ca me fait pleurer, well I live in Quebec, where Jack's people came from sure they were born American but they were an underclass, low status, cut off from their roots, am I right, I think so, not sure, to be francophone a francoamerican in the 50's was to be a kind of lost soul, trying to either make a living wage out of the reality of poverty or trying to find your soul. So I think I understand a little of where Kerouac came from, he went on the road but never found his home.
@Williamharold1000 His parents were working class ..not underclass. His father was pretty successful until the flood of 1936 destroyed his printing business. And they were not cut off from their roots at all. They lived in an area of Lowell called Little Canada, which reflected their French roots, including French schools and church. It was not Kerouac's French background that sent him traveling in the late 40`s & 50`s,but rather his love of literature that spawned a desire to see the world.
brilliant, i love how they've got him on the CBC- his family was from Canada so I imagine that's why the CBC was interviewing him when he made the big-time.
@mahound9 Are you sure this expression is from Quebec? I'm a frenchy from Quebec and I asked to some people if they had ever heard this before and nobody said yes. This is maybe from the french american community. You can find a lot of different slang coming from Quebec, Ontario, Acadia and with the Cajun.
@MrDomo66 I think that it's an old phrase. pre-1930's
I read it in a letter from William Burroughs to Jack Kerouac. William was describing how the police didn't interfere with you in Mexico City the way that they did in the states. "You don't have to take no guff from no Jean De Brasse here." The way he says it in the letter, it seems like Jack used that word with Bill sometime, and bill was repeating it. Maybe it's old slang from l'hexagone?
That's because he is a Kanuck, or French Canadian - his family moved from Canada to Lowell Massachusetts. He actually spoke French until the age of about 5 or 6 and had a French accent until about age 11.
I believe that he was born in Lowell, but that he was culturally brought up as a Quebecois and yes, spoke French until the age of 11 or something. "Comme ca" ( like this). The Quebec accent is a little different from proper French. A little flatter on the consonants.
As a Canuck myself, from British Columbia, I had to do two years of French Immersion in school. I can speak it, sure, just don't ask me to spell it. Here in B.C. a language like Punjabi, or Mandarin would have been of more use.
Thanks for putting me right, and sorry for using a 'K' instead of a 'C'. Yeah I've heard that the French I assume you speak is say, 18th century, hope I'm right on this one! haha. I'm in Liverpool, UK, so when we hear it it just sounds the same.
It's a very interesting culture, which I got to know about through reading Mr Kerouac. He explains things in 'Satori in Paris' like the pronunciation of an 'R' originally being a roll of the toungue and not at the back of the throat?
Well, we get taught mainstream french in school, but I'm an Anglophone of British descent who can speak French. That puts me on the other side of the frenchfence in my country. We're two distinct cultures who coexist.
The Quebecois have some regional slang and vocabulary that isn't spoken in France, as well as their own accent, but it's the same language. Some call it "Franglais". Supposedly the Que. accent is an offshoot of the European French accent from circa. 1700. Maybe it is, who knows?
Even people who live here in Western Canada and never meet a Quebecois learn some French from reading the French side of the Cornflakes box, and the French side of the Folgers coffee tin, the French voice that plays after the English one on the On Hold message we get when we call the government, and the French columns of our Employment Insurance applications. (That's the Canadian version of the British Dole.) So even if you never learn it, you can read it and feel your way through it.
@mahound9 Yes, he was born in Lowell, Massachusetts but his parents were French-Canadian and brought him up speaking french. In fact, many of the things he wrote he did in French first, and then translated them into English because he found it easier to manipulate his mother tongue.
If you've read any Kerouac book, you'd know that he worked as a brakeman.. he's just demonstrating the signals that were used back then. that's "what the hell he's talking about." Also, he's occasionally saying things in this "crazy language" called french, "oMg so ranDom.,m lol!1!!!"
I like Kerouac, and one of the reasons I like him is he can be sporatic and be likeable at the same time. Thats why Im reading On the Road and thats why I found this video funny.
in all of his stories he seems to just be an audience, watching what others are doing and commenting on their actions. but i imagine his personality would bring a lot more to a situation than he leads you to believe
i'm planning on it, it's my life ambition, to be an architect and artist and a traveler. i can't now though. too many responsibilities, like being a college student which comes first. then i'd travel all over :D first stop england and then rishikesh india :]
lol i don't mean literally like how he did. plus hitchhiking is illegal now :[ especially unsafe for a girl. but i would have loved to hitchhike in those days, i'm not meant for modern times. but anyway what i'll do in the future is simply see the sights and the sights no one sees, wander around on my own and simply live life. doesn't need to be unsafe by hitchhiking.
and i don't like phish, or any modern bands. and i'm one to travel alone :D
@goshnessmaggy I'm with you, but as far as I can figure out, hitchhiking is actually not illegal in most places, just frowned upon to the point where people think it is. Worth a try in the name of adventure anyways :)
I actually contacted the CBC about the whole interview and they said this was all they had...it may have been destroyed or something. Can you imagine? Some bad planning there.
it was 3 weeks, not three days. it's an amazing how he made it though, he'd go through numbers of t-shirts a days because of all the sweat from typing. and because he didn't want his concentration to stop, he attached rolls of wax paper together and cut the sides so they'd fit. :D he was amazing
This whole thread is plagued with so many inaccuracies...I can't even respond. Where do people get their information? Why is it that Kerouac is always so misunderstood...misquoted....
Ha ha, the streets are a little less romantic when you are actually hungry and broke. As to whether K was hard working, yes I'm sure he worked hard on the first draft. But I don't think his "method" can lead to good writing. Every writer is better with revision and rewriting, including K. That's what made On the Road so great. I don't get the impression he worked in that way when writing things like "Visions of Cody" but maybe I'm wrong. If you read it and let me know how it is so great.
He did write Visions of Cody that way. On the Road actually had more revisions than visions of cody. Visions of Cody was in fact a revision of On the Road- written in the spontaneous prose style. Its written in a narrative stream of consciousness style. When Jack wrote he pretended many times that he was writing a letter to a friend (generally his wife) and he would just write fast. He once said "First thought best thought". Read his essay on spontaneous prose and you'll get more details.
