is not automated and that you have plentiful to say. You have all that there is to have and that's the opposite from nothing.

Have a wonderful, happy day. I should work now on stripping off wall paper. Oh, well why did I put wall paper on my walls 12 years ago? Now I have to deal with that mess and I use anything to procrastinate the work.

From the poem Elegiac Feeling American (for the dear memory of John Kerouac) - written circa 1970

"...the big lie of that classroom...all we got was Washington, Henry, Hamilton, Revere, Jefferson and Franklin...never Nat Bacon, Sam Adams, Paine..."

"be there liberty today? Not to hear the red man, the black man, the young man tell -"

"The justice of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

"The second greatest cause of human death...is the acquiring of property"

"A man can have everything he desires in his home yet have nothing outside the door - for a feeling man, a poet man, such an outside serves only to make home a place in which to hang oneself"

Ginsberg said in interviews that it was Kerouac, not Whitman, that gave him the idea of his long poetic lines and encouraged him to use them. Jack is known mainly for his novels but Michael McClure calls Mexico City Blues the greatest religious poem of the 20th century.

The Beats had the shot down right and deserve a larger readership today. Because they were anti-academic and anti-establishment, that's not going to happen. The New York Times took the extraordinary step of publishing a second review of On The Road after the first one was a rave. The "Prole Art Threat" had to be suppressed.

Thanks very much for your early morning diary - it's a good one

to become Cameron's successor. He will not stand up. It's on dw.com/news and on several English outlets. Just google it on news. google.com. Another loose cannon deflates his overheated gas and farts on the people.

Here the video where he announces it:
Boris Johnson reveals he will NOT stand for Tory leadership leaving party stunned - live updates

to people in their twenties, that they seem to consider not talking about anything of importance in any of the art they create as some sort of badge of honor. They are literally proud of it, and look down on anyone who has the poor taste to bring up reality.

I've heard it happen so often that its hard for me to consider it an isolated thing. I think it's one of the signs of what I have called the culture of the apocalypse. Once even the artists distance themselves from reality, people seem to lose all connection between cause and effect.

It doesn't just result in a lack of knowledge of dangerous problems. It seems to lead to people who simply have no common sense. They take whatever simple generalization they are given, and never pursue the matter any further.

The real world today is like a minefield. All the problems that we have are piling up. The easiest way to get by is never look too long at anything.

the things that concerns me most.

First of all, the Arts in school (i.e. music, painting, etc.) have been slowly replaced by more "practical" classes in business. Few things concern me more than this, especially when extrapolated out in a larger sense to how we've become desensitized to seeing a nonstop barrage of commercial advertising in our everyday lives, to a point where we've accepted that ads will appear next to wherever you are online corresponding to a private email or something, all the way to every bit of public space, including inside cabs and elevators to stadiums and schools.

Which is why I'm grateful to folks like Banksy and all those similarly inspired to take back public space with graffiti and large social and political art pieces. Political and socially-aware graffiti fascinates and nourishes me. We need more of it. Reclaim public spaces. In that regard it's been good to see more and more wall space in NYC dedicated to local and even international artists. After all where do all these really good budding artists go to display their work, end up in a corporate firm using their talents to produce dazzling art to sell some shitty product, prey on the vulnerabilities of the masses or convince you you're not trying hard enough for the purposely elusive "American Dream."

To that end, though I'm not a painter in any remote way (but do play music), I always carry a Magnum Sharpie to scrawl at least something almost every night I go out for a walk late night after dinner and then wherever I may be in and around the city in a place that could use a little challenging (especially the suburbs).

On a related note, wish there was an easier way to attach photos (maybe there is, just can't quite figure how to when there doesn't seem to be a confirmation they've been received/added to your comment). I'm starting to collect graffiti photos.

Thanks for the provocative essay and history shaz.

be horribly grueling, tendious and long running from a little poking around I just did. So very sad, yet I have seen it on the streets or Prague, Rome, Florence, Paris ...

The years 1958-1960 are holy grail years for the electric guitar. These are the years of the sunburst or "burst" Les Paul guitars from Gibson. At the time, the series didn't do so well, and was discontinued in 1960; as a result, only about 1700 were made. A 1959 Les Paul in good condition today will fetch well into six figures, partly because of that unplanned scarcity, partly because the guitars are awesome, and partly (perhaps mostly) because of art-market-style fetishistic price inflation.

But as objets d'art those burst guitars are something gorgeous. I play a little guitar, so I suppose I'm biased, but those things do have a strange visual power quite aside from their unique tone. Gibson returned to making them in the late 1960s and still makes them to this day, and loads of other manufacturers copy them. In the blues/rock guitar world, many people seem to think perfection was achieved in 1959.

Recently, an original 1958 Les Paul surfaced in Nashville. It had the lowest serial number ever recorded for a guitar with the now-iconic "burst" finish. They are calling it the "first burst" and it can be yours for the low low price of $625,000. Here is the incomparable J.D. Simo giving the First Burst a test drive. It's a very direct link to May, 1958, when the instrument rolled off the line at the Gibson factory.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwmjgxl1l8g]