The Grand Dragon Will See You Now

I have a simple question for you:

When was the last time you were in a Mexican restaurant/bar in Athens, Georgia, shooting pool and chewing the fat with your friends, surrounded by a mix of college students and hipsters and working-class folks and feeling, as a Yankee, maybe just a little bit out of place, talking about kudzu and the red dirt that seemed to be everywhere, and wondering where you might park your van for the night in a strange city, and when the hell are we all going to the 40 Watt Club, and speculating about where to go next on your aimless road trip across America, when out of the blue the bartender -- a nice guy named Vern -- mentioned matter-of-factly that there was a Ku Klux Klan rally just a few miles outside of town?

Part of me wishes that, when that opportunity arose for me in March 1988, I had driven out to see those robed degenerates spouting their hateful bullshit. Sure, I would've been scared to get close, but also fascinated. Read about that incident in my new memoir, Great/Dismal: My Four-Month Tour of Duty on the Battleship Patchouli.

Get Off the Bus!

The summer after I graduated from college, I read Jack Kerouac's On the Road and thought that Dean Moriarty was the coolest, wildest dude and that hanging out with him would be a non-stop carnival of insane adventure and mind-expanding conversation. He talked and talked and talked about all sorts of way-out ideas, took Sal Paradise (Kerouac's alter ego) to parties, listened to jazz like it was the most amazing thing on Earth and just burned burned burned.

This, I thought, is what I want to do: go on a cross-country trip that is full tilt all the way, meet new people, live on the edge, learn about new places, experience danger. You can read about how my expectations measured up to reality in my new memoir, Great/Dismal: My Four-Month Tour of Duty on the Battleship Patchouli.

As for Dean Moriarty -- known in real life as Neal Cassady -- I learned many years later that he was the kind of human firework who is fun to read about, but not for a guy like me to hang out with. He was a complicated guy who had a messed-up upbringing, sure. And he influenced Kerouac's writing style and featured not only in his books, but in the poetry of Allen Ginsberg. He was one of those characters we all meet on occasion in our lives, who seem like they walked off a movie screen because they're just so manic and funny and smart and loveable and frustrating and selfish that it's hard to believe somebody didn't create them on a written page.

But I would've tired of his shenanigans very quickly if he'd somehow been reincarnated and stuck his thumb out along the highway west from Oklahoma to New Mexico, looking for a ride that would've quickly turned into him taking the wheel and commandeering the conversation and putting my introverted ass into a tizzy. See for yourself, below.

We All Struggle with Something

We name things to help us understand them, and to create a shared knowledge with our fellow human beings. I sometimes get fascinated by language, and trying to figure out how even the simplest of words -- dog, cat, dodecahedron -- came to be. Naming things, however, can put people on a slippery slope. Nobody wants to be defined too narrowly by elements of their character or physical presentation.

Look at me and you might think, "White nerd with glasses." You would be right about that, but there's so much more going on. I play guitar, I love the Red Sox and Bruins, I make terrible "dad jokes," I love Public Enemy and Funkadelic, I love to wander around in strange places taking photos, I have arthritic big toes and a bad hip.

One label I don't mind tagging myself with, though, is person with Attention Deficit Disorder.

More than three years ago, I diagnosed myself with ADD (see November 28, 2018, "ADD Me to the List"). Read the linked post to get the full story on it. I want to reiterate one point, though: realizing there was a name for the collective struggles I had battled my whole life gave me some freedom. I no longer worried that I was crazy or stupid or lazy. Finding the right "tag" for myself was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

In my new memoir, Great/Dismal: My Four-Month Tour of Duty on the Battleship Patchouli, amid the highway hijinks and visits to Graceland, New Orleans and Memphis, the exploration of Albuquerque, the punk rock shows, the flashbacks to college, there is self-analysis. I didn't have as much fun during my adventure as I thought I would, and for years I had no idea why.

During the course of writing the book, I began to put together a better picture of why I struggled, with the light finally shining when I realized I had both ADD and executive function issues. Those two things combined make it difficult for me to plan ahead and stay on task, take things as they come and be more spontanous.

