The Daytona Beach Cubs minor league baseball team won the Sunshine State championship in 2008. I was there for most of the home games. Specifically, “Thirsty Thursdays”, which I had circled on my refrigerator calendar. Three-dollar quarts of Bud or Bud Lite served in giant clear cups that I would slurp down while shouting degrading comments at strangers with no recourse.
To me, heckling is both an art and a science; minor league baseball is my favorite game to “participate” in. The sport has profound moments of silence and tension, which I liked to capitalize on with light psychological warfare to boost my team’s chances. I, like a gaunt Polish version of Athena, create an edge for the heroes to claim victory.
There is a process for success. I would make sure to grab a program that had the teams’ rosters inside. This list included the players' full names, numbers, statistics, and hometowns. This was a good time to mentally highlight things like who had the lowest batting average. I also wouldn't just provide an onslaught of mind fucking into the opposing teams' souls, I would also flatter and encourage my team, with positive reinforcement: hands on both sides of the scale. Finally, I'd never use profanity, because it's a family event, and there are children there for fuck’s sake.
I’d focus on the battle between the pitcher and the batter in baseball. It is important to be loud and accurate because everyone within about one hundred twenty feet can hear you, most importantly, the pitcher and batter. After a couple of giant beers, for confidence, “Oh wow, tiny Billy Johnson from Middleton. One-forty-seven! You have the batting average of a future used car salesman. So, are there any sports that you are good at? You’re about to get smoked again, chump! Let’s go, Cubs!” Billy, who is twice my size, would hear it; the teams would hear it; the crowd would hear it; and then they all laughed at Billy. Billy would hear them laughing at him, all of which made hitting a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball that much more difficult. So we won, I ate a Totino's, and passed out with my clothes on.
When I woke up the following day still wearing my Daytona Beach Cubs hat (which was just a regular Chicago Cubs hat with a singular “C” in the center), and my Daytona Beach Cubs armband, which appeared to be a polar bear with knock-off Oakley sunglasses. His baseball cap was reversed with his furry head popping through the red, white, and blue “D” on the front.
It was Friday, August 1st, 2008, at 9:16 AM. I already had a strong feeling that I had missed my flight to go to Lollapalooza in Chicago for three days, even though the plane didn’t depart until 10:45. I was not prepared. I packed and dressed at the same time. I quickly put on grey shorts, a blue shirt over a white undershirt, and my blue Converse All Stars with blue masking tape over the toe where the toe was detaching from the sole.
I stuffed my messenger bag with thirty-two copies of my hand-published poetry book “Her Sea”, my journal, a long-sleeve button-up, a second t-shirt, and leather sandals, For Whom the Bell Tolls (which was a heavy and regrettable decision), my PSP (a portable gaming system), my cellphone, a stack of clear cellulose rolling papers that my friend asked me to pass out as a promotion, a charger, a toothbrush, and deodorant. When I grabbed a long board (skateboard) and got in the car to leave, I had two-thirds of a tank of gas and forty dollars to buy a souvenir for, my friend, Tyson, four dollars (mostly in quarters) because I was completely poor, which itself, was a long story. I then realized I had to leave the forty dollars in my car at the airport to pay for parking when I got back.
I watch my flight depart as I’m checking in at the airport in Jacksonville. Then I had to wait about two hours for the next flight. I listened to music on my phone most of the time, which wasn’t good for the battery. In 2008, phones were still pretty basic, a few yuppie nerds had them to create the mortgage crisis, but it was generally pre-smartphone; I had a juke. I was down to three dollars and change by the time I landed in Chicago with a dead phone, my tickets, and nowhere to stay. Next, I realized I needed to take the light rail from the airport to Grant Park, which could have been a costly mistake. Fortunately, the ticket machines for the train were down, and a full-bodied female Chicago ambassador in an orange vest waved everyone onto the train for free; I gazed into her eyes with absolute reverence. I got off the train about two blocks from Grant Park, where the concert was being held, about 20 minutes later. I was approaching the front of the line with a friendly yet authoritative series of public announcements about what was allowed and not allowed inside the grounds. I began to have serious concerns that I would not be allowed to enter the festival with my skateboard, but the screeners said nothing. It was late in the afternoon, and I had fully missed the Black Keys set at this point. I’d made peace with it. I started walking north towards the second stage.
