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1998

Dragging

I am dragging. I hate this; I’m not really sick, just worn out and feeling pretty unwilling and unable to do much of anything. I’m not sure if it makes me feel better or worse that my roomie says he just got over the same thing and that it’s “going around”.

I’m always amused by the way California food editors think Southern people eat. In this week’s paper, I read something about how to prepare a “traditional Southern Thanksgiving meal”. One of the most important dishes was something called a “beet and kumquat salad”. Yeah, right…

A congealed salad with canned pears, Cool-whip, and marshmallows maybe, but a “beet and kumquat salad”??? Give me a fucking break.

Road Trip 98 now includes the stretches from Detroit to Milwaukee and Milwaukee through my arrival in Minneapolis.

More Stuff

Link du jour: Infiltration, “the zine about going places you’re not supposed to go”. Great stuff. Great pictures. Great links. Truly a site after my own heart.

While I’m at it (and avoiding coming up with anything new of my own), check it this well-worded article on why Californians pretty much have no right ever to use the term “storm”. I think I said some of the same things last winter. I haven’t seen anything resembling a storm (or even a good rain) in six years here. It’s a little creepy.

Lastly, was Sunday night’s “Simpsons” (the hippie episode) thoroughly lame and a complete waste of George Carlin’s voice? Or was it just me?

Webzine 98

Webzine 98 has come and gone, so the annoying animated gif is history. The biggest highlight for me was actually meeting a flesh and blood rendition of Larry-bob, after two year or so of web/email convergences. I also saw, but did not touch, the semi-legendary Justin Hall. He was dressed a bit like a Mormon missionary. I was mildly frightened by this.

I’ve decided now why I occasionally hit the neighborhood queer bars on Saturday night even though it’s traditionally my least favorite night to do so. I think that if I can make it through two beers amidst the Saturday night idiot fest on Folsom Street without killing someone, then I must have the strength to survive another week in San Francisco.

Stuff

Finally finished posting everything through the Detroit segment of Road Trip 98. There’s lots of pictures, including the disturbing but exciting demolition of the Hudson’s building in downtown Detroit.

Link du jour is Wishbone, where you will be treated to the job from hell and a really nice response to a crypto-capitalist.

Check out Webzine98 Saturday night at the Transmission Theatre. Look for a rare Planet SOMA – Schismatic convergence in a setting other than a greasy burger joint.

The Idiot Factor

So I’ve posted the first couple of pages of journals from Road Trip 98, including the SF to Cheyenne and Cheyenne to Indianapolis pages, along with the trip “stats”. It is most flattering that so many people are interested in seeing my dusty old vacation slides…

I’ve been back in the rut known as San Francisco for two days now and I’m not enjoying it. I miss places with heat that works. I miss my friends from the road. I miss White Castle, dammit.

Still catching up on the email. Still catching up on the business. Still feeling like absolute shit, but loving the Count Chocula I smuggled in from Minnesota.

And, alas, still just as disillusioned with San Francisco…

Supreme Idiots:

In 1986, the US Supreme Court ruled that Americans have no right to privacy in their bedrooms in a case involving two consenting male adults in Georgia. This week, however, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that Georgians do indeed have this right to privacy as they overturned the state’s sodomy laws.

Here’s the catch: this time around, the case involved an adult male who was fucking his 17-year-old niece. What this all means is that fags aren’t really worthy of privacy, but when the law won’t let Bubba pork his brother’s daughter, it’s time for some serious action!

Of course, the new ruling also makes us sodomites “legal” too, so it’s a good thing. I guess the “designated idiots” here are mainly the ’86 Supreme Court. But somehow, my impression of the state of Georgia isn’t enhanced all that much either…

Stripping Idiots:

OK…imagine you’re a Bay Area mother in with a 15-year-old daughter. Your precious progeny wants a particularly lewd male stripper at her birthday party. Even though he’s fondling the girls’ breasts and going in their pants, you allow it to continue. You don’t want to “embarrass” her in front of her friends, after all. At the end of the show, the stripper bares his willy, prompted by a big tip.

Now imagine you’re a judge who has to decide who’s the bigger idiot. Is it the mom for letting it happen? Or is it the stripper for thinking no one would get pissed that he was feeling up 15-year-old girls? Hard choice, huh?

Willie’s Pie

I know what you’re thinking, but I promise I had absolutely nothing to do with the protesters who hit Mayor Willie Brown in the face with a pie. Mind you, I completely support their protest against the “economic cleansing” of San Francisco. And I completely support anything which makes Emperor Willie the Pompous appear foolish.

I’m just pissed off that I didn’t think of it first.

There are, as yet, no pictures or journals from Road Trip 98. However, I have added a Statistics page, with some useless information, “best of” items, etc. Look for the real scoop within the next couple of days.

I’m going back to bed now.

