Wild: Three Young Bucks

Today let's take a closer look at this photo and discuss the Three Young Bucks.

A quick note first. I'm not going to bother summarizing every little detail of what occurs in the book here on this blog. If you're reading this, I'm assuming you have read the book and know what I'm talking about.

If you haven't read the book. I encourage you do to so. 

Oh yeah, I said that. I know, I know! Not since the Red Wedding has a series of random words been arranged in such a shocking and unbelievable sequence. It's conceivable I might even lose some friends over this, but yes, I actually think the book is worth reading, but maybe not for the reasons you think. 

Wild is a hysterical train wreck of a book. Dare I say, Wild is a peek into the mind of someone who thinks...differently about things than normal people.  In fact, the experience is not dissimilar to reading Burroughs' Naked Lunch

One of my favorite things to do is recommend Wild to someone, then sit back and wait for the astounded, disbelieving calls, texts, and emails to pour in. (Although they usually start taking an angry tone when they read the way Cheryl behaves during her mother's death) If you have an ounce of common sense though, you can't help but laugh inappropriately at the ridiculousness of the things Cheryl claims to have done. Several of my friends and I now have running jokes based upon some of the more preposterous quotes from the book. Bone-eating, Wilco t-shirts, Michelle Shocked concerts, condom packages. foot rubbing, "cow, cow, cow", nurse penis, taking drugs from strange men in vans, abortion-tuna...cmon! This is a treasure trove of unintentional humor.

"Mercer, your kitten is as soft as a nurse's penis. Meow meow meow!"

Invite some friends over, open a bottle of wine, read your favorite passages out loud. In fact, I challenge you to assume roles and read her dialogue out loud like a play and get through it without crying in hilarity.  Strayed has written a comic masterpiece and it should be celebrated as such. I don't begrudge her remuneration for that.

What I have an issue with is her being treated like a "hero" and that Wild is some sort of "inspirational tale" for others. She is not, it is not. If you behave in the real world like "Strayed" claims to have behaved in her book, then you should find yourself at the center of a behavioral intervention and probably on the receiving end of some powerful pharmaceutics prescribed by a health care professional.

Alright alright, back to this photo. Take a look at it.  I brought it up in a previous post in regards to the lack of a pink strap on the ski-pole Cheryl is carrying. The photo supposedly shows Strayed with "Joshua," one of the "Three Young Bucks" she writes about in Wild. This is the ONLY photograph I know of that shows Strayed doing anything that resembles hiking with another person. Now think about that. She carried a Minolta X-700 with zoom lens and tiny tripod (and a flash for part of the trip) but only has ONE photo of herself with another person? In fact, I'm hard pressed to figure out if any of the photos she's posted were taken by her. More on her photos, the ones we have and the ones which don't exist, in another post. 

It's odd to me that the only photo of her hiking with another person (or starting to hike anyway) doesnt look posed. That is, the two arent standing next to each other, dont have their arms around each other, arent looking in the same direction, anything that indicates there's any sort of friendship between them other than they were standing in the same vicinity when someone took a snap. I know this is my of my subjective doubt being imposed here, but try this: Google "Hiking with my friend" and search images. Compare those with Cheryl's photo. Just sayin'

By the way, which of those two backpacks would you want to carry based upon that photo? See where I'm going with that? "Monster" is looking a little thin to me. I thought big manly-men were impressed by its girth?

Now, hope over to Goodreads and read this. 
I'm afraid this is going to disappear one day so here's the pertinent text written in a comment to a review: 

The Three Young Bucks WERE from Carleton, class of '94! I pieced it together when I read the book because Rick Topinka and Josh O'Brien are listed in Strayed's acknowledgments. The third is Richie Kay. I contacted Josh and Rick recently to see if I could write an article about them for The Voice, but Josh declined on behalf of himself and Rick and said he was pretty sure Richie wouldn't be interested either. Frustrating! But it was exciting to solve the mystery of their identity! 

Two things to note: 1. She only acknowledged two of the three "Young Bucks" at the end of Wild,  and 2. None of them are interested in being interviewed about Cheryl. 

What?!? 

Now I understand people wanting their privacy, but NONE of the three is willing to answer questions about Cheryl's "hike"?  Go search the internet for each of them. Tell me if you find anything. I think one of them occasionally throws a "like" to Cheryl on a few of the thousands of photos she's posted of herself on Facebook.

Now take a look at the wording of her acknowledgement to the Bucks in Wild: "I am particularly indebted to my fellow 1995 PCT alumni...Rich Topinka...and Josh O'Brien, who responded to my inquiries with thoughtful care."

