BACK AND FORTH my novel about hitchhiking cross-country is on the verge of completion. Two more segments will about my writing THE END on the last page. I’ve been trying to finish those two stories for most of April and May, but like a Texan two-laner the books keeps stretching toward an ever-distant horizon.
Throughout the process I’ve asked friends, family, and strangers, if they had seen any hitchhikers of late. My niece said that hitchhiking was prohibited in Northern Maine. Police arrest violators of this ban. Last month I walked by the Mass Ave. entrance to I90. Signs warned against giving anyone a ride. I traversed the avenue and stood on the curb with an outstretched thumb. Motorists regarded me with derision. Life on the road was dead, but two nights ago a young painter told a Bushwick gathering that John Waters had been seen in Ohio on the side of the road over the Memorial Day Weekend.
“John Waters?” The famed Baltimore film director was the perfect candidate to break new taboos.
“Yes, a band called Here We Go Magic spotted him and drove back to pick him up.”
“The last hitchhiker.” I was enchanted by his revival of the lost art and later googled john waters hitchhiking and found the following report on http://dcist.com
Band member Michael Bloch tells us, “There’s a hydro-fracking boom in western Pennsylvania. You can’t get a motel room. We had to drive til 4AM, and finally found a Days Inn in eastern Ohio. Getting back on the highway this morning, there was a man at the side of the on-ramp with a sign that read ‘to the end of Rte 70.’ Jen wanted to pick him up, but we drove past him. As we passed by, our sound guy said ‘John Waters’ Luke said, ‘Yep, definitely John Waters.’ We got off at the next exit and circled back. He was still there. We pulled up, opened the door and asked where he was coming from. ‘Baltimore,’ he said. And we said ‘Get in, sir.’ ”
Update, May 17: Bloch spoke to us today; when asked how long Waters had been hitchhiking, “Well, that day he had been standing there for many hours. I guess no one recognized him. Not to mention he was wearing a hat that said ‘Scum Of The Earth.’ I don’t know if that was helping him or not. He had been hitchhiking for a few days from Baltimore, I think. He said that half the drivers that picked him up knew who he was and the other half didn’t know who he was.”
The Last of the Hobos.
Better him than me.
To read more please go to the following URL
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/john-waters-tries-some-desperate-living-on-a-cross-country-hitchhiking-odyssey/