Mr. Riley (Photo: Emily Anne Epstein)

Filming didn’t get off to a great start for On the Road star Sam Riley, who plays narrator Sal Paradise in the adaptation of the Jack Kerouac classic. As the movie opens, Paradise’s father has just died, and fellow Brit Tom Sturridge, playing Carlo Marx analogue Allen Ginsberg, comes up and whispers a Hebrew dirge in his ear, an attempt at comfort.

There they were, two English guys still relatively early in their careers, excited to be kicking off the making of a movie that took decades to realize. And things went well for a few hours—until suddenly the clouds rolled in, the sky went black and the rain started pelting them like marbles. They took refuge from the thunderstorm in their trailer, wondering whether they might simply be sent home.

“We were laughing that it was Kerouac and Ginsberg pissing on us because they didn’t want two English guys playing them,” Mr. Riley told The Observer, sitting across a coffee table at the Regency Hotel.

Mr. Riley’s long, rangy figure looms, whereas Kerouac was compact, but in his sweatshirt and Levi’s he could almost pass for a dressed-down postwar college boy. “To be able to play Jack Kerouac or Sal Paradise,” Mr. Riley muses in his thick Leeds accent, “it’s mad to me.”

No discussion about American literature is complete without Kerouac’s 1957 ode to the West and its promise of freedom. And yet for all its quintessential Americaness, and its place of pride within the U.S. 20th-century literary canon, it took an international lot to finally pull off an adaptation of this supposedly unfilmable novel. Two of Mr. Riley’s highest-profile co-stars—Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty and Kristen Stewart as Moriarty’s first wife Marylou—are American, but director Walter Salles is Brazilian and screenwriter José Rivera is from Puerto Rico.

Mr. Riley was born and raised in the north of England, and these days he resides in Berlin. Best known for his 2007 turn in the cult hit Control as Joy Division front man Ian Curtis, he said he occasionally draws double takes but doesn’t have the tabs following him around just yet. “I’m in a position where I can say what I say no to, but I can’t call Marty up and say, ‘Are you sick of Leo yet?’”

Before hitting the road to shoot On the Road, he’d never seen much of America outside of New York and Los Angeles. And frankly, at this point in his life, the 32-year-old would just as soon stay at home with his wife, German actress Alexandra Maria Lara. (A major part of his motive for moving to Berlin, Ms. Lara is more often recognized on the street than he is.)

“I’m quite settled now. I’ve no interest in going on a road trip,” her husband admitted. “If I want to go on holiday, I want to sit on a beach, swim, drink cocktails and read a book.”

So who does this guy think he is, playing the thinly disguised avatar of Kerouac?

“Well, don’t think I didn’t ask myself the same question,” Mr. Riley told The Observer, levering himself off the couch to grab a pack of Gauloises. He offered one, pointing out the German labels: “If you can’t understand the warning, it doesn’t affect you in the same way,” he noted.

Mr. Riley, in character.

Even if Kerouac had never written another word, the runaway popularity of On the Road would have anointed him as the prince of the Beats (though he was reluctant to wear the mantle). More important, it turned him into a kind of Saint Christopher for adolescent males, blessing their itchy feet and boldest backpacking schemes even as the country grew ever more claustrophobically suburban.

“One of the biggest parts for me was knowing that everyone would say, ‘Well, why the fuck did they hire an English guy to play Jack Kerouac?’” he admitted. Much time was invested honing his American accent, which he figured was the least he could do.

Beside the technical challenge was the sheer burden of expectation. Early in the project, he saw an interview with Johnny Depp (often cited by fans as a decent choice for the role) in which the star expressed relief that he didn’t play Sal Paradise in the film, owing to the pressure that came with it. “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know about that,’” Mr. Riley said.

When Mr. Riley initially auditioned, it was 2008. Mr. Hedlund had already been cast as Dean Moriarty, but the project promptly collapsed, a victim of the financial crisis. Mr. Riley had entirely written the project off when, two years later, he got the call that the movie was on and he had the gig. “I wasn’t asked; I was just sort of told I was doing it.”

Despite their obvious differences, Mr. Riley found several ways into the character, from their common industrial upbringings to his own work as a lyricist—“not wanting to sound in any way in the same league of writing,” he was quick to disclaim.

Kerouac hadn’t exactly seen much of the country until he set out with Neal Cassady, either. “He grew up in a very sheltered environment with his mother and a father who was very dominant, and had had no experience of the great wide plains of America until he got into the road and in the car and on his own.”

“In that sense, I didn’t need to have seen it before I had to play it.”

This version of On the Road reads between the lines and reanimates the faint ghost of homosexual tension that haunts the novel. Since he’d never read the book, Mr. Riley’s first encounter with the story was Kerouac’s first draft, written in scroll form, which is more explicit. But the overt direction it takes in the movie may catch a few viewers off guard.

