Jack Kerouac and Ed Sanders on William F. Buckley's Podcast

Well, it wasn't a podcast then. But it would be now.

There’s an episode of Firing Line from 1968 you need to watch. The host, as always is William F. Buckley; the guests are Jack Kerouac, Ed Sanders, and Lewis Yablonsky. You likely know Kerouac, and maybe Buckley, but Ed Sanders, I assume, needs an introduction, and Yablonsky definitely does. It’s a remarkable capture of a time that was brief but still influential on American pop culture today. I’ll back up and explain each person’s involvement.

What’s Firing Line? Who was William F. Buckley?

Podcasts, Twitch streams, and YouTube channels all have better production value than the television shows of the ‘60s. Compared to what we have today, it sounds horrible, looks bad, and is poorly lit. But when this aired, most households in America were still watching on black & white televisions (color sets hit big the next year for the moon landing, but that’s another story) and the tech we have now is generations ahead. Any live-studio taped show from this era isn’t going to look that good, but it’s worth it.

Firing Line was usually a one-on-one talk show with conservative host William F. Buckley that was syndicated to stations nationwide and ran for over 30 years. Rather than plugging the guest’s product, Buckley debated the guest. And while he was condescending always, he was never hostile or out of control, and allowed his guest to answer fully. It was a calmly discussed argument between a right-winger and a liberal, libertarian, leftist, or whatever. We just don’t see open, civil discourse anymore in any media—every outlet comes with a clear bias, from cable TV channels to an individual’s Twitter account.

Buckley was what I call a blowhard—someone who always talks about where they stand to an annoying level, no matter their affiliation—but aren’t at that dangerous or oppressing level. Think of a friend who can’t stop talking about their new diet or workout plan or whatever—nothing you would end a relationship over, but is bothersome and you really wish they would shut up—as opposed to someone who has crossed the line into hate speech and rallying for persecution of others.

He was definitely a conservative, the founder of the National Review back when magazines were very important to American culture. He was educated and well-spoken, and a fine writer outside of his dogmatic standings. He always presented a strong point, although from my liberal viewpoint, just the wrong one. But compared to the Fox News and Alex Joneses of the world today, I would take 100 Buckleys over one Tucker Carlson.

Who was Jack Kerouac?

Kerouac wrote On the Road, and was a primary character of the Beat Generation. Whatever you think of his actual writing, his influence on the writers and creative people of all mediums who came along later is undeniable. If I had a fantasy draft of people who inspired others to become creative people or changed the way people made their art, I would start with him. But, in my opinion, this fame and notoriety ruined him mentally and physically.

This episode of Firing Line was filmed less than a year before he drank himself to death. What we’re seeing, and why it’s important to watch is as a portrait of the truth rather than the romantic ideal of who he was. The books for which he is remembered were written before the publication of On the Road, although they were unwanted until after his fame arrived. It’s unclear how much writing he did after that, but mostly he lived in the houses of his friends or parents and drank more and more, until he ruined his liver.

Who was Ed Sanders?

Ed Sanders was a member of The Fugs, whom the FBI called “the most vulgar thing the human mind could possibly conceive.” This is the best blurb anyone could ever have for any project. Before the hippie movement became known as what it was, Sanders was deep in the subculture stew, stirring it and adding in the vital ingredients. He had a magazine in 1962 called Fuck You. He was a deep weirdo back when the Beatles still wore suits onstage.

In one of the most remarkable pieces of new journalism and what would become known as crime writing, Sanders wrote a book about the Manson Family called The Family in 1971, just a few years after the brutal murders. Sanders was deep into the counterculture, and this episode of Firing Line aired not too long before.

Who the hell was Lewis Yablonsky?

Honestly, I had no idea who this guy was before seeing the show and paused it to look up what his real POV was. He wrote 17 books and taught university sociology courses for a long time. But he was the dud of this show. Maybe his books are good? He’s not cutting it as a talk show guest. As far as I can tell, he’s an academic who was considered an expert on a bunch of subculture groups while being outside of them. I have a stick up my ass about people like this—in a creative world populated with writers, this is the guy who is contracted to write a book about the hippies, not anyone who is first-hand in the scene. Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, and other writing remains the prime example of what could be. Even Norman Mailer did it well in Armies of the Night. Yablonsky was on the show, plugging his book The Hippie Trip. I’m curious about this, but not enough to read it.

Why I loved this episode

Usually, Buckley debates one-on-one with his guest. But in this odd episode, he throws out questions and lets his guests argue about the points. Unfortunately, Kerouac is in no shape to discuss anything—he’s absolutely pickled. Sanders is sharp but so deep in the subculture that he must have looked and sounded like an ET to anyone watching and Yablonsky just wants to promote his book.

There’s not a lot of candid footage of Kerouac available—most of what we know of him comes from the extensive photograph collection of Allen Ginsberg. There’s a great 1959 Steve Allen clip available—Steve Allen collaborated with Kerouac on a spoken word record—and some film footage from Pull My Daisy, but seeing Kerouac’s mannerisms and conversational cadence is priceless, even if he is a total mess. Today, there is so much footage and personal pictures of our creative heroes, and in my opinion, the social media influencer famous for only being famous on social media is the ultimate extension of Andy Warhol’s philosophy and fame and the artist; but this is a very recent phenomenon, and seeing the way that Kerouac held himself and hearing his vocal pattern, although slurred by alcohol, is worth watching the episode for me.

And here’s the thing I think Buckley nor anyone else on the Firing Line staff understood: Kerouac hated hippies. He didn’t like rock music. When his cohorts started turning on to LSD, he retreated to the burbs. On the Road was published in 1957, long before the Summer of Love. Kerouac had more in common with Lenny Bruce than with Woodstock. Others, like Ginsberg latched on to the youth culture once they were embraced by it, but Jack despised the whole scene. But every subculture aficionado read Kerouac and Salinger and inaccurately considered such reclusive types as being part of the subculture that embraced them.

I can’t say for sure, but it’s my guess that the Firing Line crew assumed they were getting a Ken Kesey type and ended up with a salesman at a convention’s hotel bar, or a former high school football star getting hammered at his 30-year reunion. I would love to find out the story behind the booking. My only clue is from another episode about the “avant garde” in which Allen Ginsberg tells Buckley that Kerouac was a fan of the show and of Buckley’s distinctive vocal style and vocabulary. But was Kerouac asked to be on or did he work the appearance through his publisher? We’ll never know.

One aspect of counter culture that has always fascinated me is its relevance half-life: the amount of time that it takes something inspiring and cool degrades into the standard, aka no longer subversive or new. Think of the difference between seeing a punk band in a small venue to seeing them in an arena until the time in which only dads like their music. What we are seeing on this episode of Firing Line is Kerouac’s legacy outliving his own desire to stay in the crowd that embraces it—he’s no longer a part of what’s happening, nor is he really aware of it. Yablonsky is aware of it, and Sanders is what’s happening and what will happen next.

There are a lot of great Firing Line episodes out there, and maybe all of them are on YouTube for free. I would also recommend watching the separate episodes with Allen Ginsberg, Groucho Marx, and Muhammad Ali.