JACK KEROUAC on THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW with Steve Allen 1959

THIS IS THE ONLY KNOWN MOTION PICTURE OF BEAT GENERATION WRITER AND ICON JACK KEROUAC READING HIS OWN WORK
For licensing inquiries please contact Historic Films Archive
([e-mail] / www.historicfil...)

[@phillipruland4886]

No one reads Kerouac better than Kerouac. Brilliant!

[@TheDacapo1]

I was thinking the same thing. The reading performance was brilliant and priceless. What has happened to late night talk show TV? Dear God, what has happened?

[@gianca60]

Only poets should read poetry, not actors.

[@gangoffour6690]

It’s like he wrote it himself !

[@gangoffour6690]

horatiodreamt Pablum is consumed orally ! 🥣. Recent survey states the average American reads LESS THAN 1 BOOK PER YEAR !

[@alexdebua]

And that jazz make his voice rityhm perfect. Or otherwise. Like a french poem indeed.

[@Carollynelavignedepp]

Jack Kerouac wrote about this interview in Big Sur: "the hell with the hot lights of Hollywood (remembering that awful time only a year earlier when I had to rehearse my reading of prose a third time under the hot lights of the Steve Allen Show in the Burbank studio, one hundred technicians waiting for me to start reading, Steve Allen watching me expectant as he plunks the piano, I sit there on the dunce's stool and refuse to read a word or open my mouth "I dont have to REHEARSE for God's sake Steve" - "But go ahead, we just wanta get the tone of your voice, just this last time, I'll let you off the dress rehearsal" and I sit there sweating not saying a word for a whole minute as everybody watches, finally I say "No I cant do it" and I go across the street to get drunk) (but surprising everybody the night of the show by doing my job of reading just fine, which surprises the producers and so they take me out with a Hollywood starlet who turns out to be a big bore trying to read me her poetry and wont talk love because in Hollywood man love is for sale)

[@Pantano63]

What a whiny bitch lmao

[@erfanglb7735]

The last line👌 ,jack knew it better...

[@CadeCYC]

Thank you!

[@krieg-thewarwithin6040]

Nice

[@DoggyBaggg]

leonardo h LMFAOO!!!1.... dude, please...

[@donaldkelly5376]

An amazing time when America produced and praised creativity and intelligence. Look how far it has fallen.

[@prschuster]

We've come all the way from On the Road to Pound Town

[@riskaponia8424]

"I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."

[@kostassalerakis1024]

I have highlighted that one

[@elpieshinchados]

@@kostassalerakis1024 me too

[@koushiksen7790]

Just highlighted it in my copy couple of weeks back while reading it in a densely populated public trasport on my way to college and also added a translation in my mothertounge as a footnote...

[@geoffreylogsdon162]

That is what l want on my tombstone. Everyone l know would say that is accurate.

[@johnluke6122]

Kerouac was a really dark soul on the inside and tried his best to stay clean on the outside. I love him.

[@totoo1594]

Agreed

[@patricktruchon9153]

@Bubba B On a certain level, yes absolutely. But he was always obsessed with money (or lack of it). When Neal Cassidy wrote him from prison asking for $50 to buy a typewriter Jack pleaded poverty and never sent it. Without Neal, no OTR. Shameful. He was lionized and didn't like it. He knew himself and drank himself to an early grave. One hell of a writer, though.

[@jmanning6620]

Drinking the way he did would turn anyone into a bitter anf tormented soul.

[@edwinatollstoy4837]

I don't think he was necessarily a dark soul, lonely and depressed yes but unlike say Lucien Carr there was nothing violent or murderous in him, in fact he died after getting punched when he tried to break up a fight in a bar (though the alcohol was the reason he hemorrhaged after getting punched and bled to death, one of the liver's important functions is creating coagulating factors in plasma aka platelets that create scabs and stop bleeding so after he got punched in the stomach he died vomiting blood a day later. brutal, but that's alcoholism). He was a very restless guy, obviously uncomfortable in his own skin, haunted you might say but his view of life was generally angelic in the sense that he never wanted to hurt anyone and mostly didn't deliberately at least. Of course when you are self-destructive, addicted and killing yourself you hurt everyone who loves you but not on purpose. I guess he tried to quit drinking during the Big Sur escepade and after that failure he gave up, or so said one of his friends, maybe John Clemmons Holmes. In many ways he was like Kurt Cobain destroyed by a kind of media obsession that adored them in an adolescent way, whereas they both were shy and not particularly interested in fame at least when they realized their romanticized youthful when bearing fruits were more like a nightmare you couldn't escape from than anything else and they both wanted to be taken seriously for their merits as artists, not for being the center of a ridiculous media circus than made them both increasingly uncomfortable and unhappy. Essentially, an Kerouac said as much before and after it happened to him (so did Kurt), at least in terms of the soul killing effects of post war consumerism- being turned into a product killed his soul which was on shaky ground to begin with.

[@aprilsummer8906]

That's your contribution to this amazing writer's performance here? That sounds like your take on things.

[@elizabethtolman9423]

He changed my life in high school. I will always be grateful.

[@HalMundane]

This clip is priceless. I need it in my life. I have watched it dozens of times. It captures Jack at a very good moment.

[@LoveFlatfootin1]

Yes, he looks healthy and strong. Wish I could have met him. Allen Ginsberg's father lived a couple of houses down from us in Paterson, New Jersey in the 1950s.

[@andrewmair7371]

Jack in the ZONE … 😊 🎯

Zac McGovern indeed, why? 👍

[@robinsss]

if there was no Kerouac what movement would the hippies have joined?

