/lit/ - Literature

>>5297432
*getting fucked up with

>>5297432
You can still travel with mates cheaply, just backpack with a few notepads and write. Stop making excuses for yourself.

>>5297445
I love my friends, but they're not the brightest bunch, nor are they the most adventurous (outside of our city).

>mfw I have

>>5297449
Nice you can't pick your family, but you still pick shit friends.

>tfw you grew up in a generation of beta males who play video games all day and the only ones who love literature are academic, jargon-spewing SJW faggots who use 'super' as a modifier for almost everything

>>5297475
So you ready to jump off that bridge ya beta fuck?

>>5297471
I hate my family as well. My friends are great, just not willing to adventure outside our city. Doesn't make 'em shit, just complacent.

>>5297480
Nah bro im sweet

>>5297485
Nah u suk dick tho

>>5297475
This is maybe the best summary of the people I associate with that I've ever read

>>5297496
mega keks :D

>>5297475
Please never leave your mom's basement. You won't like the world and the world will not like you.

>>5297624
Which part offended you, sweetheart?

>>5297624
>your mom's basement.

Seems cruel to pretend at condescension when your insults come from the same place as "that's what she said!"

>>5297432
I think you mean getting fucked by.

>>5297432

>BEE will never be young again

fuck everything

>>5297432
Because I want to be a lazy bum and an "artsy bohemian" who smells like shit and weed.

>>5297435
*getting fucked up, travelling
>>5297432
*with whom you

>>5297432
Thank God, our generation actually might not go to waste. Although that's a fair description of what a lot of my friends at least pretend to do.

Shit's impossible these days, there's no really way to cheaply travel in USA anymore. We don't have hostels, and couch surfing among friends/weird strangers is a mixture of extremely difficult + romanticized thing that never really happened for long periods anyway.

Pretty much all the "broke #lads running across the countryside and getting shitfaced and having zany adventures" stories are either a) old as fuck and even then only half true, or b) in a modern context, pure bullshit, at least in the USA.

It takes money for gas, food, drugs, etc to do this kind of thing. If it was so easy, all those broke niggers living on the streets and stealing TVs for crack would just go on bohemian adventures instead, in their cars that they can magically afford that apparently run on bong water and pretension. "Bohemians" these days frolic around with iPhones and brag about how poor they are and how they live the "slum life" because their parents won't buy them the new Nexus.

I say this living almost smack in the middle of the French Quarter in New Orleans. The few truly destitute artists/poets and wanna be lit pros/street performers who live here aren't pasty white idealists who browse image boards, they're disease riddled invalids who wind up dead in the street corner about once biweekly. It was the same when I lived in NYC, and there was pretty much no equivalent scene in Austin when I lived there, just the pretense of one.

>you will never suck Ferlinghetti's dick

>>5297471
it's hard to find people who aren't shit. really hard

>>5297743
lel

>>5297743
all of this is false

>>5297743
If it WAS possible, you would have millions of black bohemians roaming the country

Let that marinate for a minute

>>5297432

>tfw you will never have a group of bohemian writer friends,

comma not necessary.

>whom you spend all day getting fucked up,

WITH whom you spend your days getting fucked up

>travelling,

traveling*

>getting into disgusting shenanigans and writing some of the most influential works of your generation

"getting" is used too frequently - this is merely a stylistic complaint.

try "engaging in debaucherous behavior".

Good luck!

>>5297432
>bohemian
What is bohemianism? It was amusing enough a few hundred years ago, but today it is simply a name for a handful of eccentrics who are no danger to anybody and have missed the train.

>>5299310
Thanks for the critique post some of yours!

>>5299326
Basically a bunch of dirty gypsies went from Bohemia (today the Czech Republic) to France, and a bunch of artists thought their lazy lifestyle had merit

So they started drinking and doing drugs and not working

A REAL Bohemian drinks beer, eats meat, works a shitty job, listens to polka, complains about gypsies stealing their shit, and hates Russians

>>5297475

top_kek.jpg

>not embracing social paradigm shifts

>not realizing adaptation is the primary metaphilosophical facet of innovation.

>not knowing now-normative social constructs for creative expression are part of a vast teleological dialectic.

Please continue living in the past, you'll never be successful at anything in a creative capacity.

Ahahahahahahaha.

>>5299352
>social paradigm shifts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cflCyyEA2I

>>5297471
Wrong, I do choose family. I completely told the 'real' one to fuck off. They were cancer upon the mind.

>>5299310
>being a fuccboi

>>5297743
>>5299256
>>5299265
All he said is true.

The only 'Bohemian's left in the States are rich trust fund kids who go to art universities and are put up in rich studio apartments in the trendy part of town where they read e-readers because 'its safe for the environment and its the new age revolution' that they believe to be leading. They spend the majority on shit wine, alcohol, and wander the streets of their cities fucking around and spending money they never earned. They do all this while on creating something that will get thrown to the corner.

I don't know about the countries in Europe, but in the U.S., the social paradigm of artists has been crushed by the destruction of the Middle Class, increase in poverty, a declining economy, and the stubbornness of greedy Congressman to hold Capitalistic ideas in full form of a slowly dissolving society. There literally is no possible way to live that life in the U.S. If you attempt to live that life you will find yourself working two jobs because you couldn't live off the foodstamps and welfare, you can't apply to unemployment because you never worked prior, and you'll spend your days wondering if you'll have enough change to buy a can of raid because in your shitty apartment that isn't even furnished is infested with roaches, and you most certainly will not have enough money for drugs or friends.

