So Lost at Last

Berkeley

2011-12-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

I've been in Berkeley for 19 hours, and I've already seen it all. The eccentricity of the Shattuck commercial district was a nice segway to the brilliantly beautiful Cal Berkeley campus. Friendly and well-dressed individuals milled about. The monolithic buildings pushing up into the bluest of skies.

The Occupy Berkeley camp, where I elected to spend the night was sketchy as hell. I quite literally stepped into the General Assembly off the street. 30 minutes after it had begun, there were fifteen rather civil individuals proposing agenda items. People got to talking, and the facilitator of the meeting tried to call for order. And he was yelled at by another member.

The absurdity just continued: By the time the meeting was over, three hours after it had begun, most of the original members had made their exit; some paused to give heated speeches on why they weren't coming back. I stayed and tried to help the second facilitator, who stepped in in the last twenty minutes and organized a couple of votes before the meeting closed.

By the time the GA was out, I was shaking with cold. No warm food was available, so I walked up to a restaurant and got something. Then I read at the college before returning to sleep...

I woke to screams and shouts - a brawl had erupted at the cluster of tents nearest the one I was sleeping in. I played it cool. The brawl was over some sort of assault - a girl was being attacked in her tent, and those camping with her were preventing any outsiders to answer her calls for help.

The police arrived around the same time as the free pizza. Both had a hand in diffusing the situation. There was a lot of arguing about who did what. A kind old man from the GA was accepting admiration on being the first to call the police when I walked over; then a group of campers came and asked why he did it. "No one called [the police] here," he countered.

The police left shaking their heads.

The second brawl wasn't quite as bad, but it woke me up. When the police arrived, they waited to take a trouble maker into custody. Though some of his fellow campers were willing to give him up for assault charges, others convinced him to leave the campus the police came in. They left again.

There's no sort of lasting or pervasive solidarity being expressed in the camp at Occupy Berkeley. A couple of people are trying to make it work, but the majority just want a free place to stay and party without the intervention of law enforcement.

This is nothing like the occupy movement I saw in Portland, Eugene and Oakland. There activists struggled to keep partiers under control and moved forward with an educational message about participatory democracy. But here partiers are trying to keep partiers from getting arrested. It's sad.

Pictures of San Francisco

2011-12-14T12:07:00.000-08:00

Cheese, pepperoni

Shoes, Haight St.

Welcome home.

My GQ shoot.

Karyn mysteriously reaches
in her pocket during
Monday's port shutdown in Oakland.

Freelance wires are apprehended by major-label street cars.

St. Ignatius Church

SF

2011-12-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

New York (part 2)

2011-09-23T22:57:00.000-07:00

The following is not an accurate account of the events of my time in New York City, but rather a written account of my memories regarding them.

Caslon found me barefoot in the East village, standing nervously by a thrashed guitar and internal frame backpack. She told me later that she almost left me there, that I reminded her of a troublesome soul she used to know. For then, she smiled and invited me up to her place. I had very little idea of what to expect.

Friendliness prevailed, and within minutes we were on the roof of her building, five stories up, with our philsophical notions blowing whimsically in the breeze. She was essentially agnostic- a grower of herbs and a lover of philosophy, a far cry from the conservative home-schooler I had imagined her to be, and not even a little bit Irish.

"I could get us high, just with the stuff in the apartment," she started. "Let's not," I tried. And we didn't. But we walked around New York in fine fashion, always chewing away at some incessant question of being and/or doing. What could it all mean? We walked some more.

The first night, we met her sister Lindsey in the street, and the three of us traveled to Brooklyn together on foot. I can remember dusk on the bridge, the dingy sky alerting us that somewhere the sun was taking an enormous plunge into the tepid Atlantic.

There were hundreds on the bridge. Some like us were casually walking across, while others hurtled past on bicycles. I was startled by how close they got to us. Trains rumbled past below us, periodically breaking the stillness between us and the water. A group had gone before us and creatively dribbled four colors of paint the entire mile and a half to the center of the bridge...

And so, like everybody else, we found ourselves in Brooklyn in the twilight.

NYC

2011-08-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

Times Square (actual size).

I called Caslon from the "Fishes and Loaves" outreach in Ithaca. We had met briefly in Carolina. "Come to New York," she had said. And here I was. There were some rings, and then a very excited girl answered. "I'm in New York," I said. She was not, but suggested we meet there tomorrow - in NYC.

My rideshare left in the early AM from Cornell College in Ithaca. Fifteen dollars had me roaring away from downstate and South through the woods again, loaves, fishes and disgruntled hippies in my wake.

And then there were signs of the city. Caslon lived there. I thought she was interesting, Irish for sure. We rolled through Paterson. I thought we would be friends; certainly we would. We shuttered across the crazylanes, up and onto a bridge and I started to glimpse skyscrapers. Maybe I would do well here.

It was too soon to be certain. I thanked the driver, and hopped on the 'A' train down to Greenwich Village. And Manhattan was a rush - literally millions of people determinedly milling about for drugs, money and an opportunity to rob tourists. I tried pretending not to be a tourist, but felt that the giant backpack, guitar and monumental look of awe were constantly giving me away. I hid my phone in my front pocket, foolishly fearing my fellow passengers.

And that's about the extent of it. These are not my New York thoughts, but a half remembered dream of them, halfway described on this computer screen. I do, however recall the confusion and awkwardness of the train. It rumbled underground, inches from the antique tunnel timbers, centimeters from the otherdirection trains. There was no room for me and my foolish tourist things; there were no visible signs at the stops. Somebody was busking in the car, collecting on his impromptu performance, and I was simply wishing that things would go well.

The energy of me on the bridge with the skyscrapers - well, the street level sucked it out of me, hot and humid in blazing blue degrees. And here I was to meet an Irish girl, here I was in the enigmatic city of new York; here I was alone.

Here's where Caslon found me,
no shoes with a guitar.

Ithaca

2011-08-03T18:25:00.000-07:00


Ithaca is apparently fences... but this is just collegetown.