We all struggle with something: hearing loss, flat feet, bipolar disorder, taking care of a sick relative, narcissism, a love of REO Speedwagon. I hope my book will show readers that it's never too late to figure yourself out, and that discovering the name for what you struggle against can be incredibly empowering.

Below is "Cross Bones Style," the only song I know by Cat Power, aka Chan Marshall. She has struggled with mental health issues, so I feel it's appropriate to share her song here.

That's a Big 10-4!

"Convoy," the 1975 novelty country music song that inspired the 1978 Sam Peckinpah movie of the same name, spoke to me as the Lord speaks to Jimmy Swaggart. I was 10 years old and in 5th grade when the song hit the Connecticut radio waves. Kids brought their copies of the 45 into school and begged our teacher, Mr. Cashman, to let them play it on the classroom record player. Sometimes he said yes; we all sang along.

The song sparked my interest in CB radio. I loved the crazy lingo -- "pregnant roller skate" for a VW bug; "bear in the air" means a police helicopter; "brown paper bag" indicates an unmarked police car -- and even bought a book about it so I could learn and use it. Sometimes when using my walkie-talkie with friends, I picked up trucker conversations and was thrilled beyond belief.

During this same era, I watched "Movin' On," a TV show about truckers, starring Claude Akins and Frank Converse. I was also completely and totally in love with the "Smokey and the Bandit" movies during this time. When I was 14, I watched "BJ and the Bear," a TV show about the trials and tribulations of a trucker and his pet chimpanzee.

At the Big E when I was in junior high school, I bought a metal belt buckle with a semi-truck on it.

You get the idea. I was into big rigs.

I never would have guessed, when I was 12 years old, straddling my yellow three-speed bike by the side of the main road that ran through my town and giving truckers the "blow your horn" signal, that 10 years later I'd be a free spirit, too, bombing down America's highways in a van with three buddies.

Read all about my trip in my new memoir, Great/Dismal: My Four-Month Tour of Duty on the Battleship Patchouli.

Get in the Van

Part of me wishes I didn't ever have to get out of the van. -- Dave Brigham, 2021.

I got in the van, just like Henry Rollins. I got in the van and I liked it -- stomping on the gas pedal and making that V8 growl, sitting in the passenger seat and watching America fly by, reading a book in the back seat and thrilling as the miles away from home piled up, listening to Nancy Sinatra and the Fifth Dimension and Willie Nelson on 8-track.

I got in the van and wished I was as cool as the dudes I read about in custom-car magazines when I was an awkward teen who never thought he'd take a road trip....

I got in the van, and I would do it again in a heart beat.

Read about my road trip in my new memoir, Great/Dismal: My Four-Month Tour of Duty on the Battleship Patchouli.

Drafting

(I gotta see this movie....)

For more than 18 months, I've been working, off and on, on a memoir about a road trip I took with three buddies in 1988 -- half a lifetime ago. I thought I'd have it done and ready for publication, whether traditional, self-made or ebook, some time this year. But writing projects rarely go as smoothly and quickly as you think they will.

I wish I were done with it, but I've had fun during each step of the process. The first draft involved fleshing out a blog series I'd done in 2008 detailing the four-month journey. In that early stage, I considered offering a wise elder stance, urging recent high school and college grads to forgo business school or smart phone app development in favor of discovering the greater world around them. I wrote about how easy it is these days to stay in touch with friends and family, but that when you're on the road, you should try to cut as many ties as possible to maximize your adventure.

In those heady early days of drafting, I threw in all sorts of background information about trips I took as a kid and at the end of college, mentioned all sorts of cool places I wish my buddies and I had stopped at, extolled the virtues of motels, diners, drive-in theaters and roadside attractions.

As I read the journal I kept on the 1988 trip, and thought more deeply about the journey than I ever had, I realized that I didn't live up to the expectations I had for the trip. As I analyzed some of the trepidation, anxiety and fear I had on the road, I realized that my son, Owen, shares some of these issues.

So I tried to make that part of the book as well. I tried to balance a linear narrative of the trip and analysis of who I was then and who I've become and how that all has an impact on my family.

And I laid a lot of this out in a foreword.

In the second draft I began researching some of the places we'd visited, filling in background information on bars, tourist sites, hotels, motels, etc. I also sent questions to my fellow travelers, as well as members of my family, and other friends, looking for additional information to shore up my account.

