The Break Free Project-Notes From The Flight Deck

The Break Free Project TRAILER UPDATE

2009-02-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

Hello faithful readers,
Work continues on The Break Free Project film. For the latest version of the trailer visit Jeff's YouTube channel
Updates and more blog entries coming shortly!

See you soon ~

BFP The Movie: THE TRAILER!!!

2008-05-31T14:49:00.001-07:00

Jeff here a few months after our epic journey across the country on a blog you all thought was dead and gone. Low and behold we're still here and still crackin'! In case you weren't sure from our previous posts, I was shooting the documentary of our voyage and all the people we'd met and at long last I have a trailer ready for you to see and enjoy and comment and pass on to your influential friends.

If you'd like to check it out in higher quality I have it hosted here at my production "company's" site American Spirit Wolf!

Coming home to Colorado (BFP State #20)

2007-08-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Faithful Ladystalkers-
Please forgive our two week hiatus. Like all good things, The Break Free Project's first survey of small town American innovation, ingenuity and community enrichment came to an end on August 11th with our concert at the Mesa Theater and Club. As Mavi pointed out, it was a complete thrill to share a stage with Crowded Agnes a very cool and promising local band AND with one of our high school musical heroes, Trevor Adams of Jones/Adams Duo. I'm sorry for people who can't see these bands live and psyched that our hometown still possesses such coolness.
Unfortunately/Fortunately, this trip was such a tremendous success and overwhelming learning experience that it's taken me-and I'm sure Julia, Mavi and Jeff-a little bit of time to process everything, to reflect on the wonderful people we now call friends and to put my thoughts in order. Once we arrived in Lafayette Louisiana, our days went into fast forward, there was just so much to learn and try to comprehend. We met people and gathered information at a breakneck pace through Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. I can't wait to share it all with everyone here and in the documentary when it's finished.
It can't be overstated how much we appreciate the people that we met from Philadelphia to Taos, from Boston to Breaux Bridge, Athens, Tuscaloosa, Jackson, New Orleans, Raceland, Baton Rouge, Austin, Taos, Durango and Loma, Colorado. We were overwhelmed by a few common themes as we went from place to place; kindness, altruism, genuine care and stewardship of the land, and caring, open-minded people who are invested in their local communities and working hard to make them more beautiful, productive, livable and healthy in every sense. A trip like ours would convince anyone that this country is in very good hands. Unfortunately for all of us, we did not see the whole story.
It's obvious every time we see strip malls, parking lots, crowded highways, feedlots, urban sprawl and small towns that have entirely vanished that not everyone in our country is able to live their lives in these community enriching ways. It's up to all of us to try to be more like the people that we met, many of whom I'll write more about in the coming weeks.
For now, here are a few pictures of us in the home stretch. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates, profiles of some of the great people we met and information on future Break Free Project odysseys! ~Kate

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

2007-08-20T00:55:00.000-07:00

Here I sit, enjoying the comfort of my childhood room, myspacing my brains out, barely cognizant of the fact that not two weeks ago, I probably had one foot on a bucket full of strained grease, the other on a grease-saturated sand bag, one hand gripping the towl rack of our RV bathroom as I suspended my rear expertly above it's moving target. I'm also barely cognizant of the fact that for the last month people have had nothing but my crampy mug to look at. I don't have any photos to share because my purse was stolen back in Louisiana, but we made it! In short, the Ladyhawke has some repairs in Durango, we've had a fabulous time in GJ: Sukato flew out from NY and rocked the mic like some kind of musical terrorista, we teamed up with heart-throbs of yore, the Jones-Adams Duo. We're now in the process of finding a home for the lovely Ladyhawke, so if anybody has $5-$100,000 to spend, let us know. Hopefully Kate will have some photos for you soon.

Where's my sugarteat?

2007-08-01T16:06:00.000-07:00

Shortly after our radio interview for KTAO in Taos, NM a since-the-80's solar powered radio station, we decided to get some New Mex-Mex for Breakfex. Unfortunately, we had an unwelcomed guest-CRAMPS! I didn't believe in the healing powers of Julia's hands when she worked her magic on a skateboarder's collarbone back in Athens, GA, but I'll be damned if her hot little hands didn't feel good on my woman regions. I still could've used a whiskey.

Here's us on some road outside Big Springs, TX. We changed a filter here because we didn't have any cardboard and we figured noone would be around to scold us for spilling veggie oil on the road. Noone scolded us but several truckfulls of gentlemen cowboys asked if we needed help. Jeff got a shot of us driving into the distance and some guys stopped and were concerned that Jeff was hurt. Jeff said no, but was unable to turn around and acknowledge them because he was
filming.

So then we were merrily, merrily, merrily on our way to Big Springs to check out some wind farms. We found one and drove through the front gate. They had a sign that said you have to sign in at the visitor center, so I hopped out and wrote my name and organization on their clipboard. Most of the other visitors were from GE and the like and had a contact name, but I figured that didn't matter. Fortunately we were able to get some good footage before the turbine police discovered us and told us we were not authorized. I have my suspicions that they heard about us from Exxon in Baton Rouge.