“I don’t think they drove around America having sex with each other, Jack and Neal, but it did happen, from what I understand,” Mr. Riley said. “In a lot of ways, they were very liberal and forward-thinking in a very conservative time and country.”

And yet the main thing most people want to ask him about is the prospect of stripping down with Ms. Stewart, the starlet who made her name in the Twilight franchise. “I’m doing interviews with Elle magazine about sex scenes with Kristen Stewart, which is all they really want to know about,” he said. Here they are adapting a counter-cultural literary classic, but the biggest point of interest is the sex scenes. “The irony isn’t lost on me,” he said.

During filming, he was also keenly aware of their 10-year age difference and their significant others. “There are nicer ways to spend an afternoon,” said the happily married star, quickly adding that he meant no offense to his co-star.

The footage in the rain was ultimately more memorable, he said. Though the scene didn’t make it into the American cut, it set the tone for the whole project: “Nothing was really going to go quite according to plan,” he said. “But there’d be lots of happy accidents that would capture the spontaneity of the prose."

Daniel Radcliffe vs James Franco in a Ginsberg-off? Its possible. (Via Harry Potter and Howl)

James Franco (and David Cross, John Turturro, et al) have reason to be worried: Harry Potter is about to smash your portrayal of New York beat poet Allen Ginsberg into dust. Daniel Radcliffe, fresh from filming the Victorian horror flick The Woman In Black has reportedly joined the cast of Kill Your Darlings (not to be confused with the 2006 flick with the same name) as the famous (and infamous) part of Jack Kerouac/Ginsberg/Lucien Carr trio.
Also up for the role was Jesse Eisenberg, and Chris Evans as Jack Kerouac has apparently fallen through. Kill is slated for 2012 and will be directed by relative newcomer John Krokidas. So how will Mr. Radcliffe stack up to various other actors who have played the enigmatic man who helped define a generation of confused sexual young men? Let's take a look:
James Franco in Howl:

John Turturro in Source:

David Cross, I'm Not There:

Ron Livingston, Beat:

Reuters reports:

This is, in fact, Jack Kerouac’s favorite New York dive bar. At least, it used to be.

Though, initially, you’d be hard-pressed to figure that out. The exterior signage beams “Havana Central” in radiant neon, while the venue’s historic title, “The West End,” appears in black, at about half the size.

The site of Mr. Merrin’s new hybrid brand, Havana Central at the West End, remains a nearly century-old Morningside Heights landmark, mostly for its connection to Beat writers like Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs—a past (and now decades-old marketing tool) that the new proprietor plans to use.

Starting foremost with a grand reopening this Friday, which marks the end of a drastic six-month, $2.5 million face-lifting and identity-altering makeover of what locals stubbornly still call “The West End.”

While Mr. Merrin’s two other Havana Central locations in Manhattan occupy far less venerable spaces, the emergence of his growing Cuban-themed restaurant chain isn’t entirely unwelcome on a block already occupied by formula retailers Aerosole and Häagen Dazs. In fact, Mr. Merrin characterized the hallowed venue’s striking overhaul as carrying on with tradition.

“The West End has changed hands a number of times and each owner has contributed to its ongoing evolution, but, essentially, they have all acted as caretakers of the legacy of what has become a New York institution,” Mr. Merrin said in a written statement. “As the latest in that succession I take my responsibility very seriously, which is why Havana Central at The West End will embrace a ‘burgers and beer sensibility’ along with a commitment to an authentic Cuban dining experience.”

The burgers, careful readers will note, are on the back of the menu.

It’s the first time in six decades that any owner has so significantly and pre-emptively altered the eatery’s hallowed name, which former owner Sid Roberts’ father bestowed upon the place in 1946, around the time it was first establishing its bebop-era cred.

Mr. Merrin, a former jeweler whose family once ran Merrin Jewelers, is a lifelong resident of the Upper West Side and a Columbia alum—in business, not English nor history. So he deserves at least some credit for trying to temper this corporate chain-store takeover with a sprinkling of historic preservation.

As part of Friday’s festivities, frequenters of the former West End are invited to come share their memories of the way the place used to be, as part of an ongoing oral-history project. You know, for the sake of posterity.

As a reward for their video-recorded statements, participants will receive a platter of complimentary empanadas.

Mr. Roberts, the former owner who sold the place in 1977, is slated to be among the first speakers. In keeping with the event’s historic-preservation shtick, management plans to unveil a commemorative plaque, dedicating Mr. Roberts’ favorite booth, in a private ceremony early in the evening.

It’s a far better fate than that afforded the Beats’ old corner booth, once located in the back of the restaurant. That, according to one employee, was dismantled during recent renovations to make way for new tables.

Framed black-and-white photos of such famous former West End frequenters as Kerouac and jazz great Dizzy Gillespie, however, are slated for hanging in coming weeks upon the freshly touched-up walls.

At least one employee queried by Counter Espionage approved of Mr. Merrin’s sweeping changes to the place. Julie, a bartender, who claimed to have also worked under previous ownership, described the venue’s new incarnation as “a lot cleaner” and “better overall” than its prior state of affairs.

