The Forks

The Chool Bus (ch05)

Chapter 5: Where The Forks recruit another member. Buck Wellstone applies for graduate assistantship and joins the project as Professor T.’s aid de camp.

The crisp morning air in Fort Collins was a refreshing difference for the Forks as each performed their morning necessaries preparing for the next stop. Larimie, Wyoming was but a short jaunt away, but no one was feeling rushed as the events of the previous night were still ringing in their collective gizzards. Billie couldn’t remember the name of the good natured southern gentleman that had intervened in the misunderstanding triggered by Professor T.’s silly looking recording rig. But Jack did, and he also recalled inviting Buck Wellstone to join the forks at a popular Larimie brew-pub once the focus group interviews were conducted and the Forks were ready to relax for the evening.

“Buck Wellstone is his name, and he’s interested in applying for a graduate assistantship in our department. He wants to join us on the tour,” said Jack.

“I don’t know if we can get through the application process quick enough for next semester, but we do have an opening,” said Professor T. “Did you say he was meeting us in Laramie?”

“Indeed he is,” Jack responded.

“Good. I can check on his eligibility on the road, and i’ll give him the standard interview while in Laramie. If his references check out, maybe…” Professor T. was secretly hoping this would work out as Mr. Wellstone had a refreshing positive vibe. Smart, funny, physically imposing, and genuinely interested in the research the Forks were conducting and the tight-knit camaraderie displayed by this motley collection of humanity.

The Chool Bus rolled into Larimie in time for the gang to grab some lunch and get freshened up before gathering participants for the focus group interviews. And, as expected, the room was divided as the nation’s fibrillating heart seemed to be in this culturally-fraught era. But, the session was conducted professionally, and participants behaved respectfully. As soon as they got started, it was over. Participants went their separate ways and the Forks pointed the Chool Bus toward the brew-pub designated for rendezvous with Mr. Wellstone.

Now, the Forks had plenty of experience in Wyoming, and after everyone was settled into a pleather-cushened booth, each their own chosen libation working its social-lubrication magic, Professor T. mused about a two-week engagement the band played in Riverton, Wyoming in the early 90s. In Professor T.’s recounting, the gig felt like a lifetime trapped in a malfunctioning deep freeze. December in that desolate outpost was a symphony of howling wind and sub-zero temperatures, a perfect recipe for laryngitis. Professor T., at the time, known as “Mork T.” (Mork T. and The Forks… get it?), fueled by a steady diet of codeine cough syrup and still clinging to his delusional dream of rock stardom, chased those nonexistent high notes across a well lit stage in a room full of barely interested strangers. Needless to say, it went about as well as a fleshy juke box in a howling sauna.

As is often the case, one anecdote leads to another with this group so Jack, musing about post-Forks times, recalled a highly-unlikely story where he, partnered with a gonzo ski-resort co-worker, someone that went by the alias, “Fozzy” (for the sake of anonymity).

Now, this Fozzy character, a Laramie-educated electrical engineering savant with a graduate school acceptance letter burning a hole in his pocket, held a peculiar belief: That Laramie Wyoming, was a magical land where cops were blind to the transgressions of the gloriously intoxicated. This, of course, was a theory ripe for testing by these two nihilistic souls clinging desperately to the wreckage of their semi-feral animal-house-esque existence.

Imagine, if you will, a “borrowed” car (ownership and registration a fiction at best), fueled by cold beer (courtesy of the nearest liquor store), hurtling towards Laramie like a pair of wobbly missiles. The speedometer, a mere suggestion, registered a healthy too-damn-fast, a testament to their utter disregard for both the law and their own mortality.

Several beers and a vanished sunset later, they rolled into Laramie like banshees on Adderall. To their utter disappointment, the flashing blue lights they so richly deserved remained stubbornly absent. Finally, in a moment of glorious absurdity, Fozzy managed to run a red light, narrowly missing a cop car pulling out of a parking lot.

“Well, this is it,” Jack chuckled, fresh with i told you so energy dancing in his eyes. “Busted! Hauled off to the drunk tank, a glorious, self-inflicted martyrdom!”

