RUDIMENTS, pt. 668
(a deep-seated mess by the end)
It's odd how so much of this
ended up being about highways
and roads and movement. I guess
America has always been like
that - those 'On the Road' type
crazy narratives and storylines,
the idea of ever-present flux and
movement and the unfixed nature
of everything. Even if most of it
was untrue and just used as a
gimmick for advertising or
pushing some product, the idea
stuck and became part of that
America myth stuff that gets
handed down. For all I know
there were roving bands of
Conestoga-wagon- teens running
off with their Dad's wagons to
their own points west. Maybe
they even wrote about it - but I
guess it all had to be in a rushed
longhand and just got washed
away. Leastways we've never
gotten to see it. The part of the
American myth would take
that idea up - to sell you
rugged road jeans, or hats
or dusters - things like the
cowboys all wore; because,
you know, at heart you're one
of them and you're Ram tough
too, driving that Chrysler product.
Except that none of that's true
anymore and no one knows what
anyone is - Chrysler is FIAT,
which is really Peugeot, and
it's all worse for wear. America's
really got no myth, except selling
lies. In New York City, in all
respects but for Robert Moses,
who was soon enough done away
with, you could live your entire
live without an automobile or
thoughts of car and travel. It
did, of course, cut down on the
possibilities for your travel, but
you could rent a vehicle if you
were wiling to pay, and do your
drive, travel, or trip. You just
never needed to be owning one -
a car, not a trip - and everything
about it all, like parking, storage,
and the rest, was crazy expensive
anyway. One time, in the early
1990's, I was driving a Mercedes,
an old one that I owned, and it
lost its brakes coming down a
hill entering Fort Lee, from up
Nyack way. It stopped itself,
oddly enough, right outside a
a 'foreign' car repair shop, at
which lot I left it, with instructions,
and walked a little ways to a
taxi stand. The ride home cost
us $99.00. I'll never forget that
number, and only later did I
realize, upon returning to get
the repaired car, that there was
an auto-rental place near there
too - for 99 bucks I could
probably have gotten a car
rented for 3 days. But, whatever.
Some years later, on a Sunday,
sort of the same thing happened
with an old Jeep I was driving,
but in that case, coming out of
Sloatsburg, I was able to take
Route 17, to the Parkway, and
home, using just the hand-pull
emergency brake to ease to
stops, and those two roads, up
there, kept me away from the
usual lights and stop and go.
That got pretty easy. There's
always a trick of some sort
one can do.
-
Anyway, cars and New York,
they only mixed, maybe in
the literary sense. I used to
read and re-read some of that
stuff - 'On the Road,' for sure.
It only made sense to me for a
little bit, that whole beginning
section where he sets out
hitching and winds up going
the wrong way, unknowingly,
for hours in some old people's
car. Then it gets to the Old Man
of the Alleghenies part, which
is good too, mythic, Freudian,
and all that put together, and
sort of after that it just breaks
down into lots of jumbles -
things I dislike; scenes of
people, parties, jazz, music,
drugs, antic behaviors.
Wrecking cars, running back
and forth up and down the
country, Mexico, drugs some
more, and on. I got bored.
I have a limited tolerance
for narrative books and
stories with lots of names
and characters you're
supposed to remember.
I don't like that kind of
story-writing, and I've
always felt a book, to be
read, needed more than
a yarn and a slew of
characters to make it
readable. I like real,
discursive stuff, with
info and insight all built
in. I remember once,
Pete Seeger said, (he was
looking out over the crowd
of thousands of faces out
before him at some folkie
concert when it was all
changing to more pop and
rock junk), and he said,
making his point that it
as all ruined by that time;
he said, 'You've got to keep
it simple, and keep it rolling.'
His point was 'folk' music
had lost it entire premise
with these crowds and formats.
It was no longer simple. I think
he meant it had lost any of the
'authenticity' it once may have
had, and, but, yes, that's one
of the problems with all this
stuff : 'Hanger-ons' and fakers.
But, in any case, it's like that
with a book too. Anything
with 10 or 15 names and
characters, all interweaving
in and out, and each with their
secondary line of characters,
well, it just all gets too much.
If I wished to read a phone
book (of old) I'd do that.
Otherwise, keep it simple.
And keep it rolling. Yeah.
And even that's not exactly
right, because getting good
at being discursive can
sometimes undo simplicity
- for the cool side-stories
and reference-lines can lead
a good writer anywhere. Not
just masses of characters and
names, emotions and foibles.
That's all crap.
-
If you think about it, with those
two cars that lost their brakes,
in each case I was trying to keep
them rolling, while keeping it
simple. It doesn't always work,
but lots of times it does; and
who's to say what simple is
anyway? Pete Seeger was
probably getting 700 bucks a
minute at concerts by this time.
Nothing simple about that.
-
Back to that book, 'On the Road'
Another thing about it was that I
always ended up considering it
to be exploitative, of women,
and emotions too. Just a lot of
virile crap that never seemed to
end. And the only real 'New York'
part was, again, at the end, by
which time it had all been changed
into emotion and sentimentality
anyway; and I felt it always ended
up refuting its own premises. By
the final pages, with that last
refusal of giving a ride, I felt
Sal Paradiso had reached a
point of disgust with Dean
Moriarity anyway - which is
kind of how it happened in real
life with Kerouac self-destructing
as he did anyway. It was just
all a deep-seated mess
by the end.
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