Once More Unto the Breach

Spring has sprung! (Sane) biking season is (sort of) upon us once again! Betwixt the omnipresent clouds and drizzle of the Northwest, beautiful riding opportunities are beginning to bloom once more, but, much like the most precious and tender blossoms of this verdant season, will only be appreciated by those who actively seek them out. My little sister, Amy, is graduating from the University of Montana on May 15th, and I, quite naturally, will be there to cheer (read: taunt) her success, that much is certain. The paths between here (here being Portland, at this moment) and Missoula, however, are wildly unpredictable, stunningly gorgeous, infinitely alluring. In short, most everything one could possibly want in an adventure, and, given that nothing in my life is categorically prohibiting me from holidaying for a few weeks, the choice is clear: come tomorrow morning, I'm going to make like a tree and get outta here, pedal power-style.

I realize it's been several months since I've written here, but, as previously stated, I've only really ever intended this to be a blag about bicycling, reporting on the aspects of my life that pertain to the world of cyclery, and not much more than that; that said, there have been some very relevant happenings since last October.

When I last wrote, I was intensely pining for a home, for my home, and was ready to resume a more settled lifestyle. As it turned out, I had a beautiful home and situation waiting for me in Eugene upon my return, but I had a very hard time settling into it: I had established a fierce independence in being alone on the road for so long, and greatly struggled with the necessary compromises of a relationship; after the initial immediate pleasure of having consistent access to a kitchen, shower, and a roof over my head wore off, my life started feeling profoundly sedentary and muted (and, in retrospect, I really don't think it was); I've struggled through the letdown and depression that almost certainly and inevitably follow such an extraordinary experience. By the end of my trip, I craved reliability and ritual; how quickly that reality started feeling mundane and predictable. I've spent a substantial portion of the last six months traveling all around the Northwest, but it's never the same; an unfortunate consequence of car travel for me is how much the travel can only be about the destination, and never about the journey or process. I love spending time with my family and friends, to be sure, but in all the ways that bicycle travel is rewarding to me, my recent automobile-assisted sporadic and fleeting presence in any one given location has only led me to a more fractured existence. All of my most memorable experiences in the last six months have been found in stillness, in presence of moment, in awareness, but little of my time has actually been spent nurturing those moments. Even now, I have yet to allow myself to settle into the home that I so dearly wanted, and I still don't quite understand why.

But. There've been wonderful aspects of the winter, as well: lots of new music opportunities and involvement with bands (big shout out to my Crunchy Beets!), knee-quaking love, new friends, lots of time with family, and, perhaps most importantly, a concrete and ever-evolving plan for the future, which places more school (what else?) on my near horizon. It's an exciting time, rife with possibilities, as only possibilities can be.

As it stands now, I am positively champing at the bit for this trip to begin. I've spent the last two weeks solidly working at making this be able to happen, and now all that stands between me and the open road is a (hopefully) restful night's sleep.

The storm before the calm.

It's kind of funny how ill-prepared I feel for this trip, and yet how thoroughly unworried I am about any of it: I haven't so much as ridden a block on a bicycle in well over a month; I've put on more than a couple of winter pounds around the ol' midriff (I prefer to think of it as "increasing my dowry"); the daunting likelihood of rain and snow in the mountains; hell, even my socks are all full of holes. But as I packed my saddlebags tonight, an overwhelming sense of joy permeated my thoughts; I'm ready for this again. Now more than ever, the sense of peace, tranquility, and opportunity for introspection that I know awaits me out there will be thoroughly welcomed into my life, nay, embraced. So once more unto the breach, my friends, once more. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.

[Editor's note: I've embedded the map of my previous trip in this post, for the sake of posterity and continuity; obviously, as a new trip unfolds, a new map is warranted.]



View Eugene to Boston in a larger map

Some Final Words, for Now

Total number of miles: 5,209
Total number of days: 97
Total number of riding hours: 478


I arrived back in Eugene this afternoon (surprising my parents a good deal in the process, by showing up unannounced on their doorstep). There were lots of reasons for me to stay and continue to explore New York or the east coast at large, but ultimately, as my mind started preparing to go home, I found myself wanting to take the quickest trajectory possible. I drove from NYC to Milwaukee with a friend in an epic sixteen-hour marathon, and hopped on Amtrak's next "Empire Builder" from there, passing up the opportunity to stick around and explore Milwaukee or Chicago for a bit. I didn't even stop in Montana to visit my little sister along the way (sorry, Amy).

