Jack Kerouac, knife disarms and jujitsu

[Ray Pina]

From One the Road: when Kerouac is visiting Old Bull Lee (William Burroughs, writer of Junky, Naked Lunch).



Then Bull came out with a couple of knives and started showing us how to disarm a would-be shivver ina dark alley. I for my part showed him a very good trick, which is falling on the ground in frnt of your adversary and gripping him with your ankles and flipping him over on his hands and grabbing his wrists in full nelson. He said it was pretty good. He demonstrated some jujitsu.


....

[MasterKiller]

Kerouac is my favorite author. On the Road is poetry.

I even have this T-shirt (Jack and Neal): http://www.kerouac.com/cgi-local/cart.pl?db=shirts.txt

[Ray Pina]

I have that poster in my kitchen. I specialized in the Beats in college. Kerouac was my favorite author but I got very heavily into Celine -- Kerouac mentions him a lot (Celine's best book is Death on the Installment Plan and Guiginold's Band ... both excellent).

I also got heavy into Henry Miller and even Hemmingway.

I'm re-reading On The Road now for like the 5th time but it's been about 5 years since I last read it and Kerouac is back in my heart. He is special. I have to say he's still my favorite writer when it comes to soul. Celine when it comes to wit and sarcasm. Hemmingway when it comes to technique.

I highy recomend Celine.

Also, try Dirty Havana Trilogy by Guiterrez! Awesome book!

Also, Red Dust or Red Sand by some Chinese guy living like Kerouac but recently in China. He know lives in London or Paris.

[MasterKiller]

I dig Hemingway, but most of his novels are crap. The Sun Also Rises is what inspired me to write a book, but after For Whom The Bell Tolls, he pretty much just starts trying to imitate himself. His short fiction is top notch, though, and I did like The Old Man and the Sea (though I'm not so sure it was Nobel Prize worthy).

And Tropic of Cancer is in my all-time top 5 must-reads.

[red5angel]

Thompson S. Hunter rocks all over Kerouac!!! and he's from kentucky, which is cool.

[MasterKiller]

I assume you mean Hunter S. Thompson? :p

Yeah, I like him. Fear and Loathing is great, and his ESPN articles are funny.

EDIT>> The knife fight in Fear and Loathing pwns the knife fight in On the Road.

[red5angel]

LOL, ooops! uh yeah that's who I meant....

[Ray Pina]

Read Hemmingway's Garden of Eden .... like I said, he's not my favorite author, but this might very well be the best thing ever written in English by an American.

The book is so tight, that's why I love Hemmingway. It's a perfect book. I enjoyed Sun Also Rises and Old man is great. Also, To Have and Have Not is very good. But Garden of Eden is his best .... he died while editing it.

I enjoy Thompson as well, also Bukowski and yes, Tropic of Cancer is fantastic!

[MasterKiller]

I've read all of his books. I found Garden of Eden to be very "contemporary" in tone and language, but The Sun Also Rises is far above it in terms of cultural significance to the "Lost Generation" and depth of characterization.

To Have and Have Not is a horrible book. I had to read it 3 times, and it got worse each time. Much worse than Across the River and into the Trees, even.

Bukowski is great. I've been waiting for that documentary "Bukowski Cried" to come out on DVD. Mickey Rourke's Bukowski in "Barfly" was a classic performance. I used a quote by Bukowski at the beginning of my book. "I'd rather read about a live American bum than a dead Greek god."

[red5angel]

you wrote a book masterkiller?

[MasterKiller]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1583940537/qid=1088186527/br=2-2/ref=br_ts_slwth_th_2/002-8679341-6135238?v=glance&s=books&n=2785


Well, not really that one. I wish I would have written that one.

[Chang Style Novice]

Italo Calvino would choke Jack Kerouac out.

Okay, I admit it, I've never read Kerouac. But Calvino is pretty great.

[MasterKiller]

Kerouac played college football. He was decent-sized, and no push over (sober, that is).

[FatherDog]

I loathe Hemingway. Talentless, lying, self-aggrandizing hack.

Kerouac wrote some really interesting stuff. In many ways he and Burroughs paved the way for Thompson, although he took a very different outlook on things.