May 4, 2015
Your power is off and there are armed people in your house
"Your power is off and there are armed people in your house."
Yesterday, I tried to make to make it to Rollinsville on my KTM 990 Adventure. It's my 3rd attempt this year and I've never made it. Always, I'm turned back by the churning rain and snow storms perched along the continental divide.
As I'm fixing to leave the house, I'm starving for food, but I'm so sick of eating the bachelor chow in the freezer that I decide I'll eat once I get to Idaho Springs. Oil the chain. Pour in about a half quart of 20W50 and leave my driveway at 4:00 pm in a puff of blue smoke as the spilled oil burns off the engine case.
Grey skies punctuated by a necklace of dark ominous clouds perched atop the continental divide. I don't know why I do this, only I know that I've got to get out. We have to ride if we are to live.
At Evergreen, I decide to skip eating and roll into the mountains beneath imposing thunderheads. I'm climbing towards the continental divide at 5:00 p.m. on an empty stomach with no food on the bike climbing into a maelstorm that promises to deliver rain, snow, sleet, and hail. Psychologists call this "poor impulse control".
This time, I plan to take a new route up a dirt road called Miner's Road. I'm looking for an old trail network I used to know like the back of my hand many years ago. I used to ride my ATV up here back in the day, but that was so long ago. Now, I'm not even sure where the trail head is and I turn off Fall River Road onto Miner's Road now climbing up a rock dirt road through the Arapahoe National Forest in Clear Creek County. Nothing looks familiar and now I see lots of police vehicles lining both sides of the road. Some Clear Creek Sheriffs deputies standing in the middle of the dirt road looking very menacing. If looks could kill I'd be dead and they do not want to deal with me. I don't want to deal with them.
And like...I hate authority. So much so you just can't know. And now I'm staring uphill at Sheriff Buford T. Justice and he's itching for a fight. He wants to crack my skull and he's staring downhill at me daring me to approach him, but he's not wanting to walk down the hill just to confront me. He's waiting for me to ride uphill to him and everything in his face says "do not fuck with me, boy".
And I'm thinking....like...how does stuff like this happen to me? Why me? I could have gone anywhere today and I leave my house and drive 45 miles straight into the eye of a massive storm brewing on the spine of the continental divide and somehow take a dirt road I've never been on before and run smack dab into the middle of a still-smoldering crime-scene. Why does this happen to me? Why is that?
So I bump my starter, roll uphill about 5 yards so I'm parked beside one of the dozen or so different official-looking vehicles and a National Forest Ranger in the driver's side of the truck rolls down the passenger side wind and I say, "Hey man...what's going on?"
"Crime scene. The road is closed. You have to turn back."
"Uh...OK....What happened?"
"I can't tell you..."
"I can't tell you. But it's serious," he offers.
Buford T. Justice is still up on the hill and he'd like nothing more than to shoot me and go back to chewing his tobacco in peace but there's too many cameras around for that. I'm furious that I'm not wearing my helmet cam but it is what it is.
I turn and point the bike downhill and hit the starter and that's when things go from bad to worse. The bike makes a loud "click" sound and that's all it does. All of the lights on the dash go out and now I hate the KTM more than any person has a right to know. Like, I'm always trying to stay on the fence of whether or not this KTM is the worst mistake I've ever made or not. But every time it pulls something like this on me I swear to God I want to sell it, get back on the XR650 and forget that I ever owned a KTM.
This over-engineered bucket of shit.
So now, I can't start my bike and I'm in this hornets nest of police...people just itching to beat me into a coma with no OHV sticker on my bike...riding through the National Forest like I own the place...and now my bike won't start. It won't deliver me from evil. This is not a good feeling.
Riding a bike is an amazing experience. Like riding across the surface of the planet on a magic carpet. But then, when you're stranded, it's like you have a front-row seat to the worst nightmare you've ever dreamed up.
Panicking, I do the only logical thing....clucth in...roll downhill...pop the clutch and pray that it roll-starts. But the lights on the dash are so fucked up there just aren't words. They're flashing on and off. The analog tach keeps going from zero to 12,000, then back to zero. Just pegging back and forth between 12,000 and 0. The digital speedometer keeps groing from all 8888888 to blanks. Back and forth. On and off. Like...somehting is seriously fucked up with this bike.
I have no clue what's going on. I'm just sliding down a gravel road, clutch in, clutch out, throttle...pray....clutch in, clutch out, throttle, pray. Finally, the bike sputters to life...wheezing and coughing...sputtering....on and off...stumbling forward barely running. I have no idea what's going on but I'm sort of limping away from the police presence and I'm glad of this at least.
Immediately, I decide the trip is over. Only plan now is to try to somehow make it home on the bike. The bike is missing badly...choking and coughing....I'm trying to run it fast so the engine won't die....if it dies I may not get it started again. In the curves, I pull in the clutch and throttle it up trying to keep it alive.
I want to shoot a video of the instrument cluster so that I call report to KTM what it's doing accutately. Like...surely there has to be a solution to this, right? If I was back in the South, I would take this KTM and drive it into a river, but we don't have rivers like that in Colorado. So I'm stuck with it, see?
The only reason I don't shoot a video of the instrument cluster is that I have to take my gloves off to make the iphone work and I'm afraid I'd crash. I've had a lot of near-death experiences lately and I'm not wanting to temp fate unecessarily at this point. Last time I took off all my riding gear I blew the front tire going into a tight curve in a deserted canyon on the Sea-to-Sky Highway in BC.
I do notice that my Garmin Montana GPS is working like a champ. It shows the speed limit and my current speed, which I obviously can't get my from instrument cluster. I have plenty of fuel, so that's not an issue.
Then, when I get somewhere near Evergreen, the problem goes away, and the bike runs fine. The only difference is my F1 light is on, and my ABS light is on. Other than that, it's working fine. I have to think that my battery died and something is wrong with my alternator. I think that the alternator is not charging the battery and my symptoms are related to a single issue of a bad alternator and maybe I shouldn't be dog-cussing the KTM, but the Honda never gave me problems like this. It just never acted like this. The KTM is over-engineered...there can be no dispute about this.
At about 6:00 pm I roll up to my house, a PTSD victim. Like...I'm just stunned...like a bird that hit the picture window. Glad to be alive. Confused. Somehow, I just stumbled onto a crime scene, and had a near mechanical meltdown of my bike and limped home. I'm also starving.
Park the bike the garage, walk into the house, and as I'm standing in my kitchen I hear someone say this in a loud clear voice: "Your power is off and there are armed people in your house."
My head goes into a tailspin. There are people in my house with guns. The power is out. Glancing around, I notice that the power is probably out. No lights are on. But who's in my house? Where is the voice coming from?
There were no cars in the driveway. Who is here?
The voice calls out again. "Your power is off and there are armed people in your house."
The only thing I can think is there's a swat time in my house, and they've cut the power and stormed the house, hoping to catch me off guard. But I wasn't home. Now, I've walked into my house and sort of caught them off-guard as they're raiding/illegally searching my home.
My adrenline is running high now. Much higher than when I was fleeing a crime scene on a cripple motorcycle 40 minutes ago. Now, I'm in a fight for my life against an army of secret agents in my basement. Why does this happen to me? Why can't I just have a normal life? I paid my power bill. Why is the electricity turned off. Also, I checked my mail...there were no warrants for my arrest. Why are there police in my house if there were no vehicles in my driveway? Nothing is adding up.
And now, my next-door neighbor pops up. She comes bounding down the stairwell.
"Hey...the power is out and there are UN-armed people in your house," she offers. That's what she was saying "UN-armed people are in your house" ...my bad...in my adrenaline crazed world, I misheard her. I've been on the bike for the last 2 hours and my hearing isn't great to being with. So I'm half-deaf and misheard her, apparently.
"We came over to play with the kittens..." she continues.
They're certainly welcome to come and play with the kittens. I'm glad to have them over. I love to share the kittens. They enjoy the attention. I was just caught off-guard.
"Yes..yes...of course...let's go play with the kittens." So we go upstairs for some kitten time which is truly the best feeling on earth. They're soft and fuzzy and growing up so fast. They're climbing the couches and attacking everything in sight....mom...neighbors...brothers and sisters.
"Why is the power out?" I ask, trying to make sense out of a very strange day. Like...let's try to fit some of the pieces of this puzzle together now that I'm not facing down a brigade of sheriffs, stranded on the continental divide and I'm not facing down a swat team in my basement.
"The whole neighborhood is out. No one knows why..." she offers.
I pick up the nearest kitten and stare into giant blue eyes. They should hand every new inmate a kitten to help him deal with his incarceration. I'm trying to reconnect with reality.
I'm so hungry I could eat a bowl of kitten food. I'd planned on coming back and cooking a pizza in the oven, but now that's not possible. I can't even fill the cat's water bowl without electricity, as we're on a well.
The neighbors leave and I slowly realize that I can't do the things I normally do. Can't surf the internet or watch TV. Unsure of what to do, I roll around the neighborhood in the ATV, looking to see if anyone has power. Somehow, the new neighbors have added a deck onto their house in the time that I've been on an afternoon bike ride.
I've heard that some of the neighbors have generators, and I'm searching for something. Someone to talk to and maybe toss me some scraps of food, the way coyotes follow the lions through the mountains.
At Bill's house, they're lighting candles. They're lighting candles in fading light and setting them out at different tables. Enormous parafin candles that burn without smoke or fumes. These are mountain people candles. The candles of people who've spent their lives in the mountains where the power is as reliable as any other third-world country.
The other bachelor in the neighborhood comes over, and they invite us to join them for dinner and I'm so hungry there just aren't words. Gettign old sucks. My memory isn't good and my taste-buds have changed. I have no sense of smell any more.
But tonight, the food is delicious. It's just spectacular. Like eating at a 5-star restaurant.
Bill doesn't have a generator, but he does have a lighted liquor cabinet and, after dinner, he opens up the liquor cabinet and now we're drinking scotch, rye, and bourbon, listening to stories about Vietnam and Indonesia.
At some point, I casually ask "Did y'all hear about anyone getting murdered up on St Mary's Glacier today?"
But no one has heard of it and the conversation sort of turns in a different direction, back to golf clubs and vietnam and single malt scotch. Periodically, we gather before the brightly glowing liquor cabinet, worshipping the genius of master distillers we'll never meet.
Eventually, the lights come back on and we quit the neighbor's house and wander home. It was a crazy day and,in a way, I'm glad I live in the mountains with such great neighbors. I'm glad the power went out and I'm glad my neighbors came to see the kittens. It gave us a little chance to turn off the tv's and the internet and talk to each other for a change.
Update: 8 days later, I found out that hikers had discovered a headless corpse with no hands. Some psychopath had killed his future mother-in-law, and cut off her head and hands so she couldn't be identified. He missed the trick about a distinctive tattoo, apparently.
https://www.google.com/search?q=jackie+degarmo+clear+creek+county+body+john+brant+arrest
http://www.westword.com/news/fit-cannabis-girl-marijuana-friendly-gym-shut-down-in-colorado-10364122
http://denver.suntimes.com/den-news/7/103/122775/man-arrested-after-womans-dismembered-body-found
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 4, 2015 at 10:08 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
August 2, 2013
Dead End Roads: (Baby, It's August...)
It's hard to know what to do with all the hours in the day. When you're working, it's not as daunting, because you have less free time to slay. But when you're burdened with nothing but time, things just seem to unravel. I waste the days trying to gather the strength to walk outside, crawl out of bed, or answer the phone, before inevitably lapsing back into a catatonic phase of torpid hibernation.
I've eaten out every meal for as long as I can remember, but now I commit to eat through what food I have in the house. I've pretty much eaten through everything a wild animal would deem edible. Including the Dino-nuggets, which most animals would probably be smart enough to avoid.
All of my neighbors are moving away, or planning on moving, or dreaming of moving, which is somewhat disconcerting, I think. Like, you live somewhere for 12 years, and everything seems fine. Like, you know your neighbors, and that's all covered. And then one day all your neighbors announce that they're retiring and leaving en masse and it sort of sucks.
I mean, to be brutally honest, I have to admit, I've not been a good neighbor. I'm never here. And I do sometimes get carried away and start blasting away at the critters with an AR-15 or a 12 gauge or whatever's at hand.
Yesterday, in a blinding flash of inspiration, I threw all of the old bread out of the freezer into the yard and defended the breads from the crows with a 12 gauge until I exhausted the ammo and the barrel glowed a dull orange, leaving me to lord over a pile of dead crows you couldn't crawl across.
But today, I don't really feel like killing crows, anyway.
Jennifer is off swimming in some country club pool, same as you and I did growing up, and I'm just sitting here trying to pick up the pieces of my shattered life. Trying to summon the courage to walk outside when the maid shows up with her disheveled son in tow and they start cleaning and I'm so happy there just aren't words. It's so much healthier to have someone to talk to.
I clean out the hummingbird feeders, boil up some more syrup for the feeders, and hang them up for the bears to assault.
Now, I have clean dishes. Clean clothes. Clean sheets. The hummingbird traps are all set. Almost too good to believe. So nice to be in a clean house, not Carrie's rat nest that makes you want to flee like a bat into the night.
When they leave I decide I have to get out. I'll go and try to coerce the dimwits DMV to give me a license plate for my KTM motorcycle. Drive the bike down to the Jefferson County Sheriff's outpost in Evergreen with an armload of paperwork. I have the title, proof of insurance, registration, bill of sales, driver's license, passport, etc. Everything. But it's never enough. She points out some obscure line on the back of the title relating to an odometer statement. Says it's not filled out and, without these arcane details, she won't give me a license plate.
I think about the pile of crows at my house and I imagine how glorious it would be to have a pile of deceased DMV minions out back as well.
This other woman in there is having about the same luck I am, so she asks to speak to a supervisor. But it gets her nowhere. I see her in the parking lot and I tell her "You know, I was just in Mexico, and about a third of the cars down there don't even have plates. I'm thinking we need to move." She agrees with me, of course. It's one thing to be ruled by a malevolent dictator with an iron fist, but it's another thing altogether to be lorded over while at the same time mumbling nonsense about "the Land of the Free." That's just a joke. Can we please stop that?
So, I give up and get on the bike. It's so hard to know what to do with these long summer days. I commit to the idea of driving up Bear Creek. Now, this road is a dead end, and I'm well-aware that it's a dead end.
But what else is there to do in this world? Either I go home and get in bed, or I drive down roads that I've already driven down countless times. This is all that there is. We have to keep moving forward, even if it's hard to imagine why.
I don't have a single camera on me. I'm not wearing a helmet. I'm just sort of out for a Sunday afternoon drive (on a Friday evening).
It's a stunning drive, of course. I mean, I'm following Bear Creek toward the Continental Divide. So, it's not like there isn't a value in driving down a dead end road, even if you know where it goes.
I want Upper Bear Creek to connect to Brook Forest, but it doesn't go through. It never does. In my mind's eye, I can connect Bear Creek with Brook Forest. I imagine trussing up the property owners that control the land between these two roads and filleting them like fish in the morning sun, as the dozers finally connect the two roads to my content.
"That's right....right through here...perfect...there...that wasn't so hard was it?" I mumble, kicking a pickle bucket full of eyeballs and severed digits down the banks of Upper Bear Creek.
But when I get to the 'Dead End' signs, there's no dozers. No pickle buckets of eyeballs and severed digits. No landowners wrapped in razor wire, pleading for mercy. So I turn back, as there's a cut where you can turn and get over to Stagecoach, or even as far as Mount Evans.
I take the cut towards Stagecoach, and keep going up towards the road for Mount Evans. Why? I dunno. Just because I'm sort of out for a ride in the country. Sort of the way dad used to take us for a ride out in the country after church when we were little. After he quit drinking, but before they stuffed him into the asylum.
The pavement eventually deteriorates into a dirt road, and starts climbing and switch-backing up the face of the mountain, to the point where the KTM is having a hard time. Spinning rear tire. Front shocks bouncing uncomfortably up the steep dirt switchbacks.
It's now about 6:00 p.m. Partly cloudy. Not raining, but threatening to. The temperate is dropping as I climb, and it's actually pretty cold at this elevation. I'd say it's about 50 F or so? I'm not wearing a helmet because I couldn't find it when I left the house, and didn't plan on being gone this long in any event. No gloves, as I lost them in Central America. No boots, as those disappeared when the police came around asking about the boot print on the back of Carrie's neck when she tragically drowned in 3" of water in a shallow fountain outside of Junky Jewelers at Highland Village. She was unceremoniously cremated. Her ashes scattered in an alley behind the Piggly Wiggly by the light of the moon.
I miss those boots.
And now comes a motorcycle the other way. A small blue Suzuki DRZ400S dirt bike with soft saddlebags and nobbie tires (or 'knobblies', as my friend from New Zealand calls them.)
He's wearing black riding pants, black jacket, helmet, gloves. Dressed like he knows what he's doing, and the saddle-bags make me think he may well have been on the road for some time.
But it's all I can do to keep my bike up, so I just nod as we pass, and continue on my way. Eventually, I summit at the Mt Evans Road. I've run far enough today. This will be the apogee of the day's peregrination. I turn and head downhill back into Evergreen.
I roll back down into Evergreen a half hour later and Ponder stopping into a local tavern.
I have a few friends in this time zone, not a lot. Some of them will meet me for dinner, if the planets align just so. But I check with a few folks that live near me, and nothing pans out. Mitch and Robin are down the hill. Cindy and Aaron are camping up in the mountains.
But I know what I'd do if I was in San Francisco. If I was in SF, I'd go hang out in a pub in my neighborhood, so I figure that I should do that here. This is my hood now. I need to reclaim it.
There's a lot of locals seated outdoors in front of one place I kinda like, so I pull my bike in front very conspicuously. Like, what's the point in driving a bright orange $15,000 motorcycle imported from Europe if no one sees it, right?
I'm parking the bike when I notice a familiar blue Suzuki enduro across the street. I'm almost certain it's the same bike I passed up near Mount Evans. And he seems to be lost...checking a map in the parking lot just across the street there.
I roll across the street, pull up, and introduce myself. I've been riding bikes for a long time...nearly 30 years. There's a transcendental camaraderie among bikers. It transcends make and model. A motorcyclist is a motorcyclist, whether he's on a BMW, a KTM or a Suzuki. It makes no difference. It's a rolling brotherhood, and if you're on a bike, you're in the club.
"Hey, man...my name's Rob...Didn't I pass you on that dirt road up by Mount Evans a little bit ago?"
He takes off his helmet, shades, and pulls out some ear plugs. I'm surprised to see he's wearing earrings. As all of this happens, somehow, he turns into a girl. I'm like...stunned. This has never happened to me before. I had no clue all that gear was harboring a chick.
"I'm Karen...just trying to figure out which way I'm supposed to go here..." she mumbles as she studies her maps.
Now, understand that I'd like to have a chick to ride bikes with. It's just that there aren't a lot of chicks out there riding around the state on dirt bikes. Hell, there aren't a lot of women out there that can drive cars.
Not only can she drive a motorcycle, but she has a paper map, and is using it. I'm looking around for the cameras, sure this is some sort of a setup. It just can't be happening.
She claims she's been riding off-road for the last two weeks gong across Colorado solo, if you can believe it. She's telling me about her trip in the parking lot of Baskin Robbins. I'm still looking around for the cameras, sure that this is a setup.
"This is your motorcycle? And these are your maps?" I ask, just to make sure I'm not dreaming.
"Yes."
I'm looking around now. Studying the people across the street, where I was going to eat. A high-falutin place that's changed names 3 times in as many years. These people work all week, saving their dollars for Friday nights on the town. Carefully dreaming of something that will never happen. Waiting for some day that will never come. They're already dead, they just don't know it yet.
I look back at the girl on the bike now. I look at her really hard. I give her that deep eye stare where you do the left - right dance to figure out which eye is the dominant eye.
If we were in Guatemala, I'd say "Donde su espouso?", but I don't go there just yet. I'm just admiring the gifted horse at this point. No need to check his teeth. We'll find out what's up with that soon enough.
Instead, I'm like..."Look...I just got back from a little motorcycle trip also...I drove this bike down to Panama over the last two months or so."
"Oh! Were you in ADV Rider magazine?" she asks. Like..I have no idea what she's talking about. I wasn't in any magazine, but she makes me think...why wasn't I? My story should be all over the news. Somehow it's not.
She's checking her map, and she tells me where she's heading.
"I'm planning on going up 73, and then it turns into CR 64...."
I look at her map. As luck would have it, she happens to be driving right by my house.
"That's where I live. I live on North Turkey Creek. That's CR 64...on this map anyway....I've never heard it called that....but yeah...that's on the way home for me."
I'm not making this up. This is not some dream. This happened. This happened tonight.
"Look...I can show you where you want to go. But if you've got a little time to kill, I was going to eat dinner and grab a beer real quick. You in?"
"Where?" she wants to know.
I know a little place near here where we can sit by the creek, drink beers, and feed the ducks.
"I'm in. You lead. I'll follow," she replies.
Now, we're sitting by Bear Creek at Cactus Jacks and the chick is telling me about her travels through Colorado, Alaska, Argentina, etc.
I mention to her several times that I passed her on the road up to Mount Evans, but she's sort of coy in her response each time. Non-committal. Evasive. Like, I'm not clear if she's aware that she passed me or not. Maybe she didn't even notice me. But it's hard to imagine this, as there was no one else on the road, and I'm driving a bright orange motorcycle with no helmet, no gloves, nothing. Just a leather jacket and tennis shoes. I'm not even wearing a belt. The knees are gone out of my jeans.
Over dinner, we talk about trips through Central America and South America and the Great American Desert.
She's telling me about some rock-climbing she was doing down in Chile, and how strong the Chilean economy is, and I explain to her that it's because they came to the U.S. and asked for economic advice. We told them what to do, and they did it. As a result, they have the strongest economy in South America.
Not everyone carries these details around about the Chilean economy. But I've been burdened by trivia such as this my entire life.
Finally, she admits to me, clearly, that a) she passed me and b) she was aware that she passed me.
"I passed you and, I probably shouldn't tell you this," she explains, "but I couldn't get you out of my head. I couldn't sort it out. I thought about you for a long time...I was like...why is he out here? Why is he alone? Where is he going? What is he doing? Like, you're on this crazy expensive bike, riding alone, up a dirt road, with no helmet. Holes in your jeans. Tennis shoes. No saddle bags. No tank bag. No backpack. Nothing. I just couldn't put it together. I couldn't make sense of it."
"Where were you going, really?" she asks, as if I have an answer to this riddle.
"I dunno. Nowhere really. I was just driving down a dead end road..."
"That wasn't a dead end road though...."
"Well, Bear Creek is a dead end. I looped back and came up that road you saw me on..."
"But where were you going?"
"I dunno. Nowhere really... just out for a Sunday afternoon ride in July..." I offer.
"Baby...It's August. And it's not Sunday, it's Friday," she continues.
"Oh...yeah...I don't work, so I do sometimes lose track of the days..." I offer. Like, when I was in Central America, I didn't know what day it was. What time it was. What country I was in. What the currency was. Or the exchange rate. I just sort of drove and took pictures, really, like a kid in a candy shoppe.
"You don't work? What do you do?" she asks.
"Not much..." I offer. "Mostly, I spend my time going back and forth between the DMV and the county courthouse, trying to stay out of jail."
"How's that working out for you?"
"Well, it doesn't pay very well, but I'm not in jail," I offer. "I'm going into another beer. You up for another one?" I ask.
She doesn't answer, so I order us two more beers.
"Why aren't you wearing a helmet?" she wants to know.
"I couldn't find one."
"Where's your gloves?"
"I lost them... I lost one in Mexico and the other one in Panama..."
At this point, I should mention that I'm a little gun-shy . I was married for 7 years, but in dog-years it was more like 49. I have a very low tolerance for nagging and malevolent interrogation.
Carrie would scream at me and shout and throw things so that you wished you could just disappear. One time I secretly gathered my things together in her bedroom, snuck out, drove to the airport, and flew two time-zones away without even bothering to say goodbye.
'Fuck Off'? I'll show you what happens when you tell someone to 'Fuck Off'. So about the time she finished preparing a New Year's Day meal for me that she slaved over for hours, I was touching down at SFO. Fuck me? No. Fuck you.
I just got sick of her malevolent nagging. Tired of living in such indescribable squalor. It's one thing to be poor, but to be filthy and mean is a different thing altogether.
I think that the bond between two people can only withstand so much disparity. Only support so much nagging, envy, avarice, and jealousy. Carrie and I were way past the breaking point. I see that now. It was time to let go. This is why I'll never get married again. Marriage gives the woman carte blanch to destroy you with impunity. I'll never volunteer for that nightmare again.
"So, why did you drive a KTM 990 Adventure alone through Central America?" Karen wants to know.
"I dunno. Prolly not the smartest thing I ever did," I offer.
"Oh no...I think it sounds like an amazing adventure!" she replies.
I keep telling her all the fun things about Central America and she's telling me about how hard it was for her to pick up the Spanish in Argentina because it's different down there.
And it's fun to find someone with a brain that's actually been outside of Mississippi before. Not some lice-ridden trailer-whore that's never been outside of Lawrence County.
But we're burning daylight. And she still has to get home. I call for the check and when the bill comes, I point to her and the waiter hands her the bill.
She looks at me.
"I said we should go get dinner," I explained. "I never said I had any money!"
I'm not big on signs. I'm not a big fan of destiny, fate, etc. But this one has me scratching my. I have to sit down and really think about this.
Why was I out there? Why was she out there?
Where was I going? What was I looking for?
Why were Mitch, Robin, Cindy, and Aaron all out of town on a Friday evening?
How many chicks out there are driving dirt bikes solo across Colorado?
What are the odds of me even passing her at all?
And then running into her again in town? When she was lost?
And then recognizing her? I'm not big on signs, but this one gets pretty far out there.
And, it's kind of fun, to meet new people and flirt and act silly. It makes me realize that Carrie was nothing. A immature, cheating, psychotic woman. Inept and inane. Equally incapable of balancing a checkbook or cleaning a house. Just a shiny, loose distraction from all of the beautiful women in this world. A dull cripple in a sea full of healthy fish. I hate to think that I cared for her. That I wasted any time with her. The days are growing shorter. I've got to paint these days out. Got to fill them with excitement and adventure, even as Carrie goes and whores herself out to strangers. I'm moving on. I don't miss her. I don't miss anything about her.
Mostly what I miss is the hours I wasted worrying about her. Trying to help her. Getting her driver's license reinstated. Paying her mortgage. Getting her deadbeat husband put in jail for not paying child support. Getting her child into a hospital to try to control her seizures.
All for naught.
When I left, she started rattling off all the things I'd promised to do for her, but never followed through on.
"You said you'd buy me a new tail light for my Mustang, but you never did. You said you'd take me to Hawaii but you never did. You took your daughter to Cozumel, but never took me to Hawaii."
Reminded me of the time my niece went to stay with her grandmother. Everyone thought the trip went well, until they found her little note. She'd secretly documented every perceived transgression every day of her visit. Only she was 9. Carrie should have known better.
Everything I did for her was in vain. Pearls cast before swine. A completely futile, wasted effort. I wish I could take a piece of sandpaper and erase Carrie's scars from my brain.
My mom always said "If you can't use a comb, don't bring it home." How I wish I'd listened to her. Of course she was right.
Carrie is behind me now. I'm moving on. I've got to get out and meet more girls. And there are others out there. I've just got to keep driving down dead end roads. As bizarre as that sounds, I'm reasonably sure it's the only way out.
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 2, 2013 at 8:36 PM : Comments (5) | Permalink
July 19, 2013
Nowhere Left to Run: Cactus Jacks - Day 6
Friday, July 19
Goodland, Kansas - Morrison, Colorado
Odometer at the start of the day: 8,044 miles
Odometer at the end of the day: 8,044 miles
Miles driven today: 0 miles
Today, I wake up in the Days Inn in Goodland, Kansas. I'm laying in bed, praying that I don't have to wake up and face reality. But, I do, of course. Like everyone else. I check my cell phone. It's 6:49 a.m. So, no need to get up too soon. I fall back asleep. When I wake up again, it's 10:00 a.m. I call S&M towing, the maggots that have illegally confiscated my motorcycle.
"What do I have to give y'all to release my bike to me?" I ask. Drew is the boss, apparently. He tells me I'll need current registration, proof of insurance, and a clear title in my name. Obviously, this isn't possible. It can't be done.
And, this is why I break the law. Because the law makes no sense. Let's talk about the title, for instance. The bike needs to be titled in Colorado, obviously, as that is where I live. But, it's currently titled in Illinois, where I purchased the vehicle. Now, to transfer the title to Colorado, I have to bring the vehicle to Colorado and have it physically inspected by a police officer to verify that the VIN is correct. They won't let you transfer a vehicle into the state of Colorado without a verification of the VIN number.
So, obviously, I can't get the bike registered in Colorado without having the bike physically in Colorado. And he won't release the bike to me without valid registration. So now, he starts talking about me getting the bike registered in Kansas, as if that makes any sense.
I just ignore him. I call Robert R. and ask him to please drive to Kansas and pick me and my bike up in his truck. Robert R. solves a lot of problems. I can't drive. I can't drive away on the bike. Robert R. has a truck and a driver's license. So, I ask him to drive out. It's a 4 hour drive one way for him, but he agrees to come pick me up, for which I am eternally grateful.
I hang up the phone and fall back asleep.
I'm watching "I Almost Got Away With It" and all of these other shows that make me think that, if we could just erase the pigs from the face of the earth and start over, we'd all be OK. I fall asleep, and then I wake up.
Still I have no insurance on the bike. I decide that I've got to take the reigns and get some insurance for my bike. I call Progressive and they admit that they have a current policy for me on a 2004 XR 650L. Just as I suspected. I tell them to add on the 2010 KTM 990 Adventure. It costs me a total of $84.50. They fax me proof of insurance to the hotel. I collect it downstairs, climb back in bed, and fall fast asleep.
It's not so much that I'm lazy. It's just that I don't like doing anything.
Next thing I know, Robert calls me and says he's outside, so I go downstairs and meet him. I have all of my paperwork.
Granted, the registration is expired, but I have a clear Title and proof of Insurance. I figure we'll try to go and pick up the bike and make them tell me that we can't because the registration is expired.
I hand him a hundred dollars to cover the cost of his gas before it dawns on me that it's not nearly enough.
Instead, the woman is bamboozled, and she just copies all of my paperwork and allows me to leave on the bike.
I ask if there's a loading dock, and one of the employees points to a loading dock across the field.
Robert and I drive there, and I use a hand-crank to lower the loading dock to the level of his truck bed. We load up the bike, put on 4 tie-downs, grab lunch at Taco John's and head out.
Now, we're riding west on I-70 and it's a 4 hour ride home, or so. But I just talk the whole time telling everything I can remember about the trip through Central America, how I'd like to peel the skin off of Dimocrats and soak them in turpentine, etc. Just the normal stuff.
Finally, we make it home to Colorado. We fill up his truck and I pay for it. We stop by the Little Bear and Cactus Jacks for dinner/drinks, and then drive to my house and I hand him another hundred dollar bill.
He explains that I've already paid him, but I'm aware of how much I've given him. I insist that he takes it and then put him in the guest bedroom and we crash for the night, as neither of us needs to be driving at this point.
I owe him my sanity, of course. Who do you know that would come and pick you up in a different state? He's easily one of the coolest guys I've ever met. :)
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 19, 2013 at 9:39 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
July 18, 2013
Nowhere Left to Run: Sherman County Jail - Days 4 & 5
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly at the Days Inn hotel in Goodland, Kansas.
Wednesday & Thursday, July 17-18
Pratt, Kansas - Goodland, Kansas
Odometer at the start of the day: 7,763 miles
Odometer at the end of the day: 8,019 miles
Miles driven today: 256 miles
Yesterday, I woke up in Bill's trailer.
Bill used to work with Carmen, and she introduced us because we were both big into catching live bands that rolled through town. So Bill was my concert buddy. He left Dallas and moved back to Pratt around 1996 I think. He's sitting on something crazy like a section of land or so.
I spent the morning with Bill's family loading pigs into a trailer to take to the Pratt Town Fair. Dunno if you've ever tried to load mature 225 pound pigs into a trailer, but as it turns out, it's not easy.
First, Shannon cut a limb off of a tree over the pig pen, and laid it in the back of the trailer. Pigs get excited when they see anything green, and we were able to get about half of the pigs into the trailer using this ruse. But then, the other pigs sort of figured out that something was up.
The pigs are fairly smart and they decided that they didn't want to get into the trailer no matter what happened. So, Bill, Shanon, and all three kids had to get in on the action. Lots of ear pulling and squealing, but finally they got them all loaded up. I just stood back and took photos, of course.
Shannon hauled off the kids and the pigs to slaughter, leaving me and Bill to catch up over pizza tacos.
"Where do you see yourself in six months?" Bill asks. It's a debilitating question, of course. I don't know where I'll be in six hours, much less six months. I dunno what to say. I don't have an answer to the question.
"I dunno," I laugh. But the question haunts me. It shouldn't be that hard to answer. I'm sure most people have an answer to a question as simple as that. I, on the other hand, do not.
After lunch, I roll out of town heading for Denver. I'm not clear what I'll do in Denver, but at least I can copy all of my photos off onto my home network and switch off some of my camera gear before heading on to Glacier National Park.
I figure I've got about 360 miles to go, roughly, so I open the throttle and just run about 90 for hours, stopping only for gas.
This works fine until I get to within about 200 miles of Denver. Somewhere near Goodland, Kansas, I Kansas HIghway Patrol pulls me over. OK. So, you clocked me going 90 in a 75. No big deal right? Wrong. It gets better. Apparently my driver's license is suspended (not something I was aware of), no proof of insurance, and the plates on the bike seem to belong to a 2004 Honda XR650L, not a 2010 KTM 990 Adventure.
So, next thing I know, I'm wearing matching bracelets in the front seat of a cop car. But I'm still thinking...no big deal...I've got a few thousand dollars in my wallet. I can cover this action.
"How much will it cost for me to bond out?" I ask the cop.
"Well, since this is your 5th offense of driving on a suspended license, you don't get to bail out. The fifth offense is a felony, so you're going to be in jail until you get to see the judge."
Which is really not what you want to hear, of course.
Next thing I know, they're taking my jacket from me and I'm thinking "Hey...wait a minute..what if I get cold? I need that..." Like, it's hard to process what's going on. It's not a fun time.
So now I'm changing into a prison orange jumpsuit that says Sherman County Jail on the back. Putting on prison orange crocs. They take everything from me and hand me a pillow, a thin mattress, sheets, pillow case, towel, toothbrush, and a cup.
I'm so clueless I'm thinking I'm going to be getting my own cell. Instead, they slide open some steel doors and I realize I'm going to be in a cell with 6 beds. There's already 4 people in the cell they put me in. It occurs to me that I may need to be ready to fight.
I pick a top bed bunk against the wall and put my mattress into the sheet, pillow into the case, and climb into bed.
They tell me I can make a phone call, but I'm not really in the mood to call anyone. I lay down and try to fall asleep. I see some books on the empty bunk beside me and ask if I can read them. The one guy says "sure - It's all AA stuff...I'm getting tired of it."
So, I start reading the AA literature. It's an AA book of people telling how they turned their lives around. I start reading some of the stories. I'm not clear that I qualify as an alcoholic or not. More likely I'm just an idiot. I certainly wasn't drinking today. That's not what got me here, so far as I can tell.
They announce it's time to eat dinner, but I'm pretty clueless about what to do. Everyone leaves though, so I follow them. We walk down to a small room with a television and two small tables. They serve dinner through a slot in the wall to us. Dinner is macaroni and cheese, two slices of bread. Then pass your cup through the same hole and they fill it with tea.
Go back to my cell and climb into my top bunk. The guy beneath me complains about me stepping on his bed to climb up to my bunk. They tell me to climb up on the stainless steel toilet instead, which I do.
Sit in bed and choke down the macaroni and cheese and bread. There's not enough calories in it to keep a human alive, I'm pretty sure. And I don't normally eat much anyway.
There's no privacy at all. There's a stainless steel toilet at the foot of my bed, and people use it while I'm trying to go to sleep. They flush the toilet and it wakes me up if I happen to be asleep. Sounds roughly like a freight train driving through a room with concrete floors and cinderblock walls.
At some point, they turn off the television, which seems to play the movie Grease nonstop, as best as I can tell. They turn off the lights.
I start to think about what Bill asked....where will I be in six months? Survey says it's not looking good.
I fall asleep somehow. In they morning, they tell me they're serving breakfast, but I skip it and sleep in.
ICE takes away one of our cellmates, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, to be deported. Now, there are a total of four of us in the cell.
At lunch time, I follow them to get my lunch tray, praying it's not macaroni and cheese. This time, we get something like a TV dinner with salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and corn. Also, a little container of applesauce and a granola bar.
After you eat, you push your tray through the same hole you're served through and it falls into a trashcan.
Now, the bartering begins. They're swapping applesauce containers for granola bars. You begin to realize how valuable everything is in this surreal environment. Having a pencil is a huge deal. Books are prized and coveted. A packet of salt is valuable here. Everything has a value unimagined by the outside world.
The people all seem friendly enough to me, but when I sit on Avery's bed (another inmate), they tell me "I wouldn't sit on his bed," and I quickly move. "You can sit here though."
They ask me what I'm in for. I tell them I'm in for "felony driving without a license" as if that even makes any sense.
One guy is facing 243 months (20 years and 3 months) for spitting on a cop. Apparently he has a pretty serious alcohol problem. Was already enrolled in college. Supposed to be starting in college next month or so. Now he's facing 20 years in the pen and has a $100,000.00 bond. They found him walking down the middle of the street so drunk it wouldn't register in the field. At the hospital, they said he was 0.32. Apparently, he has Hepatitis C, which can't be spread through saliva. But then they tested him for HIV and another type of Hepatitis, which can be spread through saliva, but he tested negative for those.
When he spit in the cop's face, apparently, he was strapped in a chair in the hole and the cop was filming him with a cam corder and he spit in the cop's face. This all happened on Friday, last week, which screwed up the normal dinner schedule for the rest of the inmates, plus it was quite a commotion, I understand.
They tell me that I should have outrun the highway patrol, as they're not allowed to go on high-speed pursuits any more. Like, this is what I need, right? Advice from incarcerated criminals on how to get away from the police. Great. I don't run from the police any more. I gave that up years ago.
As it turns out, the guy telling me to run from the police tried it himself. He was going triple digits when he totaled his truck. They caught him, of course. Believe it or not, he didn't lose his license over the incident. Nor did he get a DUI even though he was drunk.
I try to go back to sleep, still listening to Grease play on the endless loop in the next room. Finally, they call "Kiser....Robert Kiser" and I can't believe it. It's like a dream.
"Have you filled out a financial affidavit yet?" she asks. I just stare ahead like a zombie. The other inmates answer for me.
"No. He hasn't."
She gives me a piece of paper and a pencil to fill it out with.
"Hurry up and fill this out. The judge is waiting on you. You've got like 3 minutes."
I don't have to fill anything out, of course. I have the right to an attorney. I know all of that. But it asks if I'm employed. If I have any money. What I do for a living. I put that I'm broke and unemployed in hopes they'll assign me an attorney for free.
She has walked away, so I turn to my cellmates and ask "who's pencil is this?"
"It's hers. She gave it to you. But you should keep it," they offer. How quickly I learn to think like them. I hide the pencil in the cell and walk out the cell door after her.
"Where's my pencil?" she demands.
"Huh?"
"My pencil. I gave it to you. Where is it?"
"I dunno. I must have lost it."
"When we come back, you have to give it to me," she explains as she puts handcuffs on me.
She leads me down the hallway to a door. An officer comes and she hands me off to him. He walks me outside.
It's good to see the sky again. In jail, there's no way to know what time of day it is. Just artificial light and clocks, but no connection to the world outside.
It's warm and the sky is clear and blue. A light wind. I stand for a second in the middle of the street, taking in the warmth.
"It's good to see the sky again," I offer.
"It's hot," he complains.
Now, we walk into the Sherman County Court House. The cop leads me into a dark court room. Very Kafkaesque. He tells me to take a seat and I do. They take my financial affidavit. The judge comes in and starts talking. I have no idea what he's saying. I'm not a lawyer. I never even bothered to call my lawyer, because I'm not sure what the play is here.
The judge reads to me slowly each crime that I'm charged with. You'd think I was an axe murderer instead of an idiot on a motorcycle. Surprisingly, they're all misdemeanors. None of them are felonies. So, when the pigs told me I'd committed a felony, they were wrong, it seems.
The judge looks at my financial affidavit and tells me that I won't get a court appointed attorney. Then, they make up a piece of paper and hand it to me. It has everything I'm charged with. It's basically as thick as War and Peace. I'm charged with everything from gluttony to avarice, and the bond is $3,000.00.
I'm ecstatic to see that the bond is only $3,000.00. After all, my cellmate's bond was $100,000.00. I've got nearly $2,000.00 on me. All I need is another grand and I can walk.
Then the judge offers me an option. If I front them $800.00, then I won't have to come up with the full $3,000.00. I'm like..."Deal."
"Do you have any questions?" the judge asks.
"Am I free to go?"
"Well, first, you have to pay the $800, then they have to get the paperwork over to the jail, but then you can go. However, I warn you that you'd better be sure to come back here on your court date with an attorney. Since this is your 5th offense for driving on a suspended license, you can plan on doing some time in jail.
They bring in an envelope with all the money I had on me when I came in. They take out eight one hundred dollar bills, and lament that they wish they could check them to see if they're counterfeit. But they can't, so they shut up and accept them.
Back to the jail. My cell mates ask me if I'm getting out, and I tell them yes, and they're all happy for me, of course.
She forgets to ask about the pencil, so I give away my pencil and my applesauce.
About an hour later, they call for me again, and this time, she tells me to gather up all my belongings, so I grab my mattress, pillow, and the rest and leave the jail.
"Good look," I tell my cellmates as I leave.
Change back into my street clothes in a little room and now she gives me the rest of my stuff and the rest of my money. Walk out the back and a door opens up and they release me like a trapped rodent from a trap.
I see a gas station and walk towards it. Buy some food and an iced tea since I'm starving half to death. I give the guy at the counter my laptop and cell phone and he starts everything charging.
Sitting in the gas station, so happy to be outside. Free. Hard to describe this emotion.
When my cell phone is charged up enough I start making some calls.
I call the towing company, and they say they won't release my motorcycle without proof of insurance and registration on the bike. So, I'm not clear how to get the motorcycle free. Plus my license is still suspended. So, I'm not really sure what to do next.
I have my heavy C.C. Filson handbag. And there is no car rental here in town.
I decide to check into a hotel room so I can rest and regroup. But the hotel is about a 20 block walk, and I don't want to do it in the hot sun with my heavy handbag if I don't have to. What I really need is for a total stranger to give me a ride across town.
I see a guy leaving the gas station...he's delivering pizzas if you can believe it...so I call after him..."Hey...pizza delivery guy...can you take me to the Days Inn hotel down near I-70?"
"Sure. It's on my way. Hop in," he replies.
On the way to the hotel, I make a reservation on the iphone on Hotels.com. Check into the hotel and crash for the night.
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 18, 2013 at 7:10 PM : Comments (12) | Permalink
July 16, 2013
Nowhere Left to Run: Toad Suck Arkansas - Day 3
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly at the Hotel Bill in Pratt, Kansas.
Tuesday July 16th
Fayetteville, Arkansas - Pratt, Kansas
Odometer at the start of the day: 7,303 miles
Odometer at the end of the day: 7,763 miles
Miles driven today: 460 miles
The Paradox of Choice
I sleep in until something like 10:00 a.m. When I get up, Dena is on a conference call, so I go sit out behind her trailer and watch the armadillos burrow into the riverbank.
It's crazy nice outside, which has to be unusual for July in Arkansas, right?
I try to think about my ride through the Mississippi Delta and through Arkansas.
It's so hard to focus and put it in perspective. These old rusting cars, fading Depression-era two-story wooden houses. Barns with rusted tin roofs. Peeling paint. Sometimes I shoot them. Sometimes I don't. I don't want to deliberately paint Mississippi and Arkansas as being backwards. But these old buildings sort of whisper to me when I roll past. Vestigial remnants of a past we can never return to. Of aging, faded ghosts that once lived in these towns. All of these people lived and then faded away, planted in roadside family cemeteries and forgotten.
This is what I see as I roll past. I try to envision the land as it once was. Before the Dollar General stores came destroyed the mainstreet shops of downtown the way Sherman destroyed the South in his insane march to the sea.
Not that I have anything against the Dollar General stores, per se. I mean, they're just the penultimate victory of function over form. The final route of cost over aesthetics.
And this is something that I must say I miss about Central America. It certainly wasn't like this down there. In Central America, the next little town is only a few kilometers down the road and you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be scads of little family-owned-and-operated businesses there. True, Pemex runs all of the gas stations in Mexico. And there are certainly lots of chains all through Central America, but neither is there a lack of independently owned and operated businesses.
I drove yesterday through the Ozark mountains on a two-lane black-topped road searching in vain for a small, local establishment....something on the side of a creek or a lake or anything....instead, all I see are gas stations selling fried catfish and fried chicken. So, I guess that this is what we've come to, but it's sad. I think that we all are torn between logic and emotion, and this one rips me right down the zipper.
I spent most of yesterday dodging doves and butterflies. Now I see these guys riding around without helmets, and I guess there's no helmet law in Arkansas, but these things smash into my helmet's visor like meteors from outter-space. I have no idea what they are. Maybe beetles the size of pecans? I can't know. But these things with my visor that make you wonder how the visor can possibly absorb the impact. Like, beetles that sound like a rock hit your visor. And you think about that hitting your face. I'm just like....no thanks.
Toad Suck, Arkansas
Yesterday, I almost ran over some beaver-looking critter near Toad Suck, Arkansas. Like, you would think I'm making that up, but I'm not. Toad Suck really exists. Just one of those many things that blows past your eyes during the day and you hope to God that you'll remember it later when you're drunk-typing away on the keyboard in the small hours of the morning.
The animal I nearly ran over was not something I've ever seen before. It looked like a beaver, but had a bushy tail. I've googled it, and I'm still not sure what it was. It wasn't a nutria, a muskrat, a beaver, or an otter. Maybe it was a chupacabra? I'm not clear.
It was crazy fun catching up with Dena because her memory is just insane. Eventually, I call her out on it. "OK. Hang on. How can you possibly remember all of this stuff?" Like, everything she says sort of fits into my vague recollections of my life in Dallas, but she has all of these details I don't recall. She explains where everyone came from. How they all met. Where everyone lived. How everyone left Dallas around the same time back in 1995.
"Remember? We had a deal where you used to wash my car and I did your laundry. But I wouldn't wash your sheets."
"Why wouldn't you wash my sheets?"
"See...that was the same thing you said back then...but you had so many women coming through your place that I wouldn't touch your sheets."
"I did not."
"You so did."
"Who?"
"Carmen, Tracy, that one older woman...I forget her name...your boss' daughter...Leather-face....Karen...."
"Whoa...whoa...whoa...Who was Karen?"
Now, the photo albums come out. Wow. And there's pictures of me from 23 years ago. Wow. She's laying out how we all went to Fayetteville and I hooked up with Karen in her boyfriend's condo.
"I feel kinda funny about hooking up with her in her boyfriend's place," I apologized to Dena.
Now, I have zero recollection of this. And I'd say for sure that she has me mixed up with someone else, but the problem is that everything else she is saying is spot on. So, if she's right, then it means that I've been to Fayetteville before, which is hard to imagine. But when there's photos and all, it's sort of hard to argue, I guess.
We stay out too late and drink too much at some local watering hole. It's very odd to catch up with someone you haven't seen in 20 years, and I've been doing this a lot lately, for whatever reason.
But when we get home, I can't turn the brain off.
I'm not really sure where to run to next. Perpetually hobbled by the Paradox of Choice - a crippling, debilitating disease. I'm pretty sure the world is a prison we construct in our minds and project onto an neutral, ambivalent canvas.
And I think about the birds and the butterflies that I spent all day dodging. I wonder if they wonder like I wonder. It seems unlikely. And for this, I'm jealous. I spend my hours on the road, trying to deconstruct the prison I've diligently constructed in my mind.
Like, how could I possibly have gotten all caught up over one girl, when there's 3 billion women walking across the face of the planet?
The 18th Candy Bar
Each day is a struggle, of course. Trying to figure out where to go next. And part of me wants to stay here with Dena. She has this crazy nice house and she's such a gracious host. I've never been a good house guest, of course. I've got the hygiene of a possum and the social skills of a porcupine. So, I'm usually not someone you'd want to see inside of your house on a clean white carpet or anything.
But there is some part of me that wants to stay here, of course. But the problem with this is that each day, my situation becomes a little less tenable. Each day, my life becomes a little less palatable. This is what I like to call the syndrome of the "18th Candy Bar".
It's the counter-intuitive phenomena whereby each candy bar tastes progressively worse than the one before it. One candy bar is fine. The second one is too much. The third one would be a nightmare, and the 18th candy bar would be sheer torture.
So, this is the trick is trying to forecast how you'll feel in place at anywhere How will the 2nd candy bar taste? How would I feel at home in Colorado tomorrow? Would it be better if I was in Canada?
These are the things that I struggle with at night.
Right now, I'm leaning towards a balls-out dash for Colorado.
Michelle texts me and says to call her about Jennifer, but it's nothing. She just wants me to be back in town by August. So I've got some time to run still, I think. I've got to be back in Colorado in August for my court dates anyway, I think.
Dena has a conference call, so I hug her goodbye and bug out. She'll be in Denver next month, so I make her promise to let me take her out to dinner when she's in town.
Now, I'm heading to Pratt, Kansas. Bill lives there. He worked with Carmen when we all lived in Dallas. Carmen knew how much I loved to go to concerts, so she set me up with Bill, and we became concert buddies. We went to more concerts than I can even remember.
I drive all day at something crazy like 90 mph. Mostly on backroads, because I just hate being on the interstate. I have no idea where I'm going. Just north. Then west. Then north again. Somehow, I end up in Missouri, then Oklahoma, then Kansas.
I drive all day dodging rainclouds. It rains on me intermittently all day, on and off. But I've learned that, if the rain clouds are localized, then driving faster gets you out of the rain quicker. So, I'll run 100 mph or so and try to stay ahead of the rain clouds, or get through them more quickly anyway.
At 103, the wind plays games with my fingers. I'm leaning over the bike, more dead than alive. Running at 103, eyes barely open, resting on the bike the way you might rest on your desk at the office. Just leaning on the bike for support. My left hand out in front of the bark busters. The wind pulls at my fingers in jerky staccato bursts.
At 110, it pulls down the front of my shoes.
At 115, the wind inside my helmet is just indescribable. The whole helmet wants to lift up and fly away. Only the chinstrap holds it on.
At 120, the highway becomes a tedious maze of cars coming at you. The oncoming cars come at you insanely fast. But even the cars in your lane are coming at you at 60 mph or so. It's a lot more challenging. Especially in the rain.
When I'm 160 miles east of Pratt, I text Bill and tell him I'm two hours out. I'm racing these massive storm clouds. For some reason, they're heading west? So that I have to outrun them?
I'm not really bothered by the rain any more. I put my cameras in a certain position so that they won't get wet. And I just drive. I'm not stopping for rain any more. That's just not my deal. I'm all in.
Bill texts back that they're at the fair grounds, they're not at his compound. I pull up to his compound. He owns a trillion acres of land and the trailer is set so far back from the road that I get lost trying to find it. Finally, find the old farm house, drop off my gear, and take off to meet them at the fair. But I get lost, of course. So Bill comes back into Pratt and we go to dinner at some little local dive. Very cool spot with something like a hamburger taco? Really good.
And we catch up. I haven't seen him in 20 years, of course.
We get home, and he fetches a pig from one of the bedrooms upstairs.
"No. You don't have a pet pig!" I shout.
It's so cute. It's squealing and screaming. He makes it a bowl of oatmeal in the microwave. The pig (Prada), scarfs it down. Hilarious. He says they make good pets. It's a teacup pig, I think. I think I need to get one now.
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 16, 2013 at 9:27 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
July 15, 2013
Nowhere Left To Run: Hotel Dena - Day 2
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in the Hotel Dena in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Monday July 15th
Clinton, Arkansas - Fayetteville, Arkansas
Odometer at the start of the day: 7,144 miles
Odometer at the end of the day: 7,303 miles
Miles driven today: 159 miles
In the morning, I wake up, but I keep drifting back to sleep until it's 12:30 p.m. and the phone is ringing. Check out time was 11:00 a.m. I throw all of my gear onto the bike and head out.
Presently, I'm driving through the Ozark Mountains, which aren't bad, really. I mean, I've seen the Andes and the Canadian Rockies, so they're not like that, but they're nice. Rolling hills, basically.
I almost run over some sort of animal...I'm not clear what it was...it looked like a beaver with a bushy tail? It ran across the road in front of me. I missed him somehow.
The road is finally a two-lane black-topped road through the Ozark Mountains. Eventually, I come to the Buffalo River. At some point, Michelle and I came up here and went canoeing on the Buffalo River.
Now, I find myself again at the Buffalo River. I'm not sure what to do, but I decide to go down and check it out. I decide to go for a swim, but when I go through my C.C. Filson bag, I realize that I don't have my swimsuit, for whatever reason. I guess I left it at Molly's? I dunno. So I head out.
And I roll north towards Harrison. Always planning on eating, but never really eating. In each little town I come to, I imagine that I'll find a little quaint local restaurant that specializes in catfish, bbq, or fried chicken. But instead, each little town has a Sonic, a Dollar General, and a gas station.
Eventually, I surrender to the fact that the gas stations are the only place I'll be able to eat. Finally, when I'm about to starve to death, I pull into a gas station to eat.
I choke down some catfish, coleslaw, and something pickled...green tomatoes? I'm not sure.
Head out and now I'm rolling west towards Fayetteville. Roll into town and text Dena to ask where she lives. Roll up to her trailer, and start to catch up. I haven't seen her in 20 years. We go to dinner and then for drinks afterwards. She's telling me stories about what happened 20 years ago. Most I don't remember. Some I do. She tells me that we came to Fayetteville and I banged one of her friends. I totally don't remember this story. Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn't.
She's telling me all the girls I slept with and I'm like...yeah...yeah...yeah...yeah....I do remember them. This other one, I don't remember though.
She's telling me that we came to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and I slept with her friend in her boyfriend's apartment. I dunno. It seems kinda far fetched. I think she's got me mixed up with someone else?
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 15, 2013 at 10:09 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 14, 2013
Nowhere Left To Run: Shackles of the Mind - Day 1
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in Clinton, Arkansas.
Sunday July 14th
Madison, Mississippi - Clinton, Arkansas
Odometer at the start of the day: 6,763 miles
Odometer at the end of the day: 7,144 miles
Miles driven today: 381 miles
We get up this morning and take Jennifer to the airport. I photoshopped her boarding passes so she can board first and she's connecting through Chicago Midway, but we just drop her off at the curb. She's 15 and she has no problem flying around the country by herself.
So she flies out and when she's not around, I never know what to do with myself, so I just tend to sort of lose focus and wander.
I go back to Molly's trailer and start working on the KTM. Last night, I got it all torn apart, but couldn't finish the project as it got dark on me. So today, I have to finish the job. Get the oil filter changed and tighten the chain also. Even managed to set the clock to be the right time.
The thing about the KTM that I don't like is that it's a royal pain in the ass just to do something simple like change the oil filter. On my Hondas, all you do is pull three metric bolts...this pops out the oil filter. And you unscrew the oil drain plug on the bottom of the engine. Replace filter. Replace drain plug. Pour in oil. Done.
On the KTM, you have to pull the left fuel tank, and about a trillion other things. A total nightmare. Took me about three hours. But I finally got it finished and I only dropped the bike once and only have two parts left over. (Hopefully they're not important).
I get it all put back together and pour the oil into the woods behind the trailer. Pour kitty litter on the oil spots in the driveway.
And now, it's time for me to go, but I really and truly have no place to go at this point.
This is the hard part, of course. I just sort of tell my sister goodbye and hug her and go get on the bike and ride away.
Carrie is emailing me again. She's going out with another guy. What we were doing was unholy and sinful, apparently. But since they go to church together, that makes it all right, apparently.
She unfriended me on facebook. She deleted all of the photos of the two of us from her facebook account like I never even existed. She posts new pics with this ugly goon she's dating now. She blocked my cell phone number so I can't call/text her. This after I removed 2,500+ viruses from her computer. After I paid her mortgage so she wouldn't lose her house. After I paid all of her outstanding tickets and got her driver's license reinstated.
And then has the gall to email me and ask me to send her the photos I took of her family at Christmas.
I'm like "but...there isn't room on your computer to store them, remember?"
Then it dawns on me. She's got scads of room on her computer because she deleted all of the photos of the two of us. And she's using the camera I gave her for Christmas to take photos of her and this ugly snaggle-toothed back-water knuckle-dragging idiot to put on her facebook account.
"I deleted them," I tell her. I didn't delete them. I never delete any photos. But God as my witness she'll never see them.
"Really?" She seems disappointed. As if somehow she'd not thought about that scenario.
As dumb as a bag of hammers.
So this is what's going on as I try to put my life back together. She sends me crazy messages about how much she loved me and how she'll never love the new guy the way she loved me. But, somehow, she'll try. Just insane psycho-babble that makes me want to drive into an overpass.
So, this is what's going through my head as I leave Madison. I say goodbye, and I'm sort of driving away, but without a clear destination. I loosely plan to go through the Delta and then into Arkansas. Not clear where I'll go after that.
Continue reading "Nowhere Left To Run: Shackles of the Mind - Day 1"
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 14, 2013 at 12:41 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 20, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 32: Panama City, Panama
Update 2: I'm safe at my sister's trailer in Madison, Mississippi, relaxing in the shade beneath the porch with the possums and a hog snake. Molly says the electricity should be turned back on when the government check comes at the first of the month.
Update: I am desperately trying to flee the country of Panama, via the Passenger Terminal at the Tocumen Airport in Panama City, Panama.
Thursday June 20, 2013
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 32: Panama City, Panama"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 20, 2013 at 5:38 AM : Comments (3) | Permalink
June 19, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 31: Panama City, Panama
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in the Hotel Riande at the Tocumen Airport in Panama City, Panama.
Wednesday June 19, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 5,539
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 5,602
Miles driven today: 63 miles
Local Currency: US Dollars
1 US Dollar = 1 US Dollar
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 31: Panama City, Panama"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 19, 2013 at 7:10 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
June 18, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 30: Panama City, Panama
.JPG)
Above: Mi amigo Fernando selling cups of Pipa (ice cold coconut milk) for something insane like 65 cents at lunch time at the Carga Terminal for the Tocumen Airport.
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in the Hotel Bahia Suites in Panama City, Panama.
Tuesday June 18, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 5,529
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 5,539
Miles driven today: 10 miles
Local Currency: US Dollars
1 US Dollar = 1 US Dollar
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 30: Panama City, Panama"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 18, 2013 at 11:00 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
June 17, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 29: Panama City, Panama
.JPG)
Above: Weighing the KTM 990 Adventure at ServiCarga for shipping back to the United States.
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in the Riande Hotel at the Tocumen Airport, in Panama City, Panama.
Monday June 17, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 5,523
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 5,529
Miles driven today: 6 miles
Local Currency: US Dollars
1 US Dollar = 1 US Dollar
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 29: Panama City, Panama"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 17, 2013 at 7:53 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
June 16, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 28: Antón to Panama City, Panama
.JPG)
Above: Looking north at the Panama Canal from the Puente Centenario (Centenario Bridge) near Paraiso, Panama City, Panama.
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in the Riande Hotel at the Tocumen Airport, in Panama City, Panama.
Sunday June 16, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 5,395
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 5,523
Miles driven today: 128 miles
Local Currency: US Dollars
1 US Dollar = 1 US Dollar
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 28: Antón to Panama City, Panama"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 16, 2013 at 3:34 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Crossing the Darien Gap
http://magliery.com/Thompson/misctext/darien.txt
Since the Darien gap is probably the most difficult part of travelling
the Americas, I wrote this up for other travellers....
Dave
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Between Panama and Colombia, the Darien gap is a stretch of about 80
miles where there is no road. To cross it involves a sharp machete, a
strong arm, good mosquito repellent, malaria prophylactic, food, and
lots of patience. Also, timing must be in the dry season. I've only
heard of three successful vehicle crossings. All of whom have written
books about their many week ordeal. Since the early '90s, crossing the
Darien on foot is considered by most locals as dangerous since it has
recently become a channel for drug smugglers from Colombia.
For most normal people, including those only slightly abnormal, this
leaves three options. Fly, take a boat, or turn around.
Flying across the Darien
------------------------
Flying is certainly the easiest. It's an option for motorcyclists, but
not for cars or trucks which must take a boat.
There are several air cargo freighters that will ship a motorcycle. In
both Bogota and Panama city, the best place to research this yourself
in Bogota is at the main airport, or in Panama City at the old
airport now called the cargo airport.
Of the air cargo freighter that would transport a motorcycle to Bogota,
I went with Girag Air Cargo and found procedures to be easy and straight
forward. I heard good things about Servi Carga from two independent
sources.
Girag Air Cargo (Cargo Three, Inc.) Phone in city: 26-5775, 26-3173,
26-5477, Fax 26-5477
Phone at Tocumen: 238-4326, 238-4289, 238-4397, 238-4091,
Fax 238-4417
In Bogota: 571-414-7010,571-414-7011,571-414-7012
413-5349, 413-5358, 413-5093, 413-5087,
Fax: 413-5104,
E-mail: adolfog@colomsat.net.co
Cost was $250 cash or TC per motorcycle
In Bogota they are located at the main airport.
In Panama City, they are located at the cargo airport
(old Tocumen airport)
Servi Carga. phone: 223-1144, 238-4165, 238-4162, 238-4286, 238-4250
cost is $250 per motorcycle + $33 handling.
Pacific Airlines. located at the old cargo Tocumen airport. They quoted
me $500 cash per motorcycle.
Continental Airlines will ship a motorcycle to Ecuador, either Guayaquil
or Quito. However motorcycle must be delivered crated.
free of oil, gas, battery and tire pressure.
Guess of price by clerk was $400 per motorcycle.
We dropped our motorcycles off in the afternoon at Girag dock at the old
airport in Panama city, We drained the gas tank and left. It showed up
the next day in the Girag warehouse near the Bogota airport just as we had
left them. See Customs at the bottom...
In Colombia, and maybe also in Panama, gas station sell plastic gas bags
for carrying gas. For approximately, $.50 one can buy a plastic bag at
Texaco for carrying up to two gallons of gas, which you'll likely need
on arrival with a dry tank. There is a gas station less than 1km from
the airport, so not much gas is needed.
For you, not your vehicle, there are several flights from Panama to
Bogota per day on Copa, Avianca and Aces. We flew on Aces and would
recommend it. Flight time is approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes and
all seats are business class at economy prices. Cost was $168 for all
the airlines above mentioned, one way. No problem booking flight at
the last minute.
WGS84 GPS coordinates for Panama.
