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December 12th
Wake up to small dog running around house in Nashville where we
are crashing on couches, fall back asleep, dog breaks wine glass
in living room, wake up, curse to myself, fall back asleep, wake
up again, this time to Adam’s cell phone, remain awake; check
email, make a few phone calls, thank our hosts; drive few miles
into Nashville, but Magellan is temperamental so we get lost, it
finally gets it shit together and takes us to Café Coco,
where we grab breakfast/lunch, find interview subject in back porch
of said restaurant, get her on camera talking about her drug use,
Nashville and exams in no particular order; get back in Harvey and
drive to Centennial Park, home of Nashville’s faux Parthenon
built around turn of the 20th Century in an attempt to ingratiate
its citizens and appear cultured, laugh because the wrongly colored
Greek homage looks ridiculous standing on hill in America’s
country music capital; drive to Love Circle, a small street that
snakes its way up a hill with best view of the city, get beauty
shots, meet lonely girl looking for a boyfriend, Wiggins can’t
fulfill that role but interviews her about relationships in our
generation; leave Nashville and head northeast into Kentucky, attempt
to catch up on work in RV as Ben drives, procrastinate by watching
live music footage from previous night, get back to work, pullover
on highway to pee, stop at grocery store to stock up on food; drive
to Blockbuster to rent movie, three others guys spend 42 minutes
picking out Willy Wonka; move Harvey 27 yards around corner to parking
spot for the night; nuke TV dinner in Harvey, spill TV dinner all
over the place, nuke second TV dinner, successfully eat TV dinner;
get back to work, guys watch movie in the master bedroom, fall asleep,
and look cute together; while working at table observe cop slowly
driving by; barely past, cop slowly reverses to position himself
next to me, open window to converse with Officer Billy Badass who
tells me we need to leave unless we got permission to park there,
we hadn’t, so I said we’d leave; while driving out,
drop Willy Wonka in night slot at Blockbuster, almost slip a disk
on the icy puddle formed under driver door, drive across street
to sketchy truck stop where cop told me to go, pull Harvey into
cozy little spot, lean back ready for bed, but suddenly see flashing
lights again, same cop pulls up , questions why it took so long
for us to leave, then asks what we were doing in front of Blockbuster,
tell him that I was dropping off DVD, tells me that he thought we
were suspicious and that there had been a lot of break-ins lately,
then asks me whether someone had been loitering around in front
of store and then hopped in RV, tell him nope sir, just me dropping
movie off, Billy then asks for license and registration, but tells
me I can’t get it in the back of the RV, so Wigs gets out
of bed to do get license and registration, Billy questions me about
the owner of the vehicle, I refer him to the stickers plastered
on the outside of Harvey, but he wants papers, Wigs gets them for
him, Billy does background check, lets us go, and thanks us for
letting him waste our time.
December 8th
I am supposed to catch up with Nontra Yantaprasert at 9:30am in
the Starbucks downtown. We had first met the past evening while
she was serving Wigs and I at B & D Burgers. For some reason,
I didn’t think that she would show up, but she arrives half
an hour early; pink polka dotted boots and all. The fact that she
wanted to meet at the global coffee chain was an interesting choice
for a SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) student. According
to Nontra, most of the students like to think of themselves as creative
individuals who frown upon large corporations. Nontra doesn’t
buy into this artistic cliché and realizes that such businesses
have their advantages.
In her final year at SCAD, Nontra is a fashion design major who
wants and needs a job. Just a few days ago she flew to Minneapolis
for an interview with Target, a corporation that appeals to her
because of its benefits as well as its ability to reach such a large
audience. Like most of her college counterparts, she anxiously looks
towards her future and this was the first day she was supposed to
hear back from her potential employer. We chatted over some coffee
at Starbucks and then headed two doors down to B & D because
it was quieter and she needed to get ready for her eleven o’clock
shift.
In many ways, Nontra is a normal 21-year-old girl fascinated by
boyfriends, Lindsey Lohan, the OC, and shopping. She describes herself
as bubbly and talkative and, from what I observe, she is telling
the truth. From the outside, you might not realize that Nontra is
almost obsessively organized and driven to succeed, has a perfect
4.0 GPA, and won a competitive design scholarship last year. In
addition, she is living on her own, wholly autonomous from her family
and working six days a week.
