My new friends at the Great Armenian Festival today in downtown Fresno.
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Saturday, September 29, 2012
The Road to Burning Man MMXII (Part Three)
The event had opened on Sunday night. Okki had dropped strong indications that it was good to arrive early in the week, to enjoy as much of the event as possible. I wanted to do it right.
On my relaxed pace, I arrived on Tuesday afternoon. It was in the midst of what would turn out to be the fiercest windstorm of the week. Driving on the playa, the dust was so thick that I could not see farther than one or two car length in front and behind of me, and hardly into the neighboring lanes of the dozen or so that snaked in parallel fashion towards the ticket booth, something out there in the thick of the brown swirling fog.
Fortunately there weren't many of us trying to get in at that unfortunate hour. I got within sighting distance of the entrance booths before I noticed immediately the strong smell of coolant. I looked down at my temperature gauge and saw it was pegged into the red.
There was no one behind me in my lane, so I cut the engine and just waited.
In the dust I couldn't see whether there was steam coming out of the hood of the car---indicating a boilover of the radiator.
There was nothing to do but let it cool down. At worst, I could nurse the car through the gates and towards the compound. I wouldn't be using it for a week in any case.
On my relaxed pace, I arrived on Tuesday afternoon. It was in the midst of what would turn out to be the fiercest windstorm of the week. Driving on the playa, the dust was so thick that I could not see farther than one or two car length in front and behind of me, and hardly into the neighboring lanes of the dozen or so that snaked in parallel fashion towards the ticket booth, something out there in the thick of the brown swirling fog.
Fortunately there weren't many of us trying to get in at that unfortunate hour. I got within sighting distance of the entrance booths before I noticed immediately the strong smell of coolant. I looked down at my temperature gauge and saw it was pegged into the red.
There was no one behind me in my lane, so I cut the engine and just waited.
In the dust I couldn't see whether there was steam coming out of the hood of the car---indicating a boilover of the radiator.
There was nothing to do but let it cool down. At worst, I could nurse the car through the gates and towards the compound. I wouldn't be using it for a week in any case.
The Road to Burning Man MMXII (Part Two)
Burning Man itself was an extraordinary experience. I was, of course, a "virgin," to use the parlance. But a couple month's solid of camping and road-tripping meant I was already half-prepared on three-day's notice.
Nevertheless I was obsessed that I would fail to bring something very obvious and necessary. On the way west on I-80, I stopped half a dozen times, at several Wal-Marts in Wyoming and Utah, as well as the REI in Salt Lake City, to cross items off my list.
Chief among my worries was water. I had left without filling up my six gallon jug that I keep usually filled. I found up filling it from the sink of the motel room where I stayed in Elko.
Nevertheless I was obsessed that I would fail to bring something very obvious and necessary. On the way west on I-80, I stopped half a dozen times, at several Wal-Marts in Wyoming and Utah, as well as the REI in Salt Lake City, to cross items off my list.
Chief among my worries was water. I had left without filling up my six gallon jug that I keep usually filled. I found up filling it from the sink of the motel room where I stayed in Elko.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
The Road to Burning Man MMXII (Part One)
A week before the start of Burning Man this year, the idea of my going there was not even remotely on my mind.
I had rolled back into Colorado in late July, just in time to surprise my twin nieces on their seventh birthday. After a few nights there, I spent the next few weeks extending my "Big Loop" around the country by treating Colorado as another state along the way---an "internal vacation," if you will. This gave me an excuse to toodle around in the mountains and see some places in my home state that I hadn't seen in a while, while taking advantage of the summer to camp and hike. I also saw some old friends up in Leadville---Charles B. and Tamera---who were in the state for a month, having come back temporarily from Hong Kong.
While in Boulder, I had attempted to look up several of my old colleagues from the summer before, when I worked in Flatiron Park. I was successful in two of the three cases, and had some fun learning about the demise of the company we worked for.