Wind Turbine. Much cooler/larger in real life.

We had a heck of a time finding grease in both Austin and Big Springs. All the grease in Austin was already under contract by biodiesel companies and so we started to get desperate. Much like so many settlers braving the wild frontier before us, we started to see a meal for the Ladyhawke in the most loathsome and rancid of grease barrels. We found two barrels worth that smelled deceptively stomachable behind Hunan Garden of Big Springs but miles and miles of bellyaching from the L.H. let us know that when in doubt, don't fill your flippin gas tank with it!

Since I haven't blogged since Alabama, this blog's all about me! Here's more pictures of ME!
Here's some seriously suspect grease which the Ladyhawke turned her nose us at. It ain't no Cafe' Du Monde.

"go tropical!"

2007-08-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

That was the advice that Jim, a local tattoo artist in Austin, TX told me recently when I asked him where he'd like to live most (this was after he told me that he didn't like where he lived). He had a couple of parrots on his forearms to prove just how serious he was about being in that sort of climate. Jim proceeded to tell me, as he was giving me a tattoo, that he accidentally messed up a client's rose thorns recently because he was distracted by a conversation about a television show. Luckily, I don't watch much TV and was able to harness his concentration in that regard. Shortly thereafter, we did not go tropical, but NW through Texas, stopping in Amarillo, TX for the Cadillac ranch which was incredibly meditative. Pictures attached! Love to all, Julia

Louisiana on the Front Lines

2007-07-27T19:29:00.001-07:00

Things here have been good. We are in Lafayette tonight. The show at 307 went really well and the place was really nice too. Lafayette is interesting because it's apparently much more Cajun, (historically lower-class, more recently-arrived French-Canadian outcasts) and less Creole (like upper-class New Orleans French). We met a guy, Devon, who grew up down on the Bayous south of here and he gave us a tour of Grand Isle and the rest of the swampland. Devon told us that Grand Isle used to be a mile away from the water, but since the Mississippi River was damned in the 50s coastal errosion has brought the Gulf of Mexico within 100 yards of town. Someday, he said, the water will overtake the town.

Then we had dinner with his dad who fixed us a boiled shrimp dinner. It consisted of 20lbs of shrimp and vegetables boiled in a ten gallon pot over an open propane torch in a garage. He stirred it with a wooden boat paddle and it was served straight onto a newspaper-covered folding table. Very authentic and very delicious.

Before that we were in New Orleans and the guy who ran the RV Park we stayed at, Corry, lived in a parish just outside the Ninth Ward. He took us around to see the devastation. At first it didn't look too bad. Most of the houses were still standing in his neighborhood. But then you looked closer and you could see most of the houses were completely vacant, with very few people returning. Every one had an X spray painted on the front of it. Corry told us that the X meant that rescue workers had searched the house for bodies and then there were other marks that meant they had found someone or not, or if they had found pets, etc. Then we drove over to where the levee broke and there were only cement staircases with tall grasses for blocks and blocks. The experience was profound and I hope it transfers over into the film.

All told, Louisiana is, as Kate has said before, the front lines of industry and the economic trade-offs we've made in bringing petrolium into our lives here in this country. Almost everyone here lives off oil money, yet oil has been cause for some of the worst problems the state faces.

How to Lose an ExxonMobil Security Guard in 10 Minutes

2007-07-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

After a long day of driving and touring around Louisiana with our gracious and informative tourguide, Devon, The Break Free Project convinced me that driving to Baton Rouge at midnight would be worth it because we'd get great shots of the oil refineries there. I tried to get a good attitude about it after David, Devon's dad, treated us to a feast of a shrimp boil and veggie-oiled it to the second biggest city in LA.

As we approached the city an hour and a half later, we saw what looked like the Magic Kingdom over the Mississippi. These lights, however, outlines tower after tower of oil refinery engineering. It was a sight to behold. So much so, that we decided we wanted a closer look! Forgetting that it was probably 2:30 AM by that time, we turned down a street that gave us a great shot of the place on either side, only to notice another vehicle with, uh oh, red and blue lights shining like a cop car!

Turns out, we weren't really supposed to be there and we spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how to NOT get our vehicle searched and avoid an interrogation from an "intelligence officer." We quickly discovered, though, that by chumming it up with these hospitable southern security personnel about their families, the oil business, Katrina, and the weather, we were limited to getting our IDs xeroxed and sent on our way with a friendly wave.

I just wish that Mavi caught on camera the main security guy saying "you can't mess with Mother Nature" as the steam poured out from the refinery behind him. Luckily she did manage to catch me asking if she was taking pictures with it (on his behalf), as well as her own response: "Oh no! I'm just looking at the pictures I took today!" This, of course, took place while she held the camera directly at him. Just another day for the Ladyhawke, who consumed that veggie-oil like I consumed Po-Boys for the last week! More from Texas and New Mexico soon!

J.M.

US Highway 90 West

2007-07-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

Jeff, here, riding shotgun as we cruise down the coal black stretch of US Highway 90 West through rural Southern Louisiana at night. The Ladyhawke is bound for Lafayette tonight for our next show tomorrow at a club known as 307.

It’s about 9:30pm right now and we’re running late as usual. This time it was a clogged pre-filter and it hit us at a bad time too. We had just fueled ourselves to the gills on beautiful amber-clear grease from the back of the world-famous Café Du Monde and we expected smooth sailing and the faint smell of beignet-scented exhaust so we set out late in the evening – about seven.

Everything seemed peachy for about an hour when the telltale lethargy of a clogged fuel line overcame the Ladyhawke’s engine. We changed the main filter, as we had always done. No good. Kate poked her head back under the Ladyhawke’s rear end and discovered that the normally clear pre-filter was dark and cloudy. The only problem was we didn’t have a replacement and the stores would all be closed soon.

Frantically calling all the phone numbers my Google Maps would give me, we finally found an O’Reilly Auto Part in Houma, Louisiana and Kate sweet talked the old man that answered into staying open a few minutes later than he normally would. Of course we then realized that Houma is about twenty minutes south of the main highway, so we had to bust our ass to get down there before the old man gave up on us.

All this frustrated me something fierce, but what could we do? All of our pockets feel a little too light after a few nights in the French Quarter so we didn’t want to just run on diesel for the next 120 miles.

The store was open when we got there (thanks, old man). I decided not hide behind the camera this time, so I got under the Ladyhawke myself. Sure enough, there sat the fuel line with it’s clogged pre-filter looking like a garden snake if it had eaten a small rat. It came out easily enough and we popped the new one in. I didn’t even get a face-full of vegetable oil like I’d expected.

By now it was 8:30. I should know by this stage of the tour to expect antics like this every time we set out for a destination in our little grease-powered gordita, but it still gets to me.

Oh well. The air is cool as we barrel down the road and with the tilt and sway of the Ladyhawke as she listens to Clifton Chenier from our boom box and with the blackness of the Louisiana night to keep me company I’m doing just fine.

Cultural Textbook

2007-07-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

We are shocked by just how perfect the Southern states are for the purposes of this documentary and our own enlightenment. We are so glad that we chose to come to the South for the following reasons:
1) The landscapes and the people are beautiful. Traditions and community investment are deep and strong. The people we've met are kind, generous, hospitable, natural storytellers and very interested in the multidimensional health of their communities.

2) People are eager to talk to us and are enthusiastic about where they come from. Diversity is high.

3) Many people here are already way ahead of the curve when it comes to biofuels, vegetable oil conversions and sustainable living. Some of the nations leading experts and best environmental minds are living in the South. As just one example, check out http://www.southerngrease.com/ . This Atlanta company has already done over 1500 veggie oil conversions.

4) Lots of fried food=Lots of GREASE!
5) Hot temperatures= nice thin grease= good viscosity=good veggie oil engine performance

6) Agriculture VS Industry, Agriculture AS Industry, Agriculture AND Industry.
The South, like all regions in the nation, continues to redefine itself based on balancing each economic force. We are seeing oil and gas refineries right next to shrimp boats and sugar cane fields which border Polymer factories. Agriculture IS industry because industrial plants and factories are sharing land and water with agriculture.

With former chef and our hero Joseph Petit who raises his own chickens, veggies, rabbits, herbs etc. etc. the old fashioned way (with tons and tons of hard work and attention rather than pesticides)

There are 100 people...

2007-07-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

When we pulled off into the French Quarter RV resort yesterday for our first night in New Orleans, we were greeted by a Cory Cosse, a 9th Ward-raised, Louisiana-loving, trout-fishing, RV resort-attending, father and grandfather whose friendly smile and personality was detectable immediately. He had survived Hurricane Katrina in St. Bernard's, a port just outside of the New Orleans city proper and agreed to let us document his story of the storm through a personalized tour under one condition upon which WE insisted: that we could take him out to lunch (my recent exception of fish into my usually vegetarian diet could not resist another oyster po' boy).

Jeff filmed his account, so I won't elaborate all that he shared with us in this blog, but I will say this: anyone who can survive being bitten by hundreds of fireants, shivering through hypothermia, and navigating a fishing boat through 160 mph winds and 30 foot tidal crashes AND save upwards of 100 lives and call it "what anyone else would do" is exceptional. Incidentally, New Orleans is the only place he says he'll ever want to live.

And his recommendation of Tony's restaurant in St. Bernard's was just as exceptional. Altogether, just another example of what I love about humanity. And you'd better believe I'm coming back--he promised me a day of fishing.

Jackson MS-Music in the Air

2007-07-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Below are a few pictures of our time in Jackson, Mississippi where we made so many new friends and experienced the unique flavor of the city.

Here's Julia in the studio with our multitalented entrepreneur/musician, youth pastor and new friend, B2wice (aka Juan Wilson) and Wendell, sound engineer extaordinaire.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Jackson and want to thank Juan and our new friends Adam and Jackie Hammack (pictured below with Jeff, Mavi and Julia who gifted us with the DELICIOUS homemade pickles) and EVERYONE at the Rainbow Grocery- especially Jenny, Josh, Daniel, Bart and Charlotte (from Computer CO-OP) who showed us so much kindness

Jeff shows us all why we pay him the big bucks. Gaffer, camera-op, chief cook and bottle washer -not to mention booking agent and google map wizard- We just couldn't do this without Jeff Larson!

Kate and Mavi onstage at the impromtu Rainbow Grocery show
Julia and Kate at The Rainbow Grocery- Jackson MS
Julia and Mavi change a filter...again

Jeff greases the gasket

On the road again

Near Rocky Springs, the abandoned town that Adam showed us.

On the Natchez-Trace Parkway

Thank you Mississippi for the delicious food and the amazing hospitality. We loved Mississippi!

2007-07-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

Spanish moss out the church window

Mavi thinks she's a real jokester with Brandon as they squish a mushroom at the RV park

according the Adam, most of Mississippi is forested

This Blog Needs that Masculine Touch

2007-07-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

Does this apple and cookie platter make me look too girlie?

Hey all,

Jeff here, the documentarian on tour with the Break Free Project girls. I’ve been silent here on the blog until now, but it isn’t out of protest, I’ve just had my hands full. Full of mini-dv tape to be precise. If you are reading this and you live in New York City and you would like to spend hours and hours watching raw footage, most of which is going to be completely boring, and you don’t even want to get paid for it – GIVE ME A CALL. I am going to be up to my neck in footage when I get back and start the Sisyphean task of editing this project.

Enough shop talk! The readers want to know how it is out here on the road. Let me tell you about it.

Jackson roads are giving us a tilt-a-whirl ride, but as long as we don't bottom out too much everything is okay. The Ladyhawke continues to fly with a slight tilt to the right!

Lots of politics in the air down here in Jackson. It seems everywhere you go you see ads for this or that local candidate. I personally like Robert Schuller Smith for Mississippi District Attorney. We met him the other day and he’s a real stand up kind of a guy. Really interested in developing the poorer southern parts of Jackson in Hinds County.

Its fun to live with three girls in extremely close proximity! Surprisingly peaceful. I think I’ve absorbed more estrogen than is healthy for me lately. I’ll be lactating soon if I’m not careful. Either that or all the great food has caught up to me. Look! I’m already talking about how overweight I am. I have been around girls too much.

I’ll hopefully be posting here again sooner rather than latter. Until then I’ve got to start watching some college sports and visiting a nearby gym or whatever it is real dudes do to boost their testosterone levels.

tell me church, where are your citizens?

2007-07-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

After we feasted at the local Rainbow co-op for free (courtesy of an incredibly supportive and friendly staff), the BFP headed out of town for the afternoon with Adam Hammack, a Morrisey-loving, yellowjacket-fearing, Monte-Carlo-driving, soda-pop-prescribing, enthusiastic musician from Jackson who took it upon himself to introduce us to a town called Rocky Springs. As we passed through the thick woods and interspersed corn fields of the Mississippi outskirts on the way to this abandoned town from the 19th century, the BFP was treated to Adam's first album: an electronica interpretive 40 minutes that takes synthesizers and recording technology to its limit through a self-admitted drug-induced musical trip. He mentioned something about peyote, if I recall, but concluded that the synthetic drugs (much like his music) were preferable in his mind. Adam's generosity of spirit and expertise on the area gave us a much better idea about the state. Notably, he told us that Mississippi leads the country in statistics for teen pregnancy, crime, and segregation, but was also careful to mention that it is also the #1 state for charitable contributions per capita--turns out, it truly is "the hospitality state."
(Adam and his lovely wife Jackie)
When we arrived at the abandoned town of Rocky Springs, whose remains include no more than a church, cemetary, and a few artifacts, Adam brought us to a historical recording that described what happened in the area through a Garrison Keillor-esque inquiry to the church itself asking questions of the building like, "tell me church on the hill, where are your citizens? Are they sleeping?" Seeing as how the church could not answer save for standing silently above the recording machine, we decided to go up and take a look around. I think the church would have probably responded with "I don't really care about where the citizens are or if they're sleeping, as long as I'm here to provide a sanctuary to all passersby."

If You Give a Mouse a Benadryl...

2007-07-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

The arrival into Jackson, Mississippi was full of beautiful back country roads, fragrant night air, and stars that appears to pop off of the sky. It was also full of podiatric agitation as the fire ant that had attack my right foot the day before caused my foot to swell well beyond its normal size. Gina Allgood took the role of Dr. Mom the night before, however, giving me three Benadryls: one for that evening, and two more for the next two days. Unfortunately, the romance of the South distracted me and I accidentally wolfed down all three at once! This left me in a strange stupor that made the sunsets we saw driving into MS all the more spectacular, although I was comforted to know that the rest of The Break Free Project found them beautiful as well. Here I am a few days later in Jackson, feeling fully recovered and pleased as punch to be allergen medicine-free.

Action Jackson

2007-07-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

We've made it to Jackson and had some studio time with our Jackson Ambassador, B2wice aka Juan Wilson. The catfish is delicious, Fenians pub open mic was a great time and we've even spoken to the (we're sure he's going to be) future District Attorney, Robert Shuler Smith.

Stay tuned for more pictures and stories from our time in Mississippi!

It's Allgood...

2007-07-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

We were always taught that when someone opens their home to you, that you should take it with grace and gratitude. But what happens when someone not only gives you a place to sleep, coffee every morning, dinners of shrimp and wine, tours of the Bama Theater and countryside, and songs to sing along to on their porch on your last night in town because you've insisted that they continue to entertain you? If you have any ideas, please let us know immediately, or contact David and Gina Allgood. They live in Northport Alabama, and you'll recognize their house by the beautiful porch that winds around the front and side, their backyard oasis full of heirloom tomatoes and beautiful flowers and the grey water drain tank system that David has installed in the backyard that irrigates all this lovliness even in a drought and without wasting water from the city. Thank you David and Gina for your warm hospitality and for showing us the best of Tuscaloosa and this country!

Who Revived the Electric Car?

2007-07-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

Tuscaloosa, Alabama-

James Pearce and his son Johnston know diesels. They have been working with diesel engines for years and after gas prices became prohibitively high, their knowledge of diesel mechanics intersected with their sincere desire to be innovative, frugal, cutting edge and environmentally conscious. Our Tuscaloosa guides and goodwill ambassadors, David and Gina Allgood (more about them above!) drove us out to Hubert and his wife Madeleine's property in the beautiful country outside of Tuscaloosa. There we were shown so many amazing examples of good old fashioned American ingenuity it made our heads swim!James and Johnston collect waste veggie oil and their friends and neighbors bring them their used motor oil for recycling. They run their trucks on the biodiesel that they make from the WVO and recycle the engine oil into heating fuel. Processing the oil is done in the shop using a system that the Pearces have perfected which is very energy efficient by relying on gravity to move the oil from tank to tank. We were nothing short of blown away by James and Johnston's expertise at recycloing waste oil, but it turned out that we hadn't even seen the most marvelous machine yet...the Electric Jeep that this father and son have been envisioning and working on since seeing the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car".
This electric blue, electric powered beauty has been outfitted by parts ordered from a New Hampshire company and before long will be ready to drive this busy family in even the hottest of Alabama summers. The Pearces are going to need reliable transportation as this is the year that Johnston leaves for Warren Wilson college in Asheville NC- the recipient of a well deserved scholarship-and their daughter Julia will enter boarding school an hour away near Birmingham. Thanks a million James, Madeleine, Johnston and Julia for showing us what is possible with alternative fuels and electic cars.

Here are a few of the pictures from our time in Tuscaloosa. We will always remember the beauty and kindness that we've seen here in Alabama and have so enjoyed making new friends and being inspired by the people we've met. Alabama is a beautiful state indeed!

Gina's teacher friend Alice shows us her beautiful backyard flowers

Mavi gets the shot- Birmingham, AL

Kate in Europa Antiques, Birmingham Alabama

More of Kenneth Easterling and his son Kenyon's delicious, worth-their-weight-in-gold peaches

Tree climbing at the University of Alabama Arboretum

Erin Jones of The Left Hand Handmade Soap Company displays her typical altruism

An oil well outside of Tuscaloosa

With our new friends at the Bama Theater balcony

David and Gina Allgood, Mavi and Jeff, Kate, Barbie, Catherine and Jeff

Gina and a lovely sunset! Now we're sitting in the parking lot of The Cleansing Tide Laundromat (everything has something to do with the Crimson Tide here in Tuscaloosa), filtering the grease that we collected from Keqin Pan, an owner of a local Chinese resataurant and heading off to Jackson Mississippi.

BFP's 4th Jam, Jam-a-lam, way down in Alabam, bam-a-lam!

