Amazon.com description: Product Description: Jack Black's life spans a forgotten era of American history lodged somewhere between the Wild West and the birth of the Metropolis. From the main stem of the Barbary Coast to the hoosegows of Salt Lake City into open boxcars on the Montana plains, this spirited memoir takes the reader on an unforgettable journey into the hobo world. Black's world of yeggs, gay cats, and bindle-stiff conventions is a grand vision of our mythic heritage. Salt Chunk Mary, the Sanctimonious Kid, Foot-and-a-half George, and the Johnson family of hard-boiled, rod-riding outlaws are vividly etched in Black's authentic argot. You Can't Win is a lost classic of American road literature. You can't win was the blueprint for Burroughs' first novel Junky. It had an enormous impact on the unfolding of his life and work.