Remembering Jack Kerouac, born today in 1922

Available on Tidal!
image

2 Likes

Can I still buy its NFT?

4 Likes

perhaps “cool” has always been about being an irresponsible jerk

1 Like

It’s a long, proud tradtion
Don’t look down your nose on it.

Here’s one I wrote called
I Have a Disease

I Have a Disease

I can only relate the symptoms

The signs are there for all to see

I have bad breath

I don’t wake up right

I have visions

That are not of grandeur

My joints ache

I got no energy

I don’t care ‘bout nothin’

And I just want to be free

Everything hurts

Except when I cry

My liver might die

My eyes are fading

Everything else tingles fadingly

No one cares

And no one’s there

In the darkness

And cold

Like they said it would be

In the darkest phantoms

Of our epics

I wrote a story

And no one read it

Because others wrote stories as well

I got drowned out

In calling for help

To a ship run

By twelve-year olds

Holding hands

Singing Amazing Grace

The words, I mean, they sang

3 Likes

Wonderful, thanks for sharing. And welcome to boingboing!

I’m not looking down on the idea that those who suffer can produce great art, nor would I argue that great art cannot come from suffering.

I do eschew, though, the notion that only those who suffer for their art can produce great art.

3 Likes

It wasn’t until I head Kerouac read his stuff that I figured out how to read it. The Kerouac/Allen recordings are among my favorites.

3 Likes

My favourite metaphor is that being a good artist without experiencing suffering is like climbing a wall without a ladder: it’s doable, but the ladder just makes it easier.

Pinched from a book where it described the link between Bavarian Gemütlichkeit and beer, beer being the ladder to help achieve Gemütlichkeit. But I think it works here just as nicely.

I think that assuming that suffering is integral to the creative process leads to people making poor choices about their health, though. Some believe that when they are dealing with mental health issues, such as depression, that they must “suffer” for their art, because that’s the stereotype - the suffering artist. And far too often, the consumers of art implicitly demand that of the artist.

The thing is, though, that we all suffer in one way or another in life. It seems to me that it’s more about creating something that speaks to a larger truth that others can relate to that is really what makes art great, not someone just going through hell for their art.

2 Likes

I agree, Mindy. When I wrote “the story” referred to in my poem, I was a perfectly happy, healthy guy. I am looking at it, in “I Have a Disease,” from my perspective now. In the end it wears you down. Which was not necessarily Kerouac’s situation. Hell, the bastard got published, at least.

And nice to meet you all. I don’t ever share comments on such forums as this.

Here’s a joint I wrote today:
Anything

My cousin says
I can’t relate to anything

Anything is hot to the touch
When you hold it in your hands

Anything is spooky
Scary on its face
Anything is life on line
And I mean that literally

What was
When was
The anything you ever handled
I retort

He’s lived with his Mom
All his life
Coddled
Flies off to Vegas
With her blessing

He punches buttons
On slot machines
To his satisfaction
In Vegas his girls call him Precious

Dude I might have PTSDs I complain
In the kitchen we encounter

On ambulance crew
In Phoenix
Saw poor souls
Face-down dead on the pavement
With a crowd shouting “Move faster!”

How would one know
Life was so big
If first time in the bigs
Like a stadium

You ever been there

He does not
Understand
What I am saying
And switches on the Fox

The hours of hatertainmet
Invade my room

I rush to scrap yard of the soul
And plead to crane operator there
I must recover anything
Before it is lost

He punches button
I-beams come crashing down on the pile
Don’t worry, Bub he says
You ain’t lost anything
It’s all right there

4 Likes

I really like Elizabeth Gilbert’s take on the whole suffering artist idea, and it’s inherent dangers. It’s a 20 minute listen, but seems shorter:

In short, she makes a good case for separating the art from the artist.

3 Likes

I didn’t watch the video, but I get the idea from the synopsis. We all have Buddha nature. We carry it wherever we go. But lock it up, inside, like Bukowski’s Bluebird he carries in his heart.

1 Like

Kind of. It’s more like we each have a genie/genius that lives in the walls of our studios/office/work spaces, and as long as we show up to work, it will show up, too.
But some of us have kind of lazy or crummy genies, and it doesn’t mean we suck, personally. We just got a bad genie, or the genie is having a bad day.
I’m unfamiliar with your reference, so apologies if this is stating the same thing back at you. It seems different, based on the snippet.

1 Like

1 Like

Wow I didn’t realize we could communicate. Who knew? I’ve been out of the “loop” so long, I didn’t even know there was a loop. (I’ve been gone a long time, in a place without language)

I don’t think, personally, there are good or bad genies, but that the shortcoming lies within us. You can read a bad novel or poem and know it’s bad, because that function is within you. We all hate bad politicians, a subject that makes me want to puke. You could have the worst genie come out your wall, and know his intent, and say, go 'way! Because you have it in yourself. You know.

Here’s a pome I wrote in last hour, just fiddling around. As a BB reader, you will maybe dig it. It’s called Physics, and I just share it for the sake of sharing. That’s what art is, and what nights are all about (I don’t know why it formats this way, line-by-line; I didn’t write it this way, but with proper stanzas and breaks):

Space is time

And time is relative

We don’t know what that means

Mass contains energy

If this principle is not recognized

Unsupervised

You could blow out your subdivision

With you at ground zero

Comets come

From far away

A hundred miles

According to the ancient astronomers

Who pictured them

As eternally fiery-tailed

Drawn by sun

And swung around it and cast away

It’s took us centuries

To see the drama going on

And how lonely comets be

Gravity holds us down

But why?

Radiation

Surges through the earth

Our bodies

It’s in the air

It’s everywhere

But apparently at levels that we can survive

But breach that threshold

By an inch

And something terrible happens

I don’t know what physics is

But I believe the physicists

They seem certain in their smocks

And coldly candid

How else can you be

When you have to do that thing

With gloves, face shields and fire

And cause fission

And atom bombs

Deign to measure time

Send rockets into space

And predict the Moon’s acceptation of them

And count the miles to distant stars

Not any one in particular

Just all of them

Relative, like

Then go home to dinner

And a family made of particles

You can sort of imagine

Yeah, that brings us to the common mistake of conflating experiencing something with being able to express what you experienced.

1 Like

Sure! But I think we do all have the capacity to do that, it’s just that creativity is generally so frowned upon in our society as something that is… optional and even decadent that should be reserved for the special few. I think that’s part of how we get to the idea that only those who especially suffer are capable of producing great works of art, which I think is a flawed concept to start with. Creativity is a muscle like any other, and if you ignore it, of course it will atrophy. And much like any muscle, it won’t be fantastic the first few times you use it. But if you work at it, practice, and use that creativity, you’ll eventually make something that’s relatable and creative.

4 Likes

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.