[@aztiff]

I listen to it from my Kerouac box set almost daily

[@riskromer9773]

so how come television moved from this magnificent format to the shit we have today?

[@lucasherrera5368]

white people

[@SlappyG]

+Lucas Herrera ... Yeah white people that changed the face of the world and the stigma of racism in the 40's and 50's... Know your history before you speak gibberish...

[@faustus5481]

....because 50-something years of social engineering has us circling the bowl.

[@viggosimonsen]

You may well ask. I asked myself the same question when watching live debates from the same era. Educated and civilized men discussing a subject in length, well-spoken, calm, witty, wise. The loss of cultural capital is phenomenal, over a period that spans no more than one lifetime.

[@RobertMichaelTodd]

really? do Americans just blame their presidents instead of taking responsibility for their own lives? their own world?

[@RRAREBEAR]

something about this always speaks volumes to me. the subtle nature of the talk show, the music, the quietness and the honesty of the cameras rolling. and kerouac : shy, introverted, but bursting with stories and internal life. the way he writes and jumps from one idea to another in a seemingly random pattern like the thoughts of our own minds. his life, tragic, sad, wandering as it might have been called - is such a golden story, and he knew how to capture it effortlessly in his own timeless voice. "all the stories I wrote were true - because I believed in what i saw." as the heavy clock rolls on .... timeless, timeless, timelessssssssssssss. I love you jack kerouac!!!!! RIP to a true human.

[@michaelcastro6731]

I love Steve Allen tinkling on the piano at the beginning and that wonderful reading from Jack. He died too soon and yet his spirit lives on in his books and this wonderful video uploaded on KZbin from The Steve Allen Show. Thank you.

[@erniesullivan]

Bar Stools & Bus Stops.

[@phoenix-hm3qy]

BAR STOOLS & BUS STOPS.

[@nihalmirza1221]

On the Road was beautiful, Dharma Bums was good too, but some were too self indulgent and made sense to just his in crowd. Henry Miller is miles ahead.

[@flowerdoodle2438]

Well writ

[@oldschoolm8]

Steve Allen vamping and interpreting an artists answers on the piano during an interview is such a cool idea. Tv is shit nowadays!

[@TheDacapo1]

Dear God, what has happened to late night TV? I mean, really how did it happen to lose so much? This performance should be in every American English Lit/Poetry classroom.

[@tactictoe]

Now you have James Corden and Jimmy Fallon hee-hawing like braying donkeys while laughing falsely and trying to be everybodies pal.

[@oldschoolm8]

@Proper I don’t think so, Jack and Steve were good friends, they even recorded a jazz/spoken word LP together. Unsurprisingly, Jack was apparently very drunk during this interview, he probably didn’t take anything to heart! I think we’re just used to talk show hosts being sycophantic and pandering to divas nowadays and not challenging guests.

[@EricPerrault-q1c]

Public schools, colleges and entertainment all controlled by leftists who ushered in the dumb age.

[@clen7206]

Propaganda Live on Italy's LA7 Channel has a jazz band that play in the background while the presenter and guests talk. It's a cool vibe

[@arcadiumb]

"A lot of people have asked me why did I write that book or any book. All the stories I've wrote were true because I believed in what I saw. I was traveling west one time, at the junction of the state line of Colorado, its arid western one, and the state line of poor Utah, I saw in the clouds huge and massed above the fiery golden desert of evening fall the great image of God, with forefinger pointed straight at me. Through halos and rolls and gold folds that were like the existence of a gleaming spear in his right hand and sayeth : ' C'mon boy, go thou across the ground; go moan for men; go moan, go grown, go grown alone, go roll your bones, alone. Go thou an be little beneath my sight. Go thou and be minute as seeds in a pod. Go thou, go thou and die hence and this world report you well and truly." Any way I wrote the book because we are all gonna die. In the loneliness of my life, my father dead, my brother dead, my mother far away... my sister and my wife far away, nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a (?) sweet attention and now are left to guide and disappear in their own way into the common dark of all our deaths. Sleeping in my raw bag alone and stupid, with just this one pride and consolation, my heart broke in the general despair and opened up inwards to the Lord. I made a supplication in this dream. So in the last page of on the road I described how the hero Dean Moriarty is coming to see me all the way from the west coast, just for a day or two. We just been back and forth across the country several time in cars and now our adventures are over. We're still great friends, we had to go into later phases of our lives. So there he goes, Dean Moriarty, wragged (?) in the ?? overcoat he brought specially for the freezing temperatures of the east, walking off alone and last I saw him he rounded the corner of seventh avenue , eyes on the street ahead and bent to it again, gone. So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty. Corrections are most welcome as I'me not a native english speaker thus forgive my butchering of Kerouac's words!

[@marcopoloplanner8843]

Moth eaten overcoat

[@vegabright2093]

I post this once again in such a way: "A lot of people have asked me why did I write that book or any book. All the stories I wrote were true because I believed in what I saw. I was traveling west one time, at the junction of the state line of Colorado, its arid western one, and the state line of poor Utah I saw in the clouds huge and massed above the fiery golden desert of evening fall the great image of God with forefinger pointed straight at me through halos and rolls and gold folds that were like the existence of the gleaming spear in His right hand, and sayeth: C'mon boy, go thou across the ground; go moan for man; go moan, go groan, go groan alone, go roll your bones, alone; go thou, and be little beneath my sight; go thou, and be minute and as seed in the pod, go thou, go thou, and die hence; and of this world report you well and truly. Anyway I wrote the book because we are all gonna die. - In the loneliness of my life, my father dead, my brother dead, my mother far away, my sister and my wife far away, nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a sweet attention, that now are left to guide and disappear their own way into the common dark of all our deaths, sleeping in me raw bed, alone and stupid: with just this one pride and consolation: my heart broke in the general despair and opened up inwards to the Lord, I made a supplication in this dream. So in the last page of «On the Road» I described how the hero Dean Moriarty is coming to see me all the way from the west coast, just for a day or two. We've just been back and forth across the country several time in cars and now our adventures are over. We're still great friends but we have to go into later phases of our lives; so there he goes, Dean Moriarty, in the ragged, moth-eaten overcoat that he brought specially for the freezing temperatures of the east, walking off alone and last I saw of him he rounded the corner of seventh avenue, eyes on the street ahead and bent to it again. Gone. So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty I think of Dean Moriarty…"

[@shiruetto3534]

Uffff

[@michaelzhu0929]

@@vegabright2093what is this excerpt from? Is it On the Road?

