Growing up in Boulder, with my ma a fellow Buddhist and teacher, famous Beat poet and activist Allen Ginsberg was one of those old school arty celebs I was used to seeing. He was sweet, and kind, voluble, bottle-lensed and weak-limbed—and he probably paid a tad more attention to me, being a young lad, than I deserved.

I last saw him…on July 4th one of those years at Naropa University, where he co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics with fellow poet/Buddhist/activist Anne Waldman. Here he is with a bunch of distracting idiots on Charlie Rose. It’s an hour long, so you can afford to skip past all the other schlubs and zero in on the inimitable Allen.

 Video:

Bonus: The Fourth of October, 1963, Philip Whalen:

Bonus bonus, this incredible silent footage of Jack and Allen strutting around and arguing with woman and fooling, smoking, babysitting, in their prime, around at E 9th St. and 3rd Ave in Mad Men era NYC, 1959. Play a good 5-minute song while you watch it, watch the whole thing. I’m playing ‘Bruises,’ no I’m gonna play Charlie Parker or Lester Young or Billie Holiday, some of Kerouac’s faves.