Name: Bubble Fiddle
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After years of old-school racism seething barely under the surface at Jena High School in Louisiana, one black student faces a 22-year sentence for attempted second-degree murder merely for beating up a white student while all of the white students involved in a prior series of attacks on black students got off scot-free.
Read the details here.
Check out a quick video here.
And sign the petition here.
Since I've left Twin Oaks, I've gone through long periods of time where I haven't had access to a computer. When I have had access to one, I've never been able to get on it long enough to update this blog. Thus the lag in communication between me and you. A lot has happened since I left Twin Oaks. The first thing I did after leaving was to go to Iowa to visit my best friend in the fucking world, an amazing woman who goes by the name Bok Choy. Then, I went to my hometown of Oberlin, Ohio, for a week. Then I went down to North Carolina to visit an anarcho-primitivist commune called "Wildroots." Now I'm back in Oberlin. This blog entry will be about my experience in Iowa, right after I left Twin Oaks. I'm sure that in the near future, I will write an entry on Wildroots, as well. And, if I have time, maybe I'll write about Oberlin. But for now, this is all I have written. So here it is: RAGBRAI!
With Love,
-Bubble Fiddle
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"We sailed away a winter's day
With fates as malliable as clay."
-Joanna Newsome
Just a few days before permenantly leaving Twin Oaks, I contacted one of my best friends in the world; an amazing woman by the name of Bok Choy who was recently expelled from Twin Oaks for reasons which I will not get into in this blog. I told her that I would be leaving the community in a week and embarking on travels, and I asked if I could visit her along the way. She told me that I could visit, and that, if I came before July 20th, I could go on RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) with her. Since July 19th was the time I was planning on leaving Twin Oaks anyway, the timing was perfect. Over the course of the next week, I called Bok Choy almost every day to discuss logistics. Bok Choy had an extra bike, and she told me that I could ride it for the duration of RAGBRAI. I eventually ended up ride-sharing my way to Iowa with Casey and Kathryn (a cute, quiet couple from Twin Oaks), who were heading to a family reunion in South Dakota. I convinced them to leave a day early (so that I could arrive in time for RAGBRAI) by telling them I would pay the extra day on the car rental. And so, on July 19th, I said my goodbyes to Twin Oaks. The last thing I did before leaving was to hang out with an amazing old badass known as Coyote, in his room (and, if you have ever hung out with Coyote in his room, you know why I chose this activity to be my last at Twin Oaks).
The car ride to Iowa was 22 hours long. But it was not terrebly unpleasent. Casey and Kathryn drove almost streight through the night, taking turns sleeping in the passenger seat. We drove through Charlston West Virginia at around 11:30 PM, and to celebrate the fact that I had, at that point, successfully made it farther west during this trip than I had when I tried to hitchhike to the Rainbow Gathering, I drank the shot of marijuana tincture that a friend had given me as a going away present. In addition to giving me a very enjoyable shift in consciousness, the tincture also knocked me out for the night (and I slept like a baby for the next eight hours).
The next day, we arrived at Bok Choy's house. Bok Choy was, at that point, living with her father and her two sisters in the suburbs of State Center. I found her sisters to be delightful (and, upon meeting them, I began to understand where Bok Choy inherited her insane, playful, child-like personality from). I found her father to be an obsessively controlling, moody, right-wing, fundamentalist christian. He treated me with respect because I was a guest, but I avoided him constantly because of how he treated everyone else. My nickname for him (in my head) was "Control."
Question: If control's control is absolute, why does control need to control?
Answer: Control needs time.
Question: Is control controlled by control's need to control?
Answer: Yes.
-William S. Burroughs
Bok Choy and I went on a walk and got pizza, after I arrived. Then, we went to a park and played music together (Bok Choy plays pennywhistle and accordian, and I play guitar). We talked about how things have changed in each others lives, and how Twin Oaks changed after she had left and how things have gotten significantly more crappy and hard-assed, there. At one point, she took me to the farmer's market, and we bought some sweet corn and ate it while we walked to the State Center rose garden (appearently, State Center is the rose capital of Iowa). All in all, it was a wonderful afternoon. And then I went to sleep at her house, eagerly awaiting the start of RAGBRAI.
On Saturday morning, me, Bok Choy, and Bok Choy's grandparents went out for breakfast. We all held hands and recited a christian prayer before we ate (and I played along out of politeness, even though I am a commited agnostic). After breakfast, we all hung around in the Hi-Vee parking lot, waiting for Team Road Show to show up.
Team road show is the RAGBRAI cycling team which Bok Choy is a part of. They refer to themselves as the poorest team on RAGBRAI. They are somewhat of a traveling circus, putting on a show in every town they spend the night in. Most of them juggle fire, a few of them are unicyclists, one person does bizzare tricks with his body, and Bok Choy has the honor of being the only fire-hooper on the team. Two of them biked RAGBRAI on unicycles. Generally, after they put on a show, they will pass around a hat, and the audience will provide them with more than enough gas money to get to the next town.
While we waited for them to show up, Bok Choy told me that Team Road Show is always late and we would likely be waiting around, for awhile. So I sat in the front seat of the truck, for about a half hour, reading Gandhi's autobiography. Eventually, the Team Road Show van (an econoline with a mural of people juggling and unicycling painted on the side of it) pulled into the parking lot. Bok Choy and I began to load our stuff on. I asked one of the guys who was loading stuff onto the van if I could help, and he told me that the best thing I could do to help would be to tell some jokes. So I did.
"What's yellow and can't swim very well?
A tractor.
What's red and bad for your teeth?
A brick.
Why did all the ladies love Jesus?
Because he was hung like this: (at this point, I spread my arms out to my sides as though I was hung on a cross)."