Yeah, but I think what I'm mentioning is the huge difference between "On the Road" and some of his less well received stuff. He wrote On the Road many times, and in at least one version (the scroll version that was finally published a year or two ago) he wrote from copious notes. That extra working and reworking is what makes On the Road stand out above the rest. That's just my opinion though, I'm no scholar.
He starved many times on the road. Read the book and pay attention to the parts where he's in Denver alone and unloads trains and when he goes to Frisco the second time (I think) and Marylou runs off and he is literally starving and hallucinating to some extent.
Yeah, I caught that. I wasn't really saying that Kerouac was glossing over that kind of stuff. I got the impression from your first comment that you were maybe romanticizing it a bit. Kerouac and all the beats paid a really high price for their "road aesthetic" if you want to call it that. And my thought is that K's "method" which Ginsberg and the rest worshiped, had shortcoming when pursued too purely. Visions of Cody was the "unfortunate outcome" of that method. Again just my view...
Yes, Kerouac himself said something like- there's a thin line between genius and bombast writing and he admitted that at times he had stepped across that line.
To add to the opinions here: JK was a great writer for one novel, For sure On the Road was great (esp the Scroll version).. But he screwed himself up with alcohol, belief in first drafts, and in a lazy search for 'authenticity' rather than the hard work of writing.. The sentences in On the Road can't be beat. Dr. Sax maybe gets the benefit of the doubt as a beatnik Finnegan's Wake. But all else is really just boozy hoping that words and story will just fall onto the page. Too bad.
The guy wrote a novel on a toilet... and you say he's not hard working? He could hardly be the prophetic voice, of the street, without having lived on them... you seriously don't get the context of his times and why he was the rebel voice of the post war generation... lol... What a well learned dope... probably some English major who live in his mommy's basement, or worse, has his ticket payed for all the way down!
No, actually he wrote three great novels: Tristessa, and Doctor Sax. There are lot of other good books of his. In a lot of ways, not just counter-culturally, he was ahead of his time. And all this about the myth of "first drafts" is bullshit that he liked to perpetuate. He work his manuscripts over and over, but not through editing so much as starting anew.
Thanks, I'll look for Tristessa. I tried reading Doctor Sax many times but couldn't get past the first pages. It seemed really dense and poetic but I couldn't make sense of it - maybe I wasn't up to understanding it. But I really got po'd after hearing how great Visions of Cody was and then when I finally tracked it down it turned out to be drunken TYPING (sorry Mailer). Time said it was a masterpiece but the joke was on me. I paid good money for it and have walked funny since. Ow.
Well if you don't know a lot about literature it may seem to be drunken typing. I didn't mean that with any offense but its the honest to god truth. Even someone who reads Dickens and Austen all the time couldn't pick up Ulysses and understand it.
um, he's not clowning, he's explaining train signals. he had spent time as a train signalman with Neil Cassidy and was very proud of having learned the various signals, like "highball" which was an invitation to speed up.
not hating or dissing jack but people don't get this because he liked to write drunk or hammered and just let his thoughts fly out on paper.... this is why this video clip seems so strange because he is most likely drunk?
I don't care what any of you say about Jack Kerouac- He was a great writer and a greater human being-He wrote his truth
and laid his heart and mind open-
Fame is probably what killed him because as a writer his introspective observations necessary for his craft were constantly interrupted by fans- well meaning tho they were.
Let's be thankful we had him for the short time that we did and lets also be thankful for the legacy he left behind.
what an over rated writer. "oh the void, the void" this is the kind of shit a teenager would write and think its deep. this guy would be laughed at in europe, only in america, as they say.......
"america is constantly laughing at europeans" please tell me you are not more than 16 with a childish comment like that, or maybe you are just poorly educated, my cultureless friend.
You are so violently incorrect. Jack Kerouac was hugely famous and read in Europe and at the time translated in to over 20 languages, which was incredible given the decade. His royalties from Europe contributed a great deal to his writing life. These days, Jack's books can be found in over 40 languages. So before you make such a moronic statement, get your facts straight. You obviously have no knowledge of Kerouac or literature at all.
actually, i had the misfortune of having to read his work, so i do know his writings. the fact the it appears in so many languages means nothing. the old testament can be found in well over four thousand languages, so does that make it the greatest book ever written? i don't think so. candle in the wind is the most popular song of all times, proving popular sure doesn't mean right.
Read all of it did you? So you really know his writings? A veritable expert on apparently everything. Ok..you don't like Jack...(or the Bible)...now go away.
wow you canadians are touchy. i never claimed to be an expert on everything and wouldn't. as for "go away" you mail me first pops, if you don't like the replies on the tube, don't mail people.
Who mailed you? I certainly didn't. It has to do with You Tube settings on your part... don't flatter yourself. And just for the record...American and a woman...so again you are out to lunch on all counts. And again...go away.
are you still delusional? you mailed me first. i mailed a comment and you mailed me. look back at the comment you idiot. so quit mailing me you cultureless simple fool.
correct, i posted a comment and you mailed me... you just cant help yourself... you keep telling me to go away, yet you keep mailing me.. make up your mind, so don't mail me again. your time would be better spend reading you cultures classic... cough... cough...
it's possible that boating signals are similar to train signals but Jack here talks specifically about train signals. At 0:12 he reads the inscription on the lamp which reads " Southern Pacific Railroad Company" where he used to work as a brakeman. You can read about it on Lonesome Traveller. At 0:24 he refers to "the engine" so obviousy he talks about trains not boats.
Listening to ship horns blowing at 2 in the morning must be a beautiful feeling...
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GOSH, I didn't know Jack had an accent. He sounds like a foreigner, yet, he was a great American writer. After 8 years of George Bush...and frankly, a neighborhood FULL of people from other countries, my ears are exhausted of listening to BAD English. How I love it when I hear English spoken eloquently. Nice to have Obama in office. Finally, great English being spoken again. Ahhhhhh.....
