Talk:Neal Cassady

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Cassady is a major cultural figure whose personal life intersects SF culture at many points
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Contents

[edit] letter

Shouldn't there be a bit more depth about the Joan Anderson Letter and its influence on Kerouac and his writing of On The Road? It was a large influence on Kerouac's theory of spontaneous prose. IrishGuy 06:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)


Perhaps you are right. I'm not too familiar with what Kerouac had to say about spontaneous prose, but having spent a fair amount of time around Neal I know that it was Neal's speaking style that Kerouac imitated in his writing. Neal encouraged Kerouac to loosen up, to just let things flow; this came so naturally to Neal that he could not imagine any other way, whether speaking or writing. Founders4 04:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

What I do know of this, and I am admittedly no expert, is that Kerouac's writing was along the Wolfian lines of The Town and the City until he read the letter. Kerouac wrote his own letters praising Cassady's letter. He even passed it along to many others which is why so much of the letter was lost (all that exists is a fragment). That, in conjunction with Cassady's speech (in person and the various recordings they made) seemed to be the turning point for Kerouac to find his voice as it were. IrishGuy 04:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like you know enough to add more about the Joan Anderson letter. I would encourage you to do so! Founders4 04:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to get some hard references for it and do some work on the article this week. IrishGuy 04:46, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

How is this project going? I have some information on this and could assist, if you wish. Pitoucat 00:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Book category

I added the book Friendly & Flowing Savage to the list of books about Appearances in Literature. IrishGuy moved it to the Neal Cassady bibliography section. I moved it back, since it is not a book by Neal, but about his literary influence. IrishGuy again moved it, this time to the Biography section. It is not a biography, but a literary study of Neal Cassady as an influence on other writers. It does not belong in the Biography or Bibliography sections. I feel that the Appearances in Literature section is more appropriate since the book documents all of these, including some not already listed in that section. Maybe a new section is required, such as Literary Studies? Over to you, IrishGuy. Pitoucat 23:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. I'm not trying to be combatative nor am I making any concerned efforts to alter your edits. I just think that the Appearances in Literature section (at least as it stands now) is books written not specifically about Cassady but where he makes appearances (Kerouac, Ginsburg, Wolfe, et al) whereas the book in question isn't technically literature but instead (at least from what I can gather having not read it myself) is more of a guide to Cassady's many appearances in literature. That's why I feel it might be better suited to the biography section as it is technically more in that vein. But if you disagree, feel free to move it back to the Appearances section. IrishGuy 23:59, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, let's leave it where it is. However, I feel that anyone obtaining the book and expecting it to be a biography will be sorely disappointed. Pitoucat 00:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, if you really feel that could be a problem (in reference to the book being misconstrued) then by all means, place it back in the Appearances section. You are more familiar with the book than I am. If you feel it should go there, then by all means do so. IrishGuy 00:22, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I've added a new section, Literary Studies, in which to place this book, as I honestly don't feel that it properly belongs in any of the previously existing ones. Incidentally, although the original small press publication of 1987 is now hard to locate, the complete text can be found in a collection of essays by Gregory Stephenson on the literature of the Beat Generation, The Daybreak Boys (Southern Illinois University Press, 1990), and is strongly recommended. Pitoucat 10:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date Changes

I noticed you made some date changes, Pitoucat. Unfortunately they are not correct. Don't know what sources you might be using.

The Merry Prankster trip with Ken was definitely in 1964.

I met up with Neal during January, 1968. Neal, Annie and George had just driven down to Puerto Vallarta, and they were staying at a beach house just south of town. We spent a week or so there before heading on to other destinations. Shortly after we returned to the U.S., in early February, 1968, we heard of Neal's death. Founders4 07:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the trip to NYC with Pranksters was in June 1964, but Neal had met Kesey long before that -- in the summer of 1962.

Neal, George Walker, Steven Lambrecht, Gloria Quornstrom and Anne Murphy drove to Mexico in January 1967 (not 1968) and stayed in Puerto Vallarta. Anne flew back to the USA in February, and the others in April, leaving Neal in San Miguel de Allende. Neal returned to USA in May.

He left again for Mexico on January 28, 1969, with an experimental filmmaker from LA, to meet up with Janice Brown in San Miguel. He died on February 4.

This information comes from my research and interviews with George Walker, Anne Murphy, and Kathy Van Leeuwen. I'm confident that the dates of 1962 and 1967 are correct and so I have changed them back. Pitoucat 07:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date confusion re: Puerto Vallerta et al

Hello Pitoucat. I believe you that Neal met Ken before the 1964 trip, though perhaps this should be clarified to avoid confusion as to when the trip to New York actually occurred.

