What It Is..._

 I"M BACK!!

Singer, song writer: Jeremy Miller.

        I made 13 states in two months. Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, to Missouri, and back to Denver Colorado.

Hung out a thumb and braced my self for a little thrill ride. Spread my music to any damn bar strip, street corner, bus stop, coffee shop, house party, and bar that I could. Working on getting the whole story down. Because like a wise ol'newyorker hippie dude told my along the way "Any experience that is note worthy, good or bad, is a worthwhile experience." (etwowheels) who i just found out past over in Aug, rest in peace my friend, and may God be with you, Damn good man! I haven’t been able to do much work on my sellaband site. It was killing me. When I started this damn thing I went from 4438th to 499 in a week. Oh well. I said it before I'll say it again. I'll work harder for my music then most people do working a full time job.  I love this music. I have 11-35 on a demo I recorded at Spirit West Studios in Salt Lake. I have enough songs for two more albums no fillers every song is part of me. I  Played the local seen for a bit. It was allot of fun. Mostly just open mics and street corners

        Even though we were having the time of our lives, we were both horable with money. Ended up serving are lease (by the power of forces unknown to myself, let alone try to explain.) Anyway it left us with two bus tickets down to Austin TX. The live music capitol of the world, right? Good times. Right? Should have been. Kelli’s mom lived outside of Austin TX about a two hour bus ride to down town. Kind of a shit f’n hill country full of weird shit. But we were there to hit the music seen and to visit her mother and her step father.  And we end up splitting

 Lost the love of my life. But nuf said! Cause its nuzzyabuisnes. :). And I'm not that kind of dude. We will always be great friends.

       Ended up taking a bag of sit. Hit the streets of Austin.  A pockets full of dirt. Broke, hungry, and a bit confused. Had to leave my guitar because at the time Austin was having an f'n monsoon. 

       I rolled around downtown for a few hours on a bike. Just rolling shit over and over in my head.  Then the rain came. I knew that I had to find some kind of shelter for the night.  I thought about this place down about 75 yards from the statue of Mr. Stevie Ray Vaughn. It was a good spot because there was a jogging trail. The City filled two tables full of ice water every morning.  I ended up meeting this cool old deadhead there that night. I think his name was Jerry. He had a home but this guy stayed up with me talking until 6:00 in the morning. Which was awesome because it was the first day I've been alone in my whole life. We talked about nothing. He kept me laughing all night. Gave me an apple. It was a damn fine apple. Last thing I would eat for 3 days.

        I pulled a few extra shirts over myself and tied my bag and the bike to my belt and got an hour of sleep. It rained all night. Most of the morning I just sat there thinking about shit.............. I really love that girl... 

        I'm hundreds of miles from any one that I know. I left about 150 phone numbers for my people at her moms. I don’t even have a $ for the call anyway.  The only people that I met the whole time on 6th st were from Dallas. We had only gone downtown three times.

        I remember just wishing I had my guitar. Money grows on tree and strings my friends. I stayed on the streets of Austin for three says. Most of the time tring to find a shelter, a food bank, or a soup kitchen.  There's been a few times in my life that I have found myself kicken it on the street. and it's usually alright if ou can just find a few basic places to go for food and water.  

     Down town Austin is filled with people on the street beging every passer bye for a bit of spare change. I've never been a person to beg for change so that was out of the question at that time. I was getting pretty hungry by the second day. I decided to hang a cardboad sign on the freeway offramp. It read: BROKEN HEART. STRANDED IN AUSIN. NEED TO GET HOME. ANYTHING HELPS! GOD BLESS!!  I stood at the side of the freeway for about 1 min.  Thats when the reality of what had happend realy kicked in. I started crying. Imagine a grown man standing at the side of the offramp in tears. I had to get out of there. It started to rain pretty hard anyway. 

     I ran into a guy standing under a tree trying to use it for an umbrella from the rain. I could tell that he had been living on the street for a while. I asked him if he knew of a soup kitchen or a church close by that served food. He told me about a kitchen that was two blocks east of where I hung my sign. I walked up there and it was closed for the day. But the door said that they opened in the morning at 11 oclock. I got there about an hour after they stoped serving. Damn. I turned to leave and noticed a library. Thank God. I could finally get on to a computer and try and get ahold of someone. Pluse the fact that it was raining and i could keep dry for a bit. I had about an hour wait to get to a computer. I started looking at books on Egypt, and one about Free masonry. I loged onto the computer wrote and email to Kelly and checked my myspace. My frien Jeff had left his phone number in my inbox. Finally I could get ahold of someone. I didn't have change for the phone at the time but it was comforting to know that as soon as I did I could talk to a friend.

     I went back to my sleeping spot to wait out the rain but it never did quite let up. I had the strangest feeling to go back to 6th street. So I did. I was walking east when I ran into a guy holding a back pack. Just had one of those feelings so I aproched him asked his name and asked where he was from. His name was Jeff and he had just flew in from Olympia Washinton. He expalined that he flew to Austin so he could hitch hike to the Rainbow Gathering Nationals in Arkansas. I was thinking about going myself at the time and had a dream about doing so before I left Salt Lake City. Asked him what he was doing for the night. He told me that the ride that was to pick him up from the airport was halucinating for the night so he decided to take a cab down to hit 6th street and do some drinking. I told him about a bar called the library that had $1 beers. He asked me if I wanted a beer. We walked in and the bar tender asked me where my lady was. I talked to him for a bit about what was going on. 

     We decided that we wanted to hear some live music. If you have never been on 6th St in Austin its a great place to party. Any given night of the week the streets are filled with people and live music.

     We decided on a Blues bar Joe Hell and the roosters were playing old Stevie Ray Vaughn tunes. We got the whole bar dancing. The music was perfect.

      We were the only people in that bar that got everyone up and dancing. We closed down the bar. And on this kind of emtey stomach the beer was kicken my ass. Jeffs  ride was still no where to be found so I told him about the spot that I was staying and told him he was welcome to pull up some rock hard bed if he wanted. So we stumbled to the gazebo and talked for a while and passed the fuck out.

     We woke up in the morning hungry and broke.  And all I could think about was that soup kitchen so we made our way across downtown. Got there and ofcoarse it had to be closed for the fourth of July. FUCK!!!! We walked back across town towords the river. I really needed to clean up so I went into a Taco Bell to wash up in the sink and change into something clean. <br />Walked out of the Bell and I sat down to roll a cigarette. The smell of food was killing me.  Then out of the blue it hit us both. What the fuck were we doing in Austin? Jeff said “dude why don’t we just hitch to the gathering right now. All I could think of was the kitchens at the Rainbow. All you can eat if you know how to work. 

     The Gathering starts on the fourth of July but usually runs for a few weeks afterwords depending on how many people show up and how many people stay for clean-up. (Everyone should stay for clean up!! TILL ITS ALL DONE!!) It was the fourth but we figured that we could make it in two days.  Jeff had just $2.50 in his pocket just enough to get us on the bus and to the northern outskirts of Austin. We both had a bag of close we both didn’t want to walk around in the rain anymore and we were both hungry. So fuck it! We walked back to downtown looked at a bus map and planed our escape from Austin.  <br />It took three busses and walking about a half mile of walking to get to the top of Austin. We wrote out our sign on a piece of cardboard and found our spot along side of the interstate acess road.The first sign read simply Dallas.  We walked about another half mile up the road and sat on the side of a guard rail. With a big shit eating grin and thumb high in the air.

     My feet were purple from the wet black leather of my sandel/shoes from being wet for three days. I never took them off when I was sleeping on the streets, because I didn’t want some dude to steel them.  We sat there for about an hour. Neither one of us was the kind of person that could sit still for very long so we started walking.   The following are posts I made along the way on my sellaband site.  <br />         <br /> <br />        <br /> <br />Posted: Wednesday July 18 22:30:38 GMT 2007 <br /> <br />I started a bit late to the gathering I didn't leave Austin Texas until the 4th of July. Hitch hiking with Jeff, a guy I had met on the 3rd. And started our journey out of Texas on the fourth. Jeff had $2.50. It was enough to get us on the bus to hit the northern part of town were we thought it would be easier to hitch. We had to walk about 10 miles out of Austin before we got our first ride. A man had two cross tattoos on his neck.  He drove a gray truck so we trew our shit the the back and jumped in. He was an old school tweeker looking dude. He gave us a ride about 60 miles and dropped us off in the middle of Texas Chainsaw massacre territory. At the only Truck stops for miles. The truck stop was small as hell. There was one semi in the back.  He gave us some money to get something to eat (Thanx Cross) we sat out front making our new signs. That’s when Jeff wrote the sign that would get us to the Gathering. I have one min left on this library computer but stay posted to my sell band site and I'll finish the story in the next few days. PEACE!!!! <br />Posted: Sunday July 22 21:08:19 GMT 2007 <br />We bought a sandwitch to share a candy bar and a bag of chilli cheese fretoes. Left the gas station and ended up walking down the frontage road that runs parallel with the freeway through Texas. We walked along the road for about three to five miles.  We decided to hitch from the interstate on ramps because it was getting late and we needed a ride. It started getting dark. And mind you the day we started to hitch was July 4th. And in Texas you can see for miles and as soon as it gets dark enough the fireworks start going off for miles. It was picture perfect. July forth my independence day. Breaking free from Austin broken hearted in Iand lost the love of my life 3 days earlier, Independence Day!!. Jeff and I decide that we will have a better chance walking down the freeway. Semi trucks and cars whizzing by at 70 to 80 miles an hour. And still fireworks in the distance. It was about 10:30 and I had pulled out my umbrella to get attention but realized that people dot really pick you up when you have a blunt object in your hands. I was putting my umbrella back in my backpack when some one finally pulled over. Her name Was L.A (for the sake of privacy). Blonde, HOT, and  COOL AS FUNK! This chick had some balls to pick two hippies off the side of the freeway in the dark. But you could tell in the first few min she could defiantly take care of her own. We got into the car introduced ourselves. Then she asked where we were headed. “The Rainbow Gathering" she’s all” Do you guys do mushrooms? And we were like hella. She had just picked up a bit in Austin for the people that she knew in Waco. Said that she didn’t even eat mushrooms and she needed a few test subjects. It aint bad being a guiney pig sometimes. She was actually one of the downest chicks that I have come accros for a while. She bumped the R$B the whole way. We stoped at a gass station along the way to get gas, a pack of American spirits, and she broke us off a brown bag of mushrooms. She had some cheerleader beers in the back seat (bacardi wine coolers)  and we all had a round. Bacardi orange I think. We talked about life for a bit and then I started to barley feel the effects. By that time we hit the heart of the north side of Waco.

     She dropped us at the Wal-Mart at the end of town. And said "sorry to do this to you because the cops in this town suck. She gave me her number (yeah!) and offered a ride back to Austin when I came back from the Gathering.<br />   So we had a decision to make. Find a park trip out for the night or continue our journey north towards Dallas. Then they hit. Like a tone of bricks. Just walk north. And it seemed the whole way as long as we could walk towards our goal life was a piece of cake. Some how during the whole trip we couldn’t help but keep on the direction of our destination. So we continued north walking the frontage road once again. Fireworks all around people everywhere. With there simple lives and the simple minds celebrating their forth of July with family and loved ones. And then there’s us. Tripping balls to the walls, laughing our silly little asses off at the top of our lungs. We walked out of Waco. Both decided that we probley shouldn't get a ride any time soon. <br />Then just as the frontage road was about to end we were walking around in circles in the middle of the night in the middle of the intersection. And out of nowhere the deep woods Texas Christian pulls up. Had the same voice and accent as Kells step dad“and all I hear is”You boys need a ride?" I was schrooming, my heart was in a jumped, because I honestly thought for a  sec “ oh my god he wants me out of Texas so bad he’s come all this way to make sure. (I HATE YOU!!) But it wasn’t. This guy was the complete opposite of that prick. Going out of his way to help someone out. This guy was a good man! And GOD YOU BETTER BLESS HIM WITH A BETTER LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!

     We both get into the back of the car. We thanked him for the ride and he said, "I'm always willing to help anyone out as long as you believe in Jesus."  The driver starts right in on asking about how we feel about Jesus. The mushrooms have hit both of our heads to the full peaking extent. Now what you should understand is I walk in faith every day of my life. And I'm not scared to have a conversation about religion with anyone. I  love God I talk to God every single day of my life!  I don’t claim to be one thing or another but I have spent a good part of my life researching all different sects and or belifes.<br />The Driver was a good man. He was well in his 50’s and just now going back to school. Lost his job that he had for many years, And he just knew that all the good that he  had doon in his life would assure him a better place (God bless you!)  And he had a level head. He lived a hard life. I wish him all the best. But it was kind of hard having this kind of conversation in the mind frame I was in. Plus the fact I have Jeff making all sort of faces and comments under his breath is was hard to keep any kind of focus.

     I love to talk to people, hear there story. I study people its been the biggest hobby of my life. We stopped by this crazy little ghost town that Willie nelson is building next to his bio diesel plant. It wasn’t open yet and it was the only thing on the exit. Then the guy goes completely out of his way to take us about 30 miles to a town called Italy. He was night blind and swerved all over the road. The shrooms were kicking in and we both thought that we would die.

       As soon as we pull off the free way you can see it. The starship Pegasus!!! “ What the hell is that!” I remember screaming and  laughing at the top of my lungs? Ya so get this there is this old restaurant and some guy that played on the Dallas Cowboys built in the but funk of Texas that looks like the starship enterprise from star trek. What a place to be dropped off. We sat there and stared forever thinking” How in the hell did we end up here? It was perfect. We needed to find the keys!  I’m sure that we both had the dilitheum chrystals ahhhh times up I'll finish in the next town. PEACE JEREMY

So we are trying to find the keys to the spaceship walk into this crazy gas station. And it’s like something out of fear and loathing in Las Vegas.<br /> "We just walked here for Austin" we tried to explain. The sweet ol lady’s took us literaly serious we had to explain to them that we were hitching to Arkansas on two dollars and fifty cents. So they started giving us all the free food. We had to stop them from giving us all sorts of shit. It was nuts because they kept on talking and talking.  Collest walk into the gas station not knowing anyone experence of my life. So we had to run out of there for a bit back to the starship Pegasus to finish out our mushroom trip.  Ther ewas a minni golf cource in the back. And a weird rocket looking shed to the east.

      We had to go back to the gas staion to ask, "WHAT THE FUNK IS THAT SHIT F'KING STARSHIP PERGASES ACROSS THE PARKING LOT?!!! Times up I'm hitching to Tulsa OK today then prob to Denver for a show I have booked for tomorrow in Salt Lake City.

So we are both sitting outside the gas station in Italy Texas. Talking to the ol lady of the store about organic VS conventional. She had anxioty for her entire life. And finally she went to a nutritionist and they told her that her specific problem had to do with what kind of things that she was eating.  It’s about three in the morning. We both decide that we don’t want to get to Dallas from Italy to early in the morning. There is nothing but f’n crack heads walking the streets at that time. So we ask the gas station lady’s if it’s ok if we just chill outside the station until morning. So about this time our mushrooms have completely wore down and we are just sitting there talking about nothing waiting for the sun to come up. <br />It sucked because there was construction on the freeway on ramps and they had concrete barriers on both sides of the road. The only was of walking out of Italy was on top of the walls and we would probley die doing it. So we had to try to find a ride from someone going that way from the station.

     About 4:30 I see a car exiting from the interstate with a head light out. And for some reason I had a feeling that we were going to meet who ever was driving. He pulled up to the pumps and got out and asked "how far is it to Dallas from here?" It was only about 50 miles. We still didn't know if it was close enough to day light so we didn't end up asking for a ride. He went on to explain that he was returning from Austin after a night of drinking. You could smell it on his breath. He said that he got pulled over by state troopers 3 times already for the broken head light and they had all let him go. You could tell he was a good kid. He told us that he was having a real hard time staying awake and asked us if we would like to cruse with him to Dallas and help keep him awake. So of course we agreed. He had just broke things off with his girl as well so we got into a deep conversation about chicks.

     We got into Dallas around 6:00 he dropped us off at this 24 hr Colombian coffee shop and was on his way to work at the Starbuck coffee shop that he managed after being up all night. Good place to be working in that kind of situation if you ask me. We sat at the coffee shop telling our story to the employees up until that point. They ended up giving up all you can drink coffee for free. At this point we still didn’t have directions to the Rainbow Gathering yet so I asked on of the kids if there was a library close to where we were. He gave me direction to one about 4 miles northeast of the coffee shop. We decided that we would leave from there and make the hike through Dallas find out what time it opened and maybe get something to eat in the meantime.

