the sin is corrupting

you know, i had planned to keep more of an active "travel diary" during the time I was on the road, but that just didn't seem to happen -- after all -- I was on the road! And since my return home, lack of time coupled with a lack of enthusiasm has likewise crippled my efforts to put anything into this journal. But, in the spirit of putting some notes down before my memory starts to wither, I have taken it upon myself to.. uhhh... bleh bleh blah.

Anyway, here's the bargain-basement recap, so much as I am capable of:

Sunday Nov 26, @6pm - my friend picked me up in Framingham, Massachusettes (just outside of Boston) and we hit the road. About 4 hours and change later, we arrived in Astoria, NYC. We hit a bar to catch up with some friends and ogle the cute, nerdy waitress.

Monday, Nov 27 - We hit the road at about noon. Drove all day, we split the driving roughly 50/50. I got nailed with a shitty speeding ticket (i've not got one in 6 years) which will probably cost me in excess of $200. I will make the phone call to figure that out AFTER I write this, my mood is perturbed enough as it is. Arrived in Chicago shortly before 2am, to find that all the hotels in town were booked as a radiology convention was going on. We stopped into a Greek Tavern to have a couple of drinks (Sam Adams was usually my beer of choice during this adventure, my accomplice stuck to the Bud Light - for those keeping score). At this tavern, I learned that it is not looked well upon to pick up the errant $1 bills strewn across the bar floor. Whoops... Anyway, we checked into a Marriott by the airport and got some shuteye.

Tuesday November 28 - We spent the entire day in Chicago, a city I have long wanted to see. Snapped a lot of pictures, wandering around, chilling at a couple of bars, downed a corned beef sandwich. Nothing too special during the day, as we'd not really planned out our trip too thoroughly and so weren't quite sure of what to see or where to go. just the same, after the previous day's heavy driving, it was nice to plunk down in the middle of the city, sit on our asses and down a couple beers while shooting the breeze. That night was a whole different story - we found a (much cheaper) hotel outside of the city limits, and caught the Metra rail back into the city to get some Chicago Pizza, and then meet my friend Mike (Tough Love.. or, Evil Fat) who was duty-bound to show us some of the night scene in the city. He picked us up after dinner and drove us to a couple of places. The first two were pretty mellow, but as the evening picked up we got into some happening joints. Nothing too special, but just what I was hoping for on a Tuesday night. One thing that I noticed, was that people just seemed really cool, really NICE in this town. Not like LA or Boston, where people are dripping (quite often) with the negative attitude, to the tune of "get outta my way and leave me the hell alone." Ironically, I did meet some chick who was not the friendliest sort around, but it wasn't enough to dampen my spirits - I definitely liked that bar a lot. After this place we hit another one, looked kind of like a Harley Bar or something - and right as we approached it we saw some big bruiser guy had just met the pavement in front with his forehead, and there was a nice little line of blood dripping down the asphalt. Mike and I kind of gawked, while my other friend rushed to his aid (he found a pulse!) An.. interesting introduction to a bar, to be sure, apparently this guy and some other guy inside were stepping outside to brawl, and I guess this guy tripped and knocked himself clean out. Regardless, we classily literally STEPPED OVER HIS UNCONCIOUS BODY and entered the joint. Inside was considerably much mellower than the scene outside, likewise much more so than the last bar we'd left. This was kind of like the "come-down" bar, after which we headed home and decided to call it a night.

Wednesday November 29 - Check out at noon, it's pouring rain (the previous day was a little cool, but still very nice weather). We hit the road bound for Wyoming, but the weather worsened and some poor navigation (not our fault) hindered our approach somewhat. We spent some extra hours frozen in standstill traffic amongst an army of behemoth trucks, there must have been some huge railyard nearby or something. Anyway, as the night (and shitty weather) wore on, we approached Des Moines, Iowa and stopped to get a bite to eat. About 9pm, around the financial district - a couple bars, restaurants, but it was a GHOST TOWN, there wasn't anything going on anywhere. It was cold as hell (<20 degree I believe?) so we rushed into some random restaurant, got some grub, and continued to plot our progress. Earlier on we decided to skip Wyoming altogether, as we'd originally intended to make it to tempe, Arizona by Thursday night. This was about 24 hours away, and we had a good 1500 miles or so to travel, yet!! At this point, we'd decided to just bite the bullet and keep plowing straight on through until we got to Tempe - which would likely take us a full 24 hours of nonstop driving, anyway. So, what the hell. He'd been driving all day, and now after dinner I took the wheel as he passed out for a few hours. I drove as long as I could (made it nearly clear through Nebraska) before my concentration started to stutter, so I handed the wheel to my buddy and caught some Z's myself, I think about 3:30am into the new Thursday.

