Kerouac, a mad texter?

If Jack's tortured liver had survived, he would've been 91 on March 12, 2013. When he was writing  On the Road, he was a fast, proficient typist. Perhaps he added too much benzedrine in his Ovaltine, but he  was a catalyst in shifting attitudes and approaches to writing. Writing is about words and Kerouac enjoyed playing with them to capture the moments as he lived and viewed them. Sometimes he was silly and often he did not pursue grand concepts which the stuffed literary shirts consider a necessity to being  considered a great writer.

His interesting novel Pic in which he tries to capture the sounds and dialect of a ten-year old black male was panned as being stereotypical by many, but I view it as a valiant effort to capture what he was hearing. I wonder if he would've been panned had he chosen as a white man to capture the dialect of a ten-year old southern white boy?




 One of the cheapest dismissals of Kerouac came from one of the  pissy-ass blowhards of all time-  Truman Capote

 "That's not writing, that's typing."

I've digressed enough. Kerouac's drunken fingers would've put him in texter's hell and placed him permanently in the word police solitary confinement wing.

Thx Jack- your books, good, weak, or ugly were edifying.

Did I mention that his buddy Neal Cassady claimed that jack  "feared the wheel" (driving).

Pick away folks!

4/10/13

when Ted Berrigan of the Paris Review asked during a 1968 interview,

 “How come you never write about Jesus?” Kerouac’s reply: “I’ve never written about Jesus? … You’re an insane phony … All I write about is Jesus.”

5/29/13

 I guess money was the sole reason the Sampas family (if they still control the Kerouac estate) released The Sea is my Brother,  a very rough draft  Kerouac penned in his early 20's about some fellows going to sea. The brief debates about Marxism and Socialism were amusing, but I spent more time wondering is that character partially Ginsberg, or Lucien Carr etc. Kerouac didn't meet Cassady until after this draft was penned circa 1942. Also, I guess John Clellan Holmes was mixed in to the Prof Bill Everhart character. 
It was a short book  that was too long, and women on the side was a Kerouac staple from his roughest drafts to his best works.

8/27/13

My buddy Barrie,  a longtime Kerouc fan, emailed  the link to a story about the real life  passing of the "Terry, the Mexican girl,"  from On the road.

 11/30/13

Kerouac scored the winning TD for Lowell High  in 1938. Just keeping it light on a fat weekend.

12/15/13

I thought of Kerouac & Cassady while watching some youtube clips of interviews of Robert Mitchum replies to questions about  his hobo days. "Man, the goal was to keep moving."

5/24/13
Jack replied to my thread before I typed

Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.

8/17/14

From Jack's standard novel: The Town and the City

I've drank with his brother in a thousand bars 

9/6/14

Yesterday was the 57th anniversary of the publication of On the Road. Jack was 35 at the time  and most of his "barnstorming" was behind him

10/23/14

Oct 21 1969. Kerouac died . the liver conked out. Here's a link to his his last interview. He was for legalizing pot.

 Gimme a pack of marijuana!'

12/13/14

Cassady  wrote this long before he laid across a railroad track to die.
 The time has come, everybody lie down so you won't get hurt when the sun bursts.” 
― Neal Cassady, The First Third

3/6/15

 "You can't fight City Hall. It keeps changing its name." I need to verify haven't read this article from Kerouac in 1969 "After Me, The Deluge"

8/7/15

Kerouac quoted in a Chrysler commercial. Suppose it should've happened sooner but he had a fear of the wheel and was more comfortable as a passenger

12/6/15

Turning to Kerouac for what's important:

“Artist or no-artist, I can't pass up a piece of fried chicken when I see one.”  Jack Kerouac, Visions of Gerard

12/25/16

excerpt from #kerouac on xmas eve just after midnight in Lowell, MA : kerouac short story

  “In the general uproar of gifts and unwinding of wrappers it was always a delight to me to step out on the porch or even go up the street a ways at 1:00 in the morning and listen to the silent hum of heaven diamond stars"

2/11/17

digging back to Kerouac's brooding in the novel Tristessa

“I play games with her fabulous eyes and she longs to be in a monastery” 

3/12/17

Ti Jean  boozed too much to make it to 95.   If he were breathing and texting, I bet he would've typed leave me alone. Or maybe he'd be near a kitchen.

"I got all my boyhood in vanilla winter waves around the kitchen stove.-Kerouac "

7/4/17

Hypothetical #Kerouac tweet to the #Capote: F U Tru

9/2/17

The spitters would probably get arrested today, but here's an interesting image on #Lowell , MA from #Kerouac 's "Visions of Gerard".

 "men smoking cigars stand by the rail spitting in the waters that reflect the drizzle hopelessness of 1926.” 

3/12/18

would #kerouac have dug HBD Jack

10/20/18

#kerouac was hitting the bottle hard in 1960 but well aware of some things: "It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on. "  Basically beat ain't always beatnik.

10/17/20

  “Some's bastards, some's ain't. That's the score.” #kerouac On the Road