After having been gone for most of February and all of March I arrived back in Denver two weeks ago in need of a place to live. My eight boxes of assorted clothes, books, records and movies were in storage at my friend Patrick’s warehouse, and seeing as there were already two other people renting space from him I said why not. I’m sure that the hopeless romanticism associated with warehouse living will probably soon come to pass as I approach the end of my late twenties in the next few years and so perhaps this occasion will be my only chance to live in the oddest of spaces.
The former Pride Electric Company, which went bankrupt in 2004, is situated almost directly off the interchange of I-25 and I-70, the two major North South and East West Highways that meet in Denver. Globeville, as this area of town is known, also includes the small communities on the eastern side of 25 just off Washington Ave. When industry was booming in Denver post World War II there was a smelting factory just north up Washington that spewed pollutants into the Denver air, unregulated for years. Once the factory closed down it was discovered that the homes in this area had become highly contaminated with a myriad of bad stuff that had been falling from the sky. I don’t live on that side of the highway.
My new roommates include the musician Eric Bachmann. You should probably know his band Crooked Fingers. They’re on MERGE Records, a small true indie label that incidentally also happens to be home to Spoon and the Arcade Fire among others. His mere presence in the warehouse increases the appeal of my warehouse living experience, although he is currently away producing a record for a friend. There are occasionally packages in the front lobby from his other record label, Saddle Creek (yeah, he’s a Saddle Creek solo artist too). I’d like to think to myself that he’s receiving super top secret transmissions from Conor Oberst regarding either the state of the Omaha underground music scene or highly classified and rare Bright Eyes recordings. I mean I know that they aren’t but its kind of nice to imagine.
On the western side of Globeville are the railroad tracks that technically separate my part of the ghetto from the Highlands. As I was driving back from my studio today to the warehouse I noticed, an out of place man walking down a dead end street that dead ends at those tracks. He was wearing a heavy jacket and shouldering a knapsack, the old fashioned kind. He was trying to blend in but without any other foot traffic or cars in the area he was hard to miss. The nervousness of his pose and glances as he cross Fox Ave in my rear view made me wonder if he was hopping freight. Then about 15 minutes later as I was headed downtown to meet my friend for dinner and a movie I noticed a few other random individuals scattered about through the industrial void that exists along Park Ave between 25 and the ballpark. The train tracks also run right along the Platte River through there and then it occurred to me that all these guys were hopping freight and a train must have just come in. They were all walking away from the vicinity of the rail yard, hands jammed in pockets, heads down, looking their best to look like they belonged there, ducking in and out of holes in the chain link that hides the rails from the rest of the gentry.
Last night at the Hi-Dive, where my friends Elin and Audrey were playing, I ran into the Denver photographer, Gary Isaacs. Gary is a creative and visual force and as we met for the first time he asked me if I’d like to join him on some street walking missions around the city. He suggested that I film his encounters with random people as he tries to convince them to let him take their photograph. I eagerly said yes. I stumbled through my conversation with him and felt like an idiot for not fully being able to express my knowledge of film and photographs like I wanted to be able to. He’s taken photographs of everyone from Garrison Keillor to Mikhail Gorbachev.
Over the course of the past few weeks, as I left Sausalito and headed down to sunnier parts in Southern California, I began writing down some adventures that I’d like to embark on. While the idea of a Greyhound Bus adventure coast to coast does sound nice I’ll have to admit that there is a small fear of the claustrophobia of being stuck next to the recent parole who’s headed to Sandusky to scare up rent money by selling his body. Greyhound has its charms but its unpredictable makes it totally out of my control. So I proposed to my friend Brian that I hop in a van with him and Bon Iver on his summer/fall tour for two weeks. I’ll take photographs and shoot super 8mm. We will shower in truck stops, share one hotel room a night, and drink like fish. Nothing makes me smile more than the thought of driving around the country at the end of summer when the nights are short and the days are long. I’m hoping that they say yes.
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