On The Road

I am excited. Ever since my Great American Road Trip I've been wanting to read Jack Kerouac's "On The Road". Just before I left on that trip I was listening to a recording of a live show that Switchfoot did and they quote Jack Kerouac and I put that on our website as my favorite quote.

I had never heard of Jack and of his famous book about traveling around America just like we did...(well kinda'...we did ours real fast.) But anywho, someone commented on our blog that we should read it. So I am.

The version of the book I got from the Merrill-Cazier Library has an intro by Ann Charters, who was an English professor that studied the "beat generation" which is what Jack wrote about. In the intro Ann talks about Jack reading the first review written in the New York Times about "On The Road" and I found it fascinating. (This blog post is frustrating me because it is not coming out the way I want it to.)
Jack talks about the funny reaction that the media had to his book being published. The things that he was interviewed for were strange to him. The media made him into something that he was not. As the intro states "he was supposedly the spokesman for a new generation." I found all this funny because that is exactly what the media did to our Great American Road Trip. They often turned it into something it was not, or wasn't meant to be. As Adam Gatherum from our trip stated "our story is taking on a life of its own in the media's hands," which is true. I wonder how often that happens. Seriously, our trip was just 3 guys in a Scion drive through the 48 states to set a record. But then the media came along and all of a sudden it was:
"3 men drive across the country to show off the MPG efficiency of the Scion XB"
"3 brave men drive the countryside to live out fathers dream"
"A trio of men sponsored by a gay website (menlove.com) drive the lower 48 states"
"Three faggots waste precious fuel and set a bad example for others"

And I could go on and on, but I am out of creative headline ideas. But you get the idea. And all this is not even mentioning the completely wrong data they kept publishing. For example our official time for the drive was written incorrectly four times with four different numbers...we should just take the lowest misquoted time and run with it ;)

Anywho, I am excited to read this book so I am going to end this post and read it.