>>5299359

veryyyy clever

Sent from my Blackberry 2 using Tapatalk

>>5297743
>>5299410

Most of this is true.

21st century bohemians, or people who will step into the role bohemians use to occupy, will live in their moms' basement.

>>5299436
>>5299410

All X is true.

Most X is true.

At least one X is true.

None of X is true.

The progression of argumentation on /lit/.

Enjoy, ladies and gentleman! And Welcome!

>>5299442

Its entirely true that your mom is insisting I pay for the abortion this time.

>>5299442
>they are right
>their correctness inconveniences me
>i will show them

>>5299410
This is part of this.

The rest is that the majority of readers today are the kids who were the most authority compliant in school. They were the good kids, the one's like by teachers and parents and that's why they don't find tales rebellion and angry youth attractive. They like authority, they like order and they have spent their whole life struggling to fit in and be like everyone else.

You can see it on lit too with the whole "edgy" thing going on.

Literature is not a fashionable art form for the youth who prefer to craft their image through music and photography, unfortunately.

>>5299477
I've spent the majority of my adolescence rebelling against my parents. Granted, I'm not sure if it was necessarily on my own accord because anytime I don't do something in my life that they exclusively want I usually get screamed at for weeks, treated like a prisoner, and all I can do is visualize killing both of them. So...i dunno.

>>5299477
>>5299502

Edgy

>>5299502
SO FUCKING EDGY. Try actually fighting you dad, you know like punch him in the face, then profess your love of my little pony.

The bohemians are anon.

Their art is(was) 4chan.

>>5299502
>my parents won't let me stay out late! hurr i'm so oppressed by them, i wish they were dead!

I'd be glad with writer friends period or friends I could travel with or just friends in general.
>tfw poor loser who just reads a bit and shitposts on 4chan all day

>>5299510
I'm not, I agree with the whole authority thing even though I believe the authority is fucked up. But, I'm not sure being verbally and sometimes physically abused because I believe that even now at age 20 I should have the right to make my own choices in life, and therefore visualizing the death of the two pricks who have raised me, is being edgy...I think it's just what comes naturally when you are being abused for 14 years. I am a complete failure. I never did anything really that my parents didn't want me to do because at the time being a teenager and being able to just come home with even an hours worth of peace and silence (none of them worked they lived off welfare and food stamps so they were always fucking home) wasn't that much of a sacrifice to just do what they wanted. But, now that I am older I have realized that everything I've ever done I do not enjoy. And of course, now that they are old and fragile I can pretty much just twist their arm if they try to raise a hand at me. But they don't know when to stop. And they steal scream all the time. It's been one hell of a wild ride. I was thinking of killing myself today, but maybe I'll wait.

>>5299529

But we are friends, old boy. We all are.

>>5299516
>>5299525
see
>>5299530


Stop projecting, it's embarrassing.

>>5299525
>>5299516
You see, it's the lack of comprehension for fruitless aesthetic rebellion that makes our times adverse to bohemian art.

The moderate progressive always justifies his action as the one doing real change while chastising the futurist, the situationist and the bohemian to be either reactionaries or silly.

But in the end it boils down to this:
>>5299477

If writers and artists can't be bohemians, then what else is there to be?

>>5299529
>>5299516
>>5299510
>>5299442
>>5299525


You want to know what made Bohemian's possible? What made artistic changes possible? What made drastic unique creativity possible?

Rebellion against everything. Against a certain food, against an idea, against stupid small things that eventually led to rebelling against the known world of art. It was that anger, that determination, and that teenage angst that provides all that.

This generation has been defeated. It sees all forms of rebellion as idiocy, childish, and refuses to allow it. Unless, that is, it has something to do with to cock suckers taking it up that ass under contract. There is no meaningful change anymore. This idea of 'edgy' is exactly what destroys rebellion. People to chickenshit the actually be different and instead try their hardest simply to fit in.

The utter stench of defeat irradiates in its fullest right here on 4chan, where idiots anonymously attempt to be against 'the man' because they fail to in their real life where ironically they are the ultimate subservient so much so that they live off government support.

>>5299560

It depends on your definition of bohemian.

Take OPs pic. One need not be a boy lover/wife killer/fugitive/dope addict/trust fund baby/deadbeat dad to produce novel work.

>>5299572

Edgy

>>5299572
Fucking this.

>>5299560
Crowd pleasers and business bitches.

Most artists now do money either by targeting a certain market segment and giving them what they want or by selling their art to businesses for their use.

Or they starve in anonymity drowned by a sea of shit that no one wants to wade through. Also wade through for what reason? To find an artist that you can't sell and can't talk about (because most people want to consume media that other people consume, just to be integrated)? At best you could become his friend, maybe, if he cares to be your friend. But it's much easier for majority to just accept whatever media gets produced for them and to stick to the friends that they have around. The few others go on boards and make small internet communities through which they exchange art for free with no idea on how to monetize it. Or at least they do that until reality catches up with them and they get married and kids or their job becomes too hard (because they move up in the career they got stuck in thinking "I'll just make a buck or two to pay rent while I work on my art") or just they don't have the energy anymore to work 5 hours a day after 8 hours spent in an office or as a bartender.

