Wednesday, November 2, 2011
P-Town Wail by Minea Herwitz
In the Spirit of “Howl”: A P-Town Wail
I have seen the folks from my high school plugged up with babies in tightly
stretched wombs squeeze into sequin ball gown purgatoria flipped upside
down in the limo crying for more
the little angels of Hell parade name-branded like smoke stacks strutting peacocks
and bubblegum ballsacks coming out from discount jeans and glow-in-the-dark boxers
who held needles to tin-foil Bibles with lighters going click clack in the dark back
seat of a cheap truck with windows open to the eucalyptus breeze in the back lot
and pierced tits, clits, noses, runs in panty hoses stained mascara faces and ironed
out hair pulled up to hide the sleepy look plastered on their faces from the drugs
all them grass stained carpet burned books tossed aside like the way mommy kicks
them out of the house when she can’t stand her kids no more at least til tomorrow
I’ve seen them cut up calling slut to the backyard dog with safety pins in their ears
hanging loosely behind the gas station talking smack smoking crack
coming out with nothing at all, nothing at all, thinking bout stealin some
shit from Ross or otherwise, a liquor bottle from the grocery market store
under their sweaty shirts and takin it to the beach
who cried when boob jobs gone wrong in big sobs in echo stairwells sayin fuck
the principle, fuck the police, fuck you, too and get the hell outta here I just
don’t care any more
who tattooed themselves silly with the only words they clung to skin tight alley
pants and zippers in the playground coming down all over chests and faces
getting fucked on the plastic red curly slide
who binged hungover high at Denney’s grand slam beer can under table made
milkshakes with Coors and wandered pissdrunk to the beach
who waited at seveneleven for a butt to smoke the last leaves out of
who sat on parents empty terraced gardens while they were out and lined up for
coke and snorted crushed anti-this anti-that til everything was anti-
something and the tv was on
who plugged in shot up cried out wailed on this that and them and pesty little
brothers forced to stay in their rooms and peak out at nylon stocking stiletto
condoms filled gasoline tanked carbon babies in the garage inhale, inhale,
ex
who cheated on tests, girlfriends, boyfriends, teachers, momma’s a Jehovah’s now,
daddy’s run away, oil change, oil change while I stay the same
who worshipped springer, simpson, and who killed kenny, spelled “enough” with
two “f”s like fingered freddy waiting through classes, wading through
mudwater til graduation elation came and then, Ah! the workforce
manifesto of brilliantine eyes and the green gold for the gringo who could
learn a trade like Ace, Texaco, or gym machinery
who wallowed in despair tacos and supreme illiterate beings like sour cream,
hoping for a diamond to descend and climb the mountain of stability in
marriage and sickness like a grease spot on the driveway next to a C-ment
lawn flowering with weeds and dust and chain-link sorrow
who bought a dog from the mall, who bought lunch from the mall, whose cultural
ignorances are smoothed at the mall with Pad-thai, chow mein, corn dog
bliss and Mickey D’s 40 oz. melodies like a rapture and were saved by the
neon lights of cigarette stores and corn nut cemeteries all over the hill and
out of sight and San Francisco a glowing haze in the stranger distance a
world far and foreign when all you’ve got you’ve got here in our
capitalistic little hole with everything you need and more and more and more
who lived and died in a suburban abyss, whose friends came to the church for one
last goodbye, who crashed drunk into trees in cars going too fast, who went
to the beach, and cried
who held a crucificial sacrifice and one last drink held to the stars who themselves
blur with the pop music rhapsodies of saturday nights
who fevered for lays and maybe a train, taxi, or rolling bucket and the lights on the
hills to fade and for me to be away from here but then to be lost alone
afraid a coward in skate shoes in a world of big words and nowhere to go
but back to the bars, the surf lounge or Winter’s or the back alley blues and
the sewage smell from the wafting american flag and the fag walking
jumped by five preteens with nothing to do
who had nothing to do and went to the beach, to the strip mall, to the basements of
their older friends who pushed heavy carcinogenic nursery rhymes trying to
feel sublime subliminal but only felt minimal small town redneck local
yokel son of a wailing bitch who shakes the rugs in front of her house with
an ashy Marlboro dangling from yellowed lips and jaundiced skin
who promised you everything and delivered you from nowhere birthed you from
your sunken house swept you in their souped up rides rode you down with
blaring music til the tears in your eyes were the closest thing to emotion
you’ve felt in a long time and its only the wind from the opened window on
the passenger’s side
who keep digging holes and spewing pus and spending time and money on wasted
dreams and soiled days who live to die and are dying to live
who rot, like the town rots, like the streets rot, like the railings at the pier rot where
families fish for contaminated fish from polluted grey shorewater tidebreak
broken backs and broken mortgages in a city where no sidewalks lead out,
only buzzing freeway roads that ascend high up the mountain to another
City and at last, another
whose worlds collapse in glass bottled manufactured pity soaked wet dreams and
cash withdrawals from ATM headstones and burritos to go, but to where?
