In Closing

The adventure of a lifetime isn't supposed to mean a lifetime of one, never-ending adventure. There has to be a beginning, middle, and an end. Or else the adventure and the life merge into an indistinguishable blob that is neither life nor an adventure. 

The road takes a toll on one's heart and body. The soul may ripen with age, but the skin wrinkles, the hair turns white, the beard grizzles, the organs shrivel and decay. I remember being able to type accurately and furiously as the library was closing and the librarian was kicking me and the other homeless men into the streets of Santa Monica, typing with the words firing from my fingers, with the passion and the fearlessness of a man in search of a voice, a man who may have found the voice he was searching for, but was pushing the limits. Now I have to spell check the word 'Milk'.

Speaking of Beginnings, Middles, and Ends... I will recollect my three ghosts of travel, the moments, (one could call them eras since I'm talking about a decade of time). The beginning of the Man in The Van was not the first post, nor the tenth, because I think those were attempts to discover my blogging persona. The beginning was when I morphed into the honest, unaffected asshole one sees today. That was probably on the sands of Mexico, La Paz...summer of 2009. The van's timing cover gasket blew out and required a full dis-assembly of the front of the engine in the parking space I had just rented at a house. It was embarrassing that the second day I met that family I was neck deep in grease, but such is life. I had to fix that gasket twice because there are two layers of gaskets and the deepest one was the one that failed. (Hey, 10 years later it's never needed adjustment.) The Mexican journey was always one that could collapse at any second. I planned to spend one year in Mexico, travel towards Guatemala and abandon the van when it failed me. But I felt comfortable in La Paz up until the insane summer heat arrived and, from apathy and malaise, I did not get on the ferry to mainland Mexico. The heat drove me quite mad until I only dreamt of northern climate, the coolness of trees. Also, I had planned badly for the trip as my bank card expired and I didn't have access to any money. So I drove north without ever grasping how the persona of the blog had been adopted without my being aware. I wasn't acting anymore. Life in the van had become my life, it was not a phase anymore. I had faced mechanical challenges in desperate times in harsh conditions and I had been forced to embrace the challenge, and the process shed my previous persona that treated the van as a separate, 8 cylinder, character-rich conveyance. By the time I drove north from La Paz, the van was a part of me and that marked the beginning of the journey. Our fates had become inseparable.

Fast Times in The Parking Lot

I'm back living full time in the Walmart Parking lot. It's a blast. Last night an 8 year old girl was playing in the parking lot, running on a field that is where the homeless pour their piss jugs, someone called the police and they interrogated the family while pot smoke drifted across the larking lot like wildfire. Good times. I'm not sure which is worse: the police being called to investigate a neglected child running around the pot-smoke-filled Walmart parking lot like it's a playground or my reaction, which was "Why doesn't she shut up so I can sleep."

Borderlands

More panographic copy and pasting to feature the Sonoran Desert.

History

I think this assembled panorama will be too big to fit on the page. It's an unusual place that I won't name to keep it a mystery. They fought over this pass, bled for access to the slow dribble of water from the wounded spring nearby, railroad engineers studied the land, 16 years of armies and tribes and graves and the bones of cattle bleaching under the merciless sun. And finally, the railroad is laid to the north, the pass is not needed, there are other water sources, the tribes become ghosts, the tombstones crumble, the barracks and quartermaster cabin and Victorian officer's house deteriorate before the wind and are turned back into soil. This land that was once sacred turned into strategic position, then forgotten landmark for mail coaches and then into disputed history and then back into preserved ruins that one must hike to reach on an trail empty save for rattlesnakes and crows. No flag flies on the pole, it was never owned by anyone and the land is indifferent to deed claims. Those are human realms and insignificant. The Buddha said that if you sit beside a river long enough you will see your enemies pass by, blended with the molecules of water.

Gold Dreams

Desperate Times

It angers me that 50 hours a week working for the federal government means I have to pan for gold in order to make money for groceries. One of the most painful lessons in this world is that working hard and doing a good job means absolutely jack shit in the quality of life department. It probably means you're being exploited to shit and will be disposed of. The trick is to do absolutely nothing and fool everyone into thinking that you are worth money. Facebook employees spring to mind as their ridiculous salaries inflate property values beyond what a plumber or carpenter can ever afford in Palo Alto. You know, because social media is WAY more important than plumbing and buildings that don't collapse. Our priorities are fucked like Jesus.

