Sadly, there's no longer any point to riding around with a flask of The Macallan in my saddlebag, hoping I might encounter Neil Peart on some remote mountain road and buddy up to him by offering a swig while pretending I don't know who he is.
Today I learned Neil has passed away after a struggle with brain cancer. It's hit me harder than most celebrity passings tend to, because my relationship to his life's work is much more personal than to that of almost anyone else I could name.
My semi-cohort of fans is aware of the high esteem in which I've long held Neil. The lyrics he wrote for the music of the band Rush are among the most thoughtful, insightful, and profound in the entire history of rock and roll. Add to that his tendency to bend those words toward science fiction, in which I've been steeped since before I could read, and there's already an inescapable attraction for me.
His stories also touch on the philosophical and metaphysical, and what I take as the points where he would say "truth" might lie in those wholly imagined spaces seem very close to where I too would expect to find it. I'd take that further by saying I think we'd both agree on not taking it further... namely into anything that might be considered spirituality. I've concluded that Neil was, as I am, solidly a humanist and quite agnostic about the fundamental nature of reality.
Rush is nothing but virtuoso instrumental musicians, all worthy of veneration. As a lifelong musician, and as a rock singer and bassist who has sung and played Tom Sawyer more times than I can remember, I've a particularly deep appreciation and envy of their talent and skill. Neil was not "merely" a legendary rock drummer; he was a virtual demi-god in his realm.
Despite all this I was rather slow to develop a fondness for the music of Rush. I'm not unique in that this was mainly due to lead vocalist Geddy Lee's strident vocal timbre. It's certainly an acquired taste, if even that; after decades of pounding Rush songs into my skull I still don't really like his voice, I've just learned to not dislike it, and I simply couldn't allow it to be a reason to live without everything else that I so intensely enjoy about their music.
So there's all that.
Neil was also one hell of a rider. He was a BMW motorcyclist of global renown, and while I'm no slouch in putting thousands of miles under my wheels every year, during Neil's long heyday his annual touring put mine to shame. For years he rode models essentially the same as the bike I rode as recently as last week, variants of the BMW R1100 boxer twin. He went on to spin through a long series of BMW boxers, retiring them every 50,000 miles or so, whereas aside from the K1300S I bought in 2012 I'm still riding the same R1100RS I've had since '93, about the same time Neil also started riding an "oilhead".
Neil wrote books about his rides (the first of which I spent a lot of time with, see below), and like me was also a moto-blogger.
So that's quite a bit more we had in common.
On my way home from work and various errands, I stopped at the local grocery where somewhat to my surprise I found a bottle of The Macallan, Neil's preferred Scotch. On a whim, from the checkout line I called Mark Hale, my friend and longtime band mate from Glazed Look and 2nd Look, who like me is a huge Rush fan -- not to mention a skilled drummer who has emulated Neil's licks many times. It was late in the evening, but it was Friday and his house is only a few minutes from mine; I figured he might not mind if I dropped by for a short visit.
Voicemail. The message I left: "Mark. What are you doing right now, and do you have a bit of time for a drink and a friend? If so I'll be right over."
He didn't return the call in time for me to act on that impulse. But sometime soon I'll swing over with that bottle of The Macallan, and he and I will toast the memory of a legend. Likewise with my friend and fellow BMW R1100 rider Mike Feekart, who years ago loaned me his copy of Neil's book to read, and was the first of my friends to reach out to me with news of Neil's passing.
And when the 2nd Look band next reconvenes, I propose we reprise a verse or two of Tom Sawyer; nothing 2nd Look ever played was more fun for me than launching into those supremely powerful opening chords, which are what made it such a great set opener. Admittedly it was an entirely different story once we arrived at the tricky bit.
With bottle in hand I completed my journey home.
Laurel and I toasted Neil, and we watched Rush In Rio.
And then I stayed up until 5 AM writing this eulogy, which I'll conclude by linking in some content I've produced over the years that does honor to Neil's memory.
