Easter 2K2
my bedroom
ryan d. pantz

It's a beautiful morning. Happy Easter to all. We don't have any jelly beans, but I did manage to drum up a cup of coffee and an english muffin. So that's something.

And now that it's the final day of March, now that I've been living at my destination for ten days or so, I think the road trip has come to an end. I had a truly fantastic journey, and I blew a lot of money, and my car got a little sick, and I didn't get to see every bit of the county. But I am lucky as hell to have all the generous and loving friends that I do, sprinkled across the states in cities, towns, dormitories and apartments. Thanks to everybody who gave me a place to sleep and laughed at my stories, who showed me their favorite parts of America and joined me in conversation. Thanks to everybody who posted to this weblog and shared a bit of themselves, their perspective on me and my visits.

We live in a big ass country. It only takes about 50 hours worth of driving to travel from Boston to LA. It takes about a month to do it right, to see the big spaces, the sad flypaper towns, to zig and zag across straight roads, the tourist attractions and back woods barbeques. All kinds of people and culture that I don't know anything about. Everybody wants the same thing, I think.

Easter? I count my blessings, when I think to call them blessings. I have more friends (close fucking friends) than I can keep in touch with, and it pains me, and it's not fair, and at least I've had a chance to see some of 'em for a few days each. I still want to get to know as many people as possible. I wish I could swarm quantum in multiple places in a single moment, all momentum with no exact location. Memories do that, mostly, sleeping actively in geographical places all over the country, sofas and gas stations.

Travelling is about creating your own present. Living is the same as travelling. Actually, living is mostly about the bling-bling. + 0 passengers.

Tursday, March 28th, 2002
Home
by sixfoot6.

I've been at my new home here in lalaland for a week now. My car is parked on my new street. My brother has moved on, heading back towards his college in Minnesota with other friends. I've stocked my new bedroom full of new overpriced, overstyled IKEA products, jacked my computer into our house network and DSL line. I've stacked my cookbooks in the kitchen, hung clothes in the closet, tacked posters and prints to the wall. Toothbrush in the bathroom. And today I bought new glasses, the first pair I've warn in years.

But I've got one more story to share before we call it quits. A mere six hours after I left home on February 24th, I took my first breathalyzer test. That's right. At midnight on that first day, I parked outside of Robyn's apartment on the mostlt unparkable side of the street. She and I hugged hello, took a tour of the apartment, cracked open a couple cans of Coors, sat down, and decided that I should move my car. We climbed into the Land Shark to drive it around the block and repark it.

What's that, a three minute operation?Well, during that loop around the block, I was pulled over twice.

The first time was understandable. I took a right turn at a red light without first coming to a complete stop, and 30 seconds later the flashing lights of the po-po pulled into my rear view. The copper asked all the usual questions: Who are you, where are you going, where have you been, who is that, license and registration please, is this your car? What's all this stuff?

"This is everything I own, sir," I replied. "I'm moving to California."

"Really," he said. "No kidding? Do you think this boat will make it out? Heh heh heh. So whaddya got in the back there?"

Bored-ass upstate cops, man. Can't you see into the back seat? Christ. I'm carrying 200 kilos of cocaine, officer. "My stuff," I shot back. "Like... this comforter, and this guitar, and a big box of books."

"A big box of books, eh? All right. Hold on for a couple of minutes." He walked back, climbed into his cruiser, ran my info, and returned before we grew impatient. "You guys are all set," he assured us. "I'm not even writing you a warning. Just... you know, red means stop pretty much all over the country. It's not hard to remember. Drive safely, now."

We drove on, relieved and laughing. We cruised the length of Robyn's street, and spied an open space on the other side of the road. I did a resonable K turn in a vacant intersection, a maneuver seen only by a different police car parked one block to the north. I drove back toward the space, and put on my blinker as if to paralell park. But before I could back into the space, the nice occifers "pulled me over". I was already stopped, of course.

