San Francisco, Sushi, & Commodified Kerouac

Our day in San Francisco was off to a rather late start from a bus malfunction during the middle of the night, which ended up us driving around 30 mph about 3 hours to get back to East Los Angeles County to get the bus fixed. We spent a bit of time there (while most of us were sleeping of course) to get the bus fixed and then we continued on our drive up the 5, which we arrived in San Francisco around noon or so. We hopped over the airport where we jumped on the BART and headed into town to grab lunch. We hopped out of the station, hustled up the stairs, and were greeted by bright sunshine juxtaposing a rather hard-edge part of town, where the symbols around us were fast food marts, cigarette ads, and a beautiful array of people who either ignored the 12 of us or looked at us as a bunch of aliens (and rightly so). [The sun does shine on all of us, though. Doesn’t it?]


As we passed through the neighborhood, heading up a few blocks towards the famous Castro District, we found what we have been finding in many cities (e.g., the difference along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Redondo Beach, and Long Beach): large demographic, setting shifts in close proximities to one another.

We split up for lunch in the Castro District, which beautifully greeted us with rainbow flags and people on the move, electrifying the air with optimism and zest for life (in stark contrast to the pace and emotion of the streets near my home). Rashina and I nestled into the a booth along the side wall about halfway back in a small sushi place across the street from the Castro Theatre. Shortly after deciding to split the Veggie Sushi special, we were greeted with two bowls of soup… and no spoons. After looking at each other for a few seconds, eye-balling the table and the floor for silverware, we glanced at a gentleman sitting next to us, mouthing to one another to ask him about our current utensil predicament. Finally, I looked over, and said, “Excuse me, sir, sorry to bother you, but do we just drink this soup straight out of the bowl?” With a polite, warm laugh, he said yes and asked where we were from.

This is always one of the best moments in a day, when one of the two of us will glance at each other to see who will start the “40 states” spread. Rashina did the honors and we were launched into a half-hour discussion of life, love, gay rights, and America with a gentleman we had just had met (which really, to me, is one of the many gems of traveling to new places and meeting people unlike myself). He was a professor at a university in nearby Oakland, a two-session (four year) Peace Corps alum who had spent most of his life overseas, and nearly all of his time in America working with refugees who are trying to land softly. He said he did not really identify with America all that much, even though he was an American citizen, chiefly because he had spent so much time overseas.

In the midst of the discussion, we ended up sharing our cool experience at LGBT film festival the previous week in Salt Lake City, and how there was a huge population uniting in Utah to support gay rights. As a gay man, he said he was encouraged by our enthusiasm and wanted us to know that we, too, could play an active role in helping to further gay rights wherever we wanted. I know the situations are different, but it made me think about the Civil Rights Movement a bit, and our experience in Little Rock at the “Little Rock 9” museum, where sympathetic whites in the school would quietly voice their support to the African-American students, but never would actually take a public stand (inside or outside the school) to help others gain a more free and healthy perspective on what equality really is. In a sense, this is the call I’m beginning to see that we have as people of our generation. There is a group of Americans that are openly being discriminated against and deprived of rights on personal, governmental, and economic levels. I have been asked when discussing this with friends and family, “Now, doesn’t this community have ‘their’ own voice to speak with?” My answer is yes, absolutely. However, another one never hurt. Being from the Bible Belt and a former Christian, I could use that connection to that community to help certain conservative friends come to see the light about the need for advancement of LGBT rights in this country. Sadly, many of those friends have been bombarded so much with single-issue politics that the beauty of the gay community gets muddled in the false belief of standing up for the family, God’s design of marriage, or whatever other trite “principle” to keep others out of their sandbox. [I harken back to the elementary school playground mentality of some (namely the loudest) Evangelicals, who believe their favor rests in a higher being who supposedly preaches love for all and feel like they have a claim to some sort of truth, when, in reality, they are bastardizing and possibly even making angry that Divinity who they are trying to aid (if She/He/It/They exist in the first place). The end result of the playground mentality is a desire to feel better about oneself through blind allegiance, not to biblical teachings, but to hierarchical language and a keen non-understanding of personhood.] I love my Evangelical friends for their passion, but am saddened by their being misled – trading love and understanding for exclusion and false claims to purity.

