Here's what fools expect us to believe: "(William) Burroughs had his own troubles and he was glad to see an old friend. In March 1952, two months before Jack (Kerouac) arrived, Bill had accidentally shot his wife through the head. He and Joan had been playing William Tell in a friend's apartment with a gun and a glass on Joan's head instead of an apple. Burroughs had missed the target and killed his wife.” [Fr. page 153, paragraph 2 of "Kerouac" by Ann Charters, 1973]
The 50s were hard times for free spirits. The 60s did better. Jack and the beat lads broke on through to the other side with varying shades of success.
@19Maks94 I just finished reading this for pleasure. The reason I would praise this book is due to the parallels I (as well as most young people) can draw to my own life: the overwhelming but suppressed urge I have to go out, explore the world and find meaning for my existence, and the realization that this search in and of itself is as close an answer as I will ever uncover to the great question of "Why am I here?"
This is just one of the many themes Kerouac delves into.
@19Maks94 I just finished reading this for pleasure. The reason I would praise this book is due to the parallels I (as well as most young people) can draw to my own life: the overwhelming but suppressed urge I have to go out, explore the world and find meaning for my existence, and the realization that this search in and of itself is as close an answer as I will ever uncover to the great question of "Why am I here?"
This is just one of the many themes Kerouac delves into.
the schizophrenic, rise again, wild psychic phenomena being the native language, no more are there those who deny the meanings of spiritual things, and again it is not common place for humans to speak to other animals.
The deer spoke of a diamond truth, they also studied the ways of the mushrooms and learned a deep spiritual way, we celebrate the deer, during deertime, here in the rift between the worlds.
this time, we are wiser, we are more mature, we return to the ways of nature where ever we can, we don't let names and labels sweep us away so much as what is actually happening.
I experienced a shaman once, like a slow tie dye, always confusing itself for me, washing over everything, an incredible spirit
ini
even craziness is good here, because the spirits move in us, in a neutral place, where there is no crazy, nor sane, only what is, in the living nature of the buddha.
I've just uploaded a reading of a major influence of Ginsberg - George Sterling's 1909 - A Wine of Wizardry. If you have the time check it out. It's under my playlist in two parts
When some people think of America, they think of rampant capitalism, avarice, and imperialism, but I think of Art. I think of music, -blues-jazz-folk-country. I think of the Guthrie, Cash, Johnson, Parker, and Dylan. I think of literature, F. Scott, Throeau, Twain, Kerouac, and so many others that have brought to light the true American soul. Im just getting into a lot of this literature and it really rocks, "hit the road Jack" i love it ! God Bless America !
It doesn't matter what age you are, literature is written for a reason for all ages to explore and enjoy. To relive or reinvent. Any book I read I become part of. Just enjoy life everyday to the best of your ability. The drama and bullshit is never worth your time and patience.
Cassidy is an ass or using women, but you tell him that yourself. I have met only one person vaguely the same, and you have to admire at the energy they give off, it's a big thing, if you want to use it. Obviously he hasn't been through here!
It's just that nobody who has anything to say about it says anything about it here. The book counts, not the private life, the film counts, but not behind the scenes, and definitely not mindless look-a-mee chatter. People like Kerouac work very hard to put people back onto love, the heart. See the film, read the book, or don't, and stop slinging shit and roses for what you don' know nnnnnuthin about. I've read every one of those books and a bunch of biographies and I know nothing about him ???
From what I read in "I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg" by Bill Morgan (Ginsberg's archivist) Kerouac sounded like a fucking asshole. Brilliant as he may have been...
@spermangerman most alcoholics are very arrogant.. that sense of self annihilation, not really caring what others think of you.. i think Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) was probably more of an 'asshole'.. !
I'm from the old school of way back when. I can listen to this and enjoy the NY accent in all of him and hear it all around me everyday. it's a past time of history and movement in American culture. this is a vintage piece no matter which way we play it!
Hello! We are organising a tribute to Kerouac. That's called the On The Road 4 Kerouac project. You can participate here : ontheroad-themovie.blogspot.com
Hello! We are organising a tribute to Kerouac. That's called the On The Road 4 Kerouac project. You can participate here : ontheroad-themovie.blogspot.com and find us on Twitter : @ontheroadthemov
Kerouac couldn't write. Zole and Sinclair Lewis could have written better without hands or eyes. Please, see DR. AYN RAND'S "The Romantic Manifesto" for further explanation. It can be bought for American currency at the Ayn Rand Bookstore. --EABII.
@ebonz2 that's certainly a matter of opinion, ebonz. who are you to say Kerouac couldn't write? could he breathe poetry? did he ooze literary flow from his jacked up pores and cry pretty rhythms from his dayglo soul? fuck the good Doctor Rand, what a cold heartless bitch. she could write, sure, but man, she was lacking in soul...and a fuckin boyfriend too
@PanMan227 Maybe a solid bang would have snapped her out of negativity spiral of nonsense and cynacism. I doubt it though. You have to find joy in life to really be alive. I think that time for her was long, long passed. Kerouac.. for him it was because of how much life (and speed) he had in him that allowed it to just flow out onto those huge spools of paper he had in his typewritter as he would bang out chapter after chapter. Talent and tortured briliance; the greatest all were. Even Lincoln.
@ebonz2 As a debate of Rands points of view would be a consequence of attempting a reasonable discussion to a subcriber of her utter blithering nonsense, I will enact a simple work around; to laugh and point. And my self interest tells me that since my time is valuable enough not to expend in any other fashion, that's what I'm going to do. HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHH
When some people think of America, they think of rampant capitalism, avarice, and imperialism, but I think of Art. I think of music, -blues-jazz-folk-country. I think of the Guthrie, Cash, Johnson, Parker, and Dylan. I think of literature, F. Scott, Throeau, Twain, Kerouac, and so many others that have brought to light the true American soul. Forgive me as I know a plethora of painters, musicians, artists etc will go unnamed... but let me just say, from Denver, "I think of Dean Moriarty" most.
@j23erbs Jack and the ones you mention were brilliant. Either you get this stuff, feel it, or you don't. If ya do, its great. The difficult thing is trying to get other people to realize what is being said, thru how it is being said. Life is abstract... and its hard to get!- anybody who gets close to it, in my book, kicks ass. The people you mention were trying to get there
@GarrettandGreenday Anything that arouses controversy should be approached with greater interest. If your mom gets mad then you should definitely read it. It is hard to say to which age group it is appropriate but I beind 'educated' will not enable you to understand this novel. 'On the road', or any other work by Kerouac, is according to me to be read with your heart and sensations and not your eyes. To UNDERSTAND Kerouac is to FEEL him and to be affected by his prose.
(to) swing (verb): To achieve the highest state of well-being. To soar free and clear. Bobby Rydell attended a "Swinging' School." Bruce and Sinatra graduated.
@StraightPunkEdge93 I want to just say that it was only fifty years ago and you should give it some time, but people couldn't write like that before Kerouac, either.
