Today is Jack Kerouac’s birthday. Tomorrow is mine. Well whaddaya know about that? Jack was something of a gateway drug for me. Through Jack I graduated to more exotic literary thrills. Much more like him in my youth than now, I would have to say the biggest of the many, many, many differences between he and I is my relative ability to keep the Piscean nature on a leash (which, perhaps, has disadvantaged me in as many ways as it has preserved me).

Let’s raise a toast to Jack and watch him noodle around with Steve Allen in 1959.