I stepped off the curb and turned around to hear some empty talk from my new drunk friend. She let go of my shoulders, and kept the chat going, boisterously taking down my number on her cell.

But then something interesting happened. The twenty-something street-corner dealer who had been trying to shake me down for cash earlier looked up and recognized me. "Hey!" he said, with what seemed to me like genuine concern. "You good? You need something to eat?"

I shook my head, and explained that I was already full from the hummus I'd eaten. 'I'm going to love this town,' I thought.

True Story
Self-fulfilling prophecy or otherwise, I was really digging Ithaca by the time Clay dropped me at the laundromat that next morning. Let me tell you about my time in Ithaca. First, however, let's get our bearings:

Where is Ithaca? Let's ask Google:

Ithaca is point 'N.' (The 'N' is for gnarly).

Upstate New York, yes. And what makes it unique? People are looking out for each other. By now I'm starting to see patterns in the towns I've been to - there are the hustlers, the hobos, the yuppies, etc. Sad to say, those categories often hold fast, no matter how you treat the people in them.

Laundry does not necessarily have to include
washing machines, especially if you're super duper broke
(dryers are helpful, though).

But their people, and I try to be mindful of the categories and curious and innocent in my conversations. Ithaca is a little different - it has that great little smalltown atmosphere that I so seldom encounter in actual small towns. people seem to really care about each other, and even the dirty kids passing through their town.

And the weird thing was everyone knew Clay. At least two homeless people a week tell me that they know everyone, but it's not often that I find said claim out to be true. Not so in Ithaca. I would go up ot almost anyone and ask if they had seen Clay, that guy who lives in a school bus. They'd be all "Oh, yeah... And would tell me about him."

Julianna told me stories and gave me coffee : )

So morning #1, while Clay was out and about busying for the trip to Washington state, I did my laundry and caught a shower at the homeless shelter. Then I met Julianna outside her shop on State St. She offered me a cup of coffee, and warned me not to go barefoot, because that was how her husband died. I was glad to hear about life back in eastern Europe, and the transition to New York.

"Did you ever go back?" I wondered.

She had. "Well, it's beautiful now. Every country is beautiful if you've got the money."

Well put. I didn't have the money, but I was definitely loving the States when I took off to explore this quirky upstate town in a little more detail. Some strange sights? You bet:

This is State St.

..respect...

Stayed with a wonderful family here - three sweet kids
and a momma that reminded me of back home. They make art.

The short story is that here is far too much about my experiences in Ithaca that I don't have space to communicate her. Here I made so many friends I could hardly keep up with them all. Here I sat and meditated beneath the brilliant falls, water slamming into rocks in the darkness. Here the bus broke up: Jeff stayed in Ithaca, Clay went to the west coast with a couple of friends, and I...

Drummer John is at least six
times as enigmatic as depicted here.

Six Lanes to the Northern World

2011-07-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

north.bound.clay

Here we are in Washington D.C., capitol of the American Empire; here Clay defies said empire in Native American attire with a hand drum and here I am stumbling about on the streets and sidewalks - limping.

Perhaps some of the trouble with this situation is that I significantly injured my foot while sprinting through a certain rainstorm in Carolina. Now I'm dazed and wondering what it all could mean, wondering if there's glass in my foot...

Clay is driving as we leave D.C., and he has been saying of late that we're going to Ithaca, N.Y...

"Hey!" My thoughts are stirred for a moment from sweat-dripping, foot-aching memories of busking our way up the east coast. "Where are your shoes?!"

It's the girl outside the bar, taking short little drags off her cigarette latching onto anything male that seems attainable. "It's summer," I shoot back, shrugging noncommittally, but failing to walk away. More words, small-and-very-drunk-talk from the 5'5 Cornell student in front of me. Clay is at some other bar, getting a beer to round out the sixteen-hour day. And I'm chatting with Megan, insisting that I won't get AIDS from being barefoot in Ithaca.

"Fine, I'll put on shoes if you buy me a beer," she laughs, not quite hearing... "How will you buy me a beer?" she wonders, slips her arm around me and walks me to the curb.

Typical college town? Not exactly. My landing in Ithaca taught me a whole lot about life, mysticism and being on the road. But first:

live.in.bus.

some sea or another : )

Maryland was the first place we stopped for gas. Out I hopped with my guitar, a gas can and a sign reading "Will Trade Songs for Diesel." Two dollars, two gallons of gasoline a bag of chips and a soda fell into my hands as I played Johnny Cash in the hot sun. Clay's missionary sign brought in some cash as well, and we were on our way...

My feet in Pennsylvania.

Through Virginia to PA, where we were again busking for gas. This time Jeff sat with me, and an old Wine-o offered me a dollar to play a song. The saddest blues of all rang out from my guitar as he crooned a perfectly remembered and out-of-practice workingman song. We thanked him, and headed back defeated, only to find that business had been booming at Clay's Gas Station Jewelry Emporium. A full tank of gas was procured.

"On to Ithaca," I thought, drifting off to sleep in the back of our northbound home....

New York state line.

Washington

2011-07-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

Raleigh

We left Raleigh in the early morning.

I would have liked to type that, but looking back at our time in Raleigh, we must have spent most of the day #2 sight-seeing and chatting it up. I say 'must have,' because I didn't see much of the boys: Jeff was still trying to work things out with his family in town and Clay was helping him out.

After my hippie shower, I had the issue of clothes to work out. I grabbed some of Clay's from the bus, and stumbled dripping wet into an Italian restaurant. An elderly woman exclaimed with concern in Italian, and showed me to the restroom to change. I hung my soaking clothes in the rafters for the eaves outside, and went looking for a Starbucks.

Surprise! My laptop crash, first noticed early that morning, continued to worsen, a huge dent in my plans to consistently blog about my travels.

Still Raleigh, but what a cool fountain!

So we hung around and hung around, and even met up with a couple of girls from the bar the night before. I put on the YHF Album talked travelling and grad school while they smoked weed and Clay caught some much-needed sleep on their floor.

