July 31, 2008
The Dumbo Ride: An essay for the imprisoned dreamer and guide to wiping your spoiled nose before it’s too late
I can’t hear a Jake brake, hissing hydraulics or a flatulent motorcycle off in the distance without looking down the barrel of the road, waiting for the bullet to take me out too – I guess that’s me in search of my next far off kick. Usually I let the ammo pass through me though, like most - the wound is deep and hurts for a while. But wounds eventually close up don’t they? – the life blood concealed again. All that was oozing out is gingerly forced back in – patch it – think about it later. Why are we so quick to heal our scars and forget them? Why is remembering and regretting so bad? It’s sad that we try to forget sometimes or worse, let our lives do the forgetting for us. Because, good or bad, it’s all out there and for some reason it’s not proper to embrace it all the way. I think aging hipsters and retirees who form little Hell’s Angel-like cliques sedate that pain with their weekend warrior itineraries and GPS-fashioned trips. All the young road trip princes and princess do it too.
It’s kind of sad really when you think about it. We reduced the ride down to a mere Wally Wagon ride with Chevy at the wheel and all the shops and stops marking the day and the real splendor dwindling under our feet. But there he is - the retiree on a hog with his woman sporting hardly-worn-leather with a custom and shining designer beast of machinery with all sorts of gizmos, up to his convenient headset to talk with his gal - immortalizing the renagade icons as they come ripping asphalt through our towns – holding vigil for the once haggard, starved, grim takers of life with a certain old west glint as they kick their horses and charge past a flurry of hash marks and electric poles. The trip is now the Dumbo ride at Disney. But we have that right don’t we? – because that’s how we roll in this beautiful hunk of commercialized rock – it’s all there for the taking and you too can be Marlon or Monroe for the weekend – just as long as you pay the piper on Monday morn.
I can’t help but think about the real ones; the ones out there, night in and night out as they hover in a cab on 18 or sweat out that bike in an all-out burst across a seemingly endless black wave peppered with phosphorescent slashes of highbeam as the needle sticks firm to “F” and the eye prays for “E” so that some rest might be attained before dawn and the next town can mother all worries for a day or two. What a life to be adrift – sad, depraved, aimless – saintly, romantic – savage.
The freedoms aren’t there so much anymore for some of us though, I guess. So we do what we can to appease our next fix. Sooner or later the road releases its hostages. And the world leaps out from behind the bushes and abducts them all over again for a whole other reason. And from then on, the reason isn’t clear. But what is it about that bullet we ride out there?
I first felt it in college just after my junior year. My roommate and I did an out and back blast to South Dakota and camped along the Mississippi in late spring; two boys, a bottle, a small tent and open road – a four day burst – two virgins of the highway popping their cherries, emerging as men - seduced even more, eager for another go. Then the years began to take hold of the wheel - four days, 16 hours to Maine – getting lost on a murderously strange and harsh coast – all night diners fueling the madness – 28 hour shot to Montana, the snow-wrapped rock and intimidating monster of Glacier, Sleeping in the sunlight in a rare spell in the volatile array of climates in early spring – 3 weeks of miles from Kansas to Colorado to Utah to Nevada to the Pacific and all around the golden shoreline and amid redwoods – the occupation was driving and never knowing where home was – the joy it brought with it – the absurd logic in not being affixed to a home, to an identity – the pure brilliance in the abundant solitude and anonymity – the amity of passers through – the sharing among fellow ghosts to society and drifting saints – the miles seem to produce a euphoria – I still recall Green River, Utah, half a day from leaving Kansas – stopping in that far gone planet – the giddy epiphany of arriving at nothing you’ve ever know and laughing like an escaped con or psycho on the run – watching the locals stare strangely at your unorthodox joy – musing at the westward hope and realization that no one can define that moment or take it from you – the pure arrival at finding the real being inside, detached from all anchors, above all obstacle, floating on the only great deployment of the soul.
