawbreaker's song, "Boxcar" from the album, "24 Hour Revenge Therapy" has the line, "you don't know what I'm all about - like killing cops and reading Kerouac."
  • Kerouac appeared as the character Gene Pasternak in Go by John Clellon Holmes.
  • Al Stewart, in the lyric for Modern Times, alludes to Kerouac and On The Road.
  • The 10,000 Maniacs 1987 LP In My Tribe contained a song titled "Hey Jack Kerouac" which also appeared on their MTV Unplugged album.
  • In Steve Earle's album The Hard Way the first song "The Other Kind" mentions Jack Kerouac and being back out the on the road again an obvious influence on his music.
  • The King Crimson album Beat contains the song "Neal and Jack and Me", a tribute to the spirit of On the Road.
  • The alley that separates the City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio Saloon on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood is officially named by the city as Jack Kerouac Alley. The alley is famous for being a meeting ground for many luminaires of the Beat Generation, including Kerouac who often drank at Vesuvio.
  • In a scene from Bob Dylan's 1978 film Renaldo and Clara, Dylan and poet Allen Ginsberg are seen at Kerouac's grave.
  • There is a band called Pretty Girls Make Graves.
  • The Smiths recorded a song named "Pretty Girls Make Graves".
  • The band The Thrills released a song entitled "Big Sur."
  • The popular television show Gilmore Girls references Jack Kerouac in the pilot episode.
  • Adam Ant's 1990 album, "Manners & Physique," makes clear reference to Kerouac in the closing track, Anger Inc.
  • Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire" mentions Kerouac.
  • The Hold Steady's song, "Stuck Between Stations" opens with the line, "There are nights when I think Sal Paradise was right. / Boys and Girls in America have such a sad time together," a quote from On the Road.
  • The band Weezer has a song called Holiday in which the lyrics state "On the road with Kerouac, sheltered in his Bivouac".
  • Steve Miller Bands Album "Book of Dreams" named after a Kerouac book of same name
  • Name and book On The Road mentioned in the Beastie Boys song 3-Minute Rule
  • The band Bloodhound Gang, on their album "One Fierce Beer Coaster", has a song titled Asleep at the Wheel in which Kerouac is referenced.
  • Kerouac is mentioned in the movie Across the Universe at the Thanksgiving Dinner in Lucy and Max's family house. Their father asks Max if he's going to drive across the country like that Jack..." and his mother fills in "Kerouac", to which she adds, followed by a look from Lucy, "What? I read."
  • Singer-songwriter Ellis Paul has a song called "Blacktop Train" in which the lyrics state "...out on a quest for the trail of Jack Kerouac."
  • Kerouac is the main character of Move Under Ground, where he, Neal Cassidy, and William Burroughs have to defeat Cthulhu.
  • Vigilantes of Love song "Hard Luck and Heart Attack" from their album Audible Sigh was written about Kerouac and the tension between his Christian background, Buddhist interests and party lifestyle.
  • Rapper Sage Francis says "I'm On the Road reading Kerouac, It's poems versus better raps" in his song "Escape Artist."
  • Van Morrison sings of reading "Kerouac's Dharma Bums and On The Road" in his autobiographical song "Cleaning Windows".
  • The 10,000 Maniacs wrote a song about Kerouac entitled "Hey Jack Kerouac".
  • Godley and Creme's song "Snack Attack" from their album Ismism contains the lyrics, "Just call me, Jack Kerouac".
  • Five Iron Frenzy has a song called Superpowers which briefly mentions Kerouac.
  • On the Jethro Tull album "Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die!" in the song "From a Dead Beat to an Old Greaser" there is a mention of Kerouac, along with Charlie Parker and René Magritte
  • Bad Religion mention Kerouac in their song "Stranger Than Fiction"
  • Bob Dylan took the title for many of his songs from Kerouac novels; notably, Desolation Row (Desolation Angels), On The Road Again (On The Road), Visions of Johanna (Visions of Gerard), Subterranean Homesick Blues (The Subterraneans).

