Madison, WI – One recent afternoon at the Brass Ring – a billiards bar on Madison’s east side – “Buddy,” a Wisconsin-based marijuana trafficker, talked the pros and cons of his business. He suggested that a rash of heroin-related high jinks across Dane County over the last year has stifled its growth as authorities step-up their interdiction efforts.

“Anytime you get into a period like this – and I’ve noticed waves of it happening in the past – people become a little more insular about who they work with,” he said, nursing a Bloody Mary. “There’s no new faces and you don’t strike up business conversations with people.”

In a trade where people and their freedom tend to have short shelf lives, Buddy has been in business, without interruption, for a remarkable 10 years, making him something of an old-timer. And a lucky one at that. Unlike most who draw a living from black market commerce, his criminal record is squeaky clean.

But he’s had some close calls. Once, he said, he and a friend were pulled over with two-and-a-half pounds of weed and $2,500 in cash.

“We were pissing ourselves, saying ‘We’re so fucked! We’re so fucked!” he recalled.

At the station, his friend – the driver – was issued a ticket for driving without a license. Then, something unexpected happened.

“We get released,” he said, as if still in shock. “And we’re walking out wondering, ‘What the fuck is going on?’”

Their car was still parked where they left it on the side of the road, but the money and product were gone.  “There’s nothing quite like getting robbed by a police officer,” he said. Then, as if weighing the alternative, he grinned. “It’s my favorite dirty trick.”

Buddy began selling pot in college, and was soon couriering pounds of marijuana to Madison from California, where he had a hand in establishing a medicinal marijuana farm.

Over the years he’s occasionally pushed harder stuff, like cocaine and opiate painkillers – the kind local authorities blame for the recent spike in heroin use. Buddy agreed with this theory, explaining that, for dedicated pill poppers, heroin inevitably becomes a cheaper, more accessible alternative. But over time he developed serious moral qualms about enabling his customers’ journey down that road.

“[The] pharmaceutical stuff is destroying everything,” he lamented. “That stuff involves so much more crime and deviousness.”

Still, the nature of his trade brings him in regular proximity to the hard stuff. “It’s like if you go to a whorehouse looking for a blowjob, there’ll be a guy next to you getting laid,” he explained. “You’re always running into it.”

Surely there’s more money in the hard stuff, especially heroin. But he can’t reconcile making money by pushing a product that causes death. “I saw a close family member destroy his life with it. And I’ve had three or four customers kill themselves with it,” he said. “I care about quality of life.”

Buddy wouldn’t disclose his age, but said he becomes more risk averse the older he gets. Marriage hasn’t helped, either. He admitted that he and his bride “have had some conversations.”

Looking back on colleagues who’ve died or been imprisoned, Buddy reflected on his own anxieties. “It’s a constant nagging thing,” he explained, referring to the day-to-day pressures of dealing drugs. “I’m sure it’s a lot like what stuntmen feel when they go to work every day – it’s part of the job.”

Most nerve-racking, he said, are the drives from California with marijuana loads large enough that, under federal sentencing guidelines, would land him in prison for five years or more. “For three or five days all you do is hope your vehicle doesn’t break down and they bring in the dogs.”

Chasing his Bloody Mary with a beer, Buddy continued, “The sheen disappears quite quickly… When I started out in college it was breaking up an ounce; then I found myself doing the trafficking, or unpacking and guarding it somewhere here in town and dealing with many different people. It’s a helluva lot less fun as you go on.”

But in the calculus of risk-benefit analysis, Buddy, who earned $60,000 last summer, said the money is an obvious draw. He estimated his earnings over the last decade have approached $1 million, most of which he’s spent.

“You can make a lot of money just hanging out with your friends – until things go bad,” he said.

Things went bad last fall when armed gunmen raided his California farm ahead of the harvest and stole his crop, which he valued at around $170,000. “[We] didn’t realize at that point that [we] could’ve been insured,” he said, regretfully. “There are insurance companies out there that will insure your product.”

But this wasn’t the only misfortunate to visit him in 2011. The precariousness of his trade has put strain on his marriage. And apart from losing a ton of money, he also lost his business partner to a heroin overdose.

In response he’s scaled back operations, opting to work with people on the medicinal, rather than the recreational, side of the trade. “I’m no longer dealing with smokables, either,” he explained. “I’ve moved to the edibles and oils, and that makes the shipping easier.”

He sees his business as a community service, helping those afflicted or those who just need to means to unwind. He believes public opinion is shifting in favor of marijuana’s legalization, even among some within law enforcement.

“I’ve run into so many cops, especially around Madison, that understand certain things are not a problem,” he said. “We have really great cops in Madison.”

He envisions one day there being a consortium of sorts between drug dealers, addiction specialists, authorities and other stakeholders to discuss strategies on preventing death and criminality.

“I’d love to give them suggestions,” he said, finishing off his drink. “But people like me are not going to step forward and offer suggestions on how to improve this for fear of the retribution.”

Badlands, SD – Cruising along the meandering scenic bypass through Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota it’s difficult to ignore the supernatural inklings they evoke. Teddy Roosevelt, awed by the dark beauty of this region, aptly described the Badlands as “hell without the fire.”

Indeed, this vast, jagged landscape is composed of eroded buttes and spires spread across nearly 244,000 acres that formed as a giant sea receded some 69 million years ago. Prehistoric animals likes mammoths, rhinos and saber-toothed cats once flourished here, making it one of the most fossil-rich areas in the nation, with some fossils dating back 33 million years. The erosion that formed the Badlands we see today began approximately 500,000 years ago. It’s expected to take just as many years before it’s completely eroded away.

Paleo-Indian tribes lived here prior to the arrival of the Lakota. In 1890, Chief Big Foot passed through here in the run-up to the Massacre at Wounded Knee, in which 300 Sioux Indians were felled by U.S. Army guns, Big Foot among them. During World War II, the military used a southern portion of the badlands as a practice aerial bombing range.

There are many hiking trails graded to varying degrees of difficulty, but don’t get to close to the edges. Even after millions of years the land is soft and crumbly. And beware of rattlesnakes, which tend to hide in crevices and near rocks. Because of the park’s size, help isn’t immediately available. Camping in designated areas is also permitted.

Lost Springs, WY – If you’re looking for a drive to get away from it all, I-25 north from Denver to US-HWY 20 east in Wyoming is about as remote as it gets. Two-hundred-and-fifty miles of beautiful nothing. You won’t see utility lines strung along as there are no towns along the way. It’s beautiful country, with large, rocky hills covered with prairie short grass. Wyoming is the nation’s least populous state and Lost Springs is its least populous town.

Lost Springs sits on US-HWY 20 east. It’s a town that never really was. It’s population peaked during the mining boom of the 1920s, but has been in decline since. The town has one mayor and a councilman. In 2000, census workers wrongly calculated the population at 1, to the chagrin of the other 3. Lost Springs may have only four residents, but there’s room for at least one more, as five mobile homes sit within its .1 miles. That’s right, .1 miles.

The guy in the white plaid shirt in the background was one of four people I caught pissing on my van.

Commerce City, CO – On our first day on the lot at Dick’s Sporting Good’s Park, a tall dready I’d met prior to the lot opening pulls me aside to ask if I want to do a bunch of coke. “Not really,” I reply. He seems a little surprised, a little disappointed. “Mind if I duck inside your van for a minute?” he asks, like he really needs a bump. “Ah,” I say, “I’d rather you didn’t.” No luck here, he darts off to find someone else with a van who wants to snort coke. Me? Well, I had beer to sell.

