Was Jack Kerouac ever here?
By Harry Burrus

A favorite local myth is that Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady spent time together in San Miguel de Allende. Given San Miguel’s beauty, great climate and reputation as a creative cauldron and haven for writers, painters and poets, it seems, on the surface, a good fit. It also meshes with the free-spirited, adventuresome nature shared by many expatriates, be they artists or not. I would like for this legend to be true. As Hemmingway aptly concluded in The Sun Also Rises, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

The Beats—Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs—maintained detailed journals and were voluminous letter writers, sharing the most personal details of their daily lives among themselves and with other poets, writers, and friends. Cassady also wrote letters, but not to the same extent. This fervent and prolific exchange of information created an abundant paper trail. Their published letters, journals and photographs, and books and biographies about them, make it possible to know where they were each year, with whom they were sharing moments, and what was occupying their time down to the most minuscule minutia. 

Was Jack Kerouac ever here? If by “here,” one means Mexico, then yes. He came seven times from 1950–1961. The length of his stays varied. For the Beats, Mexico City was the bull’s-eye. It offered a cornucopia of delights—cheap rent and eats, whores, boys and drugs. Local citizens generally lacked curiosity about what other people were doing and had a high tolerance for unusual behavior—a far cry from the astringent conservative mindset shackling 1950s postwar Truman–Eisenhower America.

Kerouac came to Mexico for the first time in 1950. Neal Cassady drove him and Frank Jeffries from Denver to Mexico City. This journey is depicted in detail in Part Four of On the Road. They rented an apartment next door to Burroughs, on Cerrada de Medellin.

Kerouac made two trips in 1952. Neal Cassady and his wife Carolyn drove him to the Arizona border in May and Kerouac continued on, entering through Nogales. Kerouac told Ginsberg of this trip in a May 10 letter written from Orizaba 210 and also described it in his novel Lonesome Traveler, in the chapter “Mexico Fellaheen.” He worked on his novel Dr. Sax. Laid off by the railroad, he returned in December, but left Mexico City before Christmas.

Allen Ginsberg spent much of the spring of 1954 visiting ruins in the Yucatan and Chiapas. He had a prolonged stay at the finca of Karena Shields. In May, he spent a night in San Miguel before heading to the mummies of Guanajuato. In a journal entry, he mentioned an after-hours bar, but not by name.

Kerouac was back in Mexico City by August 1955, staying in a rooftop adobe hut above Bill Carver’s apartment on Orizaba. He wrote Mexico City Blues and Part One of Tristessa. After September 11, he went by bus to El Paso and hitched to Los Angeles—destination San Francisco and Ginsberg. The Six Gallery reading and Howl was on October 7. 

After his job as a forest ranger on Desolation Peak in North Cascades National Park, Washington, in the summer of 1956, Kerouac returned to Mexico City and stayed approximately two months. He completed Tristessa Part Two: One Year Later, wrote Orizaba 210 Blues and began Desolation Angels. Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, and Peter’s brother Lafcadio visited, arriving around November 7. Kerouac returned to the States with Ginsberg and the Orlovskys in a car with a driver, paying $135.

In 1957 at the age of 35 and waiting for On the Road to be published, Kerouac left for Mexico in late July. During that time, he experienced an earthquake, became ill and learned that Bill Garver died. He stayed only 10 days, returning to the States in mid-August.

Kerouac’s last Mexican trip was from June 1961 to early August. He flew to Mexico City where he wrote Cerrada Medellin Blues, An American Passed Here, and 50,000 words of part two of Desolation Angels, all while staying in the apartment beneath Burroughs’ old duplex on Cerrra de Medellin. 

After On the Road came out, Kerouac took only two trips during a three-year period and both were to California. One was to participate in The Steve Allen Show in November 1959, and the other was to Ferlinghetti’s cabin in Bixby Canyon in late July 1960.

In addition to the two times he drove Kerouac to Mexico City, when was Neal Cassady in Mexico? In September 1966, Cassady drove down with George Walker to join Ken Kesey and the Pranksters. They kept on the move, performing their Acid Tests in Manzanillo, Guadalajara and Mexico City. 

Cassady and George Walker drove to Puerto Vallarta in January 1967. They rented a house and stayed for two months. In January, February and early March, he wrote to Carolyn Cassady. While in PV, Cassady met the Van Leeuwen sisters who invited him to stay with them at their apartment in San Miguel de Allende. Cassady wrote Ginsberg several times in March and April and to Lucien Carr in September from San Miguel. By the end of 1967, he had gone to Ken Kesey’s place in Oregon.

Cassady returned to San Miguel in early 1968 to join his current girlfriend, Janice Brown. Cassady was found unconscious on the railroad tracks on the morning of February 4. He died just a few days before his 42nd birthday.

