belly button fuzz

beef or bust

2008-10-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, their is a train that goes to the end of the world in Ushuaia. Ushuaia being the southernmost city in the world-- a mere 550 km from Antarctica. A tourist trap of sorts. An interesting one at that. A pretty city. ANYWAY, two things:

One, I have no interest in going to the end of the world. In fact, the thought of such a trip and a place conjures images of things similar to what you may see in a Stephen King movie-- the Langoliers for example. The end of the world-- and going there, ON A TRAIN!, sounds terrible.

Two, if, and only if I was required to make a trip to the end of the world, I would undoubtedly want to make the trip in a bus. A big bus, preferably electric blue in color and equipped with wheels that could run over things-- anything-- if necessary. Inside the bus My Morning Jacket would be played over a loudspeaker. And food, christ, their would be peanut butter and jelly. Lots of it. This, of course, becuase you must surrender your leg to get a small jar of the stuff here in Argentina.

Buses in Argentina happen to be the closest thing to heaven with 8 wheels (or so I think, this item is still up for research) in this country. I have taken every opportunity to utilize this mode of transport making it my movement method of choice. As the crow flies, I have traveled roughly 17,000 miles in a bus in this country-- read: 3,202 miles. My route has been of fairly euiler´esque variety having traveled first down the east coast, across the south of the Patagonia crossing in to Chile and then up the west coast of Argentina.

Beautiful.

I have seen whales fully breached, eaten ice cream that tasted like Jesus prepared it himself, watched a man get nearly creamed by a truck, seen a few glaciers, eaten hot dogs at the foot of a mountain roughly the size of Texas, met something like three thousand German tourists, bartered with an elderly woman (in spanish!) for a set of headphones, hell, been to the end of the world.

BUT NEVER, and I mean NEVER have I ridden in a bus as much as I have here in Argentina-- and thoroughly enjoyed it, mind you.

There´s simple things like the scenery:

The sights rain from boring to interesting in the confines of a air-ride equipped 8 wheeler. By interesting, I mean to the point of hallucination, by boring, I mean to the point of simply asking the driver to stop and stepping out. Hallucination!? Oh and its natural. So natural it is scary. REALLY, REALLY scary in fact. The first time it happened to me I thought I ate a bad apple or drank some shitty water. But then it hit me! These buses, these magnificant moving things, they have drug-like properties. And its free! FREE!

Step 1 - Look out the window.

Step 2 - Do not look away. Stare, eyes open-- blink as little as possible-- for something like 70 minutes.

Step 3 - Do not look away.

Step 4 - Finally, turn off the music, look away. LOOK AWAY!

Step 5 - Hold the sides of your chair very tightly. Veeeeeeeeeery tightly. Look at the curtains... THEY ARE MOVING! Ok, now you are seeing the merits of a perfectly natural hallucinogen. The clouds! They are jumping around like dancing rabbits! The best part-- hands down!-- is the movement that the floor makes. Yes, yes, it suggests vertigo, makes me want to puke at times, but I promise it is the most staggering part of the whole occasion.

So these buses-- kind of similar to the Magic School buses that I read about as a little child-- also from time to time offer you different services of class. Yep, just like an airplane. I have taken all three-- semi cama, coche cama and cama EJECUTIVO (that is semi bed, full bed and EXECUTIVE bed).

Coche cama is my favorite-- leather seats, bob o bon candy bars (hands down the best version of chocolate bar in Argentina, akin to the claims I make about Tim Tams in Australia but this time it just involves a golden wafer that happens to taste like warm peanutty something), tea if you should so choose and the BEST selection of Spanish dubbed movies that almost ALWAYS involve a few things:

1) Violence, a lot of fucking violence. Things blowing up, arms severed, flames, guns. The thematic undertone of all the violence is something as it relates to the near demise of The United States of America. I never realized until now how many movies have actually been created post 9/11 that involve a terrorist act dangerously similar but millions times worse. The most recent one involved Denzel Washington, an extremely attractive black woman and some stupid contraption that allowed you to view things as they happened in the past. Anyone?

2) Sex, either overt or suggested. Pretty Woman is a perfect example of suggested and the example for overt I do not know the title-- but the woman had great breasts, blonde hair and she was probably 5´9´´. Sorry, thats all I´ve got.

3) A sports team. Yes, either a coach and his plight to make his sports team win (Friday Night Lights, the movie with the Rock coaching a bunch of inner city gangsters, etc).

This is neither here nor there. I never finish these movies as I am either nodding off because I cannot follow the spanish, burying my face in a milanesa sandwich or said bon o bon candy bar OR I am concentrating in perfecting the air guitar solo to THE BEAR starting at 3:13-- a song by My Morning Jacket. Listen to that one Alex. If I come home and you can play that sonofabitch all the way through, my life plans are canceled and we are starting an MMJ cover band that will tour the country-- starting in Michigan, we won´t bite off more than we can chew. This band will likely involve Mike because let´s be honest, his voracious appetite for Jimothy et al would really complement our whole outfit. I have a beard right now that would probably put me in the running for the frontman role, and you Alex, well, grow your hair out and choose either the role of Carl Broemel or Patrick ANIMALIA Hallahan. Oh god. Mike, can you handle TWO TONE?

Sorry.

I am so excited.

The spanish is coming along. By "coming along" I mean I am really awesome at responding very enthusiastically as to what I did in a day. I can always ask where the bathroom is and totally understand the directions that I get back. I have been-- TWICE!-- mistaken for a foreigner because I did NOT sound like I was speaking gringo english. This statement, on both occasions, urged me to go to a place where I was alone and totally do the KIP Yessssssssssssssss thing from the movie Napoleon Dynamite. These are big deals you see.

I can name with relative certainty, every beef cut on a bull, because, after all Argentina has more beef available than I have ever seen in my LIFE. I eat beef roughly 4 times a week and subscribe wholeheartedly to the merits of what I call the BEEF OR BUST diet. It basically involves survival off the wonder meat and encourages consumption whenever possible. BEEF OR BUST does not include hot dogs, salami, any sort of conglomerate meat (I guess thats salami) or the other weird stuff like brains, hooves, or... TONGUE.

Jesus.

I was at a hostel, sleeping in a closet, mind you in a town called Chaltan. This place just celebrated its 23rd birthday not too long ago and is somewhat behind in terms of modern civilization. This is extremely endearing if you are looking to camp in a tent and go hiking for a few days (like most people that go there) or terrifying if you have just come out of a four day hike in Chile (that´s me) and want nothing to do with nature, mountains, drinking out of streams, tents, hiking boots, etc etc etc etc etc.

ANYWAY, this hostel, dare I call it that, offered me a room in a closet. Literally, a closet. Every other hostel in the pre-civilization town was full because of said birthday party taking place and so I was left with no choice. OK, deep breath. It was a family that owned the house, and judging by the look on their faces when I walked in they had either NEVER seen a tourist enter in to their hostel or they were just terrified that my grizzly persona was even considering staying in their home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got the tour of the place, the fella told me I could use any of the books on the main table entrace, yep yep, yadda yadda. He showed me a "sample room"-- a room at least 56 times more accomodating than mine-- then I met his daughter, their dog that made me want to cry because he smelled so bad and the laundry room. Oh the laundry room. It resembled a cold war prison and I was not going to use it. Then the kitchen. Jesus Christ. The kitchen. It was clean. It was nicely organized even. Lots of pots, even a fridge to use and WOW! they had a microwave. This was good news, great news! I had not had a microwave in a while. And then my head turned 30 degrees to the left and I witnessed the most horrific thing sitting at the kitchen table. It wasn´t another child or a furry creature that made me want to throw up. It was a COW TONGUE. A FULL COW TONGUE. This thing was massive, anf gray and it looked like it had goosebumps. All over. It was at least three feet long, and it was thawing on the table. I was terrified. I yelped a little bit. I was thoroughly disgusted and asked what in the FUCK that thing, that monstrosity, that AHHH! that WHATEVER IT WAS!

"Ahhhh senor, la garganta." He is pointing to his throat, not mine. Signalling to the region of the bull where this thing was taken from. Listen compadre, I get it. I get it.

"Si, si, si, si, si, si." I said it many more times than that because I did not know what else to say.

"Ehhhh, a BOOOOL, a vaca." He was trying to make it more obvious, but I understood, and it was terrifying me. I was already having bad dreams because of this TONGUE, this piece of flesh just sprawled across the kitchen table. The kitchen table that I was going to cook ravioli on. Oh jesus. I knew I should have bought those sanitary wipes. If not for cleaning my hands, then God, just to prevent the spread of some disease.

Deep breath. I turned around. I was sick.

"Claro, claro. Vamos a su habitacion!"-- OK, OK, lets go to your bedroom.

"Si, si, si, si, si, si, si."

And then the bedroom appeared, far different than the "sample room"-- it was a glorified closet, had to be. There were no brooms, no cleaning solutions, no light either. Ummm, was there a mattress? I lightly gestured towards the sample bedroom but this was apparently reserved for the caballeros that were coming later. Awesome. I had no choice.

Feeling as though I would happily take the train to the end of the world if it meant I could get out of Transylvania just a little quicker, I immediately hopped the next bus out. Being in the confines of that smooth 8 wheeler never felt so good. Bring on the candy! The tea! Poorly dubbed movies! Andale!

good airs

2008-09-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

The bus-- el autobus. The driver-- forget it. Please-- por favor. To need-- necesitar. To get off-- shit. Address? I know that. I know that one. Jesus. I can probably muster something close to it. He will understand me. Maybe. God, I thought I was better than this. OK. Este or es? Who cares. He will understand. OK. Go.

"Senor, necesito bajarse de acqui (I am pointing to my hostel address on a piece of paper but promptly stop this as I realize I may become responsible for the bus to promptly crash as a result of a severely sidetracked driver. The news headline would read: "American Crashes Argentine Bus." This would be terrible. I think about all this and immediately retract my piece of paper and pointing method). Uhhh, bajo de Avenida de Mayo 1385"-- Sir, I need to get off here. Uhhh, I need to get off at 1385 Mayo Avenue.

Yes, of course I struggled with getting the numbers out. I could barely keep my eyes open at this point from not getting much sleep on the eighteen hour plane ride over.

He nodded looking at me calmly, "cinco minutos amigo"-- five minutes, friend.

OK, OK, OK. This is good or so I keep thinking. Back to the headphones with My Morning Jacket blasting my membranes and the general confusion of freshly arriving in a completely foreign city. The bus rumbled along. Scenes collided side by side as I gazed out the window to a busy universe around me. That clashing, that madness, that boisterous activity-- it somehow left me in a calm place as I looked out from the confines of that 8-wheel megabus.

Do buses have eight wheels? This is probably a good Wiki project. I have had many Wiki projects lately-- one of which has me trying to determine how many American cities end with ´ville. I know, this will be difficult and likely pointless information to have, but it is equally as interesting as approaching Wikipedia to answer questions about how many wheels a bus has.

"Amigo! Estas acqui"-- Friend! You are here. I think that is what he said. Pretty sure.

I made it. We always do. Patience. It was only hour three in Buenos Aires and I had managed to get off the plane, collect my bags and take the bus in to the city.

Awesome.

It´s been a long time since I have written. I know.

The last month has been a whirlwind of events indeed. I did a nice little roundabout circuit of travel in the US-- New York City, Austin-town Texas and an Americana road trip installment with Mr. Miguelito Sack through the mid-south (Tennessee and North Carolina). I returned home and ate about 28 home cooked meals. This was good. My grandma passed away shortly thereafter and this was tough for all the obvious reasons. She is certainly in a good place now though. And then, it was time for the grandiose departure that I have become quite good at-- another international adventure.

South America.

The last month has left me with more miles under my belt and a growing list of questions. Questions that are to some extent rhetorical, answered and unanswered. The questions seem to pile up to roughly 14 feet in height, and I, like usual, kill myself over the answers. We cant know them all-- all the answers that is-- I guess.

Theres beauty in the unknown! This, as a particular friend Kate would point out, is the essence of daily life.

Well, Kate. I agree.

Patience. With the unknown.

OK.

It was morning, way early morning on day two in Good Airs-- ehh, Buenos Aires. The cold air was bursting through the crack in my enormous window that was approximately 12 feet from my bed. My sleep patterns were still fucked from old habits-- night owl tendancies when I was home and an 18 hour plane journey to be precise. The night before I had walked to the point of partial leg failure so that could have played a role. And I went to bed at 8:30 to the sounds of everyone hitting the town for a big night.

OK. I figured it out.

ANYWAY, its morning and I approach the kitchen for some coffee. Everyone always jumps on the case of naive Americans traveling, so I will take this opportunity to be immature and share a casually tongue-in-cheek anecdote. The only reason, of course, is for the lead in to where this manifesto is going.

See, everything has its purpose.

So I go to get the coffee, something I should consider NOT doing because I have been getting heartburn lately-- this makes me question the validity of my 25 years of age... BUT I just cant veer myself from drinking the black magic. I was pouring a cup and looked to my left and saw an Aussie couple I had met on day one happily enjoying breakfast amongst themselves. I broke in to the conversation, rudely perhaps, and we talked for a few minutes. I spilled coffee on my hand while trying to simultaneously talk with hand gestures and stand on my two feet. This happens more times than not.

The conversation was on auto-pilot when suddenly I realized the Aussie girl´s shirt read "Happiness is Lake Erie" across the front with a outline of the state of Michigan to the left. I freaked out. Actually, I burst in to laughter spilling more coffee and probably scaring people around me because I tend to laugh louder than is generally acceptable. This, of course, gets magnified 40 times when you are outside the confines of the United States where everyone does everything just a little louder than necessary. They looked at me confused. I continued to laugh. This happens a lot.

So the laughter subsided and the couple was desperately trying to piece the puzzle together. I explained the oddity of the situation and mentioned her t-shirt. She looked back at me as if I had shot her with a BB gun right there. She had no clue. I mentioned LAKE ERIE, I mentioned MICHIGAN. Nothing. It was just a silly shirt from a trip to the US. But NO NO NO, it was not just a silly shirt. It was home. It was home! I explained the beauty of Lake Erie and the Great Lakes to a rather confused crowd of two Aussies. They were eventually on board, but still very very very very very very confused I was making such a big deal out of this.

I held the coffee cup up to my face during the deliberation to hide my laughter. In the process, I took the world´s longest slug of piping hot black magic that very possibly melted me from mid-chest to pelvis. Or so it felt.

CONFUSION. Or so they felt, but we all get that.

Wherever it is that we all belong (Michigan, Australia, Antarctica), how often do you think about the answer? I can drive myself crazy from time to time in trying to find the superhighway to answer-kingdom. Where do I want to live? How will I get there? Is this going to be a good city? We all want a good city, now don´t we? I mean... shit! What is happiness? Uhhh, candy. Starburst Jelly Beans are happiness-- the fucking grape ones. Oh man. But that gets me nowhere. Jelly beans get me cavities, not answers. Where will I go? Yes, but where do we belong? Me! Where do I belong? Do you feel comfortable where you are? Where you have gone? Where you are going? How you will get there?

Jesus. I mean these thoughts just race through my head.

There´s plenty of young people (and probably old, too) that are wondering aloud these questions-- well, to themselves at least. Some ask those questions too much (maybe like me) and many ask too little, accepting the mediocre at face value. So there´s this happy medium to strive for perhaps, something to work for, something to find, to uncover-- and then to LOVE. A place where the current position puts a smile on my face and the promise of future growth seems a joyful prospect.

I want to talk to this nation state of individuals. Perhaps we can talk over the evening news.

OK.

So Buenos Aires-- a fine place indeed. I managed to circumnavigate the city quite nicely despite the fact that it seems as though it is roughly the size of Vermont. My daily walks have lasted hours, after which I realize I have only moved a couple inches on the map. The pulse of the city beats steadily, it has a vibe to it. My watch still remains on Eastern Standard because the majority of Argentina is just one hour ahead. This provides a nice reminder of home with every casual glance of the time. I think the highlight of this place has little to do with all these THINGS per se. There´s something more to be said about the kinship you feel between people. People embrace each other, and this picks up the slack for any downfalls that come with the bland familiarities that a continental metropolis brings.

Interestingly enough, I am traveling with a cell phone for the first time ever. I have never done this, and given my experience thus far would not recommend against. In doing so, I had my little brush with human Argentine contact-- arguably the highlight of my existence in Buenos Aires.

I walked in to the cell phone store sweating-- obviously-- despite the cool temperature. I started talking with a fellow who I would later find out was named Guillermo. I sat there rattling off my best attempts at espanol churning out about 45 questions related to me having a phone in Argentina. Poor Guillermo must have been frustrated, but he answered all of them. Of course, as part of my standard procedure, I took the answers, had a walk to think about, and then returned to make the purchase an hour later.

Guillermo pushed buttons, entered codes, spoke very very quickly, waved his hands, swore a couple times and banged on his desk twice. He then looked at me and told me there was problem. There was apparently a problem with the activation network and I would need to come back the following day. No problem.

So I returned the following day to no avail. Still did not work.

The following day, still no luck.

Day three. Success. Cell phone in hand. Celebration. Calls are made. We´re in business.

The following day-- day four-- I went back to the store because I had gotten used to chatting over tea or coffee with Guillermo midday. I mean Jesus, in those three prior days we accomplished a lot. He knew about my family, how I got laid off from my previous job, etc. Guillermo was thirty years old and lived about twenty minutes outside of town. He once lived in the US in Council Bluffs, Nebraska of all places. A year ago I saw an 18-wheeler explode on the highway there. This provided arguably the most heated of the discussions because it seemed like Guillermo may have known the driver. No, that is impossible, but that is kind of what his face looked like when I told him. The guy has a fierce love for rock ´n roll. This is clearly evidenced by the voracious lip curl and air guitar tactics demonstrated when anything by The Doors, Metallica or Def Leppard (!) is played. This is probably 95% of why we got along so well.

Day five. Back again. We had lunch.

Day six. The same.

Afternoons with Guillermo became the highlight of Buenos Aires. Clearly.

Today will be my last day hanging with Guillermo. I will walk in to the store and say Hola Amigo! once again. I will get his address and tell him I am going to send him the discography of America´s best rock ´n roll band My Morning Jacket (Miguelito, I am going to need some help executing this). He will laugh and slowly scribble in his awful penmanship (worse than mine) and ask "entiendes?"-- You understand?. I will reply with SI! repeated three times very quickly because this seems to be my habit of affirmatively answering anything in Spanish. We will pause while I construct my next Spanish sentence in my head. Guillermo will then turn the volume up on the boombox that is about two feet from his desk so we can act out the guitar solo to Metallica´s "Enter Sandman." We will laugh almost the whole time as I start to sweat because the legitimacy of both our air-guitarness is really staggering. After the song is done I will leave saying I will see him not tomorrow like usual, but rather "sometime soon." I say this to everyone I take a shine to because I always find my way back.

You´ve got to.

SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?

2008-07-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

Craigslist for the past few years has really been a big part of my life. I mean I could almost tell the story of my life post-college through the trials and tribulations of my existence with Craigslist. Actually come to think of it, I cant really tell the story of my life through the trials and tribulations with using Craigslist, I can mostly just tell of the failures in my life through usage of Craigslist. Craigslist is like the bad girlfriend that I keep going back to.

Let’s see, it was last summer. I was in the market for a full size conversion van—something that makes me want to laught hysterically and want to vomit as I think about it now. So I landed a deal on Craigslist for a Dodge van. This thing was roughly the size of a German U-boat and consumed roughly three times that amunt of gasoline but it was a beauty—full oak trim interior, TV/VCR combo, electric folding bed in the back, enough room inside to cart around a pack of wolves, etc. The thing was immaculate. And so there it sat in my driveway as I called Mom and brother Alex to come outside and look at the piece of machinery. I was so proud of my purchase. I was planning to go on a road trip with the beast and then move out west. Things were looking good.

So now that I had purchased the thing—and come all the way from Chicago mind you to land the deal—I had to turn it around and take it back to the Windy City. I was on the road for about 10 minutes when the red light on the dashboard lit up telling me I should check the engine. Super. I started to sweat. And by sweat, I mean I was lying in a grease pond of my own perspiration. I was just watching my $2700 prized purchase evaporate in to the summer sky. All the sudden the engine started to unnecessarily rattle and it seemed as though I had something of an issue—30 minutes in to owning the goddamn thing.

I took the monster wagon in to a local Auto Zone for them to hook it up to their computer and run the diagnostic—they do this for free mind you, it’s a pretty good resource. A fellow by the name of Steve came out to hook up the computer and I was genuinely frightened that this guy may try to beat my head with a hammer instead of helping me out. He looked like Sid Vicious and talked like Steve Carrell—a freaky combo. I never really got over this. He hooked up the computer, ran the diagnostic and looked me straight in the eye. I was in the middle of explaining that I had just purchased the car that day from an old man and Steve didn’t give a fuck—“DUDE, YOU GOT BONED.” He was screaming, probably from years of acid metal music killing his eardrums. “THIS ENGINE IS MISFIRING ON ALL EIGHT CYLINDERS.” I stared on with general dumbfounded-ness completely unaware of what an “engine misfire” was really implying. I didn’t say much and Steve knew I may be clueless. “DUDE, YOU GOT FUCKED. GET IT?”

Jesus Christ.

Long story short, I called the guy back that I had purchased the monster truck from and told him I was bringing the truck right back and that I wanted my money returned immediately. He was about 60 years to my senior so he had a genuinely hard time hearing me and understanding that I was bringing his van back to him. After about 5 hours of vicious arguing with an 80 year old man that smoked black and mild cigarettes throughout the entire course of our argument, I realized I was in a genuine conundrum. The old man would periodically change his argument completely mid sentence and this was really throwing me off. One moment we would agree he would give me all the money back that day, and then the next moment I was getting the money back the following week after a mechanic looked at it. The guy was genuinely crazy, and I was pretty sure that arguing with him cost me about 10 years of my life.

Eventually, a few days later, I got all my money back. That was Craigslist failure number one— with a minor twist of success.

Right around the time I voluntarily quit my last job at the office, I decided I would be needing a laptop of my own because I was going to have to turn in my work laptop. For whatever reason, it seemed reasonable for me to approach the market through Craigslist to find a used laptop. Not sure why this seemed like a great idea, but I nevertheless went forward with it. I found a very suitable Apple iBook G4 with all the specs that I wanted from a guy up in Wrigleyville—just a couple miles away from my apartment in Wicker Park. The guy’s name was Temi and we schedule a time to meet so I could have a look at the laptop.

Easy peasy.

I showed up at his apartment. Going in to strangers’ apartments is always kind of freaky— even when it is a stranger that you are aware of through a mutual friend or something. The smell is always the first thing I pay attention to. Temi’s apartment, as I approached the gleaming Apple laptop that I would be purchasing from him for $450, resembled the smell of a dead rat laying roadside for roughly 10 days in the hot summer heat. Next in a stranger’s apartment, you can’t help but look at the objects scattered about. Temi had computer discs covering the floor. I am guessing roughly 35,000 of these things just plastered across the floor boards. Every turn of my eyeball was potentially an opportunity for blinding myself because of the constant glare resulting from CD’s reflecting sunlight.

Awesome.

Temi was kind of freaking me out. Despite all these sings of Satanic-like behavior, I walked out of Temi’s Wrigleyville apartment with an Apple laptop.

I think two weeks later to the day I was sitting on my balcony enjoying a beer with my roommate Drew when I got a weird message pop up on my screen alerting me that my laptop needed to be shut down immediately. And so I did. No big deal. Well, it’s just that I got this message 600 more times every time I tried to turn the computer on. The computer never actually turned back on after that fateful evening on the balcony. So I called Apple Care and told them the issue. Well, my motherboard was fried apparently. I was furious. Here I had just bought the damn thing, and with my luck, the computer was now a vegetable. I could use it as a placemat now. Or maybe when I had kids I could let little Tommy sit on it to boost him up in his chair. So I wrote a letter to Steve Jobs telling the man what a disgrace this whole situation was. Oddly eough, I got a response in the form of a phone call from one of his “assistants” who wanted to try and fix the problem.

Well, he didn’t fix it but rather I just got a note from Steve telling me that I could pay $300 and have the thing back in working order. I declined. Craigslist failure number two.

Well, all things considered, I took a bit of a risk— given my track record with Craig and his list— by finding the Crocs job with Craigslist. I answered a very thorough ad when I was passing through Seattle and Portland in response to what was called a “Brand Ambassador” position. I got a phone interview scheduled and it went well. This led to the scheduling of a face-to-face interview when I got to Portland. This was the same trip that while sitting in a Laundromat one morning, a bum gave me HIS sweatshirt because he thought that I looked like I needed it. I took that as a pretty sweet gesture (still have the sweatshirt in my room) but nevertheless immediately realized that I must be looking AWFUL. The following day I checked in to the Hawthorne Hostel, had a shower and cleaned up for my job interview.

Things went well, and lets be honest, I was pretty sure that this job was the best thing that had ever happened to me—I would be traveling, meeting new people, driving a truck and oh yeah… doing marketing work. For the past 6 months I have been writing here of the adventures: trials and errors with a sexy imported box truck, adventures in truck stop America, the exhilaration of the open road, etc etc. You know the drill. Then I got moved to a different tour that went to MUSIC FESTIVALS and I was working with one of my BEST FRIENDS. It was like something was too good to be true. If Jesus were to live amongst us mortals, he would probably have a similar work setup. I mean that’s about how good it was.

So it all stopped and crashed because lets be honest—the curse of Craigslist had to show its face at some point.

And so it did the morning of July 21. My boss paid a surprise visit to Michigan which kind of made me poop myself a little bit when I was talking to him on the phone and he told me he was there. Mike was sitting passenger side as we were driving home after our event that weekend. I pulled the whole “holy shit!” face as I looked over at him and tried to mouth what was going on. I am a terrible multi-tasker so talking to our boss on the phone and trying to convey to Mike what was going on proved impossible. The news was in—Mike and I were to meet him at the Holiday Inn in Birmingham at 9AM the following morning. Yep, this sounded awful. And it pretty much was. We got laid off right there on the spot when we showed up. There was no getting around it.

All I could think about was Craig and his stupid fucking list.

Crocs decided to pull the plug on the Rock With Crocs tour that I was on because revenues were really shit for the third quarter and they needed to try and stop the bleeding somewhere. I guess it’s the nature of the beast depending on how you look at it. Either way, the romantic tour de force of Americana and its infinite glory is over. The curse of Craig, indeed.

But I feel OK. I really do. I am sad to see the touring life dissipate in front of me, but I am pretty sure that another opportunity is beckoning.

Right now I am sitting at home for about the tenth day in a row. And yes, its starting to feel weird. I am unemployed. This is typically brought up to me in the most opportune of moments. Most recently, it was standing in the grocery store and seeing an old unfamiliar acquaintance from high school. The vaguely familiar face approached while I was assessing which green peppers to purchase. Green peppers aren’t exactly cheap in the summertime at $1.99 a piece, so I typically look for the largest one in the pile of roughly 50 of them that sits in front of me. I always try to hide the fact that I am looking for the largest one which is kind of stupid, but its also the truth. So I am looking for the perfect green pepper and the said face presents itself in front of me with an absolutely wonderful fucking question.

“SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I thought you were living in a cave in Uzbekistan.”

“Awesome. Yeah. That’s the next stop after I start drug trafficking in Colombia.” At this point I really want to have this conversation with this person, but honestly, the fire isn’t there and I can’t even remember the person’s name. I could look in my year book that sits in the southeast corner of the basement at my parent’s house amongst about 10 years worth of shit, but honestly, that would probably even take forever and a day.

“Seriously though, what are you doing around here? Seems like the last time I saw you was in that world literature class with Mr. Palizzi.” I don’t remember what instance the familiar stranger recalled where we last saw each other, so I just inserted a relic of my high school days for the sake of telling the story. Mr. Palizzi, the teacher of said world literature class, is single-handedly responsible for the largest portion of my current vocabulary.

In second place was my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Scarlett. That woman looked like Satan and was probably on her way to becoming his right hand man, but she still taught me a lot with my spelling tests. She drank coffee with the sort of intensity that suggested maybe she was an Alaskan killing wolf. It was downright scary to watch her lips pucker as she reeled in what I recall as a cup of coffee that was roughly the size of a mailbox. I would always be observing her chugging coffee from my desk in the rear of the room as she taught us spelling. My friend Billy, a neighborhood kid I used to ride bikes and go get cheap candy bars with, used to sit in the back of the classroom and masturbate under his desk while all this was happening. This is no joke or exaggeration. The kid used to rub his penis from the outside of his pants and pucker his lips while he was doing so—just like Mrs. Scarlett drinking her coffee. I once came home asking my mom why in the hell Billy was doing such a thing—to which I was introduced to the concept of masturbation. The reason why I mention all this is because on one particular occasion after I had scored a perfect score on Scarlett’s spelling test for the third week in a row, she told me that she was going to give me a special word list to pump up my vocab. Little did I realize that this new word list would involve words like Czechoslovakia (It took me three weeks to spell that one correctly—the biggest problem of whih was the second “o” in the word. I always wanted that “o” to be an “a.”) and a word that I erroneously mistook one week for “masturbate.” I was baffled as to why this was on the test. It’s funny because I don’t even remember what the word was that triggered my memory banks to think of Billy and masturbation, but I suppose that’s sort of irrelevant.

ANYWAY, familiar stranger was still standing in front of me as I tried to figure out if I was going to skirt around my recent layoff. I shot right back with confidence, “Well, in all seriousness, I am considering drug trafficking because the reason I am home is that I recently got laid off from my job.” At this point my attention is now back to the green peppers. I try to multitask between looking for the perfect pepper and attentively listening, but again, this is impossible.

“Ohhhh shit man. Bad news. What were you doing?”

“I was working for Crocs, you know, those goofy looking shoes.” Whenever I would explain to people my job that sentence was always the anchor of my description. And honestly, everyone knew what I was talking about when I said those three words goofy…. looking…. shoes. Now, those goofy looking shoes haunt me. I see stores with Crocs in the display and suddenly I lunge for Kleenex and a box of chocolate. This is weird.

“Wow. That’s a bitch. So you living around here for a while then?”

“Well, sort of. I am headed to New York then Austin. And then South America. I will stay there for a few months. Then I have a ticket out to Australia and will try to get some work out there. So I guess the answer is no.” As I got through those few sentences I immediately regretted getting in to that much depth. I started to look harder at the peppers that were now beckoning me at every blink of my eye. Hell, I was even considering the red and yellow ones at this point.

“Shit. Where do you get the money to do all that traveling? I mean where are you going to work?” Wow, if I haven’t had this conversation three thousand times before. Al Green came on the PA in the supermarket, so that was kind of helping me out a little bit.

“I’ll be selling drugs along the way. I am just kidding, man. I guess part of the beauty of all this is that I kind of figure it out as I go. It sounds weird, I know. But I guess it just works for me. I’ve gotta run though, it was really cool and random to catch up. Take care.”

I felt like I was Zach Braff in Garden State after he comes home for the first time in a long while and deals with the awkwardness of existing amongst the familiarities developed in previous years living in his hometown. There’s that feeling of misalignment, that feeling of sirens going off all around you, that feeling of shitting your pants while riding in the car because your fart was a little more powerful than you had expected. I really don’t know if the whole shitting-your-pants analogy was accurate, in fact it probably has no alignment whatsoever. I just stood there thinking about Zach Braff and what is next after going on my tangent with stranger man about drugs in Colombia, green peppers and goofy looking shoes.

“SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!”

It’s fucking scary.

It is no easy task. Up until the age of 21 everything was mapped, planned, charted and organized. School was the mainstay of existence occupying the months of August through June. Summers in grade school were spent at camp and on the baseball diamond. High school summers were spent bussing tables at the country club for the sake of some quick cash. In college, summers were spent developing your resume with work experience. It was easy. There was no wonder about what would bide your time, no question as to what should be done. There was really minimal choice in the matter even. I could choose the companies I got internships with in college, but that seemed like about as much wiggle room as I had. Now, I burst out of the gate from the university days with a sea of the most enormous question marks and suddenly I have quarter life crisis material—that is IF and ONLY IF I choose to be consumed by the inquiry of answering that simple question of “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!?”. It’s easy to make yourself falsely comfortable with less-than-optimal situations to answer that simple question. I did it for a while in Chicago. You take the good with the bad and deal with the rest. At a certain point though, I told myself there was something better out there—slightly outside the conventional at times, but nevertheless a forward progression that I could plainly see in my thought patterns.

And so I move.

Perhaps all this quarter life crisis material is easily averted if you can train yourself to become comfortable with ambiguity—a moving object that serves as your final destination. I call it my happy place. My life essentially revolves around this happy place. One day I will get there after having traveled an assortment of different roads and accumulating roughly 4 million airline miles. BUT! BUT! I will get there and be completely pleased with the occupation or activity that is the mainstay of my happy place. There is going to be a marching band, moonwalking lessons and a giant fucking inflatable ball pit for the kids because its going to be a party when I get there. I think my happy place becomes something slightly different every 6 months or so, but as I continue to move, it gets more and more specific. And that’s success in my book.

And so I move.

But God knows that question “SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” is dangerous, dangerous shit. It forces you to advertise exactly what your plan is. And everyone has a different idea about what a good plan involves. Many times, it’s the furthest thing from my happy place. So that corresponding pressure of needing to advertise your plans properly can pull you in like a fucking angry grizzly bear, chew you up and kill your innards leaving you completely lifeless doubting whether you will ever move again. I can just as easily succomb to the pressures of falling in to the lifeless mold of second-rate decision making for the sake of advertising a publicly acceptable plan.

Or we can dare to be FUCKING BOLD.

Or so I would like to think.

Proceed forward young diplomat!

moustache rides

2008-07-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

America, short of stating the obvious, is one of my favorite places in the universe. There’s quite a few things I love about America—I would say a good chunk of those things currently revolve around James Brown, Tom Petty, Sly Stone and all members of Kool and the Gang…

BUT! There’s more to it than that.

I love that in America New Balance sneakers are as popular as they are. I love that when you go to Starbucks, should the situation require a gallon of coffee, there is a size that accommodates such a desire. I love the idea of southern hospitality. I love that you really don’t find people wearing khaki pants as frequently as you do in America. I love Budweiser (this American fact is in jeopardy, as a Belgian conglomerate now owns my champion brand. Is it now un-American to drink Budweiser? Fuck). Hell, I love the word AMERICANA. I love American truck stops. I love legends like Kit Carson—troubadour of the western frontier.

Clearly there’s a lot to enjoy here.

Preference and penchant are very hard topics. With me it’s very hard for me to state a clean concise favorite. There are actually only two or three areas of my personal taste where I am able to distinctly proclaim a number one favorite. The first area of favorites is breakfast. My favorite breakfast food is easily biscuits and gravy. No questions asked. The second category where I can easily give you a favorite is with music. Every year I have no problem proclaiming my favorite album of the year. Everything else remains difficult, most of the time, to state concise favorites in general categories over time. Things change, places change, situations change and thus a new favorite for each category is inevitable.

Biscuits and gravy, however, are ALWAYS good and ALWAYS the best breakfast option. This is why it is easy for me to declare such a personal fact. But I mean other areas are extremely hard.

Favorite city in America? Favorite of the four seasons? Best magazine to read on an airplane? Favorite ice cream? Favorite article of clothing? On and on.. All of these areas are nearly impossible to state a concise favorite because so many different situations present different penchants. My favorite city in America could be Portland, Oregon—but then again, if it is winter time I prefer to say that Portland Oregon is the armpit of America with its consistent hellfire of falling rain. So the average of that puts it at what--- the 18th best city in America?! All that said, I therefore prefer to put everything in a top three list—of which the items appear in no particular order. They are just simply in my top three and get an equal amount of attention as such.

Favorite city in America? Nashville, Asheville and Louisville. This of course for the time being. This top three list is one that consistently evolves.

Favorite of the four seasons? Fall, Summer and Spring. Jesus, do not get me going on winter. This is probably my favorite top three list because there are only four possible choices to choose from in seasons, therefore the one that doesn’t get chosen is REALLY TERRIBLE. And that is winter in a nutshell. Really, really terrible. And if you live in Northern Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota then winter is FUCKING AWFUL and makes you consider things like jumping off of really, really tall buildings.

Best magazine to read on an airplane? Under the Radar, Ready-Made or The Economist.

Favorite ice cream? Chocolate Peanut Butter, Neaopolitan or Superman.

Favorite article of clothing? A white v-neck t-shirt, a particular pair of cutoff jean shorts that have honestly lived beyond their years at this point (they recently went in to the seamstress for crotch blowout repair number three and overall sixth patching effort) or a pair of loose fitting cotton shorts.

Everything gets easier with top three lists.

So every year one category that consistently nags at me and begs a top three list is favorite holidays. Honestly, this is a tough one seeing as how we have an arsenal of options—all of which imply totally different activities and people involved. Christmas, while you usually acquire a stockpile of new shit, ends up becoming a game of “try to be everywhere doing everything.” Easter I haven’t celebrated in a good long while (actually this is 100% false, just this past April I spent a wonderful Easter in New Orleans with a friend’s family) so I will just ignore it. Things like Colombus Day, Martin Luther King Day or Presidents Day are meaningless because there’s always just a giant question mark declaring whether or not this will be a day off. Then there’s the big kahuna that is Thanksgiving—always a charmer. With no other holiday do your stuff yourself to the point of inflicting pain that is off the charts. This pain then induces you in to comatose-like sleep that involves laying on any conceivable piece of furniture. I mean, you ever notice that? After the family is done eating Thanksgiving dinner, there are people sleeping on the floor, in a chair around the kitchen table, on the arm of the lounge chair, hell maybe in the dog pen at some houses. ANYWHERE. Then everyone wakes up and eats again before going to bed. This is pretty American I think.

Now, recently I have to tell you my beliefs on holidays and top three lists took a U-turn when I wholeheartedly concluded that I can add a clean-cut favorite holiday—this of course adding to my list of categories where I can proclaim a favorite: breakfast foods and music. So bang on the drums, sound the bells, bring out the belly dancers, the petting zoo, a beer tent, fireworks, an arsenal of grillable food—hamburgers and hot dogs preferably, guest appearances including Tom Petty and Chuck Klosterman and a closing ceremony performance by Kool and the Gang doing 15 different renditions of “Get Down On It.”

Yep.

The Fourth of July can officially be declared my favorite holiday. Gone are the days of feverishly wrestling with Thanksgiving and The Fourth of July. Indecision no more. There will be no ties, no top three lists, no situational analysis.

The Fourth of July is hands-down my favorite holiday.

As such, this past Fourth, spent in the heart of Miller Brewing Country while working in town for Milwaukee’s famed Summerfest music festival, would need to be a seamless display of Americana. The whole affair started with a lake house and a pontoon boat on Lake Okauchee just outside of Milwaukee. Let’s be honest, is there anything more American than a lake house and a boat on the water blaring Tom Petty’s “Running Down A Dream”?! As a sidenote, our pontoon didn’t even have a gas guage, speedometer or a fully functional outboard engine let alone a stereo system that could shake a stick at playing Tom Petty over a non-existent loudspeaker. BUT STILL. It was lake house America at it’s best.

Good days always involve fun people. Great days involve occurrences that you never expected. Unbelievable days combine both. This past Fourth of July was unbelievable. It was somewhere around the 29 of June when I realized that all the ingredients were present for something of an amazing celebration—the lake house was there, the boat, the heart of Midwestern America and a Weber charcoal barbeque. It was too good to be true. I sent out a mass text message to all parties interested and I think within about 30 minutes we had unanimously declared that an unbelievable opportunity was present. Friends from all corners of the universe (Australia included, this was no joke) were in for this last minute thrown together celebration. Somehow Mike and I were given the entire Fourth of July off from working and would therefore have no problem selling our livers to the devil for the day. For the week leading up to the holiday, Mike and I had a running notepad titled “THE FOURTH” that we consistently noted down ideas that should be included in the celebration.

Naturally this list turned in to a poster size piece of paper that included thing like beer Olympics, moustache rides, piñata smashing, naked triathlons, pontoon adventures, burger eating competitions, dizzy bat races, Budweiser, mixtapes, cowboy boots, American heroes (Tom Petty, Sly Stone and all members of Kool and the Gang), cutoff t-shirts, plastic lawn chairs, patriotic beer cozies, row boat races and tire swing distance jump competitions. The list was honestly about five times this size, but some of them are unnecessary details.

The day of patriotism started with a trip to the Piggly Wiggly— the grocery store chain that runs rampant in the greater Milwaukee area—with a laundry list of participants, mostly friends from college and days spent in Chicago. We came out with enough food to feed the state of Nebraska, a boom box, ping pong balls, a piñata, approximately 30 mini American flags, two wiffle bats and balls, a keg of beer and more plastic cups than was necessary.

Let the games begin.

Moustache carving was first on the list— a particularly apropos activity given the penchant for American working class males to sport such a fashionable piece of Americana. All of us (including the women) had strategically grown facial hair to a feasible length that would be fitting for a carving session. What resulted was a half dozen solid moustaches resembling the father’s from that motorcycle reality show Orange County Choppers. His handlebar moustache extends approximately eight inches below his upper lip thus making it one of the longest tailed handlebars known to man. And it isn’t wispy in the least; you would have trouble getting a John Deere rider mower through his grizzle. Anyway, about two of the participants had facial hair that was of this caliber. Most didn’t shake a stick at such magnificence. The other half dozen or so were just sad, sad, sad attempts at bringing attention to one of America’s favorite facial tendencies. I happened to be a sad excuse. My moustache simply isn’t at the caliber that it should be. This is something I battle with on an every-other-day basis.