I'm saddened to hear such put-downs as the one you responded to. They just go to show how little has changed since Jack's books were pilloried by the "new critics" of the 50s. Now he's being shortchanged by people who aren't even aware of the depth of his learning or the absolute commitment he applied to his art. As John Tytell put it in 'Naked Angels (written in the 70s),' "then and now, our most misunderstood writer."
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A hero? Really? For what? Living his own life as we all do. I don't get him or his following. He was a depressed man who wrote of his "adventures." He drank and messed around and traveled. Je ne comprend pas.
Dans une classe de littérature que j'ai pris le semestre passé, je lisez un son livre appelé, Sur La Route. Je suis immédiatement tombé amoureux de lui. Je pense qu'il est regrettable qu'il ne vit pas aujourd'hui. EMD! Il est chaud et sexy. Je totalement aurais été le prochain chapitre dans son livre, cause que j'aurais suis totalement allé vers le bas sur lui. Je ne m'inquiète pas s'il était 200 années. Il est sexy !
I like Kerouac. He was a crazy cat and you illiterate socks don't know the first thing about good literature. I WANT 100 THUMBS DOWNS. 200, 300 400 FOUR FIVE FIVE SIX YOU HEAR ME! RUN I'M SICK. BRAIN CANNOT FUNCTION OVERLOAD BURNING TOO FAR BEHIND MOVING SLOW MOTION SHE DOES NOT EXIST PROPERLY FUNCTION DRINK AND SMOKE AND MOVING ROUND CITY FUNCTION TOO MUCH TOO LITTLE THERE SHE IS CLOMPING SMACKING GUM MOVING LOOK OUT HERE SHE IS BOOM OH GOD COMING FASTER THE TRAIN THE RAILS ARE ON FIRE MY MIND.
Is that supposed to be good? I read shit like this in my highschool literary magazine that came out at the end of the year. It was funny to watch so many full-of-dung teenage writers nervously eyeing anyone reading the fucking thing. Try harder.
There's already been a Bukowski. got that mr. tough mr. toilet? It takes more than being drunk, putting on dead poets, writing in all caps stream of conscious piss and all the heros come out when there's no chance they'll meet a fucking crushed mouth. It's good to hide behind pseudonyms and wires. Hooray. I suspect if I was your brother you'd try to fuck me in the ass.
It was something I wrote as a joke. I believe I may have been under the influence of morning glory seeds. You have a vile mouth. I can write ten times better than you'll ever be able to write. I read and write every single day. It consumes my life. When I'm not writing I'm masturbating when I'm not doing that I'm working when I'm not doing that I'm at school. You do not understand literature. Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Twain, London, Anderson, Faulkner these are all writers you cannot comprehend.
For real. Far too many armchair writers/literary critics on here feel the need to proclaim their greatness, which of course usually alerts us all to a profound insecurity. Truly great artists steer clear of self-engrandizement, and let their contemporaries determine any deserved reverence. We are just men and women and far too many good writers, who tout themselves as great writers end up turning off potential admirers with an overwhelming sense of hubris that nullifys any literary value.
I wouldn't say blowing one's own trumpet on YouTube is profoundly insecure. It depends on the intent of the author. It's petty and irrelevant, for sure.
Everyone is a great writer, given that they have the right audience. In saying that...
postalsock is so far up his/her self that I don't know if they will ever find that audience.
You make a good point, but, as I said, such behavior usually alerts us an insecurity (usually being the key word); whether it is there or not, only the author knows for sure.
*note- my original comment should have used the term "self-aggrandizement."
this is just embarrassing. posting nonsense into youtube comments does not make you profound. go fuck yourself this is complete bullshit and you know it stop pretending what you write actually means anything
Every so often someone comes on here and trashes Kerouac with double & triple posts to make their point. And that point is- they are consistent in making asses of themselves. Typical of those kind who would not understand Kerouac if he explained it to them himself. Hierarchy on the literary food chain does indeed exist. Jack's always on top.
Yes these are international railroad signalisations.But making a circle with the lamp means (emergency) stop ,not go away or anything. As I enjoyed reading "on the road" more then once , I am glad Kerouac doesnt work at the railroad anymore
Who cares if he was gay or straight, is that going to impact your life in anyway? No.
With his poetry skills he can do anything he wants, he's still the one and only Jack Kerouac, gay or straight, his poetry will always remain immaculate.
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I'm giving you a thumbs down for spreading lies. He was bisexual according to one link that popped up on google. I do not follow my sources I do not follow my sources I prance around we dance around and look at the pretty horses!
"Fuck you people who commented on Jack being a gay recluse." - CFT
Dunno dude. I think Jack may have been kinda gay ("I think of Dean Moriarty"). But his Catholic guilt...y´know, woulda never, ever let him outta the closet in a zillion years. That´s one reason, I think, he coukd never let go of "memére´s" apron strings.
Kerouac did do some experimenting with the same sex but he definitely wasn't gay. And he definitely didn't go into redlusion because he felt guilty about his sexual desires, that's just ridiculous.
william on the road is not about finding a home its about finding himself.
pd07ty 10 months ago
ca me fait pleurer, well I live in Quebec, where Jack's people came from sure they were born American but they were an underclass, low status, cut off from their roots, am I right, I think so, not sure, to be francophone a francoamerican in the 50's was to be a kind of lost soul, trying to either make a living wage out of the reality of poverty or trying to find your soul. So I think I understand a little of where Kerouac came from, he went on the road but never found his home.
Williamharold1000 1 year ago
@Williamharold1000 His parents were working class ..not underclass. His father was pretty successful until the flood of 1936 destroyed his printing business. And they were not cut off from their roots at all. They lived in an area of Lowell called Little Canada, which reflected their French roots, including French schools and church. It was not Kerouac's French background that sent him traveling in the late 40`s & 50`s,but rather his love of literature that spawned a desire to see the world.
