Thursday 22 October 2009
Parables I created while stuck in a cubicle 3 months ago
parables:
Traveling is better done with other people.
Trust people until they break that trust, then don’t trust them again
Coffee is extremely addicting
I can be as disciplined as I want to be
Don’t be too complacent but don’t be in too much in a hurry either
Sex doesn’t make everything ok; it just makes everything a lot better
Offices are soul-sucking places which inspire gossiping, backstabbing, lovehandles, and flabby asses
If you constantly move from place to place then people will miss you and treat you better than if you are dependably around all the time
Don’t be ashamed of your shortcomings, they are probably also your strengths
The law never really does anything, and when it does manage to do something it is entirely inadequate and required way more work and bullshit then it was worth.
Environmental law is a joke. We brutally demolish more forests with needless copying and endless boxes of documents than construction companies ever will building houses.
Pretend to be confident and others will believe you are and, eventually, they will trick you into believing it too.
People don’t usually surprise. Most follow routines and those that don’t follow routines don’t follow them routinely.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone but try to be something to someone.
College is a rare environment, hopefully you took advantage of it.
You aren’t a drug addict or an alcoholic, you are a college student, and soon you won’t be one, but will you be the other?
Being afraid of having a social phobia isn’t the same as having a social phobia.
Being sensitive and neurotic had its downsides but I also miss it. Insensitivity and pragmatism are comfortable but more predictable and less creative.
There we were on the brink of salvation and despair.
poetry:
Sweaty circles dancing
Lunacy noises in the night
Two figures cut morbid silhouettes in the night
Creeping
Beats dripping base like a Novocain dream
The crowd raised their hands, extended fingers jabbing sky
Electronics, lasers, pastels, big belt buckles, tribal paint, funny vests, feathers and body glitter
and the two slithery shapes tapped their feet,
so sly, lurking and creeping
chills are running up spines
sweat puddling, running in rivulets
it’s what the party runs on, its steam and its engine
the motor of the thing is that human feeling
the crowd howls and squeels
bodies shake and brains shiver
behind frosted sunglasses four eyes stare as four legs lightly pump
those two slinky fellows straight creeping
there's the creeps among humans like vampires amidst mortals
blood suckin, bass humpin...scene feelin, adrenaline stealin
Greyhound diaries pt 2
So there we were, stuck in Medford Oregon, at a truck stop, on Christmas eve, with nothing to do and no idea of when we would be rescued from this strange limbo. Most of the greyhound passengers stepped off the bus and lit up cigs, smoking and bitching about the crappy situation we were in. At the time I didn’t smoke so Sean and I stood outside with our hands stuffed in our pockets, complaining like the rest of them. Our breath steamed in plumes from our mouths and the ground was littered with piles of white snow. I looked at these little clumps of precipitation and cursed them for putting us in this situation. What I should have been cursing, however, was Oregon law. Everyone knows bus and truck drivers are all cranked out on methamphetamines anyway, why not let them drive overtime?
In the next several hours I became intimately aware of my surroundings. The truck stop had a fairly extensive mini-mart and Sean and I spent several hours checking out their wares; snow-globes, stereos, mini statues of deer and wolves, postcards, auto supplies, and tons of junk food and drinks. There was also a taco bell and subway attached where I spent some cash on excitingly named but terribly crafted food items like crunch wrap Supremes and veggie delights.
I felt the worst for the passengers who had to manage their kids. There was no way to keep children entertained in these dismal surroundings. The kids of a single mom who were sitting in the seat across from us on the bus ran wild around a little arcade, spinning the steering wheel around on the racing game and pounding on the glass of the ‘claw’ machine, hoping that this would result in one of the stuffed animals falling out. The mom paid little attention to her children’s antics. She was only roused from her own reverie if it appeared that one of her kids was annoying or harassing another passenger, and even then this was no guarantee that her parenting instincts would take over. On the bus her kids were rough-housing and screaming and she would delegate her parental duties to her eldest son, telling him to ‘shut them up.’ She spent most of her time playing snake on her cell phone. When the kids got really out of hand her discipline techniques mostly revolved around threats such as “you guys better shut up right now or,” “when we get to grandma’s house, I’m gonna beat your asses bad.”
***
Eventually Sean and I had exhausted all the entertainment options at the truck stop. We decided that it was time to buy some 40’s and drown our sorrows in ass-tasting malt liquor. But when we approached the counter the cashier immediately pinned us as hapless greyhound riders and informed us that it was store policy not to serve alcohol to those poor dimwits who chose to ride the dawg. I was offended by her assumption that, because I was forced to ride the bus, I couldn’t purport myself in a responsible manner under the influence of alcoholic spirits, but, after the next scene I witnessed at the truck stop, I understood why their policy was in place. Greyhound passengers are a volatile lot and adding alcohol to the mix could only make matters worse.