The Town and The City is a hefty read, but worth it.....the reader gets a personal perspective into the cultivation of Jacks upbringing, and his life philosophies as a child to a young adult. It's truly beautiful.
I am 23. I've read everything he's ever put to paper, and personally his novella Big Sur is much more melancholy than On the Road. It portrays Jacks progressive internal struggle with loss and depression, in a drunken two week venture. Then again the dharma bums was his replacing of cassady for snyder to seek out enlightenment through buddhism. Which, in turn, fails due to Jacks alcoholic dependency. Before anyone reads On The Road they should read his very first novel, The Town and The City.
After I finished reading On the Road while vacationing in Florida, I stopped giving a fuck about my grades/schoolwork. I'm saving up for a plane ticket to Las Vegas when I'm done highschool and I'm going to be a bum down there.
On The Road is and always will be a classic piece of literature. I'm 19 years old and I am about half way through reading it for the second time. I wasn't around then, my parents weren't even around then.. But Kerouac's work makes it so easy to picture and imagine just what it was like. It's too bad that the world has gone and changed so much from the simple days..
If you love Kerouac like I do, check out my new book Road Trippn,' a tribute to Jack, youth, Freedom and America set across the country and culminating in the streets of NYC, a month prior to the attacks of 9/11. Check it out at Amazon.com
and support another working class artist from one of America's other former industrial glory towns - Cleveland this carnation around instead of Lowell.
Jeeze, you guys have no concept of Kerouac, Ginsberg, McKuen and a thousand others who came hone from the war and needed to find themselves. During the three years I was in Nam, I read McKuen poetry, Kerouac literature and Ginsberg philosphy. I rationalized my killing with duty until duty became an albatros. Because they are men of honor who spoke out, in there own way, about injustice, you critise? Learn to construct a sentence and learn to spell, then go to war and speak of which you know
I'm currently in the midst of FINALLY getting around to reading this, and man, what an experience. I have told people that this is the book that I would love to equate my life to. Written so beautifully, so honestly. It makes me dream of better times I never had a chance to experience, where people just picked up their friends and had only each other. If you don't read this you are only delaying your own progress.
Kerouac should have made a tape where he spoke out the whole book like this, like those tapes you can get at the library. I love hearing Kerouac's monologue and hearing him speak out the book to the sound of a jazzy violin. Just an opinion.
Anyone who liked 'on the road' should read 'the adventures of augie march' by saul bellow, which is a far better book. Kerouac was an immature idiot like the rest of the dead beat clowns.
It makes me sad that anyone would say such a thing, but it makes me glad that anyone can find a piece of paradise in something, even if it's not something I like.
Why does society continue to glamorize alcholism and the degradation of an individual. He was probably a talented writer ( I never read any of his books) But he will be remembered for his rebellous and alchoholic Life . What a shame. But that is what people like. To see the pit that people can put themselvees into. And people glamorize and amortalize those who die young. Its Society that is also sick.
@MrJim12341121 He will be remembered as a man who did his best to live his life exactly as he wanted to. I strongly suggest you open up one of his books, and see what and why people remember him and celebrate him.
To be able to say you never read any of Jack Kerouac's work means you are about, should you chose to, embark on a wonderful journey. In "Dharma Bums" there is an exceptional epiphany he has wherein he announces to God that he loves Him! It will bring you to tears. This man was an astute observer of human beings whose fame robbed him of his annonimity and hence his ability to observe. THAT is what prevented him from writing & ultimately drove him to drink & death.
People have this idyllic image of them having never ending wild times, but I get the sense that Kerouac and friends were actually rather bored and listless most of the time. But, scattered amidst rivers of idleness, were these brief pockets of exciting transpirations, which seemed incredibly opulent in contrast to what they had been experiencing. When you've slept on cold park benches for 3 months, a single night warm bed seems like heaven
@jordanjohnston91 I'm 15, and I've been reading stuff from the beat generation since I was 13... I think more people my age should get into better books. Hopefully, this generation will put down twilight and pick up Naked Lunch. Then there might just be hope for us after all.
I warn you my dear friends - think of me as some sort of cloaked man from Twain's "war prayer" or something - the bottom of the barrel has yet to be scraped, and Hollywood will make sure that it is completely licked clean....
Oh friends,...this may be the death blow for "On the Road" if Viggo Mortenson and the rest of the Hollywood douches get their ragged claws on it.
What terrible beast slouches toward Hollywood to be born?
Jack was my "father", friend mentor in Northport 1957 and not too many people realize the real angle-headed hipster that he was and will always be..what time is it? 1957.
what a beautifully written and read piece of prose....hearing it straight from Jack's lips really allows you to hear the heartfelt manner in which he wrote. Such incredible forces permeated this man!!
at 16 , I hitched across America ( 2 of us ) along route 66... we started from NY and picked up 66 in the midwest ....there were no Mcdonalds , Red Roof inns etc .th journey was dotted with 'mom& pop' establishments .. from sleeping on the open dessert , the characters we encountered , the awe inspiring beauty and a few dangers ( some imagined , some not ) it was an awakening experience ..so it seems all road movies pique my interest ...thanks for posting
I've thought for several years now that we are due for another Beat or Hippie-type movement, at least here in the U.S. Rebellion against stifling parental control (ironically many of those same parents were Hippies the first time around); failing wars, political cant, Homeland Security BS, rants of religion, and the homogeneity and artificiality of practically everything. But, do the under-read, sheeple teens and young adults of today have the intellectual stones to carry it off?
@50zcarsman The youth that have nothing to gain, they/ we have too much freedom, freedom within boundries causes us to break out of those boundries and litrerature is a means to that end. intellectualism isnt prized anymore we'd rather see what kim kardashian or the whats happening on the jersey shore however this is not a completly global thing i just came back from Paris, philosophers there are treated as movie stars quite a culture shock so perhaps there is hope.
hey! It can't make things any worse, and the kids might enjoy it!
It doesn't belong to any generation!
I remember taking "On the Road " into a hotel bar in Shetland in 1978 and the landlord said " thats "old hat" that's past Why are you reading that now..that was our generation"; It wasn't; its not; its anybody's its art its timeless!
C'mon people follow your own road. Don't get so wrapped up in beat and forms and categories. Just forget about all that and watch the crazy world reveal itself to you.
Hollywood can do plots.... and do them well but it can't do poetry that pulses and drives with the rhythm of what it is describing so that you know it in a way that no video/celluloid can ever bring forth. Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs and other beat poets and even Nelson Algren were writing an obituary for a reality that is now gone... Thank you Jack.
I'm surprised fewer people are commenting on the fact that Kerouac duped the Steve Allen crowd. The first part he reads is clearly from the (then unpublished) Visions of Cody ("The most sincere and holy writing of our age" -- Ginsberg)
It's crazy that Kerouac was playing the piano, the bass, and the drums, whilst reciting and simultaneously re-writing this. A truly talented man! Dig!
