Apparitions

 

 

I sit in front of the Doppler radar sometimes for hours, the green and yellow high-def images burn through my retina and cast shadows on the back of my mind like the burnt and grisly phantoms of Bikini Atoll. I see visions at these times. Once I saw a demon sitting astride matched Land Cruisers puffing loose cigars……The smoke and sulphur curled lazily upward, like the ethereal drift of Dick Cheney’s shotgun muzzle, and breathing heavily but fresh, like pre-wrapped salad.

Nigerian Princess

Sometimes I fancy myself a Nigerian Princess sitting upon a throne of jackal skeletons and wearing a flowing robe of stone-washed Cape buffalo hides. There'd be be eleven pigmy house servants hand-feeding me seedless grapes and a pair of matched hyenas tethered to my bedpost. Balanced upon my regal head would be a five-gallon bucket of latex house paint and a pasta strainer, because my posture would be impeccable and my nipples in a constant state of stimulated readiness.
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Sometimes, on the other hand, I just sit alone in the dark, drinking warm beer, and wondering if I left my phone in the truck.

The Road

Gay, Michigan 2008

Flamingo, Florida 2004

Naples, Florida 2006

Mitchell, South Dakota 2007

US 52 West Virginia 2008

While others embark on their journeys, I'm reduced to remembering past trips. Maybe September?

Demons

Some rapper cuts off his penis; blames demons
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Demons can be real motherfuckers. Demons force us to live in crowded, greasy communities rife with abandoned automobiles and bacteria. They make us to eat fried foods and inhale the toxic fumes of dry-wrapped vegetation. They weaken us with fermented grain and whisper sweet sonnets of lust into our ears, then deliver stinging urination and open genital warts. They gently subvert us into identical vinyl-clad boxes over a stinking labyrinth of subterranean rivers which run red with the blood of Juicy Juice and bloody feces. They will compel us to eat an entire package of Fig Newtons when a single serving would meet the daily nutritional requirements. Yes, demons are a disruptive nuisance, but we learn to live with them.
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But, when your demons instruct you to sever your wang and jump off a two-story building, it’s time to get some new demons.
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Just one man’s opinion.

Remember

Epiphany

I sat along the springtime banks of the pond, listening as the wild redwings sang sanguine songs of Sacagawea and contemplated the meaning of life. I pondered, ‘just what is my purpose in this swirling cosmic mass of lactating, celestial orbs?’ I left the pond, unsatisfied and perplexed, and went into the house to watch TV.  Finally it occurred to me while watching a re-run of that old nineties-era TV program “Renegade.” As you may recall it was a poorly written, entirely forgettable drama starring Lorenzo Lamas, as an unjustly accused cop who traveled around incognito on a very gay Heritage Softail, saving attractive babes from evil and eventually bangin’ them.

This was just the epiphany I needed, and all of life’s purpose came suddenly into perfect focus! I’ll lengthen the sissy bar on the rigid project, sell all my worldly possessions, change my identity, and ride it across Amërïkä, living on processed lunch meat and Little Debbie snack cakes. I will search and find all unrighteousness, seeking injustice in all its aspects, righting wrongs and promoting truth, justice and the Amërïkän way. I will concentrate, primarily on hott damsels in distress who’ve run into trouble with evil organized crime figures.

I'll become a modern-day Reno Raines. A little more body fat, much less hair, and far fewer sexual encounters with distressed single women, who despite looking like supermodels, are living in poverty and in dire need of heroic salvation.

Baby on Board

Had to post this.

Unwelcomed Guest

A big-boned gal from my distant past stopped by, uninvited, and before I could shut down the lights and feign absence, she let herself in without even a courtesy knock. She was always a brash and vulgar woman, loud and self-centered, obscene. The kind who’d fit right in on the set of The Jerry Springer Show.
After the usual catching up on who was dead or in jail, she started going on about her failed relationships, how much she hated her work, the foul weather, bad traffic and her struggles with depression and foot odor. My thoughts drifted as she spoke and I pretended to listen, noting her enormous girth and remembering how annoying her non-stop prattle was. She droned on, me nodding my head occasionally and noticing that, without missing a beat, she was ripping open the box of Triscuits^® I had carelessly left, unprotected and vulnerable, on the kitchen counter. On and on she went, throwing down mouthfuls of Triscuits^® between whining about inconsiderate boyfriends, broken washing machines and her latest existential crisis.
For kicks, I mentioned that I’d just finished up some undercover work for the Bulgarian Secret Police, and was considering a sex change operation. She paused briefly, then asked, “You got anything to put on these crackers?” I smiled as she went on about her old car and new shoes, and silently wondered how Liquid Drano might work as a condiment.
She looked at the clock, said, "Oh shit!" and left the house hurriedly, muttering something about picking up her kids. For a few horrifying moments it sounded as if her car wouldn’t start, but mercifully it coughed to life and she sped off down the drive.
I sat for a few moments after she left, feeling used and dejected, shaking the crumbs of a once-full box, and wondering what the hell I was going to do with two tins of sardines and a full jar of olives with no damn Triscuits^®.

