Lily cries foul

So now we are in Los Angeles and I am singing that Arlo Guthrie song to myself and looking for Angel, Spike and the gang. We got to our hostel and it was less then ideal, So, being the spoiled brat that I am, I demanded that we pack up camp. So right now we are homeless at Jiffy Lube. But, hey, at least the Jiffy Lube has free toilet paper.

Via Las Vegas Del Taco

Like Leon Trotsky

's Mexican ice remover -

I am a man of principle.

I refuse to join

The bro parade

Which stretches from Paradise

 all the way

To the big Pink Taco.

Maybe I want to

But I can't.

But I think I'd rather Die by fire

Than make my life By the 'infamous pool'.

...Texas? And Whiskey.

We kind of rushed the southwest. Which makes me sad, because it's some of the most beautiful landscape I've seen. Ever. Period point blank.

The lake and the campsite were the stuff of legend. Blue blue waters, bush shrubs for shade. Snakes and scorpions and heat and wind and fire. Inhospitable madness. You know, the good stuff.

Backtracking, Austin was great. I wish we had had more time there. We got some pretty great BBQ thanks to Alex's great aunt and uncle. We also saw some bats, and conversed with a deaf man named Randy. I still wish we had interviewed him. No live music, partially due to laziness, partially due to our unfortunate timing in which we hit Austin on a Monday night. Swinging back and forth, we landed in the desert. And then Vegas.

My favorite part of Vegas so far is its hideousness. Everyone is a douche bag, everyone is fake-tan-pseudo-wanna-be-los-angles-plastic-beauty. Everyone is vying for the worst person ever award. Everyone is evil and disgusting and wrong. Off. Similar to, and yet miles away, from the people we met in Roswell. It's great. I want to live here and hate every minute of it.

I am having a great deal of trouble wording. Lollipops, sushi, alcohol, and heart-stopping amounts of caffeine are about all I've pumped into my body in the past 48 hours. I wonder and wonder what the good Hunter S. thought of all this when he entered here so many moons ago. And I think that it would be better to figure out what I don't know myself at a later date. And I don't think that, and I don't want to.

What?

Vegas!

Currently, I am incredibly tired. I have gotten maybe 6 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. Maybe a little more, but that's it.

We drove a stupid amount yesterday/today. From Roswell to Las Vegas. It was about a 14 hour trip. (Don't worry, Moms, we rotated drivers a lot. Safety first!)

I don't know what day it is anymore.

The hotel is stupid nice. Thanks, Clark.

Alison and I hung out by the pool this morning, because we got kicked out of a lobby for sleeping there.

It was really awesome, hanging out at 10am local time at a pool with sand and stuff. Things are cool that way. 

I just want to sleep for a week, straight.

Southern Comfort

     We have inched closer towards the heart of the country. Fittingly each step has been accompanied by a different type of specialty meat. I do not yet know what this means but everyone seems very particular about the meat they eat.
     Yesterday we swam in the pool and looked up at the stars doing the backstroke. They seem brighter here, to me at least, but I expect them to be even brighter the further left we go on our journey. Brighter until we approach the lights of big Vegas.
     Today we saw the clock-tower at the University of Texas in Austin. In 1966 Charles Whitman shot a dozen or so people from the observation deck there. There was no evidence of this. The art museum there was closed so we went to the mall and I ate a 'Western BBQ' burger.

I Probably Should...

Hey y'all. We're in Austin. I haven't posted here yet (whoops) so I figured I should.

Today, we interviewed my great uncle, which was great. We went to UT: Austin, which was a nice campus. Saw the tower where Charles Whitman killed a buncha peeps. The tower was tall. We tried to go to a museum, but it was closed on Mondays, which was dumb because people like museums all days of the week.

Later, we went to a mall. It was nice because every mall is pretty much the same. Felt like we were kinda home again. :D There was a lego store. Wheee.

Fun times were had by all.

Tonight, bats.

British Brain Melt With Cheese

We're not sure what this movie is about. Here's a list of titles we've come up with since departure:

The Lollipop Diaries
6000 Words About Memphis
Driving Miss Lily
Stereotypical Massachusetts College Students Go On A Road Trip and Experience Stereotypical Changes
Left

I think we got a good collection here, no?

Memphis Blues on a Wednesday Night

Ribs and blues. Motorcycle frenzy on Beale Street and it's not even dark. Hot sauce, beer, meat, and live music.

I'm in love with Memphis. Fuck love of country, love of family, love of another human being. Fuck it all, because Memphis has ribs and blues.

I'm still having a little trouble believing it's a real place it's so goddamn perfect.

The heat is dry, the sun is the kind of washed out gold that changes lives. Cleansing. Revealing a deeper truth about humanity, although it's difficult to pinpoint what that truth is. Maybe the rattlesnakes will whisper it in our ears once we've hit sand and desert fruit. But right now I'm content with ribs and blues.
* * *
We met a man named Ross in Overton Park. He looked a bit like Sawyer from Lost and mentioned that he had a twin brother, which immediately made me smile and think of Edward Norton and Edward Norton in Leaves of Grass. We had a pretty good conversation with him. He mentioned that he's self-employed, that he's only spiritual (not Christian), that God is within all of us. He mentioned that he loves the beach, waves crashing, that he sells cars. He had a dog named Max. He's adamantly from Memphis, not the United States, nor the South.


