She stubbs out her cigarette and through the waft of smoke rising from the ashtray she says "That's a touch bitter for you, that. And anyroad, what are you doin' now, if not talking about it? And thirdly, what's the point of it all, also?"
The Point Of It All, it transpired, was that I had recently come into possession of a DVD entitled Beat Angel, being a film all about Jack Kerouac's spirit comes back to Earth on the thirtieth anniversary of his death for to inhabit the body of a vagrant, hang around at a beat poetry night being held in his honor and also discuss his life and work with a trio of struggling artists; the painter who gave up painting, the writer who gave up writing and the young lass still in awe of the power of a beautiful sentence lain o'er the page like an angel lain touching itself in the shadow of The Lord.
"Is it good?"
"Well that's the thing, I haven't watched it yet. I'm scared. I'm scared it's the work of one of them. I'm scared it'll be full of self-obsessed, pretentious knobs smoking dope and battering drumsticks off of beer-cans whilst a prat in a terrible sweater slurs for hours about some wank they heard their granddad having back when they were a kid."
"I think you should watch it" she says. "You love Jack Kerouac. You dig the purple parpin' of a bop-fried trumpet of an evening. You're pretentious and self-obsessed. Go for it."
"You're right" says I, and she was, and I did.
Now, what happened was this:
Some time ago, back in the coke-scourged haze of the nineteen and eighties, an actor/writer by the name of Vincent Balestri was busy wandering stages left and right and here and there delivering a one man show by the name of Kerouac: The Essence Of Jack. The play, conceived by both Balestri and Kerouac's first wife, Edie, turned out to be a funny, insightful, inspiring account of the fella's life and work and so, as is only fair, it proved right successful.
Around the arse-end of the nineties, Balestri was concerning himself with bringing the show to the screen, discussing the matter at great length with fellow actor Frank Tabbita, a fella who, coincidentally, bears uncanny resemblance to Howard Marks, being another scribbler (although one scarcely fit to wipe the commas from Kerouac's blurbs) right venerated by, y'know, them, on account of he got high a whole lot one time.
Tabbita probably said something along the lines of "Well, now, it's a grand play, but by the friar's o' Culloden, boy, would it be anything a man or a woman might want to sit afore in a movie picture-show for an hour and 39 minutes?"
Article comments
1 - Jon Sobel
Cerebral panty-weep indeed. Holy garbanzo beans! You've out-diddly-diddled yourself with this essay, my man.
2 - El Bicho
[with both hands snap out a rhythm of your chosing]
Duke, pay no attention to those faux elitst bastards, I say. They show how dim and phony they truly are because any true literary snob would know that instead of "you've never heard it read 'till you've heard it read on acid," they should be saying, "you've never heard 'On The Road' read 'till you've heard it read on Benzedrine," or "you've never heard 'Naked Lunch' read 'till you've heard it read on junk with a naked young man in your bed."
Regards,
A former reader of "On The Road" and "Howl" and I don't care who knows it.
3 - Duke De Mondo
Ha! Damn right, El Bicho. I dare say my bitterness was heightened somewhat on account of knowing full well the joy of hearing, say, ol' Will reading Junky through that fugg of a cracklin', slurrin' throat. But a man can hardly let anyone hear tell of it in public anymore.
by god, maybe it's time to reclaim the beats? and whilst we're at it, we'll reclaim Dylan and Revolver by The Beatles (the record most sorely put upon by those fiends) and maybe even some of Timothy Leary's scribbles. Certainly it's high time The Doors Of Perception by Aldous Huxley was plucked back out the hands of the Morrison Heads.
i smell a revoloution... A revolverlution. Isn't that a Public Enemy song? i dare say Chuck D's heard many's a man tell him about reading Heaven And Hell on Peyote.
And Jon! I'm altogether very glad you dug it, man! thank you!
4 - Howard Dratch
Your Review Card is safe, is surely good for a time more. It is, I think, a special edition of Review Cards honored for entertaining and finding something lost.
The Ms. Gillian knows her stuff, too, and makes me wish I was young and somewhere near Ireland, she does.
"I think you should watch it" she says. "You love Jack Kerouac. You dig the purple parpin' of a bop-fried trumpet of an evening. You're pretentious and self-obsessed. Go for it."
This story of the writer-poet of the Fifties sounds interesting and I will put it on my list of "bop-fried trumpet(s)" (a special, Irish dish, I presume), but I fear I might like the review better than the reviewed.
It is the reviewing of the reviewed that charms and "by God it has a right savage way with the words".
5 - Duke De Mondo
Mr Dratch, i am very pleased you found this screed to be pleasing to your eyes and ears. now, i must say, i think you might well enjoy yourself a right giddy while if you give that particular motion picture a go, and i can reccomend with no fear of comeuppance that you put it on one of thoes netflix lists or whatever folks do nowadays instead of heading down the VHS Dive of an evening.
And as to Beautiful Ms Gillian, it took manys a month and year of wandering to uncover the like, and so for this reason i will say nowt to her of the sophisticated lad by the name of Howard who sung her praises just this afternoon.
ach, i will indeed say, but i'll have a fine witticism waiting far-side of it so as she doesn't go bounding off for Mr Dratch!
thank you again, sir
6 - ms gillian
wonderful! as always! :)
7 - Fearon
I have read Howl thrice or more over and am amidst on the road and have naked lunch ordered as I intend to read everything that generation has to offer myself