N.A.R.D.S.

Hankerin' fer Balls

2011-10-29T21:29:00.000-04:00

Orlando, Florida

A scheduled taxi picks me up at Rond's. He says there are other cabs that came to take the fare. He explains their listening to his calls is illegal and comments on reporting it. I don't think he will. He talks about the snow later in the day and says there hasn't been snow this early in Maine since 1898. He says that was the same year The USS Maine was sunk in the Spanish-American War. I figure he knows that from the radio.

It snows from Connecticut to Philadelphia. On the last train I get on a Jamaican woman makes a bed at the window. I can't take any more blurry pictures. A family from the Portland train station follows me all the way to Orlando. It's the first time any of them have left the state. Sitting behind me, an old couple from Quebec are enthralled by a dog park and a chihuahua in a tutu. Kids from Philadelphia point out the windows in Winter Park and yell they can see Florida from their side. I remember why I hate tourists. They aren't from Florida and seem to be amazed by everything. It's seventy five degrees outside and they all put on jackets to leave the train.

I can't describe why I like Florida as much as I do, but holy shit I'm glad to be back.

Afterward

My full route is here and here. Here are my picture sets in order: Tallahassee to Raleigh, Raleigh to Baltimore, Baltimore to New York, and New York to Portland.

Dogs run free and wild in Georgia. I was chased three times as much there as anywhere else and by whole groups. No one locks them up. I'm really upset about these dogs.
Old black guys in the South seemed to dig my trip a bunch. Old white guys mostly seemed curmudgeonly about it, but a few were really into it. Everyone else was pretty universally ambivalent.
If you have a beard people will let you stay in their house.
Bontrager shoe covers don't work for shit. Axiom saddlebag zippers break. Surly, Chrome, Acorn, Pentabike, Vans, BDG, and Blood is the New Black all produce stalwart and robust products.
Bananas and bungee chords are everywhere on the road.
The South has a lot of lumber, paper, and pulp mills that stop in Virginia.
The East Coast owns.
Drink beer, ride bikes, go fuck yourself.

King Ghidorah

2011-10-27T02:06:00.000-04:00

Portland, Maine

Congratulations, Maine. After 1700 miles, you're the one that broke me.

I leave late from Portsmouth in the rain. The instant I cross the bridge into Maine my ipod stops working. It's forty degrees and I don't stop shivering once my clothes get wet. I stop at a small town shop where no one says a word to me or gives me a second mind. I stop later at a hair salon to use a blow dryer on my jacket. It doesn't work, but the hairdressers throw some of my clothes in a dryer. The dry clothes only last for a few minutes before the rain soaks through again and I'm in the same cold, water-logged position as before.

At dusk I have my third flat and fix it with the last remaining daylight. I see the first lighting of the trip. I didn't realize how much more prevalent it is in Florida. The lightning knocks out the power going through a small town. On an unlit highway with completely overcast sky, the only road I can see are the sections illuminated by headlights. A truck pulls up to a stop sign at the intersection of a back country road. I flash my lights and think he's seen me as I ride in front of him. I get out something along the lines of "Oh shi-" before his grill finds my ribs. Lying in the road I realize I'm not dead nor badly damaged and get up. The driver gets out and talks to me. His name is John and he wears a Patriots cap. He left work on account of the power outage. He's exceedingly nice, but I figure he's worried I'll sue him. My first hit of the trip happens on the last ride.

I pull over to take a break. My kickstand is loose from being hit and won't go up. I get frustrated and throw my entire load down. One of the kickstand legs lands on a toe. It's only by chance I don't break it. I continue, still cold and wet. Eventually, I stop feeling my fingers and wonder how cold it has to be for frostbite. I ride a little longer and stop at an Italian restaurant. I thaw my hands in the bathroom sink. Before I leave , I see snow flurries falling and melting in front of street lights. I ask the hostess how far it I am from Portland. She tells me around 16 miles. I say fuck it and call a cab to take me the rest of the way. The goal was Maine, not Portland, and I don't need those last 16 miles. You can have them, Maine.

I get to my host Rond Talp's house and take a shower, seeing for the first time all the scratches and bruises of the day. Midway through the ride I wondered why people cried at the end of long trips. Yeah it's a long way, but why would you get that emotional about the end of it? Exhausted, sore, and beaten I sat in a chair and contemplated the benefits of crying or not. I decide not to, as I didn't figure it'd give me any great catharsis. I didn't invest enough emotion into this trip to find some great release at its end. Maybe I'm approaching the whole thing from the wrong perspective, but eh.

The next day, I run around in a panic until I find a bike shop to ship my bike back. I start breaking it down around back to avoid a disassembly fee. A couple starts using a the store wall for a photoshoot. Both in their thirties and bundled up, the woman gets topless and covers herself while the man writes things like "Impact Or Be Gone" on her in black ink. He wraps her chest in electrical tape and takes pictures with an old timey camera. I get to peep some boob between shots.

Once my bike is packed to go, I run around the city until nightfall. I find a small shack on the coast for lobster. I had used lobster as the excuse for going to Maine. My entire trip culminated in the meat between its steaming, red carapace. On this trip I've had my first experiences with non-shrimp crustaceans and they've been the most gruesome, visceral things I've ever done. You break the shit out of them. I don't want to miss any opportunity with my lobster and eat the tomally and eyes.

I get back to Rond's and we talk about his travels around Europe and discuss shoplifting techniques. He tells me about his friend who injured his eye and had it removed because he was partying rather than taking care of it. I've had a corneal ulcer and that shit sucks. I can't fathom being cool with losing an eye. Now he drops his glass eye into people's beers to get free drinks. Other than his crazy friend, Rond is a neat dude and gives me a hit of acid to take back with me. I leave the next morning at five.

Meaning

The question of a meaning to life is stupid. It presumes there's a meaning to anything. If the universe is deistically derived with some ultimate plan of God's will, then maybe. But seriously? Pfft. A belief in random, aimless interactions may not seem the cheeriest perspective, but avoids the difficulties of attributing them to a grand beneficent ruler who shows caring through roundabout, backwards ways. Assuming an atheistic universe, there is no inherent "meaning" to anything, save for future interactions between things slated to happen (if you're into that kind of thing).

Something doesn't need to have meaning to have value. Unless your value judgments are based wholly on the original intention behind some thing, value doesn't require meaning. Value isn't confined to the same strict standards as meaning. Meaning requires intention or purpose. Value is appreciation for its own sake. Only babies argue that any value not predicated on meaning is worthless.

Lobster.

As far as meaning for the trip, it was motivated by fear. I graduated a year early and without enough warning to adequately prepare myself for entering the corporate world. I don't plan to move from the East Coast and wanted to figure out which places I like. I was afraid if I didn't take this trip now I wouldn't be able to later, and would use the same excuses to shirk doing other Cool Shit. Someone said this was a transitional journey for me. At first I fought the designation, but it totally is. I didn't have any epiphany or eye-opening experience. Now I'm just comfortable to settle and get a job. Goddamn though, being transient and getting fucked up a lot is mad fun.

Maine Kill Count

Raccoon: 1

Small Bird: 1

Squirrel: 1

Unknown: 1

First As Tragedy, Then Ass Farts

2011-10-26T00:35:00.000-04:00

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

I don't have a place to stay here initially. After the trouble in Hartford and with a town this small, I don't trust finding the local scene on my own here. I contact someone through the internet and see if they know anyone in the area who might put me up. He gives me the number of Mort Thoups.

Again, I ride through the same miserable cold and rain. My motivation for the trip has changed. There's now an obvious end to it, I've blown a ton of money, and have seen the coolest stuff already. It's now a matter of completion and I have a schedule to keep. I'm not unhappy to end the trip, I need money and want to establish myself somewhere again. I've hung out with awesome people and their friends, but only for a few hours each time. It's fun because everything's new and the people are neat, but I'm feeling that it'd be more gratifying to plant myself somewhere and get into a local scene, rather than getting a temporary glimpse of other peoples' cool places. And I really fucking need money.

I ride by my first wind turbine. It's real big. I pass through small Amtiyville towns; little fishing communities which all seem to have a strip joint.

I reach Portsmouth and drink in some bar after bouncing around the city. A young woman sits at the bar and talks to a young man. I think he's gay, but find out he's from New Zealand. I imagine they have gays there too, though. The gay New Zealander flirts with the girl fruitlessly. She mentions something about her father being in his winter home in Florida, and I'm infuriated as I encounter another instance of the assholes of my state from their environment. The New Zealander's older Scotish friend comes over and starts talking to the two. He flirts with the girl in the lazy, indifferent way old guys hit on younger women, long since out of their range. He posses no threat, but the New Zealander becomes visibly defensive, separating them with his body, flirting harder, and moaning about getting stood up by some other girl or something.

I get a call from Mort and meet him down the street as he closes up at work. We get beer and I eat the pizza he made for me at work. His gay friend joins us and we discuss where I fucked up getting laid on the trip and the difference in promiscuity between straights and gays. He thinks it wouldn't have been as difficult had I been gay. Mort offers to let me stay longer, but I already have my train tickets to be in Florida for Halloween. Again, I love these guys.

Everything

I can't think of a good place for this so I'm putting it here. It seems as good as any considering the stuff that exists here doesn't exist any less than the things existing elsewhere. I took a metaphysics class in college. We talked about all the intangible, unanswerable questions whose only support comes from intuition. That could be said of all philosophy, but metaphysics in particular seems to lack a "common sense" theory that can be appealed to. Even in that class we never touched existence. How would you define it? It just is.

The more I think about existence the more pervasive it seems. Obviously anything perceptible has to exist. The abstractions of thought that philosophers raise as obstacles to a purely materialist view of the universe are too manifestations of physical processes that can be traced back to existence. Nothingness has a harder time being found. Space looks to be full of a vast nothingness, but physicists say it's dark energy and matter. I don't understand the finer points of these concepts, but I feel pretty safe in saying these things are extant in the same way common energy and matter are. So where is nothing? Is nothing just that which fills the void between atoms, or is that role held by these dark materials? The problem is implicit in trying to finding where nothingness resides. Nothing can't exist. If nothing existed it would be something, and thus not nothing. It is dictated by existence that something predicated on its non-existence would have to exist outside of the realm of extant things or be something that could exist, making it distinctly not nothing.

It was hard for me to conceptualize until I started thinking about boundaries. Where would the boundary between nothingness and somethingness stop? Why would one brush against the other without one giving? Replacing nothingness with somethingness in this case doesn't solve the issues. When do interactions between somethings occur? Is there some moment in extremely minute measurements of time that would show causation?

There can't be existence from non-existence. We know that atoms are composed of neutrons, protons, and electrons, and those of quarks and gluons. That Hardon Collider is trying to find something of a similar size in the Higgs boson, but should they find it it too would be made of something and that of something, ad infinitum. Something cannot come from nothing and movement cannot come from stillness. If the universe is not all pervasive and infinite and exists in some metaverse, that too cannot have nothing. I don't understand infinity and don't know if things extend in all directions and time forever or loop in on themselves. Looping might answer the concern about origination by deflecting it. There couldn't have been a first movement or a first mass, it has and will always be. All I'm left with is a jumble of mass and time turning in on itself infinitely. Nothing can't exist and everything is everything in all directions forever.

Three years in school and I get a philosophy degree so I can come unsettlingly close to being that stoner that pontificates "What if, like, every atom is a universe..."

New Hampshire Kill Count

Rat: 2

Squirrel: 1

Kill Your Crew

2011-10-19T19:58:00.000-04:00

Boston, Massachusetts

I told Dior and her mother that I'd experienced the worst conditions of the trip already so the rest would be smooth sailing. The Fates reward my hubris with heavy rain and head winds, through a cold I imagine not unfamiliar to New England. I stop at a small diner before I leave Providence where a guy buys my breakfast after minimal conversation. I thank him and he tells me "Welcome to Rhode Island." I'm through Rhode Island in the next half hour. I pass by the complex where the Patriots play. The stadium is nestled among department stores and a mall. The parking lot is the size of any at Disney. I get close to the Boston area and stop to get out of the elements. It's a mistake. Standing still makes me lose any body heat I had riding and become suddenly aware of all the water absorbed into my clothes. I stop in a Chili's and am upset when the waitress I'm flirting with doesn't inquire about my outfit, or my riding in the rain, or my questions about Boston's proximity. I can't decide if flirting for tips is equatable to prostitution. (It is.)

I'm staying with Macia Japalin, a friend from college. I'm completely soaked by the time I reach her house. Luckily there isn't a dryer in the house so I hold a hairdryer to my shoes and sweater.

I'm glad I get to hang out with Macia because I didn't much in college. We had some classes together and studied sometimes, but never really hung out for the sake of hanging out. She traveled in similar circle to the one I did, connected mostly through the bike scene, but hers was more interested in caring about stuff and trying to make a difference while mine was primarily focused on getting fucked up. I only started talking to her the last semester we were both in school and didn't think it worth investing into making new friends right before I left. I thought that a cop out, so I'm glad to circumvent my apathy and laziness by making up for it now.

I ride around Cambridge and sneak into the MIT museum. They have holographic pictures, and that robot that looks like a scalped Gizmo, and some kinetic sculptures I had seen on the internet. I move onto Harvard, which seems to be the most stereotypical Ivy of any I've seen on the trip. It emanates a distinctly pompous "I go to Harvard, so fuck you," vibe. Again, around MIT and Harvard are a bunch of cute girls but I can't tell if that's on account of the schools or Boston's well known good stock. Anyone not a cute girl here appears to be Asian or Irish, the latter of which projecting a pale glow of recessive genes that's most accurately described as "gross."