We moved all of our luggage and our bicycles into the van, and then lounged around for awhile. I went inside the van and took a seat. The inside of the van had the look and feel of a rock and roll tour bus. There was a bed and a couch and a recliner (but no car seats) inside, and a seperate room in the back for our luggage and equipment. It was very cozy. I played guitar for a few minutes, pretending I was a touring musician. After awhile, the other members of Team Road Show started to come into the bus, one by one, and they sat down. I hung out with them for awhile and made small talk, before Kendra (the woman whose task it was to drive the van and our luggage from town to town so we wouldn't have to carry everything on our bikes) stuck her head in the door and said "So, who here has least amount of things to live for?" This question made me feel uneasy, since it seemed to imply that one of us would have to die (or at least risk death). I waited - slightly nervously - for some kind of explanation. Appearently, there was a hole in the top of the gas tank and gasoline was spilling out all over the pavement. The bus was our only vehicle, and we couldn't just cancel the trip. So the idea was that one of us would try to start the bus alone, not knowing weather or not it would explode. There was some debate as to weather or not we should rent another vehicle, or wait for the gas to dry up, or just draw straws, or etc. etc. etc... Eventually, for god only knows what reason, we decided to try to start the bus with everyone in it. I told myself that it would be a good way to die; here with Bok Choy, surrounded by new friends, embarking on an adventure. Fortunately, though, the bus did not explode. And we drove off to Rock Rapids, to start our adventure.
Appearently, the hole in the gas tank was not the only mechanical problem with the Team Road Show bus. The breaks were faulty, the steering was loose, the air conditioning and internal lights were broken, the underside of the hood was a tangled web of electrical wires (from an amateur re-wiring job done a few years back), the lever that was used to open and close the passenger door had broken off (and we had to use rope and knots to keep the door from swinging open while we were driving), the spedometer didn't work, there was a huge crack in the outer hull, the bus would occasionally catch on fire (this had appearently happened about three times in the three years that Team Road Show had had this bus, and as a result, Team Road Show had placed four fire extenguishers in various locations in the bus), the carpet was starting to decay and smell of mold, and the gas milage was horrific... Appearently, at one point, the bus had been crashed and put back together by amateur mechanics, and then used as a party shack for several months by the teenage children of it's previous owner. However, Team Road Show didn't know any of this before they bought the bus for several thousand dollars. So they pretty much got fucked over. But it was a vehicle. And it did move forward. And that was what was needed to get us from town to town on RAGBRAI.
One of the more delightful features of the bus was the presence of a megaphone which was attached to the bottom of it. One could speak into a microphone that was kept over the dashboard and be heard for several yards in any direction. We made extensive use of this on the drive up. When we were at a traffic light, Seager (who was driving us to Rock Rapids) grabbed the microphone and said "Okay. Turn green... Turn green... Come on... Green... Alright, thank you!" We passed by some pedestrians, at one point, and Seager anounced into the megaphone: "You are walking on a sidewalk!" The pedestrians turned their heads towards us and looked slightly alarmed and confused, and then we drove off. We passed by a harbor, at one point, and so Seager announced into the megaphone: "You are all in boats!" Immediately afterwards, we passed a resteraunt deck which was overlooking the harbor, and Seager anounced: "And you are definitely not on boats!" One could tell who was listening and who wasn't by their reactions. My favorite of act of megaphone harassment was when we passed by an extremely tough and beefy looking man with a shaved head, a goatee, and a swastika tattoo who was taking his chiwawa for a walk. Seager stopped the van beside him and announced into the megaphone: "We all love your puppy!" The nazi skinhead looked infuriated, but we were faster than he, and we drove off laughing hystarically.
We arrived in Rock Rapids that evening, and parked the van at a very well-kept suburban house (which was appearently where we were going to spend the first night of RAGBRAI). Being exposed to so much suburbia after living on a commune for a year and a half put me in a state of culture shock, but I delt with it okay. I hung around the house, played guitar, and pitched my tent in the backyard along with the rest of Team Road Show. Later on that night, a few members of TRS decided to bike into town and put on a show. I decided to follow them in so I could watch. However, on the way there, one of my pedals broke off. Bok Choy and the others turned around to see what was up with my bike. Appearently, the pedal was only screwed in half way, and my pedaling had ripped it out of it's socket, massacreing the threads in the proccess. It was a problem that none of the members of TRS had the equipment to fix. So, I would have to get it fixed by a professional. Perhaps the most annoying thing about this was that I would not be able to partake in the first day of riding. I would have to take the tour bus to the next campsite. I was relatively okay with this, though. And so, the next day, I rode the bus to the next campsite. The slang term for riding the bus on RAGBRAI when you could be biking is "sagging." I ended up sagging a total of four times during RAGBRAI, for one reason or another. But I will get to that later.
Me and Kendra had breakfast at Hardee's, before taking off. At one point, while we were at a gas station, smoke started coming out of the AC vents. I stuck my head out the window and asked Kendra if the smoke was anything unusual. I was concerned that the bus was catching on fire again. Indeed, the smoke was unusual, so Kendra grabbed the microphone and called Seager over (Seager was driving one of the other Team Road Show vehicles) and had him come and take a look at the bus. I grabbed a fire extenguisher, just in case. Seager looked at it, and informed us that it wasn't a fire. I think he said that it was a radiator leak or an AC leak or something. Whatever the case, it wasn't life threatening, and so we just opened the windows and accepted the fact that the vents would have smoke coming out of them for awhile.
Whatever location the 20,000 RAGBRAI participants end up camping in on a given night is referred to as "Tent City." We arrived at Tent City that afternoon, and set up camp. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting around, drinking beer, and making small talk. Appearently, excessive alcohol consumption is a central part of the RAGBRAI tradition. In fact, while we were sitting around and chilling, someone found a joke in the funny pages of the newspaper about the top ten potential titles of the eighth Harry Potter book (which would appearently be about Harry going on RAGBRAI), and number one was "Harry Potter and the Inhibriated Muggles." Every hour or so, I would take my bike to the mechanic tents and ask if they could fix it. And, without fail, they would always tell me that their mechanics were still out on the road, helping the people who were still biking to Tent City. I wasn't able to get my bike fixed until around 7:00pm.
