LIFE on your own terms? WANNABEAT by David Polonoff (Trouser Press)

WANNABEAT by David Polonoff (Trouser Press Books, June 13).  WANNABEAT's hero in late 1970's San Francisco, Philip Polarov, is on the "make" for women, money, and the elusive zeitgeist of inspiration--the authentic Beatnik poets of countercultural fame. He spots the occasional luminary at City Lights' bookstore (the historic poet's mecca founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti) and among the burnt-out denizens of North Beach cafes. Yet Philip is not a Beat groupie. He feels the true flame of  purpose and the sting of  Jacques Derrida's Deconstruction Theory ("the meaning of a work is unstable and could have multiple alternative meanings, so the meaning could easily be the center as it could be the margins..." ). 

Philip could be a player or not.  Desperately, he looks for an impetus to ignite his "stream of drivel" into the work of a  literary contender. Meantime his is the itinerant life of a wannabe artist, chasing down risky and/or tedious gigs and the next temporary bed--hopefully with a hot babe in it. He has an  encounter with gregory Corso, the legendary Beat poet. Excitedly he awaits wisdom, yet the legend is afflicted with incoherence.  Though the issue is not fallen idols, but that Philip has come late to the Beat's table.  

In 1973 in San Francisco's North Beach cafes, such as Vesuvios and L'Opera still hosted poets and musicians. Opera singers sang, hats were passed. At a San Francisco Art Institute party, one could meet Ferlinghetti in his top hat, declaiming on various topics. Yet the end of the countercultural revolution, begun with the Beats, is often dated 1969, when the Rolling Stones' Altamont concert became a violent melee.

For WANNABEAT's Philip, the late 1970s in San Francisco saw the rise of  "conspicuous consumption" and real estate, linked to the Baby Boomer's nascent computer industry. Philip, though sadly aware that the Beats had faded to cafe stops on tourist maps, was proud about his brilliant brother's early brush with computer fame. He laments with Ginsberg's "Howl" for his American generation, as well as the Haight's promise of free stores with clothes and furniture  free food, sex and drugs! Tasteful chic, canonized in Steve Jobs' Apple aesthetic, was the costly visual poetry of a newly materialistic society.

Though late to the party, Philip could envision Baby Beats like himself, reviving the vital art forms. Pursuing the "authentic" meant writing and discarding, reading and considering life. Details--a place to live, a survival job, love. As a dishwasher, he was infatuated with a cocaine-fuelled waitress. He once babysat in exchange for a bed, where the "baby" was a gorgeous, though hyperkinetic woman.  He also began to "make the scene." His heart might have been true Beat but his body was among the Punks. He was among the pogoing masses at Mabuhay Gardens. He flopped with bands of notorious reputation, and visited the "Human Statues" at the Hooker's Ball. Then, in a surprising turn, he conceptually addressed a well-paying progressive job, until his ruse collapsed.   

Improvising aside, there was also the reality of his brother's life-threatening illness, and his own irrelevance in a system he couldn't seem to join or resist. Yet the choice to engage was his own. He did finally write this saga with humor and insight. Time's a kind of filtering process and WANNABEAT's perspective is true.  For me, also the author of The Anarchist's Girlfriend (Pelekinesis)-NYC, late 70's 80s, truth is the essential target. 

I love the following reviewer quote from "road scholar"  Andre Codrescu: 

"This riveting book joins George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and Henry Miller's The Paris Year on the shelf of the timeless call of bohemia to fascinated young dreamers."Andrei Codrescu, author of The Stiffest of the Corpse (City Lights Books.)