Thursday November 30 - Driver woke me up @6:30 as he'd pulled into an IHOP in Denver, Colorado. I dragged myself sluggishly out of the car (freezing, and snow everywhere - I hadn't seen that in awhile!) for some much appreciated breakfast. Paid the bill, hit the road, and poor Chris got to manage with the morning city traffic as I slowly drifted back to sleep. I guess it was about 1 in the afternoon when I woke up, we had just passed into New Mexico (yup, Chris negotiated the entire state of Colorado all by himself) and pulled into Denny's to recharge. We ate, then hit the road once more - and it was my turn to drive. I got us completely through New Mexico, and then all the way through to that evening's destination, Tempe, Arizona (just beside Phoenix). I believe we got there at about 11:30 in the evening, and we parked our car and dropped our gear off at my buddy Aaron C's apartment. He and I used to work together a few years ago, he's since relocated and got a job with a studio in this particular town. We hopped in the shower, and though exhausted from the long TWO FULL DAYS OF DRIVING we headed out to check out the Tempe scene. Late at night, yah, but still here it was and here we were, with only a night to see what's up. We dutifully pounded a couple of drinks after a magically mind-reading cabbie showed up to give us a ride into town (it's amazing when that works out!), we were in a regular frat-type bar with some heavy-metal impersonators on stage playing some LOUD GODDAMN MUSIC which fortunately subsided not too long after we hit that scene. Likewise, 2am came and the place dispersed without much craziness to ensue... or so, we thought. As the place emptied into the street, we mingled with the crowd a bit (I picked up some random guy's girlfriend, I mean LITERALLY picked her up, of course he wasn't too psyched with this and showed up to collect her rather quickly.. she didn't seem to mind, either way!!) A bit drunk and beat, my friends and I headed to Jack in the Box to get some grub so as to soak up the night's booze. Little did we know what would meet us within...

So, Arizona has always struck me, generally, as a rather desolate area. I mean, it's desert, right? A cattle skull here, a tumbleweed there. Maybe a reservation or two, who knows. Anyway, the pics I've seen of it just usually show rustic looking Adobe-type houses, and I picture lots of old men with handlebar mustaches, big golden belts, and cowboy hats passing through Trading Posts and the like. As for the city, I expected it to be pretty new and streamlined, lots of construction underway, which is pretty much how it shaped up. And the frat bar likewise fulfilled my expectation of kind of apreppy, vanilla atmosphere. But man, when we stepped into the Jack in the Box, things suddenly became very unexpected. We found some dude slumped in a booth alternating between madly-passionately making out with his girlfriend and passing out in his chair, limply.. His friends were tryingto get him to board a cab and get the hell outta there with them, despite his extremely drunken objections. Again, Chris rose to the occasion (as I tried to tune it out) and helped the guy. I was trying to defuse a possibly dangerous situation between my other friend and some folks in the restaurant who were looking for trouble (my buddy was happy and hungry, and I think we were all a little bit oblivious about how dark it was going to get in there). I got everybody to wait outside and keep an eye out for our cab as I waited to order (also difficult, as the dudes behind the counter were having their own drama and running back and forth between their work area and outside to angrily yell at whoever on the phone). In the meantime, some bizarre wispy business-suit-clad gentleman sidles up to me and tells me in a sort of sing-songy voice, " i LooOOOooooOOve heroin!" Asking me if I have any drugs I could hook him up with. Drugless, I deny him and try to get him to leave me alone (politely, since I can tell he's.. uhm.. in an altered state of conciousness) And so he starts in nagging the fella next to me, "you got any coke? got any heroin?" The dude is jonesing, and the kid he is bothering is not happy about it. They go back and forth, each of them becoming increasingly irate and rude with one another, to the point where I decide to ditch my idea and wait outside with my buddies rather than get any further ensconced with this bullshit. I meet my friends, who tell me the cab is enroute.. the heroin-needing business man follows me out and starts asking my friends for coke as well. They are not too psyched about this and start giving him a tough time, and he follows suit (pun?!) and manages to get a move on and leave us alone. SOMEHOW I got back in, got a few burgers, and we caught or cab and made it to Aaron's place, in one piece. natch. Ironically, today was my girlfriend's 25th birthday..!

