I think I remember hearing my parents talk about they'd like to retire there. They haven't. Im not sure how serious they were, but the idea stuck with me. I know nothing of the state. It has a few national parks, bears, and lots of room for a few people. Which is exactly why I want to go there.
Although I wouldn't oppose the idea of living there, in a different time in my life, right now I simply want to cruise, no speed across it's highways. And also stop for some food and drink. The same can be said for the Plains states. An open endless highway.
The appeal has nothing to do with the cliched reasons... freedom and possibilities, that doesn't enter into it. I like the mission. Like many things, it goes back to my parents, my dad. I remember driving with him, to New York, soccer tournaments, North Carolina, wherever. I should take this time to point out that my father is an excellent driver, a skill which I have also inherited. There is a natural sense of achievement that goes along with driving. Point A to Point B. Mission accomplished. Of course, the chance to see or do something outside the daily routine is nice as an experience in its own right, but for me, literally, the drive is enough.
Showing posts with label road trips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label road trips. Show all posts
6.2.08
Voodoo Recap: The drive
So hopefully you've read our previous posts about your trip to New Orleans and Voodoo Fest 2007. Hoosier's pre-trip outlook can be read here and pictures from the trip also up. So now, months later, it's time for my full recap and a few thoughts.
The way I see it the trip can be split into three chapters: The drive, the festival, and the city. Im going to do a post for each.
The drive was a long one, riddled with stupidity and stuttering from the start, which I take full responsibility for. We left my place heading the wrong direction, literally. I had to show Roc the bridge over the Savannah river. Besides being the source of a few good stories, it has traditionally marked the beginning or end of many a long drive. Also, on a nice foggy morning, I love driving up the bridge, as it rises into the nothingness, its the best way to begin a trip, but more on that later. After seeing the bridge, I put us back on course heading south, but not for long.
Only an hour or so later I was taking us on another detour, this time to see a friend in Brunswick. Alex, is one those people whose charm and childlike humility can only be found south of the Mason Dixon, and despite his bushy red beard and extensive tattoo collection, you instantly feel at ease and free to speak as if you've known each-other for several years. Add a few bowls,and you will end up babbling back and forth. I hadn't seen him much since he moved south of Savannah, so why not stop along the way?
So it was about 9, 10 at night now and Alex was busy convincing us how insane we were for planning on driving all the way to New Orleans that night, and I was still locked in a state of denial, saying "No. It won't be to bad. We'll pull over and sleep for a few hours on the side of the road and we'll be fine." Either way, it was time to get back on the road. And after popping our Whataburger cherries, and seeing proof that they like things bigger in Texas, we were back on 95 south. I would now like to say that there was no really good way to do this trip that would accommodate our schoolwork, wallets, and schedule. We had to be in New Orleans by Friday afternoonish and is at-least a 10+ hour drive from Savannah. Rather then waking at the earliest hours of the night and driving direct, I decided to take a more leisurely pace
Soon after, it was time to head west, and that means the Bible Beltway, I-10. For many young, liberal northerners, this would be the time to shit on the local Christians responsible for the billboards reminding us that their is only one white male God, whose politics seem to fall inline with American fascists like Curt Weldon. But these signs really don't bother me, because as fucked as they are, and as evil as the frauds are who promote and profit from spewing this bile, at-least their is a sort of honesty in them. Which is more then you can say for most, if not all, conglomerates who use their sock piles of reserve cash to create giant eye-sores of lies, false-promises, and general phonyism. This why I cant wait to drive across Montana and North Dakota, because I have this idea in my head of an open highway drive, where you can see the horizon in any direction, and no billboards for a hundred miles. Now that I have that out of my system, we'll get back to the trip.
Next stop was Tallahassee, to see another lost friend. Like Alex, Rush has those extra hospitality and easy going genes that don't seem to like cold temperatures. So, we chatted about this, that, and the third over a few beers, and not very slowly or subtly, sleep crept upon all of us. I think we got to his place around 1:45 or 2, and we planned on sleeping until 4. We were still about 6 hours from New Orleans, and about 8 into the trip. After we awoke and thanked our generous host, we were off, again. 6 AM stop at Waffle House (A Waffle House along a major highway, has to be one of the safest places ever. At the right times, its a though looking crowd in there. You'd have to be batshitcrazy to start trouble in a Waffle house.). Two hour nap at the road stop before the Louisiana boarder. Short controlled burst, think of the Halo 3 Battle rifle. Shot people in the head, take cover. Drive a few hundred miles, take a nap.
The coolest part of the drive is certainly driving along the causeways of Alabama/Mississippi/Louisiana. As I said before, theirs something bizarrely powerful about driving on a near transparent structure in the air over water; ... simply its like flying. At least it is to me. And with a low thick fog, you plunge into the clouds and you find yourself in a unfamiliar context. The last miles into New Orleans couldn't be more unnerving , and upsetting. Communities one after another in ruin, deserted, empty. But that is were I will pick up in the next part of this Voodoo 07 Recap.
Next, my time in New Orleans.
The way I see it the trip can be split into three chapters: The drive, the festival, and the city. Im going to do a post for each.
The drive was a long one, riddled with stupidity and stuttering from the start, which I take full responsibility for. We left my place heading the wrong direction, literally. I had to show Roc the bridge over the Savannah river. Besides being the source of a few good stories, it has traditionally marked the beginning or end of many a long drive. Also, on a nice foggy morning, I love driving up the bridge, as it rises into the nothingness, its the best way to begin a trip, but more on that later. After seeing the bridge, I put us back on course heading south, but not for long.
Only an hour or so later I was taking us on another detour, this time to see a friend in Brunswick. Alex, is one those people whose charm and childlike humility can only be found south of the Mason Dixon, and despite his bushy red beard and extensive tattoo collection, you instantly feel at ease and free to speak as if you've known each-other for several years. Add a few bowls,and you will end up babbling back and forth. I hadn't seen him much since he moved south of Savannah, so why not stop along the way?
So it was about 9, 10 at night now and Alex was busy convincing us how insane we were for planning on driving all the way to New Orleans that night, and I was still locked in a state of denial, saying "No. It won't be to bad. We'll pull over and sleep for a few hours on the side of the road and we'll be fine." Either way, it was time to get back on the road. And after popping our Whataburger cherries, and seeing proof that they like things bigger in Texas, we were back on 95 south. I would now like to say that there was no really good way to do this trip that would accommodate our schoolwork, wallets, and schedule. We had to be in New Orleans by Friday afternoonish and is at-least a 10+ hour drive from Savannah. Rather then waking at the earliest hours of the night and driving direct, I decided to take a more leisurely pace
Soon after, it was time to head west, and that means the Bible Beltway, I-10. For many young, liberal northerners, this would be the time to shit on the local Christians responsible for the billboards reminding us that their is only one white male God, whose politics seem to fall inline with American fascists like Curt Weldon. But these signs really don't bother me, because as fucked as they are, and as evil as the frauds are who promote and profit from spewing this bile, at-least their is a sort of honesty in them. Which is more then you can say for most, if not all, conglomerates who use their sock piles of reserve cash to create giant eye-sores of lies, false-promises, and general phonyism. This why I cant wait to drive across Montana and North Dakota, because I have this idea in my head of an open highway drive, where you can see the horizon in any direction, and no billboards for a hundred miles. Now that I have that out of my system, we'll get back to the trip.
Next stop was Tallahassee, to see another lost friend. Like Alex, Rush has those extra hospitality and easy going genes that don't seem to like cold temperatures. So, we chatted about this, that, and the third over a few beers, and not very slowly or subtly, sleep crept upon all of us. I think we got to his place around 1:45 or 2, and we planned on sleeping until 4. We were still about 6 hours from New Orleans, and about 8 into the trip. After we awoke and thanked our generous host, we were off, again. 6 AM stop at Waffle House (A Waffle House along a major highway, has to be one of the safest places ever. At the right times, its a though looking crowd in there. You'd have to be batshitcrazy to start trouble in a Waffle house.). Two hour nap at the road stop before the Louisiana boarder. Short controlled burst, think of the Halo 3 Battle rifle. Shot people in the head, take cover. Drive a few hundred miles, take a nap.