Finally I wound up back in Fort Collins, resting at my folks' place. While there, the third of my three colleagues finally got back in touch with me. Okki---he is Finnish by ethnicity and Swedish by nationality---invited me down to Boulder to hang out with him for a night.
It was then that he mentioned that he was about to head off to Burning Man. He'd gone two years before, but had missed last year because he had started a new job. He was planning to hang out and camp there with friends from Aspen. He said he had an extra ticket---did I want to go? Right there it occurred to me, given my predisposition to follow the advice of Kurt Vonnegut that "peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God," that I nearly made the decision to go right then and there, over the phone. After all, I was prepped for the road, and was waiting for my next destination---all I needed was bicycle. I had no real excuses at all. It seemed the perfect thing to do. The downside was that I would have only three days to prepare before leaving, at most. Moreover, I knew that I once I headed west, I would want to stay on the West Coast for a while, so in a sense, this was a sudden launching of the next phase of my trip this year.
I told Okki that I would think about it over night, and then tell him the next evening when I saw him in Boulder. For a couple hours I was sure that I was going to go. I went online and read as many web pages about Burning Man as possible, and all the things I would need. Nothing I saw convinced me it was impossible.
But before I went to bed that evening, I suffered a collapse of confidence and decided that it was too much too fast to prepare. I felt a sudden relief and a relaxation, and slept well that evening. When I woke up in the morning (Wednesday), I was sure that I would be disappointing Okki that evening when I saw him.
I drove down to Boulder in the late afternoon, got some dinner, and then drove to Okki's place, which as last year, was a really nice trailer that he rents in a mobile home park along Boulder Creek just off the corner of 55th and Valmont Road---only a few blocks from our old work location. I pulled into his driveway and knocked on his door.
He warmly welcomed me. It was good to see him after a year. He invited me and cracked open a beer for me. He was in the midst of full-blown packing for Burning Man. Within a few minutes I gave him the bad news, that I wouldn't be able to purchase his extra ticket.
We sat around chatting. He didn't pressure me at all to change my mind. Okki's not that kind of guy. He's too upbeat and buoyant.
I did all of the convincing myself, just watching him pack and talking about the excitement of going there. Within twenty minutes I had changed my mind.
"I'm going," I said. "I'll buy that ticket from you after all."
I had rolled back into Colorado in late July, just in time to surprise my twin nieces on their seventh birthday. After a few nights there, I spent the next few weeks extending my "Big Loop" around the country by treating Colorado as another state along the way---an "internal vacation," if you will. This gave me an excuse to toodle around in the mountains and see some places in my home state that I hadn't seen in a while, while taking advantage of the summer to camp and hike. I also saw some old friends up in Leadville---Charles B. and Tamera---who were in the state for a month, having come back temporarily from Hong Kong.
While in Boulder, I had attempted to look up several of my old colleagues from the summer before, when I worked in Flatiron Park. I was successful in two of the three cases, and had some fun learning about the demise of the company we worked for.
Finally I wound up back in Fort Collins, resting at my folks' place. While there, the third of my three colleagues finally got back in touch with me. Okki---he is Finnish by ethnicity and Swedish by nationality---invited me down to Boulder to hang out with him for a night.
It was then that he mentioned that he was about to head off to Burning Man. He'd gone two years before, but had missed last year because he had started a new job. He was planning to hang out and camp there with friends from Aspen. He said he had an extra ticket---did I want to go? Right there it occurred to me, given my predisposition to follow the advice of Kurt Vonnegut that "peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God," that I nearly made the decision to go right then and there, over the phone. After all, I was prepped for the road, and was waiting for my next destination---all I needed was bicycle. I had no real excuses at all. It seemed the perfect thing to do. The downside was that I would have only three days to prepare before leaving, at most. Moreover, I knew that I once I headed west, I would want to stay on the West Coast for a while, so in a sense, this was a sudden launching of the next phase of my trip this year.