Macia, her roommates, and I go down to Occupy Boston to hear Noam Chomsky speak. He's hard to hear and advocates a long-term, continued approach to the protest if it's to be successful. He commends the protesters on Occupy the Hood in which the middle-class white folks protesting march into the hood where cuts to programs for the poor are actually felt. I thought it sounded like a dumb fucking idea, but Chomsky seemed to dig it. After his speech we followed an impromptu march around downtown Boston, through a crowded indoor market, past a fancy restaurant full of suits, and along apartment blocks where Olds awoke from their 9 o'clock slumbers and watched from their windows with bros legitimately pissed about people not respecting their degrees in marketing.

The next day, one of Macia's roommates and another guest plan to drop acid and walk around the arboretum before going to a Lantern on the Water festival. I'm alerted to the fact that the roommate sells mushrooms and instinctively buy them. Instead of following them to look at trees, I sit in comfort at the house watching youtubes I had saved for such an occasion. Instead of the usual conceptual confusion about humanity I have tripping, this time I just enjoy myself and want to pet the roommate's dog. 10,000 years of selective breeding and domestication and I can't cuddle a dog because he's afraid to step over some cords. Animals are dumb.

The rest of the house returns and we walk to the lantern festival. We get there as some guy is blowing up at a couple about their dog. There's a band playing and kids in Halloween costumes walking around the pond with lanterns they had made. We make a lap and it's awesome to see Halloween in New England, especially while tripping. The Halloween color scheme makes more sense against the backdrop of Autumn foliage. It's easy to pick out the families that have lived here for generations, and it makes sense why they would stay. I ask the roommate about her trip and she tells me a story about some parents who were yelling for their lost kid. She says she followed a squirrel's positive aura and they find the kid. I tell her I have no idea what she's talking about.

Solipsism

I never intended to go on this trip with anyone else. I mentioned it in passing to a friend who I knew wouldn't end up going, so there would be some truth to the lie I would tell my parents. Up until a few weeks before my departure they thought my friend would accompany me. When I told my mom that my friend "dropped out" she burst into tears and pleaded with me not to go. After a certain point I stopped trying to rationalize it to her and told her to get over it, because I was going regardless.

The whole idea of explaining solipsism seems counter intuitive unless you already buy into it. I don't argue that there aren't objective truths of reality accessible to everyone, but any significant information beyond raw integers is inevitably colored by subjectivity. If all information comes through perception it's subject to personal associations and biases. Expression is filtered through inclinations and limited by language. More important than whether science is commensurable between different agents is whether the agents can ever understand what the other is thinking. Subjectivity doesn't change the temperature nitrogen solidifies at or the genotypes of birds. Solipsism just alienates our thoughts from others'. In so many words I can describe a triangle to someone who has no experience of a triangle adequately enough for them to conceptualize one. In the same way consciousness as a concept may be explainable, but the resultant experience is wholly personal and incommunicable. There isn't enough time or enough words to fully elucidate the minute details of one's thoughts or experiences at any given moment to another. Most people are worried by the prospect of dying alone. The real tragedy being that we all live alone.

Morose though it seems, communication of personal experience isn't necessary for understanding others. It's an exercise in futility. What is obtainable is a mutual appreciation of others' experiences despite their inaccessibility. It's understanding others by knowing you never can.

When not left to my thoughts, riding alone, hour after hour, I'm hanging out with complete strangers. I'd feel distressingly incompetent if I tried to relate to each of them on some deeply personal level. I am around these people for a few hours, and despite knowing little of their histories, I feel remarkably familiar with them. They are friendships based on the shared sentiment of "You seem neat, please don't murder me." That's all it need to be, not grasping at historic threads to better understand someone, but appreciating them for the experiences you share, regardless of whatever personal variation there is in perception.

Massachusetts Kill Count

Large Bird: 1

Mole: 2

Opossum: 1

Raccoon: 2

Rat: 5

Skunk: 1

Small Bird: 2

Snake: 2

Squirrel: 10

Turtle: 4

Unknown: 10

Tenzing Norgay

2011-10-17T20:07:00.000-04:00

Providence, Rhode Island

Leaving Hartford I'm stopped by a man on the street who starts asking about my trip. He pulls out a video camera to interview me. I'm agitated but talk to him a bit. He asks: "Aren't you worried about riding around out here? It ain't safe for white boys like you and me." I'm weirded out and tell him I'm not worried about it. He says I might not get messed with on account of my beard which he calls "intimidating." He asks if I'm making an account of the trip and I lie. I said my name, so presumably he could get in touch with me, but bump that, I'm not associating with that guy.

I tell my host, Dior Nepcer, when I get into town. She's busy so I sit around for a few hours until she texts to tell me her phone died. I'm staying with her, her mother, and her sister. I worry about the family dynamic, lest I have another Pawley's Island situation. I see exceedingly little of the sister, but Dior and her mother are nice. I have a friend who goes to Brown here, but I don't realize the school's in Providence until I run into it. I hope to find Emma Watson here to ask for her hand. Not surprisingly, I don't find her. Surprisingly, the talent is pretty spectacular here, especially for an Ivy. I text a friend this and he reminds me that Brown is the state school of the Ivies. If the other Ivies have the same talent I will regret not having done better in school.

I see an old railroad bridge I want to take pictures of behind a supermarket. I walk through some brush to get to it, but there aren't any trespassing signs posted. I see an art piece on one of the girders that I recognize from pictures earlier on the trip in some gallery. The walkway along the bridge has long since decayed so I have to walk between the bumps on steel beams and grab the random wooden posts still standing. I reach the platform at the end and start taking pictures. A boat full of fishermen look on. Another pulls up and I faintly hear someone yell "Don't fall, man." I'm insulted he thinks I need the advice. On the way back I notice a tag on the beam saying "DON'T DIE DROID." I'm glad everyone seems to care. I go back to Dior's and we smoke in front of her mother. It's the first time I've smoked around a parent.

Boundaries

I've never been completely comfortable being intoxicated around my parents, especially when I think they suspect it. I think it has something to do with lowered inhibitions or some misplaced sense of shame for being not sober. My defense mechanism is to pretend any change in behavior is due to some unnamed frustration or I just say I'm tired. Even though it's mildly uncomfortable being in an altered state around my parents, it happens on occasion and is largely a tolerable unease. I can't imagine getting mutually intoxicated with a parent. My dad offers me beers, but not with the intention for me to get drunk. I'd like to have a discourse about my habits, but I don't think I'd like to actually smoke with my dad. The situation is different with siblings, as I have no hesitation getting fucked up around my brother. There's some boundary with my parents that I don't care to cross. I'm not sure why I stick to these arbitrary restrictions or from where they originate, but seriously, my dad still calls it dope. How do you even communicate with that?

Rhode Island Kill Count

Cat: 1

Chipmunk: 3

Deer: 1

Rat: 2

Small Bird: 3

Squirrel: 10

Unknown: 3

Costume Hats (for Kids)

2011-10-15T01:15:00.000-04:00

Hartford, Connecticut

I have my first flat not long after my Mason's tour. 1,500 miles without incident and I get my first fucking flat. I patch up and move through the countryside. Aside from this setback, the Lord hath smiled upon me the past few days and granted me a quick backwind to tarry me over Connecticut's sloping hills. It's a beautiful ride with the foliage just beginning to turn. I would find out later there are entire groups of people who come here to see this. The locals call them "leafers" and they come by the busload from around the world, especially Japan. Entire tours dedicated to the decaying remnants of a chlorophyll-less leaf.

I see mortorless rock walls along the way that have probably been there for a century. The shitty ones are easy to distinguish from the old. I become curious about the skill in stacking a good rock wall that lasts for decades, but the interest passes with the walls themselves. I realize the season when I see the first Halloween decorations go up. I don't understand the fascination with skeletons; they don't even have muscles. Skinless is scarier than muscleless.

Again, I don't have a place to stay and begin my search for dive bars the second I enter the city. Downtown Hartford is completely devoid of the normal crowd I ask to stay with. I see a fixie locked atop a fence near a bar. I write my number and a request for a place I could find cool kids in town on a notecard and put it in the spokes. I ask some bartenders about the scene and they mention a few bars and a punk house somewhere in West Hartford. I go to one of the other bars and they only recommend the house. They know the street but not the address. I ride up and down the street searching for any sign of a punk house. A teenage girl on her roof talks on the phone. I ask if she's familiar with a punk house on the street. She looks bewildered and stammers out a no. My question isn't that unusual, you're the one talking on your fucking roof. Fuck me though, right?

I ride the opposite way and pass a house playing loud metal. It sounds like there's band practice in the basement. Derelict couches and empty beer cans sit on the front porch, leading me to the think I've found the right place. I ring the doorbell and knock with no response. I wait on the porch until a guy comes by and asks what I'm doing. I explain my situation. He asks how easy it was to find the place and seems justifiably leery. He agrees to let me stay on the thought that my things are more expensive than anything in the house.

We smoke and my host's friends come over. One of them, Rad Froth, has a beard and a shaved head, save for a small square of long hair sprouting from the back of his head. Rad seems knowledgeable about bud. I tell him about a stereotype I've encountered on multiple occasions on this trip about Floridians having an affinity for gravity bongs. I heard vague allusions to this belief in Savannah, Richmond, and Philadelphia before I start asking people their grav bong / stoner house ratio. They say maybe one in every dozen or half dozen. In Florida nearly everyone I know who smokes has one, making my ratio at the very least one in two. I'm surprised by how widespread this stereotype is and the fact it's a stereotype at all. More than that, it seems to be well founded. Rad believes Florida's love of grav bongs is due to the lack of growers and the predominantly shitty weed there, leading people to get baked in the quickest, most efficient way. I don't see issue with the grower statement or the theory, but I don't entirely agree with the shit weed designation. I know for a fact good weed is accessible there.

I ask Rad to look at my stash. He identifies it by smell alone as "beatties," something he smoked throughout high school. He isn't critical of it saying, "There's nothing wrong with it if it gets you stoned, man." He tells me he'll throw me bud before I leave. I ask my host if I can stay an extra night, but he's hesitant about making that commitment to a stranger. Rad offers to put me up for the next night.

I accompany my host to a Food Not Bombs meeting and we ride around Hartford's empty, weekend streets. I talk to one of Hartford's resident anarchist protesters. He's an integral figure for Food Not Bombs in Hartford and was involved in the initial stages of the Occupy movement here. He's disenfranchised with the local movement and those supporting it. He says within two days of planning two people jumped the gun to camp out. He thinks they were undercover cops planted to disrupt the protest by starting it preemptively. As a result, Occupy Hartford didn't have a constant presence and was currently empty.

After hanging out with my host for awhile he agrees to let me stay another night if I want. I don't want to be rude and change my plans with Rad and I'm always down to stay with new people if possible. I wait at an intersection for Rad with my bike packed. Some cops hassle me because there have been robberies in the area. I guess they think it's possible to burgle with a bike.

I meet up with Rad and find out that he too is a dealer. My girl luck on this trip is shit, but my weed luck is incredible. Rad is now the second dealer I've stayed with without any looking or connections. We make deliveries by bike around Hartford, but unlike Philly I don't follow him into the houses. Once we finish we go to a denim factory where his friends work and hang out. Everyone beside me is wearing some article of clothing produced here. Rad's friends have a newly formed band and tonight's their first practice. They're already committed to play at a bar in a week. They discuss possible band names and decide on "Free Jazz." They joke about what constitutes jazz, arbitrarily defining it by anything they want to do. I hear my second set of gunshots of the trip sitting by a window overlooking the city. Apparently there are microphones that pick up on it and send dispatches.

We get back to Rad's place and I find out he doesn't have a bed or couch for me, but he does have a big ass comforter. He takes his dog out which gets sprayed by a skunk. Apparently that's a common thing up North. The stink burns the nose with a chemical smell. I sleep on the comforter in my hoodie. It's not so bad. I let Rad's kitten into the room and he pisses on the comforter. Before I leave Rad gives me a gram of what he dubs "the dankest Connecticut has to offer," on the basis that I'm traveling, smoke weed, and that his friends didn't think I was a "sketchball."

Queed

I didn't mean for this blog to become mostly about weed, but that's what has seemed to have happened. It's not entirely my fault, I've just been dealt a good hand or a lot more people smoke than I had anticipated. I talked to my friend recently about stoner culture. I've since taken his opinion on the matter, making this the closest thing to a guest piece on this blog. We have a fondness for getting high and do so often. He doesn't attribute anything to it greater than a desire to get high. We both hate the culture specifically based and wholly oriented around weed. You don't need to wear a shirt with a pot leaf on it like some stoner merit badge. Most of stoner culture is pseudospiritual trash and masturbatory trichromatic patterns of red, green, and yellow. Not that this would normally matter, but people who just like to get stoned get lumped in by association. I don't want weed to be a lifestyle beyond the base desire it fulfills. That's the only reason I like it. I don't need to listen to fucking 311 for that.

Connecticut Kill Count

Bunny: 1

Chipmunk: 3

Dog: 1

Mole: 3

Opossum: 3

Raccoon: 1

Skunk: 3

Small Bird: 4

Snake: 3

Squirrel: 15

Turtle: 2

Unknown: 9

Eggplant Caviar

2011-10-14T02:10:00.000-04:00

New Haven, Connecticut

I don't have a place for New Haven while in New York. I send a last minute request to a dozen different people for the next day. Soon after I get a bunch of texts back from potential hosts offering their place. I get a call and the phone talks to me with a Russian accent I can't entirely understand. It says I can stay and gives me an unintelligible name that I have to cross reference with my requests to make out.

I make it to the New Haven train station where there is a chaotic, comical amount of honking between cars trying to enter. I call my host to get directions and have to ask her to repeat herself frequently. I don't want to keep asking and have to identify the streets by the few syllables I recognize from our conversation. I meet my host who's easier to understand in person. I'm naturally inattentive so I only pay attention to every other word, but with her accent I only understand every fourth. She has a massage chair I use for an hour and turn my back to a sore jelly. I spend too much money on some shit Irish American food at a bright, loud "pub." There's a bartender with a large scar across his right eye. I wait to hear him speak so I feel justified in believing him to be an IRA bomb maker. He speaks with an American accent and I feel my dinner has been a waste.

