Westward and Whimsical

~Soaking up America~

Part 6 (the Westest Most Point and the End of the Road)

(A few images aren't mine)

Seems as though my sadly altered plans took a turn for the mo' better.  Once Veronica came back from the doctors I noticed it wasn't making the "Lego in the blender" noise any more.  It also shifted much smoother.  We replaced the driver side CV joint and also filled up the differential with the proper thickness of oil.  It was the lack of oil in the differential that was making the loud clacking noise.  I drove back through the adobe stucco town Santa Fe, back to Quinn's house, gathered my things strewn about the place and off I went hell bent for Sedona!  The altered plan was to drive straight to Santa Barbara to the Mercedes mechanic, but not now, I was going to Sedona after all, after 3,000 miles of looking forward to it -- I was going.  Slowly the land started to transform once again.  I ended up driving along this vast shrubbery area with large rock cliffs bordering the northern side, Indian territory.  I was completely taken aback by the tourism within the Indian land.  It was sad.  All along the road huge billboards labeled "INDIAN ARTS, HAND MADE BASKETS, JEWELRY!"  You couldn't get away from it, like it was some tourist attraction, like it was Disney Land, a place where white people could go see how the natives used to live.  They didn't want us there and I don't blame, and I guess what was sad for me was that they were fully mixed into our capitalistic world.  I really don't want to romanizes them, but it just seems a bit "put on" now, where before they made these beautiful things to help survive in a gorgeous but harsh land, and now it's as though they're made to just sell.  I know there are a lot of the Indian nations holding their traditions alive, their song, their dance and customs and language, and they're doing their best for what we dealt them, but something deeper struck me as off, just off I guess, like we really fucked up bad, like their secret key to harmonious existence was held out before us.....and we spit on it and flushed it down the toilet.  At several gas stations and small road side diners I observed the different nuances of their people, much like the Hawaiians they held a deep onyx-like glaze in their eyes, a wisdom we know nothing about, a beauty for the land and a powerful pride in themselves.  Also, like the deep soul-felt Hawaiians, they know you're full of shit before you even open your mouth.  I wanted to stay in that raw land, and learn from these masters slowly fading from our time, I wanted to soak up everything they had to teach and know well the worthiness in our reality.  But, would I just be some other hipster "hanging out" with some beautiful tribal people wearing native prints just so I could brag it up to some latte sipping artist in San Francisco?  Or would it be genuine and heartfelt, adopting their virtues so that my life and the ones around me could feel the truth in their ancient ways?  Either case, I was already down the road when I had that thought, stuffing my face with a warm Snack-able as I drove with my knee and texted ex-girlfriends.

I entered Flagstaff and quickly started the slow descent down into Sedona area.  It was night.  The air was brisk and a forest appeared in the dim moon light.  I could feel it again.  The place had "something".  I couldn't see it, but something was in the air, a buzz per se, and it wasn't from the six pack I just drank on the drive over ( joking, totally joking Dad, stop making that face and put your phone down).  I drove around and found a random dirt lot to park the wagon, climbed into my sleeping bag and off I went into dream land......entered into a strange land of blurred twists, objects of familiar memory, and cars driving fast, everywhere there were cars, a hectic mess of things happening, I seemed to be driving from the back seat through a remote control, I couldn't get through the road properly, I couldn't drive with any amount of accuracy, I would spin out and have to start over like a difficult video game, nothing seemed to work, until a voice said "put the controller down and open your eyes", so I did, and there I was in the drivers seat again with both hands on the wheel dodging and swerving down the newly paved road nearing so close to the edge multiple times skidding and sliding through the wild streets, but I was in control, no longer in the back seat with the remote steering wheel.