Tocumen Airport N9d04.006, W79d23.291
Cargo Airport N9d05.232, W79d22.314
By Sea around the Darien Gap
----------------------------
The Crucero express is a ferry service that operated for 6-18 months
depending on who one talks to. However, it has stopped running almost 2
years ago. Rumor has it that the boat now runs from Cancun to Miami.
There are no current plans for a replacement ferry service.
There are a number of options of how to cross by boat, but no yet well
established method, and so all options require a lot of foot work. I
would recommend allowing 1-2 weeks to arrange, plus 3-4 days in
crossing. However, I've heard costs as low as $200* for motorcycle and
passenger, (BIG asterisk here... see below)
One way to cross is by container ship. One rents a 10x20x10 foot
container which is large enough for two cars/trucks, or four
motorcycles. These typically go for $1000 plus $100 to load, and $100
to unload for a total of $1200. Great if you can pair up vehicles with
someone else. The alternative to renting a container would be to find a
ship that takes open cargo. These are more difficult to find.
This type of travel is arranged through a port agency, who acts as cargo
schedulers for a couple of boats. Port agencies are usually centrally
located, so one can walk around to the various ones, and ask about
various boats. Most boats in Panama load in Colon, and so I'm told it's
best to go there despite the reputation of the city. My information was
gathered in Panama City.
In Panama city, there are several port agencies grouped together at
WGS84 coordinates N8d57.534, W79d33.647. OTC is a port agent at these
coordinates. OTC themselves only had a 20 foot container as their
smallest which was $950 to Cartagena plus $100 handling. Perfect if I
had a Winebego. Some other contacts:
Gemini Shipping Co. Tel: 441-6269, 441-6959. They would except open
cargo cars or motorcycle. However they sailed every 1-2
weeks.
Fast Cargo Inc. Tel: 263-2008, 263-7826, 264-5792, 441-7037, Fax: 269-8447,
They handle arrangements by air or boat.
There are quite a few small boats that cross from Panama to Colombia,
and will take a open cargo such as a motorcycle and their passengers.
This is by far the best way to go if one is interested in gathering
adventure stories to be told afterwards.
Of the three travellers I met who travelled on one of these smaller
boats...
One was on a coconut boat where their motorcycle sat in a pile of
coconuts for 3.5 days. When they arrived at night, the canoes came from
shore, and all of the smuggled merchandise such as refrigerators, TVs,
etc were unloaded in the dark from hidden places on the boat. The next
morning when only the coconuts and motorcycle remained, the motorcycle
was off loaded into a canoe for an additional $20. They were put ashore
on a sand beach far from any road. Later when they arrived at customs,
they were told that they had had an illegal entry, and would have to go
back the way they came and come in legally. This being impossible, they
ended up driving the rest of the way through Colombia without proper
documents. Fortunately they were not stopped by a police check. The
total cost for them was $220. It was not a pleasant experience,
however when they tell it, it makes a great story.
A British couple we met had a similar experience for $250. However
their boat was smuggling in arms and ammunition likely for one of the
two Colombian guerrilla factions. Of course, they didn't know this when
they embarked.
We met a swiss motorcycle traveller who booked passage on the boat named
"Alejandra" sailed by captain Eduardo Barrios sailing from Puerto Coco
Solo in Venezuela to Colon, Panama. He paid $200 for the three day
passage of himself and his motorcycle. However, he slept on the floor
in a cramp area shared by others, and managed to lose all of his riding
gear during the voyage.
Customs
-------
While arrival by land in Colombia is straight forward and easy. Arrival
by boat or air involves a lot of paperwork. 2-5 days by air or boat
has been my personal experience and experience from talking with other
travellers. Our paper work began on a Thursday night, and we were done
by Tuesday morning. No work was done Saturday afternoon or Sunday.
However, we had two problems arise that lengthened our paperwork by
about a day and a half. One was that the vehicle identification number
on one of our bikes is a sticker that is no longer legible. Due to some
quick thinking and trickery by our hired custom agent we were able to
get this by the customs officer. The other problem we had was that in
Panama, the customs officer had written the same air bill number for one
of our motorcycles into both of our passports. This discrepancy took a
lot of foot and paper work to remedy in Colombia. The customs officers
in Bogota are very strict, officious and by the book. They are
reluctant to take responsibility for saying that any discrepancy is o.k.
A bribe at this custom office will likely get one thrown in jail, so I
have been warned, and such is the general feel of the clerks.
Solutions to problems we encountered: I went to an engraver, and had a
little aluminum plate with the vehicle identification numbers engraved
on it which I then epoxied to the frame. This number identically
matched that of my paperwork, and replaced the factory sticker that was
now no longer legible.
Regarding the incorrect air bill number in my passport. Fixing this
personally with a pen, I was warned would get me thrown in jail.
Colombian officials said, "no problem, just go back to Panama and get it
fixed". With two notes from the shippers, and approval from the top
customs officer, the clerks were able to overlook this discrepancy.
It is necessary to hire a custom agent. The custom agent works for you,
not the government, and is hired to get you through Colombian customs.
They do the leg work, and type of the 80+ question form. A typical fee
might be $80 per motorcycle to possibly $75 per day, and is well worth
it. We heard of two Israelis who didn't hire an agent, and it took them
2.5 weeks of agony to get their vehicles through customs.
Finding a custom agent may not be easy. Customs officers who work for
the government are not allowed to help you locate a customs agent since
this would be potentially considered favoritism, and possibly a loss of
their job. We were secretly directed to Cesar, a customs agent who
hangs out in the cargo warehouse. He has been doing this paper work for
15 years. He's short, overweight, and wears street clothes and can
likely be found by asking around the cargo warehouses just outside the
Bogota airport entrance. He has a crew of four others that can get a
motorcycle through in a little over a day.
With all of your paperwork in order, and lots of patience, Colombian
customs is only a little inconvenient :-)
Dave Thompson
thompson@pdnt.com
http://sdg.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~mag/Thompson
Net-Tamer V 1.09 Palm Top - Registered
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 16, 2013 at 9:10 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 15, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 27: Uvita, Costa Rica - Antón, Panama
.JPG)
Above: Finally, Panama at last. This is a self-portrait of me rolling down the PanAmerican Highway after finally crossing into Panama. :)
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in the Hotel Rivera in Antón, Panama. Antón is a town in the Coclé province of Panama, located near the north-western shore of the Gulf of Panama.
Saturday June 15, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 5,066
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 5,395
Miles driven today: 329 miles
Local Currency: US Dollars
1 US Dollar = 1 US Dollar
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 15, 2013 at 7:02 PM : Comments (4) | Permalink
June 14, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 26: Jacó to Uvita, Costa Rica
.JPG)
Above: The playa at Jaco, Costa Rica.
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in the La Posada Hotel in the seaside villa of Uvita, Costa Rica.
Friday June 14, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 4,976
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 5,066
Miles driven today: 90 miles
Local Currency: Costa Rican Colones
1 US Dollar = 500 Costa Rican Colones
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 26: Jacó to Uvita, Costa Rica"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 14, 2013 at 6:19 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 25: San Jose to Jacó, Costa Rica
.JPG)
Above: The Pacific Ocean at last. I haven't seen the Pacific Ocean since I left San Francisco on a 2004 Honda XR650L a month ago. This photo was shot on the playa just south of Camaronal, Costa Rica. This bay off of the Pacific Ocean is named the Golfo de Nicoya (Nicoya Gulf).
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in the Monte Carlo Hotel in the seaside villa of Jacó, Costa Rica. This is in the county of Garabito, in the Puntarenas province.
Thursday June 13, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 4,884
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 4,976
Miles driven today: 92 miles
Local Currency: Costa Rican Colones
1 US Dollar = 500 Costa Rican Colones
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 25: San Jose to Jacó, Costa Rica"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 14, 2013 at 9:28 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 13, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 24: Cañas to San Jose, Costa Rica
.JPG)
Above: Mural on the side of the PanAmerican Highway in Costa Rica.
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in the Best Western Hotel Irazu in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Wednesday June 12, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 4,755
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 4,884
Miles driven today: 129 miles
Local Currency: Costa Rican Colones
1 US Dollar = 500 Costa Rican Colones
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 24: Cañas to San Jose, Costa Rica"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 13, 2013 at 7:40 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
June 11, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 23: Diriamba, Nicaragua to Cañas, Costa Rica
.JPG)
Above: This is what Nicaragua looks like at 120 mph. Is that a horse or a pig?
Update: I am alive and well resting quietly in the Hotel Kam-Tu in Cañas, Costa Rica.
Tuesday June 11, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 4,595
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 4,755
Miles driven today: 160 miles
Local Currency: Costa Rican Colones
1 US Dollar = 500 Costa Rican Colones
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 11, 2013 at 9:38 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 10, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 22: Choluteca, Honduras to Diriamba, Nicaragua
.JPG)
Update: I am alive and well resting quietly in the Mi Bohio Hotel in Diriamba, Nicaragua.
Monday June 10, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 4,407
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 4,595
Miles driven today: 188 miles
Local Currency: Nicaraguan Cordobas
1 US Dollar = 24.47 Nicaraguan Cordobas
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 10, 2013 at 9:14 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
June 9, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 21: Monte Verde to Choluteca, Honduras
.JPG)
Above: The grounds of the Honduyate Hotel in Monte Verde, Honduras on Lake Yojoa.
Update: I am alive and well resting quietly in the Hotel Gualiqueme in Choluteca, Honduras.
Sunday June 9, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 4,197
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 4,407
Miles driven today: 210 miles
Local Currency: Honduran Lempiras
1 US Dollar = 20.23 Honduran Lempira
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 9, 2013 at 10:16 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
June 8, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 20: Rio Dulce, Guatemala to Monte Verde, Honduras
.JPG)
Update: I am alive and well resting quietly in the Honduyate Hotel in Monte Verde, Honduras on Lake Yojoa.
Saturday June 8, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 3,995
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 4,197
Miles driven today: 202 miles
Local Currency: Honduran Lempiras
1 US Dollar = 20.23 Honduran Lempira
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 8, 2013 at 9:56 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 7, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 19: San Ignacio, Belize to Rio Dulce, Guatemala
.JPG)
Above: Crossing over a bridge on the "shortcut" to Poptun, Guatemala.
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in the Posado Del Rio hotel in the town of Rio Dulce, Guatemala on the shores of Lago De Izabal.
Friday June 7, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 3,829
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 3,995
Miles driven today: 166 miles
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 7, 2013 at 8:49 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
June 6, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 18: San Pedro to San Ignacio, Belize
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in Belmoral Hotel in the villa of San Ignacio in the country of Belize, on the Great Western Highway, 11 miles east of the Guatemalan border.
Thursday June 6, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 3,726
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 3,829
Miles driven today: 103 miles
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 6, 2013 at 10:01 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 5, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 17: Belize City to San Pedro, Belize
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly on the shores of the Caribbean Sea in Spindrift Hotel in the villa of San Pedro on the island of Ambergis Caye, in the country of Belize.
Wednesday June 5, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 3,726
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day):
Miles driven today: miles
I"ve been on the road for so long...it's hard for me to remember a time when it wasn't like this.
I'm putting todays diatribe in the extended entry because it's so long, no one with any sense would read it....
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 5, 2013 at 7:46 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
June 4, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 16: Orange Walk Town to Belize City, Belize
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in The Bachelor Inn in Belize City, Belize.
Tuesday June 4, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 3,663
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 3,726
Miles driven today: 63 miles
In the morning, the cleaning woman is trying to break the door down, but I've got the chain on the door, and she's trying her damnedest to get into the room.
"Consado!" I scream at here. "No molestar!"
"Checkout time is at 11:00 a.m.. It's now 11:30. Are you staying with us another night?"
"No. I'll get up."
I really didn't want to get out of bed. I'm not a morning person, in case you haven't gathered that.
So, last night, I tried to get them to take my cameras from me and keep them behind the desk in the unairconditioned lobby. The thought is that the cameras do better if the stay outdoors, in the humid air. Otherwise, if their in the A/C all night, then it takes an hour for all of the condensation in them to balance out when you start riding, which means you miss a lot of shots, obviously.
But they wouldn't take them and keep them in the hotel clerk area for whatever reason, I stuck them in the refrigerator last night. At the time, it seemed like a stroke of genius. It probably would have been had the refrigerator not been plugged in. So, I got up this morning, and they were cold, and I drove for some time without being able to take pictures, which sucks.
Last night, I purchased a map of Belize. I notice now that it's in a waterproof folder. Probably not a good sign.
Construction workers at the hotel are producing a lot of dust and debris. I'm not clear if they're adding on to the hotel or tearing it down. My motorcycle is covered in dust from their efforts.
I drive the bike up and down the street, oiling the chain as I drive. I do this every morning.
I head south out of town, following pretty much the only road through Belize. There's a toll booth, but the guy just waves me past without accepting any money. Now, in Mexico, they never did this. You paid the tolls, a guy with a machine gun kept you from going on the road. But here, there's a toll road, with a toll booth, and the guy just waves me by.
Now, this "toll road", aka The Northern Highway, is probably worse than any road you've ever been on. I'd be generous in calling it a two-lane black-top road. There's no paint on the surface of it. It's made of asphalt. Has no shoulders. And, yet, still, the locals seem to think it's OK for them to pass, side by side, using most, if not all, of my lane, as I'm driving down the toll road. The roads in Mexico were so much nicer. There's just no comparison.
I'm driving through this third world squalor. It really is unimaginable. Like the entire surface of the country needs to be scraped with a bulldozer and replanted with seeds in an ambitious thousand-year-restoration type of scenario.
I can't help but wonder if Guatemala will be worse than Belize. If each country will be worse and worse until finally, they just laugh at me when I run out of gas on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
Had a long talk with the people at Verizon when I crossed into Belize. They'd set me up on a plan in Mexico. But now, that plan isn't offered in any of the other countries in Central America. I'm on my own now, and I see why. There is no data network down here. I've got the phone set to "I don't care how much it costs...help me please?" and I get zero. This means my iPhone/GPS that I've used to get through Mexico is now useless. Now, I'm down to paper maps.
Now, Doug and his buddy were making good fun of me not having a GPS. I'd like to point out a few things. 1) The TSA stole all of tools and my Givi case for the bike on the flight from Denver to Chicago. There's no way to plan for that, IMHO.
2)I brought 3 GPS units. 2 failed. One worked in Mexico (iPHone/GPS).
3) I tried to buy a GPS at two different stores when I was in Ciudad Del Carmen. I went to a Wal-mart and a Mega store. Neither one sold GPS units. I was shocked. But, this is where we are. I'm not retarded. It's harder to travel through third world countries than it might seem from the safety of an armchair in in the United States.
Last night, I have plenty of people tell me for sure, "Do not go into Belize City." But this isn't an option for me. The reason is because, when I was in Mexico, I had my buddies at the KTM dealer in Moline, Illinois fed-ex some parts down for me to The Bachelor Inn in Belize City. This was before anyone told me not to go there. So, I have to go there. It's a done deal.
Also, I'm starting to realize, it's just people in the country saying that "the city isn't safe", and I'm sure they're right. There's probably a nice state department advisory about Belize City that would make your hair stand on end, but the truth of the matter is that, it isn't that bad or they would have "60 Minutes" down here trying to find out what the hell is going on.
Also, probably my package won't arrive until Wednesday, so if my progress across the Yucatan seems to have slowed, this was partially due to rain, and partially due to design. There wasn't any real reason for me to get into Belize City any earlier
So, I'm going into the war zone that is Belize City. And, while I'm there, I'll try to buy me a GPS unit for the bike.
As I bounce South across the unpainted, narrow toll-road,I pass through the Crooked Tree Wildlife sanctuary, and I see an eagle, with a prominent white band across his back. Not a bird I'm familiar with. He lands. I try to shoot him, but of course the cameras are so fogged you can't even see through them.
But I'm not upset. I drive on. Life is good.
There aren't a lot of cars on the road, and it's hard to imagine that this is the main road through Belize that leads to Belize City. So, I stop and check my map. It's not much use, since I don't know where I am, but it makes me feel better. Eventually, I decide that, even though I don't know where the road goes, it has to go somewhere, and I came down here for an adventure, so I'll just drive down the road and see where it takes me.
This is the beauty of not having a GPS that people like Doug will never know. It's OK to be lost sometimes. It's OK to let go. If everything was planned out, and if everything went as planned, then it wouldn't be an adventure. It would be a journey. And those two are not the same.
The signs are in English now, but I miss the signs in Spanish. I miss studying the signs and trying to figure out what in Gold's name they're trying to tell me. I miss that dearly.
One sign in Spanish that I always understood was "No Tire Basura". "Basura" in Spanish means trash. And I was like "That's right. Don't be throwing tires out here in the desert, people. What's wrong with you?" Only much, much later did I realize that "tire" in Spanish doesn't mean the same as "tire" in English. The sign means "Don't Throw Trash", not "No 'tire' Trash". I felt so stupid when I realized this. How retarded can one person be?
I see some street vendors on the side of the road. I've learned to slow down when I see them for two reasons. 1) They're ALWAYS located at a speed bump, so you'd best get on the brakes and 2) you probably need to taste what they're selling.
These are the first street vendors I've seen in Belize. I'm so excited. I was afraid I'd lost them.
At the fork of the Northwestern Highway and the Burrell Boom Cut, this woman is selling little pyramids of ripe mangoes for $5.00 Belize. So, I give her $5.00 but only take one mango. She speaks Spanish, which I love, of course. I'd so much rather speak spanish. Lots of people in Belize speak spanish, but I speak to them in spanish, even though we both speak English. English is so boring. As I travel through Central America, I feel like I'm Dr. Livingstone, and when I have to speak English, it just kinda ruins it for me.
Now, as I'm sitting on the side of the road, she hands me a machete, and I crudely peel the mango and eat it on my bike, dripping all over the seat.
Two people that look like Americans walk by and he says "Oh my God! Look. It's a KTM in Belize!"
He's laughing and I'm laughing.
"No one down here has ever seen a KTM," I laugh. "It's like I'm riding a unicorn."
"I've never seen one here either," he offers.
"Dude..where are ya'll from?"
"We're from Alberta, Canada."
"Oh yeah. I've been there. Calgary, Jasper, Banff. Nice place." I offer. "What are y'all doing here?"
"I'm going to medical school," he offers.
"Here? In Belize? Where?"
He points to a crumbling tin-roofed building beneath a Papaya tree.
"Behind the chicken coop?"
"No. That's our building. Just there."
Apparently, the chicken coop is their medical school. Yikes.
"What's it like in Belize City? Is crime bad there?"
"Nah. It's not that bad. She goes down there all the time. She walks around during the day. No one's bothered her," he offers.
"Aha. OK. Thanks,"
"Also, if you keep going south, there's a ferry from Punta Gorda to Puerto Barrios," he offers.
Now I have to admit, I'm a sucker for ferries. I love the idea of putting the motorcycle on a boat and going across the ocean. I took a ferry at Galveston, across Lake Michigan, from Port Angeles to Victoria, and from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert.
I bid the goodbye and continue rolling south.
It's hot today. Sun is high in the sky. I need to put sunscreen on my hands, and on my left leg where my jeans are ripped open. But I don't bother. Instead, I just drive on. In the sun, I'm hot. And in the rain, I'm cool. But I don't think about it that way. In the rain, I'm wet. And in the sun, I'm hot. So, I see the downside of both, instead of seeing the upside of each. I wonder why I do this. I wish it wasn't this way.
I keep driving, and the signs indicate I'm heading towards Belize City, so I am going the right way, after all. Lucky day.
Now, this is where it gets tricky. My cell phone won't work as a GPS because there's no data network, apparently. So now I'm down to paper maps, but I'm pretty well clueless in a new city, obviously. So, I just follow the coast and I'm not clear where I am really. And being lost in Belize City is not something I wanted to experience, quite honestly.
But I see a street vendor selling snow cones and I'm like..."Oh hell yeah." Like, any place that sells snow cones can't be all bad. So, he sets me up with a strawberry and orange snow cone, and some plantain chips. All good, of course.
And I try to ask him where my hotel is, but he's not sure of really anything. And, although he's technically speaking English, the blacks down here don't speak any English that you would be able to understand. I mean, I've been to the Bahamas and to Jamaica. I've heard some pretty tortured English. But this stuff...it's just indecipherable. I'd much rather be speaking Spanish.
So, I give up on trying to talk to the street vendor. I call the hotel, and I ask the woman where to go. But, she's female, so she doesn't understand North or South.
"I'm at the Pricess Casino and Hotel. Do I go North or South?"
"It depends...."
"No. It doesn't." I hate trying to explain compass points to women. It's like trying to explain color to a blind person.
Finally, she tells me that she's near the Memorial Hospital and "Joe's College", if you can believe it. So I drive around and ask where Memorial Hospital is. Then I ask where "Joe's College" is. And finally, I see signs for "The Bachelor Inn". Follow them down into the ghettos of Belize City.
Not a nice area. I don't really care. I pull up. There's an oriental woman there. I'm trying to figure out if she has a package for me. She has no clue who I am.
"Did you receive a package for me? I was supposed to have something shipped here?"
"Why you get package here? No package here for you. I don't know who you are."
"I called last week. On Friday. I spoke to a man here. Told him I was having a package shipped here. He said it would be OK."
"No man work here. Who you talk to. You go to Post Office for package. Why you ship here. Who you are?"
So, it's not going well. She's from Taiwan. Her English isn't great. And she's lying to me, which isn't helping.
"Look. I'm driving to Panama. I needed to have a package shipped to me en-route. I chose this hotel as a good place to ship to. I called, and a man told me it would be ok to ship here."
"No man work here. Who you talk to?"
"I talked to someone here at this number on Friday."
"Why you no ship U.S. Embassy?"
"Because their phone number is disconnected."
Finally, she calls her son, and her son comes walking up. Michael. He admits he spoke with me on Friday. There's some question on whether he consented to allow a package to be shipped here. But at least now, she calms down.
"You lied to me," I tell her. "I told you I spoke to a man and you lied and said no man worked here. I'm driving across Central America on a motorcycle. I needed an address to ship to. I chose this place."
"You want room for tonight? We give you special rate. Eighty dollars."
The Belize dollars are 2:1 to U.S. Dollars. It's like everything in the country is a half-off sale.
"Internet in the room? Air conditioning? Hot water for shower?" I clarify. You learn to ask these things.
"Yes, but right now, the power is out, because when it rains, the power goes out. So, when power comes back on, then all these things."
Like, great. Just what I wanted. But, as I'm checking in, the power comes back on.
Her son Michael leads me up to the third floor. It's actually a large sweet, with a separate living room, kitchen, and bedroom. Only the bedroom has an A/C unit, but the room has internet and it works reasonably well. I set the A/C to stun, climb in bed and fall asleep. I think I've driven a total of about 60 miles today.
As I see it, I can't really go anywhere until my package arrives.
U.S. State Department Advisory on Belize in Extended Entry:
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 4, 2013 at 2:52 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
More feedback...
This, from George:
Read the daily blog (as I do every morning). Interesting. The response(s) from Doug and his friend I do agree with....sort of. Being a minor student in psychology there may lie some truth with his berating of your trip Rob. No matter though, it's your life....go live it. I actually enjoy reading about your adventure. I will say this though, your friend is spot on about a couple of points.
1. how is it you didn't think about the filters, gps, other essential items before embarking?? You are a smart guy....so score one for Darwin.
2. you've been to mexico before, travelled out of country before. WTF were you thinking by NOT getting your passport stamped, no insurance, etc etc. These kind of things are IMPORTANT....! Maybe next time make a check-list??
Ok so the rant is over. I only say those things because I want you to succeed in your journey and not end up a footnote to history as dying in a jail because of your stupidity.
Be careful going through Belize. Try and obey the rules Kiser. You are not is the good ol USA where the worst that could happen is a cot and 3 squares a day. Plus I don't want to have to pull 'the troops' together and come down to get you! LOL
8:14am
Rob Kiser response:
On points:
1) I had three GPS units when I came down. Two of them failed to function properly on the road. I'm a using my 3rd one (the 2nd backup), an iPhone 4s as my GPS.
I've always bought my oil filters on the road at Honda shops. It did not occur to me that KTM shops would be hard to locate in Central America. Honda shops are fairly common down here. KTM, not so much. Was not aware of this issue, as I'd never owned a KTM before. So, yeah, I guess I missed that trick. But I am having oil filters fed-exed to me in Belize, so this was always part of the plan. Worst case scenario, fed-ex whatever I need down from the USA. I'd say it's a fine plan, in my defense.
2)it's true that I didn't get my passport stamped when I came into the country of Mexico. But, it's also true that they don't expect for you to. They just wave you through at the barrel of a machine gun. Plus, I'm in Matamoros, one of the most dangerous cities on earth. And a guy is pointing a machine gun at you saying, get moving. My spanish is rusty. So I move on. I also knew that, no matter what happened, it wouldn't really matter. Like, OK. I'm missing a stamp. So sue me. It worked out about like I figured.
8:15am
Rob Kiser
Also, so far as speeding, and not getting insurance, this is all part of the adventure. If I wanted to obey the law, I wouldn't have come down here.
Finally, as a footnote in defense of my current situation, I wasn't 100% sure I was coming down here. I was engaged to be married 8 days ago, and looking at wedding rings with my fiance. She snapped, and it was time to hit the road.
They say the generals are always ready to fight the last war. I was ready to run an enduro-adventure similar to the last ones I ran. It has turned out to be somewhat different with the KTM vs. the Honda.
They also so say "You don't go to war with the army you wish you had. You go to war with the army you have." So, for all you ivy-league monday morning quarterbacks out there, what I did was to get my passport and get out of the country on my adventure. I did some planning, not a lot, but some. And to me, that's part of the adventure. Part of the fun of it has always been getting lost in a third world country. If I didn't want some excitement in my life, I wouldn't be down here.
I could have done the whole trip from my home in Colorado using Google Earth and never even gotten wet. That wasn't the point of the trip.
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 4, 2013 at 8:24 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
Some Feedback...
An email from my friend Doug:
So, Sparky - A couple of comments on your current life and death, fraught with angst and tribulation saga:
On the subject of getting lost all the time: you've ridden a motorcycle before, have you not? And you've noticed that when you go to a new place, you don't know where anything is, right? And you've clearly heard of GPS navigation devices, right? Further, you apparently worked hard all year and made enough bucks to buy a nice new KTM. And you knew you were going to Panama. Don't you think you could have sprung ~$40 for a handlebar bracket, and ~$119 for a decent GPS? I mean *before* crossing the border? (Helpful hit: Amazon.com ships overnight for an extra ten bucks).
Speaking of crossing the border, why the fuck did you bother waiting back home for your passport if you were not going to get it stamped when entering Mexico? Oh, wait, wait: I think I know: you didn't get it stamped in order to be able share all that angst about being in the country illegally. I think I get it.
One more: oil filters. Bikes need oil changes. Oil changes require filters. I suspect you know that. Why the fuck didn't you pack a couple? They're small. Oh, wait, I think I'm beginning to get this one as well: it's all about sharing those buckets of "I can't find KTM 990 oil filters here in Mexico" angst.
We get it: angst. The story is all about angst.
And as I indicated, I shared your peeniewallie blog on my Facebook page and with another rider friend of mine. Here's what he had to say:
"The guy in Mexico actually wants to die I think. But its a hard decision. So he has this gonzo adventure literature fantasy, that the fucked up world gives him permission to kill himself as an artiste verite if he would just create that story of stories but it's really just that he has to explain it to some abstraction of "everybody" to work out the justification in his own brain. Because he can't admit to himself what he is thinking. "Maybe you'll all agree, maybe you will realize how fucked up you are too, being his oppressors and all. " Rather than, "Read my long self deceiving, self serving suicide note/ gonzo literary contribution. Fear and loathing in Yucatan. That will teach her, I'll literature her into nonexistence, the opposite of objectification of a women. I will abstractify her into a little toxic puff of prosaic fish stink breath from the smile of the Cheshire Cat. I'll just put it out there and the world will hate her unless they are stupid. oh, but since they are stupid I don't care. I am art. Darned speed limits, passports, money, other peoples desires, other peoples failed responsibilities. The world doesn't deserve me, those rules don't apply to me, people are stupid, vain, selfish, unfair, to not see how smart, gifted and deserving I am, etc." As he says, "Lord God", but then I say he is full of crap. He wants to die and can't say it. Can't think it straight up. All those words he is spewing could be replaced with only four words, starting with, "I want.."
But anyway he is at least going to hurt himself if he doesn't get some altitude fairly soon. Hopefully nobody else will pay the fare for the trip to hell along with him. Gosh. Por lo menos, adjust the f*****g chain. Or get a BMW. In the end the original gonzoid Hunter Thompson gave up on the drugs, lunatic adventures, wasted relationships and the sausage creature and sadly shot himself. It was a long path to that, the entire written record he created is *his* note to the world and himself, but its the same path as the one your friend is on here."
My reply to Doug:
Doug,
Loved the screed. Thanks for sharing. A few things...
1) Did you change your phone number? I tried messaging you and it wasn't you.
2) GPS - Agreed. I need one. No question there.
3) Oil Filters. Agreed. Having them FedExed to Belize.
4) Passport - I didn't know if Mexico would require it or not. I was sure the other countries might want to see it. Mexico didn't ask to see it. They waved me through. They're waving FAL's and AR-15's. It's very intimidating. They told me to keep going. I kept going.As for your friends comments, they're interesting. But I don't have a death wish. Not a true one, or I wouldn't be alive. I am an adrenaline junkie. I am having a hard time with the breakup with the love of my life. But I'm not going to die. I will make it home from this trip, safe and sound. I like to share my adventures with others, as many people wish they could live this way, but can't due to money, wife, job, etc. I have a short time to try to make this the adventure of a lifetime, and I'm going to do it. I'm not turning back. It's not an easy trip. I'm fine if he doesn't like my little adventure, he doesn't have to read about it. It's no skin off of my ass. I'm not doing it for him. I'm doing it for me. :)
You, of all people, should be down here with me. Where are you, brother?
Rob K.
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 4, 2013 at 12:50 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
June 3, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 15: Tulum, Mexico to Orange Walk Town, Belize
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in D' Victoria Hotel in Orange Walk Town, Belize.
Monday June 3, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 3,451
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 3,663
Miles driven today: 212 miles
I wake up in the morning. My alarm clock goes off at something insane like 6:00 a.m. Someone told me I should shoot the sunrise. But it's raining and I'm like...yeah...that's not going to happen.
I turn it off and go back to sleep.
Into Belize
I wake up in Tulum, and it's still raining. It rained all night. Still raining now. No sign of letting up. I want to hang myself. Rain is among the many things that can ruin an otherwise beautiful motorcycle trip. I lay in bed, and read the book "A White House" by Thomas Jefferson Young. I brought it along with me on the trip, in case I ever found myself off the grid. I'm fairly close to that now. No internet service in my room. No cell coverage. I have to go into the atrium at Las Ranitas Hotel to get internet access.
So, eventually, I wander to the main atrium in a light rain. The hotel is stunning. You couldn't design a better hotel. It wouldn't be possible. There are no words. I am the only one here at the hotel. I'm fine with this. It suits me. I like my time alone. I'm comfortable being with myself. I've been alone for a long time. But I am good with this.
I sit and surf the internet and drink a CocaCola Light.
I need to get on my bike and start riding, or else I'll never make it to Panama. Somehow, I've got to find the courage to get on the bike in a light rain and start driving again It's so hard to move on. To leave this place. Tulum is decadent. It's the only place I ever saw anyone hitchhiking in Mexico. It's the only place I ever saw a single american/european tourist. It's the closest thing to civilization I've seen since I crossed into Mexico so long ago.
I have to get to Belize somehow. I've got to get out of this place. Been in Mexico for too long. I shouldn't have even come to the Yucatan. I could have easily crossed down to the Pacific and shortcut the Yucatan and now I'm wondering why I didn't do exactly that.
"You are staying for another night, sir?" the hotel clerk wants to know
"No. No. Gracias, amigo. Salida para Belize in diaz minutos."
"But sir, you don't have to run off. You should stay here, where it's dry."
"No. Gracias, amigo."
I'm so close to Belize though. I'm sure I could make it if I try. The rain lets up a bit, and I decide to make a run for the border. Toss all my things into my little C.C. Filson hand bag, and I'm rolling down Mexico 180 in a light rain down the Yucatan peninsula, in the state of Quintana Roo (Keen-TAHN-a Roo).
The road is fairly good and I drive for about 50 miles in a light rain, going between 90 and 100 mph. For clarification, there aren't a lot of other cars on the road. You only pass someone else every few minutes. So, it's not like I'm driving this fast in rush hour, or anything. The place is deserted.
I set my iPhone/GPS to take me to Chetumal, the last town in Mexico, because it won't let me put in a destination in Mexico, because that's international travel, and can't be accomplished, according to Google Maps.
But a friend I met at the Pemex station tells me to be sure to exit at Santa Elena, before I get to Chetumal, to get into Belize.
So, I'm rolling south, looking for my exit to Belize. Still in a light rain.
Now, instead of painting the skies with dark ominous clouds, my eyes are painting breaks in the clouds. Slowly, light comes into the clouds. The sky lightens. And I drive out of the rain.
Now, driving out of a rainstorm after driving in one for 60 miles is a miraculous thing. My cameras start to dry out. My jacket starts to dry slightly. I'm excited to get out of Mexico. To finally be moving on to the next country. I have to start putting up bigger miles if I'm ever going to make it to Panama. Panama seems so far away.
At some point, I see some vendors selling snacks on the side of the road. I stop and buy some salted, dried pumpkin seeds for 5 pesos. I get them to let me try a jar of something that looks like olives. But whatever it was has pits and was soaked in habanero juice.
"Muy picante," I choked. They all laughed, and I drove away still eating my pumpkin seeds, which were delicious.
I reach the exit for Belize, and take the exit. But then, the road forks, and I can't figure out which way to go. My GPS is programmed to take me to a city I'm not going to in Mexico, so it's no help. I have to use google translate to figure out which fork to take. And now, I'm rolling up to the border between Mexico and Belize, which is a river, as it turns out. (I believe it's called the Hondo River.)
Now, normally, I just roll through all of this stuff, and it's no problem. But now, the guy points at me, blows his whistle, and motions for me to pull over, which I do. Now, keep in mind, this is a well defended border crossing. There are soldier everywhere waving FAL rifles. This is not the border between Alaska and Canada. This is a well defended border crossing.
So, when he waves me over, I pull over, and now I start getting nervous. I figured they'd just wave me through, the same as they waved me in back in Matamoros. But no. Now, they tell me to stop, and I"m very confused about what's going on. I'm probably technically not supposed to be out of the country. I have a court date in Colorado on June 28th. And now, I've got the attention of the border patrol in Mexico, and I know damned good and well that there's nothing in my passport to indicate I'm in the country. Nor do I have any insurance. Or any of that nonsense.
I complain pretty loudly to everyone within earshot in broken Spanish that I don't understand what's going on, and what they want me to do. I'm technically in that no-man's land between Mexico and Belize, I think. Finally, a guy comes over, and I park my bike. He walks me back across the border into Mexico, and now I'm going to try to exit Mexico again. He walks me up to a window of a little shack. A man inside talks for some time into a cell phone. My escort hands the man my passport, and then disappears.
Now, I know I'm screwed. I'm on their radar now in a big way. He's talking on the phone, and I can see my passport there inside the window. In my mind's eye, I reach inside, grab the passport, run across the border, hop on the KTM and ride a wheelie across the bridge into Belize. But, then I think about all the military with their FAL rifles that they're just aching to shoot. They'd fill me full of holes before I went 10 feet. I resign myself to deal with this governmental bureaucrat.
I hate border patrol. Like...don't get me wrong. I hate the police. I detest any type of authority. Always have. But, no matter how you measure it, the border patrol agents are always the worst. They're the most horrific jackasses on the planet. They are royal jackasses, and they've proven it to me time and again all over the planet. If you like to fuck with people, you're going to LOVE being a border patrol agent. You can ruin people's lives. You can keep them from going home. All for your enjoyment.
So, finally, the guy gets off the phone...starts thumbing through my passport.
"Why isn't your passport stamped?"
"Because, when I entered the country at Matamoros, they just waived me through. You know how it is. I asked them if I needed to get it stamped, but they just waved me through. They were holding machine guns. I didn't want to argue with them."
"This is a very big problem. You realize that you are in the country illegally? You are breaking the law. This is a big problem."
At this point, he hands me my passport back.
"Well, maybe I'll just try to get into Belize and see what they say," I offer, glad to have my passport back in my hands.
"I'm afraid that I cannot let you go. You are breaking the law. You see. This is a big problem. Belize will not let you in without an Exit Stamp from Mexico."
"Aha..."
"Do you have the title to your bike?" he continues.
"Ah...yeah...I think so."
I root through my soaking wet suitcase. In it, wilted maps of Texas and Mexico.. Rotting clothes. A soggy copy of "A White House". A wet owner's manual for a 2010 KTM 990 Adventure. I root through an envelope and produce some documents. It's all that they gave me when I bought the bike. I'm not clear if anything in there would rise to the definition of a "title" or not. I just hand him all of this paperwork. The license plate is for a one-week long-ago-expired temporary tag issued by the State of Illinois. Needless to say, I don't have insurance on the bike. Not in the U.S. Not in Mexico. Not anywhere.
He looks at the paperwork very closely.
Slowly, it dawns on me how stupid I've been. Why is it that I felt like this trip was a good idea? This is why people don't travel. Because the goal of every government official along the way is to skull-fuck you. To royally screw you over at every conceivable opportunity. I'm pissed at myself for not demanding that they stamp my passport. The same thing happened when I drove into Tijuana. You'd think I'd learn, but no.
I imagine myself in a Mexican prison like something out of Midnight Express. Only I've got not one to come shove their breasts up against the glass for me. This is going to be a bad day.
"Possibly, I could give you an exit stamp. But there will be a fee for entering the country illegally, and staying over a week."
My ears perk up at the sound of "processing fee." Like...if you need a bribe...I'm all in.
"How much is the processing fee?"
"It would be forty dollars."
"Forty U.S. Dollars?" I choke.
"Yes."
Like, trust me, I've got a lot of problems. But money isn't one of them. I reach into my wallet and hand him two twenties.
"I will give you only an Exit Stamp, but this is all you will need to get into Belize."
And I'm like "Thank you very much for helping me."
Forty dollars? Whoohooo! That's like my Monday night bar tab!
So now, I walk back across the border. They whistle at me a few times, like a rancher herding sheep, to get me to walk down the right chute. But I walk cross the border back into no-man's land, in between Belize and Mexico, holding my passport above my head lest the army start firing at me with their FAL's.
Hop on the bike, and now roll across the river that forms the border between Mexico and Belize.
Now, I'm on the Belize side of the river, but I'm not sure where to go. There's a large casino. The post-apocalyptic ruins of what must have been a city at some point. I really don't know where to go though, so I stop and as someone for directions. And they tell me the border crossing is around the next bend.
Now, I follow the road around the bend, and now I see the border crossing into Belize. There's a bunch of signs that clearly say I'll have to go inside the building to clear immigration and customs, but I just ignore them and drive up to the border like I own the place. When it's my turn to pull forward, the guy starts interrogating me.
"Have you had your motorcycle fumigated?" he asks.
"What?"
"Has your bike been fumigated?" he repeats.
"I don't even know what that means," I reply. Like, I was thinking I'd like being in an English speaking country again, but now, they're so crazy I can't understand them at all, and part of me wishes I were back in Mexico where I wouldn't even understand them and I could just say "No comprendo."
But instead, I've got this guy here asking me if my bike has been fumigated and God as my witness I have no idea what he's talking about.
"Have you been inside yet," he asks.
I knew this was coming.
"Uh...no...not really...I stammer."
Turn around. Go inside. Clear Immigration and Customs. Then go back and get your bike fumigated at the green and white building.
So, I do a U-turn, park my bike, and go inside the building that the signs were very clear I'd have to go into in order to get into Belize. The signs I ignored because that's just how I roll.
Now, I'm in the building, and first I have to go through Immigration, of course. I show the guy my Exit Stamp from Mexico that cost me $40.
"Where are you traveling to?" he asks. I've learned to say "Panama", as this is my final destination. And they always try to trick you into changing your story. If you start by saying "I'm going to Panama," then you're much better off. They understand you're just passing through, and they leave it alone. Otherwise, they want to know what you're going to be doing in their country.
"I'm driving to Panama," I offer.
"Do you have insurance for Belize?" he asks.
"Oh yeah. Sure. I've got that," I lie.
"You're going to Guatemala?" he asks.
I assume he's trying to trick me into changing my story. I'm not falling for that one.
"No. I'm going to Panama," I repeat.
"But when you leave Belize, you will go into Guatemala," he explains.
"Yes. And after that, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama," I reply. Like...I know my geography. And you're not going to trick me into changing my story. These people love to rake you over the coals if you change your story. That's a bad thing.
Eventually, he stamps my passport with a "Transit" stamp, meaning I'm just in-transit through Belize, which is fine with me.
I have nothing to declare in customs, so they let me walk through, and when you exit the building you're in Belize. Now, I have to walk back into no-man's land to get on my bike. As I walk back across the border, I ask the guy..."Now...where is it I have to go to get my bike fumigated?"
At the green and white building. It's about a hundred yards back.
So, now I climb on my bike in no-man's land, between Belize and Mexico, and drive back to the little green and white building. There are 2 or 3 other vehicles there. But I'm still not sure what they're going to do. It doesn't seem to make sense that they would want to fumigate my bike. I'm having a hard time getting at what they want to do to my bike. And they're speaking English, mind you.
Walk into the little green-white office, and he's wrapping up with guy ahead of me.
Finally, it's my turn and now he wants to know what my license plate number is.
"I have no idea. Hang on," and I walk outside and take a photo of my license plate. Surprisingly, it matches what was on the paperwork they handed me from the KTM store back in Moline, Illinois.
I bring the camera back inside, and show the guy my license plate number.
I'm starting to think now that they're going to "smog" my motorcycle, meaning to check the emissions. They do that in Colorado and California, as well as many other states I'm sure. That must be what they mean by "fumigate".
He tells me how much I owe him, and I'm like...."In what?" I mean...I have no idea what the local currency is. No clue. I've been all dialed into pesos for so long...now that I'm in another country, I have no clue what the currency is any more. I have some pesos left, so I hand him 40 pesos and that's enough, apparently.
"You are all good now. As good as new," he explains. But I'm not sure what he means by this. I'm not clear that anything's been done to my bike at all. Maybe it's all just a scam to collect revenue, and they didn't do anything to my bike. I'm not sure. I walk outside, and my bike is there. But now, I want to know if they did anything, so I go back inside and ask him.
"Did they do anything to my bike?" I ask him.
"Yes. They spray the wheels with this pesticide. To keep pests from coming in from Mexico. When you come back, they will spray your wheels when you go back into Mexico."
So, finally I understand what they're doing. They have a little hand-sprayer and the guy sprayed some DDT on my wheels. I'm not clear what, if anything, this accomplishes, but they did do something, at least.
So, the guy hands me a little slip of paper, and now I rush proudly back to my border patrol agent. I present him with my stamped passport, and my fumigation paperwork.
He's all smiles, and waves me on through.
I'm still not sure what the local currency is. I mean, I'm sure that I'm not the person to write a travel guide, or anything, but it seems to be working for me, albeit in a somewhat haphazard manner.
Now, I'm rolling through Belize and, I'm truly shocked. Like...Belize is the answer to the questions "What could possibly be worse than Mexico?"
Belize is so poor there just aren't words. Burned out cars parked in fields. Rusting tin roof houses collapsing all over the countryside. This must be what Mississippi looked like back in the '30's, before the New Deal. Before the war. Before the WPA and the NRA.
I didn't think it would be possible for a country to have more stray mongrels than Mexico. I was wrong. Belize has twice as many stray dogs. Even the land is managed poorly. In Mexico, the countryside was plowed, planted, and harvested.
In Belize, the land is disheveled, burned, scarred, and unattended. It's hard to imagine how poor these people are. Words can't do it justice.
I stop at a small convenience store in the first town I come into. It looks like Hiroshima in September of '45. I talk to some locals, and they warn me not to go through Belize City.
"There's young blacks there. It isn't safe.," they explain. "You should go through Belmopan instead," they offer. "It's very dangerous in Belize City. Here, you have no problem. But that city is very dangerous."
This is the advice you want to hear. These people ought to know. So, I'm like..."Aha...skip Belize City. Got it. Thanks."
"Why does it rain so much here? Is it the rainy season?" I ask. Like, anyone with a brain would have checked this before they drove down on a dirt bike. Not yours truly.
"Yes. The rainy season has just started."
"Perfect."
So, I roll south for a bit, and it's getting late in the day. I decide to stop at Orange Walk Town for the night. Not on the coast, but it's time to stop. Getting close to dark, and the next big town is Belize City, which I was told to avoid. Plus, if I detour and go to Belmopan, then that's even further still.
I'll spend the night here in this Orange Walk Town place. Ask some guy at a gas station where to stay in a hotel with internet service. He directs me to the D' Victorian Hotel across town. I pull in, and get a room for the night.
Now, looking for a place to eat dinner. Haven't eaten all day. Ask the lady at the hotel where to eat.
"Mostly, Chinese places here, of course. Try Hong Kong or Rosie's," she suggests.
I ignore that absurd assertion that most of the restaurants in Orange Walk Town, Belize are "mostly Chinese." It's just been such a bizarre day that stuff like this doesn't faze me at this point.
I go driving around without a helmet because, this is what I do at night. I check into a hotel, then ride around town without a helmet. In Mexico, anything goes, and this is not an issue.
Walk into Hong Kong restaurant, and it's just sweltering. No A/C. No internet. No dice. I'm not eating here. Not a chance.
Go driving down further, looking for another place, and Some little Boy Scout looking fellow with a purse blows a whistle and pulls me over as I'm riding by. I stop, and he tells me there's a helmet law.
"Oh really? I didn't know. There's not a helmet law in Mexico."
"Yes there is," he counters.
"Oh. Maybe. I dunno. It's not enforced then."
"Can I see your driver's license?"
So, I hand him my driver's license. I don't have insurance. No helmet. But at least, this time, I'm in the country legally. So I have that going for me.
He just hands me the license back and tells me to go find a helmet and start wearing it. I immediately return to the hotel and get my helmet. Go back and eat at Rosie's, a Chinese restaurant, with no internet, but at least it has air conditioning.
Now, a guy comes in off the street wearing a guitar over his back. Tells us he's from Peru or something, and starts playing his acoustic guitar in the restaurant. In the corner, a television shows women wrestling in a ring in what looks like bathing suits.
I eat a bowl of shrimp fried rice with a CocaCola Light, and get ready to leave. The guy comes around wants a tip. I tell him I can't help him and go home for a shower, do my laundry, and climb in bed.
The things I notice about Belize that are different than Mexico is that, I don't see any street vendors any more like I did in Mexico. I miss them. Also, no Pemex stations, but they do still do the Red = Premium, Green = Regular coloration scheme for the gas pumps. There's more dogs here, if you can believe it. The signs are in English, which is nice. They have a different currency. The Belize dollar is worth exactly 1/2 of a U.S. Dollar.
But they'll take pretty much any currency you offer. They'll take U.S. Dollars, pesos, Belizean dollars. They don't care. They're desperate. They'll take anything. But they always give you change in Belizean dollars. They money is essentially worthless. It folds up like tissue paper. It's a joke.
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 3, 2013 at 10:44 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 2, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 14: Pisté to Tulum, Mexico
.JPG)
Above: View of the Caribbean Sea from the open-air lobby of the Las Ranitas Hotel in Tulum, Mexico.
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in Las Ranitas Hotel on the shores of the Caribbean Sea in the Mexican State of Quintana Roo, on the Yucutan Peninsula in the town of Tulum, Mexico.
Update 2: I cannot post pictures at this point, as I cannot connect to my RDP server at my house in Colorado. If someone could reboot the PC by the window, that would be awesome.
Sunday June 2, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 3,339
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 3,451
Miles driven today: 112 miles
I wake up in the morning. My alarm clock goes off at something insane like 7:30. I'm like...yeah...that's not going to happen.
I turn it off and go back to sleep. But, Chichen Itza opens at 8:00 a.m. I'm there by 9:00 a.m., I think.
Not many people there. The vendors are setting up shop. Like, it appears to be completely unregulated commerce. Now, I don't know. It may be very well organized. I didn't see any fighting for positions, but they're setting up all the trinkets they sell to the tourists. They peddle their bikes from Piste to here, to peddle their wares. They're selling everything imaginable, of course.
The thing I'd never seen before, was some sort of a jaguar call. With it, they can pretty much make a sound like a jaguar. It definitely gets your attention.
So, I'm just wandering through the brutal morning heat of the Yucatan peninsula. Sweltering. Fading fast. A couple of people offer to be my guides. First for $60 USD. Then for $40 USD. I just laugh at them. Like...uh....yeah...no....Not even.
So, instead, I just wander around the place. I mean, there's some cool pyramids and stuff. But nothing I haven't seen before, really. I mean, I've been to Teohuitican near Mexico City, and Jen and I were at Tulum in March. So, I mean...yeah...OK....ruins...pyramids...got it. Thanks. I did want to see the jaguar monument, but I didn't see it, so I decided to forget it.
Now, I'm trying to leave the place, but it's so freaking huge I can't ever figure out where to go. Finally, I find the exit and I'm trying to leave but they're selling all these trinkets. Finally, I decide to break down an buy a new T-shirt that says "Chichen Itza", because my clothes are just literally rotting off of me. Like, every day, I drive all day, and get home soaking wet. Wash out my clothes. Hang them up to dry.
But my T-shirt has turned black, from my leather jacket bleeding onto it constantly. My jeans ripped in the left knee, so I got sunburned on my knee. So now, I have to wear sunscreen on my left knee because my clothes are falling apart. So, I decide to spring for a T-shirt, but I'm so cheap. Just so cheap. The guy says he wants $10 USD for it and I'm just laughing. Like...that's not going to happen. Finally, I give him a $100 Mexican peso note, and I'm like...this is all I'm giving you. $8.00 USD. No more. So, I have a shirt now, at least.
Back to the hotel to check out. I see my friend Alex. He tells me to be sure to hit Punta Allen. And I ask him how the roads are. He says they're fine. So, good enough.
I also ask him about he Jaguar statue, and apparently, to reduce vandalism, they sealed it inside one of the pyramids. So, it's not on public display, apparently.
I check out, load up the bike. and start to roll out of town. Then, I notice that I'm so low on gas that my gas light is on, and there's no Pemex. Turn around, head back into town, find the only Pemex in town, and gas up.
I'm not clear why it is in Mexico that people feel obligated to put bull-horns on their cars. But there's these cars driving around town, broadcasting some propaganda through bull-horns mounted on their vehicles. LIke, they must really hate Detroit for never making the windshield-mounted bull-horn as a factory option.
I'm never sure what's going on down here. LIke...I see people waving flags, and demonstrating. But I don't get the message. I'm not clear if it's like a demonstration, a protest, or a full-blow revolution. It's hard to know. Basically, I just ignore them.
Occasionally, I see people standing in the streets holding hard hats upside down at the speed bumps. So, one assumes they're collecting money for something. But I'm not clear what it's for, so I don't give them anything. I'm reasonably sure it's some leftist cause. There's little doubt about that, of course.
I roll out of Piste on Mexico 180 towards Tulum.
This road doesn't have a divided median, so I'm not driving as fast. I'm going about 90 or so. As I drive, my eyes scour the clouds above. Some are dark. Some not as dark. I have a feeling I'm going to get wet. My guess is that this must be the rainy season. If I had any sense, I'd have looked it up, but I didn't do anything of the sort, of course. This trip was planned about as well as all of my other trips, which is to say I didn't plan it at all. The plan has always been 1) get on bike and 2) drive to panama. So, yeah. Probably I deserve this for being so careless.
So, it starts to rain, but not as hard as yesterday. It's not like a monsoon type of rain. Just a light rain, and I'm like...."Oh hell no. I'm not stopping. I'm going to Punta Allen."
So, I drive in the rain for something crazy like 50 or 80 miles. Finally, I get to Tulum and start down the road to Punta Allen, and it's a nightmare. Just a washed out dirt road full of trillions of potholes you could lose a Subaru in. And it's raining. And now I'm pissed. Because Alex assured me the road was fine. But, I promise you you couldn't go 20 mph on this road if it was dry. And it's raining. I go to turn around and, for the first time on the trip, I drop the bike while I'm on it. The turning radius on this bike is greater than on the XL, so I tend to try to turn around in spaces where it isn't possible. A car approaches. Stops. This is the Mexico that everyone warns you about. Where he hops out, sticks a shiv in my back, and takes my wallet. That doesn't happen.
Instead, The guy get out of his car, and helps me stand up the bike in the rain.
The people down here are not criminals. They're honest, hardworking, decent human beings. I feel bad that they're slandered so in the state department advisories.
So, this dirt road goes something insane like 50 km down the peninsula, and then dead-ends, and you have to come back. Umm....I think I'll pass.
So, I turn around, and start looking for a hotel that has internet. First one I come to, I roll in and ask the guy how much for a room for the night. He says something insane like $200 USD a night. And I'm just laughing at him. He says to make him an offer. I say $80 USD. He says $125. I'm like....not a chance....$90.00.
FInally, he decides he can live with $100.00.
Now, I should mention that this place is on the Caribbean, with a huge thatch roof central atrium, overlooking palm trees, the beach, the sea. It's nice. It's insanely nice. No one else is here. There's maybe 3 cars in the parking lot.
Yeah. Forget going off the grid. I think I found my place for the night. :)
The Ranitas Hotel
At the Las Ranitas hotel, the lights sway to the gentle Caribbean winds. The entire lobby is open air.
From flowered Yucatan gardens, you pass through the open air lobby, to the restaurant/bar, and open thatched roof atrium.
The waves crash onto the shore 20 yards away. At night, tree-frogs chirp in the darkness.
Light dance music plays in the background.
Small brown people walk around in white uniforms. I want a Coca-Cola Light, but I refuse to walk to the bar, 20 feet away.
This place grows on you. Once you get used to being waited on hand and foot, it's very hard to go back, it seems.
No one is paying attention to me. Am I going to have to stand up? Is this what the world has come to?
"Amigo!" I call to the bartender. But he doesn't hear me.
"AMIGO!" I shout, a little louder so that he hears me and walks over. I'm barefoot. Wearing only a swimsuit and a shirt.
I have my feet on the coffee table in front of me like I own the place.
"Necessito una Coca-Cola Light, por favor," I scold him. Like..."Uh...hello? Why weren't you asking me if I needed anything? It's your job. Hello?"
And this is how it is now. Normally, I'm not this way, but it's such an easy habit to fall into.
I'm afraid that I'm weak and bourgeois. It's funny to think that I wanted to go off the grid. I can't get internet access in my room, and I'm in a full-scale panic.
The winds die down, and the mosquitos come and carry me back to my room.
The rains pick up again, and I wonder if there is a sun in the Yucatan.
The little girl at the front desk is named Roxana. She is excited about my trip. About my motorcycle. Runs into the parking lot to check it out and comes back with glowing eyes. She wants to go with me. Anywhere. Aware but here. I tell her I'm going to Belize tomorrow. But she doesn't have a passport, so she can't come with me. And I'm not clear how much fun it would be to have another person riding with me anyway.
At night, it starts to rain again. And rain. And rain. And rain. I'm not clear that I'll ever make it off the Yucatan peninsula unless I can find a submarine with wheels.
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 14: Pisté to Tulum, Mexico"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 2, 2013 at 8:05 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
June 1, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 13: Champotón to Pisté, Mexico
.JPG)
Above: A local gathers wood on a scooter along Mexico 180D near Merida, Mexico.
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in the Mexican State of Yucatan, on the Yucutan Peninsula in the town of Pisté, Mexico.
Saturday June 1, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 3,108
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 3,339
Miles driven today: 231 miles
The truth is that I have nothing to go home to. I have nothing. The road is all I have. It's my only friend. The one thing I can count on when nothing else seems to be worth counting.
OK. Racing across the Mexican state of Campeche, on the Yucatan peninsula at 120 mph. Passed a state police going well north of 100 mph. No problem.
Every night, in my dreams, I'm racing down the Yucatan at 110 mph, and suddenly, I see a speed bump. Somehow I'd missed it It's unpainted. There was no sign. Or I missed the signs. And I hit the speed bump going 120 and I wake up with the sheets soaking wet.
Always in the heat of the day, it's like driving in a hair dryer. I need to break up the ride into two rides. A morning ride and an afternoon ride when It's cooler and I'm less tired.
The cell phone GPS i have taped in my dash turns upside down every so often. I don't know why. But the display goes upside down. So, if it says turn right, you turn left. All of this at 120 mph, of course.
It's very difficult driving at 120 mph because, everything happens very quickly. Road conditions change. Coming up behind cars is extremely difficult, because its hard to judge how fast they're going. If' they're going the speed limit, it's like they're parked. I like to open my visor when I come into a construction zone or a military checkpoint going 120. It's helps bring you back into reality.
At one of the military checkpoints, a guy with an AR-15 waves me over. He's with the state police (Policia Estatos Especial). But he just likes my bike and wants to know where it's from. I tell him in Spanish that it's two weeks old, and I'm driving from Chicago to Panama.
I always have the worst time with the pronunciation....If I say "Pan uh maw", they have no clue what I'm talking about. I have to say "Pan eh ma". You kinda have to sing it a little to get them to understand. But they all know where Panama is. They just can't tell what I'm saying.
Always, these late afternoon thunderstorms blow up. If I had any sense, I'd get up in the morning and ride early. I guess that's what I'm going to have to start doing, as I can't ride in the pouring rain. It's not safe, for one reason. I can't see. I'm soaking wet. I mean, I guess that, in theory, I could wear rain gear, but I'm not clear how much fun that would be.
Every town you roll into has speed bumps. And at these speed bumps, are the local street vendors. Selling everything conceivable. Mangos, pineapples, watermelons, coconut juice, coconut meat, and other things I can't even recognize.
Every overpass shades either vendors, a state police inspection point, or the soldiers. The overpasses offer shade from the brutal Yucutan sun, or cover from the afternoon thunderstorms that roll in like clockwork every afternoon.
And I'm just racing across the peninsula as fast as I can go.
Precaucion Doble Remolque
"Doble Remolque" is what these 18 wheelers with double trailers are called. They're so dangerous. They have doubled-up gasoline tankers driving down these tiny roads and they really have nearly zero control over that second trailer. It just sort of wanders all over the place, so when you're passing them, you've really got to be paying attention.
The most dangerous roads are those that have a one lane going each direction, no divided median, and a recognizable, painted shoulder. This is what, in the United States, you'd call a 2-lane black topped road. Now, the shoulder is ostensibly, for people walking, riding bicycles, or mopeds/scooters. That's generally what you'll see on the shoulder.
The lane that you're driving in, although it is ostensibly your lane, is actually a shared lane between you and oncoming traffic. If someone is coming at you, and wants to pass, they will pass. And they will come into your lane to do it. So say two double-trailer 18 wheeler gasoline tankers are coming at you. One will move onto their shoulder. The other one will split your lane with you. And expect you
OBEDEZCA LAS SENALES
The problem with the signs is that they're all in Spanish. And I have no clue what they mean. I really don't. So, the one sign I understand says "Obey The Signs", but I can't obey them if I can't understand them. So, I just look at the signs and sort of nod, as though I fully intend to abide by them, when of course I truly have no clue.
The street signs are also very confusing. Like, if you're on Mexico 180, the road will fork, and go three different ways, to three different towns, and they're all labeled as Mexico 180. So, this is just maddening. It's not something you would ever see in the United States.
It starts to rain, so I stop and now I'm sitting in a little quasi-legal bus depot, sheltered from the rains. I'm not sure what goes on here really. Like some sort of ride share I guess?
You would think that the clouds would run out of water down here, but they seem not to. Only they rain and rain and rain some more. Fish are swimming in the streets. The vendors all seek refuge from the storm.
After I've been sitting there for about a half hour or so, the rain lets up, so I start off again. Just hell-bent for leather, as fast as I can go, trying to get to Chichen Itza tonight. But, after I've gone another 10-15 miles, it starts raining again.
At 3:00 pm, I've gone about 150 miles, and the thunderstorms start to close in again. I'm been building them all day. Creating them in my mind. Painting the sky with dark grey storms all day. Now, they're finally here. It's not my imagination any more. It starts raining, hard enough to drown ducks. I'm driving down the road, and it's raining so hard I can't see. Can't see through my visor. Can't see if there are cars in front of me or not. This is dangerous. I'm not this stupid. But what to do? I glance around the Yucatan peninsula. There are no trees to speak of. The hurricanes take care of that. Only there are little bushes here and there. I've got to find shelter. Have to get out of this thunderstorm, somehow.
It starts raining so hard that I can't see at all. Can't see through my own visor. So, this is dangerous. Too dangerous. Even I'm not this stupid.
Finally, I come across another bus stop with an overhang to protect the passengers from the elements, so I duck in seeking shelter from the storm. No one else is here. I'm sitting here, dripping wet. Glad to be out of the elements, but what now?
My GPS is useless. It said I was at Chicha Itzen 20 miles ago. So, the GPS isn't going to help me find the place. And it's odd to be down here, just sort of feeling my way along blindly. It's hard to know why I'm here really. And if I'm not sure, it's not like I could really explain it to anyone else.
I set up my laptop and start taking notes because, I'm bored.
So, I'm sort of sidetracked, sitting here in a blinding thunderstorm, and another little motocycleta pulls up. He's wearing a brand new bright yellow raincoat. So, at least he's go that going for him. He stops and walks under the overhang with me. Now, in all the news stories, this is where he pulls out a knife and steals my iPhone, my MacBook Air, and my Canon cameras. But instead, this doesn't happen. Instead, I introduce myself. He says his name is "Eddie", and we sit and talk for some time. I talk to him in Spanish, and he talks to me in English.
And, while we're sitting there, a white car pulls up and stops, but no one gets out.
"Problema?" I ask Eddie?
"No. No amigo. No hay problema," he reasures me. He senses my nervousness. My apprehension. But there is no problem here. The car goes away. Now, another motorcycle stops to get out of the rain. I introduce myself now to the new guy. Diego is his name.
Now, mostly, Diego and Eddie are chattering back and forth in Spanish. Most of it I don't get. Parts of it I pick up. But, they're the nicest guys you could meet. We friend each other on Facebook, and sit for some time waiting for the rain to stop. Eventually, the rain does let up significantly. It's still raining, but it's no pouring, and finally, we all agree to leave together as a group. Now, the other two guys drive on the shoulder at something insane like 15 mph. So, basically I take off going ninety to nothing, and leave them behind.
Now, it's still raining, but I'm not stopping again. Not until I get to Chichen Itza. Because I'm not spending the night at a freaking bus shelter. And, there is some logic to the theory that, if it's raining, and you drive faster, you'll get out of the rain sooner. And, if you follow that logic out to its ridiculous, absurd conclusion, you'll figure out what I did which is open it up pretty much full throttle. For a while, I was going 108. Then, 116, then 120. And pretty much that's where I held it in a light rain.
