Finished and proud!

Dear everybody,

If you're new on this blog: read the story, start at the bottom, and enjoy ;)

After one year of preparation, 1 month of beautiful, phenomenal traveling, meeting inspiring people and experience amazing encounters in the beautiful setting of the USA land- and soundscapes... 6 months of post-preparation, writing and editing...
The satisfaction of seeing the summary of the rockumentary we made on this roadtrip, is huge!

It's worth the effort in every way. My baby is finished and done!!!!!

(in anticipation of the program, I can give you this - song in teaser is not actual song of intro)

There are so many people I want to thank, of course...besides the artists we interviewed, I would like to thank Wouter Dewilde, Jeroen Jullet, David Carr, Ann Killebrew, Blues Haven Foundation (family Dixon), Harvey Kubernick, 'Cam & Ram', Quinta Scott & family, David Bernston & family, Jason Moore, Josh Paulson, Mike Larson, Pat Dalton, Les M. Glasser, Dave Little, Em from Em's Artist Cafe, Billy Hinsche, Stephen Peeples, Ruth Parson and Stephen Harlow, AJ and many many more!!! Thank you for making this happen.

I would like to thank my father in particular, because I would not have been able to do this without him. He is and remains my inspiration in every way.

Lien

California Dreaming

Bye Bye, California,

Untill we meet again!!!

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

San Francisco is the city you wish you lived in, back in the sixties. As we enter the city over the Golden Gate Bridge - after the world known fog is gone - we see a vivid, colorful town, with beautiful districts and amazing views on the bay area as soon as you drive up in a street somewhere.

This is a city that feels like a whole different world, very distinct from everything we experienced along the way.

We visited the Berkeley area, which had a strong protest movement back in the sixties; Make Love not War and ..One, Two, Three, What are we fighting for?? - against the war in Vietnam - but it is still a very young (it has the University of California) and openminded, critical neighbourhood. We walked the famous Telegraph Avenue and saw some real characters; old men selling pamphlets, wearing hippie-sunclasses with peacesigns ingraved, or defending the right to buy and sell California Cannabis.

The Haight-Ashbury district is amazing; I could see myself living there; among the houses of Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Jefferson Airplane; those beautiful, magnificant Victorian Houses, that catch your imagination the minute you see them. After some Ginger and Lemon Tea (a tea I discovered here in the Bay Area, it's great) on the porch, I would go for a stroll down the Golden Gate Park or the Panhandle; the area where all the big concerts where and the Human Be In; the gathering of tribes, the first gathering of the hippie-generation. Of course I would have to try some LSD (I would have no other choice), 'to discover', as Diane from the Ace of Cups told me, 'my own human nature, which makes me want to take of my clothes, because that's not human, what is that, I don't know', and to become a true spiritual entity; body and soul. As you can see, I am becoming a neo-hippie. And I don't even walk bare-footed..

The Land of Milk and Honey

As we drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, we take Pacific Highway up the coast, Highway 1. People have only told me good things about the ride, and it's sure worth the drive!
What a coastline!
You drive on tiny windy roads, pass beautiful view points and see the fog blanket unfold itself throughout the day. This is a must see for any person traveling up the west coast.
On our way we pass many villages that have a spanish feel to it, San Simeon with the big and strange Hirst Castle, Big Sur, and the beautiful Carmel-by-the-sea, a little town that seems to be painted on the setting canvas; it feels spanish, italian and french at the same time, with a little touch of Californian spirit. Beautiful organic roads lead you towards small cafés, restaurants and shops, that are well hidden between long, leafy trees.


After Carmel we stop by Monterey, a place you sixties music addicts LOVE I'm sure - in 1967, this was the place where the famous Monterey Festival took place. Standing on the stage, I felt like Janis Joplin, without the bottle of Southern Comfort maybe ;), singing my soul out - watching these people relishing and flowers whirling down the sky...
Of course, I would be on the first row to see Jimi Hendrix burn his guitar on stage, after he played on it with his teeth and blew everybody away with his raw, rocking performance and beautiful appearance ;). After that, I would go and dance on hypnotic drums, with a scarf lashed up on my head, tight like a string, while I would chant with the songs of Jefferson Airplane.... this must be california dreamin'...

The City of Angels *

Thanks to Stephen Harlow, we have found a great place to stay in Venice Beach, CA. We crashed at the studio of an Artist, Cameron Gray. His work can be found here.


For me to be able to stay here in Venice, is very special. Jim Morrison lived here on a rooftop, wrote poetry, and met Ray Manzarek on the beach. Places that I've read so much about, are now in walking distance. Very weird. We also visited his house (picture) in Laurel Canyon.


Living at this place and seeing all these things is very inspiring to me; I started writing again, after some years of holding back and muddling along, I find it very easy to put words on paper again; ink in the little red book, that I got from my father. Yesterday I just went to Venice Beach, sat in the sand, head in the wind, looking out over the ocean. If there is one thing I have learned on this trip, it's that you walk into yourself a couple of times; you are confronted with what you want, what you need, the important things in life, and life itself. This may all sound very heavy and philosophical, but it's actually a beautiful thing; very hard to describe.




Los Angeles is to me not the busy, driven, crowded city without feelings that some people might describe it to be. It is spread out, it has a lot of life going on, and a lot of cars with many lanes - and - musically it has a lot to offer. We met Chris Darrow from Kaleidoscope, who has the most amusing Juke Box ever, and also Canned Heat, an encounter that's slightly difficult to forget. There are some other people we met too, but I guess you will have to see that on the show... I would like to express my thanks to David Carr, who has made some miracles happen for us here in LA.

Everything in LA, all the Doors-stuff (I am a huge fan) has made me kind of emotional. I can't really put it into words, it's like a very intense feeling. Everything I ever read and dreamed of is coming to life in this wonderful journey, it's hard to apprehend - it feels so .. intense. Passionate. It's like a whirl, caused by all these people that I've got the chance to meet, talk to, look in the eyes.. People that have shared stories you can't read in books, gave me things I will never come across again, memories that will be captured for sure. L.A. was very important in the sixties, and you can feel the vibe is still here. What a trip.

Joshua Trees at Dawn

Joshua Trees, Joshua Trees, Joshua Trees, Joshua Trees. It's not a cactus, it's a tree.

We keep driving in this beautiful region that inspires so many people; in the sixties this was the hangout place of many many musicians; Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones and Gram Parsons of the Byrds used to smoke joints here and drink, while they were searching the sky- and starlight for UFO's. I decided to camp here for the night and do exactly the same thing. Sleeping in the open sky is not new to me, we did it the night before at the banks of the Colorado River in Needles, but this time we were in the desert, no water, no electricity, only sand, grass, rocks and.. Joshua Trees. It scared me at first, as deserts make you think of creepy creepers as Scorpions, Snakes and other crawly sneekers.
But it was actually a wonderful night; didn't get much sleep though, because of the lack of electric light in the area, the stars where amazing. I could imagine the earth as one little dustparticle in this giant universe with milkyways, supernova's, stars and suns, planets and.. UFO'S. It's just so hard to close your eyes, when you are impressed every time you open them.

Waking up with the sun is in a way reassuring, it comforts you. The warmth embraces you like a campfire on a hot summer night, you wake up with the odd sight of the arm of a Joshua Tree right in front of your face. Strange, but funny. Then you realize where you are, suddenly. I'm in the desert. I'm in this beautiful piece of art, where I happened to stumble in, this wonderful scope of nature that inspires you in every way. California here we come.

Arresting Framework in Arizona

In Arizona the arresting framework, the very skeleton of the earth, is exposed. That's what makes the scenery so compelling and so meaningful, according to Josef Muench, a Southwestern photographer. I would have to agree with him. As a tourist, you can gorge yourself in many attractions; Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Meteor Crater.

It brings nature back to it's base; raw and pure.

Arizona has it all: some beautiful forests like those near Flagstaff, mountains, canyon lands, and high desert. Everything you see is honest and genuine, from the wrecked cars, old horse barns, stone ruins and giant cactusses to the beautiful rockformations, wide landscapes and Arizona sunsets. It's like time has stood still here.

I almost feel as if my writings about the southwestern nature must be pretty boring, as everythings sounds awesome and beautiful, but it simply is. Each state we visit has its own aspects, and it's great to see the landscape change and develop, while you're driving down Route 66.

As we drive up from Kingman to Oatman, we get a wonderful drive in the mountains of Arizona. Oatman is a small town, has a very goldrush/cowboy/saloon-kind of feeling to it (they still dig for gold), and is packed with mules. Everywhere you look, a mule is coming your way, and when they stop, they don't want to move anymore, because that's what mules do.. The babymules have stickers on their head, with a carrot that is lined through; "they are too young to eat carrots", we hear later on the day. We continue our trip with Mike, a young guy we picked up in our car (he was hitchhiking near Flagstaff and is an anarchist, so he tells us), after he plays a little banjo. (he has only 3 strings anymore, out of 5, because he used the other two to go fishing)

We drive up to Needles, California, and put up our tent next to the Colorado River. I slept outside, because I wanted to enjoy the stars, as the lack of light caused a major increase of visible stars, something we are not used to see in Belgium... Hmm.