     The sun was starting to come up. And then the damn bugs hit. I don’t usually get bothered by mosqitos (sorry bad at spelling) but these things were EVIL. Jeff was getting hit left and right by swarms of these things. You couldn't stop walking for a second. I had to pull out one of my tee shirts and swing it continuously in front of both of us and they still were going crazy Damn time is up I'll finish when I can PEACE JEREMY. Just got into Denver. Ended up hitching from Tulsa into Topeka Kansas and then to Kansas City Missori.

     We made our way about 4 miles into Dallas and finally found the library. We figured that it would open around 10:00 so we went to find a store that we could finally get something to eat. Jeff had a state assistance card that he thought would have a bit of money on it. So we trekked on thru the swarming bugs and found a store. WE were starving! We had hitched all night without any sleep and were surviving of pastries we got in Italy TX. We picked something small and went to the register. No money on the card! AHH. So we made our way back to the Library. The whole time Jeff is swatting bugs off his legs and face. They just would not leave him alone. We got to the Library and of course with my luck the only day this place was closed was on Wed. what kind of a library closes on a Wed. So by this time we are getting a little frustrated by the whole Dallas seen. The bugs the humidity the crack heads. We just wanted out. So we try to make our way to what we thought was the right way. Walking about 3-4 miles back towards the direction that we came. All we really knew at the time is that we wanted to make our way to interstate 30 because we knew that it went into Arkansas.

     We couldn't even stop for a bus because if you did we got surrounded by mosquitoes. So we just pushed on. We made our way to a pharmacy that was open and took a break from the outside and to look at a map and maybe find some direction to where we needed to go from there. Damn times up. So we are trying to make our way along. And we spot a star bucks. I think WiFi. Go in thee is one person with a laptop. We ask him to look up the welcome home site so we can get directions to the gathering. No dice Starf-cks is now charging for WiFi.

     We walk a few miles more thru town and we finally spot the Subway system for Dallas. So we hit up the station a few blocks from where we are. We are looking at the bus system maps and we see that there is an express bus that runs out of Dallas about 20 miles out of town on Interstate 30. So our spirits are lifted a bit. If we can get that far out of Dallas it won’t be hard at all to get a ride into Arkansas. But we also then realize that we are on the wrong side of town to hit the 30. We had figured that the interstate would run north out of town. But the damn thing runs right out of down town. We were on the north side. The messed up thing about Dallas busses is that the prices change depending on what bus you’re taking. That real dumb if you ask me. Also the transfers that you get on one bus might not be good on another. Duh to you Dallas Duh to you.

     We had $3.00 just enough to get us on the tracks (one way) back to downtown. For or a bit we both thought about just hoping on because the express bus we wanted to take cost $4.00. But we decided to do the right thing and get the tix for the subway. As we were waiting this man walked up. He didn't seem like a bum but you could tell he wasn't very well off at all and maybe not all there. He walked right up to us and said "My friends told me to give this to you" He handed us three dollars. We looked at each other and both looked to the sky to thank God. He said that he was sorry that he didn't have more and to return the favor to someone someday. Started to walk off and felt in his shirt pocket and pulled out one more dollar and said "that will do it for you guys" There was no way that this guy could have known that we needed $4.00 to get the express. He then handed us an 8 % malt beer he had just got. And then walk to the other side of the track to catch the northbound train. We were both in shock. It seemed that every time we got to our last buck or two some how we were given exactly what we needed time and time again. We never asked a single person for money the whole trip. It just came. (Thank you again God) SO we hit up the tracks and headed to downtown Dallas. We got off on the last train stop. We walked around for a bit until we ran into a guy out of nowhere that knew the town that we needed to get to. He explained that we had to get back on the subway go back to where we came from and find a way outside of Dallas on interstate 75 to hit the 40 that runs to Arkansas from Oklahoma. So much wasted time in Dallas. I'll prob never go back to that town innless I'm forced. So we got onto the train again headed as far as it would take us north. Finally we got out of that hellish hole. Times up again. But hey at least we are getting to the good parts :0) PEACE JEREMY

