Archive for May, 2008

Tour Diary: Day 5: The Meth Problem

Saturday, May 31st, 2008

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The whole band is involved in the creation of this post because it’s pretty much taken the combined mental power of all six of us to recall the events that already seem like they happened 25 years ago. This is what we’ve got. We peeled out of Richland as fast as we possibly could1 and Mike drove through most of the night. Headed to Blackfoot, Idaho and then Billings, Montana, our route took us 550 miles, down through northeastern Oregon and across all kinds of Idaho potato farms and whatnot. I fell asleep almost as soon as we hit the road. Mike apparently drove all night.

When I woke up a few hours later, it was light out and Bryan had just slammed the driver’s side door and was getting situated behind the wheel. I’d obviously been asleep for a while. I told Bryan I could take over for him if he was tired. He just stared at me thru the rear view mirror like I’d just called him a fag or something.

“Dude. We’ve been at this rest stop for like four hours. I just woke up,” he said2.

“Oh.” I went back to sleep. I woke up again later a couple of times when Bryan pulled off the highway to take pictures of things. Once, still in Oregon, there were clouds hugging the tops of rolling green mountains. I figured it would be a good picture for Schutmaat to take, rolled over and went back to sleep. Sucker. None of us really remember much else about this drive, so I guess that means not much happened. We went thru a couple Indian reservations and passed a bunch of Indian casinos; I wanted to stop, no one else cared.

Blackfoot, Id. is a really cute little town. It was gorgeous when we got in, the sun was just starting to set and Bryan and I decided to spend some times taking advantage of the golden hour light. After we were compelled to take the same picture like 15 times before we even got out of sight of the venue, we decided to part ways. I went right, he went left. I took a couple of rolls back in the neighborhood behind Main Street, lots of trees and houses, and I’m looking forward to seeing the work.

I stopped at what looked like a mid-nineteenth-century church house, bathed in golden light, little kids playing tag in the churchyard. I stopped to take the picture. I was using my Hasselblad, which shoots from about wasit-level, and it took a good two or three minutes of wandering around to find the angle and whatnot I wanted to shoot. As I was about to take it, I noticed thru the viewfinder that there was a woman standing on the sidewalk giving me an icy stare. I looked up.

“You’re not videotaping the children, are you,” she shouted across the street to me in a heavy, easily-mockable drawl.

“No,” I shouted back, in a tone that I hoped would convey mild disgust.

“Because I don’t want you videotaping our children,” she added, as if there was some kind of additional explanation necessary.

“Okay,” I shouted back, and looked back down into the camera. I was there for maybe another half a minute. I took the frame, refocused and changed my position slightly, and then took another. The woman didn’t move the whole time, she just stood there in that one spot, giving me her icy glare. I’ll blow it up and post it when I get the picture back. That woman was dead certain that I was a pervert. Clearly, I wasn’t there because of the beautiful light on the beautiful old buildings in the town, but because I wanted wank footage of kids running around in the dirt. I can only imagine the “close-call” story she’s telling all the other church ladies. What an idiot.

Anyway, I walked back to the venue (Tony’s Family Billiards - an alcohol-free establishment in what turned out to be an alcohol-free town) to share the hilarity with the dudes. They were all still in the van so I climbed, already saying something along the lines of, “Hey, guess what this woman…” but they were all, “Ssh! Shut up!” I asked what was going on.

Someone explained that they had been sitting there in the van, minding their own business when two girls, probably around 15 or 16, came out of the house in front of us, holding hands. They started making out, and then started dry humping. Then, an older woman they described as “The Mom” came out, but the girls didn’t stop. The Mom was like, you know. Watching.

“What?”

“Yeah, dude. It was so fucking crazy. They just went back inside. Look.”

