Seven days of stream of consciousness driving on the road it was not. It was cold. It was long. It was filled with “hawks,” gravy and inside jokes. The reason for this cross-country saunter was to transport my work for a show in LA, and to get more of it up along the way. The first three days of the trip were a blur of northern and mid-west repetition, but the moment that we arrived in Amarillo, it was like stepping into the decayed world of a David Lynch film, the world that runs in the access communities just off the interstate.
I recall the clean open sky against all the buildings that the wind and sun had bleached like the dry grass. I also remember the difficulties trying to remain inconspicuous driving around small towns at night in a moving van while putting my posters on buildings. The most striking moment of all had to be when we ventured off the interstate and through what appeared to be a graveyard of trailer park meth-labs, with firecracker-like marks on the foundations where the buildings had been and large meth-mouth billboards in the distance, eventually arriving in a biker town that’s only visible rule was “Don’t Feed the Burros.” The arrival in Los Angeles seemed almost bleak compared to the majesty of the wide open road.