Both of Nontra’s parents were born in Thailand and came to
the U.S. for work, but that was before they knew each other. Her
father came first and began working in a restaurant. One day his
boss asked him to pick up her daughter from the boat. He ended up
marrying this young woman and had Nontra soon after. Both of her
parents were extremely hard working, a trait that clearly rubbed
off upon their daughter, and struggled to make it in their new country.
Nontra’s parents lived their life paycheck to paycheck mainly
in the restaurant business. When she was 16, her father had a heart
attack, an event that forever changed the nature of her family.
Although she had already been working full time since she was fourteen,
she was forced to fend for herself financially. Her parents had
saved almost nothing and because they owned their own restaurant
at the time, had no health insurance. All of their subsequent income
needed to go to pay off medical debts, leaving little for Nontra’s
education. That is why she pays for her own food, rent, car, and
education. As somebody who didn’t have to worry about paying
for my college tuition, I listened, amazed at Nontra’s independence
and initiative.
After chatting for about an hour, Nontra leaves to get ready for
her impending shift as I park myself at the bar, awaiting her free
moments to chat. She keeps stealing her favorite pen that she leant
to me for note taking. After I use it, I put it on the table and
then it disappears again. I notice about seven other similar looking
pens positioned neatly side by side on her waitress apron. I ask,
“Did you just steal my pen again?” She bats her eyelashes,
reaches into her apron, grabs her “favorite” pen that
looks strikingly similar to the six adjoining ones, and playfully
says, “just kidding.” I felt like it really said a lot
about her character, about how she is organized and fastidious,
but ditzy and cute at the same time.
Nontra bounces around the room like a little ball of energy. She
wasn’t only friendly to me, but appears to show off her infectious
smile and perfect white teeth to everyone she spoke to. When she
was off serving a table, I ask her co-workers to describe Nontra.
They unanimously agree that she is always happy and has an uncanny
ability to make those around her happy too. Nontra overhears us
talking about her and offers her own character description, “Straight
A’s or else! Jeans or else!” as she clinches her fist
and pretends to be stern. It’s hard to take her seriously
because, in the two hours or so that I have been with her, I have
seen nothing except for a smile. Yet, this quote speaks to her duality,
to her desire to succeed as well as her love for fashion and clothes.
In many ways, life is about work and play and it seems like Nontra
is doing a good job of combining the two. Using her grade point
average, her positive nature, and her inner drive as indicators,
I am going to predict that Nontra gets the job at Target and might
even go on to fulfill her dream of launching a children’s
fashion line. For now, she is rushing off to submit her design for
another scholarship due at 3pm.
While I was profiling Nontra, the guys were checking out Savannah
and getting some work done. We met up after the interview and got
on the road to Charleston, South Carolina, arriving at the Cleveland’s
house early that evening. Thanks to my mom, we got in touch with
Mrs. Cleveland, whose son Will went to high school with my brother.
We were treated to some wonderful southern hospitality and had a
lovely dinner at Fleet’s Landing.
Similar to what we heard back in Savannah, Will told us about the
gentrification process that was happening in Charleston. Essentially,
the wealthy white population is expanding into the outskirts of
town, where land is cheaper and further marginalizing the poorer
black population. This is a trend that we have begun to observe
and I would like to study it more before I say anything else.
Anyway, Will toured us around his hometown that is filled with
such a rich and storied history. We saw the waterfront mansions,
the market place, and the canons that fired upon Fort Sumter. We
all had a fun time and it was great to catch up with my old friend.
The following morning Will took me on a more in depth tour of the
city in the bright daylight of this bluebird day. I saw a lot, but
nothing more interesting than the 18-year-old kid named Bud Scaggs
that I met in Battery Park. I was there taking pictures and, as
I absentmindedly strolled down the sidewalk and heard a voice calling
from somewhere nearby. Looking around, I identified the thick southern
drawl as coming from a young, scraggly looking young man sitting
alone on the park bench. He hair was short and he wore a goatee,
weathered blue slacks, and a grey long underwear top. His teal and
flannel jacket was wrapped around his well-built torso and his bike
stood erect in close proximity. His name was Bud, and he was just
saying hello. I reciprocated and walked over towards him. He explained
how he was just sitting on the bench doing some tricep extensions
and I explained how I was driving around the country writing a book
and shooting a documentary and asked Bud whether he would be able
to spend a few minutes chatting with me. He said yes, and gave me
his goofy laugh that follows most of his sentences.
