Rocinante

HSoB: Dawg Dayz

Ronnie Hays, a man whose summer spirit animal was likely a slightly singed tumbleweed, had come to the nation’s capital with the best of intentions. The Hot Springs or Busk tour, a grand delusion hatched during a particularly brutal February, was predicated on the simple, Nietzschean idea that purposeful suffering builds character. Having already suffered enough, Ronnie decided to route his nation-wide tour to stay in climate zones ranging from fifty-five to eighty-five degrees, the sweet spot of human endurance, the crucible of the soul! He’d envisioned himself a Thoreauvian guitar hero, strumming universal chords amidst humanity’s waxing and waning.

Bullshit. Pure, unadulterated, desert-baked bullshit.

The “Heat Dome,” as the local news charmingly called it, wasn’t a dome at all. It was more like being trapped inside a giant, sweaty armpit, the kind belonging to a long-haul trucker who’d mainlined lukewarm coffee for three days straight. The air in Ronnie’s trusty Sprinter van, Rocinante, felt thick enough to chew. He’d envisioned festive busking celebrations, though getting him no closer to Saturday Night Live, would render enough spare coin to grab a meal at the local sandwich shop. Instead, he found himself sweating under a near ineffectual ceiling fan, each morning waking up feeling like a poorly wrung dishcloth.

So, the busking gear gathered dust. The call of the troubadour was drowned out by the siren song of the mall food court’s air conditioning. After a productive shift dodging rogue toddlers and the whispered anxieties of the internet-addicted masses at the public library, Ronnie would retreat to this muzak-infused oasis. There, amidst the clatter of plastic cutlery and the pervasive aroma of lukewarm orange chicken, he’d tap tap tap away on his tablet, crafting ironic insights (or at least, moderately coherent sentences). Roughing it, his ass. This was more like politely surrendering to the crushing reality of climate change and a distinct lack of masochistic tendencies.

He pictured himself now, a bumbling, modern-day Don Quixote, sweat beading on his five-o-clock shadow. His armor traded in for a Hawaiian shirt that clung to him like a damp second skin. On his head, not a gleaming helmet, but a decidedly un-gleaming bucket hat, perpetually askew. His trusty spear replaced by a backpack, its hydration bladder more vital than any lance against the oppressive thermal foe. Rocinante, the wheezing van, stood sentinel in the D.C. Metro Branch Avenue parking lot… a tin can beast of burden in this concrete desert. In the hazy distance, a monstrous broadcast tower pulsed with invisible signals, a modern-day malevolent windmill against a humidity-choked sky, a reminder of the information war that had lured him to the proud highway in the first place.

He’d braved the sweltering streets of D.C., a city buzzing with a nervous energy thicker than the humidity. The political air crackled with a pre-apocalyptic fervor, the news a constant barrage of impending crisis. A grumpy waiter here, a train car full of faces etched with worry there. And then, the memes. Oh, the memes. Those digital harbingers of discontent, the unfunny, menacing pronouncements hinting at a redux of some long-ago, blood-soaked uncivil conflict. Ronnie, with his comfortable former life in the ivory towers of academia, knew he was on the wrong side of that particular partisan divide, labeled with that delightfully reductive term: “woke.”

He’d spent hours wandering around the fenced-off National Mall, the intended epicenter of his social exploration just out of reach. Denied entry to the Pride Fest because of his backpack – a water bottle deemed a potential weapon, for Christ’s sake – he felt like a character in some absurdist Kafka adaptation. The irony wasn’t lost on him: all this purposeful social exploring he’d signed up for, only to be thwarted by something as mundane as a plastic water bottle and transparent back-pack.

He thought of Churchill, of course. That eternal optimist (or perhaps just a bloke with a stiff upper lip and a fondness for the drink). “Americans can be counted on to do the right thing once they’ve tried everything else.” Ronnie clung to that like a life raft in a sea of digital vitriol and oppressive heat. This flirtation with the dark side, this collective descent into the fever swamp of ethnonationalism – it was just a phase, right? A particularly sweaty, anxiety-inducing phase. Eventually, the fever would break, and they’d stumble back towards something resembling pluralistic sanity.

He hoped.

The Metro ride back to Rocinante was a sweaty, sullen affair. The promise of the night in a tin can under a sky slow to cool was less than appealing. Just weeks ago, he’d been shivering in that damned mummy bag, wishing for a single degree of warmth. Now, the thought of trying to sleep in a pervasive coating of sweat felt like a prelude to spontaneous combustion.

He’d had enough. This noble experiment in “Hot Springs or Busk” had devolved into a sweaty, keyboard-tapping surrender in a mall food court. Protest season in D.C.? They could have it. The call of the open road, the beckoning of cooler climes further north… that was the only pursuit that held any appeal now. Time to point Rocinante toward the hazy promise of something less… apocalyptic. All that said, and with all the hassle of dodging heat stroke, he’d still take these dog dayz over winter frostbite and existential dread any damn day of the week. Over and out, he muttered to himself, the glow of the tablet screen reflecting in his weary eyes. Over and out. Time to get back to the original plan. Time to head NORTH. And for the love of all that is holy, someone please convince the powers that be we REALLY don’t want to turn Earth into another Venus. Can we please get back to that Post WWII spirit of sacrifice in the face of collective crisis? Can we, PLEASE, start prioritizing a life-friendly climate over billionaires’ bank accounts?

Onward through the fog… Rohlfie

This Land: New York

Of course, like California, Texas, and Florida, New York is too big for just one post. However, we’ll have to settle on this phase of the tour as Ronnie & Rocinante are on an ever tightening time schedule. They may return to NY in late July or August, Texas in September or October.

Anyway… New York! The Big Apple! Everybody’s got a New York story, right? Like it’s a damn pilgrimage you gotta make to prove you’re a fully functioning ‘murican. So, Ronnie has his personal connections to New York, that slab of concrete crammed with eight million other schmucks all trying to get somewhere slightly faster than the next guy.

First up, Bob Dylan! Yeah, Bobby Z. The voice of a generation, a moniker he wisely refused to hold. Voice like a rusty wheel on an outlaw biker’s ride, but hey, you know what they say about the squeaky one! And Ronnie has a deep reverence for Dylan’s impact on the music biz. Over the years Ronnie has cultivated a small garden of his own. Well… not so much in the “business”. Even though he was active as a player in the 1980/90s, he retreated from that merry-go-round in time to ring in the new millennium. No longer playing for money, but not willing to abandon his garden. He’s out there with a tiny little rake and a watering can, growing organic, timeless songs while the bulldozers of pop-country are paving a formulaic paradise next door… in “the biz”.

Anyway, Ronnie retreated from the biz. Got out before some cheap hustler grafted a spiked dog collar on his neck and made him rock out about peach cobbler, or cherry pie, or something equally inane. Meanwhile, in contrast, Dylan, like Ronnie, came from “nowheresville“. But, unlike Ronnie, Bobby Z. made good. You could say he cashed in. Or you could say he wisely avoided J. Edgar Hoover’s death ray at a time of serious danger for influential folks taking contrary views on the war in Vietnam. And Ronnie? Well, he “jumped off the bandwagon in time to raise a couple kids and try to pursue some resemblance of adult career-like activities.” Translation: he chickened out and got a job! A job, folks! That thing you do so you can afford the therapist you need because of your job! But hey, at least he’s got his self-produced records, no autotune, all-natural. Not perfect, in fact, fairly crude. But hey, imperfect authenticity beats sanitized, pitch-corrected pablum any day!