I had taken notice of the blind man on the bus at our first rest stop, he was hard to miss. I’m not sure if he was completely blind but he walked with a cane to guide himself and his eyes had a certain milky quality that indicated a severe retinal condition. He was dressed quite colorfully in a red, one-piece sweatsuit with a garland of plastic marijuana leaves draped around his neck. You wouldn’t think that a blind man would want to pick fights with the more visually able for fear of severe physical punishment, but this is exactly what happened in Medford. I went into the bathroom for probably the 100th time at the truck stop and I had to squeeze by the aforementioned blind fellow and a young latino kid who were talking animatedly back in forth right in the path to the urinals. It was the blind guy who was doing most of the talking.
“Yeah man, I’m from LA you understand. Tough place, you gotta stick up for yourself. Yeah, we gangstas. That’s right. I’ma blood and you’re a crip. That’s the way it is.
I could tell that these two had a lot of energy so I avoided eye contact and got out of the bathroom quickly. As I was leaving another fellow came in with headphones over his ears. He was nodding slowly, listening to his music. As the door to the bathroom swung shut I heard the blind guy ask aggressively what he was listening to….
Ten minutes later the music listener emerged from the bathroom and approached a few other greyhounders who were loitering outside. They didn’t appear to know each other but they were all African American and this seemed to strike an immediate note of solidarity. “Come on you gotta help me out. This guys trying to start some shit.”
Suddenly they were all outside, the teenage gangster, the blind gangster, and several guys on the other side. There was some shouting and pushing going on, all instigated by the handicapped pothead. At one point a subway employee went outside to break it up and was rewarded with a sharp shove from the blind fellow. At this point the police showed up, handcuffed him, and drove him away. What an ignominious end to his holiday trip. I always wondered where he was going that Christmas and weather there was anyone who would miss his presence on the holidays. It was hard to stay positive at that truck stop, and harder still for those who didn’t have a warm home to go to. Our situation had turned from awful to awful/comical.
After hour six some of the hounders had called in complaints and a news station showed up to record our plight. At this point Greyhound, fearing a publicity debacle, generously gave us all one free meal at either subway or taco bell. How gracious of them to give us a choice!
Hour seven arrived and there was no sign of an impending rescue. The bus driver assuaged our fears every hour or two by telling us that a bus was on the way with an extra driver to spell him. But buses would come to the truck stop every hour with only one driver. They would refuel and then go on their merry way, leaving us stranded and wondering if we would ever get home. For most of the time that I was stuck at the stop I had been on the phone with my mother, a perennial worry-wart and hypochodriac. She grew increasingly distraught as time progressed and offered to buy me a plane ticket from Medford back home several times. I consistently declined, knowing that there was no guarantee that flights were running into a snowed-in airport and also not wanting to leave my friend Sean behind. But as my patience thinned my will broke down and I finally took her up on the offer. I said a farewell to Sean and ordered a cab to take me to the airport. After going through security it was dark outside and I waited with one other person in the tiny airport for my very own rescue flight back home. Then over the intercom I heard an announcement in a now familiar tone of apology. My flight had been cancelled. So it was back to the ticket counter where they gave me a voucher for a hotel room.
Sitting in a hotel room by myself on Christmas eve was a depressing affair and I decided I needed to go out to keep myself occupied. I walked about a quarter of a mile to the nearest mall/shopping center in this poor excuse for a town. But, because it was Christmas eve, pretty much everything was closed. At the grocery store a worker was stacking up the carts for the night and the rest of the restaurants were darkened. Around the other side of the square I ran across a god-send, an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. Of course, the Chinese weren’t taking Christmas off. They had their own calendar and their own holidays. I was reminded of my Jewish friend at that moment who told me that Christmas was always the time his family would go out to movies because the theaters were empty while the good Christians were at home spending quality time with their families. In the restaurant I chowed down and drank a beer. I was the only person by himself in the place. There were mostly families and couples, largely overweight (pun intended). Making my scene more pathetic I was wearing a slightly too small red shirt with a picture of Santa’s head on the front, enscribed with the words, “ho ho ho.” After my fine dining experience it was back to the hotel room for another beer and a James Bond marathon on tv. All in all, not a terrible way to spend a holidays eve.
