On The Road At Vesuvio
On The Road
If I had a motherfucking dollar, I told Gregg
For every asshole, usually some twenty-something prick, who came into this bar carrying that book
Tattered paperbacks, sometimes, all dog-eared and shit
They’ll order a beer, usually a Hefeweizen, and sit in one of the corner windows and studiously plunge into their copy of On The Road, a pen clutched in one hand so they can abruptly mark the passage that just leaped off the page
They look up from the book and contemplate the nothingness before their eyes
Sudden enlightenment
Sudden bullshit is more like it
If I had a dollar, I told Greg, for every one of those self-conscious assholes who pass through these doors every day
Then I would be on the road
March 21, 2008 at 5:35 am
smiles–great ending!
March 21, 2008 at 9:26 am
Thanks, Scot. My North Beach pieces get a very poor reception here. Perhaps they’re not evocative enough. I dunno.
March 21, 2008 at 9:46 am
Perhaps they’re not evocative enough. I dunno.
Are you kidding? Rodger, in the blogosphere, you own North Beach. You own the mantle now. Your North Beach pieces are some of the very pieces here that evoke the most glad reception…though the appreciation is not always audibilized, because…
Look, here’s the way it often works: When you really nail it, nothing more needs to be said. People are tonguetied—there’s nothing to add.
Writers and artists best know that the most hollow response of all is, “Great job.” No, they want to have something meaningful to say, because they know that friends and family too often fall short in saying something meaningful, and when they don’t have anything meaningful to add, they simply clam up. Silence is the best proof of all that you did something right.
I was feeling that way about what I thought was my own best Internet writing about three years ago–I think you were even a part of that pathos. And a guy at the Times (I think you know who) explained to me, “Are you kidding? Everybody’s ripping you off, right and left—how much more flattery do you need? Nobody even pays you a visit anymore without a hopeful flyer in hand. You’re speaking, others are listening. Of course they don’t say anything, they don’t want to acknowledge their own debt.” (That’s a direct quote.)
Indeed, I could find you an overnighter or two that received no comments whatsoever, but that people still talk to me about today.
Now I just watch behind the scenes and smile. So should you. North Beach, and Bukowski: trust me, your audience can’t get enough. You have free reign in those precincts, precincts you know every inch of.
March 21, 2008 at 10:02 am
Jeez, Joseph. That was … well, that was a very thoughtful pep talk. Thank you. I will continue to write the North Beach pieces even if the only person seemingly satisfied by them is me. And you. And, by your words, a whole lot of mute readers.
Thanks again. And, yes, I know who you’re talking about at the LAT. The same person who read and loved three of my Trace stories and then rejected them after discovering they had been “previously published” at 8763 Wonderland.