TiJean47 9 months ago
brilliant, i love how they've got him on the CBC- his family was from Canada so I imagine that's why the CBC was interviewing him when he made the big-time.
warmestglow 1 year ago
fake
CultureCunt 1 year ago
One little example of Quebec slang which Kerouac used:
a "Jean de Brasse" means a Policeman.
mahound9 1 year ago
@mahound9 Are you sure this expression is from Quebec? I'm a frenchy from Quebec and I asked to some people if they had ever heard this before and nobody said yes. This is maybe from the french american community. You can find a lot of different slang coming from Quebec, Ontario, Acadia and with the Cajun.
MrDomo66 1 year ago
@MrDomo66 I think that it's an old phrase. pre-1930's
I read it in a letter from William Burroughs to Jack Kerouac. William was describing how the police didn't interfere with you in Mexico City the way that they did in the states. "You don't have to take no guff from no Jean De Brasse here." The way he says it in the letter, it seems like Jack used that word with Bill sometime, and bill was repeating it. Maybe it's old slang from l'hexagone?
Just out of interest, what town are you from?
mahound9 1 year ago
@mahound9 Yes, you're maybe right, jean de brasse sounds like gendarme (policeman) I'm from Quebec City
MrDomo66 1 year ago
he was so terribly gorgeous too
*sighs*
telemacohomewwod 1 year ago
I like the way he talks
Raiderfn31 1 year ago
That's because he is a Kanuck, or French Canadian - his family moved from Canada to Lowell Massachusetts. He actually spoke French until the age of about 5 or 6 and had a French accent until about age 11.
Shellback41 1 year ago
I believe that he was born in Lowell, but that he was culturally brought up as a Quebecois and yes, spoke French until the age of 11 or something. "Comme ca" ( like this). The Quebec accent is a little different from proper French. A little flatter on the consonants.
As a Canuck myself, from British Columbia, I had to do two years of French Immersion in school. I can speak it, sure, just don't ask me to spell it. Here in B.C. a language like Punjabi, or Mandarin would have been of more use.
mahound9 1 year ago
Thanks for putting me right, and sorry for using a 'K' instead of a 'C'. Yeah I've heard that the French I assume you speak is say, 18th century, hope I'm right on this one! haha. I'm in Liverpool, UK, so when we hear it it just sounds the same.
It's a very interesting culture, which I got to know about through reading Mr Kerouac. He explains things in 'Satori in Paris' like the pronunciation of an 'R' originally being a roll of the toungue and not at the back of the throat?
Cheers.
Shellback41 1 year ago
Well, we get taught mainstream french in school, but I'm an Anglophone of British descent who can speak French. That puts me on the other side of the frenchfence in my country. We're two distinct cultures who coexist.
The Quebecois have some regional slang and vocabulary that isn't spoken in France, as well as their own accent, but it's the same language. Some call it "Franglais". Supposedly the Que. accent is an offshoot of the European French accent from circa. 1700. Maybe it is, who knows?
mahound9 1 year ago
And now, for some reason, the Canadian Broadcasting Co has blocked this clip and I can't get it back up...so bloody annoying!
Shellback41 1 year ago
Even people who live here in Western Canada and never meet a Quebecois learn some French from reading the French side of the Cornflakes box, and the French side of the Folgers coffee tin, the French voice that plays after the English one on the On Hold message we get when we call the government, and the French columns of our Employment Insurance applications. (That's the Canadian version of the British Dole.) So even if you never learn it, you can read it and feel your way through it.
mahound9 1 year ago
"The Quebec accent is a little different from proper French" - mahound9
Calisse! M'langue sappelle "Quebecois" maudit! Pas "French"...espece de singe la.
RideMyBMW 1 year ago
@mahound9 Yes, he was born in Lowell, Massachusetts but his parents were French-Canadian and brought him up speaking french. In fact, many of the things he wrote he did in French first, and then translated them into English because he found it easier to manipulate his mother tongue.
andrewmoss92 1 year ago
wonerful, wonderful --- not only could the man write On The Road --- he could speak French fluently.
tomthumbtoo 1 year ago
I would give everything to be alive in the 50s.
beatenliterature 2 years ago 2
If you've read any Kerouac book, you'd know that he worked as a brakeman.. he's just demonstrating the signals that were used back then. that's "what the hell he's talking about." Also, he's occasionally saying things in this "crazy language" called french, "oMg so ranDom.,m lol!1!!!"
monkeysnail 2 years ago 22
I like Kerouac, and one of the reasons I like him is he can be sporatic and be likeable at the same time. Thats why Im reading On the Road and thats why I found this video funny.
HuckleberrySlim 1 year ago
@ monkeysnail I LOVE YOU
radicalricky 1 year ago
Lol what the hell was that all about? Lol
FractalBolt 2 years ago
the beat generation
Xoethos 2 years ago
well how do you know whos ahead?
MrJkizzle123 2 years ago
what the hell is he talking about lol
HuckleberrySlim 2 years ago 5
@HuckleberrySlim He is being a breakman, signaling the train engine
saginaw71 2 years ago
thats about the one solid thing i gathered
HuckleberrySlim 2 years ago
Simple Jack.
oxfordamerican1981 2 years ago 5
all of the folks commenting on here before me are a bunch of farting robots....kerouac woulda hated you
andysweetwater 2 years ago 2
great comment
YatesHowl26 2 years ago
@andysweetwater agreed
LibertyAndJustice91 2 years ago
i kind of hate them too
nattoppet 2 years ago
Hey, check out this new beat magazine DO NOT LOOK AT THE SUN (it won't let me write the link so use your imagination):
w ww
do not look at the sun
(dot)
c om
Enjoy!
tooeyotoole1 2 years ago
in all of his stories he seems to just be an audience, watching what others are doing and commenting on their actions. but i imagine his personality would bring a lot more to a situation than he leads you to believe
teamsolovictory 2 years ago 4
And he isn't clowning; he's showing the signals that he used when he was a brakeman for the Southern Pacific.
bathsheba56 2 years ago 15
Sexy, brilliant man.
