Roadtrip ‘99 part 7: Meeting Weird Al
I am publishing the first draft of my world travels as I write it, starting at a solo road trip from Minnesota. Here is the previous post. If you would like to start at the beginning go here.
When I first began planning my road trip I quickly realized that the possibilities were wide open. Wide Open! I could drive anywhere to ANY destination! Was it going to be Washington state? Florida? I was on a quest to find the good in America, the community and small town living. I was determined to find trust again. I didn’t think about the Grand Canyon or National Parks or the major destinations. This was about meeting people and finding tucked away communities. I didn’t want tourist traps. I didn’t want to be where everyone else wanted to be.
I remember standing around my room and just sort of looking around at my stuff, looking for ideas. Realizing I was going to be leaving my bedroom for a while. I would be gone at least 2 months but up to 4. Wherever the wind took me. My plan was to be open and guided, to start in a direction and figure it out as I went. My route quickly got lined up by the friends I planned to visit in other states. Clarification: The few friends I had that weren’t from The Church. I had attended 3 summer camps and 5 Feast of Tabernacles where I made connections with people my age from all over the world and kept up an extensive pen pal list. They were now out of my life now that I had chosen to remain out of The Church when my parents had left 3 years ago.
What I saw on my shelf was a statue of Weird Al that I had made 2 years ago in high school. The wonderful thing about the Arts High School is they kept studio access open till 10 pm every night. I pretty much lived in the school my senior year. I had so many side projects to work on. I built my parents a chess set for their anniversary, painted a mural, made paper mache masks for a play, and one night, when I just wanted to play, I made a little statue of Weird Al Yankonvic.
I was missing home. The thing about my family, and I assumed this is for every Minnesota family, we grew up with Weird Al. We could sing most of his parodies, Mom would buy his latest cassette tape when we went to town and we would all listen to the new music in the minivan together, trying to guess what the parodies were going to be, laughing at the polka montages. You know, The Night Santa went Crazy, Yoda, Rice Rice Baby, the classics. Weird Al is also a fun and quirky character to make out of clay. So that’s what I did one dark night in the ceramic studio, with a couple other artists, listening to the local alternative rock station, Rev 95.
I went through all the work of glazing and firing this 8 in tall statue. I thought it was pretty lame to make a piece of art of some random star. I didn’t personally have a use for a Weird Al statue. Even though I was thinking of mom and her favorite song while I made it (One More Minute), I didn’t want to subject her to having to keep this statue around because her child had made it. It wasn’t exactly high brow art, It’s Weird Al clutching his chest with bugged out eyes and a gaping wide mouth while blood runs down his Hawaiian shirt to his feet and under his foot is a little anatomical heart. It’s from the final line of the song:
I’d rather rip my heart right out of my rib cage with my bare hands and throw it on the floor and stomp on it till I die, than spend one more minute with you.”
“I’ll meet Weird Al one day and give this to him.” I told myself. And then I sat it on my bookshelf where it stayed for 2 years.
When I was looking around my room for ideas of what direction to start driving I saw that statue and my road trip goals adjusted. This is where I get to meet Weird Al! I did some internetting. At one point I thought I found his home address in Florida. Maybe I would have to just show up at his house but then I thought to check for a tour. It turns out he was beginning his Running with Scissors tour that summer. If I headed West, our paths would intersect in Boise, Idaho.
Now here I was, finding a campground in Parma, Idaho a short drive from Boise. I was several days early for the concert but now I would have a chance to settle in and make some money. Somehow.
I don’t know if I would really call where I stayed a “campground.” It was more like a small playground on the side of the road with another side road behind it. There was a grassy area for tents and I think there was a box to put in money for camping? I’m not sure. There was a bathroom. That was important.
The next couple days were uncertain. I didn’t have a destination but I didn’t know what to do with my day. Driving cost money and precious gas. Also, the valve adjustment on my bug was coming due. I was getting stingy on how many miles I wanted to put on it. I asked at a motel, I heard about a truck stop, I put in an application somewhere. It’s kind of hard to find work for a week. I was willing to stay longer if someone would just agree to pay me.
Saturday I hung out at the playground, reading my Bible, “keeping Sabbath”. I finished the New Testament that weekend and marked the accomplishment in my travel calendar. I met people, talked, played with kids on the playground. I cooked up the very last of my rice and potatoes and a bullion cube. My one grocery run in North Dakota had lasted me nearly a month.
One visitor that I talked to for quite awhile gave me a big bottle of Dr. Pepper! I was thrilled. This was a luxury I had not splurged on for myself since beginning my trip. But drinking all that pop. Side Note: in Minnesota, soda is called “pop.” I have adapted since I left the state and I say “soda” today, but now that I’m telling my story, I’m going back to my roots (pronounced like soot, by the way). That night I woke up and needed to use the bathroom at 11:00 pm, which was not a common issue for me at that age, only to find out that they lock the bathrooms at night! This was a well lit park, roads on both sides, empty spaces. There was not much of any place to go, I was in a lit area. A young woman, pulled up as I stood along the road, trying to figure which direction to walk for some privacy. I asked her about close places to find bathrooms. She offered me a ride and we drove down the road to the gas station but that was also closed, so we back tracked to the motel that I had asked about work. I had to ring at the office. The man that came to answer the bell, the same one I had talked to about work, was kind enough to let me use a bathroom.
At the motel Sammy’s boyfriend pulled up. I think this is one of those Saturday night cruising things that I had heard about as a teenager but had never been a part of. He was with another friend and they invited me to hang out with the 3 of them, to…tailgate? I didn’t know what was happening. I went along. I think this is what cool people do. We went out into the fields, the guys had a couple beers, it was a lifted red pickup at least 10 years old, with over-sized dirt wheels. Jim, the boyfriend and truck owner, was really proud of it. The guy I talked to the most was a solid rancher/farmer type of guy, Russ. He had a bit of a beard. He was super sweet and we talked music. It turns out we liked the same music and had been to the same concerts, up till then I had only seen Wallflowers and Sugar Ray. I was shocked. I thought I was in Country Music country. I felt like I was in a country music video, under the stars, standing in the bed of a beat up pickup. Russ told me there was a place that showed drive-in movies. I’ve never been to a drive-in movie. He asked if I was interested in going.
Sunday morning I hadn’t figured out what to do yet. Two days in town had gotten me nothing. I had sent out my prayer asking for work. I was reviewing what I had already tried and trying to brainstorm more ideas to put into action on Monday. I tried to relax. Pretty early in the day, people came and decorated the pavilion; streamers, balloons and signs with “79” on them. I perked up at this activity. I was born in 1979. This was definitely my sign. I knew someone at this celebration would lead me to work opportunities.
So I swung on the swing sets while a group of about 30 grilled and socialized. The party was well under way when several children approached me. “Will you play with us?” They asked. Sure! So we played. Then someone saw us playing together and came to visit. Then they invited me to have a grilled burger. Then they introduced me to a table so I could tell more people of my travels. This was a 20 year high school reunion for the class of ’79. I sat at the picnic table, eating my first full meal since Sweet Home, telling my story of driving from Minnesota, of getting to stay in Holden Village, of looking for work, I may have left out the part about waiting to meet Weird Al. And one of the party goers said, “Oh, would you like to come with me to Labor Ready? It’s a ‘work today, get paid today’ employment office.”
The party gave me all the leftovers I could handle without a cooler. I ate a lot of potato salad for supper that night and had more pop.
On Monday I was up bright and early to go to Labor Ready with my new friend. He came early to wake me up since I had no alarm. He said we needed to be there by 6:00 to be on the list of people sent out that day. He was a heavyset guy, between work, making ends meet with this slightly-more-than-minimum-wage job.
Labor Ready has you apply, sign up, sit in a lobby with rows of chairs,wait for businesses to call and ask for workers to fill in for the day. They have construction jobs for men and cleaning jobs for women. I got sent out to a giant hotel, Shilo Inn in Boise and got to learn housekeeping.
