road trip day whatever: I smell pretty bad
I'm not sure what I was planning to write about my road trip this time, but here is the long version.
I spent most of this trip on I-80, which is, as you're informed of over and over again by road signs, part of the Eisenhower interstate system. Here's a bit of history my dad taught me: Eisenhower was originally fiercely against constructing an interstate system. He thought it was borderline socialism, the kind of thing that would pave roads for big gubmint to march its jackboots all the way into our dearest chicken coops. Of course the proper version (possibly the real version or just the less pinko version, considering the copy of Das Kapital that used to be shelved in the family living room, with margin notes approaching the original text in total word count) is that Eisenhower built the interstate for defense reasons after being inspired by some continental march or another.
Now, not everyone was on board with free rides. Some states were worried that if big brother robbed us of the growth experience of paying our own way on that broadest and highest of ways, the very soul would atrophy. I say this because tough love is the only possible explanation I can find for the toll road, which stops you at least every few hours to make you hand small amounts of change to a toll-booth operator. I suppose the toll road does generate jobs of the most demeaning and horrific variety, and on average the service areas appear to be mopped more regularly that your typical gas station in nowheresville, but there's not much else I can say for them. Every pop country song these days is a (horrifically glossy, over-produced) anthem for the yokel way of life, for those proud traditions that sexual deviants and black people are brazenly trampling. But it's still a big country, and at the very least we're all still free to make people do things our own retarded way while they're on our roads.
When I wasn't composing long diatribes against poor infrastructure in my head, I listened to a lot of music, mostly old CDs grabbed at random out of the trunk. I found that I am starting to like Japanese indie heroes Zazen Boys a lot more, even if I think the "rap" elements (possibly with double or triple scare quotes) are just a workaround for the frontman's complete inability to sing. I realized I don't like Nirvana as much as I used to. I accepted that I may never be hip enough to listen to even one third of the Magnetic Field's 69 Love Songs in a single sitting.
And when CDs got old I listened to lots of radio, which is why I can comment with authority on the horrific cultural and musical spectacle of pop country above. One night when it was late and I was feeling pretty punchy I tuned in to Christian talk radio, which informed me that the Bible says we have to crack down on immigration but did not supply a rationale before I turned in that night. The next day I found out that liberals are poisoning the minds of our children and we have to fight, fight their evil teachings with good. I wondered if that guy couldn't just get in his car, too, and drive to someplace where people made more sense to him. Failing that, there is still plenty of yurt-worthy space in this three-and-a-half-day wide land that we're not using. I saw some pretty promising river bends and might send their locations in to his show.
I guess what I'm saying is that even though someone is probably investigating those river bends as we speak for a book project about a year spent staring at America's river bends, there is still so much space that does absolutely nothing for no one. As tiring as it is to cross all of it, I'm still glad it's there. When you say you were in New York last year, someone will always tell you about when they were in New York and ask if you've been to that one place, you know the one?, oh you haven't been?, well I guess not everyone knows about it, it might not be your thing, but I was there all the time when I lived there. I need those meaningless in-between places, where personal experience doesn't have to narrate itself over or against, or in any number of other "fox ran _ the log" adverb exercises with, information from the outside. I'm not saying I'm ready to stake out my yurt spot just yet, but there is something to be said for the freedom to write your own stories.
In closing, at the Wyoming border two nights ago I was singing to myself and trying to find a range I hadn't worn hoarse yet. What resulted was Don't Fence Me In in a warbly falsetto which, for reasons unknown, came out in a horrific fake accent something like Latka from Taxi crossed with the German girl from Young Frankenstein. I'm very glad I'm back around friends and family and able to start having actual fun again, instead of just being recreationally stupid.
I spent most of this trip on I-80, which is, as you're informed of over and over again by road signs, part of the Eisenhower interstate system. Here's a bit of history my dad taught me: Eisenhower was originally fiercely against constructing an interstate system. He thought it was borderline socialism, the kind of thing that would pave roads for big gubmint to march its jackboots all the way into our dearest chicken coops. Of course the proper version (possibly the real version or just the less pinko version, considering the copy of Das Kapital that used to be shelved in the family living room, with margin notes approaching the original text in total word count) is that Eisenhower built the interstate for defense reasons after being inspired by some continental march or another.
Now, not everyone was on board with free rides. Some states were worried that if big brother robbed us of the growth experience of paying our own way on that broadest and highest of ways, the very soul would atrophy. I say this because tough love is the only possible explanation I can find for the toll road, which stops you at least every few hours to make you hand small amounts of change to a toll-booth operator. I suppose the toll road does generate jobs of the most demeaning and horrific variety, and on average the service areas appear to be mopped more regularly that your typical gas station in nowheresville, but there's not much else I can say for them. Every pop country song these days is a (horrifically glossy, over-produced) anthem for the yokel way of life, for those proud traditions that sexual deviants and black people are brazenly trampling. But it's still a big country, and at the very least we're all still free to make people do things our own retarded way while they're on our roads.
When I wasn't composing long diatribes against poor infrastructure in my head, I listened to a lot of music, mostly old CDs grabbed at random out of the trunk. I found that I am starting to like Japanese indie heroes Zazen Boys a lot more, even if I think the "rap" elements (possibly with double or triple scare quotes) are just a workaround for the frontman's complete inability to sing. I realized I don't like Nirvana as much as I used to. I accepted that I may never be hip enough to listen to even one third of the Magnetic Field's 69 Love Songs in a single sitting.
And when CDs got old I listened to lots of radio, which is why I can comment with authority on the horrific cultural and musical spectacle of pop country above. One night when it was late and I was feeling pretty punchy I tuned in to Christian talk radio, which informed me that the Bible says we have to crack down on immigration but did not supply a rationale before I turned in that night. The next day I found out that liberals are poisoning the minds of our children and we have to fight, fight their evil teachings with good. I wondered if that guy couldn't just get in his car, too, and drive to someplace where people made more sense to him. Failing that, there is still plenty of yurt-worthy space in this three-and-a-half-day wide land that we're not using. I saw some pretty promising river bends and might send their locations in to his show.
I guess what I'm saying is that even though someone is probably investigating those river bends as we speak for a book project about a year spent staring at America's river bends, there is still so much space that does absolutely nothing for no one. As tiring as it is to cross all of it, I'm still glad it's there. When you say you were in New York last year, someone will always tell you about when they were in New York and ask if you've been to that one place, you know the one?, oh you haven't been?, well I guess not everyone knows about it, it might not be your thing, but I was there all the time when I lived there. I need those meaningless in-between places, where personal experience doesn't have to narrate itself over or against, or in any number of other "fox ran _ the log" adverb exercises with, information from the outside. I'm not saying I'm ready to stake out my yurt spot just yet, but there is something to be said for the freedom to write your own stories.
In closing, at the Wyoming border two nights ago I was singing to myself and trying to find a range I hadn't worn hoarse yet. What resulted was Don't Fence Me In in a warbly falsetto which, for reasons unknown, came out in a horrific fake accent something like Latka from Taxi crossed with the German girl from Young Frankenstein. I'm very glad I'm back around friends and family and able to start having actual fun again, instead of just being recreationally stupid.