At one point, during the day, I snuck off into a corn field to smoke some of the pot I had brought with me. I didn't have anything to smoke it out of, though, so I carved a pipe out of a corn cob using a screw. I returned to the camp merry and joyful and stoned out of my mind and ready to pig out on the overpriced, meaty food that was sold at Tent City. I realized that trying to maintain my vegetarianism was next to impossible at RAGBRAI, so I decided to just not make the effort.
The next day, I was able to partake in the actual riding of RAGBRAI on a functional bicycle. Bok Choy had invited me the previous night to ride with her and her sisters, and I accepted her invitation. We got up around 6:00am and set off. Her sisters wanted to take the long route (which involved a hundred miles of cycling) to the campsite. Though I was a little intimidated by the idea of biking a hundred miles on my first day of RAGBRAI, I was exited about the fact that, by the end of the day, I would be able to know that I could do it.
The rules of RAGBRAI state that bikes must remain to the side of the road and stay in the right lane at all times. But with 20,000 bikes on the road all at once, this was a rule which was impossible to abide by. And so the entire width of the road was packed with bikes in a caravan that stretched out seventy miles long. I felt sorry for any driver who found themselves having to use this road, for it would be next to impossible to maintain any speed which was faster than the bicycles (which were going at about ten miles-per-hour).
Bok Choy's sisters were a delight to be around, and I soon developed a crush on one of them (who went by the nickname of Chicken Leg). We played games of make-believe for most of the morning. We pretended to be secret agents, who were helping out space aliens in a war against the governments of the world. Bok Choy's secret agent name was "The Nerdle." Sandra's was "Shadow Segora." Mine was "Bungalo the Hobbit" (and my bike was named "The Hairy Foot.") I forget what Chicken Leg's secret agent name was. During the game, we would always blame it on the government when the wind blew against us or when we had to go up a hill. We would then exclaim something like "friggin' government hill!" or "government wind!" We would try to decode secret messages that the aliens had written us in the patterns in the clouds. It was a lot of fun.
At some point in the afternoon, I got a little ahead of the rest of the group, and got seperated from them. This was because I was too busy flirting with a woman I met on the ride named Amanda. I biked the rest of the way on my own. I probably spent about $30 total on food, that day. This made me realize what a commercial money-vaccume-of-an-event RAGBRAI is. I was slightly disgusted by it.
By the end of the hundred-mile-day, my ass felt like someone had been pounding it with a hammer for hours on end. When I got to the next Tent City, I checked my email at one of the computer trailers. I learned that I did not get accepted for a visitor period at Dancing Rabbit (which was where I was planning on going after RAGBRAI). And so, almost instantly, I had nowhere to stay after RAGBRAI ended. And my life entered a state of turmoil. This would not be the first time my life had been in turmoil, though, and I knew I would just have to pull it back together. Considering that my ass and lungs and throat were in such pain from biking a hundred miles, and I wanted to be in good physical and mental condition to try and get my life in order, I decided to sag, the next day.
The next day was not that eventful. I spent a lot of time calling WWOOF farms, as well as old friends, emailing people and communes; all for the sake of finding somewhere to stay. None of the WWOOF farms picked up their phones, and I got answering machines when I called my friends. No one responded to my emails before bedtime. I didn't find any resolution on this day. However, I did run into Amanda twice, while I was in town.
The next day, I recieved a myspace bullitan from Cait (a woman from Acorn who I was briefly involved with), saying that she would be going to Wildroots (an anarcho-primitivist commune in North Carolina) for three weeks in August and asking if anyone wanted to come along. I immediately replied to her bulliton, letting her know that I would love to come to Wildroots with her and asking if that was okay. And I began to wait anxiously for a response.
Later that night, I found out that Team Road Show was going to be performing in Tent City (we were camping at the house of one of the members of TRS, which happened to be in the same town as Tent City). So, I decided to go with them. We fit 21 people (who all wanted to come and watch Team Road Show perform) into the bus (which was more impressive than it sounds; since the "bus" was just a little Econoline van). During the ride, we listened to the song "Mighty Mouse" by The Black Lodge Singers. There is no way of describing this song to someone who hasn't heard it and doing it justice at the same time. So I ask that you listen to it before you continue reading. You can listen to a sound clip from it here. Every time the Black Lodge Singers would sing "No!" everyone on the bus did too. Every time they sang "Oh my gosh it's Mighty Mouse! Hyaaah!!!" so did everyone on the bus. I was absolutely taken aback by the brillience of it all.
The show was impressive. It was the first time I had actually seen Team Road Show perform. There was a lot of juggling and unicycle riding, and, of course, Bok Choy's hula hooping. However, they were appearently not allowed to spin fire during their performance (which was a drag). Bok Choy was quite upset about this, and so she set off (along with me and another guy from TRS) to find somewhere out of the way where she could spin fire. We found a nice little park with no one around. It was a beautiful spot for fire spinning. And so Bok Choy lit up her hoop, and spun fire for her audience of two. It was awesome. However, right after she finished, three police cars pulled up beside us with their lights a twirlin'. And I knew the shit was about to hit the fan.
Appearently, the cops were under the impression that we had been warned that we couldn't spin fire there. This was not the case. Team road show was told, as a group, that they couldn't spin fire at Tent City because of the risk posed to the audience. However, no one was ever warned that they weren't allowed to spin fire in an empty park with no one around; least of all Bok Choy. But appearently, the cops thought otherwise and wouldn't accept it when we answered "no" when they asked if we had been warned. They took all our IDs. When Bok Choy told them that she didn't have her ID on her, they didn't believe her. And they said that they were going to arrest her for "interference" (whatever the fuck that means), in addition to reckless use of fire, if she didn't give them her ID. She maintained that she didn't have it, and so they searched her bag, and found nothing. It is worth noting that, the whole time this was going down, I had a cob-pipe and a bud of weed in my pocket. There is no way of describing the tension that I felt. I felt like I would pass out from all the adreneline that was rushing through my system.