[@Pittie21]

Outstanding 😊

[@bodensick]

Steve Allen was soooo cool! For a guy who looked so straight he had very edgy guests and was actually a pretty hip guy.

[@joshclark1047]

bodensick Steve Allen had to pretend to be square for TV but was hip as hip gets.

[@bodensick]

Josh, you're right about that. Steve did an interview one time and he really talked openly about his love of jazz and blues music. A very "hip" guy. He and his wife stayed married which is unusual for Hollywood.

[@PeteJones81]

And it's great how nice he was to Jack! You could tell Kerouac respected him, which isnt something many people can say

[@zu0832]

He wrote "Gravy Waltz"!

[@daviddoyle4516]

Steve was the hippest and best informed,its just that nobody knew it,,,,

[@mhbackman]

A few years ago, as the pandemic was hitting Australia, I cycled and camped my way around Tasmania, going from the top via the eastern coast, then returning via the wild west highlands. This live reading was with me in spirit, and I remember streaming it while camping near Cradle Mountain, listening to Jack's words while being held by the great black cosmos above. His books The Dharma Bums and Big Sur also accompanied me on the trip, and the nights spent reading him (along with Whitman, Proust, and Vonnegut, among others) by my bike's torchlight in my tent, warm in my sleeping bag, snug and alone in a landscape, wild and free, were moments of pure communion for me. This time tapped into something about what it means to be alive, to actually live. And then I would (unbeknownst to me at the time) return home to Melbourne and be thrown into a pandemic situation, the longest lockdown in the world, and the complete opposite of freedom. I long for those days spent in nature, on my bike, with my books; with nothing else to worry about except where I was going to set up camp that night. Simpler times. One day those times will come back. For now, hearing Jack here just gives me "remembrance of some lost bliss".

[@josephskyturtle1562]

You inspire me sir

[@jujumulligan43]

Good for you and bravo for your spirit!!

[@babkeebabkus8177]

that is very beautiful man...I feel ya...during rough times in 2013 in brisbane I slept in a tent in suburban bushland in coopers plains for about 1 year.....a small patch of forest left untouched with lots of possums and kookaburras and crows and scrub turkeys and even a male and his female fox in there that would both come to me for bread at night...a magical time...at one point during winter the possums had bitten too many holes in my tent to tape up and I slept under the stars in a sleeping bag for about 2 weeks before it rained heavily and I needed a new tent...looking up thru the branches of gum trees into those twinkling stars in infinite black at night before going to sleep made me feel so invigorated and fresh and empowered...yes I have had on the road and dharma buns and a few other novels of his at times in my life...I actually really enjoyed the crime novels of horace mc coy but of course kerouac writing is so descriptive...he could really paint a picture AND set a mood...a legendary writer for sure..as we know life is much more than words on pages...we don't even need to write it...just live it...groove with it...absorb it...due to my health problems from the heat in cambodia I am considering living in tasmania which is cool all year round...magic mushroom season sounds great too...nothing wrong with a good trip on a full moon night sitting in the cow paddocks...did that in nimbin a few times....really the mushie season in oz is almost all year round...u got cubensis up in queensland dec -mar and then u got cyenacens down around sydney and melbourne around may ..June ...July august..sep..and then over to ballingup in western oz near perth mushies are out in pine forests...a season maybe lasting about 9 months

[@babkeebabkus8177]

your expression has resonated with me so much dude...I long for that freedom too...I have easily had it when I needed to in australia by living in a tent in suburban bushland but living in south east asia and kind of conditioned by an easy life those times are a distant memory to me...u have jogged my memory that "hey man you are not restricted you can do it again"...the best I have ever felt is alone in nature having no dealings or even sight of any other humans for months on end...I have been a buddhist monk in thailand so I know the value of the cool and the darkness and quiet...there is a rich spirit world few can access because they are lost in the BS material world...as we know in the east the power is in the yin...the passive...the mother...the darkness...the mystery...the back channel...and the west is all wrapped up in the yang of action and achievement and victory and aggression and conquering which is all bullsh!t

[@8angst8]

This sounds great---except that Jack Kerouac was nothing like this. Read a few bios. He made a few road-trips, but always went back to his Mommie, who cooked and cleaned for him. Kerouac strove for "nirvana" but his lifestyle prevented it: Mommie's apron-strings and inability to have a long-term relationship with any other woman. Even his male relationships that he so touted: He ultimately didn't even like Neal Cassady, his original muse, that much.

[@adamsasso1]

“Are you nervous now?” “No, I’m hammered.”

[@ravecrab]

The way his lip trembles when he finishes his reading, he looks as though he's about to cry. There's one word for what's seeping out of every second of this clip, and the word is "soul."

[@Dtcal_gary]

Wow, didn't know Steve Allen was such a kick-ass piano player. Nice to see such talent.

[@wizard9403]

Self taught and doesn't read music. He composes and plays by ear!!!