Owning a van is great, except for when it isn’t. It’s so large that I can’t get to parts of the windshield when squeegeeing off the evidence of an insect holocaust. Keeping the petro flowing in a big gas-guzzling V8 is an obvious money suck and environmental hazard. Negotiating tight places is a bitch and its weight and size do a number on my brakes. Coming down a very steep mountain in Maryland they began to smoke.

These are small aggravations compared to those aroused on the Phish lot. Over three nights at least six men pissed on my van as its size provided them perfect cover. This in itself ain’t all that surprising, but considering vendors set up behind their vehicles it seemed awfully brazen of them to pee on a vehicle whose owner is just feet away. But people are high and drunk and lazy and do dumb things. Understandable. But what irritated me most were their cavalier reactions when called out on it.

The vendor next to me chased off two people on the second night. The guy in the plaid shirt in the picture above was the first one I caught. “Hey!” I yelled, walking toward him. “Are you really pissing on my van?”

“Just on the tire,” he says, looking over his shoulder.

“Seriously!?!” I shot back, expecting him to dam the stream, but it kept on flowing. He must’ve though I was going to clock him because I was closing in on him with the hope he’d just zip up and go away, but he didn’t. He just stood their and kept pissing. “You wouldn’t fight a guy with his penis out, would you?” he asks.

His girlfriend, who had been twisting a joint this entire time in the car next to us, yells out to him, “Just piss by my car… not on it, next to it.”

He grumbled and cursed, but obeyed the woman.

Others, too, used the “just-on-the-tire” defense and seemed just as shocked that I didn’t appreciate their thoughtfulness. Is it just me or are people generally okay with others pissing on their wheels? What makes tires fair game and not bumpers? Does bitching about it really give off “bad vibes,” as one accused?

Some were more considerate than others. One guy was actually on his knees pissing under the van. I still called him out for the puddle he was making right where I’d step to get inside the vehicle. Not to mention I had to wait for him to finish before I could open the door. Security was trying to clear the lot and I needed to load the coolers. Like the first guy, he seemed to piss forever.  “Will you hurry up already?” I scolded, to which he replied, “Hey man, you don’t need to be rude about it.”

Anyone who has tended bar understands the role includes playing counselor to those sad souls who try to wash away their troubles with booze. This held true at The Shakedown Tavern where many came seeking sympathy in the form of free shots. On our last night in Chicago we were visited by several who’d been sold bogus tickets to the show. I poured a round of whiskey shots – on the house.

But as a bar owner you can’t help everyone forget their troubles for free. With me, the quality of my charity corresponds directly with the quality of their approach. In Commerce City, I kicked down a few free shots to a guy who’d just gotten out of jail. Arrested the day before for selling drugs, he was released just before the next night’s show. But then an officer who recognized him wouldn’t allow him into the show. The story was worth a few shots.

But those who come expecting a handout likely won’t get one. One gem vendor wanted a free drink because his sales were slow. Sorry, bud. Another wanted to pay $2 for two drinks because he’d been following Phish since 1996. Maybe it’s time to get a job. Sometimes the pitch was as trite as, “Can I get a free shot?” Um, no.

On the second night during the show, when the lot becomes a virtual ghost town, we were visited by an older black guy who mumbled something fierce. He pulled a Stella tallboy from the cooler. “Hmchdisiz?” he asked. Four-dollars I told him, but his buddy, a wispy dude with a cracked out countenance, only had two dollars that he didn’t want to part with. I pointed him to the cooler with $2 beers. “Gmetodlrsz,” the mumbler demanded. They quibbled a bit until the mumbler got his way. He throws $2 on the table and walks off with the Stella. “I need two more dollars for that,” I said. But he just smiled and walked off.

The next day I saw the guy at a nearby gas station. He comes up to the van and asks, “Yallsllnlqur?”

“Not here,” I said.

I couldn’t decipher what he said next. I didn’t really care as I was still stewing about him shorting me on the Stella the night before. But I ask him to repeat himself anyhow. With remarkable clarity he screams at me,  “I didn’t stutter muthafucka!” and storms off.

By the end of the last night of Phish’s 2011 tour things were getting a little crazy. A steady breeze whipped up a storm of red Colorado soil that coated everything and stuffed up your sinuses. A Gallagher impersonator smashed melons, while vendors gave away what they hadn’t sold. After selling our last beer I noticed a pair of sketchy dudes leaning against the back of my van. their backpack tucked behind the rear wheel. Not only do I dislike people pissing on my tires, but am not too found of people stashing drugs behind them, either. A similar thing happened in Chicago when some knucklehead cracked open a nitrous tank using my van for cover.

But it the lot was closing down and the tow truck drivers were shouting through their megaphones that vendors had 10 minutes before they began towing vehicles. The sketch pads left without any encouragement from me. With Purple Thunder loaded up we rolled toward the exit but were obstructed by a fistfight that erupted in front of us. To the rear, a vendor was screaming at a car full of people that they were “going to get theirs.” Trash was everywhere and people were stumbling all around. Event staff and police were losing patience with the stragglers.

It was clear that the party was over.

Commerce City, CO – When hashing out the logistics of big projects I can always count on one thing: forgetting something important. Halfway to Denver I realized I’d forgotten several important things. First was a jar full of silver change that I save to pay meters, tolls and other small expenses. Next it occurred to me that I’d forgotten the folding table, which necessitated us having to purchase one in Colorado. I also left behind our drink cups and shot glasses as well as our extra cooler. In all, my forgetfulness set us back $100.

D’oh!

These were small things in the grander scheme, but these missteps compel the worry that the stage is set for disasters to come. The only way to mitigate potential pitfalls and make known the unknowns is to diligently gather intel beforehand, something only the most enterprising of the Shakedown vendors do.

The day before Phish’s first show we drove out to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, about seven minutes from Denver, to peep the lay of the land. Driving the grounds we observed there were multiple parking lots with just as many entrances and no way of knowing which one would be used. This made it impossible to determine where the vendors would gather prior to the lot opening at 3 p.m. sharp. In Chicago we staged on a street opposite the lot entrance, but being so close was no guarantee against becoming trapped in the gridlock and losing a spot on Shakedown. With nearly $500 tied up in beer and booze in addition to the expenses of travel, landing that spot was imperative.

But no amount of planning can minimize the biggest risk of all: the possibility that event staff or police will put the kabash on your operation. Unfettered vending is typically permitted because the band, as a courtesy to its fans, leases the lot on their behalf. This arrangement helps the venue recoup revenues siphoned from their concessions, while giving fans the freedom to do mostly as they please. Still, rules vary and are often enforced unevenly. Some venues crackdown on bootleg t-shirt merchants. Others hassle those selling alcohol. Sometimes the local health department will inspect the food vendors and require them to purchase a health permit. The Verizon Wireless Center charges a $150 vending fee. At Red Rocks, because it’s technically a city park, no vending at all is permitted.

Because Phish had never played this venue no one knew what the situation would be. Naturally, with so much cash tied up in this affair, the uncertainty spurred considerable anxiety.  In the hour leading up to the lot opening the vendors gathered on a street leading straight into the venue. During this time we double-checked that we had everything we needed, namely enough ice for drinks. My sidekick wrote up The Shakedown Tavern’s menu, while I tallied our inventory, counted out our change and calculated what we need to bring in to cover expenses. As three o’clock drew near, the vendors fired up their engines and at precisely 2:59 p.m., the caravan, with much fanfare, snaked toward the lot.