The coolest part of the drive is certainly driving along the causeways of Alabama/Mississippi/Louisiana. As I said before, theirs something bizarrely powerful about driving on a near transparent structure in the air over water; ... simply its like flying. At least it is to me. And with a low thick fog, you plunge into the clouds and you find yourself in a unfamiliar context. The last miles into New Orleans couldn't be more unnerving , and upsetting. Communities one after another in ruin, deserted, empty. But that is were I will pick up in the next part of this Voodoo 07 Recap.
Next, my time in New Orleans.
1.2.08
Its a small world, even with all this cyberspace.
This morning I woke up and read Hoosier's post, and thought to myself, "Good. My post worked, gota keep going." But I agreed we should return to the subject central to all of our thoughts... not how Mets still can't threaten the Phils, but how this road trip will proceed. I then decided to look around at our competition, to see if their was prominent road trip blog out there that was stealing our interested public. Well if there is I didn't find it yet because Google's top result for "road trip blog" was far better then I could have hoped. I found DriveAndAHalf.com and started reading. It looks like they more or less abandon the site two years ago after a mere six posts, so if nothing else we're doing better then them, but I kept reading.
After a little while it became apparent that the contributors where, like yours trurly, of college age. I guess the awe of the car wares off by age 30, or your life becomes overrun with "more important" issues that leave little time to drive for pleasure. Then after reading still further, I began to sense that they were from or traveling in the Philadelphia area, on roads I grew-up on. The Blue Route. Route 1. The PA Turnpike. Then my heart skipped a beat as it grew clear they went to school in New Jersey, "These schmucks go to TCNJ" I said out loud to my empty bedroom. I hadn't read it, but deep in my soul I knew it to be the truth. Now completely unconcerned with whatever pulp I was reading, they appear to like horses, I started scrolling through text and pictures, looking for conformation of their enrollment at "the NGay." Then three quarter of the way down the page, in a post over two years old, BAM! "We left TCNJ at around 7am." After a brief period of laughter, I knew what had to be done.
First I want to make it known that when our trip does begin, New Jersey will not be on the itinerary. Second I have been to The College Of New Jersey, and a dear friend of ours will soon be graduating from the college formally known as Trenton State, and he may or may not be joining us on our big adventure. After multiple visits to the school, I think I would feel as comfortable walking 5 city blocks in Camden as I do walking through the dorms of the NGay. Luckily the students their always provide the cure for my discomfort, alcohol. Entering the campus is like leaving reality, and during the drive their you saw logic, reason, and good judgement commit a group suicide by pushing each other off the Scudder Falls Bridge. Usually with in an hour off being trapped in confines of their, "we wish were Princeton" red brick, I've started drinking, and will not stop until the nightmare goes away and I pass out cold. I think it says something when one of my most secure moments their, was sharing a bottom bunk with Hoosier, and this was done soberly mind you.
I should now take a second to say that I do have fond memories of TCNJ, like returning to my friend BD's dorm room to find him in only his breifs, with his head hidden in the trash can he was vomiting into. I also laugh to hear all the ways I agitated, questioned, and even abused the students and their lifestyle during period of drunkenness I do no recall. Although, my crowing achievement is without question pissing in BD's roommate's bed. I feel completely justified in this, although a bit sorry for the Drake, for this is what happens when you put locks on the public (multi-stall) bathrooms, the only restroom on the floor. If there is ever a place that illustrates both the evils and necessity of booze, its that little school in Ewing... Trenton State, um, I mean... The College of New Jersey.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Joe "BD" D'Urso. A true patriot and bro who's friendship was ironically claimed by America's armpit in 2004.
After a little while it became apparent that the contributors where, like yours trurly, of college age. I guess the awe of the car wares off by age 30, or your life becomes overrun with "more important" issues that leave little time to drive for pleasure. Then after reading still further, I began to sense that they were from or traveling in the Philadelphia area, on roads I grew-up on. The Blue Route. Route 1. The PA Turnpike. Then my heart skipped a beat as it grew clear they went to school in New Jersey, "These schmucks go to TCNJ" I said out loud to my empty bedroom. I hadn't read it, but deep in my soul I knew it to be the truth. Now completely unconcerned with whatever pulp I was reading, they appear to like horses, I started scrolling through text and pictures, looking for conformation of their enrollment at "the NGay." Then three quarter of the way down the page, in a post over two years old, BAM! "We left TCNJ at around 7am." After a brief period of laughter, I knew what had to be done.
First I want to make it known that when our trip does begin, New Jersey will not be on the itinerary. Second I have been to The College Of New Jersey, and a dear friend of ours will soon be graduating from the college formally known as Trenton State, and he may or may not be joining us on our big adventure. After multiple visits to the school, I think I would feel as comfortable walking 5 city blocks in Camden as I do walking through the dorms of the NGay. Luckily the students their always provide the cure for my discomfort, alcohol. Entering the campus is like leaving reality, and during the drive their you saw logic, reason, and good judgement commit a group suicide by pushing each other off the Scudder Falls Bridge. Usually with in an hour off being trapped in confines of their, "we wish were Princeton" red brick, I've started drinking, and will not stop until the nightmare goes away and I pass out cold. I think it says something when one of my most secure moments their, was sharing a bottom bunk with Hoosier, and this was done soberly mind you.
I should now take a second to say that I do have fond memories of TCNJ, like returning to my friend BD's dorm room to find him in only his breifs, with his head hidden in the trash can he was vomiting into. I also laugh to hear all the ways I agitated, questioned, and even abused the students and their lifestyle during period of drunkenness I do no recall. Although, my crowing achievement is without question pissing in BD's roommate's bed. I feel completely justified in this, although a bit sorry for the Drake, for this is what happens when you put locks on the public (multi-stall) bathrooms, the only restroom on the floor. If there is ever a place that illustrates both the evils and necessity of booze, its that little school in Ewing... Trenton State, um, I mean... The College of New Jersey.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Joe "BD" D'Urso. A true patriot and bro who's friendship was ironically claimed by America's armpit in 2004.
29.1.08
Driving tunes: A post for the blog's sake
Since posting has more or less stopped I figured I'd post a something on the lighter side. I just drove back to school in Savannah, GA, and the 11+ hours spent in the car prompted me to write this post. What is the best music to drive to? I tend to listen to albums in their entirety, although I think this puts me in the minority. I know that crafting a good mixtape is an skill unto itself, however I have never really been able to sink my teeth into the process, and have left it in the hands of the artists. But I want to hear what people have to say on the subject. You can recommend single songs, albums, mixs, as well as what type of drive they would be suitable for. Be as specific (song, album, traffic conditions, length of drive, destination) or as broad (artist/genre) as you want. Here are some of my picks, in no particular order:
Will there you have it, a taste of my drives to school and back. Like I said these drives are done by myself, so I enjoy being able to select an album and listen to it from front back. I'd love to hear what other people listen to when in similar situations, or any other driving situation.
- Steve Reich - Music for Eighteen Musicians Steve Reich was one of the leading minimalist composers of the 1970's, and honestly this is the only work of his I have in my music library, or have really been exposed to, but I've wanted to get my hands on some of his other work for a while now and just never got around to I. I like driving to this album (the whole album is a single hour long track) when driving long distances. I tend to listen to Music… 5 or 6 hours into a day of driving. At this point in the drive I want music that is not going to demand my attention to be enjoyed and not put me to sleep. Reich's construction (and deconstruction) of a repeated theme, and all it's permutations, is certainly worthy of a focused headphone listen, but it can also serve as a beautiful backdrop while speeding down I-95.
- Kraftwerk - Electric Café & Daft Punk - Homework Two of my favorite electronic albums. The Kraftwerk album really gets me into the mind set of being a robot, which helps when driving for a while. The first three songs are very strong, you really feel their presence, but the final three tend to receeded in the spectrum of my wondering, long-drive mind, however they never fall off into background music. Homework is similar in this sense, it starts of bumping and then slows down, then it picks back up, however it never regains the enthusiasm it started with. In addition to being longer then Electric Café, most of its energy comes from fast tempo, pulsing rhythm, and flashy sample modulation, instead of a simpler more open, non-techno soundscape. Moderism vs Post-modernism, in my opinion.
