The thrust of the matter is that a car will require 28% of my (projected retirement) income to own, insure, and drive 10,000 miles per year. Worse, a third of that is static costs even if the car is parked. A car has become, by accounting standards, foolhardy. Worse, the American land travel system is centered on overcharging motorists. Hotel rooms in Nowhere, West Virginia, are couponed at $375 per night, and you can assume that is as revealing as a rental car billboard. That’s paying at the rate of $136,000 per year.A side-car motorcycle tallies in at just 8% [cost of ownership based on my income]. The biggest trade-off is that I could not use it anywhere near Michigan in the wintertime. Ah, darn. The point is I surmise one could manipulate the Internet against outrageous prices. I say a clever operator could plan an entire vacation metaphorically camping out next door to these rip-off places. Still see the sights, but see them all rather than only what one’s resources might otherwise allow. This is all speculation (for now), but I took the trouble to view satellite maps showing the bandings of average 62 degree weather, the ideal motorcycling temperature. They go through all the parts of the country I’d care to see at some season of the year or another.
I’ve never been into itineraries. I’ve headed for Venezuela with $135 in my pocket and a change of underwear (1994). This is not cheap travel, I spend twice as much as you, I just don’t waste it on tourist traps. I’m saying the Internet has advanced enough that by being resourceful, one does not have to go overseas to find low prices anymore. Further, the Internet, albeit at great operator training, could become an active, rather than passive, journey partner. One could micro-manage each day on the fly, for even the most expensive mobile access doesn’t cost $375 per day.
The Dnepr is rated at 320 pounds of cargo (not yet verified), not including a sidecar passenger. Ordinary camping can be Spartan but such a payload hints toward a degree of luxury. Thanks again to the Internet, one could map out every convenience, such as the nearest Laundromat and its hours.
When I drove across America in 1999, the web was still in its infancy. My last fuel canister [for my portable stove] proved only a third full, causing me to spend $61.19 more in food than I had planned. Without the Internet, I wasted several gallons and hours driving around looking for the product, made the worse as I was in Utah. (Utah dialogue, “Do you have any matches?” “Oh, we’re Christians and we don’t smoke.” “It’s for my camp stove.” “Oh, well you didn’t tell us that.”)
I’m saying, with a motorcycle, Mapquest, and some brains, one could do some serious traveling. Right now, I’ve got Mapquest, and I can get the motorcycle. I mentioned luxury a moment back, let me explain. If you have to lug along everything you might need, a trunkload isn’t much. But what if you had reasonable confidence you could find what you needed along the dusty trail? Your logistics are cut by at least a third. Every pound less of “might-needs” means a pound more of tent space or electric bass.
Last year Wallace and I toured the Pro Bass shop. Remind me to drop back there and look at those tents again. Significant parts of this journal have been pencil-written by candlelight in the jungle. By comparison, a folding chair and a notebook computer in a two-room tent hardly seems a challenge. Of course, I plan to completely video every entire trip. Stick around, great things are pending.
Jag was over to rehearse and that is more good news. He is catching on to this material fast. He is responding to my style of emphasizing chord changes and was able to play two tunes he doesn’t know just by following bass queues. No, I don’t mean 12-bar progressions, which anybody can grasp. Of the songs from last day, he has accurately picked up the personality of each tune, something terrifically difficult for so many guitarists.
Undoubtedly he finds it amusing that I have my own guitar vocabulary. Play a zig-zag, use farmer chords, or do a booma-lacka only not faster. Music styles always trade, so he is bringing me some of his music next week. I do not find it odd that he knows obscure bands and various youTube no-hit wonders. I find such music has one beat, one rhythm and one verse. Then the band does a ska version, a zydeco version, a disco version, you get the drift but they are not different songs at all as they would have you believe.
I’ll likely do at least one of his punk songs, something by Street Light Manifesto, maybe “Linoleum”. I often perform such music due to a quirk that some people presume if you play country, you cannot play anything else and it is fun showing them how very wrong they are. Evaluating Jag’s progress, I’ve moved opening night up by a full week (tba). If things continue at this pace, a lot people are going to be shocked by the novelty and top quality of this local act.
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