At the impressionable age of 14, I read On the Road by Jack Kerouac and saw the 1956 movie, On the Bowery. Thus began my lifelong fascination and infatuation with the down-and-out denizens and seedy surroundings known as skid row.During those early sheltered years, my exploration of skid row was limited to literature and movies. It led me to Burroughs, Jackson, Bukowski, Hammett, Chandler, Cain and more film noir movies than I can count.
Ready or not, I left that comfortable nest for college. The delicious danger of the wrong side of the tracks with its dramatis personae of pimps, prostitutes, thieves, bookies, junkies, juice heads, et. al., eclipsed the attraction of academia. Spending less and less time on classes, exploring the sordid and disreputable monopolized my curricula. Unfortunately, my college did not offer a degree in this area of study. So, I began a multi-year sabbatical immersing myself in the domain of desolation angels.
Leaving no turn unstoned, I scrambled my psyche with a plethora of potions, poisons and pharmacopeia. I logged enough time in dive bars, flop houses and dens of ill-repute for a degree in debauchery. I finished my matriculation into madness by dropping out of the "straight" world. Eventually, I rejoined the rat race, secured my sheepskin and marched to the machinations of polite society. To this day, I don't know if maturity and a sense of responsibility caused my return to reason. Maybe I lacked the courage of conviction to follow the romantic decadence of Rimbaud and Verlaine. Perhaps an absence of fortitude kept me from embracing Ginsberg's "starry dynamo in the machinery of night."
Half a century has passed since that 14-year-old boy first encountered the lure of skid row. It could be time to reevaluate and resume my journey to find the Edge. As ever - BB