The officer, a woman with a withering gaze that could curdle milk, approached Fozzy’s window. The story Fozzy concocted to explain their lack of documentation was a masterpiece of nonsensical bravado, worthy of a Bugs Bunny episode. Miraculously, it worked. The officer, perhaps amused by the sheer audacity of it all, subjected Fozzy to a “sobriety dance” (how he passed remains a mystery). Deemed sufficiently non-threatening, they were banished from her sight with a stern warning and a $25 fine, payable through a conveniently located “after hours” slot at the courthouse.

And so Fozzy’s theory was field-tested and determined factually sound. Or perhaps, the officer had simply taken pity on these two hapless fools.

As Jack recounted this delicious slice of youthful debauchery, Mr. Wellstone’s countenance danced between mild astonishment to dubiousness as he wasn’t sure how much of this was exaggeration and how much was outright fabrication. As Jack was winding down, Mr. Wellstone’s expression softened as he seemed to recall his academic advisor complaining about drunk drivers skating by with impunity in their wild-west college town. Jack swore the story was mostly true to a detail, and since the rest of the Forks had already heard the story (several times), they vouched for Jack because they knew this “Fozzy” character, and the story tracked.

As the evening progressed, Mr. Wellstone made a strong impression on Professor T. that he was serious about joining the Forks on their tour, applying for the open graduate assistantship, and eventually earning an “informatics/new media” master’s degree from their University. “I can’t promise anything at this time,” said Professor T., but we have room for one more on the Chool Bus, and your assistance was greatly appreciated in Fort Collins. If Jack And Billie, agree, we’d be honored to have you aboard.”

“I vote, eye,” said Billie, with a sly grin.

“And i concur,” said Jack lifting his glass for a toast. With that, all raised their glasses, and so it was settled. The Forks had a new roadie, and Professor T. gained a loyal aid de camp.

NEXT WEEK:
Chapter 6: Where The Forks begin their time in Montana with a relaxing day in the steamy drink at Chico and Jack calls Bullshit on a wild Park Ranger’s story.

GO BACK => Preface and Chapter Links

The Chool Bus (ch04)

Chapter 04: The Forks embark, and Professor T. learns
the perceived value of privacy in a “social media” world.

The day was winding down to a spectacular Kansas golden hour. Neighbors could be heard mowing lawns and trimming bushes with their various landscaping tools. In the distance hot shots in their hot rods were peppering the soundscape with impressive mechanical blats and varooms. Billie Schmidt was tending to last minute service details for the Chool Bus, Professor T. was packing a go bag to accommodate a few weeks on the road, and Jack Dean was enjoying some Netflix and Chill with his current squeeze, Jackie Blue. Somewhere in the distance, neighborhood dogs were playing the “telephone game”. Billie surmised one of them was yelling at a back yard squirrel, and the rest were simply egging him on.

All was well in the Forks’ sleepy college town, once a wild frontier outpost for the U.S. Cavalry, now home to their Alma Mater. Similar to The Forks, once a wild nihilistic post-punk grunge metal band, now reunited for a year-long odyssey pursuing the “fibrillating heart of the divided nation”, a research project led by Professor T., and faithfully aided by Jack Dean, Assistant Professor on the tenure track, and Billie Schmidt, designer and builder of the finest touring bus this side of anywhere. The Forks were prepped, stocked and ready to tackle the first leg of their tour, the mountain west states of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. First stop, Fort Collins, Colorado.

Having played every venue open to post-punk grunge along the i70 corridor between Kansas City and Grand Junction, the Forks had seen this stretch of Dwight David Eisenhower’s interstate highway system enough times to nearly make the trip half asleep, and so the hours flowed by in a blur till rolling into Aurora after passing the distant teepees of the Denver International Airport (DIA). Driving duties were to be shared on stretches too long for one person, but Billie handled most of the driving duties herself as the gang agreed six or seven hours was plenty of road time for one day. The GPS unit was a custom piece cobbled together by Jack Dean, but Billie was adept with these things so didn’t need assistance. The gang enjoyed listening to Billie with the vocabulary of a sailer and the GPS in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson.

“I told you to take the mutha fukkin 270 exit through Commerce City,” SDS barked.

“You can shove the 270 exit up your USB hole,” shouted Billie! “That chemical plant in Commerce City stinks, and besides, i rather like navigating the ‘mouse trap.’” Mouse trap is what the locals called the cloverleaf at the junction of i70 East/West and i25, the Valley Highway, North/South. “We can go by the old Mile-High stadium site and jeer the Denver Donkeys.” Billie was a die-hard Kansas City Chiefs fan.

