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.

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

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.

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.  

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. 

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.

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.