So, I'm blowing across the Yucatan Peninsula in a light rain going 120 mph and, it finally occurs to me...it finally dawns on me, that I don't need Carrie. I can live without her. I'm going to be OK. I don't need anyone. I'm going to be OK being alone. I'm going to be fine with myself. No one with any sense that cared about me would ever allow me to drive 120 mph in the rain across the Yucatan Peninsula on some mad dash through Central America. It isn't sane. It doesn't make sense. No one with any sense would ever have allowed me to do this. If I'd have had to ask permission, and I wouldn't have gotten it. And racing across the Yucatan peninsula in the rain is exactly what makes me happy.
All of this comes to me as I'm racing down the road in a light rain. I'm going to be OK. I don't need her. In fact, I'm better off without her. I'm going to be fine. This realization hits me now like a ton of bricks. This is what I came down here for. This experience. This maddening, insane dash through Central America. This is what I'm all about. This is what makes me happy. I always knew this would be an amazing trip, and I never planned on doing it with anyone else. I always wanted to do it alone because, honestly, I don't believe I know anyone crazy enough to come with me. It's an insane journey. It's a journey through insanity, and beyond.
I'm OK with Carrie leaving now. I'm good with that. I'm happy for her and her new boyfriend. I hope they both find happiness. How could I feel any other way?
The rain begins to let up. Finally, it stops altogether. I'm driving just by following the roadsigns now. Looking for Chichen Itza.
I'm driving between 100 mph and 120 mph, just grinning like the cat that ate the canary. I'm going to be OK. I'm still alive. I can still be happy. And she can go on with whats-his-face. And I can be happy for them. All of this was something I came down here looking for. I was looking for salvation. And I couldn't find it lying in bed. There was nothing there for me but the inside of my skull.
Down here, I'm saved. I'm free. There's no one to be mad at. Nothing to get upset about. Who can control the weather? No one. Who can tell me where to spend the night? No one. Who is giving me a hard time and causing me angst now? No one but myself, up until this point. And now, no one is. Because I've forgiven myself. I've forgiven her. I've forgiven everyone there is to forgive. I let it all go. Now, I can be happy.
All of this comes to me as I'm driving the bike at 120 mph down Mexico 180 on the way to Chichen Itza.
I'm so happy. So glad to be down here. So insanely happy to be able to do this trip. So glad to be alive. And, I mean, it's not like I want to slow down. There's a huge part of me that needs this. This is what massages my soul. The very thing that makes sane people shutter, is what draws me to this adventure. I've already driven a dirt bike from Alaska to Cabo San Lucas. Already driven from Denver to SF three times. Already driven around Lake Michigan. What else was there to do?
This all goes back to a time a few years back when I tried to drive down to El Salvador in a Honda Prelude. I got down to the Mexican border at Chula-juana and chickened out. I was old and tired and didn't feel up to it, and I turned back. I turned tail and ran back to SF. Parked the car at the airport, pulled the plates and threw them in the trash, and flew back to Denver.
But that was then. this is now. Now, I've talked to a lot of people on the road. And I know what happens inside a man's head when he's alone on the road to. The doubt seeps in around the edges, behind the curtains. Doubt grabs you by the chin and pulls your eyes up to face her, eye to eye, and tells you that she loves you. Doubt takes control and raises all sorts of issues. Who are you to be doing this? No one else is doing it. Why are you? You must be insane. You are bored. Lonely. Tired. And very far from home. It's time to go home now, don't you think?
This is what doubt says. And she changes things. She puts you on the road home, long before your adventure is completed. But I know this now. I know this thanks to a friend I met on the road to Alaska. He told me "go where you planned on going. Go to where you told everyone you were going. Don't stop short. Don't shortcut your adventure. Go all the way."
You have to think of yourself as two different people. It's the only way. You have to think, not about the person you are now. Think about your future self. Think about yourself a month from now, when you're back in the elevator at work. When you're walking into the elevator in the morning and you push 14 and you're going to have a long day ahead of you behind a computer. You have to think about that person. You have to be able to look that person in the eye. Because that time is coming. That day is coming. It is out there. Waiting.
So, I'm all in. I'm going to Panama. Or I'm going to die trying. I know a couple of people that found their fathers after they committed suicide. And I wouldn't wish that on anyone. This is not a suicide run. I plan on making it. But I'm not turning back without setting foot in Panama. I'm all in. I'm not afraid of the rain. The smog. The drug runners. The banditos.
I don't know what I'll do once I get there. I don't really have a plan for that yet. But that's OK. We'll deal with that when I get there. I have a few ideas in my head about what to do once I get there.
Pisté, Mexico
A light rain falls in the streets of Pisté, Mexico. The rain washes away the pollution, leaving the air fresh and breathable for a short moment. I find the entrance to the Chicha Itzen pyramids, but they are closed for the day. Come back in the morning.
I drive back to a hotel I passed. "You have internet here? In the rooms? There is hot water?" OK. Fine. I'll take it. $850 pesos? Seems a little high, but I'm in no position to barter. I'm soaked to the bone and it's the only hotel I saw when I drove through town. The room is warm, which feels good to me. I've been driving in the rain for the last 60 miles and, I'm not freezing, but I'm not warm either. The room feels good. Nice hot shower. Today is laundry day, so I wash all my clothes in the shower and hang them up to dry.
Now, I'm driving the bike in a light rain wearing a bathing suit and a shirt. That is all.
There are no laws here. No helmet laws. I ride through the streets of Pisté wearing nothing but a bathing suit and a shirt. No gloves. No shoes. No helmet. All of that is gone now. That was the old Rob. That was Rob back in Los Estados Unidas. But down here, everything is different.
A woman is grilling chickens in the streets. I stop for dinner. She brings me a 1/2 a grilled chicken, a bowl of soup, and a Mirinda naranja (orange) drink. The cost is $50 pesos (about $4.00 USD).
A starving, stray dog walks the streets. A man rides by on a scooter, overburdened with groceries, somehow. Whole families ride by on a single moped.
Now, I'm drinking at the hotel bar. There's no one here. I'm the only customer and a couple of ninos come through running their mouths. Singing way too loud, and they're old enough to know better.
"Silencio ninos!" I shout at them.
Like..."Lord God Jesus shut your freaking mouth. And your tell your dad I'm at the bar if he wants some too."
Some guy comes up with an australian accent and asks how much a coke is. They tell him it's 50 pesos and he balks and walks away. I'm like..."Seriously? Get the fuck out of here.." Like...dude...you flew to Mexico. And you're going to complain that a Coke costs $4.00 USD in a hotel. What the hell? I just have no patience for that. I truly don't. Like..this isn't a grocery store, dude. It's a freaking bar. Get over it. How much did you think it would be? A nickel?
Later, I run into a man that speaks English in the hotel lobby. He's asking me about my cameras, and I tell him I'm sort of wandering around, looking for an adventure. He tells me about this sweet little town on the Caribbean I've never heard of before called Punta Allen, so this is where I'm heading tomorrow.
OBEDEZCA LAS SENALES
I'd like to point out a few of the signs that I see down here, and look them up so that I'll know what they mean when I see them. It's really inexcusable to not understand what the signs say. Like I'd obviously never pass a driving test without being able to read.
http://www.ontheroadin.com/mexican_road_sign_translations_f.htm
CEDA EL PASO AL PEATON Give Way to Pedestrians
CON LLUVIA DISMINUYA SU VELOCIDAD In Rain Reduce Your Speed
CONCEDA CAMBIO DE LUCES Dim Your Lights Approaching Traffic
CURVA PELIGROSO Dangerous Curve
DISMINUYA SU VELOCIDAD Slow Down
ENTRADA Y SALIDA DE CAMIONES Trucks Entering and Exiting
EVITE ACCIDENTES Avoid Accidents
GUARDE SU DISTANCIA Keep Your Distance
MANEJE CON PRECAUCION Drive with Caution
NO MALTRATE LAS SENALES Don't Disregard the Signs
NO REBASE CON RAYA CONTINUA No Passing on a Continuous Line
NO TIRE BASURA Don't Throw Trash
OBEDEZCA LAS SENALES Obey the Signs
PRECUACION CRUCE DE PEATONES Caution Pedestrian Crossing
REDUCTOR DE VELOCIDAD Speed Bumps
RESPETE LIMITE DE VELOCIDAD Obey the Speed Limit
TOPES Speed Bumps
Ummm....I was told there'd be no math?
--------------------------------------------------
Exchange Rates:
1 U.S. dollar = 12.8 Mexican pesos
1 Mexican peso = 0.08 U.S. dollars
100 Mexican pesos = 8 U.S. dollars
Conversions:
1 US gallon = 3.8 liters
1 liter = 0.26 US gallons
Cost of Premium(Roja) Gasolina: $12.03 pesos/liter
Cost of Premium(Roja) Gasolina: $ 3.61 USD/gallon
So, the gas is about the same price as I've been paying in the U.S., apparently.
Photographs in the Extended Entry
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 13: Champotón to Pisté, Mexico"
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 1, 2013 at 9:33 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
May 31, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 12: Ciudad del Carmen to Champotón, Mexico
.JPG)
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in the Snook Inn Hotel on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in the town of Champotón, Mexico.
Friday May 31, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 2,990
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 3,108
Miles driven today: 128 miles
So, this morning I wake up in my hotel, and I'm trying to get organized. I really am. I'm carrying too much crap, and I'm well aware of this. I need to downsize, but some of the gear is fairly expensive, so I'd like to just mail it back to myself in the U.S. of A. However, this isn't so simple, since we're in a stone-age culture.
First of all, if you go to the FedEx website, and look for locations in Ciudad Del Carmen, there aren't any. Ditto for UPS. DHL has one location listed, so I attempt to drive there.
The streets are still completely flooded. Two feet deep in places. Whoever designed the drainage for this city should be held accountable.
When I get to the location, there's no DHL business at that address. It's just the slums of Ciudad Del Carmen.
This is frustrating, because, the third world really doesn't seem to be on the same plane as the first world. I'm like..."Really? What the fuck? Where is the DHL office?"
The same thing happened to me last night when I was trying to find the Hampton Inn. I drove to the address. The Hampton Inn wasn't there. Now...why is this? It's hard to know. It's hard to know who's throat to choke.
Part of it is that the addresses are confusing as hell. For instanced the Hampton Inn address is:
Isla de Tris 28 Santa RosalÃa, 24157 Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche
I'm like...ah....OK. Finally figured out that the State is Campeche. Ciudad del Carmen is the city. Isla de Tris is the street. 28 is probably the street address. No clue what Santa Rosalia is.
And, I can assure you that the Hampton Inn isn't at this address. It's certainly not at the Isla de Tris 28, any way. There's a Wal-mart there. This is next to the airport. So, sure, you'd like to go find someone and strangle them slowly in a shallow pool, but I'm not clear what it gets you.
So, the Hampton Inn wasn't there. The DHL place isn't where it should be. I tried to call the phone number for the U.S. Embassy in Belize, and their number has been disconnected.
So, eventually, you just kinda of realize that down here, nothing is right. Nothing works right. Everything is broken. No one knows why. And even less people care. Which is, in a way, kind of maddening if you're not used to it.
At the hotel where I spent the night, I try to get to the bottom of the shipping issue.
"People do, in fact, mail things, right? People do mail packages down here, right?"
"We get packages here at the hotel."
"Aha. OK. Now, we're getting somewhere. Do you send packages out?"
"For what?"
Never mind. I don't know how people ship things in a third world country. I really do not. So, finally, I just give up trying to mail anything home. I throw everything in the trash and just say "fuck it. It's not worth the heartache."
I have to get some oil filters for the KTM though, and I can't find a dealer down here that carries them and has a listed phone number. Finally call my buddies back in Illinois and ask them to FedEx me some down in Belize City, Belize.
Now, I have to get my credit card working. The dogs at my credit union have hosed me again. They do this every time I leave the country. It's a little game they play. And I told them I was leaving the country. They knew this already. So, I call them up and start dog-cussing them on the phone. They won't admit to any wrong-doing, of course. But they do admit that they had put yet another fraud alert on my credit card. So, they lift it for me, yet again.
I go to a Wal-mart to see if I can buy a GPS, a pair of pants, and some gloves. They don't have gloves. Their pants are the thinnest pants you've ever seen. And they don't carry a GPS unit. And they don't have an ATM machine.
So, now, to a Mega store. They have an ATM. (No GPS units, of course.)
And so, I'm standing in this long line for the ATM. The ATMs are guarded by two men armed with 12 gauge shotguns, while another man refills one of the ATM's with Mexican pesos. All three men are wearing bullet proof vests. The two armed guards are holding pump 12 gauges, with extended magazines. Fingers in perfect position beside, but not on, the trigger. Barrels pointed up. Each has a .38 pistol in a holster on their thigh. I complain that one of the 3 ATM's is open, and I should be able to use it. He tells me to sit tight, and no one goes near the ATM's while the guy replaces the cash.
Finally, I get $3,000.00 (Mexican Pesos), and now I at least have some cash for the toll roads.
So, I got the credit card working. Got some cash. Refilled the bike. Tried to get stuff shipped home. Tried to buy jeans and gloves, but apparently no one down here has gloves. I was like...then could you give me some cloth and a needle and thread?
Somehow, I lost my gloves last night in the storm when I nearly crashed.
I can't find gloves. Can't find a GPS unit. So, I buy some tape, and tape my iPhone back inside my windshield so at least I can use that as a GPS.
I also call Verizon and tell them I need data plan for Central America and they'd better not rape me over the data usage.
I spent a lot of time dealing with all of this nonsense, and I wasn't able to get away until something crazy like 3:00 or so. I got onto the 180 and drove East, hoping to get to Chichen Itza.
I finally get out on the open highway, and just wind it up. I'm running like 110 mph, trying to stay awake. Rolling down this beautiful scenic beach. Just have it gapped back. And there are some other cars that are running about 100 also. I'm no the only one. Then, I come to a bridge, and I'm going to try to get a shot while I'm driving, but I'm not really paying attention....I'm going 100 mph, coming up on a guy going 50 mph, and there's a truck coming at us on the bridge. There are no shoulders.
And I'm taking photos. I do this while I'm driving. I drive with no hands and shoot through the lens of my digital SLR camera.
At the last moment, I realize this probably isn't the ideal time to take a photo, and stand on both breaks to keep from creaming the back end of the guy ahead of me.
This is why riding a bike is dangerous. It's because you get lazy going 100mph all the time and start getting complacent.
However, after I'd gone about 100 miles, I see this wall...this massive thunderstorm approaching, and I think about what happened last night. How I nearly died in the streets of Ciudad Del Carmen. And I'm like...I'm not going to let that happen again. I'm not that stupid.
So, I'm racing down the road, and this animal runs across the street in front of me. I'm not clear what it is, but it has a huge tail, sticking straight up in the air. The closest thing I've ever seen to it is probably a raccoon. But I looked it up when I got home at night and settled, and I now believe what I saw was a white-nosed Coati.
The first sign I see that says Hotel, I pull in immediately and ask them for a room.
Does it have internet in the rooms? Warm water in the showers? Air conditioning in the rooms? This is all that matters. I learned to ask these questions going through Peru.
They offer me a room for $640 Mexican Pesos, or $60 US Dollars. I was like....yeah...I'll pay in Pesos, thank you very much. For some reason, they think that 10:1 is the exchange rate, which it clearly is not. That's why I always get local currency out of the ATM machines. It's the best currency conversion rate you can get, and then you don't get the sucker rate of 10:1 pesos to dollars.
As soon as I check in, the bottom falls out of the thunderstorm. It's raining cats and dogs just like it did last night, only this time, I'm not stuck out driving around in the rain storm like an idiot. My assumption is that this is still tired to Hurricane Barbara, although I'm not certain of this. I'm no meterologist, after all.
So, I only drove 100 miles today, but I don't really care. It's not like it matters. I don't really have any set timeline for this trip. It's essentially open ended. I'm not really sure what coming back looks like. It's hard for me to imagine.
I was up texting Carrie until 2:30 this morning. She was telling me how happy she is to be dating her gorilla-armed boyfriend, and I'm like "I'm really happy for y'all. I've moved on also. I wish you the best." But nothing ever makes her happy, really. Only to make sure that I'm aware she's going out with someone else and that I'm fully cognizant of that fact. So there is that. Spite. Happiness. Call it what you will.
But I've got someone that I'm going to take out if I ever make it back to the United States. Hmmmmm. Now, if this rain would ever let up, I might could get an early start and make it to Chichen Itza tomorrow.
Photos in Extended Entry.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 31, 2013 at 5:53 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
KTM Fiasco
I'm having a hard time finding an oil filter for my new 2010 KTM 990 Adventure in Central America.
KTM Part Number 60038015000). This is the same oil filter for all KTM 990/960 year models, is my understanding.
This was not something I really planned on, of course. It looks like the next KTM dealership I will hit will be in San Pedro, Honduras. There's not a KTM dealership in Belize, and I just past one yesterday in Villahermosa, Mexico, but I had no clue.
I now know how to look up KTM dealerships using this website:
http://www.ktm.com/dealer-service/dealer-search.html
Colonia Jardines del Valle, Calle al
2505 San Pedro Sula
Honduras
The problem I'm having is that I need the oil filter, and I'm not clear that the guys in Honduaras will have the part, be open, and available, etc. They don't even have a phone number listed, which doesn't give me a warm fuzzy.
What I'd like to do is contact the U.S. Embassy in Belize City, Belize, and ask the if they'll accept a package for me. And then call these guys, and ask them to Fed-Ex a package of 3 oil filters down to the U.S. Embassy in Belpoman, Belize City.
Nicholas Eckermann
Fun Mart Cycle Center
1320 36th Ave.
Moline, IL 61265
Phone: 309-762-9624
Fax: 309-762-2591
Toll Free: 877-389-7540
Cell: 309-756-7861
nick@funmartcycle.net
http://www.funmartcycle.net
I can't figure out how to call Belize. You should just have to dial 00 first. But, the number listed for the U.S. Embassy in Balmpoman, Belize isn't working. Fascinating.
Should be able to dial the U.S. Embassy in Belpoman, Belize at:
00 (501) 822-4011
OK. Dialing 00 is correct. The problem is
But it's not a working number. So, I called these people, but they're not sure if FedEx ships to Belize ("we're a third world country"), he apologizes. Nice to hear someone saying that in English, for once.
So I called up my buddies in Moline, Illinois, and ask them to FedEd me come oil filters down to Belize at the following address (I'm not making this up):
The Bachelor Inn
5931 Bachelor Avenue, West Landivar
Belize City, Belize
+501 223-7310
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 31, 2013 at 10:55 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 30, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 11: Veracruz to Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico
.JPG)
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in the town of Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico.
Thursday May 30, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at start of day): 2,557
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 2,990
Miles driven today: 433
Today, I drove like a rabid bat out of hell. I did a few things differently today, that helped me get in more miles. The first thing I did was, before I left the hotel this morning in Veracruz, I mounted my iPhone 4S into the KTM 990 Adventure dashboard using the KTM approved mounting kit (tape). This was beautiful because now, I don't get lost any more. This is nothing short of beautiful, and why I thought I could live without a GPS in a third world country in 2013...well I'll never know. But Lord God that GPS makes it so much nicer. The signs down here are ambiguous, confusing, erroneous, absent, or worse.
So, having the GPS there just provides this crucial piece that I was missing. Now, I don't get lost any more. Now, all I have to watch is my gas, my speed, and distance to the next turn.
I deliberately took a more traveled path today. I didn't want to spend my whole day going through town after town, speed bump after speed bump. I wanted to make some time, so basically, I went 50 km southwest of town out of Veracruz towards Cordoba, and picked up a toll road. I then took Mexico 180 from there.
Mexico 180 is a series of toll roads, mostly divided median, similar to the interstate system in the U.S.
So, basically, I got down on the throttle and held it wide open for hours. Imagine running 110 mph down a road you've never been down before. In a country where you don't speak the language. Can't read the road signs. Have no clue what they mean. I'm in the country illegally. I have no insurance. And I don't really care about the law any more.
This always happens to me. Always. Always. After you're down here for a while, you change. I mean, if there is no law enforcement, then you'd be a fool to follow the laws.
So I'm just blowing through this brightly colored scorched-earth third-world poverty. Mexico, to me, is a dream. The countryside is so perfect. So pleasant. So hard to believe it's real. To take it all in, screaming down the road on a bright orange motorcycle.
A surreal dream, painted for me by people I'll never know. Fresh fields of pineapple, bananas, mangos, papayas, and watermelons. Mountains and valleys. Rivers and swamps. All of this. All of this scrolls by my bleeding eyes at suicidal speeds.
I decide I will not stop until I've gone 100 miles. This is the way to put up big miles. You have to be more disciplined. I'm not going to stop every time I see a cute little 4 year old girl hawking pineapple on the side of the road.
I'm not stopping. So I'm just tearing through the country, at this insane speed. Sometimes running as fast as 120 mph.
The greatest danger, I think, is coming up behind someone too fast. It's hard to me to judge how fast they're going, for whatever reason, but if you're going 120 mph and come up behind someone going 80 km/hr, it's hard to get stopped if it's not safe to pass.
It's so hard to drive through this country. So difficult to understand what's wrong. Mexico is, for all intents and purposes, a stone-age culture. I see men gathering wood. Walking down the road in the heat of the day with a machete. Men riding bicycles, not for exercise, but for transportation.
Goats tethered by ropes feeding on the right of way.
When we get near the ocean, people fish to survive. They bring their catch to the side of the road and offer it for sale. Carp. Crabs. Whatever they can harvest from the ocean, they hang from sticks on the side of the road.
Every time I stop at a Pemex to fill up with gas, everyone stands around my bike and comments on it appreciatively. They've never seen a KTM before. Never heard of it. It's like they're looking at a UFO or a time machine.
I see four year olds selling snacks on the side of the road. In front of the OXXO stores. They're selling puppets and peanut brittle in the heat of the day.
How did this happen? How did we get here?
I'd be lying if I said this doesn't bother me. It does.
I think about what it is that I do. And what it is that they do.
I'm not sure what it is that I do. Nothing really. I fly back and forth between two cities and drink a lot of coffee. I take pictures of homeless people and drink a lot at night. Other than that, I'm not really sure that we're all that different.
But I look at what they're doing....they're wrapping bananas in plastic bags as they grow in the fields. They're trimming pineapples with machetes on the side of the highway, and squeezing them into buckets. Wait a second. Fresh squeezed pineapple juice? Have I gone a hundred miles today? I have? Woohoo!!!!
So I shut it down and pull under the overpass for a glass of fresh squeezed pineapple juice. Best ever. They trim the pineapples with a machete, wrap them in a cheesecloth, and then put them, two at a time, into a juicer with a bar coming out of it like a car jack. A little bout about seven years old leans on the handle with all his weight. Fresh pineapple juice runs into a bucket.
"Yeah...that's what I want...set me up."
"Que?"
"Necessito jugo de pine, por favor. Quanto es?"
"Viente pesos"
So, a liter of fresh squeezed pineapple juice is going to run me $1.50 USD. Yeah. OK. Seems fair.
"Aqui." I pay the guy 20 pesos, and then tip him 10 more pesos. I figured they need it more than I do. Then, I sit under the overpass and try to explain to them that I'm driving to Panama. Pa-na-ma. Finally, they get it. Now, they're all on my bike, taking pictures with their cell phone cameras. One of them turns the key on and turns it over a few times. I start to get afraid that they will take off on my bike, leaving me stranded and stupid in Mexico.
But no. They're not stealing it. Just playing around.
But the problem is that, it's so hard to interact with these people. They have nothing. They never will have anything. And I'm blowing through town with the most expensive laptop you can buy from Apple.
It's kind of hard because, you want to let your guard down, and I don't really care about my material possessions. I really don't. I don't feel like I'm better than they are. I'm really not. But we are living very different lives. So, it is important to realize that a lot could go wrong, very quickly, given the circumstances. They see me, and, in their eyes, I am rich. Now, clearly I'm not rich. And anyone that knows me knows this. But to them, I'm as rich as Croesus.
People that haven't been around money can't really be trusted around money. They don't know how it works. Only they know that you have some, and so we'll have to extract it from you, by any means necessary. Emotional blackmail, sex, promises, lies...nothing is off the table when you're dealing with them.
Someone once told me that we should go to Hawaii, Florida, Colorado, California, etc., etc. And I was like...we can do all of those things. But, the problem is that, once the money is gone, the money is gone.
But I worked like a dog last year, so I don't want to blow through my money like a crack whore on a binger. I'd like to at least be able to take the summer off and maybe drive the bike down through Central America for a bit.
People that haven't been around money don't understand this, or else they don't care. They want to just extrude your assets as quickly as possible, and then tell you to "get out" when their little brain goes into an emotional tailspin.
So, it is difficult to forge a serious friendship, given the restrictions. But I do try to make friends with everyone. I smile and wave and say hello and introduce myself. I open doors and hold them and say "Pardon", a lot. I wave when people let me pass on the highway. I'm trying to be a good ambassador from the U.S., I really am.
The country today is much more green than on the first day in Mexico. It's all verdant countryside, and I'm just blowing through it like mad. With the GPS, I'm making much better time. I do stop occasionally, to sample fresh fruit or whatever else they're hawking on the shoulders of the road.
When you're driving on a road that isn't divided, you really have to be paying attention, because the oncoming traffic will use your lane, and expect you to move over. If you're not paying attention, you could easily hit someone headon in your own lane. It's just the way they drive down here. So, you've REALLY got to be paying attention. Plus, at every little town, these notorious speedbumps. They're almost never painted. Sometimes, they'll have a sign beside them indicating a speed bump. Often, they're not painted, and there's no sign. I've launched off the bike pretty high in the air before. This is very scary.
I drive all day, going roughly 100 mph the whole time. For some reason, the trucks here have red triangle shaped flags sticking out both sides of them, presumable to give themselves a little more room. I dunno.
Finally, when I'm about 20 miles outside of Ciudad Del Carmen, it starts to rain. Now, this sucks. Because, I'd actually thought that I timed it about perfect. I'd get into town in time to get some shots, but instead, as I get into town, it starts raining. It's raining lightly at first. I roll into town, and stop at a Pemex and ask the guy where the tourist zone is (donde zona tourist?), but he doesn't get it. Has no clue where a hotel is. He actually tells me he doesn't speak english.
This is what kills me. I'm like....I"m not speaking English you jackass. I might not have the pronunciation right, but this is Spanish I'm speaking. Argh.
So, I go off driving around town, looking for a place to stay. The GPS was only programmed to get me into town. I didn't have a hotel in mind, per se. I also didn't expect it to be raining. So, basically, I just start driving around looking for a hotel. I stumble across a Holiday Inn, and walk inside.
I'm soaking wet. I don't really care. I just walk up to the front desk and ask them for a room for the night. They promptly tell me that they have no rooms available, but that they'll check with the Holiday Inn Express. I'm like...whatever...so I sit down in the lobby, pull up Hotels.com, and book a room at the Hampton Inn, which is only a block or two away, apparently.
She tells me they have a room at the Holiday Inn Express, but I tell her "no thanks", I've got it covered. Because it's now raining like a Noah's Ark type of flood, I decide to eat dinner at the Holiday Inn, while I wait for the rain to let up.
So, I sit and eat and presently, I hear a couple of guys next to me speaking English and I'm like..."Holy Shit! Americanos!!!"
Like, these are the first Americans I've seen in Mexico on this trip. No joke. So, we start talking and they're really friendly, of course. Both working in the oil industry. One of them is from New Iberia, Louisiana.
I tell him that I'm going to check into the Hampton Inn, and show him the address on the iPhone. He assures me that there's not a Hampton Inn there, which isn't reassuring.
As we talk, he explains that the weather we're getting is from the hurricane out in the Pacific that hit Mexico, and has now crossed over to the Gulf of Mexico. I was surprised because, I'd never really considered that the hurricane would cross over into the Gulf.
But, it really flooded. And it didn't quit raining. But finally, I decided to leave to find my hotel in the dark. In the rain. So, I climbed back onto my bike and tried to drive to my hotel. Only, the iPhone wasn't sticking to the tape very well any more, so I'm having a hard time driving in the rain, with my right hand steering the bike and doing the gas, and my left hand holding the iphone, and using the clutch to shift, as needed.
Now, basically, we were hit by a monsoon. I'd guess we got a foot of rain. And, whoever designed the drainage system for the town must have gone to Engineering school in Mexico. Because, the streets are now just lakes. Like...the water is seriously 2' to 3' deep. And I'm driving through it with one hand on the gas, one hand on the iPhone. And, I keep thinking the bike will die, as I'm plowing through the lakes that were once streets. My feet are completely soaked. My bag is soaked. And, when I get to where the Hampton Inn should be, it isn't there. And I have no idea what to do.
I go to a Pemex and plead for help, but they can't really help me. I'm wet and exhausted and lost and I just want to check into a room, but I can't find the hotel. So, finally, I decided to drive back to the Holiday Inn and just tell them that I'll sleep in the lobby if they won't rent me a room.
So, I start heading back to the Holiday Inn. But on the way back, it's raining hard again, and I'm driving through a lake. Like something you'd see on a movie, seriously. And suddenly, I realize that I'm driving down a line of bumps in the street that designate a turn lane. But these are big. Each one is nearly a foot in diameter, and probably 4" to 6" tall. So, with one hand, I'm trying to keep from crashing, as the front end goes bat-shit insane. The front end is all over the place. The bag falls off the bike. I accidentally gas the throttle trying to save the bag, and I drop the iPhone. Somehow, I keep from crashing. I pick up the bag and put it on the bike. I get the iphone, and put it back on my little dash and then I pull into a Pemex, dazed, wet, and confused.
When I stop, I realize i don't have my iphone. So, I go back and find it laying in the street, wet, but not run over. I retrieve it out of the street.
I don't know how I didn't wreck. Finally, I get back to the Holiday Inn, then I see another hotel just past it. So, I decide to check into that hotel. They tell me they have a room, but now my credit card is declined. And I don't have enough pesos to pay for the room. I offer to pay in US dollars, but now they're claiming the exchange rate is 10:1, instead of 13:1.
I am so pissed at my bank there are not words. They do this to me every time I leave the country. Every time I leave the country, they fuck me like a school girl. And I'm so sick of it. They fuck me every single time. And I told them I was going on this trip through central america.
I pull out an envelope with ten grand in it, in U.S. dollars, and say...."How much?"
"One hundred and ten U.S. dollars."
"Deal."
Then, I go to my room, and there's no hot water. So, a cold shower, and it's off to bed. With everything soaked and dripping on the floor.
I text my ex and ask her if I get at least get my things out of her trailer. She says she burned all of my belongings, and then tries to explain to me that we were never "engaged". I'm like...are you seriously that stupid? When a man asks you to marry him, and you say "yes", you are, by definition, "engaged". There isn't like a form you fill out. You're engaged. Then, when you go ape-shit crazy 24 hours later after looking at wedding rings and cast him into the streets without a single word of explanation, you are no longer engaged. But that doesn't mean you weren't engaged, unless you were lying when you said you'd get married to begin with.
The good thing is that the new guy has arms like a gorilla, apparently. She made sure I was aware of this, grinding her teeth, closing her eyes, and making grunting noises like a female baboon in heat when she thought about him. Her eyes rolled back in her head like Poltergeist, and she started making grunting noises. Probably that should have been a sign, I guess.
Then, she told me that, if he showed up, there'd be trouble. That he'd kick my ass all over the place. Like, I'm not clear why I didn't leave then. Anyone with a brain would have. But now, she has gorilla-arms, and maybe they're both as dumb as a bag of hammers, and they'll live happily ever after. So be it. I'm happy for them both. I'm moving on. :)
The rest of the photos are in the Extended Entry.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 30, 2013 at 6:52 PM : Comments (4) | Permalink
May 29, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 10: Tampico to Veracruz, Mexico
.JPG)
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in the town of Veracruz, Mexico.
Wednesday May 29, 2013
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 2,557
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 2,223
Miles driven today: 334
Today..hmmm
This morning, I wake up late and start driving. Always, I want to shoot the madness of the city in the morning, but never I can. The cameras have slept in the freezing cold hotel room with me all night, so in the morning, I take them outside, and they just fog up completely and won't shoot at all for at least an hour.
Lost as always, of course. It's a funny thing to be lost in a country where you can't even speak the language. Almost maddening, but I chose this little adventure - no one forced it on me. So, I do the best I can.
I find a Walmart and I want to tighten my chain, so I into the parking garage, and start trying to figure out how to tighten it. I have the owner's manual, and a small tool kit that came with it. But i can't find a wrench that fits the chain tensioner adjustments. I'm not clear why this is. I assume that it has to be metric, but none of the KTM metric wrenches fit it. They're either too big or too small. So, I buy some walmart wrenches. Same problem. Nothing fits it. Finally, I buy a U.S. 7/16 and a 9/16 (all I could find). Still, nothing fits. I tighten my right rear view mirror, so at least I have that working, sort of. KTM has missed the trick here. On two things. 1) The rear view mirror should not "break loose" when the wind pushes against it. Honda has this all figured out, so, KTM, you might want to check with them. As to why I can't tighten my chain with the tool kit that came with the bike, again...no rational explanation exists. Thanks for that, KTM.
Now, I'm lost in Tampico again. I don't have a GPS, and I desperately need one. Or, rather, I should say that I have 2 GPS units, neither of which works. So, yeah, I definitely need a GPS. Maybe I'll pick one up in the morning.
Lost, lost, lost, circling the slums of Tampico again. Finally, I stop at a Pemex and get directions. OK. So, I've got to cross the bridge (puente). Got it. Now, rolling south along Mexico 180. The plan is loosely to follow the coast, down through Texpan, and on into Veracruz.
But I'm really not making good time. I keep stopping for gas, or to take pictures, or to eat snacks on the side of the road. I never really know what to do on these trips. It's so hard to know when to stop, and when to keep going. I usually end up screwing around for half the day, and then I have to drive like a bat out of hell at the end of the day to got to my destination.
The entire country of Mexico is founded on the premise that life would be better if only it had a soundtrack blasting your ear drums down into your skull. That girls ears should be pierced as they exit the birth canal. That trees should be painted white for at least the bottom six feet. That speed bumps are more effective at slowing down cars than writing tickets.
There must be no safety net here, as the country seems mired in inconceivable poverty. As I'm driving, I observe crews clearing brush with machetes. Like...seriously? It's 2013 and you've got men in the field swinging machetes?
Fires burn sporadically, unattended, along the sides of the roads. Old-skool slash-and-burn clearing of the land, I assume.
Other times, I see a family gathering wood along the right-of-way. People walking down the road with machetes. Always, if a man is walking, he has a machete. They do not wave. People riding bicycles. At every town, people stand in the streets selling bananas, coconuts, papayas, dried shrimp, sandia (watermelon)... you name it.
I am a sucker for these vendors, and I keep stopping and tasting and eating and drinking things from these street vendors.
My initial plan was to put up a couple of big 500 mile days to get across Mexico as quickly as practicable. And, it's true, I've certainly been able to knock out 500 miles in a day in no problem in the U.S. But the reality is that, down here, it's different. It's different for many reasons. First of all, the terrain is all completely new to me, so I'm in no rush to race through it. Secondly, the roads are not as good down here as they are in the U.S. Plus, every little town I come to has speed bumps, traffic, slow double-eighteen-wheelers, dump trucks, etc. So, it's really hard to make more than 300 miles in a day. So, I decide that I'll stick to the 300 miles a day plan and just deal with i
I have not seen other motorcycle adventurers down here doing what I am doing. Or...OK...I saw one. I saw a guy on a BMW GS1200R yesterday with saddlebags. He's the only other person that I have seen in two days that appears to be touring the country by motorcycle.
I finally make it as far as Tuxpan, Mexico, where I get terribly lost again. I really do not like driving in the cities of Mexico. The traffic patterns are so foreign to anything I am used to. I finally just give up stopping at red lights. If it's clear, I just go. It's not really worth it. And, I've got to make up time if I'm going to get down to Veracruz by sundown. I will not drive the motorcycle at night. It's too dangerous, for all sorts of reasons. Animals in the road, highway men on the road at night, running out of gas...all of these are bad things. Must get to town by dark thirty.
Now, south of Tuxpan, we're following the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Gone is the warm air, now, the cool refreshing breeze of the Gulf of Mexico. Now, the road is better. Still following Mexico 180 south. Now, however, i decide it's time to get moving.
The scenery is much better now, and I do snap photos from the saddle occasionally. I let go of the handlebars and shoot through the lens as I'm driving. But now, I decide to really open the bike up and let it run. The road is much better now, and I'm running 80 mph. 90 mph. The greatest danger I have is coming up behind someone to fast. A few times, I come up behind a car going too fast and don't realize it, and have to lock up the brakes a bit.
Now, I'm passing people where there's very little margin for error. This is where the KTM exceeds. I can go from 60 to 100 in about two seconds. So, if you need to pass and don't have a lot of room, this is the bike you want. I'm racing through the countryside, really terrorizing the country now because, at this point, I realize...this area is not patrolled at all, for whatever reason. There are hardly any soldiers, federales, or state police here. Those guys are all back up on the border. This road I'm on is wide open and I'm flying now. Trying to get to Veracruz before sunset. It's going to be close.
The nice thing is that I haven't seen any deer down here. In Colorado, I'm deathly afraid of deer, elk, and even moose. But down here, the only animals I see as a threat are those grazing on the shoulder of the roads...goats, cows, horses, donkeys, etc. And these are normally (but not always) tied up with a rope around their necks.
So I'm cooking, heading south, still trying to fix my stupid rear view mirror while I'm driving, and then the silly thing falls off. Drops into the road going 90 mph. I go back and get it, dog-cussing KTM the whole time for making this stupid thing backwards.
At some point, I try to get my GPS to work, it also falls into the street, but I'm able to fish it back up to the bike by the USB cable.
I'm really pushing the bike now, trying to see how fast I can get it to go, but once I get north of 120 mph, the road isn't really smooth enough for me to see clearly. My head and helmet and glasses start shaking and eventually, I decide it's just not worth trying to go over 100 mph.
But I have, at this point, completely given up on following the law down here. The reason is that the laws are not enforced. And, if they're not enforced, then you'd be a fool to follow them.
Finally, I come screaming into Veracruz at about dusk. I run the lights, Ignore the traffic signals, until finally, I see red and blue lights behind me. I'm like..."wtf was I thinking? I have no insurance. I'm in the country illegally. This is not going to be good."
But instead, he just drives past me. I have no idea why his lights were on, but it scared me pretty good.
I ask a few people for directions, and promptly find a room on the beach with wireless internet, and I'm done for the night.
I will try to make it to Ciudad Del Carmen by tomorrow night.
Photos in the Extended Entry.
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 10: Tampico to Veracruz, Mexico"
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 29, 2013 at 9:23 PM : Comments (4) | Permalink
May 28, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 9: South Padre Island, TX to Tampico, Mexico
.JPG)
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly at the Arenas Del Mar Resort on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in the town of Tampico, Mexico.
Tuesday May 28, 2013
Miles driven today: 336
Motorcycle Odometer (at end of day): 2,223
Wow. What a completely insane day. Hmmmm. OK. So, I woke up this morning late..about 10:00 a.m. as I recall. Hop on the bike and get rolling...basically head west on 48 towards the center of Brownsville. Brownsville is technically in Texas, but everyone speaks Spanish. It's all strip malls and box chain stores. Horrible air pollution. I thought it was bad in Mississippi, but now I'm starting to remember how bad air pollution can be.
Turn South on the main drag (77/83/69) and follow the signs that say International Bridge.
But, I can't help but notice that I'm the only car on the bridge heading for the border. As in, there are ZERO other cars crossing into Mexico. At Chula Vista, California, this was not the case. There were plenty of other cars going into Mexico. But not now. Not this time. Zero other tourists are heading South. This entire adventure strikes me as a supremely bad idea.
For some reason, the U.S. has a customs agent on our side of the border to harass people leaving the country, for whatever reason. So I pull up and ask him.
"Dude...why is no one going into Mexico?"
"Because of the crime. The drugs. It's not a good place to be right now. Do you have to go?" he asks.
"No.'
"Then I would suggest not going. It isn't safe. You're on your own down there. There no police. There's no 911 to call if you need help. If you get in an accident, there's no forms to fill out. No one to report anything to. You could lose everything you have."
And I thought about that. 1) I hate police 2) I don't call 911. 3) I've never been clear that filling out forms after an accident helps anyone. 4) If all I have to lose is everything I own, I think I'm OK with that.
"OK. Thanks bud."
And I roll across the border heading south. On the Mexico side, they just wave me through. Zero paperwork. No Visa. No passport check. No stopping. Nada. This is the same as what happened when I went through at Baja last time. The Mexicans don't care. They really don't.
I roll across the border into the crime-ridden urban squalor that is Matamoros, Mexico. Of course, I have no idea where to go. I'm lost as soon as I cross the border, but I see a Pemex and I turn towards it. Now, technically, I probably ran a red light. And made an illegal left-hand turn. Into oncoming traffic. I'm not in a position to deny this. But in the United States, cars go out of their way to try to avoid running over motorcycles. In Mexico, not so much, as it turns out. The car coming at me probably would have hit me cleanly if I'd not gotten out of his way at the last second.
I pull into the Pemex and stop to fill up.
After I fill up with premium ("lleno dojo"), I'm looking for an ATM to get some Pesos in my wallet. But I'm so clueless, I can't even figure out where the ATM's are. A construction worker offers to help me. Now, I'm deathly afraid that I'm going to be filleted and attacked with grenades by the locals. But instead, this kind construction worker takes me inside, shows me where the ATM is. Helps me figure out how to use it in Spanish. And the whole time, I'm thinking he's going to stab me and frog-march me from one ATM to the next until they've drained my entire life's savings of $850.00.
But of course, he's just the nicest person on the planet, and I tip him for helping out a very lost, paranoid, and confused gringo.
Now, I have a full tank of gas and a few thousand pesos on me. But I've got to get rid of these cameras if I'm going to live in Matamoros. So I pack all of my cameras into the little gas tank bag I carry, so I'll at least be somewhat less conspicuous.
Then, I leave, and proceed to get thoroughly lost in the slums of Matamoros. I'm so hopelessly lost...I just can't sort it out....I've driving down streets beside open sewer ditches full of trash and I can't quite sort it out. Finally, get out my iPhone and use it as a GPS and get back on track.
Now, heading south on Mexico 101 roughly toward Ciudad Victoria.
Once I get out of the slums of Matamoros, Mexico 101 proves to be a fine road. I'm driving south at about 80 mph. Mostly, it's just open farmland. Crops growing on both sides of the road for as far as one could see.
Presently, I come to a military checkpoint. A bunch of soldiers standing around with FAL's. So, I stop. He asks for my papers. I don't have any papers. I'm in the country illegally, I would guess. I mean.... I've never handed anyone in the country anything except pesos so far.
So, I hand him my passport. It's brand new. I got it on Friday. He can hardly even open it it's so new. He tells me in perfect English that I am under arrest.
I'm not sure if he's serious or not. But he just laughs and waves me on.
It's hard to imagine how they figured that this is the most dangerous state in Mexico. And, seriously, I was very close to turning around at the Mexican border. I was convinced that I'd be killed and tortured as soon as I crossed over.
The greatest threat I've faced so far is the other drivers.
As I drive south, I pass lots of soldiers, Federales, and state police. But this does not intimidate me. In fact, for all the people who claimed how dangerous and lawless this place is, I'd argue just the opposite. They have the municipal police, the state police, the federales, and the army crawling all over the place. It's the same as I saw in Baja. Same as we saw in Quintana Roo. It's just Mexico. It's crawling with cops and soldiers. It is what it is.
Mexico 101 is a good road, but as I follow it south, it slowly dawns on me that they don't drive down here like we do in the U.S. Like, if I come up behind a car, they pull over and drive on the shoulder, essentially, to allow me to overtake them without changing lanes. I always wave them thanks as I pass. This is something they do in Texas also. It's polite, I guess you could say.
But it gets a little tricky if someone is coming the other way. So, if a guy is driving down the shoulder, I feel obligated to overtake him, even though an 18 wheeler or a bus is coming the other direction. So, I don't really like this form of driving, but it is what it is. So, I find myself basically lanesplitting between two buses when it's not something I'd normally do.
Now, if they're coming towards you, it's even more interesting. Because, essentially, they want you to give up your lane and drive on the shoulder, if two cars are coming towards you and wanting to pass.
So, essentially, you have to be watching all the time to see if someone is going to come into your lane and hit you head on, and I've had a few people nearly do this. I'm sure they think it's justified, because they needed to pass, it's just not something I'm used to, of course.
It's hard to guess how far it will be to the next Pemex, so I keep stopping and filling up. And after I've been driving for a few hours, I realize that I've gone, essentially, nowhere.
So I decide that I'll do a little short-cut down to Tampico on the Mexico 180, to save some time. Plus, it will get me onto some smaller backroads, which I wanted to do anyway.
When I get to the exit for Mexico 180 towards Tampico, I take it, and presently find myself in the middle of a vast desert. Now, of course, I don't have enough gas to make it anywhere close to Tampico. But I was seeing a lot of Pemex stations, so I figured I'd be OK. But that was on the Mexico 101, before I turned off onto this little Mexico 180, which I now realize has no towns. No gas stations. No other cars on the road. Nothing.
I feel stupid for doing this, and I drive and drive through the forbidding desert, trying to guess how long I'll be able to live out here. It's not pretty. I'm very mad at myself for making this mistake. But there's nothing to do now but drive until it runs out of gas, and then plead for mercy on the side of the road.
No cell coverage. Plus my cell phone is dead. And I'm about to be on the side of the road in the most dangerous state in all of Mexico. Why do I do this to myself? Why can't I be normal. Other people watch TV at night. Why can't I just do that?
Then, inexplicably, the road turns, and I'm in the town of Soto La Marina, and they have a Pemex. I'm expecting it to be abandoned, but no. People are filling up with gas. I'm so happy I want to cry.
After gas, I stop for roadside pork tomales and a CocaCola Light to celebrate being alive.
Now, I have a full tank of gas, and some food in my belly, as I roll south out of Soto La Marina towards Tampico. At this point I realize that, since we're not on a main road like the 101, the roads are essentially not patrolled. I can drive as fast as I want.
Rolling south, trying to make some time. Running about 90 mph. But the trick is that, every so often, the road changes to gravel, or is under construction, etc. But the view is just spectacular now. We've gone from flat farmland to desert to now, a verdant landscape, and I'm really enjoying myself for the first time on this trip. I'm seeing some land I've never seen before. Not afraid of running out of gas at the moment. Really beautiful countryside.
All manner of livestock is tethered to the side of the road, to feed on the grasses in the public right of way.
Lots of little roadside vendors selling water melons, dried shrimp, tamales, and lots of stuff I could never identify.
At one point, I stopped for a grilled corn on the cob. I parked my bike on the shoulder, and when I turned around, it fell over. So, the bike is lying on its side, and when it falls over, both gas caps open up and start belching gas, onto a scalding hot motorcycle. This is not good. I slap the gas caps shut, and then stand the bike up. Apparently, the wind blew it over, and wasn't leaned over enough? It's hard to say. But what pisses me off is that the gas caps opened. I hate that the Pemex people have to pump the gas. Tomorrow, I'll ask them if I can pump the gas, because I'm so pissed at them there are no words.
I'd hoped to get further today, but by the time the sun was setting, I was thoroughly lost in the slums of Tampico. Could not find the beach. Hard to imagine that this urban pollute squalor town has a beach, but finally I see a sign that says "Playa", and I get out to the beach. There's some insanely nice hotel right on the beach and I stop and ask how much it is for the night. 700 pesos, or $77 USD for the night. I'm like..."Uh...yeah...OK...I'm in..." and the guy carried my bag to me room for me.
I'm so tired I could die. Warm shower. Shrimp cocktail and Negro Modelo for dinner. And I'm out for the night.
Additional photos in Extended Entry...
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 28, 2013 at 8:33 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
May 27, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 8: Galveston to South Padre Island
.jpg)
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in the peaceful, border town of South Padre Island, Texas.
Motorcycle Odometer: 1847
Miles driven today; 400
At night, I have to copy all of my photos onto the laptop, archive them onto the Lacie Rugged external drive, uploaded them to my home server using DropBox, etc.
Have to clean the motorcycle visor, charge the Macbook Air, iPhone, camera batteries.
All of this, so that at the end, I'm sort of this little over-organized neurotic rainman type of person, not really an adventurer, per se.
I wake up around 10:00 a.m. and climb out of bed. I have little rituals for when I'm on the road. Lube the chain every morning.
A motorcycle needs gas and oil and chain lube...all of these things to keep it running. But those things don't make the bike go, really. I mean, you can fill up the tank, lube the chain, change the oil and filter, and the bike won't go anywhere, of it's own accord.
The thing that the bike runs on, is pain. And without pain, there would be no reason for the bike.
I tell people that I'm driving to Panama, and most people assume I mean Panama CIty, Florida. Some people don't know that Panama is a country. Still others are aware it's a country, but weren't aware you could drive there.
But thanks to my psychotic ex-gf, I have plenty of pain to make the bike run. Probably, you'll never know what it's like to be out shopping for an engagement ring, and then get home, get in bed, and have your fiance tell you that it's over. Time to hit the road.
I was like..."Uh...what'd I miss?"
But it's fine. It doesn't matter. She gave me the pain that I needed to make the bike run. Enough pain to fuel the bike for thousands of miles. And for this, I am grateful.
In the morning, I get up. I never set an alarm, as I'm not that excited about getting up and getting out of bed. I'm kinda lazy, truth be known.
I decide to drive down the coast for a way, to Freeport, and then sort of wander down to South Padre by dark, if possible. This is sort of how I plan my trips...one day at a time. I'm trying to go about 400 miles per day, which is a lot, but I've got a lot of distance to cover, so driving more and shooting less.
The truth is that the beach on Galveston isn't all that nice. I mean, it's sort of muddy and covered with sea weed and not very white, per se. I mean, the island was hopping like mad. Crazy chics drunk, running through the streets wearing next to nothing. Galveston was insane, but the beach didn't really impress me that much. It was a nice drive, but nothing to write home about.
I end up cutting inland and following US 77 down to South Padre. Stop along the way and pick up a little cigarette-lighter-to-USB adapter, so I can now charge my iphone while I'm driving down the road. Also pick up some oil for the bike. Not clear where I could get an oil filter for it at this point, though.
The funny thing about the police in Texas is that, you pretty much couldn't get them to pull you over if you wanted to. I mean, the speed limits on the roads are insane. Like...we're going down US 77 and the speed limit is 75, and they won't stop you if you're doing 90. So, pretty much you can just drive however fast you want, which is nice.
And for a while, the bike sort of goes away. When you don't have to worry about gas, or cops, or anything, the bike sort of just fades away and I'm just moving through these flat farmlands of South Texas. Really beautiful. Serene. Calm.
And the problem with this is that, pretty soon, you're going 90 mph down the road, and it's hard to even believe that you're on the bike, really. It's not hard to drive a motorcycle. It's fairly simple. What's hard is to stay focused when you're driving 400 miles a day and going 90 miles an hour and there's nothing as far as the eye can see but flat fields, growing corn, or Lord knows what else.
I miss the camaraderie of the open road. Every bike I pass extends a long-armed wave. Well, not every one. I'd say about 85% of them do. And if I wave, and they don't wave back, it doesn't matter. It doesn't bother me. I don't get upset. It's all good. Life on the road is a dream.
And the truth is, I don't mind it. It's true that, I'm alone at night, but I don't really care about this. There's no one screaming at me, telling me over and over what a jackass I am, or explaining to me that, even though we're engaged, somehow it makes sense for them to be dating someone else. All of that nonsense is gone. It's all out the window.
Now, all I have are fields and farms and Memorial Day Flags and kites fluttering in broad Texas skies.
Every time I stop for gas, people ask me who I am. Where am I going. What am I doing. I've taken to giving them my website so that they can follow me. Not that what I'm doing matters. I'm not clear that it does. But people do seem somehow invested in my adventure. I think that this is the curse of being the village idiot. I'm in a situation to do what many people can not. Many people seem inclined to live vicariously though me, and who am I to stop them?
This one guy at a gas station asked me today what I was doing, and when I told him, he said..."Oh...you must be independently wealthy..." and his voice sort of trailed off. And I'm like....dude...this is the cheapest way to travel on earth. I get 40 mpg. I'm sleeping in the cheapest motel rooms imaginable. Like..no...I'm not rich. Not by a long shot. But I'm not living hand-to-mouth, either. So everything is relative, I guess.
As I get further south, the law enforcement picks up noticeably. Whereas you couldn't get pulled over for anything north of Corpus Christie, south of Corpus Christie is a totally different story. Now, there are cops everywhere, pulling over everyone at once. Writing tickets. Playing that little game I hate where they come running up behind you to see if you'll run, and then turning around and going the other way. I don't like this part. This makes me nervous. I don't like the borders. They're always the most terrifying part of the trip. The border towns in Mexico are not good. Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, and Reynaldo. These are all bad bad towns. In Matamoros, they were taking Americans and sacrificing them in some sort of bizarre cult ritual. So, this is a not a place I want to spend any more time than necessary.
Tomorrow, I will get up somewhat early and get across the border into Mexico. I'm not sure how far I'll make it. I'm tentatively shooting for Tuxpan, Mexico tomorrow:
Additional photos in Extended Entry
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 8: Galveston to South Padre Island"
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 27, 2013 at 8:15 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
May 26, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 7: Monticello, MS to Galveston, TX
.JPG)
Update 3: After a warm shower, I'm resting peacefully in a King-sized bed on Galveston Island.
Update 2: i'm at a bar called Float on the seawall at Galveston Island.
Update 1: Im on the road again after a few days in monticello. Currently stuck undwr an overpass on I10 near Tex/La border.
Motorcycle Odometer: 1447
Miles driven today; 400
Plan is tomorrow to drive down into Mexico. I'll cross the border at Matamoros, and then try to head south for a safer town, as Matomoros is probably at least as dangerous as Tijuana.
Here are the 10 most dangerous cities in Mexico.
Here's the state I'm planning on driving through first in Mexico (Tamaulipas):
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5815.html
Tamaulipas: Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Tampico are major cities/travel destinations in Tamaulipas -see map to identify their exact locations: You should defer non-essential travel to the state of Tamaulipas. All USG employees are prohibited from personal travel on Tamaulipas highways outside of Matamoros, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo due to the risks posed by armed robbery and carjacking. USG employees may not frequent casinos and adult entertainment establishments within these cities; and in Matamoros are subject to a midnight to 6 a.m. curfew. Nuevo Laredo has seen an increase in the number of grenade attacks within the past year, particularly against night clubs within city limits. In June 2012, a small car bomb exploded in front of the Nuevo Laredo city hall. Both Matamoros and Ciudad Victoria have experienced grenade attacks in the past year. All travelers should be aware of the risks posed by armed robbery and carjacking on state highways throughout Tamaulipas, particularly on highways and roads outside of urban areas along the northern border. Traveling outside of cities after dark is particularly dangerous. In August 2012 an American family was forced off the road, resulting in one death and several injuries, in an apparent robbery attempt soon after crossing the bridge from Texas into Nuevo Laredo. While no highway routes through Tamaulipas are considered safe, many of the crimes reported to the U.S. Consulate General in Matamoros have taken place along the Matamoros-Tampico highway, particularly around San Fernando and the area north of Tampico.
Additional photos in Extended Entry
Continue reading "Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 7: Monticello, MS to Galveston, TX"
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 26, 2013 at 4:12 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 6
Saturday May 25th, 2013
Miles driven today: 0
Still in Monticello, MS. We go look at engagement rings in Jackson. My fiancee has a nervous breakdown and throws me out of her trailer.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 26, 2013 at 4:10 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 24, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 5
Friday May 24th, 2013
Miles driven today: 0
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly on the banks of the Pearl River in my hometown of Monticello, Mississippi, in the house I grew up in.
OK. Lord God Jesus. I checked the mailbox and I have a passport. I'm outta here. :)
Fiancee tells me that she'll marry me. Then she changes her mind and says she needs more time. Then she changes her mind and says she'll marry me. Thus begins one of the shortest engagements in human history.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 24, 2013 at 10:56 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 4
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 4
Thursday May 23, 2013
Miles driven today: 0
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly on the banks of the Pearl River in my hometown of Monticello, Mississippi, in the house I grew up in.
Still no passport. Called the U.S. Senator from Colorado Mark Udall and asked them to see if they could get a ruling on where my fucking passport is. I got nothing.
My fiancee is out on a date with another man, if you can believe it. And I can't leave the country without a passport, and I'm so pissed I'm about to start killing strangers.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 24, 2013 at 10:51 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 22, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 3: Blytheville, AR to Monticello, MS
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly on the banks of the Pearl River in my hometown of Monticello, Mississippi, in the house I grew up in.
I wake up this morning in Blytheville, Arkansas, on the banks of the Mississippi River. Want to get moving before the afternoon thunderstorms set in.
Last night, I hung up all of my sopping wet clothes, and somehow, this morning, they're completely dry.
So I get back onto I-55 heading south towards Memphis.
As I roll south, I study the thunderstorms forming before me. The eyes seek out the darkest clouds, to tease out the dangers and threats it might harbor. What's likely to come of these clouds, the brain wants to know. Rain? Hail? Lightning.
The brain pushes the eyes hither and yon. Looking for the most menacing part of the storm. Will we have a repeat of the nightmare of yesterday where I
What makes them so ominous? Why is dark such a sinister color? How is it that the brain equates the color black with evil? Why is that?
I get to Memphis, and I know I've got to get down to Monticello today, but I want to check out Memphis, because I have vague memories from watching the ducks climb into the fountain at the Peabody Hotel. But how old was I? Maybe 5 or 6?
So, I'm in Memphis, and I want to check it out. But I also want to beat the thunderstorms and get down into Monticello. And always, this. This is the crucial struggle, I think. To know when to push on, and when to hold back. There's no way to know, of course. Only it comes from within. I decide to turn back and eat lunch in Memphis.
I stumble onto Beale Street, and walk into the first restaurant I find open. The waiter sees that I'm on the road.
"Where ya headed?"
"Panama."
"Panama City, Florida?"
"No. The country of Panama," I clarify. I get this a lot. But I don't mind, of course. It doesn't matter or anything. Nothing really matters, of course.
"I'm trying to get to Monticello today. About an hour south of Jackson," I offer.
"Are you going down Highway 61?"
"I'd like to, but I'm not sure if I have time. I'm worried about the weather."
"Get off the interstate, man. Take 61 down through the delta. They're saying no rain today. It's supposed to be clear."
And this is what I love, of course. I love when locals give me advice on where to ride. I have always wanted to see the Delta and I have never seen it. The attraction is strong. But I don't want to get into Monticello too late, or I'll miss my birthday dinner. Slowly, a plan comes together. Local 463 in Madison, at 7:00 p.m.
So, basically, I just ride like a bat-out-of-hell down I-55 all day to Madison, and I ignore the advice of the waiter, which sucks.
I don't get to see the delta, but when I show up for my birthday party in Madison, everyone is there, and we're all drinking and swapping old war stories. Just a roaring good time, and then we say our goodbyes and I roll down to Monticello, knowing that I have to drive to Panama now, and the only thing stopping me is they have to FedEx me a new passport.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 22, 2013 at 4:28 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
May 21, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 2: Moline, IL to Blytheville, AR
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully on the banks of the Mississippi River in the town of Blytheville, Arkansas.
Miles Driven Today: 414
Total Trip Miles: 514
Stayed on the phone last night for 2 1/2 hours. Didn't wrap up the call until like 2:30 in the morning, I think. Slept in until 9:30 a.m.
Waking up in the morning alone in a motel in a strange town is not an uplifting experience. I don't really like being alone, it's just that no one with any sense wants to be around me, I think.
I lay in bed, wondering if I'm sane. Wondering if I'm going to get married, or if I'm going to Panama. I really don't know. If I had to wager money on it, I'd say i'm going to Panama. And not by choice, mind you.
I think about how odd my life is, bouncing across the planet like a stone skipped across a creek. I don't want to get out of bed. Don't know what happens when I get to Monticello. I really don't.
Crawl out of bed, pack up my gear. Go out into the parking lot. The bike is still there, surprisingly. The problem with this bike is that it's nicer than any bike I've ever owned. Newer. More expensive. More attractive to thieves, I'm sure.
As I'm driving through Peoria, I'm struck by the architecture of some stunning buildings on the town's east side. I want to stop and shoot them, but I'm more concerned about getting down the road, so I just hammer down and head South.
Eventually, I pick up I-55, and this goes within 20 miles of the town I grew up in, so I'm good now. All I have to do is stay on this road and head south.
The problem I'm having is keeping the bike at the right speed. Every time I look down, I'm doing 90 mph in a 70 mph zone. I have a little trick on my speedometer that I learned from Doug a few years ago. It's called a "cramp buster"...essentially, a little piece of plastic that wraps around your throttle and provides a flat piece of plastic that you can rest your palm on. Your palm is then essentially the throttle, so if you get it adjusted properly, you can ride whatever speed you like without hardly even touching the handle bars. This is way better than holding the throttle wide open all day with your hand.
After I've driven about 50 miles, I get pulled over by the Illinois State Police. I'm pretty much in a panic, as it's not like I have insurance or registration or any of that stuff. But, essentially, the cop is upset because I drove past him when he was parked on the right shoulder without moving over into the far left lane.
"What kind of motorcycle is this?"
"It's a KTM 990 Adventure."
"Is it new?"
"Well, it's a 2010, but it's never been out of the showroom before. I just bought it yesterday," I offer.
"Can I see your driver's license, please?" he asks.
I give him my license.
"Do have any firearms or any weapons on you?"
"No sir."
"And can I see your proof of insurance and registration, also?"
This is the tough part. I'm sure I don't have any of those things. I pretend like I'm looking for them in my wallet.
"Why don't you take off your helmet, and come back here and have a seat in the car," he offers politely.
So I go back and start to get in the back seat. Like, this sucks, but I know the drill. I don't like where this is going.
"Front seat. Front seat," he suggests.
That's way better, of course. So now, I'm sitting in the front seat. I stop pretending to dig through my wallet. I pull out a piece of meaningless paper and hold it, against the bottom of my wallet, as though it's something relevant.
He calls in my driver's license.
"What were you arrested for in Colorado?" he asks.
"Ah, they found a loaded weapon in my console and got all excited. But it's not illegal. I have an attorney. My court date is June 28th."
"Why did they arrest you if it wasn't illegal?"
"You know how cops are. They can't stand for people to own guns," I replied. And this is true. It's no different than the way he asked me if I had any firearms when he stopped me. Cops don't give a Tinker's Damn about the law. They don't want the citizens to be armed. And if they have to break the law to confiscate them, then so be it.
The cop is actually pretty nice as far as cops go. He gives me a written warning, and we talk about the changing laws in Colorado and Illinois. Apparently, they're about to legalize pot in Illinois. And he's hoping that the judges will really enforce the law properly, because some judges just throw it out if it's related to pot, apparently.
The system is kinda funny because what happens is that the police are always bringing people into the judge to see how much revenue they can get out of them. But then, if the judges just throw out the cases, then the pigs don't make any money.
So, the pigs sit out in the median of I-55 on a fishing expedition of sorts. They chase down people that are speeding, write them citations, and search their cars to see if they can find anything else that will get them bonus money in front of a judge. It's a racket.
