Tramping

Strikes me that America has lost its love of the tramp (I mean as icon, emblem, symbol even of its own roving/pioneering psyche) – which I think means it is learning to hate itself. I was looking today at an image of Buster Keaton (one that’s in the iconography slideshow to the right), at the state of his worn shoes, all the miles and miles of uncharted territory encountered within them, flickering b/w dust and creases that are historical and sublime; then of Chaplin’s clown tramp, again striking out into the unknown. But, really I’m thinking of Kerouac, the patriot/priest, and I’m wondering why America chose the path of backlash against these questers. When did it begin? See I don’t think America was once as prejudiced against the nomad as Europe was/is - how could it have been, its modern foundation was born by nomads – so there must have been some turning point. Was it the ‘60s counter-culture; was that period the catalyst for the distancing of what lay at heart of the American soul? Man, look at those shoes – look at the cracked leather, the noisy substance of making passage therein. Or was it boredom? Or actually the discovery that there was nothing but continual movement at the heart of an American consciousness and that realisation scared the poor little white man who had to earn a living, made him run to the governing hill and say enough is enough, we want to expand elsewhere, we’ve seen everything there is to see here, we got to carry on beyond our shores, keep going til we’ve eaten half the world and slapped it bang in between two burger buns and poured the ketchup (blood red of course) onto the meat that’s sandwiched between? But, I mean look at the sadness in Keaton’s eyes, hey? Or the rotten liver of poor Jackie boy as he lay floundering at the bad end of his roving adventures? What does that say? . . .