Well the next morning my flight did take off, although there was a final suspenseful moment involving a 30 minute delay for de-icing. At this point I was understandably pessimistic and I figured I would be spending Christmas in Medford with my Asian pals, wallowing in my sorrows and bathing in orange glaze from the sesame chicken. But we did take off and I made it back home at around 6 am on Christmas, about two full days after I had left Oakland. A 2 hour flight turned in to a 16 hour drive which turned into a 48 hour odyssey. Later Sean reported to me that Sean greyhound had been unable to find another driver and had sprung for vans to drive the stranded dawgers to Portland. Ironically, he made it back to the city around the same time I did. But he was subjected to one more indignity. Apparently a man on the van got drunk off cheap vodka on the last leg of the journey and alternated between crying and beating his wife. Nice.
Well you would think that this would scare me off riding the dog forever but now I find myself purchasing another ticket. It’s just so cheap, I can’t resist.
In the next several hours I became intimately aware of my surroundings. The truck stop had a fairly extensive mini-mart and Sean and I spent several hours checking out their wares; snow-globes, stereos, mini statues of deer and wolves, postcards, auto supplies, and tons of junk food and drinks. There was also a taco bell and subway attached where I spent some cash on excitingly named but terribly crafted food items like crunch wrap Supremes and veggie delights.
I felt the worst for the passengers who had to manage their kids. There was no way to keep children entertained in these dismal surroundings. The kids of a single mom who were sitting in the seat across from us on the bus ran wild around a little arcade, spinning the steering wheel around on the racing game and pounding on the glass of the ‘claw’ machine, hoping that this would result in one of the stuffed animals falling out. The mom paid little attention to her children’s antics. She was only roused from her own reverie if it appeared that one of her kids was annoying or harassing another passenger, and even then this was no guarantee that her parenting instincts would take over. On the bus her kids were rough-housing and screaming and she would delegate her parental duties to her eldest son, telling him to ‘shut them up.’ She spent most of her time playing snake on her cell phone. When the kids got really out of hand her discipline techniques mostly revolved around threats such as “you guys better shut up right now or,” “when we get to grandma’s house, I’m gonna beat your asses bad.”
***
Eventually Sean and I had exhausted all the entertainment options at the truck stop. We decided that it was time to buy some 40’s and drown our sorrows in ass-tasting malt liquor. But when we approached the counter the cashier immediately pinned us as hapless greyhound riders and informed us that it was store policy not to serve alcohol to those poor dimwits who chose to ride the dawg. I was offended by her assumption that, because I was forced to ride the bus, I couldn’t purport myself in a responsible manner under the influence of alcoholic spirits, but, after the next scene I witnessed at the truck stop, I understood why their policy was in place. Greyhound passengers are a volatile lot and adding alcohol to the mix could only make matters worse.
I had taken notice of the blind man on the bus at our first rest stop, he was hard to miss. I’m not sure if he was completely blind but he walked with a cane to guide himself and his eyes had a certain milky quality that indicated a severe retinal condition. He was dressed quite colorfully in a red, one-piece sweatsuit with a garland of plastic marijuana leaves draped around his neck. You wouldn’t think that a blind man would want to pick fights with the more visually able for fear of severe physical punishment, but this is exactly what happened in Medford. I went into the bathroom for probably the 100th time at the truck stop and I had to squeeze by the aforementioned blind fellow and a young latino kid who were talking animatedly back in forth right in the path to the urinals. It was the blind guy who was doing most of the talking.
“Yeah man, I’m from LA you understand. Tough place, you gotta stick up for yourself. Yeah, we gangstas. That’s right. I’ma blood and you’re a crip. That’s the way it is.
I could tell that these two had a lot of energy so I avoided eye contact and got out of the bathroom quickly. As I was leaving another fellow came in with headphones over his ears. He was nodding slowly, listening to his music. As the door to the bathroom swung shut I heard the blind guy ask aggressively what he was listening to….
Ten minutes later the music listener emerged from the bathroom and approached a few other greyhounders who were loitering outside. They didn’t appear to know each other but they were all African American and this seemed to strike an immediate note of solidarity. “Come on you gotta help me out. This guys trying to start some shit.”
Suddenly they were all outside, the teenage gangster, the blind gangster, and several guys on the other side. There was some shouting and pushing going on, all instigated by the handicapped pothead. At one point a subway employee went outside to break it up and was rewarded with a sharp shove from the blind fellow. At this point the police showed up, handcuffed him, and drove him away. What an ignominious end to his holiday trip. I always wondered where he was going that Christmas and weather there was anyone who would miss his presence on the holidays. It was hard to stay positive at that truck stop, and harder still for those who didn’t have a warm home to go to. Our situation had turned from awful to awful/comical.
After hour six some of the hounders had called in complaints and a news station showed up to record our plight. At this point Greyhound, fearing a publicity debacle, generously gave us all one free meal at either subway or taco bell. How gracious of them to give us a choice!
Hour seven arrived and there was no sign of an impending rescue. The bus driver assuaged our fears every hour or two by telling us that a bus was on the way with an extra driver to spell him. But buses would come to the truck stop every hour with only one driver. They would refuel and then go on their merry way, leaving us stranded and wondering if we would ever get home. For most of the time that I was stuck at the stop I had been on the phone with my mother, a perennial worry-wart and hypochodriac. She grew increasingly distraught as time progressed and offered to buy me a plane ticket from Medford back home several times. I consistently declined, knowing that there was no guarantee that flights were running into a snowed-in airport and also not wanting to leave my friend Sean behind. But as my patience thinned my will broke down and I finally took her up on the offer. I said a farewell to Sean and ordered a cab to take me to the airport. After going through security it was dark outside and I waited with one other person in the tiny airport for my very own rescue flight back home. Then over the intercom I heard an announcement in a now familiar tone of apology. My flight had been cancelled. So it was back to the ticket counter where they gave me a voucher for a hotel room.
Sitting in a hotel room by myself on Christmas eve was a depressing affair and I decided I needed to go out to keep myself occupied. I walked about a quarter of a mile to the nearest mall/shopping center in this poor excuse for a town. But, because it was Christmas eve, pretty much everything was closed. At the grocery store a worker was stacking up the carts for the night and the rest of the restaurants were darkened. Around the other side of the square I ran across a god-send, an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. Of course, the Chinese weren’t taking Christmas off. They had their own calendar and their own holidays. I was reminded of my Jewish friend at that moment who told me that Christmas was always the time his family would go out to movies because the theaters were empty while the good Christians were at home spending quality time with their families. In the restaurant I chowed down and drank a beer. I was the only person by himself in the place. There were mostly families and couples, largely overweight (pun intended). Making my scene more pathetic I was wearing a slightly too small red shirt with a picture of Santa’s head on the front, enscribed with the words, “ho ho ho.” After my fine dining experience it was back to the hotel room for another beer and a James Bond marathon on tv. All in all, not a terrible way to spend a holidays eve.
Well the next morning my flight did take off, although there was a final suspenseful moment involving a 30 minute delay for de-icing. At this point I was understandably pessimistic and I figured I would be spending Christmas in Medford with my Asian pals, wallowing in my sorrows and bathing in orange glaze from the sesame chicken. But we did take off and I made it back home at around 6 am on Christmas, about two full days after I had left Oakland. A 2 hour flight turned in to a 16 hour drive which turned into a 48 hour odyssey. Later Sean reported to me that Sean greyhound had been unable to find another driver and had sprung for vans to drive the stranded dawgers to Portland. Ironically, he made it back to the city around the same time I did. But he was subjected to one more indignity. Apparently a man on the van got drunk off cheap vodka on the last leg of the journey and alternated between crying and beating his wife. Nice.
Well you would think that this would scare me off riding the dog forever but now I find myself purchasing another ticket. It’s just so cheap, I can’t resist.
Tuesday 6 October 2009
The Trip from Hell
We live in a technologically advanced age which comes with its own benefits and detractions. The benefit is that we enjoy refrigerators, gastric bypass surgery, slurpees, and the plethora of other inventions science and Techne have provided for us. The bad news is that we come to expect and rely on the comfort and convenience technology provides for us. But sometimes technology does fail, especially in the face of our creator, Freaking God almighty. I found this fact out the hard way when i became a sacrificial lamb to the transportation gods in one of the most horrific odysseys since, well, The Odyssey.
The trouble started when Portland received a flurry of snow at the end of December last year. Usually Portland has a mild climate but this year global warming royally fucked things up and Portland was buried in a couple feet of snow. It wasn't a nice powdery coating like the white stuff on the slopes of Utah ski resorts. It was a heavy, sticky precipitation. I was in Oakland staying with a friend for the beginning of the winter break. My mom called me the day before my flight, "David, have you checked your flight. It's been snowing pretty hard up here. We're worried that your flight got canceled."
Sure enough my flight was cancelled and, after navigating through the labrynthine underground of Alaska Airlines automated phone service, I found out that they couldn't reschedule the flight until the 26th because of all the rescheduling and delays that had been caused by the snowstorm. The only solution I could come up with so that I could make it back for christmas was to buy a greyhound ticket and bus it up to Portland the next day. And thus began my own version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles (minus the fat guy and the trains).
