Never Thought About It Before, But Now I Wonder: Is There Something "Scientific" About 1/48/50?

Something amazing happened this week. Someone posted an article on my Facebook wall from TrekTheHorizon.com. The article claims that the "ultimate" American road trip has been figured out, and charted.

I was immediately interested, as I've been dreaming about just such a trip since I was 13, and blogging about it weekly for the last four years. My vision for the ultimate road trip, "1/48/50", is a simple, if lofty, proposition: one drive through 48 states, in under 50 years...that is, before I turn 50. But over time I've become interested in how other people have conceptualized such an undertaking.

According to the article, blogger and University of Pennsylvania scientist Randy Olson used mathematical equations and algorithms to suss out what he considers to be the most "optimal" course across our great land - that is, covering the most ground, and seeing the most (in terms of landmarks), in the shortest amount of time, while hitting all 48 contiguous states.

Olson's trip looks like this:

BY THE NUMBERS - Using statistical data and computer algorithms, University of Pennsylvania scientist Randy Olson claims to have created the perfect American Road Trip. RandalOlson.com

Almost two years ago, long before I knew anything about Randy Olson, I discovered a website, RoadTrippers.com. It is a valuable resource for charting, planning and budgeting road trips of all shapes and sizes, whether it's an epic cross-country voyage, or just a few days going nowhere. A live map powered by MapQuest allows you to chart your trip (we really live in an amazing age, in some respects). 

1/48/50 will look something like this:

How and why the two maps are so similar is confounding to me. In plotting my course, I didn't bother with anything scientific, certainly nothing "mathematical". In fact, quite the opposite. I gave no thought whatsoever to what might be the most efficient roads to take, or specific landmarks (the numbered way points on my map are random, just anchors for the general course I want to take), my only goal was - and remains - to hit the lower 48 in one fell swoop, over the course of a summer.  

Sure, there are a few things I'd like to see along the way, things that, frankly, it would be un-American not to look at - Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Four Corners, etc. - and a few personal destinations as well - I'd love to catch a Braves game at SunTrust Park when I make it to Georgia; Key West will be on the itinerary; I have some family in New Jersey, and Maine, etc. - but for the most part, my course was conceived by answering questions that are based on weird predilections buried deep in my mind: Do I want to drive UP the California coast, or DOWN? Do I want to see the American Southwest heading west, or heading east? Would the Gulf Coast look its best on my left, or my right, as I'm driving?  I'm planning on at least four months on the road, so where do I want to be on the longest day of the year?  On July 4th?  Labor Day? Where will autumn look its finest? What states will best serve when I find myself heading home?

Such considerations are completely subjective, and mine are not anything I would expect anyone to understand, or care about. Therefore, I find it fascinating that my route looks so much like Mr. Olson's. Even the numbers match up:

Randy Olson's trip: 224 hours of driving / 1/48/50: 257 hours of driving

Randy Olson's trip: 2-3 months  / 1/48/50: 3-4 months

Randy Olson's trip: 13,699 miles / 1/48/50: 15,314 miles

In any case, reading that article really got me keyed up. This year I've decided I'm going to start making major moves toward making this fantasy a reality. Not just thinking about it, but endeavoring to really make it happen. I'm running out of time, after all. 

Just six short years from now... :-/

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#223) "Aubrey" by Bread - I've been pretty fearless (unashamed?) compiling this list. If I like a song for whatever reason - whether I've officially placed it on the soundtrack of my life, or it reminds me of some specific childhood memory, or even if only because I like listening to it while I'm driving (and that's the only place I like listening to it), I will put it on this list. I've intended this "road trip mix" to be real rather than cool, honest rather than fashionable, and that kind of stubborn defiance has occasionally revealed me to have some dirty little secrets when it comes to musical taste.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that "Aubrey" qualifies as a "dirty little secret". There's nothing wrong with a good slow love song, the operative word being "good".  I don't always want to rock out, jam out, or kick some ass...sometimes I just wanna wallow in self-pity. For a little while, at least.