A simple operation

So, I staked a claim and got to work. I'm flat broke and staring down the barrel of a knee operation that will either put me in debt or force me to move to Morocco.

Anyone know where I can sell gold?

How long does it take to pan a few flakes of gold? A long time. Hours and hours. It's worth about $8 and my knees are worse than ever.

Waning Crescent Sun

 

The smoke from multiple forest fires made the eclipse slightly odd to look at. But the sun is so bright that it's clearly visible through the glasses.

Unusual event.

 

All Hail John Muir

Muir is the big reason this is not a flooded dam for water to sell to hydrofracturing companies.

This bridge survived the melt but the one upstream did not.

Not pictured are my cut-off shorts and chicken legs

Yoga?

I said it only counts as Yoga in Topanga if I take a selfie. 
All that is missing is a good morning kiss from Joni Mitchell.

Where it all Began

Time presses on and way turns back to way. I arrived in Venice Beach last night after I waited for holiday traffic to die down. The congestion was still bad enough to cause angina but not so bad I had to stall on the 405 Inner City expressway. I cruised the dusty alleys of my memory, the donut shop was still there, but the tattoo shop had closed it's doors. I recognized some landmarks while others were so different I had to look around to remind myself where I was. The Taco Bell that so loyally satisfied my midnight cravings had been replaced by some fancy sushi joint. More medical marijuana dispensaries than I could count rose above the dirty sidewalks. The machine shop where I had my first motorcycle engine rebuilt was still there. The economy curry cafe still slopped mildly flavorless puree for a couple bucks. 

L.A. Images

I posted a photo essay on Las Vegas and now I will post a short one on Los Angeles. I've been neck deep in things that are not so narcissistic as a blog and not interesting enough to write about. I'm also stuck in a deep rut of remorse, regret, despair and surrender. I refuse to be another gum flapping Washington pundit in a world of pundit and political spin whores. We're fucked, obviously, headed toward apocalypse but it's beneath me to add my opinion on these trivial matters. Still, fate is forcing me out of my hole and I will soar once more with the eagles and maybe write something worthy of this vain blog. Don't hold your breath.

Rock Bottom

The pain of the following event has been replaced by the pain of a different event, which is the signal that it is time to write of the preceding event. This event, this pinche pendejo crisis, set in motion a day of pure grief, travelers’ woes, “Once upon a time in Mexico…” Dios, this was a miserable day coming at the end of so many ups and downs over the span of years wandering Latin America. This was the lowest or nearly the lowest depending on how you look at it and what standards are used. Emotionally, it was not the lowest although it was very low. Physically and financially and legally it was the lowest. In terms of the van, my faithful steed El Conquistador, it was rock bottom, although the time the rear axle bearing disintegrated on a Guatemalan mountain road was awful. Being stranded between the borders of Costa Rica and Nicaragua with Cuban refugees was indeed a strain, but the chaos was manageable because I was basically ignored by all but my own demons. But this event, this chain of evil events in Mexico, was the opposite; the wolves came at me from all sides, the moment I thought I was safely on the other side of the storm another storm hit. It was one assault after another; there was no where to hide, nowhere to run, no safe harbor, survival was my victory. The relentless punishment all started with the horrible screams from hundreds of dying pigs.

PCT

Pacific Crest Trail

The one bright spot in my recent insanity.

Trapped in Candyland Game

Don't ask how I ended up in a life sized Candyland board game but please help.

Room With a View

I'm taking a break from writing about my bleak existence. The sheriff finally caught up with me and threw me in the jail for vagrancy.  

I am asserting my right to remain silent except for the following droll truisms:

"South and North Welcome" this is patriotism

Trying to Survive

I don't have much time to elaborate on the chaos that ensued after the Walmart police kicked me out of the parking lot for hunting rabbit and trying to build a log cabin from scrap pallet wood. They said they had security video footage of me with an open bottle of wine chasing a rabbit with a hatchet and I said, "I can explain that..." I argued that my rights as a sovereign citizen were being infringed and was escorted off. I have voicemail recordings of Jim pleading for help but it's complicated to get them uploaded and also sad, maybe illegal. We both got kicked out...and the first night I spent on the street happened to coincide with a gang of 'air duster' huffing addicts burglarizing a nearby building, which of course led to my being surrounded by local police and targeted for harassment and a polite beat down in the dark. That led to my getting out of town into some ghost villages where silver and Anthracite had been mined...and some complications that I can't elaborate on. There was a PTSD veteran who had work an ISIS patch during his pre-combat heat trauma...or maybe it was his fantasy. Armed to the teeth to prepare to defend earth from alien invasion. dozens of rifles and dying cats. drugs. wax. oils. broken vehicles. stray children. worse than a Serbian slum. this is the step below a Walmart parking lot and the police pushed me in that direction. I resisted and fled.

