Installment #6

Howdy all from Nah Owlins......

let's see, we left off with our "hero" (sorry for the narcissism, this crazy city is getting to me) in our nation's capital.....

I get off the train after midnight and am greeted by Gabriel, a friend of a friend. She goes to American University and let me stay there for a few nights. The cabbie that got us there was one of extreme unpleasantness, quite frankly an asshole and they don't use meters there. He quoted us a price and then charged two more bucks once we were there. No matter, it was late and we wanted to get in. In the morning we got a late start and went off into the innards of Washington DC, aka the Metro, and walked out into Dupont Circle, a convergence of about six streets where a grass and a nice fountain sit and wait for the rest needy to sit down for a spell. Chess games of ferocious competition went on under the old and sleepy trees and there we met Jason. He had a typewriter, two tape recorders and a guitar case filled with minimal change. He wanted stories and any spare change. He was a recent college graduate from somewhere in Washington and wasn't ready for the real world that college doesn't prepare us for. I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about. he tapes your conversation and then gives you a copy. We hung out for awhile and I told him of some of the adventures AMORICA has given me and then we went off to eat, vowing to return. When we did, a small scene was enveloping him. There was a strange looking guy, drunk sitting in one of the chairs, a nice Irish woman there and some guy sucking on a small vial. I asked the guy what he was sucking on and he told us it was deer tail extract, and it was supposed to help with his memory and such. "I'm a waiter," he told us and I couldn't contain my laughter. He proceded to draw a map on where to get some and while this was going on, the drunk guy kept saying the word "C*NT" nearly over and over again, a very disturbed guy. It was quite a scene. The Irish woman headed off and we went with her to the post office and from there she invited us to tea. Irish tea it was, with milk and sugar and told us how her mom went through 8 pounds of sugar in two weeks!! She was quite nice and we listened to her taped conversation with Jason. What a night. Gabriel and I then headed off for food in Woodley Park and there we met Stoney Bert, a shoe shiner that nearly spoke in rhymes the whole time he talked to us. A funny guy whose dream was to shine shoes from one end of the country to the next. At dinner, a Mediterranean restaurant, we were given "holy water" with our pita and I smeared some on my Dodger hat (maybe this year Bronco, maybe!!!) and that was the end of day one in DC. The next day was nearly uneventful, I went to visit Jason again the park and the weather was nearly gastly, cold and gray and rainy and so I sat in a cafe having good and deep and sometimes quite introspective thoughts. Here's a short excerpt: "I had the most fantastic memory just now. That everything worked out, that I was misunderstood enough people paid me to be myself, and reveal the private thoughts that people barely admit to themselves. The world is changing, dissolving of indifference and reshaping into everyone being hip. what happened to the people who knew they could not relate to another generation? The ones who knew they may not be cool, but they were where they were supposed to be, i.e., generationally struggling, like a growing lion that somehow knows it is only a matter of time before he can hunt in any jungle he can get to. Does he walk far to hunt a little or does he go to the closest fertile green meadow and eat and chase all day? It is impossible in terms of happiness to stay in one place. We are meant to be anything. Every human is different and the proof is in the DNA. If it's good enough to convict someone of murder three years after the act, then it should be enough to show that we cannot pigeonhole those that can think. To stifle is to contain and it makes the caged animal stick out ridiculously from its mental bars, rigid as titanium, and small like the unknown. Everything is unknown at the moment of understanding; it becomes important to the integrity of realization, that there is but one life per six billion people. Six billion lives, each with the possible aura to save or destroy the world, depending on their parents or which side of the tracks they came from. Do you remember that you weren't supposed to care? I did, and that is the memory is now."

So you can see I didn't talk to anyone for quite some time while the rain happened. Went back to AU, made dinner for the girls and then headed off south to Savannah....

Savannah: first, the train ride sucked, no ifs ands or buts. It was cramped and not nearly as nice as the trains out west. I couldn't believe how different they were, no lounge car, nothing. I got to Savannah and hopped in a cab and made it to the hostel as it was closing. I was aloud to throw my stuff in the hostel, an old and failing white Victorian home, and walked towards the river. I found city hall and walked in, got the mayor's card and headed back for the hostel to open. Met some nice people from Atlanta, and Montreal and we went out to eat and ended up meeting some other people from the hostel and about six or seven of us watched a jazz band called SQUAT play. They were incredible, they really were. The next day I got a ride to the beach with a hostelmate, collected some sand at Tybee Island and we felt like driving so we headed north clear into South Carolina where there wasn't anything for miles so we turned back for ice cream. We did see a peach stand in South Carolina and some woman was yelling at the vendor to find turnips that weren't eating by bugs and as we left he was knee deep in his fields finding fresh turnips. Back in town, we saw the Savannah Film Festival's last night's festivities being set up and before I know it, I'm drinking free wine and eating free snacks and people are asking me if I"m a director because I was so inappropriately dressed for the occasion. Later we found ourselves at a place called Pinkie Masters and had the stiffest, cheapest drinks so far, and saw some interesting folks there, 'nuff said. The next day I walked around with a woman headed for Florida and an Aussie and we saw him eat like a madman, including a milkshake for breakfast. He'll say it's because the place I tried to take us wasn't open on Sunday but don't listen to him....Made dinner that night for pretty much everyone and then on a whim, instead of heading to Atlanta, caught a ride with a girl from Maine down south towards St. Augustine but first we went to Brunswick...

Brunswick: not much to say about that town except for the hostel. It was in the forest and we slept in a treehouse about 11 feet off the ground (Loggers, I know my measurements are off but I asked someone). The place was more of a hippie commune, absolutely insane including a pond to raft, and wooden geosidic domes that were the library, common room and dining room. All of us, about 12 total got in a close circle hugging and said our names, where we were from and what we were thankful that day, great and generous energy that meal had of succotash, hamburgers, tuna casserole and banana pudding pie. The place was incredible but strange also and the next day we maneuvered off the bumpy road and back south on the highway headed for a national monument, an ecological preserve that is one of the oldest establishments in America but Lisa's muffler broke in two on a dirt road on the way there and so we waited and hung out until the tow truck guy, Rusty came and hauled us twenty-four miles to Jacksonville, not before he stopped so we could buy some boiled peoanuts. In Jacksonville we hung out and waited for the car to be fixed. We made it to St. Augustine about 7pm that night....

St. Augustine is small and touristy, no way around that. The people were nice but the history of the town all cost money. The fort was really cool though, overlooking a small inlet of water and you could imagine the British come rolling on those waters shooting canonballs toward the fort. I spent the day wandering around the town before I finally had to take my first Greyhound, what a dodgy experience. Had a transfer in Tallahassee at one in the morning and then another in Mobile, Alabama at four in the morning. Got into New Orleans at nine in the morning, exhausted but I have to admit the sunrise over the Gulf Coast was amazing. The beaches there are small and the waves nonexistent but you don't picture the traditional South and "beach" life to mix but there they were nonetheless.

So, here I am in New Orleans planning on hitting the French Quarter tonight, crazy stuff has already happened here but that will be for the next installment. As always, please check out the webpage at www.geocities.com/jasonconga and write in my guestbook and if you have any comments or compliments about the site please email Ravi at [email protected] , he's been helping me keep it together while I"m away. I'm starting to miss LA but I still have three glorious weeks of travelling left. Write someone on your email grouping, the world is big and small in the same moment.

Adios all, and until then,

Jason