The Beats became possible because the US economy was thriving and cheap lodgings were available in the centers of the artist collectives. The way to defeat individualism and expansive ideas is to have an economy where living cheaply isn't possible. Exactly what we have today.
Indeed. It’s deliberate. It was so easy to survive back then. Reagan was the turning point.
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I was born one year after Brown v. Board Of Education in 1954. A big part of the economic boom of the 195O's. Was the rather Socialistic G.I. Bill Of Rights. It's pretty amazing to remember that the G.I. Bill Of Rights. Even though it was seriously bigoted and racist. Built all of that massive level of affordable housing. All over America. Which I grew up in during the late 195O"s and the 196O's and early 197O's. It's pretty amazing that the G.I Bill Of Rights was a government program? And that it actually came out of our Congress? But then during the Republican Eisenhower administration the tax rate on the wealthy was over 7O%. So they could afford to actually help the Middle-Class. So unlike the Republican Party today. Don't billionaires now pay no taxes at all? I'm not so sure there even were billionaires when I was growing up? What a world. Why do average folks vote for the Republican Party anymore? Like since Reagan who began the corporatization of everything. Obviously the wealthy are getting a lot. Minimum tax rates. Nothing like Republican Eisenhower. With his great booming economy. Which was certainly helped by the Marshall Plan. But what are average Republican folk's getting today? Or their children? Other than all of that patriarchal Republican bigotry and racism? Which takes us right back to Brown v. Board Of Education.💙
I recently read over Jack Kerouac's books - On the Road and Dharma Bums. There was a core of liberation and a fresh spirit but it could not be sustained. Like running a sprint, you have to stop to catch your breath. In my youth, I found profundity in his words, in my older age I saw a passing whim of liberty and irresponsibility. The beats hit a note that needed to be heard but can only played once in each generation.
They were incapable of creating anything profound or beautiful. Utimately, they were pretentious, shallow, f*cking bores. Only two good things can be said about them: they loved jazz, and Beatnik chicks were some of the most attractive women in history.
@@DukeOfData To me "On The Road" will rightfully be seen as a work of art if it is not viewed that way today. For me it captures the inocence, energy and the feeling of freedom of youth, at that time. I must add that although I had heard of it, I finally read it in my early 60s..I just could not but it down. I will read it again, soon. I certainly recommend it for any younger people and those free thinkers who are young in heart and mind...
My father was probably dying and my poor mother with 3 boys worried to death herself. In the entire street there was one crazy house of beatniks. They were the only ones who came to offer help. We finally managed to get the first non military penicillin after WW2 and dad recovered. I don’t forget
I had a group of hippies appear out of nowhere and helped me push start my vintage VW bug as it stalled in the road. They were so happy to help, and only wanted a wave and a smile for their trouble. I never forgot their kindness in an otherwise cruel world. ❤️
I'm met Allen Ginsburg and Peter Orlowski at a Bob Diylan concert in 1966. We spoke for about an hour. It was a seminal moment For me. I went on to become a full-fledged hippie a Moniker that I'm proud to wear. I consider myself a direct descendant of this deep spiritual connection to individualism, and Humanity.
@@phylliselizahb1041 What propaganda? Like all the information in the books like Chaos about manson and that book about laurel canyon that show the hippie movement to be a social engineering project instead of a bunch of people who thought it up on their own?
Man, you would have really bummed me out had you been talking me up for more than an hour at a Bob Dylan concert, but I understand that your generation took all of that stuff for granted. I feel us younger folks are paying for your extremism with regard to hedonism and nihilism. You were educated and disciplined and resented it, despite your successes and art. We, who were educated by your “free spirited” generation probably needed a little more than you could give. Your parents elevated your generation, and you dropped us off at daycare to be raised by totalizing state and market institutionalization. Your freedom was our fetters. You can’t see this because you’re bombarded with nostalgic propaganda.
in the late 90s i entered my 20s. the beatnik lifestyle had somehow re-emerged in that time, ever so briefly. coffee shops, open mics, book collecting pseudo-intellectual hipsters....were everywhere. these were my people. but it disappeared....again. how i wish it could be rediscovered one last time.
Beatniks of the 90’s? You are probably talking about the Bobo’s, les Bohemiens Bourgeoises as they were called in France. Left intellectuals, who wanted to be rich but pretending the knew and cared what was good for the working class. There are some things comparable between the American beatniks and the French generation of the fifties with Sartre, the existentialists.
Extremely well done documentary, thanks muchly. I thought it was Steve Allen playing piano when you first showed Kerouac reading. His playing live, as a soundtrack to the interview, was a brilliant idea & his improvisation shows how incredible a musician he was.
My parents were deep into the beatnik culture. Both born in 1939. Mom was from Brooklyn and Dad from Washington Height. When they told me they saw Bob Dillan in the Village it really opened my eyes to what their youth was all about. The Village in the 60s was their playground. As a GenXer who lived the alternative movement and Grunge from the late 80s into mid 90s both my parents and I related to the same ideas and thinking.
And they grew up and got jobs I assume like you. Nothing new in any of this really. The sad part is those that never grow up and at 45 are lonely and stand out.
@@map3384 Fairly typical of people that are from sub cultures. Many 1960s hippies would have voted for Reagan in the 1980s when they would have got tax cuts. For most the Beatnik movement was fun.
This was a great analysis, including much info that I had not heard before. It was wonderful to once again hear Kerouac read his prose on the Steve Allen show. Thank you for this!
My parents had Bohemian friends. One wrote the first shows for The Honeymooners. He took his own life as a young troubled man. His widow, Ruth Stone became one of America’s best regarded poets. Her poetry, of course, was about losing Walter. Her work is still published in The New Yorker.
I sincerely enjoyed this well put together presentation. Even though the Beatnicks were well before my time, I always found their visual style and taste in jazz music appealing.
I live according to many *Beat" principles, although as a 1956 baby, I came too late to be a beatnik of the time. I play jazz, again too late to revel in the heyday of jazz. I played piano for Steve Allen shows, lived in Hoboken, and played with some of the greatest jazz musicians. I appreciated ON THE ROAD and NAKED LUNCH, read all Hermann Hesse's poetry, essays and novels, smoked mass weed, hitchhiked and rode freight trains. "I even call my girlfriend 'man'". I resist conformity for myself, but dig the draw for squares😎. I am mostly retired now but still play in a jazz band. Our next gig features a poet and original pieces swinging in odd meters. I live the Beat life 75 years later.
I have a lot of sympathies with the Beat movement. From your point of view it's probably superficial and I can understand why. Yet, in these current times I believe it is critical to think critically...to think both inside and outside the 'box.' I envy your ability to play Jazz. I'm a Rock/Pop musician who has strived to improvise. I'm not there yet! I reject pharmaceutical means of the struggle because I have witnessed numerous musicians try and go that route. They were mediocre before getting high, mediocre during and mediocre after. That route is not a path for me. Of note, I came around roughly two years after you, late 1958.
I’m always fascinated by the fact that Burroughs wasn’t a young man during this era. By the time naked lunch came out he was a middle aged man of 45. It makes me reframe how I think of the people in certain generations. Burroughs, far from a baby boomer was even before the silent generation.
What happened to the Beatniks? The commercialization of the Beatniks... @27:00. Thanks for this short history of the Beatniks. It's really much appreciated and well produced. At 68, I'm a little too young to have lived through this, but this segment of history fascinates me. Before the Beatniks, there was the generation that came of age in the 1920s
Kerouac isn’t all that beat is about but one watch of him reading with Steve Allen on piano is all you need to get started on why beat is a fascination still
I am 67 but my older pals were beatniks-- before the hippies. (I late pal of mine was the stage hand/electrician that saved the day at Woodstock but that was very specific in what was READ and SAID.I fit in there but younger) These BEATNIK pals were a bit OLDER still. She was a ballet dancer and he had a leather jacket but not a standardized biker club we think of today. Georgetown had a poetry club and coffee cafe. They would snap their fingers instead of applause. The club was packed with beatniks every weekend! They loved jazz music and Washington DC had LOTS of jazz and still does. Also the folk music scene was coming in Beat was just before Bob Dylan. The colors were the avocado green that later was in the 1970's as well and brown, and demin but loose dungarees rolled at the cuff. Ballet tops, and for guys white tees with your pack of cigs rolled up the sleeve. Most girls probably did not have eyeliner but the dancers all did. This is what they told me, I miss them all. Free spirits! and of course they would say "Be There or Be Square". Yes, BeBop.
Very well done. When I was 18 and in college driving a '72 VW bus (circa '94/95) my dad gave me a copy of "On the Road" and said, "This is what we were reading in the 60's." And upon reading it I was so transformed that I dropped out of college and.. went on the road. What a time in life that I'm so grateful to have done, traveling for years all over the US working on farms and whatever. And now 30yrs later I just picked up the book again and am re-living so much of that time in my life-- as well as researching much of historical aspects and character's real lives (hence how this video ended up in my feed). But I must say that it was "Dharma Bums" that had the most impact on my life. Well, that and the "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", but that's a different story.