As I woke up the light was just slicing into the valley like the orange sword of an angel, my eyes blew open with extreme excitement and I laughed, actually laughed quite loudly from the pure beauty that was surrounding me.  Never in my life have I seen such picturesque formations of rock and land; everywhere I looked were bright red towers, these hearty soft loaves of earth seemed to spring out of the land, as though some deep force from under the earth's crust was blowing bubbles towards the sky that formed into the rust colored outcroppings that surround Sedona.  It was truly amazing to say the least, I may have wet my self just the tiniest bit in the mad rush of my excitement.  I had barely gotten my clothes on and I was off to see them up close and personal.  Now, supposedly their are these "energy vortexes" there, a place where the movement of thoughts and matter in a time in space are altered just slightly.  It's become sort of a spectacle similar to that of the tribes along the Southwest, like the ancient long-neck Karen tribes in Thailand, and even how Haight Ashbury Street is nowadays -- a spectacle, something to observe from afar with slight emotional distance because others have said so.  But aside from that it is frothing with pure energy.  Unfortunately though, our modern world is so chock full of skeptics of things that aren't visual; we've become so matter-a-fact with everything now that it's sickening.   If you can't measure it then it's not real.  If science can't prove it, it doesn't exist.  Well, science and quantitative thinking ruined spiritually and its subtle vibrations upon which EVERYTHING is made!  I honestly just feel bad for the people who are blind to such things surrounding them all the time.  And you don't have to be covered in lose flowing tie-dye, with beads in your hair, yielding burning sage and a hand full of crystals to know it's there either.  Sooooo, where was I? Oh right, vortexes; there are four major ones.  While approaching the smooth reddened rock I started to run for some reason, full of a child-like vigor.  I was on a sweet high, and so was everyone else around me.  Bell rock it was called.  I scrambled to the top, sat there looking out over the theatre of sights, and laughed some more, not really knowing why either.  I remember that same reasonless laughter when I was 18 and just moved to Santa Barbara, walking out along Sterns Wharf it would bubble up like that as I stared back towards the guardian mountains and mystical riveria that cradles that beautiful place.

I wandered around the little gentrified town peeking into crystal shops and galleries, watching people and waiting for the sun set, to reflect off all the geographic structures at a different angle, which it did and lit it up like a fire-glowing neon paint, dripping down the faces of rock.  My neck was sore from turning and twisting my head around to catch every angle from all the luscious landscapes; oddly enough my neck was similarly sore from my days in Santa Barbara..... but for a different reason.  That night I almost froze to death, frost had totally encompassed my car in the morning.  I spent a slow agonizing "sleep" on the hard pad in the back of the wagon, constantly rubbing my legs to keep them from goose-bumping and crystallizing like the windows had.  I could see my breath the entire night.  I moaned and hummed to keep my chest warm, but nothing really helped, I was ready to give up chattering and shaking and allow my soft body to become the icicle it wanted to be.  I tried and tried but couldn't keep warm nor fall asleep, nor let my body freeze to death, I was wide awake the whole night.  The last time I'd done that I was sitting in a tipi with 20 other people around a fire chanting, singing and puking until the sun shone its brilliant face.  I like to think that a few seconds just before I was actually going to crisp into a rigid ice cube the sun came out and started the melt the ice off the windows.  I smiled, moved and wiggled, and cursed my low temp-graded sleeping bag, for it was a bag to be fluffy and comfortable on your buddies couch after a night of trash talking and binge drinking, not a bag for sub-below temperatures in the middle of the wild wild wilderness!  Once I emerged from the car (with great difficulty mind you), I started to walk towards the trail head through the cracking tonic of sunlight.  Although, I moved like the tin man, the leg people didn't seem to communicate with the head people, and so I limped with stiff constraints through the red dirt path.  Not until the top of the rocky outpost did I feel normal again, as the ice melted from the gingered hue in my beard.

As it's been my whole trip, I knew it was time to leave.  I'd pranced around Sedona for several days and was more than ready to get to California (a strange beautiful 7 hour drive).  I got into the driver's seat, started the car and once again the curtain came up, the Play began to unfold again as it has done for the past month, the familiar change of scenery that I've craved this whole time.  But this time I'd become strangely still after leaving the tingling grips of Sedona, I wasn't yodeling or blabbering in several accents to myself as I usually do, wasn't wildly orchestrating the landscape with my nimble fingers, nor was I playing my usual games like "Close-your-eyes-and-see-how-long-you-can-drive-until-you-panic-and-open-them", none of it; just quietly contemplating the beautiful ecstasy of Sedona from where I just left.  Hours passed.  Until....I saw my first cactus! Wow, didn't I let out a huge face stretching laugh.  I guess I've seen cacti before but I think it was years ago.  I was not expecting that at all, thousands of them scattered about the country side, like an army of lost asparagus that escaped from the fridge and were caught green handed with their arms up.  I couldn't stop the personification of them, each one made me giggle, chuckle and shake my head with disbelief.  How absurd and awkward they looked in the desert, how proudly mundane they were, just towering over every other plant in the vicinity.  I let them argue amongst themselves, and kept driving, stoping in fake franchise towns with no name, no character nor community to speak of, just McDonalds, Starbucks, Subway and Shell -- the monsters of masochistic greed.  As I pulled through the dust of Yuma into the Sonoran Desert I got my first glimpse of the FENCE that boarders Mexico and the USA.  It was a big, stiff black wall that went on for ever and ever, as far as the eye could see.  I didn't know what to make of it, and still don't; but something struck me when I saw it, a sadness that I could never explain in some egoic debate on a velvet couch.  

