Travel Log - Hunting, Hitchhiking, Painting & Getting Dirty: Traveling Across America

[theprotester]

Might be of some interest to you;

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385529813/uncrate-20

[NightmareOnElmStreet]

sumbitch! KIR. you sir. are a beast of the nation. if only my travels were half as interesting as yours. however. on my second trip cross country (currently) i've found out two things. 1st. this shit is addictive no matter what your agenda. and 2. this shit is life changing in all sorts of ways. and even though i'm headed back to the homestead area after 6 months. jobless. chickless. and generally broke. i wouldnt give it back for fucking anything. north and south. all an experience. keep on keepin on man. your a fucking inspiration.

[tatanka]

Me too man. Been across the country 4 or 5 times and been north and south, hitching, walking, bus, amtrak only rode 2 trains in my life, so far, driving too but seeing threads like this just makes you want to get out soooo much more. Plus he takes some stellar photos. Definitely inspiration even for anyone whose already been on the road and has a slight idea. Most people on here think hes insane. us tramps and wanderers are the most fucking sane. Met a 56 year old lady in philly a few days ago who was on some drug and was saying they think were both nuts but their the ones who are most nuts. my dad seen me talking to this crazy lady, who loved my dog, and he walked away ahahaha. ah the alternative minds. and this KIR guy inspired me to get my uncle off his ass and find his typewriter, now i've been typing two pages front to back a day on this Smith and Corona, portable beast.

[Sleazeside Heights]

word. i've traveled a good portion of the country a few times on a few trips, coast to coast 3 times. people who have done it have sort of an idea of the vibe and feeling traveling gives you.

 

KIR, turn this into a book or at least a zine! So many stories!

[Karl_Hungus]

my dude....still waiting on ya! need you out here. homeboy wants to get this job done. any arrival dates?

 

holler if you need anything. i'm up to the Oregon coastline next week but lets talk. hit me this wknd and we'll get you west bound soon!!!

 

....and yes, we will overcharge this guy like whoa.

[Keepitrail]

>>>>

[Keepitrail]

This post is a duplicate of a post that you have posted in the last five minutes.

[Keepitrail]

Stealing internet and food from the starbucks in Mill Valley, CA.

 

Plane ticket for Guatemala City on April 1st...

 

Will be updating tonight on the past month or two.

 

Hollar

 

edit: shit they're closing in 10 minutes. Heading to the laundroman. Realizing edit was unnecessary and fruitless. Hollar again

[jbrshmonster]

yes!

[Keepitrail]

Helllo again from California...

 

The past few months have been quite a romp around the country!

No pictures today, but tomorrow I will upload some good stuff.

 

I believe I was in Memphis when I last spoke to yall. I took the long way up to Jackson, Wyoming in an old beat up Datsun and barely made it. Most nights ended by meticulously unloading the wagon, piling it up on top, and bedding down in the back. Often this was in what felt to be the center of Nowhere, Kansas, drinking Tennessee moonshine and glazing at the stars. I spent a few weeks in Jackson, doing a gig for a "Crossfit" gym, getting a bit of dough to keep going. A girl I know up there gave me five full day passes at the mountain and I managed to wait out a couple days at the bottom of the lift for a few extra rides.

The parking lot of a ski resort is a veritable paradise for freeloaders. The bars all have half-beers sitting out from rich abandonees, and if you stick around after noon most yuppies will give you their day pass at the bus stop, a sixty dollar bill in essence. It was fun while I was there, but in such small towns the idea of a certain absence of adventure begins to creep in. Three weeks is enough time to spend in an enclave of work-ski-drink-work-ski-drink. It becomes ..stagnant. I spent the time in a small camper, freezing myself to death each night and letting the eastern sun thaw me out each morning at 5 am sharp. On my second night, the air conditioner (?) leaked out and soaked my bed in ice water. I spent the remaining weeks unsuccessfully drying it out during the day, and soaking in ice water at night.

 

After a few weeks of that, My girl came out from Cali to pick me up in mid february, and we schemed our way back to California over the next week. We spent two wonderful nights in total desolation... Death Valley, camped out at the lowest elevation in North America, with an absolute ocean of silence and mythical nothingness surrounding us. I highly recommend a night on the salt flats (Devil's Golf Course-ish area) for any wandering soul or strange-inquired mind.