I was there in 1966, SF the Haight, et al. The Beatnik movement was driven by intellectuals, poet, academics, et al. They were not social activists or organizers. A few were. It petered out when the Hippie movement transcended the Beats with its music, organized gatherings, et al. I know the players and the history because I lived it.
Very cool times. I wish I could time travel back to then to experience it. I did visit Greenwich Village and SoHo back in 1970. I was chosen to travel there from my college with a group of other art students. It all looked pretty exciting at that time. Artists could afford to live in lofts, hang shows of their work, and talk about art. That all ended when the area became gentrified a couple of decades later.
A sad affair. The Village has been a haven for beatniks from well before they ever existed by that name. For a broader definition of beatnik, look at the long history of Greenwich Village. It was a groovy lifestyle back in the 1920's and 30's. I find it dreadfully limiting to use Jack Kerouac as a definer or measurer of happening.☕😎
Great interesting book. I read it twice. That was the root of the Beat & Hippies lifestyle & many don't even know it. The rise of Dadaism & Surrealism through these absolutely cool artists -- Toulouse-Latrec, Alfred Jarry (symbolist writer -- a rock band named themselves after his work as Pere Ubu), Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie & Guillaume Apollinaire. What an era to have lived in. These people would have been amazing to meet & talk to. Picasso admired Jarry so much that after Jarry's death, Picasso acquired many of his manuscripts. I thought the character Donald Sutherland played in Clint Eastwood's "Kelly's Heroes" was just a hippie during WWII which was inaccurate. I was wrong. My father, a WWII veteran, said there were people like that during the war & he knew several of them. A bit gypsy-like, creative, artistic, living by their own rules of life. Freewheeling. Yes, this book was more about artists than writers, but there was also avant-garde literature. Anyone interested in the creative ends of the Beats & Hippies should dive into this book. Good smart suggestion chuckbouscaren.
@@lastrada52 Very cool, you've given a perfect overview of that book. To me. this and Vasari's "Lives of the Artists" are two of my favorite art history books.
We lived in the personage of the Methodist Church at 133 West 4th Street from 1954 till 1961. Greenwich Village was our town and Washington Square Park was our backyard. My brother played chess on the permanent tables in the park and we skated on metal rollerskates that needed a key to tighten them. Life was peaceful and harmonious!
Good video, I enjoyed it. I don't think Beatniks ever really went away. Sure you can point to this time and place as a manifestation of Beatnik culture, but the same thing has happened in all sorts of places at some point, right around the world. Counter cultures keep popping-up and a good thing too! Like all derogatory terms, the expression 'Beatnik' lost it's negative connotations as time went on and it became 'lived-in' by the people it referred to, so they possessed it for themselves. Until I read On The Road I used to think the 'beat' in Beatnik referred to musical beats, and their liking of Jazz music. It's a good term as a matter of fact, and I wish it was used more frequently. The attitudes of the Beatniks and their style and dress sense will always keep being rediscovered by every new generation.
Rockabilly has some of it regarding the cut of the dungarees those blue jeans were loose fitting and rolled at the cuff. And for the guys your cigarette pack was rolled in your tee shirt sleeve. I think it changed with Dylan and also that war in Indiachina. So many lost that protest replaced poetry.
@@lonerose99 As far as I know that's right. I saw it in one of these Beatles biopics. Somebody at the record company asked about the name and John or Paul said it was because the group had the beat.
I'm a Gen-Xer. (76') I once asked my mother a Baby Boomer, what a Beatnick was. She really didn't give me a very good definition. She compared them to hippy's. This is such a great documentary. I would have loved to have been there at that time, to experience it for myself. It sounds absolutely glorious. Thank you.
I was coming into cultural awareness when the Beatnicks were waning and the hippies were just brewing. From my perspective, the Beatnix were the precursors to the hippies, and they were very similar.
@ awareness of culture. Does that make sense ? At early ages, maybe up to age 6 or so, (maybe it ends earlier these days) we just live in our bubble lives with little knowledge of the lives outside our little circle, including culture.
It's true. I don't give Kerouac much credit for anything except being a narcissistic pain in the ass. Be that as it may, he was just a symbol for what plenty of disaffected people were feeling without him.
Same way I feel about Brian Jones. Very difficult to separate the artist from the art. No Jones, no Stones, but damn was he one horrible, terrible, no-good human being.
Now you're sitting alone in front of a computer, dead inside, watching this... alone. Forever alone, alone. You are dead and dying with no connection to anyone. You are truly alone. No live music, no beat poet talking, no one to share the experience with. Alone.
They, and Kool Aid Test, were all fictions of American literature. Everybody has to eat today and retire tomorrow. The image was a romantic rebellion against suburban sameness. It did spur the Hippie movement, which brought down the Vietnam War.
My father was a beatnik who went by the name Saint Giffo. He never became a hippie. He was a deadbeat dad unfortunately. He was always interesting at parties. Lived in Toledo, OH. He even got to host a radio talk show in the the 1970s.
I can just about remember the beatniks, I was a very young kid at the time, always thought they were cool, exactly the type of life I planned for myself. And then they just disappeared and the hippie movement came along, which was also cool.
Our pastor and youth group leader took a bunch of us country kids to the Cafe Wha. We couldn't afford sodas, so we sat there gawking at people making out with each other along the walls. It was the first time most of us were panhandled.
Great video! Thanks Fun fact. Some lazy newspaper writer in Liverpool saw this article 23:06 , or one like it, and created his own version. Problem was there were no Beatniks in Liverpool, so he went to the local art college and found two scruffy guys who shared a flat, took their picture and used it in his article. Soon after they changed the name of their music combo to the Beatles. Connection? Stu Sutclliffe (the bass player) is thought to have come up with name. He died soon after. John Lennon (the other one) never gave a full explanation about the source of the name. He died in 1980, so I guess we’ll never know.
@@noelstafford7266 “Ask Paul.” I just tried to, but it seems I’ve lost his phone #. 😁 His version is he “thought the name sounded a bit creepy, but he changed his mind after learning about its clever double meaning, seeing it as truly literary.” He assumed the double meaning was a nod to the Crickets, but with a beat.
We need more content like this, to clarify, inspire and remind us of a past which in many ways is still present. I remember some of the other brothers used to ask if I hung-out in The Village, as if it was a mid-90's haven.
One thing I didn't see mentioned... Jack Kerouac's partner in crime, Neil Cassidy (Dean Moriarty) would go on to join the Ken Kesey group of hippies known as the Merry Pranksters and is featured in Tom Wolfe's novel Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He drove their psychedelic school bus Furthur! ☮
@@pcatful You could say he was a spark ✨ at the point of contact between the two distinct counter cultures, the Beats and the Hippies. I think Alan Ginsberg would be another, but that was at least alluded to here. 😎
It was a really worthwhile piece, and nice to see the history all pulled together in one place. I only felt it was let down a bit by the school essay style narration with mixing up of words like 'character' and 'caricature', and 'definitely' and 'defiantly'! But I guess none of the true hep cats here care for such square concerns... 🙂
I have a ton of respect for the Beat movement. There were many aspects to the downfalls, if you can call it that. To be a beatnik poet is like being a mime; it’s easy to become a mediocre mime, it is really, really difficult to become a great mime. Easy to imitate, but to be great takes lots of natural ability and even more dedicated training and practice. Everyone hates mimes because we only see the mediocre ones but not everyone can study under the great teachers and not everyone has the patience to appreciate it anyhow. In the same way the literary part of the beats was a movement of intellectuals analysing the downtrodden. Not everyone had resources or the privelige to be a professional intellectual, and not everyone has the patience to learn good poetry from bad and understand the social commentary. Also, the beat movement was a pile of different movements coinciding. Modern jazz has its own lineage, Modern dance has its own history, the visual art aspect was its own thing, and mod fashions its own. It wasn’t a cohesive movement, it was mutual appreciation etern them all with shared style tips. It was as if the movements showed up at the same party with the same dress on and became besties for a minute. None of them stopped doing their thing, they just went to different parties later. But what a stellar shindig that must have been! I would totally have been a beatnik back in the day.
The founder of the San Francisco Mime group went after into trascendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh... And panromime also almost disapeered... 🤔
They’re kinda a different lineage to Marcel Marceau since they speak and sing. But SF mime troupe is definitely connected to the North Beach, City Lights scene. I used to go to Delores park every 4th of July to see them debut their latest play. It was great stuff!