I told Okki that I would think about it over night, and then tell him the next evening when I saw him in Boulder. For a couple hours I was sure that I was going to go. I went online and read as many web pages about Burning Man as possible, and all the things I would need. Nothing I saw convinced me it was impossible.
But before I went to bed that evening, I suffered a collapse of confidence and decided that it was too much too fast to prepare. I felt a sudden relief and a relaxation, and slept well that evening. When I woke up in the morning (Wednesday), I was sure that I would be disappointing Okki that evening when I saw him.
I drove down to Boulder in the late afternoon, got some dinner, and then drove to Okki's place, which as last year, was a really nice trailer that he rents in a mobile home park along Boulder Creek just off the corner of 55th and Valmont Road---only a few blocks from our old work location. I pulled into his driveway and knocked on his door.
He warmly welcomed me. It was good to see him after a year. He invited me and cracked open a beer for me. He was in the midst of full-blown packing for Burning Man. Within a few minutes I gave him the bad news, that I wouldn't be able to purchase his extra ticket.
We sat around chatting. He didn't pressure me at all to change my mind. Okki's not that kind of guy. He's too upbeat and buoyant.
I did all of the convincing myself, just watching him pack and talking about the excitement of going there. Within twenty minutes I had changed my mind.
"I'm going," I said. "I'll buy that ticket from you after all."
Friday, September 7, 2012
Broncos vs. Huskies
Bishop, California
It was late afternoon when I came down off the pass into the Owens Valley. I was marveling at the High Sierras backlit by the sun. Last year I'd driven up the western side of the mountains, and hardly seen any of the high peaks, but here, along US 395, they seemed to come up right out of the valley floor into the towering craggy sawtooth formations that made the Spanish give them that name.
It was the kind of perfect day of driving that I rarely have. Every mile was like breathing sweet fresh air. I could let my thoughts go and immerse myself into each moment that passed.
Part of it was that I was in no hurry---at least not anymore. The night before in my motel room in South Lake Tahoe, via a garbled phone call, I had somewhat pledged to rendezvous some of the new friends I had met at Burning Man. They were going to be in Las Vegas tonight before heading to their houseboat on Lake Powell, and then back to Aspen. I had said that I didn't want to go to Lake Powell, since I was now out of the west coast and didn't want to return back that way right away, but the idea of spending more time with my new friends had me agreeing to Las Vegas.
But I didn't get on the road this morning until nearly checkout time. I had spent most of the evening shuttling my possessions into my room, and showering my gear off to try to rid my things of the notorious coat of "playa dust" that is one of the downsides of spending the week at Black Rock City.
By early afternoon, it was clear that Las Vegas was not in the cards. I was way behind schedule, and moreover, I simply wanted to move more slowly than it would take to get there in time to meet my friends. I wanted to lose myself in the road, after so much hectic activity. I wanted to let the miles just go by.
At Mammoth Lakes, when I got into cell phone range, I sent a text to my friends, sending my regrets and suggesting I would see them in Aspen when I got back that way. It was a weight off my shoulders to suddenly free myself from all commitments. I looked at the map and decided that I could push on to Bishop, where the prospect of a nice soft bed in a motel room---without having to do any cleaning of dust for a night---seemed like a bit of heaven at the end of the day.
As I approached town, it hit me all of a sudden that I knew someone from Bishop, someone who had grown up there---Randy J. He and I had gone to Willamette together. Among other things, he was a race walker. As I drove into town, the mountains looming high around me, I tried to fit my experience of his hometown into my remembrance and image of him.
He was an English major and we took a few classes together, I think. We both aspired towards creative writing, and he was one of the people most supportive of me in those efforts, back when I was capable of producing the most juvenile prose. It was fun to remember a time when my main ambition was to be a writer.
