Civil War, Civil Rights, and Delta Blues

Hey everybody,

Well, I've driven almost from coast to coast and so far my goal of not turning on my air conditioning during the entire trip has been a sweaty success thus far.  The United States is a big place, and the road trip has always been one of its great romantic journeys.  Now that I've seen a good chunk of it, I have to say that there are huge swaths of this country that are boring as shit.   I mean, mind-numbingly boring.  The driving itself is usually the highlight as long as the scenery is nice, but man, sometimes you get to a place, look at its "attractions" and "historical sites" and wonder who really gives a crap about this?  Most of the bigger cities have some character in their downtown areas but are surrounded by endless concrete sprawl packed with chain stores and fast food restaurants.  Ok... this probably isn't making you want to read any further.  The U.S. is great!  Best country in the world! USA! USA!

When I last left you I was entering Arkansas... The Natural State.  Supposedly, it's the only state that would be self-sustaining if you closed its borders.  One thing's for sure, if you like trees then you'll love Arkansas.  It was so nice to finally see some green after the bleak desolation of Route 66.

I stayed in Little Rock for a couple of days hosted by Aly and Jay who I hadn't seen in about five years but were kind enough to let me use their washer and dryer, though that may have been more out of self-preservation on their part.  Aly's an Arkansas native but moved back to Little Rock just under a year ago with Jay, who's originally from Cleveland.  She said she's getting used to the environment again, especially the first two questions women are typically asked:  What church do you go to and how many kids do you have.  Jay... is still adjusting.  He is very thankful for their 62-inch TV.  Also, thanks buddy for that travel music CD you gave me... it rocks.

I visited the Central High School national historic site as my first bit of tourism in Little Rock.  In 1957, this was the first southern high school to defy the Brown vs. Board of Education decision regarding the integration of schools.  There's a good picture in my album with text that captures the sequence of events.  The Little Rock Nine became national news and this was one of the more significant milestones in the fight for desegregation.  After that it was on to the Clinton Library, which was like stepping into a time warp back into the 1990s.  There's a lot from his presidency that I either don't remember or I just wasn't paying attention.  I'm sure it will be shocking news that the exhibits and timelines were fairly pro-Clinton.  There were a couple of brief, apologetic mentions of an "incident" and impeachment, but you're not going to find a navy blue dress behind a glass case.

From Little Rock it was on to Memphis, which is known for music and for barbecue so there was no way I wasn't going to like it.  Of course I went to Graceland first, my impression of which is that I think we should all be grateful that Elvis dedicated himself to music rather than interior decorating.  If you threw a grenade in a thrift shop and then tried to cover up the damage with shag carpeting, that's more or less what it would look like.  You're welcome for saving you $32.  Now... Sun Studios, that is definitely a place to visit.  First of all, it's the place where the first known recording of distorded electric guitar occurred in 1951 after an amp fell off a truck and they kept the speaker cone in place by stuffing newspaper into it.  It's where Elvis Presley recorded his first record, not to mention legends Howling Wolf, Ike Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and where U2 recorded Rattle and Hum.  The recording studio is still active.  Someday...

Beale Street is where the magic happens at night.  It's kind of a Bourbon Street light, and by light I mean smaller and cleaner and with about 57% less drunk people.  The live blues is, I dunno... spectacular?  These guys could piss on an instrument and it would sound fantastic.  There's a band in almost every bar and one that plays outside in a park.  I don't usually go to bars alone, but I spent a couple nights hanging out for three or four hours listening to some great jams.  One night I couldn't see the stage because I got stuck sitting behind Chris Webber.  The next night I got in a conversation with a guy who asked me if I'd been harrassed in my travels because I look ethnically ambiguous.

My highlight in Memphis, by far, was visiting the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel.  I usually have about a 90 minute timer with museums before I'm over it, but I spent about 5 hours over the course of two days here.  It's a remarkable place.  It traces the history of the struggle for civil rights from the early days of slavery to the modern day in a way that is detailed and engaging.  There are so many evocative images on display but the one that always, always gets to me is the photos of the striking Memphis sanitation workers wearing the signs that say simply "I Am a Man."  That just tears me up every time.  The good news is that the narrative of oppression and injustice is always the same.  They can be overcome, it's a question of time and determination.  There's still a lot of room for improvement but when you look at the fact that 50 years ago we needed a Voting Rights Act... things have come a long way.

After Memphis it was on to Clarksdale, Mississippi:  home of the delta blues.  There's a pretty good Delta Blues museum there that highlights many of the old-school blues artists and whose whole rear section is pretty much a shrine to Muddy Waters.  That night I was at a blues club near the museum minding my own business when I was approached by a Japanese guy who said he saw me at Sun Studios and on Beale street and now here so he felt like he had to introduce himself.  Hideki (from Japan) was traveling with his girlfriend Beth Ann (from North Carolina) and decided that we had to meet since we had seen each other so many times.  I tried to picture what it was like from his end seeing me pop up in random places like some bald, bearded Where's Waldo.  It was open mic night at the Ground Zero Blues Club and he brought his guitar and would really like it if I hung out to listen to him play a couple of original songs.  There aren't too many sure things in life, but I can say with some certainty that this was the first time that a Japanese guy played original, acoustic J-Pop at an open mic in Clarksdale, Mississippi.  He sort of blew people's minds.  Here's a recording of some random blues plus Hideki as the big finish:  http://youtu.be/ZVGAmR8b16w



