11 years out: miss s.

I met S. in New York City, where we used to go skating together. I remember being envious but also very inspired by her: what a cool person, always so sure of herself! working at Troma films, struggling but making it through a very prestigious film school.

A few years later after this interview, before she was barely 25, she started her own company after slaving away at various ad agencies working with big clients. I remember reading articles interviewing her in this really professional tone and I couldn't possibly imagine her in a suit, she would always be that girl with a skateboard to me.

I remember during one of my last nights living in New York we had dinner together, and she was telling me how she'd go home and get called a yuppie by her hometown friends. Sometimes in small towns people don't want you to get noticed, to try to do something more than what you have to, to try new things--it scares them. I really loved being around S. because she wasn't one of those girls obsessed with what people thought of her. It's very hard to find young women who are their own people. It's even difficult to find women who are their own people.

I don't know where she is now. It wouldn't be that hard to find her. If you are out there, as I said, I'll take it down to protect your innocence, but it's very sweet to see that part of you from 11 years ago. Of all the people I've spoken to, and I'm not even able to put all of my interviews in here because some of them are really too intense even for me, I feel like S. is more or less the same, a very confident, steady, down-to-earth person. Some people get dazzled and change, but some people find their values very early on and stick to them.

What point are you at in your life right now? Where are you living, what job are you working?

Well, I have one more year of college to go, I'm 21, living on a friend's floor in the East Village and working a dead end data entry job.

(stuff cut out by me) What jobs did you work and when were you in Michigan?

Jobs... Well, I assembled automotive parts for a while, I made sun visors for Lincoln's and Ford's. I worked at Tyson foods, a pork factory. I worked in the hot dog/cold cut division there. That was a nutty job. I worked in a movie theater for a long time... "Hi, welcome to Star, would you like to try our super savings combo?" I also made an industrial video for Mead Johnson.

What part of the Midwest are you from? What do you have to say about it?

I'm from southwest Michigan, a little city called _____. It was very conservative and dull. I really never liked it much. I have no desire to ever move back there.

What's the scene like?

There isn't really much of a scene. There's always a few kids that skate and are into ____, but you have to drive 3 hours at the least to get to Chicago or Detroit to see a show. The number of kids in scenes are a lot smaller, and you realize that they all hang out together because of common interests, but don't necessarily like one another. There's a lot of backstabbing and "inbreeding" within the groups. I think the scenes are only important to the people involved in them. Most people in small towns don't know or understand anything about subcultures.

What's the worst case of backstabbing?

I don't remember much specifically, I just remember everyone sort of shit talking each other all the time and stealing each other's girlfriends. But then they'd still hang out. One guy once just started listing everyone he hated to me and their personality flaws, then when they got in the car he treated them like he loved them.

Do you have any sayings/truisms about the Midwest? Are there certain mindsets? What are the good points about the Midwest? The bad points?

The state saying is "Say yes to Michigan." Michigan is typically a very conservative place. To me that is the most major bad point. The good points are the accessibility to nature and parking lots.

What about the llamas?

Some farm kid brought some llamas to my high school once. They don't smell too nice.

What do people who went to your high school do now? Do you relate to them?

I think they're either all married or going to schools in the Midwest. I really can't still relate to them, or maybe it's really the other way around. They all thought I was a little weird for taking off to New York, like I'm some kind of freak or something.

WWF. Expand on this topic.

The Hulkster rules!

Do you ge sick of people being biased against you because of the state you're from? Do you find yourself doing the same thing? How much does your geography affect your way of life?

Sometimes I get shit for my accent, but that has really toned down, my accent I mean. And now I say soda instead of pop, and I use the term sneakers. I guess living in one place and liking it makes you want to be a normal part of it. I find New York a lot more convenient than Michigan. You get used to not needing a car.

You should never give up your accent!

Yeah, I suppose it gives me some sort of personality, like my Midwest calling card or something.

If you have left (or will leave) do you think you'll ever return?

Well, all I can say about home is... it's a nice place to VISIT. I don't plan to move back.

Where do all the kids go to do the bad things? What are some famous incidents?

