I was born to be a fiddler in an old-time string band. (Day 18)

I have a friend, a new friend I've made this year. His name is Josh Sullivan, and he's an artist with a bunch of side jobs: He sings in a ska band, he maintains an online comic-strip, he sells awesome art work (hey...it is Christmas and Chanukah, why not buy a few of his works? You support something independent, and the artwork is really good.)

But this update isn't just a commercial for an independent artist from Florida that I'm pals with.

Josh is doing something I've always dreamed of, but have never done...be it for reasons of courage lacking, or life getting in the way. But Josh is throwing caution to the wind, and in a truly Kerouac-ian fashion, will be traversing the amber waves of grain that sustain this country of America.

During this project, he will be spending a week at each stop. Ideally, this project is called 52-friends. Taken straight from 52 Friends MySpace, Josh explains:

52 Friends!

Fifty-Two Friends is a new 'zine in the works by Josh Sullivan, an artist living in St. Petersburg, FL. The goal of the 52 Friends project is to travel all over the United States and stay with a different person each week. During that time period, a full issue of a 'zine will be completed and 52 issues will be done over the course of the year. There will be interviews, comics, photos, and anything else that can be crammed into a lovely little self-published book.

I think this is an amazing act of the human spirit.

One of my deepest desires in life is to write a road novel. To be able to experience first how days and nights in towns I've only heard of in passing, or seeing on ID cards when I used to be a Desk Clerk at a hotel.

It's interesting. Part of me actually loved working in hotels late at night. To have the world come to me, to hear a story and to see it first hand.

I wish so much I could join him, even for a little bit of this trip. Just to do something not many people would ever fathom of doing.

It's not for everyone. It's something ingrained in a certain persons blood. Some people are born to live in the confines of a small town, or even a big city and be okay enough to call that home because...well, learning new street names is hard, and change in super scary. To them, traveling is synonymous with 'being a tourist.

But some people are born-wayfarers aching for the chance to step abroad, and taste the fresh air in a different time zone. That wanton desire, that need and yearning to take life by the horns for everything this bull has to offer--thats the most inspirational thing I can ever think of.

And heres this guy Josh, who's throwing caution to the wind for 52 weeks. Thats the better part of a year being gone, being absent, discovering every crack and crevice, every nuance and subtlety the Land of the Free has to offer: Call this Manifest Destiny. And for us, traveling is synonymous with being a explorer; a traveler.

If you don't understand the difference...perhaps you weren't meant too. Theres nothing wrong with seeing all the sites, I'd love to as well, but the real city, the real destination that exists in the bricks and stones of every journey lays within the side streets, bars, venues and people--not in gift shops and luxury resorts.

He plans on releasing a zine from every leg of the trip, and I really hope an intermediate explorers at spirit will subscribe. And if you can help him with a couch to sleep on, or a ride to the next leg of his trip...please, email him at: Josh@joshcomics.com.


I hope to do something like this soon, too. I hope someone else is as inspired by this journey as I am.

Somewhere along the lines of things, we've lost our will to travel, and that kills me. Humans, at the core of everything are Nomadic. Roots are an insult to evolution.


This could be Revival; this could be the worst decision ever made. One thing is for absolute certain: despite the outcome, this may be a once in a lifetime act. Before we're old, before we're dead, I pray at least one of our dreams are realized at the most opportune times: when you're young enough to do something so proverbially stupid, and young enough to still celebrate this kind of accomplishment and adventure.


Adventure is a powerful word that gets taken for granted. It becomes flooded by the tragedies of becoming 'more responsible'. It's the most depressing thing I've ever heard.


My Dad used to be a truck driver. I used to love, and still do, listening to him tell stories for hours. When I was younger, for a few summers I got to travel to Colorado sitting on a bed in the back of an eighteen-wheelers cab, while he and his friend Francis sat up front. To this day, it's nearly impossible for me to think of anytime that was better in my life.


The last time it happened, was 1996. I remember it was like yesterday.

It was 2am in the morning, and we slipped out into the chilly night air; it'd been raining so even though it was the middle of Spring (in Arizona which is like...the hottest place in America.) and you could see your breath still.

And climbing into the truck, you could feel the vibration of the truck matching the beating of your heart. And you slink into the back of the truck, and sit. The only thing you can do for those first few moments is just sit, and think because talking isn't all that logical. It's too loud while the trucks engine warms up. You have to get used to the sound before you can even begin to shut out that sound.