I like this man a great deal.
* * *
I want to cry when we're in the Stax Records museum and I see photographs of the Lorraine Hotel the day MJK Jr. was shot. This is not right, I say to myself. Thank god that we're not like this anymore, I say to myself.

I lie a lot.

But it's okay. It's okay because even though race is still an issue in this country, even though homophobia and sexism exist everywhere, there are those who are and will forever be adamantly, violently, lovingly pro-human. Stax, with all its history and its love for music, told me so.
* * *
So then I eat some more ribs and smile. Have a few sips of beer. New Orleans sits just a few blocks, hours ahead and promises great things in dusky deep blue midnight hour.

I Phone Memphis (Courtesy of Max)

It's 6am, do you know where your dumdum is?

Brain is melting very rapidly into jello pudding, which we all know we can't have if we don't eat our meats. Very little sleep. That's what's happening. Although I am also not dealing with the stress of school which automatically makes me a million times smarter.

It's raining. Everything is damp, moist, primordial-soup-like. I felt like I was walking around in a sauna all day yesterday, except for the Holocaust Memorial Museum, which was not sauna-like at all. Insert off-color joke about showers now.

But actually I'm really glad we went to that particular museum whilst in our Great Nation's capital. There was an exhibit on Nazi propaganda that was especially interesting, specifically in relation to this project. Mostly it was really disturbing because A) The graphic sensibilities of the Nazi/Hitler campaign posters disturbingly similar to those of Obama, and B) I voted for Obama primarily due to his campaign platform: CHANGE. Not his politics, which I knew very little about at the time. Which is not to say that Obama is the next Hitler or anything 'cause that's laughably absurd, but it is disturbing that anyone with a good PR person can gain a huge amount of power on image alone. I guess I already knew that in the abstract, but had never really thought about how it specifically related to me until now.

* * *

I'm really excited to leave today. It feels like the trip is finally beginning as we leave familiar territory and head into the OUTER LIMITS.

...or, you know, Kentucky.

Subway Profit

Awake! See the truth. Be inside it. Listen to the animals. They know! They don't know! They just be. That's what we gotta be. Because you and I ain't real. Like the prophet said. He said, He said we ain't real! This birdshit on me is a sign. This may sound obnoxious but that's how the truth is! -subway prophet

BROOKLYN IN THE HOUSE (Alison and Max)

There's a place where the trains split. There's a place where the trains don't go. There's a place where we are.

Night before take off

Tomorrow...we ride. *Insert required bit about how I feel exited/nervous here*
Super Exiting Things Left To Do:
1. Get my clothing out of the dryer.
2. Fit everything into duffle.
3. Go to sleep.
Guys, Guys, don't worry this post is dull on purpose. For some reason.

Things I Am Most Exited About:
1. Full cast audiobook of the importance of being earnest
2. crossword puzzles
3. eating soooo much oatmeal

seriously, I bought 52 instant oatmeal packages.
Signing off now,
OAT MEAL 4EVA!

Future nostalgia

Listening to the Phenomenauts. For those of you who don't know them, they're a sort of retro-future band that sound like they came out of the 1950s and sing mostly about space and existential crises. I feel like this is appropriate to what this trip is all about. At least, emotionally.

The West as we (Americans) know it from the history books is history. The myth still exists. We still try to live it. In the Middle East now. In space in the 1960s. But the West is gone, and we know, deep down, that this is truth.

So what do we do? Nostalgia only gets us so far. And imagining a future without past is impractical; the two are inseparable. And anyways, the myth of the West still lives on hard and true in our national identity. So. What do we do?
---------------------------
I want a future where "we" is the human race. I want a future where "we" is a multi-cultural, plural entity. I want a future where "we" can coexist.

I do not want a future where we must love our neighbor, because that's not possible within human nature. I do not want a future where we are forced to give up our culture, our national identity, our beliefs. I do not want a future of anarchy, nor of oppressive community-state-control.

A future where we respect and rely on our neighbors, that I think is a possibility. A future of varied cultures, identities, and beliefs. A future of unified individualism. East and West, together.
---------------------------
So how does America, 'merrika, the United States, Los Estados Unidos, pickyourownadventure fit in to all of this? Not sure. Probably plenty of the ideas here come from my own identity and culture, growing up as a wee one at the end of the 20th century in Massachusetts. But I think, feel, believe that America is positioned to go West once more. With feeling.

West with, rather than against, the rest of the world. West to the future, with the past always in our hearts and our minds.

"Texican is nothing but a human man way out on a limb. This year and next, and maybe for a hundred more. But I don't think it'll be forever. Some day this country's gonna be a fine, good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come."

"Once upon a time there was a ship that sailed the seven seas. Once upon a time there was a ship that cruised this galaxy. I believe that one day it's coming back for me."

Test DRIVE

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