Reading Kerouac

Busker’s Memoir
On the road psychedelic

by Federico Berti

Kerouac was my weak point, his novels I could not override page twenty-one without asking where those  sheety marionettes found money for beer travel bikes, I mean scorpions don’t piss coins: just like bored teenagers looking for meaning their flat days, Kerouac heroes are not human, they seem to be  no  more than ink-soul corpses. Threatin’ women as they were walking baby-doll, meat urinals. Bacco raping Venus, it’s a tale of perpetual duel between Fate and Fortune, dear old American dream. Oh Superman! You can waste age and resources dominate spaces squander time no fear of desert mountains wind rain innocent native ghosts; journey is just  a personal challenge, that’s all folks.  Bop culture confound hedonism and self-destructive narcissism, can’t think Mingus and Baker loved them selves: a little Dada and a bit naive drift decomposed musical postwar modernist research, blinded futurism instead of opening new roads. Often listened to Charlie Parker when I was on wheel, or reading some boring anthropology books: at most in 15 minutes all that crowd of demi-semiquavers ended up alienating my attention, nothing better  while trying to  store letal  bla-blaistic studies, or trying not to fall asleep on helm seat. 

It’s like an infant crying downstairs, a fly banging head on window  glass and burning wings attempting to have an intercourse with a light bulb: earlier disturbing , then you can ignore. But why should I tell you about Mr. Kerouac? Maybe he’s the first idol to get rid of when road not walked by a spoiled novelist alter-ego, not rolled out a scarecrow playing dices on his reader’s skin. The real matter living a box-car is how keep order in your life, where you can wash you dresses, iron your shirts, refuel water, but above all where and why to be moving to: you’re driving that big yellow rainbow bus, it’s not the road running beneath you like a treadmill! Not a movie deal in horses rages, alcohol, women and rock ‘n roll, camera is not closed on chopper brand and eight hundred dollars leather jacket:  it’s a glittering eyes film sequence framing people every day you meet under an arcade, men and women asking who you are, if they can trust you. You’re  getting around the world, it’s not world ‘rounding you! When beat orgy myth raged all over American colonies, Iron Curtain propaganda fiercely fought  alcoholism, because drunkenness is reactionary they said, fogs your critical sense, asleep your consciousness.  My dead boatman’s first lesson on torrid  summer Exodus highway, keep your eyes open because it’s not a movie, this is reality. –

(To Be Continued)