I did actually see a hitchhiker for the first time in my adult life just this week. There was a period of about a decade or so there, from about 1968 to 1979, coincidentally sandwiched between Free Love and AIDS, where the idea of the hitchhiker was associated with freedom and openness, the American spirit and an expanded sense of community responsibility. Before that, hitchhiking was associated with dirty, smelly hobos. Since then? Mostly rape.
My dad, then still enlisted in the Navy, tells the story of how he hitchhiked his way all the way from San Diego to Long Beach (rougly 100 miles, non-SoCalians) to get here after my older sister was born. But this was 1973, right in that window of safety and hippie socialism. Plus he was a Sailor, in uniform. If there was any rape, he never mentioned it.
Culturally, cars have become fortresses, like little Iron Man suits of armor, complete with guidance software, satellite entertainment uplinks, heads-up displays, touch-screen interfaces, proximity alarms, automated self-parking, speech recognition... You don't let people into your Iron Man suit of armor. First of all, sorry, suit of armor is a one-man deal. It's not Iron Men, is it? I know it looks roomy, but with my yoga mat, my reusable canvas Trader Joe's shopping totes, this giant bag of organic vegan dogfood made primarily from pine nuts and soy, the hybrid engine is pretty well taxed as it is. And second, if you're in here, I'm talking to you and not working my way through MacGyver season four on the in-dash DVD player. My Netflix queue means something to me. I take my commitments seriously, sir. Keep walking.
It seems harsh, and you can argue if you must, but I'm just going to say, the last guy who fucked with Iron Man, this happened to his face.
I don't know if the world has become more paranoid, more cut-off and fearful of our fellow man since we all started taking way, way less acid, or if we've just more or less grown up and realized what a bad idea most everything that came out of the '60s and '70s was. Lots of beads and tassles. Little tiny eyeglasses. Asymmetrical warfare half a world a way with no clear criteria for either victory or withdrawal. We've learned our lessons. Not letting people get into your car is one of them.
Case in point, did you hear what happened to that guy who was terrible in Mallrats? I guess I should be more specific. Not Affleck. Not Jason Lee. The other one.
Christ, it was this guy, OK? Remind me never to reference Kevin Smith movies again. Nobody ever knows what I'm talking about and he's too old and a proven shitty filmmaker too many times over to score me any indie cred anymore.
It wasn't a hitchhiker per se, but it goes to show you, if someone you don't know gets into your car, kidnapping-at-gunpoint-and-forced-to-do-drugs is as close to a certainty as science will allow.
His family needs to get with the program, though. They're all like "Oh, he's already a drug addict and his story smacks of total bullshit, like the time he told us it wasn't his ketamine, he was holding it for Russell Brand." Just because he never met Russell Brand doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't true. That guy used to do a shit ton of drugs. They may not have belonged to him at the time, but they'd get to him eventually.
I believe Jeremy whatever his name is. His story has happened a thousand times. Well, OK, just that one time on Six Feet Under, but that show was about fuckin' death and shit, so you know it had to be true. I saw one episode where this dude got ate by a cougar. That really happens too. Ergo, all else is as well. You fell into my logic trap. Now suffer as it digests you slowly in an airtight chamber of secreted infallibility.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
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8 comments:
Because I hitch hiked a lot when I was young, I later felt an obligation to pick up hitch hikers (provided they didn't look too dirty/stinky or like they would accuse me of rape). Then one day I picked up a hitch hiker in the town I worked in and gave him a ride to the nearby town I lived in (yes, that's where he wanted to go). That was okay, 'til it turned out that he lived and wanted to be dropped off on my street, a mere block from my home. It's one thing to give strangers a ride, but I sure as hell don't want them to know where I live (an opinion not shared by some of the people who gave me rides, but that's a different story altogether). I had to circle the block so he wouldn't see where I lived (surely he never subsequently saw and recognized that bright red pick-up truck a block from his home) and I've never picked up another hitchhiker since.
Oh, I love the stories of hitchiking from my old hippie friends. There was the one about how he was stuck in a car with a kid poking nails into a puppy while the driver waved a handgun at passing cars, or the pissed-drunk new father driving to a whorehouse to celebrate the birth of his child. Your thumb's your ticket to meet Real America, Man.
I picked up a hitchhiker once. I had my mother-in-law in the pick-up with me, and the guy rode in the bed as we drove up I-5 from Bakersfield to Fresno, or some place equally hideous (although, even Blythe has some qualities Bakersfield doesn't). Although I don't admit it to anyone who knows me, I love that I actually did something to bug my MIL, instead of just being accused of doing stuff to bug her.
And, I hitchhiked once in my life. But, you could hardly call it dangerous. Lythe, 20-something girl with big boobs, just outside of Las Vegas, heading north into barren desert for hundreds of miles, with just cathouses and bars along the way, going to a heavily-guarded government nuclear test site.... ok, it does sound pretty bad, doesn't it? It ended well, mainly because no one found the body.
But, my main point about your post is that you reference all these pop-culture people whom I know nothing about, but don't mention Tom Robbins' book Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which I hear was made into a pretty bad movie (which I never saw, but can at least recognize the names of many of the stars), all about a girl with huge thumbs using her unique anatomy to hitch America and explore the qualities of peyote and free love. If that doesn't scream Pops, I guess I don't know you. Which just may be to your benefit.
I didn't for a second I'd be kicking off Story Circle Time. This is awesome. Oh, and Kay-Z, I am constitutionally incapable of reading or watching anything with "cowgirls" in the title that isn't strictly porn.
Lick, I do believe there were numerous passages of reasonably explicit lesbian and straight-ish sex scenes. I add the "ish" because very few things in a Tom Robbins book are ordinary. He's totally all about blasphemy and sex, which explains why he is one of my favorite authors. Perhaps this would be a good choice for your literary sex ed expose'.
The other thing about that Jeremy London story...there's a gang section of Palm Springs? How's that work?
Kay-Z: Well, even in your own story, you included "lithe and big boobs," so I think I'm seeing a theme develop. Maybe hitchhiking isn't all bad.
Gumbo: I was pretty sure Palm Springs was 50% old people and 50% gay. Worst gang fights ever. Probably way too many rules.
I think that would be Palm-Springs-Adjacent. 5 miles in either direction is hot-and-cold-running-meth. It's at least as nice as lower Hemet.
why would it be a thrill to young hoodlums to make someone ELSE do drugs?
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