After searching her bags and finding nothing, the cops had Bok Choy give them her information verbally. She answered honestly, giving them her real name, address, phone number, etc. But appearently, they didn't think she was telling the truth, because the computer said that there was no Jenell Nyberg living in State Center, Iowa. They told her that, if she didn't start answering honestly, they were going to arrest her.
Eventually, by some feat of communication that I was too terrified to remember, we were all able to talk our way out of getting arrested. We were all instructed to go directly back to the TRS bus (except for Bok Choy, who would be riding in a police car to her parents' campsite). Bok Choy told me later that the cops lectured her during the whole ride about how dangerous fire spinning was and how they "can't believe that you kids would do something so stupid" and "didn't your parents ever tell you not to play with fire?" It was all pretty infuriating.
As I walked back to the bus, I was scared for Bok Choy. I didn't know at that point weather or not she would be arrested. I was glad, though, that I wouldn't be spending the night in a jail cell. When I got into the bus, I laid my head against the wall, and looked out the window, hoping that Bok Choy would be okay. On the way back to our camp, we put the microphone up to the speakers and played Mighty Mouse through the megaphone. Watching people turn their heads and stare at us, laugh at us, and wonder what the hell we were doing helped take my mind off of my worry.
When we got back to our camp, I called Bok Choy's sister's cell phone immediately, hoping to find out weather or not Bok Choy made it back okay and wasn't in jail. But no one answered. And so, I went to my tent and had an anxious and restless sleep. The next morning, after leaving my tent, I saw Bok Choy on the front lawn, playing accordian with three little children.
There was no way of describing the relief that I felt. Later on in the trip, I ended up just giving away my pot to a random stoner that I met on the ride. I decided that it's just to dangerous to posess marijuana while traveling. I ended up throwing my cob pipe into the latrine.
On Friday, I heard back from Cait. She said that she would love it if I went to Wildroots with her. I was relieved to have some kind of plan for what I would do after RAGBRAI, however we wouldn't be going to Wildroots until August 4th. So, I still had to find somewhere to stay between the end of RAGBRAI and the start of my Wildroots visit. I decided that, worst case scenario, I would squat in a tent on some rooftop in downtown Charlottesville for a week. However, as someone who has never squatted or been homeless before, the idea was kind of terrifying. I decided to go to the TRS show that night, to take my mind off of the chaos of life.
This was not the best of ideas. I was still slightly traumatized by our encounter with the law, and the shock of being surrounded by suburban, midwestern, "normal-person" culture hit me significantly harder than usual. Everywhere I looked, people were smashed out of their minds on overpriced miller light (the official beer of RAGBRAI). And the sexism that men displayed during RAGBRAI was disgusting. There were men who had removed their wedding rings for the duration of RAGBRAI, just so that they could hit on girls half their age. I saw a sixteen year old girl walk into a restaraunt, during RAGBRAI, and a table full of thirty/forty-something men started making cat calls at her and hitting on her. The military presence at RAGBRAI was very noticable. It seemed that every branch of the US military had a RAGBRAI cycling team. There were people everywhere wearing clothing that was in some way military related ("go army," "proud father of a US marine," etc.) I wondered to myself how many of the people I was walking past had gone to Iraq or were going to Iraq. I wondered how many of them had killed someone and gotten away with it, because it was in the name of "freedom" (whatever that means to republican fundamentalist christians). I wondered how many of them were going to be killed in the name of that "freedom." I wondered how many of the children I was walking past will die when the economy ends up collapsing, because they will know nothing about how to live with the land. I had run out of coping mechanisms. I could no longer hide from reality. I had kind of a nervous breakdown.
I stopped talking. I had absolutly no desire to fit in with these people, and I couldn't care less what any of them thought of me. I wandered around, suicidally depressed, before sitting down at a playground. I felt like I was on mushrooms. My mind felt quiet; as though I had absolutely no thoughts. I was quasi-catatonic for about five minutes, and then I got up and started walking around some more. I felt enlightained. I felt as though I could do anything I wanted because I didn't want to do anything I couldn't. I walked around, singing "Subterranian Homesick Alien" by Radiohead to the faces of these suburban marines and housewives.
"And up above aliens hover
Making home movies for the folks back home
Of all these wierd creatures who lock up their spirits
Drill holes in themselves and live for their secrets
They're all so uptight, uptight...
Uptight, uptight..."
I found it amusing that I could walk around, poetically insulting these people to their faces, and they had no idea what I was talking about. I went back to the parking lot where team road show was giving their performance and sat down, acting catatonic. At some point, one of my friends waved his hand accross my face, in front of my eyes, and I didn't even blink. I just stared ahead, and I didn't answer him when he tried to talk to me. Eventually, Bok Choy sat down beside me and asked me if I was okay. I simply replied "no" and left it at that. She asked me if I wanted to walk home with her, and I accepted her offer.
Nothing was said by either of us for several minutes, as we walked to our camp. Eventually she said, with slight irritation, "Is there anything I can do to help you, Bubble?" and I said "I don't know." I left it at that. After another minute or so, I said "I think I just had kind of a nervous breakdown, back there." She asked me if I wanted to talk about it. I told her that I'd just run out of coping mechanisms and couldn't hide from reality any more. She asked if the reality I was talking about was the fact that the world is a terrifying place. And I told her that that was probably what it was. We spent the rest of the walk talking about what I was going to do after RAGBRAI ended. I think it was because of her that I was able to regain my sanity, that night.
We spent the night together in our sleeping bags, next to the bus, without a tent. It was nice sleeping on the ground, under the stars; maintaining some kind of connection to the earth in a world which seemed to shun it and rape it for everything it is worth.
The next day, I was still thouroughly depressed and traumatized. I sagged, having absolutely no motivation to do something as pointless as biking seventy miles for the hell of it, paying upwards of $20 for food along the way (and by the way, I spent about $250 total on food, during RAGBRAI, because everything is so fucking overpriced and I did not yet know how to successfully dumpster dive). I ended up calling two of my friends from Ohio (Brad and Farah), that day, and I was finally able to get through to them and not their answering machine. I asked them if I could stay at their house for the period of time between RAGBRAI and my visit at Wildroots. They said that they would love to have me visit. And there was order in my life once again.
Later on that day, there was a little award ceremony for everyone in Team Road Show. Everyone who was traveling with TRS got an award of some kind. My award was "Master of Ambush Sleeping." The reason I got this award was because, one night, when it rained and my tent got flooded, I slept in the front seat of Dennis's car. This gave Dennis quite a scare, because he saw that someone was asleep in the front of his car and he had no idea who it was. But he eventually found out it was me, and all was well once again.
That night, we all went out and ordered pizza and ate it on the bank of the Missisipi River. I waded in and picked up a rock from the riverbed as a souvanir. I had become accustomed to having Team Road Show around, and it was somewhat bittersweet to know that this would be our last night together. I knew I would miss Bok Choy more than anything in the world. So I tried to enjoy the last night of RAGBRAI, in spite of trauma.
On Sunday, we rode the bus back to Ames (which was where we would meet up with Bok Choy's family). I snuggled with Bok Choy the whole ride. And, after leaving Bok Choy for Ohio, I would have nothing which remained of my old life at Twin Oaks except for a few photographs and some journal entries. Being close to Bok Choy only made me realize how much I would miss her when I left. I pitched my tent in Bok Choy's back yard, when we got home, in spite of her father telling me repeatedly that I should feel welcome in their house. I just couldn't deal with watching him constantly boss around Bok Choy and her sisters, and I didn't want to be around it. I went on a walk through town with Bok Choy and Chicken Leg before heading off to sleep.
The next morning, Bok Choy drove me to the bus station. The bus station was located in the middle of nowhere and doubled as a Route 66 gas station. We arrived about an hour before my bus arrived, and I bought my ticket then. Then, we went to Staples so that she could pick up some school supplies for when she goes back to collage in Hungary. I picked up three bags of expensive chocolate (which, for some strange and unknown reason, they were selling at Staples), and gave Bok Choy one of them (the other two were for Brad and Farah). Bok Choy and I held each other for several minutes, before my bus arrived. And then, when it did, I climbed abord and left for Ohio. I don't know when (or even if) I'll see her again.
Since then, I have more or less fully recovered from the trauma of being in Iowa, and I have had a few more adventures along the way. I suspect I'll write about them in an upcoming blog entry in the near future. But I don't want to drag this entry on any longer. If you want to see pictures of RAGBRAI 2007 that were taken by Team Road Show, click here.
Until next time.
Love,
-Bubble Fiddle
By Raymond Carver
The girl in the lobby reading a leather-bound book.
The man in the lobby using a broom.
the boy in the lobby watering plants.
The desk clerk looking at his nails.
The woman in the lobby writing a letter.
The old man in the lobby sleeping in his chair.
The fan in the lobby revolving slowly overhead.
Another hot Sunday afternoon.
Suddenly, the girl lays her finger between the pages of her book.
The man leans on his broom and looks.
The boy stops in his tracks.
The desk clerk raises his eyes and stares.
The woman quits and wakes up.
What is it?
Someone is running up from the harbor.
Someone who has the sun behind him.
Someone who is bare-chested.
Waving his arms.
It's clear something terrible has happened.
The man is running straight for the hotel.
His lips are working themselves into a scream.
Everyone in the lobby will recall their terror.
Everyone will remember this moment for the rest of their lives.
NOTICE: Some names have been changed in the following blog entry to protect crack-heads.
My plan was to hitchhike from Twin Oaks in Louisa County, Virginia to the Rainbow Gathering in Arkansas. My girlfriend at the time was a very experienced hitchhiker who spent over a year of her life hitchhiking and had no horror stories to tell. She was unable to come with me because of work obligations, but she gave me a few simple rules to follow while hitchhiking. Number 1 was to always trust your intuition no matter what (and never be afraid to turn down a ride if you’re sketched out). The second one was to never hitchhike at night (even if it means pitching a tent on the side of some highway somewhere). And the third one was to always carry mace (although, by following the first two rules, she had never come close to having to use her mace).
So, I woke up early on Friday, June 29th, to catch a ride with Ezra into Louisa. He was doing the usual Twin Oaks morning errends, and I had to pick up a few last minute supplies (maps, instant coffee, mace, etc.) for my hitchhiking adventure. I couldn’t find a store in Louisa that had mace in stock, but I had a pocket-knife with me, and I figured that if worse comes to worse the threat of deadly violence would be a legitimate defense. And, given that my girlfriend had never come close to having to use mace, I considered a life-threatening situation to be an unlikely scenario. So I wasn’t too scared.
After we dropped off some stuff at Twin Oaks, Ezra dropped me off on the intersection of Yancyville Rd. and Shannon Hill Rd. I set my suitcase, my guitar, and my backpack on the ground and stuck my thumb out. I waited about fifteen minutes before I got picked up by a very friendly, laid back farmer. He drove me to I-64 and let me out at the on-ramp. I thanked him for the ride, got my stuff out of the car, and stuck my thumb out again.
A woman and her son who looked like they came streight from an inner-city ghetto pulled over and asked me where I was going. I said “as far west as you can take me.” She said she could take me as far as Charlottesville, so I got in the car. We didn’t say a word to each other the whole ride, but instead listened to blaring hip-hop music the whole time that was playing so loud that it sounded like the speakers were going to break. This was probably the best ride I got the whole trip. Just laying back, closing my eyes, and letting the beats float through. She dropped me off at a gas station in Charlottesville, where I got some peanuts and a bottle of water. I then walked to the I-64 on-ramp, and continued hitchhiking.