That first night was nearly a disaster. The parking staff directed us to a gravel lot instead of the grass lot the band had leased. In the absence of clearly designated stalls and staff to ensure vehicles were parked in an organized, symmetrical fashion, people abdicated their common sense and parked wherever and however they saw fit, claiming as much space as they could. By the time event staff realized they’d made a mistake Shakedown was already open for business. With lots of hootin’ and hollerin’ they tried unfucking the clusterfuck, but with people pouring onto the lot it just wasn’t going to happen. An egregious few were made to straighten their vehicles, but staff quickly gave up trying to tighten up the space. Instead the greedy bastards saw in the mess an opportunity to milk more money by charging each vendor an additional $15 for the space wasted on account of their mistake.

As event staff made the rounds extorting vendors the sky grew ominous and gray. The temperature dropped rapidly and the wind whooshed in formidable gusts that sent EZ-Ups and merchandise a-flyin’. Above us was the very edge of a large slow-moving storm that, from the ground, appeared to abut clear blue skies. Shakedown, up and running not even an hour, was a ghost town as people took refuge in their vehicles or camp sites on the other side of the venue, even though no rain was forecast for the area. Vendors nonetheless secured their EZ-Ups against the wind and began draping tarps over their merchandise in case of rain. I didn’t bring our EZ-Up so we loaded our stock in the van.

When the sky finally opened up it dumped on us a heavy rain that blew sideways for a solid 30-minutes. Then just as abruptly as it began, the rain stopped and the sky cleared. In the blink of an eye Shakedown went from ghost town to a bustling hub of commercial activity. A line that never seemed to shorten had formed at our tavern before completing our post-storm set up. A few other vendors peddled beers and mixed drinks, but our variety and prices were not only unrivaled, but unbeatable.

To supplement our standard beer selection I brought along a few select cases of beer from Wisconsin’s New Glarus Brewery, which produces some of the best beers known to man. Because New Glarus Brewery only distributes inside Wisconsin, I was quite shocked by how many people were familiar with the brewery and its flagship beer, Spotted Cow. Along with a case of Cow, I also had on hand several cases of the brewery’s latest concoction, an utterly fantastic black IPA that garnered high praise from those lucky enough to score a bottle.

If business was brisk from the start it picked up in earnest once event staff began enforcing a strict no-glass rule. Beer vendors were told that unless they had plastic cups to pour bottled beer into, which none but us did, they had to shut down. Had the others done a little pre-show research they’d have seen this policy spelled out in big bold Arial type on the venue’s website. Anticipating this crackdown, I limited my bottles to the New Glarus beers. Everything else I had was in cans.

For three hours we moved beers and mixed drinks at a furious clip, our tip jar so stuffed with bills that people simply walked away without their change. In Chicago, no matter how much beer we stocked we never seemed to have enough. I made a point this time to double-down on inventory but before the show even started we were down to less than a dozen beers. And the no-glass policy caused us to burn through more cups than usual, leaving us without anything to serve drinks in. With nowhere nearby to re-up, The Shakedown Tavern packed up for the night to the disappointment of many, including us.

I love Denver, t00. As far as cities go it is clean, easy to navigate and the people are notably polite and helpful. I was called ‘hon’ more times here than in Hon Town, Baltimore and the bums say ‘thank you’ whether you give them change or not. No one in Denver ever seems in too much of a hurry, not even waitresses. On the highways, drivers tend to keep to the right unless passing, which keeps traffic moving.

Another nice flourish are all of the medical marijuana dispensaries. Many advertise in the local weekly deals on ounces, eighths, hash oil and Cheba Chews. All of this in addition to being minutes away from the Rocky Mountain foothills makes it hard to not regard the Mile High City as some kind of paradise.  For me, the worst part of visiting Colorado is leaving Colorado.

We arrived in Denver late afternoon Wednesday, following a seven hour cruise from Lincoln, Nebraska. Unsure what exit to take let alone where in the city to go I got off at Colfax Avenue only because I remembered the street from previous visits. We needed to find a place to hunker down. I feared that for the cheap rooms we’d have to hit the ‘burbs or the ghetto but using my Droid I zeroed in on the 11th Avenue Hotel and Hostel, located downtown near the state capitol building in an area known as the Golden Triangle, one of Denver’s oldest neighborhoods.

The hotel, built in the early 20th Century, had a grand wooden staircase with plastic-covered carpeting. For an extra charge we got a room with a bathroom and a $6 deposit netted us a bath towel each. There wasn’t an ice machine or any other amenities, including soap or shampoo. A few derelicts lurked about waiting to use the lobby payphone.

For $56 and proximity to downtown, it didn’t bother me that the wi-fi didn’t work or that a screaming woman was subdued by police in the hallway, cuffed and carted away on a stretcher. It’s part of the urban experience. And I later learned the hotel caters to recovering drug addicts, alcoholics, the homeless and others on the bottom rungs of the institutional ladder.

Its billing as a hostel attracts young travelers with means. These two very disparate clienteles made for a strange integration of characters who kept largely to their own worlds.

The hotel was as clean as an old hotel can be. My biggest concern was that one of the resident alcoholics would discover the $450 worth of liquor of beer I had stashed in Purple Thunder for the purpose of selling outside Dick’s Sporting Goods Park during the Phish shows that upcoming weekend. After the successful launch of The Shakedown Tavern a few weeks earlier in Chicago I decided a sojourn to the Denver shows was in order. If anything, I’d get a free vacation out of it, meet some cool people, party a little, take in some sights and see some old friends.

I have two friends in Denver, both of whom I called after checking into the motel. Mark didn’t answer, but De’Nay did. We took the free shuttle to the top of the 16th Avenue Mall – the nation’s largest outdoor pedestrian mall – and met her outside of a bar on Blake Street. Her hair was longer than I remembered. Beyond that she appeared more or less the same.

De’Nay and I met more than ten years ago in Telluride, CO. We ran with a crew of transients that lived residentially in the forested hills surrounding town, which itself had an altitude of nearly 8,500 feet. I was friends with her ex, Jonathan and another kid named Drew, and spent much of my time tooling around Colorado with them. Some time later after leaving Telluride I ran into De’Nay in Arcata, California. Actually she found me. I was sitting in the plaza when I heard her call my name.

She’d befriended some middle-aged  guy who owned a considerable amount of land there in Humboldt County. On this land were many small cabins he rented to people who lived off the grid. De’Nay and I hitchhiked back there from Arcata. Dave seemed displeased that De’Nay had returned with me in tow. That night De’Nay, myself and several others ate around a campfire. Well into the night we swapped stories, sipped wine, played guitar and smoked joints filled with locally-grown weed.

Dave, who owned the land, didn’t like dogs, but was fond enough of De’Nay that he allowed her dog Bela on the property. That night De’Nay and I returned to her cabin. As I got comfortable in the top bunk, Bela got loose and ran off into the deep dark forest.

“BELA! BELA!” she cried drunkenly into the ink black night. “BELA! GET OVER HERE NOW!”

Dave soon arrived to address the commotion. De’Nay explained what happened and Dave’s response was to ask if she didn’t have friends or family who could care for the animal. She rejected this idea outright and Dave returned to his cabin. Inside, De’Nay began pacing, worried that Bela might encounter a bear or mountain lion. She tried lighting with her shaking hands a kerosene lamp, but knocked it over. Kerosene spilled down the counter top and on to the floor. One of the mantles ignited the fuel and I watched as the flame traveled along the countertop. A fiery drop ignited the puddle on the floor.

