Up-Routed

2012-03-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

Up-routed has moved!

You may now find me here.

http://uprouted.wordpress.com

Whales, Slavery & Sailing: Mystic, Connecticut

2012-02-10T07:14:00.000-08:00

The Pequot Indians called it home long before the stain of Mystic's slave trade or the bloody whaling and sealing industries that tore through here and helped build a fledgling American economy in our gestation period. But for a place that doesn't really exist (it's not a legally recognized municipality in the state of Connecticut) Mystic maintains an almost beguiling appeal by celebrating its role in history while jettisoning its past horrors.

I have my own history here. When I was younger, my family would spend three weeks every summer in nearby Old Lyme. It was here that my dad taught me how to crab the inlets of Mile Creek and where I hooked my first bluefish in Long Island Sound. We caught eels and fish in our dragnet and got bit by a host of ticks each summer. Come Friday, my brother and I practically lived in the penny candy store before the coveted Friday Night movies at Old Lyme Shores.

As we got older we'd sneak out of the house, kiss girls on the flat rocks and scare ourselves sh*tless walking down Edge Lea Road in the dark of the night (it's also where I ended up getting married!). My friend Jeff and I listened to Zeppelin with the Dunns, and the Sullivans and tried emulating them with our guitars well into the night. We spent birthdays and graduations down here and learned a great deal about ourselves and the place where we were reared. But some of the best memories on the Connecticut shoreline were hatched in Mystic.

Both as kids and as teenagers, Mystic had the allure of a sailing port with teenage temptations like Mystic Coffee Roasters and Mystic Disc where I bought my first bootleg Nirvana CD. The Aquarium allowed us an imaginative insight into the neighboring marine wonders while the old toy store gave us reward for doctor visits and the occasional treat.

But obviously, people don't visit Mystic for my obscure boyhood stories, they come here to see the historic Captains' homes, wooden ships, and the country's largest maritime museum at Mystic Seaport. And it's a good launching point for you too.

If you do visit, make sure to drop by Olde Mistick Village. It's directly in front of you when you exit I-95 and adjacent to the Aquarium. Also check out the Winter's Aweigh: Come Play at Mystic Seaport event next weekend or for more Mystic attractions, check out the Mystic Country website.

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Coney Island

2012-01-30T09:24:00.001-08:00

Coney Island

Nathan's Famous (The Original)

The Coney Island Boardwalk

Historic Child's Restaurant

Save Coney Island

Parachute Jump

Child's Restaurant

Coney Island Boardwalk

Child's Restaurant

Steeplechase Pier

Chinese New Year in NYC

2012-01-30T09:24:00.000-08:00

Chinatown

Chinatown, NYC

Russell Simmons says hello.

aftermath

Our first (Real) Snow in NYC

2012-01-24T10:13:00.000-08:00

We got a taste of it in October. Sammy and I thought our Halloween snowfall was an early sign of what would inevitably come our way week after week. But then November came and so did the unusually temperate weather. December passed and still no signs of winter. January... same deal. And then this past Saturday it finally snowed.

We jumped out of bed, slipped into our winter garb and hopped into Central Park. Sure, it's not the Wasatch range I once played in or the ancient mountains of Vermont, but like an 19th century Charles Parsons painting or an early photograph, this place came to life with ice skaters, tobogganers and children all taking refuge in the expanse of a buidlingless landscape.

When your access to free space is all but gone, you take pride in what you have left. These kids and their laughter and the snowballs in their hands symbolize the same thing for the avid skier on a monumental pow day. Would these kids rather be in the Rockies? Maybe. But maybe this is their Rockies. They certainly played like it was.

Sledding is the same wind-in-your hair feeling for every generation. It's that 'school was called off' feeling that riles through your system on an early snowy morning. It's waking up earlier than usual to look out the window and see what you got. It's something different for everyone, I suppose, but for me it's enough to stay young again and envision mountains around me or even simpler, the sledding hill in our neighbor's backyard on Tanglewood Drive in Southington, CT.

I know snow bothers a lot of people. It interrupts their schedules and makes their hair frizzy and tangled. It makes for treacherous roads and damp suit pants, but all of that is irrelevant in my mind. I like to think of the hot coffee I'm going to have when I come in from the cold or the sound of the snow under my boots. I think about walking into that little cafe just to get a break from the chill or watching as the snow falls on whatever it shall. I like what snow makes us do and not what it prevents us from doing. But, like all weather in the Northeast, it's already gone and the 50-degree weather is back. Winter has yet to make her permanent mark here, but when it comes, it'll leave the same impression on Sammy and I that it did this past weekend.

Damn scaffolding!

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Joe Patane and Steve Wozniak Lend A Hand

2012-01-24T07:59:00.000-08:00

Image kindly borrowed from geekculture

When you come from an adverse home environment, the last thing you believe is that you can actually believe, let alone fly an airplane, produce a documentary, build a house with your own two hands or learn computers from the guy who actually invented computers. But at The Patane Foundation’s Dream Camps, belief in oneself comes with the territory and accomplishments like these happen every day.

It’s noon in Los Gatos, California as Steve Wozniak zips around on a Segway. He sports head-to-toe polo attire and eagerly swings his mallet at the small wooden ball below. He misses and a horde of teenagers close in on him. It’s a wacky rendition of such a stoic past time, but as in every other Dream Camp put on by The Patane Foundation, Camp Woz prides itself on eccentricity being the gateway to something great. And it is.

Otherwise deemed outcasts with no future, these participating teens are having a blast at Camp Woz and pretty soon, all ten of them are going to be in Wozniak’s garage (yes, garage) for an impromptu lesson on the ins and outs of computers. Did I mention that each kid gets his or her own laptop, iPod, and digital camera? This may all sound a bit out of context for those who understand Wozniak’s technological influence on the world, but for those who know him only as the quirky guy who got booted off Dancing With The Stars in week four, Steve’s exuberance isn’t just part of his trademark personality, but it’s also a calculated effort to help reshape the future for these kids. And the Wizard of Dream Camp Woz himself, Mr. Joe Patane, is helping these kids dream through his own quirky approach to youth mentorship. And he’s doing it all free for the campers and staff.

Joe is unpretentious and habitually jubilant. His business suit is a T-Shirt and gym shorts and his heavy Brooklyn accent takes a back seat to his calm and reassuring voice. He’s the youngest of eight children and credits his parents for keeping him on the right track. I’ve known Joe for a long time and was his roommate many moons ago. But before that, Joe was a roommate to the world when he landed himself as an MTV Real World cast member back in 1996. While tumultuous and detrimental to his personal life (he is the only cast member to date who obtained permission to write a book about the show, suitably titled Livin In Joe’s World), the show enabled him to re-evaluate his imprint on the world.

Now, Joe is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, full-time Philanthropist and Founder of the above-mentioned Dream Camp Foundation, a not-for-profit (501c3) corporation that helps change the predicament for underprivileged kids. As his website claims, the organization’s mission is to: “Empower participating youth to find their strengths through exposure to the arts, sciences, wellness, and more.” They do this by peer-to-peer mentorship, hands on activities and full immersion into an atmosphere far removed from the youths’ troubled domestic environment. On the ground, however, the actual mission far outreaches it’s printed definition.