“Hey hey hey, there will be no blasphemy in Broncos Country,” extolled Jack Dean. “I won’t trash the Chumps if you’ll refrain from disparaging the Donkeys.” It was agreed, Jack would cheer for the Chiefs as long as they weren’t playing the Broncos, and Billie vowed the same.

“Don’t miss your goddamn i25 exit,” grumbled Sam jackson via SDS.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Billie mumbled as the Chool Bus glided around the Mouse Trap heading North along the front range, past Longmont, then Boulder, then Loveland, then approaching Fort Collins city limits. Billie steered the Chool Bus to their designated campground on the outskirts and the gang scattered on each individual’s exploring method. Professor T., to his pedometer, Billie on her electric bike, and Jack ducking into the nearest watering hole to get some tips from the local patrons.

After Billie and Professor T. finished their explorings, they joined Jack who was now a couple libations ahead of his companions. Now, Professor T.’s research was a combination of survey data and scheduled focus group interviews. But he also wanted to get up close and intimate with the locals, so he put together a rig for recording conversations and getting what radio and podcast producers call “nat sound”. This rig consisted of clipping a pair of condenser microphones on either side of a pair of half-open studio headphones. This allowed Professor T. to hear what was happening in the environment, and with the mics placed where they were, capture what is known as an “ambisonic” image of the natural sound as well as the conversation voices. One couldn’t really regard this rig inconspicuous, as the microphones were fitted with fur coverings. These coverings guard against breezes that can ruin the recording at worst, create a time consuming noise mitigation measure at best. So Professor T. looked like some sort of Star Wars alien with his head covered in headphones like those Princess Lea cinnamon rolls and furry protruding ears like Chewbacca.

Billie and Jack were at the bar enjoying locally crafted ale when Professor T. Arrived, saddled up to a bar stool, and began striking up conversation with patrons nearby. It appeared to Professor T. as if the people were shy because everyone he approached made as quick a social exit as possible. That is until a patron sitting at a table nearby approached Professor T. and, only slightly slurring his words, basically gave notice that he was willing to throw hands over Professor T.’s brazen violation of his and everyone else’s privacy. Evidently, this fella had been involved in some embarrassing viral social media moments causing him a fair amount of grief. He saw Professor T.’s audio recording as yet another round with the hoards of cancel happy social justice activists.

Of course, Professor T. was not one to engage in alcohol-fueled violence. Granted, he was the leader of a grunge metal band in the 90s, but the violence was mostly restricted to the mosh pit. It was often said their gig’s success could be measured by the “blood on the dance floor”. If ever there was a direct threat to the band, their roadies would take care of the matter, outside. Anyway, Professor T. was not used to having pissed off drunken bar patrons breathing down his own neck. He tried to reason with the fella, but he wasn’t to be placated, and fists began to fly with Jack, Billie, and a couple strangers all mixed up in a rain of blows. Finally, a voice attached to a rather imposing figure cut in and broke up the mayhem. This is where we meet Buck Wellstone, a recent graduate of the University of Wyoming from Corpus Christi, Texas. His imposing figure got everyone’s attention, but it was his cheerful, good natured southern gentleman countenance that resonated with the members of The Forks.

Once an equitable compromise had been struck starting with the understanding that Professor T. was not there to involve unsuspecting bar patrons in compromising “gotcha” moments, and the slightly inebriated bar patron confident he would remain anonymous, Professor T. took his ridiculous recording rig back to the Chool Bus and the angry bar patron went back to killing liver cells across the room with his equally marinated companions. The rest of the evening passed uneventful as each member of the troupe faded in his or her time. They were done documenting their interviews in Colorado. Next stop, Laramie Wyoming. Professor T. yawned as he typed out final details into his personal journal, crawled into his Chool Bus sleeping birth, and drifted under sleep’s dark and silent gate.

NEXT WEEK
Chapter 5: Where The Forks recruit another member. Buck Wellstone applies for graduate assistantship and joins the project as Professor T.’s aid de camp.