I leaped from the top bunk to smother the flames with the only blanket I had. The fire was quickly extinguished and that chilly September night I slept under my now charred blanket that reeked of kerosene. I left the next day and didn’t talk to De’Nay again until years later when we re-connected through Facebook.

De’Nay told me she stayed in California a while before returning home to Colorado and eventually moving to Denver, where she began doing heroin and was once severely beaten by Denver police officers who had spied her buying dope.

Clean now for two years, she is still poor and lives along a shitty stretch of Colfax Avenue where open-air drug deals are the norm. But De’Nay, an eternal optimist, looks on the bright side. “The nice thing about having crack dealers around is that there are no kids in the neighborhood,” she explained on our walk to Pete’s Monkey Bar, where we pounded back $1.50 PBRs. “No one wants to raise kids here. The neighborhood is full of people in their twenties and thirties who don’t have kids.”

We don't have cows this big in Wisconsin.

While my friend De’Nay has made great strides in her recovery my other Denver friend, Mark, has resumed his vein-spiking ways. I met Mark in college when we were both promising students. I dropped out to become editor of a newspaper. Mark dropped out due to a heart aneurysm discovered on a chest X-ray taken during a bout of pneumonia. After a slow, painful recovery from heart surgery, during which surgeons discovered and repaired a leaky valve, Mark was on the rebound.

But then he began doubting his wife. Suddenly she was buying new perfumes, getting Brazilian wax jobs, and traveling more often for work. When he confronted her after finding a stash of lingerie and a pair of crotchless panties she moved out. Without any further explanation she filed for divorce.

Seriously depressed, Mark one night called a crisis hotline, but hung up after becoming irritated with the person on the other end. Fearing that Mark might end his life, the crisis prevention worker dispatched police to his house but Mark was asleep by the time they arrived. After pounding on the door for some time, Mark stirred from his sleep, opened the door and was yanked from his house and thrown to the ground. Police cuffed him then drove him to a hospital for evaluation.

A week later he blacked out when the wine he drank didn’t mix well with his new meds. Once police had him in custody they told him he’d broadsided a bunch of cars, nearly mowed down a pedestrian, then drove his car through his garage door and proceeded to trash the house. Upon his release the sheriff served him with a restraining order his wife filed to keep him from entering their home, which they were trying to sell.

When his probation ended in 2010 he returned home to Denver to continue his descent. He sounded like hell when he answered my call, and more than a little surprised I was in Denver. I invited him to dinner but he said that he was in no condition to receive visitors. For starters, he admitted to being strung out and said he didn’t want me to see him like that. Additionally, he was living out of his car following an eviction. “I’d love to see ya,” he said. “Things just aren’t good right now. I’m dying, Nate. I’m really dying this time.”

“I understand,” I said before hanging up. “Good luck.”

The asshole that greets you at Pete's Monkey Bar in Denver

We walked down the 16th Avenue Mall up to Colfax Avenue, to Pete’s Monkey Bar, one of two hippie bars on the block. It was open mic night, which brought out a handful of really great musicians who tore it up all night. De’Nay and I strolled down memory lane rehashing our more memorable moments in Telluride. I asked about Jonathan and Drew, my two buddies I’d lost contact with after leaving. De’Nay said she’d seen them not long ago sitting outside the Art Museum looking for dope.

“They didn’t look good,” she said. “I think they’re still living in Telluride.”

This was disheartening news. The first time I met Jonathan he was shooting cocaine between his toes. And Drew was just a transient like the rest of us. When I returned the following summer Jonathan had cleaned up and Drew was still sleeping in his Karmann Ghia. All summer we traveled around Colorado in Jonathan’s Volkswagon Vanagon until I returned to Wisconsin for school. In those days, before Facebook and cell phones, it was easy to lose touch. I haven’t spoken to either since.

We met up with De’Nay again the following night at Pete’s Monkey Bar for the pre-Phish party, tossing back $1.50 PBRs and waiting for that night’s band to go live, a wait that wasn’t really worth it in the end.

We didn’t stay out late though it was our last night in Denver. My sidekick and I had spent much of the day hiking around Red Rocks state park. It was the first time in months I’d worn shoes. Consequently I developed some gnarly blisters on my feet and toes that pained me with each step.

There was an ambulance outside of the hotel. As we climbed the stairs to the second floor, we overheard some muffled screams and commotions from above. Moments later, two Denver police officers and a paramedic were escorting a woman down the stairs. Then for whatever reason the woman collapsed on the second floor and began to wail. I poked my head out of the room to watch the frustrated officers cuff the woman then lift her to her feet. This must’ve caused her great pain as she let out a great scream as they dragged her down the stairs. From our window we watched as they loaded her into the ambulance. By then she seemed sedated and calm. The officers chatted amongst themselves then laughed a little once the ambulance door closed. And before long it was all over.

After fighting my eyes over dozens of miles en route to Denver I pulled off in Gothenburg, Nebraska, home of college football hall of famer Jay Novacek and, according to Golf Week Magazine, America’s best golf course under $50. But there’s another little gem. Tucked behind the Shell gas station just off the exit was a big red barn with a windmill and a cloth-covered pioneer wagon. It’s an ode to Nebraska’s way of life after the Indians had been driven out and the government began doling out free plots of land. Inside sat a diminutive elderly woman who, judging from how her face lit up upon seeing me, didn’t get many visitors.

“Well hello there,” she said, setting down her crochet hooks. “Welcome to the Sod House Museum. Where are you from?”

“Pennsylvania,” I lied, only because people often seem very confused when I tell them Wisconsin then later they notice my PA plates. I like to avoid explaining things over and over, which is why I could never be a tour guide.

After explaining the nuts-and-bolts of the operation, the woman made me an offer. “How about I give you a guided tour? It’s free and if at any time you get bored you can tell me to shut up. How does that sound?” she asked with a big megawatt smile.

“Sounds great,” I replied, hoping I wouldn’t have to ask her to shut up. It was a hopeless thing to hope, I feared, considering she was going to be talking about Nebraska, a place you couldn’t pay me to live. But even unappealing things sometimes have interesting back stories so I let the woman run with it.

She didn’t disappoint.

In old pictures, bird cages hang just outside the front door of many sod houses. The birds provided women with companionship while the men hunted.

The museum consists mostly of reprinted photographs taken by a man named Solomon Butcher, who produced roughly 3,000 glass-plate negatives of settlement life beginning in 1886. This came more than 25 years after President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which drew thousands of European immigrants to the plains with promises of free land.

“They came with big ideas,” the woman said.

Problem was, the woman explained, the soil was pretty crappy. Even worse, there were so few trees and stones on the plains that houses had to be made of sod, like those built by the natives who occupied those lands previously had built. Those who could afford it purchased enough lumber, delivered via railroad, to accommodate door and window frames.

Life was hard for these homesteaders who, under the law, had five years to improve the land and file for a deed of title. Problems with the soil were compounded by a lack of water. Few were willing to undertake the dangerous work of digging wells. Even if they were, many didn’t have the money to build the windmill needed to bring the water up in buckets. Their sod homes, built inexpensively, were prone to insect infestations and needed constant maintenance due to rain.

The woman pointed to the sod house behind the museum. “There’s a lot of damage to it from the all the rain we’ve gotten,” she said.

