 |
att | January, 1999 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ason | Volume 30 | ||||||
| agazine | "More fun than licking a landfill!" | Number 2 |
| |
att | January, 1999 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ason | Volume 30 | ||||||
| agazine | "More fun than licking a landfill!" | Number 2 |
I remember camping at Colorado National Monument and staying in hostels in Moab; Page, AZ, and Hurricane, UT. I also remember the 8-mile loop hike in Canyonlands NP where I left my knees somewhere on the steep descent into the canyon, leaving me barely able to walk for 2 days (but damn was it gorgeous and meditative (as I meditated on such things as "Damn but it's hot," and "Damn but my knees hurt!")). Places like Horshoe Bend in Glen Canyon NM, Monument Valley, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon also kicked my ass with the steel-toed Boots of Joy, particularly the North Rim which rose cool and forested out of the deserts around it.
Then there was the city livin', like Vegas (had to stop there, of course), San Diego, and LA. The Minnicks took excellent care of me in San Diego, and the Henderson Hotel near LA is THE place to stay for those who know Suz. Suz and I caught the fabled Mike LaFond wedding to Misha, a fairly excellent ceremony, even if Kieran (the Sheepster-child) never did find the puppet show his little eyes kept searching for. The biggest disappointment came, though, as I left LA and stopped in San Dimas looking for the famed Circle K from Bill & Ted's. I couldn't find it, so I stopped and asked. No one knew of it. No one knew what Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was. Freaking bogus, man!
So I stopped in on Jeff and Kim Kros in Phoenix where I was treated like royalty and not even asked to leave for several days! Then I wandered through Arizona, seeing places like Sedona (the town being basically, an excuse to sell t-shirts and crystals in a gorgeous valley) and a beautiful forest near Walnut Canyon NM where I camped. One warning about Arizona attractions: Meteor Crater National Landmark is the lamest sofa in Sofatown. In contrast, Canyon de Chelly kicked my ass from sea to shining sea with a fantastic canyon-rim road.
Then I hit Albuquerque to stay with Jo and Vic and see Chriss, too. We climbed Sandia Peak, despite low blood sugar bits with me; we also ate great amounts of great food and saw parts of TCM's Planet of the Apes Marathon before I headed back to Omaha through Colorado where Highway 550 north of Silverton has to be one of the most spectacular roads I ever almost drove off of since the views are so spectacular down this road winding on and on like a run-on sentence.
The Nebraska trip was a calming journey around the western part of the state where the cornfields disappear into huge mounds of rock and even some forest. We all drove around in a minivan like a grade school soccer team, though no soccer was played, just a fair amount of frisbee golf and grillfire eatin'.
I could go on for hours about what I saw and what I think about what I saw and all that, the politics, the polar extremes of rich and poor, the everything of the darned place, but I'll save your eyes a bit and give you my top ten things I done encountered on the trip:
10. Traffic. Unsettling and wild, the streets are all nicely divided with painted lines and street signs which everyone ignores in an amazing anarchy which leaves you cringing in fear until you realize that you haven't actually seen a fatality yet and just need to practice your Zen and sit back, staring at the windshield as if it were a TV screen and those are really just actors and stuntmen out there and you aren't about to die.
9. Touching the Taj Mahal. Hey, I've seen pictures of it my whole life and, yah, it makes an impression on you when it's thick in the air above you. Places like Delhi's immense Red Fort, the Taj's model Humayun's Tomb, and the amazing Qutb Minar also impressed me barefoot.
8. Seeing a cow get sideswiped by a motorcycle on the street. Both cow and driver survived.
7. Corbett National Park. This place was created to save the tigers and leopards; and on going there, I was introduced as "a member of the American media" (hey, I HAD been doing sound on a documentary the week before....) and was immediately put on top of an elephant and sent into the jungle to look for tigers. I didn't see any tigers then or from the jeep the next day, but saw the pawprints of a tiger and a leopard as well as a cow killed by a leopard. Only a few people saw a tiger while I was there; I suppose if everyone sees one you might as well just do the jungle boat ride at Disneyland.
6. The food. Oooooh was the food tasty. Oooooh did the food come cheaply. Oooooh Oooh Oh!
5. Spending a day in London on the way there. Though badly jet-lagged, I ran about for a full day through London, seeing all kinds of famous places that had the English-major-nerd within me geeking in overdrive. And that night, I caught The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by The Reduced Shakespeare Company. Gargantuan quantities of butt got kicked.
4. Being treated like royalty for a week. While we worked, I got sooooo spoiled, with 1st-class hotels, top-notch restaurants, the works. Of course, the contrast between how I was living and folks, say, lined up in rows on the train station platforms they call home kinda jarred a tad. Not to worry, once work ended, I moved into cheaper accommodations, much cheaper... much filthier....
3. When a former Miss Universe said "Thank you" to me. Ok, I only held a door for her, but it was still wacky. My sister and I ended up at a fashion show in our hotel, surrounded by serious-looking men in suits while we rolled in laughter as supermodels strutted down the catwalk with wacky-ass things in their hair. In other brushes with fame, I also met a former Indian president and managed to bash the US Ambassador over the head with a boom-mike.
2. Leaving. Delhi has some great aspects, but stomach flu, pollution, and annoying crap-hawkers wore me down to where I just wanted to leave when my time was up. I'd like to see more of India, but I think I've seen enough of Delhi. It doesn't help that the stomach flu hit my last week there; then on the night I was supposed to leave, the airport got closed due to fog, then the US bombed Iraq that night and the fog looked like it was coming back, and I really didn't think I'd be getting out ever.
1. Flight 911 to Calcutta. Pool side at a luxury hotel in Calcutta, we danced in Mother Teresa's city to a Mariachi band's rendition of Halvah Negilah. It just didn't get more surreal than that.
Under The Faux-Everything
Oh you broken souls listening
to Elvis tapes as you sail the deserts
of Nevada, your halos
sprained as you investigate
Las Vegas Boulevard, realizing
you're single for the first time
in two years
and if you can raise your
eyes far enough,
you could make eye-contact
with the opposite sex and not
feel your Catholic programming boot up
under the candy-like architecture,
under the faux-everything,
under the questionable decor of the $5.99 buffets.
Oh hot days,
you dreamers, losing
a token amount at blackjack,
mostly just gawking
at all the empty calories, amazedly
feeling,
feeling judgmental, feeling
a tent revival in your shorts,
feelings, nothing more than feelings.
Praise be.
Hallelujah.
My Petty Little "On Safari In India" Poem
T.S. Elliott never rode on an elephant, writing a poem like a king.
Not that it's easy, the rhythm moves queasy as the saddle slouches
and swings.
And fuck you, Wallace Stevens, as I'm not believing you wrote a
whisper on a pachyderm's behind;
if I had to guess, I'd state you sat behind a desk, sipping tea in
your coat and your tie.
Now this doesn't make me a better poet, this don't make me a
truer man,
but screw your white chickens, William Carlos Williams, as my
ass rides higher than your hatband!
Now if H.D. and Dickenson swore that they'd ridden one, we'd
sure all know they were liars.
And that bastard Ezra Pound never soared off the ground in a
jungle, looking for tigers.
Now this doesn't make me a better writer, this don't make me
more human a bean,
but
still
T.S. Elliott never rode on an elephant, writing a poem like a king!
MMM: So how was it? MM: Cool. MMM: Really? MM: Yah! MMM: Did you buy a hotdog on the street? MM: Heck yes. MMM: How was Christmas? MM: Jolly! Are you gonna eat your pickle?
Last Update: Monday, January 25th, 1999
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