On The Road With Al and Ivy: A Homeless Literary Chronicle - May 2021

"...I rode away, thinking, I confess, not so much of the kind mother left alone, and of the home behind me, as of to-morrow, and all the wonders it would bring."

- William Makepeace Thackeray ("Barry Lyndon," 1844)

"Coming of age" rites for young men and women have pretty much remained the same throughout history; men endure epic tests of strength and will, while women are trained in the sacred roles of motherhood, parenting and how avoid getting a case of the ass from dealing with men.

Some cynics have suggested that a woman's parenting training applies to both men and children, while others indignantly insist that following a man's orders requires no special skill. While accurate attribution for such insights isn't possible due to the degraded condition of the ancient source material concerning motherhood discovered in the Chicago 5th Street Salvation Army Store book section in 1989, the debate appears to be divided along male and female lines. [citation would help here]

Further investigation on the subject on web search engines yielded opinions too incendiary to reprint here, and all were under false names, thus making the data only suitable for Internet grade research. However, there is an admittedly tenuous historical link to Sumerian cuneiform tablets on the subject of astronomy, circa 1856, that claim men are from Saturn, and women are from Venus. [citation needed]

...grow up already...

Although maturity is a desirable quality in men (the historical record isn't clear as to when it became so, and women's opinions on the subject weren't documented until, maybe, last year), it's always been treated as an optional quality since women have to do the thinking anyway, and be the adult in situations that doesn't involve fisticuffs, watching football games, or farting exhibitions.

I should note that I'm oversimplifying for the sake of brevity, but the accuracy of my facts should fall within acceptable internet standards of truth. [citation probably won't help here]

...back to the point...

Getting back to male rites of passage...it is an important stage and what constitutes coming of age depends on what the society in question believes are the first steps to adulthood. In addition, how society defines maturity varies depending on the sex of the person, regional customs, and how long one can get away with extending the adolescent stage (which generally depends on income level).

I've given the subject of this mystical transition a great of thought since the moment it became obvious that a blog entry was needed for May, and several avenues of inquiry were considered. Hollywood was ruled out because there's already 12,345,668,890 films [citation needed again] about young men trying to trick women into having sex, and it's not clear if they actually attained maturity after doing so. Rock songs were never seriously considered, and that left books as the fount of transitional wisdom. The result will be revealed shortly.

The thing is, the modern age is complex, even if human emotions and frailties haven't changed very much. A rite of passage can now be more than a simple transition to adulthood, which in ancient times came as soon as possible as parents needed extra hands in the fields and the King needed cheap labor for tasks below the dignity of the royal person.

...life experience...

I personally tend to define such rites as a life experience that has a profound effect on a person's development or direction. It can mean the end of innocence, a realization about the true nature of something, but most of all, a moment or time where one finds their true self. 

It doesn't necessarily mean you live happily ever after. Joan of Arc chose a path that lead to persecution and a painful death. Many explorers faced privation and death in remote places, and many great artists achieved everything but material success. A simple, and possibly inadequate way to put it, was that all of them found what it was they had to do.

Jack Kerouac discovered what he was meant to do on a road trip with Neal Cassidy on a road trip across the United States, documented in his seminal book, "On the Road."

...2009...

In 2009, the unpublished 1951 version of Jack Kerouac's book, "On The Road" was released and gave many of the admirers of the 1957 version a chance to revisit the work and it's legacy.

Allen Ginsberg, the legendary Beat poet and close friend, felt that the 1957 version of the book had removed much of the "mad energy" and life of Kerouac's story. Which is true, the Original "Scroll" version, which was typed out on eight long sheets of drafting paper and taped together into a single scroll, differs in some important ways.

The 1957 version was toned down, particularly in sexual details like the sexuality of some of the characters and all of the people in the book were given fictitious names. Which given the straight laced atmosphere of the 50s era, wasn't surprising, and using the real names of living persons can make any book risky to publish.

The Original Scroll (like it's later published version) had an episodic approach to story telling, moving from one scene to another as it appeared in Kerouac's head, as opposed to events tied to a linear time frame. He spends time in the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, yet describes very little of what he saw. Days or weeks are often covered with a single sentence, yet many pages are devoted to conversations with a friend or friends, and if he's waiting for money to come via mail (or wages on payday), he'll just skip over to it's arrival and then the narrative becomes full again.

Also, how the story was told was just as important, if not more so, than the plot. The whole work was a grand experiment in form. A description of Lawrence Sternes', "The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy," probably describes Kerouac's book best, that it was about how far you could depart from classic novel tradition and still call it a novel.

...the America dream...

The 1950s in the United States was a time of great prosperity and the fabled "American Dream." The darker side of that vision was conformity and sexual repression, at least from the point of view of the intelligentsia and artists. They did have a point; social injustices such as the McCarthy witch hunt for communists or Jim Crow laws weren't exceptions to the rule, but part of a general attitude that if you didn't fit in, you were out.

That was the America that Jack Kerouac knew, and began to rebel against. He had an interesting and often tumultuous life, too full of detail to easily summarize here (a good subject to for you all to google), but by the time Kerouac began writing the 1951 version of "On The Road," known as the Scroll, his friends and acquaintances already included future greats like Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. 