The door of the place was open. We sat there in silence for like 10 minutes. Then the girls came out. They were holding hands. They were kissing. They got into a pickup that was parked in the driveway. Then “The Mom” came out and got into the drivers seat. The girls slid out of site in the cab. “The Mom” just sat there smoking. We speculated about what was going on in the cab. I asked if maybe we should call child protective services? Then we decided that everybody involved in whatever sexually deviant thing was happening in front of us seemed pretty happy with the arrangement.

Maybe this is why the church lady was so worried that I was a pervert. Maybe this repressed town was overrun with people acting out of extreme sexual frustration. Who knows! The little lesbians came to the show and even though though they played pool and groped each other most of the time, they each bought a tshirt.

The opening band was local: high school kids who played in their underwear. There were only about 20 people, but they were a good 20, super into the music. I took like 4 rolls of film by the time the Jonbenet was done playing, and then the merch table got so mobbed it took two of us to get everybody the shit they wanted. It was a pretty great show even though there was nothing to drink.

Then this amazing thing happened. This little kid with a mohawk went and picked up Dann’s guitar. He was so small, the guitar so big, that he had to sit on one knee and rest the guitar on the other to play it. But he knew how to rock. His dad got on the drums. Dann picked up the bass. And the little dude led a little encore.

Rupe’s the local’s favorite spot, was right across the street, and Bryan and I went there when the show was over for dinner. It was the most wholesome burger place I’d ever seen. The entire place seemed to be staffed by high school kids, and the booths full of families finishing dinner. We were sitting at the counter finishing up when the little dude from before came in to get a milkshake. He said the band was awesome. He told us about his equipment (stratocaster with full stacks modified for his mic). He told us he was eleven. Then he said he had to go; his dad was waiting for him. I ran back to the van to get him a CD. While I was there, I noticed that the young ladies who demonstrated such a deep bond for eachother before the show were back at in in the front seat of a different car parked in the same location.

What a town.

Everyone was in the van, the trailer was loaded And if that’s all that had happened, it would still have made for a pretty funny story. But as it happened, there is a whole other chapter.

Rupe’s closed before the rest of the dudes could get anything to eat. They were hungry, but everything in Blackfoot was dark for the night. We had to find food for everybody elsewhere, and about 30 minutes later, we were pulling into a Denny’s parking lot in Idaho Falls.

Our waiter was a very friendly guy who we’ll call Jeff3. He said hello, took our drink orders, brought us our drinks. And then he made the very clever observation that we were “not from around here.” We told him that, in fact, he was correct. He then deduced that we were most likely a band. The dudes said they were. Jeff got really excited. He wanted to know where we were from what kind of music they play, where the tour was going. He told us about family members of his that were musicians. He said he wanted to buy a CD for his brother. He had all kinds of things to share with us. Mike went to the van to get him an LP which they would all sign, plus a CD for Jeff’s brother.

A few minutes later, Jeff came over again. He said that the customers in another booth were wondering what band we were, and wanted to know if it was okay to say hello. Mike said it was, and a few seconds later, a guy with gauges in his ears, a orange t-shirt and big black raver pants was at our table asking us a lot of the same questions. He had never heard of the Jonbenet, but he wanted to buy a CD.

A few minutes after that, we heard very familiar music playing in the kitchen. We mentioned it to Jeff and he said, “Yeah, we’d play it out here but we’d get in trouble.”

Then, not long after that, a waitress came over to buy the CD for her son. “It sounds like something he’d like,” she explained as the dudes took turns signing the liner notes. And then the kid from the other table came back with his placement and made everyone sign it – including me.

The Jonbenet rocked the shit out of the Idaho Falls Denny’s just by showing up.

But Alas, the experience was bittersweet. We can’t remember how this happened, but as Jeff was clearing our plates (he worked through his break so as not to have to give our table to a different server) he commented that he lived in a rough neighborhood. In fact, thought Jeff, we would be surprised about how rough Idaho Falls actually was; beneath the surface of this deeply Mormon town was an undercurrent of crime and violence. Jeff told us that people get shot on his street all the time.

