A Smattering of Photos From Our Time in the Driftless

Sorry for the formatting. I don't know what I'm doing.


Bob and I are in Madison. It's Sunday night, 10:23 pm. Bob is watching a cable show called Ninja Warrior, which looks and feel like American Gladiators with a little Double Dare thrown into it. What's really annoying to me is that Bob would totally rag on the show if it was American, but because his girlfriend is Japanese he's all for it. Claims the show improves the moral character of the today's youth. Makes your hair grow back. He keeps trying to sell me on the virtues of a show about shirtless Japanese men running through a timed obstacle course even though I'm clearly not paying attention, typing with my back to the TV, and I have headphones on.

Since we have another day before we head down to Springfield, Illinois, I thought I'd include a smattering of photos from our Travels. So far our travels have gone nothing as originally planned which is exactly as we intended. My friend Praveen told all about this phenomenon.

The pictures are jumbled up and do not really appear in a coherent order. You see Ms. Christiane's 8th grade class from the Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School. We interviewed them. They were bright and open and generous. It really pissed me off. I felt like they had skipped a few too many levels on the human food chain. One kid, Erik Shepard, later asked me if I liked the bands Tool and Dream Theater. Tool? TOOL? At least I could make fun of the names of the kids. Summer. Evergreen. My favorite: Lichen. Lichen isn't even a thing. It's a relationship between fungus and regular plants. Ha. Lichen. Now I can feel good about myself.

There's a cluster of photos of the Dreamtime Village, where the Wild Things Are. Yeah, I know, it's a cliche: visit an Anarchist Commune and immediately pick up a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook and ask, "Hey, why can't I find that recipe for the mushroom risotto?"

There's Chris with the dreads, and another of Chris and his girlfriend Bonnie practically having intercourse in public. Who knew Anarchists were so damn frisky? I liked Chris and Bonnie. Chris works at the Heartland Cafe. If Bob and I make it to Chicago, or if I make it to Chicago without Bob, we'll eat there. Bonnie is an anarchist fashion designer who makes politically evocative haute couture from reconstituted WW II military garb, like boots and dynamite. Bonnie and Chris spent a lot of time in the garden.

and there's Micaela, the Irish lass from LA who's living in Dreamtime for the second time in 8 years, this time with her son Thurman who is funny and looks like a four foot Eric Idle. I thoroughly enjoyed stomping Thurman and Bob in a spelling contest. I found out Bob can't spell, to wit, : Ostrich, Necessary, February, and Privilege. I almost spit up my organic squash and lentil soup laughing at Bob's attempt at Ostrich: Austarach. I also beat Thurman at several games based on the Pythagorean Theorem.

There's the ornery goose, Margarita. He has his own huge pen because of his penchant for biting and hitting, especially women. A misogynistic water fowl. Forget about it.

There's the fireworks. We had what amounted to a professional fireworks show two Saturdays ago to celebrate the church consecration at St. Isaac's. Fr. Simeon used to be the fire-chief of the volunteer fire department of the small town in Oklahoma where he began his life as a monk. He volunteered the monastery for fire duty. It was on 20/20 about 20 years ago. Or maybe it was Real People. It was Real People. It's difficult to maintain total recall after dealing with all the head trauma I suffered as a child actor on the set of the Incredible Hulk. I'm kidding. My parents beat me.

So we had fireworks. It was hilarious to watch to monks in full regalia lighting Class A fireworks, meant for South Dakota-esque State Fairs, with firework names like "Warrior Master," and for the benefit of just under 20 people, mostly nuns and whatnot. Needless to say the deafening explosions brought back horrible memories of the Tet Offensive so I instinctively cut Bob's throat, and ran to the hills to escape my Charlie Company Captors and ate bugs and drank my own urine to survive.

Speaking of Fr. Simeon, there he his, whitebeard and all, with his childhood friend Stan. 60 years ago they were just two normal Jewish kids growing up in Chicago. They put their pants on one hour at time just like you and me. And now, here they are. Sharing a moment on the consecration day. Check out Sister Elizabeth. She might've been my favorite. I knew I could open up to her on a personal level after she called Mother Teresa, "overrated." This is a nun after my heart. Sister Elizabeth was actually in Mother Teresa's order, so she met the women. I always suspected Mother Teresa was largely a media creation, publicity stunt. And yeah, I know she died in a plane on the way to Diana's funeral. And yeah, I know Elton John sang Candle in the Wind at Diana's funeral. And yeah, I know Elton John is gay. Wait, Elton John is gay? Does that make all of his songs gay? Crap. Bob and I were singing a duet of Rocket Man yesterday. Bob told me he likes to sing space-themed songs from the 70s, one after another. He said it makes him woebegone to realize space travel isn't that great. So we sang Ground Control to Major Tom. And Rocket Man. Bob knew almost all the lyrics, which was helpful because I knew only the chorus.