“To live everyday with a little bit of surprise, a little bit of not knowing what’s going to happen and a little bit of taking risk… that’s what life is about, that’s living to me.” It’s that mantra that Joe tries to instill. He wants them to simply be kids, embrace who they are and work hard to achieve a productive and positive life through their own found passions. He wants them to forget what they’ve been told they can’t do and instead do. This is how he approaches each of his Dream Camps.
The organized group excursions not only build character and confidence in those that attend, but they also allow for the kids to produce something tangible; something that each and every participant can be proud of.

At the foundation’s Dream Camp: Cal Earth, each camper built a housing structure out of 100% sustainable materials while at Dream Camp: Air, Land & Sea, campers learned how to fly a plane and hang glide. Whether making a documentary film through the foundation’s film mentoring project, Buggle Productions, learning the basics of ranching in picturesque Wyoming or just having the ability to finally “chill” (one of Joe’s trademark phrases, by the way), each camp creates an instant family for the participants and allows them to escape the environments that brought them here in the first place.
That’s a lofty idea and a relatively well-known approach to youth outreach initiatives, but the difference here is in the follow up. Joe is well aware of the power this exposure has on these kids, but he also knows that when they return home, they are going back to a depraved situation one way or another. It’s there that they struggle to learn and participate in diverse social structures, because they are told they can’t or even worse, not told anything at all. Many have suffered abuse, bullying, labeling, failed foster situations, and much more while others simply lack a loved one championing their interests and well-being. Whatever the case, their perception of the world and the world’s perception of them is murky and dubious. But it isn’t to say hope is lost on them.

Like his friendship with Wozniak, Joe makes sure to keep genuine ties with those around him, both in and out of the Dream Camps. It’s his authentic nature and the only way he knows – something that comes in quite handy when your task is helping those that need it most.

In the end, it’s about possibilities and encouragement and at Dream Camp Foundation, it’s the principles of positivity that help these kids learn their way while making a substantial contribution in the world. For Joe, the contribution lives on as he gears up for Dream Camp TV (based on this past summer’s Dream Camp California) and Dream Camp NYC coming this June.

What’s your contribution? Reach out to The Patane Foundation to see how you can help. Visit www.joesworld.org or like Dream Camp Foundation on Facebook.

Written by

Aaron T. Lyles

(Original article posted on [wiz duh m])

* second image photo credit: 'Dream Camp Woz' Segway Polo with Campers Zack Karper and Eric Sanborn - Photo By Paul Chalifour - Copyright Dream Camp Foundation, www.joesworld.org

To read more from Aaron, follow his blog Up-Routed or follow him on Twitter
Also check out his website – alylesphotography.com

New York

2012-01-16T21:44:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK

Walk every street. Take every train. Live in the here and now. A little each time. Hoping there's more tomorrow.

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A Shared Community

2012-01-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

Original article published on [wiz duh m]

For many of us, life has grown increasingly difficult with longer work hours, fast-paced gadgets, a broken economy and the disappearing act of that elusive work-life balance. But in the midst of what we deem to be stressful, we often forget about those who live life for the mere experience of making it better.

Enter Canadian Philosopher, Jean Vanier. He’s the founder of L’Arche Harbor House, a nonprofit that dedicates itself to transforming the lives of those with developmental disabilities by simply providing an atmosphere based around the family structure – a structure that is co-dependent on one another and their respective gifts.

Back in 1964, Vanier invited two men with developmental disabilities to live with him in the French village of Trosley-Breuil. So inspired, he invited more and more men and women with disabilities into his home. He named it L’Arche, after Noah’s Ark and thus spawned what is now an international federation of 135 faith-based communities in more than 36 countries on 6 continents – all dedicated to enhancing the life of those that truly have something to share with the world. And sharing is the backbone of what they do at L’Arche.

L’Arche Harbor House in Jacksonville, Florida is one of those communities built upon individual involvement and group contribution. It’s here that people, otherwise deemed outcasts by society, live in the comforting environs of like-minded friends and thoughtful assistants who care for them. But a pity-party this is not. Each volunteer assistant brings with them the realization that they stand to learn just as much from those they aim to teach. And learn they do. Just take a listen to the video on their website for further proof of the gratifying nature associated with being around people blissfully innocent toward the often damning weight of the world.

The sanctuary-esc confines of the Harbor House aren’t the only walls within which they participate. Here, each core member (those living at L’Arche with developmental disabilities) holds a job outside the community as well. Inside, they participate in artistic workshops, musical arrangements and rewarding group activities. And it’s evident that their experience is building a fulfilling conviction; one that proves their contributions do not go unnoticed.

Community Director, Amy Finn-Schultz, talks about one of those activity programs, the L’Arche’s Rainbow Workshop. “It’s a day program for adults with developmental disabilities to do arts and crafts that allow them to express their creativity in a place that is fostering acceptance.” That may not sound profound to you or I in the grand scope of things, but again, that has more to do with our own societal distractions than it does a lack of robust programming in such a place. By allowing their core members to share their unique gifts with one another, they are opening these individuals to a life rid of blackberry-crashing crisis’s, United States Congress woes, or any other trivial beef that we may find overwhelming in life.

Places like this have something to teach us all. As one woman puts it, when speaking about what it means for her brother to live at L’Arche: “…Security, Safety, Love. It means another family to Tommy that will be his for his life.” For Tommy, Amy Finn-Shultz, Jean Vanier, and all of us, it’s really that simple. Love, Safety, Security, Creativity, Reward – these are all things we strive for, but at L’Arche, they can be found around every corner and that makes all the difference.

If you’d like to contribute to this beautiful community, get involved at: http://www.larchejacksonville.org/participate/donate/. And be sure to check out their upcoming fundraiser, the 22^nd Annual Golf Classic at the legendary TPC Sawgrass (http://www.larchejacksonville.org/news-events/events/21st-annual-golf-classic/). There will be delicious box lunch, skill prizes, raffle,  silent and live auction and a tournament reception featuring Heavy Hors d’oeuvres.

Written by Aaron T. Lyles

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A Brother's Birthday

2011-12-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

It may seem like a shameless plug or a bout of nepotism subsequent to his birthday, but I think it’s high time I publicly wrote about my brother, Christopher Lyles.

To me, he’s a brother, a mentor and a guy I exchanged one too many fisticuffs with when we were younger. He reigned victorious over me more often than not through the game console world of Colecovision, Nintendo 1.0, and Sega Genesis. He drew better, pitched the ball faster and had the ability to drum up far less enemies than I could. But as we got older, we ditched the competitive nature of adolescence and instead shared in the joys of creativity as we clawed at dreams and ventures both won and lost. We grew up, fell in love and moved apart, but never lost that connection that made us Lyles’ in the first place – a status that contracts as much mockery as it does accolades. And through all of our comings and goings, Chris kept the ability to believe in the one constant that has brought him to where he stands today. He is vested in art and its ability to move people.

It’s not a noble mission or a conscious decision to entertain. For Chris, it’s a gift that obsessively finds its way into everything he does. Like anything, a passion like that comes with a set of crutches and bruises, but at the end of each hour logged in the studio or on the sketch pad in the passenger seat of any moving car, his dedication is always producing something – something that makes people react.

34 years ago, this guy was launched into the world and today the person and the work he produces stands to build reason to why he is who he is. Now, with a beautiful family of his own, he continues to create for the world and for those that he doesn’t even know. Somewhere there is a kid looking at his work the same way Chris used to look at his artistic idols. Somewhere there are people being inspired by the stroke of his brush and the thoughts baked into each character he creates. I just thought this was a good time to tell him that I am one of those people.