Bishop is a small town, but is a decent-sized population center for this side of the Sierras in California. It felt bustling with business activity, and with plenty of motels. In the middle of town, I parked at a McDonalds and used their wi-fi to look up motel rates on my laptop. I selected what appeared to be a modestly priced one on the edge of town that was not the cheapest one, but still a good rate.
I tried to book the room online, but the page wouldn't come up, so I drove over to the motel, which looked decent enough. The woman at the desk gave me the same rate as online for a king-sized bed.
Once in the room, I flipped on the AC and, as usual, turned on the television to see if they had Turner Classic Movies, which is pretty much the only channel I like to watch. It turns out they had it, but tonight they were showing a whole slate of "prison biography" movies---not quite the genre I was hoping for.
After the first feature, I decided I had enough of prison and went out for a walk in the dark looking for a bite to eat. As I came out of the room, I noticed from that across the street there appeared to be a high school football game in progress, lit by giant lights. When I couldn't find a place to eat, I looped back around I decided on a whim to go to the football game. I walked along the fence of the stadium until I got to the entrance, where I bought a ticket for five bucks.
Inside the gates, I bought a cheeseburger and chips with a drink for five more bucks and took a seat at the top of the very-crowded metal stands with the home team, right in back of the home team band.
I had arrived right as halftime began. The cheerleaders took to the field and performed several dance numbers. All of them were the typical lewd spectacles of gyrating hips, hypersexualized come-ons, performed to lyrics of female singers that were angrily demanding to their would-be lovers that they had better be-this or do-this if they "want to get with me."
It was not much revolting as tiring. Here was the prospective flower of American womanhood performing and dancing as if they were angry prostitutes. It seemed yet another worn-out symptom of just how much in decay our country and culture is. How much much more can this go on? How could everyone be clapping for this horrible spectacle?
It occurred to me, of course, how much I shared in that moment with Sayid Qutb, who famously in 1948 was revolted by the cheerleaders at a football game in Greeley, Colorado---at a school that was a rival to my own high school.
After the cheerleaders left the field, the home team mascot---a blue Bronco wearing a rainbow speedo---came out onto the field. To the delight of the crowd, the mascot did another gryating dance, thrusting its crotch back and forth to a song about "being sexy." So this is high school in America in 2012.
I was relieved at the end of halftime when the cheerleaders lapsed into a normal traditional cheer---no gyrating hooker-hips.
I watched most of the third quarter before heading home. The home team was up by six touchdowns by the time I left. The other team---the Huskies---couldn't even move the ball at all.
As I left I looked into the crowd of students and I tried to picture my friend Randy in there, as a teenager, with all his college experience in Salem ahead of him. How did he wind up there anyway, from a place like this?
Of course I was really just projecting my own self into him. But I wonder what became of him.
It was late afternoon when I came down off the pass into the Owens Valley. I was marveling at the High Sierras backlit by the sun. Last year I'd driven up the western side of the mountains, and hardly seen any of the high peaks, but here, along US 395, they seemed to come up right out of the valley floor into the towering craggy sawtooth formations that made the Spanish give them that name.
It was the kind of perfect day of driving that I rarely have. Every mile was like breathing sweet fresh air. I could let my thoughts go and immerse myself into each moment that passed.
Part of it was that I was in no hurry---at least not anymore. The night before in my motel room in South Lake Tahoe, via a garbled phone call, I had somewhat pledged to rendezvous some of the new friends I had met at Burning Man. They were going to be in Las Vegas tonight before heading to their houseboat on Lake Powell, and then back to Aspen. I had said that I didn't want to go to Lake Powell, since I was now out of the west coast and didn't want to return back that way right away, but the idea of spending more time with my new friends had me agreeing to Las Vegas.
But I didn't get on the road this morning until nearly checkout time. I had spent most of the evening shuttling my possessions into my room, and showering my gear off to try to rid my things of the notorious coat of "playa dust" that is one of the downsides of spending the week at Black Rock City.
