Corvallis & Small-town Oregon, November 19th

Heyo.

Me and Bryce are in Philomath, a small town in Oregon. We stopped in order to call Kiko Denzer and the Cob Cottage Company, both of whom we're planning to visit, and chat with, in order to find out the best way to live. That is as close as I can get to our true reason.

Anyways enough with all the deep shizzle! While Bryce was calling his mom (Hi Pam!) I found a newspaper that said "Accordion Babes!" on the front and opened it up to find an article on a band that's playing tonight in Corvallis for 6$, called the Accordion Babes! Can you guess what their band looks like?

YEAHH!!!

Now we're really livin.

Anyhow, I thought I'd include a little piece on travelling in a veggie oil van that I may have left out: Finding Oil.

You may (if you're crazy) have looked behind restaurants and seen dumpsters marked "Grease only", and accordingly stayed well away. If you're totally pants-on-head nutso, you may have opened it up and seen the scene inside and let the lid slam shut and gone to clean your hands.

If you're me and Bryce, you sample it (by pouring it and watching the texture, not tasting it, though I have an amusing story to tell you sometime). Then you go in front of the restaurant if it's good, and say excuse me, we're travelling from Canada ("oh! you're CANADIANS!"), yes, and we were wondering if we could have some of your deep fryer oil and they either say, "that's gross, what? OK." or, alarmingly often, "no, we sell it to the biodiesel guys." Companies also want it, because they can process it and turn it into biodiesel, then sell it for tonsabucks, and they put stickers on the dumpsters that say "saving the environment! don't steal our grease or we'll fine you 500 dollars".

Anyways, me and Bryce have spent a lot of time staring into inky black greasy voids recently and talking with fast food managers. It's all a very humbling way to travel.

Songs we are about to learn:

Britney Spears - Criminal
Red Hot Chili Peppers- Snow (Hey oh)
The Doors - Love Her Madly
The Flaming Lips - Do You Realise

seattle, november 18th

Heyo!

So today we went to see Sunray Kelley, an honest to good ness wizard on top of a mountain. We squeezed apples into cider with him, and he showed us some of his magic, in the form of houses which he has built. Here is one of them now.

he planted the apple trees four years ago, and he is incredibly clever. Once a long time ago I intruded on one of my father's friends, an artist, while he was in his studio. My father's friend was reclined all the way back in an old chair, staring at the ceiling, smoking blue smoke from a pipe, 100% lost in his thought. I backed out without saying anything. I still remember thinking "that's an artist" as a kid.

Anyways, Sunray reminded me of him. Another house, that doesn't have any good photos of it online, stopped me solid and spun me around, a towering ramshackle house four stories high. The best representation of it I can give you is this, which isn't quite it:

a bottle of cider to anyone who remembers that house (the quote should help).

Well, we left there loaded with bags of apples and bottles of oh lord that's good stuff. Now to Portland.

I don't want you to think our last time in Portland was completely taken up by singing at riot police, though that happened. The first and last thing we did was stay at the house of City Repair, a beautiful reworked house in Sellwood Village, SE Portland. This is the epicentre of a lot of serious community-building stuff, but also just a great place to be. Me and Bryce ended up staying there four days, as David and Katherine went to San Francisco and Nate to California. We learnt many skills, such as brewing ginger beer,

and I traded my little red accordion, Madeleine, for a big calico accordion called Lola's Junk. more on this later, perhaps. Suffice it to say after two years of playing accordion and constantly being asked if I can play this song, I now am able to. But that also means I'll be learning this one.

we're going back thru Portland, anyhow. Right now I'm in Seattle at my splendid cousin's house, and it's very warm and dry, and this motivates me to make a list, because what nicer thing could there be to sum up a lot of things.

Places we've slept in the last 5 nights:

Wednesday: side of the road outside Sunray's place in Leslee, on Mount Vernon, Washington

Tuesday: Portland, City Repair's house

Monday: The same. Hm. well actually me and Bryce slept on the floor there for quite a few nights. So we owe them some chores. But here's a list of what's been in my pockets recently.

1. date pits

2. carrot tops

3. american money

4. some discarded metal pieces for craft

5. a flashlight

as we came to Sunray's it started to snow. I hear down in California it's hot. They say California used to be an island that collided with the continental states. we'll see.

Commando Friday tomorrow morning! HA!

Portland

OK. So we have been in

Lake Chelan, by the side of the road, sleeping
Yakima, eating in a Spanish-speaking taqueria. David tells me that anywhere that`s agricultural, Mexicans are usually working, and where there`s Mexicans working and living, there`s Mexican food. So pretty fantastic.
Columbia Gorge, playing a song
Hood River, staying on a friend`s family farm. We watched Lord of the Rings and it reminded us of us.

Now we`re in

Portland.

http://occupyportland.org

leaving from Penticton

Ho!

Here we are in Penticton. We spent time in Squamish, cooked a dinner, had it with friends, and that is like a red wax seal on a goodbye letter to Canada, so good. We then drove to Penticton where Bryce's family lives. He has met my family several times over so I guess it makes sense that I meet his, and also eat their food. Mmm. Lots and lots of homemade pizza.

David and Katherine are two people travelling with us. David's a cheesewright and also many other things, and Katherine's a nanny and many other things. We are going to beat it down to San Francisco in 6 days to be there by the 16th, on account of David's got a family reunion. It's the only deadline we have, and I find myself comforted by it.

Besides that, our trip is sewn rather loosely, like a burlap sack. It may tighten into a recognisable fabric as we see places, understand where we need to go to learn, work, earn money, buy food, work, be paid in food, warm up, cool down, fall in love with places, with people, with dogs, with gypsy caravans, etc. I'll let you know the vibe.

Nate Kaplan is also travelling with us. He's a magical man whose most recent occupation was brewster, so I'll call him that. We spent the evening last night drinking magnificent illegal closet-brew and filtering veggie oil for Leslie, Bryce's van. It's an greasy hallelujah of a process that involves a lot of pouring and squeezing. Feels far better to do than sticking a nozzle into your tank and you don't even see the gasoline ever. If we're going to be burning it for 1500 km, I'd rather get it on my hands first.

plus bryce tells me our work is valued at 120 dollars an hour, calculating from the price of the equivalent amount of diesel fuel.

Me and Bryce have been in the following places over the last few months:

The Ecovillage in Shawnigan Lake, the Cowichan Valley.

Occupy Victoria in Centennial Square, Victoria, sleeping in a tent.

Pat Henneberry's house on Mayne Island in the Salish Sea, building a cob.

Quest University, in Squamish, up the coast from The Vancouver City, building a cob.

My family's house in Nanoose Bay, mid-Vancouver Island in the Georgia Strait.

hitchhiking inbetween all these places and playing copious amounts of accordion and ukelele. We have been playing this song a lot, if you listen to it imagine us walking along the side of the road belting it.

All in all it's been a good fall,

I can infer it'll be a good winter.

first post!

So, here we are. The B-Team is me, that's Bashu Naimi-Roy, and Bryce, that's Bryce Ehrecke. Both our names begin with B, as it is plain to see.

We are about to start a journey adventure to California in Leslie, Bryce's veggie oil powered van. It's really expensive cause it only takes extra virgin olive oil. Just kidding, you get the used deep fryer stuff from the black dumpsters behind the restaurant.

I'm sitting at home waiting for Bryce to arrive, pick me up, and we'll drive to Squamish. That's where our friends at Quest University are doing their stuff. Julian's there. He should be coming with us but he's studying. We too are studying to become better people. Julian is presumably learning how to fend off black bears or some other such practical thing.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog. I'll drop in posts when I get to a computer. We are going to visit a bunch of places where natural building, organic farming, and permaculture practice is going on.

I'm something of a reluctant man. There are many good things here. The knowledge that I'll be back is some comfort.

My hope is that when we come back, there will be cause for a new blog to be started, named, The B-Team makes their Own World.

And the best way to learn how to make your own world is to go see other people's worlds.

So. Follow along.

p.s. As a side note Commando Fridays will be in effect for the duration of this trip so if you wish to really get into the deep groove we're in, shuck thine underwear from Friday morning till Saturday morning and know that wherever we are (Mexican roadhouse Amazonian jungle hammock etc) we'll be doing the same.

p.p.s. bryce is the redhead on your right, I'm the one in the vest. Jen Erika and Zack make up the rest.