Mr. Merrin has further pledged to reinstate an old West End tradition that some owners seemed to have forgotten: live music, including a jazz band during Sunday brunch.

Those Beats, you know—big brunchers.

That was last year, though. On their recently issued third album, Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant Records), Brooklyn’s most literary bar band sound a lot sunnier than they used to, as if the breakthrough success they enjoyed on their last outing left them somehow enlightened and refocused. Their winter weariness has given way to warm vibes and summer love. Once their message to the kids was: Be careful! Now it’s more like: Kiss everyone you know!

The uniquely anachronistic sound they perfected on Separation Sunday, a hybrid of avant-garde hard-core and 1970’s classic rock, is still endlessly evocative, bringing to mind Cheap Trick’s barroom riffage, Bruce Springsteen’s heartland swagger and the weepy solitude of the Piano Man. But most of the music on the new album is dizzyingly upbeat: The chords thunder like never before, and the solos ring with unprecedented exuberance.

There are other changes. They’ve abandoned the conceptual narrative that stretched across their first two albums, ditching the vivid characters and intricate plotlines that landed them in The New Yorker last spring alongside storytelling songwriter John Darnielle. And instead of snarling his lyrics like a hoarse and surly bard, as he’s done in the past, Mr. Finn now sings his melodies with the voice of a true pop star. The people he sings about, in turn, seem less consumed by self-destruction. Danger is less of a presence in their lives than it was on the Hold Steady’s previous work, and their troubles, accordingly, come across as less debilitating. Where did all the anguish go?

BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA IS named after a line from On the Road. Mr. Finn mentions this in interviews with baffling nonchalance, as if Jack Kerouac were a perfectly natural, altogether appropriate source of inspiration for a group of five seasoned (if not oldish) men. It’s the first time Mr. Finn has come across as naïve—indeed, part of the reason the last two albums worked so well was that every word he sang seemed to limp from bruises accumulated over the course of a lifetime.

Apparently, the bruises have healed: Mr. Finn now plays cheerleader to America’s “young and awkward lovers.” On the album’s most revved-up number, “Massive Night,” he tells the story of a couple going to their senior prom: “We all kinda fumbled through the Jitterbug / We were all powered up on some new upper drug / And everyone was funny, and everyone was pretty /And everyone was coming towards the center of the city.” As on the rest of the album, Mr. Finn slips the drugs in but makes no big fuss about them. The chorus still roars, the night still ends well and no one gets hurt, even if the chaperone does kick the narrator out for dancing too close to his girlfriend. There’s less to fear and much to celebrate on Boys and Girls—and there’s not much at stake.

As a result, the album feels somewhat slight, and the starry-eyed nostalgia with which Mr. Finn tackles his subjects never quite reaches the state of Dionysian intoxication he’s going for.

Where they once hungered for salvation, the Hold Steady now ache for hugs. Where Mr. Finn was once poignant, he’s now merely quaint. For a band that has proved itself capable of harnessing both nostalgia and teen angst with unmatched class, that’s not enough.

That was last year, though. On their recently issued third album, Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant Records), Brooklyn’s most literary bar band sound a lot sunnier than they used to, as if the breakthrough success they enjoyed on their last outing left them somehow enlightened and refocused. Their winter weariness has given way to warm vibes and summer love. Once their message to the kids was: Be careful! Now it’s more like: Kiss everyone you know!

The uniquely anachronistic sound they perfected on Separation Sunday, a hybrid of avant-garde hard-core and 1970’s classic rock, is still endlessly evocative, bringing to mind Cheap Trick’s barroom riffage, Bruce Springsteen’s heartland swagger and the weepy solitude of the Piano Man. But most of the music on the new album is dizzyingly upbeat: The chords thunder like never before, and the solos ring with unprecedented exuberance.

There are other changes. They’ve abandoned the conceptual narrative that stretched across their first two albums, ditching the vivid characters and intricate plotlines that landed them in The New Yorker last spring alongside storytelling songwriter John Darnielle. And instead of snarling his lyrics like a hoarse and surly bard, as he’s done in the past, Mr. Finn now sings his melodies with the voice of a true pop star. The people he sings about, in turn, seem less consumed by self-destruction. Danger is less of a presence in their lives than it was on the Hold Steady’s previous work, and their troubles, accordingly, come across as less debilitating. Where did all the anguish go?

BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA IS named after a line from On the Road. Mr. Finn mentions this in interviews with baffling nonchalance, as if Jack Kerouac were a perfectly natural, altogether appropriate source of inspiration for a group of five seasoned (if not oldish) men. It’s the first time Mr. Finn has come across as naïve—indeed, part of the reason the last two albums worked so well was that every word he sang seemed to limp from bruises accumulated over the course of a lifetime.