As a Gen-Xer, coming of age in the ‘Greed is Good’ 80’s in an isolated city on the other side of the planet, I was heavily into underground / punk culture & anti-nuke activism. I still absolutely devoured what I could find of the Beats. Their writings & ethos spoke to me. I felt connected to some age-old, long running sub-current. The thread is always picked up by later generations, appropriated, updated, transformed & re-energised. Thanks for this groovy short doco. “Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream.” JK
It was a rebellion against the consumerism of post war capitalism, when the economy was booming. The rebellion against racism, sex role stereotypes and social class structure of capitalism was a logical extension of this. Each subsequent generation has added their own touch to it. Sadly, as we get older, and have to settle down, get a steady job and raise families, most of us lose the freedom to openly rebel. Right now, we have a generation that won't even have the luxury of settling down and getting steady work, in a crappy economy that affects Whites & Blacks alike, and that will change the dynamic from what the beats of the affluent 50s & 60s experienced.
Having kids didn't stop Keroak or Burroughs from living wild and crazy lives. Though admittedly they were not great dads, and their kids did not turn out so well.
Bullshit. Drugged up acid dropping re(t)arded grown children running around. "Sex role sterotypes" my ass. Wanting to act like whores with none of the stigma or repercussions. Look at where that got us. A society that believes in nothing but themselves, loving nothing but themselves, caring about nothing but themselves. All while being absolutely incapable of even taking care of themselves. Useless.
I don't see that there was any sort of violence or destruction. The stage was set for the non-violent protests of the 60's. If anything, it was the era of police riots.
Endless wars, Greed is Good, Americans get their morality from Prosperity Gospels. Dead I voted with my feet and left the USA for good. Best decision of my life!
Should change the title, Should read: Why did so many cats, leave the Beatnik scene? Daddy Oh. Did they pack up their bongos, for Splitsville? Or did their old lady, just to want make it to Squaresville. Dig?
An astute and expressive sub-culture addresses the static 'normalcy' of the status quo. Eventually, subtle nuances of influence alter the main stream while various aspects of current events are further addressed which in-turn manifest a faster rate of social change throughout any given decade.
Thanks for this summary. I am from the uk but recently had the pleasure of meeting Joanna Maclure. Poet in her own right and previously married to Micheal Maclure. So probably one of the last survivers of this movement, and full of tales from the North Beach and later Haight/Ashbury where she still lives.
An absolute fantastic look on the Beats. Though I wasn't alive during that period I always loved that Era. I grew up reading Burroughs and Kerouac. Unfortunately I followed the same self destruction for many years. Lol. Great video! Loved it
Whether we call these movements "pop culture" or not, they constantly evolve. Creative sub-cultures form and are viewed as a threat to the mainstream. In time, more and more people adopt pieces of it, others find a way to market it and before you know it the people who never would have naturally gravitated to adopt accoutrements caricatures appear on prime time and the movement is dead. A new one evolves, and the cycle continues. The Beats weren't the first, nor the last. This doc is great!
I was a beatnik in the late 50s, and early 60s, and didn't even know it. I had bongos and puffed on hidden smokes and often lay awake listening to the sound of the night. My father had a copy of On the Road packed away in the basement.... I only found it and read it years later, but it was there, all that time.... Waiting.
The beatniks may have evolved into hippies but I think a lot their ideals are reflected in the punk movements in the 70s and early 80s. I always get a beatnik vibe from bands like the Clash and Social Distortion.
Thanks for putting the vid together, very enjoyable! I took a class in college in the mid 70's at Kent State, entitled Beat Poetry, very interesting and in the 90's ended up at City Lights book store. I like and still enjoy the literature and feel bad the youth of today are getting handed a much less pleasant world to live in that I enjoyed.
I think there will always be that “beatnik” spirit in every generation. It could the same as being a “mod” or a “casual”… I was a teenager in the eighties and all my friends were into the beatnik poets and became artists themselves. I became a graphic designer and studied in Switzerland and became an international designer having worked in almost every major city in the world. At present, I live in Tokyo where even though I don’t follow a lot of the poets of the Beat Generation, I became a follower of Jesus. I still listen to jazz and I am an enthusiast of finding my individuality and usually end of going against the grain of society, just like Jesus. I still enjoy fashion but I lean towards a “mod” approach. In this big roller coaster of life, we all are looking for answers. For me, the Bible is the ultimate poetry book and the bottom line to all of it is “just love your neighbor”.
Greenwich Village was the center of the Universe during the 1950s and 1960s. I grew up in Brooklyn but hung out a lot in the Village, first with the Beatniks, then with the Hippies.
sartorial note: those weren't leggings the cool & hip chicks were wearing, they were tights, according to Diane diPrima in her autobiography (THERE *_WAS_* A LADY BEAT POET, i guess most ppl forget & focus on the 3 main boys)
What went wrong was the "average american mentality": Everything, really everything has exactly the worth of the financial profite, that the establishment can squeeze out of it - even subcultures. The establishment has no interest in "ideas", "ideals" , iidealogies", way of expressing individuality, deeper thoughts, political or social development, emotions. They observe a new cuolural or subcultural "trend" or "fashion"and count out, how many profite potential lies in it and then cut off its skin - the mostly trivial marks, that a society, which is trained to love the mediocrite may enjoy without real understanding the movement as what it really tries to be - and sells it to the public, as long as it is "fresh enough" to,gain attention - and puts the rest of it into the garbage bin. In the U.S. it never mattered, if you're selling hot-dogs, books or the "style" of an intellectual subculture.- as long as you can make money with it and give dull normal people the feeling to be something "outstanding" "interesting" when they visit a party or want to impress a potential lover. Its part of the illusion, that sells the "american dream" The same, lame, shitty process happened and still happens to every social movement or subcultural movement that ever existed: Static main cultures try to swallow every sub- or anti-culture and finally sell-out and kill it. And it is allways a kind of _dilemma:_ for on the one hand the main culture must absorb such micro-societies to avoid losing the control over it - on the other hand they are the only inspration for the main society to develop further, for mainstream societies are static, infertile and self-repeating without getting such pushes from time to time from the outbreaking sub-cultures, they paradoxly actually hate and fear....
Exactly. What can be sold to the masses is quickly consumed, till it's just a shell of itself. That kinda sucks, doesn't it? But it doesn't seem to stifle creativity at least.
Approximately 20 minutes in its states the beats became a commercial commodity and their credibility was lost. It's very true and I saw it happening. I later saw it happen to the hippies as well and then later the punk rock movement and reggae. it never fails. Once the media and the main stream get a hold of something, say goodbye to the essence, and the truth of it.
I always thought that the evolution went like this: The Beatniks became the Hippies, The Hippies became the Yuppies, and the Yuppies became CEOs of insurance companies.
Raised by Beats (in SF). They worked very very hard at their crafts (writing, music, arts, etc.). They didn't just sit around and get high all day like the hippies. Even when "using"-they were incredibly productive. Ironically, I developed my strong work ethic from the beats (Beatnik Elegy)
This is an excellent, measuresd, documentary. The movement spread to Britain and I was one of those who, inspired by Kerouac, went "on the Road" to Istanbul and Afghanistan. Many of us came back, enriched, to the pattern of marriage, career, etc, but thungs could never be the same. May we know the name of the narrator? She is perfect, balanced, communicative, human.. The total opposite of the robots who now infest the commantaies of YT documentaries.
Pretty good. Thanks for creating this. A couple minor corrections with your style descriptions about 16 minutes in. The 50s mainstream style for American women was actually short hair, as you can see in Hollywood's movies and the advertisements from the time. If anything, some of the Beatnik women wore their hair long, which might have been a bridge to the long hair of the '60s!
That may be true, but It’s almost impossible to anticipate what the next big thing will be in music… it usually just happened organically by a label taking a chance on something new sounding. They should’ve realized that if Beatnik Jazz hadn’t already gone mainstream with young people by 1960, it wasn’t going to. One can make a strong case that the 60s Folk Era evolved out of the 50’s Beatnik movement but instead of having to be a top-notch jazz musician, Folk Artists could get by on just being a decent acoustic guitar player who could put Beatnik style lyrics to a catchy melody. That made it much more accessible to the average ear. Bob Dylan (while probably not a true Beatnik) was heavily influenced by the Beat Generation.
@@garrickmusic Watch the documentary 1959 The Year That Changed Jazz (free on UA-cam). Jazz music was already in flux, transitioning to Experimental/Abstract, proto-Funk, Electronic. By the mid 60s most Jazz musicians were migrating to Hard Rock, Prog Rock, proto-Metal, Motown and Funk. "Jazz" was commercially dead by early 70s.