A wall of clouds forms as I'm rolling south in I-55. It looks like I'm riding into a monsoon. But I don't want to stop prematurely, and I feel like if I keep going, I might can skirt the front of the storm.
I roll south and then, at St Louis, Missouri, we cross over the Mississippi River for the first time, so I'm now on the west side of the river in the state of Missouri.
This is sort of a prototypical late afternoon thunderstorm system, I think. These form over the middle of the country nearly every day in the summer. I want to get in as many miles as practicable today. I'd like to get to Memphis, if possible.
So, I drive south all day, stopping every 120 miles for gas. Finally, I get outside of Blytheville, Arkansas and the bottom drops out of the clouds. They're dark and they stretch from horizon to horizon so I pull up under a bridge. It's raining so hard, and the wind is blowing so hard, that I leave the bike and climb up under the shoulder of the overpass to the very highest point to get out of the monsoon.
Thunder, lightning, pouring rain. I sit and wait it out, surfing the internet on my iPhone. About 30 minutes later, it's let up enough that I start out again, south on I-55 as always. But 10 miles down the road it's pouring again, so I decide to call it a day.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 21, 2013 at 6:09 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 20, 2013
Postcards from Nowhere: Peoria to Panama - Day 1: Moline to Peoria
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly in the farmlands of Peoria, Illinois.
Miles Driven Today: 100
Total Trip Miles: 100
Somehow, my neighbor and I figured out we were both flying to Chicago today. So we carpooled to the airport. The TSA got all excited about my Givi motorcycle case. They called me out at the gate and told me I'd have to come back and unlock the case. I told them they could keep it, as I didn't want to miss my flight. I'm not clear really if the case would even mount onto the KTM. All it had in it was some tools, fix-a-flat, motor oil, etc.
Nothing that can't be replaced. The main thing is to get onto the bike and get rolling. That's the real thing. That's the plan. Everything else can be picked up along the way.
So we fly to Midway. I rent a car on the plane, a one way rental from Midway to Moline, Illinois. At Midway, we meet her daughter, and then go our separate ways. I follow Google Maps on my cell phone and find my way from Midway to Moline, Illinois. So far, so good.
I find the little motorcycle dealership, and walk in. I've been texting them throughout the day to let them know I'm on my way. I end up rolling in at about 5:30 p.m. They close at 6:00 p.m.
"Nick, I finally came to get my bike, man!" I bought the silly thing back in December, and I've just been trying to find the time to get out here and pick it up. Now, I'm finally here. I look around the shop, hoping to spy my magic beast. Finally, I see the lovely glowing orange beast out back. They're leading it out of a corral of motorcycles like a prized horse.
I look at the bike, and I have no clue. I know zero about it. So they start laying it all out for me. It's a liquid-cooled, fuel-injected 990cc twin five-speed, with front and rear disc brakes, ABS, and a digital dashboard. Insanely nice. Way better than any bike I've ever owned. Zero miles on the speedometer. It's a brand new 2010 that's never touched the road before.
I'm outside, admiring the beast. Picking pieces of plastic from the new chain. Fresh tire nipples. 0.0 miles on the odometer.
This bike is a thing of beauty.
We check the oil. It's full. And with that, I'm off. Top off the gas at a Shell station. It has two gas caps, and I have to fill each tank for reasons that still aren't clear to me yet. But I fill up both tanks and take off down the road, following I-74 towards Peoria, Illinois. This seems like the most direct path at this point. I'm just trying to get some miles on the bike on Day 1. Trying to get somewhere down the road at least.
I pull onto the road, trying to get the feel of the bike. I pass a highway patrol and he turns on his blue lights and I look down. I'm going 85 in a 65 and I'm like "Shit. That didn't take long."
But the pig never turns around to come after me, for whatever reason.
The problem is that the bike is so smooth, it doesn't feel like it's going 100mph. It feels like it's going 65. But I look down and, instead of 65, I'm going 95. So, I have to sort of get used to the feel of the bike. It has almost zero vibration. A small fairing breaks the wind, so I'm not nearly as beaten by the wind as I was on the XR.
They installed a little wrist-throttle type of contraption, like the one Doug showed me in Alaska. I'd sort of forgotten about them, but you get tired of holding the throttle wide open for hours at a time, and this little contraption allows you to control the throttle with the palm of your open hand, essentially. Which is way more relaxing.
The weather is bad. Enormous thunderheads rise like malevolent beasts above flat fields. Lightning strikes all around me. Somehow, it's not raining on me. I'm not clear why. I'm heading roughly east. I figured that the storm is moving east also. I nearly chicken out and stop, but I decide that I'll be OK and I just open the throttle and run 90 for a while to try to thread the needle between the thunderheads.
When I'm about 20 miles from Peoria, it starts to rain. I pull over and try to break under an overpass, but the brakes are way different than what I'm used to. Suddenly, I'm aware that the ABS system is activating, so I let up on the brakes a bit, then exit and fill up the tanks with gas. I talk to some other people at the station. They assure me it's raining cats an dogs just a few miles down the road. So, I sit there for a few minutes cooling my heels.
I haven't had a bite to eat all day. I'm tired and thirsty. I have zero rain gear, as the TSA goons have stolen my Givi case, along with my tools, and my rain gear.
But I still want to get to Peoria tonight. I have to get at least 80 miles down the road or I just feel useless.
By the time I roll into Peoria, it's solidly dark. I've driven only 84 miles for the day. But at least the adventure is under way.
Something great is about to happen. I've hedged my bets. Either I'm about to get married, or I'm about to drive a KTM down to Panama. Either way, I'm going to have a great time. :)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 20, 2013 at 7:42 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 17, 2013
SF to Denver: 2013 - Day 3
Wake up this morning in Ely, Nevada. In theory, I'm supposed to pick up Jennifer from school today, but that doesn't seem terribly likely, as she's 650 miles away and I'm the the Nevada desert on a dirt bike.
I remember the towns of Tonopah and Ely Nevada from when I passed through this same way 18 months ago. The towns are laid out slightly differently than I recall, but memory isn't perfect, is it?
I serviced the bike last night....it's good to go. Topped off with gas and oil. It's leaking oil like a sythe, so I make a habit of checking the oil every time I fill up. The leak is serious enough that it shouldn't be all that difficult to locate, but I'm too lazy and it's easy enough just to carry a quart and add some when it gets low, which I do.
I check out of the no-tell motel, and the desk clear says the forecast calls for rain. I'm checking out at about 9:00 a.m. which is pretty good for me. I hate the idea of riding a motorcycle in the rain. I mean, yeah, it's part of it, but it's not fun, by any stretch of the imagination. And it's not like I have decent rain gear. I've got Dri-Ducks, which are about as cheap of raingear as you can find. The wind rips them into ribbons on the bike.
He says he's from "Persia". I'm like..."Iran?"
Yes. That's what he means, of course. He says the Shah that got run off in 1979 wasn't such a bad guy. Now, it's run by religious zealots, which is no better, apparently. The northern and central part of his country is apparently green, not desert. This surprises me.
I return my key and walk to my bike in the parking lot. As I do, an old man pulls up in a rusted import. The doors have holes rusted nearly through them. Tires about to pop. Seats held together with duct tape. It's pretty clear that he's living in this thing, though I'm not sure why he's in the motel parking lot, if that's the case. Baggy jeans. Shoes cracked and worn. Threadbare shirt.
And I think about Carrie. I think how nice it would be to find someone you could live with and grow old together with. Because, if I don't find someone that I can tolerate, then I'm afraid that I'm going to be this guy.
Blow out of Ely, not real sure where I'm heading. General plan is to follow US 50 East to I-70, and then take I-70 home.
A short while later, I'm at the Utah state line. I pull over to take a picture. This is also where the time zone changes. I remember this gas station from the last trip. There's a guy on a bike there. A big Yamaha cruiser. Little older than me, with white hair, getting gas, talking on his cell phone.
I want to see if he'll take a picture of me at the Utah state line, so I pull up and we start talking, and he's a really good guy. Just one of those cool people you meet on bikes on the road. The kind of person that makes going on the road fun, instead of a long, desperate dry race across the desert.
I tell him about the trip I'm on now...and how Carrie figured out I wasn't taking the most direct path from SF to Denver and was upset for some reason.
"Why would you want to take the most direct route? Who would want to do that?"
"Exactly! That's what I thought, right? I mean, the whole trip doesn't make any sense. I mean, flying from Denver to SF to drive a dirt bike back that's only worth $1,500.00 doesn't make any sense to begin with. It's just an excuse to get out in the desert and clear your head, right?"
"Of course! Exactly!"
Now, we're fist-bumping like old friends. He's a real character this guy.
We talk about some of the road trips we've done. We both with down the Baja peninsula in Mexico, but he got on the ferry which I could never swing since I entered the country illegally. Doh!
I tell him about my upcoming trip to Panama and beg him to come with me, but I think the timing isn't right.
So we decide to ride together for a while. When US 6 and US 50 split, we'll go our separate ways, be we agree to ride through the desert for a spell.
I'm not sure that I have enough gas to make to it the next town, but we strike out anyway. Sure enough, my bike dies in the middle of nowhere. I reach down to switch it onto reserve, but it's already on reserve. So, I've got to do my trick and lean the bike over, to get the gas to drain from the right side of the tank to the left side.
David circles back and checks on me. I explain that I have to switch to the "reserve tank", and proceed to lay the bike down on its side. I stand it back up, it fires right up, and we ride on into town.
The parts of Nevada that I've crossed are just scrub-lands surrounded by mountain ranges. A never-ending series of 15 mile desert bowls surrounded by low mountains.
The desert is nice, it's own way. The air is clear. No smog. You don't have to worry about running into any large animals because, to my knowledge, there are none.
But Utah is much different. When we cross Utah, suddenly everything is green. The land is all irrigated, and they're growing crops of lord knows what but it smells heavenly.
All of the motorcycles that pass us wave, and this is the camaraderie that I miss. You get on a bike, and you're in the club. It makes no difference. Harleys. BMW's. Honda. Yamaha. All are alike on the road. Everyone gets a wave.
I don't have a map or anything. And Google Maps is next to useless since they updated it. Finally, I just give up and follow the signs towards US 50.
It threatens to rain on me a few times. I get rained on very lightly about 3 or 4 times. But the clouds never looked that intimidating, so I just kept driving, and then the rain would always stop just as soon as it had started.
I end up on Interstate 15 North for about 3 exits, then back onto the two-lane black tops through the Utah mountains. When I descend into the next valley, I recognize it as the valley that I-70 runs through. Hop onto I-70 heading East.
I don't really like riding on the interstate, of course, but I'm got to make better time. I'm not sure where I'll spend the night. The furthest I've ever gone in a single day is like 500 miles. And then I nearly crashed I was so tired.
But today, I want to see how far I can get. I've been holding the throttle wide open all day. I'm thinking I should be able to make it into Colorado today...drive all the way across Utah, and then at least get into Colorado. Then I think I'll try to Glenwood Springs instead of Grand Junction, and once I leave Glenwood Springs, I just decide I'm going all the way home.
As I climb up the summit of Vail pass, the temperature drops drastically, and I start shivering uncontrollably. On the other side, I race down as fast as possible, trying to get out of the cold.
Lake Dillon is all dried up. Just a series of disconnected small ponds. Zack had told me this, but I didn't believe him.
Down to Silverthorne, now climbing back up to the Eisenhower Tunnel. At the summit, I'm freezing again. Uncontrollable whole-body spasms. Sun is setting fast. Temperature dropping. In the tunnel, I'm running 100 mph, just trying to get back down off this crazy mountain. Racing downhill wide open past Loveland, Georgtown, Idaho Springs. Finally, I warm up enough at Idaho Springs that I think I might survive the night.
Now, I just have to follow the backroads home in the dark, dodging elk, deer, foxes, coyotes, etc. Somehow, I make it home in one piece.
My legs are so tired I can hardly stand. My back is killing me. Jen says she's down for the night, so I'll pick her up in the morning.
Somehow, on Sunday, I've got to convince myself to start my next ride from Illinois to Panama. Ugh..
Miles traveled today: 650 miles
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 17, 2013 at 10:04 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 16, 2013
SF to Denver: 2013 - Day 2
I am alive and well and resting quietly in the town of Ely, Nevada.
Miles driven today (odometer): 29,015.9 - 28,619 = 396.9 miles
In the morning, I leave Groveland, California and follow 120 into Yosemite. I'd forgotten about all of the lime-green moss on the trees.
I was last here in September of 2011, so that was about 21 months ago. But there are large sections of the park that I don't really remember.
It's hard to understand how large Yosemite Park is. I drive and drive and there's nothing but forrests and mountains and lakes. Hardly anyone is in the park yet, as school isn't out.
Tioga Pass opened last Saturday, so I figure I'll run over Tioga Pass. When I first catch a glimpse of the pass, however, I'm stunned. White snow-capped peaks, and it's snowing.
What I failed to realize is that if they opened the pass 6 days ago, odds are it's going to be freezing cold. As we climb toward the pass, the temperature keeps dropping until finally I stop and put on everything I have, which isn't a lot. Three t-shirts, a cotton shirt, two thin rain jackets, and a leather jacket. Put it all on.
Then I resume climbing up Tioga Pass. The elevation of the pass is approx 10,000 ft above sea level. At the peak, it's snowing. It's so cold I'm shivering uncontrollably.
As I roll down the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the trees disappear and now it's this barren desert. At the bottom of the hill, the dramatic Mono Lake, and I stop for gas and lunch in Lee Vining. South 5 miles to 120 East, and 60 miles later I cross the Nevada state line, a cattle gap, if you can believe it.
Basically, Nevada is a barren desert. The Great American Desert. Although, I don't ever see a lot of bare earth. It's more like grass lands or sage brush. Not so much cactus and dirt.
There's pretty much zero traffic on the road. Long, ten-mile straight stretches of road cross flat bowls surrounded by low mountain ranges.
The landscape is beautiful, but vast. I have to get home to Jennifer, so I open the throttle and just hang on. The bike runs about 95 mph top-end on level ground. I don't know what the speed limit is. I don't really care.
I just hold the throttle wide open for hours. My wrist hurts. Shoulder hurts. Back hurts.
As I drive, I think about Carrie and me. I'm not sure what happens now. She left me. She's dating some new guy now. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. So I think about if I could get her back, and if it would work out if we did get back together.
This is what the desert does to you. It gives you time to think about complicated things. Sort of like if you dropped a piece of granite into a hand-crank cranberry grinder. If you have a tough problem to work out, driving across the desert is a good way to free up some time to think.
At some point last night, Carrie figured out that I'm not necessarily taking the shortest route back to Denver. She's upset because to her, it seems like, somehow, I'm trying to trick her. But that's not what's going on. The whole trip doesn't make any sense. I mean, the bike is worth maybe $1,500.00. To fly to California and drive it back to Denver is, at best, a break even proposition. The bike is just an excuse to drive across the country. "I've got to drive it back to Denver," doesn't really make any sense. It's just an excuse to clear my head, obviously.
I stop for gas again in Tonopah, Nevada.
It's 180 miles to the next town of Ely, Nevada. I have plenty of daylight, so I want to keep driving. Try to put up some good miles today. I'm hoping that there's a place to get gas before Ely, though, because 180 miles will be at the upper limit of the distance I can go on my bike. 30 miles outside of Tonopah, I pass a gas station. The signs seem to indicate another town before Ely. So, I pass the gas station.
Halfway to Ely, I'm so tired that I start to hallucinate. I see cars that aren't there. I see my own rear-view mirrors and get startled by them. I see things moving in the road that I can't understand. Nothing lives out here that's any bigger than a rabbit. Finally, I realize I'm seeing giant tumbleweeds rolling across the road.
But, when my trip meter gets to 143 miles, I switch over to the reserve tank. I'm still 37 miles outside of Ely, Nevada, in a barren wasteland. On this stretch of road, there are no other cars. This is not good. I switch over to reserve and keep driving, but I'm freaking out, of course.
I have some gatorade, and some cherries, but I won't live long out here in the desert. No cell coverage. No other vehicles.
I've been calculating my gas mileage at every fill-up on this trip. It varies from 43 down to 37 depending on how fast I'm going, how hard the wind is blowing, etc.
I do some quick numbers. My estimate is that the reserve tank is only 0.6 gallons. If I only have .6 gallons left, at 37 mpg, I'll only be able to go another 20 miles, tops. That means I'll run out of gas in the desert before I get to Ely. This is going to suck in a big way.
I drive until the engine dies, 9.5 miles further down the road. Now my trip meter is at 152.5 miles. I'm still 27.5 miles outside of Ely, Nevada, stranded in the desert. But now, I remember the last time this happened. I ran out of gas in the Owyhee Desert in Idaho, and later, in the office, I did some calculations, and decided that the gas tank still had gas in it, but it's on the other side of the tank. I have to lean the bike on it's side to get the gas over to the left side of the tank so it can flow into the carburetor. In theory.
I open the gas tank. Sure enough. There's plenty of gas, it's just on the right-hand side of the tank. I lay the bike over on the left side. The gas flows to the other side of the tank. I stand it back up. It fires right up, and I drive into Ely on fumes.
When I fill up the tank, it hold 4.58 gallons, meaning I had .02 gallons left in a 4.6 gallon tank. I decide to crash for the night. I'm exhausted.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 16, 2013 at 7:59 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 15, 2013
SF to Denver: 2013
Last Philly Cheestake at Busters
Update: I am alive and well and resting quietly at the north entrance to Yosemite, in Groveland, California.
Spent the day working on bike like mad. New front brakes. Changed oil. Lubed chain. Found out frame was broken. Welded frame. Reinstalled rear rack.
Reinstalled Givi case. Finally taped down the rear rack as one nut is stripped.
Changing the oil
One grain of sand will ruin the engine. Why doesn't our government see this. They open the borders and import muslim terrorists, criminals, illegal immigrants. And thing how well your engine would run if you threw a handful of sand in there? Not good. So stop importing these grains of sand.
Also, I installed my license plate. Now, this is an interesting lie. That you have to have a license plate. Why is this? It's to generate revenue. Because, surely, I've driven through this city for years as a truly free citizen. If you want to see what freedom feels like, it's terrifying. Pull your plates off your car and drive around for a while.
Suddenly, the red light cameras have no power over you anymore. Now, make no mistake. The red-light cameras were not put in to make the intersections. It's well documented that the traffic accidents increase when they are installed. This is not open to debate. It's a documented fact. Their goal is to make money off of you, not to make you safer.
You can run the red lights with impunity. You become something close to free. But, you are treated like a terrorist.
Now, you think that we have to have these things or civilization would break down. But that's not the case.
In fact, take the case of illegal immigrants. They're allowed in the country. They're not deported. They don't file income tax returns. They can't be turned away from the hospitals. They can't be deported. They don't have drivers licenses. And they don't go to jail.
Same is true of the homeless. The homeless people cannot go to jail, regardless of what they do. They smoke weed in the streets, litter, cuss, scream, shout, and shit in public. But they never go to jail. The reason is because they don't have any assets. The goal of the government is to a) stay out of the paper and b) liberate your assets from you.
At the start of a trip, the first thing you have to do is take inventory. Things that you have, and aren't aware of, you don't have. Things you think you have, but don't have, you don't have.
So, it's very important to figure out what you have at the start of a trip.
Get into Groveland, California at about 7:30 p.m. or so. Check into the same place I stayed last time.
Run back a mile down the road or so to a gas station. The front end has been acting sqirrelly all day. Check the pressure in the front tire and it's so low it doesn't even register.
It's a state law in California that they have to give you free water and air if you ask. So I tell her to turn on the pumps. Pump up the front tire to 30 psi.
Swing back to the Iron Horse Bar, the oldest bar in California.
Start pounding Stellas.
Miles driven today (odometer): 28,619 - 28,429 = 190 miles
Miles driven today (GPS): 167
Max Speed: 84.4
Total Ascent: 9,979
Max Elevation: 3,069
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 15, 2013 at 9:40 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 2, 2013
SF Train
I'm on a plane at altitude heading east across the Great American Desert. They don't call it that any more, but that's what it is. You can see it on the old maps if you care to look.
The guy in front of me is a royal jackass. He keeps putting his feet underneath his own seat, where my feet are supposed to go. He puts his feet on that little bar so his heels are way into my space and I push them off with my toes several times until I'm sure I'm going to have to garrote him like John Benet Ramsey.
They come around for drink orders, so I drop down the middle seat tray table. The middle seat is empty because I put the tray table down and my cameras in the seat when everyone was boarding. But now, the guy beside me decides that it's his private tray table so he puts his dead tree newspaper on it and I'm furious but I don't say anything. I just push it away when my drinks come so I don't have to deal with it.
Now, the moron decides to stand up in the aisle. The idiot just stands up in the aisle, and stares at me, as we fly across the country. Why do I get all of the freaks? Why the fuck is that. Finally, I can take it no more, so I start taking pictures of him. This stupid idiot standing in the aisle beside his chair and staring at me as we fly across North America. The fucking jackass.
Finally, I think that he's about as uncomfortable with me taking photos of him as I am of him standing there and staring at me like a serial killer, so we reach a sort of detente, and he sits back down.
Now, when we ordered, I ordered a cup of ice and a can of Diet Coke. He says "I'll have a Diet Coke also," thinking he'll get the same thing as me. But he's an idiot.
When she comes, of course, she brings me a cup of ice and a can of Diet Coke. She hands him a little plastic cup with ice and Diet Coke in it, which he quickly gulps down.
Now, as we fly across the continent, he's trying to drink what's in his cup, only there's nothing there, save what ice has melted since the last time he tried this two minutes ago. So, for this, I am grateful.
Finally, he gets up to go to the bathroom. When he does, the flying waitress comes by to take our trash. I quickly take everything on the table and give it to her to throw away. I shove his newspaper into the seat back in front of his chair and lift of the tray table. He comes back, and he's furious. He promptly lowers the tray table, and fetches his newspaper from the seatback. Only he's already read it. We both know this. He's reading a book now. So, it's meaningless for him to put the newspaper back on the tray table. We both realize this.
He's foaming at the mouth, but he finally relents and puts the newspaper back into the seatback pocket where I'd shoved it.
He promptly put his DejaBlue waterbottle back on the tray table to re-assert his dominance over the tray table.
At this point, the jackass in front of me realized that his seat would recline. We've been in the air for two hours, but it finally occurs to him, so he rocks back onto my laptop and tries to crush the screen on my MacBook Air but I'm able to keep him from destroying it completely.
Now, another idiot decides he needs to stretch his legs. This tall bald white psychotic stork start stalking up and down the length of the aircraft, I shit you not. Looks like he's John Cleese doing the "funny walk" up and down the aisle. Finally, the gay flying waitress at the front of the plane decides he's had enough and he tells everyone to find their seats because we're about to enter some turbulence, which isn't true, of course. But causes the idiots to all find their seats anyway.
The idiot beside me actually turns in his seat to face me while he's reading his book. So, I want to reach over and choke him out. Push his adams apple in until it touches the back of this throat sealing his air vent. Who in the fuck turns sideways in their chair on an airplane?
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 2, 2013 at 12:15 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
February 26, 2013
Calling Autumn
.jpg)
Every day I wander into work. The starting point end point never change, but there are an infinite number of paths between the two points, assuming you're not in a rush.
I meander through the streets of San Francisco, perpetually amazed and mesmerized by the activity in the city-hive. Today, I wander down along Stockton Street, then off into the less familiar, bifurcating alleys and back alleys of Chinatown.
I stop into the Mee Mee Bakery to ask about some cookies they make there. Somehow, my iphone has been recording my conversation to send a text message. It thinks I said "Calling Autumn..." for whatever reason.
I wander on, shooting. Always shooting. Shooting.
I recognize the works of many of the artists that tag the city. But none of the people. The crazy denizens of Chinatown spit and stamp and wave their arms, and who knows what drives them?
They're setting up the Falun Gong propaganda stand in Portsmouth Square.
Eventually, I wander over to Montgomery, and try to keep up with the lights. They timed it so that if I walk at a reasonable pace, I never have to wait for the light to cross. But I tend to linger and shoot too much, so I'm always racing into traffic as the light changes, with countless cameras around my neck.
I cross Market street and, a block from work, I see my buddy digging through the recycle bins. Like, he's full-on into it, no different than the chinamen in chinatown. They're hawking chicken feet and fortune cookies. He's rooting through the recycle bins for all he's worth, grinning like a possum eating yellow-jackets.
I'm spotted my buddy. I can't believe my luck. Very nervous now. Don't want to screw this up. All of the planning has come to this. I turn away and root through my wallet for a $5.00 bill. White dove hands extract one out and fold it away into nothing in my palm. It's cleverly concealed now. No one sees it. No one will know. I think about what I'll say to him.
Continue reading "Calling Autumn"
Posted by Rob Kiser on February 26, 2013 at 1:40 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
February 6, 2013
Walkn n
2012-11-17
Flying In
I leave work at 2:30 a.m. The bars are all closed.
They fixed my bike today but I never got by to pick it up. Its raining anyway. BART doesnt run this early, so I schedule for a cab to pick me up at 4:30 a.m.
I close my eyes and try to sleep. An hour later the phone rings. My cab is outside.
I only closed my eyes for an hour. From 3:00 am to 4:00 am.
I pray for a swift death.
The city is dark at 4:30 am. Sound asleep.
Meth addicts rest in cardboard nests among the city's storefronts.
A homeless reef of drug addled delelicts.
A night-whore coughs and stumbles through the night on tall heels in skimpy dress.
Heading home to try to forget how hollow she feels.
At the gate, I plead for a better seat. Please for the love of god...dont make me fly across the continent in a middle seat.
Can I have 8F?
We have to charge you for the upgade.
How much?
$49.
Done.
But she prints my new boarding pass and doesnt charge me anything.
We pack like sardines into this aluminum tube and secrertly rub rabbits feet
Praying to the travel gods for mercy
The interior of the plane is 195 degrees.
Sweltering, we melt like cotton candy in the rain.
"Will you help in the event of an emergency?" the orange-haired flying waitress wants to know.
This pearl rests on her lips.
She wants to know if I'll help in an emergency. But I'll be no good to her or anyone else once we take off, I'll be in a coma.
Outside the rain makes puddles on the tarmac with little gasoline rainbows.
Soaking wet people that can't afford to travel climb up into the belly of the jet on a conveyor to pilfer a few items from the unsuspecting passengers.
Loading suitcases of the traveling class at night in a rainstorm must be about as bad as it gets.
There is nothing but this. This dark wet night that found San Francisco and wrapped her up like a pig in a blanket.
This wet night needs the city. She's here of her own volition.
A yellow raincoat tests his red flashlights.
Waves them around and watches for the pilot to need him.
Takn off.
Posted by Rob Kiser on February 6, 2013 at 8:13 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
December 17, 2012
Wheelies in the Rain
Wheelies in the Rain
I'm sliding down the wet street on my ass at 25 mph in a light, but steady rain. It's times like this that you wish you had insurance. Or a license plate. Or something on my feet beside my leather work shoes. The street is grinding away at the steel on my bike as we slide along together, a pretzel of steel and flesh and I'm sliding down the street for so long that I begin to wonder if I'll ever come to a stop anyway, when the curb finds me and snaps be back to reality with a sudden burst of adrenaline and pain.
But I should back up a bit....
I spend my days at work in a crucible of pain. Â A private hell I've carefully constructed over the years. Â I bounce back and forth between SF, Denver, and Jackson, MS like a ping-pong ball in a dryer. Â
But no matter where I go, my work finds me. Â I creeps into my house in Colorado. Â Finds me in my dreams. Â Pulls me wide awake into a nightmarish panic from a safe nap in a different time zone.
This is my life. Â My own private hell. Â Last week, I was so covered up that I honestly didn't have 5 hours to fly to SF so I stayed home. Â No one said anything. Â No one cares. Â Only the work has to be done. Â That is the pain that pulls at me like I'm swinging by my hair over a dark abyss.
My father was here. Â This is his mind prison also. Â He is here with me, in spirit, if not in body. Â He couldn't make the river rise and he tried and tried until he finally cracked like a hazlenut and we went to visit him infrequently and no one talked about him because that was the polite thing to do.
Now, I have to go into work and on a rainy day, you can walk or ride the bike and I don't have an umbrella but I can get there quicker on the bike. Â We solved a math problem in college where we tried to figure out if it was smarter to go wide open or slow. Â I can't remember the solution, but the bike is a release for me. Â A way to funnel the adrenaline into something somewhat tangential to work.
At work, I type gently on a keyboard and get manicures on a fairly regular basis.
But the bike is an outlet of a different kind. Â It speaks to something primal. Â Something deep inside the brain that needs to get out finds a release in the bike.
The bike likes to ride on one wheel. Â This has precious little to do with me. I am a victim as much as anything. Â Strangers on the street know that the bike has so much power that it will rise up like a stallion on steroids.
They see me in the street and make hand signs - an imaginary set of handlebars rises up in their pantomime. Â
It's merely common courtesy to ride a wheelie and, the more often you do it, the easier it gets. Â The better you get, the more wreckless you drive. Â This downward spiral is something that sucks in the amatures until they end up in a stephen hawking approved scooter operated by blowing in a tube.
No one that's ever ridden with me would say I was a good driver. Â Crazy maybe. Â Insane. Â But not good. Â The good bikers I run into on the open road are always castigating me for my reckless driving.
I've wrecked a lot of times. Â This isn't my first time at the rodeo. Â I've been dwon many times. Â They say there's two kinds of motorcycle riders...those that have gone down and those that will go down.
I've wrecked plenty of times. Â Enough times that, when I ride, I wear boots, a leather jacket, gloves, and a helmet. Â It's not a lot, but it's better than plenty of people you see out there on the road. Â You see those morons riding around in shorts and t-shirts wearing flipflops and riding without a helmet. Â That's not me.
That's not how I roll. Â When I get on the bike, I wear some riding gear. Â Less than some, but more than others. Â Somewhere in the middle.
They say the generals are always ready to fight the last war, and this isn't my first skirmish. Â This isn't my first time at the rodeo.
Now, maybe when I'm riding a wheelie, I should keep my right foot on the rear brake. Â The right handbrake on the front tire is as useless as tits on a bull when the front tire is five feet off the ground.
But the right foot brake will work, if you can get your foot on it. Â But when you're riding the bike like a stallion, your foot isn't really over the rear brake lever any more, truth be known. Â So, the best thing to do is not go over backwards. Â As that would suck.
Now, I ride a wheelie every time I'm on my bike because that part of your brain that says "nah...better not do that" doesn't work on me. Â It was disabled at birth.
And, when I am riding a wheelie, you do think about going down. Â That would suck. Â I mean, it's hard to think about. Â And I know it's crazy to ride wheelies. Â In the rain. Â And I know it would suck to go down. Â And I think about it...my cameras all crashing to the ground around me....10 grand worth of Canon gear crashing into the street and severing my spinal cord with a nylon Canon noose.
But you try to push those thoughts into the back of your mind, and go ahead an ride the wheelies anyway because, fuck? AmIrite? Â We're all going to die one day. Â You loafers on the couch. Â Joggers. Smokers. Â Vegans. Â We all die. There's only one way out.
So, that's sort of the ultimate rationaliation. Â And, as Brian told me, "You can rationalize anything." Â That debilitation tidbit he dropped on me has had a more profound impact on my actions than any philosophy course or book I ever took or read.
But there it is.
It is out there.
We all must die. Â Life is short. Â Play hard.
Now, on my way into work, I don't play well with others. Â I don't like the little people darting through the crosswalk against the light. Â And they do. Â Tapping their stupid little iPhones, they strut into the crosswalk like they own the fucking streets, and, when I'm walking, I do the same thing. Â I'll walk in front of a bus or a screaming firetruck. It makes not difference to me. Fuck 'em all.
But, when I'm on the bike, by God you'd best not be in my crosswalk. Â So, I stand the bike up and come roaring throug the crosswalk. Â The pedestrians scatter before me like minnows parting before a barracuda.
I have the light, mind you. Â Now, by the time I get there, it's turned red, but so be it. Â At the next light, I ride up to the front of the queue and pull squarely in front of a taxi. Â I learned this maneuver. Â If you don't get in front of them, they'll try to run you off the line and knock you over int he process. Â So, if you get squarely in front of them, they'll have to run slap over you, and most people don't have the balls to do that. Â
So, I'm at the front of the queue in front of a taxi and the light turns green and I wind it up and ride a wheelie all the way through first gear. Â Now, it's true that I don't ride a wheelie balanced properly. Â I have to keep accelerating to keep the bike up....so when I wind out first gear, I just lift it up into second and never let off the gas. Â I've done this many times before. Â No clutch necessary.
But this time, it comes over on me and, in the blink of an eye, I'm sliding down the street at about 20-30 mph.
All my worst fears are realized as I tumble from the bike into the street and now, I'm sliding down the street on my ass thinking...wow..this is going to suck.
A few things go through my mind as I'm sliding down the wet asphalt street on my ass.  First, I hope I don't hit anyone else and I wish I had car insurnace.  That's the first thought.  Then, I think how fortunate I am that I don't have my cameras to smash into the street, strangle me, paralyze me, or worse.  Now, it occurs to me that I've been sliding for a long time and I wonder when I'll stop sliding.  And my  thoughts go back to the last time I was sliding down the street wondering when I would stop.
That time, I was in New Orleans and I was rolling down the street after I got knocked squarely off my bike and, about the time I was wondering when I'd stop rolling, I hit a telephone pole with my chest.
But this time, I slide into the curb and come to an abrupt halt. Â People come rushing up to me, certain that I've met my maker. Â I rise, like a phoenix from the ashes. Â I wiggle my arms and legs and realize, incredulously, that I'm more or less OK. Â My right hand hurts. And there's a lot of material missing from the right glove. Â But mostly, I'm just embarrassed. Â I try to stand up the bike, but fail. Â Then, I take a second stab at it, getting more leverage this time. Â The bike rises up. Â The rear tail light is hanging down by the rear turn signals. Â The bike starts in an instant. Â I hop on it, and ride it, shell-shocked into work.
At work, I take stock of myself. I tore a hole in the back pocket of my bluejeans when I slid on my wallet. Right right glove is mangled. Miraculously, the hand is not. I have a slight blood blister on my right fourth finger. Probably it got pinched between the bike and the street when it came over. My shoes are scratched up. My backpack is slightly scratched up.
I walk into work, like a zombie. No way I'm telling these people what happened. I mean, how dumb can one person be?
JB takes one looke at me and, sensing something, say "How dangerous is it to ride that thing int he rain?"
"Ah...it's not that bad. You just have to be realllll careful."
.
Continue reading "Wheelies in the Rain"
Posted by Rob Kiser on December 17, 2012 at 10:16 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 5, 2012
Walking In - 10/02/12
10/02/12
Walking in
Clear sunny warm. Sqwawking parrots and crying babies. Kids drug off to squander their lives in daycare
Bright yellow birds pick at purple flowers. Sea lions bark at Fishermans Wharf. Tourists pose for shots before the golden gate bridge.
Eucalyptus leaves expire on the sidewalk
A spider weaves her web and waits patiently for breakfast
I pause at the crown of the crown of the Marchant Gardens on the Filbert Steps of Telegraph Hill
A surreal cacophany of bickering hummingbirds, parrots and sea lions in a bottlebrush garden of lantana roses and limes
Bees and german tourists and ivy climbing wrought iron lamps
I study the Angel's Trumpet to see how it unfolds
A sailboat drags a little dingy through the calm bay
Cosmos and japanese maples and vines raining violent bougainvilliea petals onto the sidewalk
And now, the Grace Marchant gardens
Pink Angels trumpet and date palms. Tree ferns and purple agapanthus
Patient shaded spiders in silk hammocks
Redwood heart stepping stones
Wooden handrails worn smooth on shaded wooden staircase and ridiculous women in heels clumping up to the sky
Fuchsia and lemon trees with grapefruit-sized lemons
New Guinea Impatiens and a basket tied to a tree
Boxes of free books at Napier Lane
Books on Kathmandu and Nepalese phrasebook
Bee-sized birds tear away at princess flowers and bicker with the hummingbirds
Chinese tourists stutter over ferns and hydrangeas
A garden kitty with a jinglebell collar to warn the birds
But finally im at the bottom of Telegraph Hill and busy streets and traffic and trash
Purple pansies
Sansome Street and i walk faster so i can get to work before noon
I think about the problems at work and turn over solutions and my mind
Broadway and sweating girls all in white and those boots that make u want to eat ur hands
Fading stickers on neglected city fixtures
Beeping buses and squealing brakes
Car horns
People babbling in foreign tongues
Vans deliver crates of wine as glass collectors haul trainloads of empty bottles away
Now the fresh bakery scents
The kitchens ready for the lunch rush
Prepping cheese and salads behind glass curtains
At work
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 5, 2012 at 12:03 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 4, 2012
Walking In - 10/4/12
10/4/12
Walkn n
A note on my motorbike this morning. Is it a ticket? No. Painting to begin next week. Scooters must be moved.
Kids crying. Kids dancing. Off to daycare for the lot of them.
Finally I see why the camera fell.
The carabiner metal is worn and grooved and set up vibrations that caused the bolt to work loose. It must be replaced.
Gardeners came yesterday and trimmed the hummgbirds favorite perches from the tree.
Every day I see new flowers I've never seen before.
I remove the headphones to listen for the chirping birds.
The fog rolled and last night and brushed away summer like a pesky moth.
And now Laurel, the black garden kitty of Napier Lane. She lets me pet her but she's not overly affectionate.
Not as many birds today. Probably they spied the immature Red-tailed hawk up on the hill. Escorted in by the crows.
They say that everything you need will come to you in the city. Or maybe I just made that up.
Now the financial district. Hydrangeas and Fortnight Lilies.
At work.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2012 at 11:54 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Flying In / Walking home - 10/22/12
10/22/12
Flying In
I think about my bike at SFO in short-term parking. I don't have my rain gear on it because I don't have my Givi case on it because my aftermarket rear-fender rack broke. I went and had it repaired, but I haven't gotten around to reinstalling it just yet. So, no rack. No case. No rain-gear.RAK 10/22 9:05:30 AM At 5:30 a.m. the alarm clock pulls me in from some insane dream that I can't recall. I awake alone in an enormous house. Toss some things into a suitcase and I'm rolling to the airport. I know that the flight will be late. It's raining in San Francisco. After a 6 month drought, the rains have finally found us.
As I'm walking through the metal-detector, the TSA terrorist cuts me off and demands to see my photo ID.
I just stare at him blankly. Like..."dude...I do this every week. Y'all never ask for my id at this point."
That's what my eyes say, but my mouth doesn't move.
I'm just too stunned. Too shocked. I know the drill. This isn't part of it.
Annoyed, he motions me aside and I realize that he's addressing the guy behind me.
The young man behind me is wearing the standard urban-camo U.S. Army uniform.
And he's demanding some ID from the guy. Which is funny. I mean...what are the implications of that?
Is it illegal to dress like a soldier? I don't think so.
I've heard of impersonating a police officer.
But never heard of impersonating a soldier before.
We're delayed due to fog, of course. And when we finally board, an enormous man sits down in the middle seat beside me. Thumbs the size of sausages.
Somehow, he wedges himself between the armrests. I have my seat fully reclined because I just learned about the "Knee Defender" this weekend. Knee Defender is a product that you can buy online. Essentially a little lock and key that you attach to the seat in front of you so the guy can't lean his seat back.
I have my seat fully reclined the second my ass hits the seat. I'm going to get the drop on the bastards. If they try to lock my seat, I will murder them.
The flying waitress goose-steps up and down the aisle, searching for infractions. Anyone using an iPhone is flogged mercilessly.
There is no risk from these devices.
It's all just a charade. "Security Theater". Just a display for the fatted calves. Those aren't blades. All is well. Go back to sleep, citizens.There are no Federal Air Marshals on this flight. I checked when I boarded. Just an illusion. A lie to sell to the housewives so they feel like they've truly traded their freedom/privacy for security. But they've traded their freedom and privacy for nothing.
We take off and land at SFO. The rain is gone. It's clear and sunny as I drive into work and park in alley behind my office.
This time is different though. This time, a dickhole comes up to me when I park.
"Who are you?" he asks.
"Who are you?" I reply.
"You can't driver here," he explains.
"If you don't like the way I drive, get off the sidewalk," I offer.
"Look...This is private property,' he explains, as he draws an imaginary line with his toe across the cement sidewalk."
"So? Who are you to care?" I ask.
"I live here. The noise these motorcycles disturbs the occupants."
I just look at him. "I'm sure," I laugh.
"You can't leave this here," he whines.
"Do what you're going to do, dude." I offer as I turn and walk away.
He follows me to my office building, but they won't let him in. Won't tell him who I am.
They are good friends. We talk every day. They lie and tell him they've never seen me before.
He is a volcano. And my bike has no plates.
Walkn home
At night, the homeless take over.
Like rats, they bed down on cold concrete sidewalks, wrapping themselves in filthy rags, papers, cardboard.
Anything goes.
Survival is the name of the game.
Worker bees pressure-wash the sidewalks as the occasional office worker scurries for safety of a garage, a warm bar or restaurant.
At California Street, the underground cable snaps and grinds, pulling cable-cars across the city's hills.
Always at the bends in the streets - where the slope changers - they make the most delicious racket.
The homeless, shivering in wet socks, carefully weave their cardboard castles.
I study the leaves of the Red Gum trees and wonder how long they can last.
Fall is Fall and its approaching. It can't be steered away or torn asunder.
This is this.
I duck into an empty pakistani restaurant for a Chicken Vindaloo dinner.
A woman wails in a language I've never heard before.
A sign says "Gulab Jamun $1.99", but I'm not sure if that's a good deal or not.
I have no idea what a Gulab Jamun is.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2012 at 11:29 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking In - 10/23/12
Walkn n
Soaking wet streets from the first real rain.
Squawking parrots and children stumbling into school late.
Sidewalk flower-boxes and Ficus trees.
Purple Melaleuca.
New Guinea Impatiens.
School kids stomp loudly down steep sidewalks,
Past the Fog Hill Market.
Someone cleans out their closet and tosses their clothes onto the sidewalk.
Last night, the mad gardeners came to the Vallejo steps and pruned the gardens fiercely with machetes and packed their remains tightly into biodegradable bags for collection.
The residents fall into the gardens with stunning Bay Bridge views reading books in the mornings magic.
Tourists gawk and stare and think, 'Who lives here?'
But I'm a tourist also. Only passing through.
Now at Broadway, a girl walks by with a book on Thailand and only now do I see SF for what it is - the gateway to the Orient.
Now, the Bottlebrushes of Montgomery Street.
And their hummingbird guardians.
A bicyclist rides by wearing the largest chain man has ever known.
An broken, ancient, oriental man scurries by, crablike, inspecting bags of trash as he passes.
A business fails and the jackhammers fall upon it, like a Hummingbird on a Bottlebrush.
Capitalism moves every failed business quietly into the hands of a new owner.
Now the financial districts and people walking by talking business deals into cell phones.
I wonder why I wasn't more successful. I try to rationalize it - to externalize the guilt.
This rationalization exercise is a well-worn path. Trodden into deep trenches by the slackers , the stoners, the Dimocrats.
Now, the tall buildings of the banks. Universally despised, by capitalists and commies alike.
These are the warts that the commies want to remove on 'Day One' of the revolution.
This is where it will start.
Not the buildings, per se, but the organizations will be remanded, repealed, and redacted.
Part of something. All of nothing.
I'm at work
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2012 at 11:04 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
The Teeth-Grinding Soliloquy
10/3/12
The last two days have been insufferably hot. Those rare days where even San Francisco is too hot for a couple of days. This is the highlite of the summer. It's summer's Magnum Opus.
And now, the temperature drops again and I'm sitting on market street watching the leaves fall from the trees. E tu, brute?
The city ruins everything it touches.
I see a woman sitting on a bench along market street and I sit down beside her. I get hot walking in, no matter what the temperature is.
I sit down beside her to cool down.
She's got a lot of luggage. More than she should have. And I'm studying her closely, trying to figure out if she's homeless or not. She's talking like she's on a speaker phone, and waving a cell phone around.
But I'm not sure she's sane. I strongly suspect that this is a soliloqy, not a conversation. A mad diatribe.
She's wearing light blue knock-off Uggs. Black pants. Grey shirt. Light blue baseball cap. Cheap white plastic shades. Has a cheap silver ring on her fourth finger.
She's talking and going on and on and never stops for the other person in the conversation to get a word in edgewise. But there are people who talk like this. Who just go on and on without ever stopping to gauge the interested of the listener. Maybe she has a bluetooth earpiece and is getting some feedback that I'm missing.
Or maybe she's as crazy as a bat.
I study the boots. They're starting to fray at the toe. Her hair is up in a ponytail.
I think about myself, as I'm sitting here trying to figure out if she's a freshly minted homeless soul. Some part of me wants to discover that she's started on the descent into homelessness. I don't know why this is. Schadenfruede? I can't be sure.
She turns and spits in my direction. She's definitely homeless. I don't know how I could have thought otherwise.
And now, I think about her. Like, I tend to think, wrongly or otherwise, that I have control of my environment. Maybe I'm delusional, but as I see the world around me, I imagine that I could imact it. Change it. Have an effect on it. I could open a store right there, or change the bus routes by petitioning the city.
But here's this person, ranting insanely, sitting on a park bench It's hard to imagine how she sees the world, but it must be markedly different that how I see it.
Yesterday, I watched a homeless man push a stolen generator down the sidewalks of Market Street. Shirtless, back covered in tattoos, missing half of his teeth, he pushed the enormous stolen Husky generator down the sidewalk, sloshing gas along the sidewalks as he went.
"You got you a generator, huh bud?" I ask.
He stops briefly.
"Yeah, but I gotta take it down here..." and his voice trailed off as he started again on his journey to nowhere.
I wondered where a homeless person would go with a stolen generator, and I followed him for about a block before I lost interest.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2012 at 8:17 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Terminal 2
10/25/12
Terminal 2
My alarm goes off. Parking meter is expired. So I leave work and go to my bike, parked on th e street. If they write me a ticket, it will be $100 for not having a license plate. I've got a few of those this year. But it's an investment. Money well spent. I've been parking in the alley behind work up until Monday. On Monday, I rolled up the alley and parked in my normal spot when some fresh young dickhole came up and asked me why I was parking there.
"You can't park here!" he exclaimed. "This is private property!" he imagined, as he drew an imaginary line along the cement with his toe. Just an angry fool. Another Obama-lover that feels empty and meaningless unless he's bossing other people around. Unhappy with his on lot in life, he feels the need to control things beyond his control, which leaves him frustrated and unhinged.
He stared at the bike, panting like a rabid squirrel. He walked around behind the bike, noticing that it had no license plates to record. No indication of who I was. I am anonymous. May as well have on a Guy Fawkes mask.
"Who ARE you?" he asks.
"Who are YOU???" I retorted.
"Dude. I live here. I'm a resident in this building. And I...WE...are all greatly disturbed by the noise these motorcycles make driving through the alley!" he blurted.
Obviously, a lie. I drive my motorcycle very carefully through the alley. I know I'm not supposed to be there. It's clearly a pedestrian pathway. People are walking around me as I drive my motorcycle, ever so slowly and carefully, up to my spot and park it. You could not hear the engine if you were inside the building. It wouldn't be possible.
Slowly, I removed my helmet. I stood staring at the exasperated little man, writhing around like a worm caught out on the sidewalk after a spring rain.
"Do what you're going to do, bud," I offered. Then I turned my back on him and walked away.
He followed me, which I figured he would. But he doesn't have the access to even get into the building that I work in. He stopped at the security guards, good friends of mine. People I've talked to every day for nearly a year now.
"Who is that man? Do you know who he is?" he blurted to the security guards.
"No sir," they lied. "We do not know him."
But I came out and moved the bike shortly afterward, because I knew the little worm would call and have it towed. He was clearly unhinged. When a man is that far off of center, you generally don't want to mess with them any more that absolutely necessary. I'd pushed him to his limit. The game was over now.
So, today, when I rode in my bike, I parked on the street. That's why I parked here, on the street. Anxiously, I approached the bike...did I get a ticket? Did I get a ticket?
No ticket!!! Woohoo!!!
As I'm getting ready to leave, a woman pulls up on a motorcycle. Now, women generally don't drive motorcycles. Those that try, usually crash and then stop riding, either because they're dead, or they learned their lesson. But somehow, this woman is on a big cruiser bike and for some reason, she decides to park in the space immediately next to me. So, we bump handlebars as I'm leaving. Like..woman...seriously...wtf? Why would you park RIGHT next to me when the spot one place over is vacant? Use your brain, chick! Ugh!!!
So I leave. I'm crazy late for my flight to the airport so I pick it up on one wheel and go down market for about a block, pedestrians scattering before me like sinners before the 4 horses of the apocolypse.
There's not much traffic because it's only like 1:00 in the afternoon, so I'm flying through traffic going about 85. I have no idea what the speed limit is. I'm weaving through traffic like a rock star.
Get to the airport, and the taxis are all backed up like crazy, which wouldn't affect most people, but I use the taxi entrance to get into short term parking because my motorcycle won't trigger the arm to go up that controls access to the short term parking lot.
So, I'm weaving through this interminable line of taxis and take a little shortcut inside the garage which requires me to go the wrong way down the street for a short distance of about 50 yards.
Park at my usual spot, race inside, but the lines are insane. I tell the woman I'm going to miss my flight, and skip to the front of the line, although she protests and claims I don't have "permission", whatever that means.
Hand the boarding pass to the TSA agen and he's like..."Dude...you're in the wrong terminal."
FUck. Fuck. Fuck.
I always fly out of Terminal 1, but today, I'm flying on American out of Terminal 2. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Turn around and race down to Terminal 2 where the lines are uneblievably long. I tell her I'm going to miss my flight, but, she doesn't care. A TSA agent comes through the crowd with a wheelchair, ducking and weaving under all of the little ropes that cordon people off into livestock-style chutes.
I just duck and follow him. Like he and I are traveling together. Following right right up to the very front of the line and stand behind him, planning my next move. Am I truly handicapped? Am I going to miss my flight? Am I with him or not? The brain is racing but not sure what to do.
The TSA agent at the podium looks at me and says..."Did someone send you here?" he asks.
"Yes." I lie flatly.
He just waves for me to approach him. Hand him my boarding pass and passport. He checks it. Asks me my name. I tell him and he waves me through. Now, I grab some bins and cut ahead of some women on the conveyor belt that feeds into the maul of the X-Ray machines.
They're falling all over themselves. Snorting and protesting and scoffing that someone would cut in front of them. I wouldn't normally do this, but they're so slow and so clueless. Just as dumb as sheep. So I cut in front of them and endure their insults and jeers. If they protest enough, I'm going to turn to them and say "settle down. you're going to be ok", but their protests never rise to the point I feel requires me to respond to them verbally.
Only when I get to the gate do I remember that my flight is delayed. Now, of course, I'm worried about my connection in Dallas. If we're too late, then I'll miss my connection and be stranded in the middle of the country. But eventually, they let us board.
I'm in 23F on the window, and this guy is in 23E. But when someone comes and confronts him, he panics.
"I'm in 23E," the man offers.
The idiot beside me looks at the arm rest between us which is clearly labeled 23E.
"He's in 23E," the man beside me replies, pointing to me.
"No. I'm in 23F," I reply immediately. I point to my arm rest which is clearly labeled 23F.
Eventually, the idiot in 23E realizes he's the one in the wrong seat. He should be in 23B. So, essentially, he's on the wrong side of the aisle. He should be in the middle seat across the aisle. Like...how does a grown man make that mistake?
These people are so painfully stupid.
We take off and I fall asleep before they even bring the drinks around. When I wake up three hours later, we're landing in Dallas.
Even though we're over an hour late, I still have plenty of time to make my connection because I was scheduled to have a 2 hour layover.
I get to the gate and we board the flight. A little Embraer.
The people here are all flying to Jackson, and now things are different. Now, you feel like you're in someone's living room.
Now, we're on the plane getting ready to take off...but it's for Jackson, right? So it's like..."Your cousin is Julie Smith? She's in our church. There every sunday. Let me get your emails address..."
His wife was Carol..my wife is the oldest daughter of Julie...
They're all piecing together the quilt. The fabric that weaves us all together. Her daughter was Julie's 3rd cousin.
Hilarious. Just like over dinner tables in Monticello.
Not that so much that it's funny to see people piecing together "who do you know...and how are we related..."
this is standard dinner table conversation in the Mississippi pine forests but farrrr removed from conversations in the city.
In the city, everyone is a stranger and no one speaks. You learn not to even make eye contact. But in the country, everyone knows everyone else and if you don't step up and confess who your related to right off, there's gonna be trouble.
Mississippi is small and polite. Genteel. Society here is a tightly knit fabric.
The city is a nightmare of random strangers showing up in a bar and saying "Hi, handsome. I'm ready to go home."
One man says it's the first time he's flown.
The old man beside me somehow doesn't grasp the concept that the armrests on either side of him are not exclusively his. He sits like he's in his own private chair at the dinner table.
Eventually, I elbow him enough that he begins to understand how the "shared armrest" concept works. Either we can jockey for elbow room the entire flight to Jackson, or we can both remove our elbows from the arm rest and enjoy a sort of detente, akin to the armistice signed between Best Korea and South Korean. They are still technically at war, they just agrees to cease hostilites.
He starts coughing and wheezing and sneezing and blowing phlegm all over the plane. It's flights like this that make me question my own sanity. He's blowing snot into a rag and rocking back and forth. O Christ why doesn't someone get him committed into an old folks home so that normal people won't have to suffer through his fits?
Today is not a great travel day, but Monday was so much worse. On Monday, the jackass tried to leave me in the parking lot. It's the same stunt he's pulled before. I park my car. They hand me a slip, and when I turn to unplug the iphone charger from the cigarette lighter so iit won't drain my battery, the fucking bastard pulls away and leaves me, which is not a good start to a Monday.
So this time, I run him down and dog cuss his ass good and take my seat on the shuttle bus.
As soon as I get to the airport, I get the announcement that my flight is delayed. It's raining and foggy in San Francisco, which sucks because I don't have my Givi case on my bike and I don't have my rain gear because it goes in the case and we've already mentioned the case I think.
So, I'm looking forward to a delayed drive into work through the rain which is going to suck.
When we finally get to SFO, we land, but there's a plane at our gate, so we sit on the tarmac for another half hour. Finally, we get to the gate and I rush to get on my motorcycle.
The bike is really my one true joy. I love riding the bike through the city. it's a much needed adrenaline rush. Dangerous as hell, of course. But not something I could live without.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2012 at 8:13 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking in - 10/24/12
10/24/12
Walking In:
Another solid rain last night. I lay in bed listening to the rain fall on North Beach.
Up Filbert Street. Down Kearney Street. Very cool this morning.
Up Union Street. The rains really pounded the New Guinea Impatiens and the Trumpet vines last night.
And now down the Montgomery Street steps.
Green Street ends in a little dead end full of Jags and Beamers and private bay-view patios behind sharpened steel spiked fences and...I get it, OK?
I understand the allure of class warfare.
But the reality is there will always be people who are better off than you are.
But there will always be people who are worse off also. And if we chant "Eat the Rich!" and shut down the banks and tax the job creators to the hilt,
then we're left with nothing to show for it but bloodied hands and the economy of Paraguay.
I pass through the shadow of the tallest building in the city. Shredder trucks drive up and grind documents the world will never know into mulch.
The guards stand before the banks, defending them just the way we didnt defend our embassy in Libya.
Inside the Bank of Guam, bright red Calla Lillies behind tempered glass.
And the truth is that the city hardens you like the sidewalks.
Sharpens you like a whetstone, 'till you shine like a rich neighbor's fence.
And you learn not to say 'Hello' to people on the street. Learn to avoid the seeking gaze of the downtrodden.
Gradually, I come to realize that the lights on Montgomery Street are timed perfectly as I walk along such that I never have to break stride. I can walk the length of Montgomery Street without stopping a single time.
A homeless guy with a double baby stroller and a car jack.
They tried to get rid of the Occupy protesters. Fenced them out from their encampment and power-washed the sidewalks until they shined as new.
But the Occupy protesters just moved down to Montgomery and Market, as persistent as fire ants.
I ask they flower lady if it hurts business and she says 'Yes. Please. Call the city. Every little bit helps.'
Grant's pipe shop on Market has gone out of business.
At Portico, they're getting ready for the lunch rush as homeless cough up phlegm onto the sidewalks.
The smell of fresh hobo feces in the morning are as I cross Market.
Impatiens and Asparagus Ferns and Fuscias and a few tenacious Fox Gloves.
I'm at work.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2012 at 8:06 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
October 15, 2012
Walking In
Pobrecito
On Thursday night, the city slips away behind you in the night fading off to port. Night lights fading into a fuzzied fog.
A weekend asleep in bed where nothing move and nothing breathes. A new kitten to replace the old kitten. The kitten sees the truck as "the machine that moves buildings". It pulls the buildings past us as the kitten is locked safely away in a small box. This is how the kitten sees things.
But now, somehow, I awake in the darkness and we're landing in some city. Maybe it's San Francisco. I stumble down the aisle and, seconds later, I'm racing up the 101 towards the city. Now deep fog and can't see. The road splits and I have to go right or left in the darkness. Fog and mist and dark and confusion and normally I go left but this time I break right and now I'm rolling down Kearney Street.
In the city, you sort of forget what is there. You forget what there is. But now the city lights pull it all back into a soft wet focus. The headlight and the street lights paint old broken negroes onto the city sidewalks. Crumpled up beggars and meth addicts and opportunistic theives scour the city as crabs scour the oceans' floors.
I can't know what to do. Can't make sense of this illusion. Hard to believe that this is real. That anything matters. Somehow, I've got to take a knife and carve an existence out of this space.
The 49'ers lost. The Giants lost. North Beach is a ghost town and I turn up Green Street and ride a wheelie for a block or so. Just so everyone knows I'm back. But no one cares.
450 7th Street
At Amante, I learn that the city has stolen Rico's motorcycle, the same way they stole my car earlier this year. Once they get their mitts on it, it's gone.
The goal of the city is to pry assets away from anyone unfortunate enough to start a company and succeed.
They cower behind 5" walls of plexiglass and charge $198.00 a day for storage fees. They laugh at the people they fuck. I've seen them. They don't care. They do not. They steal the cars and raffle them off every Thursday. Rico's machine is gone. The way my car is gone. We both know this.
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 15, 2012 at 11:19 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
September 20, 2012
Walking in - 9/10/12
9/10
Walkn in
I watched the parrots of Telegraph Hill again and tried to figure out where he lived.
Princess Flowers and Roses and Agapanthus and a mailwoman delivering mail in a heavily tagged mail truck
Clear and sunny with a chance of Nirvana
Coit Tower was built during the Great Depression with land donated by Hitchcock Coit
I try to imagine the hill without the tower
I try to imagine getting approval to build it today
I find a garden kitty
As the water fills the sea
I recognize the power lines above the Greenwich steps from the movie
He definitely was on Greenwich Street, not Filbert Street
My calves tremble as I descend slowly
Into the shattered car window streets
The television was invented here in 1927 by the genius of Green Street
Across Broadway and downhill into the cool shadows of financial district towers
People stretching out in suits leaning hard into brick buildings
One of the cameras dies and I could kick myself for not charging the batteries last night
61 F. Another scorcher
A line of politely lined motorcycles and you could walk down a line of them and touch every bike you ever owned
Downtown, the winds die down and the flags won't fly
Its like Obama took the wind out of America's sails
We need an ad for Romney that says 'America - we're open for business'
And shows people turning around signs from closed to open
And dead flags fluttering back to life
I'm at work :)
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 20, 2012 at 12:44 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking in - 9/11/12
In the morning, the racket of countless conures...the Parrots of Telegraph Hill
The bells of Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral
I now know they are recordings, but still haunting
This is where Joe Dimagio married Marilyn Monroe
Walk past my motorcycle in the alley and how sad that it is there waiting on me
But I have no time for the bike today
Fresh young tires with nipples still to rub off
Down Grant Street and up Filbert Street as the sidewalks turn into steps
Countless stairs climbing to the sun in one of the most vibrant neighborhoods outside of NYC
A lady descends the stairs smoking a cigarette. Is she exercising or doing a Tuesday morning 'walk of shame'?
At Coit Tower, dripping wet sidewalks and Chinese doing their peculiar little exercise rituals
In the shade of Monterrey Cypress knolls of Telegraph Hill
Now down down down narrow Greenwich Steps cool shade and still I can see the poor housewife jogging up the stairs with a kettle bell and at the top her personal trainer points down and makes her trot down and do it all over again
Embarcadero tugboats and traffic streaming into the city on the top level of the Bay Bridge
I just missed Ted Kipping
http://www.treeshapers.com/aboutus.html
A worker bee rests in the shade collapsed on the sidewalk only his cigarette betrays his existence
Only it is the thing that keeps him alive it is what he lives for
Only a T-shirt today and still sweating on my walk in
Im shooting Melaleuca in Levi's plaza and I get run out of the plaza for having a "professional camera"
Try to explain that I'm not a photographer and only walkinh to work, but still he runs me off
Suddenly it dawns on me today is September 11th. That's why he ran me off
Now in shaded financial center and I wonder why some buildings are taller than others
I pause to shoot a homeless guy and "The Architect's Kitchen" rolls by.
I'm at work
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 20, 2012 at 12:40 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking in 9/17/12
Walkn n
Parrots squawking wake me up this morning.
A string of toddlers stumbles down steep sidewalks each clutching onto a fluffy ring on the chain
Eucalyptus trees and cool breeze and I'm on my little path into work
T-shirt weather today and climbing the roadside steps of Union Street.
Coit Tower is open
Ugly people kiss awkwardly in the sunlight
The dying cancer patients are wheeled past stunning Depression-era murals in the tower
Workers carry buckets of paint up insane crumbling staircases and power-wash ancient stone patios
They care for the grounds but they don't care about the grounds
They rake the purple Princess Flowers into neat piles devoid of pride and ambition
Just the indifference of tending a millionaire's grounds
He could be out here barking orders over the leaf blowers but he isn't
These gardens are to me a blessing and a curse
A curse because they are so beautiful but so difficult to capture
And it's not just me
Every idiot with an SLR is sort of laughing and shaking their heads, but not shooting
Ansel Adams said landscape photography is the ultimate challenge and often the ultimate disappointment
New Guinea Impatiens and a tourist taking flower photos with a flash
"Storms make trees take deeper roots"
German tourists shoot hummingbirds in the shade
I'm bleeding from vine-ripened blackberries
Finally I identify the flat where The Parrots of Telegraph Hill was filmed
But its nothing special. Just a modest little flat hidden by the mad gardens
Food trucks line Sansome Street and now the slow decline into financial district
Chicago brick of Jackson Street
People eating lunch in the park behind the TransAmerica pyramid
The most perfect air conditioner in the world
Feels like you're standing on Mount Evans but breathing the air from Havana
A girl with long, bright-orange hair
A homeless man with Santa Claus hair and a bright blue lollipop
Shoes ground down as only the homeless can manage
A worker-bee in a black suit guards a subterranean lift
Carrying supplies to dark people in dark cellars
A jackass on an insanely loud Harley and that's why ill never own one.