From there it was on to Vicksburg where the Union layed siege to the city for over two months in order to clear the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River.  I drove through the military park which was more a graveyard than anything.  There were hundreds of memorials to the fallen, all of which were organized by state.  Then I spent the night in Jackson, an urban sprawl-ridden city inexplicably featured in a Johnny Cash song.  I had my first Jerry Springer moment here in the back parking lot of a Motel 6 where I walked in on a family quarrel... some toothless woman was yelling at a guy with tattoos all over his face about sleeping with a whore when he has a woman at home, then he says that she's not a whore and he turns to me and says it's ok that's his mom, then she starts yelling at me that he's having babies left and right.  Oh please, please let my car start.

On to Alabama where the first stop was Selma.  There isn't a ton to see in this small town but it was cool to cross over the Edmund Pettus bridge and take the same route on Hwy 80 to Montgomery as Martin Luther King.  There are highway markers on the side of the road commemorating where the marchers camped out each night but of course the one thing I'll always remember about this drive is seeing Wallace's Sports Bar and Grill along the same road.  I don't know if this is coincidental or what but... come on.  Once you get to Montgomery you can see almost all the historically significant sites within a couple of city blocks of each other:  The Civil Rights Memorial, the Alabama State capitol (which also served as the first capitol of the Confederacy), the Dexter Avenue Baptist church from where the bus boycott was organized, and the white house of the Confederacy.  And yes, it's weird that so much Confederate and Civil Rights history is so close but that's the south I guess.

I'll always remember Montgomery though as the first place in all of my travels where I escaped my motel.  Yeah, okay, maybe I shouldn't have chosen the motel under the freeway.  Or maybe the signal should've been the rock thrown through the sign, or the busted air conditioners, or the wrecked up cars in the parking lot, or the guy out on the balconies grilling up his dinner on a hibachi.  Then I got into the room and it had a deadbolt plus a chain and a sign on the door that said "Door chain is provided for your safety.  Put it on before opening door."  But I'm a stubborn man... I had already paid, I figured it was just for one night, plus it had HBO.  Then when I got back from picking up dinner a woman intercepted me on the stairway and started insistently waving at me to come upstairs to talk to her.  I mean... she really wanted me to come upstairs.  I asked her what for and she just kept on waving.  So I politely declined, got in my room, packed up my shit, and got the hell out of there.

Then it was on through to Georgia, from Columbus to Macon.  The drive was pleasant but the cities themselves were unremarkable.  Macon was holding the Georgia state fair whose highlights were carnival rides, pig races and fried snickers bars.

So... the south.  It's a lot more green and foresty than I expected.  People are generally friendly, it's hot, and tamales are surprisingly popular.  The radio stations play a lot of Jesus, a lot of country, some rock, and an unusual amount of Phil Collins.  It's almost impossible to travel through the south without thinking about race.  You pretty much get smacked in the face with civil rights history, though in all fairness I went looking for it.  I can't really make any fair observations about it after only a week or so of traveling.  It's pretty easy to make fun of the south considering its history.  It is weird to see people driving around with Confederate flags on their cars, or on their clothes, or around their necks, never mind that it's still on Mississippi's state flag.  I always wonder if you're black and live in the south how it feels when you see that stuff.  To be fair, though, we're still a pretty racially divided country overall and you can see it in the south or if you look around in San Francisco or Chicago or New York.  There's still a ways to go pretty much everywhere.

Anyhow, I'm off to Savannah today which has been billed as the Paris of the south.  I've been to the Paris of Siberia and the Paris of France so now I can complete the loop.  A warning to anybody who sends me text messages... I keep my phone off most of the time and when I turn it on I sometimes only get partial texts or none at all so if I'm not responding it's that.  Or I don't feel like talking to you.  Here are the pictures...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NzwbT7GCJKWNQ99n7

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Across the Southwest and Route 66

Hey everybody,

I've started talking to my car.  This is what happens when you're alone for a while.  There must be some part of me that wants to make sure that she's appreciated since this whole trip is relying on her, but... I sound like a manipulative boyfriend.  "I know baby... three days in a row driving 7 hours... I promise it's the last time.  I know I said that last time but this time I mean it.  Come on, tomorrow it won't be more than four hours. Oh, don't bring up the off-roading again.  I only took you off-road that ONE time!  Okay, maybe twice, but that was a long time ago!  Why do you have to keep bringing that up?  Aw now... you're leaking.   Shhh.... it's ok, it's ok.  I can call up my buddy Vince at Enterprise and rent another car, no need for you to worry.  Oh... you don't want me to do that.  That's fine, let's just put this ugly incident behind us.  I forgive you.  Oh, and I've been meaning to talk to you about your gas mileage... it's not really as good as we'd like now is it?  Maybe you could tighten it up a little bit?  Good... let's get back on the road."