My mother refers to her greyhound traveling experiences as 'riding the dawg.' If you haven't ridden greyhound before then let me clue you in on the delights of this outfit. Firstly, no one rides the bus in America unless they absolutely can't afford any other form of travel. Because of this greyhounds are often packed with colorful characters. One can count themselves lucky if there are merely some idiosyncratic charecters on the bus. My friend Romey related a delightful story to me about riding the greyhound from San Diego to Los angeles. In the seat behind him a surly fellow got angry at his girlfriend and stabbed her in the shoulder with a small pocket-knife. The bus had to stop for several hours while the cops carted the man away and a sanitation squad covered up the blood soaked chair. Then of course their's the famous beheading incident http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,396043,00.html but that happened in Canada so I wasn't too worried.
I loaded up on snacks and drinks in anticipation of the long ride (a projected 17 hours)before I boarded the bus. We left Oakland right on time and arrived in Sacramento a short two hours later. This is where we experienced our first delay, an hour waiting in Sacramento for another bus. No explanation was given to us poor passengers. I entertained myself by eating a hamburger in the station. It wasn't the best food I could have gotten but I was afraid to leave the station because I didn't know when exactly this bus would decide to show up and take us out of Sacramento, the polyp on San Francisco's asshole. In the station I met Sean, an old friend of mine from high school. He proved to be a lifesaver later on in the ride when my patience and sanity began to fray.
Once we left Sacramento we had a long haul ahead of us, up through the rest of Northern California and southern Oregon. I dealt with the boredom as best I could, listening to my ipod until it ran out of batteries then reading a book I had brought called "Farewell to Catalonia. I borrowed a book from Sean, Lolita, and was entertained by the musings of a pedophile for a couple hours. The farther north we got the colder it got and once we hit the pass between Oregon and California we were forced to stop for an hour and a half while the bus driver wrestled with winter chains which he probably had never had to put on his tires before. Shortly after the chain up stop we pulled into a gas station/convenience store for a piss/snack stop. Sean and I ran around in the snow, breath steaming out in front of us like little cumulous clouds. It was late night and the air was crisp and it felt good to stretch my legs which had been atrophying for the past 12 hours or so. We were all looking forward to getting through those last four or five hours of the ride and enjoying Christmas eve with our families. But fate, mother nature, that fickle old man in the sky, or whatever name you prefer to put to forces beyond human control had other plans.
***
I slept fitfully through the rest of the night and in the early morning we stop off in a little town called Medford. There's a small greyhound terminal there and we stop for a minute while the bus driver confers with people in the office. None of us think anything of it and we pay little attention as we he gets back on the bus and we take off again. About 10 minutes later we pull into a gas station and the driver stops, cuts the engine, and pulls up on the emergency break with a deffinitive "EEeeeek."
"Attention passengers. I have to inform you that, under Oregon law, I have reached the maximum number of hours that I can legally drive in a day. Because of this we are going to have to wait here until a relief driver shows up. This should only take a couple of hours. I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do. Now there's food inside so feel free to rest and eat until we are reay to go again."
Groans and inchoate rumblings followed this proclamation. Most of us trudged outside. Those who smoked, which seemed to be everyone on the bus except Sean and I, lit up and the rest of us shuffled our feet, huffed our breath, and shuffled about in the cold with our hands shoved firmly in our pockets.
"This is bullshit," Sean said. "Yeah man, I know." But there was nothing we can do.
Well the wait turned out to be longer than expected, eight hours longer to be exact. In this time we were treated to some less than chivalrous behaviour by Greyhound passengers and the staff of the gas station, Subway, and taco bell which made up this little slice of paradise we were in. To make matters more frustrating we were only a few hours from Portland with no mechanical issues or bad weather blocking our way. It was only the commercial driving laws which prevented us from making the rest of the journey.
The trouble started when Portland received a flurry of snow at the end of December last year. Usually Portland has a mild climate but this year global warming royally fucked things up and Portland was buried in a couple feet of snow. It wasn't a nice powdery coating like the white stuff on the slopes of Utah ski resorts. It was a heavy, sticky precipitation. I was in Oakland staying with a friend for the beginning of the winter break. My mom called me the day before my flight, "David, have you checked your flight. It's been snowing pretty hard up here. We're worried that your flight got canceled."
Sure enough my flight was cancelled and, after navigating through the labrynthine underground of Alaska Airlines automated phone service, I found out that they couldn't reschedule the flight until the 26th because of all the rescheduling and delays that had been caused by the snowstorm. The only solution I could come up with so that I could make it back for christmas was to buy a greyhound ticket and bus it up to Portland the next day. And thus began my own version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles (minus the fat guy and the trains).
My mother refers to her greyhound traveling experiences as 'riding the dawg.' If you haven't ridden greyhound before then let me clue you in on the delights of this outfit. Firstly, no one rides the bus in America unless they absolutely can't afford any other form of travel. Because of this greyhounds are often packed with colorful characters. One can count themselves lucky if there are merely some idiosyncratic charecters on the bus. My friend Romey related a delightful story to me about riding the greyhound from San Diego to Los angeles. In the seat behind him a surly fellow got angry at his girlfriend and stabbed her in the shoulder with a small pocket-knife. The bus had to stop for several hours while the cops carted the man away and a sanitation squad covered up the blood soaked chair. Then of course their's the famous beheading incident http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,396043,00.html but that happened in Canada so I wasn't too worried.
I loaded up on snacks and drinks in anticipation of the long ride (a projected 17 hours)before I boarded the bus. We left Oakland right on time and arrived in Sacramento a short two hours later. This is where we experienced our first delay, an hour waiting in Sacramento for another bus. No explanation was given to us poor passengers. I entertained myself by eating a hamburger in the station. It wasn't the best food I could have gotten but I was afraid to leave the station because I didn't know when exactly this bus would decide to show up and take us out of Sacramento, the polyp on San Francisco's asshole. In the station I met Sean, an old friend of mine from high school. He proved to be a lifesaver later on in the ride when my patience and sanity began to fray.
Once we left Sacramento we had a long haul ahead of us, up through the rest of Northern California and southern Oregon. I dealt with the boredom as best I could, listening to my ipod until it ran out of batteries then reading a book I had brought called "Farewell to Catalonia. I borrowed a book from Sean, Lolita, and was entertained by the musings of a pedophile for a couple hours. The farther north we got the colder it got and once we hit the pass between Oregon and California we were forced to stop for an hour and a half while the bus driver wrestled with winter chains which he probably had never had to put on his tires before. Shortly after the chain up stop we pulled into a gas station/convenience store for a piss/snack stop. Sean and I ran around in the snow, breath steaming out in front of us like little cumulous clouds. It was late night and the air was crisp and it felt good to stretch my legs which had been atrophying for the past 12 hours or so. We were all looking forward to getting through those last four or five hours of the ride and enjoying Christmas eve with our families. But fate, mother nature, that fickle old man in the sky, or whatever name you prefer to put to forces beyond human control had other plans.
***
I slept fitfully through the rest of the night and in the early morning we stop off in a little town called Medford. There's a small greyhound terminal there and we stop for a minute while the bus driver confers with people in the office. None of us think anything of it and we pay little attention as we he gets back on the bus and we take off again. About 10 minutes later we pull into a gas station and the driver stops, cuts the engine, and pulls up on the emergency break with a deffinitive "EEeeeek."
"Attention passengers. I have to inform you that, under Oregon law, I have reached the maximum number of hours that I can legally drive in a day. Because of this we are going to have to wait here until a relief driver shows up. This should only take a couple of hours. I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do. Now there's food inside so feel free to rest and eat until we are reay to go again."
Groans and inchoate rumblings followed this proclamation. Most of us trudged outside. Those who smoked, which seemed to be everyone on the bus except Sean and I, lit up and the rest of us shuffled our feet, huffed our breath, and shuffled about in the cold with our hands shoved firmly in our pockets.
"This is bullshit," Sean said. "Yeah man, I know." But there was nothing we can do.
Well the wait turned out to be longer than expected, eight hours longer to be exact. In this time we were treated to some less than chivalrous behaviour by Greyhound passengers and the staff of the gas station, Subway, and taco bell which made up this little slice of paradise we were in. To make matters more frustrating we were only a few hours from Portland with no mechanical issues or bad weather blocking our way. It was only the commercial driving laws which prevented us from making the rest of the journey.
party party!!!!!!!
Music festivals come in many shapes and sizes. there are giant one night blow-outs such as the halloween rave 'Monster Massive" in Los Angeles. There are multi-day outdoor affairs with their attendant campgrounds and art installations such as Bonaroo and Coachella. Then there is MFNW, a multi-day bar, pub, and concert hall crawl. This is one of my favorite music festival formats because it gives passholders an excuse to binge on music and sample drinks all over the city for a whole weekend. Two years ago I went to a similar festival in Brighton, England and I loved checking out all the little bars and clubs in the city I never had the chance to visit. Last weekend MFNW took over the West and East sides of Portland,turning the whole metro area into a festival grounds.