This was sort of an unexpected turn in the conversation, but Mike wanted to relate. Not knowing what to say, Mike turned to the anti-Meth posters that are as common in this part of the country as road signs or gas stations for conversational guidance.

“I understand there’s a real meth problem out here,” Mike said. Jeff instantly became somber.

“It touches everyone,” he said, standing by our booth with the remains of or grand slam breakfasts on the dirty plates in his hands. “Doctors, judges, businessmen, everyone. I was hooked on meth for eight years. I lost my business, my wife, my kids, everything. But I’m turning it around. I’m working at Denny’s and I’ve been clean for more than two years.”

He nodded and smiled at us. Then he stood there. I think we kind of looked at him without saying a word for what must have been five full seconds. Mike finally said something.

“I’m glad you cleaned up. It’s a hard thing to.”

Jeff acknowledged that it was, then took our shit to the kitchen.

“Hey, Mike,” Dann said after a minute of the group of us all staring blankly at each other. “Next time we’re in a place with a meth problem, don’t bring it up to strangers.”

  1. Looking back now, this wasn’t that bad a show. The payout turned out to be pretty big because so many of the kids bought merch even though it was sort of like a riot.
  2. He’s still making fun of me for this. How the fuck was I supposed to know?
  3. I changed his name to protect his identity since I don’t know if he’d appreciate me writing about him on the internets.

Tour Diary: Day 4: Fists and Faceplants

Friday, May 30th, 2008

Ok, I’m like a week behind and so much hilarious shit has happened it’s hard to remember it all. But I’m going to try to catch up, day by day. Also, I’m not proofreading. Remember how we rushed out of Portland to make it 225 miles away to Richland in time to play a show that turned out to be the next day? Yeah, we were all pretty bummed about that. We also had a whole day to fill wandering around what the locals refer to as the “Tri-Cities Area”, though I have no fucking clue what the other two cities are. 1 But people must have come from far and wide to check out the show, because it was pretty full when the dudes rocked Ray’s Golden Lion (”Chinese and American Food”) when the show finally happened.

So this wasn’t exactly the ideal crowd. There were a couple of hardcore Jonbenet fans who drove hours to see the guys play (a pretty common phenomenon even in the most isolated places that draw the smallest crowds), but mostly it was local hardcore kids and and three conspicuously drunk idiots. There were four bands and the dudes were up next to last and we discovered pretty quickly that we didn’t really want to spend too much time watching the other guys play. The drummer for one of the other bands, decked out in several layers of sleevless cottom shirts, long hair dangled strategically out from under a sleaveless red hoodie, explained the concept of his bands to video to us. Loosely recreated:

So we filmed it at this abandoned jail because like, the “plot” or whatever of the video is that [name of singer] is like the head of a conspiracy against us and we’re all getting thrown in jail one by one. And then, you know, it cuts to us all playing but there’s no live footage though because [name of former guitarist] quit before we could film it, which sucked. I mean, people should finish what they start, but whatever, he’s happy now and doing well so that’s good.

Not six seconds before, Mike, the Jonbenet’s singer, the band’s ideological leader, had just finished saying how much he hated these kinds of performative videos. I Am the Ocean’s drummer conceded, “Yeah, you know, it’s kind of weird, but these days you’ve got to be marketable.”

We made fun of them for the next three days.

But that wasn’t even the high point of our Richland, Wash. experience. When the guys started playing, some of the kids in crowd targeted the bunch of drunk idiots at the front with their hardcore dancing. It wasn’t long before I a dude in board shorts and a hawaiian-style shirt got punched in the face. His nose bloodied, the dude appealed to Mike, who told the crowd stop being so lame. Mike asked the crowd to move up and fill in the space where the hardcore dancing was happening, and his girlfriend Marlen, who’s on the road with us too, doing all the merch, was the first to get there.

