Williston Update: Heading Out

Dew is water to see,
Not water to drink:
We have forgotten water to drink.         
Yet I am content
Just to see sunrise again.
                                      -- Wallace Stevens, "Three Travelers Watch a Sunrise"

Image from The History Channel

The difference between traveling and going on vacation is the level of planning. The difference between being a tourist and being a traveller is the ability to roll with last minute changes and to think on your feet.

The bus to Chi-town pulls out of Louisville at 11:50pm tonight -- if the schedule holds. I'm in the process of completing last minute preparations.

A load of laundry.

Packing minimal provisions like trail mix and a few fresh apples.

Getting a new journal ready. Tying up the Cincinnati Day Book.

Trying to get some paperwork for a new gig tied up.

Keeping myself present, but remembering that life happens in all three tenses simultaneously: past, present, future.

There are still poems in the Cincinnati Day book that need to be typed. Some of them made into this blog. I'm planning on turning them into a chapbook once I get back from Williston. There are also plans for a limited, hand-made archival quality volume combining The Crossing of St. Frank, Whitman By Moonlight, and End Notes to the Deep Atlas of Time.

I'm looking for some freelance work and hoping to get some classes. I'm even looking at going back to school.

Right now, though, I have this trip. I'm looking forward to being on the move, and I'm hopeful that this trip to Williston will be fruitful.

And thanks to fellow writer, blogger, and highbrow/lowbrow culture devotee Misty Skaggs, I have learned that Larry the Cable Guy has decided to descend on Williston with his television crew, some brew, and truckloads of pork rinds to work on his latest project. In short, I'm now competing with a guy who got rich wearing sleeveless flannel and making jokes about the merits of incest.

It's a crazy, cruel world, Dear Readers.

I suspect we have divergent enough focuses that we probably won't cross paths. I also suspect that The Travel Channel security team and his entourage of faux-rednecks will create enough of a barrier that he won't interfere with my plans to find the kind of stories that don't make it onto NPR or The Travel Channel, or the pro-business scribblings Bloomberg.com

But we will see, Dear Readers. We will see. Stay tuned. Consider a small donation to the travel fund, and I'll mention you by name in the blog. Also, I'll send you a signed copy of Excerpts From The Cincinnati Daybook when it's ready.  

And I'll love you forever.

If that's not too creepy.

Gawd Bless!

Story Gathering Project 1 - Williston: Update 7/6/13

It's three days until I leave for Chicago to catch the train. True to form, I'm getting all the last minute details lined up... the ones I can get lined up at any rate... and making sure my pack is together.

The fine art of traveling cheap rests almost entirely upon contingencies and preparedness. You take certain parameters into account and move from there. On this trip out I'm taking the new rucksack, the blue guitar, and a sleeping bag. It's all light weight, all easy to combine and carry. It's summer, but I'm packing in case an impromptu chill descends. My boots are solid. I've got a poncho-bivy (it can work as a simple shelter as well as be worn as a poncho.) I'm taking some trail mix, a few apples, and a bottle of water. I'll have a little.. very little... cash to play with. 

I'm also taking a digital recorder, leftover from my days as a small town muckraker, and enough technology to be able to blog and send out updates to you, Dear Readers, and to those loved ones who would prefer that I return safe and sound.

There are other parameters to consider; in this case, the story-gathering project. I'm giving myself a short amount of time in Williston -- 9 days. I was hoping to give myself more leeway, on the long and short end, but finances dictated the mode and methodology of travel. I opted for a multi-city train ticket because it provided the most flexibility for what I could afford. And while this particular jaunt has some built-in reasons behind it... partially my curiosity and love of an interesting story, partially because after the winter I need to stretch my legs a bit. 

But I'm not much of an over-planner. It's important to be flexible when you travel, and go where the winds sometimes send you. Too much over planning and over scheduling and traveling runs the risk of turning into something else entirely... like a vacation. Ye gods. How is it that people -- who over schedule themselves and their kids to begin with -- decide to take a break from it all by packing up and going to some other geographical location, where they proceed to OVER PLAN AND OVER SCHEDULE every minute of their time there? By the time they get home, they're exhausted, just in time to go back to work where they can relax and reintegrate into the humdrum routine they wanted to escape in the first place.