I am of the Beat generation. Years later, when we were in our mid-40s, I said to an old friend, "Where did they go?" He answered, "We all work for the bank now." I miss the all-night discussions of philosophy. Some crazy ideas, but, man, they got you thinking. You were wrong to equate the Beat movement with America: very few Americans think for themselves. We were the antithesis of the American Dream. You were wrong, too, in saying that the Pilgrim Fathers came to America for religious freedom. The opposite is true: the pilgrims came to America because, although by no means universal, there was too much religious freedom in England. They wanted everybody to be forced to worship as Calvanists. Eek!!
Every colony had distinct funding, founding, and thinking. It was difficult to bond. Everyone has to eat today and retire tomorrow. Dad money sending you to Columbia University and expecting diners to extend credit both run out when you act like there is no essentially adult behavior.
and that is why we have so many Freudian infantilizing toilet paper commercials, the anal retention in this country still lingering from those hard-arse Pilgrims...maybe the beats were trying to loosen up the good ol' sphincter?
I was about 5 years old in Brooklyn at the time. I had Professor in College in the 1970's who taught us about the beat generation. But, the video taught me about the riot I never knew took place till now.
I am a beatnik. Always have been. Reject conformity live a freestyle life like jazz jam. Knew Ginsberg, hung with Kesey and Garcia, kicked it with Leary and Ferligetti, still play jazz, do open mic every chance I get. Read all the beats, saw all the jazz greats. Hung with the Bohemes and still do. Tripped often hang at village vanguard make art live art. Live art in motion. Hang in jazz cafe. Do modern art. Freestyle with everything.. skateboards, art life in general. Always take chances, freestyle with what you got. Be in the moment. Be who u are. Still jam espresso and poetry slam. Keep it open and freestyle. Eat organic, buy nothing, grow my own etc. rocking the jazz always. Wrote my own stay creative follow the dharma. Play all instruments. Freestyle. Love
This video made me realize how ignorant I was about the Beat generation….. after hours of videos and some weird poetry… I am still ignorant…. But I have a better understanding of American culture, and how we got here. Awesome videos!!!!
The Village Vanguard, Cafe Wha, poetry readings, and different scenes going on simultaneously in Washington Square Park are still happening. Maybe the Beatniks are gone, but creative activity in Greenwich Village continues on.
Washington DC had beatniks too, coffee and poetry in Georgetown, ballerinas in tights and tee shirts and bikers in leather, but before motorcycle clubs we think of today. Striped shirts, berets and snapping your fingers instead of applause. Jazz was a big part of it and reading philosophy. Dungarees a bit large with rolled hems. And probably cigarettes. They may or may not have read On The Road but they were in jazz clubs and as noted poetry was key.
For sure. The Dupont Circle scene was full of Beats and later Hippies. There were several cool jazz clubs, like the "Etc." and "Club Kavakos." The Folio Bookshop sold avant-garde literature.
I was influenced and fascinated by them over many years. I see now that their scene would have been insufferably pretentious and snobbish. The hood element that latched onto the scene might at least have grounded things a bit
Yes. Bad poetry read badly remains as bad decades later as it did then lol. One big shift in mid 60s was to good poetry in the form of rock lyrics delivered in much more appropriate format. Not that there wasn't great beat poetry. There was just a lot more bad stuff that history has mercifully let slide into the dustbin of history. And average poetry in a rock song can be fantastic, unlike read poetry.
Would you have been a Beatnik in 1959?
🚬🥸 most likely
I've been one of the mad ones lifelong
Without a doubt. 😎✌️
My mom was, so I became a damn dirty hippie in the ‘70’s. 😅
Just born. My mom watched the Dobie GIllis TV show -I 1st heard of a beatnik.
The Beats became possible because the US economy was thriving and cheap lodgings were available in the centers of the artist collectives. The way to defeat individualism and expansive ideas is to have an economy where living cheaply isn't possible. Exactly what we have today.
Indeed. It’s deliberate. It was so easy to survive back then. Reagan was the turning point.
I was born one year after Brown v. Board Of Education in 1954. A big part of the economic boom of the 195O's. Was the rather Socialistic G.I. Bill Of Rights.
It's pretty amazing to remember that the G.I. Bill Of Rights. Even though it was seriously bigoted and racist. Built all of that massive level of affordable housing. All over America. Which I grew up in during the late 195O"s and the 196O's and early 197O's.
It's pretty amazing that the G.I Bill Of Rights was a government program? And that it actually came out of our Congress? But then during the Republican Eisenhower administration the tax rate on the wealthy was over 7O%. So they could afford to actually help the Middle-Class. So unlike the Republican Party today.
Don't billionaires now pay no taxes at all? I'm not so sure there even were billionaires when I was growing up? What a world.
Why do average folks vote for the Republican Party anymore? Like since Reagan who began the corporatization of everything. Obviously the wealthy are getting a lot. Minimum tax rates. Nothing like Republican Eisenhower. With his great booming economy. Which was certainly helped by the Marshall Plan. But what are average Republican folk's getting today? Or their children? Other than all of that patriarchal Republican bigotry and racism?
Which takes us right back to Brown v. Board Of Education.💙
The beats post WW11 saw the devastating results.,broke from conformity. The squares had the power,as they do now.
Beginning Jan 21, 2025, things are going to get much, much more expensive. Project-2025 is the culmination of the plan.
NOTHING you stated was correct.
I recently read over Jack Kerouac's books - On the Road and Dharma Bums. There was a core of liberation and a fresh spirit but it could not be sustained. Like running a sprint, you have to stop to catch your breath. In my youth, I found profundity in his words, in my older age I saw a passing whim of liberty and irresponsibility. The beats hit a note that needed to be heard but can only played once in each generation.
So well articulated
They were incapable of creating anything profound or beautiful. Utimately, they were pretentious, shallow, f*cking bores. Only two good things can be said about them: they loved jazz, and Beatnik chicks were some of the most attractive women in history.
Very cool man... very cool...
I breathed in those books as a teenager, I am sure they would hit nowhere near as hard at 45
@@DukeOfData To me "On The Road" will rightfully be seen as a work of art if it is not viewed that way today. For me it captures the inocence, energy and the feeling of freedom of youth, at that time. I must add that although I had heard of it, I finally read it in my early 60s..I just could not but it down. I will read it again, soon. I certainly recommend it for any younger people and those free thinkers who are young in heart and mind...
My father was probably dying and my poor mother with 3 boys worried to death herself. In the entire street there was one crazy house of beatniks. They were the only ones who came to offer help. We finally managed to get the first non military penicillin after WW2 and dad recovered.
I don’t forget
Thank you for sharing this memory
Those are good neighbors. Thanks for telling your story.
I had a group of hippies appear out of nowhere and helped me push start my vintage VW bug as it stalled in the road. They were so happy to help, and only wanted a wave and a smile for their trouble. I never forgot their kindness in an otherwise cruel world. ❤️
This is maybe the best-written, narrated, and concise synopsis of the beats I've come across. Well done!
Thank you so much 🙏
Yes , l would've cut back on the use of the word iconic. Otherwise, the writer did the beats justice.
Now, putting down your phone and enjoying the day outside seems like a revolutionary act. I'm crying inside. 😢
It sounds like you need to get outside.😉
They see how our protests were sabotaged by the ruling greed. Turns out "we" were correct about alternate energy needs & environment concerns.
I voted with my feet and left the USA for good. Best decision of my life. I moved to Nature Island Caribbean
I'm met Allen Ginsburg and Peter Orlowski at a Bob Diylan concert in 1966. We spoke for about an hour. It was a seminal moment For me. I went on to become a full-fledged hippie a Moniker that I'm proud to wear. I consider myself a direct descendant of this deep spiritual connection to individualism, and Humanity.
Tough to tell folks yer a genuine hippie w/the propaganda spread about us.
@@phylliselizahb1041 What propaganda? Like all the information in the books like Chaos about manson and that book about laurel canyon that show the hippie movement to be a social engineering project instead of a bunch of people who thought it up on their own?
Man, you would have really bummed me out had you been talking me up for more than an hour at a Bob Dylan concert, but I understand that your generation took all of that stuff for granted. I feel us younger folks are paying for your extremism with regard to hedonism and nihilism. You were educated and disciplined and resented it, despite your successes and art. We, who were educated by your “free spirited” generation probably needed a little more than you could give. Your parents elevated your generation, and you dropped us off at daycare to be raised by totalizing state and market institutionalization. Your freedom was our fetters. You can’t see this because you’re bombarded with nostalgic propaganda.
It after the concert!
@ At the time the one sound we were not listening to was, parental nonsense. THEY DID NOT LOOK HAPPY!
in the late 90s i entered my 20s. the beatnik lifestyle had somehow re-emerged in that time, ever so briefly. coffee shops, open mics, book collecting pseudo-intellectual hipsters....were everywhere. these were my people. but it disappeared....again. how i wish it could be rediscovered one last time.