My first stop in Arizona was Sedona, a small high-desert town centered in the midst of red rocks and with the most roundabouts I've ever seen in a U.S. city.  There are quite a few psychics in town which probably explains the lack of stoplights.  The town itself is what you might expect... a handful of central streets lined with all sorts of shops surrounded by beautiful views of the red rock formations encircling the town.  I'm fairly certain that, with the exception of the many kids dragged on vacation by their parents, I was the youngest person in Sedona.  It's a great place to stay, and may very well be the prettiest city in Arizona, though when you use Phoenix as your benchmark there's nowhere to go but up.

After leaving Sedona I headed north through Flagstaff and into northern Arizona on the way to Monument Valley.  This was one of my highlighted destinations.  I've always been a huge fan of westerns and was looking forward to visiting the place where John Ford filmed some of his classics.  Monument Valley is located in southeastern Utah in Navajo territory so if you're in the area you can enjoy the sounds of Undercurrents radio on NPR (Navajo Public Radio) or at http://undercurrentsradio.net.  As you drive through Navajo territory the surrounding scenery shifts from high desert browns to brick reds.  There aren't too many towns to speak of, and the ones you see consist mostly of prefab houses, shacks and one church.  Occasionally you'll see roadside stands selling beads, jewelry and artwork.

The view from Artist's Point

When I finally reached Monument Valley, all I can say is... wow.  It is even more breathtaking than I had imagined.  The rock formations are more vibrant than is possible to convey through film.  I headed straight to the park to stake out my campsite but was told that the entire site was booked by a film crew.  Luckily I was able to get a site up the road at Goulding's... where John Ford and John Wayne used to stay.  I went back to the park for the 17-mile off-road loop through the valley and all I can say is look at the pictures.  Erosion rocks (ha ha!).  Up close the peaks and buttes can be overwhelming; you almost have to look at them from a distance to properly take them in.  When I stopped at Artist's Point I got out of the car and walked down to take a picture of a lone tree with the valley in the background.  A ranger stepped out of his truck and said I could only go so far and not all the way down to the tree.  He told me that he had to sit there in his truck all day to watch the tree because it's fake... it's only there for the film.  Then on the way out of the park I got stuck behind one of the film crew's 18-wheelers who couldn't make it up the hill.  Walt Disney pictures.  When I finally got back to the visitor's center, I just sat outside for a while soaking in the view of the valley below.  That same 18-wheeler was still struggling up the hill.  I started talking to one of the locals who works there and he said that they're filming The Lone Ranger.  Not sure what to think of that, but it was the third strike on these guys.  Then I sat for about 15 minutes and watched with perverse glee as a bulldozer came up to try and tow the truck up the hill, finally succeeding.  The local (who was watching with me) looked up the road and said, "There are three more of those trucks coming up behind it."  Then he laughed.  And I laughed too.

Goulding's shows a John Ford movie every night in its theater and the night I was in town it was The Searchers.  I've seen The Searchers at least five times but I dunno... I would've felt funny watching it in Navajo territory.  The Searchers wasn't Birth of a Nation or anything but it was a little racist.  No more so than other movies of its time, but I had to wonder what the locals thought of these films.  To be fair, it's obvious that John Ford had a love for Monument Valley and it probably wouldn't be the destination it is today without his influence.  I was probably overthinking it... this is the kind of shit that goes through your mind after you've spent four years at Berkeley.  Damn hippie conditioning.  Anyhow, I skipped the movie and  ended up spending a sleepless night struggling with what I've discovered is my tent's kryptonite:  the wind.  When the flaps weren't cracking like a whip, I was getting blasted with red dust through the front mesh.  Good times.

I decided to drive to Taos the next day.  Why Taos?  I don't know... it looked good on the map.  I may have heard it mentioned in a Creedence song.  I was a bit sad leaving Monument Valley but the road was calling.  I'm actually really enjoying the driving.  I stopped at the Four Corners since it was on the way but I wouldn't recommend it.  It was cool to stand at the intersection of four states, but the monument is not much to speak of and the view is nothing special.  The best thing at Four Corners was the Navajo frybread with honey.  That shit is good.

The gas in New Mexico is only 86 octane for regular unleaded.  The larger towns in the north are full of pawn shops, smoke shops, fireworks stores and modular housing lots.  Once you get into the countryside, though, it's very green, with farms on large fields and small towns with old-school filling stations/post offices.  Taos is a cute mountain resort town with a central plaza surrounded by pueblo-style buildings.  There's the usual drill that goes on in small resort towns... lots of shops selling quaint things.  I took a drive around the "Enchanted Circle" which turned out to be a pretty mellow way to enjoy a couple of hours at 9000 feet.  It's a nice, relaxing place to stay but it's probably better if it's winter and you're into snow sports.

Santa Fe has much the same setup as Taos except on a larger scale.  You know the whole plaza/pueblo/shops combination.  There also seem to be a lot of drifters in the plaza.  One of the big draws seems to be the Georgia O'Keeffe museum, but I don't really know anything about her art.  I keep thinking that she drew a lot of vaginas but I can't be sure.  The Chuck Jones gallery was more my speed.  The Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons were formative for me in my youth and arguably my adulthood.  I know quite a few people that really like Santa Fe but I wasn't there long enough to fall in love.

