On the Road: South Main, Los Angeles, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 29, 2007

Unfolding the Map

We've hit L.A., and will be moving in and around this large city for the next few posts. It is the city of lights and dreams for some, but does Sal get fame and fortune? Read on and see. Click on the map to see where we are presently.

Book Quote

"We got off the bus at Main Street, which was no different from where you get off a bus in Kansas City or Chicago or Boston -- red brick, dirty, characters drifting by, trolleys grating in the hopeless dawn, the whorey smell of a city....

"South Main Street, where Terry and I took strolls with hot dogs, was a fantastic carnival of lights and wildness. Booted cops frisked people on practically every corner. The beatest characters of the country swarmed on the sidewalks -- all of it under those soft Southern California stars that are lost in the brown halo of the huge desert encampment LA really is. You could smell tea, weed, I mean marijuana, floating in the air, together with the chili beans and beer. That grand wild sound of bop floated from beer parlors; it mixed medleys with every kind of cowboy and boogie-woogie in the American night. Everybody looked like Hassel. Wild Negroes with bop caps and goatees came laughing by; then long-haired broken down hipsters straight off Route 66 from New York; then old desert rats, carrying packs and heading for a park bench at the Plaza; then Methodist ministers with raveled sleeves, and an occasional Nature Boy saint in beard and sandals. I wanted to meet them all, talk to everybody, but Terry and I were too busy trying to get a buck together."

On the Road, Chapter 13

South Main Street, Los Angeles, California

Boy, is this a description of L.A. from the past! Nowadays we all have an image of Los Angeles. I bet you can think of a few of them from the top of your heads. Let's see: smog, traffic jams, movie and television stars, glamour, sunshine, beaches, parties, Academy Awards.

I have a confession to make. As I've said before, I'm a native Californian. I grew up in the northern half of the state, and as I've also said before in a previous post, the northern half of California has little love for the southern half of the state. So, in that spirit, I didn't truly visit Los Angeles until I was about 40 years old, and that was only because I went to a wedding.

Yet to fully understand all of California, you have to understand all of its parts. I'm still learning. I've now been in the L.A. area twice, and only for a short time. I wish that I had seen the L.A. that Sal describes. This L.A. sounds vibrant, interesting and condensed, like a city should be.

I suppose I should describe a little of what he saw, this carnival he writes of. Bop, of course, is the popular jazz of the day, the sounds of which permeates the the city. In the late 40s and early 50s, bop was the music that the most cutting edge people listened to. Hassel was the name Kerouac used as a pseudonym in On the Road for Herbert Huncke, who impressed Kerouac with his free-will choice to live off the streets by a life of petty crime. Hipsters were the counter-cultural crowd of the time, Jack's spiritual and ideological contemporaries, who loved jazz, experimented with drugs and had their own slang. They are somewhat distinct from what we now refer to as "hipsters." Desert rats were people who lived in rural (deserty) areas of the southwest U.S. Nature Boys were followers of the lifestyle espoused by Robert "Gypsy Boots" Bootzin, who was one of the earliest proponents of an organic lifestyle, including veganism, yoga, organics, and may have opened the first health food store in the world.

This melange of characters seem to be all located in one centralized location, which does not fit the images that most people, or at least I, have of L.A. Los Angeles seems to be very spread out and to not encourage this centralization. Perhaps back in the 40s, L.A. had a more big city feel to it, perhaps more of a grittiness and melting pot feel than today. I wonder if South Main Street is still like he describes, or if the character of it has changed or moved somewhere else in the city? Regardless, L.A. has become a destination that I would travel to again, based on my limited experience, because in places it is beautiful, there are still interesting people to watch and meet, and there are attractions that fit my definition of interesting.

If you want to learn more about South Main Street, Los Angeles, Nature Boys, Herbert Huncke and hipsters. Don't worry, we'll get to jazz and bop soon.