 

Down in Santa Barbara, a crew mate hooked it up at a spot and nabbed me a ton of Montana, canvases, brushes, and oils. I introduced the lady to pushing carts, and she was at once mystified, horrified, and mischieviously satisfied. We pushed carts all the way back to San Francisco and arrived in style. Whole Foods provided what we could not. Trader Joe's dumpster provided what we could. It was a strange mish-mash of truthiness and hoodlum trickery. At night we'd pull over and cook a meal on a little solid burning stove, the deck of card sized joints that burn a little square flame for ten minutes, and drift off into the loveliness that seems only to occur in little back alleys or mountain fire roads.

 

The next few days back in SF were pretty exciting. We bought tickets to Guatemala to begin WWOOFing in April. We'll be there for two months working on an organic farm raising all sorts of silly central american stuff. And there's goats too. The girl gave her last months rent notice and we'll be homeless come April. Well, houseless. Currently I'm living on the boat, saving up bread to make this trip happen. I did cocaine for the first night a week ago, that was pretty fun.

 

The reality of living on an anchored out sailboat is on one hand as romantic and free as you might expect, but on the other can be extremely difficult and uncomfortable. If you don't know, "anchor-outs" are a small community of boats anchored out in the bay in various locations, mostly Sausalito area. We don't pay rent or electricity (solar) or water (brought from shore). Many of my neighbors are supposedly meth-heads but I haven't had any trouble. Pretty much everyone looks out for each other. It's pretty fun to do whatever, i mean what the fuck ever you want, and not have to answer shit for it. Not having a shower, kitchen, or bathroom is a real bitch, though.

 

I think the first thing you notice is the abundant variety of noises. At times, it can be intoxicatingly tranquil, with nothing but an occasional gasp of a sea lion emerging for air, and a gull heard far off in the distance, and a constant swish-swish of water sliding off the bow. But for the other (majority) of the time, it is a caucophany of banging halyards, egret screetching, sexual moanings, and the incessant yapping of dogs living 24/7 on a 40 foot plank in the middle of the bay. And then there's the constant rocking, which rises to heroic proportions during anything above a light breeze, inciting what may be called Shaken Adult Syndrom. Don't wake up too quickly either, or your head will be staven in with a ceiling one foot above the berth.

The worst is getting out to your boat only to realize you forgot something on land, and going through twenty minutes of self debate trying to figure whether it's worth it to go back to land for that one cigarette you forgot, or the water you left on the dock. Forget it, just go, man. And try taking a shit on a boat. My porta is literally one foot from my girlfriend's (hopefully) sleeping head. No door, just one cubic foot of plastic filled with garlic smelling feces swishing around ten inches from your head. I should tell you of the dreams that thing produces.

 

Then eating. Jesus Christ. Cooking on a sailboat is like Balancing a bowl on top of a flaming broom handle after taking 8 shots of Jameson. Even if you manage it you'll still end up puking in the pot. Don't forget to not stand up either, or you'll whack your head on the 4.5 foot ceiling. Jesus, man.

 

Really though, it is worth it. To know that you truly own something, that you can light it on fire or piss on the counter, or invite tranny hookers for a six man gangbang and the next morning it's still your boat... That's special.

 

Oh and I have warrants out for my arrest in a midwestern state. More on that plus pictures of all this mess tomorrow.

 

Be good!

[MedicineCabinet]

you gangster

 

hollaring

 

stay safe mang

[shai]

Are you at Fisherman's Wharf or Pier 40? I almost moved onto a boat at the Wharf until I realized I'd have to get rid of damn near everything I owned. Did spend a little time on a 30' houseboat at Emeryville last year...all I can say is the tide changes are a trip.

[Fist 666]

Thanks for the update.

Did you get your knife?

[fat ralphy]

Glad the KIR thread is still kickin...

 

Honestly this is one of the best threads in ooontz history, so feel lucky motherfuckers.

[Grimes]

True shit^^^^

 

I love this thread. One of the only threads i check now a days.

[NightmareOnElmStreet]

surprise KIR thread updates are always pleasant. stay golden, ponyboy.....stay golden.

[Schnitzel]

Holy shit the awesomeness continues!

makes my life seem even more mundane than I already know it is..

[atomicbomb]

http://images1.showmethead.com/nlarge/12_900_excellent_2006_16_8217_scamp_side_dinette_stored_not_used_until_2011_21919944.jpg

[Keepitrail]

Yes! My knife came the next day.

