Whenever I travel I take several people with me via email. Below are some excerpts from travelogs I sent to them during my most recent visit to the USA.
These are observations, experiences and opinions. I hope they provide you, the reader, with a look into what I see going on in the world as I travel through it.
If these words give you pause to think, good. I've done my job.
Hey Y'all,Well, here goes! I'm riding off into sunrise again, back to Texas, Arizona, California and the USA, land of a million contradictions and some of the sweetest people I've ever met.
I'm anxious. With the news of the world being what it is, and things in my life being what they are, I don't know exactly what I'm going to, or to what I'll be returning.
Ah, but this seems to be the poet's life. Lots of glimpses, frightening visions actually, but no whole picture. It's a matter of finding it when you get there, but never really getting there always having somewhere else to go, something more to do.
The cliche that keeps spinning in my brain is: "these are days of fate and fortune." From my experiences this summer, from the uneasiness of the world, to my womderful crew in Salmon Arm, from an equally under-wonderful organizing committee, to the prospect of another winter here in the Kootenays, from long bike rides amid the fall colours, to long quiet days in this oddball village, from threats against my income, to weird emails from a psychopath I knew in childhood, from lovely letters of invite from all over the place, to the ominous tone of this autumn day, these are days of fate and fortune.
And fate or fortune I'm on my way Monday evening. I'll hop aboard that pallid dog and growl in it's belly for a couple days. And hopefully, when it spits me out on the other end, I'll find something really worthy to write to y'all about.
So, stay in touchy feely. Let me know if you wanna join me and I'll tuck you in my digital pocket and let ya hitch along.
Talk to y'all soon,
Will
Well, things have improved immenseley in the last couple days. My brown bag came back, the hardest rain I ever saw stopped, people have begun to fork up for books at readings and I'm having fun.The only real bad news is the mid-term elections, which seem to have most people (at least the ones I hang out with)in a bit of a doldrum today. Seems to me that people have chosen to simply turn it off, go about their business and forget they have just given George W another credit card to go bombing the hell out of Iraq with. I have never witnessed such apathy in my life. Guess it will take their kids coming home in body bags before they get up and do something about it.
Meanwhile, the day here is so hot I'm drenched in sweat as I walk these streets. I had planned to visit the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library today but it is just too nice to be inside. Instead I've taken myself on a good 15 mile walk, dropping in on a few people I know here and there and visiting a couple cafes. Austin's side streets are typically American. I've been walking for hours and have not seen anyone else doing the same. It's all car, car, car.
It's, Austin's, sidestreets are a mix of influences. There is a definite Spanish influence, many houses have large central courtyards and high fences around the perimeter of the lot. But there is also what I would call a New England influence. Some places have large porches with columns and manicured lawns. Then there is the Southern plantation look, which is also common.
Unlike many other US cities I've been in, Austin is a very green place, and most streets have an abundant canopy of lush green trees overshadowing them. It is a hilly town, well, not like Nelson BC or San Francisco, but the land rolls and has many creek beds and green belts, including a large man made lake that runs the length of the place from east to west. The lake was formed when the city damned one end of the Texas Colorado River, as opposed to the "Mighty" Colorado River up in the Rockies.
Sadly, the lake, which is a shallow muddy trench, often winds up pulling in any and all trash that gets discarded along the streets and highways. City workers can be seen daily slogging around in the lake in gumboots with large plastic bags picking up the debris. Next day most of it is back again.
There are also a number of large parks, several of them with live sound stage set-ups. Almost every weekend there is a large music festival going on somewhere in the city.
Last weekend it was a big celtic festival held across the lake from the hostel. Each morning as I wrote in my journal I was greeted by the sound of a large pipe band opening the festival. Alternatively, at night, it was fiddles and guitars.
Late at night the whole city turns into a musical mosaic. Pretty much every bar has live music, so do most of the coffee houses. You can hear the Wailers, Dave Mason, Willie Nelson, the Red Hot Chilly Peppers, Bruce Springsteen and a dozen other top name acts within a few miles of each other.
Even more, the local music scene is second to none. Everyone here plays music and most of them are better than good. There is also a strong theatre scene, with no less than 10 big name plays going on any night.