Apparently, the bruises have healed: Mr. Finn now plays cheerleader to America’s “young and awkward lovers.” On the album’s most revved-up number, “Massive Night,” he tells the story of a couple going to their senior prom: “We all kinda fumbled through the Jitterbug / We were all powered up on some new upper drug / And everyone was funny, and everyone was pretty /And everyone was coming towards the center of the city.” As on the rest of the album, Mr. Finn slips the drugs in but makes no big fuss about them. The chorus still roars, the night still ends well and no one gets hurt, even if the chaperone does kick the narrator out for dancing too close to his girlfriend. There’s less to fear and much to celebrate on Boys and Girls—and there’s not much at stake.

As a result, the album feels somewhat slight, and the starry-eyed nostalgia with which Mr. Finn tackles his subjects never quite reaches the state of Dionysian intoxication he’s going for.

Where they once hungered for salvation, the Hold Steady now ache for hugs. Where Mr. Finn was once poignant, he’s now merely quaint. For a band that has proved itself capable of harnessing both nostalgia and teen angst with unmatched class, that’s not enough.

Famous Jack Kerouac, Dizzy Gillespie, and Joe College hangout the West End Café has officially reopened for business--"about five minutes ago," a publicist told The Observer late Thursday afternoon.

Albeit with a slightly altered moniker: Havana Central at the West End.

Dig it: Kerouac's favorite burger joint will begin serving Cuban cuisine next month, under the direction of new owner and Columbia U. grad Jeremy Merrin.

The historic Upper West Side bar--notoriously divided by the sign "Pigs over there, students over here," during the late '60s Columbia riots--was originally scheduled to reopen in September but got delayed by "construction complications," according to the Columbia Spectator.

The newly refurbished venue will commemorate its Beat-poet past with readings of Kerouac's On The Road and Allen Ginsberg's Howl next Friday night.

Full beboppin' event details after the jazzy jump.

- Chris Shott

Columbia HOWLS Again as On the Road Turns 49

Annual Celebration of Columbia's Beat Writers to take place on November 3rd at
Havana Central at the West End

On Friday, November 3, 2006, alumni and students, poets and readers, faculty and friends will join Columbia English professor Ann Douglas and the Columbia Alumni Association for the third annual HOWL, a celebration of Columbia's Beats, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. The event, which will culminate in a recitation of Howl, will incorporate original poetry and musical performance by David Amram, a longtime friend and artistic collaborator of Kerouac's. The program will also include readings by special guests and a commemoration of the 49th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac's signature novel, On the Road.

The celebration will kick off with an afternoon program from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. in Columbia's Graduate Student Lounge (301 Philosophy Hall) with "Remembering Jack," a discussion featuring Ann Douglas, David Amram and Joyce Johnson, fiction and nonfiction author who chronicled her experience with Kerouac and the Beats in works such as her memoir, Minor Characters. The discussion will be moderated by Penny Vlagopoulos, a Kerouac scholar who is one of the editors chosen for a forthcoming edition of the Kerouac scrolls.

At 8:00 p.m. at Havana Central at the West End (2909 Broadway), HOWL wit continue on the site of Ginsberg's and Kerouac's favorite haunts with: reflections on the Beat legacy at Columbia; readings from On the Road, How, and short works by Kerouac and Ginsberg; original poetry readings; and an excerpt from recently published journals chronicling Ginsberg's Columbia years. It will conclude with a jam session bringing together the David Amram trio and Columbia student musicians. Food and drinks will be served.

The event is sponsored by the Columbia Alumni Association and is open to Columbia alumni, students, and friends; $15 for alumni and guests, $10 for recent alumni, and $5 for students. RSVP requested. For event information, contact Emily Morris at ebm23@columbia.edu.

For press information, contact Jerry Kisslinger, Executive Director of Communications for Development and Alumni Relations, at jk666@columbia.edu, (212) 870-3548.

What's that? Did someone-oh, hiya, Bill. Welp. Here goes. Guess I'll get right to it. I've decided to become a tai chi guy.

I know this may come as a slight shock to some of you, especially those of you who go back a long way with me, but there you have it. I plan to learn tai chi.

I guess the best thing for me to do now would be to stand back and just hear your questions, if you have any. Feel free to ask anything-and you also get a follow-up. Yes, Stu Rawlston, back row. Stu and I went to Colgate together back in the Neolithic Age. Nice seeing you here this morning, Stupinator.

Back at ya, Weasel. Does this mean you're gonna be one of those guys in the park, moving all slow?

Excellent question, Stu. Did everybody get that? Stu's wondering if I'm going to be one of those guys in the park. Let me tell you, Stu, I just don't know at this point. Is that fair, as an answer? I will say I've had a chuckle or two over the years, watching those guys doing their slow-motion routine in Sheep Meadow or the Great Lawn or wherever. And I've had the thought that these guys are exhibitionist A-holes, to be honest, 'scuse my Français. But maybe, Stu, just maybe, those guys got tired of practicing the tai chi moves in their apartments. As I believe I mentioned, ours is a little cramped, and so right now I couldn't rule out that I may, in fact, end up being one of those guys, much as I hate to admit it. That cover it, Stu? You good? O.K., next question. Jane. Jane … I'm sorry, I just blanked on your last name.

