Open Happy Birthday Thread: Jack Kerouac

…I tell you there's nothing more awful than empty dawn streets of an American city unless it's being thrown to the Crocodiles in the Nile for nothing as cat-priests smile. Slaves in every toilet, thieves in every hole, pimps in every dive, Governors signing relight warrants. …Forgive me for dragging Memere thru all this in search of a cup of coffee. But every evil dog in evildom understands when he sees a man with his mother, so bless you all.

JK, "Desolation Angels"

Happy birthday, to one real-gone cat.

Never got the JK thing, the typewriter with the roll of paper on it was cool and all. For my money Lenny Bruce was the seminal voice of his time.

streamofconsciousnessthat'sthe onlywaytowritebecause it'shonestandpureandnothinggetsbetweenyourmindandthe
typewriterandyousaywhatyoufeelatthatmomentand
noprettygildingeditingthoughtslaterandwhereiscassady…

David,

Kerouac was largely apolitical, and to the extent he commented on international politics at all he was anti-Communist and pro-American. Also, while he certainly did his fair share of drugs, he was more a boozer than anything else – for whatever that's worth!

As someone who tries to avoid identifying with any particular ideology (though once upon a time I was considered and considered myself a conservative), I'm always intrigued by the divide in conservatism between those who see themselves as rebels and those who see themselves as upholders of the mainstream order – and those who seem to oscilate between the two. My sympathies generally lie more with the former – in my more rightward-leaning days, I know I was spurred on by what I sat I saw as the knee-jerk liberalism around me.

MovieMan0283,

My comment was mostly pointed at "the youth of the 50's" point made by Joe. I was grossly simplifying and overly focused on what I thought was "bad" about the youth of the 50's.

I also like your comments about those who see themselves differently. I was raised a Dem and on my own rejected that programming and chose my own path.

If you are no longer conservative, how do you see the world today?

Regardless, thanks for the thoughtful response.

Have a great day,
David

Kerouac and Hemingway: the two reasons I got into writing back in the day. (not that long ago. lol)

I think Kerouac is who Steven Weber is trying to emulate when he writes his drivel. Which makes Weber's efforts that much more tragic in the end. Exposing your idiocy through fan fiction. Not advisable.

Very happy to see some right-wing affection for Jack. He certainly was no angel in his troubled personal life at times, but the Left has almost fully co-opted his rich legacy which is one of personal freedom, the wonder of America, loathing elites, and complicated personal politics that included a wide open mind and strong streaks of anti-Communism/Statism/Collectivism — however you want to put it.

"On the Road" is a revelation of a novel. There' nothing else like it. The richest of subtexts. Something that could never be reproduced because of the way it makes you feel.

I might add Kerouac was Catholic, albeit a drunken Zen Buddhist one, a bit like a non-loaded Merton, but a Catholic nonetheless. It's tragic that he died an alcoholic death on some rail road tracks in Mexico, but somehow fitting to his legacy I suppose. I often wonder what pop culture and even the rest of the world would be like if cats like Kerouac and Hendrix were alive today. I certainly don't think they were or would be leftist today.

So no Shakespeare or Dickens for you, either? They were "before your time" as well!

A couple of years after college a friend loaned me his copy of that book and I gave it a shot. But I found it mind numbingly boring. It was like one long pat on the back about just how well read the author was. I had to give up on it.

David,

Thanks – as for myself, I think I was always fundamentally an independent, supporting more liberal positions on some issues and more conservative ones on others, depending on the circumstances. I think what's changed is less my point of view than my sensibilities – informed in part by the current political context (during the Bush administration, I couldn't abide the conservative echo chambers, but the instant Obama was elected, I was switching the dial to talk radio for a refreshing contrary opinion!) – and the issues being emphasized. In 2000, the Dems were focused on what I saw as "feel-good" social issues like gun control and abortion and the Republicans seemed more reasonable.

Another interesting point is that the radicals of the 60s tended to ignore conservatives and aim all their guns at the liberal establishment (to their eventual detriment, once Nixon was elected). Obviously this usually for different reasons than the conservatives – the liberals were seen as too moderate by radicals, and too extreme by the right – but there are some interesting overlaps. Among them the notion that the establishment was stifling, that the individual was being lost to conformity, that liberal political figures fostered elitism, and that it was not those in power who represented "the voice of the people" but rather the people themselves. Maybe there's an interesting book out there to be written about the odd parallels there; who knows?

