my ode to homelessness

the other side of "traveling at the speed of life"

being homeless by choice is fabulous. hands down, one of the best decisions i've ever made (that's either not saying much or saying a whole lot). i imagine that being homeless, not by choice, sucks. that's why i always give money to the ones asking for it. always. all of my friends have "made it", so to speak. they have spare bedrooms with really comfy beds. most of the time i even have my own bathroom. they all have nicer places than i've ever called my own. so i really enjoy staying with them & am very thankful that they invite me to (even if i question their sanity by doing so). they have cable TV with lots of channels. they have couches that practically have to be set on fire to get me off of them. my car is amazing. her name is Mary-cedes, and she's old enough to buy her own beer. none of her gauges work. nor does the odometer. so that means i never know how much gas i have, nor do i know how far i've traveled to even take a guess. i don't know what the  oil pressure is, but i know she burns almost as much oil as gas, so i tend to just put both of them in when i remember. i have no idea if she's ever overheated, but we've made it through the last 5 months. once, i ran out of fuel on a 5 lane freeway in southern california, known as the 405. if there truly is a hell, it's the 405. if you've been on it, you know. if you haven't, you can't imagine. driving on it is like going to war, except every single person is their own army and it is a battle to the death. there were concrete construction barriers on the shoulder, so that meant there was no place to pull off. i've got good ole Mary-cedes, in neutral & we're coasting about 35 mph on the 405, which is slow enough to get you shot at, even by a grandmother.  additionally, no one in southern california would ever deign to help a stranded motorist, so i know i'm screwed if Mary-cedes doesn't make it. i'll be that asshole that blocked a lane of traffic on the world's most horrendous highway. but then there it is! the exit ramp. i'm going to make it. i'm coasting down the ramp, with enough shoulder to pull over. i'm smiling. i feel good. i'm the only person on the 405 that feels that way. but wait, there's a fuel station across the intersection. the only thing standing between me & glory is a red light with 2 cars stopped at it. the light turns green, the cars go, & i coast through, gracefully stopping at the pump, like i planned the whole thing. i could get the gauges fixed, but how much would that cost? doesn't matter, it's not worth it to me.  i also have no brake lights. or reverse lights for that matter. the no brake lights thing scares me a little. i really don't want rear-ended. i've been pulled over twice for them & i'd like to thank both officers for not giving me a ticket. 

technically, i have not had an address that i actually live at, in the US, in about 18+ months. i'd like to thank the internet for making my lifestyle possible. this would've been a lot harder years ago. i've decided that home is where my toothbrush is. i've been back in california for 5 months in an effort to make some money. every time a friend says "do you wanna...?" i don't even let them finish the question. i just say yes. i understand most people would not want to have their whole life reduced to a snowboard bag, a surfboard bag, and  few boxes of photos in a friend's garage. but it keeps things easy. when i go out with my friends, they know they will see me in 1 of about 3 outfits that are appropriate for public. we call these my "going out uniform". most of my clothes are either really old,  have been given to me, or bought with someone's employee discount. i wear them long past their expiration date, but i'm not as bad as my brother. often times, i'm getting ready to go somewhere (like yoga or the grocery store), & i map out the route i plan to take in my head. then i walk outside & realize i'm not where i thought i was & have to make a different route. its not a big deal, but i think i understand what homesickness is. i don't get homesick, but there's something inside of you that tells you where you are. a biological homing device. you take it for granted. you don't notice it, but sometimes i get so disoriented. once, i changed time zones, plus 1 daylight savings time change, 6 times in 8 weeks. i couldn't even guess what time it was anymore.  these things have the potential to really mess with your head. i like them. i like getting lost. i like not knowing where i'm going. i like not knowing where next week will take me. plans stress me out. my life is my adventure. i make certain sacrifices to keep it that way. certain sacrifices that make most people wonder what the hell i'm doing with my life. commitment-phobe may or may not be the right word. i don't crave stability. i like last minute decisions. how does that saying go? "everybody dies, but not everybody lives".

