HEY Hey! Lemon Tree...

Beyond introspection, circumspection, and overt suspicion, rising mightier than footfalls of egregious thunder, planting and tending dismay in the hearts of former derelicts and prized-fighting pinheads, along with the other more illustrious, lucrative individuals, bent on traveling with a macrocosmic understanding of something rather microscopic, tends to unravel anyone's finest sweater, and begins to tug on the hem of the old Jesus robe tighter than expected.

And everybody cringes.

Make it work.
Build a dome and shield everyone's head, as long as that head belongs to a normal, societally functional trunk and set of appendages, with a smile, then inclusion comes at last. For under that dome, held up by highly technological walls that breathe in good air and exhale the used, dirty stuff. It's a tiny sanctuary of unrivaled safety, and above all, more hallowing and noteworthy is its predictability.
For this sanctuary only exists in the minds of certain peoples, and sometimes like the rain can be controlled with a switch. Every Thursday, at 9PM, it rains. Miss clear weather?

Miss Clear Weather.

Missy Weather Clear has a problem with that time? Well, when would SHE like it to rain?

And everyone is safe.

Basically, it's become evident that people, each individual, wants a personal bubble, maybe constructed out of lambskin, so it still feels good, but offers a standard type of protection. Right? Of course, there are tiny viruses.

Oh.

Lambskin has flaws, after all. It allows flow, don't you agree? How tightly woven is tight enough? A tight, genetic bundle of over-under weaves would keep out the most ghastly decorated illnesses.

And this is why I do what I do in my spare time.

Repeat: This is why I do what I do in my spare time.

Random things from which I once suffered: lemon trees, rubber bands, bygone memories. It took the effort to stop trying to save myself that eventually granted liberation. The lemon trees, I thought, were obvious in their quest to strike me with grief. All of that vivid yellow on green. The luminous yellow orbs, alive and overwhelming, decorating a solid leafy green with such force and efficacy that lesser men than I might have simply been swallowed. I persevered, but with twitches and spasms more grotesque than any horror flick. Frighteningly, as I imagine it, walking down the street, seeing my face from a distance, and, upon taking a closer look, viewing dancing eyebrows, jerky ears, and an ever-settling mouth. That was I thinking about lemon trees. How much uglier it became with a strong cup of coffee is a figure or estimate that remains elusive to me. I knew I was twitching my face almost inside out and imagined the skin on my nect stretching while the front of my face migrated in jerks and skips to the back of my skull.

And, yet, the ears, due to their location, would have been more or less all right.

Thinking like that is childish, and too imaginative, easily overstated, and drunkenly cliche. Like Jack Kerouac? Nah, not like Jack. Like Neal? Cassady? Jack Cassady. Neal Kerouac. A match...made in Heaven. Piano, cue.

What actually needs to be said is taht my face was hardly able to be still, due to all of the overstimulation of lemon trees galore. Garish, spindly, ingrates. ! Especially in conversation to another living being. It was just lemon trees, and their beauty. Lemon trees fuck with all the senses -- sight, they burst in taste lik an exploding chunk of DayGlo rock, touching lemons' lightly goosebumped skin, or scratching your face on the bark of its trunk, and the smell, oh the smell, causes me, at least, to suck in and in until my nasal passages are raw, my sinuses spitting venom, and I know, somewhere under that plethora of citrus, true cleanliness lies. The lemon tree's dynamicism really, truly, brings forth a human's mortality, and screams, "you will NEVER be able to experience ME fully (FULLY!), you FOOL!" And you think, oh, that's right, I am going to perish, and really, on a larger, more expansive world scale, I'm going to experience a fraction of the smallest percentage of everything. And the lemon tree becomes a metaphor, turning into a portentous, and beautiful boil. Nei! Oh...

Mr. Kerouac. You haven't escaped. I've mentioned you, too. Lemon, anyone?

