On the Road Trip that Never Ends: Skipping Woodstock

I like writing about road trips, car full of scraps of places I've been, things I ate, windshield the best movie I ever saw, skies and skies. Asphalt and shoulder and exit and merge and falling rock. That painful self-extraction from the driver seat after three and a half hours at 80 miles per to buy gas and a bag of m&ms.

But I can't go to Woodstock the way I've gone everywhere else. I can't just report on the KTD monastery and my hike up the mountain, Bread Alone, beautiful Devil's Kitchen (and the black trumpets I picked there), The Poet's Walk on the Hudson, my crappy motel, buying a little Tibetan carpet, coffee and ice cream, Annadale and Rheinbeck. You see, I was with Amy those three days, and to try to report on all these moments, sweet as they were, makes all this too complicated for here. Love is not a tourist. I can't separate it out, and so I won't.

I went to Woodstock, and then I went home, spent one more night in a Virginia motel, sauteed those trumpets in butter with pasta, and arrived home to three cats and looming fall classes. I've been waiting for distance to kick in so I could narrate all this, so I could take what's inside and put it out here. I can't.

Toward New England with hot plate.

Wednesday, July 30th at the crack of 10 a.m., I crawled into the Hyundai with cds and a few bottles of wine and much to think about, and set off north to see Wyn and Shawna in Brattleboro and Amy in Woodstock. While driving can be a kind of emotional peristalsis, I'll focus on the more mundane, the gourmandish kind. Instead of fast food or Shoney's or truck stop fare along the way (in great contrast to my friend at Imnotonetoblogbut's Parisian gastronomic orgy), I picked up a 10-buck hotplate at Big Lots and threw some utensils and olive oil in a bag, along with a cooler full of stuff that I'd have to throw away (bananas, organic eggs, cheese, salad fixins, juice) if I didn't take it, along with a bag of pasta shells and a can of sauce. The first night in Roanoke, VA was simple. I got there around 8ish and found a grocery story across the street to augment my simple pasta shells and sauce dinner with a full salad (nothing special, but healthier than the Waffle House and McDonald's within walking distance of my curry-scented [I'd love to have knocked on the door and held out a bowl] Travelodge). A spiced egg with a little balsamic vinegar sunnyside up on toast (roasted gingerly pinched with a fork and a spoon over the open burner) made a simple and filling breakfast the next morning before I headed north again.

I hit Binghamton, NY, in the early evening with plenty of time to walk around downtown and along the river, and to look for a decent restaurant and the ghost of John Gardner, but finding Binghamton generally abandoned, and arriving the day before Spiedie fest (one-handed grilled sandwiches suitable for Grendal), my choices were limited. Instead, I headed to the grocery store near the hotel, picked up some live clams and local Italian sausage and bread, and decided to busy myself for the long evening steaming clams in dark beer, cooking pasta and sausage, and enjoying these with bread and salad and a decent red. It's a serial process, but given the lack of nightlife thereabouts, it made the evening pass simply and deliciously, though I'd have loved to stick around and sample the full variety of spiedie's. After a breakfast of another egg, quesadilla, and a banana, I headed to Vermont for finer and more fulfilling culinary experiences.

Perigrinations north with music (Ninja Gun) and both scheduled and chance meetings: Pt. 2, Atlanta

After checking into the Highland Inn, (the best place to stay in Atlanta in my humble opinion, even with its funky percussive radiator heating--hey, Joan Baez slept there), I walked around Little Five Points, browsed The Junkyard's Daughter, flipped through the bins at Criminal Records (find of the day, a good, used Wombats A Guide to Love, Loss, and Desperation--an upbeat, silly antidote to my serious, sad bastard tendencies, though "Let's Dance to Joy Division" conflates it all nicely), and wandered among the few tattooed and pierced hipsters brave enough to face the heat and daylight and yuppie moms power-strolling toward the park. It was a good way to kill time until I was to meet up with Tara, a former student and fine singer who's soon off to China to teach, and her old Valdosta friend Leigh Ann for dinner before the Ninja Gun show at The Earl. We supped at Zaya nearby where the girls could load up on dollar Ketel One drinks before the show and the food was generally very good Middle Eastern/Mediterranean fare, especially the hummus.

We headed to the show at the Earl and met up with many other former and current Valdosta folks, including Dixie and Camille and Kenny and Jason and Damon (my hero for booking The Reputation at Vito's here) and John and Maybeth and Jessie (Coody's sweet gal), ready to enjoy our local heroes Ninja Gun at a serious venue (hey, Califone played there). It's Elephant opened enthusiastically enough, but didn't capture my interest as the lead singer tried too hard to modulate between Eddie Vedder and Robert Plant.