Same here. Although I avoid nostalgia, I do miss that easy , coffee & smoke vibe
Beatniks of the 90’s? You are probably talking about the Bobo’s, les Bohemiens Bourgeoises as they were called in France. Left intellectuals, who wanted to be rich but pretending the knew and cared what was good for the working class. There are some things comparable between the American beatniks and the French generation of the fifties with Sartre, the existentialists.
@dragonmartijn no, not really.
I think this scene began in New Orleans and must have ran from there. The early 90's it was all that scene.
Lame
Extremely well done documentary, thanks muchly.
I thought it was Steve Allen playing piano when you first showed Kerouac reading. His playing live, as a soundtrack to the interview, was a brilliant idea & his improvisation shows how incredible a musician he was.
@@AniMerDol thank you so much! Appreciate your kind words🙏
i can barely make out the words. the piano volume is too loud.
Yes, it was Allen, he was part of it all and interviewed everybody back then.
@freewheelingideas You're very welcome. 😊
@@Doo_Doo_Patrol That's too bad. I didn't find it so.
My parents were deep into the beatnik culture. Both born in 1939. Mom was from Brooklyn and Dad from Washington Height. When they told me they saw Bob Dillan in the Village it really opened my eyes to what their youth was all about. The Village in the 60s was their playground. As a GenXer who lived the alternative movement and Grunge from the late 80s into mid 90s both my parents and I related to the same ideas and thinking.
And they grew up and got jobs I assume like you. Nothing new in any of this really. The sad part is those that never grow up and at 45 are lonely and stand out.
@ My dad was a NYPD officer and mom was a middle manager for Pentax and Minolta. I’m a high school social studies teacher.
@@map3384
Fairly typical of people that are from sub cultures. Many 1960s hippies would have voted for Reagan in the 1980s when they would have got tax cuts. For most the Beatnik movement was fun.
Do you have children? If so, are there any current movements that they relate to?
This was a great analysis, including much info that I had not heard before. It was wonderful to once again hear Kerouac read his prose on the Steve Allen show. Thank you for this!
@@NeoNorse you’re welcome 🙏
“They were often seen rolling their own cigarettes & playing bongos” made me spit out my beer!
Sign me up!!
@@JCSAXON lots of progress skills there
They were challenging the gender norms of their times. It's something that counter cultures have pretty much always done.
"Hey man, don't be a square you dig?"
They were smokin' some mary jane...
The photographic material in this video is literally enthralling. Thank you for your hard work.
You’re so welcome and thank you for recognizing that. You’re right, it’s a lot of work ✌️
@@freewheelingideas 💖
My parents had Bohemian friends. One wrote the first shows for The Honeymooners. He took his own life as a young troubled man. His widow, Ruth Stone became one of America’s best regarded poets. Her poetry, of course, was about losing Walter. Her work is still published in The New Yorker.
Honeymooners...best tv show of all time.😌💗
@ Ruth daughter taught me strip poker. That’s pretty Bohemian, lol.
I sincerely enjoyed this well put together presentation. Even though the Beatnicks were well before my time, I always found their visual style and taste in jazz music appealing.
I’m so happy to hear this! Thank you for your support 🙏
I live according to many *Beat" principles, although as a 1956 baby, I came too late to be a beatnik of the time. I play jazz, again too late to revel in the heyday of jazz. I played piano for Steve Allen shows, lived in Hoboken, and played with some of the greatest jazz musicians. I appreciated ON THE ROAD and NAKED LUNCH, read all Hermann Hesse's poetry, essays and novels, smoked mass weed, hitchhiked and rode freight trains. "I even call my girlfriend 'man'". I resist conformity for myself, but dig the draw for squares😎. I am mostly retired now but still play in a jazz band. Our next gig features a poet and original pieces swinging in odd meters. I live the Beat life 75 years later.
You make me feel kinda blue.
Hermann Hesse was also popular later and still today!
I have a lot of sympathies with the Beat movement. From your point of view it's probably superficial and I can understand why. Yet, in these current times I believe it is critical to think critically...to think both inside and outside the 'box.'
I envy your ability to play Jazz. I'm a Rock/Pop musician who has strived to improvise. I'm not there yet!
I reject pharmaceutical means of the struggle because I have witnessed numerous musicians try and go that route. They were mediocre before getting high, mediocre during and mediocre after. That route is not a path for me. Of note, I came around roughly two years after you, late 1958.
@@RickJensen-b4yI see what you did there. Clever! 👍
@Larrymh07 i spent the summer at my grandmother's house in San Francisco, across the street from golden gate park. The year was 1967.
I’m always fascinated by the fact that Burroughs wasn’t a young man during this era. By the time naked lunch came out he was a middle aged man of 45. It makes me reframe how I think of the people in certain generations. Burroughs, far from a baby boomer was even before the silent generation.
I have never liked Burroughs. I think he's just plain bad news. Drugs and underage buggery of naive boys who wanted to look up to him.
I think he was a predator.
As a writer he was in a different class than Kerouac and Ginsberg who were both more children of their time. Ginsberg was just a hippie.
@@lornahuddleston1453 Yea, but you can't #metoo him because he didn't try to hide who he was or what he did.
Yep. And he was part of virtual every counter culture and alternative culture he lived through.
What happened to the Beatniks? The commercialization of the Beatniks... @27:00.
Thanks for this short history of the Beatniks. It's really much appreciated and well produced. At 68, I'm a little too young to have lived through this, but this segment of history fascinates me.
Before the Beatniks, there was the generation that came of age in the 1920s
You’re very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it 🙏
The same that happened to the hippies, it turned consumer and main stream.
That's Hemingway and the "Lost Generation" Having all their beliefs striped away in the War To End All Wars
Kerouac isn’t all that beat is about but one watch of him reading with Steve Allen on piano is all you need to get started on why beat is a fascination still
I am 67 but my older pals were beatniks-- before the hippies. (I late pal of mine was the stage hand/electrician that saved the day at Woodstock but that was very specific in what was READ and SAID.I fit in there but younger) These BEATNIK pals were a bit OLDER still. She was a ballet dancer and he had a leather jacket but not a standardized biker club we think of today. Georgetown had a poetry club and coffee cafe. They would snap their fingers instead of applause. The club was packed with beatniks every weekend! They loved jazz music and Washington DC had LOTS of jazz and still does. Also the folk music scene was coming in Beat was just before Bob Dylan. The colors were the avocado green that later was in the 1970's as well and brown, and demin but loose dungarees rolled at the cuff. Ballet tops, and for guys white tees with your pack of cigs rolled up the sleeve. Most girls probably did not have eyeliner but the dancers all did. This is what they told me, I miss them all. Free spirits! and of course they would say "Be There or Be Square". Yes, BeBop.
Very well done. When I was 18 and in college driving a '72 VW bus (circa '94/95) my dad gave me a copy of "On the Road" and said, "This is what we were reading in the 60's." And upon reading it I was so transformed that I dropped out of college and.. went on the road. What a time in life that I'm so grateful to have done, traveling for years all over the US working on farms and whatever. And now 30yrs later I just picked up the book again and am re-living so much of that time in my life-- as well as researching much of historical aspects and character's real lives (hence how this video ended up in my feed). But I must say that it was "Dharma Bums" that had the most impact on my life. Well, that and the "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", but that's a different story.
❤🎉😊😊
I was there in 1966, SF the Haight, et al. The Beatnik movement was driven by intellectuals, poet, academics, et al. They were not social activists or organizers. A few were. It petered out when the Hippie movement transcended the Beats with its music, organized gatherings, et al. I know the players and the history because I lived it.
I was a late Beatnick. an early Hippíe life's been good !
Punk was my generation Beatnik movement
Very cool times. I wish I could time travel back to then to experience it. I did visit Greenwich Village and SoHo back in 1970. I was chosen to travel there from my college with a group of other art students. It all looked pretty exciting at that time. Artists could afford to live in lofts, hang shows of their work, and talk about art. That all ended when the area became gentrified a couple of decades later.
Read Thomas Pynchon's V. The beats are there. No "forlorn rags of growing old." Just there.
A sad affair. The Village has been a haven for beatniks from well before they ever existed by that name. For a broader definition of beatnik, look at the long history of Greenwich Village. It was a groovy lifestyle back in the 1920's and 30's. I find it dreadfully limiting to use Jack Kerouac as a definer or measurer of happening.☕😎
>>> "Bohemian London" - Nick Rennningston (from Shakespeare to Punk )
Adam Curtis documentaries. See them all. *Please* come back and comment again afterwards.
This is a great overview of the beats. I recommend reading Roger Shattuck's "The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant Garde in France 1885 to WWI.
Thank you! I’ll check that out. Thanks for the recommendation!
Great interesting book. I read it twice. That was the root of the Beat & Hippies lifestyle & many don't even know it.