Against the odds, I saw Jenn’s friend, not Salina, on my way through the crowd. I decided not to tell her and say hi for a couple of reasons. It was not Salina; she looked happy, she was surrounded by men of all shapes and sizes already, and I was not in a dignified situation. I was alone, I had no place to stay, I was low on coin, and they might have invited me to join them out of pure sympathy. Then it would have just come off as a poor, weird, skater-hobo. Who did a phenomenal painting of their friend Salina within twenty-four hours of meeting her, which inevitably came off as strange and uncomfortable for everyone. I decided in a split second to commit to the whole rugged trajectory of the adventure. I watched The Recontours from six-fifteen to seven forty-five and they wholly lived up to expectations. Afterward, I made my way to the main stage where Radiohead was scheduled to play at eight o’clock. The primary reason I had bought tickets to the festival months before was that I was employed.
Since I didn't have any pot, I decided I should post up next to the person I viewed as the most likely candidate to be smoking. I found a shirtless hippie with dreadlocks holding two beers, and I thought this guy was there to party. Unfortunately, we seemed to have the same agenda, except he was more aggressive and greedy. It was an enormous miscalculation on my part. It was dusk when Radiohead started their set, and little grey clouds of smoke rose from the crowd. At the same time, I watched the Bohemian bum darting around like a Komondor with the zoomies to each group smoking. Thirty minutes after the ambient and instrumental songs, the atmosphere was building, but I still had not smoked because of the ruthless hippie. I decided to leave that spot. I turned around and realized I was in the largest sea of people that I’d ever seen. My luck immutably shifted as I left the epicenter radially like a slow-moving free radical. In about forty feet, I had met three groups of people, smoked thrice, and given away all but one pack of the papers Mike gave me. I kept moving until I got next to some trash cans, where there was like a ten-foot buffer that people considered standing too close to the trash cans. So, I found that edge and stayed there the rest of the show, standing on my skateboard in the grass for a couple of extra inches of view. It had gotten dark, Radiohead was starting to play their essentials, and the crowd was loving it.
Fireworks started erupting as they began to play “Fake Plastic Trees,” with the unexpected razzle-dazzle, and I decided to watch the fireworks and listen to the music, and the crowd was singing along. It was the best choice for the situation. Not great for Karaoke, this was a song most often sung in a car with the windows up, in a shower, or in a bedroom alone. Suddenly, it felt like the whole world was singing it in solidarity instead of isolation, bound together like a web, spun by the artists on stage. An explosion of unity that only a band at a concert could bring out in the darkness, and fireworks in the background lighting up the faces that surround you. Knowing that this moment is an imprint with a huge smile on my face. A few moments later, it's all over. My stomach suddenly roared at me. I had some serious problems. I was fucking starving, my phone was dead, I had three dollars, I had I was tired, and I need to lighten my load of books. There was no way I was going to sell thirty-six books in the next twelve hours.
Fortunately, I was already subconsciously in survival mode. Traveling with someone else and traveling by myself are two different animals, the latter being borderline feral. This was about to be a lesson, and I knew it, so I decided to put on a show. I started by following the largest herd of people as they left the festival and subdivided into streams, flooding the street in different directions. I ended up back on Wabash Ave at the L line station where I’d arrived. I was next to a Hilton hotel, a couple of bars, and a convenience store on the corner. I went into the Hilton. My first plan was to pretend I was a late-night courier, which was a common job in a city. I was going to drop my bag off for a guest named Mr. Mikitowicz, fictional future me would be staying with another fictional guest, and present real me wouldn’t know the room or the name it was under, and my phone was dead, so I couldn’t get any more details. I had the equipment for it, I stood at the desk slightly sweaty, with a professional messenger’s bag, a grimy longboard, with my hat backwards, which was an aesthetic touch, being dumb as shit. This didn’t work. I saved face by asking to use one of their outlets to charge my phone, which bought me some time to think about my next move and charge my phone. When my phone turned on, it didn’t help much.
The only person I knew to call in the Windy City was Helen Ledonne. Joe’s divorced mom/MILF, I’d known since middle-school.
