VegasBeat — Timothy McDarrah: ‘Road’ could traverse Nevada

Friday, Sept. 27, 2002 | 4:25 a.m.

Hollywood is famous for having projects languish in "development" or "turnaround" for years. Decades even.

Ever since Jack Kerouac's classic Beat Generation novel "On The Road" was published in 1957, there have been discussions to bring it to the big screen.

Now it might finally happen.

And portions of the famous cross-country jaunt by Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity -- the thinly veiled alter egos of Kerouac and real-life pal Neal Cassidy -- are likely to be filmed in Nevada.

Francis Ford Coppola, who will produce, bought the rights from Kerouac himself in 1968, the year before the Bohemian icon died of alcohol-related causes.

Scouts for Coppola's Zoetrope Studios have been checking out several locations mentioned in the novel.

"We left Sacramento at dawn and were crossing the Nevada desert by noon," Kerouac wrote.

"Reno, Battle Mountain, Elko, all the towns along the Nevada road shot by one after another and at dusk we were in the Salt Lake flats."

The tale, written on a paper scroll that was auctioned for $1 million last year, is a fictionalized autobiography filled with a motley cast of Kerouac's friends, lovers and fellow travelers.

It has penetrated to the deepest level of American thought and culture, and has evolved into a college reading staple alongside Joseph Heller's "Catch 22," J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" and anything by Kurt Vonnegut.

The scripted version of "On the Road" was written by the celebrated literary novelist Russell Banks ("Sweet Hereafter," "The Angel on the Roof").

"I think I was the fourth or fifth person that Francis asked to do it," Banks told VegasBeat during a phone conversation last week.

"Most of the original actors that were first being considered got too old for the roles -- and a lot of big names wanted to play Sal and Dean."

Now, he confirms, Brad Pitt and Billy Crudup are the leading contenders.

Kerouac may not have written about Vegas in "On the Road," but he did spend time in the city, in a later cross-country jaunt with two other poets.

A poem titled "This is a poem by Albert Saijo, Lew Welch and Jack Kerouac," first appeared in the seminal 1960 anthology "The Beat Scene."

One line reads, "In Lost Davis there is a motel called the Blue Angel with an 18-foot blue angel with big (breasts) spinning in the winter desert air."

Of course, the Blue Angel Motel still stands near the corner of Fremont Street and Charleston Boulevard.

I don't usually say this, but thanks to Cox Communications for giving me a good laugh when I got my last cable bill.

Usually the bill provides fodder for a good cry.

On the back of the envelope there was a pitch for its EasyPay program -- where the company can conveniently drain your bank account of the appropriate amount for your monthly television tab.

"No grueling check to write, no exhausting trek to the mailbox," is the pitch.

Whew. Thanks! I often need a nap after that draining check-writing and mailing ordeal.

You won't find any "Ninas" in the Al Hirschfeld drawing in the window of the S2Art Gallery at the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian.

The famous Broadway sketch artist usually includes the name of his daughter, Nina, in his caricatures.

But in the drawing of Lubavitch movement Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the "Ninas" are written in Hebrew. This is the only time that has happened in any of Hirschfeld's work -- and he's been at it professionally since 1926.

Meanwhile, Hirschfeld (who turns 100 in June) will likely be part of the next show at The Venetian's Guggenheim Hermitage Museum. Look for a retrospective of Hirschfeld and Norman Rockwell work after the "Art Through The Ages" exhibit closes in March.

In an effort to make watching football on television a less-gluttonous, beer-soaked activity, Gold's Gym is hosting several healthy "Sunday Night Football" parties tonight.

Five Southern Nevada Gold's locations will air tonight's 5:30 p.m. Vikings-Seahawks contest and offer free smoothies, vegetable platters and other healthy munchies.

Is it still football without beer, pizza, potato chips, pretzels, sausages, more beer, cookies, hot dogs, hamburgers, overstuffed sandwiches, soda, nachos, dip, a little more beer -- and then some double-stuffed Oreos?

Somebody call Monday and let us know how it went.