I took the long way home from Peters tonight. Past the winding driveways of names I once knew. Filip, Johnson. Names which once were uttered daily in my speech, now relics of a forgotten tongue. Today I saw siblings and congregation members – babies now bold children, children now adolescents, and my peers and seniors,gone, gone. I drove slowly home, past the sleeping, dead cornfields, the empty frost covered barnyards, and the quiet, hidden lanes. As I turned down the bright headlights I wondered, will all these names almost forgotten, those faces now firmly sculpted from the soft putty of childhood be gone as quickly and ineluctably as the night’s fog with the morning’s light?

New Glasses

So, ummm, I got new glasses.

US Must Look to Places Other Than Alaska (e.g. Alternative Energy) to Protect National Security

From http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/schneider112001.asp?source=daily:
Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., said, “The environmentalists are right. A lot of conservatives buy into the analysis made by most pro-business groups that without ANWR we are vulnerable to the oil weapon. But you can’t make that case on the grounds of national security. The idea that you can protect yourself from Middle East production behavior by pumping oil out of Alaska is nonsense. There just won’t be enough production there to make a difference.”

Recover Tour

My new favorite band, Austin TX’s Recover is going on tour with two other great
bands, The Impossibles and River City High. This should be a show to remember!
The dates that you kids will be interested in are as follows:

9.19 – Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop
9.20 – Detroit, MI @ Shelter
9.21 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Laga

In other Recover news, according to the Fueled By Ramen site
(http://www.fueledbyramen.com), Recover’s recent release Rodeo and Picasso, debuted
at #33 on the Texas Billboard list beating out such mainstream champs as N’Sync and
Gorillaz.

A Good Day

Originally written Sunday 08.27.2001

If I could have a month of days like yesterday, I would be a very happy man. I guess one can become sick of anything, but I would just love to have 30 days where I can focus on the things that are important to me without having to worry about the obnoxious difficulties of everyday life like finding places to live, fixing my car, paying bills, etc. Granted, I don’t neccessarily have a ton of responsibilities right now, but the anxiety of the approaching school year as well as heading off to Scotland as well as thinging about all the things I didn’t get to accomplish this summer is more than a bit harrowing.

But back to yesterday. It was an epic day, only tarnished by the fact that I couldn’t share it with my friends. I was woken up by a phone call from my mom. After handling some administrative details with my mother, I got a chance to chat with my brother about film, music and life in general. Later that day I also got a letter from him and some CDs which was a really great. It is going to be so amazing having him in Columbus this fall. Someone to skate with, someone to go to shows with, or just talk. I’ve never had the opportunity of being in the same school with Tim and its going to be a blast plain and simple.

After I finished talking with Tim I ate a rushed breakfast before heading into the office to do a little work. I’m working on a somewhat rushed project dealing with windows drivers. It reminds me how much I hate Windows, IT people who can’t figure things out for themselves, and being forced to do the dirty work for stupid IT people using windows. I guess the good thing about the project is that it gives me more experience with reading APIs and implementing software using those API calls. Though I could care less about the platforms I’ve worked on this summer, the skills I’ve picked up should be pretty handy if I ever choose to go into the industry.

I finished setting up a few tests of my code at work. Then I headed out to the skatepark. I was a bit rusty from not having skated all week, but I was back in the groove after a few runs. The public park in Austin is pretty fun. Its small and the obstacles are small enough for a loser like me to skate without looking like a complete novice. The local rippers absolutely shred the little course. I’m working on big noseslides on the tall manual pad, backside grinds on the low manual pad and ollieing over the fun box. Weak I know. I skated as long as I possibly could under the hot texas sun before I had to retire back to the old hotel to shower and get some more fluids. Before doing that, I stopped by Tekgnar to pick up a new deck. Too many times skating in the rain and too many aborted tricks means that the nose of my board had delaminated into splinters. I picked up a new deck from a local Austin company called ATX both because it was cheap and because it was a nice little Texas momento.

