good vs. evil – Loopcircus

CHAPTER 23: The Forks take a few days detour South to San Diego, then across the border to Ensenada before the next round of focus group interviews in Las Vegas.

“La Holla?” Buck Wellstone mispronounced the words.

“No… say it like this,” said Jack. “La HOY-uh… it’s based on a Spanish phrase la joya, which means ‘the jewel’. This might, of course, be fake news as another Spanish term, la hoya, refers to a geographic hollow. Or… ‘the holes,’” Jack burst into a juvenile fit of laughter, then composing himself after wiping away tears and blowing his nose. “Sorry, i get a kick out of the way people tend to jazz up the mundane. I mean, the neighborhood around UC San Diego is straight-up gorgeous…pristine beaches, perfect weather, marine life out the wazoo…but it’s really nothing more than a neighborhood of San Diego. Some refer to La Jolla as a State of Mind. And no one really knows why anyone would literally call it ‘the holes,’ perhaps they’re referring to the sea-level caves that can be seen from La Jolla Shores.”

With that, Jack closed his US road atlas, Billie punched the address into Siri’s Drunk Sister maps app, Professor T was engrossed in a book, earbuds on blast, and with that the Chool Bus was underway. Roughly four hours…straight south. They would arrive in time for supper in La Jolla, get a good night’s sleep then up and at ‘em early for the first round of focus group interviews at the university.

***

Buck Wellstone had grown accustomed to accompanying Billie in the passenger seat, keeping her company and exchanging music playlists. Now, Billie has never been a country music fan, but Buck was serving up the classics and where Billie was familiar with pop-country playing on radio stations, Buck was showing her, for the first time, deep Appalachian “old-timey” Mountain fare, and the open-range cowboy singing poets exemplified by the likes of the Carter Family, Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, etc.

“Why, this sounds like the tunes they used for that Coen Brothers movie…the one critics said was loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey,” said Billie. The actual music was not all that exciting for her, but she didn’t let Buck in on that as she was starting to warm up to Buck himself. In fact, she was getting a bit worried she might be in danger of falling for the big fella. While first impressions lead folks to regard Mr Wellstone imposing and dangerous, he was actually quite gentle, compassionate, and somewhat vulnerable. Billie, in a word was starting to fall for him.

Now, Billie is very good at mental multi-tasking, and as she steered the Chool Bus southward through Pasadena then Irvine she was able to pay attention to Buck’s occasional commentary and his old-timey playlist while her non-binary nature was waging a vigorous debate over the relative merits of sparking up a conventional relationship with… a guy.

First, was she thinking about committing to a person or a type? She knew that dating Buck meant committing to a specific person, regardless of gender. Like, he was never going to understand her on the levels of her female lovers. Does she run the risk of growing tired of that, or can the relationship grow stronger over time like her favorite aunt and uncle…despite the annoying gender-specific quirks to which many hetero couples must grin and bear?

Does going hetero erase a part of me? Her thoughts were working overtime. After all, the common fear is that settling with someone of the opposite sex would make others perceive her as “straight.” She worried whether entering a monogamous relationship would alter how she, or the world, view her identity. So many questions: Did she explore enough? Does she need a more polyamorous arrangement? Would Buck be able to trust her? So many questions. It was getting harder to continue the illusion of full attentiveness and Buck was starting to notice from the broken dialog and self-interruptions. Billie was making more apologies for unfocused responses. She knew she was spreading her awareness too thin for safe driving…she would have to focus on the wheel in the urban traffic zones. When a feeling of tightness in her chest pushed her into a defiant mood, she said something rude to Buck and both went silent for a long moment.

Meanwhile Jack and Professor T were having a spirited debate about the nature of good and evil. Every once in a while one of their voices would cut through the bus’ engine and tire noise. It must have been a banger of a debate. By the time the four hour stretch was through they arrived on a logical equation, an accord, a compromise. This was it: The pursuit of self-interest PLUS aggression or violence MINUS basic human compassion EQUILS generic evil.

As Billie steered the bus into the RV park on the outskirts of Sandog SoCal, Billie apologized for the rude outburst and Buck assured her he was not even remotely offended, he wasn’t explicitly lying as her sudden inexplicable rudeness did hurt a bit.

He too was sliding down that slippery slope…he felt as if it were possible he could fall fairly hard for this contradictory bundle of gentle, fair, beautiful, tough-as-leather, one hundred percent bad-ass bitch.

He never thought he would meet, let alone get hung up on someone identifying themself among the rainbow LGBTQ coalition…but here we are.

Rolling into the UC Sandog Student Union parking lot, the Forks prepared to roll out the schtick. It was time for everyone to put on their most professional and focused masks. Time to gather some qualitative data from this affluent Southern California corner of our spiritually ailing nation. There would be a week break between San Diego and the next research destination, Las Vegas. In the meantime, the Forks would dip their toes in to the sands of Mexico… they gonna fuck around and find out.

NEXT WEEK:
The detour to Ensenada is ill timed as the Mexican Government cracks down on a notorious cartel kingpin and all hell breaks loose.