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Boston's Green Bandits: Part 3

2011-12-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

While other storefronts grasp for passersby with shiny gimmicks and big red signs, the Vault simply parks the truck, opens up shop and provides an environment that plays to those who need no coercion. In the final portion of my interview with the boys from the Vault, Derrick and Howard speak to the connection with their customers, the future of the company and what it means to be on the cusp of something new.

Green Street Customers

U.R: Who would you say is your core demographic?

G.S: We aren’t targeting a demographic. We’re targeting more of a "psychographic." Our customer is a dude who cares about what he looks like and values exclusivity. He’s someone who is dynamic, creative and fun. He enjoys unique shopping experiences and learning about the newest and coolest things.

Howard Travis

U.R: What's the best way to reach your audience and how much responsibility would you say they have for your success? What role do they play in Green Street?

G.S: In my opinion, word of mouth should never be a marketing tactic. It’s a result of good marketing. I’d say the best thing for us so far has just been driving around. When people see us moving, everyone wonders what we are. There’s a lot of people who are familiar with us now so people learn from each other. It’s word of mouth that has done wonders for us. Since we’re the only truck in Boston doing this, promotion is so easy because someone will say like ‘there’s a truck that sells sneakers.’ Even if they aren’t familiar with the Green Street Vault name, they know of us. That spreading of our existence has definitely led to sales, and we see that when people come in and say ‘my boy was talking about this’ or ‘I’ve heard of this before’

U.R: What are some of the most popular locations for you guys? How long do you spend at each one?

G.S: Newbury street definitely. Depends what spot we’re at. If we’re in a pay-for spot, it’s 3 hours tops. Sometimes we stay longer. If it’s a commercial zone it’s a little less than that.

U.R: What is the dopest item you have right this second?

G.S: I’d say our Green Street Vault tees.

U.R: For a customer not so well versed in street style, what are the essential items they should pick up from the Vault?

G.S: We’ve got something for everyone. You don’t have to be well versed in streetwear to find a tee or a retro snapback from the truck. If that’s not your thing, get a Green Street tee.

The Future

U.R: How do you stay innovative?

G.S: I read a lot and look at a lot of pictures and blogs. To stay innovative, I have to stay inspired. Creativity and innovation is like any other skill or trait that people have. It needs to be practiced and used or else it’ll just be curbed.

U.R: Do you see having your own line someday?

G.S: One day

U.R: Would you ever consider opening a storefront? What limitations or abilities would you have if you left the mobile concept?

G.S: I’d consider it… but I’m more interested in opening more trucks. That’s the way trends are going nowadays. If we left the mobile concept, we wouldn’t really be able to do anything about foot traffic. If no one’s out, then no one’s gonna shop. With the truck, if it’s raining, let’s say, we’ll hit a campus. Kids have to be out anyway to go to class, get food, go to the gym.

U.R: Technology seems to be an important, if not essential, part of your business. Do you agree with that and if so, what does that mean for the future of commerce from your standpoint?

G.S: Yes definitely. We rely on twitter, facebook, tumblr and email for everything. We could definitely hold special contests over social media to encourage use and test loyalty.

U.R: What’s next for Green Street?

G.S: I can’t say much, but I’ll just say expansion. We’re also working with Annie Mulz to produce a limited edition pack with a zip up hoodie, tee shirt, snapback and beanie. Stay tuned.

Green Street Money bags

Whatever the future holds, it's a ride these guys are willing to take. The streets will always have feet upon them and someone to outfit each, but as ideas like this catch on, so to goes our interpretation of business as a whole. It's the risk of being the first and the chance of having it work out that brings change to commerce. And it's that change that inspires us all. So if you're in Boston and happen upon a big green truck blaring hip hop and peddling dope kicks to a small congregation, give your boys a shout and support em, because at the end of the day, this is what small (or soon to be not-so small) business is all about.

A big thanks to Derrick and Howard for letting me pick their brains while killing time in the back of the van (creepy).

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Boston's Green Bandits: Part 2

2011-12-05T09:02:00.000-08:00

Perseverance and a 'wicked' nothing-to-lose attitude are what brings Derrick Cheung and Howard Travis to the streets of Boston. But what about the truck itself? How does the Vault attract customers and what does it look like? Here is Part Deux of the three-part interview. Enjoy, re-post and follow.

(All photos by aaron lyles photography)

Part 2: The Truck

U.R: Take me through a typical day in the Vault. From morning to night, what does that experience look like for you guys?

The real hooligan

G.S: We hit the streets every day at 12, so that means getting up at around 10:30, hungover or not, make coffee and go out. We will try and hit one spot from 12-3 and then another for the rest of the night, and some days we’ll hop around more often than that. We don’t have any designated spots, which is stressful, so we have to get lucky sometimes for parking. We move when we want to but if we have that “feeling” that it’s gonna get busy we stay. Every day’s different in terms of locations and faces we see, which is awesome. It’s definitely not boring.

U.R: Why sneakers? Why streetwear?

G.S: That’s what Howard and I are experts in and are passionate about.

U.R: Describe streetwear in your own terms.

G.S: It’s being late to work or school because you couldn’t decide which sneakers to wear in the morning. It’s caring what you look like and knowing that no one else has what you’re wearing. It’s appreciating music, art, hustling. It’s a culture.

U.R: What’s behind the name?

G.S: It’s just something Howard and I just came up with. We liked the name, it was easy to spell and remember. We thought, green is for the money.

Always lookin' out for fresh gear

U.R: What are some of the brands you carry and how often does that inventory change?

G.S: We try and buy at least one new piece every week. So let’s say someone shops with us once a week: they’d see something new every time they stopped in. Here’s a full list of brands we currently carry:

Society Original Products
Annie Mulz
e.5.Charlie
Boppo!
At The Buzzer
PUZL
AWOL
ROCKSMITH
Meister
American Needle
LoveMoney
Purple Cloth
Grade Select
'47 Brand

U.R: What is the one brand that you don’t have, but wish you did?

G.S: Good question. We want an Asics Gel Lyte account… but we’ve tried… even had a rep come out. It’s pretty much impossible to get that account unless you’re David Z. I’m interested in getting brands that no one else in Massachusetts has. I’m pretty content with what we’ve got… but if I had to choose…

- Supreme

Howard Travis (in focus) and Derrick Cheung (out of focus)

U.R: Are companies coming to you or do you have to seek them out? Can you talk to that process a bit?

(PHOTO: Jon Smedley)

G.S: Brands are coming to us now. After our first two weeks in business we had an influx of emails from brands that wanted to get on the truck. I still get about 10-15 brands a week that email me. I go through every email personally. I look at line sheets and determine whether or not it would be a good fit for the truck. So I consider if it would fit in with the rest of the product, how it would make the other products and brands look, if I like the aesthetic of the brand, and if the brand has an interesting story. It’s also vital that the designs be dope and that the owners of the company/ the reps be cool people.

Howard writing his own John Hancock

U.R: How did the flat screen menu come about? I would imagine that it was a big deal in the beginning stages of the business, but has it since been overshadowed by the overall experience Green Street provides, or is it still a focal point?

G.S: Actually, one of the guys who was modifying the truck suggested it. We were going to have a board basically that had vinyl slots where we would change in photos of the inventory. I’m really glad we didn’t do that. I’d say the TV isn’t a focal point. It’s just cool.

