Hecka Walk
I once walked from Boston, MA to San Francisco, CA. Or, rather, I “Amerigrinated.”
But before I go any further, please take five minutes to watch a BoJack Horseman homage video I made, which features in the background the scenery from Malvern, IA to San Francisco, CA. (To my slight annoyance, this accidentally functions as an extended Selfie, so, with that in mind, apologies in advance for not being more handsome. My good friend Chris Hemsworth was busy during filming.) Please enjoy…
The idea for this homage came when I was walking through either the end of Missouri or the beginning of Iowa in November of ‘20. I had this song and The Last Shadow Puppets’ “Miracle Aligner” downloaded on my dictaphone, so when I needed a quick shot of upbeat rhythms, I would click this file and they would play for me. My first middle name is Beau, so I jokingly said to myself, “ Yeah, it’s not so much BoJack Horseman as BeauMax Walkman,” then it clicked that it might be fun to make a little homage video to what I view to be one of the greatest shows ever. I thought that, once I began Round III, if I took ten seconds a day from Iowa all the way to California, it could make for a fun art project. Turns out that “ten seconds a day” from May to December turns into two hours of footage. You’ll easily see that I’m not a trained editor. In fact, the last video I edited was a Spanish project in 10th grade. However, Clipchamp is relatively user-friendly, so I trimmed the two hours down to five minutes, added the music, and, Voila! BeauMax Walkman for your viewing pleasure.
But the homage goes deeper than that. While watching the show, I found that many of the issues that BoJack or the other characters are struggling with are ubiquitous in all ages. BoJack’s struggles with intimacy, sincerity, and meaning reflect the perennial struggles of humanity, struggles that have thought about, written about, sung about since Man could think, write, and sing. What I found so compelling in my reading about pilgrimage was that this was obvious to those who proponed it, as though built into the DNA of pilgrimage was a healing balm for the restless. Or the pennant. Or the grieving. Or, strangely, the mighty.
So, in Summer of ‘18 I decided that after I graduated I would go on a pilgrimage to see what all the fuss was about. Now, some 3,500 Amerigrinated miles later, I can testify that pilgrimage changed me at a molecular level. This page will be an attempt to describe why I now advocate pilgrimage as a practice so adamantly, and, in my heart of hearts, a laying out of a blueprint for anyone else keen to saunter as well.