The economy and the stimulus package

Just about to call it a day in San Marcos, Texas.

It has been significant to meet so many people on this trip who have lost their jobs in the last couple of years. Most often when someone mentions that they've been laid off, others standing around chime in with their own similar stories. Definitely a lot of people who seem to take a bit of solace in sharing a common, difficult experience. Can't say that I've seen so much of that in Canada.

Today we stopped in at the Peterbilt truck plant in Denton, Texas. It was very cool to see these impressive machines come together from scratch. I haven't spent anytime in Windsor or Oshawa, so in a way, being around the well lit, loud assembly line felt like a very American experience. At the risk of getting predictable, it made me think of another Alabama song:

"Hello Detroit, auto workers, let me thank you for your time.

You work a 40 hour week for a living, just to send it on down the line."

The plant can pump out as many as 150 trucks a day with two shifts going around the clock. That's when the market demands it. Right now they're building about 60 a day. One of the plant supervisors who hosted us told me that things are looking up. Demand for Peterbilt freight-haulers is on the rise. That's a good sign for people in Denton and likely for the people we've met all over the country who have lost their jobs. That same plant supervisor figures trucking should be one of the first sectors to feel hints of recovery. As soon as people and businesses start getting busy again, goods need to get moving.

And what about the stimulus package? It turns out that Alex Debogorski is delivering it on a daily basis. Often when he poses for a picture with someone he waits to see if they're smiling as widely as they should be. If the grin doesn't cut the mustard, he gives them his tailor made "stimulus package." He tickles them. It's a sweet gesture and just about always gets people laughing, which shows up in beaming photos.

Jay, Alex and I stopped in to the French Quarter diner in Temple, Texas, off I-35 for dinner. It's a little road side shack with heaps of natural character. Also really, really good grub. Afterwards the cooks and wait-staff came out of the kitchen for a group photo shoot with Alex. Eventually the cameras were turned on Jay and I. Alex gave us our first "stimulus package." It worked. Despite being uncomfortably full of road food, we laughed our heads off. And Alex assures us, and others, we won't be taxed on it. Good night.

Loren

If you wanna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band

Hola a todos de Texas. The lone star state is a great, big place. Beautiful, wide-open high plains. Jay and I are attempting to look the part with our new belt buckles.

Alex fits in more naturally. He's a cowboy, of sorts. Down here people wonder where his drawl accent is from. They say he's sometimes hard to understand. I reassure them, in Canada people also wonder where his drawl accent is from and sometimes struggle to understand him.

And after a couple of years of visits, Alex has friends in this neck of the woods. The cowboy hat he's been wearing was a gift a while back from Tammie and Fred out of Fort Worth. We're hoping to cross paths with them while we're here in Texas. Maybe at the Peterbilt truck plant.

Ever since we crossed the border from New Mexico I've had that Alabama song stuck in my head:

"If you wanna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band.
That lead guitar is hot, but not for a Louisiana man.
So rosin up that bow for faded love and lets all dance.
If you wanna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band."

Not sure what that all means to our traveling, non-musical band. But I know that beyond the belt buckles and Alex's hat, we've been missing something. Couldn't put my finger on it. Until we stopped into Shepler's Boots and Jeans.

Alex decided on a pair of boots (s#&t kickers, as I've always heard them called) with leather uppers and ostridge-belly bottoms. Now we're fitting in. Or at least Alex is.

All the best, gang.
Loren

The wild Southwest

Hello from sunny Albuquerque, New Mexico. Just pulled in here after 2 days off the grid around Jamestown, New Mexico. We stayed with Mark Bush, his wife Tina, and their son: Cowboy Zach. What a kind, generous family. They call the 7600 acre "Bass Ranch" home. Tina's family bought the land with winnings from a poker game a couple generations back.

When I say "off the grid" I mean that literally and figuratively. For the last two days, I've been mostly out of cell and computer range so blogging was a stretch. During those two days, I was also getting my boots dusty in the red hills of New Mexico, sleeping under the creepy watchful gaze of a monstrous taxidermy'd elk, and getting out into the fields to shoot Mark's assault rifles and Dirty Harry revolver (44 Magnum). New Mexico is as beautiful and as wild as I had imagined.

Arizona was also beautiful. We made it up to the Grand Canyon and got to peer into that giant hole. But alas, the crack and kick of the 44 Magnum has made everything that happened before it seem like a distant memory. Now having pulled into Albuquerque, I think it's time to dust off my boots, get a latte, go for sushi, and put this cowboy-hillbilly fantasy behind me. But I gotta tell y'all, it ain't gonna be easy. Especially in Texas.

Loren

Veterans/Remembrance day

Hello from chilly Flagstaff, Arizona. We drove here this morning from Phoenix down Veterans' Highway.

I've noticed plenty of times that military people gravitate to Alex and in a way, vice versa. Alex asked a number of times where and when we might be able to sit in on a Veterans Day ceremony, but we came up empty handed. And so we pulled out of Phoenix this morning on the beautiful Black Canyon Highway. About 80 miles out it turned into Veterans Highway. A good day to drive down that road and have some time to think about war and sacrifice and peace.