U.R: In your own words, how would you best describe the interiors of the Vault?

G.S: 70’s rec room. Ski lodge? Shag wagon. Anyway you put it, I love chillin' inside.

And so do we! The truck is insane and the product flies off Grampa's dresser in the blink of an eye. So hit em up and check back soon for Part Three of the interview!

Boston's Green Bandits

2011-12-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

For Derrick Cheung and Howard Travis, business-as-usual is not so usual after all. While small businesses struggle to stay planted along our city streets, one small business has decided to literally work the streets in order to keep the dream alive.

Enter Derrick and Howard’s Green Street Vault - a mint-green concession truck cleverly converted into a mobile high-end streetwear shop. Wrapped in dope graphics complete with a digital (constantly changing) menu screen on the side of the truck, the Green Street Vault first hit Boston's scene this summer. Since then, they've been slaying street wear sales like their behemoth brethren they park in front of on the daily, only they get to retain the true honor of street cred. (And others are taking notice as well: G.S.V. Media Coverage)

But what’s more unique than the concept itself, is the duo behind the ingenious retail model. I met up with them recently to see just how the two do what they do. Here is Part 1 of a three-part interview with Green Street Vault’s co-owners, Derrick Cheung and Howard Travis…

Part 1: The Back Story

U.R: You’re a college senior at Emerson College. Most people in your position are panicking over the job market and wondering how they’ll get hired. What made you say: f*ck it, I’ll do my own thing?

GS: Interning made me say f*ck it. I had 4 marketing and advertising internships before my Junior year and I hated every single one. I was locked up in a cube and I had very little creative control over anything. I have always been a neurotic sort of ‘control-freak’ so doing my own thing just made sense.

U.R: Writing a well-thought out business plan is one thing, but making that business a reality only months after writing it, is a completely different thing. Take me through the steps of making your business a reality.

GS: A good idea is just a good idea until you make some money from it. With this business, it’s all about proving the concept. The business plan was written with the presumption that we live in a utopia: everything went to plan when we wanted it to. As you can suspect, however, nothing really went to plan. Launch was pushed back, and then pushed back again. There were a lot of different unexpected costs. We had to stay on our toes and play everything by ear. Since there are no other mobile retailers in Boston, we couldn’t ask anyone for advice or help. At times we felt really lost and it was making us crazy. Still sorta does sometimes. But it’s the reality of business I suppose.

Howard talking with one of the Vault's many customers

U.R: What fears, if any, did you have about opening a relatively new concept?

G.S: So many. Would people like the idea? The concept? The brand? Would we tank and lose money right out of the box like every other small business? What about all the un-expected(s) – how would we overcome those? Is it viable? I project that we can turn a profit, but how realistic is it? My fears were all quelled after our first month open.

Aaron Lyles shooting Howard and Derrick. PHOTO: Jon Smedley

U.R: What was a bigger inspiration for launching the truck: The food truck craze and its use of mobile marketing or the high-end streetwear you peddle?

G.S: I think our biggest inspiration was the fact that…. well we felt that there was something missing from the Boston streetwear scene. We wanted to give people more options to shop, and since we’re mobile, we can move anywhere so we can attain our goal of spreading Boston-based freshness. So I guess we’re more influenced by the streetwear. When we had initially come up with the idea for the truck, it was before Boston was on the food truck tip and before they even started the program. Haters don’t hate.

Derrick Cheung and Howard Travis

U.R: What made you confident that it would work?

G.S: Passion, and everything that’s in my heart. I told myself that failure wasn’t an option. Still sticking to that.

U.R: What role did E3 play in launching of the Vault? What about Emerson in general – do you see your education at Emerson as a precursor to your business?

G.S: E3 played a huge role. My professor, Karl Baehr, was almost like a role model to me. He is such a smart dude and had a lot of business savvy and I thought it was cool. He’s also rolling in dough. I looked up to that too. Emerson has been good in the way that I met a lot of awesome people. The education… meh. It’s ok. The connections I’m making though at Emerson, definitely priceless.

Hangin' in the Green Street Vault

U.R: You and Howard were co-workers before. What experiences did you have together that led you to partner up and how is being a co-owner different? Which places did you work at before?

G.S: Howard and I have always just clicked. It’s essential that business partners have this natural chemistry I think because the relationship will definitely be tested and strained. It’s different because we execute the “what-ifs” regarding the business. If we were working for someone else, we’d be talking anyway, like “what if we did this” or “what if we could run this sale.” Now we can. We worked at Brooklyn Industries and X Squared together.

For Part 2 & 3 of the three-part interview, check back often!

Top Ten Travels: 2009-2011

2011-11-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

My Top Ten Trips

Witnessing a feast in Olympic National Park

Looking back on some of our journeys over the last couple of years. Here are my top ten...

1. Our Engagement Road-trip

2. Coast to Coast Road-trip:
The Mid Atlantic
The Midwest
My Beloved Mountains
The Desert
And So It Begins

3. The Cayman Islands

4. Bachelor Weekend(s)

Mammoth Lakes

Vermont

5. The California Series:

Sammy's Birthday - Solvang, California
Big Sur On A Dime

A City Without A City
The Mother Lode

Sequoia National Park

Route 88 & 395, California

6. Road Trip with Mom

An Introduction: Many Years In The Making

Clean Slate

Images from the Trip

7. Vermont

8. Boston

9. Gold Country

Part I.

Hotel Jeffery

Bodie State Historical Park
Sonora Pass

10. Traveling Nowhere

Traveling Nowhere

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Halloween Hijack: Preoccupied Wall Street

2011-11-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

When the playing field is a margin-less spread of either 1 percent or 99 percent, I think it’s fair to say that I fall in with the 99, but as I walk through the narrow, crude alleys of Zuccotti Park, the 2-class system coined by the Occupy Wall Street movement, gives way to something more centric.

Hijacked by drifters, ex-Goldman Sachs employees, peddlers, lone activists, intellects, and people who are just plain down and out, the movement seems to have lost the very momentum and direction that lead them here in the first place. While Occupy still seems to lack a unified message and a clear leader, the one constant is that no one is going anywhere.

Most are discouraged and dissatisfied with America’s corporate climate and it's ability to make us feel small and irrelevant. It’s what most believe are to blame for the lack of jobs in America or at least the devaluing of dignified employment. But it’s unclear whether or not they see it as the same environment that gave us the motivation to climb out from the trenches and go after whatever it is we’ve desired to achieve in a capitalist society. That wide-open gateway, no matter how skewed it may be, is what made us a super power and it may very well be what takes us down.

As an observer, I can't say with certainty that this particular movement has done what it set out to do. Its internal hijack has become something of a sideshow in the heart of America's swollen sore that is Wall Street. But I'm still intrigued by the whiff of revolution and the rumbling of what's to come and for now, at least on Halloween, its projected forecast is still unclear.

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Our Wedding Day

2011-10-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

Already a month has gone by since Sammy and I got married and we’re still waiting to feel as if we’ve begun something different than we initially started almost 6 years ago. The truth is, not much has changed for us and that means a lot. But the memories of that weekend are still with us.

The next day, we fought the feeling of sadness as our friends boarded planes, hopped on trains, and drove away to far off places. We too journeyed back to the city and away from our families, but before we left, I snuck away from the quiet of Sammy’s well-earned rest and strolled the beach as the sun came up.

