Possibly the best of the bunch is Bill Daniel’s WHO IS BOZO TEXINO? (2005)
By turns lyrical, blunt and beautiful, it involves the search for its namesake’s famous graffiti artist, whose handiwork can be seen on tens of thousands of boxcars. The act of taking on a moniker and disseminating it via crude Neanderthal-like sketches on the walls of mobile caves is explored through the voices of those who give in to this primal urge, to surprisingly incisive effect. Here, too, an important distinction emerges: strictly speaking, a “hobo” is only someone using trains to facilitate their active search for employment, and is not to be confused with a “tramp” (by definition someone who may do the odd job but isn’t looking for regular work, and is typically more of a peripatetic), or a “bum” (stationary homeless who doesn’t look for or want work and subsists entirely off of charity and/or less legal means) You may not care a whit, but make the faux paus of calling a hobo a bum, and prepare to deal with the consequences. Trainhopper art, philosophy, symbols, and code of ethics are mused upon, with many a nugget of hobo wisdom dispensed via salty colloquialisms. The hobo nickel, a sculpturo-numismatic form whereupon the artist engraves a new image onto the face of a coin, resulting in mini-bas reliefs, is another innovation bestowed upon us by the hobo community. Many modern slang expressions also originate in the train yards, phrases such as “pie in the sky” and “come to Jesus.” Some other lesser-knowns include “hotshot” (a fast train with priority freight that makes fewer stops, like an express subway) and “bullmobile” (police car). If one were to say of another that he “caught the westbound,” it means he’s died, and probably has since taken up residence in the “bone orchard.” An enlightening doc full of authentic ephemera; a must-see for the hobo on the go.
And now for something completely different. EMPEROR OF THE NORTH (1973) is Robert Aldrich’s über-masculine ode to arguably the most famous real-life hobo, Leon Ray Livingston (better known by his oft-copied handle “A No. 1”) who chronicled his experiences in the classic of hobo literature, From Coast to Coast with Jack London. He is played by, who else, Lee Marvin, and you know it’s a Lee Marvin flick when, within the first ten minutes, he beats the living hell out of a guy and a child using a chicken as a blunt instrument, and a guy is clubbed with a bat onto the tracks where he is promptly severed in half by a locomotive (known as “greasing the track” in ‘bo lingo). All train-on-man violence and poultry-fu aside, the film is actually a fairly serious take on the tension between both the rail authorities (personified by a hard-nosed conductor Ernest Borgnine) and the hoboes, as well as the divide between the older generation hobo and the young. Keith Carradine plays the latter to Marvin’s “jungle buzzard,” who reluctantly teaches the eager kid the proverbial ropes. Taught editing, a learned script, and solid acting elevate it above its action-movie clichés and ratchet the suspense up until the blistering mano-a-mano climax on a speeding flatbed, making it likely to satisfy both fans of the genre and connoisseurs of the rails alike.
And rounding out the documentaries we have Sarah George’s CATCHING OUT: TRAINHOPPING AND LIVING FREE (2003). Focusing on three sets of hoboes, it works well as a meditation on the tricky dynamics of relationships on the rails, as well as what could be deemed the Modern Hobo Paradox: on the one hand, hoboes of today tend to shun society and all its financial obsessions, creature comforts and materialism, while on the other hand, their lives revolve around the beloved great steel agents of industry that make their transit possible. The hobo’s entire identity, it could be said, is based on this once-great symbol of Civilization and Progress, without which their very existence as they know it is threatened. As one interviewee says, “In an my ideal society, I guess, trains wouldn’t even exist. Which would be sad, because I love riding trains.” The film debunks to some extent the myth of the hobo as total social outsider and embodiment of self-reliance: hobos are often forced to depend on handouts, begging and the general kindness of “straight” citizens, after all, in order to survive, which can hardly be deemed self-sufficiency. Other interesting contradictions are presented for consideration, as well. The extreme difficulty of bearing a child is touched upon, as a couple resorts to going straight for awhile, until the siren of the rail calls them back: the hobo as addict. One self-righteous hobo denounces his participation in the film under grounds that “some people shouldn’t ever know about train hopping,” his anti-logic being that if too many people were educated on the subject, they’d ruin it for him by bringing the heat. Aside from the fact that you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t already know that hoboes ride trains, does he think it better to wait for the corporate media to get wind of the phenomenon’s latest acolytes and present trainhopping impartially?
The debate is probably moot, at any rate, given that the lifespan of this dying art is probably little more than a decade. With the leaps in surveillance technology and the phasing out of traditional boxcars, this could be your last chance to get a genuine hobo experience.
Well, there you have it, gentle reader, a cursory review of hobo motion picture history. If you’re interested in delving further into hobophilia, most of the preceding movies and many more are viewable at the Hobo Film Festival, a traveling road show that could be coming soon to a town near you.
Riding the rails to nowhere
Pages: Page 1 Page 2