A Steve McQueen & Hunter S. Thompson Therapy Session
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This spirited man had a rough week in which getting a puncture in a brand new tire was a bit of a relief. This was the fun part of the week. Everybody has a bad week. The dalai lama has a bad week.
Sometimes there isn't enough time left this week to write and shoot something complicated. An epic movie with a deep, resonant theme isn't enough time to build something, clever and shoot it. So this spirited man in an attempt to cheer himself up from his crummy crappy week, will jump on his bike and take comfort in los angeles visiting places. He loves and try to tell you about them about why they have this comforting effect on them.
The tire is back and full time to eat, so i'm gon na go to bobby's because i love bobbies bobby's is an american restaurant. Baby bobby's is my favorite restaurant in all of los angeles. Bobby's is what we call back east. A diner diners were the first restaurants when we were teenagers where we could afford to eat with our own money.
The first sit-down waiter, service places or waitress service places. We used to call them waiters and waitresses back then diners are one of the things i love about america. I can't remember the name of that diner on 184 in groton that was sort of my growing up diner you get two eggs, toast and coffee for two dollars and 75 cents and that's an unlimited cup of coffee, free refills, and that was around 1992.. It was 2.75 and i think the same breakfast costs 9.95 at bobby's, the one uh the one i went to growing up in groton was open 24 hours a day and when we'd returned home from college during breaks, it's where you'd run into people.
This is before cell phones and you'd run into people that you hadn't seen since high school. Anyway. I love diners in tokyo, this guy named, who actually did the voice for mayor kobayashi in the movie isle of dogs. He brought tom sachs and me to his uh sister's restaurant in in tokyo, and it was called the breakfast club and it was an exact, a near exact replica of an american diner, and it was a such a strange sensation for an american guy to be in Tokyo experiencing this deep and sort of sacred familiarity, there were two flaws in the in the breakfast club in this japanese american diner.
That sort of gave it away as not exact and the first was their espresso machine because it was way too nice for an american diner and the second was the immaculate and beautiful bathroom. That's japan, though, god bless him at bobby's. I ordered the all-american. It's called the all-american because it's actually two breakfasts there's mulholland highway and mulholland drive and i don't really know the difference.
I had a bad week that consumed most of my video making days. So what i did was, i went on a motorcycle ride with a couple cameras and spoke notes into the camera, to sort of give you an idea of what goes through one's head on a motorcycle ride. So this video is basically a combination of my thoughts when i'm riding and the thoughts i'm having. While i'm i'm editing this, it's very difficult to convey the majesty of mulholland, but i'll try to do that later on certain isolated spots on mulholland. I think about the beautiful steve mcqueen about a story. Eric burden wrote about mcqueen and mulholland drive. Eric burden was the lead singer of the animals and the animals sang that song. We gon na get out of this place.
If it's the last thing we ever do and uh eric burton and mcqueen were friends. So mcqueen has this jaguar race car that he runs through the canyons on mulholland drive back towards hollywood. Not this part, this part's near malibu, but it's it's the olden days, uh. The 60s, so mulholland looks more like this, like what you're looking at now, there's no houses like there are now and mcqueen has this game of of outrunning the cops in his jaguar race car.
So one day the cops set up a roadblock and they catch him and they throw mcqueen in jail. Uh mcqueen's, terrified, they're gon na throw the book at him and burden says the only thing that meant everything to mcqueen was his driver's license. So it turns out that the cops were just messing with him and you know they let him go and then uh mcqueen stopped doing it. He stopped racing the jag up and down mulholland.
They have these uh translucent gas tanks for dirt bikes. So you can see how much gas you got without a fuel gauge and turns out mcqueen invented that steve mcqueen invented that how about that burden said. Mcqueen smelled, like a combination of gasoline black powder and weed smoke so pop out onto the pch in ventura county. Not actually la anymore, and when i cross the county line in my head every time i sing the beach boys lyric from surfing usa here i'll do a ui.
So we can see the sign from the la side, ventura county line, and my ritual is to sort of visualize this story by hunter s, thompson about this motorcycle ride. He had, or maybe it's about an amalgam of rides on a particular route that he condensed into one story. It's called midnight on the coast highway and he's talking about a stretch of the pch up in san francisco, but i always imagine especially when it's dark that i'm the rider in the story. The story talks about how, at 100 miles per hour, your tears evaporate before they reach your ears, even in the cold of night midnight on the coast highway.
He said he just came home from the ride. One night sat down at his typewriter and boom boom boom wrote it all the way through never edited it never touched it, and that almost never happens. It begins with a remembered line from a long forgotten poem and the line is this all my life. My heart has sought a thing.
I cannot name thompson said that it was his favorite thing that he ever wrote. You.
The diner was called "Rose's" or "Rosie's", I can't remember which. But it was across 184 from the Railroad Salvage that is now a Walmart. Ahh, the good ol' days growing up in southeast CT.
"It begins with a remembered line from a long forgotten poem."
Beautiful line there
"All my life my heart has sought a thing I cannot name."
Thank you for this, Van.
Thank you.
if someone's sees this and doesn't fkin smash that like and subscribe button then I don't trust them
I lived in Malibu in the late 70s /early 80s and this ride brought back a lot of memories. Thank you.
Man! I really loved this video…reminded me of what I love about film, the American landscape & sleepy Kerouac style prose…so GOOD! My grandfather always rode motorbikes in the war and they would lite fires in the woods to confuse the German bombers…the sound of that bike makes me want to get one right now & just disappear!:) Thanks Van!
As much as I love your "Complicated build" videos I think I enjoy these "Just a cool vibe" videos so much more. Been a fan since the Neistat Brothers era and this reminds me of those segments a whole lot, which were always my favorite then.
PS: Please bring back "a cool thing".
I don’t rewatch YouTube videos NEVER 👎 but I have rewatched some of yours I find them fascinating the thought process the care the attention to detail and details not chosen to be attended to
Van. The best ten minutes of video I have seen in weeks. I ride a 50cc to work (25km) everyday, whichever weather. Thank you for the depth that you added to that commute.
Thanks for this. For some reason, people don’t talk about bad weeks, bad days or bad moments. It’s almost cliche in today’s society.
I’m waiting for lab results to find out if I have a rare blood cancer and it’s been a challenge. I have the mindset that it is what it is and I am blessed no matter what, but there are still hard days and a constant weight in my chest.
I ordered the Die Trying hoodie and will wear it with pride.
Keep doing what you do.
all the stories the spirited man told were very interesting…this video just turned my bad week into an awesome one..
two questions… is that a cork tied to the handlebars? Also, as a non-Californian, Non-motorcyclist … what was that @10.33 ?? Is it legal/common to just pass someone on the white line?
I love love love every bit of your storytelling, Van!!! I offer you a sincere, "Thank you!"
Not bad for a bad week.
I understand the creative pressure, especially when you set a high standard for yourself. But this was really nice– considering you "threw" this together. You've got good stories and good instincts– use them.
Wow. Just wow. One day, I’ll be able to meet you and buy you a coffee/make an asado for you. Such an inspiration sir