Next up for Ronnie’s New York story! Those goddamn 1970s and 80s TV programs. Oh, the cultural landmarks! “All in the Family” apparently had a big impact. Well, that explains a lot, doesn’t it? His maternal grandad and eldest uncle were “Archie Bunker clones.” Clones! Like they were churned out in some bigot factory in Queens! Provincial, nativist, racist, misogynist… the wholeunenlightened enchilada! The things Ronnie’s Grandpa would say watching ball games on TV would make a PC maven cringe all the way to their socks. We kid you not! Probably stuff that would make Archie Bunker hisowndamnself say, “Whoa, take it easy there, Meathead’s dad!” There’s that. Yeah, but for Ronnie, Saturday Night Live came as a refreshing cool breeze… a tonic for the raging rebel soul!

Then, there’s the mid-2000s. Ronnie and his girlfriend hit the big city! A “whirlwind junket around Gotham.” Five days in Manhattan! Almost enough time to get used to the subway system. Almost! That’s like saying five minutes in a high-school boys’ locker room is almost enough time to get used to the smell! I’ve heard folks say you never get used to the New York subway. Like a mobile petri dish filled to the rim with way too much humanity and the distinct aroma of “what the hell is that?”

They “visited MoMa.” Modern art! Where jaded connoisseurs stare at a red square on a white canvas and go, “Profound!” Yeah, easy money, right? After a good stroll through MoMa, Ronnie and his companion “Sought out culinary treasures.” For some, that would be like paying $30 for a hot dog and calling it “artisanal.” But no, there’s super interesting ethnic fare to discover if you know where to look. Our heroes had an “exotic food on a budget” guide, and it delivered, in spades. They also hiked across the Brooklyn Bridge, a little slice of history. Hey! You can take the boy out of the High Plains, but… Anyway the pair also rode the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building! The observation deck! “Look, sweetie! Tiny little yellow cars full of tiny little schmucks just like us!”

And the highlight: a nighttime 5K around Central Park! Because running in circles in the dark in a city famous for its muggers is just good, clean fun! Nothing like a good dose of adrenaline to pump up your 5K time. And then, the pièce de résistance: Ronnie got yelled at by a Ralph Kramden clone driving a shuttle bus! A shuttle bus! They didn’t have a pass! A pass! For a bus! What is this, Gaza? “Where you from?” the bus driver bellows. Ronnie, thinking he’s clever, says, “Queens?” And the driver, a true scholar of human nature and New York geography, wasn’t buying it! So they had to walk back to the hotel! Oh, the humanity! Trudging through the concrete jungle, probably past a dozen guys selling “I Heart NY” shirts made by children in a sweatshop in a country they can’t pronounce. That’s your New York experience right there!

Finally, Ronnie and Rocinante are hunkered down in Horseheads New York for the writing of this post. Horseheads… central southern New York. Now there’s a name that just rolls off the tongue and lands in a pile of what-the-hell. The story behind it is “somewhat Stephen King-esque.” You might imagine it involving a disgruntled farmer, a cursed field, and a pile of, well, you know. Horseheads! We wouldn’t be surprised if the local football team was called “The Impalers.” Truth isn’t far from all that, by the way. You gotta love a town that just puts the weird right out there on the welcome sign. No pretense, just “Yup, Horseheads. Deal with it.” At least it’s honest, unlike the rest of the current era in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Ok…

Onward through the fog… RH

In New York City…
You’ll find no pity…
To make it there…
Takes lots of gritty…
But like ol’ Blue Eyes…
In soothing crooner tones…
Make it there…
You’ll make it anywhere.

This Land: Maryland

We have the “West”.
We have the “Midwest”.
We have the “Southwest”.
We have the “Post-Jim-Crow South”.
We have the “New England” colonies.

All of these regions have their unique character. However, there is a place where this variety gets brewed into a delicious stew. That place is called Maryland. Sorta like “spiral motion physics,” where the motion around a source of attraction forms spiraling patterns toward the source like a whirlpool. That point is DC, and the American stew is at its diversity-best in the surrounding area, Maryland. And it’s not just the people as the geography is also representative of this diversity. Maryland may not be one of the largest states in the US, but with its variety of culture, climate, topographical features, and temperament, some would say…

Maryland is America in Miniature

Now… it’s impossible to speak of Maryland in the year of our lord 2025 without mentioning the apparent shifting in nature of that cultural/political source of gravity in DC. It is a brazen spectacle to behold, our present-day republic teetering on the precipice of a descent into a veritable kakistocracy. A governance of the witless and the fearful as outlined in the so-called “Project 2025.” This ponderous tome, a testament to the enduring American appetite for sanctimonious nonsense, imagines a future so bleakly uniform, so relentlessly scrubbed of the invigorating cacophony of realpolitik, that one is almost moved to pity the authors for their impoverished imaginations. They pine for a nation remade in the image of a white-washed sepulcher, a monotonous ethno-state lorded over by a monarch of their own anointing.

In moments of such profound national heartburn, it is instructive, and indeed, affirming, to cast a backward glance at the decision to remove the federal government’s seat from the feverish grasp of Philadelphia to the relatively blank slate of Maryland and what is now known as the District of Columbia. This was not merely a geographical relocation, but a providential compromise of competing interests escaping the miasma of a political homogeneity that then, as now, threatened to asphyxiate the nascent republic in its sleep.

One need only consider the character of Maryland, that delightful America in Miniature, to appreciate the wisdom of our founders. Here is a state forged in the crucible of religious tolerance, a haven for England’s persecuted Catholics, who, though a minority, were granted the revolutionary courtesy of coexisting with their Puritan tormentors. This early experiment in pluralism, though not without its lamentable “plundering times” at the hands of Cromwellian zealots, set a precedent for the rich and varied tapestry that is modern Maryland. It is a state where, to this day, the descendants of indentured servants and the progeny of freed slaves live and work alongside a vibrant influx of souls from every corner of the globe – Africa, Asia, Central America, and the Caribbean. Indeed, it stands as one of a handful of states where the so-called “minorities” now constitute the majority, a demographic destiny that sends shivers down the spines of the Project 2025 Christian Nationalist hierarchs.

The very soil of Maryland seems to reject the notion of a monolithic culture. From the salt-laced air of the Chesapeake to the rolling hills of the Piedmont, the state’s varied topography mirrors the diversity of its people. It is a place where the first American-born saint rests, a testament to its Catholic roots, yet where Protestants and the happily godless now outnumber the papists. It is a “Free State” not merely in its defiance of Prohibition’s follies, but in its very essence – a haven for the unconventional, boasting one of the highest concentrations of those who defy the rigid taxonomies of gender and sexuality. Let us not forget that the first American to proudly proclaim himself a “drag queen,” the courageous William Dorsey Swann, hailed from these parts, a pioneer in the eternal struggle for the right to be oneself, however flamboyant.

