Main Street Tour

 My Tour of Main Street America (driving cross country only on secondary roads*) began with a long delayed and too short meeting of two Soldiers of The Free Spirit cut from the same cloth. David owns the 1970 E300 camper conversion and together we did some trips around the hood and were amazed that we had these dinosaurs running.

 We're both dealing with a lot of entropy with our respective 40 year old trucks and 40 year old bodies. There is no easy way to solve the galactic riddle except by interpreting our own dreams and ignoring the idle gossip that goes on in the background. We're crazy but we're our own crazy and not a prepackaged store bought version.








This is supposed to be my patriotic portrait but the lighting off Lake Erie was all sorts of messed up. That acrylic sweater is red white and blue, like the colors of the American Flag on David's van. My skin color is the same color as the sky. But I'll allow it for now.

Oggy's Main Street America Tour 2012 brought me to a flea market in a dusty town in New York. I asked the booth attendant: "Where am I?"
His shaggy gray eyebrows scanned my hippie attire.
"Do you know where East Bumfuck is?"
"Yes."
"Well, we're 5 miles east of there."
He let me have the Greek Fisherman's hat at a discount but absolutely refused to let me buy the '50s wool plaid ladies skirt I wanted for rug hooking. The sweater was pretty much a gift that I immediately stained with oil. The loot from another flea market in a snowy village was as follows:
1. Xanadu 78 rpm single "Magic" b/w "Cool Country"
2. 78 rpm "Sky Pilot" by Eric Burdon and The Animals

3. Fancy Parisian eyeglass frames.
4. Box of depression era sheet music including "Go Farther than your Father" and "Alcoholic Blues" One song says "Buy War Bonds"**
5. Beads for future crochet hemp belts



It was not a sad day to see this crappy tire fail. I hate this tire because it is the last reminder of the NTB experience and my wasted money putting new tires on a van with bad I-beams and having an $8/hr wrench monkey pull his pants up and drop my van off the lift and adjust his glasses better than he adjusted the alignment, fucking everything up completely and not fixing or even identifying the original problem, leading to lots of wasted time/money and an eventual front end job by an RV shop but left me with $200 worth of destroyed NTB tires that I decided I would use until they fell apart rather than replace immediately (The alignment issues wore 60,000 miles off of one side of the front tires in under 1000 miles of actual driving)

I didn't have my pitchfork but I had loosened the lug nuts a few days ago so this pit stop went smoothly.

The tire wear wasn't the cause of this fatal flat in rural Pennsylvania, there were 4 nails sticking in the tread at various places that I had picked up on Labrador dirt back roads and such. I'd been fighting the slow leak for a week. Now I find out if my 3 year old Mexican spare tire purchased in La Paz will last long enough to get me to Guatemala.

*Though this sounds insane, it has been a relief to drive the van at a safe speed (45) and see the countryside and the flea markets and hog pens of the country, camping wherever I want and shopping with locals at markets with people's names still on them. The interstates are faster speed wise but they don't take the most direct route so you still lose time on them. Only driving through cities does this method become a pain, unless you want to see the destitute of the city. In general taking a secondary road directly to your destination will not lose you much time compared to taking a high speed highway on some roundabout route.

** This gives me an idea. You know the movie "Julie & Julia" about the woman who cooked all Julia Childs' French recipes? It was also a book and here's my pitch: I will learn to play all the songs in this gigantic box of depression era songs. These are totally out of print songs ( I can't find a recording of "Go Farther than your Father") and I will basically write my experiences learning about the songs, annotating them, and playing them at rehabilitation homes for the infirm. Aging hippie makes good. That kind of story. It's the stuff publishers dream of. It all starts with my ability to sight read, which is improving but is not up to the task. OH, it's going to take serious sacrifices to learn to sight read these forgotten songs from 1937. Maybe I'll get that music software and write them all out and then simply sing along like karaoke from 1940.

I Send You Flowers

New Song to learn for the Central American Tour

Dryer Installation was Easy Compared to Dog

It took some real determination to get this 29'' washer through a 27'' wide cement door frame. Thanks to whoever invented the smartphone so we could access the exploded diagram and disassembly instructions in the freezing cold.

This dog looks and sounds like it has been beaten and abused its whole life but the contrary has been true. However; it may be that like spoiled children who narcissistically look back at their parents, Buster thinks he has been abused and neglected. And if that's the truth then it does not matter what the parents think they have done for the dog. They have abused and neglected the dog in the eyes of the dog. This might correspond to the selfish 40 year old child regressing to his childhood and blaming his well meaning parents for abuse and neglect. Was he neglected? Maybe not in the eyes of the parents but in his own mind he was and that develops the shame-filled eyes, fearful and untrusting, whining about the chocolate cakes he never had and the fame and fortune that was never realized. If Buster had a blog it would be called "Dog in A Van".
 I should point out that the longer he whines and bitches (hours on end), the more I want to abuse and neglect him, which fulfills his own prophecy. Interesting...

Whining

This is how I feel sometimes.*
whine [ wīn ]   

1. complain peevishly: to complain in an unreasonable, repeated, or irritating way
2. make high sorrowful sound: to cry, moan, or plead with a long, plaintive, high-pitched sound
3. utter something in whining voice: to say something in a plaintive high-pitched voice

*This dog is named Buster and whines no matter what you do. I just took him for a walk and fed him and gave him duck and cherry dog treats that are more than most Haitians eat in a year. I'm convinced Buster has mental problems, fear of abandonment issues, lacks trust, like me.  What do you think about buster?

More Lobster Blues

2012 is here. I started 2011 in St. Louis and heard the call of the wild from Central America and also Labrador. Labrador won, as  I lurched north in May to save the Arctic Wolf. The footage I gathered for my documentary is trapped on the tapes because my camera broke but one of my goals for 2012 is to get a new camera to complete the wolf video or at least get the footage onto a computer so I can watch myself fix the van in the middle of the wilderness. I also want to start composing backing tracks for my jazz studies. And that involves buying some cool software and also upgrading my guitar to a J. Carruthers custom axe I've been dreaming about for 3 years. I'm ready for it. Or even if I'm not ready, I don't care. Actually, I've got my eye on a bass guitar too because I always liked playing bass and want to explore solo bass folk music. I want to read poetry while playing funky bass guitar and wear berets and talk out of the side of my mouth. I want to say, "Don't touch my bass guitar, Jack!" You carry a bass guitar and you get work. Every asshole can play electric guitar. But the bassist gets the pussy.