Russell Brand on the Road

This programme contains strong language.

"The car went straight as an arrow, not for once deviating from the white line in the middle of the road

"that unwound, kissing our left front tyre."

50 years ago, Jack Kerouac wrote a book called On The Road.

The book is all about this bloke Jack Kerouac

and his crazy car-jacking conman mate Neal Cassady,

driving across America and getting into adventures

and doing stuff that I know a bit about like drugs and sex and living in the moment -

good stuff like that.

I read it when I was 19.

I was dead excited by the sort of the sense of magic in it and the sense of possibility.

So in homage to a book about two slacker friends cruising around,

I'm doing the same with my best pal and comedy soul mate, Matt Morgan.

There he is - look at his little face.

You know, we've had a few married-couple style arguments.

-Matt was driving along, all confident with his arm out of the bloody window.

-You fool!

-Driving along with the handbrake on!

-You don't understand the road.

I AM the road! I live the road!

Me and Matt are going to drive coast to coast from Atlantic to Pacific Ocean.

So we've got the book, a pickup truck,

and three weeks for as many Kerouacian encounters as we can pack in.

Do you want a lift?

See you, mate.

If Jack Kerouac was alive right, and we had to interview him,

would he go, "You're missing the point of the book!"

-You completely missed the point of the book, you bastards!

-You long-haired assholes!

I'm going to start my Kerouac journey here

in Lowell, Massachusetts, Jack's childhood home.

This feels like, and indeed is, small town America.

I can imagine why you'd have a wanderlust if you lived here.

It's very sort of quiet, isn't it?

-Quaint and dull.

-Yeah, that's right, I think it's small, and like the mentality of it...

I think people round here in the conservative '50s

would have been right browned off with some of Kerouac's explosive sex and drug-fuelled scribblings.

'But these days, the people of Lowell are quite proud of their most famous son.'

"A few cars zipped by, a hot rod kid came by with his scarf flying..."

Down at a local caf, as part of On The Road's 50th birthday party celebration,

fans are taking turns to read the whole book cover to cover in a 12-hour marathon session.

"..That's right man, now you're talking."

Matt and I have been asked to do a reading. And we arrived just in time

for a really nice saucy bit...

"Sex was the one and only important and holy thing in life.

"She sat there on the edge of the couch with her hands hanging in her lap

"and her smokey blue country eyes fixed in a wide stare."

Even though it was just a little caf, Matt got all stage frightened and wore make-up.

I don't want to do this.

"Finally, a car stopped at the empty filling station.

"The man and the two women in it wanted to study a map.

"I stepped right up and gestured in the rain. They consulted.

"I looked like a maniac, of course with my hair all wet, my shoes sopping..."

"So, folding back my comfortable home sheets for the last time one morning,

"I left with my canvas bag in which a few fundamental things were packed,

"and took off for the Pacific Ocean with fifty dollars in my pocket."

As well as being a spiritual quest,

Kerouac's book is full of sex and drugs -

stuff that would've made his neighbours feel all nervous and bilious.

So what made Jack Kerouac such a maverick thinker?

I'm here to chat to his brother-in-law, John Sampas -

NOT Pete Sampras the tennis player, which is what my silly brain kept making me think.

What do you know about him - you thought he was a tennis player?!

He won Wimbledon, he has a lot of body hair, he has tight, curly hair.

Right, this is what I want to get out of old John Sampas.

One - signed racket, two...

And if I imply that he is a tennis player...

-I'll butt in.

-Butt right in.

John, I'm Russell.

Oh, nice to meet you, Russell.

The situation was exacerbated by an unnecessarily large giant tennis ball just lying about in his house!

To have balls this big, what a game they must have played.

Exactly.

John, he were a bit obsessed with his freedom

weren't he, and his celebration of life and living in the moment - what do you think about all that?

I can understand it. I can relate to it, I grew up in a small town.

There's something a little bit frightening about embracing the unknown.

-I don't think the young people feel that way.

-I'm fucking young!

-You think so?

-I hope so, mate, cos what else have I got?

John, I'm interested in how he related to women, you know...

What the hell's this?! What do you mean, love list?

Love list - Edie, 100, New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Ontario!

Jeanie, 25, Washington! Is this his list of scores?

Yes!

What's the score out of?

Because like look she gets 20, she gets 100!

What the hell is she doing?

That's his first wife Edie, Edie Parker.

-She's getting 100 points, Edie Parker?

-100 points, a hundred lays.

Ah, so you think this is times?

This is approximate, I would imagine.

100 lays - ah, so this is points not times, it's not, she did bumming - full marks.

-No.

-This says Spanish Communism?

Spanish Communism,

he's having sex with abstract concepts!

Democracy!

God, that was a hell of a night! It was very fair, we decided.

John Sampas. What a night that was!

300!

Give us a cuddle. Thanks very much.

I wanna come back at the end of it with a lovely list of women's names, all scored in.

Imagine trying to compile your list!

Cos you wouldn't know the names of some of the girls.

You'd have to just put - "that bird at the bus stop."

"That woman with no toe and hairy shins."

THEY LAUGH

Kerouac's youthful wanderlust took him away from here.

For years, he roamed the country like an hobo, often penniless and starving.

