Dave Says:
I’ve always fancied myself a bit of a Jack Kerouac. Every since I first read On The Road at the impressionable age of fifteen I figured a nomad’s life of jazz, booze and beat-up old Underwood typewriters would be just the ticket for a suburban lad like myself. Jack is one the finest American writers but not exclusively for his quality or quantity and certainly not for his sales or his insight but because he embodied the confusion, contradiction and addiction of being on the move. 1950’s America was on the road and so was Jack, and, so am I. Some would say, my poor embattled mother for one, that I have always been on the move: crawling, walking, touring, emigrating, travelling; constant movement to Lord Knows Where. Jack did it better. I’ve always felt a bit of a fraud. Even when I was sleeping on the floors of the people who came to see our shows I hid behind suburban comfort, afraid of that uncertainty of undefined beds and redefined grime. However sometimes, not often, whenever he feels I need it the most, Jack looks over my shoulder. Today, as we pulled into Lord Knows Where, Morocco, Jack alighted from the bus with us, scratched his head from under his cap, squinted into the midday sun and suggested we get ourselves a drink before doing anything else. (more…)