He also wrote an article to the “Rolling Stone” magazine called The Night I Met Allen Ginsberg (An appreciation of Kerouac, Burroughs, Cassady and the other bastards who ruined my life). He describes here his first acquaintance with Kerouac. “One day [my brother] gave me a book that was to become like a Koran for me […] On The Road, written by some goofball with a strange frog name that was almost unpronounceable for my teenage tongue, had found its way from big brother’s shelf and into my greedy little paws […] On The Road was life-changing for me, in the same way that my life had been metamorphosed when [my brother] put Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks onto the turntable that day.”
Johnny Depp knew what he was writing about because he has gone through many jobs like beatniks did and his youth was copied-like from On the Road.

It is sure that the beat generation could originate only in the USA in the 50’s because in Europe it could not be simply possible. The USA and Europe were actually different in their development after WWII. Whereas Europe had to deal somehow with the war and arts and literature found their topics in that sad period of history, the USA did not start anything; they continued in fast developing and they did not want to hear much about the war. The very important fact is that the USA did not meet the war in their own territory. They did not have the immediate feeling of the war; of course there were many victims but the Americans never had to face such terrible facts like concentration camps, holocaust and degradation of human principles. In Europe people had to restore their homes and cities at first and they were more focused on everyday problems which had to be solved immediately. In the cultural field, the artists and writers simply had to express their feelings, personal tragedies and sorrows. Although the old continent has its angry young men, these rebels still do not somehow represent the real revolt. The angry young men were too reserved and serious and they did not express the real defiance of the generation. The Czech readers knew the poetry of the beat generation at the end of the 50’s thanks to the translator Jan Zábrana. The beat generation was the symbol of freedom that has no borders and people were grateful for every possibility to read them. Therefore many young people (and the Secret police, of course) were excited by the visit of Allen Ginsberg in 1965. Ginsberg was elected the king of the rag day (the students’ celebration called ‘majáles’ in Czech) but also expelled from Czechoslovakia.