Into the Wild

Since everyone in the free world apparently had already read it and a copy has been sitting on my desk for a year, I finally read "Into the Wild" yesterday. A good read. I'm sure I'll see the flick when it's on cable; tho I'm already sure I'll hate him being portrayed as TOO charasmatic/zen/etc etc. See The Rambler's review here. I had originally written 60000 screaming words re: rich kids eschewing society with their Pop’s Mobil cards in hand and rich mofos who try to look poor, but instead ratcheted it down a notch and thought of two things in particular:

1) The generosity of these strangers…I dunno. Seems a bit much, no? These people that he met traveling, they were popping hammies to jump up and sell their homes to get him a meal and gear, right? While I’m sure some of it’s true, seems like it may be a bit revisionist history on the Samaritans’ parts: “oh yeah, I let him fuck my daughters, gave him our Bronco, blew the kid myself while cramming hundreds up his can….” Some dude tried to give him his credit card number? We’re supposed to believe this? Or are people really that stupid out there? Fascinated me throughout the whole story.

2) Also, to me, the better story was the guy that died because he forgot to arrange for a bush pilot to pick him up at the end of summer. That seemed more tragic to me - the sooner him realizing this fact after his drop-off plane had left all the more tragic. What if AS the plane is taking off he realizes it, tries to scream at it to no avail, and then at that moment has to realize you know what…I’m gonna die a long, slow agonizing death. To me, that’s a helluva a story; kinda like that story of the guy who lets himself be buried to get out of prison, having arranged for a his friend to come dig him up outside the prison gates but the friend dies, and we picture the guy desperately screaming/clawing at the top of his coffin.

3) As for my outrage re: this guy being the poster boy for the teeming loads of young men who are born to lives of wealth and privilege yet insist on pretending to be poor, wearing gas attendant shirts while drinking PBR. Reminding us that it’s cool to LOOK poor, tho it’s not really cool to BE poor. Well, instead of spewing as per usual I’ll let my old friend Albert Hammond say it for me.