On the Collapse of American Bohemia: A 21st Century Writer Gets Pissed Off at The Beats.

On the Collapse of American Bohemia: A 21st Century Writer Gets Pissed Off at The Beats.

by james bezerra

Is there an ongoing movement which is social or economic which is currently taking place which has prevented the rise of a new Beat Generation of thinkers?

Or

Was the condensed existence of the Beat Generation an anomaly produced by the rise of post-WWII American-ism? And its institutional need for dissidents who didn’t bother anyone quite too much?

Or

Was the Grunge movement out of Seattle the last - meaning most recent - anti-authoritarian movement? Had Beat literature condensed itself into song lyrics? Should Kurt Cobain be my new William Burroughs? After all, they’re both dead … right?

Or

Do we all exist now in a more populated world where more people have the ability to voice their dissonance from their own particular perspectives? Which maybe means that the Beats were just a bunch of white boys constantly getting kicked out of Columbia University but landing in proximity to a bunch of New York publishing houses?

Or

Is it possible that there was an Indian Jack Kerouac? On his way out of Bombay and I’ve just never heard about him? But his writing was just as jazzy?

Or

Maybe it is possible that there was an Algerian Allen Ginsberg? And my American education and my geo-located Netflix account just refuse to tell me about him?

Or

Is it more likely that the Beats - in all their much-loved, black and white cold-water-flat bullshit - have been absorbed into the consciousness and excreted as literary heroes? Because this country needed some after Mark Twain died poor?

Or

Is it possible that I don’t have any issue with these young white guys hiding out in Paris, hiding out in New York, hiding out across the snowy midwest? And that what I really have an issue with is the sycophantic cult of yes-ing? Which always grows up like quick weeds after they die?

Or

Is it really possible that these four or five guys - who all knew each other - were just the best of the best that my country had to offer in that particular decade? And that their tall shadows are so thick and worthy that they still glower down on us now?

Or

Is it maybe possible that the best writers of any time have had to spend their lives tending fields? Keeping books? Raising children? Is it possible that the best film director in all of history lived in a time before a thing such as film existed?

Or

Is it maybe that I don’t know shit about Alan Ginsberg except that he’s a really good writer and gay and had a beard. And is that the beard I see on every dude in Silverlake? Every pretender? Every poser?

Or

Is it possible that all those Beats - who have since been made into more movies than there were Beats - knew something special? Or is that just what happens when people with ideas meet other people with ideas? And if so, why doesn’t it work that way anymore?

Or

Could it maybe be that those Beats set off a bomb blast? Which maybe still shakes the buildings now? Could it have been about the democratizing of art? Or was it just about a bunch of white boys from Columbia?

Or

Might it be possible that the Beats were just some white guys doing something new and that we lived in a world which could only deal with so much newness? So we reduced all newness to just these few white guys?

Or

Might it be true that what we learned from the Beats is that we should do the best that we can and hope that the world chooses to swallow us up wholly and never ask how or why it’s chosen us?

Or

Is it possible that there’s no way to shrug off their shadows? No way to choose between publishing and being published? Is it possible to keep one’s heart and soul intact when the only way to emulate one’s heros is to live well, die young, and be unavailable for comment after the culture-machine has taken us?  

Or

Is it possible to do none of that? And still do well?

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