Kerouac is a Che Shirt
An Excerpt from an Artist's Blog Documenting his Travels
by Vort, 1 Jun 2008

Vort is co-founder of VORCAN, an Art Production and Consulting Firm. He is a graduate of Penn State and has lived, worked and painted around the world. Vort has worked as stadium seat salesman, bus boy, live music painter, truck dispatcher, banker – the list goes on and on. He just completed "50 paintings, in 50 states, in 50 days" at www.50dollarlunch.com. We found Vort while he was running an art camp in Croatia.

He can be reached at: thevortman@yahoo.com

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Trees passing at high speeds en route to Vashon, WA. Pushing keys to make this deadline. Did you say the 17th? Today is already the 31st.

Adventure is Alive and well. I learned this from a hitch-hiker* sometime between 5 and 7am this morning. We were leaving Eugene and stopped for breakfast. I ordered coffee, a country fried steak, hash browns, and eggs left in the kitchen.

We finished painting the bridge in a gallery. Let me rephrase that. Ourfriends from Baltimore flew to The West Coast to tour before heading to Europe to play a few festivals. We are currently painting the tour.

"America and Americans in 2008"

Broke, scared, easily entertained, with a mob mentality.

Some have found families, others addiction.

Addictions to clothes, money, music, intoxicants, TV.

This isn't supposed to be a college zine by an on-the-fence lesbian.

Routine is the tie that binds.

People create their own borders.

I was recently told that I treat states like they are cities.

I just finished painting, 50 paintings, in all 50 states in 50 days to prove it.

You can find pictures to follow the rambling on 50dollarlunch.com.

And, I've never been a fan of Kerouac.

May 5th

(Honolulu on the Horizon, Barefoot on a deck high above the city.. Cinco De Mayo, I'll soon head out for food made with chickens and avocados. Also Tequila, Limes, Mangos, Berries.. and I need to pick up more fresh flowers for my neck.. I've vowed to wear them every day... ) My foul mood no doubt a result of lack of flora jewelry and the realization that in 3 days I'll be back on a plane headed towards the main land...

(Cank threw away his shoes the day after we landed, he claims slippers [Flip-Flops] from here on out... I believe him...My slippers say Hawaii in rainbow letters [I should leave my shoes as an offering to lono as well]

I wrote this a week ago, let's have a hasty edit, lash some new words together, and click send, I crave guacamole...

The blogs are getting back.. We're on day 46 of the 50/50/50 on our way to Portland.. for real this time... by the end of the day we'll have the lower 48 painted... we land in Alaska at 2:45pm on Friday... hope to have the Hawaii tickets by the end of the day...

Called The Snow Leopard and traded "Somewhere Around Barstow" our last Krylon for Hawaii tickets...

Durbs came to the rescue in San Fran as well..

The Philanthropist long before that when we we're stranded in Kansas at a gas station, he paypal'd us 50 to fill the tank and eat...

Pedro and Parents for Expo, Euro, and everything leading up to this...

Thiago now runs our logistics department... (The Check's In The Mail)

By the end of the day, we'll have probably 20 more paintings up on 50dollarlunch.com that will be $50 until may 3rd or they are sold.. Most of the pieces going up are the ones in the car that didn't sell cross country...

While, the words are flowing, I guess I'll throw out a few more...

The day before this tour started, I had a negative bank account balance, Cank had $1 in his pocket, a day later we set up on W. Broadway, Greeted by Albe (New York's Finest) sold paintings, raged a show that night in in Belmar, NJ with Crazy Red Beard and had a G to travel with...

I told the University Class we taught in NH that we roll like drug dealers, with a pocket full of cash in flux, sometimes we eat steak, sometimes we don't eat..

After Belmar, back to our studio in Philly, as we weren't moved out yet...

The next morning the beautiful Altyn took the China town bus from NYC handing me coffee when I picked her up downtown. We painted an Obama event in Philly that afternoon..

[I had a pretty negative rant in here about Ron Paul adding the Nader Effect, and Obama looking to be in rough shape, Gloom and Doom with McCain, and Hillary the robot, but I'll eat my words as Obama is looking good and raged a crowd of 70,000+ in Portland on Sunday and won big yesterday.]

Delivered the rest of our paintings to The Philanthropist and new founder of our shipping department.

Balt. to deliver a painted Mando to Kenny for his Birthday, then back to Philly Utilizing the Hub and Spoke model...

