---------------------------------------------------------------------- CRASH Your guide to travel thru the underground Jan 1993 "The first person we met in the bar was an old woman with oxygen tubes in her nose to breathe. She was sipping beer through a straw." ...and other fun adventures from our 2-month road trip ----- "A culture cannot be discriminatingly accepted, much less modified, except by persons who have seen through it -- by persons who have cut holes in the confining stockade of verbalized symbols and so are able to look at the world and, by reflection, at themselves in a new and relatively unprejudiced way." -- Aldous Huxley --------- GREETINGS from the Crash Crew You realize by now we're not your ordinary travel zine. We get sidetracked. And to celebrate our 1-year anniversary, we've made The Crash Update bigger, more colorful, and even changed its name. The process of joining the network has been simplified in response to input from our members and also from experience gained on a 2-month road trip across the USA. The trip was made to see if a network like this could really work, and it was a major success. We stayed with people in 21 cities across 18 states, avoiding hotels completely. We crashed on beds, couches, futons, in tents, on floors, and enjoyed every minute. Nothing can describe the thrill of meeting each of our hosts for the first time. The article "Crash Course" is a day-to-day journal of this odyssey. This issue marks the separation of Crash magazine from The Crash Network. Now you can join the network and ignore Crash entirely (you won't hurt our feelings -- sniff, sniff). ------ DEBRIS Networking and information * BIKECENTENNIAL, THE BICYCLE TRAVEL ASSOCIATION, publishes *Get Ready to Go Mountainbiking,* which lists resorts and ski areas catering to mountain bikes, mountain bike festivals, events, clubs, and organizations, guidebooks and manuals; and *Bicycle Vacations Guide,* which lists domestic and overseas tour operators. $2.50 each from Bikecentennial, P.O. Box 8308-P, Missoula, MT 59807 USA. * And on the subject of bicycling/adventure travel, there's the down- to-earth magazine KOKOPELLI NOTES. Issue 3 has an upbeat article on the invasion of Cuba...by bicycles from China, as well as thoughts on the joys of walking, written by Henry Thoreau. Send $3.00 for a sample issue to Kokopelli Notes, P.O. Box 1137, Asheville, NC 28816 USA. * OUT YOUR BACKDOOR, a magazine of informal adventure, has off-beat travel info, notes on the Hospitality Experience, many helpful book and zine reviews, and a strangely familiar article on freight train hopping by Lee. Hmmm... $2.00 to Out Your Backdoor, P.O. Box 2163, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 USA. * GLOBAL EXCHANGE REALITY TOURS organizes tours in Cuba, Mexico, Africa, and the U.S., concentrating on learning the language, culture, and politics of local peoples. They also publish books, buy and sell crafts from third world artistans, host speaking tours, foster partnerships between first and third world groups, and conduct human rights and public policy campaigns. For more info, write to Global Exchange, 2017 Mission St., Suite 303, San Francisco, CA 94110 USA, or call (415) 255-7296. * GREAT EXPEDITIONS MAGAZINE is "committed to sustaining a network of travelers, to share their experiences, to encourage socially responsible travel, and to increase appreciation of the world, its cultures, and environments." The sample issue we received had articles on El Tisure, Venezuela, Peru's Taquila Island, Bali, the Himalayas in Nepal, and an excerpt from a remarkable book about 6 mens' bicycle trip across Siberia (over 7,000 miles). We're talking *out of the way* treks here. Truly adventurous types should write to Great Expeditions, P.O. Box 18036, Raleigh, NC 27619 USA, or call (919) 846-3600 or (800) 743-3639. * Study Russian with a Russian family in Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula. At least two hours of private tutoring a day. Write RUSSIAN LANGUAGE, 626 Merrill St., Sitka, AK 99835 USA or call (907) 747-5553 from 0800-1800 PST. * AUSTRALIAN ALTERNATIVE COMMUNITIES DIRECTORY describes 41 intentional communities in Australia that welcome visitors and are open to new members. Send $5 to Jo-Anne Ferriera, Australian Association of Sustainable Communities (AASC), 142 Agnew St., Norman Park, QLD 4170 AUSTRALIA. * TRANSITIONS ABROAD helps independent-minded travelers plan their own kind of overseas adventures: join an expedition, take a professional seminar, locate jobs and internships, exchange work for room and board, stay with a family, learn a language. Sample $4.50. Write to Transitions Abroad, 18 Hulst Rd., P.O. Box 344, Amherst, MA 01004 USA or call (413) 256-0373. * GAIA PASSAGE publishes a newsletter of "evolutionary travel information." Issue #4 included travel advisories for Albania and Mongolia, references to publications about communal and sustainable living, air courier travel, and various international travel resources. Back issues are $4. Write to Gaia Passage, Cullowhee, NC 28723-2589 USA. * MEDIA ACTION KIT ("Do it yourself publicity"). Access to talk shows, mailing lists, press packets, etc. Send a 29c stamp to Media Distribution Co-Op, 1745 Louisiana St., Lawrence KA 66044. * WANTED: Old shock machines, quack medical devices, violet-rays, electro-treat. Collector wants to buy old 3" and 7" electrostatic TVs made before 1950. Pilot, Emerson, Dumont, Halicrafters, Motorola, RCA, also projection sets. Write to Steve Chekey, P.O. Box 39, Litchfield, OH 44253 USA or call (216) 723-2758. ------------ CRASH COURSE by Miles Poindexter **************** Saturday 10/3/92 We wanted to leave at 8:00 am but due to the fact that we left everything to the last minute we got going around 12:00. We reached Los Angeles in about 7 hours, with only one stop to eat some food in a scenic gas station parking lot, next to the bathrooms and dumpsters, looking at an oil storage tank in the hazy distance. Steve and Suzy welcomed us into their huge loft in downtown L.A. that was in a converted warehouse. It was hard to consider this the beginning of our road trip, since I was still in California. The high point of the visit was going to Millie's Cafe and seeing my friends' band on the jukebox! ************** Sunday 10/4/92 Chloride, Arizona! Population approx. 