[edit] Portrayal and reference in pop culture

Went a head and pulled this off and copied it here for all the same reasons above --Leodmacleod 6:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

In the 1999 film, The Source, that detailed the Beat Generation, Kerouac was portrayed by Johnny Depp.

A reference is made to Kerouac in the Julie Taymor film Across the Universe when the father of Max claims that his son will end up like Kerouac, driving around the country.

A reference is made to Kerouac and On The Road in the Our Lady Peace song, "All For You," the opening track on their fifth album, Gravity

Jack Kerouac is referenced in Billy Joel's song of "We Didn't Start the Fire."

The Austin-based musician, Guy Forsyth wrote a song in honor of Kerouac titled "Children of Jack".

[edit] Unsourced statements removed

I've removed the following statements because they have been tagged as "citation needed" for several months:

  • In between sea voyages, Kerouac stayed in New York with friends from Fordham University in The Bronx.
  • Kerouac realized he wanted to be a writer before the age of ten; his father was a linotypist and ran a print shop, publishing The Lowell Spotlight.
  • Throughout all of this he led a nomadic lifestyle, never having a home of his own. Alternatively, he lived with his mother, stayed with friends or camped out.

If anyone can find sources for these statements, feel free to re-add them. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 11:06, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jack Kerouac's sexual orientation

Some sources specify Kerouac's sexual communication with Allen Ginsberg.

Kerouac was the homosexual? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.233.214.228 (talk) 14:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Kerouac was a bisexual writer so he should be in this category. This is a widely known and verifiable fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.25.95 (talk) 12:31, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no firm evidence he was homosexual. Kerouac denied it strongly. Ginsburg started the rumor. 72.186.213.96 (talk) 12:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

A most interesting post from a right wing forum by a fellow who claims to have known Kerouac:

Dear Coolcat: Kerouac at the end of his life(1969) was sick of Jews and/or Homos in the "BEAT" Movement & surprisingly didn't like the "BEATLES" because THEY were Anti-Christian. He wasn't a Homosexual. He told me the owner of "NEW DIRECTIONS PRESS"(JONES) was going around saying he was a Queer and that HE'D told him off & threatened to punch him out if he kept doing that,even though HE had considered him as a friend until then. He was reading "MEIN KAMPF" then and we discussed things relating to the Jew Conspiracy. HIS UNCLE back in the 30's used to listen to Father Coughlin on the RADIO,HE told me. I lent him my copy of Maurice Pinay's,"THE PLOT AGAINST THE CHURCH" about Masonic/JEW control in the VATICAN. He liked Ezra POUND alot(had the complete "CANTOES") and modelled his writings on Thomas Wolf(Southern writer(like Faulkner) who was very anti-JEW in his writings and opinions and especially modelled himself after, Louis Ferdinand Celine, the Pro-NS French writer. I met Ginsburg at Stella's after Kerouac's death. He was a backstabbing bastard & a COMMIE BASTARD! He lied about Ezra POUND, when he interviewed Pound in Rapallo,ITALY, supposedly telling him(Ginsburg) that he regretted his anti-Jew opinions and being pro-Fascist!! GINSBURG offered no proof of this except his lying MOUTH! Allen Ginsburg spread lies about Kerouac being HOMOSEXUAL-being the coward he was- after his death. STELLA,his wife, didn't have enough money to sue the lying BASTARD like SHE wanted TO! AS for Kerouac dying from drinking, HE died from a simple HERNIA....AN UNTREATED HERNIA!! I liked him. He looked kinda like Richard Burton,the actor. In many ways, he resembled CELINE,his hero, who had many cats around him like him(SAVITRI DEVI would have loved HIM ,TOO, FOR that)and in many other WAYS. Yours, Charles —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.186.213.96 (talk) 13:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Most convincing. Pleidhce (talk) 19:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Kerouac was a bisexual male and this is a confirmed autobiographical fact. Read any written biography on him or go here if you're lazy: http://www.glbtq.com/literature/kerouac_j.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.245.56.248 (talk) 18:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