On Tuesday we painted WV, Skipped VA, Sunrise found us in the mountains outside of Asheville NC. Hiking in the woods with tumblers of Jameson and Baileys, best ribs of the tour, then skipped SC, to make a show with the Codetalkers in GA.

Nonstop to St. Pete. Painted the dog track in Ocean's 11, over to Bama for Eoto, jumped on tour, Easter in the Cemetary one of my fav. moments of the tour. Back to Asheville in the middle of the night, painted Little Caesars in SC, painted Eoto in Knoxville, best venue until Tahoe, then back to Asheville for more Eoto w/Kang.

Nonstop to oxford Missisippi for the hottest girls in the whole country and Perpetual groove.. Ole Miss is like college issue of playboy hot, I can only compare it to Brataslava Slovakia which appears to be full of Movie Set Extras.....

Then disc golf in Mississippi in the morning at a course I had played few years prior on missing states tour...

In New Orleans, Cank painted a trumpet with a Jazz band on Frenchman street. Killer tour of the city and relaxing afternoon in a sculpture garden. Went to see the Cowboy in Austin, made Clark Griswald face when they wouldn't let us paint Claypool even though we confirmed 3 times including earlier in the week, rented a 38 snub nose and some hollow points from a crazy tin hat conspiracist in the desert.. shot through the canvas 3 for 3 in the size of a softball

Nonstop mission to the east coast to pick up "Good" James from England.. We painted another dog track in Arkansas on the Memphis border, Visited the ducks on the roof of the Peabody Hotel, and drove to KY.. pirated some Howard Stern for an hour from the trucker beside us, and did the KY painting in the car stuck in a traffic jam.. next stop Cinci for chili in honor of durbs, painted a state park on the other side of Ohio and crossed into pa at Dusk.. Gave James bum directions to the china town bus, and 5 hours later he landed in Philly. Alpay to the rescue.. We got back into Philly around Midnight with no money..

Went to AC, borrowed a hundro from James and rolled it away with 2 7's immediatly after points were made.. we were all a little sad face.. Painted at Pedro's..

Next day..Painted a disc golf course in Delaware, went to see Eoto and the Bridge in Balt.. couldn't paint but Cank got recognized on the street because of the blog and we were invited over to pregame... accepted...

The next day went to Arlington National Cemetery, showed James DC, and back to Philly to paint World Cafe Live (Our Favorite Philadelphia venue), then to NYC to Paint more EOTO.. stayed with the beautiful Altyn in Brooklyn, thinking we had a commission, bought a 40"x40" canvas and drove to Albany... Client wouldn't pick up their phone.. Widespread was in town, couldn't sell any art to their fans..

Drove to mass border and got a motel.. next day went to see an artist friend in Northampton, MA.. then to Hartford.. hours to kill, followed a car with rat dog stickers, he recomended Pancho Locco for margaritas.. we followed advice and met Val. She lives next to the club, took our passports and let us stay with her.. the next day went to see Minkin near Boston, after lunch drove around Boston and through, Rhode Island.. painted near a lake at sunset, back to Harfort for night 2 of Eoto.. painted in the middle of the night in Mass at a truck pull off to the head lights.....

Got to our boy Brendan's around 5am. (He helped us build the towers at All Good) He set it up so we could go to his school and teach his class. Hit them with a ton of ramble, some Jay-Z, Braz girls, and James mixed the rest of the music..

Went to Portland, The Big man doesn't pick up his phone... we painted Eoto and met college kids to party with.. stayed with them.. the next day had the best meal of the tour** and hit up a Flight of the Concords Marathon...

Went to the Stone Church in NH painted more EOTO, James slept in the car.. The next day we went to Burlington for our last Eoto show.. Metronome is above Nectars, met a band MO2 from San Fran, they invited us to Tahoe and San Fran...

this changed our plans.. sorry Scott and Kelly...

Killed it at Nectar's sold all the pieces and have an open invite back.. may even have landed a free month to live up their in the fall..

Drove through the night, had breakfast with Joe in Springfield, VT...Drove nonstop to Erie PA for dinner, then back in the car and stopped near flint Michigan for a few hours sleep, staying with our friend Shannon..

Got up, drove to the edge of Mich. painted in a park, threw some disc, then stopped at a Quaker Steak and Lube in Indiana, The coolest restaurant staff of the tour, back in the car, drove through Illinois, painted a highway overpass above on coming traffic in the middle of the night, painted a state park in Wisc. at sunrise on a frozen lake.. then arrived at my boy's in Minneapolis around 9am..