The dancing didn’t stop though, and when Marlen get bumped by one of kids responsible for the earlier bloody nose, Mike used the mic stand like a pole vault to launch himself from stage and jumpkick the guy in the head, all without a break in the singing. Then there was some pushing and shoving. Dann, the Jonbenet’s guitarist, hit his delay peddle to keep the music going so he could put down the guitar, stepped up imposingly to the edge of the stage like he was ready to fucking kill somebody. The bouncers got involved. After the song, Mike told he crowd that hardcore dancing was lame and kept people who don’t want to get punched from being able to enjoy the show. 

Bryan, who was playing bass, somehow managed to miss the entire episode. Afterwords, he was pissed at Mike for being a dick to the crowd.

After the show, people came by the merch table to tell Mike that they had either appreciate what he’d said or they thought he was asshole. One kid came to apologize.

“Hey man, I’m really about what happened,” the dude told Mike. “I’m here every weekend, and this is just what we do.”

Mike kind of cocked his head to the side, and I started to worry that he was going to say something that would make me uncomfortable. But then it turned out he was just confused.

“Wait, didn’t I kick you in the head,” Mike asked the kid. The kid just looked at him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Did you?”

I pointed out that the dude had blood on his arm. There was a pause. Then the kid apologized again. Peace was made.

The last band played. They sucked: all heavy glottal screaming over intense double-bass-drum beats, and we mostly stood outside assessing the state of the evening.  When a girl asked Dann if he was to cool Richland, he said, “In about an hour, we will be,” adding, “We’re from a thriving metropolis.”

The girl told her friend to ask Dann a question. “Ask him something and he’ll reply with something mean.”

“Where are you from,” the girl asked.

“You already asked him that,” the other girl said.

“That’s your problem. You don’t listen,” Dann said.

Finally the show and our two days in Richland were coming to a close. We were loading the gear into the trailer and everybody else was standing outside the venue. The hardcore kids started fucking with the guy who’s nose they’d busted earlier. The guy shouted some shit at them and then crossed the huge parking lot to wait for his ride. Mike and Marlen went over to him to see if he was going to manage to get himself home or if he was going to stay there all night and get beaten up. He told them he was waiting on his ride. And then said he wasn’t worried about those other guys.

It’s alright, you know. I’m not mad cause I know one day they’re going to grow up and have retarded kids. You know, they’re kids’ll come out like this [flails arms against his chest], because that’s just how they are.

Sometimes, it can be comforting to take the long view. 

  1. For whatever reason, I’ve been pretty down to hit some golf balls and also to find a gun range and unload some glocks or whatever, but I couldn’t find anywhere to do either in the amount of time we had alotted to dicking around. So we ended up just kind of hanging around in a park by whatever river runs thru this area, (snake river, maybe?) tromping around on some sand dunes that abutted the edge of a sprawling subdivision, and then heading to the venue to drink beer. It wasn’t the most exciting day in the world, but the prairie was gorgeous and it was probably pretty close to the authentic Tri-Cities experience.

Tour Diary: More Shit Coming Soon

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

I promise.

Tour Diary: Day 3: No Fucking Way

Friday, May 23rd, 2008


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So, get this. After the Chico gig, we drove through the night (again) to get to Portland to meet up with a friend of the band’s and also just to take it easy for a little while before heading to the show in Richland. I was stoked to check out Portland because I’d never been to these hip Pacific Northwestern cities before, and it was cool to check the place out. But in decided to spend our three free hours there, we skipped checking our Crater Lake and, more signifiicantly, that giant rock from the Goonies. So then we drove for hours more into Richland, WA (the show here is in a Chinese Restaurant called Ray’s Golden Lion) one to discover… we have the wrong fucking day.

The show is fucking tomorrow. We could have stayed in Portland. Or even in Chico for that matter. And seen Crater Lake. And gone to the Goonies rock. We could have all done those things. Instead, we went to Taco Bell and then Walgreens, then got kinda toasted in a motel room and watched four hours on The First 48 on A&E. Where’s the glamor? Where??

