A Year Of Wandering

The Birthday Party Massacre Meets The Resurrection Mystery Basket

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:29:41 -0400

Birthday Party Massacre, meet…

… The Resurrection Basket (now with sparklies!). This year, the frankincense burns you!!!

Ok enough Hollywood trailers, let’s make like Huey Lewis and go back in time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ (these are the dweedly marks indicating time traveling has commenced)

It’s 2011. Nixon hasn’t been President for over three decades. Arcade Fire is still a popular band amongst young, adolescent teens. Despite all the odds, Tootsie Roll is still in business making brown logs of crap colored candy that should have been burned in the Nazi fires instead of books. Sliced bread still remains the second best thing to anything that is the new best thing and last but not least, deep in the heart of the desert, a lone man walks. He walks alone, bearing the elements and using his intimidating stare to ward off questionable cactus. Or would that be cacti? He doesn’t know; he doesn’t care. Intimidating stares are like honey badger. They don’t care, they just stare.

Some stares are so intense they come with their own arrow letting the recipient know that shit just got real

When this lone ranger of the south finally makes his way across the empty wastelands of sand and “all you can eat” sagebrush buffets, he reaches into his rustic pocket and pulls out his not so rustic iPhone. It appears he has a voice mail. He must hear what news has occurred in the big city whilst he was lost under a sun scorched earth. Had sliced bread retaken the throne of best thing since itself?

Turns out that lone stranger with the “unconcerned with grammar” stare was me and the voice mail was from one of my best friends from high school telling me that he was getting married. “I need to be there” were his words. “Well of course” were my thoughts. Though I have very mixed feelings on marriage, I wanted to support my friend. That was until he hit me with the date: November 11^th.

To most any reader, this date would seem arbitrary and unimportant. It would not effect your poker face, your garden would not suffer a lack of upkeep, and your manhood would not be in jeopardy. There wasn’t event a cool poem written about it like November 5th. To most, this day would be of little consequence.

“Remember, remember the 11th of November… There’s a reason I chose the 5th. A revolution isn’t worth having without dance and proper meter with your rhymes.”

For me however, this day presented three very distinct problems. First, was that my birthday was on November 13^th. Normally I wouldn’t care, but this was not just any birthday. It was my 30^th birthday and I wanted it to be over the top and exciting. I was entering an exciting new decade. Having thrown so many birthday blues parties for myself that culminated in the kind of wild shenanigans they make movie collections out of to sell on late night infomercials, I wasn’t too keen on giving that up. I knew that my birthday would most certainly be trumped by this wedding weekend.

Secondly, it was October. This was not what one would call “advanced notice”. It left me little time to get out to where he was which in turn presented the third and most critical problem. He was getting married in none other than Chicago. I don’t know if any of you have ever been up north when it starts to hit winter, but if you haven’t, find a Shamrock foods and ask if you can sun bath in their deep freezers. When your frost bite gets frost bite than you’ll start to have an idea.

Smurfs are actually a community of people who hitchhiked north during the winter

I love my friend, but if there were two things I learned in school it was to say no to two things: drugs and hitchhiking in the north during winter. There was no way I was hitchhiking all the way to Illinois in November.

Despite my initial apprehensions, I talked to my friend who assured me that his wedding would happen Friday and that we would celebrate my birthday all day Saturday. And as for hitchhiking out there, there was no need for that. My close friend Kael offered to buy my plane ticket out there. A wonderfully generous offer. What at first looked like inconvenient timing was beginning to take a different light.

Instead of a wild party, I could instead enjoy a full day with people I have been close to for a large portion of my life. It would be more emotionally fulfilling which in my travels sounded much more attractive. Changing communities can take its toll if you don’t find people to recharge and deeply connect with. I was in need of this. The shade of this picture began to take on a new look and I was happier about it.

Ommm…. Feel the birthday connection. We are all one with the birthday. We shall all exercise sweet Zen candle blow out technique. Ommmm…

What would happen would culminate in one of my absolute worst birthdays ever. Ever! Yet at the end of that tunnel shone a great white light. One that would prove more grandiose than even I could have imagined. Tune in next time for the bitter to sweet story of my birthday party massacre.

Adventures In Hitchhiking: My Fun Year In Review

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:51:48 -0400

Epic video of awesomeness: http://youtu.be/ZT9RfS-yqyA

Adventures In Hitchhiking: A Year In Review

It’s amazing to believe that I’ve been traveling the country for over a year now. I’ve had so many amazing experiences and met so many fantastic people. In honor of this and to all of you who have helped me along the way (thank you, thank you, thank you), I compiled a short video to show all the places I’ve been and some of the sites I’ve seen along the way. Watching this is like watching Monty Python’s Holy Grail if it had been modernized and had no horses, cross bows or witches made with carrot noses. I’ve got a witch in here, but she’s got a turnip chin so that doesn’t really count.

Enjoy!!!

Warmest Thoughts,

Wesley

Just in case you missed it the first time: http://youtu.be/ZT9RfS-yqyA

The Golden Compass Becomes The Golden "Rump"ous (My Quest For Sexiness In Victoria, BC)

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:11:56 -0500

“If I look through my nose and you look through your mouth, we’re bound to find some golden underwear.”

On my journey, many stops were made. Digging through Halloween super stores proved futile and a new approach was needed. Victoria’s high cougar population it turns was actually in reference to the cats, so I asked myself “what sort of sexually unabashed Canadian palace would sport such a unique item?” A sex shop perhaps?

Though there were gadgets and gismos a plenty, with who’s its and what’s its galore, being caught in a sequin studded rubber dildo factory did not bring me any closer to the prize. The golden underwear was proving more elusive than the man with the golden gun and 007 was nowhere in sight to help me on this.

“No matter what direction I look, I can never seem to find him.” - 007

To collect ourselves and our thoughts, we decided to make a brief stop at a local tea shop. It seems only fitting, that in the great white search for my unique item, I should come to a tea shop where the tender of the register had a unique feature herself. After taking my friend’s order, she turned around to get her drink. As she did I looked down and my eyes grew large. There before me was one of the best asses I’d ever seen on on white girl…ever!

Oops…Wrong ass.

Taa-daa!!! If only I didn’t have to shoot it so quickly, it would have come out clearer.

First and foremost I’m a boob man. Mike Myers’ said it best in So I Married An Axe Murderer when asked what he looks for in a woman. “I know most people say personality, but I’d really have to go with breast size.” Perhaps it has to do with our unconscious desire to feel nurtured and fed, or perhaps it comes down to simple line of sight with that ass being at a disadvantage because it’s not located between the shoulder blades, but when it comes to mounds, my first love always fell high.

That said, I stood there, eyes fixated on that voluptuous mound of female magnificence, grabbed my jaw, closed it shut and uttered, “sweetheart?”

“Yes?” smiled the girl inquisitively.

“I just have to say, you have the best ass I think I’ve ever seen.”

Both her and Joy laughed through shocked expressions, but I would not be deterred. I had always been told that giving is a wonderful thing, so I was going to give this girl a compliment. However, giving must be balanced by receiving so I asked her if I could take a picture. She laughed, not being quite sure how to respond. While the hamster wheels in her brain went round and round I decided I would simply take matters into my own hand (and I don’t mean with a sneak grab).

I flipped out my phone quicker than Doc Holiday, took aim and shot her down like a Nancy Sinatra song. “My tea baby shot me down” her subconscious mused, “shot me down into the eternal realms of digital photography that live to this day in his phone.” I don’t remember her name and I don’t remember where she worked. What I do remember, was that if I had to choose between looking at baby harp seals and her ass again, I’d tell a coat maker to go clubbing and save them for a later viewing.

“You son of a bitch!”

After searching and searching we finally found what we were looking for at none other than American Apparel (compliments to Joy for calling that one). Apparently Canadian apparel was resigned to plaid lumber jack shirts and boots made from moose tongue and hockey pucks. Though that attire inspired good “stick” handling skills, it was the wrong kind of stick handling. I needed a taste of America if I was going to make this outfit work.

Long is the road and narrow is the way to sexy golden underwear. Plus it’s blocked by little people. ;-) (My wonderful assistant and host Joy)

Assisted by a cute little girl in a lobster hat, I found what I needed and made my purchase of $30. Along with bus fair, what they were going to pay me was going to be just enough to clear my expenses.

As excited as I was, I didn’t want to unveil my outfit without a trial run. Sexiness is like a gun. It’s powerful but you have to make sure you’re shooting with live rounds instead of blanks.

“Whaddaya mean we’re not sexy?”

I especially didn’t want to unveil my outfit before I unveiled the undertone of my legs. Keeping my chest trim is great, but if you’re wearing a skimpy pair of underwear and the difference between your chest and legs looks like the difference between Curly and Moe, than something needs to be done.

Somehow I struck a pot of gold because Joy’s roommate just happened to have clippers there. The last time I had shaved my legs with only a razor, I went skinny dipping, smashed my windshield and had a cop come talk to me about it while I sat naked at a red light. What I’m trying to tell you is that it took a long time and having clippers on hand made a world of difference.

“Mmmmm… smooth man candy.”

I shaved my legs and prepared myself for the evening. I had a special event planned that night. Just over the horizon, beyond my sites was the starting point of my long march south to dance in a dance I knew nothing about, dressed in a way I wasn’t certain would work, and had it not been for the kindness of two strangers, I might have found myself in Dante’s 7^th circle of Hell.

Tune in next time to hear about this thundering tale of hardships and whoa. Tune in for the long march part two!!!!

My Leap Year Gift To You

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:54:00 -0500

Happy Leap Year to you all!!! In honor of this special day that sits in a smokey humidor sipping bourbon with the likes of The World Cup and the Olympics, I have decided to give you all a present. If you’ve been pining to ask that special someone out on a date, or perhaps just want to impress your boss’ daughter so you can get her in the sack and post the pictures all over the internet, than look no further.

Don’t be lame. Be like Spike Lee and Do The Right Thing. Use my poem.

In honor of Leap Year I have devised a special poem just for you all. Use it for you own good, but as the knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusades warned, use it wisely. For the correct use will bring life to your night. The incorrect use will bring termination to your employment (though you’ll be a legend among your work mates). Enjoy!

Eight to Twenty Nine

Behold, oh behold, oh this day such a day

Where the mystical system we humans have made

Found kinked in its armor an unbalanced sum

That could not be solved with our habit with guns

We went to the drawing board, went to our charts

Dug through the pocket books next to our hearts

Tallying numbers till one person chimed

Instead of an eight lets give it twenty nine!

Come forth sweet February and give us your days

Though often you find you serve up twenty eight

On this one occasion we ask you to give

Another so our curious system can live

It may seem to one that because of this mess

There would be no reason for parties and jest

A leap year to many bodes simply to show

That three sixty five ain’t the end of the road

But I know a girl as John Mayer would croon

Would cause heartsick poets to promise the moon

And offer her gifts that would take on the shape

Of french chocolate truffles and ice cream parfaits

For when sugar crystals are fashioned in eyes

And a tongue is a sceptre that melts into wine

To drink so completely, you wake in a world

Of dreams that continue when eyelids unfurl

You’ll find any reason, with rhyme or without

To ask with a mouth like a lyrical spout

For oh such a woman to come celebrate

With dinner that falls beyond twenty and eight

- Wesley

Sometimes A Cougar Really Is Just A Cougar (Vancouver to Victoria, BC)

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:03:55 -0500

I had now taken my trip international after covertly making my way, illegal pastry in hand to the magical land of milk in a bag where seldom is heard a discouraging word but a striking amount of favoritism towards certain vowels is prevalent. I’m of course referring to Canada eh. I got into Vancouver where my new friend Jean Fong took me in. There are two great things about Jean. One, she’s awesome and loves kale. More importantly though, she has an apartment with a heater on steroids. When I walked up to the thermostat and in my best Austrian accent told it not to be a puny man and pump up my BTUs, it did not hesitate.

Listen to Hans and Franz. Don’t be a girly man. Pump three sets of 75 degrees F. (Canadians, I’ll let you figure out the conversion).

My trip to Vancouver was rather uneventful. Jean was out of town, letting me use her place. The only interesting part was when I decided to consume my contraband cookie so I didn’t have to play Mexican roulette with the border patrol again. My friend had cautioned me that it was powerful, but I shrugged it off thinking it was like any other weed cookie I’d ever eaten. I soon realized the crotch kicking power those four inches of sugary dough contained.

“IIIIIIIIIII Fuck You Up Man!”

Lying in the apartment, the THC began to take hold of me like a 6 year old with a strawberry snow cone surrounded by twelve 8 year olds without any. The hunger in its eyes looked at my tolerance which stood as high as a hobbit in a strong wind and knew that it could crush me with eight hours of paranoia induced highness.

What does my itinerary on a night like this look like? Well I always I have to enjoy pleasing myself whether it be through sex, masturbation or discovering a new use for the physical properties of Swiss cheese. Personally, doing weed as sparsely as I do, I find it a waste not to enjoy the wonderful intensity it brings to my climactic facial expressions. It is perhaps one of the only times where I can have an orgasm twice in the time span of two or three hours and according to recent poles, 9 out of 10 people say that’s pretty good.

The 10% that’s always fucking up the poles

It wasn’t all moans and money shots. Somewhere in the midst of the movies, the music and the munchies, a paranoid thought about someone breaking into the apartment and strangling me to death decided to set up camp in the living room of my brain with its tv running on full volume. I believe it was watching The Morbid Thoughts of Dr. Parnassus. Weed has the ability to make everything hyper realistic, so when my brain takes bunny trails to less than favorable areas, I tend to dislike it.

After a long period of debating with myself over whether or not I had actually locked the front door to keep out the imaginary Vancouver Scarf Strangler, I cautiously got up and made my way over to it. Moving forward bit by bit as if tip toeing to Minnie the Moocher, I fully expected that at any moment someone was going to break in and give the front of my neck a deep tissue massage.