I looked out and could see the exterior sagging. The museum’s owner, who was on vacation, was going to be displeased with the damage, according to the woman. She says he’ll make the repairs himself. It must’ve been a constant struggle for settlers to protect their homes from the elements. A single thunderstorm could turn a sod house into a mud hut.

The woman finished her tour, leaving me to check out the damaged sod house on my own. It is a lot like you’d expect: grassy, damp and dusty. The air inside was very cool, and each step kicked up a plume of dust from the dirt floor. I couldn’t imagine a full family residing inside, enduring the brutal winters together, hemmed in by the elements with nowhere to escape. The disappointment must’ve hit hard these homesteaders, whose dreams had led them to a barren, virtually useless wilderness. More than 60 percent of the of 1.6 million who made land claims failed to meet the five-year requirements and lost the land they’d sacrificed so much for.

From what I gathered Nebraska hasn’t much improved since 1862. The Indians are still gone, as are the buffalo. So are most of the sod houses. More than 90 percent of the state’s surface area is tied to agriculture and 89 percent of its towns have fewer than 1,000 residents.

While its corporatized farms produce tons of corn, soybeans and beef we also have Nebraska to thank for Kool-Aid, CliffNotes and the second-richest guy in the world, Warren Buffett, a.k.a. The Oracle of Omaha.

Nebraska is also where the west begins. You can feel – about halfway across – the air shed its humidity to become semi-arid. It’s true. Even the sun shines differently.

And let’s not forget the Sod House Museum.

After strolling the grounds a bit, taking in the life-sized barbed-wire buffalo and Indian horse rider sculptures, I returned to the gift shop. The woman, who I learned was a retired charter pilot, asked some questions about Pennsylvania. She had never been there, a realization that seemed to surprise her. “We never had flights there, I guess.”

I decided there wasn’t anything gift shop junk I wanted to buy, but felt a little bad that I didn’t have any loose cash to plug in the donation box. The woman was a great tour guide, charismatic as hell and full of interesting deets, insofar as Nebraskan deets are interesting. I apologized for having nothing to give. She assured me it was okay and I believed her. I thought I’d stop by on my way home from Denver, as a way of demonstrating the fundamental goodness of humankind, but that didn’t happen either.

I detoured around Nebraska instead.

Chicago, Il - The second episode of my food vending enterprise took me to Chicago, where the jam band Phish played three nights earlier this week at the University of Illinois-Chicago Pavilion, just ahead of a three-night run in Denver that will cap the band’s 2011 summer tour.

Following a lukewarm debut of Daisy Dick’s Donut Ballz at the Grateful Garcia Gathering earlier this month, I expanded the menu to include a few hardier food items. My sidekick and I also brought along a cooler full of dank Wisconsin beer and another full of bottled water. And, for good measure, we had a large tub of individually wrapped Twizzlers that sold 5 for $1.

I was ready to accumulate dollars.

After checking into our shit hole motel on the edge of a south side ghetto, we rolled up to UIC Pavilion near the heart of downtown Chi-town to await the arrival of 3:30 p.m. when authorities opened the lot. We parked illegally on a side street along with dozens of other vendors, grid skippers and fans, some of whom had followed the band all summer long. Moments before authorities removed the sawhorses that barricaded the entrance, everyone dashed to their vehicles. But rather than beat the gridlock they created it. Hundreds of hippies laying in wait in the surrounding blocks must’ve shared some kind of telemetry for within a minute or two traffic stretched as far as the eye could see.

Snags with our operation were immediately hit. The central lot, where vendors peddle their goods, was full by the time we arrived, so we were directed to one of two overflow lots. Then, once the fryer reached temp, I discovered that my veggie chimichangas were still frozen solid. Hungry after driving all day, I grilled up a PB&J, another menu item, but I couldn’t get the stove to a low enough temp to prevent the honey butter from burning. In an instant, my expanded menu was reduced to donut balls, bottled water and Twizzler sticks. And beer.

Thank goodness for beer.

The beer sold out within 90 minutes, giving us a tiny cash infusion. Food sales typically hit their peak once the concert lets out, but with our two staple menu items unsellable, we packed up and left. It would be at least 12 hours before the chimis thawed and the grilled PB&Js were a total loss. My strategy needed some retooling, but with a mere $130 between us, prospects were few. So we did what many on the cusp of failure too often do: we turned to alcohol to help solve our problems.

Few places in America can match the surreal spectacle of a Phish lot. During the day it has the airs of a festival-flea-market hybrid, but by night it’s a lawless wasteland of drink and drug-fueled excess.

Revelers from all over the country pour into the lots, some to vend, some to party, some to do both. Many have toured all summer, following the Vermont-based band from city to city, flipping dollars on lots outside of the various venues.

Worn down vans with thousands of American highway miles on them form the bulk of the vehicles you’ll find on Shakedown, as the vending area is known. It’s a label passed down from the Deadheads and derived from The Grateful Dead song Shakedown Street.

In Chicago, dozens wandered the lot with a finger in the air indicating their want of a ticket for the sold out show, which were going for upwards of $250. The more financially-strapped sought miracles (another nod the Dead), i.e. a free ticket from a generous benefactor.

You might think of the Phish lot as a self-assembling, transient ghetto for privileged white kids and older heads who’ve never stopped truckin’. It’s a shadow economy that functions largely off the grid, where untaxed goods are sold freely without permits and illicit commodities exchange hands as openly as they do in America’s inner-cities, but without much risk of arrest. To their extraordinary credit, law enforcement has traditionally cast a blind eye on this commerce, a precedent Chicago police pleasantly honored.

Without a doubt, undercover cops lurk in the trenches, as evidenced by the kid who was frisked Wednesday on the hood of my van. (He was ultimately let go.) In fact, a uniformed officer on duty Tuesday night was observed walking the lot Wednesday night in civilian clothes. And DEA scum are known to have cuffed more than a few over the years. Jerry Becka, the DEA special agent here in Madison, is rumored to have cut his teeth working the Dead lots back in the day. But for the most part, the police just kind of keep watch from the perimeter, not a drug dog in sight.

In the late 90s when I was more committed to Phish and Further tours, I’d sell beers from a cooler and $1 grilled cheeses cooked on a little Coleman camping stove. Traveling was cheap back then. Even if you only brought in $60 a show it was enough to cover the essentials: gas, beer, smokes and food. Now, $60 is a half tank of gas. Supporting oneself on the road is no easy feat these days and the Phish lot is perhaps the only forum in which an easy dollar can be earned. Yes, I said ‘earned,’ because anyone who’s ever worked a show knows the hustle involved.

After our performance Monday night, I wasn’t feeling too good about things Tuesday morning, but I had an idea. After running out of beer the night before, I perused the lot to scope the operations of other vendors. Amid the usual coterie of merchandise – t-shirts, hats, artwork, jewelry and gems – were several food vendors with an array of customized kitchens. Most offered cheap eats like veggie wraps, burritos, quesadillas and grilled cheeses. One guy made French bread pizzas in a home kitchen oven retrofitted to run on propane. Another sold macaroni with gouda cheese. Nom nom nom.

It occurred to me that what was missing from Shakedown was a neighborhood tavern. Sure people sold beer and some sold limited mixed drinks but they didn’t do it well. One kid was charging $2 to swig from a bottle. Cold sores anyone? So we plunked our $130 down on beer and bum jugs of liquor and launched The Shakedown Tavern. It was a whopping success. Within three hours we had sold out of everything, nearly quadrupling our investment. Sweetening the night further were the rave reviews we received from those who bought our chimichanga plates. They had thawed, but whatever was leftover on Tuesday would be unsellable on Wednesday.