A pickup truck full of tatooed, buzz-cut, loud, alpha-male teenagers pulled over and asked me where I was going. I didn’t feel good about catching a ride with them, so instead of telling them to take me as far west as they could, I just asked them if they were going to Arkansas. They lost interest in picking me up instantly and drove off. After a few more minutes of waiting, I got a ride with a guy named Burt who was doing business in Virginia. He said he was going to Louisville, Kentucky, and I jumped in, grateful to have a ride that would take me this far.
It was a long, relatively stress-free ride. We listened to classic rock, smoked cigars, and shared stories and jokes. He is appearently one of the top underground-wiring honchos in the country; and he had just finished installing the worlds longest underground electrical cable. I forget how long the cable was, but he showed me pictures of it, and it was a good three feet wide. My only irritation with this man was his misogyny, but one can’t set their standards too high when accepting car rides from strangers.
By the time we were in Charlston, West Virginia, it was getting late. And a car accedent kept us stuck in a traffic jam for two more hours after we got there. So, for the sake of following the no-hitchhiking-at-night-rule, I asked him to drop me off at a Motel (since there were no suitable camping locations in the immediate area). I went in and blew $60 on a room. The desk clerk told me to keep it a secret that he let me stay there (since you appearently need to be 21 years old to get a hotel room), and I felt an immense but silent grattitude. I went into my room, ordered pizza, watched Forest Gump on TV, and called my friends back home. Later on, I started reading the giddeons bible out of boredom. I had never read the bible before, and I felt that it gave me a profound understanding of where some of the more nonsensical aspects of western culture came from (man having dominion over the earth, man having dominion over women, the supposed rightousness of totalitarianism, etc.). In retrospect, I wish I had taken the bible with me to read further. Later on that night, I looked at my map and discovered that I was only a third of the way to Arkansas. I didn’t want to spend two more days hitchhiking (plus three days coming back) -- I hated constantly being in the mindset of “am I safe?” and “can I trust this person?” -- So I decided that I would hitch back to Virginia the next day.
I woke up the next morning and walked to the on-ramp to hitchhike. But things were different in West Virginia. People weren’t as warm there as they are in their neighbor-to-the-east. Instead of getting friendly rides, people honked their horns at me, gave me thumbs down, and flipped me off. I stood on the on ramp for three fucking hours before anyone even pulled over.
Her name was Stacy, and I would spend the rest of the day with her. She pulled over and asked me what the hell I was doing. I told her I was hitchhiking. With slight exasperation, she told me to get in the car. She asked me where I was going, and I told her Virginia. She said that she wasn’t going to Virginia, but she could take me to the next exit. My heart sank at the idea of spending another four hours in the blazing sun with people flipping me off as they passed me by. Stacy then started preaching to me the values of earning your way and asking me why I didn’t get a job and make some money. Deciding not to go into the whole story about how I live on a commune etc. etc., I told her that I didn’t have an education and so it was very hard for me to get a job. She then told me about how there was a homeless shelter in Charlston she could take me to that would set me up with an education, pay for my collage, help me get a job, etc. I figured that my chances of hitching out of Charlston were fairly limited, and a homeless shelter was an okay place to stay since I didn’t have a lot of money. So I asked her to take me to the homeless shelter. She turned around and we started heading towards the shelter. Then she told me to watch my back while I’m at the shelter, because she lived there when she first came to Charlston and she got robbed several times. Then she asked me if I had any money, and I told her I had $200. She told me I should take a Greyhound home, and then I realized that this was probably the best option. So I told her to take me to the Greyhound station instead of the shelter. She told me that she couldn’t take me there right then because she had to go to work, but I could go to work with her, if I wanted. Having no other real option, I agreed to go to work with her.
She told me, on the way there, that her job is to take care of an elderly man. So I assumed we would be going to a hospital or nursing home of some sort. Instead, we went to a trailer park in the middle of nowhere. She told me that the people in the trailer park are total crack-heads, and she told me to tell them that I was her step-brother and that my parents had kicked me out of the house and I was living with her until I could find a place to go. I didn’t know why the lie was neccecary, but I played along with it. I decided to sit in the car while she went into the trailer, so that I would only need to do a minimal amount of acting (a skill which I am not good at). After a few minutes of sitting in the hot car, reading my travel guide, Stacy invited me into the trailer. I went inside and saw the man who she was taking care of (who, for the sake of this blog entry, I will call “Bob.”) One of Bob’s arms had been amputated, and there was a dent in the side of his head that a grapefruit could fit inside of. He was in a wheelchair, and every couple of minutes, his legs would start violently shaking (as though he was going into a seizure), at which point he would say something like “motherfucker… this shit’s been happening all day.” Stacy would then have to stretch out his legs and put them back into their saddles in the wheelchair. I learned later that the cause of this seizure-like condition was an extremely severe electrical accident which had scrambled his nervous system.
Upon entering, Bob asked me “so you’re having family troubles, huh?” I told him that this was true, and he asked me if it was trouble with my mother or trouble with my father. I told him I didn’t really feel like talking about it, and he said he understood. He told me he’d been fucked up his whole life; and that his dad was a drunk and his mom was a whore. The whole scene was very depressing.
I hung out there all afternoon. I would occasionally go back to the car, and then Stacy would always tell me to come back. I gave up trying this after this had happened four or five times. At one point, we all ate bologni sandwhiches and old watermelon. At another point, we lit Bob’s trash on fire in a steel drum (as part of Stacy’s job). At about mid afternoon, I started to worry that the Greyhound station might be closed when we got there (since it was a Saturday and we would likey get there after 5:00). But there wasn’t anything I could do about it, so I just hoped for the best. Towards the end of Stacy’s work shift, she asked me if I could play the guitar I brought with me. I told her I could, and she asked me if I was any good at it. I told her a lot of people thought I was, and she told me to bring it in and play it. She told me it would be my payment for her helping me out. So I went out to the car and got my guitar and brought it into the trailer.
I played a lot of old-timey country/bluegrass/folk songs (Wagon Wheel, Don’t Think Twice, Angel From Montgomery, House of the Rising Sun, etc.), and the rednecks went apeshit. They loved it. They told me I was going in the wrong direction, and that I should be heading to Nashville instead of Virginia. One of them gave me a whole list of old country singers I’d never heard of, and asked me if I could play any of their stuff (and he seemed slightly taken aback that I couldn’t play any of it, and even more taken aback that I’d never even heard of any of it). Bob told him to back off because the music was from before my time. The residents of this trailer park liked my playing so much, that they told me that I could stay there if I didn’t find anywhere else to sleep. I was not exited about the idea of sleeping in a trailer park with a bunch of crack-heads, but it was a better place to sleep than a homeless shelter where I would get robbed.
Finally, around 5:30 PM, we left the trailer park. Stacy then told me that she had to run a bunch of errends before she could take me to the Greyhound station (which included getting a new fuse for her car stereo, going to AAA to pay her car insurance and buying cat food and cat litter for her cats). We did all of that, and when we got to the station, it was, indeed, closed. It would open again at 11:00 PM, but Stacy said that she would be asleep by that point. She said that the soonest she could take me to the station was Monday. I was not terrebly exited about having to stay in a trailer park full of crackheads for two days, but it seemed like the only option I had. Stacy said she would hang out with me for the rest of the day, though. So we went to her house to drop off the cat food and cat litter. Afterwards, we decided to go to Taco Bell with her brother, Kyle.
I should mention now that Kyle has an extremely abrasive personality. When he wasn’t around, Stacy told me a story about him to illustrate just how much of an asshole he is. She said, “let me give you the definition of a douchbag. Our cousin was in a schoolbus accident a year ago and had half of her fucking body ripped off, and do you know what this little motherfucker said? He said ‘well bad things happen to bad people.’”
So, anyway, we go to taco bell, and Kyle gives the person taking our order at the drivethrough a long, pissed off diatribe about how they fucked up his order last time and put sour cream on the wrong thing. Then, they gave him free food as an apology. I found out after we left the parking lot that he made up the story about them fucking up his order just so that he could get free food, and that he does this every time he goes out to eat. Then, we went to the auto shop again to get a belt for Stacy’s engine. I sat outside the store, neuroticly smoking a cigar, trying to cope with Kyles presence.
When we got back to Stacy’s house, I asked her if she could just drop me off at the Greyhound station so that I could wait by myself for it to open. She told me that she could, but that the station was just across the street from the Charlston crack district, and that people get shot there all the time. She then told me that she could wait at the station with me, if I wanted, and I gratefully accepted her offer. I knew at that point that I would get home.
We ate at Subway before we went to the station. While we were eating, she told me all kinds of fucked up things about Charlston. She said that about 40% of the population was dying from some kind of cancer. She said that there was a power plant every ten miles, it was a huge coal mining city, and that the water was practically poison. She also told me that Charlston is the meth capital of the world, and that there was once a little girl who opened a trash bag outside of her house out of curiosity and had her entire face burned off because the trash bag was filled with chemicals used to make crystal meth. Even if Stacy’s stories were exaggerated, they made me very glad that I was about to take the bus home. She told me about her drug days and how she used to be addicted to heroin and how she used to watch Pink Floyd’s The Wall on acid. I asked her what it was like being on heroin, and she told me it was the most wonderful thing she had ever felt. She told me she didn’t do any drugs any more, and I lied and told her I didn’t either.
We got to the station at around 10:30, and hung out in our car for awhile. Some other people showed up and started hanging out outside of the station, waiting for their bus. Figuring we were safe in the company of fellow travellers, me and Stacy got out of the car, took my bags out, and hung out. I played my guitar on the sidewalk for awhile. I met one woman there who was from my home state (Ohio). She was travelling back there to live with her parents.
When the station opened, I said goodbye to Stacy, went into the lobby, bought my ticket to Richmond, played some arcade games, waited around, tried to call home, and got on the bus at 12:30 AM. The bus would arrive in Richmond at 8:30 AM, so I would have to try my best to sleep on the bus. Everyone else was tired and trying to sleep. As the bus took off and we were all trying to sleep, the bus driver picked up his microphone and made some announcements.
“Good evening,” he said. “You are on board a bus. A bus which is going to Jacksonville Florada. Fortunately, we are going to be making some stops along the way, since not all of you want to go to Jacksonville Florada. Or, maybe you do, I don’t know. The good news is, according to your tickets, you are all on the right bus. The bad news is, you’ve already been on a bus, and you already know all the rules and regulations you need to follow when on board a bus. But you’re going to have to hear them again. And again, and again, and again, and again… First off: no smoking on board the bus. That includes all tabbaco products, all cigarettes, all cigars, all pipes, and all funny weeds. Second of all: no alcoholic beverages on board the bus. Yup, that’s right. Uncle Sam doesn’t want you or me to have any open containers on board this bus. So as long as we both follow this rule, neither of us should get into any trouble. Then there’s the entire laundry list of banned and illicit substances. Rather than go through that whole list, let me just say that, for the duration of this bus ride, we just say ‘no.’ Now, I am not the brightest person in the world and, you guessed it: that’s why I’m a bus driver. So I would probably be the last person you would want to ask about fares or scheduling or any of that kind of thing… One last thing. My employer has asked me to say “thanks for riding Greyhound.” Which makes sense, since they do want to keep that money rolling in. And, seeing as I can’t really make a living driving an empty bus, and pay my credit card bills, my land lord, my taxes, and I guess my car insurance… I too would like to THANK YOU FOR RIDING GREYHOUND…” At this point, the bus was filled with a tired, scattered applause. The driver then said, “well, gosh, I can’t believe ya’ll are still awake after all of that. But thanks, I appreciate it.”