Getting back to the day, we parted with our new friend after the enjoyable conversation, with a current issue of a local LGBT newspaper as a parting gift, to rendevous with our group back at the Castro Theatre. We walked through the Financial District to City Lights Bookstore, the famed spot of many writers and figures from the Beat Generation. As I walked up the stairs into the poetry room (which had a number of racks solely devoted to the Beats, with what seemed like a thousand copies of Ginsberg’s Howl, I could not shed away what seemed like four-feet-tall Mickey Mouse ears on top of my head. As a local poet sat writing and reading in the corner by a window bellowing a soft white, a light scoff of the eye came down across mine, the double layer of curiosity and outright annoyance I have experienced countless times when sitting in the middle of two miles of dead-stopped Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana tags, as I have tried to get to work the past five winters on Ski Mountain Road at Ober Gatlinburg – though the difference there is my curiosity stemmed from the hopes of a cute tourist girl that I might be able to “teach” how to ski later on in the day. The space of the Poetry Room was beautiful, though I was not able to stay long – not unless I lived in the area for a number of months or years. I sat down and read a little Whitman and little Ginsberg, half-expecting a euphoric “ah ha!” poetic moment of insight and inspiration, which I quickly stopped as the weight of those ears slipped down over my eyes upon me bowing my head to read Howl.

We made our way to the Beat Museum, greeted by this goofy ass character with an oversized, pointy mustache and a purple zootsuit. I didn’t know whether to laugh in his face or punch him when he asked us (as he unloaded his early 90s model Jeep Cherokee) to come to his show later that night, which was being held in the lobby of the Beat Museum (by this time he was inside, standing behind a microphone and in close proximity to a stand up bass). A more acceptable figure approached us, a staff member of the museum with a sweet Mohawk, and asked us if we wanted to take a look around the museum. We did for a while and then exited – as all great places do, I assume – through the damn gift shop (which encompassed most of the lobby, edging right on up to our goofy man in the purple suit). Sadly, what caught my eyes were not copies of Beat literature (not even sure if they had any), but commodified Beatness, or commercialized rebellion. “Stop bitching and start a revolution!” read a black tee shirt with scratchy writing, with books of hippie lingo, Grateful Dead bears, and witty political statement buttons seeking me out on every shelf. At one instance, I picked up a five-dollar “Fuck Hate” poster. In my consciousness, it gave me the feeling of “sticking it to the man” or defying my parents or whatever you want to call it. The longer I held it though, the less powerful the commodity, the statement, became to me. By the end of about ten minutes, I was sick of looking at the thing. It would have been fun to hang on the wall in my apartment, next to my poster of the members of Sigur Ros naked (from the cover of their most recent album - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, which I would recommend for anyone…. Here’s me drinking a Pepsi, me smiling, NOW GO BUY ONE) to freak out some of my conservative friends or parents (when they visit town). Buying that poster would have made me no more or less rebellious. It probably would have been worse if I bought the damn thing, because I would believe myself to be more subversive, contemplative, somehow more unique. Thus, the beauty [insert: tragedy] of commodified culture.

Bet Kerouac’s rolling in his grave. At least I hope so.

Los Angeles, Disneyland, & Hyperreality

We started out our first day in Los Angeles with a tour of CBS Studios in Studio City, CA, where they film shows like Entertainment Tonight and CSI: New York, while in the past other shows like Seinfeld and Gilligan’s Island.  Entertainment Tonight’s Canaan Rubin showed us around many of the sets, studios, productions rooms, editing bays, and all the people that come together to make a show go on air.