@VisivisiV That is Steve Allen playing the piano. This is from an interview on the Steve Allen show. It's on youtube, I just finished watching it! So you can watch this instead of listening and watch edited interview.
@VisivisiV Its from when Jack was on "The Steve Allen Show" , reading from "On The Road". Someone pulled the audio and pasted it on a slide show. Check out the video its here on YouTube
I am an American living in Japan who made a visit to Edson Cemetary to pay my respects to the man Jack Kerouac at his very humbl grave . Jack was a patriot and lover of America , and Catholic . He had nothing to do with perverts Ginsberg and Burroughs at the end of his life . He saw the so-called Beat Generation for what it was and had become , and rejected it . The media destroyed Jack , probably the most " sympathetic " of writers of the last 60 years .
once the twilight hipsters read the book, we're gonna have a brand new unintentional beatnik generation all over the place. It goes either one way or the other. One way, they see twilight is horse shit and everything about their teenage existance was stupid and wrong – and we've all been there – or the other way. People come to realize it's much more about the experience than the fun in life.
bellissimo e struggente.....Kerouac era qua, peccato per quelli che non vollero riconoscerlo. E noi, oggi, chi abbiamo? romanzieri da quattro soldi, vomitatori di best-sellers, emulatori meccanici e accademici, sfidanti che si danno appuntamento sul ring del "chi scrive più di pagine, pagine, pagine e ancora pagine VACUE". Se penso che una cosa informe e sorda chiamata Twilight venga definita letteratura mi sento in colpa verso Kerouac... "Com'è triste, è proprio come la vita vera"
of large crowds, in stadiums....i'm sorry i just was never that impressed with the whole beat mystique...i agree with truman capote, when some told him that it only took kerouac two weeks to write on the road, capote said, that's not writing that's typing...people love who they love...if you want to love the beats, it's a free country, but learn the truth about your heroes....and naked lunch was a perfect example of literary masochism...
@Kellogs43able Truman Capote apologized to Jack Kerouac about that after he read On The Road and recognized its genius. On The Road took years to write the myth that it took two weeks is untrue, one of the drafts took two weeks. I'm not a huge fan of the beats, but your facts are mis-represented.
james baldwin noted this in an essay about kerouac and took him down a few pegs...allen ginsberg proved that drugs could make you a better writer...he wrote howl under the influence of peyote and other substances and nothing else he wrote after that came close to howl...allen was supposed to come to new orleans in 1996 for a poetry reading, but his disrecpectful ass bailed out with no advanced notice...allen had a reputation for being a rock star poet...he only wanted to read his stuff in front
william burroughs was a junkie who killed his wife in a game of russian roulette...he escaped to mexico and stayed there until he gave up and came back...he didn't do that much time for it...if i had done something like that, they would've put me under the jail...but i guess being white in america still counts for soemthing..kerouac tried to capture the negro experience in on the road, in one chapter, he pretends to be a white negro and failed miserably
@luis6079 no, burroughs killed his wife playing a game of william tell...he escaped to mexico and and later came back and did very little time for it....it's true...
@Kellogs43able Agreed about the William Tell. Different from your original post - Russian Roulette? He pointed the pistol and fired one shot from a fully loaded gun. He shot Joan Vollmer Burroughs while they were in Mexico City, before leaving for a second trip to South America, then briefly NY, and on to Tangiers. He was arrested and jailed right after the murder - he was incarcerated for about two weeks, after his Mexican lawyer asked him to high tail it out of Mexico - he never returned.
@Kellogs43able haha! Yes, my friend. That's pretty much what I stated. The only thing that concerned me of your comment, and I'm not trying to be a big internet know it all, I am just a big fan of Burrough's life is - you say "he escaped to mexico and and later came back and did very little time for it....it's true" It is true, but - he escaped from where? He shot Joan in Mexico City. Indeed, he did little time for it - two weeks, I think, before running to South America a second time.
i used to like the beats until i learned that they were all a bunch of rich kids who who liked to go slumming, who would messed themselves up intentionally...walk the walk, don't just talk the talk....
@bcmoonshine no, you're ignorant...history can be altered...bios can be made up to make people interesting....too bad lemming like you, buy into their bs.....
@Kellogs43able - There was no beat generation - The real beats were like kerouac - He wasnt the rich drug addict you depict - he wanted to experience life and everything it had to give - He never wanted to inspire a generation of deadbeats - True others blindly followed him as fun to dabble in being poor. But the real beats were not rich kids going slumming. But dont listen to me or anyone else - Read some of their books and make your own mind up.
Damn... I didn't know he was so hot! Heard about him and started reading On The Road this summer... got too much to read for class now but loved the first half!
So is anyone freaked out that Kristen Stewart is cast in the upcoming film? The thought of all the Twilight kids flocking to the theater because of her and then suddenly becoming "way into" the beat generation makes me feel sick.
@jordanjohnston91 I like beatniks because of the way their hep lingo and stuff (seriously, I only learned they were called beatniks this year). And yeah, I'm frustrated that it'd make a new gimmick. To think they were busy drooling over their Twilight books. Tsk tsk.
@HeadfulOfHollow I'm glad you did! I am not sure if I'm happy that a film is being made, but I definitely am nervous. I feel that if the movie is a hit, the Twilight fans will all read On The Road because it will be the "hip" thing to do. It's not that I don't want the book to get more exposure, but come on!
@jordanjohnston91 Very true, but I say share the knowledge to everyone. Let the hipsters, with their empty lives get "into" the beat generation. It will pass, but Kerouac will live on forever!
I'm fascinated by On The Road, but even Kerouac himself hated the time he spent on the road. (Please don't misread that statement)
@jordanjohnston91 For every 100 kids who become "way into" the beat generation one of them will actually read On The Road. It'll be worth it for that.
@jordanjohnston91 Who cares if some tweens get a taste of the beat generation? I think its about goddamn time I can walk down the halls of any given highschool and ask "who is Jack Kerouac?" and someone will know the answer. Maybe if our generation stopped thinking of philosophies, movements, and music as their own private clubs it wouldn't be a problem. The world being obsessed with adolescent vampires didn't affect me. If the world is obsessed with the beat generation it won't affect me.
@ChrisGnosis I certainly see what you are saying and I do think it is a bit selfish of me to want to keep the Beats to myself, but the Beat Generation is one of the most important things in my life and to see it possibly fall into tween scene/hipsterdom makes me feel very uneasy. I could definitely be wrong in saying that Twilight tweens are going to become "beatnik" tweens (and I hope that I am!).
@jordanjohnston91 dont worry pal they'l get it all wrong, the whiskey involvement will prevent alot of sheeple from being beat, topman will produce deliberatley scraggy clothes so other shops might make their shit cheaper, we might hear some bee-bop in the charts!
@ChrisGnosis I'm Fifteen and at a high school and On The Road is my favourite book of all time, I couldn't begin to describe what I felt whilst reading it. Incidentally I'm not a fan of Twilight.