My readings have been fun so far. I fell a little flat one night (in my opinion) but the crowd was that way too. I've had a couple nights that close in on record sales nights for my books. Last night was one of those. I sold several books and CDs and was paid $50 US and another $50 CDN for them. Not quite my biggest night but closing in on it. My biggest night ever was a $110 night at the Rapp Saloon in Santa Monica a few years back.
So far my favorite readings have been casual. They have a thing going here they call the round table. Poets just sit around and everyone reads one poem at a time. It's a great way to hear what everyone else is doing. There's some damn fine stuff here, if you like poetry that is.
Sadly, one of my gigs has been cancelled. It was a gig near LA. Apparently there was some sort of a dispute between a lighting man and the venue owner and the lighting man got even by burning the place down.
Fortunately, this means my time in LA is shortened. I'll be spending an extra day in Arizona on my way over and I'll cut out of LA early and head up to Monterey for a few extra days.
But that's next week. This week I still have a few readings to do and some suntannning to complete here in the heat of Texas.
Anyway, that's all the was that is for now. Take Care, hope yer all warm and safe.
Will
Well Folks,
Here I am at the end of my 11 day stay in Austin. I leave it in fitting style, having passed the last few days and nights living out of the neighborhoods, a land of fenced yards and prickly grasses, where fire ants make lawn sunning impossible but there is refuge from the auto-driven speedways sometimes known as side streets.It has been nice to close things down as one of the crowd, fitting into this predominately Hispanic neighborhood like a renter, one who walks to the bus stop, gets on the bus as if going to work, and returns hours later, looking like someone coming home from work.
And that is the essence of life in these burbs, going to work and coming home again to hide out, with the rest, each in their own little fixed up world. Some places resplendant with hobby cars, or basketball hoops, others curtain-drawn techno-worlds full of TVs and computers.
My hosts have been four young men in the early years of bachelorhood. Three working six days and week, 12 hours a day, and the other riding home to Houston every weekend to collect a cheque from Mom and Dad. Their house is a comfortable 4-bedroom rancher with all the perks, laundry, telephone, land lines to the plugged in world.
David, my poet friend among them, is the organizer, bill payer and mind keeper. He tells them when they've not done their chores and when the bills are due. It was on his good grace I was invited here. And he has made a home of it for me. Allowing me to pass these past few days not a tourist, but one of the town.
In 11 days I have become one of the town, a regular at readings, a familiar face on certain transit routes and at certain coffee bars. I have learned short cuts and know which streets to avoid after dark. I know where the grocery stores are, and the bus stops, and how to get to a numbered address, and whether a place is in the north, south, east or west. In fact, I have, on more than one occasion, given directions to tourists and told them about neat places not to be missed.
But alas, I am now onto other things. Before y'all are up in the morning I'll be gone down to San Antoine, then west to Old El Paso (a town that is too much like a prison yard to ever entice me), arriving Tuesday morning in Phoenix, and at lunch in my next stopping place, Flagstaff, home of the Navaho, the Hopi and the Grand Canyon.
So that's it from Texas for now. I'm no longer a tourist here and I'll likely never be again. Next time, I'll be just another old friend, home for the weekend. Arizona, put out your rainbow shoes.
Take Care Y'all,
Will
Hey folks,
I know this is probably a lot for all of you, two travelogues in less than 24 hours but my not so everyday life is full to bursting and I'm afraid if I leave it a day you'll miss out on all there is to tell.I find myself on a lovely Arizona morning full of life and, as one of my fellow hostellers put it, vigorously youthful and wearing it well. Which is quite a feat seeing as I was up until three am hanging out in some student's bedsitting room exchanging poetry with a couple English majors and talking about the necessary evils that come with being a poet, to wit a deep imbiding torment of a spiritual nature. Dark as that may sound, and dark as some of the poetry we read was, I find myself this morning full of renewal and energy, although I will likely crash hard when I find my way back to my dorm this afternoon.
My reading last night was before a large crew of twenty-something college students in a very noisy student union bar at Northern Arizona University.
I'm pleased to report that I have not encountered such youth mixed with intelligence since my days as an interloper at NDU back in the '70s.
These kids really have something going for them. They are earnest, like we were, and they are sincere, like we were, and they are optomistic, and defiant, and radical, and a whole heck of a lot prettier than we ever were.
