If you don't know it already, Sam Steffen is an identical twin. In August of 2019, Sam married Jimil Ataman--who is also an identical twin. In part, this podcast is an attempt to explain what it is like to be a twin--a sibling relationship that can generate competition, contempt, collusion, or even co-dependence. But it is also an attempt to explain what it is like to watch your twin--my twin--experience something for once unsharable and deeply traumatic. It is an attempt to explain what I hear when I listen to my brother's music.
Someone Else's Blues is also an attempt to explain why I decided to embark on a bicycle trip half way across the country only two years after Sam attempted a cross-country bike trip, which ended tragically when one of his travelling companions, Bill Cranshaw, was struck by a car and killed outside of Searcy, Arkansas. This is the story of what happened on our respective bicycle trips. This is Someone Else's Blues.
Will tries to honor his brother with a toast at Sam's wedding, where Sam marries an identical twin. Will remembers being mistaken for his twin brother by a grieving mother.
Two years after Bill's death, Will and Bob embark on an 1,100-mile bike tour from Massachusetts to Wisconsin.
Will and Bob arrive safely in Wisconsin. Sam writes a song about a strained relationship between two brothers, and Sam shares his bike journal with Will.
Hannah and Paul recount a terrifying ordeal from the second day of their bike trip with Sam and Bill.
Sam, Bill, Hannah, and Paul give a motivational speech to a group of students on their way across the Navajo Reservation. Sam, Paul, and Hannah also recount some of their more memorable hosts from the trip, and Bill has a terrifying encounter with a stranger at midnight.
Sam writes a song about Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, the book that Bill was reading on the trip.
Will revisits Sam's journal entry about the day Bill died. Sam, Hannah, and Paul remember their friend.