But in the end, he never escaped Lowell.

We're hitching a lift in a classic Hudson car, like the one featured in On The Road.

What the hell is that?

Kerouac's grave is littered with bottles of ketchup and crackers.

Ritz Crackers, Rice Krispie treats,

peanut butter and milk chug.

A fat man's picnic.

Is there anything Catholic that you want to do?

While I do something secular? You might want to cross yourself?

I'll cross myself then.

And I might want to do my world famous moon walk!

What way's his body lying?

This way? Well, you've just danced on his grave.

Oh, no!

-You can't be serious.

-No, I can't be serious.

I am the living embodiment of John McEnroe's perpetual courtside lament. I cannot be serious.

-Actually, I want that.

-You could have that, well no, that's stealing from a grave.

It is grave-robbing in a way. I think Kerouac would have nicked it.

That is stealing.

You haven't bought it, and that's clearly not a shop.

Yeah, but the thing about the book, right, they liked nicking things.

-Not from graves.

-We'll read a passage of this as our tribute,

even though the tribute of being in the moment is very much...

In the spirit, what he would have wanted, yeah, I've heard it.

Hold on, let's let destiny decide...

"Finally, I took a walk alone to the levy.

"I wanted to sit on the muddy bank and dig the Mississippi river.

"And a Montana log rolls by in the big black river of the night.

"Take nothing but bureaucracy and unions, ESPECIALLY unions.

"The dark laughter would come again."

Dark laughter would come again. And here we bloody well are!

It's time for us to hit the road like an angry pope.

Lowell, you couldn't hold Kerouac and you certainly can't hold me.

MUSIC: "Steady As She Goes" by The Raconteurs

-# Steady as she goes

-# Steady as she goes

-# Steady as she goes

-# Steady as she goes... #

Just like Jack, we're feeling the magnetic pull of New York City.

Now, somewhere out here, Kerouac reckoned he'd uncover a kind of spiritual enlightenment,

or as he called it...

"it".

It could be boiled down to finding the truth within yourself.

Cos it is about being in the moment.

You can't go, I went on this journey once and I found inner peace, which was hilarious,

once that bloke calls goes, "OK, mate, I've got the secrets of inner peace, actually."

He goes, "Have ya?" He goes, "Yeah, I've got them written down somewhere on a bit of paper. Hold on.

I can hear him looking around... I go, "Fuck, I've lost it."

Kerouac's favourite companion on the road was his best mate,

the rebellious self-confessed fastest man alive, Neal Cassady, who was like a brother to him.

I believe it was Plato that said there is no friendship more beautiful than that between two men.

Me and Matt's relationship is a bit more complicated.

It's not a love-hate relationship It's a like-hate relationship.

When I first met him I didn't really like him!

I thought he was a bit of a show-off.

My relationship with Matt is kind of like, I have this sort of...

It's like a coupling, but it's unconsummated.

-I know what you mean.

-Quite rightly unconsummated.

Kerouac was the shyer of the two men and he was bewitched by the mercurial Cassady.

When Kerouac wrote On The Road, he thinly disguised Cassady

by calling him Dean Moriarty - the hero of the book.

In the book, Jack Kerouac talks about women a lot, but his main focus of his love is Neal Cassady.

What are you saying?

Matt is...

-I mean, he adores me!

-It's very sweet.

He's basically come on this trip just to ogle me

and watch my behind wiggle across the States.

He's funny, and sensing the humour in everything I think is powerful,

because I think ultimately it's about death

and the acknowledgement that nothing matters. That it's stupid.

New York, New York -

a city that had a defining effect on Jack Kerouac, where he became hooked on the soundtrack of his era.

Kerouac said he wanted to write like jazz musicians played -

with a sense of spontaneous and free-flowing expression.

And here in New York, Matt and I have to perform

our own unhinged, unrehearsed babbling stream of consciousness, our weekly Radio 2 show.

-RADIO ADVERT:

-'Online, on digital - BBC Radio 2.

'Russell Brand.'

You're listening to Russell Brand live on Radio 2 from New York.

One day, ages ago, a man wrote this novel about searching for spiritual freedom

in the great wide open landscapes of America.

50 years later I have to share a room with Matt Morgan!

So, if you are a writer, please think about the consequences of your work.

After watching him sleeping in his little tiny white toddler pants.

They're not toddler pants, they're MY pants.

I've not got them off a toddler. I don't know how that exchange would ever take place.

I'll give you this ice-cream... There's no way you could do that today.

Even it was, "I simply want the pants,"

there's not court in the land that would go, "Clearly, he just wanted the pants." It would look bad.

Me and Matt are staying at the famous Chelsea Hotel.

We have been sleeping together in the same bedroom like a later day sort of punk Steptoe and Son, yeah,

it's not like Morecambe and Wise, cos Morecambe and Wise get on.

Quite frankly, it's a dump!

We went to see Jack Kerouac's grave, right, and on Jack Kerouac's grave, peanut butter, a Rice Krispie square

and some Ritz Crackers, other crackers are available.

Peanut butter - you don't need that in the afterlife.

I mean, you can't turn up at the gates of heaven to St Peter and say you know, "This might help sway you.

"Crunchy or smooth, lemme in, crunchy or smooth?!"

