
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 21, 1993                   TAG: 9311200270
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LEANNE WAXMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE '90S: BACK TO BEAT

Let's see. There's Kerouac Jack's Beatnik Restaurant and Bongo Bar in Chicago, where all you have to do is head for the head to hear the piped-in voice of the man himself.

And a beret-topped Griffy recently asked cartoon pal Zippy:

``Will th' fifties ever die? Or are they doomed to return again & again, like some sunglass-wearing, de-fanged Dracula, to sell us everything from mouthwash to Miatas?''

Heavy.

Let alone Maynard G. Krebs and his goatee, and all those Daddy-o rebel and blood books and movies in the late 1950s and early '60s. Even Fred Flintstone had a brush with beatnik-ism, sprouting a beard and hanging at a coffeehouse until Wilma yanked him back to Bedrock reality.

It didn't take long for the Beat Generation to become Beatnik, hipsters who took on the language of jazz and black culture to make their scene. Allen Ginsberg once said the stereotype ``spread from head to head like trench mouth.''

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen thought up ``beatnik'' in 1958. Soon, beatniks were portrayed in film and trash reading as crazy and criminal. There were novels called ``Espresso Jungle'' and ``I Am a Teen-Age Dope Addict,'' and movies that included ``A Bucket of Blood'' and ``The Greenwich Village Story.''

Then came squeaky clean Frankie and Annette, with a token bongo-player usually close to their beach blanket. The British Invasion soon took over, followed by a new catchword: hippie.

But some hipsters of the '90s, with a tag of their own - Generation X - have come back to Beat, or at least Beatnik.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights in San Francisco's North Beach is a tourist mecca for the hip, and New York magazine recently declared ``The Beats Are Back'' in a story featuring a neo-Beat on the cover.

Among the inspired, of a variety of ages:

In the book ``Mad Monks on the Road,'' Michael Lane and Jim Crotty chronicle their hitting of the American trail in a 26-foot motor home, producing a magazine from a solar-powered Macintosh along the way. They have an 800 number for subscription orders. The Monks, said Crotty, are ``Kerouawacky.''

Richard Linklater and his movie ``Slacker'' portrayed a group of young Austin, Texas, dropouts on an extended coffee-cigarette break.

Punk icon Iggy Pop has a video out that includes snippets of Ginsberg's ``America.''

Hofstra University offers a six-week traveling course by bus: ``An American Odyssey: Art and Culture Across America.''

by CNB