Live from Boston

Howdy everbody,

I am writing from the basement of a hostel in Everett, Mass., which is apparently just outside Boston. Today has been interestin'. I started my day waking up in a tent in Woodstock, Massachusetts. Aparently the famous concerts, noteworthy for drugs and rock'n'roll, did not in fact take place there. But many hippies seem to congregate there nevertheless. The kids I was with seemed to think it was amazing, but I thought it very much like a cross between a Norman Rockwell landscape (from one of his Xmas paintings) and a combination of Ludlow Avenue and Yellow Springs, Ohio. Personally I feel uncomfortable in small towns that smell more like money than manure, which was definiteley the case in Woodstock. It was a colonial village in the Catskills with lots of Volvo station wagons, expensive boutiques, over-priced restaurants, and the like. I only saw one rusty old pickup truck. Needless to say I found this all very weird, disorienting, and surreal.

I started the day by cooking 3 lbs. of goetta, 12 hash brown cakes, and 3 dozen eggs for my companions on the Goecat expedition. All of this was done on a large cast-iron skillet over a fire, which made me really happy. Ever'body was happy as hell I made breakfast and I thoroughly enjoyed starting a fire and being outdoors and filthy. I miss that in my life.

Me and Melissa Meadows and her boyfreind George Khoury hiked up a mountain and looked out over a beautiful valley. There was an ol' abandoned hotel at the top from a previous tourist boom and the view was incredible. George is awesome and very well-read. We have had many interesting conversations. I am trying to learn a few words of Arabic from him, as his parents are Middle Eastern immigrants. George described our trip into the woods as a 'soul enema' which seemed to be one of the most profound expressions I have heard for a long time. It seemed that the nature deprivation I have so often complained of in 'Nati town was temporarily cured.

Also I finally broke down and spent some real money on camping gear. I bought a 0-degree sleeping bag and slept very well in a tent in below-freezing weather. That was nice. It represents a big step for me since I refused to ever spend money on enjoying the great outdoors, as it seemed counter-intuitive, given my broke-ass wilderness-enjoying childhood. Afterall, hillbillies have been enjoying the woods basically for free for centuries. But it was worth it. I was warm as hell and ever-body else ended up sleeping in the car. I felt mature.

Boston reminds of San Francisco in that it is very old, expensive, hard to drive in, seems pretty gentrified, and is composed of medium-density masonry buildings. Kinda like San Francisco without hippies and with Irish and Italian people and a shit-ton of colleges. I am releived I was not planning on goin' to grad school here. I don't know if I'd like it that much.

Drs. Taylor, Teslow, Frierson, and O'Connor warned that Boston had the worst racial tension in the Northern US, which I am on the lookout for but have yet to really see firsthand. I plan to look for the ghetto sometime soon and try to scope out the cultural landscape on the ground. I want to see where Malcolm X lived here.

I was worried that my overall-wearing persona would make me out a rube in Boston and that I'd feel like a dumb hillbilly, as that is my general expectation of the Northeast and of being around people who enunciate a lot in general, not to mention being in the city that is home to the likes of Harvard. But people have been really nice so far. I hear the accent from Car Talk, but I have yet to experience the overt mocking and condescension I associate with such.

I have been hanging with a dude named Julian who is from the same town in Alsace-Lorraine as my great-great-grandparents on my father's side, which is cool. I am dissapointed to find that my German sucks, at least after a night of ingesting Guiness and white Russians. But we talked about Germany and US vs. German culture and stuff and that was pretty cool. I am also hanging out with my new urban/environmental planning gay dude freind Sean Finley who is drinking a lot and telling us about growing up in Las Vegas, which is much more dramatic than I could ever imagine. I try to provide paralells from my childhood (characterized by 4-H, tractor pulls, sassafras digging, etc.) Sean is buying a $250,000 repossesed house in North Avondale for $42,000, which seems to be a pretty awesome deal. Right now he is drunk out of his head and wants me find him a gay bath house, which I am subtly refusing to do by pacifying him and typing this message. I haven't been freinds with any gay dudes for a while so this is a nice change. I enjoy being around social deviants and I do miss my artsy social deviant friends sometimes.

I am really excited that Nathan Turner is coming when we get back and I find myself telling stories about him and inviting everyone to my house for the party I am throwing for him in about a week or so. Stay tuned for further prognostications, thoughts, ramblings, prophesies, essays, tyrades, polemics, and such. Boston is a place where people have a different accent than me and most of the folks I know, not only linguistically - but psychologically and culturally. Over the next few days I shall attempt to dissect such for the purpose of examining its meaning(s).