There's Bob with his Pink Hat and backpack. That was taken the day we left Mark Shepard's permaculture farm off of highway 56. Mark is the guy with the white shirt and baseball cap. He's like a botanical Thomas Edison. He's a former Dreamtimer who worked with Miekal, the jolly, lumbering founder of the place. Miekal is like Old Major from Animal Farm. I guess that makes Mark Snowball. What trips me out, is how Lenin and Marx based all their ideas on Orwell's quaint fable. Smart dudes.

Tomorrow Bob and I head off for Springfield, Illinois, my official birthplace. We're going to profile Springfield as our model for the "Grid." Plus, I gots to see Gramma Clarke. She's 92 and raised me for basically the first two years of my life since my mom couldn't do it. Mom was busy getting herself off the junk. She grew up on the streets of Baltimore with a needle in her arm but gold in her heart. By the time she had me, Mom was nearly far gone. I knew it was either get a scholarship for basketball and move onto the NBA or we would go hungry. Or is that the plot to Hoop Dreams? Is Hoop Dreams the one with Leonardo DiCaprio as heroin addict? Be honest with me right now: we all know it was totally immoral for Leo to portray the mentally retarded kid, right? but secretly you got off on it, didn't you? Check your conscience pal.

Anyway, Bob and I getting ready to leave Tuesday. I'm a little concerned how Bob will go over with my Uncle Mike. The pink bunny hat. The glasses. The slight physical stature. The constant desire to discuss Japanese culture and robots. The indifference to football. We're going to have to answer a lot of difficult questions.

Until then.

We're Pitching a Tent.

We're pitching a tent. Bob has his own. It's getting dark. Disaster awaits.

Bob's Teaching A Class

We're at the Viroqua public library. Bob said, "A LIBRARY!" and I went, "ooooh." Criminally nerdy.

Big day for Bob and I. Worked at Mark Shepard's farm picking squash. Mark is a former Dreamtimer who now owns a fairly badass joint off of highway 56. One of the Dreamtimer's set us up with this gig, bless her heart, but she didn't tell us the job paid squat. Squat for squash. The job paid 1 dollar per bushel picked, with 20 bushels per bin. There were a total of 12 bins. There 6 of us Dreamers. If we did all 12 bins, at 20 bushels per, it would come to 240 dollars, 40 dollars per person. Mark said he and Duane the geezer could do one bin per hour. We managed to clear a total of 2. In 5 hours. Mark kept dropping subtle hints that we were behind, saying, "You guys should have a lot more done."

The job sort of sucked. Working sucks. I could never be a medieval serf if being a medieval serf is anything like farming. You stand around in mud and weeds, it's cold and cloudy, and everyone around you is an Anarchist with more hair. And you're just picking shit off of vines and cleaning it and putting it into bags and dumping the bags into bins, and then a guy with a tractor takes the bins. Plus there were several hundred slugs on every fifth squash, which was mildy revolting. Jessica, another Dreamtimer, called me a delicate flower. She said farmers should plant fields of me. Bonnie and Chris, the anarchist couple agreed I was "prissy." Chris chastised me for labeling certain botanical organisms "weeds," and said what people called weeds were relative. Then he said people pull weeds too quickly from their lawns. He said people should let weeds grow for a time, since grass will just take over naturally. I said, "like gentrification?" Everyone stared.

Then I got really hungry. Haven't ate much. Kept talking about sandwiches. Chris gave me detail instructions for how to eat bugs and plants as an alternative. All I wanted to do was talk about Turkey sandwiches. Priceless material. Rich. Great for the Doc: six Dreamtimers working on an Anarchist farm in the gorgeous environs of the Driftless.

Except Bob didn't bring the camera. He said, "we're not filmmakers today; we're farmhands." I told him that was going in the blog. Then I said I was going to wring his neck. He told me he would brain me with an acorn squash. we all laughed.

We left Mark's but not before making plans to stay at his farm this Saturday. Mark is an Anarchist Financial Genius who knows a lot about what he calls, "Creative Borrowing." We would need graphic organizers to explain it.

We spent the rest of the day setting up our profile of the Youth Initiative High School: http://www.yihs.net/ and the Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School. We're in with both schools. They love us. We kept referring to our documentary as "Off the Grid." It's just a metaphor, but it works. It sings. Not having the camera actually paid off. The headmasters of both schools didn't tense up. By the end of the day we were in the main adminstrative office typing up release forms, emails, I was checking my ebay status of the Bruce tickets I'm selling, and Bob was helping a student with a project. Chinese Films. Bob went into a mini-Post-Doc thesis about "the difference between Fifth and Sixth Generation Chinese Filmmakers and the World Cinema Market." Then he offered to be a substitute for the film teacher on Friday. What the hell is going on here?