On the way back to the motel we made the no-brainer decision to double our alcohol inventory for Wednesday night’s show, when The Shakedown Tavern became a full-service bar with enough beer and spirits on hand to ensure our sales until the lot closed around 1 a.m. Wednesday, being Phish’s final night in the Windy City, was also expected to draw the largest crowd of the three nights, a circumstance we intended to capitalize on completely. But the next morning our effort was nearly sunk by Angel, the very un-angel like front-end manager at a Sam’s Club in Tinley Park who refused to sell me the alcohol I so desperately needed.

Invigorated by Tuesday night’s payday, we hightailed it that morning to Sam’s Club, where we loaded up the cart with eight cases of beer and several mixers for a variety of liquors. I was hours away from recouping a large chunk of the cash I had thus far invested in the overall food vending enterprise, but was a tad concerned my expectations were too inflated and that I’d be left with a bunch of unsold booze. After selling out of beer the first night, disappointment panged my heart each time I had to turn customers away. The disappointment that’d come with an empty cooler was enough to mitigate the worry.

I’d forgotten my Sam’s card in Madison so my sidekick presented hers and was promptly asked for ID. The clerk gave it a deliberative once-over then asked for another form of identification, which my sidekick didn’t have. The clerk signals her manager, a frumpy blonde called Angel, explaining that she isn’t sure they accept the ID.

“Why?” I asked. “It’s a government issued ID.”

“Well, it says it’s a temporary license,” the clerk replied.

My sidekick, who has never had a driver’s license, explained that in Wisconsin learner’s permits are identical to driver’s licenses except that they say temporary on them, that rather than issuing separate documents as they did in the past, a temporary license and identification info are now consolidated into a single card. The clerk seemed confused by this as did Angel when we explained it to her.

“I just ain’t never seen an ID like this before,” said Angel, who then solicited the opinion of yet another manager who took the ID card with her to an office.

I again explained to Angel the Wisconsin way, who repeated her spiel about having never seen an ID like that.

“Well now you’ve seen one,” I said. “Now you know they exist.”

The other manager returned with the ID saying they wouldn’t accept it. We protested loudly, explaining we had an event to be at shortly, but Angel, smirking ever so slightly, wouldn’t budge.

After storming out, we went to a nearby grocery store and then K-Mart, whose liquor prices were nearly double of those at Sam’s. The next nearest Sam’s store was an hour away and an additional 45 minutes to the lot. By then we most certainly would lose our coveted spot on the side street, potentially costing us a spot in the lot’s commercial center. Our whole scheme seemed to be blowing up in our faces.

We lost an hour scoping prices at other stores before I decided to try Sam’s again. I dropped my sidekick off at the strip mall across the street, got a temporary Sam’s card from the front desk and loaded up the cart. I didn’t see Angel anywhere as I approached the check out aisle with the shortest line. Then, out of nowhere, she’s leaning on my cart with that shit-eating smirk on her face.

“We’re not going to sell this alcohol to you,” she said.

“Why?” I protested. “I’m thirty-three, I have a driver’s license and I’m a Sam’s Club member.”

“Because you were in here earlier with someone whose ID we rejected,” she said.

“Look,” I said, “You didn’t deny us earlier because you questioned her age or the legitimacy of the ID. You said it was an unacceptable form of ID because you’d never seen a temporary license card. It’s obviously a government-issued card with holograms and a bar code.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said.

“So, what?” I asked. “Are you going to deny me tomorrow because I came in with her today?”

“That’s not the issue.”

“That’s precisely the issue!” I growled. “How long do I have to wait before I can buy alcohol at this store again? Am I banned forever? What if I came in with someone else and they want to buy alcohol? Would you deny them, too?”

“Sir, we reserve the right to refuse alcohol sales to anyone for any reason,” she ejaculated. “I’m just doing my job.”

“No, you’re just being a bitch because you can,” I snapped back, accepting the futility of trying to reason with an idiot.

I’d be remiss if I left the impression that the Phish lots are only about drugs. To an outsider, a Phish lot at first glance may seem like a depraved antithesis of civilized society, a flagrant flouting of our law and order ethos as police stand idly by, breathing in the marijuana-scented air. Though recreational drug use is for many an integral part of the Phish experience, most fans I suspect will say it’s a sense of community that underlies their devotion to the scene.

For me, it’s the countless small, unrepeatable moments that fill the air with magic.

On Tuesday night, a quartet of musicians dressed in classy black suits asked if it would be okay for them to play in the empty stall next to Purple Thunder. “More than okay,” told them, figuring the music would draw a nice crowd to my bar. For a solid three hours these guys played a rollickin’ set of traditional bluegrass jams. I poured the banjo player a vodka-cranberry on the house, thanking him for his music. The band, known as Sexfist, is wildly popular in Chicago and played regularly at an established spot that recently closed.

Night had fallen by the time they wrapped up. Afterwards, the guitar player sat on a cooler next to my van and played Grateful Dead songs for the next couple of hours. A small circle of people gathered around to listen, passing joints and singing along with the sweet-voiced guitarist beneath the halos of street lamps. In moments like these the pinnacle of happiness has no limit.

The Phish lot is always chill like this, teeming with glassy-eyed people with wide smiles and eager to swap travel stories and other trivia from their lives. On Monday after the show started we were approached by a pair of girls who’d flown from Chattanooga to Milwaukee, then bussed down to Chicago and were waiting for Tuesday night’s show, tickets for which they paid $250 for. We were tearing down for the night when they came and sat for awhile on our coolers and shot the breeze with us before heading back to where they were staying for the night.

Things do sometimes get tense. There came a point on Wednesday night while we were tearing down when a loud hissing spewed from near the front of my van. Someone with a nitrous tank had set up shop between my vehicle and another. Knowing the cops would certainly zero in on the telltale sound of nitrous balloons being filled, I told my sidekick, “Let’s just sit for a minute,” fearing we might get caught up in the mix. We watched as dozens of kids flocked toward the hiss like children chasing the music of an ice cream truck.

Vendors were unnerved by the ill-fated attempt at flipping dollars since the police at anytime could shut us down. Plus, situations can easily become overheated pretty quick amid the chaos of a police shakedown. Within minutes we were completely surrounded by people huffing nitrous balloons until ubiquitous cries of “Six up! Six up!” filled the air.

Heeding the alarm, the knucklehead with the tank cracked it wide open to release the gas before the po-po arrived, which happened soon enough. The cops confiscated the tank but made no arrests, offering instead a terse reminder about what nitrous does to the brain. Everyone booed. Resuming our tear down I observed dozens of discarded balloons next my van. I picked up each one and threw them in the trash.

During my argument with Angel from Sam’s Club, my sidekick texted to inform that a grocery store in the strip mall across the street had comparable liquor prices and a better beer selection. Indeed she was right. We raced around the store, loading the cart with jugs of rum, vodka, tequila, whiskey, mixers and beer. We checked out without incident. But as we were backing out I realized I’d forgotten margarita salt so I ran back inside and got another taste of absurdity.

“Do you have ID?” the clerk asked me.

“For margarita salt?” I asked.

“It’s used with alcohol,” she replied.

“Do you card for grenadine, too?”

“We card for anything purchased in the alcohol section.”