Bud was a migrant worker who had been out on his own since he was
he was 15. “I just wanted to be free. Prove something to myself.
You always hear people saying ‘you can’t do this, you
can’t do that.’ You can do it. They can’t stop
you.” He is from a rural, two stop light town in the hills
of western South Carolina and was noticeably hesitant about describing
his past. Bud did tell me, however, that his step-mom beat him and
was the impetus for his leaving. “My step mom was abusive
and I ain’t have the courage to hit her back, so I just left.
I think that was better than going to jail or doing something stupid.”
He hasn’t talked to his family in three years.
Bud left home for Florida and then went on to Willow Gray Military
Academy in Colombia, SC where he graduated last December. I asked
him why he didn’t continue with the army and he said, “I
thought about it. But then I’m like, ‘I might get shot.’
And I said I better not do that because I want to have a family
when I get a little bit older.”
Bud has been traveling ever since and thoroughly loves life on the
road. “It’s the feeling of being free and nobody there
to slow you down.” He travels from city to city via bus or
train, living in hotels, and finding work as a carpenter or auto
mechanic. Bud doesn’t like to stay put for long though: “Whatever
pops up in my head where I wanna go, that’s where I’ll
be in a couple of months.” What drives him every day? “Just
thinking it’s another day. Another day, another dollar you
gotta earn. You gotta survive. Just getting to know that you’re
free when you get up in the morning instead of somebody telling
you what to do every morning. Somebody yelling in your face.”
When asked whether he was unique, Bud didn’t think so. He
looked at me and concluded that we both like traveling. He thinks
that our generation is different on the outside, but the same on
the inside. “Peoples different you know. Different strokes
for different folks…..You see some of these, ya know, you
see preppy folks, your lower class folks, and your red neck folks.
You’ll see the preppy folks making fun of the red neck folks.
But then you’ll see the red necks making fun of the preps
and the lower class folks. It all ties in together, because nobodies
perfect. Ya know. It all goes together someway. We’re all
brothers and sisters.”
Bud doesn’t really buy into pop culture and would rather
listen to Hank Williams Jr. than Britney Spears. “I don’t
know nothing about the opera and all that oops I did it again stuff.”
Does he feel trapped or liberated by technology? “Trapped!”
he says definitively and gives his characteristic chuckle. “I
don’t mess with that technology too much. Growing up in the
mountains, I’d rather just take a shotgun, go out and kill
a turkey. And these computer things—I don’t mess with
them either. Computers are confusing.” This is quite ironic
coming from a kid who would build hydrogen bombs—similar to
those used in the Oklahoma City Bombings—from fertilizer using
information that he got from the Internet. When he was younger,
he and is friends would send lawnmowers out into their fields and
blow huge craters into the ground. Pretty scary stuff. While Bud
is skeptical of the government and filled with conspiracy theories,
he said he was only doing it for fun, and would never want to harm
anybody.
Bud is very much a product of his environment, but is trying to
escape it at the same time. He is out on his own and seems to be
happier than ever.
December 4th
We woke up in Mobile, AL and thanked our hosts, the Potts, for
a wonderful stay in their beautiful Southern city. We drove west
into Florida and made our first stop in Pensacola to see Pete Lilly,
our good friend from Dartmouth. Pete is a lieutenant in the Marines
and currently in flight school to be a pilot for the corps. He showed
us around the area and gave us a little history: Not sure if you
knew, but Pensacola was the first settlement in America, before
Jamestown or Plymouth. He also pointed out the commonplace usage
of second floor balconies, known as galleries, which we had first
begun to see back in New Orleans. After Pete treated us to a wonderful
seaside lunch, we went back to his place and got him on camera for
a few minutes. As I have always been, I was impressed with his drive,
dedication, and humility. Pete optimistically spoke about the many
leaders of our generation and how there are a multitude of ways
to serve our country, not just in the Marines.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long with our good friend
and got on the road to the University of Florida in Gainesville,
where Adam cfwanted to profile a real life freshman girl named Charlotte
Simmons. If you read Tom Wolfe you’ll understand, if not you
will have to read his profile.