In retrospect, the night was still fun. My only regret was that I wasn’t doing Meth. Afterwards I could have at least become a professional baseball player and purchased that hydro-jet pack I’d seen advertised on Google. Occasional weed users only become civil servants which would have given me enough money to buy an above average nerf gun.

What the governement doesn’t want you to know about Meth. After a year of steady use, it rewires your muscles to give you a 103 mph fast ball. Perhaps “Wild Thing” in Major League should have been referring to our crystal concoction.

After years of wanting to visit since I met a hot dancer who lived there, I made my way north to the island of Victoria: the Eskimo equivalent of the Bahamas. I got up early and hopped onto the fairy which takes about two hours to cross. I love the water and there is something so majestic about being farther north, surrounded by mountains peppered with pine and maple trees.

If you look hard enough with photoshop, you can see a mermaid

As we crossed the lady I was sitting next to was eating a delicious looking sandwich. Watching every tantalizing bite, I fantasized about mouth fucking that thing with excessive use of teeth and swallow reflex (I’m referring to the sandwich of course). Perhaps she really wasn’t that hungry or perhaps she noticed my big bulky bag that seemed to say “this guy could probably use a meal”. Whatever it was, she turned to me half way through eating and said “I’m not hungry anymore. Would you like the rest of my sandwich?”

I had to reel in my excited reaction that looked like a victory dance at a the special Olympics and thank her appreciatively without a lot of flailing around. After a heart warming thank you I proceeded to consume the crap out of that thing. Charity as you know is the breakfast of road wondering champions.

When I arrived I was picked up by a curious new friend. Not the weird kind of curious that requires two weeks of applying topical cream, but curious in the unique way of our meeting. I came across her at a bar in Nashville, TN and she just happened to live out here in Victoria. Her name was Rachelle.

After picking me up, we drove around the island, seeing if conversation was something we were both capable of doing outside the confines of country music area codes. When you’ve met someone only briefly at a loud smokey bar and decide to take things to the next level with actual one on one conversation where the decibel level falls below the 140 range, there’s always the curiosity of whether or not their interesting look was really just a facade covering a much more boring interior.

“I really have to trust my instincts when it aligns with my ability to read.”

Fortunately that was not the case. Rachelle was a wonderfully vivacious musician with a unique skill for bird calls that left me a little awestruck. I asked her if she knew Jessica Simpson and could use her skills to attract the infamous chicken of the sea that only came out on the 13th hour, of the 13th day in the 13th month. What was supposed to be an hour long hang out turned into an almost all night play fest.

An interesting thing about Victoria that you may not have known is that it has the highest amount of cougars per capita than anywhere else. Now when I said that what did you think I was referring to? When Rachelle told me this, we had been talking about the lovely houses and people of the island so when she said “cougar” I thought she was referring to middle aged women who love to seduce and fuck younger men. I was puzzled. It was a complete mystery to me how someone could even tally the amount of “cougars” in a town, let alone do it all over the world.

“Hi, my name’s Sheila. I was just wondering, are you a female? Ok, are you over 40? Great, and do you like to fuck young men? Fantastic, you’ve been a great help.”

Were attractive young men secretly being shot with tranq darts and injected with sensors that could tell the age and proximity of a woman and whether or not she was in heat? Was this a massively secret study done by the creators of Cougar Town to see if their show would truly be popular to a wide demographic? I couldn’t understand how Victoria had not been blasted across the internet with sexy advertisements towards sexually robust young men with secret fantasies of a Mrs. Robinson type escapades, inviting them to try their hands at the seasoned love makers of the chilly north.

“I knew there was a reason I renewed my passport.”

As we drove through the city with my eyes searching for older women with short skirts placing warm pies in their windowsills to attract a steamy young beau, I finally asked her my questions. When she realized the miscommunication, she laughed. Then I laughed with a twinge of disappointment. Cougar attacks in Victoria suddenly became far less attractive and more chalked full of hospital expenses and hideous scars.

“Surprise!!! Kitty attack! Wrong type of pussy sucker!!!”

It had been my plan to meet my host, but Rachelle and I were having so much fun, we decided to hang out the rest of the day. I think it was because I’ve got unique earlobes. That night her brother came over and I made dinner for the three of us.

Nom nom nom curry

As we consumed the feast she mentioned something that immediately caught my interest. “Did I tell you my dad sells hot tubs for a living?” Saying that is the positive equivalent of hearing something like “you have type 3 diabetes” or “we’re happy to announce that at 3 o’clock this afternoon, you can clear your desk. You’re fired.”

“We’ve got a hot tub!”

My face shot up and my whiskers perked. If there’s one thing I know it’s this: a Chuck Norris karate chop can cut through titanium and the laughter of small children. If there’s two things I know, than it’s when a man sells hot tubs for a living, it usually means he’s gonna have a kick ass one of his own. Turns out he had the Royals Royce of hot tubs, and after the mention of it, our hangout time suddenly got extended by an extra hour. Hot tubs in a cold, mountainous environment are the best.

We sat in this giant people aquarium that had every feature minus the complimentary hand job and basked in the beautifully starry night of the Canadian outback. A place where cougars that didn’t wear dresses and fuck your kids ran free. It was a night to remember. Mostly because I knew I was going to need another blog entry, so I made sure to remember it. After we finished I finally made my way down to my host’s house.

Tune in next time to hear how I scourged the island for a skimpy pair of underwear, had a sighting of one of the best asses I’d ever seen, and had my one day equivalent of Moa Zedong’s Long March. Till then…

How To Avoid Arrest At The Border For Dummies (my almost arrest at the Canadian border)

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:42:00 -0500

Want to hear about how I almost got arrested by the border patrol?

Psssh…should I even ask anymore? ;-)

Sometimes in life all of us encapsulate the decisions found in Forest Gump. That movie could very well be attributed to the “Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten” poster. Speaking for myself, I had hit my proverbial and quite literal “running into the coast” moment and was left with a decision: where do I go from here. I could have done like Forest and turned around to run the other way hoping that a news crew would pick me up and blast my face all over the airwaves. Would have made it easier to get food donations and a ride.

You see I had made my way all the way from Florida to Seattle with ECBF being my homing beacon. With that now done and out of the way, what was I to do next? I had originally planned to stay in Seattle longer, but something about the energy of it was off to me this time. I found it strikingly removed and much more unwelcoming than I remember. Perhaps this was due to a populous of people who were living in a place where they had heard of the sun, but no on could really confirm its existence.

Albinos: the chief export of the Pacific Northwest

It could also be that my energy level is much different that what many of the North-westerners are used to and so when this mysterious guy came bounding in like a wild puppy, they may not have known what to do with me. I mean who carries a puppy treat on them at all times, really? Or maybe it was because of a person who began spreading false rumours about me and his ex-girlfriend which trickled quickly through the dance community. Despite confronting this person and demanding he stop, he continued blathering on. Some people really just need a cock in the mouth.

“Man…why do I always gotta take one for the team?”

Whatever the reason, I decided to peak into some different areas. First on my list was to make my way north to Vancouver, followed shortly after by getting up to the beautiful island of Victoria. When the opportunity arose to get up there the day after ECBF, I took it. After a wonderful breakfast at the Original Pancake House where the waitress snuck me some fantastic leftovers when she heard I was hitchhiking across the country, I made like a pack rat and did just that: packed. How original.

That evening I caught a ride up North with two dancers. One of the people whom I had been staying with during the weekend offered to house me up there so all was looking like a buy one get one free sale on Salvador Dali paintings. However, it couldn’t be all sunny side up eggs with some hash browns and gravy because as I mentioned in the beginning, I was about to have a tense moment with the border patrol. I had been all la-de-dahs the entire way up until we pulled up to the Canadian border. As we approached a dark cloud of sobering realization that had secretly been stalking me all day drifted across my mind.

“Now? … Do I show up now?”

While in Portland, one of my hosts gave me a weed cookie. I had thrown it into my bag and forgotten about it. Approaching the line where government agencies lose all sense of humour, and release their frustrations over the prancing stereotypes of the mounted police through their batons, my edible travel companion’s presence came screeching to the forefront of my brain. “Shit!” was just one of the many words that ticker-taped its way across my thought stream. I crossed my fingers and hoped for an easy crossing. I was not so lucky.

When we got to the line, we were asked the standard questions followed by the substandard ones such as “would you buy a kaleidoscope here to boost our tourism?” and “do you have sexual fantasies that involve the border patrol?” However, being that there were three dancers from all over with such varying backgrounds, the guard immediately became suspicious. As the interview began to nose dive like a scene out of Step Brothers, that cookie began to call out to me like the tell-tale heart, and its presence became as loud as the singing treats who let us know that we should all go out to the lobby. This was not what I wanted.

“Let’s throw Wes in the slammer! Let’s throw Wes in the slammer! …”

I kept hoping this boarder officer would just give us the go ahead, but after a dismal try he told us to pull the car into the lot. They were going to search our stuff. “Fuck” now became the only word in my ticker-tape parade. At that moment I knew all I could do was what one does in a maximum security prison shower: relax and let what happens happen. I put my faith into government workers who would do their job half-ass, however the last time I had gone to Canada, they thought I was a meth dealer and had gone through my entire bag, scanning, sniffing and reshuffling everything. If they decided to repeat the Maple Leaf feat then my trip was going to take a dramatic turn to the “Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200” square. Apparently drug runner was replaced by the dog and the wheel barrow as a legitimate Monopoly figurine.

We sat in the lobby, my ride completely unaware of the thoughts I was having or the possible predicament I might be in. I simply sat with the most relaxed, uncaring, un-Hunter S. Thompson expression I could muster as to not raise suspicions just in case we were being watched by Big Brother. Had my brain been a visible bunny, it would have been doing the hop like a 7 year old at an Easter Egg hunt.

“We can’t stop officer. We’re in moose country.”

When the time finally came, we were waved over by a lady behind a counter. When reached the counter the lady looked us over and then handed us our passports. You all are free to go.

Despite my trepidations, everything was fine. I smiled grabbed my stuff and with a relieved heart walked out the door to the car. Nothing puts a damper on your travels like getting arrested so I was happy to mark that I had made it across the boarder unscathed and with wrists free of any type of slap or shackle. Like going rogue, I had now gone international. What would happen next, only God and next weeks blog can know.

Tune in next time as I see the best ass of my life and find myself on no food or sleep, dancing in golden underwear as a go-go dancer for hundreds of people.

Who Says You Need A DeLorean To Travel Through Time? (A Farewell Story To Emerald City Blues Festival)

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:18:01 -0500

Do you know what it’s like to time travel? The kind you do in the blink of an eye? Well I’m here to tell you that I’ve done it and you don’t need a DeLorean with the $350 flux capacitor upgrade to it happen. All you need is the right place, right time, right libations and right time vortex. I’ll explain, but first a little background.

I was fortunate to snag a volunteer slot as late as I did for Emerald City Blues Festival (for those of you who don’t know what ECBF is, it’s a large three day/night dance event). Because of my culinary background I was able to land a spot helping with food for this giant blues based ho-down . They heard I had fantastic spatula wielding skills.

The weekend had gone smoothly with no hiccups, speed bumps or metaphorical “beware: disgruntled grizzly bear area” signs to sweat about. The last night of ECBF, I showed up as always to my volunteer shift right on time (or at least what a piece of paper and a Google spreadsheet said was right on time). It didn’t take long however to realize that what the paper said and what reality said were two very different things.

Upon arriving, the volunteer coordinator said they wouldn’t need me for at least an hour or two. ”No problem” I thought. It wasn’t like I skipped going out to bars to have fun with other dancers or anything. With the floor empty and nothing to do I texted a friend and asked her to save me like a Jem song from this tar pit of boredom I’d wondered into with large quantities of booze and social interaction. This was an easy request to make as I had a powerful bartering tool: food.

Being that I was a food volunteer, I had access to the Ft. Knox storehouse of leftovers from the previous two nights. They lay at my fingertips like the red button reserved for crazy generals who overthrow governments and want to be able to launch nukes at a moments notice.

Love ‘em and launch ‘em. The nuclear love habits of mad generals.

I had the power and no one was there to stop me from distributing food to whomever I found worthy. The worthy I find tend to be friends who travel with the right social entourage like Jim Bean, Jack Daniels and that Nelson fellow who I think’s in the Navy.

Upon their arrival we found ourselves neck deep in whiskey, grilled cheese and stories about how we got the scars on our bodies. To top it off there was a lovely pair of G sized breasts next to me that I spent ample time testing the buoyancy of with my finger. Anything for the sake of science right? Somehow, somewhere in the midst of all of this a worm hole in time opened up that caught me completely off guard sending me through the fabrics of time into some dark abyss.

I don’t know how someone hooked up a mini flux capacitor to that bottle of whiskey I was drinking but somewhere in the middle of all the grilled cheesing and booze swallowing I woke up passed out in the middle of the floor. Apparently when it came time to distribute food to the masses I got out there slinging food like a 20 year veteran on the food line with the enthusiasm of a velvet wearing 16 year old after getting his first copy of Purple Rain and discovering that women fuck guys in feminine colors.

“I may be older now, but unlike Chocolate Rain, Purple Rain lives on.”

So how did it really happen? What was the actual formula for my clock jumping? There are many theories but this is what I believe happened. Somewhere along this timeline, a friend of mine gave me a back massage. What she didn’t know from her studies in quantum and astro physics was that the intricate combination of little sleep, alcohol and grilled cheese cause a vortex in time to form.

A worm hole that opens the door to the future for only a few minutes. If one is lucky enough, they’ll slip right into it without even knowing it until they get hit by a floating car and the driver flips them off with his pinky finger (hey, that’s how they do it in the future). I, my friends, found it and slipped right into the future. By doing so I may or may not have abandoned some of my food duties.