So, no "thanks for friendship" or "thanks for the help on the trail" or "so fortunate to have met such wonderful friends like..." Nope. All they get is: "I acknowledge that I owe a debt to these people who responded to my inquiries." What the hot-pocket does that mean? It means she emailed them years later and peppered them with questions about hiking the PCT along with, I imagine, several desperate pleas for any photographs they might have of her in hiking gear. 

In fact, reading carefully, you'll notice she never thanks a single person she met on the PCT. She thanks the hell out of all the people who helped her write the book, who seem to be legion, but no thanks to any of the people who (supposedly) fed her on the trail, helped her with information on the trail, gave her a ride, helped her with the pack...basically anyone who helped keep her hapless butt alive on the trail (again we are assuming she actually was out there running around in the woods and the whole thing wasn't completely made up). 

Quick note before I leave you for today. I've noticed I've used the word "supposedly" a lot already. I've given it some thought and unfortunately I think you are going to have to get used to if. When I say something like "this photo supposedly shows Cheryl next to a vented white metal box contraption" it's because I feel it's wrong and misleading to say "this photo (definitely) shows Cheryl atop her unicorn shooting heroin into her deltoid." I honestly don't know what to believe from her as there are SO many contradictions and things which just don't make sense. I think some of the events in Wild happened....kinda...but since a good part of the book appears to have been made-up, I can't take anything at its face value. I'll try to use a thesaurus from here on out if I find I'm likely to use the "S" word more than once on any post. 

Peace out
-Mercer

Wild: Nabokov for Everyone!

I cant take credit for this one and boy is it a goody!

A gentleman by the name of Bruce Kuntz posted the following on Ms. Strayed's Facebook page: 

You should be able to click this to see a larger version. 

He also links to this blog which raises the same issue. 

To summarize, in the chapter "The Lou out of Lou" Cheryl accepts a ride from a woman just after she met the (mythical) man who interviewed her for "Hobo Times." In the backseat of the car is a guy named "Spider" who's described at 40ish, dark hair worn in a braid, and wears a black leather vest with a red bandana. I think Cheryl was imagining Danny Trejo when she wrote this scene, but who knows. Spider goes on to tell her how he had been reading about "animals" awhile back and came across a story about an ape who had learned to draw. 

I won't bother recounting all the details of the story, you can see them for yourself on either the FB post above or the link to the blog.

The key thing here is that later on in Wild, Cheryl just coincidentally reads Nabokov's Lolita. In the afterward section of the book, which is contained within the American version, which Strayed read, is the exact same anecdote.

You can read Cheryl's response to her being questioned about it above. At best, she merged something she had read in the book, with something that happened to her in reality. (Okay okay, we are going on the assumption she actually got a ride from Lou and met Spider. I know this is stretching your ability to suspend disbelief). At worst...well, what IS the worst case? She made the whole damn thing up. The former supports hypothesis #2 and the latter supports hypothesis #1. Which is worse?

And look how unapologetic she is in her response. Eh, so what if I just mistakenly thought something I read actually happened? Tee hee! Memory is tricky and stuff! Hee! That's why they call it a memoir! Giggle! Smiley! 

As I sit here thinking, it occurs to me that Cheryl making the entire story up actually also supports hypothesis #2 as it fits right in with the idea she is suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. She doesn't think anyone is smart enough to figure out what she did and that she can just smiley-face it away. 

Goodness gracious. The deeper I go, the scarier this rabbit hole gets. 

By the way, I've just learned that I have been blocked from commenting on Strayed's Facebook page. Not exactly sure what that accomplished. If I really wanted to I could just create another FB page, like she did.  Ginger Nile? How many alternate personalities does this woman have? So far we are up to three counting "Sugar".  It's interesting because I only commented twice on her page and that was a few days ago. She only blocked me a few hours ago, suggesting that she's been poking around Califohioan's Blog or somehow found her way here. It's funny too watching her post multiple articles in an attempt to "push down" the post where she was getting questioned. Ah well.

Do you know what the great thing about truth is? You never have to apologize for it.

Wild: Mystery of the Ski Pole

Today you get a short and easy one! This little ingot is such a dumb mistake I don't even know what to think of it. 

In the chapter "The Only Girl in the Woods" which in of itself is a rather pretentious title and belies a level of self-centeredness briefly touched upon in the comments of my last post, Ms. Strayed talks about the ski-pole she found in the PCT hiker free box at the Kennedy Meadows General Store. 
Her description of it: 
"It was a ski-pole fit for a princess: white, white a bubble-gum-pink nylon wrist strap."

Now compare that to this photo of Cheryl with the ski-pole in question.
(Please let me know if this link stops working. I have a feeling this will disappear at some point)

The photo is of Cheryl with Joshua, one of the "Three Young Bucks" she describes in Wild. 
BTW, anyone else think that "monster" doesn't really look all that big compared to Joshua's?  
This was supposedly taken near Odell Lake. I say supposedly because with Cheryl, who the hell knows. Anyway, notice anything about the "ski-pole" she is carrying? Where's the pink? This is so prominent in the story (the ski pole is mentioned 18 times in the book) that they made sure the one used by Reese Witherspoon in the movie was also pink. 