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 20, 2012 at 12:00 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
September 19, 2012
Walkin In - 9/18/12
Walkn n
Cool and cloudy with a chance of protesters
Climbing the Filbert Street steps
At home the heater is running but I'm climbing Telegraph Hill in a T-shirt
Today I'll go down the Filbert Steps
Finally a photo of a Cherry-headed Conure
Always the ripest berries are just out of reach
We picked them in summer fields as kids but the thorns seem sharper somehow
It dawns on me that i will never know these gardens. There are too many cats and birds and flowers
The police are tying off the parking meters for something tomorrow
Cop lies n says he doesn't know why
More hippie occupy protests? I ask
Who knows? It will get a lot crazier soon' he offers
A pigeon works the sidewalks of California Street
The message they painted on Battery Street is gone. Must have been water-based paint.
Dirty Hippies were very well organized. They shut down Battery Street and served a free meal.
Walkn home
Its dark and cold and not many people on the streets
I don't like it when people walk too close behind me and I keep stopping and doubling back to get them off my tail
You can't live in Stockton and stay the same person.
Wagering on the homeless takes something away from you
As the tides wash the sands from the beaches
On Sutter Street, the homeless gather cardboard and free newspapers as the cold night settles in.
A homeless woman crawls from her cardboard home and starts harassing me.
She pulls a chain from her pocket and starts threatening to beat me with the chain.
And then starts filming me with a cell phone. Which is sort of a surprise to me. Not that I mind, of course . I'm not doing anything.
But you have to wonder how someone who's sleeping in a cardboard box can afford a cell phone bill
She doesn't like that I'm standing here...
She summons one of her homeless friends from the next storefront/carboard home down the street.
"The dudes just standing there," he explains. "He's not doing nuthing. If you're so bothered by him then get in your box."
There's no battle to be fought here.
I think about the mesmerizing complexity of the Gardens of Telegraph Hill
So many flowers you could never learn them all.
I think about the parrott man and his Cherry-headed Conures.
No one cared about the birds. They fell into this little niche.
Birders saw them as an invasive species. A nusiance. But this drifter tuned them in and studied them.
And through his lens the world discovered them. How whimsical.
I wish there was something I could show the world. Something more than arcane lines of computer code.
Home
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 19, 2012 at 11:35 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking Home
Walkn home 9/18/12
On Sutter Street, the homeless gather cardboad and free newspapers as the cold night settles in.
A homeless woman crawls from her cardboard homes and starts harassing me.
She doesn't like that i'm standing here...
If you're so bothered by him then get in your box.
The dudes just standing there.
Theres no battle to be fought here.
She pulls a chain from her pocket and starts threatening to beat me with the chain.
And then starts filming me with a cell phone. Which is soft of a surprise to me. Not that i mind, of course . Im not doing anything.
But you have to wonder how someone whos sleeping in a cardboard box can afford a cell phone bill
Its dark and cold and not many people on the streets
I dont like it when people walk do close behind me n i keep stopping n doubling to get them off my tail
You cant live in Stockton and stay the same person.
Wagering on the homeless takes something away from you
As the tides wash the sands from the beaches
I think about the mesmerizing complexity of thegardens of telegraph hill
So many flowers you could never learn them all.
I think about the parrott man and his cherry headed conures. No one cared about the birds. They fell into this little niche. Birders saw them as an invasive species. A nusiuance. But this drifter tuned them in and studied them.
And through his leens the world discovered them. How whimsical.
I wish there was something i could show the world. Something more than arcane lines of computer code.
Home
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 19, 2012 at 10:41 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
September 14, 2012
The Devil's Maw
Alfred A. Arraj United States Courthouse
The Devil's Maw
As I get closer the building, it dawns on me where I'm going. Â I'm walking into the same federal courthouse where they tried Tim McVeigh, the lunatic that blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City back in 1995. Â I know because I was here in Denver when they tried him the next year.
I was living in a hotel in downtown Denver right across from the court hours when all the feds came rolling in to prosecute that wretch. Â One night, I came home from work and they had all my belongings out on the sidewalk out in front of the Holtz on one of those rolling clothes caddies the bellman push through hotel lobbies.
"Dude...wtf?"
"Sorry, bro. Â The feds came in and took all of our rooms. Â We charge them higher rates, so you're on the street."
"Of course they pay higher rates. Â It's not their money!"
But that was it and they tried McVeigh in that building and everyone was deathly afraid there was going to be another fertilizer bomb attack by his compatriots, but that never happened. Â They shipped off McVeigh to Supermax down in Florence to rot away for the rest of his life.
This is absurd, I think as I approach the building. Â It's an absurd abuse of authority for a government to prosecute its own citizens for a moving violation in which there was no crash, no injuries, no damage. Â Just a citizen driving his vehicle down the road. Â To force me to fly from California to Colorado for a court hearing when they only hold court two days a month is Kafkaesque.
The federal court house has those retracting truck barricades designed to prevent citizens that have been pushed too far from taking things a bit further still.
Two federal morons running a metal detector on the front end of fortress. Â I slump through in my camo pants and camo boots. Leather jacket. Â I have a few grand on me in case they start getting really stupid and wanting a cash bond.
My biggest fear is that they've issued a federal warrant for my arrest, and that I've missed my court hearing (I was supposed to be here at 8:30 a.m. and it's 11:00 a.m. now), and that they figure out who I am and that I have a warrant and they decide to "remand" me until the next court hearing, in two weeks.
Now, keep in mind that last night, I was in San Francisco, watching the guy beside me smoke weed openly on the streets. Â But somehow, I'm going to rot away with Tim McVeigh in a federal prison for the crime of driving while free, apparently.
I walk into the court room on the 4th floor and this guy approaches me and hands me a sliver of paper with all my rights on it in a four point font. Â
"If you were here the morning, the judge would have explained your rights to you..."
"I couldn't be here this morning, as I was in California this morning."
"You were in California this morning?" he clarifies.
"That's correct. Â I got here as fast as I could."
He starts explaining my rights and I'm like "I'm well aware of what my rights are, and I'm not waving any of them. Â I'm not pleading guilty to anything. Â I want a jury by a trial of my peers. Â I want an attorney..."
The typical unhinged rambling you'd expect from a middle-aged man in camo on a dirt bike.
"Well, if you were here this morning, the judge would have..."
"Look. Â I told you already that I was in California this morning and I got here as fast as I could. Â I'm fully cognizant of the fact that I am late. Â I got here as quickly as I could and IÂ don't need you to keep rubbing my nose in it."
"Look, Robert. Â You've got me all wrong. Â Would you like to step out of the courtroom and talk?"
So, we step out into a little anteroom. Â The first thing I ask him is "Who are you?"
"I'm Greg Darrell McYurien, the U.S. Prosecuting Attorney. Â I'm filling in for Haley today."
I think about this. Â I know better than to talk to the prosecuting attorney. Â He is the enemy. Â I know that much. Â This is clear. Â I shouldn't admit anything to him. Â Don't talk to the police. Â Don't talk to the prosecuting attorney. Â Don't open your mouth.
"OK. Â Fair enough."
"Look...what happened here? Â You were driving and got some tickets? Three tickets it looks like?"
"Yeah. Â Dude wrote me up for driving my motorcycle with a suspended license, expired plates, and driving 60 in a 45."
"What were you doing in the park? Â They get kind of excited about the plates because they get people driving off-road on dirt bikes with no plates."
"I was driving my bike out to CA."
"What kinda bike?"
"It's an enduro...a Honda..." I offer.
"OK. Â Great. Â I'm a bike guy myself. Â You were driving your enduro from Colorado to California?"
"Yeah. Â I've driven it from Alaska down to Cabo and back, but not all in one trip..."
"Excellent. Â I love that. Â I used to drive a KX400. I've got to get another bike when the kids are all out of school. Â OK. Here's what I'll do for you. Â I'll dismiss this ticket for driving on a suspended license. Â I'll reduce the fines on the two other tickets to $35.00 each...speeding and driving with expired plates...how's that?"
"Will it go on my driving record?"
"No. Â It's a federal park. Â It doesn't get reported to the states."
"Deal. Â Can I pay you in cash?"
"No. Â You have to mail in a check or you can pay it online."
I leave, but before I get in the elevator, I start thinking about the federal warrants for my arrest. Â The problem with the government is that, once something gets set in motion, it's nearly impossible to get it to stop. Â If there's a warrant for my arrest, I've got to have some paperwork to carry around with me to prove that I'm no longer on the lam, but I'll be in the pokey in a different timezone.
So I go back into the court and motion for my buddy to come over.
"Did y'all ever issue a federal warrant for my arrest?"
No one is quite sure on this issue, so he starts working the court, going from the federal Ranger Rick nazis, to the judge, to the court clerk, and finally comes back with a verdict.
"No. Â A warrant was never issued for your arrest. Â If you didn't come in today, we would have issued one."
"Thanks. Â Have a nice life!"
 Â
Â
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 14, 2012 at 1:10 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
August 31, 2012
Walking In - 8/30/12
Cool and sunny.
Today I'll try to climb the stairs of Coit Tower
Trees shed leaves uncertainly
Is this Fall?
No one knows and a city worker sweeps up piles of fallen yellow leaves and purple Bougainvillea petals
A sign says "Please close gate" and beneath that, "Farewell"
Climbing to the sun through cool groves of Monterey Cypress
Thinly poured slabs of sunlight push in between the trees
Deep fried Asians perform calisthenic rituals
Coit tower: "Open 10:00 a.m. Daily" :(
Continue reading "Walking In - 8/30/12"
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 31, 2012 at 6:02 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
Walking In - 8/29/12
When I get to Market and Sansome, a homeless guy that I don't recognize catches my attention
No shirt, dreadlocks, body covered in tattoos,
No socks.
No shoes.
He's wearing underwear on his feet
That's what draws my attention...he's wearing underwear on his feet.
So, I start shooting him from a safe distance with the long lens.
He's digging through one of the free newspaper dispensers, which is not unusual
The homeless routinely use these for lockers, trash cans, drop boxes, etc.
But the underwear on his feet is a sign that cannot be missed.
Continue reading " Walking In - 8/29/12"
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 31, 2012 at 5:55 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
August 26, 2012
Walking In - 8/22/12
The cathedral bells ring 9:00 am and pigeons and crows explode from the bell towers
No foghorns today, sadly
The crows call through thick fog as I pick my way through surreal gardens
the work of the mad gardeners of Telegraph Hill
Juniper, Date Palms, Ficus, and Hydrangeas.
Narrow crumbling wet brick steps and cold steel handrails
Agapanthus, lemon trees, and orange roses.
What's so sad is that I grew up around these plants and never knew and never cared
Fuchsias and banana plants and flowers I used to know
Periwinkles and ivy
Seagulls cry as a tugboat pulls into the Embarcadero
Angels Trumpet and hummingbirds and tarnished workers chatting in Mexican
Above Julius Castle I watch a container ship slip beneath the bay bridge
On his way back to Asia
Continue reading "Walking In - 8/22/12"
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 26, 2012 at 6:16 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking in - 8/21/12
I meet my neighbor Sebastian pulling his laundry through the fog
The only man I ever met that's "from Amsterdam"
No one escapes from that city
I turn to trudge up the stairs to Coit Tower in the cool morning mist
But I turn back to find where the man had a grand mal seizure
and ran his Lincoln into a bar
Magnolias and Fuchsias and skateboarders
North beach citizens peer out into the cold from warm bakery havens
Cops double-park and rush into Trieste for a coffee
The strip clubs get fresh whitewash by Chinese man on a ladder
Pigeons peck at puddles of rubbish on street sides
2 tourists pose for awkward Transamerica shots in cold mayonnaise streets
And suddenly it dawns on me
Tourist season is over!
We have the city to ourselves!
Continue reading "Walking in - 8/21/12"
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 26, 2012 at 6:11 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking In - 8/2/12
Foghorn symphony calls from a lost bay
Flowers I once knew but lost their names in the fog
Lombard street corkscrews down the hill but only one taxi rides down it today
Climbing Telegraph Hill through tortured cypress
Chinese babble in foreign tongues
Descending now on aching calves
Deeply shaded park on crumbling brick staircase
Women struggle uphill past me on trembling calves and tight asses
Angels Trumpet and hummingbirds
Deep shade of foreign trees
Little girls bounce by and say 'morning' with foreign accents
Continue reading "Walking In - 8/2/12"
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 26, 2012 at 6:05 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking In - 8/1/12
Walls of purple Bougainvillea and broad Date Palms
Hydrangeas in white, pink, and purple
Sidewalks turn into stairs and keep climbing up and up towards Coit Tower
Tourists speaking other languages
Now down cool twisting narrow brick staircases in the shade of Monterrey Cyprus
Terraced gardens of ivy and Impatiens
Now the Bay Bridge in late morning haze
Green leafy, vines strangling pines
Cruise ship so close there on the Embarcadero and gulls crying as tugboat struggles to keep it together
Workers lounge beneath the jungle canopy when they should be working
Now, legs quivering I see what I'd suspected all along
I'm in horrible shape
Continue reading "Walking In - 8/1/12"
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 26, 2012 at 6:03 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking In - 07/31/12
At the corner of California and Sansome
Shivering as the sun boils off the morning's fog jacket
Headphones, cameras, iPhone
I'm wearing all these electronics, in tune with the mob,
but somehow isolated and alone all at once
The herd spills into the crosswalk and I don't even look at the lights any more
I've truly become just another bait-fish in the school
Just go with the flow
We push across California
Cable Car cables popping and grinding beneath the city streets
I want to lay down on the road and fall asleep dreaming to the sound
A chef pushes a food cart through the street, bouncing it roughly across the tracks
No one bats an eye
What madness this city conceals.
Continue reading "Walking In - 07/31/12"
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 26, 2012 at 5:59 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Walking in - 7/26/12
City workers huddle over subterranean water meters.
Cold n cloudy with a chance of tourists
Shivering line at Mama's in hats and jackets
Rico on the sidewalk now
"Where were u last night?" he asks
My drinking buddy
"Did u find your keyboard?" he continues.
"No."
"You had it when you left. You put it in your pants."
"I know i know but i cannot find it now."
Continue reading "Walking in - 7/26/12"
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 26, 2012 at 5:54 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 25, 2012
Walking In - 7/25/12
Tourists set up the shot of the Beatles walking thru the crosswalk
Barking in German
Tourists shoot the mural at Columbus and Broadway
A random corner sticker with ducks and Nofowl.com
"If at first you dont succeed, call an airstike" - Banksy - Columbus and Broadway, 2012
The Broadway tunnel vomits neat streams of cars from the east portal
they rain down upon us hapless victims
We swarm into broad cool cloudy streets
wondering what's it all for anyway
Broken old Chinese men on the wrong side of Columbus
A block over on Montgomery you could hear a pin drop
Rows of naked bolts protrude into the air starving for painted toes in open shoes
The useful underclass struts to work in a timeless pigeon parade
To slave away in obscurity.
Why?
No one can say
Continue reading "Walking In - 7/25/12"
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 25, 2012 at 1:32 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 18, 2012
Walking In (7/10/12 - 7/18/12)
I walk to work these days, instead of riding the motorcycle. I mean, it's fun riding wheelies through the financial district, terrorizing the pedestrians, and getting tickets and all. But walking provides a more intimate view of San Francisco.
As I walk to work, I've recently been texting Carrie, and she encouraged to write, describing to her what I saw on the way. So, these are a compilation of text message that I sent to her recently, as I was wandering through the city, mainly while on my way to work.
So, if you want to look over my shoulder as I walk into work, feel free. :)
7/18/12
Chinese carpenters rebuild a basement next door
Acetylene and oxygen canisters roll into the basement for the pipe-fitters
Our ice-cream market is closed this morning
Line forms at Mama's as they mow Washington Square and rip the sidewalks open with enormous concrete saws
A homeless man sleeps on a bench by a shopping cart full of trash
Asians do the synchronized Calisthenics in the park as i wander aimlessly through these city streets trying to make sense where none can be found
Continue reading "Walking In (7/10/12 - 7/18/12)"
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 18, 2012 at 12:58 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
August 28, 2011
The Lesson of the Three-Legged Coon
.jpg)
I sit around here watching the Long Way Round with a coon trap in the kitchen so big you can't imagine. I mean, it's three feet long and we all walk around it and pretend like it's not there. But it's there. I can smell the coons when they walk into the house. They stink like h3ll and Timmy's afraid to go near his own food. He hides in the study with me, scared for his life.
A reasonable question might be, "Why, exactly, do you have wild raccoons in your house?" The answer is that they come in through the cat doors.
A reasonable follow-up question might be, "Why not get the high-tech cat doors that only open with a special collar worn by the family cat?"
Yeah. About that. So, we have those kind of cat doors. Tricky, super expensive, battery powered cat doors that only open for a special collar that has a magnet on it. Only the problem is that the coons have opposable thumbs, and they've figured out how to open the cat doors without magnets. And they apparently love the cheapest brand of cat food that Wal-mart carries. (Who doesn't, right?)
It's never fun when the coons come in because, there's very little you can do. You can't shoot them inside the house, obviously. And if you can't shoot them, you don't have a lot of options. If they choose to flee, then great. If they don't, well then you're basically in a Mexican Standoff. This is a bad spot to be in. They have teeth and claws and rabies and stink to high heaven and trust me you don't want to start a fight with one. That would be a Chernobyl-grade bad idea.
One of them came in the other night, climbed up on the counter, ate a bunch of stale donuts, and then pushed one of my china plates off the counter onto the tile floor. Loud enough that I came downstairs and I'm like, "Seriously? That's the fine china. Why couldn't you push off some of the disposable plates? They're virtually indestructible. They link up like Legos into plastic islands in the Pacific and float for generations."
But the raccoon just stares at me like, "You wann'a make something of it?" And all the sudden I'm back in high school staring down Scottie Madison.
I just went back to bed and closed the bedroom door.
So we have this Wild Kingdom Mutual of Omaha sized live animal trap inside the kitchen because I'm trying to trap them. And, anyone that's ever trapped coons knows that you can't catch a coon in a leg trap. They figure nothing's worth sticking around to see what happens next. They'll chew off a limb and walk away in two shakes of a sheep's tail. Freedom at any cost.
And I think that's where I am. I can't stand the thought of coming off of the road. It's too hard. The truth is that I really found myself out there, roaming up and down the left coast. Sure, I was lost, but I wasn't alone. Everyone I talked to was lost, drifting up and down the coast like bullhorn kelp on the tide.
The people I discovered are disciples of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' and 'On The Road'. They're all searching for that mythical road to the Lost Coast. They're all lost and wandering, but they're seeking something. Something they can't extrude from their subdivisions or their home towns.
Aimlessly wandering across the planet on a dirt bike is the closest thing I've ever found to being alive. There's nothing in this life to compare it to. Maybe skydiving or smoking crack. But there's nothing else like it in my world.
When my kid takes off, I mean, sure...I can sit around snorting tequila for a little while, but it never lasts. Eventually, I start watching the Long Way Round and then the logic of the coon settles on me like a summer's fog on the Golden Gate and I think...."I can beat this trap...I've got three bikes in three different time zones. If all it costs is everything, then I think we're good."
The road is calling me like the mermaid's siren song and something deep inside of me snaps and I say, "That's it. I'm in. I'm all in."
I'm going back on the road tomorrow. I'll get up at 5:00 a.m. and fly back to California to reclaim my bike from the hourly covered parking section of SFO. I'll drive up a flight of steps to escape that little trap and then I'm off to Yosemite and I'm sure I'll be kicking myself tomorrow night for climbing back in the saddle, but I can't live like this. Getting off the road by going home to watch TV is like trying to quit meth by eating celery. It's not going to work.
I think if I catch a raccoon, I'll just relocate him. You have to respect something that wants to be free so bad he chews his own leg off. I think a certain part of you has to admire the coon for that.
.jpg)
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 28, 2011 at 9:42 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
August 3, 2011
Buen viaje
.jpg)
Wow...The last 24 hours have been just insane. Truly insane. I'll try to capture what I can recall of it as best as practicable, at this point. To wit:
Monday
On Monday, I went to sleep at midnight, got up at 4:00 a.m., and flew from Denver to Las Vegas to San Francisco.
After work, exhausted, driving home on the dirt bike on Larkin Street, I was nearly killed by another motorcyclist. I went to change lanes to my right, and as I glanced back over my shoulder, this guy on a motorcycle came blowing past me in my lane on my right. I nearly cleaned him out. Lane splitting is technically legal in California, but it's suicidal, in my opinion. It's as crazy as it gets.
So, this put the fear in me. Any time my life flashes before my eyes, it makes me wonder why I'm doing what I'm doing. John Muir lost his vision working in a factory and, when he regained his vision, instead of going back to the grind the factory, he moved out west and settled in Yosemite valley and that's the only reason you know his name today.
So, it makes me think. It's time to go. Time to get out of this mad city. I'm not John Muir, but I've not completely surrendered to going down in bleak obscurity just yet, either.
On Monday night, I go out with this chick, and it didn't go well. She starts in with this story about her pet rabbit named Abagail, and how it used to hop sideways.
"Were you surprised by that," I queried.
"Well, he hopped sideways," she continued.
"Lots of rabbits hop sideways. I'm not sure what the point is here. Waiter, can we get the check, please?"
And, the more I looked at her, the more I could see how the ugly was creeping into the corners of her eyes. The lights began to dim. The people next to us started laughing. And in the hazy back of the restaurant, the ugly started to creep into her eyes. It started at the corners and kept growing until it drew her whole face down into a little peach pit.
"What would you have done?" she continued.
"With the rabbit? I dunno. Probably skinned it and grilled it, I guess. No point in letting good meat go to waste, right?"
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
See, that's the thing with these tree huggers. You never know what the right answer is. I thought it was some sort of test to see if I was ecologically sensitive. To see if I'd waste meat in a world of starving people. I was wrong.
"You think that I should have grilled Abagail? And eaten her?" She was horrified and her lips curled up into a third degree snarl and the table started to shake. Something was going on, but I couldn't be clear what. I was reasonably sure I'd gotten the answer wrong but I was still thinking that I could salvage the evening.
"Or, maybe donated her to the homeless?" I offered.
"Oh my God. Here's the bill."
"Why do I have to pay. Isn't that being presumptive to think that the male should automatically pay? Isn't that racist or mysogynistic or something? Why is it that the white male is the last race and gender to be granted politically correct asylum?"
"You asked me out so you're paying."
"I'm willing to split it. What did you do with the rabbit?"
"We buried the fvcking thing and you're paying the bill," and with that, she threw her fork at me. Probably, she was bitter because she was driving a brand new SUV that cost more than my house. I don't know. It's hard to know what to do in these situations.
"Did you leave enough of a tip," she wanted to know. "Are we going to have to run out of here?"
I offered her the bill in that peculiar little folded vinyl pad they always bring the bill in, so that she might inspect for herself. She wanted to, but couldn't quite bring herself to actually to look, and then be expected to do math. It was more than she wanted to undertake, apparently..
"I'm guessing a blowjob in the parking lot is out of the question?"
So that was the last time I saw her, and probably the last time I will see her, no doubt.
I found out later that she was a psychology major and the rabbit story was just a test. It's a freshman little mindfuck that the trot in Abnormal Psych. It's supposed to reveal whether a person is logical, emotional, or a lunatic psycho killer on the prowl. You can imagine how I rated.
So that was Monday night. Not good. Sort of sucks because, you try not to get your hopes up, but you sort of have to get your hopes up because, otherwise, you have about zero chance of success. I have to think that the professional baseball player envisions himself knocking the ball out of the park every time he gets up to bat. You have to want it. To believe that you can do it. Or you have zero chance of success.
So, I think that you have to sort of set yourself up for failure in these cases. I dunno.
I pretty much decided that I'd had enough of the city at that point. I've been out here for a long time. I feel like it's time to move on. I'm tired of living in the airports. Tired of being tired.
Tuesday
Then at work yesterday (Tuesday), we asked the asked the IT group to do something and they came back and said it was completely impossible. Then, after they discussed it some more, they said that it would take at least two weeks. Which meant that we were dead in the water for 2 weeks. So, then I was like...aha...actually...this may be ok. I've been wanting to drive my bike up the coast. Why don't I disappear for a while?
So, we sort of tentatively and hastily agreed at work that it would be OK for me to disappear for an indefinite period of time and I took off like the wind.
Basically, this means that the trip to AK is on and I'm burning daylight.
I'm driving the dirt bike down the road and the mind is racing. Trying to think of all the things that have to happen before I leave the country, bound for Alaska.
Robert M. Pirsig was very clear in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance that the motorcycle is a machine that requires near constant maintenance. Furthermore, he pointed out that your life is, essentially the same. Everything that we own and every part of our existence requires maintenance and you can't very well shun something as basic as motorcycle maintenance. It's a part and parcel of ourselves, our most basic philosophy and relates directly to how we deal with everything we own and everyone we communicate with this. He was very clear on this point.
Which sort of sucks, because my toys are, well, neglected. I own more vehicles than any sane person would even believe. I have HondaXR650L's in three different time zones. And I don't do any maintenance on any of them unless forced to at gunpoint. So, I'm not sure what that says about me, but there it is. I've laid my cards on the table. Judge me as you see fit.
So, in theory, it's time for me to take off for Alaska, and I go home to my little trailer on Russian Hill and dump all of my belongings onto the floor to take a quick inventory of what I have, what I need, and what I need to accomplish before leaving for the Great White North.
I have a motorcycle with a chain stretched by countless wheelies through the city's streets. Sprockets with teeth as sharp as razor blades. The oil has not been changed since February, and I've driven it 3,000 miles since then. The headlight shines up at the top of the Transamerica Tower when I drive down Columbus in North Beach. "Coon hunting" headlights, we used to call them. The back brakes are basically gone. The engine won't idle, and backfires every time I shift.
My helmet is about a size too big and wobbles on my head whenever I get up to highway speeds. I can't find my camo pants, and strongly suspect I've left them back in Colorado.
The bike has no license plate. I have no insurance on it. And my driver's license is expired. I have a temporary license, but I never saw my new drivers license come through the mail, so it's lost somewhere in the bathtub of unopened mail in Colorado.
Not good.
So, I decide to make a list of all the things I need to accomplish before I leave the country.
replace chain and both sprockets
change oil and filter
replace air filter
change spark plug
replace front and rear tires
adjust tire pressure (front and rear)
adjust pressure in front forks
install saddle bags
adjust/repair rear brakes
fill up the gas tank
a can of fix-a-flat
buy chain lube (since the TSA stole mine last week)
buy lens caps for the wide angle lens since they keep rolling down the street while I'm riding the bike
buy a new memory card reader since I can't find mine. Probably I left it in CO.
buy a new pair of riding pants, since I can't find my camo pants. Probably left in CO.
I decide to fill up with gas and at the gas station, and buy some oil to change my oil, when all hell breaks loose. I'm trying to just do something fairly simple. Put gas in my gas tank. But I also need some oil, so I go to try to buy some oil but the store is under lockdown after 9:00 p.m. and the guys and swimming around behind a sheet of plexiglass you couldn't get through with an RPG. So, I'm shouting to the emibcile through the bank-teller-type-steel-drawer trying to negotiate the purchase of a few quarts of 20W50 when these cops come up. Now, in San Francisco, the cops travel in packs. Two to a car. 5 cars to a swarm. And they move through the city this way, deathly afraid. Drowning in fear and adrenaline. They won't get donuts unless there are 10 of them because it's that dangerous. I shit you not.
So, this armada of black-and-white cruisers pulls up in a stunning show of force - to buy donuts. This is true. So help me God.
I'm like. Seriously? For donuts? Y'all are that scared?
Now, at this point, I notice a homeless man in the middle of the street...I think this was at Folsom and 9th..and he's in the middle of the street...with a green light...pushing a shopping cart in circle in the middle of the road, as cars scream by him, honking. He's very close to death, but doesn't know he's on this planet.
He's trying to talk, but no words come out. Way past that point. He's just sort of slurring and grunting, spinning and stumbling. Head shaking. Hands waving erratically. Drugged beyond belief. Lost in his own mind. Not aware he's circling in traffic at night in a busy intersection with a green light. No clue. No clue.
Now, comes the sirens and lights. Always this rush to some place. Often with multiple firetrucks and ambluances all heading in different directions. Like, you'd assume that they're heading to the same place. You'd be wrong. Sadly mistaken. They're never going to the same place. Always, they race in different directions.
So these firetrucks are coming now, the light is green, and this homeless man is out there in the middle of the intersection at night in a knit cap pushing a shopping cart full of trash in circle. He's about to die and has no clue. No clue.
I go into the street, take the cart, push it up onto the sidewalk, where' he'll be safe. Then I get back on my bike and get ready to leave. The cops see all of this, of course. They're wagering on which vehicle will kill him, and when I lead him out of the street, they're laughing and slapping each other on the back and coughing and choking on donuts and coffee. A pile of bills is raked off the table and I get on my bike to leave. I have no license plate, but I quit looking over my shoulder long ago. I'm not sure what the police are doing here, but enforcing the law and protection people don't seem to be high on the list.
As I leave, the homeless man returns to the center of the intersection to push the shopping cart in circles once again, and the police start betting again, and I think "Out. I have to get out. This isn't real. This isn't healthy. People shouldn't have to see this. To know that it goes on. It's too depressing to believe."
San Francisco is a large city, and large cities have a lot of problems in common. One of them is massive homeless populations. But when you live around these homeless people all the time, you get used to seeing them sleeping on the sidewalks in sleeping bags and, what can I say? It's depressing beyond words. But this is where we are.
All these sad, broken people are dying all around us. And I'm just rolling through on my motorcycle, shooting like mad at the city, my outdoor canvas. This is this. It is what it is.
So, now I've got a full tank of gas and 3 quarts of 20W50. I decide I'll go home and replace my chain and sprockets. I'd already ordered them from the Honda shop. Now, I just have to put them on. I'm not really clear how to take the old chain off, of course. I can't find a master link and I don't have any bolt cutters out here. But I want to get my hands dirty. Something about working indoors beneath pallid flourescent lights makes you want to skin your knuckles and get grease under your nails just to remember what it feels like to be a man.
My hands are softer than most womens, I'm afraid. Nothing to be proud of, of course. But I don't do a lot of manual labor. That's not my role in life, for whatever reason.
I manage to replace both sprockets, but the chain is more than I can tackle. Even if I managed to get the old one off, I'd still have to figure out how to put the new one on, and the master link looks a little tricky. Nothing that I feel comfortable tackling. So I leave the old chain on and begin to change the oil.
Basically, I open the crankcase drain over a steel grate that says "Drains to Bay" and has a picture of a fish looking up at you with these big eyes and I'm like "sucks to be you, fishy"
By the time I've replaced the filter and the oil, the cul-de-sac where I live looks like Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez ran aground.
At this point, a man shows up that I've seen before, and starts going through the trash cans on the sidewalk. I've watched him enough that I know what he's doing. Basically, he goes through all of the recycle bins that are set out on Tuesday nights in my neighborhood and steals all of the aluminum cans.
I don't try to talk to him, as he looks Asian, and you can never know what language those people speak, especially if they're digging through trash cans at the time. It's hard to guess if they're drugged or coherent or mute or just plain-ole-run-of-the-mill Orientals.
To clean up the mess as best as practicable, I dig through the nearest open pile of garbage, retrieve a sheet and a spray bottle of household cleaner and clean up the crime scene as best I can.
I resign myself to take the bike into the Honda shop in the morning and beg them to install my chain. I send an email to everyone I know in San Francisco telling them that I'm thoroughly sick of the city and am fleeing, probably forever.
Wednesday
So, today I wake up and race down to the Honda shop. I tell them to install my chain, and pick out a new set of tires while I'm in the store. "Yeah...better go ahead and throw these on while you're at it. Now, the new tires I pick out are street tires, not dirt tires. And I've never driven on street tires in my life. But I've always sort of wanted to try them and see how they do.
They tell me that the bike won't be ready until the afternoon and I'm like..."You don't understand. I have to drive to Alaska. Right away. I'm burning daylight here, people."
But they say they'll do the best they can, and leave, to walk back to my flat on Russian Hill, a few blocks away.
Along the way, I see the neighborhood for the first time, as most people see it. By walking. The city increases in size exponentially once you get off your @ss and start walking.
I notice, for the first time, several interesting places. One that repairs luggage. A store that serves breakfast all day long. A sporting goods store. All of these places are normally just a blur, as I dodge other motorcycles, pigeons, pigeon shadows, pedestrians, cyclists, skateboarders, buses, taxis, trolleys, police cars, fire trucks with the guy steering from the back like the Apple Dumpling Gang, etc.
Back at the flat, I decided to take stock of my paperwork situation. I have no license plate. No insurance. No driver's license. Like, you think I'm making this up, but not. I'm so not.
I'm thinking I'd like to get the bike titled in my name, so I dig up the title and the bill of sale. The paperwork says I bought it on March 1, 2011. So, I've driven the bike for over 5 months without plates, insurance, or a license.
I call up the insurance company and tell them I need insurance. I lie and tell them I've never had a ticket in my life, but they find one somehow. I tell them I want the maximum amount of liability and personal injury you can get, but no collision insurance. Like, if the bike is totaled so be it. No great loss.
We come to agreement on an amount and she tells me how to print my insurance card and I promptly head off to the DMV to try to get a license plate. Now, I don't have a valid driver's license, but at least I have insurance. Maybe they'll give me a license plate? I sort of doubt it, but figure I've got nothing to lose in trying, because they're working on my bike anyway, so it's not like I could take off at this point even if I wanted to.
So I hail a taxi and tell him to take me to the DMV, and he heads that way. As we go down Divisadero, I see this huge Jet Martinez mural (I'm starting to recognize some of the artists), and I'm just so shocked every time I find a batch of new murals in the city. How stupid I was to think that I'd found them all. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. I make note of the location of my newly discovered murals and eventually, the taxi driver drops me off at some government building with a line so long that it stretches out into the parking lot.
I take my place at the end of the line.
I get out my copy of On The Road, and pick up where I left off. Basically, I'm where Sal Paradise realizes that Dean has lost his way, and needs help. Sal offers to take Dean to Italy, and Dean realizes that Sal know's Dean is in trouble, and is offering to help him out. I hate that I'm nearing the end of the book. This I dread, because I love this book too much for words, and last time I checked, Kerouac isn't writing any more these days.
So, I'm in this odd situation. Trying to get out of town. Trying to get the bike legal so I can take it into Canada. Trying to enjoy the book, but knowing the entire time, that each word I read gets me closer to the end.
This is why people have jobs. This is why people go into work every day and do the same thing over and over for someone they hate. It's because the alternative is staggering it's beyond belief.
It's because, if you walk off of a project, what you do next is so confusing that most people aren't able to handle it well. This is something I feel quite strongly about. The problem of what to do when you're truly on your own is very complex, and is shaped by many counterintuitive forces including, but not limited to, the "Paradox of Choice".
I'm sitting out in the sun for so long that I'm thinking I should have worn sunscreen. Still not any closer to getting inside the actual DMV building. I seriously doubt that they're going to give me a title to the bike. I imagine how the conversation will go.
"You bought the bike in March, but you never had the title put into your name?"
"That's right."
"What's your driver's license number?"
"My what?"
"Your driver's license number. You do have a California driver's license?"
"Well, not really. I have a Colorado driver's license."
"But you live in California?"
"I sort of go back and forth. I commute."
"You commute between Colorado and California?"
"Yeah."
"What's your address in California."
"I'm not sure."
"You're not sure where you live in California?"
"Well, I have been staying on Russian Hill. I'm not sure what the address is. It's near the Broadway tunnel though. You should hear those motorcycles at night when they wind it up to go through that tunnel. Lord God it makes me break out in a cold sweat. I swear people are going a hundred miles an hour through that tunnel."
"You don't have a California driver's license. You don't have a California address. But you want to title the bike in California?"
"Uh. Yeah. That's...uh....that's what I need to do."
"Do you have insurance?"
"I have this policy here." hands her the policy.
"You bought the bike in March and got insurance for it today? You've been driving it for 5 months without insurance?"
"Probably I haven't been riding it, I think."
"You're not sure if you've been driving the bike for the last 5 months. OK. Let me see your Colorado license."
Hands her the license.
"This is expired."
"Right, but I got it renewed and they were supposed to mail me a new one, but I haven't seen it. I should probably go through all of my unopened mail at some point."
"You don't open your mail?"
"Well, like I told you, I commute from California to Colorado.
"Yeah, you mentioned that."
So, I'm reasonably sure that this isn't going to work. It's not going to fly. But they're working on my bike, so I just sit in the sun, reading my book, and sort of pretending like what I'm doing makes sense. It doesn't, but lets not focus on that right now. Let's just assume that somehow things are going to work out. I'll get a new title, license plate, registration.
While I'm being broiled beneath the San Franciscan sun in the DMV parking lot, my boss texts me and asks where I am. I thought we were clear that I was leaving the country, but apparently there was a miscommunication because he was expecting me, apparently.
Then the Honda shop calls, and tells me the bike is ready. But I decide to press on with the process, hoping to get inside the DMV at some point before dark.
Eventually, I get inside the DMV building, and they don't ask for anything. No driver's license. No insurance. No bill of sale. Nothing. Only I give them the title, and they give me the registration paperwork, and stickers for the license plate. Because I was 5 months late in transferring the title, they charge me an extra $10. They'll mail my title to Colorado. For an extra $20, they give me a new license plate also, since the old one is so beat up. Thanks. Have a nice day. In and out in less than 90 minutes.
.jpg)
I catch a cab back to Golden Gate Cycles. The bike has new tires. New chain and sprockets. I decide to buy a Givi case for the bike, to put my tools and some riding gear in. They want another $70 to install it, and I'm like, "I think I'll pass on the installation." I drive the bike back to the flat and install the case in about 11 minutes. I stick the license plate on the bike. Now, I'll have to be more careful on the bike, I think. No more running red lights or running through the bridge lanes without paying.
Boss calls me and we talk for a minute. Basically, he thought I was coming, into work, and I'm thinking that I'd rather drive a dirt bike off the face of the earth instead. So, I explain to him that I need to kill myself on a motorcycle (I actually say that I need to "run up the coast on my bike", which doesn't really sound suicidal.
If someone says they're going to do a "swan dive" off the Golden Gate Bridge, that's cause for alarm. But if they say they're going to "drive to Alaska on a dirt bike", for whatever reason, that doesn't set off the same bells. Maybe it should. I dunno.
"And you'll be back when?" he clarifies.
"Monday."
"Like, 5 days from now?"
"The following Monday," I reply.
"Let's call it Monday week," he answers.
"Fair enough."
So, that much is settled. I got a little breathing room. Not much, but some. I set about adjusting my rear brakes and my clutch. At this point, I'm basically riding a different motorcycle. Clutch feels different. Brakes feel different. Tires and chain are noticable different. With the Kivi case full of tools, it handles very differently than before. It doesn't feel or handle at all like the bike I've been driving for the last 5 months. Not ideal, but this is where we are.
As they say, "you don't go to war with the army you wish you had. You go to war with the army you have." So, this is where we are.
I decide to change the spark plug also, so back to the Honda shop. I buy a can of fix-a-flat and chain lube at some point. Now I also buy a spark plug and talk them into installing it for free because I've already dropped a ton of cash in that place today. A lot of jack. Seriously.
The guys at Golden Gate Cycles as cool as the other side of the pillow and I tell them I'm driving to Alaska and they're all just foaming at the mouth they're so excited by the idea. They make me promise to send them photos, and I will of course. I certainly will.
By now, it's late in the afternoon though, and it's not looking good. Temperature is dropping. Fog rolling in thick. Not sure how far I'll be able to get tonight.
I'm missing some things that are sort of in the "not here" category. When you travel all the time, things are sort of "here" or "not here", and it's hard to know what it means when they're "not here". "Not here" could mean they're in Colorado, or left on the plane, or under the bed. Lost forever. Or just out of sight. It's so hard to know.
In the "not here" category:
Camo pants
memory card reader
lens caps for the landscape lens
At this point, my ex calls and she's upset that I'm going to AK, as she was expecting me to take care of Jennifer this weekend. I try to weasel out of it, but eventually, I give up and say "Fine", I'll put off my trip to Alaska unto Monday.
So, this sucks, of course. But in a way, it's good. I'll have a little mfore time to plan/research for the trip. I might find my camo pants and my memory card reader in CO. I might find the GPS charger and get that working.
Now, however, I'm not working, so now I have to kill 2 days in SF, so I drive around the city shooting like mad. Just really digging in now because, now that I feel like I may really be leaving the city for good, there's no time to shoot but now. So, I start grid searching the city more intensely than ever before. Grid searching the Western Addition, the Mission, and SOMA. I find scads of murals I'd never seen before. Just brilliant work, and I'm shooting like a lunatic.
In the mission, I come across another guy on a Honda XR. I stop to see if he needs help. Turns out he's run out of gas. I pull up in my new cadillac and he's just awed at how cool my bike is. I get out my tools from the Giva, drain some gas from the tank into a cup off the sidewalk, and get him back on the road again.
I normally stop when I see someone on a bike that looks like they may need help. Once, recently, I saw a guy picking his bike up off the ground on Larkin Street and I stopped and offered to help. He said he got off of it and forgot to put the kickstand down. And I was like "seriously?" LIke "how could anyone be that stupid? That's a whole new class of stupid. Like off the crack, dude."
I head to Calumet Cameras and pick up a couple of 67mm lens caps. I like these much better than Canon's lens caps, because they have a string on them so they won't going rolling down the street if they get detached.
Then back to Divisadero to a BBQ place I found in the Western Addition called "Da Pitt". Pretty good food, but just the coolest people running it you've ever seen. A bunch of blacks in there talking and I couldn't get a word of it. Nothing. I was the only white guy in the place, so I knew I was onto something. Michael, the proprietor just cool beyond words. We start swapping stories and finally I had to leave but you just can't know how cool these people are. Words can't do it justice.
Then to the Marina district for a foggy nightcap of beer to review the countless pictures I shot today (1,217 since I left Las Vegas monday morning). I park the bike in front of The Grove and hop off the bike, dismounting on the right side, due to the new Giva case, let go of the bike, and for the first time since I bought the bike 5 months ago, it goes down and I realize I forgot to put the kickstand down. Doh!
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 3, 2011 at 10:49 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 25, 2011
The City is what it does to you
There is this. This.
Sometime on Sunday Jennifer leaves and the light just pulls away from me. I crawl into bed about noon and start to hibernate. Around 10:00 at night, I try to print my boarding pass and I can't and I'm thoroughly pissed at this point cuz this is the third week in a row I can't print my stupid boarding pass and I call up SouthWest and I'm ready to let her have it this time. Only she's explaining that I've missed my flight already. Ha. I was supposed to fly out on Sunday, apparently. Who knew?
So I reschedule for the early morning flight and at some point, even Timmy leaves me and in the small hours of the morning, the alarm goes off and I spring out of bed. I can't wait to get back into the city and start shooting again.
Every Friday, when I pick up Jennifer, my stories go like this..."I saw a guy smoking crack in the street...a guy stole a Picasso off the wall of an art gallery...six people were swept to their deaths in the Hetch Hetchy reservoir...the cops killed a guy in Bayview..." etc. Just one breathless story after another. And then I turn to her and say "how'd your week go" and she says "I got some new shirts." So this is where we are. We live very different lives, she and I. We spend our weekends together in Colorado, but during the week, we're worlds apart.
At the airport, my flight is delayed again. Very common to have the flight delayed due to early morning fog. So I'm sitting tight at the airport in Denver, waiting for the air traffic controllers in SFO to give us the "Go Ahead" to take off from DEN.
I lost my second set of Bose Accoustic Noise Canceling Headphones recently, so I'm traveling without them which is maddening. There's a gate change, but I sit tight. A baby starts crying, and I stand up, cursing the gods, and stomp away towards my new gate.
On the way, I see a familiar face...I'm staring at her thinking..."Michelle?"
She turns to me, and Jennifer appears and I think..."Ha...how about that?" Of all the people to run into in one of the world's largest airports, who would have thought I'd run into my own daughter?
So I go with her to her gate. She's flying to New Mexico, of course. Just it wasn't on my radar screen because I was supposed to be in San Francisco already and it was just a fluke that I was delayed and she happened to be in the same terminal at nearly the same gate and, by chance, I lost my headphones and that squabbling baby sent me fleeing just at the time they were passing by. Very peculiar how everything lined up like that. And I have to admit that I wondered if maybe it wasn't an accident.
While waiting for her flight to take off, I picked up another ticket for her to go to Florida for a week in August because, let's be honest. She's underprivileged. That much is clear.
She flies away and I crawl into a different airplane. I'm in seat 2A as always and the only disadvantage to this seat is that the malicious bastards in the bulkhead will always try to sneak something under their seats and I'm like..."Uh, no. You're going to have to put that in the overhead bin"
The flight is full so I grab a little oriental girl and tell her to sit in the middle seat and she does and promptly falls asleep on my shoulder, which I don't mind and we take off.
I recline her seat for her and then, as always, I look out the window as we fly, tracking our progress west above I-70. It's neat to see your house from above. The world scrolling by. Georgetown. Lake Dillon. Copper. Vail. Beaver Creek. Glenwood Springs. Grand Junction.
It's all nice and green until we get to the western slopes, and then the high desert. Utah is covered with salt lakes, not just the Great Salt Lake, but countless little ones scattered across the desert. Always, somewhere over Utah or Nevada my Diet Coke runs dry and I have to castigate the delusional flight attendants into doing my bidding.
It's a miracle that anyone lives down there at all. Utah and Nevada are as dry as dust. Straight roads. A few sporadically placed irrigated circular crops. Just death. Death. Death. And then finally, at the California Nevada Border, the Sierra Nevada mountains and some life again. Bushes and scrubby trees materialize and then, the Yosemite valley, the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, and the grand Central Valley. Always, we fly over Freemont or Modesto and then, the Sierra Madres and down down down into the southern end of San Francisco, over those insane Cargill salt flats and down into SFO.
At the airport, they repainted the blue and white curb which just irks me to no end. So, I go stand at the new blue-and-white curb and there's the FastTrack shuttle bus and every week I do the same thing. I go to the shuttle bus driver and ask him if he's sure that they're out of business and if they've changed their mind somehow, and if they won't take me back. But every time he shakes his head no. They're out of business. I have to park somewhere else now.
Now, I park at Park SFO, but only do so under protest and every week I leave without paying because I'm not happy about the arrangement. Namely, that there isn't any arrangement. I don't know them and they don't know me and I don't want to be parking there. Why can't FastTrack just let me park there again? So what if they lost their lease on the parking lot? How is that my fault?
I climb onto the motorcycle and leave the parking lot without paying and head north on the US 101. I just tack that thing up to about 80 mph because I don't want to get run over from behind, right? So I'm flying north on the US 101 and I just lay down on the seat until my helmet is touching the handlebars because this bike is light and the winds rip across the peninsula between Candlestick Park and Brisbane in a way that you can't know.
So I'm sailing north on the US 101 and I get into the city and now I'm going to snap a few murals before I go in. I find the mural Jack sent me right away. Drove straight to it and I hadn't seen it in 6 years. But I found it and shot it shortly before the sun got high enough in the sky to ruin the mural.
After work, I decided to really hit the Mission hard, looking for more murals. Now, I believe that "The more you look, the more you see." As Robert M. Pirsig observed in his glorious tome, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This is my new theory. The old theory was, "I've seen it all." The new theory is, "The more you look, the more you see."
So I'm out grid searching the mission and I roll through Clarion Alley, but I know today I've got to dig deeper. I've got to get down into the heart and soul of the most dangerous part of the mission.
I end up down around 26th and something...cruising these alleys I've never seen before and you just can't know. I can now state, unequivocally, that the Mission has the most graffiti of any district in San Francisco. It is the sin-qua-non of San Franciscan murals.
There are more alleys full of murals in the mission, than the other districts have murals. I'm wandering up and down these alleys I've never seen before. Never heard of before.
The first new alley I find has homeless people living in it.
The city is what it does to you. It brings into a very sharp focus the people you might normally not interact with. The lost and downtrodden. The homeless, despondent masses. And I don't know how they got here. Maybe they're drug addicts. Maybe they have mental problems. I don't know that it matters, necessarily. Only it's a given that they're here, and they're not going away, and I have to deal with them. I see them every day. Even if all you do is observe them, you can't help but be affected by them.
Last week, I watched a female homeless drug addict walk into a restaurant where I was eating lunch with the new consultant. She came in off the street, wolfed down the leftovers from a stranger in the Mexican restaurant, then went outside and finished it over a trashcan. No different than the coon on the game cam stealing my cat's food.
They are here, and you can't solve the problem, only you can observe it. But you're affected by the observation. Last week, I observed a different homeless female drug addict sprawled on the sidewalk in Caledonia Alley. When I came through, shooting photos, she tried to pull it together. To try to gather herself together, as it were. She tried to sit up, but was unsuccessful. So I just walked by her, as she sort of rolled around on the dirty sidewalk.
So now, I find this new graffiti drenched alley in the mission, but it's not without it's own homeless population, of course. Every rose has it's thorns.
I feel safe wearing the helmet. I don't take it off when I'm shooting. I never do. So, I'm shooting this new alley I've discovered in the Mission. Shooting like mad, and I get down to where the homeless are sleeping on the sidewalk, and I try not to disturb them. I really do. I don't want to interfere with them. I don't know what sort of deal they have going on, but I do know that they're frequently victims of violence, so I'm trying not to threaten them in any way.
One of the homeless guys is lying on the sidewalk in a sleeping bag. The other homeless guy comes stumbling out of the alley and he calls after him, "Check on me in a little bit...ok?"
"I will," the other homeless guy replies. "I'll watch out for you."
I'm shooting, and sort of trying to ignore them, but this is sort of touching. I mean, here you've got two humans who have fallen so low, that they're sleeping on the sidewalk in a dead-end alley. But somehow, they're watching out for each other.
"You watch out for him," I ask as he approaches.
"Yeah. You have to around here."
"Why is that?" I clarify. "Who bothers y'all? Kids?" I ask.
"Actually, it's really normal people. Someone throws a bottle and says, 'get a job', and the next thing you know they're beating the hell out of ya'," he replied.
"Jesus Christ." I replied.
"Yall watch out for each other, though?" I clarified.
"Yeah, well, we try to sleep during the day, and watch each other's backs. Then, at night, you have to be awake then. It's more dangerous then, of course."
"Doesn't the city pay you though?" I asked.
"Why? No. The city doesn't pay us anything. I get food stamps. But you don't get a check from the city. You have to have an address to get a check. Obviously, if you're homeless, you don't have an address, so no...we don't get any money from the city,"
"Oh."
"Who does these sidewalk stencils?" I ask, changing the subject.
"Oh, I know who does them. He lives around here. But I ain't tell'n." he replies.
"Well, they're very cool, " I reply. He's certainly talented.
And the homeless guy stumbled on down the alley, leaving his friend behind, asleep on the sidewalk. It's hard to imagine attacking the homeless. Difficult to fathom.
All I want to do is take photos, of course, and I'm shooting like mad. But I'm very far from home. So far out of my element. It's hard to remember where you are.
I wake up in mountains of Colorado, where I sleep with a .45 under my pillow and mounted a game cam inside my house to track the incursions of the wildlife. But then, a few hours later, I'm in an alley in a major metropolitan city and I sort of forget myself.
I'm shooting in this alley, and there's three street thugs with dogs that aren't on leashes and they tell me it's a one way road and I start getting smart with them. It goes like this:
"Just so you know, this is a one way road," the one big fat guy challenges.
"Yeah, well I don't really care about the law," I quip. With the same sarcasm that's got me so far in this world.
"Well, I'm just saying, if a car comes around the curve and hits you..."
"What curve? What traffic?" I challenge. It's absurd, but I've forgotten myself. I'm not in Colorado. I'm in the Mission. Talking tough to three strangers. With dogs. That aren't on leashes.
"Why don't you get the fuck out of our neighborhood," they offer.
It occurs to me that I've made a mistake. I shut my mouth. And continue shooting and moving slowly down the alley. The dogs don't kill me, and the brutes don't assault me, but I realize that I've made a serious miscalculation. I'm in an alley where a guy was beat to death earlier this year, smarting off to strangers. Not a good move.
So, I keep moving down the alley, shooting, driving a few feet, shooting some more. Slowly working my way through the Mission, albeit, in the wrong direction most of the time, but I'm not hurting anyone.
I'm finding alley after alley full of graffiti that I've never seen before and I'm getting further and further from the known parts of the city and falling deeper and deeper into the parts of the Mission where white people just don't go.
These murals are all of the Precita Eyes murals, which tend to portray people as victims. It's a common theme. Basically, the Indians and the Mexicans are prisoners in their own land, victims of the evil white man's aggression. This is a common, recurring theme in the Precita Eyes murals and it's why I tend not to shoot them because, if you teach someone from cradle to grave that they're a victim, then they're certainly victims.
Man's Inhumanity to Man
But this is where I find myself, and then I see a Jet Martinez mural and I'm really excited to find this gem and I get in position to shoot it, but as I do, a car pulls up in front of me, and about three to five Mexicans jump out of the little car and start assaulting some people on the sidewalk.
So, while I'm watching, this beating starts taking place and of course, I fire up my bike and get the fuck out of there. Because, I have no idea what's going on. Suddenly, it dawns on me that I'm very far out of my element. I get a safe distance from the fight, and then sort of return to the scene.
The Mexican thugs in the car have disappeared, but I spot the two that were assaulted standing on the street corner.
I pull up and talk to them..."Dude..WTF? What was that about? I saw those guys jump you. There were 4 or 5 of them. What was that about?"
"I dunno,"
"You don't know them?"
"No."
He had a massive shiner on his left eye already. Tears were streaming out of his left eye. He wasn't crying. That isn't my point. He'd just been cold-cocked in his left eye. I was surprised he was still walking.
"Why did they do that? They were estranyos? I clarified.
"Si."
Like..wow...wtf? I mean, I know we're all built of the crooked timber of humanity, but Lord God. Seriously, people. Suddenly, shooting in the Mission seemed a lot less romantic and a lot more dangerous, and I left the mission.
I stopped at my buddy that runs the Mexican stand on Mission and South Van Ness and I try to tell him what I saw. He says that the mission is more dangerous. Probably it was due to colors. Or due to territory. This one group can't cross 19th street, for some reason, apparently. Who knew?
So I climb back on my bike and head to the Marina, where the pretty white girls walk down the sidewalk.
But now, every time I see another guy on the sidewalk, I puff up like a pigeon in a snowstorm as the fight or flight adrenaline courses through me.
I go to a bar to have a beer and write for a bit. To try to put things into focus, but this only made it worse. The worse thing about the homeless is that there's only one solution, and after spending any time around them, you realize that the only solution isn't really one you could live with. So there is no solution.
I check my email and the pretty white girl I was supposed to go out with tomorrow night said we'd have to postpone.
I go home to my flat on Russian Hill and I think I've got to get it together, but I don't know how. I tell my room mate what I saw happened. She says she stopped a guy from getting beat to death when they were jumping on his head.
"I didn't help him," I offered.
"What did you do?" she asks helpfully.
"I got on my motorcycle and took off," I replied. It was nothing to be proud of. But it was so foreign to me. I had no idea what was going on. One second, I was taking photos of a mural, and the next second, people were jumping out of cars and fists were flying. I had no idea what was happening. It was very scary. Like a bad dream.
The problem with living in the city is that it's too intense. All of these people are living far too close together. It's like when they shove the uranium rods into the reactor and the chain reaction takes off. You cram a few million people into a 7 mile by 7 mile peninsula, and these no telling what will happen.
I wandered down to the local Escape From New York Pizza, not because I was hungry, but because I had to. I had to talk to someone about what I'd seen.
I feel like I'm surrounded by people, but I'm all alone.
Hey, guy. What can I get you?
"Tony. I saw a guy get jumped today in the Mission," I offered.
"We've got one slice of Hawaiian left," he replies.
"OK. I'll have that."
"What did you do?" he asks.
"Nothing. I turned and ran. I didn't help him." I admitted.
"Well, you've got to pick your battles."
That's the problem with the city, is that you see people who are failing. People are always dying and starving and fighting. And, in the suburbs, you don't see that. Where I live, I wake up and there are birds and deer and raccoons. Not people jumping out of cars and pummeling strangers in the streets. Not people starving and staggering and begging. Not that. Not like that.
I'm walking back from the pizza place, full of fear. Drowning in adrenaline and fear and raw emotions. I see a family walking across the street and I want to yell at them, "Get out! This city's not safe!" But obviously the city's not safe. People die here every day. Death is a part of life. It's just that you're so far removed from it in the suburbs. And here, you see people teetering on the brink of death on a daily basis.
I see a black man walking through the crosswalk the same time as me. He's wearing a SF Giants cap. Slowly, it dawns on me that he's homeless. On the other side of the street, I see him scanning the sidewalk. I see what he's looking for before he does. A half a cigarette is lying on the sidewalk. I spy it. Then he spies it, and starts contorting his body until he's low enough to pick it up.
How sad is that. How said is it that I knew what he was looking for and even saw it before he did.
Back at the flat, my motorcycle looks vulnerable and out of place on the sidewalk. This can't last. It will be stolen or vandalized. It's only a matter of time.
When I got inside the flat, I lock all of the locks. I always used to only lock one of the deadbolts. My roomie always locks them all, which I always thought was overkill. But not any more. I've learned to fear that which carves the city's streets at night. I lock all of the locks and retreat to the relative safety of my bedroom on Russian Hill.
I've got to get out, before it's too late. This city is killing me.
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 25, 2011 at 10:09 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 19, 2011
Two Ways of Seeing a River
When I first came here, I took the GPS off of my bike and stuck it in my backpack. Without it, the city maintained it's mystery. I'd drive until I was blissfully lost in the 11 hills of San Francisco, dodging pigeons and the shadows of pigeons, deftly and nimbly skating across the city's cable car tracks.
When I drove across Mexico on a dirt bike, I deliberately didn't take a map. I intentionally did not research the trip before I left, because I wanted to discover the country, as Cortez had seen it.
There is immeasurable value in being lost. In searching and discovering. This is the goal of being alive. To somehow, carry around this mystery and hand it to others. In my mind, this is "the pearl" that Kerouac was referring to.
But after grid searching the Mission, the Loin, and SOMA for graffiti, the city has lost much of it's mystery. I'm finding it much harder to get lost in San Francisco, these days.
I've spent a great deal of time studying the flowers and trees of the city, culminating in my recent purchase of "The trees of San Francisco", a ghastly misstep. Now, instead of carrying these mysteries around with me, turning them over and over in my mind, bathing them with attention as an oyster coats a grain of sand...instead of this, countless mysteries were slain in a single misstep. I have the book beside me now and if I had any sense of integrity I'd throw it in trash.
The book does to the flora of San Francisco what the GPS does to the city streets. It eviscerates the mystery of the city. Reduces the city from an idyllic, mysterious xanadu to didactic grid of streets and blocks. An urban soliloquy. Something less than the sum of it's parts.
I used to see the delicious murals splayed across the cityscape as magnificent, romantic dreams of some clandestine artist creating art for art's sake. Beautiful visions of naked altruism in city by the bay. Pure, unadulterated beauty to lift the spirits of the city's denizens. But now, I see them differently. Now, I see the murals and I think "oh, that's by Amanda Lynn, Chad Hasegawa, Andrew Schoultz, Dan Plasma, ROA, or Chor Boogie. And I know which gallery is displaying their work. And even the hours that the gallery is open. And who owns the gallery. And it's not that it's not great art, it's superb art. But when the mystery is stripped away, some of the lustre is peeled away as well.
Robert M. Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, made a number of insightful observations. One that I especially liked was when he made reference to an observation by Mark Twain. Pirsig wrote:
"Mark Twain's experience comes to mind, in which, after he had mastered the analytic knowledge needed to pilot the Mississippi River, he discovered the river had lost its beauty."
I loved the observation. What he alluded to is singularly brilliant. Something I'd always felt, but never admitted. However, Pirsig didn't quote Mark Twain exactly, or make reference to the exact source of this observation anywhere in his book. Of course, I wanted to find exactly what Mark Twain had said and last night, after grid searching the mission for graffiti, I stumbled across this:
"Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river!" - Mark Twain - Life on the Mississippi - Two Ways of Seeing a River
Yes. Of course. Always I've felt this, but never had the courage to admit it. I admire Robert Pirgsig, Samuel Clemens, Jack Kerouac, and Henry Miller because of their courage. It's difficult to imagine saying what you truly feel, without considering the consequences. As my uncle once observed, "we all wear different hats for different people". We all expose different truths and fears to different people. Only among our closest and most trusted friends do we truly approach being ourselves - expressing our deepest fears and greatest hopes.
And yet, Mark Twain comes out and, after studying the river in depth, instead of bragging that "I've now mastered the Mississippi River, and I know it as well as most riverboat pilots"...instead of this...he comes out and admits something that's deeply disturbing...that something's found, but something's lost as well. The river's mystery is irretrievably lost.
And this is where I am with San Francisco, I'm afraid.
After work, I drive to Central Computers and try to return my new laptop, but they're not interested. I'm stuck with this brick. Brilliant.
The homeless turn a trash can over in the street, a dig carefully through the contents. A homeless pinata. They dig through the city's entrails like oracles reading tea leaves.
Now home to clean my camera's sensor with listerine and qtips. Probably not officially sanctioned by Canon, I imagine. Now, to wander the city. Where to go? Where to go? I decide to scope out the Haight, so down to Haight street and rolling through lower Haight and upper Haight. I find a few new murals I've not seen before. Recognize many I've shot before. Eventually, I grow bored with the Haight and decide to go off in search of the West Portal.
I roll up Market and once Market starts to climb up Twin Peaks, it just turns into the autobahn, apparently. People are racing up the hill going like 60 mph and I'm trying not to get run over is all. I get lost trying to find the West Portal, and some people are shouting at me. I pull up to them and kill the engine.
"Pop a wheelie," they call to me.
"Uh. OK. Where's the West Portal?"
"I'm going there now. Follow me." So I follow this stranger to the West Portal and he wave to me when we get there. It's sort of odd, this place. I remember clearly when I first stumbled onto it. I was like...what the h3ll? It's a tunnel, that goes into the mountain, and where it leads, no one is sure. There is no East Portal. I'm not really clear what happens to those people the West Portal swallows.
Now back up over the hill on Portola, to Market and back down from Twin Peaks. At the bottom, where Market turns back into a nightmare of traffic and red lights, I'm paralyzed by sirens and flashing lights.
I hear the city's sirens in my dreams. They haunt me day and night. At home. At work. In my dreams. Ambulances and car alarms. Wailing civil defense sirens and fire trucks. Police cars and earthquakes. Tires squealing as the cars crash into each other in the streets below. This mad, inescapable cacophony of life and death is carved indelibly into my brain.
This cop comes flying up behind me and I don't know what to do. I'm not going to run. I'm not going to flush like a pheasant from the field. I have no idea what's going on and I just hold tight and this cop comes flying up behind me, swerves around me, nearly killing me in the process. He goes screaming by and misses me by a couple of feet maybe. Scares the living hell out of me and I swear it will be a miracle if I live through my project here. It will be a miracle.