I agree, I couldn't read it. I don't think I even made it halfway through.

I don't know if it has anything to do with when some one comes across it. I think its just part of being human. Some people like some things, others don't. It's not important. What is important is we all have access to see what we like and make our own decisions.

Freedom is cool.

I always find it interesting when people don't conform one way or another – an atheist conservative, say, or a militarist liberal. The predictable political line-toer is usually a bore!

John & Joel M., I'm wondering what you think about my point re: the 60s, above – obviously there was a far more pronounced left-wing strain in the counterculture of that era, yet even so, I think there was more of a libertarian ethos and free-thinking mindset than set in around the 70s. This is probably due in part to the legacy of mavericks like Kerouac and also the fact that, Red Diaper babies aside, most of the disenchanted rebels grew up belivieving in the American Dream and traditional values, lending their rejection a bittersweet quality which makes it more palatable, at least to my tastes. I definitely think that generation, at least in its youth, was more complex and interesting, politically, than its inheritors on the left. They certainly were not very PC.

Freedom is indeed cool. And yard sales where people always seem to be selling the classics for a quarter. (did you ever notice there is ALWAYS a paperback copy of "Shogun" at yard sales? Why doesn't anyone want to keep it?l) I just mentioned age because I also read "Catcher in the Rye" a little beyond adolescence, and while my friends had raved about it in school, I couldn't stand whiny little Holden.

Have a drink before reading it.

ps – He found it. Didn't you see that episode of Quantum Leap!

i'm 18, i read On The Road by my own violation when iw as 15. i think i've read it at least 8 or 9 times since. i still dont own a copy (thats what the librarys for hahahahaha) but it is easily my favorite book. its really opened my eyes to a lot. i'm actually reading it right now.

Happy Birthday Jack Kerouac. & infinite life is conservatism. Tip my cup, & blow man, blow. Alright-o-roonie.

kerouac died at home in florida. it was neal cassady who died near san miguel de allende guanajuato mexico

I honestly don't know myself as I was not even alive in the 60's being born in '71. Being a musician/drummer I kinda tend to see these things through a rock-n-roll cultural lense. That being said probably some truth to it if judging by Hendrix's If 6 were 9:

Yeah)
(Sing a song, brother)
If the sun refused to shine,
I don't mind, I don't mind.
(Yeah)
If the mountains fell in the sea,
Let it be, it ain't me.
Got my own world to live through
And I ain't gonna copy you.

Now, if 6 turned up to be 9,
I don't mind, I don't mind.
If all the hippies cut off their hair,
I don't care, I don't care.
Did, 'cos I got my own world to live through
And I ain't gonna copy you.

White-collar conservatives flashing down the street
Pointing their plastic finger at me.
They're hoping soon my kind will drop and die,
But I'm gonna wave my freak flag high . . . HIGH!

Hah, hah
Falling mountains just don't fall on me
Point on mister Buisnessman,
You can't dress like me.
Nobody know what I'm talking about
I've got my own life to live
I'm the one that's gonna have to die
When it's time for me to die
So let me live my life the way I want to.

Yeah . . .
Sing on brother,
Play on brother . . .

I have to wonder though to what extend Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction was influenced by folks like Kerouac when he wrote the song 1%:

Jane's Addiction
1%

all the people i know wanna be left alone
some people!
i don't know?
they wanna leave you alone
you gotta be just – be just like them
biggest gang i know they call the government
gang is a weapon
that you trade your mind in for
you gotta be just – be just like them
the gang
and the government
no different
the gang
and the government
no different
the gang
and the government
no different
that makes me
1%
that makes me
1%
trouble comes down
like a foot steppin heavy
shake your fist
at the bitch
or wave your money
you gotta be right
you gotta be right
don't be no
supper for a big fish
with the big lip
and the over –
bite – bite

you gotta bite
bite – bite – bite – da bita
bite – bite – ba da da bita
bite – bite – bite – bite
bite – bite – bite – bite
all the people i know wanna be left alone
some people!
i don't know?
they wanna leave you alone!
you gotta be just – be just like them
the gang
and the government
no different
the gang
and the government
no different
the gang
and the government
no different
that makes me
1%
that makes me
1%
that makes me
1%
that makes me
1%