The diesel engine sings to you, and every verse is met with a chorus thats inter-changing with every mile markers as you race towards the slowly rising sun.

The biggest test of traveling in a big rig for the first time is how that very first pit stop hits you.

For me it was four am, as dark as it really ever could be before the sun rises to wash it all away. There was a problem with the guys truck, and we would be at the truck stop for quite a while.

Truck stops are fascinating places. It isn't just for truck drivers spun on over-the-counter speed and energy drinks mixed with coffee. It's almost a temple for those meandering when the rest of the world is deeply embedded in REM-sleep.

It was the first night I'd ever slept in a truck stop, and one of the few times I've ever slept in a public place (it's this...fear-type thing I have of waking up with someone stealing things from me, and killing people).

This particular truck stop had a lobby that reminds me so much of a waiting room for the ER. The only difference is that it was carpeted, and you know...people weren't bleeding to death.

Every single person in that room looked as though they'd never slept before. Every highway they ever drove on was etched into their faces like battle scars of fatigue, worn proudly and graciously.

Truck drivers are the ultimate description road warriors. Every single truck driver I've ever met has a steel-trap of a memory. They could tell you what junction connects where without even peeking at a map (seriously); Which highway troopers will give you the most hassle if you're carrying any extra weight (New Mexico). They all know each other, in one way or another even if they've never met face to face.

All they've got is 180 miles of dead stretch highway, a gut filled with the greasiest food I think you're legally allowed to feed a human being, and one thermos for coffee, one bottle to piss in (they call these trucker bombs).

And while I could never be a truck driver, I have a respect for them thats unparalleled, I think. Mostly because behind the wheel of every Kentworth is a person that knows what it's like to have your heart broken in Raleigh, North Carolina and to find salvation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

They say that the Mississippi river is the life line of America; it's veins. If thats true, then truck drivers are the capillaries. Every bit of anything that gets accomplished in the world of commerce is because these guys fudge their travel logs to make a shipment on time.

But it's the stories they all hold.

And I want to be able to see America, and the world. Every bit of it. I can't imagine what the use of life is sitting in a cubicle every day, day dreaming about going home and doing that again.

The temptation to get up an go is seductive.

I want to meet Sal Paradise sitting in the back of a flat-bed pissing over the side rail somewhere in the dark night of Montana, and shake his god-damned hand (preferably pre-urination). I want to find Henry Chinaski falling off his stool drunk in Los Angeles, hitting on the first person he sees with a vagina and a mouth, and buy him a shot. I want to meet Holden Caufield, and figure out where the ducks go in the winter. Were they picked up by some guy in a truck?

I have so many friends who've been able to see as much as they can, who take every opportunity by the throat and squeeze until theres nothing left to choke, and then squeeze some more. I'm proud to know these people. They inspire me.

52 friends starts very shortly after the New Year. Email Josh if you can help him out at all, or just talk with him; he's a great person.

To Josh personally, this is inspirational, and I wish you safe journeys if we don't talk until you get near my neck of the woods.

The next few updates will touch a bit on trips I've been lucky enough to take. Please, make sure to leave a comment (tell me your stories of traversing the globe!) and spread the word.

I'm going to leave you with a cover song. It's a video taken from a show during the 'Revival Tour' that featured musicians such as: Austin Lucas, Jon Snodgrass, Tim Barry, Chris McCaughan, Frank Turner, Tom Gabel, Ben Nichols and Chuck Ragan. All of them have made their claim to fame in some awesome bands. Hot Water Music, Against Me! and the Lawrence Arms to name a few.

Instead of long set up times between sets like a regular show, the concept was to continuously have performers interchange with each other. No rock stars, everyone was the top billing, and artists would cover each other.

This summer they all got together with a concept of playing acoustic sets across America, a resurrection of folk and blue-grass influenced music. This is a video of a cover song, originally done by Old Crow Medicine Show, called "Wagon Wheel".

Wagon Wheel was co-written by Bob Dylan, but thats not the best part of the song. Every lyric is drenched in this feeling of Americana; a want to explore every alleyway and avenue, each country road. I think it was the perfect choice for them to all play.



Until tomorrow.