There is so much I like about the posting: Jack Kerouac, Steve Allen, Walt Whitman, and the way Frank created this artistic tapestry. Allen’s late-night show was much better than all those that have followed him. But then, I love Jazz and poetry. Whitman’s poem “A July Afternoon by the Pond” brings back many memories of time spent sitting by a pond, a lake, or a stream. Good job, Frank. Love the musical track. — kenne
I’m much enamored of this clip where Jack Kerouac appears on Steve Allen’s show on network television. This happened in 1959 when there was only triune TV culture in America —and less than that, there were often only two sides to things. Allen is going to open here by taking the side that Kerouac was an authentic writer of merit. The other side? Kerouac was a tiresome imposter best able to fool young people, who of course didn’t know any better.
Nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old. I think of Walt Whitman. I even think of old Walt Whitman the father we never found. I think of Walt. Whitman.
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At around two and a half minutes into the clip, Allen and Kerouac have this interchange:
Allen starts it by asking “Who else writes poetic type prose, Thomas Wolfe I guess…”
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Becoming is Superior to Being 
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