It was really getting on towards evening. Clay drove the first few hours, and then I took a turn at the wheel. He asked me to stop in D.C. for reasons unknown to me, and while te boys slept I accidentally drove to the Pentagon! I brought the bus to rest in front of a fire station. Collapsing on the grass outside, I felt safe in D.C.'s ritzy Arlington district and grateful to be on the road again.

I awoke to snarls as a vicious animal launched itself violently at my face. I didn't have time to react. Maybe the best part was that the attacker was simply a dog on a leash. "That's a hell of a way to wake up," I related casually after the dog had been restrained by its owner. He stared for a second, and walked away, adding significantly to the surreal quality of the experience.

When I awoke again, we were somewhere downtown. Clay talked excitedly about the sexual imagery of the American empire as represented in the local architecture. I blinked, pulled out my laptop and interviewed him on Photo Booth:

More sleep. When I woke again, I was even more dazed; I stumbled around the park nearby trying in vain to climb the carefully groomed deciduous trees. It was about this time that I started telling myself not to forget that a government with the trees, in the trees and on the trees will not perish from the earth.

At the Native American Museum, I heard a guy yelling at me in his bravest voice. "Hey! You're not supposed to be up there! I'm going to... call security!"

Four levels up on the feaux-waterfall sculpture I stared nonresponsively at my new friend, wondering what his motivations might be for threatening me. I finished scooping up the quarters and dimes and shuffled back toward the bus.

Clay met me part way, shouting across the street at me to tell the hot dog vender to go to The Rainbow Gathering. I blinked some more. This was gong to be a bizarre trip.

Jeff double checks the map aboard the northbound bus.

Raleigh

2011-07-07T06:01:00.000-07:00

New motto: "Do as the Romans do, regardless of location."

Thinking back, this could pretty well explain why I was running naked through downtown Raleigh, NC. In the spirit of the Olympic games, I expressed liberation from societal convention to the... who am I kidding, though? I just love me some streaking. Some people theorize that everyone secretly wants to run naked in the city. Are you one of those people?

For those confused about where about all this,
I definitely hopped on this bus during the
last installment of this story.

Raleigh, North Carolina seemed to me like as good a place as any to roll into in the early evening hours of that first night on the bus. We decided we needed to get some gas money n' stuff, so I went to the ritzy shopping center with my guitar while busmates Jeff and Clay hung around the Starbucks across the street. Two hours of strumming the guitar and chatting it up with strangers landed me a cheeseburger and $12 cash. I have this crazy line-up that includes all three songs I can play:

"American Dream" - Switchfoot

"Such Great Heights" - The Postal Service

Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" (kind of)

I try to make friends, and it usually works. I do this by smiling and talking about school (which people love) and by not pretending to be a talented musician (the guitar is a nice conversation prop, though). The rich people dig that; leastaways in Raleigh they do.

Upon my return, Clay handed me a coffee and some bread. He showed me the jewelry he'd been working on to sell and give away to people. Super. Then we called people on our lovely little phones, while Jeff, our third party member searched in vain for his family. I learned that this is why we came to Raleigh, to drop Jeff off before heading north.

It turns out that Jeff's family was unavailable. We stayed outside the closed Starbucks late into the night. I caught up with my friend Aaron on the phone, while Clay made more Jewelry and solicited anyone he saw for gas money.

Eventually, we headed out to get lost in the city. It can be very stressful to be lost downtown, so I decided to not care if we ever found our way, and above all to never make any guesses out loud as to where we were. this way it could never be my fault that we were lost. And this was a great strateg for living in the bus, 'cause we were always lost.

Where are we?

And then the bus stopped for the night. I was aching to go out and get some nightlife; I jogged past my busmates, barefoot with a guitar in the 1 am of the soul. I played the guitar for two blocks before being caught up in an impromptu game of street soccer. Then the girls outside the bar asked me to sit with them. True, they gave me tequila, but my mood was already hyper ecstatic. it was a smalle Sunday night crowd, and the guys wanted to play my guitar (to impress the girls, of course).

Clay showed up and made friends. Multiple girls came onto us, which was laughable because we're sketchy and hippie-ish. Clay sold jewelry to said girls. And then the bar-tender hired us to clean the bar. I was barefoot, sweeping up broken glass, while Clay kept things going with the jewelry trade, and we made some pretty good money, and stayed pretty sober alcohol-wise.

3 am provided the unique opportunity for us to head down the street and sing Spirit songs at the fire station, while the paramedics sat outside and smoked an chatted. We were tired, and the boys gave me first dibs on the bus, while they went to sleep in somebody's landscaping. Pretty brave, I thought.

Come morning, a 300-degree bus, invited me to leap outside and stumble into the coffeeshop outside. There I met Jennifer, and we talked coffee and relationships. The boys were already inside, and we camped out the rest of the morning and afternoon there, wandering in and out for various reasons.

Jennifer poses at the bar. Check out her coffee blog?

Then it started to rain - the first rain in three weeks! 'This is so perfect,' I thought and rushed outside with the speed and enthusiasm with which everyone else was running inside. I ran in that rain, and then it kinda turned into a shower. Stopping at a stop-light was probably one of the most awkward parts, but it was totally worth it when I stepped under the eve of a legal office and started to put my clothes on. The man inside saw some movement outside the window, and opened the door to let me in. You can't synthesize expressions like that!

And that's how God washes hippies.

Oh, and I was fed by hipsters in this gallery/ cafe.

In the Woods

2011-07-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Leaving Charlotte, NC, as it turns out, requires a smorgasbord of rides with the kindly Carolina folk. And maybe you, like me, can stubbornly apply the use of multifarious accents and vocabularies - all this to 'fit in' with your newfound friends.

Gosh, I musta started that 'thout thinkin' 'bout it, way back in Indiana. Like I can think of the Western way to say somethin' right as I pronounce and proclaim it in my situationally nuanced Southern drawl. Strange thing is it works.

