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PHOTO GALLERY
Jack Kerouac was born on March
12, 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. As the author of the infamous
novel, On the Road, Kerouac became a leader and a spokesperson
for the Beat Movement.
He was educated at Columbia University
and the novel, On the Road - a semi-autobiographical tome of
prose - exemplified the carefree, Beat lifestyle. The main character
in this story hitchhikes across the country with his friend Dean
Moriarty (inspired by fellow Beat adventurer, Neal
Cassady) and enjoys casual friendships, love affairs and
experiences. The non-materialistic lifestyles of the protagonists
were embraced by many readers and helped propel Kerouac's status
into an almost mythical realm.
He learned English as a second
language: his parents were French-Canadian. He also spent some
time in the Navy where he was then discharged due to possessing
a schizoid personality. Soon after, he became a merchant seaman
and then decided on the life of a vagabond, from which he obtained
inspiration for his later novels.
His first book was published
in 1950 and titled The Town and the City. It is said that
Kerouac struggled with conformity and rejected the then contemporary
fictional standards. On the Road was written in less than
three weeks and demonstrated a fresh style. This new writing
was spontaneous and seemed to be at times unedited. It possessed
a strange energy that shocked more established writers but only
brought Kerouac well-deserved recognition.
Practically all of Kerouac's
books are said to be autobiographical. That seems almost redundant
since the writer's life obviously has some influence on his or
her work. Kerouac, along with other notable writers and artists
such as Ginsberg, Corso,
Burroughs and Snyder
led the lifestyles celebrated by his novels and were all writers
of the Beat Generation whose influence on American Literature
is of notable importance.
211th Chorus, from Mexico
City Blues ( Top of Page
)
The wheel of the quivering meat
conception
Turns in the void expelling human beings,
Pigs, turtles, frogs, insects, nits,
Mice, lice, lizards, rats, roan
Racinghorses, poxy bubolic pigtics,
Horrible, unnameable lice of vultures,
Murderous attacking dog-armies
Of Africa, Rhinos roaming in the jungle,
Vast boars and huge gigantic
bull
Elephants, rams, eagles, condors,
Pones and Porcupines and Pills-
All the endless conception of living beings
Gnashing everywhere in Consciousness
Throughout the ten directions of space
Occupying all the quarters in & out,
From super-microscopic no-bug
To huge Galaxy Lightyear Bowell
Illuminating the sky of one Mind-
Poor! I wish I was fee
of that slaving meat wheel
and safe in heaven dead
On The Road (excerpt) ( Top of Page
)
'... one night we suddenly went
mad together again; we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little
Frisco nightclub. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big
sad eyes who's always saying 'Right-orooni' and 'How 'bout a
little bourbon-arooni.' In Frisco great eager crowds of young
semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the
piano, guitar and bongo drums. When he gets warmed up he takes
off his undershirt and really goes. He does and says anything
that comes into his head. He'll sing 'Cement Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti'
and suddenly slow down the beat and brood over his bongos with
fingertips barely tapping the skin as everybody leans forward
breathlessly to hear; you think he'll do this for a minute or
so, but he goes right on, for as long as an hour, making an imperceptible
little noise with the tips of his fingernails, smaller and smaller
all the time till you can't hear it any more and sounds of traffic
come in the open door. Then he slowly gets up and takes the mike
and says, very slowly, 'Great-orooni ... fine-ovauti ... hello-orooni
... bourbon-orooni ... all-orooni ... how are the boys in the
front row making out with their girls-orooni ... orooni ... vauti
... oroonirooni ..." He keeps this up for fifteen minutes,
his voice getting softer and softer till you can't hear. His
great sad eyes scan the audience.
Dean stands in the back, saying,
'God! Yes!' -- and clasping his hands in prayer and sweating.
'Sal, Slim knows time, he knows time.' Slim sits down at the
piano and hits two notes, two C's, then two more, then one, then
two, and suddenly the big burly bass-player wakes up from a reverie
and realizes Slim is playing 'C-Jam Blues' and he slugs in his
big forefinger on the string and the big booming beat begins
and everybody starts rocking and Slim looks just as sad as ever,
and they blow jazz for half an hour, and then Slim goes mad and
grabs the bongos and plays tremendous rapid Cubana beats and
yells crazy things in Spanish, in Arabic, in Peruvian dialect,
in Egyptian, in every language he knows, and he knows innumerable
languages. Finally the set is over; each set takes two hours.
Slim Gaillard goes and stands against a post, looking sadly over
everybody's head as people come to talk to him. A bourbon is
slipped into his hand. 'Bourbon-orooni -- thank-you-ovauti ...'
Nobody knows where Slim Gaillard is. Dean once had a dream that
he was having a baby and his belly was all bloated up blue as
he lay on the grass of a California hospital. Under a tree, with
a group of colored men, sat Slim Gaillard. Dean turned despairing
eyes of a mother to him. Slim said, 'There you go-orooni.' Now
Dean approached him, he approached his God; he thought Slim was
God; he shuffled and bowed in front of him and asked him to join
us. 'Right-orooni,' says Slim; he'll join anybody but won't guarantee
to be there with you in spirit. Dean got a table, bought drinks,
and sat stiffly in front of Slim. Slim dreamed over his head.
Every time Slim said, 'Orooni,' Dean said 'Yes!' I sat there
with these two madmen. Nothing happened. To Slim Gaillard the
whole world was just one big orooni.'
Dharma Bums (excerpt) ( Top of Page
)
At seven-thirty my Zipper came
in and was being made up by the switchmen and I hid in the weeds
to catch it, hiding partly behind a telephone pole. It pulled
out, surprisingly fast I thought, and with my heavy fifty-pound
rucksack I ran out and trotted along till I saw an agreeable
drawbar and took a hold of it and hauled on and climbed straight
to the top of the box to have a good look at the whole train
and see where my flatcar'd be. Holy smokes goddamn and all ye
falling candles of heaven smash, but as the train picked up tremendous
momentum and tore out of that yard I saw it was a bloody no-good
eighteen-car sealed sonofabitch and at almost twenty miles an
hour it was do or die, get off or hang on to my life at eighty
miles per (impossible on a boxcar top) so I had to scramble down
the rungs again but first I had to untangle my strap clip from
where it had caught in the catwalk on top so by the time I was
hanging from the lowest rung and ready to drop off we were going
too fast now. Slinging the rucksack and holding it hard in one
hand calmly and madly I stepped off hoping for the best and turned
everything away and only staggered a few feet and I was safe
on ground.
But now I was three miles into
the industrial jungle of L.A. in mad sick sniffling smog night
and had to sleep all that night by a wire fence in a ditch by
the tracks being waked up all night by rackets of Southern Pacific
and Santa Fe switchers bellyaching around, till fog and clear
of midnight when I breathed better (thinking and praying in my
sack) but then more fog and smog again and horrible damp white
cloud of dawn and my bag too hot to sleep in and outside too
raw to stand, nothing but horror all night long, except at dawn
a little bird blessed me.
The only thing to do was to get
out of L.A. According to my friend's instructions I stood on
my head, using the wire fence to prevent me from falling over.
It made my cold feel a little better. Then I walked to the bus
station (through tracks and side streets) and caught a cheap
bus twenty-five miles to Riverside. Cops kept looking at me suspiciously
with that big bag on my back. Everything was far away from the
easy purity of being with Japhy Ryder in that high rock camp
under peaceful singing stars. |