In June of 1959, ten years before his death, Playboy Magazine printed an article written by Jack Kerouac on the Beat movement and its transformation into something fashionable. The ideology of these words are later echoed in voices of the 1970’s founders of punk rock, who felt the rebellious true meaning died out shortly after its beginnings…that it became and currently is (for the most part) a sham.

Reading over my worn copy of Kerouac’s work I find the true meaning of the word BEAT… “Poor, down and out, deadbeat, on the bum, sad, sleeping in subways.” After a New York Times article on “The Beat Generation” came out in 1952, (Kerouac writes) “People began to call themselves beatniks, beats, jazzniks, bopniks, bugniks and finally I was called the “avatar” of all this.” Soon the press associated violence with Beatness, and so called ‘Beatniks’ began marches and protests under the name of Kerouac and ‘his’ generation. In truth, Kerouac despised violence…even embraced the peaceful ways of Buddhism.

This situation reminds me of the current glamorization of ghetto. Women spend $150 on ripped up jeans they can buy for $4.50 at any thrift store. People with money drink Pabst Blue Ribbon in bars because it is ‘dirty-chic.’ And then there’s the whole Britney and Paris trend that says it is ‘HOT’ to dress white trash. We that grew and live in these ghettos and have very little and have worked our lives away just to scrape it, do not find this too amusing. All I have to say to this is take that silver spoon out your mouth and shove it sideways up your ass!

Kerouac was a working class rebel who wrote beautifully and sought to break free of the expectations of young people in the 1950’s. Remember him that way.