The perils of prehistory
Following is a chronicle (as it were) of the heedless highjinks befalling a one Mr Pemwick of 1435 Harrington Square. Mr Pemwick, in a manner befitting
NO no no.
So here’s the full story of my journey to Hollywood. Those with short attention spans would do themselves well to find a distraction other than the following. It’s long, and extremely boring. But, some have asked for it, and who am I to take from the People.
Consulting a journal entry of mine, "The good life is nice, but it doesn't prepare you for when the bad life strikes." I don’t know what the hell that means. So let’s forget it.
This is assembled via the notes in my marvelous travel journal (a keepsake given to me by mistress_mew ). Creating entries in the log is ordinarily reserved for trips to national parks and the like, ah but screw it.
DAY 1
The movers were supposed to show up to get my things on Monday November 27th, possibly the morning of the 28th. November 27th came and went, and so did my calm. After several ‘wtf’ phone calls, they showed up late in the afternoon on Tuesday the 28th. It was raining heavily at this point; in actuality “torrential downpour,” “cloudburst,” “effing monsoon,” or any such meteorological absolute will do quite nicely. The moving truck was a mastodon of a semi trailer that could barely fit down the street. There was of course nowhere to park it on a city block, so they had to block in a number of parked cars. They were forced to move it every time an innocent bystander needed access to their car, and I think they ended up moving the semi three times during the load process as a result of this (which made them pretty cranky).
It was raining so hard that some of my boxes were soaked through. Movers were slipping and sliding up and down my stairs since it’s an old building with steep steps, not to mention all of my belongings were in the attic so they had to travel up and down a full 3 flights (for which the movers immediately charged me extra).
When my goods were loaded onto the truck, I had clearly exceeded the movers’ anticipated volume. But, I wasn’t supposed to be charged for volume-only weight. So in my mind, as long as the weight didn’t exceed the estimate (2200 pounds) I was OK. The driver then proceeded to tell me straightaway that I was pretty much guaranteed to exceed the quoted weight due to the amount of things. That was bad news, since my company was paying for the move and I had recommended this moving company to my general manager based on the (bullshit) quote they had given me. Bear in mind that the current weight dilemma was incurred even after having given away my couch, coffee table, two bookshelves, *both* televisions, a kitchen rack, a pair of stereo speakers, an amplifier, and who knows what the hell else. $250 had already been added for the “extra” stairs (“Boohoohoo! We’re movers and we have to move things waaaaaaaa….”), who knew how hard I would get zinged on the weight. The driver told me he would call after the truck was weighed en route to California.
I then departed for Michigan to get my cat (the naughty Cleo-Mimsy). By this time it was 7pm and I had a 6 hour drive ahead of me. About 3 hours into the journey the movers called. Yes, I had gone overweight, add another $400 fucking dollars. With the “extra stairs” and the “weight,” the $1900 quote was now at $2550. I couldn’t wait to call and explain that to my new employer. Moving Day is always a foul experience; enough moves have taught me that (I’ve moved 17 times (!) since I was 18). As I pulled into Michigan shortly after 2:30am, I took this into consideration in an attempt to maintain clarity.
DAY 2
I got up at 8am and it was raining like a sumbitch (the same weather from the previous day had finally made its way east). Before heading out, I asked my dad if the paperwork for my car was in order, and we determined that neither the insurance nor the registration had been renewed. This meant I was driving the most illegal vehicle possible. Since getting pulled over in these circumstances meant an end to the trip, it was clear that I would need to keep the cruise control set no higher than 5 mph over the speed limit for the duration of the 2400 mile journey, and work all the paperwork out once I got to Hollywood.
It was at this point that the stress of the last month and a half began to take its toll physically. I had moved my belongings out of my existing apartment a month prior, had been traveling all over the continent the entire month of November for my job, and had been living out of a suitcase and waiting for this zero hour the entire time. Now that the car was loaded up and I was finally saying goodbye to the Midwest, I was flooded with thoughts of paranoia that this was a completely crazy idea and that I had made a totally unreasonable commitment. I began to panic a little, becoming weak and shaky. My step mom (who is habitually nervous) recognized the symptoms and presented me with one of several bottomless bottles of Xanax from the kitchen cupboard. I never take any kind of pharmaceuticals (even cold medicine is a last resort) but this was a dire hour. After asking about the side effects (“you’ll just feel like you’ve had a glass of wine except without the loss of motor coordination”) I threw the bottle into the glove box and decided I would nail it if my nerves didn’t settle.
