Seven rises and we drink coffee amidst the garbage and the flies. He takes a stroll in his chair with Baby and returns with two bedraggled baby dolls, one white, one black. This place is like the town dump. Any concern that we might have gotten busted by the cops for illegal camping last night now seems an absurdity. Who in their right mind would choose to sleep here? It was dark and we were tired. Poor Coulson.

Tex crawls up from the edge of the Yellowstone, his bedroll over his head. We're 140 miles out of Bozeman, today's destination we're we hope to intersect that town's Sweet Pea Festival and visit my good friend Maggie for the weekend. Then Sunday it'll be on to Missoula and straight up to Lolo hot springs on the 12. Monday we'll hit Wallace, Idaho, the setting for the film Dante's Peak, then move on west, perhaps as far as Joseph, OR, the tiny supposedly-Bisbee-esque town in the far northeastern corner of the state. We'll see.

According to the Ice Cream Man From Hell, we're already there.

Boozeman

Nobody knows I exist anymore. I am hidden from the world. I hide out in the last place one would ever think someone could hide, here in the womb of art, in the belly of the monument.

Parade today in Bozeman, Montana. How many parades is that now? Dozens anyway. We were hot, the undisputed tits and ass of an otherwise tame procession of local yokel stuff. Two judges came up to me after the gig and wanted to shake my hand, said Duke was amazing and that they'd given us a rating of ten. So when Tex returned from the local Sweet Pea festival tonight with the news that we hadn't won anything, I knew the shit was rigged. Locals only. Well, fuck em.

When we arrived in town yesterday Duke charged the gates of the festival during set-up time. My idea was to go right to the main vein, to approach whoever was in charge and say, "Here's Duke and IFSM, rolling art at your service and smack in the middle of a western states tour." Well, I found the main vein in the person of one Miss Pat. Handed her the goods, a couple of definite cherries to top off her art festival cake and she didn't get it. "Even the President has to buy a pin," she said of the $7 entry fee. She displayed no interest in having us there on display, no spontaneity. When I said what a shame it was, she merely nodded and smiled the pathetic smile of an heiress denying a bum a quarter. I retreated without a fight. I realized that I'd somehow dropped the ball, that I'd failed to convey the magnitude of our mission and indeed the very real value of that which we were offering her, and not the other way around. To me the Sweet Pea Festival was, is and shall now forever remain a big little nothing in the small town where author Robert Persig lost his marbles. Car art, however, is hugely significant and can only get bigger. And as Seven said, we its forefathers will be remembered.

So this town was pretty much a bust. My Bozeman friend was bummed out and sincerely in need of a good lay. I offered up my services to no avail, and soon found myself feeling like I'd felt offering up our art cars to Commandant Pat, like I was the one asking for something, not offering it. I have to work on that. We all have so much to offer yet so easily get tricked into feeling like we have nothing or not the right thing anyway.

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Last update April 1, 2004