Denny's, the all night grocery store, Walmart... that's about all that's open after 10pm. There is this tulip festival and picking the tulips is finable. One person handed out free tulip coupons to tourists and said they could redeem them with the cops. All these old tour bus riders got scammed.

What's the weirdest thing that ever happened to you?

I saw a UFO... but I don't want to get into it.

I heard they have surfers on Lake Michigan. That's pretty demented. And I thought the East Coast waves were pretty flat! I can't imagine surfing Lake Michigan.

I don't think you could really call them surfers. They just sort of float, it's more like bodyboarding that they do.

Who are the people that you admire that come from the Midwest?

My dad is a really great person, I wnat to be like him when i grow up. He's funny and open-minded. And my high school art teacher was great.

What's with those monster big wheels trucks?

That's all we drive in the Midwest. The roads are really bumpy, ya know.

11 years out: interview with D.

I never knew this person very well but was quite charmed by him. I think I know how to find him; I have a hunch that he is living in some exotic country at the moment. Exotic to me at least--perhaps somewhere in Asia.

My questions... well I have many, and I am reconsidering reinterviewing these people eleven years later. One thing I was always wondering was, well--You are no longer living in your hometown (most likely, right?) but do you still have the same feelings about the place that you expressed in this interview 11 years ago?

We always have a love-hate relationship with wherever we live. Half the point of living in New York is to love it as much as you hate it, curse it as much as you praise it.

When I go to places where people unconditionally love everything, I get a little unnerved. There are always things that drive me crazy about a place, but in the end, I generally appreciate where I live. The same could be said about San Francisco, where I had one of the most pleasant weekends I've had in a while experiencing so many things that were unique to the city: crashing someone's kickball party in the park and getting invited to join in or the simple pleasures of watching the sun set brilliant purple on the horizon. You learn to keep the negative aspects to yourself once you start living here long enough though. :)

So D., where are you now? It would be a pleasant surprise if we were even in walking distance next to each other and could enjoy this conversation over lunch or dinner. I will also take this down if you wish--it was published a long time ago, maybe some things are better left in the past. Do you still feel the same away about where you came from? People change so much in the course of a decade... I'm just so interested to know how you feel about things now.

What are you doing right now?

I'm a waiter. Waiting on tables and waiting to exit the Midwest. I serve sushi--but I'd rather be in Japan. I drink Guiness but would prefer to be visiting relatives in Ireland. After this last trip, Europe to the Middle East, the urge to be someplace else is always on me. I have to finally extinguish any nostalgia or reliance on this state.

What part of the Midwest are you from?

The Westside of Indianapolis. I was an apartment kid. My family is from Southern Indiana: Bedford, Oolitic, Bloomington.

The scene

Indianapolis has little to offer. A million people and not a tingue of the underground. All culture is imported. Artists and musicians have trouble finding an original voice. The Klan and militia are probably more organized and active than our scenesters.
Sayings: "Let me tell your majesty about music. Suppose that your majesty were to have a concert held here, and the mass of your subjects on hearing the sound of your majesty's bells and drums and the notes of your flues should all suffer headahces, make faces, and complain to one another. If our kind is so fond of having music played, why does he reduce us to such an extremity that fathers and sons and brothers are not on speaking terms; wives and children are scatterd." - from the Sayings of Mencius. *Indiana music does create headaches, causes one to make faces and complain.

What about the llamas?

I'm an avid follower of the work of Lorenzo Llamas, soap hunk.

What do people who went to your high school do now?

They chose instate colleges and never leave their compact, naive, Midwestern world. The trailer park kids work at area grocery stores, deliver pizzas, and work construction. I've spoken to one person (voluntarily) since high school--he's gone bald and is now in the rockin' world of plastic sales.

Bias against Indianans?

When I was in Europe, I was an ambitious liar. "Where ya from, mate?" "Chicago." I lived in Chicago for eight months and believed that was enough to qualify me for big city status. After a month I dropped "Chicago" and said Indianapolis--which always led to a discussion of the 500 race. Since I lived near the Speedway--the race is one of my least favorite topics. (several parts cut out by me)

Will you return?