Now you yourself might think I had shirked my duties, but let me ask you this: when Marty McFly travelled into the future do you think Universal Pictures or the audience gave a flying fiddle flapping fornicator that he didn’t get to turn in his high school report on the malaria outbreaks during the building of the Panama Canal? No! They just wanted to see hovering skate boards and jackets that dry themselves.

Time travel is its own justification and when a worm hole in space opens up, you don’t ask “what about the food line?” You look straight into its swirly eye and say “2095, and make it snappy!” Plus I gave everyone there something fantastic. The spectacle of a happy inebriate making like Vogue and striking a pose on the floor.

“I call this pose the electric yellow slide”

When I came to I had no idea what had happened or how much time had passed. ”What year is it?” I quietly said to myself. Before I could search for a newspaper I promptly decided that time could wait, but a dance could not. I grabbed a follow and made my way to the floor.

After the tune had ended, the dj yelled something most curious: “that was the last song!” How puzzling? For it had been 12 AM what seemed only 30 minutes ago. Apparently it was now 4 in the morning. Where had the time gone? How had I missed so much? Had I been born a true dance nerd, I would have appreciated science more and known that I had been putted into the 16th wormhole at Pebble Beach.

And so you see, without even intending to, I hitchhiked my way into the future. A feat dared by many, but rarely accomplished. For just as one does not simply walk into Mordor, one does not simply fall into a time vortex. It’s not like Go Fish or Candyland where most everything rests on the luck of the draw. It takes patience, a storehouse of edible supplies and a liver that knows when to tell the brain that it’s time to shut down and reboot.

“Back off liver, I got this thing! I said I got it!!!”

Whatever the reason I was glad I awoke when I did for after the last song I received some surprising news. This was the last ECBF. There were loud moans, surprised gasps and shocked faces, myself included. Emerald City had been my first out of town exchange and one of my absolute favorites and most frequented. Had I time travelled so far that it was actually 2035? I hate it when I pass out wrong.

I didn’t know it when I got the volunteer spot. I didn’t know it when I trekked all the way across the country to do so. Call it Fate, call it serendipity, call it all the good juju Kentucky Friend Chicken has built up over the decades and some of it splashing on me. Whatever you want to call it, I was able to get a volunteer spot and all the rides and means I needed to make it to say a final farewell to an event that has blessed my life in so many ways.

I am deeply grateful for all the hard work that has been put in by so many people, for all the wonderful dances I’ve had, and most of all, for the chance to have a place….to time travel. Emerald City Blues, you will be missed.

See also Heaven Came To Be - The Angel Of Emerald City at http://wacsonwacsoff.tumblr.com/post/16774078644/heaven-came-to-be-the-angel-of-emerald-city

Heaven Came To Be - The Angel Of Emerald City

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:31:00 -0500

Passion is like gunpowder. We store it inside of kegs in random rooms of our minds and forget about it. Every so often someone finds those neglected keys hanging on copper hooks and sneaks into our storerooms without our knowledge to set fire to them. The explosion is unexpected and leaves us in the mercy of its force like the waves of the ocean. Our only option is to surrender to it and ride it into shore.

Instead of spending a blog writing about my time at Emerald City Blues Festival in Seattle, I chose to show you the eruption of fire that came from a look and a dance from a very unexpected source.

Heaven Came To Be

Blue jean babies, L.A. ladies, we’ve seen them all aligned

These China dolls with pretty clothes all laquered and refined

Moving down conveyor belts we call the strands of time

For bidders to release their tongues and swallow with their eyes

*****

Fantasies, apostrophies and casual wine and dines

Stacking up like playing cards, all dollar fifty buys

Blending all together just like Van Gogh’s Starry Night

Till one can’t tell the difference between Crimson Red and White

*****

Oh if I was to take the world and turn it upside down

Shaking it till every living soul had hit the ground

And sniffed out all the truffles with a nose fit for a hound

Until I found each figurine that caused a heart to pound

*****

I’m sure the numbers that my pencil tallied would be great

Enough to rival all the stars the Ancients count as Fates

And who could feel a princess when one opens up a gate

To see themselves as one amongst a thousand varied tastes

*****

For reasons I can ponder but have not yet to find

I’ve asked in these short hours, but only theories come to mind

Why amongst so many did you sweetly catch my eye

Till I found I would not dance unless I had you in my sight?

*****

Perhaps it was the way you moved with passion so refind

That some might say your grace could bestow sight upon the blind

And as the very first of lights came pouring through their eyes

They’d see a spinning angel and find that beauty made them cry

*****

Or was it how you stood and looked at me in such a way

Hiding playfully like children do when they’re afraid

While with a gleaming eye your body turned and seemed to say

Without a word, “sincerity is my tailored negligee”

*****

The reasons could be many or perhaps they could be few

So delicate and temporal they seem to vanish with the dew

And though it may be difficult for me to find the hue

What I know is what I felt, I felt when I saw you

*****

A passion can erupt and sink so quickly in the sand

Vanishing like moisture from a kiss upon the hand

But a blinking eye may catch it if it’s quick to see the strands

That tie such precious moments to so many that seem bland

*****

I don’t know why I felt it and it’s curious to say

For I’ve known you less than those on earth who’ve claimed to’ve found the way

There are no expectations here, no hidden fees to pay

I have a gift and it’s a gift I choose to give away

*****

The world will see what it will see and not all will see you

I could say it was different but that wouldn’t make it true

And some may see you as a dollar fantasy to use

Then execute their ties like Lincoln and the hands of Booth

*****

But just for that one moment when I stood before you there

And felt the mercury inside me rise into the air

A wind swept through my body causing all to disappear

And Heaven came to be the gift of you within my stare

"There Are No Cats In America, And The Streets Are Filled With Cheese" Sacramento to Portland to Seattle (Conclusion)

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:40:34 -0500

It was crunch time in the land of Wesley. The clock which had been ticking since Florida was now almost to zero. I had an event to be at in three days that was in Seattle and here I was, only half way up the coast. It was time to turn on the high gears and start taking some extreme action. It was time to bust out the hitchhiking thong.

“In Kazakhstan, we hitchhiking with both thumbs.”

After that quick mental relapse I realized that it was no longer the 70’s nor was I in Europe so the thong option was about as viable as the hockey mask and machete collector set. I simply had to make some major distance. Portland was a long ways away and that’s where I was headed.

I got up early from my multiple naps due to being forced to watch the night soap “Mike Why Won’t You Talk To Me”. It was the only time I saw this show live and I have no desire to see it again. When I came to I packed my stuff up, said my thank you’s and left to sneak into yet another Days Inn for their Continental Breakfast. The on-duty front door man gave me a suspicious look, but hesitated when he saw the iPhone and headphones I had. I have since found that an iPhone and Bose headphones are to hotel concierges what garlic and holy water are to vampires (that is until modern day movies and books ruined them forever).

“The only thing that can kill us now is a bad hair day and having to wear a clothing line off of the sales rack at Sears.”

I was at the onramp for about an hour where the only thing I was offered was fries in a bag you buy at a gas station. I’m not sure what sub-par genius invented those or even worse, who would even buy those being that actual real fries are about as hard to get in America as it is for Macaulay Culkin to turn a house into a death trap in less than one hour. I don’t think people realize the level of desperate I’d have to hit in order to ingest those things. The guy might as well have said “here, you throw these away” when he threw them at me from his moving vehicle.

Just in case I wanted a ruptured colon to go with my backpack

Oh well, generosity is appreciated, even if it comes in the form of potato shaped cubes of strychnine.

It wasn’t long until I was picked up by a sexy Indian girl. She was on her way to the DMV, but said she could take me about 20 minutes. As we drove, the conversation became increasingly playful until she confessed that she had a thing for white boys. I told her, according to the Third Reich it was because we’re so awesome.

Suddenly we broke out into flirting about how she was going to take me home with her and have her way with me. It’s a rarity to get a ride from a solo female. It’s quite another to get it from a sexy one. The odds really get stacked through the roof when you hit the first two and she starts flirting with you hard core. I seemed to have walked into an alternate dimension where hitchhikers get rides all the time and to relieve the stress of the road they take you home and “pound” the tension out of you.

*it should be noted that this would not be desirable in all cases*

This would be one of those cases

Unfortunately she had a boyfriend and so we kept the fantasy as just that. A playful 20 minute slice of curried heaven that I sipped down like warm creamy chai. The rest of the day after she dropped me off I walked. And walked. And walked. It was beautiful out. I watched as the landscape turned to rolling hills and I felt like Maximus in Gladiator before knowing his wife and kid had been sodomized and stapled to a tree. For whatever reason though (and it may have been the residual curse of the bag fries), no one was picking me up. Knowing that my time frame was severely tight, I decided to try a different approach.

“I said take me to Portland fuck nose!!!”

I posted on craiglist ride share to see if I would get lucky and snag some one in a million soul making the 600 mile trek north that same day. Turns out, the Fates were in my corner. I got a call from a woman who agreed to take me for $50. I had $30 and asked if she could take me as far as that would get me. She hesitated, then agreed. She said she’d be there in two hours max.

It was 1:30 PM when we had this talk.

Four hours and a quickly dying cell phone later, I texted. “Are you coming?” This better not be like Willis Texas where they say they are and never show up. I got another reply.

“Yes. I apologize, I don’t mean to seem flaky. Getting a car. Be leaving here in 20 minutes max.”

It was around 6 PM when she sent this.

I spent my time reading The Gospel According To Biff and admiring how I had gone from Skunksville in Sacramento to Kittytopia out here in Zoraster, Nowhere. Stray kittens as far as the eye could see begged and pleaded with customers for just one juicy bite of those delicious hot dogs. Secretly, I think this was their way of getting sweet revenge on canines.

Apparently Fievel from An American Tale never heard of Zoraster

As 7:30 rolled around, I was in a state of “what the fuck”iness and “I may have to start walking again”iness. This was probablamatic as I had to be in Seattle in three days and had just wasted a full days worth of light waiting for this no-show. I decided to relax into the moment and trust that all would work itself out. I strolled up to the highway and dedcided to watch the sun set from atop an overpass. Standing there, I was amazed by how wonderful that sunset looked.

When you are free from so many responsibilities, living day to day in the throes of the unknown, life takes on a much different hue. Usually the sunsets I watched in the past carried were cluttered with thoughts of what I had to do, work, school, girls, etc. But out here, living like I was, all those things had melted away. There was no work or school to concern myself with. Only that moment. I felt I was truly taking in the sunset for the first time. Like I was watching it anew because it wasn’t just the the sun I was watching. It was everything. Everything in my life was tied into those vibrant pinks and purples.

While up there on that overpass I got a phone call from a strange number. I answered. Though the connection was broken, it was from a guy who ended up being the ride of the woman I had talked to. He told me he would be where I was in an hour. I let out a long sigh of relief. Patiently wating I can do. Getting ditched and losing an entire day is like swallowing broken glass with a salty lemon juice chaser.

His name was Duncan and he showed up around 8:30 PM, a small seven hours since my first phone call. We had almost ten hours of driving ahead of us and after two hours of sleep with the arguing couple and a full day of highway walking, I wasn’t looking forward to trying to sleep in that car. Something about the geometry of having your neck fall over like your at the guillotine for hours does strange things to your spine. Kind of like what happens when walruses try to mate with poodles. It’s just a recipe for the uncomfortable.

No animal can resist the twin tusks

Despite all the delays and my fears that I had been left, the ride came. Turned out for the best. The woman I had originally spoken to never came and never fully discussed my agreement with Duncan. We had originally agreed she would take me as far as $30 would get me. Since she wasn’t there however, when Duncan asked what her and I had decided I said “$30 would cover it.” He smiled and said ok. That was that. Basically, I earned $20 in 7 hours. That’s roughly the hourly wage of a server and beats the pants off a sweat shop worker. Hot damn!

We pulled into Portland at 5 AM, just before the sleep deprived hallucinations could start. Incredibly tired, I was grateful to be there. Not just because I had made that huge stretch of nothing, but because I knew that was it. It was all downhill from there. Some dancers had aranged a ride for me to Seattle. I had been victorious in my journey to the northwest.

“I fuckin did it!!!!”

When I got to Seattle two days later I had to take a moment and appreciate what I had done. I had hitchhiked my way over 3,300 miles all the way from Florida to the other side of the country (and that doesn’t include what I did before Florida). It had been an incredible feat, and I had pulled it off just at the wire. I was now about to attended one of my favorite dance events and the very first one I had ever attended out of state.

I didn’t realize at the time how fortunate it was that I made it to Emerald City Blues Festival. Something happened while I was there that made it all too clear just how lucky I was to have landed a volunteer spot. Before we go into that though, I have to tell you about the angel from Emerald City. Till next time.

Three Skunks And A "Shut The Fuck Up!" Don't Equal A Goodnight Sleep. (My Night With Four Strangers: Sacramento to Portland pt 3)

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:35:57 -0500

Three skunks and a multitude of shadowy figures later (one of which I thought was going to practice meat fabrication on my body), I decided I did not want to get mugged/murdered in the park. Shakespeare in the park is one thing, but there are some scenes in Hamlet I don’t wish to experience in real life.

Who wants the banana now?

Even though the view was beautiful at the lake, there was no way I could fall asleep. Every little twig crack would sound like my impending doom, and let me tell you something. There are few things harder to sleep through than impending doom. It beats out screaming babies nine times out of ten.

I left the park quickly and made my way back to the main part of this commercial enclave. I walked through business areas, but the only spot that looked reasonable had a sign that was far too distracting to sleep by. It’s not that it was too bright, but when something says Sacramento Police Department, you get the feeling they might be a bit more stiff with midnight lawn campers.

“That mother fucker’s on my prized tulips. Shit just got real!”