The triumphs of living in the woodsoutweigh the troubles – peace, tranquility, the sense of community against profound uncertainty and the worst case of poison ivy anyone has ever gotten. The great thing is that the friends you meet could possibly email and facebook you after you're gone and they're gone - some sorta nostalgia for the Carolina meetings that were.

And then there's the great and beautiful possibility that if you're walking in the woods and you tread real soft, come to a clearing and hold your tongue and your breath and such: you'll see the jazz pop act Over the Rhine emerge and songwrite your socks clean off you.

Such was Wild Goose Festival, that grand little shindig engineered by Shane Claiborne and friends to be a point of connection for the religious left in the US - Christian Anarchism was the phrase tossed around by onlookers and participants. Thereabouts you could see the left-coast leaners of the big-city non-churches, the who's who of the emerging church mixing and mingling, stumbling through the selfishly lovely selfish and loving confusion. There I saw David Bazan, razorwitting with the crowd, while he played a set of post-Christian melodrama for mid-Christian fans. And there I saw Over the Rhine do their classy downtown bar songs for a Southern festival crowd, even prefacing a tune with "this is just a naughty little song." Brilliant.

Clay's Hopi suit made people wonder what was happening.

It was there I left on Sunday with this guy:

Charlotte

2011-06-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

It was weird to wake up in Charlotte, NC. It was best to get out here, I was told by the kind and extremely Southern truck driver I was with. I thanked him, and he gave me some crackers and tuna. I thanked him again, still groggy from failing to sleep in two consecutive cities. Here's a map:

Walter came right over and introduced himself: Can you play that thing?" He motions to my guitar.

"Not really." I demonstrate.

Walter and I are suddenly friends. He is already hassling the truckers for cigarette money, and immediately takes up my cause: "Y'all going North tonight?" he asks, just before each trucker shakes their head.

"North?" you may be asking. Well, this twist was a little unexpected. Allow me to demonstrate:

That X is Charlotte, and the Circle is cerca Shakori Hills.
I seriously overshot my destination. Don't fall asleep, aspiring nomads!

The cops in Charlotte told me how dangerous the area was, how people got killed a lot and how the crowd i was hanging with, the 3 am weedsmokers were likely to steal from me. 'Awesome,' I thought, curled up and fell asleep...

Nashville

2011-06-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

Addendum to Indianapolis

Maybe I can see God working in the people I knew in Indianapolis, in the homeless that I loved, who I knew were lying, in the people I talked to who mostly just wanted to have sex. I can see God's will in the mystic who sang nonsense with me in the circle downtown, in the crack dealer who stopped his bike to preach to me:

"You and me are artists. We are creators, we are God-like; don't ever pollute that - the worst destruction of humanity..."

I have never heard anything so sweet.

And I can even see God working in the guy who took all my money in a ghetto at 2 am. 'I am free, so free (of this easy-earned busking cash)' I thought, bidding farewell to my people; everyone who works their little angles, in hopes and endeavors to get a little sex, a little money, a little cocaine...

At the burger joint, Skyler came to tell me it was wrong that the police hassled me for having no shoes. He and Dani were drunk as hell, but they were sane. SO we talked about cops, about White Castle, about how cute Dani is. On the 5 am for Nashville, it felt so good not to have to deal with the hustle anymore...

Nashville

The city of music, where the people are kind.

A man fed me at the gas station, and others gave me water, cash. funny because my sign read "Durham: for a a Music Festival." The food comes easy, though I'm not begging. I played that one Johnny Cash song for two women at the bus stop. Smiling, they offered their solidarity: "Do your parents know were you are?"

People are people, but I met so many nice ones who wanted to chat in Nashville, Tennessee.

Tasty Nashville skyline.

Indianapolis

2011-06-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

Token chicago skyline.

My swan dive across Americabellyflopped in Northern Indiana. Here I met paranoid strangers;Often people wouldn't simply ignore me for appearing homeless. Oftenthey wanted to help me “call your parents” or try to start afight with me. Either way I was perplexed.

While sitting outside the local grocery store, absent-mindedly strumming my guitar a woman materialized in front of me. “You need to leave.” She had already called the cops.

“You called the cops... because I was sitting here?” I sounded more hurt than mad.

“Well, we didn't know what you were up to.”

“Please,” I said in my most vulnerable tone,”next time someone is sitting out front, ask them what they're doing before you call the cops.” This didn't register with the woman, who wanted more assurance that I was going to leave her sidewalk. 'Just a crazy,' I tried to remind myself. Untrue; according to the police, who triangulated my position from frantic reports of a kid walking with a guitar two hours later, paranoia is a normal mode for this area.

The police weren't bad. They were courteous, and not overly wary of me, especially after running my driver's license and seeing a clean record. An officer even unofficially helped me find a place to sleep. Suddenly alone in a for-sale shed outside a local hardware store, I found it impossible to fall asleep. Combination of the local paranoia and too many Quentin Tarantino movies, I guess. And I kept trying to hitch out of here until almost 2 am...

.. The great thing about life is it's not all one way. Jacob and Steve welcomed me to Indiana with the uttermost chill, and the manager at the burger place was nice. Come 2:30 AM, a kindly police officer offered me a ride South. At 3:30, we were on our way and he was telling me about his dream of hiking the Appalachians with his family. I gave him some tips from the short PTC trips I've done, and marvelled at his kindness, his vulnerability..

It really does take all kinds. A kindly trucker took me 100 miles to the city limits, and a fellow named Cody got me out of truck-stop-land and into downtown Indianapolis. Its gorgeous down here.

A little backtracking here...

Wind farm in central Indiana

It turns out the guitar-and-Nashville sign thing isn't funny
or cute here anymore, it's just sad. "Don't do it," a stranger
warned me earnestly. "You're never gonna make-it," a girl sing-songed out of a passing car.

I found this tunnel and ambled through,
subsequently wandering through a
thorn-infested swamp in shorts
and flip-flops.