So that's our story for now. Bob's teaching and I'm a delicate flower.

Until then,

Kneel Before Zod!

Bob and I have decided to visit the Youth Initiative high school. It's a school started by students. We're going to profile the school as one of our communities. The school is in Viroqua.

Bob is in the next room watching a documentary called The Real Dirt on Farmer John. Last night he was a big hit with the crowd here at Dreamtime after he shared his stash of Gummy Choco, a tasty Japanese candy. All the anarchists ate that up hook, line, and sinker. Bob just loves LOVES telling everyone his girlfriend is from Japan. Gives him street cred. Like wearing a Canadian Maple Leaf on your backpack in Europe. No one cares that my girlfriend is French Canadian Polish.

In other news, we've started to see our doc coming into focus. We're looking at communities "off the grid." One of the guests here, Makeala, and her man, Cullen, told us about going up North, to a piece of property that had no electricity. It was "Off the grid." I like it. It's got a ring to it, like "off the Hook." Although Zon doesn't like it. He refuses to answer whether or not he's off the grid. Says I'm using the metaphor incorrectly. Foiled again. Maybe he's irked because I accidentally called him Zod, the villain from Superman 2 played by Terrance Stamp.

Until then.

We're Going Back to School

Bob and I have decided to visit the Youth Initiative high school. It's a school started by students. We're going to profile the school as one of our communities. The school is in Viroqua.

Bob is in the next room watching a documentary called The Real Dirt on Farmer John. Last night he was a big hit with the crowd here at Dreamtime after he shared his stash of Gummy Choco a tasty Japanese candy. All the anarchists ate that up hook, line, and sinker. Bob just loves LOVES telling everyone his girlfriend is from Japan. Gives him street cred. Like wearing a Canadian Maple Leaf on your backpack in Europe. No one cares that my girlfriend is French Canadian Polish.

In other news, we've started to see our doc coming into focus. We're looking at communities "off the grid." One of the guests here, Makeala, and her man, Cullen, told us about going up North, to a piece of property that had no electricity. It was "Off the grid." I like it. It's got a ring to it, like "off the Hook." Although Zon doesn't like it. He refuses to answer whether or not he's off the grid. Says I'm using the metaphor incorrectly. Foiled again. Maybe he's irked because I accidentally called him Zod, the villain from Superman 2 played by Terrance Stamp.

Until then.

Bob is an Anarchist

We're here at the Dreamtime Village. (www.dreamtimevillage.org) Lucas gave us a ride from Soldier's Grove, WI, in a borrowed car. Who's Lucas? Bob met him yesterday at the Country Garden Motel and Lodge. Only 42 dollars for a room. Bob and I shared a room. Risha Murray gave us a lift in her pick up truck from St. Isaac's. She called us "fakers" for taking a ride. She dropped us off at the Country Garden's motel, where the "lodge" tavern doubles as the front desk. Within minutes we had a room.

Buck antlers and trophy heads adorned the walls, and a leather feed bucket hung from the rafters. There were rafters. The only humans inside were Anna the manager and Lisa the bartender. Lisa hates the Packers because they ignored her handicapped brother during a charity event in Soldier's Grove. I told Lisa I didn't blame her for her radical stance, but I couldn't get behind it since Favre happens to be my spiritual guru. Anyway, it was a perfect place to catch the second half of the Packer's awe-inspiring, ball-stomping victory over the Chargers.

Actually, Bob didn't watch the game. He has an aversion to professional sports and the people who watch them. He was wandering around the back of the motel with his camera. That's how he met Lucas. Lucas was playing a saxaphone on a bench behind the motel. Bob stood three feet from Lucas and recorded him. Lisa and I watched from the bar. Then I told her about our plans to visit communities in the area, like Dreamtime. She had no idea it existed, so we talked about Bar fights and who the toughest guy in Soldier's Grove was. It's Dave Pugh.

Back to Lucas. He's young. Bob-type young. And he has lots of red hair, and a tattoo of one four empty bars of music on the inside of his forearm. Whenever he finds a riff he likes, he'll pen in the notes on his arm to write down in a ledger. He knew about Dreamtime and said he'd get us a ride. I felt a little conflicted about this, since Bob and I have only walked one day of our now 7 day journey.

Also, I was fairly sure Lucas was going to kidnap us, take us to an abandoned house and make Bob cut off my testicles with my Gerber hunting knife. I made Bob record my last words for the camera in the motel parking lot just minutes before Lucas arrived. Bob didn't seem scared in the least bit. He's very trusting, which is really a bad trait of his.

