A proper African sunset. Dusty and orange.

A Dangerous Meeting

At the Vagabond Inn, Mojave, CA.

26

Self portrait on my 26th birthday, day-after-Christmas solitude as per usual.

L.A.

In attempt to develop an appreciation for sitting in traffic, I moved to L.A. this earlier week.



I would like to share with you the weather report for this week:


Palm trees make me feel like I am on vacation:


Smog makes for a particularly significant sunset, and the trade winds draw the clouds into fantastic swirls.


Otherwise, I have no idea what else goes on in this town.

Success & Failure in the Great Northwest

So, famous friends Suzie & Kat take a rental car into the Oregon outback. Here are some of the lessons that were learned:

1. Whiskey & Sherbet
... compliment each other lots.

This was donated to us by Mike --- (name deleted by insistence of his agent), former kicker for the Raiders. He currently makes his living as a bartender at a saloon near the national park we were staying at, and provided us with extremely large Manhattans with rainbow sherbet backs at no charge and tried to give us trail mix, too. He told us about sailing and avoided our questions about his pro football days. I suspect something very Buffalo '66 happened to his career as a kicker.

2. Fire
... is not as easy as it looks.
While our next door camping neighbors had a roaring bonfire and chairs, we were kneeling in the dirt over a few coals trying to burn whatever we had in the car (i.e. roadmaps, rental agreement, etc) in hopes of producing a decent flame:

I even burned the instructions to the popcorn, this being the result:

Everything we tried to cook ended up being simoltaneously charred & uncooked by the time our meager flame dwindled. We were reduced to eating 59¢ BBQ sauce. Pictured are the famous pajama pants I wore all three days, covered in layer upon layer of caked on dirt & BBQ sauce:

We were more prepared the next day, taking time to gather flammable stuff before the sun disappeared, and actually reading the instructions to popcorn, please note Suzie's intensity despite her disinterest in popcorn as a food:

Success is ours!

And check our raging bonfire, on the shore of Diamond Lake, and the successful half-consumed delicious s'more in the foreground:

I even managed to cook a frozen burrito on the grill without screwing it up.

3. A Gorilla Mask
... is a great way to liven things up whether having a drink at a bar or passengeering in a car. Even the most stand-offish people seem to come around when you faux primate. Also, it really lends itself as a polite conversation starter and strangely, several a free drink were happened upon when the mask was in action. Perhaps we are a better looking duo with this accessory.

Ps. did you ever hear about the joke about Portland dykes & gorillas?

There are more lessons that were learned, I am just waiting for Suzie to send me her share of the pictures.

My New Collection

SGN / NRT


NAP / MIL


NYC / LAX


LAX / NYC


MIL / NYC


PDX/LAX

I am not sure what the symptoms are

Beware the Bunny Hop

..you can limp but you can't hide!!

Dear God

The Passenger

I haven't had much experience on motorcycles so it was relatively exciting for me to take a trip with my best friend Ed to the coast and back, nearly 300 miles roundtrip.



I pretty much spent most of the time on the ride staring at the sticker on the back of Ed's helmet, trying to sit perfectly still. I was occasionally scared of death & dismemberment, especially when I felt like there was an excessive amount of wind pulling me at me. But I appreciated the scenery along the Columbia River, which tore by in my peripheral vision, the patches of different temperatures, the smells of forest and industry and flowers and waters that we passed in and out of. I also discovered that getting hit by a bug going that fast fucking hurts a little; I took a hit from an insect right in the fucking neck at 60mph.

Hot Rocks

My bro, cuz & I climbed Mt. St. Helens the other day. As you may or may not recall, it was the volcano that blew up in 1980 and hasn't been quite the same since. Last month, they started allowing in 100 hikers per day despite the constant volcanic activity. We decided to take our chances.

