How Dennis Hopper and "Easy Rider" Affected Me

Actor Dennis Hopper died in Hollywood on Saturday at the age of 74. Although he was been known for the wide variety of roles that he has played from the alcoholic assistant basketball coach in “Hoosiers” (a role that earned him one of his two Oscar nominations) to the super creepy psychotic in the bizarre “Blue Velvet” – I will always associate Dennis Hopper and the movie “Easy Rider” (that he helped to write) with one thing – my first anxiety attack.

It was a warm Saturday night in the city of Flint, Michigan and a couple of my friends had come over to visit me.  My friend Steve was just getting to “know” another friend of mine, Marianne, and instead of going out and doing something we decided that we would hang around my place and watch “Easy Rider” on Channel 7 WXYZ’s Saturday Evening Late Movie.  I had never seen the movie before and my friend Steve had nothing but positive comments about the flick and thought that both Marianne and I would enjoy seeing it – even despite the heavy handed editing of a local TV station.

All three of us gathered together on this green couch that we had in our living room on Marshall Street.  Steve and I book ended Marianne on the couch and somewhere over my shoulder sat my cat, High T. Kittycat.  (You can assume how my cat got her name and you would probably be close.  You have got to remember this was the early 70s and although the herb never played a big part in my life – it did when it came to this cat.).

Naturally, the first thing that grabs you about the movie “Easy Rider” was the music – I can’t remember movies using rock n’ roll music as effectively as they did in this movie, but all you had to do is take one look at Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper to understand the rock n’ roll connection. 

Get your motor running 
Head out on the highway 
Looking for adventure 
In whatever comes our way 

Yeah, darling 
Gonna 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 
Racing in the wind 
And the feeling that I'm under 

Yeah, darling 
Gonna 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 child 
We were born 
Born to be wild 
We have climbed so high 
Never want to die 
Born to be wild 
Born to be wild

Wow!  This movie is gonna be good, I thought.

It was at that point that something happened…something that had never happened to me before…and not knowing what it was – I got scared.  For some reason – I felt my heart beating fast and I was having difficulty breathing – so, I left my friends on the couch and walked into the bathroom.  I can remember looking at myself in the mirror as I alternated between putting a cold wash cloth on my face and sitting on the toilet burping and trying to go to the bathroom.  I don’t know why I did those things – I just felt that they gave me some relief to what I was feeling…but it didn’t…because after about fifteen minutes in the bathroom – I had a big announcement to my friends.

“I’m sorry to have to do this,” I said, “But, I need for you to take me to the hospital, because I feel like I’m gonna die.”

I explained to my friends what I had been experiencing in the bathroom with the heart palpitations and the shortness of breath and they took me directly to the hospital that brought me into this world back in 1954 – St. Joesph’s Hospital on Flint’s east side.  The doctors and nurses didn’t seem overly concerned – even though I felt like I was going to die.  I can remember having x-rays done and even being hooked up to wires whereas after a little while the shortness of breath started to go away and the heart wasn’t beating as fast.  I even started to joke with my friends that I was becoming Chief Ironside (the TV detective that Raymond Burr played that was pretty popular at the time) as I was being wheeled around in a wheelchair.

After a few hours – the doctors at St. Joseph’s Hospital informed me that I wasn’t dying and what I was experiencing was an anxiety attack.  Well, you could have fooled me – I thought that the grim reaper was at my door and it was only a matter of time.  I have learned since on how to deal with anxiety attacks – but the first one does leave an impression and for years – I place the blame for it directly on the movie “Easy Rider”.  I was watching the movie when it happened and that had to been the trigger for the racing heart, shortness of breath and that feeling like I was going to die – so, I refused to watch the movie whenever it was on television, only because I felt like it might have that reaction on me again. 

After that first anxiety attack – I wouldn’t travel anywhere without having my trusty brown lunch sack near by that I would use to breath in and ease the anxiety symptoms that I use to feel.  (I also had the “Hospital” signs memorized between Flint and Gladwin, Michigan just in case I needed to visit one when I would go up north to visit my parents – but that’s another story). 

And call me superstitious – but I have yet to watch the movie “Easy Rider” since that eventual night of the first anxiety attack and maybe I should watch it to honor the film legacy that Dennis Hopper has left behind.  I mean, if I can get through “Blue Velvet” and not experience anything too creepy…”Easy Rider” should be a breeze, shouldn’t it? 

Rest in peace, Mr. Hopper!