John Perry Dancoe
Lake Orion, Michigan
January 10, 2020
p.s. If you didn't catch it, the phrase "a drink and a friend" that I left on Mark's voice mail was extracted from Time Stand Still, which is my very favorite Rush song. Featuring Aimee Mann's ethereally haunting supporting vocals, as far as I know the only time Rush has recorded with a guest musician, no song could possibly be more poignantly appropriate to this occasion.
Another band Mark's been a part of, The Bush Pilots, did me the great honor of learning and performing that song just because I like it so much. Or so they used to tell me. Regardless, it was definitely effective in getting me out to see their shows, and I appreciated the price they paid to make it happen.
Today I learned Neil has passed away after a struggle with brain cancer. It's hit me harder than most celebrity passings tend to, because my relationship to his life's work is much more personal than to that of almost anyone else I could name.
My semi-cohort of fans is aware of the high esteem in which I've long held Neil. The lyrics he wrote for the music of the band Rush are among the most thoughtful, insightful, and profound in the entire history of rock and roll. Add to that his tendency to bend those words toward science fiction, in which I've been steeped since before I could read, and there's already an inescapable attraction for me.
His stories also touch on the philosophical and metaphysical, and what I take as the points where he would say "truth" might lie in those wholly imagined spaces seem very close to where I too would expect to find it. I'd take that further by saying I think we'd both agree on not taking it further... namely into anything that might be considered spirituality. I've concluded that Neil was, as I am, solidly a humanist and quite agnostic about the fundamental nature of reality.
Rush is nothing but virtuoso instrumental musicians, all worthy of veneration. As a lifelong musician, and as a rock singer and bassist who has sung and played Tom Sawyer more times than I can remember, I've a particularly deep appreciation and envy of their talent and skill. Neil was not "merely" a legendary rock drummer; he was a virtual demi-god in his realm.
Despite all this I was rather slow to develop a fondness for the music of Rush. I'm not unique in that this was mainly due to lead vocalist Geddy Lee's strident vocal timbre. It's certainly an acquired taste, if even that; after decades of pounding Rush songs into my skull I still don't really like his voice, I've just learned to not dislike it, and I simply couldn't allow it to be a reason to live without everything else that I so intensely enjoy about their music.
So there's all that.
Neil was also one hell of a rider. He was a BMW motorcyclist of global renown, and while I'm no slouch in putting thousands of miles under my wheels every year, during Neil's long heyday his annual touring put mine to shame. For years he rode models essentially the same as the bike I rode as recently as last week, variants of the BMW R1100 boxer twin. He went on to spin through a long series of BMW boxers, retiring them every 50,000 miles or so, whereas aside from the K1300S I bought in 2012 I'm still riding the same R1100RS I've had since '93, about the same time Neil also started riding an "oilhead".
Neil wrote books about his rides (the first of which I spent a lot of time with, see below), and like me was also a moto-blogger.
So that's quite a bit more we had in common.
On my way home from work and various errands, I stopped at the local grocery where somewhat to my surprise I found a bottle of The Macallan, Neil's preferred Scotch. On a whim, from the checkout line I called Mark Hale, my friend and longtime band mate from Glazed Look and 2nd Look, who like me is a huge Rush fan -- not to mention a skilled drummer who has emulated Neil's licks many times. It was late in the evening, but it was Friday and his house is only a few minutes from mine; I figured he might not mind if I dropped by for a short visit.
Voicemail. The message I left: "Mark. What are you doing right now, and do you have a bit of time for a drink and a friend? If so I'll be right over."
He didn't return the call in time for me to act on that impulse. But sometime soon I'll swing over with that bottle of The Macallan, and he and I will toast the memory of a legend. Likewise with my friend and fellow BMW R1100 rider Mike Feekart, who years ago loaned me his copy of Neil's book to read, and was the first of my friends to reach out to me with news of Neil's passing.
