This weekend started my journey of a few weeks of traveling. The main reason for travelling is that Neil Young and his team have asked the Beehive, along with other activist organization to be a presence at all of his shows during his tour this summer as he releases his album “The Monsanto Years”. We are tabling with our artwork, engaging the audience and spreading energy around the different issues that our work surrounds, which overlaps with Neil’s efforts and music as well.
My first stop on my journey was Detroit. There is a team from the Beehive here creating images about the story of Detroit, as it is a poster child of how capitalism runs its course in America. I hung out with the team and took some trips to learn as much as I can about this story from their perspective because I am taking their first poster design out on tour and trying to promote the work because all the money from this tour is going to go to supporting the artists who are hunkering down in the studio and drawing stories and histories instead of working jobs for money.
The house I stayed in while here is owned by a few folks who work with Bread & Puppet and they had some inspiring pieces up, which I wanted to remember..
And the room I stayed in was stockpiled with puppets and masks. Some might think it was creepy. I was in heaven.
This is a scroll of a drawn story that is used in a performance while someone is telling a story. They scroll through the story and tell the story while they do. This is called Cantastoria.
I went to the studio where the Bees are working on the Detroit project. One of the Bees was in there vigorously working on a freelance project that was eating his weekend. He recently self published a book of his work called “Drawings About Black Holes”. To see more of his work, go to PatPerry.com. It is so beautiful.
Another of the Bees is working on a graphic novel that focuses on her imaginary friend growing up. Her work astounds me with its intricate beauty and simple profound statements.
Then we went to Bell Isle, an island off of Detroit which reminds me a bit of the part of Fairmount Park where the Please Touch Museum is. Supposedly there are albino deer on the island, but we didn’t get to see them. But we walked around the aquarium there and through their greenhouse.
Then we went to the Heidelberg Project. If you don’t know what it is, look it up. Basically it’s this guy Tyree’s work on the streets of Detroit. He started manically decorating houses with junk art about 30 years ago, supposedly in response to drug dealers wanting to use the houses. The art was a sign that the properties were being watched and tended to and that squatters like the dealers were not welcome. In recent years (and maybe before that) there has been a negative response from the neighbors and there have been a number of arsons to the houses involved. This is because of a number of reasons. I'd look it up if you're interested.
We then met up with a friend of the Bees, who has just written a book about Detroit and his experience here. He gave me a draft to read. He then excitedly told us lots about the recent history of Detroit. The book should be interesting.
July 12, Sunday.
I left Detroit, picked up a companion, Dustin, outside of Chicago who has been tabling for Rising Tide at all the concerts, and we drove to Quincy, Illinois, where we stayed with my oldest friend and her family on their homestead. I see them only every so often, so it was delightful to see them even though they live in a place where my GPS doesn’t reach for the 50 radius around them. Luckily Dustin had a working GPS. I’ll have to look into downloading a new one...
And then we drove to Boulder, picking up Crane, my buddy who is doing the whole tour with me as part of the Beehive, at the airport. We stayed with Gordo, a friend of ours who lived at the Beehive with us in 2013. He had played a concert there in 2013 with his band and after they left, he just stayed at the Beehive. For a year and a half. Luckily he’s very helpful, cheerful, charming, and ready and willing to step into new adventures. Always a good thing up there in Maine.
Our first show at the Red Rocks in Denver got cancelled because it was pouring rain and our “village” set up, where all the organizations set up for the audience to interact with, is outside. Well, all of Red Rocks is outside, but they go on with concerts on stage rain or shine. We hung out at will call where we ended up meeting a group who we had actually been trying to meet up with. They are a group of Native folks and non-native folks who are working to protect sacred land in Oak Flat, Arizona from a mining company that is trying to steal their land from them and destroy it with copper mining. The group is doing a caravan ride cross country to end up in D.C. to petition for their rights. We wanted to promote their work at our table, so we swapped contact info and hung out for a bit in the rain. Read more here.
We also ran into Willie Nelson’s brother in law, who helped a guy jump his car in the will call parking lot.
The next day, we had another show at Red Rocks and although it rained a bit off and on, we still set up and did quite well. Everyone was excited about the Beehive’s posters and we had lots of great conversations. Although I have to mention that the very first person I talked with at the show immediately started talking about chem trails and how the government and corporations were poisoning everyone without any reason. She was very adamant about it, but when I asked which corporations were involved or what chemicals they were spraying in the sky, she had no response, but stayed intensely upset about the whole situation. I wished her luck and she was on her way.