Sounds like the ending to a good date

After that it was south and then east along Route 66, known nowadays as I-40.  Most of the old road was replaced by the interstate though there are small towns here and there where the historic Route 66 still exists.  The crosswinds along the interstate are brutal and I have no idea how motorcyclists can stand it.  The most interesting thing about this route is the dilapidated state of much of these old symbols of Americana... billboards, drive-in restaurants, and filling stations all in various states of decay.  I wound up at the center of this anachronism:  Tucumcari, New Mexico.  Even the hotels and diners that are still in business look like they're falling apart.  I stayed at the Palomino Inn in a room that costs $25/night.  I'll let you imagine that room in your mind and you'll probably be right.

From there it was on to Texas and more various Route 66 miscellania including a stop at the exact midway point between Chicago and Los Angeles.  This road must be some sort of rite for Harley riders because they travel in packs in both directions, helmetless, at 80 mph.  It's also become obvious that you can tell how crappy a town is going to be by how much the Motel 6 in town is charging.  Just look at the digital display... if it's $29.99 be wary.  Also, of the five non-chain motels where I've stopped at the front desk, all five have been run by Indians (from India).  I don't know why, just making an observation.  Then everyone keeps asking me if I have a pet, and when I say no they give me that look like I'm lying to them.  Also, at some point between New Mexico and Texas they stop giving you the check and instead give you the ticket.

Troy sweatin it out 20 minutes in

South of Amarillo is Palo Duro Canyon which is the second largest canyon in the U.S. after the Grand Canyon of course.  It is nowhere near as spectacular so I would rather concentrate on a true attraction in Amarillo:  The Big Texan steak house.  You see billboards for this place from hundreds of miles away along Route 66 touting a free 72 oz steak therefore it must be awesome.  Well even I was not prepared for the spectacle that is the free 72 oz steak contest.  You get the 72 oz steak for free IF you eat it in under an hour.  Not only that, but the contestant has to eat at a table on a raised platform in the middle of the restaurant (450 person capacity) with a big red timer behind his head.  Our man Troy from Utah happened to be taking the challenge this evening with his obnoxious brother yelling/jeering from a nearby table.  Troy was the bigger man but obviously more shy.  I envisioned a lifetime of verbal abuse suffered at the hands of his loudmouth brother.  Someday Troy will have his day, but it was not this day... he gave up with 16 oz left.

The bewildering production surrounding the devouring of over 4 lbs of meat reminds me of that show Man vs. Food.  The basic gist of this show is some guy going around the U.S. taking the challenge of eating the most outrageously sized dishes at various restaurants and diners.  Can you imagine some guy in Somalia tuning into satellite television and watching this gluttonous bastard spend a half hour plowing through a 6 foot sandwich or an 8 lb burrito or a stack of 15 pancakes or whatever?  This is why people hate America.

I spent the next day driving through Oklahoma, which, in case anyone was wondering, is boring as fuck.  It's more green than I expected, the OKC bombing memorial is thoughtful, and Tulsa seems like a nice town, especially along the river.  That's about the best I can do.

To be honest, after spending a couple of days on Route 66 it's a bit sad seeing this deterioration of an era of American culture.  The businesses that remain in the small towns are either dilapidated relics hanging on by a thread or a thriving handful that have managed to successfully market themselves based on a mystique that no longer exists.  I know that this road has historical significance that goes deeper than what remains, but you don't need to drive a thousand miles to understand that.  Read a book.  As anyone who's driven on an interstate freeway knows, they don't tend to leave much soul behind.

As for me, the only times I've felt really alone on this trip have been when I've had to get a room in a motel these last few nights.  When I'm camping by myself it doesn't feel lonely, in fact it's great to be able to enjoy the outdoors on your own terms.  In a motel room though I feel like I'm stuck in a box.  A hot, depressing box.  Luckily, now that I'm in Arkansas I have Aly and Jay to keep me company, or at the very least have a conversation with me that's longer than four sentences and doesn't end with "That'll be thirty-two dollars."  At least I hope.

Anyhow, here is the link to the pictures...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/W4XWqEofDHy7Biui9

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Leaving California

Hey everybody,

First off, I want to thank Jessica for giving me a road trip soundtrack that makes me feel like I'm starring in an indie film.  Every time I put on that CD I feel like I'm heading to/from a dramatic confrontation involving a girl.  We will say incredibly clever and insightful things at an unrealistically rapid-fire clip, interspersed with periods of silence that involve staring either at each other or at some kind of scenery.  A quirky friend will make a pivotal observation.  The ending will be ambiguous but hopeful.

I've had a couple of weeks to adjust to unemployment, and let me tell you that it's exactly as awesome as you feared if you can get over the anxieties.  One of the best things about it is that it gives you the luxury of time.  You can take your time with everything.  It takes a little while to get used to it because you're so conditioned to rush.  Having a job that takes up 40 or 50 or more hours of your week naturally compresses everything else that you need to squeeze into your schedule.  It takes conscious effort to stop and realize that you don't have anyplace else to be.  You have time to savor the little things, or to walk instead of drive, or to actually spend time with someone and listen to them without thinking about where you have to be next.  The downside is that you end up realizing that there are things you do or people you hang out with that you really don't give a crap about and almost wishing you had someplace else to be.

