Big Sur

This is a Chinese supermodel, imposed on a background of my own mental meanderings. She was torn from a calendar given to me a while back. In this calendar - given to me gratis by the proprietor of a pan-Asian supermarket - was a whole slew of Chinese supermodels, each elegantly decked out in silk dresses and slippers, glamming it up in front of various Chinese waterfalls, skyscrapers, Cherry tree orchards, and so on. Every day, I used to look at these supermodels and think "Whatsat gal thinkin' right now?" Then I'd come up with various thoughts. This young lady, by the way, is thinking of Jack Kerouac.

I'll tell you one thing about Jack Kerouac. In his best novel Big Sur, he details his own mind's unraveling, ten years or so after all the excitement and joy of On The Road. Now the poor bastard was penniless, being hailed as the spokesman for a generation that was already on its way out, and, on top of all that, he was deep in his cups. Big Sur is fucking painful. In it, we see the alcoholic Kerouac and the Kerouac drying out, succumbing to the dark forces of paranoia and delerium tremens. At the end of the novel, there's a long poem called "Sea," which is basically an attempt by the author to make sense out of the auditory hallucinations that haunted him in Big Sur. It's pretty painful, too.

Despite the depressing subject matter, though, Big Sur remains my favorite Kerouac novel. I'm sure one of the reasons is that it's like watching one long train wreck, but, no, not really. Actually, I favor this novel because in it, he appears to be giving the big "Eff You" to the pop culture machine that kept trying to eat him. Our boy from Lowell was the real deal, after all. An honest-to-God major American author of notable talent, serious about his craft. And in the end, even though he might've dodged the pop culture bullet, he sure as hell didn't dodge the tawny port. Died on a barstool, basically, living with his mom in Florida. Ouch. Oh well, at least he got to show people what it's like to be the real Jack Kerouac. That's what Big Sur is all about. And it ain't pretty.

But anyway, due to my experience on the psychiatric unit, I've also seen delerium tremens enough times to know that Kerouac wasn't pulling any punches. In case you're not familiar with d.t.'s, it's basically a temporary form of psychosis accompanying alcohol detoxification. Oh yeah, it's also pretty lethal. You can die from d.t.'s if you're not getting adequate medical supervision. I've seen my fair share of grown men with the tremens crapping in hallways while screaming at invisible tormentors.

Once, this twentysomething kid in the throes of d.t.'s was hassling some of the other patients. When I went to try and calm him down, he took a swing at me, then puked on my shoes. While he was drinking, this kid was as sane as you n' me. Take away his booze, though, and some serious demons come out to play. If that alone ain't incentive enough to stay drunk, I don't know what is.

I hate to think of young Jack Kerouac, at university on a football scholarship, becoming a fine American author, then eventually degrading into a poor, forgotten drunk. In his memoirs, Allen Ginsberg says that in those last few years of his life, Kerouac'd get loaded and call Ginsy collect and yell at him for being a total loser. Ginsberg pretty much worshipped Kerouac. Literally. I guess Jack was lucky to have the few friends he had. Like all of us, in that way.

Why am I (and the Chinese supermodel) musing about Big Sur today? Because my copy of it is sitting out, on top of a mountain of books and boxes that I have to move out of this house by the end of this week.