When I first heard the story that the Beats were in San Miguel, I was curious, but skeptical. Which Beats and when? I learned that the tale arose from the claim that Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady were in San Miguel together in the summer of 1958. I knew it couldn’t be true. Allen Ginsberg was in Paris for most of 1958 and, when he returned, he was busy finding an apartment in New York, spending time with Peter Orlovsky and Kerouac, and giving readings—the whole Beat Generation thing was hot. But the real clincher is this: in February 1958, Neal Cassady had unknowingly given three joints to a couple of undercover narcotics agents in North Beach, San Francisco. He was arrested in April, tried and sentenced to five years in prison. He served time at San Bruno county jail, then at Vacaville before he was transferred to San Quentin in October 1958. He served two years and was released June 3, 1960. 

Certainly, every moment of their days and nights were not recorded in their letters and journals; thus, we do not know what Kerouac, Ginsberg and Cassady were doing all the time. However, we can establish by journal entries and the dates and postmarks of their letters and others’ where they were, practically on a monthly basis. Kerouac, Ginsberg and Cassady could not have met in San Miguel in 1958 or 1959—at the very least, Cassady was in jail when the supposed rendezvous took place.

The legend of the Beats being in San Miguel at the same time persists and is passionately embraced by some. Unfortunately, it is a fairy tale.

Harry Burrus has advanced degrees in dramatic arts and film and creative writing. He is the author of nine collections of poetry and twelve screenplays, and is the writer, director and producer of the feature film Marrakech. His theatrical play Aztec Daughter is being performed in March at the Jozart Studios in Pennsylvania. His Layers: Selected Poems should be out early next year from Six Gallery Press along with his novel The Hummingbird Wizard.







LETTERS


Editor,

(Sent to KHOU, but copied to Atención)

I would like to respond to a story entitled “Americans immigrating to Mexico stirring up complaints” that aired November 16 on your news program (KHOU Channel 11).

As a founding member of the Basta Ya a la Destrucción de San Miguel (enough already to the destruction of San Miguel), I feel that the purpose (mission) behind the group needs to be clearly explained so as not to confuse or intimidate your viewers.

Our goal is to halt the natural and cultural deterioration of our municipality, within a legal framework.

Both Mexicans and the foreigners who live here actively participate in the Basta Ya organization in effort to maintain the beauty and culture of this historic town.

They have lived together in harmony for many years and will continue to do so, in my opinion, for many years to come. Yet, as you mentioned in your story newcomers need to adapt to the traditions and culture that have existed for centuries.

Ricardo Vidargas
President, Va por San Miguel



Editor’s Note:

KHOU Channel 11, the CBS television affiliate in Houston, Texas, ran a story covering local San Miguel civic organization, Basta Ya, on November 15. Below are excerpts from the story that can be read in it’s entirety at http://www.khou.com/news/state/stories/
khou071115_rm_reverseimmigration.82bd076.html

“If the Americans act like they own the place, well, they practically do. They’re behind a booming housing market that’s also driving up prices.

Some are so concerned about uncontrolled growth that they’ve started the campaign “basta ya,” meaning “it is enough already.”

It’s clear the group’s leader also has had enough of foreigners who criticize local customs.

“The sounds of the bells at six o’clock or the fireworks,” said. “’Why don’t you use traffic lights here?” Arturo Morales from the “Basta Ya” campaign said.”

Editor,

(Dictated to Atención staff)

What I actually said was that Americans and other foreigners are part of a complex reality.

There are four types of foreigners— the first generation, who arrived to San Miguel in the 40s and 50s, who wanted to be part of the community, the second generation of the 60s and 70s was a bicultural generation when lots of foreigners married locals and their children were completely bicultural, the third generation was formed by foreigners who arrived in the 80s and 90s who only wanted to do businesses and did not care to be part of the community. Foreigners of the fourth generation, the one of the 2000s are participating as residents of San Miguel to preserve the city’s cultural and natural heritage.

The objective of Basta Ya is to gather the San Miguel citizens, of any nationality, to participate in preserving San Miguel’s heritage. We all have to compromise ourselves to protect our heritage.

Arturo Morales
Member of Basta Ya & Va por San Miguel

Editor,

Twice this week I have been alarmed by obvious nails being driven into the rich cultural coffin of indigenous Mexico. Driving into town on the Dolores highway there is an advertisement for a new golf course...all in English. Is this really Palm Springs? Are not there certain laws about advertising and signage having to be in Spanish...something about a World Heritage site?

The second desecration appeared here in Atención itself. In reference to the “Suchil” demonstration at El Charco. For your information, the correct spelling of the Otomi word is “Xuichil.” The over anglicizing in Mexico is a sad spectacle to witness. The whole world is becoming this Wal-Mart-like grey stew. So sad...so sad. I encourage the Atención staff to do spell checks of these beautiful Otomi and Chichimeca words. You would be doing all of us a service.

Jimmy Ray
La Cieneguita

Editor’s Note: Atención appreciates the clarification with the translation, and have updated the spelling in this week’s Around Town.