Deviate

“Even the briefest trip into a tunnel or a cave can feel like an escape into a parallel reality, the way characters in children’s books vanish through portals into secret worlds.” –Will Hunt

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Will talk about our imaginative relationship with underground places, and how it often starts in childhood (4:30); the concept of “urban exploration” in the industrial spaces underneath cities, and Will’s fascination with a NYC graffiti artist named REVS (11:00); the catacombs of Paris, how easy it is to get lost underground, and how hard it is to map underground passages (26:15); going underground as a form of time travel, the microbes that live underground, and the relics that can be found underground (40:00); the spiritual aspect of spending time underground in the dark zone of a cave (51:00); and how and why to get started exploring underground (59:00).

Will Hunt’s (@willhunt__) writing, photography, and audio storytelling have appeared in The Economist, the Paris Review Daily, The Atavist, The Guardian, Discover, Audible Originals, and Outside, among other places. He is currently a visiting scholar at the NYU Institute for Public Knowledge. Underground is his first book. More about Will at: https://www.willhunt.net/

Notable Links:

• Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá (underground church in Colombia)
• Mount of the Temptation (hill in the Judean Desert)
• Panoptikum (labyrinth in Budapest)
• Freedom Tunnel (railway tunnel in NYC)
• Urban exploration (exploration of abandoned places in cities)
• Revs (graffiti artist)
• Catacombs of Paris (tunnel network)
• Philibert Aspairt (man who died in the Paris catacombs in 1793)
• Cataphiles (urban explorers who illegally tour the Mines of Paris)
• Metro-2 (purported secret underground metro system in Moscow)
• How Getting Lost in a Cave Affects the Brain (article)
• Strataca (salt-mine museum in Kansas)
• Lakota Wind Cave (site in South Dakota)
• Homestake Mine (deep South Dakota gold mine)
• Gregory of Nyssa (Christian saint)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets.

This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey.

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we...

“In alien parts, we speak more simply, unencumbered by the histories that we carry around at home, and look more excitedly, with eyes of wonder.” —Pico Iyer

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and The Vagabond’s Way book club participants discuss how he prepares for the book-club sessions (1:30); how the first days of one’s journeys have an optimistic energy and excitement, and how “culture shock” is a real thing (4:00); how travel can put us into a childlike mental state, and how travel expectations can lead to unfair disappointments (13:00); how food, even anomalous food, tells specific stories about places, and Rolf’s strategy for keeping a travel journal (21:30); how the “beaten path” is beaten for good reasons, but straying from it yields serendipitous rewards (31:00); and simple strategies for staying safe and dealing with burnout on the road (42:00).

Discussion moderator Luke Richardson is a traveler, author, and DJ based in England.

Notable Links:

• Rolf’s online book club signup
• The Vagabond’s Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Egeria (ancient Galician nun and pilgrim)
• Faroe Islands (North Atlantic archipelago)
• Culture shock (cross-cultural anxiety)
• Expatriate life in Korea (Deviate episode)
• Rick Steves (travel writer and TV host)
• Mary Oliver (American poet)
• Beginner’s Mind (spiritual attitude of openness)
• Whittier (city in southern California)
• Nottingham (city in England)
• Hippie trail (overland Asia route in 1960s and ’70s)
• Pulp Fiction (1994 Quentin Tarantino)
• H Mart (Korean supermarket chain)
• Lavinia Spalding on travel journaling (Deviate episode)
• Patrick Leigh Fermor (English travel writer and scholar)
• Commonplace book (compendium of learning)
• The Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday (book)
• On Trails, by Robert Moor (book)
• China and Mongolia with my parents (Deviate episode)
• České Budějovice (city in the Czech Republic)
• Ranong (town in Thailand)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

“In the late 1980s human beings were your YouTube algorithm. Flesh-and-blood people introduced you to the music that changed your life.” —Rolf Potts

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and and Tod talk about Tod’s experience of being in the Jane’s Addiction “Stop!” video (3:00); Rolf reads his essay about discovering the album “Nothing’s Shocking” in 1989 (7:00); Rolf and Tod discuss what it was like to see Jane’s Addiction in the southern California music scene of the mid-late 1980s, versus what listening to AOR radio music was like in the middle of the country (19:30); how radio programming, independent record stores, and personal relationships dictated musical tastes in the 1980s, and how music enabled certain alternative lifestyles (30:00); how Jane’s Addiction influenced the sound of certain 1990s Seattle grunge bands, (38:00); what it’s like when you’re older to listen to music you loved when you were young, and how online algorithms and new technologies have changed the way people now listen to music (44:00); and the legacy of bands like Jane’s Addiction and how they changed the way we listen to music now.

Novelist Tod Goldberg (@todgoldberg) is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including the novel Gangsterland, which is currently being developed into a television series for Amazon. He is also the director of the University of California-Riverside Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA, and the co-host of the Literary Disco podcast.

Notable links:

• The 33 1/3 B-sides: Authors on Beloved Albums (book)
• Jane’s Addiction (alternative band)
• Nothing’s Shocking (Jane’s Addiction album)
• Ian MacKaye on the official history of rock music (Deviate episode)
• Jane’s Addiction’s “Stop!” MTV video
• Andrew McCarthy on how travel changed his life (Deviate episode)
• Dramarama (1980s alternative rock band)
• KROQ (radio station)
• High Fidelity (movie)
• Grunge (heavy 1990s “Seattle sound” rock music)
• Nirvana (1990s alternative rock band)
• Pansexuality (sexual orientation)
• Alternative Press (magazine)
• John the Baptist (biblical figure)
• Mother Love Bone (pre-Pearl Jam alternative band)
• Temple of the Dog (1990s rock supergroup)
• Bruce Springsteen’s cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain”
• New Order‘s “Age of Consent” (song)
• Gary Numan‘s “M.E.” (song)

This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey.