Can't a Brother get a Break?

Painted the frame "Dark Machine Gray" 'cause I liked the name, fully aware that a black frame would have been the safe bet, 'cause black is beautiful. Mudflap and Sputnik have no complaints, but I think it looks like shit with a black tank. However, with the motor mounted and lock-tighted it ain't coming back out of the frame 'til at least next winter. I'll try painting the tins the same color, and hope for the best. Coming so close to completion and riding season is coming soon........I think.

Hump Day Honey

Everyone needs a little happy, gratuitous rump to get through the week.



Well, almost everyone.

Blockhead

Coolest Evo ever?

Laundry Day

Nice stainless steel front-loader.
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Despite the poorly placed window and scattered clothing, she gets the seal.

Tender Moments in a Plastic Pool

From a now semi-defunct site I infrequently frequented <---------click here


At a party, long ago, somewhere in an impoverished part of my imagination, just east of suburban Omaha Nebraska I dropped some powerful acid with an obese, but thoughtful, Native American woman who looked just like the woman pictured above, except much fatter and uglier. We shared several bottles of strawberry wine while waiting for the drugs to take effect. We parted company, but later I went outside to piss and found her squatted in the prone position in plastic kiddie pool with about two inches of stagnant rainwater sloshing lazily on the bottom wearing nothing but a pair of yellow, rubber boots and a look of deep confusion. Not wishing to alarm her, I went back into the house and found a bottle of Dawn dish soap and a longhandled scrub brush, the kind often used to wash busses and large trucks. I began scrubbing her shoulders while applying long green stripes of the dish soap, creating a fine lather which pooled in the dirty water about her knees and elbows. She would voluntarily raise her arms, first right then left, so I could scrub the stubble ‘neath her underarms, as she moaned with pleasure.
I asked her to flip over, which she did obediently, soapy water sloshing over the sides of the pool like the Orca exhibit at Sea World. She lay there, looking up at me with those dark, pleading eyes, black and deep as puddled motor oil. Out front on the darkening road cars sped past, distressed drivers returning home from their toil, unaware.
I continued to work her torso with gentle, scrubbing motions, her large brown breasts swaying, nipples glistening. I deftly scrubbed her round generous belly in gentle, circular motions, moving slowly down to her cavernous gash. She had a protruding set of vaginal lips, the color and consistency of calf liver, which pulsated regularly to the rhythm of her beating heart. At the slightest touch of the brush bristles, these protrusions would suddenly retract like a pair of frightened eels, emerging again, however tentatively, only after several minutes of persuasive coaxing.
At this point I went behind the bushes and vomited a purple stream of strawberry wine into some freshly placed mulch, held my hands to my head and wept.

Très

Shiloh's thoughts slip across the sky like a flight of migratory birds in a delivery truck. When spring beckons, with bird calls and the greening banks of babbling brooks, a young girl's fancy soon turns to corn starch and Nyquil 'neath the warmth of satin sheets in the darkened recesses of apartment number three.

Rust always Creeps

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As I tarried down south, my neglected rigid project sat idle, the frame developing a coat of rust. So, with the engine hanging like a convicted horse thief, shrouded in mystery and greasy shop rags, I fabbed a small kickstand extension and wire-wheeled the frame back to bare metal. Then gave everything a coat of rattle-can primer to stop the bleeding. Not wishing to waste precious shop heat, I gave the 'Zuke a much needed oil change and sorted maintenance, hoping for some decent weather.
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Soon... maybe?????

Truckin'

Don't know the asking price, but I'd give my left nut for this badass antique. It would be perfect for trips to the nail salon or pulling stumps.

Grinding Again

The Cold was still waiting for me when I got back home. This has been one long, cold, badass winter. Nighttime temps still in the single digits, but hope springs eternal. Unlike the ineffective sun of January, the sun of midday March shines in earnest. Snowmelt trickling icy liquid through the downspouts, the music of early spring.
Glad to be back I suppose. The walls of my tiny camper began to close in on me as I bounced from park to park moving northward. It became increasingly difficult to find weekend campsites as the warm weather brought the Panhandle locals out of their brief hibernation. One morning, as I sat in a crappy, Mississippi asphalt lot, prepared to wait out a couple more weeks, it occurred to me that I may as well return to my beloved Jerkwater, and wait it out there. It was a relatively quick drive up I-65, running the southern Indiana I-65 gauntlet without incident this time in cool, but sunny weather.
So, here I am back to the daily grind, but fortunate to have screwed off for a few weeks.

