Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
A Marquette of the Mind
These events--grand and unplanned--happen only in places where we have no business being, places we know nothing about. The entire mind-clearing event must be shared by all roadtrip participants and must be a series of perfectly aligned happenstances. Everything is left to chance, and chance delivers. You have to have enough buildup, the right number of drinks, and you have to be in the right place. It also helps if you don't have to be anywhere the next morning.
On the Upper Peninsula trip, catharsis came in Marquette. At almost 20,000 people, Marquette is the largest city up there. All Dan and I knew going in was that it had an ore dock (saw a postcard photo of it in Ishpeming), an electronics store (told by a 35mm news photographer in Houghton), and a regional university. We spent an entire dark and cold June day working our way east from Houghton--where our legendary stripper encounter the night before could almost have been the highlight of the trip.
We arrived in Marquette just before the weak presummer sun set on the trail of shit towns destroyed during the long wane of Michigan's copper empire. The city's outskirts, seen from a state highway dotted by regional chains that faintly resembled their national competitors, looked like a sprawling nowhere, a perfectly Lynchian Lumberton. Both the people and the landscape communicated a delicate balance of hospitality and terror.
Downtown, Marquette looked and felt like a Canadian Maritime city, like a half-sized version of Saint John, a place where honoring expensive architectural traditions once symbolized the industrial importance of the region.
We drove right through downtown to Lake Superior. The giant ore dock, where trains had once dumped millions of tons of iron ore pellets into waiting ships, turned out to be abandoned. This was heartbreaking. Worse, the immense trestle over downtown, which had carried the trains over city streets, had been completely removed. Even in America's smaller cities, industry and functionality are now hidden from everyday view.
Dan and I decided to work with the fading light and try to get some decent shots, even though we knew that every tourist who arrives in Marquette probably does the same thing. Dan disappeared on the other side of the dock. I walked out on an adjoining pier where the locals had their boats tied up. As I shot, a dude approached me from behind and stopped to talk to me.
"What boat are you on? I've never seen you down here before." The dude looked like a younger version of my Uncle Lenny, mid 40s, white and gray polo, curly Italian hair.
I didn't understand his question, so I asked him to repeat it. He meant: which boat did I own? In as few words as possible, I tried to explain that no, sir, we don't have a boat and we don't belong on this dock, we are two guys from New York who as continuously as possible roam the continent with cameras in hand, attempting to find meaning in America as well as in our own lives.
"You guys have a tent?" he asked.
Yes, I told him. We bought it in suburban Milwaukee but we hadn't used it yet.
"Don't stay in a motel. Head on up to Tourist Park. You can get a camping permit for fifteen bucks and take a cab right downtown from your tent."
This sounded great. I told him how disappointed we were to find the ore dock abandoned. No problem, he said, there's a working one about four miles up the shore. Up there they were "dropping pellets pretty regular."
Before we left, he asked where we planned to eat dinner. The North Woods Supper Club, I told him. A good friend recommended it. He made a wincing gesture and shook his head.
"No, you want to eat at the Vierling, great microbrewery. V-i-e-r-l-i-n-g. Right there on Front Street. You can park anywhere on the street...or you can take a cab from your tent."
Intrigued by this notion of taxi-camping, I reconvened with Dan and we headed up the shore of Lake Superior to the massive, working ore dock, which we found easily. There were no ships there, but we photographed it anyway, shooting the many mineral red ore chutes illuminated by the setting sun.
We found Tourist Park in the woods north of downtown, and we were checked into a riverside, "rustic campsite" by two shaggy, teenage dudes who occupied a little office. A few cars were already on-site, scattered among the trees, and a pitched tent accompanied each car. Dan and I opened the package that our tent came in and neurotically read the assembly directions.
The park workers, and the sun, were gone by the time we were set up. I 411'd a cab. The operator asked me if I wanted Checker Cab or Apple Cab. Checker, I said. I heard a faint click and the sound of ringing.