[@bobtaylor170]

Steve Allen was a brilliant man, one of the greatest wits of the twentieth century, and a man of high character.

[@foresttemple1380]

He's written over 8 thousand songs I believe..and maybe like 50 books. Steve Allen was a very well grounded genius.

[@wizardtruestar]

The dude was a sick piano player, REALLY good.

[@WhiteWolfBlackStar]

He's FABULOUS! I saw this clip in BIG SUR 2013, I was blown away! I feel like I was born DECADES too late! This is just COOL! I'd actually bother with TV again if we had characters like this on.

[@evanrobinson9807]

If this had 597 million views, the world would be a better place.

[@carmellabaynie1695]

This!

[@joshclark1047]

"My heart broke, and folded inwards towards the Lord." 🙌🏼🔥🔥

[@yagolopez7706]

@@louis.gabriel can you please explain further what you mean?

[@Hz-432Hz]

Thank you Jack for helping me to remember that I've forgotten who I once was, and that I wish I could be me again.

[@BeckyGutierrez-ny9en]

My thoughts exactly. Once I was,but I am no longer. Thank you, Jack Kerouac. I love your amazing mind.

[@Hz-432Hz]

@@BeckyGutierrez-ny9en 🙌 rising and rising anew

[@chananvajvajra3830]

I think of Jack Kerouac... I think of Jack Ke-rou-ac.

[@japhyryder66]

I love this!

[@brucejackson6451]

Chills. He reads under the music and feels it and the words come out in a cadence only that moment would ever allow. The voice rolls like the road going, and if there was a gun to his head he couldn't speak a word that wasn't melancholy all the way to the edges. I didn't see that when I was young, how very sad he was. "The father we never found." That should have clued me in. But it didn't. I saw only the joy of searching, I didn't see the futility of finding, until it was too late and I was old like that. That's my advice to you if you're young and getting close to Kerouac and the Beats: search, but don't find. Never find.

[@bwanna23]

Yes. I'm reading his journals and he was definitely tormented. His writing seemed to free him from the torment so he kept doing it.

[@TheIrishrogue68]

So true...just finished reading Desolation Angels and that was the overarching theme of the book: death and the ultimate futility of life...very depressing but still satisfying because of his marvelous prose/poetry ruminations.

[@stephanieli9622]

I'm reading Kerouac and On the Road for a university class, and my heart is so full just from how beautifully it's written--straight from the fucking heart, without any inhibition, and authentic as hell. I'm learning about the Beats and New Vision too, and something that the New Vision was all about was the act of creation with little attention paid to the end product of that creative process. Search, but don't find (never find) seems like it fits right in that train of logic. It's all about the journey, and Kerouac and the rest of the Beats certainly stayed on their journeys to the very end.

[@bwanna23]

They were real attracted to Zen Buddhism for its "in the moment" spontaneity. Way "outside the box" and very disciplined writers and poets.

[@TheRealSandorClegane]

Bruce Jackson thank you for the beautiful words

[@pagliaccinodlemantra]

This is great television.

[@CathyLarkinWebSavvyPR]

I read On The Road my freshman year in college int he 1980s. The flow of the language blew me away. A friend and I were walking down a hallway in the English Department. Two professors were walking ahead of us. One of them complained that one of the problems with young students is that they never memorize anything anymore. and I spoke the lines that start ..."So in American when the sun goes down...and I sit on the old broken down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West coast... " and I finished the paragraph that just rolls of the tongue. The prof who spoke, turned to see who it was and said, "I stand corrected," My friend and I laughed and turned the corner. I can still spout this off with only a few mistakes all these years later. Thanks for the memory

[@paulackers4115]

This is the best thing on KZbin

[@atheistphilosopher]

That book changed my whole perception of reality. I have never been the same...for better or worse.

[@antcawdor]

Yet your represent yourself here with a symbol of somone elses reality and art. Jello would spit on you.

[@firstroundboxing1138]

Are there any good analysis pieces or commentary that could help me understand why you feel this way?

[@cigiss]

@@antcawdor wtf. Your comment seems unnecessarily crude for someone with just a band logo

[@antcawdor]

@@cigiss Fuck off. Jello would spit on you too.

[@cigiss]

@@antcawdor lmao so edgy. Inb4 irl you're a chickenshit conformist like your paaaaaaaareeents

[@edledford8019]

Some of the greatest lines in American literature. RIP, Jack. You are right. We're all gonna die.

[@marknewton6984]

Yeah, but are we all gonna live...?

[@marshall9609]

​@@marknewton6984Yes

[@TheLostProdigy]

This is my first time hearing Jack speak.... My God! The man was undeniable! Truly gifted!

[@BeckyGutierrez-ny9en]

Indeed he was. Ethereal, saintly in a way. His pain, to me, was palpable. Adios, king

[@williammyers3694]

When Steve asks Jack about prose poetry, Jack's response Whitman, Specimen Days... just an amazing writer who knew his predecessors.

[@serpent12]

I think of Dean Mor-i-ar-ty

[@PDavis-uh6hv]

Thanks, dean. Ill be seein' you around.

[@PublicEnemyMinusOne]

Ha ha yess yess

[@davidbrandes4999]

Had to write that part into my copy of On The Road

[@way2muchNFO]

serpent12 indeeS

[@atillanandorfuri3343]

Only 60 years ago...it took only half a century for us to loose everything that was worth living for

[@lablaine1981]

If you look back 3.5 million yrs ago,human history the record is full of examples of whacked/sketchy human condition

[@javablanca547]

Lose...but yes

[@elasticharmony]

These kind don't write because, it's going to last they see that.