I'm here looking for the spirit of Kerouac's America.

Jack loved the excitement and madness of '50s New York.

The closest I can get to that vibe these days is here in Greenwich Village, where the Howl festival

is celebrating the writers and poets of Kerouac's beat generation.

I'm going right

Straight

The black tar roads

The curves among the mournful rivers

like Sasquhana More mambo jambo...

I'm meant to be reading one of Kerouac's poems to this lot of crazy lovable beatniks chaps.

But they take their poetry dead seriously in these parts

and I'm a bit worried that I'm gonna have to play it straight.

This is a small gig, you've got a clear thing to do - read that poem.

I've got to read this fucking poem, Bowery Blues, and when I do the fuckin' poem, I'll laugh.

And I see shadows dancing into doom in love,

holding tight the lovely arses of the little girls...

How am I gonna get through that on stage?

I reckon what should happen is, you'll get to "arses",

and you'll think, " I'm doing the rude bit and I'm not laughing."

Also, to make matters worse, I'll be backed by one-man jazz band David Amram.

HE SCATS

Amram was a good mate of Kerouac's, and in a moment of '50s madness,

he and Jack invented the barmy hybrid, jazz poetry.

In the interests of good taste, and brevity at Bowery Poetry club,

improvisatory good times, don't you see...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Jazz is about setting the crooked path straight, as they say in the Bible.

-Do you reckon he done that with his writing, Kerouac?

-Every second.

-Do you reckon?

He was spontaneous but he came from a disciplined background so he combined formality AND spontaneity.

I'm reading a poem tonight, how am I going to capture the spirit of things, I'm scared?

You just do whatever's in your heart and I'll be listening like a hawk

and I'll follow you and it'll be perfect.

Amram, hawks are deaf!

Oh, I'm as angry as a fox, I'm as stubborn as a bucket.

..always be together, I guess.

Across the night...

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

I ain't never been on stage before with all you musicians.

What, I'll read a poem while you'll do some racket in the background?

Alas, I'm not a drug addict any more, so this is strikingly real.

-Were I still able...

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS

I'm not observing this through a veil of opiates.

So, five years, one at a time etc.

Christ!

I'll just be shorter.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

Bowery Blues, by Jack Kerouac.

For no church told me,

no guru holds me,

no advice, just stone of New York,

and on the cafeteria, we hear...the saxophone...

And I see shadows, dancing into doom

In love, holding tight the lovely arses

of the little girls, in love with sex,

Showing themselves in white undergarments,

at elevated windows

Hoping for the worst.

Stop.

Kerouac, Jack.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

On The Road made Kerouac famous, but it was seven agonizing years after he wrote it before it was published.

-BUZZER SOUNDS

-# Jingle all the way... #

Sorry.

'I know how I felt when I finally achieved notoriety.'

Hello, Joyce Johnson.

'But unlike me, Kerouac was a shy sort of a bloke and I wonder how he coped with it.

'Joyce Johnson was his girlfriend at the time and was with him'

at that very moment he read the first review.

We've got that newspaper.

-Oh, fantastic!

-Yes, so where is it?

Ah-ha!

Ah-ha! Books of the times.

"On The Road is the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet

"made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as "beat".

-On The Road is a major novel.

-Good review, innit?

-Yes, very good review.

As well as being glowing, it's accurate, so you sat with him when the first time that he saw that?

-His response was peculiarly flat - it was, "It's good, isn't it?"

-Right.

After that review, he was suddenly, overnight, everyone wanted to know about him

and the idea of the beat generation got spread far and wide.

Everybody responded to this sort of, er, you know, "youth quake"

"everything for kicks" idea.

So they got that bit. What didn't they get?

They didn't get the bit that the book had a whole sort of spiritual dimension.

You know Jacks real intention behind the novel got lost.

Rather beautiful and respectful idea was lost cos,

-"Oh, my God everyone is smoking joints and having it off!"

-Exactly.

You know, the Jack figure in On The Road, he was actually on a quest for God.

"Everything is fine.

"God exists. We know time. God exists without qualms.

"As we roll alone this way I'm positive beyond doubt

"that everything will be taken care of for us.

"That even you as you drive fearful of the wheel,

"the thing will go along of itself and you won't go off the road.

"And I can sleep."

I wonder if the spirit of On The Road can ever be recaptured in a movement,

a rebellious, revolutionary movement that will return people to those kind of values.

Do you think it's possible? Do you think it's gone too far?

Younger people ask me that and I would like to think that can happen

but people will have to do that on their own terms.

Do you know what? It's making me feel un-cynical,

that I'm fucking going to do something.

It makes me even more cynical, cos I just think...

Don't be cynical. That's another part of our relationship.

-I'm the optimist. I believe in revolution.

-I think you're deluded.

I believe that we could found a new society,

founded upon spiritual principles.

-Look at all this, you'd have to change all this!

-But this happened,

and this was nothing, so it's happened once already.

If you'd lived in 1940,

you would have said it's impossible for black people ever to have emancipation.

It was impossible, but it happened.

If everyone realised there was a possibility for oneness,

then you wouldn't need anything.

They're gonna feel, what?

So, I lose my telly, I lose my safety, I lose my health insurance,

I lose the fact that I've got my kids at school round the corner.