Ok, so some other thing’s also happened. First off, I’ll tell you that if ever find yourself in Yreka, CA at about 4 in the morning and you need to take a number two, you’re going to have a problem. There’s one public toilet about in all of town at about that time – a Shell station – and I sat by the door in the freezing cold morning air for like 35 minutes this morning waiting for a trucker who snatched the key like seconds before I could to finish washing his boots. I had to go so bad. Oh my god. Just thinking about now is painful.

The reason I was so backed up was because I had been the only one awake/sober after the Chico show, and drove from across a great swath of Northern California including Shasta National Forest, Shasta Lake Recreation Area, the Shasta River, Mt. Shasta City, and Mt Shasta itself – a huge area – almost all of it with nowhere to really stop. I’ll say though that even in the dark it was breathtakingly beautiful. Not as beautiful as Oregon was in the daylight though. The elevation was about 4000 feet, and boreal mountaintops were hidden by fog just as the sun was rising. It was one of the most amazing sites I’ve ever seen. And then Drew took over the driving and I passed the fuck out.

Also, Bryan has sustained an injury so disgusting that having experienced firsthand, I have to share you out and ruin whatever snack you’re eating while you’re reading this. I guess there’s something about the shape of his bass that makes it so he’s constantly scratching himself up against it. So, after seven or eight days of sustained damage, the thing has turned into a giant disgusting cyst. We went to Walgreens to figure out what he should use to treat it and ended up leaving with antibiotic cream, band-aids, and an ace bandage. But Brian decided to take matters into his own hands. He was determined to pop the fucking thing, and so he and Drew, the Jonbenet’s drummer, headed into the bathroom to do just that.

They were in there for about 20 minutes. Mike, his girlfriend Marlen and I tried not pay attention to the horrible screaming coming from behind the door. And then, after something of a crescendo, mike emerged, explaining that when the thing popped, it squirted straight up into the air, almost the ceiling. I then got a clipse of Bryan turning on the shower, blood running down his entire arm. It was the most disgusting thing I think I have ever witnessed. Ever. And I share it with you, my dear readers. I was so sick that I couldn’t bring myself to take a picture. And if I had, I probably wouldn’t have the guts to ever actually look at it again. Tomorrow we’re making jackass go to the fucking doctor.

I want to apologize for how quickly these posts are written and for the lack of links. I’ll do better on that front in the future. But now it’s bedtime! So Peace!

Tour Diary: Day 2: Escondido to Chico

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

 
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If anyone ever says to you, “Chico, California sucks,” motherfucker is lying. I didn’t have high hopes for the place – Id never heard of it before AND getting there from Escondido way down in SoCal meant skipping leisure stops in San Francisco and at Yosemite National Park. But the tours the tour and we drove 14 hours thru the night to get there for a gig at a house show. Chico is the home of Chico State, and plenty of the kids there came out to crowd into a basement to hear the Jonbenet rock their dicks off.  The gig was great, the kids were awesome and the town is pretty, you might consider dropping in on future roadtrips. I snapped some pictures with the digital specifically for the blog, dude singing in this shot is Mike Murland. Stand up guy. Bryan Schutmaat, who many of you know, is playing bass in the background.

The drive was pretty wild. We left Escondido at around 11:15pm last night after the Killer Pizza from Mars gig and drove all the way up I-5 thru LA, thru the Angeles National Forest, past Bakersfield and Fresno, switched highways in Sacramento and arrived in Chico by like 11 in the morning. That stretch thru the National Forest was amazing. Even though it was the middle of the night, the moon was bright enough to see the hills pretty clearly, and it was gorgeous. I hope to come thru during the day sometime.

