“Play ethnicky jazz to parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin that you know how
the niggers feel cold
And the slums got so much soul”
Dead Kennedys, HOLIDAY IN CAMBODIA

Even in trying to understand this book in its historical context, the impression nags at me that Kerouac was peddling the exotic to and from a white bread perspective. His lovingly detailed passages on the smells of Chinatown, or the intricacies of a black musician playing bongo drums, reek of the tin-eared condescension of a man desperately trying to ingratiate himself into circles to which he has no natural connection. But why does Jack want our permission so badly to be a wandering asshole? Perhaps there was a point when “sensitivity” came into the picture, and American culture lost the nerve to recognize its love of novelty simply as such.

Kerouac’s influence may have carried far and wide into the beat movement, and others so derived, but his actual attitude I see mirrored in the overbearing ethno-tourists and cultural dilettantes of today. The guilty liberals with their naive affection for the theocratic Dalai Lama and his “eastern wisdom.” The Richard Geres, Steven Segals and Madonnas of the world have fleshed out this vulgarity to its inevitable conclusion.

Last Modified : July 9th, 2008 Filed under : Books Navigate : Previous post / Next post