This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Bus Conversion Capitol of Everywhere

Posted by ehren

We rolled into Eugene around dusk, and parked near downtown. We sought internet at different locations, but soon reunited to catch a concert at the Cosmic Pizza / Theo's Coffee Shop / Indra's Internet Cafe space. It's not clear what relationship those businesses have, but they're all in the same large, open space; lots of couches, fast wifi, good coffee.

The quality of the concert was mixed. It was organized by the Space Gnome label from Olympia, Washington and the first offering was a spoken word poet who was neither original nor talented. She started off with "this is a piece I wrote about... writing" as if nobody had ever written about writing, and it segued into a few political "preach to the choir" diatribes. The next act, two rappers from Eugene calling themselves Debaser were well rehearsed and rhymed well. I've given up complaining about how rap's foundation is built on self-promotion, but I like it when artists try to break that mold, and Debaser had a few choice lines and one full track that didn't center on themselves. At one point, though, they wanted to imply that they were hard-core since they grew up on the mean streets of Eugene.

Local Anti-Heroes went on next and were similarly talented, but much faster and more percussive, and their backbeats were better. My favorite line of theirs came between songs "and now we go from self aggrandizing chest beating back to leftist political diatribe... and a one, and a two..."

Between Debaser and Local Anti-Heroes a beat-boxer took the stage for a single performance that was by far the best of the evening. I didn't know most of the noises he made were possible. Miro came back from the bathroom halfway through and reacted with "Whaaa??? I thought there were a dozen drummers out here it's just that one guy?!"

Heavyweight Dub Champions were headlining, and though they showed great promise, ended up just deafening the audience. Three dreadlocked dudes manned a tangled cornucopia of electronics in the rear of the stage, and two pa/hip-hop rappers took the front stage for some tracks. The three sound engineers had more hair than all of the people I saw today, combined, and I doubt that's hyperbole. For all the tonnage of their equipment, though, they didn't produce very much music of interest. I kept expecting the dark and garbled breeps and coughs over a heavy, atmospheric beat to break into something different (I think phrasing and contrast is a very important part of good techno) but it never did. Plus they were unapologetically loud. Eventually Miro and I shouted out a plan that we'd give them a few more minutes to sound better and then leave.

As part of the process of moving the bus to safe harbor in Wal Mart we saw a guy on a longboard skateboard (there's probably another term) being towed by a car up and down the street; the formative stages of a new extreme sport. We also met Vince, a random undergrad who stopped on the street to check out or bus. He gave us tips for good music and entertainment, the best bicycle shops, and the best wilderness locations near town for camping.

To close the night we watched the first two new Family Guy episodes. Seth MacFarlane is a God among men.

In the morning we set out on our first mission, buying new bicycle wheels to replace those that I crushed in the Redwoods backing into a stump. At first we couldn't find Revolution Cycles (Vince's recommendation) but quickly after parking a local insane shopkeeper took time out of his day to show us the way. Revolution Cycles didn't have used 700c wheels, but we gave all the employees a bus tour, and they gave us directions to the local bike co-op a few blocks away, where we bought two used wheels of dubious quality for $24 total.

"That one's $12."
"It's missing a spoke, isn't it?"
"Oh. Ok, $9."

While finishing up bicycle repairs, Miro told me that I should definitely take a gander around the next corner. It was definitely one of those "No, really, you can't miss it" situations, since I immediately saw he was pointing out the bright yellow school bus conversion with a sailboat attached to the roof. It's a 30' bus, smaller than ours, but immaculately dense with decorations and endless minute accents and woodwork, the product of 17 years of tinkering and gifts of the road. The lower level is arranged much like a conventional midsize RV, but a large hatch in the middle of the roof leads to the second level in the sailboat cabin.

The guy said he had gone through 14 motors, 4 transmissions, 3 rear ends, in his million-mile chase back and forth across the country. He followed the Dead for most of that time, and has brought Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Ken Kesey (of Further... read "Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" to familiarize yourself with the milieu) into his bus, and receives frequent visitors from his days on the road.

He explained how Eugene came to be a locus of residential bus activity. "The Dead came through here and we liked it so we all stayed, more or less. This whole street used to be filled up on both sides. It was terrible, people throwing diapers out their windows, and everything else, so around 99' they made everybody scatter around into the suburbs." He told us where to find a few other interesting conversions, including one similar to ours (I couldn't find it). The construction of the Wal Mart out 126 displaced a community of vehicle residents as well. "They kicked us all out to build the Wal Mart so we could move back in. At least we've got a bathroom now!"

Miro went for a bike ride, and I relocated the bus to Jefferson St. since Washington had a 2 hour limit. I ate lunch, and then started walking into town. On the way, around 550 2nd Ave., I saw an incredible conversion in progress. A jam band apparently by the name of "Freaks of Nature" -- given the words painted across a rotting cargo van also on the premises -- is working on converting an Amtrak California coach bus (looked like a 45' Dina...Mexican arm of the Setra body company? I can't remember...) into a double decker touring machine. The roof had been raised around 24", and I saw an impressive welded structure filling up the empty space. According to a woman who I guess is their landlord they've recently corrected a structural sag in the middle (which as we know is what happens if you cut off the roof without bracing the whole thing in a coach bus). They were practicing so I didn't get to talk to any of them as yet. I'll go visit later this afternoon.

Paul informs me that he shared this URL with our high school American Lit teacher, so I am now terrorized with the notion that what I say here will be subjected to intense grammatical scrutiny. I'm starting to see red marks next to every use of passive voice, every conflation of it's and its, and every excess of punctuation. Thanks Paul, I owe you one.

Things keep happening here that remind me of Austin. Strangers have no fear of one another, interesting people want to show us interesting things, and the music scene is healthy. Eugene gets an A-, so far.