I spent my first night on the road camping in Big Sur on the coast and if you've never been there before then I strongly suggest you go.  Even if all you do is drive up and down Hwy 1 for a few hours, if you catch it on a sunny day it's spectacular.  You're driving on a windy road through a redwood forest then right up to the rocky coastline overlooking azure water... and this keeps happening over and over again.  This is not a bad thing.  I have much better Big Sur pictures from a camping trip I took with Sean and Jessica last year here (https://picasaweb.google.com/106688898407073055469/CoastCampin?authuser=0&feat=directlink).  Oh, and here's an overview of my road gear in case you're interested:


The last few days I've been bouncing back and forth staying at my buddy Felix's and then over in Manhattan Beach at my buddy Max's place.  Felix just turned 40 so there was a big party at his house, which is why I extended my stay.  That and the price was right.  The theme of Felix's birthday bash was southern/country, which is understandable because no couple I know represents antebellum more than Felix Woo and An Nguyen.  In case you're in Los Angeles and need a bale of hay, they're $9 each.  And Max... well, everybody knows Max.  Max isn't even his name, it's his description.  I still can't believe we partied with the legendary M.D.B.

I went to San Diego for a day, mostly because I wanted to go on the Stone Brewery tour and to pay a return visit to the Alesmith tasting room.  I came down to San Diego on a brew tour a couple of years ago where we visited about a dozen micro breweries in 4 days and I discovered a surprising amount of fantastic beer in this area.  I didn't get to see much of the city outside of the tasting rooms and a couple of restaurants so this time I wanted to stay in town and walk around for an evening.  I had a chance to have dinner with my buddy Tony who I hadn't seen in 7 years, which was great, then the desk guy at the hostel recommended that I walk up 5th Street through the Gaslamp district, apparently one of the main social attractions of downtown San Diego.  Now I'm no anthropologist but I found this place mesmerizing in sort of a grotesquely manufactured way.  I imagine this entire street being prefabricated somewhere and dropped whole into this neighborhood, shiny and new, with its boutique stores and restaurants whose clever, culturally ambiguous names surely involved some intensive market research.  Walking up 5th street is the consumerist equivalent of navigating the river in Heart of Darkness except at the end instead of heads on spikes you find a Hard Rock Hotel and a Spaghetti Factory.

The next day I took a drive out to Coronado, a cute, high-end beach community where gas is already $5 a gallon, then south to Imperial Beach.  The beach was lined with surfers, the pier with fishermen, and were beachfront studios are available for $800 a month.  George... think about it.  We could surf all day and live off the fish.  Just sayin'.

Yes, I spent almost a week in southern California. I have to be honest... I have long had this sort of curious fascination with southern California, especially with Los Angeles.  The warm weather, beautiful, occasionally plastic people, the sprawly concrete conquest of man over nature... it's definitely the anti-San Francisco.  I used to come down occasionally when my brother was at UCLA and ever since then I've always felt this strange anticipation in the air when I'm here, as if there's something really cool going on that I don't know about.  I'll probably have to live here at some point in my life if only to realize that there's nothing going on that's any cooler than anywhere else. I've never really told anybody that.  I don't know why I'm telling you.  Go on about your business.


Once I finally headed east my intent was to stop somewhere on the CA/AZ border but I decided to drive through the Joshua Tree National Park instead, which as you all know was named after the famous U2 album.  I don't know that anything I would say about the desert landscape and the rock formations would do it justice so maybe it's best to simply browse through the pictures.  There is definitely a clear delineation when the park transitions from the Mojave to the Colorado desert as the whole vegetation as well as the geological landscape shifts from large, tan rock and yucca to shrubs, cacti and black rock.  When I stopped at one of the rock formations called Skull Rock, I heard this woman complaining to her partner "How many more rocks do we have to stop and see?"  Though I can't sympathize in this particular case, I get it.  She reminded me about how we started feeling about cathedrals when I spent 5 days driving through central Italy with the Brits.  "Oh, what's there to see in this town?  Let me guess... a cathedral?"  We had to resort to desecrating a tomb for entertainment.  Not really.  Sort of.

The campsite where I stayed had only three other occupants and no one within a hundred yards of me.  As night fell I became engrossed by the solitude and the silence.  It wasn't lonely in any way, it was very peaceful.  There were no sounds from animals either, in fact I could hear my pen as I was scribbling across my notebook.  Also, maybe someone else could confirm this, but there must have been a lunar eclipse because the moon went from a sliver to being gone the next time I looked.  So when you take the desert sky plus a moonless night... I mean.... holy freakin' stars.  I almost had to call bullshit on nature.