Cleo the Cat had been subjected to a hysterectomy the prior week so she was pleased to be shoved into the carrier again (“what sort of vivisection awaits me this time”). It took me 2 more hours to finish running the final list of errands necessary to leave the Midwest, and finally we were off. Right away there was trouble. I had decided to let the little mew-mew have free reign about the car rather than confine her to the carrier for 12 hours each day. She had her little kitty food and her little kitty water and her little kitty litter box and her little kitty blankie all within convenient reach. Well, that didn’t prevent her from getting carsick. She began vomiting after about 30 minutes in the car. I remember thinking, good lord, we have 4 days and 2400 more miles to go…what am I going to do. She was also doing laps around the car and meowing incessantly. She was clearly very upset and honestly it was breaking my heart (I am a doting spoiling dad). We had traveled from Milwaukee to Michigan the previous month and it hadn’t gone this poorly. I globbed into the glove box and popped a Xanax. Shortly thereafter, she calmed down, only after discovering that she could bury herself under the seat. It was at this point I decided there was a linear relationship between taking the sedative and kitty calming down. Or was it that she just seemed calmer due to the depressed mood? Who cares, I win both ways-more drugs please.
As darkness fell, the weather began to worsen. The downpour became so terrible in southwestern Illinois that I could drive no faster than 30mph, and had to pull over a few times because the visibility was nil. Cleo began vomiting again, and there was nothing left in her poor tummy by this point. I tried to give her water to avoid dehydration but she would take none. As I entered Iowa, it was clear that I was going to fall about 400 miles short for the day due to the weather and my worry about Cleo. The temperature had dropped about 20 degrees since I left and the rain was turning to ice, so I found a motel outside Des Moines and called it a day.
Once in the motel, kitty’s mood improved dramatically and she began running around, drinking plenty of water, and playing with her toys. I felt a lot better, although exhausted from cumulative stress and general lack of sleep.
DAY 3
I woke up around 7am to begin moving my belongings (and kitty) to the car, and by this time the temperature had dropped to 9 degrees (to the point that my car labored a bit while trying to start it…this gave me quite a scare). It was at this time that the Midwest was beginning to get pounded by the winter storm that would eventually result in various airports being closed. I somehow managed to stay just abreast of it.
Kitty was very upset to be back in the carrier and back on the road, and after 30 minutes en route began vomiting again. I pulled over to clean it up and pop more sedatives. Drugs sure are fun! Hey kitty is feeling great now too-it’s effing magic.
This stretch was easily the most boring drive of my entire life. I had to drive through the bulk of Iowa, all of Nebraska, and the flat parts of Colorado to Denver. About midway through Nebraska I stopped to get a sandwich, and Cleo took advantage of the moment to crawl into a pillowcase on the back ledge of the car. There was of course a pillow in the pillowcase, and hiding in the darkness with the weight of the pillow on top of her apparently granted her feelings of safety. She assumed this position every day for the entire remainder of the trip to California, and never vomited again after this. I would occasionally pull over to ensure there was a small opening through which she could get air but didn’t disturb her beyond that.
I pulled into Denver around 7:30pm in much better spirits than the previous days. I had to wake Cleo up to get her into the motel, and once inside she went about playing with her usual ferocity.
DAY 4
I woke up feeling like hell. At some point in the middle of the night I had been afflicted with a severe cold. My throat was sore and my chest was burning. Goddammitall. This was a highly unneeded turn of events. I loaded my suitcase into the car followed by Kitty, and she assumed her position in the pillowcase.
In the daylight I could see that I was at the base of the Rockies, their snowy caps but a few miles away. I was happy to be traveling into them. About a half hour up the massive incline, however, the mountain weather turned unbelievably sour. Traffic was reduced to a single lane due to the snow falling faster than the cars could plow through it. I was stuck behind a semi truck that eventually pulled over to fix chains to its tires (along with 100 other trucks). The visibility worsened even further, and without warning a truck’s chains were flung from one of its rear tires onto the road in front of me. I had no time to react (and no way to react because it was so slippery) and I ran over the entire pile of chains. The noise and corresponding jostle was immense, and I seriously thought that I had immediately blown out my front left tire. Miraculously there was no damage to the tire or car. This was not the only time this outstanding event happened. Some of these assholes were putting their chains on so sloppily that half the fucking chains on their rig were being dragged under their fucking trucks. I was constantly swerving to avoid running over them. Not to mention that the incline was so steep in places that I would ceremoniously pump the brake for 10 minutes at a time. I grew up driving in very snowy conditions, but this was pure white knuckles for almost 2 and a half hours.