I walked on and soon came upon two closed restaurants. As I stood there in the darkness, Autum leaves kept falling around me, being blown back and forth by the wind. Perhaps it was the caffinene from earlier making me jittery or perhaps it was the silent stalker in the park whose silluoette strangely reminded me of Jack the Ripper, but as I stood there, it felt eerie like I was in an episode of Nightmare on Elm Street. They had dark rafters that hung over shadowy nooks that would be ideal for someone to hide. Problem was, everywhere I looked in that area, my mind immedietly suspected a serial killer had already put a down payment on it.

Needing to calm my nerves I decided to go sit beneath a lamp and read Born To Run. After about an hour had passed, four strangers walked by me on the opposite side of the street. They looked slightly disheveld, but were carrying suit cases. I assumed they were staying at one of the motels. One of them looked at me, waived and said hi. I responded in kind. They disappeared and that was the end of that. Or so I thought.

Shortly following, the one who waved came walking up to me from out of the shadows.

“Hey man! You traveling?”

I looked him over. He seemed friendly. He had a black hoodie and a scraggly beard. Looked and smelled like he hadn’t showered for awhile.

“Yeah, I’ve been hitching around the US.”

“That’s cool man. Say, you want to come join us?. We’re hanging out, drinking and smoking weed.” Well that’s a lot better than smoking meth and disecting travelers in the park. Though apprehensive, I decided to go check it out. Once we got up and started walking, I began to regret my decision and see it as possibly foolish.

Cause only Family Feud can decide what my decisions really were

He walked me through a dense collection of dark trees and bushes towards an abandoned restaurant. It was dark and I couldn’t see very much around me. As he talked, my mind kept saying, “you are so getting jumped! He’s brought you into a dark place and him and his three friends are going to pound you, rob you, and leave you for skunk food.”

Nom nom nom traveler: Now comes in brown!!!

My rusty third grade karate training reluctantly put down it’s Pop Tart and Pacifist novel and picked up its least favorite manuel, “So…You’re About To Be Gang Rapped: The How To Guide For Avoiding Certain Unpleasantries.” Senses pricked and hyper alert, I scanned every inch of my surroundings looking for someone with a wrench and a name tag that said Professor Plumb to pop out and bludgeon me.

For a good fifteen seconds while we walked through those dark trees and bushes, I felt certain I was going to be mugged. The terror of this evening was simply unrelenting. However, when we got through the thick of it, I saw the awning of the restaurant. On it were the figures I had seen before. They were laying down with sleeping bags. My heart immediately eased, my butt hole relaxed and the images of Freddy Krueger slowly gave way to Care Bears and Bennie Babies.

Tell me this place doesn’t make you think of Beenie Babies and Care Bears. Of course they probably get shot, skinned and sold on the black market here.

Turns out they were all fellow travelrs in town for the Occupy of Sacramento. We sat around smoking Weed and chatting as they told me stories of where the had been and where they’d come from. Though some of them had rather unappealing smells they were friendly and very generous offering me drinks, food and plant growth. I found myself feeling much more comfortable and said a silent thank you to the Universe. After the lake incident I knew it would be hard for me to find a comfortable place to sleep. With the four of them, I felt skunks and uncertified surgeons would keep their distance.

The crew minus the one hiding under the blanket

I laid back around midnight, hoping to catch some sleep. One thing you learn about camping though is what you gain in strength of numbers, you can lose in quality of sleep. First, it was the Mexican they called Taco. He was part man, part industrial tree saw. Listening to him cut through his zzz’s was like listening to an F-14 target practice on an aluminum shed. I secretly hoped he’d be loud enough to shatter the glass and have one of the shards get him in the jugular. All for the greater good right?

If that wasn’t enough, the one couple there, Mike and Megan, kept arguing through the night about him putting his hand down somoe girl’s pants, and how she had told him they had 6 rolling papers when there were really only four. Things like these usually go hot and strong for fifteen minutes tops, and then people quit. Not these two. Like a fucking night watchman, every hour on the hour I’d wake up to Megan yelling “Mike! Mike! Mike! Mike!” as their arguing picked up once again.

“There were only four rolling papers! Four! FOOOOOOOUUUUUUR!!!!!”

When they weren’t arguing, Mike seemed to have mini seizures. Megan would start screaming, freaking out that something was wrong with him, while Taco the tree saw drowned her out with his snoring, and I fought the urge not to grab my large knife and become the psychopath I had been fearing all night. I did what I could to help and in the end he turned out to be fine. My REM sleep however was feeling grossly neglected.

It was a long night to say the least, and I think I collected a total of two hours of sleep. Oh well. That morning they asked me to hang around, but I had had enough of all the noise. Though I was very appreciative of them it was time for me to get the hell out of Dodge. I collected my stuff, made my way to the onramp and began once again thumbing for my ride. I was now in a time crunch. Emerald City Blues Festival in Seattle, WA was right around the corner and I only had a few days to make it up almost half the country.

Tune in next time as I make my way North, get to a dance event, and meet an angel who became my muse.

Death Visits A Hitchhiker: My Run In With A Truly Terrifying Moment

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:25:36 -0500

In horror movies you watch helplessly from your small seat in the theater as a leathery faced killer slowly approaches his victim who. Defying all laws of physics, despite that the terrified prey is running, the killer manages to get ahead of them simply by strolling. Typically he’s carrying some sort of blunt force trauma device like a tire iron or a wagon wheel, though since the days of Unfaithful one can no longer rule out the snow globe. Sitting there, watching with clenched fists as the murdering psychopath plays wack-a-mole on the face of a poor camper, you think to yourself, “wow…I wonder how terrifying it would be to find myself in that situation?”

“Take that you stupid mole!!!”

I know this because I too have asked that very same question many times. Typically it’s after I’ve been suckered into attending another amateur jazz flute improv, and I fantasize about being killed by something far less cruel then the butchering of the pentatonic scale.

The thing about watching horror movies is that it’s like aftermath that results in coming up with a secret formula to make a rolling ball of honey. It’s completely liquid and yet somehow it maintains the shape of a ball. Horror movies are like this because when you take this ball of honey that defines logic and the laws of dispation handed down to us by the flatualites of ancient Greece and you roll it, everything around sticks to it.

As it gains momentum and the world begins to quiver at the quaking food storage of winter bees, you find not only do you see horror images in the sketchy person hiding behind the dumpster with the kitchen knife and the sign that says “I’ll murder for food”, but you begin to see it in everything. Your bowl of lucky charms. The robin that dove just a little to close. The old lady on the motorized cart. What did she REALLY want when she asked me over to help fix her cabinets?

Note the slight sneer? That’s a classic case of sweet old lady who wants to can you in pickling brine.

Eventually over years and years of digesting horror flicks you find your thoughts get warped, molded and funneled into a giant rolling honey ball of nervous anticipation where suddenly the world is no longer filled with teddy bears and butterscotch but Freddy Kruegers, Jason Voorhes and Killer Clowns from Outer Space. So when, like me, you’ve watched and played with horror movies since the time you could pick up a rubber clever and preform surgery on your stuffed Teddy Rockspin, and something happens that brings up flashes of gruesome murder scenes, you begin to feel exactly what they do in the movies. And let me tell you…it’s not very pleasant. I know because it happened to me on my way to Portland.

When I arrived in Sacramento it was around 6 PM. I sent out some feelers to the local dancers, but nothing materialized from it. It was getting dark and I was right next to the I-5 so I decided to walk North until I found a good spot for hitching the next day. It only took me about an hour to make my way to the outskirts of the city where I came upon an area of prime hitchhiking real estate. There were multiple motels and gas stations stretching down one main road that would lead all these morning travelers right to me.

I decided it was time to look for a place to crash that night, so I began a scoping journey. What I could not see through my sleep-a-scope because it lay just over the horizon of my iPhone clock was something lurking that I had playfully imagined as a kid in order to frighten myself and my friends for fun. The cold hand of terror hoovered just above my shoulder, but I had gone intuitively cross eyed and was unable to see it. When it finally came down, it was almost too late.

Everywhere I went had no places for me to sneakily hide myself. After a deal of searching I decided to take a path into the dark woods. As I walked, the lights steadily got darker and I began to see shapes of people hidden in the shadows of the bushes. A strong sense of nervousness came over me as I became hyper alter. I’m sure somewhere in the back drawers of my subconcious was the warnings of a kindergarten teacher who made mention of watching out for shadow puppets that weren’t really puppets hiding in the bushes and that began to set off my internal alarms.

“As you can see kids, the equation clearly states that {X(shadow figure) + Y(dark bushes)} x 300Z(hours spent watching scary movies) = crap your pants.”

Suddenly something shot out of the underbrush right near me. ”WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!!!” my mind screamed as I jumped backwards. When my eyes adjusted, I saw it was an animal. And not just any animal, a skunk. ”Great!” I thought. If there’s one thing that will guarantee me getting only about 50 yards with any ride it will be if I show up smelling like the dirty laundry of the apocalypse.

Laugh now, but just like in horror movies, when the black cat jumps out to scare the audience and temporarily relieve the tension, everyone knows that the real danger lies just around the corner with a string section of eerie violins following close behind.

I made my way down towards a small lake to see if I could set up a place on the beach. When I got there, I looked around and damn it! There was another skunk. Then another. When did the skunk become Sacramento’s city mascot? I really didnt want one of those things mistaking me as food and giving me a shot of Calvin Klein’s newest fragrance “Restraining Order of 100 Yards” instead. As I watched them scamper off into the darkness, I turned around and saw something. I couldn’t make it out at first for it was too dark. As my eyes adjusted and I finally understood what I was seeing, my heart filled with terror.

Walking directly towards me in the shadows was a lone dark figure.

It’s easy to be touch when you’re preparing yourself for something ominous. To say, “in this situation I’d do this or that” and a bunch of other blah blah blah bullshit. When something comes upon you suddenly, all that goes away and you’re left with nothing but raw instinct and powerful emotions.

As I watched this dark shadow move not kind of near me, or in the same vicinity, but directly at me, my hand gripped my mace so hard that if I missed shooting this person, I would use it to help beat this person to death. As it got closer my heart began to pound more wildly. It’s one thing to imagine what you’ll do but another to execute it. My body was becoming pure adrenaline and fear. Like the fear of what might be lurking beneath the ocean waters you’re swimming in, this person had no face, no distinguishing features. It was a shadow that moved with unknown motives, leaving my imagination to run rampant over all the horrifying possibilites.

“I gotta say, of all the possibilites, I didn’t think he’d do this to me.”

He was within 15 yards of me when suddenly he stopped. A light flicked on from his head and I saw his body descend into a trash can. He was a homeless man looking for cans to collect. ”Holy shit!” I sighed as my rusty third grade karate training which was probably somewhere in the back of my cerebral cortex gorging on Pop Tarts, reading “Eat More: Be A Pacifist” eased from defcon 4 to defcon “let’s find a change of underwear.”

Of all things, that thus far the most frightening moment of my trip. Perhaps the greatest fear of anyone is the unknown, and when it comes in a form like that, a multitude of mental images you don’t want breaching the surface race to tell you just what it might be. The ice cream man is not of them I’ll tell you that.

Tune in next time when I tell you about my unique sleeping arrangement, some new pals, and how in the midst of coming down from “terror alley” I almost got jumped.

A Step By Step Guide On How To Commandeer A Moving Bus (San Francisco to Portland, Pt 1)

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:07:19 -0500

Take a step. How’d it feel? Take another. Now another. How about one more for good measure. Satisfied? If not and you’re at work, try moaning like a mongoose. Had Mic Jagger witnessed someone trying this, the Stones never would have had their hit single.

“I can’t get no/ Satisfaction/ When I’m walking down the street/ And a man walks up to me/ And I say ‘Eek, eekie, eekie, eek!’/ And he yells, ‘what sort of mongoose could he be?’/ That’s when I’ll get my … … …/ A hey hey hey!” Just like brushing up on your Shakespeare, some of you may need to brush up on your Stones. Back now to talking about steps.

The infamous Irish Jig Mongoose.

Ok, so to recap we had step, step, step, step, and one step for good measure. Hell let’s get crazy and throw one more in. Each one of those steps was about a foot. Now throw on a large back pack that could fit a small human inside and repeat that step 3,363,360 times on hard asphalt. Yep… That’s how far it was to Portland. Welcome to life on the motha fucka!

“Take one more step, I dare you, I double dare you motha fucka! Take a step one more time!!!”

San Francisco proved to be quite difficult to leave after the incredibly raucous time I had with my old high school friend Beth. There are some people you knew when you were younger that after reconnecting with them you wonder how in the world you ever dared share a locker. Beth was the opposite. Though we only did a few theater shows together and hung out a hand full of times in high school, our personalities aged like fine wine together.

To tell you of our time together would be to like reading a letter in German if all you spoke was crayon scribbles. Too many inside jokes. However, I did get to bare witness to one of the finest parking jobs in the history of mankind, as Beth performed an 800 point parking job on a 45 degree slope with a stick shift. Such feats few have ever had the privilege of baring witness to.

Da front

Da rear

Every time I leave to go hitchhiking there usually is a bit of resistance. I know it will be challenging, I know my body will probably ache after it and I know when I get to where I’m going I’ll be chomping at the bit to perform sexual favors on any local chiropractors so they’ll adjust me. There is also another reason. Being that I travel like this with no health insurance, very little money and no idea what will happen, my sense of mortality readily comes up to stare me directly in the eyes.

It’s a powerful sensation and one that is easier to overlook when you’re a teenager. But the longer you are here, the more that snake bobs its head in and out of your awareness until you finally are forced to face it head on. It brings with it frigtening unknows and hard questions. As I begin almost every knew journey, I face this. It has become a companion. I’m not certain whether to call it a friend or an addiction in the way that some soldiers can be addicted to the adrenaline of battle. When you are put on the edge, you feel alive. Often, when I walk out the door to face the unknown, it is the most alive I ever feel. Sometimes terrified, but alive.

“I knew a man once who said, ‘death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.’”

“Was it Crocodile Dundee?”

“Hmmmm… so you’ve heard about the smiling crocs? Apparently my acting isn’t covering up this Aussie accent.”