>>5299572
Exactly, and if you want to read the best account of that defeat everyone should read revolutionary road.

The fact is that we got our back snapped.

>>5299579
I don't know. Nearly all writers that are worth reading were batshit, terrible people, or beat/killed their wives and/or themselves.

>>5297432
But I thought that was /lit/?

>>5299597
yup.

aesthetics and morality never go together. It's one or the other.

>>5299572
Because you get shot if you steal and being hungry blows and you can't actually trust that hobo over there not to rape you in your sleep, or the police to not beat you to shit, even if you're white these days. In fact you can't trust anyone anymore. Not even your Bohemian friends.

A young man's faith in the world is systematically destroyed before he reaches the age of 12. Being a Bohemian requires this magical naivete that nobody "in da furs werld" can afford to have at all.

>>5299572
>Unless, that is, it has something to do with to cock suckers taking it up that ass under contract
wat

>>5299592

"Crowd pleasers and business bitches"

It's not like Michelangelo answered to the Pope, or Velazquez was the court painter for the King, or Mozart was employed by the Holy Roman Emperor, or Goethe worked in the court of the Grand Duke, or Hitchcock was always at the behest of asshole studio executives and on and on.

It doesn't make a difference.

>>5299663
It does make a difference.
Because Michelangelo was answering to a highly educated extremely rich single individual.

Today you answer to the market and the market is always the rule of the lowest common denominator. The market wants not what is sublime or complex but what can be sold to the greatest number of people.

And businesses buy art not for their enjoyment but because it helps their marketing campaigns and their image. Again they cater to the lowest common denominator.

Naturally there are a few association and collectors that actually spend a lot of money to subsidize art they like but they are usually seen as crazy people by outsiders (think dalkey).
Even universities and states are cutting the funds they previously allocated to subsidizing artists of merit and because they have been attacked to produce unpopular art that the common man doesn't like and not being able to get enough return on their investment (no shit!).

>>5299641
gay marriage

a long drawn out pointless fight used by politicians as campaign strategies to stay re-elected.

I'm not against gay rights, honestly I don't give a shit anymore. It's time to do something and move the fuck on. There are so many more important issues at hand.

>>5299685
>Today you answer to the market and the market is always the rule of the lowest common denominator. The market wants not what is sublime or complex but what can be sold to the greatest number of people.
This was always the case. The novel evolved as a middle class crowd pleaser, mostly marketed towards women. Don't believe me, look up Pamela, or Aphra Behn, or any other novel or author from that time period.

I would contest the problem is not with modern readers, but modern writers

>tfw road tripping from MA to quebec tomorrow with bohemian friends to get fucked up, go camping, & write

>>5299701
In fact most novels we appreciate we're commercial duds that people with an income were writing because they wanted to. A Shakespeare or a Dickens doesn't change this fact when you have a 100 examples on the other side.

>>5297697
>implying that talentless hack has anything of value to offer

>>5299719

Sure, but its not 1:100 like you suggest. Maybe not even most.

>>5299686
ah you're one of those types

>>5299686
yeah gay marriage was always a red herring to get the plebs from paying attention to the economy, both sides abused it

>>5299719
Lol. You fucking idiot.

>Daniel Dafoe
>Henry Fielding
>Samuel Richardson

Look these mother fuckers up. All were major literary figures of their time (who pioneered and legitimized the novel) and all were wildly commercially successful.

The only reason nobody reads "muh real literature" these days is because contemporary "literature" is either intentionally obscurantian and alienating to the average reader, or entirely intellectually sterile (and boring besides). I've been keeping my fingers on the pulse of contemporary lit for some time now. All of the modern authors that are in-vogue in the literary community these days are decidedly uninspired.

>Jim Shepard
>Lily Tuck
>Mary Gaitskill
>Elizabeth Tallent
>Chris Adrian

These are all apparently acclaimed contemporary authors. Look some of them up. There should be some short stories accessible online. My point is that these writers, in an attempt to emulate the literary prestige of the giants of the 20th century, write the most dry, uninspired, sterile and boring rubbish. All the contemporary literary scene is (these days) is tired slice-of-life plotlines with one-dimensional characters facing trivial and unengaging challenges.

Then, this VERY SAME literary community turns around and says "Huurrrrr Durrr the reason nobody reads our work is that modern Americans are too dumb too appreciate good literature."

And, of course, a couple people who aspire to be part of the literary elite buy into this lie. But in reality, the failure of "good" authors to write something worth reading ultimately rests on the authors, not the readers.

I'm not going to indulge you in a full list of literary acclaimed writers that have also been commercially successful, but there is more than enough examples.

>>5299801
Bullshit, faggot.

>>5299801
Look at the dates of the three authors you mentioned, isn't it interesting that they are all from the same time period?

I don't deny that some times it happens for artistic value and commercial success to go together. But let's not forget that that it didn't tke much before the laclos the stendhals and prousts started to pop up.

It's since the latins that we have the phrase Carmina non dant Panem exactly to point how the arts and the market don't go together.

But let's talk about contemporary writers:

You listed a couple of names, all americans, of whom I admit i read only Gaitskill and hated it.