And when the 2nd Look band next reconvenes, I propose we reprise a verse or two of Tom Sawyer; nothing 2nd Look ever played was more fun for me than launching into those supremely powerful opening chords, which are what made it such a great set opener. Admittedly it was an entirely different story once we arrived at the tricky bit.
With bottle in hand I completed my journey home.
Laurel and I toasted Neil, and we watched Rush In Rio.
And then I stayed up until 5 AM writing this eulogy, which I'll conclude by linking in some content I've produced over the years that does honor to Neil's memory.
- In Motorcycles, Mostly, scroll down to Moving Pictures, the blog of my 2018 moto-tour of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. In that post I explain how the title of that tour is a multi-level allusion and homage to the Rush album of the same name. It was arrived at in light of that journey being my first foray into shooting and producing GoPro videos. To describe the style of these short movies I've coined the term "CineMusicalMotoEpic".
- Among the CMMEs I produced for that trip, two have Rush soundtracks:
- Riding With Gary, set to The Pass (from the album Presto), and Bravado (Roll The Bones) -- both performances taken from the Rush In Rio concert.
- Wolf Creek Pass, set to Red Barchetta, from Moving Pictures.
- The last half of Valley Dispatch says more, explaining what Red Barchetta is all about including the complete lyrics, and how that song bears on the video I cut to pair with it.
- Predating the above by several years is my review of Neil's first published moto-travelogue, Ghost Rider; see below.
John Perry Dancoe
Lake Orion, Michigan
January 10, 2020
p.s. If you didn't catch it, the phrase "a drink and a friend" that I left on Mark's voice mail was extracted from Time Stand Still, which is my very favorite Rush song. Featuring Aimee Mann's ethereally haunting supporting vocals, as far as I know the only time Rush has recorded with a guest musician, no song could possibly be more poignantly appropriate to this occasion.
Another band Mark's been a part of, The Bush Pilots, did me the great honor of learning and performing that song just because I like it so much. Or so they used to tell me. Regardless, it was definitely effective in getting me out to see their shows, and I appreciated the price they paid to make it happen.
Book Review: Ghost Rider By Neil Peart
In June 2012, I posted a little travel blog of a three week, 7,000 mile motorcycle ride around the western U.S. My dispatches received a smattering of praise from friends, family, and colleagues, and one of the responses was that a fellow BMW rider handed me his copy of Ghost Rider by Neil Peart.
I'd been aware of the book for many years (it was published in 2002), but having heard mainly unflattering reviews, I hadn't gone out of my way to read it. My friend told me he didn’t know anyone, including himself, who’d read the entire thing. Still, I was interested on a couple levels. That Peart and I both ride BMW R1100 “boxers” was naturally one attraction. I've also long been fan of Rush, the Canadian rock band for whom Peart is both drummer and lyricist. Among rock “cognoscenti”, Peart’s lyrics are widely respected for their intelligence, perception, and depth in a genre which is too often shallow and ignorant.
I knew before I began that the travels related in the book came after the loss of Peart’s daughter in a car accident, followed less than a year later by his wife’s death due to “a broken heart”. In the opening pages Peart sketches the tragic events of that year but the book really begins with, and is mainly about, what the book’s subtitle spells out: “Travels on the Healing Road”. For the next couple hundred pages, he details a very impressive four month, 30,000 mile ride. From his home in southern Quebec he proceeds to wander back and forth, up and down, and sometimes in circles along a chain of waypoints ranged from the shore of the Arctic Ocean to the Yucatan peninsula.
It’s hard for me to be objective about this part of the book because I identify so strongly with Peart as a rider. He and I ride the same kind of bike to the same kinds of places for exactly the same reasons. Most of the places he visited have been on my bucket list for years, and more than a few have by now been checked off.
Thankfully I’ve never had a mountain of grief casting a shadow over my own journeys.