When I lived In New York, if I wanted extra money. I could to Central Park for an hour and make twenty to forty dollars selling books to tourists. Anyhow, I failed to turn this skateboard into a “billboard” before this trip. In my haste, I forgot many of the nuances of my own intricate and preconceived plan. One of the keys to selling hand-made poetry books (which was regular sheets of paper folded in half and stapled in the middle) to strangers on the street was having a sign that stated, “Please, Buy My Books!” in large bold black and white print on the bottom of my skateboard that could be placed next to me like a rolling sandwich board and seen fifty feet away. Now at eleven and I had three dollars and change. There were a lot fewer businesses open adjacent to Grant Park than I anticipated. I started frantically cruising the empty streets looking for a Kinkos or FedEx. I found a FedEx shop around eleven-thirty that was open till midnight. I bought a glue stick for ninety-nine cents to qualify myself as a paying customer. I then proceeded to use the bathroom and wash up. Then it was time to make a billboard. I took some blank paper from the printer and used a marker, highlighter, and scissors. I applied the glue to the bottom of the board, then pasted the paper onto a white canvas and cleaned the edges with scissors. Then I used the maker to write, “Please Buy My Book” in block letters with a pronounced outline in yellow highlighter. I also stored two-thirds of my poetry book and For Whom the Bell Tolls in the empty blue cabinet space. I thanked the guy working and then started walking out, telling him I would see him tomorrow. He informed me that they would not be open the next day, so I froze, then surreptitiously walked back inside and grabbed my things from their hiding places, except for the large Hemingway novel.
I was starving, and I needed to start hustling. So, I moved on to my next problem: I was hungry. I skated north to the river and found a McDonald's and ordered two hamburgers. In times of extreme poverty, it is the only time I order my hamburgers with pickles and onions for the extra calories. I asked a group of cute girls there some tourist questions politely. After getting some suggestions of places that would be active, I managed to leave without my cigarettes, which was mildly devastating.
My first location was a full-on dance club. I posted up casually next to the line of people dressed up and drugged up on their way in. It became apparent almost immediately that this was not my target audience. I left the club area after about fifteen minutes and skated back to the rail station on Wabash Ave next to the hotel where I had started. I was thirsty and starting to lose confidence.
Outside of Miller’s Pub next to the L train. There was a large rectangular flower bed with a small ornate metal fence between the yellow daisies and gray concrete. I wedged my skateboard into the fence with the sign facing out. I sat on the ledge and took out my journal and strategically began to write. The finale of my first novel, which, after ten years of work, was due. What made this a strategic decision were two things. First writing is insanely time-consuming, once in the zone, hours pass like you are dreaming, and I had some hours to kill. Secondly, I wanted to be non-threatening. Sitting quietly next to a sign made on the bottom of a skateboard that read: please, buy my book; feverishly writing in a journal sold the look. The curiosity draws the customers in. I was in the zone when the first drunk woman approached me, only ten minutes later. “What’s your book about?” It took me a second to realize what was happening. They were talking to me, I stammered as my voice cracked; my eyes swelled with hope. “It is a short story written in poems,” I said. She smiled, and a minute later, I’d sold two. Suddenly, I had ten dollars, and before I could get up, I sold another; dollars. I immediately grabbed my board and skated down to 7-Eleven. I proudly bought a bottle of Vitamin Water, regular water, and a pack of cigarettes. I strutted back to the flower arrangement and got to work.
By three thirty, I had written about five pages of my last chapter and made forty more dollars. The drunk people dwindled to extinction, and I decided that it was time to close down shop.
The next phase of my plan was to survive until I could get into the concert and get to the area with the public hammocks. I didn’t know exactly when the gates opened, my best guess was that I had about six hours to still kill. Since I was now rich, I decided the best use of my forty dollars was to buy a dime bag and keep writing. I skated back to Grant Park on a mission. First, I skated south for about three blocks along the Michigan Avenue promenade that separated Grant Park from the City like a belt until. I stopped a couple of dudes who were dressed in essentially matching outfits. They were drunk; I gave them my non-incriminating spiel. They were enthusiastic about my mission; however, they did not have any leads. I skated north back from where I started on the main sidewalk, which was at least twenty feet wide. A gentleman ran across Michigan Avenue from Grant Park, which was pacified in a traffic context by the hour of the morning. He introduced himself as only Charlie. I gave Charlie my spiel, he was also enthusiastic about my mission. However, couldn’t help me with any leads. He changed the subject by saying, “Check this out!” Suddenly, he started beat-boxing extremely well. It reminded me of a cross between Heavy D and Michael Winslow from the Police Academy movies. By the time the frat brothers got here, just as he broke out into this magnum opus, which has the final level n Super Mario Bros. Around this time, two gentlemen caught my eye walking in our direction from the north. I approached them respectfully, “Forgive me for interrupting, but do either of you gentlemen know anything about weed?”