I drove on and on in the hot desert, thinking that if the car did break down then this is where she'd do it, so I kept a keen eye and ear to her every hiccup, shake or sputter.  Far away but slowly, a sand dune wall was looming in the great distance.  Upon entering into it I noticed how the delicate hand of the wind had sculpted the sharp edges.  Shadows played stark, contrasting dividers along those edges.  My imagination took me through a fantasy land of whipped toasted butter.  I wanted to be rolling around in it.  I looked for a place to pull off and frolic, but there were none.  I envied the souls who owned the scrambling foot prints speckled along the sandy sides.  After a few hours I came to another looming barrier in the distance, much like the sand dunes but darker.  As I approached I noticed it was mountains and mountains of boulders! Yah! Just boulders.  No shrubs, no earth, no large rock faces, just boulders on top of boulders on top of boulders, acres of over the shoulder boulder holders holding more boulders amongst boulders.  Once more I laughed out loud and kept driving in disbelief.  How come no one told me this country was so full of strange beautiful things?

My nerves were still rattled from the California boarder inspection stop.  Something about uniformed angry looking men holding semi-autos and a wealth of too much power do something to my nerves.  I had nothing to be scared of,  I had no illegal substances in the car, but yet, I still got nervous.  As I stopped at the check point, two burly officers gripping personal bazookas stood on each side of me glaring into my timid eyes.  Miles of cars were in line behind me, I was up, I rolled down my window and what came out of my nervous mouth was "Howz it?", a variation of "How are you?" but in slang Hawaiian style, used in a connotation of a rhetorical "Hello".  He said nothing, just looked at me with those menacing eyes, they both walked real slowly down the sides of my car looking at all my junk concealed under my Native American print blankets.  I turned beat red.  "They got me" I though, but for no good reason; it'll be hours until they get done going through all my pant pockets and breaking my ukelele open looking for drugs.  And just as the sweat was starting to drip into my eyes, stinging them ever so slightly, I looked up at him like a small bunny must look like before it gets torn apart and eaten by a ravaged wolf. And with the carelessness of a lazy junky he just waved me on without ever saying a word.

There is something about California that really wets my whistle.  A comfort.  A familiar smell maybe, but something about this place has the feeling of a gorgeous woman, a goddess that has graced herself into your bed, a woman of high spiritual morals, long dark curly hair, bedazzled in ancient jewelry, she smells of sweet musk as she kisses your neck, as she chases your toes in the sand; a traveling woman that never settles but always holds a great deal of contentment with every action or utterance that steps from her spirit, a woman that whispers all the secrets of heaven in your ear as she drips wax down the nape of your neck; a universal goddess that I've danced with to the most welcoming of waltzes but known too well I could never hold her down long enough to grow a garden.  That's California!

After a month on the road, it feels good to be on the other side.  The Pacific Ocean has a smell and taste that only a surfer would know.  I have several hundred more miles to go north, up into the land of Redwoods where I shall stay for a wee while, but that's all been done before and don't feel the need to add it to my Westward and Whimsical adventures.  But as of now, sitting with my huge class of hot puerh tea in San Diego, I'm a bit in shock still.  How did I get here? What did I see? What did I do?  All these questions are starting to flood into my tired brain, but I don't have the capacity to answer them just yet.  But I do know I feel accomplished, I feel a sense of achievement that was really needed in my life at this point.  I also know that it'll take a lot of chiropractic work to undo the pain I caused my back after driving for a month in such compromising positions.  I know that people are what fuel me, but being alone isn't as bad as I've ramped it up to be, the anxious fiddling of being alone in front of your ego tends to drift away after the first few days.  I also really noticed that there is a serious psychological disease clenching our society, something is OFF,  with the amount of pollution and warfare that's totally

inundated our globe it just seems like we lost the path somewhere a ways back.  Like we should be doing better by now.  I really do have high hopes for our human race, but we might just need to be bitch slapped across the face. 

And thus is the end:

I'm So unbelievably thankful for the gracious friends that helped me along the way with places to stay, good conversation, happy hearts, sound advice and necessary laughter: Galen Koch, Birch Hincks, Cora Comstock, Travis Fifield, Brooke and Hope Slemmer, Herbert Drexel Carter the Third, Avril Guerrero, Natalie Meyers, Sarah Melendez, Liz Kimbrough, Ben Brajkovich, Quinn Curtin, the lovely Nouel Riel and Mr. Justin Waldman!  And of course Pete Collin for the chariot, and Sandy Buxton. And for people like Mason London, Mike Feldman and Jared Buxton for keeping me company on the tele durning long expanses of geographical nothingness.