There are lessons in life everywhere and on our ride to Gainesville
a gas pump was our teacher, Wigs the pupil. Some states have those
pumps that you can press, lock down, and leave. For others, you
must maintain hand contact with the grease covered plastic handle
and get high off the gas fumes emanating through the air. Our mentor
was of the latter type and, as Wigs attempted to transport the gas
through it, he was quickly presented with a loud click followed
by silence. He tried again, and again the pump stopped almost immediately.
After repeating the process several times, he yelled, “Matt,
this pump is f’ed.” Now, I won’t say who, but
somebody went over to help him. Instead of aggressively pressing
down on the handle, this savior slowly applied pressure and with
time the pump began to flow. The longer he waited, the faster it
would pump, and the happier we all were. After taking a piss in
the bathroom, little Matty Wigs learned that patience brings prosperity.
Ok, that is my pointless allegory for the day.
Wanna hear something else trivial? Later that night, while working
in a 24-hour copy store, a girl came up to me and asked if I would
make a copy of my “man chest” on one of the copy machines.
I said yes. She laughed. I tried, but it didn’t work.
That’s all for the day.
November 30th
I was profoundly affected by our recent recent visit to New Orleans
and the current state of affairs almost three months since Hurricane
Katrina hit.
I want to begin with a roughly edited short film clip that I made
while walking through the one of the most damaged sections of the
city, the Lower 9th Ward. The area had previously been quarantined
by the government, but this day marked the first time citizens were
allowed back into their houses to assess the damage from the storm.
I will never forget my interactions with the protagonist of the
film who was coming back that day, and I hope you all have a chance
to hear his words.
Click here
for a short preview. (about 2 minutes, 4.7MB)
Click here
for a full length version. (about 8 minutes, 9.6MB)
* If you would like to download these clips, just right-click if
you are using a pc or option-click if you are using a mac
**To play this, you must download the most recent version of QuickTime
(It's a good thing to have anyway). For Mac users, go to www.apple.com/quicktime/download.mac.html.
For Windows users, go to www.apple.com/quicktime/download.win.html
***Thanks to my friend Nick-Here is how to make it work for mac
users: Option-click and download the file. It will appear as a OvercomingTheStormPreview.mp4.txt.
Simply delete the .txt extension and the quicktime movie should
work as long as you have downloaded the updated software.
-----------------
I am going to attempt to give you a feel of what I saw through
a description of some of the photos I took (Click here
to be taken to more pics):
Although some businesses were in disrepair from what seemed to be
looting, most in the downtown portion of the city appeared to be
doing fine. These pink pieces of paper indicated that the businesses
were approved for re-opening. In the harder hit areas, orange pieces
of paper signified that a structure was unsafe and prohibited the
owners from entering. These orange leaflets were commonplace in
the 9th Ward.
Most of the skyscrapers in downtown New Orleans seemed unharmed,
although there was the occasional blown window that remained as
a reminder of the storms.
 
Broken street signs and decapitated trees provided other examples.
Across the street-facing façade of every house in the affected
areas was graffiti left by the national guardsmen who had searched
it. Every house was branded with some version of the black writing
at the top-left corner of the window. From what we gathered, this
shows the date on which the house was searched as well as the unit
that was involved. The zero indicates that there were no bodies
found inside. Every search party usually added some information
about what they found, i.e. the info about the dogs.
The power of nature was evident everywhere. Cars were flipped onto
houses, crushed to the ground, or filled with debris. Some were
left where they were before the storm, others were probably carried
for miles. Here are some of the cars that were being removed by
a truck.
 
On the left is a foundation. On the right, is the house that seems
to have been picked up and dropped twenty feet away.
This is Matt Greiner, an insurance adjustor whom I met at the entrance
to the 9th Ward. He allowed us to come with him while he was assessing
this house. Matt told me how regular home insurance only covers
wind damage and not flood damage, which is very unfortunate because
most of the damage in these homes was a result of flooding and not
wind. All Matt could do for this family was provide them with a
new roof, but this won’t do much because their house is ruined
inside and will probably have to be leveled anyway.
Matt believed that people from the house on the right used this
board to avoid rising floodwaters and escape to higher ground.
Wigs illustrates where the flood line was on this home. Flood lines
were visible on most homes, except for where the water rose above
them. The familiar graffiti shows that the house was searched on
September 16th.
I took this photo from atop the canal levee, which had fractured
three months ago during Katrina and caused much of the damage in
the lower 9th Ward. This enormous barge had come through the 800’
breach and, when the waters receded, seems to have landed atop a
school bus. Wigs provides some scale on the left hand side of the
picture.
