little mercies

Test

Test

Postscript 1: Assorted Leftovers

Physical Aftereffects
Tendinitis on the top of my left foot (my shifting foot). Now, I understand Daniel’s pain.

Biker tanning pattern in the worst possible way. I saw it a lot on the road. Pale behind the sunglasses. Dark on portions of the face not covered by sunglasses or helmet. (About half the riders did not wear a helmet.) Heavily tanned arms and hands except for those people wearing longsleeve shirts. In those cases, the tanning started at the wrist or just above the wrist.

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Mental Aftereffects

1. A compulsion to go outside to check fluid levels and tire pressure on my bike

2. Wondering why there is no wind noise

3. Leaning through turns as I walk around the apartment or city

4. Frequently looking back to make sure my backpack is tied on properly

5. Left-hand waving to other motocycle riders even though I am walking

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Lots of Emails to Write
The Sony P910i was nice for taking care of mail on the road, but usually after riding all day, I wasn’t much interested in anything more than food and a nap. There’s lots of catching up to do.

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Favorite Transportation Seen on the Road
Kind of breaks my heart that nothing from my old employer (GM) caught my eye, but they have rarely taken any design initiative. Geez, the current Corvette hasn’t had a major redesign in more than 20 years–about the length of time they dragged out the previous version.

The Chrysler 300 and the new Ford Mustang were the cars most fun to look at on this trip. They must be selling quite well; I saw a lot of them. The Chrysler product line is looking good in general, but the 300 is a nice mix of the 30s and the 00s. Kinda boxy with very little glass, but it looks very cool.

The current Mustang marks the first time in about 25 years that the car has taken any significant styling cues from the original car. It looks great.

[An eight year old, white with blue interior, ’65 Mustang was, against my will and for a very short time, my first car. The fact that I was left alive after whining about the car because it did not have an automatic transmission is a testiment to my theory that parents are genetically forced to love and protect their children, even though killing them might be the more appealing, logical option. Thanks Dad.]

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Best Tunes
I heard a lot of rap and country on the way, but I had a 1GB playlist in my P910 that became nightly listening. Below, I’ve listed a few of the songs from that playlist.

“Sober,” Tool
“Perfect Blue Buildings,” Counting Crows
“Sanctified,” NIN
“Black Eyed Dog,” Nick Drake
“Sweet Dream,” Chris Carter (buy the CD!)
“Bernie Lee,” Tricky (recommendation from Jared “Toilet” R.)
“California Love,” Tupac
“Standing in the Shower Thinking,” Jane’s Addiction
“Turn Me Loose,” Loverboy (a sorry, but fun, bit of nostalgia)
“Tonight, Not Again,” Jason Mraz
“Sweet Transvestite,” Apocalypse Hoboken (cover of song from Rocky Horror Picture Show)
“Everybody Knows a Little Bit of Something,” King’s X
“Le Vent Nous Portera,” Noir Desir
“Walk on By,” Isaac Hayes
“Walk on By,” Beach Boys (a 55 second excerpt)
“Turn Me On,” Danny Tenaglia (supplied by Rick E)
“Filthy Gorgeous,” Scissor Sisters
“The Horses,” Daryl Braithewaite
“My Dad’s Gone Crazy,” Eminem
“We Don’t Need Who You Think You Are,” Skunk Anasie
“Don’t Push Me,” 50 Cent
“Hurricane Waters,” Citizen Cope
“Sag Mir Wo,” Clueso
“Languished Prayers,” Daniel Cartier
“Smalltown Boy,” Bronski Beat
“You’re the One for Me,” Marvin Gaye
“Maggot Brain,” Funkadelic

Day 10: Final Leg of the Dramatic Crossing

The evening in Las Vegas wasn’t bad. The strip was pretty impressive in a sort of Times Square, car crash sort of way.

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I Give Up
For dinner on Tuesday, I went to Denny’s. It was half the price of the “quality” restaurants I’d visited west of New Orleans, and the food was just as good. It’s not right, but it is.

