Podcast Summary: Tangle – "PREVIEW - The Friday Edition: The Drifter's Lament"

Host: Isaac Saul
Guest/Author: A.M. Hickman
Date: December 5, 2025

Overview

This special Friday Edition of Tangle features “The Drifter’s Lament,” an evocative essay by A.M. Hickman, who reflects on his years as a self-described drifter, hitchhiking and living on the fringes of society. The episode explores America’s cultural discomfort with vagrancy, society’s expectations around home and work, and the romantic—and sobering—truths of life on the road. Through both personal narrative and broader social commentary, Hickman challenges perceptions about homelessness, rootedness, and the American identity as fundamentally nomadic.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to A.M. Hickman and His Work

[02:22]

• Isaac Saul introduces A.M. Hickman, a writer whose previous work argued America isn’t unreasonably expensive, Americans are increasingly seeking more—urban hotspots, luxury dwellings, and refusing riskier “up-and-coming” locales.
• Saul praises Hickman’s unique voice and recounts his journey to publishing Hickman’s latest essay with Tangle:
  • “A story about how he missed being homeless. Hickman had spent years as a kind of nomadic bum... and he described all the ways in which he felt more alive and more intellectually stimulated during that time in his life than any other.” — Isaac Saul

2. The Drifter’s Experience and “Loose Men”

[04:57]

• Hickman opens with a provocative take on the concept of “loose men”—not just morally, but existentially unmoored.
• Admits to living a dissipated life, “cut adrift” by both personal choice and forces beyond his control.
• Reflects candidly on years spent as a “drifter,” with no job, fixed address, or consistent shelter.
  • “I hated society, so I left it, and for many years a thicketed, greasy, unshorn beard hung down on my face like a filthy rag, the national flag of the dropout, the punk, the ne’er do well, the hobo.” — A.M. Hickman [06:26]

3. Life on the Road: Randomness, Community, and Survival

[05:48–12:09]

• Hickman recounts his everyday reality as an “itinerant and vagabond,” living off discarded food, sleeping rough, and getting by through odd encounters and petty theft.
• Vivid stories of hitchhiking, juxtaposing random benefactors (a family of Mormon missionaries, a glue-sniffing conspiracy theorist, a 16-year-old buying booze, a mysterious woman in a Camaro).
  • “It became a primitive pagan-esque religion for me. I reveled in the strange and often hilarious contrast between my various hitchhiking rides.” — A.M. Hickman [07:25]
• Survived for years across 100,000+ miles of American highways, sleeping in “ditches, couches, dorm rooms, encampments, and even a micro houseboat.”

4. Society’s View of the Drifter vs. Lived Reality

[14:07]

• Hickman observes how mainstream, “morally upright” Americans view his lifestyle as tragic, automatically assuming homelessness is synonymous with suffering and failure.
  • “For people suffering from a plight like mine, it was all very touching and frankly, a little stupid...I rather enjoyed it. Of course, if I were ever to vocalize this enjoyment... I would only elicit blank stares of bewilderment, for such an admission would violate the narrative.” — A.M. Hickman [14:46]
• Explains that, for him, vagrancy was liberating, an escape from his decaying hometown and a source of adventure, beauty, and wisdom.

5. The Nomad in American History and Identity

[16:30–19:56]

• Hickman discusses how “drifting” is ingrained in American DNA, referencing pioneers, settlers, and even philosophers like Julius Evola, who called Americans “nomads of the asphalt.”
• Modern Americans still move constantly (for work, opportunity, or adventure), yet scorn the “true” drifter as a deviation rather than a reflection of their history.
  • “To be a vagabond is only to be honest. For most of human history, life was one long and apparently endless tenure of drifting.” — A.M. Hickman [16:51]
  • “The nomad has cast the very seed of those who scorn him and hunt him down...” — A.M. Hickman [17:56]

6. The Drifter as Mirror and Foil

[19:56–22:13]

• Contrasts America’s mythos of opportunity and wanderlust with its discomfort regarding actual rootlessness.
  • “What is he [the settled American] really looking at but a radically simplified version of his own ethos?” — A.M. Hickman [20:55]
• Argues the vagrant is a living reminder of “the essence of America’s genesis,” both repulsive and evocative to the mainstream.

7. End of the Road: Reality and Reflection

[22:13–23:46]

• Hickman clarifies he’s no longer a solitary vagabond—“it was anything but a sustainable way of living...it nearly killed me.”
• Acknowledges both the romance and hard truths of drifting, rejecting both self-pity and unearned glory.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On being a drifter:
  “I passed well over a thousand nights sleeping rough on the road, sometimes very rough. And beyond my five traveling years, I passed another three in all as a stationary bum in various college towns, sleeping everywhere from people’s couches to dorm rooms to makeshift encampments and bushes, or on riparian floodplains.” — A.M. Hickman [11:10]

• On American attitudes toward vagrancy:
  “But to my mind, my life was no tragedy. I rather enjoyed it... More than having enjoyed it, I miss it. I miss being homeless. It is with immense fondness, wistfulness even, that I look upon my years as a rough and ready vagabond.” — A.M. Hickman [14:49]

• On the deeper meaning of vagrancy in America:
  “Viewed in this light, the drifter’s coarse, haggard looseness upon the surface of the country is only a testament of a disturbingly honest variety.” — A.M. Hickman [21:54]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:22] — Introduction to Hickman, background on his previous writing
• [04:57] — Beginning of “The Drifter’s Lament”
• [05:48–12:09] — Stories of life on the road, the randomness and intellectual stimulus of drifting
• [14:07] — Societal perception of vagrancy vs. lived experience
• [16:51–19:17] — Historical American nomadism; philosophical/literary perspective
• [19:56–22:13] — The drifter as a mirror for American restlessness
• [22:13] — Reflection on leaving the drifter life behind and its unsustainability

Tone and Style

The episode communicates in Hickman’s distinct, literary narrative voice—conversational yet philosophical, poetic but unsentimental. Hickman’s candor, dark humor, and self-aware romanticism shine through, challenging listeners to reconsider the archetype of the American drifter with empathy and historical depth.

Summary prepared for listeners wanting deep insight into the episode’s themes and highlights.