Two Great Americans

In honor of Independence Day, I'd like to salute two gentlemen who proved that it's possible to be cool and love America. Sadly, because both were self-destructive figures, they have long since gone on.

The first of these was Jack Kerouac,

who, despite his association with the Beat movement--many of whose members disdained America--was an unabashed patriot. Kerouac had nothing but contempt for flag-burners, and one of the many points of contention at his infamous meeting with Ken Kesey (depicted in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) was the fact that one of Kesey's Merry Pranksters had draped an American flag ingloriously over a chair. Kerouac quietly folded the flag and handed it to Kesey.


I've done enough research to confirm what I said about Kerouac's patriotism, but on this next one I'm on more shaky ground. This was something I once heard, but for which I've not found any corroboration; anyway, it's a great story. Supposedly, when Jimi Hendrix
played "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, he received a chorus of boos because at that time (even more so than now) nothing could be more un-hip than even appearing to celebrate America. Whether or not it's true that Hendrix played his inspired version of the national anthem against such strong popular opposition, there's no denying the fact that he was sending a strong message with his choice of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for that particular performance. While the America of Jimi Hendrix might have been different from the America of the "Establishment" in those times, it seems to me that with his funked-out, heavy-metal version of the anthem, he was saying that this country belongs to everyone who loves it and the freedom which is its basis.