The Dumbo Ride: An essay for the imprisoned dreamer and guide to wiping your spoiled nose before it’s too late
I can’t hear a Jake brake, hissing hydraulics or a flatulent motorcycle off in the distance without looking down the barrel of the road, waiting for the bullet to take me out too – I guess that’s me in search of my next far off kick. Usually I let the ammo pass through me though, like most - the wound is deep and hurts for a while. But wounds eventually close up don’t they? – the life blood concealed again. All that was oozing out is gingerly forced back in – patch it – think about it later. Why are we so quick to heal our scars and forget them? Why is remembering and regretting so bad? It’s sad that we try to forget sometimes or worse, let our lives do the forgetting for us. Because, good or bad, it’s all out there and for some reason it’s not proper to embrace it all the way. I think aging hipsters and retirees who form little Hell’s Angel-like cliques sedate that pain with their weekend warrior itineraries and GPS-fashioned trips. All the young road trip princes and princess do it too.
It’s kind of sad really when you think about it. We reduced the ride down to a mere Wally Wagon ride with Chevy at the wheel and all the shops and stops marking the day and the real splendor dwindling under our feet. But there he is - the retiree on a hog with his woman sporting hardly-worn-leather with a custom and shining designer beast of machinery with all sorts of gizmos, up to his convenient headset to talk with his gal - immortalizing the renagade icons as they come ripping asphalt through our towns – holding vigil for the once haggard, starved, grim takers of life with a certain old west glint as they kick their horses and charge past a flurry of hash marks and electric poles. The trip is now the Dumbo ride at Disney. But we have that right don’t we? – because that’s how we roll in this beautiful hunk of commercialized rock – it’s all there for the taking and you too can be Marlon or Monroe for the weekend – just as long as you pay the piper on Monday morn.
I can’t help but think about the real ones; the ones out there, night in and night out as they hover in a cab on 18 or sweat out that bike in an all-out burst across a seemingly endless black wave peppered with phosphorescent slashes of highbeam as the needle sticks firm to “F” and the eye prays for “E” so that some rest might be attained before dawn and the next town can mother all worries for a day or two. What a life to be adrift – sad, depraved, aimless – saintly, romantic – savage.
The freedoms aren’t there so much anymore for some of us though, I guess. So we do what we can to appease our next fix. Sooner or later the road releases its hostages. And the world leaps out from behind the bushes and abducts them all over again for a whole other reason. And from then on, the reason isn’t clear. But what is it about that bullet we ride out there?
I first felt it in college just after my junior year. My roommate and I did an out and back blast to South Dakota and camped along the Mississippi in late spring; two boys, a bottle, a small tent and open road – a four day burst – two virgins of the highway popping their cherries, emerging as men - seduced even more, eager for another go. Then the years began to take hold of the wheel - four days, 16 hours to Maine – getting lost on a murderously strange and harsh coast – all night diners fueling the madness – 28 hour shot to Montana, the snow-wrapped rock and intimidating monster of Glacier, Sleeping in the sunlight in a rare spell in the volatile array of climates in early spring – 3 weeks of miles from Kansas to Colorado to Utah to Nevada to the Pacific and all around the golden shoreline and amid redwoods – the occupation was driving and never knowing where home was – the joy it brought with it – the absurd logic in not being affixed to a home, to an identity – the pure brilliance in the abundant solitude and anonymity – the amity of passers through – the sharing among fellow ghosts to society and drifting saints – the miles seem to produce a euphoria – I still recall Green River, Utah, half a day from leaving Kansas – stopping in that far gone planet – the giddy epiphany of arriving at nothing you’ve ever know and laughing like an escaped con or psycho on the run – watching the locals stare strangely at your unorthodox joy – musing at the westward hope and realization that no one can define that moment or take it from you – the pure arrival at finding the real being inside, detached from all anchors, above all obstacle, floating on the only great deployment of the soul.
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