southwestern road trip
christop...@gmail.com
ambiguously gay opera man and the club (or the stick).
there are visual artifacts that i retain in the form of drawings that
i executed while on that trip. it was when i had just shaved my head
and had short blond hair which i was managing by sporadicly clipping as
i felt like i, it was a sculpture that i was creating of my head that i
could not see as i never used a mirror. it was going fairly well
untill white sands, where i got sunburned and ended up looking like a
cancer patient on chemo as my scalp flaked proofusely. whote sands was
where we encountered a roof shelter on wooden posts that was sorrounded
by a protective fence, there was alsoo a watertower near by, i am a fan
of water towers (but that is a different project).
there was also rock hound state park where the pipe was thrown out the
window onto some dudes driveway, some unsuspecting dude(et) walks out
of their house and finds this pipe sitting in their driveway. there is
a video of this text, maybe it should be posted. once there christopher
and zachary hiked up a mountain a brought down the sun with stimulants
and depresants. i believe nate and christopher stayed up particularily
late drinking tequilla that night and had a wonderful moment. actually
both of those were amazing moments, i remember the emotional imprint,
something like "dam that was meaningful and important, i will never
forget this"
there were the cliff dwellings,
the mexicans getting out of the white van with coolers trying to hitch
a ride with us, the only car at the cross roads town we had
encountered. as we went down there, the boarder crossing was striking,
as the land on the mexican side was severly overgrazed and there was
literally a cloud of dust over the mexican land and nothing over the
american side. it is a strange commentary on one amoung many
differences between the two places.
there were also the random plastic easter eggs discovered, in some park
(might have been by ship rock?) they were left over from some easter
egg hunt and i (we?) randomly found them. i remember i left boston on
easter sunday, i went to church and then went to the airport. the
church had large paper mache puppets (it was very progressive) it is
the one ner the common on newberry street that has a full bach mass
every weekend and is also the one that frank hoffmeister
<http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/music/people/hoffmeister.html> sang
at. it was one of the greatest religous moments in my life, i remember
calling my parents from outside the church as a procession went by. i
think this was the trip where i either came back and appologized or
flipped out and later came back and appologized to the ticket desk
agent for america west. she was giving me a hard time about the size
of my bag and i went off, i later went back and appologized which made
her day. then another time when at the airport i ran into her again
and she said what a great story that had made for her friends and
family.
upon returning to bos, i got bumpped in phoenix and spent a wonderful
eveing with my cousin mallisa and ron going to some big concert that
takes over the town and drinking a lot of beer and listing to a radio
station in my hotel room (provide by the airline, as they bumped me
overnight) to a repeating prince song (purple rain? i'm pretty sure) it
was a longer concert version and it just kept getting near the end and
skipping back toward the begining, it must have went on for 3 hours or
so, then they left and i went to sleep. this getting bumped resulted
in a ticket that i then gave to nathan, so that he could come and visit
me (probably the summering in bos?) and this ticket might have been a
gift from him getting bumped?? it was somehow connected to a string of
3 or so flights of us sharing tickets and then getting bumped and
sharing again.
we went to a party where i dawned my new skin tight, (womens size 4!)
express pleather pants and a fabulous shirt, all courtesy of a shopping
trip to buffalo exchange with ? walking to the party a pick-up truck
rolled by with some rather red neckish fellows and i somehow realized
at that momment that i must look like a petite gay boy and i imagined
them beating the shit out of me because of their nonaceptance of my
being gay (or so they thought i was). it was one of those moments in
my head that was very striking and i could understand the vulnerability
that one feels as a minority, woman or less physically developed person.
c
that was at an outdoor cafe in santa fe. it was near the begining of
the trip, we made our way to this magical city and this was our
inaugeral meal. i remember thinking how fabulous it was that only days
before i had been drinking espresso in an outdoor cafe in boston and
here i was having espresso in au plane aire en santa fe. it was a
caffinated start to a day of galleries. i thought of this later when i
returned with christine and we went to that same cafe, off the plaza.
but our day of galleries... we began around the plaza and it was ...
not as interesting, but then the street, the street with all of the
real galleries, with real artists, not the people selling things, the
people expressing things!! we went to a pink gallery on a back side
street that had the most outlandish works, straight out of nyc. we
eventually ended up at the art store where i bought a new journal and
began taking notes. the journal was just completed last month (some 4?
years later, here in AK). last time in zrizona i brought it and nate
and i shared some of the memories with her friend kat. it went like
this, she was auditioning for a part to make ends meet, nate the
director and i the producer and she the starving artist, she had to
read the script, which was the hournal, and well..... it is proceless.
i hop, strung out, dehydrated
c
the other resturant............
, the other side of us. three guys, in a car for way to long. i have
been removed to the back seat so as not to create to much havoc. zach
rides shotgun, nate drives, and drives and drives... rocking out to
guitar rock, ever so nate. i think we even through an opera in there
for good measure. we pulled over along the highway in arizona, a road
side pisser, some old guy in boots and a hat and it is fucking hot. we
are all agrivated and edgy. i was probably manic and happy go lucky,
supremely annoying zachary, nathan having to play the diplomatic role
that calms me to the point of being tolerable. we are strung out,
tired and hungry, we driive. there is road constructio, "fuck it next
exit, what ever it is." it is, an ihop. ah airconditioning. we order
a pot of coffe i am ucking it down to no avail, one of these two dears
finally points out that i am probably dehydrated. food comes, water is
drank, life gets better. there are trucks driving by on the highway,
the sun is out and the exit has some strange southwest design in the
concrete retaining walls and we are at the edge of the construction. i
remeber watching the guys in with their pickups, in hard hats drive
back and forth thhroughout our meal, right outside the window. there is
a shitload of dust and they must be poaring cement. damb that has gott
to suck. well thanks foor the road guys. we drive off.