Red Truck Road Trip – EAST Coast Team

It is 12:35am in Strasburg, WV and I am finally making my first post on the blog. Let me tell you, this post has been a long time coming. I was initially going to start my post by complaining about the many different reasons why this post is coming so late. But then I thought to myself, “Bill, you are driving across country, all expenses paid, for a whole month with the simple task of documenting your travels for others to read online. YOU ARE ONE LUCKY DUDE.” So I will spare everyone from reading of my mishaps, and instead fill people in on the cool stuff that our team has been up to.

Since Dan and Michelle have already posted a lot of great stuff about our stay in NYC, I will keep my commentary brief. Surprisingly, my favorite attraction in the city happened to be the hotel that we were staying at. The Gershwin Hotel, or “The Gersh” as I just decided I will like to call it, is catered towards artistic and creative minded folks. I threw together a quick video so you can get a feel for what the hotel was like. (Please note, this is a very rough edit. The quality is pretty poor, especially the audio, but I will have it all fixed for the next post)

After NYC we headed further south to Washington DC for the Fourth of July. DC is theoretically the best place to spend Independence Day. What’s more patriotic than seeing fireworks light up the sky in our country’s Capitol? Unfortunately I didn’t get to see much of the festivities since I was busy at my computer dealing with some unfortunate “mishaps”. (I promise, I will not complain). I could hear the epic firework display thunder through my hotel room as I cursed out my Final Cut Pro for not letting me import Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for the Man” into my video (I eventually fixed it). Finally I said screw it, and wandered outside with my video camera to capture the glorious grand finale. Seeing the fireworks blast over the Washington Monument acted as a catalyst for me to forget about my computer problems and focus on enjoying myself. After all, I can’t experience DC sitting behind a computer in a hotel.

Me, Dan and Michelle decided to hit up the city to truly unwind for the first time this trip. The first bar we stopped in was called Millie and Al’s. Our bartender could have passed for either Millie or Al, but either way she/he got our night started off on the right foot. Looking for a new place to visit, I called up my college roommate who had spent a semester working in DC, to see if he knew of any quality watering holes. He informed me of a bar called Madam’s Organ, which happened to be right across the street from where we were staying. As we walked in the door, a five piece funk/punk band complete with two guitars, saxophone, bass and drums, were wailing away by the bar. The lyrics were inaudible until the chorus, which was simply the words “White Powder” repeated over and over again. After examining these guys, and their rabidly dancing fans, I immediately realized that the white powder they were singing about wasn’t sugar. Nevertheless, the rest of the bands set was pretty rocking, and I wasn’t suprised at all to learn that they were from New Orleans, the funk capitol of the world.

In search for some more live music we headed to an African bar further down the road. Inside was a grooving reggae band named Clinco. For years I was never a huge fan of reggae music. I have always respected Bob Marley, and I own a few of his albums, but I rarely found myself listening to a CD as I drove around in my car. I have come to the conclusion that in order for reggae music to be fully appreciated, it has to be listened to live. I saw my first true reggae band, Toots and the Maytalls, during a spring break trip to the Langerado Music Festival in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida earlier this year. The Toots was easily one of the highlights of the festival. Reggae’s ability to unite so many different types of people is its most defining characteristic and I feel like it can only be experienced in a live setting where you can look around the crowd to see a fraternity brother wearing a Lacoste polo shirt with the collar up bobbing his head next to a fifty year old Rastafarian with greying dread locks that flow down his back who happens to be dancing next to a white woman in her mid twenties who has her two year old son perched up on her shoudlers. That same unity could be seen in this small bar in DC, as Clinco played to a diverse crowd no bigger than twenty people. It was cool to see people of all races sing a long with the lead singer as he belted out Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” during the bands closing number. It was the perfect night cap to a great night and I will have some footage up soon about the other places we saw in DC.