Easy Rider: Serentypical

April 10, 008
Black Rockalypse

We watched Easy Rider last night, after a week of getting our new, fancy-schmancy sealed-up greenhouses ready for springtime planting. Picking out crops for our gardens, both cul-de-sac and communal. Speaking nicely to the seeds; asking our future food to develop strong root systems; playing classical music and The Sword for the “babies”, and — most importantly, to me — mixing dirt with my beloved, hard-won, still-sorta-frosted compost.

Getting ready.

The person who suggested we view Easy Rider in the Crack Rock after our five millionth dinner of beans and rice had watched it 34 times in her life. She knew she was going to throw a wrench into our hive-mind. But most of us hadn’t seen the movie in a while, so …

… during the scene in the hippie commune, after the awkwardly silent tableau shot that pans across the faces of long-haired pinko commie freaks from 1969 — the scene where, after planting crops all day, the Jesus-figure guy leads his people in a prayer before dinner — we were dumbstruck. The Jesus-guy whispers, weightily, and so desperately as to make himself out of breath:

”We have planted our seeds. We ask that our efforts be worthy to produce simple food for simple taste. We ask that our efforts be rewarded. We thank you for the food we eat from other hands, that we may share it with our fellow man, and be even more generous when it is from our own. Thank you for a place to make a stand.”

Like whoa.

Our 175-person-strong crew has been stuck out here in a Not-Commune since October, mostly sober. Not-us have abandoned us. Under pressure, no pleasure. Eerie silence, looming violence… bloggers going bonkers … anyway yeah so. In the absence of any sort of mind-altering chemicals, little moments like this whisper-prayer in a classic countercultural biker-hippie movie … well, they resonate.

They resonate.

And THEN! Then a bit later. When Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper run across Jack Nicholson in the jail cell … the trio goes free and later shares a joint by a campfire. Nicholson’s silver-spoon young-lawyerdrunk character George Hanson “inhales” for the first time in his spoiled and square life. Dennis Hopper claims to see a weird configuration of lights in the sky — and then Nicholson nonchalantly says THIS:

”That was a U.F.O. beamin’ back atcha. Me and Eric Heisman went down to Mexico two weeks ago, and we seen 40 of ‘em flyin’ in formation. They got places all over the world now, ya know. They’ve been comin’ here ever since 1946, when the scientists first started bouncin’ radar beams offa the moon. And they have been livin’ and workin’ among us in mass quantities ever since. The government knows all about it.”

(takes puff of joint)

“They are people just like us. From within our own solar system. Except but their society is more highly evolved. I mean they don’t have no wars, they got no monetary system, they don’t have any leaders, because … each man is a leader. … Because of their technology, they are able to feed, clothe, house, and transport themselves equally and with no effort.”

(Awkward silence around onscreen campfire. Dennis Hopper mentions it’s a crackpot idea and asks why the aliens don’t reveal themselves to us and get it overwith. Nicholson says

“Why don’t they reveal themselves to us is because if they did, it would cause a general panic. Now I mean we still have leaders upon whom we rely for the release of this information. These leaders have decided to repress this information because of the tremendous shocks that it would cause to our antiquated systems. Now, the results of this has been that the Venutians have contacted people at all walks of life. All walks of life.”

(laughs as if it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard)

“It would be a devastating blow to our antiquated systems,” he repeats. “So now Venutians are meeting with people in all walks of life, in an advisory capacity. For once, man will have a Godlike control over his own destiny. He will have a chance to transcend and to evolve with some equality for all.”

(pause)

Peter Fonda: ”How’s your joint, George?”

At this point, in the Black Rock Saloon in the smoky fireplace-dark, all of us are quieter than death. The room vibrates. We’re practically levitating.

I mean, we realize this scene is nothing more than New-Agey hippie palaver placed in the mouth of a fictional square. We realized Nicholson’s words re-hashed the standard plot for just about every Earth-based sci-fi story ever created … but still. We’re living it.

Maybe that collective imagination is a collective prophecy.

At any rate, Easy Rider makes me realize it’s all been done before.

All of it. Maybe even this.

Maybe there are more Not-Us in the world than we realize. Maybe Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson and Karen Black are Not-Us, just as Nixon and Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and the Bush family are Reptilians. Maybe the Not-Us are as eternal and multifaceted as Evil itself — sprinting through humanity in tandem with the dark forces, and gathering their own power, too.

Maybe, as war machines have evolved from rocks and sticks to remote-control planet-destroyers, “magic” has evolved from rain-dancing and potion-mixing into individualized holodeck spells and interdimensional force fields.

Maybe there are entire populations of desaparecidos stuck under boingy Not-Domes, freaking out because they’ve been roped into some sort of intergalactic reality TV show. Maybe all over the world, throughout time, poor dirtbag bastards just like us have been elected by a Not-Us Behind The Curtain to be given minimal food and shelter and a false sense of security and then set adrift to rot or prosper in another dimension. Forever. Perhaps we’re destined to make contact with other Not-Domes, the way our planet is destined to make contact with other planets. Just as soon as we deserve to.

Maybe, like Nicholson’s character said, the leaders know all about their nebulous Not-Us nemeses on the ground and in the clouds … Considering Rabbi’s return and all … maybe they’re quite able to get inside here if they want to, and they’re just toying with us, the way my dog Bruno catches rats and hucks them into the air and tries to play like puppies before he chomps down on their little skulls and throws his head back and swallows them whole.

Or maybe everything’s coming up roses, and Barton and crew will be back any day now, “in an advisory capacity,” bearing whiskey and steaks and bacon and new socks for everyone! (sigh)