- Tool - Lateralus This album is fucking amazing. I don't know how I discovered it, probably because of "Schism" but thank God, no thank Satan I did. Imagine King Crimson, taking black acid and listening to Sabbath, a beatutiful mix of heavey metal drums, Velvet feedback drones, and psychadelic conceptualism. The drums alone will keep you awake and driving. I highly recomend buying the physical CD, the album/booklet art makes for a great package.
- The Grateful Dead - American Beauty You know when people say, "Think of a happy place." For me, this album is that place. Accordingly, American Beauty, and most Dead is better during the day, its a nice complement to the sun. Personally, I enjoy the Dead's studio recordings to the numerous live sets available. It showcases their composition and musical talent, without slipping into self-indulgence or familiarity. "Ripple" to "Brokedown Palace" is phenomenal.
Will there you have it, a taste of my drives to school and back. Like I said these drives are done by myself, so I enjoy being able to select an album and listen to it from front back. I'd love to hear what other people listen to when in similar situations, or any other driving situation.
11.1.08
My cousins want to be on Google...this blog will have to do
Greetings from St. Thomas. I hope everyone has had a happy, prosperous, and safe holiday season. Sorry it's been so long since any of us have updated. It's been a bit hectic lately for all of us. I just wanted to say that, one, we'll be updating more lately (if anyone is still reading), and two, I want to give a shout out to my cousins, Amanda, Alex, and Lauren Pahl. Amanda really wants to be famous. She is a beautiful singer. Lauren also wants to be famous. She wants to dance and sing. Alex is very, very smart, knows a lot about science, and hopes someday to be a famous scientist. They all want to be on google, so hopefully this will get them there.
12.12.07
Some early number crunching
So I was browsing eBay earlier looking for a car for the trip. Personally I want an early 90's Buick Roadmaster, or Chevy Caprice wagon. My dad was doubting its fuel efficiency, however I was fairly sure I had read that they tend to get 28 MPG highway, not bad for such a luxury ride. With a little more research I discovered I was in fact correct and read many reports of them getting 25-28 MPG on the highway. City milage aint's so pretty, it drops down to 16-19 MPG. The main problem with this car is the price. According to Kelly Blue Book would probably pay about $3000 for a model that would get us across the country, on the other side of the coin, there is that fact that we could sell the car after the trip for more or less the price we buy it for and we wouldn't be piling miles on to my car, or somebody's parents car.
Tell me this wouldn't be a great car for driving cross country. Its roomy, easy to fix, and classy.
So with concerns of gas prices in my head I've started to crunch some number, and well, its kinda scary. I figure we each go into this willing to spend $3 grand, this is a hopeful estimate, especially in certain cases. So with a budget total of $9000, I first looked at the cost of gas.
Triple A puts the national average at $2.99 a gallon, However, I have a hunch that come summertime it will have gone up, so I used $3.20 per gallon. Justin's route as posted earlier took us over 8000 miles and my route was over 9000 miles, I went with 9250 miles for this estimate. So, I figure my beautiful Roadmaster would average about 22 MPG. Our expected bill for gas would be about $1350, which I might be able to live with.
Next, I started thinking about how much time it would take to drive these 9250 miles, and things got a little ugly. We had sort of been operating under the assumption that we had about 3-4 weeks. Well, 9250 miles over 21 days is 440 miles per day (about 8 hours) and over 30 days is 300 miles per day (about 5 hours per day). This math rules out a 3 week trip, it would be all driving. I know that there are parts of the country were we will be driving basically straight through, stopping for only a few hours for food and drink, but there are without a doubt times we will want to spend more or less the entire day in one place. The bottom line is this: 9000 miles is a fucking long ways, and 30 days isn't that long of a time period.
But for the sake of this estimate I will continue with some math. So, of our $9000, we've spent 3 on the car and 1.5 on gas, leaving us with 4.5. Divide this by 30 and thats a daily allowance of $150 ($50 per person). Im not sure, this sounds a bit underwhelming to me, but not by that much, about $100-200. So now, if nothing else, I've given us starting point. I've developed theses overly complex theroretical formulas to figure out the breakdown of our basic expenses and our daily drive time, while accounting for the variables of (B)udget (our combined budget), (T)ime (number of day), (D)istance (miles traveled), dail(Y) budget (for all three of us), (H)ours of driving (per day), (C)ar (price of), (M)iles per gallon (of said vehicle), and (G)as price (we can keep checking the national average as we get closer). Our friend BD would be proud.
Drive time per day:
(D/T)/60 ≤ H
Average drive time must be less then 5 hours per day, so:
(D/T)/60 ≤ 5
On to the daily budget:
(B-C)-((D/M)•G) = Y
With my guess of $3.20 per gallon:
(B-C)-((D/M)•3.2) = Y
I think we spent about $900 on our 3 day trip to Voodoo, about $300 each. I feel this is were we need to be. Meanwhile, we need to save money and perhaps start working on a more concise route and keep working on a more affordable option for transportation, although I haven't given up on my wooden paneled baby. Its still early, we have at least 6 months. So if anyone reading has any great ways to earn cash fast, save money on the road, or advice in general please feel free to share.
Tell me this wouldn't be a great car for driving cross country. Its roomy, easy to fix, and classy.
So with concerns of gas prices in my head I've started to crunch some number, and well, its kinda scary. I figure we each go into this willing to spend $3 grand, this is a hopeful estimate, especially in certain cases. So with a budget total of $9000, I first looked at the cost of gas.
Triple A puts the national average at $2.99 a gallon, However, I have a hunch that come summertime it will have gone up, so I used $3.20 per gallon. Justin's route as posted earlier took us over 8000 miles and my route was over 9000 miles, I went with 9250 miles for this estimate. So, I figure my beautiful Roadmaster would average about 22 MPG. Our expected bill for gas would be about $1350, which I might be able to live with.
Next, I started thinking about how much time it would take to drive these 9250 miles, and things got a little ugly. We had sort of been operating under the assumption that we had about 3-4 weeks. Well, 9250 miles over 21 days is 440 miles per day (about 8 hours) and over 30 days is 300 miles per day (about 5 hours per day). This math rules out a 3 week trip, it would be all driving. I know that there are parts of the country were we will be driving basically straight through, stopping for only a few hours for food and drink, but there are without a doubt times we will want to spend more or less the entire day in one place. The bottom line is this: 9000 miles is a fucking long ways, and 30 days isn't that long of a time period.
But for the sake of this estimate I will continue with some math. So, of our $9000, we've spent 3 on the car and 1.5 on gas, leaving us with 4.5. Divide this by 30 and thats a daily allowance of $150 ($50 per person). Im not sure, this sounds a bit underwhelming to me, but not by that much, about $100-200. So now, if nothing else, I've given us starting point. I've developed theses overly complex theroretical formulas to figure out the breakdown of our basic expenses and our daily drive time, while accounting for the variables of (B)udget (our combined budget), (T)ime (number of day), (D)istance (miles traveled), dail(Y) budget (for all three of us), (H)ours of driving (per day), (C)ar (price of), (M)iles per gallon (of said vehicle), and (G)as price (we can keep checking the national average as we get closer). Our friend BD would be proud.
Drive time per day:
(D/T)/60 ≤ H
Average drive time must be less then 5 hours per day, so:
(D/T)/60 ≤ 5
On to the daily budget:
(B-C)-((D/M)•G) = Y
With my guess of $3.20 per gallon:
(B-C)-((D/M)•3.2) = Y
I think we spent about $900 on our 3 day trip to Voodoo, about $300 each. I feel this is were we need to be. Meanwhile, we need to save money and perhaps start working on a more concise route and keep working on a more affordable option for transportation, although I haven't given up on my wooden paneled baby. Its still early, we have at least 6 months. So if anyone reading has any great ways to earn cash fast, save money on the road, or advice in general please feel free to share.