All these things, you're asking to risk all the safety

for a spiritual change that they don't even know that they need.

I'd love you to do this,

I'd love to see you risk all that stuff that you've carved out...

Yeah, cos none of them means anything,

-and none of it is making me happy. I'm stood here, unhappy.

-I know.

Say someone that is brilliantly successful, like Paul Newman,

-has his own mayonnaise...

-Paul Newman has his own vinaigrette.

It's a delicious vinaigrette.

No-one's attacking the vinaigrette,

but I'm just saying we can do something better, even,

than that vinaigrette. I don't know, just a relish or something.

Joyce Johnson, Kerouac's ex, believes that a lot of people got her fella wrong,

and I'm with her on that.

Kerouac's book is about much more than people getting bombed on drugs

and sleeping with whoever they want, although they ARE good bits.

Really it was a book about questing after spirituality,

and it was quite a traditional book,

and it was condemned as being a modern, anti-establishment piece of literature.

After that, it became viewed as like,

"Oh, wow, it's like a manual for the beat generation, a counter-cultural guide."

So we've left the eastern seaboard behind,

and we're heading into the vast body of America.

There's 3,000 miles of road in front of us,

and God knows what sort of extraordinary, life-changing revelations we'll find.

"Jesus is real!" At the same time, it says, "Buy McDonald's."

"Jesus is Real!" The commodification of everything.

"If you die today, where would you spend eternity?"

I don't fucking know, it's a pretty powerful question to ask...

That's the sort of thing that's going to make someone crash.

"If you die today... "

Time now to pay respects to our beloved sacred parchment.

The original manuscript of Kerouac's novel has been on the road itself,

touring the country.

Kerouac spent seven years mulling over this book,

but he bashed it out in a three-week non-stop splurge of creativity,

fuelled by caffeine,

on this single enormous roll of paper.

It's like a road. It's a big long road.

The scroll is 120 feet long. We have 36 feet on exhibit.

It's very, very thin tracing paper.

And what we wanted to show was at the very end, where the dog ate the scroll.

He was showing the scroll to his friends, left it on the table,

and the dog started chewing the back of the scroll.

Do you think a dog really ate it, or he was meant to have finished it,

and he said, "Aw, a dog ate the scroll," as an excuse?

Wouldn't it be bad if I had really convinced you to let me touch it,

I begged you and you went, "All right, I will let you",

and then it got all tangled up on us,

and we ended up all wrapped up like mummies in it.

-And if I was crying...

-There would be a lot of unhappy people.

Whilst the scroll is on display to the public,

it's actually the private property of Jim Irsay,

the multi-millionaire eccentric owner of the Indianapolis Colts,

the reigning Superbowl champions.

-It cost tycoon Jim a ludicrous 2.4 million dollarinos.

-65, 66!

I don't like to do anything that makes you sweat if you don't come at the end of it.

-Where is Jim? Shall I wait for him?

-Yeah, I would say just wait here.

-Just wait here?

-He'll be here...

We've been asked to wait in the office of Superbowl-winning head coach Tony Dungy.

I dare you to pick up the phone.

-Yeah?

-Find the number for tactics, and give them some new tactics.

Walston.

I'll put it on loudspeaker.

-Hello, Walston.

-'Are you there?'

-Yes, I'm here. This is Tony Dungy.

-'I'm with ya.'

We gotta make some changes.

Now, from now on, all line backers are going to be wearing ballet shoes,

it's gonna make 'em nimble on their feet, they're gonna be super-fast.

-Are you with me? If you're not with me, you're against me!

-'I'm with you!'

-Where's John Cleese?

-Uh-oh!

Where is John Cleese? I heard he might be here!

Jim, what a joy to meet you.

You are rich and successful, an example of the American dream.

Do you not think that it's bizarre that that scroll is owned by you,

a dead rich powerful man, when a lot of it is about...

the term "beat" itself is about people that are down and out?

Not really, because, you know, I'm a peasant by nature.

I believe no-one has it made,

and I believe that we're all on a spiritual ground equally,

you know, no more, no less.

But you're a man with considerable power, owner of a football team,

incredible wealth and influence, and also, you have that awareness,

I wouldn't expect, through my own prejudicial views,

to meet a man in your position and for you to talk about spirituality.

When you're put in a position where you have everything,

it's awfully hard to be happy if you're not spiritual,

because you realise everything is really nothing.

We live these mundane lives, and life kind of churns along,

but we're looking for the magic.

You know, to me, On The Road,

it's just that tale that will always be there, of youth,

and pursuing, you know, the passions of your life.

So, OK, how come you bought that scroll, then?

Basically, I always say the scroll found me.

It's just like when I got the scroll - who is this guy?

What's he gonna do? Is he gonna lock it away?

But instead, I've spent a lot of money putting it on the road,

building a case for it, having people care for it,

and getting it all round the world,

but eventually it will be buried somewhere,

and then there will be clues sent around.

You're gonna do an Easter Egg hunt with it.

Possibly so. We would have to have some rules tied to it,

where the person could only keep it for a year.

You're really thinking about doing that Easter Egg hunt!

Definitely, I mean definitely.

