Remember those car ads where they drove a gas-guzzling vehicle up to the top of a mesa in Arizona to capture the romance of the open road? Now that gas prices are soaring, it looks more like a death wish.
Into the Sunset
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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We are again forced to concede that a country glibly metaphorized as a gas station has intrinsically/considerably more worth than said “gas station’s” >century-long critic, itself plausibly so characterized as an SUV, nose-down in a ditch by the side of the road, consumed by fire.
Luv driving my Chevrolet Bolt.
Kerouac comes to mind. Even though “On the Road” was a terrible book (the men treat the women like garbage), it has a fundamental core concept that we’re missing today: Young men used to “go off” on an adventure. Be it the “adventure” of war or the adventure of looking for America as you drive around in a convertible with Martin Milner and George Zaharis (or Glenn Corbett).
The cost of owning a car, especially when you add in insurance, gas, maintenance, and how so much maintenance and repair can no longer be done by the individual, has put the whole concept of driving off to find yourself (on a long, winding road filled with S curves, or on the top of a mesa, or wherever) as a rich man’s luxury.
Today? Kerouac wouldn’t have been able to get further from Lowell than maybe Springfield before having to turn around and head home to be ready to go back to his dead-end job at the Quik-E-Mart.