The piñata we purchased at Piggly Wiggly was clearly an attempt at paying homage to our Mexican brethren. It was particularly appropriate because Mike at times looks as though he is Mexican so really we just wanted him to feel comfortable. We stuffed the thing with about 50 pounds of penny candy and Jake even threw in some cigarettes to give a little added incentive to the smokers of the group. All hell broke loose when this thing was demolished open. Fistfights ensued for the lone snickers bar that was inside and I am pretty sure Jake was on his hands and knees looking for the cigarettes in the grass. OK, no fist fights were had, but we did light the discombobulated remains of the poor piñata doggy on fire and ceremoniously threw it in the lake.

The dizzy bat races ended up being catastrophic and I am pretty sure we axed those within a few minutes. Instead we just used the bats to break each others ribs showing that this day can’t just be fun and games. Sacrifice needs to be involved.

OK, kidding again.

The highlight of the day was clearly Hinano’s Challenge—an eating and drinking competition that was derived from a friend’s original idea between he and his brother’s friends. Their competition took place in Venice Beach at a bar called Hinano’s. Each competitor was to run from the starting point (roughly a mile to the bar) drink a pitcher of beer, eat an entire cheeseburger and then run back. My modified version involved no running whatsoever seeing as how my abdomen was still freshly sawed in to. Instead, we had a table set up on the balcony of the lake house armed with a dozen burgers and 24 large glasses of beer. Each competitor was to eat a hamburger and drink two beers in the fastest time possible. The winner of course was me, hence why it was the highlight of the day. My moustache sucked and I got a bunch of bullshit candy out of the piñata, so my landslide victory was very much so deserved. It was a competition amongst boys really and I am pleased to say that I was the gladiator of the operation. I am occasionally worthless in beer pong, usually can’t do any damage in wiffle ball games, but damn I can eat and drink fast.

I think by the end of the night when all the rest of my coworkers were back at the lake house we were all lighting fireworks and blasting things to smithereens with those little Black Cat sonofabitches. We had a nice collection of bottle rockets that we were attaching things to so they could get catapulted in to flight. The neighbors must have made a side trip to Mexico because they had some exploding shit that far trumped our meager attempts at patriotism. I am reasonably sure that the blasts coming from their yard could have been heard in Seattle. The resulting explosions jarred my ribs as we all stood there joyfully gazing up at the glowing sky. This was both jarring and extremely invigorating.

Once the blasts subsided and it was something like 3 am, everyone was scattered all over the floor of the lake house with moustaches, torn clothing, wounds, drawings on their faces, ketchup stains all over the body, empty bottles strewn about and the smell of sulphur stinged the nostrils from the pyrotechnics spectacle that still lingered in the air from next door.

It was time for me to finally call it a night.

Work the next day was pretty interesting.

I feel like I stayed remarkably on top of my game working that following day for one reason and one reason only: Tom Petty was playing a show that night at the festival and Mike and I saw this as the perfect closing ceremony to the overly American festivities that were still hazily remaining in my memory blocks from the day before. There was only one minor flaw to our plan: the show was sold out and getting in with our vendor credentials was next to impossible. If you were to rate the strictness of entrance and examination procedures by Summerfest employees and personnel, one could easily place them somewhere between Robert Mugabe ‘s Zimbabwe and Hitler’s Nazi Germany. We had about 15 different sets of credentials to get us access to different areas and the level of strictness amongst employees granting access was absolute cutthroat. This made everything difficult over the course of the week we were there, but particularly the whole part about us sneaking in to see Tom Petty. We were going to need a good story.

Right around hour three of working on Tom Petty day, after realizing we were not going to legitimately get in to see the show, Mike and I started to brainstorm. Everything was thrown in to the mix. We tried to sweet talk our way in to some sponsor passes—nothing. We tried to talk to the food service people to see if we could be snuck in hiding in a catering cart. Nope. We spoke with the keg deliveryman to see where there were weak points in security around the perimeter of the amphitheatre. This surveillance proved completely useless as I am pretty sure the keg delivery man was terrified at the intensity that Mike and I were bringing to the table. We were conducting the interview with the man as if we were plotting to blow up the place that night. Nothing. We exited the festival grounds and went to the area where we thought we may have a fighting chance near the employee entrance to the grounds. We chatted up a roadie that was doing the setup for Cheap Trick later that night. He was wearing cutoff jean shorts and a pair of knee high white socks which immediately told me this guy was a winner. We told him what we were trying to do and after about 20 minutes of conversation he pretty much told us there was no way we were going to get in to the Petty show. All Magnum PI efforts said and done, nothing surfaced. We were back at ground zero contemplating climbing a fence that was behind the main stage—this fence had barbed wire.

Awesome.

We continued to walk and brainstorm concocting about 12 different fabricated stories that involved roadies, faux names, Crocs employee passes, free shoes, cash and heart doses of false confidence. With each story we fabricated, we made every effort to make it seem like we knew exactly what we were talking about. In fact, I think we tried to even make the guards that we spoke with feel stupid for not knowing what we were talking about.
Not a single person bit on to any of our intricate ploys. We were told in 25 different ways, by 25 different gate guards to go get stuffed 25 different times. We walked back to the Crocs trailer and sat there almost ready to throw the towel in. We could hear Steve Winwood playing at the amphitheatre, which implied that the show was already underway as he was opening for Petty. This was mildly devastating. There had to be a way though, there just had to be.

There was one corner of the amphitheatre that was opened to employees of Summerfest to use the bathrooms. We had talked to the guard that was stationed there about 4 or 5 times throughout the course of the day but had no success convincing him he should let us in to the show. New light was shed on the situation, however, when a new guard showed up, and this one looked like he had just graduated middle school. Perfect. He appeared supremely unfitting for the verbal ass-kicking that Mike and I were plotting to dish out in an effort to muscle our way through. Mike and I approached the gate with puffed chests and a plotting of bologna and cheese statements to increase our legitimacy. The young fellow looked on completely baffled as we outlined our scenario. It is really mind blowing that the story that actually got us through was telling this pre-pubecant security guard that we had a meeting with our “event team” just around the corner past the gate. Within twenty seconds we had gotten past him silently fist pumping and were well on our way to passing through another set of gates. At just the opportune moment we slipped through the final gate and that’s when Mike and I gave a nod to each other. We held off on full fledged celebration until we were absolutely certain we were going to be strumming our air guitars to “Breakdown.”

We had a stoop on the lawn that night watching Mr. Petty and the Heartbreakers labor away on stage to a crowd of probably 20,000. When they blasted in to “I Won’t Back Down” I immediately had a hard-on thinking about a few weeks prior when I got wheeled in to the butcher’s block to get my midsection destroyed by the scalpal and that song was on in the operating room. Tom Petty, the American legend that he is, was a perfect close to our time in Milwaukee and put the icing on the cake for the overly American celebration in the last 48 hours.

America is a great place and you should like it, too.

crotch rocket

2008-07-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

Right around week 12 of the Crocs job I started to feel lightning bolts striking my balls whenever I would exert myself to a certain degree. That weekend when I flew home from Orlando after being terrified of Disney World, I went and paid a visit to my doctor. After turning and coughing about 3,000 times I was diagnosed with a subtle inguinal (in-gwin-ullllllllll) hernia on my right side. This was going to need some attention-- and by attention I mean that I was going to need to step away from this life on the road business and get my midsection sawed open.

Awesome.

Yesterday morning, June 19, I woke up at 5:15 am to make my way with my Mom and Dad to Crittenton Hospital in Rochester. I was in good spirits and fully prepared to be in and out of that operating room. Hernia surgery seemed like the pre-school of anything involving a scalpel. The night before I even made a Mettalica playlist that I was going to listen to as I was wheeled away on the surgery board. If candy bars could be a measure of my preparedness then I was a King Size Snickers bar. The one's that are roughly the size of a machine gun.

As we pulled in to the parking area G at the hospital I approached the counter and got everything ready—told the woman my vertical leap, stated my preference for Subway sandwiches, etc. I sat in the waiting room reading the latest issue of Rolling Stone. I about shit my pants when I noticed that the Fleet Foxes were featured with a little mini-article. Waiting. Waiting. At that point all I could think about was getting home and being able to sit on my ass for a few days while I had an unlimited supply of mother-made Turkey/Ham sandwiches. Ohhh god, Mom makes the best sandwiches. For what its worth, I would have her creations over a Subway version any day. And Dad does OK with sandwich creation as well, his are just 8 times the size of Mom’s and big enough to feed a full grown-male thoroughbred horse.

I practically moon-walked to the waiting room where I stripped down and donned the hospital gown— wearing those things are kind of like fitting a curtain on yourself as an evening dress. I was having some extreme difficulty tying the back and so I requested the help of the nurse. As I turned around to get her help I could feel my ass just hanging out the back, but I figure it wasn’t the first time she had to deal with such a spectacle. I flexed to compensate for what is undoubtedly one of the world’s flattest rear ends. Afterwards, I sat there still reading my magazine when another nurse came in asking me a few questions. Before I knew it she had the buzzers out and instructed me that I was going to need a shave. My beard was quite ragged looking so I assumed she was referring to my face.

Oh no.

She was going to need to shave the “surgical region.” And not fully understanding that the surgical region was my entire abdomen and lower pelvic region, I was in for something of a little surprise. I didn’t realize I was going to get a full shaving that involved making me look like a pre-pubescent 4 year old boy. I jokingly asked her if she would shave my initials in my chest hair. I didn’t really get a response other than her thanking me for being a “good sport.” I gave a good laugh instructing her I didn’t have a choice in the matter. She proceeded to give me some interesting stories about typical responses from the average male when the nurse wants to stake a claim on his entire pubis region. This was arguably the most entertaining portion of the pre-op procedure. As I continued to talk about it with the nurse you could tell she was kind of appalled at how much of a joke I thought it was.

My parents came back in and I was quick to tell them that the nurse had just removed all my pubic hair. Mom looked like she was going to vomit on me and Dad just kind of giggled and asked many more questions like “really, ALL of it? We sat there and talked for about 30 more minutes until another barrage of nurses came in asking questions and reporting the happenings of the morning to me. I got an IV popped in my paw and was told that was how I would get the “twilight drug” later when it was time to get my abdomen sawed open. Awesome. This was getting more and more exciting. I was envisioning Amsterdam and the red light district when she said twilight drug.

Soon the surgeon came in and he carved an X in to the right side of my pelvis, just above the weiner, so that it was pretty clear which side would be hernia-free in an hour or so. As I pulled my curtain dress up so that he could draw on me I was reminded once again of my Kindergarten crotch. Meanwhile, my Mom who had been sitting next to me on the surgical bed completely turned around in her chair and faced the wall covering her eyes.

I had my death metal playlist cued up when I was instructed there would be no iPod coming in to surgery with me. According to nurse Kevin it would not matter “what in the frick” was going to be playing because I would not be hearing it. Ohhhhhkay. I threw my iPod over to my Mom and gave them the ceremonial kiss goodbye as I was wheeled away to the butcher’s block. If there was one moment where theme music would be kind of cool, I am guessing it would be best when being wheeled in for surgery—get some dramatic bass lines with a little synth thrown in there. Nothing like a little jive step in to the cutting room. Come to think of it, if I could choose my getting-wheeled-in-to-surgery musical theme song it would be Kool & the Gang’s “Get Down On It.” Either that or Def Leppard’s “Make Love Like a Man.”

At this point I was not nervous really in the least. I was thinking more about my barren crotch and the lack of Metttalica blaring through my ears as the wheels turned in to the operating room. I entered the swinging doors and the place felt abnormally cold. Kevin, the nurse, was standing around fiddling with what looked like a set of pruning shears that could easily sever the entire lower half of my body. Within 40 seconds I noticed that Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down” was playing on the stereo inside the operating room. To say that this pumped me up is an understatement. To say that it was twenty times harder to knock me out with the twilight drug because I wanted to finish the song is more accurate. I was, however, ecstatic about getting my abdomen hacked in to. Tom Petty, the American legend that he is, would be the artist I would choose to usher my troops in to battle should I ever become a war general. I would undoubtedly choose “Running Down a Dream” as the specific song choice. So next thing I know, Kevin was administering the happy drug to me. All the while I was mouthing the lyrics to “Won’t Back Down” as I became consistently more and more incoherent—but feeling fucking fantastic. My surgeon was going through formalities as I asked him if his son had fun at Bonnaroo (we had established this fact at my diagnosis visit). I don’t remember his reply. The last thing I remember is telling the surgical staff that the happy drug was really working well because I felt like I was playing soccer on Mars with a bunch of people that looked like they were in the formation of clouds. Yep. I am curious if you can get the twilight drug on the black market for recreational use. My guess is that this stuff could potentially take over the methamphetamine problems we have in the US.

Time flies on the happy drug and next thing I knew I was being wheeled out of the operating room and served graham crackers and cranberry juice. I got put in to a new room with about 5 other people that looked infinitely more fucked up than I felt. My mouth was on auto-pilot, I couldn’t control it. I was talking to everyone in that room and had no control over what I was saying. I was making sure that everyone in the room was OK, asking if anyone wanted some of my cranberry juice. I asked the elderly woman next to me if she wanted to go dancing. I think she was terrified. But seriously, I couldn’t stop talking. I got in to a very in depth conversation about vegetation in the Pacific Northwest with the nurse. How we even got close to talking about Portland and surrounding areas is beyond me.

My crotch was feeling good, although I could sense a little bit of tenderoni down there. I downed a couple of Tylenol III and hoped for the best. Within about 30 minutes I told the staff I was ready to go home and that was pretty much the end of it. I crawled in to the car and Mom and Dad hauled me off. I think by the time we pulled in to the driveway the Mr. Twilight Drug Happy Pants days were over. It now felt as if someone was stabbing me with a blunt metal pole just north of my weiner over and over. The pain was creeping to my side as well.

I almost immediately went to the couch to sit down. Walking was nearly impossible. Rotating my torso was in fact impossible. I got up to take a piss and staggered to the bathroom. As I stood there I began to see every color in the rainbow. I was reasonably sure I was hallucinating and questioned if maybe I got some PCP instead of Tylenol III. I remember closing my eyes to try and make it go away but that was about the end of me staying on my feet. BOOM! Down to the floor. Mom and Dad heard the thump of my 190 pound frame hit the deck. I don’t remember falling or the impact I just remember not having a fucking clue what was going on as they were both crouched over me in the bathroom. Yep. My first words to them as I awoke from my mysterious slumber was “I pissed all over myself.” Turns out I did actually piss all over myself, too. Awesome. So that was great. One hour in to recovery I am passing out and excreting urine all over my split open torso.

I went back to the couch and ended up having some form of a back spasm. My parents at this point are putting on award winning performances and could easily pass as paramedics, but I was just a flailing ball of randomness— shooting pains coming from every corner of my body, spasms, irregular breathing, explosions of sweat—EXPLOSIONS, my face would go white from time to time. My mom whipped out an electronic blood pressure meter from somewhere and apparently my blood pressure had plummeted. I felt like a helpless little pile of shit laying there on the floor. Yep, the floor. The couch was causing me to go in to said convulsions because of an irregularly soft cushion that apparently wasn’t supportive enough for my back.

Awesome.

Hours later, still feeling like the Incredible Hulk was punching me in the abdomen every 5 seconds, it became obvious that this was a little more serious than I had planned for. I stood up to try and go take another piss and the started seeing explosions of purple all over the room. I had to sit down and my mom had me breathing in a paper bag. The bag smelled like cinnamon and for whatever reason this made me want to throw up even more. My face turned the color of cotton balls and I had a waterfall of sweat bursting out of my forehead. This was really working out well.

I decided to sit in a chair in the living room and just not move at all. This worked out really well. Couple this with the fact that I graduated to Vicodin instead of Tylenol III and things started to take a calmer turn. I spoke with my medical guru genius Mr. Bryan Sack who has mysteriously transformed from being my global travel partner to a full-on physician. He instructed me that the twilight drug—the anesthetic that was used while the doc was sawing my midsection—was making me loopy and causing the fainting. OK, so that was good news. I wasn’t going completely crazy. Things were on the up and up.

If I was responsible for distributing the golden statue at any sort of awards academy I would present my mother and father with bronzed statues of a male herniatic midsection. Yep. All of this in recognition of the impeccable care they have been providing me through this little ailment. At one point, I was convinced that the Vicodin was giving me the munchies because I think I ate somewhere in the neighborhood of three dozen turkey sandwiches. And sure enough, they had the sandwiches out to me in a jiffy as I lay comatose in the living room like a little baby forlorn calf unable to take his first steps. It has become blatantly obvious how much your core strength is necessary in this lifetime. I mean honestly, I try to scratch my head and it hurts. Need to change the channel on the TV? Well, when I reach for the remote it feels like Godzilla is pouncing on my stomach. Want to roll over? Just forget it, not happening.

Bryan Sack, the legend I went globetrotting with this last time around, came over on Saturday to say hello and get a haircut. That’s right, Bryan needed a tune-up on his mullet. Lord knows I could barely clutch the scissors in my right hand, let alone stand on two feet, but the old boy got his haircut. There was no chance of me backing out of that one. Cutting his hair was actually the first time I saw a ray of sunshine pierce my eyeballs since the doctor sliced me open. It felt pretty good, I have to tell you. The mullet turned out pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Bryan came to the house with a withered ball of fluff hair shaped in to what appeared to be a bouffant haircut. He left, however, with a chiseled work of perfection— razor cut sides with specific attention to the fade up to the top and delicate tail flowing in the back. Perfection.

Later that day I was able to stand in the mirror and look at the creation that the nurse had given me. I had shorn features, or the lack of any sort of surface hair, from my balls right on up to my belly button. This was sort of alarming when I could actually look at it. I assessed the situation as code orange-- nearing a state of emergency and in need of immediate attention. This was one thing I could actually probably take care of. So I took the old buzzers and went clear on up to my neckline to even everything out and officially make myself feel like a 7 year old boy. Two weeks later I am still praying I get some chest hair back. Oddly enough, three weeks ago I was cursing the new arrivals that were peeking through my v-neck t-shirt line. Now, all I want is my chest hair back. Please. Just a few of them.

Later on Saturday afternoon I called my doctor to request more Vicodin. Yep. I think he was actually quite appalled as he called me back after being paged by the hospital. As I spoke with him on the phone it became clear he was under the impression that I had gone through 30 tablets of Vicodin in less than two days and suspected a little bit of “patient abuse.” Well, I went through 18 in two days—just as directed by the instructions on the side of my pill container. I did some explaining and ended up getting the re-fill on my prescription. Phew.

After 2 days of Vicodin splendor and about 6 total days of relative non-movement (and a hell of a lot of sandwiches), it was time to enter the real world again. Unfortunately. Sometimes it can almost be fun getting your midsection dissected—if only for the tender, love and care that comes from it. I mean really, short of that day when I lay motionless on the floor feeling like 14 different varieties of dog shit, being home for those days was kind of nice and not THAT bad. So anyway, I had to get back to the Crocs gig and join up with the tour again. I caught a flight to the great city of Chicago, Illinois where my new coworker Mike Sack was going to pick me up and take me to the lake house we had rented on Lake Okauchee for the time we would be spending up in Milwaukee for Summerfest—a 12 day music festival.

As I said goodbye to my Mom at the terminal and began walking with my old Detroit Tigers tote bag I quickly realized that the cumulative amount of steps I was taking to get to the Northwest Airlines check-in counter was more than I had taken in the past week combined. Awesome. As I rounded the corner through security to my gate I felt like my midsection was on fire. Hmmm. I swallowed a handful of Ibuprophen and kept on walking. Of course my gate was on the other side of the McNamara terminal and of course I am too stubborn to ride the tram to get there. So I walked—at a snail’s pace mind you. I felt like I was moving at about 1/20 the speed of the rest of the universe.

Baby steps.

I sat at gate A29 and the flight was delayed. I cracked open “Killing Yourself to Live” by Chuck Klosterman and began to read it for the third time. There was a large group of what appeared to be some “business travelers” around me. They talked at volumes rivaling the blast of a circular saw so I was really trying hard to focus on my book. There was one particular woman, I concluded her name was Diane. Diane was a rather interesting gal—I am guessing about 33 years old. Once she got to talking I was no longer reading my book, but rather just keeping my eyes fixated on the words and listening to this crazy mammal speak. She was going on and on about how she had just hotboxed the handicap stall in the women’s bathroom and simultaneously dropped a couple of Percoset to “ease the pain” as she put it. That phrase “ease the pain” was repeated probably 140 times while I was sitting here. I was thinking maybe she had just gotten in an awful car accident where she endured some traumatic injuries. Nope. Turns out the “pain” was battling flight related anxiety. I mean it seemed a little ridiculous seeing as how we were a whopping 250 miles away from our destination and the total flight time was going to be in the neighborhood of 45 minutes, but hey. As I looked over to see these events unfolding, I noticed that Diane and her fellow travelers were all donning their “Kaplan Test Prep” tote bags. Jesus. These people were instructors for those SAT prep courses.

So I boarded the plane feeling pretty good. I knocked out about 50 pages more in the book and had a good playlist playing. It apparently wasn’t playing loud enough, however, because I could still hear Diane shouting about 5 rows back inside the airplane. She was asking her coworkers if they wanted anything out of her “bag of tricks.” This, of course, was referring exclusively to the bag of narcotics she now had with her in her tote bag. I was fulling expecting her to pull out a water bong and have a pull right there in row 10 of the plane. If this were to have happened I would have 1) seriously questioned the legitimacy of airport security and 2) requested a hit, only so that I could say I took a hit off a water bong, in an airplane, from a complete stranger, hopped up on Percoset, named Diane, who also happened to teach High School kids how to do well on their SAT. Those kinds of things just don’t happen everyday.

Meanwhile, the pilot was speaking over the PA and said “Uhhh” 42 times (this I can proclaim with a margin of error of +/- 3. This is one of the many advantages of always carrying a pen. I was able to mark dots on my boarding pass as he spoke marking the exact number of times he said “uhhh”) in a span of roughly 4 minutes while he announced to the cabin crew that the in-flight black box had failed on the previous flight and was needing a bit of repair. The standard chorus of groans erupted from all around me. I just kind of sat back and clutched my groin. Looks like we wouldn’t be taking off any time soon. Chuck Klosterman to the rescue.

The guy sitting next to me on the plane looked exactly like Sean Astin playing Rudy in the movie “Rudy” – so much so that I took it upon myself to whistle the theme song to see if he would awkwardly mention the movie and tell me that he was in fact Sean Astin who played the main character. If that were the case I would have undoubtedly asked him about the scenes in the movie where he got pummeled on a daily basis playing scout team defense at practice—especially the day where the guys from the O-line finally stuck up for him and I had goosebumps in every corner of my body. Oh, the days of competitive sports. So the guy never fessed up to being Sean Astin. He instead played with his iPhone for nearly all of the 1.5 hours we sat on the tarmac waiting to take off while the black box was being fixed. I thought about Diane. She was probably asleep having hallucinogenic dreams. Rudy was talking to a coworker about rolling out some new “strategic efforts.” This put my memory blocks right back to sitting in the bullpen front and center in Corporate America. Goooood lord. I am feeling very, very, very much so OK with the decision to exit gracefully from that scene.

So we took off at a certain point unbeknownst to me because I was too busy reading the chapter about when Klosterman goes to a Cracker Barrel and has conversations with a teenage Kafka-reading waitress in North Carolina. The best part is when Klosto declares that he had fallen in love with the woman in 18 minutes—see that’s the sort of precision I can appreciate. ANYWAY, the plane eventually landed in Chicago and I made it the arrivals pickup area—about 30 minutes later. Mike Sack was waiting for me. We caught up on the 2 hour ride from Chicago to the Lake House up near Milwaukee. We stopped at a service station to fill up on diesel and I picked up my favorite truck stop snack combo— Chex Mix (original flavor) and a cold 20 oz Coca Cola.

All of the sudden with crumbs covering my lap sitting passenger side, a ¾ empty Coca Classic after 8 minutes of swigging, My Morning Jacket blaring through the stereo, windows down, and a sensation that there was a forrest fire in my crotch, I realized one simple thing: I was back in the wicka-wicka-wicka-wicka mothafuckin’ game.

Time to be back… ON THE ROAD.

one big holiday

2008-07-03T13:26:00.001-07:00

Any great weekend starts off with the purchase of a straw leisure cap and a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

It was Thursday, June 12 and I was sitting with Blake, Pedro (friends from high school) and Katie (from work) in a Popeye’s Chicken off of Interstate 24 out of Nashville, Tennessee headed towards Manchester for Bonnaroo. Never in my life was it so obvious that Popeye’s could very well be one of the best fast food choices in the nation. Their chicken makes me want to save the world. I sat with about 5 pounds of crispy strips at a dingy service plaza with a side of Jumbalaya feeling like I was king of the castle. I was eating heavily trying to lay the beechwood in my stomach for what would likely be a fairly disastrous weekend at Bonnaroo. Between the two cars we were driving in to the festival, I believe we held more Jim Beam per capita than residents in the state of California. Any music festival is best experienced through our good friend Jim—Bonnaroo 2008 would be no different.

I made a controversial move this year with my Bonnaroo ticket purchase. I opted for the VIP ticket upgrade. I would say that in most cases this goes against my thrifty spending patterns, but Jesus, if there was ever a way for me to enjoy a vacation, it would be at the hands of a padded experience at a music festival. There was slightly more involved than a commemorative lanyard and special access to hospitality lounges throughout the grounds—there was food served all day, acces was given to air conditioned bathrooms, the main stage was within spitting distance to our campsite and we had special zoned off viewing areas that just generally made the festival experience considerably more worry free. The overall verdict on the experience: sell your soul to the devil if it means you can get the VIP upgrade—it is worth it.

Arriving on the grounds was something of an adventure. I was expecting to wait in line for hours on end with hordes of hippies all over meditating to the sun and doing interpretive dance maneuvers. There were no lines and the hippies were just congregating under trees in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It seemed an odd gathering point, but I wasn’t going to argue with what seemed like an army of about 55,000. We went in to that Wal-Mart and picked up some essentials—folding lounge chairs, sunscreen and a Snickers bar. We finished up and entered the Bonnaroo grounds further. There was oddly no line to get in—perhaps another benefit of the ‘ol upgrade package.

We filed in to the camping area, directly across from the main stage. I think within 10 minutes we had the cars parked and I was wrestling with our monstrosity of a tent. And when I say wrestling I mean that wholeheartedly because my partner in trying to unfold the damn thing—Blake—was completely useless in that endeavor. There were two gentleman adjacent to our site who we got to talking to. One was a banker out in LA and the other an architect. The architect was wearing a pair of quasi-Capri pants with the multicolored patches and corduroy patterns. They actually looked like really comfortable pants but I am reasonably sure all of us couldn’t stop laughing about them. Nels was the guys name, and he was talking for hours and hours on end about Burning Man—another festival of sorts. The website describes this festival as: “Every year, tens of thousands of participants gather to create Black Rock City in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, dedicated to self-expression, self-reliance, and art as the center of community. They leave one week later, having left no trace.” Nels has been going to Burning Man for what seemed like the last 20 years and it seemed his goal was to do everything in his power to steer us away from the festival. Maybe it was my straw leisure cap, or perhaps Blake’s nylon Beatles vest. At one point Nels specifically said “If you guys were to show up to Burning Man looking like that you will be humiliated.” Awesome Nels. All in all, he continued to pretty much tell us that if we ever went to Burning Man we would die. Overall, quite entertaining. I was feeling great, even with one of the Burning Man Federales telling me that I looked like a toolbox.

I still remember my very first music festival—the year was 1997, the day was July 27. The HORDE festival came to mid-Michigan and it was monumental for a few reasons. For one, it was the first time I saw Ben Folds Five. Two, it was the first time I saw things like lesbians making out in public, weed smoked out of a corn cob pipe and things like patchouli and multi-colored tapestries roughly the size of a small house. Neil Young, Primus (who was easily making their way in to my current top 5 bands at the time after I had bought Tales from the Punchbowl at Big Whale Records in Keego Harbor), Domestic Problems, Morphine (before the death of Mark Sandman, I still consider this to be a cool performance) and Medeski, Martin and Wood were on the performance bill, but Ben Folds Five was easily my favorite. They played with a strings section that day. I ended up scaling a fence after the show to get my t-shirt signed by Ben. Not really sure where I got that idea, but I look back admiring the determination of the whole occasion.

My attitude over the years has deviated with regards to music festivals. Once the year 2000 hit, my idea of how to properly appreciate a music festival was to have a structured outline of the day—I wanted to know where all the bands were at all times, when they started and finished, at what stage and how I was going to coordinate my Euler circuit so as to get in a piece of each performance. I look back on this now as organized suicide. Right around the year 2006 my attitude took a completely different turn. Gone were the days of killing my innards trying to beat the heat and crowds to see 6 minutes of all 90 different band performances. I was more concerned with sneaking my pint of whisky on to the festival grounds. At times I wouldn’t even carry a festival lineup. I had maybe one or two bands I really wanted to see and then the rest I just chalked up to happenstance. I took a similar approach with Bonnaroo—all I really wanted to see was My Morning Jacket. Their set was at midnight on Friday night. The rest was just going to be icing on the cake.

I am reasonably sure that Blake and Pedro weren’t really aware of the fact that live music was actually a component of the Bonnaroo experience. Of a higher priority were two things—the silent disco and a place/concept that came to be known as “the booty room.” The silent disco was this area where a DJ spun dance tunes but each of the participants wore a set of headphones to enjoy the performance. I think I heard Pedro talk about the merits of such a setup approximately 450 times, each time illustrating his point with the same cell phone story— Pedro’s consistent claim was that he could dance and grind up on some honeys, but then if his phone rang he could just remove his headphones and take the call—in perfect silence. Pedro, at a certain point in the weekend, was actually going to the silent disco to field work-related phone calls. Now, the second place you could find Blake and Pedro was “the booty room”—something that still remains a mystery to me. I can’t explain the booty room, describe it or even try to wrap my arms around the occurances in “the booty room.” Honestly, I don’t even know if the booty room was a physical place because I never actually went there, I just know that Blake and Pedro had a “booty room” that they visited every night typically after the hours of 1am. Apparently they danced, apparently they made friends in the booty room but other than that it remains a mystery to me.

Bringing the conversation back to live music, the first day of the festival I was able to catch one performance—Vampire Weekend. I cant say I love this band, but I do have to tell you they put a bit of thump in to their live performance making the whole occasion entertaining. I also know that I had consumed roughly 10 bottles of Budweiser that evening so perhaps anything would have been entertaining. Other notable performances were Jose Gonzales with his slow guitar strumming. I thought Death Cab was exceptionally good for the sole fact that those guys have their live shows down pat. Some of the new record I really like so that was enjoyable. Similar to days at HORDE festival in ’97, I got to see Ben Folds. This was enjoyable, but the luster of the old days has sort of worn off. Jack Johnson was exceptionally good on Saturday night as the sun set. Eddie Vedder came out and did a rendition of “Constellations” with him. Pearl Jam played a three hour set as well—pulling out the stops with eight songs played off of the album “Ten”—something of a rarity these days.

The first morning of the weekend I woke up feeling like I was sleeping within the confines of a forrest fire. I was covered from head to toe in sweat baking in the direct rays of the morning sunrise. Breathing became difficult. I still felt like a million bucks as the sun pierced my eyeballs for the first time as I stepped out of the tent fumbling with the shitty zippers. As I stepped away from the doorway I marveled at the disheveled state of the tent. One of the main poles that criss-crossed to hold the entire cabin upright was missing in the tent bag, so there was an awkward dip across the entire midsection of the roof that was now being jimmy-rigged by a pole that was found on the ground. It looked terrible, but the tent was still standing so I was happy. Meanwhile Blake and Pedro were slumbering away 15 feet to my right in my rented Kia Optima sedan— with the air conditioning on. The poor fellas exerted themselves a little too much the night before at the booty tent.

I would say a good 40% of Friday afternoon (day two at the festival) was spent marveling at the Centeroo Fountain. I couldn’t tell you if that is the official Bonnaroo name, but for the sake of simplicity, that is what I will call it. The fountain was a free standing contraptions that shot out water that got continuously recirculated for roughly 10 hours straight on to those that chose to stand in the line of the spray as it came down. To the casual passer by it looked like a nice way to cool down and get a spritz of water down your back. After about 2 or 3 hours of analysis, the thing looked like a harbor for disease as the same water went through the fountain over and over. Little Johnny thought he was washing his hair in the nice cool fountain, but what he didn’t realize was that roughly 450 people had washed their hair and bodies in the same water that day. We watched this occur for a good chunk of Friday as we stood taking photos and drinking whisky. I have a disdain for getting unnecessarily wet so I happily refrained from entering the fountain, although at times when the heat got up in the high 80’s I entertained the possibility.

I can’t really hold it in any more so I will just go ahead and call the My Morning Jacket show epic. And by epic I mean it was probably one of the best rock ‘n roll shows I have ever seen. Yep. That’s right Kevin Sack. ONE OF THE BEST ROCK ‘N ROLL SHOWS I HAVE EVER SEEN. They started their set at midnight, which means I left the Mettallica performance at the main stage to get there at 10:30 pm for a prime spot. I was probably 10 feet back from the center. I waited and waited, slowly friends came to join as midnight approached. I was slowly pulling on my Iced Tea bottle filled with whisky. Yep. With every sip and the burning inferno that crept down my chest, I became more and more excited. Over the years I have seen these guys a handful of times, and I feel like they play the only shows where I walk out not only completely pleased but also wondering how in the hell they pulled off some element of the performance.

The stakes were high I guess.

For those that have the new MMJ album, you may be reading this wondering what I am really referring to when I throw out words like “epic” or “completely pleased.” Listen, I realize the new album isn’t stellar, but see I am not here to debate the intricacies of their recorded material. I think “Evil Urges” is the first album to leave me desiring something, but for the sake of this argument that is irrelevant. I am talking about LIVE PERFORMANCE here. I am talking about a rock ‘n roll band that PLAYS TO AN AUDIENCE. I am talking about RAW ENERGY that bleeds through each strummed guitar chord. I am talking about the essential components that make a live performance epic.

Right around midnight, the thunder clouds simultaneously exploded and a band called My Morning Jacket burst on to the stage. The audience roared. There’s that moment of anticipation seeing a band you love when they first step on the stage— the lights are usually dim, a few of the members are perhaps tuning their guitars. You hear a few partial chords strummed in to the darkness and you are wondering what the hell they will play first. Jim James, the lead singer of the band, had a goofy straw cap on. Before I could really realize that it was already raining, “Evil Urges”—the opening track on the new album— blasted through the PA. I was almost half expecting that, so at this point there was no real surprise element involved. I was just getting comfortable with the mob of people around me who were jumping up and down. Jim James broke in to a painstaking guitar solo to break the song up about ¾ of the way through and that is when I knew it was the real deal. A few months ago, Jim James did an interview with NPR talking about “being in the zone” on stage performing— the idea of getting to a place in a show where its as if the mechanics of strumming the chords to the songs are on auto-pilot and the focus shifts to the performance and letting the songs beam the emotion that created them in the first place. THIS is what makes my Morning Jacket so good. Even one song in to the performance, you can tell they are all in the zone. There is passion on that stage, those guys love what they do.

Now, go listen to the song “One Big Holiday.”

Do you think that when MMJ wrote “One Big Holiday” in some barn out in god knows where they were sitting there playing it and casually strumming away thinking that it was a good track? Hell no. They were probably brewing with the kind of intensity that Russell Crowe brought in the film Cinderella Man. They probably recorded that song for the first time and Jim James needed to take a vacation because he had fractured both ankles and broken a wrist while laying it down. In all honesty though, when they wrote that song, there’s just no way they didn’t step back from it and think to themselves “holy shit, that is pretty intense.” So, with most bands, the emotion of such a song is captured on the album and then potentially in a casual few of their live performances. Most bands get tired of the road and the performance of it all—performing live becomes a chore as it feels more and more like a day job as opposed to a hobby. The emotion of what created a song in the first place is lost to the hardships of just subsisting on the road. This is where MMJ is different. They let the emotion of every song be attached to the lifeline of every audible chord you hear played. What gives them that ability you say? Passion. They are a passionate group of individuals that have no problem giving you that emotion and instensity because its effortless—its coded in to what they do. MMJ doesn’t try to be epic, their passion for the music they play just makes them that superior.

Halfway through their set, a fellow by the name of Kirk Hammet strutted on to the stage with the signature black tank top. Hours earlier he had just wrapped up a 2 hour plus set with his band Metallica but stepped out to play a song. It was a pleasant surprise to see such a voracious guitar mongrol up on stage with Jim James and the rest of MMJ, but the surprise got even better when the drum beat fixated on the opening rhythm to “One Big Holiday.” Any positive thoughts I had about that show immediately jumped up about 16 notches. Yep. Epic. The crowd went bonkers and it seemed like the woods aroun us were going to spontaneously explode. There was palpable energy in the air. Everyone felt it. The rain came down and people were dancing as the highlight of the weekend unfolded for me. They wrapped up "One Big Holiday" and took a breather only to come back on and play 2 more hours of music.

All said and done, the band played for 4 hours in the cool night air while the rain sporadically burst out of the clouds. At about 4am I wandered back to my campsite thinking to myself that i should fully expect to see that show mentioned on VH1's Classic Rock Moments in about 20 years. I walked along watching the night set in on Bonnaroo. I still had my sunglasses and straw cap on-- completely unnecessary, but overall a very sound decision given the feeling in the air.

the legend of croc 2: complete

2008-06-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

This will be the story of my convoluted passage to Nashville for the Bonnaroo Music Festival from Duluth, Minnesota— an air journey with 3 connections on 2 different airlines, nearly 10 hours of total travel time and probably a lot of fast food. I call this journey “convoluted” because honestly I am reasonably certain I could drive the trip quicker than my flight pattern. A week or so ago I was on kayak.com scrambling to find a one-way fare under $2,000. Last I checked, I could get to fucking Zimbabwe for that kind of money, and here I was only trying to go about 950 miles in my own country. The fare I ended up getting has me going from Duluth to Minneapolis to Chicago to Nashville. I was unaware of the fact that such a haphazard journey was even possible.

I awoke in my Duluth hotel room at 8:30 on the morning of June 11—another Comfort Inn just outside the city. Duluth is cold. Really cold. 45 degrees cold. This put my body through a mild state of shock seeing as how the week before I was in Austin and it got up to about 109 degrees (to be precise). I was working a triathlon out there and the runners coming out of the race weren’t sweating nearly as much as I was as I stood out there trying to peddle a few Crocs to the good people of the universe. At one point I was trying to explain to one lady the glories of wearing a Crocs shoe with an anti-microbial footbed when she stopped to ask me if I wanted a napkin to wipe my forehead.

Jesus.

Yep, of course I took it.

On Sunday afternoon after the event was over I left Austin town headed due north on Interstate 35 for as far as that highway would go. Seeing as how I am switching tours in the next few weeks to join the music festival circuit, that was my farewell ride in the sexy Sterling Import that has put me through the ringer. Let’s recount my history with that truck over the past four months on this tour: five trips to the repair shop, two complete tows- one of which was over 50 miles, three warranty claims and two rental replacement trucks. It hasn’t been exactly peaches and long walks on the beach with that truck. Needless to say, I still put about 30,000 miles on the thing.

Awesome.

Right around minute ten of me plodding along I-35 out of Austin town the engine temperature meter shot through the roof. The truck stalled and wouldn’t kick out of second gear. I was in the middle lane of the highway and crawling along at 15mph to the utter dismay of everyone else. I managed to get a few screaming drivers. Awesome. I practically threw a fist in to the dashboard as I crushed the hazard lights button and circumnavigated the rig unsafely to the side of the highway and then to an exit. I hopped out of the truck to look at the engine coolant compartment. It appeared as though there was a fireworks display of green fluid that had exploded on the right side of the truck. Well, something was definitely wrong.

Three months prior when I was in Austin and had to take the truck to a repair shop, I had particularly good luck with a fellow by the name of Philip at a repair shop just outside of town. The man had a pony tail down to his ass crack that was appaling for the most part, but he was a straight-shooter from the word “howdy” and got the job done pretty quickly. I dialed him up on my cell phone immediately once I spotted the explosion of fluid. Philip sent a roadside service technician to me within a couple hours. I killed the down time with a fajita platter at Taco Cabana. You bet I sprouted for a fountain coke and really enjoyed myself at the salsa bar. When I got back to the truck I waited there in the inferno-heat listening to the Rolling Stones with my shirt off. I am reasonably sure my new chest hair was melting as I sat there. I call it “new” because quite frankly, the fuzz that is now visible above my shirt line when I wear a v-neck t-shirt just came to my attention within the past couple months. But seriously? I didn’t think my chest hair was still taking formation. Meanwhile, my little brother 10 years to my junior is just getting his in. Jesus.

A guy by the name of Clint from roadside service showed up and I got pretty excited. For one, he was covered literally from head to toe in black dirt and wore a pair of shitkicker boots that reminded me of Frederick Douglass. I shook his hand and it felt like I was clutching on to a bundle of steel wool. Clint probably said fuck about 20 times within the first stage of our introductions so we got along alright. The guy had the engine cover popped off in minutes and started fiddling with caps and tops and hoses and a lot of other things that I was clueless about. For the entire duration of our existence together, Clint had a Marlboro Red dangling from his lips. He never even bothered removing the cigarette from his mouth or ashing the thing, he was smoking that sucker on auto-pilot. Even when the first of five cigarettes was done, he just let the thing fall from his mouth while his hands were fishing around with the engine. The man had complete dedication to his work.

Awesome.

Clint talked to himself a fair bit which also made me kind of happy. I have taken a shine to watching diesel craftsmen do their work and Clint’s personal play-by-play of the whole thing was really helping me along. The problem was eventually fixed while Clint stopped talking to himself and started telling me stories about screwing hookers in the shower at a truck stop outside of Wichita—while simultaneously pouring anti-freeze in to the engine block and holding a hose in place with his screwdriver. I was amazed really. He started screaming about something related to engine coolant and I just nodded my head as if to solemnly say “Yes, Clint, you are absolutely (fucking) correct.” If there was such thing as a grizzle meter, this guy was through the roof— nestled somewhere in between Darren McCarty and Russell Crowe. Eventually, Clint had the rig buttoned up and road ready. I still had my shirt off which made me feel kind of silly, but I gave Clint a hearty handshake and off he drove along I-35. Because the whole process took a little longer than I had planned I decided to stay in Austin that night. I then left on Monday afternoon.

ANYWAY, as I said earlier, I woke up in Duluth this morning at 8:30 thinking about Freud and why I had just dreamed of caterpillars all night. Weird. I had packed up my entire existence in to two duffle bags the night before so I was ready to rock and roll pretty quickly. I inhaled some of the free breakfast and eavesdropped on an old couple sitting nearby who were fighting about something related to their subscription to Time Magazine.

This past Tuesday, My Morning Jacket released their latest album titled “Evil Urges.” Having become a fierce proponent of all things related to Jim James and the gang, I raced to the local record store in Duluth after my breakfast. I pulled up and stopped the truck in the middle of the road, threw the flashers on and ran in to the shop. Not only did they have a fancy display promoting the release of the record, they also had it priced at $9.99. I really don’t remember paying that small a fee for an album since buying TLC’s “Ohhh On the TLC Tip” in 1992. I remember I also bought SWV’s—Sister’s With Voices— “It’s About Time” that day at Meijer. Come to think of it, I actually bought the cassette tape of that one. A week or so later I bought En Vogue’s self titled release, too. Apparently black female vocalists were really kicking my spurs around that year.

From the record store in Duluth I drove across the bridge over Lake Superior crossing in to Wisconsin headed for the repair shop where I needed to drop the truck off before I started heading for Nashville. I wanted to get that engine coolant issue properly looked at and get an oil change. As I moved across, the fog was rolling off the water towards me. The visual of it all was quite appealing, so much so that I immediately activated my hands in to crisis mode fishing feverishly for my camera. I crossed a couple lanes of traffic and probably almost went over the bridge and DEFINITELY didn’t get any photos. But damnit, it was a great idea.

I arrived at the repair shop shortly thereafter. The attendant directed me to the service desk while simultaneously barking in to the PA system “TIM TO SERVICE, TIM TO SERVICE.” The place was probably 300 square feet in total, and Tim was definitely already at the service desk waiting for me, but you got to love someone that takes their job so seriously. She would have probably gotten along with Clint pretty well. I thanked her for her diligence and Tim greeted me again 20 feet away when I arrived in his quadrant of the building. He was as chipper as can be and assured me before I even told him what was wrong with the truck that it would be fixed in a “timely and professional manner.” Duluth has to be a pretty decent place because the people are just as friendly as can be. Had I asked him to, Tim probably would have made me a farmers omelet right there.

I left the repair shop once I saw my cab pull up. As I was leaving, the front desk attendant asked me if I had any Crocs I could toss her way. With an arsenal of excuses always up my sleeve as to why I can’t give shoes away, I told her I dropped them all in Lake Superior on the way over. She didn’t find it that funny, which kind of surprised me, so I just sort of awkwardly left the place.

Carl waited in the cab for me outside to get me to the airport. The guy looked like Hank, the father from the TV show King of the Hill. He didn’t have that Texas Southern drawl but he sure did ask a ton of fucking questions. I was trying to rip my new My Morning Jacket album on to my laptop, but had to re-focus my efforts on Carl and tending to his thunderstorm of inquiry. We talked about Vietnam, me hauling Crocs all around the country and the longest cab ride he has ever done (322 miles). Carl dropped me off at what looked like a large family home, but it turns out it was the Duluth International Airport. They have four gates at the airport, two of which are currently out of commission.

I boarded the plane late because I was struggling to find my boarding pass (it was in my back pocket) and almost crushed the cane of a little old lady as I sat in seat 5D of the crop-duster headed for Minneapolis. The lady who owned the cane apologized profusely to which I politely told her it was OK and that it was actually me who should be sorry seeing as how she would have really been shit out of luck if I would have destroyed her third leg. She offered me a butterscotch candy to which I happily held out an outstretched palm. Walma was this woman’s name—a name I had never even heard of. I was quickly instructed to call her Wally. Under no circumstances would she think about answering me if I called her Walma. I agreed to call her Wally immediately. Wally kept talking to me about all kinds of oddball things—she loved flowers and what she called “inspirational romance.” I was completely unaware of what the hell that phrase meant, so she held out a book for me to read. The cover had a picture of a couple, shot from behind, walking through an open field holding hands. The title, in a scripted font was “Tapestries of Love” and the back said it should be filed under “Christian Literature.” I was slightly confused, perhaps baffled, but I handed it back to Wally and told her I didn’t think I was really interested in the book itself, but that I thought the phrase inspirational romance was sort of appealing. Wally conked out about 6 minutes later and started making sounds that resembled that of a whistling ferret.

I arrived in Minneapolis on time and scurried over to a McDonald’s for a $12 Chicken McNuggets meal. Once I sat down I immediately looked in my carry-on bag to make sure that my prized possession was still intact inside. A couple weeks prior in LA at a bar that I happen to love with all my heart—Big Wang’s is the name of it—I managed to steal two glasses from the bar. These aren’t your normal glasses, however. Along the sides of the high quality glass is the following word etched in the standard script font: BUDWEISER. Gorgeous they are—an American tradition. It seems ridiculous that I have carted these things around gingerly in my backpack for two weeks when I could probably pick up a set at the Salvation Army, but they will bring back memories of sitting in Wang’s with Steven Oliver eating wings and swilling beers someday when I actually have a home.

The Minneapolis leg of the trip ended up being mildly disastrous as we taxi’d on the runway for about 3 hours. My layover in Chicago was two hours and fifty minutes, so I was reasonably sure I had missed my connection to Nashville. The woman next to me was furious, and by furious I mean she had probably taken a few years off her life sitting their practically killing herself and the flight attendant. Her face was turning shades of red and purple I thought to be humanly impossible. As she screamed at the flight attendant I sat there feeling about as comfortable as a pornstar at a priests convention. She had started in LA the previous day and was trying to get to Detroit. Apparently at one point, she was somehow stuck in Rhode Island of all fucking places but was now with me on a flight from Minneapolis to Chicago. I was totally confused but had no interest in challenging this woman’s lack of success in getting home.

Once the plane did land, I was running like I stole something over to the K terminal. I was moving as fast as I possibly could, and seeing as how I haven’t moved any faster than a brisk walking pace since my time in Nashville over a month ago, I thought my body was going to fail by the time I was 5 minutes in to this feverish pace. I thought back to football practice in 1997 when my body did things that I can guarantee with certainty I will never do again. People were staring at me as I was running through the terminal—my face beat red, my neck muscles tightened to the point of awkwardness and yes, of course I was sweating more than two dogs fucking in a tanning bed. The best part came 6 minutes later when I arrived at the terminal and the plane was delayed. Awesome. I was coughing up phlegm and keeled over as I tried to gather myself. I approached the United Airlines desk and asked to get my boarding pass because they weren’t able to issue it to me in Minneapolis. It took me about 5 minutes in conversation to properly convey what I needed but eventually the man understood me. “You do realize you will make your flight just fine, sir.” I didn’t respond to him.

The plane eventually boarded and similar to other legs of this three-part journey, we were delayed on the runway for almost three hours. I had a brash fellow that reminded me of Russell Crowe sitting to my right. His name was Tim—a middle aged stocky fellow from just outside of Nashville. While on the plane, the pilot announced that we would be taxying the runway for quite some time as O’hare was experiencing extreme delays. When the pilot was done with the announcement, Tim shouted “Did I just hear the man say that beers were on him tonight?” Yep. He and I got along just fine. We got pretty heavy in to conversation talking about far-off lands as we both shared a love for the open road. Tim had all kinds of interesting stories seeing as how the man has served in the US Navy, played in three rock bands, been a skydiving instructor, a pilot, nuclear systems inspector, dive instructor and an air flight tour guide. Jesus. I tried to keep up with him by peppering in stories about my travels. All of this made the final leg of the journey much more pleasant than I had expected.

The plane finally landed in Nashville around midnight after having to back off the runway and re-fuel in Chicago. I arrived at the baggage claim to find out they had lost my entire existence for the past 5 months by misplacing my two duffle bags somewhere in the United States. Awesome. I shrugged it off and told the attendant I would come back in the morning to see if they arrived. I just wanted to get to the hotel and meet up with Pedro, Blake and Katie to get pumped up for Bonnaroo that was just around the corner. Pedro was waiting in the arrivals gate for me dressed looking like he came out of a Microsoft board meeting. He gave me the forefinger raise so as to say he was conducting important business on his Blackberry as I approached him. I chuckled a little bit and we pressed onward as we caught a ride to the hotel to meet up with the others. It had been a long day—some 13 hours of transit—but I made it just fine and was looking forward to the prize that was just around the corner: Bonnaroo. At that point I really had no idea what I was in for.

ode to otis

2008-06-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

Disney World was, and will be, something of an American pastime. Growing up every kid wanted to go there and experience the magic of the whole place. Parents do whatever they can to get their kids there once or twice. Chances are they even stay at a resort in the park. The kids are blown away by the glamour of the whole place—the castles, Goofy and his humorous antics, the rides—hell, even the churros you can eat in the park. As a youngster life doesn’t get any better than those days when you live the fairy tale in real life.

At 25 Walt Disney World is just terrifying.

There’s no magic in the air when you look out at the splendor of it all. Instead it is hot, humid and your legs hurt from walking. The twinkle that was once in the air feels more like prison. The bar of soap in the hotel room even has Mickey Mouse etched in to it and you want to vomit from having to look at that little squirelly, high pitched, man/mouse again. The fireworks in the park every night remind you to shut the blinds to the hotel room because there are about a half million kids running around outside screaming. And honestly, the resort workers that tell you to “have a magical day” after each and every encounter make me want to do completely irrational things.

Needless to say, after my time in Orlando I hopped a flight home to Detroit immediately. And that felt good. Speaking of home, I made this drawing that sort of dances around the idea of home and the comforts of home. The drawing is so cool that I am contemplating getting it etched in my flesh in a conspicuous area that is out of plain view. See, I am not a huge fan of self-inflicted pain—particularly of the tattoo variety. I ask myself what in the hell is making me want to have some guy drive an ice pick in to my skin to place some sort of colorful drawing on the side of my torso. What does anyone ever want with such a horrific idea? I feel the idea of getting a tattoo is something that everyone at some point in their life thinks about. When we are young (really young) tattoos are interesting because we only notice the ones that have nude depictions of women (or at least those are the ones I remember). Right around the age of 12 having a tattoo makes you feel like a badass. In high school, getting a tattoo with your best friends sounds like the best idea in the universe. In college, getting a tattoo while you study abroad or go overseas would be perfect. And then you hit this point later in life, maybe where I am at, where a tattoo, for the sake of expressing a simple thing that you really believe in, seems like a good idea.

I guess a tattoo has to be something that you feel like you can always think about, embrace, visualize or even talk about. This totally defeats the idiotic idea of getting a tattoo involving a significant other that you aren’t married to. Chances are it will end at some point and you wont want to continuously think about the etching of Kelly’s name in your forearm. I guess a tattoo in that sense, needs to express something with lasting firepower. But then why would you want to express that in a colorful drawing scraped in to your skin? I guess I could go round and round with this.

The other day my work situation took a fairly drastic change. Instead of following the Eisenhower Interstate System through the great American frontier to running and cycling events, I will be switching tours in late June to have me now going to music festivals. This is undoubtedly something of a dream job. Everything from All Points West to Bumbershoot to Summerfest. I will be there still slanging the old Crocs. If any of this ends up running even remotely parallel to the Langerado, I think this will end up being something of a legendary American summer. And oddly enough, it gets even better. My friend Mike Sack, the one I just visited in DC, will be joining me as we work together on the road.

Yep. I think I can manage that.

From the horrific days at Disney, I took a sojourn to the depths of Metro Detroit as I mentioned before. Detroit turned in to Cleveland. Cleveland faded in to Denver. Denver bled over to Salt Lake. Salt Lake to some dive casino outside of Vegas. And Vegas inevitably morphed in to southern California—of the San Diegan variety. And now I sit in LA at my buddy Steven’s apartment writing in the dark. It’s light and sunny outside, but I am more than pleased to sit here with a half eaten Subway sandwich and a bottle of sparkling water at my disposal. Usually I spend a couple days hashing out a blog entry, adding to it when I see fit. Today, I am writing this one through start to finish in one sitting. I have played Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” about fifty times this morning.

I realized today that going to Subway is actually a fairly intense activity. Here’s the thing, you watch the entire process unfold before your eyes and it is really, really hard to not want to control the whole thing a little bit more than you normally do. The sandwich that you will soon be enjoying is composed right before your eyes and this brings on the issue: I ALWAYS feel like I could make the sandwich better myself. It starts as soon as the sandwich artist asks you what you would like. I always used to reply with “a footlong Subway Club on honey oat” but now I reply with “a footlong ham on honey oat” because the ham footlong is part of the $5 footlong menu (and the Subway Club is not—bullshit).

From the moment my reply is vocalized the sandwich artist turns around and opens up the giant bread oven with that characteristic metal latch and chooses a footlong freshly baked loaf of honey oat. Now, about 80% of the time I browse the loaves available and wish the sandwich artist would pick a different, bigger, fresher one. About 10% of the time I actually tell the person this and request a specific loaf of honey oat. Because of that low percentage, I am usually sweating at this point of the sandwich creation process because the bread I really want is waiting for the next guy. Things chill out a little bit when the sandwich artist puts the meat on. There really isn’t two ways you can put the meat on—its always ten slices of whatever you choose. In this case, it was 10 slices of Black Forest Ham. There’s really nothing left to be desired unless the sandwich artist folds the meat disproportionately across the length of the bread. This never happens.

The veggies. The sandwich artist asks me what veggies I want on my creation and I always reply wholeheartedly with a reply of “EVERYTHING.” Dear god. This is usually when I really start to go crazy because vegetable spread distribution and the amount used varies greatly from location to location. So the sandwich artist gets to work with the lettuce first, and I usually always want just a little more placed on the very end of the sandwich. A good artist spreads vegetables end to end with no goodness spread to the very tip of the bread. If there is spinach available I will request to have that put on there as well. Usually tomatoes are next and if the tomatoes are not touching across the entire bun I am crying bloody murder. Pickles and green peppers are difficult because they never put enough on and those are in my top three favorite ingredients. I always ask to put more on and more times than not this means he/she just piles more on in the middle. Awful. Spread distribution is of paramount importance. At this point I want to hop over the fucking glass and do the rest by myself, but you just cant do that. If anyone were to ever look at my facial expression as the sandwich artist is putting the pickles and peppers on, my eyes are drilling a hole in to the artist’s hands, watching his/her every move. And then come the onions. Just when the artist thinks they are getting to know me as enjoying a hearty helping of all the vegetables they pile on the onions. Huge mistake and now I want to hit someone. I instruct otherwise and usually have them remove some of them. I enjoy onions, but not in equally as large a pile as the peppers and pickles. I only need the essence of onion, I don’t want to kill people with my breath. By now I have sweat pouring down my forehead and the artist is absolutely terrified of how to approach the situation with the jalapenos. Of course I want them, but the artist has no idea on the quantity that I desire. 85% of the time they follow the lead of the onions and assume that I don’t want too many. And now the artist has officially screwed up again and I am seriously considering a talk with the manager to see if I can just make my own sandwich. I instruct the artist to continue putting the jalapenos on the sandwich and then proclaim that I do not want any sauces. About 40% of the time the artist asks me to repeat myself when I tell them no sauce, this is apparently something of a rarity. He/she then puts it in the subway wrapping paper and I am handed this sandwich with my Visa receipt.

I eat Subway probably 5 to 10 times a week and go through this fairly regularly. It really is an unnecessarily stressful process.

ANYWAY, I was going through the list of cities I have recently traversed and it reminded me of those movies or scenes in TV shows where the rock band comes on stage and is like “THANK YOU SEATTLE!” but really they are in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s a characteristic of being on the road and just plain losing yourself in where exactly you are. In some sense I kind of feel like that from time to time. No, I don’t proclaim at the top of my lungs to an open audience of thousands that I am in the wrong city, but I just feel that the places kind of all blend together. I find myself weaving this sort of fabric of one where occasionally something monumental pops its head (like a trip to Cedar Point or a barbeque with new friends) that I reflect on, but when someone asks me where I am right now as I am walking down the street I kind of have to walk through the progression in my head of exactly where my feet are planted. I can’t say this is a bad thing or a good thing for that matter, its just a sentiment I constantly feel myself experiencing. WHERE AM I TODAY AND WHAT AM I DOING? It’s all part of the plan. The movement keeps my brain fit. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

A few days come to mind—a few of those days where the opposite occurred and I knew exactly where I was because I loved the moment I was in. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about astrophysics or the key to the good life in those days, I just remember them very, very, very well.

One, I was driving along I-80 out of Cleveland headed for Denver which happens to run nearly straight through the great city that is Sandusky, Ohio. To the average human, Sandusky appears to be a tired Midwestern lake city that revolves around Jerry Springer episodes and trips to the auto parts store. Riding through the city, one very well may want to burn the state of Ohio off the map. But to a small percentage of us that live in this universe, particularly in the Midwestern United States, Sandusky, Ohio is the home of one of God’s great creations: CEDAR POINT.

Yep.

An amusement park. Another one—but this one didn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out at the sight of another Mickey Mouse. Instead, Cedar Point houses the world’s most extensive collection of roller coasters known to mankind (this is fact, of course). At Cedar Point there are no characters running around taking photos with you. There are no cheesy resorts that serve you overpriced drinks in faux coconut shells with etchings of Minnie on the side. At Cedar Point you just get towers of roller coasters that beckon you at every corner. Cedar Point’s goal is to make you vomit. This is evidenced in fact by their latest addition to the roller coaster entourage: The Top Thrill Dragster. When that monstrosity opened, it set five new records: the first continuous-circuit roller coaster to top 400 feet, the first roller coaster to reach 120 mph, the highest drop of any coaster and finally, it was the fastest AND tallest roller coaster in the world. Perfection.

I entered the park on a Monday afternoon in tote with four counterparts (Jill and Katie from work and Nathan Booneskids Peerbolt and his father Doug) ready and willing to traverse every corner of the park. Nate and I both had a pint of whisky wedged between our ass cheeks as we moved through the turnstile. Doug looked on with youthful amusement. I was fully planning on riding the Top Thrill Dragster at least 15 times and wanted to try and make a stab at throwing up for the first time on a roller coaster. My theory was that if we went on a Monday afternoon this sort of feat would be possible because of drastically lower attendance at the park midweek. Well, my theory was completely wrong. It happened to be world science day or something equally as chaotic and there were about 25,000 pimple-laden high schoolers waiting in the same lines that I was trying to traverse to get to the Top Thrill.

I think over the course of the day we rode four roller coasters because of such extreme lines. All in all, this was heartbreaking for the most part, but when it was all said and done we were all very drunk and quite amused with the whole occasion. The Top Thrill did almost tear the front of my face off due to being shot out at 120 mph. Nate and I waited about 3 hours so that we could sit in the very front car and this was potentially the best decision of the day—that and my acute sense of cool when I took the cowboy boot beer glasses from the western style saloon in the park. Actually, I didn’t steal them. They were souvenir plastic cups. After the madness of Cedar Point, the five of us took to the Thirsty Pony, a dive bar just down the street from our hotel. I ate barbequed chicken wings and the Red Wings clinched their birth to the Stanley Cup Finals that night.

The second of those days remembered came about 85 hours later in Denver. The day pretty much started when I picked up a copy of the book “Love is a Mixtape” by Rob Sheffield at Urban Outfitters. I was at the mall for the first time in a while with Katie and a group of her friends she knew from growing up. Katie read the book and said she hated it. Why I picked it up at that moment is beyond me but as I leafed through the contents of a chapter I decided I had to have the book—mostly because each chapter started with the tracklisting of a mix tape.

The book is a love story for the most part. A real love story. It’s Rob Sheffield’s mini memoir about the seven years he was married to his wife Renee (and maybe a few before they were married, too) before she died very prematurely. In many ways, its very depressing to read. But the part of the book that I loved the most had little to do with the love story of it all and so much more with how the author connects the beauty of a mixtape to human emotion. Perhaps now it makes sense as to why I loved the book seeing as how I think I create a new mixtape every day.

After purchasing it, we all went to Katie’s friend Laura’s place. She lived in Governors Park in Denver, an area I had become intimately familiar with after spending a few days there with my friend Matt on my last road trip. We sat outside and barbequed for the most part in the Denver sun. I bought a few shish kebabs which is something I don’t think I have ever done. I usually stick with making a hamburger roughly the diameter of a compact disc. I sat there on the patio with that new book, shish kebabs, cheez-its and Budweiser. Everyone there was pretty interesting. All of them seemed to have exceptionally good taste in music so this made for particularly good conversation. Or maybe I wasn’t talking that much because lets be honest, I almost finished the new book. That night we saw a show at the Bluebird Theatre. It was a perfect day, really. One where you kind of look back and wonder how it all came together so nicely—after all, it went from buying a book that was strictly recommended against and a gathering of complete strangers to a perfectly pleasant afternoon and evening with new friends.

The third and final of those days came in a one-two 24 hour punch when I passed through Salt Lake City briefly to see my cousin Jeff and his girlfriend Kirsten. Aside from coining phrases like “Get in my Potato!” we sat outside barbequing like good Americans do. Jeff cooked steaks for the first time apparently, and I talked with Kirsten about my book and a lot of other general musings. There’s just something about that moment of freedom you get in a good conversation—I guess it either comes from being totally in love with the topic of conversation or just generally being satisfied. I mean we all have these moments, its just hard to explain them in words. Sometimes you are sitting by a river in rural Kansas and you see a fish jump, sometimes you are laying under the stars in Sun Valley Idaho, sometimes you are sitting with your sweetie watching airplanes take off. Well, sometimes you are in a 1980’s style folding lounge chair in Salt Lake City and all of the sudden the world just looks a little clearer.

In looking at those three anecdotes, it seems that if I want to be happy I just need a barbeque, some friends and a little talk of music. I guess it could be that simple. It reminds me of conversations I have had with my friend Omri talking about how we could be completely pleased with a modest lifestyle that dwelled on the availability of friends, some beers from time to time and plenty of outdoor barbequing— minus all the complications that trying to amass unnecessary financial wealth brings and just focusing on what makes you happy day to day. It’s best to not analyze our pleasures. Come to think of it, I think Mr. Otis Redding had it right. Sitting in the morning sun, he wrote “The Dock of the Bay” about just being there on the dock looking out at the water as the tide rolled in marveling at the simplicity of it all. Its probably best to lake a lesson from the fellow and not make this stuff any more complex than it needs to be.

american splendor

2008-05-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

What do you think of when Louisville, Kentucky is mentioned? Most think of the Kentucky Derby.

I did not.

Let’s just say the splendor of that whole event took me by pleasant surprise as I pulled in to that lovely town for a couple days break after crushing roughly ¾ of my body in Nashville running a half marathon. The sun was shining bright as I happened upon an outdoor festival that was celebrating the arrival of another year of the Kentucky Derby. I was completely pleased with the performance of the locals in Louisville. Not only could you get by pronouncing the name of their fine city about 15,000 different ways, they also encouraged the disregard of all things related to work and employment for the days leading up to the Derby. I fit in beautifully swilling 24oz. cups of Budweiser, getting sunburned and listening to live music downtown at Waterfront Park which hugged the banks of the Ohio River. Just a good dose of American splendor, let me tell you. No bitching about politics, gas prices or inflation there. And you could feel it in the air. I felt indestructible for those 8 hours of random conversations and frisbee-throwing with the sounds of Americana tickling my ears. I kind of got lost staring in the to the beautiful randomness of the whole affair. Sometimes you cant help but wonder why certain places and things come together. Too pretty. That night Mason Jennings played, and for as many times as I saw him in years prior with much left to be desired, I was completely pleased that night in Louisville. Maybe even overjoyed.

The whole day just reeked of beautiful happenstance. American splendor.

Wilco sang about happenstance on their new album “Sky Blue Sky.” Maybe once or twice. And that day felt like sky blue sky— cheesy. It’s all about the fucking tie in though. I just can’t stop listening to that band. Nothing is pulling my ears away from their arsenal of records— A.M. being the most popular right now. This isn’t a new thing either. I can actually remember when it all started—well at least when this latest wave of obsession started. There were a few days back in 2006 when I had just moved in to my apartment in Wicker Park where I got a small gig writing for a Chicago-based zine that was looking for humorous content related to the indecision of being in your 20’s—the “so what do I do with my life now?” sort of stuff. I thought it was absolutely perfect, but things ended up not panning out because they were struggling to keep the website up due to funding.

Awesome.

ANYWAY, the first piece I had written for them that never actually got published was a short little essay about Wilco and one particular night that totally rejuvenated my wholehearted love for the band—and led to my current state of constant listening.

The story started with me at my girlfriend of the time’s apartment. It was late at night during the week in August. Her studio apartment was not air-conditioned. This left me paralyzed in perspiration unable to sleep at something like 2am. I turned on the little clock radio that had an auxiliary cord dangling from the side of it—this allowed me to plug in my iPod. I was probably sleeping in roughly 3 gallons of sweat at that point. My body was completely drenched. Yep. Awesome.

I rolled over, unable to sleep, and turned on “Hell is Chrome” off of Wilco’s fourth album “A Ghost is Born.” I kept the volume pretty low so as not to disturb anyone else’s sleep patterns and remained there listening. I ended up playing the song about 10 times over and over while my mind drifted back a few months to my life on the road traveling around the world. It was an oddly invigorating and sobering moment given that current state of perspiration saturation. I laid there, eyes wide open in the pitch black staring up at the ceiling, looking retroactively at the months that were, while I simultaneously super-imposed them on my current situation that was completely opposite—proper job, an apartment, a steady and consistent pattern to life. I was happy looking back but certainly questioned the general position I was in at that moment as I looked forward at my cookie cutter existence. My mind darted back to the days on the road and then quickly darted back to my current state sitting in an upright desk char. That night I played out the active scheme that I feel took place in my life on a daily basis—I held on closely to what was as I sort of blindly pushed forward in to this eerie unknown. I wasn’t exactly happy with all the question marks that were surrounding me (is this where I belong right now in my life?), but a lot of those can never be taken away.

What can be said is that in THAT moment I was pleased to be laying their in a pile of sweat trying to wrap my arms around becoming comfortable with those general ambiguities of life—this idea that we can’t have all the answers, but we can just generally keep a peaceful and honest direction (goal) in our everyday existence and the boat will steer properly. And it was like “Hell is Chrome”—no matter how much the lyrical direction of the song was related or unrelated to my thought patterns—ushered me in to that vision so beautifully. The openness of that guitar solo just left my mind exploding with thoughts as my eyes wandered the black ceiling with that balmy Chicago air nearly suffocating me.

So the essay never went anywhere except on my hard drive in a Word document, but I remember writing that piece in my new Chicago apartment having been moved in for about 14 minutes. I don’t think I even had silverware at that point. I was sitting on the hardwood floor with the windows open while the sun poured in. Wilco had always been a favorite of mine, but we go through these moments— whether its seeing a band live again or just recalling a song associated with a specific moment in the past— where our love for a certain song or album is totally rejuvenated. And that then translates to obsession-level playing of their music. So naturally, I played “Hell is Chrome” 4,000 times that afternoon in the new apartment, but I am reasonably sure I haven’t stopped in the last two years either. As it is, “No More Poetry” is my number one played song in iTunes right now. Apparently I have played it 70 times since the last time I updated my list. Scary.

Chicago remains a looming thought in my membranes: HOME, but not so much anymore. “Home” is an interesting concept. I find now more than ever that as I think of home as a relative term I get a bit nostalgic. Life on the road is a beautiful thing for my mind right now, but I would be totally lying if I said that I don’t occasionally miss the pleasantries that went along with my existence as a more conventional human being in Chicago—or wherever else I may find myself in the future. I guess Chicago is my closest sense of comparison.

I still remember trying to find that goddamn apartment in Wicker Park. I was cut-throat picky with the whole decision. I wasn’t going to settle for anything that didn’t feel exactly how I wanted HOME to feel like. It turns out after one month of sleeping on the futon at my then-girlfriend’s apartment and nearly destroying that relationship because of the extremes of living together, I quickly found something that suited my needs.

1417 North Wood, Apartment 2F.

I took trips to IKEA which was appalling at first. 20 years ago there was a day when all it took to make me happy was construction equipment. I am dead fucking serious. I was enamored with jack-hammers, back-hoes, forklifts and any Caterpillar earth mover for that matter. Philip won’t eat dinner? Take him to see a tractor. Can’t get him trained to shit in the potty? He will do it in front of a construction worker. My poor parents—we would be driving to grandma’s house and any split second image of a cherry picker or otherwise would warrant a stop of at least 13 minutes. I was completely blown away and amazed by the yellow and black machinery doing work on the side of the highway. Now, I was blown away by IKEA. I was baffled with the $6 woks! The 49 cent dish rags! Dining room chairs for $12!

Jesus.

I painted the walls with the help of my dear friend Mark (I use “dear” in that sentence to try and sugar coat the fact that Mark threw away $150 on a plane ticket to come visit me for the weekend in Chicago and ended up bringing his paintbrushes and a couple of tarps for my little project) in colors that blinded nearly everyone when they entered my apartment— the most appalling of which was probably in the guest room. The color of one wall in that room most closely resembled Ecto Cooler. It was lovely shade of green in its own right, or at least that’s what I thought. I think it gave everyone else a headache if they looked at it too long.

I arranged the place how I thought it would need to be. I didn’t mess with having a couch; I just left an old futon open all the time with about 45 pillows surrounding it and called it a day bed. It was REALLY comfortable though. My new enormous flat-screen TV sat about 10 feet away from this scene— my attempt at rewarding myself for efforts related to adopting a more conventional lifestyle and biting the bullet with taking a job that had me sitting on my ass for 9 hours a day in front of a computer. Lord knows I don’t even watch TV that much and probably had no business doing so seeing as how much I sat in front of a computer, but it seemed like a worthwhile purchase. It is sitting in my parent’s house in the basement now gathering dust if anyone is interested.

The balcony was high and far my favorite part of that HOME. I probably spent the majority of my time out there. It looked out at a maze of apartment buildings and the EL in Chicago. It wasn’t a particularly aesthetically pleasing environment to everyone else (I remember having this conversation while I was sitting outside with a friend saying over and over how beautiful it was. She looked at me in dismay and simply asked me “tell me again exactly WHAT you are looking at?”) but it was a place where my mind could wander away from everything no matter how loud the train passing by was. At one point I slept out there for a few weeks straight when the evils of winter faded and spring started to show its face. It was comfortable.

HOME.

I think those are the things that my mind occasionally yearn for given this new life of mine on the road—just that sense of comfort that you get from stupid trips to IKEA, dressing up your couch the way that YOU want, painting things in the color that only YOU will appreciate or just finding the simple comfort in the beauty of a balcony. Unfortunately, the Marriott doesn’t always provide that.

I got a quick dose of HOME comforts making my way to Washington DC via Indianapolis and Louisville. I was headed to DC to see my good buddy Mark (the one who helped me paint) and Mike from the college days. I would be able to live comfortably in an apartment—someone else’s mind you, but sometimes all you need is a couch and a pantry with an overflow of Cheez-its to feel that sense of HOME.

I still remember the first time Mark and I met. It was freshman year of college. We had all just moved in to the basement of Abbott hall at Michigan State. Mark lived next door to me in the dorms. So, that first day we all moved in, Mark and I walked to the Breslin Center for our freshman welcome seminar with Mark’s new roommate—his name was Phil. As we walked, Phil told us a story from his high school days. Basically the story revolved around Phil rear-ending a car in his school parking lot, the victim of this activity not getting a police report immediately and then Phil rubbing it in the guy’s face later on by denying the entire thing. I still remember Phil uncontrollably laughing telling us “ISNT THAT AWESOME!? THAT GUY WAS SUCH A DUMBASS!!” Mark and I just sort of stared at each other in horror. Well, I was laughing. Mark was terrified because thatwas his roommate for the next school year.

Days later I would actually meet Mike under similar circumstances. Instead of living next to me in Abbott Hall, he lived about 5 feet across from my door. The minute I saw Mike I thought he was Mexican which made me really happy. I thought for sure he would make us empenadas from time to time—maybe on Tuesday nights or something. He wasn’t Mexican at all though as it turns out. I remember one night Mike and I drinking before a party that freshman year. I was dating this girl that was basically holding a knife to our throats to take straight shots of Popov Vodka from a Dixie cup. All this so that we would be drunk like she was for some party we were apparently attending. I guzzled one down feeling like my throat had just been charred with a propane torch. Mike threw one down and then proceeded to vomit for the rest of the night. Poor fella. That was the first time we hung out. Maybe.

It turns out Mike and I became better friends a few years later when we shared a single room on Beal Street together for my bonus senior year (the last semester of my four and a half years) at MSU. Mike had this awesome bed in that room, and seeing as how I was the “illegal” on the rental lease I had to sleep in a conspicuous bed—which ended up being a futon mattress (probably the same one that served as the basis of my day bed in Chicago) just thrown on the floor. I am pretty sure I slept without sheets for 6 months. There was a small handful of nights where I lay sleeping on the floor nearly destroying my back while Mike lay 4 feet away in his Sealy Posturepedic mattress as we hashed out the occurrences of what ended up being a rather adventurous final semester.

Anyway, I was now visiting them both in DC for a few days before heading down to Florida for a Crocs event. I pulled up to Mark’s apartment in the truck fairly stressed out from having to circumnavigate the streets of Washington DC with the Crocs tank. He had zoned off a parking spot for me which was pretty nice so I thankfully didn’t have to mess with that. I walked in to his place while pulsating bass lines shook my torso. Apparently Mark was listening to dance music now. There was a small army of individuals in his apartment, all of which were looking pretty intoxicated. I drank warm whisky from a plastic cup for the rest of the night and it’s never tasted as good.

The days in DC were spent with Mike (while Mark was at work) waxing philosophy and taking walks through the streets of DC. We share a similar penchant for decoding the abstract, or even understanding further the blatantly obvious. We ate Ethiopian food. I think Mike almost shit his pants after on the walk home. At one point I felt like we were at the top of the city perched on a cement wall in Columbia Heights with laser beams of sunshine baking away the morning haze. We talked about women. Mike talked about his lack of situation in that department, which sometimes can be perfection. I enjoy the simplicity of it all.

The nights with Mark were similar. We had a lot of catching up to do as it had been quite some time since we last spoke. He has been helping me craft my approach with this ongoing book project of mine. It’s currently in the works, but Mark has been and will be a persistently driving force behind the whole operation. Or at least I am really hoping he continues to help me with it all.

So Mark and Mike coach the Rockies—a local little league baseball team. Honestly, the concept of this is just scary to me. Mark has the intensity of a rabid wolf even in the generally mundane situations like reading the paper in the morning. Mark doesn’t just have a casual glance at the thing, he reads it, screams about something on the front page, then leaves the paper in a disheveled mess all over the floor of his apartment. Mike, on the other hand, usually carries the sort of carefree attitude that suggests he has no business managing the sporting lives of a small pack of 6 and 7 year olds. I was eager, to say the least, to see these two in action as they coached.

On Sunday night, the team had practice. Mark must have called Mike 14 times throughout the day reminding him of the time that he and I would need to meet him to get to the field punctually. Once we arrived, we picked up Nelson— Mark’s little brother that plays on the team. Nelson was dressed in full athletic attire complete with socks hiked to his knees bearing the team colors. Mark barked out orders within 5 seconds of little Nelson entering the car and climbing in to his car seat. Mike was talking about candy bars with the little fella but Mark needed to know where Nelson’s ballcap was. Eventually all that business was sorted out and we were en route to the practice field. Little Nelson politely asked for his warmup music, to which Mark blasted track 5 off of a U2 compilation that was created just for car rides to baseball-related events. I was fairly impressed with the organization of the whole endeavor— even the music was orchestrated to fit the moment. “Vertigo” blared through the speaker box of the minivan as we paraded through the neighborhood streets to the field. Mike stared out the window looking bored as he was clearly used to this ritual. Nelson was in the back seat just banging out a few air guitar chords and getting in to it. Jesus. I was even getting excited.

We arrived and Nelson filed out of the minivan like he was in some sort of military drill. Mark, after crushing through a 24oz. fountain Coke, removed the materials for the practice from the trunk, which included the obligatory canvas coach’s bag that carried all the catcher’s gear, the batting helmets, 14,000 baseballs and a few metal bats. Mike turned to me and asked if I was impressed yet. You bet your ass I was. Holy shit. This was the real deal.

We approached the baseball diamond with a rag-tag bunch of kids hopping around like they had each just eaten an entire one pound bag of cane sugar— screaming, shouting, running, jumping, tripping, skipping, galloping, crying, whining, slapping. You get the point.

I wanted to go back to Mark’s apartment immediately.

Mark started shouting uncontrollably within about a minute and a half while Mike rattled off player’s names to get their attention. I was completely unaware of what the fuck was next, but I was introduced as Coach Phil— an event which made me swollen with excitement and also want to vomit. Coach Phil sounded fucking TERRIBLE. I really don’t like being called Phil to begin with, and now I was being called Coach Phil by an army of terrorist children. All I could think of was some overweight, hairy man with a clipboard and those tight polyester shorts that fall about 12 inches above the knee cap—that sounded like Coach Phil to me.

Devastating.

I was placed in charge of throwing fly balls to the army of kids and instructing each child on how to catch them. I was immediately taken back to my days in little league. My team was always the best in the league believe it or not. I played first base for something like 10 years in a row. My neighbor Bob always coached the team and his son most closely resembled Nolan Ryan on the mound circa 1989. We were an indestructible force. Now I was left taking the skills gained from little league days from well over a decade ago and now try to teach these little kids how to properly field a fly ball. Jesus. I hadn’t done so much as even looked at a baseball in probably 6 years and now I had to somehow get it together for all these whipper-snappers that I wanted to cuff for calling me Coach Phil? All I could think about was what in the hell I was going to do when one of the fly balls crushed Natalie in the face and broke her nose. I text messaged Google to get the local ambulance service’s number. I was struggling to properly convey understandable directions to the kids so as to properly lay out the necessary steps in fielding the ball. One child in particular, his name was Daniel actually, had a side-arm like Dennis Eckersley and found it hysterical to throw the ball about 15 feet to the right or left of me when it was time return the ball after his turn.

Well, Coach Phil took very fucking kindly to having Daniel run laps around the field until his face was purple. Yep. If the team was going to win on Tuesday night I was going to need to instill some discipline in those little fuckers.

We re-convened at the pitchers mound after the drill and I was praying that this meant that practice was over. My shoulder felt like someone hit it with a bowling ball from throwing all those fly balls. Mike and Mark were speaking to these kids as if they had both been doing this for a few year. Again, I was impressed. All the kids just sort of looked wide-eyed up at them—except for Daniel. I am reasonably sure Daniel’s father who was now at practice wanted to hit me in the face as he tried to urge his son to take a drink of water immediately to avoid dehydration. I looked on confidently as I was completely pleased and comfortable with my punishment scheme. My stone cold stare back was mental assurance to Daniel’s father that his son was being given a dose of athletic courage.

The Monarch’s, the opponent in the three days, were the fucking LEAGUE CHAMPS. There was no room for Daniel’s bullshit.

All of the kids lined up single file next to run the bases. That seemed perfect. I took a seat at the 3rd baseline player’s bench and gathered myself. I checked my phone praying to god that someone called and left me a voice mail so I could legitimately step away from this carnival of sorts and act like I was genuinely taking care of some matters of business. Nope. As I looked up I heard the collection of shouts from the kids about how they wanted Coach Phil to chase them as they ran around the bases. Sure, I thought. Sure, I’ll fucking chase the little assholes around the ball diamond. I did it once but that wasn’t enough. So I did it again, and again, and again until I was reasonably sure I had either re-broken bones in the lower half of my body or my lungs were about to collapse.

Awesome.

Practice was over and the moment we dropped little Nelson off all hell broke loose in conversation between Mark, Mike and me. There was a maelstrom of swearing and intensity going around—but not about bad kids, not about the women that Mike wanted to bang at the bar later, hell not even about what we were going to have for dinner that night. Oh no. We were talking strategy about Tuesday’s game against the Monarchs. Thankfully I would still be in town and able to help out. We were all taking it VERY fucking seriously. We exchanged thoughts on the lineup and a bit of pre-game thoughts all in an effort to coach these kids to a victory against the league champs from last year. Yep. This was no joke.

Honestly, Sunday passed and Monday morning I woke up rehearsing in my mind the batting order for Tuesday. I would have absolutely no say in the matter as this was strictly Mike’s role amongst the Mark and Mike coaching combo—but still, all I could think about was BASEBALL and VICTORY. Dinner that night was intense. There was no small talk related to anything other than baseball and kicking the shit out of the league champs in two days.

Tuesday night rolled around and we picked up little Nelson at his home to take him in the minivan to the ballgame. I shook young Nelson’s hand as he climbed in to his car seat and asked him if he was prepared to destroy the opponent. He shook his head. Then I turned to Mark asking where the hell his cleats were. They were gone and I was furious. Mark was furious. Mike was staring out the window looking at the blue sky. Jesus. I sat shotgun and took the lead on the getting the pre-game U2 disc pumping through the speakers. I looked back at Nelson and Mike playing some sort of hand game while Mark yelled at them to focus. This was serious. “Vertigo” came on and Bono started the song off. By the time it got to part where he screams “CATORCE!” I was violently waving my hands and yelling with the window down. I continued shouting with my teeth showing, to which Mark even looked at me with dismay. I kept screaming to Nelson if he was ready to crush the opponent to which I got the same casual nod. Mike was still gazing at the flowers as we drove by.

We arrived at the baseball diamond again and Mark parked the minivan. I was stretching before we even got out to the field and hopping on my toes to stay limber. The sight before me as I approached the field sent shivers up my spine. Not only were we playing the league champions, but they were all at least 6 inches taller than the Rockie’s tallest player. Their coaching squad all wore matching attire and the kids stared at Mark, Mike and me as we gathered around the kids dragging the canvas bag with all the gear. The Monarch’s were taking part in an intensive calisthenics routine that rivaled that of the New York Mets. They were using a goddamn pitching machine for their warm up. Jesus. I was intimidated by Robert—the Monarch’s star right-fielder— who looked as though he was 45 years old and stared me down with flared nostrils as I approached the Rockies bench. Good god.

The Rockies sideline was slowly preparing and I paced around them with intensity that rivaled Mark’s. I spoke with each player individually and instructed them on the importance of victory that night. I took to discussing matters related to my observations of each player based on the notes I had taken and discussed a few players’ injuries. I had instructed young Matthew to ice his foot every hour on the hour for the two days leading up to the game so that he would be prepared to place pressure on the ball of his heel as he tore ass running the bases. Upon inquiring about his adherence to my healing regiment I was appalled to find out he thought it was more important to ride his bike around the block and jeopardize his performance that night.

Awesome.

Mike gathered the kids around and read off the lineup he had created on an old receipt from my pocket just 15 minutes prior to showing up at the diamond. The children listened and did jumping routines when they heard their name called. I immediately told them that unnecessary jumping was just not acceptable seeing as how an injury before the game was just not allowed. They needed to focus on victory. I asked them repeatedly if they were ready to destroy the opponent. Each and every time I got a silent nod from Mark. Mike was playing with daisies.

The Rockies took to the field first and I squatted on my knees pulling grass and throwing it in the air to check the wind direction. The kids were out in the field and the Monarch’s lined up ready for battle. They were shouting war codes that I was unaware of. These kids were total business and I was impressed. The coaching staff looked on with solemn delight and I was terrified at the whole thing really.

Their first batter Robert stepped up to the plate—the same kid that caused me to pee my pants a little in the stare down contest. His teeth were showing and he was making an odd assortment of noises that made him sound like the Incredible Hulk. More war codes were fired out but the one thing I could understand was the screaming coming from one coach’s mouth telling Robert to murder the baseball.

“Just kill it Robert! KILLLLLL THE BALLLLLL!!” Holy shit. I was worried and excited all at the same time. Nelson and the rest of the Rockies were doing cartwheels in outfield. Daniel was playing with dirt at shortstop and I was furious. I yelled out for him to straighten up just as a laser beam off of Robert’s bat shot over his head about 400 feet in to left field.

The Monarchs got about 7 runs that inning. Every kid on their bench crushed the ball and grunted as they ran the bases. I was already questioning Mark on the availability of a mercy rule. I think every inning the Monarchs went to bat they got about 7 runs. Had you asked me, I thought the score was about 48-0 until there was one flicker of hope late in the game.

The bases were loaded and a Rocky batter stepped up to the plate— his name I can’t recall (Mark, help please? This is crucial to the story. He was the slightly overweight kid with the father that simultaneously talked on his Blackberry and coached at first base. This was totally unacceptable to me. Had it not been for his specific asking me if I preferred Phil or Philip I would have undoubtedly started a shouting match with him). I was coaching third base. Marco was on third base singing songs to himself and I told him that I would make sure he didn’t get his snack at the end of the game if he did not shutup and get to home plate to score the first run of the game. I saw the fear of god in his eyes, but Marco made it home damnit. This of course after the forgotten Rocky batter absolutely crushed the ball in to center field. I screamed at Marco to run to home plate. The next runner was approaching me from second base and I signaled her home. At this point I was on my knees waving my left arm like a windmill to send the kids to home plate. My shorts were filthy and dust was being kicked up at every swooping of my arm. The base hit ended up being a home run and we chalked up for four runs. Mark and I did a celebratory dance near the pitchers mound that probably looked depressing to the opposing teams coaching staff. I was ecstatic and once the inning was over, Mark approached the kids and told them that that was exactly how it needed to be done. As I was foaming at the mouth with excitement screaming with Mark, I think they were all just terrified.

That was high and far the best moment of the game seeing as how the Monarch’s not only defeated the Rockies that night, they also took their manhood. It was a defeat I did not want to accept. Salt in the wound of course came when the kids thanked “Coach Phil” for helping out that week. I was frustrated and disheveled but managed to give a hearty reply to all the smiling faces. After all, they deserved it—well, as soon as Marco cleaned up his fielding stance and Natalie got a little more comfortable positioning herself under a fly ball.

As the sun set that night it was a quiet ride home for Nelson. There was no closing remarks from U2. We were having trouble putting words to the whole occasion but told the little fella there was always next time and you just always have to give it your best. Amidst all that, it should be very clear that the highlight of my existence in Washington DC was taking part in that little baseball extravaganza with those kids. It was yet another sneak attack of American splendor out there on a crisp and pleasant Tuesday night.

(A very worthwhile read is Mark and Mike's blog about coaching the Rockie's to a victorious season: http://arockieseason.blogspot.com/)

western tendencies

2008-05-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

1) REM – So. Central Rain
2) Wilco – Forget the Flowers
3) Wilco – No More Poetry
4) Magnolia Electric Co – Talk to Me Devil, Again
5) My Morning Jacket – Touch Me, I’m Going to Scream (Pt. II)
6) Wilco – I Must Be High
7) Turin Brakes – Ghost
8) Badly Drawn Boy – River, Sea, Ocean
9) Fleet Foxes – Mykonos
10) REM – Country Feedback
11) Archer Prewitt – I’m Coming Over
12) Josh Rouse – Quiet Town
13) Fleet Foxes – Innocent Son
14) The Watson Twins – Friend and Foe
15) Badly Drawn Boy – I Love NYE
16) Wilco – Blue Eyed Soul
17) Fleet Foxes – Drops in the River
18) Goldfrapp – Happiness
19) Grizzly Bear – Plans (covered by Band of Horses)
20) Jim White – A Town Called Amen

I listened to those songs-- on a mix CD I created with the words "Western Tendencies" scrawled across the front of it in permanent blue marker-- 14 times because it was the only goddamn CD I had for the 15 hour ride I had from Cincinnatti to Boston. Poor planning you say? Well no, just the wrong iPod adapter. I was in another rental truck because the Crocs rig was still not repaired at the Sterling shop in Cincinnatti—the one I had gotten the truck towed to by Virgil just about a week prior before surprising Mom at home for her birthday. This rental truck didn’t have the auxiliary port that allowed me to connect my iPod, so there I sat for 15 hours driving to Boston listening to the same mix CD over and over again. I was alone for this drive because everyone else was on vacation for the week before getting to Boston. I was the closest one to Cincinnati so I volunteered to pick the truck up and drive it to Boston while the others flew in from their respective areas.

I definitely stopped somewhere in rural Pennsylvania when I saw that a boot shop was going out of business and boasted clearance sales of up to 70% off their inventory of cowboy boots. Good lord. I entered through the doors and the jingle of the cowbells kind of rattled me. There had to be have been 500 boots thrown in pile in the middle of the floor. Despite the disorganization I saw the pair immediately that I wanted. Yep. They were made of ostrich leather. And I would say I was dead set on purchasing them until Carl, the attendant that was hounding me to make this purchase, informed me that these boots were handmade by a 78 year old American man and carried a price tag of $530. My next question was whether or not the 70% had already been taken off. It had, according to Carl, and I wanted to throw a hissy fit. Here I was in love with these boots—hell I was already wearing them and about to rip the tags off proclaiming they were mine—and Carl was here to tell me I was going to need to sell my body in order to scrounge enough greenbacks to pull off the transaction.

Awesome.

So I went outside, angrily of course, and took a walk. I was in the middle of nowhere and there was a fairly big sprawling field in the distance so I just walked towards it. The birds were chirping and it was something of a scene. I was kind of in a weird state of mind, hungry for some sort of inspiration. At this particular moment, I was looking to the trees for it. Perhaps the field. Most of all, the sunset that was coming.

Awesome.

I was kind of sitting there thinking about that, the beautiful sunset, this totally random field, with visions of ostrich boots still kind of lingering in my membranes, feeling sort of lonely but also feeling kind of inspired by it all. There’s those moments when you feel so powerful as a result of the fact that you are surrounded by so little-- there's a burst of freedom that comes from the simplicity of it all. It is kind of like those moments when you break up with a girlfriend/boyfriend. It’s like POOF! the person is gone and that feels sort of terrible, but once they are, the focus of everyday life wants and needs shifts back to being solely on yourself. And come on, when you have that realization for a split second it is invigorating. You then usually go back to being mildly heartbroken afterwards, but still. It’s there if even for a fleeting moment.

So it was me, myself and I. Literally. I climbed back in the truck after the rendezvous in the field and track 5 was on. Jim James was shouting in to the microphone about how “this feeling it is wonderful, don’t you ever turn it off!” I had roughly ten more hours of driving. I wasn’t bored though. My mind was keeping me occupied.

I graduated from Pennsylvania at some point around 1am and made it to cross the George Washington Bridge between New York City and New Jersey. You would have thought that Jesus Christ himself was waiting on the other side of the bridge handing out bricks of gold with the sort of traffic and congestion that was collecting. There were about four toll lanes open and about 17 billion cars looking to cross. Rosa eventually greeted me at the tollbooth. I made a comment about how busy it was to me and she threw my receipt at me with the change. This was not your ordinary bridge crossing—it cost $16 for me to cross the damn thing in the Crocs truck. I gave Rosa a smile but I don’t think she could have cared less. The heavy traffic lasted clear up to Connecticut and by 3am I wanted to saw my arm off if it meant I could escape the horrific mess that was now just eating my soul. I had to get a cup of coffee—weasel piss gas station coffee mind you—to stay awake. I did a casual jumping jacks routine before I got back in the car to assure the blood was still flowing.

Track 20 was blaring, and I mean seriously BLARING through the stereo as I pulled in to the Courtyard Marriott in South Boston around 4:30am. I was using anything I could to keep me up—windows down, multiple cups of coffee, monster energy drinks, loud music.

The Boston Marathon is probably the biggest weekend of the entire tour from a work perspective, and things went over pretty well. I felt pretty tired for the majority of the weekend seeing as how longtime friends Omri “Slice” Bloch (old housemate from days spent in Australia) and Drew’sef Jenson (roommate in Chicago) came up to visit from NYC. Between losing cell phones, sleeping in hotel hallways, outdoor barbequing, beer gardens and Omri being an absolute champion with the women of Boston, I’d say we did OK for the weekend.

The haze of Beantown faded in to Nashville.

Oh god.

Talk about excitement. I had randomely happened upon Nashville roughly four years prior with Nathaniel Booneskids Peerbolt (a college roommate) on one of our DISCOVER AMERICA road trips. These road trips were usually envisioned over a dozen beers and then acted out a few days later. If there is one person in this great universe that shares the great wanderlust for all things unfamiliar it is Booneskids. An infinite curiosity bring us together. So we were on spring break driving down to Miami some time ago and stopped in Nashville on the way down. What greeted us that night was a collection of honky tonk bars and pool halls that beckoned us at every turn. That night we had a beer, played some pool and then got back on the road for Miami. It was clear as we walked away from the magnificence that is Broadway Street in Nashville that we were both totally in love with the place.

That same love was in the air when I was back in Nashville for the third time. This, however, would be my longest stay. I was in town for roughly 5 days working the Rock ‘n Roll Country Music Marathon. I had intense plans of getting out my denim western shirt, Wrangler jeans and my finest dancing shoes for the weekend.

I checked in to the hotel and immediately threw my stuff down and bee-lined for the town. I asked the hotel front desk the best way to get to downtown Nashville by cab (we were staying out by Opryland) and I was promptly referred to “Jerry.” There was no formal brochure, no fancy letterhead or even a short explanation of this guy—I just needed to call Jerry. So, naturally, Jerry was contacted and he of course showed up promptly at 7pm like he said he would. The man was a firestorm of enthusiasm and probably intoxicated. He was about 5 foot 8 and skinny as a rail. His skin looked like aged rawhide. He wore an oversized button-up shirt and a pair of old stonewashed jeans from about 1987. The man must have told me he was going to show me a good time on about 45 different occasions. Every time Jerry spoke, there was some sort of hokey ending to the sentence that made it very difficult for me to keep a straight face. Most sentences involved “man” or a reference to this “good time” that he kept mentioning every 4 seconds or so.

I hopped in to the empty cargo van, completely unaware of where this Jerry guy was taking me or if I was actually even in a cab to begin with. His carton of cigarettes was wedged between the front console and the drivers seat. We drove on and Jerry broke in to full-on tour guide mode. I was learning things about Nashville that were pointless and intriguing (for example, the fact that Nashville houses the largest amount of bible publishers in the United States). It seemed as though every one in the town knew this guy. We must have stopped 36 times so he could say hello to whoever it was that knew him on the street corner—bums hoisting a 40 of Steel Reserve, scalpers outside the concert hall where Bon Jovi was playing a show, restaurant owners. You get the point. The highlight of these little occurrences was this little Danish man that was feverishly flagging down Jerry from a street corner. The guy was so sunburned he looked as though he had stepped in to an open flame. He was out of breath when he reached the car. His shorts fell about 5 inches above his knee cap. But he still had the mandatory western shirt on with a pack of smokes in the chest pocket. His straw cowboy hat looked like it was about 10 sizes too big and it shook every time he tried to construct his sentences in broken English to Jerry.

“Hi meester Jerry, my wife and I are ready to be take back to hotel.” You could understand the fellow just fine, but he was having a little bit of trouble with his English delivery.

Jerry kind of cringed a little bit as if he didn’t fully understand the guy. Well, actually I know he couldn’t understand him. Jerry began to ask questions. “You want a bar, man? You need some food?”

“Meester Jerry, can you take back to hotel.” The guy’s Scandinavian pale skin was just glowing bright red. He was definitely a grown man, but his demeanor made him seem all of five years old. Every 10 seconds his hat fell over his face and he would struggle to speak and simultaneously adjust it. Gotta love his effort though. The man obviously loved Nashville as any human being should.

“Ohh sure thing man. I will be around in ten minutes or so. Ten minutes, man. Ten minutes. You got it man. Ten minutes.” Jerry took off like in the van like a bat out of hell to the bewilderment of the Danish couple thinking they had a ride. And Jerry continued talking to me, “Hey man, they just came from Denmark, man. Been in Nashville for only a couple of days and already got himself a cowboy hat. Hell of a guy.”

I was trying to hold back laughter at this point as Jerry was spouting off pleasantries left and right, not even watching the road in front of him as he drove along. It all kind of reminded me of my Dad driving actually. Eventually Jerry dropped me off at a restaurant he recommended for some good southern cooking. What more could a cowboy-in-training ask for?

I ran the half marathon that weekend in Nashville. My plight as the common man running marathons continues—extremely painfully, however. The idea I have in my mind, supported by some of the folks that I work with, is the fact that anyone can do these races. You don’t need wonder fabric wicking shirts, million dollar shoes and a trainer that you pay $100 per visit. Hell, you don’t even need to train. So I wear normal street clothes in the race, run in a pair of Crocs and don’t train whatsoever. So far it has been OK for the most part, short of some fairly serious pain towards the end of this one past one.

About mile one in to the race, I realized that I had absolutely no fucking clue how to effectively work the chronograph on my Timex watch (so as to calculate my average mile time and approximate finishing time). I was tapping buttons and didn’t understand any of the language being displayed on the screen. Then it started to pour rain. This of course prevented me from using my iPod. So I now had 12 miles of running in front of me and no music to fuel my effort.

Awesome.

The Nashville race was a Rock ‘n Roll Country Music Marathon so the idea is that at about 3 mile intervals there is some sort of band playing some sort of music. I cant remember the name of the honky tonky band, but when I was passing their booth around mile three they were doing a cover of Tom Petty’s “Don’t Do Me Like That” and I immediately felt a bit of push from the overflow of Americana that was in the air.

For the first time since running these races in Crocs, I was getting a fair bit of inquiries as to why in the bloody hell I was being such an idiot. I didn’t have 5 minutes to give them the full story of it all so I came up with a different response every time—“my doctor recommended it,” “I forgot my running shoes,” “It’s raining? Cant you see? Crocs are better in the rain.” Etc. Towards the end this response changed to “I have no fucking clue.” One couple I could hear behind me and they were convinced that they were going to appear on a Crocs commercial.

Around mile 10 I was looking for inspiration and a shot of adrenaline from anything and everything. I was talking to trees, singing to myself and just looking up at the sky hoping that a wizard would come down and repair my ankles/knees. The most effective approach to getting my mind off the pain was hopping behind a female runner and allowing my train of vision to just fall to her ass. Yep. Desperation. It was all I could do. But it helped.

Mile 11 I realized that everything from waist down was failing. As I realized this, I passed a Gu station. Yes, Gu. It’s the stuff that comes in a little foil packet and you squeeze the substance in to your mouth and it’s supposed to give you a burst of energy. As I passed the booth I remembered the words of my coworker Nate (who runs many of these races) “I mean you should run on race day with whatever you train with.” Having no training whatsoever and being desperate for any sort of kick to keep me going I grabbed a small handful of the Gu packets in every flavor—espresso, French vanilla and chocolate.

French vanilla went down first. I struggled to open the damn thing to begin with, but once I did I practically swallowed the entire package. The thing tasted like the smell of toe jam and I was really wondering how they had any business calling it “french vanilla.” I was practically gagging this stuff down seeing as how it had the consistency of pancake batter. With coffee and chocolate left— but practically unable to breathe at this point—I had a big, big decision in front of me. I went for chocolate and could only gag down about half of it. If those things helped AT ALL, I was completely unaware of it. I am pretty sure I felt worse after eating the Gu. After 2 hours and 11 minutes of this bullshit, I crossed the finish line.

After the race that night I ate roughly ten pounds of barbequed ribs as a celebratory feast and remarkably took my western tendencies to the dance floor at Nashville’s finest honky tonk bars. See, Nashville isn’t your standard run-of-the-mill line dancing Texas bologna and cheese town. Oh no. It’s the sort of scene where you make it just exactly what you want—independent of how much you like anything country western. Every walk of life makes it in the bar—young bucks looking to have a shot at the opposite sex, old honky tonk veterans looking to just get their nightly dose of the good ‘ol days and everything in between. If anything it’s fun to sit at the bar mozied up to a cold Budweiser marveling at the unique clash of music and all walks of life. And it all feels normal. You go to Nashville feeling like you belong there in that moment.

After the brick of barbequed ribs in my stomach settled and I was able to take down 8 Budweiser’s to aid in the numbing of all bodily parts from mid-thigh down, I was able to shake a leg out there with the best of them.

good luck and spandex

2008-05-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

So, you guessed it. Luck, or the lack thereof, would have its way with me again.

My attempts at circumventing the inevitable trip to the repair shop by beating the starter with an iron pole only lasted so long— and CERTAINLY were not going to get me to Boston. I did make it to Dayton on day three of the 3,026 mile mother trek from Carlsbad to Beantown, but Satan’s handshake greeted me on day four as I tried to complete the final leg to the finish line.

I woke up at 6am and rolled out of my bed at the Travelodge just adjacent to the Dayton International Airport. The night before, I had consumed four of the six Budweiser tall boys I purchased at a Shell station after getting through the whole don’t-turn-the-engine-off-for-the-entire-day drive out of Oklahoma City. It had been a long journey and America’s favorite lager (and mine, too coincidentally) was really putting me in fine spirits that night as I tuned in to Anderson Cooper and talked about far-off places with my friend Luana. All those “better spirits” wore off by the time my alarm was screeching noises at 6 o’clock the following morning.

I stepped outside hoping that someone had stolen the truck (this joke is only sort of funny seeing as how one of the other trucks for a different Crocs tour actually DID get stolen) but found it in the same spot where I had left it the night before. I opened up the rear hatch and threw my bag in. The marquee sign at the Travelodge was lit and advertised free breakfast with that creepy “Sleepy the Bear” fellow that they use in their advertisements. Anyway, so after I threw my bags in the truck I walked in to the lobby and looked around for some free eats.

“Breakfast” as it was labeled consisted of a box of Raisin Bran. It was the knockoff Spartan brand, and it wasn’t even in one of those silly plastic dispensers where you release the hatch and get your portion of flakes dropped in to your bowl— it was just the box sitting on a Formica countertop. Below that cereal, in a hokey little mini-fridge that smelled like 1 year old cream cheese, was some whole milk. I have never been picky so I of course poured myself a bowl that probably could have fed a small family (or a pack of dogs). When I sat down at a nearby table to enjoy my extravagant breakfast the chair leg snapped in half.

Awesome.

I relocated and upon placing my elbows on the new table realized they were lodged in some sort of sticky substance—my thought was maple syrup but god knows that the Travelodge wouldn’t have waffles. So it remained a mystery trying to figure out what was all over my elbows and forearms. Perhaps this should have told me that I should have just gone back to sleep and written the day off to bad luck.

I walked outside full of raisins… and bran… and whole milk, unlocked the door to the truck and crawled in to the drivers seat. I wasn’t exactly optimistic but did do a small good-luck dance to myself hoping that the truck would start.

Hell no.

I tried again. No luck. I searched for my metal pole in the darkness and found it on the floor.

I yelled for Katie, fully aware of the fact that it was 6:16 am, the door to her room was closed, she was probably still sleeping and I could be waking others up. But then I realized we were the only ones at the place and kept yelling. She eventually popped out of the room.

She approached me, took the keys from my hand and stuck the key in the ignition while I performed surgery on the starter. While I was hacking away at the thing, she turned the key. I was banging the starter like I really meant it. Had anyone else been around to see my behavior as I was crushing this thing, I am reasonably sure they would have told me take a breather, gather myself and just relax. But oh no, my frustrations were at an all-time high and I KNEW that I wasn’t going to be getting to Boston.

Then, believe it or not, it started to rain. Actually, it poured. It poured daggers of cold, dark unwelcome rain. I continued to beat the shit out of the starter with no luck whatsoever. So I wrapped up the operation promptly and burst in to Katie’s room because I had already thrown the key away to my room. I sat on the floor realizing that I was going to have to go through the same problem-solving mission that I had done roughly 15 days prior. I needed to 1) find a Sterling certified repair shop, 2) get the truck towed there and 3) get myself home.

Frustrations were mounting, I was sweating and Katie (I am reasonably sure) was probably sort of frightened as I approached the situation with codes and military-style hand communication.

Actually, I know she was.

After what seemed like about 45 different phone calls a fellow by the name of Virgil showed up—a short and stout man from a towing service in Dayton. The man looked like Joe Paterno and shot out the sort of intensity that let me know he would get the job done but also swore enough to suggest we could be friends. Virgil and I, as you could probably surmise, got along VERY well. He had the truck wrapped up and ready to go in record time despite what I presumed to be about 70 years of aging and a black and mild cigarette dangling out of his mouth through the entire process.

Step 1 and 2 complete. The truck was now gone, headed for Tokyo—I mean Cincinnatti—to a Sterling certified repair shop that was 52 miles away. That towing bill was almost $400.

Awesome.

My flight in Boston that I was supposed to catch the following afternoon was now a lost cause, it would need to be cancelled. The truck was staying in Cincinnatti, so now I needed to just either get a rental car or a flight back home to the Detroit area. National Car Rental’s overseas telephone response team took care of this issue promptly and set up a car rental reservation for me for pickup at the Dayton Airport. I thought of Max Monroe as I turned the volume up on my cell phone to assure I could understand everything the call-center attendant was saying.

Step 3 complete. Things were looking OK. Mom’s birthday surprise was still looking probable.

Katie had arranged a flight for herself home to Portland so we split ways. I shot off to the airport via the Travelodge shuttle service to pick up my rental car. The shuttle driver and her co-pilot were eating Wendy’s on the way and simultaneously barking orders to what sounded like a derelict babysitter that was doing questionable things to this woman’s child. I could have just as easily thought she was talking to her militant ex-husband with the sort of tone she was pumping out. The van smelled like a bowling alley and we listened to Def Leppard on the car ride. We arrived at the airport and I was out with my bags immediately.

I approached the rental counter. The attendant’s name was Doris.

My Toyota Yaris awaited me in spot 15 at the National Rental Lot. As I was putting stuff in the trunk I accidentally hit the panic button and pee’d myself a little bit because it scared me that badly. Exasperated and ready for an ice cream cone or something equally as comforting, I sat in the drivers seat, threw on my Abu Garcia hat and played the new
R.E.M. album “Accelerate” in the CD player. I-75 was a convenient 1 mile away and that was going to be my happy trail home.

I was driving 110 miles per hour at times because, well, lets be honest, I felt like I was in a race car with that hot little Toyota compared to my normal diesel digs. As I drove like Andretti, I was rehearsing in my mind how I was going to surprise my Mom when I pulled in to the driveway in roughly 2 hours. She had no idea I was coming home—hell, nobody really had any idea I was coming home then because had all things gone to plan I would be arriving on an evening flight from Boston the following night.

All of my mind rehearsals were promptly spoiled when I arrived home and my Mom wasn’t even there. Nobody was home actually except for the dog—the dog that I sort of like. Rudy is his name, and while he did once chew a sneaker of mine, he has maintained a fairly clean record of mildly acceptable behavior thus far. One damning card against the furry little fellow is that he does vomit quite frequently and the corresponding smell that results afterwards makes ME want to explode stomach bile from my mouth.

Anyway, I sat in the kitchen waiting patiently for mother dearest to come home while Rudy was yelping one room over in his quarters. I could have let him out but that would mean I would have had to take him outside to urinate and THAT was just out of the picture. So I ignored the situation and went upstairs to my room to check on the state of affairs in my banished quarters (my brother Alex has taken my old room). Things were still in order— a stack of shit piled to the ceiling from my last move out of Chicago, the half-completed painting I started with my roommate there, a row of sneakers lined up below the window facing our street and a hero’s share of junk mail strewn on the bed. I grabbed a copy of the magazine Ready-Made and brought it downstairs to read.

Rudy was still making weird noises.

Like every other time I come home, the first thing I do is begin to catalog the food assortment available for consumption. My Dad has a penchant for anything in the cookie or graham camp that he is able to be stuff in his mouth in one bite. As such, I am well taken care of in the sweets department. My brother Alex is a world-class athlete so he picks up the slack in the meat and protein area. Couple all this with the fact that my Mom has an unhealthy obsession with Costco (take my liking for the store and multiply it by about 35,000 to understand her level) so there are stocks of things like packages of lunch meat that are the size of a microwave oven or boxes of Goldfish crackers that need their own cabinet. That said, I usually put on a few pounds when I am home.

I made an enormous turkey sandwich and sat and read my magazine. The dog was still wincing in his quarters begging me to take him out. No chance. Finally I hear the side door open in the house but of course it was the one moment I had gotten up from my strategic perfect Mom surprising spot to get a glass of water. Realizing this, I kind of froze up and just sort of awkwardly appeared around the corner as my Mom was walking in to the house. This was probably the last of the surprise schemes I had bounced around in my head—try to scare her by jumping out of the pantry, act like I was the plumber fixing the sink, etc. She was actually talking to the dog when I just sort of awkwardly appeared in front of her. The resulting facial expression that appeared made it seem as though someone had just asked in a really, really kind and polite way if they could punch her in the face. She was extremely confused and unsure of how to respond. I gave her a hug and a kiss and she warmed up to the idea that I was actually there. So that was nice. But damnit, I wanted tears.

Within days the whole family—Mom, Dad, Emily, Alex and myself— was headed to the city of Douglas on the west side of Michigan for our little weekend getaway to celebrate Mom’s birthday. My Dad for the 4 weeks prior had relentlessly organized the whole excursion and it was the second of the two part surprise to my Mom. The cottage house was booked, he had recommendations on things we should do, places we should see, etc. He, however, was unaware of the fact that over the course of the weekend another rather large outing was occurring: Women’s Weekend. a This, of course was one of America’s largest lesbian gatherings in the month of April. And lesbians are fine and dandy—especially the ones that used to appear on the Howard Stern show—but I am pretty sure the jokes about the synchronicity of the whole occasion didn’t stop the entire weekend.

Celebrating Mom’s birthday was fun because it involved things like brunch, carefree attitudes, comfort and just the sort of general enjoyment that makes you feel invincible. For all the joking and sardonic commentary I spit out on a daily basis, if there’s one genuine thing I can talk about, it’s the fact that I love the time I can spend with my family. So naturally, the weekend in Douglas— despite the army of lesbians—was nothing short of incredible.

Alex, my little brother, continues to grow at rates that rival a Chea pet. Calling him my “little” brother may in fact be inaccurate. I am reasonably sure I could still kick his ass in a wrestling match, but Jesus I am expecting role reversal one of these days. I continue to be blown away by the shmorgasboard of sincere talents the kid has. I mean three activities that take up his time right now are lacrosse, welding and playing the guitar. And he runs a sneaker business on the side. I marvel at the randomness of it all given the fact he is a freshman in high school. Emily wore Spandex pants for the entire trip and that was one of the three highlights of the occasion. She also scored a bedroom set out of nowhere at a garage sale right across the street from the rented cottage. Yep, that’s how we roll. Emily has a ray of sunshine that explodes out of her that you rarely see in people. I can’t help but get excited when I am around her. We are going to live in the same city together one day soon. Dad’s sense of humor, no matter how much everyone else in the posse shrugs it off, continues to make me barrel laugh. I still marvel at the chronic smile that adorns his face. I don’t think he realizes or even acknowledges the daily effect he has on the people around him. I mention it whenever possible, but the man is incredible. And Mom was in her element the whole weekend; it was her birthday after all. The one pair of Crocs I managed to come up with as her gift ended up not fitting. Awesome. But she remains, and always will be, my rock. Hell or high water, the woman has the inner strength of an African Congo gorilla. And while that may seem like a joke, it really isn’t. I would put her up against anyone. Her attitude in life is one that keeps me forever moving forward. She lifts us all up really. It was nice being together with these people. There’s a sincere joy that we get from being together. And honestly, that’s something I can’t be thankful enough for.

See, I was going to say “I am a lucky sonofabitch” but that would then go totally against what I just said. And then I thought “I am a lucky motherfucker”— but again, kind of , sort of running contrary to what I said before.

So anyway, I am lucky—whichever way you look at it.

biscuits and gravy

2008-04-24T17:21:00.000-07:00

The cross-country trek from Atlanta to Califonia had managed to dirty the truck considerably so it was time to find a truck wash. I winced at the thought of having to circumnavigate through Los Angeles to do so, but the only truck wash in town was near the fashion district. Go figure.

We rumbled up to the entrance where about 3 others were lined up to get their rigs cleansed. Truck washes are kind of interesting. Prior to actually going to one I figured there would be a few high powered jets pumping out water and spraying down the exterior, throw in a guy at the end to collect payment or something. Oh no. Its typically a dungeon’esque airplane hanger’ish sort of building that seems to be about a mile long. You drive through and what appears to be martians dressed in rubber suits surround the vehicle. The rubber suits the martians are donning seem like they would protect anyone/anything from a toxic chemical spill if need be. The little martians go scurry about the airplane hanger scrubbing, shining, hosing and cleaning the entire rig top to bottom.

If this all sounds kind of creepy and weird, it's because it totally is.

Turns out on that particular afternoon in LA the waiting line for the truck wash was one hour. No problem. I had about a million things I needed to do on the computer so I wasn’t sweating. I killed the engine and got to work with a window rolled down to keep me cool. About 30 minutes later the foreman shouted to me in what sounded like a combination of Japanese and Spanish that the martians were ready for me. Katie stuck the key in the ignition.

Now, It has to be unbelievable at this point, but the sweat started pouring down my forehead (well, that part is believable) when the goddamn truck WOULD NOT START.

Again.

I felt like someone hit me in the face with a baseball bat, and I had a blindfold on, but someone far in the distance yelled out "you might get hit with a baseball bat in the face in the next 15 seconds." So it's like I sort of knew it was coming, but really, the likelihood of someone swatting me with a bat seemed unlikely. Well, the bat hit hard. I was in shock over the fact that, well, despite a recent trip to the truck doctor, my beloved Sterling monstrosity was now giving me shit again.

With disbelief still etched all over my face, I was being told by one of the martians to enter in to the truck wash and of as I said before, the truck would not move. With every turn of the key, there was a dead silence to follow. Jesus. I jumped out of the car and looked for anything suspicious under the vehicle fully aware of the fact that I really had no fucking clue what to look for. I was already thinking about the black bottle. The martian approached faster yelling for me to move the truck forward as they were ready for the truck now. Unable to say “Well, no shit” in Spanish I just told him the truck would not start. I actually pulled the word descompuesto— 'broken' in Spanish— out of the memory banks in the process. That little miniature victory aside, I was still feeling the pressure of a healthy line of truckers behind me and the corresponding glare of what seemed like 300 hungry martians in rubber suits.

I continued to pace around the truck acting like I knew how to resolve this issue. I discovered the location of the truck battery and I am guessing it would take a couple of hand grenades to actually gain access to the thing. It was pretty well hidden behind one of the side panels on the truck and I could not get access to it under any circumstances. I tried to look at it to see if a connection had come loose. As I pulled away from the battery to report to Katie that we should just try to put the truck in neutral and roll it out of the waiting line, the engine fired up.

Completely baffled but feeling some sense of victory and potential Christ-like intervention, it was now time to drive the piece of shit down to Carlsbad—minus the whole truck wash and martians. I think everyone was kind of happy when we left. The martians probably did stupid cheers with their power washers.

Slightly weary with the whole situation given the cross-country drive from LA to Boston that was coming up, I opted to stop at a mechanics shop in San Clemente en route to Carlsbad to just have them look the shitbox over. A fellow by the name of Tim got to work and reported issues with the starter.

Awesome.

I described to him the urgency behind getting a repair—we needed to be in Boston by the following Thursday. As I was talking to him, it was Friday at 3pm and the shop was closing at 5. I would need a starter installed that day because we needed to be on the road by Sunday to make it to Boston-town in time. He asked me why the hell I was driving an import—an import that was very difficult to get parts for. God, not again.

All I could think about were the days spent in Australia road-tripping through the desert country. Bryan’s and my hot little 1986 Volvo import saw its demise while trying to cross the desert in to South Australia. All this happened because there wasn’t a $15 washer that could be found in the entire country that could fit the Volvo engine and thus prevent oil from spewing out. It seemed that my new import, although about 15 times larger and capable of hauling about 15,000 pounds, was doing the same thing.

Waiting in suspense for Tim to tell me that they could out a new starter in that day, I was told there was nothing available. The best they could do was to order one and have it installed by Monday. That was not going to do it. I had to be off on the road Sunday night. They told me I would have to get it serviced en route to the east coast but that really wasn’t an option either because we still needed to make our flights out of Boston on Thursday—there was really no slack time to stop at a repair shop for a day.

Right around the time all that news took shape and I was exploding sweat from every pore, a burly fella by the name of Teddy (I actually have no idea what his name was but he just looked like a Teddy) burst in to the room and had an answer. He was all brawn and appeared as though he had won a few bar fights in his day. Despite this fact, he still kind of looked like that red-headed guy from the Food Network that always cooks Italian food. He looked like he had spent plenty of days behind the wheel, so I naturally expected a crafty solution out of the guy.

Sure enough. Teddy took a deep breath through his nose and started shouting.

“If the lady won’t start again, you’re gonna wanna give her a light gingerly tap to the starter.” Right. I’ll just put on my boots and get out my hammer and “gingerly” tap the starter. No problem. I knew exactly what he meant.

“Uhh come again?” All I could think about was the fact that he actually used the word "gingerly."

“Ok, so you gotta take a metal object, prefereably something with some length to her and you are gonna wanna get under the vehicle and tap the starter while simultaneously turning the ignition.” Good lord. Was this quantum physics? Here I am thinking about my ass crawling under the truck and rat-tat-tapping away on the starter while Katie turns the ignition and something blows up. I was expecting something a little simpler and not demanding as courageous an activity as me crawling under the truck.

“Well, where in the hell’s the starter?” I jokingly shouted. I wanted to see Teddy laugh cause I felt like the whole room would shake if he did. He didn’t even smile though. He just breathed another deep breath through his nose.

“Ok now, you’re gonna wanna crawl around here and pop the top here on the rig there. Bring her on up Timmy, jack her up.” I was standing next to the man at the side of the truck peering down in to the innards of the vehicle and somehow I was going to be crawling under that mess and gingerly tapping a piece of machinery. He continued on, “Now, give that little silver box a tap once you get the right vantage point and she’ll fire right up.” Of course, the truck would start just fine in the shop so I couldn’t get an actual run through of this process. I would be left to my devices. Likely somewhere in the middle of nowhere. On a frigid night. And it would be raining. Surely.

“Uhhh, right.” I crouched below to try and get a better view and managed to see the piece they were actually talking about-- the starter that is. It would be a miracle, but I guess I could find it in the frigid cold... on a rainy night... in the middle of nowhere... if need be.

After the little mini-consultation and a few pleasantries, I was off to Carlsbad for the race that has been dubbed “the world’s fastest 5K.”

The event went well over the weekend and I actually ran in the race which was sort of fun and sort of really fucking painful. I got off to an ambitious start thinking that I was going to smoke this little small fry of a race as I was targeting sub-eight minute miles. Weeks prior in New Orleans I raced in the 10K and felt like a million bucks even wearing my Crocs. So what did this little Carlsbad 9,000,000 have? Well, apparently quite a bit. It made my body feel as if it was being told to do things that that it just plain and simply had no business doing. I was cramping up in about a dozen places from my waist up. Breathing was extremely difficult. The only thing I had to save me was the music playlist I had created on my iPod that was designed so that as the race went on the tunes would get continuously more upbeat. Honestly, that’s the only thing I did right that day. Entering the race, although it was sort of fun and ambitious, was an absolutely terrible idea. Or maybe it was drinking the night before that made it an awful idea. Probably both.

At least I finished. Almost 24 minutes exactly.

Leaving Carlsbad after the race and a full workday, my butt cheeks felt like they had been paddled with a 2x4 for an hour and it seemed as though I had a full set of broken ribs. It was now time to make the 4 day mother-trek from Carlsbad to Boston. From Boston I was flying home for the weekend to surprise my Mom for her birthday. My dad had booked a weekend cottage for us in Douglas, Michigan. Things were looking good.

I just had to get home first.

Day one of the big drive went by like the morning breeze—easy peasy. For the entire 8 hours on the road that night from Carlsbad to Flagstaff, Arizona my hunger was on over-drive. I think I killed three bags of Hot & Spicy chex-mix (and a corresponding three 20oz Coca Colas to tag along), most of Katie’s Charleston Chew, half a bag of Starburst Jelly Beans, a footlong Subway Club on Honey Oat and an ice cream bar. Nothing else happened that night as far as I can remember because my concentration was focused on satisfying the hunger that was coming from deep within.

The morning of day two started off in Flagstaff beautifully because the truck started and I didn’t have to crawl under the thing with an iron pole to “gingerly tap” the starter. And I had a fresh cup of coffee to get the morning going. I paid my dues in other ways, I guess. It’s very possible that riding along I-40 through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma has the power to numb the skull of any human being. And that pretty much explains day two. That night we called it quits in Oklahoma City.

Morning three got off to a fine start in the morning chill that Oklahoma was handing out. I had stuffed myself with roughly 10 pounds of biscuits and gravy that morning so the cold didn’t do so much as penetrate a bone in my body.

Well done.

I still remember being introduced to biscuits and gravy for the first time from my grandpa. It was at a Bob Evans somewhere in rural Wisconsin. I was on my “8-year old trip” with my mother’s parents—I call them Bobbie and Papa. It was a trip that they took all the grandkids on when we turned 8 years old. My trip was road-based and throughout the midwest. See, it's no wonder I can't get enough of this transient, road-based lifestyle. Anyway, life will probably never be the same after that little adventure with Bobbie and Papa. For two reasons, really.

One, as I alluded to before, I consumed for the first time the breakfast food I now call heaven: biscuits and gravy. I was at a Bob Evans in Wisconsin. Papa asked me if I wanted to try his breakfast. With his sweaty forehead and a few grunts of pure delight as he shoveled spoonfuls in to his mouth, I was shown by Papa precisely how to doctor the biscuits so as to fully enjoy the meal properly. But still, I had zero interest in trying the stuff. The porridge-like, mop water gravy looked dreadful at best. Despite my observations, I complied and was handed a spoonful to try. And really, I think when I gulped it down I saw delightful visions of topless women dancing around me while I was sitting in a lawn chair, on a balcony, on a sunny day, with the ocean somewhere in the distance, in Sydney. See, my imagination was very developed even at the age of 8. The biscuits and gravy hit my belly and I realized I had just experienced heaven in a spoonful. Life would never be the same. I swear with every bone in my body from that day forward, any morning I have biscuits and gravy the rest of the day ends up being delightful.

Anyway, reason two.

Part of the 8-year old trip had us stop in Chicago so that we could go to the Shedd Aquarium among other things. Yes, you could say my grandparents were pretty cool. We were staying at the McCormick Place just south of the city across from Soldier Field, right off of Lakeshore Drive. Guns ‘n Roses was actually playing a show at Soldier Field the night we were staying there. The only reason I remember this is because I could hear the thumping kick drum from our hotel room that evening while I was trying to sleep.

But Jesus Christ, that was not the only thing I was hearing.

Never before in the history of my entire life have I heard a louder snoring ensemble than what I did that night at the McCormick Place. Axl Rose wasn’t holding a candle to the goddamn dynamite explosions that were coming from the two sleeping mammals 10 feet away from me. It was as if with each breath that my grandparents took, the corresponding exhale resulted in sounds that rivaled a jack hammer blowing up pavement. The room vibrated with every 15 seconds. I was petrified. Was Godzilla in the room trying to eat me? I was jolted from my sleep as any normal human being would and tried to go back to bed proved. This was impossible with T-Rex and Stegosaurus howling next to me. I tried turning on my side and smothering myself with pillows. Four pillows. No success. I took all the bed sheets, pillows and comforter and put them over my head. Still hearing the explosions. Finally, I got up and walked around the room pacing for other materials I could cover myself with. I gingerly tapped my grandma on the shoulder to tell her she was fucking up my entire universe at that moment, but she didn’t even wake up. I went back to my rollaway bed and just started crying. I think at one point I yelled out loud to try and wake them up. My thought was that the tears would convey the sort of agony that I was experiencing. Meawhile, Axl and Slash were still hammering away across the street. I was reasonably sure that the 25 rooms around me were not getting any sleep either so I continued to cry. For them, for me, for humanity. I didn’t need to feel like I was sleeping in the congo with a pack of wild gorillas.

Finally my grandma woke up as if the city of Chicago was being attacked by a hurricane and I instructed her—with about six gallons of tears soaking my Transformers pajamas— of just exactly what the hell was going on. The ordeal got sorted after some intense 8-year old deliberation. And now, after that particular evening, I am reasonably sure that my acute fear of loud snoring was conceived that night.

And that changed my life.

ANYWAY, we left from Oklahoma City and I had a belly full of biscuits and gravy so the day had to go smoothly. And it did, given the circumstances of it all.

Right around mile 400 of day three on the road, with eyes set on Dayton Ohio that night, the truck decided to not start. We were at a truck stop. Katie was driving at that point and as I came back from paying for the last diesel fill-up I could hear that the engine was not cranking over. I acted as if nothing out of the ordinary was occurring, promptly climbed in to the truck, grabbed the behemoth steel pole that I had stolen, and got right to business. I went to the other side of the truck, popped the top open and stared for about the 65th time in bewilderment at the maze of belts, valves and steel that was before me. Now sweating and realizing that the stakes were high—we were in rural fucking Missouri after all, where there was likely nobody in God’s country that would work on a Sterling Japanese import engine— I crouched below the front wheel of the truck and began saying over in my head the steps that Teddy had laid out earlier in the week. All I could think about was the word gingerly and the red-headed Italian man on the Food Network.

I got under the truck and tapped the starter a few times with my steel javelin pole. It sparked a few times. Awesome. All I could think about was the minor explosion that was going to occur seeing as how with every rat-tat-tap I could smell something burning. Awesome. Jesus. So Katie continued to turn the key in the ignition. Again. Again. Again. Again. Nothing. Again. At that point, I was beating the starter with the sort of ferociousness that suggested the ensuing explosion may blow up the entire state of Missouri.

And then BANG! The engine turned, a cloud of smoke billowed off in to my face, there were sparks, minor explosions, grease fires, seared wires, weird sounds, etc etc etc.

The motherfucker started and I felt like a million and ten dollars. I was slightly worried about the atomic explosion that resulted in the vehicle starting but I wasn’t about to sweat over that. I had quick-fix numero dos under my belt and felt like I was resembling John Wayne after a victory on the American frontier.

I eventually called the red-headed Italian cook look alike at the shop in San Clemente and told him that he and his cohorts were legends for helping me out. I guess that was only part of the reason I called though. I was mostly questioning them on the safety of my life seeing as how I was reasonably sure that I just caused an atomic blast to get the car going. The smoke clouds coming from beneath the starter were OK according to Teddy. I could tell it was him because of the nose breathing.

So I moved onward.

For the rest of the day we didn’t turn the truck off, even at the truck stops when filling up the tank. The old boys in San Clemente told me that diesel fuel isn’t flammable, so the truck stayed on for the next 700 miles. The looks of horror received that day from fellow citizens as I was pumping fuel next to them was worth the amusement. There was no stopping the train that day, I was getting to Dayton goddamnit.

I had a birthday to get to.

jesus, etc

2008-04-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

I was crammed in to about a 6oo square foot space breathing the recycled air of about 700 sweating people at Le Bon Temps Roule—one of New Orleans’ famed locales for underground jazz. The ‘House of Dues’ (a rip off of House of Blues) as it has been dubbed, is a pretty big scene for new musicians on the jazz circuit in the city. Upon entering the place with a friend from college, it seemed like a normal bar to me with some pool tables and cheap beers. No big deal. But crawling in to the sauna through the back was where you had to go to see the music. This room appeared as though it crawled with a small army of cockroaches and other militant spiders. Hordes of sweating bodies swayed to the brass sounds of a five piece that was crammed on to a stage roughly the size of a surfboard.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I felt like I was a part of something special. The music was good and it just felt genuine. Those guys were working hard on stage as the sweat exploded from their bodies. No, I wasn’t seeing Miles Davis or anyone famous for that matter, but in my mind it felt like I was. Either the music was that good or I was just hallucinating from the dehydration.

A bar fight got off to a roaring start as I was leaving the bar with my friend. It was nice to witness a bouncer that was actually effective in thwarting the mischief. The man was probably the size of Paul Bunyan and he threw the little band of rag-tag warriors to the side as he sifted through the mess to retrieve the poor fellow that was getting the snot beat out of him. Mission accomplished. On the way out I told him I was impressed with his tactics to which he outstretched his arms and clenched fist saying “at least I didn’t have to use these.” I am pretty sure I pee’d myself a little bit because the man’s fists were easily the size of my incredibly large head. I shook his outstretched bear paw and felt the crunch of my knuckles as pain shot up my wrists.

Jesus.

And speaking of Jesus, it was Easter two days later.

I think I happened upon the sweetest of Easter celebrations I have experienced thus far in my 25 years. Well, I take that back. This came in just short of the year when we did an Easter egg hunt visiting some friends in Naples, Florida. Practically the whole neighborhood came over. I was high and far the oldest one in the group clocking in at ten years old and immediately took advantage of this fact. I had scouted out the entire front and back yards earlier in the morning so as to understand the positions of all eggs. When the whistle blew to begin the contest, within minutes I held at least ten dozen more plastic eggs than any child within a 5 mile radius.

There were no Easter egg hunts this year, but I was invited to join the same college friend for an afternoon at his friend’s parent’s house. The home cooked meal tasted like euphoria—if euphoria even has a taste. The ham was…well… delicious. The salad reminded me of my Mom’s workings. I ate about 92 stalks of grilled asparagus and nearly fainted from the smell of my urine an hour later. The day was a much-needed break from the standard inconveniences of the open road complete with the comforts of a friendly home.

Days later, I was still getting light-headed as I stood in a truck stop still pissing day-old asparagus fumes at the urinal. I was headed back to Charlotte from New Orleans to pick up the Crocs truck that was still in the shop. Of course upon arriving back at the service counter at the Charlotte Truck Center to pick up the rig, James was still smoking a cigarette, still wanted free shoes and still didn’t have the truck fixed. “It’ll be anutha day, Phiiiil.”

Awesome.

When I was at the Langerado Music Festival a month or so back, a ton of people I met were from a town called Asheville, North Carolina. Completely baffled by the sheer frequency of hearing that city thrown out when asking people where they hailed from, I decided it was absolutely necessary that I thoroughly investigate the place for myself. So there you have it, I burst out of the Charlotte Truck Center and dialed in Asheville, North Carolina on the GPS.

Done.

What greeted me that afternoon as I rolled in to Asheville town felt like my cutoff jean shorts— dangerously comfortable and just a goddamn delight, really. I circumnavigated the streets, passing a bar called the Jack of the Wood where a friendly group of twenty-somethings tossed me a casual hello. One thumb up. Galleries, used book shops, happening clothing stores and a just a sexy artistic sensibility about the place told me this was more than just a sleepy little southern town. I didn’t get an electric feeling as I walked around, I just felt the gentle, calm, welcoming pulse of the place. It had a beat. There was something to it. Leafing through the Mountain Xpress (the free local weekly periodical ala Metro Times, Chicago Reader, etc) it became very clear to me that there was more than just a welcoming aesthetic. A little place called the Orange Peel books great live music and there are plenty of exciting events going on. I looked up from the paper at my patio stoop with a black coffee and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance were like a nice bear hug of comfort that balanced the overall delivery of the place.

Two thumbs way the fuck up.

Sign me up, Asheville. I am a believer. You can count on me heading back to this little sweetheart of a town. Pulling out of the city wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to do. Pulling out of the city headed back to the Charlotte Truck Center for what seemed like the 78th time made it even worse. At least the truck was ready when I got there. James’ cigarette still dangled playfully from his lips, but I didn’t want to hang around long enough to karate chop it from his face. And so we left immediately.

After a quick stop in Georgia for the Georgia Marathon, it was time to head back out west to California for a full-on, coast-to-coast journey… in less than 3 days. Given the restrictions on commercial drivers— you can drive no more than 10 hours individually or 14 hours between two drivers and you cant do more than 1,000 miles per day—making these drives becomes a strategic chess match of plotting out how you will make it point-to-point given the event deadlines.

In pursuit of our California goal, Katie had a case of the lead foot while we were driving past the Halls Ferry Road exit off of I-20 through the state of Mississippi. And then all of the sudden she slammed on the brakes so hard I thought I felt my pancreas flatten from the pressure of my seatbelt. Nearly devoid of my next breath, I realized there was a cop behind us and Katie didn’t want to get pulled over. But we did.

Of course we did.

Seeing the flash of another pulsating blue light from the side mirror and a red-headed officer get out of the car, I was reasonably sure that things were about to take a turn for the shitty. Katie looked as though she was going to burst in to flames and I realized there was one minor issue: Katie didn’t have a valid driver’s license on her that particular moment. She had lost it and the DMV in Oregon was in the process of sending her a new one.

Awesome.

Officer Billy approached the vehicle from the passenger side of the which meant I was no longer going to be able to act like I was sleeping. I rolled down my window. Officer Billy’s moustache was the same strawberry color as his hair and was just plain awkward. I couldn’t stop staring at it. He was either trying to grow it out, or he trims his whiskers to about one-quarter of an inch long. Every time he spoke, I was trying to fixate on something other than his pink hued moustache.

“You two having a conversation about something other than the speed limit?” Officer Billy was not playing games. Another butthead officer of the law. We were fucked.

Well, Katie was fucked.

I scrambled to get the registration out of the glove box.

“Uhhhh, probably,” replied Katie nervously to the officer

“See, when you slam on your brakes like that in this town, you are likely to have your shoes scattered all over the highway cause somebodies gonna hit you. I don’t know how people drive where you’re from, but drivers around here aint that good.”

Awkward chuckles. The kind that trail on for about 15 more seconds than they should.

Hmmmm.

Officer Billy continued to stare in to the vehicle for about another 15 seconds, not really moving his eyes at all and definitely not saying anything. His eyes weren’t really looking at anything. Suddenly, he jerked his head up, gave a three-tap with his knuckle on the side of the truck door and then walked away back to his patrol car. I was confused and totally unaware of what the hell was going on. He hadn’t asked for Katie’s license or the truck registration and didn’t even really say “drive safely” or anything to suggest that we were now done with the interrogation session. Unsure of what to do, we opted to get back on the highway. As Katie hit the accelerator, Officer Billy darted out in front of us, flipped on his blue flashers and gave a wave. Still confused, Katie continued driving. Officer Billy wasn’t the last of the oddities as we continued through Mississippi.

A few towns to the west of where we got pulled over, I discovered perhaps one of the more interesting names for a city I have ever seen: Chunky.

Yep.

Chunky, Mississippi.

I think it would have been interesting to sit in on the town hall meeting where they developed that lovely name. Chunky housed a truck stop that had a jerky section that was roughly the size of a modest home. I have never seen Pineapple flavored beef Jerky, but they had it in Chunky. There was another section of the shop devoted to hats that was awfully impressive. The majority of the glass display cases were devoted to two things: Nascar and the old Confederacy. There were a few random hats tossed in their with interesting sayings like “Thunder God” or “Don’t F*#! With Me.” I think I spent about 20 minutes in Chunky marveling at the pointless items that passers-by were apparently purchasing.

Texas beckoned and I can happily announce that Christianity is alive and well in that monstrosity of a state. Billboards talk about Jesus, GIANT crosses are erected in the middle of barren fields, bumper stickers tell you that its God’s way or the highway, truckers have spritual sayings painted across their cabs, strangers in small towns shout about divine intervention, candy in stores even have wrappers with Jesus on them. It is amazing really. And I mean its fine and dandy, I am not complaining about the spiritual messages throughout the south, but more just marveling at the ubiquity of it all. Night was falling and I was at the wheel. Jesus was telling me to keep that truck moving through Texas, so I continued onward.

California was only a day or so away.

the southern drawl

2008-04-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

You could say I am a creature of habit. And some would call this being stubborn. I guess it just depends on which way you look at it. I call it simplistic efficiency. To me, it actually breeds brilliance (YEP) because it allows one to streamline petty things like the food you eat or the clothes you wear and thus focus brain space and time on things that actually matter (like what concert I want to see that night).

That said, for the past 20 days or so I have eaten a meal that consists of Subway and really nothing else. It simply works. In my eyes, I get the nutritional value of some vegetables and the good taste of a stockpile of meat that comes along with a Subway Club—my favorite sandwich. There must be 12,000,000 Subway franchises in America because you find them in the most remote of places. I stumble upon towns like Tomboosa, Mississippi where the southern accents resemble some form of Greek but they still have a Subway attached to the local truck stop. Now, this whole plight for basic routines was intensified greatly when my favorite fresh sandwich shop announced a new promotion: $5 footlong sandwiches.

Yesssssssss.

My clothes typically don’t change much from day to day. The same orange Crocs t-shirt remains as my go-to uniform on work days despite the fact that I have roughly 5 others that were washed recently. Some even have a collar. It’s just much easier for me to make one t-shirt comfortable as opposed to focusing my energy on six. The story doesn’t change much on driving days at the wheel. My style remains familiar— this pair of shorts I picked up in Austin and a blue long sleeve shirt. Capilene remains to be a wonder fabric and the good folks at Patagonia deserve a pat on the back.

You know, if the shoe fits… wear it. Simple.

Truck stops, as I have made it very clear, have also been built in to the routine. And these days in that universe, everybody has got a fire lit under their ass due to diesel prices that are skyrocketing. Truckers are crying bloody murder as pump prices get as high as $4.22 a gallon for the wonder fuel. You know those 18-wheelers you see on the highway? Well, those beasts garner a price tag of about $1,100 to fill up the tank these days. Private fleets are going out of business because their margins are being diminished.

I am left to figure this out through conversations with my trucking brethren. One hot day in northern Texas a man by the name of Cletus was happy to fill me in on it all as we stood in the afternoon heat filling up our tanks. The conversation started with the standard inquiry about what you are hauling. Cletus makes his living off of two burly cabs he personally owns an has been hauling with for the past 18 years. He spoke with a calm that was uncharacteristic of most of the characters you meet at the local Flying J. For starters, I could actually understand the man. Cletus has made a living using his two cabs to haul everything from grease to cotton on trips between his hometown of Vicksburg and Laredo. What was once a very lucrative way to make an easy living has now become quite the contrary. With diesel prices jumping, he is left making only about $1,000 on his round-trip hauls between the two cities. He informed me of a trucker’s strike that was coming and informed me that I should strongly considering hanging up the truck keys on that day. He started to get a little worked up so I jokingly offered to buy the man a tall-boy of Budweiser. He piped down a bit and we exchanged stories about driving through the night and hitting rodents.

But Cletus isn’t the only one pissed off.

Truck stop bathrooms have become an area of interest on the road. Aside from having to typically hold my breath to the point of passing out each time I enter, its always fun to look at the etchings on the walls or glance at the arsenal of accessories you can purchase that apparently help you get laid. There’s always someone in the handicap stall (for the extra room, of course) making sounds that suggest they are giving birth to a baby beluga whale. The air dryers usually don’t work and the paper towel dispenser is always empty. I always take time to read the circulars that are typically posted at eye level above the urinals. The 5-Hour Energy drinks are always on sale at every truck stop.

There is always a wall-mounted vending machine that advertises the availability of condoms with half-inch studs up and down the side or lube that apparently tastes like cinnamon. I have yet to see anyone actually purchase one of these items, but the second I do I am going to make some attempt at trying to gain some insight in to exactly why such an item would be procured. It will undoubtedly involve me trying to act like I am the expert in the field, which usually would get kind of awkward in most places—but never in a truck stop. Very few things get awkward at a truck stop. There is nothing wrong with a small-scale investigation in to the effectiveness of truck stop sexual accessories. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t trust anything that comes out of a bathroom that smells like a dead squirrel’s asshole, but hey, that’s just me.

The cologne dispenser that you also inevitably discover right next to the sink is also of particular interest. It typically advertises the availability of three to five different cologne options and the descriptions always say something like “our special formula designed to smell like Polo Sport.” The whole “our special formula” bit just scares me. Who is creating this special formula? I would love to go to the fake cologne factory in Texas and have a chat with the owner. Now, in stark difference to the mystery of the condom machine and its effectiveness, I have in fact witnessed one man slide three quarters in to the cologne dispenser. He stood there appearing as though he was bracing himself for a hurricane. Within 5 seconds, a volcanic eruption burst through the nozzle and drenched the man’s tattered t-shirt with a barrage of chemicals that were apparently going to freshen him up. My thought was that the guy should first start with a shower and a haircut, but again, this was just initial observation.

The bathroom walls are always covered with intricate drawings of naked women, phone numbers of people offering sexual intercourse and sayings that I either don’t understand the origin of or simply cannot read. Just the other day I spotted a drawing of a large bull that was stepping over what appeared to be a beach ball. Someone must have spent some good time formulating that worthwhile drawing. I’ll bet it’s his tag or something. I just haven’t realized there are bulls stepping over beach balls all over truck stop bathroom America. A slightly more worthwhile example of bathroom wall artwork was an enormous paragraph announcing the diesel strike that Cletus was talking about days prior. It very clearly, albeit with many misspelled words, instructed drivers along I-20 to take the day off on the 1st and 15th of each month and not fill up their tank with the over-priced diesel fuel. This was all in an attempt to apparently drive prices back down. The logic of the whole strike is shrouded in a bit of smoke and mirrors, but I can appreciate a little grass-roots protest. Cletus is clearly not alone.

Truck stops continue to provide entertainment. This has to be getting more and more obvious with the fairly consistent banter about my encounters in one of America’s best kept secrets. Every trip to one is like getting a free prize every 300 miles for enduring the potential boredom that a lonesome highway hands your way. It’s no longer just a trip to fill up your fuel tank, pick up some Chex-Mix and maybe a Coca Cola—oh no. There’s people to talk to, bathrooms to make you laugh and organized strikes to take part in.

The southeastern United States has been claiming most of my time these days. This is a region I have not spent much time in prior years so the lure of an undiscovered land is exciting. Heading in to Charlotte, NC a couple weeks ago from Virginia Beach I decided to call my friend Bryan’s parents (Recall the high school story about the dry-gas with Mr. Sack a few entries ago. His family is something like my second family.) to see if I could potentially drop in for—let’s be honest—a free meal. Only kidding. Well sort of. I left a voice mail on Mrs. Sack’s mobile phone and was guardedly optimistic about the whole thing working out. Not 30 minutes later I connected with an excited Mr. Sack nearly shouting in to the phone. See, I can appreciate this sort of enthusiasm though. And so what ensued was an overly excited shouting match from both ends. When I hung up the phone, one thing was made very clear to me by Mr. Sack: We would be eating a nice meal that evening. A “BIG JUICY STEAK” in the words of a shouting man.

Game on.

What ensued was most definitely one of the highlights of the trip (or wait, work) so far—a welcoming home, family friends, a few beers and plenty of talk about the days back in Michigan when Bryan and I used to get in trouble together in high school. And plenty of good food— A BIG JUICY STEAK, in fact. It felt nice to be in the comfort of a home and not confined to the sterility of another hotel room. That night I watched TV on their monstrous high definition set and sat in the reclining chair that was situated in their old home in Michigan. I even had a beer for good measure. It felt great.

Pulling out of Charlotte the next morning was painful in many ways. It was obviously tough leaving a nice warm home but within about 20 miles of being on the open road the truck came to a screeching halt on the side of the highway.

No joke. AGAIN.

My hands were clenched on the wheel as the power steering went out, the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree (again) and I was literally trying to inch my way to safety on the side of the highway. I struggled to smack on the hazard lights as an 18-wheeler nearly grazed the rear of the truck.

Awesome.

I ran through the laundry list of items that could potentially be wrong despite the fact that that laundry list of knowledge is meager at best. Now that I think about it though, I feel like this whole “making fun of my car knowledge “ is now becoming untrue. As a result of nearly 1 breakdown every three weeks I am becoming an expert. The amount of jargon I can throw around right now is pretty impressive. Cletus would be proud.

I barreled out of the truck from the passenger side and had a pow-wow with Katie to discuss how we were going to tackle this conundrum once we were in the safety of a nearby Oak tree trunk. The traffic made it impossible to hear anything so I found myself once again shouting. We would need a tow immediately. We would need a mechanic. And unfortunately we needed to be in New Orleans the following morning, so we were also going to need a new fucking truck.

We wandered off the highway to the closest exit and found shelter at a Shell gas station. I briefed the attendant on my issue and she looked on with the sort of expression that suggested I spoke like Chewbacca. See, I needed a truck stop. They would have answers. With the yellow pages open in front of me, lots of overly official banter ensued on the telephone as I tried to get some solutions. I was speaking with the sort of intensity that suggested I was ground control for Apollo 13. I followed Dad’s protocol of repeating the name of the person I was talking with at least 5 times per sentence to convey seriousness.

Andy, on behalf of Hunter Towing, showed up within an hour to get the truck off the side of the highway. Meanwhile Katie was getting a cab ride—err hitchhiking with an Indian man—to the Penske Truck Rental Yard. To my amazement, Andy had the Crocs truck ready to go in 6 minutes. The size of his towing rig was nothing short of amazing and I was marveling at the delight of riding in such a monstrosity. As we cruised along with Croc 2 in tote, the entire cab shook with the sort of intensity that knocked my sunglasses off my face. For the duration of the ride I was awkwardly scrambling to keep the glasses on my face and my voice from sounding like I was holding a jack hammer. As I was nearly convulsing in the passenger seat Andy was smoking a Marlboro Red and making it obvious to me that I was a complete pussy. Realizing I needed to harden up, I started to talk about Nascar with him. This always works, especially when you are in North Carolina.

We pulled in to Charlotte Truck Center off of the highway and I hopped out of the tow truck only to realize my entire skeleton had been re-aligned on the drive. Andy was on his eighth cigarette and my hair smelled of sewage as a result. Together we entered the front office through the doors marked with the words “Parts and Service.” James shook my hand and told me he would be taking care of the issue. His cohorts were all huddled around and I was immediately asked for the 5 millionth time if I would be able to provide free shoes to the crew. I immediately replied with an “absolutely not.” I have a different excuse every time, but for this occasion I simply told them I only had women’s shoes in this truck. They backed off.

Ann, the Parts and Service receptionist, walked in 5 minutes later asking the same question. Fuck.

With the truck checked in and a suspected transmission issue, I was not going to get my wheels back for a few days. The Penske Truck Center was contacted with ground control-like behavior and soon enough Katie rolled in to the lot with a shiny yellow truck that was going to need to be loaded with all the contents of the now defunct Crocs truck. I was starting to feel the effects of a stressful past couple hours, but I couldn’t quit. New Orleans was calling.

About 45 minutes in to the loading process I was covered in sweat and dirt contemplating removing my shirt. James came out to the lot as we were moving the truck contents and began asking questions about the loading process. Mildly perturbed with the distraction I started to get a little short with James. He stood there smoking his cigarette blankly staring at me. I awkwardly pressed on and finally he spoke up.

“Haw much lawnger this prawcess gawnna take ya?” The cigarette dangled from his lips and I wanted to karate chop it from his face.

“Shit James, I don’t know. We’ve got a lot of stuff to load. Maybe another hour or so?”

“Welllllllll seeee, I gowtta lock this place uuuup. We closed 45 minutes ago and I wwanna go home.” So I was finally catching on. I didn’t realize he was waiting for us to finish. I told him we could lock the gate behind us no problem. Then he peppered in the last bit of info that got me moving a little quicker. “We been having craazy gangbaaaanger’s in the area cawsing trouble. Had ‘bout 5 muuuurders in the past munth.”

Jesus.

15 minutes later we were packed up.

The dark of the evening had set in. James gave us a nod as he pulled away in his Blue Camaro with the locked gate behind him. His muffler clearly had some aftermarket equipment on it because the sound was deafening. Now that the truck was in the shop for about the twelfth time in two months, I was mildly disgusted with the looming fact that this whole “taking the truck in for service” thing was now becoming part of my habitual routine. Exhausted, filthy and with beads of sweat pulverizing my eye balls, I pushed on in to the night for New Orleans.

the snowball skate

2008-03-27T15:59:00.000-07:00

I have grown to dislike rain quite a bit in the last four months or so. Not too long ago I was camping in the back of my pickup truck for quite some time and rain spelled disaster. It set off a whole laundry list of domino effects, which ultimately concluded with leaks in the truck topper and me sopping wet for at least a week. Nighttime misery smacked me in the face for seven days straight in Portland. The soles of my shoes were wet and I was even mistaken for a homeless man. The rain was the root of all evil.

Now, the setting is different, but the song remains the same.

Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Rain pouring down. It was five in the morning. We were supposed to set up at the finish line for the marathon but because of the wind/rain sucker punch combo we had to call things off. This can happen from time to time. The team wearily packed up and headed back to the hotel.

I went directly back to my bed and slept until noon. I would highly recommend the beds at your local TownPlace Suites. The good folks at Marriot are making strides to try and give you some creature comforts. I have stayed in many a motel with beds that most closely resemble cardboard. You typically wake up with a neck that feels like it was pounded with a crowbar for a few hours throughout the evening.

Awesome.

I woke up at 12:03, why I continuously take mental note of these things is beyond me.

I can’t say fictional movies are my favorite thing in the universe, but I turned on my television hoping that HBO would be showing something worth my time.

And they were.

Will Ferrel littered the screen with Jon Heder in a special documentary covering the making of the film “Blades of Glory.” As I lay there in my bed chuckling at Will Ferrel, who happens to be one of the funniest men in America right now, I was genuinely interested in the program. I continued to watch, completely oblivious to the outside world. My bed was my shrine. These types of mornings are miniature victories.

The rain continued to fall.

I eventually emerged from my bed to check my emails and jot a few things down. Jill, one of my touring partners, burst in to the room proclaiming she wanted to grab something to eat. I had just consumed roughly a liter of black coffee so my hunger was at a standstill. I was of no help to Jill.

But I had better ideas.

As I look back it makes total sense, but what sorts of spirits possessed me as I suggested that we should look for a roller skating rink, I am unaware of. Sure, I had watched the making of a figure skating film earlier and now I wanted to go to a roller rink for a little bit of open skate. Makes sense. This connection was not being made at that particular moment, however.

The two girls that round out the Crocs entourage, Jill and Katie, looked at me as I suggested this idea with initial glares that would make one think I was wanting to take them along for a gang beating. Slowly, however, the complete awesomeness overcame them and they were in. Within 5 minutes I had pulled up a local roller rink—Haygood Roller Skating Center—in Virginia Beach on my computer screen. I fumbled around trying to press the correct numbers on my phone as I dialed their number. I was praying they had a Sunday open skate.

And they did. Miraculously.

We were going to the roller rink. I was ecstatic.

My mind immediately darted back to the days of the Owosso Skating Center circa 1994. I once had a birthday party there. They had a little section zoned off with 12 chairs for my all-male posse and me. My dad chaperoned the whole thing. We arrived and each place setting had a party hat, a slice of pizza and a Styrofoam Dixie cup filled with orange pop. Talk about heaven. They even threw in a plaste of Nachos at one point. You know, the ones with the cheese that looks like melted plastic.

For some ungodly reason, I remember going up to the DJ booth shortly after consuming roughly 12 pieces of pizza and requesting the Beach Boys. My dad had purchased me a tape of their greatest hits probably a few months prior and this was easily the highlight of my year. Being able to roller skate around the sphere of hardwood greatness and listen to the Beach Boys was sounding like heaven. They played “Surfin’ Safari.”

The snowball skate arrived and I was deathly embarrassed. I mean, the snowball skate was all about spotting that fellow 11 year old female skater and grabbing her for a hand-holding loop around the skating rink. The lights were always dimmed for this particular part of the evening. Why it was called the snowball skate I have no idea. But I proceeded onward. It was my birthday and I had to find myself a partner. My hands probably felt like an oil slick because they were so sweaty. Here I was expected to take some young lass around the rink and my Dad was sitting 20 fucking feet away. Jesus. I approached a young girl who looked as though she may accept my request. She did. We skated. It was awkward. I proceeded on, holding hands with this mystery girl, unaware of anything about her, skating to a Christopher Cross song.

I tried to act like I felt normal.

In 2008, things didn’t feel that much different.

I emerged through the double doors and paid my $9 fee for entrance and skate rental. The place smelled of popcorn and sweat, pretty typical for a roller rink. Kids were screaming all over and parents were scrambling to keep track of them. I stood at the skate rental counter for 2 minutes and then requested a size 11 roller skate as soon as someone appeared. I didn’t want rollerblades. Not today at least.

Back in the day, whenever it was time to go for a skate—roller or ice—my Dad would cinch my laces so fucking tight I lost all circulation to my lower limbs within a few minutes. His lips would tighten up as he was pulling my laces so hard. Meanwhile, I thought my ankles would snap in half due to the pressure, but they never did. It was all about ankle support according to Dad.

It’s no surprise that within 7 minutes of my skating time in Virginia Beach I definitely could not feel my feet. In fact, I may make an argument that anything below my knee-caps felt non-existent. Locked in the olden days, I continued on swearing to myself about the importance of ankle support.

Some things never change.

If DJ’s could be rated on a scale of 1 to 10 the young man spinning tunes at the Haygood Roller Skating Center was getting a 35. Paula Abdul was pulsating through the speakers. Janet Jackson would soon follow. They even played Zhane, that old song ‘Mr. DJ.’ I was bouncing and jiving, weaving my skates in and out, enjoying the company of 75 other strangers who were doing similar things. I was pouring sweat because I was working hard out there. Clearly, my 1994 skills were still in my back pocket. I was executing reverse turn spin-arounds again within 20 minutes. That was my favorite move.

The snowball skate didn’t come, perhaps that’s a lost art. But thank god it didn’t, chances are it would have looked pretty bad with me participating. I mean how do you explain to the officer that at 25 you are just trying to live lost youth memories? I probably would have gotten pistol-whipped trying to explain my birthday party story and how I just wanted one more snowball skate.

The lights dimmed when the “Cha Cha” slide came on and in the darkness I realized how advanced this Virginia Beach crowd was with their skate apparel. At least 10 skaters on the dance floor were quick to display the ground lights they had on their skates. By this, I mean that there were little neon lights embedded in the under-sole of their skate. This was incredible. A young man in the interior of the dancing circle dipped and jived as if his skates were on auto-pilot. No matter what the kid did with his hands and legs he still remained upright on his skates. Despite his jovial antics on four wheels, he remained all business at heart. Tucked within the confines of his rear denim jean pocket was a white rag, of which he removed from time to time to mop up the waterfall of sweat blasting out of his forehead. These kids were really planning ahead. I even told him he had nice skates at one point during the repeating circles we did around the rink, to which he replied “Yeaaah man, they’re the Super Hi’s.” I just nodded acting as if I toted a pair of Super Hi’s at one point. The jet-black skates were definitely almost up to his knees and they definitely had a gold tassle hanging mid ankle.

Awesome.

I attempted to win the limbo contest. Yes. I had to. There were hordes of kids around me with infinite curiosity displayed on their faces as they tried to conceive how I was actually going to participate in this activity. Let’s just say when round 5 rolled around the pole was just a little too low for me to skate beneath it. As I attempted to pass under it, I simultaneously felt bones cracking, muscles stretching and felt the pressure of 30 kids staring at me. They were terrified at the awkward sight of me trying to win the contest.

Nearby the pizza parlor was booming with parents trying to keep track of all the kids they had carted to the rink. Mikey was screaming about getting a slice of pepperoni, Lizzy hated cheese and Matthew burned his fingers trying to eat. I happily continued to circle the rink. You could call all of that an extremely effective form of contraception.

I continued to circle on the hardwood floors as some hip-hop song blasted through the speakers. I definitely was unfamiliar with this particular song, but it had a little dance that went along with it.

My feet eventually felt like chop-suey and it was time to get off the rink. Worn and beaten from my skates I sat there trying to pry the leather boots off of my feet. I emerged from the task sweating profusely. As I looked out at the flashing disco lights, Curtis Mayfield was pumping through the speakers, I marveled at the beauty of such a simple event. I looked out at all the kids and parents. I was clearly above the average age of the place, but I laughed to myself getting the full effect of nostalgia.

automatic for the people

2008-03-17T23:10:00.000-07:00

The officer flickered on his lights as I saw pulses of blue shock my retinas from the passenger side. Cops on motorcycles are interesting. There were two of them.

Awesome.

Their collective gazes were chilling as the officer number one motioned for Katie to roll down the window. He gave the standard chin down, crinkled forehead look with eyes wide open and looking forward. I thought about shutting my eyes and acting like I was asleep because I feel like its always better if there is only one person to talk to the officer. The window couldn’t have taken any longer to roll down and officer friendly was stone cold waiting for it to get…all…the...way… down before he would speak.

“Just what do you think you are doing ma’am?” His forehead was still crinkled. I sat in the passenger seat of the Dodge minivan we were renting—the rig was in the shop getting the radiator fixed.

“Well, we are staff for the music festival this weekend and were told that if there was a large line at the entrance we should just put our flashers on and get around the line on the shoulder.” We were entering the Langerado Music Festival in South Florida. Us being staff was something of a white lie. Another Crocs Tour was set up for the weekend and they hooked us up with passes and employee credentials to enter the festival grounds.

“Well, you were told wrong!” His voice was definitely getting louder. I must have appeared as though I was fixated on the ashtray in the dashboard because I didn’t really lift with my head. At one point I acted like I was fumbling with the radio but immediately stopped.

“I apologize, we must have been misinformed.” Katie was staying strong.

“The only time you get out of that traffic lane is if an officer of the law tells you to do so.” The only place I have heard ‘officer of the law’ thrown around was during episodes of the People’s Court when they introduce the magistrate. Maybe, just maybe I read it once in a business law textbook. This guy was full of himself. Next time I need some help, I will make sure to contact an officer of the law.

“Thanks.” A perfect response by Katie. She then veered the vehicle back in to line and we proceeded on business as usual. We got some cheers for having circumvented what potentially could have been some sort of violation. Had I been driving, I guarantee I would be holding the carbon copy of a piece of paper telling me I now needed to appear in court in Florida.

Brother.

The line moved quickly and soon we got to the staff parking. Now mildly nerveous about the legitimacy of the directions we received, we asked some more questions but got overly positive answers. In the end our parking spot was situated backstage behind the main stage at Langerado 2008.

Things were looking good.

Three days prior I was sitting in a restaurant that had to have been a Taco Bell at some time in its life cycle. Instead of eating minced cat food tacos, however, I was eating a crawfish po’boy sandwich. A delicious one at that.

Yep. Louisiana.

At that point, I was on hour 12 of sitting passenger side which at times can numb your skull to the point of oblivion. The break was much needed and the sandwich was tasting great. I had a strawberry Fanta to wash it all down. I was unaware of the fact that strawberry Fanta even existed at fountain dispensers, so I suppose that’s another reason to love the state of Louisiana.

Minutes before devouring the crawfish sandwich we had received a phone call from a fellow Crocs employee telling us that if we wanted passes for the Langerado festival we could probably get some—perhaps one of the large benefits of working for a company that sponsors such events. Our event was in Jacksonville that weekend, 5 hours to the north of the festival, so we could probably pull it off making it down there afterwards. I immediately phoned my mother, and being the saint that she is, she looked up the musical lineup for the weekend.

R.E.M. was headlining on Saturday night.

Yep. I had to be there.

And so there we were about a week later parked in the minivan behind the main stage. Mildly shell-shocked with an Olympic hard-on, I was ready to give this weekend all I had. A girl whizzed up on a golf-cart and asked us if we needed a ride anywhere. I thought maybe she thought Katie was Jewel or something, so I went along with it. 3.5 minutes later we were situated within spitting distance of Ben Folds for his 5:30 performance at the Sunset Stage. Having purchased an arsenal of whisky before entering the festival grounds, I happily took down a couple of victory slugs. Things were looking alright.

The festival crowd around me was decked out in every variety of tie-dye apparel and the smell of marijuana littered the early evening air. As my head was on a swivel admiring the size of the crowd around me, two girls offered me some Skittles from a bag that looked like it was purchased at Costco. I love Costco. My teeth became furry as I continued to eat Skittles and enjoyed some of Folds’ set. He ran through a couple favorites from the old days, so I was appeased.

More whisky slugs.

As I walked away from the Folds performance, Thievery Corporation was playing at the main stage in the distance. Lebanese Blonde, as made famous by Zach Braff and his creation of Garden State, was blaring through the PA. Feeling the effects of Jim Beam surge through my body, I shook out a couple of Elvis moves and called it familiar.

Night fell on the festival grounds. I devoured a gyro at the concession area for free. Just minutes prior I spotted a fifty dollar bill on the ground. Nudging the total stranger next to me I asked him “real or fake?” He hit the deck immediately like it was a pot of gold and yelled out it was in fact a real fifty-dollar bill. He was visibly pleased with his new find and offered to buy my gyro for me. I have this weird thing about picking up money I find. I won’t ever do it. I can’t really explain why. I am not doing it for humanity or the children of the third world. I just can’t pick it up.

It’s probably idiotic, yes.

Hours later waiting for R.E.M. to take to the stage, I continued to drink whisky from the water bottle. Jim Beam tucked within my pocket at a music festival has become gospel. I tuned in to the fifty different conversations going on around me— where people were from, what songs would be played, the first time they saw R.E.M. in ’85, how many times they have seen the band live. You get the point. My mind drifted.

It was my eleventh birthday. I received a bubble mailer from my Uncle David with what was likely a present inside. Nothing can really describe that feeling you get when something comes in the mail and in big, bold capital letters your name is etched across the front it. Because I was 11, multiply that feeling by 5,000. As I ferociously ripped open the contents of the package, a present was in fact revealed— a copy of R.E.M’s “Automatic for the People.” It was hands-down the first album I ever fell in love with. It had it’s own spot in my music shoe box, along with other albums— Queen’s Greatest Hits, Bon Jovi’s “Keep the Faith,” and TLC’s “Ohhhhh on the TLC Tip.” Jesus. I would end up going through three copies of that R.E.M. CD over the years.

In the years following that album and what became a growing penchant for R.E.M, I got in the habit of packing up the minivan for a good ‘ol American road trip with Dad whenever they would tour. I can remember a few notable trips.

Chicago. 1998. Blake came along. The show was sold out at what was the New World Music Theatre in Tinley Park. Somehow Blake and I had convinced a young couple on the night of the show that they should let us use their ticket stubs to gain access to the orchestra pit at the outdoor amphitheatre. Blake was probably flexing, so they complied. I cant tell you much about the concert because all I seem to remember is the smell of Blake’s feet when we were riding home the following day. There’s a good chance he hadn’t changed his socks or washed his feet in about 30 days. The green cloud coming from his feet was stabbing my Dad’s and my nostrils. I think both of us could have vomited at any point during the ride. The severity of the smell has caused us to refer to “Blake’s feet” many times in later years.

Toronto. 1999. R.E.M. was playing a show in the middle of the city off of Dundas Street. We had nothing booked and decided to just leave on Thursday after Dad was done with work. The 10-hour drive was nothing to shake a stick at. I still remember the pizza parlor we stopped at for what was probably the largest pizza pie I have ever seen/consumed. Dad emptied about 3 cubic feet of crushed red pepper on to his half of the pie. We showed up in Toronto at about 2am and ended up sleeping in the van that night. R.E.M. took to the streets the following afternoon and we were of course front and center. The blasts from the speaker stacks shook my sternum as they played for a couple hours.

Almost ten years later I was back for more.

The stage lights went down and R.E.M. burst on to the stage with energy that suggested maybe it was 1985. I jumped to my feet and felt the whisky creep down my chest with a warm vengeance. Three songs in to the occasion a little girl sitting on top of her Dad’s shoulders handed me a sign that read “i heart you REM.” The word heart was replaced with an actual heart. She was all of six years old. Unsure of exactly what was going on, I still took the sign from the little hand that extended from 3 feet above me and smiled.

Michael Stipe was in prime form on stage. He was visibly enjoying himself. The rest of the band was following suit. Michael took to being a bit of a ham even as he fashioned a t-shirt with “OBAMA” screen-printed across the front of it and taking every opportunity to assure it was shown on the jumbotron.

The little girl and her Dad were holding up the signs. I followed suit. So did some of the others in the vicinity that were lucky enough to be handed one. The smile that poured off of her face as we collectively cheered on the band warmed me even more than the whisky did. Twenty minutes later I couldn’t feel my arm because I was still holding the damn thing up. The little girl would occasionally look back and I would be sure to fashion the sign accordingly. Someone in the R.E.M. camp must have noticed the now half dozen pieces of paper being held up by complete strangers bearing childish phrases and drawings. A roadie came down and gave the little girl a stack of paper. Apparently they were the sheets that Michael had been reading song lyrics off of as the show went on.

You would have thought that smile was painted on her face. At show’s end it was still there. I shook her hand and thanked her for letting me join in on her little party. She wrapped the evening up with an extra layer of enjoyment.

The rest of the night dipped and turned at 100 miles per hour in to the wee bits of the morning. There were parties to be had and plenty of random people to happen upon. The last official recorded time for the evening was 3:58 am from the timestamp on a cell phone call. As I tried to situate myself for a slumber in the reclined driver’s seat of the rented minivan, there was a calm that fell over the festival grounds. I didn’t want to let the night come to a close.

Day one at Langerado. And that was only half the story.

black bottle of beauty

2008-03-07T16:47:00.000-08:00

it was dark.

it was cold.

it was late at night. by late, i mean something in the neighborhood of 2 am. truth be told, i was probably rounding the corner to being over my DOT hours.

i was filling the truck with diesel. and yes, i had my driving gloves on. they are leather.

the pay-at-the-pump card machine swiper was telling me that i needed to see the attendant inside to get my receipt after having just filled up the tank with fuel. awesome. normally, i wouldn't give a shit about receipts late at night but i now have to do things like expense reports because... oh yeah... i am working after all, and good employees turn in expense reports. follwing the orders of the card reader, i walked through the glass doors to the station only to be greeted by the typical aroma of stale triscuits, fried food, motor oil and car fresheners.

yep, another truck stop.

i explained my conundrum to the attendant and she swiftly produced a copy of my receipt with the words "DUPLICATE" in enormous black, bold letters at the top. this attendant was particularly beautiful which happens at a truck stop about as frequently as an ice age. so i stayed for about 23 seconds and talked about things like far-off destinations that were not in this current town of hibbard, arizona.

oh yeah, and i bought a coke.

i exited through the same glass doors and climbed back in to the truck. i put the key in the ignition and turned. click... click... click... click. nothing. i paused, swore to myself a few times and did the same thing again 10 seconds later. i got the same clicking and the same result-- the engine wasn't turning over. i turned to katie and gave the sort of look that suggested i had just eaten a piece of dog shit.

i have discussed at length before my lack of knowledge when it comes to automobiles. so sure, the laundry list of mishaps i have had in recent years is increasing my arsenal of automobile quick-fixes, but now i was in a whole new territory with this fucking diesel-powered sterling monstrosity of a truck.

i started to sweat.

then i opened up my bottle of coca cola and took a long swig, at which point i almost gagged up my midnight snack of chex-mix because the fizz was so strong. feeling like i just swallowed a garbage bag, i hopped out of the car and popped open the hatch of the truck. and by "popping the hatch" i unhooked the entire front cab and tipped it up so that the strapping diesel engine was exposed. i had no idea what i was doing. i tugged at a few belts, looked at the cover of the transmission fluid cap and then deduced i needed a mechanic.

that sounded about right.

luckily the beautiful attendant was still working the front desk when i ran back in there asking for a mechanic. she quickly replied with her infinite beauty telling me i needed to see "bob." i nodded my head not knowing what the fuck that meant. she had to be right though, she was gorgeous. umm, right. she handed me a business card for "bob's 24 hour truck service" and i dialed the phone number immediately darting back outside.

a grizzly voice muttered the words "bob's place" when the line picked up. i assumed i was talking to bob and just went straight ahead with trying to explain the problem. within 40 seconds, bob was talking about engine parts that i couldn't spell or understand. i informed him of my inability to comprehend his thoughts and he replied with the phrase "buy some starter fluid in the truck stop and call me back."

uhhhh, sure. starter fluid, check. i hung up the phone and went back in to the truck stop again. i asked the woman where some starter fluid was and she took me over to the aisle. as we walked i could smell what was likely about one gallon of perfume on her body.

i returned back to the truck reading the label on this "starter fluid" that i just purchased. totally clueless as to what i was actually going to do with this mystery fluid, i was looking for directions. all it said was "EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE" in about 12 different languages.

i approached the truck as i slid through the late-night cold. i got there and standing beside the truck-- well, leaning over the engine-- was a man that resembled what i would picture bob seger to look like after 15 years of heavy meth abuse. he had a mullet which i loved. and it dangled down somewhere in the neighborhood of mid spinal-column. i loved him even more now. he had a duffle bag and a thermal beverage container roughly the size of a filing cabinet that he was going to fill up at the fountain dispenser. as i approached this complete stranger (this was definitely not the bob from the truck service place), i got straight to business fully aware of the fact that he probably knew exactly what the fuck he was doing. turns out his name was aaron, and while it was almost impossible to understand each syllable that parted his lips, i could tell we would get along just fine.

i produced the mysterious shiny black bottle of mystery fluid and asked where the hell the air intake was on this monstrosity of a diesel engine. not understanding anything aaron replied with, i moved forward and approached the engine block. aaron was crouched nearly on his ass fumbling with some piece of the motor and i just looked on with mild admiration. he didnt find what he was looking for because i did understand him saying the word "fuck" about 75 times.

something was wrong?

eventually aaron pointed to the air intake because i didnt understand what he was saying and we moved onward. i told aaron i was going to spray the fluid in the air intake and then run over and start the engine to see if this mystery fluid would work. aaron objected with a yell that probably woke children up in the next town over.

hmmmm. ok.

the next 30 seconds i was scared to the point of oblivion.

aaron instructed me to turn the engine key and while i was attempting to start the car he was going to spray the fluid in to the air intake valve. apparently this was going to work, but all i was picturing was the mystery fluid label that said "EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE" and "DO NOT SPRAY WHILE CAR IS ON."

i pointed to this particular area on the spray can because modern spoken communication simply did not work with bob seger and i. i heard another series of fucks from him and figured he was calling me an idiot for not believing him. i mean, the guy looked like he had been driving trucks for 80 years. so i hastily walked over to the drivers side of the truck, stuck the key in the ignition and closed my eyes. i truly thought that i was going to end up about 500 feet in the air having a party with bob seger above a series of major engine explosions before we would fall to our death somewhere a couple miles away.

i actually closed my eyes as i turned the key.

and the truck started. no problem at all.

aaron smiled and muttered some words that i imagine involved the words "fuck" and "i told you so." he dissappeared within seconds and i was left wondering how these things all come together. 40 minutes prior i thought i was going to be sleeping at a truck stop by the little debbie cakes aisle waiting for a mechanic to come in the morning only to tell me that the repair would cost $14,000 and was going to take a week to perform.

nope. not this time.

i pushed further on the highway, but there was a heavy snowstorm brewing in flagstaff so i pulled over at a dingy hotel in winslow, arizona. i grabbed a couple of tall boys of budweiser at the flying j, watched some CNN and remembered that there was a song by the eagles that talked about winslow.

the next morning i slept in past the checkout time like i do 99% of the time. the housekeeping attendant walked in to what she assumed was a vacant room in need of cleaning. to her combined surprise and dismay, i was spread sideways across the bed with drool covering my face and pillow. when this happens, the housekeeper always acts as if she just walked in on me naked and says sorry about 2,000 times only to walk out 3 seconds later.

i checked out an hour late and hit the road headed for pasadena, california. this would be the final push to get to the tour of california-- a professional cycling event-- where we were setting up at the finish line to slang some crocs.

as i drove along with katie, nighttime was fast approaching. the lonely stretches of road were getting monotonous. in many parts of this great country you can go hours without seeing anything other than a flat field and a truck stop. and this day was no different. a sign darted by my periphery reading "next service 57 miles." i quickly glanced down at the fuel gauge. it reported, based on the position of the dial, that i should make it to the next service stop without much of a problem, but it would be close.

and i made it no problem 57 miles later.

now that the truck was in fact in need of diesel, i pulled off the highway and did the standard look-around to see which station had diesel. i didnt see any so katie got out and asked a group of interesting looking gentleman, albeit one of them a police officer, where the closest diesel stop was.

the reply was devastating: 24 miles away.

shit.

the dial on the fuel gauge was below "E" at this point, and i wasnt feeling adventurous in the least bit. the police officer informed us to drive 45 miles per hour and we should make it just fine. fully aware of the fact that we had already just driven 1o miles on "E" i was kind of nerveous. putting my trust in this cop like i had bob seger the previous night, i got back on to the interstate. this time i was nervous, kind of like when i thought i was going to blow up at the hands of bob the previous night. i was certain we would run out of diesel.

and we did. of course we did. the truck came to a halt as the power steering went out.

a small explosion of light flickered on and off as every signal warning light on the dashboard lit up. i mean this truck didnt have one check engine light, it had three-- all in different colors. apparently when things were REALLY bad, the green one came on. or maybe the red one.

whatever.

there were other warnings about vacuum's being out and oil gone, but i knew what the problem was. i now thought i would be spending the night in the desert cold waiting for some sort of vehicular rescue team.

i started to sweat. i started daydreaming about macgyver and indiana jones. i needed a creative fix. goddamnit, i needed kevin sack and his dry-gas. the man gave me a case of dry-gas for christmas 10 years ago. it sounds like an odd gift, but it was totally appropriate given his desire to assure i was never in an adverse situation.

9 years prior i had used dry gas for the first time after i had spent a late night at a girlfriends house. i mean i was in high school and had that midnight curfew thing so i wasnt doing anything too crazy. it was pissing rain out and i as i tried to turn the corner in my bronzed pink colored minivan (named monster). the dashboard went hay-wire and i was stranded in the middle of the street. cell phones didnt exist then so there was nobody to call. the same sweat poured down my face. i was certainly swearing to myself and i definitely thought of macgyver. and then the dry gas. and it worked. the dry gas got me to a gas station.

now, 10 years later i was sitting on the side of the highway nearly getting clipped by every passing vehicle wishing kevin sack had sent me some this past year. i placed a call to triple A and they informed me that someone would come and rescue me within the next 12 hours. i mean, that was about as effective as a band-aid covered in cat piss.

at some point, katie and i concocted an idea that made me sort of skirmish but i was up for trying anything. i drew a sign advertising to passers-by that read "NEED DIESEL." katie, being the sex appeal of the whole operation, gallivanted next to our motionless vehicle proclaiming our stupidity. well, wait. for once, i dont think this one was my fault. that fuel stop 57 miles later really should have had diesel. or at least a sign 57 miles prior saying "if you need to fill up with diesel, do it now because they dont have diesel for another 102 miles. all other fuel needs can be taken care of in 57 miles." that sign was probably too hard to read and so it never got made. and so there i sat shit out of luck.

katie holding the sign did absolutely NOTHING. or so i thought.

maybe an hour or 12 later, a fellow by the name of jack rolled up in an enormous tow truck and produced paper work that suggested he was with triple a. we exchanged words for a few and i marveled at the fact that he spoke coherently enough for me to comprehend his syllables. jack deemed me absent-minded for letting the truck totally run out of diesel. i acted like i didn't hear him, but was secretly shitting my pants wondering if i had actually done something seriously wrong.

he produced a jug full of wondrous diesel fuel and poured it in to the tank.

awesome.

the truck, apparently because of it losing its prime, still wouldn't start. in a fit of brilliance, i produced the mysterious shiny black container of liquid from the previous night and my adventures with bob seger and the beautiful attendant.

meanwhile, a cop showed up.

awesome.

i was certain that i was going to be arrested for some sort of obscure violation related to advertising a sign on the side of the highway requesting diesel from fellow truckers passing by. the ticket would probably cost somewhere in the region of $4,000 and i would inevitably lose my job. fully ready to blurt out "SHE DID IT!" and pointing at katie, i held my breath for officer friendly to tell me i was under arrest.

"are you the ones that were holding up a sign and yelling for help?" the cop spoke and then stared coldly. i mean, they always do.

"diesel!" i blurted out. that statement didn't make any sense in context. i mean, the guy was asking a question and i just shouted "DIESEL" as a reply. i thought maybe it would get me away from having to really explain the whole situation. mysteriously officer smoke (that was his real name) nodded and looked away. totally unsure what was coming next i turned to jack and continued onward with business as usual with my mysterious black bottle of fluid. i was just going to act like this was all normal. surprisingly jack followed suit.

with the truck not starting and now a cop breathing down my neck (a cop named officer smoke nonetheless), i showed them my starter fluid.

"uhh, i have this. it will work." jack looked at me puzzled as i spoke those exact words. i then continued to instruct him with fierce precision acting like i knew exactly what to do. of course, the only reason i was speaking with such certainty was because of bob seger and his hand motions the night before.

i belted out orders like i had worked at a truck stop for 15 years. "jack, i am gonna turn the ignition and i want you to point that can in the air intake valve and give spray a burst of that starter fluid for 2 to 4 seconds."

i didnt catch this, but apparently the cop commented to katie saying that i really knew what i was doing. had i heard this, i probably would have turned up the trucker jargon even more. probably a good thing.

and just like that, the engine fired up. i was silently cheering inside but showed absolutely no emotion to jack, officer smoke or katie. this was business as usual, people. i nodded to jack and told him thanks for his help. i looked at the officer and not knowing what the fuck to do i just shook his hand. i don't think he really knew what to do either so he started talking about the volcano that was in the distance. completely confused but very pleased with where this was going, i held a conversation about that goddamn volcano for another 10 minutes. apparently the cop wasn't going to gang beat me and usher me off to the sin bin.

awesome.

we packed up and got in the truck. jack stopped traffic for me and we hopped back on the interstate. officer smoke turned up a hurricane of dust as he spun the tires and gave us a lights show as he darted in the opposite direction on the highway. i was actually impressed because the moves he just displayed maneuvering his squad car made me think he was perhaps a stunt driver on the side.

we rode off and made it to the next truck stop to actually get a full tank of diesel. i had one of those "holy shit" moments thinking about this mysterious can of black fluid that managed to save me twice and bob seger that instructed me on how to not be engulfed in a full-scale explosion despite any label warnings.

awesome.

we made it to pasadena for the cycling event without another hitch. over the course of the event weekend i got to see some friends. brad diggans was working for another company at the event and mr pedro vaz came in from newport beach to hang out one of the nights.

so you could say things worked out just fine.

photographs

2008-02-25T01:17:00.000-08:00

near llano, texas: drivin down texas 71. for some of you, this may be a little cooler if you are familiar with the band magnolia electric co. they write a good song titled after this stretch of highway so naturally i got a little sentimental driving along.

near clovis, new mexico: giant wind farms. enough said there. these things just look pretty sweet towering hundreds of feet in to the air and swirling around with some serious force.

downtown albuquerque, new mexico: the silver moon lodge, just off of central avenue in albuquerque. i thought the "sleep well" posted on the motel marquee was kind of a nice gesture. the second photo was taken just down the street. the guy sitting under that sign waiting for a bus was kind of a neat guy. he was real talkative despite the fact that i was understanding and responding to about 1% of what he was saying in spanish. it was still pretty fun. the guy seemed really happy. anyway, the downtown area in albuquerque is so uncharacteristically calm for any sort of city, large or small.

old town, albuquerque, new mexico: arguably the highlight of old town would be the san felipe de neri church. people have been preachin' the word at this place for something like 300 years. its a modest little building, but anything thats been standing for that long in the USofA begs a bit of attention. this little guy is actually on the national register of historical places.

albuquerque, new mexico: both shots from the rio grande valley state park. it was a pretty neat place, some of the largest cottonwood trees in the country along the banks of that there rio grande. fine place indeed.

viva U23D

2008-02-16T18:29:00.000-08:00

"i mean, this may not mean a whole lot to you [because you're a fella], but i am telling you-- bono sits in your lap for over an hour. i mean you could say its pretty neat."

i hadnt done so much as inquire about the U23D show that was showing in austin's only IMAX theatre before what appeared to be the sweetest looking old lady piped out about the proximity of bono performing to her crotch. she was visibly excited as she clutched her desk pen with the sort of voracious behavior that suggested she may be a leopard. her glasses sat low on her nose as she muttered more words about bono's sex appeal. i mean, do your thing woman. it was entertaining.

i felt playful. "no its cool, bono is ok sitting on my lap, too." she chuckled back at me and then it was business as usual as katie and i tried to get tickets for a friday showing of U23D-- the latest three dimensional concert experience via the brilliance of IMAX. yes, it was tuesday. and sure, we were purchasing IMAX tickets three days in advance, but there was just no way in hell i was going to be faced with a sold out performance.

"you two students?" screeched the elderly bono fan.

i always hate this question when i enter a movie theatre. every bone in my body wants to shout out student for the reduced fare. i get flashbacks to the old days when my high school buddies and i didnt pay for a single movie for something like 4 years and 3 days. i dont think any of us ever paid a dime to see something like 2 movies a week-- cause what the hell else do you do in high school? i think we saw american pie 17 times. each of us were a character in the movie and then related that person's persona in to our real lives as frequently as possible. we always did shit like that which explains the reason why a good chunk of our graduating class utterly despised us. well, maybe that's an overstatement.... nahhhhh. well, it was a love/hate thing with most of them.

sneaking in to movies became a hobby. and i mean you would think that at least when any of us were taking a lady friend to the theatre we would bone up, pay for tickets, get a large popcorn and extra large drink to share with the lady (one straw? two straws? always a tough call) and maybe a box of candy?

absolutely not.

we shuddered any sense of class and i can count multiple times when i (the only one that potentially never did this was bryan because he was always the classy carl of all operations) went on dates and snuck the girl in to the theatre as well. i mean, i know for certain that not one of them had ever done anything like that before and were horrified that the gentleman that was supposed to take them on a date was currently acting like spiderman trying to skate by the security rope. sure it was awkward, and sure sometimes you got caught and this totally fucked the entire evening, but i would like to think that some of those girls were exhilarated with the little bit of excitement it brought to the picture. i mean this wasnt just a date, it also involved a potential run-in with law enforcement.

ANYWAY, so i was standing there at the counter visualizing the attendants facial expression as she watched bono in the U2 IMAX for the first time. "i am not a student," i eventually replied. i was thinking that maybe katie was going to go for the gold and tell the feisty attendant she had her ID with her. nope. oddly enough the woman gave us the student rate despite our answers. the show was three days later and i was already antsy.

so the other day i had to make a visit to the circle j truck retread and tire repair shop in albuquerque as we were passing through from austin en route to pasadena. as you guessed, my monstrosity of a rig got a flat somewhere along texas 71 between austin and albuquerque. i went out to load the truck in the morning and noticed the tire was, uhhh, a little flat. i just cant help but wonder how many miles we drove on the damn thing without realizing this. the beauty of the whole operation is that ‘ol superwheels has a dual tire setup in the back just below don king. oh hell yeah, man.

jim, the head honcho at circle j, took care of me. he and i got in to a good chit-chat about the restaurant that i ate at one of the nights in albuquerque—little anita’s new mexican kitchen. turns out he enjoys the green chile stew almost as much as i did. good guy that jim.

so this job on the road-- ehhhh, dare i call it that?-- seems to be going well lately. essentially, it breaks down to three days of fairly consistent work talking to people and selling crocs at some sort of event-- typically a marathon or cycling event. all this in exchange for 4 days of leisure travel. and lets be honest, being around fit and beautiful marathon runners has some positive peripheral effect on my penchant for physical activity. so i am hoping this will keep my chiseled abdomen rock solid.

jesus. jim, the truck repair man just came in with hands that looked like he dipped them in a vat of chocolate frosting and fired off a few shop terms on what’s wrong with the tire. “got a 290 dropper on the axle there-- couple a nails on the right side there, both inner and outer plus you are running with 1/32 left there on the back two there which is below the DOT regulation.”

oh god. the three letters of horror. ever since my little run in with the federales in arizona i damn near go in to shock every time i hear about DOT regulations and my potential deviation from the law.

“holy shit jim, back up. all i heard was DOT there. am i gonna pass when i go through a weigh station?”

“nope.”

“oh swell.”

“you’ve got two nails on the inner and outer tire on the rear right side of the truck. then the tread on your left inner and outer tires has only 1/32 left and that wont get you through the weigh station in arizona.”

“ok. much better. fix it up, jim.” i sat waiting for the new tires in the waiting room of the repair shop. i was in awe looking at the TV sitting dead smack in the middle of the reception area that was roughly the size of my old apartment in chicago. massive. i guess the shitty end of the bargain was that "days of our lives" was showing. i mean i would have gotten up and changed the channel were it not for the secretary that was staring at the screen for 30 minutes without blinking. thats about the time i popped open my laptop and started writing.

flat tires aside, life on the road is going just jim dandy. i mean, who saw that coming? living out of hotel rooms is delightfully bearable, something i didn’t expect. i never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever have to clean up after myself. let's just say that part is mildly convenient considering my normal lifestyle. and i mean come on, i have never purchased HBO in my cable plan but now i have it for free every night seeing as how it became taboo about 10 years ago to offer free HBO at hotels/motels. i still doubt i will watch entourage, but the movies can be nice at times. oh and it doesnt stop there. after this touring is done i am going to live for free at the holiday inn in sydney for approximately 13 months after all the hotel points i am accruing. i could keep going.

the group i work with is a nice little grab bag of folks. i am second youngest in the group which is a breath of fresh air after having dealt with all the “youngster” comments in nearly everything else in the last 3 years of my life. katie, from portland, is the youngest (24) and comes to the table with an arsenal of retail experience in the outdoor world. do so much as mention any outdoor trinket and the girl can get a discount in it from the store she worked at in portland. nate, from fort collins, colorado, and jill, from spokane, washington, take the age senority at 27. nate actually worked for a hockey association in prior years and sports are something of a religion for him. as such, we have agreed to drink heavily during march madness for the MSU games. awesome. jill is the road veteran having done many of these tours with other companies. this paid dividends on day one when we pulled out of the dock in portland with about a metric ton of vitamin water (courtesy of her last tour).

so i mean things are off to a good start-- work that involves travel and good people.

now, back to U23D.

we filed in to the imax theatre on friday three days after purchasing tickets. we showed up an hour early and i immediately approached the attendant. we had an engaging conversation about the strategy involved with securing a dynamite seat for the show. he gave me detailed numbers on the amount of peope attending the show, what time i needed to be in line by, etc. he laughed at how early we were there to begin with so i went to mcdonalds for some dinner.

upon returning the line had tripled in size. i was immediately approached by a woman holding the largest set of sunglasses i had ever seen. they were my 3D goggles and i was in love with them. katie and jill were equally as excited. i would be lying if i said that katie didnt immediately pull out her camera and we all posed for photos.

electricity shot up my spine as the lights dimmed and the overly smooth IMAX voice came on and instructed us that when the credits rolled at the end of the movie, there would be a bonus track that we should remain seated for. and then the IMAX sexy voice said "and finally, at the request of the band and producers, the volume of the film is set to imitate the volume of a live show."

oh jesus. this was going to be electrifying and i knew it right then.

the lights shut off and it was pitch black. the opening sequenc began and the audience was shown a visual of what it looked like to be on stage as if you were bono. i think i pee'd a little bit right then. i had goosebumps under my fingernails even. the crowd roared. it felt like they were spitting on me even. it appeared as though there were roughly 8 billion people in attendance.

and then they played. U2 exploded in to vertigo with the sort of excitement that made me want to fist pump from the comforts of my chair. and i mean, i am not even THAT much of a U2 fan. it didnt matter though. not at all.

i can now saw with all of my heart that U2 is a fucking rock and roll band. there is just no getting around it. they stood on stage in front of thousands and played rock and roll like it should be played. the stage wasnt littered with millions of dollars of fancy equipment. they didnt have backing musicians up on stage with them. there were a few stacks of speakers, nothing ridiculous. the light show was practical, it got the point across. it complemented the band. it wasnt a rolling stones show where they shoot off a flame across the arena and you are reasonably sure it singed your eyebrows. and they played. they enjoyed themselves. they hit nerves at times. you got goosebumps as you watched. they got a point across. but most of all it was simply exciting. it was exhilarating to hear them pump out "where the streets have no names" with the sort of fervor that suggested these guys haven't been around for a couple decades. nevermind the 16 million dollar botched budget for the film and all the special effects, this was rock and roll that i felt a part of.

since seeing the show, i have been wearing my black t shirt and attempting to slick my hair back with grease i got at walgreen's so that i can look more like bono. now i just need a set of those wraparound sunglasses that look like they are molded to my face. perhaps some lime green tinted lenses or maybe purple. that will certainly complete the costume. now, please go see U23D at your local IMAX. it is undoubtedly worth it.

eyes wide open

2008-01-24T16:22:00.000-08:00

it's all about the people you meet on your journey.

for most of my childhood days in owosso we had a neighbor that owned a trucking company. his name was larry, and larry happened to have an arsenal of other incredibly cool shit-- motorcycles, fast cars and even nudie pictures of women from nascar calendars that were pinned inside the garage---

i still remember the day i discovered those calendars pinned up. i had built some sort of concoction of a fort behind larry's and our garage. mom yelled to me one night that dinner was ready and of course i hit the ground running like a bat out of hell. i ran fast and furious because i was husky and dinner was my second favorite part of the day. one night running in i hit my head on a mysterious object that was hanging off of larry' garage window. as i was clutching my head furiously i tried to figure out what the fuck had just jumped out and cracked my skull. as i looked through the window i discovered something bearing flesh at the opposite side of the garage. it was not clear at this point that i was looking at pornography but my curiousity was undoubtedly perked. days later i would be playing basketball with neighbor friend robert on larry's hoop in front of his garage and demanded i get a second opinion from him. we determined there was in fact a naked woman on the wall, perhaps two. it became habit at that point that we would mysteriously "lose the basketball" about 43 times a day in larry's garage.

so lets get back on track here. larry was the purveyor of all these interesting things-- namely naked women-- so naturally i paid a little more attention to everything the man did. so when i tell you that i became mildly obsessed with oversized vehicular transport at a young age it should now make complete sense that larry had a lot to do with this.

fast forward 15 years.

i drive a truck now.

going to weigh stations, trucker talk, CB radios, enormous sunglasses, a farmers tan from my arm hanging out the window, filling out my DOT drivers log book, checking engine belts and maneuvering a big rig-- bring it on. you would be proud, larry. well you might make fun of the fact that my "truck" is nowehere near an 18-wheeler, but i am getting there.

the rig clocks in at about 25 feet in length, weighs something like 15,000 pounds and when you sit in the thing you feel like you are on top of the universe. the steering wheel is roughly the size of alaska. and the entirety of the exterior is branded with crocs artwork and surprisingly this includes a portrait of don king holding multiple pairs of crocs. yes, don king. mike tyson/don king. big hair don king.

awesome.

and driving the old don king mobile around is a damn good time. i have traversed through some five states already and the adventures are abundant.

the scene was arizona. right at the border of california. sunny day, 85 degrees. it is pretty standard to roll through the port of entry weigh station for trucks when crossing any state border. as we rumbled over the scale at a measly 7 mph i gave the standard tip of the cap to the attendant in the window. there is a traffic light situated on the upper left as you pass through the scale, and if your weight is accepted you get the green light. if not, it will flash red.

the lady flashed us the red.

awesome.

apparently i was going a little too fast over the scale because she was screaming through the PA at decibels rivaling a small dynamite explosion. “BACK UP!” she yelled. i backed up the rig. “DID YOU NOT SEE THE RED LIGHT!?” i told her i was too busy waving at her to see the light. she wasn’t taking kindly to my jovial gesture. “GATHER YOUR REGISTRATION PAPERS AND LOG BOOKS AND STEP IN THE OFFICE!” feeling her atomic explosion of a voice crush my ear drums i gathered my shit and got out of the truck.

katie— my driving partner— and i approached the office and entered through the mid-70’s looking building. the door said “pull” but you actually had to push it. i entered the room greeted by a chilling aroma. it smelled of moist armpits that hadn’t been cleansed in a couple weeks. i cringed. katie’s face looked as though she was holding back vomit that was sitting in the back of her throat. we approached the desk. the two women sitting behind the counter combined for about 700 pounds and could have easily walked on to the detroit lions offensive line. these girls were large.

a. bonnet, or so her nametag read, approached me. her acrylic nails were about as long as my pinky finger. her desk was littered with photos of she and what i assumed was her significant other. her west coast choppers branded sunglasses were tucked within the confines of her blond highlighted hair. this woman was angry. and despite not having the PA microphone wedged under her chin, she was still fucking screaming.

i got a scolding immediately for going 7 mph through the scale instead of 5. i was ridiculed for having missed the red light. i nodded and said “m hm” about 15 times and happily took to asking her to repeat nearly everything.

“I WILL NEED YOUR TRUCK REGISTRATION, INSURANCE CARDS, LOG BOOKS AND MEDICAL CARD.”

i happily surrendered the documents to her outstretched paw that was about 8 inches wide.

“I DON’T SEE YOUR DOT MEDICAL CARD IN HERE.”

fuck. i forgot that in the car and explained. i told her i would go get it and be right back. i got to the truck and was rifling through my papers at record speed only to realize that my employer still had my card on file at their office.

awesome.

realizing that i was probably going to be subjected to a firing quad without my medical card, i wearily walked through the messed up door back in to the office almost vomiting again from the stench. she smiled as i informed her of my inability to produce the medical card.

awesome.

she was rifling through katie’s and my log book at speeds that suggested she wasn’t even reading so much as a single letter or digit. i was incorrect in my assessment unfortunately. “YOU CAN FACE UP TO $600 IN FINES FOR THESE FAULTY LOG BOOKS.” i rattled off another “m hm.” her quasi-southern accent coupled with her penchant for screaming made it hard to understand the woman.

she looked over the papers and then demanded entrance to our truck for an inspection. she went through her checklist, of which i was able to produce the majority of the items sans the warning triangles we are supposed to have on board. we had cones instead of triangles but this wasn’t going to do it for a. bonnett.

“I WON’T CITE YOU FOR FAILURE TO PASS INSPECTION” she shouted, “BUT I AM GOING TO GET YOU FOR NOT HAVING YOUR MEDICAL CARD.”

i gave her back a bland “m hm” as i tried not to awkwardly stare at her acrylic nails that reminded me of edward scissorhands. she wrote slowly for about 45 minutes filling out my ticket. she handed it to me upon completion. i about shit my pants when i read that the ticket is going to cost $305.

“NOW YOU HAVE A NICE DAY YOU TWO.” she said it with the sort of sting that suggested she was so proud of herself. she had probably just met her monthly citation quota. maybe her boss was going to take her to the local fish fry as a reward. i would be lying if i said i didn’t think about these things.

hopefully after my little run-in with the united states department of transportation i can officially nominate myself in to the trucker subculture. there’s a bit of camaraderie to be had traveling the lonesome highways for 14 hour stretches at a time.

frances was the attendant at the truck stop in sierra blanca, texas. she was manning the counter at the only diesel stop within about 50 miles in each direction on I-10. the rig was cruising on fumes so we had to fill up the 30 gallon tank. i take every opportunity to have a good chat at the truck stops because 9 times out of 10 the good folks have a story to tell. every trucker wants to tell you something— how to avoid the bitch at the weigh station 40 miles ahead, the inevitable conversation about illicit use of the CB radio or something else involving women and a lack of clothing.

anyway, sierra blanca is situated about 40 minutes north of the mexicale border, and frances spared no time in telling me that the area was an absolute hotbed for drug and human trafficking. that explained the border check 10 miles earlier off I-10 complete with sniffing dogs, a bomb squad and mysterious equipment that apparently could tell the federales if i had a truck full of illegal mexicans. turns out the conversation got me a free coca cola and frances sent me off with a handwritten map to austin. nevermind that the GPS would get us there just fine, the gesture was well received.

a few hundred miles later, max monroe was the fiery counter attendant at the truck wash in segovia, texas. my american express card wasn’t going through when i paid for my diesel and the man wanted nothing to do with the hassle. after two unsuccessful swipes of my card he got right on the phone and called american express. at that hour we were of course routed to an overseas answering service and this lit a fire under max monroe’s fruit of the looms. i could tell the line picked up with a recording and max took to yelling “operator, operator, operator” at least a dozen times. similar to a. bonnet over there in arizona he was screaming loud enough for people to hear in the next town over.

“am i talking to india? my name is max monroe and i operate a truck stop here in segovia, texas. i got a philip j lauri ii here trying to fill up his rig with some diesel fuel and your people are telling me i need an authorization code.” his belly vibrated with every passing syllable.

“uhh, max. i can probably take care of this.”

“oh you just sit tight, i’ll get this squared away with india.”

then right as i thought someone picked up the phone max put his headset down and started an entirely different conversation with me about where i was headed. i told him i was going to austin, texas and we exchanged comments about our favorite bars on sixth street—the popular stop amongst locals and tourists for live music, food and plenty of booze. midway through talking to me max picks up the phone to what is now presumably a frustrated attendant in india who just heard our conversation about drinking beer and looking at women.

“yes, is this india? can you understand me? my name is max monroe and i own a truck stop in segovia, texas. i have a customer here named philip j lauri ii who is tryi-----“

he was presumably cut off and he started yelling again. not at me, not at india but this time it appeared as though he was just yelling at the wall. jesus. finally, max handed the phone to me and after some trials and tribulations with what was now a manager on the other line, i managed to get the approval code and my diesel paid for,

“crazy times we live in, phil.” it looked like max was recovering from a near heart attack. sweat was pouring down his forehead and collecting on his furrow brow. “and that girl didn’t understand what was going on. good thing you got a manager on the phone.” i nodded back at max as if to assure him that everything he just shouted in to the receiver was gospel.

mildly dumbfounded with my diesel paid for, i gave max a tip of the cap and headed back to the rig. as i passed through the glass door he shot off a “keep your eyes wide open on the road” and i pulled off in to the darkness. he had it right though—it is all about keeping your eyes wide open on the journey. there is plenty to take in, absorb and bounce around in your head. scenes dart in and out of your periphery, people pass you by, thoughts linger, dreams remain and images permanently embed themselves in your memory block. it all marinates somewhere in my right brain and propels me forward.

so i pressed on like i always do. the lone star horizon was long gone and the calm of the engine rumble and a cracked open window had me basking in the glory of max’s parting words.

miniature victories

2008-01-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

well, thank christ i finally found a power outlet.

you would have thought that there was an energy crisis in the smith terminal at detroit metro airport because it was damn near impossible to plug my laptop in. and this was something of a serious crisis because i had intricate plans of charging my laptop while waiting to board my plane, and then doing some writing once boarded to kill some time.

nine terminals down i finally found a power outlet that didn’t already have someone hovering over the thing as if to suggest that my intrusion on his fucking power outlet would result in total carnage.

i plugged in and sat on the floor because every seat was taken. a woman stared at me awkwardly as if i was going to eat her baby or something. this felt really, really uncomfortable for the 23 minutes or so that she decided this action was necessary.

aside from creepy staring woman with enormous eyebrows that wanted to breath dragon fire on my chest, i was pretty relieved that things were going to plan. that is, i was really fucking happy my laptop was getting charged. sweat was pouring down the back of my neck because i think i had 14 shirts on. i mean what the hell else are you supposed to do in the miserable cold that is the midwest? i took off my scarf and threw it on the ground. i opened up my book and began to read while electric currents entered my laptop preparing me for the journey.

eventually my flight boarded. united flight 485, direct to denver. fair enough.

just 5 months ago i was alerted that i am now a united airlines premier member because i traveled over 25,000 miles in the air last year. such an accreditation yields me about 14 more metric tons of paper mail per year from the airline, but also gets me boarded on the plane earlier and sitting in “priority” seats. i mean “priority seating” these days is kind of bullshit. as it is, i am sitting in what seems like a perfectly normal seat that apparently has 5 extra inches of legroom. interesting.

so with this heightened “status”, i get to board the flight early. and see, i was so fucking excited to be finally using my premier membership so this was kind of a big deal. as it was, the day that i was granted my status was actually the last time i flew on a united airlines jumbo jet. so for the past 5 months i have been pining to get a taste of the surreal life like snoop dogg or something.

so i walked through the line with the high rollers and handed my ticket to the attendant.

“uhhhhh sir, this would be the boarding call for premier 1k and first class.”

“well, maybe you didn’t see my ticket. i was recently inducted to premier status.”

“of course, sir. but premier is different from premier 1k. your boarding call is next.”

oh jesus christ. forgive me your majesty. i was completely unaware of the semantics related to the difference in my status title. i wanted to take the pen that was tucked behind my ear and write a big giant “1k” next to where it said “premier.” i was now bitter and the man could tell.

“please just go ahead, sir.”

awesome.

i gallivanted past that awkward situation.

i wiped my forehead that was now drenched in sweat and slammed my ass down in to seat 4c. i did so much as breathe for one second while seated and was greeted by an outstretched palm extending from the passenger to my immediate left. the guy had an enormous beard and kind of looked like that dude that did those painting shows on pbs— he was always talking about “happy fences,” remember? well, within that outstretched palm of the painter look-alike was a purple oval-shaped piece of what looked like an arsenic tablet.

seriously? what the fuck was going on? it became obvious that the world was against me at this particular juncture. the airline attendant made me feel like an idiot and now the guy sitting next to me wanted to kill me.

awesome.

i examined the palm in front of my nose for about 1.2 seconds and immediately accepted the offering when i realized that it was not arsenic but was in fact my fourth favorite piece of candy: a grape flavored mentos tablet.

awesome.

a random hero.

as i sat recovering from the trauma and enjoying my mento, i looked out the window across from me and actually saw my bag being loaded in to the jumbo jet. this was a first for me as i can’t even remember the last time i checked a bag on to a plane. it appeared as though the position of the bag on the gurney may be seriously crushing my costco-sized box of clif bars that i had packed in my suitcase.

note: it is relatively impossible for me to take any step forward without costco involvement in my life in some capacity. as it is, that bag that was being loaded on to the jet and was holding my entire life for the next six months, was purchased at costco.

yep.

i just chugged my eighteenth water of the trip. it’s remarkable that i haven’t pissed myself yet. the guy next to me across the aisle has those noise-canceling headphones on and is completely unaware of the fact that he is tapping his foot to the beat of whatever song he is listening to. the woman in front of him looked back at him with the eyes that suggest she could be lucifer in disguise.

such is the life of a united airlines premier member.

not 1k.

saying goodbye to home life today was mildly nerving. i got really, really used to eating cooked meals that mom so expertly crafted, waking up at 12 noon everyday and spending time with some great friends. i mean who would complain with these things?

as it is, i am leaving to move on to something i do in fact love. so i cant complain with that. i will be moving coast to coast in a box truck talking to people and telling them about crocs. sounds reasonable enough. my geographic time schedule is plotted out in the link below via the good people at google:

google maps link

oh god, toe-tappin’ tommy is at it again next to me. lucifer is lighting her firetorch.

home life— so yeah, there’s more to be said in that department. it’s always tough leaving that kind of comfort. but jesus, its not like this isn’t about the 50th time i have made some sort of transition in the past 3 years. some call it itchy feet, some call it being lost, some call it discovery, some call it brilliant and i just call it being smart. hah, awfully narcissistic of me, eh?

transition.

movement.

decisions.

exploration.

how can you get to your destination without exploring the route that will get you there?

i was up until the wee hours of the morning last night because lets be honest-- i have been sleeping in until noon every day. i read over the commencement speech i did for my graduating class at one point. it was kind of reassuring as i read it. i feel like the thoughts i laid out on that day— december 10, 2005-- i am still clinging to and wearing on my sleeve. i have made changes, i have made moves, i have bounced around and probably will continue to in some capacity—but all in the pursuit of simple pleasure. how important are the riches and the premier 1k membership when you don’t have the key happiness component?

seems simple enough to me.

and the band played on

2008-01-12T13:51:00.000-08:00

2008, a new direction.

2008, the tortoise and the heir.

2008, uhhh traveling... again.

2008, keeping things interesting.