So now I'm in Arizona and am camped out in Sedona, home of red rocks and "aura photos."  I'll try to get another update out sometime next week where I'll either be in Texas or Oklahoma or Arkansas.  Basically somewhere that I can wear a cowboy hat.  Anyhow, here are the pics...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Gvzt2NTyFaAY5K6A7

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Every Day is Saturday

Hey everybody,

As Ronald Reagan once said... There you go again... by which I mean I am once again unemployed.  I'm not trying to compare myself to Jimmy Carter; if anything I consider myself the Walter Mondale of unemployment, though I would've preferred to be the Gary Hart of unemployment if you know what I mean.  The point is that I am once again free to roam the earth, fight crime, hand out vigilante justice, bring peace to the Middle East, make delicious waffles, etc.

Now what to do with all this freedom?  I remember talking to a career counselor in high school who told me to write down what I would do if I didn't have to work and whatever I answered is what I should pursue as a career.  Then I got my placement test results back and it said I should be an optometrist.  Anyhow, my issue with the counselor's proposition is mostly that it comes from a position of privilege.  If you grow up middle class in the U.S. then yeah, it's possible to simply choose whatever you want as your career, but I'm pretty sure it's a little different if you grow up somewhere like Haiti or Somalia or North Korea.  Even when you do have this freedom of choice your passions can't always translate to a career. I was talking to my buddy Felix a few weeks ago about unemployment and he said, "I told An [his wife] that if I didn't have to work I'd sit on the couch and play video games all day.  That would be awesome.  So she said 'What about Jake?' [his son]  And I said 'He could hang out on the couch with me.  It'd be great!'"

Maybe there are a lot of open positions for video game-playing nannies out there but I'm pretty sure they don't pay as well as being a corporate lawyer.  So you make a conscious compromise to practice law to pay the bills to afford you and your family the life that you want and you play games and hang out with your kids during your free time.  I think it's that way for most people, myself included.  Most of my jobs have been a compromise, a means to an end, whatever.  I had a good run at Keynote these last 4+ years working with great people and with a job that gave me the flexibility and free time to do all sorts of cool shit.  But at some point it started to wear me down.  The lucky part for me is that I'm able to be in a position where I can just... say... fuck it.  Which is fantastic, by the way.  I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to do so to quit their job with nothing else lined up.  It completely flummoxes a large percentage of the population who cannot compute how you can simply quit a job.  To be fair, the approximate breakdown is this:  60% supportive/wants to live vicariously through you, 39% flummoxed, and 1% my grandma.  When I told my grandma I was quitting, first she said she thought she might be having a stroke.  Then she looked directly at me and said, "You have mental problems."  So of course I laughed, to which she replied, "No, I'm serious.  Quitting your job.  You have mental problems.  You need to see a doctor."  Then the other day she told me that I shouldn't leave because she's 96 and she might die while I'm gone.  I said she'd better not because it would be a real inconvenience for me to have to come back home just for the funeral.

Don't get me wrong... it wasn't an easy decision.  I have a pretty sweet life that I just kind of sort of blew up.  I've had my share of sleepless, anxious nights asking myself what the fuck I'm doing and I anticipate a few more of those down the road.  If there's one thing I know about myself, though, it's that I often need a kick in the ass to make changes and sometimes it needs to be self-administered.  It felt like it was time.  I was telling my friend Gemma about some of the weird twists and turns my life has taken over the last 10 or 15 years and she said, "It sounds like the universe has always taken care of you."  I don't know if I would've thought of it in those terms but it's true that I've always been able to figure a way forward.  Whether you choose to see that as faith in yourself or your friends or in the universe... it seems to have worked so far.   Besides, I'm pretty sure I won't be lying on my deathbed lamenting the time I quit my job so I could go travel.  I think I'll be able to find another conscious compromise when I need to, or maybe if I'm lucky find something that's not much compromise at all.

My trusty steed awaits

So I'm hitting the road once again, this time in my trusty and (hopefully) reliable 1997 Honda CRV, in whose company I will be roaming around the U.S. and Canada.  I have already embarked on Project Beard where I will try not to shave for the duration of the trip which, along with Project Unemployed and Project Living Out of My Car, will comprise Operation Not Getting Laid.  I'll try to post pictures and whatnot once a week or two on this site so if you want to keep up just put your email address in that box on the right where it says "Follow By Email" and click Submit.

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Carnevale di Viareggio 2012

Hey everybody,

When most people think of carneval, they think of half-naked women running around multicolored floats in the summer heat of Rio de Janeiro.  At least, I do.  Daily.  Well, carnevale in my home town of Viareggio is just like that, except it's about 5 degrees above freezing and the women are dressed either as zombies, nuns, or some sort of plushy nightmare.


I manage to visit during Carnevale about once every 8 years or so, and every time I visit everyone complains about how much this year's floats suck.  I don't know how much I'd complain if I lived somewhere that basically shut down for a month in order to have a giant outdoor costume party every Sunday.  Between that, the 4 months where the beaches are open during the summer and the approximately 8000 national holidays in Italy, I think Viareggini work about 6 days a year.

A little Carnevale information for you (thank you Wikipedia)... "The first carnevale was held in 1873 when some wealthy middle-class men decided to organize a parade of floats adorned with flowers; a number of local citizens, as a sign of protest, then decided to put on masks in order to show their refusal of high taxes they were forced to pay...  The official mascot of the Viareggio carnival is Burlamacco, first depicted in 1931 by Uberto Bonetti. Since 2001, all the floats are built in an apposite seat, called Cittadella del Carnevale (Carnival Citadel), located on the northern side of the Viareggio city territory."  