WV, I ♥ YOU

my brother's dog doesn't have  a water bowl. he drinks from the toilet. only.

hot spots are all over the place. i asked my brother what they were. he said "5 poker machines & an ashtray" so video poker = hot spot. and the limit is 5 machines.

the view out of my brother's kitchen window is a 1983 jet ski & a kitchen sink laying in the yard.

rather than pay for trash service, my brother takes his trash to his buddy's work shop & dumps it

 which is where the mud slut is

have you had "Choco Vino?  it's, and i quote, "the taste of dutch chocolate and fine red wine". it tastes like Yoo-hoo, but is 14% alcohol. delicious. honestly. and even better when everyone just passes the bottle around.

fun facts:

i was in WV for 3 weeks

times i ate a meal from a gas station: 5

times i've done that otherwise this past year: 0

times i ate chicken wings for dinner: 6

times i've done that this past year: 0

# of candy bars i ate: 7ish

# eaten the rest of this WHOLE past year: 7ish

gallons of beer drank: unchanged

exercise level has declined from an 8 to like a 1.5

which is probably why when i said i should try to make some money by being a stripper, my brother responded with "you're going have to wear a bra on your ass, and learn to walk on your hands" and said i needed to get some anti-monkey butt powder, which is for large butts, that struggle with friction issues. you can buy it at the tractor supply store, along with chicken poop, which made it into the previous blog entry.

there's a new strip bar in town called the parrot somethingorother, & apparently they didn't secure their pole very well because (according to my brother's friend) the pole broke & the stripper flew about 15 feet off the stage. i wonder what the terminal velocity would be off of a stripper pole? this is the same place & same friend that had a stripper (tho clearly she has another profession) say she'd do whatever he wanted for $200. he responded "for $200, you'll paint my kitchen!!" 

my brother made a big announcement. it started with "you guys! bad news!" long pause. "i got a job". it is in our genetic code to be adverse to employment.

would you expect the guy that has his own bio-diesel making facility to say things like "the solution to pollution is dilution"?  you see, in WV people are not really what you'd call "green". they are, however, very thrifty & innovative. so every single thing in this bio-diesel shed (yes, shed) is home-made. these guys are making 10's of 1,000's of gallons of fuel. in a shed! giant 1,000 gallon propane tanks have to be relieved of their remaining propane. you just open the valve, when the hissing slows down, you take the welding torch, and throw a spark into the tank. it'll burn for quite awhile, like enough propane to supply a house for 4 days. usually one of 2 things is said during these moments:

1. hold my beer while i get the camera

2. PUT IT OUT!!! PUT IT OUT!!!

does it sound dangerous? because it is. very. dangerous. one day a state trooper was driving by while they were heating up the vegetable oil to get the water out of it. imagine a flame about 12 feet high & 4 feet in diameter that was visible to the trooper. they knew he'd come back around, so when he made a 2nd pass, they hooked a shop vac up in reverse so it'd blow air & funneled it into the flame to get a significantly larger flame. as the trooper was staring at them, he managed to drive off the road, into a field. that now required a 3rd pass by the trooper who had to come back to ask some questions, like "what are you guys making here?" answer "maple syrup". trooper thought they were making moonshine, but realized it was bio-diesel, and didn't care. technically, they're making soap (glycerine) but you have to get rid of that bio-diesel "waste" some how. might as well put it in your trucks, bob cats, back hoes, & excavators. about 20 feet away from the shed (full of not just flammable liquids, but also explosive liquids) is the "burn pile". you know, where you throw all the trash to burn it. now, i have several more photos of this operation, but i like these guys too much to publish them. i don't want them to be identifiable. but there's the welder, inside the shed, about 6 feet from stuff that blows up.

there's the burn pile. its much bigger than it looks.

who builds a house around trailer? is it still considered a trailer? i don't think it's a "trouse", which is a trailer you put on top of a basement, but i guess it could be. 

this is not the first time my brother convinced every one to drink beer out of the dog's bowl. nor is it the first time he pulled his pants down while standing in the middle of this bar. apparently his behavior is not shocking enough to get kicked out. so we passed the dog bowl around the same way we passed the Choco-Vino around. 

redneck xmas begins 2010

 we went to the bar, that had a stripper pole (tho not a strip club) & a neon sign on the ceiling that said "the pole is your friend" & a bell you ring if you make it to the top of the pole. i only saw 1 person take advantage of the  pole. she was easily 240 lbs (110 kgs), and as my brother put it "that's a west virginia 240, not a miami 240 with tan lines".