Ninja Gun started the strongest set I'd heard from them, assisted by a superior sound system that let them showcase their country punk songs with lucid vocals yet still as loud as they wanna be. They opened with their new, sweet Rainbow Song ("Hey, man, do you wanna see a rainbow?") that Coody co-penned with his niece, then pumped things up with "Restless Rubes," the title song that revises Robert Frost, just a bit:

A hometown can burn you to the ground
So turn a tire around until you’re fine.
In a yellow wood
Two roads converged and the way he should
Go was clear
He left them bridges burning

They powered through a strong set from the new cd, including "Darwin was a Baptist" with its deft humor and fine, ironic chorus, "Can I get a little church in my state?/ Give me one more reason to hate everything around me," anchoring a biting critique of life that "surrounds" anyone in the bible belt. "Eight Miles Out" rocked with its upbeat take on doubt, and maybe my favorite on the album, "Permanent Press," with it's ringing guitar progression and its poignant hint of William Carlos Williams' "Between Walls" in the light-through-glass imagery for this ars musica:

So write yourself in melody and make the words agree
Lay it out for all to see just who you used to be.
‘Cause oh the seasons, do they pass
Like naked sunshine through broken glass
The days will slide on by too fast if you don’t try.

"The Last Cowboy" and "Asking Price," an anthem against selling out, also shone before the enthusiastic crowd at The Earl. They closed with their raucous country punk version of "Please, Please Me," which Coody asserts is the first true punk rock song. Ninja Gun makes a convincing case, and all of us from down here in little ole Valdosta were swelling with pride.

Missy Gossip and the Secret Keepers closed out the night and surprised with Lauren Staley's strong vocals hinting at what Linda Ronstadt dipped in Georgia peach might sound like. They played a good, crunching southern rock set punctuated by a fine torch song or two.

It was a fine evening to share with friends, and I headed back to the Highland, a good bottle of red waiting to help my evening reflections.

Road Trip Day 4: Books to Beans

Day four was OUR day. Elena's and mine. We've toiled away happily at the Poetry Corner for ten years, and, finally, they let us read. Happily, we both had fresh projects to read from: Elena's Masque (Tupelo) and my own chapbook, Other Medicines (Redbone). We chose to alternate rather than chunk it up, and that seemed to work well, create a different rhythm. Friends were in the audience, including Chryss, Margaret, and new friend Tristan with his lovely fiancée (and, oh, Jackson was there Saturday). And Robert, who read after and who taught me at Berkeley, showed up early to listen, but this is all I'll say about us basking in our tiny glory. We still had to work the rest of the day, and it was also a fine one, with Robert reading from his strong new book, and on through many regulars to Stanley Plumly in his best basso radio voice, to another old Fresno compadre Sam Pereira, and Wanda Coleman, who briefly turned it into a revival tent with heavy with eros. The complete lineup follows.

Elena Byrne and Marty Williams
Masque and Other Medicines

Robert Pinsky
Gulf Music: Poems

Maurya Simon
Cartographies

Al Young
Something About the Blues

Elaine Equi
Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems

Jill Bialosky and Dana Goodyear
The End of Desire and Honey and Junk

1:00 PM
James Ragan
In the Talking Hours

Adam Kirsch
Invasions: New Poems

Stanley Plumly
Old Heart: Poems

Carol Muske-Dukes and Sam Pereira
Sparrow and A Café in Boca

Chris Abani
Hands Washing Water

Wanda Coleman and Diane Ward
Mercurochrome and When You Awake

Luis J. Rodriguez
My Nature is Hunger

It was especially lovely to see Margaret, whom I bean seein' here every year and who beacons her smile wherever she goes. I left her in the green room with Robert and Pico Iyer. After the reading, Elena and I tried to meet up with Noah, who usually comes out but was visiting family in San Diego. That was perhaps the only disaster of the entire trip, since Noah was coming on bike and I had to leave for a gathering in Santa Barbara the moment he arrived. I needed more Noah time. But the three of us parted and hugged and I headed north, where I stayed with George and Amy, and where Chryss and Cattie and Dave and Patrick and Barry remained despite my latish arrival. We drank great wine (including a lovely '98 Dehlinger pinot) and laughed until late. It was nice to be home.

