Bohemian Manifesto
Bohemians rarely have regular jobs. They are contemptuous of nine-to-five. When they do have jobs, it’s not for long. This is because they sketch, work on novels (annoyingly, the place, unless an insane asylum, is never interesting enough to write about), use office equipment to make flyers for their performances and gigs and read books.
William Burroughs wrote to Allen Ginsberg: “A regular job drains one’s very lifeblood. It’s supposed to. They want everything you’ve got.”
Bohemians would rather be a night guard in a cemetery where they can read, write music or work on a novel (as long as there’s no surveillance camera) than a financial analyst.
When Starbucks and the Gap move in, the Bohemian moves out. Or gets kicked out.
Giving up security takes guts. Bohemians have the courage to reject mainstream society; to follow an ideal and forsake praise and security; to alienate family; to be, as Jack Kerouac put it, “yourself at whatever cost.”
Beats suffer for their ideals, but they’ve let go of material desire. As Jack Kerouac put it, “If you own a rug, you own too much.”
Beats are free spirits. They believe in freedom of expression. They travel light, but there’s always a book or a notebook in their pocket. Beats are not picky about where they sleep, and they’re not too picky about who they sleep with, either.
Beats take writing seriously and quote Baudelaire when they have a fever, Keats during courtship and Walt Whitman when making love. 3 They save the lines from Tennessee Williams’ The Fugitive Kind for the night before they take off again, the part about the bird that has no legs and spends all of its life on the wing, sleeping on the wind.
Beats express themselves without censor and are pretty much up for anything. A nocturnal drive to New Orleans, stopping only for food, fuel and smokes, a threesome or foursome in Tangier, a week-long bender in Mexico. They’ll go anywhere at the drop of a hat or beret, with only the clothes on their back. They’ll worry about the details later: sleeping arrangements, food, cash. Actually, they won’t worry about details, which is why things always seem to work out except for those glitches, sleepovers in jail. They’ve taken a tip from the Zen Bohemian: no expectations, no disappointments.
While Dandies might be thrifty by circumstance, they abhor frugality and embrace excess in clothing, beverages, food and their objets d’art.
Smoke, smoke! Let’s light a cigarette, And breathe the scented smoke of the cigar. Alas, life’s passing, there’s no stopping it, It is but smoke! Smoke, smoke! Let us get drunk on dreams, And ask tobacco for oblivion! Like cigarettes, all things are brief In a useless life.
Bohemians rarely have need for insomnia treatment, as this is considered a natural and/ or desirable state.
Breakfast may be coffee, and if that’s all, the Bohemian will add lots of nondairy creamer or half and half and sugar taken from the diner14 the day before “to make it go farther” and “as nourishment, as energy.” 15 Breakfast is never taken before noon.
The Beat can handle moody downswings better than any other Bohemian, as long as there is a bottle of wine, a pen and a notebook.