10.12.07
Reflections on New Orleans, Savannah, and Voodoo Fest
A few notes about Voodoo Fest and the south from Hoosier:
-People really like Jesus along the I-10 corrior between New Orleans and Jacksonville, and this is a bad thing when your car breaks down in Alabama at about seven a.m. on a Sunday morning because everyone is in church, even truckers (they have churches at truck stops)
-Rage rocked, as to be expected, but my two favorite acts were probably Tiesto (thanks, mep), and a jam band from Jacksonville named Mofro. Tiesto may not be to everyone's taste, as he's techno, although I would recommend at least giving him a try, but Mofro is a pretty good band and are especially worthwhile to see live
-When going to an all day concert, I would advise not driving thirteen hours through the night to get there. That is, unless, of course you enjoy not sleeping for 45 hours straight and falling asleep while standing up during the middle of Kings of Leon...and not being able to go out the one full night you have in New Orleans because someone, cough*Rock*cough, thinks it would be a good idea to just "lay down for like thirty minutes then head down to Bourbon Street." You never just lay down for thirty minutes after having been awake for 45 hours; you sleep for 12 hours straight.
-Savannah, if you have not been, is maybe my favorite city in the contiguous United State (I've been to every city on the eastern sea board, most of the mid-western ones, and LA). It's a beautiful, charming place that feels more like a big town than a city. It's worth visiting for a few days, and just walking. Check out the eerie cemetaries, sample the food, admire the architecture and the Spanish moss, sit for a while in one of the many city squares- just go to Savannah. Trust me on this, and don't let Pinks tell you otherwise.
Lastly, I want to write about New Orleans. I'm not quite sure how to go about it. I feel like me writing about New Orleans would be like me writing about someone I've met twice in my life: sure, I've met them, and I might have a broadly superficial view of who they are, what has shaped them, but for me to pretend, for even a moment, to know their character would be a gross miscalculation. That's how I feel about New Orleans. It would be unfair for me to write with any kind of certainty about a city I've spent a mere 44 hours in.
Still, I think it's something to address. Since Katrina, I've heard a similar refrain: New Orleans used to be a great American city, right up there with New York, San Francisco, etc. It used to be a town with a unique, a bit off kilter character. It was like no place you'd ever been or would be again. After Katrina, although it's never been overtly said, the implication has always been that, well, it's lost something. It's like that uncle a lot of people have, the one who was a lot of fun in his youth but hasn't been the same since the divorce and the dui, but no one wants to acknowledge the fact he's different.
Of course, something has been lost. A large portion of the population, mostly black, has not returned to the city they once called home. And what makes a place but the people who inhabit it? That said, by all accounts, New Orleans, and its citizens, have doggedly attempted to return to "normalcy" after Katrina...whatever that might be. It was this, then- the desire to see New Orleans with my own eyes, to walk through its streets, to sample the creole cuisine, smell the briny air- that drew me to this trip. I honestly had little to no desire to go to the concert; I just wanted to see New Orleans.
So what did I see? A lot, I suppose, although I'm not sure what to make of it. Downtown, the commercial sector and the French Quarter, the areas most tourists will see, is mostly rehabbed. There are still a few bordered up buildings downtown, but the French Quarter- by all accounts one of the least damaged areas in Katrina- looks as if nothing ever happened. It's a beautiful place, full of 18th Century, Spanish and Victorian themed architecture, and a whole lot of steel lace balconies. While Bourbon Street is the main draw, I recommend visiting during the afternoon, when the crowds are at a minimum, and walking through the entire neighborhood. A lot of the side streets are peaceful and languidly beautiful; there's a considerable amount of options for good food (try a Po Boy sandwich); and you might run into one of the many, surprisingly entertaining street artists (we spent a good twenty minutes watching a magician/comedian). While it's still a touristy experience, you get the sense it's more genuine than most.
Despite downtown's resurgence, considerable portions of the area are still damaged- and I say this without having spent much time outside of the downtown sector. The drive into New Orleans, on route 10, is sobering. Many of the neighborhoods along the highway are still in shambles: one story ranch homes are still gutted, roofs still have holes in them, windows are still boarded up. Some blocks seem rehabbed, and then out of nowhere, an entire house will just be a pile of rubble.
In the city proper, many of the poorer parishes are supposedly still severely dilapitated and damaged. Unfortunately, the three of us didn't spend much time on the outskirts of town. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but we chose to get drunk on Bourbon Street in the middle of the afternoon as opposed to driving through the lower Ninth Ward, or other poverty stricken parts of the city. The honest truth is, the thought of driving through the poorer parts of the city never even entered our minds.
That said, on our first morning in New Orleans, fresh off of our 13 hour drive from Savannah, we did drive through some of the poorer sections. Using a book called Road Food as our guide, we searched the city for a variety of restaurants. The first one we tried was in a neighborhood not terribly far from downtown, just under an overpass for Route 10. An old brick, steepled church marked the entrance to the area, and the street, even though it was nearly noon, was completely empty. Many of the homes were either boarded up or clearly uninhabited. Most still bore spray paint inscriptions from the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. The restauraunt we were looking for, sitting on a corner, had been described in the book as lively and always packed on weekday afteroons (it was a Friday). It was closed, and looked to have been that way for quite sometime. Disappointed, and considerably somber, we chose another restaurant, and drove a few minutes across town, past more boarded up homes, down streets that felt more suitable for ghost towns of the Wild West than a major American city. This restaurant, too, was closed. It had closed during Katrina, and had simply never reopened.
Our third choice worked out; not only was it open, but it was a thriving, upscale cafe a few blocks from the French Quarter. And, after this, our experiences limited to the downtown portion of the city, it was easy to forget we were in a city that, for so many, represented a home town lost. Saturday night, before beginning our long haul back to Savannah, the three of us went down to Bourbon Street, figuring it was an integral part of the New Orleans experience. It was overwhelming, to be honest, and not really in a good way. The street was jammed for blocks on end, drunk college kids, many in costume for halloween, pouring out of bars and strip clubs. In a lot of ways, its a cess pool of debauchery and young people looking to fuck, and not a whole lot more. I mean, sure, it was vibrant, and I saw a few pairs of boobs, and Ron Jeremy walking out of one strip club and into another, but I couldn't help but wonder if this is what New Orleans had become. Sure, it's always been known as a place for debauchery and partying, and that lack of depth and structure and consequences has a strong American appeal (see Las Vegas), but in a city where so many people lost their lives, and their homes, is it really ok for a bunch of kids- most of them not actually from New Orleans- to come and mindlessly get drunk? Is that part of the healing process? Is the ability to party, without heeding the incredible tragedy all around you, a part of moving forward? Or does it represent a certain callousness that I fear pervades our world these days, a me first selfishness that puts personal pleasure above public good?
I honestly don't know. I can't say what New Orleans was like before Katrina- I'll never be able to know how the city was then. Nor can I even begin to think I know what is healthy for it in the long, slow process of rebuilding. I don't want to espouse on the spirit of the city, or its people, because really, I'm not qualified to. Still, I can say that in a place many of us left for dead, most of its residents consciously decided to come back and rebuild, knowing full well that another hurricane, another ruin, might lurk just around the bend. That speaks to a basic human attribute: our incredible ability to suffer pain, and loss, and to keep living. That, or our incredible stupidity in the face of overwhelming empircal evidence. But I'm feeling romantic today, so I'll classify it as the former- we don't know how, or when, to give up, not just as Americans or citizens of New Orleans, but as humans. We persevere, and that's an admirable thing.
So I guess that's how I'll end. I will say this: do visit New Orleans. Even if it's only to get drunk and see boobs on Bourbon Street. But I would hope you would go for more than that. Go to experience an integral part of our country and our history. Go to help with the rehabilitation. Mostly, go to think, go to reflect, and go to admire the persistence that is our human mark on this world.
