Running into Carl Nolte at the Antiquarian Book Fair
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. The day I met Carl Nolte was one of those days.
After coming off a very successful two year nationwide tour in The Beat Museum on Wheels in 2004 and 2005, we decided to move The Beat Museum from Monterey, CA to North Beach in San Francisco. The challenge was I knew very few people in North Beach at the time.
In December of 2005 I sought out the North Beach Chamber of Commerce for ideas. The woman who ran it, Marsha Garland, suggested I speak to the owner of a local art gallery on Grant Avenue. I signed a deal on a napkin with Kevin Brown who owned Live Worms Gallery to sublease his space for a few months to test the concept. Unbeknownst to me, Marsha also contacted her friend Carl Nolte to come visit me on Grant Avenue.
The day Carl knocked on our door to conduct the interview we had just brought up our collection from Monterey and everything was spread all over the floor of Live Worms. Most things were still packed in boxes and all the walls and the few display cases we’d brought with us were still empty.
“What’s all this Beatnik crap?” were the first words Carl spoke to me. His voice was gruff, so much so I barely noticed the twinkle in his eye as he scanned the empty room.
“Well,” I said, my heart in my throat, “The Beat Generation were the predecessors of the Beatniks. They were a group of writers and other artists who changed the course of not only America, but the world.” Carl seemed slightly less than interested as he took a few notes while I continued my spiel.
As we continued to talk, I noticed something curious about Carl’s line of questioning. Gradually, and with no new relevant information from me, I realized Carl was steering the conversation in a direction that was more and more sophisticated. Finally, I took a chance. “Carl, something tells me you know a little bit more about the Beats than you’re letting on.” Suddenly in a big boisterous laugh he’d obviously been suppressing Carl blurted out, “Hell, I used to drink with Kerouac at the WashBAG in ’56.” I later learned the WashBAG was the Washington Square Bar and Grill and it was still open just three blocks away.
After Carl left I discovered he’d been with the SF Chronicle since 1961 and, being born in San Francisco, penned a regular column called Native Son, similar to another famous Chronicle writer whose desk was close by, Herb Caen, the man who popularized the term “Beatnik.”
When Carl’s column came out the very day we opened The Beat Museum in North Beach, I was surprised to find my photograph bigger than life in the newspaper. Carl had tied another local Beat related story to our grand opening, the fact that Jack Kerouac’s Scroll version of On the Road was going on display at the SF Public Library the very next day.
When I attended the Press event later that day at the SFPL along with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other Beat luminaries, I was approached by a man who said, “You were the guy in the Chronicle this morning. I’m with the Associated Press. Can I interview you later today?” Ten minutes later another guy approached me and said, “I’m with United Press International and I’d like to interview you about the opening of the Beat Museum in San Francisco.”
That weekend, our first in San Francisco, we found ourselves in over 300 newspapers around the world. A cursory count yielded thirty five different countries in nine different languages. The weekend we opened! Indeed, Carl Nolte had literally put The Beat Museum on the map.