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 19, 2011 at 12:11 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 13, 2011
Escape From Fog City
Down the Rabbit Hole
Bringing the art out of the galleries and hanging it outdoors on the city walls en plein air was revolutionary. It fundamentally changed the relationship of the artist to the art work to the gallery. Suddenly, I'm not an observer any more. I'm part of the scene.
The galleries are showing the work of graffiti artists.
So, the graffiti street artists are bringing their work into the galleries. And the artists that normally hang their work in the galleries are taking their work out and clandestinely putting it up on the city's walls.
The artists are now creating rolling art galleries, driving them across the country, and parking them on the street, where people walk right up into the back of a cargo van to see the art. But even these viewers aren't what they seem, as they're also always looking for new talent, so the people that come into the rolling galleries are both artists and patrons or clients.
The entire nature of the relationship has changed, and all of this occurs to me as the guy rolls up the back of the van.
They've just obliterated the wall between the performers and the audience. The guy is standing there, holding the door open for me to crawl into the back of his cargo truck, and everything's unraveling. And it's not a superficial change that's been made. He's thrown down the gauntlet. He's just torpedoed my worldview and I'm falling down the rabbit hole.
All the world's indeed a stage, we are merely players. Performers and portrayers. Each another's audience upon the gilded stage.
As I'm standing in the tenderloin watching the whores and drug addicts stumbling up and down the sidewalks of skid row, I'm wearing camoflauge pants, a black leather jacket, and a white motorcycle helmet, crawling around on all fours and shooting like mad, it occurs to me that I'm part of this mad play that's all around me. I'm no longer an observer. I've crossed over some invisible threshold and become part of the scene. I'm tumbling down the rabbit hole.
This is like the part in the Matrix where you have to choose between the red pill and the blue pill. But I don't have a choice here.
And the problem is this...the problem is very fundamental....these people in the art galleries... are charging thousands of dollars for art work that looks like a 9 year old could knock it out in a few minutes with their eyes closed...and the people in the galleries are displaying, marketing, and selling this work for an insane profit.
Normally, I'm fairly comfortable as seeing myself as an observer. I drive around the city on my motorcycle, deftly dodging the skateboarders and handicapped beggars, taking photos and moving on.
But I have noticed that, if I stop to study something, and photograph it, I have noticed that other people begin to take notice of it also. Always this was something that I dismissed. A curiosity, but nothing requiring a shift in my world-view paradigm.
But now, I'm standing in the center of the action. There's no denying it any more. I'm no longer an observer. I'm a reluctant participant. An unwitting accomplice.
The police arrive just in time and I'm chomping at the bit. Foaming at the mouth. This is going to be great. I can't wait to see the police unleash a furious assault on these mongrels. A real Rodney King-style beat down. A WWF smackdown played out in real life right here on Geary Street.
I'm thinking I'll walk into the corner grocery, pick out a 40 oz beer, kick the homeless Rasputin character out of the road-side Lazy Boy, and watch it all go down. This should be a thing of beauty.
But instead, the police head straight for my motorcycle. I'm still wearing my helmet and there's no license plate on my bike. They'll put this together real quick. Suddenly, I'm thinking I'm in their crosshairs.
But they walk right by the motorcycle with no license plate. Right past the broken whores and homeless crack addicts. Past the near-human handicapped gimps rolling downhill in motorized wheelchairs. Past the illegally parked rolling canvas with California plates that say FINDART. Past the thin pale hippie spraypainting the front of the truck on Geary street.
This fog comes into the city now thick as cream. It comes in like a tide from the coast that doesn't obey the shore. It just keeps right on rolling into the city.
Foghorns sound out in the bay. These ships out there...how they make it I can't say. Can't know. Can't guess. They're on the bay though, sailing through this whipping cream, sounding their fog horns almost continuously. The Golden Gate and the Bay Bridges have horns as well. They're talking back and forth...the bridges and the ships...they have this dialog...they're all talking at once now...madness.
The police cut a lock off a door, climb back into their black and white cruiser and disappear into the fog.
I don't think you could get arrested in this town if you tried. You'd have to physically assault someone to get any police attention. Short of that, you're not on their radar, I'm afraid.
My laptop is old and battered. It's essentially non-functioning at this point. It sounds like a lawnmower on a gravel driveway when it's working, and it won't work unless it's plugged in. The battery is completely useless.
I'm so excited by my near-life-experience with the artists I want to write. I want to buy a laptop that works, so I drive to Central Computers to see if they'll sell me a laptop, but they're closed so I'm left to wander the city streets on two wheels in the dying light.
Nob Hill
I start rolling up Nob Hill, and I notice that the poverty seems to be focused closer to sea level. As you climb the hills, you leave behind the homeless, so that the crime and poverty seem to flow downhill. The peaks are all powdered with the affluent and well heeled bourgeois.
Of course, this is just death to me. Nothing that interests me in the least.
The Bike
The bike can smell fear like a woman. It knows when I wake up if I'm afraid. You can't ride a wheelie unless you're completely insane. Bold.
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 13, 2011 at 3:00 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
The Tenderloin National Forest
On the way into work, I see that the artist has completed a painting on Polk Street I've been following for a few weeks, so I stop to shoot it. I don't think "Oh, I'll shoot it later." That doesn't work. If you think 'I'll shoot it later', then you're not a photographer. That's how you can tell. If you want a photo, you stop the bike right now and take a shot. It's the only way. There is no other way.
So, I stop and shoot the mural and the art is brilliant, of course. But I can't quite figure out what I'm seeing. It's a painting of a street scene, but I'm not quite getting it. I'm looking across the street. Apparently, I'm supposed to make something from it. I'm glancing around. Part of it looks right...the planter..the trees. Buildings aren't quite right...but close. Then, I turn around and suddenly I see exactly what he painted. He painted the street behind me. So, if you turn around, you see the exact same scene in real life. Brilliant.
But another screaming firetruck drags me back down into a hellish nightmare. Back into the boiling crucible of madness that is San Francisco. Marred by wailing sirens, earthquakes, and traffic.
They say the generals are always ready to fight the last war, and no place is that more true than San Francisco. Because the city burned in 1906, they're constantly overreacting to countless emergencies.
If you multiple the number of buildings and the number of people in the city times the probability at any point in time that a building or a person is having a crisis, you come up with the fact that there are countless emergencies unfolding all over the city, day and night.
And every emergency is inundated with a wailing fleet of emergency vehicles. Firetrucks. Ambulances. Police. You name it.
It can really get to you after a while. I mean, it's nice to be in the city, and all. But every time I'm driving my bike and a fire engine comes racing up behind me I think I'm going to die.
These block-long fire engines come screaming up behind me the adrenaline rises inside to a crescendo and I nearly lose my mind. These things are loud and long as they race past like an asteroid from outer space and after they pass, you're left, still moving down the street, but drowning in adrenaline. It's hard to know what to do. It's so confusing...so distracting...at a time when you need to stay so clearly focused on the task at hand...driving through the asynchronous bifurcating streams of traffic without dying.
Every car horn rattles me beyond words because, right away, I think, "Am I about to get run over? Am I about to die?" And it's the only acceptable response to a car horn. He's trying to get someone's attention, and it might well be you he's beeping at. If you assume they're honking at someone else, you do so at your own peril. And if you're wrong in that assumption, it may cost you dearly.
I've been in the city so long that I've started to get somewhat rattled from it.
At work, the fire engines and ambulances and police scream away day and night with their sirens.
"Sometimes, I just wish they'd take the sirens off of the firetrucks and police cars and the ambulances. Maybe we'd be better off if the people died quietly and the buildings burned down to ashes in a peaceful and serene silence," I offer at work. Everyone looks at me like I'm insane. I get that a lot, really.
Almost as if on cue, a civil defense siren starts wailing and I'm like..."Christ...what is that for? Is there no end to this madness?"
"THIS IS ONLY A TEST. IN THE EVENT OF AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY YOU"D BE DEAD BY NOW..." the voice inside my head is telling me.
"Where is that coming from?" I ask a girl at work. "Is it inside the building? Outside?"
"I dunno," she replies. "They do it ever so often. About once a month I'd say."
"Christ. Who could live here?" I wonder.
Wheatpaste Artists
Yesterday, I discovered that a lot of the art I've been seeing around the mission is hanging inside a gallery on Larkin near Geary. I'm curious to know what's up with that. Are they using the city as a billboard to advertise their work? That takes balls.
And, sure enough, I walk into this art gallery and they have these same images hanging on the walls. Just a bunch of whacked out images some guy named David Young threw together. And it's not that it's not good. That's not my point. A lot of it is good.
I don't normally like want to hear what the artists have to say. The reason is that, to me, the art should stand on it's own merit. Hearing some drug-addled pseudo-intellectual artsy type expound on what he was trying to communicate when he created a certain piece of art always always makes me want to take my own life. It seriously can ruin a piece of art for me to hear them droning on and on in a ego-fueled soliloquy about a bunch of nonsense like this:
"The work for Make An Effort is a continuation of Young's exploration of a theoretical post-apocalyptic San Francisco - a rebuilt world, full of new ideals, technology, religion and language created from scratch. "
This sort of self-indulgent mindless drivel makes me want to hang myself.
Not that the art pieces are bad. Some of them, I'm looking at and thinking...that'd be cool to have that in my house back in Colorado.
"Who did the wheatpasted images on the outside of the building?" I ask, referring to the U.S. currency based images I'd located previously.
"That's by James Charles," she replies.
But then, I think, wait a minute. I think I've been duped. I'm just shocked, I guess, at the connection between the artist and the wheatpasted images around the city and the gallery. Like, it's all a brilliant conspiracy, I think.
And, probably, technically, they couldn't prove that the artist put the images up across the city, but I think the preponderance of evidence would suggest that he was involved in some way.
I emerge from the gallery with a renewed zeal to understand what, exactly, it is that I'm seeing. Have I been duped? Am I a stool pigeon? Is the tenderloin just an extension of the art galleries?
So now, I'm grid searching the loin, but with the new world view. With the new perspective. I assume that I've not seen anything. That there's more wheatpaste and graffiti in the city than I could ever imagine. More than I could ever find.
I spot a painted panel van on Geary and Leavenworth, where I've seen some interesting wheatpaste graffiti before. So I stop to shoot the truck. I park the bike and start shooting the back of this panel van...it has this massive mural of a bunny on meth.
And I start to take a shot of the mural on the back of the truck and, as I do, this guy steps up and says..."there's much more inside." And he rolls up the back of the truck to reveal an art gallery inside the back of the cargo truck. There's a row of steps leading from the street up into the bed of the cargo truck.
I look at the guy and then back at the inside of the cargo truck. I've seen enough "I Shouldn't Be Alive" episodes to recognize a trap when I see one, albeit a well-constructed one.
I'm like..."for realz bro?"
At first, I don't go near the truck because I think it's some kind of a trap. Like, they're going to capture me and drive me across the bay to Oakland and auction me off to a bunch of gay meth addicts or something.
But, as I study the van, I notice that one wall is opened up about 2 feet, so I could climb out the side if I had to. So I walk up these steps into the back of the truck, and the art hanging on the walls is pretty good.
This guy is explaining to me that they're driving the truck across the country, discovering new artists and displaying their work. He hands me this little pamphlet that says Find Art Magazine.
And I'm like...for real? Like...who would think of this? You couldn't make stuff like this up.
I'm thumbing through the pamphlet and right away, I recognize the art of Jason Hailey (Chor Boogie). He paints all of the acid dream faces with disconnected eyes and teeth. I've seen his murals across the city. Very cool.
I climb out of the rolling art gallery and start walking around this truck and shooting it from all sides because it's wild looking. Make no mistake about that. It's well painted on all sides by several extremely gifted artists..
Now, as I'm shooting and wandering around this truck ...still wearing my helmet, mind you, another guy walks up and squats down to about bumper level in front of this parked cargo truck and starts taping over the truck's headlights with blue painter's tape.
A skinny white guy with a hat and a goatee. Kinda artsy looking, but in a cool forgivable sort of way.
And, right away, I'm like..."uh...dude...what are you doing?"
"Well, I'm going to lay down something here...something different than what they've got going on right now..."
"You're gong to paint it?" I ask, incredulously.
"Mmmmhmmmm..."
"With spray paint?" I stutter.
"That's the plan..."
He's tearing up some cardboard boxes he found on the sidewalk and taping them over the van's windshield.
"Why are you parked here?" I ask the guy that originally attempted to lure me into the vehicle.
"We know some of the people that work in the art gallery right there, and they said we could hang out here, " he replies.
Only then do I realize that I'm surrounded by art galleries. On both sides of Geary, near Leavenworth, are several art galleries, as it turns out. So, I start wandering through these art galleries and I'm thinking...wtf? Why have I been in San Francisco for 6 months and never seen the inside of an art gallery? Like, seriously, dude. WTF?
I mean, how is it that I've missed the best part of being in a city:
So, of course, now I'm wandering through these art galleries and checking out the images. Some of it is that modern art that no one with any sense would want to see. But some of it is just brilliant.
Outside, the homeless are panhandling and smoking crack. I'm not joking. I'm standing here watching a guy smoke crack in a crack pipe. Watching the homeless bum cigarettes, change...whatever they can beg, borrow, or steal.
Small fractions of people roll by in motorized wheelchairs. Missing more limbs and body parts than you could imagine.
Whores stagger up and down the sidewalks. Bruised legs. Dirty knees. People set sofas and lounge chairs out on the sidewalks and the homeless bed down in them.
And a guy is spraypainting a truck on the street.
And now the police come. And I'm thinking...well.. this ought to be interesting. Things are going to be different now. But nothing changes. The police don't care what's going on. I mean, I'm standing here at ground zero in Sodom and Gomorrah and the police are just whistling past the graveyard.
Seemingly oblivious to everything going on around us.
There are so many crimes being committed that, if you started writing tickets, you could write until your hands bled and your pens ran out of ink and not begin to mitigate the crime on this one corner of the city.
Somehow, I think the police realize this, so they just ignore the human circus around us. They wander up to a door, deeply buried beneath countless graffiti slogans and wheatpasted images. They cut a lock off of the door, climb into their squad car and disappear into the madness that is San Francisco.
Only now do I realize how much I love this city. How mad the city is, and how much I need the chaos and insanity. This is the coolest place on earth. I'm standing in the nadir of western civilization.
Tenderloin National Forest
I leave the madness of Leavenworth and Geary and continue grid searching the Tenderloin for graffiti.
I quickly stumble into a little garden behind a wrought iron gate. A sign says "Tenderloin National Forest". I'm about to bust a gut laughing. The "Tenderloin" is "skid row". Not a nice place. Who would think of such a thing? Hilarious. But here, in the heart of the Tenderloin stands an immaculate little garden of flowers and trees, with massive murals adorning the walls.
I wander into the garden and start shooting like a meth addict because now I know that I'm hooked. I'm hooked on the beauty of the city - the murals that the artists throw onto the canvas that is the city of San Francisco.
But now, the gardener appears, a young goateed hipster. I start asking him who did the murals and, unlike most people, this guy actually knows something He knows who did each mural and I'm like..."Holy Moses...someone who actually knows whats going on for once. Nice."
At the end of the garden, a large painted tornado and a tree and he names the artist - Andrew Schoultz. And I'm like..."this guy - Shultz - he did the painting on the building on Lexington Street in the mission, right? With the elephant and the bird houses and everthing?"
"Mmmhhhmmm....that's right...it's the same guy.",
"Who did the bear? I've seen that before."
"That's by Chad Hasegawa," he replies.
And I'm like...oh wow. How cool is that? I'm starting to understand everything works. Starting to ptiece it all together.
Of course now, I can't wait to start wheatpasting my own images all over the city. Now that I see how it's done, I predict that someone will start wheatpasting up "Killing Strangers" posters and "Peenie Wallie" posters all over the city.
The Grove
I was really dreading going to The Grove tonight because I hang out there all the time and, although, in theory, it's a place to meet people, in practice, I seldom meet anyone. Most of the chicks that I hit on treat me like I have the plague. And I don't usually talk to the other guys in there, because I'm not trying to pick up on them, of course.
But tonight there was a guy sitting on the bench where I normally sit, so I sat down beside him and we started talking. Turns out that he used to live in Conifer, near my house in Colorado. And recently moved back to San Francisco. And has taken long cross country motorcycle trips like me. And used to live on Singer Island.
He's as cool as the other side of the pillow, and it's nice to meet new people because, honestly, I've not met a lot of people out here. Probably because I'm getting more antisocial as I get older? I'm not sure. But I was glad as hell to meet this guy and the funny thing is, he looks exactly like my brother.
"...I was a young writer and I wanted to take off. Somewhere along the line, I knew there'd be girls, visions, and everything; somewhere along the line, the pearl would be handed to me." - Jack Kerouac, "On The Road"
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 13, 2011 at 1:44 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 28, 2011
The South Indian Monkey Trap
Monday morning finds me at 30,000 feet on a plane to nowhere. Trying to forget the weekend. Trying to paint that nightmare out of my mind.
When I went to board the plane, the guy tried to scan my boarding pass but it's a complete fabrication. Just a poorly fabricated photoshop printed in the small hours of the morning. To the casual observer, it looks fairly good but Southwests' scanner is giving it a big fat 'F'.
"Hmmmm," he warns. "It says that you're not flying today. Also, your number is A8, and the girl in front of you was A8 also...that's odd...hmmmmm."
But I have an ace in the hole. I did, in fact, purchase a ticket to fly today. So what if I don't have a valid boarding pass. It's no skin off of my back. I'm getting on the plane, I figure. Come hell or high water.
Eventually, he waves me aboard, but before I walk away, I reach over and gingerly retrieve my fabricated boarding pass.
"I have to turn this in to get reimbursed," I explain. "It's a company policy."
This little trick is something I learned from brother. Not the boarding pass fabrication. The "company policy" ruse. People are always telling you what there policy is, so you turn it around on them and tell them what your policy is. Works like a charm.
But where were we?
Oh yes....I'm on a plane, painting a broad white contrail across the Great American Desert, from Denver to Orange County because, well because. And I'm trying to forget about this weekend but it's not working. Can't push this nightmare into the closet. For some reason, it keeps popping back out and I may as well lay it out because nothing can save me at this point, I'm afraid.
First of all, you should know that there's a reason I'm working on the road. It's because I don't have a lot going on in Colorado. My neighbors avoid me like the plague, planning weekly dinner parties, but somehow managing to never include me in their plans. So there is that.
And then, I broke up with the chick that I was banging like a screen door in a hurricane for the last two years. Her Christian name is 'Lurch'. She's not much too look at, and she's as dumb as a bag of hammers. Long in the tooth with hands like a lumberjack, but she was, at the end of the day, willing to put up with me for long stretches of time. And the two of us work less than any people you've ever met, so we did have some good times together driving around the mountains of Colorado, the canyons of Moab, and the forests of New Mexico. So, she was good for that. Always up for a road trip when I never really felt like getting out of bed.
But at the end, she was just using me for my body. And, you would think, maybe that's what guys want, but it's not really. It's so not. This is actually the second time in my life that I've had a woman use me for my body and it's every bit as depressing as you could imagine. When there's no love in a relationship, it's just so unhealthy I don't know where to begin.
And now she's gone and that's why I'm on the road of course. Because I just don't want to think about it and it's so easy to backslide because, well just because it is really.
The Trailerpark Mockingbird
Lurch's neighborhood is guarded by a malevolent scold named Janet, a talented and accomplished gossip monger. A short, trollish looking wench that attends church religiously every Sunday not to glorify Him, but to make certain she doesn't miss out on any malicious tongue wagging.
She patrols the neighborhood from the safety a collapsing, single-wide trailer she parked at the mouth to the neighborhood to keep an eye on other people's business, as she has no business of her own.
Or if it can be said that she has a trade, her trade is gossip and business is good.
Although not officially assigned to defend the trailer park by any homeowners association, but she gladly assumes the duties. As the quasi-official trailerpark mockingbird, she takes in every story, every snippet from every liar, every rube, every tattletale and chews these delicate bits diligently, eventually working it around to her own advantage. She fans the flames of discord between neighbors, eventually breaking apart solid marriages.
In the process, neglecting her own finances, she eventually drove her own family to the brink of financial ruin.
The final straw was when the neighbors, married for 32 years, divorced over some scandalous rumors she'd fabricated or exaggerated. By coincidence, on the same day, the bank came to repossess the family trailer.
Thinking swiftly, the scold begged them off by selling the axles out from under the trailer. They lowered the trailer onto the ground. They were so poor they couldn't afford to purchase concrete blocks beneath the frame, as the other neighbors had. (The divorced family dealt in cinder blocks, but weren't feeling overly generous for reasons mentioned previously.)
To avoid her evil wrath, I took to riding my motorcycle up the hiking trails up the side of the mountain. It was illegal, of course, but I only had to drive down the hiking trails for about a mile or so and I never got caught doing it and it drove the scold mad. When I left, I'd drive right by her trailer and tach the motorcycle's engine up so loud that it shook her windows. So she new when I left, but she could never be sure when I had arrived and this drove her nearly insane.
I would say it drove her to drink or it drove her to smoke, or to swear. But she already did all of those things, as I think I've mentioned before. She was a wretched little sooty troll of a woman. Everyone that knew her loathed her, and the truth was not in her.
And Then There Were None
My saving grace in all of this was that there was one person fairly close to my neighborhood that I could hang out with. He and I would go fly fishing in Colorado summers and he had a daughter my daughter's age, and we got along reasonably well.
When the neighbors were throwing parties that I wasn't invited to, it was a place I could go to get away from the jackasses that hold me pinned to my little property like a dusty butterfly in a museum collection.
I could go to his house and drink beer and let the kids play. We drove down to the zoo in Colorado Springs. We did some things together with the kids. It was a relief valve for the long summers.
So, on Friday, I was over there with my daughter and the kids were celebrating a birthday party or two, my buddy and I were out back drinking beer and I'm talking to him like I would a true friend. You know how it is. You don't hold back around your close friends. Your close friends have your back when it all goes down. When you don't know which way is up, they're the ones you turn to.
So, we're chewing the fat and then he brings up that he's now going out with my ex-girlfriend. And, let's be clear. By "ex-girlfriend", it means that I've not been over to her trailer on my dirt bike in a few weeks. It means that, when she sent me an email on Monday (5 days ago) saying "Where are you?" I figured we were in pretty good shape.
But now, my buddy is telling me that he's got her all dialed in and I'm like "Oh wow. Check please?" I chugged my beer and excused myself.
"Don't you want to stay for another beer," he cheerily offered?
I'm like "I think I'm good, thanks," and I blew out of there. Like seriously? Seriously? WTF?
I spent the rest of the weekend trying to keep the pointy end of the pistol out of my mouth.
The weekend was tough because, I don't know what to do. I want to get out, but I don't know where to go. I tell Jennifer, "Let's go somewhere. Georgetown. Boulder. Anywhere." But no. Nothing is truly contemplated. All that is seen is the cost. Time spent in the car.
So I surrender to her apathy and I don't do anything and she doesn't do anything and the only neighbors that speak to me are out of the country and even the cat doesn't seem to be inclined to hang around and this won't go down as one of my best weekends.
The South Indian Monkey Trap
As we take off, I can literally look down and see the scold out in her trailer park. She's trying to lure a donkey into her garage with a carrot. Why? I can only guess. She's got nine kids and, even from here, it's clear she's pregnant again.
As I think back on it, I see now that this was all planned. All orchestrated. He'd planned all along that he would tell me he was going out with my ex. He was waiting for the right moment in the conversation. A time to mention that which he knew would be an issue. I walked blindly into an ambush. I feel stupid and maligned.
I try to push the shattered fragments of this thing I call a life into the furthest corners of my mind.
I pull out "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and start reading it. I told all my friends in California to read it, but they all summarily dismissed the suggestion. They don't talk to me anymore either. Sister tells me not to play "connect the dots with the low points" of my life. But this is where I am.
I love the book, and I'm thumbing through it. Some of the more didactic parts, I just sort of skim. I don't agree with Robert Pirsig on his fanatical views of Quality and Gumption Traps. But there are little gems in the book that make it priceless, to wit, the South Indian Monkey Trap.
"The South Indian Monkey trap...consists of a hollowed-out coconut chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole. The hole is big enough so that th emonkey's hand can go in, but too small for his fist with rice in it to come out. The monkey reaches in and is suddenly trapped - by nothing more than his own value rigidity. He can't revalue the rice. He cannot see that freedom without rice is more valuable than capture with it."
Maybe that's me. Maybe I'm the monkey, and I need to revalue the rice. There's nothing particularly special about her. She's got a face like a cantaloupe and the brains of blinded moth. She cheated on me so often that I didn't even ask who she'd been with any more. You just sort of give up hope after a while. It's just sort of "shut up and take your clothes off. I don't want to know."
We land in Orange County, and everyone starts to deboard but there's some holdup. The guy in 1C is having issues. I'm not clear what. People are handing him luggage. He stands up slowly, unfolding a cane as he does. He's blind.
"Here. Let's make sure you've got everything. I put your suitcase right beside you," someone offers. "Do you feel it there...on your right?"
And I think...seriously? This guy can't even see and I'm all depressed out my situation? Seriously? WTF am I doing feeling sorry for myself? What do I care about these two dimwits want to shag each other rotten in an un-air-conditioned trailer? It's no skin off of my back.
We play a high-stakes game of musical chairs in Orange County. I'm sitting on the other side of the plane today because I want to see Big Sur and the Santa Rosa islands. Pismo Beach and San Luis O'bispo.
A girl sits down beside me and we take off for San Francisco.
"What's that you're reading?" she asks.
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mainenance," I reply.
"Is it good?"
"Oh, you just can't know," I reply.
The villagers are coming. I think it's time cut my losses.
Editor's Note: The above story is entirely fictional. All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Above: Mural on Berwick Place wall near Harrison Street.
.jpg)
Above: Mural on Berwick Place wall near Harrison Street.
.jpg)
Above: Mural on Berwick Place wall near Harrison Street.
.jpg)
Above: Mural on Berwick Place wall near Harrison Street by Chad Hasegawa.
.jpg)
Above: Mural on Berwick Place wall near Harrison Street.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Above: Wheatpaste on Geary east of Leavenworth.
.jpg)
Above: Wheatpaste on Geary east of Leavenworth.
.jpg)
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 28, 2011 at 12:01 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
June 2, 2011
The Shortcut to Muir Beach
Critically White Zombies
At lunch, I wander around the building. Sometimes, I cross the street to get lunch at the "Foods Co." grocery store, but there are never any white people in there. As in "none". Not that this matters, mind you. But it is noticeable. Everyone there is short and dark. Black. Hispanic. Oriental. Whatever.
But today, I accidentally stumble across another grocery store I'd never seen before. Some "Rainbow" grocery store and here are all of the white people. I'd assumed there were none in this neighborhood, but I was just in the wrong store, apparently.
This stranger comes up to me as I'm standing outside of this Rainbow grocery store...this total stranger approaches me and strikes up a conversation with me....it goes like this:
"Do you...do you understand how Jesus walked on water?" he asks.
I just stare at him. Like "do I know you?"
But he can't be put off. He dives in deep. "I mean, I understand about hydraulics and atomic pressure and the...um...the weight ratios and relative densities of the molecules...but ...back then...I mean...before they had this understanding of atoms and molecules...before that...back then...when he was walking on water...I mean...I understand how boats float but this is like...different...because some people say the water was almost frozen and it's like he was...um...surfing on his feet...like...you know how a hovercraft floats across the waves...but they didn't have hovercraft then....so like..."
And this guy just goes on and on. I mean...I'm standing here wishing that I was recording this because he's the craziest person I've ever talked to. He's as crazy as they come.
I want to sit down, light a cigar, and just start recording this guy. It's hilarious.
He's clearly strung out on something. Probably meth or ice or crack. Who can tell. But I don't want to challenge him. I just want him to keep talking. You could make a youtube video that would have a trillion hits by dawn if you could just record this guy's insane babbling.
I listen to him for several minutes, but eventually I grow tired of his drug-crazed lunacy and walk into the white-people grocery store and it only gets weirder. They sell all of this organic crap in there. Just the biggest bunch of phonies you've ever seen. Critically white people....all of the craziest, most uber-liberal white people you can imagine are milling around in that place and I'm walking through this tangerine dream and it feels like a bad acid trip. I'm having flashbacks. A very surreal experience, and finally when I can stand it no more I leave without even considering buying anything.
The Shortcut to Muir Beach
First of all, it should be mentioned that, if you're driving to Muir Beach, there is no "shortcut". Or, more accurately, no shortcut exists that it's legal to drive a motorized vehicle down. So let's begin with that.
But I've seen paths on Google Earth that appear to connect Point Bonita Lighthouse with Muir Beach. And I'm sort of trying to ferret out the connection. Trying to punch through from the Nike Missile Site to Muir Beach, on-road, off-road, whatever it takes.
So today, I try to punch through by heading up a promising trailhead (the "Coastal Trail") above the "Townsley" WWII battery above Fort Cronkhite.
When I get to the trailhead, however, I notice a hiker studying me very closely. He's watching me like a hawk and I think about what my options are. I could turn around and leave the way I came in easily enough. But I'm here for a reason and I don't really care what he does. What can he do? Call the Rangers down on me? If I can punch through, I'll be in Muir Beach in a few minutes and then they'll never see me again. I decide to go for it and start rolling up the steep trail toward Wolf Ridge.
After a few switchbacks, it turns into an impassable staircase of stones and handrails, so I turn around. I'm not suicidal after all.
The man is watching me closely. Studying my progress. As I descend, I decide to ride by him, so I just roll up to him and kill the bike.
"Nice day, huh?" I offer.
Like, this guy has been watching me like a hawk for eleven minutes and I'm reasonably sure he's furious, but I'm not letting on that anything's amiss.
"If they catch you up here they're gonna skin you alive," he replies.
"For what?" I ask stupidly.
"You can't be riding this thing up here. We used to ride dirt bikes up here all the time when we were kids. But not any more. No sir. They'll skin you alive."
"You used to ride a dirt bike up here?" I clarify.
"Oh sure. We had a ball up there. But not any more. The tree-huggers got this stuff all locked down tighter than a frog's ass."
"No sir. Don't let they rangers catch you," he continues. "Lord God they would crucify you here. You have no idea."
I was glad to not have him cursing at me and hating me. I felt bad enough that I couldn't make it up the trail any further than I did.
He seemed to understand what I was doing. Exploring, tentatively, in a sort of quasi-legal way. In my mind anyway. I see it as harmless exploration. He seemed to be willing to let the whole thing slide. No harsh words this time. A welcome relief.
Author's Note: Some may well and justifiably question my driving through the Golden Gate National Recreational Areas and Muir Beach. After all, Muir Beach and Muir Woods were named after the legendary John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, revered as the father of the environmentalist movement. (I'm not clear that John Muir ever visited the beach and woods named, but we'll leave that for now.) Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, states that Muir has become "one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity..." That may be true, but keep in mind, there were no motorcycles when John Muir was living in the Yosemite valley. My thought is that, if someone had ever put him on the seat of an XR650L and started him down a trail, that he'd have been the "patron saint of the National Dirt-bike Trail System." It's just that motorcycles weren't around at the time.
My problem lies not with the goal of protecting the GGNRA, in particular, and the planet, in general. My problem lies with where they draw the line. My motorcycle doesn't do any more damage to the trails than a horse or a mountain bike. Everyone wants to keep out the motorcycles. The hikers want the bicyclists out. Well I say then, keep the hikers out. You should see the damage the hikers do.
I am careful not to damage the trails I ride on. I don't litter. I take only photos and leave only tiretracks.
I bid him farewell and head back out the way I came in. Watching all the time for a missed trailhead. I seem to recall seeing more than one on Google Maps.
Sure enough, I see a well marked road/trail on my left on the way out and turn down it. It dead-ends into a well-maintained horse/bike/hiking trail named Rodeo trail. No motorized vehicles allowed, of course. So I start down this new trail and it's much more promising. Wide and groomed dirt path with signs a truck has been down it recently. I'm rolling slowly up into the headlands on this wide groomed road. I pass a bicyclist and a hiker. I'm always afraid that one of them will snap and just tackle me as I pass. But they never do. I just wave as I pass and they seldom wave back, but this is what I do.
The trail climbs and forks and the trails are marked fairly well, but I'm not clear where they lead. I end up on this mountain pass with clear views of Marin City, Sausalito, Tiburon, and points beyond. The trails are well marked, but I can only guess at where they might end up. I switch onto another trail (Alta Trail) that appears to lead north and slightly downhill.
I pass a few hikers, a woman with her dog off leash, and another cyclist. No one tackles me though and eventually I emerge from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in a little zillionaire subdivision in the hills above Sausalito.
So, this isn't great, but it is something. There are navigable trails in the GGNRA. Now, it's just a matter of mapping them out better. I roll North on US 101 for one exit and then get off, following signs for Muir Woods, Muir Beach, Mount Tamalpais, Stinson Beach, and CA 1.
Always I like retracing my steps. The left turn at the red light brings back memories from the first time I ever came up here, so long ago. Winding down CA 1 towards the coast. This is what I like about California. What it does to you. The feeling I get from this is just indescribable. The view and the turns and winding down this road to the coast. This is my drug. I am an addict and this is my drug. This motorcycle scrolling down this winding road. This is what I live for. Without this, I don't exist. Or I'm something less than optimal, in any event.
I'm an addict and the motorcycle is my crack pipe. I dunno why this is, but I need the bike and I need these roads and scrolling through these twisting hills is the best feeling in the world to me.
Eventually, I find myself at Muir Beach, and now I start trying to work back the other way. Trying to connect back to the GGNRA from Muir Beach, by heading south, essentially. But I can't get started. Can't find the trail head. I backtrack a few times until finally I stumble across a well defined trailhead again, for horses, bicyclists, and hikers. No motorized vehicles allowed. I'm starting to see a pattern here.
So I start up this trailhead and it indicates that I should be able, in theory, to punch through to the Tennessee Valley, which would be nice. It'd be a big piece of the puzzle, anyway. Gets me one valley closer to my destination, as it were.
So I start out heading south, climbing up this trail, and it's fairly well marked. Signs indicate that I'll be in the Tennessee Valley in something like 2 miles or so. But this trail is a fairly dangerous one, as it turns out. Sure...if you were hiking, it wouldn't be a big deal. But on a dirt bike, it's a pretty difficult trail. It's a "single track", of course. And I don't do a lot of "single track" riding, in California or Colorado or anywhere, for that matter. And it's sort of dicey, shall we say.
Like, lets say that I lost my balance and fell. Well, in places you'd fall and the coast is so steep, that you'd probably end up tumbling down a 60 degree slope into the ocean, or being dashed upon the rocks below. No joke.
So, I'm sort of gingerly picking my way down this "Coastal Trail" and each valley has a footbridge I have to cross and each ridge has switchbacks up and down and the trail gets worse and worse and about a mile down the trail, I find myself in over my head. I make a series of difficult switchbacks, drop down several steep drops where I nearly dump the bike a couple of times, and finally I get to a point where I decide it's too risky to continue going any further. I know now, from checking the map, that I was above "Pirate's Cove" on the "Coastal Trail".
This is not easy for me. To turn back. And now, it's getting dark. I'm not sure than I can make it back up the steep trail I've come down. This is going to suck. I may need a helicopter to get this bike out of here. Sun setting. Temperature dropping. Who knew this trail would be so difficult. They should put up a sign that says "not safe for motorcycles" instead of "no motorbikes allowed". It's a completely different message.
To give you an idea of how technical the trail is, I've passed no one. Not one person. No hikers. No bicyclists. No horseback rider people.
And now, I've got to somehow get back out of here, or I'm royally screwed. Royally screwed.
I stow all of my cameras in my backpack, as there's a good chance I'll go down trying to get out of this nightmare. I get the bike turned around, with some difficulty. And now I start rolling back uphill.
The shocks on the bike a slamming into the top of the forks, cuz there's too much air in them. On the highway, I'd never noticed this, but now they're slamming into the tops of the triple clamps but I'm not going to adjust them now. Not here.
I have to stop a few times, and each switchback uphill is a nightmare of adrenaline. Climbing uphill is an art...a delicate balance of momentum and acceleration. Every time I open the throttle too much, the front end comes off the ground but not enough throttle and you fall over or roll backwards or fall off the face of the cliff.
So I'm hanging on for dear life, leaning and praying, and spinning up the slopes on one wheel and somehow...by the grace of God, I get past the worst of it and I realize that, in all probability, I'm going to live.
And I think about that crack-addict explaining how Jesus walked on water and probably that's how I sound trying to say how I scaled the cliffs above Pirate's Cove on a dirt bike. The truth is I'm not sure how Jesus walked on water and I'm not sure how I made it back from those cliffs above Pirate's Cove. Probably 'divine intervention' is the best explanation we'll ever know.
But I did make escape that trap somehow and I did it without laying down my bike and I'm through off-roading for the day and so happy to be alive.
Ae the sun drops down into the Bolinas Lagoon, I think about a path I passed on the way out and wonder if it wouldn't have dropped me down into the verdant Tennessee valley.
I don't know why, but this is my drug. This is what works for me. I'm not better than the junkie in the Mission babbling about how Jesus walked on water. I may function on a higher level than he does, but we're not that different he and I.
I am an outlaw. A rebel without a clue. No one with any sense would be riding an "Enduro" through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. But this is my cross to bear. I didn't choose this life. It was forced upon me. I'm just playing the hand I was dealt.
The Road Ahead
The sun is setting in the North and I still have a little light left so I make a run at the Bolinas Lagoon. I point myself north on CA 1 and drive into the sunset, past Stinson Beach and up toward the Bolinas Lagoon.
This section of California State Highway 1 is designated the "Shoreline Highway". Different sections of CA-1 are designated different names, including the "Pacific Coast Highway", "Cabrillo Highway", "Shoreline Highway", or the "Coast Highway".
There is a trick to driving the Shoreline Highway, however. This road will eat you alive if you're not careful. This two-lane black-top twisting river of madness is as beautiful and breathtaking as it is dangerous. You have to settle down and take each turn one turn at a time. I'm sure there are countless wrecks out here. I've seen bikes go down myself on this road.
The trick is to take each turn as it comes to you. This is not easy when you're looking down the road at 14 hairpins in a road. You can lose your mind if you don't get a grip on yourself. One turn at a time Brake into the turn. Throttle out. This road is a beauty, but parts of it are very difficult. Lots of sections are washed out and the road crews just put up stop signs to control the flow.
Somewhere north of Stinson beach, it's too dark to continue and I turn and retrace my steps down CA-1.
Each outing is an improvement over my last outing as I tinker with the bike and my gear. I'm not cold when I ride any more, thanks to my new riding gear. The bike doesn't run out of gas, due to the new 4.7 gallon "desert" tank. The headlight points closer to the right location than it ever has, though still a little too high.
I'll need to replace the chain, sprockets, and tires before I leave for Alaska. May also need to install some saddlebags. I've been watching the other bikes to see what they have. But each ride is a little better than the last and I think I'll be in good shape by the time I have to leave.
.jpg)
Above: The Gerbode Valley.
.jpg)
Above: Marin City, Sausalito, Richardson Bay, the Tiburon Peninsula, and in the far background, the Napa Valley.
.jpg)
Above: Entrance to Muir Woods.
.jpg)
Above: The "Coastal Trail" above Muir Beach, looking south toward the Golden Gate.
.jpg)
Above: Muir Beach at sunset.
.jpg)
Above: The Coastal Trail above Muir Beach with Mount Tamalpais in the background.
.jpg)
Above: Pirate's cove.
.jpg)
Above: Looking north, into the setting sun between Muir Beach and Stinson Beach from the stretch of CA-1 designated "Shoreline Highway".
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 2, 2011 at 11:50 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 30, 2011
Escape From San Francisco
.jpg)
Above: A scooter knocked over on Larkin Street.
.jpg)
Above: More scooters knocked over on Larkin Street.
.jpg)
Above: An example of the countless trucks that are constantly defaced in the Mission district.
Like an Alcatraz prisoner gazing twixt the bars, I see the headlands of Marin County from my bedroom. This city is a Chinese finger trap - it sucks you in but you can't get out. So today, after work, I'm plotting my escape.
Maybe I'll go across the Golden Gate to Marin County to shoot the raptors. With the long lens. Yes. This. Shoot the raptors hovering above Marin County.
Poor Impulse Control
I'm turning this idea over in my little pea-pod brain, haunted by the raptors of Marin County...these birds hovering perpetually over the ridges, riding the currents seemingly motionless. No patagial markings. These are not Red Tailed Hawks. Probably not even buteos. Maybe accipiters. Maybe something even more interesting.
I turn onto Folsom street and this woman comes racing up honking...perhaps not understanding that I have my own lane...she's honking at me and just I stay in my lane but the bike rises up like a stallion. It has it's own attitude. I am but a passenger, hanging on for dear life, as the bike rises up and rolls down the street on one wheel in a testosterone frenzy.
And this is what we all love, is it not? To be clearly and demonstrably in the right. Like, for one single instance in my existence, I don't have to think about whether I'm being ethnocentric, misogynistic, or politically incorrect. For this one brief instant, it's not about what I'll be when I grow up or whether I'll ever amount to anything or if they'll name a street after me so I'll be remembered in perpetuity.
Instead, this lunatic bitch has reduced all superfluous thoughts in my brain down to an adrenaline river and I think this is what I enjoy the most. A moment of clarity in a world of confusion.
This tepid female in her feeble hybrid honking her Barbie-horn at me because she's so dense she's unaware that I have my own lane.
The bike stands up on the rear wheel and balances out perfectly and I'm sure I could ride this wheelie all the way out of town and I turn to her...I'm not making this up...I'm riding a wheelie down the street next to her and I turn to her now and look her in the eye and say about the worst thing you could ever imagine saying with your eyes. She can't hear me of course, but she feels me. She feels the rage of the machine and begins to shiver. She knows she's just a dull, thin woman, trembling beside a lion on the African coast, roaring at the sunset. This is not lost on her.
This city is interesting and exciting and there's always a lot going on and it draws you in. But at some point, you grow weary of the spray-painted vans and sirens and razor wire and red lights and homeless.
This woman has pushed me over the edge and now I have to go. Have to escape from this Chinese finger-trap city.
Riding down Lombard Street now in traffic thick and wide and red lights. I can't breathe the air in this town. Pushing out now, ripping the seams of fog city. The traffic surges out like the tide leaving the city by the bay.
Fettered to my own shifting desires.
Cool Whip thick clouds pushing over the headlands from the west. Why I don't know.
The left hand works the clutch continuously but the brain scarcely notices. Riding a motorcycle for 30 years will do that, I think. This is all automatic. Shifting, braking, starting and stopping. The clutch is going all the time now. In and out. Out and in. Slowly rolling in 1st gear in and out on the clutch until the left hand can't work any more.
Why can't we get out across the bridge. Why these city bonds? Why the shackles? Why this?
My left hand hangs at my side now. Completely spent. Finally I can roll in 1st gear as the highway regurgitates a city of cars across the golden gate. Escape. Freedom.
And now finally the enormous red bridge scrolling through my dream. Up close, even better than in photo. Steel scrolling by. Sun painting burnt red cables flowing by. Steel and concrete and cars to the right and left. So many lanes across and I open this throttle and rolling north now. Finally escaping the city.
I take the first exit and now I'm rolling downhill on roads I've never seen before and let's study these Marin County headlands more closely today.
Through the tunnel and now the backroads into Fort Baker and winding up now, along the spectacular contours of the Marin County headlands. Fog rolling in like a river. Thick as Miracle Whip and look at that view of the city. Breathtaking. This is what the headlands do to you.
Now pushing down a thin one lane twisting river of asphalt down toward points unknown. I've been down this road before but never like this.
Steel cables and fog so thick you can taste it and somewhere down here a lighthouse and lord god knows they need one. They need one about every six yards in fog this thick but clearing now and moving North. Away from me maybe.
Past some barriers to keep out cars and up through the headlands and finding this man now. So shocked and disgusted he stares at me and I call him out.
"You got a problem?" I call to him. This man with sneer pasted across his ugly mug.
"You're not supposed to be here on that thing..."
He called the Big Red Pig a thing. I should shove him onto the rocks like Piggy in Lord of the Flies for that. Dash his brains on the rocks below for blaspheming my bike.
"What's it hurting?" I challenge. I'm on a paved road, after all. It's not like I'm racing through fields of Calla Lilies.
"IT"S AGAINST THE LAW!" he shouts. Veins throb as beads of sweat pop out of his forehead.
The old man's argument simmers inside his skull, as sauce reduces in a skillet.
He feels uneasy, you sense, finding himself yelling at a stranger. Espousing adherence to a law that even he's not sure exists.
This is my gift to him, this moment of clarity. This ride on the adrenaline carousel.
He turns and collapses on a lone wooden bench, weathered and raw. Paint falling off the bench in great strips, as bark peels from the eucalyptus trees of the last great depression.
He's older now, than I'd realized. He needs the bench. The respite from the long climb up the talus slopes above the Pacific coast. Face weather and cracked. Unkempt eyebrows.
Only now does it occur to me that he's suffering the fog on this bench alone at this point in his life. There's no one beside him, after all. No one to cling to as the fog rolls in.
I open the throttle and continue up the mountain away from this stranger, simmering in solitude on the cusp of the bay.
I feel badly now, that I called out this old man.
He might not even be a tree-hugger after all. Maybe he was just trying to escape the noise of the planet by climbing up this long steep hill and then after a 30 minute slow climb to the top, I come rolling up on my motorcycle, kicking sand in his face, essentially. Probably that's how he saw things anyhow.
And for what end? Were we not trying to escape the same city? Surely a more reasonable approach would be to park the bike, apologize to the man, and sit on the bench beside him to enjoy the view.
I didn't even realize the bench was there at first. If he'd not sat down on it, I'd have driven right past without noticing it.
The nice thing is that, once you get away from the rules. Once you break those surly bonds, and go beyond where anyone thought you might...Once you get past that point and break through to the other side, then you see that there aren't really any more barriers because no one thought you'd ever get this far.
After I've successfully navigated through three different "pedestrian only" gates designed to keep out cars, I'm surprised to discover that I can drive right through the 1942 WWII batteries unimpeded. These batteries were hastily poured into the hillside in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. But the guns were removed some time ago and the ramparts left to the graffiti artists and lonely souls.
Maybe this is the true gem of this journey. The realization that, if you break enough laws, you can almost get back to sanity. Back to the way things used to be. The way they ought to be.
If you're willing to push aside the laws of society. To break every law that's ever been laid down for you, there is an escape, of sorts, from the Chinese finger trap.
As I roll back down the hill, the fog closes in around me. As I approach the old man's bench, I resolve myself to make amends with the stranger. To seek a truce. Probably he needs me as much as I need him.
But the fog is much thicker now. No longer do these headlands afford stunning views of the city. Now the winds are pushing the fog further south so that I can barely see the road or the guardrails before me. Even the bench is lost in this surreal disorienting fog so that I'm not sure where I am. All points of reference are removed from me so that I'm not sure if I've past the bench yet or not. Or even if it was real. Suddenly, I'm at the bottom of the hill again and I'm left wondering if the old man and the bench were even real or just apparitions in the fog.
.jpg)
Above: A White-tail buck in velvet near Bird Island overlook in the GGNRA.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Above: Looking south from Rodeo Beach in the GGNRA.
.jpg)
Above: Looking south from Rodeo Beach in the GGNRA.
.jpg)
Above: Looking south from Rodeo Beach in the GGNRA.
.jpg)
Above: The Golden Gate bridge as viewed from Fort Baker.
.jpg)
Above: The Golden Gate bridge as viewed from Fort Baker.
.jpg)
Above: The Point Bonita Lighthouse as viewed from Conzelman Road near Hawk Hill.
.jpg)
Above: The Golden Gate bridge with San Francisco in the background, as viewed from Conzelman Road near Hawk Hill in the Marin County headlands in the GGNRA.
.jpg)
Above: The Point Bonita lighthouse.
.jpg)
Above: The Point Bonita lighthouse.
.jpg)
Above: Looking south from Rodeo Beach in the GGNRA.
.jpg)
Above: Looking south from above Rodeo Beach and Fort Cronkhite in the GGNRA.
.jpg)
Above: SF as seen from Conzelman Road.
.jpg)
Above: SF as seen from Conzelman Road.
.jpg)
Above: SF as seen from Conzelman Road.
.jpg)
Above: Don't try this at home...shot of Golden Gate in motorcycle mirror while driving across the Golden Gate bridge with no hands.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 30, 2011 at 11:18 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
The Point Reyes Sand Trap
.jpg)
Jennifer was out for the weekend and you just can't know what that's like, or maybe you can. Maybe you do know. I dunno. But for me, it's like this...the one person that's more important to me than anyone else on the planet flies in to see me on an airplane and I get to show her my new city. This is the plan.
I have a car rented and everything but when we go to pick up the car, my driver's license has expired. And they won't rent me a car. Major bummer. This sucks in a big way. And I can't figure any way around it. So we catch a cab back into the city and we're sort of grounded, as it were.
In the morning, I let her sleep in and she sleeps in until noon, which is a record so far as I know. Nothing compared to her old man, of course. But respectable. I mean, at my age, I can practically hibernate. But noon is good for her, I think.
So we sort of play around in the city and we ride the cabs and the buses and the cable cars and we have fun. We're not suffering, mind you. We hit Ghirardeli Square, the California Academy of Science, ride the cable car, buy Timmy a new cat bed. Pick up some souvineers. But I can never figure out how to get my hands on a car. I mean, I've got an envelope with a few grand in it, so I could buy a car, but even then you have to get to the vehicle, inspect it, etc. It's just not in the cards on this trip.
She was supposed to fly back tomorrow, but she's planning this big party tomorrow and at some point this afternoon, I decided I'd send her back early and let her get home at a decent hour so she could plan her party for tomorrow. I'd initially planned to get her up at something insane like 4:00 a.m. and run her to the airport in the small hours of the morning. But I broke down and reticketed her to fly out today at a reasonable hour and we cabbed it down to the airport and I let the goons in the TSA have their way with me, the slimy bastards.Now,
Then I race to pick up my bike and ride like the wind across the Golden Gate Bridge. Now, in the city, I drive my motorcycle with no plates and I tell myself that the police don't pull me over because there's too much crime. This works for me. I don't know if it's true or not, but I swear on a stack of Bible's that I've been driving this bike with no plates as a daily driver three months and I've not been stopped once. And it's starting to piss me off. Seriously.
I mean, what's a guy got to do to get arrested in this town, anyway?
I've taken to parking in fire lanes, running red lights, stop signs...riding wheelies the wrong way down one way streets...driving on the beach, driving on pedestrian pathways and even on the beach. All of these things are blatantly illegal, but I can't get any respect.
Finally, last week, I was driving the wrong way down a one way street and I drove past a parked marked police car, and the woman in the passenger seat worked up enough energy to tap on her window, roll it down, and yell "you're going the wrong way!!!" at which point I turned off onto another one way street (still going the wrong way, of course) and disappeared.
But this is all within the city limits. Outside of the city limits, my logic falls apart. There's no rational reason that I can think of that a cop wouldn't pull over a motorcycle for driving with no plates. Everytime I find myself outside the city limits, I'm always sort of thinking..."Huh....this whole 'no plates' thing is going to get me in a heap of trouble one of these days."
And that's sort of where I find myself today. I'm rolling through Marin County, heading out toward Point Reyes, just running balls-out and I'm thinking...."Hmmm....Not only do I not have a license plate, or insurance....but my driver's license is expired also...hmmmm" So this sort of hangs in the back of my brain as I'm flying through Marin County heading for Point Reyes National Seashore.
Not like it matters. I drive like I drive. That's all that can be said about that. I don't care what the speed limit is. I can't be bothered about having plates put on the bike. Life is short. We're all going to die one day. And these laws may make sense for other people, but they certainly don't apply to me and, if you think they do, well you've got to catch me first, dig it?
So I run out to Point Reyes and this time, I take a right turn at the Tomales Bay sign and I end up way on on the northern end of the isthmus and there's a parking lot and a little footpath down through the hills down to the beach and I sit for some time thinking....as Jim would say...."Do I or Don't I". That is the question.
Finally, think...wtf? Seriously? I mean...who am I? Am I Rob Kiser or not? I'm driving my dirt bike to the beach, good sense be damned. So I start driving my Big Red Pig down this little footpath through a steep, twisting trail toward the beach. Now, if I mess up, I'll fall 20 feet down into a little creek. So I'm sort of carefully rolling down the trail as diligently as possible. I get down to the beach and immediately get stuck in the sand, which is OK because now the bike won't fall over.
I abandon the bike and start walking down the beach. I think I've been here before. I can't swear to it. I've definitely been to the parking lot before. I believe I've been to this beach before, but I can't swear to it. There are not many other people here. Probably, as far as you can see, there are 8 other people on the beach. Some group of people seems to have a campfire down south of here some distance. I start walking toward them.
I should mention that I'm wearing all of my new motorcycle gear, so I look like Robocop. I'm wearing black motorcycle jacket and pants, black gloves, and a white helmet. I didn't' take it off because that's a whole other deal. It means removing gloves and glasses and then you have a helmet to carry, so much of the time, I just leave it on. Plus, I look super bad ass walking down the beach in black with a motorcycle helmet on.
By the time I get to the family on the beach with the camp fire, they're scared out of their witts. The patriarch is deliberately and obviously sharpening his fillet knife on a whet stone. He won't make eye contact with me, but the message is clear. His two daughters are playing lacrosse on the beach. His wife is by his side. He's sharpening that knife because he doesn't have a gun and he's not so sure that the guy with the motorcycle helmet isn't some psychotic axe murderer.
"What's for dinner?" I ask.
He just looks at me. Doesn't smile. Doesn't answer. Just keeps working the knife across the face of the whet stone and he's about to cut the whet stone in two.
"Did I miss dinner?" I ask.
"We had corn," he allows.
"You had CORN for dinner." I repeat. Like, seriously?
"And beef tips," he allowed. Still with the knife.
"I'm not to proud for leftovers," I reply.
Finally, he realizes that I'm not there to butcher his family, and he lowers his guard.
"I don't care...it's no business of mine...but is it legal to have a campfire on the beach? I figured the tree-hugger's would blow a gasket."
"You have to have a permit...but if you have a permit, it's legal he allowed."
"Fair enough. Ya'll have a nice day," I offer as I wander back down the beach.
When I get back to my bike, I manage to get it out of the sand and pointed back up the beach toward the trail. It's going to be tough getting back up to the parking lot. If I fall, it's going to suck in a big way because a) it's going to hurt and b) they're going to have to use a helicopter to get my bike out of the canyon if it falls in, so I sort of grit my teeth and just start back up the trail, praying that I'll make it to the parking lot.
Somehow, I make it to the parking lot and, just beyond, I see a bunch of quail just as some Ranger Rick types are walking by and removing their Forest Ranger hats. Knocking off for the day.
"What are those birds," I shout to them.
"Quail."
"I can see that. Why sort of quail?" I clarify.
"Gambel Quail," he replies.
"I don't think so," I reply. "When I came into the park today, I saw an animal cross the road. Are there bobcat here?"
"Yes."
"I think that's what I saw. A huge bobcat."
He looks at me and nods. I leave the park on the bike, glad to be off the beach, and away from the Ranger Rick types. Needless to say, the tree-huggers would blow a gasket if they had any idea that I was driving my bike on the beach.
So, I blow by these two and head out but as I start to leave Point Reyes National Seashore, don't you know that there's not one but two Forest Rangers with their lights going waiting for me. I'm like...."Oh man this sucks. This sucks donkey balls." Like, I'm probably going to jail. As I watch, right before, me, another Ranger Rick pulls up. They're in marked vehicles with all of the bubblegum machines going. All lights are rolling as I pull up to the T - intersection in the park.
Slowly, I begin to comprehend the gravity of the situation. I've been driving my motorcycle down a protected marine sanctuary within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. I've driven my bike down a footpath where no motor vehicles are allowed. I drove down the beach. Then back up the trail. Then talked to a couple of Ranger Rick types like it was all no big deal. Like I owned the place.
All of this with no license plates. No driver's license. No insurance. And now, I'm going to jail. For realz.
My heart sinks. How could I be so stupid. Seriously? What is wrong with me that I think that the laws do not apply to me? Do I feel compelled to go to jail.
One of the Ranger Rick types jumps out of a vehicle with the flashing blue lights and waves for me to drive toward him. Slowly, I comply and roll forward, toward my own private hell. At a minimum, I'm going to spend the night in jail. Bail will be tricky since I'm in California, I figure.
But then, I realize that he's actually waving for me to keep going. And, I have no clue why they were all there with their bubblegum machines going, but they didn't stop me.
I drive down the road a bit and now I see that I'm following another officer. This time, it's a county sheriff vehicle. Probably they want to get me into town so that they can arrest me. I don't dare pass him of course, and he drives the speed limit through Inverness. I think about cutting off and hiding in someone's yard. But there's no way out. There's only one way off this peninsula. I'm not sure where they're going to take me down, but I have an idea they're just trying to get me off the peninsula so that I can't escape on the dirt bike. They'll take me down in town where I can't get away and I'll be boxed in real good like.
But instead, we go through town and he keeps going and I cut down Bear Valley and just open that throttle up and lay down on the seat and for whatever reason, they never pulled me over. And I'm left thinking...what has a guy got to do to get arrested around here, anyway?
Map of the Point Reyes National Seashore
.jpg)
Above: Driving down Pierce Point Road toward McClures beach after descending the Inverness Ridge in Point Reyes National Seashore.
.jpg)
Above: Pierce Point Ranch near McClures beach.
.jpg)
Above: View from McClures beach looking south down the coast.
.jpg)
Above: View from McClures beach looking south down the coast.
.jpg)
Above: View from McClures beach looking north up the coast.
.jpg)
Above: A point Just south of McClures beach. I walked through a crevice in the rocks to get here. I believe this the area known as Elephant Rock.
.jpg)
Above: Southern end of McClures beach looking north.
.jpg)
Above: My helmet on McClures beach.
.jpg)
Above: Me on McClures beach with the rear tire dug in nearly up to the chain and rear sprocket. For the record, the sand on the beaches in northern California is notoriously difficult to drive on. It's too soft and doesn't pack down well. They should have signs up on the trailhead that says "Beach sand not suitable for motorcycles" or words to that effect.
.jpg)
Above: Walker Creek flows into the Tomales Bay near the Pierce Point ranch. The Tomales Bay follows the San Andreas Fault.
.jpg)
Above: Looking southeast across the Tomales Bay from a vantage point near the Pierce Point ranch. The far side of Tomales Bay is the Bolinas Ridge in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
.jpg)
Above: Looking southeast across the Tomales Bay from a vantage point near the Pierce Point ranch. The far side of Tomales Bay is the Bolinas Ridge in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 30, 2011 at 11:18 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 11, 2011
Give Us This Day
Give Us This Day
Everytime I get on the US 101 I feel small and insignificant. It's so dangerous that you just can't know. And I can't say. But when you're on this road, you're very close to a painful death and anyone with a brain would know this.
Everything you've ever learned about riding a motorcycle comes into play now. Your entire riding philosophy is brought to bear. Right lane. Left lane. Middle lane. Your call. Get there.
Zero shoulder on either side. Cars passing on the right or the left. Cars and trucks and motorcycles, all racing pell mell into the city. Unadulterated madness.
I just hunker down on this bike and speed up slightly. Don't drive in anyone's blind spot. Try to not get run over and not run into anyone else. I'm bent over the handlebars racing like the wind. How I wish this story was over. This is the worst part of owning a bike in the city. This short dash through hell.
And now, the engine dies. I'm in the middle of the US 101 and I've just run out of gas and this is a bad feeling. I reach down to switch over to reserve, but with my new snow gloves on, I can't find the switch and I'm slowing down now, close to death.
This is not good.
The road splits and I drift into the yellow zone between the roads and finally, I get it switched over to the reserve tank and just hang on. Eventually, the fuel finds its way into the carb and the bike roars back to life and for one more day in San Francisco, I have cheated death.
Market Steet
Market Street is death. A swift and painful death and normally, when I come to this road, I cross it immediately as soon as I find it.
"Cross it where you find it". That's my motto with Market Street.
Market Street is death death death. Slow motion intersections. Buses and trolleys and taxis and bikers and bike lanes. Easily the most fvcked up street in the city. I never go down Market Street, because I don't have a death wish.
But today, i order a sandwich (Torta de Pollo) and I've got 10 minutes to kill so I decide to drive down Market because I never have done this. I've been here nearly 3 months and I've never driven down Market street so I decide I'll drive down to the Ferry Building and turn around and come back just for grins. So, I make it down there and I turn and double back down Mission and somewhere between 1st and 2nd, I see some statues and I pull into this little plaza to snap some photos of these statues.
A security guard or three come running out and they're all exciting, like fire ants when you kick their mound. They're all stirred up and they come running out and yelling at me and they're like "you can't be here...we're going to call the police" and I"m like "hahaha. Call them. see if I care"
I'm not hurting anything. Just snapping some photos. But these guys are wanting to start some sh1t and they race around behind my bike to get my plate and they're so disappointed to find that there's no plate. Nothing there at all.
"Did you get my plate? Did you get a good look at it?" I challenge. (I don't have a license plate, for those of you playing the home game). And I'm like, suck it dudes. Y'all lose this one.
"We'll call the police."
"Call them," I say flatly.
"They're right around the corner," they challenge.
"Sure they are. Look dude...5 people were shot on one night in the Mission."
"That's right," he replies. "They sure were."
Our eyes meet.
"So, that's not how it works. If people are getting shot 5 a night, then they won't be 'right here' to check out a guy on a dirt bike taking photos. That's not how it works. You lose this one, cool."
And I ride away slowly, laughing.
.jpg)
Death to Short People
A package arrived in the mail this week via USPS certified mail. So I go down at lunch and sign for it and it's the stock link for my XR650L. The guy that owned my bike before me was a midget and he lowered the bike, which I hate because the bike rides like crap. Seriously. Like, it's a dirt bike that handles like a Smart Car.
So I finally got off my @ss and posted an email on Craigslist that I'd trade the "lowering link" for the "stock link" and people started replying like mad and I said "First one gets me a stock link to my crib on Russian Hill gets the lowering link".
So I got this link in the mail and tried to install it last night, but my tools were just crap. Just cheesy Wal-mart-grade entry-level crap. ¼" socket wrench set. A small set of metric hex wrenches. And I nearly killed myself trying to get it off last night so today, at lunch, I rolled down to Lowe's and stocked up. I bought about $75 worth of tools and came home after work and I'm like....let's so who your daddy is now...
So I break out all of the tools and how good it feels to have grease on your hands again. To get closer to the machine. I'm lying down on the sidewalk in khakis and a white shirt, grease on my bloody knuckles. This is good. Better than good. Women walk by and I start grunting. People stop to watch. I'm cursing and throwing things, like my father used to do. No real reason. Just glad to be alive. Glad to be able to bring a little white-trash-testosterone-theatre to Russian Hill.
Eventually I get the lowering link off and I put the new one on. Not that hard once you figure out what's going on....like...once you locate it underneath the bike, it's all downhill from there. So I got the old one off and the new one on and really, that was my goal for tonight.