"On the road again. Just can't wait to get on the road again, the life I love is making music with my friends, and I just can't wait to get on the road again"

-Willie Nelson

Westward and Whimsical

~Soaking up America~

Part 5 (Green Chile Land)

Texas has a way of really getting to the depths of your soul, it sort of drills its way in with a constant dull pressure that is maddening and slightly intriguing.  As I entered Texas for the first time I was blasting full speed from New Orleans on my way to Austin, an 11 hour drive.  The swamps of the south started to blend into desert, sage brush and crumbly dirt.  Every on ramp unloaded dozens upon dozens of huge roaring Ford trucks in my lane.  Texas is the land of gigantic trucks I decided, anything less would just be un-patriotic.  I was heading straight towards Houston in the middle of rush hour. Slammed into the crowded traffic game once again.  The city loomed in the distance like an industrial glowing blob, a murky haze plastered the air as the cars kept squeezing in and in and in.  Once again bumper to bumper.  I really couldn't see why anyone should want to live there, but I'm totally bias towards cold, small towns in the far reaches of the country.  It was too hot to drive with the windows up, Veronica has no A/C so they were all rolled down, except that rear driver side that doesn't budge, but all old cars have that stubborn uncooperative window right?  The southern stickiness had welded my back to the leather seat, sweat dripped down places I never knew I had while the sun was setting its beautiful ominous glow through the smog of that big Texan city.  

 (cotton fields; I thought they were just a myth of the past...they do exist)

In Austin I stayed a few days with an old friend from college.  I was lucky enough to see some great live music at this elegant old-timey saloon, a rustic place that prided themselves on cocktails of the last century that nobody has ever heard of.  I ordered a gin and tonic mainly because I couldn't pronounce the other options.  Standing awkwardly for some time trying not to make eye contact with the steal-eyed beauty in the slick black dress at the corner of the bar, I just drank my drink like it was water after a hot sauna.  She glanced her deep Texan glare towards me as if it was a burlesque dancer kicking and crashing its way across the top of the bar.  I quickly ordered another drink before her glare pierced through me.  Maybe I've become just plain awkward in my old age, maybe my confidence has drifted off with my life from Hawaii, or maybe she was just too damn hot for me to say anything; whatever the case was I didn't do a thing, I didn't talk with her, I never gave her a flirtatious glance back like I may have done several years ago. I just stood there like a penguin on Valium holding my small gin and tonic with extra limes.  To be honest I wouldn't know what to say to a woman of that caliber, of such royal esteem with radiant lips of silent sexual verbose.  What would she even want to say to me? "Where the hell are you from you dirty liberal hippy? Heading back to the land of milk and honey are we, my little lost timid traveler with your ginger beard and unflattering pants?"  I envisioned those words slithering out of her gentle mouth with that big Texan drawl as she sipped her whiskey old-fashion without taking her knee-buckling stare off me.  I was startled and spilled my drink a little when my friend Ben grabbed my arm and dragged me off closer to the musicians, although quite thankful to be out of that beautiful vixen's trap.  And as I walked away for some reason I couldn't get that song out of my head "all my exes live in Texas."

Jazz: the worst music to dance to but absolutely mentally blissful to listen to.  The piano player was off the hook.  We sat right next to him, so close I could have given him a wet willy (which I tried my hardest not to).  His improvisational finger-work down the keys was something else, something unworldly, something that made me think that this is all this man has been doing his whole life.  The quickness and strange perfect timing brought an element of depth into the sound, the bass player lost in his rhythmic trance, and the drummer holding the constant beat with wire brushes like the invisible spine of the piece.  At some points the piano player would be leaned up on two legs of his chair with such intensity in his eyes, sometimes even on one leg pivoting around as he'd twist and slide his fingers down the white fake ivory keys.  It's was truly amazing, I've rarely been so close to such talent.  And I quickly forgot about the lustful lasers of the black dressed lady.

(Taos Pueblo, the oldest continuous lived-in town in America)