When I finally entered Utah in the early afternoon, the sun was shining and it was an astonishing contrast to the morning’s travels. The desert terrain itself was unbelievably desolate. There were almost no cars on this stretch of highway whatsoever; I was seeing one car in the oncoming direction about every 15 minutes or so. About an hour further down the road, I passed a sign that said NO SERVICES - NEXT 104 MILES. Effing hell, I had better get some gas. After filling up, I grabbed a bite to eat for the road and set off (Cleo didn’t even wake up). I was approaching the San Rafael Swell, which is one of Utah’s premiere geologic phenomena. You can see it about 80 miles out, and simply can’t wait for the highway to enter it (photo here: CLICK -- note how small the 4 lanes of traffic in the foreground are). Well, as I mentioned earlier, there were no cars on the road for miles, so I wasn’t caring much about signaling lane changes, or even paying attention to the road at all for that matter. After passing into the massive wall of rock, happy as a nerd can be, I took a few moments to dig around in the passenger seat to get the food I had just bought. In a stroke of the truly impossible, a Utah State Trooper immediately appeared behind me with his lights flashing. This near-magical appearance confused me to such a high degree that I thought I had overdosed on sedatives and began to feel woozy. I still have no idea whatsoever where he came from. I pulled over, knowing that I was clusterfucked to every possible degree due to my lack of valid plates and no insurance. He approached the car and asked for said documents. While digging around in the glovebox (purely a ceremonial gesture, as the documents were absent), I asked him why he had stopped me. He said that I had been swerving for a few miles and after entering the canyon I nearly ran him off the road. I seriously have no idea where the hell he was, I hadn’t seen another vehicle of any kind for 20 minutes (and had been driving like a hippy as a result). I had some luggage stacked on the left hand side of the backseat that partially obscured the rear passenger window, and coupled with my tendency to always use the cruise control, the only thing I can put together is that the narrow blind spot must have obfuscated him perfectly for several miles. I told him I couldn’t find the documents, and after fussing about with more papers I knew would yield no result, he said to stop looking and that he would just run it through the computer.
As he returned to his vehicle, I knew I would get a ticket for swerving, and coupled with the lack of paperwork could mean just about any fate he decided. I envisioned a night in jail, maybe an ass-ramming or two, with Cleo turned loose into the desert. This was of course highly and unnecessarily prejudicial but I was feverish and irrational by this point.
The trooper was gone for a ridiculously long amount of time, which I imagined was due to the amount of paperwork necessary to jail me. In my mind’s eye a continuous roster of infractions and fines were scrolling off a long spool, and hey, all that ink takes time to dry. The trooper finally exited his vehicle with a piece of paper in his hand. On the piece of paper was nothing more than a scan of my driver’s license. “I can’t get a radio uplink here in this canyon. Please pay more attention to the road.” And he was off. I nearly pissed myself with disbelief, and was cooing a continuous stream of “lucky…lucky….lucky…” He couldn’t run my plates, and couldn’t even have written me a ticket if he wanted to. SAVED BY GEOLOGY. The desire to inform him it was technically a wind gap, not a canyon, didn’t even cross my mind until I was 140 more miles down the road.
DAY 5
I awoke in Cedar City, Utah to sunny skies. This was to be the last day of our journey, and I was glad of it. If all went well I would be in Hollywood by 3pm PST. I popped in a tape I had found in my dad’s basement before leaving (yes my car has a tape player, it’s a 1993 so cut a brutha a break). I don’t remember making this tape but it was clearly my handwriting and was at least 10 years old. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, it was a series of songs I made in 1989 shortly after getting my first sampler. My hand was over my mouth for 20 miles I was so freaked with glee. There was some off-the-chain-funny stuff on this tape…plenty of car crash samples and orchestral hits. Cleo, however, showed little sign of amusement from within her pillowcase burrito.
Nevada was a dry formless hole. I truly love the southwest but there was little here to keep me entertained. I should say, however, that having grown up in the Midwest, the desert is an exotic place to me (no matter how barren) and is therefore still preferable to Iowa.
