"But still I hadn't dreamt nothing about me and Ed until the end. And this was cloudier cause it was years, years away. But I saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their grandchildren too. The old couple weren't screwed up. And neither were their kids or their grandkids. And I don't know. You tell me. This whole dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I'm liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah." -H.I. McDunnough "Raising Arizona"

Last night I slept in Phoenix after a short drive and a long hike. I joined a swarm of locals summiting this mini-mountain, and got a few interesting photos out of the endeavor.

I rose early to hit the Desert Botanical Gardens, a 100+ acre preserve in the middle of the city. They had some pieces on display by Dale Chihuly, the famous glass artist. Much more significantly, it was the opening day for their butterfly exhibit. A good chance to practice with my 85mm telephoto.

After the butterflies, I drove the couple hours down to Tucson. I'm having a great trip, I really am, but finding it difficult to strike at the heart of America. Somewhere between the ink in my skin, or the metal in my ears, or some other superficial thing about me, there lies an impulse to frown and walk away in silence when I grin and say hello. I'm trying to not make others bitterness my own, but it's difficult. As a friend told me today, everywhere you go there are people who are good and people who are not so. 

I did however meet an incredibly pleasant man from Scottsdale and his wife, who he affectionately called "My Brooklyn Jew." Yes, really. 

Although, to be fair, we WERE talking about bargaining…

We started talking cameras and my trip to SE Asia came up (see June-Sept 2011 in this blogs history). He asked where I'd travelled and I told him. He told me he'd been to all those countries, but under "slightly different circumstances." He was a service member.

"But NOT Laos," he said, smiling and winking. Soldiers were often stationed in Laos, weaving across the border with Vietnam. But since we weren't allowed to be there, they were often lied to about border lines, or told to lie about it themselves.

Definitely my best "friends of the road" so far.

        This Painted Lady identified itself! It clearly 

      wants to make babies with that pamphlet.

Oh right. Tucson.

Well I booked a lovely room overlooking the freeway and smelling of sweaty feet, and I'm trying to decide between a nap to ward off my sinus headache, and smoking some meth and hitting a strip club. Really fucking light a fire under this strike-at-the-heart-of-America project. After all, the spirit of Tucson is the spirit of America. All I'm missing is a .45 and a bible. 

What am I saying! This is a cheap motel room! Thanks Gideons!

Have you heard the fucking terrible news? 

http://www.gideons.org/ 

The photo on their homepage of the old guy leering over the young girls shoulder as she reads her bible just kinda says it all for me.

No, but really, religion is great. I'm just having fun with (fuck) you. Planning to hit a evangelical church for Sunday service in rural Texas. In a cheap tweed suit, if all goes to plan. I'll let you know how it turns out. 

Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.

Pray for me.

Your brother in Christ,

-Isaac

"Crying: Acceptable at funerals and the Grand Canyon." -Ron Swanson "Parks & Recreation"

Yuma to Flagstaff, sunrise at the Grand Canyon and most importantly, BEARIZONA!!!

I've been taking the half-highways, not the big interstates, so things take a little longer than they would otherwise. The drive was beautiful, but pretty uneventful. On my way out of Yuma towards Flagstaff, I made my first and only stop….I just couldn't help myself.

My most hardcore fans will know that - thanks to a generous gift from my brother, Just - I am a card carrying member of the Cloud Appreciation Society. I was dismayed to learn the Cloud Museum had nothing to do with clouds.

Instead, it was some crazy shit out of American Pickers. That's a TV show, if ya didn't know, where two douchebags dig through old properties to buy and repurpose their junk. The cloud museum is run by an OG Arizona family that has been collecting old cars and crap since way back when.

It was actually way cool. I had a great time shooting there.

I worked the Calizona border and narrowly avoided Nevada (I'm saving that fucked up place for later). I did hit a border patrol checkpoint, which for some reason freaked me out so bad you'd have thought I was smuggling people in my trunk. Which I wasn't, of course…

I saw a dog in a truck. I saw a bunch of tanks. I saw a mountain. Soon it was trees and dark my brothers, with real country dark. I fillied around with other travelers of the night, playing Hogs of the Road. Then I headed north.

I got in to Flagstaff and caught a few hours sleep, waking at 5am to drive the two hours to the Grand Canyon in time for sunrise. Through a combination of real magic and speeding, I made it there by 6:30, just as the sky was starting to blue and orange.

Honestly. It ruled. Despite needing to shoulder through a few busloads of Japanese tourists, who obviously failed to grasp the gravity of the event - my first visit to the Canyon - it was still deeply emotional, at least as far as visits to gaping holes in the ground go.

The real magic was 50 miles south. Fucking. Bearizona.

Now, I hate zoos, I think they're twisted and unjust. But I love two things, both evinced by the name of this blog - animals and rhyming puns. And not just birds, neither. I don't discriminate. I love all the dope-ass majestic beasts of the animal kingdom. Apparently, if you give them a little space to run around, let me drive through and take pictures, and name your facility with a rhyming pun - I'll fork over your entrance fee and take a spin.

Oh man. Black bears and arctic white wolves, two kinds of bison, a few mountain goats, some regular goats, bighorn sheep, raccoons, foxes and three seven week old bear cubs - prepare to be bombarded by adorable and awesome…

A good day. Sedona tomorrow. I'm moving back south through Arizona, but further east this time. I think I'll drive through and camp a night in the Tonto National Forest. A buddy has also offered up his place in the desert east of Tucson. I'll spend a few more days in Arizona before I enter New Mexico and the wilds of Texas beyond. I don't have to be in Austin until the 13th for SXSW, so I have some time. Thanks for coming along my Birds & Thirds brothers. I love you all deer-ly <<< SO MAJESTIC.

A special treat to B&T fans willing to go the extra mile (and for reading this far). The first THREE (3) people to leave a COMMENT on this post with their favorite DOPE-ASS MAJESTIC BEAST, will receive a hand-scrawled thank you note and a couple BEARIZONA stickers in the mail from somewhere interesting along my route. 

NOTE: This contest might cause some contention, since I've gotten complaints about the difficulty of commenting on the blog. Alas, you do need a google account (they're free). Go to the top right of the page and click "Sign In," which will open a new page. Click the red button that says "SIGN UP" and follow instructions from there. Use that info to sign into the blog and…VOILA! Post away. 

Good luck friends. Don't forget to comment with your favorite animal or you will be dis-mothafuckin-qualified.

"But I swear//I'd like//to drink the fuel straight from your lighter" -Mike Doughty "Rising Sign"

Ah, what a day.

I left early from San Deigo. It's a beautiful drive just a couple hours east on the 8 to Jacumba, my first destination.

Jacumba (ha-coom-ba) is a tiny town off the highway, Elevation 2,829ft, Population 561, with one store, one restaurant, and a trailer park called Wagon Wheel. In the 30's it had a population of 5,000 and a "world class" hotel that catered to visitors who wanted to make use of the hot springs there. Check out the wiki, it's actually a fascinating place.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacumba,_California)

I pulled up to the store and asked the first person I saw how to get to Valley of the Moon. His eyes told me he'd been on the moon for a long, long time. He took a long time answering, pausing between sentences to purse his lips and ponder. I was pretty close, so I turned my car to head that way.

"So…are you from...San Diego?" He asked as I pulled away.

Not anymore, brother.

The road to the Moon is rough and my car couldn't hang, so I set out on foot. Amazing view from up there. 

Then, when I hit around 5,000ft of elevation, I saw something so shocking that I had to stage a photo to properly encapsulate its absurdity.

Behold my creation! Snowballcactus. Winter in the desert.

After scrambling down, I traced the border to Calexico. A town split from its sister Mexicali by our big wall. I wandered around a swap meet taking photos until a guy told me I had to stop. He was relatively polite, but clearly peeved. It hadn't occurred to me that many of the vendors were illegal, and don't appreciate being photographed. I quickly split and kept driving.

 Fucking good price on AWESOME, though...

I passed a desert with palm trees, where fires burned on the horizon. I passed a church on a hill and a stairway to heaven. I passed a road called Grey Wells, the All-American Canal, and a town called Ogilby. 

Oh, and I met these f-awesome sheep.

Finally I pulled into Yuma, ate a taco, booked a shitty room and wrote this for you. Time to sleep it off.

B&T shout-out! Coach Lark at Infinite Fitness

A special B&T shout-out to Lark Miller at Infinite Fitness (www.CoachLark.com). He's got an amazing facility in downtown SF, and offers rough & tumble group bootcamps in Huntington Park. Apart from being a great friend, he deserves credit for a substantial chunk of the preparation and determination for this trip - physical and psychological, both.

Cheapest shrink I've ever had.

I climbed a goddamn mountain today! It would have been a much tougher climb without ya.

So this view is for you, Lark!

( yes, I'm also doing my planks & PU's :-)

"If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live on after he's dead, then maybe he was a great man." - James Dean

Joshua Tree. Wherein I forget how to camp or never learned how.

