Frag-Update

To catch up, this update encompasses three places in chrono-list form and fragmented sentences (Brian’s blog has a complete-er version of these three days):
Algona, so many feelings, nostalgia. Had great chat with grandpa about life, parenthood, being a man. Very open and honest.
Saw cousin Paul’s newborn and first child. Beautiful. Obvious feelings accompanying the holding of a small child. Many books written on subject, some of which I will likely one day read.
Drove to Ames to see Mike and Courtney. Very fun. Played pool, drank, caught up on life and a friendship I care deeply about.
Back to Algona to see Amy, who was in town to see brother Paul’s baby. Short visit but nice. She’s my age but married. Our lives are so similar at this point but yet, so drastically different.
Drove west. Drive is rhythmic, beautiful. Orange City, IA to see relatives. Another newborn. Two babies in one day, some sort of record for me. Saw small-town football game. Crowd was huge, seems like everyone in town. All very happy and excited to be there. I frequently wish life was that simple and I guess it is for some.
North Dakota into night. According to travel book SD has 1 person to every 10 acres. Bullshit. No one lives out here. Moon so bright we see for miles, over grassy hills, the topography undulating with the grass. Neared Mt. Rushmore, found spot to camp. By found spot I mean side of road. Went to sleep afraid of cops, killers and runaway trucks, the latter vividly. Woke up to sound of semis on exit ramp. One probably almost fell over on us during night, we were lucky. Ate McDonalds. Saw cowboys and locals starting their day (it was 7-something-am) Despite the surroundings (McDonalds) something very real about the people. This is their lives. Everyone here is living, everyday how they live. Zen moment of sorts, or just very tired.
Rushmore- Amazing yet fake. All people tourists. Snapping photos, looking, leaving. Not blood and pulse of America. Brian and I go to gift shop to make fun of the crap people buy. Get all but kicked out over a $150 tomahawk I was wielding in Brian’s direction. Funny.
Drove around. Met locals. Ate and drank. Bought groceries at wal-mart. Brian is confused for a local with his cowboy hat and facial hair, he indulges the mistake.
Wyoming- AMAZING. Saw bright rainbow. Saw Devils Tower (look it up, what are you lazy?) Land, lush and green and yellow and soft and sky is bright and blue and sun sets on us in miraculous waves of color.
Sleep on side of road. 47 degrees. Again scared. This time of mountain men. Fall asleep dreaming of gun battles in the night, which fade—like so many dreams do—to flying without wings and sex.
Awake. Push to Montana listening to Van Morrison. Land is vast, constantly changing from rocks to fields to mountains to plains. Unlike Iowa people don’t till this land. Ranchers. In Iowa framers know every inch, every crop. Here, men own land to seemingly for the sake of owning land. You look across miles and miles and feel free and open, then you realize all of it owned and the west no long feels so wild. Get to Rob’s in Livingston.