Blanston .

Jane Blanston, everybody. Blanston, of course. Jane's a researcher at the office. You had a question, Jane?

Why are you doing this?

Whoo! Leave it to Jane to come in there with the old inside fastball. Boy! That's the big question right there, isn't it? Let's just say I can feel in my bones that I'm a little older than I used to be, and I tried the yoga thing, but there was a slight flatulence problem with all the stretching, so I thought that tai chi might be a better way for me to go. Martial aspect appealed to me as well. Next question. Uh, yes, you, Rick.

You said we could have follow-ups.

I thought I covered it pretty good, Jane. But if you feel the need for another-

Is there a specific problem you're hoping to cure with this? Bad knee, hamstring, maybe some sex thing? Or is there a spiritual element that you're not discussing?

Wowee. Let me process all of that, Jane. Have you done this before, by the way? College newspaper, maybe? Look, there are a number of things that go into a decision like this. You know death is coming. It may be a speck on the horizon, but that speck's gettin' a little larger each day, so one day it hits you: Stave off that bad boy. Get the bod in shape. And, sure, maybe some side benefit, given the Eastern-ness of the whole tai chi enterprise, is that some spiritual thing is gonna sneak its way in there. You have those sages over there. Some of those fellows wrote the Kama Sutra , I believe. So if there's a benefit in that area-desire and performance and all that-I'll certainly take it. I think Gail will, too. Won't you, honey? Just nod, dear. That's it. Hope I've answered your question, Jane. Rick, you had something. Rick Hernandez, everybody.

Jane asked the thing I was gonna ask.

O.K. Is that it? I think I see a hand in the back-is that … Bevo? Haven't seen you since high school, Bevo. Didn't know you were in the neighborhood. How'd you hear about this?

You mentioned something before that caught my attention. Flatulence. At least I think that's what you said.

Yup, that's what I said. Looks like you still got the same smirk you had back in Paulsen's history class. What's your question, Bevo?

Well, uh, I was just curious. When you were doing the yoga, which is when the flatulence problem occurred, I believe you said, did it take the form of actual blasts of gas flying out of your anus with a loud vibrating sound, or was it more along the lines of your basic seepage, like air leaving a big, fat tire little by little?

Very funny, Bevo. Bevo, everybody, old high-school buddy of mine. Hasn't changed a bit, God bless him.

You haven't answered the question.

Let's just say the other people in the yoga class don't miss me. That answer it for ya?

Not really, no.

Anybody else? Lars Trino, everybody. Supervisor of mine, from the Munich office.

Vat haff you done to actually prepare? Vill you verk vith a real live tai chi master or vith the DVD instructional unit?

I'm leaning toward finding a teacher-a master, as you called it, perhaps more properly. Karen. Karen Maxwell, everybody, old friend of Gail's-and an old friend of mine, too, I suppose, albeit by the commutative property. Karen!

How does your family feel about your decision to become what you call a "tai chi guy"? And I ask this with special emphasis on Gail's feelings.

Very good question. So thoughtful. Although I can't really speak for Gail and the boys, I'd have to say they've been supportive so far. As for Gail specifically, look, I know she didn't marry a tai chi guy. Gail married a regular guy. A normal guy. But when she and I met, back in '87, did we think we'd be eatin' sushi twice a month, not to mention tandoori chicken? Or chuckling over Miyazaki movies with the kids? Or having cocktail-party conversation about the fighting style of Jet Li versus that of Jackie Chan? What I'm saying, Karen, is that the influence of Asian culture has taken all of us by surprise. Which is another way of saying that I can continue to be the regular guy I've always been even as I explore tai chi. Gail's the one who got me to try yoga, by the way. So blame her for all this.

Bffffffthhhht!

That's Bevo, everybody, with a pretty good sound effect. Looks like that's it. Again, I'm glad you could be here today. In a month, maybe two, I hope to have all of you back to update you on my progress, or lack thereof. There's coffee in the back, in those Thermos deals. Thanks again, everybody.

Off the Road

Students of the Beat Generation know that Jack Kerouac's last years weren't so beatific. Pot-bellied, miserable and incoherent, he lived with his mother, reading National Review, supporting the Vietnam War and denouncing the hippies before dying at age 47 of internal bleeding caused by getting beat up in a bar and cirrhosis of the liver. It was a tragic end for someone who lived a big life and wrote a Great American Novel in three weeks and had sex with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Gore Vidal. Good times, right?

Thanks to a new book, Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac , edited by Douglas Brinkley, we see that the writer's youthful glory days weren't so glorious. Often they were pretty damn boring-almost as painful as one of those Slate diaries.

While there are some wonderful passages in Windblown World , nearly every page offers entries that should have been made available only to the most suicidal grad student with a lot of time on his hands at the University of Texas.