MagDuke 2 years ago
reading on the road makes me wish i could have gone where he has gone in the same time period, seems amazing
goshnessmaggy 2 years ago
1 v 1... bk
LeroyRifkin 2 years ago
@goshnessmaggy maybe its time for your journey?
jakefortwice 2 years ago
i'm planning on it, it's my life ambition, to be an architect and artist and a traveler. i can't now though. too many responsibilities, like being a college student which comes first. then i'd travel all over :D first stop england and then rishikesh india :]
goshnessmaggy 2 years ago
dude i'm in the same position, university is way to important than travelling right now. But soon one day. The spirit of the beats ill live on!
goodvibesallround 2 years ago
Comment removed
MangoZapp 2 years ago
yeah. not too safe in out ever changing world. just go on the road with a really great jam band i suggest phish or wsp. i hear dmb is good too.
boomslangdog 2 years ago
lol i don't mean literally like how he did. plus hitchhiking is illegal now :[ especially unsafe for a girl. but i would have loved to hitchhike in those days, i'm not meant for modern times. but anyway what i'll do in the future is simply see the sights and the sights no one sees, wander around on my own and simply live life. doesn't need to be unsafe by hitchhiking.
and i don't like phish, or any modern bands. and i'm one to travel alone :D
"life without travel is only half living" :]
goshnessmaggy 2 years ago 3
sounds like you know more than i can tell you. good luck in your travels.
boomslangdog 2 years ago
lol thanks, you too if you plan to :]
goshnessmaggy 2 years ago
@goshnessmaggy I'm with you, but as far as I can figure out, hitchhiking is actually not illegal in most places, just frowned upon to the point where people think it is. Worth a try in the name of adventure anyways :)
flippedoverturtle 2 years ago
Benzedrine.
ThatNeilDude 2 years ago 2
see the pick of best new writers at this site I found.. love Kerouac, love this...
w w w
do not look at the sun
(dot)
com
doesn't let me post the link so use your imagination... Enjoy!
tooeyotoole1 2 years ago
ah. he looks like a real man.
DirtyHarry7188 2 years ago 2
where is the complete interview!
ostricalungimirante 2 years ago
I actually contacted the CBC about the whole interview and they said this was all they had...it may have been destroyed or something. Can you imagine? Some bad planning there.
TiJean47 2 years ago
The scroll was typed in 3 days but the text was years in the making.
You know he may be a literary hero but he also supported the Vietnam war. Mmm...
annahathis1 2 years ago
it was 3 weeks, not three days. it's an amazing how he made it though, he'd go through numbers of t-shirts a days because of all the sweat from typing. and because he didn't want his concentration to stop, he attached rolls of wax paper together and cut the sides so they'd fit. :D he was amazing
goshnessmaggy 2 years ago
thanks for the info.
annahathis1 2 years ago
@goshnessmaggy he was brilliant, but those are symptoms of the massive amounts of uppers he was using in order to write that much that quickly
apeazy4 2 years ago
40 years.....Salut TiJean, toujours.
TiJean47 2 years ago 2
great man great artist great symbol
21 october 1969
21 october 2009
telemacohomewwod 2 years ago 2
This whole thread is plagued with so many inaccuracies...I can't even respond. Where do people get their information? Why is it that Kerouac is always so misunderstood...misquoted....
TiJean47 2 years ago 3
Comment removed
mccheese0 2 years ago
big sur, why don't we all read it and drink some beers, smoke some bowls and get some understanding under our belts
Dankige 2 years ago
bravo
deanars 2 years ago
why don't we just read it
subterranean47 2 years ago
Ha ha, the streets are a little less romantic when you are actually hungry and broke. As to whether K was hard working, yes I'm sure he worked hard on the first draft. But I don't think his "method" can lead to good writing. Every writer is better with revision and rewriting, including K. That's what made On the Road so great. I don't get the impression he worked in that way when writing things like "Visions of Cody" but maybe I'm wrong. If you read it and let me know how it is so great.
mccheese0 2 years ago
He did write Visions of Cody that way. On the Road actually had more revisions than visions of cody. Visions of Cody was in fact a revision of On the Road- written in the spontaneous prose style. Its written in a narrative stream of consciousness style. When Jack wrote he pretended many times that he was writing a letter to a friend (generally his wife) and he would just write fast. He once said "First thought best thought". Read his essay on spontaneous prose and you'll get more details.
subterranean47 2 years ago
Yeah, but I think what I'm mentioning is the huge difference between "On the Road" and some of his less well received stuff. He wrote On the Road many times, and in at least one version (the scroll version that was finally published a year or two ago) he wrote from copious notes. That extra working and reworking is what makes On the Road stand out above the rest. That's just my opinion though, I'm no scholar.
mccheese0 2 years ago
kerouac wrote that scroll in three weeks in april 1951.
idster7 2 years ago
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mccheese0 2 years ago
He starved many times on the road. Read the book and pay attention to the parts where he's in Denver alone and unloads trains and when he goes to Frisco the second time (I think) and Marylou runs off and he is literally starving and hallucinating to some extent.
subterranean47 2 years ago
Yeah, I caught that. I wasn't really saying that Kerouac was glossing over that kind of stuff. I got the impression from your first comment that you were maybe romanticizing it a bit. Kerouac and all the beats paid a really high price for their "road aesthetic" if you want to call it that. And my thought is that K's "method" which Ginsberg and the rest worshiped, had shortcoming when pursued too purely. Visions of Cody was the "unfortunate outcome" of that method. Again just my view...
mccheese0 2 years ago
Yes, Kerouac himself said something like- there's a thin line between genius and bombast writing and he admitted that at times he had stepped across that line.
subterranean47 2 years ago
Hey, sorry Sub... you weren't the person who was romanticizing it. Oops. I was mixing your posts up with someone else's.
mccheese0 2 years ago
To add to the opinions here: JK was a great writer for one novel, For sure On the Road was great (esp the Scroll version).. But he screwed himself up with alcohol, belief in first drafts, and in a lazy search for 'authenticity' rather than the hard work of writing.. The sentences in On the Road can't be beat. Dr. Sax maybe gets the benefit of the doubt as a beatnik Finnegan's Wake. But all else is really just boozy hoping that words and story will just fall onto the page. Too bad.
mccheese0 2 years ago
The guy wrote a novel on a toilet... and you say he's not hard working? He could hardly be the prophetic voice, of the street, without having lived on them... you seriously don't get the context of his times and why he was the rebel voice of the post war generation... lol... What a well learned dope... probably some English major who live in his mommy's basement, or worse, has his ticket payed for all the way down!
bragladish 2 years ago 2
No, actually he wrote three great novels: Tristessa, and Doctor Sax. There are lot of other good books of his. In a lot of ways, not just counter-culturally, he was ahead of his time. And all this about the myth of "first drafts" is bullshit that he liked to perpetuate. He work his manuscripts over and over, but not through editing so much as starting anew.
bathsheba56 2 years ago
Thanks, I'll look for Tristessa. I tried reading Doctor Sax many times but couldn't get past the first pages. It seemed really dense and poetic but I couldn't make sense of it - maybe I wasn't up to understanding it. But I really got po'd after hearing how great Visions of Cody was and then when I finally tracked it down it turned out to be drunken TYPING (sorry Mailer). Time said it was a masterpiece but the joke was on me. I paid good money for it and have walked funny since. Ow.
mccheese0 2 years ago
Well if you don't know a lot about literature it may seem to be drunken typing. I didn't mean that with any offense but its the honest to god truth. Even someone who reads Dickens and Austen all the time couldn't pick up Ulysses and understand it.
subterranean47 2 years ago
He wrote WAY more than three great novels!
subterranean47 2 years ago
um, he's not clowning, he's explaining train signals. he had spent time as a train signalman with Neil Cassidy and was very proud of having learned the various signals, like "highball" which was an invitation to speed up.
CrispRex 2 years ago 2
My favorite writer.
TheJourneyIsOurGoal 2 years ago 3
not hating or dissing jack but people don't get this because he liked to write drunk or hammered and just let his thoughts fly out on paper.... this is why this video clip seems so strange because he is most likely drunk?
SoFarAreWe 2 years ago
i dont get it
boogiebuddy01 2 years ago
I don't care what any of you say about Jack Kerouac- He was a great writer and a greater human being-He wrote his truth
and laid his heart and mind open-
Fame is probably what killed him because as a writer his introspective observations necessary for his craft were constantly interrupted by fans- well meaning tho they were.
Let's be thankful we had him for the short time that we did and lets also be thankful for the legacy he left behind.
OL55CADDY 2 years ago 3
Very well said...I agree. Vive Le Tijean!
TiJean47 2 years ago
On the Road made perfect sense to myself when reading it a month or two back.
cm2dude 2 years ago 2
Some people are simply SPAM to be deleted...nonsensical, pointless, inconsequential and in the words of Jack....crapulous.
TiJean47 2 years ago 3
Would someone please explain this to me.
kirk7524875248 2 years ago
what an over rated writer. "oh the void, the void" this is the kind of shit a teenager would write and think its deep. this guy would be laughed at in europe, only in america, as they say.......
violentsilence4u 2 years ago
Nope not overrated at all, maybe you should read more than one book, america is constantly laughing at europeans.
jimworthley 2 years ago
"america is constantly laughing at europeans" please tell me you are not more than 16 with a childish comment like that, or maybe you are just poorly educated, my cultureless friend.
violentsilence4u 2 years ago
nope just letting you know sorry you take such offense
jimworthley 2 years ago
You are so violently incorrect. Jack Kerouac was hugely famous and read in Europe and at the time translated in to over 20 languages, which was incredible given the decade. His royalties from Europe contributed a great deal to his writing life. These days, Jack's books can be found in over 40 languages. So before you make such a moronic statement, get your facts straight. You obviously have no knowledge of Kerouac or literature at all.
TiJean47 2 years ago
actually, i had the misfortune of having to read his work, so i do know his writings. the fact the it appears in so many languages means nothing. the old testament can be found in well over four thousand languages, so does that make it the greatest book ever written? i don't think so. candle in the wind is the most popular song of all times, proving popular sure doesn't mean right.
violentsilence4u 2 years ago
Read all of it did you? So you really know his writings? A veritable expert on apparently everything. Ok..you don't like Jack...(or the Bible)...now go away.
TiJean47 2 years ago
wow you canadians are touchy. i never claimed to be an expert on everything and wouldn't. as for "go away" you mail me first pops, if you don't like the replies on the tube, don't mail people.
violentsilence4u 2 years ago
Who mailed you? I certainly didn't. It has to do with You Tube settings on your part... don't flatter yourself. And just for the record...American and a woman...so again you are out to lunch on all counts. And again...go away.
TiJean47 2 years ago
are you still delusional? you mailed me first. i mailed a comment and you mailed me. look back at the comment you idiot. so quit mailing me you cultureless simple fool.
violentsilence4u 2 years ago
Posting a reply does not constitute "mailing" anything. Ignorance suits you. Now go away.
TiJean47 2 years ago
correct, i posted a comment and you mailed me... you just cant help yourself... you keep telling me to go away, yet you keep mailing me.. make up your mind, so don't mail me again. your time would be better spend reading you cultures classic... cough... cough...
violentsilence4u 2 years ago
yeah you wippersnappers, quit mailing me! stop pissing on my lawn!
iChesus 2 years ago
learn to form a sentence before you judge one of the most brilliant dudes of the 20th century
iChesus 2 years ago 4
Bullshit!
Muckbird1234 2 years ago
wow!!!!! that was deep.....
violentsilence4u 2 years ago
J'aime ça quand jack parle français, on devrait publier ses œuvres écrites en français plutôt que les cacher des les librairies américaines.
lamibenoit 2 years ago
I love the way he talks.
tumgats 2 years ago
I'll give someone a million dollars if they can say what the hell He was talking about.
jack19790 2 years ago
it has something to do with directing boats to port, in french he says "thank you" and "on and off "then something about "trading for euros"
HiPpPiEcHiKcKiE 2 years ago
Dang.... I wanted that million $'s.....