The author typed the scroll version out in three weeks, taking Benzedrine to keep on pace, and the feel and energy of the book reflects this. Having been around a lot of meth users during my homeless period, the rhythm and flow of conversation closely matched what I heard out there. It wasn't unusual for a guy on meth to riff out long streams of thoughts which would range from brilliant to banal.

...it was much more...

The book wasn't just a speed rap...the point of laying it all out, straight through without correctly placed periods, commas, and structured paragraphs (often simply separated by three periods) was to break free of the strictures of formal grammar and composition. It was a work with a fluctuating but continuous metre, or rhythm. One could say it was like a long improvisational jazz composition but with words instead of musical notes.

A musician would certainly understand this concept and his Jazz references illuminate that sensibility. It's words as music, not just in sound or rhythm but as an immediate, and direct connection to the creative source without the filter of an artistic process, style or specific form. Everything that flowed onto the scroll was left untouched, with both the good and bad notes, so to speak, bypassing any impulse to self edit or adhere to the rules of grammar (or create something that would sell).

...a view of America...

To understand the basic premise of On The Road, one has to see it for what it was; a statement of Kerouac's view of America. As he saw it, it was a "sad" place, full of conformity, repression and materialism. Whether that was true or not isn't important as far as this book is concerned. It's all about how he saw it, and his explorations were influenced by that outlook.

What makes the book's themes about freedom relevant in 2021 is that much of his rebellion was on a social level, rather than political. Most of the pressures to conform are on a personal level, with the pressure applied by family, peers or acquaintances seen every day. 

Kerouac's road trips weren't an act of rebellion per se, as journeys into the unknown have always been an integral part of the American character (or mythology). What was different was that the aim of the journey was discovery and not material gain.

The underlying morality in the United States in the 1950's (and still is in many ways) was that material success is the end game or validation of any endevour. Most artists, particularly musicians, have experienced that arc of initial approval from others that begins to curve downwards when the pot of gold doesn't arrive. The attitude is that youthful rebellion and dreams are OK, as long as you grow up and get a real job afterwards.

Kerouac didn't buy into that. He sought a more direct connection to life; not what it was supposed to be or what others said it was. His immersion into philosophy, jazz, wandering, and writing was about living for experience, that is to say, leading a spontaneous or "mad" life. There was no pot at the end of the rainbow, his sights were always on the present. Such a life would experience a lot of highs and lows, but without the conception that a life could be ruined by a single mistake or failure.

...all about honesty...

One of the virtues of the Original 1951 Scroll is that it's an honest book. Jack's descriptions of various friends were candid. He describes Neal Cassidy, the other major protagonist in the book, as a Nietzsche-like philosophical primitive who stole cars in his youth, and was a womanizer (in so many words). He has a dispassionate view of another who married a woman because she had money for a road trip and dumped her once it ran out. 

Needless to say, in this day and age, it'd be hard to imagine a woman who'd find such storylines a milestone in modern literature and intellectual freedom. The women in the book, from Kerouac's mother to the various girlfriends and wives, could seem to some readers that they're mainly there for sex, support, and money. However, Kerouac's depictions of females are generally quite warm, particularly with his mother and sister, but his view of women was pretty much like any other male in the 50s. 

The honesty I'm talking about goes further than the sex, drug or booze fueled philosophical explorations. He was willing to include a lot of non-heroic details, like when he had to write home to get cash from his mother (though he sends her money too at times), and a lot of his adventures depend on the generosity of strangers. He's not depicting himself as a self-reliant pioneer in the wilderness. 

...Orwell's kind of guy...

George Orwell talked about that type of honesty; the willingness to write something that makes one look weak or disreputable. It's easy to brag about being a drug user in an age where it's fashionable, but would modern writers (who want to look cool) casually depict themselves as freeloaders, petty thieves, or in the case of guys, ones who want to respect women but can't because they love their cheating and freedom too much? Even in modern films, anti-heroes tend to have flaws that accentuate their macho appeal, not diminish it. 

One can have an opinion of how his adventures read in 2021, and since the book is being sold at a premium price, his actions can and will be judged by today's standards (and subject to reader reviews on commercial book sites). But to his credit, he didn't write the book to create a myth.

...until the next episode...

In 2021, Kerouac's book could be seen as a male oriented literary milestone that's at the least a historically valuable look at the beginnings of the Beat Culture, like the movie Easy Rider was of the 60s Counter Culture. At its best, the writing is a pleasure for the serious reader and an inspiration for any writer who aspires to do great work.

The Original Scroll is definitely the version that should have been published. To be clear, it's an uneven work, and there are parts that'll leave a modern reader wondering what all the talk is about, but the best passages come off as fresh and inspired even in 2021,  where most of us have pretty much seen everything written under the sun.

Kerouac's best qualities as a writer, spontaneity and inventiveness, shine very brightly in the 1951 Original Scroll version of On The Road.

"They that know no evil can know no good; and, as the learned tell us, that a stone taken out of the head of a Toad is a good antidote against poison; so a competent knowledge of the Devil, and all his ways, may be the best help to make us defie the Devil and all his works."

- Daniel Defoe (The Political History Of The Devil - 1726)

...banning books, and related acts (part 2 of 3 parts)

I said (in the previous blog entry) that the act of banning a book doesn't always symbolize what it used to, in terms of it's actual effect, though the mentalities involved haven't changed much. Although it's common practice to make the issue all about freedom, the reasons can vary, and have become more complex due to the Internet and mass media.