But Lucas didn't kidnap us, rob us, or make Bob remove my special organ. We got to Dreamtime around 2 pm. It's in West Lima, Wisconsin. Population 50. The closest store is about 6 miles away. (We're in the Driftless zone of Wisconsin-see map above- the part not touched by the glaciers. It's quite stunning to look at. People call themselves the Drifltess, which is funny because so many drifters came here to start farms and communities, like Organic Valley Farms). So that's where we are. At the moment we are two of about a dozen people staying here.

We've only been for a few hours, so I don't want to make any sweeping conclusions. We came in trying to get a hold on the philosophy of Anarchy. Most people get sort of freaked out by the word. The people here know that, and diplomatically distance themselves from the label. I can say this is a community that revolves principles, and those principles find expression in the way they eat and grow food. One of the guests, who arrived on friday from Chicago with his girlfriend, was more forthright in discussing anarchy. He said militant anarchy has it's place, but resistance starts and ends with "food and fuel." When we asked Zon to enumerate the basics of anarchy he visibly recoiled. Then he pointed to a pile of horse dung in front of us and said, " this horse shit is what believe. We take this horse shit and turn into it something beautiful. This horseshit will help us feed hundreds of people over the next few years." So there you go.

Anyway, as we were filming people in the main lodging facility, "The Hotel", I asked people about the kind of music anarchists listen to. Francis named a band I never heard of, but Bob chimed in, "They're excellent. or they use to be." Francis concurred. Bob said he liked post-rock music. Francis said anarchists tend to favor any "post" music. Bob nodded his head. I knew it. Toads, post-rock music, the funny looking mesh hat with the pink bunny rabbit on it: Bob's a neo-anarchist libertarian socialist. Both Francis and Bob sort of chuckled when I mentioned the Beatles and the Stones. "I use to like the Beatles", said Francis. "Who doesn't?"
Then Francis and Bob exchanged knowing glances and head nods.

They're eating dinner now. Bob is helping with the cooking and place setting. Lending a hand, establishing himself as the good one. Again. I'm the fluff schmuck who likes to "blog". Oooh.
I have no idea what the next few days will have in store. I'm sure we will learn a boatload. I will tell you this. I am staying in a the room of a legally insane man who comes to Dreamtime every five weeks. Tonight I'm going to commune with his spirit. Bob is going to discuss Post-Rock and make everyone like him more than me.

Until then.

Wait'll the Anarchists Get a Load of Bob

We've decided on our next destination, and in true documentarian fashion, it is not a part of our original itinerary. We're going to the Dreamtime Village in La Farge, Wisconsin, about 41 miles north of the monastery. Google them. They're an anarchist collective dedicated to permaculture. We're not sure what that means, but we're going to find out.

Everyone Loves Bob

Saturday, September 23, 2007

I don't have time to write a lengthy post because the dinner bell is going to ring soon, then after dinner, it's daily Vespers, which is like Mass on a diet for the Orthodox community.

Bob and I have been living it up at St. Isaac of Syria's monastery, here in Boscobel, located in a vale of nearly pristine land, untouched by civilization or the Ice Age. We've been here since Wednesday evening. What we thought would be a quaint one day visitation to a group of aesetics living an antiquated lifestyle, has turned out to be nothing such.

We've spent the rest of the time talking to people. Amazing stories. I won't share all of them because they are too numerous and because, like I said, dinner is in a short while. But they have been amazing. Extreme. Extreme is the word. The guy who started St. Isaac's-Fr. Simeon- was an extreme guy. He came to find Jesus while in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, back in 1964. This is after being a practicing Hindu. This is after growing up Jewish in Chicago. Since founding St. Isaac's in 1986, this place has attracted the sort of extreme people Fr. Simeon was. Nearly everyone is a convert. Nearly everyone has a new name (Fr. Simeon's birth name is Alan), nearly everyone came from a place of despair or alienation. Many used alternative forms of self-medication. Furthermore, Bob and I came three months after two monks left, after nearly 11 years of commitment, for very personal reasons. One arrived, courageously and unexpectedly for the Consecration. At the same time, two young men have arrived, for wildly different reasons. Like I said, the stories have been good. Some day, hopefully soon, we'll tell them.

By the way, everyone loves Bob. Here's a representative scene: (Outside the chapel door is a toad, in the dirt. Bob and Andrew, a man three times Bob's age, look at the toad)

Bob: "Hey! Look what I found! Come here little guy,"

Andrew "Oh, a toad!"

Bob: "I love toads. I love nature."

Me, (in my head): Put that fucking reptile down.

Andrew: "It's great to hear young people still have an appreciation for nature."

Bob: "Well, I've always said, if you can't appreciate nature, you probably can't appreciate much."

Andrew: "You are wise, Bob."

Me (in my head): I hate toads. and nature. I like Led Zeppelin. And the Packers. I hate myself. Bob must die.

