I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.
I started a project called “Beat Hotel Rm 32 reads Howl.”
It is a live reading, staging or tribute to the famous once-controversial poem by Allen Ginsberg. The project performed twice so far, at Palo Alto- World Music Day (Fete de la Musique) in Palo Alto in June, 2009 featuring Steve Rothblatt on drums and Mark Weiss on vocals, and then in August of 2009 at Bell’s Books in Palo Alto featuring Weiss on vocals and Beth Custer on clarinet.
The project is basically a live reading of the poem — it takes about 25 minutes — with improvised accompaniment. The name came somewhat randomly; I saw a picture of a beautiful young woman who lived in Room 32 at the Beat Hotel, in France. The idea is that I will continue to produce or perform in this piece and that it will have a rotating cast of accompaniment.
Meanwhile, I’ve been pleased to see that there has been a lot of activity about Ginsberg. For instance, Palo Alto’s James Franco stars in a film called “Howl” which opens next Friday, Sept. 24, and is generating a fair amount of buzz. Also, I recently bought and read Harvey Pekar’s graphic novel about the Beats. Also, I noticed last week in the New York Times a review of a photography show of Ginsburg’s photos of his peers; it was at the national gallery.

I saw a picture of Allen Ginsburg and Thelonious Monk and it made me think about inviting Scott Amendola, Ben Goldberg and Devin Hoff, who perform as Plays Monk, to be part of a Beat Hotel Rm 32 event. Scott said I should try to get Joe Goode, the choreographer (and coincidentally, one of Beth Custer’s collaborators) to do the vocals part.

Also, on this thread, my friend Craig Baldwin of ATA in San Francisco says he is a contributor to a film being made about the Beat Hotel.

Further, I had a chance meeting with Lawrence Ferlinghetti a few months ago at a cafe in Dog Patch and it has sent me on two or three related paths of inquiry.

edit to add, July 1, 2011: Cartoon Art Museum is hosting the artwork of Eric Drooker, used in the recent James Franco “Howl” film. Also, there is a special event July 14 that is a reading of excerpts of the text.