You're an amazing man, it's very interesting to talk to you.

-Thanks, man.

-Cheers!

-Off the walls! I'm having that, for a kick-off!

-All right, man.

They won't need that. It's making the place look untidy.

Put it back, mate.

Myra, Jim said I was allowed to have this, so, er...

Where are the cheerleaders kept?

They're probably hungry.

He's gonna get that scroll and bury it somewhere

and then have a big Easter Egg hunt,

and whoever finds it can have it?

What if no-one finds it? That's irresponsible!

God bless you, Jack Kerouac!

It's no use to them, they're dead and gone,

it's what Kerouac would have wanted.

Our next stop is Kansas City,

but first, our route takes us over America's legendary Mississippi River. M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I!

Here we are, in Huckleberry Finn country.

-Will you do your wee?

-I will, I'll try.

Nervously and tentatively, before micturition begins.

There's loads of grasshopper things, big grasshoppers like this.

It's actually quite remarkable to see him in his natural environment like this.

-Did you do a wee?

-No, cos there are grasshoppers in there.

Cos of grasshoppers!

Oh, Jesus!

Look at him, he's like Goldilocks!

We're nearly halfway through our journey,

so there's a little bit of time for skylarking and high jinks

in Kansas City.

# I'm crazy 'bout my baby...#

Turning to our road trip bible for inspiration,

words from Dean Moriarty show us the way.

"We bounced in our seats,

"and "Dig her!" yelled Dean, pointing at another woman.

"Oh, I love, love, love, women. I think woman are wonderful."

"Great beads of sweat fell from his forehead from pure excitement and exhaustion."

SHE SCATS

Russell's desire for women,

and the way Dean goes, "Women, women, I love women!"

Russell says that. Yeah, he's similar to Dean in that way.

You won't, I don't think, one day, Kat,

when you're no longer young and beautiful...

I will always be young and beautiful!

My mom is a plastic surgeon, so I'll always be young and beautiful.

I'm consumed by desire,

in such a furious passion that I think it will destroy me.

Are you going to do some comedy now?

-Yeah.

-OK, tell me a joke.

Yeah, I'm sort of busy now, doing this.

The male libido is like being chained to a madman.

-Look around at the world. It seems tedious.

-What do you mean, tedious?

I'm the host. Look, I've been left alone.

Just texting England.

# I like the simple life...#

Thank you very much.

I do worry about him.

I've suggested some sort of chemical castration.

Kerouac and Neal,

they thought they had to have a wife, kids and a family home,

cos that's what the social pressure on them was,

but they knew that they couldn't do that.

I think you struggle to stay with the woman,

do you know what I mean, in a family set-up,

if you don't mind me saying that.

I think that I'm not gonna be happy

until I stop trying to be really famous.

I sort of feel like I need to get to a point where I dedicate my life

to something that I know is truthful.

# When rooster crows at the break of dawn

# Look out your window and I'll be gone

# You're the reason I'm a-travelling on

# But don't think twice, it's all right. #

We're clearing right off out of Kansas and heading for Denver,

entering the infamous west of America.

Kerouac didn't just hang around with New York beat poets.

He set out to see the whole of the country,

and got a kick out of meeting the old cowboy characters of the West.

"By God, the first cowboy I saw,

"walking along the bleak walls of the wholesale meat warehouses

"with a great big ten gallon hat on and Texas boots,

"looking like any beat character of the brick wall dawn of the East,

"except for the get-up."

"I heard a great laugh, the greatest laugh in the world,

"and here came the rawhide old-timer Nebraska farmer.

"I said to myself, "Wham! Listen to that man laugh. That's the West!"

Its time to cowboy up.

-Jim, lovely to meet you, this is Matt Morgan.

-Hello, Jim, I'm Matt.

In the book On The Road,

they're always looking for the real America,

and trying to find God in that landscape.

There is a sense of heaven, there is a sense of "This is it."

Do you think that's why people that live out east are compelled to come west?

When you get out here and the horizons,

you almost feel like you are going to fall off, out into that nothingness,

it just goes on and on, and that can be frightening to some people.

-Hello.

-Hey, how's it going?

-Really well.

Great Johnny Bingo.

-Johnny Bingo?

-Yeah.

-I'm Russell.

How can I put that on my fucking head? It's all wet!

-It's not wet in the inside.

-It is, it's disgusting.

-Smell my head.

-Oh, Christ, what's wrong with you?

Here don't try to get the price up now, I know what you're doing.

You just dragged it out of your attic, sprayed it down with water, and then tried to flog it.

We're not tourists, we're genuine cowboys!

I can tell by your outfit you're real cowboys.

Have you ever heard of a book by Jack Kerouac called On The Road?

Yeah, he was way ahead of his time.

Where do a couple of guys like us pick up women in this crazy two horse town?

I've been here ten years, and I still can't tell you!

That's pretty amazing.

That's the most amazing vista we've come across.

The rooftop of America, that's what they call that bit.

I think I need another wee.

-I could try and do one...

-..out the window.

Oh, Jesus Christ, that ain't gonna work.

-I think I can do it.

-That's gonna go down the car.

-Russell, don't fall out.

-Arghhh!

-What?

What if I did it out of that?

No, don't go out there, honestly.

