On the Bro’d
If you’re a highly sensitive purist, DON’T bother with On the Bro’d: Every Sentence of Kerouac Retold for Bros. It will only sully your palate and piss you off. If you’ve never actually read On the Road, well, you should experience that first, most definitely. Particularly if you are bright-eyed, collegiate (pre or post) and fulla beans. For while it may retain its verve when read at a later age, the classic Kerouac scroll is, first and foremost, a young adventurer’s screed.
via DJ Dead Billy, thanks.
But hey, all you crabby old culture vultures who eat sacred cow burgers with zeal and favor the thigh bones of vegan Sarah Lawrence humanities majors for your walking sticks, pull up to the groaning board and dig the fuck in. If, perhaps, you remain secretly convinced that young Jack and pals could have stood to be a bit less self-indulgent, paternalistic, or just plain fuckwitted, this satirical retelling may provide you with nourishing vindication.
On the Bro’d is exactly what the title describes. References to beer bongs, pimps, Axe Body Spray, Sparks, popped collars, bottle service and “Wonderwall” abound. From its official press release (yes, apparently it has an official press release, ugh): “On The Road is an American classic and the seminal work of the Beat generation, but much of it’s lost in translation when read by the generation that goes to the club and then beats.” The as-of-yet unnamed author insists that his reinterpretation is both appropriate and relevant, seeing as the original book was goaded by the “stirring unrest and genius of a generation of bros.” Nnnngh.
Profoundly cynical and relentlessly obnoxious, On the Bro’d will make you weep and laugh and barf for the future of American culture as only a seasoned NYC designer/writer/humor blogger can make you weep/laugh/barf. So enjoy. Or not. Either way, you have my love and empathy.
November 9th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Internet reviews of the retelling are already pouring in, and yes, the venerated name of James fucking Joyce has been dropped. Pauline Tran of the NY Press opines:
The Bro translation of the Beat Generation ode, of course, falls short of even CliffNotes and reads more like a LiveJournal entry. More amusingly however, is how Mike Lacher, the mastermind behind the atrocity, is actually continuing a long tradition of story retelling much in the way that James Joyce did with The Odyssey. Only instead of celebrating a new work that speaks to its predecessors, we find that the results are only a shabby reflection of ourselves. That’s not to say that Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and their alter egos, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, didn’t have their share of women, booze and brotherhood—they did—but the Beats were searching for something beyond themselves in the same way that a Bro might reach into the fridge and tragically find that there’s no more beer left.
November 9th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
But…wait…that was an ad for Douche Colonge…am I missing something?
November 9th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Heather, it’s a classic jibe that seemed appropriate enough to include, given that “On the Bro’d” is specifically about that mindset/lifestyle. :)
November 9th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Its funny because you just have to add references to facebook and party schools, otherwise its basically the same.
As much as I love On the Road (hardcover full scroll owner, yo) its really just getting stoned/laid/drunk all across the country, which is basically a typical college road trip. Well… there WAS the whole higher purpose thing.
Wait… so does that mean that bro’s are just super enlightened beat intellectuals?
November 11th, 2010 at 4:29 am
that’s what I get for reading the article in the middle of the night instead of going to bed.
We did On the Road last year in lit, and though I had read it as a teenager I’d never realised before what total, ya know, douchebags they all are, until I had to write a damn paper on it. Talk about sexist and unsympathetic characters! This Bros interpretation is perfect…