*The Subterraneans

The Subterraneans -Jack Kerouac
Yes, yes we all need some Jack Kerouac every for and again to bring some levity into our lives, no not levity, some jazzbo onto our palates, that’s right, something turbine into our writing. But here is sad old Buddha-bellied Jack, mingling with the new crowd, tizzying over lovehaps and drunk all the time, stale beer, wants his mamma he admits it, WHA WHA WHA. Which of course is to say that where I find stuttering Jack I recognize myself. Wanting to build steam into the conversation instead of patience. It’s his speed that saves him. His art-on-the-fly that (does it?) makes up for the rabblepaging antics of a probably balding semi-celeb writer who wants to pass as any old Tolstoy on the corner but can’t shake the limelight, and who’s to blame you, Jack, what a sweet, sad, sweet run you had.
and how’s this as essence of Jack for you: “Okay, I said, I believe in you believing in freedom and maybe you’re right, have another wine.”
or the nostalgia his brighter days: “with stars above and the smashby Zipper and the fragrance of locomotive coalsmoke as I sit there and let them pass and far down the line in the night around that South San Francisco airport you can see that sonofabitch red light waving Mars signal light swimming in the dark big red markers blowing up and down and sending fires in the keenpure lostpurity lovelyskies of old California in the late sad night of autumn spring comefall winter’s summertime tall, like trees—“
What I learned most, because there’s a lot to learn from his keenpure energetics, is that to love a woman it isn’t necessarily to squawk and pull your beard about it. And other things.