“But what if I’m nineteen and just want to make kiddie cocktails?”

She shrugged.

“I guess you’d be S.O.L.”

I’d had enough of Illinois, but the morning’s stresses were quickly abated once we got on the lot and opened The Shakedown Tavern. Not only was it our most profitable night, but also the most fun. My friend Cliff, a film student living in Chicago who I hadn’t seen for years, came down to hang out and help us man the stand.

The vendors next to and across from us were also selling beers and a whiskey drinks, but with our inventory and cheap prices people flocked to us. For four hours the spirits flowed and bottle tops popped. People were pleased we had premium liquors and name brand mixers, many of whom returned several times, especially those drinking our margaritas. One couple, so pleased with our service, stopped by to thank us before going into the show, tipping us with a ganja gooball.

While sales were great, so were the tips. People are so conditioned to tipping the bartender that we set out a tip jar that we kept having to remove dollars from to make room for more. Turns out my worries about being left with a bunch of unsold alcohol were completely unfounded. By 8:30 p.m., we’d run completely dry. I gave myself a little kick for not having more inventory after turning away dozens of people. With the lot open for another four hours we could very well have doubled our haul. But after three days we were ready to head home.

After walking the lot for a while and catching up with Cliff, we were off, headlights trained toward Wisconsin but with our sights set on Denver, where Phish in a couple of weeks will play its final shows of summer 2011.

The band plays to a nascent audience.

Black River Falls, WI – Ya gotta love salient coincidences, those ones that punctuate life in ways that might tempt you to ascribe to them some deeper more transcendent meaning. On Thursday morning, as we rolled into Black River Falls, we saw hanging above the highway a banner announcing that weekend’s Jackson County Fair, which last year I worked as a carnie for Wenzel Amazements, an experience that in part inspired this current endeavor.

Like the Wenzels I was back in Black River Falls to work a festival, a different one being held roughly 10 miles beyond the other side of town. There, on a private campground comprised of many acres covered with sprawling conifer forest, people from as far as St. Louis came to celebrate for three full days the birthday of the late-Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia.

I was at the gathering to sling deep-fried donut balls and flip a profit like the dozen or so other vendors who turned out with their massive inventories of tie-dyed shirts, tapestries, hemp jewelry, hula hoops, gems and drums. I had food vended years ago and my time with the Wenzels led me to realize the big potential of simple ideas on the festival circuit. But that simple, easy idea eluded me. Only after a friend dropped the idea of selling donuts on the road to fund her travels did I have a jumping point. Now here I was less than a month later listening to Grateful Dead covers while squirting from the depositor little ball-shaped donuts, a perfect treat to assuage the munchies.

Of the dozen or more vendors only one sold food, mostly burritos, tacos and sandwiches, a fact we figured boded well for us. By 11 a.m. that morning Daisy Dick’s Donut Ballz was open for business, the first batch of balls bagged and displayed and waiting for people to buy them.

Could it really be that easy?

The woman vending next to us told us Thursday would be slow. Indeed it was. But rather than fret, we kicked back and people watched. Scurrying around the grounds was a diminutive man with long graying hair tied behind his shoulders. We first noticed him upon arriving, as he hurriedly emerged from between a pair of buildings wearing nothing but the skin he was born in, his perfectly tanned appendage swinging side-to-side. We later learned he was called Naked Larry. The campground was a safe haven for nudists and, judging from the cages, crosses and stockades, BDSM play was a popular activity, as well. The camp also bills itself as neutral place for rival biker factions. A sign at the gate states that “all colors are welcome.”

For the most part, people kept their clothes on. One girl went topless, with pot leaves painted over her nipples. A heavy-set guy, presumably inspired by the other naked guy, too chose to strip down, his big tan belly supported by a stark white lower half. Another naked guy, this one with big mutton chops, wore only a belt in which he carried his cell phone that he at least one time bent over to retrieve after dropping. I’ve never seen so many heads turn away so fast.

Unlike Naked Larry, who has close relations with the camp and is well-known and liked by festival veterans, these other two cut pathetic figures. All weekend they strolled the grounds alone. It’s easy to meet people at these things, but nudity – at least male nudity – erects a barrier to forming new relations. I mean, no one is going to invite the naked stranger to smoke a bowl or share a beer. Who wants a bare butt on their chairs? You might think that if the crowd was put off by these two that at least they’d have each other. But that didn’t seem to be the case. As far as I could tell, they didn’t speak and never stood near one another. Perhaps they too found mingling with a naked male a tad discomforting.

As Thursday wore on, it became clear that people weren’t buying donut ballz en masse. A few here and a few there, but not at the volume we had wished for. Anita, the woman vending next to us, said things would pick up on Friday and Saturday, which they did. It was clear that the campgrounds were filling up. At any moment I expected a stream of dancing people to fill the concert area. Last year, Anita said, only 600 people showed up.

The goal from the onset was to sell 200 bags of Daisy Dick’s Donut Ballz, which seemed like a reasonable benchmark. But unfortunately for me, and many of the other vendors, those people we waited on never came.

The first problem lay with the lay-out of the festival. The concert area where the vendors were placed was open field which the sun beat on oppressively. With the campgrounds nestled in the shady forest behind the stage, there was little incentive for attendees to vacate the comfort of their camp for the brutal rain of sunshine. The music, which during the day was largely low-energy acoustic balladeering, traveled easily into the woods. To everyone’s dismay, the concert grounds remained virtually empty until darkness and the day’s main act compelled these glassy-eyed creatures to emerge from the forest.

Then there was the crowd itself, which never achieved the mass necessary to sustain to the vendors, something the festival organizer alluded to on the final night in his profuse but shaky thanks to the vendors. Because attendees were so dispersed, gauging their numbers was difficult, but I’d estimate the crowd numbered less than 1,000.

The paltry weekly pay I earned last summer working for the Wenzels was double what I earned at this gathering. But we packed up our shop with few regrets and some lessons learned. First, donut balls aren’t enough to carry the day. While we did sell nearly 50 bags, those sales came primarily in the morning. We also lost money by not offering coffee, which was in high demand.

In all, Daisy Dick’s Donut Ballz was well-received. Naked Larry bought donuts each morning. People loved the name and Anita, who has worked festivals for nearly a decade, said she’d never seen such a simple food set up. She applauded our concept and suggested we make more use of our deep fryer by adding a couple substantive items. She gave us the names of a few upcoming festivals she’s working and encouraged us to secure spots. “I lost my ass the first time I came out, too,” she said. “But it will pay off if you keep at it.”

Keep at it we will. Already we’ve got new designs and food stuffs to offer at next week’s festivities. While tearing down our spot yesterday morning, I was, in spite of my losses, invigorated by the possibilities that lay ahead. It was a gloomy morning and few of the other vendors seemed as pleased with their weekend as I was.

One was particularly incensed as her boyfriend decided to party all weekend rather than work. That morning he snored loudly from inside her vending booth. The day previous he let a little too loose, whooping it up all day into the night. At some point they began arguing and he ran off into the forest. Later, she spied him by a fence stripping out of his clothes after shitting himself. She told him he had to sleep outside. His strange snores attracted one woman who wondered if there were chickens inside the tent.

And with that we were off, back to Madison to figure out the next leg of this latest adventure. As my fellow carnies were answering work call for the final day of the Jackson County Fair, we rolled out of Black River Falls. I imagine they had more than a few crazy stories from their weekend here.

