Part One

Thanks to all of you have been reading and commenting on my first blog, “My Big Fat Greek Cancer.”  It’s been an interesting process creating it, and very rewarding to receive all your feedback and comments.

I’m all set up now for the next stage of my brain treatment, which will start with another meeting with my chief oncologist on Monday, then the actual concurrent chemo and radiation treatments will begin on Tuesday; every day for 6 weeks.  Hope it works!

I’m glad I tried this blogging thing.  I enjoy writing it and many seem to enjoy reading it.  I’m going to take a break from cancer and try my hand writing about other stuff that interests me.  Perhaps some of it may interest you as well.

For no reasons of any significance or importance, I have recently found myself re-visiting an area of interest which had a strong effect on a young Steve Bliss, and which contributed to shaping a world view I still possess, for better or worse.  It is a body of literature, poetry, art, music, and performance with origins in the post-WWII USA, loosely associated under the popular label of "Beat."  It is the stuff of cartoonish images of sandals, goatees, and bongo drums, but its influence was significant, lengthy, and far-reaching.  This will not be a scholarly treatise, as I am no scholar.  Just some reflections on what I enjoyed in some of these works, what mark I think they made on me, plus comments about some media treatments of some of them.

I just returned the DVD of the new movie On the Road to Netflix.  It was directed by Walter Salles (Central Station, Motorcycle Diaries), written by his regular collaborator Walter Rivera, and released in 2012.  It did not perform well commercially; in fact, the only release it received here in ABQ was a short week at The Guild Cinema, where most of the "arthouse" cinema plays.

As some of you know, I spend a great deal of my time "on the road."  In fact, just about every other week I am traveling somewhere as a Loss Control Rep for Overland Solutions Inc.  Frequently I am in a rented vehicle traveling in New Mexico or Colorado or west Texas, but more and more I am boarding an airplane and heading to places as far northwest as Idaho and Montana but usually not further east than Minnesota, tho I did spend a week working in NYC in the past year.  I find myself driving along both the Canadian and Mexican borders on frequent occasions.  Anyway, that’s another blog altogether, so let me try to get back on topic.

Like many people, I first read On the Road when I was in high school, over 40 years ago.  I understand that the book has become a staple of HS reading assignments, but this was not the case in the early 70's, especially at the all-male training academy for future Nazi Youth that I attended – Lane Tech HS in Chicago.  But I was at that school during a transitional period in the late 60's, with kids' hair growing out and the social order changing.  Believe me when I tell you that the troglodytes running that place did not handle that well.

I probably got my paperback copy of the book from my brother Russ.  Though there is a sizable gap (seven years) in our ages, I was still able to soak up influence from him.  Reading his copies of MAD magazine cover to cover was probably chief among these.  There were others, though I'd venture to claim that much influence about music flowed in the opposite direction.

Kerouac gathered the material for On the Road during his travels back and forth across the U.S. and Mexico between 1947 and 1950.  Popular legend accepts that he wrote the book on a large single typewriter scroll during a three-day amphetamine-fueled binge in April 1951.  Then it still took until 1957 for the book to see its published light of day.  Reception of the book was mixed between effusive praise and contemptuous scorn, but it is now generally considered a classic of American literature.

I decided to re-read On the Road after I leaned of the new film adaptation in production.  As I read it (and listened to it – more about that later), I was pleased to find that none of the excitement I felt in my initial reading had diminished.  Though of course its treatment of drugs and sex contributed much to making the book such a hit upon publication, I always found it a joyous tale of youth, adventure, innocence, liberation, and the flip side of the phenomenal promise of post-WWII America.  No, it doesn't end well, and probably more people find the characters unattractive than are charmed by them.  Empathy with its characters is not really the book’s strong suit, which will always create difficulty for the reader.  It is almost less like reading a book than it is like listening to music, the rhythm of which picks you up and carries you along for the ride.  But it is an exhilarating though ultimately heartbreaking ride.

All of these elements perhaps just make On the Road an impossible book to film.  I applaud Salles for his earnest effort, however.  Many moments come close to achieving the energy level of the book, but a lot of it also just seems gratuitous.  Any adaptation of On the Road will hinge upon the performance of the actor portraying Dean Moriarty.  Garrett Hedlund works hard to flesh out the character of the sexually rapacious Dean, simultaneously hustler and innocent, demon and saint.  This is a daunting assignment for any actor, and it’s hard to think of anyone who could pull it off.  Maybe a young DeNiro?

The rest of the cast contributes little.  The pasty Brit chosen to play Kerouac is a surprising misfire, bringing none of Kerouac’s brooding, darkly handsome and tortured soul to the role.  Assignments for the rest of the cast, including Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Kirsten Dunst, and Mad Men’s Elizabeth Moss, are mostly as sexual accessories, though Viggo Mortenson turns in a few brief but memorable moments as the amazing William S. Burroughs – who will be the subject of a future blog post in this series.

I’m still glad I watched On the Road.  It has many beautiful moments, but ultimately it comes off as a faithful recitation of the book’s major scenes, like one of the old Classics Illustrated comic books we read as kids.  But I’m glad the book caused me to re-read the book, which I found still held the same beauty and power that it did for me upon my first encounter with it over forty years ago.

NEXT POST:
Pull My Daisy, a 1959 film directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie