I probably have far less photos for you today than any other day. I took a lot, but most of them I wouldn't foist on you. Especially not this one in which I'm wearing the white "Old lady driving a Benz" sunglasses which I bought in Memphis..

Whoops. I guess I did foist it. Sorry. Oh, and lest we forget the star of this weblog...

She's in there somewhere. You have to look for her...

I left Forrest City at about Noon today and hit Memphis in time for lunch. I had ran out of the healthy foods I had bought in Los Angeles at Whole Foods, so I used my Powerbook/Bluetooth Cell phone modem in tandem with the Neverlost Hertz system in the Navigator to find a "Wild Oats" Health food store in Memphis. The trek took me eight miles away from the highway, through some very nice Memphis neighborhoods, down "Boulevards" with huge southern houses on each side. I stocked up on good for you snacks, over-priced dog food and got back on the road. I wanted to explore memphis. I wanted to see those picturesque neighborhoods where real people live with the tin roofs and plank porches and all. but the traffic was a huge headache and anyway I didn't know where to look. I didn't want to pull over and ask someone "Excuse me, where are the dirt streets where the poor black people are sitting on their porches and you can hear blues playing as you slowly roll past?" So I just left town. Loona and I ate in the car. We went down the 40 for a while till we hit a town called Jackson which I decided to roll through for the hell of it. Jackson Tennesee is very depressing. I drove through this one housing project (in a Lincoln Navigator.) where literally every other house was totally in ruins. I guess this is what I wanted to see in Memphis, but boy did I not want to see it here. I sometimes tell a joke on stage about how, in certain parts of Upstate New York, people's lives just suck and you can tell because as you drive by, they are just standing in their lawns, with this dazed look, just going "This sucks!" Well, this was like that but way worse. Not funny at all. Just sad sad people. It was one of those moments where you are about to drive through what you think of as a "bad neighborhood". you start to roll up the windows, thinking about your fear for yourself. Then you look at the people, who aren't even considering bothering you. They don't have it in them. They're just beaten. They've been corralled into this toxic place. Everywhere they turn is shit and the world says to them "This is what you get". And there am I rolling by in a very expensive SUV, gawking at them. No, I did not take photographs.

After Jackson, I headed East toward Nashville, starting to try to decide which way I would proceed. Nashville is a crossroads. One could turn North there, into Kentucky, or continue East to Knoxville, and start turning North in Virginia...

I'm starting to realize something about these stories I'm telling you. It's very strange to go back and recount what happened each day, because these events aren't at all what occupies my mind as I drive. I'm deep in thought all day. I might give a minute of time to my route but otherwise, my mind covers all kinds of territory which is invisible here. The only things I write about are what happens when I stop somewhere, and that comprises about three hours of each day. In reality, most of what I'm experiencing goes on in silence.

So why don't I write about what I'm thinking as I drive? Some of it is very personal. Some of it is petty and obsessive. Some of it is deranged and inappropriate... I can tell you that I have been listening to audiobooks as I drive. The first one was "Into Thin Air" by John Krakauer. Wow, is that a good book. It's about an expedition to Everest where lots of people ended up dying in a storm, back in 1996. Krakauer was there as a journalist and his first hand account is chilling. Especially intense about the audiobook is that he reads it himself, so you hear the anguish, regret and haunted memory in his voice as he talks about peopl that he struggled with up there and died. He mentions a fellow a lot, named David Brechiers. David is a very famous climber.

This was interesting to me because I knew David a long time ago. After I had graduated from High Shool and didn't go to College, I had a couple of years where things got very bad for me. I was trying to be a comedian but it wasn't going well. I sometimes went many shows in a row where I would just bomb. I think mostly no one wants to pay to watch an 18 year old kid talk about "weird things" he thinks about. Especially not in Boston. Also, the other comedians got sick of me really fast, because I was always hanging around. Anyway, all my friends were off at school adn there I was pursuing a career that didn't look too good, but I was too obsessed to even think about letting it go. I had a lot of shitty jobs then, and one of them was working for a very good carpenter. he tried really hard to teach me to do my job well but I was clumsy and lazy and always sleepy from being at the clubs all night. Anyway, at one point we were working on this huge old mansion that actually was owned by a family I knew. They were not rich people. They lived in the carriage house of the mansion and rented it out, at one point "The Cars" lived there.

So me and this carpenter, Terry, were doing some restoration work on the house. AT the time, David Brechiers was living there and he wanted some work done on his room so for a couple of weeks I worked with him doing lots of sanding and painting and whatnot. He ended up doing most of the work because I sucked so bad. But he was patient and tried to teach me. One day I was in his room and there was an Emmy sitting on his desk. I asked him what it was and he told me he won it for a TV show he produced, which entailed him climbing Mount Everest, something he'd done twice. David was a very matter of fact guy and I don't remember him smiling once or being particularly friendly with me in the weeks that I worked with him but I remember being awestruck at what he'd done. One day, while I was working there, I was doing a particularly shitty job trying to paint a wall. I was "Cutting in" and I kept getting paint on some very old wood molding and Terry, my boss, was getting really fed up. There was this girl who was also working with us and she didn't even show up that day. At one point, Terry turned to David Brechiers and said something like "What a couple of losers I got stuck with here." He said it right in front of me and he meant it. David was embarassed and I avoided looking at either of them. My gaze fell on David's Emmy and I thought "My life is shit. It's too late to go to school. I'm not funny and I can't even do an honest day's work. I will never do anything even approaching what this guy did. I hate that I even saw that Emmy because I'll never see another and it's going to hurt that much more to work at J&R selling VCRs when I'm fifty and fat."