Tod Goldberg and Jane’s Addiction bassist Eric Avery at Mt. Baldy in 1990.

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” sec...

“The importance of Do the Right Thing out-lives all of the arguments against it. It embarrasses its critics, in a lot of ways. Spike Lee really is having the last laugh on this one.” –Wesley Morris

In this episode of Deviate, Wesley and Rolf talk about what Do the Right Thing is about, and why it’s a unique and extraordinary movie (2:45); how the characters are both sympathetic and unsympathetic, and how the movie isn’t trying to teach a tidy lesson (12:00); how Spike Lee’s story ideas from the 1980s feel relevant to social conditions in the 2010s (17:30); how the movie is more like Greek tragedy than a raw realistic depiction of its setting and story (23:00); the conditions of filmmaking for black artists in the 1980s (28:00); the way Do the Right Thing attracted a kind of panic from social critics when it came out (33:15); Spike Lee’s strategic use of powerful music, visuals, and blocking in the movie (37:00); the fact the Barack and Michelle Obama saw this movie on their first date, and how Spike Lee wanted the movie to be classified as a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-style comedy (41:00); Rolf’s interest in and personal experience with the film living in Wichita in 1989 (45:45); and the narrative specificity of the details in the film, and how they parallel real-life events (49:45).

Wesley Morris (@Wesley_Morris) the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic at large for the New York Times. Formerly the co-host of the Grantland podcast “Do You Like Prince Movies?”, he now co-hosts the “Still Processing” podcast with Times colleague Jenna Wortham. He previously appeared on Episode 41 of Deviate, Wesley Morris on podcast-fame, sports, and performing blackness in America.

Notable links:

• Spike Lee (film director)
• Do the Right Thing ( 1989 Spike Lee film)
• She’s Gotta Have It (1986 Spike Lee film)
• School Daze (1988 Spike Lee film)
• Bed-Stuy (Brooklyn neighborhood)
• Tawana Brawley rape allegations (legal case)
• Barry Michael Cooper (writer/producer)
• Do the Right Thing, by Spike Lee (film journal)
• Death of Sandra Bland (police-custody incident)
• John Savage (actor)
• Rosie Perez (actress and choreographer)
• Driving Miss Daisy (1989 movie)
• sex, lies, and videotape (1989 movie)
• Central Park jogger case (rape case)
• Stanley Crouch (cultural critic)
• Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)
• Southside with You (movie)
• Death of Eric Garner (police incident)

This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey.

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, bu...

“I will never have another vagabonding journey that compares to that first one — even though I have since traveled to far more exotic parts of the world — in part because there’s something special about embarking on a long-term trip for the first time.” –Rolf Potts

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and his old friend Jeff Nienaber talk about their 8-month van trip across North America back in 1994, how they prepared for it, and how it differed from current-day #VanLife excursions (5:30); how they exercised on the road, and how the conditions and travel-hacks of van journeys were different for two young men in 1994 (23:30); the route they took through North America, what happened along the way, and how they kept daily journals recounting events (36:00); the experience riding with cops in Houston, celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans, volunteering at a church in Mississippi, meeting girls in Florida, and seeing New York for the first time (51:00); the experience of staying at a Trappist monastery in Massachusetts for one week (1:14:30); visiting National Parks in the American South, Northeast, and West, and memorable books read along the way (1:28:00); and why the trip was life-changing (1:42:00).

Van trip preparation and planning links:

• Digital nomadism (travel lifestyle)
• #VanLife (travel lifestyle)
• Composting toilet
• Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon (1982 book)
• On the Road, by Jack Kerouac (1957 book)
• Travels With Charley, by John Steinbeck (1962 book)
• Vanagon (Volkswagen van)
• Volkswagen Westfalia (camper van)
• Trangia (alcohol-burning camp-stove)
• A (literal) photo album from my 1994 van vagabonding trip (blog post)

Links regarding early months of the 1994 trip:

• 924 Gilman Street (Berkeley punk club)
• Northridge earthquake (1994 earthquake)
• “The Mystical High Church of Luck” (Salon essay about Las Vegas)
• Lollapalooza (music festival)
• O. J. Simpson murder case (1994 media incident)
• USCGC Northwind (Coast Guard icebreaker)
• Bourbon Street (historic street in New Orleans)
• The Geto Boys, by Rolf Potts (2016 book)
• Fifth Ward (Houston neighborhood)
• Cops (TV show)
• Canton (town in Mississippi)
• In His Steps (Mississippi Christian outreach ministry)
• Waffle House (southern restaurant chain)
• Savannah State (historically black university)
• Debbie Does Dallas (1978 pornographic film)
• Tompkins Square (New York park)

Trappist monastery experience links:

• St. Joseph’s Abbey (Massachusetts monastery)
• Trappists (order of Catholic monks)
• Thomas Merton (Trappist monk and writer)
• Memento Mori (existential expression)
• Chant (1994 Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos album)
• Compline (end-of-day church service)

Links reg...