I left the next day, after what seemed like eternity driving westward across Texas I made my way up to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  A gorgeous, quaint town with mandatory adobe buildings, Indian art and green chile salsa.  Rolling high desert, orange earth and sage bushes surround the place.  The altitude is around 7,000 ft and a simple deep breath is fairly difficult.  But here in this sweet Southwest capital is where the journey seemed to make a drastic turn for the worst.  The sound coming from the rear of the car was becoming worse and worse.  Sounded like a loud constant sporadic clacking and clunking like someone put Legos in a blender on high.  There was no ignoring it anymore.  Something had to be done.  My friend Quinn knew a mechanic guy so we took it to him.  Upon lifting the car we found that not only the cv joints were totally ripped and falling apart, the differential was making a strange sound as well.  I only wanted to be in Santa Fe for a couple day ( not a week) and then mosey on towards Sedona, AZ where I've been wanting to visit most of my life; I've heard countless praise about the raw beauty and energy of that place.  BUT!  It looks as though I'm not going to make it there.  The car is being fixed just enough to drive it to Santa Barbara to my father's Mercedes specialist, the god father of his formidable fleet, the doctor to his dilapidated diesels, and snake charmer to his shaky sedans.  So that means Sedona and it's mesmerizing deserts is off the agenda.  I kicked and screams at first, but I've come to terms with it.  I didn't want my journey to be altered by another force besides my own, but such is life. I've been on the road for a month and the thought of stopping this personal parade is slightly panicking.  Each place I get to I enjoy it but in the back, well maybe the front, of my mind I keep thinking about the next place, the next town.  I feel at ease once I'm behind the wheel, the road sliding under my tires, the landscape dealing out multitudes of mountains and forests, cities and towns.  I've become addicted to the road.  I crave it.  The freedom it gives me is my only sense of grounding, the groundation of constant change.  But it's ok, all addicts need a dose of withdrawals before they can relapse back into their unstoppable addictions.  Anyway, things happen in life, and it's up to us to flow with or fight against those "happenings".  I'm getting the car back today.  I hope she's got enough life in her to get to California, or else I'll be stranded in the Mojave Desert until vultures or bandidos......or AAA finds me.

Westward and Whimsical

~Soaking up America~

Part Fo' (The Dirty South)

It's quite hard to fathom how different our country is until you actually are driving through it.  We've become so accustomed to flying that most people don't truly realize the magnitude of America, with only 7 hours to hop from one side to the other.  A 3,000 mile "hop", isn't that crazy?  The technological advances of flight are so normal for the majority of the traveling American population that they don't even know how fortunate they are.  I have found it a healthy and necessary "event" to drive across (well at least thus far, which is the deep south of New Orleans).  The landscape continues to abruptly change right before your eyes, from dense forest of maple and spruce in New England, to the delightfully diverse rolling hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains filled with beech, hemlock and birch, right on down to the strange southern ecosystem of mangroves, Louisiana cypress, and thousands of spooky southern oaks.  This country has many hats, and several different feathers for each of the separate hats.  And I for one have really enjoyed watching the stage unfold through my bug-splattered windshield, trying on each hat in the mirror with a little jig to accompany.  I've become so grateful for this cross country adventure, and to think I haven't even really started heading west, there is so much more to see, so many more acts before the Play drops the curtain in California at my first familiar destination in San Diego, to the waxed-up surfboards and awaiting friendship of Mr. Justin Waldman.  As of now, New Orleans has captured me.

There is something about the City of New Orleans that one could never properly describe to someone who hasn't been there.  The richness of culture is smoldering in every corner, its dampness squeezes down on you from the humidity in the thick air and comes up at you from the rising swamp upon which this shaky city is built.  Most of the city is actually under sea level!  One would have to live here 100 years to even start to understand the historical dynamics of this place.  It's certainly a hot gumbo pot for culture; from the native Choctaw people who seasonally fished and hunted this ground, to the French who "owned" it first, mixed with the Spanish, the African slaves, and the American people who took it over during the Louisiana purchase.  Each mixing group and distant racial blur is squished into the same city on the tongue of the massive Mississippi.  What an integral place of importance for trade, from the heartland of the country, down the Mississippi, and into the great Atlantic.  And for being such a strong pinnacle point of geographic advantage, it's metaphorically strange the weakness of ground on which it sits.

Walking down the popular Bourbon St you are bombarded with people, wild people, colorful people, drunk people, half naked people, freaks and fanatics, musicians and dancers.  It's hard to walk down that street and not see a flash of boobs flopping about as the colorful beads come raining down.  I felt I deserved an equal opportunity to get some, so up went my shirt; I shook my hairy chest up towards the panel of drunkards, and lo and behold one middle aged, sloppy white woman amongst the crowd of sleazy men in suits hooted and hollered and tossed me down a string of golden beads.  I looked over to my friend Liz, " I had to, there was no stopping it."

She nodded her head in approval.

