On The Road was something else again. I kept getting hung up on the fact that you could take $100 and cross America at one time. I read it last year, and maybe it was because I was 39 and my mom was 69, I just had to stop and reflect on how much the Beat culture relied on a stable middle class and VA loans. I mean, Sal lives with his aunt and waits to pay his rent with his veteran's check.

Spoilers: the manic-depressive weirdo who absolutely took up with a child, stalks a woman out of 'love' when he is married to another woman, and keeps a friend up an entire night with the dumbest 'deep' conversation is a total drag on everyone else around him and desperately needs therapy.

After the women in his life try an intervention, Sal has the gall to scold them and takes the dude to Mexico. At which point he, finally, has to admit his friend is circling the drain and ditches him.

Such a weird time, the 50's.