After showering and resting for a little bit I headed out the door to go to a little core show in a small town about an hour north of Austin called Temple. The show was free and featured some of my favorite Austin bands. The show was outside in a picnic pavilion which was also pretty neat, but the best part was that right next to the pavillion was a skatepark. The skatepark had a fun quarter, a low pyramid and a nice mini ramp. It was really great to be able to skate betweeen sets, but it made me sweat more than Mike Tyson at a spelling bee. The bands were amazing. It was the perfect example of why small town diy shows are the best. There were five bands and they all had pretty different sounds. The first band to play was a melodic, emo-twinged punk band called Skate Or Die. Their bass player was wearing this rabit suit, even in the heat, and absolutely ripped. After that, an emo band called meanest capacity played and they were also excelent. Following that, one of my favorite Austin bands, The Teresa Banks Profiles played. They have a pretty original sound, a combination of metal style hardcore with synth backing it all up. Not only do they sound great, but they also put on an intense show. They got the by then sizeable crowd rocking hard. After The Theresa Banks Profiles played, my absolute favorite Austin Band took the stage, err, picknic table. Recover is so damn good. These guys are all pretty young, but they are redefining hardcore music with their mix of crunching guitars, emotion, and melody. By using two vocalists they are able to create a really rich sound with both screamed and melodic vocals. Their songs incorporate components from all types of hardcore and emo music into a cohesive whole that is original yet inviting. Not only that, but they put on a great show. Their relative youth makes the between song banter somewhat akward, but none of the kids in the crowd matter at all. They love Recover and the band seems really supportive of the local crowds who have supported them during their relatively short life as Austin hardcore favorites. I’ve seen Recover about a dozen times and though the last few shows have had very similar sets, mainly songs off their new Fueled by Ramen release Rodeo and Picasso, the absolute energy of the band, their tight musicianship, and their overwhelmingly infectious exhuberance for playing their music. It was a rocking show, plain and simple. Seeing recover play is definitely one of the things I’ll miss most about Austin and it was great to see them play one last time before I head up north to the land of medio-core. The last band to play was also very energized and interexting, though I didn’t care for their style of music quite as much. Temple hometown boys Those Peabodys play what I can best describe as broken down classic rock played by indie rock kids. Its good high energy stuff and a fitting end to a rocking evening. The reception that was given to the band was really what a small town show is all about. It doesn’t matter how different the bands sound. Its all about supporting your friends bands, supporting the scene, and having a good time. I’ve been to a lot of good shows this summer, but I don’t think I’ve had as much fun as I did at the show last night. I’d trade a local show like that for any show in the world.

I didn’t make it back to Austin in time to catch the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show, but I hardly cared. I had enough rock to last for weeks.

Perfect Song

I’ve often joked to my friends that every song should have, A, a breakdown
and B, a sing along chorus. However, when one hears a song that one thinks
is perfect, it is clear that the formula to achieve such perfection is
a bit more complex than the two aforementioned items. Still, despite such
complexity, it is quite frequently that I hear a song that I would dub as
perfect.

Before I delve too deeply into this subject in general, I suppose I should
discuss the factors that lead me to write about perfect songs. This weekend
I’ve been listening to a bunch of music, and two songs, Stretch Armstrong’s
‘For The Record’ and The Buzzcock’s ‘What Do I Get?’ both struck me as
being absolutely perfect songs. So, I’ll use these two tunes as a basis for
the remainder of my discussion. In any case, I strongly urge you to listen
to both songs.

So what makes a perfect song? Well, I’d say a sing-a-long chorus, but it
goes deeper than that. I mean, I could certainly think of jazz, classical, or
other instrumental pieces that could be considered perfect. The key is that
the song should have a hook. It doesn’t matter if the hook is a sing-along-chorus,
a little guitar riff, or a couple of bars of sampled noise. There just needs
to be a short snippet of the song that abstracts the entire rest of the song.
It can either summarize the raw, most basic essence of the song’s meaning
or provide the center for which all the themes of the song resonate and
contrast with. This feature is one shared by both of my above examples.
First, the Stretch track has the chorus “We were more than just a tour date,
you were more than just a song. We sang and sweat together and helped to
carry on”. The second song, of course, has the anguished query, “What do I
get?” This is why pop music is, well, popular. This is the essence of musical
theatre. Both of these genres are crazily adept at creating these little pop
hooks. Think of the number of times you’ve heard a song that just gets stuck
in one’s head. That’s the hook! But we’ve all had Backstreet Boys or ‘NSuck
tunes stuck in our heads. Does that make them perfect songs? Of course not
which brings me to my second component of a perfect song.