The next day an American, Italian, and Russian walk into a bakery. I eat a canoli and eclair for breakfast. As I'm leaving I ride past a freemason's lodge. They're having an open house and offering free food. Obviously I take advantage of the opportunity and eat three donuts and some turkey. I get a tour of the building in my "Church Burners" jersey and regret not bringing in my camera. I'm lead by a fat, middle-aged white guy who takes me into an Egyptian themed room. There are two sets of seats along the walls facing each other, an alter in the center, and an organ and throne opposite each other on the far walls. The walls are painted with fake hieroglyphics and a plaster sculpture of a sphinx is embedded above the throne. The guide takes great pains to emphasize that it's a real organ. I ask about the reason for the vague conspiracies people attribute to the masons. The guide explains that their meetings aren't open to the public and they've been around for a long time, which leads people to think they have more influence than they do. If these guys really did control everything we would have the most boring, unassuming rulers ever. They're all balding white guys with beer bellies, so I guess not terribly different than the ruling class.

What the fuck is that? Egg babies?

2011-10-11T14:41:00.000-04:00

New York, Pt. 3

I saw a video on the internet of a guy hopping around subway tunnels and the Williamsburg bridge. I pass over the same bridge many times and think climbing it would be a cool thing to do. I set it as a goal for before I leave.

I've been tired and getting over my body attempting to be sick. I don't particularly want to do it, but feel I no longer have a choice as I've devoted myself to the idea. I leave Olivia's at one. I ride to the bridge and lock my bike to the railing on the cycling path, near the intersection of the pedestrian and bike paths. I cross to the pedestrian side with the lesser traffic and head to the supports. A few people pass by, but not enough for me to wait long.

I hop over the fence onto the trusses and crawl up, pulling myself through the intersections between them. My camera rests on my back and hits the girders as I move through. Two stories up I'm able to bypass the barrier blocking the stairwell and use it the rest of the way. I wait in the corners for breaks in traffic to climb, lest some overzealous cab or truck driver calls me in. There are two dead birds on the walkway. I can't determine if they were killed by a bird of prey or by running into the bridge.

I reach the top of the stairwell and find the ladder leading to the top of the bridge is locked. I hold a keychain light between my teeth as I try to open the combination lock reading "7777." "0000" doesn't work, and I try some easily identifiable numbers to no avail. I think about going through the 9,999 combinations to get to the top, but get frustrated and quit in the first hundreds. In the space through the latch I see graffiti from those who succeeded in getting where I couldn't. I wonder if they knew the combination or if it was added after their visit.

I sit on the cat walk and chief, just to say I did. I begin taking pictures and stabilize my camera on the railing and my leg. It's difficult to get low light pictures of the city on rounded, shaky surfaces. After the novelty of being up there wears off, I head down. I hop down the stairs, pausing again with the flow of traffic. I nearly step on one of the birds in my rush on the way down.

I transfer from the stairs to truss. I have trouble determining how I should get through the gaps in the girders. I hang my camera in front of me and lower myself through. Halfway down a truss, a meter maid drives down the path in their buggy. I'm high enough to be out of sight and wait on the steel beam, giving the meter maid what I think is enough time to pass. I climb down and jump over the fence. My fall shakes the path. I look over to see the meter maid's tricycle idling as he talks to two guys. There's no place along the path I could have been to get behind him without passing me. I immediately break out running in the opposite direction. I realize this is more suspicious than the sound of my landing and start walking. I continue to alternate between running and walking as I distance myself from the buggy. It's too late to seem inconspicuous, but he isn't chasing me either.

I come to an opening in the path out of sight of the meter maid. I contemplate jumping the fence again to walk down some stairs. I don't know if it dead ends and decide against it. Once completely out of sight, I break into a sprint. I think about how much further I can run on account of this trip and about how far behind me that meter maid might be.

I reach the end of the pedestrian path and retreat to the park at its end. I stash my paraphernalia behind some vines in a corner and sit at a bench. I take off my beanie and open my jacket. I text a friend in preemptive celebration of my accomplishment. The meter maid does a circle around the park. He sees me and stops. I look up and then back down to the text conversation indicting me of my actions. He passes and I collect my goods and walk to my bike. I ride back and get lost for an hour, but am glad I'm not arrested. I think about the association between drug use and risk taking behavior. That night I dream about people breaking their legs falling.

Drug Use and Risk Taking Behavior

Drug use, beyond its bullshit spiritualism, is related to a change in perception. The adrenaline and stress of an illegal or dangerous activity is a perception altering experience similar to drug use. It is a feeling beyond that of common experience. There are not many normal conditions that are life threatening or require hypervigilance. Climbing unsuspended above a a highway is a good reminder of one's mortality. Normal thought does not include the prospect of death or danger, so those that do cause an appropriate physiological response. I don't know how often they do drugs, but thrill seekers always claim to do it "for the rush" or whatever cliche they're using now.

Deviation from the normal form of cognition is novel and engaging. Often, risky behaviors and drug use come with the some rudimentary understanding of the risks involved. Without any statistical or experimental data or the desire to find any to back it up, I think those more inclined to dangerous or risky behaviors are more inclined to drug use, and vice versa.

It was not only necessary for me to climb the Williamsburg bridge, but I felt I should smoke atop it as well. Doing dangerous things or being high is removed from normal perception. Alcohol has the benefit of legality, but everything else has the added benefit of risk. The fear of being caught is as perceptually altering as the drugs themselves. One of my most memorable moments now comes from an underpaid douche in a tricycle and the prospect of my essence smeared along the road.

New York Kill Count
Rat: 1
Small Bird: 3

I'm Covered in My Hair

2011-10-09T19:02:00.000-04:00

New York, Pt. 2

I turned twenty-two today and my license expired. I have to hope that no one looks at the expiration or are sympathetic to my situation. I'm rarely carded now on account of my beard. One of Olivia's friends is surprised when I tell her my age because of it. A few grams of hair seem to add years to my face.

Olivia's friend, Lass Etahae, and I spend the day at the Natural History Museum, and it's awesome. It's the perfect place to celebrate my birthday: amid taxidermied animals and Teddy Roosevelt quotes. I'm glad Lass is patient as I nerd out on everything in the museum, explaining taxonomic differences between protostomes and dueterostomes and spewing anything I knew about the animals on display. It ruled. All I want to do is talk about biology forever.

After the museum, we return to Olivia's and the two of them fix a simple, home cooked meal. I like the novelty of eating something home cooked in New York, or maybe I like the fact it's free. We end the night at a barcade where I spend too much money. It's a bar with old arcade games and I play a game with someone who shares my birthday. It couldn't have fallen on a better place this trip.

The next day I get lost in Brooklyn and end up in the Hassidic community. I go back later to take pictures. An aryan with a facial hair gets a lot of uneasy glances around that area. I could be projecting, or taking pictures there isn't common. I start near a vendor selling materials for the religious holiday, Sukkot. He's the second person to ask if I'm Jewish. He says I can't take any pictures of him but I should get some of his wares and company banner. He hustles me to agree to email him the pictures. I don't know how I feel about giving him free advertisement after he orders me to take more pictures of his truck, or his bags full of sticks, or the Hispanic goy working for him. Olivia throws out the paper with his email and I avoid an ethical dilemma.

There are beautiful women everywhere dressed in conservative spotted dresses and scarves. All of them are with skinny, dweeby guys with curls and trench coats. Olivia concurs with my statement. I want to grab each of these girls and tell them how much more fun I am than their religious devotion. Religious fundamentalism is despicable if only for the fact that it keeps these girls out of the general population. I understand you're maintaining your cultural population, but at the humanitarian cost of confining these girls to their square clothes and marriages to guys with funny hats.

I ask a teenage vendor about the reeds he's selling. He asks if I'm Jewish and says he doesn't speak English. I can't tell if this is a way to ignore gentiles or if he actually can't speak English. It seems genuine when he stumbles over sentence fragments to talk to me.

Isolation and Identity

This isn't the first time I've seen complete isolation of a group from society. In Virginia I went to an Asian buffet and asked the waitress where we were. She didn't know. How can someone live in an area and not know what it's called?

On my visit to Chinatown I see a precesion for the anniversary of the foundation of the Chinese Republic. There are officials waving from balconies, uniformed guards marching with a flag, and onlookers saying things I can't understand. Some of them seem interested, some indifferent, and the rest annoyed. I have no knowledge of any of the cultural background information required to understand this. Within a few city blocks are completely autonomous cultures separate from the majority.

Most of the Hasids in Brooklyn have lived here their entire lives, but retain the same Central European pronunciations of their grandparents through their insular community. I can't imagine the kind of confinement needed for that. I guess at some point it's voluntary based on a cultural pride or lack of desire to assimilate into common society. Although there are things like Rumspringa and the drug problem with Hasidic teens. Without adequate cultural exposure, a sudden ability to endulge in vices can be destructive.

I think my confusion comes from my views on cultural identity. It's not difficult to find people bound to their culture or race. Ethnicities populate neighborhoods, fly flags and banners, and open a pub. They subscribe to an identity in whatever word they place before "American" when describing themselves.

My ancestors are from the Midwest, but I'm not. I have no exposure to distinctly German communities and I'm not sure I'd want to. "German American culture" sounds boring, and I'm not Irish enough to jump into the drunken mob of half Irish who cry whenever they hear The Pogues. I can't appeal to any cultural identity of my own. Even my living in Florida makes me question my identity. I've been raised in a state in the geographic South, but not The South, constituted by an urban majority of people from the North. I can't even follow any demarcations across the Union. I'm a Yankee to Southerners and not included in the South by Northerners. I'm a non-regional American with no significant identifiers other than being from the East Coast. That's why I took this trip, because fuck the West.

I've come to accept that my identity is one of a generalized American, lacking any connection to some country or ethnicity beyond that. I'm from Florida and share the same cultural experiences as any white, middle-class kid from the suburbs, save for some environmental variation. Anyone who watches media relating to an American experience not tied to a specific region has a direct exposé on what I and millions of other kids grew up in. I used to despise the idea of this commensurablity with a white-bread generalized majority. It's my identity, accessible though it may be. I don't feel the need to do the typical thing of ethnocentric people and reduce my identity to what fraction of my genes are from which plots of land. I'm not one thirty-second Cherokee or Czech, as though that would matter. I'm not Irish or German enough to give a shit about either. I am distinctly, categorically, and completely ordinarily American. Maybe that's boring, but shut up, because you don't know shit about where I'm from that you didn't get from the T.V.

Brita Water Filter Juice

2011-10-07T16:44:00.000-04:00

New York, New York

I ride through Newark and understand a little better people's opinions of Jersey. My own doesn't change. I take the train into New York. It's a short ride past huge swaths of graffiti and exposed stone from where they blasted away the hillside. It looks like a geology presentation held together with mesh wire and then vandalized.

I'm not able to find a subway station with an elevator before rush hour. I ride from Manhattan to Brooklyn completely geared up. I'm staying with Olivia, my roommate from last year. I meet her other friends who are all coincidentally staying with her at the same time. They're neat and mature and I dig that. We go to a bar where I realize I haven't eaten much that day and am starting to get sick from a contaminated joint in Philly. The next day I feel worse and am glad for the reprieve from riding as I accompany Olivia and her friends around the normal city sights.

I visit Occupy Wall Street. It's crowded with shirtless hippies, idealistic students, and teenagers trying to get laid. There are piles of clothes and cots set up as makeshift homes for the protesters. Scattered imagery of peace symbols and Che Guevara abound as an off beat drum circle lets out periodic yelps from its performers. I run into an acquaintance I knew from Orlando who came just to be part of the protest. There are a few people who seem knowledgeable about the issues with informed opinions, but most look oblivious and are just groovin' off the positive vibes and chakras, man. It feels like Burning Man but with T.V. cameras. Police surround the barricade of protesters, each carrying a dozen plastic restraints, while annoyed businessmen glare at the crowd from the boundary. I've already expressed my thoughts on protest, but the whole event seems ineffective.

In the subway station a man kicks over a panhandling drummer's collection tub and the money lands on the track. The panhandler follows the man who ignores him. The drummer is funny and talks shit well. New Yorkers aren't mean, they're just forward. I'm staying in Williamsburg which has a drastically different population from Manhattan. I've seen more trendy people here than anywhere else, many of them fashionable in ways I can't even comprehend. I saw a guy with a curly quiff and unkempt beard wearing a punk shirt and dirty work overalls; I couldn't tell if it was ironic or what he genuinely liked. I'm not sure what to make of these people. Either the hipsters here are on some next level shit or will inevitably be embarrassing tarnishes to family photo albums.

Irony

I'm writing this from bar in Williamsburg. It's exploiting my basic desires: every beer I buy gets me a free pizza while a show about bikers plays. A lot of the people here seem genuine about what they like, but every now and again someone passes in front of the bar in an outfit I can't imagine as being worn with genuine intent.

One of the pervasive characteristics of my generation - or more specifically hipsters - is their reliance or propensity toward irony. Rather than become apathetic and morose about the perceived futility of modern life, this group embraces things not valued by the majority of society. Dorky glasses and NASCAR shirts are hiptacular. Obviously untrendy by definition, the ironic designs taken by hipsters tend to be tacky in such a way to make a statement about the person for whom the design was originally made.

Life is futile and sincerity shows you aren't aware of that fact. Instead of the angsty, emotional, reactionary rebellion of grunge, indie culture uses irony as its crux. I'm not sure what started this initially, but as is the case with myself, it makes complete sense if irony is a defense mechanism of nerdy kids. You can make fun of someone for being sincere, but if they do it first it takes the sport out of it. Saying you already know your outfit is stupid makes it more difficult to criticize. But from this comes weird confusions of what is sincere from meta-ironic. Is this art legitimately good or good by pain of it being legitimately bad? It's hard to keep up with what to like for itself or for the sake of irony.

