Hustle and Flow

Bob and I had a very silly day, as well as brutally emotional day. It's very strange experience to have Bob down here on this part of the journey. It's asymmetrical. Bob has no connection to Springfield whatsoever compared to my fully steeped past.

Earlier in the day Bob and I drove to the White Oaks mall and bought dress shirts and ties, a la Rain Man. I wonder who's the Dustin Hoffman character in this scenario? From there we headed to the Capitol Square, right in front of the Old Capitol building, and set up shop. "Free Interview with a New Yorker," read our advertisement. As you can see, I interpreted the dress of a New Yorker based on what George at Bergerner's informed was the prototypical New Yorker outfit: black fitted dress shirt with white tie.

For three hours we interviewed folks in and around the Capitol Square. Old, young, black, white, homeless, homeful, criminals, law-abiders. We even interviewed a married couple from Cobble Hill, Brooklyn who quit their jobs to walk the 2,000 mile Pacific Coast Trail this summer. Their trail nicknames were "Hustle" and "Flow." (I should've told them our trail names were Slim and Rusty). They told us the names also applied to their marriage. We asked them what they were doing in Springfield. They were coming back from out East after attending Ben's grandmother's funeral, stopping in Springfield on their back to Portland.

We finished our interviews out front of the Lincoln Presidential Museum. We were sort of hoping for a dismissal from museum property for dramatic purposes, but security staff was too accommodating. In fact, the on-site PR director, Dave, mercifully gave me an interview after watching me bake in the sun for nearly 30 minutes.

The best part about the Museum was watching the watchers. It seemed like a reverse fish-bowl effect. All the fish inside the museum gathered to watch the action outside the bowl. Security guards and curators sheepishly lurked in the lobby, kind of acting like they wanted to be asked to interview. And then we disrupted a few teachers' attempts to create straight lines to board the waiting yellow school buses. Once one kid saw the sign, EVERY kid had to read the sign, wave at us, wave at the camera (their real fixation), and yell, "Will this be on YOUTUBE?"

Until then.