Over the Mississippi

Pushing towards the Mississippi a bit hungover, we spot a rest stop and stop to drop what we picked up drinking and eating in Madison. Brian stops to shoot the breeze with an old man who’s outside stretching and I go inside. In the stall I hear Brian’s footsteps enter the bathroom. He walks over to my stall, stops in front of it and squats until his ass is in view, then he farts. How immature of him. I laugh and laugh and laugh and replay the scene and sound in my mind. How immature of us. As immature adventures, however, we have good company, I read somewhere that Lewis once shit in Clarks tent for a good laugh. Business finished, we leave the rest stop and push over the Mississippi and into Minnesota on 90.
    Minnesota is full of rolling hills and farmland. The autumn decay that captured my attention in Indiana is much more vibrant here and I once again find myself staring out the window enjoying the rhythm of it all passing by. We hit highway 35 and turn south into Iowa. The land changes rapidly, the rolling hills dissipate into dead flat. It’s as if the founding statesmen of Iowa wanted flat land, perfect for agriculture, while Minnesota thought that hilly land would be more preferable to their needs. Minnesota asked Iowa for a bit more land to round the number of lakes from 9,998 to 10,000, because they realized ‘land of 9,998 lakes’ would’ve never caught on. The statesman, each pleased with the outcome, shook hands and went their separate ways.
    We come to Clear Lake where my mom’s sister and family live. They’re at a cross country meet in Ventura, just a few miles west and on the way there I brief Brain on the words not to say around this quaint Iowa family. The basic swear words are out, along with ‘stupid’ and ‘shutup.’ Brian lets out a slew of swears for the next few minutes just to purge his system and down a dusty gravel road we reach the meet. We hang for about half-an-hour, exchanging basic small talk before we have to high tail it east to Algona. It’s nothing against the Fyfe’s, they’re good company, but I think my Grandma may have a brain aneurism worrying about us not being there and I wouldn’t want that sort of thing resting on my conscience now, would I?
    My family took a more-or-less annual road trip to my Grandparents and the experience occupies large amounts of my memory. I think part of the joy was that the town of Algona and my Grandparents house never really changed, at least not that I ever noticed. Every year I showed up older and more mature (or less depending on who you ask) and there waiting for me was a sealed time vault to remind of the years before. In the house every photo, every toy, every nook, every object, reminded me of my last interaction of it. Nothing in my life has ever been like that, and it seems so many people try to make their lives unchanging and familiar—they fear change, they fear the unknown, and I can see why such fears and feelings exist.
    We park in the driveway and Brian warns me, “I better not have to eat a fucking casserole.” Grandpa comes out and gives me a bear hug and we head in to see Grandma who is pulling from the oven, a casserole.

Madison

Brian knows a guy in Madison and it’s there we head, pulling up and entering his house. The fragrant sent of pot and rancor of moldy beer left to ferment in an empty, combined with the musk of four collegiate men (Brian and my own day old road stench had yet follow us in) greets us as we enter. The nostalgic memories of college waif back to me and I smile at their arrival. Taking in the house I notice a letter from the University to Brian’s friend, Alex:

Dear Mr. Cockerill,
We have received a report that on September 14, 2002 you were ejected from Camp Randall Stadium for instigating a female to expose herself. While we will take no action at this time, the behavior described in the report may have violated some or all of the following chapters of the University of Wisconsin Administrative Code.

The Dean of Students office is concerned about any behavior that has a negative impact on the University community. We recognize that some University events, by their nature, may lend themselves to more boisterous and lively atmospheres. We also recognize, however, that there are boundaries between behavior which is acceptable and that which is not; we insist that all members of the community respect those boundaries.

It’s then I realize that a fun filled few days lay before me.

