Dean Moriarty Jr.

Timothy Leary e Neal Cassady (foto di Allen Ginsberg)

di Bill Hutchinson per il NYDaily News

Over ambient chatter of a rowdy East Village watering hole his father would have reveled in, the son of Beat Generation icon Neal Cassady is sharing a quirky family secret. “My father named me after his friend Jack Kerouac and his friend Allen Ginsberg,” he says, rubbing his Hemingway-like white beard and speaking enthusiastically about his old man between puffs of a cigarette and sips of a strong cocktail.

“But on my birth certificate, it says John Allen Cassady,” the 59-year-old California musician notes. “I asked my mom and she said, ‘I asked your father soon after you arrived the same question. And he goes, “Well, if you say it fast, it sounds like Jack Assady and nobody’s gonna call my son a jackass all his life.’” More than 54 years after Kerouac immortalized his cross-country odysseys with Neal Cassady in the novel “On the Road,” Tinseltown is embracing the bohemian ambassadors of post-World War II euphoria with a bear hug.

James Franco’s portrayal of Ginsberg in the 2010 movie “Howl” tipped off a spate of big-screen projects exploring the literary clique that rejected the stuffy conformity of the ’50s and laid the groundwork for the rebellious ’60s. Although “On the Road” was a literary sensation that inspired a legion of free spirits to stir up “a dust cloud over the American Night,” an adaptation of Kerouac’s masterpiece is hitting cineplexes for the first time.

(continua sul Daily News)

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