Beat Museum: Herbert Huncke
Gypsy Boots' Homepage
Herbert Huncke interview
Making a Life in South Los Angeles
The Morning News: Do You have Hipsters
Wikipedia: Herbert Huncke
Wikipedia: Hipsters in the 1940s
Wikipedia: Hipsters (contemporary)
Wikipedia: Robert "Gypsy Boots" Bootzin
Wikipedia: South Los Angeles

Next up: Sunset and Vine, Los Angeles, California

On the Road: Bakersfield, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 28, 2007

Unfolding the Map

Sal hits what many Californians consider the end of the road. But not for Sal, at least not yet. It's actually the gateway to some love and music, and good times lie beyond. Want to see where we are?  Click the map!

Book Quote

"I had to go south; I got on the road. A man in a brand-new pickup truck picked me up. He was from Lubbock, Texas, and was in the trailer business. 'You want to buy a trailer?' he asked me. 'Any time, look me up.'

"He left me off south of Bakersfield, and then my adventure began. It grew cold. I put on the flimsy Army raincoat I'd bought in Oakland for three dollars and shuddered in the road. I was standing in front of an ornate Spanish-style motel that was lit like a jewel. The cars rushed by, LA-bound. I gestured frantically. It was too cold. I stood there till midnight, two hours straight, and cursed and cursed. It was just like Stuart, Iowa, again. There was nothing to do but spend a little over two dollars for a bus the remaining miles to Los Angeles."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Bakersfield, California

Dwight Yoakam sang a song, The Streets of Bakersfield, which could easily fit Sal's journey. Though Jack wasn't really into country music as far as I can tell, preferring the jazz, bop and jump blues that Sal will discover in Los Angeles, I like to think he would relate to the lyrics:

I came here looking for something
I couldn't find anywhere else
Hey, I'm not trying to be nobody
Just want a chance to be myself

I've done a thousand miles of thumbin'
I've worn blisters on my heels
Trying to find me something better
On the streets of Bakersfield

You don't know me but you don't like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

Spent some time in San Francisco
Spent a night there in the can
They threw this drunk man in my jail cell
Took fifteen dollars from that man
Left him my watch and my old house key
Don't want folks thinkin' that I'd steal
Then I thanked him as I was leaving, and
I headed for the streets of Bakersfield

You don't know me but you don't like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

You don't know me but you don't like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

How many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

The fact is, in California terms Bakersfield is kind of like the end of the world. It is a place, like Fresno, that has an undeserved reputation as being the least attractive place in California. However, Bakersfield has contributed an immense amount to American culture by inspiring the Bakersfield sound in country music. At its best, country music calls upon common themes of America which Jack Kerouac claims he is seeking in On the Road: hardship, hard work, the rural experience, pain and suffering followed by joy and redemption. The Bakersfield sound is exemplified in such iconic American artists such as Buck Owens and Merle Haggard.

Yes, I think Bakersfield was a perfect stop for Sal -- and as we'll see later, he makes a return trip. While this stop in Bakersfield is not the proverbial end of the road for Sal at this point in time, it does serve as a gateway to the end of his trip later. Fortunately, he has more adventures ahead!

If you want to know more about Bakersfield

Bakersfield Californian
Bakersfield Convention and Visitor's Bureau
California State University at Bakersfield
City of Bakersfield
Wikipedia: Bakersfield
Wikipedia: Bakersfield sound
Wikipedia: Buck Owens
Wikipedia: Merle Haggard

Next up: South Main Street, Los Angeles, California

On the Road: Fresno, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 27, 2007

Unfolding the Map

We're in the heart of California's Central Valley, moving on down toward LA. Click the map!

Book Quote

"He drove me into buzzing Fresno and let me off by the south side of town. I went for a quick Coke in a little grocery by the tracks, and here came a melancholy Armenian youth along the red boxcars, and just at that moment a locomotive howled, and I said to myself, yes, yes Saroyan's town."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Fresno, California

Californians can be very provincial. I'm not sure this isn't like other parts of the United States, and we certainly know that provincialism on a larger scale is known as nationalism and has caused many problems on the international stage. When I write "provincial," I mean an attitude that not only is the place where one is the best place, but also that one has a lack of interest in other places.