The rise of Dadaism & Surrealism through these absolutely cool artists -- Toulouse-Latrec, Alfred Jarry (symbolist writer -- a rock band named themselves after his work as Pere Ubu), Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie & Guillaume Apollinaire. What an era to have lived in. These people would have been amazing to meet & talk to. Picasso admired Jarry so much that after Jarry's death, Picasso acquired many of his manuscripts.
I thought the character Donald Sutherland played in Clint Eastwood's "Kelly's Heroes" was just a hippie during WWII which was inaccurate. I was wrong. My father, a WWII veteran, said there were people like that during the war & he knew several of them. A bit gypsy-like, creative, artistic, living by their own rules of life. Freewheeling.
Yes, this book was more about artists than writers, but there was also avant-garde literature. Anyone interested in the creative ends of the Beats & Hippies should dive into this book. Good smart suggestion chuckbouscaren.
@@lastrada52 Very cool, you've given a perfect overview of that book. To me. this and Vasari's "Lives of the Artists" are two of my favorite art history books.
Embrace the dadaists!
We lived in the personage of the Methodist Church at 133 West 4th Street from 1954 till 1961. Greenwich Village was our town and Washington Square Park was our backyard. My brother played chess on the permanent tables in the park and we skated on metal rollerskates that needed a key to tighten them. Life was peaceful and harmonious!
Endless wars robbed the people of life
Good video, I enjoyed it. I don't think Beatniks ever really went away. Sure you can point to this time and place as a manifestation of Beatnik culture, but the same thing has happened in all sorts of places at some point, right around the world. Counter cultures keep popping-up and a good thing too! Like all derogatory terms, the expression 'Beatnik' lost it's negative connotations as time went on and it became 'lived-in' by the people it referred to, so they possessed it for themselves. Until I read On The Road I used to think the 'beat' in Beatnik referred to musical beats, and their liking of Jazz music. It's a good term as a matter of fact, and I wish it was used more frequently. The attitudes of the Beatniks and their style and dress sense will always keep being rediscovered by every new generation.
Rockabilly has some of it regarding the cut of the dungarees those blue jeans were loose fitting and rolled at the cuff. And for the guys your cigarette pack was rolled in your tee shirt sleeve. I think it changed with Dylan and also that war in Indiachina. So many lost that protest replaced poetry.
Yes, people worship the names, the fashion, the appearance and not the ideas.
Is that why the Beatles spell their name like they did? I can't recall if I read that somewhere lol, gettin' older.
@@lonerose99🏆You win. Correct.
@@lonerose99 As far as I know that's right. I saw it in one of these Beatles biopics. Somebody at the record company asked about the name and John or Paul said it was because the group had the beat.
Who needs documentaries when you can capture so well a unique time of culture in just over half an hour? Well done!
I'm a Gen-Xer. (76') I once asked my mother a Baby Boomer, what a Beatnick was. She really didn't give me a very good definition. She compared them to hippy's. This is such a great documentary. I would have loved to have been there at that time, to experience it for myself. It sounds absolutely glorious. Thank you.
It's funny because the beatniks christened the hippies, a term of disdain taken from the term hipster.
I was coming into cultural awareness when the Beatnicks were waning and the hippies were just brewing.
From my perspective, the Beatnix were the precursors to the hippies, and they were very similar.
@@indigop38 what do you mean by cultural awareness?
@ awareness of culture. Does that make sense ?
At early ages, maybe up to age 6 or so, (maybe it ends earlier these days) we just live in our bubble lives with little knowledge of the lives outside our little circle, including culture.
@indigop38 so basically social studies?
Jack Kerouac left his wife in three kids to follow his dream well he caused them horrendous pain My opinion he was a douchebag
A real dead-beat daddio?
It's true. I don't give Kerouac much credit for anything except being a narcissistic pain in the ass. Be that as it may, he was just a symbol for what plenty of disaffected people were feeling without him.
Same way I feel about Brian Jones. Very difficult to separate the artist from the art. No Jones, no Stones, but damn was he one horrible, terrible, no-good human being.
You aren’t talking about Kerouac, you are talking about Neal Cassady.
I met his wife in Berkeley while hitching around the West coast.
She agreed with your assessment.
For what it's worth, so do I.
Now you're sitting alone in front of a computer, dead inside, watching this... alone.
Forever alone, alone. You are dead and dying with no connection to anyone. You are truly alone. No live music, no beat poet talking, no one to share the experience with. Alone.
Snap-Snap-Snap, man.
where do I go what do I do
Uncanny! however did you know?
Thanks for reminding me.
With all the halfwit sheep out there, I wouldn't have it any other way.
What a fantastic video have a great weekend Freewheeling ❤😊
My headmaster at school called me a 'Beatnik' in 1988 😂😂😂😂
I've read On The Road several times and it's easy to be carried away with it's romantic notions. Great read.
They, and Kool Aid Test, were all fictions of American literature. Everybody has to eat today and retire tomorrow. The image was a romantic rebellion against suburban sameness.
It did spur the Hippie movement, which brought down the Vietnam War.
Wonderful documentary! Well paced and researched.
Thank you so much 😊
My father was a beatnik who went by the name Saint Giffo. He never became a hippie. He was a deadbeat dad unfortunately. He was always interesting at parties. Lived in Toledo, OH. He even got to host a radio talk show in the the 1970s.
I feel the flames o freedom. If i ever go to New York i will have coffee at cafe Wha ! Greetings from Gothenburg, Sweden
I can just about remember the beatniks, I was a very young kid at the time, always thought they were cool, exactly the type of life I planned for myself. And then they just disappeared and the hippie movement came along, which was also cool.
You got that right Big Daddy😎
Cool Daddyo. Give me some skin man.
Remember seeing Midge Maisel at the Gaslight and went over to Cafe Wa right after to see Lenny Bruce. Those where the days!
That was such a great series!
Our pastor and youth group leader took a bunch of us country kids to the Cafe Wha. We couldn't afford sodas, so we sat there gawking at people making out with each other along the walls. It was the first time most of us were panhandled.
Very nicely done! I really enjoyed the way this video was put together.
Great video! Thanks
Fun fact. Some lazy newspaper writer in Liverpool saw this article 23:06 , or one like it, and created his own version. Problem was there were no Beatniks in Liverpool, so he went to the local art college and found two scruffy guys who shared a flat, took their picture and used it in his article. Soon after they changed the name of their music combo to the Beatles.
Connection? Stu Sutclliffe (the bass player) is thought to have come up with name. He died soon after. John Lennon (the other one) never gave a full explanation about the source of the name. He died in 1980, so I guess we’ll never know.
@@jbell6642 thank you 🙏
Ask Paul. I'm sure he's answered that many times by now.
I always assumed The Beatles was a direct reference to the Beats.
@@noelstafford7266
“Ask Paul.”
I just tried to, but it seems I’ve lost his phone #. 😁
His version is he “thought the name sounded a bit creepy, but he changed his mind after learning about its clever double meaning, seeing it as truly literary.”
He assumed the double meaning was a nod to the Crickets, but with a beat.
@@jbell6642 well there you go. Cheers ✌🏼🌻
We need more content like this, to clarify, inspire and remind us of a past which in many ways is still present. I remember some of the other brothers used to ask if I hung-out in The Village, as if it was a mid-90's haven.
One thing I didn't see mentioned... Jack Kerouac's partner in crime, Neil Cassidy (Dean Moriarty) would go on to join the Ken Kesey group of hippies known as the Merry Pranksters and is featured in Tom Wolfe's novel Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He drove their psychedelic school bus Furthur! ☮
there was cowboy neil at the wheel of the bus to neverland...........
Yes ,sort of a beat-hippie transition, aided by psychedelics.
@@pcatful You could say he was a spark ✨ at the point of contact between the two distinct counter cultures, the Beats and the Hippies. I think Alan Ginsberg would be another, but that was at least alluded to here. 😎
Yes that was pivotal in the cultural change as was that sad war in Indochina.
I had a beatnik form teacher at London secondary school in 1964. He was brilliantly creative
What a thougthful and well put together piece. Thank you.
It was a really worthwhile piece, and nice to see the history all pulled together in one place. I only felt it was let down a bit by the school essay style narration with mixing up of words like 'character' and 'caricature', and 'definitely' and 'defiantly'! But I guess none of the true hep cats here care for such square concerns... 🙂
@@papercup2517 I dig you Daddy.
I have a ton of respect for the Beat movement. There were many aspects to the downfalls, if you can call it that. To be a beatnik poet is like being a mime; it’s easy to become a mediocre mime, it is really, really difficult to become a great mime. Easy to imitate, but to be great takes lots of natural ability and even more dedicated training and practice. Everyone hates mimes because we only see the mediocre ones but not everyone can study under the great teachers and not everyone has the patience to appreciate it anyhow. In the same way the literary part of the beats was a movement of intellectuals analysing the downtrodden. Not everyone had resources or the privelige to be a professional intellectual, and not everyone has the patience to learn good poetry from bad and understand the social commentary.