"GUY FAULKENAGEN CHECKER CAB HOW MAY I HELP YOU?" said the phone. I explained my situation, which took some effort, hung up, and cracked a Red Bull. I wanted to drink drastically. We had seen and shot a lot. We were as far from work and the East Coast as we were going to get. Now was the time for drinking.
20 minutes later, a yellow minivan pulled up. Inside was an utter giant of a man, who barely regarded us as we entered the vehicle. As Dan and I got in, his cellphone rang. "GUY FAULKENAGEN CHECKER CAB HOW MAY I HELP YOU?" said the dude. Dan and I looked at each other. The one-man taxi operation--suddenly reminiscent of Lawrence**! Ghost of expurgation past! Dan pulled a Red Bull from his coat and cracked it. At the PSSST! of the can opening, Guy Faulkenagen turned his tremendous head towards us and hit us both at the same time with a look of utter contempt. It's just Red Bull! I said. His face relaxed a bit, and his throbbing neck muscles rotated the massive head back to face the direction the cab was going.
Guy was a character. Dan wrote a song about him. He had played for Baltimore, back when Baltimore was Baltimore. He had some interesting fares lately, including a lady photographer who was shooting Special Olympics stuff for ESPN. He dropped us off downtown and told us to call him when we wanted to go back to the tent.
The Vierling was okay. I had prime rib with horseradish--why not? The high point of my meal was the giant shit I took between the salad and the main course, Peter Griffin style. I don't remember what kind of beer we had, but it was alright, too.
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Then we are walking around. It's chilly outside, and there are no people in the streets. We get money from a drive-through ATM on foot. We hear live music around the block. There are not that many blocks, but we have to walk down some alleys to figure out that the sound is coming from above us. Suddenly we are walking up lots of stairs. The buzz has set in. We are at a townie bar, on the third floor of a loft building. The cover band is timid, seemingly unaware that anyone and everyone downtown can hear them. They have a songsheet going around, almost all 90s and classic rock. CRACKERMAN!!!, Dan and I start shouting when songs end. We drink cheap beer upon cheap beer, bottles of stuff like Miller Lite. The place is mostly dudes, and no one looks at us except when they are taking our money. We talk about what we'll one day do with the thousands of images we're creating on these trips. The band plays the requested STP tune, and Dan and I love it. We leave. We are wasted.
Out in the street, we hear more music. This time, the music is coming from below us. Close to the abandoned ore dock, there is a cavernous brick club. We decide to enter. The bouncers tell us $2. What the fuck, I say, let's get out of here. Where I'm from, $2 doesn't even buy a slice of pizza, but the thought of paying that much to walk into this show deeply offends me.
We stand on the sidewalk. We are about to call Guy Faulkenagen, but for the first time we hear the music. It's heavy, heavy soul, with crazy harmonica and saxophone overlays. Marquette is delivering--delivering the last thing we'd expect to hear in the land of the pasty. We go back through the door and pay our two dollars each.
What happens next is what Dan tells me happens next. The band continues to lay on extremely thick and not-fake soul. I apparently dance with or hit on every woman at the estabilshment, from the patrons to the female band members. My notes indicate that I speak to the common-seeming "girl with camera" but also to more flavorful characters like the "MILF nurse from Escanaba" and "decent-looking human systems major" wearing a retro Pistons shirt. I sit down with the band at the bar, between sets, and find out that they are up from Atlanta, booked for a two-night stint in Marquette. The backing players are all white soul nerds like myself, and we talk about gear and how bands form and the gas mileage that their van gets. Thousands of thoughts about music and songwriting and equipment rush through my head.
I don't see Dan for this much of this episode. I think he may have his Vivitar on him...I certainly carry no camera.
Toward the end of the show Dan reappears and starts screaming at me to do bad things with the girl in the Pistons shirt, but I suddenly want to sleep and walk out. We pass the Pistons girl as we leave, and she looks confused. One of us uses the business card we got off of GUY FAULKENAGEN to summon him back to a downtown intersection. He's much more jovial with us this time, but he keeps getting in cellphone arguments with NMU students trying to get a ride home from a party ("HOW CAN I PICK YOU UP IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?").