--To say Jack had gay affairs would be true, but I don't know that one can clearly put a bisexual label on him. Biographies actually differ on the subject with some saying his experiences were limited and mostly when he was young, while others say they were much deeper and continued to a later point in his life. While the letter above from a supposed Kerouac associate may not be credible, I think it in some ways accurately portrays Kerouac's attitudes in the last few years of his life. Deeply conservative, even reactionary, and definitely regretful of his past. I guess what it comes down to though is this, what do we mean exactly by bisexual? Is sexuality a lifelong definition as some would say, or can someone "change", e.g. David Bowie's supposed straightness of late. Anyway, just things to think about. Leodmacleod 7:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The "lazy" comment from 96.245.56.248 above is out of line. Instead of calling other people lazy, be conscientious yourself, and provide citations with your edits. And get a login, and use it. Bertport (talk) 20:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Objection to the Removal of Influences/Influenced section.

I have to object to the recent good-faith edits made by User:JayHenry. As an avid fan, not only of Kerouac's, but also of many of the artists mentioned in the deleted sections, I feel the information given was fairly well established fact. I've read several biographies of Kerouac and the Beats, as well as web-sites, articles, etc, and seen most of the "influences" mentioned upon many occasions, especially Thomas Wolfe, Charlie Parker, and Arthur Rimbaud. As to whom he influenced, I can say without a doubt that the musicians mentioned were fans, if not disciples, Tom Waits for one recorded 2 songs on his last album, Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, featuring lyrics taken from Kerouac. Bob Dylan is on film reverently visiting the grave of Kerouac with Allen Ginsberg.

I understand this article needs some serious cleaning-up before it's really up to snuff. I think, with work, it could become a featured article; in fact that ought to be the goal of anyone editing this page. But I don't feel that removing this information, that those familiar with the subject know to be true, is the best way to make the article better. I think instead, it should be placed back in the text and then added to the long list of things on this page that need desperately to be properly cited. And I'd like to see who agrees with me and who thinks I'm talking out of my - Leodmacleod 12:55 25 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Oh yeah, and I failed to mention. Most of the that info is repeated elsewhere in the article, so yeah.

-Leodmacleod 1:02 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm an avid fan myself and it's precisely as fan that I objected to this subjective list which I don't feel improves the article, but rather, in my opinion, misrepresents Kerouac's place in literature. First, it's not clear what "influences" and "influenced" mean, especially in the context of Kerouac. He listened to Charlie Parker's music, sure. Did it influence his life? His writing? Parker but not Dizzy? Neal Cassady inspired one of his main characters, so should we also add Gary Snyder? But more important, how could anyone contend that he influenced neither Burroughs or Ginsberg? How could anyone contend they did not influence him? Oh but of course these are very much the most influential relationships of his life. Instead, our reader is left with the impression that his most important influence is Pynchon! Oh dear, have you ever read Pynchon? I'm sure he read the work of the beat generation but would you care to make the case that it's an important literary lineage? He influenced Russell Brand? Well, perhaps he did. Is this influence somehow more important than that on Marlon Brando? Of course he read Fyodor Dostoevsky. What writer in the 20th century has not? But Dostoevsky is famous, so we include him and omit John Clellon Holmes?
I find this section of infoboxes to always be problematic. There will always be issues like this if you try to have a limited selection. If you include everyone it becomes a massive directory -- for Kerouac it could be ten times the size. But here we're left with a list that purports neither to be significant or exhaustive. Just random. Pray tell how Jack Kerouac influenced morphine!! His important influence over The Hold Steady? I stand by my claim that the list is dubious; an embarrassment even. If we must include such a list--though I contend it will always be silly and unscholarly--can we at least attempt to start over and focus on the significant relationships? --JayHenry (talk) 21:11, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Aspiring to featured article status is a great idea. Take a look at how influences are handled in some featured articles, e. g. J. R. R. Tolkien. There's a section for what/who influenced his views, another for what/who influenced his writing, and another for his legacy (who was influenced by him). All these sections are prose, not lists, and they are well referenced. Bertport (talk) 02:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think that there's our solution to the very valid problems with lists that were brought up by Jay. And I think, in general, the Tolkien article is an excellent model for what this article should eventually be. Could we agree though to leave the lists up for the time being, unscholarly though they may be, and take them down once the new sections are somewhat complete? I feel like it would be better to have something, at least mildly accurate, rather than nothing at all.
Oh yeah, and the Hold Steady? Seriously, that's gotta go. Sorry.--Leodmacleod 2:35 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the Tolkien article is an excellent model. I definitely think it's okay to leave those lists for now, as long as there's a mind to improve it eventually. This would be a fun article to work on too... I might see about ordering some Kerouac books off Amazon and see if I can't help out. In re-reading my post above it sounds much crabbier than I intended. My apologies for that. --JayHenry (talk) 01:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wasn't he a schizophrenic?

