On The Road -- Gene Doty

[Guest guest]

Yesterday I watched a clip of Jack Kerouac reading from "On the Road."

Oh so comically, the Clown That Showns, hones forth from today in the

mail that made its way to me, ala Mazie at hotmail.

ON THE ROAD --Gene Doty

In high school, I read that novel by Kerouac, "On the Road";I wanted

to be another hipster, back on the road.

In Genesis, Abram girded his robe and left Ur,his and his camels' feet going "smack" on the road.

Odysseus sailed from Troy, wanting to go to Ithaca, but Homer,with his

own story, became the hero's flack on the road.

Don Quixote read his books, made some cardboard armor,saddled

Rocinante, and took that bony hack on the road.

Kerouac died of alcohol; Ginsberg, too, is dead and gone.All those

hipsters became old and slack on the road.

Eisenhower followed Truman, Johnson followed Kennedy:after Nixon,

friend, we know only lack on the road.

~ Gene Doty

Sounds of Jack Kerouac reading (and singing) his prose

..au filesClick on the text where it says "here" to hear the sound bite

Some American Haikus

Click here to hear "Well here I am......"(22 K) Click here to hear

"After the shower......"(50 K) Click here to hear "Bee, why are you

staring......"(32 K) Click here to hear "The bottoms of my

shoes......"(41 K) Click here to hear "Early morning yellow

flowers......"(39 K) Click here to hear "Empty baseball

fields......"(39 K) Click here to hear "Holding up my purring

cat......"(38 K) Click here to hear "In the morning frost......"(35

K) Click here to hear "Nightfall......"(38 K) Click here to hear "The

tree looks like a dog......"(34 K)

Click here to hear "I love Allen Ginsberg..."(52 K)

This bite was put up shortly after Ginsberg died. Go to the Sound

Source page to see a picture of the Three Caballeros.

Here are some sounds of Kerouac reading from the first section of

October in the Railroad Earth. In Lonesome Traveller it's called

simply The Railroad Earth. And in one of the sounds, Kerouac sings

the line.

Click here to hear "There was a little alley in San Francisco..."(80

K) Click here to hear "They've gottta catch......"(70 K) Click here

to hear "and feel the warp of wood..."(32 K) Click here to hear

"puffs floating by..."(23 K) Click here to hear "you ought to..."(34

K) Click here to hear Kerouac sing"Mama, he treats your daughter

mean"(30 K) Click here to hear "I should have played..."(25 K)

Click here to hear "my heart broke..."(73 K) Click here to hear

"anyway, I wrote the the book..."(21 K) Click here to hear "I wish I

was free..."(32 K)

Click here to hear "taxicrab..."(17 K) Click here to hear "anybody got

a..."(10 K) Click here to hear "trying to think of a rule..."(60 K)

Click here to hear "under the empty blue..."(30 K) Click here to hear

"the moon is..."(10 K)

The first sound in this section has Kerouac Singing.

Click here to hear Jack Kerouac sing "The grim fighting hero..."(72 K)

Click here to hear "meaningless goof, though somewhat

mysterious..."(113 K)

Click here to hear "The street is loaded with darkness..."(21 K) Click

here to hear "I look up at blue sky..."(24 K) Click here to hear "San

Francisco..."(9 K) Click here to hear "It's all in California..."(12

K) Click here to hear "Everything is pouring in..."(12 K) Click here

to hear "One mad brunette..."(18 K) Click here to hear "It's the beat

generation..."(18 K) Click here to hear "We have to go..."(21 K) Click

here to hear "But now all they do..."(27 K) Click here to hear "In the

air..."(30 K) Click here to hear "I have insane..."(57 K) Click here

to hear "I am only an apache..."(69 K) Click here to hear "It was the

fantastic..."(96 K)

A note on the sources for these sounds.

Literary Kicks

Levi Asher's web site dedicated to Kerouac, Ginsberg and others. If

you came here from there, click below to go back there. If you made

it here via another path, go there and have a look.

Go (back?) to Literary Kicks Web Site

If you are not on the Beat discussion group list (now called The

Subterraneans, rather than Beat-l) you can sign up by sending mail to

 

subterraneans-request (AT) kdsi (DOT) net

with the body of your mail being

subterraneans youremail (AT) you (DOT) com

The subject of the mail doesn't matter. This is a group that talks

about Kerouac and other beat related authors and things via e-mail.

It's a lot of fun.

Once I was young and had so much more orientation and could talk with

nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as

much literary preambling as this; in other words this is the story of

an unself-confident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally,

facetious won't do -- just to start at the beginning and let the truth

seep out...

~ Jack Kerouac, Subterraneans

211th Chorus, from Mexico City Blues

The wheel of the quivering meat conceptionTurns in the void expelling

human beings,Pigs, turtles, frogs, insects, nits,Mice, lice, lizards,

rats, roanRacinghorses, poxy bubolic pigtics,Horrible, unnameable lice

of vultures,Murderous attacking dog-armiesOf Africa, Rhinos roaming in

the jungle,

Vast boars and huge gigantic bullElephants, rams, eagles,

condors,Pones and Porcupines and Pills-All the endless conception of

living beingsGnashing everywhere in ConsciousnessThroughout the ten

directions of spaceOccupying all the quarters in & out,From

super-microscopic no-bugTo huge Galaxy Lightyear BowellIlluminating

the sky of one Mind-Poor! I wish I was feeof that slaving meat

wheeland safe in heaven dead

On The Road (excerpt)

'... 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)

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.

LoveAlways,

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