I will provide my own mother as an example, who has been a place or two, but who really never left my hometown except for some temporary trips, and who doesn't seem to have a great curiousity about the outside world. But I have more as well. There seems to be a reluctance among many New Orleanians, and having lived there I have found this to be true in many cases, to leave their home and settle in any other place. This can be summed up for two reasons -- one is that New Orleans was and still is a very unique place in our country, but the other is that New Orleanians feel this uniqueness and cannot see themselves in any other place, despite the problems and the difficulties that come with living in New Orleans. This is why post-Katrina, the diaspora was so difficult for many New Orleanians -- they have difficulty adjusting to life outside of New Orleans because of their attitudes, their rootedness to the place and to their social environment.

So, in California, the Bay Area thinks it is THE place to live. All of Northern California is very resentful of Southern California, and Southern Californians feel pretty superior to everyone else.
About the only thing that urban dwellers in California can agree upon is that they can look down upon more rural areas of California, and when I was growing up, going to or living in Fresno (or Bakersfield, which will be considered in the next post) was considered to be a karmic punishment.

Why this is, I don't know. I haven't been to Fresno. But I heard about the blazing hot summers, the thick tule (pronounced too-lee) fog in the mornings that made driving hazardous. The lack of things to do. I bought into these attitudes, but have since learned in my life that making pronouncements about places not only does an injustice to them, but also limits one from ever exploring what they may have to offer. I offer as an example Houston. When I lived in Texas and in New Orleans, everyone pretty much put down Houston. It was hot and humid, it was a concrete jungle, it was too big, you had to drive long distances to do anything. Yes, Houston was these things and more, but we found by exploring it that there are fantastic things in Houston that make some of the inconveniences worth negotiating, like the Art Car Parade, or the Rothko Chapel.

So I try not to bias myself against Fresno or any other place any more. Sure I have my favorites, but everything seems to have at least something to offer. And it is notable that in this particular Kerouac passage, Sal acknowledges that Fresno is the hometown of William Saroyan, who wrote optimistic tales set in some of America's darkest times. If Fresno was such a terrible place, then wouldn't it have made a worse impression on Saroyan? Wouldn't Saroyan's stories and plays be darker?

If you want to learn more about Fresno

California State University - Fresno
City of Fresno
Fresno Bee
Fresno City and County Historical Society
Fresno Convention and Visitor's Bureau
Wikipedia: Fresno
Wikipedia: William Saroyan
William Saroyan Society

Next up: Bakersfield, California

On the Road: Manteca, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 25, 2007

Unfolding the Map

Sal is working his way down California, which is a long way since it's a long state. You can work your way down California too by clicking on the map to see where we've come (and a little of where we are going)!

Book Quote

"The sun goes down long and red. All the magic names of the valley unrolled -- Manteca..."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Manteca, California

I remember, when I was growing up, that we only had two television stations for the first few years of my life, both out of Eureka, California. Just before I hit my teens, my parents splurged on cable, which gave us a total of about 12 stations, most of them on VHF but at least a couple in the UHF area. These stations opened a whole new world for me, because they were San Francisco stations with new and different programming. I actually saw new cartoons after school like Speed Racer and Kimba the White Lion. I also began to learn about place names around the Bay Area that I hadn't known before. These names were often exotic, like Sausalito, or simply descriptive, like Mill Valley or Stinson Beach. One TV station, advertising its reach with a catchy jingle, threw the name "Manteca" into the mix and that was probably the first time I ever heard of that particular place.

I write this because not just because I wanted to highlight my ignorance of Manteca, but also because the names evoke images that are hard to replace. When Jack Kerouac writes about "all the magic names..." I can identify with that because growing up in rural California in an isolated spot on the coast, these names created some imaginary scenes in my mind. I would have never pictured Manteca as being a simple and small San Joaquin Valley community surrounded by farms. Manteca to me sounded much more exotic and fantastical. The fact that the TV station celebrated its name in a jingle made it that much more likely that it was a special place. I don't mean to imply that it is not special in many ways, but you may see my point, that we often create images where the reality is probably less than the imagination.

