...saw a documentary on the Beats today - "The Source"...brought forth an entire flood of feelings and thoughts i haven't given the time of day to in a long time...i felt tapped-into a part of my being that was deeper than everyday living...dug up a few Kerouac discs to listen to and found myself closing my eyes and taking in his cadence and voice like i would a miles davis album...hearing it with older ears...an older mind...feeling a certain fire rekindled, if only for the day...we'll see...
...the impact Beat literature and living had on me is immeasurable, as is it's impact on American society and culture...i'm sad at how easily it got lost in the roaring maelstrom of life as i've gotten older...and yet, how fresh it still feels to me today, communing with the muse after letting ignorance glaze my mind over for years...creatively meditating while the scenery passes me by...
...and maybe that's it...after submersing myself in all things Beat during my impressionable and infamous collegiate years, i think i broke free for fear that i would wind up becoming some piss-poor mimic of the past without allowing the development of my own true voice...but it's been almost 10 years or more...and it seems as if i've strayed too far from my roots...
...looking back, i still hold the Allen Ginsberg poetry reading at CMU (4/8/94) as one of the highest moments of my life...and to meet him after the reading was as if i had died and was conversing with an angel on earth...holy hyperbole perhaps but here it is 14 years later - damn! - and it still rings as true in my mind as it did then...
...and it's bigger than just the Beats...goes well beyond Jack and Allen...it weaves in Bukowski...and Thompson...Hesse and Robbins and Wolfe...Fante and Camus...so many others that sit dusty on my shelves...writers, dreamers and celebrants of their own true voice...each one, living life with as much artistry as they displayed in their written craft...
...i'm gonna throw a few logs on the fire and see how long this burns...
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