Hippiechikckie is correct.... boating signals.
Swing that lantern Jack..... so cool!
scorp8pus 2 years ago
not boating signals.... it's railroad signals
longlegged 2 years ago
Hi LL....
You know, I think we are both right.
I was thinking about it at 2 this morning listening to a ship's horn blowing (I live in a sea port).... I think the two are very similar.
It would make sense.... ship pulls in loads train and vice versa.
Thanks for pointing that out.....
scorp8pus 2 years ago
Hi
it's possible that boating signals are similar to train signals but Jack here talks specifically about train signals. At 0:12 he reads the inscription on the lamp which reads " Southern Pacific Railroad Company" where he used to work as a brakeman. You can read about it on Lonesome Traveller. At 0:24 he refers to "the engine" so obviousy he talks about trains not boats.
Listening to ship horns blowing at 2 in the morning must be a beautiful feeling...
longlegged 2 years ago
i never noticed how much ben gazzara looks like kerouac until now.
alejandro15187 2 years ago
kerouac speaking french. i love this so much.
andyclaire 2 years ago 2
I love the interviews where Kerouac speaks French. Great video. Thanks.
lucretius4 2 years ago 2
this will be lost on some who frequent this forum of free and cheap media, but I believe that:
he who bares his soul openly is bravest. he who bares his soul openly in the wrong company is a dead man.
samsonian 2 years ago
Seems like the booze has a fair grip on him here. RIP, you avante-garde pioneer. X
applesandpearsboyban 2 years ago 3
Just showing his skills picked up as a breakman
messejesse1126 2 years ago 2
I don't think he's clowning around. He's just displaying some sort of semaphore used by the SP railroad men. (He used to be one as well).
longlegged 2 years ago 3
jack saw shit and wrote the shit out of it
ghostmonkeyrape 2 years ago 4
@ghostmonkeyrape, that's funny shit ro.
mickeyb1000 2 years ago
He reminds me a lot of matinee idol Alain Delon, of France.
sbdsbdshow 2 years ago
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davidrr1 2 years ago
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GOSH, I didn't know Jack had an accent. He sounds like a foreigner, yet, he was a great American writer. After 8 years of George Bush...and frankly, a neighborhood FULL of people from other countries, my ears are exhausted of listening to BAD English. How I love it when I hear English spoken eloquently. Nice to have Obama in office. Finally, great English being spoken again. Ahhhhhh.....
TwoUselessLegs 2 years ago
TwoUse- Of course he had an accent, he was from French Canadian parents so that would show in his speaking, right?
IndifferentDrainage 2 years ago
He had a Massachusetts accent and spoke French with "canuck" pronunciation.
davidrr1 2 years ago
what?? he doesnt have an accent... he talks like everyone else i know from lowell.
Jazznkitty 2 years ago
I'm saddened to hear such put-downs as the one you responded to. They just go to show how little has changed since Jack's books were pilloried by the "new critics" of the 50s. Now he's being shortchanged by people who aren't even aware of the depth of his learning or the absolute commitment he applied to his art. As John Tytell put it in 'Naked Angels (written in the 70s),' "then and now, our most misunderstood writer."
telebob59 2 years ago 2
C'est émouvant... Jean louis lebris de Kérouac est l'un des plus grands écrivains que l'amérique ait enfanté... With Henry Miller!!!
Thank's for the video!
Salade2Huns 2 years ago
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A hero? Really? For what? Living his own life as we all do. I don't get him or his following. He was a depressed man who wrote of his "adventures." He drank and messed around and traveled. Je ne comprend pas.
Songsmirth 2 years ago
jack kerouac was the best american writer ........ your an i diot
saudnasse 2 years ago 3
This comment has received too many negative votes show
saud- Kerouac couldn't write shit if he saw it.
IndifferentDrainage 2 years ago
We clamor for heroes, but when the real ones come along, we tear them apart.
America died along with Jack.
Daycron66 2 years ago
Lol. America died LONG before that my friend.
jack19790 2 years ago 2
hahahaha loved that answer!
Lillogambino 2 years ago
Thank you, Daycron66. Wow.
229095 2 years ago
"I swim out of it in afternons of sun-hot meditation in my jeans with head on handkerchief on brakeman's lantern or -- if not working -- on book
"I look up at blue sky of perfect lost purity
"And I fell the warp of wood of old America beneath me."
Jack Kerouac, October in the Railroad Earth
RemyFasolla 2 years ago
The most brilliant piece of prose ever written and to hear Jack read it....so real so American, so Kerouac.
TiJean47 2 years ago
The most brilliant piece of prose ever written is Parisian Prowler by Charles Baudelaire.
Voulain 2 years ago
Dans une classe de littérature que j'ai pris le semestre passé, je lisez un son livre appelé, Sur La Route. Je suis immédiatement tombé amoureux de lui. Je pense qu'il est regrettable qu'il ne vit pas aujourd'hui. EMD! Il est chaud et sexy. Je totalement aurais été le prochain chapitre dans son livre, cause que j'aurais suis totalement allé vers le bas sur lui. Je ne m'inquiète pas s'il était 200 années. Il est sexy !
BiteHunter 2 years ago
It's nice to hear him speaking french
sydbarrett5 2 years ago 2
what a fucking post man......
long live the beats
gallipoligooo 2 years ago 2
I like Kerouac. He was a crazy cat and you illiterate socks don't know the first thing about good literature. I WANT 100 THUMBS DOWNS. 200, 300 400 FOUR FIVE FIVE SIX YOU HEAR ME! RUN I'M SICK. BRAIN CANNOT FUNCTION OVERLOAD BURNING TOO FAR BEHIND MOVING SLOW MOTION SHE DOES NOT EXIST PROPERLY FUNCTION DRINK AND SMOKE AND MOVING ROUND CITY FUNCTION TOO MUCH TOO LITTLE THERE SHE IS CLOMPING SMACKING GUM MOVING LOOK OUT HERE SHE IS BOOM OH GOD COMING FASTER THE TRAIN THE RAILS ARE ON FIRE MY MIND.
postalsock 2 years ago 3
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Is that supposed to be good? I read shit like this in my highschool literary magazine that came out at the end of the year. It was funny to watch so many full-of-dung teenage writers nervously eyeing anyone reading the fucking thing. Try harder.
