My Beatnik Phase

My first introduction to Beatniks was the character Maynard G. Krebs from the television show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. He was funny, had a goatee, spoke using the Beat vocabulary, played the bongos - in short, did the things Beatniks were supposed to do.



I was a little young to be a Beatnik myself. I was only 9 when Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl was published. I was sort of a Hippie and I've always had a curiosity about Beatniks. While perusing the MassCat catalog looking for things to fix, I noticed the book Women of the Beat Generation and promptly requested it. It contains 40 short biographies of women who wrote during the 50s and early 60s and excerpts of their poetry and prose. Some of the women were wives (e.g. Carolyn Cassady) or daughters (Jan Kerouac) of notorious Beatniks. One was Diane di Prima. I liked her writing style and was curious to learn more about her. I then requested Memoirs of a Beatnik. The book is fiction, though based on her life. It is also pornographic. I would not classify it as erotica as it's too blatant, but it is well written.

The main character, who has the same name as the author, dropped out of college at 18 and moved to Manhattan where she had a lot of sex, smoked a lot of marijuana, spoke using the Beat vocabulary, lived communally, had a lot of sex, sometimes lived on the streets, wrote poetry, and had a lot of sex. While the stereotype of the Beatnik is dressed in black, Diane usually word blue jeans.

As I was reading her book, I kept wondering about the difference between Beatniks and Hippies.They appear to have a lot in common. Both were anti-establishment, supported free speech and free love, listened to music and used a lot of drugs.

The differences, I think, are mainly in style. Color was important to Hippies, the more the better. And bell-bottomed pants, the wider the better. Music was important to both. Beatniks preferred jazz while Hippies liked rock. The instrument of choice was also different. Beats banged on bongo drums while Hippies played the guitar. The Beat movement was based around literature, both poetry and prose. Hippies  sometimes read the psychedelic literature of Carlos Castaneda, but writing didn't have the same importance.

To round out my recent Beatnik experience, I borrowed the DVD Howl. This docu-drama is about Ginsberg's poem, the obscenity trial that followed, and interviews with Ginsberg (played by James Franco). The scenes flip back and forth from one to the other.

I have never read On the Road by Jack Kerouac, but that's on my list. How can I consider my Beatnik phase complete without reading that Beat classic?

As I said earlier, I was sort of a Hippie. I wore the clothes and the long, straight hair, smoked my share of marijuana and participated in other Hippie doings. Sometimes I think "Those were amazing and exciting adventures" and other times I think "How could I have done that?" Overall, financial security and basic comfort was important to me; I always had a job and an apartment.

I remember in the early to mid 1970s going to see the musical Hair which was playing at UMass. The music was great as were the costumes. And the cast "dropped trou" at the end. I also remember afterward thinking the play felt very dated. The Hippie years were over.