I took in the scene as I did when I was 5 years old on the very same shoreline, only this time with the sailcloth tent in the distance, I saw this place for what it really has become for my family, my wife and me over the years. To marry the love of my life in a place that has held so many memories for us means a lot. And we are both glad to have shared it with you. For those that were there and for those we could not share it with, we hope some of these photos will relive the moment for all of us.

The morning after

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A different kind of Bachelor Party…Again

2011-10-08T21:43:00.000-07:00

Mahen eyes the 8 ball

Strip clubs in Vermont are like the Mouse-deer exhibit at the zoo – a few people go because they feel bad for them, but it’s not what brought them there in the first place. It’s no fault of the strippers or their undisguised waltz, but more a testament to the state for its lack of need of such a place. If they do exist in Vermont (which I’m sure they do) I’ve never been and would be hard pressed to track one down – and trust me, we tried.

There are no casinos or flashy clubs. The bars are nothing fancy and the dress code is simply “please come dressed.” This is where maple syrup was born and high fashion came to die. It’s the home of flannels, Michael J Fox and Ben & Jerry's and there are definitely more trees than people. It's here that I am happy and it’s here that I wanted to have my (albeit second) bachelor party hosted.

I told my brother that if he was going to throw me a bachelor party, I wanted it to be in Vermont. He didn’t bat an eye. Accustomed to my peculiar idea of a good time, he saw nothing out of the ordinary with my request. I can’t say the same for the rest of the crew, but for Chris, he understood. He’s watched as my childhood fascination for Vermont grew into an odd obsession with everything having to do with the Green Mountain state.

The Mountain Top Inn & Resort

I came here to snowboard when I was 10-years-old and spent many fall weekends with my family high above the small village of Ludlow. From pumpkin picking to weekend drives and estate sales, everything about Vermont drew me closer to its core - so much so that I spent my first year of college here at Castleton State College. Since that year, I’ve come back for only one weekend out of each year. I was desperate to make my last weekend as a single man a Vermont weekend.

Fish out of water

With the exception of our incredible 5-bedroom cabin in Chittenden Vermont and enough alcohol to kill a moose (another Vermont trademark), we needed something to appease the rest of the crew – most of which did not share the same circus-like attraction for one of the most impoverished states in the union. After a quick visit to the Vermont Welcome Center, Nick, Smed and Carckle had the solution – we would go to the Vermont State Fair. Our car agreed, although Sammy’s cousins, Mahen and Viran (or Bebop and Rock Steady as they were named this weekend) were a bit perplexed at why on earth we'd actually elect to do such a thing for a bachelor party. To their defense, it’s a valid question.

The Vermont State Fair is a big deal here. With the exception of an influenza epidemic in 1917, the VSF has been spitting out rural excitement for the last 166 years. For locals it’s THE event and to miss it is to miss out on a year’s worth of pent up excitement. Each year in September the Rutland Fair Grounds flood with tie-dyed shirts, mullets, overalls and every other hippie stereotype you can conjure up. Aged and decaying carnival booths line the pathway to barn exhibits, pig races, ox-pulling competitions and of course the 4H Rabbit Showmanship Awards. In awe, we take the path, shoot the clowns face for a stuffed monkey and make our way to the live tiger exhibit.

It’s weird. I know that. And maybe the fair was bit much for two guys from London, a faux Floridian, a newly-minted father and a bunch of guys who just really wanted to get drunk and watch naked woman, but for me it was the icing on the cake. It was the conversation piece over dinner (which I have no memory of by the way) and it was one of the things that brought on laughter well into the evening. It was one of many bachelor party firsts, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

So hats off to you Chris for pulling it off and a grand thank you to Chris, Smed, Jeff, Carckle, Nick, Tommy, Dave, Mahen and Viran. I had the time of my life and something tells me you did too.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, that is a luxury mink rebel flag blanket

And tie-dye to boot

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The Marble Muse: New York Public Library

2011-10-07T06:22:00.000-07:00

From Breakfast at Tiffany's to Ghost Busters to The Adjustment Bureau, the New York Public Library on 455 5th Avenue in New York has played host to many Hollywood productions over the years. But it wasn’t the allure of tinsel town or the big red dot on every tourist map that lured me in to its massive marble walls (marble from Vermont, might I add), instead it was my waning enthusiasm for $6 lattes and pretentious fools with outside voices boorishly brought inside the coffee shops of New York.

I admit, I still peek my head into the densely populated caffeine joints of the city and even find inspiration there from time to time, but lately, I’ve wanted nothing more than a long communal library table where no purchase is necessary and all the non-firefox research I desire lies only fingertips away. The NYPL is the exception to the rule as far as libraries are concerned.

My wife and I, on a jaunt to find the best library to work in, first walked into the athenaeum directly across the street. It was awful. Like a sad convalescent home or an asylum for those who wished anything but to be among books, it dismembered our illusions of green-glass table lamps and cherry wood bookcases fat with leather-bound greatness. The fading fluorescent rectangles above and the multi-stained carpets below add to the dismal atmosphere where shelves go this way and that with no real rhyme or reason. People mope from corner to corner and drop their heads low and heavy as they wait for the elevator. How do people work here? We didn’t stay long enough to find out. With the last check of our bags, we enter the chill of the autumn night and then... we see it across the street.

We’ve passed it many times. We knew it was there all along and one of the most notable research libraries in the world, but like a statue in the Louvre , it just didn’t seem real or approachable. Surely we couldn’t go in there and take a book out. It had to be for show – for tourists so they could flash their cheap disposable cameras at poorly posed loved ones blocking the beauty of the backdrop. There's no way the giant marble pillars are actually support collums. They must be faux facades of a concrete collection of cement and r-bars. But they aren't. This just can't be for the public to use. But it is.

Of all the great libraries -- I mean really great libraries -- on this strange planet, the NYPL on 5^th Ave is actually the only public library where someone could march on in and ask for a book without having to apply for permission to use the library (as told on Columbia’s online article, Expansion of the Public Realm). It’s true and it’s incredible. Before I stake my claim in a worn wooden seat under a metal table lamp, I grab my new library card (a badge of honor in its own right) – purple and red, with the white lion roar of approval – and gawk at the reality of such a place. For three years straight, I can check out anything I could imagine and sit inside one of the most inspiring places in the city. I do. I sit here until they shut down the lights, which is the only warning for people to leave. The queue forms and we open our bags to prove we've stolen nothing, but yet I still feel like I've gotten away with something.

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The Honeymoon & The 2-Train

2011-09-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

New York Public Library

The Honeymoon was supposed to be over by now. Not our actual honeymoon – that has yet to be planed (our wedding blog-post coming soon), but the love affair with this city. By now, we were supposed to be regretting the move and yearning for a better place. By all accounts, we should have pealed back the patina of bright lights and late-night sirens, but instead the luster of the city shines on as if we’d just stepped foot here not but a day ago.

Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

The city still invigorates us as we delve deeper into its core. With it come the pros and cons of city life and nothing is ever as it seems, but for us New York embraces something special. Our daily walks and in-and-outs of old taverns, museums, libraries, restaurants and movie theaters present a pace worth following into the unforeseeable future. Even the subway has its appeal…

Fraunce's Tavern, NYC

With a belly full of rich food and one too many drink, I wait for the 2-Train as the thick and nasty air of the underground turns a beaded sweat into a flow of dampening madness around my neck. The clanging of tracks and outdated hardware will soon rock me back and forth as it screeches and yells with each minor turn. But until then, one by one, the crazies ooze down the stairwell and drape themselves over the chipped wooden benches beside me; their caravan of random luxuries bagged in black below their feet. To the right, a man spits on the tracks while his companion shouts aloud her intentions to “kill that muthaf#!@$ over there!” Yet when I look, there is no muthaf#!@$ to be found. Next to each wildly insane him or her stands a student or a nun or a mother or a suit, all of which just stare into outer space pretending not to be affected by what is most likely a regular occurrence to them by now.

NYC Metro

In contrast, the faint note, held long and sweet by a young subway musician, acts as an all too appropriate Hitchcockian soundtrack. That one note, soon accompanied by many more equally as pleasing, makes the scene seem appropriate and comfortable. It takes away the dead heat and odd behavior and replaces it with a cinematic dream world of beyond normal circumstance. The music lingers in the air just long enough for the 2-Train to roll up and open its doors for a few seconds before forcing them closed. The music gone and the fragile and dissimilar patients aboard – we jerk with the start of the trip, onward and uptown.

From Up Here, The Harlem Meer (rhyme not intended)

The New York Stock Exchange

The Streets of New York

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Farewell To A Wealth Of Whiskers

2011-08-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

Farewell to a wealth of whiskers that have playfully mounted on my gills for years now. Farewell to an identity akin to a mountain man or a prospector or someone I wish I could have been in a different era. This is goodbye to all the comments thrown at my curled mustache and all its glory. It’s no more for the thick nest of shinelock under my chin or the ability to hide my face when my face was worth hiding. I may no longer be mistaken for a hipster or get hit on by cougars wishing to get back to their raptor days of saddling Burt Reynolds and losing fingers in locks of chest hair. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

For what is an everyday occurrence for most men, today was a very big day for me. I didn’t just shave off facial hair or shed stereotypes, but I said goodbye to something that has been a part of who I am for a long time. Today I have shaved off years – years that have accumulated in both my psyche and in the mirror. As each strand of brown and light brown and even lighter brown follicles fall to the cold tile, I stand agape at the stranger in the mirror as a younger slightly plump man stares back at me – the image foreign and unrecognizable.

Age, usually a non-issue for me, has lately become an issue. I’ve been feeling old and lethargic and yes I’ve been feeling 30 (or 31 for that matter). As creepy and corny as that is, it’s true. But somehow, no matter all other circumstance, shaving my face has lifted some of that. It has eradicated the hiding and cowering baggage amassed within my upper lip hair. So for now, this is goodbye. It’s a fresh canvas to paint yet another character and I look forward to meeting him in the future…. Or not.

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Come On Irene!

2011-08-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is no doubt a weak tribute to Dexy's Midnight Runners' “Come On Eileen,” even though it hasn’t anything to do with Hurricane Irene nor does Eileen begin with the letter “I”. The truth is, I too have given way to the daily immersion in the headline hook. I think of catastrophic events in terms of soundbites and catchphrases and this is certainly no exception.

Solace in a home away from home. Looking for Irene from a hotel room

I write this a day ahead of Irene’s supposed landfall on New England and already it’s beginning - the “in-the-wake-of” phrases, the boasting, the finger wiping of glossy touch-screen maps and tech-heavy charts and the seemingly pointless interviews with people who don’t quit grasp the weight of which the reporter would like them to melt down on camera.

The coverage of this hurricane is excessive and over the top to say the least. Newscasters, over-animated and giddy with the smell of death on the horizon, exaggerate their adjectives and copycat catch phrases as each hit the tip of their lips. The “coulds”” and “woulds” of such possible destruction is irresistible to this cast of D-list actors hungry for their big chance at being the next Sam Champion or Dallas Rains (actual newscaster names, by the way). And while the situation is probably dire, I can’t help but chuckle over their absurd method to bring us such “news.”

I literally laughed out loud at one point as a jubilant newscaster, reporting shin-deep in the water’s edge and desperately trying to stay upright, attempted her mighty reporting to a camera off in the distance. Of course wind doesn’t take kind to such arrangements and all we were left with was a silly man pantomiming in wet pants sunken into a storm-riddled shoreline.

Needless to say, sensationalism has become the face of American news media and it does not bear well as I sit here ashamed in the lobby of my Boston hotel with my lot of British folk and friend shocked at the rate and awe of such reporting.

Hurricane Irene

I admittedly fled here from New York City like the thousands of others, but not because of the fear of destruction. Instead, it was the off hand coincidence of my fiancé’s family flying into Boston that lured us out of Manhattan and up the coast to Boston. The idea of 80-mile-per-hour winds and torrential downpours excite me, don’t get me wrong, but not in the way the weather forecaster gets off on it. For me, it’s the way that imminent devastation brings people together in a goofy and forced way. I feed off of the interactions of others when they’re quarantined from their customarily cushy lives. It gives me the same satisfaction as a warm cup of cocoa and a fireplace during a blizzard in the Sierra. It’s comfort for me and I welcome it, regardless of the possible outcome.

Overzealous newscasters spitting nonsense

That's not to say I don't understand the possibilities at hand. I get it. No one wants endangerment to the human race or wreckage to his or her beloved property. On September 21^st, 1938, The Long Island Express hurricane snuck up on New York and ended up stealing the lives of hundreds in the area. In 1906, the giant magnitude 7.9 San Francisco quake devastated an entire metropolis, ended up spurring a deadly fire and became one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States. Those scratchy black and white images are forever imprinted into our minds and we fight tooth and nail to keep them as distant a memory as possible. But back then we didn’t have weather instruments that now allow us a voyeuristic peek into the second-by-second whereabouts of natural disasters personified with names like Andrew, Ike, Katrina, Ivan and Irene (the same instruments that are about to die off without additional funding). That technology gave us this god-like ability to stretch out prime time newscasts and interrupt our already brainless television habits with unnecessarily and ineptly timed “breaking” stories that progress us no further than the last.

The in-laws. Waiting for... nothing really

Now, as we play with the profitability and catchiness of such ruin, Mother Nature seems to take it a bit more serious, throwing all her cards at us at once. A rare East Coast earthquake only days ago, quickly became old news as the Hurricane of the Ages bore down on the Eastern Seaboard only to be once more trumped by a severe Tornado warning - all in the same region and all in the same time-frame.

It is a rude awakening to just how poorly prepared we really are for such widespread wreckage. In the same vein of Orrin H. Pilkey’s article “When will we ever learn the lessons of hurricanes?, communities in vulnerable areas just pick up the pieces and set up shop again in the same spot. There truly is no logic in rebuilding in areas not made to withstand building in the first place, but unfortunately we are slow to lesson learning and like to believe our human ingenuity overpowers Mother Nature herself, but that’s just not the case. Mother Nature will have to actually deliver the "imminent devastation" often enough for us to perhaps change the way we look at our place in the world and that is a scary proposition.

So as the rains and winds die down here in Boston and leave little to show for their human-predicted obliteration, I’ll venture to answer the title to Orrin’s article by simply saying: NEVER! All caps, bold, exclamation point.

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A Vigor for Grit

2011-08-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

Fire of inspiration: Our new view

Juvenile and brimming with naive ideas of endless potential, I sit perched and wide-eyed at a café on Broadway in Harlem. Around me, 18-year-olds smash together. Backpacks and notebooks sprawl atop tables, as their owners roost over coffee and frozen disarrays of frapa-god-knows-what. The smell of collegiate incorruptibility lingers as I catch the same sensation that I observe.