We were also pretty amazed at how much pot we smelled all over Colorado. We could smell it while we were just driving down the street and it would last for whole blocks. Crane is in the midst of getting all sorts of medical tests done because he got into nursing school and has to get a drug test done next week, so every once in a while he would get really upset and hold his breath and try to air out the car. “If I fail this drug test because I was just visiting Colorado for 3 days, I’m going to be so upset!” I had to laugh but also totally sympathized. It was everywhere. Especially at the Neil Young show. Obviously.
Just finishing setting up our table
Ready for the crowds
Neil starting off the concert. I didn’t take this picture.
Our set up, tabling and break down was pretty intense at the Red Rocks, so we didn’t get to step away from our table until we were ready to leave, at which point, we were practically falling over from exhaustion and hunger. For each show, we are supposed to be able to go backstage for dinner, but missed it because of the craziness that day.
Colorado is dear to me and the mountains are a huge part of that. I deeply regret not being about to tromp around in the mountains while I was in them this week. We pranced around Look Out Mountain a bit, but not enough. This tour is fun but I will have to find time to move around more and see nature more.
We left colorado Friday morning and drove to Lincoln, Nebraska. I had never been to Nebraska!
And this was my introduction to Nebraska
It was beautiful for the first few hours and then the site from I-80 became just corn and cows. Corn and cows. Corn and cows. And listening to “Omnivores Dilemma” on CD. Kind of intense if you know that book. I’ve sworn off of meat again except for local organic grass fed animals. The meat industry just too much grossness to participate in and the reason for me eating meat is that I get lazy about getting protein into my body. Maybe i’ll invest in a share of a cow from Jersey or something. Ugh food.
In Lincoln, we stayed with friends of Crane’s. The one friend, Corinne, met Crane this past year at a spanish immersion class in Guatemala. Her job right now is to go around to organic farms and see if they are keeping all the requirements that are needed to be an organic farm. She seemed really excited about all of her clients and shared some of the products with us like organic breath mints and beet juice, which is supposedly drunk like a 5-hour energy drink. The mint was great. The beet juice made me gag a little bit but I don’t think she noticed. I just don’t like beets.
At one point on Friday night, while Corinne, Josh, Crane, the Rising Tide guy Dustin, and myself were sitting around talking about all sorts of health tips because Josh is a eats only raw vegan foods. In the midst of the converstion, Corinne turned to Josh and said “Oh! We have miracle berries! We should do miracle berries!”
In my head I was thinking “I really don’t want to do halucinagenics right now. I don’t know these people and we’re in a strange place…” And they were getting so excited and then Dustin pipes in with “Woah you guys have miracle berries? Can I have one?”
Ends up that miracle berries are these berries from somewhere in Africa that they grind up and turn into a little tablet that you pop in your mouth and get all over your tongue- every little centimeter of it. Then! Eat all sorts of bitter or sour or otherwise unpleasant things and they all taste sweet. That’s it. Miracle berries turn everything sweet. Seriously the most adorable way to spend an evening with friends is rooting through cupboards trying to find ridiculous things to taste and then all popping things into your mouths and nodding to each other with wide eyes and the occasional “woah” before you dive back into the cupboards.
The next morning, our natural host roasted coffee beans, ground them, and made us the freshest cup of coffee I had ever had. No big deal… amazing people.
Our show in Lincoln was good but the highlight was the catered dinner, which was served back stage in this dimly lit room with purple lights and all the organic indian food you could ask for, along with organic blueberry cobbler. And then during the show, after our feet grew sore standing in the back of the auditorium, we went back to the catering room and hung out. It was so nice to sit back there. We met one of Neil’s managers and chatted for a while and drank soda that’s sweetened by 100% cane sugar and has no GMOs. It’s still soda but I guess its better for you?
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July 16, Thursday
It has been confirmed by both Crane and I that the catered dinners are a hug highlight to this entire tour. They’re amazing every time! And there’s a different type of freshly made warm cobbler for dinner each night! Eating like rockstars. If I did this too much and sat on a tour bus too long, my belly would get big.
