The Beatniks

[The Feral Underclass]

The beatniks symbolised a rejection of contemporary literary style and re-invented writing as an art form in itself. Their lifestyle and their attacks on mainstream ideas about life are also things that I admire about them. They created pieces of art because they were so immersed in the world around them that to explain it all become a mission to them. They absorbed the absurdness of their existences and they wrote about it in ways that defined an entire generation.

All the Beatniks were great writers in their own right but I think for those people who love the beatniks, we all have our own favourite. Mine is Jack Kerouac. All of his main work is about his life and the kind of pensive, nostalgic emotion that goes into his books just makes me addicted to his life and ultimatly the vision he had about it.

In my opinion there is only two things you can feel about the beatniks. Either you hate them or you love them. I'm interested to know which one and why? For those who love the beatniks why is your favourite; your favourite?

[The Feral Underclass]

I can't be the only person on the board who likes the beatniks?

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

Jack Kerouac, a right wing monster who suffered from Odeipal fantasies about his own mother. Burrough's was a spoiled brat turned Heroin addict turned murderer. Ginsberg is one of the few original beats to maintain credibility.

Pretensiousness taken to the nth - most of it. Though I do enjoy Dharma bums and Naked lunch.

[Free Spirit]

Arthur Rimbaud, my favourite French poet with fantastic way of describing things in which I can be away in for long. I admire that he was such a young man and wrote as if lived a life farther then his age. And I admire a lot of artists like Gustav Klimt – the painter of women and Sandro Bottichelli who's known for his profane paintings -complicated allegories and mythological scenes. They are paintings of beauty and harmony where it expresses a soft, exighting melancholia. But then there are a lot more beatniks that I like.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Charly [email protected] 20 2004, 01:22 PM
Jack Kerouac, a right wing monster who suffered from Odeipal fantasies about his own mother.
At the end of his life he became a conservative catholic but that wasn't true of his entire life and there are many people in the world who have psychological issues, in this context what does that really matter.

Anyway, where did you get this information from?


Burrough's was a spoiled brat turned Heroin addict turned murderer.

How was he a spoilt brat? He never turned heroin addict, he was one since he was 22 and he didn't murder anyone, he shot his wife by mistake.


Ginsberg is one of the few original beats to maintain credibility.

Since when were the beatniks about maintining credibility.


Pretensiousness taken to the nth

In what was it pretensious?

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 20 2004, 02:41 PM
Anyway, where did you get this information from?


From Kerouac's biography. I don't adhere to the proposition that any of the beats created anything new, I admire much of their writing and especially the poems of Ginsberg but I prefer the guys like Kenneth Rexroth - real beat without the self indulgent sensationalism. How do you feel about Kerouac's rampant and hypocritical homophobia?

btw, Burroughs shot his wife dead in a game of William Tell, that was his cover and he later claimed it was an accident, convenient... he also maintained a prediliction for young boys which were abundant in Mexico were he fled, try reading "soft machine"

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Charly [email protected] 20 2004, 04:30 PM
From Kerouac's biography. How do you feel about Kerouac's rampant and hypocritical homophobia?
Biography or autobiography?


self indulgent

Self indulgent I agree, but surely that's the point. Kerouac wrote books about his life. He wasn't writing to tell stories or create entertainment, he was using words to document his existence.

The point of beatnik writing is to express your life, what else can someone write about with genuine authority.


sensationalism

Explain your self instead of using words. Sensationalism how?


How do you feel about Kerouac's rampant and hypocritical homophobia?

If he was homophobic these attitudes didn't happen until the end of his life when he suddenly converted to conservative catholicism.

Considering his closest beatnik friends and writers were 2 homosexual men and a bisexual man it doesn't ring true that any homophobic ideas he had were that rampant. If he disliked homosexual acts then you have just classified 95% of straight men.


btw, Burroughs shot his wife dead in a game of William Tell, that was his cover and he later claimed it was an accident, convenient

Why do you have any reason to believe otherwise?


he also maintained a prediliction for young boys

Who cares?

