(continued)
Have you experienced any disasters or catastrophes on the
road yet?
Of course. What life is immune to these things? What's important
is how we respond to them and bounce back. I haven't flipped the
bus…yet… The old VWs are quite top heavy and resemble a brick
driving down the road. Not the most balanced vehicle. I learned
quickly to allow plenty of time to slow down before turning. One
of the first times driving her, I nearly rolled BARB right into a
ditch.

On the bicycle trip, I ran out of water in the middle of the desert.
A scheduled stop for the day ended up being a ghost town. That
was one of the first days I had ever been to the desert. One of the
toughest feats of the bike trip was riding over the highest highway
in America in Colorado. I nearly road my bicycle right off of the
peak. I mean I was really over the edge, seemingly no blacktop
below my tires. Sometimes I think back upon that and how close it
came to ending there for me. There really is a fine balance in life,
and I learned an immediate respect and appreciation for the
limitations of the physical world.

As for the bus, well… I parked just off Hollywood Blvd. I left the engine running and pulled the emergency
brake on before saying goodbye to friends in LA. After an embrace, I turned around just in time to see my
V-Dub rolling away down the street.

One of the lowest moments on tour has been breaking down in the middle of the desert with a smoking
engine. You really find out who you are and how you respond in a crisis. What surprises me most, though, is
how quickly I dealt with and accepted the situation. Do I have my health? Okay. Everything else is
secondary. I once buried sixteen-thousand dollars in the ground (that's right, $16,000) and moved
two-thousand miles away. I didn't want it in a bank and didn't want anyone to know that I had it. I came back
a year later to dig it up and couldn't find it. That was a trip. I felt rather foolish. Investing it in gold or
anything else would have been more intelligent. But what surprised me is that I had an almost immediate
acceptance of the fact that all my savings had disappeared. You'll have to read the second novel in the series
to see how that all turned out. I'm halfway finished with that book.

What can you tell us about the feature film you're currently working on?
VW Bus Tour is a documentary of hope, inspiration, and the American Dream. It encompasses my moving
from Ohio to California by bicycle, writing the novel, firing my literary agent, creating my own publishing
company to publish the novel and soundtrack and then setting out to spread my message that "Anything is
possible" through live shows and face to face meetings, all while traveling the country living out of my 1970
VW Bus. Included you'll see all of the trials and tribulations in pulling off this DIY feat. And in that story, the
VW represents a simpler time. It is also a physical force that makes me take a slower path, to see all the
beauty that's passing by. One of the themes is that creative hard work pays off. That's kind of in direct
conflict to the current culture and it's lottery ticket fame. I hope to inspire people that their dreams are
possible with whatever limited resources they have. I created my own community of creative individuals and
together we're using our talents to have a positive effect on the world. The cost of the corporate age is a loss
of community, but I'm finding that lost American dream strung all across the country.

Within the documentary you'll also get to meet the real-life characters introduced in the first novel. That cast
of characters is then woven through the following books in the series I'm writing.

Are there any other creative areas you'd like to explore?
Though I have a BFA in Acting, I'd like to do more of that professionally. I've acted professionally in an off-
Broadway play and co-wrote and produced another one that I starred in off-Broadway.

I make a cameo playing one of my songs in an Emmy Award-winning director's debut film Fine Tune. That
movie will hit the festival circuit this summer and feature another one of my songs. I've done background
work in films, TV & commercials in L.A. Though I have a degree in acting, I did this work because you have
a lot of free time on set and they feed you. Besides the obvious of seeing how the film machine runs, I looked
at it as being paid and fed to write. I edited my manuscripts and wrote several screenplays. I actually met a
member of the Writer's Guild on set and we became writing partners. We had a couple meetings and talked
with producers and directors about one of our scripts, but nothing ever came from it. That was very
Hollywood.

With that said, I'd like to act in projects where I wear no other hats than that of an actor.

How different are you now than when you first left Haskins, Ohio?
I'm still that same small-town Midwestern boy. Rather than exploring the cornfields and ditches of rural Ohio
as an adolescent, I'm bouncing from coast to coast rummaging through the redwoods, desert, mountains,
plains and down into the urban cities. Perhaps I'm a little more adventurous and street-smart than when I left.
Haskins was the most nurturing environment to build these lofty dreams. Now I'm out tramping about the
world realizing them. Thoreau said, "No man ever followed his genius till it mislead him." I feel a very real
affinity to Thoreau. I trust my gut and that inner voice. It hasn't mislead me yet. When it calls, I run.

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For more about Matt Palka, visit his website.
For more about Matt Palka's music, visit his MySpace page.