To that end, there's (as I see it) "Aubrey" by Bread, and then there's "Always" by Atlantic Starr. There's "Rainy Days and Mondays" or "We've Only Just Begun" by The Carpenters (both of which are on this list, thank you very much), and then there's "Friends and Lovers" by Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson. I can keep going.  There's "Someone Like You" by Adele, or "Foolish Games" by Jewel, and then there's "The Search is Over" by Survivor, or "Love of a Lifetime" by Firehouse.

You either understand the difference between a potent ballad and a sappy "Lite FM" throwaway, or you don't.

I respect anything that is true to itself, anything that seems artistically honest. Most of Bread's music lacks a certain (or any) spunk, granted, and is far too drippy and sticky for rotation on "Lite FM" radio, especially these days. But as an artist, David Gates, Bread's lead singer and principle songwriter, has always seemed sincere to me, true to what he is.  He's just a balladeer. It's what he does, and he's good at it. For what it's worth, he created a sound in the early 1970s that was uniquely "Bread"...could only be Bread...and to borrow a line from the great Sir Paul (McCartney), when I'm in it, love isn't silly at all. And whether we choose to admit it, well-crafted songs about the rise and fall and loss of love have a way of becoming more important than anything else in life. Sort of like love itself.

I'm sure she's not the only one in the world, but actress Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Rec) is the only girl I've ever heard of with that name, and apparently she actually was named after the song.

Hmm...not sure how I feel about that fact. It sort of interrupts a mystique surrounding this song that has been in place for a long time. But she's gorgeous, so I guess it's okay. I can't say I picture Aubrey Plaza, exactly, when I listen to this song and  imagine "Aubrey", but I can't say I don't.   ;-)

"And Aubrey was her name, I never knew her but I loved her just the same / I loved her name..."

UPDATE 1/31/17: So, yesterday, barely a week after declaring in my inimitably blow-hard fashion that "Aubrey" by Bread was simply too sticky and gooey to get played on "Lite FM" radio in this day and age, I actually heard it get played!  Of course, the station, 105.7 FM WCFW, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, probably doesn't qualify even as "Lite FM"...it's something else all together, something geared toward the geriatric set. (I'll be there soon enough, boys!)  But nevertheless, this is the first time I think I've EVER heard "Aubrey" played over the airwaves. 

  


#224) "Sirius/Eye in the Sky" by The Alan Parsons Project - Any time I listen to "Eye in the Sky", it must include "Sirius", the instrumental piece that lasts nearly two minutes before dissolving into "Eye in the Sky". They're actually two distinct songs strung together by a compelling bass line and Alan Parson's knack for sending the mind offshore with his music.

I don't mean this as an insult in any way, but The Alan Parsons Project always struck me as kind of a poor man's Pink Floyd, which makes perfect sense, seeing as Parsons was a producer on Dark Side of the Moon, and doubtless heavily influenced. 

But that comparison simply recognizes that Floyd is Floyd...truth is, Parsons was pretty incredible in his own right, and "Eye in the Sky" is proof - a beautiful melange of bass line, percussion and keyboards. With the late Eric Woolfson lending a haunting vocal, this legitimately haunting break-up song reflects sadness without getting sappy, bitterness without becoming angry, and allows resignation and hope to play off one another, rather than trying to do each other in.

"Don't think sorry's easily said / Don't try turning tables instead..."

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#221) "Times is Hard" by Loudon Wainwright III - From the brilliant 2010 album, 10 Songs For the New Depression, Loudon Wainwright lends his uniquely anxious brand of wit and satire to the strange days that came on the heels of the start of the Great Recession. Remember that mess? The endless war and government bailouts and people losing a lifetime of savings overnight?

Not even a decade ago?

With sparse arrangement clarifying the potency of his words, and underscoring his talent for creating compellingly "of the moment" music, Wainwright calls out everyone here - the Bush administration, the Obama administration, Bernie Madoff, Alan Greenspan, corporatism, consumerism and celebrity culture, shrewdly affirming (while struggling to accept) that it's all just a cluster fuck, an electrified madness in which we live, work and raise our children.

It doesn't matter who's in charge. This is our society. We're part of this now.