-People really like Jesus along the I-10 corrior between New Orleans and Jacksonville, and this is a bad thing when your car breaks down in Alabama at about seven a.m. on a Sunday morning because everyone is in church, even truckers (they have churches at truck stops)
-Rage rocked, as to be expected, but my two favorite acts were probably Tiesto (thanks, mep), and a jam band from Jacksonville named Mofro. Tiesto may not be to everyone's taste, as he's techno, although I would recommend at least giving him a try, but Mofro is a pretty good band and are especially worthwhile to see live
-When going to an all day concert, I would advise not driving thirteen hours through the night to get there. That is, unless, of course you enjoy not sleeping for 45 hours straight and falling asleep while standing up during the middle of Kings of Leon...and not being able to go out the one full night you have in New Orleans because someone, cough*Rock*cough, thinks it would be a good idea to just "lay down for like thirty minutes then head down to Bourbon Street." You never just lay down for thirty minutes after having been awake for 45 hours; you sleep for 12 hours straight.
-Savannah, if you have not been, is maybe my favorite city in the contiguous United State (I've been to every city on the eastern sea board, most of the mid-western ones, and LA). It's a beautiful, charming place that feels more like a big town than a city. It's worth visiting for a few days, and just walking. Check out the eerie cemetaries, sample the food, admire the architecture and the Spanish moss, sit for a while in one of the many city squares- just go to Savannah. Trust me on this, and don't let Pinks tell you otherwise.
Lastly, I want to write about New Orleans. I'm not quite sure how to go about it. I feel like me writing about New Orleans would be like me writing about someone I've met twice in my life: sure, I've met them, and I might have a broadly superficial view of who they are, what has shaped them, but for me to pretend, for even a moment, to know their character would be a gross miscalculation. That's how I feel about New Orleans. It would be unfair for me to write with any kind of certainty about a city I've spent a mere 44 hours in.
Still, I think it's something to address. Since Katrina, I've heard a similar refrain: New Orleans used to be a great American city, right up there with New York, San Francisco, etc. It used to be a town with a unique, a bit off kilter character. It was like no place you'd ever been or would be again. After Katrina, although it's never been overtly said, the implication has always been that, well, it's lost something. It's like that uncle a lot of people have, the one who was a lot of fun in his youth but hasn't been the same since the divorce and the dui, but no one wants to acknowledge the fact he's different.
Of course, something has been lost. A large portion of the population, mostly black, has not returned to the city they once called home. And what makes a place but the people who inhabit it? That said, by all accounts, New Orleans, and its citizens, have doggedly attempted to return to "normalcy" after Katrina...whatever that might be. It was this, then- the desire to see New Orleans with my own eyes, to walk through its streets, to sample the creole cuisine, smell the briny air- that drew me to this trip. I honestly had little to no desire to go to the concert; I just wanted to see New Orleans.
So what did I see? A lot, I suppose, although I'm not sure what to make of it. Downtown, the commercial sector and the French Quarter, the areas most tourists will see, is mostly rehabbed. There are still a few bordered up buildings downtown, but the French Quarter- by all accounts one of the least damaged areas in Katrina- looks as if nothing ever happened. It's a beautiful place, full of 18th Century, Spanish and Victorian themed architecture, and a whole lot of steel lace balconies. While Bourbon Street is the main draw, I recommend visiting during the afternoon, when the crowds are at a minimum, and walking through the entire neighborhood. A lot of the side streets are peaceful and languidly beautiful; there's a considerable amount of options for good food (try a Po Boy sandwich); and you might run into one of the many, surprisingly entertaining street artists (we spent a good twenty minutes watching a magician/comedian). While it's still a touristy experience, you get the sense it's more genuine than most.
Despite downtown's resurgence, considerable portions of the area are still damaged- and I say this without having spent much time outside of the downtown sector. The drive into New Orleans, on route 10, is sobering. Many of the neighborhoods along the highway are still in shambles: one story ranch homes are still gutted, roofs still have holes in them, windows are still boarded up. Some blocks seem rehabbed, and then out of nowhere, an entire house will just be a pile of rubble.
In the city proper, many of the poorer parishes are supposedly still severely dilapitated and damaged. Unfortunately, the three of us didn't spend much time on the outskirts of town. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but we chose to get drunk on Bourbon Street in the middle of the afternoon as opposed to driving through the lower Ninth Ward, or other poverty stricken parts of the city. The honest truth is, the thought of driving through the poorer parts of the city never even entered our minds.
That said, on our first morning in New Orleans, fresh off of our 13 hour drive from Savannah, we did drive through some of the poorer sections. Using a book called Road Food as our guide, we searched the city for a variety of restaurants. The first one we tried was in a neighborhood not terribly far from downtown, just under an overpass for Route 10. An old brick, steepled church marked the entrance to the area, and the street, even though it was nearly noon, was completely empty. Many of the homes were either boarded up or clearly uninhabited. Most still bore spray paint inscriptions from the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. The restauraunt we were looking for, sitting on a corner, had been described in the book as lively and always packed on weekday afteroons (it was a Friday). It was closed, and looked to have been that way for quite sometime. Disappointed, and considerably somber, we chose another restaurant, and drove a few minutes across town, past more boarded up homes, down streets that felt more suitable for ghost towns of the Wild West than a major American city. This restaurant, too, was closed. It had closed during Katrina, and had simply never reopened.
Our third choice worked out; not only was it open, but it was a thriving, upscale cafe a few blocks from the French Quarter. And, after this, our experiences limited to the downtown portion of the city, it was easy to forget we were in a city that, for so many, represented a home town lost. Saturday night, before beginning our long haul back to Savannah, the three of us went down to Bourbon Street, figuring it was an integral part of the New Orleans experience. It was overwhelming, to be honest, and not really in a good way. The street was jammed for blocks on end, drunk college kids, many in costume for halloween, pouring out of bars and strip clubs. In a lot of ways, its a cess pool of debauchery and young people looking to fuck, and not a whole lot more. I mean, sure, it was vibrant, and I saw a few pairs of boobs, and Ron Jeremy walking out of one strip club and into another, but I couldn't help but wonder if this is what New Orleans had become. Sure, it's always been known as a place for debauchery and partying, and that lack of depth and structure and consequences has a strong American appeal (see Las Vegas), but in a city where so many people lost their lives, and their homes, is it really ok for a bunch of kids- most of them not actually from New Orleans- to come and mindlessly get drunk? Is that part of the healing process? Is the ability to party, without heeding the incredible tragedy all around you, a part of moving forward? Or does it represent a certain callousness that I fear pervades our world these days, a me first selfishness that puts personal pleasure above public good?
I honestly don't know. I can't say what New Orleans was like before Katrina- I'll never be able to know how the city was then. Nor can I even begin to think I know what is healthy for it in the long, slow process of rebuilding. I don't want to espouse on the spirit of the city, or its people, because really, I'm not qualified to. Still, I can say that in a place many of us left for dead, most of its residents consciously decided to come back and rebuild, knowing full well that another hurricane, another ruin, might lurk just around the bend. That speaks to a basic human attribute: our incredible ability to suffer pain, and loss, and to keep living. That, or our incredible stupidity in the face of overwhelming empircal evidence. But I'm feeling romantic today, so I'll classify it as the former- we don't know how, or when, to give up, not just as Americans or citizens of New Orleans, but as humans. We persevere, and that's an admirable thing.
So I guess that's how I'll end. I will say this: do visit New Orleans. Even if it's only to get drunk and see boobs on Bourbon Street. But I would hope you would go for more than that. Go to experience an integral part of our country and our history. Go to help with the rehabilitation. Mostly, go to think, go to reflect, and go to admire the persistence that is our human mark on this world.
5.12.07
My NOLA Photos
Here is a slideshow of the photos I took during our trip to Voodoo Fest '07. Basically all the photos (unedited) so there are some crapy ones. I might end up going back and deleting some, as we need to free up disk space on our Picasa account. There is a really awesome feature on Picasa that lets you look at map of were you photos were taken. It requires a bit of extra time to add locations to your photos but for us it should be worth it. I have a link to our account in the sidebar, or yo can go right to the map of my photos here.
(Since the trip I've got a new camera which isn't 4 years old, and thus has better stabilization when not using the flash, as that aspect of my old Camera, was terrible.)
A quick not on the setup (setting up) of this blog. Being the tech guy of the group most of the setup rests on my shoulders, which I am more then happy with, however I also can be a bit picky and want the page to look better then nice. As you may or may not know, with wed design, as with many other computer arts fields, setting up the workflow can be tricky, and should not be overlooked or rushed. Making things editable and accessible to multiple contributors makes things more complex, and trying to do it all without spending a dime is even harder. Hopefully by the end of the year I will have worked out the kinks and have developed a smooth system that allows all of us to post entries, add pictures and stay updated while being in separate cities.