Jack Kerouac, a great writer and a swell guy by all accounts, really didn't deserve this. Here are several entries from 1947-48, when he was living in New York City and composing On the Road , among other works. Thank goodness Kerouac didn't have a blog.

June 15 (Sunday)-I find it almost impossible to get underway again: my mind seems blank and disinterested in these fictions. I give up after 500-words of preliminary nature.

Monday 16-Feeling just as hopeless-feeling that I may not, after all, be able to complete anything. But I write 2000-words pertaining to the chapter, and things begin to break, or crumble & seethe.

Saturday 21-Day off. Went out in N.Y.

Tuesday 24-Wrote on final draft. Chapter will be 10,000 wds. long now.

Wednesday 25-Wrote. Am reading the New Testament, really for the first time.

Thursday 6th-Am freeing myself of old shackles, to be described later. I think that I'm about to be free at last. It's really amazing. And it's all so silent, I can't say it. Began writing in a freer style tonight. 1000-words pertaining, in an hour. Can it last?

Thursday Nov. 13-Went out on big binge which lasted into-

Friday Nov. 14-and

Saturday Nov. 15

Sunday Nov. 16-Made extensive notes, Sat. night, about 2000-words. Today read and ate and recuperated. Wrote 4000-words tonight, wonderfully absorbed too. What more need to be said? Talk is cheap. I'm happy.

Saturday Nov. 29-Day off, social "duties"-and a lot of restless , thoughtless banging-around at parties and binges in N.Y.

Sunday Nov. 30-Same thing, same stupid things.

Monday December 8-Wrote 3500-words, swiftly, surely. Am no longer worried about "labor"-just my mother .

Thursday December 11-At 5 a.m. wrote 1500-words. Spent most of the night typing and re-working 3,000 words in the manuscript, and thinking of the structures. The world is a structure of souls, nein? And so on-

Saturday December 13-(goofing)-

Sunday December 14-that is, read all the papers tonight

Monday December 15-Wrote 2000-words, good ones too.

Saturday Jan. 10-Spent a lazy afternoon in my bathrobe and slippers, playing the piano, thinking of nothing in particular. "Tired of writing" for this week-about 10,000 words written this week. At night, went to N.Y.; saw Sarah Vaughn on 52nd St. Feeling another change …

Thursday Jan. 22-Tried to write and wrote nothing at all, what I wrote was crossed out. This is one of the worst ones yet, especially after all I've written.

Saturday February 14-Took Ma to a movie at night.

-George Gurley

I looked at him and I thought, "Here's a man who's falling out of those postcollege years and slipping into that time when you become more serious. I'll ask him questions, poke around in his mind and see what's going on in there."

I started by seeing if he felt like he knew what was going on in the culture around him. Or had he reached the age where he was starting not to pay attention to the latest band, the new movie, etc.?

"I think I still have a very good concept of what's going on in the culture currently," he said at the bar of Marylou's on West Ninth Street. He was drinking Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks. "But I've never been attached to it. I've never been like, 'I love grunge music' or 'I love hard-core Metallica.'"

"What's going on now?"

"I think the music industry is a complete farce right now. My girlfriend loves the Backstreet Boys and N' Sync, and it makes me sick. She's 25 years old, and it is just pure–it's put together by music executives to say, 'Oh, this appeals to everyone and anyone.' It has no artistic quality, it has no message at all. Honestly, I'm not a fan of grunge music, but at least it had an identity. Ninety-four, '95, Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Soundgarden, I mean, these people, they were angry about something, and at least people could attach themselves to that music and say, 'Well, I can associate with this. I'm 22 years old, I work in a coffee shop. I hate life.' But nowadays there's nothing like that."

I asked him to name something from pop culture that meant something to him.

"I'll tell you, actually. In 1987, when the movie Wall Street came out. That is basically when I realized what I wanted to do, which was make a lot of money young and get out and enjoy life, and play golf, and have a wife and three kids and two dogs. It was just the take-no-prisoners attitude of the lead character, Gekko. You have to look up to Gordon Gekko. You had to love the guy. The guy basically said to everyone else, 'I'm better than you, I make a hundred times more money than you, I'm smarter than you, and you people don't deserve to make as much as you're making.' That's basically the way I feel about everyone else."

"Anything you despise?"

"O.K.," said Mr. Welsh, who graduated from Dartmouth College in 1995. "I was on the Path train coming into the city tonight and there was this guy who gets on and sits down next to me, and he's got Jack Kerouac's book in hand. You know, it wasn't On the Road , it was another book that he put together. But this guy's sitting down and two other people are sitting on the opposite aisle. They strike up a conversation about Jack Kerouac, but I'm sitting there and realizing that no one even knows what they're talking about."

"What was the last movie you saw?"