Downtown Indy (is mighty fine).

In Rectangular States

2011-06-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

The Badlands,

as things stand,

aren't so bad.

But I want espresso.

- little poem I wrote about

attempting to quit caffeine

in South Dakota.

Yes, folks: creativity is at an all-time low, if you ask my coffee dependent cranium. But crossing the country is going great, as you may well be able to tell from this little map I free-handed on the back of a sprinting buffalo:

I tried to draw as many arbitrary lines as I could...

Google chipped in and donated us a more proportionate representation of the countryside we're traveling: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Minnesota since the content of my last post. Here:

We are letter C (is for Cookie).

"Life in South Dakota ain't so bad," muttered a grizzled gas station employee as a local grizzly bear chased him to his death. Just kidding. Actually, NASA is still investigating the possibility of life in South Dakota.

The square-ish states are quite beautiful this spring. Joe caught this photo earlier:

Additional Observations:

- Sturgis Bike Rally is a (really) big deal.

- Not surprisingly, no one lives in Montana. (2010)

- Saw my first wild gazelle.

- Buffalo!

- Life ain't bad on the road.

Wenatchee

2011-06-19T14:58:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more shots of Seattle:

Tagging wall in Georgetown. The smell of paint was
still fresh at 11 am, and a half-empty can of spray can called out to the casual passerby.

(Photo by Joe)

The Twinline shop in Georgetown, where Jeff, Kyo and co.
build and rebuild vintage style custom motorcycles.

Vintage bike, anyone?

Jeff demonstrates the security policy at Twinline.

The pig truck (bless it's heart) is the most popular foodcart in all the land!

A bike shop in downtown Seattle.

Pike St. heaven.

The gum wall, located in Post Alley.

After all that sight-seeing, I went out to practice playing the guitar under a bridge. Jeff dragged his sleeping bag and sat with me; we sang some songs together, and he told me about Woodstock and his only-ever encounter with Janis Joplin, told me about how he needed a beer. We sang more, and when a trucker gave Jeff some money, I walked to the store with him. He got himself some beer and I played the guitar for a sympathetic crowd of late-night gas-getters.

I talked to a Chinese immigrant named Win while he strummed my guitar. We don't really have a lot in common, but were still on speaking terms when I saw him later in the night.

I guess I'm just fascinated by the notion that we're all human beings. Maybe our identity isn't at all based on the things we say and do. Hmmmm....

Wenatchee: a glimpse of the Columbia River.

Joe and I left Seattle at 5 am for Wenatchee, Washington, where we endeavored to pick up a few thousand pounds of apples for the east cost folk. We were presented with the opportunity of waiting the entire day to load said fruit (literally 10 hours), and got to hang around the truck. While Joe slept, I hopped a fence and caught a quick bath in the very cold Columbia River. Here's a quaint little reiteration:

Eventually, we got THEM apples,

and headed east toward the Idaho border, fleeing the setting sun:

Georgetown

2011-06-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

This is step one.

In Seattle with my friend Joe, enjoying the morning. Georgetown is a little industrial neighborhood, kind of like The Whiteaker back home. They have some brilliant espresso here at All City Coffee: a little bitterness to remind you of your slavery in Egypt, a little caffeine to remind you of facts and concepts with surprising vigor and to help you play guitar like a mofo. Here are some Georgetown sights:

Visual ramblings.

Outside a commercial garage.

Free firewood.

Scrap metal..

Minimally invasive art.

Hippies?

Part of the "Trailer Park Circus."
I was puzzled, but shot many photos.

Sweeping up cigarettes in the morning
outside one of Georgetown's dive's.

All City Coffee roasts local.

This giant representation
of a guy playing volleyball.

I decided to travel for a while, brought my backpack and my guitar to the significant north with Isaiah and Tyler. And now I have Seattle.

Tomorrow Joe and I head East through the I-90 corridor. I'm excited for such locations as Missoula, Bismarck, Minneapolis and Chicago. The plan is to part ways no later than Indiana. Joe will head North to Ann Arbor, and I'll find my way South to the Durham area. Here's a tentative little adventure map for the next couple days:

A-B? Check! Now for Point B to Point C (best possible route).

Maybe the biggest focus of my travels will be the exploration of alternative modes of community. I am excited to spend some time serving and hanging out with people at Wild Goose Festival next week. Once there, I'm hoping to connect with the diverse and eccentric crowd that Shane Claiborne and the guys at Simple Way will inevitably attract.

There are many other possibilities on the horizon. Oregon Country Fair? Rainbow? We will see. Please send me any and all interesting opportunities. Regards,

Joel

There and Back

2011-06-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

The following is the fifth and final part of my Nefarious and Ill-Advised Spring Break Adventure. (Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.) Names have been changed and situations have been omitted.

I awoke on the roadside

in the land of the free ride...

- Brandon Flowers

Hindsight has never been 20/20, but we only enjoy it because the present is the only way we have of making sense of the past. Out on a brisk and musical walk through the immense and beautiful Columbia River Gorge, I saw him pull his tow truck over on the side of the road. I scoped the situation out and hesitantly hopped in the cab. We were up and away chatting about politics, religion and how I should never trust a truck driver.

Caleb and I got along great; told me lots of almost legend-genre stories about his life and referenced a few myths, while I talked half-baked political theory and skeptical religion/spirituality. He kindly drove me to a major truck stop a little out of his way, where he left me with some money for lunch and instructions on how to leap from a moving truck if necessary.

The rest of my story occurred on the next ride. I got in Rich's truck near Hermiston, Or. and got me as far as the Iowa border. Same on the way back. The blurriness of my recollections of the next few days obscures fantastic views from the heights of Cabbage (OR), the endless fields and gorgeous peaks of Wyoming, the vast emptiness of Western Nebraska, etc, etc.