Road Trip Day 3: Book Festival and Party

After ten years or so, co-emceeing the poetry corner at the LA Times Festival of Books is fairly routine. Wake up, show up, set up, keep track of who's next and track them down if necessary. Buy books at Small World Book's tent. Sometimes the work keeps you from listening to the poetry, but given that it lasts all day, the words and poets can run together without time away from the tent, so I try to listen to a few carefully before I run off to check for the next poet, break in the green room, etc. The line up on April 26th was strong, so catching as much as I could became a challenge. Mark Doty, always a strong reader, began the day and he brought us a terrific early crowd that seemed to sustain itself throughout the day. Here's the whole list:

Mark Doty
Fire to Fire

Sholeh Wolpe
Rooftops of Tehran

Eloise Klein Healy & Elizabeth Bradfield
The Islands Project: Poems for Sappho & Interpretive Work: Poems

Albert Goldbarth
The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972-2007

Brian Tracy
Driving with Dante

David St. John
The Face: A Novella in Verse

Jean Valentine
Little Boat

Marvin Bell
Mars Being Red

Christopher Buckley
Flying Backbone: The Georgia O'Keeffe Poems

Sarah Maclay and Charles Hood
The White Bride and Rio de Dios

Susan McCabe
Descartes’ Nightmare

Lynne Thompson
Beg No Pardon

Jennifer Kwan Dobbs
Paper Pavilion

Tony Barnstone
The Golem of Los Angeles

Catherine Daly and Stuart Dischell
Locket and Backwards Days

Mark, David St. John, Marvin Bell, Chris Buckley, Shole Wolpe, Jean Valentine (quietly), Stuart, and Eloise were all high points on an unusually strong list. My favorite moment, though, was when Albert Goldbarth read among the most masterful complaints in the history of letters, I believe, in his diatribe against the obligatory post-reading Thai restaurant meal. I was laughing, crying, and starving for a chili-cheese burger with a side of onion rings all at the same time. Tony Barnstone's work surprised me most, and he'll be in my classes next year, for sure.

Later, Sholeh and Tony hosted a party in Barry and Sholeh's loft downtown. The place was lovely, the conversation excellent and spiced with laughter, and the Persian cuisine was wonderful. Writers from both days attended, and Tony even brought along a little Hollywood, as Kimberly Oja (an OC regular) showed up. I told Elena that I felt a little out of place, outclassed, Fresno boy that I continue to be, but truly the gathering was warm and I was happy to cab Stuart and Jill Bialosky back to their hotel around midnight, and then the 405 back to the Hacienda.

Road Trip, Valdosta to New Haven (New York City)

Was a distant voice
Made me make a choice
That I had to get the fuck out of this town
I got a lot of things to do
A lot of places to go
I've got a lot of good things coming my way
And I'm afraid to say that you're not one of them.

-- "Box Elder," Pavement

I had to head north for a conference, for some peace on a long drive, distance from and distance to heartbreak and a night at the home of the best poet writing today in America along the way. Wine (thanks Uncle Gene) and a fine dinner with Bob and Eve and much laughter, a few honest tears. Tears, because, honestly, no matter how much you do, it's not enough if you care, whether Blacksburg or Fresno or Valdosta, anyplace where people can't stop what's in their heads.

The road is a sweet hum otherwise, a veer and a slope, movement and purpose even in a dubious rented Aveo, but it had a CD player and I drove and listened and drove and made good time through all the states 75, 85, 77, 81, 78, 287, and 95 touch. I went the back way up and down, felt the mountains behind me, drank bad coffee and gripped the cold steel of the pump at gas stations, thanked all the fine people who sold me water and m&ms and who let me pee in the employee restrooms. I made it to New Haven in good time on day two, had Pizza from famous Pepe's with my beautiful daughter and James, her beau, and then headed into the city for AWP, which will be another entry. This is about the road and the way the mountains fur with trees in winter, about every white line saying I miss you all the way, north and south, Tim's voice singing it whisper soft, SM explaining why the hard way through Georgia rain and construction zones and Shenandoah Valley and where New Jersey is pretty, trochaic tire thump miss yous, slow miss yous in the wind and the miss miss of wipers whipping only the rain off the glass, and it's ok, this hard work, this forty hours of missing you. Coming home, south, it was all I could do to keep myself from hitting 87 North, north and north to where you are, but I couldn't do that because I wanted to too much. Too much.