For a moment I thought of swinging through, to say hello, how’s it going, but that life seems like so long ago that I would’ve felt a little weird just showing up. Plus the Wenzels I imagine remain unhappy with the article I wrote about them last summer, even though the experience shaped all of our lives in ways both small and large. They taught me a great deal about many things and, rumor has it, they took some cues from my series of posts last summer to become better, more empathetic employers.

Some things are best left alone.

Here are some outtakes from the Grateful Garcia Gathering.

A wax depiction of a technique developed in ancient China where rats are encouraged to eat people alive.

Wisconsin Dells, WI – Normally I’m not keen on tourist towns, with their bubble-gummy aesthetic and overpriced fare, but there are exceptions, of course. Wisconsin Dells, where I spent my Fourth of July, is one of them. And though I’ve visited dozens of times over the years, it still holds a secret or two.

Located about 50 miles north of Madison, along Highway 12, the city, along with nearby Lake Delton, attracts more than five million visitors annually. Famous for its massive water parks, themed resorts, boat tours and natural beauty (glacially-formed sandstone gorges along the Wisconsin River), the Wisconsin Dells is a remarkably laid-back spot, having lured visitors seeking an escape from city life since the mid-1800s.

We left Madison early, hopping in Purple Thunder and heading west along Highway 12, which cuts northwest across idyllic Wisconsin farmland prior to meandering through the forested hills south of Baraboo. I always encourage visitors and newbies eyeing a trip to the Dells – as its locally known – to forsake the Interstate for this route instead. Not only is Highway 12 a peaceful and scenic drive, but it also offers an array of unique sights and destinations of its own, including Devil’s Lake State Park, Ho-Chunk Casino, the Baraboo Candy Company (home of the Cowpie), and Dr. Evermor’s fantastic steampunk-esque metal sculpture garden.

On this trip, however, the only stop we made along Highway 12 was to buy discounted fireworks – firecrackers, Saturn rockets and other exploding goodies you can’t buy in Madison.

I had to school some punk-ass kids in the proper ways of putting the pedal to the metal.

We arrived shortly after noon, without any itinerary. Naturally, on such a gorgeous day, the water parks teemed with people, but we failed to bring with us any swim gear. Instead, we started things off with a visit to Big Chief Go Karts, where, for $3, we raced around a state-of-the-art go-kart track.

Despite their small engines, the go-karts really go. I had one of the faster ones, which seemed to irritate a trio of young boys to the point of compelling them to try and slow me down. Twice I cruised by a kid in a red t-shirt. On my third approach, I saw him glancing to his rear. When I attempted to pass him a third time, he began to deliberately obstruct my path. When I swerved left, he swerved left. When I swerved right, he swerved right. How was it that this pipsqueak was besting me, The Feral Scribe, a road warrior who has clocked thousands of highway miles and negotiated traffic in America’s biggest cities? I was chagrined.

This game of vehicular brinkmanship went on as we sped up a large incline, our little engines roaring, and continued as we began our descent. Bu I’d had enough. This little punk was no match for my road superiority. When he again glanced back at my position, I cut left ever so briefly. When he, too, cut left, I put the pedal to the metal and cut hard to the right. Realizing he’d been out maneuvered, the kid cut hard to the right before I could pass him fully. A collision was imminent.

A lesser driver may have fallen back, but I was determined to pass him. As he rammed me against the curb, I let off the accelerator a bit, and broadsided his back end. He sped up and as he tried to straighten out his vehicle I saw an opening. Hitting the gas full throttle, I rammed his front end with enough force to spin him so he faced oncoming traffic. With no reverse, he was out of commission until the attendant turned him around.

His buddies then came after me, each deploying similar tactics. In both instances, they failed to keep me down. But just as this rat race was becoming fun, we completed our final lap and were routed back into the pit.

Legendary Dells dive bar, Nig's Bar, a name that many find off-putting.

After road warring with children, it was off to have a swig at Nig’s, a very old bar that’s been serving drinks in downtown Wisconsin Dells since 1947. Commentators on several travel adviser sites say they find name, which may have been that of its original owner, inappropriate. “Completely inappropriate,” wrote a visitor from Ohio, “especially in a town that caters to families and children.”

The bar itself isn’t anything special, though maybe night hours are a different story. After sucking down a pair of pretty crappy strawberry margaritas, we perused the gift shops and t-shirts stores that line the strip. We stopped to watch a street magician do tricks for tips after firing off more than a hundred rounds at a paintball shooting range.

We toyed with the idea of riding roller coasters at Mount Olympus, but having just gone to Six Flags a week earlier, the admission seemed a tad high for the parks limited options. So we kept up our stroll, looking for place to grab a beer. One of the drawbacks of the Dells, is the complete lack of outdoor seating. I’m not sure if the city prohibits it, but along the strip there wasn’t any. During our search for a suitable watering hole, we turned onto a cross street and were greeted with a pleasant surprise: the Torture Museum.

What possibly could be more incongruent in a town whose economy is driven by families and fun than a museum dedicated to torture throughout the ages? But that is exactly what you’ll find if you go off the strip and onto Eddy Street. More stunning, at least for me, was that I had never heard of the five-year-old museum, which has been featured on the History Channel. With admission only $7, there was no doubt about what our next activity would be.

The first thing you see upon entering is a fake electric chair. For $1, you can electrocute yourself amid lots of loud buzzing, flashing lights and a dial that measures the rising voltage. It’s not real electricity, of course, but vibrations similar to the Magic Fingers in old motel rooms. The chair’s noise and lights scared a little boy who, upon our arrival, was being coaxed back inside by his parents. When their efforts failed, they left and we went inside.

Exhibits consisted primarily of torture devices and execution techniques pioneered by the Chinese, the Romans and others across midieval Europe, each device accompanied by a brief description of how and why it was used. The Shrew’s Fiddle, for example, was a wooden “fiddle” that was locked around the necks and wrists of German women accused of nagging or gossiping. Other items included a guillotine, an electric chair, a heretic’s fork and crucifixion spikes. One particularly gruesome device, the Iron Maiden, is described in this eye witness account from the device’s 1515 debut:

A forger of coins was placed inside and the door shut slowly so that the very sharp points penetrated his arms and legs in several places, and his belly and chest and his bladder and the roots of his member and his eyes and his shoulders and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him, and so he remained tortured, making great crys for two days, after which he died.

The self-guided tour concluded with an exhibit showcasing John Wayne Gacy, complete with an original painting by the modern torturist and serial killer who was executed in Illinois in 1994. In all, it took about 15 minutes.

It being the Dells, I should not have expected too much, but I left the museum feeling a tad disappointed. Not because it was brief or because all of the exhibits, save for the Gacy painting, were replicas, but because it dealt so flippantly with an issue we’re still debating today. No mention of waterboarding, modern execution methods or even how ideas regarding criminal punishment have evolved. It’s shock without substance. Even the Gacy exhibit, though unique, had an unsettling shrine-like quality that verged on the celebratory.

Jenny Lewis once sang, “Any asshole can open up a museum/Put all the things he loves on display.” She could have been singing about the museum’s founder.

I think the crying little boy was on to something.

Many stores in the Dells have co-opted the more stereotyped aspects of Native American culture.

We didn’t stick around too long following the Torture Museum. After stopping off for another drink, we hopped back inside Purple Thunder and headed back to Madison to wait for night to fall so we could explode our fireworks. Pop! Pop! Pop! Then they were done, too. And so was I. I drank a beer, ate some pizza, and called it a day.