Without sounding negative I would say the city has a filthy feel, but almost in a sense of it being its own dignified scent, a honorable filth.  Maybe that's why they call it the "dirty south", I'm sure someone knows.  And what's even more remarkable is that for the most part the districts are interwoven with the wealthy and the poor; walking down most streets you'll notice that a beautiful mansion is just two houses away from a dilapidated old servant quarters.  It has stayed slightly interlocked like that for some time, and I like it.  There are of course dangerous parts of town and more affluent parts of town, but the line isn't as strict as it would be in, say Los Angeles or New York.  The whole damn place is built on sinking and shifting sand, so the roads are absolutely littered with huge pot holes, sunken sections of sidewalk, and houses tilted at slow angles.  Everything is mildly covered in a strange haze, a light moldy glaze that crawls upon every building.  The oak trees parade along all the streets with daunting tentacle-like branches that twist and dangle like something from a sadistic Dr. Seuss, with dark green moss covering each one as its swampy cloak.  One can't help but feel as though you are walking through a movie set with highly skilled set designers creating your surroundings, though I believe even Hollywood couldn't even equivilate such authenticity.  The chaotic air and gritty streets forces everyone to succumb to the same raw level of existence; it's beautiful, mystical, maddening and festively rich! 

Westward and Whimsical

~Soaking up America~

Part Tree

Today's Bumper Sticker Sighting: Save a cow, eat a vegetarian

After a few weeks of driving I've found myself at the sister school of Haystack, a beautiful artist institute of crafts called Penland, located in the majestic hills of North Carolina. I've arrived at night and haven't yet gotten a true feeling and visual awareness of the place but I can already feel it; I can feel the creative calmness surrounding this place.  All the leaves are in their metamorphose of color, plastered in every direction.  The cold has started to encroach on the bare parts of my skin like a chilled cucumber resting on my neck.  I am so ready to be in the country.  I've been visiting friends in cities all the way down from Maine, and my country bumpkin soul was starting to crave the forest.  The first moment of real silence has hummed its tiny tune.

----------------------------------------------------------

On my way down I felt compelled to see the nation's Capitol, Washington, D.C. -- where freedom is made!  Not solely because my father had been pestering me to go there, but because I honestly believe it would be a healthy thing to do.  We as the people of this country find it so easy to bash Washington and the Government without hesitation.  It's so easy to just point our ridged finger over there from Texas or Maine or Alaska, and yet there are many many citizens who have never even seen the place.  It's heavy in the most awe powerful way, Romanesque even.  The massiveness of the buildings with thousands of suited up politicians all milling in and out like ants, the phallic monument in the middle of everything and the heart wrenching sight of the thousands of names engraved on the black stone of the Vietnam memorial, everything has an element of seriousness.  And all together can even give one a sense of appreciation for what our country original stands for.....in some weird nostalgic way.  No matter what side of the political line you fall on, it's hard not to honor all the efforts of the people in Washington at least trying to make a change.  I tried to soak it all up as I walked around the grounds of the Capitol Mall, my feet aching from a lack of movement, while these people with super strong, fit bodies jogged and sprinted past me.  Each militant model that strode by I felt fatter and fatter and fatter; nor was the pork sandwich I had for lunch helping to lift my diminishing self image.  

-----------------------------------------------------------

Dear New York City,

Well, I've got much to say to you.  Not sure where to start my dear.  Whether tis nobler to flush your skin with compliments and end with distain, or start with your faults and finish with the sweetness of peaches nestled on your lips.  Who's to say?  But for now I'll start by telling you that I admire your resilience, your ability to function forever with never a need to rest, and the amperage that you gallop through the night is beyond my comprehension.  I respect that about you.  It's not my cup of tea, but I appreciate that characteristic.  But dearest New York City......you've been a bad bad girl.  You've done things that I for one would never mention to your father, never even confess to the priest.  Your mischief fueled mid-nights have gotten you in a pickle that could never be kosher.  I would seek help, professional therapy; and please don't take this the wrong way, I love you, but madness dances in your insomniatic palm.  Artistic creation floods forth from your streets as equal to the two rivers that caress both your sides.  You, my dearest beloved NYC, are a royal Queen who has taken all the candy from the global piñata and stolen the lightning from Zeus.  Please do take care of yourself my friend, there may be harder times ahead.

Love always and forever,

A Small Island in Maine

P.s. Send my regards to Brooklyn, he's growing up so fast.

“Hello, I must be going, I cannot stay,
I came to say, I must be going.
I’m glad I came, but just the same,
I must be going.”

-Groucho Marx

---------------------------------------------------------

In Virginia I gave this wicked redneck a ride to the store for beer in his new black truck. 

"Step on this old girl!!" He howled as I pulled out of the 7/11.

"She's got some power huh? I call him Bernie" he explained.

"Ayut, she got juice, way more than my slow 33 year old diesel Mercedes" 

"What'd ya name her?" And before I could even respond he sternly stated, "She looks like a Veronica to me" He cracked open a cold fizzing beer as we pulled back into the drive way.

