092407

 

                                                                                             Oklahoma City to Edmonds, OK

Monday September 24, 2007

                                                                                                       
     6:57am  Wait, that's not what time it is. That's how much sleep I got. Cool, I slept a lot. It's 5:34am, by the way.

     6:10am  I'm all packed up and ready to go. I'm going to go to JR's Travel Center and take a shit. I'll go back to the Petro later on after that policeman leaves, hehe. I don't think he was a real cop. He just had a police tee shirt on. No badge or nothing.

     7:05am  I came to the 35 North onramp. I stood here and thumbed it for a while, but it got too hot. I'm going to go find me a peace of cardboard and fly my sign at that bum-spot in front of the Shamrock. See if I can get me some cash. Just because I saw another sign-flyer here yesterday and he was getting hooked up like crazy. I need to find a place to buy a marker though. JR's didn't sell them.

     7:34am  I bought a marker and I got a piece of cardboard. I came behind the Shamrock, the bum-station and I'm going to write out my sign.

     8:25am  I just got my setup ready. My signs on my backpack and stuff. I'll take a picture.

     9:02am  I just got smoked out by this

 

dude underneath the highway. I'm going to walk all the way to NE 10th and 35. There's a couple gas stations there, I was told. Screw the truckstops. I'm going to walk there. Like a mile. MLK Ave to NE 10th.

     9:22am  This guy just pulled up to the stoplight and nodded yes to my shirt. I gave him my website.

     9:33am  Coming up on 10th. I'm going to turn right. I'm cutting through the parking lot of the Moses F. Miller Stadium.

     9:38am  I just got to the Fast Mart Conoco/McDonald's. I came to the corner and I'm going to try and stick my thumb out here.

     10:27am  I forgot to tell you. I got tired and felt like taking a nap. I'm all stoned. I came and found a little place in the woods here and made my bed. I'm going to take a little nap.

     12:54pm  I just woke up from my nap. I got like an hour or so.

                     I'm all loaded up and leaving from my little nap-break.

     12:58pm  I'm back on the corner thumbing it. NE 10th and the I35 Frontage Road. Right in front of the Conoco/McDonald's.

     1:25pm  What was your name, brother? I'm talking to Doobie, I took his picture. What do you have to say after my story? Doobie: "I say whatever you feel and you pursue it, pursue it and fuck what everybody else is talking about. Eventually, in the long run, it will pay off and your message will be heard."

     2:14pm  Shannon, some guy wearing a dress hauling Portopotties. He said he'd give me a ride if he was going my way. Thought that counts, brother. Thanks anyway.

     3:05pm  I am having a blast flying my sign here on the corner and asking for rides. Oh yeah, these black dudes in a car just took my picture. Hell yeah, documented.

     3:27pm  James pulled over and asked me about the information on my website. He parked in the shade and got out and listened to me. He let me have a cigarette. I appreciate it, brother.

     3:58pm  I am now in the town of Edmond. I am kind of off 35, but it's only four miles away. James gave me a ride. He dropped me off at some college. I want to find a laundromat somewhere so I can wash my WPTMJ shirt.

     4:03pm  I just got dropped off in Edmond, Oklahoma. College town. At 3rd and South Boulevard. I'm walking through this neighborhood to the college. Hopefully there will be some fast-food. I'm hungry. I want to find me a laundromat. Bless that guy in downtown OKC who gave me the twenty dollars. He had asked me if I had ever heard of the Prince of Peace? I said, "Umm, I think I've heard of him." Then I realized he was talking about Jesus and said, "Oh, that old story." I'm walking down the street in this neighborhood. Man, I'm loving this adventure.

                    Shit, I just realized I lost my sign. I guess I'll make another one.

     4:06pm  Just got to University Drive on 3rd Street.

     4:07pm  Just hit Rankin Street and turning left.

     4:10pm  Sweet, I found me a laundromat! Hell yeah! It wasn't that far at all. University and 2nd.

     4:26pm  Alright, my clothes are washing. I'm going to see if there's any food around here. I've got money.

                    University of Central Oklahoma. I'll take a picture.

                    That guy James earlier stopped because I was advertising my website. He asked me about "information." That's why he stopped and listened to my story. He ended up giving me a ride to Edmond on 235, not 35. 35 is only four miles away. Right now I got me a bean and cheese burrito at the gas station. I just got it out of the microwave. The dude working here is cool. He let me have a cup with ice for free.

