October 21, 1969: Jack Kerouac Is Dead, Paul McCartney Is Not

October 21, 1969: Jack Kerouac dies in St. Petersburg, Florida. The novelist and poet whose works led the Beat Generation writing genre had been a football and track star at Lowell High School in Massachusetts, but injuries and squabbles with coach Lou Little ended his football scholarship at Columbia.

By the mid-Sixties, his fellow Beat writer and close friend Allen Ginsberg noticed that he no longer looked like the handsome young athlete he had been when they met in 1944, or even the mature (physically if not emotionally) writer who became famous with the publication of On the Road in 1957. Rather, Allen though that Jack now looked like his father Leo, the result of 25 years of massive drinking. That drinking burned an ulcer in his esophagus, and that's what killed him.

As a guest on William F. Buckley's Firing Line, 1968.

These two images are only about 10 years apart.

(In contrast, Ginsberg, who rather enjoyed various mind-altering drugs, but wasn't a serious boozer, lived to be 70, before he was claimed by brain cancer on April 5, 1997; and the other member of the Beats' Big Three, William S. Burroughs, who abused himself in countless ways, turned out to be the last survivor, outliving Ginsberg by 4 months, dying of a heart attack at 83 on August 2, 1997.)

The Beatnik copycats of the late 1950s and the Hippies of the 1960s missed the point of the Beats. They were essentially embracing a lifestyle that the Beats themselves had realized was pointless. Even their escapes provided only short-term respite from American life.

And while Ginsberg accepted the copycats, and the subsequent Hippies, as kindred spirits, Kerouac sure didn't. As he got older, his innate Catholicism and conservatism kicked in, and he treated the copycats as poseurs. He lived long enough to see the rise of the Hippies, and he was as repulsed by them as any Catholic (or Protestant) conservative. By the time he died due to the excesses of his drinking at the end of the 1960s, Kerouac was only 47 years old, but he was in full "Get off my lawn, you filthy kids!" mode.

Kerouac and the early Beats loved jazz, especially bebop, whose 2 main leaders were saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker and trumpeter John "Dizzy" Gillespie. Parker died in 1955, on March 12, Kerouac's birthday, which crushed Jack. Jack himself then died on an October 21, which was Gillespie's birthday.

*

Also on this day, the "Paul Is Dead" rumor reaches New York. A disc jockey at the University of Michigan's radio station had put together a few "clues," from Beatles album covers and in song lyrics, that suggested that Paul McCartney had been killed in a car crash in 1966, and replaced with a lookalike. It certainly explained why the Beatles weren't touring anymore.

On this night, Roby Yonge was the overnight host on New York's biggest radio station, WABC, 770 on the AM dial. It called itself "W-A-Beatle-C" in those heady "British Invasion" days of 1964 and '65. Yonge had already been told that his contract would not be renewed. This is a fact that a lot of people forget. In other words, he really had nothing to lose, and, perhaps, had something to gain.

Roby Yonge

Yonge mentioned the rumor, and the clues, and continued talking about it for an hour and a half. The ABC switchboard lit up like Times Square, and program director Rick Sklar, who had built the most successful station in the history of music radio, was awakened by phone. He got the station's regular newsman, Les Marshak, to go in and tell Roby he was relieved. Marshak ran the rest of the show, and told the listeners that the rumor about Paul being dead was not true.

Oddly, on WABC's sister station, WABC-FM -- 95.5, which became WPLJ in 1971 -- Bob Lewis, a.k.a. "Bob-a-Loo," a former WABC-AM jock, did a full "Paul Is Dead" show on November 14. Since Sklar had no authority over him anymore, he was not fired.

Another part of the story that people get wrong is saying that Yonge never worked in New York again, that Sklar blackballed him, and that Yonge had to flee to his native Florida. In truth, he was hired at WCBS-FM, not yet "New York's Oldies Station" (it became that in 1972), and worked there for a while before heading to Miami, where he worked at various stations until his death from a heart attack in 1997. He was only 54. In Miami, Roby Yonge is a legend. In New York's he's a different kind of "legend."

The clues as to Paul being dead are too many to list here, and some make more sense than others. A few came from the Abbey Road cover. On the crosswalk, going right to left, and thus front to back from their own perspective, John Lennon is first, dressed all in white, and he -- with irony already in place, and even more so retroactively -- is either the minister at the funeral, or God Himself. Next is Ringo Starr, dressed in black, and he's the undertaker. Next is Paul, and while the others have their left leg forward -- almost certainly a coincidence -- Paul's right leg is forward. He's out of step with the others, "because he's dead." And he's barefoot: In some cultures, the dead are buried barefoot. And last is George Harrison, dressed in denim, because he's the gravedigger.

Parked behind George was a Volkswagen Beetle (not "Beatle") with a license plate that included "28IF," meaning Paul would have been 28 years old if he had lived. Except he was 27. In 1993, Paul re-created that cover for a live album, titled Paul Is Live. He had a Beetle parked in the exact same spot, with a license plate reading "51IS," which did match his age at the time.

On the 1989 tour for his album Flowers in the Dirt, Paul was asked during a press conference about how his next show was in Detroit, where the rumor started, and how it had been 20 years since. As each of the Beatles had done at various points in their careers, he found the right thing to say: "'Paul is dead.' I didn't believe that one for a minute."

As rock historian Dave Marsh pointed out, this stuff was a whole lot funnier before John Lennon was killed. Since he wrote that, we've also seen the deaths of Linda McCartney, George Harrison, John's 1st wife Cynthia Lennon, Ringo's 1st wife Maureen Starkey, and many other people connected with The Beatles in various ways.

Pictured: Paul McCartney, alive, at the 2022 Glastonbury Festival

Paul McCartney turned 80 on June 20, 2022, and was in mid-tour at the time. Ringo Starr turned 82 on July 7, 2022, and is also still performing.

*

October 21, 1969 was a Tuesday. Baseball season had ended 5 days earlier, when the New York Mets completed their "Miracle" World Series win over the Baltimore Orioles. Football was in midweek. There were 3 NBA games played:

* The New York Knicks beat the Phoenix Suns, 140-116 at the new Madison Square Garden. Walt Frazier led the World Champions-to-be with 28 points.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 142-137 in overtime at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). Jerry West scored 39, Wilt Chamberlain 38, and Kevin Loughery of the Bullets 35.

* And the Detroit Pistons beat the Boston Celtics, 98-97 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

There were 3 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Washington Capitols, 127-115 at the Louisville Convention Center (now named the Louisville Gardens).

* The Los Angeles Stars beat the New Orleans Buccaneers, 119-99 at the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium.

* And the Dallas Chaparrals beat the Denver Rockets, 120-108 at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas. The Rockets were renamed the Denver Nuggets in 1974.

There was 1 NHL game played that day: The Oakland Seals beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.