music

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter XI (plotting a course)

Picture this, America: some aging fool and his four-wheeled testament to stubbornness, baptized “Rocinante” for that same delusional optimism. Me? I’m trading academe for the wide-open spaces, tilting at the broadcast towers of mainstream media following a loose spine of favorable climates and college towns across these 48 states.

You see, I’ve got this itch. This notion that the true pulse of America isn’t in corporate board rooms or the marbled halls of power, but in the sticky floors of dive bars, the sun-baked town squares, and the yawning lecture halls of universities. So, Rocinante and i, we’re on a quest.

First things first, a man can’t get to the heart of the American Dream on an empty stomach. In each town, the routine is honed with a survivalist’s focus: hygiene out of the way (gyms, truck stops, even the occasional river bath for that true hobo chic), laundry refreshed, and Rocinante’s belly restocked with fuel and provisions. Local libraries become my sanctum – free internet, musty books, a whiff of intellectualism to ward off the creeping road madness.

Then, the hunt begins. I stalk state facts like a cornered possum, armed with Wikipedia and an unhealthy obsession with the bizarre and overlooked. Then it’s into the fray! I corner unsuspecting locals, less like an intrepid reporter and more like a stray dog sniffing out dinner.

“What’s your state motto?” I’ll ask, eyes gleaming with the zeal of a half-crazed Jeremiah. Then the real fun – listening as they fumble, praise, or outright despise those hallowed words. This, loopers, is raw, unfiltered Americana that no cable pundit can manufacture. It gets distilled into my loopy travel-blog dispatches over whatever questionable Wi-Fi i can scrounge.

College campuses – they’re the petri dishes of society, bubbling with idealism, hormones, and all that youthful angst. If there’s unrest brewing, Ronnie Hays has a front-row seat. Not to incite riots, but to chronicle the messy, beautiful chaos of young minds at war with a world that doesn’t seem to give two spits.

Now, this land, it sings to me. Woody Guthrie’s ghost haunts my guitar case. In each state, i’ll pen my own crooked verse of “This Land is Your Land,” a wind-whipped, low-fi ode to the cracked highways and resilient souls i find. Welcome signs become my stage, YouTube my tin-can amplifier.

Planning ain’t my strong suit. Half the joy is in the detours. But hot springs? Oh, sweet geothermal bliss. i’ll soak these old bones till they’re soft as a boiled noodle, conjuring up the ghosts of grizzled prospectors and bathing beauties while i fend off mosquitoes.

To fund this glorious mess, a little busking. My luting skills ain’t Carnegie Hall material, but it’ll buy a burger, or at least a sympathetic chuckle from passersby.

And so, it begins. A year under the vast American sky, a tin can Don Quixote fueled by French roast and stubborn hope. Expect tales of barroom philosophers, off-grid eccentrics, and everyday folks grappling with the beautiful, broken heart of this country. Expect a whole lotta nonsense, a dash of truth, and maybe, just maybe, a sliver of understanding about this glorious, maddening, never-ending experiment called America.

Onward through the fog… R.H.

Hot Springs or Busk: Chapter III (the digital nomad)

Ronnie Hays, a name that once sent shivers of social dread down the spines of live-music booking agents, now resides in a tiny-home conversion van resembling the inside of a forgotten gym sock. The air, thick with despair and the lingering aroma of last week’s coconut curry, clings to him like a shroud. His muse, that fickle harlot, abandoned him years ago, leaving a mountain of unfinished lyric sheets and a bank account like the Dead Sea… barren and perpetually below sea level.

Ronnie Hays, his once thick shock of 80s glam-metal hair now a half-bald testament to the ravages of entropy, stares out the grime-encrusted window. The Kanorado prairie, stretches before him like a dirty snow-covered purgatory, its barron fields shrouded in drifting dust and tumbleweeds like floating bramble balloons. The wind, kicking up dust-devils, rustles the plastic cutlery collection he’d lovingly curated from various Chinese takeout establishments… his most valuable non-musical possession, if you discount the half-empty cartridge of Delta9 vape-juice tucked precariously behind the spice rack.

His semi-smart-phone, a relic from a bygone era when booking agents actually called independent singer/songwriters, sat silent in his pocket. It hadn’t rung in months, its silence as deafening as a librarian’s shushing. He pulls it out and checks email and social media, a masochistic ritual, then dials his agent’s number. The recorded message, a cheerful chirp followed by an eternity of elevator music, mocks him. He hangs up, the dial tone a hammer blow to his already fragile ego.

Resignation, a bitter pill he chokes down with each passing day, gnaws at him. The live-music world, once a playground of subversive punk and rebellious noize, had transformed into a funhouse of celebrity beefs and vapid cults of personality. His brand of bleak humor and melancholy, once filled with prescient social commentary, now feels like a dusty gramophone record playing to an audience obsessed with the latest TikTok dance trends.

He slumps onto his bed, the mattress platform groaning in protest. The ceiling, adorned with what could only be described as “abstract water damage art,” seems to mock him as well. Was this it? Was Ronnie Hays, the joker who dared to stare into the abyss and write about it, destined to molder in obscurity, not even a footnote in the margins of music history?