As I read along, I was compelled to pull up GoogleMaps and document his route. It got to be quite fun to plug in the next destination, then invoke Terrain View and usually immediately comment to myself, “Neil wouldn’t have picked that road.” I’d then modify the default route to follow some squiggly little line that I’m pretty sure he really did take...because that’s the road I would have taken.
The links I generated are appended to this review.
I quickly came to respect Peart as a rider. There’s no reason to suspect exaggeration when he describes excursions up remote mountain “roads” which are sometimes barely passable by jeep. He doesn’t over-emphasize it, but such rides are often quite dangerous.
I know, because I’ve been on some of them.
But my bikes and the tires with with they are shod are definitely not intended for off-pavement use, thus I tend to occasionally stumble across such “roads” and sometimes follow them only because they appear to go in the general direction I’m headed -- which often turns out to be an incorrect conclusion on my part. Peart, on the other hand, actively seeks them out. And on this trip (because his favorite riding buddy Brutus was in jail on a marijuana rap) Peart did so with no other soul riding along to save his life were he to end up with a broken bike – or broken back – out in the middle of nowhere.
Peart also describes occasional mechanical problems with, or even mere idiosyncrasies of, his BMW R1100GS. Each time I read one of these, including the incident where his bike was accidentally topped up with diesel fuel, I’d smile because it would remind me of where and when that exact same thing had happened to me.
But I suspect for most readers these details are irrelevant at best, and possibly quite annoying.
Many reviewers comment on things like Peart’s scorn of overweight tourists – especially those who populate casinos – and an apparent hypocrisy most tellingly displayed by his elaborate methods to avoid even the slightest possibility of recognition by the very people who’ve made him wealthy enough to afford such a trip. He favors an expensive label of Scotch, obviously considers himself something of a gourmet, and often stays in pricey lodges.
To all this I say, “Well, why not?”
Such comments so nearly describe me that it would be hypocritical to cast Peart in any negative light on their basis. I share Peart’s attitudes about noisy Harleys and the stereotypical American tourist – especially when their wallowing RVs prevent me from fully enjoying the sport of a fine mountain road. And if I was as famous as he is I’d probably disguise myself too.
Am I incredibly fortunate that my paid vacation time and credit limit (both earned from years of hard work and more than a fair measure of good luck) permit me to sample the same luxury of which Peart takes advantage?
Damn straight.
I don’t take this serendipitous fortune for granted, nor I’m sure does Peart, with whom I share an agnostic form of “spiritualism”; after all, he put into print a friend’s attitude-adjusting reminder of just how difficult dealing with such grief would be if Peart was also poor.
But it’s not as if Peart was travelling via Learjet. Riding a mud- and bug-splattered “dual-sport” motorcycle is not exactly egregious flaunting of one’s conspicuous consumption. One of Peart’s favorite accommodations was a pup tent in the desert, and for every 4-star hotel there was a bland roadside motel or, in a few cases, outright dumps of the quality I know my wife would never tolerate (but I would).
Along the way, in between his descriptions of the landscape, bird watching, odometer tallies, and a very worthwhile collection of history lessons and book reviews that reminded me just how much I need to read more Jack London, Edward Abbey, and Hemingway, Peart did manage to make some of the insights I’d expected of him. I chuckled at this one in particular:
What a fool I used to be. (The truest words I ever wrote, and they get truer every day.)
It was one more example of how well his riding boots fit me.
On encountering Alberta “locals” he initially mistook for Native Americans, but later realized were of Chinese descent, he had this minor epiphany:
For the first time it was clear to me that when we try to classify others by stereotypes of race, what we really mean is culture. The modes of behavior, dress and habits of “The Other” that we find strange and exotic, or sometimes contemptible, are cultural patterns developed over hundreds of generations in a specific locale, under local influences of weather, livelihood, diet, and daily customs...Given enough time, a generation or two, we could all become “The Other”, no more different from our neighbors and peers than they were from each other.