I now want to take you all on an adventure. My spectacular adventure of van chases, hijackings and a bag of almonds to keep me satiated. Are you ready?

After maneuvering around the local BART system, which is Bay talk for their metro rail, I eneded up at the bus stop. I wanted to see if there was a way to get to Sacramento which was almost an hour and a half north. When I asked the bus driver, a jive talkin black woman who was as sweet as a jolly rancher if that was possible, she told me she could get me half way there. She also mentioned that the bus that would take me the rest of the way stopped running at 4 PM.

“What time is it now?”

“4 PM.”

Shit! Well, I figured I would take the bus anyways and see if I could hitch to Sacramneto. When we pulled in, I hoped out and asked one of the drivers who was taking a smoke break if there were any buses that could take me up to Sacramento. To my surprise he pointed at a lone bus and said, “hurry up and catch that one. That’s exactly where it’s going!”

Shocked and surprised as it was clearly 45 minutes after 4 PM (I know, I looked) I grabbed my bag and ran to catch it. When I got to the door, I looked up to see a stern faced thin man with eyes slightly sunken who looked like he had followed every rule ever given to him by the age of newly formed sperm.

Toooourissssssts…

“Are you going to Sacramento?” I asked.

“Yes, but I only bring passangers from there, I don’t take any of them back.”

What the fuck is that bullshit, I thought. I’m sorry, but we make so much money we can afford to deny 50% of our clientele. I asked him if he could make an exception this one time. He shook his head no. Damb obedient sperm with a torso.

This is why we don’t allow stupid sperm in the gene pool. There’s a 68% chance they’ll take over our buses and make idiotic policies. ”I’m sorry but you can’t get on because we decided to stop letting people sit on the left side of the bus.”

I walked back to the sweet, jive talkin black lady who unbeknownst to me had been telling my story to the other bus drivers. Bus drivers and one upper management employee named Bob. How is it the name of all blue collar management officials is Bob? It’s never Edward or Francisco or Ingelbert. My motto is going to be: when in trouble, find yourself a Bob. Don’t bob for apples, bob for Bob.

When I walked up, Bob was already on the walkie talky asking if it was ok for the ultra-obedient driver to take me to Sacramento. I got very excited. What a score! As we waited for the answer from upper management (apparently this kind of thing is a big deal and has to be approved, re-approved, and then put into a cage to defeat a hungry tiger with only day time television as a weapon) I turned in dismay to watch the bus going back to Sacramento pull out of the station and drive away.

“Quick! Someone pull a Speed and blow it up!” I yelled. Probably not the best thing to say but it was worth a shot.

“Have you tried driving under 50 mph? It’s the new big thing.”

I thanked Bob and the lady driver for there efforts and began to walk off, when Bob got a response on his walkie. He turned to me and hastily said, “grab your stuff and follow me.” As my excitement and hope began to rise, he took me to a van.

“Throw your stuff in! We’re going after him!”

We hoped in and sped off to chase down the empty multi-ton metro ride with a sever case of stupid rule-ism set down by the oligarchy of the financially damned. The call came through to the other driver and we saw him pull over to the side of the road. Hot damn I was about to commandeer my first bus and I didn’t even have a gun! Just an attitude that said “don’t fuck with me, I hitchhike.”

“I have a thumb here people and I ain’t afraid to use it!!!”

I thanked Bob, hoped out and rode 45 minutes to Sacramento. This was turning out to be a good day.

Bob the wonder stud

Tune in next time where I’ll talk about how I almost got jumped, met some interesting sleeping partners and found out that the city animal of Sacramento is not what you might think.

Breaching The Walls Of The Forbidden City

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:50:00 -0500

When I was a Sophomore in high school my dad invited me to a wedding. This was no ordinary wedding either, it was my cousin’s. Most of you with cousins are probably thinking, “unless it was two of your cousins marrying each other beneath a harvest moon next to the Arkansas River, than I’m failing to see the significance.” Though I understand how your convictions over the acceptable legality of marriage between two people whose genetic proximity make it possible for their spawn to be born as the “Toad Baby” while gay marriage is still seen as unholy, that’s not why.

The reason it was particularly unique is because my cousin’s mom was married to the own of the San Francisco Giants.

Because gay marriage could never create something this beautiful

To give you an idea of the grandeur of this wedding, they spent over a half million dollars on flowers alone. Flowers. Anyone who has ever read and followed the statutes stipulated in the book known only in this blog, “How To Make Her Valentine’s Day More Memorable Than Being Maced At An Occupy” has an idea how much money it would take to reach the half a million marker in terms of flower purchases.

A pledge drive for Alzheimer’s would be lucky to pull in even half that much dough, even if it were being hosted by Alf himself. So if that was how much they spent on flowers, you can image how the rest of the wedding was. Let’s just say it went beyond personal pan pizzas and individual kaleidoscopes for everyone. Unfortunately for me, auditions for a musical fell right on the date I would need to fly out, so I missed this spectacular event. Pajama Game be damned!

Yeah it seems we didn’t hit the numbers we were hoping for. Apparently even my non-Alzheimer fans forgot who I am.

Many years later a friend of mine named Matt asked me to take a road trip with him out to Tacoma, WA. On our way there we would would stop in San Francisco, stay a few days, then head up North hitting a few key cities. The Golden Gate Brige, Alcatraz, and the big San Fran sign from Arachnophobia were just a few of my desired destinations. I was excited and primed to go to this amazing city I had heard so much about. That was until Fate, as before, decided to have a change of heart.

A few days before our departure, Matt ran over a rock in the road. There were no “rock crossing” signs posted, nor any warnings that rocks in those parts showed high levels of aggression. Nonetheless, a rock jumped out of nowhere and struck the undercarriage of his car, which led Matt to having to make some repairs.

Had it been Rock-N-Hop Ave, he would have been more apt to avoid loitering granite

His insurance company at first gave him the run around. This delayed our departure. Soon afterwards, he had to get a piece of his car fixed, but it would take them an extra day to get the piece in. Another delay. By this time, two of the three days we would spend in San Fran had been eaten up. We still wanted to go though. There was only one last thing we needed: to pick up a bike rack that had just been shipped in so Matt could bring his bike with him (he was moving all his stuff to school).

When we arrived at the auto dealership that had the rack, a very peculiar thing happened. When we lifted the box to put it in the trunk it felt light. A little too light. Upon opening it up we discovered that, due to the pressures that come with doing nothing during the non-holiday rush, they had put the straps in the box, but had somehow forgotten to put in the frame.

Out there, roaming the hills like a Sasquatch, is a person who has two very distinguishing qualities. One, they only show up fuzzy on camera, and two, they have no depth perception in terms of weight. To them, 35 pounds feels identical to 8 pounds. Unfortunately, such an ailment could not even garner a fraction of what my cousin spent on flowers if they threw a pledge drive for it, so this bane of humanity still exists and wanders the country side terrorizing bikers with frame-less bike racks.

Well if it isn’t the fuzz

Needless to say, we had to cut San Francisico out of our trip. Because of this, San Francisco has always stood like a Bermuda Triangle where all my plans to get there get swallowed up into a mysterious abyss of odd timings and missed opportunities. After more than a decade of trying to get there without success, I figured it had all been an omen telling me that I had to wait for the time when I was worthy to enter its Golden Gates.

Now as a man hitchhiking his way around the country on the great American adventure, it was the perfect time to come to the city of love, gay districts and all you can eat fog. However, it wasn’t quite ready to make it easy for me. In the same spirit it had shown me multiple times before, when I tried once again to enter its boarders, it threw me a loop that almost scuttled my plans once again.

Dear Wesley,

Here’s to your hitchhiking plans. Fuck off!

Yours Truly, San Francisco

Being that Emerald City Blues was rapidly approaching I knew I had to take advantage of ride share programs more than normal. I caught a ride with two guys from Hollywood into Freemont, a city that is about an hour long train ride South of the Bay area. After enjoying some time with a few local dancers, one of them dropped me off at the BART (the public train) around 10 PM. I was shooting to get to Friday night blues where a friend of mine was djing. Things were looking up. My time had finally come. Enter now the mysterious omen of doom.

As I sat at the train station waiting, I watched train after train go by, each going to a destination that I didn’t want to go to. I paced back and forth for almost an hour, perplexed as to why and how my train had not come yet. Finally, after deciding something was off, I asked one of the workers there when my line would arrive.

“Oh, you have to take the so and so train to some random spot and get off there. You’re connecting train will be there.” Her directions were a bit more decriptive than my memory serves.

I had no idea why this wasn’t specified anywhere clear as it had now set me back an hour, but no worries. I caught the next train and exited where I was told to get off. That’s when I heard something that made my ears cringe and blood race. Pushing close to midnight, I stepped off the train where I had been directed to get off. Just before the doors to the train closed someone yelled from within if they should stay on if they needed to get to San Francisco. Someone on the platform shouted yes. I spun around quickly but the doors had already closed. What the hell had just happened?

As I stood there watching the train pull away a man walked by me and said, “I hope you aren’t waiting for another train cause that was the last one.” Seeing my face, three loitering gangsters walked by me laughing, “what you gonna do now huh?” Confused and irritated at the misdirection, I walked downstairs and found two employees. After explaining my situation they said, “we apologize for the incompetence of our employee, but there’s nothing we can do. Next train doesn’t leave till 6 AM tomorrow.”

“Great!” I fumed. “And just where am I supposed to stay till then?” They suggested I go home. When I told them I had no home and was hitchhiking, they tried another approach.

“Hmmm… well you can take the bus. It will take longer, but it will get you where you need to go. It just costs $5.”

“I SPENT the last $5 I had on the BART!!! I don’t have $5!” I was now feeling as if San Francisco had it in for me. I was the prodigal son whom it decided would be a liability if it decided to have a political career, so it kept the fatten calf for the other kid and told me to sod off English style. Just when I thought I had been foiled again, my answer came to me in the form of a stranger.

A younger man who looked like a TM student and one of George Harrison’s fans from the 60s walked up to me and handed me $5. “Here you are. You look like you need this more than I do.” I stood there a moment amazed, then quickly grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. “Thank you, you saint of the metro bus!” I don’t know the name of the real saint who is in charge of public transportation, but for now this guy was a fine substitute. I caught the bus and after a long ride, it finally happened.

George Harrison Look Alike: the patron saint of hitchhikers

I peered out of a dark window, looking over a city scape speckled with yellow lights and found myself finally crossing the Bay Bridge into my own personal Forbidden City. It had taken me four extra hours to do so, but I was finally here. I had breached the wall. At 2 AM, the city that had for so long kept me at arms length, finally welcomed me into her arms and I now realize why.

I fell in love with San Francisco, but man did she make me work for it. Sometimes the ones that make you work for it turn out to be the most meaningful. They can be the ones who stick with you the most. In this case, after over a decade of trying and a last ditch effort to deny me, the city of love finally made love to me. And it was oh, so very delicious.

Death Cab For Cutie: My Ride With The Devil (San Diego to LA)

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:49:54 -0500

Some things are hard to leave behind. The Bahamas. Count Chocula. That holiday weight you gained from the four helpings of pie. And most especially, San Diego after being treated like a Prince.

The Fonz of breakfast cereal

After making my through the desert, I had fallen into luxery’s lap at the hands of Jeff Eldridge, the patron saint of having a great time. But just like Arrested Development, all great things must come to an end. After a blissful week, San Diego eventually saw me off. It was time for me to make my way to LA.

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked when I tell people I hitchhike around the country is “are you ever scared? What about all the crazies out there?” My response is, no. I’m not scared. My experience is that everyone who has picked me up has been either wonderfully generous or adventurous. So when I made my way up to LA, I didn’t know that I was about to get a sample of what people had warned me about. A car ride that filled my brain with images from every slasher movie and its 35 sequels including the ones set in space.

It forgot to say “One Giant Autowreck For Irish Culture”

Hitchhiking in California is a bit tricky. It’s illegal to walk on the highway which irks me because my relationship stats say I’m a Scorpio, who loves food, Sting and long walks on the highway. In short, the Interstate 5 was killing my romantic sentiments. I had waited on an onramp for about an hour when I decided it was time to walk. This time I had to walk the streets.

Like Tom Hanks, pacing down the gray, steam filled streets of Philadelphia to the morose sounds of Bruce Springtein, I walked my way down the sunny, mist filled steets of San Diego to the glam rock sounds of WHAM. Things have a tendency to change when you rise above the 70 degrees farenheit marker.

Alchemy: the science of turning an Oscar winner into a Zoolander throw back

As I made my way up a side street, a car passed me and stopped. It quickly pulled around and opened its window. It was a young man and girl, around the ages of 23-24.

“We saw you carrying a bag and thought you might like a ride. Where you going?”

“LA”

“Hmmmm…how about up the street?”

“Works for me.”

Ah, the good ol’ up the street. Collect all 100 and not only do you get a full 2 miles closer to your destination, but you also get a free copy of OJ Simpson’s ebook, Getting The Most Out Of Your White Bronco. I threw my stuff in and we took off. Though we weren’t going far, they agreed to take me to a high traffic onramp.

At first, our conversations were humerous and joking. These two were a lot of fun. Soon afterwards they began to talk about the occupy movement. It was here a deep well of frustration and passion began to pour out of them. Especially the guy. They ranted on how they felt school and their teachers had lied to them about what they needed to do in order to to get a good job and life.

“Go to a good college, study hard and a job will be waiting for you. It’s bullshit!” the young man vented. ”We both went to prestigious colleges, graduated with great marks and she’s unemployed and all I can get is a crappy job I hate that takes me an hour to get to.” They vented their rage and then turned and asked what I thought about the Occupy movement and the belief that in order to make a life, you go to a good college, get a good job and everything work out.

“Big Brother says ‘just add one part college, two parts steady job, three parts marriage and kids, bake for 35 years and voi la! You’ll have yourself a perfect loaf of Life Bread.’”