There are some variables I won't be able to take into account until I there. Weather is the primary consideration. It's probably not going to snow, but there's been a lot of rain rolling around this year. I'm hoping to camp a bit while I'm out... particularly when I get to East Glacier Park, Montana. I want to spend a few days there, close to nature and in as much solitude as I can stand. 

Story Gathering Project 1, Williston: Plans and Updates

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it. - Camus

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.

- Robert Louis Stevenson 

I'm heading to Chicago to catch the train a week from today (Monday 7/1/13). I'll be taking the Empire Builder from Chicago to Rugby, North Dakota -- the ascribed center of North America. After a day there, I'll catch the train (again, the Empire Builder) to Williston.

I'm still working on accommodations in Rugby... hoping to camp, actually, if the weather isn't too oppositional. I don't worry too much about one night here or there, but I AM hoping to be out of the elements somewhat when I'm in Williston. The money I put away towards this trip has gone towards transportation costs and a newer, sturdier pack. (My old one, of dubious Chinese manufacture, barely survived last year. My new blue ruck is tougher, and American-made.) Since the Kickstarter campaign didn't quite work out, I'm having to piece together my shelter. For now, I've got two nights at one of the several motels in Williston... that's Thursday the 11th and Friday night the 12th. After that, I'm hoping something else will turn up.

Because of the influx of people looking for work in the tar sands... not to mention that pesky business about Wal-Mart effectively booting a primary customer base and demonstrating yet again it's poor people skills... there is no place that allows for tent camping in Williston, except for one place: the Buffalo Trails Campground. Having looked them up again as recently as today, it seems there's new management. That's a good thing if any of the previous reviews are at all accurate. Stay tuned for more on that one, Dear Readers.

I'm picking up on a few things in my early research about Williston, one point being so stereotypically American that I expect to see a flock of John Waynes moseying down the street. There are several motels. All of them have a bar. All of them have a casino. I haven't seen any indications of where Miss Peggy's House of Massage and Tea Room are located, but I expect there's some of that, too.

Or maybe that's one town over. I have also read that rent is getting so high in Williston that many workers are living in towns around for cheaper rents. This might account for some of the discrepancies in the population count. The 2010 census came up with a population of 14,716 -- an increase of around 2000 people since the 2000 census. But the fellas on the City Commission estimate a higher population count of at least 20,000. Maybe up near 30,000. The reason for the differential?

The 2010 census didn't count people living in Williston for work. 

In addition to fracking and oil wells, agriculture is still listed as part of the area's primary economy. I suspect that the bigger chunk of all that goes to service industries, though. Companies like Halliburton, which provides the fracking technology used by most of the oil companies represented in Williston Basin and the Bakken Formation.

You remember Halliburton, right? Darth Cheney's old outfit? The one that also gets fat government contracts?

As a matter of fact, Halliburton has a corporate offices in Williston.

I expect that getting there on a weekend will prime time for people watching and interaction. I'm hoping to spend enough time there to see what the real story is... the narrative that has yet to be told. There's something fundamentally... AMERICAN in the idea of a boomtown. It's tied into our history, into our mythology, into our sense of who we are. It's tied to our culturally constructed definitions of Democracy and Capitalism. (Still NOT the same thing, no matter what some far right wingers say.)  You read enough about boom towns and American History and you notice a couple of things:

1. It's never neat and tidy; there's a lot of violence, a lot of loss.
2. There's also success. But we tend to hear more about the successes and not the problems. Because the problems aren't simple, and because they are tied to more than just people making money. The problems are tied to power, to authority, and to the mythology of the American Dream... that old idea that if you just work hard enough, that you will succeed. 

P.S.: It's also tied to that old Objectivist (aka Ayn Randian) Dream: that the only rule that matters is Social Darwinism.

In order to save some money, in order to reduce the amount of time I'll have to kill between stops in Chi-town, I am taking a Greyhound Bus from River City to Chicago.  I only took Greyhound because it was actually cheaper than Megabus... though not by much. The Old Grey Dog, inspite of it's attempts to modernize with free wifi on SOME busses and electric outlets on SOME busses that work SOME of the time, is still missing some fundamentals of customer service.