After this time, no.

Where do the kids go to do the dirty and evil things?

Driving lowered pick up trucks with graphics and neon lights underneath. They drive in continuous circles around the sailors and soldiers monument. Their cruising is accompanied by catcalls to sixteen year olds with bad perms and piss-awful music.

Weirdest thing that's ever happened to you:

Abroad, plenty of events took place. There is still mystery in European cities and definitely in the Middle East & Turkey. Back in Indiana you have to create weirdness. Like when I was arrested wearing a pink gorilla suit at a _____ protest.

Coolest places to visit.

There is a creepy landmark just outside of Bloomington called the "barnhouse." It is located at the end of a long gravel road. Imagine the most frightening haunted house--double it in size--then picture the entire house built from scrap wood. The owner, a red-haired, toothless man who keeps his "boy" around for company build the house by himself. The purpose of the house was as a fortress of protection from the upcoming race war. Since then there isn't a black person near this town; nor will there ever be. It was a wasted effort. For one dollar you can tour the "barn house" It's truly amazing. Hidden passages, slides, labyrinth rooms (over 40), twisting staircases, booby traps, spooky decorations. There is even a door rigged up to decapitate an intruder by a swinging blade.

Whom do you admire?

My grandfather, for his limestone carvings and his passion to continue artistry during financial hardship.

(stuff cut out by me)

Well, what about the cutters?

The name comes from the limestone cutters, the rugged and rough men who did the backbreaking work in the quarries. The famous bike race, the little 500, allowed some local boys to enter the race one year and they surprisingly beat the fraternities. The "cutters" have raced ever since, one of the only independent, non-Greek teams.

What about the Indiana accent?

Soft and polite for the average family. The rednecked trailer kids, apartment kids and others tend to adapt a falsified "black" accent during their teenaged years. In Southern Indiana the language is so simple, half twang/half Northern proper, that a five minute conversation can bore me standing up. If I want bad grammar and Southern twang, I want the real deal, not this watered-down mix.

11 years out: interview with my special secret agent girl

dear girl,

This interview is eleven years old; someone who was born when i wrote this would be able to read it. How interesting is that?
I just thought lately that life is a cycle of circles and boxes opening and closing within each other; while this is somewhat edited, and names have been changed to protect the innocence lost, I will take this down if you want to, but as we know, I do miss you very much.

You were always telling me that I thought too highly of most people, that I would always be disappointed. But when I see what you said even as a teenager, you were amazing and still are and always will be.

I think you are wrong sometimes though... sometimes it's worth it to care about people who don't deserve it. Sometimes things change, but you don't even realize it was worth it until years later. They might never realize it. Sometimes people done things for me in the past and I didn't realize what they were trying to say until now. Life is full of these disconnects.



Where do you see yourself right now?

I'm at a transitional point in my life. I just dropped out of everything: school, working, relationships etc. for a while and I'm trying to get back to a place that is comfortable for me on my terms. I just moved back home with my parents out of financial necessity. It isn't very aesthetically or emotionally pleasing but it's practical... An important personal relationship just ended for me and it was easy to think that I could surround myself in my job because my life "was over!" But I have a mess of growing up to do before I'll resign myself to that.

What part of the Midwest are you from?

I grew up and currently live in central Indiana. I don't know what grand and sweeping statements I could make about it. I'm too accustomed to its intrinsic rhythms, I don't think that there's anything special about regions these days because we all see the same McDonald's commercials and watch the same CNN newscasts.

What's the scene like there?

There are a lot of scenes. I don't really like to think about them. ___ is notoriously cruel and cliquish and very prone to chewing people up and spitting them out. It holds a special place on my shitlist. There's no giving/sharing going on in the scenes that I'm familiar with, the thing that would make a scene worthwhile. They exist here solely as a means to put your brain on autopilot and hang out with similar versions of yourself. It's good sometimes but after a bit you start to move on and growing up takes its toll. It's difficult for me to think objectively about scenes, since when I first started hanging around the ____ thing, I made 20 new best friends. But when you start to differ in opinion and you don't make the effort anymore, it's amazing that you can lose your friends just as quick as that you made them.
Scenes in general are always going to be disappointing cause that's just too many people, too many variables. There is no assurance that every person is going to behave nicely and be uniformly rad. I like people a lot but if you're in a scene it's usually for lameness and not dedication or whatever.