The next thing I remember is waking up midmorning to the sound of the river rushing by the tent, and the sound of an empty ore train rolling downgrade back to the mines.
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Is this really all about a night of drinking in Northern Michigan? Of course not. It's about how you become your own person. It's about how you work to end up unspeakably different from the way you were raised, and once in a while have a chance to check on your own progress. It's about how you live in America--all of America. The more trips you do, the more you get out of them. You have to do them for yourself, not your job, not to satisfy grant or scholarship requirements, not for a one-time thrill. The road teaches you not to conform, not to accept the security of a thrill-free life. The road is out there, but you have to work hard for the opportunity to experience it on your own terms.
Racing eastward out of Marquette toward the 1 p.m. departure of the Munising shipwreck tour, we passed by the working ore dock and saw that a ship had come in that morning. We studied it and photographed it, gorgeous in the almost-summer sun. Thousands of tons of ore pellets made a whooshing sound as they fell into the ship, soon to be headed east to what was left of the Rust Belt. The night before felt like nothing but a bad hangover, but we soon realized that a lot more had happened then and there. The two neurotic, ex-Catholic boys from Queens had once again escaped their backgrounds and experienced a night of total freedom.
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NOTES:
*By roadtrip, I mean an exploratory pilgrimage to a selected region--not driving through somewhere in order to get somewhere else, and not going somewhere as a business traveler.
**Lawrence, Kansas was the Marquette of the KC Siege, Summer 2007. I still haven't processed, written about, or posted any photos from Lawrence.
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And, with that, the UP photos will be starting back up...100 to go!
Labels: drinking, marquette, nonfiction, rb, ROADTRIPPING, up08, upper peninsula
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Paul Revere
Fast forward to the Green Line. The chunks will not be kept down. You try to tell yourself that the train is actually moving along a straight path, but each time you open your eyes you see the halves of the trolley car flapping violently in opposite directions as the train navigates tight curves, squealing and screaming under downtown. The motion and sound compound the sense of panic. You can't imagine how embarrassed you will be if you throw up on the train. People might think you are from the suburbs.
This, friends, is what happens when you eat a Paul Revere, a sub of "Romanian pastrami and corned beef" served at the pub mentioned below. I was expecting actual corned beef, not sliced deli meat. I was expecting to have a good night out with my friends, which is to say: not be rendered physically useless by a sandwich.
Labels: complete stomach destruction
Friday, February 20, 2009
Next Week: Rural SC
Watford's Bar-B-Que, Bishopville, S.C.
View Larger Map
Labels: business travel, scbbq
I just spent 40 minutes test-driving the T-Mobile G1 in Harvard Square.
Seriously? I don't need it that badly.
Labels: smartphones
This is what light rain looks like in Boston.
If you are not from around here, this shot was taken from the Joshua Tree doorway in Davis Square. There, you can pay $2 to watch frat guys with lightning bolts tattooed on their arms do acoustic renditions of such apparent womb-pleasers as Michael Jackson's "Black or White."
I don't understand anything I just wrote, nor I do understand why every male at the J-Tree has a police haircut. It's like a Bell Boulevard bar in Davis...weird.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Disorganized Thoughts on North Carolina that You May or May Not Want to Read
I like Greenville, capital of Eastern NC. It's a true "microcosm of America," where inequality is obvious, the industrial part of town is rotting away, the university and hospital are growing by leaps and bounds, and excellent barbecue ties it all together. I had the combo at B's and learned from a local that the Skylight Inn recently had a fire but was still serving.
Something is always happening in Greenville. Small things. The fire department was investigating a fire at a convenience store yesterday. The public works department was out repairing street signals with a bucket truck. A female medevac pilot had lunch at the table across from me at the Bear Rock Cafe.
Chapel Hill and Carrboro are really something. They look expensive, but are not. The Station in Carrboro is like the local Toad, but has no website.
The hipsters are moving from Carrboro to Durham.
You can live well for less, and get around on a motorcycle much of the year.