Another refugee of post-freedom America

 The disease of America has no cure but extinction and that will arrive soon enough. The important thing that I now advocate is having your own agenda and sticking to it. Do not think that opposition is an agenda. No. Opposition is a vacuum that feeds the thing that is opposed. Build an agenda, an army, a better device to huff air duster gases. whatever. It makes no difference. have an agenda and stick to it. That is what makes consumerism so successful: The mission is to condition people to shop and consume and devour and produce. That is a big agenda but it keeps a lot of people busy and it is working.

Classic consumer conditioning targeting helpless children. No attempt to disguise their evil intent. Only a diseased culture would allow this.

I wandered the tortured Apache land. Geronimo tried to fight this invasive species and lost, humiliated, captured and caged like an animal. Cochise cursed this land before he died and was buried near here, he said it would never have peace and many of the locals believe his curse is still working. They say the land is cursed.

Oggy in Apache Land. Yes, the sky is that blue.

I have my own agenda and maybe the spell has been broken by this recent police whipping. Broken lonely hearts scatter the desert and I hope mine has been abandoned to some dark cave. Iraq Vets are homeless and living in vans in parking lots or else eating thrift store canned food and Salvation Army sandwiches. PTSD is no joke. You hang out with some PTSD folks for a few days and you'll think the lunatic asylum is normal. War fucks shit up and the lip service of the V.A. might work for anyone else but a PTSD victim is not anyone else and they have short fuses. We found a 30mm artillery shell in the desert near the base. The guy said it was still live and when fired from a helicopter would arm itself by spinning and that lights a fuse that explodes on impact. He leaped up in bare, bleeding feet and smashed it violently on the rocks nearby as I dove for cover behind the van, cutting my knee on a cactus branch. He smiled with spittle collecting at the corner of his whiskered mouth, vile teeth, halitosis to melt steel. The shell did not explode and the neighbor yelled, "What the fuck, don't destroy shit!" I was shaking. Then he took a long string of rusty nails and lashed his arms with them until they bled. Three people came out to demonstrate how they would use their Russian sniper rifles to defend their houses from zombie attack. stray cats shit in front of the depleted mail boxes. Everyone is smoking (dabbing) pot or hash oil, drinking beers, shooting rifles, laughing as they pretend to play Russian Roulette. Someone says, "Oggy, I want to kill my pet snake and make a leather belt from him. Can you help?" We are watching his snake eat a rat but because power has been turned off to the house for non-payment of bill the snake's stomach is distended because it can not digest the last rat it ate. I am trying to concentrate on killing zombies in an Xbox game called "Deadland" I drive over a zombie's head repeatedly then accidentally kill a human survivor. Someone has dropped a glass bong behind me that shatters on the filthy floor. A rifle falls from the poorly mounted brackets on the wall and breaks a glass aquarium holding poisonous jelly fish. Fresh and dry old Shit from two poodles covers every square inch of the living room where a kid is trying to start a fire using stolen wood and newspaper rolls from the local paper. There is only power for the xbox because he has hacked the outlet of the meth kitchen next door. But instead of putting electricity to the hot water heater he powers the television so he can get stoned and watch animated musicals. If there is a worse situation than a frozen Walmart parking lot then Oggy will surely find it.

Coronado

Not much is written about Coronado, the Conquistador who went insane and thought there were 7 cities of Gold in the deserts north of what would become Mexico around the year 1540 and so Coronado hunted for two years with 5000 sheep and 100+ equally crazy men in the hinterlands of the deserted South-west north America looking for gold. Gold exists, but not cities of gold. Mostly he found humble Indians living in cliffs, so naturally he killed everything in his path.

Well, this is his memorial...

Winter is chasing Senor Oggy as far south as the International Border where drones oversee the slave camps building the Great Wall of Trump's Ego.

There is a limestone cave here but I forgot my flashlight so this is as far as I could go.

kind of rare to have a random Conquistador on a billboard next to a van named El Conquistador

I don't cast quite the same shadow as Coronado but we all do our best.

