Keepitrail

Roadkill owl, double U-turn on the interstate The leg of the trip from New Mexico to Tennessee was pretty uneventful. I did find that roadkill deer and cut his head off. Boiled it in my homie's back yard. Lots of packing and unpacking, not getting great sleep. In Memphis, I kicked it at fellow Oontzer "MemphisorDie"s house, super rad, thanks man!! He also gave me a tour of recent graff in Mtown. My crew/soul mate Panda UH finally finished the first draft of his film, link: and premiered in in Memphis, as a benefit fundraiser for Betor's funeral expenses and to help his family. My super best homie Lets UH put me up in his crib and sold me his van. SO STOKED ON IT.

Well.. I finally made it out of Tennessee. Er- almost - I'm in Memphis now, on my way out west again. I really meant to update the voyage up to this point, but unfortunately tragic events intervened. On Christmas day, one of my oldest and best friends died in Memphis. Betor (UH ICR) and I spent many, many years cutting our chops in the graff world. Exploring every square inch of abandoned property we could find, painting freights till dawn, painting countless chill walls, we even made our own rap group with the other leg of the tripod, Nosey (42), we called ourselves Krunkn8rs. So silly. SO.... Rest in Paradise my good man, Betor Forever! Most of this trip (the past 3 weeks) has been planning and finishing a memorial wall for Betor. Freezing rain, ruined paint, a 35 foot tree in the middle of the wall that we had to cut down, scraping and priming the wall, and heaps of other things all made for a very... very.... very....... intense experience. Also I was living out of my car, middle of winter, it has been a challenging voyage. I'll post up more pics of the finished wall when I get them from the photographer. On a lighter note, Dorothy, my station wagon, is NO MORE! Why, you ask? Because I BOUGHT A FUCKING VAN BIIITTTTCHHHHH!!

Veritably True:Less than 3 minutes to remove a head and two forearms from a roadkilled deer on a highway, strap to roof and take off

Mission: Travel from Oakland, CA to Nashville, TN by Dec. 24 Reason: Visit Family and Friends Method: 28ft RV Style: Overconfident Adventurous Supplies: "Dorothy" - 1995 Subaru Legacy, 2wd, passenger seat removed, 2 German Shepherd Husky puppies, 5 guns, A few hundred dollars, boatload of 94, snowsuit, typewriter (?!)), Canon t4i, a bunch of LED's, 18 hours of podcasts, and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, 28ft RV waiting near Reno Difficulty: Just broke up w girlfriend of 5 years, only bank card with money is demagnetized. Order of operations: Dec. 2, very early morning 1. Oakland Ghost Ship Fire. Many lost lives. Sleeping on floor of my studio a few blocks away, wake up, can't even see sky, police and helicopters, yelling, go back to sleep to wake up to mayhem. 2. Next day. Friend in Carson City, NV says borrow my RV indefinitely (TN and back to CA) 3. Pack up car to the gills, drive to NV, load up RV, aux battery's busted, install a new one, doesn't work - no electric or gas pumps work - water, stove, or fridge (Propane doesn't work either - surprise!) or anything when not running the engine.... Alright. 4. RV won't start for 2-3 days due to cold, romp around in total silence for a while 5. Figure a trick to start RV in cold, 100 miles later transmission slips once or twice. Next town, RV park mech says do NOT take this cross country, 6. Return RV, nearly out of money, reload Dorothy wagon to the fucking gills with so much shit and two dogs, take off south bc weather is taxing. 7. Go to Eureka Dunes, the singing dunes of Death Valley for the nigh (shortest adventurous trip for the route east). All the food I bought had spoiled from broken RV. Hiking in the snowsuit pays off. Dunes are dry and a 4 hr climb pays off by sliding down the dunes, at a 15 degree angle, in static electric Beethovian vibrations and humming soundwaves. The dogs are learning to challenge fear and follow suit, to a harmonious sandwave response. At this point maybe 2-3 hrs of cumulative human interaction in 10 days 8. Shred a tire 50-60 miles from anything deep in DV, jack is broken, lost my lug wrench, some time later 4x4 truck drives by from alaska, helps me swap to donut, trade him a book of sacred geometry. 9. Drive back to Lone Pine, get new tire, almost bankrupt, drive thru DV at night to slip past the park fees.