Still you don't mention others which are living and instead write incredibly good prose: Rachel Kushner, Krasznahorkai, Ben Lerner, Jonathan Littell and Lydia Davis for example who write great books and selling relatively little, to the point that most of them are not full time writers, while on the other hand the public craves constantly for terrible formulaic genre fiction.

Let's not kid ourselves, because I've seen a lot of people trying to kid themselves or to gain favor with a certain populism that never blames the readers. The readers are to blame and they are vastly to blame.

>>5297432

you forgot butt fucking and sucking other men
Gregory Corso (what a dick)
general misogyny
Kerouac's drunkenness
Junkie lifestyle
stabbing a man in park with a pocket knife
the list goes on

>>5300444
>butt fucking and sucking other men
no
>general misogyny
yeah
>drunkenness
yeah
>junkie
yeah
>stabbing a man in a park
We never stabbed anybody but we used to jump people a lot

>>5300516
Gore Vidal fucked Kerouac in the ass and he gave a blowjob to Ginsberg.
Google it.

>>5300545
I'm talking about me.
I know for a fact Burroughs was Bisexual, Kerouac seemed to be obsessed with Dean Moriarty (based off??)

>>5300646
Someone's embarrassed about their sexuality. We all know your queer party friends bone you in the bum.

>>5300379
solid counterpoint brah

>>5300410
>Look at the dates of the three authors you mentioned, isn't it interesting that they are all from the same time period?
No shit. I was talking about the origin of the novel.
>Rachel Kushner, Krasznahorkai, Ben Lerner, Jonathan Littell and Lydia Davis
Hm. Of those I've actually only read Davis's short stories (which I liked). I've never heard of any other those other authors. I just made note and I'll be sure to check them out. Im guessing you're European?

What about McCarthy? I'm going to assume for a minute that everyone on /lit/ accepts him as a writer of worthwhile literature. He's also very commercially successful.

In my mind such a synthesis of commercial success and literary acclaim is possible. And of course there's also the possibility of a book being such a perfect pulp novel that it will in time be remembered as literature (a la The Count of Monte Cristo).

My point is that it's possible to write for both, and moreover the mindset of blaming the customer for not liking the product is akin to a man blaming his wife for failing to reach orgasm.

Besides, haven't you heard? Obscurantian pomo is out. New Sincerity is what's in (apparently). And if a good novel written minimalist, sincere prose can't grab the public's attention, then I'll concede to your point.

>>5297697
>Lethem never got invited to hang out

According to him Donna Tartt and BEE both act like they don't know him, even though he comes out of the same Bennington scene.

I remember BEE tweeting something about Tartt emailing him and saying "it's been 20 years since we first met, don't you remember?" and he didn't. Kinda feelsy.

>>5297743
I literally just traveled across the U.S. using hostels and couch surfing (well not I but my friend did), it's possible but not if you're poor as fuck; I used around two and a half grand and I could have saved a lot more if I ate more wisely and didn't buy fake molly like 4 times.

It's not even like Kerouac and his fags were dirt broke, they worked until they could afford cars or gas and then worked in the cities they got stuck in.
The only thing different is the reluctance of people picking up hitchhikers and the impossibility of getting free gas (and that only happens like, what, twice in On the Road? haven't read it in awhile).

If you want it to happen it can just don't whine like a bitch in the meantime

>>5299436
>will live in their moms' basement

Well then they'll have one more thing in common with Kerouac.

>>5299572
>Unless, that is, it has something to do with to cock suckers taking it up that ass under contract.

I lol'd heartily.

I have to say, of all the social issues of our time, gay marriage (seems to me) the least important and the most ridiculously self-absorbed. I just don't care.

>>5297432
Your writing is more important than your pretentious image. If they had spent more time doing art, and less time fucking around, they would have produced stronger work.

>>5299801
>Dafoe
>wildly commercially successful

Dafoe was dinsolvent most of his career, spent most of it running away from the debt police.

>Mary Gaitskill

She's not shit, just very much of her time. Bad Behavior is a great little capsule of '80s writing. Dunno who the fuck those others are, they're probably shit and you're right.

>>5300410
>Rachel Kushner

No offense, but fuck her. The Flamethrowers was much longer than it needed to be with psuedo-philosophical desert musings.

>Ben Lerner
Especially fuck him. The only person worse is Rick Moody.

>>5300752
I was pointing out how this union of success and artistic value coincides with rare particular periods.

Besides that I'm European but I live in the US.

>My point is that it's possible to write for both, and moreover the mindset of blaming the customer for not liking the product is akin to a man blaming his wife for failing to reach orgasm.

I believe that until we don't start to criticize again the reader and not care about what they want we will produce only mediocre works.

Readers are mostly lazy, sentimental and not that well read. Their opinions are widely inconsequential (the permanence in posterity of an author depends largely on other writers that exalt his work or on influential critics championing them).
A writer, I believe, should not attempt to achieve success but basically stick to his aesthetic idea and cultivate it.

On new sincerity: most of new sincerity is a way to flatter the reader. The simple language, the lack of literary reference, the simple sentimentalism (the infinite sized for a poodle in schopenhauer's words), the constant flattering of the reader is what made new-sincerity successful.