Friday December 1 - Another day, we wake up, shower, get some lunch at the slowwwwest eating establishment I have seen in some time. Food wasn't much to speak of either, but at that point anything they'd served would have made me overjoyed as we were all pretty hungry, and emotionally taxed from the night before. We ate, bid our friend farewell, and hit the road one last time for the final leg of the journey. We left AZ a little past 3 in the afternoon, and I drove straight through to my apartment in Hollywood, California. It took almost 6 hours, and mannn was I happy to get home! We hit the shower again, then walked up the street to Birds to get a couple of drinks and have some dinner. I wasn't too psyched to go there, not that it is a bad place - but the food usually disappoints. I mention this because I decided to order the ribs and they were FUCK KING GOOD. I have found a new amazing rib joint and it's 5 minutes to walk from where my bed is at. Happy! Anyway, we got picked up by our friend Edwin to welcome us home, and went to some little scenestery party in echo park. I wasn't too psyched to do this either, and honestly from when we walked in through the first hour or so, I was really totally being a pill. I didn't wanna be at this shitty place! But as I got afew drinks in me, I lightened up a bit and ended up having a really good time after all, meeting some cool people, and the strange bartender chick, who loved me and hated me at the same time. or something. Some cops made fun of us as we ended the night "you'll never get a cab here!" right as one immediately pulled up and took us away (haha! bitches!!) safe and sound to my home sweet home.

Saturday December 2 - okay I guess i can start stopping with the timestamping now eh? But still appropriate, as the experience was not yet over. Today I took Chris out to Santa Monica, a popular travel spot, to check out the 3rd Street Promenade, the pier (from a distance) and of course the beach, with a very nice sunset. A nice night to end the craziness we'd been entrenched in, sort of - calmand peaceful, anyway. Also we chanced to end up in a very wonderful italian resturant on the Promenade when the Beanery denied us a place to sit and eat, and we had some of the best pizza I've ever had in my LIFE. Trastevere, I think it was called. We headed back to my place after a full day, again hit the showers/etc and headed out to the LAX nightclub (in hollywood, NOT at the airport) for some overpriced drinks and irritating crowd. Actually the night was quite fun, we snuck some booze in and only drank sparingly. The music was cheesy, but fun to dance to (all that matters, right?) and we got out of there and walked home at the end of the night, with a little of the usual destruction taking place (i think i destroyed some ballons and we threw some Adult Ad pamphlets around), likewise annoyed some late-nighter's in the local cafe. Then home to play SF2 till we passed out.

Sunday we got shabu for lunch with edwin, then parted company with him and I gave chris the Tour (de force) of LA. We were just driving around town and I was showing him the sights, the spectacle.. the sunset strip, Roxy, Viper room.. crazy rock-side houses up in the nosebleed Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, Hollywood proper (walk of fame, Mann's Theater), and of course Downtown LA to see the wanton decrepitness (if it's a word.. I am not sure). We planned to go out for one more night, buut exhaustion crept in and he crashed on the couch after the day of driving. I was gonna yank him up to go out anyway, but hey - the guy had a ful day(s) of driving back to the East Coast by himself ahead of him, and to give him some credit he'd been quite good at hanging with my steady-nonstop lifestyle - but yeah, we all need a damned rest for a night here or there! To be fair, I passed out on my carpet for a few hours here and there. We were both pretty beat... And so, the next day (Monday) we got some lunch real quick, oil change for his ride, and then off into the sunset he went. And still on the road, somewhere, he is now. And as for me? I have work to so.

And that's that.