In addition to wearing multiple hats on the production side of things (including contributing songs to the soundtrack from his forthcoming album Trans<\/em>), Young was one of several performers who takes on dual roles in front of the camera. The main one is dorky auto mechanic Lionel Switch, who dreams of being a rock star like his idol, Frankie Fontaine (also Young, credited as Shakey). Devo singer and keyboardist Mark Mothersbaugh pulls off a similar double act, playing one of the radioactive Nuclear Garbagepeople \u2014 collectively referred to as the \u201cNukies\u201d \u2014 as well as Devo\u2019s rubber-masked and squeaky-voiced mascot Booji Boy, who becomes Human Highway<\/em>\u2019s mascot as well. For sheer unpredictability, though, it\u2019s tough to beat Dennis Hopper\u2019s turns as cracked short-order cook Cracker and the paranoid Stranger passing through who, echoing the Nukies\u2019 spirited rendition of the traditional folk song \u201cIt Takes a Worried Man\u201d (which they whip out while transporting leaking barrels of nuclear waste to an undisclosed location), is wearing a button that brands him a \u201cWORRIED MAN.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, anxiety is the watchword of Human Highway<\/em>, and one of Linear Valley\u2019s most anxious transplants is Otto Quartz (Stockwell), who has inherited Otto\u2019s Corners upon the death of his father and can\u2019t figure out how the old man turned a profit with his screwy business model. (Stockwell also appears briefly as the late Otto Sr. at the end of the film, by which time such materialistic concerns have been rendered unimportant.) Not only has Otto Jr. begun instituting new, draconian rules, he also fires one of his employees without warning and plans to let everyone else go and torch the business for the insurance money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All things considered, Lionel\u2019s dim-bulb friend Fred (Tamblyn) couldn\u2019t have picked a worse day to apply for a job at the gas station where he works. (Of course, when Fred offers to work the whole day for free, Otto is more than happy to take him up on it.) Fred\u2019s other reason for coming around is to be close to Irene (Geraldine Baron), a waitress at the diner next door. Similarly, Lionel has a thing for her co-worker Charlotte (Charlotte Stewart, late of David Lynch\u2019s Eraserhead<\/em>, in which she played Mary X), but she only has eyes for Earl the milkman. That just leaves poor, laid-off Kathryn (Sally Kirkland) out in the cold, but at least she\u2019s not in danger of being paired off with a total goober.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The world these characters inhabit looks a lot like the American southwest circa 1982, or the closest approximation Young\u2019s crew could conjure up on the soundstage where the bulk of the film was shot with its obvious painted backdrops. Per the news reports on radio station KGLOW, the threat of war is \u201cmore imminent today that it was yesterday,\u201d and the reasons for international conflict are familiar to anyone who lived through the decade. There are also bizarre touches like the Arabic license plates, a detail that goes unremarked upon because it\u2019s just a fact of life for them. And the top story in the Megapolitan Times<\/em> is \u201cOil Rich Indians in Space,\u201d a narrative cul-de-sac that is the impetus for one of the digital embellishments Young made while preparing the film\u2019s 2014 director\u2019s cut, which was still being re-worked at the time of Waging Heavy Peace<\/em>\u2019s publication. \u201cI will be excited to close the book on Human Highway<\/em>,\u201d he wrote, but flawed as it is, one thing it can\u2019t be accused of is being boring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is especially true of the twelve-minute dream sequence that incorporates the 16mm footage Young shot in 1978, the highlight of which is his extended jam session<\/strong><\/a> with Devo on \u201cHey Hey My My (Into the Black)\u201d with Booji Boy on lead vocals. Even in its cut-down form, the clip has a manic energy that shows Young was perfectly willing to cede the spotlight to five spudboys from Akron, Ohio \u2014 if only temporarily. As for Bernard Shakey\u2019s filmmaking ambitions, with the exception of 2003\u2019s Greendale<\/em>, they\u2019ve largely been confined to concert films and documentaries about Crazy Horse and CSNY. Guess that\u2019s one way to keep his music in perspective. ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/human-highway2-1024x576.jpg\")
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