The solitary train ride was a fantastically appropriate way to end this trip: it directly retraced my ride through much of Wisconsin, to the point where I could see my ghostly self navigating paths from my window; it afforded me some much-needed time to catch up on sleep, as well as the first quiet solitude I've had in days; it chose one of the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful ways to enter the Pacific NW, by way of the Columbia Gorge; it gave me the blessed gift of slowing down my life once more, returning me to a frame of mind similar to riding, where I am content to arrive when I arrive, and time has little relevance beyond the position of the sun.

When I made the decision to be done, I knew it was the right one, and I still think as much. Passing through endless miles of wilderness and expansive plains filled with pronghorn and coyote on the train ride home, though, left me longing to be on the other side of the Plexiglas that kept me separated from the crisp air and the austere vistas of approaching winter. I think it's less the case that I'm ready to be done, and more that the rest of the world is ready for me to be done, but that's okay; I think it's more prudent to heed the season's warnings than to entertain my desires for movement. I started seeing snow on the ground as early as eastern Pennsylvania, and though the weather has been relatively sunny for the last couple of days, it hasn't gotten above 50 degrees, and has consistently dipped below freezing at night. Animals much smarter than myself are already starting to migrate or stow food in anticipation of hibernation, whereas I've spent the summer burning through most of the physical (read: fat) and financial reserves I have.

Finally, the recognition I deserve: a readerboard in Davis Square, Somerville, MA.

So what to make of all this travel? I've learned many a lesson this summer, both practical and existential; indeed, I think this much time for self-reflection opens the doors to an intense amount of personal growth, as long as one is open to such growth occurring. Unfortunately, I don't think I have any succinct pearls of wisdom to offer, except maybe to tell people not to doubt themselves; that I think everyone has the capacity to be stronger than they give themselves credit for. An open mind, an ounce of common sense, and a little humility will carry you far. Other than that, I think life lessons only carry lasting meaning in the context of direct personal experience, and not the vicarious word of another (with an exception to be made for basic survival, e.g., don't go swimming in the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River). In the words of the great Levar Burton, you don't have to take my word for it; get out there and discover your own truth, whatever it may be.

Well, maybe just one. Traveling by train reminded me of something I experienced while heading the opposite direction earlier this summer. I've only ever carried a somewhat disjointed perspective of the country, climbing on a plane in, say, Seattle, and touching down in far off LA or DC, worlds apart from each other, with different people, different behaviours, and different expectations of life. To be sure, I've observed an astounding amount of differences in people across the country, but this summer I got to witness them with a continuity that only slow terrestrial travel can afford; I watched Oregonians turn into Idahoians turn into Wyomingites into South Dakotians, Minnesotians, Wisconsinites, Yoopers and Michiganers proper, Ohioers, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, Vermontonians, New Hampshirettes and Massachusettsers (my apologies for any made-up demonyms), comprising a pastiche of humanity the width of a continent. And though such differences abound according to the necessities or histories of a given region, in the end we really are all just people, with all the same passions, the same insecurities, the same needs, the same concerns, the same capacity to love each other, to sacrifice for one another, to give and to share even when it doesn't make sense to do so. As I traveled from state to state, and as the similarities began to stand out more than the differences, a very simple idea occurred to me: the only borders that exist between people are the ones we make for ourselves. To the extent that this notion applies not just to political geography, but to social interactions, and perhaps life in general, I think it bears repeating: the only borders that exist are the ones we make for ourselves.

And what now? What on earth follows almost four months of solitary travel? How do I fit back into the life I left behind? Do I even still fit?

Well, I don't really know the answers to any of these questions. I do know that being apart from my family (and friends) for this long has magnified their importance in my life, and I would like to be able to be closer to them than I have been for the last several years. I'm planning on applying to graduate schools for Fall 2010, and to that effect, it doesn't really matter much to me where I am over the next year, as long as I get to be close to my loved ones. If you want to find me, though, your best bet would be to look in Eugene, Portland or Seattle, or somewhere in between; I get the feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of floating back and forth.

But most important to me is to be able to maintain a sense of peace in my heart that I found in northern Michigan, and has stuck with me ever since. I have mild concern that that feeling may disappear in the hustle and noise of city life, but I'm not too worried. I think what I learned in Michigan was how to find peace in moments, not just places; if that is the case, then I've no cause for worry, because life is full of nothing but opportunities to find and recognize that peace.