we then went to another bar. it's called the purple cow. it was their xmas party. the band was awesome & i got to ride around the dance floor in a shopping cart, wearing a construction helmet with deer antlers (reals ones). 

why my brother & his friends still have all of their fingers & toes is beyond me, because the number of stories i've heard that start with statements like "when i was standing there with a bottle of yukon jack in one hand & a running chainsaw in the other..." is astounding. there are also stories that come from the bio-diesel shed... most of them involve near death experiences, like methanol raining (literally raining) down on you with copious amounts of lye laying around. my brother says it is an OSHA video.

how many people do you know that have taken at least 4 cows to the dump? i know one.

i've seen homeless people dressed better than my brother. he swears he threw away all of his really bad shirts. and this is his uniform. he only wears white hanes T-shirts & jeans. every day.

how many people do you know that put a baby seat in their back hoe? i know one. this is what being a stay-at-home-dad looks like in WV.

 

this is my bedroom at my brother's house. chance of him changing it? slim to none. he calls it the winnie the pooh suite.

chicken poop

fear and loathing in nicaragua

~names have been changed~
i went to nicaragua a month ago & it was easily one of the greatest trips i've ever done. due mostly to a series of questionable, to down-right bad, decisions. it started with:

5 am: i arrive at the mexico city airport at for a 7am international flight. i left my surfboards in a storage locker 3 days prior when i arrived in the city.

5:15am: i figure out that i am in the international terminal & my boards are in the domestic terminal, a bus ride away. damitamy.

6am: i've got a 176 year old man with a dolly, toting my boards & luggage for me. he moves at exactly the pace you would think a 176 yr old man would move. somewhere around now, i realize i left my camera in mexico city. that makes the 3rd or 4th camera i've lost this year.  damitamy.

6:57am: i make my plane with literally 7 min to spare, but the plane sits on the runway for another 30 min. my layover for my connection in panama is 38 minutes. repeat: 38 minutes. and now 30 of those minutes are gone. somehow i make the connection & watch my bags make it too. (here is where i'd like to give a shout out to copa airlines, because they deserve it & they didn't charge me for boards or my severely overweight baggage) i arrive in nicaragua to the driver i arranged, omar, who takes me to the ATM, where i get my 1st of 3 armed escorts. at certain places omar wants me to roll up the window & lock the door. we also have to stop & buy me a new camera. the guy at the camera store tells me not to take photos walking down the street. someone will jack my camera. i can't tell if nicaragua is that dangerous, or my blonde hair & blue eyes stick out like a turd in a punch-bowl, or they're overly protective of me. whichever it is, its entertaining.

3 very sweaty hours later i arrive at my destination, the northern end of the country. middle of nowhere. there's no real town or people around. its gorgeous & green. i am in love immediately.

i meet the only other guys that are staying there as they sit around divy'ing up prescription drugs over dinner. i wake up to good, fun surf. and here's where things get interesting. the guys (american); jake, tom, lippy, & weasel have 3 nicaraguan kids (ages 13-18) with them because lippy & weasel live down in the south of nicaragua & brought the whole crew up to surf. but, alas, they are heading back down. i'm bummed they're leaving because they're good entertainment, so they invite me with them. YESSSSSSSS! now there are 8 of us, luggage, & probably15 surfboards in/on an SUV. an SUV that got washed down a river the week before & now it's having a few issues.

so we buy beer & get our road trip on. the highway in nicaragua is kind of like a video game. its one lane each direction & NO shoulder. there are cars, 18 wheelers, old US school buses, tractors, horse drawn carts, & bicycles (with never less than 2 people on them) all sharing the road. there's a check point every 50 meters, it seems. we blaze thru the 1st check point. weasel is yelling at lippy because we have to stop at the check points. have to! lippy is yelling back "i can't stop!! i don't have a valid license!" solution: chinese fire drill before each check point & someone in the car with a license gets us thru the checks. we buy more beer. even lippy tells us to roll up the windows & lock the doors, and i have discerned that he is crazy & not scared of much. we go to western union. lippy has to pick up some money. western union has an armed guard who lets lippy in then shuts a big gate behind him, guards it, & makes sure lippy gets back in the car with all of his money. we stop at a pharmacy so the boys can restock their pills. onward. check point. we stop & everybody gets out as per orders of the guys with guns. purpose of the check points: to extort money. done. onward. jake says to me "oh, you should probably know that we have a gun in here." sweet. we buy more beer. someone asks a question, tom answers with "when i was in prison..." my only question: "what's the craziest thing you saw somebody stick up their ass?" answer: "a pack of cigarettes" we stop to get gas. a little kid (10'ish) steals all of lippy's western union money out of the car while we sit there & don't notice. he was a stealth little shit head. onward. weasel is telling the story where he fucked the hooker for free. she didn't charge him. he's very proud of this.  enter lippy to clear it all up. lippy paid the hooker for weasel. i watched weasel wilt before my very eyes. damn hooker, she broke his heart.