(Since the trip I've got a new camera which isn't 4 years old, and thus has better stabilization when not using the flash, as that aspect of my old Camera, was terrible.)
A quick not on the setup (setting up) of this blog. Being the tech guy of the group most of the setup rests on my shoulders, which I am more then happy with, however I also can be a bit picky and want the page to look better then nice. As you may or may not know, with wed design, as with many other computer arts fields, setting up the workflow can be tricky, and should not be overlooked or rushed. Making things editable and accessible to multiple contributors makes things more complex, and trying to do it all without spending a dime is even harder. Hopefully by the end of the year I will have worked out the kinks and have developed a smooth system that allows all of us to post entries, add pictures and stay updated while being in separate cities.
Thoughts at six a.m.
It's six a.m....dreaded finals season in colleges across America. I just wanted to ads a few thoughts. First, the title True Patriots means something to me, too. I don't remember if I had any input in the title- maybe?- but if I did, I would have chosen the name true patriots for a wonderful encounter I had on a family road trip this summer.
It was a brutally cold, rainy August night in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the Pahl family had acquired much sought after tickets to the Packers-Seahawks preseason game at hallowed Lambeau Field (really...they were much sought after...they were being scalped for 200 bucks outside the stadium). We found our seats, about fifty rows up on the ice cold, aluminum bleachers, and settled in for a long, wet evening of sloppy football. I was sitting on the far left edge of our row, with my brother, the ever colorful Nate Pahl, to my right. Our parents were a few seats down, as was our younger sister.
Now, it's pouring rain- just coming down in sheets. So, the teams finish warm ups, a big American flag is unfurled on the field, and the stadium rises, in unison, for the National Anthem. Without thinking, my brother and I do not remove the hoods from our garish yellow ponchos as the Star Spangled Banner kicks into gear. Again, it's pouring fucking rain, like a biblical rainfall here, so over 80 percent of the stadium neglects to remove their ponchos, too. Unfortunately, 80 percent of the stadium is not sitting in front of the total drunken shithead that Nate Pahl and I are sitting in front of.
This guy, henceforth referred to as shithead, is about 300 pounds, short, squat, and round as a boulder. He's decked out in camoflage, an orange hunting hat, and looks like he just spent eight years in the mountains- this dude hasn't shaved in months. He's also hammered drunk. And, as Nate Pahl and I are about to find out, one hell of a patriot.
About two lines into the anthem, shithead taps Nate Pahl on the shoulder. "Hey, show some respect for your country. Uncover your head. Honor America." Nate Pahl, without really thinking, reaches up and slides the hood of his poncho off his head, appeasing, only slightly, shithead. Now, he comes after me. "You, too" he growls and slurs. "On the end. Show some respect for this country and those who died for it. Uncover your head."
I turn around, slowly, so as not to get my head wet (I hate wet hair). "Dude," I say. "It's pouring. No way. I don't feel like getting soaked." There is no fucking way I'm taking this poncho off, especially for this guy.
Shithead dives in for more: "If you don't uncover your head right now, you aren't a patriot." I swear on my dead dog's grave (rip, Cocoa), this guy actually said this. Verbatim.
Now, I'm not one to get all hot and bothered about patriotism. I'm the guy who said, earlier this summer at a baseball game, "I'm not singing God Bless America because I miss the seventh inning stretch. God Bless America is propoganda. Oh, and fuck George Bush." (really, though, fuck George Bush). Still, I love my country. I love it to death, and that is why it pains me to see a silver spoon asshole like George Bush desecrating our constitution, trampling our civil liberties, and sending our men and women to die to feed his pathetic ego. It pains me even more to see dumb fucks like this drunk ass tossing around words like "patriot" and "freedom" as if they were weapons. Sitting in Lambeau Field, being berated by right wing talking points, I'm righteously pissed off. Thus, my love of country re-ignited, I turn, slowly, and look this drunken, slobbering, rotund bastard in the eye. "Sir," I say. "I love my country. And unlike you, I don't have to take my fucking hat off to prove it."
Taken aback, Shithead leaves me alone. Nate Pahl looks at me, surprised, and, doing the sensible thing, puts his hood back on. Shithead objects, and reaches down and pulls Nate Pahl's hood off his head. Nate Pahl, enraged, spins around and is now standing toe to toe with a 300 pound, drunken, grizzled Wisconsinite.
Now, for those who don't know Nate Pahl, he's an imposing figure. He's about an inch shy of six feet, with a shaved head. He's a big ass guy, with broad shoulders and a neck the size of Delaware. He's fucking jacked, and as he will be quick to tell you, he reps on the bench at 255. He could kick my ass in a heart beat. Anyway. Nate Pahl, glowing red with fury, stares this shithead down, and says "If you touch me again, I will fucking kill you." And I don't doubt the fact that Nate Pahl would have.
Luckily (sadly?), my father stepped in and difused the situation. Shithead went back to his beers and Nate Pahl stewed by himself, at one point espousing on his distaste for the midwest, and his desire to return to "civilization" (the east coast). For maybe the first time ever, Nate Pahl and I were on the same side in an idealogical battle. It felt nice.
What does this have to do with the title "True Patriots?" Honestly, not all that much, except that I occasionally like to refer to myself as a patriot in jest. Still, there's a fifty percent chance I actually thought up that title, and if I did, it's absolutely because of that story.
Lastly, I just want to echo the eloquent and wise words of Pinks. This is a trip about getting to know our country, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, profound and mundane. It is a trip about enhancing our perspective, and hopefully opening our eyes to people and problems we did not know existed. It's a trip about meeting people- and maybe even sitting down with that shithead, throwing back a beer, and finding some common ground that we have as humans and Americans (Go Pack Go!). It is an educational trip in every sense of the word. We welcome people to have a dialogue with us (I promise I will not call you shitheads or any other vulgar names...I can't speak for Pinks. He's part bovine, you know...unpredictable and wily). We want people to recommend places to visit, people to meet, food to eat. We want to meet as many people as possible through this trip.
And that brings me to my last thought. This trip is also about friendship. It's about searching for those rare, unexpected moments of transcendence that can only occur with the people you love most- those moments that ultimately define our lives, and help to give them meaning. Perhaps that's a selfish reason for taking this trip, but it is my biggest reason- I want to spend more time with these guys, I want to experience as much of this world, this life, as I can with them.
It was a brutally cold, rainy August night in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the Pahl family had acquired much sought after tickets to the Packers-Seahawks preseason game at hallowed Lambeau Field (really...they were much sought after...they were being scalped for 200 bucks outside the stadium). We found our seats, about fifty rows up on the ice cold, aluminum bleachers, and settled in for a long, wet evening of sloppy football. I was sitting on the far left edge of our row, with my brother, the ever colorful Nate Pahl, to my right. Our parents were a few seats down, as was our younger sister.
Now, it's pouring rain- just coming down in sheets. So, the teams finish warm ups, a big American flag is unfurled on the field, and the stadium rises, in unison, for the National Anthem. Without thinking, my brother and I do not remove the hoods from our garish yellow ponchos as the Star Spangled Banner kicks into gear. Again, it's pouring fucking rain, like a biblical rainfall here, so over 80 percent of the stadium neglects to remove their ponchos, too. Unfortunately, 80 percent of the stadium is not sitting in front of the total drunken shithead that Nate Pahl and I are sitting in front of.
This guy, henceforth referred to as shithead, is about 300 pounds, short, squat, and round as a boulder. He's decked out in camoflage, an orange hunting hat, and looks like he just spent eight years in the mountains- this dude hasn't shaved in months. He's also hammered drunk. And, as Nate Pahl and I are about to find out, one hell of a patriot.
About two lines into the anthem, shithead taps Nate Pahl on the shoulder. "Hey, show some respect for your country. Uncover your head. Honor America." Nate Pahl, without really thinking, reaches up and slides the hood of his poncho off his head, appeasing, only slightly, shithead. Now, he comes after me. "You, too" he growls and slurs. "On the end. Show some respect for this country and those who died for it. Uncover your head."