Ultimately he was also, using relatively brief and infrequently delivered passages, able to convey just how deep his sense of loss was. I truly did come to empathize with him and mourn, in my own small way, the people that were Jackie and Selena. Many reviewers of this book did not take this away, and perhaps it’s fair to argue that, irrespective of his internal torment, what came out on the pages was excessively self-indulgent.
But guess what? So are my travelogues. I write them in large part so I’ll be able to remember what my life was once like if someday I’m no longer able to ride. Whether anyone else even cares is immaterial. Peart had more and better reasons to write about his trip than I’ve ever had; I’m glad he decided to share it.
Eventually, the “travel” part of his story had a hiatus. After travelling as far as Belize, Peart leaves his machine in Mexico City and flies back to Quebec, to spend a reclusive “Winterlude” in his cabin on the shore of “Lac St. Brutus”.
“Oh no,” I thought, “Here’s the part I was warned about.”
And indeed at the outset, starting with a sequence of letters to people about whom we have no more reason to care than Peart does about your business acquaintances, it looks like it will be a dreary slog. It would be very easy to give up at this point.
But I persevered, and was rewarded.
First, and again this is due to an inherent sympathy between Peart’s aesthetics and my own, I was really able to settle into the beauty of a northern winter – even though it was high summer while I was reading it.
He also, finally, happened across Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson. Throughout his travels, Peart had been reading, and intentionally dogging the hangouts of, writers like London, Steinbeck, and Abbey. What he didn’t know, apparently, was that he was also at times near some of the places that Thompson used to haunt. I kept wondering when, then eventually if, Peart would ever mention Thompson. When he finally did, I think his assessment was accurate and perceptive.
...I’ve come to think he’s a very underrated writer. He’s at least the Kerouac of his generation. I’ve only read this and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but in both cases he was able to tell an outrageous story and at the same time transcend it...It seems to me that he became so sensationalized as a character that he became underrated as a writer.
Most significant, however, was watching Peart finally start healing.
What Peart calls “The Healing Road” was really “The Anesthetizing Road”. While he was riding...he was riding. Even droning across the most boring stretches of the Canadian plains, he had to spend a certain amount of his concentration simply navigating that motorcycle. However, most of his journey was spent winding along roads ideal for motorcycling, surrounded by spectacular grandeur. Such vistas tended to eclipse, at least momentarily, all the woe he was carrying.
During those rides, his memories of Jackie and Selena were submerged.
The ride wasn’t a healing balm.
It was a narcotic.
Of course there were the nightly solitary meals, steeped in Scotch and cigarette smoke, during which the melancholy would settle back in. But then it was back to the room, maybe for a good cry, but almost always a solid rest demanded by the physical challenge the day had presented, and in any case followed by a morning in which the rote detail of preparing himself and the bike for the day’s journey occupied his mind.
But during the Winterlude, faced with nothing more remarkable than a war with the rodents raiding his bird feeder, surrounded by the home from which his family was now so achingly absent, Peart had no choice but to face himself and his dilemma. Only then did he truly turn the page.
In the spring he returned to Mexico City to resume his ride.
And, at long last, his life.
John Perry Dancoe
Lake Orion, Michigan
July 30, 2012
In June 2012, I posted a little travel blog of a three week, 7,000 mile motorcycle ride around the western U.S. My dispatches received a smattering of praise from friends, family, and colleagues, and one of the responses was that a fellow BMW rider handed me his copy of Ghost Rider by Neil Peart.
I'd been aware of the book for many years (it was published in 2002), but having heard mainly unflattering reviews, I hadn't gone out of my way to read it. My friend told me he didn’t know anyone, including himself, who’d read the entire thing. Still, I was interested on a couple levels. That Peart and I both ride BMW R1100 “boxers” was naturally one attraction. I've also long been fan of Rush, the Canadian rock band for whom Peart is both drummer and lyricist. Among rock “cognoscenti”, Peart’s lyrics are widely respected for their intelligence, perception, and depth in a genre which is too often shallow and ignorant.