Home

I’m home. I’m not wildly excited about this fact. ‘Nuff said…

Is it possible to have jet lag when you DRIVE across the country? I sort of feel like someone hit me really hard with a big stick.

Anyhow, it was a great trip. The details and pictures will follow shortly. Thanks to Erik and Bob, Carroll and Scott, David and Davee, and Bil and everyone else who put up with me. And thanks especially to Luby’s Cafeteria for keeping me fueled with fried okra all the way home.

I’m going to bed now. My own bed. That’ll be nice…

The Stats

Miles travelled: 7003

States visited: 16

Most states in one day: 4 (on two different days)

Most annoying song heard over and over again: “The Stroke” by Billy Squier

Obscure top 40 song from my past I was most surprised to hear: “Gemini Dream” by the Moody Blues

Strangest radio station: 920AM in Faribault MN (all polka all the time)

Best lodging: Renaissance Tower, Indianapolis

Worst lodging: Motel 6, Kansas City

Cutest boys in the rest areas: Nebraska

Strangest food substance: Frank’s Kraut Juice (Minnesota)

Most pleasant financial surprise: Free ATM service at Norwest Banks thanks to merger mania

Runner-up to above: Cigarettes for $15.00 a carton in Indiana and Wyoming

Best thrift store surprise: The missing piece of my McDonald’s Flintstones mug collection

Crappiest queer bar: Blazing Saddles, Des Moines IA

Strangest queer bar: C’est La Vie, Milwaukee

Most enjoyable felony: Oral sex in Michigan (I’d say Minnesota too, but I’m not sure if it’s felony there)

Most enjoyable misdemeanor: Public drinking in a creepy parking garage in Minneapolis

Most enjoyable infraction: 90MPH through large parts of Nevada and Wyoming

Most roadkill sightings: I-35 through Iowa

Best culinary experience: The King and I, Minneapolis

Runner-up to above: Luby’s Cafeteria, OKC, Amarillo, and Albuquerque

Number of people I met in bars who had seen Planet SOMA: 1

Strangest vehicular sighting: An Oakland city bus parked at a truck stop in Albuquerque

Cheapest gas: 80.9 cents in Oklahoma City

Runner-up to above: 84.9 cents in Des Moines

Most expensive gas: $1.55 in the middle of the Mojave Desert

Runner-up to above: $1.29 in Needles CA

Worst allergy region: Minnesota, hands down

Needles CA to San Francisco CA

Odometer: 90273

 

Gas price in Needles: $1.29 a gallon. Gas price when I said “fuck that” and drove three blocks back into Arizona: 97¢ a gallon. Sometimes I hate California.

I hated it more and more as I crossed the Mojave into Barstow. Traffic got progressively worse and worse. By the time I hit I-5 west of Bakersfield, I was in the midst of a nasty automotive clusterfuck. I had a near-death experience outside Santa Nella, where I just missed being car number 16 or 17 in a 25-car pileup. Fortunately, no one actually collided, although two cars were forced off the road.

There were minor storms in the mountains west of Mojave. There were fairly intense ones (by California standards) just south of San Francisco.

When I crossed Altamont Pass, I was more or less home. I was also just about out of gas. I finally stopped in Castro Valley. At this point, I knew I was really home in the good old Golden State because I had to drive through this suburban strip for fifteen minutes before I could find a gas station.

Oakland. Bay Bridge. Home. After 7003 miles…

Albuquerque NM to Needles CA

Odometer: 89729

 

There is nothing quite so annoying as being in a huge thrift store in Albuquerque NM on a Saturday morning in the midst of a half-price sale. I was in and out in about three minutes and off to my final Luby’s Cafeteria, where there was no fried okra, but there WAS fried zucchini.

I stopped at a truck stop just outside town to get gas. Imagine my surprise at seeing an Oakland city bus in the parking lot. The driver said it was being delivered. I saw another one a few miles down the road, rolling along with its “West Oakland BART” destination sign out of place in the desert.

About this time, my odometer crossed the 90,000-mile mark.

 

This was another long day of driving with few stops. Once again, I was covering familiar ground, through western New Mexico and all of Arizona in one day. The only highlights were a devilishly cute gas jockey in Holbrook AZ and a brush fire in the median somewhere west of Flagstaff. I was completely worn out by the time I hit the California state line and rolled into Needles.

Needles CA has to be one of the most depressing places in the country. There was absolutely nothing there and absolutely nothing going on. And this was a Saturday night following a rodeo! OK…there ewre a couple of cute cowboys around, but they were on the way out of town.

I coped by going to the AM/PM, getting myself a 59-cent death dog, some Doritos, and a Foster’s Lager, and then settling in for “The People vs. Larry Flynt”. Slept like a baby, although I was a little worried that I was running the air conditioner while it was 50 degrees outside. Guess I’d sort of gotten used to the cold.