300, looks like. We stayed with a progressively minded person named Stanfield Major. He edits *Touchpoint,* a networking zine for non-monogamous couples. We got some food at the one general store and later went to Wheelers, one of 2 bars in town. A round of Old Milwaukee for 3 of us cost only $2.25. Unfortunately, it was also the only beer on tap. We played some pool but broke the pool table from sinking the cue ball so much. The table just stopped returning it to us. I guess it got stuck somewhere inside. Needless to say, Chloride was a little weird. The first person we met in the bar was an old woman with oxygen tubes in her nose to breathe. She was sipping beer through a straw. After a friendly "hello," the manager of the general store talked to us about how 2 people had just been murdered at Grasshopper Junction, a campsite near Chloride. We set up our tents in Stan's yard, next to the cactuses and fell asleep early. ************** Monday 10/5/92 Woke up at 7:00 am to get an early start to the Grand Canyon, and met the talkative general store manager again. This time he told us there had been 6 police cars around Wheelers last night. The sheriff had even come into the bar to ask questions because some townsfolk had decided to run someone out of town. I'm glad we were only staying one night or they might have run us out next. I don't know how we slept through the whole thing since we were camped in Stanfield's yard right across the street from Wheelers. We did manage to glimpse the murals of Chloride which is what the town is known for. I thought they were going to be ancient native paintings, but they were painted 20 years ago by some guy on acid. We headed to the Grand Canyon. We hiked along the southern rim and ate some sandwiches of cheese and dry coleslaw that we made sitting at a beautiful vista about 4 feet from the edge. The canyon looks great during the day, but as dusk falls it starts turning grey and appears kind of sinister. It started to remind me of the domain of Morder from *The Hobbit.* I wouldn't want to be down there at night, kind of like being caught in a giant grave. The stars must look amazing from down there since the walls cut off all the earth light. Weird that one would see farther out into the edge of the Milky Way by descending into the earth. After watching the sunset from Hopi Point, we drove to Flagstaff and crashed at the house of the band Primitive Tribes. Sasha, Sandy, Shaun and Fred book their own tours, make their own tapes and bumper stickers, and do their own international distribution. *************** Tuesday 10/6/92 Drove all day to Albuquerque, passed a sign for "Route 666 -- South." Scary. Lots of American cars on the road in the midwest. Why? Just because they're "made in the USA?" More scary. We had lunch at a restaurant in the Old Town that was way too expensive, and nothing for vegetarians either. We were supposed to crash with someone named Anton Mechanism, but he hadn't left a phone number, so I tried calling for info, and the operator laughed at the name Mechanism after making me spell it. They didn't have it. So we drove right to his address and I knocked on the door of Anton, a complete stranger. There was a long silence and then he opened the door, buttoning his shirt. He was groggy since he had been napping but remembered my letter and invited us in. It was 8:30 at night and he was just about to go to a show with the band Miracle Legion. So Bojo and I bought some dark beer (Anton's favorite) and we got to talking. Anton's zine is called *Noise in the Void.* He's also busy studying anthropology and Celtic history. On his wall there were some beautiful gothic portraits of women he had done using colored pencils, crayon, lipstick and eye shadow. He has a rather large collection of pet chameleons (he corrected us when we called them lizards). Later, at the club, Bojo met a girl named Tammy, who had just been living in L.A. and sang in a band. I met a girl, Marilyn, who exchanged phone numbers with me. Later we went to a 24-hour cafe called Frontier and I saw someone that I thought had gone to India on a spiritual journey of some sort. But here he was in Albuquerque hanging out with his mom's boyfriend asking me if I had any pot. I didn't. Next day I called Marilyn and we went for coffee and food, then thrift shopping. We visited Old Town again and realized what a tourism wasteland it is. Later we went to see a strange movie called *Delicatessen* at a theatre on Central Ave. There're many good looking shops and cafes on this street, as well as the campus of University of New Mexico. After the movie we went to Joe's Bar to meet Bojo and Lesley and everyone. Anton said there was a club called Beyond Ordinary that had industrial dance music, so we went there. It was fun dancing to Jane's Addiction and Nine Inch Nails but there wasn't much heavy stuff, or even new. So we checked the live band at the other end of the club. They were playing on a stage literally 9 feet up! You could hurt your neck trying to watch them up close. We left Bojo and Tammy at the club and Lesley crashed at Anton's while I slept over Mariyln's. The next morning we got up too late to see the International Hot Air Balloon Festival and then Marilyn kept saying she hated goodbyes and wouldn't get out of bed when I got up to leave. **************** Thursday 10/8/92 When I got to Anton's, everyone was still asleep, but the strange thing was that Bojo was asleep on Anton's bed, and Anton was on the floor next to Lesley. When Lesley and Anton woke up they told me that Bojo had come home very late and very drunk from the club. He been lying on Anton's bed telling them how he had gotten lost and ended up in one of the most dangerous sections of the city and was trying to call a cab on a pay phone covered with blood when someone in a pick-up truck drove up and asked him "What the hell was he doing in this part of town?!" The guy was very helpful once he heard Bojo's story and drove him to Anton's. Bojo passed out on the bed after a few minutes and no one could wake him. Luckily, Anton wasn't mad about sleeping on the floor and even invited us to visit again on the way back. Next stop was the Peace Farm which is just north of Amarillo, Texas. We got there late afternoon and soon realized it was completely deserted. I guess that's why it was so peaceful. There were 2 trailers and 2 tiny houses on the lot. We found one trailer was unlocked so we just...kind of...explored. Someone had sent a letter to us telling us people could crash in the "guest trailer" at the Peace Farm so we figured this was the one. There were dirty dishes in the sink and rotting food in the fridge. It was as if somebody had left a few days ago, or maybe some one came and killed whoever was here and the body was buried in the yard. It was hard to keep our imaginations from dredging up scenarios from all the slasher films we had seen. As night approached and the cold wind started moaning outside, we decided to all sleep in the living room instead of separately in the bedrooms. I began to wonder if this trailer was some kind of lure for innocent hippies who would be hacked to death in their sleep and later eaten, kind of like a giant man-made Venus Fly Trap. There was a TV and VCR, bathroom facilities, and free food. It was too good to be real. 2 hours later a car drove up to the other trailer and our hostess soon came over to say "Hi" and we were relieved to see that she didn't have a butcher knife with her. Mavis welcomed us graciously and remembered exactly who we were from our letter. She even stayed to watch "Star Trek -- The Next Generation" with us. (I still like the old one.) I have a habit of asking questions constantly during a TV show and talking too much so I almost got kicked out of the living room. The next day we dug a compost hole for Mavis and dumped all the rotting food from the fridge in it. That was our contribution for our lodging. The Peace Farm is a a great idea. ************** Friday 10/9/92 The first thing of note to see upon entering Oklahoma was a highway sign that said "Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates." What a pleasant state. But then again, we had been warned. So you want to visit Norman, OK? Well, make sure you buy your alcohol before 9:00 pm, because after that, you can't. Don't