[@MadredeAgua9]

And I think of Dean Moriarty. Repeated, like a Coltrane jazz riff before the fade. Thank you, Mr Kérouac and Steve Allen for his funky improvisations.

[@Henry-em6pb]

i've stumbled into the mystifying and expansive part of youtube again

[@richieboy6825]

Correct me if I'm wrong it’s a very good place to be. I live here from time to time

[@DVincentW]

Welcome!! .. you have to kick in the guts sometimes for that old algorithm ...

[@nitedreamer23]

Today, March 12, 2022, Jack would've been a hundred years old. His influence and legacy lives on.

[@wordwarrior2350]

No it doesn´t. It was replaced by "Hippies".

[@RobertodelaVega-t3w]

Then the "Yippies".... followed by the "Punks".@@wordwarrior2350

[@1fattyfatman]

@@wordwarrior2350and the hippie generation’s narcissism and greed completely collapsed our society over the next 60 years.

[@3279bob]

"....my heart broke, in the general despair, and turned inward to the lord, " whoa, Kerouac at his best.this was actually from his book,"Visions of Cody"

[@peteormond3565]

yes, he is not reading this at all but reciting 'visions of cody' from memory...one of his greatest books, along with 'the subterraneans' in my opinion.

[@Vingul]

@@peteormond3565 wow, you're right. Just noticed he doesn't open the book up to a page, just the cover flap. I was wondering what he was reading because it obviously wasn't On the Road.

[@Supertramp1966]

What a beautifully flawless reading. You were one of a kind, Jack. RIP....

[@MS-rc8vr]

Genius. I get chills every time I watch this. All of his books are incredible.

[@PeopleLiveAboveMe]

I'd be so glad to turn on tv tonight and something like this was on.

[@antcawdor]

So make it. Wishes my ass.

[@Vingul]

@@antcawdor YEAH I'M GONNA JUST GO AHEAD AND MAKE A TV PROGRAM DUUUDE

[@nox5870]

TV is nothing nowadays compared to this.

[@j.sheraton6573]

@@nox5870 Right, most tv today is pure garbage.

[@pepepombal6448]

The Zionists refuse this your little idea. Follow the orders.

[@apgwilym]

That was absolutely ******** stunning. I read on the Road but I didn't read it with that beat. I have to go back and read it with that beat that pulse drumming through it. Mor-rear-r-tee .

[@jackedkerouac4414]

He was nervous but absolutely nailed that read.

[@StephenDedalus74]

He is a like a saint to me :) Every time I see interviews or pictures of him I'm so moved !!! :) I think he was full of kindness and a great writer :) He looked so sad near the end of his life, so tired... He died so young !!! But anyway Kerouac will live forever in the hearts of his readers :)

[@riched283]

I'm not a very well read person but something about Kerouac hooked me. Ended up buying his box set with this performance on it. I've listened to countless times. Never gets old

[@antfaz]

How have I never come across this dude before? And why am I so transfixed? I literally don’t know what I’ve just stepped into but it feels like another world.

[@marknewton6984]

Saw him in Haslem's Bookstore in '68. He was reading Henry Miller. Shook his hand and hurriedly left.😎

[@flickwtchr]

You don't realize just how much you nailed what Kerouac and the Beats are all about.

[@JMW_JMW_JMW]

What a reading, holy shit. It really makes you realize how he wrote in "jazz phrasing", using words like an instrument.

[@johndalton3180]

The greatest video on KZbin hands down. This poem is what America is, at her best. There are no words to describe Kerouac reading that poem and passage from On the Road. Sheer beauty and perfection. I could cry from it

[@8angst8]

Conversely, I cringed. Kerouac is embarrassing as a reader, as a real person. His words are beautiful, but he's actually awful in person.

[@johndalton3180]

@@8angst8 People are imperfect.

[@hospitalcleaner]

Is this video a good reflection of who he was? He spoke often about feeling uncomfortable during performances. Judging by the friends he kept he sounded like a great guy to shoot the shit with in person

[@andrewbaroch2141]

This is cool seeing Steve Allen in the 50s.

[@xxiamfreexx]

One of the most beautiful videos on KZbin. Pure GOLD. ❤️

[@Themanwhocameback2]

I am not a big admirer of Keroac's writing, but anyone can see that this man was not made for this earth. Far too sensitive for the life he was born into. Seeing him 10 years later on Buckley's show is unutterably sad.

[@MilesBellas]

about 9 years later Kerouac was on the show with Buckley in September 1968...... Kerouac died about a year after in October 1969

[@kndvolk]

Yes, sad indeed. A man of dreams.

[@oiseaudenuit]

@@MilesBellas there is an interview in 67 in french is native language and he is funny and was all there! You can see he doesn't like interview and talking about himself! He was probablement dark for all the people around him that died like friend, brother, father and sister!

[@CavesAreIrrelevant]

Check this interview with Ginsberg about why that Buckley interview wasn't as sad and gloomy as you'd think. kzbin.info/www/bejne/laukiGNoe9J_n7s

[@Themanwhocameback2]

@@CavesAreIrrelevant Just watched the Ginsberg interview. Thank you. Keroac died from the effects of alcoholism a little over a year after appearing on the Buckley show. I have seen the entire show, and it is very sad to watch. Ginsberg had a life long hard on for Keroac (even after Jack's death) and Allen's view of the show can be chalked up to that oh too common malady, The Erotic Enchantment.

