To Galesburg...and back

I woke up on Saturday to find my back car windshield had been shattered the night before. As you might have noted from my last post, I was planning to drive to Illinois to visit brother James. Rather than let this latest act of mini-vandalism stand in my way, I duct-taped a shower curtain to the back of the car and drove there anyway. It's a little something I learned while working on my cousin's paint crew: how to implement solutions to problem areas.


The van drove fine, but as this photo demonstrates, the light of the sunlight through the semi-opaque makeshift window made it look as if we were high-tailing our way away from some kind of nuclear winter. As the space mask on the back seat indicates, I am fully prepared for such circumstances.

I've lived in Midtown long enough not to take petty vandalism personally, but I had to wonder what the motivation was. The last time my car window was broken it was at least under amusing circumstances. Some art kids, including a girl wearing bright pink hot-pants and a Russian fur hat, shot out the window with a bb-gun. They admitted it, apologized and helped pay for the thing.

This time, it seemed like blind violence -- at least until I remembered the sticker that's graced the lower left corner of the windshield for the past two years.


Now that I think about it, the kid does look like he's been kidnapped, and it only makes sense that some good-hearted drunk was doing his best to free the child from the suffocating clutter of my trunk. Bless his heart. I can hardly blame him.


So I'm getting the car fixed tomorrow, but I'm also considering alternate rides. Like a horse. Based on all the photographs I've seen of Kansas City in its boomtown days, horses were a vital part of having a vibrant downtown area. So if this whole downtown renaissance is really going to take place, we're in serious need of some steeds and people to ride them. And it would be really nice to ride a horse around town -- even kind of romantic. Though it probably wouldn't be so much fun for the horse.

On the way to Galesburg, John and I stopped in Lucas, Iowa to check out a few other alternate sources of transportation.

A motorsickle:


And a spaceship belonging to some non-specific nation states:

Our time in Galesburg was pretty fantastic. We fulfilled our mission of filming that night's performance by Ree-Yees, which blew both my mind and my right eardrum. I won't even try to describe it here, but once Jon's had some time to upload and play with the footage, I'll be sure to share it with you. Suffice it to say that Ree-Yees really kills it.

Little trivia question for you all: why is Ree-Yees (the character) named Ree-Yees? First person to comment with the right answer gets a free taco, in person or by mail.


We spent the rest of our time in Galesburg throwing the frisbee into some hedges, walking around town and eating at local hotspots The Gizmo and The Landmark, renowned for their value and their tastiness, respectively. We also stopped in the One Stop Smokers Shop, a cigarette store where you can buy booze, cigarettes and play deer-hunter. It really lives up to its name.

Later we visited the campus library of Knox College, a beautiful old building that houses some rare books, some really nice aristocratic-looking rooms and an abacus. The last time I was in Galesburg I spent a few hours leafing through books, but this time all we did was watch the Crank That Soulja Barney video, which I'm sure all those kids studying for finals really appreciated.

Knox College, by the way, has a pretty impressive history of public speaking. In addition to hosting one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the last three commencement speakers have been, in order, Barack Obama, Stephen Colbert and Bill Clinton.


The only problem with our ramblings through Galesburg was the unwanted attention we received from the local fuzz. After our walk through town on Sunday, a stern-looking officer got out of his car and asked Jon, "Any particular reason while you're walking all over town taking a crapload of pictures?" (he actually said crapload).

He said a female employee of the city had seen us taking pictures near the squad cars and sounded the alarm bell. We explained that photography is just a hobby and that we had no terroristic designs on the town, but it wasn't until he looked through our snapshots that he said what we had was fine. The whole thing reminded me of the mantra of new-wave poet/drummer Sun Moriarty:

"What we do. You and I. See something. Say something."


On the way home, Jon and I capped off the journey with the bangin' buffet at the Toot-Toot Family Diner in Bethany, Missouri.


If you'd like to see the complete set of photos Jon took during the trip, head on over to his flickr. Thanks to James, Eric and Alejandro for showing us a good time, and thank you for reading.


all photos in the post by Jon Allen, except for the one of olde Walnut Street