Even when traveling as a teen with my family, on our occasional trips to the Bay Area (which were often fraught with tension because my parents weren't comfortable driving in urban areas) the simple act of passing a road sign pointing to some town off the freeway often made me wish that we could take a side trip. Now that I'm an adult, when I drive and notice a sign that seems interesting, I will go there. I remember one memorable trip I made when I was younger where I visited Salt Lick, Kentucky and Pee Pee, Ohio. Who can resist stopping in such places, if only to take a look around and say "Well, that was interesting/uninteresting?" Of course, any place that had some variant of my last name got a visit if I was passing by. It was magical, in a way, and only heightened at sunrise or sunset, when people were either getting up to start a day's work, or going in to have their suppers and settle in for the evening. At those times, passing through such sleepy places often seemed to me like catching them in a private moment and that I should be honored that they let me view them, illuminated almost mysteriously in the first or last rays of the day.

If you want to know more about Manteca

City of Manteca
Manteca Chamber of Commerce
Manteca Convention and Visitors Bureau
Wikipedia: Manteca

Next up: Madera, California

On the Road: Tracy, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 24, 2007

Unfolding the Map

Sal gets out into rural California. Hard to believe there is such a thing, right, when most of what is transmitted around the country about California involves glamorous LA city life, or crunchy granola San Francisco city life. Surprise! California is much more rural than urban, at least in land space, and if you throw a dart at a map of California you're probably more likely to stick in the general vicinity of a country-music listening redneck than you are a hip-hop loving, clubbing, partying blonde bombshell starlet of the week. So check the map.

Book Quote

"The first was the mad one, with a burly blond kid in a souped-up rod. 'See that toe?' he said as he gunned the heap to eighty and passed everybody on the road. 'Look at it.' It was swathed in bandages. 'I just had it amputated this morning. The bastards wanted me to stay in the hospital. I packed my bag and left. What's a toe?' Yes, indeed, I said to myself, look out now, and I hung on. You never saw a driving fool like that. He made Tracy in no time. Tracy is a railroad town; brakemen eat surly meals in diners by the tracks. Trains howl away across the valley."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Tracy, California

I didn't have an amputated toe, but I drove like that through California once. I was in maybe my second year of college. A friend of mine, John, and I drove down to Walnut Creek where I could visit my sister, who was in the hospital there. On the way back, being youthful, we decided to see how fast we could get back to our hometown. From Walnut Creek, the trip could take about four hours, the last 75 miles or so over winding roads through the coast range to Fort Bragg. We may have been spurred on by a supposed deadline -- John had to be home for dinner or I had to be home for something or other.

So, starting from Walnut Creek, we pushed 90 mph, me driving, while taking the long flat road around the top of the Bay area, then hitting the freeway at highway 101 and heading north. We slowed somewhat through Santa Rosa, but then pushed it again until we got to Cloverdale, where we turned west on CA-128 and drove over to the coast. This was the windy section, but I swear that John, who was driving this part, pushed 60 mph over most of it. We clocked in at 2½ hours, if I remember correctly. Only now when I look back on it am I amazed that we didn't get stopped by a cop, nor did we have a major wreck.

Years later, I learned what Sal is learning while careening with madmen over two-lane highways in rural California. On a month-long trip to Bangladesh, I was driven most everywhere. You can't imagine my thoughts the first time I sat in the back of the vehicle as the driver careened toward a huge truck bearing down on us in the opposite direction. Both blared their horns incessantly and I was certain there would be a head-on. At the last minute, both swerved, still blaring their horns, and passed each other with little room to spare. I was to experience many more moments like that, and learned how to simply go into a Zen-like calm. It is a good day to die, I would say, and simply let it be. Thankfully, I think some sorts of rules of the road that I was not aware of were at work, and I lived.

I don't know anything about Tracy, and I am not even sure if it is still a railroad town. Most likely it isn't, and is a stereotypical sleepy Central Valley farm community, but check out the links below to learn more.

If you want to know more about Tracy:

City of Tracy
Tracy Chamber of Commerce
Tracy Press
Wikipedia: Tracy

Next up: Manteca, California