    The days that followed were just that. Madison bars seemed hell bent on providing the most interesting drink specials in the country and we were hell bent on trying them all out. The first night we went to a bar serving dollar beers and trays of free deep-fried bacon, followed by a bar where the flip of a coin determines whether you drink at full price or 75% off. I filled up on bacon, lost all my coin tosses and subsequently lost any remnants of sobriety. We closed out the bars, took a drunk bus home and I slept in a lifeless, dreamless black sleep.
    The next day Alex treated us to breakfast at Mickie’s, a staple of Madison dining. The place had character and so did our 80 year waitress who, according to Alex, had worked here since the day the place opened. In keeping with the local spirit I had a Wisconsin scrambler, which consisted of mushrooms, sausage, swiss, sauerkraut, at least fifty scrambled eggs, on a mound crispy hash browns, under a heaping spoonful of gravy. It was superb. With full bellies we entered campus, where Alex began duties as tour guide.
    Our first stop was Camp Randall stadium, home of the Wisconsin Badgers. Camp Randall was named after a civil war camp on the same spot. Before the civil war the land was home to the annual state fair. After 1861, however, it became a military training center and more than 70,000 troops would eventually train there. Now a different type of training occurs, with modern day gladiators fighting an enemy to the applause of over 70,000 fans. We also learn the student chant. It goes something like this, one side yells ‘FUCK YOU’ to which the other side replies, ‘EAT SHIT’. Every year the students receive letters pleading them to not partake in the chant and every year, after receiving the letter, the student body chants louder than before. Alex takes us through a series of tunnels, twisting and turning with no apparent end until we see the field and walk right down onto it. Although at first we act very nonchalant about it, snapping photos and taking video but it’s not long before Brian and I are leaping into the end zone and doing victory dances. Alex looks a bit nervous so we leave, tackling an inflated shape meant for tackling on our way out.
    The campus is sprawling and beautiful. He shows us various buildings and when classes end we sit down on a large hill to watch the hustle and bustle of college life, well, that and girls. We walk through a quad type area where the free-roaming collegiate mind, intent on believing strongly in something, manifests itself in the form of info-booths, protests and pamphlets. We pass an anti-war protest complete with crappy folk singer (‘we want peeaaaace in the middle eeaaaaasst’) and a sign that says ‘BIRTH CONTROL FEST,’ I’m not sure how that last sign fits exactly but if the fest encourages crappy folk singers not to reproduce than I stand behind it wholeheartedly. Straight on, we walk through a traveling bunch of religious zealots, preaching our sins and shortfalls before God. I didn’t realize how close zealot work was with patients at anger management, but it is and we watched a man from Holland give a fiery sermon on how much God hates us and about hell, described by him as a ‘lake of FFIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRREEEEEE!’ Let me say this, it’s not the act of preaching I dislike, it’s the fact that so-called men of God could treat their fellow man with such contempt and hatred. They infer that God hates sinners therefore they must also hate sinners. It gives God a bad name if you ask me and I imagine a good smolting awaits people like this. Eventually we break through the mish-mash of ideas and into the student union.
    We grab a pitcher of beer and choose a table overlooking the lake to drink it. As luck would have it the table next us belongs to a gorgeous blonde and her tutor, although I think it speaks more on our choice than it does luck or a lake view. We sit and drink and I fall madly in love with the gorgeous blonde. She’s got tan skin and I follow her great legs to her short skirt and up, to her large, perky breasts. Her tutor seems frustrated either with the blondes lack of comprehension or with the fact that her company all but assures her own looks to be ignored. And they have been. After a while we get up to leave and I give an unreturned smile to the blonde and a returned one to the tutor.
    That night we tried to go to every bar in town and if my hangover the next day was evidence—we almost succeed. The feel of sex and unabashed passion is in the air and I get caught up in the women and not the good company of friends. This is always a bad move and after failing miserably at conversation I find myself walking home drunk, dejected and even worse, alone.

Milwaukee

I pictured Wisconsin flat in every aspect. Flat land, flat culture, flat people. I don’t know exactly why I thought this, I went to school with a Green Bay native—a 7 foot giant with a booming voice and playful nature. He was rowdy, fun and memorable and he drove a Packers yellow El Camino—who was far from flat. But, nonetheless, as we drove into the state from the South I prepared myself for miles upon miles of flat boring road and dull, drab cities. I was wrong.
    In Milwaukee Brian and I drive through a poverty stricken area (how exactly is one stricken with poverty? Are you just living it up and suddenly you don’t feel so hot, so you go to the doctor, who, after a series of pokes, prods and tests, discovers that your worst fears have come to fruition—you’ve come down with poverty!) on our way to the Miller Brewery. We get there and sign up for the free tour, making sure that samples were indeed given at the end. The tour begins with a video presentation in a screening room. A deep, hypnotic voice—which shall henceforth be known as ‘The Voice’—accompanies the images beaming across three different screens. What transpires is pretty much a twenty-minute commercial with The Voice describing the joys and pleasures of beer drinking. The level of importance the flick attributed to beer was absurd, but it was also hilarious. Over a patriotic score The Voice began; “Do you ever have that moment? That moment when the planets align and you feel as though you've become God? Yes, that moment. Well congratulations friend, you’ve just experienced Miller Time. Yes, Miller Time. Frank Miller began brewing to improve other peoples lives and over the years Miller Brewing has carried on this tradition. Miller has been known to cure cancer, solve world hunger, give men the ability to lure women into intercourse and so, so much more. What can Miller do for you?” The Voice went on and on, describing the history of Miller and the process of brewing. I laughed so much I hardly remember any of it, except The Voice once said, “…from these combination of ingredients comes liquid gold.” Which I thought was silly on many levels, the first being that if I ever did have a glass of liquid gold, the last thing I would do is drink it.
    The tour itself was actually worth all I paid and more. We got to walk through the actual working brewery and not just some pre-packaged, non-working model that so many tours of this sort normally use, They gave a bunch of stats, I don’t remember many of them, something like a billion beers delivered every second, 7 million livers exploded every day—fasinating things of that nature. Aside from the brewery workers viewing us with contempt because, let’s face it, they were at work making beer and we were on vacation about to drink beer, everything else was two-thumbs way up. It ended and we headed over to the free beer section, along the way Brian pointed out a sign to the workers that read: ‘Be Careful. TODAY.’ We laughed and were glad that we were leaving, we’d hate to be around for the carelessness of tomorrow.
    After the three free beers (which were delicious, great work Mr. Frank Miller) and a long chat with some very nice Wisconsinians (I have no idea if that’s correct, but I bet it’s not) who expressed lots of interest in the trip, we hopped back in the car and made the short drive to Wisconsin’s capital, Madison.