Anyway, We hit the mall (I needed to get a pillow) and Taco Bell, tried to find a Wal-Mart and then headed to the gig. The dudes who were having the show were real friendly, and we got to chill out for a while before things got going. We watched Manchester United beat Chelsea in double overtime and then I took a long nap in the van until the dudes went on at like 9.
It was a good gig, the the kids in the crowd were all really positive, and a bunch of them had heard the guys play before three or four years ago the last time they came thru. There were two other bands that played, including one whose name I have written down but can’t find at the moment from Davis, CA, who not only rock but also have a pretty foxy singer name Erica. Before there last song, she warned the crowd that since the band has nothing recorded and no myspace page, that “This is it, some pretty crucial rock and roll.”  And it was. I have a shot of her screaming into the mic in my Hasselblad as we speak.

So now we’re headed to Richman, WA, which is like 10,000 miles from here. So we’re going to be driving thru the night again which is only a bummer because when we drive at night we can’t see the sights. Though, driving thru the Angeles National Forest last night, the moon was bright enough that I could see the hills pretty clearly, and it was amazing.

We didn’t hang out long after the show was over. The kids were cool and everything, and this retardedly adorable dog named Stanley turned up (video below), but we left to make it to the next show in Richland, WA by way of Portland, OR.

Tour Diary: Day 1: LA to Escondido

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

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I guess I should say that day one for me is really day six for The Jonbenet, the band I’m on tour with, but we’re just gonna go ahead and call it day one. I left my apartment this morning at 5, got into LAX 12 hours later, met up with a guy from Houston named Jason who drove me out to Escondido to meet up with the band. My flight was freezing cold and I was locked into the window seat and couldn’t get out to hunt down a blanket. It was like being a prisoner on some kind of flying ice chamber of death. It was horrible. 

Also, another note: Los Angeles is huge. There was nothing but mountains and desert and tiny little towns for hours and then all of a sudden, there was was LA. grids of houses and buildings extending to the horizon in every direction. No other city on earth can match this one in terms of sprawl. It’s amazing. 

Escondido is either a southern suburb of LA or a northern suburb of San Diego and it took us about two hours to get there from the airport. Get this though: Jason had french friend from Del Taco waiting for me in the car. Can you believe that? The guy’s a real class act. He proved it again later when we stopped in San Clamente for soft serve from stand by the highway called Burger Stop. (Note to Californians: if you’re ever in San Clamente, it’s worth checking out. 24 flavors of soft serve, and also the home of the “Chile-Dog”.) The first lick of my ice cream sent it plummeting earthward, my camera breaking it’s fall. So bullshit. The nice lady behind the counter was nice enough to give me a new cone.

The gig was at a space and sci-fi themed pizza joint called Killer Pizza from Mars and the place looked like it hadn’t changed since it first opened in, if i had to guess, 1993. The dudes there were crazy hospital though. They feed and watered us, and let us hang around long after closing shooting hoops on their old school arcade thing. Three local bands played, and I took pictures of some of the funniest looking people. It was good. The kids at the show were all in high school and they seemed to dig the Jonbenet guys the best, and they unloaded a bunch of merch.

We’re in the van now, driving along the Pacific Ocean. Can’t see it because it’s totally black, but I know that it’s there. Kind of awesome. We’re heading 9 hours up north, straight thru the night, to Chico, which, we were told buy the guys at Killer Pizza, is the point of origin for much of California’s medicinal marijuana crop. It’s by a massive state park called Bidwell, so I’m hoping we get to hang out there for at least a little while to capture the scenery. 

So that’s the deal so far. Sorry this is a rushed post, I’m dying to get some sleep, so future ones will hopefully be a little more thoughtfully crafted. And there’s so much hilarious shit that’s happened that I’m leaving out, so I’ll try to be more on top of it for the sake of posterity starting tomorrow. And, obviously, there will be pictures and things and I’ll introduce you to the dudes as time goes on. K? Later.

And I’m Off…

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

I dropped a cool $300 at B&H today on these 45 rolls of film and a tripod. In about an hour, I’m flying to LA to meet up with a guy named Mike. Mike is going to drive me about 100 miles south to Escondido, where I’m going to meet up with The Jonbenet, the band I’m going to be touring with for the next three weeks. It’s gonna be killer. And I don’t mean to get myself in over my head here, but I’m going to try and do a post every couple of days from the road. Talk to you then.