A perfect song should capture something basic about the human condition in
general, and my life in particular. It helps if this idea is purveyed as part
of the hook. It must present this idea in a way that shows the songwriter
really feels, or at least has thought long and hard about the subject matter
of the song. Furthermore, the clever binding of the essence of the song’s
meaning to the hook forces the listener to evaluate the subject matter in the
context of their own existence rather than just from the artist’s perspective.
The Stretch song is about hardcore shows. Now this has a great deal of
importance to me because going to DIY punk and hardcore shows is one of the
five most important experiences that has shaped me into the person I am today.
Universally though, the song expresses one of the hidden values of music
in general. Music isn’t just a garble of notes. Music is a gift, a bond,
between people. It is a revelation, its feeling comfortable and confident
amongst people to bare your soul, to strip down naked and run through the
streets or quietly embrace the one you love. Furthermore, it creates a
certain bond, not just between the artist and the listener but between
listener and listener. It makes sense. Experiencing such honesty and
openness, such a calculated exhibition of the human spirit breaks down
the barriers that people usually build up between each other. The simple line
“We were more than just a tour date, you were more than just a song. We sang
and sweat together and helped to carry on”, captures all of this.

Similarly, the Buzzcock’s song could be the single best punk rock anthem of
all time. “What Do I Get?” presents a question that is representative of
the true spirit of punk rock: not an unabating, nihilistic anger, but a
disillusioned frustration. The song doesn’t just tell of the anguish of
non-existent or disappointing love, but of being cheated by the world at
large. This frustration is particularly pointed to those of us in the
midst of our youth. We have been bombarded, in our short existences, with
notions of true love, of success, of happiness. We value these things, we
yearn for these things, but too often, we find that they escape us or are
replaced by cheap substitutes. We are left to throw up our hands, knowing
our impotence but also knowing that we won’t submit. All we can do is smile
and in a half-snarl ask “what do I get?”

Well, I thought that there were more components to the perfect song, but
now that I think of it, its just the two: the hook and the honest commentary
on human existence. I’ve spent enough time analyzing why I like what I like.
Now I’m going to go listen to some records and for at least two minutes and
fifty-five seconds, feel that all is right with the world.

For Peter

As you recount tales of literature lectures,
of writing symposiums,
of ivy vines clinging to walls of ancient brick
opportunities.
I am struck by the fiercest jealousy that I have ever known.
Made more bitter by the fact that your words do not drip with gloating pride
(moist, perhaps, but certainly not dripping).
No, your words shine with a blinding excitement.
A taunting contagion.
A knowledge of what you love.
And a promise that you will have it.
Slumming amidst grease traps and deep fryers,
for some a dead end, but no, not you.
Last summer’s employment now a springboard towards world domination.
Your master plan sweeping across your life like plastic pieces across the continent of the risk board where we played last summer.
And I know
that you will suck the meat of life down to its wretched core.
And suck the marrow from those frail remains.
But I wonder
will there be any left for me?

First Days

Originally written on Wednesday 06.20.2001

I’m sitting in the lobby of the computer company where I am to be employed. I was supposed to meet my manager in the lobby of this building about 30 minutes ago. Despite the assurances by the orientation facilitator that my manager would be informed of our initial meeting, as has been the case far too frequently, I am the victim of continuing logistic confusion. This is just great. Another frustration after days filled w/ frustration. Yesterday and the day before I suffered through punishingly dull corporate orientation. Save for the corporate overview, which I found to be challenging and interesting, the orientation reeked more of junior high than a class appropriate for college students and those w/ master’s degrees. It is surely a test of will to survive a day in a windowless room bathed in throbbing fluorescent light while being bombarded by PowerPoint slide after PowerPoint slide. I have heard that some companies are banning PowerPoint in their meetings. Now I see why. It seems that PowerPoint encourages presenters to be as verbose and flashy as possible rather than distill the information down to its most essential concepts.