Hail! Jack Kerouac

Mr. Kerouac, where do you reside? With your beer-soaked breath, and your fat white belly; wherever did you go? You left, misunderstood, not fully appreciated, and with a scowl on your face. You were mad, spitting drunk, and you died from a little blood, let loose to flood your organs and give you up to the mad hatter Creator you believed in so fervently.

Jack, Kerouac, come; come wherever you are.

How does one summon Jack Kerouac? Mr. On the Road; Big Sur, Haiku(s). Mr. Dharma Bum. How do you speak with Kerouac, and ask him why the hell he fucked up so badly. Why he left his family. Would you like to just say he meant a lot to you, even though you read him almost forty years after his stupid, immature death?

Well, you can summon Jack Kerouac by buying two liters of whiskey. To begin, you will want to drink the first liter, tainting its kiss with nothing except a grimace and a sigh. Next, you should break something, like a lamp, or a vase, or a mirror. Break something loud, dramatic, and, hopefully, regretful. Next, sip on the second liter of whiskey, and begin to cry. Whisper to the dark room, where you sit by yourself, that nobody understands you, and that you're not afraid to die, you're just too goddamn religious to do it yourself. Whisper that. Think of Jack, and whisper those things with full-on meaning. He'll come. He'll be there any minute.

And if Neal Cassady shows up, ask for his help. He's likely to spit in your face and ask you where your sister, or your mother, or your wife, is at. Don't tell him, because he'll make good on your "offer."

If Jack doesn't show up, don't despair. He hardly ever shows his face anymore. It's too bloated, and whiskey(ed) up. It's okay to scream how much you hate him. It's all right to yell a little, and holler about why he's so damn elusive, and enigmatic all of the time. Tell him, he hasn't heard it before, that he could have had such a long, prosperous life, living as long or longer than Allen Ginsburg. He could have slept with Allen. They could have been lovers. The hippie and the conservative. Ishmael and Queequeg. Leg over leg, arms entangled, genitalia nobodies business.

Offer an incantation: To Kerouac, how they loved you. To Jack, how we do still. You aren't ever going to go away. We'll burn your words and send the smoke, offering you praise, but hang our heads in shame.

Editing Kerouac

Jack Kerouac is famous for his two week tryst of benzedrine and coffee fueled writing, which led to the breakthrough 'On the Road.' The infamous picture is of a writer, hunched over his typewriter, typing furiously, taking pills and slugging cups of coffee, in the confines of his private room, telling a tale, spontaneously as it came, depicting the prior four years of his life as he criss-crossed the United States with the unforgettable Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady). His manuscript of 'On the Road' is a scroll, taped together and worth big bucks. It unrolls over one hundred feet, and is really an American relic, produced by one of the most mysterious writers the North American continent has ever produced.

But is it all true?

Jack Kerouac is famous for his supposed belief of no revision. He is said to have written spontaneously, and whatever he wrote remained, untouched, and ready to be published. He loved the errors and all. But that is untrue. Pertaining to his American opus, 'On the Road,' Kerouac revised many times, contradictory to the legend. He actually worked on that piece for four or more years, compiling notes and journal entries from his travels. It was his work in progress. And while it may be true he sat down and hammered it out in the space of a few weeks, the majority of the plot and memories had been recorded and written down, needing only to be patched together and put in a coherent manner. And Kerouac revised like hell. He worked on his manuscript like any other author would have, and even sent it away to a friend to read first. The friend suggested Kerouac provide more centering on the story's main character, Dean Moriarty. Kerouac understood his friend's critique and put Dean center stage.

The misconception of Kerouac being the great Non-Revisor might have originated with the fact that the author refused to let the editor at the publishing house make certain changes to the 'On the Road' manuscript. That somehow became the genesis for Kerouac not believing in revision to his work, and keeping 'On the Road' as is, with no care or concern for criticism. Like any author, Kerouac was obstinate on what keeping 'On the Road' as he'd sent it to the publishing house, and not as it was after he supposedly slapped it together in the space of two weeks. In truth, the manuscript had been worked and reworked, in pieces and sections, for at least four years.

But the legend remains, and it's a beautiful one.