| Museum Hours: |
| Monday: | Closed |
| Tuesday: | 10-7 |
| Wednesday: | 10-7 |
| Thursday: | 10-7 |
| Friday: | 10-7 |
| Saturday: | 10-7 |
| Sunday: | 10-7 |
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The Grand Opening Wrap-up
We knew it was going to be big! As our publicity
campaign kicked into high gear a week before the event
local newspapers, radio and TV made appointments to
interview us and help spread the word. A handful of
posters around North Beach led to word-of-mouth like
you wouldn't believe and our own sizable e-mail list
of 11,000 strong cranked out a reverb as well.
We discovered it was going to be REALLY big a few days
before the event when we started getting phone calls
and emails asking what the ticket prices were and how
did one go about reserving a seat. "Ticket prices?"
We hadn't considered that. Selling tickets to your
own Gala Grand Opening Party seemed rather gauche to
us, but then friends told us, "Look at your line-up!
Michael McClure, Magda Cregg, John Allen Cassady, Al
Hinkle (Big Ed Dunkel), Jack Hirschman and Wavy Gravy!
Nobody's seen a line up like that in San Francisco in
many, many years!" Still, we decided to save the
selling of tickets for another day. This was a
celebration so we decided to keep it free, but we did
tell the people on our mailing list to get there
early.
The day of the event people were hanging out all day.
By 4 PM we had dozens of "helpers" who came early so
we put them to work setting up chairs and making
vegetable dip. By 6 PM all the chairs were taken. By
6:30 it was Standing Room Only. Warren and Shannon
flew in from Vancouver. Richard and Johnny drove up
from LA.. It was going to be quite the night!
When I took the stage at 7:05 the house was rocking!
It was so tightly packed I needed to thread my way
through the crowd just to walk the ten feet to the
stage. I prayed the Fire Marshall didn't walk in. I
could see the throngs on the sidewalk outside - heads
bobbing and necks craning to get a glimpse through the
glass. I introduced Jesse Mosher, the artist from
Lowell who painted our terrific new sign out front
based on the famous photo of Jack & Neal by Carolyn
Cassady. And the crowd roared when I told them
"Stanley Mouse is in the house!" remembering the famed
poster artist from the '60's.
The program was simplicity, elegance and poignancy all
rolled in to one. Michael McClure had another
engagement so he went up first. Michael told all of
us in attendance what it was like for him at the Six
Gallery back in October of 1955. The reading at The
Six was his first Poetry Reading ever and for the
launch of The Beat Museum Michael read us the very
same poems he read that night 51 years ago. He
brought the house down.
I knew if anyone was going to follow Michael it had to
be John Cassady. In all the months we've traveled
together I've never found John at a loss for words.
This night was no exception. John regaled the
audience with stories from his youth and closed by
reading an email that his mother Carolyn had sent him
the day before, with John - good son that he is -
giving the obligatory plug for her own book "Off the
Road" which is scheduled for re-release soon. "Clever
title, mom," John quipped.
Magda Cregg was up next, telling us stories about her
companion of many years, Lew Welch. She read from
Lew's works and with a tear in her eye said, "I know
he was a famous writer and a member of the Beat
Generation and that his work has influenced many
people, but to me he'll always be my Lew." There
wasn't a dry eye in the house.
Al Hinkle rose to tell the stories of his youth in
Denver with Neal Cassady and how he and his wife Helen
and Neal and Carolyn all came west to San Francisco in
the late 1940's. He told of how he became friends
with Kerouac and Ginsberg and Burroughs through his
relationship with Neal and that the reason Neal took
the job on the railroad is because Al showed him his
pay stubs and all the money he was making. He told us
about Neal buying the '49 Hudson and how they had to
make a choice between a radio and a heater as both
were options at the time and Neal couldn't afford
both. They chose the radio because of jazz. Al told
us of the times in the car with Neal and LuAnne and
Jack and how they used a razor blade to scrape the ice
off the windshield as they drove through mountain
passes and how their hands got so cold they needed to
find creative ways to keep them warm. One suspects
with Al Hinkle there are many stories buried in his
head that Jack Kerouac never told.
After a beautiful musical interlude by local North
Beach singer/songwriter Nathan Hughes we resumed with
San Francisco's Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman. Jack is
great friends with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and he reads
with a power and a force that builds like a locomotive
rushing through a station with out stopping. As Jack
read from his latest book, a 1,000 page compilation of
his life's work called "The Arcanes", you could feel
the momentum growing to the point where it was like
the ground was shaking and the fixtures were rattling
and when he was done the crowd caught its collective
breath and broke into applause with everyone wondering
in amazement, "What was that?!"
There was only one way to close out the evening and
that was with Wavy Gravy. Many people don't know that
before he became "Wavy", Hugh Romney was a published
Beat Poet, his photograph and his works appearing in
that famous 1959 book called "The Beat Scene" that
features Jack Kerouac on its red cover with arms
outstretched like Christ crucified. Wavy actually
spent a few minutes on his poetry before moving in to
"the hippie shit" which of course brought the house
down. Nobody does one-liners like Wavy and the
audience loved him like they always do.
So that was our Grand Opening Celebration. A night
that will go down in lore and legend and that will be
remembered for many years to come.
Thank you for supporting The Beat Museum with your
donations and your purchases from www.kerouac.com.
We're sincerely grateful and we're humbled to do this
important work.
Jerry Cimino
North Beach, SF
September, 2006
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