I don't recall this article making a mention of the disorder? Jv821 (talk) 12:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard anything of the sort and it doesn't seem to fit anything I know about him. --Leodmacleod 7:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reduction of Suiter references

I object to collapsing all the page-specific Suiter references into one broad reference to a broad page range. This is much less useful to people who want to follow up on the citations. Bertport (talk) 03:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. My bad. I'll fix it. Hadn't seen anything cited thatwell on wiki and thought it was a little much. But now that I've looked around, I'm actually going to go back and expand my own as well. Leodmacleod 5:51 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the undo man. I have the full Suiter info listed for you under ref #13, following the Tolkien model. I think it might could be moved to #12 though. Leodmacleod 7:29, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re-added career dates

I think the intention was to define these periods of his career by 2 events. 1)The publishing of The Town and the City and 2) the publishing of On the Road and his subsequent rise to fame. Though currently the text does not follow this logic very precisely, it will be reorganized to do so in the near future. Leodmacleod 6:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

I have to agree that the list of links seems rather excessive. Can't they be trimmed to an essential 3, 5, or 7? Glane23 (talk) 20:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC) Suggestions for cutting (in strikethrough font):

* Kerouac Family Association bilingual Web Site

* Jack Kerouac's Life

* Jack Kerouac GLBT page

* Jack Kerouac Bibliography

* Books comprising Jack Kerouac's Duluoz legend

* Key to the characters in Jack Kerouac's books, and their real-life counterparts

* Key to the real people represented in Jack Kerouac's books, and their fictional counterparts

* A more complete Jack Kerouac Character Key from the everything2 site

* Interview with Jack Kerouac (Montreal, 1967) (in French)

*Blyler, Kerouac, and Bohemian Roads — Article linking Kerouac's novel On the Road with D.A. Blyler's Steffi's Club.

* American Writers: Jack Kerouac — A two-hour C-SPAN television show about Jack Kerouac

* Jack Kerouac's Road - A Franco-American Odyssey - A 1989 National Film Board of Canada production, directed by Herménégilde Chiasson

* "A Vision of Kerouac as The Shadow" — a six page comic about two guys in Indiana talking about Kerouac

*"About the Beat Generation", by Jack Kerouac — a definition of the Beat Generation in Kerouac's own words

*Dharma Bummed: A Marxist Analysis of Jack Kerouac and the Beats

*Language Is A Virus Kerouac's 'Belief and Technique for Modern Prose' and 'Essentials of Spontaneous Prose'

*Denver Beat Photo Tour

*Photos of the Kerouac Gas Station in Longmont, CO

*Neal Cassady's official site authored by his family and updated monthly with stories and photos

*Photos, Jack Kerouac's Last House, St. Petersburg, FL

*Dharma Beat — A Jack Kerouac website with articles on Kerouac including a Calendar and a Links page

*Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! festival site

*Analysis of Kerouac's life and works from a Roman Catholic perspective

*A selection of front covers of various editions of On the Road

*Guardian article on the history of the play Beat Generation, written and left unpublished for almost 50 years

*The beat goes on: Tracing Kerouac's tracks 50 years later: A restless spirit and 'holy' pie endure By Charles M. Sennott, Boston Globe Staff | July 15, 2007

*On the Road Again: Friends and scholars recall the man behind the myth of Jack Kerouac. Compiled by Meghan O'Rourke, Slate, September 4, 2007

[edit] Citations

Since citations keep coming up for discussion, I'm starting a more generic section for them here on the talk page.