These gentlemen seemed to be even more bored-ass, but lacked their copper colleague's sense of humor. They started right in, one with the fast talk, the other with the flashlight. "Who are you, who is she, what's all this stuff, license and registration, where have you been, where are you going?"

I didn't bother to ask them why they had pulled me over, because I didn't want any trouble. I thought they might be in cahoots with the last fellow we encountered. Still, they had no reason to be talking to me. "We're going right there, sir. I'm on vacation. She lives in that apartment, right there. We're here."

"I see," he mumbled, staring me in the eye. "And have you been drinking tonight?"

"No sir," I said.

He snapped back with a quick "Excuse me?" It was then that I remembered the two sips of Coors I'd taken before we came outside. I explained this to the nice man. "I thought I smelled something," he said. "Step out of the car."

So ten seconds later I'm standing behind the trunk of my car, emptying my pockets, keeping my hands out of my pockets so they can watch them. Officer Flashlight holds up the breathalyzer machine. I'm told to blow into the tube until it whistles. I blow and blow until finally we're treated to a fait, dying goose sort of sound. I lean back, satisfied, while fella examines the LCD readout attached to the tube.

He's trying to tilt it so I can't see, but I'm so tall that I've got the angle advantage. I look down and the red numbers: my Blood Alcohol Content is, literally, 0.00. Zero-point-zero-zero. This amuses me to no end, but I resist laughing. We are told we can go on our way, and we do. We back up six feet into the space, clim three stairs, wave the officers goodnight, and walk right into Robyn's apartment.

Best breathalyzer ever.
+ 0 passengers.

Tuesday March 26th
Sherman Oaks, in the valley
Awol

When the call came at just after ten p.m., Joshua and I were sitting down to a spread of the finest Beluga and bubbly. I quickly swallowed my salty snack and lifted the reciever, "Hello?"

Boys, I am home," said the mysterious drawl.

"We'll be right down," went my clandestine reply. Josh and I rushed down to the street and cast about for signs of the Granada. There it was at the end of the block, stalled in the midst of a three point turn.

Grinning from ear to ear, the two of us waited as Ryan turned the engine over, moved a few feet, stalled, and repeated said sequence three times until he had travelled the thirty feet back to us and a parking spot nearby. Ryan parked somewhat haphazardly, flung his door wide and greeted Joshua with a hug and hello. I went around to share a similar welcome with Jeremy; then we switched Gantzes and repeated same.

As we began to unload Ryan's material life from his car, two girls in a Corolla flew by hooting and hollering. Obviously, Ryan's reputation preceded him, and the ladies had taken note. Eventually, everything of value had been dumped into my living room, and my apartment was abuzz with raucous personal jokes dating back a decade and conversations about the roads of the American Southwest, all murmured around mouthfuls of fluffy Tuscon pancakes.

Back in the fall of 2000, I approached Ryan about filling the vacancy left by my homeward bound brother. I was in a bind, and it was unfair of me to ask him for so much. At the time he declined; after all, he had a golf course to build, summer meals to make, and a family to love. This past Christmas, however, while drifting about the greens, Ryan mentioned his desire to finally leave Plymouth in search of something more. He had had plans set in motion for months which suddenly deteriorated, so without pressure this time, I invited him to come to Los Angeles. Try it out for six months or so, and see if life with Joshua and myself proved worthwhile.

Nearly four months later, and here he is: sleeping in what used to be my den, on what used to be my bed. To know Ryan is to love Ryan. Those of you who read Sixfoot6 regularly do so because you recognize his intelligence and warmth, two things I am glad to have back in my daily life.

Back in high school, Joshua and I used to dream about the day the three of us would live together in Boston, see the Pixies at The Rat, and enjoy life without parental supervision. I called that dream apartment the S.S. Utopia. Some nine years later, and we've finally set sail. + 0 passengers.

March 20th, 2002
Los Angeles, California
Ryan D. Gantz

(Los Angeles is what's happening.)