I'm certain the vast majority of people harbour Predilections for young boys or girls in some way, only the vast majority of people will never admit it.


try reading "soft machine"

I've read 'Wild Boys' and 'Naked Lunch'; i'm well aware of his attraction to adolescent boys, and quite frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 20 2004, 04:31 PM
If he was homophobic these attitudes didn't happen until the end of his life when he suddenly converted to conservative catholicism.


He was both homophobic and occaisionally homosexual throughout, allowing Ginsberg to perform "acts" on him frequently and had affairs with Cassidy whilst openly condeming gay's. A hypocrite and coward. Really, when you take a close look at Kerouac he really wasn't the freedom loving "buddha-saint" he purports himself to be in his works, therefore his documents cannot be considered truly "beat". Despite what you may have thought, "On the road" for instance was subject to heavy editing and several re-writes.

Essentially the beats for me (Ginsberg aside) were a haughty set of bohemian show-off's. That's my opinion, like it or lump it. And I can't take you serious when you say that the vast majority of people harbour deviant feelings toward young boys or girls. You speaketh for no-one other than yourself.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Charly [email protected] 21 2004, 01:38 PM
He was both homophobic and occaisionally homosexual throughout, allowing Ginsberg to perform "acts" on him frequently and had affairs with Cassidy whilst openly condeming gay's. A hypocrite and coward.
Why do you care so much, to the point of damning him like this.


Really, when you take a close look at Kerouac he really wasn't the freedom loving "buddha-saint" he purports himself to be in his works, therefore his documents cannot be considered truly "beat".

That may very well be true, but where is the evidence.


Despite what you may have thought, "On the road" for instance was subject to heavy editing and several re-writes.

Where are you getting your information? What source and what author?


Essentially the beats for me (Ginsberg aside) were a haughty set of bohemian show-off's.

Why was Ginsburg any less of a bohemian show off? And what's so bad with being a bohemian show off?

Are you religious?


And I can't take you serious when you say that the vast majority of people harbour deviant feelings toward young boys or girls.

Then you should study the subject extensivly and you will see that I am right.

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension[email protected] 21 2004, 04:05 PM
Why was Ginsburg any less of a bohemian show off?
Allen Ginsberg was completley honest with himself and others, he used his talents to spread a positive message of rebellion, without Ginsberg there would be no Kerouac - no beats. He used the platform to argue for equal rights, for social justice, for peace.

I acknowledge the importance of Kerouac's work and rather than damning him I only want to illustrate the truth about him. A racist, a homphobic/closet homosexual, a sexist, a right wing catholic, an alchoholic, a user, a waster. When you take these things into account his books read differently, and Iv'e read them all.

I'm neither religious nor want to study sexual deviance where it concerns children.

[The Feral Underclass]

Can you please answer all my points?


Originally posted by Charly [email protected] 21 2004, 05:39 PM
Allen Ginsberg was completley honest with himself and others, he used his talents to spread a positive message of rebellion, without Ginsberg there would be no Kerouac - no beats. He used the platform to argue for equal rights, for social justice, for peace.
I can sympothise with your sentiments.


I acknowledge the importance of Kerouac's work and rather than damning him I only want to illustrate the truth about him.

You haven't actually illustrated any truths, you have made accusations about him...


A racist

...Such as this

Marx was racist. Bakunin was an anti-semite. Proudhan was a sexist and Berkman was a homophobe?


a homphobic/closet homosexual

Homosexuality was against the law in those days and because of his religious beliefs I am not suprised that any homosexual tendancies he had he tried to suppress. It's normal for homosexual men in denial to profress to be homophobic.


a right wing catholic

At the end of his life he at least started to admit it. Whether he had harboured these beliefs throughout his life is so far not been founded in any fact.


When you take these things into account his books read differently, and Iv'e read them all.

Being an alcoholic? being a waster? Are we passing judgment here. I know those things and it is those things which make his work refreshing.


I'm neither religious nor want to study sexual deviance where it concerns children.

Can you define a child?

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

I beleive the author of the biography to be Jack Devlin - I don't have it to hand. It contains accounts from Ginsberg, Burroughs etc.. That Kerouac's estate haven't filed any suit for deformation I'm inclined to take it at face value - it's not the first time these things have come to light.