Dreaming of the tropics

This is as good as it gets today. people laugh and say "You live in a van down by the river."
Har har har.
I say, dead serious, "I'd kill for a river."

can you guess the meat?

Dear cops, please leave me alone

Please god, let me be able to drive ten miles without being pulled over to the side of a deserted highway and getting pistol whipped and strip searched for no reason.. Incredible. Bullshit. I'm simply driving at my normal 55mph and this hot shot shiny state trooper jumps on my ass, and this of course causes every vehicle in front of me to slow down to 50mph after driving way over the speed limit to pass me. Well, shit, now we're driving at 50mph and I got this cop car behind me and I can't pass or speed up. Obviously he wants to search me for weed that I should be smuggling from Colorado to pay for the ticket he's going to give me. So, what is the point of passing anyone? The two vehicles in front of me are following each other but about 10 feet. I'm about 30 feet behind the last vehicle. Finally, Shinyman turns his shiny fucking lights on and I pull over. Fine, at least let's get the beat down over with, the suspense was killing me.

"I pulled you over for two reasons, "says Mr. hotshot state uniform man. "One, you were following the vehicles in front of you too closely."
Sure, they were obviously following each other about half as close as I was following them, but he pulls me over. What-fucking-ever.
"The second reason is your windshield is obstructed by those items hanging off it."
 "My rosary?" It's about the gauge of dental floss.
Mr. Shiny Badge nods his head. "Yes, sir."
"But it was blessed by Pope Francis."
"It is still a violation. Only an air freshener can hang from that mirror..."

Blah blah blah, step out of the vehicle, where are you headed, blah blah...looking for work. etc. etc. go ahead and put your hands behind your back so I can make sure you aren't carrying weapons. 

My fucking lord. I really look forward to the day I stop driving on U.S. highways. So tired of getting police in my face putting their hands on me. You know how hard it is to keep track of the multiple fake driver's licenses I had to make for my trip through Central America? And I have about 4 different versions of my registration and had to keep a straight face while I searched for one that was authentic.

I almost prefer the Mexican version where we swear at each other until I pay him enough money for him to let me leave. Damn, I was almost feeling patriotic and Mr. Shiny Service Revolver had to go and ruin it with his gestapo attitude. A fucking rosary on my rear view mirror>??? Following the car in front of me too closely???? Anyone with eyes could tell they were far close than I was. Such cowardly bullshit. So fucking sick of it. I didn't even look at the piece of paper he gave me. Maybe it was a court summons, maybe not. Makes no difference in this forsaken land of laws and shiny badges running around with sticks up their ass. Fucking state is as flat as a table top and not one person rides a bicycle.

God Bless America

I went to a thrift store because I was still reeling from being forced to surrender my Alligator Jacket in Las Vegas. The Thrift Store funds a senior center next door and I heard someone playing piano so I went in to listen. It was guy playing some cool Roaring '20s tunes. Man it was good. Then I noticed that he had a sheet of braille in front of him to remind him of song titles. The guy is blind. Well, he asked for request that included the word "Angel" in the title or lyrics. This guy was doing requests from memory of any song that had the word Angel in it. What? So I requested "Earth Angel" from the '50s and he played it in two octaves. Man. Then I asked for Angel Eyes but he did not know that one so he's more of a showtime and pop tune pianist because Angel Eyes is pure '40s lounge jazz. I asked him if I could play a song from my fake book and he said, "Sure, after the pledge and announcements."

The other senior centers I've been to are long term care facilities but this was a true meals for seniors dining area that was open for lunch only. So, the veterans and retired farmers of Western Arizona come for community and socializing. There were a few announcements about the meal times and someone announced that he was going to visit family for Christmas so he would not be there and everyone wished him safe travels. Then, the host held onto a big American flag and everyone said the standard pledge of allegiance. I even joined in because I was drawn into the solemn honesty of the moment, a room of 70-80 year old men and women  with VA hats saying the pledge of allegiance. I swear if I had recorded it then the video would go viral in this hollow, shallow nation, but I did not get a video because I was saying the pledge of allegiance. But it wasn't over. The blind pianist, Bob, sat back down at the piano and everyone launched into Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" and I sang that one with the crowd too. No mention was made of presidents or of politics. It was non-partisan and I feel that the generation born in 1930 is the last who do not get a video of every fart and song and grinning mockery of themselves to post on the internet. I was proud of that crowd, they did their best with what they were given. These were the independent elderly, not ready to go to a long term care facility but also not able to cook for themselves. One man wearing a WWII veteran cap told me his wife had died 4 years earlier and he'd been coming here to eat lunch since then.
Bob sat down to eat, which involves feeling for his food and then putting it in his mouth and I sat down and played some rough, out of practice, Broadway songs. My Funny Valentine seemed completely out of place but Let it Snow seemed ok. The experience got me thinking about the people I met on this journey and how I should only write about people and experiences rather than punditry of ideas. My ideas should be explored through people, not the other way around. So I dedicate this to some of the people I met, the highlights.