bother drinking the domestic beer, it's all 1/2 the normal alcohol content so it will make you piss a lot and not much else. Because of the weakness of Budweiser and it's counterparts, most Oklahomians seeking fun turned to the other bud, the green bud. But then the Oklahoma government cracked down on that because it became the state's #1 cash crop. So it's not as easy to get as it was a few years ago, but it's still pretty cheap. We were very lucky that Mark has a friendly room-mate, because when we arrived at his door, Mark wasn't home and had not told Kevin that we were coming! They had no phone so we couldn't have called ahead either. But they both work on Dachau, a zine about the Oklahoma music scene so Kevin invited us in when I mentioned this zine. He was eating army ration food which looked pretty gross, and started telling us about how he was sent to Kuwait during the Gulf War. It was upsetting to know that one can be taken out of college and sent overseas for a stupid oil skirmish even though one is only in the Army Reserves. Kevin had been going to boot camp only one weekend per month in order to pay for college and they had sent him to war. The Army also gave him some kind of experimental shot in case Iraq used biological weapons. He was still having side effects, which included intermittent bleeding gums and hair loss. I guess the Army really is an adventure. We got to hear a tape of our band on his $1500 stereo and it actually sounded good for once. Then Bojo and I bought some 40-ounce malt liquors and drank them with no noticeable effect at all. Luckily, Kevin met a friend of his at a cafe where we went for coffee and she invited us to a party where there was a giant bottle of tequila flowing. The cafe was on Asp Street, near Oklahoma University. This 2 block strip of stores and cafˇs is where a lot of students hang out. Most bands coming through Oklahoma play in Norman because it is a big college town. It's also one of the cheapest places to live. The house Kevin and Mark live in with 3 bedrooms was only $230/month. I can't even find one bedroom in a flat for that price in San Francisco. ***************** Saturday 10/10/92 Dallas was hell. Well, I'm sure that's a far too generalized judgement of a city so let's just say that on this particular day, for this particular person, Dallas was hell. I'll sum up this experience up with a brief list of the top ten things that went wrong in the big "D." 1. Roxy, the person whom we we're to crash with, was out of town and didn't tell his son we might be coming. We did get to see his front porch and it was fun and funky with all kinds of Native artwork and artifacts. Roxy is of Choctaw descent and we would still love to meet him someday because he wrote us a cool letter. 2. John Held, Jr., our back-up crashee, was also not home when I called. 3. Oklahoma State and Univ. of Texas were playing a football game the day we arrived. This college game is such a big rivalry that people come from all around and just party in Dallas the whole weekend. Many residents just leave town cause there're so many drunk, annoying frat types from out-of-town that invade their local bars. (Maybe our Crashees left town for this reason?) 4. The Texas State Fair was also happening which meant more obnoxious people, lots of traffic, and no parking anywhere. 5. Easy Street, the club where we wanted to go to see a show, and maybe meet someone cool who would offer us their floor for the night, had been closed down for good about 3 weeks ago. 6. I dropped my address book in a puddle of urine, in a parking lot near a dumpster, where I guess a bunch of drunk assholes had been pissing. 7. The phone took 85 cents from me and then botched my call to my aunt and uncle in Houston. They were our next crash pad and we were thinking of driving down there that night and just skipping Dallas. 8. I almost hit a cop on the highway leaving Dallas. I was about to enter the left lane, so I looked in my mirror and started to go left, when I had to swerve back just in time to get out of the way of a speeding state trooper with no siren or flashing lights that whizzed by at something near 100 mph. There were too many highway patrols out this night because of the big events. We saw 4 people pulled off the road in 5 minutes of driving. 9. The bar we went into had some horrible English motif, right down to the bartender's limey accent, and beers were $3.50 each, way too expensive for us, and one was warm. 10. We got lost trying to leave. The map we had didn't show any streets that we needed. The one good store we found was Direct Hit Records, owned by Kelly Keys. *************** Sunday 10/11/92 Arrived in Houston at 12:30 am so I guess it was the beginning of our "Sunday" even though we went right to sleep. My uncle put us up in his huge house. We each had our own bed and got a really good sleep. Uncle Emmett was so gracious, even after having to wait up for us pretty late. In the morning, after long, leisurely showers, I called my cousin Trey who also lived in Houston and we went to visit him. The city of Houston is very modern and very expensive. It just seems to have no character and no respect for its own history. They didn't preserve one historical building that I could see. Nothing but half- empty sky scrapers built during the oil boom. Anyway, it was great to see Trey now that he was divorced from that neo-Republican woman he had met at Texas A&M. Trey was always too intelligent to fall into the trap of ultra-conservative thought for very long, and it was nice to see him back among the living. He showed us Madonna's video on his giant screen TV with sense-surround stereo, then we headed for New Orleans. *************** Monday 10/12/92 Most of the highway in Louisiana is on bridges over swampland. The swamps are beautiful with trees and lush foliage growing in greenish water. Our host had been living in New Orleans for 10 years and was an amazing source of information about this beautiful old city. Michael is a painter and his girlfriend is a sculptor. His house is a giant 2 bedroom flat that rents for only $200/month. We slept in the living room on a spare futon he had and the next day explored the French Quarter. The Voodoo Museum sucked. They wanted $5.00 just to let us in (it's very small) and everything in the shop was overpriced. The streets in the Quarter look like someplace in Europe. It's very old architecture and a lot of intricately detailed iron work adorns the buildings, with vines and other plant life growing throughout. We didn't have much money so we visited a couple of thrift stores. Many of the cheapest ones are on Magazine Street. We also drove by the mansion of Anne Rice, which was two huge houses combined into one. There were many burned out, empty buildings throughout New Orleans. Many people had left during the economic recession/depression of the last 3 years in which this city had been hit very hard. The Cajun accent sounds a lot like the Brooklyn accent in New York City. We hit many clubs and some good, inexpensive food places. Too many to go into detail about so I'll just list as many as I can. R. C. BRIDGE LOUNGE -- 120 Magazine St. (live entertainment) COUNTRY FLAME -- 620 Iberville/near Royal (Mexican/Cuban) GUMBO SHOP -- 630 St. Peter/near Bourbon St. (Cajun) COOP'S -- 1109 Decatur/near St. Philip (Cajun) RUE DE LA COURSE -- Magazine St./near Race St. (cafe, there are many shops on Magazine) CAFE BRAZIL and CAFE ISTANBUL -- Frenchman/near Chartres CHECKPOINT CHARLIES -- Esplanade/near Decatur (24-hr. bar with bands) KAGANS -- Decatur/near St. Philip ($3 pitchers of beer and rock&roll crowd) TIPITINAS -- Napoleon St./near Tchoupitoulas (bands) TINAS -- St. Claude St./near Spain St. (great food. 2 pancakes and 2 eggs for $1.55) BENNY'S -- Camp St./near Valence (bar with bands -- no cover) THE HUMMINGBIRD -- 804 St. Charles/near Julia (24-hr. restaurant, cheap food) ****************** Wednesday 10/14/92 Some license plates in this state look like this: LoUiSiAna. Get it? I finally found a present for my mother's birthday, so now I could relax. I really hate buying presents for people because there's no way to know if they'll like it. It drives me crazy because I want to get something unique, but then again my mother has no where near my taste in weirdness. I got her a hammock. We tried some Cajun cooking at Coop's. It wasn't nearly as spicy as I expected, but there was always "Louisiana Hot Sauce" on the table to fix that. ***************** Thursday 10/15/92 We found 64oz. bottles of malt liquor and you might say "big whoop, 24 ounces more than a 40oz," right? But they were so big and under $3.00 each that we were fascinated by the prospect of drinking a whole one so Bojo and I bought 2. We even saved one of the bottles to bring home with us. Of course we got plastered and then went to eat at a ritzy looking restaurant called The Gumbo Shop. I was trying to eat my gumbo (which is a soup with lots of rice and parts of crab with the shell intact), but my head was just spinning faster and faster. What happens on the road is that I don't eat much since money is very tight and there's not always enough time to eat 3 meals a day and still see the sights. So I drank a lot of malt liquor on an empty stomach. I went to the bathroom and puked, then sat on the toilet seat and tried to get my head to stop spinning. Bojo finally came to get me after 15 minutes and they guided me out of the restaurant to the street. I was staggering drunk and don't remember much. They told me that they had to get my wallet from my pocket and extract the money I owed for my dinner. So remember, unless you want this to happen to you, drink about half as much as you normally would on the road. *************** Friday 10/16/92 We stayed with Dale Ashemun, who's a member of The World for Free, a great underground network run by Mykel Board out of New York City. Dale has one of the biggest collection of comic art and erotica fiction that I've ever seen, and writes for *Psychotronic* magazine. I don't know what he thinks of us since we spent a lot of time in his apartment reading his sex books instead of seeing the city. Dale talked of his friendships with Lydia Lunch (Bojo's favorite) and Annie Sprinkle. One night we all sat on his bed and watched a video Tracy Lords made when she was 16. It was great to feel the humidity of New Orleans after the dryness of California, a state which I see as a developing desert. New Orleans has a lush, sultry vibe to it, and a tinge of danger also. Too hot for me to ever live here, though; I'm glad we visited in October since it was milder weather. We left today for Memphis, Tennessee, which took about 6-1/2 hours. We ate at Babylon, a vegetarian/natural restaurant that was too expensive. Later we went to Shangri-La, the record store of Eric and Sherman on Madison St., our crash pad for the next 2 nights. Shangri-La is truly a little paradise. I bought a new tape of Gang of Four's greatest hits with 20 songs on it for $5.00. Stop in this store when you get into Memphis to find out what shows are happening in town. Friday night we went to see 3 bands at a club called Barristers. The first band was OK. The second band was technically good but they were musicians without a song, just hollow wanking. The third band, The Grifters, was intense. This was their first show in many months. They had nearly broken up because the bass player and guitarist liked the same girl, and she was married to the drummer! So much of the emotion they were feeling came across very powerfully live. ***************** Saturday 10/17/92 Bojo and Lesley went to Graceland and I spent 2 hours in Sherman's an isolation tank. This is a tank of water that's so pumped with heavy salts that your body will float on top of it. It's also windowless so its completely black inside. After a while it feels like just floating in a void; almost total sensory deprivation. One either falls asleep, or goes on a journey inside their head. My mind was cluttered with so much trivial bullshit from living in the city with all its distractions that I could not hang onto a single thought. My brain just kept wandering. When I was young I could get so absorbed in something like a drawing that I could work on it for a week straight. I had focus. And now I think I've lost it, and without focus, creative ideas will remain just that: ideas. I'd been slowly realizing this over the past months and one of the reasons I went on this trip was to explore smaller, quieter environs where I could get involved in my music without interruption. The city is a great place if you want to get swept away, almost like an amusement park of life. But right now I need to get away for a while. That night we went to the Antenna Club and saw five bands for $5.00. There were many punk rockers there, since the club allowed anyone 18 and up to enter. And I guess its not enforced too well because a lot of punks looked younger than 18. Very cool scene, but Eric told me these shows are very rare. Beers in the club were only $1.00 per can. *************** Sunday 10/18/92 Went to see Al Green, the soul singer turned preacher, sing at his church. There was a great gospel choir singing when we arrived, accompanied by a piano, drums, bass, guitar and organ. Then Al Green came out and started in with a very upbeat message about how everyone is blessed to be alive no matter how bad things get. Then he would keep breaking into a gospel song right in the middle of a sentence. The band would always catch on right away and start rockin' with him. Then Al would build it up and start shout-singing and running around the pulpit. Gradually the music would speed up and one by one, women in the audience would jump up and start writhing and gyrating in these spiritual orgasms. One woman was screaming at the top of her lungs and crying in ecstasy, like at a Beatles show. There were attendants (ushers) running around and surrounding people who were freaking out to keep them from hurting themselves or others, but never interfering with their convulsions. Sometimes a person would break free and run around the church, dancing and spinning wildly, and the ushers would have to chase them. Meanwhile Al Green was still screaming uplifting chants while his band was jamming full volume at a frantic pace. Finally he would stop and everyone would get to sit down and rest for a while. Actually, this 3-1/2 hour spectacle of spiritual fervor blew away the punk rock show the night before. We got into our car afterwards feeling strangely invigorated for our 14 hour drive to Raleigh, North Carolina. *************** Monday 10/19/92 Drove all Sunday across