The other aspect of this whole endeavor that is terribly frustrating is the fact that my long time friend, colleague and traveling partner, Josh, takes to the corporate environment like a fish to water. He’s very good at what he does, not just on the technical side but also in terms of fitting into the corporate culture. I find myself being drawn into a competition with him, partially through his goading, but mostly because of my personality. I hope that some day I learn to bow out of competitions that don’t really matter to me. But dammit, I want to be the best at everything. As I get older and realize how often I’m going to have to settle at being pretty good, or decent I become more and more frightened. I feel as though I should have found my niche, my calling by now. Well, I’m pretty sure that my niche is not working for an enormous, multinational computer corporation.

There are things that make me forget about the less pleasant things in life, however. I went to a show last night at this little club downtown called Emo’s. The show featured River City High, Benjamin, and The Julianna Theory. Besides having a really solid lineup, it was an early show which is always good if one has to work the following morning. Benjamin played first and they were very good, but not astoundingly memorable. So, I’m going to talk about the other two bands instead. Richmond, VA rockers River City High played next. Despite the fact that they play through central PA with some frequency, I had not seen the band until last summer in Austin. They were quite good, but this time they were even better. The crowd was larger, and despite the heat more energized. This worked well because River City High is a band that exudes energy. They seem to have a great deal of fun playing their music and they play a style of post-punk rock and roll that is jubulant and without pretense. It has the energy of punk rock along with tight pop melodies. They also manage to throw in some irresistable guitar hooks and a certain degree of 70s and 80s guitar rockness that makes them a joy to see when they play out. Their full length out this fall will be eagerly awaited. It was strange going to this show and standing near the front because I was surrounded by kids who seemed much younger than me. Sheesh, I’m only 20 and already I feel like a grandfather. It was encouraging seeing young people, their peers no doubt belly up amongst ‘nsync and crazy town, listening to some music with some real soul. Its cool to see girls going to the shows, not reluctantly on the arm of their boyfriends but because they like it. The Julianna Theory played next. I had seen them before as well when they played a truncated set on a fall evening in Columbus. Though they were good, at the time they seemed tired. This show took their set to a different level. The Austin kids who go to shows seem so much more excited to see bands than the Columbus kids and I think that makes the difference in terms of performance quality. The J. Theory worked through a tight set, mostly songs off their latest release, Emotion is Dead that kept building and building to increasing heights of intensity. I was excited that they seemed excited to be playing. So, I had a really good time at the show. I guess even if work gets boring and things with Josh grow tired, the shows will make this summer worthwhile.

One week

Originally written Saturday 06.23.2001

I’ve been in Austin, TX for exactly one week. After rolling around town with Dana and Josh
it seems like I’ve done everything already. We saw the largest colony of mexican free
tailed bats last night and today we hit the crazy antique and vintage clothing stores on
south congress street. I’ve been to Emo’s to a show already and I’ve been to the giant
movie theatre that charges too much for tickets. I’ve gotten ice cream at the fun little
joint where we always went last summer. The bad part about being itinerant, living
somewhere, but, at the same time, not really living somewhere, is that one appreciates a
given local in and of itself and not really as a backdrop for life. Austin is a great town,
I like it very much. The music, the crazy, pretty eclectic culture, the laid back warmth,
its all great, but I still feel like a tourist. The only locals I ever come in contact with
are the ones who are taking my money from across a counter.