The only thing to break the homogeneity of the Nevada landscape was Las Vegas. I could see it coming 60 miles out because it was quite literally the only thing visible. It was pretty absurd actually-it looked like someone had plucked a bustling city out of its metropolitan cradle (making sure to tear it neatly on the city limit lines) and punted it off into oblivion, and here’s where it finally came to rest. There was no transition, no gradient of population. The time from barren sand to city and back to barren sand was about 25 minutes. Bizarre.
As I entered California and passed Barstow, I was reminded of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but felt no urge to lure the local police into a high speed chase.
Further down the road, the notion of being surrounded by mountains and desert, and I mean permanently, really began to bring me calm. 34 years of acclimation to harsh winters in flat topography means that anything other than bleak cornfield is elevated to the realm of the alluring and fantastic. The desert has hitherto existed only in literature, or as a peripheral extension of reality as when one takes a vacation. As I rounded the San Gabriel mountains and pulled into what would be my new home, it represented an intention to take up residence in a permanently surreal psychic landscape.
I fear nothing more than stagnation. Some of the people in my life have interpreted my frequent relocations as a sign that I can survive anywhere, that somehow pushing the “reset” switch on my environment doesn’t cause me any panic. But I do panic. And I do miss all my friends. Terribly.
There’s much more to tell…a few highlights:
--I had to go to Austin, TX on business after being in town for only three days. Like clockwork, the moving truck containing all my belongings showed up in my absence. The truck couldn’t fit down the portion of the street where my apartment is, so the movers threatened to charge another $600 to move my belongings into a smaller truck and come back in a few days. My roommate (who takes no shit) quickly defused the situation by bribing a few Mexicans off the street with $200 cash to run my things down the block. I got the play-by-play over the phone. Despite the risks, not a single thing turned up missing nor destroyed.
--Cleo, fresh off her hysterectomy, began a lifestyle of gluttony that has since ballooned her to an embarrassing weight. I put her on fat-girl-food to no avail. Usually her crazy thoughts are more than enough to burn most of her calories off.
--Tickets home for the Christmas holiday were weighing in at $1200 and up. So I stayed here and slept in the desert.
That is all. Amen.
God I can finally post other things now…
NO no no.
So here’s the full story of my journey to Hollywood. Those with short attention spans would do themselves well to find a distraction other than the following. It’s long, and extremely boring. But, some have asked for it, and who am I to take from the People.
Consulting a journal entry of mine, "The good life is nice, but it doesn't prepare you for when the bad life strikes." I don’t know what the hell that means. So let’s forget it.
This is assembled via the notes in my marvelous travel journal (a keepsake given to me by mistress_mew ). Creating entries in the log is ordinarily reserved for trips to national parks and the like, ah but screw it.
DAY 1
The movers were supposed to show up to get my things on Monday November 27th, possibly the morning of the 28th. November 27th came and went, and so did my calm. After several ‘wtf’ phone calls, they showed up late in the afternoon on Tuesday the 28th. It was raining heavily at this point; in actuality “torrential downpour,” “cloudburst,” “effing monsoon,” or any such meteorological absolute will do quite nicely. The moving truck was a mastodon of a semi trailer that could barely fit down the street. There was of course nowhere to park it on a city block, so they had to block in a number of parked cars. They were forced to move it every time an innocent bystander needed access to their car, and I think they ended up moving the semi three times during the load process as a result of this (which made them pretty cranky).
It was raining so hard that some of my boxes were soaked through. Movers were slipping and sliding up and down my stairs since it’s an old building with steep steps, not to mention all of my belongings were in the attic so they had to travel up and down a full 3 flights (for which the movers immediately charged me extra).
When my goods were loaded onto the truck, I had clearly exceeded the movers’ anticipated volume. But, I wasn’t supposed to be charged for volume-only weight. So in my mind, as long as the weight didn’t exceed the estimate (2200 pounds) I was OK. The driver then proceeded to tell me straightaway that I was pretty much guaranteed to exceed the quoted weight due to the amount of things. That was bad news, since my company was paying for the move and I had recommended this moving company to my general manager based on the (bullshit) quote they had given me. Bear in mind that the current weight dilemma was incurred even after having given away my couch, coffee table, two bookshelves, *both* televisions, a kitchen rack, a pair of stereo speakers, an amplifier, and who knows what the hell else. $250 had already been added for the “extra” stairs (“Boohoohoo! We’re movers and we have to move things waaaaaaaa….”), who knew how hard I would get zinged on the weight. The driver told me he would call after the truck was weighed en route to California.