I told them I had not paid a great deal of attention to the occupy movement. I rarely read the news for I find it too negative. I then looked them both in the eyes and told them my personal philosophy. ”Since I was young, whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to do or be when I grew up, I always said ‘I want to be me’. That was it. There was never a set image, nor any specific path drawn up for me to follow. All I knew was that I wanted to be happy.

“I never bought into the college fantasy and when I tried it, I found it didn’t fit me. My heart simply told me, ‘find what you love to do and do it.’ Even going to Culinary School wasn’t about landing a great chef job. Working in kitchens in the traditional sense had absolutely no appeal to me. I just knew that food intrigued me and so I decided to learn about it. That’s how I live my life. Whether it was music, acting, dance or food I always followed what made me happy. Where my passions took me. And thus, that is how I found myself here, traveling the country.

“I don’t know all the answers, but if you want to be happy get into the flow of happiness. When the time presented itself to take this journey, my heart said, ‘go. Go on a journey. Go NOW!!!’ It took me all of an hour to decide to take this journey, and when I made the decision I didn’t look back. I left the business I had created, my home, my established community and my sense of security with less than $70 a month to live on.

What I did have was the desire and willingness to have faith that Life, God, the Universe, you pick the name, would provide for me. And thus, here I am. I’m not thinking about living life. I’m not planning to live life. I AM living life. I’m not any better than other people. I was simply willing to act on what my heart asked of me. Where I felt it leading. Everyone is capable of this. I encourage you to do the same.”

With that I left them. They were very appreciative of what I said, and it seemed to be what the guy needed to hear as he had been wanting to leave his job and pursue a dream to work in the forest service. I realized it would be a financial cutback for him and it would require changing his vision of the dream life that had been instilled in him, but I hope he made that choice. The heart sees things the mind sees not. Perhaps picking up a hitchhiker that day was one of the best things for him.

Frankly, I recommend picking up a hitchhiker. That should help clear everything up 4-6 weeks.

Epic speeches are great to have, but now it’s time for the main event. The thing you avoided fifteen minutes of your work day for. To hear about the ride I feared I may not come out of.

When they dropped me off, I made my way to the onramp where I waited a good hour before I was picked up. I was driven all the way to the point where the cities stop and there is a long stretch of nothing. The guy was very cool and told me if I didn’t land a ride he’d come grab me and let me stay at his place. I was very grateful, but wanted to push on. It was a decision I would almost regret.

The sun was setting and the place I was at was rather…sketchy. Only problem was there weren’t many options after that. I stood under a street light, feeling like a hooker with a hoodie, trying to catch something besides chlamydia that would take me North bound. After about 45 minutes of waiting and not particularly liking the area I was in, I picked up my bag and prepared to leave. That’s when he showed up.

A dark, maroon van pulled up in the turn lane and a bald man with a goatee yelled out the window, “where you going?”

“LA” I shouted as my hopes rose, thinking I may have landed a ride just when I thought I was finished here. Those hopes, like milk tucked behind the radiator, quickly turned sour.

“How much money have you got?” Not exactly a question you want to hear from a guy in a van in a questionable neighborhood. Skeptical, I told him $5. If this guy was looking to rob me, I wanted to make it as far from worth it as possible.

“$5!” he snorted and looked away in disappointement. Then he pulled his van towards me and yelled “quick, get in!” In that moment my instincts became very wary and I hesitated over whether or not to take this ride. I asked him how far he was going and he said “we’ll talk about it.” This was starting to look bad.

Let me tell you a little something about desperation. It makes you do things you often don’t want to do. Whether it’s jumping out of an airplane to impress an adventurous boy, or stealing recipes from Chef Boyardee who is clearly a made man in the mafia, desperation can land you in some hairy spots. So when this sketchy guy told me “we’ll talk about it” it, I knew desperation for a ride was landing me in an undesirable situation.

No one steals from Don Ravioli!

I opened his van door and found what looked like his entire life inside. Sitting on top of it all was a little Chihuahua that looked at me with snarling eyes as if I were intruding onto his territory. I looked back into my memory banks to see if crossing a chiuaua was the Mexican equivalent of crossing a black cat. I tossed my stuff in and jumped in the front seat. Immediately, he sped off. Immediately my hand went for my mace canister.

The energy of that car was instantly defensive and uncomfortable. Typically, when someone picks me up, I want them to take me as far as possible. In this case however, I was looking for any excuse to get out of the car.

25 Cent Lemonade: the universal excuse for getting out of the car

Trying to warm the tension I told him thanks for picking me up. He shrugged it off with a grunt. I tried as best I could to keep the mood light, happy and as far away from me being skull fucked as possible. This man was very skiddish and it seemed that any moment he might bludgeon me unconscious and take me to some dark cave where the could do things found only in the Sodomite’s version of the Karma Sutra. That or I might be his food for the next three weeks. Oh cinema, how you put such lovely images into our heads.

My hand had pulled the mace canister out of my pocket and was on the locked and ready position. My left arm was ready to do any sort of judo block move to keep him from knocking me unconscious. I was sitting there chatting lightly, while below my neck I was poised and positioned like a jungle cat, ready to pounce and go all out if things went south.

Prepare to taste some Kung-Fu, Calvin and Hobbes style!!!

When I began to ask about himself, he started down a path of dark, painful memories that left me wondering what sort of person I was riding with. ”Man, if you only knew what I’ve been through” was his opening line. Please tell me, so I know whether or not I should also reach for my big knife. From problems in the military to being kidnapped and held hostage, he spouted out tragedy after tragedy like a poetry swap between Chris Isaak and Shakespeare.

I wasn’t certain if this guy was crazy or not, he just sat there driving with that little dog in his lap, looking at me with ferocious eyes. It didn’t help my mental state when I remembered that the villain in Silence of the Lambs also had a little dog. Had this guy named it Precious I think that would have been the final nail in the coffin. I kept trying to keep a cheery attitude in hopes that maybe if my energy was just sunny enough, the instinct in him that resembled that of Norman Bates might be lulled into reconsideration.

The 20 minutes it took to get to a rest stop was one of the longest of my life. My knuckles were white from gripping that mace canister, and I think I replayed every Jet Li movie I’d ever seen in my head twice, trying to collect any amount of moves that might save me from potential doom. When we pulled into the rest stop, I breathed a silent breath of relief. I was for one alive and unharmed, and two, in a public area. It’s much more difficult to get away with meat cleaving someone when there are kids playing soccer all around.

Kids playing soccer: the last line of defense

Oddly enough, it was at this moment, things took a turn in a way I did not expect.

This man who had seemed so defensive, hostile and balls to the walls sketchy, suddenly transformed. He dropped that outer layer and opened up to me. He explained his life situation and all that had been happening to him recently. Though I was still very eager to get out of that car, I slowly relaxed more and more as I took in what he said. He eventually told me that he would be willing to take me to LA if we could work out a deal financially.

What I began to see was that this guy was actually wanting to help me out, but that he simply did not have the means for gas to do so. I realized that I had some extra money, but was still hesitant if I wanted to ride with this guy. It could all have been an act, but my intuition said otherwise. This guy appeared to be sincere. After some negotiating, we agreed on a price for which he would get me to where I needed to go. As we sped off I knew that one way or the other, I was in this and if I had made a mistake, I was going to own it soon enough.

Here you are. The mistake special with extra regret on the side.

What I did would make most any parent slap their head. Anyone watching this in a movie would have been yelling “run bitch, run!!!” like it was the Detroit version of Forrest Gump (oddly and completely unintentionally, I have now in this blog made reference to both Tom Hanks movies in which he won Oscars). But I made the decision to stay. There have been many times in my life when my initial impression of someone proved to be incorrect. Though this was certainly a gamble, this proved to be one of those times.

As we made our way to Orange County (where a high school acquaintance agreed to pick me up from), this man suddenly opened up a completely knew side of himself. A much deeper spiritual side. His words began pouring out in a way that made it seem as if he had been storing these words for years and had been waiting for someone, anyone to listen.

With every mile my body relaxed and I began to see that this guy was legitimately trying to help me out. He wasn’t out to mutilate me and feed me to his over grown rat. He wanted his life to be love driven and so he picked me up and did what he could to help me out. He wasn’t getting a financial reward from it, just the knowledge that he had been of service.

We eventually pulled into Orange County where he dropped me off and bid me farewell. I shook his hand and thanked him. As I looked in his eyes, I was amazed to see how differently he now looked to me as opposed to the first moment we met. Life is a beautiful thing, and in this case, it showed my beauty that was hidden deep beneath the rocks.

Was what I did foolish? Probably. Was it dangerous? Most certainly. Could things have turned out very differently? Absolutely. I can hold little credit to myself as much of what I did was acting in desperation and faith that Life will continue to provide for me. In this one instance I was given a gem that I most certainly did not expect. Let it be known here, that sometimes in life when you’re looking for its wonder, even your less sensible choices can lead you to treasures.

Tune in next time when I come to face the city that had barred me from its boarders for over a decade and how I was once against almost foiled from entering.

"Because Bacon Makes Everything Better" - My San Diego Recommendation: Gaslamp Speak Easy

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:56:00 -0500

Place: Gaslamp District - San Diego, CA

Venue: Gas Lamp Speakeasy

Bar Tender: Heath

Being a Culinary Artist, I’ve always been facinated by food pairings. However, the thing that intrigues me almost as much if more, is mixology. Good mixology. I went to the Gaslamp Speakeasy to watch Whitney Shay perform with her jazz group and dance a bit.

I was welcomed into a warm and comfortable environment that broke away from the loud and obnoxious bars that liter the streets of so many cities. Here was a place someone could go to sit back, enjoy awesome music and taste drinks that truly took your taste buds on a journey.

Behind the bar was a single tender. His name was Heath. I made my way to the bar, sat down and told him I was a chef fascinated by flavor combinations. At this he pulled out a small sample of an infused whiskey, gave it to me and we began rousing about the history of bar tending and the intiqucices of mixology. As we talked I sipped down samples of rhye whiskies infused with bacon and fennel and simple syrups with tarragon, lavender and honey.

Heath was a true craftsman who prided himself in his art. In between our talks I watched him whip up drink after drink with a careful eye that showed he put his passion into each cocktail he mixed up. It was no wonder that after a year since its opening this place had begun to blossom in this famous part of San Diego.

As the night closed he kindly poured me a shot of Jamison on the house (just one of many free drinks he graced me with as we talked). I asked him why someone should choose his bar over visiting any others around this part. Beyond the comfortable atmosphere, great character of people and intoxicating jazz and blues music, he said it was the hands on bartending.

“Many of my customers don’t even order from the menu,” Heath said. “I simply talk to them. Get to know them, find out what they like and what they don’t like. Once I know that I’ll either make something from the menu that fits or whip up something spontaneously on the spot.” That my friends, is the mark of a true craftsman.

Drinks To Try:

Carver Old Fashion - peanut infused rhye, honey syrup and a dash of orange bitters

Moon and Stars - basil and watermelon muddled, gin and St Germaine

Emerald Gin Fizz - muddled cucumber, tarragon simple syrup, Bombay sapphire gin, lemon/lime juice and eggs whites

Irish Car Bomb: More Than Just A Way To Ignite A Conversation (My Week of Excessive Drinking In Sunny San Diego)

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:46:44 -0500

My entry into San Degio was a momentous occasion. I had successfully crossed the entire country and had remained housed, fed and unmolested by truckers. I was very proud of myself and incredibly blessed to get to celebrate it by walking to the ocean, my favorite geographical feature. Standing on the edge of a cliff soaking in the salty air in the early morning was truly a homecoming moment.

A lot happened in San Deigo, only thing was most of it was done under a haze of fantastic booze. I drank more that week than I did all year combined, but it was well worth it. I was being hosted by absolute favorite host Jeff Eldridge. A man so singularly fantastic to be hosted by that I have yet to encounter his equal (that doesn’t mean I don’t greatly appreciate all of you who have hosted me. I do!). If you’ve been hosted by Jeff than you understand.

To commemerate my crossing of the continent I decided to make a San Diego slideshow for you all. You can enjoy the little snippets that happened in my week long stay in the sunny south of California.

———————————————————————————————————————-

I entered the coast in rags, facebook tags, with a scruffy do and half eaten block of cheese.

Through a brilliant network marketing program called, “Feed Me I’m Homeless” I quickly rose to riches where I feasted in extravagance. That’s right, the extravagant eat off of paper plates! What of it?

“Let them eat cherry, apple and pumpkin pie, each cooked in its own cake and then baked in a larger cake” becomes my new motto as I quickly develop the unique habit of whipping my ass with the $500 bills from Monopoly to imagine what it it’s like to feel superior to everyone else.

Being a chef, I decide to taste the local flavors to get an idea of what meals to prepare.

Unfortunately the local wildlife follows suit and tries to figure out what best to pair me with. ”I said no teeth!!!”

Decide to test the relationship between cooking and back massages to see if any correlation existed between the two.

My conclusion: cooking is fantastic!!!

Go to local bar to see whether or not all this traveling has changed my appreciation of hot bartenders and great boobs. It takes less than 30 seconds to find it has not.

Decide that in order to win the hearts of such Greek Godesses I must practice my advanced Zoolanderesque look I have aptly called “Black Chrome Rod”. I hope the possibilities for misinterpretation work to my favor.

It proves to be quite effective, however it sometimes attracts the wrong market. ”If I just pretend that I’m really absorbed byFarmville, maybe he’ll leave me alone.”

Want to cook dinner again so I run out to grab food supplies, but after 30 minutes of getting nowhere I realize I had accidentally walked into an elliptical machine that kept me in one place. I promptly yell “crap!!!” then grab a book and begin reading to feel better about life.

Still manage to cook delicious salmon meal despite the efforts of the culinary opposed exercise equipment. In its attempts to keep me fit, it forgot salmon is rich in Omega 3s. Who looks like the idiot now Schwinn model 430?

