One year ago today, my friend Lisa drove through Iowa City as part of a two month road trip that she took during a leave of absence from her job at Jellyvision. I had just returned from New York and had been thinking about a project where I would be selling stuff from my life in an effort to downsize..

This camera was my first act of downsizing. Lisa's camera had been stolen out of her car so I gave here mine to shoot with while on the road. Its not unusual for me to loan my friends things, but this time I didn't want it back. I forgot where it went.. Until I showed up on Saturday and saw it on her shelf. I will see if she has any photographs from it for you to look at.

I've stayed with Lisa in Chicago for the last two nights and tonight I will be pitching my tent Naperville, IL, which is a suburb of Chicago, I will be staying on Adam's front lawn.. I went to college with him but I didn't know him that well.

Lisa's boyfriend Mike is a brick mason from Ireland. This morning he took us out to the best breakfast I have ever eaten. Sasha complains when I eat steak and egg for breakfast.. She should have seen this..

Two eggs over easy, beans, potatoes, bangers and rashers( sausuage and ham), black and white puding (blood sauasage), and toast.. This is not the place for the vegetarian in you. It was by far the best thing in the world.

Fast Eddie's is on the northwest highway on the rim of Chicago, just within the city limits. On this Sunday afternoon it was moderately crowded, b/c there were no major "football" games on. (Football as in Soccer) Everyone in the place was first generation Irish and when Mike would talk to the guys at the bar it was near impossible for me to understand what he was saying.

Beer with breakfast? Well it was 2 pm.

Dawn & Ted were the high bidders on my copy of JD Salinger's Franny and Zooey. Yesterday I arranged to meet them at the taping of Chica-Go-Go in Chicago, and then tonight I stopped over at their house for a home cooked meal.

Ted made a vegetarian shepherd's pie that my mom could be proud of.. And then we sat around and talked for a while. This was the third stop on my trip where I have met with total strangers. We had a long conversation about whether or not we were indeed strangers due to our exchanges of e-mails and photographs.

Dawn and Ted met in a "Movie Buff" chatroom three or four years ago. They shared a similar taste in movies and started corresponding on and off again for over a year before they actually met. At a certain point in that year they came to the conclusion that they were dating.

At first I questioned whether or not this is possible, but Dawn and Ted talked about their levels of engagement with eachother and contrasted their interaction with meeting in a bar.. Why is it that you can meet a stranger in a bar, talk over a drink or two and get a phone number and consider that a real interaction? As opposed to writing and e-mailing and sharing photographs and instant messaging.

They lived in different states. She moved from Florida to Atlanta during that fist year and it changed nothing in their friendship. And eventually they did arrange a meeting and it went really well. So well in fact, that when Dawn was hired in Chicago, Ted came with her. They seem really happy to me. I wonder if they still instant message eachother.

Ted gave me a CD of his band in West Virginia, I tried to convince him that he should get his friends to come up to play on Chica-Go-Go.. Oh and my book.. Yeah my book.. The reason for my visit.. Well its fine.. Its on the desk next to their computer.. And Dawn gave me her copy of Salinger's Cather in the Rye. I better read it befor someone trys to burn it. Maybe I will leave it in a High School Library..

I asked them how they became involved in my project. Ted explained that he was searching for something on Ebay.. Well I doubt that he typed in "Used Paperback Book, Idiot Visit His Stuff" into the Ebay search engine... but... I'm still a little full from dinner.. And the Irish breakfast..

Ummm. I had a religious experience at Chicago's Public Access Cable Channel's Chica-Go-Go a children's television dance party. The crowd is made up of little kids of all ages.. The older the kids, the more likely that they have prepared a costume for the event. And the regulars brought two or three costumes so that they could be a deferent character for each of the three shows taped.

I met Nora from the n'kd lady art institute, and Dawn and Ted at the show. It was so great.. Edith Frost was the special guest for one of the episodes and it was so great to see her and her band jumping around and lip synching to their latest single.. MTV watch out.. In 20 years ma be nonprofit cable will still have its finger on the pulse that MTV used to have when it wasn't a giant multinational corporation soley interested in the bottom line..

What's so great about Chica-Go-Go is the wide mix of people and music.. And the wonderful hosts Ratso and Miss Mia... Kids love it. I love it, You will love it.. I think that Chica-Go-Go should send out Pamphlets to doctors offices offering their Dance Party as a way to deal with ADD.. It could be the first line of defense.. So instead of putting a kid on Ritalin (SP) they could just give them this address

CHICAGO ACCESS NETWORK 322 S GREEN ST (1 BLOCK WEST OF HALSTED AT VAN BUREN)

Also while Chica-Go-Go might be slightly addictive, doctors wont have to worry about school principals stealing kid's chica-go-go or the bigger kids snorting it for fun.. I used to be a bad kid and now I am good.. All thanks to Chica-Go-Go

Click here to make your own Chica-Go-Go music video

I am currently sitting in rubber band land. I am have aprox. 3,272,298 rubber bands in bags and boxes on the walls and at my feet. I am three blocks away from Kim who I met last night.. What are the chances of two St. Paul neighbors buying stuff from little old me?