            This experience helped us get insight into the human hands that go into the finished products we see and experience throughout every day of our lives.  Before our eyes, we were meeting the people and watching them edit a cultural artifact that would be sent out very shortly thereafter to many corners of the world.  I will pick back up on this discussion further down on this blog, as I need to get into the rest of our time in Los Angeles.

            From Studio City, we hopped on the 101, took the Malibu Canyon Road exit, and within half an hour, we had reached coast number two on this trip.  Weaving around the mountains on the two-lane road, we came around one corner to just barely make out the deep blue in the distance.  We barreled through a tunnel and a few seconds later, we were staring at the Pacific Ocean.  It was a sight of much relief for all of us. By Day 11, we had reached the West Coast.  We stopped of for a few minutes to rest, talk, and meditate (for me, with the accompaniment of Sigur Ros’s “Með Blóðnasir”, a two-minute song that has walked with me through many experiences over the past few years).

            We took the Pacific Coast Highway down through Malibu and into Santa Monica, where we stopped to get some lunch and relax for the afternoon on the beach near the Santa Monica pier.  After a few hours of some much-needed down time, we took off around 6 for Huntington Beach’s “Surf City Nights,” a weekly festival in one of the main hubs of Orange County .   As we drove through Redondo Beach and then into Long Beach, further from LAX and closer to Orange County, we saw the scenes change much, while still staying on the Pacific Coast Highway.  From the plush $10 million dollar homes in Malibu, with a few local restaurants and the beach highly visible, we cut inland to find Fast Cash and liquor stores on many corners.  As we kept driving, we stumbled upon the underbelly of Los Angeles County, which probably explains the stratified neighborhood surrounding it: the shipping docks…acres and acres of nothing but huge crates, cranes, and barges.  This is the image of Los Angeles we never seem to see, yet it is, I’m sure, incredibly important to its economy.

            The sun was lying down over the ocean as we were parking in Huntington Beach and we were able to absorb its last rays with the accompanying wind along the soft sand of the beach. We grabbed some fish tacos (tofu for me) from Wahoo’s and walked around for a bit, only to walk upon a pretty interesting group of guys breakdancing on the street, sharing with us themes of cultural understanding, love, and staying away from drugs.  The interesting thing was that the group continued to play up racial and ethnic stereotypes in efforts to get money from the crowd, to which nearly everyone was turned off.  Not the best strategy to get money by loudly proclaiming “ten dollars from the Asian lady everyone!”  Our incredibly tired group ventured on back up to Venice Beach to crash in the bus for a few hours of sleep.

 

            We were up early on Day 2 in our dire need of showers, to which one of the UCLA rec. centers came to the rescue. (We hadn’t showered since Salt Lake – going on day 4 by that point.)  We drove up and through Beverly Hills to see the smog-covered city beneath, next to many multi-million dollar homes yet again… After a little time here, we decided to head to Anaheim for Disneyland.

            Now, this is where I will pick back up with what I left off earlier when talking about all the human thoughts, hands, and words that go into cultural artifacts that we use – rather, consume – on a daily basis.  In the week before we left on the trip, we were asked to read the social theorist Jean Baudrillard’s article on Disneyland and hyperreality. In my perspective, Baudrillard is saying that in Disneyland, we all know that the settings are fake and the plots for all the attractions are simply there to entertain us.  We see Goofy and know there is a person inside the suit.  When in the queue line for the Haunted Mansion, we realize that all the gravestones, the cobwebs, the wallpaper, and the employees’ uniforms are put there to get us into a mood, to entertain us, if you will.  Disneyland presents to us a simulation of the real, the actual, what truly (or imaginatively) exists in reality: The jungle vines, the quest for treasure, and the slue of eastern statues leading up to the Indian Jones ride speak to our Orientalist ideas of the East, laden with danger, adventure, and mysticism.  At Space Mountain, we have everything – the chairs, the archways, the trash cans – ending in futuristic, pointed angles… containing purple and silver (and outdated) designs of galaxies everywhere.

