Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway

Lookin' for adventure

And whatever comes our way

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen

Take the world in a love embrace

Fire all of your guns at once

And explode into space

I like smoke and lightning

Heavy metal thunder

Racin' with the wind

And the feelin' that I'm under

Yeah Darlin' go make it happen

Take the world in a love embrace

Fire all of your guns at once

And explode into space

Like a true nature's child

We were born, born to be wild

We can climb so high

I never wanna die

Born to be wild

Born to be wild

Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway

Lookin' for…

Age 77 is a good age to reflect on my past. While living in Mexico in the 70s, until we moved to Vancouver in 1975 I never saw, Easy Rider because the film was banned. I never knew the existence of the song Born to Be Wild. Furthermore when I photographed Steppenwolf’s lead singer John Kay for Vancouver Magazine I did not have a clue who he was.

Sometimes when driving home at night I catch Randy Bachman’s excellent CBC Radio program Vinyl Tap. His broadcasts are themed by listeners. A recent one was about birth and death. I heard Born to be Wild (with lots of inside information by Bachman who has met and even played with many of the rock luminaries exposed in his program) and was alerted to the name John Kay. I had an aha! moment late in my life but aha! nonetheless.

As I drove home from Burnaby I thought of the idea of being a wild person. This is something that I have never been. A legion of friends and acquaintances has urged me to let go, to loosen up. They have made me try cocaine, pot, hash, peyote or pushed me to get drunk. One Vancouver flamenco/belly dancer urged me to leave my wife and to go and live with her in Hawaii.

All have failed, and of pot all I can say is that somehow I am in control when straight but it makes me stutter. Stuttering is not being in control.

Because I have been a professional photographer since 1975 I have always known about the stability of a tripod with its 3 spots that cement it to the ground. It does not take too much comparison that with a motorcycle, after the two wheel contacts with the ground, the third is the rider’s head.

Before 1975 and in my youth I was shocked and affected by the death of young man from my school who was Martha Argerich’s brother. He had a nightwatchman's job and one evening he plowed into a train on a level crossing in his Vespa. I have never wanted to own a motorcycle, grow a moustache or a beard. Nor have I ever been tempted to go fly fishing.

That all adds up to fact that this old man was not born to be wild and will die in that same status.