Jeremy and I spent a few hours lingering in Tuscon. I love that town, with all its heat and hodge-podge architechture; suburban barrio sprawl with an artsy and soulful epicenter. We grabbed breakfast in a grill called Grill, drank coffee served by a fly waitress. We kept Jeremy's giant pancakes all day, for a snack. We explored the aisles and piles of instruments and equipment locked inside the Chicago Music Store, right downtown on Congress Street. Everything downtown is on Congress Street.

The vinyl on my dashboard burnt to a crisp under the punishing sun. I left the car parked in the same space through the heat of the early afternoon, and even longer once I locked my keys inside. After hunting around a dumpster looking for wire and string to solve my little problem, I watched a group of middle school girls talk trash until two of them started fighting in the alley. One of them ended up in a puddle minus her shirt.

We drove north, to Phoenix, and visited my old stomping grounds in Glendale. It's still hot as hell there. We blew out of town at 5 pm with subs and lemonade, and chased the sun west over mountain after mountain toward the southern California border, listening to Mogwai. A beautiful sunset, criss-crossed with the vapor trails from L.A. bound jets, rolling downhill at 85, one last drag before I begin my smoke-free lifestyle.

Trapped between the busted-ass Rocky peaks at the edge of Arizona sits a town called Quartzsite, an old gem-and-rock mining town that is barely a town. It's a swarm of temporary passers-through, parking lots of campers, RVs, neighborhoods of mobile homes with permanent fast food joints, over priced gas stations pimping petrol to the old and the poor and travelers ready for another state. Historically, people rode into town, mined some Quartz, and eventually moved on. In a gas station convenience store packed with a saddening array of underbelly Americans, I grabbed a rubber cowboy cactus to thread down my car's antenna.

We're safe and sound now, just off Magnolia Boulevard, in the always sunny San Fernando Valley. I am home now, in the apartment I share with Joshua and Andrew, friends I grew up with in Plymouth, the town where this drive began. Starting mileage: 67038. Finishing mileage: 71520. I miss the road, and I miss everyone. + 0 passengers.

03.19.02
by Ryan
tuscon motel six

we blew out of carlsbad and drove fast and hard, hoping to make it to white sands national monument before dark. and we did, at about 5:30 in the early evening, with the sun preparing to set. as the granada rolled over the sandflaked road, we hooped and hollered a little, glad that the park wasn't closed.

and as the sun slipped behind the jagged rockies, we stood and sat and laid, in the 65 degree air, on a giant white dune of gypsum. we looked across at acres and miles of ripples and shadows and sandy contours, soft and barefoot, until the last echoes of daylight faded from southwestern skies. + 0 passengers.

Tuesday the 19th
Tuscon, Arizona
Jeremy, shotgun navigator and DJ

My only objectives for this trip were to rekindle a connection with my brother Ryan, whom I love dearly, and to figure out what the hell is going on throughout this gigantic incomprehensible country. I've been stationary here in the city of dreams (oh LA) for a few days now; the last seven days are a swirling patchwork of faces and counties - strange people acting perfectly normal, anonymous buildings crumbling under the desert's blinding sun and howling wind.

Ryan and I woke in Fort Stockton, Texas not by the sun but by the mechanical sounds of Motel 6 maids. We realized quickly that we were in the middle of the goddamn desert (the night had hid the forbidding tundra well). Fuel (gas, coffee, hash browns) sent us roaring into the West Texan desert. I hope to never return. The cattle and human populations tarnish the landscape equally: 1 for every 200 acres. We might as well give it back to Mexico. To add a bit of drama to the landscape, we drove into deep grey stormclouds and rain drops the size of golf balls. The oil drills kept pumping.

The two of us had visited Carlsbad Caverns in 1991 on a cross-country trip with our family. I was a wide-eyed kid giddy with delight; this time around I noticed both the mysterious beauty of the caves and the unnaturalness of the human occupation therein. Microwaved chicken and rootbeer was lovely 750 feet below the earth's surface (in the Caveteria) and while buying a desert candy bar, I asked the cashier why there was a USPS mailbox next to us and he didn't understand why I might remark on it. He said "oh, people like to send postcards" as if we were on mainstreet of Anywhere, USA.