“I know everything about weed. What you need, homie?”
I bought ten dollars' worth. I walked back with Charlie and our friends with weed. We all celebrated, and I rolled a spliff with my last pack of cellulose papers, and we smoked it, passing the spliff around. We were all pretty stoned after about ten minutes, it was a little before five. We saluted each other and parted ways. I skated south and followed the paths that weren’t blocked off. There was a monument of staggered ornate concrete with a statue on top of it. I felt rejuvenated, I sat on my skateboard, wrote, smoked, wrote some more, and finished the conclusion of my first novel as the sun rose on day two of the Lollapalooza. There are certain sunrises in your life that you’ll never forget; for me, that was one of them.
I skated to a closer McDonald's and got a few breakfast sandwiches, a breakfast burrito, and an orange juice. This was before I started drinking coffee. I was feeling grateful and generous, and the burrito to the downtrodden woman who held the door for me on my way in.
I skated to the entrance gate of the festival and became the third person in line. I spent about an hour sketching the news van outside the front gate, then fell asleep sitting upright of which I have intensive training. At ten thirty, the sound system was activated. Again, I was a little concerned because I kept announcing that skateboards were not allowed in the event. In my mind, I constructed an argument that my longboard was not a skateboard, and thus not the same, but nobody bothered me. I dashed across the empty park to get to the free hammock section on the east side between the north and south stages. I was the first one there. I’d picked a hammock, laid my board on the ground facing up with the sign and a couple of the books lying on top. I changed my shirt, put my sandals on then passed out.
The sun was warm and diffused as it shone through the branches of the trees. The soft, sweet voice of a young woman woke me up. Her curiosity was so strong, and they woke me up. I woke up again thirty minutes later to the same thing, like déjà vu. I decided to get up and get some food. In the vendor section, I realized that it was also the best place to sell books, because its location had the most foot traffic from people moving through the area to the different stages. I picked a comfy spot and posted my board for the next several hours.
By dusk, I had one hundred twenty dollars. I packed up for the last time of the trip and bought a beer. Then went over to where Wilco was going to play. On the north-west side of the stage. It was significantly less crowded, and I sat on the grass, which suited me fine. This was the most victorious moment I had felt on the trip. After them, I made my way to see Nine Inch Nails, but the crowd looked larger and more hardcore than the night before, so much so that worming my way to a good spot seemed dangerous. I watched the start of their set from afar as I made my way out. decided to get a head start on the night. I went and got a beer at Miller’s, but at 7 dollars I knew immediately that trying to get drunk was a poor decision. I skated for a few blocks and found a less fancy hotel with a lobby. This time, I walked right in like I was a guest there. I found a map of the hotel that showed me directions to the laundry facility and charged my phone. I washed and dried a set of clothes, had some snacks from the vending machine, and like a writer, I started writing this story. I then left and skated by the locations from the previous night, but I felt they had lost some of the magic, and I had a hundred and ten dollars, so I’d lost my appetite for the hustle. I went to the park and continued to write. Around four in the morning, I decided to officially quit while I was ahead. I was supposed to be there till Monday, but it seemed unreasonable to be a hobo for three days. I was down to about ten books, and after that, I had little to offer. I got on a train to the airport around five in the morning, and picked up an actual printed version of The Onion, which I read cover to cover and kept as a souvenir. I headed to the airport, got there early, pretended it was an emergency, and they let me change my flight to the first available, which was only an hour to wait. I landed in Jacksonville the next day around noon, paid for the parking, and drove back to Daytona Beach.
On my way home, I contacted Joe Blaze so I could pick up a small sack of weed. Got home, smoked, took a shower, then skated down to my local bar, Redtails, where I proceeded to zone out, sipping beer, trying to wrap my mind around the past seventy-two hours.