2007-07-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

fTuscaloosa, Alabama is the 4th destination on our runaway hamster ball tour de force! I say hamster ball because between an rv bathrom full of all our veggie oil paraphenalia, Julia's unwashed dreadlocks, a half-functioning refridgerator full of dubious leftovers, and a leaky wastewater pipe, we have a ongoing need for deodorizing. Unfortunately, all we have is a ceder-scented all purpose cleanser, so the ladyhawke smells oftentimes, like a stinky hamster cage, and there's some days where I imagine all four of us running in the wheel and some are the big hamsters who operate the wheel while the other two get spun around and around. You get the idea.
Tuscaloosa is currently home to the exuberant and talented Alyson Greenfield. She's itching to get the hell out of dodge and move to New York, which we don't understand, because in our typical style, we've been nothing but pampered and coddled and well fed by everyone we meet, but we're glad she's here for now. She booked us a show with her at the Bama Theater. She's the girl in the white dress in this picture. The Ladyhawke started to get cranky about 7 miles out of town and about 10 minutes before our show, but all our anxiety dried up like our pitstains when we saw our name in lights. It was our best show yet thanks to Alyson, Geoff Hug and David Allgood.

During our stay, we met Alex Chambers and Kit Boulding who hosted a modern day salon-style lecture series. We showed them ours and they us theirs.
Here's a picture of us going in to play some tunes. We learned about some sweet old timey cameras. and Alex shared the findings of Erasmus Gould, a scientist and thinker, whose documents he discovered in an old trunk in Chicago and whose eccentric scribblings about the history of high-fructose corn syrup only Alex can decipher. Or so he says. We also met Erin and Erik of The Left Hand Soap Company. I don't know why we don't have any pictures of them. It's a shame because they've got the sweetest dog named Bettie, 8 cats, and one tough-ass parrot and are the coolest family of anarchists I've ever met. Their soap, salves and lipbalms are dreamy. They gave us a bunch of free samples, which is just what a pack of stinky hamsters like us needs.