I knew before I began that the travels related in the book came after the loss of Peart’s daughter in a car accident, followed less than a year later by his wife’s death due to “a broken heart”. In the opening pages Peart sketches the tragic events of that year but the book really begins with, and is mainly about, what the book’s subtitle spells out: “Travels on the Healing Road”. For the next couple hundred pages, he details a very impressive four month, 30,000 mile ride. From his home in southern Quebec he proceeds to wander back and forth, up and down, and sometimes in circles along a chain of waypoints ranged from the shore of the Arctic Ocean to the Yucatan peninsula.
It’s hard for me to be objective about this part of the book because I identify so strongly with Peart as a rider. He and I ride the same kind of bike to the same kinds of places for exactly the same reasons. Most of the places he visited have been on my bucket list for years, and more than a few have by now been checked off.
Thankfully I’ve never had a mountain of grief casting a shadow over my own journeys.
As I read along, I was compelled to pull up GoogleMaps and document his route. It got to be quite fun to plug in the next destination, then invoke Terrain View and usually immediately comment to myself, “Neil wouldn’t have picked that road.” I’d then modify the default route to follow some squiggly little line that I’m pretty sure he really did take...because that’s the road I would have taken.
The links I generated are appended to this review.
I quickly came to respect Peart as a rider. There’s no reason to suspect exaggeration when he describes excursions up remote mountain “roads” which are sometimes barely passable by jeep. He doesn’t over-emphasize it, but such rides are often quite dangerous.
I know, because I’ve been on some of them.
But my bikes and the tires with with they are shod are definitely not intended for off-pavement use, thus I tend to occasionally stumble across such “roads” and sometimes follow them only because they appear to go in the general direction I’m headed -- which often turns out to be an incorrect conclusion on my part. Peart, on the other hand, actively seeks them out. And on this trip (because his favorite riding buddy Brutus was in jail on a marijuana rap) Peart did so with no other soul riding along to save his life were he to end up with a broken bike – or broken back – out in the middle of nowhere.
Peart also describes occasional mechanical problems with, or even mere idiosyncrasies of, his BMW R1100GS. Each time I read one of these, including the incident where his bike was accidentally topped up with diesel fuel, I’d smile because it would remind me of where and when that exact same thing had happened to me.
But I suspect for most readers these details are irrelevant at best, and possibly quite annoying.
Many reviewers comment on things like Peart’s scorn of overweight tourists – especially those who populate casinos – and an apparent hypocrisy most tellingly displayed by his elaborate methods to avoid even the slightest possibility of recognition by the very people who’ve made him wealthy enough to afford such a trip. He favors an expensive label of Scotch, obviously considers himself something of a gourmet, and often stays in pricey lodges.
To all this I say, “Well, why not?”
Such comments so nearly describe me that it would be hypocritical to cast Peart in any negative light on their basis. I share Peart’s attitudes about noisy Harleys and the stereotypical American tourist – especially when their wallowing RVs prevent me from fully enjoying the sport of a fine mountain road. And if I was as famous as he is I’d probably disguise myself too.
Am I incredibly fortunate that my paid vacation time and credit limit (both earned from years of hard work and more than a fair measure of good luck) permit me to sample the same luxury of which Peart takes advantage?
Damn straight.
I don’t take this serendipitous fortune for granted, nor I’m sure does Peart, with whom I share an agnostic form of “spiritualism”; after all, he put into print a friend’s attitude-adjusting reminder of just how difficult dealing with such grief would be if Peart was also poor.
But it’s not as if Peart was travelling via Learjet. Riding a mud- and bug-splattered “dual-sport” motorcycle is not exactly egregious flaunting of one’s conspicuous consumption. One of Peart’s favorite accommodations was a pup tent in the desert, and for every 4-star hotel there was a bland roadside motel or, in a few cases, outright dumps of the quality I know my wife would never tolerate (but I would).
