I just got back to Mexico City after a 3,700 mile tour around the Northwest of the U.S. and Canada, where I was performing original poetry and hip-hop alongside civil rights attorney, musician and author, Amir (Dr. Knucklehead) Whitaker as part of the #EscapingtheTrap Tour. We were extremely lucky to have the company of Heirloom Light Photographer, Andrew Johnson, who captured many of our performances and some of the stunning scenery we passed along the way.
Over the next few days I intend to publish some of our performances, photos, and articles about the experience. I'm hoping our experience can be helpful to some of the musicians and poets on Steemit who are looking to plan their own tour. Also, this idea is brand new--but wouldn't it be amazing if we collectively set up a Steemit musicians tour route?!
Here are some photos and notes from the tour:
Day 1: LA.
I arrive in Los Angeles in the early afternoon after an easy flight from Mexico City. I meet Andrew, a good friend from college and our photographer for the trip, outside of the airport. We take the metro—LA has a metro!—downtown and wait for Amir to pick us up at a local Starbucks a few blocks from the Staple Center. In the evening, Amir suggests we rehearse outside, so we walk to a local lot covered in graffiti and set up our equipment.
Everything we’re using for this tour is portable. Unfortunately, my Roland SP 404, which I’ve paid almost $100 to have shipped from New Orleans, hasn’t arrived yet. I hope it gets here tomorrow or I’ll be playing tracks off a flash drive all trip. As the sun drops orange and cream over the LA cityscape, we rehearse our set. Amir has a tongue drum and special pad set up on his guitar that allows him to loop drum beats and bass rhythms. A few passersby gather outside the fence and watch us perform. They clap when we finish a track—our first applause!
Day 2: Las Vegas.
Thirty minutes after leaving LA we get a call from Amir’s landlord saying we left a bag in the elevator, so we have to circle back. Since we’re in LA, and there’s always traffic on at least one side of the highway, it ends up adding another hour to the trip. Luckily, we’re on time for the show. Actually, our first night isn’t exactly a show. Amir wasn't able to find a venue to host us in Vegas so he booked the library. And just as we expected, the crowd is sparse. In fact, a total a 4 people (including the librarian!) watch our first show. But at least the few people there are encouraging and supportive.
After the show, we turn $25 into $50 on the roulette table, then set out in a wind storm towards Cedar City.
(About to get that roulette $$$!)
Day 3: Salt Lake City.
In the morning, we head out around 9 am towards Bryce Canyon and Salt Lake City where we have a 7pm show booked at Good Grammar. The pace of the trip is becoming apparent. We’ll be driving all day, checking out parks along the way, and playing shows at night.
Bryce Canyon National Park is our first stop. It’s like staring into time; magnificent sun-rocks the color of tangerine and pomegranate, limestone that's formed sand-castle type shapes over the years, spiraling towers that appear like tiny temples in the distance.
We don’t have time to hike into the canyon, but we set the amp up and play a few tracks along the rim.
(Amir rocking out at Bryce Canyon)
The show at Good Grammar is neither complete success nor failure. We have some problems with our sound, and the bar is a happy hour sort of joint for young couples who come to talk and drink, not to listen to poetry and a book reading about civil rights and social justice. We also realize we should have linked up with local musicians or poets beforehand to open the show and help get a crowd out. Nevertheless, there is a decent built-in crowd at Good Grammar, maybe 30 or 40 people, and the owner treats us to free drinks and takes us out after the show to another bar where the break-dancing scene is off the hook. Salt Lake seems like a pretty dope city—and our hosts tell us not to tell anyone so that it stays that way.
Day 4: Helena.
Today we’ve put Grand Teton and Yellowstone on the schedule but we have to arrive in Helena, MT by early evening to see the “symphony under the stars” so we skip Grand Teton and drive through Yellowstone. In Helena, we’re met by Amir’s friend Amber, who's prepared a picnic for us to enjoy a Star Wars-themed symphony outside with what seems like the entire city of Helena.
(The crew listening and watching the symphony in Helena)
Day 5: Helena.
We start the day with an hour-long hike to a subtle peak that looks out over the town of Helena and the mountains in the distance. It’s great to get out of the car and get some fresh air and move my body.