 

Up in Colorado, I kicked it with Mister Fister 666, who was nice enough to fix up my bike, among other ameneties, such as buying me a fucking ridiculous reuben sandwich, beers, and a wicked hike up in the foothills of Mt. ...?? And a couch to crash on. If you make it out to SF area, hit me up. Thanks again. I have yet to be let down meeting people off the oz. Always a good time.

 

Now for some flicks...

 

x

[Keepitrail]

(I spent a couple weeks in Wyoming after meeting up with Fist666 in Colorado - but I have yet to sum it up. Long story short I got in some trouble and can't go back.)

 

-- S drives out from Cali to pick me up in Wyoming & we head back to our boat in SF in late february --

 

We made it about three hours from Jackson before we had to pull the car over and fuck somewhere. Jesus..., we were fucking all the time now. Two months on the rails and on the road, alone... it does something do your groins. “Pull over, we’ve absolutely got to fuck” “OK where looks good? There’s a hill!” Park, get out the camera, scramble up a hill, hop a barb wire fence, and start screwing like the last two wild rabbits on Earth. I liked fucking S-. She was on the pill, she was versatile, and she was the only girl that could make me come from a blowjob. I liked coming on her tits and then giving her a big bear hug, smearing it in like a whitebread mayonnaise sandwich. I didn’t like when it dried in my chest hair though, and I had to pull cumcrust off my chest while driving down I-94 in the middle of winter.

Two hours later we met her cousin in Las Vegas, a tall, long haired, manly looking Jew of about 35. His nose came out like Easter Island style, and he knew a lot of ju jitsu. Once, drunk, he’d knocked S- down on the floor and choked her to the brink of unconsciousness. What was the cause? Who knows. I was not in the most delightful moods of meeting the fellow, but he had a decent pad and was apparently “much more calm.” Yes, well, lay a hand on her again and my friend Mr. Ruger will have about six hollow-pointed things to say about it.

Nightfall. Dusk in Las Vegas. We’ve been in his apartment for eight minutes and as many shots of whiskey. He asks what I do for a living and interrupts me to tell me what he does, again. Now it’s time to black out. I open his freezer and stuff airplane bottles of vodka and rum in my coat pockets. Why? He’s buying the booze all night anyway. Well, why not. Walk the streets and sip tiny little bottles and feel like a giant. Vague memories of whores and street cleaners yelling at me to stop doing… something. His disappearance. We lose him but gain a vehicle. Now his girl is here, driving us around to various excesses. We take in a plate of something dipped in oil and discharge it in the bathroom. Where was the cocaine? There was no cocaine. But there was the little pills, how many had I taken in the bathroom, the little bathroom with piano concerto sifting from the ceiling holes?

 

Now we’re on the rooftop, spouting rain-wine down on passing taxi cabs. Her skirt is crimped up and I slide my hand up to her little pink pocket and feel the soft smooth colors of her skin. I can feel the colors change, like warm glass, ivory pink becomes salmon, fish-like, becomes silk blood, dark and slippery like mouth-feel. We’re in a hot tub now, both naked, and it’s four in the morning with wine in plastic cups, so you don’t break them on the concrete and put blood in the water. Well now there’s white cum in the water and voices from above the balconies. We slip off, dripping through the hallways and slide into the room, curled up on some half-couch till dawn splits two hours later…

 

“Let’s go to the buffet. My treat!” OK, man, where the fuck did you disappear to. “Food poisoning. Both ends, erupting and disrupting the whole scene.” I had noticed some crusted vomit in the bathroom this morning. Hm. I guess it was his after all. We check in at the casino for the breakfast buffet. The omelette man is Italian and asks to see my I.D. when I ask for jalapenos. Ha, ha. Then he does the same joke on the girl behind me, and the guy behind her. Fuck, man! Too much, this town. We all eat a fuckload of bad food and feel like shit but the orange juice is free, so we linger a while. My head is beaten in but I can’t take a Vicodin now cause I’ve got a shit ton of food in my belly and it would be wasteful. Better wait till I’m hungover and don’t have any food to spoil it.