                    I totally manifested that laundromat. It was perfect where I got dropped off.

                    The stuff from Ishmael that's on Page 18. Copy that stuff. It's great.

"Mother Culture, whose voice has been in your ear since the day of your birth, has given you an explanation of how things came to be this way. You know it well; everyone in your culture knows it well. But this explanation wasn't given to you all at once. No one ever sat you down and said, `Here is how things came to be this way, beginning ten or fifteen billion years ago right up to the present.' Rather, you assembled this explanation like a mosaic: from a million bits of information presented to you in various ways by others who share that explanation. You assembled it from the table talk of your parents, from cartoons you watched on television, from Sunday School lessons, from your textbooks and teachers, from news broadcasts, from movies, novels, sermons, plays, newspapers, and all the rest. Are you with me so far?"
"I think so."
"This explanation of how things came to be this way is ambient in your culture. Everyone knows it and everyone accepts it without question."
"Okay."
"As we make our journey here, we're going to be reexamining key pieces of that mosaic. We're going to be taking them out of your mosaic and fitting them into an entirely different mosaic: into an entirely different explanation of how things came to be this way. "
"Okay."
"And when we're finished, you'll have an entirely new perception of the world and of all that's happened here. And it won't matter in the least whether you remember how that perception was assembled. The journey itself is going to change you, so you don't have to worry about memorizing the route we took to accomplish that change."
"Right. I see what you mean now."
"Third," he said, "definitions. These are words that will have a special meaning in our discourse here. First definition: story. A story is a scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods."
"Okay."
"Second definition: to enact. To enact a story is to live so as to make the story a reality. In other words, to enact a story is to strive to make it come true. You recognize that this is what the people of Germany were doing under Hitler. They were trying to make the Thousand Year Reich a reality. They were trying to make the story he was telling them come true."
"Right."
"Third definition: culture. A culture is a people enacting a story."
"A people enacting a story. And a story again is . . . ?"
"A scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods."
"Okay. So you're saying that the people of my culture are enacting their own story about man, the world, and the gods."
"That's right."
"But I still don't know what that story is."
"You will. Don't fret about it. For the moment all you have to know is that two fundamentally different stories have been enacted here during the lifetime of man. One began to be enacted here some two or three million years ago by the people we've agreed to call Leavers and is still being enacted by them today, as successfully as ever. The other began to be enacted here some ten or twelve thousand years ago by the people we've agreed to call Takers, and is apparently about to end in catastrophe."
"Ah," I said, meaning I know not what."

     6:00pm  I'm done with my laundry and I'm wearing my WPTMJ shirt. I'm going to walk to the library. I've got an update to make.

     6:20pm  I just took a picture of the clock tower.

 

I'm walking around the campus looking for the library.

     6:31pm  I found the library.

     9:04pm  I just finished up my update for my webpage. I ended up having all the way until the 14th on a zip drive. I left the 18th, remember. I still have four days at home to add. I don't know where I'm going to crash tonight. I'm just going to walk around. I'll see if I can find a pretty girl to tell my story to.

     9:29pm  Ethan hooked me up with a cigarette and Frank gave me a dollar. I appreciate it. Everybody gets credit.



                   Normal college town. All these drunk people. I am at the 7-11 here in Edmond. I just took a picture of these two dudes.  They were wearing ties.  At first I thought they were Mormon, but they're dressed like that so they can get in a fraternity.  I'm in the bible-belt hardcore. I went to the college and spent like two hours on the computer. My stuff is updated to like this month.

                   I was standing there at the 7-11 telling these kids my story inside.

 

This cool dude just invited me over to his house. Badass!

     11:26pm  Man, I am having some crazy shit happen tonight. I was just standing there at the 7-11 telling my story with my magic shirt on. Then Paul invited me over to the frathouse! I took a good group picture.

 

We don't need a roll-call. You guys know who you are. They smoked a brother out. I'm all stoned.

     11:49pm  Man, it's amazing how the universe is taking care of me. Hell yeah. Patience paid off. All that walking and hitchhiking. All the hanging out at the truckstops and gas stations. Paul is even going to let me camp in his backyard.

Next day..