Made it back to Carson City, unloaded everything off the RV, crammed it all in my car and took off again. VERYYYY COOLLLDDDDD!!! I think I made it all the way that day to Buckeye Hot Springs, near Travertine in the Mono Lake area. I got through to Death Valley, but got somehow shredded my tire about ten miles down a washboard dirt road outside Eureka Dunes, and alas! my jack was broken. Currently I'm outside Amarillo, Texas at the moment, going for the long shot to Arkansas, I'll post some more later today, I have to drive during the daytime as it's incredibly icy and driving these pitch black highways is hella dangerous in this car. Thanks for the well wishes. Check out this little dude I picked up off Hwy 84 in New Mexico!!

i'll share some more and some pictures when there's some fucking daylight. my balls have fuzed into singularity. everything is frozen

coffee maker works, poured some soup in the pot and water in the tank and percolated some watery soup. it's fucking cold, man. hot spotting wireless from my phone. transmission slipped on a big ass hill. rv is neat but hella dependent. gonna driver back to gardnerville and get my wagon back. missed a couple roadkill, rig's too big to be wanderlusty.

At a park next to lake walker, nv. Spent past few days alone miles from anything broke down by lake topaz, nv. This RV was not meant for cold weather. very cold. got a space at rv park for the night to get electricity. no heat. they do have a shower but it was wired improperly and touching the water was mild electric shock, so called that quits.

Today I'm packing up all my shit and cleaning my apt. I'll start updating when I'm all the way out of my place.

After a very, very long mindfuck of a year, I'm itching for adventure again. Moving out of my apartment tomorrow. Friend loaned me his 30ft RV for several months. Two puppies. Broke up with my girlfriend of 5 years. Just picked up a Canon T4i DSLR. I have $1000 for gas. A shotgun, a 30.06, a .22 revolver, .22 semi auto rifle, and my trusty .40 Caliber Desert Eagle. Heading out in a couple days. I'm going to continue where I left off in my Travelogue. So ready to get the fuck outta the bay, 1 way ticket to fuckallville, USA. If you haven't been following, start at page 1 on the top stickied thread in Ch. 0, "Travelogue". I'll be picking up where I left off there, updating soon with heaps of pictures. I'll also be posting shit on my instagram @Keepitrail Who's comin' with me, man.... Who's comin' with me!? PM ME DETAILS IF YOU WANNA GET A BEER OR PAINT OR ADVENTURE.

I'm moving out of my apartment tomorrow, a good friend loaned me his RV for a few months.Leaving Oakland, California to pick up the RV in Nevada, then heading who knows which direction. Most likely DEATH VALLEY, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, then back to Oakland via the Northern route. Estimating two months travel time. Gas is going to destroy me.

ROUND TWO MOTHERFUCKERS. BUCKLE UP! KIR'S GOT AN RV, A NEW CAMERA, TWO PUPPIES AND A FEARSOME THIRST FOR ADVENTURE.

Not me, but my piece! Tennessee

I'll be driving up through Reno next thursday (pre event) to help build the Space Whale, you comin out tto the desert??

OOPS! Went too fast. Tragedy of time-based editing on forums. After Burning man. In late November I was contacted by my homeboy Skippy about working with Swoon, the street artist from NY. He had worked with her on a crazy boat made of garbage idea (epitome of my life) http://nymag.com/arts/art/features/57181/ as well as BUILDING HOMES IN HAITI. And now she was coming to SF to do an installtion for Facebook at their new headquarters in palo alto, CA. Skippy had already booked himself solid with an astronomical amount of shit so he contacted me. " YO KIR Do you wanna work with swoon on an install at the facebook hq"? OK I GUESS. Holy fuck. I dropped everything I had the next couple weeks and rode in to meet swoon at the Facebook HQ. Now, this excitement was not without boundaries. I'm not a fucking whore. I had questions. Initially I was swayed by the big-namery of Swoon. Deep down I fucking dug her work. But also I had complications of the dichotimy between "street art" and "graffiti". Street art is for weiners, right? Pure graff is honest, right? Letters, right? If you can't do straight letters or catch mad tags then you aint shit, right? Add that onto doing something for fucking FACEBOOK?! I mean David Cho got his rocks off before it went viral but to link up with that corporation NOW!? (There's a reason she took this gig, and it overshadows all this pretnetial bullshit, which Is why I joined on, but that will be explained later) That being said, I can talk freely now about this, as it's done and done - I hate, detest, and cannot stand facebook and its monotheistic internet enterprise. I fucking hate it. I hate zuckerturd and his ploys to expand nonprivacy..Not gonna alienate anyone with that. However. What I don't hate is the people who spend their days working for this company in a giant glass and metal warehouse buried deep in the south bay swamps. They're doing their thing, even if it's for someone or some thing I don't agree with. But the point is they are there every day and that environment is surrealistically depressing. you can't judge a soldier of the opposition as you're exchanging fire. You judge their commander. What implications I had, the toenails that snagged me in indecision, they were abated within a few minutes of meeting Callie. I'll spare the details and drama for the book, but holy fuck. I've never met anyone like Callie. Immediately disarming, relentlessly inquisitive, unquestionably honest. Being brought up in this machismo ego fucks all environment, I was pretty stunned. It was hard to shut my ego down and be open to new ideas, it really fucking was. She wrecked my graff life higher-than-thou ego into a thousand pieces and said hey, let's sweep this mess up and make some art together. So we did. More soon.