A sardonic chuckle escaped his lips. The absurdity of it all, the cosmic joke at his expense, struck him with sudden clarity. He wasn’t Atlas, shouldering the burden of humanity’s enlightenment. He was Sisyphus, forever condemned to roll the boulder of his obscure discography up the mountain of indifference, only to watch it roll back down each morning.

And then, a strange sense of peace washed over him. The pressure to be relevant, to change the world, evaporated. He was the mongrel of rueful countenance, an earthbound cosmic troubadour, a digital nomad, a seeker of truth in a world obsessed with glittering celebrity. And if the world didn’t want his brand of truth, well, screw ’em. He’d keep writing, not for accolades or validation, but for the sheer ecstatic pleasure of it. He’d be a one-man band, playing his discordant symphony in the dark alleyway of pop culture, content in the knowledge that at least the fireflies appreciated his solo performances.

With a newfound lightness, he fires up the workstation. The vape pen winks encouragingly from its hiding place. Tonight, he’ll not write a masterpiece. He’ll write a farce, an absurdist caricature of the world that continues to ignore him. He’ll laugh in the face of oblivion, sardonic humor his favorite weapon, his obscurity a badge of honor. Ronnie Hays, a digital nomad, is back, and the punchline is on all of us.

Cheers… Loopcircus

PS: This is all we have to say about the socio-economic conditions of Rohlfie’s fictional alter-ego. Stay tuned for the hilarious account of his political/religious schtick… 😜

And so… it begins!

Greetings, Loopers…
And great day in the morning!
Finally… a break from that weeks-long taste of Arctic-brisk.

Argh… over it, i am.

Now, as i was shedding the “bearskin-thick” protective layers, it hit me between the eyes. My 65th birthday and exit from the professional treadmill is mere months away. I promised myself in the doldrums of the post-y2k “dot-bomb” that i would, upon retirement, either A.), buy a wind-powered craft and sail the seven seas or B.) obtain a “Prairie Schooner” and roam the earth like Kwai Chang Caine. Well… the time has arrived, and a few hard truths have forced a semi-sudden pivot with the vehicles i’ll use to fulfill this visualization. For one, this middle of everywhere, landlubbin’ flatlander is a horrible candidate for single-handed sailing, and two, the pop-up tent/awning solution i, only last year, acquired for prairie schooning will work only in perfectly temperate zones. So… people i trust were advising i go the “stealth urban camper” route of acquiring a converted cargo van and turning it into a rolling tiny home. So, i started researching turn-key options and came up for air gasping at six-figure price tags… GAHHHH!

Solution? Acquire an empty van as blank canvas (see above), design, and construct the interior myself (project to begin post-haste).

Once that is accomplished… strap in, loopers, because this ain’t your drunk uncle’s road trip. We are professionals… we have “objectives.” This is a 52-week, 48-state odyssey through the heart of American academia, fueled by equal parts French Roast, guitars, and pure, unadulterated curiosity. We’re hitting Hays America’s sister cities… public college towns, mind you, the kind where dorms smell like stale pizza and regret, and the professors are either jaded veterans or wide-eyed grad students with tenure dreams as fragile as a bong hit in a mosh pit.

But hold on, this ain’t just about singing for my supper in college-towns across the nation. It’s also a quest for the literary Grail, a boozy, bookish bacchanal that’ll have us chasing Hemingway’s ghost in Key West, Kerouac’s shadow in Desolation Peak, and Faulkner’s phantom in Oxford, Mississippi. We’ll be spelunking through dusty library stacks, communing with ghosts, and trading wild stories like currency in smoky campus dives.

And when the sun sets on another day on the road, we’ll seek solace in our nation’s natural cathedrals: Yosemite’s granite giants, Yellowstone’s geyser symphony, the Grand Canyon’s mile-deep abyss. We’ll soak our grumpy bones in hidden hot springs, letting the geothermal magic mend our aching glutes and rekindle our wanderlust.

But be warned, this isn’t for the faint of heart. This is a road paved with potholes and detours, populated by characters as colorful as a Thompson-esque fever dream. We’ll encounter campus radicals and redneck renegades, peyote-toting professors and chain-smoking librarians, all with their own stories to tell, their own demons to chase.

So, are you ready, loopers? Ready to trade textbooks for bibles, lecture halls for dive bars, and term papers for loopy podcasts? Then buckle up, grab your Delta8 Vape, and let’s hit the gas on this loopcircus odyssey across the American landscape. We’ll be blogging our descent into madness every step of the way, so stay tuned for dispatches from the fringes, where academia meets anarchy, and the pursuit of knowledge gets a whole lot more interesting.

FOR EXAMPLE: Appalachian Ambiance and Moonshine Melodies

This stop begins in the misty hills of Boone, North Carolina, home to Appalachian State University, a haven for bluegrass pickers and outdoorsy types. We’ll be swapping songs for sammichs, trading Chaucer for cheap moonshine, and getting our Thoreau on in the shadow of Grandfather Mountain. Stay tuned for tales of wildlife encounters, existential campfire chats, and communing with the local legends who call these mountains home.

This is just an example, loopers. We’ve got 47 more states to explore, 48 stories to tell. So keep your eyes peeled, your minds open, and your courage prepped for the mother of all road trips. Because in this loopy odyssey, the only constant is the open road, and the only map we need is a tattered paperback with a dog-eared page for every adventure.

Cheers… Rohlfie

Hot Springs or Busk Chapter I =>