Dean Moriarty: Neal Cassady

Neal Cassady Back to the On the Road home page. Neal Cassady met Kerouac and Ginsberg in New York in 1946 after leaving a reformatory in Denver. He had grown up around Larimer Street, a skid row district, with his alcoholic father. As a young boy, Neal ran everywhere. His desire for speed was enhanced by the drugs he took. He was an able car thief and spent a lot of time "joy-riding."

Neal was a casanova with the ladies and often juggled several relationships at once. Neal began on e novel, The First Third which chronicles his life. Although the novel was never finished it was published posthumously along with some letters he wrote to his friends and a few scattered writings. Although Neal had dreams of being a writer his flighty nature lacked the discipline required. He liked writing sentences that went on for pages without end. The movie "The Last Time I Committed Suicide" released in 1997 was largely based on his one novel. It seems that even though Neal himself was never a great writer he was the subject of MANY great novels.

One such novel is The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests. This novel written by Tom Wolf is the true story of the Merry Pranksters, a group of revolutionaries who experimented heavily with psychedelic drugs while traveiling in their bus, "Further." Led by One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest author, Ken Kesey, the group gained fame for their acid trips and hippie tricks. Cassady earned the nickname "speed freak" not for his appetite for drugs, but for his abilities behind the wheel of the bus. Cassady embodied the Pranksters' euphoric, go-for-broke attitude, and he quickly became an icon among The Pranksters.

Neal, as a Merry Prankster met up with the members of The Grateful Dead musical group who were also "on the bus' figuratively speaking. The Dead have a song called Cassidy that was written for Neal and another, Cassidy Law. The lyrics begin: "I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream. I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream. Ah, child of countless trees. Ah, child of boundless seas. What you are, what you're meant to be Speaks his name, though you were born to me, Born to me, Cassidy... Lost now on the country miles in his Cadillac. I can tell by the way you smile he's rolling back. Come wash the nighttime clean, Come grow this scorched ground green, Blow the horn, tap the tambourine Close the gap of the dark years in between You and me, Cassidy..." The song was written by John Perry Barlowe. Neal cassady died of exposure in February of 1968 after colapsing by the railroad tracks outside San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Back to the On the Road home page.