2008, fuck yeah!

sorry, just trying to figure out a good opening line.

to commemorate the interesting tail-end of 2007 on the road i put together a little video montage of the trip. well, to call it a montage is partially inaccurate, so i will just say that i composed a video and posted it on youtube that attempts to encompass the events that unfolded in the past couple of months..

click here to view it

moving forward.

one of the highlights being home in michigan for the past few weeks was spending the new years holiday up north on lake charlevoix. ahhh, it was a good dose of good old american fun: shooting ranges, board games, drinking and adventure sports.

awesome.

i have been to a shooting range once before in my life. it was a nice summer day and i was tagging along with my friend ryan. we went skeet shooting. i think we chucked out about 3,000 of those orange discs in the air—half to me and half to ryan. i am reasonably sure that ryan has a future as a marksman because he was hitting those fucking orange flying saucers with the kind of accuracy that suggested perhaps he had a career as a sniper. contrary to ryan, i didn’t hit a goddamn single one of those stupid clay things. my shoulder felt like it would fall off at any moment and no audible sound could be sensed by either of my ear drums. this had to have been one of the worst days.

fast forward about 5 years to my latest shooting extravaganza—this time with two of my uncles, a cousin and my father and brother. i woke up and was advised that we would be doing some “gunplay” later in the afternoon and i was instructed to dress in my neon orange bibs and jacket.

awesome.

i was perfectly pleased not going to another shooting range, but it was either go shooting with the men, shopping with the women in nearby petoskey or stay at home with the dogs. i hate shopping and dogs both, so it would have to gunplay—the lesser of the three evils.

we showed up and it became instantly apparent to me that i would be frozen solid and unable to shoot anything within 32 minutes. the shooting range was outside. everyone was wearing thick boots and clothing that made them look as if they weighed 30 pounds more than they actually did.

i stepped out of the car with my vans on, a pair of tight wrangler jeans and a jacket that wouldn’t keep me warm for more than 10 minutes in this frigid cold. i stepped inside to the “lodge” where a woman barked orders at us regarding which shooting stations we would be manning for the afternoon. she was no more than 5’4’’ and had enough makeup on her face to cover her entire body. she wore what appeared to be a bright blue sharpie marker line across her eyelids and i was questioning whether her eyebrows were tattooed on her. i understood maybe 20% of the phrases that came out of her mouth because i wasn’t so much as familiar with even where i was.

we stepped outside to our designated spot at the range.

it was fucking freezing. the bottoms of my feet felt like steel in an ice pond. rock solid.

the guns were pulled out and i started to get skirmish. i couldn’t even give you any idea of the caliber of these weapons—they were just shotguns that were very large and one appeared to have a sawed off barrel.

awesome.

skeet shooting ensued. my dad was knocking down an occasional orange clay disc and i am reasonably sure he wasn’t even sure where the trigger was on any of these assault weapons. my 14 year old brother knocked down plenty of the fucking discs. my other cousin, 10 years to my junior, was also nailing fuckers left and right. the uncles were kicking ass and giving me plenty of instruction—much needed instruction.

i didn’t hit a single fucking disc. not one. at one point in the skeet shooting competition i was standing roughly 15 feet from the stupid orange disc and still couldn’t hit it. awful. i was getting awkward instructions at every turn like “stop sticking your ass out” or “hold the gun on your shoulder.” jesus, little did they know my shoulder felt like raw meat being pounded by a kitchen hammer every time the goddamn gun would fire off. not to mention my fucking feet. i couldn’t feel anything on my body below my dick.

awesome.

clearly my skills as a marksman are just non-existent. some things never change.

board games are another story. i consider myself to be a very successful board game player. i usually always win in monopoly (this happens to be my favorite) and can out-act anyone in a game of charades. my success rate tends to be fairly consistent, however, it gets somewhat difficult to maintain undefeated records in a day and age where there are at least 12,000 board games available to you when you shop for them at the toy store. what ever happened to hungry hippos? checkers? card games like war? things get infinitely more complex with games that encompass every sort of odd category you can imagine.

taboo was the name of the game we played over the holiday break. this game was not my idea of perfection in a game—after all there was no board—but could certainly keep my attention occupied.

board games get intense with my dad. he typically yells at 3 times the volume that everyone else is talking whilst playing. he remains very intense throughout. jokes run rampant but all with the intention of pissing the opponent off and causing a competitive advantage. dad was on my team. my brother rounded out our team of three. he is calm and collected with board games. i tend to be somewhere between the two—occasionally screaming and scaring the shit out of opponents but also trying my damndest to remain intensely focused on winning. i hate losing in board games.

the three hours of taboo that ensued were victorious for my team. we won 2 out of 3 in the series. the rubber match came right down to the hair—we took the cake when we got the 35th point.

success.

watching the ball drop with my family was really nice. i mean i haven’t been home for this type of celebration in a long time. as it is this year, i was supposed to be in chicago having a rip-roaring dance party with my friends but plans change and those unfortunately did.

that being said, i was intent on drinking heavily to bring in 2008 despite the participants in the party being all contained within my blood line. my thought is that this fact should never matter. as such, i demanded talking to my uncle about mostly things related to naked women or some mild variation of that topic. a particular talking piece that kept coming up was why it’s socially irresponsible for hannah montana to be dancing on stage in times square at the age of 14 looking as though she is 21. i mean christ, that spells prison for any warm-blooded male with a dick.

later as we flipped through the channels it became apparent to me that there was a hawaiian tropic bikini contest that was showing on one of the sports networks. i demanded we watch this for "wholesome entertainment" and the rest of the family filtered out to the other room. i eventually caught on to this and uncle and i succumbed to listening to anderson cooper and kathy griffin on one of the major networks in times square. that griffin is a character though. i think she would be an interesting woman to have a beer with.

despite the women flashing on the screen and the amount of bass ale i was consuming, i couldn’t help but think about the past year that was 2007 and what would be in store for 2008.

so far the year has me beginning with a job. i suppose thats about the best possible way to start the year at this juncture. i am going on a nationwide tour to marathons, festivals and events doing "experiential marketing" for the client i am working for-- crocs. yeah, those goofy looking.... ehhhh.... sneakers?

i am excited.

i mean, how the hell could i not be? i am travelling coast to coast in a box truck for the next 6 months in warm climates with 3 other people. we are encouraged to travel at our leisure in between the events. meanwhile, everything is paid for and i am earning some nice coin to boot.

i won't complain.

i will keep the blog updated with my whereabouts in the coming months. hopefully this time i wont be talking so much about ramen noodles and canned green beans. i will be sleeping in hotels all the time, too. a pleasant upgrade from my recent digs in the back of my ford ranger. things are looking good.

i'll keep you posted.

the road becomes your chalkboard

2007-12-12T21:22:00.000-08:00

it was 1:13 pm in portland.

i sat in a crowded and cramped corner with a neon light shining down on my face.

some guy with long hair came over and asked me if i wanted a beer.

i said absolutely not.

i turned on my ipod-- wilco was playing.

"sunken treasure" to be exact.

i was thinking about the rainbow of colors that was contained within a particular woman's head of hair nearby.

my thoughts then drifted to food. an enormous hamburger to be exact.

my face darted up as red meat littered my thoughts. i stared over at the nearby price board.

"cut - $19
wash - $3"

oh god.

i panicked. here i was, about to have my fucking hair cut for $22 and all i could think about was how awesome it would be to have cooked cow flesh pressed against my taste buds. for about the past 6 days i had eaten two enormous peanut butter and jelly sandwiches daily-- and throw in a few cups of coffee. for these 6 days i had refused to buy a hot meal that i could have likely procured for under $10.

and so it all hit me like a ton of bricks.

spending $22 (plus more for a tip likely-- this assuming the girl that cut my hair was beautiful, conducted impeccable conversation and finished the whole hair cut up with a shoulder massage) for a hair cuit seemed absurd when i could spend $10 to have a heavenly piece of meat slapped between two sesame seed buns.

hell, maybe throw a beer in there for good measure.

i ran up to counter immediately. i wanted to make sure they didnt call my name off before i was able to ax my existence on their waiting list. i approached the attendant sweating a little bit from having really thought this one over.

"ummm, i would like to take my name off of tht list. i wont be getting a hair cut today."

"ok? can we perhaps make you an appointment for some other day?"

"no, that wont be necessary."

i ran out. really fast. i opened up my laptop once i got the car.

portland has city-wide free wireless internet which i find to be extremely convenient. i tend to screw up driving directions from time to time. now if this happens in portland i just open up my laptop and pull up the google map. and i realize there are phones that take care of this sort of thing these days, but i am still rocking a late 90's nokia 3120 cell phone-- its like one phone above the gray and green screen phones.

awesome.

i pulled up google.com and ran a search for "best hamburger in portland." i got all kinds of dog shit responses that did me no good, but one particular search result proved useful and pointed me in the direction of a place called sandich's in northeast portland. it was a bit of a drive so i was hesitant, but then i remembered that i really dont have anything to do once it gets dark.

off i went.

i spotted the place. the sign was HUGE. thank god. if not, i typically risk steering the car in to the opposite lane of traffic looking for it. dont forget that it rains ALL THE TIME in portland which adds another layer of difficulty. i dont think i have talked about the rain in portland enough yet.

i parked the car nearly crushing my bike in to the front wall of the bar. as it turns out, i am still getting used to having the thing strapped to the front of the car.

the interior of the bar was covered in wood paneling and sports teams pennants. behind the bar was a giant framed picture of this mr. sandich character. he looked like he would be the kind of guy to tell racist jokes to random people and in the process offend many.

i sat at the bar where a friendly voice greeted me. i asked the bartender that i heard this place had good hamburgers. she handed me the menu and in big bold letters at the top read "THE BEST HAMBURGER IN THE WORLD."

this was working out alright. red meat paradise awaited me.

the thing came out and it was roughly the size of a soccer ball.

one meat patty, lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, relish, a fried egg, ham and bacon all combined to make this thing one of the better meals i have had in the last 60 days. i think i ate the thing in about 6 minutes which really, really surprised the bartender-- but this was to be expected. i washed it all down with a cold PBR to follow. now THIS was a proper end to my time in portland.

i picked blake up the next day at the airport and we bee-lined it down the coast fairly quickly. i stopped at the corner to pick up my friend from the laundromat but here was nowhere to be found.

in our 5 days or so together, it has become obvious blake has two very precise skills that seriously add to the overall experience of the trip.

1) the kid can create the most delectable trail mix out of nearly anything. we will be at a gas station and he comes out donning a mit full of the most odd ball collection of foodstuffs. he then produces a mixing bag from god knows where and within 5 minutes has produced an incredible food selection. i inquired further about his skill and he made vague mention this has been a hobby for something like 12 years.

2) he reads weather maps (or any map for that matter) with the kind of voracity that would be expected from flies on a pile of shit. as we round the bend formulating our approach back to michigan, this becomes particularly handy. all these "storms" in oklahoma-- no problem. blake has an alternate route carved out with approximate mileage calculations-- all done within roughly 42 seconds.

driving down the coast together has been fun. its nice to have a compadre along for the trip to share the time with.

the drive down highway 1 re-defined the term winding road. travelling southbound towards northern california is a vicious stretch of deviating road that leaves you with sore elbows at the end of the day. we clambered down the coast form oregon with our specs on san francisco. this journey ended up taking 3 days.

midway through the trip somewhere in northern california we took a urination break which involved pissing off a rock cliff. absolutely immature but fun its own right. well, this little jaunt of child-like antics would bite me right in the ass.

as we drove off, i had remembered setting my camera on top of car... and.... well.... my camera.... wasnt sitting in my lap.

AWESOME.

recall my history with electronics. we discussed this.

camera number four had been destroyed. well, partially destroyed.

we turned the car around immediately and found my nikon on the side of the road about 300 yards back. i had left it on top of the truck bed and as we drove off it catapulted in to the shoulder of the road. i ran over to see if it was ok and it looked alright. the body had a couple of hair-line fractures in it, the flash was not firing and something was loose inside the lens. i tried to take a photo and remarkably it still worked. the thing looked pretty bad though, it had some obvious burns from skidding along the pavement.

i began sweating. these are considered crisis situations in my book. i go through situations like this annually. i was clutching the denim on my jeans in a fit of panic as i sat passenger side. another one bites the dust... or so i thought.

i recalled a conversation i had had with the clerk at best buy nearly one year ago when i had purchased the camera.

"so you are telling me that if i drop this thing in a bathtub filled with water and the camera no longer works, you will replace it?"

i was in the middle of the ever-present "would you like to purchase our protection plan" discussion with the best buy clerk.

she replied "thats correct, sir."

accidental coverage. hmmmm, to be or not to be? at a price tag of $103.99, this wasnt exactly a small addition to my purchase.

about 7 years ago i had extremely good luck with the best buy coverage program when a laptop went out and was replaced with a (much nicer) brand new one. ever since this day, i have always thought twice about buying the insurance protection when i buy a piece of electronics equipment.

i stood there and looked at the attendant straight in the eyes....

"I'LL TAKE IT."

this little 5 minutes of genius saved me with my now damaged nikon camera. i double checked at the best buy in san francisco on the validity of my coverage. after about 6 minutes of seriously sweating waiting for a reply, the clerk told me i would be covered if i took it in for a claim.

phew.

in the meantime, i can take pictures.... barely.

the coastal views are stunning amidst the level of skill required to circumnavigate which makes the drive worthwhile. it was reminiscient of australian coastal driving and even the stuff in south africa along the wild coast. being a sucker for anything overseas, this trip has made a strong case for the beauty contained within our borders here in old america.

san francisco really took me by surprise. i didnt expect to enjoy that city as much as i did. to me, its a nearly perfect combination of sophistication with an off-center mentality. alternative lifestyles run rampant, but so does the business professional crowd as well. architecture is something to be noted as well with a skyline that wreaks of cool. there is a sense of history, too. the beatniks and the hippie's that once littered the streets left their mark and the city does a great job of preserving their presence. its like san francisco is the sophisticated, slightly more mature and european brother of another town i just whipped across-- portland.

we made it to santa barbara last night.

currently, i am sitting in a place called java jones on state street. its a college town, so state street is the epicenter of all the activity.

i just ordered a medium sized black coffee and it is delightful. i am typing here while this couple-- i am guessing they are a pair of juniors-- are waiting for their mocha's and the intensity of their lip smacking makes me want to vomit. the girl practically has her right leg raised to straddle this guy at the waiting counter. everyone is sort of awkwardly trying to concentrate on whatever they are doing while these two eat each other. this girl has been licking this guy for about 5 minutes straight. it sounds like cows eating grass or something. for some reason, producing the mocha that they are waiting for is taking about 4 months and sitting here listening to them swallow each other is mildly nauseating.

maybe its time to go home.

its weird thinking about returning home again. it feels good though. traveling the open road gives you the answers to everyday life's questions. returning home is when you put this new knowledge to work. you cant change anything on the road-- the magic happens when you come home.

looking holistically at the trip i have to say i made a lot of mental headway once again from the time on the road. it gave me some time to decompress from the uncomfortable pressures that i was feeling with my chicago stint. i was able to distance myself (uncomfortably at times) from that security blanket and tune in to what is really important going forward. it was certainly worthwhile for me to leap without the comfort of knowing a net would catch me. but you always get caught. as such, i have made some decisions.

there's a world of options out there, thats for sure. this isnt exactly new news, but at times when you are living life in the confines of whatever "situation" you are in, its easy to ignore the things around you that are nipping at your heels. sometimes a vision for forward progress can cloud your ability to sense the things right in front of you. its very easy to get accustomed to the situation you are in (whether you are working a 9 to 5 or travelling the globe)-- or its easy to FORCE your comfort-- and then miss a lot of the opportunities passing you by. you have to have a forward vision, so therein lies the challenge.

the balance.

in some weird way, the comfort of the open road gives me some time to mull these things over in my head. i think the process is actually fairly intuitive-- the prevalance of the unknown makes you think about everything in a different way. you challenge the conventional with the ideals of the unfamiliar. i guess it just comes down to your personal tolerance of that unknown. for me, the unfamiliarity makes me maintain mental fitness. it puts me in a setting to challenge my thoughts with the unconventional. this, in my opinion, gives me the ability to process all the opportunities. i can formulate appropriate visions for a way forward that meets my goals of being progressive and forward thinking but more importantly maintaining a sense of happiness in my stride.

it gets me breathing again. big, deep breaths.

so its a delicate balance i think-- a dual act of keeping your eyes open WITH one foot forward. be the ball. maintain the tipping of the scale between progression and a smile on your face. i think this is a similar conclusion to my last extended trip, just with different hints on the best way to actually move forward.

i took notes.

onwards and upwards. another lesson to keep in the back pocket. it's the traveler's education, if you will. and in this case its worth every trying moment at costco, craving for hot food, moment of embarrassement, sweating fit, cold night in the truck, wet day or broken camera.

fotoz

2007-12-06T15:20:00.000-08:00

another round of photos courtesy of inordinate amounts of cafe time in portland. i am reasonably sure that a new lake will form in the portland area within the next few years. with this kind of rainfall, it sure would make sense.

portland, oregon: i was asked to provide a more accurate portrayal of my living quarters and thus i have opted for the above photos to do the storytelling. in the top photo you can see the truck with bike strapped to front. in the lower selection you get an intimate look at my crib. yo MTV, get a load of this shit. not much to explain there. these photos were taken on the one day that has presented no rain here in portland.

port angeles, washington: a corson thanksgiving is portrayed herein. ladies and gentleman i am pleased to announce that over the thanksgiving holiday i was not just fed the essentials that the day may suggest-- turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. i was provided all of the aforementioned items, plus approximately 18 other categories of food-- of which the pictures above attempt to depict. the top photo shows the preparation of 1 of the 3 turkeys. yep. 3 turkeys people. this one happened to be deep fried. as the photo suggests, events such as deep frying demand solemn oversight and precise control of the cooking method. chef for the day, doctor corson and his grandpa look on at this turkey with the sort of facial features that suggest the proper effort is being put in to preparation. the photo below shows one of the oddball contenders for the "side vegetable of the day" award-- fried green tomatoes. i was made aware of the fact that such a vegetable does in fact exist other than in a hollywood motion picture.

olympic national park, washington: it should be crystal clear at this point that i get a bit excited with the whole sunset/evening motif and every combination of such a spectacle.

rainshine

2007-12-02T15:36:00.001-08:00

portland oregon is the place and raining would be the best word to describe it.

i have been here for exactly 42 hours and 38 minutes and it has been raining for every single solitary second. i cant say this is exactly heart-warming given the whole living-in-a-van-down-by-the-river thing, but i am happy to announce i am pulling it off.

barely.

i am guessing that approximately 1 foot of rain has fallen during my time here. this causes problems all around the table really. my shoes have been wet for three straight days, the truck topper is starting to leak, one jacket is soaked through and will not dry, etc etc. once things are wet they do not dry in the truck because portland happens to be the moisture capital of the universe.

awesome.

precipitation.

awesome.

my first night in portland i had the enormous pleasure of attending the boots 'n all annual holiday party. oh boy was it delightful.

boots 'n all is an online organization that feels more like a community. its basically a giant family of like-minded travelers that help each other out with planning trips, reporting on conditions in countries, rants and warnings about certain locales-- you get the point. they are based here in portland and have been having holiday parties every year for the past five years.

well, it just so happened that this year's party corresponded with my arrival time in portland.

go figure.

i walked in to a mixed bag of jolly people aged anywhere from their 20's to their 70's. there were plenty of portlanders but also a good chunk of foreigners and road trippers like myself. it was pretty amusing and encouraging talking with about a dozen different people that were supportive of anything that involved an expensive plane ticket and some light packing.

questions/comments you do not hear at a boots 'n all holiday party:

1) how are you paying for all that travel?
2) what about your career?
3) ellllll, maybe not a great idea to travel there-- i hear that place is dangerous.
4) how do you pack for a trip that long?
5) WHAT?!?! you are sleeping in your TRUCK?

talk about some encouragement. jesus! i was in heaven.

i had the pleasure of talking with a couple that plans to hit the road in june when their daughter graduates from high school. they have been saving for a few years to head over to europe, buy a VW westfalia campervan and hit the road...

TO ASIA.

crikey! i got pretty excited.

we chatted for about the last half of the night about all their thoughts and ambitions for the trip.

the bar was open for the whole night. and FREE. we are not talking about some little harry half-ass occasion. there would be no dixie cups filled with some old stale PBR-- oh no! they were serving pints (in nice glasses, mind you) of lucky labrador's (this being the brewpub where the event was held) finest ales.

delicious, i tell you. delicious. a splendid evening.

given the rain and inability to do much outside here in portlandia i am trying to get creative with my time here in the city-- or perhaps out of it.

my buddy blake from back in michigan is flying out to portland arriving sunday, 9 december and he is traveling with me down the pacific coast and back home to michigan for christmas. it will be nice having company again and a cohort to do the long road stretches.

so 9 december presents something of a dilemma. do i suck it up and try to get through the rain, or do i proceed forward to another locale and a life of dryness? the issue is that if i leave i would need to come back to portland and pick up blake at the airport.

time to brainstorm.

conversing with mark this morning via instant messanger, he gave me some interesting ideas on how to take care of the situation:

mark: go to eugene and check out the oregon university campus.
me: not a bad idea....
mark: take out a duck caller, sit in the middle of the quad blowing it and screaming "come here oregon hotties!"
me: HHAHAHAHA
mark: "quack quack quack"
mark: girl will ask "ummm what are you doing?"
me: priceless mark
mark: "trying to get you to talk to me...waaasup girl"
mark: honestly not a bad idea
me: hahaha

so looks like heading to eugene could be an option. may need to look in to purchasing a duck caller.

or not. haha.

weather.com shows no mercy in mother nature until thursday when it will be partly cloudy. but honestly, i am wondering if partly cloudy just means occasional sun with rain all day. maybe it is just given that it always rains here. other than that little spurt of sunshine, it is all showers until sunday.

awesome.

for a good laugh, pull up the precipitation map for portland and the surrounding areas. there is rain EVERYWHERE. from here all the way down to northern california and even as far west as bend.

people warn you about the northwest winters, i guess i am now getting ridiculously rich, first-hand experience.

given the rain, i have spent at least 80% of my time in a cafe. to be more precise, thus far this time has been spent in either tully's coffee, the fresh cup or starbucks. each one has a very unique feature that serves me well at different times during the day.

the fresh cup has a horse's share of power outlets which makes using my laptop for hours and hours very easy because i can plug it in anywhere. plus, the coffee happens to be quite tasty as well. i actually discovered while ordering one morning that there is such a thing as flavored san pellegrino sparkling water. sounds delightful.

(uhhh mom, christmas time? mmmm flavored san pellegrino water. mmmmm tasty)

tully's coffee is soulless, but they have really good (CHEAP) peppermint tea which is nice after i have eaten anything. fact: peppermint tea calmes the stomach after eating. see, i even attempt to remain healthy on the road although as mark pointed out that is complete bullshit given my through-the-roof sodium intake.

my diet consists of PB&J (middle of the line sodium), ramen (through the roof sodium), canned chicken (through the roof sodium) and canned green beans (middle of the line sodium).

balanced diet no more.

starbucks is option three because it has those enormous multi-colored couches strewn all over the place and they are open really late. so i can sit in comfort for the last hours of the evening before heading to the truck for some sleep. and its always good to be there around 8pm when they empty the pastry case because they give out whatever is left to customers sitting inside. so i get some free food.

pastries. mmmm.

i hit the laundromat recently. it was undoubtedly the most rewarding a trip to the laundromat could ever be.

i was in there washing things up, writing in my journal. not a big deal. i must have been near a homeless shelter because there were probably about a half dozen homeless guys around the place washing their clothes. i took quite a bit of time talking with all of them, all of which were really nice fellows. i chatted for a while with one in particuar, he was originally from flint, michigan.

we chatted about the rain (of course), and this guys desire to get down to california (because of the "soul draining rain, man"). i am headed down for san francisco soon with blake, so i thought the idea of having some more company would be nice. i asked him if he would want a ride down south and a big smile shot across his face.

"yeah man! michigan brothers! we help each other out."

we arranged for a meeting spot on sunday.

so i am sitting there after talking with this guy for about an hour and still writing. my laundry was drying nearby. another guy approached me with a black sweatshirt in his hand.

"here you go man, i know how it is out there. been sleeping out in this shit for a while now. this thing will keep you warm and i got about a dozen of 'em. cant keep 'em all with me! take it."

i was kind of stunned. here was this guy-- clearly homeless-- reaching out to me assuming that i too was in a bit of a pinch to stay warm at night. i mean, in some sense i am, but certainly not to the degree that he is.

his outstretched arm was a jumbotron of kindness.

i kind of shuffled for the words to say back. i wanted to tell him i wasnt homeless and that i appreciated his gesture, but at the same time i really wanted to show this guy my appreciation for what appeared to be extreme altruism. i debated in my mind for about 3 seconds.

i would take the middle road.

"oh man, its ok. i think i have enough stuff. i appreciate so much your kindness."

he shot right back at me, "no seriously brother. i know how it is. take it."

"ok, ok. this is a nice sweatshirt. thanks so much."

i threw the sweatshirt on immediately. it was black. fit like a glove. the zipper was broken.

amazing really.

here was this guy-- in a pretty tough spot himself, reaching out to me. it all kind of hit me hard. it was one of those moments where you sit back and dont really know what to say so you just sort of marvel at the moment inside.

"christmas time is here" off the charlie brown soundtrack was playing over the crackly speakers in the laundromat. that is actually one christmas song that i am absolutely in love with.

i sat there and played with the broken zipper. it had clearly gotten some good use over the years but would certainly be fit for use on the road. i put my hands in the pockets to get comfortable and they were still damp from the washing that it had just gotten.

if thoughts could be measured in fluid ounces, i had about three gallons in my head.

the man, who's name i never got, left the laundromat with his big backpack on his back and an umbrella over his head.

"i'll see you around, man. stay warm."

he casually shouted that out as he exited the door. and that was it. all this took place in about 15 minutes.

later i figured i should maybe try and make an attempt at cleaning up because it was very obvious that i appeared homeless to other people. interesting how that works. with no couch in sight, hair that has a nice grease layer and horribly consistent rain-- i think i will just stick with the homeless look for now. there are unexpectedly positive things to be had in this state.

i exited the laundromat with a bit of pep in my step.

kindness fuels the soul, and i just got a whole years worth of inspiration.

customer service

2007-11-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

today was one of those ninja guidant, nothing-is-getting-in-my-way sort of days.

i am a mac user now apparently. i honestly am not proud of this and do not think i am cool. i hate those stupid commercials about mac vs. PC, i want to vomit every time i enter the apple store and honestly the whole "customer service" thing that apple claims to do infinitely better than its PC brethren is just complete bullshit.

so anyway, i use a macbook these days.

as part of the augmented product offering-- and by this i mean the slate of applications that comes with a newly purchased mac-- apple offers a program called "stickies." basically, its a electronic version of the fabled sticky note.

i love sticky notes.

it is not out of the ordinary for me to forget things from time to time-- rather, more frequently from minute to minute-- and so sticky notes tend to be a damn good friend to me. its no joke when i say that i typically carry one stuck to my wallet every day. otherwise, i usually get too caught up in one task and then totally forget about the other. or i rack my brain trying to think of the one thing that i was supposed to do that day. that being said, it makes complete sense for me to believe in stick notes so much.

and i mean, how can you not? talk about a versatile product. no need to limit yourself with using sticky notes only as a way to write out your 'to-do' list. theres so many more things that they are good for: napkins, tape in a pinch (using only the sticky part), toilet paper, creation of a simple funnel (that can actually filter motor oil in to your engine if need be), bookmark, paper planes... i could go on and on.

anyway, mac's have this utility called stickies where you can treat your eSticky as if it is a 'to-do' list on your computer. and today happened to be one of those ninja-guidant, nothing-is-getting-in-my-way sort of days because i managed to rumble through everything on my sticky.

awesome.

10:22 am - arrive at camera store.

issue: my camera is having symptoms that point to the fact that a particle of some sort is resting on the image sensor. every time i take a picture i get a black spec that shows up in the upper left hand corner of the image.

(this caused me to nearly punch a hole in the dashboard of dear friend steve's mothers beautiful audi sedan the other day. here we were at a monumental viewpoint roughly 10,000 feet up looking out in to olympic national park at the mountains. the sun was setting. this is when i start to take pictures feverishly and i certainly get overly excited. well, this moment was ruined because every photo i took had a black dot in the upper left hand corner. i diagnosed the problem as a piece of dust that was sitting on the image sensor. i would need to visit a camera store. i remained very frustrated as i tried to fix the problem so that i could take some good photos of the mountains)

so today i walked in the camera store. a champion greeted me at the door-- his name was brian and he was dressed in an overly official set of trousers and dress shirt. that was completely irrelevant but oh well. he was asian-- i am guessing from somewhere like indonesia, but this is also completely irrelevant.

i have a horrible attitude when it comes to customer service. i go in to it typically bearing fisticuffs and ready for a 5 round fight with whoever it is that is taking care of me. i have had every piece of electronics that i own break in some way, shape or form (whether my fault of otherwise) and i would say my success rate with having the company stand behind the problem is somewhere in the neighborhood of about .00002%.

yep.

now, this success rate (well, that lack thereoff really) suggests my carelessness.

HOWEVER, i beg to differ. from 2003 onwards, i have chosen to take every precaution with anything expensive-- this involves an awkward carrying case most of the time and always a bit of extra effort because these stupid "cases" are inconvenient to lug around and what not.

just three months ago my previous apple laptop spontaneously combusted (ie the motherboard melted) but there was just no fucking way that apple would stand behind it. i complained up and down the ranks of their employees-- this included an email and phone call in to steve jobs' office. i was eventually talking with one of his executive assistants getting "help" with my problem but i actually got nothing out of the deal. apple would not fix or replace my laptop.

(if you see this steve jobs, i will forever say bad things about your company and customer service no matter how neato my new macbook is).

ANYWAY, events like these are contributing factors in to explaining my sullied opinion of 21st century customer service.

so i walk in to the camera store today not expecting a ton of help. but i would at least go in with a plan. for the 22 minute walk leading up to me entering the door to the camera store, i was conjouring up this plan and how i would approach the situation where i was to require some customer service.

instead of entering the store and bitching that i have a piece of dust lodged upon the image sensor of my nikon d40, i needed to have a plan. typically getting a cleaning of your camera costs about $30 to $40. i was hellbent on not paying this inordinate amount of money because thats about $20 north of my daily budget.

instead of going in and asking for cleaning, i would march in to the store asking to see nikon's latest lens release-- the beautiful new nikor 18-200 VR lens. this puppy has been something of a hot commodity in the USofA and was running a rather hefty price tag of $750.

i would go in and act as if i was going to be purchasing this lens in the next week or so and wanted to do a price comparison.

brian piped in after me standing in the store for roughly 92 seconds, "can i help you with something sir?"

"absolutely, i am going to be purchasing the nikor 18-200 lens this week and would like to do a price comparison."

"certainly. well, we are actually selling this lens for only $750."

"oh wow. bravo! this is the cheapest i have found it. i only have a few other places to check, but that is the cheapest i will likely see it for. please tell me your name so i can come back and talk with you?"

"it is brian. i would be happy to gift wrap it for you when the time is right."

"yes, i will need that. i will be back this week to purchase. thanks and have a good day."

"sure, and just so you know we price match on these lenses."

"oh wow. ok. well i will be seeing you later this week then brian. thanks very much."

i begin to walk out of the store. i open the door to exit the premises and suddenly hault.

"OH! brian! i almost forgot. i am sure you can help me with this. i believe i have a piece of dust lodged on the surface of my d40 image sensor."

"do you have your camera with you?"

the camera is in my backpack but i of course will not reveal this to brian as this would make it look like i actually have a plan.

"it is in my car, give me a few moments to fetch it."

i definitely walked to the camera store and had no car in the parking lot. i walked outdoors and around the corner. i paused to kill some time. i returned with the camera in-hand.

brian piped in, "well... i might be able to remedy the situation. let me have a look, this should be no problem."

brian shows me this trick so that you can open up the shutter all the way and have a full view of the image sensor. what a beautiful piece of image sensory it was-- just a lovely little pale blue'ish gray piece of silicon circuitry that kind of looked like a mirror. brian produced a roundish piece of equipment that most closely resembled the thing that pulls buggars out of infant's nostrils-- looks something like a much smaller turkey baster.

he gave that image sensor a few puffs of air and voila, i was taking particle free photos once again.

success. customer service received as a result of very manipulative behvior.

(it should be noted, however, that my customer service batting average in the state of washington is very promising-- just last week i also got my watch replaced free of charge, no questions asked. i didnt even have a receipt. needless to say, i am wearing a brand new version of my watch today.)

12:01 pm - peanut butter and jelly sandwich in hand.

this was actually on my sticky note. staying with steve has yielded me inordinate amounts of incredibly tasty food that i am reasonably sure i will never be able to re-create. that being said, today i needed to dip back in to roadie roots and have myself a PB&J.

delightful.

12:32 pm - coffee in hand.

while sitting and sipping, items 3 - 9 were just x'ed off of my 'to-do' list in swift fashion as i sequentially talked with the owner of seattle's green tortoise hostel, inquired about the status of a credit payment that is nearing the stages of being late (it wasnt... awesome), sent a few work-related emails and finished off a thank-you note.

thats the kind of ninja swiftness i am talking about. i was pretty pleased with myself.

4:21 pm - i made it just in time to get in line at the post office.

holy cow, there must be a dangerously low amount of post offices in seattle because this was the most crowded a post office i have ever seen. you know these little automatic kiosks that they provide as an alternative to waiting in line? well shit, even that thing had a 45 foot line trailing behind it. i waited. and waited.

i would text message and play road rally racer on my fossil of a cell phone to kill the time.

turns out i managed to get my all-time highest score on road rally racer. jesus, does someone want to inform me that i won the lottery?!

i walked out of the post office and it was pouring rain. in most situations, i would take the opportunity to curse to myself and worry about my laptop getting drenched in my backpack.

nope. not today. i packed my rain coat. i threw that puppy on OVER the backpack and kept chugging.

5:09 pm - turns out there was a felafel shop situated near the post and so i obviously stopped in for a bit of a treat. i havent even seen so much as a greek salad in some of the other towns traversed, so i didnt hesitate to pounce on this opportunity.

that little pita pocket of crushed garbanzo bean delights was just gorgeous. i think i consumed the whole thing in about 49 seconds.

awesome.

5:19 pm - i began walking home-- to steve's house that is.

as i cruised along, i most closely resembled marcus in the movie 'about a boy' when he is walking down the hallway at school with his headphones on mouthing the lyrics to mystikal's 'shake it fast.' he is shouting out "shake ya ass, watch yo'self, show me whatcha workin' with." marcus, of course, was 12 and about as white and british as he could possibly be so it made for something of a humorous scene.

so with some gangsta rap on my ipod to keep things hype it was clear there was only one song to keep things appropos:

ice cube - 'it was a good day'

fotographien

2007-11-20T13:04:00.000-08:00

grand tetons national park, wyoming: brad and i did a ride through the park because it was closed to motor vehicles this time of year. we were pumping pretty hard, cruising along at a steady pace when we spotted these punks (female elk) hanging out by a pleasant little mountain scene. i think i cleaned out my front set of brake pads trying to dangerously come to a stop to get a photo. as it turns out, it was kind of an overcast day which made getting a decent shot of the snowcaps rather difficult because of poor lighting. and as chance would have it, for the bit of time i had to pull my camera out of my pack and snap the shot, something happened with the sun-- it cleared a cloud or something. this was exactly the shot i wanted, and it just so happens that we got some beasts in there as well.

highway 41 between whitehall and dillon, montana: these four shots were taken in sequence at varying points between on this particular 55 mile stretch of country road. sunsets have proven so difficult to take pictures of when you are hellbent on capturing certain elements, but the possibilities are endless. i find myself shooting as many photos as i can and drastically changing the settings between each shot. this can describe the variations in colors that you see. that said, it was this evening that certainly secured montana as the most scenic state thus far.

idaho border: brad took this photo with my camera as i was gazing up at at the sign. i can assure you this is not a habit we have-- that is, stopping to take photos of the "welcome to...." signs, but there was something about getting in to idaho that got me going. it seemed like something of an american lost frontier. i talked about this in an earlier blog i think. if you look closely it appears as though somebody torpedoed the sign with a few eggs maybe a couple nights before. that was probably my favorite part-- dont know why.

highway 95 approaching lewiston, idaho: this was when i was rattling off winter driving instructions to brad as we rambled along at 22 miles per hour. we were en route to spokane on this highway. what normally should have been a 6.5 hour trip from ketchum ended up taking 9.5 hours. awesome.

my top 5 most popular road albums up to this point:

1) magnolia electric co - nashville moon
2) watson twins - southern manners
3) wilco - being there
4) kings of convenience - quiet is the new loud
5) daft punk - discovery (tie)
5) hilltop hoods - the calling (tie)

other notables:

LCD soundsystem - sound of silver, eddie vedder - into the wild soundtrack, herbert - scale, caribou - andorra, ben folds five - an old live show recording i have from clutch cargo's in pontiac (brings back some good memories).

fertile grounds

2007-11-17T18:23:00.000-08:00

you have good days and you have bad days. plain and simple.

driving along an idaho country road in the middle of a blizzard with a kid at the wheel who is used to driving in florida typically creates a bad one.

brad and i had just gotten off of spending three days in ketchum, idaho. ketchum, as some of you may know, is the city where ernest hemingway decided to call it quits and blew his head off with a shotgun. brad was keen to check out his old home (which is preserved by the ketchum historical society) and see his gravesite. i was game for checking this stuff out only because of the confusion that resulted after reading a miniscule amount of hemingway material in high school.

turns out there was more to ketchum than hemingway.

i took a liking to the "wake up and live" coffee house as the muffins were second to none. however, and a big however at that, amidst sitting there for four hours every morning i counted more face-lifts than i have ever seen in my entire life. i kid you not. maybe there was a two-for-one special last season. who knows? i eavesdropped on conversations those three days that involved nothing other than dinner parties, clothing brands, ugg boots and trips to the spa.

awesome?

hemingway blasting his face off and plastic barbie doll women-- this ketchum place was a dangerous locale.

we decided to stick around for one more night because it was the 30th anniversary party at the local bar and they were serving alcohol at the prices they did 30 years ago (translation - 1 beer = $1). the night was full of-- you guessed it-- the affluent and elite of ketchum's best getting wasted in the bar that gave them their kicks ages ago.

i was lucky enough to meet a woman who introduced herself as a "trust fund kid that traveled the world and ended up in ketchum." the only thing i heard in that introduction was "traveled the world" and hence inquired about the locales she traversed. what resulted was both peculiar and astonishing. when she was my age she actually went through australia and lived in coogee-- this was the place i lived whilst studying in australia.

very weird.

the evening came to a close and the bartenders made an attempt at drastically overcharging me on my bar tab. this yielded me tipping $2 and causing something of a mild uproar in the place. this was the sort of exit i expected from this town. we left the next morning and this was probably the worst decision given the snow conditions.

i was running through a virtual checklist for driving in the snow to brad as we plodded along idaho 95 at 22 miles per hour. we had been rocking it in 2nd gear for the past 2 hours. every 10 minutes or so brad would lose partial control of the vehicle and we would get caught in a snow track. there was an 18 wheeler semi behind us and a pontiac sunfire. i was absolutely baffled at how the sunfire was blistering through the roughly 5 inches of unplowed snow and ice combo that was being dumped on the country road.

"brad, this vehicle is equipped with ABS braking technology. this means that in the event we will need to slam on the brakes, you must apply steady pressure brad. DO NOT pump the brake, brad"

i was trying to sound as professional as possible so as to convey the fact that this was nothing to joke around with. we were on a two lane country road and the state of idaho had no intention of sending out the snow plows for this baby.

it became clear that i had inherited a trait from my father. it was his habit when speaking to someone professionally to repeat their name throughout the conversation at least 44 times.

for example:

"philly, when you rake the leaves i need you to bag them when you are done, philly. this is part of the job, philly. now please philly, if you could just do that philly it would be great."

as i spoke to brad rattling off the virtual checklist it was clear that i was handling this no differently than daddy dearest-- and i couldnt be happier about it. my dad happens to be one of the best people in the universe.

"should you find us skidding in a snow track brad, it is absolutely essential that you turn in to the direction of the skid. otherwise brad, we will find ourselves in the grill of the oncoming 18 wheeler or down a mountain face roughly 2200 feet below this country road."

again, very professional.

things loosened up a bit as the conditions got better. i eventually started filming brad driving and this was arguably 100 times more dangerous than when we were driving through the polar ice caps 50 miles prior.

we got to lower elevation and the snow turned to rain. lovely. having made it through that mess, we opted to stop at the seven devil's tavern and have ourselves a cold keystone light. the bartender was an interesting gal which made for the kind of conversation that got us out of the bar after one beer.

safely arriving in spokane made this a good day.

good days and bad days. plain and simple.

going to costco (similar to sam's club except approximately 18 times better) typically results in the day being characterized as "good." friday, november 16 would be something of the exception in this rule.

i woke up feeling an inexplicable desire to visit the warehouse that presents to you all things amazing-- oversized EVERYTHING. when you buy a bag of peanuts you dont just get a bag of the nutty delights-- you get TEN POUNDS OF PEANUTS. now, thats A LOT OF PEANUTS.

this is the type of stuff that makes me extremely happy.

(on one particular camping weekend when i was living in chicago, it was necessity that this monstrosity of a peanut purchase be brought along as one of the snack items. i wasnt going to complain. well, two nights and three days later this bag of peanuts would not be consumed under any circumstances. there were about a dozen and a half people present for this weekend trip. still, the peanuts could not be consumed. as it is, we lugged the gorilla sized bag of peanuts back to the apartment where it tended to be people's hunger in the TV room for the next three weeks. THIS is costco style. you buy things there that just keep giving.)

i needed to re-fill my camping stock of food. as mentioned before, this typically consists of peanut butter and jelly, wheat thins, ramen noodles, canned chicken and apples. this is what i have been living off of with brad.

well, brad is now gone. he decided to take off early from the trip to go home and share thanksgiving with his girlfriend. a kink in the plan? absolutely. and sure this presents hardships if you approach the situation from certain angles, but goddamnit on friday november 16 it meant that i was buying all that "unhealthy shit" that brad wasnt much a fan of.

i headed to the checkout line donning my newly acquired arsenal of foodstuffs. carmen, the woman arming the cash register, asked me if i would like my goods boxed up.