We got an early start, but it took us over 5 hours to drive there, not because it was far away, but it was difficult to find:


Lost in Washington, moments before I lost my hearing:


We eventually found the mountain, and signed our names to the day's list of hikers. We were warned that rescue crews would be deployed if we did not sign out again at the end of the hike. Ominous.

So climbing a mountain is basically heading uphill for as long as there is uphill to tread upon. This means you ascend straight into the clouds.


But once you are above the clouds, the sense of accomplishment is tremendous -- your own two legs have gotten you to a place where you get to see the tops of the clouds. And you are among the other few things that are above the clouds: other mountaintops and planes.


It feels like the only thing between you and the sun is just some gravity.


I mistakenly thought I was in decent shape, and would be capable of the 5 mile incline no problem. However, towards the end, I could only take 100 steps at a time before I was doubled over & breathless, and then only 50 steps, and then only 30. But I rallied and did an uphill run for the final few feet to the summit and collapsed, camera in hand.


This shows the St Helens cornice and Mt. Rainier in the distance.


The crater & lava dome. A lot of volcanic activity was happening -- smoke, ballistics, small landslides, constant adjustments.


I was so very very exhausted that I couldn't stand. This is the view from my roost. It still makes me queasy to see this picture.


I think that sitting on top of a mountain is the most fantastic thing in the world. In fact, it is now my preferred seating when possible. We hung out at the peak for quite some time, watching occasional small eruptions from our perch.

Note our expressions of triumph:


Heading back down takes half the time. My bro and I slid down partway on a glacier and got soaked and then caked in ashy dust.


We timed our return to flat ground perfectly for a particularly kickass pink mountaintop sunset which also served as a review of the day's events.

Slippery Bananas

The use of a banana peel as an injurious prop is actually alarmingly realistic and a reference to its ubiquity on the streets of American cities in the early part of the 20th Century. Refrigeration and shipping speed had combined to make bananas the most popular fruit in the country, and in that age before anti-littering laws, people would just eat the fruit and discard the peels wherever they were. As they rotted, the peels would become quite slippery and thus dangerous to tread upon. Banana peels were in fact responsible for a large number of accidents and injuries, including several severely broken legs that eventually had to be amputated, according to period sources. The problem grew so bad that modern urban street sanitation systems were invented mostly to deal with the peel; in New York City, the banana peel actually became something of a symbol of modern sanitation.



Q: Exactly how slippery are banana peels?
A: http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000068.php

Dear Hearts

My main homesquirrel Cara came to Seattle to see me & the Murder City Devils. We had about 20 hours together to tear it up before she was back on a plane doing other things.

We are such good friends, we even have matching tats:


Everything seemed to be in order at our hotel:


So we made our grand appearance at the Capital Hill Block Party, as shown.




We also got our drink on early-afternoon-style:


and our not-so-angry candy on:


Cara bought new teeth!


Protect ya neck!!


Sword vs. Teeth! No one wins.


Here's some of our new friends we met in the crowd while waiting for MCD to take stage.


The Murder City Devils are apparently notorious for extremely poor live shows, which I was not alerted about. If one could refer to a band that sounded like it was well-practiced and familiar with their own songs "tight," well, then, I would call MCD "loose."


I was knocked off my feet and lost my shoe during the first verse of the first song. The only thing that made me feel better about being shoeless in Seattle was that I got to laugh at this picture:


When the crowd cleared, someone in charge announced that there were at least 50 lost pairs of shoes and other loose paraphernalia like cell phones, keys and so forth. I found my shoe at right about the same time that this guy found his pants:


Back in action, Cara and I went to a bar in which we witnessed the most hilarious form of combat: Crutches vs. Pool Cues. Unfortunately I have no pictures to illustrate this fantastic moment of billiard aggression.

I probably shouldn't have done this but I was too stupid to care at the time and I really really liked what this dj was playing. It was not well-received.


Hours later, at the airport & our goodbyes:


So sad!


But first, we decided to get more matching tats. Here's mine:


And here's the one the Cara got:

I heart Cara & Emo Life!!