At times this week, I've gone so far as to compare my complicated feelings to those of Richard Dreyfuss from "What about Bob." I accused Bob, in an aggresive manner, of trying to make himself "look good" by being non-judgmental towards others. While at a monastery. While Bob sat in front of an Icon of Jesus Christ. I cried myself to sleep. I've concluded the only way to make this better is to contrive a method of saving Bob's life so he will forgive me for my wrongdoings. Please provide suggestions.

Tomorrow we leave St. Isaac's. Tears and hugs will abound. We're taking a day off to watch the Packer game. By we, I mean me. Bob doesn't like sports. He likes Buddhism and tree bark. After that, we head south. Or maybe North. We're either going to the Mississippi river or visiting a commune of anarchists called the Dreamtime Village, near La Crosse.

Until then, signing off.

P.S. Bob just came to tell me food is ready. He left his warm meal in the food trailer, to come find me. I don't care if he didn't bring a tent or cuts green beans more impressively in front of the kitchen staff than me. He's good people.

P.P.S. This turned out to be a long post after all. So sue me.

Tent Pitching in Wisconsin

We're in Boscobel, Wisconsin, population 3,047, right on the Wisconsin River.

It's 4:30 pm. I'm in the Hildenbrand Library. We were dropped off by Kelly, the camp host of Tower Hill state park, where we stayed last night. He's visiting his aunt Mabel in the Boscobel Nursing home. Our backpacks are still in his Cutlass Supreme.

Thank god we met Kelly last night. We arrived at the campsite, largely deserted, at sundown, after a long day of walking the backroads and train tracks heading due West out of Madison. We left at 10 am with the two goals in mind: get to Tower Hill and find John Slick. I met John seven years ago on my first walk. He let me pitch my tent in the back yard of his farmhouse, set just off of highway KP. Then he let me phone my girlfriend at the time, the girl I broke up with that morning, to come stay with me for the night in my tent out back. When John saw me trying to set up my tent with Katie, he said, "Son, I just don't think you're gonna make it." We eventually got the tent up and running, and John told us about his girlfriend. "She's got a harelip, and clubbed foot, but other than that she's alright."

John looked pretty old seven years ago, so I wasn't sure he'd even be alive, so you can imagine how elated I was to see him off in the distance, cruising down KP on a old rusted red tractor. Bob was pretty surprised too, since I'm fairly certain he doubted the existence of John Slick, even if the Sikh Indians who ran the BP gas station that sold hard liquor and porn promised us they knew John Slick and gave us his whereabouts. I ran up the road, sort of hooting, and waving my arms, and calling out, "IT'S JOHN SLICK, holy shit, JOHN SLICK," and trying to run down the shoulder of the road while carrying my pack and nursing severely chafed thighs by cupping my nether regions in my hand.

We caught up with John Slick and I asked him why he wasn't listed in the phone book. Turns out his last name is "Schlick", but I wrote it "Slick" in my shitty journal because I don't bother to doublecheck anything because I'm lazy. We talked and laughed as John sat on his idling tractor and I asked him why the Sikh's knew him, and he said "I'm seventy. Everyone knows me." and about his girlfriend with the harelip and the clubbed foot, and he told me not only was he still going out with her, she was coming over. Then he told me to go across the street to his silo and shed, he wanted to show me something. Bob and I collapsed on John's lawn and waited, and as we waited, who pulls into the driveway but she of the harelip and clubbed foot, the aforementioned girlfriend of John Schlick. Her name is Linda. Linda Perkins. I went up to her to introduce myself and upon examination I could find scant evidence of a harelip, and her gait seemed normal. Perhaps her shoes and socks concealed her tragic secret. Regardless, she seemed tickled that Bob and I were on this journey.

Eventually John drove us 20 miles to Tower Hill. He told us he's worth 2.5 million dollars, he's never been married and never had children. He gave up drinking after a three day bender over Memorial Day in 1964 which resulted in the DT's. I sympathized and wondered how long before I get the DTs. Bob filmed the entire interview. Even after we got to the State Park we talked. It was obvious John didn't talk to many people besides Linda. He told us about 7 cool stories about a bunch of stuff. I kept shaking his hand and saying, "Well, John, it was great seeing you," and then he would tell me about how pranked his friend who collected Conan the Barbarian memorabilia by sending a fake postcard from Barcelona, pretending to be a guy interested in buying the entire collection.

John talked so long, and there was precious little light left. The park was on the banks of a tributary to the Wisconsin river and heavily forested. They're were mosquitoes swarming everyone, on every surface of our bodies, going in our ears, eyes, and throats. I couldn't find my of Cutter. I blamed Bob since he derided the unnatural evil of chemicals. He grew up in Idaho. They don't believe in pesticides or something. We moved around the camp looking for a less wooded area and that's when we saw a camper with lights on and there was Kelly. I asked if he had bug spray, as I was on the point of stabbing someone. He gave us Raid. The shit you use to kill cockroaches. There's a medical warning about contact with skin. I sprayed that shit on like I it was perfume for a French whore.