Along the way, in between his descriptions of the landscape, bird watching, odometer tallies, and a very worthwhile collection of history lessons and book reviews that reminded me just how much I need to read more Jack London, Edward Abbey, and Hemingway, Peart did manage to make some of the insights I’d expected of him. I chuckled at this one in particular:
What a fool I used to be. (The truest words I ever wrote, and they get truer every day.)
It was one more example of how well his riding boots fit me.
On encountering Alberta “locals” he initially mistook for Native Americans, but later realized were of Chinese descent, he had this minor epiphany:
For the first time it was clear to me that when we try to classify others by stereotypes of race, what we really mean is culture. The modes of behavior, dress and habits of “The Other” that we find strange and exotic, or sometimes contemptible, are cultural patterns developed over hundreds of generations in a specific locale, under local influences of weather, livelihood, diet, and daily customs...Given enough time, a generation or two, we could all become “The Other”, no more different from our neighbors and peers than they were from each other.
Ultimately he was also, using relatively brief and infrequently delivered passages, able to convey just how deep his sense of loss was. I truly did come to empathize with him and mourn, in my own small way, the people that were Jackie and Selena. Many reviewers of this book did not take this away, and perhaps it’s fair to argue that, irrespective of his internal torment, what came out on the pages was excessively self-indulgent.
But guess what? So are my travelogues. I write them in large part so I’ll be able to remember what my life was once like if someday I’m no longer able to ride. Whether anyone else even cares is immaterial. Peart had more and better reasons to write about his trip than I’ve ever had; I’m glad he decided to share it.
Eventually, the “travel” part of his story had a hiatus. After travelling as far as Belize, Peart leaves his machine in Mexico City and flies back to Quebec, to spend a reclusive “Winterlude” in his cabin on the shore of “Lac St. Brutus”.
“Oh no,” I thought, “Here’s the part I was warned about.”
And indeed at the outset, starting with a sequence of letters to people about whom we have no more reason to care than Peart does about your business acquaintances, it looks like it will be a dreary slog. It would be very easy to give up at this point.
But I persevered, and was rewarded.
First, and again this is due to an inherent sympathy between Peart’s aesthetics and my own, I was really able to settle into the beauty of a northern winter – even though it was high summer while I was reading it.
He also, finally, happened across Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson. Throughout his travels, Peart had been reading, and intentionally dogging the hangouts of, writers like London, Steinbeck, and Abbey. What he didn’t know, apparently, was that he was also at times near some of the places that Thompson used to haunt. I kept wondering when, then eventually if, Peart would ever mention Thompson. When he finally did, I think his assessment was accurate and perceptive.
...I’ve come to think he’s a very underrated writer. He’s at least the Kerouac of his generation. I’ve only read this and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but in both cases he was able to tell an outrageous story and at the same time transcend it...It seems to me that he became so sensationalized as a character that he became underrated as a writer.
Most significant, however, was watching Peart finally start healing.
What Peart calls “The Healing Road” was really “The Anesthetizing Road”. While he was riding...he was riding. Even droning across the most boring stretches of the Canadian plains, he had to spend a certain amount of his concentration simply navigating that motorcycle. However, most of his journey was spent winding along roads ideal for motorcycling, surrounded by spectacular grandeur. Such vistas tended to eclipse, at least momentarily, all the woe he was carrying.
During those rides, his memories of Jackie and Selena were submerged.
The ride wasn’t a healing balm.
It was a narcotic.
Of course there were the nightly solitary meals, steeped in Scotch and cigarette smoke, during which the melancholy would settle back in. But then it was back to the room, maybe for a good cry, but almost always a solid rest demanded by the physical challenge the day had presented, and in any case followed by a morning in which the rote detail of preparing himself and the bike for the day’s journey occupied his mind.