A million thanks to all of you who followed me along on my travels this summer, who gave me support, company, food, housing, directions, wisdom, stories, laughter, and more; it's nothing trivial to say that I really couldn't have done it without you.

To the extent that I created this blag to communicate my experiences with bicycling, I don't think I'm going to continue with some mundane narration of my day-to-day life (lord knows the intertubes already have enough of that), unless something interesting happens to me that's bike-related. A lot of stories still remain untold: meeting Crash, the intrepid world traveler who trades everything he needs for custom jewelry, and was once attacked by pirates in the Carribean, whose current goal is to kayak down the Mississippi; cracking my rear rim beyond rideability in Middle-of-Nowhere, South Dakota; stealth-camping amidst one of the country's largest populations of law enforcement in Comstock, NY; that cryptic citation for public nudity in the Badlands; dissecting fruitfly ovaries at Brown University with my friend Alan; I guess at this point, you'll just have to come find me if you want to hear them. But! There will certainly be more bike trips in the future, so it might not hurt to check back in every few months or so, if'n
you're interested, that is. Until then, friends...

Love,
Scott

East Coast Shenanigans

Sorry it's been so long in writing; the last several days have been a nonstop barrage of music, gigs and travel. Not counting all of the impromptu jams with different musicians, or sitting in with other groups' sets, with the Yellow Hat Band I've played seventeen shows in seven cities in four states in ten days. It's funny to say, but three months of biking doesn't even come close to a week and a half of touring, in terms of the toll that it's taken on my body; in contrast to the ten or more hours of sleep I was getting each night on the road, I've averaged less than five since arriving in Boston; after a summer's worth of nary a health problem to speak of, I got sick as a dog from too little sleep, too much drinking, and too much sharing of food and water with other people in the exact same boat as me.

The variety of venues we've played in has been astounding: we did a workshop with a high school band in south Boston; we've played at several different bars in Providence, Northampton, Manhattan, Brooklyn and elsewhere; we took part in a multi-band performance art piece that toured Manhattan on the top of a double-decker tour bus in pajamas; a scenic ferry ride to Staten Island; a bowling alley in New Jersey; paraded around the Amherst campus; spontaneously crashed into subways and bars, horns blazing, to duck out as quickly as we appeared.

Playing on top of a tour bus in Manhattan.

And it's finally over now. Tonight was the last show, the celebratory dinner for the successful completion of Honk!, Pronk, Bronk, Bonk, and any other -onk that people cared to tack on to an already gratuitous list of music festivals. Tears were shed, toasts were made, Italians were hugged, but it's time for the bands to start heading their separate ways, at least til next April.


The last ten days has worn me out beyond all reason, and I know beyond any doubt that I'm not going to continue riding on from here. I never intended to have any milestones or goals along the way (except to get to Honk), but after more than a week on the east coast, I finally got to see the Atlantic Ocean last night. Walking along the New Jersey coast in a raging storm at 3am, salty spray and foam tumbling over me, the wind tearing away my warmth, I looked out into the black waters, and found a sense of completion and finality that I wasn't looking for, but that filled me with certitude, nonetheless. It's time to go home.

So! I'm catching a ride to Chicago with a person from Rude Mechanical Orchestra, and then figuring out my way west from there. I'm pretty romantically attached to the idea of traveling by train, so it'll still be a while til I get there, but look out, West Coast! Here I come!

The Summer I Almost Rode my Bicycle from Eugene to Portland

Number of miles: 5,188

Number of days: 83

Number of days it would take me to pedal the circumference of the world, at this rate: 398

Percent likelihood of this happening anytime soon: 0

Oh, how dearly I wanted to be able to write that title without the inclusion of the word "almost", but alas, there simply wasn't time enough. I considered at least crossing the border into Maine, just to plant my foot down and say that I'd been there, but I guess that honour will be saved for another trip. But I won't leave yinz on tenterhooks, if you're wondering: yes, I made it to Boston on time (well, Cambridge, technically). Now back to where I left off:

I still haven't quite gotten used to the east's notion of national forests, with all of their grandfathered private property; here, it's commonplace to find outright cities well within national forest borders, along with all their requisite commercial amenities. Even stranger, though viewed as some sort of park, the Adirondacks are not national forest or national park or even state park, but rather a strange amalgamation of public and private lands that enjoy some kind of protected status.