Spend the day drinking and sleeping on park benches, painted in his basement around midnight, left MN around 4am.. got to Fargo for Breakfast, painted and met nice people, painted Sioux Falls SD, above ground battle ship. James got out of the car in Sioux City Iowa and asked the video store girl where we could find a good Sioux City Sarsaparilla. She said all we would find in Sioux City was a fight, and that we should drive on to Omaha.

No commerce with Iowa, Only deposited fluids, so we made the painting in the car while driving across flat lands at top speeds.. stopped in Omaha for dinner around midnight, painted outside, and inside the restaurant, and arrived in KC around 4am, painted downtown in the streets outside their big sportsconcertplex, then drove all day through Kansas.. Painted at Dorothy's house in Liberal Kansas...Our only press of the tour, then into Oklahoma, painting outside and inside a Mexican restaurant.. driving through Texas again so James could pick up and extra state,

New Mexico... missed a show with The Big Spank by a few hours. (The band we ended up painting in Austin) Painted near an airport on the border in the middle of the night, got to the Grand Canyon around 5:30am, I think the park was closed, but we drove in anyway..

Watched the sunrise...dance party via Jame's mp3 playing phone..

Most beautiful day of driving, the whole way around the canyon, then into Utah, that stretch of Highway through AZ into NV is my favorite stretch of the highway in the country..

Durbin said Vegas when we were in North Dakota, I said .. "50 hours of driving in 60 hours.. no problem..."

Got a hold of Dorbad with more notice than anyone.. about 24 hours...

He gave up his bed, then 3 hours later hit me in the face with a lamaze ball.. we went to the airport and picked up Durbs, then a case of Tecate...

Durbs put on his "slightly from the future" suit and got situated high above the vegas strip.. I could write on and on about Vegas, I'll just say Dorbad threw up IN the Jager bottle so there were no juice boxes, and I did rock a box of wine on the strip which got me thrown out of broken casinos like O'sheas or O'sullivans I don't recall. I found respect at the Peppermill where they actually checked my box or wine at the counter when I walked in the door...

Huge nachos, and double whiskeys.. 2 hours sleep and we had to get headed towards Reno....

The paypal card wouldn't work.. got some gas.. and in the middle of the desert, for some reason the paypal worked, knowing it overdrew the account but thankful we didn't have to spend the night in the middle of the Nevada desert. We were able to make it to Reno.. we had about 4 gigs lined up before this tour, this was the only one we were on track to make, and we got to the venue at 11pm, they started at 11:10. we were set up at painting by 11:15.. made some sales and went to Tahoe...

Fill 5 paragraphs with good things and that still wouldn't be enough good about Tahoe... Skip rules and let us crash with him and roll in around 4-5am, the theme of the trip.. beware...

The next day we went to S. Tahoe and painted in a Casino again, Bill, Maeff, and Prior came to town, some kid tried to trade me a crystal for our painting. I asked straight face what I was supposed to do with a crystal? We are def. on the West Coast...

Back to skips around 5am, driving through a whiteout around Lake Tahoe was pretty crazy, def. thought we may slide into the lake...

Next day.. 4/20...

Talked a girl into cutting her dreads off and took one to S.F. I attached it to the Haight/Ashbury sign, next year Clay, I need one of yours so I can make the pilgrimage to mecca...my goal is to have all hippy's cut their dreads' off and attach them to the Jerry Post. I orig. wanted to bury the dread in golden gate park, but, on VORCAN time we arrived to the park around 7pm when everyone was leaving..

Watched the sun sink into the Pacific Ocean. James went Coast to Coast in 20 days, probably 30 states as well. We spent our last dollars to get over the bridge into San Fran... the promoter who invited us to Tahoe and San Fran never made the trip from Tahoe, never told the venue.. so they didn't want us to paint...

Cank went with Adrien, Dula, and Bill, I took Skip and James to the Club to at least get free music and drinks out of the deal, and salvage the situation in some way... They let us in (w/ art supplies) James said they just realized I wasn't leaving and it would just be easier to let me go to work...

Painted the first piece to a DJ. Ana Sia, who we painted in Reno, Tahoe, and then San Fran.. she's super cool. Then set up and painted the Symbiotic Orchestra...It had Kang, Jamie JAnover, someone else from Zilla, and Glitch mob maybe.. point is, we were out of money, then we met the Snow Leopard..

He bought 7 of our paintings, I thought yeah right, when it was the end of the night and oh, not enough money, as usual.. no ATM in the club, well he had a few hundreds, gave it as a deposit.. then invited us to lunch the next day...

Insert set of Entourage...

