A Recent Interview with Jack Kerouac

An Open Letter to Jack Kerouac

Dinosaur Ghost Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

TDB: Jack Kerouac. Wow. Thanks for joining us live via the internet. It’s great to have you here.

JK: No problemo.

TDB: When I told my friends you agreed to be interviewed, they were blown away. Apparently, you’re a pretty famous guy.

JK: You flatter me.

TDB: No seriously. I’m told you were… let me get this straight… “a founding member of the beat generation.”

JK: I don't like to brag.

TDB: What does that mean anyway? Beat generation? Were you a beet farmer?

JK: No.

TDB: But you do enjoy eating beets, don't you?

JK: You’re thinking of the vegetable. The Beat Generation refers to a cultural movement beginning in the late forties. Beat writers tended to employ a certain rhythm, like jazz music.

TDB: I really don’t care for beets myself, or any other maroon vegetable for that matter. I hope this doesn’t offend you.

JK: Not at all.

TDB: So I looked up some of your books on Amazon. Apparently you haven’t published much since the late sixties. Why is that?

JK: I died.

TDB: I think we all died a little when the sixties ended. Except for me, I wasn't born yet.

JK: I wasn't speaking metaphorically. I really died.

TDB: I once had an out of body experience after holding my breath for too long. I floated up to the ceiling and looked down at myself. Then I heard a little elfin woman screaming, “Stay out of the light, Carol Anne. Don’t go into the light.” She saved my life.

JK: That was Poltergeist.

TDB: I don't know what her name was.

JK: I meant the movie Poltergeist.

TDB: Do you think my out-of-body experience was somehow influenced by my repeated watching of the movie, Poltergeist? I've seen it 472 times.

JK: Possibly.

TDB: I never figured out why that poltergeist was so angry at the family. I mean, they built their house on Native American burial ground, but so what? The world has been around for a long time, possibly as many as six thousand years, and in that time a lot of people have died. There must be people buried all over the place. Animals too. If no one lived where someone else was buried, then we’d all have to live in the clouds. Wouldn’t that be cool?

JK: If you say so.

TDB: I bet if I dug about a million feet under my house I would find all kinds of bones, maybe even a dinosaur skeleton, but then again, if that’s true, why isn’t my house being haunted by that dinosaur’s ghost? What do you think, Jack?

JK: About what?

TDB: What if they made a sequel to Poltergeist, only this time the ghost was a dinosaur? You’re a writer. Why don’t you write a story like that?

JK: It’s not really my style for one thing, and for another I don’t believe in ghosts.

TDB: You’ve got a point. If Dinogeists were real… Dinogeists or Poltersaurs? Which do you think is better?

JK: They’re about equal.

TDB: Let’s just call them Dinosaur Ghosts for now. If they were real--and I’m not so sure they aren’t real--I think they’d haunt us in our cars. If you think about it, cars are literally run on processed dinosaur remains. I think if I was a Dinosaur Ghost I’d be pretty upset about that.

JK: Listen. I’m not really Jack Kerouac. I just said it to mess with you. It hasn’t worked out like I’d hoped.

TDB: Don’t back out on me now, Jack. We’ve got a great story cooking here. Dinosaur Ghosts terrorizing car owners. It’s a fear we can all relate to. It’s also just the sort of thing we need to push us toward renewable energy.

JK: I’m going away now.

TDB: To write about Dinosaur Ghosts?

TDB: Jack?

TDB: OK. That was Jack Kerouac, a former beet farmer, he is now working on a novel tentatively titled Dinosaur Ghost. It sounds exciting. Well, that’s it for this week. Next week, please join me for an exclusive interview with Edgar Allen Poe.