I turn around, slowly, so as not to get my head wet (I hate wet hair). "Dude," I say. "It's pouring. No way. I don't feel like getting soaked." There is no fucking way I'm taking this poncho off, especially for this guy.
Shithead dives in for more: "If you don't uncover your head right now, you aren't a patriot." I swear on my dead dog's grave (rip, Cocoa), this guy actually said this. Verbatim.
Now, I'm not one to get all hot and bothered about patriotism. I'm the guy who said, earlier this summer at a baseball game, "I'm not singing God Bless America because I miss the seventh inning stretch. God Bless America is propoganda. Oh, and fuck George Bush." (really, though, fuck George Bush). Still, I love my country. I love it to death, and that is why it pains me to see a silver spoon asshole like George Bush desecrating our constitution, trampling our civil liberties, and sending our men and women to die to feed his pathetic ego. It pains me even more to see dumb fucks like this drunk ass tossing around words like "patriot" and "freedom" as if they were weapons. Sitting in Lambeau Field, being berated by right wing talking points, I'm righteously pissed off. Thus, my love of country re-ignited, I turn, slowly, and look this drunken, slobbering, rotund bastard in the eye. "Sir," I say. "I love my country. And unlike you, I don't have to take my fucking hat off to prove it."
Taken aback, Shithead leaves me alone. Nate Pahl looks at me, surprised, and, doing the sensible thing, puts his hood back on. Shithead objects, and reaches down and pulls Nate Pahl's hood off his head. Nate Pahl, enraged, spins around and is now standing toe to toe with a 300 pound, drunken, grizzled Wisconsinite.
Now, for those who don't know Nate Pahl, he's an imposing figure. He's about an inch shy of six feet, with a shaved head. He's a big ass guy, with broad shoulders and a neck the size of Delaware. He's fucking jacked, and as he will be quick to tell you, he reps on the bench at 255. He could kick my ass in a heart beat. Anyway. Nate Pahl, glowing red with fury, stares this shithead down, and says "If you touch me again, I will fucking kill you." And I don't doubt the fact that Nate Pahl would have.
Luckily (sadly?), my father stepped in and difused the situation. Shithead went back to his beers and Nate Pahl stewed by himself, at one point espousing on his distaste for the midwest, and his desire to return to "civilization" (the east coast). For maybe the first time ever, Nate Pahl and I were on the same side in an idealogical battle. It felt nice.
What does this have to do with the title "True Patriots?" Honestly, not all that much, except that I occasionally like to refer to myself as a patriot in jest. Still, there's a fifty percent chance I actually thought up that title, and if I did, it's absolutely because of that story.
Lastly, I just want to echo the eloquent and wise words of Pinks. This is a trip about getting to know our country, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, profound and mundane. It is a trip about enhancing our perspective, and hopefully opening our eyes to people and problems we did not know existed. It's a trip about meeting people- and maybe even sitting down with that shithead, throwing back a beer, and finding some common ground that we have as humans and Americans (Go Pack Go!). It is an educational trip in every sense of the word. We welcome people to have a dialogue with us (I promise I will not call you shitheads or any other vulgar names...I can't speak for Pinks. He's part bovine, you know...unpredictable and wily). We want people to recommend places to visit, people to meet, food to eat. We want to meet as many people as possible through this trip.
And that brings me to my last thought. This trip is also about friendship. It's about searching for those rare, unexpected moments of transcendence that can only occur with the people you love most- those moments that ultimately define our lives, and help to give them meaning. Perhaps that's a selfish reason for taking this trip, but it is my biggest reason- I want to spend more time with these guys, I want to experience as much of this world, this life, as I can with them.
4.12.07
Thoughts
I am so sleep-deprived, malnourished, and stoned that I can barely see straight. My stomach is making fucking weird noises and my brain feels like pudding. Ah, so is finals week at Bates College. As I sit in my Medieval Art class, a Tuesday night 7:30-10:30 tradition, barely able to understand the words that are coming out of my professors mouth, I decide to just phase them out and take a nice trip down memory lane. Pictures that initially make me smile and give me an adrenaline rush to recall eventually bring frowns as I compare my current dismal situation to the whimsical, dare I say, swashbuckling? adventure that was our glorious trip to New Orleans. The only thing that sustains me during these dark times and preserves my will to live is the crystal clear image inside my head of stepping into a car (or van, or whatever, yet to be decided) on a beautiful Swarthmore summer afternoon and just going. I know there is a deeper, more profound purpose to our Odyssey, but fuck it, I'd be happy just driving around, crossing borders, smoking joints and camping out. Anyway, I posted the following pictures in no logical order. I guess it was because food is on my mind, which is drifting. I can't wait to get out of this dungeon, eat a pot brownie, watch Tin Man and pass out cold after being up for about thirty hours straight. I will have more to say when I am in a saner state of mind. Until then...peace.
Et Toufe... Our first meal in New Orleans
The Three getting their picture taken by a couple of really friendly southern ladies (who totally had a boner for me)
Stoop boys
Our Mission
Hoosier here. So, this is where it begins. Sometime next summer, with a cast of characters yet to be fully assembled, Pinks, Rock, and myself will embark on a one month journey across this beautiful country of ours. We plan on documenting the proceedings- the planning, the implementation, the after math- for those of you who might care to follow us on our journey or give us advice along the way (all five of you who find the three of us interesting). We'll try to make it as interesting as possible, with photos, anectdotes, and perhaps even a little philosophizing along the way. We'll take a few "training" road trips throughout the course of the next nine months or so, and we'll throw up any interesting details from those, too. Thus, to start, I'll end my first post with a little something I wrote before the three of us drove, sleep deprived and slightly inebriated (those of us not driving), from Savannah to New Orleans and back again at the end of October. Hopefully it'll give you an idea of what's to come.
October 25, 2007
"Crossing a causeway outside of Savannah, Georgia, beneath a stone grey sky flecked with purplish-pinkish flashes of sunlight, the three of us were hit with an idea. We were on our way to Tybee Island, for what Pinks had called “a ritual cleansing” in the Atlantic Ocean. I had dubbed it our “baptism of the road.” We were about to embark on the first of what, we hoped, would be many overly ambitious, thoroughly exhausting, drug addled, sexually fruitious road trips. Somewhere on this causeway, most of the way through our first joint (I would abstain), one of us (does it matter who?) had an idea.
“Why don’t we just become travel writers? Like, travel around and write about it. We’re smart guys. We’re good writers. We’re funny. I know a lot of people who would read us write about ourselves traveling.”
All of us agreed. Why not be travel writers? We're all seniors in college (some of us more so than others), and decidedly unsure of where our lives might be headed within the year. So travel writers it would be.
Immediately upon making this decision, we were hit with a serious problem: how to find an un-trodden path through a well worn genre? The road trip narrative is as over done in American literature as, well, as about anything. Since Kerouac’s “On The Road,” the American road trip has been seen as a right of passage both serious and funny. It helps young men come of age, widowers weather mid life crises, and families reconcile, if only temporarily their differences. The point is simple though: in America, if you can just take to the open road, you’ll somehow find yourself.
Within these various genres, folks tend to take a few specific angles. There are the young, immature guys who hit the road and, after seeing their “real” country, are moved to action and live a pure life (think Into the Wild, or the Motorcycle Diaries)…this can also double as a “last stand” type trip, where friends take a trip to celebrate the end of “freedom,” via either marriage or entrance into the world of responsibilities or jobs.
There is the older man/woman, suddenly alone and lost in the world, that hits the road and sees the country for what it is- and finds a reason to keep living (About Schmidt). And there’s the satirical road trip, in which a dysfunctional band of people is forced into travel, and encounter all sorts of characters and bumpkins and realize that deep down, we're all more or less the same.
These three/four angles are usually presented from one of two views: there is either the Kerouac, outsiders looking in from the outside offering an alternative (and often condescending) view, or there’s the overly sacharin, Disneyland, small town America that comes across as too genuine to be possibly be true.