I reached Kansas City, Mo. late one afternoon under fickle midwestern skies. A brief ride in a red sports car got me two miles into the old industrial area, and then I walked for it. 11 miles on the freeway (very hilly and super dark), and I made it to Red Bridge, a Southern suburb. The next day I surprised my aunt and cousins, striding barefoot down their street in the mid-morning heat.

Yeah, I'm a mirage. Cool, eh?

I had some great times in Missouri - slept on one roof and stayed up at least two nights, got hated on and loved for the no-shoes-and-homeless-looking thing, made friends with a security guard, told hitching stories to four very bored cops, and got me some Dunn Bros. chai.

So eventually, my aunt and uncle gave me some trail mix and drove me to the Greyhound station. A quick walk around and a quick bus ride out got me to Omaha; and that's where this whole thing started.

Hollywood (Yeah, Babe)

2011-04-20T02:49:00.000-07:00

This is Part 4 of a travel narrative depicting the strange and obscure events of my Spring Break Adventure. You can also check out Part 1, Part 2 and/or Part 3 at your leisure and/or convenience. Names were changed for obvious reasons and some events were omitted too.

In Holl-y-wood, OR

Good morning Columbia River Gorge! (Photo: Google Maps)

It was not so much later, and I was seated on the concrete ledge that divided the on-ramp from the east-bound lanes. I began to wonder if any of these quarter-full four-door vehicles with Idaho plates were going to pull over. This came after I had already started to wonder if my swiftly-sharpie'd "Boise" sign was legible or if this road even went to Boise.

I guess it was then that I first encountered a fellow in his late twenties who sported the most brilliant mustache of them all. Andrew was on his way home from the city, and home was the outdoor sports town of Hood River. He and I exchanged some necessary banter, and I found he was quiet, intelligent and slow to speak. He informed me I was ok, and offered to let me crash at his place if I struck out on the Eastbound that night. I most definitely did. Hands freezing and body shaking from the cold, I waited on the on-ramp until well after dark, and then settled in under a streetlight near the Chevron station. People waved; one gave me $10, but no one addressed the issue at hand.

Boise
I don't remember Boise, Idaho the first time around. I think we went around it. I do remember calling up Andrew from the gas station phone that first night in Hood River. He said he'd be out shortly, and picked me up right after I had finished chatting with the gas attendants, who had insisted I partake in some hot cocoa. Four thirty AM came swiftly, and I was back on the road again - first to the hotel lobby where I did some reading, then to the Starbucks where I got some early coffee with the locals and finally back out on the interstate.

Singing is big thing when out on the road. It kinda boosts me past the swirling thoughts within and helps me get into a friendly and outgoing temperament. I try to keep it in the light pop range - Train, Coldplay, little bit of Ben Gibbard. Sometimes I can be prone to sing a little emo ditty, though. I guess it's hard to remember lyrics, so that's why pop songs are the most vulnerable targets of my slightly off-key enthusiasm.

Boise came again soon enough. But I should tell you all the in-between details, all those thousands of miles...

Blue Lips, Blue Veins

2011-04-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

This is Part 3 of the not-quite-sequential series about Spring Break. Part 1 and Part 2 do, in fact, exist.

"...Blue, the color of our planet from far, far away." (RS)

At First...
I was shouting slightly to make sure that my voice would rise above the traffic and slide into her ears. "Hey!" I fumblingly articulated. "That's like that Regina Spektor song."

To my surprise, the hipster girl with the blue lips turned her bike around and came back to chat with me. "Wait, what?" she asked with a smile that was either too carefree or too careless.

She had never heard of the pop artist Regina Spektor, but wrote her down anyway. I also wrote down a band name which she suggested and heard a few more titles of fresh acts I could search on youtube later. 'I love Portland,' I thought, from an East-bound I-84 on-ramp in the Hollywood District.

But I Digress.
In all honesty, we must have last left our tragically sentimental wanderer in a quandary of his own makings. Cold, restless and hopelessly third-person on the 3 a.m. one-ways of Portland Oregon, our near-hero dreamed sentimentally of a far-off city (almost any far-off city would do). He thought of those he knew in far-distant Kansas City, Missouri and how he maybe-might-could reach it within the confines of the Spring Break Season.

He was intermittently accompanied by drunks. They spoke to him to their lives and over and over again how drunk they were. They said embarrassing things. They weren't usually like this, you see. He chatted with them, and they acted very friendly. These were such that reminded him that underneath these hyper-judgementally conditioned higher brains, we're all human beings who simply want to connect to each other.

On the 9th Floor of an 8-Story Building

2011-04-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

I guess, maybe this is Part 2 of a series about my Spring Break Trip to Missouri. Part 1 can be accessed here. Names are intentionally obscured and some events are omitted.

From Point A to Point b (in Hindsight).

My journey begins with the firmly-held (if only loosely-grasped) belief that no true adventure should begin with the words "my journey begins." It's true that I was in a somewhat contradictory state of mind: I wanted adventure, yet also craved solitude. I wanted company, but I was tired of the same-old social situations. The implicit mandatory do's and don't's of arbitration and macro-paranoia were wearing holes in my cranium. So I left.

The walk through campus was liberating enough. Nodded at a house-mate on Agate street, as I strode self-consciously toward the EMX stop. From there, a crowded bus of almost eerily anti-social people with headphones on escorted me to Gateway. A quick walk out on the freeway with my thumb out scored me a ride to Portland.

Ok, so it's true that I wasn't originally planning on going to Portland. But I have an extremely hard time turning down the generous offer of a ride to the city. Thus, my plans to visit my parents in Albany and there retrieve my conspicuously missing cellphone abandoned, I took up with a fellow called Brian and headed for the city.

Brian was a mural artist from SoCal, who had recently moved up to P-town with his two young children. He was very conversational, and we enjoyed some Dub_Step and Bass and Drums music. We also exchanged info on online educational films, as we had both recently enjoyed some media from Zeitgeist. One of the things I love about travel is meeting people who are interested in social interaction with virtually no obligations attached to it. Many people that I encounter while hitch-hiking simply want to chat, and often I will learn a lot about culture from them or the recommendations they give me.