Russell. No. Fucking idiot.

I'm out here, Matt. It's a world of wonder.

Right, hold on to the car inside,

and do a piss on the truck, you bloody idiot.

Disgusting looking stuff.

This is Denver. Part of On The Road was set here,

and it's the home town of that mischievous sex-mad lunatic

Neal Cassady aka Dean Moriarty.

There's a famous quote in this book, perhaps the most famous quote,

I love it, where Kerouac describes people like Cassady.

"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 centrelight pop, and everybody goes "Ah!"

In fact, it was Neal Cassady, not Kerouac,

who became one of my early heroes,

along with the likes of Oscar Wilde, Morrissey and, oddly, Alan Bennett.

Kerouac recorded an artefact of beauty,

and Neal Cassady, momentarily, unselfconsciously, was it.

Lived it.

It were thrilling to me, people that live like that,

that jitter and twitch their way through an excitable life.

We're over halfway now,

and it strikes me that we've not yet met the right sort of people.

When Kerouac was on the road, he was often impoverished, brassic,

not hanging around with millionaires and tennis players like we've been.

Kerouac thought hoboes, hustlers and the homeless

had a great insight into life,

and I relate to that idea a bit.

I remember when preachers get on the tube,

and start ranting and raving from the Bible,

I was quite into them, and I was listening to this person preaching,

and the woman opposite me looked at me and rolled her eyes.

I thought, "I've got more in common with him than I have you".

I think they're all right, I'm into them coming on a train preaching.

Hello! He's Matt, I'm Russell, hello.

-I'm Debbie.

-Hi, Debbie.

This is my husband, Jack.

You're married, that's good, that must make it a bit easier.

-The sex is good!

-Yeah, I guess there's a certain romance to that.

Fucking hell!

-See, I was born like that.

-Really?

There's this book, it's called On the Road.

In this book, Jack Kerouac often romanticises homeless people that he meets,

i.e. if you ain't got nothing, you're closer to God,

-cos you're not living in a material world.

-Right.

That is probably easier to say if, like me, you have got a house.

If you're a cripple, you have nothing. We're richer than the rich.

That's what it means.

We're richer than anybody on Earth. We have God on our side.

We have people that love us out here, we stick together!

We all stick together out here.

We stick together, we fight together, we get drunk together.

We're people, not animals.

I appreciate that.

I love his hair, he's a fine fox.

-Do you think I'm a fine fox?

-Yes, I do.

-What is your name?

-My name is Sandra.

Lovely to meet you, Sandra.

Hey, you've got a very beautiful face.

-Let's get you more money.

-I'm 60.

-You're 60?

-Delicious money.

-Money!

Thank you. God be with all of you.

DON'T WASTE IT ON DRUGS!

Does anyone want this book?

-Yeah.

-Read it.

-Thanks.

Careful of that.

See you, mate!

Sandra, stop being passionate!

-I'm the guy that handles this corner for the city of Denver.

-Oh, yeah?

And I'm really happy but she does crack and you're supporting the crack addicts, OK?

-Yeah, but people are crack addicts, they're crack addicts!

-I'm the man, OK?

-Well, you're A man.

-No, I'm THE man!

-Stay out of my corner, just go back to England, OK?

-Don't be so aggressive.

You don't know nothing about us? What do you think...?

I ain't just appeared. I've lived a life.

No shit? You're not making it easier for them.

If they get through today, it makes it easier.

Take it easy, peace, good luck. See youse.

It makes me angry, his righteousness.

He goes, "This is my corner, I run this corner."

It's going well, everyone's fucking homeless!

Get some flowers in, mate.

That big oaf social worker from the council spoke to me like I had no idea about drugs and alcohol.

But I do have an idea because I used to be on them all day long, every day.

Thankfully, I got my addictions under control

and have never endured anything as extreme as being poor and homeless

and having a big oaf social worker who can't run his corner properly.

Well, the reason I stopped taking drugs was lack of alternative, really.

I got sacked from all of my work cos I was unable to function and sustain my life.

I just thought he was going to die because on heroin...

And his eyes would just roll up to white and he'd, like, stop talking,

fall asleep in the middle of a sentence.

I didn't think there were options up until then,

I thought, "How else are you gonna get through life? Why wouldn't you take drugs?"

It just seemed like it wasn't like a decision to take drugs, it was just an absence of an alternative.

Now, I'm as sharp as a thistle and clean as a whistle but I have to observe certain rituals.

How was AA?

AA, you say?

As we've gone across America he's been to AA in different cities

and I think it brings him back down to earth.

He's sat in that room, he's not a celebrity, he's no better than anyone else there.

Yeah, you do get to see beneath the surface, I suppose.

It's absurd that I'm listening to this bloke from Salt Lake City telling...

You must get to know the place you're in so much better than you would or on a different level.

He finds it massively useful. I take the piss out of him and call it Moaners' Club,

and when he shares, I can imagine he sort of stands up

and performs and does a sort of bit of stand-up and everyone claps.

I've been stuck in a car with that sarcastic nit for days now

so it feels good to get out of the motor and into the radio station.

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

'Online on digital.

'Russell Brand.'

We just met a whole load of homeless chums hanging out in Denver, right.

