Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them; disagree with them; glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

– Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac fans, unite! A documentary One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur is set to release October 20, 2010, the day before the 40th anniversary of Kerouac’s death. It will also be released on DVD that same day and you have the option to buy the sound track as put together by Ben Gibbard (with Jay Farrar and Son Volt). The album has taken lyrics taken from Kerouac’s 1962 novel Big Sur. Check out the video for “San Francisco”.

On a side note, I walked by “Jack Kerouac Way” every morning on the way to On the Fly. No real story or relevance (other than the it’s the same guy!); I’m just saying.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

–Jack Kerouac

Quotes like this aren’t necessarily steering me away from benzedrine.

And then, of course, there’s Jack Kerouac: he got hopped up on Benzedrine so that he could write On the Road in an epic twenty day writing session.

Joyce Johnson writes about why Jack Kerouac’s On the Road still matters. Since I’ve spent the last month re-reading one of my favorite books, I think it’s time to dust off my copy of On the Road to see if it captures me as it did the first time.