By early afternoon, it was clear that Las Vegas was not in the cards. I was way behind schedule, and moreover, I simply wanted to move more slowly than it would take to get there in time to meet my friends. I wanted to lose myself in the road, after so much hectic activity. I wanted to let the miles just go by.
At Mammoth Lakes, when I got into cell phone range, I sent a text to my friends, sending my regrets and suggesting I would see them in Aspen when I got back that way. It was a weight off my shoulders to suddenly free myself from all commitments. I looked at the map and decided that I could push on to Bishop, where the prospect of a nice soft bed in a motel room---without having to do any cleaning of dust for a night---seemed like a bit of heaven at the end of the day.
As I approached town, it hit me all of a sudden that I knew someone from Bishop, someone who had grown up there---Randy J. He and I had gone to Willamette together. Among other things, he was a race walker. As I drove into town, the mountains looming high around me, I tried to fit my experience of his hometown into my remembrance and image of him.
He was an English major and we took a few classes together, I think. We both aspired towards creative writing, and he was one of the people most supportive of me in those efforts, back when I was capable of producing the most juvenile prose. It was fun to remember a time when my main ambition was to be a writer.
Bishop is a small town, but is a decent-sized population center for this side of the Sierras in California. It felt bustling with business activity, and with plenty of motels. In the middle of town, I parked at a McDonalds and used their wi-fi to look up motel rates on my laptop. I selected what appeared to be a modestly priced one on the edge of town that was not the cheapest one, but still a good rate.
I tried to book the room online, but the page wouldn't come up, so I drove over to the motel, which looked decent enough. The woman at the desk gave me the same rate as online for a king-sized bed.
Once in the room, I flipped on the AC and, as usual, turned on the television to see if they had Turner Classic Movies, which is pretty much the only channel I like to watch. It turns out they had it, but tonight they were showing a whole slate of "prison biography" movies---not quite the genre I was hoping for.
After the first feature, I decided I had enough of prison and went out for a walk in the dark looking for a bite to eat. As I came out of the room, I noticed from that across the street there appeared to be a high school football game in progress, lit by giant lights. When I couldn't find a place to eat, I looped back around I decided on a whim to go to the football game. I walked along the fence of the stadium until I got to the entrance, where I bought a ticket for five bucks.
Inside the gates, I bought a cheeseburger and chips with a drink for five more bucks and took a seat at the top of the very-crowded metal stands with the home team, right in back of the home team band.
I had arrived right as halftime began. The cheerleaders took to the field and performed several dance numbers. All of them were the typical lewd spectacles of gyrating hips, hypersexualized come-ons, performed to lyrics of female singers that were angrily demanding to their would-be lovers that they had better be-this or do-this if they "want to get with me."
It was not much revolting as tiring. Here was the prospective flower of American womanhood performing and dancing as if they were angry prostitutes. It seemed yet another worn-out symptom of just how much in decay our country and culture is. How much much more can this go on? How could everyone be clapping for this horrible spectacle?
It occurred to me, of course, how much I shared in that moment with Sayid Qutb, who famously in 1948 was revolted by the cheerleaders at a football game in Greeley, Colorado---at a school that was a rival to my own high school.
After the cheerleaders left the field, the home team mascot---a blue Bronco wearing a rainbow speedo---came out onto the field. To the delight of the crowd, the mascot did another gryating dance, thrusting its crotch back and forth to a song about "being sexy." So this is high school in America in 2012.
I was relieved at the end of halftime when the cheerleaders lapsed into a normal traditional cheer---no gyrating hooker-hips.
I watched most of the third quarter before heading home. The home team was up by six touchdowns by the time I left. The other team---the Huskies---couldn't even move the ball at all.
As I left I looked into the crowd of students and I tried to picture my friend Randy in there, as a teenager, with all his college experience in Salem ahead of him. How did he wind up there anyway, from a place like this?
Of course I was really just projecting my own self into him. But I wonder what became of him.
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