But now that I'm here, I may as well get a few other things fixed at the same time. And this is the way of the world, is it not? An object in motion tends to remain in motion. An object at rest tends to remain at rest. This is a fundamental law of physics, though I forget which one at the moment.
I decide to tighten the chain and I pull out the two enormous crescent wrenches I bought at Loew's on my lunch break. This is a good feeling. To have these enormous crescent wrenches on the sidewalk makes me feel like I'm eleven years old and carrying a rifle.
I apply the two wrenches to the rear axle and they don't want to break so I stand up on one and this little oriental man walking by stops to gawk. To see who will win, man or machine. I'm perched on top of this crescent wrench, bouncing up and down in khakis and a white cotton button down and this likkle oriental monkey is stopping and watching now, but eventually, the torque is too much and the bolts and nuts break loose just like I knew they would and the little oreo monkey turns and trots down the alley.
How good it is to be a spectacle. To be the center of attention, if only for a brief time.
Now, for the record, my chain is now stretched as far as Honda deems safe. Any sane person would order two new sprockets and a chain. But that's a project for another night. I'm still feeling my way. Getting dark now.
Darkness brings so many problems
So, I tightened up the chain, lowered the front forks back to their stock (flush) position, and adjusted the headlight so it's not pointing up at the top of Transamerica tower.
Then, when I get on the bike to take it for a test drive, I realize that I can barely touch the ground with my toes, which makes me happy, of course. This is what I want. Exactly what I want. A bike so large that 95% of the population can't even straddle it. Suck it, libs.
.jpg)
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 11, 2011 at 10:46 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
May 3, 2011
The Tenderloin Speakeasy
Last night, I went to a benefit for the California Gay Sheep Farmers Co-operative (CAGS) at some speakeasy down in the tenderloin. The speakeasy is a discreet place with a non-descript front door and a peep-hole. You have to have a password to get in and the back room is literally hidden behind a book case, no joke.
The hard thing about growing old is that I don't remember as well as I used to and the big gaping holes in my memory are hard to paper over. I introduce myself to people and they say we've already met, and I'm like....'when?' and they're like....'eleven seconds ago'. and I'm like, 'huh...how about that?'
So we're out at this speakeasy last night and several of the girls there say they've met me before, which is hard to imagine, as I have zero recollection of them. But they seem to have a few stories that betray they have, in fact, run into me before.
At some point, I find this girl in my face, swearing that I told her "for a fat girl, you don't sweat much". I don't deny that I may have said those words, but she misunderstood the context. It's an old line. A standard left-handed compliment. One I've repeated countless times, but I would never have directed it at her. I would have offered it up more in the vein of "that's like saying 'for a fat girl, you don't sweat much.' "
Now, for clarification, the girl in question competes in triathalons. No joke. So, she's not fat. Far from it. She's skinny as a rail. And to somehow be offended by this line is just absurd, in my opinion. Like, if you're going to be offended by that line, then you don't need to be around me, because I'm just getting started. Those are slow-pitch softballs. Entry level stuff.
But somehow, she apparently misinterpreted my line as a sincere pickup attempt and got offended by it for whatever reason. We'd both been drinking, of course.
So, I turned to Jeff for help.
"Jeff, dude....tell her it's a line from a movie. She's acting like she's never heard it before."
"What movie? I dunno, man. You're on your own on this one. I can't help you."
See, when you're on the road, you end up in the company of strangers. It sort of comes with the territory. So, I'm surrounded by people who don't get my sense of humor. Who don't know the same lines. Haven't watched the same movies.
Furthermore, the problem with confronting someone that's thin-skinned is that there's no answer to the charge of being insensitive, at least none that I'm aware of. It's just this meathook that dull brutes swing without mercy at every conceivable opportunity.
All you can do is apologize profusely for living and tactically retreat from their field of vision.
In a perfect world, I'd shove a grenade in her mouth, pull the pin, and run out into the streets of the tenderloin. But, as luck would have it, this animal is someone's friend. Someone in our clique thought it wise to invite this replicant to our little soiree. So, I can't put a grenade in her mouth.
I tell her several times that she didn't understand it was just a line. To drop the issue and move on. But this is not the way of the beast. The beast can't move on. It has never lived but to fight this one battle. This one crusade, and she's bent on marching down O'Farrell Street with my head on a pike.
Finally, I bolt. I just gab my gear and go outside to get on my bike to flee like a battered woman in the night. But I get to my bike and I don't have my helmet. I left my helmet in there by the monster. Somehow, the dragon is wedged between me and my hat.
In the shadow of my motorcycle, I collapse onto the concrete sidewalk with all of my luggage. (I've still not made it to my crash pad on Russian hill. I went straight from the airport, to work, to this party. Now, I'm cursing all of the Gods of all the world's religions, each in turn.
I call Carol and her boyfriend answers the phone.
"Dude, can you bring me my hat?"
"Why?" he asks.
"Because I asked you to," I reply. Like, I have no idea what to say to a woman. Never have and never will. But godd@mit I'm asking you as a friend to bring me my hat so I don't have to confront the dragon in its lair.
In the tenderloin, you just can't know. Cannot know what this circus is like. Negroes wandering around aimlessly, cursing the sidewalk. Pissing and defecating in the streets. Bottles breaking. Drug addicts. Prostitutes. A drooling, hobbled black woman approaches me. She's pointing her cane at me, waving it menacingly. She's saying something, but the words aren't coming out. Or maybe she's speaking only I can't get it. I try to listen. To know her complaint against this dislocated man sitting on the sidewalk by the motorcycle.
But, before I can discern her concern...before it settles clearly on me, the dragon is upon me. Hovering directly above me now. Wings articulating menacingly in the stratosphere. Flaming red hair. A dragonfly tatto on its bared belly, howling madly in the darkness.
Fire scorches the bare feet of the broken slave. The homeless woman collapses her cane and disappears, squealing like a pig into the night.
I watch her scurry away into the graffiti-splattered darkness. How I envy her, the freed slave as she disappears into the tenderloin, escaping the ire of this smoldering, barren woman.
A piercing screech emanates from the innermost chambers of her carapace. Rising up from the depths of her scarred, hollow uterus. Waves of left-coast, femi-nazi, man-hate cascade through the streets. Before her, sheets of quaking homeless negroes part, as Moses parted the Red Sea.
Sullenly I realize, it holds my helmet in it's bloody claws. I can't leave without my helmet. Driving drunk without a license plate is dumb enough. Doing it without a helmet is suicidal.
She stands above me, fanning the flames of hades with dragon wings, dangling my helmet above me in her talons, deliberately just beyond my reach.
I see now something that I'd not noticed previously. She has a scar across her face. Odd that I'd not seen it before. Only now that the makeup is running down her face in rivers of sweat, base, and mascara do I see the 9" scar across her face where someone once reached down, found their balls, and chopped her face in half with a machete.
How I envy that man. The one that found the testosterone to part her face with a steel blade. If only I knew his name, I'd crawl across every cactus in the Punta Prieta desert in August to thank him.
Now she's fanning the flames again, going on and on about how stupid I was to say that she "didn't sweat much for a fat girl".
Will nothing deliver me from this special corner of hell that I've somehow crawfished into?
At some point, she tosses the helmet into the asphalt streets and it goes rolling down, away from Knob Hill, deeper into the tenderloin where the crazed addicts and whores stare at it curiously. It comes to a rest on a homeless person, who sits, dazed and confused, inspecting the scorched helmet.
"Sorry," I say and I retrieve my helmet and fire up the motorcycle and disappear in the San Francisco night.
God as my witness, she'll never find herself in the same room as me again.
I believe that I'm giving up on my life as a social creature. I think that I'll stick to my photography/motorcycling and leave the psychotic femi-nazis alone.
Today, I googled the line to see if I could find where it came from. I'm still not sure of the origin, but I didn't make it up, obviously. Since she's never had any lines first hand, I thought I'd share a few of the lines I found on the web, to wit:
"I'd love to see what you look like when I'm naked."
"You're ugly, but you intrigue me."
"Can I buy you a drink, or do you just want the money?"
"You don't sweat much for a fat girl."
"Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?"
"Do you know karate? 'Cause your body is kickin'!"
"So....are you in the fifth or sixth grade?"
"Do you have a quarter? My mother told me to call her when I meet the woman of my dreams"
"Someone call a priest...an angel has fallen from heaven"
"Do you like cabbage?"
"was your dad a baker, because you have a nice set of buns"
"i have a 12 inch tounge and i can breath through my ears"
"now, i dont look like much now, but im drinking milk"
"Excuse me - do you like puppies?"
[Confusion]
"You know, puppies - all cute and furry and soft?.."
[Yeah, I guess so]
"Great, let's go dance"You're a long, tall, drink of water, I'd like to climb you.
Are your feet tired, cuz you've been running through my head all night .............
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 3, 2011 at 10:34 AM : Comments (2) | Permalink
December 12, 2010
A Day of Reckoning - Part 2
Wondering when they'll start boarding my flight, I approach the ticket counter and inquire.
The guy behind the counter just breaks into a wide grin.
"Man...I haven't heard that in a while. I bet I haven't heard that once in the 12 years since I left Orlando."
It's something I said, apparently. I have no idea what I said, but obviously it was something that betrayed my Southern heritage.
"What'd I say?" I ask him for clarification.
"When do you reckon you'll start boarding?" he replies. "I haven't heard the word 'reckon' since I left Orlando," he repeats.
"Yeah. You got me.on that one. I did 18 years in Mississippi," I allow.
But I'm not offended. I'm not ashamed of my Southern upbringing. I'm proud of it and I don't mind that I talk like a Southerner. I'm very comfortable with both my accent and my dialect.
I spot Norman, another consultant from my project, queueing up to board also and I say 'hello' to him.
"I didn't know you fly through Denver," he replies.
"Dude, I live in Denver."
On the plane, I pretty much sleep the whole flight. I fall asleep with a cup of Diet Coke on ice on my tray table and, in my dream-state, raise my arms slightly, nearly upending the whole retinue. But somehow, I catch myself just before it all goes topsy turvy across me and the thing sitting beside me.
I have no idea what's sitting beside me. Looks like a Chupacabra with earrings and it's knitting the whole flight. Don't even get me started on the thing beside me in 15B.
Eventually, we land in Madison and, with the wind chill, it's 19 degrees below zero. Snow on the ground. I go up to the little cross-eyed worm that works at Enterprise and Norman is ahead of me, already deep in the process of renting a car.
The rental agent and I have had our differences. It's never been a pleasant relationship. I hate renting cars so much you can't know, but the motorcycle is no longer an option. It's ceased to serve as a useful means of transportation so when Norman leaves, I tell him I'll see him in the morning and then I approach this little cross-eyed, spineless maggot cowering behind the Enterprise Car Rental counter and hand him my driver's license and my credit card.
When he asks to see my plane ticket, I show him my boarding pass. But he wants to see my return plane ticket because my credit card says "Debit" on it somewhere. It's a credit card. And it can be processed as a credit card, but for reasons that only make sense to the deeply stupid dolts at Enterprise, if the credit card says "Debit" on it, they won't process it as a credit card, and they want to see your plane ticket.
"Why do you want to see my plane ticket? Do you think I'm not allowed to travel?" I ask.
"It's our proof that you're returning to the airport," he offers, as if that makes sense. As if a piece of paper will somehow compel me to return to the airport against my repressed inner-desire to steal an imported economy card and drive away into the Great White North.
"Dude. This is 2010. I don't have a plane ticket. It's not like 1976 when they printed tickets on ticket stock and hand them to you in a smoking lounge. I made the reservation on Expedia. I printed my boarding pass at home. This is what I have," I explained. He wasn't buying it.
"Delta can print your ticket for you right over there," he insists, trying to deflect my unwanted advances.
"Seriously. Delta? Who the fvck flies Delta?" I'm flying United. Their ticket counter is obviously closed." It's 11:00 at night. We're in a small airport. There are no more flights out tonight. Outside, it's snowing and freezing cold. The agents have all closed shop and gone home for the night.
"Then bring up my reservation on your computer," I continue.
"I have your reservation right in front of me," he deadpans.
"No, genius. I mean bring up my plane reservation on Expedia. You can see it there."
"We don't have internet access," he replies.
"Now you're lying to me. You're a bald-faced liar. You're telling me you don't have internet access? You're a liar, and not a very good one."
And I stalk off to catch a cab, but there are no cabs, just a crippled line of people to dumb to realize that there's no good reason to be in Wisconsin in December. A queue of hopelessly lost soles praying for a cab to deliver them from the misery of the Madison airport in the deep recesses of a Sunday night.
I wander around the airport hopelessly trying to come up with a plan. If I can't rent a car, and I can't get a cab, I'm pretty much screwed. Like, this sucks. I've never claimed to be a good traveler. Quite the opposite. I've readily admitted on numerous occasions that I'm a poor traveler at best, and now Norman has made it clear to me that I'm not cut out for this kind of work. Somehow he flew in here and rented a car, something that I'm utterly incapable of doing.
Eventually, I realize that I'll just have to call Norman and ask him to come back and pick me up because I'm incapable of renting a car for reasons that are so absurd that even I'm having a hard time understanding what went wrong.
So I call Norman on my cell phone. I'm actually surprised that I even have his number, but I call him and he answers...I'm sure he's at his hotel by now as he left the rental car counter 20 minutes ago.
But he answers and tells me to meet him in Enterprise's parking lot and I walk down there, slipping across the ice and find him in his car.
I get in and he says "Why won't they rent you a car?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Let's go."
"I can't figure out how to start the car," he states, and he hands me the key.
I study the key and I recognize right away that it's one of those super-trick keys that you don't have to put in the ignition. You just have to have it in your pocket. There's a button on the dash to start the car and I push it and it lights up, but nothing happens. The car doesn't start or turn over or anything promising. I turn the fan down on the heater so I can verify that the engine is not, in fact, running.
"Put it in park," I offer.
"It's in park."
"Hmmm." I push the start button again and again it lights up, but the engine won't start. Won't even turn over.
"You've been out here in the car this whole time trying to get it started?" I laugh.
"I was just about to go back inside and ask for help when you called. I wasn't going to answer the phone. I didn't know who it was."
"I'm not even sure why I had your number," I reply.
I'm beginning to think that we're all in trouble. Not just us - not just me and Norman - but everyone in society at large. He and I are being flown in at great expense to work as computer consultants for our client. I come from another state. He actually flies in from another country. And here we are, presumably smarter than anyone in the state of Wisconsin, and together we can't rent a single car and drive it away. Maybe the whole of civilization is doomed.
"Put the brake on," offer.
"What?"
"Put your foot on the brake."
He does and I push the button and the engine roars to life.
"Maybe there's hope for our civilization yet," I mutter, and we pull out into the frozen night of Madison in mid-December.
Posted by Rob Kiser on December 12, 2010 at 11:25 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
November 21, 2010
The Daily Commute
7 a.m.
28 degrees.
Madison, Wisconsin
In the morning, I pull on a 2nd pair of pants. Gloves. Jacket. Helmet.
Check out of the hotel, wipe the ice off the seat of the motorcycle, and I'm driving to the airport to catch a flight.
I'm still on the frontage road, approaching a stop sign, when I pull in the clutch but nothing happens. The clutch just lets go and there's nothing there. I'm still in gear and the handle's all the way in but it has ceased to function.
This is kind'a tricky because I'm rolling through traffic now and the brain realizes we have a major problem, but hasn't quite grasped all of the implications just yet.
I start tinkering with the gears. I can shift up and down without the clutch. I do this all the time while I'm driving. You can feel when the engine wants to shift. This is something you learn from experience. It's sort of a Zen thing.
I have to get to the airport, of course, and the sooner the better. And it isn't like there's anyone I could call. I have to keep rolling. Have to somehow get this baby to the airport.
Eventually, I realize that I can shift into neutral, which is a bonus. This means I can stop. The trick is to get it going again. Once I stop, if I just jam it into first, it dies.
However, my first stop is on a little hill, so I let it coast a bit in neutral and, once it's rolling good, I jam it into first and I'm OK.
Eventually, I realize that the goal is not to stop. I can make it to the airport, so long as I don't encounter any red lights. So, when I see a red light, I slow way down and pray it turns green before I get there.
But eventually, my luck runs out and I get to a red light and have to stop. The light turns green and I'm not on a hill this time, so I have to get it rolling with my feet. So, the engine's running and I'm sitting on the bike, running forward, essentially, with a leg on each side of said bike. Trying to get up speed. With no license plate, of course.
I get it rolling a little and jam it into first and it stands straight up like a stallion. I just hold on for dear life and eventually the front tire comes down and makes contact with the street and somehow I don't crash and look at the lights ahead of me to plan what I can do to keep that from occurring again and I wonder how other people's commutes are going today.
Hopefully better than mine.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 21, 2010 at 4:57 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 4, 2010
Wisconsin Grey
Wisconsin Grey
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." - Ernest Hemingway
In the morning, the geese drink from the field ponds and splash around, bathing themselves, preening their feathers. Then rise as one and fly unevenly across the broad grey skies, pinched between ominous clouds and sullen fields.
I want to follow the birds south and keep going all the way to Huacachina. But this is not my destiny. Not today. Today has other plans for me.
I was late getting up and friend drives us helter skelter across Wisconsin on our way to work. Faster than you could imagine and somehow we make it into work just in time for our daily teleconference. Not that we have anything to add. Just that he doesn't want me to be late. For him, it makes no difference. It's his last day and this is something that we both know but don't mention.
After the teleconference, we fiddle with some code and he shows me the programs he wrote. I pretend to understand them and nod a lot, but I don't really have a clue what he did, of course. It's all just smoke and mirrors and magic to me. Just I nod and ask him to send me the documentation. This is all I can do, of course. If his programs don't work, then we'll just have to call him back is all.
The break room is out of coffee again and I wonder how they do it. How they stay in business if they can't keep coffee in the break room. Someone has a bag stashed away and we make a clandestine private pot of coffee. A line forms and we all fill our cups in turn, like heroin addicts in Needle Park in Amsterdam.
Outside, the skies are threatening us of days to come.
When we've exhausted all known coffee stores, friend and I walk down to the next building to raid their coffee supplies. The buildings on this sprawling complex are connected by these mile-long Habbittrails so you don't have to go outside during the winter.
So we start on our way down this surreal tunnel and I had something that I wanted to say to him, but now I can't think of what it is and so we just walk in silence. No one wanting to mention the thing that we're both thinking about.
I don't know the right thing to say or do. I don't know why he gets to go and I have to stay. I don't know about these things.
After several cups of coffee, we're driving to lunch sandwiched between November roads and skies Wisconsin grey.
At lunch, the girl across the table is wagging her tongue about something. She says something about "fate" and I find the courage to look her in the eye and I cut her off and say "Do you believe things happen for a reason?"
"No," she replies, staring down at the table. "I think things just happen," she replies.
This strikes me as the saddest, most depressing thing I've ever heard. That we're all just wandering around the surface of the earth, with no destiny. Nothing pre-ordained. A happenstance world of infinite, random occurrences.
"This is what I think also," I mutter.
I've finally reach my low point and find I can no longer talk. The floor starts to dance and my tongue tastes of metal and it tries to follow the conversation but the brain can no longer produce words from the speech buds I can't join in the dialogue.
I'm so self conscious that I can't even look up and I play with my straw and my drink basically just try to hide. This is where I start to play connect-the-dots with the low points of my life. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. At least since I was 6 years old.
I hand the waiter my camera motion for him to take some photos of friend on his last day and he does which is nice of him.
Back at work, I fiddle with some programs and try to make them work. Nothing all that hard, mind you. Just sort of menial labor, no different than mopping the floor, really. I could do it with my eyes closed at this point in my career, if it could be called that.
And there are conversations in the room that I don't want to be a party to, so I get up and leave and I wander around a bit. I busy myself buying overpriced Diet Cokes and marching around the maze of offices on this massive 640 acre complex.
At one point, a woman appears to following me so I rush into the Men's room where she cannot go and I'm cowering inside the bathroom like a mouse in the corner. Somehow, things have to get better. Something's gotta give.
Maybe, to most people, they'll think this is silly. That friendships can't be formed in this way. But the truth is that most people take salaried jobs where they don't get much say over who they work with. They sit where they're told. They work with the people around them. And, over time, they grow to hate each other. Familiarity breeds contempt, does it not?
But this is a different deal. This is a climate where you work with somewhere for just a short while. Where you have a chance to get to know someone, and aren't around them long enough to know that they're not perfect. Or maybe, because you're not planning on being around them in perpetuity, you learn to rise above your differences. Or ignore their imperfections. And surely they're extending to you the same courtesy.
It's just enough time for you to tell all your stories and them to tell all their stories, and then you move on. You return to your own spaces.
They say it's always darkest before the dawn and when I go back into the room, the dynamics change. Friend and the boss and I are all in the room and we're all stressed, of course. Just stressed beyond belief because of the deadlines and friend leaving and we start laughing and pretty soon, we're all laughing until we're crying and people come in and tell us to be quiet, but we know deep down inside that they're just jealous because we're having so much fun at work.
Nothing can change the fact that friend is leaving.
But we've come to grips with this fact. We're laughing so hard that tears are rolling down our faces, and people that come by to wish friend a warm farewell.
He shows me a map of his home country and charts out a path I might take on my motorcycle to see the most beautiful, out of the way places. Places I'm sure I'll never see. Then he drops me off at my hotel and we say goodbye and he drives off to the airport to fly away forever.
Part of me wants to leave Wisconsin and never come back, the way I left Detroit. But that's just puerile, emotional thinking and if the truth be known, I love Wisconsin and, after all of the cutting up and laughing we did this afternoon, I'm feeling about 110% better.
I start texting everyone I know and some of the ladies we met on State Street say they might be able meet me out for dinner or drinks and, of course, these ladies are just as cool as the other side of the pillow and I can't wait to meet up with them and hear their stories over Cabernet and catfish.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 4, 2010 at 8:35 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
November 3, 2010
The King of State Street
The King of State Street
Fall is a premonition of Winter. A warning of the onset of the blizzard's cold. Summer knows nothing but always, I feel like the Fall might teach me something. A secret about the coming of winter.
Maybe I can learn something from the geese or the trees and I watch them as closely as practicable, diligently snapping photos of Sandhill Cranes and Red Oaks.
The oaks shed their leaves, releasing a shower of walnut-sized acorns to the ground. The geese wade reluctantly into the cold lakes at dusk, to rest, safe from the foxes' jaws. The deer bed down to chew their cud. A murder of crows draws in their wake the pink clouds and the evening's stars.
But nothing is learned. Everything fades and nothing sticks. Everything slips by as the leaves follow the creeks to the lake, and I'm left staring at the naked trees, wondering how they looked before the fall.
There is this and friend and I drive into Madison for dinner maybe for the last time.
The college girls strut down State Street in shorts. They zip by on scooters without helmets and everything seems so ephemeral. So transient and fleeting. We're only on this stage for such a short time and I don't know what to do. I don't know why we're here or what happens when we die and the Fall is all around us now. Closing in faster than I'd envisioned.
We park and walk down State street, like we always do, carefully studying the meter to make sure we don't get another hundred dollar parking ticket.
It's not cold, at least not unbearably so. As we walk nothing is said. Or, nothing of any consequence is said.
Words mean so little in these times. Maybe, I should tell him what I learned from the Fall. But what have I learned? I'm afraid I have no wisdom to impart. Nothing to share but my own confusion.
"This weekend, we'll celebrate Dewali," he announces, sensing my melancholy stupor.
"What is this?" I ask.
"It is something we celebrate. Sort of like a God of money. Here, you see on this billboard here....this is a sign for the celebration of Dewali. We should go buy some gold jewelry for our daughters. This is a good thing to do for the holiday. It brings good luck."
"Your currency has a swastika on it?" I ask. Like, last time I checked, swastikas were pretty much verboten in the U.S.
"The Swastika is like a good luck symbol. You remember when I told you about the Ohm? The symbol we saw on that girl's bag? Well the Swastika is like the Ohm symbol. The two are very close in meaning, you see?"
"Aha."
So much there is outside of the United States, it seems. So hard to know what other cultures think. I travel all the time but somehow, I feel ethnocentric and thin.
We stop into a store to buy jewelry for our daughters. I decide to replace Jennifer's necklace because the only one I ever bought her - the only jewelry she ever owned - ended up in a black hole on Wisteria Lane and the person holding it refuses to return it for reasons that escape me.
So we buy our girls some jewelry and we walk down the street in silence to the little Italian restaurant that we found one night long ago.
The little waitress recognizes us and smiles and sits us by the window. We order dinner and friend produces his battered copy of Killing Strangers and asks me to sign it and I dunno where he had it but now I have to sign it and this is what I hate. I hate saying goodbye and I'd rather lay down on the railroad tracks than say goodbye to a person this close to me.
You know how, all your life, everyone's trying to screw you out of something and you're never sure what their angle is or how they're working you but you know, deep down, without question, that you're being played but you just can't see the angle? Friend is not that way. Friend is the guy that has your back all day every day. He's been carrying me since I came to Wisconsin and, quite honestly, I'm not sure that I want to come back if he's not going to be here.
Sleeping in $140 a night hotel rooms gets old in a hurry and I can't stand being on the road all alone. Everyone else has families and ceramics classes and poker night and very few people have enormous cracks in their lives that they're trying to patch with Rob.
I dunno what I'll do when he's gone and I try not to think of it as the eternally young college girls pedal by. Over chicken parmesan, fresh baked bread, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar, I accept his battered copy of Killing Strangers and sign it "To the guy who carried me for four months in Wisconsin, I will always be indebted to you, The King of State Street."
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 3, 2010 at 8:09 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
November 2, 2010
A faded dream
In October, the great machines ate their way through fields of Wisconsin, removing the corn and leaving in their wake endless streams of stubble.
Only the geese remain, pecking indifferently at the residual corn of the ruined fields. Too cold to enter the lakes. Too lazy to migrate.
Oddly, the stubbled fields lead to a failed subdivision, the high-water mark of the last economic boom.
This is where I work. At the uneasy intersection of these two realms. The farms and the suburbs. The surface of these two meet here and you can just see where the last economic boom faded. Where they threw up subdivisions helter skelter until at last, they were certain that no one would buy their houses and everything just stopped.
Everything was laid in. The streets and lights and utility boxes. All had been placed according to the county ordinances. Everything just so. And then the collapse so that on one side of the road was an abandoned subdivision, and across the street giant fields of corn and abandoned farm houses from another time.
This was the high water mark of civilization. It looked so promising. Like you could almost see the Starbucks on the corner.
But then came the recession and they just stopped development and went away and the banks moved in a repossessed the land and now signs everywhere proclaim "Land For Sale". No price. No reason. Just land. For sale. And lots of it, apparently.
A faded dream.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 2, 2010 at 8:37 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
November 1, 2010
Things That Go Bump in the Night
In the middle of the night something wakes me up. I'm not clear what. Jennifer is sleeping. I set up in bed. Some awful noise coming from downstairs. A loud bumping noise echoes up through the staircase.
Now, I'm more awake. Trying to grasp the situation. Come to grips with this thing. This unidentified sound from below. A sound that should not be there. I check my cell phone. It's 5:00 a.m.
I sleep with a Colt .45 by my bed. I have for a long time. I keep it just for times like these. So, I pull out the Colt .45 and turn on a small lamp on the nightstand. I hold the steel gun aloft in the dim light and study it.
I'm nothing thinking clearly yet. Still shaking the cobwebs from my mind. I push down a lever and the action slides forward, pushing a thumbsized copper covered bullet into the chamber.
I root around for the flashlight I keep by my bed. It pierces the room as I wave it awkwardly around.
Cocked and loaded US Army pistol in the right hand. Flashlight in the left. My heart is beating in the darkness like the Tell Tale Heart.
"BAM BAM BAM!" comes the noise again from downstairs. I'm not dreaming. Something is trying to get inside my house. Something is about to die. Hopefully it won't be me.
Timmy bounds up the stairs past me, running for his life as I descend the stairs alone. Jennifer still sleeping. Timmy hiding upstairs now. Cowering in fear in the abandoned bedroom.
There is no eraser on a gun. No takebacks. No do-overs. This is as serious as a heart attack now.
"BAM BAM BAM"
What in the hell is going on? I wade through the adrenaline into the kitchen. Pistol on the right. Flashlight on the left.
Something is trying to come in through the cat door. It's probably just a cat. But it's hard to know. The garage is dark. Maybe it's a fox. Maybe a coon. Maybe a cat. I don't know. I can't see it. And, I can promise you this...if a squirrel was trying to break into your house at 5:00 a.m. you'd probably wet your pants.
I'm hesitant to shoot because I don't have a good visual on my target. If you're out in the woods, you can squeeze off a few rounds and see what you killed. But when you're shooting inside your house, it's a different game altogether. If I fire this pistol inside, it's going to be so loud that Jennifer will wake up crying. It'll scare her half-to-death and she'll have nightmares into her 40's. I'm fully cognizant of this.
The animal quits trying to break in. I decide I'll go into the garage and see if it's still there. Wanting to make sure I'm not outgunned, I go to the gun cabinet and trade in the Colt .45 pistol for an AR-15 assault rifle with a banana clip.
I storm into the garage and sweep the place with my flashlight. The animal, whatever it was, is gone. It broke the other pet door off the hinges and escaped into the night.
The Lost Art of Flying
I race to the airport and when I hit the first switchback, I realize I forgot my pants and my gloves. Crap. I'm not driving a motorcycle in Wisconsin in November without gloves. That's not going to happen. I may miss my flight, but I'm not going to freeze in the great white north. So I double back to the house and race in to retrieve gloves and camo pants.
Racing through the canyon now. Going to be close. Have to hurry.
Get to the airport and clear security. Get to the gate. No problem.
I have 15 minutes to kill, and this is what separates the travelers from the flotsam and jetsam. I go stand in line at Quizno's near the gate and order a sandwich. Why? Not because I'm hungry. But because you have to plan that, when you walk on a plane, they're going to seal the door behind you and you'll go nowhere for 9 hours. You have to plan for this, or they'll screw you, sooner or later.
As soon as I board, they immediately halt the boarding process due a "mechanical" and my heart sinks. This is when it sucks. When you're stuck on the tarmac on an Airbus A319 and a mechanic's milling around the cockpit and you're not sure whether to deboard or not. It's hard to know. Hard to say.
I interrogate the pilot at great length and he assures me that the only problem is one of the radios won't operate on all of the frequencies it should and, if they have to replace it, they only have to yank it out and drop in the new one. This is what he tells me. I don't trust him, but I listen to his words. I assign a certain amount of weight to them. These words that come from the pilot's mouth. People that work for the airline are incapable to telling the truth when a mechanic is on the plane. I know this from experience.
I look at him and nod.
"But the only other radio is in East Kansas, right?" I retort. I know how this game is played. I've been down this road before.
"Nope. We've got another one here at the airport. Would take 5 minutes to bring it over."
And, presently, they restart the boarding process and I'm choking down my Quiznos sandwich and sipping my bottled diet pepsi thinking how clever I am.
We leave 10 minutes late which is nothing like what I'd feared. I'm glad I didn't deboard and normally, there's some screaming, projectile vomiting infant next to me, but this time there's a little blonde girl and the baby is a few rows ahead so things are looking up.
The flying waitress comes by and she offers me the credit card they hand out to allow people to swipe the tv screen for free movies. And when I do it wrong, she yells at me and admonishes me in front of the blonde girl and I just can't believe it. Can't believe that they're dog cussing me, their most frequent flyer. So I just toss the card back at her and tell her to forget it.
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 1, 2010 at 8:30 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
October 25, 2010
Of Cajuns and Sconnies: All Tangled Up
Of Cajuns and Sconnies - All Tangled Up
You just can't know what my life is like. Even I don't really know who I am, I'm afraid.
Last night, I lay here in this king-sized bed, twisting and writhing in pain. That tiny little Embraer 190 really did a number on my back. I hate flying in those little Tylenol capsules. So small and I'm just all folded up in there like a human accordion.
And at night, I set the thermostat down as low as it will go and I burrow under the comforters and just roll around in pain, praying for a sudden death. Death doesn't come, but eventually the morning inevitably rolls around and I go downstairs to meet friend for breakfast. I don't eat breakfast, of course. And it's nasty outside, so I'll ride with friend today and leave the bike here at the hotel.
We climb into the rental car, jabbering like jays in the sunshine. Blabbering about our kids and Halloween and all points in between.
"I saw your photos from the trip. It looked like a good trip. I should have gone with you. But you know...you get all tangled up..."
I like how he says this. "You get all tangled up [in the normal daily activities]" And he's right. We all do. I'm no exception to this, of course. I look back at what I did this summer and I'm afraid it's precious little. Why did I not plan more trips on my motorcycles? I dunno. I think that part of my brain isn't working very well. The planning part, that is. Maybe it's never worked well. It's hard to say.
Friend is solid. He's one of the guys on the short list of people you'd want on a project with you. As cool as the other side of the pillow.
And we ride into work together, giddy as kids spilled onto a playground.
At work, I start right in trying to get my expense reports sorted out. When you're on the road for a week or two, it's not a big deal, but when you live on the road, your life gets changed into something most people wouldn't recognize.
You have to create little rituals or you won't survive on the road. Have to put your parking ticket and your vehicle locator slip in the same place every time. You spend your days trying to get the change out of your pockets. Out of your backpack. You try not to fly change across the planet. It's heavy and very nearly worthless. You save every receipt and throw away every boarding pass and rental agreement.
Mostly, you spend your days renting cars or buying plane tickets. Filling out expense reports or paying down credit cards. Trying to make sure that everything's charged up and operating properly - cameras and cell phones and laptops.
And I go into work today but the system's not working like it should. I'm trying to do my expense reports for the month of October and the application isn't working like it should and finally, I just set aside my expense reports and I dive into the software to try to breathe life into this stillborn application.
Nothing is working right today and we can't figure it out. We're just all scratching our heads and there's a meeting coming up and it won't work. It just won't. I feel like we're skydiving. It's so stressful you just can't know. Deadlines and changes and all of this is going on and I just want to pull my hair out because it won't work. Nothing can make this thing come to life.
If you look at who the most superstitious people are, you'll generally find they're people that routinely operate in scenarios with a low probability of success. Like, for instance, professional baseball players. If a baseball player fails to get on base 7 times out of 10, then he's among the best in the world. The major league average is between .260 and .275. So, this means that even the best players in the world fail to get on base more than 7 times out of 10.
As a result of this, baseball players are among the most superstitious people in the world. If scratching your foot in the dirt and spitting and rubbing your cap helps, then you do it. And this is how it is with the application I work with.
The smartest people in the world can't get this system to work properly. Oh, don't get me wrong. Everyone tries. Everyone wants to take a swing at it. But when it fails to work properly, as it did today, we're all doing the things that we've tried in the past to make it sing and hum. Everyone has things that they've done before that seemed to help. We all have little rituals that we follow that we swear will help.
I could list everything we tried today to make the application work, but when it starts working, no one really knows what fixed it. Was it the security changes? Bumping the servers? Deleting the cache? Waiting 24 hours? No one knows. No one can say for sure any more than anyone knows for sure if touching the brim of your hat really helps to hit a homerun. Some things are just beyond knowing.
But I digress.
So we're just in this pressure cooker all day. Fighting this crazy application at all turns and just no one on earth is smart enough to figure it out and when the system comes to a grinding halt and the boss walks in, I just want to walk outside in the parking lot and peel off my skin like a grape.
Finally, everyone that has a life goes home and friend and I slip outside into the remnants of the Wisconsin fall.
Normally, we just go out to dinner but tonight, we're meeting some ladies for supper. I dunno why, really. Just that we met them out one night in Madison, and somehow they ordered my book and decided we needed to come over, so we did.
They're Sconnies, but not by birth. One's from Illinois and one's from Louisiana and they're just as nice as can be. Very cool to have a place to go when you live on the road. You get tired of eating out in fancy restaurants every nite. A home-cooked meal is so much better, of course. To have a home to relax in with flowers and custom cabinets and photos of humans on the walls.
Something other than a hotel room and a restaurant and work. Something outside of this. Something very close to life, possibly.
"I dunno why am I going," he complains. "Maybe only you should go alone. I have a wife. I have kids. I don't need to be doing this thing with you..." he whines.
"Look...you got a wife. I got nothing. That girl I told you about in Colorado? She wouldn't spit on me if I was on fire, OK? She's dead to me. I got nothing."
"These are your friends. I don't know them," he continues.
"You know them at least as well as I do. You were with me when we met them down on State Street in Madison. Remember? And besides - all we're doing is going to someone's home for a home-cooked meal. They feel sorry for us 'cuz we live on the road, you see. This is normal. This is what people do in Amerika. Don't make more out of this than it is. We deserve this."
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 25, 2010 at 10:37 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
October 24, 2010
As Innocent As Butterflies
.jpg)
.jpg)
My mailman is selling a trampoline and a dirt bike so I haul Jennifer and Allie over there to check it out. They're bouncing all over it like Mexican jumping beans in a hot skillet. Happy as pigs in slop.
"He has a motorcycle for sale that's just your size," I offer.
"I don't want a motorcycle, daddy." She replies. And that is that. I just thought I'd offer. I'm not going to push it on her. She doesn't want one. That's the end of it. My mom wouldn't let me get a motorcycle while I lived in her house because she worked in the Emergency Room all day trying to reassemble people after their motorcycle accidents. So it was a no-brainer for her.
For me, it's less obvious. I don't believe I know anyone that died in a motorcycle crash. I think that riding a motorcycle around the yard is probably not all that much more dangerous than jumping on a trampoline.
When I got my first bike it was my first form of transportation and it really opened up to the world to me. My mind is etched with these amazing rides since I was 18 and, sure, I've wrecked a few times, but I'm still standing.
But if she doesn't want one, then it ends here. So I hand him some cash for the trampoline and he says he'll bring it tomorrow.
On Sunday, I wake up but I'm not sure when I'm flying out. I always have sort of a vague idea about my travel plans. I'm thinking I fly out at 3:00 p.m., but not certain. Just sort of a gut feeling. So I hope he comes with the trampoline before I have to go.
And he shows up at around 10:00 a.m. and we unload the trampoline and start assembling it. I can tell at a glance how to put it together, but he starts putting it together wrong and I don't say anything. I don't speak because I'm starting to suspect that friendships are the most valuable things we have, and we'll get the trampoline together whether I make an ass of myself or not. So I'm just quiet until he figures it out and, in two shakes of a sheep's tail, the thing is assembled and ready to go.
I offer to take the mailman around my place as he's indicated he cuts wood on the side. So I take him out back and we're hiking across the property and he just can't believe how much land I'm on. He keeps pointing to the fences and trying to convince himself that my land ends somewhere near where we are. But I keep telling him we're not at the end yet and we keep walking. I'm on 4 acres, which is a decent piece of land. Nothing to brag about mind you, but I can do whatever I want on the redwood deck without arousing any unwarranted attention.
That's the biggest benefit of the land, in my opinion. Not the land itself, per se. But more the absence of neighbors. The lack of any human activity.
We scare up a few deer and he's all excited but they're my pets. They live here. The land is theirs as much as it is mine. And I could shoot them. Certainly I could. And I'm not above it. I just don't feel the need to. I don't need that much meat.
"I might come cut some of this stuff. You wouldn't mind?"
"No. But just let me know before you come over and I'll let me neighbors know. If I'm out of town, my neighbors will shoot you."
"What?"
"I'm just saying...let me know before you come over or my neighbors will kill you."
"Why would they kill me?"
"Because they're watching my place."
"Who would shoot me?" he asked.
"Any of them might. Bud would for sure. He used to kill people for a living."
"How's that now?"
"Dude...Bud was in Vietnam. He used to kill people with a machine gun from a tower while he was drinking chocolate milk. There's books about him. I'm not joking. You can have all the wood you want, but just make sure you let me know before you come over. That's all."
"Do you want to try to get your bike started?" He asks. He's wants my XR400 in a big way and I'm thinking of selling it as I've got way too many vehicles.
"I can't right now. I've got to go to Wisconsin." I reply.
"What?" he asks.
"I've got to go to Wisconsin," I reply.
"When?" He asks, surprised.
"Now. I've got to go to the airport," I continue.
"What do you do for a living?" he asks incredulously.
"I'm a computer consultant."
And he looks at me funny as he leaves.
Jennifer sits on her new trampoline, talking with Allie about all of the things that young girls must talk about. As excited as bees. As innocent as butterflies.
"Can you believe it hasn't snowed yet, Daddy?"
I just sort of look at her and shrug my shoulders. I try not to think about the winter. I don't want it to come. Last winter was a bad one. It seemed like a long, cold winter that might not end. And it wasn't just me. Others said the same thing. Those idiots peddling "Global Warming" are so clueless it's not even funny. Couldn't pour water out of a boot if the directions were printed on the heel. But I'm not ready for another winter. I know that.
I just shrug my shoulders and look away. I don't want her to see the fear in my eyes. To see the slump in my posture. A father is supposed to be something more than this. Something more than a mule, worked to an early grave.
I remember when the phone used to ring at home and wake dad out of a sound sleep. He'd come alive like he was flashing back to his days in the war. He'd grab up the phone, clutching it like a lunatic, shouting "Hello! Hello? Hello!" into the phone, like he was taking fire from an army of gooks in the jungle and calling in mortar rounds on his position. But he never fought in any war.
Anyone could see that he wasn't going to be of any assistance, whatever the problem was. I felt sorry for the people on each end of the phone. Sorry for the unseen caller because, obviously my father wouldn't be able to help no matter what the issue. Sorry for my dad that someone at the mill thought it was a good idea to wake him from a weekend nap.
"Daddy," she calls. "Daddy come jump on the trampoline with us."
"I can't baby. I've got to fly to Wisconsin." This is the part that I hate, of course. This is the worst part of earning a living. Punching a hole in the sky and landing in another time zone a thousand miles away. Sleeping in hotels. Racing around in rented cars. Putting distance between you and the ones you love. This is possibly the worst part of being alive.
A father is supposed to be something more than this. Something more than a flickering image on Skype grading homework from another state.
I hope tonight that my motorcycle is still parked at the airport. I parked it illegally and it doesn't have a license plate or anything. I hope that I have a reservation at the Hampton Inn. I hope that Ramesh gets in on time tonight and we can go to dinner.
These are the things you hope for. A little normalcy in an abnormal commute.
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 24, 2010 at 8:03 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
My Friends Call Me Mary
.jpg)
"Is this your last flight for tonight?" I ask the flying waitress as I board the flight.
I've got a beer in a go cup I'm sipping through a straw and I'm waving it around like I own the place.
"Yeah. How bout you?"
"Colorado's my home," I reply. "You?"
"I live in Parker."
"Fair enough."
It doesn't matter that she colors her hair. Or that she's over 40. That's OK. She's thin and beautiful and every man on the plane is smitten with her.
She loves talking on the intercom and she's got us in stitches with her spiel. Some people have a knack for that. Probably, she could have been a comedian. But she's got us rolling.
I'm in the last row of the plane. Seat 12D. A window seat on a CRJ 200 that doesn't recline a millimeter.
I ran out of clean clothes some time ago. I reek and my socks smell so bad they'd strip creosote from a telephone pole.
I'm peeling off layers of pants and jackets. Trying to get down to something close to normal. You've pretty much got to be a contortionist to take off two jackets when there's a guy in the seat next to you and as I'm peeling off the layers, Blondie shows up and directs the guy sitting beside me to another seat so I'll have more room and she winks at me.
I fire up my laptop as she's walking down the aisle, peddling drinks to the unwashed heathens on United's non-stop flight 6251 to Denver..
She's rolling the trolley down the aisle and every man on the plane snaps to attention, trying to reel her in as she passes with their lines. Trying to put something together.
Maybe she's the right age where she's going through menopause and has hot flashes and her skin feels of sweat in the dead of winter. But no one cares. They see something deeper in her.
She wears rings on her fingers but it's hard to know. What could they mean? They don't look like wedding rings necessarily. Maybe just a decoy to ward off unwanted advances.
And she turns to me.
"Diet Coke? Whatdya got for me?" I ask.
"Diet Coke."
She starts to pour a drink.
"I drove my motorcycle a thousand miles this weekend," I state flatly.
"Where'd ya' go?" She asks.
"Around Lake Michigan."
"I've never been. You want to show me the pictures?" She asks.
"Three minutes. The slideshow lasts three minutes."
"OK. We'll have plenty of time on this flight," she announces.
And I'm fiddling with my laptop when she comes by collecting trash and I just ignore her cuz something deep inside tells me this is the right thing to do.
A few minutes later, she comes by with another trash bag, but this time, she's got it half-squirreled away and it's nearly empty and I sorta half-look at her and she says "I'm ready...are you ready?"
And she sits down beside me and reaches over and takes the laptop and the headphones and she watches the three minute slideshow sitting in the seat beside me.
Mostly, she's expressionless, so I know she's probably as dumb as a bag of hammers. Probably every bit as dense as the last one I went out with, if not more so. But she laughs when she sees where the guy wrecked his car in the woods and I think maybe.
Then, as the slideshow ends, the people across the aisle complain that it's too hot.
"There's some seats in the front. Why don't you go up there?," she offers.
"Who sings that?" she asks as she turns to me.
"I'm not sure. It's the soundtrack for some show on TV," I offer.
"I think it's the 'Sons of Anarchy', she states.
And I'm thinking...'Sons of Anarchy'? WTF? Like...are you serious? It sounds pretty much like Tracy Chapman. Not at all like some band called 'Sons of Anarchy' or 'Death to All Betrayers'.
As the temperature in the cabin approaches the melting point of lead, Blondie leaves to turn down the temperature in the plane, which I suddenly notice is sweltering like Mississippi in August.
I look it up and it turns out the song is Nostalgia by Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo.
I imagine that I'm on top of her and she's having a hot flash. I can feel it all over her body and I'm blowing on her naked body, trying to cool her off, but it's no use. The heat comes from the inside, so I stand up and turn on the fan and we lay back in bed and plan our upcoming trip to the Napali coast of Kauai.
Presently, she returns and I ask her if she liked the photos.
"I did...they're gorgeous," she swoons.
"Have you ever been to Victoria?" she asks.
"No," I admit. "I've been to Jasper, Banff, Calgary, and Windor. But not Victoria."
"Oh you have to go. You have to go." She whines. "There are so many whales there. It's so beautiful. I was in Maui, but we didn't see any whales."
"Maui is the worst," I complain."Have you been to the other islands?"
"No. Only Maui."
"Maui sucks. All of the development is on the leeward side of the island. Did you take the Road to Hana?"
"Yeah. That was nice."
"Yeah. It was nice because you went to the windward side of the island. That's where the islands are green. On the North and East side of the islands. Because that's where the Trade Winds blow from. On Maui, they put all of the development on the wrong side of the island. You need to go to Hilo or Lanikai or the Na Pali Coast."
"Does it rain a lot there?"
"Of course it does. But you fly for free. What do you care?"
Suddenly, I realized that the temperature in the cabin was approaching thermonuclear meltdown again.
The people across from us complained and again, she left. I'm thinking..."Would you people please shut the fuck up? Like, how often is it that you get a good looking flight attendant to sit down next to you on a flight and these schmucks have made her leave twice."
I want to lean across the aisle and tell him, "Look, buddy....if that flight attendant sits back down by me, how about you tell your woman to shut her trap, huh? Like, I don't care if it gets hotter than the sun on this flight. You tell your little lady to put a sock in it. She's cramping my style here. You got it?"
This is what I want to say, but of course, I don't say anything and he goes back to reading some little pamphlet in his lap and she goes to the front of the plane and pushes some buttons and the temperature begins to drop so that it doesn't feel like we're standing on the surface of Mercury.
Presently, she returns with a pen and a notepad.
"Once you turn 40, your memory just goes," she announces.
"That's what I hear," I reply.
And she asks me all of the best places to go in Hawaii, and I tell her all the places I liked because I used to work there and I've been to all of the islands, at least, all of the ones that are developed, anyway.
"You have to be careful on your motorcycle," she warns me. "I have a friend that was killed on one."
"See....why do people do that?"
"Do what?" she asked.
"Why do people feel compelled to tell you about every nightmarish crash they're aware of when they see you toting a helmet around? Why is that? I mean, if I told you I'd driven a rental car around Lake Michigan, you wouldn't have said 'I know a family of six in a Toyota Camry that was crushed beneath a tanker truck on the interstate and burned alive while they screamed for help.' "
"No. I guess you're right about that. I'd never thought of it that way, I suppose."
"Fifty thousand people die every year in car crashes and it doesn't even make the news. But if you see someone on a motorcycle, everyone feels compelled to regurgitate their most horrific, gruesome stories. Why is that?"
"I dunno. I suppose you're right. Still, all the same...be careful out there, OK?"
"OK. I will. By the way, I didn't get your name."
"My friends call me Mary."
.jpg)
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 24, 2010 at 8:01 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
October 18, 2010
These Aren't the Droids We're Looking For
This morning, I get ready at the hotel. I'm glad that I won't be checking out when I wake up. How's that for something to be thankful for? To get to stay in the same hotel for more than one night.
So I go outside and climb onto the cold steel motorcycle. It roars to life beneath me and now I'm heading into work at 70 mph. I'm cold, but not painfully so. It's only for a few miles after all. I have no gas, but I have enough to make it to work, don't I? I hope so.
I exit off of 151 onto County Road C, heading north. I decide to gas up after work and pass the gas station. I have enough, right?
I make it into work and I park the loud beast in the parking lot. I dismount and pull my helmet and start walking toward the building.
Surging with adrenaline and pride from my weekend journey, I feel like a Roman gladiator. Like I'm returning from conquering a foreign land. Something out of the Illiad and the Odyssey. Like I'm the baddest guy that ever walked the planet.
I walk inside the building and at lunch, I see all these people, slaving away in the squalid cubes of corporate amerika. In the cafeteria at lunch, they're sitting around like mice nibbling on crumbs they've brought in to save a few dollars I want to say something, but I'm not sure what.
I want to say, "I'm not sure what life is about...but I'm sure that this isn't it. We weren't designed to work for computers. To be shackled to keyboards day and night, eating from vending machines and running on treadmills. Communicating via texts and tweets and emails. This isn't life. Not even close.
But it isn't like I have any answers, really. I'm not clear what we should be doing, really. It's not like I have mantra or a philosophy that would make it clear what we should be doing, exactly. I only know that this isn't it.
On Saturday, I was running 98 mph through the North Woods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. At triple digits, I bend over the handlebars really low and I have to re-arrange the cameras on my gas tank because I lost a lens cap on the first day. So, I'm sort of not paying attention, rearranging the cameras on my gas tank running just under 100 mph, when Chak overtakes me in the passing lane going 147 mph.
Now, imagine standing on the very edge of a highway, facing away from traffic, when a car comes by at 50 mph, about 6 feet from you. Think about that.
Now, imagine that you were going 100 mph and someone came by you that fast...150 mph...50 mph faster than you. I nearly wet my pants.
And maybe that's not the best way to spend your time. But growing roots in a cube farm's not the right answer either.
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 18, 2010 at 8:16 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
September 4, 2010
The Apple Store - Hell On Earth - Part II
.jpg)
"The Apple Store is to computers what Uganda is to space exploration." - Rob Kiser
This will be the final chapter on the Apple Store, as I will never set foot in that miserable store again, nor will I contact them in any way.
The Apple Store assured us that they'd have her iPod in the store by Tuesday, so today (Saturday), I told Jennifer to call them and see if we needed an appointment to pick it up. We have no way of knowing if they called her, as her phone is broken and we're working on fixing that as well.
She called the Apple Store and they asked if she took it to the "genius bar". Now, just so you know, there are no geniuses in the Apple Store. Only morons, dunces, and herds of Apple groupies. If they were geniuses, they wouldn't be working in a indoor stockyard beneath flourescent lights for $6.50 an hour. So let's start with that.
Eventually, this is what the "geniuses" on the phone told us (if you can believe it):
1) They don't know if they have her ipod in the store or not.
2) They don't know if they called her to say her iPod was available or not.
3) Without the little piece of paper that they handed to a 12 year old last weekend, they have no way of knowing that she even exists. They can't look her up by name, address, or phone number.
4) They have no way of seeing that we even came in the store for an appointment less than a week ago.
Then, the genius on the phone has the gall to say this..."if she didn't break her phone, she would have known if we called her" And I was like "Oh no. Don't you even. Don't go there. Her phone is broken. She didn't break it. It quit working. Don't assume that she broke it. I know that's the Apple way, but please don't go there."
They train those Apple minions well, don't they? These people don't know up from down. Can't look up and see if the sky is blue or not. But they know how to blame the customer for every single glitch in their miserable little world.
So, at best, driving to the Apple Store was a wasted trip.
So then, I take the phone from Jen and I'm like...I'll handle this from here.
"So what's the plan then?" I ask the guy through the phone. "I have a broken iPod. Tell me what I need to do to get it fixed."
"Well, you could make an appointment at the Apple Store..."
"Oh, no. I'm not doing that. I'll never set foot in an Apple Store again. To me, that place is Hell on Earth. Think of another plan, genius. Let's assume I live in a state that doesn't have an Apple Store. What then?"
"Well, you could call Apple Care."
"I'll do that then."
"The number is 800-APL-CARE."
"OK. Thanks. Now, just so we're clear...I want you to know that the Apple Store to me is nothing short of Hell on Earth and I would never set foot in that store again, so help me God."
He says "OK," and I hang up and that was the last time I ever attempted to contact an Apple Store.
Looking back, I feel the same way about the Apple Store that I felt about Detroit when I left that abandoned city at the end of 1995. I swore that I'd never return, not even to fly through the city, and I never have. In 15 years, I've never been back and I'd rather lose my house than return there. Nothing will ever change that.
I feel the same way about the Apple Store. It is, to me, the single worst retail experience I've had for as far back as I can recall. And I think of all those mindless Apple groupies out there, drooling and salivating over how great that store is and I think that they deserve everything they get. They pay twice what a real PC would cost to get a brightly colored computer and a pack of pasty, foaming, liberals to support it from a "genius bar" in a mall sandwiched between Sodom and Gomorrah.
But I am through with them.
The Apple Store - Hell on Earth - Part I
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 4, 2010 at 3:58 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
August 29, 2010
The Apple Store - Hell On Earth - Part I
 (Small).JPG)
You just can't know what the Apple store is like. I mean, I hate Apple. I loathe them with a kind of irrational, fomenting, vitriolic hatred that's difficult to put into words. If there were a Nobel prize for hatred, they'd give it to me when I told them how I felt about Apple.
And I hate the people that use these computers. The great unwashed pools of morons and circus pinheads that try to use them, as proficient as bears on bicycles they are.
But Jen and I went into an Apple store anyway because someone gave her a miserable iPod and six months into its life the thing is as useless as tits on a bull. We schedule an appointment online and then drive 40 miles to visit these nimrods in their lair at the Park Meadows Mall. Anyone that thinks there's a recession should see this mall parking lot. An urban nightmare, packed full of cars.
We wander around the mall aimlessly until we finally locate the Apple Store at the complete other end of the mall and we walk in. The place is set up like you might expect. All uber-sleek Apple-designed headache. Tables full of computers. Scads of geeks milling about with extremely gay blue-tooth hearing aids or cell phones or radios. I can't be sure.
Packed with people. Everyone talking at once. People standing in line a million deep to buy those stupid iPhones and iPads and iPods and you just can't know. You can't know how many people were in there all talking at once and we mill around until we find some woman that we're directed to and she tells us "Oh. I'm sorry. You missed your appointment."
Our appointment was at 2:20 p.m. MDT. It is 2:28 p.m. MDT when she tells us we've missed our appointment. We've wandered around the store for at least 5 minutes trying to find out where to go. We have driven 40 miles to this hell hole and wandered through the mall and then through the store to find this wench. I thought we'd get a medal. Instead, I'm told that the appointments are only 10 minutes long, and if you're not there within 11 seconds of your appointment, then it's canceled and nothing can be done.
Now, I don't know if I've told you already that I hate Apple, but I do. And this sends me into that raging fury where I want to go to Gander Mountain and buy a machine gun and come back and make the news. This stuff makes me go ballistic.
Every single person that we talked to in that store apologized to us like this...they said "I'm sorry that you missed your appointment." Like we're cavemen too dense to comprehend the rigors of an urban setting.
I explained to them repeatedly that we drove 40 miles to find the place and that we didn't miss our appointment. We were in the store within 2 minutes of our appointment and only a bunch of anal retentive lunatics would consider that "missing an appointment".
If you show up 8 minutes late for a dinner reservation, they normally haven't given away your table. But if they have, then they put you on the top of the list. But not the idiots at Apple. If you're 12 seconds late, then you don't exist.
Eventually, after about 27 people told us how sorry they were that we'd "missed our appointment", I decide that I'll smash the iPod to bits with a ball-peen hammer in front of God and everyone - the circus freak employees and the retarded customers alike - and announce loudly to the crowd that Apple's mindless products shouldn't be used by anyone clever enough to tie their own shoelaces.
But it's so loud that I doubt my voice could rise above the drone of all the morons there purchasing great stacks of electronics.
Instead, she gets a manager and they say they'll see what they can do and so we sit down at a table covered with those useless Apple computers and I promptly close mine because I promised that I swore on my ex-girlfriend's grave that I'd never touch an Apple computer again so long as I live and I've kept my promise so far. No reason to go back on a promise just because I'm bored.
So Jennifer and I sit there in this beehive nightmare of people too stupid to use a real computer being sold contracts with AT&T. Cell phone service so bad that they lied about the number of bars available on the phone. Phones so bad that engineers were fired over their performance.
I squeeze my eyes and try to go to a happy place. So long as they replace her ipod then this segue into the fiery pits of Apple hell will have been worth it, by some stretch of the imagination.
The store is staffed with circus freaks. Dwarfs and deformed oddities prance around the store like newborn fawns. I'm squeezing my eyes shut and praying for a sudden death.
Eventually, one of the geeks comes up and begins to fiddle with her iPod.
He keeps trying to deal with me. Jennifer is 12. It is her iPod. It's up to her. Not me. My solution involves a ball-peen hammer and a book of matches. So, he needs to be dealing with her. Not me.
But every single question is addressed to me. I'm leaning over a close Apple computer, foaming at the mouth. Chanting. Meditating. Praying for death.
For every question he asks, he completely ignores her, and directs at me, even though she's standing right next to him and explaining what's wrong with it. Communicating with him like a normal human. He ignores her completely.
I'm rocking back and forth in my own feces and he keeps asking me questions. He played with her iPod long enough to see for himself that it was, in fact, completely and royally screwed.
So he tells us that they'll replace it, but they don't have one in stock, and they can only replace it with the exact same one (they won't trade in her pink one for a purple one - like that's crazy, right? Are you insane?) And they'll order one and - get this - this is the best part - we have to come back and pick it up.
I'm like "Are you freaking kidding me? You can't mail it to us?"
"I'm afraid we can't," he lamented.
I'm like "You don't get mail service at the mall? I had no idea!"
But he couldn't be swayed and Jennifer said she'd come back with mom to pick it up and we fled that store like the wind.
Eventually, I went to drop Jennifer off and we saw where there'd be a horrific car crash on Morrison Road under C-470. We're watching them cut her out of the car with the jaws of life and they're spraying down her car to keep it from bursting into flames and I want to walk up to her and tell her how lucky she is not be 8 minutes late for an appointment with a broken iPhone in the Apple store, but she doesn't seem to be overly happy with her current predicament. That much is clear.
Evenutally, I made my way out to the airport. I thought my flight left at 9:30 p.m., but it actually left at 8:30 p.m. And the lines at the metal detectors were just unbelievable. Just a complete nightmare. A total breakdown - the kind that can only be traced back to government bureaucracy. So I'm standing there in line. It's 9:00 p.m. My flight left at 8:28 p.m. No real point in it, but I'm going out to the gate if they'll let me.
There's no point in going to the counter, because they won't let you go to the gate. Their goal is not to help you. Their goal is to keep you from getting on your flight. It's their primary purpose. So, you bypass them. I had a boarding pass I'd printed at the house. The only chance was to go out there, hope the flight was delayed, and try to get on the flight.
So, I go out there and get to Terminal B and, lo-and-behold, the flight is late. By 45 minutes. It's now departing at 9:15 p.m. And it's 9:11 p.m. So I have 4 minutes to get out to gate B-83. Now, if you're going to any terminal above B81, you've got a LONG way to go. You'll use at least 3 moving sidewalks, and there could be twice as many and you'd still have a long walk.
So, I hustle out there as fast as I can I get to the gate and the door is still open and I had the lady by boarding pass and she says "Oh no. This flight is closed. You missed it."
Now, this is how they work. They overbook the flights. Then they close the flights 15 minutes before it leaves, cancel all boarding passes, and let whoever is standing there get on the flight. It sucks, but that's how it works. And I know this. I'm late. And she's not in a mood to discuss the matter further.
Now, I'm really screwed because, these days, they're saying "your ticket is no longer valid and even if we did reticket you there' be a fee of like eleven million dollars" and I'm hosed in a big way and I know this. I'm not stupid.
"OK. Where do I go?"
"Sir. I told you the flight is closed!" she's repeating herself.
"I heard you. I asked where I'm supposed to go." LIke, the fact that you've screwed me out of my seat doesn't change the fact that I need to get to Madison.
Finally she hears me and steers me to the United service desk right behind me and I walk up to it and the woman beside me walks up to it and she says "I volunteered to be bumped from this flight and they sent me here."
So I step up to the ghastly United Airlines ticket troll beside her and I say "I volunteered to be bumped from the flight also."
And they hand me $400 in travel vouchers, a free hotel stay, a meal voucher, and put in on the first flight out in the morning in First Class. And things are looking up.
Update: Apparently I'm not the only one who believes that The Apple Store is Hell on Earth.
The Apple Store - Hell On Earth - Part II
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 29, 2010 at 6:30 PM : Comments (7) | Permalink
July 8, 2010
The Birds and the Bees
.jpg)
It's another rainy, cold July morning when I step outside at one in the afternoon. I come out onto the patio and birds just explode from the feeders. Why? I'm not clear. It's still early yet. I'm trying to focus. Trying to pull my thoughts together. Trying to separate dreams from reality.
I couldn't know what flavors of birds they were. I saw at least one woodpecker, which is odd as I don't have any suet cakes up just now.
And now something comes back to me. A dream. A memory. I can't be sure but it settles on me quickly. Last night there was something at the window. Something scraping the feeders and knocking over the trash.
I remember it now. And it wasn't a dream at all. Not really.
Something is scratching at the window and I roll out of bed with a Colt .45 in one hand and a flashlight in the other. I throw on the outside lights and swing open the front door to confront lord knows what. Come on, you bastard. Let's go. Stop tearing down my bird feeders or I'm going to shoot you so full of holes I could read a newspaper through you by the light of the moon.
Something's moving out there. The trash cans are turned over and the feeders are swinging. Are those eyes looking back at me? Or an illusion. Am I awake or am I dreaming?
The flashlight starts to fade. Why is it that the flashlight or the gun never works right when everything really hits the fan? Why is that?