@ChrisGnosis I agree that excluding people from culture is bullshit. But I also bemoan how the On The Road movie looks so far. It's not because I don't think kids shouldn't be inspired to explore culture and embrace vital works/movements/ideologies/inspirations/etc. Rather, I fear the film will be what it so far appears to be; a disappropriation of a challenging vitality that will smother the life in the work and defuse its energy (Hebdige, "Subculture: The Unnatural Break, Ch.3") cont...
@ChrisGnosis I agree that excluding people from culture is bullshit. But I also bemoan how the On The Road movie looks so far. It's not because I don't think kids shouldn't be inspired to explore culture and embrace vital works/movements/ideologies/inspirations/etc. Rather, I fear the film will be what it so far appears to be; a disappropriation of a challenging vitality that will smother the life in the work and defuse its energy (Hebdige, "Subculture: The Unnatural Break, Ch.3")
Could someone write the text of this page?
thanks...
PAPERONE560 3 days ago
Here's what fools expect us to believe: "(William) Burroughs had his own troubles and he was glad to see an old friend. In March 1952, two months before Jack (Kerouac) arrived, Bill had accidentally shot his wife through the head. He and Joan had been playing William Tell in a friend's apartment with a gun and a glass on Joan's head instead of an apple. Burroughs had missed the target and killed his wife.” [Fr. page 153, paragraph 2 of "Kerouac" by Ann Charters, 1973]
procommenter 4 days ago
The 50s were hard times for free spirits. The 60s did better. Jack and the beat lads broke on through to the other side with varying shades of success.
ZOGGYDOGGY 1 week ago
This has been flagged as spam show
just finished with the book, I had to read it for school.
Maybe it's because i'm too young but I found nothing special in this book.
Can someone please explain me why this book is praised so much?
19Maks94 3 weeks ago
Comment removed
19Maks94 3 weeks ago
Comment removed
19Maks94 3 weeks ago
Comment removed
19Maks94 3 weeks ago
@19Maks94 I just finished reading this for pleasure. The reason I would praise this book is due to the parallels I (as well as most young people) can draw to my own life: the overwhelming but suppressed urge I have to go out, explore the world and find meaning for my existence, and the realization that this search in and of itself is as close an answer as I will ever uncover to the great question of "Why am I here?"
This is just one of the many themes Kerouac delves into.
warrior7593 3 weeks ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@19Maks94 I just finished reading this for pleasure. The reason I would praise this book is due to the parallels I (as well as most young people) can draw to my own life: the overwhelming but suppressed urge I have to go out, explore the world and find meaning for my existence, and the realization that this search in and of itself is as close an answer as I will ever uncover to the great question of "Why am I here?"
This is just one of the many themes Kerouac delves into.
warrior7593 3 weeks ago
boom zatarspoetry.blogspot.com
TomZatarKay 3 weeks ago
the film is gonna be total horse shit i can already see it
what a bloody disgrace to ruin a good book
gavin20101 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
the schizophrenic, rise again, wild psychic phenomena being the native language, no more are there those who deny the meanings of spiritual things, and again it is not common place for humans to speak to other animals.
maybealover 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
The deer spoke of a diamond truth, they also studied the ways of the mushrooms and learned a deep spiritual way, we celebrate the deer, during deertime, here in the rift between the worlds.
this time, we are wiser, we are more mature, we return to the ways of nature where ever we can, we don't let names and labels sweep us away so much as what is actually happening.
maybealover 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
I experienced a shaman once, like a slow tie dye, always confusing itself for me, washing over everything, an incredible spirit
ini
even craziness is good here, because the spirits move in us, in a neutral place, where there is no crazy, nor sane, only what is, in the living nature of the buddha.
maybealover 1 month ago
and don't you know that God is pooh bear
burningmanheartbeat 2 months ago 2
This has been flagged as spam show
I've just uploaded a reading of a major influence of Ginsberg - George Sterling's 1909 - A Wine of Wizardry. If you have the time check it out. It's under my playlist in two parts
maurice2002 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
When some people think of America, they think of rampant capitalism, avarice, and imperialism, but I think of Art. I think of music, -blues-jazz-folk-country. I think of the Guthrie, Cash, Johnson, Parker, and Dylan. I think of literature, F. Scott, Throeau, Twain, Kerouac, and so many others that have brought to light the true American soul. Im just getting into a lot of this literature and it really rocks, "hit the road Jack" i love it ! God Bless America !
hardluckstories1 2 months ago
It doesn't matter what age you are, literature is written for a reason for all ages to explore and enjoy. To relive or reinvent. Any book I read I become part of. Just enjoy life everyday to the best of your ability. The drama and bullshit is never worth your time and patience.
jjceas234 2 months ago 2
@jjceas234 Indeed! :-)
tomelifeisjustonebig 2 months ago
This book saved my life.
qwertyuiop78945612 2 months ago
Cassidy is an ass or using women, but you tell him that yourself. I have met only one person vaguely the same, and you have to admire at the energy they give off, it's a big thing, if you want to use it. Obviously he hasn't been through here!
jazhand 2 months ago
It's just that nobody who has anything to say about it says anything about it here. The book counts, not the private life, the film counts, but not behind the scenes, and definitely not mindless look-a-mee chatter. People like Kerouac work very hard to put people back onto love, the heart. See the film, read the book, or don't, and stop slinging shit and roses for what you don' know nnnnnuthin about. I've read every one of those books and a bunch of biographies and I know nothing about him ???
jazhand 2 months ago
From what I read in "I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg" by Bill Morgan (Ginsberg's archivist) Kerouac sounded like a fucking asshole. Brilliant as he may have been...
spermangerman 2 months ago
@spermangerman most alcoholics are very arrogant.. that sense of self annihilation, not really caring what others think of you.. i think Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) was probably more of an 'asshole'.. !
SovereignBeing 2 months ago
Comment removed
spermangerman 2 months ago
I'm from the old school of way back when. I can listen to this and enjoy the NY accent in all of him and hear it all around me everyday. it's a past time of history and movement in American culture. this is a vintage piece no matter which way we play it!
Suzan4B 3 months ago
Keruoac was a word slinger. You can't be a wasted fool to write that. But of course alcohol was the victor here.
Countrychiddler 3 months ago
could someone post the text of the last page?
thanks
PAPERONE560 3 months ago
i am in the middle of reading on the road. so freaking awesome, as 31 yr old i love it. i bought a copy that was a 25th anniversary cover
sevenguiry 3 months ago
@sevenguiry I got the same, im 16 years old from Colombia, is really hard to get the book here. I'm loving it too.
aiglv 3 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Hello! We are organising a tribute to Kerouac. That's called the On The Road 4 Kerouac project. You can participate here : ontheroad-themovie.blogspot.com
OnTheRoadTheMovieFR 3 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Hello! We are organising a tribute to Kerouac. That's called the On The Road 4 Kerouac project. You can participate here : ontheroad-themovie.blogspot.com and find us on Twitter : @ontheroadthemov
OnTheRoadTheMovieFR 3 months ago
this was uploaded on my birthday five years ago. fuck yeah, on the road.
