...it's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there...
first of all if i get called a hipster again im going to move out of los feliz. i dont drink coffee i dont wear man purses, yes im intentionally bald but only because the girls love it. i dont wear white belts. ive worn the same pair of shoes every day for three years. i dont listen to my bloody valentine radiohead coldplay or sleater kinney outside of bars talking about new order. fuck mac fuck jamba juice fuck coffee bean and fuck the nu art. fuck cinespace fuck silverlake fuck vice fuck piercings fuck the return of cocaine and fuck vinyl.Whowa.so definately fuck jack fucking kerouac
the pretty facade of the beats. who didnt have the genius of ginsberg, the creativity of ferlinghetti, or the muscle of burroughs.
simply put keourac is the simple plan of pop, hes the costas of broadcasting, hes the jay leno of late night. popular but empty. soft and spineless.
every time that someone compares on the road to huck finn mark twain gets to travel to hell and poke jack kerouac in the fucking eye.
his stories arent sexy theyre not funny theyre not enlightening theyre not innovative and history has not been kind to him.
howl alone dwarfs the entire kerouac catalogue, justly, and hollywood has yet to fully exploit burroughs, so wheres that leave your boy? in history books solely. one hit wonder. lucky to be there. neal cassadys buddy. period.
charles bukowski singlehandedly could take on a army of jack kerouacs, and he provided likeable characters. when you put all your eggs in one basket, that of making yourself the main character, you better hope that people will like you and will be rooting for you. sal paradise? give me henry chinaski and an ugly girl.
i read On The Road years ago and for a few weeks it almost changed my life. Almost. i love Bukowski, but he never had that effect on me. Still, Kerouac never made me laugh like Buk can. i didn't know which side to take in this controversy until i read this:
on the road makes me so happy that i was not on the road with jack kerouac. i first read it when i was riding couchettes through europe as i was turning 21. it was a gift because thats what people give twenty year olds as they head across the pond for the first time. alone.Holy crap, Tony. That was so funny, i think you convinced me.the second time i read it aloud to prisoners at gitmo who then flushed themselves down the toilet.
people read jack keroac because theyve never read william carlos williams's white mule or hems garden of eden.
its the same reason they listened to pearl jam.
I wanted to like "On the Road" but it was soooo self-indulgent, nearly no consideration to plot. The characters were depressingly alone, drifting here and there with no purpose, unloved.
Posted by: mark on Jul. 5, 2005