Back

Old abandoned phone booth, some kind of green donor box*, overflowing trash can, R2D2 air compressor, inexplicable concrete cube, $5.47 smokes and huge three-month-old hard-as-rock snow piles can only mean one thing.

Back in Jerkwater, baby! Broke, sunburned, and looking forward to ten more inches of snow predicted for Sunday.





*That green clothing donation box in Jerkwater is like putting a tip jar in a homeless shelter.

Hauling Ass

By mid-Monday morning all the locals had left, leaving me with the place to myself and a few park rangers who wave to me like I’m an inhabitant of the neighborhood.
The area I now inhabit is not the flat, sandy tropical place one might expect of Florida. The terrain is hilly with a mix of tall pines and hardwoods, more like The Smoky Mountains. The park’s only redeeming features are its hiking trails and an old plantation house the CCC dismantled and moved across the Apalachicola River back in the thirties, (as one who’s worked in the construction trade a long time, I find that incredible). With only one radio station, no TV reception and little else to do, I started hiking small sections of the trails at a time walking through the flat bottom land with its palmettos, swamps and standing water, then climbing the steep switchbacks, crawling uphill using tree roots for steps.
Sputnik, with terrier blood coursing through her veins, is a bundle of pent-up energy. She not only requires, but demands she get vigorous exercise every day. I could walk thirty miles with her and it would do her no good, she needs more than that or she drives me nuts. At my last stop I started to let her run beside my bicycle on lead. No matter how fast I rode, she always wanted to go faster, tongue lolling to the side, straining against her collar like a sled dog. I would finally quit pedaling and let her tow me along. She pulls way harder than should be physically possible for her twenty-four pounds. Fearing her neck would become bruised I bought her a harness to fulfill her insatiable need for strenuous activity. Since there are few places to ride the bike at this park, I decided to hook her to my belt with a d-ring and adopt her talent as a beast of burden to the hiking trails.
Yesterday, we walked about seven miles including the western loop of the Torreya trail, up and down steep hills, through longleaf pines and thick wooded jungle, (this place must be hell in the summer with heat and mosquitoes). I ran out of my two quarts of water and the hills kicked my old, flatlander ass. Today my legs and back are sore despite the fact that Sputnik towed me up the steepest hills, fulfilling her role, much like the Sherpa guide who short-ropes rich women up Everest. All in the name of vanity, so they can go home and tell all their rich friends they’ve summited.
Today I pack up once again, and move westward.

Solitude Interruptus

This place ain’t so bad when the sun comes out. Still a little chilly with highs in the sixties, but who am I to complain when the Midwest still suffers through single digits? Had the whole place virtually to myself during the week, some days I didn’t even see a park ranger. I spoke not a word for nearly three days as I find myself withdrawing deeper into my self-imposed exile. When I finally did meet a guy and his wife, come down from Virginia trailing his Russian sidecar rig to escape the cold, my voice cracked from lack of use when I tried to speak to them.
On the weekends however, my sleepy little hideaway transforms itself, filling up with locals. Raucous kids, hillbillies, ill-mannered dogs, hillbillies, loud shitty music screeching out of tinny speakers and hillbillies. I retreated deeper into my little sanctuary and endured. I’ve plenty of time to read and just finished, once again, Cormac McCarthy’s brilliant Border Trilogy. Incredible.
The park is known for its fifteen miles of trails. I’ve hiked a little using a broom handle as an improvised walking stick, may explore them further this week. Today I plan the one-hundred mile round trip to the nearest Wal-Mart. I need supplies, namely a proper hiking stick, beer and some toenail clippers.
The excitement never ends.

Cold and Soggy in Torreya State Park

It was with some sadness I left the riverbank along the coast, but the hounds of discontent were nipping at my heels telling me it's time to move on. So move on I did, in a complete deluge, the little camper hydroplaning its way behind me like a drunken water-skier. Arrived at my desolate campsite near the Georgia / Alabama border. Thirty- eight degrees and in a steady rain, I set up my rig on a pathetic, soggy campsite, crawled inside, soaked and dispirited. Turned the heater up to 11 and shook off the shivers. Times like these I figure this beats the hell out of two wheels and a tent.
My smartphone screen has developed a noticeable wiggle and my toenails have become as the talons of a winged creature from Greek mythology. Sputnik affects a Pavlovian response when she senses the proximity to a state park entrance, sitting up tall in the saddle, ears erect and expectant.

I'm in the absolute center of nowhere. Fifty miles to the nearest Wal-Mart, I'm out of supplies and Central Standard Time is kicking my ass.