Besides that though, if you want to make money you really have to go in ya.

what the hell is new sincerity someone give me book examples to read this nonsense already

>>5301151
Tao Lin

>>5300955
I agree on Kushner, but I still like her book. It was extremely well written, her attention to detail exquisite, and I liked the research and descriptions that went into the Italian situation (I'm Italian btw).
Also, as James Wood pointed out, I like Kushner because she pushes forward the flaubertian tradition of realism (which is the base for decadentism and symbolism).

But whatever one thinks of it, one has to admit that (1) is not a good book (2) it's not the same old slice of life where nothing happens as the previous poster complained (3) it has sold well but wasn't really a best seller.

>>5297432

what're you asking us for?

>>5299410
You managed to encapsulate a specific type of person and addressed them, indirectly, as scum. However, you didn't explain why you did so. May you do so now?

You claimed their works will be thrown to the corner, again, may you explain why you believe so?

>>5301324
>may you

i seriously hope you don't speak this way

>>5301463
In writing, why not?

except nobody actually did this ever. if anything they were a couple like Rimbaud and Verlaine

this stoner's romance where a bunch of losers run around disgracing themselves and still somehow writing monumental works is plain fiction. most brilliantly creative people are tightly regimented in their lives outside of whatever it is they produce.

grow the fuck up. this is nothing to aspire to. getting wasted with friends doesn't make you any less of a failure at life

>>5301581
Nothing makes you a success in life. Nothing makes you a failure.
Sometimes I really wonder whether you people truly believe this stuff or you just rehash it because it gives you an edge by which you castigate others.

>>5301581
Not everyone is a fucking wage slave like you faggot, some of us actually enjoy life and living out new experiences. If you seriously think the bohemian lifestyle is completely made up than you're under a serious delusion.

>>5301608

>wage slave
>why can't I hold all this straw man

some people don't need to be slaves or live like vagabonds. these people are called aristocrats, and they're better than you at just about everything

>>5297743

Dude there have always been gypsies and road dogs roaming America.

It's a hard life but it's just a fact that if you're not completely off your rocket and have a little common sense and maybe a dog you can go fucking anywhere you want.

It's a hard fucking lifestyle, it's not for people that can't defend themselves or can't push through being sick for weeks on end.

But that's what being free costs.

>>5301616
>these people are called aristocrats
These people are not you.

>>5301581
> he hasn't read Bolano
> he hasn't read Miller
> he hasn't read Diogenes
> he hasn't read Steinbeck

>>5301151
new sincerety is nonsense, we'll likely go into some sort of new romanticism instead. It's already started to a certain extent.

>>5301621

don't be so sure, turbofag

>ITT: it's everyone else's fault I don't have the balls to live the way I want to!

>>5301618
This.

You'll see more of the wandering bohemians around 2 am in a Wal-Mart parking lot than you will in the French Quarter.

If you see that skinny fucker James, with his glasses and his nasally accent, wandering around, tell him he owes me $10.

>>5301581
brainwashed yuppie detected

>>5301616

If a job doesn't provide a person with adequate means to advance themselves then working becomes an act of self preservation.

I.e. slavery

In america you can squat a house and even get electricity and water for free if you throw the owner through the proper legal bs.

There are rideshare groups and even free ride buses going back and forth across the country like FURTHER was back in the 60's right now.

Couchsurfing makes it so you can crash literally anywhere.

>but its dangerous
>what if I get raped
>what if I get sick
>what if I get addicted to drugs
>what if I become homeless and can never get back on my feet
>what if I get arrested and can never be hired anywhere ever again

These are questions all those cool dudes who wrote that book you like had to deal with.

If you can't deal with what it takes to live free, understand that, come to terms with it, and go get a real job, a nice girl and have some kids.

Being a lunatic wandering drug addict writer who offs himself at 60 isn't something that's easy to be. Especially when you're a pussy.

>>5297432
>yfw i have a small core of literary friends that hang out and travel together.
>yfw you have no face

>>5299369
your massive fedora is showing

>>5301622
>Steinbeck
Bohemianism and poverty are pretty different m8

>>5301625
Could you post this a second time? Not just using the image from /fa/?

In Australia, the most interesting writers are the ones who manage to not do this.

>>5299310
>traveling*
This parochialism.

>try "engaging in debaucherous behavior"
This horrible writing advice.

Yep, it's an American.

>>5301828

There are no interesting Australian writers.

Proto-magical realism with a dreamlike quality. Also something something fuck the military.

>>5297475
You sound super bitter, and are probably super dumb or anti-social if you can't find decent people to go do stuff with.

>>5297743
>>5299410

I just got back from a 6 week trip around the US, totally unplanned and cost me about $600. Couch-surfed, slept in campgrounds, stayed with friends, stayed with strangers. Got around with Greyhound, Mega-Bus, hitchhiking and sometimes just walking. You're dead wrong. It's uncomfortable and unsafe but still entirely possible and tons of people do it.

You are right about it being very romanticized. I had a good time, but sometimes it was fucking miserable. Never before was I so grateful for my upbringing and the fact I had a nice home and family to go back to. The kids out there doing it are mostly dumb. Not dumb like "naive" or "overly idealistic" (many of them are that too), dumb like, very unintelligent. Barely able to spell, dropped out of school, never went to school. Not everyone's like that, but most of the "Dirty Kids" you meet on the road are homeless and dumb and get by only with romanticizing their situation.