The thing is, not much has changed in terms of human behavior. People have pretty much done the same things, and acted the same way, even if technology and advances in the sciences make us seem smarter than those who lived in ancient times.

The list of behaviors that haven't changed include; mobs, gangs, punishment of heresy or nonconformity, snobbery, racism, minute analysis of sports, exploitation, persecution, greed, and war. The list could include sexual behavior, but we'll leave that subject out of the discussion as 140,786,234 books have already been written on the subject (figure derived from anonymous internet sources).

...larger forces...

The banning, or burning of books is rarely about the work itself. There's larger forces in play, which can involve a wide variety of motives and agendas. It's often a form of political or even economic theatre, which can only incidentally involve a particular work. This in addition to commercial market forces that eventually condemn most new books to obscurity without any need for intervention. 

In fact, anti-book crusaders often have to act quickly before the merciless jaws of capitalism exile their target to the book section of dollar stores and bargain bins. No wonder many modern attacks are directed at publishers before the sales and distribution stage. That's also the best time to make a fuss if the intent is to increase sales (the book is without redeeming social value! Also available in audio!).

In ancient times, like with the Assyrians and other such early nations, things were simpler; after conquering a country, burning their library or archives was just part of the process of wiping out the conquered culture. One exception was the Sumerians, who had all their records and literature on clay tablets, which in many cases escaped the usual rapine and pillaging. Those earthy tomes were probably mistaken for piles of bricks or something.

...Information Age stuff...

As information technology progressed, and literacy became widespread, it goes without saying that books, in whatever form, began to express a wide range of ideas, creating more complex interactions like political, social, and religious disagreements, and as always, back then as with the present, porn addiction among men.

The primary power of a book is that it can communicate an idea to another person or persons. Just as old school Kings or nobles didn't want the peasants to have truly useful military training (because of the R word), the ability to communicate ideas to others has always been controlled as much as possible to keep the masses on point.

For an earlier example, after the First Council of Nicea, convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine (the first) in AD 325, when the first bible was compiled and sort of agreed upon, Arian of Alexandria, whose beliefs and documents were excluded from the Canon and labeled heretical, was exiled and all of his writings that could be found were burned (though Constantine later rescinded Arian's exile).

That was an early attempt to ban writings, though Arian's view of Christianity survives today through Jehovah's Witnesses, and some Unitarian sects. Also, Constantine the Second turned out to have Arian sympathies, so the attempt to wipe that particular denomination had the same effect that banning a book or writings has today. It often creates sympathy or at least curiousity about a work, rather than wiping it's presence or memory out.

...all of the possibilities...

Thanks to the epic advances of information technology, anyone can now enjoy debating the fine points of political theory with people they consider stupid or below them, get into drunken fights over football teams, enjoy the convenience of cyber bullying instead of having interact with real people to form a mob to burn a witch or future Saint, and of course, for men who are so inclined, to marvel at the bleeding edge advances in porn. That stuff has "ban it" written all over it.

That might be a one sided picture of mankind, and a more balanced view should read: "Humankind is unsurpassed in it's commitment to ensuring the happiness of all who share this unique space called Earth, which is why we're proud to partner with really wealthy guys to release PR statements that raise awareness about the poor people and cows who waste the oxygen that the ever shrinking number of trees produce, and affirm our commitment to sustainable energy so that all can continue to consume beef.

I do have to point out (yes again) that a certain amount of oversimplifying and generalization is necessary to keep the narrative short and the digressions long. To paraphrase Rousseau, I may be short of facts, but not of the truth.

...that darn Internet again...

The effort to ban books has become commonplace due to the Internet, which makes it possible to read a lot of ebooks for free or at low cost. That does increase the chance that some tome or another will be hated or vilified (Keep in mind, I'm not saying every book deserves to be read. That's a different issue).

The Internet though, is anarchic in nature, and resistant (though not immune) to "cancelling." Because of that, nothing's ever truly wiped out. In fact, a hundred years from now, if humans are still around, historians will see the net as a valuable look at the sheer variety of human thought and behavior that existed, but wasn't documented as it used to only matter what kings and wealthy men thought.

As they say, the Internet is forever, and book burners are kidding themselves if they think destroying or banning any book actually eliminates any idea, even ones that deserve to be, from the face of the earth. But 100 years from now, there'll still be those who'll try. Some things will never change.

Note: in part three, I'll talk about some famous book burner types. They're often more interesting and harmful than the ideas and books they tried to destroy.

- Al Handa

djboogieunderground@gmail.com

The Al & Ivy Homeless Literary Journal Archive:

There are earlier blog entries on the Delta Snake Review section of this site that aren't on the On The Road page:
http://deltasnake.blogspot.com

Cover Reveal For Hide In Plain Sight

This is the cover for the upcoming book, Hide In Plain Sight, hopefully out sometime in 2021.

-Al Handa

djboogieunderground@gmail.com

The American Primitive Acoustic Collection by Handa-McGraw International can be streamed on all of the major services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and dozens of others.

The Music Of Handa-McGraw International can also be heard on the Electric Fog Factory on YouTube. You can hear the album, and dozens of unreleased cuts and demos, plus exclusive video of Ivy.

On The Road With Al and Ivy: A Literary Homeless Journal - March 2019

"…I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future..."

