Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker

I understand that people thought it was funny when a hatchet-wielding hitchhiker who stopped a huge mentally ill man from killing people by hitting him over the head with the blunt end of a hatchet gave a moronic, obscenity-laced interview for the local news. And I can understand how people might have admired the moron. He appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel Show and had a following on the internet. But now...

Now he's been arrested for murdering a man, beating him to death with a blunt instrument.

Years ago, I was reading a biography of Charles Bukowski. It described one incident. Bukowski went to a reading by William S Burroughs. He tried to talk to Burroughs and felt Burroughs had snubbed him. He became extremely angry.

Look at him! I could knock him down with one punch! Bukowski said to Harold Norse.

Yeah, but you'd be dead because he'd shoot you, Norse said.

And I felt a fleeting admiration for William S Burroughs, a thin, frail old man who was far more dangerous than Bukowski or Norman Mailer or any of these other violent, thuggish writers who like to brag about how tough they are.

Then I remembered that Burroughs killed his wife in Mexico City while he was drunk, trying to shoot a glass off her head like William Tell. He fled the country and was convicted of manslaughter in absentia. 

It's like Kanye West. It was admirable when he was on a telethon raising money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. He went off script and talked about the undeniable racism in the media against black victims there. "George Bush doesn't care about black people," he said. He became a hero to quite a few people.

But then he did it to Taylor Swift and it seemed so much less charming.