Howdy, y'all.
So my Ill-Advised Road Trip 2017-18 has come to its stirring conclusion with a real bang...that is, my Chevy Tracker hitting the I-40 Guardrail at 60 mph. Yeah yeah, I'm okay, not even a bruise from it. The Schlaacker is pretty much totaled. Too much structural damage along the passenger side. I knew it was leaking fluid and had a popped tire immediately after the crash, but I guess there was a lot of "internal bleeding", as it were - the stuff you don't see. The stuff that kills ya. The automobile version of a concussion. Thanks to Progressive Insurance for just saying, "Naw, don't fuck with it" and paying out instead of dicking around; they've been very helpful. I'm also in debt to my friends Emma and Jason for picking me up from Paw Paw, MI, which is just west of where my beloved little SUV met its untimely demise - they drove for an hour and a half to pick up my sorry ass. I did honestly try to find some way off that planet, but the only rental open was a Uhaul about five miles north, and I wasn't about to walk 2.5 hours in that windchill. I'm a mountain man, for sure, but I'm not an idiot - you hole up at a Biggby and you wait, don't act the fool and end up with frostbite. Just ain't worth it.
Anyway, where was I...? The beers are kicking in. Guess I'm a little eensy-weensy bit traumatized, or maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to drink; I'm road-beat and contemplating the vagarities of a life in which nothing is certain, all things are a roll of the dice - your only real shot is to load 'em before you throw. If things had been only quantumly different, I wouldn't have slipped on that patch of road...or there might have been another vehicle, and I'd maimed or killed somebody with my out-of-control physics. Who the fuck knows. I believe in Guardian Angels, and someone had a wing stretched over me, that's for sure: loads the dice in your favor, spiritually speaking. It's just such a mind-fuck that I traveled 1900 miles to Arizona and back, and it was only the last 100 - just 50 miles past the Michigan border - that my car is utterly taken out of the picture. The same car that took me to Key West and back. The same car that I've driven and cared for and cursed and nursed and poured money into and worried every time there was a slight hitch in the acceleration or it wouldn't start in subzero temperatures on a cold Monday morning. And yeah, I guess it was pretty utilitarian - I didn't cover it in bumper stickers or anything - but maybe it was just a part of me, and I didn't need to think about it. I don't know. It's only my second vehicle in my life, can you dig it? I maintained it for 5-ish years, and in the blink of an eye it's gone. To all my friends I just say, "Ah well, it was getting old"...but a part of me is gone now.
On the other hand...yes, on the other hand...I've always been ambivalent about car ownership and drivership. It's a bit, how you say, "expensive" - how much do you spend on insurance every month? And gas? Okay, multiply that by twelve, for however many years you own the damn thing. Now pour money into it as soon as you buy it, because let's be honest, you can drive a 2018 Chevy Whatsafuck off the lot with some kind of maintenance issue. Tires, especially in Michigan, will run you in the hundreds per year. You're chained to the gas pump, with OPEC or whatever other godforsaken price-gouging demonic entity that controls fuel prices grinning at you from the mounting numbers at the pump. Say friend! You too can pay us to poison the planet! And don't forget the oil, and the antifreeze, and the brake/transmission/windshield washer fluids all pouring into the car and evaporating into the air and raining down on our watersheds.
But did you ever think about the social aspect at play here? In many ways it feels like an obligation, something we as Americans begrudgingly put up with because it's part of "normal" life. God help you if you walk to work; your coworkers will boggle at you, and call you crazy, and offer you rides home pretty much every day of the week. And it's nearly impossible to walk in some places, given that all available space for sidewalks is taken up by asphalt, asphalt, asphalt. Anyone who doesn't own a car is automatically infantalized, rendered "Non-Adult", as if they are refusing to grow up. Public transit is a sort of mobile leper colony, versus the personalized comfort of the perfected Automobile, all hail the Automobile, Our Lord and Savior Automobile. Cars are the default religion of America, and anyone who can work on a car is considered a Saint in the flesh, for they commune with the Great Iron God, forever and ever, World Without End, Amen.
That's some strong beer. Maybe I'll stop after this one.
ANYWAY (apologies to Chuck Klosterman)...but after some thought, I've concluded that the Myth of the Automobile and the Myth of the Horse are very strongly connected. We as an American people are, whether we like it or not, a very mobile bunch; with the exception of the larger cities, where some could theoretically spend their whole lives within a few-block radius, we really do have the urge and necessity to travel large distances. Consider that the United Kingdom, from Land's End to John o'Groats, is 847 miles. In driving from Lansing, MI, to Cottonwood, AZ - round trip - I traversed over 4 times the entire length of the United Kingdom. Seriously folks, we need a smaller country.
