They Dress Real Bad and They Think They’re New York

July 13, 2008 at 7:45 pm (Georgia)
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This is the plan.  Monday morning, I acquire a bike box, disassemble my bike, and load it in.  Into the various interstices surrounding the bike I will stuff my clothes and sleeping bag (protected by garbage bags from bike grease), my bike lock and helmet, and maybe my handlebar bag if I can manage it.  Three more bags, now lightened by lack of clothing to be (hopefully) less than 50 pounds, will go inside a larger duffel bag so that Greyhound will count them together as one item of luggage.  These two will go underneath the bus, while I board with my one allowed piece of carry-on plus an additional bag about which the driver will hopefully not hassle me.

Anyway, I’ve got a rideshare to Atlanta, where I will board the bus Monday evening.  I will ride for almost 24 hours, including several transfers and layovers, and arrive hungry and sleep-deprived in Toronto around 7PM on Tuesday, where my mother will pick me up for dinner with my family.  After that I’ll hang out with friends, sleep, go to the dentist, hang out with friends some more, probably have Ethiopian lunch or dinner, possibly both, on Wednesday with whoever is interested and available.  I’ll sleep again (that irritating but necessary gap in activity), perhaps hang out with people again, and then depart at some point on Thursday for god knows where.

For now, I’m sitting in a library next to an elderly man who is browsing a porn site called “Firm Hand Spanking”.  So it goes.

Tell me your schedules, O glorious ones, so that I can begin to construct some sort of itinerary of hanging out.  Leave comments or e-mail me and I’ll try to assemble it in my head into some grotesquely intricate master plan in which I get to see you all.

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A Change in Plans

July 10, 2008 at 4:02 pm (Georgia)
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Alright. I have a growing intuition that the rules of this game are changing, that the universe has a new lesson for me to learn. I’ve decided to get a two-month Greyhound pass, drop off my bike in Toronto, and then continue on my way by bus – with or without Frankih. This way I’ll get to revisit some of my favourite locations, see the west coast, maybe even head down into Mexico. I’ll be able to live with less food (don’t need to expend thousands of calories biking), less shelter (don’t need to protect my expensive bike) and less sleep (don’t need to be well-rested for biking). I’ll have more time for writing, exploration, meeting people and on and on.

I’ll also be much freer to go off-course, so if there’s anyone anywhere in Canada or the U.S. who would like me to pay a visit, just leave a comment and I’ll see about it.

This will also mean, of course, that I’ll be back in Toronto. It’ll be sometime next week, due to some credit card hassles, but I’ll be there. Might need someone with a car to pick me up from the Greyhound station, since the alternative is to completely reassemble my bike right there on the bus platform. I’ll try to see as many people as I can while I’m there, but I don’t want to spend more than a couple nights before going on my way. Some kind of get-together might be in order. Stay tuned for details.

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Pain and Wonder

July 8, 2008 at 6:28 pm (Georgia)
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The girl who approached me yesterday afternoon wanted to know where to buy a U.S. map.  I could not resist but ask where she was trying to get to.  “Everywhere,” she said.  She had a two-month pass for unlimited travel by Greyhound, and had but recently hit the road.  Her name was Frankih; she wore low-key, vaguely hippie garb that reminded me somehow of Janis Joplin.  When I asked her where she’d started from: “Toronto.”

This was only the earliest intimation of what turned out to be a truly eerie compatibility between us.  To name only a few: we both are driven to travel; we both have found inspiration in Kerouac, the Beats, and the hippies; we both intend to have writing careers; we both seek spiritual knowledge.  And of all the people on the street, she had decided to talk to me.

We parted ways after chatting awhile, but agreed to meet at a concert that evening.  The show was mediocre, but we two were invited from there to another club – the only honest-to-god secret club I’ve ever been privileged to visit – where a number of better bands were lined up to play.  We found the entrance in a descending alleyway behind a gas station.  A small crowd, no more than thirty people, were gathered there to watch this haunting performance: Dead Elephant Bicycle, consisting of an acoustic guitarist, a violinist and a singer, no electronics, not even mics or amplifiers, lit by a single red floodlight, playing soulful ballads with surreal and psychedelic lyrics.

Frankih and I were both entranced, but she perhaps moreso than I.  She began to gush about the Athens art scene – or what part of it she’d seen, I suppose – and vowed then and there that, come hell or high water, she would move to Athens as soon as possible.  I was pleased that she seemed to have found her home, but also sad, for I feel no such draw to Athens, nor indeed to anywhere else I’ve been.  Home remains an abstraction for me.

Anyway, two souls so closely akin to one another cannot help but seek consummation.  We did this in a shaded, grassy lot in the night and then again in an abandoned boxcar after the sun rose.  From there it was breakfast, a trip to the Greyhound station, more exploration of each other’s psyches, vows to meet again someday soon, and then she departed on the bus.

I was rather sleep deprived at this point, but decided to stay awake until after my tattoo appointment.  I went in at 1PM and received a portrait of the Green Man on my upper back, in commemoration of this summer.  It hurt like a motherfucker.  I’m glad I got it over with, but I’m in no rush to repeat the experience.  Meanwhile the healing process may once again delay my departure from Athens, setting me even further behind schedule…

In all honesty, I’m tempted at this point to buy myself a two-month pass like Frankih’s, go drop my bike off in Toronto, throw on a backpack and travel with her the rest of the summer.

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He felt lost but he felt pretty intensely good

July 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm (Georgia)
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The day I arrive in Athens, I attend a concert. Rising Appalachia (whose name is in fact R.I.S.E. as of a couple days ago) is double-billed with Hope for Agoldensummer. I’m mainly interested in the latter, but it is the former that earns my rapt attention. Rising Appalachia’s lead singers – two sisters in immaculate and exotic hippie garb – sing folk songs in harmony, everything shifted into subtly Middle Eastern-sounding minor keys that lend a certain yearning mystique to their music. The combined visual and auditory aesthetic sends me back to Asheville momentarily before propelling me further, toward the molten heart of the world. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Knoxville Plague

June 27, 2008 at 11:06 am (Georgia, Tennessee)
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Originally I had planned to pass through Knoxville on my way south to see my friend Greenling.  The bus I took from Roanoke transferred in Knoxville, though, and I figured it would be too much of a drag to bike back the way I came.  On the eve of my departure from Asheville, however, a lady I had only just met offered me a ride to Knoxville.  Taking this as divine providence, I met with her the following morning and was soon wandering about the city with Greenling.

At this time of year, Knoxville is unnervingly quiet.  An entire evening of pedestrians can number only a couple dozen, and car traffic is minimal.  This depopulation, as we explored the quaint and crumbling Old City, made me feel like we were wandering in the ruins of a once-great civilization.

But among the ruins there was yet life.  Out on my own one evening I stumbled upon a small group of musicians who lent me a drum to join them and gave me some beer.  Here the lack of people worked out as a benefit, as this was a far more intimate and involved drum circle than I’d experienced in Asheville, and every bit as enjoyable.  We were joined by a couple other drummers and an old black flautist with one blind eye.  When we were finishing up our jam session, he told me I played so scared that when everybody else was starting to lose it I still held it.  I’m not entirely sure what he meant, but I took it as a compliment. Read the rest of this entry »

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