Contrast this vibrant, chaotic, and ultimately more interesting reality with the sterile vision of the Project 2025 evangelists. They yearn for a nation of one political philosophy, one creed, one stultifying set of beliefs, a landscape as flat and featureless as their own intellectual horizons. Theirs is a philosophy born of fear – fear of the other, fear of the new, fear of the messy and unpredictable nature of a truly free society. They would dismantle the very administrative state that, for all its bureaucratic bungling, provides a framework for our collective endeavor, and replace it with a system of pay-to-play patronage and ideological loyalty tests. They would, in essence, turn the clock back to an imagined golden age that never was.

The historical record of Maryland stands as a powerful rebuke to this retrograde fantasy. It was in Maryland that the ideals of the Revolution led to the liberation of thousands of slaves, a moral awakening that, while imperfect and tragically delayed, pointed toward a more just future. It was on Maryland’s soil, at Antietam, that the tide of a bloody Civil War, fought over the very soul of the nation, began to turn. And it was Maryland that, in the ashes of that conflict, abolished slavery and extended the franchise to its non-white citizens. This is not the history of a people wedded to a single, exclusionary identity, but of a people grappling, often violently, with the complexities of building a society out of disparate and often conflicting parts.

The proponents of this newfangled ethno-nationalist monarchy would do well to study this history. They would do well to observe the thriving economy of Maryland, buoyed by its proximity to the very federal government they seek to corrupt. They would do well to visit its public libraries, those bastions of self-directed education that offer knowledge to all, regardless of station or background.

In the final analysis, the decision to plant the nation’s capital in the embrace of Maryland was a stroke of genius. It was an implicit recognition that the strength of this republic lies not in its ability to enforce a bland uniformity, but in its capacity to absorb and celebrate its manifold diversities. The future of this nation, if it is to have a future worth mentioning, will not be found in the sterile pages of Project 2025, but in the noisy, vibrant, and gloriously untidy reality of places like Maryland. Let the hollow sycophants preach their gospel of homogeneity; the rest of us, the free human beings in this republic, will continue to draw our strength from the rich and fertile soil of our diversity.

And that’s all we have to say about that.

Onward through the fog… RH

You can’t just waltz by…
The state of Maryland…
Too much to see…
Too much to do…
Get on the Metro…
To the Fed. Triangle…
And don’t forget…
To hydrate properly.

This Land: Delaware

Ok… Ronnie wants to share another vivid dream. This time accompanied by a lone, mournful saxophone moaning a melody from some vaguely familiar smoky jazz club. The scene is a dusty phantom TV studio at night with the sound of a flickering fluorescent light, buzzing like a trapped fly. The dream conjured forth a vision so preposterous, yet so uniquely American in its blend of earnest naivety and jaded cynicism, that it deserves attention.

To the mournful strains, a debate between two ladies, from drastically different eras, denizens of that diminutive state of Delaware. A place known for its accommodating incorporation laws and its haste in jumping on the Federal bandwagon.

The first, a clever gal called “Lizzie” Magie, the originator of the popular board game, Monopoly, was aflame with the righteous indignation of a perennial reformer. Her prescription for the nation’s 21st Century Defcon-II constitutional emergency? To uproot the entire federal governing apparatus from its swampy roost in DC and transplant it for a time to the hallowed, if somewhat cramped, soil of Delaware. Rehab, a shock to the system for a period of time before moving back into the original storied monumental structures. The symbolism, she declared, of returning to the “first state” would, by some occult magic, restore the pristine virtues of the Founding Fathers… those gentlemen who, if they could witness the current state of their handiwork, would likely prescribe a universal draft of Jonestown Cool-Aid.

This Lizzy Magie creature, with the touching faith of a Nebraska retiree buying into a Mazatlán time-share, lamented over the rapid degradation of the “three co-equal branches,” a charming myth that has as much relation to current reality as Schoolhouse Rock has to the operations of Donald Trump’s meme-coin exchange. The branches, she correctly observed, are no longer co-equal; they are, instead, a grotesque mirage… it’s all about the ONE, she would say. One part AI Pope, one part Verruca Salt, and one part Bonaparte wannabe. Her solution to this, beyond the geographical transplant, was a ballot method currently adopted by a few progressive states and municipalities called “ranked-choice voting.” Anathema to the current crop of minority rule denizens, and so not likely to be adopted as long as they hold the reins. Then again, the notion of an innovative method of tabulating ballots can somehow transmute the base metal of homo imbecillis into political gold is rather quaint! The idea, as she expounded it, was to compel the scoundrels who infest the halls of power to appeal to a wider swath of the electorate, to dilute their venom, to approach a reasonable approximation of “the common interest”. Of course, this will only fly over Christian Nationalism‘s dead body.

Against this geyser of well-intentioned wishful thinking stood the second apparition, a younger, livelier, specimen of Delawarean womanhood named Aubrey Plaza. This curious exhibit, draped in the deadpan weeds of fashionable apathy, met the older madame’s reformist zeal with a blast of arctic cynicism that was, we confess, almost refreshing in its bleak honesty. To the proposal of Delaware as the governmental rehab facility, she responded with a chuckle worthy of a seasoned city editor observing a cub reporter’s first fumbling attempts at the Parks & Rec. desk. The problem, she drawled, with a voice like coffin nails scratching ice, was not the capital’s temporary address, but the fundamental, irredeemable character of the political species and the greed that elevates them.

This Aubrey Plaza-like apparition, to her credit, harbored no illusions about “fairness” or the noble aspirations of the founding slave-owners. Politics, in her view, was a naked grab for power, and the current vogue for “minoritarian rule” was not a bug but a feature, a “boutique monopoly of misery” to be savored by its practitioners. She saw in ranked-choice voting not a path to a more reasoned polity, but a machine for manufacturing “beige” politicians, an army of anodyne chameleons stripped of even the base authenticity of their current awfulness. Her ultimate vision, delivered with the deadpan ennui of a bored Delphic oracle, was of an algorithm anointing rulers, a prospect that, in its sheer mechanistic horror, almost eclipses the current system of selection by dark money, performative martyrdom, and juvenile bullying.

What, then, to make of this nightmare debate between the earnest, if deluded, progressive and the languid, clear-eyed absurdist? Lizzy, with her touching faith in procedural tinkering and the essential goodness of humankind, represents the eternal optimist, the kind who believes a new coat of paint can mitigate dry rot. Her desire for a return to foundational principles is understandable, if naive; her championing of ranked-choice voting, merely the latest iteration of the age-old quest to make silk satchels out of swine ears. It presupposes a citizenry capable of, and interested in, nuanced decision-making, a presupposition so wildly at odds with observed reality as to be laughable. The average voter, faced with ranking their preferences among a slate of multi-creed options, would likely succumb to vertigo or simply vote for the candidate with the most reassuringly vacuous slogan.

As for dear Ms. Plaza, her pronouncements, while reeking of the intellectual sewer, at least possess the virtue of an unvarnished realism of sorts. Her embrace of minoritarian rule as an “elegant slide” is, of course, monstrous, yet it is an accurate enough description of the trajectory of more than one so-called democracy. Her dismissal of compromise as “what people who are losing agree to” is the distilled wisdom of every ward heeler and backroom boss since Odysseus launched his armada. She sees the game for what it is: a contest of audacity, not a symposium of philosophers. Her suggestion that some tribes are simply “better” and that the point might be for the “correct minority to achieve a beautifully efficient, aesthetically perverse monopoly” is the quiet part said loud, the unspoken ambition of every tinpot Messiah and aspiring oligarch.