Also, the beat movement was a pile of different movements coinciding. Modern jazz has its own lineage, Modern dance has its own history, the visual art aspect was its own thing, and mod fashions its own. It wasn’t a cohesive movement, it was mutual appreciation etern them all with shared style tips. It was as if the movements showed up at the same party with the same dress on and became besties for a minute. None of them stopped doing their thing, they just went to different parties later.
But what a stellar shindig that must have been!
I would totally have been a beatnik back in the day.
The founder of the San Francisco Mime group went after into trascendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh... And panromime also almost disapeered... 🤔
They’re kinda a different lineage to Marcel Marceau since they speak and sing. But SF mime troupe is definitely connected to the North Beach, City Lights scene.
I used to go to Delores park every 4th of July to see them debut their latest play. It was great stuff!
The Beatniks and the hippies created a conformity of their own.
As a Gen-Xer, coming of age in the ‘Greed is Good’ 80’s in an isolated city on the other side of the planet, I was heavily into underground / punk culture & anti-nuke activism. I still absolutely devoured what I could find of the Beats. Their writings & ethos spoke to me. I felt connected to some age-old, long running sub-current. The thread is always picked up by later generations, appropriated, updated, transformed & re-energised.
Thanks for this groovy short doco.
“Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream.” JK
Beatniks are idiots.
Like I'm with you. Well said. The Beat Scene is a state of mind. It keeps coming back around to new generations. It's a groovy thing.
Same here
It was a rebellion against the consumerism of post war capitalism, when the economy was booming. The rebellion against racism, sex role stereotypes and social class structure of capitalism was a logical extension of this. Each subsequent generation has added their own touch to it. Sadly, as we get older, and have to settle down, get a steady job and raise families, most of us lose the freedom to openly rebel. Right now, we have a generation that won't even have the luxury of settling down and getting steady work, in a crappy economy that affects Whites & Blacks alike, and that will change the dynamic from what the beats of the affluent 50s & 60s experienced.
Having kids didn't stop Keroak or Burroughs from living wild and crazy lives. Though admittedly they were not great dads, and their kids did not turn out so well.
@prschuster Kerouac: "A lot of hoods, hoodlums and communists jumped on our backs."
You should listen more.
Bob Dylan made a fortune singing songs about consumerism...
@@FantomasXZ7 If they give you money for singing songs about consumerism, take the money, and write more songs about consumerism. It worked for him.
Bullshit. Drugged up acid dropping re(t)arded grown children running around. "Sex role sterotypes" my ass. Wanting to act like whores with none of the stigma or repercussions. Look at where that got us. A society that believes in nothing but themselves, loving nothing but themselves, caring about nothing but themselves. All while being absolutely incapable of even taking care of themselves. Useless.
Simon and Garfunkel’s song “America” beautifully reflects a Beat sensibility.
commercial shit. beat was moondog and he was fucked. simon and g. never were fucked, just 'hip'.
@@mikebauer4343real
The “Beatnik Riot” showed they had more sense 60 years ago than their descendants do today.
Beatniks had descendants? Oh right, this was before the pill.
@@pcatful We are still here we are called the Greens (Bernie and AOC) "Despair is not an option"
I don't see that there was any sort of violence or destruction. The stage was set for the non-violent protests of the 60's. If anything, it was the era of police riots.
@@ruskinyruskiny1611Okay man. But you could calm your groove Daddy-O
@ruskinyruskiny1611 😆 🤣 😂 Beatniks were as far away from Green as you can imagine except that they both want other people to work and provide for them
This vid was a big " ah ha" moment for me. Thanks for that. I was a little younger, Janis and Jimi, Timothy Leary , Abbie Hoffman, Altamont.
Me too, I must've come up the same time you did.
I miss the Village of that time. All the great cafes, chess clubs, book stores etc.
Endless wars, Greed is Good, Americans get their morality from Prosperity Gospels. Dead
I voted with my feet and left the USA for good. Best decision of my life!
Thank you. Well done. Great channel.
@@johnmitchelljr thank you so much 😊
Should change the title, Should read: Why did so many cats, leave the Beatnik scene? Daddy Oh. Did they pack up their bongos, for Splitsville? Or did their old lady, just to want make it to Squaresville. Dig?
We need this approach now more than ever.
An astute and expressive sub-culture addresses the static 'normalcy' of the status quo. Eventually, subtle nuances of influence alter the main stream while various aspects of current events are further addressed which in-turn manifest a faster rate of social change throughout any given decade.
Like that was beautiful. Very nicely put. ☕✌️😎
Thanks for this summary. I am from the uk but recently had the pleasure of meeting Joanna Maclure. Poet in her own right and previously married to Micheal
Maclure. So probably one of the last survivers of this movement, and full of tales from the North Beach and later Haight/Ashbury where she still lives.
You’re welcome 🙏
An absolute fantastic look on the Beats. Though I wasn't alive during that period I always loved that Era. I grew up reading Burroughs and Kerouac. Unfortunately I followed the same self destruction for many years. Lol. Great video! Loved it
So glad to hear and thank you 🙏
I was only 14 in '59, but by '69 I was a hippie.
10 yrs later I was for it all. I'm known as the "younger sister". Blech, there's even a name for me.
Whether we call these movements "pop culture" or not, they constantly evolve. Creative sub-cultures form and are viewed as a threat to the mainstream. In time, more and more people adopt pieces of it, others find a way to market it and before you know it the people who never would have naturally gravitated to adopt accoutrements caricatures appear on prime time and the movement is dead. A new one evolves, and the cycle continues. The Beats weren't the first, nor the last. This doc is great!
Hippies became marketable like beatniks. It's always greed & conformity.
I was a beatnik in the late 50s, and early 60s, and didn't even know it. I had bongos and puffed on hidden smokes and often lay awake listening to the sound of the night. My father had a copy of On the Road packed away in the basement.... I only found it and read it years later, but it was there, all that time.... Waiting.
You weren't. They called themselves "Beats."
@@aquatarkus2022 I was 8 at the time.
Like groovy. ☕
I was 7 in 1960. I was surrounded by card carrying Beatniks. I didn't seek it out. It was already in my face. My house was a hangout.
The beatniks may have evolved into hippies but I think a lot their ideals are reflected in the punk movements in the 70s and early 80s. I always get a beatnik vibe from bands like the Clash and Social Distortion.
when beatnicks dropped acid they realized how stupid they were and converted to hippies, and that died too
Thanks for playing take 5. Cool Daddy O
😎☕
Thanks for putting the vid together, very enjoyable! I took a class in college in the mid 70's at Kent State, entitled Beat Poetry, very interesting and in the 90's ended up at City Lights book store. I like and still enjoy the literature and feel bad the youth of today are getting handed a much less pleasant world to live in that I enjoyed.
You’re very welcome!
Rage against the machine until you become the machine...
A often heard phrase: "We didn't sell out; we 'bought into'. "
Good documentary! It will probably inspire a lot of people to do some research into the rise & fall of "The Beats"!!
Great channel.
@@Max-qi3hg thank you so much 🙏
Excellent information and rendered in a an enthralling fashion.
I think there will always be that “beatnik” spirit in every generation. It could the same as being a “mod” or a “casual”… I was a teenager in the eighties and all my friends were into the beatnik poets and became artists themselves. I became a graphic designer and studied in Switzerland and became an international designer having worked in almost every major city in the world. At present, I live in Tokyo where even though I don’t follow a lot of the poets of the Beat Generation, I became a follower of Jesus. I still listen to jazz and I am an enthusiast of finding my individuality and usually end of going against the grain of society, just like Jesus. I still enjoy fashion but I lean towards a “mod” approach. In this big roller coaster of life, we all are looking for answers. For me, the Bible is the ultimate poetry book and the bottom line to all of it is “just love your neighbor”.
Right on.
Jesus is the best choice one can ever make.
A creative Creator God that blesses us each day with amazing sunrises and sunsets.
Thank you for a very interesting analysis of the era. It is very well written and narrated, which is not the norm nowadays. 😅 31:05 31:11
The road goes on. thanks
Greenwich Village was the center of the Universe during the 1950s and 1960s. I grew up in Brooklyn but hung out a lot in the Village, first with the Beatniks, then with the Hippies.
sartorial note: those weren't leggings the cool & hip chicks were wearing, they were tights, according to Diane diPrima in her autobiography (THERE *_WAS_* A LADY BEAT POET, i guess most ppl forget & focus on the 3 main boys)
My father-in-law was a jazz musician in the scene described, but ended up as far as possible from a beatnik as you could imagine.
He got responsibilities, grew up, and took responsibility. It happens to all but the most useless people. Just part of living.
@@samuelpalmer8305 So you are a "surplus population" kinda guy, Sammy?