All of that said, I just bummed around for 6 weeks doing crazy stuff with my friends. Throughout the trip we were reading and writing and discussing, we were making and playing music. Myself and another friend write stories, one makes music and the other writes poetry and paints, and we all dabble in and contribute to each other's mediums and projects. I don't think we're exceptionally good at any of it, but that's not my point. If me and my friends do it, it's likely there's some others out there doing it.

>>5297505
you my dear sir, must be a faggot

>>5301876

Where do you start? Did you just pack a bag and head to the nearest on ramp?

Did you bring a computer or phone?

How/where did you sleep when you didn't have a place to stay?

Did you wash your clothes or yourself?

>>5297475

I know that feel, one of them was practically crying the other night when I told him I support Israel.

>>5297475
>the only ones who love literature are academic, jargon-spewing SJW faggots who use 'super' as a modifier for almost everything

FUCK! YES!

They only parrot what they've read too, and don't have an original thought themselves.

>>5297639

rekt

>>5297743
mate please read evasion you will realize you're completely false

>>5302047

Evasion is like ayn rand for young selfish liberal luddites.

>>5297475
Come live with me

lol you ugly super hipsters romanticising this dumb shit because it's different to what the other lesser hipsters do

tooop KOK

>>5297743
>living in the usofa
shiggy.webum

>>5302000
>Did you wash your clothes or yourself?

Yeah, with some effort it's not too hard. Pack shampoo and bars of soap and wash yourself when you get a chance (lakes and streams count as chances). Pack deodorant and toothbrush/toothpaste and use them every day. You will inevitably be dirty for a few days at a time, especially being outside and moving around so much, but if you try and keep yourself clean you'll never be truly filthy.

>>5302000
>Did you bring a computer or phone?

No computer, unless you count smartphones. Half of us had non-smartphones and the other half had smartphones, and we were depending on the smartphones much of the time for navigation. For that they are incredibly useful, and that's almost the only thing we used them for. But, crossing the country most of the time you're in rural areas, and especially out west that means no reception and no data, so we couldn't even use the navigation for long stretches.

>Where do you start? Did you just pack a bag and head to the nearest on ramp?

Hitchhiking is hard in the US. It takes a very long time for anybody to stop, so it's not a dependable way to get around. We learned this the hard way and ended up doing 40-50 mile days with heavy packs. Try it at some point, but be prepared to walk. I know people who've had more success than me, but I'm still kind of mad about just how bleak that method was.

Find cheap transportation somewhere far in whatever direction you're going. Best option is buses. They suck but they're cheap. If you can afford it, an Amtrak pass is a great option unless you're really set on totally bumming it. A 45 day Amtrak pass is like $900, which was way too much for me, but it gives you access to the entire country, you can choose where you want to go on a whim, and it's comfortable.

>How/where did you sleep when you didn't have a place to stay?

First of all, if you have friends/family anywhere in the direction you're headed, ask them if you can stay with them for some time. If not, put some money aside for motels. Try to rough it as much as possible to save money, but there will be a point where you just want a fucking bed and toilet.

When you're roughing it, you will be breaking the law most of the time. Most cities have "no-camping" laws that don't let you sleep anywhere on public property, and almost all the land in rural areas is privately owned/a park that charges you for camping there. There are exceptions. Some state parks have free camping for a few days. And it's always preferable to illegally sleep in a National or State Park over sleeping on private property, because it's far more believable that you didn't know you had to pay to camp in a park than it is you didn't know you weren't allowed to sleep on somebody's land.

We brought the cheapest 4 person tent we could find. During a bad rainstorm it leaked and our shit got soaked, that was unfortunate, but tents are expensive and if we had the chance again we'd probably buy the same one.

>>5302000
Ran out of space in this post >>5303234.

If you want to go for it, carve out some time and go for it. If all you can get is a week, that's fine. Probably better to start that way and figure some stuff out before you do longer trips. And there's no set way to do any of this, it all depends on what you and your friends are capable of and feel like doing, I'm just giving advice based on my experience.

One thing you do need: make sure you have a way out. Like an emergency fund to get a bus or plane ticket home. You do not want to get stuck on the road.

This kind of travel IS over-romanticized. Sometimes it really sucks, and you meet a lot of shitty people. I'm not trying to dissuade anyone. I love doing things like this and it's given me an unbelievable number of unique and unforgettable experiences and adventures. But at the end of the day, I don't like being dirty and hungry and am very grateful to have a place to go home to. The people in this thread saying that this sort of thing is impossible nowadays are wrong and it's really an odd thing to think considering people have been vagabonding for all of human history.

>>5303271
>But at the end of the day, I don't like being dirty and hungry and am very grateful to have a place to go home to
>>5303271

So you're basically the type of that poster talked about.

You're a trust fund kid pretending to slum for adventures, but you don't actually like it anyway.

>>5303271
You should write a book about your epic adventures and become famous like Tucker MAx

>>5303271
Would you do it alone? How would you adapt your advice for a solo trip?

>>5303340
Change your name to Kai and become a surfer

>>5303347
>tfw you wanna surf but aren't a white blonde hippie
and the sharks and jellyfish are pretty scary too

>>5303294

>You're a trust fund kid

No, I'm not, and that's a stupid thing to assume. Having a home and stable life to return to does not in any way equate to being a trust fund kid. I'm confused as to why that's what you would immediately assume.

