DownerMan Revival
Stash Roadway
by Alek Grabinski - alek@best.com
I like maps. In particular, I like roadmaps. I like the fact that
there's this lacework of asphalt and concrete and signage thatsuperimposes
over the natural landscape, and that we are only a few feet away from
this network, out the front door and onto the driveway and boom, off
we go - I don't care what some upcountry coot says, you can getthere
from here. If the map has Point A and Point B on it, then the hyphen
is a matter of choosing the course.
I look a short trip to Pennsylvania this week - just a quick drop in,
fly to Philly, drive to Allentown, be a cog in the industrial machinery
(do my part to keep the global economy roaring, make Mr Greenspan happy,
all that crap), drive back, and fly back home. Well, flying's cheating,
as far as this example goes; just like Olympic race-walking, the
challenge is in keeping continuous contact with Mother Earth. And
as I was driving down - uh, Route 9? 476? Whatever the toll road
between the Lehigh Valley and I-95 is (I swear, the reason why the
British lost the Revolutionary War is that their maps were two years
old and the colonists had gone and changed all the road names) -
driving one of those econoboxes you thought nobody made anymore (the
automotive equivalent of the straight-to-video movie) - and listening
to Phish play a half-hour 'Stash' from Orlando, Nov'95, I realizedthis:
I am not the first human to drive down this specific road, listening
to Stash. In fact, I am probably not the first human to drive down
this particular stretch of road listening to Stash - or, from the
road's perspective, the road below me has heard, and knows, among other
sounds, the phrase, "Smegma dogmatagram." The road knows to clap, three
fast ones in a row, when Trey plays that little motif. The road, like
countless dying cars before mine, like the impending snow storm,
like your annoying tour partner, has been exhorted, "Please don't do
that!" The road says to other roads, "Yeah, I heard my first
Stash an hour after they first played it, some travelers had the
tape and were returning on me from the debut show, and while I
really couldn't hear it while it was being played live (hard for
me to get through the door to the venue, you see, though I could
hear the notes that spilled into the street), I can hear it clearly
now, and I predict Big Things!" (like some people, some roads are
prone to Pomp and Grandeur - can I hear a groan for 'Roda' Barrett?).
Stretches of asphalt all over the countryside beseech the sky, Was itfor
this my life I sought? ....
So take that lacework of roads, flash it up on the wall. Draw all
the roads in thin gray lines. For each segment of roadway which has
heard Stash, color that road a thin vermillion (not that it'snecessarily
a synesthetic experience, but Stash implies royal and velvety colors
to me, maroon, deep purple - the colors of the yanked tunic, the
bathtub-gin-drinking jester's cap). Thicken each line for each
time the road has heard the song; work patiently across your city, your
state, the entire country, over the oceans to other lands. Stand backand
admire your cartographic achievement. With a song like Stash, the map
of America is all color - maybe a few thin gray lines remain in a few
places, but mostly a nice orangy red, very dense in the Northeast, down
every small lane and wide highway. That lovely stretch of wooded
countryside in central PA hums with color. That spur to
Limestone belies a pilgrimage by tens of thousands. The depth of coloris
sparse in the Southwest - mostly down the interstates, in some
places in short segments (notwithstanding what Mr Plant says, while
the road indeed goes on forever, the song doesn't remain the same,
and so a once-only-traveled road has a short segment of 'Stash-road',
bracketed by the previous and next songs). Little-known songs,
or not-often-heard ones, generate maps with curious features,
mostly pale gray with little bunches of color. This dense web in
Secaucus? H.R. Puffenstuff, delivering pizza and listening to hisNov'92
show where they did Buffalo Bill on a lark. That thick blob on
I-40 west of Albuquerque? That's where Jethro Dirtsurfer's VW van
broke down and he listened to Glide over... and over... and over...
just glad to be alive.
So next time you get behind the wheel, ask yourself: Can I get
there on the Stash roadway network? What will I teach the road today?
DM
comments?
Alek is a kind nurterer in corporate America, though he tries to define
himself by his life, not his work. "Music is the best." - FZ
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