to be lonely and 21 in Boston.

I remember, always in the fall.

When autumn winds blow crackling leaves

down an empty street at sunrise.

When the smell of diesel or an old building

mixes with cold unwelcome rain at dusk.

When I think of jumping in my old wreck of a car

and driving west until I can breathe.

Yes I remember what it was like

and sometimes it still hurts;

to remember an old friend

who you’ll never see again.

Written in response to:

Elegy with no one speaking

My last post on this oldskool blog in May 2010 coincides approximately with my gravitation toward micro logging formats such as Instagram, Tumblr, Hipstamatic, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc. Instagram in particular has had the greatest effect primarily because it is a visual format and I am a very visual in my preferences for communication and consumption.

Another factor is increasing use of a mobile device (iPhone of course) and the tendency of that device to facilitate short bursts of communication via apps optimized for small screen and moments in the flow of life, rather than stationary minutes on a laptop.

I’m writing this on the bus, on an iPhone and the ride is just about over. And I missed a couple Instagram opportunities in the process. And to be honest, I’m writing this last paragraph from a coffee shop. So there you have it — maybe my last post as I return to 2011.

To be fair, I think the oldskool blog is still valid, but I’ll use it sparingly for longer pieces of substance, should I ever be inclined to do such a thing.

Until then:

Instagram (you’ll have to get the app)

http://albelote.tumblr.com

http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/welcometoalville/

http://twitter.com/#!/albelote

I put stickers all over my laptop. Why? Because I think it’s cool? It can’t be that simple. After much thought, my excuse is that it integrates the machine into the environment. When it’s sitting (closed) on a coffee table or a desk, it’s hardly noticeable. It’s also faintly reminiscent of those old steamer trunks bound for cross-Atlantic voyages.

I’m thinking of painting my car just to give it a combo retro-tuner BMW art car look. I’m inspired by a few examples I’ve seen from the BMW “art cars” to ones like this WWII fighter-look or this extreme, rusty one by Mike Burroughs. Been thinking of doing this for a few years. Maybe now is the time? Why wait? Why not consider the car a canvas? This scheme is my leading choice. Notice the imitation two-color BBS wheels.

See, the thing is, the car is old (24 years soon) and rusty, with a whole list of things to replace, and 287,000 miles (the last 110,000 of them by me). I’m looking for a replacement actually, sadly. One like it only less rusty/broken/driven. Or perhaps something newer, though, to me, there’s nothing more desirable than a nice BMW E28 — like THIS one.

Only thing is, the paint is, amazingly, still in great condition. It still cleans up well. So it’s kind of sad to “ruin” it. Also, do I want to stand out so much, driving around in an oddly-painted car? Still…if its days are few, and its fully depreciated, let’s go out in style.

OK, I know the T in Boston was the first underground subway and it’s more than 100 years old and has evolved organically, while the BART system had the advantage of being designed all at once. The T for all it’s quirks, is endearing and quaint if you look at it right. That still does not excuse the fact that there is no rapid transit link directly into Logan. The Blue line requires you to wait for a shuttle to and from the T station. The Silver line…well it does go right into the airport, but is essentially itself a shuttle (getting real here) from the Red line’s South Station stop. If you’ve ever sat through stops at terminals A and B while needing to get to D or E, you know what I mean.

Still, the T is the least overall cumbersome and expensive method of getting to the airport in Boston. It saves that messy problem of where to stash a car for a week or watching the meter in your cab as you sit in traffic in the tunnel.

And both BART and the T have at least one thing in common. Ticket vending machines that are completely mystifying to the first time user. More on that in another post.

Sometimes, typing notes into an iPhone draws the wrong kind of attention. Like in church (although this is not a rule…and it’s probably becoming more accepted—it’s more an issue of my feeling self-conscious). So…what’s the alternative? Well—In my case, it’s the palm of my hand, and if I run out of space, my fingers. Of course, I had to take a photo before the information was deleted (washed off). Sometimes I Xerox (yes, Xerox, not photocopy) the notes.

I do get strange looks from friends when they see me walking around with a hand full of notes. It’s actually probably weirder than just using the silly iPhone

I was just reading about a road trip in the Christian Science Monitor, and it reminded me of the many road trips I’ve taken across the USA starting when I was about three, traveling every summer with my parents from the east coast to the west coast, and back. Above is a map of a trip I took in December 1989. Not strictly a road trip unless you count chemin de fer as road. Claremont, New Hampshire to Los Angeles, California by train (Amtrak) and then back to Baltimore, Maryland by car (an unglamourous Chevy Nova—the small, cheap kind from the 80s), then another train to Claremont, New Hampshire, just in time to save my car from being towed (due to a plow needing to clear fresh snowfall) from the lot where it had been parked for eight days.