Since Sunday, we’ve gone from Lincoln, Nebraska to Chicago (stayed with high school friend Christian and his fiancé Marta), to Cincinnati where we had a show and I got to see my dear old friend Dove.
Crane and I have been driving a whole lot. Like a WHOLE lot. It’s exhausting some times and fun some times. A three week long road trip. I brought 2 books on tape and we’ve been switching between the two. “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and “Omnivore’s Dilema,” which is a bit intense sometimes, like I've mentioned before, especially as we pass huge semi’s on the highway packed with chickens or cows or produce.
We passed this truck of onions. Thats a lot of onions. Maybe they’re going to a local market.
On the way to Cincinnati, we belted out the entire soundtrack to Newsies and then stopped in Indiana for a quick bite to eat at Taco Bell, which I don’t remember if I’ve ever eaten from in my life. We told the staff that it was my first time eating Taco Bell and they all got so excited that we decided to memorialize the event with a picture. One of the other people eating there thought the whole thing was hilarious and said “You’ve never eaten at Taco Bell?!? Have you ever been to America?!?” He took this picture for us.
We then went from Cincinatti to Clarkson, Michigan, which is about 45 minutes away from Detroit. The venue for our tabling situation was beautiful, and Neil came out to check out all of our tables and organizations. He was very friendly. There was this funny buzz when he came out because he was wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses and kind of looked like one of his own fans, so we all ignored him at first. He passed by our table and said something like “Sorry the weather’s not the greatest.” The sky was threatening, but it wasn’t raining yet. Without looking up, I responded “Don’t worry about it. We won’t blame you for the weather this time.” And as I finished my sentence, I looked up and saw who I was speaking to. And then he walked away. …I’m an idiot sometimes. I eventually got to say a quick thank you before he was whisked away to take a million pictures with a quilt that a group of old ladies in California had made for him with his own picture on it. If I were him, I feel like that would be awkward, but he was very graceful about it.
Later on at the same venue, Micah Nelson and Tato came out to check out the tabling set up. Micah is Willie Nelson’s son and Tato is the percussionist for Neil’s backing band, which Micah and his brother Lukas play in as well. Micah and Tato both loved the Beehive’s work and I chatted with them for a bit, explaining the Mesoamerica poster and talking a bit about their music and their own visual art. Micah has a band called “Insects vs. Robots” and asked if we would be interested in doing his next CD cover design for him. Umm… yes… I also suggested that his band come up and play at the Blackfly Ball in Maine next summer and he seemed pretty pumped about that. A really sweet guy. He was glad to hear that we are going to be on the rest of the tour and said that he would come hang out with us more.
So... before I left on tour, I googled “how to talk with famous musicians”. Some of my socially awkward friends google social tips like that and get pretty good results, so I thought I’d do my research before I started stammering “Old man take a look at my life.. I’m a lot like you were...” to Neil. In the link I found, it suggested that I don’t flatter the person, but thank them for anything they’ve done for you and to make sure not to ask them to do anything for you. OK. Check. THEN it said that it’s a good idea to see how the work that you’re doing fits together with the work they are doing and suggest working together in the future. When I read that, I laughed. Yeah right. Like that would ever happen. And then it actually did. Not with Neil, but with Micah. So, haha, I feel like that’s a pretty good success without meaning to be or expecting to be.
Crane thinks that I care too much about famous people. On the scale of how much people care about famous people, I don’t think I’m that far gone. But I do think it’s fun to hang out with famous people.
Anyways, after the Clarkston show, we hung with Beehive folks and talked about how the Detroit poster is going. Sounds like half of the crew is burned out and unable to continue for various reasons and the other half is scrambling to hold down the fort. They desperately need money in order to pay for their very minimal living expenses. That’s what we are raising money for on tour here. So hopefully our efforts will be enough for them so that they don’t burn out really fast because they need to “work” and not draw the poster.
Then we drove to Philly. It was our last really long drive of the tour, but we made it in about 10 hours. We learned lots of songs and sang them pretty badly and listened to a short documentary about the IRA. I kind of forget why.
Anyways, we’re back in Philly today. What a place. We have half a day to ourselves before heading off to our show in Camden tonight. It’s so nice. As delightful as it is to be hosted by old and new friends for the past 2 weeks all over the country, it is exhausting as well. So far today, I snuggled with Powwow, rode my bike to my favorite coffee shop, and slept late on my own bed. A miracle.
