Monday, March 28, 2016

Highs and Lows

I did it so you don't have to.


How many wheel bearings am I going to have to replace this trip? I should ask how many FUCKING WHEEL BEARINGS AM I GOING TO REPLACE? The number is up to 5. Really exhausting. At one point I was reading the number KML 88128 serial number off the outer side of the disintegrating bearing and the sun was about 20 seconds from descending below a volcano and I thought that if there were some prophecy that if a gypsy reads the wheel bearing serial number at the exact moment the sun is setting on a certain day then some mystery is revealed. I was alone on a grassy hill, tools spread out, injured from hitting my arm on the wood stove, desperate, broken, lost, and trying to find out what part I would need to hitchhike to Mexico to find and then return with it and I could read the numbers mere seconds before the sun set. No mystery was revealed. The sun set, it got dark, I lost parts in the grass and then dogs came out to haunt the shadows. Swearing was futile. Gypsies don't die, they simply lose everything and become ghosts to the waking world. It's bullshit. One day from my destination and fate refuses to cooperate. I was content to keep going but there was a major fuel problem from crappy gasoline and clogged fuel lines and sputtering and dying on steep mountain roads and in the process of trying to fix that I notice there is more differential fluid coming down the tire that I had just replaced the seal...and I see that my repair failed or the shaft is too scored...and later see that the whole bearing has now failed, which explains the sound I was hearing for the past 2 weeks. Two quick punches to the gut that threw my whole day upside down. Not to mention that I have a whole planned essay entitled "Semana Santa in Central America or Why Jesus Forced Me To Sell My Van." It's all true, Jesus forced me to sign the title over to someone in order to import it to Guatemala.

Why didn't fate just let me keep driving and surprise me with a frozen wheel bearing on some steep mountain pass? I leave you with that question.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Never Ending Fun

Even Spanish Conquistadors need love
This was a project to replace 4 front roller bearings that I had ignored for 8 years. I avoided it because I felt nothing was really wrong with the front bearings, but then I bought a new set and waited for a good time to replace them since I had no idea how long they had been on there, only that I had not packed the inner bearings with grease in 8 years. Finally, I changed all of them and repacked the grease after hearing a low growling* on the way out of Costa Rica. Dirt parking lots are my habitat.

*the growling was not the front bearings.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Colgante

Long drive for vanity shots.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Gay time traveller spotted

An unidentified gay man from 1982 made a rare appearance on a Central American beach.
he is out of focus because he travels in time.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Van in Paradise


Yet another campsite.
It´s a blistering hot beach but the water is nice. Coconut water is not as cheap as it should be.

I finally charmed my way back into Costa Rica. The Cubans have all been imported to Florida or returned to Havana by way of the shame train. Good luck to those who taught me some Boleros. The immigration folks remembered me and tried to find something wrong with my paperwork but it was all in order...except my insurance had been purchased a month earlier so they only gave me 2 months visa. I only wanted one month because if it´s hot now then it´s unbearable in May. These are tired details that I don´t like discussing. Really pointless topics that can´t be translated or shouldn´t be written about except because I´m desperate and hopeful something romantic will spring from these crooked fingers.

They spelled my name wrong...O.G.G.Y
I don´t have video of one disastrous attempt to play a 2 hour solo set at some fancy bar where a glass of wine is $7. Fuck them. That audience should cheer at the mere mention of Hoagy Carmichael but they chewed through my Nat King Cole and if I were paid in applause then I would end up owing that restaurant money. But I ended up playing at an open mic night with better success. The equipment might´ve been to blame but really I´m not interested in performing and it was only circumstance that got me into trouble. Let me at some vintage Honda motorcycles and a tennis racket, but please don´t expect me to perform for the retired stock broker crowd who wold rather hear Michael Jackson disco smash-up remixes played by a computer DJ.

Life goes on until it doesn´t. Woody Allen says death begins at birth and accelerates during dinner parties. This was confirmed the other night. I´m so accustomed to desperation and unpredicatable disaster that I stepped on a Manta´s wing today and didn´t even freak out. The water was clear and warm and a shark couldn´t chase me out.
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.