Maybe it's a response to modern culture. Like some stupid Warholian reasoning of common society constituting what is cool, but not for the reason they think. The welder in Minnesota thinks that wolf shirt is appealing and says something about him while the hipster feels the same because of the welder. It's an expression of intellectual superiority as the welder won't understand what the hipster wears, but the hipster thinks he does. Vintage shops are popular spots because of the old, lame shit they have, so hipsters can buy it and compliment each other about finding such a boss Sweet Tarts belt buckle. It's tacky and garish but shows your devotion to finding cooky and obscure shit. I want to say it's banal and bullshit in a contradiction that would highlight exactly what I'm talking about, just toward hipsters rather than the majority. It's mostly bullshit, but what else do you do? Wear sports jerseys or utilitarian beige? It's not opposed to society, but based off it in a different way than normal. Society then bases itself off of alternative fashions which leads to the indie alteration of those, potentially spiraling into a circle of bastardization that hopefully won't lead to something as grotesque as the 80s.

Yeah you, twat.

I hate having to figure out what the basis of my motivations are, so I generally assume they're sincere. But even in my writing I second guess my thoughts, or something. I think it's easier to confuse people about your reasoning when you don't understand it yourself. My sincerity might only be to the irony that identifies me as a hipster. It could just be tribal mechanics funneling people to stick with their cultural clade. I wonder what clade the guy with the poofy, curled mohawk and capris fits into other than "unemployed shithead."

I talk to a twenty year native of Williamsburg. We walk around and he tells me about the development of the neighborhood. He points at an expensive coffee joint that used to be a metal foundry. He deems its patrons twats. I run into similar twats later, walking near the abandoned sugar factory discussing urban planning and how the land is best divided.

The gentrification here is shameless with million dollar lofts feet away from rusted junk yards. I don't know how I feel about it all. Obviously it's an awesome place with lots of cool places and people, but the migration here was caused by a desire for culture. Once the neighborhood is gentrified and reassigned as a hip place, it loses that initial culture in exchange for that of the migrant horde's. That's all good, but the original culture upon which the migration was based withers and disappears. It's some sense of living in a place that's "real" or just not suburban. Nirvana, or Rage Against The Machine, or whatever bullshit counterculture bands became just as commercial as any of the shit they rallied against. So why fight it? Embrace the mundane consumerist culture but do so with a sense of understanding and pretentious superiority.

It took me coming to New York to buy a shirt from Orlando. It's a tank top from Universal Studios with a design they haven't used since the early 90s. I would never think about wearing a Universal shirt now with a current design, but this appeals to me with it's outdated neon colors and the way it shows off my farmer's tan. There's something about it being old and not currently worn by the people who would've originally bought it that makes it attractive to me. Or it's the fact that I wouldn't have worn it in its own time. I guess it's ironic. It's cool because it's lame. I'm never sure, though. I envy those deities who are able to operate on four meta-levels of irony, while I can barely maintain the one.

Bitchin' Miata, Bro

2011-10-06T14:24:00.000-04:00

New Brunswick, New Jersey

I've not gone far into Jersey, and granted I haven't seen Atlantic or Jersey City, but it doesn't seem so bad. I mean, I get it, there's a lot of urban sprawl, but good Christ, for the collective shit people take on Jersey you'd think it wholly composed of rapists. Parts are pretty and parts are poor, but on the whole I see little difference between it here and any other state. I understand it's not the best, but she ain't so bad.

My friend grew up in this town. The people here are either Hispanic, or hate cyclists, or both. I don't realize I can stay with my friend's family until I've arrived at my host's house. The host and her roommate express themselves through internet memes and loud 90s pop music. It's intolerable, but they're nice enough. I go to bed early, sober, and having no great desire to spend more time with those giving me shelter.

Nostalgia

Hurray!

For my hosts, these banal 90s hits are humorous and attractive. It recalls for them a time less predominated by responsibilities or obligations. No one in the house was past middle school when these songs were released. It's not the songs themselves but the feeling of nostalgia that comes with listening to them. I'd like to say it's ironic but I think it's more infantile.

Before heading to Tampa to live, I sat in my Oldsmobile in an old chiefing spot in Orlando and smoked It had been years, and I'm not up to date on the latest state dependent memory research, but not long after partaking I was overcome with intense nostalgia and a sense of deja vu. My nostalgia wasn't limited to the thoughts and feelings of the previous times spent there, but to the nostalgia I felt at those times too. It was less about the emotions I felt each time than the similarity between them at different instances. It's an enjoyment about how at different points individual characteristics vary, but in essence I'm the same nostalgic stoned dude in the same spot I had been before.

The difference between my hosts and I is that I'm aware of the comforting role nostalgia plays in my thought process. They think playing Destiny's Child and N'SYNC at the same decibel level as a jet fighter is legitimately entertaining in it's own right. The comfort here is in recalling a more childish, less responsible period. I get it: you guys like shitty pop music, but simply alluding to something doesn't make it funny, and remembering your childhood won't make your current responsibilities disappear, you fucking babies.

New Jersey Kill Count

Bunny: 1

Chipmunk: 2

Dog: 1

Mouse: 1

Opossum: 1

Skunk: 1

Small Bird: 5

Squirrel: 2

Turtle: 1

Unknown: 7

The Point is that Clamenza is a Fat Fuck

2011-10-03T02:20:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Mr. and Mrs. Wernak give me an apple from their tree in the backyard. I've never had one better, but it could have just been that I was hungry. It lacked pointy bits and I can totally conceive of someone eating the entire thing.

Going to Newark yesterday I had to cross a narrow, two lane dam shooting loud torrents of water down some fifty feet. It was terrifying and beautiful. Today I had to cross a mile long two lane bridge into Philadelphia and there was no beauty about it. The slums here are different than those in Baltimore. It's possible they're just less pervasive or squalid. Philly is overrun with homeless crust punks with dogs, though, so I guess they have that going for them.

I don't have a place to stay and begin my quest to find one. I ask around and go to hip places. By sheer dumb luck I run into Philip Lahaed. He's dressed in a cycling outfit, as am I along with my geared up bike. We start talking and he tells me he's taking a tour down to Florida and then over to New Orleans. He's excited to be able to put me up for a few nights. He's a weed dealer bike courier and I'm amazed at my luck. He's an organizer for the Philly naked rides and doesn't hesitate to change in front of me. I wish it was cool to get naked around other people. I think I just want to show people my dick. Philip complains about his current situation: he's boning this girl but it's not really substantive or emotionally engaging. I argue eating anything is better than going hungry. Unbeknownst to me she is my waitress the next day. She's filet mignon and apparently not the only course.

On my second night Philip dresses in extremely short khakis, black leggings, and a neon orange jacket. We ride our bikes around much of Philly's empty streets making deliveries. He went to the dentist that morning and needs to have some extensive work done, which means spending a lot of money. He's going with two others on his tour and is nearly broke. He calculates that he'll be able to spend about six dollars a day. I'm averaging twenty between major cities and thirty to forty a day in them. His trip is going to be radically different than mine. Philip seems very smart and plans to get his M.D. and Ph.D. but currently attends a community college. I wonder about who is smarter. I can't tell if I'm thinking too much into it or he knows something I don't.

Intelligence

Aristotle said that there were three kinds of motivations: for wealth, for gratification, and for wisdom. Wealth is simply another form begging of gratification. Gratification is fleeting, temporary, and probably not virtuous. Seeking wisdom is the best for some reason, but I always figured it was Aristotle being self-congratulatory on account of his seeking wisdom. I think that might be the case, but he could have a legitimate point.

Without getting into whether intrinsic value can exist to begin with, I find myself judging more complex systems as more valuable. That is, regenerative or reproductive processes become more valuable as they stack upon one another, if only based on their statistical rarity. Psychologic processes are based on biology, based on chemistry, based on physics in that if any simpler system stops functioning so too do the complex systems based on it. Sapience is more valuable than solely life, but life more than chemistry.

It could be egocentric, but I think intelligence different than any other adaptation, such as sight. Intelligence is self replicating and self seeking, whereas sight can become more precise or expansive but not self replicating, unless you could have some sort of weird sight that seeks to see. Frank Yang argues that consciousness could be something that existed before the universe as a way for it to comprehend itself. I don't agree, but it's a neat way of thinking.

If a machine was made with the sole purpose of becoming more intelligent it's conceivable that if its physical form remained intact, and given the necessary resources, it would be able to increase its knowledge indefinitely. It would never reach any one underlying truth of the universe because of infinite regress, but it could follow the same pattern of creating a new system at a certain level of complexity in the system prior. The concept is easy to grasp, but the content of this new formation is impossible to determine.

As humans dependent on biologic forms, it seems unlikely that we'll ever attain this hyper intelligent state. If we are, however, able to create a machine that could exponentially increase its intelligence it would lead eventually to a level of replicative complexity currently unimaginable. Possibly anthropocentric, it's disappointing the thought of humans reaching their pinnacle in artificial forms, but the intelligence inherit in us finds the whole of itself more important than that of its biologic container. As a cell dies for the body, so too can the biologic for intelligence.

I have a discussion with a graduate of Harvard and MIT about systems and their applicability to most things. He's writing a book about the nature of systems both biologic and physical and how they can be used to solve practical problems. I'm able to talk to him and understand his cognitive process. I feel from him no condescension nor pretension as we discuss cerebral, subversive media and how a sense of fear in safe situations allows for a change of perception. The difference between us is the same as between Philip and I: we keep up knowledgable conversation in spite of our different academic records and backgrounds. Philip isn't less intelligent than me and I don't feel significantly less intelligent than this MIT guy. We are able to retain a normal, intelligent conversation without any patronization nor large gap in understanding. I begin to think that an academic background does not determine intelligence, only the raw amount of information one has. Our separation in academia originates more from our initial motivation and foresight rather than pure cognitive capabilities.

In his own way, Philip is more knowledgeable about himself and what he's doing than some of these uptight, overachieving pricks getting straight As at John Hopkins. They've worked for a grade, unquestioning of its significance since kindergarden. Philip goes to community college because of poor performance before, but seems to know exactly what he wants and why. Work ethic be damned, he's more knowledgable at least about his motivations than some of these to be lawyer shitheels.

Machines may obtain a greater factual intelligence, but wisdom seems to come from understanding one's motivations for doing what you are. And have you ever seen The Terminator? Robots are goddamn terrifying.

Pennsylvania Kill Count

Cat: 1

Dog: 1

Mole: 1

Opossum: 1

Turtle: 1

Unknown: 3

Baleen Whales Vomiting

2011-10-02T01:49:00.000-04:00

Newark, Delaware

It's been cold and rainy since I entered Virginia. The Northeast hasn't been helping me to like it. The cities are cool, but Jesus, stop it.

I arrive and am welcomed to Newark with heavy accents and a quiche. My hosts Mr. and Mrs. Wernak are polyglots from France and Columbia respectively. We go see a long and slow Korean movie at the university theater. It's attended entirely by Olds. The average age was double that of my hosts. Mr. Wernak is a professor getting his doctorate in mechanical engineering and wears his jacket inside out. We discuss cultural and linguistic differences and they tell me Americans hug a lot. I fucking love hugging and do so frequently. I ask them if their thoughts are ordered in a certain language. I'm unable to differentiate between my thoughts and language as I only have the one. They conclude they do not unless they have to express the idea in that language.

I make a point to hug them both before I leave.

Delaware Kill Count

Mouse: 1

Small Bird: 1

Snake: 1

Araby

2011-10-01T00:38:00.000-04:00

Baltimore, Pt. 2

It's starting to get cold and I'm questioning my logic in traveling North in the winter. It's raining and windy and miserable like D.C., but the atmosphere seems more appropriate here.

I ride around the city. I'm unimpressed with the aquarium, a result of fishing around a peninsula my whole life. I make desperate, last minute bids to find the living equivalent of my fears toward women. Having given up I go to a diner for a burger and milkshake. I recognize one of the waiters as the bassist of the girl's band; the very same who I thought cockblocked me earlier. I tell him about my journey. He tells me the girl I'm looking for dates the keyboardist. I request he tell her I came to Baltimore with the intention to ask her on a date or tell her she was cute. I regret doing this before my food arrives as I have to sit awkwardly and exchange awkward glances with him. I'm relived. I never had a chance with her so I don't feel like the attempt was a personal failure. My opinion of the bassist is also altered. I thought he had cockblocked me, but now figure he didn't want to change plans with his host in Tallahassee. Even considering the outcome, I feel accomplished for finding an unlikely connection in a big city. I imagine I've made someone feel flattered, or at least mildly uncomfortable.

It's difficult for me to describe the depth of love for my hosts. It's a lot. After three days and a few nights I feel like I've known these people for some time. Linden, the host with dreads, verbalizes how it's odd I'm involved in their lives here for a short time. I try and explain that these quick forays into others' personal lives are the nature of the trip. That being said, every time I get comfortable in a place it's difficult to leave. I'd always like to stay longer, but have to remind myself it's a trip and not a migration.

Marie, her friend, and I get stoned. I watch her friend attempt to eat an entire apple from the top down. He's a big, gay dude born in Germany with a proclivity towards Grey's Anatomy. From my understanding, in Germany eating an entire apple is commonplace and the norm. I argue that you can't eat an entire apple on account of its pointy bits of bone around the core. He can't eat the entire apple because of its pointy bone parts and says it's a weird apple. I eat an almond to see if I'm still allergic, as I found at the beginning of the trip. I am and my ears and throat itch for awhile.