Ugliness
There was a cleaning checklist, the supplies to stock, check the coffee maker, get out all the hair in the bathtub, etc. They were insanely shorthanded. I was offered a permanent job as soon as I arrived. I was partnered with an experienced employee to show me the ropes. She was nice enough but she would stop at every room and list off everything we needed to do and check on, even though it was the exact same list for every room and it was already written down.
I watched her move and talk in wonder because I was repulsed by her looks and I felt this terrible guilt for feeling the way I did about her. Her hair was stringy, her clothes clung to her the wrong way. I felt so bad, does she realize that there are people out there that are this judgmental of her? I thought I was a nice and sweet person, and yet I had to remind myself that she is God’s creation and someone to be loved as they are. I had so much work to do on my character. If I can’t think nice thoughts about a stranger, how am I ever going to be able to fully and unconditionally love someone else? Someone that I know all their real faults?
Not only did I find her terribly ugly but she talked non-stop about her boyfriend. Who is this guy that dates this girl??? I wondered, not only that, they were living together. It gave me pause. Maybe my looks weren’t my problem. It’s a bummer to sink back into my mindset of my 20s. I had this ideal of what a beautiful and stunning woman should look like and that body type was not mine. “Dainty” was always in my description of a “good woman” and here I had grown up wrestling my little brothers in the country side, running barefoot through muddy fields. I didn’t care about fashion trends or name brands. I saw my attitude as a failure. I didn’t try hard enough, didn’t wear makeup, wasn’t skinny enough, I didn’t want to wear pastel. I didn’t have Barbie legs. I should weigh 112. That was the number I had given myself and I was usually 40 lbs over that. If this girl could find love, the way she was, maybe there could be someone out there for everyone. It wasn’t exactly a moment of self acceptance for me but I did get a slight adjustment in my outlook. If I do my best and try my best to change everything I don’t like about myself, it will be enough and I’ll be ok. I saw a hope for my future as I pushed around a cleaning cart.
That day I made $33! I’m rich! Labor Ready gives you a check, there’s an ATM at the center, it takes $2 or something for processing the check and you get your cash in hand. I was thrilled. I could definitely do this for a few days. Also, once you work at a place they can request you back and you don’t have to wait in line. Shilo Inn had me come back and I could start at the time they wanted me to, 7:00. No early waiting.
Suzanne
The best part about working at Shilo Inn was meeting Suzanne. She was a beautiful African young woman, small and petite and very pregnant. I loved her accent and her eyes were big and striking set against the neutral colored hijab she wore. She didn’t smile much, she just worked hard and we talked about life dreams and how her and her husband had come over here to start a new life. They were both young. I wish I had written down her story. She had family she hadn’t seen in awhile, their country was under conflict. I told her how I wanted to travel the world and she told me to go see her relatives that had moved somewhere safer. She invited me to come stay with her. I didn’t think she was serious at first and then I felt like I was taking advantage, isn’t she the one in my country needing help and refuge? But I was so curious to learn about Africa.
She showed me how she cooked. I don’t know how to spell the food we had but it sounds like Oo-gawl-lee and Chew-pot-ee. One was a salty soup made from sardines and then she would make a bread dough out of jiffy boxed bread mix. She would steam or boil the bread dough. I couldn’t quite tell, but she would make the dough on the stove. The finished bread felt like a soft dough, and we would take a piece of that, pinch off a chunk, make a divot in the little chunk with a thumb, pinch that and then use it like a little dough scoop to scoop up the sardine soup. The soup did not look appetizing with all of the little fish staring at you with their dead eyes but it was delicious. I did my best to help her while she was pregnant. We did laundry together, I washed up, one time she came home from the grocery store and realized she had bought grapefruit thinking they were oranges. So I walked 40 min. to the grocery store and bought a giant bag of oranges.
We visited friends of hers and I drew the children. They were ecstatic and laughed especially when the youngest wouldn’t sit still for his pose so I made a cartoon of him and made him cross eyed.