Adirondack Loveliness

Fortunately, one does not need to understand their politics to enjoy their beauty, and beautiful they were. The weather has been fairly predictable, with rainy mornings burning off into blustery, crisp, sunny afternoons, which makes perfect weather for riding through the forest, passing through cascades of tumbling leaves. The thought has occurred time and time again over the last week: I've wanted to see the Northeast for several years now, but I don't think I could've picked a better time and a better way to see it.

Sunset over Lake Durant

And the states are getting so tiny! You mean to tell me that each one of these dinky little places has the same number of senators as, say, Oregon? I could eat Rhode Island for breakfast! I crossed Vermont in less than a day, and that was following a less-than-direct route through the mountains. Vermont and New Hampshire both share a quiet, unassuming dignity and splendor; rather than trying to charm with glitz and glamour, they tend to sit back and let you arrive at the ultimately inevitable conclusion that, yes, it really doesn't get much better than this.

My last night on the road before Boston, I stayed in the garage of an abandoned house. These types of houses are easy to come by, and I've stayed in similar places a number of times on this trip, but this place was a bit different, in how suddenly the family departed. My guess is that it was foreclosed upon; there was a lock box on the doorknob, but the house was still full of stuff. The fridge was mildewing and the toilet cracked from improper winterizing, but the house was otherwise frozen in time; a calendar on a door read November 2008. They took the furniture and whatever else they must've deemed important, but it was surprising to see what'd been left: I found two rifles, entire wardrobes (including a seriously snazzy suit that fit me like a glove), a motorcycle; I slept on a cozy futon, a pair of warm Sorels inserts on my feet. I sometimes wonder what the ex-owners would think of me lying there, enjoying the ghosts of their former lives, but I think it would be okay with them (inasmuch as losing a home can be okay); if I were in a similar position, I would like to know that it weren't all just sitting there unappreciated, for no better reason than financial disagreement.

Well, if you've been paying good attention, you may've noticed that I've started to talk as though my trip ends in Boston, which brings up the question: what now? While it's certainly true that I'm putting down my bicycle for a while, it's because I've got some serious fun to tend to (because, you know, my trip hasn't been fun enough): it's time for Honk! Fest, the rip-roaringest music festival of the globe.

Honk! Fest! Attracting over 25 different brass and percussion ensembles from around the country (and in a few cases, the world), we will together watch Boston crumble at our feet like the walls of Jericho, from three solid days of brassy madness. I have the good fortune to be reuiniting with my long-lost love, the Yellow Hat Band of Seattle, for this event. After Boston, YHB, along with several other of the bands, will embark on a weeklong mini-east coast tour, through Providence, Northampton, New Jersey, and NYC.

So, the real question is, what happens after NYC? In short, I don't know yet. There are still many places that I want go while I'm over here, and friends that I want to visit, but I don't know how much bike trip I have left in me; my body is holding out surprisingly well, but my bike needs some serious maintenance if I'm going to continue riding it any meaningful distances (I've just been sort of riding it into the ground, lately, knowing that it just needs to get me to Honk!, and that I can take care of the rest later). Moreover, there's only so long that I can struggle against the ever-worsening weather.

Most importantly, though, I'm missing home, wherever that is: I'm missing being settled, and I'm getting awfully strong urges to start settling down for the coming winter. I want a kitchen that is mine; I want to be warm, and have reliable access to electricity; I want to have more than one set of clothing at my disposal (even if I end up wearing the same stuff, anyway); I want to spend time with friends and family, people I've known for longer than a day or two (no offense to all the people I've met along the way); I want my cat on my lap and my magazine subscriptions. I want Northwest beer served in a 22 at 10% minimum, dammit!

But. You never know. I know that all of these things will be waiting for me, whenever I decide I'm done, and it's hard for me to imagine not being on the move anymore. Before arriving in Boston yesterday afternoon, I spent a good amount of the morning walking around Walden Pond, and sitting on its well-worn but well-loved banks. Such treasured and tender moments seem to happen on a daily basis, and I know that there are a hundred more waiting just over the horizon for me. I think, though, that those same moments can be found in more mundane surroundings, and it's really more a matter of outlook than opportunity. This trip has certainly taught me, amoung other things, a deep appreciation for simple things, and I'd like to think I can carry that sentiment with me in whatever I do with my life.