By then the sun was down. We didn't have enough light to set up tents. He kept trying to take over the tent construction operation, commenting on the unique design and saying, "I've never seen a tent like this, and I've seen a lot of tents." Kelly, the camp host, came up to our site to inform us it was certain to rain. He saw us struggling and offered use of a tent he set up next to his camper. We begged off, certain the two of us could figure it out. Then Bob dropped a bombshell. He had no tent. We gave up, took up Kelly's offer. We ate brats, potatoes, and pasta salad. And chocolate pie. All homemade. And now we're here. And now it's time for the Russian Orthodox monastery run by a converted Jew....

A Hard Rain

Bob is still sleeping. It's time to leave. I just checked on the Bruce Springsteen tickets I'm selling on Ebay. 8 bids. 142 dollars for 2 tickets, with 2 hours remaining on the bid. Too bad the minimum I'll accept is 1,000 dollars. Maybe I'll change that. Thing is, the concert isn't until October 18th. Maybe I'll wait.

None of this matters, though. I had a biblical vision, like St. John and the book of Revelations. The end times came. It was horrifying. Sickness, disease, infertility swept the land in the wake of unimaginable atrocities. My reproductive capacity was ruined by radiation. Only my friend "B." and his wife could have children, which was incredibly ironic since he survived chemotherapy and doctors said he was infertile. But his faith in God was strong, unlike mine. As I awoke I was surprised how bad I felt as I considered the implications of this apocalyptic future. And the past. Perhaps I should have settled down by now. What I have done? or not done?

Anyway, I'm thinking of finding the first sperm bank along the way to donate my sperm, just to cover my bets. Perhaps look into a sperm storage devices or maybe a spouse. When Bob wakes up we'll toss the idea around.

Good Wood

Bob told me, "it's on."

and it is. It's after midnight. We're leaving tomorrow at 6:58 am. I need to pick up a toothbrush and underwear from the Willy Street Coop. We'll try to make it to Spring Green by tomorrow evening, to camp in the Tower Hill state park.

I won't be able to post for at least a few days. The shoulder of the roads await us. Highway 14 awaits us. Long stretches of aching joints await us. I'll sing songs and bug Bob about his lapsed Catholicism and tell him why Judaism is a perfect cultural system. We'll comment on the trees and how I don't know the difference between a conifer and deciduous. My pate will be authoritative. I will think about bandanas and the E. Street band and how the Lady is doing back east. Bob will tell me all about Japan and Idaho.

And once I find a walking stick made from good cherry wood, everything will be alright.

Christian

Bob is Coming

Madison, Wiscconsin. Population 231,000.

I am here. In body and spirit. Bob arrives 8:30 pm.

I am going to shave my head. There is authority in a shaved head. I don't want to be raped. Men with shaved heads do not get raped.

Bob arrives soon. He'll be wearing a mesh cap and tinted glasses and sporting a wisp of mustache. A dead ringer for Jeffrey Dahmer pre-serial killings, right around the time he worked at the Chocolote factory. But Bob is a buddhist. And lives in Bushwick with indignant locals.

I look like a balder, angrier version of Judd Nelson.

Fort Wayne

Drove to Fort Wayne Indiana, kept missing exits, stuck on the free way, very angry, lots of screaming and pounding on the steering wheel, spitting mad, lots of getting my Irish up,
on a mission to find the home I lived in as a child for two years. Attended kindergarten in Fort Wayne.

Found my elementary school in Arlington Park. Didn't know it was my school, but I thought I recognized the windowless chocolate brown one story facade. Pulled into Cruiser into the parking lot blasting the radio, Feeling terrible. Too much drinking and too many smokes for far too long have left me in a state of perpetual illness. Check myself in the rearview mirror. Very messy hair, uncombed, sticking up all over the place, rumpled shirt, wearing the same gray wool trousers for the past week, my belt was undone, criminally untamed goatee.

I walk to the front door. It's open. It's 3 pm. on the road for hours. Doors are locked. I see lights on. I see front desk. I see urchins walking. I ring a bell, I'm in. Not sure what to say, what to do with my hands, so I rub my goatee and act nervous. Two ladies. White and black. Secretaries. But midwest secretaries so their not as surly as the New York ones-I love you Ms. Diaz, but you could guard the gates of Hades-and I tell them I'm a writer from Brooklyn, and that sounds good, explains my appearance, because writers are disheveled people, and it feels good to say to other people I'm a writer. For a Blog. That I started three days ago in a coffee shop in Milwaukee.