Da Bear, da bears, da bears

As a child I never managed to fully grasp the concept of a speed limit. That isn’t to say I was unaware of their existence, but that I didn’t understand that highways had higher speed limits, which made for faster routes than their smaller brethren. I guess I simply thought a road is a road is a road. This lack of understanding and a map led me to constantly question my fathers routes on our annual Iowa road trip I couldn’t understand why we took the roads we did when I could clearly see roads that led directly to our destination, and any elementary school kid knows the fastest path between two points is a straight line. I constantly pointed out that if we took this road thru ‘lostville’ or that road around ‘bumfuck’ we would likely get to where we were going faster and my father, to the best of my knowledge, only followed my advice once. After which, we promptly got lost.
    Getting lost now is a much more difficult task. With the power of the internet a direct path can be pre-chartered, down to the exact mile. I’ll admit this sort of convenience takes some of the fun away from pouring over a map and deciding which roads are best, but it also saves a lot of frustration and God forbid the possibility of asking for directions. As we enter the hazy, smog filled world of Chicago the lanes magically widen and split and merge and shorten in a matter of miles and we’re both thankful for a little place called Mapquest.
    We park downtown in the middle of ‘the loop’ and walk around looking for a place to fill our guts and poison our livers. Our Chicago friends, who are currently borderline enemies, have, at this point, yet to return our calls. Brian and I joke good-naturedly on the possibility of being homeless in Chicago tonight. These jokes merely serve to mask our fear and dread of being homeless tonight and every laugh is really weeping in disguise. At the recommendation of our Let’s Go America travel book we settle in at a place called Al’s Italian Beef. Words don’t do Al’s Italian Beef justice, I can simply say; Don’t ever, EVER, go to Al’s Italian Beef. Ingest trash, rocks or your own limbs before even considering going. If faced with the option, dying of starvation looks like the better and more satisfying choice. With filled stomachs and angry colons we call our friends and they finally answer
    They live in Wrigleyville, north Chicago, and Brian and I get lost on the way. Eventually we find their street and after that, their apartment. As it turns out they were waiting for us to arrive to eat, ironic because we ate while waiting for them. We hop on the L and ride down to a boring pizza joint. After they eat we walk over to a whiskey biker bar and spend the night catching up, telling jokes and feeling like Chi-town is our town.
    The next day the fellows go out to see the town while I head off to watch football. In the only time zone I’ve ever known (I've had short affairs with many others, but Eastern Standard is in my blood) football starts at one. It’s about 12:50 as I’m casually walking to a sports bar when I realize that here, football starts at noon. I break into a sprint trying to find a bar and end up lost on gay street, known to the locals as ‘Boys Town.’ Blocks upon blocks of the rainbow flags fly proudly above every store front and I suddenly feel meat. I have a good basis for this though as I am meat to these queers and I avoid eye contact with the many men who attempt to make eye contact and keep watch of my feet for several blocks away from Boys Town, which happens to be Wrigley field. I find a great sports bar overlooking Wrigley and spend the next few hours cheering incognito for the Redskins as they play and eventually beat the Bears. When I leave and am in the (relative) safety of outdoors (not to the mention the relative safety of a 3 hour beer drinking buzz) I do victory dances and ‘Hail to the Redskins’ chants all the way around Wrigley.
    I call Brian, who acts like a grade-A dickhead about being on the phone with me. He doesn’t really answer the question of when they’ll be back at the apartment, he acts as though I should just sit outside of it with my thumb up my ass till they arrive. In the end I’ll thank him for the callous ambivalence for without it I would have never sdecided to stop at a hole in the wall on a whim and spend the next two hours three sheets to the wind with the most colorful men in all of Chicago.