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Half Dollar or Hard Candy Shell?
For some reason during this trek, just about every time I’ve travelled through a city at non-highway speeds, I’ve been treated to quite the range of current and past rap hits. I don’t feel quite as strongly about this as I do the g-string thing, but my opinion is fairly firm. Eminem has the best rhymes and the worst voice. [Until a few months ago, I hadn’t really thought about the fact that rappers generally avoid singing. (Thanks for the heads-up John.) Sadly, when I walked along the strip, I heard an Eminem song I’d forgotten about in which he ignores that rule.] While Eminem’s voice rates a C- for rapping, he doesn’t pass the singing test. On the other hand, 50 Cent is an A+ for rap, and to date, as far as I know, he hasn’t exposed himself by recording his singing voice. I thank him for saving me that pain. The usual suspects are honorable mentions on my list: Snoop (Calvin?), Tupac (though not his original name, it is on his birth certificate), Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Russell?). It occurs to me that maybe gangsta rappers are forced to that field because of their names. If I were named Calvin, I’d be interested in anything that made me seem a little tougher.

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California Love
Early start out of Las Vegas. Avoided I15 until I was 30 miles out of the city. By this point, the highway was fairly quiet. It was 84 degrees at the start. The temperature dropped as the road climbed to 6,000 feet and rose again as the road returned to the Mojave (dotted by Joshua trees that kept a respectful distance from each other). The cross winds were a little scary when combined with truckers whipping by. (I was going speed limit–70 mph–they must have been at 85 mph or more.)

After all of that, I10 finally arrived. If traffic had been bad anywhere on the trip before, it didn’t compare to the traffic created by the nutcases heading to LA. When the La Brea exit was finally in striking distance, I started moving to the right lane. I suppose the car behind me thought I was slowing down too much. He passed me with just a foot of clearance off my rear tire, in heavy traffic. I’d purposely timed my arrival so there was no chance of being remotely close to rush hour. It didn’t seem to matter. The drivers were still psychotic. The only fun part of the drive was the trip through town on Santa Monica. Traffic was slow enough and controlled enough to actually allow me to enjoy the ride down the strip.

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I Repeat, I Say Again, I Reiterate
My evening in Las Vegas reminded me that sometimes you can’t repeat a thing too much: g-strings are a no-no for everyone. Please help ensure the survival of a civilization worthy of passing on to our children (who are our future, I’ve been told) by adhering to that simple rule.

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Left Coast Evening Number 1
Plenty of frolicking and happiness accompanied by drinks at East West and a decision to save the real party for this weekend.

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Working Out
Justine came along eight years ago for a trip that was supposed to take place seven years ago. Runners (and other athletes?) use a concept called “saving the workout” to describe what to do when you are having an extremely bad day. That’s a day when, for whatever reason, mental or physical, you cannot make it through a key, planned workout. You adjust the workout somehow, such as shortening it or slowing it down, to emphasize some other training aspect (speed rather than endurance or recovery versus hills). I think this workout is now officially complete.

Day 9: Left Coast Time

Flight Planning
At an elevation of 7300 or so, Flagstaff is cool, even in the summer (60+ degrees this morning). My first impulse was to get down to someplace warm as fast as possible. Instead, I made a quick trip to the Grand Canyon. It was a bit of a drive-by because I was nervous about getting on the road to beat the thunderstorms that were forecast along my route for the afternoon.

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Losing the Rain Race
I got hit with a good part of the downpour just three or four miles from my Las Vegas exit. I was drenched. Half an hour or so later, the sun was out again. An hour later still, there was no evidence it had ever rained. (Note to Self: Hwy 93 from Kingman to Vegas is another visual highlight of the trip, but Albuquerque to the Arizona border is still the best. More important note to self: Avoid downpours.)

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Odds and Ends
The portion of the road between the Grand Canyon and the Deluge was fairly uneventful. Three phones calls (two tried to call me as I talked to the first). A stop by a Honda-Harley-Yamaha dealership in Kingman. (Looked for and found a bolt for the battery post. Drooled over the new bikes.) A short jaunt on the official Rte 66. A viewing of the Hoover Dam. (What I said about Mother Nature applies to the designers of and the namesake of the dam.) Riding in 102 degree heat.

[The Las Vegas weather people seemed a bit over-impressed with their “suffering” at the hands of the thermometer. The bulk of the whining was about the “abominable 25%” humidity. A move to Florida would allow them to experience 95 degrees with 95% humidity–day after day after day. That might be instructive.]

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The Other Bright Lights
The Strip seems to be about a four mile stretch of neon golden. It’s Tuesday evening, but the sidewalks are packed. All for the gambling? Lots of kids? What do parents do with their kids here? (I’m not really interested, but I thought I should show some small ability to “care” about our future–even if I don’t.)

Day 8: Raising the Bar

Natural Selection
Yesterday, the section of Hwy 285 just north of I40 had signs posted warning of crossing deer. A couple of Bambies, clearly poor decision makers, lay bloated on the median as fine examples of the power of natural selection.