Incendiarismm 5 months ago
Kerouac couldn't write. Zole and Sinclair Lewis could have written better without hands or eyes. Please, see DR. AYN RAND'S "The Romantic Manifesto" for further explanation. It can be bought for American currency at the Ayn Rand Bookstore. --EABII.
ebonz2 5 months ago
@ebonz2 fighting a lost cause with Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged and freed - but threw out the baby with the bath water.
mrvonaerial 5 months ago
@ebonz2
Who made the computer you're posting this from?
ChrisGnosis 5 months ago
@ebonz2 that's certainly a matter of opinion, ebonz. who are you to say Kerouac couldn't write? could he breathe poetry? did he ooze literary flow from his jacked up pores and cry pretty rhythms from his dayglo soul? fuck the good Doctor Rand, what a cold heartless bitch. she could write, sure, but man, she was lacking in soul...and a fuckin boyfriend too
PanMan227 5 months ago 3
@PanMan227 Maybe a solid bang would have snapped her out of negativity spiral of nonsense and cynacism. I doubt it though. You have to find joy in life to really be alive. I think that time for her was long, long passed. Kerouac.. for him it was because of how much life (and speed) he had in him that allowed it to just flow out onto those huge spools of paper he had in his typewritter as he would bang out chapter after chapter. Talent and tortured briliance; the greatest all were. Even Lincoln.
TfiveR 3 months ago
@ebonz2 He could write all right. You're just not pulled by his tides. You live under a different moon and travel a different road.
wtw88 4 months ago
@ebonz2 Hilarious.
hmillernin 4 months ago
@ebonz2 As a debate of Rands points of view would be a consequence of attempting a reasonable discussion to a subcriber of her utter blithering nonsense, I will enact a simple work around; to laugh and point. And my self interest tells me that since my time is valuable enough not to expend in any other fashion, that's what I'm going to do. HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHH
TfiveR 3 months ago
When some people think of America, they think of rampant capitalism, avarice, and imperialism, but I think of Art. I think of music, -blues-jazz-folk-country. I think of the Guthrie, Cash, Johnson, Parker, and Dylan. I think of literature, F. Scott, Throeau, Twain, Kerouac, and so many others that have brought to light the true American soul. Forgive me as I know a plethora of painters, musicians, artists etc will go unnamed... but let me just say, from Denver, "I think of Dean Moriarty" most.
j23erbs 5 months ago 30
@j23erbs Jack and the ones you mention were brilliant. Either you get this stuff, feel it, or you don't. If ya do, its great. The difficult thing is trying to get other people to realize what is being said, thru how it is being said. Life is abstract... and its hard to get!- anybody who gets close to it, in my book, kicks ass. The people you mention were trying to get there
Finko00 3 weeks ago
@j23erbs i never thought of this. i'm one of the 30% of the nation that is mindfully consumed with the rift between rich and poor
hillsonger 2 weeks ago
@j23erbs Ты очень хороший парень! Наверное ты из Парижа....Спасибо тебе...
TheStasGusev 6 days ago
im 12. I'm gonna run away now.
trenholmer1 5 months ago
beautiful and powerful, i like his voice, great reader...
EnjoyTheSurface 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
check out our band and follow us on facebook
naughtypollyband 6 months ago
Is it just me, or does Jack Kerouac look like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in the advertising photo for this video?
jerrynickel 6 months ago
this makes me want to stop writing poetry
worldfamous09 6 months ago
@Cemalson very well said!
Anneemalls 7 months ago
Hey peeps, just wanted to know what age group this book is appropriate for... I am an educated reader but my mom might get mad if I read this book.
GarrettandGreenday 7 months ago
@GarrettandGreenday Anything that arouses controversy should be approached with greater interest. If your mom gets mad then you should definitely read it. It is hard to say to which age group it is appropriate but I beind 'educated' will not enable you to understand this novel. 'On the road', or any other work by Kerouac, is according to me to be read with your heart and sensations and not your eyes. To UNDERSTAND Kerouac is to FEEL him and to be affected by his prose.
cemalson 7 months ago 6
@GarrettandGreenday Surely that alone is a sign you should be reading it. The book is for anyone who cares to read it.
samgrahaminc 6 months ago
@GarrettandGreenday You'll be fine... it's controversy in 1950s sense haha. But it's great.. read it
NikThaStik22 5 months ago
(to) swing (verb): To achieve the highest state of well-being. To soar free and clear. Bobby Rydell attended a "Swinging' School." Bruce and Sinatra graduated.
Diogenes1360 7 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
and don't you know that god is poo bear.
billyjoeusc 8 months ago
and don't you know that god is poo bear.
billyjoeusc 8 months ago
i wish i could have seen him read some of his works:(
sweatersnug 8 months ago
On The Road is one hell of an adventure, people just can't write like that anymore.
StraightPunkEdge93 8 months ago 5
@StraightPunkEdge93 I want to just say that it was only fifty years ago and you should give it some time, but people couldn't write like that before Kerouac, either.
Cubroncs03 8 months ago 2
The Town and The City is a hefty read, but worth it.....the reader gets a personal perspective into the cultivation of Jacks upbringing, and his life philosophies as a child to a young adult. It's truly beautiful.
rockraccoon311 8 months ago
I am 23. I've read everything he's ever put to paper, and personally his novella Big Sur is much more melancholy than On the Road. It portrays Jacks progressive internal struggle with loss and depression, in a drunken two week venture. Then again the dharma bums was his replacing of cassady for snyder to seek out enlightenment through buddhism. Which, in turn, fails due to Jacks alcoholic dependency. Before anyone reads On The Road they should read his very first novel, The Town and The City.
rockraccoon311 8 months ago
After I finished reading On the Road while vacationing in Florida, I stopped giving a fuck about my grades/schoolwork. I'm saving up for a plane ticket to Las Vegas when I'm done highschool and I'm going to be a bum down there.
FleshHungryFiend 8 months ago
I think that's why I like Kerouac so much. Being an immature idiot, I can relate to him.
lbcog1 8 months ago
On The Road is and always will be a classic piece of literature. I'm 19 years old and I am about half way through reading it for the second time. I wasn't around then, my parents weren't even around then.. But Kerouac's work makes it so easy to picture and imagine just what it was like. It's too bad that the world has gone and changed so much from the simple days..
gillianvanity 8 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
If you are interested, Ruscha’s “Real Estate Opportunities” from 1970 is up for auction on eBay.
astemborski 8 months ago
If you love Kerouac like I do, check out my new book Road Trippn,' a tribute to Jack, youth, Freedom and America set across the country and culminating in the streets of NYC, a month prior to the attacks of 9/11. Check it out at Amazon.com
and support another working class artist from one of America's other former industrial glory towns - Cleveland this carnation around instead of Lowell.