It's good to add a specific citation for the "few African Americans in Lowell" statement. But I went to the link given, and I did not see where this claim was supported. Can you provide a deeper link that takes readers directly to the relevant page on the site? Bertport (talk) 19:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


A citation is fine. It's this just-pulling-it-off-and-leaving-a-snide-comment-instead-of-asking-for-citation stuff I'm not too fond of. Sloppy editing on their part.
Well the claim was supported by the line where it says Lowell always had a small Black community, but now it's supported by the 1930 census info that shows every Black person living in Lowell at the time. There were 24 seperate residences with African-Americans. I would think the average reader can see that this a small portion of the houses in the city at the time. If you feel otherwise, please help me out, b/c I've had a damn hard time trying to find a complete census from the time that shows racial statistics.
Also, in the future, be really really really careful telling a Southerner that his phrasing is "colloquial". I know that doesn't mean anything in your dialect and maybe as such it oughtn't to be used, but most of us down here are really tired of the hegemony of the Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic dialects and being told we speak "incorrectly" and take great offense at it.
Serious though, no hard feelings. And thank you for being serious about this article. Leodmacleod 8:39 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I see you provided the deeper link for the citation. Thanks for that. Please don't take offense at the word "colloquial". It's not an attack. It's just, the sentence means the same thing without the phrase, and sound more encyclopedic. I am familiar with the usage of the phrase. I'm from South Carolina, myself, but that is irrelevant. Wikipedia aims for an encyclopedic tone. I didn't expect anyone to consider this a big deal. If it means a lot to you, put it back. Bertport (talk) 01:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Content removed

User:Soledad blanked the material under discussion in the above section without an edit summary.[1] This appeared on my watchlist as blanking vandalism, so I reverted making note of the discussion on the talk page.[2] Soledad returned to revert again for a second time, with the strange edit summary, " This is unencyclopedic propaganda, totally unfit and over the top, thanks".[3]. I then invited Soledad to use the talk page to discuss his edits and informed him about the purpose of edit summaries.[4] Here is the material that Soledad removed:

There were few African-Americans in Lowell,[4] so the young Kerouac was not raised in an environment of racial hatred as many were at the time, though he was exposed to great degree of anti-Semitism, a movement that was on the rise in 1930's America.[5] Kerouac once recalled to Ted Berrigan, in an interview with the Paris Review, an incident from the 1940's, in which his mother and father were walking together in a Jewish neighborhood in the Lower East Side of New York, saying "And here comes a whole bunch of rabbis walking arm in arm... teedah- teedah - teedah... and they wouldn't part for this Christian man and his wife. So my father went POOM! and knocked a rabbi right in the gutter.... Now if you don't like that, Berrigan, that's the history of my family."[6][7]

Now, having just seen this material in the article for the first time, I took a moment to look at the references. The reference supporting the first statement about African-Americans in Lowell is a primary source and does not mention Jack Kerouac, so we can't use it. If someone wants to find a secondary source that supports it in reference to Kerouac, then be my guest. The second statement, referring to Kerouac's exposure to antisemitism in 1930's America also mentions nothing about Kerouac, and we can't use that either per WP:NOR. The third statement is a quote from an interview with Kerouac, and appears in several different WP:RS, however it is primary source material and should not be used in the article unless a secondary source is provided describing the interview or the topic of antisemitism in direct relation to Kerouac. Viriditas (talk) 11:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bisexual writers category

Categories need to be accurately represented in the article for inclusion. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 12:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)