[I’ve always wondered why Bambi is used as a woman’s name. Isn’t that silly when Bambi is clearly a big ol’ stag? (At least he is by the end of Felix Salten’s book.) Of course, the one exception to this definition of silly is its use as a song title on side two of Prince’s second album. If Prince did it, it must be right.]

Although I thought I might end up wet and bloated on the median, my risk taking seems to have been forgiven today. I saw the storm hovering over the mountains from the time I crossed the Arizona state line. When I got to Winslow, I thought it might be prudent to pull over, but I wanted to at least make it to Flagstaff, even if the rain kept me from the Grand Canyon. Three miles from the Flagstaff exit, the deluge and the lightening struck. Lots of lightening.

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Mother Nature is a Drag Queen
The drive from Albuquerque to Flagstaff along I40 has to contain some of the most striking countryside I have ever seen. There is just too much visual drama going on for this to be the work of an earth mother. These visuals cannot be the work of anything other than a full-time drama queen. The eye candy more than made up for the paucity of same in Texas.

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Homes in the Painted Desert
Lots of reservations along the road: Hopi, Pueblo, Navaho, Zuni. They seem to be rather sad and lost places containing sad and lost souls. I can’t imagine they are helping anyone.

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Route 66
Seems as if most of the Route does not exist anymore. I drove on bits and pieces of the road that were marked, but they always seemed to merge back into I40. Argh.

Day 7: Mountain Sighting

Road from Carlsbad to Roswell
Nice weather this morning, and the road was quiet.

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Just north of Roswell this sign was on was by the highway: Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers–Prison in the Area. Farther north at a rest stop: Watch for Rattlesnakes. These announcements should have been made to me while I was in NYC.

Made it safely to the gas station/grocery store in Vaughn. There were at least 10 motorcyclists gasing up at the same time as I was. Notables included a knarly, Harley rider with arms and face tanned to leather and white skin beneath his vest; a yuppie-like, BMW couple that refused to pay $2.50 a gallon for gas; and a bookish, young guy on a 1500cc orange Honda who looked like he was running away from home (his bike was great).

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Memories
Did a Santa Fe drive-by, but decided to stay in Albuquerque. The Sandia Mountains are everything I remember as they stand looking out over the city.

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Food and the New York Effete Elite
This time I ordered a sandwich–a much safer choice. I’ve also realized that, although I’m not a card carrying, obnoxious, Manhattan elitist, I have picked up a few bad habits (who knew that an unwillingness to leave the Villages could turn into something so bad?)

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Left-over Thought
What is it with loose pants? In the 80s it seemed a logical reaction to the show-everything pants of the 70s. But, I’ve noticed a lot of guys who can’t take one step without holding their pant up by the waistband or crotch. I don’t quite see why there is a cool factor associated with this. Dart-guy, mechanic-guy, and orange-motorcycle guy were all offenders. A puzzlement.

Day 6: Graves of Gold

Best Ride of the Trip, So Far–The 40 mile leg of Hwy 290 between Fredericksburg and I10. Great road. Great views.
Most Notable Terrain Feature of the Day–What feature? Oil pumps on a sea of dead grass, covering flat, boring land which is sparsely punctuated by under-nourished trees is not quite a “feature.” I look forward to the Sandias. In Carlsbad tonight.

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Texas Hospitality
Bought spark plugs this morning to replace the ones ruined by yesterday’s “bad gas” incident. Mistake of the morning: started the ride without putting them in. A few miles down the road (oh, say about five) problems ensured. Pulled off onto an access road and started the plug changing. Five minutes later, a guy pulls over in his truck to ask if I need help. He says, “Is your gas bad? I got a bucket we can drain it into. I don’t know how big your gas tank is, but I have five or six gallons of gas in back.” How could the “helpful guy” state also be the “dummy pres” state? Crazy. After telling jokes over a couple of Mountain Dews the plugs are finally in, Justine is happy, Curtis M. goes off to continue checking/repairing oil pumps, and Curtis B. is off to continue his westward trek.

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This Costs How Much?
For the third time on this trip, I am a bit annoyed by a restaurant that charges New York restaurant prices for New York deli food. I managed to get a reasonable steak tonight, but over-cooked vegetables and a wilted salad bar should automatically place the upper limit at ten bucks. (Why do restaurants think charging more will make bad food better?) I have now confirmed that if food were my prime deciding factor, there are just a few places in the U.S. in which I could live: New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, The French Quarter, Provincetown, and Niles, Ohio (Niles for Italian food only).