GO BACK => Preface and Chapter Links

Ok… confession time...

Ronnie thought, since we were pressed for time, we could get by with only one Florida post. So we took a shortcut, leaning on Ronnie’s memories of Florida. A bit dusty, those memories, like faded postcards from a bygone era. Back when Daytona Beach was the epicenter of spring break bacchanalia, before the revelers migrated to Panama City, seeking new shores for their timeless rituals.

But then, waking from an overnight stay in Tallahassee enroute to Mobile, AL, Ronnie opened his news feed to reports of Ol’ Man Winter reaching tentacles into his Midwest stomping grounds. This awakened a realization. Specifically, the point of this tour was to avoid any and all extreme weather, a comfort priority for van-life vagabonds.

Ah, but there’s the rub. In this digital age, consistency is king. To vanish for weeks is to be forgotten, swallowed by the insatiable maw of the internet. So, we stay. Florida, it seems, is too vast to be consumed in a single bite. There’s plenty to see, do, and write about as Ronnie has no plans for leaving till it warms up a bit up North.

Now, for geography-minded loopers, Tallahassee is in the panhandle, East of St. Augustine, our first Florida stop. Well, that’s in the North, and we needed to be heading South, waaayyy south, in order to avoid all hints of Ol’ Man Winter. So… yea… we had to backtrack a bit, but now heading in the right direction. Spring Hill was the first stop enroute to Key West, all the while hoping for the best for our friends and family up North.

Anyway, it turns out, Ronnie’s plan to visit all 48 contiguous US states in a rolling studio apartment christened “Rocinante” has been done (and published to some acclaim), more than once. The Steinbeck version literally featured a tricked out pickup truck named… Rocinante. Now, more confessions. Ronnie was not aware of Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charlie” before 2024. And Heat-Moon’s “Blue Highways” was only a back-of-the-mind inspiration for Ronnie’s 5th music album of the same name. Truth told, he had not read Heat-Moon’s volume till hitting the road on our Hot Springs or Busk tour.

Actually, the inspiration for naming our van Rocinante came from the Netflix series, “The Expanse“. A multi-season series that delves into a rich tapestry of philosophical themes. Just a few examples would include social inequality, with vast disparities between the “Inner Planets” (Earth and Mars), the “Kuiper Belt,” and the outer colonies. Inequality that fuels conflict and raises questions about resource distribution, social justice, and the exploitation of marginalized groups. Sound familiar? Another theme explored by the series is the nature of humanity. The Expanse explores what it fundamentally means to be human. It questions whether our nature is inherently good or evil, and how we might evolve or adapt in the face of the unknown.

These are just a couple of the many themes explored by the series. Ronnie has seen the whole thing twice, he’ll probably watch it again cursing the numbskulls who canceled it. This is not to downplay the influences of Heat-Moon or Steinbeck’s road trip meditations. Both are masterful explorations of the hopes, dreams, and unique character of the people encountered off the “beaten paths” as it were. Heat-Moon called those back roads “Blue Highways” because of how they appeared in road atlas’ of the day. In Travels with Charlie, Nobel laureate, John Steinbeck makes a point of staying off the busiest highways in order to get the raw scoop from the people inhabiting the countryside. Both works chocked full of detailed dialog sequences from those encounters in diners and rest stops.

Ronnie, in contrast, is coming from a different angle. More an inner exploration, sharing windshield time with audio versions of Steinbeck, Camus, Dostoevsky, and Dickens’ takes on these universal themes with showers, meals, and sleep cycles provided by Cracker Barrel, and Planet Fitness.

And what does any of this have to do with Florida…? For those attuned to current events, these human challenges are alive and well here, as they are nation wide, but with Florida, the examples are much louder and prouder (think “Florida Man“). For example, Florida faces significant environmental threats, including rising sea levels, increasingly severe hurricanes, and the degradation of crucial ecosystems. These issues are exacerbated by rapid development and a history of prioritizing short-term economic gains over long-term sustainability. Environmental issues often become politicized, with disagreements over the role of government regulation and the balance between economic development and environmental protection.

As for Tribalism and Prejudice, Florida, like many places, grapples with historical and ongoing issues of racism, discrimination, and social inequality. These issues often manifest in disparities in education, healthcare, and economic opportunity. Sad but true, minority communities often face systemic barriers, and tensions with law enforcement. They also face incidents of racial profiling and police brutality which contribute to mistrust. Political rhetoric and divisive language and policies can aggravate existing divisions… and these days, politicians are saying the quiet parts out loud and proud.

And Florida’s leadership has a mixed record on these issues. While some initiatives promote environmental protection and social justice, others have been criticized for intensifying existing problems.

Yea… challenges… but until Greenland melts, Florida has some of the most bodacious beaches in the world. Come see it while you can. We’ll be here at least till Ol’ Man Winter retreats back to where he belongs.

Onward through the fog… RH

From Saint Auggy……
To Tallahassee…
You’ll see the fire ants..
Prolificacy…
And like the bears in…
Yellowstone grassy…
Don’t look FL Man in the eye.