I tell them I'm pretty sure I went to kindergarten here 25 years ago, but I need confirmation.
They tell me records don't go that far back. Vanity takes a hit. Nothing gets said. We're dumbfounded. The black secretary asks me if I remember the names of my classmates. She's got short hair and a red sweater on. I tell her I don't remember classmates, but I do remember my teacher was Mrs. Beebe. The white secretary smiles and tells me Ms. Beebe still works here. The white secretary is wearing a blue golf shirt and has a pony tail. She is not pretty, very plain and her teeth are gray. I think about pulling the pony tail and chastise my libido silently.

So the secretary escorts me through the halls of the school, and it's all open-pod classrooms so you can see little kids seating on green carpets, raising hands, not sitting still, construction paper everywhere, pictures on the walls, nothing is geometrical, all the dividers are set up at irregular angles and it's disorienting and vaguely socio-political, like the school designers are trying to encourage resistance to rigidity, as if Euclidean based design stifles free social growth.

But I'm only glancing at the classrooms as we walk because I'm worried about the implications of my gaze. If I stare too long at a classroom will the secretary think I'm exhibiting signs of deviancy? So I try not to look anything for too long, and I try to ask her questions about her job and where' s she from, and she tells me she's only been working at the school for a year. We talk to the librarian, wonderful skinny old lady who's been at the school since 1982, the year it opened, the year I attended, but she doesn't remember me, thank god, and she's been to New York and seems to appreciate it.

We walk into the classroom and by this time my self-consciousness has a firm grip on me. There seems to be an endless quantity of kids in the classroom; it's like the fishes and loaves story of the bible, baskets of kids crawling, coloring, building, scampering. No adults anywhere. No organized aesthetic to the room, other than Random Colorful Crap tacked on every available square inch of wall. I recognize the green carpet and the beige round tables and the chaos.

The kids stare at me, and I think of how ridiculous my yellow cuban shirt with red flowers and brown corduroy jacket must look, like baby poop, and how these kids recognize my delinquency, they see right through my shtick, they know my six years as a teacher were only possible because I worked in the kinds of schools that rarely fire teachers, they know I got away with a track record a mile long, they can sense that I never kept a gradebook the first four years I taught or that I once fired a twelve inch rubber band at Tori Hunter, out of anger, that hit him in the eyeball. They know I think about Asian women.

Then I see Mrs. Beebe and it occurs to me that maybe it was Ms Beebe and she was never married and this job was her life. She looked nothing like I remember but retained all the physical traits that defined her in my memory. The mangled teeth and the recessive chin were there and coke-bottle glasses, but the edges were softer and the frames sleeker. We laughed and talked, but she didn't remember either. Vanity.

In 1982 she wore dresses and stockings and sported an afr0-perm straight out of Tootsie. She was joyless back then. Once, during reading circle, I told the kids Superman was fake because he was really an actor named Christopher Reef. We had naps, snacks, and made butter in jar. Mrs. Beebe traced our silhouette on the wall and then we cut them out of black construction paper and everyone's looked distinctive, but my classmates drew attention to the outline of my nose in profile on the wall and later when I was in high school and watching Cyrano De Bergerac and he sees his shadow on the wall I thought of those silhouettes, and over the years I told the story of the silhouettes and embellished the story with jokes about my teacher developing carpel tunnel syndrome tracing it, and then I worried I had made the story up because it was funny. But on the walls were silhouettes. Just not mine.

I'm Not Sure I Crave Death

I've been researching freighthopping. It's a classic case of ignorance is bliss.

Turns out there's a gang of criminals called the Freight Train Riders of America who organize meth trafficking via the rails, and they operate out of the Northwest. I remember speaking with a few conductors about such an outfit.

I'm going to Chicago today to do some interviews. I feel totatlly depressed about this new information, because I'm too afraid of being stabbed to become the kind of adventurer who rides the rails and hangs out in Hobo Jungles cooking up Mulligan Stew with Oklahoma Slim and Kentucky Coin Slot Jenkins. What if they trick me into revealing that my favorite food is Unagi Eel or that I failed woodshop? What if they ask me to perform a humiliating sexual act a la Deliverance (i'm not sure permission would be a part of that) or we get into a high stakes game of Gin Rummy?

But how I am going to have an adventure with risk of death? This is very disconcerting. It's affecting my stomach quite adversely. and it's making my beard itch.

Bagel Head

You know what happens when you go to a city without a large Jewish (see left) population? You get shitty bagel service (see right).

I'm in Milwaukee, which is an Algonquian word meaning Pleasant or Good Place; I love the clean air and all the total obsession with beer.