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Fashion
Blue jeans, cowboy boots, cowboy shirt and stetson. That has been the uniform of choice in Texas–always worn sans irony.

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Austin and San Antonio are each 30% Latino.

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Just an hour away from LA.

Day 5: In the Heart of the Enemy Camp

Driving Horror
The high speed roadways of Houston are deathtraps. The same is true of Austin. I would feel more comfortable on a mortocycle in New York City.

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Austin Hospitality
The capital city is cool, but Justine wasn’t impressed. Got gas from my new friend, bp. Should have been nice and easy. Half a mile later: no power and multiple backfires. I pull onto a side street hoping it would work itself out. It got worse. The engine didn’t stop; it just limped along. I turn Justine off. By now mechanically inclined guys were standing in front of four different garages and carports along the street asking if I needed a hand. After eleven years in NYC, I assumed they must all be part of the same gang and that they were working together on some heinous plan to steal Justine away from me. Turns out it’s a streetfull of mechanics. Me: Is this for real? So before you know it, Alex (the elected motorcycle expert) says, “You got some bad gas. What gas station were you at? Let’s drain the tank.” Next thing you know, I’m cleaning and regapping my spark plugs, draining gas and riding off to his favorite gas station to get “safe” gas. I was back on the road within two hours, after leaving behind a case of Bud Ice.

Austin Sightings
Bumper stickers on a Toyota Hybrid: Religion Is Just A Cult With More People; Meat Is Murder. My thought: wrong state, buddy. Bumper stickers on a Nissan(?) truck: Tree Hugging Dirt Lover; Use Alternative Fuels. My thought: Why do people go places that will cause them pain? I remember, then, that it is Austin, there is a university, there are good films and good music, and Austin is a progressive town. By Texas standards, it’s New York.

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Frying Pan to Fire
I’ve effected my escape from Austin. In spite of the mechanical hospitality and my desire to hear some tunes, the vibe wasn’t quite right today. I drove on; maybe I can be out of Texas by Saturday evening. That turned out to be an iffy idea as well. Route 290 runs through the middle of nowhere. No gas. No food. No hotel. I finally make it to a town that is large enough to have multiple stoplights. Numerous hotels, but they are all filled. (I still have no idea why.) Finally, one of the clerks refers me to one that he knows has vacancies. Very nice. Hanger Hotel. It’s built inside an old aircraft hangar. Impressive. I think the work is specific enough to indicate that there was actually an architect on hand for this. The interior is great. Nice bar also. Maybe the bar clouded my vision.

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Retreaded Thought for the Day
There’s only one driver: pleasure.

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Weird Stuff I Can’t Fix Right Now
My tanning pattern. Burned my forearms while traipsing around Florida. They’re now peeling. My face is more tan where it’s not covered by helmet or sunglasses, in spite of the fact that I’m usinq 45 sun block. I’m placing a call to M.J. tomorrow.

Day 4: Bound for Houston

The Long Haul
July 28: New Orleans to Houston. Long ride today. One of the two longest ones planned for the entire trip. The longest will be the stretch from Austin to Ft. Stockton.

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Notable Sightings
1. Almost no motorcycles traveled along this strip. There were maybe three sightings all day.
2. Ten miles east of Beaumont, a truck was pulled over by the police. An unlucky, pudgy Latino guy was in handcuffs; the back of the truck was open to reveal a car inside; and the Boss Hog-looking trooper did not appear to have any trace of humor.
3. There is an 18 mile stretch of road over a swamp west of Baton Rouge. How did people get through here 60 years ago?
4. Louisiana places these signs along the road where there are workers: Be Careful My Daddy Works Here. I couldn’t see one without hearing these words (in the voice of Raven O or Tennessee Williams): Yes, I know, honey; I know.
5. I10 in the Florida panhandle is the most “nurturing” section of road to date. The trees grow close to the road, seeming to embrace it. Louisiana’s road’s seem indifferent. By Texas, the shades of green, while they haven’t disappeared, no longer dominate the scenery. The greys, blacks and ecrus of the roadway become the dominant feature. There’s plenty of green still out there, but it’s not nearly as inviting.