The confusion about the Mexico trip may be the result of multiple trips. What I do know for sure is that Neal, George and Anne (Neal always called her "Annie")were in Puerto Vallerta in January, 1968--that's the only trip I ever made to Mexico. I never saw Steven Lambrecht or Gloria Quornstrom at the beach house in Puerto Vallarta.

Although I had met Neal on several occasions before that (during 1966 and 1967), January, 1968 was the first time I had met Anne and George. Perhaps they were also there during 1967, which might account for some of the confusion; I wouldn't know about that.

When you say "He (Neal) left again for Mexico on January 28, 1969..." this must be an error, because Neal died on February 4, 1968.

I think I'll go ahead and make some changes; see what you think :). I AM entirely sure about the 1968 dates.Founders4 09:51, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


I'm sorry, my "1969" was a slip of the fingers. I meant to write "1968." The facts are that Neal left Los Angeles, alone, on January 28th, 1968, to return to Mexico. This time he traveled by train and was at first refused entry at the border — allegedly because of his disheveled appearance — but succeeded on a second attempt when he joined up with an experimental film maker from UCLA whose crew was allowed in. Neal left the train at Celaya, leaving some luggage there and taking a taxi to San Miguel de Allende where Janice Brown had been waiting for him. Neal did not visit Puerto Vallarta on this, his final trip, but went directly to San Miguel, dying nearby just a few days later.
I do know for a fact that Neal, George Walker, Anne Murphy, and others drove to Puerto Vallarta in January 1967. I have seen the actual postcards that Neal wrote from there to Carolyn. They are postmarked "Puerto Vallarta - 1967". On one of them, dated February 8, 1967, Neal writes that he is spending his 41st (birthday) there. Since Neal was born in 1926, this also confirms the year as 1967. The postcards and other of Neal's letters of the period can be read in "Neal Cassady: Collected Letters, 1944-1967" (Penguin, 2004).
In March 1967 Neal and Anne had a major row, and she flew back to the USA, never to see Neal again. This fact comes from various interviews that Anne has given (a recent one being in "Beat Scene" #42) and in Anne's unpublished memoir of her time with Neal, "Affair With a Viper." Neal writes about Anne's departure in a postcard to Carolyn from Puerto Vallarta, dated March 15, 1967. Anne was in Seattle when she heard about Neal's death in February 1968, and states that she had not seen him since March 1967, when she left him in Puerto Vallarta.
You are right to say that Neal made many trips to Mexico. He was also there in 1966 with Kesey, Babbs, and Walker, staging Acid Tests, and previously in 1950 and 1952 with Kerouac.
As you say, "If you remember the '60's you must not have been there," and I think that might be the problem here. Do you have any diaries or journals you could check for the exact year when you met Neal in Puerto Vallarta? I have some photos of Neal with George Walker and others (some unknown) in Mexico that I could send you if I had an address ...
Your amendment concerning Neal's first meeting with Ken Kesey is fine, by the way. Pitoucat 12:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Now it is my turn to be confused! The blow up you describe with Anne sounds well-documented, yet in my memory of our trip she was definitely there--something I remember well because of the hostility she displayed towards me--and a January, 1967 date doesn't fit the rest of the chronology. I will search my records and see what I can find that either verifies or refutes my memories of the dates. Car registration records may be my best bet.
Meanwhile if you could send me the photos you mentioned, that would be much appreciated; they may yield some clues. I would also like to share more of what happened during our time in Puerto Vallarta, though not in such a public forum. Is there a way we might correspond privately? I can provide both e-mail and physical addresses at that time.Founders4 21:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Fine, let me know your e-mail address and I will send the photos and continue this discussion privately. Pitoucat 23:02, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Following Review of Other Date Sources

Just reviewed a couple of other sources. As was the case with many of us during this period, Neal was all over the map in 1967-68, which adds to the difficulty of pinning down specific dates. All sources, however, agree that Neal died on February 4, 1968.

The reason I KNOW that I saw Neal in Puerto Vallarta in January, 1968 is because that trip intensified longstanding personality conflicts between me and my longtime girlfriend; after the trip we separated, and we both moved out of our house in February, 1968. We found out about Neal's death while we were packing.

If you read some of the interviews with Carolyn Cassady, she refers to a call she got from Neal shortly before he died, just as he was crossing the border into Mexico, though she doesn't provide an exact date. He voiced his desire to "come home," but she was sure it couldn't be that way.

