INVERSE VANDALISM

As many of you may know, Willie Nelson penned the song "The City of New Orleans", which is a train that runs from New Orleans to Chicago. I'm currently aboard the "The Sunset Limited" which is its East/West counterpart. It travels from Florida to California. (Don't know the exact cities, though.) Anyways, It's great.
It’s sad to realize that one of the last vestiges of romantic travel are slipping into the chilly depths of forgotten glory. How easily we forget trains. In our hurried existence, these invaluable giants have all but disappeared. Sure, we’ll always need them to haul chemicals and food from one city to the next, but as a form of travel, they have fallen to the wayside. I rode my first train the other day from New Orleans to Beaumont, TX where my family was convening for Thanksgiving.
Today, as I sit at the Amtrak “station” in Beaumont, I feel overcome with grief. (There is no station here. It's a dead end street with burnt out cars and a bench.) Within the next year or two Amtrak will be shut down and one of the most inspiring and affordable means of transportation will be shut down and buried. There are many benefits that people overlook. For instance, it only took 2 minutes online to get really cheap roundtrip tickets. ($70) If I had driven, I would have spent way more on gas not to mention paying the high psychic price of dodging idiots, waiting at stoplights, and falling asleep after being hypnotized by yellow and white lines for hours. When I got to the station, I was on the train in five minutes. There were no lines, and I didn’t have to get my rectum fingered by a rent-a-cop. There were no drop out FBI wannabies lurking in the wings to rifle through my personal belongings. I simply walked on, put my bags up, and brought my guitar/notebook/camera combo to the viewing section where a comfy couch awaited me. There was an outlet for my cell phone/laptop and a bar on the deck below serving up gin and tonics just for me. Life is good on a train.
I’m going back a few days now to that ride: “I’m in the dining lounge enjoying the view and sipping on a beer. We’re rollin’ through Morgan City and I’m chatting with John, a 66 year old retiree. The deeply incised lines in the old black man’s face tell a story that I wish I had time to hear. He saw my guitar and asked me to play him a song. I politely declined and asked if he had headphones. I pulled out my laptop and played him the first song I’d written upon returning to New Orleans. Tears welled up in his eyes as he listened. “Now that’s sumthin.” he trickled. He thanked me and I shared with him some chewing tobacco. Broke down cars and trailers littered the side of the railway. This is the real America.
I’m settling into a zone now as the gentle swaying of the train takes me away from everything. I feel that a song lies ahead somewhere along the tracks. I just need to catch it. I feel more at home here than anywhere else. There’s a comfort in moving, of leaving the present behind and crossing into a new world every minute of every mile. In every ragged town on the tracks we chug through, there’s a grubby little boy or girl on a porch jumping and waving at the “people” train. They are oblivious to the less than perfect world around them. I smile and wave back every time. And here comes the song....

powered by ODEO Out by the Tracks - mp3
I hope everyone had a joyous Thanksgiving! Well, those that celebrate it.... I'm really sick, but I stayed up late to record one more song. I'll end on a positive note. Here's the one I wrote on the way home... It was a great ride. Man! I'm gonna have to re-record these. They sound horrible. Peace!

powered by ODEO The Sunset Limited - mp3