To Rhody with Chad Vader (aka Aaron), Al Gore and the Three Wolf Night

After an intense few days of beach-going, high-powered meetings and parties about comedy (serious business, comedy, but Aaron has a dream) 

and tramping around NYC lugging laptops and sundry stuff, Aaron and I leave this:

(view from the F train at Smith/9th)

for this:

(view from the Amtrak train past New Haven)

Before we leave, we get a "meal" at the Chick-Pea ("Always baked!  Never fried!") franchise in the fabulously awful Penn Station (of which I have spoken earlier).  

Oh, boy.  I ask for the lentil soup ON THEIR DAILY MENU whereupon the young woman ambles over to the soups, lifts all four lids, peers in, sniffs, looks up, looks down, jiggles the soup ladles, confers with several people, then comes back with the news that they don't have lentil, in spite of it being 

ON THEIR DAILY MENU.  

I say fine, I'll have the three bean, which is ever so s-l-o-w-l-y poured in a container for me.  

Aaron, watching our luggage, wants the curly fries noted 

ON THE WALL MENU, 

but instead of making that simple request of our hard-working server, what do I do?  

I  waggle my antennae and invite her to do the Martian Hop!  What else?  

Finally, after shaking her head a few times to turn me back into a human, she says, 

you mean BAKED fries?

I said, yes, of course baked.  

Everything in the place is, remember?  "Always BAKED! Never FRIED!"  That's the beauty of it!  After conferring with several people, planting, watering, harvesting, digging, cutting then 

baking the potatoes, these are the "curly" fries she comes up with:

 

I do magically conjure up a travel-Scrabble game, 

plucking it out of the cart before it's even shelved at Hudson News!  

A spendy $40 purchase, but by the end of the vacation, it's down to about $5 per game.  

(Aaron wins this one by five sad little points.)

I also pick up a ROLLING STONE magazine which has an article by Al Gore 

(Al, we hardly knew ye!) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-of-denial-20110622 comparing the current state of reporting on global climate change to a wrestling match where the referee (the press) somehow manages to look away every time the bad guy bashes the good guy with a metal chair.  Here's a map of the earth in 80 or so years where the red/orange signifies areas of drought.

But hey, why worry about the ruination of civilization and countless ecosystems 

when you can watch wrestling on Fox?

After getting to Providence, we drive by a strange sight - a vintage pink Caddy, that is,

the rear end of a vintage pink Caddy, ie. the spacious back seat, 

parked mysteriously beside someone's driveway.

This pic is posted on the fabulous Gail Worley blog at

http://www.worleygig.com/2011/07/pink-thing-of-the-day-vintage-pink-cadillac/

Finally we reach the lake in Rhode Island, Frank's ancestral summer home.

Aaron finally can relax.  Which he does in various forms.

 In the meantime, Frank makes dinner for us and two guests.  These are Cobb Towers which we first saw in a restaurant in Montauk, ordered by my sister Sherry.  Frank was so impressed he took on building the great Cobb Towers of Power as a continuing project.  (One fell.)

While the sun sets over the lake, the table shapes up.

Sadly, our guests don't come!  There was an email snafu!  

OH NOOOO!!!  We do have a visitor, however, a local dog, probably drawn by Frank's irresistible "Three-Wolf-Moon" t-shirt that was so troublesome in Europe.  The dog seems to understand that the coming night will be a three-wolf, three-candle night, not to be missed.

The next day, our guests come over for fabulous hors d'oeuvres and drinks on the beach.  

Carol Murphy, on the left, is the head of the Wakefield Pond Association, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=101746889862691

which was formed to tackle the huge problem of invasive weeds that were literally taking over the lake a few years ago - massive mats of weeds that made swimming if not impossible, at least very unpleasant, and were smothering all the lake flora and fauna.

The lake in 2006.

This is "swollen bladderwort" - just one of the nasty invasive species.  They are brought in by wildlife, but probably the main way they get into the lake is from boats coming in at the public landing.

The lake today is remarkably clear, but it's a constant battle needing oversight and treatments, which do not come cheap.  Virtually every lake in this country has problems with invasives, 

both plants and animals.

From the Wilds of NJ to Wild Allentown

  

Our trip begins at the the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street.  No trains to Allentown; we both hate driving so we're on the slow-boat-to-China, sorry, bus.  If we were Amsterdam-ers, we'd just hop on our bikes for the ninety mile trip.

Why Allentown, you ask?   I'm in an exhibition in a new gallery called "Soft Machine."  

I've exhibited my work at Allentown's Muhlenberg College, 

which is how the gallery director, Eva Di Orio, found me.

We leave the city behind us in a sullen mist.