Their poetry runs the gamut from light hearted to intenseley erotic to, and I'm pleased to say this, full of a Ginsberg-like rhythmic dissention. Yes, dissent is alive and well in the college set of this Arizona town. It is strong stuff, "children of the world I crawl to you weeping, for I see your rape, your starvation, your assisination. . ." as one poet puts it in a damninng indictment of the Bush oil manipulation that is causing death and destruction all over the world. No, I am pleased to report, not all of the American people are sitting idle under the threat of war, these kids here are screaming their heads off and I'm damn proud of them.
And even better the little buggers like me. They have been warm and kind and generous. They have welcomed me as one of their own and that, my friends, has caused years to fall from my face overnight. Once again I am filled with all the fire and passion of youth and, if I'm not careful these young high beams will have me believing that I'm not 50, but half that, and I will grind myself into a delerium of sleep depravation and madness that reveals itself in long endless sentences that run with the flow of words laced with hormonal fluidity. Ah but I digress.
The flip side of it all is the environ. This is a high mountain country with real autumn, blustery vistas peaked with snow. Navaho country that rises up in brown spledour to the treeless mountaintops. It is a place of fresh air and culture and, if it weren't in America, I would seriously consider staying. So, life is great, good, wonderful, and I am delerious as the computer I'm working on tells me I have but minutes to get this letter out.
Check in with you soon, no doubt, have fun,
Will
Hi Folks,
Well, it must be encroaching on 30 degrees at noon in Hollywood, where I have arrived after an all night ride down from the high reaches of Flagstaff and through the neon of Las Vegas.I've had a stormy time of it these past 24 hours. I've met a lot of deeply troubled people, poets mainly, but people who have been hurt and abused in ways that I find it hard to fathom, and that's saying something. I've been sad somewhat and wanting to reach out to them but their hurt is such that reaching for them only drives them away. There is a deep trouble here in America and witnessing it first hand is helping me to understand the apathy. People are so busy just trying to survive the days without complicating things by taking on their government.
In the end it just makes me grateful to be Canadian. Those of you Canadians out there who aren't feeling grateful for who and what we are and have, well, I know how to cure it. Just take a ride down south on a pallid dog, stay in hostels, and talk to folks. It'll make you long for home, I promise.
That aside, not all is dismal and sad, some of it is downright obnoxious. This morning I dragged four Aussies to Hollywood and took them to a hostel I previousy stayed in that I knew to be good. They were all cheerfully checked in but when it came to my turn the clerk, for one reason or another, took a dislike to me. First she challenged whether or not I was a foreign traveller. Then she informed me her only room was next to the in-house party lounge. Then she jacked the rent a couple bucks. Then she stopped my check in while I waited for a chum to extract a dollar bill from his wallet. Then I took my turn, told her I'd brought her business, that she was the rudest hostel clerk I'd ever met, and that I didn't care if I had to sleep under the Hollywood sign, I wasn't going to check in.
Then I went to my favorite Hollywood cafe, drank two cups of dark French, wrote furiously in my journal and began to think, "hey, something better awaits me.
So far that something better has been streets full of bikinied women, an alternative set of digs, a shower, a shave and an overall feeling that the weird sadness of the last day is finally lifting. Now, that's not bad for a start.
Tonight I do my one and only LA gig, thank goodness. It is down in my favorite part of this monolithic city, Santa Monica, at a place called the Rapp Saloon, the oldest remaining building in the area. This is the site of my largest ever poetry payroll and home to one of the finest listening audiences I know of. In other words, this is one of my favourite rooms and I'm looking forward to unleashing all the pent up passion of this past day on those folks. I have a good feeling that those folks are in for a treat tonight.
Well, I'm squelching in this humid heat here beneath the palm trees. I'm aching for an afternoon nap and a good lunch, whichever I can manage first.
It feels good to be in California again. At least it is familiar territory. And I know it will warm my appetite for the return trip, which begins tomorrow when I head up the coast to visit Monterey, home of barking seals and sandy beaches.
Anyway, the adventure continues and I do believe the force is with me.br> Take Care and I'll let you know how it goes again soon,
Will
Hi,
Well the adventure continues. I escaped Hollywood after listening to a group of kids talk about how they were having dreams of explosions and carnage on Hollywood Boulevard.My one and only night in LA was interesting and mercifully quick. The reading in Santa Monica was probably the best I've ever done, although the crowd was thin and the money thinner, but it did save me from having to break into my last $300 to get out.