DJ blues at Lindy by the Bay, set up by Jeff Eldridge, a beautiful dance that is highly worth attending. Realize that many in San Diego have been greatly affected by school budget cuts, as most are unfamiliar with the primary colors. When told I would dj blues, they stood perplexed and confused to what that actually was.

Being in a city surrounded by so many military bases, the beautiful Leanna is inspired to sneak me away to a delicious dinner so she can apologize for things like World War 2, David Hasselhoff and Germany’s excessively long words like trockenbeerenauslese making it near impossible to want to learn the language. Upon hearing this I say, “it’s about time someone apologized to me for such things.”

The meal is delicious. I decide the US can now be at peace with Germany due to its pampering of my over-inflated sense of narcissism.

We celebrate the newly founded peace with an incredibly appropriate drink: the Irish Car Bomb. Saluting peace the IRA way.

I bid adieu as I make my way North to the land of stars, cars and smog-ilicious Christmases. I’m talking about a little place called L.A.

Tune in next time when I talk about the ride that had be gripping my mace, awaiting to use it at any moment.

The Tale Of Harley Man Randy: Hear How He Scored A Personal Tour Of Ireland With Bono (Phoenix to San Diego, Conclusion)

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 19:29:00 -0500

Many people have had angels come into their lives to help them in some way or another. Few though have had that angel come with multiple tats and a handle bar mustache. Perhaps the lack of attracting such figures into one’s existance draws roots from the image of Harley bar fights or the connection to Sons of Anarchy. Or maybe the belief that help could not come from such a character stems back all the way to the kid you grew up with who hit puberty when he was six and grew a similar mustache. You know the one. He’s the reason you had to pan handle for lunch money.

Bet you didn’t know hitting puberty came with full tactical gear? Now fork over the cash or you’ll never see A Hannah Montana Christmas again

Mark Twain had it right though when he said “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness” cause when a Dodge truck pulled over and out came a gravel chewing, motorcycle hoggin war vet, I was in such desperate need for a ride, I was more than willing to see past such social trip wires.

Many have taken drives with unruly kids in the backseat who scream and yell. One holds their pointed finger inches from their younger sibling’s face, exclaiming “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you” while the other screams and the veins in your forehead fill with the blood of the Hulk because they expand in size to a degree where they can be seen from the space shuttle. Or even worse, the constant and incessant droning, laced with the agony of the human cargo of a slave ship that oozes out of their mouths causing you to see genocide as a viable disciplinary option. The kind of droning that goes, “are we there yet? I’m bored! Why are we doing this” and makes you want to drive the car into an embankment doing 75.

“I swear to Christ if those kids don’t shut up, Nick Cage is gonna drive this car right into that bridge embankment. I’m the only Ghost Rider comin back from the dead on this vacation.”

Well for the first four miles of my walk into the long stretch of desert where even the homeless, the poor and those unsatisfied with the current state of our economic distribution rates would not dare to occupy, my brain acted just like one of those kids.

The one thing that kept me going was this unique feeling. The one that made me feel like I was supposed to do this. That by venturing out into the unknown I was going to be taken care of. Those feelings it turned out (since I’m obviously writing this now) were correct, for when a Dodge truck pulled up and Harley Man Randy hoped out, I found myself face to face with my desert savior, one of the most unique and curious characters I’d yet met on my journey.

“Don’t let the way I’m holding my cigarette fool you. I’m 260 pounds of heterosexual battle armor!!!”

Armed with a golf cart he just inherited and an incredible gift for gab, Randy peeled down the highway, mouth sputtering non-stop with story after story. He was a bear of man, with the opinions and prejudices of a back water southerner and the joyful heart of jolly ol’ Saint Nick. Such a curious pairing and just another testament that this world is not served up in black and white.

He offered to get me within two hours of San Diego if I would help him unload his newly aquired golf cart. I said for a four hour lift, I’d paint the thing. Making our way West, I found myself swept up into story after story of this fascinating man. He was an electrical engineer who was famous for doing customized Harley motorcycles (hence the name). Since he was in high school, he had been working on them, painting them and showing them off in competitions, many of which he had won.

As he showed me pictures of the bikes he’d made and the hot woman who posed on them, he waxed lyrically about different tales ranging from the one he sold to Jay Leno, to how he took Reese Witherspoon out for a bike ride and to help her buy motorcycle gear (his daughter worked in show business), all the way to the massive sex parties with biker chicks after competitions. My personal favorite however, was his surprise sell to a famous Las Vegas BBQ.

Real and honest. The kind of BBQ you can take home to mom and dad

When one of the top guys in Jack Daniels came to pick up a bike Randy had customized for him, he noticed something interesting Randy had made that was sitting in his garage. It was a Harley with a sidecar, the one an extra passenger can sit in However, he had turned the side rig into a fully functional grill making it a BBQ on wheels, the ultimate tail gate accessory.

Upon seeing this, the guy asked him if he could airbrush the name of Famous Dave’s BBQ, a highly popular Vegas eatery, on the side. Randy said of course and did it under the promise that it would be worth it for him to do so. When the bike was ready, the two of them set off to meet famous Dave and show him this fantastic creation.

Apparently the Jack Daniels guy knew Dave personally. He brought him out to see this incredible bbq bike with the name of his restaurant on it. After seeing it, he immediately wanted it.

“Will you sell that to me?”

“Sure. How much?” Now it should be noted that Randy spent all of about eight grand putting this bike together. If he could land 25 grand, that would be an awesome payday. The offer he was given took him completely by surprise.

“A hundred and twenty five grand.”

“Sold!”

I was amazed. That’s quite the pay day. ”And what did you do with the money?” I asked him.

“Paid off my house.” Let it be known, that in the Harley/BBQ world, sometimes you can not only triple your investment, you can whatever the word for twenty is in the “uple” word lineage. That bike can be seen at Famous Dave’s in Reno, Nevada.

After about an hour we pulled into Datesville, a place where they grow dates in hordes.

Here he treated me to my first ever date shake. A milk shake made from the fresh dates growing right behind the store. I must say, when it comes to milk shake flavors, it’s going to be hard for anything to beat the flavor of those. The pairing of ice cream and the sweetness of a date are perfect for each other. Anytime you make your way through Datesville be sure to grab one.

I love you this much Date Shake

Randy was quite the travel companion and one of the absolute best treats for a hitchhiker. When we got into talking about favorite Westerns and I told him 3:10 to Yuma was mine, he took me to see Yuma penitentiary, the prison the movie revolved around.

All this way for a wall. How do people keep making these places sound interesting?

When we approached the sand dunes and I gawked over how beautiful they were, he pulled over and let me go run up and down them. Fittingly enough they were called the Buttercup dunes, so I felt my journey as Wesley from The Princess Bride had come full circle. Had there been any ROUS’s around, I think the world would have stopped spinning for a full minute and thirteen seconds just to soak in the wonder. As a joke he told me to run up them barefoot to really get the full experience. I didn’t realize this was a practical joke until I started my way back down and felt what a chicken breast must feel when you put it into a 350 degree oven. I ran up laughing and I ran back down screaming. My feet were on fire.

There’s a shortage of perfect sandy mounds in the world. Would be a pity to waste an afternoon not playing on these.

Though Randy was entertaining, he wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops. He was a war vet and a man who was proud to be an American. So much so he held a lot of strong racist thoughts towards other groups which I found to be distasteful. It’s an awkward position to be in when you’re riding with someone who can hold some offensive views you don’t share. Even more though when you’re hitchhiking and depend on rides.

I could understand why he felt hostility towards those in the middle east. He had been shot one night while on guard duty. It wasn’t serious, only a wounding, but what happened to him next left a more permanent scar. In a panic he looked to see where the shot had come from, but being that it was dark he was unable to. He heard another shot and saw where the flash had come from as a bullet whizzed by him. He unloaded his clip in the direction of the blast. There were no more shots after that.

They found the shooter dead from gun shot wounds. It had been a young boy. Being a family man, Randy said that was a very difficult pill to swallow. He had no regrets defending himself, but said it was very hard knowing that he had shot a kid.

His prejudices spilled onto the Mexicans as he would go on tyraids with ethnic slurs showing his distaste for what he felt they were doing to our economy. Being so close to the boarder he had more of a front line experience. Yet despite all of this, he was a very kind, warm and loving guy. He really had a heart for people. It’s so interesting seeing those contrasted. How someone with such a big and generous heart can feel such animosity for certain groups.

We pulled into the lot where he kept a trailor along with multiple others in his work force. Being that all of them traveled to different places to do construction, they had to set up temporary residencies wherever they went apart from their actual homes. I helped him unload his golf cart and he took me for a spin. You never saw someone so happy to have a golf cart. We shot around at the break neck speed of 15 mph as he hollared and flirted with every Y chromosome we came across.

Hey baby, wanna see my driving wood?

When we pulled up to his trailor, he said, “Wesley, I’ll make you a deal. You go ahead and get yourself a shower, and I’ll BBQ us up some dinner. You can stay here tonight and tomorrow I’ll drive you within an hour and a half of San Diego.” I wasn’t sure how the deal was working out in his favor, but I chalked it up to me being great company and him getting to tell me more of his stories.

I showered and changed after a three day stint of nothing. It was times like these that though I didn’t care for his distaste for gays, I was happy he told me. Nothing worse than having a 260 pound biker wanting to be your shower partner. When I finished he took me to the liquor store and bought us a few bottles of booze. At the checkout line he flirted with the sexy mexican woman behind the counter, telling me he’d been working on fucking her for weeks.

It should be noted that he was married, but was very open about his infidelities. He knew his wife was most likely doing the same thing and he was ok with it. To each their own, though it was a rather interesting experience later that night to be in the trailor as he blew off an apparent fling on the phone while doing so on speaker while I was in the room. Mildly awkward party of three.

Don’t mind me guys, I know this trailer’s small

Whatever your feelings on marriage, what I can say is that Randy through vocational skills, social skills and damn lucky timing scored quite the anniversary present for his wife. Randy had done some work for George Strait the country singer and so was invited to one of his big parties. While there he just so happened to run into none other than Bono.

“Who fuckin loves mullets?”

They chatted and bull shitted over drinks when Randy told him that for him and his wife’s 30th wedding anniversary he would take her to Ireland. Upon hearing this, Bono gave Randy his personal contact info and told him, “let me know when you plan to be there and I’ll take you both on a personal tour of Ireland, all expenses on me.” Now if that isn’t a wedding gift than I don’t know what is. Many wives would be happy to let their husbands bang the entire high school cheerleading squad for a deal like that.

The following morning around 5 am, Randy drove me into the mountains of California and dropped me off at a gas station. We said a brief goodbye as it was early and we were both tired. As I left I thought about how he had been such an interesting person and a fantastic host to me. Though I may not have agreed with everything about him, something that can be said about anyone, he took me in with great kindness, saving me from the sharp talons of the Arizona desert and took great care of me. He was wonderful company and gave without a shed of expecting anything back.

Everyone has their light side and their shadow side. Randy was more revealing of what we’d call his darker side. Though many may turn their nose at him and call his thoughts or actions that of a bigot or womanizer, he was upfront and open about it all. More than that, his kindness and enormous generosity were open for all to see as well. Say what you will about him, he laid himself out for the world to see unapologetically, and I for one admire that about him. I am very grateful for Randy as I was for the man who picked me up merely five minutes after beng dropped off in the mountains.

He drove me within 30 minutes of San Diego, just close enough to catch a ride from my all time favorite host, Jeff Eldridge. I had made it from one side of the country to another. I had done it. As a celebration, I would drink more in my one week in San Diego than I had the entire year combined. Tune in next time to catch all the juicy details.

Was Dad So Great To Give Us The Chocolate Cake? (Phoenix to San Diego, pt 2)

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:50:59 -0500

I had reached Casa Grande in my flat bead chariot around 11 AM. When I looked around I was hit with what I imagine a farmer from the old west would experience seeing Carson City for the first time. As a hitchhiker this place was perfect. There were three large trucks stops, hotels and motels aligned like corn fields, it was the meeting place of two major interstates, and best of all, cars and trucks passed onto the off ramp in droves. In my head I simply thought, “this will be a piece of cake.” A piece of cake…

You know I was a kid once and I took my job pretty seriously. I did all the kid stuff. Trampolines, sleep overs, creating elaborate tactical plans to steal lunch money, I did it all. More than that though, I listened to Bill Cosby. I not only heard about how a father could be exalted by five unruly kids into the eschalons of the gods by doing one simple act: giving them chocolate cake.

Well I didn’t stop at just listening, I actually went all in. As a kid, I even ATE chocolate cake! I know, I know, some of you may think I was crazy or too young, but life is about exploring and experimenting the life expectancy of your teeth. Despite the devilishly sinful flavor of this moist dessert, I learned a few things over my years of experimenting with it.

Chocolate cake: the gateway drug to Heroine and Justin Bieber

Cake has a heartbreaking tendency to go stale, and when it goes stale it loses that heavenly texture you cake eaters out there know and love. There are many ways it could go stale and hard. It could be left out uncovered like a homeless kid in the Chicago winters, fall into a vat of cement, get dumped by chocolate frosting over and over again, and/or have a bad tendency of turning to face Gomorrah as fire reigns down from Heaven (it can’t be held responsible in this case, as Lot’s wife in the rush to get out, forgot to wipe her face of cake crumbs). Whatever the reason, cake can go stale. It can go hard. It can become unpalatable.

When I say it was going to be a piece of cake, I soon learned that this was a cake made in 1942, left uncovered in a wind tunnel beneath a heat lamp. Around 11 PM, after over 12 hours of watching car after car go by (typically between 10-20 for each light), I decided I was fed up and done for the night. What the hell was the matter with people? This wasn’t some desolate waste land with a population rivalling a Tiger Woods golf score, this was a metropolis of cars all going onto the very highway that led to San Diego. Did my sign say Gary, Indiana where not even the Terminator would be stupid enough to follow John Conner into? No, it said San Diego, right on their travel routes. And you know what stood between Casa Grande and San Diego? A whole lot of nothing. I knew where they were going, and I knew who they weren’t taking with them.