If you drive from Carlsbad Caverns to White Sands National Park taking "The 82" over a small mountain range, you will pass through a little town called Hope. I can't imagine there was much in it, only skinny skinny goats and cattle scraping out a grimy life. It was a cracked shell of a town and I didn't bother looking back as we shot into the gorgeous emptiness of the landscape.

Before you die, be sure to drive through a perfectly clear night on an Arizonan highway. I'm a suburban Yankee who has been duped by too many parking lot lights and road-crowding trees, too many buildings and people. The southwestern desert gave stars. Stars perched so low on the horizon that I had never glimpsed them before.

If this trip has taught me anything it is that we humans still haven't managed to conquer every corner of the earth. At least not completely. Drive into the desert until the only earthly lights you can see are headlights, and look up.
+ 0 passengers.

March 18th
Fort Stockton, TX
Ryan D. Gantz

We left Houston and drove west on the 10, across hand-hand-me-downs and flypaper towns. In San Antonio we stalled to a halt in a K-Mart parking lot and sauntered inside to purchase sunglasses too large for our faces.

In its densest downtown area, San Antonio has money, history and a splash of soul. We remembered to visit the Alamo, for to honor our forefathers, and otherwise spent hours wandering and dining along lovely canals that wind synthetically through the well groomed tourist quarter. Crowds of people, Mexican food, and boat tours. It felt like a cross between Venice, Disney World's Frontierland, and life on the bayou. I ate my Quesadillas. Our waitress was very amiable. We gassed up again and followed the sun out west.

Pilot to Exxon to Texaco to Diamond Shamrock, on and on. We listened to Tristeza, The Soft Machine, Shalabi Effect, Koop, Automator, and so forth. Lane changes in the darkness. Sonora, Texas: a tiny ranch town in the middle of nowhere. We bought submarine sandwiches and watched the occassional cowboy hats.

We watched a little of a George Carlin HBO special before falling asleep in the Motel 6 here in Fort Stockton, Tejas. Anytown, Desert Ranch, West Texas, Auto America, Space. Only $31.99 per night, with data ports in every room. They didn't even have data ports in our the Austin Homestead Inn, where a week ago we stayed for the interactive confrence. The shower in the bathroom here is nearly high enough.
+ 0 passengers.

March 6th to the 12th
from Illinois to Austin
Jared Dunn drives along.

The wave of love (and tall drink of water) that is Ryan D. Pants rolled into C-U early wednesday morning, and found an unseasonably warm Central Illinois, combined with an unusually harried Jared Dunn. For some weird reason, Sxsw didn't coincide with my spring break this time around, and thus I was pressing my luck by even trying to attend. I had a lot of work to get done before skipping town, and I was so overwhelmed by it all by the time he arrived that I had actually made a list(containing fifteen items), even though I absolutely abhor the idea of lists. Somehow, I managed to get it all done, and still find the time to show Ryan a taste of my idyllic little college microcosm, introduce him to dear friends, take him to a couple of my favorite watering holes, and even halfway-mystify him with an immunology lecture on mast cells.  Being the affable guy that he is, he even managed to garner a job offer only five minutes into his short stay on campus.

After some delay due to my frantic last-minute scrambling, we finally hit the road for Tejas late in the afternoon on thursday, and despite some early ill mechanical portents, the trip itself went swimmingly, with plentiful musical, photographic, and personal conversation, intermixed with running commentary on the scenery and five-minute drifts into the land of nod in the passenger seat. And way more Deltron3030 and Outkast than is probably healthy for normal growing young men.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of post-dawn, mist-obscured driving through Eastern Texas, the land that time(and architecture featuring frames and foundations, while lacking wheels) forgot, with paradigms of creative nomenclature like "Big Creek" and "Red Road(the road was indeed red, though the creek wasn't so big)," we arrived in a smog-fog enshrouded Houston. After a brief, fitful sleep at Alison's classy pad, it was back on the road, for the longest 3-hour drive ever, to Austin, and adventure.  After that, it's all a blur, which I have already chronicled to the best of my abilities elsewhere.