Do you have any sayings or truisms about the Midwest/your state? Are there certain mindsets? What are the good points about the Midwest? the bad points?

Life here is like whole milk. It's slow going down. As a child I was disappointed to live in such an uninteresting place in my tract housing development devoid of history. But there's culture in that white trash thing, too. Practicality born out of poverty type of thing.
Um, my stepfather is not a particularly stupid man, but he is suspicious of bigshiny places like New York and California. He considers the people from these places "flaky." I find myself easily sliding into this prejudice as well. I am glad that I grew up catching crawdads in creeks and playing in fields. It's very settling. I'm glad I live in a place with so many trees, even if Indiana is the fifth worst polluted state.
I have this really sheltered feeling from growing up in a land-locked state. I'm attracted to and frightened by oceans and large bodies of water, they're dangerous and I feel like I could slide off the ground into them and never return. I feel safe here.
But that's also the bad thing about the midwest, it's so regular and even the level-headed as to be boring at times, complacent.

What about the llamas?

The llamas live across the street from me. They are owned by an elderly couple that look exactly like jimmy and rosalyn carter. They keep them for pets and they all have little nylon collars with bells. Llamas don't spit as a rule, but there is one evil llama that is brown instead of white and has no ears. They were frostbitten off one year and he just has these holes in his head. Consequently he is angry and spits. It's a brownspit, in case you wondered sometimes when they fuss with each other they scream like humans in a great deal of pain. This is unsettling to hear in the middle of the night.

What do people who went to your high school do now? Do you relate to them?

They either went to college because they had to or they are in trades right now or they joined the carnival that comes through town each year around graduation time. I can't relat to any of them, I never could. I can talk to them and see their point of view and accept their contribution to the world just fine but I can't relate to them interpersonally on a deep level at all.

It is a very involved reason why, with lots of personal factors. Partially it's that loner thing, and part of it is that starving smart kid thing. There wasn't anyone at my school interested in the same things that I as at the same times. also, my verbal skills only developed recently, which is too late to have been making friends with other ___ kids.

The ones that made it to college are the same as ever, they'll all go straight from mom and dad's to college to jobs without ever doing any real life growing up in the meanwhile. And they'll come back to nest in ___ and raise other small minds and tell them all about the wide world without ever having lived in it. This upsets me.

WWF. Expand this topic.

What about GLOW?
I used to rock out to that tape that all the wrestlers made of them singing inane songs about kicking the other guy's ass... what is with all that intricate feudalism within WWF? I remember when WWF and Hulk Hogan in particular was the shit. There was a cartoon that explained all the characters and their complexities in depth.
I wonder what the kids of that snap into a slim jim guy think of him? I wonder if they have little mullets and body slam each other when daddy comes on TV? I bet he has a tortured daughter that is away at college on the slim jim money and she cringes for fear that someone finds out who her father is. I bet she is glad that the world only knows him by his wrestling ring name, whatever that is.

Do you get sick of people being biased against you because of the state you're from? Is it a big deal? Do you find yourself doing the same thing?

I get sick of people making redneck/white trash generalizations. I get tired of people not appreciating subtlety. Even people from this state do it. I had a friend that is on some personal mission to denounce white trash as it crosses her path. It upsets me that others can't appreciate a different way of life. some people don't have choices, and these are the people that serve your fast food piping hot and pick up your garbage and fix your muffler and grow your food and drive the semis to get it to you. respect them or your fucked. it's easy to do the same thing.

I was sitting in a taco bell watching the carnival that comes through each June set up in the parking lot, and I mentioned that the carnies didn't look very busy. There happened to be a couple of 'carnies' sitting a few tables away and they got up and walked out. I felt terrible. Who am I to call them names when they work harder than I'll ever have to. You just have to slow down and remember things and where everyone fits in. I looked at my bean burrito and felt humbled and like such a heel.

