somewhere in the midwest

on to the next one

Vlog: Day 2

Date: November 3, 2009

Time: 1:19 MT

Location: almost to Tucumcari, NM

Music: Delta Spirit “Strange Vines”

Weather: Sunny, but not happy sunny - mischevious “I’m gonna mess with you today” sunny

Jordan told me I’d have to roll with the punches on this road trip. I just didn’t expect a gravel road to do the punching.

As we were driving, Jordan felt the impulse to stop and take a few roadside pictures of the massive empty expanse that is eastern New Mexico. We did. It was windy and the pictures are fresh. In my excitement for windy freshness, I skipped back to the car. And I tripped… and I fell… I am not a small child. In fact, I do not consider myself to be clumsy, yet I tripped over something (Jordan blames my shoelaces - I think it was a rock) I attempted to catch myself - first with my feet. Then when that failed, my second option became my left hand and my right elbow, seeing as I was carrying the camera [thanks dad, you’ve taught me to care more about protecting the camera I’m holding than my own body J] I had a moment of panic – this feeling is so foreign. I am 20 years old and scraping myself up is certainly not in my age description. Nevertheless, there I was: stomach on the ground, smelling asphalt. I groaned a little and then, “Jordaaaaan. I fell.” In retrospect, did he not wonder where I went when I suddenly wasn’t on the other side of the car? He came over and helped me up and I began to examine the damage. “Skin is not supposed to do that,” I said. The larger-than-gravel rocks decided to take up carving and I was there practice material. We drove until we found a gas station, I cleaned myself up, bought some Neosporin, Band-Aids and Advil and we’re back on the road. I’m still giggling about it.

Gallup, New Mexico was rather uneventful, but sufficient in the Eat and Sleep Division and they win first place for Most Indian Stores. Despite stares from the locals at The Coffee House, we rounded up some hot drinks and hit it again. Until Albuquerque, we vlogged and discussed what body part we would allow to be bitten off – you know, if you were in prison… among biters…. and they let you choose. We both settled on a butt cheek. Who needs ‘em? Albuquerque satisfied our Starbucks fix and gifted us with The Avett Brothers’ new album “I and Love and You.”

And now we press on.

might be the boring bit

Date: November 2, 2009

Time: 7:06pm MT (Mountain Time, Mennonite Time, Mingin' Trannies)

Location: Navajo Blvd, Eastern Arizona (just take a left at Flagstaff and you'll hit it in about 90 minutes)

Weather: a clear sky and an even more clear moon

Music: Laura Marling, Britain's finest female vocalist, singing sweet ditties into the collective Wiebe ear

Eastern Arizona's flat. Flat like a pancake griddle or a spatula or any other cooking utensil used for breakfast (except a whisp, used to make batter for previously mentioned pancakes.) Man, IHOP sounds good......actually, it sounds gross. Maybe a bit of both? Disagree to agree.

Jordan checking in. Where to begin? I've thoroughly enjoyed the time spent making the highways and byways my bizznle, although I had to tap out after a solid 575 miles. There's only so much one can do. In addition, I wanted to give the Hare (as she will be henceforth referred to) some time behind the wheel. She's doing exceptionally well, giving ample space for semis and signalling well in advance. What can I say, the kid's got talent.

We point our 'rich kid Volvo', as christened by one Bryan Feil, towards Gallup, Newt Mecksicko, where we will stop, eat, rest and try not to be picked up on by truckers. The road gets lonely and sometimes, folks will take what they can get. We will barricade ourselves in the hotel room, taking advantage of the free HBO and free WiFi provided by the generous Travelodge, which was ascertained by our main man William Shatner at priceline.com. Cheers, Mr. Trekky!

Sidenote: Anika just asked, 'can someone to go to jail for verbal abuse?' I'm afraid she's working herself up to an oral tirade upon me, unleashing the combined wrath, fury and wit of a British comedian and Bill O'Reilly.