Once in Portland, I thanked my new acquaintance for the ride headed out downtown. I was not exactly counting on the cold, but soon remedied that by dodging into Powell's Books on Burnside. Sometimes called the world's largest bookstore, this portlandic destination is somehow able to house nearly unthinkable quantities of literature and still maintain good atmosphere for people who aren't buying anything. Once inside, I searched out the poetry and discovered a work called On Tact, and the Made-Up World by the Portland poet Michele Glazer. Fourty-five minutes later, somewhat confused and sufficiently stirred to thought, I set about finding a place to spend the night.

The task of finding shelter did not prove too difficult, but it required taking the streetcar and asking for directions at least twice. One thing that's helpful about portlandic culture is that even people who don't speak English will be glad to help you find things, often using hand gestures. I seldom ever find someone in Portland who is "too busy" to help me find where I'm going.

An eerily empty interior stairwell was the site of my next few hours, which I spent eating, resting and reading a little Hemingway. It's actually really helpful to any travelers to note that security might not be likely to check the "roof-level" landing in a really tall building. The problem is if you get restless and leave your hide-out too late at night.

A walk downtown revealed that it was, indeed St. Patrick's day. People eager to use this Irish religious religious icon, often effectively regarded as the patron saint of Guiness, to get really freaking drunk were now meandering this unforgivingly concrete world in search of some nice bushes to pass out in. People in Portland had even made a festival out of this re-curring social blunder.

"Hey! Kurt Cobain! Where should I pee?!" came an obnoxiously disarming voice as I passed yet another packed-out nominally Irish downtown pub. I instructed the fellow where I thought a good place was, while he and his friends tried with moderate success to figure out what band I was in based on my long hair. Then one of them followed me for blocks, apologizing drunkenly for his friends' outgoing-ness. I asked him for directions, and he helped me find the next Portland icon on my mind: Voodoo Doughnuts.

Upon returning to my staircase, I found the building was locked, and decided to wait it out at the Max stop. Once there, I chatted it up with a confused and very drunk student and gave him the rest of the chips I had bought. I started to get cold and a little restless as I studied the maps for downtown. Portland, I started to realize, was not going to be enough...

Nebraska Has the Coldest Cold

2011-04-01T00:23:00.001-07:00

Pop quiz! This here is a slimy city on the Nebraska-Iowa border, whose chief import is snowfall and whose #1 export is awkward and endemically bored hillbillies. Give up yet? So did the woman from behind the counter at the Greyhound station after attempting in vain to shake me awake at some half-remembered hour of the morning.

“--~-)(#--= #-# __=_ --=-=-,” she articulated, her line of questioning obscured by the vivid R.E.M. my frustrated brain was mercifully forcing on me. I was asleep on the floor of the downtown station, and she wanted to know where I was going. “Oh,” I mumbled, puzzled that reality was taking precedent of such dire and desperate dreams. “Council Bluffs.”

Awakening (relatively) undisturbed, I checked my surroundings and discovered that it was indeed still morning. I reflected on my earlier bungled chat with the Greyhound clerk, who was now out of sight. I realized that the bus must have come in for Boise or Sioux Falls or some other remote destination. She had woke me up as a favor.

A glance around revealed that all had quieted down significantly from earlier. Just four people now held down the station floor, their eyes glued to CNN and their minds on home. There was no one that I recognized from last night's bus. “Buena noche,” I had said to the giggling Latin American couple on the seat above as I collapsed exhausted to the Omaha bus station floor.

These were strange conditions to be sleeping under. I really didn't mind, though. There was so much adventure to had, and this was just the middle.

The Orland Adventure (Part 3)

2010-12-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

this is the continuation of the story spun in part 1 and part 2.

Jude and Joel are the kind of folks that don't just up and beg for cash for a Greyhound home (though that's not out of the question). Conversely, they often duke it out with the fog lines and asphalt and grimace past the unfriendly passing motorists toward a goal. At this point that goal was kinda fuzzy.

The further we went, the more confused about our destination we were. Around day three we discovered that the concert that Jude was going to in LA was sold out. Next, we were tentatively trying for San Diego, San Francisco or just as far south as we could get.

Hitching got us as far as Orland, California, a po-dunk town where the people seemed to look down on us. We were about to kick out the rest of our money for a ride into San Francisco with some deadheads, when we realized that we might rather enjoy being back in good ol' Oregon (for my part, I wanted to go backpacking with some friends in the Cascades).

This presented us with a dilemma of getting out of town before dark. Heading South from Orland had been a seeming impossible endeavor and so was going back North. The bright California sun set on our disappointed faces. We had been dancing, jumping, shouting and screaming all day, and we still couldn't catch a ride. Our situation was perplexing.

We tried to find a place to sleep that seemed moderately safe. None presented itself. Eventually, we knocked on the door of a parsonage and asked if we could sleep out behind the church. After receiving permission, we hauled our packs out back and sat down, leaning up against at least three stories of cathedral-like architecture. We were exhausted.

What happened next seems a little strange, thinking back on it. Jude thought he saw a light in the nearby Catholic church. I begrudgingly amused him, and we knocked. To our surprise, we were welcomed in by a priest who happened to be working late. He took us to his home, fed us and gave us beds for the night. He was very intelligent, and we had some great talk with him.

We were refreshed in the morning, which was good because we ended up walking out of town instead of hitching on the I5 on-ramp. We caught a ride for a couple miles in the back of a pick-up, but otherwise had to hike. After a while we started to get tired and discouraged. we could never make it to the border this way!

So we made a poor decision. No theft, robbery or assault, mind you; we simply hopped a few fences and went back out on the interstate. We were breaking the law again, and this time on purpose. If the police found us, though, they would be legally obligated to remove us from the road. That meant a free ride to somewhere. We hoped that somewhere might not be prison.

