French was the one who introduced me to Jack Kerouac. He "made" me read On the Road, and Dharma Bums in senior year. He had a copy of Big Sur as well. French started it, but said "fuck this...I'll read it when I get to Big Sur".
Many years later he finally did it. The year before Covid locked us all down he drove his van down from B.C. to California. On the way he bought a bottle of Highland Park 18 year old Scotch. It was an expensive dram, but it was smooth sipping as he read through the novel.
The novel takes place over 10 days, but French is a speedy reader. He read the novel over a weekend sitting close enough to hear, but not see the Ocean.
I asked him about the trip. "Shoulda just read that goddamn book in High School! Reading Kerouac in one's teens, versus one's forties is...a different experience. The scenery and the the Scotch were top shelf, yah top shelf".
We worked on this design a few months ago. French has the classic t-shirt...with the sleeves cut off.
7 comments:
Can't tell you how much I enjoyed this .... Jack's "style" is one of my favorites, every now and then I attempt a spontaneous prose/stream of consciousness bit of writing. Spent a few weeks at Esalen back in the day, know a thing or two about Big Sur! Is the shirt for sale?
Nice story, Ollie. Sometimes it takes a nudges for us to read something that afterwards we wish we'd have read it back when. Mrs. Jim is reading Bill O'Rilly's "Killing Crazy Horse" but I won't read it, at least now. It is a good synopsis of the downfall of many of the American Indigenous. I don't read war stories and I don't like reading a about one sided conflicts, non have the good guy winning.
(I think our new president has restored the tribes sovereignties though, so perhaps the remnants can come out better. I will hope, at least he has gotten the notorious pipeline going through their territory stopped.)
I read from your "Humbucker Poems" some and liked "Nebraska". I was born about forty miles north of Omaha.
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It's next to impossible for some dreams to live up to expectations when they've been fostered for a lifetime!! Enjoyed tghe read.
This was a delight to read. It reminded me of how different the reading experience can be at different ages (which is the reason why I make it a point to read my favorite books year after year). One of these days, I shall accompany the reading with a drink. Coffee or tea, or if I'm feeling extra daring passion fruit juice. ;-)
Love the design...Have not read Kerouac since youth...Sure that it would not have the same impact now...rather sit on the rocks and soak up the horizon
Things we shoulda done in our teens, we often don't...
So true! When you read a book, at one age, it's far different years later.
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