Reflections on Arizona: Mountainous, desert-y, boring at times, thrilling at others. The folks in Flagstaff were pleasant enough. I greatly appreciate the state's placing of highway signs directly underneath the center of the overpass. aesthetically, it's pleasing to the eye and, in a way, more efficient than CA's insistence on stand alone signs along the right shoulder of the road. Saves money, looks better, a proverbial rejection of the culture of governmental 'pork', precious tax dollars being used efficiently. GBA!

Things to look forward to:

1. A detailed ranking of best possible locations for a utopian community on our route a la The Village

2. A daily morning vlog

3. Requests/conclusions for topics of discussion

Cheers!

and so it begins...

Date: November 2, 2009

Time: 9:02 am PST

Location: 99 South passing through Delano

Music: mewithoutYou “Bullet to Binary Part II”

Weather: Clear and Sunny - like Bono

After an hour of driving, I’ve written an introduction to the 3-5 page book response that was due 4 weeks ago. It’s a good thing I’m on top of things…

“Do you think we could listen to 6 straight “This American Life”s in a row? That’d be pretty crazy.” Jordan interrupts my writing with his game plan to pass time for the first half of today’s trip. Apparently I am the hare and he is the tortoise on this venture. Can you blame me? It’s my first legitimate road trip as a semi-adult with my older semi-adult best friend brother. I think I would rather have my newbie fervor for the open road though than his seasoned-road-trip-veteran lack of enthusiasm. It’s like our fat sausage dog Ginger and Trevor Jones’ two year old daughter, Berkeley. She is excited about life and falling on Ginger. Ginger is not. Unfortunately for Jordan, he has no beds to hide under… and I will fall on him.

So far this morning, we Starbucksed: iced coffee with 2 shots & Madeleine shortbreads / iced vanilla chai tea with soy & a banana. We bought Scanner 911 app on Jordan’s iPhone and thought about making some citizen’s arrests on our way. We read 1 John 1 and received our first phone call from Andy Ortiz – whom we had seen only an hour earlier at Starbucks (We love you Andy J) and now we make our first turn off onto the 58 East – new territory to both of us. Only good things are ahead.

Date: November 2, 2009

Time: 4:00 pm MT

Location: 40 East – somewhere between Kingman and Flagstaff (Arizoooona)

Music: Ben Harper “When She Believes”

Weather: Clear to Clear

I can’t pop my left ear. Son of a biscuit. Positives however: speed limit is 75. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! Jordan is contemplating a career as a dance instructor – dream big brother!

From the 58 East we worked our way toward Barstow. And wasn’t THAT a bust?! Made a completely pointless trip to Vons in search for Jamba Juice [What were you thinking Google maps??] However, gas at Valero, a free envelope from a girl who thought Jordan was cute, and Carl’s Jr: big carl, natural cut fries, coke / chicken stars, crisscuts, dr. pepper, satisfied anything that Barstow itself failed to fulfill. Later, we entered into some theological discussion and would like to extend the invitation to provide us with more theological issues to discuss. Hit us with your best shot!

Not too long after, I decided to take control of the music selection. Needless to say, Jordan was less than thrilled with my choice of “Party in the U.S.A.” by Miley Cyrus. (However, he was “nodding his head, like yeah” – it must be love) He proceeded to exile me to the land of large headphones and I suppose it’s a good thing because now - in 8 hours, I have a whole page of my paper! Somewhere in there Jordan slowed down to about 50 miles on the 40 to make sure we both got pictures of the Arizona sign, but then it didn’t come and then it still didn’t come… yet we precariously held up our cameras pointed toward where we thought the sign should/would be for a good 10 minutes. It finally came – I got a picture, so did Jordan… except without the word Arizona on it. Such is life.

pre-roadie writing

hello, dear friends.

