Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Famously banged out on a typewriter onto a 120-foot roll of teletype paper over a frantic, Benzedrine-fueled three weeks, the largely autobiographical and often (badly) parodied novel has been something of a bible to generations of sensitive souls, including Bob Dylan and Johnny Depp. Here’s a short clip of the fidgety and earnest author (who died of alcoholism in 1969) gamely putting up with a well-meaning Steve Allen on a Tonight Show appearance that same year. Kerouac fans are encouraged to leave tributes below.
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Comments (1-9) of 9 Add your comment
A hip uncle gave me this book to take to Germany for a year exchange I took at the age of sixteen back in the early 80s, and Kerouac’s words set in motion a lifetime of travel and experiences. I have run into a few Dean Moriarty types of my own on the road, but none as Moriarty as Kerouac’s Moriarty himself.
Wow, how refreshing to see that BEAT still lives… it certainly lives in my heart and my heart was warmed to see the Man in person…Video and audio so much more memorable than a still photo. Now this figure who influenced my teen years has life again. Thanks!
Dear Jack,
It’s all your fault.
regards.
“… and don’t you know that god is Pooh Bear?” I love and adore that last paragraph of On the Road. I never expected to see Kerouac himself reading it. Thanks to God for YouTub e and EW!
Its not from “on the Road” but its jack all the same; when I read this line I felt like magic:”Smith!! Don’t ya know ya can’t fall off a mountain!!”- Japhy to Smith as they tackle the Matterhorn in california’s sierras in Dharma Bums.
I just read On The Road this summer, and it was exactly the kind of book I was looking for, after two years of college studying the classics of literature, which veer mostly toward the tragic and morose. It was amazingly refreshing to read this energetic, enthusiastic work, characters who find reasons to truly love life with all of its complexities, despite (and occasionally because of) its hardships, to find what is noble in even the most unreliable characters. Here’s to you, Jack.
I’m from Lowell, MA, Kerouac’s hometown. I saw the manuscript of On the Road last month, and it’s incredible.
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yes, yes…