[@lullsbaby9321]

""Anyway, I wrote the book because we're all gonna die. in the loneliness of my life: My father, dead - my brother, dead - my mother, far away. My sister and my wife, far away - Nothing here but my tragic hands that were once regarded in a world, of sweet attention... That now are left to guide in the common dark.." It's so easy to forget we're going to die. We will. We can die for no reason - a heart attack comes out of nowhere. We get hit in traffic. I've always felt that's why Kerouac was so MAD for writing: he knew he'd die. People praise him for being "the voice" of a group of frustrated writers, but really, he felt something people are/were too afraid to admit: we will die. So why not enjoy it until our tickets check in?

[@norelcopc2431]

It's amazing this color video tape survived. NBC had the practice of erasing and reusing video tapes due to their expense. They would make black and white kinescope instead. Perhaps Steve Allen purchased the tape realizing its historic value.

[@andygtmo]

"Go roll your bones, alone."

[@iadorenewyork1]

"Go moan for man".

[@booradley0x0]

“Go groan, alone”

[@bailinnumberguy]

Kerouac was a tragic, inspired genius. On the Road is a masterfully realized description of the human condition. One of the great, influential figures of the 20th Century.

[@chrisconley8583]

Randy Bailin Kerouac work was and is cliche. His popularity these days is a product of people’s own inability to be creative. He caters to the dull.

[@bobtaylor170]

@@chrisconley8583 , then perhaps you can explain just how this man could write as brilliantly and often beautifully as he did. "The coming of complete night which blesses the Earth." Have you ever written anything that sublime?

[@Vingul]

@@chrisconley8583 dullest, most nonsensical take on here.

[@sunkintree]

@@chrisconley8583 your jealously is thinly veiled

[@jwichmann1306]

I think he was a great writer, many people don't, but I think he was.

[@screaminskullpress2714]

+itsjustskinsteven stevens Many people don't think he was a great writer? Are you kidding? He's considered one of the great 20th century writers...no one did it better...

[@jwichmann1306]

I'm not kidding. Maybe after his death. But he has to be one of the most deplored and paradoxically, influential writers of that time. He had a terrible time with critics; you only have to read about his life and struggles to get that impression. But we all look back on him now and say yes, the man was a true original.

[@bornwithoutwarning]

+itsjustskinsteven stevens Sure, Jack could have used some editing (he didn't believe in it) but his talent was undeniable. And you're making too sweeping a generalization about the critics. NYT raved about On the Road, hailed him as a real voice. And Kerouac inspired many more great writers (Bob Dylan, Hunter Thompson, Ken Kesey) than Truman Capote ever did

[@jwichmann1306]

I'm not making any 'sweeping generalisations'. Read about his life. On the Road is a formal piece of writing and critic friendly. As soon as he was finished with it he was attempting to get away from this formality (spontaneous prose), and it was this decision that made him unpopular with academics/critics for the rest of his career. I think Desolations Angels had one review in America when it was released, and he was pretty much disregarded after that. And he did believe in editing, very much so. On the Road took years to perfect.

[@bornwithoutwarning]

itsjustskinsteven stevens Wow, you really don't know Kerouac. As far as editing, this is from Encyclopedia Britannica: "Kerouac’s insistence upon “First thought, best thought” and his refusal to revise was controversial. He felt that revision was a form of literary lying, imposing a form farther away from the truth of the moment, counter to his intentions for his “true-life” novels."

[@MsMaraluna]

I can watch this gem forever!!!

[@ramrodramathorn9327]

"..nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a sweet attention, that now are left to guide and disappear their own way into the common dark of all our deaths." Beautiful, just beautiful. Within a few lines, Kerouac sums up life. How abrupt we're thrown in the vastness of life and how we're all going along our way; to the same destination.

[@bodensick]

I mean, here's Jack Kerouac reading from one of the most seminal novels in American literature. Why was Jack so hip? Because he never thought of himself as "hip" or famous. He never wanted to be famous, he just wanted to write. Drank himself to death but influenced the Beat generation and the hippies to follow. He didn't ask for fame but it was foisted upon him. Get the 4 cd set of him reading some of the hippest shit you'll ever hear.

[@bwanna23]

Hipness=Awareness

[@deanpd3402]

Take a red pill and read Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon.

[@joebloe1401]

HE WAS A DORK!!!

[@Vingul]

@@joebloe1401 no.

[@japhyryder66]

I have that CD set too. It’s brilliant.

[@t.eugeneblackburn2313]

Incredible! I have a book of his poetry as well as his novels, but it makes a big difference to hear him read.

[@hippyjodorowsky8102]

This is how you interview a writer and showcase their work

[@peterlebaige5001]

Wow, what a fine reading, the pauses, the fall and rise of his voice, you nailed it, Jack!

[@flashgordon9640]

Kerouac the King 👑

[@MrRichDavid]

This film is priceless....I finally get Kerouac...

[@kenberlin]

Others have said it, but the interplay between these two artists creates something new, unusual, and…well, kick ass cool!

[@mysterybug1]

Thank you for this video. I grew up watching Steve. What a an eclectic genius he was. And what a treat to hear Jack Kerouac reading his own work with Steve playin' the blues. Now I know how it was meant to sound.

[@nobodyyouknow222]

+Garry Wilson You said it man !

[@craigmitchell5501]

Its kerouac music man! Dig it--steve rules!

[@johnmiller2132]

+Garry Wilson True, that couldn't have been read any better

[@davidcfc95]

+Garry Wilson To think I couldn't gain anymore love for the chaps writing. Hearing how it was meant to sound was just the icing on the cake for me also.

[@456zounds]

Steve was #1 in my book...what a LOSS when he passed away!!! (though he DID get kind've nutty at the end, with his rant against profanity and human sexuality (maybe related to his cancer).

[@paperbackthoughts.1006]

I just finished reading 'On the Road' and the last paragraph of the book which he read out is the one I loved the most!!

