It's a dark and stormy post long weekend Tuesday in Miami and the rain
hitting my roof did not want me to sleep, so thought I'd post and start the
day. I was thinking about doing another week of posts based around a theme,
and this week I'm going to do some of my favorite American things, in honor
of Memorial Day and the beginning of summer. I went up to Delray this
weekend where you can stay at this amazing old hotel called the Colony,
which feels much like stepping back in time. They have a free swim and beach
club, with cabanas painted bright colors and endless Arnold Palmers. Delray
is a cool little town that reminds me so much of little beach towns I fell
in love with as a young girl- complete with a blues bar right on Atlantic
Avenue with some dudes jamming out to the Allman Brothers, Stevie Ray, etc.
If you go, check out Kilwin's candy shop and def do the lobster roll at
Linda Bean's. It doesn't suck.
truly an American treasure- an icon of American counterculture and era when
the youth of this country put up their middle finger to the establishment
and did their own damn thing. I can't think of a movie that embodies this FU
attitude more adroitly, than "Easy Rider", the 1969 film starring young
Dennis alongside Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson. Fonda and Hopper pay drug
smugglers who take to the road- you can imagine the madcap hijinx that
ensue. I remember watching this movie during my own discontented youth and
really digging it- you could really feel something happening in that movie
that was a pivotal turning point in culture- the sort of underbelly of the
whole hippie thing with a real slant on patriotism (Vietnam) but also a new
style of filmmaking that changed the game. You may watch it now and find it
cliched, (we have all heard 'Born to be Wild' on every classic rock station
from here to eternity) but when this film was made there was simply nothing
like it, and that's why I love it. And to watch Dennis and Peter Fonda light
up the screen is priceless, as well as Nicholson in his prime.
I absolutely love the scene when they make it to New Orleans and march through the Mardi Gras parade in all their freaky finest. Its one of the best road films of all time, and represents a moment in American culture when freedom was being redefined in the form of a bike called called Captain America.
If you haven't seen it, check it out. And RIP Dennis. You were a true
counterculture badass, as well as a gifted actor and fantastic photographer.
I will miss you. And that's what's up this trippy Tuesday in the MIA (And
yes they smoked real weed in the movie. That's a a fact). XO