- John McParadise
johnmcparadisio 9 months ago
This is what God's voice sounds like.
dirtyshawn666 9 months ago 2
This is an amazing book. I'm 13. I'm reading it. It makes me want to go out and explore the world.
darceyy18 9 months ago 3
@darceyy18 That's exactly how I feel reading it -I'm fourteen:)
MsPassenger7 8 months ago
Jeeze, you guys have no concept of Kerouac, Ginsberg, McKuen and a thousand others who came hone from the war and needed to find themselves. During the three years I was in Nam, I read McKuen poetry, Kerouac literature and Ginsberg philosphy. I rationalized my killing with duty until duty became an albatros. Because they are men of honor who spoke out, in there own way, about injustice, you critise? Learn to construct a sentence and learn to spell, then go to war and speak of which you know
clearacres 9 months ago 2
'On the Road' has never been out of print - it stays with us and every new generation wants to know what it is all about.
eumenadesia 9 months ago
'I think of dean Moriarty. I even think of old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of De-an Mo-ri-arty...'
TheGeniousChild 9 months ago 3
This has been flagged as spam show
check out my channel for melody and poetry
katymay87 9 months ago
I'm currently in the midst of FINALLY getting around to reading this, and man, what an experience. I have told people that this is the book that I would love to equate my life to. Written so beautifully, so honestly. It makes me dream of better times I never had a chance to experience, where people just picked up their friends and had only each other. If you don't read this you are only delaying your own progress.
nickmordo 9 months ago
Kerouac should have made a tape where he spoke out the whole book like this, like those tapes you can get at the library. I love hearing Kerouac's monologue and hearing him speak out the book to the sound of a jazzy violin. Just an opinion.
kevluv93 9 months ago
Anyone who liked 'on the road' should read 'the adventures of augie march' by saul bellow, which is a far better book. Kerouac was an immature idiot like the rest of the dead beat clowns.
beradification 10 months ago
@beradification your an immature idiot
CollegeBoyzEnt 9 months ago
@beradification
It makes me sad that anyone would say such a thing, but it makes me glad that anyone can find a piece of paradise in something, even if it's not something I like.
MrAudiovideodisco 9 months ago
I think of Memere Kerouac. I hope she is finally satisfied with her 'Ti Jean.' He'd get a kick at how he is so well known.....now.
cindernation12 10 months ago
I think of Dean Moriarty
cindernation12 10 months ago 36
some of these lines are not found in the book. are there different versions or something?
dylanesc 10 months ago
Why does society continue to glamorize alcholism and the degradation of an individual. He was probably a talented writer ( I never read any of his books) But he will be remembered for his rebellous and alchoholic Life . What a shame. But that is what people like. To see the pit that people can put themselvees into. And people glamorize and amortalize those who die young. Its Society that is also sick.
MrJim12341121 10 months ago
@MrJim12341121 is it so bad as to be remembered as a rebel? After all in order to burn out you have to be on fire:)
Afereth 10 months ago
@MrJim12341121 He will be remembered as a man who did his best to live his life exactly as he wanted to. I strongly suggest you open up one of his books, and see what and why people remember him and celebrate him.
jdman331 10 months ago
@MrJim12341121
Oh, MY BOY!
To be able to say you never read any of Jack Kerouac's work means you are about, should you chose to, embark on a wonderful journey. In "Dharma Bums" there is an exceptional epiphany he has wherein he announces to God that he loves Him! It will bring you to tears. This man was an astute observer of human beings whose fame robbed him of his annonimity and hence his ability to observe. THAT is what prevented him from writing & ultimately drove him to drink & death.
OL55CADDY 10 months ago
I wonder which wife he's speaking of. Joan or Edie?
Dancewith6 10 months ago
does anyone know who plays the piano?
adamgreen 11 months ago
@adamgreen steve allen
davesteriscool 11 months ago
Goosebumps, man.
MAGSANDGEORGEWEASLEY 11 months ago
People have this idyllic image of them having never ending wild times, but I get the sense that Kerouac and friends were actually rather bored and listless most of the time. But, scattered amidst rivers of idleness, were these brief pockets of exciting transpirations, which seemed incredibly opulent in contrast to what they had been experiencing. When you've slept on cold park benches for 3 months, a single night warm bed seems like heaven
P.S. I've read all of his books...
calico992 11 months ago
@jordanjohnston91 I'm 15, and I've been reading stuff from the beat generation since I was 13... I think more people my age should get into better books. Hopefully, this generation will put down twilight and pick up Naked Lunch. Then there might just be hope for us after all.
thecrimsonfloyd 11 months ago 3
I warn you my dear friends - think of me as some sort of cloaked man from Twain's "war prayer" or something - the bottom of the barrel has yet to be scraped, and Hollywood will make sure that it is completely licked clean....
Oh friends,...this may be the death blow for "On the Road" if Viggo Mortenson and the rest of the Hollywood douches get their ragged claws on it.
What terrible beast slouches toward Hollywood to be born?
treid100182 11 months ago
@treid100182 Don't worry, the book will still be here, unchanged.
Sydwayman 11 months ago
im kinda freaked out that their actually making the movie!!! you know their going to butcher it!!!
delareealena 11 months ago
@delareealena Some things they should just not touch. But I think I read somewhere that jack wanted it making in to a movie though?
neilo86 11 months ago
on the road is just one of those dazzling books that make you wanna go out there and hit the road right away, travel the world...
as to the upcoming movie: I don't get the fuss about stewart being in this.
I mean, hey, sam riley' s going to portray sal...so I 'd say yay for this one ;P
frusciantefan8 11 months ago
@jordanjohnston91 why does that freak you out or make you feel sick? you own the shit, ya do?
rhiannoninthesky0 11 months ago
Didn't Steve Allen play piano on this?
gahrzahk 11 months ago
@ColdHeartedMan1980 I am well aware of that.
STRUTTER777U 1 year ago
Jack was my "father", friend mentor in Northport 1957 and not too many people realize the real angle-headed hipster that he was and will always be..what time is it? 1957.
mcrdaveabc 1 year ago
i love kerouac,on the road is one of my favourite books but sending home for money for a bus ticket took away some of the magic for me
MrBlacknail69 1 year ago
what a beautifully written and read piece of prose....hearing it straight from Jack's lips really allows you to hear the heartfelt manner in which he wrote. Such incredible forces permeated this man!!
highlikeafly 1 year ago
at 16 , I hitched across America ( 2 of us ) along route 66... we started from NY and picked up 66 in the midwest ....there were no Mcdonalds , Red Roof inns etc .th journey was dotted with 'mom& pop' establishments .. from sleeping on the open dessert , the characters we encountered , the awe inspiring beauty and a few dangers ( some imagined , some not ) it was an awakening experience ..so it seems all road movies pique my interest ...thanks for posting
cboula 1 year ago
Jazz, drugs and freedom...
megakingpako 1 year ago
I've thought for several years now that we are due for another Beat or Hippie-type movement, at least here in the U.S. Rebellion against stifling parental control (ironically many of those same parents were Hippies the first time around); failing wars, political cant, Homeland Security BS, rants of religion, and the homogeneity and artificiality of practically everything. But, do the under-read, sheeple teens and young adults of today have the intellectual stones to carry it off?