[@John-ho4tv]

the most spellbinding, captivating read in the history of readings...

[@antcawdor]

Nope, Im thinking Moses delivery of the Ten Commandments would have topped it. This lacks sulphur in the air and a man in a dress.

[@kocahmet1]

true that

[@nickthelick]

Damn, Jack was a good looking guy! And with a beautiful soft, lolling, rolling voice! It sort of tumbles out of him, y'knowhatImean? If you've never heard that "Poetry For The Beat Generation" (Jack with Steve Allen) LP, I recommend you do! It's real nice to put on and just mellow out to, especially in the car actually! My favourite prose on there is "I Had A Slouch Hat Too One Time", though the whole thing's great. There's a 3cd box set (limited edition I think) about that has "Poetry For The Beat Generation", "Blues and Haikus", and "Readings By Jack Kerouac On The Beat Generation". It comes with a real good book that comes with it too, with a forward written by his daughter Jan. It's a pukka set if you can get it... though "Blues and Haikus" is pretty much the weakest of the selection. Jack was trying to emulate the success of the 1st release with Steve Allen, but his readings wouldn't really gel with the saxophonists (Al Cohn and Zoot Sims), who may or may not have been drunk! And apparently didn't really give a shit about the sessions with Jack, much to Jack's heartbreak! His upset was impounded because they were his two favourite 'jazz cats' at the time, and they didn't care so much for the recording... So anyway, those other two cds are great and must be heard, should you dig ol' Jackie K! =O) Oh! And finally! I actually managed to get an original copy of the "Poetry..." LP (the one with Steve Allen), cost me £60 ($125-ish) at the time, about 10 years ago. Though looking in Record Collector I see it usually goes for around £120-£140+ on average. So I guess I didn't do too badly! =O) Anyway! Buy it! Listen to it! And Dig It, Baby!

[@timelkin838]

+nickthelick My father read me on the road when I was a child. In high school I would borrow his car ans listen to those cds. I learned a lot about compassion to say the least.

[@bobtaylor170]

You'd like the Mark Murphy albums, "Bop for Kerouac," and "Kerouac, Then and Now."

[@bawoman]

Everything about this is so...for lack of a better term..beautiful. What Kerouac says, the way he says it, his physical beauty, the lovely lilting music in the background. I can't stop watching it, and feel that I was born in the wrong time...Im in my 30s, I have an i phone and a smart tv and a twitter account that I hate but waste way too many hours on and I listen to my music on my paid Spotify premium account, yet I never stop feeling displaced. I will always and forever remain hopelessly 20th century.

[@aztiff]

Your handy tech makes it that much easier to see this however.

[@XXX-tw6zm]

Well KZbin may be a necessary evil because it brought you there to see that beautiful video

[@mitsurugi2651]

None of this technology or current social trends can hinder you unless you allow it. Kerouac had to find his own place in a convoluted world too.

[@bawoman]

@@aztiff I know....it's a strange paradox...that the technology we have now can transport me to an era that makes me feel out of place in the current one. You make a good rational argument.....but I never claimed to be.

[@bawoman]

@@XXX-tw6zm KZbin is really a gift...thats why I wasnt complaining about that particular aspect of today's technology in my op.

[@chicobeat]

Jack Kerouac's reading is so vivid that it makes me travel through the map and roads of the United States once again, even though I have never put my feet in the vast geography of that country ... yet. This footage is simply magical, it's poetry in motion.

[@CheezyDewitt]

Way before my time. However, I had an English teacher in high school who made it her goal to make sure that I read On The Road. I haven't stopped reading every piece of Jack Kerouac I could find since. Life changing for some of us.

[@michaelraffaele9813]

a brilliant man, probably the best writer ever. the fact that people spend their days listening to beyonce and watching dancing with the stars instead of reading Kerouac leaves me with less hope that America is ever going to get it together anytime in the near future.

[@henrychinaski3720]

Agree 100%

[@gregscavuzzo5457]

I love Kerouac and he was a great writer but there are alot of great writers out there, Hemingway, Studs Terkel , William Kennedy, Jim Thompson, Burroughs, I loved Kerouac but he was not the best

[@MichaelMolash]

Did Steve Allen always play the piano during the interviews on his show? That is awesome.

[@jennifersman7990]

Not that I know of, he probably figured since he accompanied Kerouac on the album, he should do it for the interview. He was a very accomplished pianist

[@Hydrocorax]

Actually, it was pretty typical of him to play piano while he talked to his guests.

[@thaddeusjameson500]

Yes !

[@clarkewi]

Steve Allen was a visionary

[@herberthuncke1288]

personally, im of the opinion, if you have one of the godfathers of an important movement, fuck the piano, just listen to the guy....rollins done this with shane macgowan and its a brilliant non interview.

[@dynjarren8355]

I wish he had done more readings like this in public. He was great at it. With a Jazz piano accompaniment it sounds wonderful.

[@MelanieAnneAhern]

So smooth. I could listen to this all day.

[@4EsteladelaCruz]

I saw this on tv when I was a kid. I was 8 or 9, I don't know the exact date this aired. It's still mesmerizing.

[@cockybirdlover]

thank you...; .many times i watched it :) beautiful, tragic man

[@peterzpictstube]

Interesting that Jack could write prose like that in a stream of conscience method. Most writers would spend days writing that short excerpt He read.

[@aslanwales9138]

...As if it wasn't enough to be extremely talented, he had to be handsome as well.

[@panlan1]

lol

[@emmarose4234]

When I was 15, I had a HUGE crush on Jack Kerouac. I’ve never read anything by the guy. But I can’t shake how handsome he was!