I was only there for about 10 days this year and thoroughly enjoyed my sojourn as a typical Italian male adult (having my parents cook, clean, and do my laundry for me).  Here is a link to some pictures from a couple of the Sunday events, as well as a biscotti-procuring expedition to Prato which was probably the most stressful part of the trip.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/t12r9Niqt27RzL9w8

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Two Gigs, One Week

Hey everybody,

The face-melting firestorm that is known as COLONEL ANGUS was once again unleashed not once... but twice in the span of four short days.  Our first gig was at the Knockout in the Mission, where our rendition of "Whole Lotta Rosie" is said to have caused actual tears to flow from the tombstone on Bon Scott's grave.  Listen for yourself...



A few days later, we sent several people to the hospital after a blistering cover of "Hells Bells" caused ruptured eardrums throughout the audience at Lennon Studios.  The other half of the audience also was nearly sent to the hospital by a high-kicking, drunken old man who nearly got into a fight with CJ, but I digress.  Please... baste yourself in the sweet gravy of AC/DC goodness...

Take 'er easy,
Dave

Kaka Bloc

Hey everybody,

I know I'm supposed to talk about the trip to Haiti but let me first start this post with a bit of advice.  If you decide to take a sleeping pill in order to make sure that you can get some rest on a redeye... WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE ON THE PLANE.  Don't take it one hour before boarding.  Ever.

If you do, you end up writing things in your notebook like this:

What it says doesn't really matter (actually, it's strangely pithy.  I now understand Ken Kesey a bit better).  It's more the fact that I couldn't manage to stay within a loose vertical column, then I took a right turn and decided to write up the side of the same page rather than, say, write on the next page.  I also caused a minor incident by stumbling and shoving my way directly to the front of the line when my boarding group was called, experienced a hallucination involving a pulsating gate ramp as well as several awkward minutes of difficulty as my arithmetically challenged mind wrestled with the task of discovering my seat location.

That little pill definitely put me to sleep though.  I woke up on the descent to Miami, then another flight to Port-Au-Prince (packed with the requisite missionaries in matching t-shirts) where I was picked up at the airport by Tammy, Cari and Richard.  With Help Tammy Help Haiti's (HTHH) medical clinic in Cite Soleil nearing completion we traveled down to finish up whatever work needed to be done in order to make the clinic fully functional.  Once that's done then HTHH plans to find a medical organization to make use of the space and provide services to the populace in the Boston area.

Keep away from small children

On my first day there we picked up a doctor from Medi-Share to bring her around to the clinic and see if they had any interest in making use of it.  She had kind of a tough time wrapping her head around the concept of a clinic being built and ready for their use.  She'd ask questions like "so you want us to pay rent?" No.  "Ok, so you want us to buy the clinic from you?"  No, we just want you to use it.  "For free?"  Yeah, well you have to support yourself and pay for electricity, but yeah.  Though initially perplexed and a bit skeptical, Tammy and Cari were able to convince her that the whole thing was legit and that we're not psychos.  Well, except for this guy.

The clinic itself looks great.  Two stories, a pharmacy, two doctor's offices and plenty of space out front for triage.  The work that remained to be done were things like filling cracks in the walls, reinforcing shelving in the offices, building benches, putting up razorwire on the security wall, and painting.  We ended up tearing out all the shelving and rebuilding it since the previous carpenter thought it was ok for a shelf to be hanging off one screw about 2 inches off the wall.

The HTHH clinic

The first time I saw Robinson was when we were hanging out at Jamaica Base catching up with some of the folks there and playing with the kids.  He zooms up on his scooter, says hello to everybody, sees me and yells out "Kaka bloc!"  Well fuck me.  Guess what all the kids were calling me over the next two weeks?  This is what happens when you try to get too cute with a language you don't know.  Last year I thought it'd be funny when we were pouring concrete to figure out how to say if you eat cement, you poop concrete (mange ciment, kaka beton).  Well, somehow this got transmogrified into "mange ciment, kaka bloc" and then just to "kaka bloc" but it wasn't until Rob made his dramatic scooter entrance that it turned into my new alias.  So now the kids call me Kaka Bloc, and when I try to say my name is not Kaka Bloc (mwen pa rele kaka bloc) they think that's even funnier, and there's nothing worse for your ego than having a pack of six-year-old kids (some of whom aren't wearing shoes... or pants) running around calling you Kaka Bloc.  Well ha ha ha you little shits... next time you come into the clinic I'm going to put stool softener in your vitamins.

My Kreyol actually got pretty good over the couple of weeks.  I got to the point where I could carry on a stilted conversation with most four-year-olds, though their condescension was palpable.  Robinson was particularly patient with me and he was justly rewarded while trapped in the back of the car on the way to dinner with a stirring double rendition of Whitesnake's "Is This Love" by me and Rich.

Was David Coverdale touring through Bornemouth in early 1975?  Maybe we should ask Mrs. Colbourne.