I then departed for Michigan to get my cat (the naughty Cleo-Mimsy). By this time it was 7pm and I had a 6 hour drive ahead of me. About 3 hours into the journey the movers called. Yes, I had gone overweight, add another $400 fucking dollars. With the “extra stairs” and the “weight,” the $1900 quote was now at $2550. I couldn’t wait to call and explain that to my new employer. Moving Day is always a foul experience; enough moves have taught me that (I’ve moved 17 times (!) since I was 18). As I pulled into Michigan shortly after 2:30am, I took this into consideration in an attempt to maintain clarity.
DAY 2
I got up at 8am and it was raining like a sumbitch (the same weather from the previous day had finally made its way east). Before heading out, I asked my dad if the paperwork for my car was in order, and we determined that neither the insurance nor the registration had been renewed. This meant I was driving the most illegal vehicle possible. Since getting pulled over in these circumstances meant an end to the trip, it was clear that I would need to keep the cruise control set no higher than 5 mph over the speed limit for the duration of the 2400 mile journey, and work all the paperwork out once I got to Hollywood.
It was at this point that the stress of the last month and a half began to take its toll physically. I had moved my belongings out of my existing apartment a month prior, had been traveling all over the continent the entire month of November for my job, and had been living out of a suitcase and waiting for this zero hour the entire time. Now that the car was loaded up and I was finally saying goodbye to the Midwest, I was flooded with thoughts of paranoia that this was a completely crazy idea and that I had made a totally unreasonable commitment. I began to panic a little, becoming weak and shaky. My step mom (who is habitually nervous) recognized the symptoms and presented me with one of several bottomless bottles of Xanax from the kitchen cupboard. I never take any kind of pharmaceuticals (even cold medicine is a last resort) but this was a dire hour. After asking about the side effects (“you’ll just feel like you’ve had a glass of wine except without the loss of motor coordination”) I threw the bottle into the glove box and decided I would nail it if my nerves didn’t settle.
Cleo the Cat had been subjected to a hysterectomy the prior week so she was pleased to be shoved into the carrier again (“what sort of vivisection awaits me this time”). It took me 2 more hours to finish running the final list of errands necessary to leave the Midwest, and finally we were off. Right away there was trouble. I had decided to let the little mew-mew have free reign about the car rather than confine her to the carrier for 12 hours each day. She had her little kitty food and her little kitty water and her little kitty litter box and her little kitty blankie all within convenient reach. Well, that didn’t prevent her from getting carsick. She began vomiting after about 30 minutes in the car. I remember thinking, good lord, we have 4 days and 2400 more miles to go…what am I going to do. She was also doing laps around the car and meowing incessantly. She was clearly very upset and honestly it was breaking my heart (I am a doting spoiling dad). We had traveled from Milwaukee to Michigan the previous month and it hadn’t gone this poorly. I globbed into the glove box and popped a Xanax. Shortly thereafter, she calmed down, only after discovering that she could bury herself under the seat. It was at this point I decided there was a linear relationship between taking the sedative and kitty calming down. Or was it that she just seemed calmer due to the depressed mood? Who cares, I win both ways-more drugs please.
As darkness fell, the weather began to worsen. The downpour became so terrible in southwestern Illinois that I could drive no faster than 30mph, and had to pull over a few times because the visibility was nil. Cleo began vomiting again, and there was nothing left in her poor tummy by this point. I tried to give her water to avoid dehydration but she would take none. As I entered Iowa, it was clear that I was going to fall about 400 miles short for the day due to the weather and my worry about Cleo. The temperature had dropped about 20 degrees since I left and the rain was turning to ice, so I found a motel outside Des Moines and called it a day.
Once in the motel, kitty’s mood improved dramatically and she began running around, drinking plenty of water, and playing with her toys. I felt a lot better, although exhausted from cumulative stress and general lack of sleep.
DAY 3
I woke up around 7am to begin moving my belongings (and kitty) to the car, and by this time the temperature had dropped to 9 degrees (to the point that my car labored a bit while trying to start it…this gave me quite a scare). It was at this time that the Midwest was beginning to get pounded by the winter storm that would eventually result in various airports being closed. I somehow managed to stay just abreast of it.
