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friday feast: soup to the beat
mood: 
confused
confused
"Ginsberg is both tragic and dynamic, a lyrical genius, con man extraordinaire
and probably the single greatest influence on American poetical voice since Whitman." ~ Bob Dylan
"Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness."
So. When was the last time you howled at the moon?
Or ran "starving, hysterical naked," around Whole Foods, shopping for peaches, penumbras and images?
When was the last time you killed a porkchop? Or spied Spanish poet, Garcia Lorca, down by the watermelons?
I mean, don't you usually see Walt Whitman "poking among the meats in the refrigerator?"
And you call yourself a poet?
This whole bohemian/beatnik/hippie/non-conformist thing has always perplexed me. Growing up to Allen Ginsberg, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, e.e. cummings, Ken Kesey, and Tom Wolfe, made me yearn to become "one of the best minds of my generation." Supposedly, that would call for eschewing the bath, speaking in metered obscenity, taking to the road, and, of course, inhaling.
Freeing oneself, unleashing creativity, is something all writers and artists aspire to. And the bohemian life, where one is unfettered by petty concerns, such as earning a living or abiding by the law, has long been romanticized in literature and the media. At least that's the impression I always got. Any room in the car, Neal Cassady? Pass the Jack Daniels, Bob. There was a time I'd jump at the chance.
Allen Ginsberg toured with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975-76
But now, being cool sounds like too much work. Oh, I still love jazz. And black turtlenecks. And I still dream about living in Greenwich Village, or Soho, or wherever else the cutting edge artists hang out these days. But there are conditions. No cold water flats or cigarette smoke. No dirty mattresses, drunken neighbors, or neon signs. No all night parties, leeches, or hypodermic needles.
According to Ann Charters (The Portable Beat Reader, Viking 1992), "The New York Beat writers were a wild group with firsthand experience of life on the fringes of society. Pushing themselves with various drugs to the emotional edge and beyond, Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac created visionary works of autobiographical fiction and poetry unprecedented in American literature."
Wow. Conscious raising, no doubt. Lasting influence, definitely. So how does an average suburbanite like me, living in mainstream society, pick up the gauntlet? Why does notable innovation always seem to come from the fringe?
When I consider the Beat lifestyle -- the protests, arrests, murders, drugging, promiscuity, and total disregard for authority, I know I could never be like them. Yet the ideals they stood for -- free expression, beatitude and transcendence, anti-commercialism, no big business or industrialization, friendship and brotherhood, are all ideals I believe in. I just wish that instead of railing against everything they didn't want, they had a clearer idea of what they did want. Idealism, without purpose or direction, is a heavy cross to bear. That could drive anyone to drink.
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