Fla. judge rules will on Kerouac's estate is fake

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Fla. judge rules will on Kerouac's estate is fake

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/28/entertainment/e090406D94.DTL&feed=rss.news

There are new questions about the estate of Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac after a Florida judge ruled that his mother's will was fraudulent.

Gabrielle Kerouac left all of her son's assets to his third wife, Stella Sampas Kerouac, when she died in 1973. Ever since, the Sampas family has had control of Jack Kerouac's manuscripts, letters and personal belongings.

Jack Kerouac's daughter, Jan, challenged the will in 1994, after seeing a copy and deciding the signature was fake. She died two years later, but Paul Blake Jr., the writer's nephew, continued the litigation.

In an order filed Friday in the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court, Judge George W. Greer ruled the will was a forgery. The ruling does not make any decision on who allegedly forged the document.

[MADem]

1. Wow--the forger got greedy. Had they spread the wealth around, they might have

gotten away with it. As it is, they've been riding the gravy train for decades.

[DemoTex]

2. Too much irony for my blood.

Jack Kerouac was dog-ass poor for most of his life. He under-sold his greatest works, blew the cash on wine/women/song, and often borrowed a few hundred from his mother, Gabrielle, for another road trip or cross-country bus fare.

But I can dig it, man.

[spanone]

4. i sure loved reading him.

[sam sarrha]

7. he could have made a really positive mark on the world, .had he not been a hard core alcoholic..such

a waste...

he really did an injustice to Buddhism with his apparent misconceptions of it. it looks like he didn't get any closer to Buddhism than using it as a metaphor.. however he was instrumental in making Buddhism a fad in the Celebratory culture, and anti establishment beat culture, then quickly picked up by the Hippies. Hippies used less destructive non depressant drugs and were able to get a better insight into what it really was.. and lived to talk about it


http://www.answers.com/topic/jack-kerouac
"snip...In the time between writing On The Road and its publication Kerouac took numerous exhausting road trips, ended his second marriage, fell into great depression and drug and alcohol addiction, and did his most ambitious experimentation with the narrative form. Always after spontaneity, Kerouac wrote in great bursts of athletic energy - writing complete works through all-night, week-long binges. In 1952 he wrote Visions of Cody, Dr. Sax, and "October in Railroad Earth." In 1953 he completed Maggie Cassidy (a romantic tale of his teenage days), The Subterraneans, and a statement of his writing principles, "The Essentials of Spontaneous Prose." In 1955 Kerouac wrote Mexico City Blues and Tristessa, and in 1956 he wrote Visions of Gerard, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, and Old Angel Midnight as well as book one of Desolation Angels.

When On The Road was published, Kerouac became an instant celebrity and spokesman for the Beat Generation. He handled the notoriety poorly. As a spokesman he was contrary and unintelligible. He often appeared drunk, and interviews frequently dissolved into didactic arguments. In 1958 he wrote The Dharma Bums as a commercial followup to On The Road, but then fell silent for four years before writing again. By 1960 Kerouac was a sick and dying alcoholic; he suffered a nervous breakdown...snip"

[KG]

3. the last house he lived in in st pete is not far from where i live.

just a useless bit of trivia.

[DemoTex]

5. More trivia: Jack Kerouac's grave in Lowell, Mass.

Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsberg at Kerouac's grave in 1975.

[zbdent]

6. let's start a "willers" movement!