I’ve just finished my adventure at the MPCA in St Louis USA, and had quite the time There were a lot of fascinating idea exchanged, but unfortunately, I think that a lot of those theories are well-worn. Part of it is that I think that most of these small pop culture communities are so incestuous, and people tend to get fixated on the same-old same, trying to perfect their all-encompassing theories to accommodate anything that they might encounter. One of the more pointed and well researched papers was on Branson, Missouri, and how it’s both kind of crap-holes at once. The intensity of the presenter was pretty amazing. How she was able to tie in everything together into four groups. Anyway that’s not why I’m writing…

Presently, I have found myself on a train bound for Chicago, and it’s quite the American experience, the land unfolding, the passing homesteads and the sun setting over this former prairie is almost too much to take. Chesterfield, IL, I’ll look that up later…It’s started to get a tad chilly, but I can wait to put my jacket on for a while now.

I always wonder where and why people are traveling when I get the opportunity to travel alone. There’s a girl who was already on the train when I got on, tears in her eyes, with that distinctive, expectant grimace of a young kid who knows they have to leave, but wish there was a fantasy world where they didn’t have to, or even grow up. There’s a girl in front of me who is probably no more than 19, but takes herself real serious, like the calculus she’s got in front of her is the key to the safety of hers and everyone elses soul. I know that most of the folks in this car are headed to Chicago, but what does that really mean to them? Are any of them Northsiders such as myself, or will they travel to the bungalow belts spread out over the Northwest and South Sides? I suspect that most of these kids are headed back to drunken adventure, judging by the lack of life, or even fear, in their eyes. Some of us were not prepared to travel, finding only Doritos and stale hot dogs as a replacement to the meals we forgot to eat.

It’s so rare that I get to record my thoughts in this way, but after a delicious tuna sandwich, I feel more than able to do a decent recording job. I keep thinking that they should put the heat on in the cabin here, but who knows what the protocol is for such things. We passed through Carlinsville awhile back, and I suspect that the Red Hat Divas are waiting for us in good ole Springfield I-L! I can’t think that it will be too much trouble, but you never know, ‘cause them old broads be crafty.

Ah… Springfield, the last time I saw you, you were covered in snow, hardly worth looking at. Now I see you as you were meant, a beautiful, burned-out tribute to the middle America lost to the Wal-Marts and Mini-Malls. Is there such a thing as justice?