As he handed me my stipend of 6 discussing taquitos that I never asked for, I muttered to myself  "Yer right, she does look like a Veronica." And that shall be her name from here on forth.   And so, it has been written.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I've become familiar with the movement of cars, the mystery of their exits and entrances, all shapes and sizes like the people of this planet.  Some are huge colossal giants with mud mucked tires radiating testosterone and blind pride, and some are itty bitty Fiat type cars with baby wheels and minimal flash, having the essence of a half-dead gold fish.  We all flow along the same paved river, in hopeful harmony.  Painted guidelines bringing suggested order and street signs give us a dose of direction.  Where are they all going?  How are there so many people all going the same way as I am?  It's absurd!  Oh man!, the traffic jams are worse of a mind fuck then the actually loss of time it's creating.  What's going on up there?  A 10 car pile up? A headless moose?  Mexicans selling roses blockading the highway letting no one pass until we buy a dozen? Just as far as one can see, bumper to bumper for miles.  And then all of a sudden after hours and hours of inching along......it just frees up, like the invisible hand of god just released his grip, and next thing you know we're all going 75 again like it ain't no thang and have forgotten all about going 5 mph for the last 89 miles.  It knots up my brain to even think of it.

And for the record, if we arn't allowed to put a cell phone to our ear while we're driving, then it should also be illegal to have a fucking dog sitting in your lap licking your face while you're driving!!

Westward and Whimsical

-Soaking up America-

Part Dos

The first test drive down to Portland, Maine showed me that the car was horribly out of alignment, I'd let go of the wheel for a few seconds and I'd find myself right in the ditch.  Also noticed that at certain speeds the whole car would rumble and shutter like an alcoholic pouring sugar in his coffee in the late morning, but only at certain speeds; 35, 55 and 68 mph.  I'm sure there is some deeper synergistic meaning of these speeds that brings about this strange unpleasant vibration. Maybe they fall along the Fibonacci sequence and hits a frequency that makes the metal wants to explode its molecules in all directions.  Who really knows besides the Germans (those overly intelligent bastards).  After several hundred dollars for new tires and a tierod, I was on my way south.  The car still shuttered at certain speeds, I am just gonna have to learn to live with it, we have to find compromises if we're to spend the next 3,000 miles together.  

I drove wonderfully out of the way to western Mass to see my old friend Travis in the town of Springfield.  I asked if it was the same town where they "filmed" the Simpsons but he said no, and I didn't see the Kwik-E-Mart......who needs the Kwik-E-Mart anyway?  In the morning the car gave me some trouble starting, but nothing that a little cold-winded swearing and carb started wouldn't help.  On the country roads down through Connecticut I was filled with a great sense of excitement, heading into NYC, having the whole country ahead of me.  This massive freedom became present, the realization that I could go anywhere, be anyone, having no obligations or real direction, with the wheel of life in my hands I couldn't help but smile.  The changing color of the leaves took on a bright glow, like a fall colored northern lights along the highway, changing and melting into beautiful purples, rusted orange and magnificent yellow that makes the brightest highlighter look dull in comparison.  I had a hard time keeping my eyes on the road; I let them wander through the psychedelic display of foliage, it was as if God melted boxes of crayons through the forest.

As I neared closer and closer to New York, the traffic became hectic, and more "hecticer", I had to give my full attention to the quick whipping cars merging and mixing all around me.  Everyone was in flashy, shinny new BMWs or huge black Escalades all driving twice as fast as I was. I felt like an old slow gypsy totally out of place in this new modern fast paced society.  The lanes quadrupled before my eyes and the industrial-ness of the world started to take over, the beautiful foliage was gone, my nerves were on edge and both hands tight against the wheel.  I became envious of the slow life style of nomadic Mongolians for some reason.  You lucky bastards, I thought to myself, how beautiful it would be to know nothing of these over populated smog- pocked cities, these fuel hungry vehicles with speed as the only game in town.  I was being boxed in by three huge tractor trailer trucks, dwarfing my little vintage Mercedes, as I pleaded out loud "A horse! A horse!  My Kingdom for a horse!"