"no, thanks," i casually replied.

about 1 second later i realized i had forgotten my debit card.

awesome.

i told carmen i would be back in about 30 minutes to retrieve my groceries. she told me she would set them aside for me. in the back of my mind i was really hoping that this would work out because i got the last mega pack of polar ice gum and if someone took this from my cart i was going to be pissed.

this little debit card fiasco is clearly the result of staying with my friends matt and jill. i have become quite disorganized and lazy over the past few days with them. normally, i would have had my debit card in the truck tucked in the console where it always is. but now that i am living like a king in their basement my debit card lay resting near the futon where i have been sleeping.

this is as good a place as any to outline the fact that i really do have slobbish tendancies. my buddy nate has taken pride over the past 3 years to call me "the sloppiest person he has ever known." while i think this is a gross exaggeration-- and i obviously have no tolerance for exaggeration, i only deal with facts-- i could perhaps slightly agree with his claim.

great.

i am not the world's best with driving directions. this is a pretty well known fact. spokane has to be one of the worst locales in the country when it comes to road signage. the result is some dangerous wandering that takes place when it is time to go from point A to B. driving back to get my debit card was something of a small nightmare. getting frustrated with the road system of one way streets and turnoffs that were very poorly marked, i inadvertently turned on to a one-way road and had a semi heading directly for my face about 32 feet ahead. i quickly averted the situation and pulled to the shoulder and meandered my way back to good road.

i arrived home in one piece.

getting out of the car to head back in to the house i stepped in to a giant water puddle. shoes completely soaked. this was about par for the course. i swore at myself and kicked the tire as i got out of the car.

debit card now in hand, a different pair of shoes on my feet and a pretty good idea of how to get back to costco i set off.

i was driving along, magnolia electric co pumping through the stereo, and an odd smell began wavering through the air. normally, i immediately chalk this up to things like foot odor, temporary outdoor smells--

but no, this one was not going away.

i rolled the window down and problem solved. the odor could no longer be sensed by my nostrils. when i was freezing my ass off 6 minutes later i decided to pull in to a starbucks to have myself a medium sized black coffee and do a thorough interior inspection to help get my hands around this odor that was getting exponentially worse with time.

coffee in hand-- check.

well, preliminary odor inspection uncovered the fact that i had a massive piece of dog shit lodged between the grooves of the entire bottom of my shoes.

i thought about this real long and hard. how in the sam hell did i get dog shit on the bottom of my shoes? there is no dog at the hulswit household, the neighbors have one dog but he stays fenced in. and then it hit me. the one day i got up off my ass because i needed to get some exercise, i decided to rake the leaves for matt and jill. i determined it highly likely that while doing this activity i stepped in said pile of canine excrement and this was now fucking up my universe.

see, this bodes horribly for my relationship between humans and dogs. i already have an extremely difficult time enjoying the company of those smelly, hair exploding creatures. people call them 'man's best friend' but honestly i couldnt think of a worse friend. dog's have no ability to consume beer, they certainly can't tell a good joke and i have never seen a dog attend a concert or other social activity. in my experience, dogs typically chew your favorite sneakers, piss on your carpet, vomet on your t shirt and chew the bindings of your favorite book. and really, i dont think anyone can disagree with the points i have laid out here. if we are going to enjoy dogs these days, we need to at least adjust our expectations of these animals. perhaps we create seperate living quarters and make it the norm to hire people to take care of them. this lies nowhere in my budget so it is reasonable for me to say that i will never own this type of mammal.

awesome.

in an effort to clean the small army of poop molecules that were now covering my sneaker, i went to the closest water puddle and began stomping and scraping my shoes through the watery mess. after 12 seconds of doing this i realized my actions were seriously alarming to passers by. to them it must have looked like i was doing some violent rendition of stomp or a vicious tap-dancing routine.

"are you ok?" asked the woman, her husband clutching her arm as if they were in the presence of a terrorist.

"yeah, just cleaning my shoes thanks."

there was no way i was revealing that it was dog shit that was causing the whole problem.

i spent about 6 minutes in this puddle and dealt with the whole "are you ok?" comment 91 times. by the time the last group rolled through to ask about my actions, i just ignored them and kept hammering away at my soles trying to rid them of the fecal matter.

eventually i got back in the car, feverishly sweating from the labor it took to remedy the shoe-shit problem and clearly frustrated at this point. the smell still lingered in the car. i took a couple sips of my coffee and spilled at least 2 tablespoons of hot coffee on my crotch in the process. i threw the truck in the drive and was trying to remain calm.

onwards to costco.

my cart was waiting for me in the exact same spot i left it with a giant sign across it that read "RESERVED FOR PHILIP - forgot debit card."

SUPER. normally i would call this superior customer service but today i was pissed about it. the entire universe now knew that i forgot my debit card. maybe it would have been appropriate for her to also write on the name card that i had now driven nearly 40 miles to pay for this cart of food, endured hot coffee crotch and had an entire sneakers worth of dog shit laced to my feet.

there would be only one way to fix this day-- THE COSTCO CAFE.

for those that aren't in the know, this is the spot where you can get a massive bratwurst and a fountain pop for $1.50. yep. not in the mood for a brat? how about a behemoth slice of pizza for $1.95. these are the proper combinations of price and portion size that will eventually fix days like this. most people would call this an "issue" of mine.

i opted for a slice of supreme pizza and a smoothie.

i sat down at the table just wanting to demolish the food before me when a voice piped in from above my shoulder, "anyone sitting here with you at this table?"

this happened to be the busiest costco in the universe. i mean costco is a popular place, this is fact. but there was a waiting line at the sample stations even. i waited behind a line of 4 just to get a 1 inch portion of a chicken taquito. the coffee line? i didnt even attempt to weave through that mess. the people of spokane were like ravaged hyenas at this particular costco-- exactly how i like it.

the checkout lines were roughly 50 feet long. the costco cafe was no different. all tables were taken. as it was, the one that i managed to sit down at was full when i first showed up. instead of moving on to the next table i awkwardly stood there waiting for the couple to finish as it looked like they were nearing completion.

i eventually sat down giving a smile to the mildly perturbed couple. 20 seconds later i addressed the voice that was beaming from the rear of my left shoulder.

"no, you're welcome to sit down" i replied back.

i was eating my pizza slice at speeds that i was hoping would deter my guest from speaking with me. i didnt feel like talking.

turns out the guys name was larry.

well, 68 minutes later i left costco nearly giving my new friend a hug. eric, the doctor friend of larry that happened to join us at about minute 19 of the conversation, offered to put me up in his home if i wanted to stay in spokane any longer. we talked about everything from the quality of the bratwurst that larry was enjoying (i kid you not, this man managed to get mustard ALL OVER his face. and it appeared as though there was a worldwide napkin shortage because he refused to clean it up.) to the experience of booking vacations through costco. larry was hands-down the biggest fan of costco i have ever met in my life. now, this is something of a feat seeing as how my mother spends roughly 1/3 of the household income at costco every year.

larry has done all the following with costco:

-purchased his wife a ring
-booked multiple vacations
-had windows installed all throughout his house
-two cars with tires installed at the tire center
-health insurance
-an annual grocery total that was alarming (which he happily shared with me)

i determined that if costco were to blow up and be eliminated, this guy would be in some serious trouble.

perhaps this testimonial will make my dad happy knowing that there are folks out there that are purchasing costco items in volumes much more extreme than mother dearest.

when it was time to go i had one more remaining task to take care of at costco: a car battery. yep. its astonishing that i decided to push forward with the tasks laid out for the day given my luck in the previous 3 hours.

buying the battery was potentially the easiest task of the day. carrying it the car, however, was something of a feat. i didnt realize that car batteries weighed 100 pounds. i thought my biceps were going to explode by the time i threw that thing in the car.

i drove over to the tire center and asked to burrow their socket set. no problem. i started laboring away pulling the old battery out and realized that-- this was no surprise mind you-- i had a bit of a problem on my hands. the old screw and nut that was securing the battery harness in place was completely rusted and would be impossible for me to extract given my current set of tools.

"hey, you guys have a bolt cutter here?" i belted over to one of the tire center guys.

nothing.

awesome.

now with my battery half pulled out i needed to put it back in and go to a mechanic's shop to try and fix this issue. i knew i also needed an oil change so i figured i would go to a shop and then just casually ask them to extract my battery and put the new one in.

remarkably, this worked.

my battery is now being held in place with a bungee cord mechanism that was custom-fit by yours truly but the mechanic agreed that it would be just fine. a miniature victory, indeed.

(don't worry mom).

so, this was something of a bad day with an extraordinary finish-- the car was well again, my shoes didnt smell NEARLY as bad as before and i had all my food (with some added junk items) packed in the back. i was road ready.

but not so fast. i still had a few days yet to spend in spokane.

amidst my penchant for the couch and watching movies, i discovered the ultimate combination of laziness and technology that produced perhaps one of my new favorite pasttimes: VIDEO CHAT.

that's right.

having purchased a new macbook that is equipped with a built in camera, i have the luxury of seamlessly partaking in video chat sessions. two individuals connect over AOL instant messenger and beam each other a video feed of themselves. what results is an extremely personal and FREE way to communicate with friends and family despite being on the road.

this paid dividends two-fold whilst in spokane at the matt and jill homestead.

on friday night, matt and i opted to have a few beers at the house and just have a good chat. once chatting was over and we became inebriated, we first had a bit of a wrestling match (this is pretty standard for matt and i). after getting past that masculine bit of fury we then opted to have a video chat with matt's brother who lives in los angeles. the three of us continued drinking together. never have i experienced taking shots of whisky over techno-waves, but let me tell it was pretty awesome.

the madness continued saturday afternoon when matt and i were still enjoying a few beers and watching college football. at halftime, i decided to give my sister emily a jingle. what resulted was an hour long video chat that had me doing things like giving emily a tour of matt and jill's house through the webcam and again having a bit of a "cyber toast" over a delicious cold beverage.

these two video conversations were arguably the highlight of my weekend (aside from UofM losing to ohio state and MSU beating penn state).

a few days later, i now sit in seattle at a nice little cafe called ZOKA. the coffee is uncharacteristically good. apparently they roast their own beans. the inhabitants of this particular cafe range from professional to uber-hippie. i have no qualms with this as i have counted zero face lifts up to this point. this is terrific news.

thoughts are racing through my head at a mile a minute. i have quite a few decisions to make in the months ahead. where will i be working? where will i be living? what do i want? what do i care about? what are my priorities? how do i place myself in a position to inspire my actions going forward?

inspiration is key.

at this point, i have no conclusive answers but a laundry list of possibilities. a good shot of freedom kicks me in face about every half hour as i think of the infinite routes that i could take on my road from here forward.

patience is of the essence.

my dad placed a line his last email that hit me particularly hard just a few days ago:

"i believe that if you place yourself in fertile grounds you will have the ability to see an opportunity when it meets you."

and thats just it! i couldnt agree more! i have to place myself in a position where i am pleased-- where i am breathing deep breaths and living life with a vigor that this gift so rightly deserves! those are fertile grounds!

ANYTHING LESS THAN THAT IS FAILURE.

i will tuck dad's message in my back pocket as i continue forward.

this is life. this is invigorating. this is happiness.

(choose wisely).

outside, there is a casual passer-by through the relatively desolate streets. the curbsides are littered with an ocasional honda sedan. some hybrids. i am in a cozy little neighborhood north of the city-- one where it appears that people may be friends with their neighbors. its a typical cold and cloudy pacific northwestern day, but i couldn't be happier sitting here thinking about soaking in the beauty that is within a cup of caffeine and a blueberry scone.

a good day. plain and simple.

the downtown zebra

2007-11-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

let me recount the best halloween ever with my cousin jeff.

wait a minute, let me back up.

i hate halloween. hate it. bah-humbug. don't enjoy it.

i am reasonably sure that the hatred started in my youth but is rooted in my bloodline. believe it. i just found out a few days that not only my mother hates halloween (its no wonder dad was always on duty for dragging us around the neighborhoods), so does her sister and brother. this was big news. it explained a lot. it will be worthwhile in the next year or so to dig deeper in to the family tree and see if there are mysterious photos of my great great grandpa HANK holding up a sign reading "fuck halloween."

ok, so maybe profanity wasnt necessary there, but profanity always proves a point. and i hate halloween. i want to tell you why.

going back to my youth i was always a bit on the husky side. i was very frequently getting the "philip, you just dont know how strong you are" line from mom when i would accidentally dislocate friends' shoulder's and things like that. as such, i never fit in to the cool costumes that you would find at halloween USA or meijer.

nope, just not happening.

i was permanently demoted to being a football player for something like 6 years straight (with the exception of being a pirate in kindergarten-- it should be noted, however, that the pants didnt fit and that we had to cut slits in the side to stretch them around my waist) because in my eyes that was cool. every single halloween when all the students at central elementary would line up single file and do the halloween parade after we had worn our costumes to school i would plod along in the middle of the line donning my detroit lions costume.

6 years in a row. this is enough repetition to bore a hamster. this is the beginning of halloween hatred.

living in michigan around halloween time was painful. it was always cold and rainy on halloween. now, try wearing a silly hutch football uniform in these conditions-- tight football pants, short-sleeve jersey, helmet, etc. then before i would hit the streets for a night of candy parading, i would be instructed that i had to wear a jacket under my football pads in order to prevent the onslaught of sickness throughout the night.

bullshit. this killed the costume.

instead of looking like a burly football player i now looked like the pilsbury dough boy. try walking around trick-or-treating and having people tell you your dough boy costume is great. fuck that.

fast forward now.

college. wooo! halloween parties! everyone loved halloween because the girls managed to create a slutty version of nearly everything. what started humorously as the slutty cop eventually morphed in to things like slutty librarians, slutty veterinarians, etc. all of the sudden the girl who didnt say anything in your geology class showed up to the party with two 40's taped to her hands wearing a slutty gorilla outfit.

absurd. this holiday somehow became the coveted invitation for college youth to just act like slutty idiots.

i still hated it.

the parties ended up being absolute shit-shows and nobody ever remembered anything anyway. i can remember one where i managed to break a tabletop in the living room by standing on top of it trying to dance. i had consumed a pint of blue label popov vodka for the occasion. now, for those that dont know, this stuff duly acts as paint stripper but was perfectly suitable for getting absolutely anihilated on halloween night my freshman year.

i never put thought in to my costumes and this killed halloween for me as well. sure, this is my fault. getting a halloween costume involved going to goodwill the day before and trying to finagle my way in to something of a costume. lord knows the day before halloween everything in all the thrift stores had been filtered through and what remained was rubbish reserved for me. as such my costumes always sucked.

one year i was an old lady-- this was my attempt at wearing something comfortable and warm (hot pink crushed velvet stretch pants, multi-colored windbreaker with my wool sweater beneath it). if i was going to participate in this stupid day, i was definitely going to be comfortable and warm in my costume.

the best costume i ever came up with was in 2002. i dressed up as everyone's best friend steve irwin. god bless his soul, its no wonder halloween was at least tolerable that year. but rest assured, shit hit the fan when a ceiling tile fell on my head later in the night.

halloween still sucked.

now, post-college.

there are no more slutty winnie-the-pooh costumes all over the place and i am no longer drinking popov vodka.

awesome.

so, we roll up to the great salt lake city on october 31, 2007-- halloween night. it was approximately 5:12pm when i pulled up to cousin jeff's house. as we pulled in, i was secretly saying hail mary's in the drivers seat in hopes that jeff will not bounce out of his house in a costume screaming that he has a shitkicker of a costume party for us to attend that evening.

oh, the suspense.

i think within 10 minutes of our coming together i inquired about the plans for the evening. this was very important. and it was like angels, wizards, doves, panda bears, puppy dogs and everything else adorable in this world were singing the words "i have no plans" when jeff replied with such news.

beholdeth! the great news hath come upon me!

i was jumping for joy inside, there were no plans on halloween night.

and thats just it, that was the best halloween ever. there were no shitty costumes, there would beno paint-strippper vodka, there were no falling ceiling tiles, no trips to goodwill shop, the weather was uncharacteristically beautiful.

instead cousin jeff, his girlfriend kirsten, brad and i produced a medium-sized arsenal of halloween candy and increased our pabst blue ribbon stockpile to somewhere in the neighborhood of about 32 cans.

delightful.

what ensued that evening is just exactly how every halloween should be: family, friends, candy and beer. doesnt that sound so wholesome? i could be mistaken for martha stewart right now giving an account of her favorite halloween. but no.

we handed out halloween candy to what turned out to be a cheery and polite group of kids in the neighborhood (sans the kid that showed up as a box of kleenex with the words "blow me" written across the front. i will give creative points there, however). brad ate approximately 98 bit-o-honeys. we killed all the beer. and we laughed a lot becuase halloween was fun this year.

i loved halloween for the first time in my life.

and the fun didnt stop there. hanging with jeff in salt lake turned out to be something of a legendary time. he was a gracious host to two smelly, grimy roadies and didnt bat an eye. he even gave me his coffee press so that i could stop drinking the instant folgers crap that has been littering my stomach the past couple weeks. just a champion that cousin jeff, just a champion.

i think i could have stayed in salt lake for a while-- having a bed, a house with ample amounts of coffee and a patio to sit on was more than luxury. it was tough saying goodbye.

and then all hell broke loose.

well, sort of.

en route to jackson, wyoming i got the red light of fury.

we stopped at the idaho border crossing over from utah (you have to cross over to idaho from utah to get in to jackson) so that i could get a photo with the sign that welcomed us in to the great state. all throughout my life i have had some sort of romantic vision of idaho-- this relatively undiscovered frontier. it is an odd-shaped state and i think this intrigued me in early days of map-glancing. plus, nobody ever talked about trips to idaho or the lovely sandy beaches that it had. the only thing i could associate with idaho were potatoes and napoleon dynamite-- but even that was a stretch.

so here we sat on the border of idaho, taking photos of the sign. we hopped back in the car and i really gave the accelerator hell.

within approximately 53 seconds of pedal-to-the-metal activity i got the red light.

CHECK ENGINE.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh god.

for those that dont know, i have something of an extremely rough past with cars and check engine lights. i really dont want to re-hash the nightmare that was, but basically i bought a giant conversion van a few months ago and within 3 hours of driving it off the owners driveway the check engine light went on.

awesome.

i took the monster to the local auto zone and told the attendant my situation. i was sweating profusely and struggling to put cohesive sentences together. the young man hooked it up to the computer and prompty told me, in these very words:

"you got boned, man."

turns out this gorilla of a van was misfiring on all 8 cylinders. after a quick look under the hood, he estimated the repair bill to cost somewhere in the neighborhood a few G's.

WOW, that was an interesting moment. i think i was seeing stars.

after about 14 hours of scrambling i got the situation sorted and i took that van right back to the owner and somehow managed to get my money back.

fine, dandy, sweet, super story--- but christ, now i had this damn check engine light on.

4 weeks ago i nearly sold my soul to the local mechanic for him to look over my truck. he did everything under the sun to it fixing joints and harnesses and hubs and sprockets and doing things with fluids-- of which i was clueless in the purpose of. i was reasonably sure, based on the work performed that this vehicle of mine was in it to win it.

and there i sat with the check engine light on.

step 1: owners manual. consult the owners manual. read. brad was feverishly rifling through the pages trying to find news on the issue.

step 2: sweat. sweat a lot. i am sweating under my finger nails at this point.

step 2.5: sweat some more because this is what i do in situations that involve engine lights and long haul trips.

step 3: resolution. after a bit of scholarly analysis, we deemed the vehicle road-worthy and concluded that we had filled the tank with a bad batch of fuel. stupid vehicle emissions.

turns out we were right.

check engine no more 3 days later.

now thats how car mechanics should work: issue comes up, sweat it out, read a bit, let it sit, car re-calibrates and issue resolved.

awesome.

it should be noted that this is auto fix number two on the road (recall the blown fuse fiasco)-- i am considering something of a career in what i like to call informed auto therapy.

so now that the wheels were good as gold, we moved onwards.

we showed up in yellowstone with complete fur trapping guidebooks, binoculars, plant specimen digests and a full-on crisis plan in the event that we would actually spot a grizzly.

"hey brad, when i was in alaska they told us that if you spot a bear you lay down and act dead or you just crouch real low cause bears cant see you at that height. it changes for black and brown bears though. i think you crouch for black bears and act dead for brown bears."

"right. as i understand it, our best bet is to band together and start screaming as loud as possible. i will have my camera handy if this actually happens."

awesome, so we totally had a plan. if we saw a bear we were either screaming, acting dead or crouching on the ground-- three completely opposite activities and we would do one of them in the event that we spotted a big fury creature.

that was the crisis plan. sweet.

well, it turns out yellowstone was closed.

awesome.

we shoved off after a casual walk through the park (you can hike or bike in the park just cars cannot pass through). this casual walk yielded no bear sightings, however. this was mildly devastating to both brad and i given our level of preparedness.

driving from west yellowstone in to montana was an absolute sweetheart of a drive. i can wholeheartedly proclaim that it was my favorite stretch of road we have happened upon thus far. the terrain is mountainous-- picture jagged peaks with ample amounts of vegetation to cover them, streams and rivers are abundant, evergreens all the hell over, clear skies and crisp fresh air-- absolute beauty. montana clearly walks the walk-- this place is gorgeous. i would venture to say that i will be coming back to this great state at some point.

bozeman, montana!

arrival time was 5:22pm and it was already dark. this time change bologna and cheese is seriously making me loopy. now, pulling in to a cowboy town in the darkness at an early evening hour calls for one thing, and one thing only:

shopping trip.

CORRAL WESTERNWEAR. you betcha.

holy shit, that place was just amazing. everything a cowboy like myself could ever want. i took a long time looking at the cowboy boots. equally as impressive was the time i spent marvelling at the western style button down shirts. the intricate designs on both items was something of small miracle. now, a cowboy like myself enjoys good denim and i will tell you something-- i heard those same doves and wizards singing beautiful sounds when i stepped in front of the wrangler denim stand.

oh you bet. you wanna talk about falling for someone? love at first sight? oh, right there when my pupils calibrated to the sight that was in front of me.

i am extremely pleased to announce that i am the proud owner of an official rodeo novelty: wrangler denim jeans. and these arent your everyday run of the mill trousers-- they are the real deal. cowboys wear these things.

trust me, i fit right in that night at the bar.

we happened upon the crystal bar on main street in bozeman and met an interesting cast of characters. i am very pleased that people of bozeman are of the nicest variety. this was refreshing.

we havent been going out all that often because bar tabs add up, waking up hungover in the back of a pickup truck is not that fun and to be completely honest, some of the places we have gone had bars that were frightening.

we played some pool and i enjoyed a local montanian beer-- of which i couldnt even attempt to remember the title of. montana state university is just down the street so there was a decent contingency of young people drinking that night. turns out wednesday is the best goddamn night for drinking according to a couple of our newly-acquired friends. it also turns that at the next bar you could get any variety of whisky for a nominal fee of $2.

ummmm, yeah.

this place was the downtown zebra. and although it most closely resembled a cold-war era subterranean prison it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me that night. we met some cool folks and had a hell of a time.

no night on the town is complete without a bedtime snack and this night would be no different. i got in to someone's backyard to plug in our water-boiler-extraoirdinaire and voila! ramen was produced. eating those delectable noodles on the tailgate before the evening sleep was a fitting conclusion for COWBOYS LIKE US.

(cue the song. and play)

par-king

2007-11-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

the art of picking a parking spot, version 1.o.

trust me, theres something of an art to doing this. its not an easy thing.

for the past 22 days "on the road" - a good half of them have involved mysteriously rolling in to a town that is relatively unknown and finding a place to sleep. this involves parking the car, clearing out the back sleeping quarters, potentially eating a meal and urinating and then having a pleasant rest. this doesnt really seem to present a huge problem or dilemma, right? or does it?

i will try to illustrate my point herein.

there's approximately three types of towns we have traversed-- what i like to categorize in one of three ways:

a sleepy town - you could probably get by sleeping in the parking lot of the local wal-mart if need be.

an adamant town - this is the place with millions of signs littering the city reading "no overnight parking" or "no public camping" or "no parking 2am - 6am." these locales demand creativity.

a city slicker - the lights are always on. these towns seem to have lights all over the place which inherently make it difficult to sleep in the back of a car no matter what the circumstances.

see now, this is an interesting topic worth writing about because you absolutely have to get sleep. there is just no getting around it. you can go without eating hot food for a long time. you can give up television. you can, uncomfortably at times, give up your bed. you can give up time with your friends and family.

sleep on the other hand, well, you gotta have it.

so here lies the dilemma: many nights we roll in to some mysterious town, typically it is past 8 pm and usually very dark. we are usually pretty tired from having had something of a long day on the road. sometimes we are hungry, sometimes we are not. we always need to piss.

there are many considerations to be made:

1) we have two bikes strapped to the front of the car that given some craftsmanship and stealth-like behavior (think ninjas, wizards or smooth operators) could easily be stolen.
2) we need to be able have free and clear urination capability through the night in case of emergency pissing requirements.
3) its nice to have power to cook up some noodles, but this is certainly not a requirement.
4) internet is a plus so that i can slave away writing blogs, but again-- not a requirement.
5) streetlights, parking lot lights, motion sensitive lights, frequent headlights, light from fires, light from the moon or particularly active early morning sun, house lights, flood lights are all deterrants to the sleeping process. cities typically contain some of the aforementioned items and demand creativity.
6) farming behavior or similar activity is typically a no-no in that this will cause disruption and a call to the local police at around 5am when farmer bob goes to tend to his wheat patch.
7) dogs-- no matter what type, size, color, weight or sexual orientation-- will always fuck up a sleeping plan two-fold: they keep you up and they alert their owner that some heathens are trying to crash in the back of their pickup truck outside their street.
8) people, no matter how nice they are, never like the idea of strangers inhabiting their residential street.

these are 8 conditions seen the most but is by no means an exhaustive list.

another wrench in the system is typically the impatience that builds up after trying to find a spot for anything more than 17 minutes. anything longer than this breeds frustration. frustration eventually breeds anger. one must be very careful so as to not let one of the eight conditions outlined above ruin the plan. it becomes very easy after anger sets in to throw your hands up and settle for anything. but this is simply not good enough.

my recommendation as a result of such issues is something like this:

for sleepy towns, dont be foolish and go for the low-hanging fruit at the local wal-mart. you will never get a good night's sleep with the walton's shining their parking lights down on you. those things are stronger than you think. no beanie will block the rays of said lights and curtains wont even be able to shake a stick at them. unfortunately, i left my silk eye cover at home. sleepy towns demand residential street sleeping. you will want to look for each of the following:

i) a neighborhood having houses with at least 32 feet of clearance between each (forget townhomes, condo lots, etc).
ii) as few dogs as possible. these little fellas (like in most situations) will be the demise of any good plan.
iii) given its status as a sleepy-town, watch out for farming activity. (we found ourselves in huntington, utah sleeping next to a horse grazing area. this scared the bejesus out of me as i was brushing my teeth)
iv) as few neighbors as possible-- should they spot you in the morning they will undoubtedly inquire about your existence on their street. this can be an awesome conversation, terribly awkward or just downright miserable based on the police call that will ensue.

that being said, adament towns are typically a similar situation. the authorities are well aware of the fact that they are patrolling a frequently tourist-littered town. this means they have on problem busting your ass and take great pride in being the pisser on your parade. these towns demand serious creativity. its best to sleep near a highway, in the open if possible. when the officer knocks on your window you cite the following, word for word.

"good evening officer. can you tell me the time?"

(he tells you the time and likely acts like an enormous asshole threatening you with a citation and potentially time in the local jail for trespassing)

"i can certainly understand your position, officer. let me just mention a few things. i have been driving here for over 8 hours and to be completely honest with you, i could not keep my eyes open any longer. i didnt want to endanger anyone's life and i pulled over to take a snooze about 45 minutes ago. i will happily move on."

(he will likely shake his head and ask where you are going)

"of course. we are headed to _____." make your destination no less than 45 miles away but absolutely no more than 63 miles.

(with any good luck the officer will take off).

alternatively, you could park at the local dive bar. when the police show up to question you, you will have to wholeheartedly tell them that you drank a little too much and didn't want to drive drunk. i am on the fence as to which plan is better.

now, switching gears slightly to a city slicker. these towns demand creativity. you are going to have to hide, and hide well. hide from light and from people. this takes some skill. a helpful suggestion: sidestreets near hotels shaded by trees are usually good bets. this way you cant be towed for violating the rules of the hotel parking lot, but if authorities or casual bystanders notice a car that is clearly driven by tourists (remember: bikes strapped to the front) it will seem plausible they are parked near the hotel as they are staying there for the night.

i cant really tell you why i am writing this-- could be the fact that i am completely pleased sitting in a jackson hole cofffee house and i dont want to do so much as pick my head up from the activity that my laptop screen offers.

it could be that i have had too much coffee and my fixation on anything that involves typing at extremely high speeds and blinking a lot is great fun.

it could be that picking a spot to sleep last night in jackson hole was something of a feat and when i was writing in my journal today i thought it would be funny to write this overly official manifesto on the art of picking a good parking spot.

it could be that i am feeling rather jovial today and i thought it would be fun to write something that was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek joke.

or it is just all of the above.

i cant even really say that i have had encounters with police at all on the trip, but that seemed like how it would roll out given my experience with law enforcement officials and others stories.

maybe this is just something of a daydream.

los fotografías

2007-11-02T12:01:00.001-07:00

i had a sweet little pile of mexican food last night at a place called the red iguana here in the great salt lake city. thats why i now write the titles of these passages in spanish.

lets begin the begin--

crested butte, colorado: see, this is photo evidence as to why i opt out of some of the bike rides that brad insists on. he went for a ride and i went to take some photos. happenstance has it that i stumbled on this little beauty. in the background is the summit for mt. crested butte (as far as i know).

moab, utah: a young observer for the magnificent PUFF the magic (ridiculously loud) pumpkin launcher. the young fella pictured lost his hearing roughly 13 seconds later as a result of the jarring explosion that resulted after the launch. pictured below are two young ladies dancing to the tunes of the band that was playing some country hits. they were eating it up.

arches national park, utah: this would be the double arch as they call it. although it is fairly difficult to see, there is another "O" below the big one that you see as the focal point of the photo. these things are something of a legend to see. it takes thousands and thousands of years for these odd structures to form. its a combination of weather (hot and cold), erosion and composition of the rock that conceive the arch. approximately 19 minutes after taking this photo, brad would be standing on the top of double arch and drop his bike helmet that was dangling off the back of his day pack. yep, helmet got shattered.

canyonlands national park, utah: sunset. easy peasy. those are some sort of desert evergreen trees in the foreground.

dead horse point state park, utah: so this would be the actual dead horse point. pretty breathtaking view. it was cloudy as hell, but one could still manage to get a picture like this. pretty amazing. the rocks on the very bottom of those valley-like structures are over 300 million years. i forget the categorical belonging of such rock, but it is way, way, way before jurassic. pretty sweet.

goblin valley state park, utah: well, lets not lie. this photo was taken minutes before the entrance to goblin valley but it was still technically within the boundary of the park. this was, in my opinion, the ultimate desert photo-- tumbleweeds, dry and cracked soil that sees only 10 inches of rain per year and a sunbeam bursting through in the background. later, we would pee on the soil to give it some nutrients. the urine dissapeared within about 3 seconds. hungry soil!

little wild horse canyon, utah: this, similar to the photo of the desert, is just outside of goblin valley state park. you would call this here crazy rock optical illusion a slot canyon. basically, its an extremely narrow passageway (typically between 4 and 10 feet) between two fairly large mountains of rock. flash floods have ripped through the rocks to create the slot over many, many years. picture the grand canyon on a much smaller scale with only about 6 feet between the two sides of the canyon. as you can imagine, portraying a slot canyon in a photo is extremely difficult because not a lot of light gets in to the little crevice between the rocks. the photo above i thought was cool just because it looks like a vortex with those ripples. this one also had a wider opening which gives you a bit of perspective. there were times, however, when we would have to get through the rocks doing the sideways shuffle. to top all this banter off, i have inserted a photo of me trying to illustrate the the look of these slot canyons that i am talking about (it should be noted that in an effort to create this particular pose, i ripped hole number two in the crotch of my jean shorts. awesome.)

its been quite a pleasure being in salt lake city-- in a real house, with a real cousin providing hordes of hospitality (thanks jeff). its been pretty nice not sleeping in the truck for a bit. i woke up at 10:46am this morning and it felt about as good as vanilla ice cream with apple pie.

we are thinking about jetting off on sunday for jackson hole.

miles and miles

2007-10-27T10:26:00.000-07:00

the truck was heavily weighted towards the rear as we steadily jetted off in to the mountains from denver for crested butte. a rough packing list:

2 laptops
2 cameras

metaphorically speaking, brad would be the ansel adams of the operation and i may fall somewhere in the area of being ansel's distant step-cousin. its not necessarily a bad thing at all really.

the other day we had the honor of taking photos at moab's local pumpkin chuckin' contest. this was clearly something of a moab tradition with all proceeds benefitting the community. see now, i thought of pumpkin chuckin' and i am thinking of moab's finest burly farming men with cutoff t-shirts lining up single file to have a go at launching the pumpkins from their arms.

ohhhhhhhhhhh no.

instead, we entered the festival (being held on the runway of the old moab airport) to an arsenal of automated pumpkin launchers rumoured to shoot the orange spheres up to nearly 1 mile.

well i was awestruck (and slightly hard of hearing) when PUFF the air compressor-induced robotic launcher (it was dressed up and painted to mimic puff the magic dragon) managed to shoot a pumpkin over 3,000 feet packing something in the neighborhood of 150 PSI behind its punch.

i about shit my pants as the thing shot off.

i was standing there, roughly 12 feet from PUFF, proper photographic stance assumed, lens cocked out and BANG!!!!!!!!! the damn cannon shot off and i nearly lost my footing and hearing all at the same time. the people of moab were clearly prepared for such an event. i could now see many were wearing earplugs, most were covering their ears and all were standing at a minimum of 20 feet from our friend PUFF the pumpkin launcher. lord knows what the hell i was doing so close to this concoction.

needless to say, i didnt get much of a photo.

2 ipods

the music selections of the road have wavered between older americana roots music (by this i am referring exclusively to hank williams and roger miller) to a more contemporary mix of tunes (caribou, jose gonzales, magnolia electric co, watson twins, wilco). no strife has been noted as a result of musical tastes (sorry omri).

i was sent an article (thanks omri) on the current state of rock and roll these days-- with particular focus on why indie rock is really throwing the genre for a spin (most likely a downward one). for those overly interested in grizzly bear, wilco, fiery furnaces and other indie brethren, this will prove to be a rather sobering read:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2007/10/22/071022crmu_music_frerejones

i am going to hold-off on going too far in depth with my reaction to the article. overall, i thought the guy made some valid points (indie audiences and shows tend to be mildly uneventful) but i also thought he was blowing a lot of steam out of his ass (failing to draw some parrallels between african-american roots music in the "indie scene" today and using extremely convenient-- and obvious-- points to paint his picture). i walked away from the article more angry than i was pleased (for the love of god, dont pick on jeff tweedy on the whole "quality of lyrics these days" argument) but i think that anything exceptionally good gets a wholehearted reaction.

if you email me your thoughts on this article, i will give you more of a thoughtful response.

2 backpacks

its unfortunate... i still havent picked up on the fact that no matter how much i pack (and i can assure you it isnt that much), i will always wear the same couple of things over and over. i cant say this makes me sad or angry. so far its been the same jeans now for roughly 12 days in a row. i can say (perhaps with a smirk) that i have changed my britches. socks on the other hand, well, i try to keep them in some sort of rotation. these vans slip-ons of mine are going to be radioactive by the end of this sojourn.

2 pillows
an arsenal of food

well, the costco trip is worth elaborating on. the standards were of course pb&j, apples, wheat thins, beef jerky, canned chicken and tuna, green beans... but the highlight was the ramen bomb. this being the 48 pack of ramen (mix between chicken and beef flavored noodles) procured in aisle 8 that has honestly proven to be something of a jewel thus far.

and we aren't talking your polly plain jane ramen noodles--we throw a few green beans in there from time to time, keep things interesting. its as if emeril pops out of the woodwork every night and puts together a masterpiece for us.

it should be noted, however, that in an effort to cook that lovely ramen on the very first night we had our fair share of problems. see, we purchased a crock pot'esque water boiler that we deduced could be plugged in to the DC inverter via the dashboard 12 v auxiliary port. holy shit, we were wrong. the whole car went haywire when we fired that sonofabitch up. as soon as we hit the power button on the water boiler, a fuse was blown within about 3.2 seconds. after some reading-light induced research via the car manual and a look at the circuit board we deduced that the 1000 watt water boiler ripped through the 800 max watt inverter, blew the fuse and sent the car in to a state of electronic oblivion. turns out the lovely folks at ford attach a few replacement fuses to the fuse box and we were able to have the puppy up and running within about 5 or 10 minutes--- sans the much needed ramen that night in the sub zero weather that the great city of gunnison, co was dishing out.

1 video camera
2 road bicycles

lord jesus.

brad tends to be on the more active side of the table. god was handing out energy and gave our dear friend brad a few too many nods.

the kid never stops moving.

never.

ever.

he wakes up nearly every morning and has gone for a run by the time i do so much as work out the kinks from the evening workout (this typically consists of a soccer match).

by early afternoon, after i have gotten out of the cafe to have a cup of coffee and do some reading, brad typically wants to climb a mountain or go for a bike ride.

a bike ride is typically the route i choose to take.

well, that was something of an interesting ride on friday 26 october. when brad talked about going on a little bike ride i didnt realize we were talking 31 miles.

THIRTY ONE MILES.

we are in utah people-- 4,000 some feet up, the air is dry.

i was of course dressed in nothing other than my cutoff jean shorts, t shirt and my vans slip ons for the monster ride. i am ready to go waiting outside while brad is in the bathroom changing.

i about had a stroke when brad walked out. this is no joke now-- he has on his butt-padded uber- tight biking shorts, a clif-bar cycling jersey, leather gloves, cycling shoes and an arsenal of powerbars stuffed in the rear pocket of his italian knit jersey along with some minor tools in case we run in to problems along the way.

"uhh brad? which trail are we going on?"

"the easy one that the bike shop told me about."

"ok.... well thats quite the get up you have on."

we are about halfway through the first climb and my lungs feel as if they may implode and my thighs feel as if a steel vice grip roughly the size of tokyo is squeezing them in to a pancake. i ride a single speed road bike (no gears) so climbing those hills is something of a challenge.

now given all of my incessant complaining and poking at brad the ride turned out to be very enjoyable. and i mean that. i was quite surprised at having made it through this bruiser. i was certainly a bit winded, but once i got acclimated to everything i felt ok (by "acclimated" i mean once i figured out that i could ride roughly 6 inches to a 1 foot behind brad's rear wheel and pedal 30-40% less, i was ok).

1 air pump
brad's lifetime collection of cycling gear
a whole box full of reading material

speaking of, i just cracked a book that should be mentioned. its called "blood and thunder" by hampton sides. i got the book from my parents as a gift last christmas (i know, its taken me a bit to actually get to this one) after hearing a review of it on NPR sometime before last christmas. i have to say, depending on one's penchant for history books, it is extremely well-written and particularly interesting given the fact that a lot of territories discussed are geographies we are traversing.

1 two-man pup tent
1 atlas

this atlas by the way, despite its date of 2003 has proven quite useful.

some interesting stretches of road it has taken us on thus far would include the great kyber pass out of mt crested butte in to a town called delta (en route to grand junction).

i get skirmish when i hear the word "pass" because this typically involves all of the following:

1) steep mountains
2) narrow roads
3) cars on the road that are infinitely more powerful with all wheel drive and diesel powered thunderstroke engines
4) low visibility
5) high altitude

now, the lovely kyber pass had all of the above with something of a twist. the roads were narrow--- and made of dirt.

i am very pleased that the still unnamed 1998 ford ranger that we call our homestead made it through with flying colors.

we were so pleased that we stopped at the local dairy queen for an ice cream.

2 low temperature sleeping bags
3 wool blankets

these little puppies came in real handy on night one of sleeping in the truck. we slept halfway between gunnnison and crested butte amidst the below freezing temperatures. i am very pleased to say we both made it through just fine very comfortably. once you get past the whole sleeping-on-a-carpet-covered-piece-of-plywood-in-the-back-of-a-pickup-truck thing (this process took approximately 10 seconds. i am somewhat amused and slightly perplexed trying to figure out why these things dont bother me), the temperature is nothing to worry about.

montana? wyoming? well, ill keep my fingers crossed.

1 all-purpose emergency car kit
1 travel coffee mug

getting used to enjoying folger's instant coffee crystals in the morning is kind of like trying to get used to having a bumble bee sting you every hour on the hour at time duration intervals that are unknown to you. see, similar to our stinging bumble bee, folgers is something you could potentially get used to if you tried extremely hard, but it is likely that you will never ever ever become accustomed to such madness. nevertheless, carrying a stockpile of coffee equipment isnt the most convenient thing in the world, so i will continue to endure the daily sting of that shit as i try to force it down my throat.

2 LED headband lights
2 lawn chairs

we have become accustomed to-- and found it very convenient-- making our base camp near the community library in the towns we reside. this has benefits threefold: first, typically we are able to steal a wifi signal at all hours of the day from the convenience of our lawn chairs. second, there is typically some sort of park nearby where we can play soccer. three, there is always a clean bathroom inside.

2 notepads
1 leather bound journal

"make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood"

daniel burnham