Can Food - This morning I awoke in a Walmart Parking lot and all the parking lot entrances were taken up by people with signs asking for help. Hey, the Salvation Army can ring their bell and this is also the season for giving to homeless people. I bought two biscuit sandwiches and asked if he wanted one. He said, "I'll take anything."

At a truck stop in Utah I watched some basketball with a truck driver who had been in the well service industry until gas prices plunged. He said the hot dogs at Burger King were 'actually, pretty good.' and he thought about buying one and then decided there was no point and went to his truck. A woman in the same dining room was sitting with a bible. Her husband is a truck driver and she was waiting for him because his heater had problems and also his transmission needed service in Las Vegas. So she was waiting patiently for her husband.

A Trump supporter was playing a guitar outside the library in Cedar City. We got to talking about The Beatles and agreed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band was their peak of originality. He was worried that Veterans were being treated worse than illegal immigrants and that job opportunities were being taken by foreigners. "Trump speaks for me." he said.

Shared a campsite in Canyonlands in Eastern Utah with a photographer from Illinois. We both thought the price of $20 for a patch of dirt was too high so we split it. We shared some premium Colorado weed and marveled at the Milky Way on a night that was so clear and moonless that we could see about 50 commercial planes to the south traveling in and out of Las Vegas. It was an epic night of shooting stars, cold, freezing, but epic universal vistas. I said, "Maybe this is the weed talking, but I love weed." I also spent ten minutes hunting for my gloves which were in my pocket. He was horrified Trump was elected, horrified a lying reality show celebrity had fooled voters into thinking he was qualified to be president without even a PTA chairman position under his belt. We commiserated and tried to rationalize the insanity, while enjoying the scenery and purity of the Canyonlands. He went to Monument Valley and I went to Capitol Reef.

First night in Moab was the supermoon, which I had planned to experience in one of the National Parks. A group of youths from all over the western united states and even Holland were in the hostel and had the same idea so they let me ride with them to The Arches. They were all about 22 years old and I felt like I was from another world. One was a young woman who is a youth intervention specialist who takes amok teenagers into the forest for two weeks to get their heads straight. She'd just returned from Guatemala so we had some things to talk about. A young man was a park ranger/biologist with a plate in his arm and a plate in his knee after skiing and bouldering accidents. He gave me all the advice on where to go in Canyonlands. One guy saving up money to buy land in Nicaragua had recently returned from Gates of The Arctic national park. We'd both gone to University of Fairbanks, Alaska. He asked me when I was there and I said, '1989' and he said, "Shit, I was born in 1992." The woman from Holland was touring The World for a year...and had been in Tahiti a mere two weeks earlier. A couple had driven from Baltimore to see Moab and The Arches. It was odd being around that many people who easily could be children of people I went to school with. Their vocabulary, nonchalance and high energy and diversity were nothing like how hipsters are portrayed. They all were obsessed with any light pollution so we hiked in The Arches with no flashlights or only red, night vision, lighting. They dried their own meat jerky and had dried fruit as snacks, talked about rappelling and climbing casually. Maybe Moab adventure climbers do not represent the generation born in 1992 but I was impressed. They were not slackers. No, they were not industrial welders or tradesmen or veterans, but they were not slackers and they were not going to idly stand by while the environment is destroyed. These kids were far beyond recycling all their wine bottles. They had bicycles hanging off their trucks, one guy was running a marathon across every National Park, another guy was bicycling to Patagonia. Some had kayaks, rock climbing gear, snowboards, skis, everything. It's easy to have a low opinion of hipsters but that's because most people don't visit Moab and see the elite of the Hipster generation. Best of luck to them.