Even more powerful is the connection to the American sense of freedom; or put another way, of autonomy. We crave and demand autonomy, especially when traveling. A man on a horse is an autonomous figure, who can go where he wants, when he wants, as fast as his horse is able to go; the major difference with an automobile is that it doesn't have a mind of its own. It never gets exhausted. It never gets angry, or horny, or any of the other things a flesh-and-blood creature tends to feel. A car is essentially a set of gigantic mechanical legs, enabling our frail human frame to travel as far and as fast (relatively) as we want. The only limitation is fuel and highway, really. Consider that the majority of vehicles on the road only have a single occupant, regardless of size or seating...essentially, a giant robot horse.
This autonomous way of thinking extends even to the aspect of personal safety. We automatically assume, wrongly, that because I am driving this vehicle, it is therefore safer than someone else driving. It's human nature, really. When we hear about bus crashes, or train derailments, or planes falling out of the sky, we immediately go to Defcon 1. Instantly there are class-action suits, investigations, endless rounds of committees, jail time. And I agree that it's pretty goddamn awful when a plane burns up, or a bus flips over...it's a nightmare to be trapped in a seat, with no measure of control over your own destiny, ploughing toward a death you had nothing to do with. But the number of deaths associated with mass transit are infinitesimal compared to the number of automobile accidents. It's pure mathematical probability: the more autonomous elements you introduce into a highway situation, the higher the likelihood of a deadly crash. The personal danger involved in driving an automobile is exponentially higher than boring old mass transit, because the smaller and more individual the element, the greater the chaos.
If we were really the rational beings we claim to be, we'd all be traveling around in robot buses or trains, toward cities designed around walking. The social, environmental, psychological, and safety aspects of our world would be changed for the better. We'd get a lot more done, and relax more, and be able to afford to do what we wanted, all because we weren't chained to driving and highways.
But we just can't seem to get rid of our "horses". We love the feeling of guiding our stallion down the open road. And I'll be honest, to drive those thousands of miles out in the open west, on a road trip, with no one to worry about except me, was an amazing experience. It was the cheapest way to travel, and not the slowest (buses still beat all for lugubriousness). If I wanted, I could've taken any detour, stopped for any roadside attraction, gone to any State in the Union with little more than my phone for a map. The only limitation is time and money.
So yes, I look forward to a day when we can cheaply get on a train or bus and go anywhere, or trust our cars to do the driving for us...but I still want to keep my horse.
Rick Out.
So my Ill-Advised Road Trip 2017-18 has come to its stirring conclusion with a real bang...that is, my Chevy Tracker hitting the I-40 Guardrail at 60 mph. Yeah yeah, I'm okay, not even a bruise from it. The Schlaacker is pretty much totaled. Too much structural damage along the passenger side. I knew it was leaking fluid and had a popped tire immediately after the crash, but I guess there was a lot of "internal bleeding", as it were - the stuff you don't see. The stuff that kills ya. The automobile version of a concussion. Thanks to Progressive Insurance for just saying, "Naw, don't fuck with it" and paying out instead of dicking around; they've been very helpful. I'm also in debt to my friends Emma and Jason for picking me up from Paw Paw, MI, which is just west of where my beloved little SUV met its untimely demise - they drove for an hour and a half to pick up my sorry ass. I did honestly try to find some way off that planet, but the only rental open was a Uhaul about five miles north, and I wasn't about to walk 2.5 hours in that windchill. I'm a mountain man, for sure, but I'm not an idiot - you hole up at a Biggby and you wait, don't act the fool and end up with frostbite. Just ain't worth it.
Anyway, where was I...? The beers are kicking in. Guess I'm a little eensy-weensy bit traumatized, or maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to drink; I'm road-beat and contemplating the vagarities of a life in which nothing is certain, all things are a roll of the dice - your only real shot is to load 'em before you throw. If things had been only quantumly different, I wouldn't have slipped on that patch of road...or there might have been another vehicle, and I'd maimed or killed somebody with my out-of-control physics. Who the fuck knows. I believe in Guardian Angels, and someone had a wing stretched over me, that's for sure: loads the dice in your favor, spiritually speaking. It's just such a mind-fuck that I traveled 1900 miles to Arizona and back, and it was only the last 100 - just 50 miles past the Michigan border - that my car is utterly taken out of the picture. The same car that took me to Key West and back. The same car that I've driven and cared for and cursed and nursed and poured money into and worried every time there was a slight hitch in the acceleration or it wouldn't start in subzero temperatures on a cold Monday morning. And yeah, I guess it was pretty utilitarian - I didn't cover it in bumper stickers or anything - but maybe it was just a part of me, and I didn't need to think about it. I don't know. It's only my second vehicle in my life, can you dig it? I maintained it for 5-ish years, and in the blink of an eye it's gone. To all my friends I just say, "Ah well, it was getting old"...but a part of me is gone now.