50zcarsman 1 year ago
@50zcarsman The youth that have nothing to gain, they/ we have too much freedom, freedom within boundries causes us to break out of those boundries and litrerature is a means to that end. intellectualism isnt prized anymore we'd rather see what kim kardashian or the whats happening on the jersey shore however this is not a completly global thing i just came back from Paris, philosophers there are treated as movie stars quite a culture shock so perhaps there is hope.
julzv100 1 year ago
hey! It can't make things any worse, and the kids might enjoy it!
It doesn't belong to any generation!
I remember taking "On the Road " into a hotel bar in Shetland in 1978 and the landlord said " thats "old hat" that's past Why are you reading that now..that was our generation"; It wasn't; its not; its anybody's its art its timeless!
Enjoy like I did! Why not!
skinttim 1 year ago
@skinttim Hell Yeah! I wish I was in 1947-49, I imagine those where fucking great years. But I might do my own generation based on that philosophy
megakingpako 1 year ago
ooooo.,,, the madness!!!!!
Marshallartsmaster 1 year ago
Kristen Stewart plays Mary Lou aka a whore. What a suprise.
andy1sim 1 year ago
@andy1sim exactly
obviousotter 11 months ago
A person's voice is always so different to what one expects.
snaggdads 1 year ago
C'mon people follow your own road. Don't get so wrapped up in beat and forms and categories. Just forget about all that and watch the crazy world reveal itself to you.
MrJ3conn 1 year ago
@MrJ3conn Is is that easy? I believe this takes a certain amount of courage, which the average man does not necessarily possess.
marcusliciniusad 1 year ago
Hollywood can do plots.... and do them well but it can't do poetry that pulses and drives with the rhythm of what it is describing so that you know it in a way that no video/celluloid can ever bring forth. Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs and other beat poets and even Nelson Algren were writing an obituary for a reality that is now gone... Thank you Jack.
jimaroo100 1 year ago
I'm surprised fewer people are commenting on the fact that Kerouac duped the Steve Allen crowd. The first part he reads is clearly from the (then unpublished) Visions of Cody ("The most sincere and holy writing of our age" -- Ginsberg)
SalParadise90 1 year ago
It's crazy that Kerouac was playing the piano, the bass, and the drums, whilst reciting and simultaneously re-writing this. A truly talented man! Dig!
IHateBarnett 1 year ago
Saw the scroll for this book once. Was cool. Never really had much respect for Kerouac until that day. Kudos to his sheer typing skill.
samgrahaminc 1 year ago
What's the band and who's that playing the piano in the back?
VisivisiV 1 year ago
Comment removed
lloplop 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@VisivisiV That is Steve Allen playing the piano. This is from an interview on the Steve Allen show. It's on youtube, I just finished watching it! So you can watch this instead of listening and watch edited interview.
lloplop 1 year ago
@VisivisiV Its from when Jack was on "The Steve Allen Show" , reading from "On The Road". Someone pulled the audio and pasted it on a slide show. Check out the video its here on YouTube
MrMatthewrb85 1 year ago
I am an American living in Japan who made a visit to Edson Cemetary to pay my respects to the man Jack Kerouac at his very humbl grave . Jack was a patriot and lover of America , and Catholic . He had nothing to do with perverts Ginsberg and Burroughs at the end of his life . He saw the so-called Beat Generation for what it was and had become , and rejected it . The media destroyed Jack , probably the most " sympathetic " of writers of the last 60 years .
sonor23 1 year ago
genius
Funkfeuer54 1 year ago
Online Asian wives lushfmlk.info
helarymax 1 year ago
let the beat hipsters live on through us
Dajackal07 1 year ago
once the twilight hipsters read the book, we're gonna have a brand new unintentional beatnik generation all over the place. It goes either one way or the other. One way, they see twilight is horse shit and everything about their teenage existance was stupid and wrong – and we've all been there – or the other way. People come to realize it's much more about the experience than the fun in life.
TylerMontana 1 year ago 2
Comment removed
10axyz 1 year ago
People that were young in the 30's-50's spoke so much differently than people do now.
iiiiihexiiiii 1 year ago
@padbrit ever been to williamsburg? Hahahah
juvenal660 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Would you like to date a sexy single mom naneedj.info
anjanaliyal 1 year ago
R.I.P. Jack. 10.21.69.... i still think of ol Dean Moriarty
slammic2010 1 year ago 4
bellissimo e struggente.....Kerouac era qua, peccato per quelli che non vollero riconoscerlo. E noi, oggi, chi abbiamo? romanzieri da quattro soldi, vomitatori di best-sellers, emulatori meccanici e accademici, sfidanti che si danno appuntamento sul ring del "chi scrive più di pagine, pagine, pagine e ancora pagine VACUE". Se penso che una cosa informe e sorda chiamata Twilight venga definita letteratura mi sento in colpa verso Kerouac... "Com'è triste, è proprio come la vita vera"
Tellthemoff 1 year ago
This isn't only On the Road
the first part is from his last version of his road story Visions of Cody
ricecracker966 1 year ago
class
katymay87 1 year ago
of large crowds, in stadiums....i'm sorry i just was never that impressed with the whole beat mystique...i agree with truman capote, when some told him that it only took kerouac two weeks to write on the road, capote said, that's not writing that's typing...people love who they love...if you want to love the beats, it's a free country, but learn the truth about your heroes....and naked lunch was a perfect example of literary masochism...
Kellogs43able 1 year ago
@Kellogs43able Yes. I agree with you on this and it is funny, in an interview, Kerouac also called his writing style "Just typing."
luis6079 1 year ago
@Kellogs43able Truman Capote apologized to Jack Kerouac about that after he read On The Road and recognized its genius. On The Road took years to write the myth that it took two weeks is untrue, one of the drafts took two weeks. I'm not a huge fan of the beats, but your facts are mis-represented.
juvenal660 1 year ago
james baldwin noted this in an essay about kerouac and took him down a few pegs...allen ginsberg proved that drugs could make you a better writer...he wrote howl under the influence of peyote and other substances and nothing else he wrote after that came close to howl...allen was supposed to come to new orleans in 1996 for a poetry reading, but his disrecpectful ass bailed out with no advanced notice...allen had a reputation for being a rock star poet...he only wanted to read his stuff in front
Kellogs43able 1 year ago
william burroughs was a junkie who killed his wife in a game of russian roulette...he escaped to mexico and stayed there until he gave up and came back...he didn't do that much time for it...if i had done something like that, they would've put me under the jail...but i guess being white in america still counts for soemthing..kerouac tried to capture the negro experience in on the road, in one chapter, he pretends to be a white negro and failed miserably
Kellogs43able 1 year ago
@Kellogs43able About Burroughs - this is not factual. Please correct it.
luis6079 1 year ago
@luis6079 no, burroughs killed his wife playing a game of william tell...he escaped to mexico and and later came back and did very little time for it....it's true...