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Houston Ain’t So Bad
The Montrose(?) section of town seems OK. The bed and breakfast is within walking distance of quite a few restaurants and bars. The house itself is great. Very unexpected. Friendly crowd at breakfast and some friendly, safe conversation from grandparents who came from Louisiana to see The Phantom of the Opera. One guy came in briefly to wolf down his cereal. Short, a little soft around the middle and bearded, he seemed very NYC.

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And Another Thing
I think Mariah and Trent should have a child. That could produce some interesting tunes.

Day 3

The Stare
At 6:30 am I got up and hit the road to beat the heat for five miles. It was not fun. One thing I had time to think about though is the way people here look at you before they say hello. There’s the long, hard stare followed by “hello.” Maybe a nod or a smile comes along with the hello. Seems my bro-in-law comes by this tick honestly.

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Television
The best thing about a vacation is the accessibility of television. Not having one of my own, anytime I visit someone or find myself in a hotel, I make sure to find out what makes the rest of the country tick. Seems we’re a country of useless silicone implants. It’s been bad nearly every step of the way (not that I plan on turning the TV off), but this morning was particularly egregious. Jonathan Fracas on some SciFi channel show. Format: five vignettes, you decide which is “real.” I recently thought I would take any writing job in the entertainment industry. It seems I was mistaken.

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Breakfast
Cafe du Monde was packed with an obnoxious tourist crowd. I left after my cappucino and went to a cafe closer to the hotel. I got rained in there for an hour and a half, but I had a lot of fun watching the locals. One guy came in, asked for a bag, and sat at a table near the door. He spent the next five or ten minutes counting and recounting approximately $3000 worth of $100 and $20 bills out. He then placed them in the bag. A lady behind me was talking to a friend when the rain started. She was facing the window, so she must have seen it. About 10 minutes later another of her friends came over. She said, “Isn’t that your dog?” The first lady screamed and ran outside. She untied the dog, brought it across the street under the eave, retied it, and came back in soaked to the bone.

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Lunch
A restaurant on Decatur. Asian-Cajun cuisine. Huh?

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Music
Did a walkabout. Nothing of interest, so I went into the Virgin store. It had a selection quite different for that found in other cities the last time I was here, and the same was true this time. Their top 10 was Zydeco, Cajun and jazz that I’d never heard before. I did a quick listen, but I moved on to more standard fare relatively quickly. The new NIN is great. Nothing new, but it a style of music he practically invented, so he still sounds the best doing it. Finally listened to the newest Mariah Carey album. Not by choice. I was looking at the cover as I listened to Trent. A guy who had been there when I first walked up, returned and put the headphones on again. He said something I couldn’t understand. I took off my headphones so I could hear him. He put the Mariah headphones on my head. “She busts out on this one,” he says. I nod. He is as enthusiastic as a 6 year old. He dances in place along to Mariah. He leaves. I decide to give the album a listen. It’s OK. I think she under-uses her voice, but what do I know? I went over to listen to the new Jack Johnson (pretty good), and as soon as I moved, another guy came over to listen to Mariah (he was followed by two more). I had to take a look outside to make sure that I hadn’t accidentally been teleported to Chelsea. I guess the thing that reassured me–kinda–was that these guys where clearly not on the Chelsea team. I moved on to the Killers, Soel, and Louis Devito. After Soel, I ran into a guy who was at the bar yesterday–the dart player. He was deadly accurate, cleaning everyone’s clock. I walked by as he was rocking out to the Killers complete with air guitar. He waved. I waved. I left.

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The Sidewalk
Two guys painted silver where just sitting on paint buckets. There seemed to be nothing special about them except that they were painted silver. They weren’t doing or not doing anything. People stared and moved on. Their buddies stood around talking to the silver guys.

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Mules?
Mules or donkeys? How come they don’t use horses to pull the tourist carriages? It took me a while to figure it out, but once I got a look at the drivers, it became clear. No self-respecting horse would be seen with anyone dressed so badly. One guy wore a white, short-sleeved shirt; primary red shorts; black, pointy-toes dress shoes; sheer, bright-red, knee-high socks; and a straw hat with a purple and white bandana. I crossed to the other side of the street. One never knows which diseases are communicable

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Mesostic
Just got a call from Chris C. I was supposed to meet him in New Orleans, but I figured that I was running so far behind schedule (10 days) that there was no chance. Seems he’s running 12 days behind schedule. I may have to extend this party.

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Beer Blast
Starlight for the Wednesday special. Very busy. The regulars were there (including dart player guy, who I finally realized looks like the young version of my grandfather). They were quite a bit more conversational.