Your Inner Kerouac

"explore your inner Kerouac".

"Listen to Your Innner Kerouac!"

"Release your inner Kerouac" (a billboard quote)

PATH poster, Exchange Place, Jersey City

Can you imagine what Jack would say about being part of a state's tourism advertising campaign?

After all these years, 55 years ago there was Town And The City, then in '57 On The Road, and before you knew it he was gone. And forty years later you're reading a blog about him. Don't that beat all?

A long time ago, Allen Ginsberg & his dad, Louis, did a joint reading at Rutgers in Newark.

Allen recited a poem about that mentioned the Gorny & Gorny Mortuary, and the train line going through Belleville, my home town. He played something like an accordian or a squeeze box, and before you knew it, we were chanting along.

I don't think I ever heard a poem before that mentioned my home town - at least not one written by world-famous poet, nor a poem that mentioned things I had seen on my own.

Allen told a story about being mugged for his wallet. So they got his wallet and left him his worthless briefcase filled with $20,000 of manuscripts.

Louis was known for his newspaper filler called O-Pun Mind that used verse and puns. They ran in the Star Ledger on the editorial or op-ed page.

Anyway, to make a long story short, at the reception afterward, I asked Allen for advice. He said, "Keep breathing."

Wow. I bet even (my future music critic partner) John Narucki was impressed, but I never thought to ask him.

Then Allen said he wanted to spend some time with his father who, back in the 1970s, was already an old man.

Maybe I should have asked Allen about Kerouac and those old days?

The Independent Press of Bloomfield ran the story I wrote about the reading: Anthony Hears The Ginsbergs. I guess you can find it in the library. I have a copy in my attic, with my copy of Kaddish, and my copies of The Town & The City, On The Road, Dharma Bums, Desolation Angels, and Pip.

Up in the boxes and the dust are a lot of paperbacks I bought way back in the day at the Paperback Book Store on Bloomfield Avenue in Bloomfield Center, Bloomfield, N.J.

Who knows, I might even find the rejection letter I got from City Lights Books when they said they didn't want my poetry. I bet that would look good in a frame, or on my web site.
Some day, maybe it'll turn up in a tourism ad for some state that rhymes with New Jersey?
How does this catch-phrase grab you:

Turn yourself loose, take a ride with Uncle Tonoose

Or this one:

Hop on the caboose with Uncle Tonoose!

Or:

Turn Out The City Lights
&
Turn Loose Your Inner Tonoose!

Kerouac dot com

The Official Jack Kerouac site

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.
Updated May 2008, Jan. 2020

Links subject to change.