Kerouac wore Khakis

I owe this blog two stories, which I promise will be up by the end of the weekend. My apologies for all of the delays; though I will offer you a brief post on something that has been annoying me.

I recall being younger (my exact age really eludes me, it could be anywhere between the ages of eight and thirteen, for all I know) and being in my car with my parents somewhere in Downtown Los Angeles. It's common practice there for many buildings to offer one of their sides as advertising space, and I'd always look around to see what new ads were being painted on the walls. This time, however, I saw an ad with this image:


At the time, I didn't think much of it (in fact, I recall writing in some mindless internet meme some years ago that I didn't even care for Jack Kerouac) but a couple of years in high school English can change your opinion on things quite drastically.

How a man who, along with his poet counterpart Allen Ginsberg (and others), defined a counter-culture could be in favor of using himself as a vehicle for selling Gap Khakis goes beyond my knowledge. Yet here stands Jack, twelve stories high on a building, advertising a trendy clothing label. Granted, the Beat generation never defined itself as being as anti-establishment as the later hippie generation did, though I doubt Kerouac would have approved of using himself as a poster child. Just take some time to think about it on your own.