On my last night in town we go to a party full of art students. It's large and boisterous and the cops arrive quickly. People from the party follow us back to the house and establish a new party there. Not long after the same cops walk into the house and break it up. Linden and I talk to the cops. She might have come off a little lippy to the cops who become a tremendous shitheels. They take our information and make threats of fines and jail time to me and the tenants. They mention my legal culpability being the only of age person there and thus responsible for anything that happens to anyone. After Linden's roommate and I calm the cops down, they leave giving us a warning.

Before the cops have left the door, Linden is crying into my shoulder. Her roommate returns from locking the door and we console her. She says it's her first experience with cops. We explain that you have to be obsequious as it's important for them to feel powerful. She says she feels bad about my being threatened with charges and would have paid any fines. I explain things like this make the trip interesting and that I was aware of the distinct possibility of my being arrested along this trip. Linden has lost her phone in the confusion between parties and we go looking for it. We don't find it. I stumble through an apology about the band girl and go to bed. I don't make it clear I felt bad because I had I crush on Linden. I'm not sure I expressed this to her well or at all during my stay. I wonder if I purposefully sabotage myself in these situations so I can romanticize them later. She says she'll read the blog. It doesn't take much courage to tell someone you like them over the internet. Sorry dude, but I was crushing pretty hard on you for the whole stay. I figure I've either now doubled the number of girls in Baltimore who think I'm flattering or creepy or halved it.

Linden gives me peach cores to plant along the rest of my trip.

Sophogyny

Being raised by a single mother has made me equal measures feminist and misogynist. Value can be attributed to anything, but from a biological and reproductive perspective, women have a greater inherit value than men. That does not imply that men are devoid of value; theirs is determined by their utility to women. Women's sexual success and evolutionary worth are found simply in their existing.

This doesn't mean that women can't be funny or clever, but it's not necessary for their reproductive success as is the case with men. Men - aside from physical prowess or stability - are measured by their mental alacrity. All of these characteristics, however, are tied to the service they provide to a mate. The difference is the most attractive human man is not always the brute alpha male. It's become more important for predominantly monogamous humans to look to traits fitting for child rearing and stability than just fighting back that fucking panther that won't leave us alone. In both cases the female retains the right to choose.

It's contrary to the current conception of gender roles and probably the reason I don't get laid. I don't do the normal, patronizing mutation of self required. Instead I preemptively put every girl I meet on a pedestal. I feel like it's demeaning to pander for sex and probably not fair to the other person. In other words, I have placed myself in a perpetual friend zone and will never bone down again.

I'd like to say that it's more important to get into a girl's head than her pants, but I don't usually agree with female intuition. I've never valued sex highly enough to let it change my personality, which means I don't get it as often as I'd like. Being yourself is supposed to be an attractive quality, but it's less so when yourself doesn't get laid. Normally I make fun of people for seeking personal validation by serial dating, as if filling a void of some strumpet will fill a personal void in yourself. I don't usually feel the need for a relationship like that, but on this trip I am definitely searching for validation. I don't care if other guys think what I'm doing is neat, I need a girl to take notice of the fact that I'm in awesome shape and am doing a stupid, ridiculous thing. I worry that my chances on this trip will reflect my chances upon my return, and that bothers me.

If nothing else though, I think I like Linden because she likes my music. I ruminate on what I desire in a women and usually think intelligence or attractiveness is the deciding factor, but the real determinator is whether they like my music. It's a more fundamental expression of my tastes and personality than anything else; a shared interest in that usually means a commonality in other things. A girl that likes the same pattern of chords as I is more appealing to me than some stuffy cunt that doesn't but can understand my heady philosophic bullshit.

But good God, these girls don't know what they do to me.

Maryland Kill Count

Deer: 1

Dog: 1

Frog: 1

Monitor Lizard?!*: 1

Opossum: 1

Raccoon: 1

Rat: 3

Small Bird: 3

Snake: 2

Unknown: 4
*Based on later research I think it was an otter.

How to Eat a Wolf

2011-09-28T19:25:00.000-04:00

Baltimore, Maryland

I could have saved myself at least two hours of riding if I had taken the metro to its limit. It feels like cheating and I'm afraid they'll check my bags, but the thought remains until I pass the last station.

Baltimore is special on this trip: it's the only place for which I have a set goal. Aside from collecting a heroin container from the sprawling, destitute set for The Wire, I'm trying to find someone here. A few months ago, I saw a show in Tallahassee and thought the lead singer of a Baltimore band fit my standards for attraction. I talk to her a bit while buying their album, and after hearing about their bleak housing arrangements, offer to let the band stay with me. Everyone is exited about having a surface to sleep on, but the bassist walks over to say they'll stick with their original place, but thanks. They continue their tour and return to Baltimore. I feel cheated.

It's difficult to distinguish between things romantic and creepy. This is a goal for the trip, but not the only one. That doesn't change the fact that I'm desperately seeking a complete stranger based on an inkling that I might have a chance with her. She's a siren, though. Upon hearing her voice I was smitten. I worry that if I can't get a girl considering the forethought needed to find her along as significant a trip as this I'll be forever incapable of attaining the women I seek.

I ride in through the slums of boarded windows and people on stoops, apathetic of my presence. The streets are covered in trash. I'm crashing with a girl from my high school, Marie Bolt. I didn't really know or talk to her at all in high school, but we ran in similar circles and were friends on Facebook. She's a cool cat with a half shaved head and a neat girlfriend that dresses like James Dean. Her and her roommates are students at the art school. I feel a little guilty and unlucky bringing up the band girl, because her roommate is adorable, dreads included. I explain my dilemma to them and they coo at my use of "smitten" and immediately begin networking to find her. A couple leads turn up dry, but they promise to help tomorrow.

My replacement camera D ordered for me has arrived. It has a working light meter, and regardless of it being the same model as the last, is a better camera. I love the shit out of my brother.

Paige

I had a great deal of difficulty figuring out what to write here, or if I should at all. It doesn't matter that you won't see it, acknowledgement of any sort gives credence to the idea that I'm not over you. Unfortunately, I think that may be true.

Eight years is a long time, especially for something as masochistic as unrequited love. Every confession of it was met with the same response of pity and frustration. I understand it wasn't fair to ask you to feel differently, but you made no effort to alleviate my suffering. You always saw our relationship as a deep friendship while I imagined it an extended love affair. We were never just friends.

It's not that I still wish I could be with you; I don't want to know you. I'm upset about the time wasted chasing you, squandering any opportunities I had to find someone else. Admittedly, I didn't want it, but all my time was spent worrying about you and all my choices based on how I thought you would respond. I'm bitter that you appear now and again in my decision making; no longer shaped by beneficence, but spite. I'm over you in any romantic or amicable forms, but I'm still resentful. How could I not be, though?

For eight years I waited on your beck and call. I devoted countless hours to restlessly worry about your state, yet without fail I would be passed up for some chump with a personality disorder. It wasn't even the assholes that bothered me, they had some sort of character, but choosing to be with someone so insultingly boring and without personality was illuminating. False modesty isn't a virtue, and I can think of no way the last guy could have even been my equal. He made me reevaluate my perspective of you. I was able to see the thing I longingly adored was just a projection of what I wanted, wholly apart from the reality of your being. I don't know how long the two were separate, or if they were ever the same to begin with. I have the habit of falling in love with ideas, and the idea of my ideal mate is no exception. There was no way you could've matched it, but it didn't matter, I couldn't tell.

I wish I weren't so bitter, if only for my own sake. You still haunt me before I sleep. Everything I do I wonder how much of my motivation is some perverse desire to show you up, to show you what you missed. It's exhausting, but it's always been. I wish things had turned out better, and I'm not sure what that means.

But You Don't Hear Me, Though

2011-09-27T19:00:00.000-04:00

Washington, Pt. 2

Metro System

Day 1 ($8.00): I have difficulty determining my route. I choose the line that takes me to a central hub. I sit with my bike near the doors in a sparsely populated train. A man sleeps, waking occasionally to glance at the station names.

I return on a crowded train where I stand in the area between the doors, moving every time the stations change sides. Everyone stares. I lean on a pole and push against my bike so I'm not knocked around at every stop. Two Columbian girls sit near the doors, a balding yuppie wearing a baggy purple button-up and jeans for 'casual friday' begins to talk to them without any introduction. He talks about the quality of his grilled cheese, adding that less than half of the sandwich is cheese. The conversation seems strained, but the girls indulge him. One motions to me and all three look. I'm not sure if it's about the bike or the beard on my shirt, but the yuppie quickly changes the subject. An older couple point and whisper to each other about a sticker on my bike reading: "DRINK BEER, RIDE BIKES, GO FUCK YOURSELF." I have to pretend I didn't notice, lest I have to have human interaction.

Day 2 ($5.00): It's Saturday and everyone is in their respective college sports wear. Over the P.A. the conductor chastises a woman for touching the train with her kid. An Asian father and daughter travel together. The father looks like the typical traditional, conservative Asian dad. The daughter looks like she'll grow up to be a knockout. From the disinterest they take in the ride, I imagine them American, with him having immigrated and her being born Americanized. She stares out the window, his head bobs as he dozes off. I am taken by the beauty of the scene, imagining the complex relationship between the two as she gets older and American standards begin to press up against her father's traditional views. I realize I haven't heard them speak and have no idea as to their actual nationality. "MLK" is carved into the panel separating seats.

Coming back I've learned to be unobtrusive and wedge my bike in front of the emergency exit, away from any traffic. It's a more reserved trip with people keeping to themselves. A boy with a skateboard sits shrewdly, taking great pains not to look at anyone. A gorgeous girl in sweat pants stands in the center of the car and I'm annoyed when she sits down. I watch through to the car in front of mine, the framing between our windows makes for interesting movements. I wait for the sporadic moments of perfection when all the poles in the car before mine line up into one. I try to cheat and move myself to see it but am blocked by a pole in my own car.

Day 3 ($6.25): Two young boys sit by the emergency exit, their chaperone and another boy sit in front of them. I move to the aisle and stand next to them against my bike. An old woman asks them to move over and sits beside them. Obviously uncomfortable, the boys stop talking. A young black guy steps in and the boy in front gives him a head nod. The black guy laughs and the boy, embarrassed, rests his head on his father's shoulder. As more and more people pile in, the black guy perfects his craft, gesturing with his hands and rapping to a music only he heard. I see one of the boys has a birthmark on his calf that looks like a leach. I wonder if it's permanent and wish it was a leach.

I see a girl on the train back that was on the train going. I doubt she realizes or cares.

Day 4 ($5.00): Engraved into a panel someone wrote:

Fuck

Tron

RIP Off!

Two teenagers throw their legs over the seats and talk loudly while everyone else is silent.

At the station coming back a guy in a button-up stares at me. I make eye contact and he maintains his stare adding a flair of eyebrow lifts. The exact meaning is lost on me. Another guy across the car seems to stare at me too. I attribute it to nerves and figure he's staring into space toward me. Two guys have a conversation about sports populated by statistics and name drops without any significance beyond who knows more.

Power

Throughout this trip I've ridden by battlefields and monuments of the Civil War; Arlington is as far north as I'll find them. People are often intrigued by the Civil War and remark on how odd it was that it could happen in our country. The threat of civil war isn't absurd, a threat of physical violence is pervasive throughout politics. That's not to say it is unique to our society or that we live in a particularly volatile time, but a threat of violence is a fundamental feature of political systems.

If there was no possibility of violence the system would not function as there would be nothing to enforce accountability or follow through. Both parties in a two party system are held accountable by fear of retribution from the other. Even in a one party system, power is consolidated by subjecting dissenters to acts of aggression by the ruling party. If it were possible for a pacifist government to come into power it would paradoxically require it to use violence to gain or retain it. A truly pacifist system would be quickly overthrown by a group willing to use force to take and maintain power. Pacifism only works when those in power bend to it for fear of violence, or revolution, or foreign intervention. I'd like to see that pussy Ghandi take my vicious body blows and still retain control of his idealist baby nation.

A Note About D.C. Drivers

I always thought the "drivers from [state] are so bad; they're the worst," was bullshit. Everyone in every state is a bad driver, but good God, they raise the bar in D.C. I can't say yet if it's D.C. specifically or urban areas in general, but I've never seen more cutting lanes and horn honking. Every horn and siren is amplified between the skyscrapers and echo for blocks. People here honk for seemingly no reason, including taxi drivers who think it appropriate to announce their presence every time they're behind me. I saw a woman honk across an intersection at a car honking at another. I don't know what to make of that.

I sure don't.

D.C. Kill Count

Squirrel: 1

Chew Yung Phat

2011-09-22T18:35:00.000-04:00

Washington, District of Columbia

Coming into Washington today, I stop to take a picture of a military neighborhood barricaded and posted with military warning signs. My camera won't turn on and has moisture behind the screen. Rightfully so, the whole trip in I bug the fuck out. I get into the surrounding D.C. area fine, but looking for directions on my phone the service unavailable. I try to call someone for directions only to hear my phone service is on hold because a bill hasn't been payed. For the next four hours I ride around blind, stopping frequently to look at maps and on-display iPhones until I find the place I'm staying.

My cousin is putting me up for a few days. I haven't seen her since I was two, but growing up had seen pictures of her. With our shared experiences of the family it's easy to feel familiar. She works for the State Department and served in the Peace Corps in Togo, a little African country bordering Ghana. She's remarkably intelligent and it's refreshing to be able to talk to someone else intelligently about the family.

Patriotism

She couldn't bear to get rid of her Bush poster.

I doubt these monuments would bear any meaning to me if they lacked their cultural context. If I were to go to another country to view their cultural landmarks without a historical basis, I might be taken with their complexity or artistic significance, but would feel no personal connection to them. Being here I feel personally affected. Large, marble constructions draw symmetric parallel lines, framing tributes to important events and people. Between tourists reinforcing squirrels bad behaviors and numerous groups of foreign tongues, the sight seems more realistic and beautiful. The monuments don't need some artificial purity or seclusion for a photo-op, they need to show the crowds of tourists come to see the capitol of the Western World's cultural standard.