As rare as it is to glean coherence from these prematurely interrupted sleep cycles, Ronnie was able to dredge some meaning, if fleeting. Namely, the dream offered a grim choice between two equally unappetizing just-desserts. On the one hand, the saccharine, pie in the sky nostrums of the bleeding heart progressive librul, forever convinced that one more committee meeting, one more ballot reform, will usher in a new Shining City on the Hill. On the other, the cold, reptilian embrace of power politics, a frank acknowledgment that the entire enterprise is a swindle, best enjoyed by those with a taste for the perverse.

The notion that advanced information technology, as Lizzy hopefully termed it, could facilitate a more pluralistic utopia via ranked-choice voting is perhaps the most vulnerable element of the entire phantasmagoria. Technology, in the hands of civic charlatans, may end up being a more efficient tool for bamboozling the citizenry, for refining the techniques of mass manipulation, less for elevating civil discourse. To imagine it serving the “interests of all” is probably a hopeless pipe dream.

So, the capital can remain in Washington, or it may, for all we care, be relocated to Mars, with Congress critters required to broadcast their imbecilities in matching blue space suits… it’ll make no damn bit of difference. Ms. Plaza’s final, chilling observation about Delaware’s “low incorporation fees” as a boon for some minoritarian corporate monarchy is perhaps the most salient takeaway. For in this emerging grand, cacophonous, and increasingly deranged Republican Autocracy, the only true constants are the pursuit of plunder and the eternal, unyielding willful compliance of at least a bloated third of the electorate. And it will take more than bizzarro dreams to push back against this unfortunate state of affairs. Now, if you’ll excuse us, it’s time to head out to the van and throw a burrito down a clearly hangry dreamer’s throat.

Onward through the fog… RH

A sure-fire way to…
Spoil Thanksgiving…
Fire up a game of…
Classic Monopoly…
It works the same way…
For national unity…
Go ahead and blame Delaware.

This Land: Pennsylvania

Ok… Rocinante has ventured into the Pennsylvania interior, not so much because Ronnie asked her to, but because the public libraries in Altoona all seem to be stuck in the 20th Century. Either lacking accommodations for folks with their own productivity machines (laptops) or prohibiting Ronnie’s coffee mug AND lacking places for him to work with power and WiFi. Anyway, they finally settled in a Sheetz convenience store to compose this post.

Now, the extent of Ronnie’s personal history with Pennsylvania is from the deep dark days of the 1980s. A time of self-discovery, good times, and madness. Ronnie and few other lost children formed a brief tribal bond, and one of those lost children was a native of Pennsylvania Amish Country. So… rather than dig up a bunch of boring travel-blog fare, let’s relive a version of this story.

Without further adieu, the saga of “Dangerous Dan, the Sonesta Stud.”
WARNING – nearly all of the following names and places have been changed in order to avoid future heartbreak or litigation. Consume at 2025’s level of truth-decay:

The weathered picnic tabletop in the Yoder kitchen probably saw more existential dread per square inch than a Parisian café, and that’s saying something. Young Danny Yoder, not yet “Dangerous Dan,” certainly not the “Sonesta Stud,” just Danny, a kid with an ample bowl-cut mop of hair and a future he figured was about as exciting as a rerun of Hee Haw, was chief among the brooders. Pennsylvania. God’s country, his old man called it, usually right before hitching the family horse to the buggy to run errands. For Danny, it was a landscape of muted greens and plain grays, a place where dreams went to die, or worse, to settle down and work the farm.

He’d seen the rock gods on MTV, their hair a defiant sculpture against the drab backdrop of whatever town they’d crawled out of. Poison. Mötley Crüe. Bon Jovi, for christsake. Their rebellion was loud, dyed, and probably flammable. Danny wanted a piece of that. So, the bowl was stowed, replaced by a peroxide inferno and enough Pink Can Aqua Net to qualify as a minor environmental hazard. He spiked it high, a golden crown of defiance, and pointed his rust-bucket west, toward Thornton, Colorado, a place he’d picked off a map because it sounded like it might have a decent guitar shop.

Thornton in the ‘80s. It was a magnet for the misplaced, an endless sprawl of cloned, cookie-cutter future meth labs, much like its inhabitants. Dan, as he now insisted on being called, found his tribe. There was Rikki, a drummer whose rhythm was only slightly less erratic than his love life; Timothy “Zipperhead” Johnson, who’d fried half his brain cells working at a battery plant but could beat Kasparov two out of three, or so he claimed; and a rotating cast of lost boys and girls, all chasing something just out of focus. They congregated in the “Mountain Knowles” apartments along the Valley Highway smelling of stale cigarettes and ambition, the kind of ambition that usually fizzles out with the rising of the “Golden Orb.”

Dan, with his newly minted blonde spikes and a sneer he’d practiced in gas station bathroom mirrors all the way from PA, fell in with a band. Not in the band, mind you. More like… around the band. Their singer, a raven-haired siren named Tina whose voice could melt glaciers and whose eyes promised paradise and peril in equal measure, had a habit of attracting trouble. The kind of trouble that wore leather jackets and carried bike chains. Dan and the boys, fueled by cheap beer and an even cheaper desire to be heroes, appointed themselves her unofficial bodyguards.

Now, the legend of “Dangerous Dan” was born one sticky night behind a dive bar called The Rusty Nail. A gaggle of local tough girls, jealous of Tina’s allure or maybe just bored, decided to redecorate her face. Dan, armed with nothing but his Pink Can Aqua Net (extra super hold, naturally, because even in a brawl, a man has standards) and a surprising amount of righteous fury, waded in. He didn’t so much fight them as…disperse them, in a cloud of aerosolized lacquer and screeching. Tina, suitably impressed or perhaps just grateful not to have a black eye, rewarded him with a kiss that tasted like cherry lipstick and untapped potential. He was smitten. Head over heels. A goner.

The Sonesta Bowl, a local institution smelling of lane wax, stale beer, and desperation, was where the other half of his moniker took root. Dan, it turned out, had a certain…knack with the ladies who frequented the attached tavern. Maybe it was the hair. Maybe it was the brooding silence that some mistook for depth. Whatever it was, the whispers started: “That’s the Sonesta Stud.” He’d just shrug, order another Bud, and try not to think about how Tina’s eyes were increasingly drawn to the lead guitarist, a lanky dude with actual talent and fewer outstanding warrants.

The good times, as they always do, started to curdle. West Colfax was a different beast than suburban Thornton, a gritty strip of pawn shops, rods & bods, adult bookstores, and taverns where trouble wasn’t just brewed, it was served on tap. A turf war, or something equally pointless and testosterone-fueled, erupted between Dan’s loosely affiliated crew and a rival gang of greasers who looked like they’d stepped out of a time machine stuck on 1957. One night, under the flickering neon of a liquor store sign, things got biblical. Or at least, club-ical. Dan zigged when he should have zagged and a tire iron, or maybe it was a table leg (details got fuzzy when your bell was being rung like the Liberty on the Fourth of July), connected with his scalp. He woke up with a headache that could curdle milk and a ragged scab that peeked out from his blonde spikes, a permanent souvenir of his Colorado escapade. Dangerous Dan, indeed.