>pretending to slum for adventures

What? I'm not slumming, and I'm definitely not pretending to slum. I'm traveling cheap and that means taking buses, walking and camping.

>but you don't actually like it anyway.

I said it's romanticized and sucks sometimes, and followed that by saying "I love doing this and have had many incredible experiences".

And let's say that you're right and I'm a rich brat who's going and playing poverty for fun. If I came out of it with a greater appreciation for what I had, what the fuck would be wrong with that? Wouldn't that be a good thing? What are you even criticizing?

>>5303340
I traveled alone for 2 weeks in western Canada, but that was a much shorter trip and was more planned out.

The biggest difference is safety. Rarely is somebody going to fuck with a group of fit young guys, but when you're alone you're an automatic target. Not that you should be untrustworthy, just more aware of your surroundings.

After that, loneliness. Traveling alone is, in some ways, better than group travel, because of the solitude and time to reflect. It feels like a personal journey. But sometimes it is unbearably lonely. Of course you can and should meet new people and make new friends, but the times in between are rough.

>>5303365

shut up phony.

>>5303423
im going to cry in a second

>>5303423
Autistic NEET kill yourself. Your life is a miserable joke and all you do is go out of your way to be the dumbest faggot alice. Just end it, you worthless fucking retard.

>>5303454
edgy :)

>>5297449
If your friends aren't smart, you should exam in yourself.

>>5297743
How can you live I'm the french quarter of you are poor. Property there is as expensive as uptown/garden district. it is like the most frequented area of the city by a lot

>>5301636

interesting

>>5300823

>
It's not even like Kerouac and his fags were dirt broke, they worked until they could afford cars or gas and then worked in the cities they got stuck in.

Yeah but they lived in the time of the 10cent burger.

Rent was like 5 bucks a week.

>>5299352
>all of that jargon to justify being a member of the herd

>>5303423

too legitimate to stop

Why would you have friends in 2014?

>>5297432
>writing some of the most influential works of your generation

Why do you all have this obsession of being a "voice of a generation"? Their works described damn near nobody of their age. A very specific people, that's it.

>>5297743
bitter resentment-filled faggot

>>5303234
most likely a liberal faggot

>>5305272
>most likely a liberal faggot

Not really, at least not the liberal part. How'd you get that from that post? I was just answering some guy's questions

>>5305286
because of the 600$ thing and walking and taking shit buses and being like these dirty-ass pot-reeking hitchhikers that just wander around being liberal and discussing how terrible monsanto is

>>5305244
But who is remembered from past generations? The outcasts, the haggard.

>>5305316
no lol their literature was shit and they'll only go down in history as faggots who did some drugs, misread Nietzsche and had no understanding of literature

they were loved by their generation and the ones that followed because they were exactly like this America upon which they'd strut and fret; without a culture, just a pile of shit

you like the beats because in the mirror of their vapidity you see the reflection of the shit that makes up the bones and skin you are made of

thanks

>>5305326
their prose was always shit and all they could've had to say was that they had nothing to say and that perhaps someone was waving a light at the end of the tunnel hence the eastern mystical bullshit that their works literally are littered with, if such a gutter may be considered as littered.

>>5304384
>Yeah but they lived in the time of the 10cent burger.
>Rent was like 5 bucks a week.


The baby boomers truly had the most ample of everything in their generation.

>>5305326

>you like the beats because in the mirror of their vapidity you see the reflection of the shit that makes up the bones and skin you are made of

All you do is go from board to board and rage and shitpost then you think that you can say shit like that without hypocrisy.

You are one big cry for help cunt.

>>5305305
Ok m8 now I understand completely, even though I suggested in my post that someone traveling, even very cheaply, should try their absolute best to stay clean, and that taking better transportation was easily preferable if you have the money for it, and even mentioned that the dirty kids who wander around their whole lives are mostly dumb and immature.

I guess I'm being pretty defensive about this so maybe you're a little right, but I'd rather be a dirty fag who does stuff than some bitter old shit saying adventure isn't possible anymore.

>>5305343
I don't know who he is, but he is absolutely spot-on about the Beats.

>>5305326
>>5305334

It doesn't matter, they're an irrefutable canon in American literature, generation, and culture.

>>5302013
jidf pls

>>5305353

Tallis has just been fucking up lately he used to be good tier now he tries to kick newreaders while they're down like a pathetic little fuckwit.

>>5305355
>they're an irrefutable canon in American literature, generation, and culture.

1) you can't say something is "irrefutable canon" when you're only a few decades removed from it.

2) what does it matter if something is "canon" if his criticisms are true?

>>5305244

Pat the Bunny will be the voice of our generation once he dies, mark my words.

>>5297697
The Rat Pack are too gud

>>5297432
Luls, me and my friends, one of them a filmmaker/painter, another a blues musician, and another an odd-one-out medical fag, and myself a writer, hung out in a nice little townhouse and dropped acid and then walked the city and then hung around the townhouse and then snuck out at night to travel all the way to the beach to watch the sunrise. And I took away beautiful imagery to record in my little writer's notebook as mere exercise. Nothing worth publishing, but the experience was the best part. Is that Bohemian enough?