I don't feel it right to begrudge these privileges granted to me by living here. To decry a hegemonic beast while safely resting on its shoulders seems a privileged position in and of itself. But I'm not angry like some. I'm frustrated, I hope for accommodations to what I think is right, I regret a less than perfect record. But no place is a utopia and I don't feel shame for pride. We've fucked up in the past and present and will again in the future, but by and in large we are progressing toward something better. People in empires before have likely argued a similar stance: not perfect, but better. What differs between them and I is that I live here and now. This empire and culture are mine, and through all its tribulations and history, there is a general movement toward better ethics.

I don't need her to always be in the right to love her, nor is my affection any less when I criticize her. I think this is the most important distinction for patriotism. Questioning the country does not make you unpatriotic. The unflinchingly single-minded who defend the country against all concerns are not patriots but Jingoists. To follow devotedly without ever analyzing her actions will not make the country stronger or more resolved, but will bring about stagnation and radical festering.

FREEDOM

Patriotism is not an unquestioned devotion nor in the removed clades of those critical of anything the country does. The concept lies between the two, with an appreciation for the benefits granted but a critical eye focused on decisions to make us a better nation. Just please, let me smoke my weed and have my abortions in peace.

Pratterpillar

2011-09-21T21:59:00.000-04:00

Fredericksburg, Virginia

[My camera was broken here but there wasn't anything to take pictures of anyway.]

Fredericksburg isn't far at a little over fifty miles, but I feel tired. I have a large breakfast of a portobello omelet, rosemary taters, fruit, and giant biscuits with pork gravy. It rules and I talk with the waiter about my syrup consumption from an earlier visit. I run into one of the guys from the night before and say hey, but keep walking. Another guy hollers at me and I realize the friend who had given me food was there too. I walk back and talk with them some. I feel like an asshole for not having done it for the one I was less familiar with.

I get to Fredericksburg and am overly optimistic about finding my scene here. I've been spoiled along this trip. I find the only place I can ask about dive bars. It's a small, semi-trendy thrift shop dealing old nintendo games and t-shirts. I consider myself learned in t-shirt style and lore and think their collection impressive. I imagine the group interested in this town isn't big enough to snatch the choice shirts quick enough. I bemoan my circumstance. In this Shangri-La of shirts I can take nothing from it.

I meet my host, Berricks Grudef. He's a young guy working for the Department of Defense. He diets with nicotine patches. He's a big dude and we talk about rugby over beers. He tells me lurid accounts of the girls he's boned in the room we sit. I don't want to be rude, so we continue talking about it. I don't know if it wasn't entirely sober or just didn't care, but the conversation wasn't that off putting or bizarre to make me uncomfortable. I thought it weird enough to write about, though, so I'm not quite sure how I really do feel about it. Berricks was nice, anyway.

The Least Most

2011-09-19T13:19:00.000-04:00

Richmond, Pt. 2

I didn't want to overstay my welcome with my first host, so she sets me up with another. He works as a legislative assistant for some representative. He's just as boring as his job title implies. It seems as though he's been living alone too long. He smells everything he comes in contact with, including anything before handing it to me. It's an odd compulsion. He recognizes the strangeness of it, becomes embarrassed, yet continues to repeat it. The next morning he leaves me waiting for two and a half hours for him to return and lock up the house so I can leave. I get frustrated, lock the handle, and leave anyway.

Scouting around the city for food, I run into some people who attempt to call a friend to put me up. They aren't able to get in touch with him and I go into the restaurant they leave to get a sandwich. It's a two foot long french baguette filled with jerk chicken, cabbage, and banana ketchup. My gut is full of battery acid that breaks down any food intake and metabolizes it instantly. Either that or I don't understand how digestion works. I finish the sandwich in one sitting. I feel fine, but looking at the cutting board the sandwich was brought out on, I'm disgusted by the thought that something that big is now existing, condensed, in my body.

While eating, the people I saw earlier came back to the restaurant to give me their friend's number, who was open to my staying with them and was expecting a call. I forget if I'm apathetic from the trip or if that's an appropriate amount of effort to give a traveling stranger.

This is in front of Richmond Dank House

I meet Lilho out front of a broken house with a tall bike outside. The house is dirty, filled with bikes, and there's a rock climbing wall in the stairwell. In short, it fucking rules. We walk over their now defunct bmx track in the backyard to find Rogen trying to get his newly acquired moped to work. Lilho asks Rogen how his trial went. As I find out, a group of them were caught trespassing in an abandoned building when a group of different kids was caught trying to break in. Lilho stayed on the roof while Rogen and some of the group went down and got caught. The trial went poorly and the owner showed up for the prosecution. They were trying to charge Rogen with trespassing and vandalism damages for up to $20,000, despite there not being any evidence or new graffiti.

Lilho takes a nap and Rogen and I hang out a bit. We play video games, and in this dirty house I feel like a little kid. A stoned little kid. Rogen asks why I didn't get sponsored. I tell him I doubted I'd get anything from the brands my bike is advertising and that it felt presumptuous to assume I should. I also didn't think it'd be right to go around getting high and drunk in support of little bald kids.

We get some free food from his friend and Rogen tells me about a bike messenger race he did in Guatemala after some landslides. It became a relief effort in addition to the race, where they were feeding displaced people in their free time. He rode around Hawaii too and we talk about bikes and SPAM. He reveals that he got off free at the trial, and that he and his friends are lying to Lilho in an attempt to freak him out for not coming down with them. The owner came to the trial, but in support of Rogen and his friends thanks to a few calls the lawyer made.

After riding around some, we return to the house where Lilho and some of the bike club kids are hanging out before their weekly meeting. One of the kids talks about a mural he painted with primer in Lilho's room, still visible under the paint. It's of a guy watching HBO and playing put-put with his penis while behind him a fish jumps out of a water hazard to eat the man's shit. The bike club is one of a couple in Richmond, which is new to me. They congregate and have family time: a checkup on each of the members' weeks and mental well being. Someone lets slip that the trial went well leading to an anticlimactic response from Lilho. The family time strikes me as a great idea for a group of friends to give summary to a week.

Friends

Aristotle has a pretty elegant theory of friendship. He argues there are two forms: friends you value for what they do for you, and those you value for their character. Friends valued for an end are not without worth, but are easily lost when the end is no longer fulfilled. It's a cliche, but the idea of a conversation that never ended between good friends holds true so long as their characters remain the same. A friendship based on the person neither needs nor desires anything but the friend themself to exist. I'd like to argue that valuing people for themselves is just valuing them for the happiness or enjoyment they provide through their character. That doesn't make it untrue. I can value a person without liking them, even be friends with them, without valuing anything they give me.

One night in Raleigh, I went to a going away party for a kid going to Peru for the Peace Corps. The party was populated by his family and close friends and me, a stranger. It was very personal and touching, with the host choking up giving a speech. Between this and family time I've been able to experience personal situations without any sentimental connection of my own to it. They haven't made me realize any deep, philosophic ideas. They have made me realize I value my friends in the same as everyone elsewhere, and that even alone on this trip, from these situations I find appreciation for my own friends back home.

Virginia Kill Count

Cat: 2

Deer: 2

Fox: 2

Opossum: 9

Raccoon: 2

Small Bird: 2

Snake: 9

Squirrel: 3

Turtle: 9

Unknown: 8

Androgyny Weekly

2011-09-17T01:51:00.000-04:00

Richmond, Virginia

My shit schedule is all kinds of fucked up. My normal, scheduled morning shit has long since gone out the window. Now it's determined by accessibility and whim. It's not guerrilla shitting, but is opportunistic. Bathrooms on upper floors of academic buildings on college campuses are ideal, but supermarkets (save for Wal-mart) are sufficient. This high protein, high calorie diet is having its way with me. I am now a shell of a man whose life is dictated by his bowels.

Richmond I had always heard was kind of a hipster headquarter and it totally is. There are a bunch of single-speed basket bikes here without foot retention. Aside from the initial hill entering the city, it's pretty encompassingly flat.

I'm staying with a girl whose boyfriend is doing a tour with some friends from Richmond to Tallahassee and then across to California. She didn't expect me to stay with her on account of her responding late to my request, so she made plans that night to drink in Williamsburg. My first night in Richmond was spent in Williamsburg. There was a bar crawl there for the students of the local law school, starting at a Buffalo Wild Wings. I spend my time drinking and eating overpriced food and watching a football game. There are small pockets of Florida State fans here. We end up losing. I end up drunk and tripping over myself trying to dance to shitty dubstep at the brobar where the group was. I offend my Williamsburg host's on-and-off girlfriend by saying women have intrinsic value. My Richmond host is surprised the next day when I tell her I expect to stay longer, but puts me up anyway. I hit on her roommate and we all drink at an empty bar the next night.

Art

I went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and it's my first foray into a large city art museum. From the experience I'm able to say I hate Jackson Pollock just as much in person.

I think for me the aesthetic is more important than the intention. If I don't find a piece visually appealing it isn't good. Maybe that's a plebian view, but the Rothko-esque piece of four single color slats of different widths that somehow is supposed to represent the Virgin Mary upon learning of Christ's conception isn't engaging, it's pretentious.

I'm not the artist, and while knowing what the artist's intentions might be interesting, and add to my own interpretation, ultimately they don't matter. Art, in all forms, appeals to the viewers subjective interpretation of it. That's how art becomes moving: by the associations people draw to it through their own experiences. These old ladies in their expensive pastel pantsuits don't care about how the art makes them feel. The sentiment is lost on them. They pretend to enjoy it under the pretense of "this is what old ladies do," touching the glass, and musing on how they don't understand a certain piece.

A large banquet was set up with tables in a central room obviously meant for the wealthy old folks. I scoff at the fact that these people clearly don't understand nor are they affected in the same way as I am. I remember that art is an expensive and resource intensive pursuit and that moments earlier I was ruminating on art's subjective nature. I'm angry at these sweet old ladies for not appreciating the art as I think they should. What kind of self-righteous asshole gets upset at innocent old women? Someone who understands that just because they're old doesn't mean that they're any different than the vacuous sorority girls they were before Jesus lost his battle with Roe and before The Darkies could vote.

All girls are sluts.

Creamtree

2011-09-16T00:39:00.000-04:00

Blackstone, Virginia

FUUUUUCK YOUUUUU

Central Virginia has been ass to ride through. It's got some pretty heavy gradients in the landscape and around 12mph winds, only slightly less than the windiest ride going into Brunswick. It's pretty beautiful even without all of the visual variety of North Carolina. It's just started to get cool, which is uncomfortable in the mornings but keeps me from sweating much, if at all, during the day.

Initially worried by the experience staying with Olds in Pawley's Island, the past two older people I've stayed with have been great. Here I'm staying with Kent Cablos, a fifty one year old atheist in the military. He deals with explosive disarming of some sort for the Navy. I didn't ask his rank because that's rude and who gives a shit? Single and laid back, Kent is real easy to get along with. An avid hunter and traveler, he spends most of his disposable income to fund trips on his motorcycle or in his plane, to hunt or just knock around different countries. We talked about our traveling experiences and the similarities traveling on our respective bikes. He told me about his plans to visit Namibia in March and to ride across the world in a few years when he retires.

Expectations

I expected my Pawley's hosts to be murderers disguised as an old couple based on their Couchsurfing page. I expected Kent to not be an atheist based on his being in the military. Obviously wrong on both counts, it seems I should assume less. Fuck that, though. Hume can eat a dick, induction is wicked useful. Sure, I was wrong about my hosts and it's wrong to draw assumptions about people, or whatever, but by expecting the worst I found myself pleasantly surprised when wrong. Expecting the worst is stressful, but so is being wrong about an optimistic assumption. Knowing the truth ahead of time is boring.

I know where I'm staying in Richmond. The couch is lined up and I don't need to find a place, but I wish I did. Not knowing what to expect from a host is fun and makes you work and intellectually probe at how you should interact with these people. A hipster paradise, like Portland, might be intellectually unstimulating because you would know exactly what to expect, with the only sort of challenge being what color Chuck's are most trendy. Expectations are good for mental preparation, and if you remove the need for them the mind atrophies and you become one of those "people are good" zombies.

I want dat meatball

2011-09-15T00:33:00.000-04:00

South Boston, Virginia

My dearest Caroline,

It has not been long since I left your side, yet already my heart aches with grief. I did so enjoy seeing your face that it made up for all the tribulations I had to overcome to see you. Your beautiful, radiant visage and gentle contours have done a great deal to soothe my wearing mind and aching body. I await my return to your arms with impatience and long to be held again in your warm embrace.

I am staying with General Lee's mistress, Virginia. Beautiful though she is, she is of a stormy disposition and prone to longwindedness. From my space here I can smell the manufacture of that hound's meal they've been sending to the front lines. This war shall soon be over after the Yankee scourge is dealt with. I pray that happens before Lincoln's savages are able to molest us further.

Your adoring husband,

Col. Chester Worthington, Mrs.

Lou Reed

2011-09-12T21:34:00.000-04:00

Raleigh, North Carolina

Today was a short ride of 50+ miles that took longer and felt harder than it should have because of the stupid long ride yesterday and the late start from Fayetteville. Central North Carolina has some hills and Raleigh is especially replete with them. Otherwise, North Carolina is gorgeous all over.

After briefly listening to the local black university band practice, I made my way over to the place I was staying. Initially worried by the tight trim of his facial hair and neatness of home, I really enjoy my host Haigler and his roommate. I would come to find that they both are studying material research at NC State, a subject dealing with the chemistry and physics of metals and polymers for novel uses.

We went to a bar, Sadlacks, to get me food and have a few drinks. We happened to walk in on free bingo night. It's a game entirely dependent on luck and usually played in silence by large groups of Olds. Here there was an interesting dynamic of BINGO references and friendly competition between strangers. The crowd knew all the in-jokes for any number, of which "Oh, sixety-nine," seemed to be a crowd pleaser. It was a clique that could be held by perfect strangers. It was also the friendliest competition I've ever been involved in. A Jamaican guy complimented my shirt, remarking "cool doug."