quick re-cap. i just met these guys. there are 8 of us crammed into the SUV. i am now somewhere in nicaragua with them. they're the only people who know where i am. everyone (except the kids) is drunk. of the drunk ones, i am the only one that hasn't enhanced the buzz with pills. about half of us have a license that we have to stop & show, often, to guys with guns. we have a gun. at least one guy has been in prison.

8 hours later, we turn onto a dirt road . we drive thru about 4 rivers & i get dropped off at the end of this dirt road, at 11pm, safe & sound, aside from the pain of laughing so hard it felt like i'd been having a seizure for 8 straight hours.

after a week of fun, empty surf & making new friends (americans, canadians) that seem to either not quite fit in with society as we think it should be or possibly can't return for colorful reasons,  i have scored a ride half way back to where i came from. in a land of horse drawn carts & insane death-wishing bus drivers, this is a blessing. i jump in the truck with my 3 new, nicaraguan friends, julio, ana, & isabel. as we near town, i am again instructed to roll up the windows & lock the doors. another check point, but this time julio pulls out an ID i haven't seen before. no one else has to show ID (strange), we don't have to get out of the car (weird), we don't pay, & we are waved thru with urgency. WTF??? i am traveling with the right people. 2nd stop at the ATM. 2nd armed escort. its broad daylight. there are several other people there surviving with no escort. turd in a punch bowl. we get to managua & ana has arranged for her friend to pick me up & take me the next 3 hrs of the adventure. i walk out to his car & his license plate makes it apparent that he is member of central american parliment. sweet. now we don't even have to stop at check points. he's arranged someone to take me the last hour from his house to where 90% of what i own in this world was, but its 10pm. its dark. there is no guarantee i can find the place down a dirt road, even then there is no guarantee i can get onto the secure property if i manage to find it. its better if i sleep at his house (questionable or down right bad decision?). i wake up at 5:30 am to one very angry guard dog who i did not meet the night before. shit! the maid saves me. i walk outside to the armed guard who i did not meet the night before. double shit! oh wait, turd in a punch bowl. that's why he's staring. he's sure i'm not there to kidnap or kill anyone. there's my ride. guy in a truck takes me an hour to my final destination. i get another week of fun, empty surf.

and there's omar to take me back to airport. roll up the windows & lock the doors. i finally ask why. because guys on motorbikes & foot sometimes race by & snatch things out of the cars that are trapped in slow traffic. omar also tells me that taxis are a bad idea because sometimes the drivers rob you (i could be looking at kidnapping &/or rape...turd/punch bowl) & leave you. i learned from isabel that lots of people are killed on the mini-buses because the drivers are nuts. 3rd ATM stop. 3rd armed guard. thanks guys.

transportation recap: don't take a taxi. don't ride the bus.

all of the sudden i realize i've made the best decisions and had one of the greatest times of my life. nicaragua, i love you.

Oh, yes I am

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

how many of these did i do?

Redneck Newsletter Xmas 2007

The number of hours I can spend sleeping in WV is, to say the least, remarkable. I sleep for 10-12 hours a night, then take a 2 hour nap later.  We have a total of 3 Lazy-Boy-esque recliners in the living room and all 3 are in use over half of the day.  It's amazing how sedentary we are. I'm surprised blood can pump with that little movement. Alex (my 25 yr old nephew) says we (Sam, Alex, & myself) are all fat kids at heart, due to the amount of food we consume. We must've gotten a special metabolic gene because we should be massive, but shockingly we aren't. My dad, Sam (my brother), and Alex are on a constant quest to gain weight. I'll settle for the fact that I'm no bigger.