After the reading I was driven back to Hollywood, via Sunset Strip in a vintage 1967 forest green Porsche with a guy named Mani (pronounced MONEY). Mani is a native of Calcutta, India, a practicing Sikh, and one of the few turbanned people I've ever met outside Canada. He's also a very fine poet.
Midway through our trip a red mustang pulled alongside with Rodney Dangerfield in the passenger seat and a young blonde woman driving. Money leaned out the window and said, "Hey Rodney, I respect you." Rodney smiled and yelled back, "I know you do, and I respect Money too." Turns out they'd met previously at one of those infamous LA parties I'm never invited to.
The trip up from LA took all day and was relatively uneventful. My largest chore was figuring out how to shade the bus window because the sun was too hot.
Once in the Monterey area the adventure began. I was on the bus with four young military people. They were busy talking on their cell phones about their $400 a month phone bills and their trips to the mall and what they were going to buy Daddy for Xmas. I figured if they were willing to have phone conversations in front of me they wouldn't mind some feed back.
I asked them how it was their biggest concern could be Xmas and phone bills while 30,000 children are dying of hunger every day, largely as a result of US foreign policy, and their country was about to send young men off to die.
Our conversation was lively and animated and exciting until the bus driver interfered, told me to shut up, and threatened to throw me off the bus. I did as he asked, not wanting to brave a dark highway outside Salinas, and sat quietly while pasting a "War is not the Answer" bumper sticker to my pack.
Once in Monterey I asked the driver where his "NO FREEDOM OF SPEECH" rule was posted and he started yelling at me that he'd spent 30 years upholding the constitution. I asked him if it was the same constitution that contained the clause about Freedom of Speech, at which point he told me to go back to Canada.
I was about to take offense and tell him about my Native American Grandma but I decided the better part of valor was to get my northern buns out of there, which I did successfully. As I was leaving someone said something about fighting for my freedom and I told them it wasn't my freedom they were fighting for but Bush's right to put pipelines through Iraq and Afghanastan.
"Go back to Canada" was the chorus as I set off up the hill.
This all got me up the hill to my friend's house full of energy, where I had a hot shower, a long sleep, a good breakfast and a morning in the sun.
So, Will 1- Military 0.
The revolution begins.
Talk to you all soon,
Will
Hi Everyone,
I'm greeted by a spectacular red sunrise here on the Monterey Penninsula this morning. Every corner of the sky is painted with the storm warning, but I can hardly imagine this place being stormy, it is too tranquil.Yesterday I took myself for a long bike ride, 40 miles, that's 60K for you Canadians. No, it is not a long ride for me, an average one when I'm travelling but, not having ridden much in the past two months, it was a long ride.
I hadn't really meant to. In fact I was just going to find a quiet beach, yeah right, but it was such a gorgeous day all the beaches were full of people so I just kept riding. My route took me around the Monterey Penninsula along lands end past rolling sea and crashing waves and terrible horrible sea smells until I reached some highlands at a place called Cypress Point. Here most of the beach is private property but one place has been saved where you can go out beneath the Cypress trees to look at Carmel Bay.
The Cypress are amazing old trees. Their trunks are blond and thick and they move along the ground before jutting up, where they spread into wide canopies. They also have a peculiar smell, like unripened celery.
After Cypress Point the road wound up a series of hills deeper into what was once a Cypress Forest but is now an avenue of mansions, and I do mean mansions, with names like Casa le Madre, mother's house.
Some of these places are bigger than some of our Canadian parliaments. I swear, there were places that have a hundred rooms if they have any at all. They are surrounded by stone and wood fences with high tech security and guards. I thought I'd seen opulence in places like Beverly Hills and Bel Air but nothing I've ever seen compares to these. I found myself thinking out loud, who are you people and don't you know there are children starving, not to mention middle-aged poets on bicycles?
I rode very fast through this section of road, not wanting any of this wealth to rub off and permanently taint me. Personally, I had images of their bathroom closets full of sleeping pills because I knew there was no way I'd sleep in these sorts of places. With all those rooms and lawns and garages and tennis courts and swimming pools and jacuzzis and ocean vistas and cars and guards, I'd find no time for sleep.
Once safely through this money zone I came out on the long winding hill that leads past the Pebble Beach Golf Course and down into Carmel. I stopped a while on a bluff overlooking Carmel Beach before deciding not to go into town, I'd seen enough wealth for one afternoon.
