And that's it. Art. Cars. Movement across land. American monuments. Fun-loving, good American people.

Seven and I made it about two weeks with the caravan before leaving them, or being left behind by them. It happened at Devil's Tower. Stockton had already dropped out to stay in Sturgis, and Seven and I followed suit a few days later. Now we're days behind the caravan. They are, in fact, probably already in Portland. We are in Bozeman, MT, as I now write, intent on visiting here a bit, then stopping at Jerry Johnson Hot Springs outside of Missoula on Sunday the 9th, Joseph Oregon on the 10th, then making a bee line for Portland where a new chapter will begin.

Pre-trip ramblings

I hate for this to begin here. But I suppose it must. Here. In Corvallis, my own private Punxsutawney, PA.

This is the story of the art car caravan that cruised America in 1998. It is my version of that story, and as such it must begin here with me in Oregon and not with the boys down in Houston who started the whole thing, as perhaps it should. Right now I imagine Ramon and Ned having cocktails in some downtown Houston high rise bar sweet-talking some corporate execs into sponsorship. Hopefully those execs will be from Exxon or Chevron, hell, free gas from anyone would be fine with all of us I'm sure. I imagine this, but I'm sure the truth lies closer to the kinda shit I'm scooping to get my ass on the road. I can imagine just about anything.

But who would have thought I'd be scrubbing toilets and pushing a mop at the local U.S. Post Office just five days before embarking on the biggest road trip of my life? Me? Oh, yea, hello by the way. My name is Duke. I'll be your flight attendant for the next 1,680 hours of your life, so I guess I ought introduce myself.

I'm a 31-year-old bottle of Irish whiskey from some Boston suburb. I've got the thirst and temper to prove it. But I'm not the fighting type. I'm a Scorpio, all quiet contemplation and desire. And hunger. It's the hunger that's leading me on this journey. It's the lust for the richest experience that's got me scrubbing latrines this week so that next week I can afford a few more tanks of gas to carry me through. So that next week, when someone else is scrubbing that urinal and that fuckhead office manager is telling him he can't wear a Walkman, I'll be long gone on the road.

On the road to fame and glory. Would that it were true! Maybe someday. But for now just to be out there, just to be doing something grand and eloquent, something fantastic, something all the cubicle dreamers and metaphorical toilet scrubbers of the world wish they were doing. That's what will make this last painful week worth all the trouble.

Growing up I had a penchant for throwing back yard carnivals, puppet shows, and in late October, haunted houses. That same huckster spirit invaded my writing from the start. Studying journalism in college, I wasn't content to just write, I had to BE the writing, to leap right in and thrash around with it, then circumvent the establishment and publish it myself. I got the degree, but it was just misguided parent-pleasing. Just several years of fucking around on borrowed time and government loans to make the hucksterism look official. Or maybe to try and make it go away.

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Last update April 1, 2004