For example, while Amtrak and Megabus BOTH have very functional and free iphone apps, Greyhound does not. This, in combination with scrapping the Discovery Pass, is one more nail in their coffin, as far as I'm concerned. 

Being concerned as I am and being a frequent traveller, I thought I'd given them the heads up. Rather than try and find some contact point in their corporate office... which is difficult to do... I decided to be that it would be best to contact them the way everyone communicates now:

via FACEBOOK.

I sent a short, polite message last night. And this morning, I actually got a message back. If you are a long time reader, you know HOW SIGNIFICANT THIS IS: 

Don't worry, AC. I will. You keep on bein' you.

Losantiville Lines: Moth StorySlam, Williston, and Current Events

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. -- Hannah Arendt

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson 

(Image by Amanda L. Hay)

1. Grand Slam

Getting up on stage reminded me of how much I have missed it.

The Moth StorySlam is where The Moth Podcast gets it's audio from; the podcasts tend to focus on the coasts, particularly New York, and they tend to air stories from well-known folks. In order to be considered for the grab bag, however, I had to sign a release giving them permission to record audio and video -- in the event the producers end up using my 5 minutes on the regular podcast.

StorySlams happen all over the country. In Louisville, it happens on the last Tuesday of the month at Headliner's Music Hall. I'd listened to the podcasts, but had never been to a live event. When I signed up to perform, I had no idea if I would be able to: not because of nerves so much as the nature of the event. I can stand up and read poems and tell stories for a long time. My problem with stories is generally that they tend on the long side. (I'm working on the craft a bit to get better. It's surprisingly difficult for someone who's longwinded.)

After putting my name in, I sat down with Amanda, had a cocktail, and waited. There are only 10 slots for storytellers, and you don't know if you're getting on stage until they pull another name out of the bag.

I tried not to get nervous. I'd thought about the story I was going to tell, and had practiced a bit. The topic for the night was "Fathers." I had decided, rather than talk about my own father -- the personage of whom, like my paternal grandfather, has fallen somewhat into the category of myth -- that I would talk about my own experience as a father. I chose a story that I thought reflected some of my own foibles and frustrations and experience as a father. But even after practicing, I was well above the prescribed 5 minute limit.

I drank a few bourbon and cokes, stayed calm, and half listened 11 stories. I enjoyed them for various reasons. Some did better than others about staying in the time limit; but I noticed that some of the slower moving ones made similar mistakes to the ones I usually make. By the end of the night, I didn't expect to step on stage.

And then they called my name.

The good news about a venue like that is that the stage lights are so bright, it's impossible to tell if people are making faces, not listening, or becoming horrified by your performance. Except for the times they laughed -- at points where I was hoping I'd be funny -- I really had no sense there was anything there. I'm generally used to more intimate performance spaces; I can usually see the people in the audience. But even that can be stressful, particularly with my still burgeoning musical exploits. And in this case, not being able to see the audience was more of a help than a hinderance... it helped moderate my nerves.

I didn't win the slam -- that went to Jim Call, who told a tear jerker about camping with his dad. But that's hardly the point. I was able to put a story together, make people laugh, talk about my daughter (which I love to do) and manage all of that within 5 minutes.

Not too shabby, Dear Readers. Not too shabby at all.

In the event that my story actually makes onto the podcast, you better believe I will mention it to you. Check out the podcast anyway. It's worth it.

image from therubygroup.com

2. The Re:Visionary Story Gathering Project 1: Williston 

Even though the Kickstarter funding didn't come through, the project goes on. I have my upgraded pack and a multi-city train ticket that will take me from Chicago (that leg will be completed on   a good ol' Greyhound Bus... in spite of their shabby treatment, I still return to them in desperate times.) to Rugby, North Dakota for a brief (one night) stop. Then I'll hop back on the train and go to Williston, where I hope to find some interesting stories about what it's like to live in a boomtown.

Why Rugby, you ask? Rugby happens to be the geographic center of North America -- or so ascribed.

After 9 days in Williston, I'm headed further west to East Glacier Park, Montana, where I plan on camping out for a few days, somewhere in the Glacier National Park. Then I'm back on the train, headed east, via Minneapolis.

