the bacchanal bums

6-7 Sept. 2010

Leaving North Carolina I had my first westerly direction change on the trip… that is, after I went 20 minutes in the wrong direction down the interstate. I was confused by a fork for some reason and went the wrong way until I noticed the signs saying I-40 East. Sometimes my innate sense of direction is thrown off loud music and bad singing (my own), so when the feelings of doubt hit me I watched the last exit for 10 minutes go by at 80mph. No use to curse in vain… instead I reveled in the last 10 minutes east and finally a turn to find the infinite feeling of heading WEST… home. Familiarity and fraternity bustling in thru years of childhood memories and the carefree innocence of the ‘where’ part of ‘where are from?’ However, it’s still 4 days away. So before I get caught up in nostalgia, I’ll deal with getting caught up in traffic, which thus far I have only had problems with thrice: Leaving Dallas at around 10:30am not sure of the cause, entering Miami at 3:20 due to an accident, and then on I-40 near the North Carolina/Tennessee border due to an accident.

I made a circle back to Lebanon, Tennesee, which one could say was the end to my ‘inferno canto’ of road warring… again, nothing to do with my hosts, only other road traffic. Creeping up to the ‘Dingle Pad,’ I made my entrance without a knock and landed right in the middle of a Legend jam session. After a round of salutations from my amigos the “Casey Frazier and the Legend” and new lead guitar addition to the band from St. Augustine, Florida, I kicked back with a Milwaukee’s ‘finest’ and let the jams trickle into my road weary mind. If I had left LA a hobbledehoy boy, I have arrived to the point of pure wandering guru where the high velocity passings of the day to day road slows, and instead time becomes your enemy as IT now begins to fly. In short, your eyes watch the country slip by in slow motion, yet now the hours spin out before you as rubber tires once did.

Another legend night had to be written into history; nothing forced, only fun among new friends and old, but when you are with the bacchanal bums of dharma what else should/could you expect. I won’t or can’t detail the night, but, among other things, I signed a contract in blood to be the future tour bus driver of these mad men and if it wasn’t thrown out with the empty beer cans in the morning it might be framed in a dingle pad somewhere out where a plastic bull and an American flag guard a winding road to the middle of profound tick infested Tennessee. Good folk be en dem parts and if time hadn’t stole away as it now does, I’d lose myself with them too. Until my chauffeuring is called for, we’ll have to wait to cheers away another night: To nights of satori awakening flourished with diatribe doused debauchery. Good luck friends

.s.

(I have very few photos for this blog because I was taking videos)

northward

5-6 Sept.2010

Curving up the on-ramp to I-95, I left those souls of the fiery bath behind in rose colored lights and rose north and ultimately ‘back’ in a literal and divinely comedic turning point to my voyage across our United States. As I pulled the helm to the right and ascended the ramp, the city, she did, had one more surprise for me. As far as leaping faiths go, mine veered left to the concrete guard rail when I swerved to miss the stow-away amphibian that leaped in his, or her, own faith on to the steering-wheel in front of my face. Realizing that swerving was not in my best interest, I corrected my trajectory and continued my fleeting escape with now fleeting heart.

And, as fairytale a story I might tell, this frog was not a guest with whom I would be kissing and much less in lethal Miami traffic. When he hopped away trying each window and crevice for a chance to test his own luck on the road, I was relieved… until he once again flew across my trained road gaze and onto the window beside me. Nerves of steel saved me, but when he fell off and onto my arm I would have let his fate be the window had I not peered down into his crystalline eyes and seen the empty hopelessness of a lost Miami soul looking for his own north. I knew then that he too must ascend from the brimstony waters and hop on with me to Orlando, but when I arrived to set him free an hour’s search through the car for his poor soul produced nothing. Perhaps he did find his north because I never did smell him.

The rest of the road north was quiet. I entered Georgia in my thoughts. What had I seen this summer? Where had I been? Who had I met?

(this will be a video as soon as I get finished editing it, until then enjoi photos)

 

Northward I ascended, almost a straight shot of 650 miles from Orlando to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Along the way, I stopped in Savannah, Georgia to see the fuss and found a city bustling with tourists and gawkers of all types. I didn’t stay but a minute and continued my journey through South Carolina.

When the day was done, I stepped out at my next respite at a friend’s house near Winston-Salem. The real southern treat, apart from the accent, was a family of smiling faces, eager to hear about my trip. I told what I could divulge of my thoughts thus far. How I’d run east like a bandit out of California to Arizona and discovered my mission, outlawing my way past the Southwest at dust billowing speeds with stops in Albuquerque for New Mexican cuisine and Dallas to banter wittily, holed up with a gang of meddlers in Tennessee, sat back and listened in Mississippi, and “played like young cats [the six-toed kind] in the dusks” of Florida.

 

After only a night’s stay in the superfluous southern hospitality home of my friend and a short guided tour of Winston-Salem, I have to be on my way. The Wild West calls to me and there’s no place like home.




.s.