Work seems like it will be pretty cool. I think its better suited for me than last summer,
as its more software based. Still, I find that there is a great deal of information that I
don’t know. In school, we worked primarily with the SPARC architecture rather than intel
architecture, and though the assembly languages have similarities, there is a wealth of
information that I don’t entirely grasp. So, I’ve spent my first 3 days of real work
reading spec after spec and stepping through source file after source file. SMBIOS,
PCIBIOS, Intel System Programmer’s guide. These massive tomes would be impossible to read
in a summer, but I try to process as much relevent information as I can from them. The
problem is, I’m not entirely sure what is relevant. The hardest part about being a co-op is
the ambgiuties from my employers. When my job isn’t really strictly defined, I find it far
too easy to become overwhelmed by all the information that could be potentially pertainant.

I feel as if I should try to bring myself up to the same level as the veterans in a few
weeks. I need to get past my anxiety and talk to my manager and figure out exactly what I
should be learning right now rather than pawing about aimlessly.

One problem with the company where I work is that it seems relatively old, at least with
respect to the tech sector. I work around older people, in their 30s and 40s or foreign
nationals, neither of which shares much in common with me in terms of interests. I know,
someome somewhere is preparing a lesson in diversity for me, but sometimes what one realy
needs is just some common, comfortable, familiar ground when it comes to people. The
environment is just so different from the raucus, juvenile quality of the ISP where I spent
my freshman summer, or even the startup in Boston where I interviewed. We passed the Excite
building when we were hopping about the antique stores today. Its chic location, even if
contrived, seemed to still have worlds more soul than the sterile campus of my employer.
“It’s about the knowledge and the experience stupid”, I keep telling myself.

One week has made me realize how much of a liar I was in my last relationship. Well, not a
liar really I guess because I didn’t have anything to guage it against, but now I find
myself willing, no, not willing, but overwhelmingly eager to do all the things that I
dismissed before. No longer am I “crunched for time” or “without anything intersting to
write about”. Now I find myself scrawling letter after letter to my new girlfriend
realizing that there is nothing I would rather be doing than penning words that would
probably have made my old self nauseous with their dripping sentiment. Dripping sentiment.
That’s the hardest part. I like this girl a lot. More than any other girl I’ve ever known,
but I find that I am increasingly fearful that my words are inadequate in expressing how I
feel towards her. I certainly hope that my feelings are completely reciprocated, which I
think they are, and indeed that equality is what makes the relationship seem so comfortable.

But at the same time it is incredibly frightening. I know that words are so often just the
facade of those who do not truly live life or feel an emotion, but I always find myself
trying to communicate the way I feel about dating this girl with words. And, I never feel
as though I’ve said enough. I feel as if I’m being cliched. Or, I feel as though I come
off as too detached, too icy, too unconcerned. So, I find myself constantly reaching for
the right words and instead finding the sappiest most cliched sentiment that my person can
muster. It pains me to utter it. Its all true, every sappy word I say, but I’ve heard
those words uttered so much, buzzing about my like radio static. I’ve heard them uttered
with such insincerity that the very semblance of my words seems to cheapen them. What lies
below those words though, is a knowledge whose expression words fail. Some day I hope that
I can just be comfortable in that knowledge and not feel as though everything that is
beautiful to me must be continually fought for.

She doesn’t make it easy though. She sent me a package that I received midweek that had the
absolute coolest contents ever. First there was a nice letter, adorned in crazy stickers
that was so sweet, so innocent, that if you had been the recipient you also would have been
very glad that whoever wrote it was alive in this world. I received, also a pen adorned
with a sound clip spouting C3PO head. That would have been cool by itself, but the best was
still to come. We have this little semi-private joke. Its this two beaked bird that she
drew for me one time when we were studying together before we were dating. Well, she
constructed, by hand no less, a stuffed version of the bird. It was overwhelmingly clever
and adds a touch of her excitement and originality to the sterility of my room. It was
easily one of the coolest things that anyone has every given me. This summer should be full
of surprise gifts, but it presents an interesting challenge for me to be eqaully clever and
creative. I shall be the better for it, I’m sure.