that clip is pure goddamned GOLD. I understand why some people don't get Jack. I have turned many a friend onto him, and only a third of them came back for more. Jack's work read like jazz music played. This is not meant as a cliche. Anyone who has ever even listened to one singular phrase of jazz music and thought "How beautiful, how strange" or some such, has had their ears tuned towards the breadth of Kerouac. For whatever reason, be them academic or social; for a grade, or to be cool, once you got it, you let it ride out until it's bitter end. We have all had those abstractions of thought, sitting on the bus, watching ducks cross the street, whatever. The buddhist in Jack faced the mortality and beauty of our lives defiantly. The catholic in Jack knew that even those darkest thoughts, the lowest moments of the saddest train hopping loner; these were all beautiful messages from God that his gift to us WAS this life. I am ever stunned by the sound of it. Thanks John for the thread. And too many snobs in the universities choose to profess the importance of Ginsburg over Kerouac. One was a member of Nambla, one was a Catholic. which one do you think is being assigned as graduate work in the universities???

A wee-bit before my time… but I did read on the road… a little out there, but it is loved by the left…..and I have to say I do have a open mind and may read some more of his owrk when I have the time…

Agree on the clip and enjoyed your thoughts. You may wish to check out this CD Box set from Rhino (my son gave it to me as a Christmas gift a few years back) There's some fantastic stuff here. One CD where Kerourac and Allen continue collaborating in a vein similar to the clip above. So fine. Highly recommend:

http://www.rhino.com/shop/product/jack-kerouac-co...

great clip, Jimmy. It remnds me of how much I used to like the old Steve Allen show with Skitch Henderson, Louie Nye, Tom Poston and Don Knotts. I always think of Kerouac and Neil Cassidy together and the subequent Tom Wolfe about Cassidy and Ken Kesey and the hippies ("The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.) Pretty interesting cultural times.

Excellent comment. I think that not only were some of the Beats – and Kerouac in particular – more individualist than the later 60s rebels, I think the 60s rebels were often more individualist than the radicals who inherited their mantle. Prior to '68, the counterculture was largely apolitical and the radicals were culturally "square" – even after their fusion in that year, there remained a strong libertarian strand to the youth revolt. I think that's why you saw a number of 60s radicals turn rightward in the 80s – not just middle age or Reagan's persuasiveness but a feeling that what they'd been saying all along was "don't tread on me". Helps explains why I've always felt contemporary student leftists extraordinarily grating, yet definitely get the appeal of the 60s crowd.

He was an interesting character of the 50's and proved to also be a little troubled. He traveled around freely in the country documenting his experiences from a cynical point of view which began making it cool to do. People envied his freedom, seemingly carefree lifestyle, and lack of roots at a time of conformity and work ethic.

Ironic he was a complainer because there were few other places on the planet that would give him the kind of freedom to allow him to do what he did.

.

Yes, I have a Kerouac documentary where Jack fumed at the hippie-types who hung on his coat tails. He wanted nothin' to do with 'em.

If you listen to Bob Dylan in documentaries, he almost says the same thing. The political left used his words to push their causes, but he wanted nothing to do with representing any groups, causes…

They only wanted to be, it seems to me, individuals. That's what makes people like Kerouac, Dylan – anyone – unique. Individuality away from the crowds.

Jack Kerouac: a man of words so fluid they slid like fresh cream from his lips, a mind so quick it cracked like a bullwhip, thoughts so new they were too "in the now" even for the hippest of the hip – the beatniks, the imitators, the hangers-on. Kerouac wanted nothin' to do with 'em. It was just about his poems of beat and rhythm; in those he lives on and on and on.

Thanks, Jack

I think Kerouac is still being very widely assigned in colleges actually, but remember–Kerouac died in his 40's, Ginsburg in his 70's. There's more of Ginsburg to study, and he was around longer to explain what he was talking about all that time. And Kerouac, like jazz, just isn't to everyone's taste, at least his 'flavor' of it. You have to wonder if he'd have created the way he did without the booze & drugs.

Your own…violation??? It can be a challenging read, but, yikes!

A good man of many talents, indeed.

Was it Kerouac or Ginsberg who was a founding, card-carrying member of NAMBLA? Either way both were the self-obsessed, navel-gazers of thier time.

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