I'm staying with my sister, Patrice. She just moved downtown two weeks ago, and she's very proud of her downtown apartment because she walks to work and feels like Mary Tyler Moore and she can buy stuff everywhere. Her building is fourteen stories tall and the ground floor is a Walgreens, which I don't mind at all, in fact I love drug stores because of my various ailments. I require drugstores to be located once every three blocks. I'm constantly in drugstores buying ointments, salves, pads, pills, razors, drugs, bottles, bags, aides, and creams, of all sizes and shapes and colors.

So I get into town yesterday after a glorious train ride on the Amtrak with all the old people including FOUR WW II (!) vets and a gaggle of Amish and a Mennonite who DID NOT FIGHT in World War II, who was, in fact, a conscientious objector, and I know this because I talked to all these people, interviewed a couple of them for my project, and I was riding high as I de-boarded at the Union Station in Milwaukee, thinking about how great the travels were going. Then it was time for shopping. First it was to Walgreens to get provisions and TJ Max to get clean underwear, then to Borders thinking, "yeah, they're corporate, but a bookstore, and bookstores support artists." they had wi-fi, but they charge 9 dollars! for a day pass. No siree, no thank you. A very nice Borders patron told me to check out Mocha's, a coffee shop in the area. I thanked her and complimented the unique shade of her eyes (that's a lie), and to Mocha's I went.

Immediately I hated the place. It was way too sanitary for my purposes. I'm traveling. I want to see hypodermic needles on the floor, strange locals, organ grinders, men in lederhosen. This place was Starbucks by another name. The set up of the counter, the espresso machines, the front display of a tiny selection of expensive cookies and sandwiches-- classic Starbucks. And very clean. You can imagine how relieved I was to have not one, but two highly satisfying movements two consecutive days.

Well, despite my initial hostility, yesterday afternoon at the Mocha Bistro wasn't too awful. I ordered a mocha. It was over 3 dollars. The place was basically empty so I plugged in my cell phone charger, my laptop, my curling iron and washer and dryer and Kenmore oven. I was very productive.

It was this morning, however, that Mocha showed it's true colors. The Hipster was back, sporting a red tie and shirt, very "Accountant Chic." There was another guy behind the counter, someone flabbier and balder than me so I felt bad for the guy, so I ordered a large coffee AND a bagel. The guy asked me if I wanted cream cheese, and I said, "What do you think?" I wish! I'm trying to be a completely different person on this trip. Much tougher than I usually am. I said, "Cream cheese would be great!" I probably smiled. I've got ways to go.

The bagel arrives, as two very large toasted halves on a plate, and totally bereft of cream cheese. A blank canvas. Next to the bagel halves was a three inch packet, like the sort you get at fast food places. This packet is quite inferior to the task at hand, as any one with a degree from the Wisconsin University System can clearly ascertain. The packet is really starting to get on my nerves, really bother me, like the skinny white guy who shows up to play pick up ball at Rucker Park. I squeeze the contents of the packet out, and this pathetic dollop squirts out, sitting in a lump like an albino turd covering barely 1/9 of the total surface area and just staring at me and making really annoyed.

I did what any other rational customer would do; I walked up to the counter and politely asked for three more packets. The Hipster retrieved them, after lots of staring at my forehead and mentally undressing me, from a cooler, handed them to me and said, "That'll be 1.25" I said, "for what?" The hipster said, "cream cheese is 40 cents a packet sir," and I said, "but the one packet you gave me for free wasn't up to the job." He looked at me and repeated the price. I said, "look I'll show you. " I went back to my table for the plate and brought it up to the counter to show the Hipster and Chubbs.

By now there were several well dressed office girls in tight skirts and sweaters (it's 45 degrees here) and high heels and one of them is Asian, the others are classic Wisconsin Nordic Blonds, and oh boy, was I getting aroused from my old fear of confronting authority figures in front of women, but I decide to act like I'm tough and indignant. "Look," I say, holding up the bagel, "this isn't enough! This dollop is puny." Chubbs is busy serving the office girls so he wants me gone, and so he asks, rather curtly, "You asked for three more packs, they cost 40 cents, so what do you want sir?" and I got all flustered and raised my pitch a notch or two. "I wouldn't have ordered if I knew I needed more than one pack! Did you see the size of the pack? It's insulting; it's an insulting size to offer the customer." Chubbs: "So, do you want the cream cheese, or not? I've got a lot of customers and you're holding up the line." It was true, I was, and the office girls were not having the reaction I wanted, which was wild swooning. I began to lose my nerve, and backed away from the counter before sayig, "No, you know what I want? A more honest description of your bagel policies." He didn't say it, but I could tell he thought I was a big chicken shit fake New Yorker from Brooklyn via Pewaukee, which sucks, because one of my goals is to stop compromising like a big flabby spineless paramecium. So, I said, "I hate this place, I'm never coming back."

And where I am writing this post from? That's right, Mocha's.