Continue reading "The Birds and the Bees"
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 8, 2010 at 2:51 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 5, 2010
The Rocky Mountain Barracuda
.jpg)
I'm out back on the redwood deck drinking coffee in my underwear, staring over the dying gasps of a mortally wounded campfire. We got a good rain last night and the birds are flitting about like mad in the 68 degree morning.
This is my dawn.
I'm out here watching and listening to the birds. House Wrens, Downy Woodpeckers, Western Bluebirds, Cordillera Flycatchers, White-breasted and Pygmy Nuthatches, Crows, Ravens, Magpies, Stellar Jays. Many others I'd don't recognize.
The woodpeckers and nuthatches scramble up and down the forest's trunks, picking at the insects that would infest the pine trees.
The shrill scream of a Red-tailed Hawk shatters the morning air. Only it's not a Red-tail, but a Stellar Jay imitating the hawk for reasons only he can know. A bluff to run off the songbirds? One can only guess.
As the piercing cry of the faux hawk fades from the land, a reddish brown blur flashes across the forest floor. This animal moves through the trees like nothing I've ever seen and now it's gone and I'm wondering what I just witnessed.
Nothing moves through the woods like that, really. The closest thing I can think of was reeling in a Strawberry Grouper in the Bahamas when a lightning fast Barracuda ate my fish. Seeing that fish moving through the ocean at 50 mph left an indelible impression.
That's the closest thing I can think of. The rare and elusive Rocky Mountain Barracuda.
Continue reading "The Rocky Mountain Barracuda"
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 5, 2010 at 12:41 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 2, 2010
Someday Morning
.jpg)
Above: This photo shows Jennifer driving Michelle through the jungle out back on a four-wheeler. The grass is so deep you can't see the ATV.
Someday Morning
When Jennifer's here, she's here, but when she's gone, she's gone and it's hard to get out of bed when I wake up early someday morning. I lie in bed trying to think of a reason to get up. Eventually, I tell myself that I'll get up and mow the grass. And it needs mowing. It is July, after all. The grass is 3' - 4' high and, if I'm going to mow it, there's a fair argument to be made that now is the time.
So I crawl out of bed and shuffle out to the barn and start moving things around to get the mower out for the first time this year.
I blow out the air filter with some compressed air and check to make sure it's got oil in it.
I check the blades and they're so dull it's hard to know which side to sharpen. So I pull the blades and sharpen them on the bench grinder. I'm no blacksmith, but I can put an edge on a mower blade and after a few minutes, I've sharpened them fairly well but when I go to reattach them, I remember that there's an issue with one of the blades.
I'm hard on the mower. Let's be honest. I'm pulling it behind an ATV in 1st gear and the mower tends to find stumps that the ATV never knows. Last year I managed to actually bend one of the spindles so that one of the blades is sort of cock-eyed and spins at an angle outside of the normal parameters.
So I decide I'll go ahead and tear it apart and see if I can fix it. I pull the part and put in in a bench vice but eventually I convince myself that it's damaged beyond my ability to repair it so I call Hank.
Continue reading "Someday Morning"
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 2, 2010 at 11:43 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
February 10, 2010
A Stranger At The Cat Door
.jpg)
Timmy started growling like crazy at the cat door the other night. I have two cat doors...one from the family room into the garage, and another from the garage to outside the house. This way I don't have a bunch of freezing cold air coming in through the cat door.
To the best of my knowledge, I've never had anything come inside the house through the pet door that wasn't one of our pets. Timmy uses it all the time, as he goes outside to use the bathroom, which pleases me immensely. Slinky uses it when she's here as well.
But other than that, I've never had anything come through it, to my knowledge, aside from Slinky and Timmy.
Like, for instance, if a skunk came inside, well that would be disastrous, wouldn't it? But so far, nothing like this has happened.
But lately, I've been having my suspicions. When I go out into the garage at night, sometimes I hear the outside cat door swinging as I open the garage door. I tried to convince myself that it was the pressure change caused by me opening the garage door which caused the cat door to swing, but I was never able to replicate this effect.
So, I've harbored this sneaking suspicion for some time that something unknown was sneaking into the garage at night, presumably to keep warm.
And then, the other night, Timmy started growling ferociously. Now, granted, Timmy's a cat - not a mountain lion, but he got my attention. He was in the family room, staring at the cat door to that leads into the garage and making a howling noise that made my hair stand up on the back of my neck.
So, I threw open the garage door and heard the familiar swinging of the 2nd cat door to the outside and I raced over there and looked out into the snow and this time...I saw tracks.
Continue reading "A Stranger At The Cat Door"
Posted by Rob Kiser on February 10, 2010 at 8:05 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
January 31, 2010
'Pucho Something With Heat'
I deboard the plane at Lambert Field - St Louis International Airport. As I walk off the plane, I ask them..."what kind of plane is this?"
"It's an Embraer 145," she beams.
I only ask because the plane is too small. Too small for normal humans to fly on. After spending over an hour inside of the beast, I feel like a human accordion.
In the airport terminal, a girl stops and checks herself out. She puts her arms down at her side and checks her sleeves. Her shoes. Her general appearance. She does this without the aid of a mirror. She has a remarkable body. Thin with jeans that cling to her all the way down. Little leather boots. I couldn't say what all she had going on, but she had it going on and this was intuitively clear to the casual observer.
The flight attendants are wearing sweat pants, and this woman is dressed to kill.
As she walked through the airport, she passed by a little restaurant called "Beers Around the World", and was hailed by a fat guy at a table. There's these 3 guys sitting at the table, and I dunno what the fat guy said to her, but she stops and starts talking
to them. The other two at the table snap to attention. One of them is a computer geek with dark plastic rimmed glasses. The other guy is an oriental. Somehow, this fat guy has roped her in, and now the two wingsmen snap into action. Where is she going and why.
She's going to North Carolina. Traveling alone. Like this chick's going to be on my flight. Of course, I don't have the balls to say anything to her. I can't even look her in the eye.
I pause at Brioché Doree, but I just can't pay $8.50 for a sandwich. I just can't do it, so I turn back, resigning myself to a meal at the Sausage Kingdom.
Continue reading "'Pucho Something With Heat'"
Posted by Rob Kiser on January 31, 2010 at 1:39 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
October 21, 2009
Baja California: Day 8 - Secondary Screening
I sit down at La Tortuga Restaurant in Ensenada on the corner of Riveroll and Lopez Mateos surrounded by Palm trees and peasants. The waiter comes by and asks what I'd like for breakfast.
"I see you have Tortuga on the menu," I say, pointing to the name of the restaurant on the front of the menu. "I'll have that."
"No, senor. Is illegal to eat turtles."
Now, just for clarification, the people in Mexico are still eating turtles. I spoke to someone yesterday who ate one the day before and he said it was delicious. So people are still eating them. I just need to figure out where to sign up.
"The only thing that's free with your continental breakfast is the toast and coffee," he explains.
"Then I'll have toast and coffe," I reply.
Continue reading "Baja California: Day 8 - Secondary Screening"
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 21, 2009 at 1:14 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
October 20, 2009
Baja California: Day 7 - Espinazo del Diablo
I am alive and well and resting on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in the not-so-quiet seaside town of Ensenada, Baja California Norte, Mexico,
According to the GPS, we went 518 miles today, a record for me on this trip. We drove from Mulege to Ensenada pretty much non-stop. By this, I mean, we'd stop occassionally, but we weren't screwing around. We were rolling from 4:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., but I'm not really clear what time it is. I found out today that you change time zones when you go from Baja Norte to Baja Sur.
I didn't sleep much last night. Honestly I didn't. When you drive all day, and then write, publish photos, and publish GPS trax every night, it doesn't really leave a lot of time for sleep.
I got to bed at about 1:30 a.m. and set the alarm for 3:30 a.m. Two hours ought to be enough sleep for anyone, right?
I packed everything up so that I could basically stand up and walk out the door. I hate hotel rooms. The list of reasons that I hate them is so long it would take another book just to begin to scratch the surface of these issues, but one of the things I hate the most is checking out of a hotel room. The problem with checking out is that you tend to lose things. Cell phone chargers, socks, you name it. And then, 2 hours later you're in a different time zone thinking where in the heck is my cell phone charger?
There's an art to checking out of hotels that involves a fairly elaborate ceremony of burning candles, incense, sprinkling Holy water around the room, and finally looking under the bed to find your USB cable before you leave.
The alarm goes off about 4 seconds after I close my eyes and I get up and run out of the room like the whole place burning down around me and I get down to the lobby to meet my new friends at 4:00 a.m. But they're not there. (Note: I apparently forgot my gallon of premium gas in Mulege. I don't sleep with it in the room as it stinks, and in the dark, I think I walked past it and left it outside my hotel room door in Mulege.)
Continue reading "Baja California: Day 7 - Espinazo del Diablo"
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 20, 2009 at 12:14 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
October 19, 2009
Baja California: Day 6 - Hurricane Rick
I am alive and well and resting in the quiet seaside village of Mulege on the shores of the Sea of Cortez, awaiting a vicious beatdown by Hurricane Rick, second-strongest hurricane in the eastern North Pacific since 1966, when experts began keeping reliable records.
The plan for Monday is to get up at 4:00 a.m. local time, check out of the Hotel Terrazes in Mulege, load the XR into the back of the truck of some people from Mexicali, and drive like mad for Ensenada. Update: But now, I'm not sure if what the deal is. They said to meet in the lobby at 4:00 a.m., and it's after 4 and I don't see them. One of the trucks is a GMC Envoy with Baja California Norte plates BEF-69-18. The people I'm going to be traveling with are also guests in the hotel Terrazes in Mulege. The guy that's driving my truck is named George (Jorge). Should be an interesting ride across the desert.
Baja California: Day 6 - Hurricane Rick
I wake up this morning and I'm kicking around the hotel and I really don't have a plan. Do not.
And it's sort of weird, being in a 3rd world country with things so out of sorts. Like, who in their right mind would intentionally drive a motorcycle into a third world country that they didn't have a clear title to? I ask you. I never even when through customs, for Christ's sake.
It's only Baja. They just wave you through. There's no customs when you go into Baja. It's just like someone opened the prison door and everyone just goes across the border and goes hog wild. That's pretty much the size of it.
Some part of me must crave this sort of chaos. Subconsciously, or otherwise, I must enjoy this on some level, though it's hard to imagine why. First my camera broke, and now they've slammed the door on my plans to go the Mexican mainland.
I'm sitting here in my hotel room, trying to decide if I should fly out of Cabo and leave the bike at the airport, or drive in to Denver, or something in between. Trying to figure out what to do.
And this is the hard part, I think. Knowing when to double down and when to pull back. This is the greatest dilemma in my life, anyway. It's so hard because no one can tell you who you are. They can only tell you what they would do. And then you have to think...does that make sense for me?
Continue reading "Baja California: Day 6 - Hurricane Rick"
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 19, 2009 at 12:03 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
October 17, 2009
Baja California: Dia Numero Cinco - Retorno a La Paz
I am alive and well and resting in the town of La Paz, on the shores of el Mar de Cortez.
Baja Day 5
I wake up this morning and I'm in the Comfort Inn in Cabo San Lucas. Cabo is the place where Mexicans on the baja peninsula go for special occasions, like a birthday party or a vacation.
The weather is nice now. It's fairly hot, but there are plenty of pools and of course, there's always the coast. (In Mexico, it's illegal for foreigners to own the land on the beach.)
Per usual, I sleep in, and get up and wander past the pool but this time, something odd occurs. I'm not the only person wandering around the hotel. Other people are here eating breakfast, swimming in the pool. Every other morning, people got up and fled like rats because we were all on our way here. Once you get to Cabo, there is no where else to go, really. This is a destination, not a stopping point along the way.
Continue reading "Baja California: Dia Numero Cinco - Retorno a La Paz"
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 17, 2009 at 9:29 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
October 16, 2009
Baja California: Dia Numero Quatro - That Girl in the Elevator
I am alive and well and resting in the not-so-quiet sea side town of Cabo San Lucas.
Trip Odomoter: 1,139.7.
Garmin GPS says I went 94.7 miles today.
Baja Day 4
In the morning, I awake in the Hotel Pescadores, in the quiet sea side village of Los Barriles, on the shores of the Sea of Cortez. Patricia is up making coffee, doing the books. I sit and type on my computer as the butterflies float between the yellow Palo de Arco and the red Flame trees.
I spy another tree I don't recognize and Patricia says it's a Ciduella tree - a fruit tree that produces two small fruits, one red, one yellow, that the locals love but they're so acidic that they'll peel the enamel off your teeth.
Also, she has a Nim tree which the locals say repels mosquitos and also has gained much acclaim as a sort of natural air conditioner.
I talk to Norma for a minute or three over coffee. A lot of people down here are Americans that dropped out. That got tired of winter or tired of work or just plain tired and came down here to enjoy the beach.
"Why don't people have license plates on their cars here?" I ask her.
"Well, really, you're supposed to have your car registered, but I think that only two people in town have them registered. A couple of weeks ago, some police came down from La Paz and they sat up a roadblock on each end of town and were writing tickets to everyone that didn't have a license plate.
"So everyone got a ticket?" I ask.
"Well, no. What happened was someone got a ticket and then got on their cell phone and the word got out so everyone just drove down the beach instead."
(continued...)
Continue reading "Baja California: Dia Numero Quatro - That Girl in the Elevator"
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 16, 2009 at 9:49 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
October 15, 2009
Baja California: Day 3 - Maneje Con Precaucion
I am alive and well and resting in the quiet sea side village of Los Barriles on the shores of the Sea of Cortez.
Wow. Today. Um.. Hmm. Where to begin. Seriously...
According to the GPS, Max Speed: 82.3 mph. Distance traveled = 407.32 miles today. Odd. Serendipity, I think. Because it also said that I drove exactly 407 miles yesterday. Be that as it may.
OK. So, where to begin. I suppose that I'll start at the beginning, read through until the end, and then stop. Fair enough?
This morning we woke up in Mulege and we I'm walking around shooting the Bougainvilla and Wisteria and I ask the lady that owns the hotel - Sylvia is her name - what the tree is with the pretty flowers and she says "Tabasheen".
Some locals tell me that you can eat the pods hanging from the tree. It's related to the Mimosa, I'm sure. Update: I find out that it's also called a "Fire Tree".
And I pack my things and we're headed out. I couldn't find the Pemex at first, so I turned back. Like, believe you me...after the nightmare of almost running out of gasolina in the desert, I'm not leaving town on an empty tank. Not going to happen. So, I turn back and drive around Mulege until I find the Pemex, and it's closed. But a guy pulls up and I ask him "donde gasolina?" And he tells me there's a station about 3 kilometers south of town.
So we roll south and I fill my tank and we roll out heading south on Mexico 1.
(story continues in the extended entry).
Continue reading "Baja California: Day 3 - Maneje Con Precaucion"
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 15, 2009 at 8:39 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
October 14, 2009
Baja Trip Day 2: El Rosario to Mulege(Moo-leh-hay)
I am alive and well and resting in the quiet fishing village of Mulege(Moo-leh-hay), Baja California Sur, Mexico, on the shores of the Sea of Cortez.
My odometer says 659.3 (OK...it says 59.3, but it's rolled over six times since I left the U.S.)
So,that means that I drove 391.6 miles today, the furthest I've ever driven on a bike in 1 day. (Hold the applause.)
Here are the GPS tracks from today:http://www.magnalox.net/log/no.php?fmt=g&lid=18143&sid=d8cc2951
Also, I met this guy named Igor driving around the world on an BMW 1100 GS (enduro). He's driven across every continent and his english is horrible and his spanish is worse and I don't know about his czechoslovakian. Here's his link: http://www.mototour.cz
Baja Day 2
I am alive and well and resting in the quiet fishing village of Mulege, Baja California Sur, Mexico, on the shores of the Sea of Cortez.
My odometer says 659.3 (OK...it says 59.3, but it's rolled over six times since I left the U.S.) So,that means that I drove 391.6 miles today, the furthest I've ever driven on a bike in 1 day. (Hold the applause.)
Where to begin..where to begin...
I woke up early this morning in my hotel in El Rosario. A kitten mewing nonstop made sure of it. I wasn't sure what time it was, so I checked my cell phone. Normally, it knows what time it is, but I'm thinking it's an hour off these days. Not clear why.
But by the time I left the hotel, I was the only one in the parking lot, save a man and his wife - Americans driving down to Cabo. How sweet.
"You know, the next gas station is 300 kilometers from here..." the guy was mumbling. I was like "yeah." I wasn't too worried about it. Yesterday, whenever I asked, people would invariably tell me there were no gas stations when, in fact, they seemed to appear fairly regularly. So, I was used to the schtick now.
(Lunacy continues in the extended entry...)
Continue reading "Baja Trip Day 2: El Rosario to Mulege(Moo-leh-hay)"
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 14, 2009 at 8:44 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
October 13, 2009
Day 1 - A Run For the Border
I woke up this morning in San Diego drowning in fear. I had a Mexican insurance policy that started at 8:00 a.m. My plan was to make a mad dash for the border during rush hour. Normally, I'd try to avoid rush hour but this is different. Safety in numbers. My motorcycle has the wrong license plate for it. And it's not insured. So, these are bad things. Bad. Bad. Bad.
But I don't really have time to deal with it all right now. There's no way California will ever give me tags that say the bike is street legal. That's not going to happen in a millennium. I'm not sure if it will be legal to drive in Mexico. Part of me wants to just can the whole trip and sleep in. Or fly home. Anything but getting stopped by the California highway patrol and thrown in jail with all sorts of felonies written up against me.
But finally, I just say...this is it. I'm going on my trip. I'm not waiting any longer. Screw the police, I'm going to make a "run for the border". And I'm not talking about Taco Bell, either. I'm talking about a mad dash, balls-out, take-no-prisoners dash down I-5 into Mexico.
Continue reading "Day 1 - A Run For the Border"
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 13, 2009 at 11:35 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
October 12, 2009
Baja Trip Day 0: Denver - Phoenix - San Diego
.jpg)
It is odd to wake up where it's cold and snowy and then drive to the airport and land, an hour or so later where it's warm and sunny. In Denver, they had to de-ice the plane when we left. But at Phoenix and San Diego, people were peeling off layers. When I left my house, it was 17 degrees F. When landed in San Diego, it was 67 degrees F. I'm not in a position to say which is better. I'm not sure that I know. I can tell you that, if you talk to people that have spent a lot of time in San Diego, to a man, they miss the seasons.
First thing I did in San Diego was rent a car and drive to Baja Designs in San Marcos where I picked up my 4.6 gallon IMS desert tank, a rear view mirror, and a brake light. I spent the rest of the day working on the bike. I installed the desert tank, replaced my broken front brake handle, installed the new rear view mirror. I didn't even attempt to do the brake light yet, as that's a little bit more tricky.
I didn't have all the tools that I needed, so I actually had to ask a woman to loan me some tools. Borrowing tools from a woman was not only a demoralizing, crushing blow to my male ego - it also made me question my preparedness for this venture.
Continue reading "Baja Trip Day 0: Denver - Phoenix - San Diego"
Posted by Rob Kiser on October 12, 2009 at 11:31 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
September 29, 2008
Poaching Squirrels
With the dramatic sell off in the market today, I started poaching squirrels. It's not something I'm proud of, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do. I was out back in my underwear shooting squirrels with the 12 gauge when the phone rang and it was Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
He made a desperate plea for me to save the American economy because he knew that I alone have the gift of making the markets rise. The only time-proven method of making the market rise is for me to sell shares. Normally, I only sell individual stocks, which has a limited effect. But this time, they're request that I sell off my index funds, which is expected to life the entire market several hundred points.
So, I went down and met with my CPA and told him to get me out of the stock market entirely. Consequently, you should see the DJIA rise approximately 1,200 points tomorrow by noon.
After meeting with my CPA, I drove down to Chinatown and bought a 50 pound sack of rice (new 2008 harvest) and a gallon of soy sauce. Then, I went to King Soopers and bought 100 cans of Hormel homestyle chili with beans and filled up the Tahoe with gas.
Then, I drove down to 32nd and Lowell for some sushi and sake. What a country.
Posted by Rob Kiser on September 29, 2008 at 9:46 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
August 6, 2008
The Cry of the Gray Fox
It's summertime in the Rockies. Since no one up here has air conditioning, we all sleep with the windows open. With the houses opened up, noises come out of the woods at night that will raise the hair on the back of your neck. Mountain lions and bears are occasionally uninvited summer house guests in the hills, so I keep several guns loaded in the corner.
Last night, I was half-asleep on the couch when I heard a gray fox crying in the distance; A haunting sound that reminds me of how lucky I am to be living this close to nature.
As the sound grew louder, it occurred to me that it was probably a female fox crying for her kits, and she appeared to be heading in my direction.
When I was younger and more foolish, I used to wade into the forest out back with a 12 gauge, a spotlight, and a camcorder. But it's hard to manage all of these at night with only two hands and after I was nearly gored by a mature male mule deer, I gave up such foolish ventures.
So, last night, I contented myself to leave the arsenal in the corner, and the camcorder on the shelf, and sweep the surreal matte of twisted nature out back with a spotlight from the safety of my redwood deck.
Continue reading "The Cry of the Gray Fox"
Posted by Rob Kiser on August 6, 2008 at 9:13 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
June 26, 2008
Skunked
A fox ate Jennifer’s cat the other night and I wanted to see if I could catch him so I threw some pork shoulder bones into a live animal trap and set it out back. I put the trap next to a pine tree out back, about 10 yard from the redwood deck and left it.
I checked it every day or so, but it wasn’t catching anything. I think the fox is too smart to fall for something that obvious. I began to doubt that I’d catch a fox, but I left it out there to see if I’d catch anything at all.
My house has recently become ground zero for a savage Corvidae war between the Crows and the Ravens. I don’t know what led to the contest over my property. Perhaps they’re battling for position for the when the bluebirds and chickadees fledge. They do eat baby birds, of course. But this is all just idle speculation.
I set the trap and maybe I’ll catch a crow or maybe a coon. Who knows?
Every day I or three I glance out the window and today I look out there and I’ve caught something but I’m not sure that it’s still alive. It isn’t moving and I don’t know how long it’s been in there. Possibly a few days.
I walk out onto the deck and the animal moves. It’s exhausted, from lying in the sun, but it’s alive. And now I see what it is.
I’ve caught an animal that I never wanted to catch. There is a live skunk in my live animal trap.
Now, a smart man would just leave it to die in the sun, which it inevitably would, in due time. Or, shoot it from the desk with a 12 gauge in a humane gesture.
But a fool would try to release it, unharmed, being as how it’s one of God’s creatures and all. Of course, I chose the path of the fool.
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 26, 2008 at 11:41 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
May 2, 2008
Outside
I am in the front yard, monkeying around with my dirt bike. Putting on a leather toolbag. Relocating the 2009 OHV registration sticker. Loading my little toolbag with a Lilliputian set of wrenches.
And now, here is the cat. Standing beneath the birdbath, chest out, head high. A bird gripped firmly in her mouth. She could not be more proud. She looks, for all the world, like a fine Andalusian, posing in a golden meadow flooded with sunshine.
She begins to walk, although prance would be a more accurate description. High-stepping like a fine Tennessee Walking horse. Not one they trained in Shelbyville with chains and blocks, but one that was born with a perfect, natural gait.
She's parading back and forth before me, with this bird in her mouth and I'm thinking....where on Earth did she get that?
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 2, 2008 at 11:10 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
April 26, 2008
The Peaceful Hills Boulangerie
It snowed twice today, but that didn't stop Jennifer and Allie from raiding our pantries and setting up a lemonade stand in the most well defended cul-de-sac this side of Baghdad. In the shade of the DUKW and a Weasel, they were hawking lemonade, diet cokes, and cookies for well-below my cost, but above theirs, of course, since they'd just grabbed it all and run breathlessly out the door.
Jennifer has her eye set on a hundred-and-ninety-dollar fresh-water puffer fish the size of an artichoke she found in some overpriced pet store down the hill. Never mind that her 10 gallon aquarium has caused more deaths than Pol Pot. Never mind that she is single-handedly responsible for a riparian genocide that could sustain all the starving children in Baifra on fish sticks in perpetuity.
She has her eye on this fresh-water puffer named Rosie that follows her finger as she smears her prints on the aquarium at the Rolls Royce of pet stores down the hill and slowly it dawns on me that this is why she's hawking ice cold Diet Cokes in the snow for half of what they cost me. But I digress.
Continue reading "The Peaceful Hills Boulangerie"
Posted by Rob Kiser on April 26, 2008 at 11:37 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
July 17, 2007
The Unexamined Life: A Tiding of Magpies
"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates, in Plato, Dialogues, Apology
Jennifer and I drag our suitcases into the open house, leaning against the uneven heat of the July summer. Her. Me. Two suitcases. Two children. One forty. One ten.
Screens and dried grass and empty bluebird houses. No bluebirds. Only Magpies and Crows and Stellar Jays. Corvidae. Oscine Passerine birds. That’s what we have and I hate them. I’ve watched Magpies drag baby bluebirds from their nest and eat them. They’re mean and I don’t like them and there's a tiding of them out back right now making an awful din.
A 12 gauge appears in my hands. An automatic. It just materializes in my hands. Maybe it was in the gun cabinet a few seconds ago. But now I have it in my hands and I’m studying the shotgun shell really closely….It’s a 2 ¾� dove load.
OK. That will work on Magpies, I figure. I open the door and step outside. The magpies are battling vociferously, over what, I do not know. I do not care. I’m about to put and end to this madness.
For the rest of the story buy my book "Killing Strangers.
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 17, 2007 at 9:45 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 7, 2007
The Long Road To Jennifer
At two in the morning, I’m 16 hours and a thousand lines into a program. I kick it off and watch it run, sending waves of cryptic data washing across my screen. Outside the window, a boat is idling in the harbor. The twin diesel engines gurgle and babble as the waves rise and fall against the hull. The sound is so peaceful. I’m very close to sleep.
Nothing to do now but watch it run. The data goes by too fast to be meaningful. If the program crashes though, the messages help to track down the problem. But as long as it’s running, they’re meaningless.
The gurgling engine sooths me as I search for patterns in the data that streams across the screen.
Suddenly, it occurs to me….there can’t be a boat outside the window. There’s no harbor out there. Just an asphalt parking lot. The boat is a CSX diesel locomotive idling and hissing outside in the dark.
For the rest of the story, buy my book "Killing Strangers".
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 7, 2007 at 10:55 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
July 3, 2007
The King of the Frogs
Today is Wednesday and I’m walking down the railroad tracks for a BBQ sandwich with coleslaw and pickles and rib sauce and sweet tea. This is what we always do on Wednesdays. Usually, I take my camera with me so that I can shoot the graffiti on the trains that roll by at odd, unpredictable intervals.
Today, I don’t have my camera. No real reason except that I just forgot it and I figured, probably nothing would come by anyway.
I’m nearly at the BBQ store when I hear the train’s horn. Sometimes I'm sure that I can hear them at the crossing down in Normandy. Sometimes I’m wrong but sometimes the train does come and now the horn comes again much clearer, and I can tell that it’s off key.
I hate it when their horns are broken like that. You’d think they’d fix them but his horn is off key and he’s blowing it now cause he’s approaching the crossing and it’s that engineer that they fined for driving through town too fast and now he always comes through way too slow and blows the horn way too loud for way too long. He’s been getting his revenge for years now.
Continue reading "The King of the Frogs"
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 3, 2007 at 7:53 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 18, 2007
Happy Father's Day
Image shot with Canon EOS 20D, Canon EF 17-85mm IS USM telescopic zoom lens on a tripod in low light situation with no flash and a 10 sec timer delay. Lens=26mm, shutter = 1/2 sec, aperture = f/5.6, ISO=1600.
Jennifer and I were packing to go camping, but it's hard to imagine what it's like up in the mountains. We live 7,500 feet above sea level in the "hills". But, the "mountains" are different. They generate their own weather. Some of the trails don't open up until August. And we're going camping in June. That's early to be camping in the mountains. It's 86 degrees at my house, and I'm calling my friends in the mountains...."what's it like up there? are the trails open? has the snow melted?"
"Where y'all going?"
"Up above Montezuma."
And they say "prolly so...come on."
For the rest of the story, buy my book "Killing Strangers".
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 18, 2007 at 7:08 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 21, 2007
Five In Ten
There's a 10-20 knot wind blowing and thunder is rolling through the hills as I open the valves to the boomless sprayer. These are not exactly ideal conditions for spraying, but I have to fly out tonight, so I'm a-sprayin' - come hell or high water.
I'm riding the 4-wheeler up a steep hill, pumping Curtail out at 40 PSI spraying a 30 foot swath. Leaning over the handlebars to keep it from turning over backwards. It doesn't handle well with an additional 500 pounds on the back end. Go figure. After I've been spraying for about an hour when the ATV dies. It dies and it won't start and it won't change gears. The ATV has failed to proceed.
Continue reading "Five In Ten"
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 21, 2007 at 2:33 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
March 23, 2007
The Boat
I'm out on the lake and Marty tells me to take the wheel but I don't know how to drive a boat. A boat is a funny thing. It doesn't have brakes and there's no lines painted on the river or the lake. No passing lanes and no shoulders. So it's not like driving a car. Not at all, really. And I slide down into this seat in the cockpit and there's this little windshield in front of me and it slopes back and when I shove the throttle down all the way the nose of the boat rises like Icarus to touch the sun and I can't see anything. I'm accelerating down the river blindly, praying theres nothing in front of the boat and pretending like I know what I'm doing. I can't see anything and I'm sweating like a whore in church and I fiddle with the engine trim and gradually the nose comes down but even now, I still can't see much. Imagine trying to drive a Greyhound bus down the interstate from...oh say about... row number six.
For the rest of the story, buy my book "Killing Strangers".
Posted by Rob Kiser on March 23, 2007 at 8:58 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
March 19, 2007
The Drunken Stranger in the Mirror
The flying waitress is in the galley straightening up the bags of chips on her trolley. She's wearing a digital watch and she put her base on with a trowel to cover the furrows in her face, but you suspect they run deep...maybe as deep as Antelope Canyon. She dies her hair. And she's sraightening those chips...puffing up the little bags just so. Putting way too much effort into it. And you can see that she doesn't want to be here. Not tonight. Not on this flight to nowhere just now at 30,000 feet. She's got to push that trolley down the aisle asking every idiot that can scrape together $150.00 what they want to drink and whether they want Doritos or Sun Chips. You can never know what people want by looking at them. You have to ask. And in this peculiar atmosphere of the airplane cabin, everyone struggles to hear or be heard over the din of the white noise of twin jet engines.
For the rest of the story, buy my book "Killing Strangers".
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 19, 2007 at 11:59 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
March 7, 2007
United Airlines - Please Wait Here
And I'm trying to fly out tonight 'cause I worked a short week last week and I'm talking to my brother on my cell on the way to the airport and I don't know it yet the Hawaiian earthquakes and ensuing power failure have re-routed hundreds of flights and backed up air traffic halfway around the planet. And, if that weren't enough, in some unnamed North American city, some idiots have punched a hole punched through the wing of my plane you could stick a loaf of bread through. But I don't know this yet and I'm on the cell phone with my brother telling him about last night.
“I went out with this chic last night...I couldn't find any hair gel, so I found this stuff in my cabinet I didn't know what it was...either shoe polish or hair gel....no clue...so I rub some in my hair and some on my shoes and we go to this club and the next thing I know, we're in some restaurant chugging Mojitos at one in the morning and I'm begging these to chics to just take me home...�
“Were these chics married?�
“I'm thinking they're possibly divorced, or on somewhere near there.�
“You're going to get shot.�
For the rest of the story, buy my book "Killing Strangers".
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 7, 2007 at 11:43 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
March 5, 2007
A Pig, A Lawyer, and 50cc of Canadian Mist
“The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.�
– Shakespeare - Henry VI, Part 2
The flying waitress prints my boarding pass and hands it to me and I'm like “Why do you people do this to me? 20C? Why do you keep sticking me on the back of the plane?�
And she checks my status and now she knows that we have a problem.
“I'm sorry Dr. Kiser. Where would you like to sit?�
“Christ...how about...not in the back of the fucking airplane?� They always do this to me and I don't want to be that guy - the lunatic screaming in the airport, berating the fading, brittle gate agent. I just want them to put me in the seat I requested. But, for some reason, I request seat 2F and I get 20C and it just drives me nuts because I'm on the same plane every week and Lord God what have I got to do to get in seat 2F anyway?
My hero is the guy in Snow Crash that has “POOR IMPULSE CONTROL� tattooed on his forehead. Maybe I should tattoo on my forehead “I WANTED SEAT 2F� and maybe that would clear it up for them.
For the rest of the story, buy my book "Killing Strangers".
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 5, 2007 at 10:25 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
September 28, 2006
Gleaning Taters: Tea lights and Tolstoy
I'm sitting here at the Bistro in Idaho Falls, where the consultants go to die. The Bistro equates loosely to the killing fields for consultants. For your last day on the project, they bring you here. Maybe you know you're on the way out. Maybe it's a surprise to you and they hand it to you under the table once you've finished your meal. But it should be no surprise. But this is where they bring you. They feed you a nice meal...filling you up like a fatted calf, and then they lower the boom. That's how that goes. And everyone knows it.
So, I'm sitting here at the bar and my back hurts, but there's a reason it hurts...I don't wonder why. I know why it hurts. And I'm drinking a line of Nut Brown Ales at the bar all alone...I'm a friend of Bill's after all, and I'm trying to drink enough so that the pain subsides or retreats or goes where ever it is that pain slips off to when It's not shooting pulsing signals to your brain.
My back hurts cause I was climbing a sand dune on a four-wheeler this morning up at St. Anthony's National Sand Dunes...one of those big long steep sand mountains where you hit it wide open and stick the throttle with your thumb (the thumb only knows one speed, doesn't it?) and normally, when I get to the top of the dune, it's a nice rounded top and you could have a picnic if you weren't in such a hurry and you glance around and pick a line to roll down on the other side but not this time...this time I get to the top and suddenly someone took the earth away and I'm flying through the air like the space shuttle and everything slows down and I'm thinking...fuck...this is going to hurt...cause the ground is falling away beneath me.
For the rest of the story, buy my book "Killing Strangers".
Posted by Peenie Wallie on September 28, 2006 at 9:51 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
September 12, 2006
TSA Plants a Lighter
Monday night at the airport is a slow time for departing flights. My flight leaves at 8:50 p.m. I'm the only one on the remote parking shuttle. They've already closed the curbside checkin. They've already shut down the South security checkpoint, so I have to walk across the airport to the other one.
The TSA goons are just loafing around the remaining open metal detectors. I empty my pockets and send everything though the X-ray machine. I walk through the metal detector, and I'm standing there waiting for my belongings to come off the conveyor belt.
“He's got a lighter.� one of the goons comments.
“Which pocket is your lighter in?� one of the other goons asks.
“I don't know.�
“You don't know which pocket your lighter is in?�
“No. Do you? You're the one that just looked at the X-ray."
Continue reading "TSA Plants a Lighter"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on September 12, 2006 at 12:31 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
September 9, 2006
The Long Road to Breckenridge
Middle Tennessee is a land of gently rolling fields, idyllic pasture land, and turf farms, designed by the hand of God. Spring fed creeks wend their way down into the Duck River, parsing the land into discrete sections. Pecan groves and limestone walls sequester fading antebellum plantations. Gaited horses plod behind stark white wooden fences that line the pastures.
On the timeless Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee, you can almost hear the fading echoes of the last shots of the Civil War. Everywhere, signs decry a war valiantly fought, but grievously lost. Here fought the Army of Tennessee. Here lie the fallen heroes of the Tullahoma Campaign. Here lie the brave men that fought and died at Stone's River with General Breckinridge. As the sun sets on a still summer day, and the wind crawls through the dead fields of corn, you can almost hear the echoes of the last fading call to arms. Almost smell the gunpowder from that last desperate volley against the northern aggressors.
The Civil War is on everyone's lips here, carved into the collective conscience like a slow motion train wreck. Over shots of George Dickel, the locals talk about the campaigns in the Civil War as though they were fought yesterday. As though, through careful study, the outcome might be circumvented. Each campaign is discussed and debated, at length. If only his cavalry had come home to roost sooner. If only he'd guarded his right flank. If only the train had gotten through. And so it went. Wistfully, they spoke of these matters over Tennessee whiskey, beer, and moonshine sipped from clear, unlabeled flasks.
Middle Tennessee is a sprawling country with Kudzu choked roadsides. Crystal clear creeks. Old town squares. From this land, the people extract a meager existence. In the spring, envisioning symmetrical, uniform living carpets of hay and corn, they molded the fields into preternatural, linear rows.
But then, the summer came and the clouds disappeared and the sun descended and pinched the people to the land. For weeks, there was no measurable rain. And on Sundays, the preachers and the farmers held hands and bowed their heads before the Lord, and prayed for the rains to come. To save the farms and the farmers. The crops and the livestock.
For, this is God's country. This is the buckle in the Bible Belt. Where people leave WWJD calling cards on your windshield. Daily prayer books in the bathrooms. 10 Commandments posted prominently in their front yards. You could starve to death on Sunday looking for an open restaurant. “Closed for a reason� the signs all say.
But, in this gentle land that God sculpted from the billet of the earth, the rains refused to come, and the wind carried a light dust from the fields of death and tinted the sunset a little redder than it might have been.
At the end of July, the heat broke, but still the rains refused to come. The fields withered and the farmers went into the stubbled fields and rubbed their chins in silence. They'd only put up one cutting for the winter, and it would not last. The corn would die soon, as well, if the rains did not come.
In August, the sun came down from the sky to touch the earth, and simmered the people and the land in a limestone skillet. In this insufferable August heat, the Crepe Myrtles bloomed, exploding like roman candles across the lawns. Mockingbirds cried from the shadows of the woods.
Even a fool could divine the plight of the farmer. Their misfortune was written in brittle crops of the fields. Carved into the lands. But they were not alone. They didn't plead their case to the congregation, as it was not in their nature to do so. They spoke little of their own calamitous misfortune, but their story traveled before them, like dust before a thunderstorm, and their misfortune became the reciprocal misfortune of the congregation. Their stories reverberated through the ancient walls of the churches of the pioneers and the Sunday sermons were heavily weighted in their favor.
And when the crops had died in the fields, and when the farmers and the preachers were sure that the crops had failed, that they'd only harvest a single cutting of hay, that the corn would not tassel, still the Sundays pulled the farmers from the fields, as surely as the moon draws the oceans upon the beaches. Still the Sundays found the farmers, offering their tithes to the churches, for their faith in God was unassailable.
In the end, it was their religion that gave them strength. And, after a ruinous season, often all that remained. The only thing that couldn't be repossessed and offered for auction. Their faith defined them, and they clung to it, like a cocklebur on a colt's tail. And, in the Fall, they plowed their ruined fields under. They oiled their tractors and honed the teeth of their plows, and they pinned their hopes on God and Spring, and trod across a ruined land to instill into their neighbors an esoteric point of the War of Northern Aggression over a bottle of Muscadine wine.
Continue reading "The Long Road to Breckenridge"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on September 9, 2006 at 9:24 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Crying Amy
The two-lane black-roads bifurcated and meandered through the country, parsing it among those who would live there. Sparsely inhabited though it was, the roads permeated the country, following the lines of drift, and dissecting it along natural boundaries. In the evenings, the fog moved silently into the hollows between the ridges, thick as raw cream, and silent as the lightning bugs.
There are few people in the country, and still fewer cars, and after a while, it grows on you so that, when you get to a major road and two or four cars go by at sixty miles an hour, you think “What's the hurry, buddy? Where's the fire?� The country can do that to you. It can draw you in like the Labrea Tar Pits.
The financially encumbered people of Lickskillet were trapped, like bugs in amber. Unequivocal losers in the free market crucible, the citizens of Jefferson Davis county were hopelessly staked to the Cumberland Plateau.
Many would live and die without ever seeing the ocean. Without ever seeing the inside of an airplane. A coalition of economic slaves, surviving on mater sammiches, breeding with unseemly fury in sweltering trailers, squandering their existence for a few dollars an hour and a share of the tip jar at the end of the shift.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on September 9, 2006 at 8:20 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
September 8, 2006
Hovering Over Paradise
I have a rule when I fly. I don't fly without ear plugs. Period. I've had too many flights ruined by screaming fetuses, so now, as a rule, I don't board a flight without ear plugs. On the flight to Hilo, however, I made an exception. The flight from Honolulu to Hilo is a very short flight. It's just up and down basically. It might last 45 minutes, at most. So, I figured...no big deal. I'll chance it and go without the earplugs. Big mistake.
The plane takes off, and we watch the island fall away beneath us. Honolulu, Waikiki, Diamond Head, Hawaii Kai, Koko Head, and Hanauma Bay. Insidiously, a idea steals into my brain...we've made the flight and we're going to live. All is going to be OK, after all. Then, as if on cue, the kid behind us begins to show his true colors. He's a petulant little brat...age 6, I figured. And, he's sitting back there, wailing like a banshee....MOM!...MOM!....MOM! And, he's squealing like a pine marten in a leg trap, and I'm dreaming of cutting out his vocal cords with a plastic kinfe and handing them to him mom in an airsickness bag. Or opening the emergency exit and tossing him into the Pacific.
And if he's not screaming, he's coughing. Single, open mouth, uncovered coughs, every minute. You could set your watch by it. I swear he had TB or whooping cough or influenza or something, and I'm dreaming of swimming him out across the reef and drowning him in the surf.
Continue reading "Hovering Over Paradise"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on September 8, 2006 at 3:00 AM : Comments (1) | Permalink
September 5, 2006
The Lesson of the Black Brittle Starfish
Jennifer and I got up and drove down the Kona coast to a beach they'd told me about at the hotel. Said it was good for snorkeling. Crawling with sea turtles. Along the way, we scanned the coast for Malasadas, Lau Lau, Hawaiian Shave Ice, Spam Musubi. All the local delicacies.
We stopped at Jake's BBQ, and a little girl there told us about a place that sold Hawaiian Shave Ice, but it would be about ten minutes past the beach we were going to.
I turned to Jennifer. We had the top down, wearing cheap sunglasses. Sunscreen. She had her right foot sticking out of the car, wiggling her toes in the turbulent sunshine.
“Do you want to go there, sweetie? To the Shave Ice Ranch? It's about ten minutes past the beach.�
“I don't care if it's an hour past the beach. I want some Hawaiian Shave Ice!� she bellowed.
Continue reading "The Lesson of the Black Brittle Starfish"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on September 5, 2006 at 11:23 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
September 4, 2006
The Great Mountain Goat Safari
I went across Webster Pass today, and up Radical Jeep Hill, where I discovered a small heard of mountain goats grazing peaceably. I stopped my ATV abruptly. They were technically wild, but practically domesticated, as they betrayed no fear of humans. There were a couple of guys with rifles and jeeps and spotting scopes and all things manly and mechanical, so I stopped to talk to them. They were really cool guys, and they offered me a beer, which I accepted.
"Is my ATV ok there?" I asked. I had parked behind one of the jeeps, and these guys were fairly well armed, so it's best to make belt-and-suspenders sure that you're not offending. An armed society is a polite society, is it not?
"Nah. You're fine right there."
Eventually, I they let on that they were technically hunting mountain goats. Or, more accurately, scouting for mountain goats.
"You mean, like these mountain goats here?" I asked, pointing to one that was nibbling on the mudflaps on my ATV.
"Yeah."
Continue reading "The Great Mountain Goat Safari"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on September 4, 2006 at 10:43 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
June 18, 2006
At The Rodeo
At the rodeo, the sun found the hills and set early, the way the sun does in the canyons. It dropped behind a peak and the heat of June went straight up into space and we were left there in jackets, watching the children riding the ponies in a circle for a dollar. Not Shetland ponies. Not those horrible beasts. The Shetlands are meaner even than children and they bite and toss children onto the stones and the children burst like piñatas. No one wants that. Not even the parents.
Continue reading "At The Rodeo"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on June 18, 2006 at 5:49 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
May 30, 2006
Flight Misconnects
After the TSA strip searches the passengers, bullies them around, and generally asserts alpha dominance, the passengers are shunted into perfectly symmetrical autonomous trams in the bowels of Denver International Airport. There are no drivers. No one to tip. No one to ask for help or directions. Just autonomous meat-space gondolas, ferrying hapless deracinated mongrel herds through subterranean tubes machined through granite.
Glass and steel. Overexposed, chamber-of-commerce, government-subsidized adverts for something no one cares about. Eventually, the morons figure out that they're facing backwards, and, after the train makes a couple of unpredictable turns and accelerates to a dangerous speed, they turn around and face forward, like pigs turning to face the blades.
Continue reading "Flight Misconnects"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on May 30, 2006 at 11:20 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
March 24, 2005
Keep Austin Weird
The Detritus Of A Failed Technology Revolution
Like many modern cities, Austin is afflicted with the blight of urban sprawl. Endless acres of big-box stores, above-ground utilities, and pawn shops. The thing that struck me the most though, were the tell-tale signs of the South. Mom-and-pop barbeque stands, neon crab shacks, and Tex-Mex restaurants.
At work, a few dozen government employees were stuffed into a large windowless office. Drop ceiling…raised floor…pale walls…dim fluorescent lights. No cubicles to protect personal space. Every nook and cranny was stuffed with obsolete technology. The detritus of a failed technology revolution. Everyone afraid to toss something out without a mandate from the state.
Computers were stacked on top of computers. Office desks were pushed back to back like partners desks. Faded monitors sat on unopened reams of paper. Rotting mouse-pads…school-room clocks…faded dreams.
The clients commuted unhurriedly to work from aging brick cells in the suburbs. At work, they shuffled across the squeaking raised floor of the office. They spoke into their phones in hushed whispers and secreted cokes in illicit, clandestine refrigerators.
Continue reading "Keep Austin Weird"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 24, 2005 at 9:10 PM : Comments (2) | Permalink
Ouray 2002
Colorado was deep into one of the worst droughts in recorded history. Normally, the creeks would be charged with spring runoff from melting snow. You should be able to set your watch by the late afternoon thunderstorms of the monsoon season. But on this year, the rains didn’t come. The creeks dried up and the lakes retreated in their beds. The listless boat ramps rested idly in the heat of the day, awkward and useless…a hundred feet from the water. Lake Dillon looked like it had been drained for restocking. As though the remainder of the water could be mopped up with a sponge.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 24, 2005 at 9:08 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
The Blizzard of ’97
It started snowing immediately after we both woke up on Friday morning, October 24. It must have been about 10:00 am MDT. It was a serious snow. Big flakes and lots of them drifted steadily down, unimpeded by the mild wind. It was a good time to sit back, build a fire, and watch the snowstorm unfold outside the window against the background of the Rocky Mountain. There was only one problem. We didn’t have any firewood.
Continue reading "The Blizzard of ’97"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 24, 2005 at 8:43 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
March 23, 2005
The Deep South
Jennifer and I were headed for the Deep South. For locales with names like Tangipahoa….Ponchatoula….Bogue Chitto. Names that set up resonance in the tongue and induced lucid daydreams, even in souls that were innocent of their particulars. The Deep South is the land of blue herons and kingfishers….cotton and catfish... soft-shelled crabs and sweet tea.
Continue reading "The Deep South"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 23, 2005 at 8:27 PM : Comments (3) | Permalink
March 22, 2005
Cayo Hueso
Note: This story about a trip from is from a trip Newark, Delaware to Key West, Florida [Thursday February 22, 2001 - Monday February 26, 2001]. I didn't have this website up and running at that time though, so I posted this approx 4 years later on 3/22/2005.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday February 23, 2001
The sun sets at Mallory Square. The crowd claps and caterwauls. The buskers blow whistles to draw the crowds into their shows. The square lights come on. Dogs wearing hats snooze on the warm brick patio. The flags of the U.S., Florida, and Key West flutter in the breeze. The Schooners return from their sunset cruises. Another turboprop comes in from Miami. The crowd drifted away from the edge of the pier to watch the jugglers, musicians, and other oddities. A dog walked across a tightrope to jeers from the politically correct ALF (Animal Liberation Front). The scent of marijuana blew on the breeze. Upwind was a ragtag band of dreadlocked drummers. They must have migrated from the Simonton Beach to the square for the sunset crowd. The sky turned a brilliant pink and blue. The people patronized the local artisans selling paintings, jewelry, popcorn, and lemonade. As the pink hues faded to grey, Venus appeared in the sky next to a tiny sliver of a moon. One of the local magicians chastised the crowd. "You missed the sunset! It's OK. There will be another one tomorrow.?
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 22, 2005 at 8:51 PM | Permalink
March 18, 2005
Kissing Your Cell Phone Goodnight
I'm trying to post some of my short stories. Not that anyone asked me to or wants to see them. Just mostly because I'm bored. I should edit them, but I don't really feel like going through that exercise right now. I just want to post them and move on. I wrote this story in May of 2002, when I was commuting to Delaware.
My plane just left. If I hurry I can still miss it. Put my life into a suitcase and bring it to me please. I don’t know who I am any more. And I’m afraid that this is the only way to find out. I have to keep pushing the envelope to see what is real. No one else can tell me who I am or what I want. They can only warn me when my behavior is way outside the norm. And they have been wailing like a civil defense siren in a tornado.
Continue reading "Kissing Your Cell Phone Goodnight"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 18, 2005 at 7:06 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
March 15, 2005
Little Bear
The women age hard in the hills. The winters are long two miles above sea level on the back side of Shadow Mountain. The women are hardened by tight narrow canyons, short days, and cold nights. They suffer silently on the couch in Clear Creek county, waiting for a break in the weather. They put on fat like trees put on growth rings every year. You can tell their age by the caliper of their thighs. A good liposuction surgeon can read the weather in the fat off the backside of a common mountain woman.
Continue reading "Little Bear"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on March 15, 2005 at 7:00 PM : Comments (4) | Permalink
February 28, 2005
Drawn With A Very Fine Camel Hair Brush
We turned the insects loose so that they might live and drove the big four wheeler over to the neighbors to jump on the trampoline. As luck would have it, they were having a large dinner party to which I was not invited. I was wearing a wife-beater t-shirt and blue jeans with the knees torn out. The neighbors on the deck sipping wine in their Sunday finest. I wasn’t sure what day it was. It doesn’t really matter that much when you’re not working. The only thing that really matters is that the garbage men come on Wednesday. Other than that, the days are pretty much the same width, height, and seem to taste alike.
Continue reading "Drawn With A Very Fine Camel Hair Brush"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on February 28, 2005 at 8:40 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
August 26, 2004
The Seven Second Lull
I stood in the kitchen like a mannequin, white knuckle grip on the beer bottle, staring at the CO2 cartridge inside the bottle and muttering to myself like a lunatic. But, some of the people knew me, and seemed to want to have a conversation despite vigorous attempts to ward them off. I regretted chaninging out of my gas soaked army jacket, as I stood there shivering, peering distantly into my beer bottle, and bantering in a disinterested sort of way with the neighbors, mumbling the requisite “mmmm hmmm� only when absolutely required to avert the dreaded seven second lull.
Continue reading "The Seven Second Lull"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 26, 2004 at 12:27 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
August 20, 2004
Eurotrash 2003
The infamous coffee shops sell everything but coffee. They peddle hash, marijuana, and alcohol to any deviant, misfit that staggers into their realm. The head shops proffer peyote, Psilocybin, and herbal speed to all comers. In the red light districts, the more serious drugs are left in the hands of the more serious criminals. Well entrenched drug dealers hustle the masses “Charley…Hey Charley…Cocoa� and “Deek? You want Deek?� Anything and everything for a price including the women and children, the real losers in the ideological battles. They are the pawns of the socialists, the Marxists, and the communists. When the wall came down, a virulently poor human zoo migrated west. They fled seeking opportunity, but were steered into the brothels and strip clubs and coerced into having sex with strangers for Dutch Guilders and Eurodollars.
Continue reading "Eurotrash 2003"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 10:39 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Leaving Portland
He offered her the second glass to taste. As she tasted the wine, the room around her disappeared. While I watched her, she disrobed and dove into the wine. Swimming down beneath the surface. Pale white breasts stroked by rushing red wine from a vineyard on the other side of the planet. Crushed and trampled by bared feet just for this moment. The waiter and I exchanged glances. His eye’s betrayed that he’d not witnessed this before. I was just bored.
Continue reading "Leaving Portland"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 10:27 PM | Permalink
Austintatious - The Unsolicited Sequel to “Keep Austin Weird�
We were standing nearly naked beneath the wet slate skies. Hung-over. Cotton mouthed. Somewhere in the distance, a flat church bell tolled. A shiver of guilt ran through me. I’m a generation removed from them. Tethered to an obsolete paradigm of relationships, religion, and work. I see boyfriends and girlfriends. Workdays and weekends. Right and wrong. Feel guilty for not going to church. They live without a calendar or moral compass. They have “fuck-buddies� and wonder why they can’t buy weed at the coffee shops on Congress Avenue.
Continue reading "Austintatious - The Unsolicited Sequel to “Keep Austin Weird�"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 10:04 PM | Permalink
A Sudden Change In Cabin Pressure
If you’ve ever wondered what it is like to be on a plane when it loses cabin pressure six miles above the Earth, I can tell you it’s no picnic. One night in the late summer of 2003, I was flying Frontier Airlines Flight 214 non-stop from Denver to Austin. Just as we got up to cruising altitude, the plane unexpectedly began to descend in an ear-popping dive. The blood left my feet and rose into my face. No one made a sound. The intercom was silent. The plane began to plummet.
Continue reading "A Sudden Change In Cabin Pressure"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 9:50 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
The Brown Toilet Paper Experiment
I was sitting in the waiting room of the local Jiffy Lube like an expectant father. A small, blonde haired girl approached me holding some small piece of greasy metal. She held it out for me to inspect.
“Have you replaced this lately?� she asked.
I looked at the part. I had no clue what it was. I was reasonably sure she had found it in a junkyard somewhere, smeared it in grease, and brought it into work with her to intimidate women, computer nerds, and the infirm.
She held the part in one of those ubiquitous red shop rags that you buy by the crate in Wally World or Checkers. The part and the rag were both covered in grease, and, as she talked to me, she rubbed her hands on the rag, sharing the grease and oil from hands to rag and back again, until one couldn’t be sure if she was cleaning her hands or the rag.
For the rest of the story buy my book "Killing Strangers.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 9:46 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Go Sell Crazy Someplace Else
“OK…just so I’m clear on this…a construction worker sketched out a map on a cocktail napkin and you drove across the Baja Peninsula in Mexico alone in a rental car using only the cocktail napkin as a guide?�
“Yeah. And, the truth is, I should have known it wasn’t a good idea because I had to return my rental car at the border, and get another rental car that I was allowed to take into Mexico. I had to purchase all this additional insurance. I even mailed all of my nice bras and panties back into the U.S.�
Continue reading "Go Sell Crazy Someplace Else"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 9:32 PM | Permalink
Poaching Christmas
“Daddy…Is Santa Claus real?� she asks. I look at her. She’s embarrassed to ask the question. Can only feign a brief flash of eye contact. My internal mind-machine gears are turning smoothly, with the inertia of nearly four decades of experience. A well-oiled brain that’s singular focus has produced smart-assed, knee-jerk, responses for so long that it doesn’t know how to be serious, deliberate, or tactful about anything. And here is a five year old offering up her childhood for serious consideration. Her delicate world is precariously balanced on a fulcrum and the fulcrum is a lie. A deliberate, well-documented, widely promulgated forgivable, white lie that is handed down from generation to generation to like herpes.
Continue reading "Poaching Christmas"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 9:23 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
White Trash Living
Why is it that when you mention that you are getting a motorcycle, everyone feels obligated to tell you the most tragic motorcycle story they’ve ever heard? 3,000 people die in car crashes every day on this planet, but if you tell someone you bought a new Ford F150 pickup, they don’t say “I know a guy that was burned alive beneath a gasoline truck in an F150�.
Continue reading "White Trash Living"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 9:11 PM : Comments (1) | Permalink
The Morrison Inn
“Oh sure. Yeah. That’s right. Optional. Right. Mmmm. Hmmmh.� The tequila was starting to works its magic. All of the sudden, I could see myself standing in a river, fly fishing naked when she rode by on her fractional ownership horse. My mind skipped a track in a brilliant flash of mental white noise and I’m standing on the beach in Cancun staring at her pale, succulent breasts. ‘Hi. I’m Vinny and this is my boy. What’s your name? Where are you girls headed tonight?’
Continue reading "The Morrison Inn"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 9:04 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Fish And Relatives
In theory, February is the shortest month of the year. But this assumes that time is non-relativistic. That the 30 minutes you spend waiting for your blind date to show up at the restaurant equals the 30 minutes you spend scuba diving in Kona. They’re the same on some scale, but the time is not perceived to flow evenly during these two disparate events. And so it is with February. February is all ice-scrapers, Sorels, rock salt, snow plows, and cars spinning like figure-skaters, tits-up in the median.
Continue reading "Fish And Relatives"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 8:51 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Don't Look Down
If you climb a slope steep enough, the ATV will flip over backwards, even if you’re standing up on the foot-pegs and leaning over the handlebars with your stomach on the speedometer. I know because it happened to me at 11,271 feet.
It’s a bad feeling when the front end starts bouncing up in the air as you’re climbing straight up the face of a mountain above tree line. First gear, low range, throttle wide open, valves floating. Standing on the foot-pegs, leaning forward, feeling the Bridgestone Dirt Hook tires clawing at the earth.
Each time the front end rises up, you snatch a shallow breath from the thin mountain air, ease off the gas slightly, and try to lean a little further forward. Most people would stop at this point. Lock the front brakes and let it slide back down the mountain backwards. But I was operating under the mistaken assumption that I had climbed the hill before. So, the normal thought processes weren’t brought into play.
Eventually, the ATV stood up like a Mustang and came down crossways to the slope of the hill. I tried to stop it from rolling, but it had other plans. The ATV weighs 550 pounds, sitting on flat ground at sea level. Tumbling down the face of the continental divide, it feels significantly heavier as it rolls across you.
For the rest of the story buy my book "Killing Strangers.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 8:00 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
Hang Loose
Honolulu
Honolulu is littered with 1980’s vintage smoked glass skyscrapers. Each one virtually indistinguishable from the others around it, like clones on a playground. The office towers sport no logos. No neon. Bland, generic, modular office spaces. The surreal extrapolation of the office cubicle, stretched to the limits of absurdity. Thousands of honey-combed office cubicles arranged vertically in three-dimensional arrays. Thirty story tall anonymous giants, standing shoulder to shoulder.
Squeezing between the office towers, doves and pigeons brave the fitful rains of summer to argue over scraps of bread on the sidewalks.
At Tamarind Park on Bishop Square, blooming tropical trees surrender their flowers to the trade winds. This is the nerve center of downtown Honolulu. The place where the cube dwellers escape for lunch. The city is riddled with tunnels and passageways where Asians hawk bentos, sushi, and stir fry from the cramped confines of three-table restaurants.
For the rest of the story buy my book "Killing Strangers.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 7:42 PM | Permalink
Her Majesty’s Prison
A Festering Crisis of Vanity
When you think of the Bahamas, maybe you think of Palm trees, groomed white sand beaches. Shallow aqua water. Casinos and hotels. I’ve seen the $500 a night resorts like Old Bahama Bay (formerly Jack Tar Village) where they charge $126 U.S. dollars for a knit cotton shirt and run a Zamboni across the beaches in the mornings to erase the footprints from the sand. But that isn’t the Bahamas that I know.
The islands that I’ve seen in the Bahamian archipelago are hopeless, low, limestone clumps overrun with palmettos and red mangroves, populated by a festering, crisis of vanity bent on raping the islands to eek out a desperate living. Boiling in a crucible of sun scorched third world poverty, they unleash a preternatural genocide on the marine world around them, fishing for lobsters, conch, mutton snapper, sea turtles - anything they can harvest from beneath the waves they kill and grill. The natives do not practice catch and release. Nothing is thrown back.
I’ve seen turtles as large as dining room tables upside down on the beach, flippers flailing helplessly in the air, waiting to be carved into steaks. Piles of raped conch shells as tall as houses. Boston whalers filled from stem to stern with rock lobster tails.
For the rest of the story buy my book "Killing Strangers.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 6:41 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
It’s Going To Be a PeenieWallie Night
I came to this morning in an un-remodeled 70's vintage chalet so far up Brook Forrest that I'm reasonably sure I was in Clear Creek County. Instinctively, I groped my lower back and checked for sutures. I'm reasonably sure that the spleen peddlers are just an urban legend, but it never hurts to check. My hands were dried, cracked, and cut. My nose was sunburned. To take stock, I began to rummage through my pockets. Although I don't smoke, for some reason I had a half a pack of Marlboro Lights and two packs of matches in my breast pocket from Cactus Jacks and the Little Bear, each missing about half the matches. I couldn't find my Palm Pilot, my cell phone, or my credit card, but I located my elk bloodstained army field jacket in the dining room.
I glanced around the house and tried to take it all in. The large metal cross over the fireplace, the dark wood timbers, the 14" color television. The couch was covered by a tattered white blanket thrown over it to make the dog hair more obvious. The brown shag carpet was stained as if someone had field-dressed a deer on it.
Resting on the kitchen counter, a dozen underexposed 3" x 5" color glossy photographs documented two mongrel dogs playing on the stained rug. One was a large mutt with long, black hair that looked like a cross between a Black Lab and a Husky. I had a vague recollection of him from when I had arrived in the wee hours of the morning. I rummaged through the refrigerator and pilfered a plastic bottle of Coke. I made a mental note to point out to the woman that she would be well served to switch to Diet Coke.
For the rest of the story buy my book "Killing Strangers.
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 1:25 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
The Art of Living Foolishly
Something there is in a woman that craves outside, tangible, indisputable verification of their learned status. They flock to the ivory towers in the perpetual quest of higher learning…a more prestigious degree. An MBA…a doctorate. Some absolutely worthless piece of paper with some ink smeared on the front from this or that university or college. Women flock to schools like sinners to church on Easter Sunday.
A woman may be dry-humping a job making $30,000 a year. But, she’s inevitably attending night school at some tumbled-down university on the wrong side of town that’s perpetually on the brink of losing its accreditation and collapsing into financial insolvency. You can see it in their faces….hollow, sunken, and fallow…large, circular raccoon eyes.
Continue reading "The Art of Living Foolishly"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 1:02 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
A Year in the Colorado Rockies
And when summer was stowed neatly away in the barn, we went onto the land and built bonfires. Bonfires to signal to our neighbors that we were in town, and home, and felt like drinking a single malt scotch or a shot of tequila. And maybe the neighbors would come and join the fire, and maybe they wouldn’t. But the fire was there…inviting; a signal that the seasons had changed, and that fall had arrived, and winter was fast approaching.
Continue reading "A Year in the Colorado Rockies"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 11:46 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink
A Garden In The Sky
Barbed wire comes to life when it is cut, flailing menacingly through the air like a Cobra spilled from a snake-charmer’s basket. It leaps and bobs in undulating, unpredictable busts. A razor wire puppet, controlled by some deity in a lower dimension. Barbed wire can turn a beauty queen into a poster child for birth control in a seconds.
Continue reading "A Garden In The Sky"
Posted by Peenie Wallie on August 20, 2004 at 11:17 AM : Comments (0) | Permalink