I announce our new book, and then I get a little preachy, but listen to me dammit!
Wednesday, Jun. 25, 2003 - 15:48

I am pleased to announce that the next book we will be reading for This Diary's Book Club will be A Room with a View by E.M. Forster. I had been thinking that I wanted to read something very very different from what I normally read, and also something I haven't read before, but I don't care. I've read this book many times and it's fast and funny and I want to talk about Beethoven and when we're done we can watch the movie and be titillated by the nudie scenes. So A Room with a View it is. I was thinking that it would be fun to read a crotch novel, and maybe we will for the next one.

Now on with bigger and brighter things.

When I was a teenager I thought adults were stupid. One of the things about them is that they forget about themselves, they lose themselves, they become dependent on silly fake things. I'm talking about addiction here, and I'm talking to you (not you, you). It's an ugly thing. You don't see little kids walking around drinking coffee and chainsmoking. But adults do, and they think they need it. Bobby wrote somewhere, or maybe it was in his book, that he didn't want to need caffeine for motivation. Something like that.

There are real things, and there are fake things. What's your motivation? What's your muse? Why does it have to be drugs? The thing is, it doesn't. So you don't have someone to be your muse, well fine, be your own muse. You don't need chemicals to inspire you.

It's ugly when you can't stop yourself. It's uglier when you realize that you can't. You don't have to surround yourself with that ugliness. Look outside. Look at the clouds. Look at the words you write.

Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road high on amphetamines in 20 days. Have you read it? It's crazy, mad, inspiring. Man, if he can write like that high, who's to say it's wrong? He says in it somewhere that the saddest drunk is one who drinks cheap wine. Cheap winos. Those are the saddest. Something like that. You know how Jack Kerouac died? He became a cheap wino himself, moved back in with his mom and died when he was 47. You have to remember that. Don't read On the Road without reading Off the Road by Carolyn Cassady.

You want to burn burn burn? You can do that and you can write, but you don't need chemicals to inspire you. You might think you do, but eventually they'll run you down and you'll lose the talent you have.

I have more to say about this, and maybe I will someday.