I turned back and headed up another road back to Monterey. This road brought me out at a place called Spyglass Hill and took me past the Robert Louis Stevensen private school for rich kids. It was a good slog, climbing from sea level a few hundered yards into a thick grassy land spotted by pine trees.
Once through it I zoomed down to the water again where I took about an hour to just sit and watch the waves, and to wash some of the opulent visions out of my mind.
By time I returned to Monterey I was quite famished. I cooked myself up a wonderful pasta florentine dinner and some of my Grandma's homemade fudge for desert then laid down for a few moments to rest.
Next thing I knew it was early morning and the sky was brilliant red.
So here I am, writing to you all. There really isn't much to say when one takes a holiday from the holiday. I'm slowly getting back into a proper routine of eating, sleeping and exercising, and should be well into it by Sunday when I get back on the bus, start eating other people's food, experimenting with sleep deprivation and knotting myself up like a pretzel in unfamiliar and uncomfortable places.
So, I hope you're all well and I'll talk to you next time something really interesting happens.
Will
Hi Everyone,
Well, I don't know what it is about me or the timing of my trip but I consistently seem to be meeting women moments after they have thrown themselves from the alcoholic abyss. Maybe it is my past coming back to haunt me, maybe its a signal from the heavens to give up this Americanization of my poetry, maybe I'm just don Quiote out to be chivalrous but I seem to be encountering nothing but damsels in distress too late to save them, not that I want to save them, I just wish they'd stop destroying themselves in front of me, or at least hold on until I get there.The latest was my host here in SF, the one who got me four free nights at the hostel. She got fired from her job here yesterday and I found myself holding her while she cried, only to have her, once I got her out of the place and into a nice quiet sunlit spot, turn to the bottle.
For me it is a helluva remember when and one thing is for sure, I'm not seeing anything that would attract me back to the bottle.
On the upside, the weather has been incredible and I finally got a good turn out for a reading, over 50 people, but it was in the poor end of town, SoMa, and the sales were non-existent. They were a good crowd though and some of the open mic readers blew me away. A lot of chanting and African influenced rhythms. I loved the stuff and have some ideas for some new work,which I'll be working on for the rest of my trip here, having grown fully fatigued with trying to make friends with the local girls.
This city has a definite pulse, a rock'n'roll beat that is endless. What I find troubling is that the whole pace of the place is work related. People have to work two or more jobs just to survive in their $600 a month bedsitting rooms. When they're not working they're playing, escaping, drowning their urges for a better life in a morass of alcohol and sex. It's sad but at the same time, the pace of the place interests and enthuses me.
I think I may well be getting my fill of the American psyche though, and I might well have got so much of it that I'm wanting to turn my attention to other things, like the exceptional life and good fortune I have in Canada. Maybe, after all this Americanization I am ready to get serious about exploring the publishing of my poetry in Canada. I haven't really tried to do much of anything with my work in Canada for several years. Maybe it is time.
Perhaps now that I have something of a handle on the American psyche I will be able to reach, with deeper appreciation, into the Canadian mind and heart. That is, afterall, what we Canadians all have in common, we are not Americans. Maybe now that I understand what we are not, I will begin to get to what we really are and maybe that will make my work saleable at home.
To tell you the truth, if my ticket would allow me to leave today I would be on the bus home. But it is the Thanksgiving holiday here and my ticket, the cheap seats, is not good on public holidays. So I'm stuck here for the weekend and will not make my escape until Monday.
With that in mind, I am going to throw myself into this place and have as much fun as possible the next few days. I'm going to walk the Golden Gate, wander the Haight and catch whatever I can that amuses me. Heck, I may even go out and buy myself a new pair of shoes, symbolizing my new desire,which is to walk on the high road in this place.
I apologize if I sound down. I'm really not. Sad as it is to watch people throwing themselves from alcoholic precipices, I am glad that it is not me driven to such extremes. Perhaps, in the end, this trip has been more about me learning where I don't want to go anymore than it has been about me learning where I do. Maybe it is time for me to get happy and really start appreciating how fortunate I am to live where I live and to be who I am.
Anyway, I hadn't written y'all in a few days and felt I should. I had hoped to provide you some adjective filled diatribe on the wonder of this big hopping city. Maybe if I can get into it I will before I leave on Monday.
Until then, this is what is for me down here in the murk and mud of the USA.
Hope you''re all well,
Will