Essays
These were published in a number of Online and Print mediums.
These pieces speak of a different Era.
A time of innocence before decadence.
After two World Wars and a Major economic crash, capitalism was in full bloom.
The fruits of industry supplied our needs and created the suburbs.
Some searched for a spiritual center while others reveled in our evolving material world.
These were published in a number of Online and Print mediums.
These pieces speak of a different Era.
A time of innocence before decadence.
After two World Wars and a Major economic crash, capitalism was in full bloom.
The fruits of industry supplied our needs and created the suburbs.
Some searched for a spiritual center while others reveled in our evolving material world.
Kerouac’s Ghost Haunts
the Bars of St Petersburg FL
the Bars of St Petersburg FL
The road ended here. Actually, just about four blocks away from where I sit right now at my computer. Jack Kerouac was taken from his home at 5169 10th Avenue North to St Anthony’s Hospital here in St Petersburg FL, where he died from an internal hemorrhage caused by cirrhosis of the liver. Alcohol finally gave him his ultimate road trip on Oct 21st 1969, at the age of 47.
He always said that St Pete was "a good place to come to die". Some say he was cursed when he said that, cursed to haunt the bars in St Pete, much like Davy Jones haunts the seven seas! So on the 39th Annual Celebration of his final road trip, all you barflies all over St Pete stay alert and when the time is right, raise your glasses to the King of Beats! And say…
…here’s to you, Jack!
Born on March 12th 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts his French Canadian parents named him Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac. His ancestry would have an influence on him throughout his life. A child of two cultures, he did not learn to speak English until 6 years of age. Jack’s early adult years found him be-bopping between wandering America’s highways and byways as an itinerant, and staying at home with his mother.
The cultural shifts of post-war America were forcing him to define his own place in society, ultimately causing him to refuse the repressive morals and limiting social ethics of the American fifties. These rebellious values led him to drugs, alcohol and the road. Even though Jack’s tenacious devotion to these three muses ultimately lead to his death, it also fired the boilers of his creativity and forged the works that are often cited as some of the great literary mechanisms that helped lay the foundation for the counterculture of the sixties, much to Jack’s dismay.
Jack’s first novel, The Town and the City, published in 1950 was well received but did not bring him fame. Even though he wrote persistently his rebellious philosophy and his experimental writing style did not mesh well with the structured publishing estate, and he struggled to get his next novel into print for six years. Finally, after drawing from a number of earlier drafts, he created what is now the classic beat saga, On the Road.
In one of the many tawdry tales that populate Kerouac’s mythic legend, it goes down that he completed the first draft of the novel during a three week period of ‘spontaneous confessional prose fueled by Benzedrine and coffee’. The reality being that he outlined the work over the course of several years. After many rejections, Viking Press purchased the novel but demanded major changes before going to press. On the Road was published by Viking in 1957.
Jack’s writing style was driven by his love of Jazz and had a quick conversational cadence. Some say it was meant to be heard by the ear more then read by the eye, and along with the works of Neal Cassady, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, John Clellon Holmes and others, formed the literary structure and irreverent and caustic guiding philosophy of the Beat Generation. Kerouac's best known works are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur and Visions of Cody.
A few critics wax psychological about his “inability to enjoy personal success” and his “quest for spiritual cleansing” and some have said these demons overcame him in his later years revealing hidden prejudices and inflexible conservative ideals. At the end of the road, he was living back at home with mom and his third wife Stella and was buried in his home town of Lowell, MA. which holds a festival each year honoring his memory.
As with a great number of world altering artists, true recognition of his literary and social contributions would elude him during his life and only really manifest itself years after his death. Today, he is heralded as one of America's most vital and significant authors influencing the work of many of our cultural and literary icons from Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and the Beatles to Ken Kesey, Lester Bangs, Tom Robbins and Richard Brautigan.
He was without doubt a great American novelist and poet, and the leading figure and spokesman of the Beat Generation, which he named. The 50th Anniversary Edition, an uncensored and unedited version of On the Road was released by Viking Press September 2007. And so, here on the 39th anniversary of when he last beat feet on the street…
Here’s to you, Jack!
Copyright 2008 David Spangenburg
Siren Song
The road is eternal.
It's yellow line a perpetual exclamation of freedom.
Oh, to be the wheels that chase that line, that race away to forever.
Oh, to be the wheels that chase that line, that race away to forever.
The road has always been synonym for freedom. Long before the automobile, the road was a lure to our species. We wandered out of Africa just barely upright, looking to straighten our stride and through the centuries we just kept on going. Never satisfied with where we were, just trying to find where else we could be.
We spread all over the eastern continents and when we got to the edge of the Atlantic, dove in and swam to the other side. Once there, we wandered the plains, the frozen mountains and burning deserts till the migration ended. After that there was just a country to build. So, we settled down and soaked our itchy feet and for many years our wanderlust lay dormant.
Now it came to pass that the period following World War II was a boom time for the U.S., our industries where thriving and our farmlands were abundant. People left the cities in droves and snuggled into suburbia. We had proven to the world, and ourselves, that we were the big kids on the block. We also had discovered something even more precious, leisure time. We took a breather but when our vacations came we just had to show our kids the freedom of the open road.
Not just any road, Route 66, the "Mother Road”. She cut diagonally across the middle of the U.S. like an exploratory surgery from Chicago to Santa Monica., 2,450 miles of wide open spaces and sheer American beauty. Originally, the escape route west during the dustbowl of the thirties, the revenues she generated spawned small towns and roadside attractions. She was lean and flat on the horizon, which made her a popular truck route and had her share of natural wonders like the Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon to dress her up some.
The more fashionable she became the more wealth she generated. All sorts of strange and wonderful sights sprang up alongside her, like mushrooms after a heavy rain. The Cadillac Ranch, the U-Drop Inn, the tee pee shaped Wigwam motels, and Red’s Hamburgers, the very first drive through eatery. The wonders she inspired on her way west paved the way to her reputation as the ultimate appetizer plate of pure Americana.
She’s been immortalized in song, on TV and in literature. Bobby Troup wrote his best-known song, “Get your kicks on Route 66” as he rode her west to California and Ray Charles sang “Hit the road, Jack” to honor Jack Kerouac, who cruised “The Main Street of America” several times when he was On the Road ,with friends Neil Cassady and Allen Ginsberg.
Alas, there were dark clouds on her horizon. President Eisenhower, inspired by Germany's high-speed roadways during World War II, predicted a similar system of roads for the US, and in 1956 signed the Interstate Highway Act. After only 60-years in existence, Route 66 was placed in the ICU and she never fully recovered. “The Main Street of America”, was officially decommissioned from the US Highway System on June 27, 1985. She was replaced by various legs of the Interstate System which bypassed the countless small towns and attractions that made her so popular, leaving them to wither and die on the vine.
The Mother Road still lives, even though she doesn’t appear on the maps of today. The American love of all things retro has generated a new interest in this old byway, even if it is impossible to ride her continuously east to west or vice versa. The remaining eighty percent is still drivable with precautious, planning and a pinch of patience. This is good, because we are still driven by this primal urge to look for the greener grass at the other end of the block. Maybe that’s the problem with America today. We don’t have any horizons to look to anymore. The next time we hear that siren’s song maybe we should realize that we don’t need to democratize another country; we need more dreams to pursue. We need a new highway to chase.
Copyright 2008 David Spangenburg
