Road Rage & Its Treatment

I just got back from the West Coast, where I spent an exciting and enlightening six months getting an education on just how decrepit the economy of this country really is. I also rid myself of any illusions about Californians being in any way "mellow." I abandoned my sunlit apartment in Oakland and drove back across America to this fresh Hell that is Bloomberg's New York. This was the fourth time I've driven across the country since learning to drive in 1997.

Californians are completely insane. They have this mellow image going on for decades now, but it's totally bogus. They are not mellow, they are passive-aggressive. Put a couple of tons of steel and whatever around Ishtar Serenity from Mill Valley and she turns into Rudy Giuliani on steroids. Interstate 880 running between Oakland and San Jose is just about 40 miles of unmitigated ass-tearing road rage. No turn signals for lane changes, not acknowledging turn signals for lane changes, tailgating at ridiculous speeds and a feverish compulsion to be ahead of whatever else is on the road are the hallmarks of the California driver.

I took my time getting to Vegas, where I spent a week relaxing with some old friends from the circus. As soon as I pulled off Interstate 15 onto Tropicana I was confronted with a hideous accident; a passenger car and a taxicab completely annihilated each other in the intersection of Industrial and Tropicana. There was metal all over the road and traffic slowed to a crawl as the police waved everyone into one meandering lane around the carnage. Nevada drivers tend to be pretty mellow on the Interstates, but Vegas is unique in ways other than its irrepressible stand-alone economy: the traffic is horrifying. Local wisdom has it that at any given time, at any given intersection, one out of four drivers in Vegas is legally DUI.

Driving over the Hoover Dam into Arizona is a lot more interesting than it used to be. People are just a little edgy now, keeping one eye on the sky as they cross the landmark edifice. It's one of those "close your eyes and think of England" moments, like taking the plunge into the Holland Tunnel. The speed limit on the dam is 15 mph, and I had plenty of time to ponder the inability of FAA and NORAD flight-intercept protocols to keep American airspace secure as I idled across the dam listening to Laurie Anderson's Big Science. "O Superman" has acquired all kinds of new resonance in the last year or so: "Here come the planes. They're American planes, made in America."

US-93 south through Arizona is one of my favorite stretches of highway. The Arizona landscape is breathtaking. The first description that comes to mind is "otherworldly," but that's wrong: the Arizona desert is Earth, served up raw and unadorned. It's L.A. and SF and NYC that are otherworldly. Mike Oldfield's Ommadawn, which I had not heard since 1975, provided the perfect soundtrack. Arizona is an "open carry state" meaning that any citizen with a clean criminal record can carry a gun openly. An armed society is a polite society, and Arizona drivers are as courteous a bunch as one could wish for. It's also the only state I've driven through (which includes all of the lower 48) where I've seen big rigs pulled over for speeding. God bless the Arizona state troopers.

I picked up 40 East into New Mexico just around nightfall. I'd been hoping to make Albuquerque, but fatigue and a general antipathy toward night driving compelled me to spend the night in Gallup. It's hard to say anything about New Mexico's drivers-there just aren't enough of them on the Interstate to form a decent sample. The state is mired in poverty. New Mexico has lead the country in heroin overdoses, and the whole place has the appearance of some kind of atrocious, warped theme park based on the genocide of the Indigenous People of North America. There are drunken Indians outside of every bar and convenience store. One staggered into me and asked me if I was Navajo as I exited a bar. I told him I was black and pushed him away from my car. Another walked up to my car and tried to get in, querying "Where you going?" as he struggled in vain to gain entry. I shouted, "Back to hell! I'm going to hell! Wanna come with me?" He moved away, eyes rolling with confusion as his fetal-alcohol-syndrome-damaged synapses attempted to grasp the concept. This kind of nonsense is why I always carry a copy of Glenn Gould's second recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, to calm the nerves.