Parma: The kindest place in America
As I stayed out at the campground, exposed to the road side, almost daily I had someone that would come and talk to me, ask about my trip. I think it helps to have the coolest car ever. One day, I was sitting out and a cop car pulled up. I looked around at my campsite, thinking through the campground rules. Was I in trouble? He brought over a plastic bag from Dominos. “The city of Parma would like to welcome you to the neighborhood,” He said, and gave me a pepperoni pizza and a coke. It was the strangest thing. We talked for a bit. I was trying to understand where this came from. Whose idea was this? Who instigated this? And why a cop? But I was practicing being grateful instead of skeptical so I accepted the gift and didn’t ask too many questions. I picked the off the pepperoni and ate the cheese pizza.
The next day a Mexican man came and talked to me. He had a semi truck that he would park near the park. He had come here, worked hard, learned to drive semi, saved up and bought his own semi and now he contracted to haul produce day in and day out. You would think it was potatoes he was hauling but I thought it was something else. Maybe sugar beets. He would get up at 4 in the morning to be one of the first trucks in line to get filled up at a field then he would drive the load to the processing place. He was paid per truck load and there was a lot of competition. An early start meant less waiting in line and more opportunities for a trip. He invited me to sleep in his truck while it wasn’t in use. I got a nice comfy bed that night. The only downside is he woke me up at about 3:30 in the morning to warm up his truck and head out. We sat and talked about having life dreams and doing what it takes to work towards our goals. He had such a practical life plan. He even offered me a trailer house. He had bought one to live in, another to rent out. One of his trailer houses needed to be fixed up and cleaned. He was willing to let me stay there if I did the work to fix it up.
I could suddenly see another life possibility. I could just stay here in Parma. If I was looking to start a new life, this community was ready to bring me in and accept me. There was a job at the hotel, here was a place to live. Everything would work out. What would a quiet life in Parma, Idaho be like? I could probably be content. I felt so comforted and protected and it gave me hope for women that have had to run away from bad situations. Maybe a community opened up and helped them too. Maybe people do reach out and care for each other.
Boise State Fair: The Big Day
I had driven out to where Weird Al was going to be in concert. He was playing in the grandstands at the state fair. I was ready with a “plan”. I had painted my gift box like a Hawaiian shirt, I arrived early, an hour before the fair even opened, and I went and sat at the bleachers and waited. Again, I had no ticket, it would just work out. I didn’t know how but I was here and I was ready.
People came and went, it was quiet at the bleachers. People were setting up the stage, laying out lots of cords. I don’t know how long I sat there. Awhile. I was content, I was excited about this bizarre day. Eventually, I saw a woman come into the area. She had on a red tshirt and a lanyard with a an official looking pass. She started waiting.
I watched her for awhile. This was definitely a good sign. She was waiting for something but she probably knew what she was waiting for. Me, on the other hand, had no idea. So, why don’t I go and wait with her? I thought. So I went and introduced myself. Kind of awkwardly, “Hey, I saw you waiting over here, I’m waiting to meet Weird Al, are you waiting for someone?” She was a bit confused but she was friendly and I went through to explain my big long story — I’m great at long stories-and how I was now waiting at the state fair to meet Weird Al. It turns out, she used to be their travel agent, she was in town for a meeting that got cancelled so she thought she would come by and say hello to her friends. She said she would put in a good word for me.
Sometime later a large man came by, she went and greeted him, they had a good talk. I sat by myself trying to mind my own business. They both approached me a little while later. “So would you like to see Weird Al?” He asked. “Yes!” I said. “Would you like backstage passes?” He asked. “Yes!” I said trying to keep my cool. “Ok, be back here by 6:00.” He said. And then he introduced himself as the drummer.
And that was that.
We sat in the bleachers, waiting some more. I wasn’t sure why but I was not going to get in the way of how this day was going. It was still quiet in the bleachers. One or two people came and sat but security ran them off. Susan with her giant lanyard and tag looked like she belonged. Even though her pass was something unrelated for work. “Wear these,” she told me, shaking her lanyard and official looking pass, “you’ll look more official and you get around a lot more places.” Noted.