Less than an hour in to our delinquent endeavor we had our first bite - two thirty-something partiers fresh out of Burning Man offered us a ride all the way back to Eugene. "You know the rules," the man in the passenger seat informed us, "Gas, cash or grass." We hoped he was kidding. Turns out he was. We ended up back in Oregon sober and without a scratch and got a free meal out of it. And that's how the Orland adventure came to a close.

The Orland Adventure (Part 2)

2010-10-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of an earlier So Lost at Last post found here.

Jude (left) and Joel (right) are out on the road for adventure.

In Cold and Rainy California
We last left our mostly heroic travelers in the town of Mount Shasta, California, where they were attempting to jump a non-existant southbound train (for more on southbound trains, scroll down to the bottom of the post and press play).

Once on the tracks, Jude and I walked on and on, 'til we decided that we basically didn't believe in trains anymore. This was a few miles down the road, and six hundred half-remembered choruses of Beatles songs had already escaped my mouth (poor Jude!).

At last we came to a place with good graffiti and forking roads that crossed the train tracks. From there we picked up a good ride with a benevolent elder woman who took us a few miles the road to a place called Castella.

Now Castella, it turns out, is not a very large town, but boasts of a rather prominent gas station and underpass with signs boasting of natural wonders just around the corner. I might now advise the reader not to hitchhike from this location. Long story short, it took $12 cash to get us out of that town and into a larger and more glaringly conservative anti-hitchhiking community - Redding.

On the Corner by Some Gas Stations
Once in Redding, we discovered that hitchhikers are the lowest form of humanity, worthy of scornful glares and/or middle fingers. If you happen to be at the wheel of a 4WD FORD pick-up truck, your duty to the world is to drive by the travelers as quickly and as recklessly as possible while casting a nonchalant glance at them to make sure they know how much gas you just wasted.

Pictured above is the corner from which Jude and I were hitching.

We did the only natural thing to do. We did the only thing we could do. We did what we should have been doing all along. (drumroll) First, we tried acrobatics: jumping jacks, crazydancing, tower of people. Next, I tried taking some clothes off while Jude simultaneously tried to advise me not to take my clothes off. Surprisingly, none of this worked until out of pity a dealer named Bill (name obscured) picked us up in his van.

In the Company of a Businessman
Bill kept on talking about people and their general roles in his kind of work. Redding, he said, was mostly a retirement community full of conservative elderly folk. He liked to start most sentences with, "that's the thing." As we continued south on I5, we passed more towns: "that's the thing about Anderson," Bill told us, "its primarily growers out in that vicinity." Bill's hypothesis was that the desert was only good for growing, selling and re-selling weed.

As the miles went by, Jude and I just smiled. We didn't buy this guy's rhetoric, but he was nice, and took us well out of his way to help us down the 5. Also, he almost consented to trading one of our yo's for his stuffed animal dashboard ornament. When he finally dropped us off, Bill went in to the gas station with us to buy us some food and drinks. He was a welcome slice of hippie in a sea of unfriendly, unhappy and resolutely uneasy people.

(To be continued.)

The Orland Adventure (Part 1)

2010-10-16T03:03:00.000-07:00

Vandalism!
I am sketching Beatles lyrics on the sidewalk out in front of the hotel. Call me crazy, but I find inscribing "here comes the sun" with sharpie almost a necessary in light of the pouring downs that have been going down as we plot our impending exit to the town. Eugene is making us restless. Too rainy, i think.

Avarice
I am a wandering soul. Luckily, so is Jude. He's taking his time with the other sharpie, marking out the word "California" bold enough for any passing motorist to see. "The border makes it stand out more," he tells me as I recline against a concrete pillar and start into my reading material for the trip. Shakespeare. There's no better writer for the road.

We're In Luck
Just a few hours' hike down the sludgy highway, and we'd already lost significant portions of our dignity. After taking a 10-mile ride with a weed-smoking, techno-rocking van driver, we had resorted to doing jumps off of the I5 guardrail in an attempt to get the attention of the passing motorists.

Enter Sayward. This lovely fellow traveler saw us singing and dancing and having a grand time. She pulled over, and offered us a ride in her big warm camper. This called for celebration, and we were all soon singing Beatles tunes together. More Shakespeare, snacks and a fun time showing our new friend artists like The Fray and Goodnight Sunrise.

Sayward had pity on the lowly travelers and gave them spaghetti.

Come Ashland
In what seemed like no time at all, we reached Ashland, Oregon. It was here that Sayward showed us the hippie hangout called Jackson Wellsprings. She also invited us to stay in her camper with her overnight. We were extremely grateful for this, especially seeing that it was pouring down rain.

Sayward made us dinner, and then Ty and I had a wonderful evening chat while swinging on the swingset in a nearby park. It was a perfect end to an adventurous day.

More Rain...
Come morning, Sayward took us out to the freeway, where we waited for a ride. wWe were soon picked up by a couple of mountain-biking Hebrews with a car. They were from the bay area, and chatted with us while playing some super good music on the stereo. After a bit of this, we arrived in Mount Shasta, where our 'migos went to bike some trails, and we walked back out on the freeway...

These fine fellows helped us out at ashland.

...Bad Idea
As a California Highway Patrol officer soon informed us, it is indeed "illegal" to "walk" on the "freeway" in California. Who knew? Slightly discouraged, we decided to waste the next few hours engaged in fruitless attempts to flag down a vehicle from the nearest on-ramp. When the cold started to get to us, we treaded towards town, where we planned to rustle up some warm gloves for Jude and some hot food for the both of us.

Once inside the Mount Shasta Burger King, we made friends with an employee, who told us that there were, indeed "train tracks in this town." Invigorated by possibility, we did contrive to jump a train. The only thing was to locate a train a-rumblin' in the same direction we were going - and that direction was south.

Jude and I set out to accomplish this at once. One problem was that there were no trains. However, if there was a train, it might have looked like this one that my friend Andrew drew for me.

Hypothetical train by Andrew Anderson.

To be continued...

(In the meantime, check out our sweet roadtrip playlist below.)

Update: Read Sayward's version of the story on her blog here.