i'll second that, Goofus, so much truth and so funny!!...[/quote]

I never said there was any point to Putney Swope other than it is one of those movies!

i checked on returning the other two for that one (they have more weird stuff than most places but not everything) and they didn't have it.

i am so angry! (said in my best german scientist accent)

i will keep my eyes open for it though (thanks!)

that is a relief!

We have this great store in West End, in Brisbane called Trash Video, you would love it.
http://www.trashvideo.com.au/index.htm

i was curious to see what they might have but i couldn't get a complete list...
like, if i click on "A" (for instance) i couldn't get beyond the first part of "A"
(and i didn't see a slide bar or "pg. 2" to click on or whatever)
but anyway...
i thought it was kind of funny that they are located on vulture street. :)

I get the regular slidebar on the right Agnes. Strange.

from the ciao manhattan tapes (not in the film)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZVRmt0J6JNg

WARNING: "mature content"

Historical note: This years marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Dharma Bums.

Jack and I are both native sons of our mutually beloved Lowell, Massachusetts. Any Blunderite who may be passing through our fair ciry and wants a quick Kerouac tour, give me some notice and I'll show you around the Kerouac sites. (jjpollard@comcast.net).

It's all art man...it's what you bring to it and take from it. In the words of our popular football coach Bill Belichick, it is what it is.

And there are the tribal implications. Adopted into the Tribe of Woody, the Tribe of Will (Shakespeare), the Tribe of Rabbie (Burns) and the Tribe of Jack, I am the grateful beneficiary of great enduring and new friendships, alliances and creative collaborations. As dated as some of the stuff becomes, I sentimentally celebrate the art that forged these relationships.

You're right, you go back to some of the stuff and it's like, "What's the big deal?" Then I think about my tribal bonds and acknowledge to myself the art as a contributing factor.

For what it's worth...

Jimmy

it is really something all of the different things that were going on during this time period with a lot of these same people all in such close vicinity...in all of the utter mayhem contained in the book (the one that i mentioned), somewhere was a paragraph from allen ginsberg that was just the cutest thing (hard to explain)...i so wish i could find an excerpt of it somewhere

It is one thing to read about the past and talk about the retrospectives. But with luck the end of this month I'll be on the road making my own observations about current activities here within America.

I am optomistic and hopeful things won't be on the gloom and doom side of life; although my father would seem to have that view, I swear his home is also his live in mausoleum. Maybe he was mis named and his proper name should of been Buzz Kill.

I don't know how much of the underbelly of America I shall see, but then again that isn't what I'll be search of. I plan on being more of a tourist without an agenda, need for speed or a clue.

But I've already seen some aspects of America that are dumbfounding. But once I actually start upon my own road trip, I'll post updates to a blog I'm starting. It may be free form poetry, rants, or missives. But it'll be me and not based with specific agendas. Of course not being politically correct..... Well I'll probably offend a few folks just as quickly as I get a raised eyebrow or subtle laugh.

Well cheers for now.

NYC, San Francisco Denver Colorado
In the fifties With the beatniks and bohemians
There was forbidden words
from Ginsberg and Leroi Jones
There was saxophones, saxophones
There was The Audacity and Neal Cassidy
And Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Gregory Corso, Joyce Johnson
William Burroughs
And Jackson Pollock an Alcoholic
And there was Kerouac
He liked to throw a few back
Jack…Kerouac

Those words by Aztec Two Step who do a great song about on the road called The Restoration of Dean Moriarty

Any way I was thinking and so

I think what the Beats did was useful and productive (in the great cosmic scheme) and that, in reading the seminal works, this conclusion is no more obvious today than it probably was back in 1956. The concept of placing yourself close to the edge (drugs, poverty, sex or travel (most often in combination)) and attempting to honestly assess your reactions and thoughts that result as a conduit to revelation was seemingly revolutionary at that time (although it was certainly not novel as the great prophets and the native American would argue). It is hard to assess in hindsight how much the experimental method, its execution or the prevailing political and social situation affected the out come. I mean, you often hear of the paucity of American literary and artistic experimentalism as the country turned to conservatism when the “greatest generation” turned from outright war to a philosophical war with tactics based on psychological and economic battles with a few shooting war police actions peppered in for seasoning. There is no doubt that the beat experiment evolved as a rejection of the propagandist realities of the period that were imposed since democracy was back on track with the defeat of fascist socialism and the need to control American socialist experiments in light of the revived threat of a powerful Bolshevik socialism resulted in restrictions on individualism and freedom (I am sure Jack and Allen had that in mind?). However, it is clear that the goal of the epic journey in states of near insanity was not to over turn society per se. Instead, per the beats admission, it was to channel some insight into the great psyche or possibly the Jungian collective knowledge or possibly just a description of the rejection of the expected. Regardless, the results scared the “establishment” and contributed to the disintegration of social restrictions in the 1960’s through the influence it had on many of the artists of that era.

Or maybe not?

Or maybe so.

Maybe. I just thought Dean was a jerk.

Ya, he was a jerk. That Aztec Two Step song is pretty cool though.

THE PERSECUTION AND RESTORATION OF DEAN MORIARTY
(ON THE ROAD)

Well I can’t understand what is wrong with the man
Don’t he know how he’s acting was long ago banned?
Don’t you think it’s a shame, someone tell me his name
If we let him continue he may get out of hand
Well look at him laughing and carrying on,
Like a hydrogen manic or an organic bomb
He’s alive like a child so terribly wild
He has way too much freedom of course
He is wrong is wrong, yeah
And he was born on the road in the month of July
And he’ll live on the road til he sees fit to die
‘ Cause he’s learned from the road how humanity cries
How society lies, he sees with more than his eyes

Well look at him laughing and carrying on
Like a hydrogen manic or an organic bomb
He’s alive like a child so terribly wild
He has way too much freedom of course he is wrong

First Chorus

Look at him running don’t he know how to walk
He’s just too damned cunning you can tell by his talk
You can tell he is rude like a typical dude
If you want my opinion he belongs under lock

One look in his eyes and you know he’s unsound
There’s no way to faze him cause he’s nobody’s clown
He’s as deep as the sea and he’s equally free
That’s why I fear him and hate him and wish he was down

Whether riding the rails out of Denver
Or bumming his friends’ cigarettes
He’s asking them all to remember
Making sure that they’ll never forget

So you’re curious friend ‘bout this man who I speak
For he tears you and scares you out of your sleep
I’m sure you will find if you open your mind
It is you and not he who is really the freak

So relax for a moment as you would for your hobby
His beauty abounds in his mind and his body
He’s like the setting sun’s hues or the dust on his shoes
He’s living he’s naughty he’s Dean Moriarty

Second Chorus

He may ride down the road at 110
Exclaiming his thought about women and men
He may tell you his dreams or something obscene
And you swear you’ve been through it but you don’t know just when

He’s like the dancing gold prairies that will never be mowed
Or the wind in the sails that’s about to explode
He’s like fire and rain bringing pleasure and pain
And he’s learned all he knows form the ways of the road