Then came the scattering. It happened not with a bang, but with a series of mumbled goodbyes and slammed car doors. Rikki, ever the pragmatist beneath the wild-man exterior, joined the Navy. “Three hots and a cot, man,” he’d said, “and maybe i’ll see the world, or at least a different part of this godforsaken country.” Zipperhead, after a particularly bad batch of something he’d scored, decided the ski slopes of Summit County held the answers, or at least better powder. Another, a quiet kid from South Dakota named Rogger Dogger, just packed his duffel one morning. “The grass ain’t always greener, Dan,” he’d offered, a sad smile playing on his lips. “Sometimes it’s just…different grass. And sometimes, your own patch ain’t so bad if you just water it right.”

The final blow, though, was Tina. She found her more eligible bachelor, a guy who owned a chain of car washes and didn’t have a collection of empty ramen noodle cups under his bed. Dan saw them once, gliding out of a steakhouse, her laughter echoing, bright and carefree. It was a sound he realized he hadn’t heard from her in a long time, not when she was with him anyway.

The Sonesta Stud. It was a joke, really. A hollow crown. He’d make out with the local talent, sure, a brief flicker of connection in the smoky haze of the bar, but it was like trying to warm your hands over a book of matches when you were freezing to death. The depression, when it finally hit, wasn’t a sudden storm but a slow, creeping fog, muffling the world, turning the vibrant colors of his imagined rock star life into a dull, aching gray. The kind of gray he’d tried to escape back in Pennsylvania.

The realization hit him harder than that club on Colfax. Wherever you go, there you are. The bleakness wasn’t in the rolling hills of PA or the strung out sprawl of Thornton. It was in him. A little piece of that old familiar picnic table, that existential dread, had apparently stowed away in that rust-bucket Pinto wagon and made the trip west with him.

So, Dangerous Dan, the Sonesta Stud, packed his remaining can of Aqua Net (it was mostly empty now, like his promises to himself) and pointed the Pinto east. Back to the land of doting parents, nosey cousins, and primitive back roads.

And a funny thing happened on the way back to being Danny Yoder. Or maybe it happened once he got there, once the Colorado dust had settled and the ringing in his ears from too many nights spent too close to overloaded amps had finally faded. The primitive back roads? They weren’t so bad. Kinda pretty, actually, especially in the fall when the leaves turned. The provincial attitudes? Hell, most folks were just trying to get by, same as anywhere. And his nosey cousins and doting parents…well, they were family. They’d clucked over his scar, his suspiciously blonde hair (now growing out, revealing the sensible brown it had always been underneath), and his general air of a man who’d wrestled with a few demons and maybe, just maybe, pinned one or two of them to the mat.

The things that used to grate on his nerves like a cheese grater on a raw potato suddenly seemed…comforting. The familiarity of it all, the sheer, unadorned Pennsylvanianess of it, was a balm. He even found himself helping his old man on the farm, the smell of turned earth a far cry from stale beer and regret.

Danny Yoder was home. The Sonesta Stud was a ghost, a story he might tell his own kids someday, if he ever got around to having some. Dangerous Dan? Well, maybe there was still a spark of him left, a reminder that even a kid from an hard working family in Pennsylvania Amish Country could chase a crazy dream, get his scalp split open, and live to tell the tale with a wry grin. The grass, he finally figured, was green enough right where he was standing. He just had to remember to look down once in a while, instead of always staring at some distant, peroxide-fueled horizon. And maybe, just maybe, that was the most rebellious thing of all.

Onward through the fog… RH

You can gain insight…
Off a single sheet…
From Amish country…
To the Denver mean streets…
To pin your demons…
To the mat of destiny…
Everywhere you go…
There you are.

This Land: West Virginia

Well well well, we’re still on the road. This week… West Virginia. We’re finding the fun has dwindled a bit. At times Ronnie confesses to feeling like an exposed nerve. It may have something to do with the change of scenery. After all, as a Kanorado native, Ronnie’s comfortable with wide open spaces. But starting in North Carolina, approaching the beginning humps of the Appalachians, Ronnie started developing a contracting state of claustrophobia. This sense of dread actually started earlier, in South Carolina, with conjured imaginings of what it would be like to navagate congested urban sprawl nestled amongst relentless steep grades, up and down and up and down, trying not to ride the brakes but sometimes unable to avoid it. Then what do you know? The two West Virginia college towns Rocinante stumbled into (WVU and Fairmount State) presented conditions exactly like Ronnie’s worst roller-coaster imaginings.

Now, the other side of Ronnie’s Kanorado upbringing leaves him no stranger to mountaineering. And, truth told, our heroes have learned to keep up with the locals. But there ain’t no autopilot moments like those on the prairie, and Ronnie’s exposed nerve feeling keeps interrupting the vagabond felicity. So, this brings us to what appears to be a recurring theme investigating West Virginia’s general “vibe”. From readings and conversations, Ronnie has detected a more than usual sense of bi-polar contradiction, set in some of the most beautiful, lush country our heroes have yet encountered.

West Virginia! A veritable Janus of banjos and 5g smartphones. Even before the rabble in Philadelphia started their tiresome bleating about liberty and taxes, this land of craggy peaks and shadowed hollers harbored a glorious dichotomy. On the one hand, you had rugged frontiersmen, creatures of axe and rifle, suspicious of anyone wearing hats indoors and whose idea of polite conversation involves hitting the spittoon bullseye. Folks of fierce independence, mind you, who’d sooner wrestle a bear than abide a revenue agent or a banker.

Then, cheek-by-jowl with these noble savages, you’d find the seeds of a peculiar sort of… let us call it genteel indolence. Picture the languid river valleys, where the air hangs thick and sweet as overripe peaches, and where ambition rarely stretches beyond a decent slash of corn liquor and a comfortable spot on the porch swing. Folks who view haste as vulgar and consider vigorous debate over the proper way to cure tobacco the height of intellectual ferment.

Enter the great unpleasantness of the Revolution, and West Virginia, bless her conflicted heart, found herself straddling the fence like a hound dog caught in a barbed wire. Still part of greater Virginia, she sent forth her share of flinty riflemen to give the Redcoats a proper thrashing, a surprising burst of collective energy. Yet, even amidst the patriotic fervor, one might suspect there were plenty of mountaineers more concerned with deer season than the pronouncements of some powdered wig in Williamsburg.

The Civil War, naturally, only amplified this delightful schizophrenia. Brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor… a perfect illustration of a populace simultaneously capable of profound loyalty and stubborn contrariness. One faction, fiercely attached to the traditions (and peculiar institutions) of the Old Dominion, marched off under the Stars and Bars. The other, smelling a chance for their own patch of sovereignty and perhaps harboring a lingering resentment for the tidewater gentry, cast their lot with the Union. The result? A bloody, internecine squabble fought amidst some of the most gorgeously indifferent scenery on the continent.

And now, in this glorious age of the World Wide Web, this bi-polar beast roars on. You have pockets of genuine, unadulterated Appalachia, where decent 4g access is as mythical as the Sasquatch, and where the most pressing technological concern is whether the battery in the coon-hunting flashlight is still good. Here, the ancient rhythms of the land persist, the wisdom is passed down through generations of storytellers, and a firm handshake still means more than a thousand likes or shares.

