There were no angelheaded hipsters burning for an ancient heavenly connection at Los Angeles' Viper Room Monday night. The music industry folk and celebrities (including Leonardo DiCaprio) who packed the house for a record release party for Rykodisc's tribute album "Kerouac - kicks joy darkness" were lured less by poetry than by the promise of an appearance by Michael Stipe.

par par The crowd was polite for the first few readers, but it grew restive when it became apparent that the proceedings were leaning more toward West Coast literati than international superstars. Even a frankly erotic reading of "Pull My Daisy" by local poet Liza Ginzberg and an appearance by cult figure Van Dyke Parks couldn't stem the audience's chatter.

par par Part of the problem was the readers themselves. Few of them had a handle on the conversational, almost improvisational rhythms of Kerouac's work, and they tended to give over-emphatic readings full of clich\'e9d beat stylings that made Kerouac's work sound more like Allen Ginsburg or William Burroughs.

par par Among the highlights: guitarist Morris Tepper, whose voice found the mid-point between Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits (Tepper has played with both); former Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh, who chanted a short poem, "Hotel," accompanied by a box that looked and sounded halfway between a concertina and autoharp; and Edie Adams. The widow of Ernie Kovacs, and possibly the only reader there who was Kerouac's contemporary, Adams brought some much-needed wit to the proceedings.

par par After a half-hour break, and a short performance by Hitchhiker, an execrable free-jazz trio featuring guitarist Rob Buck, Stipe took the stage. His low-key, ten-minute performance, while raptly received, was anti-climactic. After reading three short poems while Hitchhiker's Buck noodled on guitar, Stipe read a witty piece that contained snippets of Kerouac, James Agee, Susan Sontag and Neil Diamond's "I Am, I Said." The juxtaposition of the last was loopy enough that even Stipe was forced to smile. After he thanked the somewhat thinned-out crowd, the curtain closed and the show was over.

par par It's probably safe to say that few of the attendees really gained an appreciation of either Kerouac or the joys of spoken literature. Instead, they discovered that Michael Stipe is a charismatic performer in any context. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, you can lead a horde to culture, but you can't make them think.par