So we know that Neal entered Mexico shortly before he died. The more I think about it, the more I think your January, 1967 information must reference an earlier trip. Please keep in mind the old adage, "If you remember the '60's you must not have been there." One really does have to put things together using several sources to get the dates right.

Hope the changes I made work for you. Neal made many trips to Mexico, and all we really know is that the trip he made just before he died was his last, so that's what I wrote. This leaves open the likelihood of an earlier trip during 1967.

Neal's mental and physical deterioration during the years after serving his sentence at San Quentin was quite severe, and his non-stop ingestion of methedrine, LSD and an assortment of other drugs didn't help. It was apparent to me the last time I saw him that Neal was in trouble; Carolyn says that he was in deep conflict, and essentially suicidal, during the last five years of his life. Nevertheless, his death still came as a shock; we all expected him to be around forever.Founders4 11:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Resolution of Date Disagreement

Thanks, Pitoucat, for sending me the primary source material confirming Neal's trip to Mexico in January, 1967 along with material that corroborates Anne Murphy's presence there during the same period.

I found the source of my error in thinking...a photo that was incribed "1968" instead of "1967." Regarding the contextual memory, I was simply mistaken.

I've changed the dates to reflect the reality. Neal, Anne, George et al stayed in a beachside house just south of Puerto Vallarta during January, 1967--not January, 1968 as I originally wrote.Founders4 07:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Photo removal, Spelling change to "Cassidy"

Please leave photo in this article.

Also, the correct spelling is "Cassady."

[edit] What about more discussion of his personality?

Yes, this is a very good and germane point. You write about his family history of an alcoholic father, constantly moving about, living meagerly just off the streets, and then as we all know Neal Cassady himself was a second generation partier, constantly on the move, living a checkered life in society in a very opportune and almost forgiving time where a modest income and the right friends could provide an aristocratic party lifestyle without having to own anything. Now its all about ownership and everything is so expensive people have to constantly work to keep their payments up and these times are anything but forgiving where occasional hard drinking is considered a serious disease and moral failing. Neal Cassidy would not have done nearly as well in these times and we would probably never of ever heard of him.

It may well be he comes from a family loaded with a form of workable bipolar mood disorder where self-medication with alcohol and the popular agents of the day followed two generations of its males. All the restive activity with the obvious high intelligence and charm and artistic ability yet self-destructive streak do point in this direction. But in the 60's this type of personality wasn't considered a disorder, but more a love and pain to those close to the person. Rather than medicalize it as would happen today, it was celebrated and immitated with high exuberance. A careful reading of all that was said and done shows both intense highs and lows thematic during his reign as the perfect guy everyone around him wanted to be.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's self-novel The Crack Up, or Keroacs tales of Big Sur, etc, these former brilliant authors talk about the down side of being up and their productivity cratered with it. You see this in so many artists of various mediums, Lennon went deeply into a black period, so did Garcia, and certainly did Cobain etc etc. All tragic endings. Brilliant minds, brave souls, and rather unpleasant later years. Its all mood changes, compounded by physical changes, relationships that went sour, and the lack of the feeling of freshness.

Some, workaholics, like Keysey, Babba Dam Rass(Alport) keep it much more together and just accepted changes gracefully as they knew the next morning they had work to do. And they had very different, more mood steady personalities yet not the full voltage of the others with the higher name recognition.

Finally, Neal Cassady was so popular as he was a stream of conciousness lubricant for the story-teller: he helped move the story along but he was not a perceptual artist like Kerouac. He was legs on the man, the necessary fulcrum to drop an observation on that would push it over the hill. Its not right to call Kerouac a stream-of-conciousness writer as that ignores his keen observational gifts of what he see's as he describes "the beat". Everyone wanted his take on what "the Beat" was and when he trys in vain to describe its 100 faces cracked into a diamond you have everyman explaining to a one dimensional audience a trip to the zoo. That is an artist, the one who can explain the blur of colors as you pass by so you too can see them one at a time. That was kerouac describing "the beat" inside the nightclub. You can see it. You can feel it. That was the real Kerouac, not this idealized notion of some Hemingwayesque character passing through a "moveable feast" of that era. Go back to the primary source and read him fresh. You will find his writing fresh as the day it was written, as if your reading it for the first time without all that other literary gossip noise.