Eventually, a golf cart drove up and a young slim guy dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, basic sneakers, and hair like Weird Al hopped out. I mean, it looked like Weird Al but he had just gotten rid of his glasses and he wouldn’t actually just be out in public right now, would he? Maybe it was a lookalike. But then he got on stage, grabbed the main mike and started singing. They started going through songs. He started walking around the stage, behind speakers, on the ground. I am watching Weird Al’s sound check! Then I watched him come up the aisle to our bleachers. He walked right up to us. Every step he took I screamed “No way!” in my head and then he said hi, started talking to Susan.
I know there are some people out there reading this whole story that couldn’t care less about Weird Al. But it’s not that is was him. It’s that I was sitting here and a couple years ago I had said the weirdest idea, the weirdest goal and here it was, now, right in front of me, crossed off my list. Who would ever have thought I would be in Idaho saying hi to Weird Al? Who would have ever thought I had planned this? Bonus, he is one of the few celebrities I wanted to meet. When that moment happened I realized that anything is possible.
He talked, I focused really hard on my eyes not being too big. Then I told him the story of going to the Arts High School and making my sentimental statue but I did’t have much use for it and perhaps he would appreciate it more. He complimented my work, said it was really good, said he would put it on his mantle. We took some pictures together. I asked him if his hair was naturally curly and we talked about having wild naturally curly hair. He let me touch his hair. Then he asked if I’d like to come to the after party. I froze. This is too much! I think I told him I was too young to drink. Really though, I was afraid to find out what he was really like. He can’t be this decent and nice and fun of a person, right? Don’t all rock stars do cocaine? I just couldn’t bare the thought of witnessing my beloved Weird Al snorting cocaine. I chose to remain in ignorance. Also, I didn’t want him getting in trouble to have someone under 21 at a party. What happens at an after party anyways? He didn’t push it, so either he was just being polite, he realized his error of inviting an under 21 year old to an after party and was grateful that I declined, or I had missed out on one amazing opportunity. Twenty years later I wish I had accepted the invite. Maybe partying with Weird Al can be a new goal but back then my brain could only imagine the worst: Cocaine →alcohol → rape. Everything leads to rape after dark.
With Susan I shared my ecstatic freak out self. It was all her! “I am your slave for the rest of the day,” I said to her. “Whatever you need! I have a car.” Guess what, she needed a ride to her hotel. We reminisced about the VW Bug. It turns out it was her first car. She even showed me a trick with the handle, how you can lock it without using the key.
VW Bug Trick: hold the lever in on the door handle, press down the lock button. Close the door while you continue to hold the lever of the door handle.
Now I could hide my keys in the car and still lock my car. If I left the little side windows ajar I could reach my arm in and unlock my car. I was always worried about losing my keys when I was away from my car.
The concert came and went, it was great, it was my first time seeing Weird Al live and he puts on an excellent show. I got to wait in line backstage with a crowd of fans, got several things signed including my sketchbook. I had also bought a T-shirt for him to sign. At least 6 people brought him a little burlap sack of potatoes. It must be a souvenir thing for Idahoans. For those non-Americans, Idaho’s claim to fame is potatoes.
Friday is my day to phone home. That day my whole family was on the phone. I started relaying my week play-by-play but my little brother interrupted me immediately, “Who cares about the rest of that. Did you get to meet Weird Al?!”
My family had heard my plans from the beginning. All my driving and route taking had been in working out my timing to make it to the concert in Boise. My brother would check in, “Is this the week you meet Weird Al?”
When I told him it had happened he freaked out as much as I had. I told you, Weird Al is a family obsession. “That is the coolest thing you have ever done!” Ben was exclaiming. “That is the coolest thing you have done your whole trip! You could come home right now and it would still be the coolest road trip ever! You can not beat that.”
Oh really?
See, that sounded like a challenge. There is something I haven’t mentioned about Parma. Something I hadn’t mentioned to my family.
Every day that I was in Parma I drove by several billboards and signs with the same advertisement: Skydive Idaho.
Next. part 8: I try to outdo meeting Weird Al.(keep reading)
Rachael Shores is posting her travel story to encourage those that don’t fit in, to explore the world and their inner desires. Your path can be different than the standard options layed out for us. Follow current travel,art, and life on Instagram @sparrowshand.
Do you know 2 people who could use a spark of adventure? Please share.