At the Orange County Social Club in Carrboro, an old Yuengling ad that showed four bulldogs smoking around a bar made me smile. The next day I saw a dog that looked exactly like one in the old ad splattered on the highway. This made me sad.
I a lso made it to Bullock's in Durham, an overcrowded diner-like barbecue joint that served up somewhat flavorless pork and almost jewish-style sliced brisket. They must gas everything. Weird.
Flight keeps getting delayed.
Labels: business travel
Monday, February 16, 2009
Trianglerock
The last time I was headed to N.C., I found a neat little website called Trianglerock.com, which lists all local rock shows going on in the Research Triangle area. It has a companion player at groovo.org that streams mp3s of bands performing any given week. These sites are awesome, and it would be great if other cities had people dedicated to offering such great distillations of their scenes.
I might try to check out a show at the Cave tomorrow night. I checked out the Double Door in Chicago this past weekend, and I'm on a quest to hit as many venues as I can as I travel the country nonstop for the next six weeks. Rock and roll is alive in America.
Related Photoset from NCBBQII, May-June 2008: Night Falls on the Tar Heel State.
Labels: business travel, convergences, music, rb
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Sunday, February 08, 2009
When Things Become More Real
We got a lot done over two full days of sessions, and my upstairs neighbors probably hate me even more now. Erich will take some time to mix the songs and then they will go to our MySpace page (imagine that). It is weird to think that my voice will be holding down the leads on all the tracks--something I never thought could happen. Big thanks to Erich for his production work, Rebecca for the gorgeous harmonies, and CMike for the basslines and arrangement advice.
Soon, we start playing shows. For real.
P.S. My new, old Martin acoustic guitar is an amazing instrument and allows me to cover even more sonic territory I never thought possible. We're going to keep writing, writing, writing. Writing music is far more fun than writing fiction, sometimes more fun than photography, and always more fun than blogging. I am pretty much on the way to having my dream job. My next major life goal is to go on tour with this music, even if it means playing a show here one weekend and there the next. I've been criscrossing the continent for five years doing my job and my photography, and it's almost time for Infrastructure to claim some of that travel time.
Labels: infrastructure, music, progress
Overheard in Teele Square
--guy to other guy, walking toward the projects with bags of Chinese food, 2:51 a.m.
Labels: boston, overheard, somerville, teele square
Infrastructure
Labels: infrastructure, music
Thursday, February 05, 2009
DO YOU KNOW ANYONE IN CHICAGO OR ANYTHING ABOUT THE CHICAGO MUSIC SCENE?
Labels: business travel, chicago, music
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act
The bill further states that:
Congress finds that children and adolescents have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone.
Miller writes, in his post:
The bill makes no mention as to why children would be in a dressing with an adult stranger in the first place, but it would mean the children would hear a clicking sound when photographed by this stranger.
Never mind that cell phone cameras have helped fight crime--just yesterday in Boston, a municipal sanitation crew was snapped apparently taking bribes to illegally haul demolition waste. And never mind that news organizations like CNN have become heavily reliant on "citizen" (i.e. unpaid) journalism. Even though the citizen photographers are not compensated, the quality of news coverage has increased--just take a look at how many non-journalist's (cameraphone) pictures of the US Airways crash were published last month.
This bill is not only a ridiculous and sensationalist maneuver by a congressman whose name I'll not mention, it's an attack on photography. It also reminds me of something I started writing a few years back. It was a long criticism of the cable TV show "To Catch a Predator" (the show is no longer in production, but it has spawned a profitable product line). In that draft, I coined the term "child rape profiteering industry," and I can't help but re-use that phrase this morning. Whether for monetary profit or personal gain, Americans and American companies exploit exploited children on a daily basis. I can't tell what pisses me off more: the blatant attack on First Amendment rights or the sensationalism and exploitation behind this publicity stunt.
Labels: child rape profiteering industry, only in america, photographers' rights
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
I now take back my last post.
Labels: wfuv
Sunday, February 01, 2009
The Infrastructure Problem
Labels: infrastructure, music