Dwelling

Woke this morning to the patter of rain drizzling on the camper top, first grey light of dawn oozing through shaded windowglass. I lay there, warm and fetal. Slowly the sky brightened, sounds of birdcalls and a full bladder prompting me to emerge from my cotton and polyester womb.

I was fortunate enough to duck some ice and snow, leaving the panhandle for a quick sojourn into Southwest Florida, with its sunshine and near-perpetual warmth. That warmth comes with a price, however. Orlando and southward, with Mickey Mouse’s vicious rodent teeth smiling from the balconies of empty condos, and campgrounds filled to capacity with pale-skinned snowbirds, lined up like tin-canned pickled herrings in their $250,000 mega-campers. Come south for the sun, yet living in the white trash squalor in what could pass for a Tennessee trailer park. I lived among them only long enough to move on and visit the Sea Captain and his longsuffering wife who spends her afternoons on the Widow’s Walk waiting for the ancient mariner’s return from the sea.

I’m now back in the Panhandle, laid back and less crowded. Don’t need 80 degree days and I’ll take the 40 degree nights. Feels like home.

The more time I spend “away” the more the lines used to define the concept of “home” become blurred. Is it that place back in Jerkwater with its possessions and complications, property taxes and phone calls? Or is it the space I’m currently occupying? Right now, the sandy soil of the Ochlockonee River feels like “home.”

Modern Man, with our appetite for material things and compulsion to run the pointless hamster wheel of “success” become trapped behind walls of our own construction. Deadlines, bills and commitments are subtle, but cruel masters. Don’t know what it will take to finally shake the deadening life of tedium I’ve chosen for myself back “home,” but I could get used to a life of wandering aimlessly. Like Merle Haggard says, I could “die along the highway and rot away, like some old high wire pole.” Meanwhile I could spend my days feeling the liquidity of Time ebbing and flowing pleasantly behind me as I scatter my coffee grounds into the palmettoes.

Watch Dog

Sputnik is a hater of all things small and furry. Squirrels on the picnic table are not to be tolerated.

Monday Badass, and Why is that Vagrant Sleeping in Your Driveway?

Parking in the driveway of long time friends Chuck and Donna. Chuck is a salty, badass old sea captain, who has made his living, usually on the sea, captaining commercial fishing boats in the Great Northwest and as a Reserve Police SCUBA diver, recovering bodies. Donna is his child bride, whom I figure, he must have won in a card game in some distant port. Chuck's first bike was a '41 Knuck with a bad carb, bought for fifty bucks. He still rides an old Honda, even well into his eighties.

The weather has been a little warmer here in Southwest Florida, but raining pretty much non-stop. Just hanging out on the covered porch eating, drinking beer and lying to each other. We did go out to see Chuck's boat, which he's been working on, docked about five minutes from his place. I know nothing about boats but it's pretty cool. A 44 ft. motor yacht, built in the 1980's. The interior is all teak wood with brass and glass barometers and shit on the main living area and galley. The best part is down in the engine room, bilge pumps and motor oil, where are crammed two 300 gallon fuel tanks, hydraulic pumps and twin 325 HP turbo-diesels. When he fires those bad mother@#kers up, King Neptune trembles and mermaids quiver in delight.

Central Florida

Bailed out of the panhandle with threats of freezng drizzle and headed south, passng through towns with names like "Winter Haven" and "Frostproof." I'm now sequestered in a crowded State Park campground where the couple next door is cooking some foul smelling dish that, may or may not contain Spaghettios, as a main ingredient and argue non-stop, eight feet from my window. Windows I refuse to close because it would require turning on the AC which I refuse to do strictly on philosophical grounds. It's hot now, Sputnik's tongue is lolling and I'm sweating. Not used to this heat, reaffirming what I've always believed; that the human condition is one of constant dissatisfaction.
But the beer's cold and it's great entertainment watching these old farts trying to back their ridiculously gargantuan motor homes into these small campsites.
I've got people around Port Charlotte and I'll head ther in the morning.

Gotta' get my laptop fixed, my thumbs are getting cramps.

"May They Rust in Peace"

Laptop's broke so I'm forced to thumb this out on the smartphone.
Passed this on my way here, but took some pics when I went back into town for supplies.

Florida, it seems, is the place to retire and die for trucks as well as rich Easterners and polite, wealthy Canadians.
This group sat in the quiet semi-circle of a shaded glen watching traffic pass by on the Costal Highway like dignified gentlemen in a State of Oxidizing Grace.

Home Sweet Home?

Think I'm far enough south to stay a while. Florida panhandle, not real warm, (down in the teens tonight) but no crowds and only eighteen bucks a night. Long leaf pines and palmetto. The beer stays cold in the cooler without ice!