Amid the raucous chatter of a rowdy East Village watering hole where his father would have reveled, the son of Beat Generation icon Neal Cassady shares an unusual family secret. “My father named me after his friend Jack Kerouac and his friend Allen Ginsberg,” he says, rubbing his white Hemingway beard and talking enthusiastically about his old man between puffs of cigarettes and sips of strong cocktails.
“But my birth certificate says John Allen Cassidy,” notes the 59-year-old Californian musician. "I asked my mother and she said, 'I asked your father the same question shortly after you arrived. And he said, “Well, if you say it quickly, it will sound like Jack Essidy, and no one will call my son a moron for the rest of his life.” The euphoria of World War II in a bear hug.
Source: New York Daily News