I started to read Kerouac’s On The Road many years ago, but I just never got into it. A week or two ago I finished the last book I was reading, which I don’t even remember what was, but I am sure it was about film, because that’s all I ever read about. That was a horrible sentence, but I am at work and its 7 am and I am fucking tired. So yeah, I finished this book, and I didn’t have another one. So I borrowed a book from a friend. That book was On The Road. I got pretty into it. The idea of hitchhiking all over America does not really appeal to me as I suffer from insomnia and sleeping in a bus station does not sound like my idea of a good time. What does interest me is the idea of writing a road narrative. I am constantly reading books that inspire me to write, and I never do. This one is no exception. So I will write you two hitchhiking stories.

1. The last time I hitchhiked I was in Austin, TX for this years SXSW. I was stuck downtown with my friend Ross and we were a few miles away from the place we were staying. We had our thumbs out for probably 30 min before we got picked up by three hillbillies in a pick up truck. They tried to make us pay them $10, but we talked them down to not paying anything. So we climbed in the back and hid down until we realized they had passed where we needed to be. I we finally got them to slow down and we gave them a Gaskets DVD for their troubles. Weird.

2. Once it was pouring rain and I was driving my mom’s mini van and this crazy looking guy was standing on the side of the road hitchhiking. Of course I picked him up at once. He told us his “bitch cunt girlfriend” left him out in the middle of no where and he needed a ride to DC. DC was out of the way, but we told him we would take him anyway. He told us he was a pilot and that he would give us free flying lessons. He told us he could get us 16 year old girls for sex. Then he passed out in the back of the minivan. At one point I stopped hard in the rain and he fell off the seat and laid unconscious on the floor of my mom’s car. Then we dropped him off at a random hotel in DC and he got out, very confused to where he was and what the hell had happened.

Bonus Story: Once I picked up this guy on the middle of the highway on a bridge between DC and VA. We drove him to a storage place in VA where he has his stuff. He ended up being hilarious and we hung out with him for a long time because he couldn’t get into the storage place. He is on the left in the photo below, my fried Matt is on the right.

Also, on a side note about the book, if nothing else, I have been saying “dig” twice as much as normal. And for anyone who knows me, that is a lot.

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