But during the Winterlude, faced with nothing more remarkable than a war with the rodents raiding his bird feeder, surrounded by the home from which his family was now so achingly absent, Peart had no choice but to face himself and his dilemma. Only then did he truly turn the page.
In the spring he returned to Mexico City to resume his ride.
And, at long last, his life.
John Perry Dancoe
Lake Orion, Michigan
July 30, 2012
Map links for Ghost Rider by Neil Peart.
Hopefully I'm not the only one who can see them.
I know some are seasonally discombobulated if the routes are impassible at time of viewing.
Chapter 1: Into Exile & Chapter 2: Westering
"Lac St. Brutus", QC to Muncho Lake, BC
Chapter 3: North To Inuvik
Muncho Lake, BC - Inuvik, NT
Chapter 4: West To Alaska
Inuvik, NT - Kitsilano, BC
Chapter 5: First Class Saddletramp
Kitsilano, BC - Waterton Lakes N.P., AB
Chapter 6: The Loneliest Road In America
Waterton Lakes N.P., AB - St.Helena, CA
Note: Missing loop via Calistoga & Clear Lake to Sacramento, but GoogleMaps can't add another point
Chapter 7: Desert Solitaire
St. Helena - Sacramento (Ch 6) - Santa Fe, NM
Chapter 8: Letters To Brutus (Part 1)
Santa Fe, NM - Calexico, CA
Chapter 8: Letters To Brutus (Part 2)
Calexico, CA - Mexico City, MX
Chapter 11: Back In The Saddle
Mexico City, MX - Deming, NM
Chapter 12: Spring Fever
Deming, NM - Los Angeles, CA - Kitsilano, BC - Los Angeles, CA
Chapter 13: Summerlude
Los Angeles, CA - "Lac St. Brutus", QC
Chapter 14: Eastering
"Lac St. Brutus", QC - NYC
Chapter 15: Riding The Jetstream
NYC - Kitsilano, BC
Chapter 16: Coast Rider
Kitsilano, BC - Yosemite, CA
Chapter 17: Telescope Peak & Chapter 18: Ever After
Yosemite, CA - Los Angeles, CA
Hopefully I'm not the only one who can see them.
I know some are seasonally discombobulated if the routes are impassible at time of viewing.
Chapter 1: Into Exile & Chapter 2: Westering
"Lac St. Brutus", QC to Muncho Lake, BC
Chapter 3: North To Inuvik
Muncho Lake, BC - Inuvik, NT
Chapter 4: West To Alaska
Inuvik, NT - Kitsilano, BC
Chapter 5: First Class Saddletramp
Kitsilano, BC - Waterton Lakes N.P., AB
Chapter 6: The Loneliest Road In America
Waterton Lakes N.P., AB - St.Helena, CA
Note: Missing loop via Calistoga & Clear Lake to Sacramento, but GoogleMaps can't add another point
Chapter 7: Desert Solitaire
St. Helena - Sacramento (Ch 6) - Santa Fe, NM
Chapter 8: Letters To Brutus (Part 1)
Santa Fe, NM - Calexico, CA
Chapter 8: Letters To Brutus (Part 2)
Calexico, CA - Mexico City, MX
Chapter 11: Back In The Saddle
Mexico City, MX - Deming, NM
Chapter 12: Spring Fever
Deming, NM - Los Angeles, CA - Kitsilano, BC - Los Angeles, CA
Chapter 13: Summerlude
Los Angeles, CA - "Lac St. Brutus", QC
Chapter 14: Eastering
"Lac St. Brutus", QC - NYC
Chapter 15: Riding The Jetstream
NYC - Kitsilano, BC
Chapter 16: Coast Rider
Kitsilano, BC - Yosemite, CA
Chapter 17: Telescope Peak & Chapter 18: Ever After
Yosemite, CA - Los Angeles, CA
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