Faced with the task of tackling this already overdone, tired canon, what were we to do? Were there any new angles to circle and make our own? Were there any corners of this country that had not been criss crossed and thoroughly covered? Any obscure events that might have flown under the radar? Our answers, in quick succession: no; probably not, and if there are they have not been covered for a reason; and likely, but obscurity for the sake of obscurity is neither original, nor artistic, nor particularly fun.
Being baptized in the surprisingly lukewarm, unsurprisingly gloomy and grey Atlantic, I thought of our own motivations for our coming trips. Were we hoping to find ourselves? Maybe. In some sense, I think we were going out of an obligation to travel, to use our quickly dying youth to take in experiences that would no longer be possible once we integrated into society at large. Above all, I think, we were looking to appease that undying American (human?) inkling, that whispering deep in the soul, that begs to run, to take one’s life and individuality by the throat and just explore. To hell with structure and jobs and kids, it says- adventure, be spontaneous. Live. Still, we worried- was there anything in this of interest to anyone but ourselves?
Drying off on the rock strewn beach while a man fished some hundreds of feet from us and an abandoned revolutionary era fort loomed over us all, I couldn’t help but think back to earlier that afternoon in Savannah- that classic Southern town of old Victorian mansions, and Spanish moss laden squares, and endearing oddities. We’d encountered a man in a small, second story art studio in a small market in some corner of the city. He was old, his face wrinkled and fading like the limestone grave markers of the cities cemeteries. He had a shaggy white beard. He was surrounded by vibrant paintings, although none of them would pass for high art. He sat at an easel and worked diligently, and peacefully, on another ordinary, mundane painting- but one that he no doubt put his whole life into. We struck up a conversation with him, and found out he’d come to Savannah 12 years before from Philadelphia, leaving behind a stable job and quite a bit of money. “I saw a chance to re-invent my life at fifty and took it. At some point, you realize there are more rewarding things than money in life. I’m not lighting the world on fire here, but I’ve found a little place for me.”
Ah, but of course. Re-invention. That, perhaps above all, is what the road offers. Re-invention, a fresh start, free from constraints of the past or expectations for the future. Life is as blank as a west Texas plain at dawn.
This is a story that has been told countless times. This will not be the last time it is told. But the devil, they say, is in the details. Perhaps the most American idea of them all, yea, the most democratic of all our American ideals, is that each and every one of us has a unique story to tell; not necessarily for its extraordinary-ness, but for our own, personal way in which we tell that oft-told tale. This unique, intimate take on America from the road is all we can offer. Maybe it will be enough. It might not, of course. But as we cross the Savannah River, a phosphorescent orange and maroon sun setting over the refineries and tankers, the clouds glowing and thin as wafers, what the point of this trip is, and whether it is new or unique or enough, does not seem important. We ascend the crest, then fall, the highway opening in front of us. We’ve got a full tank of gas, a bottle of bourbon, a pack of smokes, and a couple of joints. We’re off, on the road, and anything seems possible.
(and maybe it really is…)"
October 25, 2007
"Crossing a causeway outside of Savannah, Georgia, beneath a stone grey sky flecked with purplish-pinkish flashes of sunlight, the three of us were hit with an idea. We were on our way to Tybee Island, for what Pinks had called “a ritual cleansing” in the Atlantic Ocean. I had dubbed it our “baptism of the road.” We were about to embark on the first of what, we hoped, would be many overly ambitious, thoroughly exhausting, drug addled, sexually fruitious road trips. Somewhere on this causeway, most of the way through our first joint (I would abstain), one of us (does it matter who?) had an idea.
“Why don’t we just become travel writers? Like, travel around and write about it. We’re smart guys. We’re good writers. We’re funny. I know a lot of people who would read us write about ourselves traveling.”
All of us agreed. Why not be travel writers? We're all seniors in college (some of us more so than others), and decidedly unsure of where our lives might be headed within the year. So travel writers it would be.
Immediately upon making this decision, we were hit with a serious problem: how to find an un-trodden path through a well worn genre? The road trip narrative is as over done in American literature as, well, as about anything. Since Kerouac’s “On The Road,” the American road trip has been seen as a right of passage both serious and funny. It helps young men come of age, widowers weather mid life crises, and families reconcile, if only temporarily their differences. The point is simple though: in America, if you can just take to the open road, you’ll somehow find yourself.
Within these various genres, folks tend to take a few specific angles. There are the young, immature guys who hit the road and, after seeing their “real” country, are moved to action and live a pure life (think Into the Wild, or the Motorcycle Diaries)…this can also double as a “last stand” type trip, where friends take a trip to celebrate the end of “freedom,” via either marriage or entrance into the world of responsibilities or jobs.
There is the older man/woman, suddenly alone and lost in the world, that hits the road and sees the country for what it is- and finds a reason to keep living (About Schmidt). And there’s the satirical road trip, in which a dysfunctional band of people is forced into travel, and encounter all sorts of characters and bumpkins and realize that deep down, we're all more or less the same.
These three/four angles are usually presented from one of two views: there is either the Kerouac, outsiders looking in from the outside offering an alternative (and often condescending) view, or there’s the overly sacharin, Disneyland, small town America that comes across as too genuine to be possibly be true.
Faced with the task of tackling this already overdone, tired canon, what were we to do? Were there any new angles to circle and make our own? Were there any corners of this country that had not been criss crossed and thoroughly covered? Any obscure events that might have flown under the radar? Our answers, in quick succession: no; probably not, and if there are they have not been covered for a reason; and likely, but obscurity for the sake of obscurity is neither original, nor artistic, nor particularly fun.
Being baptized in the surprisingly lukewarm, unsurprisingly gloomy and grey Atlantic, I thought of our own motivations for our coming trips. Were we hoping to find ourselves? Maybe. In some sense, I think we were going out of an obligation to travel, to use our quickly dying youth to take in experiences that would no longer be possible once we integrated into society at large. Above all, I think, we were looking to appease that undying American (human?) inkling, that whispering deep in the soul, that begs to run, to take one’s life and individuality by the throat and just explore. To hell with structure and jobs and kids, it says- adventure, be spontaneous. Live. Still, we worried- was there anything in this of interest to anyone but ourselves?
Drying off on the rock strewn beach while a man fished some hundreds of feet from us and an abandoned revolutionary era fort loomed over us all, I couldn’t help but think back to earlier that afternoon in Savannah- that classic Southern town of old Victorian mansions, and Spanish moss laden squares, and endearing oddities. We’d encountered a man in a small, second story art studio in a small market in some corner of the city. He was old, his face wrinkled and fading like the limestone grave markers of the cities cemeteries. He had a shaggy white beard. He was surrounded by vibrant paintings, although none of them would pass for high art. He sat at an easel and worked diligently, and peacefully, on another ordinary, mundane painting- but one that he no doubt put his whole life into. We struck up a conversation with him, and found out he’d come to Savannah 12 years before from Philadelphia, leaving behind a stable job and quite a bit of money. “I saw a chance to re-invent my life at fifty and took it. At some point, you realize there are more rewarding things than money in life. I’m not lighting the world on fire here, but I’ve found a little place for me.”
Ah, but of course. Re-invention. That, perhaps above all, is what the road offers. Re-invention, a fresh start, free from constraints of the past or expectations for the future. Life is as blank as a west Texas plain at dawn.
This is a story that has been told countless times. This will not be the last time it is told. But the devil, they say, is in the details. Perhaps the most American idea of them all, yea, the most democratic of all our American ideals, is that each and every one of us has a unique story to tell; not necessarily for its extraordinary-ness, but for our own, personal way in which we tell that oft-told tale. This unique, intimate take on America from the road is all we can offer. Maybe it will be enough. It might not, of course. But as we cross the Savannah River, a phosphorescent orange and maroon sun setting over the refineries and tankers, the clouds glowing and thin as wafers, what the point of this trip is, and whether it is new or unique or enough, does not seem important. We ascend the crest, then fall, the highway opening in front of us. We’ve got a full tank of gas, a bottle of bourbon, a pack of smokes, and a couple of joints. We’re off, on the road, and anything seems possible.
(and maybe it really is…)"
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