@ what’s that?
@@samuelpalmer8305 Dickens. A Christmas Carol.
@@robertsteele474 oooh that’s depressing
What went wrong was the "average american mentality": Everything, really everything has exactly the worth of the financial profite, that the establishment can squeeze out of it - even subcultures. The establishment has no interest in "ideas", "ideals" , iidealogies", way of expressing individuality, deeper thoughts, political or social development, emotions.
They observe a new cuolural or subcultural "trend" or "fashion"and count out, how many profite potential lies in it and then cut off its skin - the mostly trivial marks, that a society, which is trained to love the mediocrite may enjoy without real understanding the movement as what it really tries to be - and sells it to the public, as long as it is "fresh enough" to,gain attention - and puts the rest of it into the garbage bin.
In the U.S. it never mattered, if you're selling hot-dogs, books or the "style" of an intellectual subculture.- as long as you can make money with it and give dull normal people the feeling to be something "outstanding" "interesting" when they visit a party or want to impress a potential lover. Its part of the illusion, that sells the "american dream"
The same, lame, shitty process happened and still happens to every social movement or subcultural movement that ever existed: Static main cultures try to swallow every sub- or anti-culture and finally sell-out and kill it.
And it is allways a kind of _dilemma:_ for on the one hand the main culture must absorb such micro-societies to avoid losing the control over it - on the other hand they are the only inspration for the main society to develop further, for mainstream societies are static, infertile and self-repeating without getting such pushes from time to time from the outbreaking sub-cultures, they paradoxly actually hate and fear....
Exactly. What can be sold to the masses is quickly consumed, till it's just a shell of itself. That kinda sucks, doesn't it? But it doesn't seem to stifle creativity at least.
This was really interesting. Thank you!
Don't be square, be hep cat. Not much has changed in the last 75 years.
It's got dummer
@randybackgammon890 There ya go
@randybackgammon890Why such a cube daddy-o
I'm hep, Daddy-O.
Approximately 20 minutes in its states the beats became a commercial commodity and their credibility was lost. It's very true and I saw it happening.
I later saw it happen to the hippies as well and then later the punk rock movement and reggae. it never fails. Once the media and the main stream get a hold of something, say goodbye to the essence, and the truth of it.
Truth in that
Conforming to be different
All sub cultures have their rules of conformity.
Conforming to conform.
I always thought that the evolution went like this: The Beatniks became the Hippies, The Hippies became the Yuppies, and the Yuppies became CEOs of insurance companies.
Love all those "secret heroes"
Raised by Beats (in SF). They worked very very hard at their crafts (writing, music, arts, etc.). They didn't just sit around and get high all day like the hippies. Even when "using"-they were incredibly productive. Ironically, I developed my strong work ethic from the beats (Beatnik Elegy)
“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”
I would have been a Greaser.
This was excellent. Keep up the good work.
Thanks, will do!
This is an excellent, measuresd, documentary. The movement spread to Britain and I was one of those who, inspired by Kerouac, went "on the Road" to Istanbul and Afghanistan. Many of us came back, enriched, to the pattern of marriage, career, etc, but thungs could never be the same. May we know the name of the narrator? She is perfect, balanced, communicative, human.. The total opposite of the robots who now infest the commantaies of YT documentaries.
Awesome thank you 🙏 Jennifer
Pretty good. Thanks for creating this. A couple minor corrections with your style descriptions about 16 minutes in. The 50s mainstream style for American women was actually short hair, as you can see in Hollywood's movies and the advertisements from the time. If anything, some of the Beatnik women wore their hair long, which might have been a bridge to the long hair of the '60s!
rumour has it, that when Decca turned down the beatles.... they were anticipating beatnik jazz to be the next big thing ..
😄
That may be true, but It’s almost impossible to anticipate what the next big thing will be in music… it usually just happened organically by a label taking a chance on something new sounding. They should’ve realized that if Beatnik Jazz hadn’t already gone mainstream with young people by 1960, it wasn’t going to.
One can make a strong case that the 60s Folk Era evolved out of the 50’s Beatnik movement but instead of having to be a top-notch jazz musician, Folk Artists could get by on just being a decent acoustic guitar player who could put Beatnik style lyrics to a catchy melody. That made it much more accessible to the average ear. Bob Dylan (while probably not a true Beatnik) was heavily influenced by the Beat Generation.
@@garrickmusic Watch the documentary 1959 The Year That Changed Jazz (free on UA-cam). Jazz music was already in flux, transitioning to Experimental/Abstract, proto-Funk, Electronic. By the mid 60s most Jazz musicians were migrating to Hard Rock, Prog Rock, proto-Metal, Motown and Funk. "Jazz" was commercially dead by early 70s.
I am of the Beat generation. Years later, when we were in our mid-40s, I said to an old friend, "Where did they go?" He answered, "We all work for the bank now."
I miss the all-night discussions of philosophy. Some crazy ideas, but, man, they got you thinking. You were wrong to equate the Beat movement with America: very few Americans think for themselves. We were the antithesis of the American Dream. You were wrong, too, in saying that the Pilgrim Fathers came to America for religious freedom. The opposite is true: the pilgrims came to America because, although by no means universal, there was too much religious freedom in England. They wanted everybody to be forced to worship as Calvanists. Eek!!
This is important history you're telling us. I really bought the lies.
That explains much to me!
Every colony had distinct funding, founding, and thinking. It was difficult to bond.
Everyone has to eat today and retire tomorrow.
Dad money sending you to Columbia University and expecting diners to extend credit both run out when you act like there is no essentially adult behavior.
and that is why we have so many Freudian infantilizing toilet paper commercials, the anal retention in this country still lingering from those hard-arse Pilgrims...maybe the beats were trying to loosen up the good ol' sphincter?
I was about 5 years old in Brooklyn at the time. I had Professor in College in the 1970's who taught us about the beat generation. But, the video taught me about the riot I never knew took place till now.
Glad to help!
I am a beatnik. Always have been. Reject conformity live a freestyle life like jazz jam. Knew Ginsberg, hung with Kesey and Garcia, kicked it with Leary and Ferligetti, still play jazz, do open mic every chance I get. Read all the beats, saw all the jazz greats. Hung with the Bohemes and still do. Tripped often hang at village vanguard make art live art. Live art in motion. Hang in jazz cafe. Do modern art. Freestyle with everything.. skateboards, art life in general. Always take chances, freestyle with what you got. Be in the moment. Be who u are. Still jam espresso and poetry slam. Keep it open and freestyle. Eat organic, buy nothing, grow my own etc. rocking the jazz always. Wrote my own stay creative follow the dharma. Play all instruments. Freestyle. Love
This video made me realize how ignorant I was about the Beat generation….. after hours of videos and some weird poetry… I am still ignorant…. But I have a better understanding of American culture, and how we got here. Awesome videos!!!!
Thank you kindly 🙏
@ I have Howl, Naked Lunch, Junky and on the road on the way to my house from thrift books as we speak.
Thank YOU! And keep it up!
Thanks…Long Live the Beats 😎
Excellent presentation. Thank you.
You’re very welcome ✌️
The Village Vanguard, Cafe Wha, poetry readings, and different scenes going on simultaneously in Washington Square Park are still happening. Maybe the Beatniks are gone, but creative activity in Greenwich Village continues on.
Is there a new group of people?
@@lonerose99There will always be
Thank you very much! Even.though I grew up reading and appreciating the beat writers and poets, I didn't know most of the stories in this video.
Growing up.... marriage... children.... work.... LIFE
We have a lot to thank these trailblazers for ❤
Washington DC had beatniks too, coffee and poetry in Georgetown, ballerinas in tights and tee shirts and bikers in leather, but before motorcycle clubs we think of today. Striped shirts, berets and snapping your fingers instead of applause. Jazz was a big part of it and reading philosophy. Dungarees a bit large with rolled hems. And probably cigarettes. They may or may not have read On The Road but they were in jazz clubs and as noted poetry was key.
For sure. The Dupont Circle scene was full of Beats and later Hippies. There were several cool jazz clubs, like the "Etc." and "Club Kavakos." The Folio Bookshop sold avant-garde literature.
I was influenced and fascinated by them over many years. I see now that their scene would have been insufferably pretentious and snobbish. The hood element that latched onto the scene might at least have grounded things a bit
Agreed.
Yes. Bad poetry read badly remains as bad decades later as it did then lol.
One big shift in mid 60s was to good poetry in the form of rock lyrics delivered in much more appropriate format.
Not that there wasn't great beat poetry. There was just a lot more bad stuff that history has mercifully let slide into the dustbin of history.
And average poetry in a rock song can be fantastic, unlike read poetry.
The _very first shot_ of your vid is of The Gaslight Cafe, which is a tattoo parlor now, where I got inked 30 years ago!
Well done!