     As we are on the Subway going to the north side of Dallas, the tired starts to kick in! We had hitched from Austin to where we were now all night anad had not slept. And with the help of the mushrooms we were able to stay awake this long. As soon as we come up from the sub-level, you could just hear the rain hitting the train. I opened my eyes to see the storm. At this point we wanted as far away from Dallas as we could get. So we decided screw the storm we are pressing forward.<br />   We wrapped our bags as tight as we could in plastic bags open the umbrella and pushed on. The interstate was only a few blocks from the top of the train station. <br />   As soon as we hit the frontage road to the interstate we knew that this was going to be bad.  The road had already filled with water. And with every passing car was a huge wave, sometimes 6-9 ft high. But by this time we were so sick of the bugs it seemed more like a blessing. With every wave we pushed on with a smile. <br />   My feet had been wet for 4 days strait and they were starting to feel it. Water blisters. Feels like hell.  Almost like walking on glass. WE continued to make our way north on the 75 walking for what seemed like forever. Finally someone pulled over. We got in and asked how far he was headed. <br />“About a block or two" <br />   Shitty! But every block counted right now. So I was very grateful. <br />   He dropped us a few blocks away. We decided to grab a bite to eat with the last of our money at a Taco shop.  As we walked in we could hear everyone talking. We were soaked to the bone. <br /><br />Posted: Monday August 13 19:23:34 GMT 2007 <br /> <br />We stood in the Taco shop by the front door out of respect and tried to drip a bit of the water from ourselves before trucking it into the store. We had around four bucks between us. Got a few tacos and sat outside trying to wait until the rain stopped before going further north. No dice! The rain was relentless. This guy that was in the taco shop overheard us talking to some people about what we were doing and why. Before we left he went to his truck and grabbed us another umbrella. (God bless) We stopped by a gas station to change into some dry close. Not that it would help much in the rain but I think that we both felt a bit better for a bit while feeling dry. After that the gas station people let us fill up two coffees for free and we headed to the Interstate once again. WE started down the road.  By this time we were both so f'n tired from hitching the whole night before we just kind of stumbled around on the side of the road. We walked through about two Cities. We were going through a town called Allen when we decided to walk off the frontage road and start walking down the side of the interstate. Took the cops about 15 min to show up. One a guy who had been a cop for years, the other a goddamn rookie. So the rookie starts in on a million? S trying to tell us that he is taking us to jail. The older cop just shook his head and smiled behind his back. He asked if he could search our bags. Thank God we were rolling clean at this time because this guy seemed like he was out for blood.  Our bags were so stuffed full of shit he just started to dump them in the rain. What a prick!! But we came back clean. Our bags and our IDs. Which was nerve racking because both of us had a few warrants from the States we lived in? They told us that their town was about the only one that didn’t let hitchers on the road. We asked him how for to the next town? <br />He said “About 60 ft north."<br />That sucked if we would have kept on walking instead of trying to hang a sign we never would have had to deal with that prick.<br />So from then on out we both decided that we would try and find out the hitching laws in every town before we walked onto the Interstate.<br />WE walked out of Allen to the next town. Walked down the off ramp and found the first cop that we could. Knocked on his window and asked him whats what on the hitchen laws in his town. He just shrugged his shoulders and said they had none. But that it was a good Idea to hitch from the on ramps. So we went to the first gas station we could, asked permission to hitch from there parking lot. Hung a sign for about 30 min. Our sing read much love and kindness to Arkansas. Damn out of time!! See you next part! JEREMY

     A short emo kid about 21 walked up to us to read the sign and ask where we were headed. To the Rainbow we explained. He said that he had herd of the Gathering and always wanted to go. His girlfriend had been to one national. So the dude tried to convice his lady to give us all a ride up to Fallsville. She said she had to work but she would get us out of Texas. What a relief although I meet so many great people in the state of Texas I couldn't wait to get out. I'll finish later. Thanks for taking the time to read this story. 6 more states to go. PEACE!! JEREMY

THE PREQUIL CAN STILL BE SEEN ON THIS MYSPACE LINK

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