Van Halen marathon while driving through the swamp on I-10! God I Love me some Van WAILIN!
I find it disconcerting that we can drive halfway across the country and still hear all the same music. I remember when I was a kid, my parents taking my brother and I on cross-country road trips with us both plugged into our Sony Walkmen (I had a black one with MEGABASS and George had a yellow “sports” model) – how good it was to get back to the East coast where the music was familiar, and then a couple of weeks or even months later, music that we’d heard out in Chicago or California finally making its way onto Q107 or WAVA or whatever.
Now the stations are homogenous and a pop station is a pop station is a pop station and I’ve heard the same Justin Timberlake song, the same Beyonce song, the same Nickelback song about a thousand times from state to state to state. As the speed limits get higher and the trees get sparser and as the roadkill shifts species I’m disappointed that I’m not hearing anything new.
Last night we played Hammond, Louisiana – the Green Bean Coffee Bar was big and had a stage and had great cheesecake and it was across the street from a COLLEGE and… had NO native population. Absolutely dead. We caught a couple of people, but when the crowd’s that small you’re never sure if they’re stopping because they’re interested or stopping because they feel sorry for you.
At the moment we’re about an hour and a half out of Houston avoiding trucks and hurtling SUVs wondering at the fact that going 80 we’re still being passed like we’re standing still. We stopped in at a big gas station plaza thingie a couple of minutes ago and I was listening to the women at the next table talk. They were calling friends assuring them they were okay – they’d just witnessed some massive accident and this one blonde just kept coming back to a minivan and the mangled children she’d seen. I think she was saying something like “two whole families” but I didn’t want to lean in TOO obtrusively. It’s frightening what we can do with our little hurtling metal boxes.
The sun is beating down harder and when we next reorganize the car we’ve got to push the coats and fluffy pajama pants to the bottom. We probably won’t need them for the next couple of weeks. Not until northern California , probably. I’m still nervous about our time out there, as I keep hearing horror stories about frost-bite in April and I don’t want to encounter that first hand. Heather and I sleep pretty close, but I need to ship me in a woman to keep me PROPERLY warmed.
Volunteers? Get your plane tickets, we’ll meet you at the airport. Bring your own bungee cords. (you don’t think there’s space for you INSIDE the car, do you?!!?)