Seven years on, and not much has changed.  In fact, every single motherfucking word of this song is still relevant. And 2017 holds little promise of "times" getting any better.

"What in God's name is going on? / All I can do is play this song..."

#222)  "Red Guitar" by Loudon Wainwright III - This song is classic Wainwright, in terms of being what he's especially good at: reconciling the sad and the silly, the dramatic and the comedic, the poetic and the discouragingly not-inspiring-in-the-least, and all the emotionally disorienting moments in life when any two happen to cross paths.

I saw Loudon Wainwright perform live once about twenty years ago. I was not nearly as familiar with his music (or his significance as an artist) then as I am now, and I wish I had been. I'm sure it would have enhanced the experience greatly. The energy of his music is well suited to a live performance, drawing intense emotion to the surface and revealing him to be much more than "Dead Skunk", the song he is perhaps best known for.

"Some junkie stole my blonde guitar / God works in wondrous ways..."

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#219) "Theme from The Bob Newhart Show" - Yes, I know, it's not really road music, but as I've written more than a few times, if 1/48/50 turns out to be at all about taking the past along with me (and I'm sure it will), then some of those little shimmering points of light from my childhood, that appear late at night sometimes when I'm trying to sleep, have to come along as well.  Especially the beautiful ones.

I was a young child in the 70s, and my parents watched a lot of TV, and whenever I was in the living room, whether I was climbing onto my mother's lap (only to climb off again 30 seconds later), or camped out on the living room floor, either with toys or no toys at all (just bored out of my gourd), or maybe hiding out from my older brother for some reason, it was this kind of music playing in the background. Theme songs from shows like Bob Newhart, The Jeffersons, All in the Family,  Good Times, etc., are inextricably linked to those early, formative years in my mind, and had, I think, a favorable impact.

I'm especially fond of the Bob Newhart theme. I didn't watch the show (I was too young to get it), but I sure as hell listened to the theme song. That drew me in the first time I heard it, and as it was a show my parents watched readily, it pretty much came to encapsulate what everything sounded (and looked) like when I was five, six, seven and eight years old: a gray or tan-hued blend of comforted melancholy and earnest "tomorrow is another day" hope.

The music certainly will always remind me of my mother, who passed away last month. 😔 Doubtless I'll want to take her memory along with me on 1/48/50.

NOTE: It has to be this version, from Season 1. In later seasons, the melody was re-tooled into a disco jam, to reflect both the popularity of the show and (I guess) those funky Seventies. Meh. The original cut is where the beauty's at. The horn and piano arrangement at the end is gorgeous (as is Suzanne Pleshette's heady gaze into the camera)...it still casts me into a dreamy, child-like state.

Maybe I shouldn't listen to this while I'm driving.  ;-)






#220) "End Theme from WKRP in Cincinnati" - THIS theme song also reminds me of my childhood, but for very different reasons.  There's no "comforted melancholy" here, if anything the complete opposite. This might very well be the first song I ever actually "jammed out" to, lol.

And why the hell not? With an impassioned guitar riff, energetic, thumping rhythm, and garbled lyrics that leave the listener no choice but to make up his or her own, "The End Theme to WKRP in Cincinnati" (including the MTM kitten mewling at the end....again, why not?) remains jam-worthy to this day.  I never get tired of listening to this.

Unlike Bob Newhart, I loved watching WKRP in Cincinnati when I was a kid, and I still do. For the most part I think the show holds up, with subtle humor delivered by a great ensemble cast. And having worked in radio myself, I can say that they got it right. This is pretty much how radio life is...or WAS, I guess.  Don't know anymore.

Man, I miss it sometimes.

Surprisingly, much has been written and/or discussed online about the song's unintelligible lyrics, which reportedly were intended to reflect a common complaint by those "over 30" back in the day: that when it came to rock and roll music, you "can't even understand the lyrics!"

Everyone who remembers the show probably has their own interpretation. This is what I hear:

"Bare toothed bartender, bumps the night ahead

Sara on her horse and whack-a-ballers in our heart

I sent good vibes, and I have better hair

I said I’ll do it to it, and a tuna wrapped in our heart
Meow!"