Oklahoma is unmemorable except for its endless Route 66 museums. These museums are like some kind of cottage industry there. I guess it's what you do with your roadside cafe or gas station when the new Interstate chokes off your trade. The drivers are pretty sensible and the truckers behave all the way through the Texas Panhandle. 40 runs through Amarillo, where the Big Texan offers a 72-ounce steak absolutely free if you can down the monster in under an hour. I managed to resist that temptation, opting instead for a nice little filet mignon and mountain oysters. I thought bull's balls would have more texture and flavor, but they had all the texture and flavor of stale Doritos. I'd picked up a cheap CD of Mountain, a greatest hits anthology. It had "Nantucket Sleighride" and my favorite Jack Bruce composition, "Theme for an Imaginary Western." Leslie West is still one of my favorite performers, and I still wonder just how much crystal meth had to do with Felix Pappalardi's death at the hands of his old lady.

Arkansas drivers are the worst I've seen outside of California. They do a thing there that I call the "Arkansas Clusterfuck," wherein each member of a pack of 30-40 vehicles gets it into his or her skull that they each have to be at the head of the pack. The result of this is a frenzied bumper-to-bumper shoving match at 85 mph. Me, I just drop back to 60 and position myself in the wide open spaces between these things, where I can reset the cruise control at 75 and ride undisturbed. I chose a nice collection of works by Ennio Morricone and Wendy Carlos' ethereal soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange for my departure from the Golden West.

Tennessee is long and the hills roll easy. Joshua Rifkin's first volume of Scott Joplin's music on the old Nonesuch label was perfect, but I did find myself wishing I'd packed something with Johnny Cash's rendition of "Tennessee Stud." Tennesseans tend to be gracious and civil, reflecting the highest values of the Old South. Their hospitality is matchless and the traffic moves smoothly. This was the third time I've driven through the state, and the only unpleasantness I have ever experienced there was at the hands of a trucker with Georgia tags who tried to run me off the road just east of Nashville. This character was the example par excellence of the type of truck driver who sees himself as some kind of cowboy riding herd on the four-wheelers as if they were cattle. These guys ought to get over themselves and get a grip on the concept: truckers are not cowboys. They aren't even bike messengers. Their exposure to actual danger is pretty minimal, and the bully tactics they pull with the death machines they drive are sufficient to warrant the creation of at least one coast-to-coast Interstate with a total ban on trucks.

North Carolina marked the return to East Coast motorized mayhem. I jumped over to Interstate 85 and shot up 95 through the horrors of the Beltway and up the Jersey Turnpike with a trunkful of $21 cartons of cigarettes blasting Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention epic Uncle Meat. This was the album that convinced me that Zappa was rock's answer to Mozart.

I'm considering taking a part-time position in the informal tobacco trade. Let's face it, cigarettes make crack look like chocolate milk when it comes to addiction, and our esteemed mayor has opened an eminently profitable slot for the ambitious small entrepreneur.

The plunge into the Holland and up the West Side Highway demanded Roger Waters' 1992 response to the Gulf War, Amused To Death. "And the Germans killed the Jews and the Jews killed the Arabs and the Arabs killed the hostages and that is the news?"

All in all, this last jump across the United States was very revealing. The country is now split almost exactly along the lines of the split I observed when I drove across in November 2000. About half the people believe little Emperor Nitwit's every utterance, believe that the 9/11 massacre caught our defenses by surprise and support a war with Iraq. The other half think he's a venal usurper whose administration is almost certainly culpable in the 9/11 attacks and believe that this war with Iraq is some kind of scam for the benefit of W's masters in the oil industry. Meanwhile, we really are amusing ourselves to death. The Osbournes is pretty much proof positive that America has officially run out of ideas.

It's been my observation that the more flags and other pseudo-patriotic trappings someone has on their vehicle, the less likely it is that they will display the least bit of courtesy or common sense on the road. The ones with the little Jesus fish on the back or any other kind of Christian emblems are to be given a very wide berth. They will cut you off and tailgate you at high speeds and generally behave as if God is protecting them, which, of course, they believe to be true. When all else fails, remember that J.S. Bach cures road rage immediately.

I believe that the SUV fad is directly related to the observable and indisputable fact that Americans get fatter and stupider every day. Foreign people don't hate us because we're free, they hate us because we're fat, stupid and completely self-centered. The 20th century was truly the American century. Hopefully we'll get over it before the bill comes due. In the meantime, fasten your safety belt and drive defensively.