I apologize for dumping several posts at once. I'm sure it's overwhelming, and it's not optimal. But it's difficult finding quality internet time while driving through Colorado, Utah, Nevada, etc. Also, the video postings are not my first choice. I would prefer to be able to leave a link of the songs but have not yet figured out how to do that. If anyone does know and would like to share, please do so. Anyway, Jordan and I are doing well. Spent last night in Reno (more to come on that later). Driving to Cali today. More posts to come shortly.
-Heatmiser
P.S. Blogspot sucks. I can't format any two posts the exact same to save my life. Oh well.
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Manifest Destiny Tour - Day 7
Balmorhea – River Arms
Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Master and Everyone
My mother and sister have restless leg syndrome. It’s where the legs are locked in a feeling of discontent; they never quite seem to get comfortable. The feeling strikes especially at night, rendering the owner of the restless legs likewise restless and therefore sleepless. I think I have restless foot syndrome. Only one foot—the right one. I can never seem to make it happy. I’ve never owned a pair of shoes that it’s liked. The left foot is fine, content, wondering what’s wrong with its counterpart. The restless feeling strikes especially when driving, making a 2000-mile road trip aggravating at times.
I think maybe too I have restless soul syndrome. Sounds dumb I know, but like my foot, it’s constantly squirming around, seeking for some bit of refuge and rest, but finding only more discomfort instead. I feel out of place in every situation. In the company of sinners, I feel prudishly pious: in the company of saints, vagrant and vile. Among the socially adept, I feel timidly wallflowerish: among the taciturn, bawdy and annoying. I feel inept around intellectuals, brainy around imbeciles. Jockish when with the artistic, fruity when with the athletic. Perhaps in my attempt to be well-rounded in order to fit in anywhere, I’ve made it so that I fit in nowhere. A friend assured me that everyone feels this way, but I don’t know if I believe him.
"Why can't I be loved as what I am?A wolf among wolves,
And not as a man among men"
"Wolf Among Wolves" - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
The Manifest Destiny Tour - Day 4
10:55 pm – Wilderness Ranch
Some of my students arrived at camp today. They’re on the trail this week. I knew they were coming; it wasn’t a surprise. I was a little unsure if being here while they were here would be a good idea. It’s always a bit strange encountering students outside the classroom, and I’m sure the opposite is true. Stranger still when that encounter is a thousand miles from home. I was afraid that seeing me might freak them out. But if it did, they didn’t let on. In fact, they seemed genuinely excited to see me here. And truth is, I was excited to see them too. They hugged me and we talked for a while. I tried keeping my distance but it was tough. I wanted to talk to them more, but I also wanted to maintain an appropriate relationship. The problem is determining what that appropriate relationship is. Loving others is hard, especially when the love has to be curbed. Love has always seemed to me like an all or nothing ordeal, a sentiment free of limits and restrictions. In theory that might be true. But in actuality, there is no one that I love completely. There is always a restraint.
The Manifest Destiny Tour - Day 3
Glorieta, NM to Wilderness Ranch, CO
256.7 Miles/56 Songs
The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
The National – Boxer
Midlake – The Trials of Van Occupanther
Led Zeppelin – II
The Dodos – Visiter
11:58 am – Tres Piedras, NM
If ever you find yourself in the middle of New Mexico, and all you want is a quick bite to eat, and maybe a little wi-fi internet access, don’t stop in Santa Fe. Last night Santa Fe pushed out Valdosta, Georgia as the official worst city in America. [My apologies to anyone from or in love with Valdosta, Georgia. I once spent a week there building houses for the Jimmy Carter/Habitat for Humanity build-a-thon. It was about 130 degrees, and it smelled funny.] I was a couple of hours ahead of schedule. (I thought I was a couple of hours ahead. Turns out I was only one hour ahead. But by the time I figured this out, I was 30 minutes behind schedule. I wrote a paper in college proposing we abolish all time zones and adopt a universal time. As Big Brother as that sounds, I’m still in favor.) So I thought I’d get dinner and, with the extra time I thought I had, check my email. Not ever having been to Santa Fe, I wasn’t real sure where to go to carry out this mission, but I didn’t think it would be too difficult. Living in Austin, turns out, will spoil an individual. The first exit claimed to have a visitors center complete with “free information,” so I took it, thinking I could find a finger pointing me in the right direction. I never found the damn visitors center. For all I know, the “free information” is a crappy joke on tourists and the friendly finger is anything but.
What I did find were the bowels of the city. Every building a brown, blocky log of a thing, tracts of them. And not a one, it seemed, offered anything to eat. I found a McDonalds, of course, and it might’ve even had wi-fi, but like I say, I was looking for food too. After traversing through damn near half the city with no luck, I decided to call the girlfriend to see if she, by way of the internets, could help navigate. Thirty miles from Santa Fe, this thought actually occurred to me, but I figured I’d be able to handle it on my own. She found several places in a matter of minutes. The Atomic Grill sounded the most awesome, so I followed her directions there. The Atomic Grill is in the so-called arts district of Santa Fe, and to be fair, I did pass by several galleries. One was even having an exhibit last night, and I could see in, and while waiting for several hoity toity patrons to cross the street, I got a chance to examine some of the pieces. From what I could tell, they all looked the same—varying shades of brown paint smeared vertically on the canvas, roughly a foot long and four inches apart. Looked like rows and rows of turds. Looked like Santa Fe. It’s the first modern art I’ve ever understood and appreciated.
The Atomic Grill is a trendy little open-air café, replete with gigantic charcoal portraits of American pop iconography: James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, Doris Day (or Marilyn Monroe), Bob Marley. After confirming with the waiter that they indeed had internet and food, I ordered an iced tea and, because I was wrapped up in the hipper-than-Tao atmosphere, a veggie burger. After the waiter left, I got out my computer and set up a little work station for myself, glad to finally be out of the car and all that lonely nothingness, surrounded by internet waves and pop culture icons. It gave me a certain feeling of comfort. And just as I was beginning to think I had judged the city hastily and unfairly and that there might be some redemption in it after all, it didn’t work. I could connect to the Atomic Grill wireless network, but nothing would load. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting and all the other tricks that sometimes work, but still nothing. Ten hours of driving, playing the fool to that God-forsaken place, and all I wanted was to check my freaking email. The waiter reset the modem. Still nothing. So in a last gasp effort, I restarted my computer. And lo and behold, the silver lining at last. The world at my fingertips. Go Gmail! Show me the love!
Nothing. Not one damn email. After several minutes of staring at the screen, unable to think of anything else to look up, I closed the computer, ate my veggie burger and left.
10:29 pm – Wilderness Ranch
Any attempt at describing Wilderness Ranch will come off sounding hokey and trite, so I won’t try it. I’ve been coming here in some capacity each summer save two for the past eight years. It’s a hiking/backpacking camp, yet ironically, I’ve never been out on the trail. I consider myself a base camp rat. Mostly I help with the maintenance of the camp and with various construction projects. One of my favorite things about coming here is that I get to see the product of the work I’ve done in previous years: a bridge, a porch, a roof, tile work, etc. All who return here get to see their work. It’s a satisfaction that our world doesn’t offer us much anymore, unless you are a carpenter, or a general, or a plastic surgeon. Most of us slave away at jobs that offer us no tangible measure of success. Not statistics or progress reports or evaluations. I mean real, physical actuality. And I can’t help but think there’s a problem in that. I think maybe we need to see the fruit of our labors. Maybe then we wouldn’t feel so purposeless and alone. Maybe it would give us something real to feel proud of and we could stop envying one another. C.S. Lewis wrote that he believed heaven to be a place where we could finally take pride in our creations without feeling ashamed. That’s sort of how I feel when I’m here. We’ll be here a week.
“All this workin’ just to tear it down.”
“Language City” – Wolf Parade
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Manifest Destiny Tour - Day 2
Ft. Worth to Glorieta, NM
636.3 Miles/134 Songs
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – The Lyre of Orpheus
Belle & Sebastian – Push Doorman to Open Old Wounds (Disc 2)
Jeff Buckley – Grace
Madonna – Madonna
Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog
Wilson Pickett – Don’t Knock My Love
12:38 pm - Chillicothe, Tx
I’m hoping lunch will help prepare me for what’s to come—the arduous journey through the desolate waste of the Texas panhandle. Stretches of vast nothingness, interrupted occasionally by the pockmark towns that serve as speed traps for tourists and truckers. It always makes me feel lonely, especially when I’m driving alone, as I am now. I try to imagine the people who live here. Why are they here? Why haven’t they left like everyone else? How do they cope with the immeasurable loneliness? How could they ever expect to find love way out here?
“I’ve heard of pious men
And I’ve heard of dirty fiends
But you don’t often hear
Of us ones in between”
“Us Ones in Between” – Sunset Rubdown
I stop for lunch in Chillicothe, pockmark #3. I pull in at a Dairy Queen but notice Love’s BBQ & Steakhouse next door. A bit riskier perhaps, but that’s sort of what this trip is about, so I leave my car parked in the DQ parking lot and walk next door, looking for Love, and maybe some answers to my questions.
9:43 pm - Glorieta, NM
Church camp. It’s been ten years since I was here. And I remember feeling much the same way these kids do now. I look around and I see eyes closed, hands raised, souls held captive by the emotional sway, and I wonder how and when I became so cynical. Ten years ago I was swept away in the tide of holy fervor; tonight, I’m the only one with his hands in his pockets. Ten years ago I swore to God Almighty that I would repent of my evil and negligent ways and never again drink or smoke the devil’s putrefaction. My promise lasted six years. Not real sure what’s significant about six years. Maybe that’s about the time the cynicism kicked in.
As I look around at these eyeless faces, I wonder how long it will take the cynicism to work on them. Six years? Ten years? Kids today are sharp; maybe it will take less time. I hope it takes longer. I hope they can remain blissfully unaware. Cynicism is lonely—lonely as hell.
“Ain’t a penthouse Christian wants the pain of a scab,
But they all want the scar.”
"Innocent Bones" - Iron & Wine
The Manifest Destiny Tour - Day 1
Austin to Ft. Worth
211 Miles/29 songs
Sun Kil Moon – April
Rainy Day – Rainy Day
Paul Simon - Graceland
Rangers Game
5:52 pm - Waco, Tx
For the first 50 miles or so, I can’t help but wonder what I’ve left behind. You always leave something behind—you just hope it’s not something too important. A toothbrush is fine. Pillow, headphones, best pair of undies. These can all be replaced on the road, likely at the next Wal-Mart. But charted map, contact lenses, phone charger—these things are harder to replace. A conversation, a hug, a proper goodbye. These things weren’t on my list. They never are.
These songs of loss and regret, they’re what get me thinking this way. I can’t seem to look forward without seeing my rearview mirror.
“She comes back to tell me she’s gone;
As if I didn’t know that,
As if I didn’t know my own bed;
As if I never noticed the way she brushed
Her hair from her forehead."
"Graceland" - Paul Simon
The Manifest Destiny Tour - Day 0
0 Miles/0 Songs
Tomorrow I’ll be leaving town for a while. Roughly three weeks. That’s the plan anyway. I’ll drive to my sister’s in Ft. Worth. Then pick up my brother from church camp in Glorieta, New Mexico. Then together we’ll spend a week at Wilderness Ranch, between Creede and Lake City, Colorado. Set in the San Juan National Forest of the Weminuche Wilderness of southern Colorado, near the continental divide, it’s one of the most beautiful places I know. When we leave there, we’ll hit the open road. West to California—San Francisco, L.A. On the way back maybe Vegas, the Grand Canyon. Then back to Texas. We’re keeping our plans purposely vague. We want to leave room for spontaneity. I hope that isn’t a mistake. Actually we’ve been planning this trip for years. As soon as he graduated from high school, I told him, we would go on a road trip, just he and I, to see America.
"Now there are manyWho will swear it's true
That brother all we are
And yet it seems there are so few
Who will answer a brother's call."
"Brother Where Are You?" - Johnny Rivers
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