On The Road

I’m reading Jack Kerouac’s On The Road for the first time. It’s a story that could never really happen in today’s society, with hitchhiking now illegal. The closest thing we have today is Uber, where you pay to get in some random stranger’s car, but back then you could hitchhike across the country for free using your thumbs for something other than an app on your smartphone.

In between Sal Paradise’s travels and shenanigans with his friends, Kerouac writes descriptions like this: 

“The sun goes down long and red. All the magic names of the valley unrolled–Manteca, Madera, all the rest. Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries. I stuck my head out of the window and took deep breaths of the fragrant air. It was the most beautiful of all moments.”

If I could write even just one paragraph like that in my life, I would be happy.

The song that keeps popping into my head as I read is “Sleepwalker” by Julie Byrne. Her guitar and voice are from another time. I imagine her as someone who played in the clubs with Bob Dylan. “I crossed the country and I carried no key,” she sings. I can’t imagine having that kind of freedom, but it’s also terrifying to think about having no place to call home. Just hitching rides from New York City to Cheyanne to Denver to San Francisco. Less than 50 dollars in my pocket. I’m too used to being comfortable. Warm. Dry. I could never spend the night in the flatbed of a truck with random strangers with only a bottle of whisky to fill my stomach and keep me warm from the whipping cold winds.

And that’s ok. I can read about it and remember my own adventures: driving to Boston from Chestertown, Maryland on October 28th, 2000 as a junior in college. My friend Becca and I were on our way up to see an Elliott Smith show for his Figure 8 tour. We had train tickets, but I overslept and we missed the train. So, we decided to drive, just drive. We got through Maryland, and stopped to get maps of each state that we passed through. Somehow, we misread the map and ended up almost to Albany, New York, before we took a sharp right and drove to Massachusetts. We made it to Boston in time to get near the front of the line for the show at the Avalon Theatre.

Before Elliott Smith went on, we listened to Grandaddy’s set. I remember the visuals they had projected behind them as they played their ambient rock; the bright white wind turbines spun against a blue sky. Elliott Smith opened with “Needle in the Hay” and then closed out the show with a cover of “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” which was pretty ominous.

Elliott Smith was my friend Becca’s favorite musical artist. She had introduced me to his catalog that previous summer when we hiked through England’s Lake District together on a school trip. Seeing him live was a bit sad, because he was clearly under the influence and struggling. We had VIP tickets, so we got to go upstairs after the show and mill around with the musicians. One of them, the keyboard player for Elliott Smith, sat down next to me and we started talking. He was wearing a cowboy hat and had blonde curly hair. “You have this great vibe about you,” he said. “Maybe it’s because of me.”

That night got even more bizarre as it went on, what with it being almost Halloween. The venue went from being a concert for depressed Elliott Smith fans to a nightclub with everyone dressed in really elaborate Halloween costumes. I remember Wonder Woman in particular. I went to find the bathroom and there was a Halloween-themed wedding in the back room, complete with gargoyle ice sculptures and Billy Idol singing “White Wedding.”

Eventually Becca and I realized that we had to drive home because we didn’t have anywhere to spend the night in Boston and it was too cold to sleep in her car. And as tempting as it was, we didn’t take the bandmates invitation to join them on their tour. We weren’t that kind of fans. So, we drove back down to Maryland, stopping only in Greenwich, Connecticut at an old diner for breakfast.

I got mono shortly after that trip, and had to cut my semester short, but I think it was worth it. Elliott Smith committed suicide almost exactly three years after I saw him. We have GPS now, instead of maps. It’s almost impossible to get lost, to go the wrong way for very long. I think that music means even more to me now than it did then. I appreciate the way artists like Julie Byrne pick and strum the strings of the guitar, as she turns her wrist before switching chords. Just watch. She’s beautiful too (arm goals!).

“Sleepwalker” by Julie Byrne

 [Verse 1]
I lived my life alone before you
And with those that I'd never succeeded to love
And I grew so accustomed to that kind of solitude
I fought you, I did not know how to give it up

[Verse 2]
Before you, had I ever known love
Or had I only known misuse of the power another had over me?
The power another had over me

[Verse 3]
I crossed the country and I carried no key
Couldn't I look up at the stars from anywhere?
And sometimes I did, I felt ancient
But still I sought peace and it never came to me

[Verse 4]
They often spoke as though I had been set free
But I traveled only in service of my dreams
I stood before them all, I was a sleepwalker

[Verse 5]
Couldn't hold my misery down
Not even for you
It bore me on all the places I've ever gone
And I grew so accustomed to that kind of solitude
But I long for you now
Even when you just leave the room