Happy Birthday Ham; your reminiscing reminded me of a story, about I guy I once knew, back in the days when the internet was young.
Tim Bowden's Nerdnosh was the second internet community I joined. Guy Kawasaki's Thunderlizards, being the first and the Moq discuss being my third. Nerdnosh was primarily a story-oriented group. "Tell your Stories Children" was it's mast head and I believe it was rendered into latin and turned into a t-shirt at one point in the group's history. Tim was pretty much the founder and keeper of the list and its story would make a fascinating story in itself. Funny how that goes. Tim went by "trem" and his brother Don (or "el reloj) was his partner. They were a couple of Texas boys, but Timmie came west to woo and pursue the widow of Neal Cassady, and ended up in the Santa Cruz mountains, an employee of the federal govmint. Veteran Affairs, I believe was his branch. Reloj after banging the drums in various bands through his youth, became a school teacher for gifted kids in Alaska. Together they were a formidible duo. Rhetorically speaking, that is. They had the chops. They reminded me of McMurtry's heroic friend, Gus and Captain Call and the various contributors the cowpokes who rode herd on the collection of stories going... nowhere. I wrote about ,Reloj, once. How one of his stories made me cry. Not a wimpy little wetting of the eyes, like we all get now and then, but a break down and bawl like I've only done three times in my adult life. But what triggered my memory this time is they story Unka Timme shared back then about scattering Alan Watt's ashes into the sea. I don't remember the details of that event so clear, for that matter, neither did trem. He was a young texas boy with that lone star of love in his eye. A love going rapidly sour and thus he was a bit distracted from cosmic events going on around him. We'll forgive him. Happens to the best of us. Long before I read On the Road, I read Off the Road by Carolyn Cassady, just after I bumped into her grandson. I think Marsha would like that book, since its non-fiction. It's an interesting take on the other side of the story. The little woman left behind while Jack and Neal go tearing back and forth across the country, in pursuit of mad kicks and lovers and fun, while who stays home with the babies? She laughed last tho, as the women usually do. We'll come to that later. I enjoyed Tim's telling. He was a great story teller, Tim was. And I just now googled gavin arthur allen watt's ashes and Tim's story came up right on top. Even though I misspelled "Alan" So read it and see for yourself that what I say is true. He has a straight up style that's fun to read. I enjoyed him a lot over the years. Tim makes a point in there about Kerouac feeling guilty over abandoning Neal, whooping it up in New York with celebrities and publishers and money and fun, while his good friend rots in san quentin for smoking the stuff that Neal wrote about and made such a public case of, that the cops sure knew who to target. Didn't seem fair in hindsight and I know Jack felt guilty because he wrote about that guilt in Big Sur. And its in that book that you can see Carolyn get her revenge. For there's a scene in Big Sur there where Jack is seeking atonement. He feels especially bad about crapping out on Neal while he was in prison. who was engaged in a spiritual discussion group and asked Neal to come talk to the group. Neal said he would, but got drunk instead. See a good wife woulda let him have it overe that kind of abandonment. But Carolyn was all soothing and metaphysical on him. You could see that what she really wanted was Jack for herself. I mean, he was the famous successful one. Everybody was fascinated with Neal, but Neal didn't produce anything capitalistically tangible. Wives are into the capitalistically tangible. And it weren't no secret that she was in love with Jack too. I mean, they made that movie about it, him and Neal trading railroad shifts and room in the marital bed in a very open-minded arrangement. Much later with her husband in prison and she is eeking it out on the dole in Palo Alto, doncha think she pictured her hero Jack coming to save her? It had to be a recurring fantasy. I mean, I know I would. But even though Jack failed as a friend, he wasn't gonna poach his buddy's girl while his buddy was in prison. Nor afterward when she threw herself at him at that party on the beach described in Big Sur. He couldn't do something so disloyal, even with Neal's blessing. Sometimes love and loyalty actually conspire to keep us apart. It's a strange world. And all tied together since it was Neal being in prison, that got Carolyn all metaphysical in the first place, which got her involved with Gavin Arthur, which got her on the boat with the scattering of Alan Watt's ashes. But Alan's ashes weren't Alan Watts. Alan was and is his thoughts, books, and words. Those true aspects of the man remain, long after the ashes dissipate in the sea. That's almost magic, when you think about. Almost enough to make a guy go all metaphysical on ya. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
