The more it stays the same

Jack wrote this in June, 2006:

I hadn’t watched Easy Rider (Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, circa 1968) in three decades.

When I saw it again this past weekend I appreciated it again for the first time:

Nicholson: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.

Hopper: Huh. Man, everybody got chicken, that’s what happened, man. Hey, we can’t even get into like, uh, second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel. You dig? They think we’re gonna cut their throat or something, man. They’re scared, man.

Nicholson: Oh, they’re not scared of you. They’re scared of what you represent to ’em.

Hopper: Hey man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody needs a haircut.

Nicholson: Oh no. What you represent to them is freedom.

Hopper: What the hell’s wrong with freedom, man? That’s what it’s all about.

Nicholson: Oh yeah, that’s right, that’s what it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it – that’s two different things.

I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace.

‘Course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are.

Oh yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.

Hopper: Mmmm, well, that don’t make ’em runnin’ scared.

Nicholson: No, it makes ’em dangerous.

Three young men searching for America who found it wasn’t what they bargained for.

Jack