anika, my sister, and i are set to embark on a nice little roadtrip tomorrow morn, culminating in a weekend in the windy city. it promises to bring us closer together in so many ways; literally (travelling in a confined space with a bike, piles of clothes, suitcases and ceramic statues of jesus) metaphysically (in that whole brother-sister sort of way) proverbially (like a zwiebach two parts coming together to fuse in the oven) and midwestern-ly (as per most of our travel is in the midwest, i expect anika to start pronouncing her o's looooooooonger and to forsake her chill, california vibe for some downhome 'aww-shucks' heartland demeanor.) without further ado, a route for your perusing...or routing....or routusing. love. x

View Movin' on to Memphis in a larger map

fixing my fixie

ok, i'll be honest: i'm kind of a wimp when it comes to alternative sports/physical activities.

traditional sports (read: basketball, baseball, tennis, hell, even golf) i'm fine at. i picked up footie (read: soccer) while i was in the uk. usually in the fall, i like to enjoy a game or two of american football with a few friends. i played and won a few games of ultimate frisbee duringintramurals in my college years. in that way, i'm just like a majority of young american males.

shift the conversation to skateboarding, wakeboarding, BMX bikes, motocross, paintball and i will gladly bow out. i had an ill-advised love affair with skateboards for several months during the 7th grade. the height of my accomplishments: ollie-ing once and maneuvering my deck on to a rail that was approximately 6 inches off the ground for a quasi-boardslide. my loving fatherwas gracious enough to cobble together my rail out of extra wood and some PVC. hardly the stuff of legit skating. rewinding earlier, i became enamored with BMX during 6th grade. i'd ogle the really expensive frames, devising plans to mow enough lawns to buy one. i ended up getting a steel DYNO that i mainly rode before school. my ideas of a trick? standing on the pegs. i've never gotten up on a wake-board. i played paintball once and my friends shot me while i wasn't playing. motocross? come on.

needless to say, i usually like to stick safely to the side when it comes to these sorts of things.

until now.

i'm making a foray back into the alternative activity universe by setting myself up with a fixie. at the encouragment of a few friends, i've converted my old schwinn collegiate into a fixed gear bike. i know its the hipster, 'in' thing to do but whatever. i like it. without any more pomp and circumstance, meet my new friend DUBYA. he and i will be great friends.

social business, moustached men and arbitrary rankings

boom.

first of all, lets get this out of the way: you need to be listening to these boys.

i just finished creating a world without poverty: social business and the future of capitalism by muhammad yunus. excellent read, a visionary response to some of the economic and subsequently social/political problems on a global scale. the most compelling idea for me was the shift in the way we think about people. currently, most profit-maximizing businesses under the bottom-line eye of capitalism essentially view people as one-dimensional tools of production; their primary purpose is to be a link in the chain of making as much money as possible. as a result, we've got people obsessed with consumption and excess personally and being reduced to machines in their jobs, not to mention growing income inequality that reaches around the globe. not a good path or environment. enter mohammad yunus. seeing that the global economic system wasn't helping those in his native bangladesh, he decided to think of a better way, a more holistic approach in giving the poor access to the global economy. starting with microcredit in the 1970s, yunus has helped to create an environment in which the poor can lift themselves out of poverty and, most importantly, recognized that humans are multi-dimensional beings that deserve respect, value and access, creating economic infrastructure accommodating this. this distinction, that people are more valuable than their production capacity, resonated deeply within me. its an idea that needs to take root if we're to start addressing some of the gross injustices currently afflicting people around the globe.

moving on, started where i lived and what i lived for by thoreau. BOOM. love me some transcendentalist literature.

also, another item that sparked some solid discussion was the daily beast's study of america's smartest cities. where did my lovely hometown of fresno rank? dead last. in the study, there were only 5 cities that scored below 50; fresno was the only to come in with a single digit score. brilliant. after a couple of interesting conversations with friends who have bachelor's degrees and/or master's and are from/currently living in fresno, several things were pinpointed:

1. lack of a city hub/(sub)urban sprawl

downtowns been in arrested development for decades now. multiple efforts have been made to revitalize it from housing development to bringing in large businesses to putting a stadium downtown. all have seen mediocre results. to be honest, there hasn't been smart, sustainable thinking going into city planning. building csu fresno far, far away from downtown could also have something to do with it. universities should be at/near the city center and taking that away from downtown was to the detriment of the city as a whole. issues like public transport, housing, economic development would follow if we solved this problem first.