I didn't bring gloves to tend the fire or coat hangers to cook on. The water boiler I bought at the drug store shorted out the fuse for my cigarette lighter. I undersold the size of my tent so Knuckles slept in the car AND I failed to bring anything hallucinogenic. 

We managed a fire and some modest eats. We took a few nice scrambles up the rocks and caught an incredible sunset. 

Then it got cold.

I was pretty cozy in my tent (I swear I offered it up) but Knuckles woke me up and we threw in the towel around 3:30 in the morning. We packed up in the dark and split for San Diego. 

While we were out there, I missed a message from Pops telling me to be careful, because Joshua Tree is where James Dean lost his life in a crash involving another vehicle and his Porsche Spyder. 

Two minutes down the road from our camp site, we stumbled upon this.

Another car was pulled over, and a local was looking around with a flashlight. We jumped out and helped him look. He'd already checked the car - no bodies, no blood - but he was making sure no one was thrown clear.

I found the note under the wiper blade. "Park Rangers, Crash occurred at 10:15pm, both passengers could walk, caught a ride into 29 Palms."

The ground was peppered with broken glass and their belongings - a box of candy, a smashed cell phone, a pair of sunglasses. A suitable reminder to drive carefully.

We pulled into San Diego in time to get one of the first meals out of the kitchen at Hash House A Go Go and a wander around the city a bit. San Diego is a great city, even though we caught the one rainy day in a hundred. I'm splitting for Calexico and Jacumba tomorrow for Valley of the Moon (thanks for the tip, Seabass). Then I'll run the Calizona border and work my way mile by mile towards that Canyon that has so captured the American imagination. I've heard good things.

Talk to you soon.

secret post

In my dream last night, a streetwalker woman with enormous red lips shot me with a tiny revolver. I snatched it and tried to shoot her but it jammed in my hand. Then I woke with her in my bed and we were romantically involved and business partners (read: drug runners). Then I woke up in Los Angeles and I couldn't catch my breath. 

It's 4am and I've been asleep long enough. My alarm is set for 5, but I can't stay down. Give me that sweet sweet highway.

Pops said to me, before I left SF, "Keep up the blog, so at least we'll know what you're dreaming…if not what you're actually doing."

And what are we but our dreams? Hopefully something, or I think I'm fucked in the head.

I'm sitting in the bathroom to write this so I don't wake up Knuckles. Sleep on little Knuckles, sleep on.

"Get outta my way//Can't you see I'm from L.A.?//I met Slash, got a rose tattoo//I bet I know way more people than you" -NoFx "El Lay"

One day too many on Venice Beach - bad music, bad cough, bad headache and it's time to move on. 

Knuckles and I hit a Chinese joint called Mao's last night. His fortune was, "Stop talking about your plans, you'll accomplish more of them." 

I concur. Enough planning. And planning to plan. And planning to plan to plan to plan. I'm on this trip now and it's time to get transient. My fortune said, "People on your background will be more helpful than previous," whatever the hell that means.

Saturdays get packed on the boardwalk. Cars flood in from the hills. It's a trashily-fabulous group. I wasn't sure it was possible, but I've burned out. I just can't see any more nipples.

People here like to point out where famous movie scenes were shot. "Have you ever seen "X"? That was filmed right there!" There's also a standard disclaimer for the weather. "Summer's gonna come, and it's gonna get fuckin' hot. But don't worry, it's a dry heat."

Glad to be moving on from here. I'm taking Knuckles with me into the desert. Just in case I run out of food. I'll post in a few days. I wont have WiFi in Joshua Tree...or I fucking hope not...

Fare thee well, fare thee well, moving on from the Cadillac Hotel.

“I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.” -Andy Warhol

I'm back. Back with the sun, back with an iced coffee and a keyboard in front of me. Back with the shirtless freaks and the burnout artists. This whole town smells like blunts. 

A pretty woman all in green asked me, "Are you ready?" The sign behind her said the doctor was in. "He'll see you now // He doesn't care who you are."

I fear the mainstreaming of medicinal marijuana. In a state where you can get a card for insomnia, anxiety or chronic pain - conditions that anyone can claim, and they do - it does a dual disservice. It trivializes the usefulness of marijuana as medication, while potentially slowing the process of full legalization. But it's a stopgap. A compromise. Maybe it desensitizes people to the issue and lays the groundwork for a more reasonable legislation. There are more important problems to solve. Let's get some of these easy ones out of the way.