Kitty was very upset to be back in the carrier and back on the road, and after 30 minutes en route began vomiting again. I pulled over to clean it up and pop more sedatives. Drugs sure are fun! Hey kitty is feeling great now too-it’s effing magic.
This stretch was easily the most boring drive of my entire life. I had to drive through the bulk of Iowa, all of Nebraska, and the flat parts of Colorado to Denver. About midway through Nebraska I stopped to get a sandwich, and Cleo took advantage of the moment to crawl into a pillowcase on the back ledge of the car. There was of course a pillow in the pillowcase, and hiding in the darkness with the weight of the pillow on top of her apparently granted her feelings of safety. She assumed this position every day for the entire remainder of the trip to California, and never vomited again after this. I would occasionally pull over to ensure there was a small opening through which she could get air but didn’t disturb her beyond that.
I pulled into Denver around 7:30pm in much better spirits than the previous days. I had to wake Cleo up to get her into the motel, and once inside she went about playing with her usual ferocity.
DAY 4
I woke up feeling like hell. At some point in the middle of the night I had been afflicted with a severe cold. My throat was sore and my chest was burning. Goddammitall. This was a highly unneeded turn of events. I loaded my suitcase into the car followed by Kitty, and she assumed her position in the pillowcase.
In the daylight I could see that I was at the base of the Rockies, their snowy caps but a few miles away. I was happy to be traveling into them. About a half hour up the massive incline, however, the mountain weather turned unbelievably sour. Traffic was reduced to a single lane due to the snow falling faster than the cars could plow through it. I was stuck behind a semi truck that eventually pulled over to fix chains to its tires (along with 100 other trucks). The visibility worsened even further, and without warning a truck’s chains were flung from one of its rear tires onto the road in front of me. I had no time to react (and no way to react because it was so slippery) and I ran over the entire pile of chains. The noise and corresponding jostle was immense, and I seriously thought that I had immediately blown out my front left tire. Miraculously there was no damage to the tire or car. This was not the only time this outstanding event happened. Some of these assholes were putting their chains on so sloppily that half the fucking chains on their rig were being dragged under their fucking trucks. I was constantly swerving to avoid running over them. Not to mention that the incline was so steep in places that I would ceremoniously pump the brake for 10 minutes at a time. I grew up driving in very snowy conditions, but this was pure white knuckles for almost 2 and a half hours.
When I finally entered Utah in the early afternoon, the sun was shining and it was an astonishing contrast to the morning’s travels. The desert terrain itself was unbelievably desolate. There were almost no cars on this stretch of highway whatsoever; I was seeing one car in the oncoming direction about every 15 minutes or so. About an hour further down the road, I passed a sign that said NO SERVICES - NEXT 104 MILES. Effing hell, I had better get some gas. After filling up, I grabbed a bite to eat for the road and set off (Cleo didn’t even wake up). I was approaching the San Rafael Swell, which is one of Utah’s premiere geologic phenomena. You can see it about 80 miles out, and simply can’t wait for the highway to enter it (photo here: CLICK -- note how small the 4 lanes of traffic in the foreground are). Well, as I mentioned earlier, there were no cars on the road for miles, so I wasn’t caring much about signaling lane changes, or even paying attention to the road at all for that matter. After passing into the massive wall of rock, happy as a nerd can be, I took a few moments to dig around in the passenger seat to get the food I had just bought. In a stroke of the truly impossible, a Utah State Trooper immediately appeared behind me with his lights flashing. This near-magical appearance confused me to such a high degree that I thought I had overdosed on sedatives and began to feel woozy. I still have no idea whatsoever where he came from. I pulled over, knowing that I was clusterfucked to every possible degree due to my lack of valid plates and no insurance. He approached the car and asked for said documents. While digging around in the glovebox (purely a ceremonial gesture, as the documents were absent), I asked him why he had stopped me. He said that I had been swerving for a few miles and after entering the canyon I nearly ran him off the road. I seriously have no idea where the hell he was, I hadn’t seen another vehicle of any kind for 20 minutes (and had been driving like a hippy as a result). I had some luggage stacked on the left hand side of the backseat that partially obscured the rear passenger window, and coupled with my tendency to always use the cruise control, the only thing I can put together is that the narrow blind spot must have obfuscated him perfectly for several miles. I told him I couldn’t find the documents, and after fussing about with more papers I knew would yield no result, he said to stop looking and that he would just run it through the computer.