and by what means? with a third eye on the cop cars that sit and stagnate on
the streets like the rest of us corpuscular corpselike caveats the big one the
big cadaver of a hometown whose stink and stench fills our mouths and
minds like peeling flesh from the grill on Easter sunday
who labor and tinker in underground labs bent over cash registered sadness in
blind-sided eyes and hands blackened fishy odored mechanical me,
exhausted and ignited by the rumble of my engine and the power steering
fluidity of my hard earned paycheck balanced diet weight loss commercial
additives flood through me, O holy dusk, I have had too much again
who gemstone stud their cell phone fancies invisible visions of the future caught
gasping in the frigid air of frozen fish fingers and scamper off to buy more
wine for mom who thanks you for being 21 or older to fuel her habits
screaming this is the American dream faggots! this is the american dream!
and the bossa nova tweed toting seedy faces in opaque shadows
and the madonna in her own temple, shag carpet fishnet whore dancing to the beep
of her own microwave
and the hidden father fortress on his internet industry whose wife stands by the
avocados while he jerks off to gay porn with pop corn and the kids are in
their rooms listening to empty lovesongs from absent parents who wage
war on the television and send their kids to services to school to their rooms
for being what their parents see in themselves and hope they turn out better
and the bitter old people who never got their hot tubs
and the freeway that divides us under one God
and the golf course
and the rust
and the gun slinging pigs in the parking lot waiting for the teenagers to come out to play
and the speedometer who’s tired of never going over fifty
and the houses who suffer from neglect
and the homes that do not welcome but alienate, isolate, insulate, contemplate, and
turn up with empty hands and stomachs
and the beach with the shitwater that flows once a week
and the ocean who doesn’t know anything at all
and the day that knows no end
the joint that knows its end
and the child who knows the end is near
and Jesus in the rafters, welcome home, O, welcome home.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
San Francisco Cable Car: 1905, 1906 and 2005
I found this video I think everyone should enjoy.
It features San Francisco in 3 different times - 1905, 1906 (right after the earthquake and fires), and 2005. It's amazing to see what's changed in the city, as well as how the city originally looked before everything burnt down. It is shocking to see how thorough the damage was from the fires to just a small portion of the city.
- Karl
Dharma of Despair and Matterhorn
I like to see that everyone else that are quoting Dharma Bums are pulling the same quotes that I've highlighted in my own book, it feels like I'm on the right track then. There is one quote I particularly liked, however, towards the end of the book:
"Are we fallen angels who didn't want to believe that nothing is nothing and so were born to lose our loved ones and dear friends one by one and finally our own life, to see it proved? But cold morning would return... Where would it all lead to but some sweet golden eternity, to prove that we've all been wrong, to prove that the proving itself was nil..." (pg 239-240)
Throughout the novel, Kerouac's character Ray is torn in trying to find a balance between the Catholicism of his youth and the Buddhist nature that he identifies strongly with, which Japhy (Snyder) helps him to discover. He attempts to abstain from sex, contemplates abstaining from alcohol, gets caught in the sorrowful undertones of Buddhism, and seeks out some semblance of meaning and connection among friends and family. This passage is from the final stretch of his stay in Washington, on Mt. Despair (aptly named) before returning to civilization. Within it he combines Christianity and Buddhist beliefs, in that we are all angelic beings - like Ginsberg's angel-headed hipsters and other symbolic images of the Beat movement ascribed to the free, holy, and optimistic youth - but that suffering is eternal, a basic tenet within Buddhism, and a constant reminder if the immaterialness of perceived reality. Again a golden eternity comes into his mind, an image of heaven or at least a blissful Nirvana, but also he has an understanding that the drive he and Japhy have had together to show other people that their lives are wrong, that something is missing in their daily dry routines, is itself an exercise in futility when all is nothing. This is an echo from a passage much earlier in the book, at the summit of Matterhorn, as Ray (Kerouac) looks between himself, Japhy, and Henry:
"Now there's the karma of these three men here: Japhy Ryder gets to his triumphant mountaintop and makes it, I almost make it and have to give up and huddle in a bloody cave, but the smartest of them all is that poet's poet lyin' down there with his knees crossed to the sky chewing on a flower dreaming by a gurgling plage, goddammit they'll never get me up here again" (pg 84).
