Trip coming close to close

This leg of the trip—the last leg—is really just for the novel idea of making the trip a complete loop. Waste of money? Probably. But who cares, we’re still having fun and there’s nothing wrong with that. I have not the words nor patience to sit and update like I should so I’m going to drop a little ‘things we did list’ and some pictures, sound OK to you? Well too bad cause that’s what you’re getting.
Savannah. Nostalgia hit me like a sack of doorknobs. It was home for me for years and while I was there I really fell in love with the place. It was uplifting to see familiar sights but depressing to see all the familiar faces missing. In a small city like that, with a small school you recognize just about everyone, even if you don’t know them. Anyway it brought me down, even while the wonderful beauty of the city picked me up.

pulaski square, my favorite of the 23
Charleston. The only place left on the trip that I’d never visited. It was a great place. I’d always heard so much about it and the city is often compared to Savannah. In the end I think Savannah wins the long standing which is better debate. Charleston, despite is preserved history was just to ritzy, to nice to match Savannah’s down home feel. Great place though.

hand woven baskets in the market. The craft was brought over from serra leon with slaves
Charlotte. Brian’s cousin Chris lives there so we stopped for a night. He works at a radio station and through work got tickets to that nights basketball game, the Bobcats vs. the defending champion Spurs. It was a blast. The seats were terrific, right behind the basket just a few rows up, and the game was a good one. I’m not a big basketball fan but seeing the Spurs, a team I’ve seen on T.V a million playoff times, up close was pretty awesome. The guys are so huge and so famous and we were right there on top of them. Plus the Bobcats have rookies Sean May and Felton from North Carolina and the whole league is watching those two’s careers so it was cool to see them in their rookie season. The arena was just a few days old and it has all sorts of new high tech stuff, including the leagues largest scoreboard and we made it our goal to get on the fucker by the end of the game. With the game clock expiring our dreams were almost dashed but then, Brian made his fifty-foot debut and in a miraculous moment of camera snapping action I got the proof. After the game Chris was playing a cover song type gig at a bar so we hopped over to watch him sing, play acoustic guitar and make women melt. At some point in the night I just felt down and empty and took off into the city on my own. I pulled out my phone to chat with someone who really cared for me and about me, someone who can tolerate that sort of conversation, the me, me, me, I feel so…whatever talk. I looked through my phone and couldn’t call a soul, it was too late or too distant or the person just wouldn’t care. The phone book finally got to Z (well I don’t have a Z so it was actually W for Will) and I realized with despair that in this whole big world not one person out there was thinking of me. At that moment, alone, I could have been anywhere in this fucking world and it wouldn’t have a changed a thing. It was an empty feeling. I need a someone. I need a place. I needed to sleep. I lay down right there in some park, somewhere in some pile of leaves and starred up at millions of just like me lonely stars and the trees above me rustled in the warm breeze and with tears in my eyes I drifted to sleep. I woke up a few minutes later, I mean I’m not crazy or anything like that, and walked back to the house to fall asleep for real, but didn’t feel anymore real or important or for that mater better.



Harrisonburg, VA. James Madison University, home to thousands of nubile hot chicks. It’s a freaking hot chick factory. I don’t know if they come to school like but they sure as hell get hot while here. Richard, one of the coolest, travelest dudes I’ve ever met was there and it was great to him. He’s a partyer and a go getter. If he thinks he I want to go do something and he just does it. JMU was a great time we partied a lot and Richard took us out to the country to some wonderful nature. That the thing about Richard he makes the most of anything and does all there is to do. At times when me and Brian weren’t doing much and wasting time I wished for Rich to be on the trip with us. But we saw Virginia’s beauty and leaves on trees that looked and dance like fire and talked about world travel. Seeing a college is great but being there it made me feel glad that I’m gone, that world is so boring, so plain and it so far from reality. Knowing my ex-girlfriend had been at JMU in grad school made me smile, knowing she’s been in this stagnent never changing envioronment where people can’t really grow while I’ve seen and done so much. Well, yeah, it made me feel pretty good.




Richmond. Visiting Ryan O’Bar, my next door neighbor since I was 5. Great to see him. Brian and I went to a Pietasters concert that was amazing. Such a great show. Such a fun time. The next day Ryan took us to this 100 acre place called Maymont. It was some rich guys dream land and now a free public park. It was a gorgeous day and in the park we felt damn near invincible and wonderful. We walked through the thing stopping in the gardens and we climbed a tree and sat at the top watching families play and leaves fall while we swayed back in for in the clutches of branches. Richmond is a beautiful place, the architecture is magnificent and it is surrounded by beauty, rivers, the Bay and to it’s not so distant east and west, mountains and the Atlantic. If I end up staying in the states Richmond would be on the short list of places to live, yep, I like it that much.





8 days left in the trip.

Ah SHNAP!!

So's I'm pretty tired and empty in the writing department, Brian pretty much said it all about the past few days. We drank late, woke up early and saw sights. It was a whirlwind run from Memphis to Nashville to Birmingham to Tampa all happening in 3 days. It was great to see the family again, we got into Tampa and seeing Scott with his girlfriend was wonderful, I love that kid so damn much and love being with his friends where he feels and acts much more natural. I also love that despite my shortfalls as a brother I can see in his eyes a true admiration of me and I can see he is proud of being my little brother, even if he kicks my ass in a huge way. I now give you photos of friends being friends during that time:
Alex and Brian
This is how most Eric and Brian arguments end, a nice middle finger response. Ok there a few that end in fistacuffs but thats another story entirely
Music City USA
Gutter is a fantastic human specimen. Look how small he makes this 10 story house look.
Nick "Hollaratchyaboy" Rogers and Jon "Def Naz" Pasierb. I've had many an adventure with these dudes.
My brother and his girl, Jackie. She is so cool we had the heat on and still, two guys froze to death. Yes, that damn cool.
Me and the Guanze.

Memphis

I’m skipping Dallas details, not because it wasn’t fun, hell, Brian’s brother Paul was a great guy and I really enjoyed myself there but we didn’t do a hell of a lot and certainly nothing that would interest you readers. I didn’t even beat up a Dallas Cowboy’s fan or pee on the stadium, although I did give the stare down to an 8-year old in a Cowboy’s coat, but it was a girl, and while I have no qualms with fighting an 8-year old, I could never live down being beat up by a girl.
    Three days into our stay and far too late in the afternoon we shot off north to Memphis. An uneventful drive later (yeah Bill Clinton, your state pretty much sucks, and no this time it doesn’t depend on what the meaning of ‘suck’ is) we reached Memphis. Memphis is the blackest city we’ve traveled through yet, black enough that some call it Memphrica. I say this not as a bad thing, just as a very noticeable thing, especially noticeable as we immediately get lost in an impoverished black part of town. After many circles and Brian yelling things like “navigation fuck something or other you navigator blah blah fuck” we finally pull up to Andrew’s house.
    Andrew went to SCAD with us and was our roommate for a quarter before leaving us high and dry short of rent and I hadn’t seen him since. He came out grinning and I quickly remembered how much I like the guy. He certainly isn’t someone I could hang out with all time because he’s pretty quirky and a little weird and while I love knowing people like that I don’t want to be constantly around them. Guy’s like that have their own brand of humor and style and I always think my humor and style is out of place around them and it makes me feel inadequate and insecure. He had some equally weird friends over, actually these dudes were weirder and we laughed our way through a night of quirky conversations and stories. Andrews spent two years filming for the Memphis football team and with them he went to their first bowl game ever, a game they won. Pretty funny story, a story made more funny by Andrew getting a bowl ring, a bowl ring made more funny by Andrew being the most un-jock guy on the planet. Sports is to Andrew as oil is to water. The ring is huge, I would guess the thing is two inches across and weighs five pounds. It looks freaking ridiculous on him. He has another now and sometimes he wears both to campus, getting looks and nods from 300 pound offensive linemen who probably wonder for hours how the hell he got a pair of bowl rings. Anyway, I’d taken a Valium and had a few beers and fell into the most restful sleep I’ve had on the entire trip.
    The boys nudged me awake and Andrew pepped me up with a cup of coffee, then it was off to some genuine Memphis BBQ. If had to write a review for this place it would probably say: ‘Cheap, Filling. Great.’ With the meal sitting heavy in my gut Andrew went to class and we went to Graceland. Brian had been before a few years back when he spent a month living here with Andrew and he loved the Graceland experience. This, to me, is pretty weird as everywhere we’ve visited Brian has some loathing remark about tourists, kitsch and Americana bullshit, which I agree with most the time but sometimes I think it’s just downright too judgmental of people who visit places for the same reasons we do; to enjoy them. But Graceland is like the epicenter all of this, one of the tackiest places in all America, but I guess since it’s pretty much advertised as such Brian can accept it and enjoy it. I, on the other hand, hate things like this and as Brian looked like a candystore kid walking up to the booth I thought to myself that Mom would cry knowing her son willfully paid money to visit a place like this. In the end it was allright, I wasn’t very enthralled with the audio tour or every single exhibit but some stuff was well worth seeing and I’m glad we stopped.
    Brian needed some Mississippi footage so we jumped over to Mud Island where laying in wait we found one of the finest exhibits in all of America. It was an amazing exact replica of the river stretching 3,000 feet. It was late and there was a hell of a lot to retain so we didn’t read all the facts posted along it’s mini-banks but a more diligent sightseer could literally walk along reading info for hours and it would be highly educational and wonderful. Two-thumbs way up for Mud Island. We got kicked of the Island for a Rob Thomas concert and took the short trip to Nashville.