On the other hand...yes, on the other hand...I've always been ambivalent about car ownership and drivership. It's a bit, how you say, "expensive" - how much do you spend on insurance every month? And gas? Okay, multiply that by twelve, for however many years you own the damn thing. Now pour money into it as soon as you buy it, because let's be honest, you can drive a 2018 Chevy Whatsafuck off the lot with some kind of maintenance issue. Tires, especially in Michigan, will run you in the hundreds per year. You're chained to the gas pump, with OPEC or whatever other godforsaken price-gouging demonic entity that controls fuel prices grinning at you from the mounting numbers at the pump. Say friend! You too can pay us to poison the planet! And don't forget the oil, and the antifreeze, and the brake/transmission/windshield washer fluids all pouring into the car and evaporating into the air and raining down on our watersheds.
But did you ever think about the social aspect at play here? In many ways it feels like an obligation, something we as Americans begrudgingly put up with because it's part of "normal" life. God help you if you walk to work; your coworkers will boggle at you, and call you crazy, and offer you rides home pretty much every day of the week. And it's nearly impossible to walk in some places, given that all available space for sidewalks is taken up by asphalt, asphalt, asphalt. Anyone who doesn't own a car is automatically infantalized, rendered "Non-Adult", as if they are refusing to grow up. Public transit is a sort of mobile leper colony, versus the personalized comfort of the perfected Automobile, all hail the Automobile, Our Lord and Savior Automobile. Cars are the default religion of America, and anyone who can work on a car is considered a Saint in the flesh, for they commune with the Great Iron God, forever and ever, World Without End, Amen.
That's some strong beer. Maybe I'll stop after this one.
ANYWAY (apologies to Chuck Klosterman)...but after some thought, I've concluded that the Myth of the Automobile and the Myth of the Horse are very strongly connected. We as an American people are, whether we like it or not, a very mobile bunch; with the exception of the larger cities, where some could theoretically spend their whole lives within a few-block radius, we really do have the urge and necessity to travel large distances. Consider that the United Kingdom, from Land's End to John o'Groats, is 847 miles. In driving from Lansing, MI, to Cottonwood, AZ - round trip - I traversed over 4 times the entire length of the United Kingdom. Seriously folks, we need a smaller country.
Even more powerful is the connection to the American sense of freedom; or put another way, of autonomy. We crave and demand autonomy, especially when traveling. A man on a horse is an autonomous figure, who can go where he wants, when he wants, as fast as his horse is able to go; the major difference with an automobile is that it doesn't have a mind of its own. It never gets exhausted. It never gets angry, or horny, or any of the other things a flesh-and-blood creature tends to feel. A car is essentially a set of gigantic mechanical legs, enabling our frail human frame to travel as far and as fast (relatively) as we want. The only limitation is fuel and highway, really. Consider that the majority of vehicles on the road only have a single occupant, regardless of size or seating...essentially, a giant robot horse.
This autonomous way of thinking extends even to the aspect of personal safety. We automatically assume, wrongly, that because I am driving this vehicle, it is therefore safer than someone else driving. It's human nature, really. When we hear about bus crashes, or train derailments, or planes falling out of the sky, we immediately go to Defcon 1. Instantly there are class-action suits, investigations, endless rounds of committees, jail time. And I agree that it's pretty goddamn awful when a plane burns up, or a bus flips over...it's a nightmare to be trapped in a seat, with no measure of control over your own destiny, ploughing toward a death you had nothing to do with. But the number of deaths associated with mass transit are infinitesimal compared to the number of automobile accidents. It's pure mathematical probability: the more autonomous elements you introduce into a highway situation, the higher the likelihood of a deadly crash. The personal danger involved in driving an automobile is exponentially higher than boring old mass transit, because the smaller and more individual the element, the greater the chaos.
If we were really the rational beings we claim to be, we'd all be traveling around in robot buses or trains, toward cities designed around walking. The social, environmental, psychological, and safety aspects of our world would be changed for the better. We'd get a lot more done, and relax more, and be able to afford to do what we wanted, all because we weren't chained to driving and highways.
But we just can't seem to get rid of our "horses". We love the feeling of guiding our stallion down the open road. And I'll be honest, to drive those thousands of miles out in the open west, on a road trip, with no one to worry about except me, was an amazing experience. It was the cheapest way to travel, and not the slowest (buses still beat all for lugubriousness). If I wanted, I could've taken any detour, stopped for any roadside attraction, gone to any State in the Union with little more than my phone for a map. The only limitation is time and money.
So yes, I look forward to a day when we can cheaply get on a train or bus and go anywhere, or trust our cars to do the driving for us...but I still want to keep my horse.
Rick Out.
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