Them homeless, they was nice blokes and birds

but what I like most was that old black lady, I liked the way that she got all passionate.

She'd go, "Oh, my God, we got each other, we got each other but man, what is wrong with people today?!"

See, we're all sitting together out here.

And we dished out a load of money like Willy Wonkas, it was really good fun actually, that bit.

Patronising, but what you gonna do, give them money or not give them money?

I'm sure they'd rather have the money.

Then this bloke leaned in the window, sort of craned in, and goes, "This is my corner!

"You've given them money, they'll buy crack".

-She does crack.

-Who does?

-And you're supporting the crack addicts, OK?

"You haven't helped them, you've made them take drugs".

Well, they needed drugs anyway, they're living in the bloody streets.

We've been driving for ages now and it's a miracle we're still alive with Matt's treacherous driving.

My driving's got us across America.

Once I drove for about seven hours straight, then eight hours straight.

-How long have you driven?

-I can't drive!

So you just sit there. Right, Russell is in charge of air conditioning and iPod.

Yep, always nice and cool in that car!

It's like I'm driving a tit around, that's what I am, a tit delivery man!

God bless you, Caddyshack!

Hello, what town are we in today? Here's your tit.

1,600 miles have been traversed.

The rest of our journey will take us across the vast salt flats of Utah,

through the deserts of Nevada and into California.

Ultimately, though, we're heading to San Francisco.

"We sat tight and bent our minds to the goal.

"As we crossed the Colorado-Utah border,

"I saw God in the sky in the form of huge sunburning clouds

"above the desert that seemed to say to me the day of wrath will come."

I feel a bit cocooned in the old jalopy.

Kerouac in his time used to hitchhike a lot, we're not allowed to because of the law.

But we can sure as hell pick up hitchhikers from the side of the road.

'A pair of lovable twits.'

Hi, do you want a lift?

-I'm Derek.

-All right, mate, I'm Russell from London.

Are you aware of Jack Kerouac?

-He wrote a book called On The Road.

-Yeah.

It's about people travelling across America and discovering America.

-Cool!

-Why are you hitchhiking?

-You see things hitchhiking that you won't ever see any other way.

-Really?

A couple of Vietnam vets picked us up last night and took us out partying.

Hey, Corey!

# One sunny morning

# We'll rise, I know... #

-Where are you from?

-Raised in Texas.

# And I'll meet you further on Up the road. #

-I left home when I was 14 and started travelling with the carnival.

-Really?

On the road ever since.

To be honest, if I knew what I was looking for I'd be headed right for it but...

-Why do you keep travelling?

-I just can't seem to settle down yet.

Have you never wanted to get married, settle down, have a family?

-Actually I've been married twice. I have six kids.

-Jesus Christ!

'Ah, to be young, free and single. The carefree life of a man with two wives and six kids there.'

That's where we're getting off at.

-Take care. Ta-ta now.

-We will.

Off they go, look, travelling the road and irresponsibly siring children.

# Now I've been out in the desert Just doing my time

# Searching through the dust

# Looking for a sign

# If there's a light up ahead

# Well, brother, I don't know

# But I got this fever burning in my soul... #

-Looks like the Holy Land.

-It does. This is fucking berserk landscape.

Yeah, this is salt, isn't it?

-Fucking hell.

-It is pretty biblical.

No wonder they started up getting all Mormon about everything.

I think somehow inherent within travelling large geographical distances

is the idea of spiritual progression.

If you travel a long way, it is kind of conducive to reflection.

I suppose because of the obvious metaphor of, "We're born, we die."

And it's difficult not to reflect on that journey.

There have been times on this incredible journey

where the beauty of the landscape and the joy of new people

has been transcendental in its potency.

I've never been anywhere like this.

-No, me neither.

-It's like driving on the sea.

And here, fleetingly, in this bizarre scenery,

I think I can feel a bit of the sense of spiritual bliss

that Kerouac was always harping on about.

This is about the amount of salt that I take with everything you say.

RUSSELL LAUGHS

Listen, your voice echoes.

Woo! I struggle with intimacy!

I'm addicted to fame!

This is the perfect place to learn to drive.

You should have a go at driving cos it's easy.

What possibly could go wrong in this lovely salt space-scape?

Beep beep! To Toad Hall!

Don't do any hard braking. Don't do that, Jesus Christ!

You're turning too tight, mate, you're turning too tight! Fucking hell.

Fucking hell, Russell.

No, don't accelerate.

I'm thinking on me feet.

Fucking hell, why did I let you have a go? Slow down.

I'm going to put the brake on now!

You've been a very naughty girl!

-What's your name, mate?

-Greg Anderson.

-Greg Anderson?

-Yeah.

-We're on a road trip.

-So am I.

-What are YOU looking for?

I just want to see this country. On this motorcycle.

It's amazing, isn't it?

There's no lines, you can just go.

No parameters. No boundaries. That's scary for a lot of people, but not for me and you.

Now get out there, Greg, and experience that white void, get out there. Live, man!

When you see two guys on a motorcycle, the guy in the back is riding bitch.

-I am riding bitch?!

-That's been pretty much how it's been.

You're riding bitch on an American motorcycle.

Can you stop saying that, Greg Anderson?!