Tennessee, and over the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina. We got into Raleigh at 5:00 in the morning. It was too early to contact our crashee so we looked for a coffee shop. We passed one that had only men dressed in overalls with pick-up trucks parked outside and drove on. I stopped at a phone to look for 24 hour joints in the yellow pages and found an International House of Pancakes. So we went there to eat and Bojo and I drank 3 cups of coffee each. Finally, at 7:45 am with the waitress about to kick us out, I called Alice to get directions to her house. We got there at 8:00 and Lesley crashed on the couch while Bojo and I decided to just stay awake until Monday night (the coffee helped). Alice and Bill are in a band called Wild Child so we talked and played tapes of each others band. We were only half awake so everything was kind of foggy, like a natural mind altering effect. We walked around town to get fresh, cold October air in our lungs, and had more coffee at the only coffee shop in Raleigh, Cup-A-Joes on Hillsborough St. The prices were OK, considering the lack of competition, with 75 cent house coffee and 65 cent day old baked goods. NC State Univ. accounts for the myriad of students walking around here. And there's actually a few other colleges in this rather large city. One of them is The Peace College. We watched the final presidential debates that night. I thought Ross Perot was the winner, just because he said "It'll be fun!" I want a t-shirt saying "Ross Perot for President...It'll be fun!" It's a brilliant slogan. Afterwards we went to Nurs, a Greek food place with pita bread filled with falafel and hummus and vegetables for $1.75. I laid my sleeping bag out after I got back and fell asleep in about 3 minutes. **************** Tuesday 10/20/92 Lesley announced that she hated sleeping in stranger's living rooms and wanted out. She was going to She was going to fly back to San Francisco when we got to New York City. A trip like this isn't for everyone. I personally have been loving it so far, but Lesley wasn't. The most important thing for me during this trip was the interaction between the people we stayed with. Lesley was more interested in seeing the "sights," and considered crashing a necessary evil in order to save money. She accused me of running the whole trip like a dictator, and dragging her and Bojo along wherever I went. But I argued that I was just following our host around and doing what they wanted as their guest, and also because I'd rather hang out and get to know them than walk around touristy spots in a city. As usual the truth lies somewhere in between. Maybe something will work out. I'm not going to make any plans or decisions about my future until this trip is over. ****************** Wednesday 10/21/92 Last night we slept at the beautiful house of Sonar Strange. I had called her Tuesday afternoon to tell her we were in Raleigh, and she said she had already seen us. Turns out we had walked into the store she was working at and she was sure right away we were from out of town but was too shy to ask us our names. Today we were invited by Alice and Bill to go with them to an open mike night and play a song or two. We went to their rehearsal space and borrowed some instruments to practice with since we didn't bring any with us. Around 10:00 pm we went to Easy Street with Bill and Alice to sign up to perform. Every band that performed before and after us was a lame clichˇd blues-progression, sloppy, guitar soloing mess. It was like a musicians' graveyard. We did our 2 songs and the audience actually clapped! I was surprised but happy. They thought we were weird though. Afterwards, while I was watching Alice and Bill's band, a guy came up to me and said he really loved my drumming and asked me if I played a lot of jazz. I said, "No." Then he said he was really looking for a drummer. So I told him I lived in San Francisco and the commute to rehearsal would be rough. Then he says he had a really weird band and needed a drummer to keep up with their experimental style. Realizing that nothing I was saying was sinking into his dimly lit mind, I asked what "weird" musical influences he had? "Oh, uh, like Led Zeppelin mixed with Pink Floyd, with a little bit of fusion thrown it." he said. At this point I just kind of went "Oh" and mumbled something about looking for him if I moved to Raleigh, then turned around and tried to ignore him. After Wild Child finished, we left for Sonar's and fell asleep watching *Sisters,* an old Brian DePalma movie. ***************** Thursday 10/22/92 Went to Cup-A-Joes again and read papers about the coming elections. Then ate at a Chinese restaurant with luncheon specials for only $3.00. Sonar's band was playing that night at The Brewery so we went early to the club to get in free and brought beer for the band. After sound check things got slow so we all went to someone's house to smoke. Little did I suspect that in little-ol-Raleigh I was about to see my very first real-live crack pipe. I was fascinated by the scene. After someone did a hit on the crack, the other person would say "shotgun me" which meant, put your mouth up to mine and blow the smoke into my lungs. I declined a hit on the crack pipe but went for a bong hit. 2 guys started flirting with me when they found out I was from San Francisco, so I started talking about womens' bodies in loving terms until they recoiled in horror. One of them said, "I love women to death, honey, but I just don't like their body parts," and we all broke out laughing. Back at the club Sonar asked me to videotape her band but I was buzzing from beer and bud so I kept tilting the camera back and forth trying to get the proper "Batman" angle like the TV show used whenever they showed the bad guys. I hope they liked it. *************** Friday 10/23/92 Drove to Chapel Hill and walked around lost until a girl came up to us and asked us if we were lost. It turns out we were on the main avenue but in the wrong section. We talked with her for a while and she gave us her phone number and told us she was going dancing with friends that night. Her name was Lesley also. Then we visited a store called The Internationalist on 408 W. Rosemary St. with lots of zines and books. I called our crashee, the editor of *Ransom St. Magazine,* but found out he was in the hospital for leukemia treatments. I was sad when I found out and I hope he's feeling better. Not wanting to go back to Raleigh, we decided to meet Lesley at the Dance club and see if she or one of her friends would let us crash. The club was in Durham so we headed there and found 9th St. which had some nice shops. One record store was called Poindexter Records so I showed the manager my driver's license and talked him into giving me a free shirt, just because it was my last name. Our Lesley wanted to go back to Raleigh. I said No Way, I'm not passing up a chance to meet some cool new people just because there's some risk of not finding a place to crash. Deep down I knew someone would let us crash, but God forbid we face an unknown future for a few hours! Corny, huh? But I made my point. We met the other Lesley and 2 of her friends, Martin and Rich. As it turned out, Martin was a member of the Crash Network also! The rest of the night was spent dancing at The Power Station, the