Walden Pond

So. No answers as of yet. At this point, Honk! comes first, and then we'll see where my feelings and the weather guide me. Fortunately, I've been practicing that for three months, now...

It's a Hell of a State, too

[Editor's note: this entry was written last Saturday, Oct. 3rd. Evidently, the author has a hard time meeting deadlines, what with the scarcity of internet connections.]


Something happened while I was in Pittsburgh. I rolled into town with the sweat of several hot and muggy days clinging to my skin, but it's been almost nonstop rain and biting cold since getting on the road. The world must've decided that fall is here for good, but I don't think I've ever experienced such a discrete and sudden transition in seasons. Fortunately, as seasons go, autumn is far and away my favorite one, and October my favorite month; the weather has managed to dampen everything but my spirits, which have been soaring quite high.

In quite the unexpected turn of events, I met another cyclist on my first day out of Pittsburgh, Mike, who was also headed to Massachusetts, also in a rather roundabout fashion. We ended up riding together for a very enjoyable few days, as far as Ithaca. (Though we were headed in the same direction, he had a few more days than I did to get there, so we ended up parting ways as he took a more indirect route through the Finger Lakes region.)

The impossibly narrow gorge of Watkins Glen State Park.

I can't tell if I've actually gotten better at finding shelter at night, or if there's just more of it to be found, but I've been having enormous success at finding a covered, dry, secluded place to sleep every night; despite the inclement and steady rain, I haven't had to pitch my tarp since the beginning of Minnesota. The other night, Mike and I slept in a beautiful abandoned swan house, with sliding glass doors, a sunken (empty) pool, the whole building lined with fragrant cedar (I initially thought it was a giant sauna).

But oh! how cold it's been. I've been consistently wearing three or four layers on my torso, legs and feet during the day, and pretty much everything I have with me at night. My sleeping bag is only rated to 35 degrees, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the rating is equated with the temperature at which death occurs, not the cessation of comfort; either way, I'm pushing it to its limits. It's also been hard to stay properly hydrated, because my water is almost always too cold to drink.

But what a tradeoff! Through my shivering eyes, I've seen some of the most beautiful landscapes of my entire trip here in New York. I haven't even gotten to the Adirondacks yet, but I can tentatively say that New York has been the most consistently scenic state I've seen this summer. It's seems a pretty safe bet to just head down any road in any direction, and you won't be disappointed. Today was an uncharacteristic (and much appreciated) full day of sun, and I passed through mile after mile of burgeoning streams, waterfalls, gorges, all immersed in a rolling sea of hills set aflame by the fall foliage. I'm headed into a couple days of national forest tomorrow morning, and I can scarcely imagine how it'll manage to improve.

Chittenango Falls at dawn.

It is a bit sad, though, in having such a definitive deadline ahead of me; for the entirety of the summer, I've pretty much made things up as I go along, and explored places or stayed with people as much as I cared to, but that's no longer the case. I need to do at least 65 miles a day to get to Boston my Thursday evening, and I'm seeing a lot of things fall by the wayside as a result: I had the misfortune of missing a nonlinear dynamics lecture by math god Steven Strogatz at Cornell by just a few hours, and couldn't stick around for the next one; I stayed with a fantastic couple in Ithaca, who I would've loved to have gotten more time with (and who, amoung other things, sold me a new digital camera to break); a man I cycled past on a rural road invited me in to explore his land trust shared with twelve families, and to stay for a warm shower, food and laundry, but it was during the middle of the day, and I needed to cover more miles; the list goes on.

I think, though, in the grand scheme of things, that this phenomenon is a reflection of a broader truth, namely that there just ain't ever gonna be time enough in the world to do everything you want to. You just have to manage the best you can, and really, I'm managing pretty damn well. Minute by minute, mile by mile, I still pedal with a smile on my face, and that's plenty good enough for me.

The Final Word on G20

"Radical marching band playing on steps of cathedral, and riot cops continue to launch smoke bombs at them."

-- Twitter update from Thursday night protest

Okay, a few final words about Pittsburgh before I continue on my way. First, some might wonder why one would want to protest against the G20 summit at all?

Simply stated, the G20 is a group of the twenty most powerful leaders in the world who get together to make economic decisions that inevitably impact the lives of the other 6,000,000,000 people on this planet. These leaders are mostly white, almost always men, and most certainly wealthy, and as such, represent only a very small slice of the world's population. Protesting the G20 summit is an attempt to make sure that other voices are represented and heard as well, many of whom reject capitalism, globalization, free-trade, and other values intrinsic to the G20 economies. For these beliefs, and to show solidarity for others who feel marginalized, I chose to protest the summit by helping to bring music to the streets, to provide a backdrop for the message that so many thousands of people had to deliver, which I think can be succinctly boiled down to this: money can't be given more importance than people's lives or liberties.