Marx was racist. Bakunin was an anti-semite. Proudhan was a sexist and Berkman was a homophobe?

Then I condemn them.

Homosexuality was against the law in those days and because of his religious beliefs I am not suprised that any homosexual tendancies he had he tried to suppress. It's normal for homosexual men in denial to profress to be homophobic.

Which is precisley why I hold Ginsberg in such high esteem.

[NovelGentry]

I didn't have time to read the whole thread, some many have probably already mentioned Ginsberg... but yeah, he's my favorite.

[redstar2000]

I cannot speak to the literary merits of the "beats" (the term "beatnik" was very much disliked)...but I was in on the "tail-end" of that "scene".

Insofar as it was a distinct scene, of course. A lot was borrowed from the more serious jazz scene...it seemed to me that a lot of the people wished they were jazz musicians and their poetic efforts tried to emulate in words what jazz did in music.

I lived and worked in a coffee/jazz club for a year (slept on the bandstand :lol:) and got to know a lot of people in the milieu (none of the famous ones).

The "good" side of them was their withering contempt for "traditional American values" (including racism).

The "bad" side of them was their sense of despair...that "nothing could be done" so let's retire into our personal lives and make them as interesting as we can.

It was a very "tribal" scene -- "we were hip" and everybody else was a "square". We mostly talked about other members of the "tribe" and the kaleidoscope of shifting personal relationships.

And I got bored. :P

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Charly [email protected] 21 2004, 06:01 PM
Which is precisley why I hold Ginsberg in such high esteem.
You hold Ginsberg in higher esteem than Kerouac because Kerouac was to afraid to come to terms with his sexuality?

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

Ginsberg confronted the world full on in all his glory, naked and unabashed, and totally regardless of self. If "beat" were about presenting "truths" Ginsberg did this with complete abandon, whilst Kerouac created a myth around himself and much of his writing was contrived, in my opinion.

* The author of that biog was actually Barry Miles, it's a good book.

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2004, 12:54 AM
Insofar as it was a distinct scene, of course. A lot was borrowed from the more serious jazz scene...
The "beats" were trying to be to literature what Thelonious Monk or Charle Mingus were to contempory music - often unsuccesfully. Unlike the afforementioned Jazz legends there work was not always grown from true isolation, despair and crushing poverty.

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl for Carl Solomon"

http://alt.venus.co.uk/weed/writings/poems/agh.htm

[The Feral Underclass]

Why would a racist fall in love with a Mexican, pick cotton with her and love her child?

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

Why wouldn't they?

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Charly [email protected] 23 2004, 06:05 PM
Why wouldn't they?
Well, it's not really the behaviour of someone who dislikes colored people. Date a Mexican and pick cotton?

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

I'm not saying the guy was Hitler, though I wouldn't take "On the road" as word for word truth either, whatever, this was just another women (like his underage cousin)in a long line which Jack left, used and abused.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Charly [email protected] 23 2004, 08:05 PM
I'm not saying the guy was Hitler, though I wouldn't take "On the road" as word for word truth either, whatever, this was just another women (like his underage cousin)in a long line which Jack left, used and abused.
Of course all you say may very well be true, but i'm interested why you take this book you read in higher truth than books like "On the Road"?

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

Because it is not the ramblings of a drug -crazed soak but a thoroughly researched and well written biography, with an appendix and everything.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Charly [email protected] 29 2004, 12:02 PM
Because it is not the ramblings of a drug -crazed soak but a thoroughly researched and well written biography, with an appendix and everything.
I think this extreme judgment on your part against Kerouac is very suspicious.

[Charly Bigpotatoes]

Very well monsignor, have it your way. Keep beleiving that the very sun shone out of his most hallowed arsepiece.

He used to like to run over dogs for amusement too, he ran over dogs - just imagine it.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Charly [email protected] 29 2004, 02:25 PM
Very well monsignor, have it your way. Keep beleiving that the very sun shone out of his most hallowed arsepiece.
Why does it have to be one extreme of the other. I never asserted anything like this. I just find it very suspicious that you attitude towards his existence is almost hate like?


He used to like to run over dogs for amusement too, he ran over dogs - just imagine it.

Along with those babies he ate?