My friend and I had been looking forward to the event for weeks. We had dutifully highlighted shows of particular interest, taking into account the venue's relative locations and the popularity of the talent. After talking to some other concert goers we found that we weren't the only ones who circled the dates Sept 18-20 in our calendars. One women we talked to at Dante's had created a her own printed itenerary with the sequence of shows she was going to attend culled from the official schedule as well as backup shows if the venues she had scheduled to go to were full. We knew that our nights weren't going to go exactly to plan. In fact, we hoped that we would leave the schedule behind as we followed the winds of adventure in several nights of booze, music, weed, and random encounters. So here, in true gonzo style, is my MFNW experience:
Day I: This is more of an appetizer then a legitimate kick-off to the festival with artists playing at only one venue. The real shenanigans begin on thursday when all stages are in full swing. But my illustrious compatriot, Keegan, and myself are ansty and staring at our shiny new green braceletts. These braceletts give us an all access pass to the festival (well besides the multiple VIP areas and the venues which are full of ticket-buying concert goers who get to skip in fron of us, but more on that later). We try to make it downtown for the Portland Chello project but miss their preformance. I've had a soft spot for Classical instruments playing rock music ever since watching the members of Apocalyptica wail out Metallica riffs on stand-up bases. We have a beer or two and listen to the mellow musical musings of some acoustic-guitar-playing-melodical-singer-songwriter but our hearts aren't in it and we return home, resting up our energy for day two of the festival.
Day II: Begins with a bang as we head to the Wonder Ballroom for the early show in the lineup. The Helio sequence puts on an awesome show. The drummer sported a huge grin through the entire set, seemingly ecstatic at playing in his hometown. Every time he banged on a drum his face would light up with joy and his grin would stretch ever wider, reaching demonic proportins. The spiffy lighting effects and the projected 'bandz in the hood' sign get us in that magical MFNW mood and I take a quick snapshot with my iphone. On the way out we were rejected entry to the VIP beer garden and a tricked out school bus that appeared to be a silk-screeening clinic. "I guess we are just AIP's (average importance people" I told Keegan.
The next stop is across the river to another ballroom, The Crystal. Keegan and I are full of Jaeger and mirth as we enter the venerable loft space. The Crystal is a beatiful establishment and the bouncing and swaying floorboards make it feel like your dancing on a spongy trampoline. The first act we see is a bit of a disapointment. A pianist wails away on distorted key notes which ricochet from the walls at a spectrum low and warbly enoug to kill dolphins. I didn't know that a piano could sound so jarring. Then Explosions in the Sky hit the stage and blew us all away with their resounding psychadelic rock sound. One of our friends who had bought a ticket for the show was in a walker, as he was the victim of a recent motorcycle accident. We used his handicap as an excuse to push us towards the front of the crowd. I gotta say that the band was great but I was pretty disapointed in the Portland fans. While Explosion's music isn't exactly dance-pop, they do play some bangin tunes that appreciate a little bit of crowd reaction. Maybe a few dance steps, perhaps even a little skanking or moshing are in order? But instead the portlanders stand stoicly with hands in pockets, staring blankly at the preformers. "These kids need to stop being so self-conscious and go a little mad hatter" I told Keegan. We turned heel after half the set and headed down to the Roseland. On the walk down MFNW run school buses passed by, filled up with passengers.
When we arrive outside the Roseland we find that Girl talk is rammed full of dance-happy portlanders and we are forced to take our bracelets elsewhere. We hightail it over to Dante's and check out We were promised jet-packs and another Scottish band which followed them. I was greatly impressed and fearful when, upon entering Dante's I was confronted with, what appeared to be a bad guy from super stree fighter. The bouncer that night was an intimidating charecter, outfitted with tribal tattoos across his entire face, plenty of ear guages, septum piercings, and other metal accountremant. He also carried a large hunting knife and what appeared to be a pair of handcuffs. This guy looked like he could eat two or three eastside skinny jean hipster bouncers for breakfast. Inside Dante's Keegan and I succumbed to the insistent schtick of a cute camel salesman and both purchased a pack of the cancer sticks. It then proved exceedingly difficult to convince the camel girl that we, in fact, did not want to recieve weekly camel promotions and coupons. I don't need my smoking habit to be advertised to my family. I'd rather leave the smoking for dingy bars and urban nighttime strolls. To round off the night we dragged our drunk and nicced out butts over to the Ash Street Saloon where we watched folk powerhouse "The Dimes". I dug the band but not the bathroom which was one of those exceedingly awakward 'its too big to be a single but not big enough to be a double' affairs. With a relieved bladder and an aching gut from pizza, beer, jaeger, and cigarettes I drove back home.
