The 50th anniversary of Kerouac's consensus classic On the Road, and Sal Paradise's travels continue to dissolve into disappointment like my own, I find. A shocking confession lurks from a lit major, a Columbia man, a liberal, a New Yorker, and a dreamer and it must come out at last: I've never found Kerouac compelling.
It's the so-called automatic writing, spewed forth on the famous scroll, and the soul-of-a-generation ambition, I guess. Thick as mud. A mid-level blog of a book. I went back in this summer for the first time since it appeared on some long-ago reading list, and I didn't make it to Mexico with Sal and Dean.
Last night in National Airport (as all the cabbies still call it, despite the re-naming for the Gipper a while back), I was thinking about the modern road and musing on Kerouac's famed cross-country journey inspiring many imitators in the years since. I've never bummed it across the continent, alas. I tend to fly, stay in decent but unfancy hotels, and still arrive at either end entirely exhausted, and feeling no more noble or enlightened by the process. Sometimes it's the lighting, of course. The illumination of airport concourses is among the sickliest in the world - why, the last time I was in DC, it made Tim Russert look positively ancient as he checked in on the shuttle ahead of me.
Then too, I can be easily annoyed by many different kinds of people. All of them loud. There was this fellow on the train the other morning, early. Met a friend on the platform, and proceeded to blather on at high volume, face turning red and arms gesticulating like a crazy man, the entire way to Grand Central. Property values in Bronxville. His job (God preserve anyone who has to work with this lout). His investments. I know the names of his wife, his kids, his firm, and his favorite porn star. And if I wrote them here he might well be identified. But I'll let the fool go, unless I get stuck one seat away next week at 7 am. Then he's blog meat.
Open question to Bobby, my b-roll conductor friend from Metro-North: how do you deal with people like this? The entire car wanted him to shut up. People exchanged knowing looks. One lady kept shushing him. but he rattled on, oblivious, like a fat cicada in summer. What's the correct procedure, Bobby?
Some of the taxi drivers went on strike in New York this week. Strange issues, though: GPS tracking systems and credit card scanners in cabs. I don't care about the former, but the latter would be convenient. Except that the city wants the drivers to pay the credit card fees. I think that's wrong, and wouldn't mind a 5% surcharge for the convenience of swiping a card, much as I often fork over a couple of bucks to take my own money out of somebody else's bank. The margin on cab work is thin enough, and most drivers don't own their own vehicles or medallions. One of my favorite columnists, Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News, said it's Bloomberg elitism and a battle for the drivers' soul.
Then there was the guy at LaGuardia yesterday who asked me for $300 as I checked in. His story: he was in town for a big interview for an engineering position. He'd checked out of his nice hotel (he showed me a dog-eared receipt) but had missed his flight. He offered me his driver's license if I'd run over the ATM and hand him $300 in cash for a room. (This was 10 am, mind you). "I'm a good guy, it'll be a mitzvah. I'm Jewish, you can trust me." I demurred, as most would. He instantly lashed out: "you prick, you balding prick. Get some Rogaine, asshole!" And he shuffled off.
Nice. I'd failed the humanity test. The airline staff at the desk said he'd been hanging around pestering people as they arrived, and they changed my middle seat to a window - in the emergency exit row. I stretched out all the way to our nation's capital, and meditated on the comely inverse of the wonders of travel. Staying put.