I slept a little on the way to Roanoke (which was where I transferred to the bus which was going to Richmond). On the second bus, I sat next to an insane, cute, puerto rican ghetto chick named Ya Ya who let me snuggle with her almost the whole night, which turned what would have been a long, grueling bus ride into a very pleasant experience. I probably got about three hours of sleep total, that night. But, in spite of tiredness, I was ecstatic when I arrived in Richmond.
I had heard from my girlfriend that a few people from Acorn (the commune down the road from Twin Oaks) were going into Richmond, that day, to help with Food Not Bombs. So I got a taxi from the bus station and asked the driver to take me to a park downtown (I did not know exactly which park Food Not Bombs would be happening at).
My taxi driver was by far the most abrasive driver I got during my hitchhiking experience. He spent the whole ride bitching about how some other taxi driver had taken someone to another town and how it was bad business because it’s a long drive. I couldn’t have cared less. In addition, he took me to the club district, downtown, and he told me that he thought I had told him I wanted to go to a bar. I suspect he just wanted to drive me around to make the meter go up. I told him that I wanted to go to a park, NOT a bar. So he dropped me off at a huge, beautiful park, downtown.
I got out, payed him the $20 taxi fare, and started asking people if this was the park where Food Not Bombs would be happening at. I found out that it wasn’t, I and called my girlfriend. I told her that I was in Richmond and I was headed to the park where Food Not Bombs would be happening at. She told me that the people from Acorn actually decided not to go to Food Not Bombs, this week, but she would try to find someone to pick me up.
I managed to get a ride to the Food Not Bombs park by asking people if they could give me a ride. When I got there, I realized that the park also served the purpose of being somewhat of a homeless camp (truly an ideal location for a Food Not Bombs chapter). Interestingly enough -- because I was slightly unwashed and was carrying a backpack, a tent, and a sleeping bag -- the homeless people there thought I was one of them. And I was welcomed by a guy named Bill. He asked me if I just got into town, and I told him I had. He told me that people were going to be serving us free food, later on. He told me everything I would need to know if I wanted to stay at the homeless camp. He told me how it closed at night so people there tended to sleep there during the day. He told me to stay away from the middle of the park where people tended to cluster since there were a lot of shady characters who hang out there. He told me who I could trust, who I couldn't trust, and how “different people trust different people” there. I played along and tried to blend in. I had some tea and a peanut butter sandwhich, at one point; both of which were handed out by some evangelical christians who were trying to convert people by feeding them. They wouldn’t give me food unless I also took one of their evangelical phamplets.
I lounged around the homeless camp for while. I laid out my sleeping bag, read a little, took a short nap, and turned my head when I heard a car horn honking. Cardin from Twin Oaks was on the street to my left, waiting to pick me up. I threw my stuff in the car, threw myself in, and cruised back to Twin Oaks with a story to tell.
Twin Oaks is having it's big 40th anniversary celebration. But I've grown so alienated and embittered towards this community that I don't feel like celebrating. It's sad, because all stupid bullshit aside, Twin Oaks is a really amazing place and I have learned more in my one year here than I have in any other year of my life. I just can't see the good in this place anymore...
My dad is coming down during anniversary to pick up my things and see me off. My girlfriend is also coming down for anniversary. I expect it will be awkward having them both around...
In other news, my house-sitting gig got called off. I was kind of pissed about it. However, the good news is that I might end up house-sitting for some other ex-members, instead. Their house is about a 10 minute walk from the D.C. metro. So, if I luck out and end up house-sitting for them, I should enjoy some good city living in the process. This is a good thing, because (for some reason which remains a mystery to me) I've been craving city life, lately. I'll keep my fingers crossed...
If I don't get this house-sitting gig, then I'll probably end up staying at Acorn for awhile until I can find a WWOOF farm to stay at. However, I really hope I get this house-sitting gig. I need a break from living in the country...
Peace, love, and all that good stuff,
-Bubble Fiddle
(adapted from the book Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut)
"God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, “Sit up!”
“See all I’ve made,” said God, “the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars.”
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn’t have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait…
To find out for certain what my wampeter was…
And who was in my karass…
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen."
My girlfriend left the commune, yesterday. In addition, my best friend on the commune (a wonderful individual by the name of Bok Choy) left that same day. As though this was not sad enough, two of my other really close friends here (Bob and Rae) left a couple days beforehand. There are too many faces missing at dinner, these days. And soon, I will leave as well.
On a more positive note, I have recently stumbled upon a wonderful housesitting opportunity. Kristen’s friends,
Peace,
-Bubble Fiddle
I have lived on a commune called Twin Oaks for the past year, and I am feeling a growing need to get the hell out of here. I didn’t always hate it here; I loved it when I first came; and I don’t regret coming here at all. I have learned more in this past year than I probably have in any other year of my life, and moving here was a tremendous step forward, for me. I guess I’m just not getting anything out of living here, any more. And I need to move on.
After I leave Twin Oaks, I plan on WWOOFing at a farm about a half-hour away from here. I’ll stay there for about a month, and then I’ll probably either come back to Twin Oaks and stay as a guest, for awhile, or WWOOF on another farm in the area.
I hope to stay in central Virginia through late August. Then, my girlfriend and me are going to hitchhike to Albany, New York and take a weekend intensive course in Urban Sustainability called “R.U.S.T.” (Radical Urban Sustainability Training). From there, plans are less certain. We hope to hitchhike across the country, WWOOFing on farms along the way. We have several places we want to go, on our adventure, but no one set destination. And, after our adventure is over, I have no idea where my life is going to take me.
In other news, I’ve been trying to make fire these past few days by using a bow drill. I’ve successfully made a lot of smoke, and I have burned several holes in the slab of wood that I’m working with. Still no fire, though… Hopefully I’ll get it soon…
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