            What Baudrillard is saying is that we live in a permanent Disneyland, with a gift shop at every corner.  Nearly everything we encounter on a daily basis has been laid out by human hands and minds: the houses we live in, the cars we drive, the roads we drive on, the toothbrushes we use, the television we watch.  The Disneyland themes of “happily ever after” and “the place where dreams come true” are more covertly laden in advertising media.  All of it was designed by some one to sell us something – an item, an idea, a path.  When we fail to see all that we encounter as products of engineers, of urban planners, of scriptwriters, we begin to believe that this is reality.  As a good friend of mine often does, let us imagine the landscape as just that – the landscape, free of buildings and all our creations – simply as nature.  Los Angeles as a desert coast.  Aspen as a mountain. Chicago as a lakeside.  Disneyland as a simulation of reality then becomes reality itself, because we know this theme park was created for our entertainment, our pleasure, our dollar.  What we call reality on a daily basis is a simulation without a map of the original – in essence, the hyperreal.  There is no reference point by which we define this human-created reality.  This hyperreal we will buy, barter, and consume throughout our lives. This was worded beautifully by an interior designer from Irvine, CA, who I was able to chat with in the line for Space Mountain.  “Orange County is a Disneyland.  You have your women running around – breast implants, tiny waists, Range Rovers, incredibly tan, holding 9 dollar coffees. It is a system that defines itself as to what is desirable, and none of it is real.  Yet it is so easy to get trapped in that system.”

So, how does this lead us into what it is to be an American?  What actually unites us on a daily basis?   The answer might be simply – consumption.

Updates - Navajo Nation and Salt Lake City

Just woke up after a good night's sleep. Yesterday was full of contrasts...

For the first part of the day, we toured around the Latter Day Saints headquarters and temple. I have many friends who are LDS, and we will usually discuss the meaning of things together until literally both of us hit a brick wall in our pursuit and understanding of truth. The tour we took of the Temple and such was interesting, and I had a few cool conversations with some of the sisters who were on their missions from nearly any country you could imagine. I was a little perturbed by the level of outright devotion I saw towards LDS elders and leaders... that much power and control in any humans hands, especially if claiming Divine authority, is bound to create a cycle of... well, power and control. When I asked how the 12 Apostles were chosen as well as how the current prophet was chosen, I was told, in a seemingly rehearsed manner, that the apostles pray and fast together for a long time until God reveals it to them. Interestingly, the current prophet is one who usually makes the call and then the rest of the Apostles follow suit. And, apparently, every single time, the next Prophet is the oldest Apostle in the crowd. I left their with a feeling similar to leaving the Lotus Temple of the Ba'hai faith in Delhi in January, confused and frustrated, yet an understanding that, we, as people, can create any sort system and follow it, so long as we have others around us who reinforce our thoughts and actions. This is true in religion, in government, in the media, and, if I'm honest enough with myself, sociology. So, where do we turn as people? How about simply one another? Shedding away all the things we simply don't and can't know, while still pursuing them, leads into greater camaraderie and understanding between one another, which is the key to this whole game of life.

In the vein of the theorist Jean Baudrillard, we were asked coming on to this trip to take a more postmodern approach to what we see, hear, and experience on this journey. The key to postmodernism is bringing all of what we have to the table and simply discussing how we know what we know and what that means to us. This, to Jurgen Habermas, was the ideal form of communication that he wanted for us in the future. The beautiful thing is that when this truly happens, where individuals embrace their humanity and understand their claims to divine ties as simply educated guesses, we might as progress as people, rather than fighting over all the differences we are bombarded with here on Earth.

This unity of people was a large and great part of the LGBT Film showing of "Outrage" at the Tower Theatre in rather Bohemian area of Salt Lake City yesterday. We walked, three minutes late, to a fully packed theatre for a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender film festival, in the heart of the Mormon stronghold, who are notorious for discriminating against these groups. An incredible day. Will tell more later. Hopping off the bus in Vegas.