[@Vingul]

@@emmarose4234 I'd recommend you try reading something of his, he has a very particular and "rambling" style, but one gets used to it -- it flows very nicely. "Big Sur" or "Lonesome Traveler" might be my favourite (not sure) but "On the Road" is probably the best place to start. This clip has made me want to read his books again.

[@lisawhite6948]

I wouldn't go that far😀

[@krautperker]

thank you for this Great

[@1492tomato]

Steve Allen was the greatest live TV talent to have ever walked in front of a camera - and quite possibly the smartest as well. There is no place for one like this in today's television's ocean of swill written for people who can't read.

[@bobtaylor170]

He was brilliant, a sensational wit, and a mensch. I've always wished I'd met him.

[@jujumulligan43]

What a story teller of the human condition. Amen and bless the soul you are. Where are the writers like you now??

[@Pulsonar]

Kerouacs cool reading style makes a nice song, potential to be a hit ;)

[@baileymoore7779]

It's interesting to watch him go into that sort of trance when he starts to read from his book, stepping into himself, he drops all pretenses, all the demands and expectations, and is wholly himself. This video is awesome.

[@sitbone3]

This video should be required viewing for all literature students, or any student. I've read On The Road, Dharma Bums and Desolation Peak. Next I'll be reading Town and City, then some of his poetry. I can't get enough of his writing.

[@robrobillard1746]

This is the absolute apex of cultural interview journalism.

[@abhinavmishraactor6865]

I just started book on the road,I love the way he describes each feelings each moment of a journey ,person places,everything ,everyword written by him ,so loveable,addicted book on the road.lots things to write but now m between the book

[@realjulien5194]

Merci Jack, tu demeures un très grand écrivain, tes écrits sont flamboyants, remarquable...étant un québécois, ayant voyagé dans la belle Amérique personnellement, très beau dans ta légende de poète @

[@samsmith4216]

This clip brought me right back to when I was 18 ...read " On the Road" and jumped on a Bus from Jersey to Eugene....just to taste what Keroac had. 45 yrs later it's a beautiful memory.

[@manoelparreira9246]

It’s one of the most beautiful renditions of his masterpiece. I’m glad to think back in those great days.

[@dwdavis5977]

Man o Man. I'm glad someone shared this.

[@iahelcathartesaura3887]

WHOOOOAAAAH!!! I did not know this existed. Speechless. WOW WOW WOW. Good going, Steve Allen Show & whoever captured & posted this!! His enunciation & voice is crystalline. And higher & more hugely animated, musical & alive sounding that I'd ever imagined. I can barely breathe listening to this lol. Most poets stink at reading their own work. He is SUBLIME.

[@gabrielmondragon1294]

the last expression of Jack almost made me cry, such an unique friendship between him and Cassady.

[@MrBojangles788]

Def cried listening to the end of the book, and then reading it or listening to it.

[@buddyrichable1]

I used to watch Steve Allen’s show back in the day, and he was one of the only guys who would risk putting controversial guests on his show, like Kerouac, Lenny Bruce etc. He even had a young Frank Zappa in a ridiculous appearance where he played a bicycle (it’s on youtube). This was before anyone knew who Zappa was, but Allen must have seen that spark of genius. These clips of his show are historical records.

[@brandonmiller5766]

Love Jack and On the Road. ‘Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again, but no matter, the road is life.’

[@moseva]

man this has got to be one of the most outstanding and delicate videos on youtube, and it's gonna stay like that for hundreds of generations to come

[@SantasBlumpkin]

An excerpt from Big Sur: (remembering that awful time only a year earlier when I had to rehearse my reading of prose a third time under the hot lights of the Steve Allen Show in the Burbank studio, one hundred technicians waiting for me to start reading, Steve Allen watching me expectant as he plunks the piano, I sit there on the dunce's stool and refuse to read a word or open my mouth, "I dont have to R E H E A R S E for God's sake Steve! " -- "But go ahead, we just wanta get the tone of your voice, just this last time, I'll let you off the dress rehearsal" and I sit there sweating not saying a word for a whole minute as everybody watches, finally I say, "No I cant do it, " and I go across the street to get drunk) (but surprising everybody the night of the show by doing my job of reading just fine, which surprises the producers and so they take me out with a Hollywood starlet who turns out to be a big bore trying to read me her poetry and wont talk love because in Hollywood man love is for sale) Just an interesting tidbit from Jack on this interview :)

[@drinkingpoolwater]

wow he hated the attention he got. all he wanted was to live a quiet life after all the adventures were over.

[@propagandacritic5511]

The sadness in his voice! 😭

[@JoaquínLerona]

and body, and face...

[@Eire_Go_Deo]

Thank you so much for this amazing upload!!!

[@michaelcastro6731]

I am currently reading ' On the Road' The Original Scroll. It flows like poetry. Beautiful! Thank you for sharing this gem..

[@DaunDevore-xx8wn]

1 of my favorite characters is Terry his Mexican farm worker friend he met on the bus to LA. She was his buddy for awhile and picked cotton together up near Fresno. Wanted to hitchhike back to NY with him. I love love, she said. Mañana dear sweet girl🕊️

[@ze2180]

Always came back to this video, i think at least 100 of the views are mine, in real numbers.. Back when tv had a chance to be a form of art... just fresh air, what a JOY

[@b.walter6646]

In the 50s and 60s, they rarely saved any film or video tape from TV shows. It's a wonder that someone had the foresight to save this precious footage, we're so lucky to have it.

[@frankmackey2419]

I'm never at a Loss to explain or at least give my take on a person , human being ..just by their interaction with others. Jack Kerouac has me in a speechless fascination. What a unexplainable treasure...at least to me.