If you have left (or will leave) do you think you'll ever return?

I don't think I could ever really leave. I'm an Indianan by nature. When I travel I just feel out of place, other places are tempting to think about, but I couldn't adjust.

Where do all the kids go to do the dirty, illegal things? what are some famous incidents?

Illegal things? I was pretty removed from socialization in high school. I know there's a few places way out that are supposedly place of satanic worship, remnants from that eighties fascination with all things heavy metal. People load up all tanked up on pot and everclear and drive out to them and climb barbed wire fences copping a feel on their dates and get the asses of their jeans peppered with rock salt from angry residents' shotguns.

What are the coolest places to visit?

In ___ the land behind the llama farm and out on goat hill observatory even though that's not really in ___. In Indianapaolis--there are tons of neat places. Memory is failing me though. The canal and all the new work they've done to it. Go there at night.

Avoid Broad Ripple, the bridge kids will get you every time. Bloomington is gorgeous. There are lots of nice parks around the state, especially shades state park. just go driving far out int he country, you will find neat lakes and abandoned family cemeteries to frolic in.

Who are some people that you admire that come from the Midwest?

Um.
I would like to say that I admire my great grandparents. My great-grandpa hopped freights to look for migrant seasonal work in orchards and on farms. he found a tomato farm in Indiana that invited his wife and kids to come and live in the loft of the barn and work for them, so the family loaded up and moved here from the south in their car and lived in the barn. One of my great uncles had a dream that he could fly and jumped out of the loft in his sleep. He broke his shoulder on the concrete floor of the barn and they couldn't afford a doctor.

Once they were settled here they rented a chicken coop. One night, a hobo came along and thought he would steal a chicken for his dinner but instead he got bapped on the head by great grandma's broom. She raised and sold chickens for extra money in town while great grandpa worked at the Chrysler foundry. he was a conscientous objector during WW2 and was forced into public works labor.
They were just so kind and neat.

Midwestern men (edited by me)

There is nothing special about Midwestern men. They tend to be more sexist and ignorant, as midwestern people are in general, since Indianapolis is not the cultural magnet that say new york is. They tend to know how to fix things, they are very into their roles as males a lot of times. That is neither good nor bad, depending. It's hard to find good relationships; of people I know tend to last longer out of desperation.

(cut out by me)

...They are the abusive first boyfriends and the distant fathers... but if you live here they can also be the last boyfriends. Those are the rare ones around here. The only remnants they carry of their extensive male training is the ability to fix cars and other household items and possibly they watch sports. This type of boy is familiar and sweet, almost your dad but more PC.

What's with those monster big wheels trucks?

It's just testosterone. They're incredibly unsafe to operate. When you get a flat on one of those, you're truly fucked. It's impraticality, it's like Japanese couture.

wind and water

You can get sunburned here even when the wind is whipping and freezing cold; out on the water, you develop a hunger for something sloppy and greasy and bathed in infiniate ketchup. I gave up all hope of eating healthy that day and bought an avocado burger from a little shack stand and it was the most delicious thing I had eaten in a long time, and the French fries, crispy and greasy swam in endless ketchup. The burger ladies were all heavy no-nonsense women with heavy make-up and hair nets, screaming numbers into speakers and handing paper-wrapped meals out to customers with big, meaty arms wrapped in smeared white uniforms.

I was surprised to find out that a lot of people I know had sailed around the world. I recall now that a good friend was able to see much of Europe working on people's yachts and he would sporadically email us about it. "I'm in the Caribbean now. Bye!" Then disappear for a few years. Once acquaintance (I don't know her so well) did it but it was said that she had to get off the boat towards the end because the people she was with were driving her crazy; she did not tell me that first hand, so maybe it would be an unfounded rumor?