Califone in DC, Bitter Tears and Cardinal Sins

We drove to D.C. on a whim, twelve hours each way on 95, for Califone 's show at the Rock and Roll Hotel. Highway barbecue, coffee, a night in South Carolina where "Deluxe" still describes cheap motels. Slither on HBO. North to President Inn ('s not included) on New York Avenue near the arboretum. Capital Dome: I bare my ass to it in the window, more than they deserve, and Amy and I head out. The neighborhood is depressed, restaurants all closed or takeout Chinese or ff chain. We eat shrimp lo mein and fried rice and walk to the club.

Mannequins wearing animal skulls menace the upstairs bar, and the bartender, bright red hair, big slash of candy-red lips and green eyes and what'll you have, a pretty apocalypse. Guinness, red wine. We sip and wait for the show. Rooms of old velvet furniture, obligatory rock posters. The drinking, white, young college-age elite begin to gather along with the music nerds, order cocktails. We talk to Joe downstairs, setting up the merch, about solo projects, Jim's new film/music project, Interkosmos, and future tours, records, Yoko Ono at the Pitchfork Festival, Slint's Spiderland. Head back up for another beer and watch Jim play pool with Amy, who will guest at cello for the evening. These United States finally starts the show. Decent Americana, but we head out, where Tim is relaxing, smoking. We catch up. The band's future, other projects, etc. We talk about school, heat, humidity. Amy bums a cigarette from Tim, rolls it. A lost traveler asks for cab fare, and we give her what we can. Tim blesses her with water for dopamine, hope for light. She is big-eyed and missing and kind in that desperate way. She asks us to pray for her upcoming move. This is mine. Tim shows us pictures of his beautiful son. I talk about my two. Ben comes up, asks Tim something, leaves. Then Tim excuses himself to get ready for their set.

We hang out a little longer outside, but go in to hear Bitter Tears. Hammer-subtle irony. They're boisterous, musically random and literate and funny. (I recall Oingo Boingo in costumes marching and blaring up Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley for some reason, but this is darker.) Their instruments are horns, upright bass, drums, guitar, and Weimar irreverence mixed with country prank. They wear prom dresses or bunny ears and lipstick like the bartenders', but smeared and sweaty. The crowd laughs and cheers, but avoids, otherwise, interaction. Too bad.

Finally, Califone opens with "Golden Ass," while the defrocked Bitter Tears horn section ignites around the fuse of guitars and percussion, the pulsing vocals. After the song, Tim introduces their guests; he says he went to seminary school with them in Chicago, and he reminisces in some kind of hieratic code, a little jokey, a little edgy. That edge breaks the beginning of "Slow Right Hand" and they restart it after a few bars and it breaks out over our heads, falls in like orioles into bushes when it rains. The long flat room is a matchbox and it squeezes the music; the songs want to spread out more. This isn't a set list. I don't remember the order. I remember trying to find a place to hear better, "Orchids" with horns, "Michigan Girl" with Amy on cello, "The Eye You Lost in the Crusades." Finally I settle next to the speaker, and the room stays out of the way and the pain in my ear is maraschino masochism. "Pink and Sour" with its '40s big band harem themes begins and the floor erupts in dancing. This is the one the girls were waiting for, this spiked Shirley Temple, cologne at the nape. The song concludes and the dancers evaporate. I guess this is the one from the local college radio list, their evening apparently over. Califone's wasn't. Tim snaps a guitar string, lays it down. They reset. He comes out of the next song squeezing his head, first side and side, then hair and chin. He starts speaking about seminary school again, some Cardinal or priest, something in the woods, body of a young boy, hints of things we aren't supposed to see or know like some weird Franklin scandal action. They're almost Pentecostal now and everyone's nervous. Ben and Joe sit and look down at their skins and bones, Jim looks on concerned. Tim moves close to Alan and holds his face, starts talking about the priest, he's here in D.C. somewhere and they're failed priests and that body in the woods and they should turn him in. Alan looks like the drama mask that makes you think of Medea ripping at her breast. Real babydoll tears in Alan's eyes and the crowd on edge and time is nearly up, so Tim steps away and announces the last song. "Horoscope Amputation Honey" begins slow, keyboards, twang, a little noise, builds, breaks out into long legs of improvisation, twenty minutes or so. Alan joins in and more horns and they jam 20 minutes and end finally into a short song that's a prayer. And that's it. No encore. No one explains. The bar shuts down, kicks us out or upstairs after a few minutes.

Outside later, we say our farewells to Tim and Jim and Ben and Joe and it's warm. Some storm has passed. We walk into the DC morning. I owe Tim a whiskey.