    The first voice I hear upon entering sounds like ‘Da Super fans’ meets ‘Fargo,’ with a heavy dose of Liquid Courage. “…down the door. Oh, dat guy’s a faucking mama-loq.” Like you, I have no idea what ‘mama-loq’ means, but I can tell it’s not something you want to go and get yourself called, especially not by this guy.
    “Yeah I seen’em last Friday,” another man yells back.
    “Yeah? You won’t be seeing no more cause I’s taking a baseball bat to his faucking head and you know what dat’ll mean for tha fauck!”
    The arch-nemesis of Chicago Bears fans everywhere, the Green Bay Packers, are playing the Detroit Lions on tube above the bar. The Lions receiver drops a touchdown, much to the dismay of a stout shitfaced Asian man, “Nice catch ya faucking bum. Ya faucking bum!”
    The female bartender, who had obviously been telling a story prior to my entrance continues. “And get this, the fucking piece of shit comes walking right by and in the place a week later, so I called the fucking cops on his ass but those pieces of shit don’t get their asses here for like 2 hours.”
    “BUM! Whata faucking bum. Ya bum. Ya faucking bum! BUMMM!!!”
    The first guy pipes back in “ Tha guy-ee’s a faucking piece of shit. Eee’s a faucking mama-loq. And those donut eating, Irish, fauck-a-cops come two hours later withs faucking sprinkles on their faucking faces. Tha faucking twenty-third street douchebags.”
    The Asian man downs a shot and without another word leaves the bar. The first guy gives an inquisical look before taking a pull from his beer. The bartender serves me up and asks what my story is. Bars like this, with people like this, they just assume you’ve got a story or something to say and I’d imagine most people whoose asses meet these bar stools do. I talk about the road trip a bit, drawing interest from all the patrons within earshot. The loud guy introduces himself and starts bending my ear about college football. I nod and say “right” at all the right moments and wish I knew more about college football. Some beers and ‘rights’ later I go to hit the head. In the bathroom I make the classic ‘This water sure feels cold’ joke and with it, earn myself a new best friend. He’s a drunk Irishman who invites me over for drinks on his end of the bar. We drink and drink and talk about the American dream (which, take it from from him, is bullshit and no one will ever be happy) and Brian calls and I drunkenly stumble back still singing ‘Hail to the Redskins.’

South Bend Disappoints

On the radio or on the phone we find out that Notre Dame has upset Michigan at Michigan—big news for the fighting Irish. We happen to be approaching South Bend from the east on HWY 80 and since the tank is low we figure a detour is in order. Overjoyed college kids we're thinking. Drunken revelry we're thinking. We were thinking wrong. We had high hopes as we paid our $2.40 toll and chatted with the toll-lady—she talked about her son who drove up for the game, she said the town was set to be wild. I asked her if she was drinking in the booth to which she gave a mean look and opened the gate.
    We made it to the campus—which was beautiful—and drove around the dorms and stadium. We found evidence of fun-times-had in the form of empty beer cases. High-fives all around. Near the stadium we saw a few people who looked as though they were oblivious to the fact Notre Dame even had a football team. We drove on and passed a promising group, young coeds sporting the 'we enjoy a frosty beverage thank you' look and we slowed for a better look. No one even looked inebriated. Not even slightly. What a drag. We drove around an empty apartment complex before filling up and giving up. Everyone must be at church, where, given the Catholic surroundings, bending can technically occur, giving thanks for the win. "Lord Jesus, Thank you for sending Charlie Wiess and helping slay the sinful Wolverines. Hail Mary, pray for us," and whatnot. We decided that it's not our scene, nothing against the Church mind you, but wine has never been my bag so we take a snapshot of sign to prove we were there, a sign more colorful than the town itself, and make the final plunge towards Chicago.

