The video above was inspired by an early 1989 TV series, broadcast on late night Channel Four (UK) called ‘Road Dreams.’
The series charted the journeys of an Englishman in America. Each programme began with the following title sequence:
"In 1968 Elliott Bristow went to New York for a two week holiday. In 1980, after twelve years and 500,000 miles on the road in America he returned to England with three trunks containing 75 hours of silent Super 8 film - his diary of this 'holiday'!"
In his feet I trod today.
The series remained embedded in my brain for decades before remerging rejigged in the film above. That’s the creative process - expressing everything we soak up somewhere further down the line.
Like Elliott before me, I was reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and dreaming of hitting the highway myself. My bedroom walls were plastered with posters of the New York skyline and a shinning saxophone. John Clellon Holmes’s novel “The Horn,” accompanied late night listening to Bird, Dizzy, Coltrane and Miles.
My book shelves bulged with American authors including the The Beats: (Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti); and wanderers such as Jack London, Charles Bukowski, and writers such as Thomas Wolfe, Walt Whitman, Paul Auster, Alice Walker, Harper Lee; the list goes on, and on, and on.
I was also creating a road-map of songlines across the American continent, that I discuss in a post dedicated to them.
As I age the more I’m convinced that teenage years are just as formative as early childhood in shaping who we are. My motto back in the day was “Dream it - Do it.”
So here I am… still doing it today, from South Dakota. People say be careful what you wish for, I say choose what you immerse yourself in. For every thought constructs a picture, and all those pictures produce dreams, and all those dreams manifest reality. So choose your thoughts carefully, be it quick or be it slow, they will manifest.
I’m reposting this today because Elliot has joined us a paid subscriber, completing the circle, where one artist inspires another.
Thank you Elliot - I never dreamed I’d meet you through email, life exceeds expectation sometimes doesn’t it?
I can’t emphasise enough how I welcome the commitment of paid subscribers to my work - it really does oil the clogs and keep the keyboards burning.
Find Elliot Bristow’s essential original series here and enjoy a nostalgic journey around the USA.
More info about Elliott can be found here.
Road Memories Resurfaced