There was yogurt in the fridge from my last visit. It, shockingly, looked and smelled fine, but Sam protested when I said I'd eat it, so the result of that experiment will remain unknown. Maybe next year.

There are 2 bars here we hang out at. One is the Alpha. It has probably 40+ dead animals hanging on the walls. It is also the place where, this year, I was the one to get into fight. Don't get too excited, it was strictly verbal and she was about 60 years old, oh yeah, and she was also my dad's best friend's wife. Dad doesn't know about the fight yet, but I imagine I'll be in trouble if he finds out. The other bar is The 19th Hole, but we just call it The Hole. The name 19th Hole leads one to believe that is a golf-oriented bar, but it's not. It's a hole. A fantastic hole & one my favorite stops when i visit. It was here that some guy was running his mouth at me, some other random guy peels a $50 off of a wad of cash, lays it on the bar, looks at Alex, and says "You can have it if you knock him out." Alex declined, & then said "She could knock him out if she wanted." So, re-cap, 1 night, 2 bars, 2 fights, both mine.

Dad saves and then re-uses everything. There were popsicle sticks in the dish drying rack. I asked what they were for. Dad says "Oh, I don't know yet." But that didn't stop him from eating the popsicle, saving the stick, and washing it.

Sam prepared 100% of Xmas dinner, then did all the dishes before AND after we ate, which beats the crap out of me doing it. The only thing I was in charge of was when Dad told me to use a particular dish to put something (food oriented) in, I got the dish, and had to ask "Where should I put the key, drill bit, and washer that are in it?" and then we ate out of it. That's why Sam does everything. He likes things cleaner than Dad & I do.

I am hoping Gretchen (Alex's mom) will come to CA for a visit. She asked Alex if she could visit him (he lives at the beach in NC), he gave a vehement "NO!" She asked Sam (he lives in Morgantown, WV), he said "Ah, I know all the cops. Why not?"  She asked me, I said "Absolutely!" Orange county will never be the same if she visits. She is crazy in the most fun sort of way; she can out-party any rock star, out-talk me, out-drink any Marine, chain smoke a carton of cigarettes, she is in a bike "club" she made Jell-O shots with moonshine for her Xmas party. She's 45, should look like she's 145, but, instead, looks 32.

So I debated whether this story would make the newsletter. I make fun of everyone I love in this thing, but hesitated when it came at my expense. Except its not fair to laugh at everyone else, then save myself.  Christmas night I went drinking at the Hole with Sam & Alex. I can put away beer with the best of them, we won't get into how much, but a 6 pack can't hurt me & I'm not scared of a 12 pack. Its my special WV upbringing/early-age liver conditioning. Then Sam says "Let's do a shot" I say "Well, I never do shots. I'll throw up. But I'll do one with you guys." So I do a shot, yes, ONE shot, with Sam & Alex, 30 min. passes, I say "Take me home." Alex foolishly thinks there's time to spare, but Sam knows better, he has seen me throw up in a cup at a bar (Tortilla Flats). Sam tosses me in the car, we make it the 3 blocks home, I jump out of the car, and promptly vomit (all over the snow) in Dad's front yard..... on Christmas!!

Dad has Sam's dog, Leonard, on a very special diet. Mostly, its because Dad just gives it to the dog rather than put it down the disposal. For breakfast Leonard had the  remainder of Dad's cereal & milk with bananas, quickly followed by freezer-burnt shrimp.  Dinner, for Dad & the dog, was kielbasa (polish sausage) and ice cream. My dinner wasn't much better. I had fried cheese sticks and kielbasa.... fat kid at heart. I have grown very fond of a new (at least to me) Little Debby snack cake. It's called a cherry cordial. Its 2 cakes with cherry cream filling & chocolate icing. It has something like 80% of the saturated fat you should (probably not) have in a day. Dad has created a new food group out of anti-histamines. He also has a cookbook that tells you how to make possum & tongue (and raccoon, oxtail soup, etc). Dad says says tongue is really good with horseradish once you get past what it is that you're really eating.

As I was walking Leonard, I saw a car that had half of the roof COMPLETELY fashioned of duct tape. More frightening is it was a Honda Element. No one here drives a foreign car, or for that matter, a car less than 10 years old, so how he got that car, fairly recently, and managed to need a "new" roof is beyond me.

Dad bought bought a remote control truck to chase Leonard. That poor dog.