I pulled in hot and heavy into the depths of Brooklyn, blaring some old school hip hop, figured "When in Rome", right?  I quick spitted every word of Notorious B.I.G like a boss, like I owned that city, like I was born in the Bronx slinging crack to raise my daughter, slouched down in my chair at a low angle, one arm steering my casual course, tipping my hat to every bad mama-jamma that I passed.  I felt pumped up! The pulse of the city started creeping its way into my nerves, and I let it.  And to my unexpected disgust, within 24 hours I had gotten two parking tickets, each for $115! Can you believe that?  A fire hydrant that doesn't even work was responsible, wasn't my fault. After the first ticket, I just moved back a little bit, but I think they just moved the hydrant closer to my car in the middle of the night, and lo and behold -- I had another ticket in the morning.  I drove outta that city faster than a white guy in Brooklyn blaring rap music all puffed up thinking he's some hot shit, all cocky and stupidly naïve.  And after getting horribly lost in downtown Manhattan on my way to New Jersey, the rain obscuring every minimal view I had, my wipers doing a worthless job of getting that liquid shit off my windshield, I was on the edge of frustration....well actually I was neck deep in frustration.  I turned off my music, and quietly mumbled to myself, "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy".  Pueo was laughing his silly little owl chuckle the whole entire time.

Westward and Whimsical

 - Soaking up America- 

             Part 1

  There is a certain time in ones life where you just have to see something, do something, go somewhere; where the sense of adventure is more overpowering than the sense of security and comfort.  I've hit that wall, tried to dig under it with no success and now I've peeked my little eyes over the top edge and it's time to climb over.  At the ripe old age of 30 I figured it's about time to see this country, to drive across the great divide, from the coast of Maine to the coast of sweet California, through the guts and morrow of this strange, beautiful problematic country.  My plan is to slowly wonder and wiggle my way through New York, into the smokey mountains, down into New Orlenes, over to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and into Sothern California; but those are just general plans and holding too close to ones plans can lead to a narrow road and blacked out windows.  As Steinbeck says "we do not take a trip, a trip takes us."  Anyway, It's just too perfect of a time, I've got no real job, or obligation, no earth quaking bills, no mortgage, and no kids (well, not that I know of).  The light is green and I must go, before it turns red.

In just a few days I've set on the calendar my date of departure, slowly starting out in a 1981 Mercedes Diesel Wagon, graciously temporarily donated by my dear father.  He takes great pride in his junk Mercedes collection, but this one in particular I think must be his real pride and joy, his dull fading pearl.  Never mind the impending dangers and safety of the person behind the steering wheel (his son); the condition and well-being of this pale yellow Wagon is nothing less than the precious perfections of a NASA spaceship to him.   But I'm honored to be behind the wheel of such a machine.

I've gathered up padding and books, a cooler for food (or beer), a shit ton of tea, a few bundles of sage, a crystal to engulf the car in warm protective energy for the journey (no sense not to have that, wouldn't we all want to be breezing through life with the spirit world dancing around us in its brilliant barbwire?), and of course my travel companion Pueo, a lively, talkative, handsome, quite intelligent Owl...that's actually a finger puppet.

Everyone has an opinion of this country, especially foreigners.  People talk of this country with great distain, and or appreciation.  Now, are they taking about America the government, or America the bi-partisan people, or America the actual physical country with its magnificent forests and mountains and deserts and lakes and rivers and rocks and plants and birds and moose and smells and light and sounds?  I've realized our opinions are mostly based off others opinions, or the news, or some other indirect source, and in order to fully have a sense of self, to have a strong  moral compass, one has to see for themselves, to experience the people and circumstances of a certain Time and Place.  And that is just what I'm setting out to do, a vital soaking with the sponge of the soul, clean across the country.

Unattended Baggage

While we wait in the airports, aching and upset, the great loud speaker booms over everyone sternly stating that unattended baggage will be "confiscated and destroyed"!  Ya, understandable, but I'm not gonna schlep both my huge back packs into the bathroom, setting them in a pool of someone else's piss just so I can relieve myself for 2 minutes, I'm sorry but I'm gonna leave them unattended and pray to god nobody slips a huge pipe bomb into my Peruvian satchel while I'm out and about.  Anyway, this isn't the point, that's not what really puts me out.  What really twists my panties in a bundle is the sadistic curious thought of where and how these unattended bags are being destroyed?  How do they go about getting rid of them?  Do they line up a bunch of suspicious Samsonites along a brink wall and mow them down with a machine gun like some terrible firing squad?  Are the dangerous duffle bags dunked in acid and disintegrated?  Just heaps of purses thrown over the Mexican boarder?  Containers crammed with suitcases sunken to the bottom of the sea?  Conspicuous carry-ons captured and held in cold cells, probed and flogged, questioned under dim overhanging lights, tortured and taunted with the sharp end of a hot cattle prod?  Seriously though?!  Where are these backpack graveyards, these butcher shops for briefcases; where are the ashes of deserted handbags?  Is anyone looking into this? Are they euthanized ethically?  And who is in charge of such a gruesome task; the hit men of fearsome fanny packs?  My mind goes wildly off on this unnecessary tangent as I lean my greasy face against the glass watching the planes come and go as my bags lay next to me unattended for hours.