That was a low low point. It wasn't the lowest in my career or life but it was low and famous climber David Brechiers witnessed it. So listening to first hand stories about him courageously rescuing stranded climbers on Everest as I drove from Los Angeles, where I'd just shot my own Prime Time network TV pilot, to New York, where a dusty Emmy sits on my desk, was very strange.

I flew through that book and now I'm listening to "Franklin and Winston" about Roosevelt and Churchill, and their relationship as they fought World War II together. Great story. Two amazing men and a very weird relationship. It was kind of heart breaking, really. Almost a story of unrequited love. It seems, from this book, that Churchill was practically in love iwth Roosevelt. He was a very passionate and expressive person and Roosevelt's mistique, majesty and reserved manner drove him mad. He often turned to people after Roosevelt left the room and said "I love that man!!" Roosevelt never said anything so kind to Churchill. In fact, he was sometimes mean to him. I could totally relate to the poor guy, (churchill), as this described every relationship I had with girls when I was a boy. I always was certain that each girl I was chasing was INCREDIBLE! I would keep heaping praise on her and adoring her and she would just look at me coldly and say nothing. I was sure there was all kinds of fascinating shit going on behind those eyes that looked at me like I was a turd. Later, when I grew up (somewhat) I learned that girls, women and anyone who is rude to you or not nice to you is probably very boring and not fascinating at all. Unfortunately for Winston, the object of his obsession was fascinating. He got elected president FOUR TIMES for christ's sake.

There are two passages in the book that particularly made me sad for the fat old Brit. I will describe them briefly. The first described one night, when Winston was getting ready to leave Hyde Park, where he'd been visiting the president for a week. Franklin offered to drive him to the train (he had a car he could drive himself, with his hands) so they drove down there together in silence. Winston was feeling very emotional and grateful for the work Roosevelt had been doing to try to save England from peril. When they got to the staion, Winston got out of the car, leaned in to Roosevelt's window and said with a shaking voice "God bless you.. God bless you." Roosevelt just bit down on his cigarette holder and said "I'll see you in London next month." and drove off. What a bitch. The other story is too long, so I won't tell it. And I also won't edit this paragraph up top to say that there is one story, because I'm lazy. I'll just say that, when you hear stories about people like Roosevelt and Churchill, and about the things they did, the kind of men they were and what went into the thoughts and decisions that defined their lives, you just get positively sick when you then turn and look at our president today. What a giant, useless, talentless and shockingly shallow and stupid man with NO history, experience, perspective or understanding of the human drama. What a lout. I don't think I hate anyone on the earth more than George Bush. God.... he just blows. More on that another time.

I only made one real stop today and that was somewhere in Tennesee, still East of Nashville. I pulled over, not needed gas or food, just to walk. We found a really really big field and started to trek across it. The wind was gentle and warm and the sun blared down. We made it all the way to the end, where there was a tree line, and walked along it until we came to another adjoinging field.

 

There was something really dramatic about these fields. I didn't know what it was. They weren't farm fields. Just long grass. they weren't fenced off. But the patches of woods that broke them up now and again seemed so nicely placed, and the way they sloped. I don't know. They were just pleasant to walk on. Then we reached the far end and found a plaque that was facing the field we were in. I came around to the written on side and read that these fields were the scene of some huge Civil war battles. The plaque was a complicated system of maps and military jargon which I didn't want to stand there and read. After all, people only died to save our Union there. What am I supposed to read it?

We walked back to the car, after taking some pictures by an old barn and pressed on. At Nashville, I decided to turn North toward Lexington Kentucky. It got dark and as I hit the Bluegrass Highway, I realized that I was getting way too tired to drive. But the Bluegrass highway cuts right through the middle of nowhere. I didn't know where to stop. Finally, I hit an exit that showed no services, but I pulled off anyway because the dog needed out. The exit put me onto a windy, totally dark road that just went up and down and through nothing. The Neverlost knew the road number but it showed no towns or anything. Loona was losing it so I just pulled over and let her out. AS soon as I opened the door, I couldn't believe the smell and the sounds. I was really in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. The smell was somthing green and pungent. It almost smelled like very good marijuana. And the crickets and birds and all were very very loud. Loona and I walked by the side of the road. It was very dark so I could just make out lots of twisty, skinny trees and swampy land by the light of my own headlights. Very very spooky. As soon as Loona peed I got her in the truck and took off. Rather than turning around to return to the highway, however, I just kept going. The road had to go somewhere. And it did. It led to this charming little town called Bardstown. The whole town smellls like barley or something because there is a Burbon distillery nearby. The buildings are all very very old.. This is a 1700s town that has hardly changed. Luckly, there is one motel here, the "General Nelson" a very nice little place that incredibly accepts dogs. After checking in, Loona and I went for a long walk down the main street of the town. I really wish I'd brought my camera because it looked so great at night. The store fronts are amazing. There are all these old fashioned businesses. An old Barber shop, a drugstore with a soda counter, a "Seller of books and fine candies" shop. And none of these seem to be "fake quaint" like most tourist trap towns. IT really seems like this place was built in the 1700s and it just hasn't changed because it's small enough, out of the way enough and lucky enough to sustain it. Tomorrow, I'm going to stroll around and get some lunch here so I'll tell you more about it after. I probably won't have pictures because there will be people around and I'm kind of chicken about photographing people. Oh, and it turns out I'm about ten mintues from Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home. I am goign to check that out. You know that Lincoln was the country's first standup comedian? I read somewhere that there was a tavern near his house that use to pay him to just come in, talk and be funny. People would drink and listen to him go on and on and they'd laugh all night.

Okay, I'm going to go back through this now and cram some shitty photos in. It's 1am and I have to sleep.

That's all for now, my friends...

Thanks for reading,