HugoJCox 2 years ago
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postalsock 2 years ago
There's already been a Bukowski. got that mr. tough mr. toilet? It takes more than being drunk, putting on dead poets, writing in all caps stream of conscious piss and all the heros come out when there's no chance they'll meet a fucking crushed mouth. It's good to hide behind pseudonyms and wires. Hooray. I suspect if I was your brother you'd try to fuck me in the ass.
HugoJCox 2 years ago
It was something I wrote as a joke. I believe I may have been under the influence of morning glory seeds. You have a vile mouth. I can write ten times better than you'll ever be able to write. I read and write every single day. It consumes my life. When I'm not writing I'm masturbating when I'm not doing that I'm working when I'm not doing that I'm at school. You do not understand literature. Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Twain, London, Anderson, Faulkner these are all writers you cannot comprehend.
postalsock 2 years ago
Why don't you guys have a read off.
endagallery 2 years ago 7
For real. Far too many armchair writers/literary critics on here feel the need to proclaim their greatness, which of course usually alerts us all to a profound insecurity. Truly great artists steer clear of self-engrandizement, and let their contemporaries determine any deserved reverence. We are just men and women and far too many good writers, who tout themselves as great writers end up turning off potential admirers with an overwhelming sense of hubris that nullifys any literary value.
brandonman2109 2 years ago 2
Most writers are armchair writers, except for Hemingway. Tee-hee!
You're right, but of course, you can't write off a writer's potential greatness due to profound insecurity.
zoetropez 2 years ago
Really?
I wouldn't say blowing one's own trumpet on YouTube is profoundly insecure. It depends on the intent of the author. It's petty and irrelevant, for sure.
Everyone is a great writer, given that they have the right audience. In saying that...
postalsock is so far up his/her self that I don't know if they will ever find that audience.
SmellaMuerte 2 years ago
You make a good point, but, as I said, such behavior usually alerts us an insecurity (usually being the key word); whether it is there or not, only the author knows for sure.
*note- my original comment should have used the term "self-aggrandizement."
brandonman2109 2 years ago
this is just embarrassing. posting nonsense into youtube comments does not make you profound. go fuck yourself this is complete bullshit and you know it stop pretending what you write actually means anything
johnlocke161803399 2 years ago
Jack teaching how to signal trains, well, that makes it easy to jump one!
fabfrith 2 years ago 3
KEROUAC WAS NOT GAY!! STFU you morons.
Happy belated B-day Jack!!! xxxx
NoRosesForMe 2 years ago
sure, he and ginsberg used to fool around. in fact, kerouac was ginsberg primary love guru til Cassidy arrived on the scene.
LeSamouraiKiller 2 years ago
You are very wrong.
TiJean47 2 years ago
Joyeux Anniversaire Jack
C'est bien de t'entendre parler le francais
AlteredStateMan 2 years ago 3
Happy Birthday TiJean...safe in heaven and always with me. A rose for hair...you soar sweetly with the angels now.
TiJean47 2 years ago
Je t'adore, Ti Jean. Joyeux anniversaire !
zenmantra 2 years ago 2
87 years since Jack Kerouac was born today! RIP Jack, thanks for the books you wrote and the impact yu have had on the world of literature and music.
TPHBFAN 2 years ago
it doest matter if he was gay or not
he was a genious writer anyway
just read him and shut the fck up
ranXerox09 2 years ago 2
Every so often someone comes on here and trashes Kerouac with double & triple posts to make their point. And that point is- they are consistent in making asses of themselves. Typical of those kind who would not understand Kerouac if he explained it to them himself. Hierarchy on the literary food chain does indeed exist. Jack's always on top.
TiJean47 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
He wrote one great novel and one okay novel and the rest is nonexistent in my reality. If I say this man cannot write then it must be true.
postalsock 2 years ago
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Bukowski IS what Kerouac pretended to be. Kerouac is just some lucky, mommas boy.
helldragonreginald 2 years ago
I love Bukowski, probably on e of my favorite authors/poets...but don't diss on Jack like that.
MajorityRule 2 years ago
Yes these are international railroad signalisations.But making a circle with the lamp means (emergency) stop ,not go away or anything. As I enjoyed reading "on the road" more then once , I am glad Kerouac doesnt work at the railroad anymore
Ploppy8888 2 years ago
Who cares if he was gay or straight, is that going to impact your life in anyway? No.
With his poetry skills he can do anything he wants, he's still the one and only Jack Kerouac, gay or straight, his poetry will always remain immaculate.
Uzonion 2 years ago 2
train traffic control explanations? somehow even this is cool
HuckleberrySlim 2 years ago
Jack worked as a brakeman on the railroad in CA.
R.I.P. Jack, wherever the hell you are.
logansGT 2 years ago 4
It does not matter wether or not he was gay.
He was Jack Karouac, what more do you ask?
tsab564 3 years ago 2
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I'm giving you a thumbs down for spreading lies. He was bisexual according to one link that popped up on google. I do not follow my sources I do not follow my sources I prance around we dance around and look at the pretty horses!
postalsock 2 years ago
"Fuck you people who commented on Jack being a gay recluse." - CFT
Dunno dude. I think Jack may have been kinda gay ("I think of Dean Moriarty"). But his Catholic guilt...y´know, woulda never, ever let him outta the closet in a zillion years. That´s one reason, I think, he coukd never let go of "memére´s" apron strings.
RideMyBMW 3 years ago 3
Kerouac did do some experimenting with the same sex but he definitely wasn't gay. And he definitely didn't go into redlusion because he felt guilty about his sexual desires, that's just ridiculous.
FuttBucker667