The New Jersey "Meadowlands" are one part meadow, fifty parts not meadow.

The remains of the old Penn Station lie around here somewhere - one of the most beautiful buildings ever torn down to make way for one of the ugliest.  A social crime.

Old Penn Station, new Penn Station (stock photos)

 New Jersey may be the garden state, but here in the Meadowlands 

plants don't produce tomatoes.

Comments from Frank:  "Actually, elsewhere in NJ, they do. The great 'truck' gardens of Jersey produce fabulous tomatoes ( really). One hears of these red tangy round treats boasted about in Paris, albeit by pompous, bloated, jerkoff American a-holes - yeah, nothing like those Jersey tomatoes! - all the more annoying because there is a kernel of truth in their guttural ravings!"

We travel on a Trans-Bridge bus, and I can't believe my eyes when I see this 

bizarre logo on the rear end - isn't this kind of cartoonish stereotyping, if not illegal, at least 

really stupid?  

Hi - Yo, the Indian scout?  I've found a website that tells the grim tale like it is:

http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com/2010/10/trans-bridge-bus-lines-mascot-hi-yo.html

Going through Bethlehem, we see the dramatic remains of the old steel mills.

Industry, we hardly knew ye...

(stock photo)

 The good ol' days of molten metal, when men were men...

Next we breeze through Easton, a stately town, even in the rain.

The bus makes numerous stops - at Clinton our driver announces that the man in the front seat is going to get off and buy a ticket, so nobody better take his seat because, sez Mr. Driver,  "he'll be seriously bent out of shape, and I'll be even more bent out of shape.  

Somebody'll be sorry, and it's not going to be me!" 

Frank and I puzzle over his meaning.

As we enter Pennsylvania, I look up and meditate on a gigantic cloud-flower.

Then I look down and meditate on a gigantic problem, depressing evidence of an voracious vine invading the east coast, taking it down one plant at a time.  I've seen it in Montauk, Massachussetts, Rhode Island, and now Pennsylvania.  I can't find the exact name of the vine 

(anyone know?), but it's not unlike another invasive monster called the 

"Mile-a-Minute" vine, which is pretty descriptive.  It climbs onto other plants and trees, rare or common, steals their sun and their nutrients.  Like kudzu in the south, it's a greedy green demon obliterating the world, leaving a bizzare, blunted and sterile landscape behind.  

This plant has snaky tendrils that wave in the wind, sticking up like the fingers of wicked witch of the west, searching for prey.  Come here, my pretty!  

Let me devour you!

We enter Allentown - later we hear that parking lots are a major growth industry.

A tree grows in Allentown.

We visit Katie Heffel in her amazing space right next to the bus station, 

75,000 square feet of old factory space that she's planning to set up for use by artists.

Wow!  See her website for further info: http://silkcitystudios.com/ and also her blog: http://silkcityarts.blogspot.com/

Right now she's putting on a screening of video artists, including yours truly.

She takes us on a tour that goes on forever!  Allentown is wide open with tons of old factory space available.  Now if they would only reinstall train service, just like in the days before virtually the entire commuter rail system was dismantled in favor of highways, 

about the same time the old Penn Station was torn down...

Here is the gallery space called "Soft Machine" where I am showing three pieces in their 

second-ever show.  A beautiful space, full of light and art.  They have built a room 

within a room, called the Tube, 

where my piece "Gravitational Fields" is displayed.

Frank carefully studies the business card of the contractor in charge of renovating the building.

Good conversation at the opening

while the sun sets outside the window.

Later, we go to downtown Allentown where strange characters fill the sidewalks in the 

fabulous "Freak Fest."

where we have a glass of wine and wach fire dancing to the music of "Post Sputnik."

We stay overnight at the Holiday Inn with its helpful pool warnings and plastic trees.

Numerous houses in the area are surrounded by parking lots.

On our way back, we see the swollen Delaware.

In Bethlehem we come upon the remnants of a parade: 

the Latin American Motorcycle Association, and 

and a lnie of cars labeled MAFIA and emblazoned with the Puerto Rican flag.

Back in the Meadowlands, it appears the sun never shines.

In his song "State Trooper" Bruce Springsteen called this area

"where the great black rivers flow."

(Frank argues this point, saying that the rivers Springsteen referenced were further west.)

Our Transbridge bus flows right past all these cars, 

maybe because Hi-Yo is guiding us.  

Maybe they could use another tunnel to NYC, oh, wait, NJ's brilliant Guv' Chris Christie nixed that one.

Back in the big city.  A three hour bus ride for a 90 mile trip!  Why are there no westbound trains????

Well, thanks all you Allentownians for a fabulous and iteresting trip!