Rauschenberg Died

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Something that’s going to bum my mother out when she gets the New York Times tomorrow: Robert Rauschenberg died on Monday, and for some reason we’re just finding out about it now… a whole two days later. 

I don’t have a whole lot of insight to add on this other than to say the most interesting thing I learned about Rauschenberg recently was that he and Jasper Johns were lovers on and off for the better part of forever, which, you know, makes a whole lot of sense. 

Also, he said once, “The artist’s job is to be a witness to his time in history,” which is pretty spot-on. Not sure he’s the first to have ever said that, though. I was.

Also worth nothing: doing a google search Rauschenberg pictures evently leads you to this guy’s myspace profile.

Here’s a whole slew of obituaries to read.

Robert Rauschenberg, American Artist, Dies at 82
Robert Rauschenberg, 82; influential artist mixed painting, sculpture and cast-off items
Obituary: Robert Rauschenberg

Don’t Pack Light

Friday, May 9th, 2008


Washington, 2007

We Wasserstroms attend Syracuse University commencement every year even though we haven’t sent a student through there in decades because there is such a thing there as the Wasserstrom Award for Something or Other set up in memory of my grandfather and my grandmother really likes us to be there when it’s given out. I’ve never been before because I until now I’ve had the luxury of not living above the Mason-Dixon line. Now that I’m here in the City I don’t really have an excuse, so off I go. Not that I’m nto perfectly happy to do it, you know, my grandmother, who is 86, is always pretty hilarious during these family things. 

The only reason I haven’t left for the airport yet is because I have to wait for the cleaners down the block to open at 7 so I can get my nice clothes. (My grandmother has suggested that I “look nice” about 500 separate times, in phone calls and in emails.) So, I’m sitting here pondering my trip, initiating all the scrabulous games that will have to keep me entertained all weekend and, of course, packing. And so I have this kind of funny realization. My bag of gear eclipses my bag of clothes and whatever but like 100%. It’s bigger. It weighs more. 

I’ve basically brought the same shit with me on trips for the past year or so, though there are a couple recent additions that, out of context, seem pretty crazy. I’ll start with the normal stuff though.

  • Mix and match combination of cameras depending on length of trip, type of trip etc, but not usually fewer than 2.
  • Film
  • Computer
  • Various cords and chargers
  • Cellphone tap
  • Digital recorder
  • Between 1-3 New Yorker magazines
  • Mobile broadband card
  • Sketchbook
  • Drawing pens

That’s the real list. I’m not even kidding about any of it. And all of this shit fits neatly into one of those camera-and-computer bag/backpack type of things, and I carry it all on with me lest things get manhandled or broken. I often have to stand shoeless at security, explaining what various things are, that this is not a video camera, it’s a still camera, it’s not digital so I can’t turn it on, etc.

You may be wondering why I need a cellphone tap and accompanying recorder when I travel, or, perhaps, why I would need these items at all. Broadly speaking, I need them for the same reason I need the sketchbook and the various back issues of the New Yorker: I get ambitious when I travel. When I travel, I expect to use the extra time sitting on planes and in airports, waiting out delays, etc, to do all the things I’ve been meaning and wanting to do but haven’t had the time or inclination in the midst of the daily grind.

So the tap and recorder. There are all these stories I have bouncing around in my head that, if I actually get around to writing them, could be sold to any one of the news sites I’ve written for in the past couple years. So they’re for all the phone interviews I would conduct doing the reporting for these stories.

  • Total number of potential interviews: 23
  • Total number of trips I’ve brought the recording equipment on: 4
  • Total number of Interviews conducted: 0

But, you know, maybe this time will be the time. Anyway, I have to go to the cleaners and then get to JFK. Talk soon.

McGinley

Thursday, May 8th, 2008


Team Gallery, April 2008