As America crossed into the 1990's it lost its literary tradition as nothing fresh and vivrant, nothing alive, in this age of spin indoctrination and multi-tierd commercialization is going on anymore. Its as if the beats, the hips, the last gasp of the grunge's just stepped off the planet taking any real USA artistic originality with them. But if you go back and just read what the Beats were saying, they were predicting this all along, then the kid's came along with guitars and let us have one last spin before God closed up shop. There is an elder Keysey video of him at his farm showing a last few doodles in green on his way out the door. 209.101.236.168 21:39, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

His multiple marriages and bigamy and other fast-paced highjinx may seem like trash talk but it was his behavior that captured the imagination of Kerouac and others and inspired them to incorporate him in their work. Cassady wanted to write and did work on a novel (according to Carolyn Cassady who thought his writing was good). But his personality was such that he acted out his behavior rather than observe in the background as Kerouac did. So Cassady's outlandish behavior is part of the story. KarenAnn 12:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of "Cosmic Charlie" reference

"Cosmic Charlie" was a 60's street character, sometimes referred to as "The Wandering Holy Man." His real name was Charles Altman. The Grateful Dead tune by this name was not inspired by Neal Cassady.Founders4 08:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

This article seems to have far too many external links, anyone want to attempt to clean them up a bit? Russeasby 18:53, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with references

I added references (1) and (2) in the legacy section that discusses Cassady's appearance in Grateful Dead tunes. I think I did it properly, however the references do not come up when you click them. Any ideas?Apostle12 20:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 00:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image removed

I have removed the image on the basis of an OTRS ticket from his widow who asserts a fee *must* be paid for use of the image. --Brianmc 10:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Image was restored following some clarification on the purposes of Wikipedia. --Brianmc 11:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why the separate book categories?

Perhaps I'm a wiki-tard. Could someone explain to me why there's a separate category called "Further Reading" that contains only the title: Carolyn Cassady :Off the Road: Twenty Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg when that same title also appears earlier in the Published Bios section? Also, after following the link for the "Further Reading" section, I found nothing to indicate that book was published by Black Spring Press. When I searched Amazon, I found publisher as Penguin and the date as 1991, not 1990 or 2007. What's up with this? Leodmacleod - 4:54 27-09-07 (UTC)

Off the Road was first published in the UK by Black Spring Press in 1990, as a hardcover edition. Pitoucat (talk) 20:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


A new, revised verson of OFF THE ROAD was published this year. It is only available through Amazon UK. Carolyn Cassady has incorporated quite a bit of new information. Founders4 05:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Here is the link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/202-1407283-7727069?ie=UTF8&keywords=off%20the%20road&tag=newgranmegalitpa&index=blended&Amazon.co.uk.x=7&Amazon.co.uk.y=8&link%5Fcode=qs

Founders4 05:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


I'm still unclear on why a new version of the book merits a separate category. Shouldn't it simply supersede the reference in the Published Bios, or else be written in such a way as to make note of the both the original and revised versions? Leodmacleod - 6:48 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Your suggestion is a good one. Please make it clear, though, that the new edition is only available through AmazonUK. Thanks. Founders4 07:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not ONLY available through AmazonUK. It is available from any bookshop in the UK, and elsewhere. Pitoucat (talk) 12:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Cowboy Neal"

I removed the following comment that was prepended to the article:

Not to be confused with Cowboy Neal of Slashdot fame

If there are a sufficient number of people viewing this page who are looking for Slashdot's "Cowboy Neal", someone should setup a generic disambiguation page and use the disambiguation template. The removed comment above used non-standard formatting and did not contain a link to Slashdot's "Cowboy Neal". James A. Stewart (talk) 21:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I did just come here to try to find the reason why the Slashdot meme refers to this name - and I was quite surprised to end up here without so much as a disambiguation page. But having arrived here - I was VERY surprised that there was no indicator of other possible meanings of the term. I read this article - half expecting to find the answer to my question in this article - but since there isn't one - I guess the Slashdot use of this name doesn't refer to this guy. The trouble is that (I guess) we don't have an article on the Slashdot meaning of the term. Evidently there was an article "CowboyNeal" once - because there is an Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CowboyNeal. However, the result of that AfD was a 'keep' - so it's unclear how or why the article vanished. At any rate, there is no other article name to put in an {{otheruses|XXXX}} template - and otheruses with a redlink is rather uncool for our poor readership ("There is another meaning for this term - but we aren't going to tell you what it is.").
So, all in all, I think we need:
{{For2|the [[Slashdot]] poll [[meme]]|[[Slashdot]]}}
Which looks like this:
For the Slashdot poll meme, see Slashdot.
I guess I'll "Be Bold" and add it.
SteveBaker (talk) 23:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)