San Diego: Terminator friendly

Fortunately a Mexican woman stopped and gave me $5 which I used to buy a subway sandwich, a dinner I felt I’d earned after standing all day in the hot Arizona sun. That evening I found a giant dirt field and slept beneath the stars. There is one thing I have found I do love about Arizona, well two. The nights are typically warm and it is never short of large dirt fields to sleep in.

Remember when I talked about my choir’s drive to Greeley, CO and yelling at them to shut up and enjoy the scenic view of dirt? I didn’t realize it, but I was admiring earth’s beautiful mattress. Perhaps I could weasel my way into the Cosa Nostra by telling them I’ve taken multiple dirt naps and resurrected myself by the power of chocolate cake to return and tell the tales. Being that most of them will be Catholic, they may think I’m Christ returned. Nothing like posing as Jesus to get some free tortellini.

“You a Bible reader? There’s this little passage I have memorized.”

The following morning I awoke with the sun and made my way to one of the local hotels to share in a “complimentary” continental breakfast. Sometimes people give me flack for what I bring on my trip as a hitchhiker, but there is something I have learned. Image counts, and if you can find ways to make yourself look less threatening and less like a hitchhiker, it can be incredibly helpful in certain situations. Walking into the breakfast with Bose headphones and an iPhone made everyone believe I was supposed to be there. Wearing a garbage bag and smelling like Calvin Klein’s Frech perfumme line called “Unshowered” would work far less.

After breakfast came a very pivotal moment for me. I had to make a decision of whether or not I would stay in Casa Grande where it was safe, had lots of cars and had a steady supply of food, water and death protection. Or would I venture forward into the Arizona desert which stretched out like a sea. Endless miles of sun scorched nothingness, where seldom is heard a discouraging word because anyone out that far would be labelled as a moron. It was a pivotal moment because I was really coming to the fence of trust. Did I really believe that what I needed would come? If I decided to start walking and nothing came, I would be in serious trouble.

There was something unique about the energy of that morning. It’s difficult to explain except that I felt a strong sense of calm and connectedness to everything around me. Like there was an invisible voice speaking inaudibly to me that everything was beautiful. Everything was perfect. Everything was going to work out. I wanted to be out in the desert, away from the hustle of the town, the loud cars and the carbon fumes. Only problem was, after Case Grande, there was practically nothing for hours and that’s in a car. This town held the opportunity for rides, bathrooms, water and get-out-of-death free cards. The desert held none of these except the mystery of the unknown, who sang her siren song to lure me out into the rocky crags of the barren sands. I had to make a choice.

“Burritos! Get your free burritos here!”

As I approached the on ramp, something inside of me just said “go”. It wasn’t loud or threatening, nor did it make me feel like I was a coward if I didn’t do it. It was voice that came as a feeling, gentle and soft. The draw to leave this town and begin walking into the vast stretch of unknown emptiness just seemed to call to me. I came to the light and instead of dropping my bag and standing with my sign, I kept walking. Walking down the long road to the highway that would lead me to who knows where.

I don’t think I fully realized what I was doing at the time. Part of me half hoped that there would be scattered service stations along the way and I’d be ok if I got too far and into trouble. What I do know is that for about four miles, my brain was screaming at me “are you fuckiing crazy?!?! What the hell are you doing? You’re going to kill us!!!!” For the first few miles I felt like I was completely off my rocker. The temptation to go back was incredibly strong. The farther I got, the harder it would be for me to get back. If I found myself without water, I would be up shit’s creek. I would have to throw myself into oncoming traffic to get someone to stop for me.

How the Voice saw me

How my brain saw me

Still, this quiet yet seductive voice kept telling me to keep walking. I felt enraptured by my surroundings as blank and dismal as they might seem to many. There was something pulsing inside of me that was spiritual and powerful. I walked singing Horse With No Name over and over again, basking in the poetry of that song and its relevance to my current situation. It’s one thing to go to the desert, it’s quite another to walk through it on faith.

Fortunately for me, that voice sent me an angel. And that angel came as a biker with a handlebar moustache. Tune in next time when I tell you about Harley Man Randy and how he scored a personal tour with Bono from U2.

Why You Only Jerk Off With Conditioner As A Last Resort (Phoenix to San Diego pt 1)

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:39:57 -0500

My exodus out of Phoenix was a mix of both bitter and sweet. Some might call it bitter sweet, but I find those two words have been tied to matrimony for so long that no one has bothered to ask them if they’re really happy that way. Perhaps they want some time apart, and so for the sake of this one paragraph I am going to give it to them. This one paragraph.

When’s bitter coming home? I miss, I miss.

My bittersweet exit was in fact not bittersweet at all. As I began writing this, it was the first word that sprung to mind so I wrote it. Now that I’ve embellished with two paragraphs of spotlight it would seem silly to go back and erase all of that. No, I will simply say it was not bittersweet or bitter followed by sweet, but in fact disappointment followed by appreciation.

After leaving my fantastic host, Laura Czarzasty, who in her amazing wonderfulness graced me with so many delectable culinary treats that I felt in Heaven for a few days, I went to see my old friend Abby. She’s not old, but we’ve known each other longer than six months which technically doesn’t count as an old friend, but writing quasi-old friend just makes me sound pretentious.

The first was too old. The second was too young. The third was too pretentious and how the fuck did they all turn into zombies?

Unfortunately, there had been a mix up and she was unable to house me for the night. Initially disappointed by our miscommunication, I wondered what I would do for the evening (and by do I mean, where would I stay?). Grace came upon me as a contrite heart and a swiped credit card. Abby felt so bad, though it wasn’t her fault, that she got me a room at a motel that was right off of the main highway on the outskirts of the city.

This turned out to be quite a blessing as getting out of the city is always time consuming and costly, whereas now she had helped me spring the shackles of urban currency suction and placed me right on the road to El Dorado, or at least its saving department.

I had been son long since I’d stayed in a motel that when I entered my heart immediately sprang into childhood mode. I threw down my stuff and began jumping from bed to bed, leaping up high into the air and falling on my back. Sometimes you have to use the word giggle, and this was definitely a moment where I giggled endlessly while I played.

Napoleon Dynamite’s greatest fantasy: showing off your nunchaku/remote control/umbrella/ asian afro-pic skills while taking your body off some sick jumps

After that I sat and enjoyed a night to myself. Now if hotels could offer one more thing, my recommendation would be mineral or baby oil. Trying to jerk off using hotel conditioner is just…like riding sub-coach on a plane. I don’t even know what sub-coach is, but if they had one, I’d label it motel conditioner. You’d have first class, business class, coach and motel conditioner. But as Jafar said, desperate times call for desperate measures, so I decided to give my stiff cock a a chance to “de-friz” and to see if the promises of giving “extra volume” were in fact legit promises.

The next morning I awoke early to take advantage of those delightful continental breakfasts that I so often sneak in and steal. For once, I was legitimately eating one of these and I must tell you: it tasted exactly the same. Funny, I thought perhaps it might have shreds of deliciousness that those on death row claim to have experienced during their last supper. My legit continental breakfast had no twinges of ecstasy. No hints at “this is the last free one you’ll be having for awhile.” It simply tasted like raisin bran and oranges.

Really not caring, I finished breakfast, grabbed my stuff and hit the road. I had a nervous and excited feeling in my stomach. Being that I was in Phoenix on my way to San Diego, I looked at the map and there was very little between the two. Never in my life had I hitched across that much open territory. I wasn’t sure what to expect. All I knew is that I had to get moving and try. Let the Fates bring what they’ll bring.

My favorite kind of Fate: the one that brings me ice cream

I made my way down the big long highway clothed in a shirt, pants and near 100 degree temperature. The sun I find loves on you when you’re in the desert. Much different than when you’re in the northwest. It didn’t take more than 30 minutes when I was once again visited by one of my old friends, Captain Police Officer: the rash of hitchhikers around the world.

He showed up with the same line I’d head before. “Hitching is illegal within the city limits of Phoenix.” Well I had heard that in Tucson so it didn’t surprise me that it was the same here. However, once again I was pleased to find that he was a very cool cop.

He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was discovering the good in humanity. He seemed to like this. Being a good samaritan with an uncomfortable back seat, I was once again cheuffered by a trooper to the nearest gas station. He said as long as I hitched from the side of the onramp I’d be ok and that he would be the only one patrolling these parts so he wouldn’t give me any trouble.

Pretty soon, I’m going to be known as Mrs. Daisy by highway patrolmen

Thanking him I put my stuff down and walked to the onramp to catch a ride. After 20 or 30 minutes of nothing I decided to try a new approach: throwing rocks at people’s windshields. If my sign wasn’t going to stop them, my fastball sure as hell was. And once they saw the heart of gold beneath the All-American ballplayer they’d have to give me a lift.

After recovering from this delusion, I thought of a better way. I walked to the nearest gas station and started asking people for rides. I almost caught one, but was eventually kicked off the property by management. Apparently people need to focus on their gas pumping so as not to blow up the premises. A legitimate reason.

I walked back again to the onramp and tried once more to catch a ride in a city that decided to pass a law making what I was doing illegal. Shouldn’t have any problems whatsoever here. Fortunately for me, there is always someone who votes the other way, and he just happened to pass by.

I say yes to hitchhiking and the freedom to moon local magistrate

A Mexican man and woman pulled up in a pick up telling me they could take me down to Casa Grande, a major truck stop hub. Yelling at me to move quickly as they were in the middle of the road, I threw my stuff in the back as they began to pull away. Running I jumped into the trailer bed and sat back enjoying the sun and the wind whipping my hair. There are few things better than riding in the back of a pickup. Doing so while you’re hitching is one of the most encapsulating moments of what it feels like to experience pure freedom.

This may appear to be just a road to you, but this is the image of freedom

I smiled widely as they sped down the highway passing cars that had driven by me without picking me up. Others we passed gave me a thumbs up seeing my bag and recognizing what I was doing. When they pulled up to Casa Grande I could see they meant what they had said. It was the conversion of two main freeways, one of which went on to San Diego. There were multiple hotels and three large large truck stops. If there was anywhere I was going to catch a ride, this was the place.

This is going to be easier than me in a Director’s office

I hoped out as the man came out from the driver’s seat and gave me a cold CapriSun. I was amazed they still made those as I had not had one since I was a little kid playing soccer. I shook his hand, thanked him, then made my way to one of the onramps. I stood for a moment in awe at how many cars were going onto the highway. This should be a piece of cake.

If only I knew. If only.

Tune in next time to hear about the mind boggling wonder of kindless drivers, my long night and my decision to walk into the arms of death.

How To Tease Your Tongue: A Recipe In The Temptations Of Phoenix, AZ

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:45:17 -0500

To enjoy the lush wonders of the palate while hitchhiking, one must have patron saints. For me, my culinary muse came in the form of the wonderful Laura Czarzasty, patron saint of wondering hitchhikers with an appetite for deliciousness.

Sometimes, getting a patron saint requires laying out chains for which to catch them. Didn’t I just score lucky.

After my time spent with her, I discovered a recipe that would make anyone with a tongue for food enjoy a few nights in Phoenix, AZ.

1. I begin with a simple amuse bouche, but instead of eating it, I drink it. All the nutrient wonders you’d find cascading out of a German diet we discovered within eight different microbrews at the Four Peaks Brewery.

So we kinda sorta had two big ones to boot. Who’s counting but the tip share?

2: Follow that with a main course of their incredible shrimp and goat cheese bruchetta made from homemade focaccia, topped with tomatoes, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil, goat cheese and citrus marinated grilled shrimp. Finish it off with their panko crusted calamari. This was the thickest, most succulent calamari I have ever had, like biting into a rope made of butter. I have never been so turned on by squid.

See those things on the right that look like chicken tenders? That’s calamari from the Giant Squid that faced down Mega Shark to the death.

3. Spend an afternoon at the Oyster House, a home renivated into a local seafood hot spot that upon entering smells of beer, seafood, and horseradish. I feel in love immedietly. Nothing like enjoying oysters on the half shell when you’re sporting the name on your establishment. Say what you will about seafood in the desert, this was delicious.

See if you can find how these are an aphrodisiac. While you’re at it, try to find Waldo as well.

4. Be sure your patron saint is equiped with the proper cooking equipment. Realizing my host was caught in her own version of Prometheus Bound, forever tortured to sit and wither upon the rocks of a lack of proper cooking equipment, I made like an anti-Fleetwood Mac song, broke the chains and took her to the store to pick out some much needed kitchen accessories.

5. Steer yourself away from the store bought sludge, shoveled out in cans with liquid that carries with it 1,000 sodium concumbines all breeding and reproducing a saline solution that could turn iron to rust in a matter of minutes. Instead, try your hand at your own chicken stock, the base of so many great sauces.

Homemade Chicken Stock: Sodium Concubine Free

6. Though seafood may have been the theme thus far, one need not travel far from it to create slight variations. Seafood and cajun style cooking are a match made in heaven, and so when I decided to make cajun chicken and waffles with a spicy veloute, it kept me within the boundaries of my own weekend theme.

Who needs dick in a box when you’ve got this?

7. One must never eat all the bounty by oneself. Sharing with your fellow man and, as Mike Myers would put it in the style of beat poets, woah-man, always makes the simplest meal that more savory. Good food, good wine, and a reference to beat poets. Two out of the three of those ain’t bad.

8. Finish off with a sincere statement of gratitude. Thank you Laura for being a patron saint. I appreciate it ever so much.
Now, give it a try. All you need are a few chains, this good recipe and a little willingness in a city that doesn’t cater to hitchhikers.