Leaving Albuquerque

The Unconventional Tour: Making Waves 2008 leg from Santa Barbara, Little Rock, Bloomington, Chicago, St. Louis, Tulsa, Austin, Albuquerque, is done.

What we have learned is that the club gigs with the media “mashup” worked the best. In fact, we started talking about doing a West Coast tour, as we packed up and drove away from the Albuquerque gig. It might be possible to promote a film showing at a music gig, or find people who would sponsor and/or host a film showing on our way back through a town...

Our tour has been largely separate from the election; in fact, as Jack Blood said, “If this had been an Obama rally”, there would have been thousands flocking to us. But we didn’t bill ourself as partisan, got no support from any political party. We wanted to bridge the common ground, not stand on any one side, and forge the way for more third party candidates in future elections. If there were a genuine coalition of opposition to the corporatized elections, where Ron Paul Republicans, Kucinich Democrats, Progressives, Naderites, McKinney fans could get together....work on viable election reform.

When we started we thought we would mobilize voters -- especially young voters. It appears our outreach mission has been more about creating a model for the future, inspiring organizers, and being an example of blind faith, as mentioned in prior post. We’re calling it the Meeting Friends Tour or Tour of Faith. We did not break even. The gig in Albuquerque didn’t pay for our way home, but we’re ok.

Over the next couple weeks we'll be uploading video from all of the cities.