But then, just over the next ridge, you’ll stumble upon a Starlink antenna sprouting from a double-wide, its tendrils reaching out to the digital ether. Here, the denizens are just as likely to be scrolling through TikTok as whittling a piece of wood. They’re ordering drone parts on Amazon while simultaneously canning beets according to a recipe passed down from their great-grandmother. They’re arguing about cryptocurrency on Reddit while their hound dog snoozes by the wood-burning stove.

It’s an all too human mess, this West Virginia. A land where the echoes of Daniel Boone‘s long rifle mingle with stock-ticker notifications. A place where the fierce independence of mountaineers clash with the modern craving for instant gratification and online validation. It is, in short, a microcosm of the American condition, amplified and seasoned with a healthy dose of mountain stubbornness and a suspicion of anything invented after the Mason jar. Long may it remain so, a testament to the enduring human capacity for glorious contradiction.

As for OUR contradicted heroes, they’ll keep pushin’ on. Ronnie’s “exposed nerve” will surely abate. And just as well as the worst is yet to come. In fact, we’re told Blue Highway windshield time in Upstate NY and further North amounts to traveling up endless claustrophobia-inducing tree alleys. It’s funny because delusional Ronnie thought he would NEVER miss driving on endless prairies, but here we are. He probably just needs a reminder that flatlander driving very often includes bucking white-knuckle gale-force head and cross-winds… and that ain’t no fun neither.

Onward through the fog… RH

It makes you dizzy…
Blue Highway shizzy…
In West Virginia…
You can get busy…
And take a page from…
The Tao Te Ching…
This too will pass…
And equalize.

This Land: Virginia

To be clear, Rocinante is no stranger to mountaineering. In fact, she was literally born in Colorado Springs, her first initiation over Independence Pass through the valley of the Roaring Fork northwest of Aspen, where Owl Farm, Hunter S. Thompson‘s home redoubt sits. A gorgeous, exhilarating trip and Rocinante handled it without a hitch. Now, this is all familiar territory for Ronnie, a native of Kanorado. He’s seen it all, from Black Bear Road to the endless prairies of Western Kansas. That said, it’s hard for our heroes to stay focused traveling through Virginia as the lush Edenic land goes on and on and on. They made a point to stay on what Heat Moon dubbed “Blue Highways” and by arrival in Waynesboro, Ronnie was overwhelmed with the beauty of Virginia’s interior. So much he began to doubt his ability to return to the flatlands.

Anyway, let’s try to scratch the surface of Virginia, warts and all. The name whispers of a land steeped in history, and since Ronnie has no personal memories here, he’ll have to rely on the testimony of others weaving a tapestry with threads of glory and shame, beauty and brutality.

THE GOOD: In the nascent days of the Virginia Colony, a spirit of enterprise, however fraught with unintended consequence, took root. Brave souls, lured by the promise of land and opportunity, crossed the vast ocean, establishing settlements like Jamestown. Here, amidst hardship and uncertainty, the seeds of a new nation were sown. Think of the fortitude of women like Pocahontas, who, whether through romanticized legend or historical fact, stands as a bridge between two worlds, a figure of diplomacy in a time of great tension. The fertile soil yielded tobacco, a golden leaf that fueled the colony’s growth and prosperity, laying the foundation for a burgeoning society. Later, Virginia became the cradle of revolutionary thought, birthing patriots like Washington and Jefferson, whose eloquent pronouncements on liberty and self-governance echoed across the land, ultimately shaping the destiny of the United States. The establishment of institutions of learning, like the College of William & Mary, fostered intellectual pursuits and contributed to the development of a uniquely American identity. Even in later years, the spirit of progress continued, exemplified by the tireless efforts of individuals like Booker T. Washington, born into slavery in Virginia, who rose to become a beacon of hope and advocate for education and self-reliance for African Americans across the nation. His work at the Hampton Institute and Tuskegee University stands as a testament to the enduring power of human aspiration in the face of adversity.

THE BAD: Alas, like the shadow that invariably accompanies the light, Virginia’s history is not without its darker chapters. The very prosperity of the early colony was built upon a foundation of injustice: the brutal exploitation of the land and its indigenous inhabitants, and the abhorrent institution of chattel slavery. The arrival of enslaved Africans marked a profound and enduring stain on the Virginian narrative, a contradiction to the lofty ideals of liberty espoused by its leading figures. The echoes of the lash and the cries of the oppressed resonate through the centuries, a stark reminder of the inherent cruelty and inhumanity of this system. Even the allure of the land led to conflict and displacement, as the relentless westward expansion often came at the expense of Native American tribes who had called this land home for generations. The seeds of division sown in these early days would ultimately contribute to the cataclysm of the Civil War, a bloody conflict that tore the nation asunder and left an indelible scar upon the Virginian landscape.

THE UGLY: Beyond the grand narratives of heroism and injustice lie the more granular, often overlooked aspects of life that reveal a less romanticized past. The harsh realities of colonial life – the disease, the famine, the constant threat of conflict – painted a grim picture for many early settlers. Imagine the squalor of early settlements, the precariousness of existence, the ever-present specter of illness claiming lives with cruel indifference. Even the pursuit of wealth could lead to avarice and exploitation, as individuals sought to amass fortunes at the expense of their less fortunate neighbors. The social hierarchies, rigidly enforced, often left little room for advancement for those born into less privileged circumstances. And let us not forget the presence of those who operated outside the bounds of law and decency, preying on the vulnerable. While not directly a Virginian, the infamous pirate Blackbeard, with his fearsome reputation, certainly cast a shadow over the coastal waters, a symbol of the lawlessness that could occasionally disrupt the ordered (or disordered) affairs of the colony. The tales of his depredations, though perhaps embellished over time, speak to a certain brutishness that existed on the fringes of society.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT: Now, let us turn our attention to some of the more curious and perhaps less widely known aspects of Virginia’s history. Virginia once boasted a significant wine industry in its early days, with attempts made to cultivate European grape varieties. Though these initial efforts met with limited success, they speak to the early aspirations and diverse ambitions of the colonists. Furthermore, consider the intriguing stories surrounding the Lost Colony of Roanoke in present-day South Carolina, a mystery that continues to baffle historians to this day. The disappearance of an entire settlement, leaving behind only the cryptic word “Croatoan,” fuels speculation and whispers of unknown fates. And who would have thought that Virginia played a crucial role in the development of early American literature, with figures like William Byrd II chronicling colonial life in witty and insightful prose? These lesser-known facets add layers of complexity and intrigue to the well-trodden paths of historical narrative.

GHOSTS: Ah, and now we venture into the realm of shadows and whispers, where the veil between worlds is said to thin. Given its long and often turbulent history, it is perhaps unsurprising that Virginia is rife with tales of spectral encounters. Ancient plantations, witnesses to generations of joy and sorrow, are often whispered to be haunted by the lingering spirits of those who once walked their halls. Tales abound of disembodied voices, unexplained footsteps, and the spectral apparitions of former inhabitants, forever bound to the land. Civil War battlefields, soaked in the blood and anguish of a nation divided, are said to echo with the cries of long-lost soldiers, their restless spirits forever reenacting the tragic events of the past. Even the coastline, once frequented by pirates and privateers, holds legends of ghostly ships sailing through the mist, their spectral crews guarding long-lost treasures. Whether these tales are mere fancy or hold a kernel of truth, they undeniably add a certain mystique to the rich tapestry of Virginia’s past, a reminder that perhaps some echoes of history refuse to fade entirely.