As if back at college, or even high school, I allow myself to believe in the optimistic thoughts amassing in my head this very moment. At thirty one, it sounds silly, but I’ve spent a far greater time than I’m willing to admit doing little that I aspired to when I was eighteen and overflowing with reverie; sipping coffee that I had yet to acquire a taste for like these hopeful blobs of possibility and dreams. It’s enough to distract me. I abandon my work and think back to my hours logged in coffee shops and dimly-lit rooms of creativity.

Thirteen years ago, I wrote a poem. I was seventeen years old and attending The Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts . I read it aloud at the University of Hartford to a crowd of students, parents and friends. Blind ambition allowed me to feel proud and rhythmic in my speech like Langston Hughes or Robert Frost - two of the only writers I cared about at that time. But looking back, it was just embarrassing. The text, the delivery and the canopy of invincibility that I falsely stood under. The memory alone is worthy of cowering under as I imagine the audience recollecting that reading today. However, in that piece there was one line that referenced a café (that I mistakenly labeled a pub). That line, still fresh with meaning to this day, brought with it a literary photograph of a scene that has forever stained the walls of my memory. That one line brought me back to the purpose in my pen as I crafted the feel of rain outside, the streetlight above, the smell of wet gravel and the jacket discarded and left for puddles and dispossessed hands. Everything that I inked onto white-lined paper thirteen years ago, acts as an ever-present reflection of the life that I’ve only recently adopted in New York City, yet it is strangely and noticeably unconnected. So to feel even a glimmer of this contagious motivation once again in a setting that I inadvertently built ions ago on a simple piece of white-lined paper carries with it deep meaning.

I’m in the city. I’m back where the electric waves of stampeding footsteps vibrate the very meaning of what I’m doing here. The screeching sparks of subways under foot and the idle arguments of the guy on the bench yelling at the other guy that resides inside his head lull me into a creative frame of mind, which will indefinitely fulfill itself on a platter of limitless success. At least that’s how it feels. Feeling has opened itself up to purpose and purpose is within reach. It labors itself on a minute-by-minute basis as the bumbling of this-and-that froths to the surface of my every being.

I’m not sure why, but in Los Angeles, I lost that. I lost a part of myself; a part that believed in the strings that pulled the puppet of creation. I had ideas and I held tightly to each of them, but I scuffled in carrying them out. It wasn't for the lack of belief in the ideas themselves or Los Angeles as my corridor, but instead it was in the utter disgust I harbored towards my own ability to do so. I became an ungainly joke of a man with too many dreams and nothing to show for them. I’d sweep others away with my boyish excitement and infectious rhetoric, but then cast them out with the flickering fade-out of the very thing I campaigned so mightily for. This cycle of inspiring disappointment was a recipe in which I came to blame my inactivity. And then came the offer.

“I was asked to move to New York City,” my fiancé, Samantha said. It was April and the idea seemed crazy. Leave her parents? Leave all of our friends; friends that became an ingrained part of our extended family, slowly collected over the last twelve years as both her and I dragged Westward in our own paths of progression and lack there of? (Sigh). How? “Okay,” I responded. “Really?” “Really.” And that was it. As if possessed by a foreign and simplistic tongue, all the complications of a move so massive became as easy as saying: “Okay.”

The following week, we were on foot, cramped and flustered with the overcrowded island of metal and grate searching for something that felt like home. What we got was something that felt like a resurgence of artistic stimulation around every corner. We were falling in love. We cherished the vigor of late night conversations passing and swirling around us at all hours of the night. We actually liked the humid waft of staggering air loitering around the massive buildings above us as we marveled at the explosion of culture and taste, grit and bounty below. It seemed as if everything in the world was jam-packed into 5 tiny boroughs that, in our google-induced brains, were mere specs on an oddly shaped continent, but in person, larger than life.

Two months later we would move here and the enduring flame of prosperity would be re-ignited, lifting my fortitude to a higher level of triumphant conviction – something I desperately needed. The fear of congealing a plan together to make myself relevant and adequate is a journey all in itself, but this time around, I am alive with the reality of the charge. Nevertheless, Los Angeles lay in the midst of what we left behind. The transition still leaves my pen dry as I attempt to express something that only dances on the surface of what it really means to leave.

Transition period. That’s essentially what this is. Yeah, we relocated from one coast to the other, but transition means much more than hopping on a plane or getting behind the wheel and leaving. Giving way to the seasonal mix of mud and snow from the rather temperate warmth of Santa Monica was all people talked about when we mentioned the move. They asked if we could handle the snow or how we'll possibly cope with the close confines of our new urban surroundings. But what people missed or at least neglected to mention was what it really meant to uproot ourselves from a life that we’ve tirelessly shaped. I've purposely neglected that conversation myself, because I’m not sure what it means.

As we watched the flakey craigslist figures come off the internet and into our home, we realized that we were really doing this. A bookcase here, a lamp there, a TV, nightstand, pot rack… and so it went. Items, complete with their own memories, left our home and entered another. The skeleton further revealed itself. Our walls emptied their frames and our rugs literally swept from under us as we prepared to leave Santa Monica.

We never had a proper goodbye. With every attempt, we needed another. When that one felt inadequate and undeserving, we’d call up another friend and try to soak up whatever it was that we were trying to salvage. But the fact was, we just weren’t good at it. Like monkeys to the crumb, we wanted every last bite of this familiar world, but the anxiety of alteration that awaited us on the far side of the country scrambled those ill-fated attempts.

Goodbyes have never been easy for me and I’ve built a formidable wall around them by simply keeping them short. I’ve grown to build Sammy that same shelter of thick skin and quick tongue so that I don’t have to suffer the sight of her breakdown either. A curbside advocate, I don’t go into airports and watch as friends and family slowly glide up the escalator and crisscross through security check. I don’t drag out the face-to-face gauche of hugs and empty promises. I simply see it as; “I’ll see you later,” because in essence, I will. It’s become a ritualistic right of passage as I’ve played hopscotch over the country from Connecticut to Vermont, and from Vermont to Utah, and Utah to Boston and Boston to Rhode Island, back to Boston, then to Los Angeles and now… New York. With each new home, long or short lived, I’d add a new crop of cherished and beloved friends and I would leave them all the same, only to see them again and again. Now Sammy and I would have to do it one more time.

My camaraderie is my harebrained way of feeling wealthy and excessive in all life has to spill out for me. To be able to push-pin friendships into the lower 48 and consider them dear is something I hold high. So when Sammy or I say, “We’ll see you soon” or “It’s no different than us living next door to you,” that’s because to us, it isn’t. Our family, extended and immediate, friend and pal, has become portable and welcomed along each mile we’ve traveled. It’s what makes us able to take opportunities as they come and run with them with smiles and grace.

When we come home and close the door behind us, we know that soon we will wake to one of those comrades hung over on the couch, sleepy-eyed by the balcony, or shyly sneaking into the bathroom before us. Like Abigail and John Adams, we revel in the idea of being Matriarch and Patriarch in our abode to a vast array of notable hearts. While our position is not deserving of such comparison, it is indeed another literary illustration on white-lined paper of a scene that simply makes us feel good and relevant for doing what we love with those that we love most.