I checked the rest of book and she never mentions losing it or swapping it for another. Lord knows she littered the trail with all the other gear she lost or dropped, why wouldn't she have also mentioned the loss of her princess-stick? 

So what does this mean? 

This is an example of the type of inconsistency that would be explained by Hypothesis #1, that most of the "memoir" was either exaggerated or just completely made up. 

"Why would she do that?" you might ask. Does this sound exciting to you? "I walked out of the store with an armload of junk food to stuff in my face. I saw a ski-pole that someone left in a box outside the store, so I took it." 

No, I'll give Strayed credit, she knew she needed to spice up this otherwise mundane story and the pink strap is an example of her throwing a little pepper here and there. Maybe I'm throwing credit around too liberally, her editor probably told her to do it (oh hey, maybe you might have shot heroin the day before you started hiking, how bout that?) She didnt think anything of it because this is one of the more benign examples of her dipping into her literary "spice-rack." By the time she decided to throw in a pink-strapped pole, she had already created a fictional reality that rivals Tolkien's, filled with bears and bulls and llamas and sasquatches (sasquatchi?). What's one little ski-pole compared to all that? 

I'm outta here....

Why'd she post the photo if it so clearly contradicts her story? Ah, now that my friends is a much more interesting question. In fact, this photo is quite interesting in many ways...which we'll explore soon.....

-Mercer

Preface: From Annoyed to Angry about Wild

I've been debating for awhile whether or not I should participate in a more formal fashion in the growing criticism over Cheryl Strayed's "memoir" Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. With some reluctance and hesitation, I now feel like I must speak up.

Why the hesitation? Put simply, I don't like the idea of putting a lot of negative energy out into the atmosphere. I feel it has a way of coming back upon a person. 

Comedian and UFC announcer Joe Rogan felt perfectly justified in publicly attacking Carlos Mencia on his website in 2005, because of the truly despicable things Mencia had done to his fellow comedians. However, Joe expressed regret for his actions in an interview with Marc Maron on his podcast WTF some years later, feeling that because he had put so much "negative energy" into attacking Carlos, it came back upon him in ways he hadn't foreseen. He still thinks something needed to be done, but maybe he would handled it in a different way. 

To some extent, that is why I've hesitated to speak out publicly. All one has to do is read through a few responses from Strayed's followers to get a sense of what you would face in daring to question her. Just check out a few of these gems from Facebook: 

"I read Bill Bryson's "A Walk In The Woods" and there you will find two immensely unprepared dudes. I've never heard Bryson criticized for his under preparedness in the way Cheryl has been. It's just b/c your a woman, and we all know it."

"I wonder if it is because you are a woman, and/or you achieved fame that causes this reaction in people? I think it is jealousy pure and simple. Most of your critics never hiked when you did."

"I was appalled at the PCT FB page. I had recently joined and then left after a few weeks. It was just as the movie was premiering and idiot after idiot had something crappy to say about the book. Sadly, they thought we all should hear it. However, there were defenders of WILD, some men, mostly women. I do think there is an element of fear, jealousy, sexism and cabin fever that have infected your attackers. Lets hope the spring will clear the cobwebs if idiocy... less hopeful about the sexism."

Yeah, and those were just a few of the hundreds I saw right away and picked out random. One day I might go back and cherry-pick some of the worst. The point is, I'm opening myself up for a lot of blow-back. Be that as it may, I've decided to move forward.Why? Well, Carlos Mencia never did anything that put people in harm's way.

What finally drove me over the edge was this Facebook post by Ms. Strayed.
(If that link doesn't, it means she's deleted it. I assume that will happen at some point)

Ms. Strayed appears to be upset that people are starting to call her out and draw attention to her irresponsibility in promoting the idea of people going out and hiking in the wilderness without proper preparation. She starts: 

"Might I say, for the record, that while I made comic (and truthful) hay in WILD about all I needed to learn about backpacking (which was MUCH), the extent to which I was unprepared has been wildly overstated?"

Okay, first I have to point out that I've never once seen an author post a massive block of words in one mega-paragraph like this. Just take a look at the screenshot above. To add insult to injury, the sentences are horribly constructed and she meanders from point to point with little connection between the thoughts. It's virtually unreadable. 

Second, what does she mean my "make comic...hay in Wild"? The term "making hay" generally means "turning something into one's advantage" or "throw into confusion". Neither one applies here. Make truthful hay? That makes even less sense. This is supposedly a professional writer who doesn't appear to understand the idioms she uses. She needed to learn "much" about backpacking? Who talks like that? The rest of her jungly word-garden is more of the same. 