As he returned to his vehicle, I knew I would get a ticket for swerving, and coupled with the lack of paperwork could mean just about any fate he decided. I envisioned a night in jail, maybe an ass-ramming or two, with Cleo turned loose into the desert. This was of course highly and unnecessarily prejudicial but I was feverish and irrational by this point.
The trooper was gone for a ridiculously long amount of time, which I imagined was due to the amount of paperwork necessary to jail me. In my mind’s eye a continuous roster of infractions and fines were scrolling off a long spool, and hey, all that ink takes time to dry. The trooper finally exited his vehicle with a piece of paper in his hand. On the piece of paper was nothing more than a scan of my driver’s license. “I can’t get a radio uplink here in this canyon. Please pay more attention to the road.” And he was off. I nearly pissed myself with disbelief, and was cooing a continuous stream of “lucky…lucky….lucky…” He couldn’t run my plates, and couldn’t even have written me a ticket if he wanted to. SAVED BY GEOLOGY. The desire to inform him it was technically a wind gap, not a canyon, didn’t even cross my mind until I was 140 more miles down the road.
DAY 5
I awoke in Cedar City, Utah to sunny skies. This was to be the last day of our journey, and I was glad of it. If all went well I would be in Hollywood by 3pm PST. I popped in a tape I had found in my dad’s basement before leaving (yes my car has a tape player, it’s a 1993 so cut a brutha a break). I don’t remember making this tape but it was clearly my handwriting and was at least 10 years old. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, it was a series of songs I made in 1989 shortly after getting my first sampler. My hand was over my mouth for 20 miles I was so freaked with glee. There was some off-the-chain-funny stuff on this tape…plenty of car crash samples and orchestral hits. Cleo, however, showed little sign of amusement from within her pillowcase burrito.
Nevada was a dry formless hole. I truly love the southwest but there was little here to keep me entertained. I should say, however, that having grown up in the Midwest, the desert is an exotic place to me (no matter how barren) and is therefore still preferable to Iowa.
The only thing to break the homogeneity of the Nevada landscape was Las Vegas. I could see it coming 60 miles out because it was quite literally the only thing visible. It was pretty absurd actually-it looked like someone had plucked a bustling city out of its metropolitan cradle (making sure to tear it neatly on the city limit lines) and punted it off into oblivion, and here’s where it finally came to rest. There was no transition, no gradient of population. The time from barren sand to city and back to barren sand was about 25 minutes. Bizarre.
As I entered California and passed Barstow, I was reminded of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but felt no urge to lure the local police into a high speed chase.
Further down the road, the notion of being surrounded by mountains and desert, and I mean permanently, really began to bring me calm. 34 years of acclimation to harsh winters in flat topography means that anything other than bleak cornfield is elevated to the realm of the alluring and fantastic. The desert has hitherto existed only in literature, or as a peripheral extension of reality as when one takes a vacation. As I rounded the San Gabriel mountains and pulled into what would be my new home, it represented an intention to take up residence in a permanently surreal psychic landscape.
I fear nothing more than stagnation. Some of the people in my life have interpreted my frequent relocations as a sign that I can survive anywhere, that somehow pushing the “reset” switch on my environment doesn’t cause me any panic. But I do panic. And I do miss all my friends. Terribly.
There’s much more to tell…a few highlights:
--I had to go to Austin, TX on business after being in town for only three days. Like clockwork, the moving truck containing all my belongings showed up in my absence. The truck couldn’t fit down the portion of the street where my apartment is, so the movers threatened to charge another $600 to move my belongings into a smaller truck and come back in a few days. My roommate (who takes no shit) quickly defused the situation by bribing a few Mexicans off the street with $200 cash to run my things down the block. I got the play-by-play over the phone. Despite the risks, not a single thing turned up missing nor destroyed.
--Cleo, fresh off her hysterectomy, began a lifestyle of gluttony that has since ballooned her to an embarrassing weight. I put her on fat-girl-food to no avail. Usually her crazy thoughts are more than enough to burn most of her calories off.
--Tickets home for the Christmas holiday were weighing in at $1200 and up. So I stayed here and slept in the desert.
That is all. Amen.
God I can finally post other things now…