On The Road With Al and Ivy: Blog

"You call yourselves poets, write little short lines, I'm a poet, but I write lines paragraphs and pages and many pages long." - Jack Kerouac WOMEN AND CATS: PART 3 - QUEEN CLEOPAWTRA OF EGYPT Ancient Egyptian Civilization wasn't always a souvenir industry for museums and collectors. Some experts claim they were an advanced race who even played online video games with extraterrestrial beings, but the truth is more profound and thrilling. It is now known that the first Egyptian Pharaoh was a calico cat named Cleopawtra because of the groundbreaking work by Professor Ivy of Shitzu U, who discovered that the "Great Balls Of Fire that consumed The Library Of Alexandria," which purportedly destroyed much of the ancient knowledge of the time only affected ten percent of the library books and documents. The Furry Professor dug up like a bone the scintillating fact that 90% of the so-called lost documents were not in the Library at the time of the fire; 40% of the ...

"Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice." - H.L. Mencken (Prejudices, Third Series, 1922) One of the decisions about "The Quitters" was how “historical” it should be. To a certain extent, it has to be, as most of the scene described in the early chapters was centered on late 70s era Broadway Street in San Francisco (part of the North Beach section), no longer exists. The strip clubs, particularly the (in)famous Condor Club, are still on the corner of Columbus and Broadway, but muted and now are rather ritzy “Gentleman’s Clubs” which are a far cry from the sleazy dives (complete with Barkers) that extended in a line further down the street. Two landmarks are gone, victims of the times, gentrification and high rents. The first was Enrico’s, a famous coffee house and restaurant, and Finnochio’s, the bar that featured cross-dressing performers, both of which are mentioned in chapters for color and as part of the story. Gone also is the pinball par...

"add Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith,  Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love,  By name to come called charity, the soul  Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loathe To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess  A Paradise within thee, happier far.—" - Milton (Paradise Lost) I've spent a lot of my leisure time in used bookstores. One of the best was Berger's in Sunnyvale, California, back in the 80s. It was a dusty hole in the wall, owned by Thomas Berger, who spent his days reading classics and theological works, but would stop and ring up sales or handle trades as needed. I saw him use a vacuum cleaner a couple of times too. Like any good used bookstore, it reflected the owner's tastes, and in this case, it was the classics and history at very low prices. That was right up my alley, and my average stay was two hours, often more. My routine was to walk through the aisles and check the new arrivals, which were on the floor in boxes and bags until ...