Cliques

There's an obvious appeal to being around like minded or similarly interested people. A group allows you to have interactions with people without having to constantly explain or qualify yourself. Cliques are groups of people with a greater potential to be friends with one another than with random strangers. Or maybe that's just from dialogue. You're more open and likely to form a friendship if there is some initial dialogue between parties.

With cliques there is an obvious shared set of interests held by those within it. It could be this similarity of views which allows the relative ease of making friends within the group. Or it's all arbitrary. Humans are naturally communal and tribal animals, and outside of the geographic restrictions and need for communal hunting bands, this my be how evolutionary predispositions are modernly expressed.

I express my loyalty to my tribe by the clothes I buy, the music I listen to, and the hobbies I take interest in. What is more influential, though? Is my wanting to belong in a certain scene the motivation for my tastes or do I relate to this group according to and because of my tastes? It's probably both and that's a boring cop out. I want to know if I actually enjoy these black framed glasses and tight jeans or if I enjoy them for the sake of others' perceptions of me and how that makes me feel.

Is my hesitation to take upon any views not predetermined by my clique the same mentality of the redneck who think their truck and trailer are better than anything those faggots in New York have? Theirs is spawned from a lack of knowledge which makes it easier to defend if you claim you didn't care about it in the first place. It might be that these Urban Outfitter catalogs play the same role. With the camaraderie of a clique comes equal resentment of Others. I want to say that's wrong or bad, but I'm damned comfortable in these expensive graphic tees, and I'll kill any fucker who thinks me the same as some Ed Hardy douchebag.

North Carolina Kill Count

Baby Gator: 1

Cat: 4

Caterpillar: 1*

Deer: 1

Opossum: 6

Owl: 1

Raccoon: 8

Skunk: 1

Small Bird: 6

Snake: 2

Squirrel: 4

Toad: 3

Turtle: 7

Unknown: 16

Vulture: 2

*saw it, was awesome

Rim Job Massacre

2011-09-11T11:15:00.000-04:00

Fayetteville, North Carolina

I've been so separated from media this trip I forgot the about September 11th until today. I'm sure I know what they played, though. Endless visual allusions to the attack with video of before and after the attack, and only an occasional shot of the planes hitting the buildings. Then cut to a New York firefighter, Giuliani, and gratuitous footage of George Bush walking over rubble and shots of him looking determined out a window or something. Thanks media.

Today was the longest ride I've done this trip and will continue to be for the rest of it. It will probably be the longest single distance I will ride, ever. Due to some stupid turns and bad routes, today's ride was one-hundred and forty miles. That's twelve hours of riding and double my average for a day. Getting water, one guy in a tie and gold chain stopped me and asked outright for twenty dollars, halving the amount each time I told him no. I nearly strangled that 5'1 fuck.

Methodist University has a shitty security guard who gets upset if you try and bypass his booth on a bike. He takes your ID to let you on campus. I got my ID back after hanging out with the host kids awhile, only to be kicked out of my bed because sleeping in a girl's dorm room is a travesty against God in all situations. I woke up the next morning to the fiasco of a broken phone and my things still trapped in the dorm. It wasn't until noon that I was able to get everything sorted out and be on the road to Raleigh.

Privacy

Not being able to sleep where I like or store my weed where I choose makes me feel violated. Methodist University was very good at making me feel that way,

Unlike the sprawling, lenient, public universities I'm used to, Methodist University treats me to the feeling that my property can be searched at any time, a threat that feels more real than other times the ability has been claimed. I guess there's some sort of tacit agreement between student and school, but it seems a poor compromise. Come to our strict, religiously run school of two thousand and we'll give you a complete lack of privacy and freedom! Maybe that kind of legislating is important to some people, but coming from a campus where I have openly been intoxicated, it seems boring and overly restrictive. A sheltered college experience is one wasted. Hey, Methodist, I had enough weed on your stupid fucking campus to send me to jail prison. How's your shitty campus security working out?

Bumbaclot: A Study in Patois Dialogue

2011-09-09T02:13:00.000-04:00

Wilmington, North Carolina

I rode through Myrtle Beach today, the last place to solidify my hatred for South Carolina. A surrogate Daytona Beach replete with gift shops, mini-golf, and chain restaurants. It even has its own bike week, full of the same bearded businessmen riding forty-thousand dollar Harley's acting hard, as in Florida.

I was confused as to the type of person that takes a vacation to Myrtle Beach. Is there really that large of a population of vacuous, unmotivated people whose only desired experiences are Puddfuckers and Red Lobster? Do the people in those commercials really exist? There were a dozen mini-golf courses all down the same strip of U.S. 17. Their variability ran the gamut of all possible put-put themes from volcanoes and tikis, to pirates, to live alligators, to crashed planes, to dinosaurs, to crashed planes on dinosaur island. Every one of them with the same distinctive dull, opaque blue water required for a put-put licence. The overwhelming corporatism of it was dumbfounding, with every sort of overpriced, crappy tourist attraction I'd ever seen along one long strip. Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock, Wonderworks and Ripley's, Dolly Parton presents Pirates! and a large television advertising "BATS." The sign telling me that I was entering "the most military friendly state in the nation," was the most welcoming sight thus far.

Wilmington was the longest trip at one hundred miles. It wasn't unbearable, but I'm glad to take the next day off. I spent the night in the middle of some heavy girl-talk that would've made me fret endlessly in high school. I woke up the next day to an underage girl trying to discreetly bone her military boyfriend on the futon near my head. I tried to sleep as long as I could amid the unintelligible whispers breaking the rhythm of wet kisses. They finished whatever they were attempting and I overheard them talk about the guy on the ground. The girl thought him funny, but wouldn't let a stranger into her house because she says she has trust issues.

Picnic Attack

2011-09-08T14:08:00.000-04:00

Pawley's Island, South Carolina

I left Charleston, and after dealing with South Carolina's unstimulating countryside, landed in Pawley's Island. It's a pretty area with a lot of expensive houses. After countless pier after pier marked private, all reaching into the grassy waterway opposite the beach, I found one belonging to a house for lease and without a private posting. Walking across was a self conscious and nerve wracking experience. Alone on a pier in funny clothes, stepping over skinny, broken planks to reach the end and be the only person in the waterway. I worried some overzealous neighbor would come out and lecture me on property rights, then realized there were no neighbors. Aside from a few scattered houses, the majority of the homes were vacant, serving as an occasional summer home for some assholes who lived elsewhere and probably use words like "synergize" and "coupé."

This guy is nowhere near the coast.

I went to the beach and found it unfamiliar to most of the beaches I had seen in Florida. Houses on stilts held walkways to the beach and long jetties of rock kept the surf from eroding them into the sea. I got a call back from Sally Waipend, wife of Lieft Child, who I had talked to about staying with. She passed the phone to her husband, a man with staggered speech and terse tone. He asked where I was and attempted to calculate in brief pauses the time it would take for me to ride to their house, only to give the phone back to his wife. She politely asked what I wanted to do, whether I was tired, and if I wanted to stay at the beach for some time. Again the phone was traded and Lieft gave me a direction to head with the suggestion to "get peddalin', man." I met Lieft at the gas station he had designated and found an old man with white hair and a station wagon. I got into the car and wondered how many times I would have to call him "sir" before the night's end. On the phone I was reminded of the alpha male posturing of any father whose daughter I was trying to hang out with. Upon meeting him, he wasn't necessarily warmer, but lacked the machismo grunting bullshit he used on the phone. He repeatedly explained on the ride with short, cut-off sentences that trailed off midway through that his wife was a retired teacher and he used to travel to Hawaii to surf when he was my age. He gave an audible scoff when I told him I was twenty-one.

We reached their house in the middle of a country club in Litchfield and I exchanged the typical small-talk introduction I'm constantly giving on this trip. Sally seemed committed to being open and welcoming despite her husband's obvious view on the situation. A young stranger was staying with two older adults in their house and without charge. I tried to alleviate the situation by being ultra-polite. I was raised to be exceedingly polite around adults, but only while with adults I was familiar with. Being alone with the middle aged is not an etiquette with which I'm familiar. Lieft gets frustrated with my constant deflection of "whatever is most convenient," and in jilted sentences, repeatedly says "we're just nice people","we're cool." Lieft is a chef at a local restaurant and cooks filet mignon and grilled vegetables. My steak is overly rare and Joe takes it back to recook it. As he moves outside I noticed he didn't seem to have any balance. He has perpetually bleeding cuts on his legs from stumbling over. Between this and his staggered cadence, I wonder if he's had some sort of stroke without any facial paralysis. We pray before dinner, eat, and retire to our respective rooms. Sally tells me to make myself at home. I masturbate and trim my pubes in the bathroom.

Aging

Death doesn't make aging scary, aging does. Death is inevitable for anyone at anytime and more of a second thought when ruminating on growing old. The fear towards aging is the fear of restriction and the loss of ability. Lieft wasn't upset I was staying in his house. He was upset that I stood as a testament to how he was and the ability he once possessed. He can't surf again, much less walk a straight line. His posturing might have been funny were it not so sad.

Aging is mental confinement. The being that has existed in your form the whole of your life persists, but the body continues to whither and crumple. Paleolithic man came to his natural end at the ripe age of thirty. It's not wrong that we've stretched our longevity to more than double that, but it comes with the consequence of frailty. Death is scary from the biological, evolutionarily ordained sense, but conceptually the real horror is aging. You're trapped in a body that has declined in utility since your twenties and a mind that erodes away those fantastic Seinfeld quotes you once knew. It's difficult to deal with the recession of one's capabilities, especially if it means I'll never keg-stand again.

South Carolina Kill Count

Armadillo: 7

Cat: 3

Deer: 1

Dog: 1

Opposum: 5

Raccoon: 8

Small Bird: 9

Snake: 4

Squirrel: 4

Turtle: 5

Unknown: 12

Vulture: 2

Dead White Girl Storage

2011-09-07T12:48:00.000-04:00

Charleston, Pt. 2

My last night in Charleston was easily the best for the city, but it doesn't make up for how much South Carolina sucks. I left Ron's in the afternoon and carted around on my loaded bike until I got in contact with Adel Fish. I went to her house where she lives with her Belgian boyfriend and another couple. The house was covered in art but of a more refined sense of the typical "shit I got for free" sort that adorns the houses of people my age. There's no TV in the house and after getting sufficiently baked, we sat around and talked about tiny houses and waxed poetic.

At one point they asked me to help them tear a giant sheet of paper that came with the water heater for the tiny house they were building. I couldn't understand the purpose but they kept saying "chicken bedding." It didn't make sense until they explained they kept their own chickens. They're hip vegetarian kids who eat food they grow and eggs they collect from their chickens. They're the definition of DIY and sustainability. They'd be expected to be the most pretentious douchebags imaginable, but they were completely unjudgemental and open, with no sign of the pompousness usually shown by hardcore sustainability proponents. I love them all very much.

Protest

I could understand the reasons behind protest, but I don't think I ever really "got it." Protest is a way for average people and the disenfranchised to publically air their grievances to bodies which would not normally hear them. That's how most people perceive it, but the actual motivation and results seem to be less than altruistic.

When people protest, it often becomes for the sake of protest rather than for the issue on which the protest is based. The same becomes true for whoever the opposition is, as they focus on the protest rather than fixing the issue. That's the point: to get the opposition to notice, but it seems like a pretty limp dick way to do it.

Protesters take up an us-and-them mentality that results in a screaming match between the two sides, and ultimately solves nothing. It might fix the one issue in public focus, but doesn't change the underlying problems leading to it. The hippies were impotent. They were more caught up in having an ideology than what it focused on. Today we have baby-boomers involved in the hippie movement that either gave up and assimilated unto common society or became the iconic aging leftist that didn't change anything, but fight the power, man! The hippies changed nothing except protest, but ideologues in college anarchist clubs still approach it the same way.

I think the much more powerful and influential approach is what Adel and her roomates are doing: changing how they live and informing others when they ask, not by yelling at them. It's a grass roots approach that denies an acknowledgment of the opposition's points as irrelevant, and focuses on the personally responsibility for fixing the thing you rally against. It's communal and less boisterous, but telling someone to do something is much less influential or lasting than explaining the actions and being a template for change.

Tooth Hurty

2011-09-06T15:28:00.000-04:00

Charleston, South Carolina

Oh yeah, Charleston floods a bunch.

I'm into the swing of things with my rides now. There's no fear I won't get to where I need to be, just a bet on when I'll arrive. South Carolina is muggy with an unengaging coast line. This seems odd coming from the parallel lines of Georgia pine forests, but whatever it was about Georgia, it has a more enjoyable peripheral view. Patterns of straight pines rolling by is more interesting than the constant flat landscape of reed marshes and wide, open woods.

I got to Charleston with the knowledge that there were hostels as a last resort, keeping me from the same panic I felt entering Savannah. I start prowling the busiest street, profiling hipsters and asking where their colony was. I met a girl who called around and found a place for me with Ron Chalest. Ron has toured from Oregon to San Francisco in the past and knows the deal. Incidentally, he's roommates with a guy I requested to stay with on Couch Surfing who never responded. I wouldn't have responded either. My request probably had something slightly gay in it about us both having red beards, like "cool red beard, I too like cocks."

I ran into a biology professor I had at FSU in Charleston University. When I was in school I had given him organic, squishy balls of gel from Tampa Bay to do a DNA analysis of them. (It came back inconclusive.) He recognized me and we talked a little bit. Before leaving he talks about a nuclear bomb lost in the swamps of South Carolina near Charleston. He misspeaks and says, "The world is stranger than reality." There's not much relevance of this to anything, but the statistical probability of us running into one another is zero. It is logically impossible what occurred. The universe has been destroyed and reformed like three times because of this incident.

