Saturday, 4 October 1997 – En Route

We’re in the Plymouth Voyager, me, Sarah, Stephen, and Dante, on our way from Raleigh to Washington DC. Said goodbye to Jim and Joyce this morning, by 9:30 or 10:00 we’re on our way.

Yesterday, shows went a little better—a handful of people at American Job—a small but good audience. I answered a few questions afterwards. Talked to some nice people in the lobby. In the meantime, as well, we’ve spent a lot of time hanging out in the theater lobby. This is a two-screen theater on a particularly deserted strip-mall in the middle of seemingly nowhere—but no less nowhere than anywhere else in suburban sprawl. The best part about hanging out was talking to, or mostly listening to, Wes, the theater manager and head projectionist. Wes is a very funny, talkative, outgoing, young, southern gay gentleman who says he works at six theaters and has been doing so all his life. He has opinions about everything, is very smart, looks like he’s only about 20, says he moved out of home when he was in 6th grade. I can’t remember half of what he was talking about now. If we would have had the proposed video camera we would have several hours of Wes at this point, talking about everything, and very little else.

We did a little exploring of Raleigh in the past couple of days, and found some cool stuff. Sarah and Joyce and I ate lunch at The Mecca one day, an old lunch counter downtown. And then Sarah and I ate lunch the next day at Big Ed’s City Market Restaurant—the famous downtown Raleigh place, and it is very, very good. I had barbecue pork, coleslaw, potatoes, and collard greens, and chocolate pudding for dessert.

I’m jerked out of my country cooking reverie by our arrival in downtown Washington DC, smack in the middle of a giant Promise Keepers rally in the Mall, under the Washington Monument, or wherever the hell we are. There’s a giant rock-concert-like stage set up with a huge screen hanging under it with the speaker, at the moment, projected on the thousands gathered here. He’s talking about taking our cities back in the name of Jesus. It’s about the most bizarre sight I’ve ever seen. Now they’re all singing a hymn. It’s all men, that’s the first thing you notice. I’ve got to read something about this organization when we get in—it’s fascinating.