Hey, Jack Kerouac

Listen while you read:  No video, just a pic of Natalie.

Hey, Jack Kerouac, I think of your mother
And the tears she cried, they were cried for none other
Than her little boy lost in our little world that hated
And that dared to drag him down, her little boy courageous
Who chose his words from mouths of babes got lost in the wood
Hip flask slinging madman, steaming cafe flirts
They all spoke through you

Hey, Jack, now for the tricky part
When you were the brightest star, who were the shadows?
Of the San Francisco Beat Boys, you were the favorite
Now they sit and rattle their bones and think of their blood stoned days
You chose your words from mouths of babes got lost in the wood
The hip flask slinging madman, steaming cafe flirts
In Chinatown howling at night

Allen, baby, why so jaded?
Have your boys all grown up and their beauty faded?
Billy, what a saint they've made you
Just like Mary down in Mexico on All Souls' Day
You chose your words from mouths of babes got lost in the wood
Cool junk booting madmen, street-minded girls
In Harlem, howling at night

What a tear-stained shock of the world
You've gone away without saying goodbye

~  Natalie Merchant and Robert Buck (for 10,000 Maniacs)

I spent more time than I'd intended this afternoon, searching the many bookshelves in this house for a couple to take on the road trip. As much as I do not like to be read to (I'd rather do it myself, thank you), my traveling partner enjoys my reading to him, so on days when he is driving, we can take a break from the music and the scenery and experience a story. Of course, with the scenery we are about to view, I might not want to have my eyes on the page. We'll see.

Anyway, I came upon Jack Kerouac's On the Road, so needless to say, this song came into my head, and there it stays. Might as well write about it.

Natalie Merchant (whom, I was told in my younger days, I resembled, but only in appearance, not in voice, damn it) wrote this when she was 24, I think. It appears on 10,000 Maniac's 1987 release, In My Tribe. And she's kind of dissing the Beats, isn't she? Well, fair enough; they weren't really icons of clean living. But she had to have read them to be able to write about them. In case you're among my much younger readers, the Beat Poets were the hipsters of the 50s and 60s. The three that Natalie references are Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. They were edgy and irreverent and so of course, we devoured their work. I still have my copy of HOWL with the price of 75 cents imprinted on it. But my favorite Beat Poet was Lawrence Ferlinghetti; A Coney Island of the Mind ($1.00) blew me away.

Ferlinghetti opened the first paperback book store in the country back in 1953, and it's still there. If you're in San Francisco, head to Chinatown and make your way uphill. On the right, you'll find "Jack Kerouac Alley." You'll walk past sidewalk insets bearing quotes of these great writers before you reach Columbus Avenue. To your left is City Lights, and to your right is The Vesuvio Cafe, a Beat hangout and the coolest bar I've ever been in. The photo is of the wall of the bar that faces Jack Kerouac Alley.

Well, despite all this, On the Road is not coming to the Northwest with me. I've whittled my choices down to seven, two of which will make the journey with me. Stay tuned.