Third, "...the extent to which I was unprepared has been wildly overstated?" Is she making a statement or asking a question? Better: "I want to state for the record the extent to which I was unprepared has been wildly overstated." Setting aside her complete lack of style, who is she talking about anyway? This seems to be a general attack against a straw-man she thinks she can defeat rather than a refutation of any specific criticism. Who has wildly overstated your unpreparedness Cheryl? YOU HAVE. 

After some Sugar-esque word salad comes this illuminating little gem: 
"People like to write that I knew nothing about hiking before I set foot on the PCT, but as I wrote in my book, I was an avid day hiker before my PCT trek--a fact that often gets overlooked for reasons I do not understand."

Help me out people. I cant find anywhere in her book where she states she's an avid day hiker. She uses "avid" six times and never about her hiking. (although there is this little eye-roller: "She knew I was intellectually avid," Ugh). In fact, this is what she says, in her own words, about her hiking background: 

• "It was my hiking outfit and in it I felt a bit foreign, like someone I hadn't become"
• "But now, having only these clothes at hand, I felt suddenly like a fraud."
• Paul: "It's only that you've never gone backpacking as far as I know." (Interestingly Cheryl then lies to him and tells him she has.) 
• "I've never gone backpacking."
•  "I walked all the time. I walked for hours on end as a waitress." Note, this is her FIRST justification for being able to hike the PCT. Next she states she walked around in cities and walked for pleasure. 
• She was referred to in the book as the "hapless hiker" a name she calls a "fairly apt description" 
• SHE NEVER ONCE MENTIONS HIKING in the two years (or whatever) she was writing as "Sugar." Think that odd? Me too, particularly since there were several times it would have been pertinent to the question she was answering. BTW, before you send me scowly emails about the one time she talks about walking up a hill and met people and feathers fell from the sky and whatever nonsense she was making up that day, I'll tell you I believe that story as much as I believe George Zimmerman's fanciful tales of self defense. 

 Do those sound like descriptors for an "avid dayhiker?" I think not. My favorite quote? "What is hiking but walking after all." This shows a profound (a word Cheryl uses 19 times in book) lack of understanding of what hiking entails. If hiking was walking, they'd call it walking. 

The point of this is: Cheryl HERSELF has actively promoted the idea she wasn't prepared for her undertaking and it was beyond, far beyond, what she was logically and sensibly capable of doing. This set-up was purposeful. It shows how "strong" she was. It sets up what she had to "overcome". Steel is forged with fire, not flowers and bunnies. If she was prepared, if hiking were easy, if she knew what she was doing, then where's the drama? 

This is how she closes the manifesto: "If you read WILD carefully, you know that when I went to the PCT I was going home."
What?? Was there another version that contains passages I don't have in my copy? She states repeatedly how foreign the terrain is for her. She had no concept what a desert was, no idea what the difference between a mountain and hill was, and actually thought she was going to get attacked by Bigfoot.

Now why does this matter? Go read comments from people who have read the book. You can find them on Goodreads, Amazon, and her Facebook page. You can find dozens, maybe hundreds by now, of coach potatoes who have been "inspired" to go out wander around in the wilderness without any more preparation than Cheryl had. Do you know what happens out there? The California desert isn't like Jackrabbit, Indiana or Corntown, Ohio, you dehydrate FAST. You dehydrate just by breathing in the dry air. Going on day-hikes at the local park is as far from wilderness backpacking as bumper cars are from a NASCAR race. 

That was quite a bit longer than I wanted. My plan is to go back through the book and create an entry for each discrepancy I find and anything that seems fishy. Ultimately I'm working through three different hypotheses, and I quite honestly don't know which one will prove true:
1. Most of the book , about 70% from what I can tell, varies between exaggeration and outright fiction
2. Cheryl Strayed is suffering from one or more mental disorders (I do not say this to be funny; I'm serious)
3. She's such a poor writer, one has difficulty in discerning what she really means, and thus, there's a lot of confusion. 

The third hypothesis is the newest. I just came up with it today when a group of us were trying to figure out when her first "zero day" was. I got confused because she didn't write what she really meant in one part and threw me off. 

Number one is the one I find most likely. As you'll see in future posts, her hike seems to be an abridged and slightly modified version of the Barefoot Sisters' hike on the Appalachian Trail with a couple of splashes from Bill Bryson thrown in for spice.

The second hypothesis cannot be completely discounted even if #1 and #3 hold true. She ate her mother's bones? She stabbed her husband with a toothbrush and threatened to fuck another man's brains out? She took drugs from a stranger in the back of his van? Yeah, there's a diagnosis there somewhere. 

We'll explore all these together in detail. So long for now. 

-Mercer