Michael Mohr's American Freaks

When I was a teenager, I tried and failed to get into the Beats. I checked out Allen Ginsberg’s Collected Poems from the library, made my way through “Howl,” and decidedly did not fall head over heels in love. Perhaps because Ginsberg’s brand of motormouth sincerity clashed with my Simpsons-shaped sense of humor; perhaps because the Beats had the feel of a hand-me-down, an older brother’s idea of rebellious cool; or perhaps I was simply shocked by the poem’s frankness when it came to homosexuality. Either way, any charm the Beat might have possessed was lost on me, and off I went to read The Waste Land and Thomas Pynchon.