- Jack Kerouac (On The Road, The Original Scroll)

"It was my last observation that it was the custom of every man to call every other man a madman. The truth, in my judgement, they were all mad."

- Jack London (The Jacket, aka The Star Rover 1915)

Jack London is known (these days) as an adventure writer whose most famous books, Call Of The Wild and White Fang, are considered children or young adult classics (at least in abridged editions). He was quite popular in his time, and wrote several books that are considered classic.

His real life became legendary and many works like On The Road, a book about hobos, came from experiencing, and not just visiting, that life.

London treated writing as a discipline, and part of that involved churning out 1500 words a day. That resulted in a body of work that included short stories, essays, fiction and nonfiction books. Much of that went out of print until the digital age. There were hard copies around, but the rarer ones tended to command collector level prices.

One part of his catalogue that's become better known in the digital age are the books described in some circles as early science fiction. Which is sort of true, though it might be more accurate to describe the works as metaphysical, though his recreation of pre-Stone Age life, Before Adam, could be seen as speculative fiction.

My favorite London work in that genre, The Jacket, also known as The Star Rover, is a fascinating psychological novel that involves a prisoner who escapes torture by disassociating into past lives. London went all in with the concept and didn't label it as a descent into madness or fantasy. The prisoner actually connected with past lives, and unlike some modern treatments which portray glorious and successful adventures, recalled a variety with vastly different outcomes. Which is in line with London's life experience in environments where many a life was cut short by fate or failure.

London was a superb short story writer. In fact, that was probably his forte, and because of that, the various past lives are told in masterful detail. Even more impressive for his time, each episode accurately reflects the mentality of each era. Each is a superb short story within the bigger work.

What can be overlooked was how good the psychological detail was. The various prison characters are seen as personality types, each played or manipulated a certain way by the prisoner. In other words, each one didn't just do this or that, but also had psychological traits, motives and goals.

The process of disassociating from physical pain is described in minute detail. London's true life adventures certainly involved experiencing various forms of deprivation, thus giving insight into the thoughts and sensations that came from both the slow starvation of a prison diet, and being strapped into a jacket designed to inflict pain.

It's a prescient series of passages about mind over matter that was echoed in later works of art. One notable example is in an episode of the crime drama, Criminal Minds, where one of the agents is captured with the intent of torturing him into revealing information. The torturers are puzzled by the apparent indifference to pain until the head villain realizes that the agent has successfully disassociated into the past, and a psychological chess game begins to try and bring him back into the present. 

London was astute enough to make sure the fellow prisoners in the book had a variety of perceptions about that ability to regress into past lives. The prisoner who taught the main character how to self hypnotize was a believer in the method, but regarded the recollections simply as a mysterious trick of the mind to detach from reality. Others felt it was all crazy nonsense and self deception.

The Warden and his assistants were depicted as cruel, but of the "normal" world, who had no idea of what was going on and had no ability to see past what they thought was reality. Disassociation is now a familiar idea or belief, but back when London wrote the book, the characters calling the prisoner crazy may well have been drawn from real life skeptics.

One of the other themes is sanity, and what a core personality is. In other words, inside that mix of physical and psychological actions, was a person who came to see himself as a consciousness that would survive all that was happening.

For the purposes of this blog entry, the most interesting aspect of the story is how the various characters viewed (or were unable to see) what was going on in the Star Rovers mind, and the subject of disassociation. Also, the story had a cast of characters and there was no clear delineation of who was normal and not. As the story develops, it's clear that the main character is probably saner than his captors.

London didn't create a story with sane people dealing with the insane. He took a more metaphysical view in creating a mix of personalities and behaviors, and left judgement to the reader. That a character would visit past lives wouldn't have been an abstract to him. In his life, he'd encountered a wide variety of cultures and as a writer type, observed that many had deep spiritual beliefs that weren't common in the Western culture.

That the Star Rover's escape into the past was viewed with a variety of attitudes like skepticism, misunderstanding, or as a mystery that triggered reactions like fear or anger, it could be seen as a microcosm of how mankind has often treated the strange and unorthodox.  

...mental illness, and the strange...

The concept of sanity, norms, and mental illness is a subject that hasn't been covered in detail in this blog, though a sizable part of the homeless population is considered "mentally ill."

I had devoted over half of this blog entry to the technical aspect of the subject but found that it just led to an unwieldy morass of disputable data. Having people disagree with my opinion is OK, but it's always a good idea to avoid setting off chapter and verse disputes over data. I discarded the section and kept to the relative simplicity of generalities for this entry.

Another reason I discarded the previously planned section was that it became obvious that the issue isn't mental illness, but mental health.

For example, you hear people claiming that the homeless seem to want to stay that way and other overly broad statements that are actually a wrong diagnosis.

Apathy is often a symptom, and it's not really a general personality trait. Many drug and alcohol abusers are self-medicating, not partying away in a cardboard box in an alley. That's why general assistance fails so often. It's not treatment.

I'm going to revise the original essay and run it in the next blog.

...mental illness in the past...

Most people know that historically the definition of mental illness has differed in the past and that the "treatment" could be brutal. The supposedly normal people who burned women as witches were certainly not, though society tries to explain it as "ignorance." Calling it ignorance obscures the real issue, which is that the concept of sanity is often determined by majority rule, or those in power.

Blaming it on religion isn't entirely accurate either, as women who didn't fit the norm were persecuted or punished well before Christianity. For example, punishing a woman for adultery goes back to ancient times, or basically as soon as men decided they were property.

It's more complex than that of course, and the reasons for punishing someone judged as mentally ill can involve a wide range of motives that include social, political, religious, and emotional reasons that could be classified as insane. The mentality of attacking or punishing the unorthodox are human traits that have always been around and probably always will be.

We live in an era where people on opposing ends of the political spectrum, for example, take things past simple disagreement on issues and assert that the other side has a mental condition, or label people as sociopaths or whatever on the basis of what they've read in the news.

Society, or even smaller segments like peer groups decide for religious or political reasons which behaviors are normal and one can't automatically assume the standard will be fair. There is one constant, which is that sanity tends to be determined by majority rule. Not by doctors or leaders, but what the majority agrees with or is at least duped into believing. If were only up to leaders or experts, there'd be no disagreement about Global Warming, vaccines or whatever.

Mental illness still has a stigma, and a lot of it is based in fear. It's still a mysterious subject in many ways, as there's generally no obvious cause and effect like the flu, and odd behavior can be unsettling to those who are taught how to behave according to societal norms.

I hadn't decided how to treat the subject until the fifth draft. It's a complex subject, yet subject to the same dynamics that was described in the book by London. The mentally ill homeless population is actually complex and diverse, but tends to be viewed simplistically as under that one label, which is then interpreted in a wide range of often conflicting views, many of which are subjective.

The homeless problem has been around long enough for archetypes and cliches to develop, and thanks to short sound bytes and Internet forums, one can list the categories. That is to say, just one, the "mentally ill," all viewed in the same lens as the occasional person that goes off and commits a violent act or uses the sidewalk as a bathroom.

...odd ducks...

I lived for 14 months among more than a few "odd ducks" and people who needed help. I was uneasy at first around them, and often scared by their behavior. After a while though, I came to realize that most were harmless.

Many lived in fear, as they were easy targets for predators, and stuck rigidly to routines that helped them survive. I learned to not interrupt those routines and let them live in their own world. In fact, I learned a great deal about survival from predators by watching them. People can think the mentally ill homeless were all alike, just a bunch of crazies or whatever, but again, that's just simplistic.

Like all people, they had a variety of perceptions of the world around them, and in their own way, had good instincts and came up with various strategies for survival. They may have had problems, some had a lot, but most certainly weren't dangerous. 

...family....

Seeing the elderly ones affected me the most. There were men and women out there who in a perfect world should have had kids or grandchildren taking care of them. Having worked in a nursing home as a young man, I know that having family that care isn't a given. 

It requires a cold heart to be unmoved by the sight of a woman old enough to be a grandmother wander around out there with everything she owns in a shopping cart. If it pained me to see it, I couldn't imagine her pain from knowing there was family that knew and didn't come for her in that dangerous world. I came to feel that being detached from reality was perhaps a mercy in that place and time, and I don't expect society to understand why I and others felt that way.

There are various theories and reasons for there being so many mentally ill out there on the street. All may have some truth, but the most common cookie cutter solution seems to be, round them up and put them into forced treatment for their own good, with the underlying attitude that they're pests to be put out of sight and mind. Some might argue with that statement, but most decent people know that there's that element in any solution that involves involuntary detention.

More than a few groups or subcultures have found that it's not always safe to have sanity determined by majority rule. That why the subject is so contentious, and the solution won't be easy to find, though there's people out there doing their best to help, and frustrating as it can be, try to follow the rules and resist the temptation to join the more vocal in the crowd that want to treat the homeless like pests.

I gave the subject of mental illness a great deal of thought, and it wasn't until the final draft that a way to treat the subject evolved in a satisfactory way. The early explanations and essays based on research were discarded, including statements by people on both sides of the issue.

The reason is that, like a lot of subjects, it's rife with often conflicting theories and dependence on experts who aren't always vetted, particularly on the Internet. A good case in point is in a criminal trial where both sides can produce an expert to testify in their favor.

I decided to stick with what I saw, and what the homeless that I talked to, told me. Any descriptions of the mentally ill that described them as such were taken out. They were treated as characters in the story, and the passages written in as much in their point of view as possible, as with those respectable members of society who seemed to make it their businesses to get us arrested or chased out by any means possible.

I did come to one conclusion; that I had little to fear from the mentally ill out there, but there were members of respectable society that I'm glad didn't have any power over me. It's not the powerless ones that I feared, but the ones with it. Believe me, some of them were very, very scary

...the universe....

The homeless world wasn't some isolated tent city or skid row, but part of a larger universe that had all sorts of people that surrounded and interacted with it.

People picture a homeless camp or enclave as a discreet gathering of tents, like a separate world, and that's basically accurate, but in my book, you'll see that it also had subcultures that surrounded or orbited around it. Gilroy didn't have an extensive social service structure like San Francisco, so we didn't see aid workers or counsellors. 

But in 14 months in four locations, the periphery of any homeless gathering was active with vigilantes, hazers, dealers and couriers, pimps, religious cult members, sexual predators, animal activists, truckers, bike boosters, gypsies, possible police informants, tourists, and weekend slummers. 

Three of the locations were considered "gang territories," but I rarely saw gangs operating among the homeless. I've read (and heard at the time) that it was different in places like San Francisco, where tent cities were used to hide bike boosting rings and such. Also, as explained in earlier blog entries, certain places like county aid offices had gangs and businesses that targeted those who went there, but the homeless were incidental to the larger goal of harvesting the aid money paid out every month.

...life on a reservation...

There's a solution one hears now and then, which is to put them all in camps on public land (away from prime real estate), which would be a disaster for the mentally ill, especially the females. Homeless camps and shelters develop different dynamics depending on the demographics of the people there, but as you'll see in the book, it can quickly become Darwinian. In one chapter, I relate the experience of one homeless man who lived in a shelter for a while, and the dynamics resembled a loosely supervised school or reform school yard.

Any forced gathering of homeless would quickly turn into a refugee camp, and at best, be like a Native American Reservation.

The location of Native American reservations is no accident. The United States wanted the various tribes off of any land that could turn a real profit. The few times that such land turned out to be productive, like when gold was found in the Black Hills, commercial interests funneled wildcat miners into the area and the predictable conflicts forced the government's hand, bringing the Army in after the Sioux refused to leave.

The suggestion to ship the homeless off to camps is rooted in the same mentality, to get people seen as pests away from high value property (or areas in the process of becoming more valuable). The problem is that the only land suitable for a new "reservation" is public land, most of which is valuable enough that if it's not being exploited, business interests want it to be.

It's probably a good thing that such camps aren't created. One can look at areas like L.A. and San Francisco where ad hoc camps have become a humanitarian disaster area rife with drug use, crime, untreated mentally ill, and disease (like typhoid). Any such camp would have to be run like a city with services, so while it would cause many business types to shake their heads when I say this, the best organization to handle the homeless problem are city governments and that's where the money should go, and cities are where the homeless should stay until the problem is solved. 

In the long run, it'll still be cheaper than funding camps that create a permanent state of dependency. Some may argue that it's already happening in the big cities, but that's really more a situation where money is being poorly spent, and that can be fixed if society has the will.

"The experience of a long life has taught me, however, that sin is always punished in this world, whatever may come in the next. There is always some penalty in health, in comfort, or in peace of mind to be paid for every wrong. It is with nations as it is with individuals."

- Arthur Conan Doyle (Micah Clarke)

My favorite fiction books and movies tend to be historical adventures, and almost all involve some sort of journey. One favorite is Arthur Conan Doyle's Micah Clarke, which is about the exploits of three men who left their homes to join the Monmouth Rebellion in England. Doyle once said that his best writing wasn't the Sherlock Holmes stories, but the historical novels like Micah Clarke, White Company, Sir Nigel, and others. 

One thought that came to me after becoming homeless was that the characters left their homes to embark on the journey, yet were never labeled as homeless or transient even as they had to sleep out in the open or whatever shelter that could be found. Even Buddha today would probably be described as an enlightened homeless guy.

Arthur Conan Doyle was different in that he wasn't a stylist, like say, a Dickens or Joyce. He isn't quoted a lot, or has lots of people rhapsodizing about great passages, but anyone who's read Doyle knows that he was a no nonsense writer who was a great storyteller.

Being a writer who can efficiently narrate a story isn't a small feat. I've read lots of books where superfluous verbiage or detail seems to interrupt or stop the flow, or create scenes that fall flat. In addition, Doyle showed a satirical side (that reminds me of Stanley Kubrick) that wasn't always apparent in the Sherlock Holmes tales.

There's a couple of funny scenes that stand out in Micah Clarke. One is where the tough Mercenary becomes pious and devout in the presence of Puritan businessmen, to the disgust of Micah, and later, where two noblemen threaten each other with death, and a infantry officer respectfully suggests that there's a suitable place just outside where the gentlemen can have "proper elbow room for a breather." As the two lords get get more hysterical in their attempt to get the sergeant to intervene, he continues to politely direct them to a suitable dueling place. As the scene unfolds, you can imagine the smirk on Doyle's face as he wrote out that passage.

Doyle's historical novels rarely had a lot of long "detail" passages. He didn't fuss over fashion or equipment specs, yet the reader has a good sense of the atmosphere and look of the period by the end of the book. That's because much of the information was only fed in as needed, and a lot of the feel for the period came from the dialogue, which adds color and keeps the action moving forward. There aren't long descriptive passages about swords or armor, for example, instead the characters talk about the subject during conversations at various points in the story.

In the end, the historical novels were very much like the Sherlock Holmes series. Great story telling and characters that come alive and stay in your consciousness, like good friends you regularly visit and enjoy the company of. It was a book I reread in the car and was glad to enjoy the company of Micah and friends once again.

...the journey...

Micah Clarke wasn't the only adventure/journey book I read. I also read or reread "Travels With Charlie" by John Steinbeck, the reissue of Jack Kerouac's "On The The Road" in the original scroll form, and Jack London's "The Road."

All three are classic, of course, but each invoked a much different reaction than what might have occurred had my circumstances had been less dire.

Travels With Charlie, a travelogue by Steinbeck who decided to see the real America with his poodle, was the biggest disappointment. I thought that a book about a guy and his dog roughing it in a cross country trip would be full of insight into my situation but it read like a slight tale about a very well financed vacation. I refrain from calling it slumming as Steinbeck appeared to to be sincere in his desire to see the real America and talk to the salt of the earth.

Steinbeck by this time was a wealthy man, and the descriptions of the custom truck trailer complete with liquor cabinet and various hotels were so out of sync with my reality that it made me feel like Karl Marx to read it. Motel rooms were a real luxury out there, and run by corporations that charged such high rates that one often had to choose between a bed or eating a full meal. Some put all their money into a room and then panhandled to get cash to eat, though most just went without. All that could have been overlooked had it been an entertaining book, but my impression is that it was mainly a book for Steinbeck fans.

The Kerouac book was quite interesting, though a few decades down the line it's become a period piece, albeit a classic one. Kerouac originally typed the entire book out on a single roll of butcher paper, not even stopping to correct mistakes or do any editing or revisions. A cynic might say like a word processor with auto correct. It was, in effect, a stream of consciousness put to paper, though it did have a plot.

I liked this scroll version, as it's earthier and spontaneous. It was an adventurous book for it's era and place, which was 50s America, though Europe had already seen writing like this before. Kerouac had a freer sense of poetry or metre, influenced by American jazz, and is clearly less mannered than James Joyce or Henry Miller, who were more disciplined.

The lack of editing does show, and it's an uneven book, with brilliant passages and some real clunky sections that won't inspire rereading. Yet it's hard to imagine how Kerouac could have produced this book any other way, as any self editing process would have filtered many of the best passages into more "correct" structure, as it's now clear that it happened here and there in the original published version.

Although the book was a chronicle of a trip across the United States, the real journey was in the author's mind, as he attempted, and succeeded, in creating a new culture with it's own language. As I started my own book, I couldn't say that "The Road" was going to be a direct influence. For one thing, On The Road is a young book, almost innocent in it's enthusiasm, and very much about discovery. But Kerouac's writing was also was very brave and honest, and such qualities will serve me well in my own work.

...another Road book...

Jack London's book, "The Road," describes his experiences as a hobo, and it provided a lot of the background of later movies like "Emperor Of The North." It's a brilliant book, full of details that might shock or surprise those who think of hobos in terms of Roger Miller's 'King Of The Road" or Red Skelton's lovable tramp character.

The Hobo world was, and is a lot tougher, and very insular with it's own language and culture. I remember seeing hobos as a kid, they had set up a small camp near some tracks that ran though the then small town of Palo Alto. That area was a popular place for kids, as it had trees that were suitable for building ad hoc platforms, so we'd come into contact with them as they passed though.

The hobos were old school, and carefully avoided trouble, particularly with kids as that would quickly get the attention of the police. I heard and read stories later on that the hobo scene was changing, with younger men and a tougher environment, but that wasn't really true. Some of the hobos warned us even back then to be careful around hobos, and that's echoed in London's book, although not explicitly.

London's stories are an unglamorous view of such hobo staples as train hopping, which in reality could get one maimed or killed. There were murders, and a criminal element, yet among the mainstream, a sense of code and honor. They did go around and beg for food if short on cash, but their life wasn't entirely about avoiding work.

In an earlier age, many probably would have become mountain men or trappers, content to live an independent life away from civilization. Most didn't become town drunks or the happy neighborhood tramp. Their life was about travel, being in constant motion and London clearly found it an adventure with plenty of challenges for the type of man he was at the time. 

I was aware of hobos and similar wanderers out there, and most of the old timer homeless avoided them and advised me to do the same. I resisted the temptation to visit hobo camps and rail byways that had their codes written describing the area, and never stayed near railroad tracks at night. 

It wasn't a matter of whether the danger was truth or myth, but that there wasn't much margin for error out there. That's why the risks London took in his book looked even more impressive once I'd been out there for a while. A robbery or beating could be catastrophic to a homeless person, and danger was really danger, not like in a TV show or movie where people luck out or are too tough to take on.

I once saw a young man emerge one morning from the levee camp area after an obvious beating, and it was clear that if he couldn't have walked out under his own power, he'd have had to lay out there until discovered by someone (who didn't mug him). He was a big strong guy, not someone you'd pick a fight with, but like I said, it wasn't like the movies. The guys who attacked him had simply waited till he went to sleep that night. 

His strength meant nothing, and in fact was a disadvantage. The two assailants couldn't take the chance he'd get up and start fighting back, so the attack was sudden and very violent. Luckily he was smart enough to recognize that they weren't going to kill him so stayed down and took the beating, which could have been a lot worse.

That's a tough choice he had to make, and the best way to avoid such situations was to stay away from places like camps and railroad tracks where hobos hung out. That was possible because I had a car and could keep moving, which London didn't have, but he still adhered to the same principle, that movement was survival. Of the three books discussed, his was the most real to me out there.

I did research the subject of hobos, and learned some of the codes and such, but it's dicey to put things in a story purely from research. Much of what I read about the homeless gets a lot of things wrong, so figure it must be the same for tramps. As a result, they are a shadowy presence in the book, as it was in reality for me.

...Ivy...

It's been almost two years since Ivy passed away on March 17th, 2017, and she's been on my mind more than last year. Part of that is because as my book nears completion, most of the work is on the second half which includes her death.

The first draft of the book ended in February 2017, on the one year anniversary of us becoming homeless, and even up to the third draft, I still seriously considered keeping that original ending. However, Ivy had emerged in the second half as a major part of the plot, becoming the "face" of both the promo business and blog, and even in death, a catalyst that helped mobilize efforts that literally rescued me from the street. It was appropriate to make it about her whole life.

I've described her story in earlier blog entries, but one aspect stood out this month, her emergence as the face of virtually all of my projects. It started when I started my Twitter account a few years ago. It was intended to promote my music, but none had been recorded yet, so was treated as an internet radio station playing an eclectic mix.

It gained a thousand followers, and that seemed good enough as a place holder set up until some original music was created. The thing that was on my mind at the time was, how to go about growing the audience from there.

I had been taking pictures with my iPhone and was enjoying editing those on various photo apps. The long range plan was to be able to produce my own promo and album covers. Most of the people around me didn't like having their pictures taken, and neither did Ivy, but she had no choice in the matter. Thus, her career as a model began.

Ivy's reluctance to be photographed changed once it became a professional situation, with payment in extra treats and food after sessions. Her white hair and big eyes were ideal for creating photos with graphic effects, and I literally took thousands of pictures of her.

 I used one of her in a blue hooded jacket as my Twitter avatar, and the result was a surprise. People, particularly women, started to follow the account and it began to grow at a thousand a month.

One Fourth of July weekend, I was at a dinner, and put one of the festive American Flag napkins on her back (which slipped forward like a scarf) and took the picture you see today as the avatar on both the Twitter and Facebook accounts. Once that became the symbol of the Boogie Underground, the Twitter account grew to over two hundred thousand in a little under two years.

I've never changed that photo, except to put a copyright notice on it, and have always kept it as the company logo, so to speak. I've often wondered at the success of her image, and the main thing that comes to me is that Ivy projected a friendly and sweet personality along with the patriotic colors. A cute little dog is hard to resist.

Ivy probably never knew that she had become the Boogie Underground's super model, but did understand that something important was going on when the iPhone was pointed at her. She was a little diva, and limited photo sessions to a couple of minutes, but when engaged, would pose and make a wide variety of faces. 

The sessions were structured, and I always used the same words and tonal inflections so that over time, she knew when a big smile was required or when to show a more reflective air. It was always more effective if the camera set to rapidly shoot for a couple of minutes, as she had gotten into the habit of making the same face if it was a posed "smile for the camera" situation.

Her modeling skills became vital in 2017. Freelance drafting jobs were hard to come by, and job applications didn't go very far for a homeless person. However, some regular income did start to come in from promotion work on social media using ads featuring Ivy. It was an important development that helped me begin to feel productive again, and to have hopes that our ordeal could someday end.

Having a dog who could pose like a model was more than simply useful or a good selling point for ads, it was also a lot of fun during a time when things felt dreary and hopeless. We spent many wonderful hours getting good pictures, which were then processed into ads, and as payment was in advance from kind and enthusiastic customers, the rewards were immediate and concrete. In Ivy's case, it was slices of baked chicken, a real favorite. It helped our spirits to an extent that's hard to describe without it sounding like fantasy, but in the context of life as it was then, it felt like a miracle.

Ivy didn't make it out, and looking back, it was obvious that her heart condition was getting worse, and deep down, I knew that there was a chance she'd die out there. Still, it felt so sudden, and to this day, I still feel the loss of a good friend who was there at the lowest point of my life, and never broke faith with our friendship.

I've changed nothing since. Every picture is still up, and she's still the face of The Boogie Underground. It's not that I can't let go, but a matter of respect. People who do great things get statues or memorials, and in Ivy's case, she helped build this blog and it's social media presence, and so she'll live on here.

The book will have her statue in it. It'll have to be constructed with words, which I believe will last longer than stone anyway.

...update on the final draft...

I had hoped to have the final draft complete by December 31st, but couldn't manage it. Most of that month was spent trying to move the manuscript into the Windows 10 and Android environment and dealing with the technical problems that came up.

I eventually solved the problem by just staying in the iOS environment for now, and will deal with getting it into Word manuscript and ebook format when the book is done. Trying to do it all at once wasn't a good idea.

The book chapters are assembled, with a working total of 36 chapters, most of which are done. I'll need to rewrite three chapters, and do the final revisions on six.

The actual planned total will be 24 chapters. Some of the working sections will be combined into larger chapter, etc, but are being kept separate until it's time to do the layout for ebook formatting.

One of the things I saw was that the chapter order had to be changed and better transitions written. I've said in earlier blog entries that the book would be combining first and third person narrative, which makes the story more vivid, but wasn't happy with the flow because there was a chance that the reader could find the shift of perspective confusing or abrupt. You can get away with that in a movie, but not in a book written by anyone not named James Joyce.

I came up with a perfect narrative approach in January and am writing out the new transition passages. The various changes in mood, pace, and style now hang together and won't seem fragmented or abrupt. I hope it'll be a rich reading experience for any of you who read the book when it comes out.

I'm still thinking in terms of publication by late Spring or Summer at the absolute latest. As said earlier, there's reasons it shouldn't come out later so that's the deadline for all this.

- Al Handa

djboogieunderground@gmail.com

The Al & Ivy Homeless Literary Journal Archive:

There are earlier blog entries on the Delta Snake Review section of this site that aren't on the Road page:
http://deltasnake.blogspot.com

Cover Reveal For Hide In Plain Sight

This is the cover for the upcoming book, Hide In Plain Sight, hopefully out sometime in the summer of 2018.

-Al Handa

djboogieunderground@gmail.com