only dance club in Durham, or so the attitude of the door guy would have us believe. We danced until after 2:00 am and then Rich let us crash at his house since Martin had to get up early. ***************** Saturday 10/24/92 Went to breakfast and then a goodbye kiss with Lesley (from Chapel Hill) ended up being followed by a couple more kisses while we sat on the hood of Rodney (my car). I guess we liked each other more than we thought. I gave her my phone number of where we were staying in New Jersey since she was going to be in NYC visiting friends around the same time. We drove to Rockville, Maryland, which is right outside of Washington, DC. Since we didn't have the phone number of Amelia G., we drove right to her house, which she affectionately called "Cambodia." She and her husband Forrest answered the door after our knock. They were a bit wary of our video camera (which was filming), but after the initial shock, she remembered who we were and invited us in. Amelia G. is the editor of *Black Leather Times* and *Blue Blood* and she and Forrest are great people. We went to a party with them and got to meet a lot of the DC black leather crowd. I also got to check out a lot of sex and horror literature laying around Amelia's office. Fun! *************** Sunday 10/25/92 Went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum. But before that we saw the Lincoln Monument which elevates Abraham to Roman GOD status. This thing was big! Near it is the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. It is in the shape of a "V." In the 60's the "V" sign made with one's fingers meant "peace." Is there a correlation here? Anyway, I don't need to tell you there's plenty to see in DC, I mean, the whole city is a shrine to something. So I'll just say we saw as much as we could and then headed to New Jersey that night. **************************************** Monday 10/26/92 through Tuesday 11/10/92 Well, we stayed in New Jersey in my home town until Tuesday, November 10th, when we went to Boston, Massachusetts for 3 days. I'll keep my account of our stay here brief since a lot of it was family stuff that would only be interesting to me. Lesley left for NYC and took a flight back to San Francisco. My grandfather was away on a cruise so we "house-sat" in his home until our trip to Boston. His house is over 100 years old and inside was like an antique furniture museum. We soon figured out how to use the VCR and stereo and electric stair-chair which went up and down the stairs at about 10 feet per minute. We took a two day trip to see my sister, her husband, their new house, 2 cars, 2 dogs and my 2-1/2 month old niece in Betham, Connecticut. We went into NYC just about every day since all we had to do was drive to Hoboken, NJ, park for free and take the PATH subway train under the Hudson River into downtown Manhattan for $1.00. We saw the Guggenheim and Metropolitan museums, Central Park, the top of the World Trade Center and Soho. It cost $4.00 to take an elevator to the 107th floor observation deck at WTC, but one could stay as long as one wanted. We stayed until the sunset. The Guggenheim is a strange looking museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and inside was a great show featuring Russian art during the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. At night we ate at St. Marks Pizza and walked around the village. Most of the bars were expensive except for The Ale House on Barrow St. (near West 4th Street and 7th Ave.) where mugs of beer were $1.00 on Monday night, Sophies on 5th St. near Ave. A where dark and light beer is $1.00 per mug every night, and Phoebes on 3rd Ave. near CBGB's where one can get a pitcher of Bass Ale all night for $5.50. Lesley, the girl we met in North Carolina, came up and met us in NYC a few times with her friends she was staying with. She and I held each other and kissed a lot in museums and walking around "The Village." We met up with Mykel Board who lives in a great location in Manhattan near Broadway. We talked about his network (The World for Free) and mine. Hopefully, we can combine our resources in the near future. The parade on Halloween night had the air of a Mardi Gras festival. It was so crowded I was crushed. Lesley invited us to a party in Brooklyn but we had very little money. We stayed in Manhattan to see a $3.00 show at the Continental, but the bands were lame. Many artists live in Brooklyn because it's cheaper so I urge you to check it out when you visit New York City. Bojo and I bartended for my mother's birthday party. There were over 100 people in my parents' house so we were quite busy making drinks. The most popular was orange juice, cranberry juice, and Vodka on the rocks. I didn't remember a lot of people who seemed to know me. Towards the end of the party Bojo and I inhaled the helium from some balloons and sang "Happy Birthday" to my mother like a couple of chipmunks. A couple of guests seemed fascinated. It was CMJ (College Music Journal) week in NYC. When this event comes to town, every club suddenly charges 3 times what they do normally to see bands, and the bands are usually premier underground acts from all over the world. So we were drinking at Phoebe's one night cause we couldn't afford to get into CBGB's and we met 2 people from Massachusetts who were in NYC for CMJ. Christine and Todd went to college at Stonehill (near Boston) and she was General Manager at the radio station there. They invited us to visit them next week so...we did! **************** Tuesday 11/10/92 Arrived at Stonehill College and found out Christine lives in an all- girl wing of her dorm. So we set up sleeping bags in the lounge, surrounded by 5 bedrooms with 2 girls in each. Luckily, none of them were bothered by our presence. In fact, by the third day, some of them were walking by us to the bathroom, dressed in only a towel. We bought some Arctic Bay beer which was $7.00 for 12 bottles. At night we drove into Boston (about 25 minutes away) and tried to go dancing at Axis on Landsdowne St. But when we got there I guess the doormen took offense to our appearance because we waited outside for 40 minutes while they let in all their friends and any cute girls. Christine had to meet 2 friends inside so we waited until they let her in, and then Bojo and I headed next door to Bill's, a very cool bar where we got in for free, and met some people who weren't "too cool" to talk with us. We also found out we had just missed a band while we were waiting outside at the other club. Unfortunately, Bill's closes at 2:15 am so our night was cut short. ****************** Wednesday 11/11/92 The next day Christine told us one of her DJs was sick and asked if we'd like to do a 3 hour radio show! So we picked out all the gothic/dance/industrial we could find and did the "Hippi-Witch Hour." Every time we talked between songs I played the *The Exorcist* soundtrack in the background. Later, Christine bought us food at the cafeteria and we headed to Boston again. Newbury Street has the most shops and is a beautiful street with restored brownstones. Most of this city is a collage of old-meets-new architecture and it is strangely clean. The store to see on Newbury was Greenman Gargoyles, Grotesques, and Chimeras where there are miniature and full size replicas of gothic gargoyles from cathedrals. The