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Jack Kerouac 

"King of The Beats"

 March 12, 1922-October 21, 1969

 

 Favorite drink: Margaritaa, Red Wine, and Whiskey

 Method: Spontaneous prose

  Influences: Thomas Wolfe, Jazz & bebop, Buddhism 

  Education: Columbia University 

 

  • Kerouac won a football scholarship to Columbia, but dropped out in 1941 after an argument with his coach.

 

  • In 1943 Kerouac joined the Navy but was honorably discharged after six months.

 

  • In 1944 Kerouac was arrested after witnessing the murder of David Kammerer and helping his buddy to dispose of the body. There’s a book by Kerouac and Burroughs bout this. And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks.

 

  • In 1957 his most famous novel On the Road was an instant hit making him the poster child of the Beat Movement.

 

  • He started writing On the Road in French first.

 

  • It’s said that Kerouac produced On the Road over a 3 week benzo binge on a single 120 foot scroll of paper.

 

  • Kerouac died in 1969 with a pad of paper in his lap and pen in hand. 

 

 

Allen Ginsberg 

"Seeker of Knowledge"

June 3, 1926-April 5, 1997

 

Favorite drink: (Red) Wine

Method: Non-traditional poetic forms

Influences: Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams

Education: Columbia University, Montclair State University 

 

 

  • Ginsberg’s father, Louis, was a poet and teacher. His mother, Naomi, emigrated from Russia and struggled with her mental health.

 

  • Unlike Kerouac, Ginsberg graduated from Columbia in 1948.

 

  • Avoided jail time after being convicted as an accomplice to robbery by pleading insanity. He spent time in the university’s mental health facility.

 

  • Worked briefly in Manhattan at an Ad agency

 

  • Huge advocated of drug use

 

  • Coined the phrase “Flower Power”

William S. Burroughs 

"The Junkie"

February 5, 1914-August 2, 1997

 

Favorite drink:  Vodka & Coke, Tequila 

Method: Surrealism, Automatism 

Influences: Brion Gysin, Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg 

Education: Harvard University 

 

  • Burroughs accidentally killed his second wife, Joan Vollmer, in 1951

 

  • Burroughs was introduced to opium by his family’s housekeeper.

 

  • He was known for keeping to himself, and spent most of his free time with a .32 revolver and his pet ferret.

 

  •  Burroughs graduated with a degree in English literature from Harvard University in 193

 

  •  He purposely cut off his left pinky at age 25. (He brought his severed finger to his psychiatrist Herbert Wiggers, who admitted him to a mental hospital.)

  • Grew marijuana with his wife in Texas

 

  • Burroughs appeared on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. (He’s next to Marilyn Monroe in the middle.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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