After the burn, the main build team and I gathered together to start some new schenannigans. We were approached by a team from MX to join on a coral reef project south of Cancun. Basically we design and build massive steel structures that go underwater and create coral reef systems in the shape of artistic sculptures. We were offered a place to stay and accomidations for a month during a massive music festival in Tulum, MX as we orchestrated the infrastructure. We were stoked and caught flights to MX on new years day. We bungled up in hostels the first week and rampaged across the countryside. I split my time between designing the sculptures and painting murals to raise awareness. I linked up with a super talented writer down there, "Frase", from Guadelajara, IG @honghikuri or LINK: https://www.instagram.com/honghikuri/ who showed me around and planned out some walls (give him a follow, seriously, not only as a great artist but also he kept me alive, literally). The house we were provided with was at once an artistic delight, and also an architectural nightmare. I was the first to arrive, and sent my three incoming partners on the project the following message, verbatum. "this house is beautiful, but someone is going to get seriously injured or killed here." What a fucking self fulfilling prophecy. There were no railings on any of the stairways (imagine a SPIRAL STAIRCASE with nothing to hold on to). There was two lofts which had no railings, just concrete floor straight to the edge of a 10 ft drop onto more concrete. No rail, no wall, not even something to stub your toe on. Just straight 10ft drop offs throughout the house. The whole place was like a wildstyle piece with no outline. Every letter was just a fill. It made no sense. This dude was putting highlights on his sketch and saying I'll outline in a few months, then buff the backround if I have time. But it was all we had at the time and it was free, so we kicked it.Some DJs stayed there, some film crew, all goofballs from around the world. There was a "stairway" type metal ladder to the 3rd story roof, which started at the end of the 2nd story floor-. Going down, the last step was a 15ft drop. Also the stair was on a hinge, so don't move too much or oops. I could go on for some time but I'll spare yall the ridiculousness of this house. Well, everything went great for a while. We painted constantly, toured the mayan ruins, sketched like madmen, and spent many nights feverishly designing and debating. The Government of Cozumel provided me and Frase with an all inclusive tour of the island, snorkeling, beach tours, bus trips, scooters, and all sorts of nonsense. I'd have more pictures, but as you'll read I lost them through cunning mexican thievery...

Thanks to my good friend inkface for spreading the word about the unfortunate events that transpired south of the border... and to all the kind words from my fellow oontzers. 2015 ended on a weird and wild tangent. I began working with the main build crew of the Temple for Burning Man on two new ideas. One is a pet project of mine involving infiniti mirrors, and the other is a coral reef restoration program we're linking up with in Southern MX. Before we get into that, Here's a few pictures of the temple we built in its grandiosity! Some by me, some by others. This took about 4-5 months of prebuilding in the bay, and two weeks of assembly out in the desert. ^The final burn. 40,000 people in complete silence. The amount of mementos and artifacts and personal items left inside was staggering. I walked through before the final burn and counted dozens of urns, wedding rings, military fatigues, paintings, sculptures, clothing, wedding dresses, a cornicopia of memory, thousands of offerings destined for the unquestioning inferno that awaited.

I've got a bunch... I'll update pretty soon with some good stuff. What's good toiletseat? I've seen your name around forever but never said hello! Times good here in Oakland. Just finishing up helping Swoon paint/install a mural at the Facebook headquarters.... Never worked with anyone so genuinely honest, true, and downright solid as a human being - not to mention so fantastically talented. It's insane how long I've worked with the varying degrees of pretentiousness and grandiosity that come with the trade we all share. It's refreshing and inspiring. Pictures and stories to come, after this weekend.. Peace!

You wake up at predawn. No tent yet, no real structure for shade. Just a human splayed out on a piece of blanket in the middle of the desert. Your eyes open to nothingness. A pure bifrication of land and space before you. What the fuck are you doing out there.... "hey bud grab the impact and let's make some shade... breakfast is ready" Sunny side up, that's how we greeted every day the next couple weeks. A few of us built a tight crew of hard working nightowls that would sleep till dinner, put on harnesses, and run the night moves till dawn. rigging the bracing and ribbing of the structure on 20-40-60-80ft scissor lifts and VR's, precariously dangling off homemade bracing structures 40ft up, screwing in that last brace to try like hell to win the bet of an 8ball that night crew'd outpace day crew. An owl given to me by one of the hardest and most intelligent men I've ever met, a rogue Pollock who grew up in Chicago named Blazej, first night after I set my tent up.