David Wojnarowicz and John Hall riding rails to California, 1976. journal entry from The David Wojnarowicz Papers courtesy The Downtown Collection Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.
July 15, 1976: David begins another cross country trip with his friend John Hall. Stopping at Syracuse University, David spends a day reading Kerouac’s Tristessa in the rare books department of the university library. They freight-hop to Mt Shasta and then hitch hike to San Francisco. David stays twenty-one days, camping out at the YMCA and taking a job sorting eggs. He begins collecting strangers’ monologues for Sounds in the Distance. He hitchhikes back to New York on October 23.