(Screenshot images were taken from the YouTube account of 'hobestobe')
If you watch all of Stobe the Hobo’s episodes from his Summer 2016 series, than after awhile it’s hard not to notice a certain standard formula emerging from his work. Most episodes usually show scenes of Stobe the Hobo patiently waiting at a catch spot for an adequate ride, one that’s hopefully going in the right direction; a montage of shots capturing the natural splendor of rural America from a moving freight car; musical interludes; quick stops to convenience stores to acquire more beer; a few stops to enjoy a dip in a cool refreshing steam or river; sightseeing detours conducted in small towns and villages whose glory years have long since faded; Stobe the Hobo’s usual commentary about the heat, the horde of insects that eat him alive, and his inability to subdue the stench of his body odor; the occasional short analysis of his meager transportation options whenever trains can’t be caught; not to mention the staged shots of Stobe the Hobo looking down on a train yard as he discusses the detailed nuances of train hopping which in the eastern half of the US is far more complex, given the greater density of transportation nodes and how much more intricately woven they are when compared to the western half of the country.
Two main themes emerge from this formula. One is how ritualistic a life constantly devoted to train hoping can be and how much mental and physical fatigue is involved. If you think that Stobe the Hobo’s content can get mindlessly repetitive and stale after say 2 or 3 episodes, than I would suggest to ponder what it would be like to spend 4 weeks continuously living the lifestyle that generates said content. In this particular video, based on his opening soliloquy that he gives in front of the Superdome, Stobe the Hobo was a man who suffered for his art. What was perhaps most exasperating about his journey establishes the other main theme, in that no matter where he went, Stobe the Hobe never felt like he truly belonged there. He was always standing out and ending up on someone’s ‘shit list’ as he called it, forcing him to pack up and carry on to another town to repeat the same process over again. A life spent travelling with nowhere to call home is an affliction that torments a person down to their very soul. This was the burden that I saw on Stobe the Hobo’s face all throughout this video.
And yet given the warped, crooked loop that Stobe the Hobo trail blazed on this journey, if there was one stop that felt different than all the rest it was his sojourn in New Orleans. Maybe it was the simple fact that New Orleans actually felt alive with a still vibrant and active nightlife (unlike many other places that Stobe the Hobo would visit), but this episode really stands out amongst all the others on the summer tour and offered a change of pace and structure that was actually refreshing.
The first sign that something is slightly askew is in the name of the video. Normally Stobe the Hobo’s videos will exhibit a nomenclature that includes where he is located at the start of the video and where he winds up at the end. For instance you’ll see ‘Chicago 2 Cumberland’, or ‘Kentucky 2 Atlanta’. But for this video it is simply named ‘New Orleans’, suggesting that the city had a certain hold on him to claim a whole episode all to itself. In this video Stobe the Hobo rarely spends much time on any freighters apart from the short segments that bookend the video. Another strange aspect to this video is the music. When we see the first signs of civilization a minute into the video, instead of transitioning to Stobe the Hobo’s trademark sparse piano scores, we are instead greeted to the jazz drumming of Stobie Mike Kenobi, the father of the titular train hobo for the series. I really enjoyed the drum work here, it gave the video a rhythm and a vibe all its own, plus I found the more upbeat tempos heard later in the video to be remarkably infectious. Albeit early in the video the excellent jazz drumming is used as a backdrop for a montage of the more touristy portions of the city that make the video seem like a rather pedestrian, innocuous Travel Channel program, apart from of course Stobe the Hobo’s often candid assessments. Than the strangeness came.
There was something about this video that I found mysteriously odd and charming, that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps there was something fortuitously perfect about the way Stobe the Hobo would pan his handycam around and stage himself against two rows of houses with dark, gloomy storm clouds off in the horizon. Such a perspective, with Stobe the Hobo sporting his strapped camper’s hat, made him seem like some western outlaw who just rode into town. Or perhaps it was the fact that Stobe the Hobo caught an image of a lighting bolt while shielding himself from a torrential downpour. Or his oddly specific request for the music of Eric Dolphy or Miles Davis to complement his current disposition in life. Or maybe it was the horse drawn carriage that plodded down the street where he just happened to be standing while waiting for the rain to let up. There was a certain aura of unexplained eeriness to this video that strangely didn’t seem all that weird given how altogether ‘off-the-script’ the entire episode felt. It was like watching a Stobe the Hobo episode from some strange parallel universe. I also took some perverse pleasure in the fact that Stobe the Hobo could hear a train horn in the distance as if it was some mysterious, ghostly siren call leading him to his fate.
Stobe the Hobo then traversed down Frenchmen Street capturing the assortment of jazz music being played in its various clubs that may have had a positive impact on his psyche, especially the fantastic drum solo that he was able to see through the front window of The Spotted Cat Music Club. During his second soliloquy, given in bar while having a beer, we see a scene of an artist in the midst of an existential crisis that was presented in a very raw, yet genuine manner that maintains Stobe the Hobo’s generally laid-back persona. I think the dim lighting of the establishment beautifully accentuated his mindset here. Stobe the Hobo though was clearly inspired by the musicians on Frenchmen to stay true to his craft, and if anybody would be crafty enough to always find a way through, it would be a hobo.
New Orleans was the one stop on his tour that seemed to affect Stobe the Hobo in a distinctly positive way. The overall vibe of the place really buoyed his spirit and gave him the resolve to continue, in spite of the all difficulties that lay ahead. It also felt like the one city where Stobe the Hobo didn’t seem completely out of place. I got the impression that New Orleans was capable of accommodating him and his rather esoteric video series in ways that other cities couldn’t. Given what he had to endure for his YouTube videos, it made perfect sense for him to be surrounded by other people who were passionately devoted to their art. Another aspect of the video’s strangeness was that the Frenchman Street area was situated in close proximity to a freight line allowing Stobe the Hobo an opportunity to conveniently cash in on his inspiration. Ultimately despite all the troubles, a jazz musician belongs on Frenchman Street as much as Stobe the Hobo belongs on a freighter, although it was rather bittersweet that he had to leave, since a longer stay could’ve perhaps improved his outlook on life even more. Then again since the video ended with a freight car receding in the distance, maybe Stobe the Hobo came to this realization as well.