"I saw the Austin Powers movie, which was absolutely the most ridiculous movie I've ever seen, but it was funny to some degree. There's no substance to anything anymore. I rented that movie Rushmore the other day. That was supposed to be the most artistic movie of 1998 and it sucked. There was nothing artistic about it. Bill Murray was pretty funny, but I hated that little sniveling brat with the glasses on."

"What was the last thing that gave you pleasure in the culture?"

"You know what I relate to? It's movies like The Natural . The old-school movies. That movie, when Robert Redford hits that home run at the end, he knocks it out of the park and it hits the lights and all the lights blow up and it's like a fireworks thing. To me, I cried when I saw it."

"What's wrong with the culture?"

"Bill Clinton. He makes me sick, as a human being, as a political leader. I still mock my mom every day for voting for that man in '92. That's a pivotal point right there, '92. Music wasn't bad back then, the movie industry was all right, on TV you had good shows coming out, Seinfeld was a great show. Everything bad has happened since '92."

"Name five things that have happened since '92 that sucked."

"Uh, my dog got an infection last week. That sucked. Bill Clinton, obviously. Viagra. Propecia–because I'm balding, by the way. I've lost a lot of my hair, but you should just shave your head and suck it up."

"Are you excited to be alive right now?"

"Actually, there's a razor blade in my pocket–I was going to go back into the bathroom and end it all right now. It's a great time. I'm happy with my life, I've got a great girlfriend, we've got two dogs, I have a great family."

"How much money do you have?"

"Like, a million dollars."

"And you lost $800,000?"

"That was in one day, actually. That was half of my money. I had $2 million, now I have $1 million. But I still have $50,000 under my mattress because, just, you talk to people who are doomsday scenario–like Y2K, it's gonna blow up the world, whatever–these people will tell you, if you are worth a lot of money, take $10,000, put it under your mattress. I'm just putting it on the side, so that if the worst happens, my bank won't foreclose on my mortgage."

–George Gurley

The New Web Cam Girl

God's honest truth: In the old days, people didn't like to be looked at. Ask your parents! They'll tell you! People used to say stuff like, What are you looking at? or Hey, creepo, take a picture–it'll last longer! They did!

But a few years ago–coincidentally, just about the time that a movie called Sliver took America by storm–the world changed. Now everyone wants to be looked at.

"I'm a nut job, anyway," explained comedian and erotic writer Ducky DooLittle, an ex-Minnesotan, ex-peepshow girl who, come October, will go live on the Internet, broadcasting her entire life in streaming real-time video via her Web site, www.

drducky.com. "I'm always dancing around and doing weird things wearing a monkey mask and high heels. So why not do it on film?" She was eating a bowl of cold cucumber soup at Veselka in the East Village and swatting fruit flies away.

Besides broadcasting her toothbrushing and TV watching, Ms. DooLittle, who is in her late 20's and wears Betty Page hair and many, many tattoos, also plans to broadcast a weekly Web show.

In the show, she will reprise her two professional personae: Knockers the Klown, who extinguishes birthday candles by sitting on cakes–159 cakes at last count–and Dr. Ducky, Crackpot Sexologist, who delivers lectures like "Amazing Objects Removed From Human Rectums." (Ms. Ducky swears she has proof of the removal of a Mrs. Butterworth's syrup bottle.)

But on her site, she'll have limits. "I'm not going to get naked or masturbate on camera or any stuff like that! I'm an old-fashioned girl in that way," she said. Then she wavered. "I won't say, no sex. Who knows what I'll do?" she said. "I'm forgetful, too, so I'll probably forget the camera's on and do the most lewd things and be like, 'Ooooh.'" She slapped her head as in the old V-8 commercials.

Ms. DooLittle even did a good bit of her own market research, watching all the camera sites she knew of to see what the other folks who opened up their living rooms–and bedrooms–to the world were doing with themselves.

She watched a good bit of Jennicam, Jennifer Ringley's pioneering dorm room camera. "Jenni's been sick," she said. "She has a stomach flu or something. Ugh, she'll bore you to death."

Then there's www.camarades.com, which markets itself as sort of a Web Cam United Nations, with a multinational assortment of people staring at their computers. "A couple of times I'd see guys jerking off," Ms. DooLittle said. Ms. DooLittle looked concerned for a moment. "It's kind of disturbing," she said. "There could be anybody logging on to that!"

–Andrew Goldman

"I'm writing a book of short stories for Grove Atlantic Press," Mr. Earle said, sitting at a vast conference table loaded with carbohydrates, in the Warner Brothers office at Rockefeller Center. He's in town to do what he does best-sing for the citizens at a benefit for Central Park Summerstage on July 16 (concert at Rumsey Playfield, tickets at Tramps)-but right now he's got literature on his mind. "It's something I started to do after I got out of jail," he said, leaning over the table. "Anton Muller's [his editor] first question was, 'Can we afford you?' He figured I'd ask for more money than a new author normally gets. But I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to put that kind of pressure on the work."