We spent the day in Birmingham and bought a basket of peaches from Mr. Kenneth Easterling a bona fide peach and tomato expert, who, along with his son Kenyon, have continued to grow these unbelievably delicious fruits on their farm in Clantow, Alabama. We talked about how important it's been for them to focus on just the peaches and tomatoes, their best sellers, even though Kenneth's father always grew a variety of fruits and vegetables.

``````````

We also went to the University of Alabama Arboretum in Tuscaloosa,

And of course we still gotta filter our vegetable oil. Here's me, showing Alyson how it's done.

Jason King for President

2007-07-14T15:40:00.000-07:00

As we careened down highway 11 through the "hood" of Birmingham, we pulled offroad and noticed some gentlemen who were sitting in front of their houses across the street from an old industrial building. They offered a friendly wave and, in the spirit of the Ladyhawke, we stopped and invited them in for an interview. They introduced themselves as Jason King and Damien Swanson, and they proceeded to take full advantage of our documentary and list off all of the concerns they had about the area's past present and future. Jason was particularly wise beyond his 26 years and at the end of our encounter, I felt like I had learned a great deal. My biggest take away from him, though, was that although he has a lot of problems with the South, he doesn't want to abandon it. Apparently, there were too many people who had made it big elsewhere and forgotten the home that reared them. I suggested that he run for political office. He admitted that he had never really considered it, which is why I think he'd be particularly good for the job!

Hungry for Grit

2007-07-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

Somewhere between the struggle for cultivating dreadlocks as they blew like confused antennae out the window of the Ladyhawke and watching Jeff, Kate, and Mavi play like good Christian school children outside the First Baptist Church in Athens as we filtered grease through our huge sock, I found a bit of peace. Now that we have spoken to real, live Southerners and lived in Georgia for an entire day and night, I can safely say that I am actively looking for real estate in Athens. So long as the spirit of Michael Stipe's song "Shiny Happy People Holding Hands" remains in this city, I will always long for this town whenever I am away from it! While tour life has already proven to be somewhat trying, I think the transition of truly enjoying it came last night when Kate and I took a break from being the 3rd and 4th wheel and wandered around the city after our show and stumbled upon one of many ceramic bulldogs that pepper the area. I
think you'll agree that every dog indeed DOES
have its day...
(I can't remember if this was before or
after Kate fell asleep on the sidewalk)

Athens, Georgia or "Y'all go ahead, I'm staying right here"

2007-07-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

(The lovely and hospitable Mary, Megan, Violet and Kelli and The Break Free gals on Kelli's porch- Athens, GA)

Mountains were moved and The Ladyhawke was made over into a lean, mean, grease machine just in time for us to make it to our show in Athens Georgia last night at Little Kings Shuffle Club. Thanks Pat and Dave http://www.greengreasemonkey.com/
(The most lovely and hospitable Mary, Megan, Violet, and Kelli and The Break Free gals on Kelli's porch in Athens , GA) Tears were shed, fuel lines were bled, I (Kate) sucked on a fuel hose, Julia took a face full of rancid grease and car wash grime in the face and mouth, Mavi painted over her blackened fingernails with bright red polish but WE MADE IT! What an adventure we've had getting to this beautiful and friendly place! A few photos:

(Dawn and Jon two brilliantly talented artists and innovative WVO ground breakers who we met at Pat Keany's grease garage in Boston)

(Kate with "The Good Grease" in Boston Mass.)

(Beat in Boston)

(Our friend "Other Jeff", you know, the male model)

(A Lady and her Grease)

(Bye-bye Brooklyn!)

(The lovely and talented Julia Massey takes the wheel- Baltimore to Greensboro)

(Thanks a million, Barbara Massey!)

(Shooting and Troubleshooting)

(A delicious meal in La Plata, Maryland at Pancakes Plus-our first successful grease stop- great food, great service, clean and sweet smelling veggie oil, what more could we ask for? THANKS JIMMY AND EVERYONE AT PANCAKES PLUS)

(Still more Shooting and Troubleshooting- Jeff enjoyed a well deserved cold one but was later arrested on F.U.I)

(Gosh, the South is so pretty so far-North Carolina)

(Goofing around at The Little Kings Shuffle Club in Athens)

Not a girl, not yet a Ladyhawke.

2007-07-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

The 1984 Ford Econoline 350 motorhome become our battle-ready Ladyhawke when she left her sleepy home in Chesnut Hill, Pennsylvania on Saturday and began her new career as a full time grease-powered roadwarrior. We were given a heart warming send off from Fredrik and his two toe-headed children/jaguars/t-rexs. Fredrik was so incredibly kind and generous that we had a hard time not cancelling the tour to move back to Sweden with he and his family. He sold us an RV perfectly suited to our needs at a very reasonable price and threw in all sorts of extra things for free like pots and pans, an extra fuel injector and a half-eaten bag of gummi bears. The packaging had the trademark message, "Haribo macht Kinder froh und Erwachsene ebenso" which Jeff, our filmmaker translated as, "Haribo makes kids happy after they eat the luscious bearmeat." It's so great to travel with a group of such multilingual individuals.
So now our Lady is parked in Boston so that Pat Keeney, the green grease monkey, can inspect her parts and decide on the best kind of grease conversion. After we dropped the Ladyhawke off in Boston, Jeff, Kate and I drove to New York to try to close on some loans that are still processing and that we need before we really go anywhere. We rented a car and drove like mad down to Catonsville where we played a concert in the yard at Julia's mom's house. The audience was 15 or so friends of Julia's mom insofar as I could tell, so I decided to hold off on such technologically advanced songs as Machine Girl, in order to save myself any awkward concert moments like the one Marty McFly had in the Back to the Future where he said, "I can see that was maybe a little bit much for you guys...but your kids are gonna love it."
We filmed a 4th of July parade the next day on the main drag of Catonsville. Alas, A killer rainstorm rendered the ground too wet for a fireworks display, but we stayed for a barbeque and then began our journey back to Boston to see the Ladyhawke through her transformation. We tried to bring some of the hotdogs from the barbeque with us, with humorous results.

Balanza Bar show

2007-07-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

Our kickoff concert/CD release party last Friday at Balanza Bar was a gay old time. My only regret is that we were not able to make good on our promises of road head in the grease bus after the show because our RV, the future Ladyhawke, had to stay in Chesnut Hill a while longer while her seller fixed this and that to make her road-ready. Fortunately, no one tried to make us feel guilty about it.

