Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the 1950s. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.
Eric &quot;Big Daddy&quot; Nord
Eric Nord (1919–1989), also known as Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, was a Beat Generation-era nightclub owner, poet, actor, and hipster. Newspaper columnist Herb Caen called him the "king of the Beat Generation." Corpulent, standing 6 feet 7 inches tall, Nord was the face of the Beat generation to San Francisco and Los Angeles newspaper readers in the late 1950s and the founder of the hungry i nightclub.