Tuesday

I arrived in Pittsburgh last Tuesday evening, just as the sun was setting, and high-tailed it to Jessica's house, the clarinet player in Breakaway Marching Band (and a real charmer if I've ever met one), where I would stay for the rest of the week. I spent the evening with her roommate, Rob (trombone and melodica player in BHB), and Matt (sousaphone), who showed up from New Orleans later in the evening. I stayed up until the 2am tomato canning project got started, when I decided my efforts would better spent sleeping after my 97-mile day, and went to get started on the first of several nights of too little sleep.

Wednesday

The band headed down to Carnegie Mellon University by bicycle, where we played in a student march, protesting the profiteering of universities from education. BMB happened to have a beat-up but perfectly playable baritone for me to play for the week, and I just stuck it in my saddle bag, sans case, bell sticking out the top. After marching, we stayed outside the library for a spell to run through our repertoire for the week (which I had never played before). Right as we finished our impromptu rehearsal, the sky opened up and let loose like a fire hose. We rode our bikes home through the downpour, only for me to find a pool of water collected inside my horn, and a sizeable puddle in my saddlebag, my poor, poor camera floating helplessly at the bottom, sealing its fate.

After drying off and warming up, we headed back out at night to downtown, where a free protest concert was taking place (Joan Jett!). Our ranks swelling with the addition of Ben (mellophone, New York) and Stormy (percussion, Humboldt), we led a crowd away from the concert and went caroling through the neighborhoods, singing and playing traditional protest songs. Toward the end of our route, we found the road barricaded with a battalion of police in full riot gear. At this point, many in the band decided it was too early in the week to get into trouble, and slipped away down a side street, to live another day.

Thursday

Several of the folks in the band are involved in the production of a radio show for Pittsburgh's IndyMedia station, and for the week, their show and studio space transformed into the focal point of all independent media in the city. Their were at least a dozen people at the studio at any given time, people calling in live to give updates about police activity, people checking police scanners, and lots of folks working to constantly update their website (www.indypgh.org), which collated various updates, Twitter feeds, videos and more from all over the city. It was a fascinating perspective to be continually plugged in to media which provided such a drastically different perspective to the newspapers and news channels. On Thursday morning I got to check out the studio space and watch the action unfold through the mics and headphones.

In the afternoon, we biked to Arsenal Park to play at a march that was quite distinctly not sanctioned by the city, and that everybody was expecting to be the flashpoint for the week for the mounting tensions between police and protesters. This proved to be more or less the case, though certainly not the worst of what the week would have to offer; riot police quickly informed us over loudspeakers of our impending doom if we did not immediately disperse, followed rather quickly by lobs of tear gas and the deployment of the LRAD system, a sonic, eardrum-shattering weapon that can be focused at crowds (and, somewhat flatteringly, was also the first time it was ever used in this country). The black bloc retaliated with dumpsters used as battering rams, and a game of cat and mouse ensued through the neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, with the crowd continually splitting up in different directions and reuniting a few blocks later. We ran around and played until it seemed wise to leave. On our way home we stopped at a farmers' market, where we saw several battalions of cops armed with rubber bullet rifles pass through toward the fleeing crowd, police tank in tow.

After dinner back at the house, several of us decided to bike up to the north end of town to watch a mock trial of the G20, accompanied by lectures and speeches. Most unfortunately, Stormy's bike chain snapped halfway there. Faced with the prospect of being stranded a few miles from anywhere we wanted to be, no open businesses in sight, and a long uphill walk back home, we opted for the most ridiculous yet practical option: Jessica and I rode our bikes with Stormy on the broken one in between, and we pushed her uphill all the way back home. Resigned to missing the trial, we decided to fashion some costumes for that night's protest, Bash Back, a reclaiming of the streets in the name of LGBT rights. We ended up making pink bandanas by dying strips of bedsheets with beets.