GO BACK => Preface and Chapter Links

The Chool Bus (ch03)

Chapter 3: Jack Dean makes paranoia a viable career path

By the wall clock, it was 9:15pm. Jack Dean had no plan to still be on campus after celebrating accomplishments and attending end of semester ceremonies for faculty and staff, but he had grades to turn in and he needed to have that task completed before Monday at noon. Normally, he would have saved some of that work for Saturday, but since he was scheduled to hit the road with his former band mates and long-time friends Mork Thompson and Billie Schmidt, he needed Saturday and Sunday for attending personal tasks preparing to accompany his friends on the first of many road trips supporting Thompson’s research project searching for the fibrillating heart of our divided nation. Fortunately, he was able to click “submit” on the final class roster before 10:00pm. Now he could head home, get some sleep, and get his bizniz done in time to check in with the gang Sunday afternoon.

Back in the day, Jack played a crucial role in the Grunge band (The Forks) with Billie and Professor Thompson, stage name “Mork T.”. Jack was not just a perfectly serviceable bass player, he was also the glue that kept Mork T., primary songwriter and the group’s center of gravity and Billie Schmidt, their kinetic hot-headed drummer from flying apart. A bit of a paranoia case, Jack could sense when trouble was brewing. Not only between his mercurial companions but also with promoters, venue owners, and fans. Like… he had a 6th sense antenna for trouble. Fortunately, these proclivities served him well after the band broke up and each member saught their own post rock-n-roll life.

Again, Jack was a bit of a paranoid, not pathological, but enough to make sleep a bit of a challenge. His nighttime MO consisted of a couple hits of primo weed and a beer or two on weekends. On this occasion, he skipped the beer and hit the hay after packing his ganja back in it’s “safe” place. Tomorrow would be dedicated to making preparations for weeks on the road conducting focus group interviews and tending to logistics with the assistance of a US road atlas and a new GPS app sporting various celebrity personalities for voices. Jack called the app, “Siri’s Drunk Sister (SDS)” because it had led him astray a couple times, and he felt he needed to cross-reference questionable “back road” routes with the “official” road atlas. No worries, the extra vigilance was worth the trouble because the newest build had Samuel L. Jackson and Roseanne Barr among others giving voice instructions. Colorful remonstrations issued forth whenever a driver made turns not aligned with SDS instructions… often hilarious.

And like Billie, Jack was excited to be part of Professor Thompson’s team as he was also on the university’s “tenure track” and so needed publication credits for his curriculum vitae. More importantly, he was excited to be traveling with his old band mates, older, wiser, no longer dealing with youthful angst and drunken drama that marked many of the “good ol’ days”.

One reason the gang’s checkered past was even more colorful than most was Jack’s hapless talent for attracting trouble. And though he was no longer soliciting extra-curricular rendezvous with young admirers of that rock-steady bootie-movin’ groove for which he was regionally famous, he still possessed an animal magnetism that had to be judiciously regulated on campus. Jack was damn good at repelling amorous advances by the many young students populating the campus. But, as a cyber-security specialist, not many of his direct charges were of the female persuasion. And, for some odd reason, his male LGBT students weren’t susceptible to his particular brand of pheromone.

And so, the gang was reunited, Billie had taken the Chool Bus on a maiden voyage over one of the more challenging mountain passes on a pilgrimage to visit Owl Farm in Woody Creek Colorado, the home and redoubt sanctuary of her favorite cultural critic Hunter S. Thompson. So, with the Chool Bus road-tested from the High Plains to the top of the world, the Forks were ready to take the nation’s temperature, coast to coast.

First stop, Fort Collins Colorado. Professor T.’s research included survey questionnaires, the type used by political pollsters, where participants are drawn from college towns and rural working-class communities with strong religious identifications. This data would be juxtaposed with the face-to-face focus-group work conducted by the reunited Forks making their way from state to state in a rolling home converted for traveling rock and roll refugees, the Chool Bus. Appointments with off-the beaten path communities as well as inner-city diverse-demographic groups are made and the tentative itinerary was crafted to be flexible enough to have alternate destinations in case any of the original appointments proved unworkable for whatever reason. Jack Dean, the paranoid tenure-track cyber-security instructor with a history of attracting trouble and a terrific bass player with tons of soul. No way Billie and Professor T. would trade Jack in for a less troublesome model, the Forks loved their mildly paranoid groovelicious partner.

NEXT WEEK:
Chapter 4: The Forks embark, and Professor T. learns the perceived value of privacy in a “social media” world.

