#wayne westerberg

[fuckyeah-into-the-wild]

Wayne Westerberg interview.

[whatitisaintexactlyclear]

He read a lot. Used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.

Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer

[mrslizscissorhands]

Into The Wild

I get to meet Wayne Westerberg next Tuesday, words cannot express my excitement.

[manisangorilla-blog]

Into The Wild, 2007.

Wayne Westerberg: Outdoorsman. What's your fascination with all that stuff?

Christopher McCandless: I'm going to Alaska.

Wayne Westerberg: Alaska, Alaska? Or city Alaska? Because they do have markets in Alaska. The city of Alaska. Not in Alaska. In the city of Alaska, they have markets.

Christopher McCandless: No, man. Alaska, Alaska. I'm gonna be all the way out there, all the way fucking out there. Just on my own. You know, no fucking watch, no map, no axe, no nothing. No nothing. Just be out there. Just be out there in it. You know, big mountains, rivers, sky, game. Just be out there in it, you know? In the wild.

Wayne Westerberg: In the wild.

Christopher McCandless: Just wild!

Wayne Westerberg: Yeah. What are you doing when we're there? Now you're in the wild, what are we doing?

Christopher McCandless: You're just living, man. You're just there, in that moment, in that special place and time. Maybe when I get back, I can write a book about my travels.

Wayne Westerberg: Yeah. Why not?

Christopher McCandless: You know, about getting out of this sick society. Society!

Wayne Westerberg: [coughs] Society! Society!

Christopher McCandless: Society, man! You know, society! Cause, you know what I don't understand? I don't understand why people, why every fucking person is so bad to each other so fucking often. It doesn't make sense to me. Judgment. Control. All that, the whole spectrum. Well, it just...

Wayne Westerberg: What "people" we talking about?

Christopher McCandless: You know, parents, hypocrites, politicians, pricks.

Wayne Westerberg: [taps Chris' head] This is a mistake. It's a mistake to get too deep into all that kind of stuff. Alex, you're a hell of a young guy, a hell of a young guy. But I promise you this. You're a young guy! Can't be juggling blood and fire all the time!

[fuckyeah-into-the-wild]

McCandless was thrilled to be on his way North, and he was relieved as well - relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it. He had fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. He'd successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm's length, flitting out of their lives before anything was expected of him. And now he'd slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz's life as well. Painlessly, that is, from McCandless's perspective - although not from the old man's.

Into The Wild (Book)

[fuckyeah-into-the-wild]

Once Alex made up his mind about something, there was no changing it. I even offered to buy him a plane ticket to Fairbanks, which would have let him work an extra ten days and still get to Alaska by the end of April, but he said, 'No, I want to hitch North. Flying would be cheating. It would wreck the whole trip.'

Wayne Westerberg talking about Chris - Into The Wild

[fuckyeah-into-the-wild]

It's a good place to spend the Winter and I might finally settle down and abandon my tramping life, for good. I'll see what happens when Spring comes around, because that's when I tend to get really itchy feet.

Chris talking about Bullhead City in a card he mailed to Wayne in October 1991

[fuckyeah-into-the-wild]

You could tell right away that Alex was intelligent. He read a lot. Used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.

Wayne Westerberg, Into The Wild.