As far as the work on the clinic you can see what was completed in the pictures.  All that's left to do is for someone to finish up the electrical and it's ready to go.  We did take part of one day to distribute water in the neighboring area of Soutay.  Tammy rented a water truck and we walked over with our local guys (Milot, Elton, Jean-Claude, Owl and Jean-Cheri) as security and crowd control.  As Rich said, Boston is posh upper-class when compared to Soutay.  Most of the dwellings are made of wood, tin, or corrugated iron rather than concrete and cinder blocks.  I'm not sure what kind of access they have to water other than the tank one of the locals owns, and that requires payment.  They certainly don't have access to a large tower like the one HTHH built in Boston.

Well once the truck came rumbling down the street and the hose was unfurled all hell broke loose.  Most of us worked on the line filling up the buckets that people were bringing for the water while Milot and Elton  tried in vain to get the locals to form some kind of a line.  Eventually some semblance of order was achieved and we spent the best part of the next hour hauling buckets and pouring water.  In retrospect I think that the crowd was mostly composed of women and kids.  Why that is, I don't know.  Cari did manage to take some fantastic pictures of the distribution, though.

Overall there was less excitement than last year, and I mean that in a good way... as in no guns.  You never really want to get comfortable in Cite Soleil, though.  We got a rock thrown into the windshield of our car while it was parked at Jamaica Base.  That move was not particularly well thought-out by the perpetrator since it was right at that time that the UN was meeting with Tammy at the clinic to discuss funding.  The next the UN had pictures of this kid so he spent the next week or so hiding out.  The most bizarre incident occurred when we arrived one morning at Jamaica Base in the middle of an argument as Mario was kicking some woman out of the Mission Ranch clinic.  Things got heated, she ended up getting shoved into some razor wire, then she got up, grabbed her three-year-old boy and tried to use him as a club to hit Mario and Milot.  That was definitely something I've never witnessed before... literally using a child as a weapon.

People ask me if things are better in Haiti and I don't know quite how to answer that.  First of all, I'm far from an expert having only spent about a month there, only in Port-Au-Prince and working strictly in Cite Soleil.  Tammy, Cari, and even Rich have spent much more time there than I have.  Larry and his wife Jean came down for a week while we were there and I think it's something like his 12th trip since the earthquake so you should ask him.  I'm sure his answer would begin with a diatribe on "missionary tourists," include scores of f-bombs and talk about how improvements in Haiti would require lifestyle changes on our part.  Larry's actually a pretty thoughtful guy, don't let the sexy red wife-beater deceive you.  

When you drive through Port-Au-Prince, you drive on paved roads along streets that are lined with buildings made from concrete and rebar...  we're not talking about dirt roads and mud shacks here.  There must've been a point sometime in the past where there was the capital and resources to build this level of infrastructure, but now it's gone to shit.  Crumbled, abandoned buildings (some due to the earthquake, many predating it) and streets that are on the verge of being undriveable due to the depth and number of potholes are the norm.  There is no maintenance.  Where did all the capital and resources go?

When talking about third-world countries the instinctive reaction most people in the first world have is corrupt government.  It would be foolish to say that it has not been an issue in Haiti since there has been plenty of evidence to show that this has been the case (see Duvalier).   That's just one aspect of this complex situation.  I asked Robinson about Haitian economics when we were out to dinner one night.  He told us about what his father said, that twenty or thirty years ago people were poor but they could still find jobs.  Now it seems like a large part of the work has dried up.  All it takes are a few Google searches to find out that, as part of the conditions for IMF loans back in the 80s and 90s, Haiti was forced to lower or eliminate its import tariffs.  As a result the (subsidized) US agriculture industry was able to export rice and beans to Haiti at a lower cost than their farmers could produce them, essentially making rice and bean farming untenable as an industry.  So today the poorest country in the western hemisphere is one of the United States' largest importers of rice.

I'm not a policy expert, however, and I'm sure if you spend a few minutes looking things up yourself that you'll be able to discover a multitude of reasons and theories on Haiti's economic situation and how/if it can be improved.  What I know is what I see, and what I see are guys like Robinson who works tirelessly with multiple charities on various projects to improve the quality of life in Cite Soleil.  Or a guy like Elton who told me that he would love to move his kids out of Cite Soleil if he had the money, but that he would stay even if he could afford to move out because he wants to work to make it a better place to live.  And luckily there are people like Tammy, Cari, and Rich who besides working on projects like the clinic and the water tower use their own money to put kids in school and pay for medicine and medical procedures for those who can't afford it.

Anyhow, there's still a lot of work to be done.  People have been asking me if it was a good trip or if I felt like I accomplished anything.  To be honest, it sometimes feels like you're pissing on a forest fire.  Lucky for me, I have the bladder of a 90 year old man so once the seal is broken it's off to the races.  So we'll just keep pissing I guess.  Besides, all the Prestige that Rich and I drink when we're down there has to come out somewhere.  Maybe we should push for full Haitian employment at Brasserie D'Haiti... then they could export Prestige to the U.S. and England.

Without further ado, here are the pictures...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/r8manfRyZhyWbopf8

Take 'er easy,

Dave