# Greg Anderson He likes to ride his Harley

# He says I ride bitch back

# He said that I'm a sort of wife to my friend Matt! #

THEY LAUGH

"The car was swaying as Dean and I both swayed to the rhythm

"and the it of our final excited joy in talking and living to the blank tranced end

"of all innumerable riotous, angelic particulars that had been lurking in our souls all our lives...

"The point being that we know what IT is and we know TIME and we know that everything is really FINE."

This whole experience has made me want to live more truthfully.

It's made me want to put aside...

living that sort of spiritual hand-to-mouth impoverished existence,

and to focus on the things that are absolute and constant.

Bloody hell, mate, it's a bit mad having all them stuffed animals in here after Psycho.

-You run a motel and you've got stuffed animals...

-There's a lot of hunting around here.

Let's go. Oh, no! Joe, is this a trick? Is this the bit where you dress up as your mum and kill us?

-Oh, my God.

-We're staying Winnemucca.

I would call it a one horse town but if there was a horse here, Joe would probably stuff it.

# I think we're gonna to like it here! #

Joe...

Joe.

My mum made mistakes with me!

Go over there in just my pants and boots?

-And salute. I'll give you a hundred dollars if you do that!

-You're on!

Today we've entered California, and San Francisco's tantalisingly close.

# Jacky Kerouac's peanut butter... #

It's full of grim-death goodness!

'I don't know how Kerouac managed seven years on the road.

'I've done three weeks and, look, I'm going all insane in the membrane.'

Now I think we can use this door to clatter right into these little orange guys. It's idea of the day.

Russell, don't do that!

Damn you!

The wind cannot stop us now!

You berk. You fucking opened your door like a knob

to knock over a traffic cone which I said we wouldn't get anyway

and then the book fell out with all your notes!

'Thank God our journey was almost done!'

I've scoffed all the Kerouacky butter.

My copy of On The Road lies behind us on a Californian roadside unnoticed and unmourned...

the unknown soldier of the literary world.

This isn't the Golden Gate Bridge.

It is golden! It is! Look! Look!

It's a shit bridge, just coming in.

What do you mean, it's just a shit bridge?

We've driven more than 3,000 miles in our truck all the way across America

and here we bloody well are at the Pacific Ocean.

We've reached the sea at last.

After all our trials and endeavours!

Well now, this is a little bit more like it on the Golden Gate Bridge front, isn't it?

Wow!

"We saw, stretched out ahead of us, the fabulous white city of San Francisco

"on her 11 mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond,

"and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time...

"We can't go any further cos there ain't no more land!"

I'm finishing in San Francisco, where a whole generation took Kerouac's book to heart.

But as bombed-out beatniks and hippies mimicked Cassady's hedonism,

Kerouac worried that his spiritual message had been lost.

In the end, Kerouac retreated from life and succumbed to the booze,

dying, tragically, of alcoholism aged just 47.

As a last tribute, I've arranged a night to talk about my life on the road.

Kerouac and his mates held "blabbermouth nights"

where they'd get up and rap about their work and that, man, be bop de bop bop.

I'd like to welcome you to the Beat Museum. Thanks for coming tonight.

So this is my version of a blabbermouth night,

here at San Francisco's fittingly-shabby Beat Museum.

Hello. Thanks for coming. You're a drifter.

I've seen characters like you in the movies.

We started off here... Lowell, Massachusetts. I'll tell you one thing.

A lot of my prejudices about America were undermined and dismantled

because I see now that you're not the ignorant people

that you're portrayed as by European media.

The people that I actually met, gracious sort of people,

people you'd think, yes, they would make an apple pie for Huckleberry Finn.

There weren't much warmongering going on where I saw people.

No-one once mongered for the war.

I didn't see no mongering.

No-one looked like they were suppressing a monger, either.

It didn't look like, hold on, there's people from Europe here... don't monger!

The minute we go... Monger, monger!

So I've learned loads of things like a lot of us here,

probably you, the drifter,

me, for example, you'll be able to tell from my ridiculous haircut.

What we have idealised about him and idolised is

what he represents counter culturally, a sort of an icon for change.

There is a way of living where we ain't all shackled by fear. They're always on about "it".

Well, we're trying to find IT.

Well, what the bloody hell is it?

And here's my two penn'orth. That's about not being oppressed by time,

not being oppressed by the idea of the journey that life begins here and ends here,

so you grant yourself a little bit of freedom in the moment,

that you allow yourself the privilege of spontaneity.

The main thing I've got from this journey

is that if you aren't governed by fear,

you can live truthfully and you can find a kind of beauty.

But if you're inhibited and fearful, you will live a prescriptive existence.

But, like, once you sort of get beyond the hedonistic first impulse of that philosophy,

you find that you need to focus on something wider,

more permanent and beautiful and valuable. That's what I'VE learned.

And I kinda think I want to do something worthwhile.

# Steady as she goes

# Steady as she goes

# Steady as she goes

# Steady as she goes

# So steady as she goes

# Steady as she goes

# Steady as she goes

# Are you steady now?

# Steady as she goes

# Are you steady now?

# Steady as she goes

# Are you steady now?

# Steady as she goes

# Are you steady now?

# Steady as she goes. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd.