10-26
A rockslide in North Carolina closed the interstate today, so we had to backtrack towards Knoxville and find an alternate route along backcountry roads. Our detour couldn't have been more fortuitous. We crawled up and down the Smokey Mountains, fully appreciative of every tiny town, roaring creeks glimpsed from high on rusty bridges, and the Carolina sunset, gently depositing us in Georgia. It was a lazy, transcendental off day.
We're staying with Tim Gill tonight, my old friend from Echoes of Harpers Ferry, in the clean, comfortable Athens apartment that he shares with his adorable Albanian girlfriend, whose lovely name I will not tarnish with crude misspelling. She fixed me a plate of eggs and mushrooms, toasted rolls, and fresh salted tomatoes, which might have been one of the best meals of the trip.
Now we've outlasted our hosts, sprawled out on the floor and watching cable television. There's a show on about Robert Johnson. Johnson is a ghost, probably always was a ghost. Just another one of Mississippi's lost souls, from a time when the world was sepia, framed by open boxcar doors. The Crossroads are still there, in Mississippi, but the magic's probably gone. They call it the Devil, I say it was the Holy Spirit.
Las Cruces translates roughly to, alternately, "the crossroads" or "the crucifixes". Maybe I did lose a little bit of innocence back there in New Mexico, made a bargain with something sinister beyond the clouds. Maybe it turned my bones to pigiron, put the Gulf in my eyes, turned my blood to steam.
If I haven't already sold my soul, maybe it's time I did. Like I said, what they call the Devil, Robert Johnson's Devil, surely wasn't nothing but the Holy Spirit; a fierce avatar of dust and mud.
Johnson was murdered in 1938, poison in his whiskey. He's just a haint again, a specter staring out of old picture frames.
I wish jukeboxes were free, and I wish there were radio stations without commercials, reserved for ghosts and devils. I'd spin my dial, and then break the fucker off. I'd drive all the way to the Delta, get all four wheels stuck. And I'm hopelessly stuck, and sinking until I'm breathing mud, and I'd never turn that radio station off.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Ghost Hints
I feel pregnant, about to burst. My ideas like foetus, each unnamed, but their hearts are beating and if you squint you can see their fingerprints like psychedelic swirls of color and meaning.
We've all been this way before; we're treading well-worn paths with new feet. Old souls, new soles. The roller coaster becomes familiar, every jerk and turn and anticipatory ascension and stomach-dropping plummet. We need to be unafraid to grasp onto the clues of the myth of deja vu. That sinister feeling, mis-leading you comfortably backwards through the hazy mists of memory and past. It's just a sign to move forward, ever forward, excelsior. Hints from the ghosts that lurk inside of our crystalline genes and the mysterious folds and valleys of our gray brain. Telegraphs from the Brahman to the Atman.
Recognizing familiarity and unpronounceable longing is the first step towards recognizing that we have a choice in this life; to continue walking the treadmill of comfort and worldly passion, or to take these clues and use them as a key to map out our transcendence. I'm not ready for this, I'm not ready to deny the seemingly natural course of my existence, but I'm learning to recognize the ghost hints for what they truly are. I could be wrong, but this is of no consequence. I could be right, and therein lies the prehistoric wilderness of my dreams, ad infinitum.
inspired by psychotropic botanical-induced murmurs concerning deja vu and Bill Hicks and Lord Vishnu as an infinite ocean, Stanksgiving '09, Murfreesboro
We've all been this way before; we're treading well-worn paths with new feet. Old souls, new soles. The roller coaster becomes familiar, every jerk and turn and anticipatory ascension and stomach-dropping plummet. We need to be unafraid to grasp onto the clues of the myth of deja vu. That sinister feeling, mis-leading you comfortably backwards through the hazy mists of memory and past. It's just a sign to move forward, ever forward, excelsior. Hints from the ghosts that lurk inside of our crystalline genes and the mysterious folds and valleys of our gray brain. Telegraphs from the Brahman to the Atman.
Recognizing familiarity and unpronounceable longing is the first step towards recognizing that we have a choice in this life; to continue walking the treadmill of comfort and worldly passion, or to take these clues and use them as a key to map out our transcendence. I'm not ready for this, I'm not ready to deny the seemingly natural course of my existence, but I'm learning to recognize the ghost hints for what they truly are. I could be wrong, but this is of no consequence. I could be right, and therein lies the prehistoric wilderness of my dreams, ad infinitum.
inspired by psychotropic botanical-induced murmurs concerning deja vu and Bill Hicks and Lord Vishnu as an infinite ocean, Stanksgiving '09, Murfreesboro
Rainclouds and Cigarettes: Days Float like Dreams
10-25
The days float like dreams. That's all I got.
Eastern Tennessee is a bit like Heaven. You gotta see firsthand some of these mountain scenes to believe they exist. It all looks perfect, framed in a windshield. You can't let your reality become the celluloid glass. There can be no bystanders, no passive observers. I am the clenched fists on the steering wheel, the whining transmission grinding the four black tires. I am the road ahead and the sky above and the rearview mirror's lonely, wistful kiss to the disappearing horizon.
Matt splurged and got us a motel room tonight. I feel like undeserving royalty, a cheat, a half-assed trespasser, a thief in a cheap little mansion with nothing to steal. Everything's replaceable. Just another termite in the honeycomb.
The days float like dreams. That's all I got.
Eastern Tennessee is a bit like Heaven. You gotta see firsthand some of these mountain scenes to believe they exist. It all looks perfect, framed in a windshield. You can't let your reality become the celluloid glass. There can be no bystanders, no passive observers. I am the clenched fists on the steering wheel, the whining transmission grinding the four black tires. I am the road ahead and the sky above and the rearview mirror's lonely, wistful kiss to the disappearing horizon.
Matt splurged and got us a motel room tonight. I feel like undeserving royalty, a cheat, a half-assed trespasser, a thief in a cheap little mansion with nothing to steal. Everything's replaceable. Just another termite in the honeycomb.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Rainclouds and Cigarettes: Kentucky
10-24
We stayed in a rural town outside of Lexington last night, in a double-wide owned by a sweet couple who perform together in the Vibrolas. Their trailer sits on a long, soggy dirt road, overlooking a pond and pastureland. It smells like home; wet gravel and animal musk and rotting leaves and the general peaceful, crisp air of the hill country. It's gonna be hard to leave this one.
It feels good to be back in the South.
Last night, I spent some time with an older gentleman, named Henry Earl, who holds the US record for the number of times he's been arrested, the count hovering somewhere between eight and nine hundred*. He smelled strongly of cheap whiskey, and wasted no words where sideways winks and his own made-up language of hand gestures and sign language would suffice. He was expertly dressed, homeless or not, with a silk shirt made to look like a quiltwork of various animal prints, reptilian and mammalian, and a suede suit jacket. His white slacks were splattered with grease.
Nat, the tough-looking doorman at the club last night, had "MAMA TRY'D" tattooed on his knuckles.
Time to get on with it. Knoxville today. The rain follows us still, irritably, like a slighted and persistent lover. Oh, I'm happy when it rains, even moreso when it feels so much like home. It's the heavenly white noise, far from the electromagnetic static hum of neon signs, powerlines, and internal combustion.
*Upon further investigation, Earl's been arrested well over 1300 times.
We stayed in a rural town outside of Lexington last night, in a double-wide owned by a sweet couple who perform together in the Vibrolas. Their trailer sits on a long, soggy dirt road, overlooking a pond and pastureland. It smells like home; wet gravel and animal musk and rotting leaves and the general peaceful, crisp air of the hill country. It's gonna be hard to leave this one.
It feels good to be back in the South.
Last night, I spent some time with an older gentleman, named Henry Earl, who holds the US record for the number of times he's been arrested, the count hovering somewhere between eight and nine hundred*. He smelled strongly of cheap whiskey, and wasted no words where sideways winks and his own made-up language of hand gestures and sign language would suffice. He was expertly dressed, homeless or not, with a silk shirt made to look like a quiltwork of various animal prints, reptilian and mammalian, and a suede suit jacket. His white slacks were splattered with grease.
Nat, the tough-looking doorman at the club last night, had "MAMA TRY'D" tattooed on his knuckles.
Time to get on with it. Knoxville today. The rain follows us still, irritably, like a slighted and persistent lover. Oh, I'm happy when it rains, even moreso when it feels so much like home. It's the heavenly white noise, far from the electromagnetic static hum of neon signs, powerlines, and internal combustion.
*Upon further investigation, Earl's been arrested well over 1300 times.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Rainclouds and Cigarettes: Cincinnati
10-22
Today was maybe the longest, most exhausting drive yet. Eight hours, with two separate interstate death collisions expertly, though narrowly, avoided. It was a beautiful drive, though. West Virginia was exceptionally striking. Wild and wonderful. Leaving Frederick, Maryland this morning seems a year ago. Time moves so strangely while on tour.
We were at a sort of punk rock dive bar in Cincinnati tonight, the sort of place I'd probably appreciate more if I were well-rested, well-fed, and drunk, but I was none of these things. As it was, I spent most of my time sitting on their rear deck, where they had a fire pit properly stoked and burning, and where I discussed longshoremen and fixed-gear bikes with a funny, stoned hipster girl.
We're staying tonight in a three-story house in the Cincinnati 'burbs. Very accommodating folks here, especially the devastatingly cute little raven-haired girl, dating Jeremy (one of our hosts), who showed up in cowboy boots to give us weed and humor me with some idle "True Blood" discussion. We have stayed up late tonight, watching Snoop Dogg videos and drinking beer and playing Madden '08. Our drive tomorrow is a quick jaunt to Kentucky, so we're all planning on sleeping in, as well as taking full advantage of some well-deserved R&R with some very gracious hosts.
Matt has certainly helped us original five warriors out, giving us some much-needed late-comer's energy and gusto, and helping to alleviate some tensions which may have been building in the cramped, smelly van.
I'm sleeping on a ratty couch in an unfinished basement tonight. It reminds me of a tomb, fitting because I plan on a deathlike hibernation. The longest hauls are behind us, and we're all a bit relieved, albeit broke and wearing thin, to sense our momentum build for our final stretch and triumphant homecoming.
A basset hound named Dolly stole two of Harry's bagels tonight.
Today was maybe the longest, most exhausting drive yet. Eight hours, with two separate interstate death collisions expertly, though narrowly, avoided. It was a beautiful drive, though. West Virginia was exceptionally striking. Wild and wonderful. Leaving Frederick, Maryland this morning seems a year ago. Time moves so strangely while on tour.
We were at a sort of punk rock dive bar in Cincinnati tonight, the sort of place I'd probably appreciate more if I were well-rested, well-fed, and drunk, but I was none of these things. As it was, I spent most of my time sitting on their rear deck, where they had a fire pit properly stoked and burning, and where I discussed longshoremen and fixed-gear bikes with a funny, stoned hipster girl.
We're staying tonight in a three-story house in the Cincinnati 'burbs. Very accommodating folks here, especially the devastatingly cute little raven-haired girl, dating Jeremy (one of our hosts), who showed up in cowboy boots to give us weed and humor me with some idle "True Blood" discussion. We have stayed up late tonight, watching Snoop Dogg videos and drinking beer and playing Madden '08. Our drive tomorrow is a quick jaunt to Kentucky, so we're all planning on sleeping in, as well as taking full advantage of some well-deserved R&R with some very gracious hosts.
Matt has certainly helped us original five warriors out, giving us some much-needed late-comer's energy and gusto, and helping to alleviate some tensions which may have been building in the cramped, smelly van.
I'm sleeping on a ratty couch in an unfinished basement tonight. It reminds me of a tomb, fitting because I plan on a deathlike hibernation. The longest hauls are behind us, and we're all a bit relieved, albeit broke and wearing thin, to sense our momentum build for our final stretch and triumphant homecoming.
A basset hound named Dolly stole two of Harry's bagels tonight.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Americana
for Shea, may he be weird wherever he is
Open boxcar doors are no more picture frames
As the rolling hills and the strobe of faces are all shades of gray
The great dust clouds are locked up with cement and key
But the clouds of data are amassing and learning
The reactor looms over the treeline
And every falling star is the bomb
The Great Basin is withering under the shadow of holy Trinity
Where the desert was melted into glass
The familiarity of intersecting interstate gas station colonies
The desperate pleas from lonely little racists, scratched into bathroom plastic
What we must seem like, like ghosts
Passing like ghosts through a world of television mirrors and microwave color
A foul odor on the wind, to be bleached by the air conditioner
Joe Camel was Steve McQueen on the island of Dr. Moreau
5 am, 11-24-09, Murfreesboro, TN
Open boxcar doors are no more picture frames
As the rolling hills and the strobe of faces are all shades of gray
The great dust clouds are locked up with cement and key
But the clouds of data are amassing and learning
The reactor looms over the treeline
And every falling star is the bomb
The Great Basin is withering under the shadow of holy Trinity
Where the desert was melted into glass
The familiarity of intersecting interstate gas station colonies
The desperate pleas from lonely little racists, scratched into bathroom plastic
What we must seem like, like ghosts
Passing like ghosts through a world of television mirrors and microwave color
A foul odor on the wind, to be bleached by the air conditioner
Joe Camel was Steve McQueen on the island of Dr. Moreau
5 am, 11-24-09, Murfreesboro, TN
Sharks and Winona Ryder
Playing to the cadence of my footsteps leaving town. The timbre is always fresh. I lick it like dew, every morning, off of their lips and their hips and all the bent green grass. The way it tastes is always nostalgic, my heart straining to grasp onto one little piece of some childhood memory of Christmas or summer vacation.
Each day a different flavor; sunlight warm on young skin, cold snow against sharp teeth, a feather's comfort or a dog's loyal eyes that punch through your guilty guts with a heavy sadness that just wants to go back back back.
But you can't go back, you can't go home. So baby arch your pretty little spine. There's a righteous train a-comin', curated by cowards. We're all ticket punchers with punched tickets, cradling baby bottles full of gin and pretending we don't recognize the engineers.
We're all sharks here, and the currents are warm with blood and sex and we swim with our mouths open and our lungs full. We lick each dewdrop gently, like sunshine acid, and it sizzles on our tongue and puts the scent of a fresh kill in the heavy water and we're off to that same cadence. Wheels hum and transmissions grind and lovers hum and grind and fuck and smoke is inhaled exhaled. And someone is tapping their foot to it, and if it ain't God it may as well be one of us, by God, and we may as well write a song to that rhythm, that anarchist drumbeat of the whole world spinning and fucking and breathing.
And the dew just sizzles on your tongue and everything gets heady and you learn to bend color and create your own stars when the ones that someone else already put in the sky just don't suffice anymore. You realize that you can feel the whole world's heart beating. It swells triumphant. Rachmaninoff.
But then you realize that it's only your own heart but what's the difference and it's all the same. And you're just a shark, sniffing for blood and any other living heart that pumps it. And when you find her, you'll want to stop swimming and enjoy it for a while, to dance a ballet in the pink smoke and gorge yourself. But every shark I've known is invariably a coward, and death looms over the stationary souls. So we flee and play songs to that same sad cadence of our footsteps leaving town.
This is not part of my tour journal. I wrote this last night.
Each day a different flavor; sunlight warm on young skin, cold snow against sharp teeth, a feather's comfort or a dog's loyal eyes that punch through your guilty guts with a heavy sadness that just wants to go back back back.
But you can't go back, you can't go home. So baby arch your pretty little spine. There's a righteous train a-comin', curated by cowards. We're all ticket punchers with punched tickets, cradling baby bottles full of gin and pretending we don't recognize the engineers.
We're all sharks here, and the currents are warm with blood and sex and we swim with our mouths open and our lungs full. We lick each dewdrop gently, like sunshine acid, and it sizzles on our tongue and puts the scent of a fresh kill in the heavy water and we're off to that same cadence. Wheels hum and transmissions grind and lovers hum and grind and fuck and smoke is inhaled exhaled. And someone is tapping their foot to it, and if it ain't God it may as well be one of us, by God, and we may as well write a song to that rhythm, that anarchist drumbeat of the whole world spinning and fucking and breathing.
And the dew just sizzles on your tongue and everything gets heady and you learn to bend color and create your own stars when the ones that someone else already put in the sky just don't suffice anymore. You realize that you can feel the whole world's heart beating. It swells triumphant. Rachmaninoff.
But then you realize that it's only your own heart but what's the difference and it's all the same. And you're just a shark, sniffing for blood and any other living heart that pumps it. And when you find her, you'll want to stop swimming and enjoy it for a while, to dance a ballet in the pink smoke and gorge yourself. But every shark I've known is invariably a coward, and death looms over the stationary souls. So we flee and play songs to that same sad cadence of our footsteps leaving town.
This is not part of my tour journal. I wrote this last night.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)