Bash Back ended up being a rather thinly veiled guise to, well, bash back at the police for all the day's activities. The crowd quickly headed to the location of the G20 welcoming dinner, leaving the streets strewn with broken windows and flaming dumpsters in their wake. They rendezvoused with another group outside the G20 building to block the exit, and all hell broke loose with the police. They were out in full force, more than a thousand of them, and wasted no time in throwing tear gas every which way, tackling people, beating people, arresting people. The band retreated to the nearby steps of the Carnegie Mellon cathedral, where we utilized the archway as amplification into the scene of chaos unfolding before us. Tear gas canisters bounced off of Stormy's tom, and I distinctly remember blasting one back into the army of police with my mighty lungs after it landed in the bell of my horn, but I'll admit that my memory may depart from reality a tad here. We ended up having to run around the streets for hours hiding from the storm troopers, because the police had barricaded the road where we had parked our car, and after watching a protester get smashed into a brick wall by a cop in full-body armor about twenty feet from the car, we decided we could wait until the coast was clear. The streets raged into the night, well past me returning safely home and into bed.

Police by the hundreds.

Sadly, many innocent students got swept up by the police in the process; I later watched a disturbing video of a skyway full of students being gassed, and the police refusing their pleas to be allowed to exit, even from a young girl who was bleeding from her neck.

Friday

The day of the officially sanctioned protest saw several thousand people turn out from all walks of life: union workers, socialists, Code Pink, raging grannies, Tibetans, anarchists, you name it. We took the stage at the beginning to send off the march, and then joined in the fun. The march was surprisingly and pleasantly uneventful, at least as far as conflict goes. Afterward, we went to the city jail to play for the protesters who had been arrested over the course of the week.

"Free Tibet Before Free Trade"

I spent that evening at home, quietly listening to the night's events unfold on the radio. There had been a plan to have an anti-police brutality vigil that night, but as a small crowd gathered, so did a number of student onlookers, and the police came and unleashed another night of arrests, gas and physical violence on the innocent bystanders. I think Friday night was the worst of it, which isn't terribly surprising to me; after a week of thousands of police being given all kinds of special riot gear, and holding it all week long without getting a chance to use it, it doesn't seem like a stretch for them to look for any excuse to get to use them when everything is finally over. This viewpoint may seem unfair to police and their professional demeanor, but I disagree; I saw so many unnecessary and blatantly excessive uses of force this week against completely
innocent people who posed no threat, it's hard for me to sympathize with their position. Intimidation and unmitigated violence is no way to protect and serve.

Saturday

I woke up at 7:30am, after several days of five hours of sleep per night, ready to pack up and hit the road. As I looked blearily out the window into the pouring rain, though, and back at the comforts of my warm bed, I quickly concluded that nothing was worth getting out of bed at that moment, and ended up taking a much-needed full day of rest. By Saturday evening, protests seemed to have died down to a couple of diehards standing off with the police with a Wu-Tang sign, and some students playing hackysack.

Sunday

Back on the road again, finally, despite all weather reports telling I should do otherwise.

In closing, I can't say that I can condone the actions of some of the protesters, such as the breaking of windows (even if it was a McDonald's), but any wrongdoings that I saw by protesters are thoroughly overshadowed by the policies of our and other governments that continue to rape and pillage the environment and cultures in the name of economic "progress". When one tries to live the best one can, being morally and ethically responsible to one's fellow beings, I can understand and sympathize with the feelings of frustration and futility that arise from a lifetime of oppression and marginalization. I do hope, though, that this week's events can start a conversation that focuses more on how we can start doing things right for each other than what it is we're all doing wrong.

Okay, I'm off my high horse now. I'm curious how many people actually made it all the way through this post; if you did, please send me an email with the words "Wu-Tang" in the body: scott(dot)rinnan(at)gmail(dot)com.

La Revolucción, en Fotos

"This is so cool. I mean I know the riot situation and everything is harsh, but a friggin marching band? That's just awesome."

-- response to a YouTube video of BMB in action.

The last four days have been an intense mixture of music, emotion, tear gas and crowds. I've been trying to write about my experiences here at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh every day, but every day, as now, I've found myself at a loss for words. Until something comes to me, I thought I'd just post some pictures instead.

My "war tuba".

Storm troopers at the ready.

Five minutes before the police barricaded and teargassed the skyway with the students inside.

The bombs bursting in air.

Students fleeing from tear gas.

A press photographer getting his eyes flushed.

Jail solidarity for the arrested protesters.

Protecting the jail.

The Breakaway Marching Band in action.

A very happy horn player, indeed.