Best vacation ever.

>>5306026
You think so? I fucking hope so, and I'd believe it. His album Live the Dream is the best account of modern addiction, depression and poverty I've ever experienced in any medium.

I met the guy last year at a show, we talked for like twenty minutes during intermission. Really nice guy, really genuine, but you know that's what everyone says when they meet musicians they like. Then this year, I was out on a trip all summer and my friend's at a Ramshackle Glory show. After the show, Pat comes over to my friend and says what's up and asks where I'm at. He remembered some random guys who were at his show a year ago. He asked how I was doing, my friend told him about my trip and he was genuinely excited and wished me luck.

Pat is the real deal, I wouldn't be too surprised if he was remembered as the most notable folk musician of the early 2000s.

>>5297432
>not a wife abusing, child rapist, gay boy, drunkard , heroin addicted, sufferer from prolapse anus, writing complete and utter tripe that edgy teens find exciting


Life is good.

>>5305326
>>5305326
>>5305326
>>5305326
>>5305326
This all fucking day.

Beats are shit.

>>5305355
>and culture

there is no American culture
zip
zero

that ended during Reconstruction.
The United States is in fact the death of Culture.

The actual thing that kills it. That wraps it up and makes it disappear. No.Culture.

>>5306046
No one cares unless you do that all the time, and even then that wouldn't be noteworthy.

Sounds fun, bit irrelevant to the thread though.

>>5306085
>>5305326
I don't see the use of the word "no culture" here having any real meaning.

Any land of course has artistic and intellectual product; the question is whether it is good or not.

If you are talking about refinement and virtue and education, well then that is a different word.

>>5306090
'Kay, well...
>Closest friends are all creatives of some sort
>Take a city-hopping road trip at the very least once a year
>Raise hell and run around periodically in our own city. Explore the weird.
>Get drunk and high and don't give a fuck
>Still maintain good standing reputations
>All do shit with our creative endeavors
More in line with the thread now, I hope.

>>5306101
The U.S. has zero culture.

None, zip, gone.

Nothing you say is going to change that.

>>5306085

Its really easy to be jaded on the internet.

It's another thing to be traveling see a group of 20 odd people 60 years and older playing hammer dulcimers outside of their church on a sunny day in bumfuck nowhere Ohio.

Just because you don't participate in anything doesn't mean everyone else isn't doing something meaningful.

Also, you can't have an unassailable opinion without credibility.

>>5306108
well that's factually false but you can keep saying it if you want to

>>5306108

[citation needed]

>>5306115
>>5306129
no culture

>>5306115
fucking children, writing about filth, killing your wife, and shooting up heroin is not meaningful. It's just a shitty fucking life. They even hated it. Absolutely hated it. Because they couldn't be anything other that the most vile shit produced in the States.

>>5306108
nice

>>5306103
neat

what cities do you visit mostly and what do you think about them?

>>5306108
>The U.S. has zero culture.
That's not true. Hell, even 4chan has a culture.

Unless you mean "culture" in some sort of Bourgeois sense, a la Bourdieu's Distinction. Even then that isn't true, but far more arguable.

>>5306133
The fact that you have to ask for a source means that you understand that there is no culture


how can there be evidence of something that is not there?

>>>/pol/

keep your retarded ignorant patriotic nationalistic horse shit in your cesspool, pig

>>5306142
you have no culture ;) bb

>>5306147
Nope.

>>5306155
That's right.

>>5297432
>tfw you're moving to NYC to live with your artist/intellectual friends
>tfw you're using money from your investments to fund it
>tfw you'll be living the bohemian lifestyle

Feels good, man. Leaving in two weeks.

>>5306146
Chicago. New York. Fucking awesome.
Paris, appropriately, for some of our group. Reportedly fucking awesome.
San Fran, Austin, and Atlanta, hip and totally rad.

>>5306159
Nope what? No you didn't mean culture in a bourgeois sense, or no the US, despite it being observably the opposite, has absolutely no culture?

>>5300932
Their art was a direct result of their fucking around, without it they would have produced nothing.

>>5306145

Drug addicts that haven't hit bottom yet don't know where bottom is until they read something like that.

You think that the first time the back of your eyes turn into TVS that you can't not look at and you spend 10 hours in the woods curled in a ball crying hysterically subjected to the most violent obscene mind noise your subconscious can conjure up, convinced you're the worst drug addict on the planet and all your friends hate you because your feet smell funny that that's rock bottom.

But its not. And sometimes, you need a reality check, and to know when to get help.

>>5306149

By providing a counter example.

If you don't know what culture is how can you say whether you have it or not?

>>5306165
ill be seeing ya around

>>5306168
I've been to Chicago but I didn't get to see the night life. How's division street?

where'd you sleep in those cities?

>>5306108

Tobias, did you run up a $900 internet bill?

>>5306196
Didn't hang at Division Street but the nightlife otherwise is awesome. Went there on weeknights and just wandered around and raised hell. Went there on a Friday night and there were people fucking everywhere. Barhopped until the early morning and I recall walking through downtown alone, despite the supposed high crime rate, and came out unscathed. Chicago is balls.

>>5306149
we're selling our culture for billions you dumb nigger. even our niggers are massively influential worldwide. get a job, loser.

>>5306213

#told