On the Road

I tried to start reading this book a couple years ago. I think it was a gift from Keith. I never got very far. I think I was avoiding it because I was afraid that I'd find some kind of grand adventures that I missed out on.

Turns out I've pretty much done it all. I've been on the road with friends, with my band, my wife, and by myself. Heck we traveled a lot as a kid with my parents, which is pretty dorky, but I love those memories and they were just as adventurous. I've been all over this country in a car, van. I don't envy the adventures/experiences in this acount. I feel like maybe I've had more. Or at least more valuable ones.

I also really related to Sal Paradise's (main character) relationship with his friend, Dean Moriarty. The book simply uses "the road" as a setting in which to examine Sal's friendship with Dean. Dean is "one of the mad ones." Kerouac says he feels drawn to the the people who are "mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved." I feel like in my late teens and early 20s I felt the same need to be around people like that as well. And in sort of creative/artsy circles, this makes male relationships very interesting. I can definately say that I've known several Dean Moriartys in my time and been close to them. Men who move so fast and live for art and creativity or phylosophy or something. Shoot, maybe I've even seemed like a Dean Moriarty to someone else. And those times seemed fun and fast and I wouldn't trade them for anything, but- like in the book- they end weird and sad.

Anyway, on a less serious note, I had fun thinking of psuedonyms for some friends' names (a lot of famous writers and people have other names in this book that kinda sound like theirs) if I wrote an autobiography. I decided Keith's name would be Ken Kalloway. Scott Lehman would be Socrates Lansing. And so on. I think I would be James Stanton. The way I chose mine was because someone once told me a good way to make an alias is to put your middle name with the street you grew up on. The other two I just made up.

Imortant Note: Another book that explores the same type of relationship (a straight-laced guy paired up with a driven, fantastic man) is "What Makes Sammy Run" by Budd Schulberg. It's great. "On the Road" seemed like a 50s era updated version of that.

Listening to: Paul Simon, Six Parts Seven "Casually Smashed to Pieces", Cat Power, Cat Power, and more Cat Power.