It has also been one week since I last saw my friend D. who is also working in Texas at a
computer company. She’s quite interesting in that she possesses a unique flexibility to
slide effortlessly between different people or groups of people. She’s oddly tolerent and
diplomatic in a way that seems completely foreign to me. She’s quite intelligent and to my
chagrin posesses far more natural aptitude and talent for all things computer science than
I. She also listens to some of the same music that I enjoy, but talks of the bands she
likes with no arrogance. The thing that I find odd about her is her overwhelming sexuality.
It seems to come up incessently in conversation and it seems for her a frequent torment.
It is a world that I surely don’t understand, but with her it seems more idiosyncratic than
base. There are times when I can converse with her as I do to those people whose
conversations I most enjoy, but there are other times when I feel like an outsider to her
wildness. She reminds me, in some respects of a girl I knew in high school who was also
displayed the same wild brilliance. Also, they seem to both share some festering scars,
just below the surface, that I will never be able to comprehend. Nevertheless, D. seems to
be the least tormented of many that I know. She is content with her talents and bright
future and resolute in the path she will take. In some ways I am quite jealous of the fact
that she is so very good at her chosen field that her career decisiosn are made trivial. In
the end though, I was happy to see her as her company offers a distinct counterpoint to that
of my perpetual companion, J. (as I’m sure it does to him as well). Perhaps semi-frequent
visits will quell the rage of familiarity, lonliness, and boredom that so troubled me last
summer.

Its been one week since I hit Austin, and it seems that not all that much has happened. More
disturbing still though, is the increasing proximity to July 4th on the calendar. Ever
since childhood, dispite the frivolity of the fireworks and picnics, July 4th has always
been a harbinger of the coming autumn, a reminder of the tenuous nature of summer freedom.
So, in the weeks to come I plan to continue with my summer projects of reading, writing,
coding and guitarplaying with a new found urgency so that I will have more to report when
two weeks have passed.

The Second Day of Driving To TX

This was originally written on Friday 05.15.2001

I think that my girlfriend’s two black cats did me in. While visiting her the past two days, the seemingly innocent creatures crossed my path dozens of times. Now I am paying the price. Either that or my response of “Are there pirates in hell?” to this morning’s CB evangelist’s hellfire and brimstone rhetoric was offensive enough to incur the wrath of some higher power.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good despite the utter craziness of yesterday. It was around 6 o’clock, the sun beginning its evening descent towards the horizon as the river of steel began to overflow its concrete banks. We had cut south down the highway; starting in Columbus, then running through Louisville and Nashville before turning west towards the great Mississippi and the city of Memphis. We were perhaps fifteen miles from our final destination of West Memphis Arkansas when our smooth 80 mph cruise changed to the abrupt start and stop of city traffic. As the traffic picked up again, I realized that my vehicle was not joining them. I made a quick check to make sure that I had not knocked the car into neutral but the flashing lights on the dashboard told a different woeful tale. I managed to guide my crippled ride to the edge of the overpass and send a helpless squawk to Josh over the CB. I turned off the engine and was not surprised when the car would not start again.

I stepped from my car into the hot late afternoon sun. I laughed a bit. I guess I am not entirely my father’s son. He would have been livid by now. What was I to do? Nothing. Nothing, but wait for some help to arrive and hope for the best. Eventually a cop rolled up and uttered something almost unintelligible about roadside assistance. Over the course of the next two hours I spent stranded on the roadside I saw at least half a dozen police cards drive by. None of them even slowed. I’m not sure if it was because my break down was already reported or just general apathy, but it tended to get frustrating.