Like many of us probably are, I'm still getting used to this strange and wonderful idea of having new friends scattered all over the country. It's a bittersweet sort of thing, knowing amazing people you wouldn't otherwise, but being condemned to only see them a couple of times a year. I'm still amazed at what fast friends Ryan and I have become, especially considering my slow-to-trust nature when it comes to relationships. That speaks to the power of this medium to share identities and bring people together, when used sincerely and properly. I'm glad I'm one of the people who "gets it," and it makes me sad that my not-yet-converted friends are still so suspicious of my online life.

Because of that, it still seems weird mixing the two worlds, online and off, as I have attempted now a couple of times, but it has worked out quite well so far, once the original suspicions and trust barriers on the part of my non-wired friends are broken down. This has generally been an easy process once undertaken, and so far all of my online friends seem to have gotten along well-to-famously with my offline ones. Perhaps the two aren't so different after all. Great people are still great people, friendship and connection are still much the same, be it online or off. I feel blessed to have had the good fortune to find the best of both worlds.
+ 0 passengers.

March 19th
Houston, Texas
Dzigavertov in the 25th Century

<shibby>
Pizza of the Stars with the world's most lovable surly waitress. A Chippendales t-shirt is high fashion for the dressed down, down beat, un-down town evening that awaits us. And all the while Nero burns his silicon wafers.

I struggle aimlessly to discover a mixer that works with every beverage. Gantz is that mixer. With friends old and new, blog and bar, man and woman, he is the secret elixir that allows for a evening unbeset by the nagging realization that we all travel in different circles that usually mix like milk and lemon. I want to bottle him and carry him around in a boot flask. And it is all captured on video. And it is all coming soon to a media player near you. And all the while Nero burns his silicon wafers.

All the wrong people pass out on all the wrong couches, and in the morning only Dapper Dan and aviator glasses provide a sufficient disguise for breakfast. Take home defensive driving while Gantz wanders the city, a break to pick up his brother from the Greyhound station. Gantz steals my blue sharpie to label what Nero has given him. Denim vests with Unforgettable Fire appeal and orange wrap arounds - can this disguise end 3rd world debt? Perhaps we will find the answer at an icehouse. Drinks, Texas style, on picnic tables with the smell of steak still lingering from bbq grills only recently extinguished.

An extra day. The feast on St. Patrick's; pizza and salad. The television whispers to the stereo, to ensure that muted viewing of the NASA channel has the perfect random audio accompaniment. Only Amnesiac can guide us through newsreel footage of the Friendship 7. And all the while Nero burns his silicon wafers.

Monday afternoon, home from work. Nero has retired to his chamber. The brothers Gantz, now racing sunward on a west Texas highway, are gone. Not for long, I hope. Not if I can do anything about it. A note and my blue sharpie are waiting at the door. I had hoped that the marker would make the trip with them.

From time to time my mind's eye turns west to the bright lights of the only city smoggier than my own. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to seek my fortune with you. If I do, I promise only to check in once every hour.
</shibby> + 0 passengers.

March 18th
So long, Houston
Ryan

I've never spent so many successive days in Texas before in my whole life. And with at least 12 hours of driving to the New Mexico border, I've probably got a couple more. Within the next hour Jeremy and I will be outta this town, LA bound. I'm glad we're getting the chance to take a brotherly road trip.

You'll find pictures of me in Austin with friends all over the internet, if you care to look . I'll put my own slides up once I get to Cali.

I already miss this place. I don't know when I'll ever make it back here. Thanks to the whole gang, and particularly to Alison and Dr. Zig for showing me a good time. I wish I could spend time with all of my incredible friends in every incredible part of the country all at once. A quantum cloud of friendship, all momentum and no certain location. (Sometimes I move like a particular person, but mostly I behave like a wave of love.)

Back on the boat, y'all.
Keep on keepin' on.
+ 0 passengers.