Where I'm at.

Hey y’all. Sorry to have been so long away from posting. I’m in Shannon County, SD, and I’ve been super duper busy getting to know the place and finding my bearings.

Today, though, is definitely one of those days where this whole thing feels to big for me, and I need a break. I’m checking out for the night. Gonna do a little reading, watch a little TV, dick around a little on the internets, and then sleep a lot.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have the time to be back with some more welcome signs and a few other photos—I’ve taken some great ones—an audiopost, and some writing about a mass grave I visited from the Wounded Knee massacre.

We had Texas barbecue in honor of my present location at Blue Smoke, where the mac and cheese was especially terrific. This is me greedily stealing the fellowship check from Colleen’s miserly clutches:

I had to knock her down and she cried.

It occurred to me that it was a little strange to travel all the way from Texas to New York to… have barbecue… but the spirit of the dinner was, of course, perfect. Everyone involved in Delaying the Real World was truly impressive and fascinating and fun.

I think I put it best when it turned out that Colleen and I have a mutual friend we didn’t know about, and she said that she had run into all kinds of similar coincidences putting the book and the fellowship together. “Why does that always seem to happen?” she asked.

To which I replied, “Well, it’s a small world of awesome people.”

So what am I doing now?

Oh! And another thing! On my red-eye out here I learned that on JetBlue a pillow and blanket now cost $7.00!

Now I know gas prices are hitting the airline industry hard (not to mention, say, the ranchers I met in Texas, who have to drive 40 minutes to the nearest grocery store). But come on!

What’s next?! “To receive your oxygen mask, please swipe card as indicated by the safety information card in the seat-back pocket in front of you”?!

That is all.

For food. Not just movies!

This is the stuff of childhood fantasy for a kid who grew up in the East Bay. Clearly my own cultural ignorance, but I really didn’t know they were around anymore. I’ve been passing them for about two weeks now–since Kentucky, maybe, or Arkansas?–but it didn’t occur to me to stop at one until tonight.

You order through your window and then eat right there. In your car. To save you the trouble of going in, I guess.

I’m giddy!

(I hope fuel conservation doesn’t put them all out of business. I bet they’re hurting right now as folks drive less to save gas, and money.)

But this thought occurred to me.

A lot of people have asked me what questions I ask people to draw out the kind of material that’s useful for the play I’m writing… and come to think of it, what kind of material is useful for the play I’m writing? What kind of play are you writing anyway, Josh?

Now, I have a pretty good list of common questions that I adapt and augment for each individual interview, and I can generally get some pretty great character revealing moments and political information out of interviews that last, on average, about an hour and a half. (I’ll put those interview questions up here somewhere soon.) But I’m not omniscient about this thing. I have a really close view of what I’m doing, which can make it hard to see the big picture. And I have blind spots that are just my own darn blind spots.

So this is the thought that I had:

What would you want to know if you were me? What would you ask?

I would be fascinated to know what (if anything) compels you about this project, and what would make the most interesting interviews to you.

No question is too stupid. Ask it!

August 9, 2008

I usually start with local officials—first because the obviously have a unique perspective on local politics, and second because they almost always have a few more names of folks in the community I should talk to who have their fingers on the local pulse in different ways. (Think of that cranky old grouch who attends every city council meeting just to complain, or the family whose relatives have been here since the place was founded, etc.) If I can talk to those folks, I often get more names from them, and so on and so forth, and use the information I’ve gotten from the interviews up to that point to figure out what my current blind spots are—what aspects of community life I’m NOT going to be able to get from these interviews—and then attack those head-on.

Every county has been a little different in that regard, and it’s been interesting to get a feel for places by their subtle, invisible, social contours—who does and doesn’t know *this* person I talked to, who agrees with whom about what, who has all of the gossip? Those textures are easier to feel in small places, which have been the Red counties, so far. (Shannon County, SD is Bluest second only to Washington, DC, so it’ll be interesting to go there next week.) I’ll admit I’ve been completely flummoxed by the monstrously complicated, hulking, social and civil infrastructures of big cities like DC and The Bronx (which is a borough, not a city, yeah, yeah, I know…).

It was dark when I got here, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the place looks like by day. I share my name with a neighboring county, so that can only bode well, right?

A good sign.

 Anyway, bed now.

I should collect these, apparently.

This one received for flagrantly exceeding the posted 70 mph speed limit on the interstate by a breakneck… 5 mph.

The patrolman was extremely kind (this is neither here nor there, but he was the only black person I’ve met so far in the state) and asked if I knew the speed limits was 70. I did, but thought I was going only 72 or 73. Well, he had clocked me at 75. I apologized.

He detected my lack of Texan twang and asked where I was going to.

“Perryton.” (He was surprised.) Where was I coming from?

“Garden City.” (He was more surprised.)

What was I doing?

“Collecting interviews for some research I’m doing.” (He stopped asking questions at this point. I’m can’t imagine why.)

He was going to have to give me a warning. Truthfully, I think he spotted my Virginia plates and they, along with my northward direction, gave him enough reason to suspect that I might be using an out-of-state vehicle to transport contraband or people across the border, which is an issue around here. I wish he’d stuck around long enough before running my license for me to tell him the full story.

Let me tell you, you’d be well advised not to try getting away with anything in these parts. You won’t.

40 days.
3,727 miles.
5 counties.
41 interviews.

29 days and 4 counties to go.

Seriously.

Courtesy of one of the sweetest, slightest, most well-read women I have ever met. She was, needless to say, very proud of them.

Our interview was terrific. She and her son welcomed me into their living room, and she made herself cozy with her back against the arm of the couch, her socks on, her legs up, and an ashtray in her lap, and we talked for about two hours. She’s somewhat politically unusual for the county, and she seemed just animated to talk about what she thought without being given the brush-off.

Afterward, I got to meet the 30-some-odd cats she takes care of in her backyard. There were ancient, haggard, scrappy cats and lithe, elegant cats, and wittle bitty, cotton-ball-looking kittens, and they were all great.

The cockroach doesn’t seem all that strange (I’m on a budget, after all), but it’s weird that it’s mostly dead and wasn’t there this morning.

And then, just next to the toilet I see what looks at first like a small grasshopper but is actually a translucent-brown, very tiny, scorpion, only half an inch big.

Sorry I didn’t think to take a photo. It was just a big wad of toilet paper, a quick smush, and into the toilet.

That’s Texas for ya, I guess. 

I’ll have to be extra careful walking barefoot around the room, I suppose.

Oh, and about half a minute after I stopped on the shoulder to take
that last photo, a very kind Arkansas police officer pulled over to
ask me if I needed help, and gave me this.

I had no idea I’d be passing through here until I saw this sign. Of course, the topic of my exploration being politics in these counties and the people who live there rather than specific momentary politics, I’m not asking any questions about individual politicians in my interviews–although I’ll bet you can guess two or three name that have come up a lot. Still, this unexpected surprise feels pretty serendipitous. I think I’ll stop at his childhood home while I’m here.

Next stop Memphis!

In case you weren’t quite sure…

A welcome break from fast food!

At a rest stop In Indiana now… uh, resting. All the inns in Louisville were full thanks to a big hot rod show I didn’t know about, and alas, it was too dark to photograph the sign! I’ll get it tomorrow on my way back into Kentucky.