Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Masssachusetts, USA
Posts: 37

Jack Kerouac/Brooklyn Bridge Blues

following up on another thread started here about Jack Kerouac, i thought about adding that i'm planning to visit Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, in the future more than likely after New Year's...

i haven't read Dr. Sax but tackled "On the Road" and "The Dharma Bums"

check out http://www.cmgworldwide.com/historic/kerouac/index.php


"I'm not a beatnik, I'm a Catholic." - JK

About Jack: "I asked Jack, 'Well how do you like fame?' He said, 'It's like old newspapers blowing down Bleecker Street.'" - JK



Jack Kerouac - Brooklyn Bridge Blues

I'm too sick and tired
of this world to drink in't
-------if lustful gluttony
is my only blemishing sin
maybe I oughta just
starve to death
------ I am the
Writing Buddha -----
From these Blues we'll
go H Y M N S


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chorus # 10
And that's all I can
recall of Brooklyn Bridge,
tonight, John A Roebling
and Washington Roebling
built it, and it hath cables
and it does one good
to cross it everyday----
See my eerie wiseness?
Good night, innocent children
of this mortal Sangsara
world, you have to keep
your mind empty & tranquil
and pure or the whole
Eternal Light escapes you
-----Without the Eternal Light
you're only a yakking fool
of rooms, beds, graves
and monuments----with it,
you are like the Silent
Mountains of Snow
and more than
I know------
JAN 28 1956

*******What is the date?
Twenty eight.

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Masssachusetts, USA
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i plan to visit Lowell, MA, in a few weeks to pay homage to Kerouac as part of a pilgrimage.

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I've still not read any of the Beats.

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Registered: Apr 2001
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not even 'howl' or 'america'? they are great poems. i've read some kerouac and burroughs and something by neal casady, but i don't really love any of it other than naked lunch.

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I've heard Ginsberg reading "Howl" with Kronos Quartet in the background, but that's it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by buddha's penis
not even 'howl' or 'america'? they are great poems. i've read some kerouac and burroughs and something by neal casady, but i don't really love any of it other than naked lunch.

---

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he was involved socially, so i include him. he was bull lee in 'on the road', after all. if i remember correctly he was encouraged to write by the beat fellows, never got much into it until he shot his wife and went batshit crazy on heroin for a while.
insert whoring!

stylistically i don't know.

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Yeah, that's true, which is the standard reason for grouping him. Apparently it was due to Allen Ginsberg that Burroughs's writings were collected into what became Naked Lunch.

I guess that's as good a reason as any to include. Mainly I asked because I had heard that aesthetically he wasn't all that close to the other beats, but as I haven't read the others I don't know. I should hunt down that reference. It's either in my RE/Search guide on Burroughs/Gysin/Throbbing Gristle or from the interviews in the DVD of Cronenberg's Naked Lunch.

I read snippets of Ginsberg and wasn't moved. Maybe I should try again with him, or maybe Kerouac.

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i really only liked those two poems of ginsberg's, and i doubt on the road would be that good if you didn't read it at the right time (if i read it now instead of years ago i doubt i would have appreciated it), so i don't know. any beat novels and such i have read were nothing like burroughs whatsoever.

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Registered: Dec 2004
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Kerouac:

his quote "i'm a Catholic, not a Beatnik" makes me laugh b/c he's right and his earlies writings reflect his childhood in Lowell, MA, after the Great Depression.

I started skimming Kerouac's "Dr. Sax" and "The Town and The City" b/c each relates to a different time and place in Lowell, MA, and the genius of Kerouac to use spontaneous prose to make growing up French-Canadian so interesting to this day.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

On The Road (1957) - JK

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Registered: Dec 2004
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oh, and another cool Kerouac web site - http://www.geocities.com/terry_young/kerouac.html

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