I hung out with some Walmart campers in Cortez, Colorado. One guy said, "I'm a Mormon, but I don't know what that means." I told him I thought it meant he believed Joseph Smith was a prophet. He shrugged and smoked some weed from a small pipe. He'd been working on his truck and I told him that I had tools but after a day he'd finished the brake job. He'd had rear axle seals fail and that soiled the brake shoes with differential fluid so everything had to be replaced. This was a familiar job to me. He had a little dog with him, well behaved, never barked. He asked if I had a stove in my van because he'd seen billows of smoke coming out the chimney. I told him that I'd tried to start the charcoal fire with only paper and regualr charcoal, no lighter fluid and it had turned into a horrible disaster with clouds of thick white smoke pouring from the chimney and the stove top into the van...and wafting across the Walmart Parking lot, causing alarm from anyone watching. So I poured water on the smoldering charcoal and that made everything worse. So I had to reach into the stove and pull out the smoldering, wet charcoal and throw it into the bushes so it would stop smoking. This whole incident took place in 28 degree weather before I went to Moab. I had the windows open, smoke pouring from the windows and me holding my breath to reach into the stove. It was one of the worst stove experiences I had and all because I got too confident with the charcoal and tried to get it going without lighter fluid. I told him I now only use a base of "instant light" charcoal and then when those are glowing and ashed over I add more regular, cheaper charcoal and the red coals will quickly get the new ones burning. And no smoke is needed. It was a learning experience. The man nodded and smoked some more weed. His companion called out sarcastically from a car where he was sitting that, "Sure, the climate ain't getting hotter. No, we got chem-trails in the sky and crops dying on the vine and the only place that ain't an inferno is around 6000 ft up a mountain. But let's keep burning those fossil fuels." I wasn't sure what he was referring to, but I answered, nonsensically, "Yeah, and let's prostitute all our teenage girls out for the jollies of some San Bernadino pornographers, while we're at it." He quickly drove away and I shamefully walked back to my van. I know it's easy to be proud that you don't shop at Walmart but I caution this kind of insulation because it was Walmart shoppers who fell for Trump's Walmart slogan "Make America Great Again." If you don't sleep in a Walmart parking lot and shop there once in a while they you are truly out of touch with modern America. You might as well move to Labrador.

I camped next to some hunters in New Mexico. They drove way out to a national forest parkland and set up camp with two generators blasting Lynyrd Skynyrd music until 10Pm. I didn't talk to them, preferring to give them their space. They had a good time. The Sheriff actually visited me the next day, to check up on the campground, ask if there were any problems. He said there were only three sheriffs in the area. I'd found a live .330 gauge shell on the ground and was going to make some jewelry out of it but decided to throw it into the woods. I left that detail out of our conversation. What the hell do you do when you find live ammunition. I feel like I'd get arrested if I walked into a police station to have it disposed of. but I can't throw it away or leave it on a park bench. Man, I just buried it and hoped it would vanish.

I was at the library and a man's phone rang. He was hard of hearing and put it on speaker so everyone nearby could hear it. It was a collection call from an agency. He hung up on them and said to me, "They'll spend $1000 to collect $100. Makes no sense." I told him I knew all about it but they will eventually stop.

There were a few more and I'll add them later but those are the ones that stand out. That's America.

Vegas Images

I could not avoid Las Vegas on my grand tour of the south west. The only other option is through Page and the Lake Powell/Glen Canyon Dam and through the north rim of the Grand Canyon, which I have no interest visiting in December and freezing some more, or else south over the Boulder Dam/Hoover Dam. I have had a charcoal fire in the van every night for a month and let there be no illusions about the danger of setting things on fire inside a vehicle. The combustion chamber of the engine is one thing and microbursts of electricity igniting a tiny bit of gasoline and air is dangerous but it does not compare to nightly, with numb fingers and frozen clouds of Oggy breath filling the stove with charcoal and a little paper and sometimes a military issue fire starter or even a squirt of white gasoline and then striking a match or a lighter to lovingly bring the warmth back to Oggy's toes while nervously watching the chimney for leaks and then leaping up to grab a shirt that I had laid on the chimney to dry and realizing it is polyester and has melted to the flex stainless steel! Man, and to coax the flames to red hot heat and then refill the charcoal or run outside in the sub freezing temps and gather wood...etc...etc..police encounters, angry neighbors, fathers at parks calling me a pedophile. Fuck. It's survival but if I could avoid it without a visit to a slum motel then I would. So, I drove south and found myself back in Vegas, Jesus, what a foul city. 

I arrived early on a Sunday and decided to take a walk around the town, which only homeless people do...