Jamestown Church (renovated) — Jamestown Church (restored)

Blackbeard's capture — Jamestown Church (restored)

Thus, we have traversed the variegated landscape of Virginia’s history, from its promising beginnings and noble aspirations to its darker realities and enduring mysteries. The story of Virginia is one of stark contrasts, of light and shadow, of triumphs and tragedies, all woven together to create a snapshot as compelling and enduring as the land itself. And with that Ronnie and Rocinante bid Virginia fare well setting a course for neighboring West Virginia.

Onward through the fog… RH

From the strife of Jamestown…
To Colonial Union…
The nation’s birth pangs…
Start in Virginia…
And though the land was…
Abundant paradise…
Independence came with a heavy price.

This Land: North Carolina

Okay, in our South Carolina post, we mentioned the gentle ribbing in which natives of North and South Carolina are known to engage from time to time. And the trip from Myrtle Beach, to Boone, really brought the contrasts home for Ronnie. We spoke with natives on the boardwalk at Myrtle Beach, the library in North Wilkesboro, and the Cracker Barrel in Boone. After a couple sleep cycles and a few walkabouts, Ronnie’s impressions resemble a two-state demolition derby of contrasts, and since we gotta keep this train a rollin’, here’s the admittedly brief and somewhat whimsical assessment:

First, North Carolina, that bastion of AshVIlle cool, where the air crackles with Ph.D. energy and the bookstores overflow with Derridean Phenomenology. South Carolina? They’ve got… GreenvUlle. Where the humidity clings, the fire ants sting, and the barbecue joints are serious business. Yessirreebob!

The music scene? Oh, sweet Jesus, the music! Up north, it’s all flutes and dreads, the earthy strum of acoustic guitars, the faint, sweet smell of patchouli oil wafting through the co-op. Down south? It’s hiking gear and bandanas, the twang of banjos at a bluegrass festival, and enough Realtree camo to outfit a small militia!

And the cars, yeowtch! North Carolina, land of the practical, reliable, ready for anything, and perpetually covered in a fine layer of red clay dust, Subaru. South Carolina? The sleek, the sophisticated, the ultimate driving machine, BMW!

Religion? North Carolina, with its burgeoning tiny home communities, whispers of Zen, and a general suspicion of anything too… organized. South Carolina? Mega Churches! Sprawling complexes with parking lots the size of aircraft carriers, where the faithful gather in their Sunday best to hear the good word, amplified to stadium levels!

Recreational mood lifting? North Carolina? Green Man and bowls of ganja, homegrown, shared with friends, and definitely not served with a side of kale. The local, the earthy, the “we’ve been doing it this way for generations” vibe. Think hand-carved walking sticks and a healthy skepticism of anything invented after 1970. Down South, baby! Bowls of oats, organic, gluten-free, locally sourced, and probably sprouted under a full moon. Weekend warriors, decked out in the latest Gore-Tex, ready to conquer every trail, every peak, every kombucha brewery!

The canine companions? North Carolina, the noble rescue mutt, each with a story etched in their soulful eyes, their fur a testament to a life lived… outdoors. South Carolina? Golden Doodles, prancing through the farmers’ market, their fluffy coats gleaming in the artisanal sunlight.

Leisure? North Carolina… Kitty Hawk! The windswept dunes, the birthplace of flight, where the Wright brothers dared to dream, and where the royal green is an endless expanse of Blue Ridge forests. South Carolina? Golf courses, manicured to perfection, sprawling across the landscape like emerald carpets, the domain of the well-heeled and the well-tanned.

And the people? North Carolina… Hippies! clinging to the fringes, their tie-dye shirts a defiant splash of color in a world of khakis, their vintage VW buses rumbling testaments to a different way of life. South Carolina? Yuppies! urban centers, teeming with young professionals, their eyes fixed on the next promotion, the next craft brewery, the next hot yoga class.

And let’s not forget the one thing that unites them… their shared, almost pathological need to make fun of Hendersonville! It’s the Switzerland of Carolina-bashing, the neutral territory where both sides can come together in a spirit of… well, mild derision.

But, hallelujah and amen, let’s be honest. For all the ribbing, all the contrasts, all the Tar Heel swagger and Palmetto pride… would they rather be anywhere else? North Carolina, with its mountains and its music and its… progress? South Carolina, with its beaches and its barbecue and its… soul?

Nah. They’ll take it all. The Villes and the VUlles, the flutes and the fiddles, the Beemers and the Subarus. Because, at the end of the day, it’s the Carolinas, baby! And, for these loopers, that’s a damn sight better than anywhere else.

We’ll see you in Virginia…

Onward through the fog… RH

Be on your guard…
In the Carolinas…
You may get hooked and…
Go full messiani…
From sandy beaches…
To misty mountains…
These folks are blessed to have it all.

This Land: South Carolina

So, we’re rolling into South Carolina, aye? And there ain’t any hot springs. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

THE GOOD: South Carolina’s got plenty of choices for college. Little ones, medium-sized ones… like a box of assorted chocolates, only instead of sweet surprises, you get knowledge. Or something like that. You’ve got your College of Charleston, your Furman University, your Wofford College… even Clemson, though it’s so big it practically needs its own zip code.

And if you’re a bookworm, don’t despair. South Carolina might not be Faulkner country, but it’s got its own literary quirks. The Gibbes Museum in Charleston has enough Southern art and literature to make your head spin. Plus, the whole state’s littered with historic homes and plantations – you know, the kind with long, shadowy porches and a whole lotta history (and maybe a few ghosts) tucked away inside.

Now, if you ask a South Carolinian what they love about their state, they’ll probably start waxing poetic about the scenery. Mountains, beaches, swamps… it’s like Mother Nature threw a dart at a map and said, “Let’s put it all right here.” Of course, they’ll also mention the history. Charleston, in particular, is like stepping into a time machine, with its cobblestone streets and Gullah culture. And the people? Well, they’re friendly, that’s for sure. Southern hospitality ain’t just a saying, folks.

Oh, and did we mention the cost of living? Compared to some places (uh, California), South Carolina’s practically giving it away. So if you’re young and broke but still clinging to that tattered American Dream, this could be your destiny.

THE BAD: The infrastructure… some of those roads are so bumpy, you’ll think you’re riding a buckboard wagon. And the summers? Hoo boy. Imagine a sauna that also happens to be outside. That’s the dog days of July and August in South Carolina.

THE UGLY: The political climate? Let’s just say it’s redder than a sunburn. In 1932, most of South Carolina voters, nearly all white in a state where nearly half the residents were Black but not able to cast ballots, chose Liberal FDR for president at the start of the Great Depression. Ever since, the conservative backlash has been long, steady, and at times infused by racism. Among the landmark moments include Strom Thurmond’s 24-hour filibuster against the Civil Rights act in 1954, then his decision to switch to the Republican Party continuing the fight to block civil rights legislation in Congress.