store is dark and decorated sparsely with dead leaves. Over the speakers one might hear a monk choir or haunting piano music played by one of the store's owners. The miniature gargoyles start at $6.00 so I got one called a "house protector." There are also postcards and framed photos of stone gargoyles on Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris. The freedom trail is a red stripe painted on the sidewalk that starts at the Boston Commons and takes you through the city to many historical sights including the home of Paul Revere and the site of the Boston Tea Party. The home of Benjamin Franklin (one of my heroes) was nowhere to be found, even though it was marked on the map. I kept thinking that for a country founded on revolution, we tend to be a pretty docile crowd these days. Walking from the south end of Boston to the Italian sector on the other side of the city and back again wore us out, so we had some coffee at The Other Side, a new cafˇ on Newbury St. They had wheat grass shots to offer if one was brave enough. Back at Stonehill, we relaxed while drinking Boston's "home brew" Samuel Adams. Christine had been the ultimate tour guide. ***************** Thursday 11/12/92 Went into Boston one more time and walked around to our favorite spots and tried a slice of pizza with tortellini on it at Trio's, a restaurant in the North End, which is the Italian sector. If you go there, make sure you say hello to Louie -- Trio's friendly owner. Then we headed back to New Jersey, a 4 hour drive which goes through 5 states. *************** Friday 11/13/92 This Friday we had some bad luck, but it was a fun night in NYC anyway. We went to Wall St. to see all the strange people in 3-piece suits running around and stuffing hot-dogs into their faces. Then we walked from the World Trade Center through Soho to Greenwich Village. It seems in Soho that every other person is a tourist and all I can ask is, "Why Soho?" It's just an overly expensive neighborhood filled with trendy clothes stores and art galleries that show stagnant art work destined for the walls of corporate buildings. All the artists that lived there and made it a thriving community have moved out long ago because their rents went through the roof. (Many moved to Brooklyn.) So, anyway, we were supposed to go to Danceteria with my friend Sue and then crash at her place. But that fell through so we had a very indecisive period of bar hopping and wondering what to do. I called my friend Paul but he decided to stay in. Darren wasn't home when I called his NYC apartment. (I found out later he was in NJ looking for us.) I had also forgotten to bring the phone number of Dawn, the only other person I knew in NYC. So, over a pint of Guinness at Wally's, we settled on seeing *Dracula* at the same theatre that my friend Adam was seeing it and hook up with him afterwards. Well, when we got to the theatre at 11:30 every movie was sold out, even the 2:00 am show. (It was opening night.) So we decided to get some coffee and meet Adam after the movie. We stopped at a few places and finally got coffee at a cafe on Ave. A near 3rd St. where they had about 20 board games you could play. "Operation!" was taken, so we immersed ourselves in a game of checkers. We got so into it we lost all track of time. When I looked at my watch it was over an hour later, and we had just finished one game! It's a good thing we didn't play chess in that mindstate (slight depression mixed with a lot of beer and 2 cups of coffee). We had about 3 minutes till the end of the movie so we rushed back but I'm sure we were too late because we couldn't find him. So we just headed back to NJ. Friday the 13th indeed. ***************** Saturday 11/14/92 Didn't do much because we had to leave early Sunday for Ohio, the first stop on our express, 6 day drive back to San Francisco. Basically we worked on Rodney (the car) and I collected some brightly colored Autumn leaves for my flat-mate Shannon back in SF -- she wanted to use them in her art. Darren came over and we talked of our lack of plans in our lives at the moment. Neither of us had jobs or were even in a band. Neither of us knew where we wanted to live next or what to do with our lives. It was so sad. Then we smoked a bone that he had brought as a going away present and I for one got really plastered. *************** Sunday 11/15/92 I'm not going to keep a journal of the trip home. We had to get back to S.F. in 6 days so it was a lot of 12 hour drives and one night crashes. A few crashes were with people we had already stayed with. (We brought out-of-state beer to Norman, Oklahoma). We met a wonderful person in Columbus, Ohio, named Roberta Cable and we crashed with Eggboy and his girlfriend in Springfield, Missouri. And I had quite a mini-adventure with cops in Albuquerque which I talk about elsewhere in this issue. Altogether, the trip changed my life and maybe the lives of people we met. I hope others will be inspired by this travel tale to seek adventure and knowledge not only in the places they go, but also and more importantly, in the people they meet. ----- "The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land." -- G. K. Chesterton --------------- BEYOND ORDINARY by Miles Poindexter What kind of night is it? Clear and cold. SHE is beautiful, and our romance is only a day old. I am the stranger in HER world. But HER world is strange. It is late, maybe 2am. We are in HER room, discovering each other in the dim light of HER room lamp. Naked. An undiscovered landscape unveiled in the night. Ecstasy. Our bodies together in the midst of our own small journey. Suddenly, HER door bursts open. Anger pours forth into the scented air of HER room. A former lover vents HIS rage till HE is exhausted, then turns away, engulfed in anguish. I am unchanged, still entranced by HER, by our pleasure. But HE has told me I must leave. I dress, and go to HIM. I must explain HER independence to HIM, and the sacred ground of HER privacy that HE has trespassed on. The threats continue. Tribal wars and machismo whirl in HIS mind. I stand undaunted. HE summons the lords of order of modern civilization. HE calls the police. In their presence, I explain the simple violation of HER rights. HE begs to have HIS male ego gratified. Something is amiss. The blue men are slaves of the law but...they are men. SHE is called forth and attacked indirectly, slyly, by the officers. "You have the right to bring 10 guys in here a night if you want, but think of HIS feelings here..." "Pretty soon you'll have to grow up, young lady." "We don't know what HE might do to your new lover if HE gets enraged enough..." "Slut, whore, bitch" oozes forth from each officer in the testosterone silence. One cop unlatches HIS gun after HER dog, sensing the verbal attack on its master, growls at HIM. The situation becomes surreal. "Don't worry about me, officer," I say. "Why don't you just tell HIM HER rights?" "You shut up or we'll drag you to jail and make you shut up." I am the filthy outsider, who sees through this thinly veiled reign of terror against HER. I see their ridiculous fear of women, so strong that they must band together now to verbally beat HER into submission. I am the traitor to my kind. "If we have to come back again, someone here is going to jail," both officers say, staring at HER. SHE and I