Kellogs43able 1 year ago
@Kellogs43able Agreed about the William Tell. Different from your original post - Russian Roulette? He pointed the pistol and fired one shot from a fully loaded gun. He shot Joan Vollmer Burroughs while they were in Mexico City, before leaving for a second trip to South America, then briefly NY, and on to Tangiers. He was arrested and jailed right after the murder - he was incarcerated for about two weeks, after his Mexican lawyer asked him to high tail it out of Mexico - he never returned.
luis6079 1 year ago
@Kellogs43able haha! Yes, my friend. That's pretty much what I stated. The only thing that concerned me of your comment, and I'm not trying to be a big internet know it all, I am just a big fan of Burrough's life is - you say "he escaped to mexico and and later came back and did very little time for it....it's true" It is true, but - he escaped from where? He shot Joan in Mexico City. Indeed, he did little time for it - two weeks, I think, before running to South America a second time.
luis6079 1 year ago
@Kellogs43able Not russian roulette. William Tell.
jordanjohnston91 1 year ago
To me Kerouac was all about kindness to one another in the face of the great sadness that is life
jackemlyn062 1 year ago 2
i used to like the beats until i learned that they were all a bunch of rich kids who who liked to go slumming, who would messed themselves up intentionally...walk the walk, don't just talk the talk....
Kellogs43able 1 year ago
@Kellogs43able
You're ignorant of the facts, obviously.
Kerouac was born to a working class family. Ginsberg's father was a teacher, not exactly "rich". Burrough's parents were drug addicts.
bcmoonshine 1 year ago 3
@bcmoonshine no, you're ignorant...history can be altered...bios can be made up to make people interesting....too bad lemming like you, buy into their bs.....
Kellogs43able 1 year ago
@bcmoonshine Burroughs parents were NOT drug addicts.
luis6079 1 year ago
@Kellogs43able - There was no beat generation - The real beats were like kerouac - He wasnt the rich drug addict you depict - he wanted to experience life and everything it had to give - He never wanted to inspire a generation of deadbeats - True others blindly followed him as fun to dabble in being poor. But the real beats were not rich kids going slumming. But dont listen to me or anyone else - Read some of their books and make your own mind up.
risdpedia 1 year ago 9
Damn... I didn't know he was so hot! Heard about him and started reading On The Road this summer... got too much to read for class now but loved the first half!
wbleece 1 year ago
So is anyone freaked out that Kristen Stewart is cast in the upcoming film? The thought of all the Twilight kids flocking to the theater because of her and then suddenly becoming "way into" the beat generation makes me feel sick.
jordanjohnston91 1 year ago 89
@jordanjohnston91 i recon she'll fit it well, i mean, i hate twilight, but she was really good in the runaways
mooshashie 1 year ago
@jordanjohnston91 I like beatniks because of the way their hep lingo and stuff (seriously, I only learned they were called beatniks this year). And yeah, I'm frustrated that it'd make a new gimmick. To think they were busy drooling over their Twilight books. Tsk tsk.
jaguarjaguarjaguarja 1 year ago
@jordanjohnston91 Oh, I've found company!
HeadfulOfHollow 1 year ago
@HeadfulOfHollow I'm glad you did! I am not sure if I'm happy that a film is being made, but I definitely am nervous. I feel that if the movie is a hit, the Twilight fans will all read On The Road because it will be the "hip" thing to do. It's not that I don't want the book to get more exposure, but come on!
jordanjohnston91 1 year ago
@jordanjohnston91 Very true, but I say share the knowledge to everyone. Let the hipsters, with their empty lives get "into" the beat generation. It will pass, but Kerouac will live on forever!
I'm fascinated by On The Road, but even Kerouac himself hated the time he spent on the road. (Please don't misread that statement)
13Knives1 1 year ago
@jordanjohnston91 For every 100 kids who become "way into" the beat generation one of them will actually read On The Road. It'll be worth it for that.
Stoopchow 1 year ago 3
@jordanjohnston91 Who cares if some tweens get a taste of the beat generation? I think its about goddamn time I can walk down the halls of any given highschool and ask "who is Jack Kerouac?" and someone will know the answer. Maybe if our generation stopped thinking of philosophies, movements, and music as their own private clubs it wouldn't be a problem. The world being obsessed with adolescent vampires didn't affect me. If the world is obsessed with the beat generation it won't affect me.
ChrisGnosis 1 year ago 112
@ChrisGnosis I certainly see what you are saying and I do think it is a bit selfish of me to want to keep the Beats to myself, but the Beat Generation is one of the most important things in my life and to see it possibly fall into tween scene/hipsterdom makes me feel very uneasy. I could definitely be wrong in saying that Twilight tweens are going to become "beatnik" tweens (and I hope that I am!).
jordanjohnston91 1 year ago
@jordanjohnston91 dont worry pal they'l get it all wrong, the whiskey involvement will prevent alot of sheeple from being beat, topman will produce deliberatley scraggy clothes so other shops might make their shit cheaper, we might hear some bee-bop in the charts!
crlsen 1 year ago
@ChrisGnosis I'm Fifteen and at a high school and On The Road is my favourite book of all time, I couldn't begin to describe what I felt whilst reading it. Incidentally I'm not a fan of Twilight.
S3AANNN 1 year ago 2
@ChrisGnosis Wow, I second that.....You said it all!!
azcrum 1 year ago
@ChrisGnosis I agree that excluding people from culture is bullshit. But I also bemoan how the On The Road movie looks so far. It's not because I don't think kids shouldn't be inspired to explore culture and embrace vital works/movements/ideologies/inspirations/etc. Rather, I fear the film will be what it so far appears to be; a disappropriation of a challenging vitality that will smother the life in the work and defuse its energy (Hebdige, "Subculture: The Unnatural Break, Ch.3") cont...
BCsJonathanTM 11 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@ChrisGnosis I agree that excluding people from culture is bullshit. But I also bemoan how the On The Road movie looks so far. It's not because I don't think kids shouldn't be inspired to explore culture and embrace vital works/movements/ideologies/inspirations/etc. Rather, I fear the film will be what it so far appears to be; a disappropriation of a challenging vitality that will smother the life in the work and defuse its energy (Hebdige, "Subculture: The Unnatural Break, Ch.3")
BCsJonathanTM 11 months ago
@ChrisGnosis great art is great art no matter what period of historical "time" it occupies.
nicodagger 5 months ago
@ChrisGnosis Very wise sentiments.
wtw88 4 months ago
@jordanjohnston91 nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
pashpotter 1 year ago
@jordanjohnston91
Why does it make u sick. It may be they're last chance. It may help give them a chance a shot at life. There still might be hope. PEACE...
LUCKYMAN2468 1 year ago
@jordanjohnston91 She's an actress, man! She can do whatever role she wants! Twilight kids? I don't think what your saying will happen.
MrShnizzle69 11 months ago