Among the paper plates and cheese lay a photograph of Ho Chi Minh, a gift from a certain reporter who thought, for whatever reason, Mr. Earle might like it. "This is great," Mr. Earle said. "Ho was a fascinating motherfucker. I'm going to hang this on the bus as our mascot." Mr. Earle revealed that, in fact, one of his short stories is about Ho. It's set in Paris during the 1920's, where the future ass-kicker of both France and the United States was a pastry chef. "Paris was where the Vietnamese revolution was born," Mr. Earle said, "in those Parisian coffeehouses."

Mr. Earle knows from coffeehouses; he cut his intellectual teeth in a few around San Antonio, Tex., during the 1960's. "My politics were forged there," he said. "The Vietnam War was going on everyone's television and the draft was hanging over our heads." Mr. Earle didn't get drafted, though. "I registered, but was never called. Probably if they drafted me, I would have bailed to Canada. I was deeply against the war. It got to be a tradition among my friends if someone had to register, we'd rent a limo and everybody would show up pretty toasted. I saw every chemical in the world used to get someone out of the Army."

Mr. Earle, 43, took his share of psychedelics back in the San Antonio days, but nearly two decades later this resident of Nashville was doing heroin, cocaine and crack. When his habit got out of hand, he said, his compatriots sent Texas folk legend Townes Van Zandt (Mr. Earle's mentor) round to his house to tell him to shape up. "He was drunker than a skunk and gave me a temperance lecture," Mr. Earle recalled. "At the end of it, he goes, 'Well, have you got clean needles?' Yeah. 'Every day?' Yes. 'All right then. Let me play you this song I wrote.'" Mr. Earle breaks up laughing.

Like Ho Chi Minh, Mr. Earle left jail-or as he put it, "summer camp for petty criminals"-a better writer than when he went in. He immediately regained the respect of Nashville luminaries like Emmylou Harris, who cut his song about being institutionalized, "Goodbye," on her last album. And he refined his skills as a producer. Indeed, he was part of the production team behind Lucinda Williams' new album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road . In 1996, Ms. Williams had just finished her first pass at a new record in Texas. She ran into Mr. Earle back in Nashville, where he'd just finished producing I Feel Alright . "I was just blown away by what I heard," Ms. Williams said. "I held my record up to his and said, 'I like yours better.' So we went into the studio to cut a couple of tracks and see what happens."

What happened was she recut her entire album with Mr. Earle. But then she went at it again later on in Los Angeles, minus Mr. Earle. (Her lengthy recording process was made public in The New York Times Magazine in September 1997 under the not too subtle headline, "Lucinda Williams Is in Pain.")

"I felt really bad that happened," Mr. Earle said about the article. "She took our tracks to the West Coast-a project that had just been jinxed from the start with a whole bunch of weird junk-and her manager invited a fucking journalist to the recording sessions! You close ranks when shit like that happens." He paused. "Lucinda and I get along fine now. Although I pissed her off when I told an interviewer, 'Lucinda made a great record, but I don't think I'll produce girls anymore.'" He let loose a bad-boy laugh. "I couldn't help it. I just said it because it was funny. I don't have a sexist bone in my body. I just wasn't raised that way."

Maybe. There's an interesting little book on sale downtown at Tower Books titled Steve Earle 'in Quotes' (privately printed in the Netherlands). The chapter "Earle on Women" begins with his proclamation, "Women are about as helpless as a three-headed rattlesnake." His remaining comments are limited to the five women he's been married to (he married No. 4 again as No. 6). "I like being married," he's quoted as saying. "I'm just not very good at it."

Considering how disgusted Mr. Earle is with contemporary country music, one might assume he'd be divorced from Nashville, yet his own label, E-Squared, is headquartered on the outskirts of Music Row. "It's easier for me to operate in Nashville than anyplace else," he explained. "If my tape machine breaks, you got someone to fix it." He says his next record will be bluegrass. "A lot of the songs are turning out to be topical," he adds, alluding to a song about Whitewater. "Remember, I'm a pretty hard-core socialist. People hardly know what that term means anymore. Or anarchy . Or even beatnik . Remember Maynard G. Krebs from Dobie Gillis ? He was so far away from what the Beats were-but that phenomena scared the fuck out of people. Maynard G. Krebs was the Establishment discrediting Beat on purpose."

Mr. Earle leaned back in his chair and gave a lazy stretch before rhapsodizing about his favorite Beat saint, Jack Kerouac. "Biographers always claim he fed off of Neal Cassady, but I don't think that that's fair," he said. "Everybody in that circle fed off of Kerouac. And it killed him. I really admire Ginsberg for letting people not forget about Kerouac, because he was ridiculed when he was alive. Kerouac was never accepted by the literary establishment. It hurt his feelings. It hurt him real deeply."

One wonders if Mr. Earle will be accepted by the literary establishment when his book comes out in a year or two. But he doesn't seem too concerned. "All I know is, when I send Anton something and I hear back that he really likes the story," he said, "it makes my whole day."