In sum, Kerouac is stating that one can push hard to prove something, fail and be miserable, or succeed and rejoice, but in the end the proving was nothing, and gains one nothing - the wisest choice of all is to find where one is happy in life, and be at that happiness.
- Karl
"This is Water"
I wanted to share this speech by one of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, in hopes that maybe some of you guys will get as much out of it as I did. He talks about the importance of compassion in everyday life, and really challenges us to reevaluate the way we perceive things. It doesn't really have much to do with San Francisco or Beat literature, but I think it presents some very important ideas on how to lead ones life.
There are 2 parts to the speech, given at commencement for Kenyon College.
"It's impossible to fall off mountains you fool"
In Trey's presentation on The Dharma Bums, he discussed the idea of the Silent Hand-- that if you let go, the earth will take care of you, and that we must have faith that things will work out. I found this idea especially comforting while reading Dharma Bums, and although I cannot say I've adopted such a lifestyle, I think that many of the teachings of the Dharma can still relate to my life. We can all develop our own meaningful paths and include the acts of compassion and charity in our lives without leaving behind our possessions or accepting a life of solitude. Frankly, those two ideas frighten me, especially the loneliness. I know that, for me personally, the company of family and friends foster many of the teachings of the Dharma, like compassion and charity. It's just a comforting feeling, knowing that if you lead a meaningful life and appreciate all of the beauty that surrounds you, you'll be taken care of. Like Ray realizes as Japhy comes running down Matterhorn, "It's impossible to fall of a mountain."
Don Quixote: Tramping To The "Beat"?
I [am not] a madman trying to make people believe me sane; I am merely striving to make the world understand the delusion under which it labours in not renewing within itself those most happy days when the order of knight-errantry carried all before it” – Don Quixote
“The only people for me are the mad ones” – Jack Kerouac
In reading Dharma Bums I found the references to Don Quixote interesting. While having read a fair amount of work from Beat writers (usual suspects: Ginsberg, Burroughs, Snyder, and Kerouac), I haven’t learned about them in the context of the Beat Movement. Thinking of the potential parallels between the figures of Ray Smith and Don Quixote helped my understanding of beatitude. What follows is my (humble) attempt at making some connections between the two as “beatific” figures.
Both Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums and Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quixote detail the journeys of two men disenchanted by the artifices and illusions of the modern(izing) world before them. Don Quixote is viewed as a madman for enacting the defunct ideals of knighthood in seventeenth century war-torn Spain, while Ray Smith appears as a peripatetic social misfit intent on hitchhiking to a higher spiritual learning in post-WWII America. Both are without much money (what little DQ has he quickly gives away), without a stable shelter (both are happy to sleep in nature), embody a simple sweetness to those they meet, and seem content with rejecting the standards of their respective times.
As Ray travels throughout the country, he seems to touch those around him, almost as if spreading the “Dharma" word. Some, like Beaudry, realize they “really [aren’t] free” (129) insofar as they are indentured to the capitalist system of mainstream America. Don Quixote embodies this, too. Like the Chinese fortune in the novel, both Ray Smith and Don Quixote "feed others" (182) an alternative vision to life in the modern/militarized world.
At one point, Ray refers to himself as a "Don Quixote of tenderness” (123) and views compassion as the “heart of Buddhism” (132). Similarly, Don Quixote creates an imaginary world to escape the devastation of modern warfare, and teaches others to always defer to compassion, especially to the downtrodden in society.
Kerouac wrote in a letter to Ginsberg saying “[all] living creatures are Don Quixote […] since living is an illusion” (Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg: The Letters). This makes me think of the point in the novel when Kerouac writes that "there's nothing in the world but the mind itself" (12). If life is an illusion, then one can alter/edit/rewrite/manipulate it at any time. In other words, one can access the beatific vision of "making the world new" (Wilson 63). Don Quixote had the temerity to create his own kool-aid reality (think: Brautigan) even at the risk of being branded as “mad” (think: Ginsberg’s Howl). Moreover, Don Quixote's journey allowed a way for others to meaningfully engage with him (think: Ray/Japhy), in his world, on his terms. In this way, he was able to alter his reality, as well as the reality of others. Don Quixote may not have been a Beat, but I think he reflects a certain sense of beatitude that is pretty valuable.
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