The Before & After of Ours

From our living room

Our old neighborhood. The PCH in Santa Monica

Our new waterfront stroll

Our old waterfront stroll

The new lawn. Shared and open

The old lawn. Quaint and ours

Our new street

Our old street

Echoes. Our old abode

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The Road To New York: The Mid Atlantic

2011-07-10T22:36:00.001-07:00

I’ve never been to the Great Smoky Mountains. On the approximate 2,181 miles of the Appalachian Trail (from Georgia to Maine), I’ve only stepped foot on about a mile of it in Vermont. So when the prospect of re-routing our trip from route I-70 in the heart of the country to route I-40, I was ecstatic about finally getting to see the Great Smokies, The Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park. It would be the first true greenery we’d see since Colorado, and that alone made it worth it.

The roads, twisting and smooth, cut through lush forests and hazy hillsides of the Mid Atlantic. Blue smoke-like vapors define what is truly foreground and what is not - each mountain, lighter than the last. The near and far of these hillsides paint a vivid time line of what is within reach and just how much is not.

It’s peaceful and approachable to all who travel here, but its framework is untamed and spills onto and over the rolling hills that make up it’s interior. Like a summer fling, it’s a place that I know I’ll have to leave soon, but while I’m here I want to consume it all.

We do. We walk the river and stop often. We even trail the air-gasping tourists and their ducklings as they waddle up to the viewing tower. Why not? We’re here and it’s an undeniable scene. I put my harsh criticism of folks (that somewhat resemble myself anyway) to the side and stand beside thru-hikers, tour groups and family reunions as the space between becomes a focal point worthy of everyone’s eye. It was enough to fulfill whatever it is you look for on a trip like this.

We all search for meaning when we travel, but when point B is a new beginning; meaning seems to creep into all the stops along the way.

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The Road To New York: The Midwest

2011-07-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

We walk into a brightly lit gas station in the middle of -- well in the middle of nowhere -- and the robust woman, perspirating behind the counter blurts out, “There are airplanes, ya know?” She’s adamant about it. She insists that, “there are trains too.” She wants so badly for my mom and I to travel across the country in anything but my bug-smashing vehicle with California plates. I can see it in her blank expression that she’s beside herself as to why we would ever attempt such a horrible passage. Everything about this woman screams “Get the f*!k out of here and do it as fast as you can!” To her defense, we will, but not in the light that she casts upon it.

This is the odd portion of a long road trip, one that allows you to think clearly and think often. It’s in the repetition of corn, wheat, then corn, then wheat, then cow, then wheat, then cow and on and on and on. The echoing of commodities and bovines rudely penned together makes for one long blur of a trance-like indulgence. There are little distractions in the way of thought.

Not exactly what the farmers of
old had in mind

The sun fades long ahead of us as the amber tones give way to blues and purple. The stars and the crickets (so many crickets) soothe the mind as we travel in what feels like long circles on a straight and endless road. Much like the deserts of the American West, this place is riddled with small forgotten towns as the speed limit drops ten miles per hour every few seconds. We finally grind to a dripping pace and see that time has left yet another place behind - as if they wanted us to feel the clutch of paralysis that took down every last place standing.

We look left and then right, each glimpse a rotten car collection half eaten by the earth or a gas station with a sign that reads $1.45 – a blatant and embarrassing time stamp of death stained into its feeble structure. It’s as if they want you to take notice of how quickly we are on this planet. I take notice. I feel lucky, but I feel homesick. The speed limit climbs to 35 miles per hour. Before we know it, It's 55 and then 75. I click the cruise control button to 80 miles per hour and cruise on, murdering every insect in my path. The wheat fields swallow up our car and afford us scores of forever more uninhibited thought.

Disgusting, overcrowded, urine-soaked, cruel... my next American burger


As we approached the skeleton of the house, a giant white owl swooped our from the window and into the tree

True gold

This is what forever looks like

Forgotten

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The Road to New York: My Beloved Mountains

2011-07-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

Cowboy, Clayton Miller.

ditch trail. snowmass.

It’s no secret that I’m out of shape. But the huffing and puffing that grabs my lungs and ties them into a taunting fit of wheezing and coughing is not from my excess weight or lack of sufficient exercise. Okay, well maybe it has something to do with it, but the loss of breath, this time, is a direct result of the elevation of the Colorado Rockies, a range that I have a long-standing admiration for. That approbation runs deep enough that as I stand on a ridge in Snowmass and look out, I completely disregard the fact that I just fatally wounded my camera onto a rock and into the cold creek moments ago.

It’s here that I welcome the thin air and plummeting temperatures. The winding roads, the wildness of its interiors, everything about the Rockies assemble inside me a true appreciation of the chances I’ve had to bath in all its glory over the years. Like a devote Catholic making their weekly church visit or a yogi rising at five a.m. to stretch even further than the day before, I stare off my balcony or through my car window, into the woods or directly in front of me on the trail and I thank my lucky stars for the powers around me. The mountains are the closest thing I’ve ever had to a deity. I throw my respect at them like a helpless child repenting his most foolish sins inside a wooden phone booth of God and Priest. This is my cathedral and I bask in it for all I can before trudging into the belly of the Midwest.

This park bench beats yours

viceroy snowmass

Some find this angle cheap. Some uneventful. For me, it's the
perfect frame to a vantage point all your own: the window shot

My dream cabin off in the distance

durango, colorado

Aspen trees make me happy

silverton, colorado.

ouray, colorado

viceroy snowmass

handlebars saloon. Silverton, Colorado

silverton, Colorado. Awesome

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The Road to New York: The Desert

2011-07-10T21:37:00.000-07:00

You spell desert with one “s.” Dessert, as I was told when I was little, is what you have after dinner and it’s so sweet, you’ll want double servings, hence the double “s” in its spelling. That’s how I’ve always remembered the desert – lacking of anything worthy of second helpings; of anything other than sweetness. It stained my memory of what a desert could be and of the potential beauty in nothingness. It provided me with a blinding bigotry for anything below 2,000 feet of elevation and made this particular trip that much more grueling as I sped up to escape its dusty grasp.

Anyway you map it you can’t bypass the deserts of the American West. Visually it’s porn for my lens, but emotionally I have no care for it. On each side of the highway, whispers of Americana hold on to their last breathe. Rusted relics of this country’s past and the abandoned dreams of their inhabitants entertain our eyes as we inch across. And as we do, intrigue replaces anguish. The backcloth of the American West and its fractioned settlements lay victim to the cruel reality of circumstance. But today, I begin seeing the art in the remnants.

The barren bloodline of evaporated dreams and scorching desertion leave cars to rust and buildings to be shot at and neglected until finally falling to pieces of scrap and ash. I take a picture. And another. It’s a canvas of epic proportions and I find myself liking the one spot I despised for so long. And then we'd drive through - the cycle of boom and bust and the ever-changing ideals of the American Dream fade in and out of the dusty ground below us as we zip by at 70 and 80 miles per hour.

Nuff said

It’s not the recession. It’s not George Bush or Red verses Blue, but instead the raw elements of this place that are at play here. The forgotten landscape forces me to capture a brief moment before abandoning it myself. I drive faster, forget about it and search for higher ground. At least that’s how it started for me as I inched away from Los Angeles and into the Gut of America.

103 degrees... and climbing

four corners

After all the times I've said "I'm heading west,"
this time I'm east bound and down

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