Kansas City Here I Come
On the Thrifty Rent-a-Car map, it looks like you can spit from Wichita to Kansas City, but it's really about 190 miles.
The car had Sirius satellite radio with twelve stations of oldies, so I thought for sure I'd be able to find "Going to Kansas City." No dice. I did find "Carry On My Wayward Son," the Kansas song that my friend Danny used to wake up to every morning thanks to his neighbor in Takoma Park, Md.
They call it a car but it's more like a little tank, this 2007 Dodge Caliber that's a mini-SUV with such thick bracing that I couldn't see much around me. Any lane change was pretty much a guess. When I took driver's ed they made us learn the two or three blind spots, but this vehicle would shift the curriculum toward vision spots.
Off to the right, a 100-car train bending like a rattler across the yellow prairie. A sign made of old plywood planks nailed together: "Osage: Center of Recreation and Industrial Opportunities." But the plank holding most of the last word had blown away.
Another sign: "Accept Jesus Christ and you will be saved." A pleasant enough offer of a carrot to a wayward son. But the sign-maker just couldn't resist wielding the stick. In smaller slanted print at the bottom: "Or regret it forever!" Love is never good enough for Christians, and fear just too tempting.
I stopped to see the National Teachers Hall of Fame, but it had closed down. Through the window I could see big alphabet blocks.
In "What's the Matter with Kansas?", Kansas native Thomas Frank discusses how the corporatocracy (not his word) has crushed the state, and how voters have been brainwashed into supporting the very party that robs them. In the 1890s, the state was known for supporting populist movements concerned with the average worker and farmer.
I couldn't remember what the guy sings; is it "Kansas City here I come, they got some crazy little women and I'm uh gonna get me one," or is it "pretty little women"? Either way, all I found was another American ghost town, a downtown so empty at night that you can't find anyone to ask for a good restaurant. The only people who will talk to me are the hotel concierges.
A Russian concierge pointed me to an Ethiopian restaurant, where I feasted on succulents and learned from the Ethiopian owner that Eritrea fought for independence for 30 years because the Arabs wanting control of the Red Sea convinced them independence was what they needed. As soon as they declared independence, they aligned themselves with Israel, betraying the Arabs. Ethiopia and Eritrea are run by cousins, dictators who were appeared in Parade magazine's ranking of the world's top 20 dictators.
My waitress gave me some names of people I could interview for my project, but they live in Lawrence, half an hour to the west on I-70.
In Lawrence I found hope. That's right, here in the plains, after listening to 100 satellite stations of junk, I heard one of the best live rock shows ever. It was a private 30th birthday party for a guy named Steve. There was free beer and cake and curry, but the best was this band, whose name we'll never know. Music too good to ever make it on the radio, musicians too good to ever be rewarded enough by the marketplace to continue being musicians, grooves and licks and surprising turns too juicy to ever be heard again, just a moment in time in these young lives, kids who probably went to Kansas University together. I walked out with a smile on my face. Art is being made here in the middle of nowhere.
The car had Sirius satellite radio with twelve stations of oldies, so I thought for sure I'd be able to find "Going to Kansas City." No dice. I did find "Carry On My Wayward Son," the Kansas song that my friend Danny used to wake up to every morning thanks to his neighbor in Takoma Park, Md.
They call it a car but it's more like a little tank, this 2007 Dodge Caliber that's a mini-SUV with such thick bracing that I couldn't see much around me. Any lane change was pretty much a guess. When I took driver's ed they made us learn the two or three blind spots, but this vehicle would shift the curriculum toward vision spots.
Off to the right, a 100-car train bending like a rattler across the yellow prairie. A sign made of old plywood planks nailed together: "Osage: Center of Recreation and Industrial Opportunities." But the plank holding most of the last word had blown away.
Another sign: "Accept Jesus Christ and you will be saved." A pleasant enough offer of a carrot to a wayward son. But the sign-maker just couldn't resist wielding the stick. In smaller slanted print at the bottom: "Or regret it forever!" Love is never good enough for Christians, and fear just too tempting.
I stopped to see the National Teachers Hall of Fame, but it had closed down. Through the window I could see big alphabet blocks.
In "What's the Matter with Kansas?", Kansas native Thomas Frank discusses how the corporatocracy (not his word) has crushed the state, and how voters have been brainwashed into supporting the very party that robs them. In the 1890s, the state was known for supporting populist movements concerned with the average worker and farmer.
I couldn't remember what the guy sings; is it "Kansas City here I come, they got some crazy little women and I'm uh gonna get me one," or is it "pretty little women"? Either way, all I found was another American ghost town, a downtown so empty at night that you can't find anyone to ask for a good restaurant. The only people who will talk to me are the hotel concierges.
A Russian concierge pointed me to an Ethiopian restaurant, where I feasted on succulents and learned from the Ethiopian owner that Eritrea fought for independence for 30 years because the Arabs wanting control of the Red Sea convinced them independence was what they needed. As soon as they declared independence, they aligned themselves with Israel, betraying the Arabs. Ethiopia and Eritrea are run by cousins, dictators who were appeared in Parade magazine's ranking of the world's top 20 dictators.
My waitress gave me some names of people I could interview for my project, but they live in Lawrence, half an hour to the west on I-70.
In Lawrence I found hope. That's right, here in the plains, after listening to 100 satellite stations of junk, I heard one of the best live rock shows ever. It was a private 30th birthday party for a guy named Steve. There was free beer and cake and curry, but the best was this band, whose name we'll never know. Music too good to ever make it on the radio, musicians too good to ever be rewarded enough by the marketplace to continue being musicians, grooves and licks and surprising turns too juicy to ever be heard again, just a moment in time in these young lives, kids who probably went to Kansas University together. I walked out with a smile on my face. Art is being made here in the middle of nowhere.
posted by Thon at 8:22 AM
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