the duality of your lakeside house and the road, today

“The pur­pose of the MFP was to sup­port the reg­u­lar po­lice in com­bat­ing or­ga­nized crime, es­pe­cial­ly sav­age, mo­tor­ized crim­i­nal bik­er gangs and ma­raud­ing punks, and act as a high­way pa­trol on the Transcon­ti­nen­tal High­ways.”
—Main Force Pa­trol, The Mad Max Wiki

 

Ever see the first Mad Max (1979)?*

*Please ex­cuse my use of a Mel Gib­son-led fran­chise to make a point. I don’t like him ei­ther but damn if these movies writ­ten by a Doc­tor­al can­di­date on a lark to ex­plain nat­ur­al re­sources and death economies aren’t just the per­fect syn­op­sis of my T‑shirt wear­ing, long haired, sta­tion-wag­on dri­ving self at the mo­ment.

Ugh, are we done yet?

Look, for what it’s worth Tom Hardy’s per­for­mance was bet­ter! Mad Max #4 – Fury Road (2015) – was in­stan­ta­neous­ly the best ac­tion film of its year and the best Mad Max film by far.

But #1, serves the ex­am­ple bet­ter.

We still here? Good.

 

So, in Mad Max #1 so­ci­ety is crum­bling.

 

V8s are leg­end, gas is in short sup­ply, and the free­ways are sheer ter­ror.

 

The film then cuts to this idyl­lic house along the lake – it’s Max’s.

His wife and young child live in this dream­scape of a domi­cile.

 

It’s just jar­ring to see scenes of hu­man mis­ery while then cut­ting to this house along the lake.

 

The film works like this:

road:
bik­er gang rapes and pil­lages a small town.

lake­side house:
“Oh, the tele­vi­sion sig­nal is blur­ry.”

road:
Max finds an ema­ci­at­ed vic­tim.

lake­side house:
“Where’s my pic­nic blan­ket?”

 

And this film in its ef­fort­less ge­nius even­tu­al­ly mar­ries the road and the world of the lake­side house.

Peo­ple die on both sides, and even­tu­al­ly Max just dri­ves away.

 

He couldn’t live both lives … but he want­ed to.

It’s al­most as if the char­ac­ter was un­will­ing to move the plot so it just blind­sided him.

What else can he do but go back to the road af­ter the lake­side house is gone?

 

Sub­se­quent Mad Max movies suf­fer from this lack of du­al­i­ty.

Ex­cept for #4, holy shit, he ac­tu­al­ly fix­es shit in #4.

 

OKAY, MY Point:

2020 is all about work­ing on the road while re­tir­ing to our safe lake­side hous­es.

Soon, and I mean be­fore you’re ready, the road will be at your door.

I know this be­cause my lake­side house burnt years ago. All I have is the road. Yes, I’m pro­found­ly bro­ken, all I can do is dri­ve to­ward the sun.

 

Aren’t I rugged?

 

In the post apoc­a­lyp­tic time­line of Mad Max I’m prob­a­bly at #3, Thun­der­dome (1985).

I’m gray and I ac­tu­al­ly roll with chaos.

 

I haven’t been to a pic­nic since the 1990s and my friends nev­er in­vit­ed me over to their gen­der re­veals.

So ex­cuse me when I park near your lake­side hous­es. I re­al­ly like the view and I just need a nap.

 

I’d nev­er set­tle where you live though. I know the plot of this whole thing is go­ing to wreck your alu­minum sid­ing.

 

I just want to move for­ward.

See you at #4. Bring wa­ter.

 

I won’t need to go to court.

They’ll just get free shit.

Cuz I’m an id­iot who uses big words they couldn’t un­der­stand.

 

Who needs sleep and mon­ey right?

Point is ed­its are ex­pen­sive.

Les­son learned.

 

I don’t know, lol, I don’t mind de­bas­ing my self for a mod­icum of grat­i­tude or in­come.

Maybe it was be­ing raised by im­mi­grants.

Maybe it’s Amer­i­can in the worst way.

 

All I know is I like a pat on the back for work I like do­ing.

 

I don’t re­al­ly ex­pect a lot and I’m not sur­prised when peo­ple let me down.

 

Je­sus, none of this is healthy.

 

—louis her­nan­dez

Flom­mist Louis Her­dan­dez is ob­sessed with go­ing Bauhaus and be­com­ing The Ma­chine. Prefer­ably a drill press. Copy­right © 2020 Louis Her­nan­dez.

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