A man said, "Holler at me bro, you wanna know about god?" He was surrounded by big sheets of plywood covered top to bottom in scrawled scripture.

I told him I didn't really. 

"He knows where you got that camera, man."

I said, "Oh yeah, that dude knows everything." 

He makes a compelling point, but you'd think an omniscient being would have more substantive concerns than my Nikon. Rick Santorum doesn't have any bleeding sores or disfiguring boils and he's wasting bandwidth thinking about my camera? If he's out there, and proliferating the Word through the loonies on Venice Beach, he's got some fucked up priorities.

Some kids skate the bowls at the end of the boardwalk. A young girl passes slowly on a scooter, drug-eyed and laughing an unbidden laugh. The gulls huddle on the trashcans. The dead fish smell like dead fish.

Then this happened.

"Eddie waited til' he finished high school//He went to Hollywood, got a tattoo//He met a girl out there with a tattoo too//The future was wide open" -Tom Petty

Today I took nine hours to travel a mere 450 miles, arriving in Los Angeles in time for the late rush hour. I stopped for a coffee in Monterey and a piss in Pismo, otherwise I drove straight. But I went the pretty way.

I passed Sunnyvale and San Jose, Plaskett, San Simeon, Cambria, and an unincorporated town in San Luis Obispo County called Harmony, California - Population: 18 - historically famous for its clarified buttermilk. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony,_California

The road felt good. I've been nervy in anticipation of leaving, but my anxiety dissolved the moment I hit Highway 1. Now that, friends, is a goddamned stretch of road. The weather held all day and I was treated to an astonishing chemical-creamsicle-sunset as I passed Oxnard.

I'm staying in L.A. for a week or so. My oldest buddy from Chicago, Knuckles, is freshly moved out here for a personal training gig. it seemed like a good place to gather my forces for the trip to come - feeding parasitically on the frenetic energy of a cross-country move. Knuckles will do well here.

We're going to stay in Venice a couple days and maybe go camp a night or two in Joshua Tree.

I'll get back to you.

"I want to thank watermelon in the summer and Hitchcock movies in the winter, especially his film Rebecca, because now my brother and I say 'you can never go back to Mandalay,' but really we mean I miss you, you live so far away." -Matthew Dickman "Thanksgiving Poem"

It's been a while. Too long, in fact. Let's get reacquainted.

I forget how to do this. Where have I been, what have I done? Since my farewell from BKK, I've been jetting between Chicago and San Francisco - attending to some personal business, writing,  applying to MFA programs and making music. I've been reading a lot of books. I've been drinking a lot of tea. I re-met old friends, saw a few sunrises and I went to the dentist for the first time in several years. My teeth are fine, thanks. The only bad news is my new dentist doesn't have bubble-gum flavored fluoride. Growing up is such bullshit.

Alfie is in China now. Brawn is back in NY, but I caught him this weekend on his trip to the bay. Scoot or Die reunion 2012. 

Me, I'm in San Francisco again and my life is concentric circles. With every spin around the block, I get further from the nugget in the center. Please, don't press too hard on my metaphor. "What is the nugget?" is a question I promised myself I'd never answer. Spoiler alert: the nugget is made of pre-nugget meat paste. Pepto-pink chicken ice-cream. Ammonia-washed for your safety, mechanically separated for your pleasure. That's why you don't ask questions.

They say life is like a roll of toilet paper - the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. At 24, I feel quite the opposite. My childhood has sped by and I sit now in the lull. I grieve the loss of innocence, yet relish the onset of awareness. A slower transition than anyone would like to admit. We must take our time so as not to lose the best parts of either one.

In less than a week, I embark again. This time, my companions are scattered and the roads of home beckon. The vast American Southwest. Some fragmented illusion, no doubt - the Canyon and the border, the sun scorched desert. An oasis of forest and an endless winter trapped and freezing in the mountains.

This is the America we are described. This is the America we are promised.

I decided on homeland travel when I was engaged one night in Cambodia in the defense of America against its doubters. It came upon me like an electric shock. I do not know you, America. At least, not well enough to be your defender. Not well enough, even, to be your critic. Not well enough by far to be your crusader. 

The view from the road is stilted. Caught on highways and in motels, passing strip malls and mega-farms and all the wrinkled scars we've left on this planet. But in between, I hope I am offered a small glimpse at this country, its inhabitants, and what we truly are. Weather permitting.

I will stick to back roads. I will ask stupid questions. I will talk to strangers. I will try to be brief.

Happy Valentine's day, you bastards. I'm looking for love again.

-Reverend Blood