soon leave and walk towards a friend's house. "What if HE had a girl over, and you burst in, and told HER to get the fuck out in a jealous rage, and then called these same 2 cops at 2am in the morning?" I ask, shaking from the cold night. "What if?" SHE says, knowing HER answer. ---------------------- VAGABOND GLOBETROTTING by M.L. Endicott Travel is experience. It has traditionally been considered the ultimate education. Travel will not only teach you about the world, but about yourself as well. It is also the ultimate sport. Travel includes every possibility of life, and tests every faculty. It is both work and play. Life is a trip, from birth to death. We come from all, develop an individual identity, and return to all. The first part of life is concerned with self discovery, and the second part with self transcendence. The quantity and quality of experience afforded by travel surpasses imagination. It is intensified living, at times even approaching the ecstatic. The travel experience is a metaphor for this trip through life. Travel is not tourism; travel is the alternative to tourism. Tourism is industrialized travel, in fact the world's second largest industry. It is a legacy of both imperialism and industrial revolution. As the era of colonialism wanes, so too will the industrial-age give way to the information-age. In turn, tourism will cease to be an assembly line activity, geared toward generating a profit at the expense of the Earth, and become an information intensive activity, enhancing the leap toward global consciousness. The distinction between tourism and travel is not a new one. Technically, both are tourism and both are travel. Practically, tourism is a consumer activity, whereas travel is a do-it-yourself approach. Where tourism is wasteful, travel is energy efficient. Tourism too often reinforces the status quo; in addition to international frontiers, travel transcends social classes, or socio- economic strata. Tourists vacation, take a ritualized break in routine; travelers take a holiday, meaning literally "holy day," a celebration of the sacred, the unity of all. While tourists seek gratification, travelers may find both positive and negative experiences equally enlightening. Tourists clamor to arrive at some destination; travelers appreciate the journey as much as the destination. Tourists surround themselves with a cultural bubble; travelers attempt to experience local life as a native. Tourists travel to find their expectations; travelers hope to return with new insights. Tourists seek status and elitism, to live better than they do at home; travelers seek humility and serendipity. Tourists count new countries; travelers count new friends. Many cultures have ritualized the transitions to self-actualization and self- transcendence in the form of initiation or rite-of-passage. Such rituals commonly consist of three phases: severance, threshold, and return. The severance of travel is often symbolic of death. (Hence the significance of the going-away party in our culture.) The self-testing aspect of threshold experience mediates between innocence and wisdom. The return embodies a new, re-created person, born again. Native North Americans institutionalized the vision quest as a rite- of-passage for initiating youngsters into adulthood, or coming-of-age. Australian Aborigines developed the practice of walkabout for much the same reason. The wander jahr and grand tour were similar experiences for Europeans of different classes in previous centuries. Such experiences were a form of self-testing, trials of strength or endurance. In Moslem cultures, the haji pilgrimage to Mecca serves as a rite-of-passage for those on the path returning to the transpersonal. Whether contemporary vision quest or walkabout, wander jahr or global grand tour, the New Age haji, the 24,902 mile around-the-world mandala is a modern expression of the archetypal theme of the hero's quest, familiar in legend, myth, and dream. -- Excerpted from the 176-page how-to book, VAGABOND GLOBETROTTING: STATE OF THE ART (Cullowhee, North Carolina, USA: Enchiridion International, 1989), copies of which are available for US$8.95 each, postpaid, from him at P.O. Box 837, Saint Simons Island, Georgia 31522-0437 USA. ----- "Travel, exotic experiences in foreign places, the sting of being and living in an alien culture, and religious experiences are today's ways by which the young find their identity." -- Ronald Sandison, M.D. (in *Albert Hofmann Foundation Bulletin,* Winter 1991) ---------------------- JOIN THE CRASH NETWORK! Crasher: person who is traveling, guest. Crashee: person who is allowing Crasher to sleep at residence, host/hostess. Joining is free! Send email to johnl@netcom.com for a questionnaire (or send us an SASE to our mailing address, listed at the end of this file). Filling it out and returning it gets you listed in our Crash Directory, which is available only to members. Anytime you're planning to travel, send $5 for an up-to-the-minute directory and follow the guidelines below. ************* HOW TO USE IT You can use the Crash Directory to contact other members that you would like to meet. Or if you have a destination or journey in mind, you can use the directory to find potential crash sites along your planned route (flexibility helps). Before your departure, contact your potential crashee by mail, phone, or email and inquire about a visit. When all your crashes are confirmed, you're ready to hit the proverbial road. ************** THE CRASH CODE 1. Any Crashee can turn away a Crasher if they do not agree to the Crash by prior consent. 2. No charge for stay unless agreed upon by both parties beforehand. 3. Toilet and shower facilities should be made available to Crasher if possible. 4. Don't eat Crashee's food unless offered. 5. Don't use the Crashee's phone, stereo, TV or any other property without their consent. 6. No stealing. 7. Don't bring friends over without the prior consent of the Crashee. 8. Treat each other with respect. 9. Help each other in every way possible during Crashes. 10. Crasher must obey rules of Crash Pad unless they contradict above rules. ----------------- CRASH INFORMATION Editors: Miles Poindexter, John Labovitz. Crash is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November of each year. Subscriptions are $5 for six issues. A sample issue is $1 or three US 29c stamps. Back issues (text only) are available via anonymous FTP at netcom.com in directory /pub/johnl/zines/crash. The printed issues also contain illustrations and advertising; for the full Crash experience, send for a printed sample. Crash is happy to hear from you. Send artwork, articles, and aardvarks to us at: Crash 519 Castro Street #7 San Francisco, CA 94114 USA email: johnl@netcom.com If you are interested in advertising in the print or electronic version of Crash, please contact us for rates and sizes. Copyright (C) 1993 Crash. We encourage other zine editors to reprint or excerpt parts of any articles written by us (Miles Poindexter or John Labovitz). All we ask is that information about this magazine and the network be included with it. If you wish to reprint something by an outside contributor, please contact them beforehand (either by their contact information listed after the article, or c/o Crash). ------------------ END OF CRASH JAN93