The Stupid Journey: Thumbing the Canadian Wasteland
Jonathan Culp calls this travelogue The Stupid Journey. I don’t know why. It’s actually a pretty well written account of a hitch-hiker as he travels across Canada. The feeling I got after reading it was the same as I usually get after watching an episode of The Lonely Planet or reading one of Kerouac’s books about hitting Mexico. Culp delivers everything from dialogues with the people that pick him up to thoughts on the women he bags on the way. I liked it. It was quirky like a Bruce McDonald road movie. I think in a lot of people’s hearts here in T.O., there’s a yearning to get out and see the rest of the country. Culp affords us the opportunity of doing this vicariously through him. Moreover, he confirms some of the fears we city dwellers have about our fellow rural Canadians. What I mean by this is that there does still seem to be a large contingent of our national population that live out their lives in line with the themes celebrated by Stompin’ Tom Connors. The only difference seems to be that the reality is a lot less humorous–and a lot more stark. Altogether, The Stupid Journey is worth the six bucks. (DP)