From there, I'll wander back to Kentucky one way or another.

This is a trip of a different sort from last year, and with a different purpose. One of the things I found when I was out last year was that there are still plenty of stories to tell, and more that are never heard, simply because no one is listening. I'm a sucker for a good story, and a hound when it comes to digging them up. Williston is fascinating -- not only because of the tar sands boom, but because of the narrative that's built up around our need for natural resources. "Drill, baby, Drill!" (which is either a demand for more oil wells or Sarah Palin's mating call) versus "Recycle, Reuse, Renew!" is all anyone ever really hears. Poor, poor oil companies that'll fall off the Forbes Most Wanted List without reaching into the very core of the earth. Fracking -- the the primary operation in Williston -- is by many accounts an environmental disaster. But it also means jobs. High paying ones. And one of the voices that has always been suspiciously absent in the narrative between those who would squeeze the planet dry and those who would squeeze the oil companies dry are the people who need the work, and those who have more of a first hand perspective, like the residents of Williston. Those are the stories I'm interested in.

If you'd like to hear these stories too, please consider a donation to the Travel Fund. I'm still short of funds for shelter, and Williston, because of the boom, has extremely limited areas where tent camping is allowed... and virtually no resources for the weary wanderer. Thanks, and Gawd Bless.

image from fineartamerica.com

3. Current Events

It would be remiss of me to not mention the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and the assault on Miranda Rights that came down from the High Court in it's most recent session. It would also be completely thick-headed of me to not discuss the impact of the court's ruling on DOMA. So here's the short of it --

Gutting the Voting Rights Act was nothing more than the next step towards what is a dangerous trend in Nationalism. Don't think Hitler. Think Franco. This isn't about world conquest because the world is already conquered by those corporate interests that own most of what we hear, and all of our politicians... not to mention the food we eat and soon, the water we drink. The world has been cut up by them into a map that most of us have never seen. Governments are conduits for making sure money moves around to all the Right People. And in case you're wondering, it's probably not You. And it's not all those Nasty Poor People who are blamed for everything. And it's not anyone you probably know or see on the street. These people don't shop at the same places we do. They don't eat at the same restaurants we do. And while we think we know their names, we only know a few. And as long as their coffers are full, what happens to the rest of us is statistically irrelevant to them.

Ruling that suspects DO NOT have the right to remain silent means that if you are arrested, you are required to assist in your own prosecution. That's the long and short of it. And if you think it won't apply to you, you're probably one of those who isn't bothered by PRISM. Then again, you probably weren't bothered by the Patriot Act, the NDAA, or the fact that Google and Facebook have been gathering information on their users for YEARS. It's called MARKETING people. Except now instead of selling us Russian Brides and fashion underwear, they're selling us on the sure safety of a Police State.

DOMA: All the ruling says is that states can no longer hide behind Federal Law in condoning bigotry. Now they can hide behind self-loathing, hatred, and people's quaint notions of who (or what) they think god is. This good for State's Rights people (read: Confederate Sympathizers) and a potential good thing for LGBTs who want to get married. Yes, married partners, regardless of gender will have access to the Federal Benefits of marriage. And not to minimize the potential impact, but the fact is there still a bunch of stuffy guys in power out there with fears of forced sodomy... and enough ego to believe that gay men actually want to fuck them.

On Whistleblowers: I'm still not sure whether I think Snowden is a hero, or whether I think I'm being distracted (like the IRS and Bhengazi "scandals.") from some other story of greater importance. It does seem oddly timed, given the narrative of NSA wiretapping, and news that China has been cyber-warring against us. But whether the narrative is meant to silence would be whistle-blowers or to distract the info-meme ingesting public from more pertinent goings on, it's still interesting to note that a few other whistleblowers and truth tellers have mysteriously died over the past year. In this climate, I give Snowden 6 months before he winds up dead from a mysterious strain of typhoid or in a convenient plane crash, or as collateral damage in a South American Civil War (funded by the CIA, naturally, who helped bring South America so many little coups and ruthless dictators.)

THANKS FOR READING. GAWD BLESS.