His front door was in the Museum of Modern Art, over looking all of Fairfax, he lives next door to Joe Dimaggio's old house when he was with Marilyn Monroe.. oh yeah, his house was a speak easy in the 20's.. still has the orig. bar.. dragging my feet, before we left, I asked for a drink at this bar..

He has a heated waterbed on his deck so he can sleep outside overlooking everything, and see every sunrise... A true Snow Leopard...

We ended up spending the day there, he invited friends over, played music and we painted a in-home art show, adding another VORCAN to his collection. We left around midnight and got back to Tahoe around 6am...

The only plan to relax, or maybe a spa, we went to the casino that night, I watched Skip's roomate win 800 playing roulette, by the time we crossed the street to throw dice, craps, was closed, and I was sad face...

we drove back to skips, planning on leaving for Portland again in the AM... Still needed to pick up Nevada just in case, because we sold our Nevada paintings in San Fran. The casino sign said: "Yonder Mountain String Band 2 nights.. Sold Out"

After speaking with the Casino manager and showing them where we could easily set up and hype their casino from, they agreed to let us in, and paint...

We we're now planning to head to Portland after the show to paint No Go Know... but, The Road Manager for YMSB asked up to come back.. we couldn't argue.. Tahoe is the Sickness...

We went to Emerald Bay and painted the next day...

The local art store loves us, and wanted paintings, so I gave her 2 12"x12"'s for hundreds of dollars in supplies enough canvas to finish painting all 50 states. Did I mention I love Tahoe..

Killed it at Yonder. it was Jeff's Birthday, and he took two VORCAN's on the bus.. one was a gift, and he paid for the other.. so kudos to him...

Back in the car.. drove through the Nevada night, selling all our yonder paintings we still needed a Nevada painting.. we wrote on the map... Wendover, NV.. Last Chance to Gamble..

The Peppermill isn't just the greatest spot in Vegas.. being that old Vegas is now destroyed.. no Westward Ho, no Frontier, no Stardust.. just the Mill standing alone.. but in Reno, Peppermill is a Casino, and all of Reno looks like Old Vegas and it's about an hour from Tahoe, I would predict a lot less Vegas trips, and more Reno trips in my future...

P.S. They also have a Peppermill in Wendover, inside looks like the restaurant, only if it threw up into a casino, cashed in 70, and walked away from the dice table with 205... now learning that if you bet, 5,6,8 on the top you can play the field, and you have every number covered except 7.. you make money every time unless they roll 7 after their point is made...that' s your craps lesson,...

Called up Beardo and told him we were close...

Went to Este..and just a tip for you first timers there..

They have special ordering..

Say if you want a white pizza with pepperoni.. and you say.. white pizza with pepperoni.. that means.. white pizza with mushrooms..

Say you want another pizza, with sausage, and peppers, don't even bother asking for the peppers.. they won't come...

The O'l Vortman is still on the menu.. mine was perfect...so perfect, I couldn't eat it with all that s--t on it...a can of every topping and a side cup of ranch..

Beardo was the man though, already lining up a show for us that night...

We painting and drank, I have to admit I did drink plenty of Whiskey out at the bar in SLC... I didn't think that was aloud...

We woke up Early, 2 hours later than expected, and headed to Boulder, we planned to Paint JFJO but they didn't know that...

We found the club and they were happy to have us...

The show went well.. more sales, another incredibly welcoming city.. Another carrot luring VORCAN to the west coast... guess who may be relocating.. ..

Went to Chris's cousin's restaurant and had awesome sausage stuffed Pork Chops, with heady guac... damn I'm getting hungry and my hands are getting tired...

We had burgers, beer and disc golf, with my boy Ford before leaving Boulder...

I drove a 15 hour shift, straight through Wyoming, saw the sunrise in Bozeman, handed over the wheel around Butte, and woke up in ID.. We painted at Coeur D'Alene golf course, they have that floating green that's pretty famous I guess..

We got to the Seattle Marriott Courtyard last night and set up camp, whiskey drinks, and ordered Pizza in... America and Americans...

James got up around 6 and took the free shuttle to the airport, he's on his way back to England, now a Doktor of Endurance as well....

We are right near Centralia, WA where they filmed Goonies and Kindergarten Cop as I type this....

Now I've got to get back to the blog and try to get it in Order.. in a few hours we will have the lower 48 painted.. we land in Alaska on Friday Afternoon... We still need to raise the funds for our Hawaii tickets.. Home Stretch...

May This Encourage Art And Adventure In Your Life.

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