The area around the levee break was almost totally wiped out. A
Red Cross worker told us that the waters were flowing through here
at 200 mph.
Most of the previous photos were taken on November 30th, which was
the last day that this section of the 9th ward was quarantined off
and also the final day of hurricane season. The following pictures
are all taken on December 1st, the first day the area was open to
the public. A group of Red Cross workers were to there to help out
with both supplies as well as grief counseling.
 
I met this man while he was in line getting supplies from the Red
Cross. He offered to drive me over to see his house—that he
had grown up in—for the first time since the storm. We arrived
to find out that it had shifted from its foundation to the lot next
door. The porch was the only portion left intact and can vaguely
be seen under the telephone pole in the picture on the right. He
was adamant about getting in the house to see if he could recover
anything and first tried the front door. After getting it unlocked,
it wouldn't budge, probably due to some debris blocking it. Grabbing
his hammer, he tried every window, but they were either blocked
or covered in security bars. Throughout this process, he spoke stoically
with his mom, walking her through everything that was happening.
Eventually, he gave up because he needed to get back to his construction
job.
It was very tough to look inside the homes, and it something that
I’ll never forget. The smell was as oppressive as the sight
and it was hard to stay in them for more then a couple of minutes.
To think that this was someone’s home, someone’s belonging’s,
someone’s life—was heartbreaking. Everything, from the
big to the small, was tossed around like it went through a cycle
in the washing machine. In two of the houses, gravity had brought
the waterlogged ceiling to the floor, which was then covered in
a thick layer of mud.
This is a refrigerator/freezer that had somehow ended up balanced
between some electrical wires and the side of a house.
My brother astutely pointed out that this is not a roof, but a hardwood
floor.
**That's all for now...I am working on an essay about the day,
which should be up soon.
November 26th
Harvey spent the night in the Bricktown section of Oklahoma City;
lonely in a parking lot nestled between several buildings near the
faux canal that queerly snakes its way through this unsuspecting
section of the city. The same security guard, who had greeted us
the night before, awakened us and declared it was our time to leave
unless we wanted to stay for another day. We didn’t want to,
so we got on the road.
Our first stop this late November day was at a gas station so Adam
could get his coffee fix. As we drove in, I noticed a bunch of people
hanging around what seemed like a garbage can in an abandoned parking
lot. My curiosity was piqued so I walked over to check it out and
was surprised by what I would find. It took me a second to figure
out exactly what was going on. There were several people sitting
in a bow shaped arrangement, others were standing, and most were
paying attention to a speaker I couldn’t see. I repositioned
myself to see better. Intermittently, the speaker would point at
somebody and members of the crowd would follow, extending their
arms and spreading their fingers, all in the same direction. I soon
realized it was an evangelical preacher proselytizing to a group
of homeless men and women gathered before him. The transient church
was also providing food and coffee to the congregation.
I’ve always been very wary of organized religion and especially
evangelical churches, but there was something about this scene before
me that challenged my skepticism. The congregation of homeless people
had nothing, no food and no home, just the clothes on their back.
But this preacher made them feel hopeful, like they had worth to
their life. Whether there is substance to this hope and to this
belief is not for me to judge, but at least it made them feel a
little better for the moment.
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We drove for the rest of the day, east on I-40 to Arkansas (in
order to hit every state) then southwest towards Texas. We drove
by Eufaula Lake, across the Cherokee and Choctaw Nations, through
the gentle hills of Southern Oklahoma and down into Texas, bypassing
Dallas and arriving in Austin around 10:30. It was a long day of
driving, so it felt great to step foot into our good friend and
host Dave’s house.
Dave showed us around Austin. On this Saturday night, the city
seemed to be teeming with people, but according to Dave it was just
an average night. We walked around the infamous 6th Street packed
with bars and a remarkably diverse crowd that seemed to coexist
peacefully. Every forty feet or so there would be a new scene, often
characterized by a different sound emanating from within. One of
these sounds that so attracted me from one of the open aired bars
was the bluesy guitar playing of a Stevie Ray Vaughn-like character,
who both looked and sounded the part.
We all enjoyed our night with Dave and Wigs’ cousin Benny-Boob
and gave Austin a very good review. As somebody in our group so
eloquently put,, “Austin…more like awesome.”
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