Colors, Patterns and Decay

The land flattens as we travel through Indiana and onwards to Illinois. The land here is farmland, broad fields of something plant-like cover all that can be seen. Amongst these fields are old billboards and barns, decrepit and forgotten by their previous owners. They stand in stark contrast to the crops they sit in, which are also dying, but as the crops die they seem to grow in beauty, unlike the billboards and barns*. The fields are golden yellow, almost glowing in the bright sun. They sit behind a green-brownish green brush, underneath a line of green trees, underneath a blue sky—the combination of colors is mesmerizing. Is our perception of beautiful color combinations based on the natural world around us, or have we come to the conclusions on our own and nature just fits so damn well? Also amazing is the patterns formed by mans touch, the lines of the fields, the brown and green alternating in perfect spacing. I constantly crop my view and wonder how pissed Brian will be if I stop…and stop and stop to take pictures. I think he will so I just stop once. The varying patterns and color schemes are practically endless but unfortunately the gas tank is not and I begin focusing on approaching signs (the non-decrepit fully-functioning ones) for a place to stop and not the land beside us.***


* Although in their own way, old billboards and barns, with their incoherent letters and peeling paint, can often be beautiful**.

**Unless of course the peeling paint is lead based, in which case it's only beautiful in a dangerous mind-altering way.

***Funny in a way that the actual act of driving never distracted me from the view. Multi-tasking at it's finest I dare say.

The road and Cleveland

Five minutes from home (or what’s been my home for a month, Buffalo) it hardly feels as though we’ve got two months and 12,000 miles ahead of us. But we do, so instead of turning at familiar turns we head south, hugging lake Erie on HWY 90. The sprawls of suburbia quickly dissipate as we enter Ohio wine country, rolling hills and leaves intent on autumn make for very beautiful scenery. To our right, when we climb a hill, we can see the lake, it really is gorgeous out here and I realize the mid-west flat will look plain and paltry in comparison.
    Days of planning and final to-do’s left Brian in a state of sleep deprivation and all around exhaustion and I’m at the helm of the good ship ‘yet to be named.’ With Brian trying to find rest I have full control of tunes and let Dylan serenade me as the road dips south and the lake goes it’s own way out of view. “How many roads must a man walk down…” Dylan crows in his country baritone voice, “Before you call him a man?” His music seems made for the road, 6 minute ballads with long repetitious choruses to match the lull and tedium accompanying the dashed yellow line, while the harmonica wails out intermittently in time with the changing of scenery and rise and fail of the hilly road before us. I don’t really know what Bob is saying most the time, hell I bet he didn’t either, but he said something and said it with feeling and he makes more sense to me right now than he ever has before.
    We begin to head west, nearing Cleveland, and the scenery quickly begins to reflect the change. Industrial buildings sit in place of forests and the fortunate few trees to still be standing don’t look as vibrant as their counterparts we’ve seen along the way. Depression I guess, living next to a factory would do the same to me. Lake Erie returns on our right and we see a public beach off the highway. As if the presence of a highway didn’t depreciate the view thoroughly enough, beach goers find themselves underneath a giant web of electrical lines and towers. Lovely.
    To me, much of a cities beauty exists in the presence of people. The fact so many lives converge into one place, all separate but yet part of a whole is a fact that I have always loved. Unfortunately it’s Saturday and the people who spend their weekdays bustling about the city have decided to something somewhere else. What exactly I am unsure of, but I’m certain it’s not meandering aimlessly around the empty, lonely city of Cleveland as Brian and I have chosen to do. We checkout some of the architecture, the Browns stadium and after grabbing a sandwich and a beer at a sports bar, we head off to Chicago.

Buffalo