Eventually a big yellow truck filled with two smiling men pulled up behind me. They stumbled slowly towards the car, their continuing smiles making them look dopey and stupid (or perhaps I was more irritated than I initially thought). They popped open the trunk, fiddled around with a few things and even added some gas to the tank. It was an exercise in futility but I wasn’t going to object given gas prices, however. Eventually accepting failure, the dynamic duo let me use their cell phone to call AAA for a tow truck. By then Josh had managed to swing back around the crowded highway, so we sat on the concrete divider, ate the last of my road fuel pretzels and made snide comments about passersby. No one is as adept at making snide comments as Josh. We waited and waited for more than an hour for the tow truck to arrive. I finally called AAA once again to check on the status of the driver when, surprise surprise, the tow truck pulled in front of me. A large man drove it, rolls of fat spilling forth from his sweat drenched muscle shirt. On his arm were tattooed the words “dirty deeds done dirt cheap”. Whooboy. He pulled my car onto the bed of the tow truck and I climbed into the passenger seat. The driver then proceeded to get out of the cab, lift the hood of the tow truck and begin tinkering around. When the tow truck driver needs to look under the hood, that is generally not a good sign. Luckily, he eventually returned to the cab, satisfied that all things mechanical were in order, and we began a drive to the nearest garage. During the drive, the tow truck man talked incessantly on his cell phone and I was surprised that he was able to deliver my car and my person safely to the garage.

He dumped my crippled Escort wagon in a vacant spot in the Firestone service center’s parking lot. The garage had just closed and one of the mechanics ambled towards us. In a dripping southern accent that was nearly unintelligible to my Yankee ears he asked what the problem was. I tried to explain the incident as best I could, but I fear my knowledge of the automobile is laughable. He instructed me to open the hood and try to start the car. He gleefully proclaimed that the problem was surely the timing belt and told me to tell that to the manager when the shop opened the next day so as to avoid extra costs. He even said that he would inform the other mechanics at my shop of the predicament. I was a bit taken aback by his honesty given the general shadiness of many garages, but his help was much appreciated.

As I mentioned before, Josh and I were only a few miles from the night’s planned destination. As dusk fell, we rolled across the Mississippi and into the trucker’s heaven that is West Memphis Arkansas. During all of my previous trips down to the lone star state, I had always complained about the fact that all the journeys lacked that true road trip quality. The drives were monotonous, the hotel rooms sterile, the restaurants the kind that could be had anywhere in any given metropolis across this country. Well, that night would be a bit of a departure from that norm. We pulled into the parking lot of the hotel room and instantly noticed not only a preponderance of motorcycles, but also an automobile that appeared to be 30% metal and 70% duct tape and rope. The inside of the hotel had a similarly trashy quality. The room had an odd odor. Looking into the bathroom I noticed a mildewed floor and what appeared to be the stains of fecal matter on the wall. A lone fly buzzed about to complete the effect. We were too tired to be fazed by all of this and decided to seek nourishment. Despite what one would thing, West Memphis is hardly an epicurean Mecca. We had our choice of the truck stop next door, MacDonald’s, and Toxic Hell. We opted for the truck stop.

Now, if one is looking for a slice of real America; the grittiness of the road, a unique culture apart from mainstream society, one will surely find it at a truck stop. As we entered the smoky establishment, glittering gift shop to our right and restaurant to our left, we were struck by the sight of enormous truckers piling mountain loads of food into their mouths from the all you can eat buffet. We sat in a deserted corner of the restaurant at a table with a telephone next to it (all good truck stops have phones at the table) so that I could call my mom and tell her of my predicament. The waitress came and took our orders. If you want good service go to a truck stop. The waitresses (and they are always waitresses) may be old and haggard and call you ‘hon, but they are generally pleasant and always efficient as hell. I tried to eat most of my home fries and pancakes, but truck stop fare is heavy and the stress of the day, which at first had made me ravenous, now left me a bit nauseated. We paid our bill and laughed with the cashier as she commented on her incompetence at swiping our credit cards. We then returned to the hotel, made a few phone calls and went to sleep praying that we wouldn’t contract some horrible sexually transmitted disease just from sleeping in the hotel beds.

Today was a better day. We woke up early and went to the garage where I informed the garage management of my need for service. They said they would get the car in as soon as possible and estimated a bill of about $300. Not great, but better than the worse case scenario, a destroyed engine. We grabbed a lengthy breakfast at the IHOP and waited until 1 PM until they finally finished with the car. We gassed up and drove like hell to the west. A day of 80 mph driving meant that even with the morning’s setback we were able to reach our planned destination of Dallas just as the cars around us began to turn on their headlights.