Sometimes I'm Jack Kerouac

Ed Dunkel was a tall, calm unthinking fellow who was completely ready to do anything Dean asked him; and at this time Dean was too busy for scruples. He was roaring through Las Cruces, New Mexico, when he suddenly hand an explosive yen to see his see first wife Marylou again.

On The Road is really where it's at. I have this sad feeling though, when I read it, because I know that my time on the road in this way is pretty much done. But I understand it, the desire to just leave the house, start walking, everything be damned. This hasn't led me to the kind of percarious and interesting situations that Sal finds himself in. It did get me here to Japan, I guess. But I'm not really sure what an "explosive yen" is exactly.

I would make a really crappy beat poet. All that running out of money and sleeping on benches. I would freak out, probably.

What I hate though is this new kind of "I'm a beat too" in that "Me and my friend Bill piled into the Ultima and drove out to Phoenix one night. And we didn't stay at the Holiday Inn. We stayed at the Day's Inn. It was totally hardcore. And we ate at Chili's."