(Hiking Helena)
The show tonight is at Lapa Grill, a Mexican restaurant and bar in downtown Helena. It’s well-attended, and even the mayor Wilmot Collins shows up to hear Amir talk. Collins has become locally famous for being on the Colbert Report, and because he is a Liberian refugee, and the town of Helena is as white as a pair of socks.
This is our cleanest show to date. The sound is good, and the crowd is engaged, especially with Amir’s civil rights work.
Day 6: Glacier.
Driving through Glacier is remarkable. The car zigzags though mountains like a toy, a couple feet from a cliff that drops down down down into a forest of pine trees which in the distance look like ripples of blue-green water. Here the peaks are more pronounced, sharper, higher, and waterfalls formed by melting snow run under the road as clouds fall on us and a soft tinfoil-gold sun leaks between two distant mountains that kiss at the shoulder.
(Andrew snapping shots at Glacier National Park)
Day 7: Vancouver.
Our plan is to busk Vancouver’s Stanley Park, but when we arrive at Stanley Park we have a little argument and decide to split up for a few hours. If you go on tour with other people, expect some arguments.
We enjoy the park and it’s clean city beaches, and in the evening, after a delicious Indian meal, Amir hauls the equipment out of the car and we set up as night falls on a corner in the Gastown part of town. I’ve been thinking about busking for so long that when it’s actually time to do it, I feel noticeably nervous. But not too nervous to spit. So we do a short set, mixing our songs together, and in about 35 minutes we have $18 Canadian dollars in our hat!
Day 8: Create Justice Workshop.
Today is special day because we’re going into the Creative Justice program in Seattle to work with at-risk youth, many of whom might be locked up if it wasn’t for this program. We roll up to the Creative Justice and enter a room full of about 20 youth being supervised by 3 or 4 adults. They have a big spread of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes—the works!—out on the table, and the young men who run the program are super friendly. What strikes me most here, though, are the kids. The kids here are, well, they're kids. They’re not scary, or tough, or mean, or criminals—they’re just regular kids. Yet all around America we criminalize kids and throw them into juvenile detention centers before they have the chance to develop into mature adults. Amir talks about a case where a kid was put in handcuffs and brought to jail for a food fight in the lunchroom. And another case where a 6 year old was handcuffed but he was so small they had to put both hands in one cuff. Sadly, it shouldn't come as much as a surprise, black and brown kids are the ones America's school policing policies effect the most. I'm grateful to have a friend like Amir who is working to bring this injustice to an end.
We teach the workshop and I give a little talk about what poetry and writing has done for me in life. But the most important thing, I think, is that we’re here. Our presence is more important than any one thing we say or teach.
(The amazing team at Creative Justice workshop in Seattle)
Day 9: Portland.
About an hour before we arrive in Portland, we receive word that our last event of the tour, a workshop with a juvenile detention center, has been cancelled.
Day 10: the Redwoods.
Our last night we sleep in the car under the Gold State Bridge and in the morning we wake up to the San Francisco marathon running past us. Thousands of ambitious people circling our car as we wipe the sleep out of our eyes and try to figure out wtf’s going on. We eventually break out of the marathon by bumping Eye of the Tiger as loud as we can (to motivate the runners!) and "slyly" removing the cones blocking our exit as we roll out. Before long we’re cruising through the Redwoods and Big Sur.
The trees in the Redwoods are big. Really big. So big that if you don’t have a fancy lens and you want to take a picture you’ll have to take 4 or 5 pictures and piece the tree together afterwards.
The coast is cold and wet and sad-beautiful. And we are exhausted. When we drop Andrew off at LAX around 9pm, we have spent some 30 hours straight in the car and god know’s how many on the road.
It’s time to get home, back to the pen and pad, back to the studio, back to Mexico, back to my girlfriend and work.
#GETLOST
#SQUAWK!
#FREETHEYOUTH
#LOVEnTRAVEL
#ESCAPINGTHETRAP
If you have any questions or suggestions about what you'd like to read about from this tour, leave a comment.
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Read Intro, Part 1