I asked Alex about his relationship with service men and women and he said there seems to be some mutual admiration and respect. It does seem that a lot of people in uniform come up to Alex and say how much they appreciate the show and that they are impressed by the danger. Maybe one of the only things that makes Alex blush is being told how dangerous his job is by a soldier.

When we pulled into Flagstaff, we sat down for a bite. In the time it took us to eat our lunch the street outside the restaurant filled up with people waving signs and flags. I saw signs that said "We are here for Matt." Turns out "Matt" was 22 year-old Matthew Broehm, who died in Afghanistan on November 4th. His remains arrived home in Flagstaff today, according to a local paper.

So one way or another we had our chance to observe and reflect on November 11th.

Tomorrow we're off on a roundabout trip: to Jamestown, New Mexico, by way of a stop at the southeastern end of the Grand Canyon. Lucky us. Take care, gang.

Loren

Home on the road

Just bunking down in Phoenix after a cannonball run from Los Angeles. Had an absolutely great time in LA. Saw a few familiar faces and sang a rough, but patriotic version of the Tragically Hip's, New Orleans is Sinking, at a karaoke bar in Little Tokyo. Also noticed that there are some incredibly eccentric characters that call California home. However, Alex, wearing his moccasins, cowboy hat and rawhide jacket, still stood out at the hipster lounges in Venice Beach and vegan eateries in Santa Monica. Something to behold, real talk.

We filmed a few cool scenes in LA. Spent plenty of time with Alex's management team which was interesting. He's got a hard talking agent, a young high-energy PR team and a thoughtful lawyer that all look after his affairs. There's also Alex's son/manager/corner-man, Curtis. Add the film crew to the mix and all of a sudden Alex is rolling with a pretty serious entourage.

Probably the highlight of LA was a half planned, half spontaneous meeting of Yellowknife's Hollywood contingent. The plan was for Alex to spend some time with 25 year old Yellowknife-raised actor, Dustin Milligan. Dustin rolled up to the beach in his beautiful old Ford pickup. After Alex gave him a pile of advice on how to get it running better, the two walked about 25 feet down the beach before bumping into Tobias Mehler. Tobias was locking up his bike and taking his surf board down to the water. I say this now, because when the movie is done people are going to call BS on the CHANCE meeting of three Yellowknife-to-Hollywood transplants at the beach in California. But it happened, and it was a complete fluke. Wild.

It was very cool to hear Alex and Dustin chat about the upsides and the downsides of the film and television industry. Also great to hear them long for the north country. And if all that wasn't enough, Dustin now knows that he needs to replace the timing belt on his truck.

Off to bed, got a busy day coming up in Phoenix: morning TV show, event at a truck-stop, an event at a bookstore, and then another cannonball run to Flagstaff. Good night all.

Loren

Rat Rod

Up early in Los Angeles. We're on our way to KTLA for a live TV interview. Sorry for the quiet week. We spent most if it in Vegas. I can see why people call it Lost Wages, Nirvana.

We were there for the SEMA Show - a huge specialty auto exhibit. A hundred-thousand so called gear heads turned out to show off their cars and specialty parts and services. That's a lot of gear heads. There were thousands of cars. Lamborghinis, old-school muscle, even Bentleys dressed up as taxi cabs. It was a good look at car culture down here.

Alex was in his element, hanging around with other car lovers. Jay Leno was there, who apparently owns about 100 cars. Alex tells me he has around 140. Although I think only a few of them still turn over (Alex guesses about 20). The rest are yard decorations back home in Yellowknife. Alex's son, Curtis, calls them junk. Alex disputes that and calls them collectibles. I've seen the yard, it's hard not to agree with Curtis.

With Alex's collection of beaters, it's no surprise which car was his favourite at the show. There was an absolutely hideous looking, gnarly old station wagon parked in the middle of a sea of polished-up show cars. The wagon's owner called it a rat rod. A hot rod engine in a rat of a car. It would not have looked out of place as one of Alex's "collectibles" out in the yard.

Ok, off to Sunset Boulevard. Have a good one.

Loren

The Red Giant

Greetings from spectacular Las Vegas.

We got in later than we expected last night because of an unplanned tour stop in Salt Lake City, Utah. The compressor on the Red Giant started acting up so we had to pull off onto the thin shoulder of the humming interstate. The truck's driver and owner, Bryan Dax, spent three hours crawling around underneath and eventually resolved whatever ailed it. While he worked under the truck, his feet stuck out the side just far enough that I was worried they'd go the way of oh so many deer and skunk we've seen on highway 80 west and now 15 south.

That three hours on the side of the highway (in front of a big jail) was plenty of time for all kinds of people to stop. We had a visit from a local trucker who thought the breakdown was actually pretty lucky because without it he and Alex wouldn't have met. Prison guards, motorcycle riders, and a bunch of others either pulled-over or hopped the fence to make sure we were alright and had all the tools we needed. Everyone of those kind souls was rewarded with a bookmark and a couple of signed information brochures for Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories. It was a good stop. And it was good to get going again once the truck was sorted out.

A number of people have asked about the truck, so Jay and I put together a sort of "MTV Cribs" tour of the big machine. I'll let driver/owner Bryan Dax take it away...
Loren