Today I met Ave Maria Green, who until I spoke with yesterday, I thought her/his name was Ave Green as in A-ve, I envisioned the brother of Al Green the singer.. Boy was I surprised and Ave answered the phone. She is the head puff at P.Puff Industries the worlds largest distributor of rubber bands.

There are literally rubber bands as far as my eyes can see. Ave bought me some coffee (thanks) and is letting me use her DSL connection so I can upload all of these images.

She bought two things from me, my telephone list and a my set of X-ray Films. She gave the X-rays to a friend, and my phone list sits in her overflowing office among photographs of the "who's who" in the world wearing rubber band on their wrists.

I now have an entire bag full of these and I'm going to see if they will make some Temporama ones for me.. I will let you know...I am also going to have her call a # from my phone list at random.. I'll let you know what happens.

Heather works for a photographer in Minneapolis and I attended a little party that they had last night.. And only in Minnesota would a Hip Fashion Photographer who is widely published serve home made meat loaf to here guest.

Her mom Billie made the loaf and we traded recipes and even confided in each other that once in a while when the corn is fresh that we'll even throw it into a meatloaf.. I won't tell you what her secret is but cayenne pepper made it burn ever so slightly (burn in a goooood way)

I will say that I was sorry that she didn't put bacon on the top, she was afraid that the health nuts wouldn't approve.. Only here would a mom engineer a healthier meatloaf.. It was sooo good

They sent me on my way with about a pound or so for lunch today.. MMMM left over meatloaf..

Kim was one of the first people to send me an update. She bought my photograph of my friend Heather Hibbard. She had it framed and it now resides in the "black and white photography" section of her house.. Directly across the hallway from here black and white photo of the Ramones! Heather you are in good company, and you are in a nicer frame than I even had you in.

Kim gave me an autographed copy of her friend's band Son Volt, which I find out, features the member of Uncle Tupelo. I had to decide quickly what to do? should I take it? Am I going to return to Iowa with a car overflowing with stuff.. But since I know that I will have to drive through the forever state of Pennsylvania where NPR gets washed out by fanatical Christian preachers, I figured I better have some music to play in the car.

The craziest thing is that her cross street is Davern.. Which is what the D stands for in my name.. All I knew about the name was that is was from my great grandmother's Irish family. In fact some of my distant family lived in Minnesota. Do you think that the street is named after a distant cousin? I was a little freaked out when she told me to drive past "Davern" street.. I said "Davern! .... as in D-A-V-E-R-N?"

So Kim and I sat around and talked about the stuff that too strangers talk about and had a few Summit IPA's.. Good Local Brewed Beer...

Last month Heather e-mailed me about a 50 cent art show sponsored by Soo V.A.C. in Minneapolis.. So I walked on down today and made 30-40 little prints for the the project.

In the front of the space they have an a set of plastic prize vending machines, and even though the selling part is over I decide to leave these with them.. Should I add this to my list of shows that I have participated in? Top of the List... 50 Cent Show....

Their current show is out of this world.. I don't have time to give it fair representation but it is really wonderful to see the likes of Felix Gonzalez Torres and Christian Boltanski during the first stop on my trip..

You may be asking me.. When the hell are you going to start this damn trip? Its the 23rd of august already! Well I'm in Minneapolis.. So it has began..

I left last night at 7 pm and decided that I would go the back route from Iowa City. Every time that I arrived at a major exchange I changed my mind about the route and went from taking the back way to getting on the interstate..(more about that at the highway section)

So I arrived last night and have two or three people to visit here.. I am also going stop at PaRTs Gallery and the Walker Arts Center. I am staying with my friend Heather Willems, who I met when I went to SPE in Savannah this spring. She is a photographer, I'm going to see if she will let me photograph some of her work so you can see it..

The folks at Chezik Sayers Honda in Iowa City had pity on me and found a way to knocked a few beans off of my repair bill.. In the end though it still bit into the savings that I had anticipated spending on gas.. Nothing to worry about today but how I'll get to Texas I have no idea..

I am sitting at my local Honda dealership waiting to hear the estimate.. I brought my car in yesterday to get looked at before I hit the road and found out that my axles need to be replaced, along with a my front left ball joint.. All I know is that it would be rather dangerous to drive my car 10,000 miles with out getting it fixed

So I sold all of my stuff and I'm about to pour it all back in to the last thing of stuff I own.. I guess I should have sold the car too.. I guess I will be eating ramen noodle packs more than I anticipated.. They should have it fixed today.. So I can still make it to Minneapolis..

So I now have a tent and a camp stove and its starting to feel like I'm already starting to accumulate too much stuff, and I'm just borrowing it. Sasha bought me a flash light at Target (made in the USA) I guess I will need a flashlight..

My first destination will be Minneapolis, I'm going to leave on Wednesday and will be there for a day or two.. I'm going to stop in Madison, WI on the way to Chicago to meet Brandon, who owns my favorite pair of jeans. If he is there.