2. a leadership vacuum at the top

as my friend @justajust said, 'the people that have been running this town, their parents ran it and their kids will run it'. it might be time for some fresh ideas and to slow down the brain-drain fresno currently experiences, keeping young creative types here. (full disclosure: i say this fully realizing i'm part of the problem by moving to other places.) there has been some momentum, thanks to a few developers.

3. very little engagement from the people with the majority of resources

in many ways, fresno's a tale of two cities: the rich, comfortable, suburban north and everyone else south of shaw. while there are beacons of hope, the majority of folks in the north part of town aren't engaging with the problems simply because they don't have to. at the moment, fresno could be used as a prime example of what might be happening in the rest of the US: while the large majority of the population eeks out a living, those with the wealth and comfortable lifestyle turn a blind eye to the real problems at hand.

until we become aware of and take action to care about our neighbors literally, fresno will stay stuck in the cycle of poverty, stratification and no one caring. we can be the change the city needs.

an ode to summer

seeing that its august, heres a pictorial ode to what was a great summer in the year of our lord 2009.x

the mad farmer liberation front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

a guest blogeee? blogger? blogoid?

i had the privilege of sitting down with tommy adlard, fresno pacific graduate, boy scout danny drummer, easterby reading program associate and all-around studmuffin at the revue this week. the following is a snippet of our conversation

tommy, good to see you. what are you wrangling up these days?
how awkward is this. i was wrangling up some lifegroup and reading program today. also, picking up on my friend jordan. (full disclosure: i am that friend jordan)

lifegroup and reading program? sounds like your a busy guy. tell me about those projects.
lifegroup is a bible study run through the well community church here in fresno. we meet once a week for several hours and lately we've been discussing different worldviews and how they relate theologically with society. today, we chatted about different takes on liberation from evil. easterby reading program is a project based in southeast fresno that helps improve reading skills of elementary school children in the area and giving them access to positive role models. its a project jointly funded through the well and the fresno institute for urban leadership (FIFUL). today, we had an all-time high of 18 kids over, played a few games, read some books, got in a water fight and learned about not being stubborn. all in all, a solid day.

tommy, you spent some time studying in egypt. can you tell me one or two stories that really stood out that signified the importance of your time there?
hospitality stood out in egypt. they definitely have a much broader and greater understanding of the word than i've ever seen before. one night, i was walking back to my apartment in my galabaya (a muslim robe) and an old man invited me to sit and have a cup of tea with him. i wanted to head home but he insisting so i sat down. he only spoke arabic but luckily, i was able to have a half-hour conversation with him through the little arabic i had picked up. after our conversation, he asked me to walk him home. arm in arm, we walked home and i talked with him about the 5 pillars of islam. he kissed me on both cheeks twice and invited me to head to the mosque with him the next day. the next day, i met him at the mosque and this sweet, sweet elderly gentleman was ecstatic. we went to the service, prayed together and afterward, i overheard mentioning to a friend that i was an american and that i was muslim. he invited me back to his house, we had tea and i let him know that i was a christian, not muslim. i didn't really know the word for christian so it was a hoot trying to communicate what that meant to him. after that, he spent 3 hours trying to convince me to become a muslim. he explained that christians believe in 3 gods and muslims believe in 1. after a long discussion with plenty of hyperbolic hand gestures, i returned home. i never saw the man again but i saw a deep commitment to his religion and that his conversation with me was based out of a love for me. it shifted how i thought about evangelism and stressed the importance of action over words.

thats a great story......shifting topics, what bands are you currently listening to?
my current bands are breathe owl breathe, arcade fire, the dodos, bon iver and phoenix.

those are all pretty folksy bands. what draws you to that type of music?
its good.

your so ambiguous, tom. thanks for chatting.
your the best interviewer i've ever had. and the best lover.