The campus here has a three to one female to male ratio. I got a ton of looks when I was wearing my jersey with a loaded bike, all of which I'm sure were of a sexual nature and not because I look like a tool in Lycra. Now I'm riding around in regular clothes and not getting glances. That's why I took this trip: it's a two thousand dollar ice breaker that may or may not get me laid. I hope these ladies are into fingerless glove tan lines.

Local Ron Paul supporter, quoth "Don't tread on me, bro"

I'm writing in the science department on campus, a single building downtown. Touring the school I missed mine and wished I was still able to exploit the free seminars and student privileges. Then I remembered that's a stupid idea and that I wouldn't have used that ability any more than I did. I have a weird feeling of superiority being here. I'm writing in a diary for fun and these kids are drawing the chemical structure of complex carbohydrates. I want to tell these nerds to stop working because they'll never have graduated before me. Earlier = better than.

Ownership

I don't think it exists, but I'd like to know if there's a disease where someone has no sense of ownership. The confusion of someone who couldn't conceptualize belongings and privacy for himself or others would be awesome to see. The oddity of it wouldn't appear when they're alone, but with others it would be an absurdly alienating issue.

The local stroke victim grafitti team kOOit and BleviR have no respect for ownership

Having no idea of ownership seems like a theoretical possibility, but why doesn't it happen in reality? Is there no one place in the mind where ownership as a legitimate concept exists? If not where does the idea come from? Is it an amalgomation of other ideas arising from the needs of survival? If I want to survive I need a conception of what food is mine, what house is mine. I think it's less of an ideological belief than the result of a basic evolutionary need. Sharring is nice but a nigga gotta eat.

Fake Funk, Nasty Dunk

2011-09-04T14:25:00.000-04:00

Beaufort, South Carolina

WE JUST REALLY LOVE TREE PULP IN THE SOUTH

One of the neat things about riding fifty to seventy miles each day are the perceptable changes in environment between each leg of the trip. It wouldn't be impossible to see the difference in a car, but it would be diminished. On a bike you're in the shit and have to deal with the changing humidity and temperature from place to place. In a car you're in a little hyperbollic chamber of comfort where you rarely have to experience Road Smells. I think that's the easiest change to notice, the smell. Hay fields in Georgia smell different from the pine forests and the bogs and beach. I'm not especially fond of the smell of the bogs. Methane from anaerobic bacteria breaking down rotting marsh grass, along with the weight of humidity, impresses on you an overwhelming sense of decay. But, when mixed with the smell of the ocean it becomes less unbearable and more familiar. Going up the coast I encounter this more and more, and while it's still comfortable, it doesn't hold the same relaxing effects the longer you stay in it. I need variety to break up the similarity of the coast. I need the sporadic, tight wooded areas to keep things fresh and from getting bored.

Orlando

Go Gators!

Orlando's probably a good place to grow up. It's not completely suburban - save Windermere - and it's not overwhelmingly urban. It has a bunch of places to take a kid, but lacks culture. It has a culuture, but no actual culture. It's a series of tourists and visitors who happen to be staying for a long period, only for another tourist to fill their spot upon their inevitable move back to whatever "better" city they moved from. No one grows connections to the city. For Orlando residents, it's a temporary domicile where people get stuck, yet never lose the mentality of "I wish I was in [previous city]." When these people have kids it thrusts them into a city without any history or achievements beyond being a successful experiment in family friendly consumerism. From this are born native Orlandians who develop their entertainment separate from the tourist economy. They aren't loath to it, just ambivalent. The majority of these kids become the same outward facing money-hounds as their parents. They become the UF fans who think showing your devotion means being the loudest. Maybe that's what this all is about, the noise. The boisterous hoots and hollers of peers, the constant shuffling of tourists, the precisely timed fireworks. It doesn't crush spirits, it gives headaches.

Amid evangelical churches and billboards for the newest million dollar attraction are generations of kids doing things identical to kids in every other city. This shouldn't be seen as a banal acheivement toward some mutual mediocrity. In spite of the restrictions of being in the cultural epicenter for projecting propaganda for the atomic family, there is a group of normal, nonterrible people who have established a place for themselves. From this culture of corporatism and apathetic rebellion come some of my favorite people. I'm probably not a good judge of this, though. I'm just another person who left and and removed any connection to the city.

Six Pants None the Richer

2011-09-02T13:33:00.000-04:00

Savannah, Georgia

The ride in to Savannah yesterday was the easiest of the four, save for all the chaffing. I don't expect it to get any hotter than it has been further along the trip. I'll be going North along the coast until North Carolina, so I reckon I'm in the clear for heat.

I arrived yesterday in a panic, not having a place to stay nor the internet to find one. I hadn't bathed since Waycross and was covered in the bodily detritus and excretions equivalent to a 150 mile ride. Smelly and anxious, I found downtown Savannah from the help of a bum and a Houseman. Looking around for skyscrapers to find the center of the city, I saw some bike kids and chased them down, asking if they knew where the hipsters hung out. They told me about the local coffee shop which is nigh indistinguishable from one in Tallahassee. From there I was able to contact the lead organizer for Savannah bike polo, Nana Vash. I've been staying with him and his roommates, all of whom are fun guys.

We went to some bar and between the other people who dressed like me, the old, rustic brickwork, and the humidity reminded me of Tallahassee. I started thinking about how much I enjoyed Tallahassee, and that if this place made me feel similar I might want to move here. Then I realized I shouldn't immediately fall in love with every city I stay in. Presumably, I'll be able to find similar experiences in other cities too. But I wonder how different they'll actually be. I'm not out of the South yet and I'm drawing conclusions about cities of which I have no knowledge.

One of Nana's friends, J, said he knew a guy who shot a two year old in the head on accident the other day and turned himself in. I guess some things do stay the same no matter where you go.

Waste

When I started thinking about waste it seemed like a legitimate concept somehow based in reality and judged by common sense. Upon any sort of reflection it's much less than that, being a wholly egocentric and instrumental concept. Regardless of intent or use, I can't think of anything that doesn't decay or fall into disuse given sufficient time. An idea of waste isn't about how much is used but how much isn't. Despite how much of a meal is eaten, it's how much of the food is left proportional to the start that defines what is waste or non-waste. Either way, if the food is eaten or thrown out, it will become non-food as a result of both, but only one is considered "waste."

It's also based on relative worth based on who makes the judgement. A half-eaten fast food meal isn't considered the same waste to a soccer mom as it is to someone in poverty, just as the opulence of the super-rich is horrifically wasteful when considered by human beings.

But waste has nothing to do with the item, beyond its perceived utility and scarcity to people. Remove everything that could judge things as waste and you remove the concept itself. The universe becomes a system of change and nothing more without anything to label one form of substance better than another. So I think I'm justified in saying, that throwing at all of my anime was a WASTE, Mom.

Georgia Kill Count

Armadillo: 10

Chicken/Crow/Other: 3

Crab?!: 1

Deer: 1

Dog: 2

Frog: 5

Hawk/Vulture: 4

Locust/Butterfly/Dragonfly/Etc.: Innumerable

Opposum: 5

Racoon: 4

Snake: 5

Skunk: 1

Unknown: 5

Dairy Farmers of America

2011-08-31T19:24:00.007-04:00

Brunswick, Georgia

(I should mention, I write these posts in a journal and then type them here whenever I have the internet. That should clear up any confusion about continuity.)

You can smell an ocean breeze from ten miles away, but you can feel it from fifty. The entire ride from Waycross was downwind of an inshore breeze that made for the shittiest, most taxing ride yet. Heat makes you sluggish, but wind drains the shit out of you. It's uncommunicable how frustrating the wind is, unless it's at your back. It's never at your back. The only way you can get anywhere in that kind of winds by drafting off of semis. When a semi drives by with no cars behind it, you cut into its wake and build up speed then ride back to the shoulder. It's the only place you can get enough momentum to keep a good pace.

There are countless spots where the trees stop framing the road, letting the wind flow uninterrupted across open fields. The trees don't stop the wind either, they just funnel it toward whatever stupid fucking thing is on the road opposite the wind. Despite any bitching about wind on the trip, no other situation compares to the frustration and banality of riding over a windy bridge. Not only a steep climb or a constant flow of traffic, but wind - unhindered by anything below - made Shitty Brunswick Bridge a miserable, gnawing experience. I couldn't make it and had to push my behemoth up the bridge, while fat middle-aged men ran against traffic along the shoulders. For a ride thirty percent shorter than the last two, it took more energy than both. I did, however, get a boss burger with feta and spinach, which in no way makes me feel better about the ride.

I've been without internet since I left, making it difficult to coordinate with my itinerary. Instead of staying in a hotel for a second night, I asked some firemen if I could sleep at the station. A big, burly guy with wife-beater tan lines, a pencil thin mustache, and a lispy southern accent pointed me to the storage hallway on the side of the building. It's a tight, sloping corridor filled with fire hoses and tires. That's where I'm writing from, sweaty and lying shirtless on the ground. I'll probably regret sleeping here tomorrow, but not in a month when I still have my sixty dollars.

I have the windows open because it's absurdly hot, and I heard some loud popping down the road. After a second of reflection I attribute it to a car backfiring or something. A few minutes later I hear on the intercom that there's been a shooting. The dispatcher said the police were already at the scene, but later radioed that the address they had was wrong. Does that mean that the police called in preemptively or is there some gangster prowling around the street like swiss cheese?

I'm sore the next morning. When I wake any part of me touching the ground had gone numb.

Nothing is Faster than a Dog.

2011-08-30T17:22:00.000-04:00

Easily the hardest part of the trip is the initial departure. There's a lot of procrastination before you go, and a lot of hesitation because it's the only day you'll be able to call it off and go back easily. At least that's how it feels. The apprehension before leaving is harder than any actual toiling along the trip. For those interested, the first song I listened to was David Axelrod's "Jimmy T."

Waycross, Georgia

The South is fucking hot. It's only the second night and I'm cheating and staying in a hotel. The last place I stayed was a small house in Valdosta. Valdosta seemed like any other small rural city or big town I've ever seen: a highway, an Applebees, and a university I've never heard of. The people I stayed with were nice. I stayed with a guy named Val Stado and his roommate, both of whom I had seen before at some bike races in Tallahassee.

After getting lost between Tallahassee and Valdosta, I made it in after dark and was found by Val. We went to some pizza parlor where his friends were waiting. Val, his roommate, and most of his friends had tattoos along their arms causing them to get profiled while riding around that night. Someone with tattoos had committed some unnamed crime on the local campus and had cops pulling over any tattooed brunettes.

At dinner, I kept trying to figure out how this small population of twenty or so hipsters popped up in the middle of a small town. I couldn't figure out if they congregated together because of shared interests or if they shared interests because they were friends. Valdosta is a big enough place to sustain a group like that, but what happens to all the proto-hipsters in vats growing in smaller towns? Do they never develop those interests or do they never express them for lack of similar kids? Either way, I'm not the only one who thought this. Two guys from Valdosta University were there interviewing Val about the local bike scene before I left. They interviewed me about my trip too, so I'll see if I can ever get that video on here.

Monkeys is just little people with funny hands

2011-08-27T21:30:00.027-04:00

It's less than 48 hours before I leave for Valdosta. I've spent a bundle of time and money on this trip, so I'm hoping for some pretty magnificent shit to happen.

Tarpon Springs, FL

August 20

There's a primate sanctuary along the Pinellas Trail between St. Pete and Tarpon Springs. It surprises you amid the repetitive residential areas and small towns. I'm not sure if it's my fear of chimps or a basic danger response, but hearing apes banging on bars and hooting, starting as a series of grunts and escalating to loud yelps, is terrifying. But, I don't know if I feel empathy for them or ambivalence.

I'm afraid of them because they look human-ish, and are violent, brute animals. I'm uncomfortable with the fact that an animal with the mind of a young child can tear people apart. Even Jane Goodall argues that the image of a chimp as a playful mini-human is faulty. The fact that these animals can use their hands to just tear a face off is horrific. They organize raids into other tribes to rape and murder, which end in cannibalism. Maybe it's not the chimps themselves but the familiarity with humans outside of comfortable first world nations (although that doesn't guarantee it won't happen.) Talking about "human as an animal" is pretty well worn territory, but conceivably humans as a whole would understand the significance of murder. It's how it happens though. A chimp doesn't kill you quickly and humanely, but mauls and bites you to death. In the same way their resemblance to a human is terrifying, it makes them easy to empathize with.

Scary and stupid as they are, I wonder about the morality of keeping semi-sapient animals in isolated cells. I read somewhere that keeping a human or animal in an environment lacking cognitive stimulation results in the brain atrophying and resembling that of a stroke victim. I don't like apes, but it doesn't seem right to keep them in isolation. It raises the question of whether it's better to raise them and leave them mentally stunted or let them go endangered in the wild. A 2% genetic difference is significant, but how much isn't clear. Their lack of mental faculties doesn't guarantee they lack sentience, and that kind of isolation in humans has some pretty miserable effects.

I'm not sure how I feel about the primate sanctuary. It's neat to see wild and exotic animals, but it makes me question the rationale for keeping them in captivity. Maybe they haven't been handicapped by their captivity, but they sure looked bored. And I don't have to empathize on a level of sharing the chimps' experience to know that being bored sucks.

Dear Everyone, I'm Doin' Thangs

2011-08-25T01:29:00.002-04:00

Most of you probably know that I'm riding my bike from Tallahassee to Maine. If you don't know, I'm riding my bike from Tallahassee to Maine. I'm going to be writing on here as often as I can. Each entry will probably be an account of the trip with convoluted, philosophic bullshit added in. I'm going to have six hours a day to think about anything, so I'll be able to think of something for nearly every day of the trip. I'll be leaving on the 29th and should start writing not long after.

I love you all.