GO BACK => Preface and Chapter Links

The Chool Bus (preface):

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: In the years of our lord 2024-25 the Loopcircus blog roared along with consistent weekly glimpses into our “Hot Springs or Busk (HSoB)” travels. This was a settled workflow, quite manageable, rendering weekly 4-10 minute posts and illustrative graphics (thanks to various AI image generation tools). The posts were accompanied by audio versions of the text in narrative podcast form. Presently, a few developments have altered our expectations post-HSoB. 1.) Since we have a perfectly serviceable set of vocal folds, we can’t continue to justify maintaining the AI voice-track crutch. 2.) The current creative focus is thus: Instead of brief snapshots of various topics, we’re aiming to create a long-form narrative, eventually cobbled together in novel form (audio & print). And 3.) We’ve shifted gears in our travels, where the original goal was to visit each of the 48 contiguous United States, a blog post for each (several for Florida… of course). And now, we’re letting a bit of moss grow under our feet, making travel decisions determined by favorable Van-Life weather.

And so, we’re currently approaching week #4 with the new project, and we’re finding those aimless moments of formless drifting, some call it “writer’s block” where, at the end of what could have been a productive day, we reflect with a bit of slothful guilt that nothing of consequence had been produced. This is anathema to your typical Type-A personality, no matter HOW retired i think i am. So, this morning, it hit me. In those heady days when we had weekly publish deadlines (a mere four weeks ago), things got done. In fact we were able to work so far ahead of deadlines to be three to six weeks ahead of publishing targets. Of course, this provides more time for reflection and review, and that’s a good thing as it’s hard to catch mechanical errors when the work is rushed. Anyway, we decided to roll this narrative out as a Loopcircus serial. Many fine works got their public introduction thusly. Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray comes to mind, among others, Twain, Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Joyce, etc..

So, we’ll get back to weekly postings with an eye toward minimizing the use of artificial intelligence tools. Starting with the voice tracks. We’ve decided to fall back to tracking my own voice for the audio supplements… AI will be removed from the workflow in that regard. That said, my graphics talent is right up there with Kurt Vonnegut’s (if you know, you know). So, we’ll continue to enlist a robot’s assistance for the weekly post’s “featured images”. We’ll engage a human artist should the finished product ever make it to professional publication.

And now… without further adieu… a brief introduction:
In this story, the eminent and amiable Professor Mork Thompson (Professor T.) and his bandmates… known as “The Forks” in their youthful heyday… wander around United States of America indulging a preternatural interest in human nature. This shared interest inspires a question which eventually earns Professor T. a lucrative research grant. Early on, Professor T. recruits a young cowboy and recent graduate of the University of Wyoming for research assistance and aid de camp. Buck Wellstone, whose unhurried country gentility and forthright attitude adds contrast to the sometimes naive and uptight countenance of the former grunge guitar flogger/songsinger, Mork Thompson. On the back roads and freeways of this vast nation, The Forks bear witness to many sometimes perilous, sometimes awkward, sometimes comic adventures that culminate with resolution in a nagging, ongoing inquest/lawsuit concerning Professor T.’s alleged Title IX violations brought by his long-time administrative assistant.

Okay… back to the weekly posts, back to appeasing the Type-A gods. Please join us checking in on the adventures and misadventures of Mork T. and the Forks as they make their way around our precariously vacillating experiment in pluralistic democracy, searching for “the fibrillating heart of our divided nation”.

May whatever you call the infinite mystery of existence swoop in and help us all.

Onward through the fog… Rohlfie

Chapter 01: Professor Thompson’s Roadtrip Sabbatical
Chapter 02: Billie Schmidt and the “Chool Bus”
Chapter 03: Jack Dean makes paranoia a viable career path
Chapter 04: The Forks embark, and Professor T. learns the perceived value of privacy in a “social media” world
Chapter 05: Where The Forks recruit another member. Buck Wellstone applies for graduate assistantship and joins the project as Professor T.’s aid de camp
Chapter 06: The Forks begin their time in Montana with a relaxing day in the steamy drink at Chico and Jack calls Bullshit on a wild Park Ranger’s story.
Chapter 07: After a successful initial run, the Forks return home, Mr. Wellstone’s application is approved and he joins the gang for a long push through the Western States.
Chapter 08: The Forks prepare for a long swing through the western states. Professor T. ponders a vivid dream and Abigail Weiser takes advantage of his unsuspecting nature.