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Day 6 - Roswell, New Mexico

Today in Roswell was one of great interest and surprise, involving many conversations with people I beautifully disagreed with. The town known for its alien encounters seems to have a surprisingly large conservative population, evidenced by a large stone marker of the Ten Commandments in front of the courthouse.

We started out our day at the UFO Museum, pretty much the most famous (maybe the only?) one in the country. The interesting thing is that the overhead at this place had to be close to nothing. All the walls consisted of the thin, hole-cut walls you see in the aisles of hardware stores, on which hung Wal-Mart clearance bin frames with pages of information in anywhere from 14-48 size Times New Roman font, a stark contrast from the Central High School Museum we saw in Little Rock just a few days prior. Interestingly, this subconsciously took away from the place’s validity in my mind… not that I don’t believe aliens could have landed and the government has kept it under wraps…but I found that presentation is everything. The interactive nature of places like the Holocaust Museum and Central High School, complete with dozens of video slides, audio booths, and walk-through areas where you become the character – Now this is what satisfies by MTV-generation aesthetic and minimal attention span.

We had an hour to kill before meeting with a member of Alien Resistance, a Christian non-profit that helps abductees to recover and move through their rough experiences by advocating “prayer and deliverance through Jesus Christ” who cites that aliens are nothing more than dark spirits or fallen angels of the Devil. Rashina and I walked around the ghost town that is central Roswell to try to find locals to speak with about tourism and America. After a good twenty minutes on the main streets with no avail, we decided to jump into some of the local antique and scrap booking shops, as well as the tourist havens containing dozens of alien screen print shirts, shot glasses, magnets, and the whole gamut of the usual commodities –instead of Elvis or the Alamo, here we have little green men.

More to come soon, but before… let me update you on my new veggie diet I have had on this trip:

Memphis (Day 1) – Lunch: Blues City Café French fries and Baked Beans; Dinner: Indian veggie dinner at Rashina’s!!!
Little Rock (Day 2) – Lunch: peanut butter crackers; Dinner: Meat & Three minus the meat – Mac N’ Cheese, Green beans, and potato wedges at a local “meet n’ three” place.
New Orleans (Day 3) – Lunch: peanut butter crackers; Dinner: Veggie burger w/ fries at ACME.
San Antonio (Day 4) – Lunch: cheese enchiladas w/ Mexican rice and refried beans, Dinner: salad bar from “Souper Salad!”
El Paso (Day 5) – Lunch: French fries, fettuccini alfredo, macaroni salad, banana pudding at Ft. Bliss mess hall; Dinner: Bean and cheese burrito and Mexican rice.
Roswell (Day 6) – Lunch: peanut butter crackers, pickle wedges, M & M’s; Dinner: Bean Burger, broccoli, and tortilla chips.

Day 3 - New Orleans

After a pretty late wakeup from everyone, we rushed over to the St. Bernard Community Center to serve the Ninth Ward community for a little bit. The Ninth Ward was one of the hardest hit, if not the hardest hit, area in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Driving out there from the hotel, we passed a house after broken down house, empty, boarded up KFC’s and convenience stores, and quick cash-n-loan stores, all speaking of the tragedies of the past few years, telling us stories of a place forgotten by its own government, a place where the opportunities are simply not equal for them, yet a place where hope and love still thrive.








