Sacramento Locomotive Works
Sacramento, CA I noticed the Southern Pacific name on the building immediately, as, like I mentioned previously in an older post, Kerouac and Neal well as Al Hinkle, worked for the company for a while, and Kerouac was very much preoccupied with the company and it is mentioned repeatedly throughout his books. As the … Continue reading
Boxcar
I assume I do not have to explain the motivation for including this photo on my blog to anybody who’s read ‘On The Road’ (or a biography about Kerouac), given his well-known love for freight trains and his (and Neal Cassady’s) working for the now defunct Southern Pacific railroad company.
Jack Kerouac’s Jacket
at The Beat Museum, Broadway, San Francisco The label reads: ‘This wool and cotton jacket belonged to and was worn by Jack Kerouac. The label is CPO, a brand popular in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The earth tones and broad checks reflected Kerouac’s working class aesthetic and it is the type of jacket Kerouac would … Continue reading
Neal and Carolyn Cassady’s house
These photos show the house in which Neal and Carolyn Cassady lived from 1949 to 1952. Jack Kerouac stayed with them a few times, the longest of which was a 6-month stint in which he worked on ‘On The Road’ ‘Dr Sax’ and ‘Visions Of Cody’ (according to Bill Morgan’s ‘The Beat Generation in San … Continue reading
Broadway Tunnel and Alfred’s Restaurant, San Francisco
This photo shows the Broadway Tunnel in North Beach/Russian Hill, San Francisco. Kerouac wrote about it in ‘The Subterraneans’, which was set in SF and not in New York, where the events told actually took place as well as other book(s). The yellow building in the center of the photograph shows the house in which … Continue reading
One Fast Move Or I’m Gone (Pt.2)
The Vesuvio Cafe, North Beach, San Francisco (next to the City Lights Bookstore). As the schedule on my trip didn’t permit me to go down to Bixby Canyon I chose to use this photo to accompany the post. For an overview of the project see pt.1 of my post here: http://wp.me/p1GcOs-35 The first few minutes … Continue reading
One Fast Move Or I’m Gone (Pt.1)
One Fast Move Or I’m Gone (Kerouac’s Big Sur) Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard … is a CD/DVD combo released in 2009 and was in fact the catalyst for me to (finally) start the project ‘Retracing Jack Kerouac’ (see the ‘About’ page). The center piece of the release is actually the 96 min film documenting … Continue reading
Bull Durham
Wandering down Columbus Ave. in San Francisco I saw this and had to think about the following scene in On The Road: “I picked up the turd, which was in a brownpaper cigarette, and went back to Bea and off we went to the hotel room to get high. Nothing happened. It was Bull Durham … Continue reading
Jack’s Hope
“All I hope, Neal, is someday we’ll be able to live on the same street with our families and get to be a couple of oldtimers together” (Quote from On The Road (The Original Scroll version)) I read this earlier today and found it very sad, as neither of both men did get to live … Continue reading
What Happened To Kerouac?
What Happened To Kerouac? is a 1986 film by Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams. I watched it for the first time last night, but as I am familiar with his story rather well, there wasn’t a whole lot of information in the film I didn’t yet know. Nevertheless it was interesting to hear and see … Continue reading
Retracing Jack Kerouac 