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August 22, 2008 On. The. Road. by moe. Tips for staying awake during a 12-hour drive through endless sage and tumbleweeds: 1. talk to your busmates. 2. drink water. 3. drink mate. 4. drink organic energy drink. 5. go to the bathroom. 6. drink water. 7. listen to a CD of amazing rap songs from a workshop at the Oakland YMCA. Revel in the talent and wisdom of Queen Delah (and thank her for the use of her discman) 8. sing. And then you're in Salt Lake City, all of the sudden, awaiting a beautiful meal of pasta and marinara sauce eaten outdoors by the light of the moon (and the flourescents of the Wabner Service Center). 9. Breathe. My goodness, and so it begins. Here is the real: that we are on the road, that we have a mass of puppets, poles, painted backdrops. That we are two buses: Priscilla, after Queen of the Desert, and Julia, after the Heroine of the Trees. That we're also a truck and a trailer, hauling bikes and boxes and books and the whole entire conscious carnival, and that we're all running on sustainable biodiesel, made from Waste Vegetable Oil. That we're tired, hungry, disheveled, and completely thrilled. The real is that we're right now this very second in Salt Lake City, Utah, in what feels like the Labyrinth (in the muppet sense, not the greek sense) of Truck Service Centers. We began last weekend with an event in San Francisco. We began in front of the City Hall, in fact, where instead of the usual lawn there is now a sprawling victory garden. We framed the coils of soil and veggies with our Conscious Carnival : "Recycle Swish," "Toss Out Fossil Fuels," "Ecopolis," and "Seeds for Life," and began barking ourselves brilliant into the Saturday Tourist Crowds. Check out Darin's photos in the gallery. Sunshine and cries of Clean Energy, The Sporriors, Eco-Info Galore, and a fatty Earth Peace Mandala to boot. Lots of smiles and laughing kids. The next night was our fundraiser at Cellspace in San Francisco, where the lineup included Vau De Vire, a local performance froup we've helped your veggie-style, Jennifer Johns, Queen Delah, a wild west skit called The Showdown, and The Extra Action Marching Band banging it into the ground. Wild, wild drum dancing, GMO freakshowing and veggie soup. Veggie Soup! Boo-yeah. Drums and whole foods, can't go wrong. The next four days: flurry. Flurry of loose ends. Flurry of packing. Flurry of document-printing and stuff-getting. A day of organizational realignment as a box truck we'd been counting on reveals itself as not road-worthy. A night of huddled together sipping tea as a mechanic clamped down our exhaust manifold. Breathe: DNC still to come. More Blog Entries: |
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