This seems to be one of the key themes I am learning about our country – that is, our capacity for our personal altruism and hope. Whether this altruism is real or false is irrelevant, because, you can really only look at a person’s actions and not into their minds or hearts. That is why I say perceived personal altruism – simply working a 9 to 5 to keep your head above water and food on the table for friends and family is more than enough; for others, it’s traveling to Thailand to stop human trafficking. These choices are much more an evidence of our class background and not dedication to humanity, a distinction that is beginning to give me clearer eyes as I navigate my path and look at other people.
I feel very fortunate to have met a new friend, Thomas, at the St. Bernard Community Center in the Ninth Ward. After handing me a Vitamin Water after a couple hours of work, he mumbled a mere, “Cheers, mate,” with a thick Scottish accent under that breath. I immediately wondered about the path he took to wind up at a makeshift building that calls itself a community center in one of the poorest areas of the country. “Love. Pure love,” he answered when I asked him what was one of the most uniting things about America. “I’m not religious or anything, but I tell you what, I sure know what love is. And I know that I love my own life more than nearly all of my friends.” This passion for wandering was cultivated at a young age as he spent his first sixteen years in a Scottish orphanage, the last 5 of those studying philosophy with local university professors. Since then, he has spent years traveling across Europe and the Americas. He is a full time chef at some local New Orleans restaurants and loves to talk about the adventures he has taken part in. After letting us know he appreciated our help and got exceptionally good vibes from our volunteer group, it was time to head to lunch at a local place he recommended in the French Quarter.
Once we made our way to the place, we found it was only 21+ and obviously did not fit the demographics of our group. We ran over to Café Du Monde for some beignets, then to a local joint for Po Boys and such (interesting for a guy who just went vegetarian a week ago). I’ve had some good company in this endeavor, my friend and fellow researcher, Rashina (a lifelong veggie)… We’re the only two on the trip and throughout our travels so far, we pretty much have had to cut out 95% of the menu from every restaurant we go to. Not difficult really, though. The company helps. And I feel great.

Drove over to Tulane University to shower in the student center (with permission of course)… I’m pretty sure that was the first shower any of us had since Friday evening… that’s a solid three days of sweat, grease, and body odor. Yum. Afterwards, we ventured back over the French Quarter and wandered for a bit, cancelled a Haunted History tour because we were all so beat. Came back and crashed early.
One of the most interesting things about the day was that it was similar to Memphis in that a mere three blocks from Bourbon Street were vacant lots and boarded up homes, complete with X’s marked on them leftover from Katrina. How many of these places exist in the world? I heard about a beach in Costa Rica, surrounded by miles of 8-foot-high fencing. At this beach, cruise ships drop off tourists for a day of fun, with gates on the fences locked up. As the cruise ships pull out from the bay each evening, the gates are unlocked and the locals comb the beach to eat the scraps of what the tourists leave over. How often do we miss all of the larger stories in the areas we visit? The possible consequences of how we travel? The people and spaces that exist outside of what the Chamber of Commerce wants us to see? There is where we find a hint of what it means to live in that area, embrace relationships with local people, and deepen our connection to that the place, its citizens, and eventually… ourselves.

Day 1 - Memphis

Enjoy some visual storytelling of our day in Memphis, filled with all the commodified culture you could ask for. We had a great time, with eye-opening cattle herding and fantastic conversations with strangers about the American dream.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisspeedphotography/sets/72157619283179157/

Day 1 - Memphis

            After an excellent evening hanging out for my good friend JT’s 21^st birthday, as well as heading to a hip hop / dance show at The End, I arrived home around 3 AM, as my cheesy bean and rice burrito from Taco Bell was settling in my stomach.  A quick shower and last-minute packing - - - I was out the door at 4 AM to head to campus to jump on the bus. We loaded up quickly and were on the road just a few minutes after 5 AM, which queued everyone to crash for a while, since a good portion of us had not slept at all the preceding evening.

            Memphis brought to mind a lot of contradictions in my mind.  As we walked into the Peabody Hotel, I was overwhelmed at the hundreds of people in the lobby waiting to see five ducks walk on a red carpet for ten seconds.  I had visited this place once before, the preceding fall for a Southern Culture class. I distinctly remember seeing a couple there last time, with a much more vacant lobby - - the two were in denim from head to toe, sipping on two glasses of wine, staring blankly into space with rather unhappy looks on their faces - - I couldn’t help but immediately be depressed and wonder about the situation.

