the slow boat to New Orleans

I left Austin Sunday evening with the bus running perfectly on diesel, an improved coolant wrap on the veggie filter and a broken rib (i think).

I'm going to run on diesel until I get the veggie tank cleaned out and the oil refiltered. I think I've been using poorly filtered oil to often to save time and that may have contributed to the injectors gluing themselves shut.

Friday night MK, Rene & Jim and I went out scamming free beer from the multitude of free parties at the South By SouthWest festival. 12 hours later on the bicycle ride home. MK's chain got tangled in the glow stick now wrapped around her wheel and it broke her derailer. While trying to give her a push from behind so that she could keep rolling down the road... I decided to tackle the concrete. Initially I was very worried about my shoulder which now appears to be fine. My ribs however have gotten more painful each day and today I was gifted a few Vicadins. yeah!

I decided to take a short side trip to hang out with a guy that I owe a lot of sleepful nights to. Marcus was my first DVD club subscriber and kicked in a fair chunk of change to fix my injectors. WHY? Well for 1) he and his significant other are currently on their first RV working road trip because they've been inspired by my travels; and for 2) they think what I'm doing is important... So, I thought I should meet these people. '~)

Exit Slab City

We had our first Screening Night our last night in Slab City. We showed a selection of videos from the RNC, DNC, the Vermin Supreme campaign and other selections of interest to the 15 Slabbers who loved having info from the outside world. More Photos Here and here's a video from "The Range" the main venue in the Slabs.

MBN Movie Night on the Slabs

Still in Slab City. Setting up a movie screening night on Friday. If you're in the neighborhood come on by the bus and watch some of our latest videos on the big screen. Bring an AMFM radio and a chair if you want to sit. We'll have a fire afterward too.

Pasadena Do Dah 2009

Here we are in the parade.

formerly LIVE Sunset from Malibu

The bus is on vacation. Thought we'd share today's sunset with you.

Desert Hot Springs New Year

We camped in the Desert Hot Springs Spa's parking lot for the new years celebration but after soaking in the tubs all day... fell asleep and woke up to fireworks... assumed it was midnight and went back to sleep. woo ho.

We're in the greater LA metro area from now until Jan 20th.

Slab City & The Salton Sea

We've left Slab City but plan to return the last week of January for the talent show and to hopefully catch some footage of the military bombing the mountain side. We're over nighting in Salton Sea and moving on for some more hot spring action for the new year. Should be in LA on the 2nd.

Setting Up @ Slab City

We finally arrived in Slab City, CA. All the worrys about being cold and getting the satellite set up have been brushed aside. The Broadband card works here, works fast too. I'm hoping to set up a LIVE broadcast ... probably test it out later today and then broadcast a "show" tomorrow.

It turns out Slab City is nestled between a federal prison and a military bombing range. It's a big open desert many miles seperate us from them. The bombings, we've been told, are on hold until after the holidays. So, I think we're going to stop here on the way back east too; to get some war footage. '~)

The NOmadjik Winter Tour

Well we're off to warmer climates. Now poised to set up in Tucson for a few days of work and editing.

The concerned look on our faces is wondering if the damn cell phone was going to take the picture or not.

Check out the new road map in the side bar.

Traveling kitchen provides home-cooked relief

Nikki Buskey~Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, November 4, 2008 at 4:05 p.m.

HOUMA — Everybody has a right to a home-cooked meal, regardless of their income or situation in life.

Everybody's Kitchen volunteers Anne and Floppy, both of whom use only their first names, prepare dinner Monday inside one of the organization's two buses outside St. Charles Bromeo Catholic Church in Pointe-Aux-Chenes.

That's the premise of Everybody's Kitchen, a group of volunteer chefs who retrofitted an old school bus into a self-sustained, solar-powered kitchen that they use to travel the country feeding the homeless and providing disaster-relief meals.

The organization has temporarily set up shop at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, 1237 La. 665 in Pointe-aux-Chenes. They're preparing breakfast and dinner for residents of Pointe-aux-Chenes and Isle de Jean Charles, as well as shipping meals to Dulac residents.

Anyone can stop by and pick one up, said Everybody's Kitchen volunteer James McGuinness.

The cooks, a "revolving door" of volunteers who also fed people in New Orleans' Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina, hooked up with the New Orleans-based relief group Common Ground Collective to service damaged communities in Terrebonne after hurricanes Gustav and Ike, McGuiness said.

"When you're trying to work on your house, or get your business going, you don't always have time to cook," said McGuinness, 52, of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Everybody's Kitchen has been operating since 1992, McGuinness said, and has done disaster relief in Minneapolis, Mississippi and New Orleans, fed needy people on Los Angeles' Skid Row and traveled to Mexico to feed deported immigrants.

"The focus of this is that everyone has a right to eat, broke or not. We will share with anyone, and anyone who wants to share with us can," said a 41-year-old Detroit volunteer known only as Floppy.

He was manning the buses built-in propane stove Monday, preparing red beans and rice, a south Louisiana staple.

"It's Monday, what else?" he said, adding that everywhere the kitchen travels, they try to take a cue from locals about what to cook, learning their recipes and adding to their repertoire.

Long-haired and long-traveled, the group of traveling, food-distributing gypsies might be a strange sight to some locals.

Their 12 volunteers work out of two school buses — on painted orange and and the other in a bright shade of blue. When the weather is nice, they cook outside under a tarp.

The volunteers camp on the church lawn, and they've been given access to the St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church rectory where they have established an an impromptu business office to keep in contact with businesses who might want to donate cooking items.

"It's beautiful here," McGuinness said of south Terrebonne. "The people are very friendly, and we're happy to be helping out where there's a real need."

The workers will stay and cook as long as they're needed and wanted, he added.

Floppy stressed that the group isn't a charity in the conventional sense, but they do operate using donations from businesses and others.

"We've had people stop by and drop off oysters, shrimp, crabs," McGuinness said. "Anything they drop off, we'll cook up."

The group steamed the crabs, and local residents appreciated the meal, though McGuinness said they later discovered that's not the way the seafood is traditionally prepared in bayou country.

"I guess most people boil them down here," he said. "We talk to the people that come down, try to figure out what they like. We love the food down here anyway -- anything that spices things up."

If you want to get in touch with Everybody's Kitchen to help their effort with a donation, supplies or food, or if you just need to grab a meal, you can find them at the St. Charles Borromeo Church in Pointe-aux-Chenes, or call them at 504-421-1205.

They can also be reached by mail at
Everybody's Kitchen
P.O. Box 115
Montegut, LA 70377.

Point Au Chene

I'm setting up the satellite internet in Point Au Chene, LA. The rainbow Family has dispatched to kitchen busses here and are already freeding several hundred a day. The internet will allow them to publize their efforts and bring in more donations; meaning the can feed more people. This is probably a short term assignment as they are suppose to be getting internet capabilities from Common Ground Relief by the end of next week.

Filler Up

I'm back in Sildell at BioLiberty filling the tanks with all the oil I can hold. Gordon is packin up the bio diesel plant to move it into New Orleans as part of a larger project so I've got about 500 gallons of fine veggie oil at my disposal.

I'll be heading down to Point au Chene in the deep bayou country where the native indian population has been intentionally left to rot after both Katrina & Gustav. I'll set up the satellite internet for them and try to sort out the reasons they NEVER get any more than an MRE for hurricane relief.

I made it to Galveston

... All I can say is... I've made a lot of bad choices lately.
I have not yet ventured outside of the bus, but I've driven most of the Island and it looks like they've got it under control. I'm not feeling very needed here. The satellite is useless as I've got cell phone coverage and my broadband internet card works everywhere.

I saw 2 Free Meal Christian operations on the way in even though the grocery stores, bars & restaurants are almost all open. Some of the island had random electricity but those going without would appear to be "second" homes.

I suppose I'll know more when I decide to get out of the bus, but at the moment I'm not feeling very social. I spent the entire night editing my last RNC video regarding the harassment of the bus in St.Paul. I'm going to start preparing it for the internet now and take a nap.

Maybe this is my beach vacation...

Deliberatly Cut Fuel Line No Match For Smart People

The trip East was delayed a day due to a very fresh slice in a fuel line. Fortunately I found it before moving the bus. Otherwise, we would have stalled in traffic and had the bus impounded... as I suspect was the outcome the person who sliced it would have preferred. We've had tremendous luck collecting oil this week.

RNC update

The Glass Bead Collective had all of their property returned except drivers licenses and cash. Yesterday the cops with 3 SUVs full of riot cops did syncronized donuts in the parking lot for awhile yesterday. This occured while I was handing off a video to the Aquisitions Director of Free Speech TV, who spoke with the commanding officer and requested that they stop harassing and arresting journalists. The cops eventually left. We expect to see them again today .. about 5:25 that's when they've been showing up.

All Greased Up

We're finally greased up and ready to roll, thanks the genius who started Rocky Mountain Diesel Max; probably the largest collector of used cooking oil for fuel in the country. Chuck has created a blend of veggie oil and other ingredients that is capable of running a diesel engine WITHOUT adding extra heat to your system, you can put it straight into your regular diesel tank EVEN in winter. At any rate, we won't need to look for oil between Denver and St.Paul and that's a huge relief.

Asaf Sends his Love

Asaf hooked a ride futher east the other day and sent us this photo to prove his love for the NOmadjik Bus. Hopefully he'll be back on board someday.

Chance Veggie meeting

After a long hot soak in the hot springs we headed to the local bars and got plowed last night. At the end of the evening we met a guy that I'd met in the Casino parking lot in Reno after Burning Man last year. I had showed him my fledging veggie bus and he was very interested.

He had stumbled into this bar with his mother, who he was giving a tour of this part of the rockies IN HIS BRAND NEW (1985) VEGGIE BUS. We showed them the way back to the campground for the evening and they've moved on to Shopping for western wear in Leramie, WY. We plan to visit him later on our way to Denver.

Pack'n up & Heading for the Hot Springs

We're headin' out from the Gathering today. We've picked up a rider, Asaf. Turns out Asaf knows alot of my friends and he's considering sticking around for the conventions. But for now we're all heading off to the hot springs to soak up some clean & warmness.

We've got about a 250 mile drive after we pack up and the 1st 20 miles is on some rough dirt road.

The clean up process at the Gathering has been a little disturbing not for the lack of people staying to clean up but for the idiots that left a lot of crap out here in the pristine wilderness. We saw a 30 inch television sitting by the road waiting to hauled out... It is quite telling of our society when someone decides they need a 30 inch television to commune with nature and god...

The Rainbow Gathering

After 2 weeks like this.

We finally made it to the Rainbow Gathering on Monday. Most people had left already and everyone else was trying to pack up to leave. We've heard many stories of "drama" and will be assembling some footage of interviews.

Today we finally got ourselves situated in a long term NICE campsite at the back end of the Gathering and we'll be documenting the clean up effort.