The third draft found me tightening things up, continuing to do research and add information from friends and family. Then I needed a break. So I emailed the manuscript to several people, four of whom got back to me with comments and suggestions.

For the last few weeks I've been working on the fourth draft. During this process I shed the foreword, realizing that it served as an outline of sorts for the book, but wasn't necessary for readers. I also ditched the stuff comparing me to Owen, and shaved down extraneous background information and bits about places we never visited, although I wish we had.

I already know that there will be at least one more draft. One of the comments I received from a reader was to punch things up a bit, to make the words sing on the page a bit more. I've done some of that, but at times I get lazy and find myself reading through the text with editing in mind more than rewriting.

Another new facet of the latest draft is photos. I brought a broken camera with me on the road trip, although I didn't know it was a lemon until I tried to get a few rolls developed. Initially I thought my memoir wouldn't have any pictures, which bummed me out.

But as I edited, I realized that I had some pictures to add. Some are from a family vacation that I reference in the book. Others were provided by my buddy Andy, who was on the trip. Others are from college events, provided by friends. One is the worst picture ever taken of me, at a going-away party before I went on the trip. I'm wearing a brown turtleneck, a green sweater, have an unstylish mid-length hairdo and a beard. I'm 22, but I look like I'm pushing 40.

I've enjoyed every stage of writing this book, and look forward to the next one. At some point I plan to seek out an editor or agent, and then there will be more drafting. I don't know when the book will get published, or by whom. I don't know if there will be any interest outside my immediate circle of friends and family.

I'm not writing this book for the money, but I hope it sells quite a bit better than my first book, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music and Mayhem, which may have moved 100 units.

I think my memoir has more general appeal than my short story collection did. Whereas (C)rock Stories dealt with universal issues ranging from love, hate, death and growing up, I have a feeling that the music references and themes throughout the book might have alienated some readers.

This book is more self-analytical and deals with emotional struggles and interpersonal battles more openly.

Honestly, I don't want this writing process to end. I enjoyed writing (C)rock Stories, but there was a lot of work -- 10 years' worth, off and on. I'm finding it much easier to write this book, even though I put myself in an often unflattering light. Once I'm done with the memoir, I'll move on to another short story collection based on memories of growing up in my hometown. One of those stories is complete, and will appear in a new anthology being curated by my good friend Jim Corrigan.

Jim published Movable Feasts, which also included one of my stories.

OK, that's enough.

"On the Road," again

James A. Reeves has written the road trip memoir I wish I could write.

Bastard....

Reeves recently published The Road to Somewhere: An American Memoir, which is a "photo memoir of one man’s journey through America that is as sprawling and chaotic as the country itself. Contains 55,000 miles and 416 colorful pages with a map and an index," according to the book's back cover.

I can't wait to read, and look at, this book.

According to the publisher's description: "While working at a design studio and teaching, whenever he could find a few days he would buy a ticket to anywhere cheap, rent a car, and drive in the direction of whatever towns struck his fancy — Truth & Consequences, Delta, Dinosaur — racing blindly through the back roads of the country."

Reeves took his trips between 2004 and 2009, taking tons of pictures along the way.

Here's a promotional video:

Some have compared Reeves' book to Jack Kerouac's seminal novel On the Road. As I've mentioned here a few times (May 25, 2012, "Inspiration," and October 2, 2012, "The Struggle"), I'm working on a memoir about a road trip I took with three friends in 1988. I compare our trip and the dynamic of the four personalities to the ramblings of Kerouac and his buddy, Neal Cassady.

Obviously, my book is very different from The Road to Somewhere. I took my trip 16 years before Reeve, and the photos that I took didn't come out because I was using a crappy camera and didn't know what I was doing even with a crappy camera.

But like him, I learned a lot about this country -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- during the four months I traveled from Connecticut to New Mexico and back. I also learned about myself, although many of those lessons didn't come until I'd started working on the book nearly eight months ago.

I continue to make progress on my book. I have begun filling in holes in the timeline thanks to email and phone correspondence with friends and family. And I've recently begun hammering all of it together into what I believe is the right format and order. Of course, I've had those thoughts before and ended up making changes, but that's just part of the process.