My friend and I had been looking forward to the event for weeks. We had dutifully highlighted shows of particular interest, taking into account the venue's relative locations and the popularity of the talent. After talking to some other concert goers we found that we weren't the only ones who circled the dates Sept 18-20 in our calendars. One women we talked to at Dante's had created a her own printed itenerary with the sequence of shows she was going to attend culled from the official schedule as well as backup shows if the venues she had scheduled to go to were full. We knew that our nights weren't going to go exactly to plan. In fact, we hoped that we would leave the schedule behind as we followed the winds of adventure in several nights of booze, music, weed, and random encounters. So here, in true gonzo style, is my MFNW experience:
Day I: This is more of an appetizer then a legitimate kick-off to the festival with artists playing at only one venue. The real shenanigans begin on thursday when all stages are in full swing. But my illustrious compatriot, Keegan, and myself are ansty and staring at our shiny new green braceletts. These braceletts give us an all access pass to the festival (well besides the multiple VIP areas and the venues which are full of ticket-buying concert goers who get to skip in fron of us, but more on that later). We try to make it downtown for the Portland Chello project but miss their preformance. I've had a soft spot for Classical instruments playing rock music ever since watching the members of Apocalyptica wail out Metallica riffs on stand-up bases. We have a beer or two and listen to the mellow musical musings of some acoustic-guitar-playing-melodical-singer-songwriter but our hearts aren't in it and we return home, resting up our energy for day two of the festival.
Day II: Begins with a bang as we head to the Wonder Ballroom for the early show in the lineup. The Helio sequence puts on an awesome show. The drummer sported a huge grin through the entire set, seemingly ecstatic at playing in his hometown. Every time he banged on a drum his face would light up with joy and his grin would stretch ever wider, reaching demonic proportins. The spiffy lighting effects and the projected 'bandz in the hood' sign get us in that magical MFNW mood and I take a quick snapshot with my iphone. On the way out we were rejected entry to the VIP beer garden and a tricked out school bus that appeared to be a silk-screeening clinic. "I guess we are just AIP's (average importance people" I told Keegan.
***
The next stop is across the river to another ballroom, The Crystal. Keegan and I are full of Jaeger and mirth as we enter the venerable loft space. The Crystal is a beatiful establishment and the bouncing and swaying floorboards make it feel like your dancing on a spongy trampoline. The first act we see is a bit of a disapointment. A pianist wails away on distorted key notes which ricochet from the walls at a spectrum low and warbly enoug to kill dolphins. I didn't know that a piano could sound so jarring. Then Explosions in the Sky hit the stage and blew us all away with their resounding psychadelic rock sound. One of our friends who had bought a ticket for the show was in a walker, as he was the victim of a recent motorcycle accident. We used his handicap as an excuse to push us towards the front of the crowd. I gotta say that the band was great but I was pretty disapointed in the Portland fans. While Explosion's music isn't exactly dance-pop, they do play some bangin tunes that appreciate a little bit of crowd reaction. Maybe a few dance steps, perhaps even a little skanking or moshing are in order? But instead the portlanders stand stoicly with hands in pockets, staring blankly at the preformers. "These kids need to stop being so self-conscious and go a little mad hatter" I told Keegan. We turned heel after half the set and headed down to the Roseland. On the walk down MFNW run school buses passed by, filled up with passengers.
When we arrive outside the Roseland we find that Girl talk is rammed full of dance-happy portlanders and we are forced to take our bracelets elsewhere. We hightail it over to Dante's and check out We were promised jet-packs and another Scottish band which followed them. I was greatly impressed and fearful when, upon entering Dante's I was confronted with, what appeared to be a bad guy from super stree fighter. The bouncer that night was an intimidating charecter, outfitted with tribal tattoos across his entire face, plenty of ear guages, septum piercings, and other metal accountremant. He also carried a large hunting knife and what appeared to be a pair of handcuffs. This guy looked like he could eat two or three eastside skinny jean hipster bouncers for breakfast. Inside Dante's Keegan and I succumbed to the insistent schtick of a cute camel salesman and both purchased a pack of the cancer sticks. It then proved exceedingly difficult to convince the camel girl that we, in fact, did not want to recieve weekly camel promotions and coupons. I don't need my smoking habit to be advertised to my family. I'd rather leave the smoking for dingy bars and urban nighttime strolls. To round off the night we dragged our drunk and nicced out butts over to the Ash Street Saloon where we watched folk powerhouse "The Dimes". I dug the band but not the bathroom which was one of those exceedingly awakward 'its too big to be a single but not big enough to be a double' affairs. With a relieved bladder and an aching gut from pizza, beer, jaeger, and cigarettes I drove back home.
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