Throughout the eight-day trip I was was armed at all times with two Nikons (one for black and white, one for color) and about 40 rolls of film (maybe 30 rolls of Tri-X and 10 rolls of Ektachrome). I felt outrageously wealthy allowing myself the extravagance of unrestrained shooting. But if you think about it, that’s, at most, 1,440 images. You could easily do that in a day or two now with a single digital SLR.

The train portion was with my friend Jeff. The car portion was with my sister-in-law Alison. Jeff and I didn’t have a nice sleeper compartment or anything. We just roughed-it on the standard recliners—snoring neighbors, crying babies and all. Alison and I pretty much drove early morning to late night and stayed in the cheapest, scariest motels possible. Since it was December, we took the most southerly route practical and had not a flake of snow or any precipitation the whole way.

Some random experiences:

Sitting in the entertainment car—the last car—of the Montrealer leaving Claremont, New Hampshire at 11 p.m. bound for Washington, D.C. (we were getting off in New York, though) listening to Kenny Holmes’s keyboard and vocals and wild stories. Sadly, the roll of film I shot of Kenny went into the trash with my breakfast leftovers hours later somewhere in Connecticut.

Trying to sleep with a very loud, clunking wheel under our seats between Philadelphia and Chicago. Waking up at about 3 a.m. to bright amber lights and a freight train blasting by and my face against the window.

Lordsburg, New Mexico: Train engineers having breakfast in the booth next to us. We finished eating and drove off in our car; they finished eating and drove off in a mile-long, three-Santa Fe-locomotive, 100-ton hopper-car freight train!

Odessa, Texas: Doing laundry at 6 a.m. in some no-name laundromat on the edge of town. Driving around taking early-morning photos while my clothes washed and dried and wondering if I’d find my way back to pick them up.

Driving past highway 1111 between El Paso and Pecos on US-180. Watching the moon rise huge over the dry land and wishing I had pliers so I could take the sign, and realizing it was just as well that I didn’t.

Big Spring, Texas: The owner of Cafe Frontera taking our photo to put in the local newspaper as happy patrons. He gave me a mirror with Metalica logo etched into it. I’m not a fan of Metalica, but I graciously accepted it.

Memphis, Tennessee: Paying for a motel room by passing cash through a slot under bulletproof glass. It was the only place we could find (the Royal Oaks Motel) at 2:00 a.m.

Does it get any better than that? Aren’t you due for a road trip?

One of my favorite places for breakfast is the City Room in Nashua, NH. And I can prove it. Pictured above are just a few of the many receipt tabs that I save every time I go there. It’s a place that still has actual written-out dining checks, so I always grab the little tab at the bottom and record anything notable. In fact I’m there right now. And Nashua has free wireless downtown! I almost always get the Mediterranean omlette.

Few people I have talked to in passing love it. Most would say it is stark or brutal (true to the style) or comment on the “unsightly” weathering of the concrete. But I happen to love it, in spite of those qualities. Perhaps, in part, because of those qualities. I like to look down the length of the reflecting pool and then visually run into its solid, soaring, uncompromising solid form. It was built in the early 70s and one might make the case that it symbolizes the aspirations of the organization at the time, just as the cathedrals did for their builders centuries before.

I worked on the 21st floor, the 20th floor, the 19th floor, and the 15th floor. Some were redecorated, but a few still had the jarring greens, oranges, and blues of the vintage 70s decor. And, just before it was shut down to re-emerge as 177 Huntington, I got some great old office supplies including rubber stamps, typewriters, and old file folders (a friend of mine got a dictaphone). Every day I looked forward to walking out of the elevator to the expansive, floor-to-ceiling, thick glass window view of the city.

It’s easy to walk by and shrug it off as just another ugly nondescript concrete sub-skyscraper. But take a closer look for a minute. The wide side’s window grid bracketed by an inverted “L.” The unbroken line of the top row of windows. The sharp point of the double corner and the octagonal narrow end that harmonizes with the domed Church across the plaza. Some nice design wok there. Though there are many buildings of this general configuration from its era, none look quite like this. Maybe it’s just me, but I think this would stand out and be recognizable anywhere, unlike it’s similar neighbors, one a mile to the north and one a mile to the south.

*to borrow a line from Tom Waits.