So, who’s who from South Carolina? Well, there’s Darius Rucker, the country crooner who used to front Hootie and the Blowfish. There’s William Refrigerator Perry, lineman for the Chicago Bears in the 1980s. There’s James Brown, the hardest working man in show business. And the ever-graceful Vanna White from the Wheel of Fortune game show. Oh, and let’s not forget Strom Thurmond. Yeah, South Carolina’s got a complicated past.

Now, Ronnie hasn’t resided East of the Mississippi, so he can’t say for sure what the people in the two Carolinas think of one another. But we’ve heard whispers. Apparently, North Carolinians think South Carolinians are a bit slow. Laid-back, even. And South Carolinians? Well, they think North Carolinians are a bit uptight. All work and no play, you know the type. But hey, at the end of the day, they’re both Southern states. They love their college football, their barbecue, and their beaches. So maybe they’re not so different after all.

Anyway, South Carolina’s an interesting place. It’s beautiful and frustrating, welcoming and backward, all at the same time. The job market’s getting better, but it’s still tough to make a decent living in some parts. And while the state’s slowly becoming more diverse, it’s still got a long way to go.

So, is South Carolina for you? That’s a question only you can answer. But if you do decide to take the plunge, just remember: pack your sense of humor, your mosquito repellent, and your open mind. You’re gonna need ’em.

Onward through the fog… RH

As we were rolling…
‘Long a Carolina shoreline…
We saw the truth…
Across the skyline…
It brought us back to…
First principles…
This land is here…
For you and me.

This Land: Kentucky

Alright, alright, alright! Ronnie and Rocinante started this tour from the great state of Kansas, and in the stompin’ rock-n-roll salad days, Kansas was famous for springtime tornadoes. Well, times change, people change, and apparently weather patterns change as well. For instance, here in the Southeastern states, the approach of March and April 2025 subjected Ronnie and Rocinante to three, count ’em, three white knuckle evenings where one eye was on the online tornado trackers and the other on streaming movies. Two of those evenings featured sirens screaming, “take cover people, a funnel has been spotted!!”

Now, being a lifelong Kansas native, Ronnie’s habit is to hightail it outdoors to look for the funnel. But all three of these incidents happened at night, and those are no fun at all. So, there they were, watching for danger funnels on the radar trackers while Ronnie formulated a plan for what to do if the damn thing rolled over them. Once, they had a nearby ditch to duck into, but the other two times, just Cracker Barrel which is closed after 10:00pm. So Ronnie’s idea was to wrap himself in a substantially padded sleeping bag, strap into the passenger seat and ride it out with Rocinante. The good news? They didn’t have to resort to drastic measures on any of these evenings, but the most recent incident did scare Ronnie a bit, and the psychic reverberations are chronicled in the below dream dispatch (embellishments taken by artistic license)..

Buckle up, Buttercup, because we’re driving headfirst into the swirling, screaming maw of a river-riding tornado, a meteorological monstrosity tracing the muddy spine of the Mississippi and Ohio, a psychedelic serpent of wind and chaos, as the Mississippi, usually a languid giant, began to froth. From the trembling neon of Beale Street, a tornado, not of wind, but of memory and distorted reality, spun to life. It didn’t roar, it whispered, a chorus of forgotten river songs, bourbon-soaked laments, and the echoes of civil war battles all the way from the blues-soaked delta of Memphis to the bourbon-soaked hills of Louisville.

It started, as these things often do, with a whisper, a low growl in the humid air above Beale Street, a pregnant pause in the rhythm of the blues. Then, BOOM, a swirling vortex of fury ripped through the neon haze, sucking up stray guitar licks and the lingering scent of barbecue like a cosmic vacuum cleaner. We’re talking a twister with a goddamn attitude, folks, a hell-bent hurricane on a pilgrimage to the heart of bluegrass country.

Upriver it raged, a furious finger pointing towards Kentucky, leaving behind a trail of bewildered catfish and flattened riverboats. The swirling vortex first caught the echoes of Elvis’s ghostly hip swivels, then twisted north, past the slumbering cotton fields. The air shimmered, and we saw a young Jennifer Lawrence, not on a red carpet, but atop a wild-eyed pony, her laughter echoing across the rolling hills of her childhood farm. “Those horses,” she whispered, her voice a phantom breeze, “they knew the secrets of the land, secrets the river whispered too.” The tornado, momentarily calmed, seemed to nod, then resumed its watery ascent.

Next, the phantom funnel roared past Churchill Downs, where the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson, fueled by a lifetime of Wild Turkey and mescaline, materialized in a puff of ganja smoke. He was ranting about the “equine gentry,” their manicured hooves and bloodline arrogance, as the tornado ripped the fancy hats off the heads of bewildered spectators. “Fear and Loathing in Tornado Alley,” he’d scream, his banshee voice lost in the wind, “a goddamn vortex of pure, unadulterated madness!”

The tempest continued its journey, a whirling dervish of destruction, passing over Louisville, where the spirit of Muhammad Ali, light as a butterfly and stinging like a bee, rose to meet it. He was projected into a snowy black & white television screen reliving a defiant response to the military draft, his voice echoing through the storm, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home to drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?” The audio glitched, he continued through the white noise, “I got no quarrel with them Viet Cong!” he said. The tornado, momentarily stunned by his sheer force of personality, seemed to hesitate, then roared on, a begrudging respect in its howl.

Further up the Ohio, the ghost of Abe Lincoln, his lanky frame emerging from the mist, pointed a spectral finger towards his “sinking spring” childhood home. “Even the land weeps,” he intoned, his voice deep and resonant, “when the balance is disturbed.” The tornado, perhaps sensing a kindred spirit in the rail-splitter’s melancholic wisdom, seemed to soften its destructive touch, leaving the old homestead relatively unscathed.

Then, the storm reached the heart of bluegrass country, where Chris Stapleton, his voice a whiskey-soaked lament, stood defiant against the swirling chaos, his trademark cowboy hat firmly planted on his head. “They told me my style was too raw, too real,” he growled, a plume of smoke curling from a phantom stem, “but the wind knows the truth.” The tornado, impressed by his gritty authenticity, seemed to bow in deference, whipping his long hair into a frenzy.

Dwight Yoakam, his voice echoing the Bakersfield sound, tipped his hat to the storm, a knowing grin on his face. “Even the Bluegrass wind respects the Bakersfield Sound,” he drawled, his voice cutting through the roar. The tornado, perhaps drawn to the twang of his soul, seemed to sway in time with the rhythm.

Finally, as the storm reached its crescendo, a spectral banjo echoed through the chaos. Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass, materialized, a red clan robed image straight from the Coen Brothers’ movie, his eyes glowing with an otherworldly light. He plucked a haunting melody, a lament for the ravaged land, and the tornado, as if listening to a divine command, began to dissipate, its fury spent, leaving behind a trail of eerie calm and the lingering echo of the high, lonesome sound.

And so, the river-riding tornado, a psychedelic fever dream of wind and chaos, faded into the Kentucky hills, leaving behind a trail of twisted jangled nerves, tall tales, and the lingering scent of bourbon and bluegrass. Nothing like a good existential scare to bring out the vivid dreams.