Californians in New York City (or, Our Trip Home From North Carolina)

Well,

I'd been planning to write something for the last week and a half about the trip to the smokeout and John, Rayna, Buttcrack's visit to NYC. Magnum opus syndrome got the best of me. Mental verbal diarhhea seemed the cure rather than painstaking labor over trying to address all the details and themes. Only made it to day one. Part two to come. Pics follow. Float the mouse over the pics to see captions. Enjoy:

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Holy shit

small world

I can't believe running into you on a murky Sunday morning years later with my head squirming full of whiskey aboard my ratted new york city ghettofied street trumpet i forced into submission to get me to the smokeout since my pans been down for a few months and i'm a stubborn sort if you didn't know it already

rode shortly over fifteen hundred miles on that pig in a couple days including taking my cali friends to the east coast for their first time

vietnam wall for a long lost homecoming king of our country

jefferson memorial national monument to reflect on the freedoms and the original intent

ishkabibbles for steaks then to robot hooker to meet adam and the rest of the riffraff then on to slos to pick up bsa cases to replace my blownout from front wheel in the air abuse case rocket fucking ship sixty five lightning tragedy struck one afternoon leaving the curb dropped into gear and saw chunks on the pavement but slo took care of that good thing i had extra bungee cords to strap those bitches on then off to new york city through the holland jammed through china town watching the looks of horror on their faces halfway across the world from their safe comfy sunny california home on old salty hardtail shovels that made their eyes shake up and down with each hole they didn't recognize that we were actually still riding on road surface or what passes for it here on down across delancey onto the williamsburg bridge to see a good cityscape and slip on down to my shoot-em-up shadyville neighborhood shop i've called homebase for the last ten years to pull in uneventfully yet recognizing great accomplishment that is travelling round this country to take in all the people and sunsets and roads and meals and stories and mechanical hangups and mental meandering

parked them by the lathe and by the mill and by the bench with gear strapped up almost to the ceiling which almost didn't let one skyscraping shovel through into the mad metal scientists lair in the back their skin sagging and butts sore and eyes weary and bikes tired taking in this new world that is so familiar to me no time to rest, no, for this is how it goes in new york on to the next thing we can still squeeze a few more minutes out of this day before we call it time to rest fitfully listening to third shift mechanico commercial distributory buzzing about our post modern pre hip smelly shitty industrial park heaven haven

no hesitation or excuses suffered get on our bikes and ride well maybe a break is ok go head jump in the million mile universal free to me insured for a few more months japper jalopy and consider it all just your rickshaw with soothing merle haggard breaking in his new home with flashing neon sign jukebox and bar stool where you can find him every night 'til closing time as we cruise through the barrio and duck bob and weave around holes in the street that would shank you for merely referring to them as or inferring that they are pot-like in nature while in my rearview mirror i see amazement and wide-eyed picture drinking expressions on their faces consider the surprise i surmise it must be to have expectations shattered of someone you've known whose context you don't of someplace you've seen but in real life haven't

the stuff of movies one miniscule facet

true, yes we do, like both kinds of music here

through polska town and park and let him stretch his strained neck from taking in the beauty the bounty the bouncy plentiful booty that everyone who every heard the song knows it's wrong they're all right here

ever fall in love three times in one five-minute subway ride or five times on the way to the bodega or twenty times while eating breakfast in the neighborhood?

we step through the gate to old world germany and are welcomed by the nice young ladies who dutifully bring lively libation curt conversation lovely dinner eyes growing dimmer first beer in quite some time we enjoy together and i give them a hearty and heartfelt welcome to my home

it's gonna be a big few days steel yourselves as i mentioned at the last interstate stop you can't know what it's really about unless you jump in cold turkey full monty and get ready to swim with the school who call this their pool

rest is for the timid while travelling there'll be plenty of time for that at some faceless perfect numbered hotel motel on the way to the next recreation destination

if you aren't beat to within an inch of your life when you get home you haven't had a vacation, if you aren't beat to death by time you reach it you haven't lived

mama tried to raise me better

until we parked and climbed into bed in a secret retreat from the chaos morning sun street rescue hard knock storm drain bound kitten grown soft and prince-like wakes us

john and i head over to meet olga and sun and jorge and jimmy in the korean dominican mexican brooklyn breakfast counter that keeps us in coffee throughout our days. . . hellos and genuine welcomes to the foreigners who have joined our little segment of culture of color of banter of workers of life as the industrial machine refuses to lose it's human element . . . coarse as it may sound to the untrained the connection is genuine the engagement is real and it gives hope

you didn't think that we'd lost our way did you?

of course we are back in the swing and on to the firebrand test foreshadowed as we mount our muddy smokeout survivor road gritty butt sweaty bikes and steer towards the heart, across the williamsburg bridge into lower east side shopping zone for a million imported prospectives, customers and their quarry as i watch like mother hen even though they think i've forgotten them as they discover that the lane markings are not absent from wear but never were as it all flows in one harmonius to my mayhem defying zen view as one stream appearing at first to be careless and dangerous but actually quite gracefully and skilled

toward the big broadway in afternoon rush down through the financial district on this brilliantly sunny clear day almost as it was the day the world ended and we all walked home crying

stick tight this is no joke with cabs diving and buses bullying and limos lurching while feeble pissed somebody off somehow someday traffic directing paycheck collectors ply their trade as matadors amongst steel bulls

are they seeing this as i do, getting a sense, distilling the chaos to see how this also fits into their journey?

cops waving and jutting thumbs cab riders welcoming the obvious visitors everyone proud to show how we do it add to the tale until we reach the battery park original watchpost for a young country's parents who come calling to drag us home with consequences

we squeezed the shovels and the road trumpet into a little island amidst four different arteries where i direct us one-at-a-time into the two blades of grass wide slot between commuter bikes race replicas weary city beaters and long forgotten and vulture-picked leftovers still locked securely to fences

make our way to to the ferry where we forget that carrying pocket knives is called dangerous, if they only knew we faced the only danger that day as naked citizens . . . stuck them in the weeds between the daffodils and the queen anns lace . . . i'll remember where they are when we get off

get felt up inspected measured scanned x-rayed and catscanned to get onto the ferry that will take us to the statue of moderated if not truncated liberty

more to follow . . . someday