Steve Coughlin played with both Julia and I and played stupendously considering February was the last time he played with yours truly. We went on at about midnight after two other bands, one of which was Alligator, a mostly female piratical dance-punk band who happened to be from no other place than Paonia, Colorado!

The ever burgeoning population of Colorado diaspora never ceases to amaze us. It won't be long before Little Colorado rivals the likes of Little Italy and Chinatown and we'll finally get some grocery stores and restaurants that cater to our specific ethnic group. I know I'm sick and fed up of not being able to get some decent Tex-Mex in this New York shithole! Anyway, the Balanza Bar show was great success and we look forward to picking up our RV, getting her converted to burn veggie oil, and to playing another show on the 3rd of July in Julia's home town, Catonsville, Maryland! Here's a few more photos of Kate, Julia and I. Enjoy!

Brooklyn, Philly, Manhattan, Boston, Catonsville

2007-07-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn, Philly, Manhattan, Boston, Catonsville: Lather, Rinse And Repeat-
Or How to Succeed in Tour Planning By Really Trying

$10,000 is a chunk of change for a possible hunk of junk.
This is the prickly reality that all used vehicle buyers face and which came crashing down on us like a ton of hot needles last week as July 1st -Day One of The Break Free Project's Tour of America-came rushing nearer.

How did we find ourselves in this predicament? The Greasebus (pictured below) that we had planned on buying from Pat Keaney in Boston Massachusetts, blew a rod in the Midwest on her trial tour, stranding Pat and the touring band, the Boston Afrobeat Society, and requiring lengthy and costly repairs. This news was obviously crushing. In response Mavi Graves and I began a heroic diesel RV/bus search on June 22nd, a short 8 days before the tour was set to embark. This Ebay and Craigslist marathon lasted for 72 hours as we blearily, blinked at every diesel heap in five states.

We knew that any vehicle we bought would be required to take us on a 10,000 mile journey from Brooklyn through the south, southwest and back to Brooklyn. It needed to be a diesel engine for the conversion to veggie oil to work, it would need to be large enough to carry the four of us, Mavi Graves, Julia Massey, Jeff Larson and myself AND our music and film gear...and it would need to be as cheap and dependable as possible. We shuddered and considered organizational suicide.

At last on June 25th, Mavi found her on the outskirts of Philadelphia; The New Ladyhawke.
She had two factory installed fuel tanks, a real plus since the conversion process requires adding another tank anyway, one with diesel to start and heat the engine and the other for the actual vegetable oil. Emails and phone calls flew back and forth between the seller, Fredrick Fagerberg, ourselves and our Green Grease Mechanic, Pat Keaney, who gave us the tentative thumbs up. A car was rented in Midtown Manhattan on June 27th (an exceptionally hot day that blacked out The Bronx-making for some "interesting" driving and subway navigation) and we were on our way to visit Fredrick and his RV.

150 miles and one Cinnabon later, Mavi and I arrived at dusk to what is surely one of the cutest cobblestone-streeted, topiaried and fairy-lighted Philadelphia outskirts, Chestnut Hill PA. Fredrick is a housing planner and developer from Sweden and is himself interested in sustainable housing and fuel systems. He had just driven the RV, a 1984 Ford Econoline, from Santa Barbara, California which we considered a hopeful sign. We liked what we saw and felt an immediate affinity with Fredrick so we slapped $2000 dollars down to hold our new home/ride, by now officially known as "The Ladyhawke", and sped back to Brooklyn, arriving just after 3:45 am.

(Fredrick, Eleanor and their children Morris and Frida at the pool)

The next day was spent packing up the house for our sublettors. Another all nighter.

Friday the 29th we shot some photos on the Brooklyn Bridge and had our kick-off concert at Balanza Bar. Another all nighter for Mavi and Jeff. You get the picture.

Saturday the 30th saw us loading into the rental car and heading back to Chestnut Hill. As Fredrick replaced the U Joint we painted the roof with a fresh coat of weather paint and before nightfall, The Ladyhawke was deemed road worthy. We were treated to a delicious steak dinner and terrific conversation and although Fredrick made us feel very welcome, June 30th had become July 1st and our tour was underway. We had to hot foot it to New York, load our things into the RV and make tracks for Boston and the green grease makeover... so off we flew at 2:00 am. Did we make it to New York and Boston on time? Where are we now? Watch this space for more updates coming soon!

What, are you stupid? Go home!

2007-06-26T19:23:00.001-07:00

First mate's log: stardate 06/26/07
Kate and I decided that when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when your grease bus for your grease tour is nowhere in sight, it's time to do a google image search for uplifting pictures of horses and the like. Behold! Our poster for our Balanza Bar show, Friday, June 29th at 11pm (426 Lorimer and Teneyck). We decided to film the flyering and so here's a few pictures....

Trixie of course had to sign off on our leave of absence.

Off to a cinematic start..oh hell, THERE's a bus, behind me!

Kate wonders to herself if the horse was a hastey choice.

I was mesmerized by the stacks and stacks of multi-colored bottles being sorted for recycling, so here I am doing a hand-held tracking shot. Film making is easy and fun!

My artistic high was cut short by this guy who started shouting at me. I tried to explain to the poor, overworked fellow that a moment in his life of recycling was worth documenting but he just didn't understand my vision. He said, "What, are you stupid? Go home!"

Go home!

However misunderstood, the Break Free Project's spirit remains indomitable.

What, are you stupid? Go home!

2007-06-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

Maiden Voyage

2007-06-23T17:09:00.000-07:00

Stardate June 23, 2007

And with this we begin our first test flight. Here we sit in the kitchen, in the cool Brooklyn breeze drinking some wonderfully flavorful vegetable juice that Mavi has just extruded in an attempt to cleanse our systems of the sins of the past week and prepare us for the sure-to-constipate week ahead.

We feel like Orville and Wilbur Wright must have felt in that final week before Kitty Hawk... or, you know, how we're sure they would have felt if, a week out, Flyer 1 still hadn't been assembled yet and they were horribly hungover. We looked here but found no mention of anything like that.

Well, take heart faithful passengers because we've got one thing over on those darned INGENIOUS Wright brothers...and it's not just our long elegant legs. We have (drumroll please) a simply stupendous name for our soon to be purchased Fabulous Veggie Oil Highway Flying Machine...and it is...in all seriousness...The Ladyhawke.

Ladies and Gentlemen, she may not be ours yet and she may be leaking coolant from Boxborough Massachusetts to Butte Montana and all parts in between (heck, she doesn't even have an air conditioner) BUT we have faith that those mechanics in Pennsylvania (where she threw a rod a week ago on her prior tour) will put her back on "the good foot" and that we'll be able to start the tour next week on schedule on July 1st.
We have faith enough to give you...The LadyHawke.

Number 1, You have the Bridge, over and out for now-The BFP