We go to some antique stores out in some desolate area without neon, and I see the beginnings of an MSK production. But only it's... dissapointing. There’s an Elvis character with a hamburger for his head, and that wacked out spongebob character with the long nose and zombie skin. It looks like Ewok did it. I buy a 1969 Playboy from the store for $3 and when I come out I see two guys in a slicked out Charger unloading paint from the trunk in front of the wall. A lady is swarming around them taking pictures of them unloading the paint and looking at the wall. Wow! I tell S- I am going to go say hello, and I walk over to the wall. “Hey, what’s up – you guys painting this?” No response. Hm, maybe they’re absorbed in some sort of strained mental congress. I repeat, “Yo, are yall painting this wall?” The darker skinned one looks up, and for a moment seems to conjure up some well of inner strength, which is just enough to emit a small “mhm” sound. Alright, there's progress. I gesture to the wall - “Okay… so let me guess… this looks like an Ewok character, and this one….Sever?” The white one muffles a laugh and keeps sorting paint. A quiet murmer, “you half right.” Then, half scuffing, walks off to the wall. Neither have even looked up and are obviously ignoring me. What am I, a fucking 10 year old asking you to sign my blackbook? Jesus man, learn some fucking manners. Look someone in the eye when they’re talking to you, form whole sentences, go out on a limb and shake someone’s hand when they offer it to you instead of half smirking and looking away. You remind me of myself when I was 16, the self-appointed king of graffiti at my high school. And your background looks like runny shitwater by the way.

 

Back at the car, S- asks how it went. Fuck meeting people you think you admire. Look up to the dead. At least they can’t be an asshole to you personally. She makes fun of me and buys me an ice cream cone and I feel better. Anyway, S- has to work that night, and SF is 7 hours away. It’s noon, and she’s got to be there at 9. So we say fuck your job and take a three day detour through Death Valley. Fuck her job! Fuck all jobs! She calls in and said she was lost in the desert and didn’t know when she’d be back (hint: she wouldn’t).

 

Death Valley, where nine months before I’d broken down three times in 120 degree heat, pouring beer on the engine because I didn’t have enough water and I was already drunk in the middle of the desert driving out to see this girl I was here again with. Fucking Zonker. It’s noon and we’re trying to scheme out a place to stay. There’s hot tubs and a pool at this place, a resort, but man, it’s got so many fucking people. So we say screw it, we’ll head south to the Devil’s Golf Course, and figure it out from there. The lowest elevation in North America. You come around a corner and all the sudden it’s just…. White. Powdered sugar salt crystals flashed out for miles. We park the car and take a shot of airplane whiskey and S- gets our shit while I scramble around pulling up dead bushes to burn. Fuck the tent! We hike out three or four miles till we’re surrounded in hot snow, crunching like clay pots and stopping to taste the ground.

 

Sunset. A thousand billion stars and the moon is waxing gibbous. It’s so bright out we don’t need a fire but we make one anyway, piled up in salt plates, and the ground is one big cutting board of seasoning salt. You scream and suddenly you’re underwater – no reverberation – no echo, it’s death and it feels wonderful. Wine by the bottle and fireworks, raw meat and thousands, uncountable thousands of stars peeking and poking and glistening your eyeballs. Don’t leave, the stars say, this is your home now… and you are just a shadow in the valley of death.

[Keepitrail]

\

DAMN YOU DIRT! You go smush now!

[bigdoughnut69]

EXCELLENT

[MedicineCabinet]

2nd shot is awesome

[Guest]

goddamn it dude.

 

here i was all happy w myself for getting out yesterday and painting something i didnt totally hate... now this!?

back to my boring life lol

 

 

keep on keepin on. headed back to san diego soon?

[Deine Mudder]

Nice update, thanks again for sharing all this!

A lot of good flicks also, though

2nd shot is awesome

especially.

Nice man...

Consider getting a proper film camera as well if you can be bothered?

 

 

By the way, you asked about a blog kind-of thing where you can post about your journey besides on here.

Is there such a thing now?

Sometimes 12oz is inaccessible to me.

 

 

Enjoy & rock on...

[publicenemyno.3]

fuck yes. reading that made my day.

[Caps.Off.For.Ya.]

Very impressed with that campin spot. nice fireworks too. hope u finished that crossword

[Freddy Mercury]

Mama Tried!

 

 

Whats the odometer read on the Red Bastard KIR?

 

You passed 500k yet?

[Freddy Mercury]

KIR=The real Japhy Ryder.

[Caps.Off.For.Ya.]