The Wild West Show

Hello everybody,
Greetings from one of my favorite towns in the union, Flagstaf, Arizona. Its sits on the old Route 66 and in a different era, yet embaraces the new. You can eat at a resaurant that's been there since 1960 and hear some guy out on the sidewalk singing a whiskey soaked cover of a modern song. Its a place that is either just fine with contradiction, or has the cosmic awareness that there are no contradictions...none, whatsoever. It may be the old west, hell, its even Arizona, but you can be what you want to be out here, the old cowboys don't mind, although they may shake their heads a little. Its beautiful out here, and the skies are big. There is room for everything.

From LA I went to Denver via a very cold night outside in Grand Junction, CO (I DON'T reccomend doing that). I rolled through the Rockies in the pre-dawn and the snow was falling and it became real clear real quick another year was ending soon. Time fooled me once again.

Denver was bright and sunny, though, even a little warm. Pleasant, one would say. My friend from California, Kelly, told me I should hang out with her brother, Brett, here so I called him and he was waiting for me at the station. Brett's a great guy. We hit it off and laughed and reveled in conspiracy theories and after a while they didn't seem so conspiratorial anymore. Along those same lines, Brett and I could be said to live on far ends of the political spectrum, but after spending a day and a night talking, guess what, we're weren't so far apart at all. Granted Brett stockpiles food, and owns a few guns, but wiping any Red and Blue political shading away, we want the same things. We want to live free, be able to pursue work we love and, hmm...be who we want to be.

From Denver, I double backed up to Boise, Idaho, because I want to be able to tell people that, "Oh, Boise, yeah, I've been there, nice town." And it was a nice town. Almost perfect. Profoundly American. People smiled, the streets were clean, none of the darker elements of Urbanity, yet I had this little feeling that I was walking around in a computer program, or, to be more dramatic, a transmition was about to run through the small city and signal all the so called human beings to rip off their flesh disguises and reveal themselves as robots and the real revolution would begin. Luckily, my bus was scheduled to leave, and I was saved.

Speaking of revolution, the Occupy movement is all over the country. I'm sure you know that, but I have to tell you to SEE it in many of the cities and even towns (go Ft. Collins, Wyoming!) is truly an impressive thing. MANY people, hell, damn near everybody does not like the way the country is going. Much of the people are having a hard time paying the bills as bills are getting higher and higher. There are tent cities in every large city I've been through and many of the smaller ones. There are homeless people roaming the country. More so, the country that is being shown to us in the media is not the country I have seen at all. The only people that have the time to really be a Republican or a Democrat are the people with a little money in the bank...them and the news people telling us that its a big deal. Most of the people I've met on the road are simply Americans, and there's not a lot of difference, or if there is, most are willing to live with the differences, but our gov't and news empire will tell you that they are profound differences and must be reckoned with, one must WIN over the other. THis is a REALLY big country, there is enough room for all types. There's definitly room for more voters, how can we have a mojority if only 45% of us vote. There's definitly more room for more parties running for election, which would really confuse the lobbyists, they only have two eyes, they can only handle two parties...they'd get real dizzy if all of us used our voice.

The people protesting are bearded and a little grungy. They are also in suits and clean shaven. They are also veterans. They are of all ethnicities. They don't look like democrats or republicans. They look like us.

Didn't mean to get all up into social strife in the post, but, well, we are in a time of social strife. Take care and take a look at the person next to you, they look a lot like you...

Todd