Sometimes teachers are a little too hands-off and let you do your own thing, which can be both exhilarating but dangerous. People don't always do the right thing when left to their own devices; bad habits developed over years grow like warts and are impossible to burn out painlessly. If you start out tying knots improperly it becomes a habit and it stays with you forever. I learned dancing by sheer accident; but there are certain ways to move your feet that are very unhealthy and can lead to injury if you don't take precautions. I don't know this offhand.
Also, from an Indian Kathak dance class I learned that many seemingly senseless practice steps and obsession with proper form would eventually lead to a properly disciplined dance more apparent in more sophisticated moves later on down the road. Not so fun, and ridiculously sensless at first... As I never advanced beyond the stage of a dilettante I never reaped the fruits of those labors, but when I see people dancing now I have a more sophisticated appreciation of what I am watching.

Out on the water the teacher, an Irish guy in tevas and shorts (tevas are the uniform out here, along with North Face--extremely practical! I should get some) said, "The terms, it's nothing. Nothing to it really. You can't learn this from a book. OK, you start steering the boat!" And I had the till and ropes in my hand. He was firmly convinced that everyone could do this, and this shouldn't cost a lot of money for anyone, which is what this group of people I hang out with is all about, and there is a lot of unnecessary glamor and stereotyping to sailing which makes it sadly inaccessible to most of the general public.

I am still overwhelmed at the beauty of the land around me. Normally a person learning to sail would be confronted with a blank bay and aim for rocks or trees. I chose on that day a clump of bushes, a weather balloon, the golden Gate bridge, and downtown San Francisco as my navigation points. That I can see the brilliant purple sunrises and sunsets of such a famous landmark every day without much effort, it's really a privilege, and I feel properly spoiled.

There are a lot of weird ways in which the wind works with sails that aren't so immediately apparent, and it's difficult to understand. Sailing into the wind is a no-no--you won't get anywhere with that. You're pushed along in a lot of bizarre directions by things being caught and trapped and going sideways. Things are done in a zigzag course, and there are a lot of weird old-fashioned maritime terms, and there's a lot to be learned from the people around you who are more experienced, but not everything you are taught is good wisdom, and a lot of it can be bad habits.

You have to keep neutral with your steering, and then there is a center board that reminds me of the fin of a dolphin, and to be naive is both embarrassing yet at once so exciting, because there's nothing more wonderful than learning how to do a new thing. It's also very fascinating because there are no motors involved; this is what people have learned how to do over thousands of years, starting without books and paper, and the collected wisdom encouraged innovation over time. Sometimes when you're driving over the Bay Bridge you'll spot an old wooden sailing ship straight out of the seventeenth century, an old galleon (?) with gigantic masts entirely powered by the wind.

The other guy in the boat was much more experienced than I was, and when he took control we went faster. I assisted him in maintaining the sails. The teacher showed us how to halt the boat by flipping the sails and moving the till so that there was no need for an anchor.

"You can keep fairly still like this, and this is the time to break out the wine and cheese," he said.




"But then wouldn't you be drunk sailing?" I asked.

"I'm always drunk!" he winked. And we all laughed. And I learned a lot more from that short time out on the water than I could from a book; but in reading books you often want to understand why things happen. Otherwise you live life blindly in a fog. What made people decide to build sails when you could get by with paddling? Maybe it would have been discouraged as superfluous energy, why bother changing something when it works fine already?

"Doing this make you really hungry," the teacher said, and he was right. "Let's head back in." The next time I'll go out I'll be eating fried calamari and fries, and staring at the purple sunset against the mountains, my face covered with grease and my face smarting from sunburn despite the cold.

xanadu house

I wandered here by accident; it's the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in San Francisco. A taste of Americana and a really neat way to hang plants!

Me: "Wow, this looks really weird. What's with the design?"
Xanadu master: "Frank Lloyd Wright designed it."
Me: "Ha, no way. You're totally joking!"
Xanadu master: (smiling) "No, look!" pointing to some glossy magazines at the front desk.

It's always a pleasure to discover new things. I know almost nothing about architecture but like many things, it's always much better to encounter buildings in person and to walk through them than it is to see them as photographs on paper.

There was no time to really go over the exquisite Tibetan and Japanese art they had there; that takes a little time and effort, and another excuse to come by again.