            What I feel happened to them is that they were sold a means to experience Memphis, to experience the Peabody Hotel.  Apparently, it was to sit by the duck fountain and sip wine. Trite, unfulfilling madness.  However, we see this everywhere in the mass tourism loop.  This system must be praised for its expediency in helping vast amounts of people to “experience” certain places or things.  The question has to be asked, “Isn’t there so much more to (insert location) than this, than what the Chamber of Commerce recommends?”  Trust me. There is love in the attitude I push forth. I just don’t think most tourists are really satisfied with their experiences either. There is a growing consciousness of the poison from the rationalized, efficient, cattle-herding beast that is mass tourism.

            After lunch at the rather vacant Blues City Café, I thumbed around in some of the stores and chatted with a couple people on Beale Street, to try to get a better hold of what Memphis might be saying about itself and its people, as well as why people had come from, say, Germany to visit this place.  What I found in observing the artifacts in the shops was, like in most places, a need to take a trademark of Memphis (or the US, or the South) back home with you, a sense of letting others know that you had been there, and that, perhaps, you were more cultured – hence, acceptable – because of this experience.

            Dr. Stepnick started a conversation with a few guys on Beale Street, to which I, and a few other students, chimed in.  We told them what we were doing, about how we were traveling through 40 states in 40 days and trying to get some part of a hold on what we cherish as Americans, what unites us and what divides us. So, we asked, “What is America to you?”  Before getting to the answer of this question, I want to describe the group of guys to you – five guys, two African American men and three white men, all from Florida.  They had come to Memphis for fun to come gamble at some of the nearby casinos and enjoy Beale street nightlife.

            One of the guys answered the question, to which they all agreed, was freedom.  “Freedom to make a buck,” one said as he pointed to a young African American boy dancing on the street for cash about half a block away.  Then, another guy starting speaking about how, only in America, you can choose to be any religion you like, whether Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, etc. One of the African American guys spoke up and said, “Yeah, it’s not really that free,” following with details about how he has been mistreated as an African American, like him and his fiancé going to a restaurant the previous week and being served only after two white couples came in later than they did.  His fiancé, who he called a radical, said something to the staff at the restaurant and the couple was dismissed.  The group of guys began to laugh about voting for different people in the previous election, and that, regardless, they all had the same president.  One of the most intriguing things in this conversation was when the African American man telling the story of him and his fiancé said, pointing to his friend, “Well, we’re together… you know… well, haha, we’re not together, but we’re together,” obviously referencing that their friendship was strictly platonic. This is interesting in that there was obvious ideals that there was something wrong with being gay in America, which sheds light into the debates over gay marriage in the current day.  For some reason in this country, it is not okay to joke crudely about women or minorities, but, for some reason – I think this is due to the lack of legislation for gay marriage in this country, and, the time for equality for this group to settle into the  American consciousness – it is still okay in America to make jokes and “otherize” the gay population.  My hope is that it will only be a matter of time until this changes.

            The rest of the afternoon was spent at Graceland, where we were cattle herded through queue lines, tourist buses, and through Elvis’s home. Everywhere we went and at every corner, there were more ropes marking where we could not go, signs noting what we could not touch, and staff directing the herds to keep moving.  The impersonal nature to the whole thing made my skin crawl, as it did many others.  Also, the veneration for Elvis, almost to the point of divinity, was something I could not get into, though many around me, many of which spoke different languages, were immersed.

            After a quick gasp of air and discussion at the bus around 5 PM, we headed out on a driving tour of stratified Memphis, where we saw multi-million dollar homes, as well as downbeat trailers, all within extremely close proximity to each other.  We ended our drive in Germantown, where we went to Rashina’s parents’ home for authentic Indian cuisine.  After hanging out with their dog Pinto, enjoying great conversation, and multiple platefuls of potatoes, curry, rice, and samosas, we heard stories from the Bhulas of growing up in South Africa and close relatives who enjoyed the company and companionship of Ghandi in the fight for equal rights, one uncle of whom received a haircut by the human rights hero while serving a 2-month stint in jail for standing up to the British.  We ended the dinner with some chai tea, ghulab jamin, and hugs goodbye.