Bum's Rush: Road Trip Journal Part X

After driving through the mountains of Montana and the plains of Wyoming and coming over the Rockies into Colorado we finally arrived in Denver.

And then the scum came out of the wood works. Instead of sad, abadoned buildings and ruined turn-of-the-century archicture, we have buildings full of cheap souveniers and ugly, modern buildings. Instead of wild antelope, we have guys barely playing guitar. Instead of a running stream we have sizzling summer heat and smoke. It's an uneven trade. What's more if that I wanted to see an ugly city, I'd just stay home. At least then I'd have my own pillow.

The worst of it came walking back from the Ship Tavern in the Brown Palace. There's a long promenade that runs all along 16th Street (or is it Avenue? I know Denver has both for some reason*). If you've ever seen the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, it's a bit like that, except lower rent. And it has two Corner Bakeries. It's also lousy with people who don't seem to have anything better to do than to stand in place, smoke, and spit, which is crazy because the public library isn't that far from where we are and outside it is hot.

Idaho didn't have a lot of people that were just standing around. Neither did Montana. I don't even think Wyoming had those people. I assume that they just freeze to death in that part of the country. Or they own property and just do that shit on their own time. Here in Denver it's a part of the local color.

As my dad and I were walking back to the hotel, we were paralleled by a group of, I don't know, vagrants? Not bums. Not hobos. Just people who, let's say, took less care in their

And we did what everyone on earth would do, which is ignore them and walk on by. What are we going to do, start a conversaiton with them? Ask about their musical influences? I know my dad isn't, that's for sure.

Then the guy takes it upon himself to be a smart-ass. He's going to right this wrong, apparently. "Excuse me, sir, could you please just ignore us?" he said in the tone that I imagine someone who believes they are owed something.

Dear Moocher: Being a passive-aggressive and rude to people who don't want to give you money for no reason makes you into an asshole.That sort of thing has also got to make the stationary beggars unhappy. Or at least feel a bit chagrined. Here comes some out of towner, pissing off possible donations and not even doing it right.

Not to say that we didn't run into people of all kinds on the trip. Most everyone was decent and helpful and accommodating. The jerks are the exceptions. The crappy things tend to shade everything else more than they should.

So, don't try to ruin my vacation, please. That's our job.

High Point of the Day: I don't remember. This whole entry is three or four days late. Let's just assume it was that massive seafood chowder I had at the Ship Tavern. Oh and the seafood pasta thing. My God that place was good.

Low Point of the Day: That bum.

*In Idaho I heard the line "I think it's on the corner of First and Second" and he wasn't a guy huffing glue.

So Long Stink State: Road Trip Journal IX

Yesterday we finally got the fuck out of Wyoming

We're now in northern Colorado and it's almost as though we're back in a civilized part of the world. There are people with teeth and there isn't nine bars open at breakfast and it doesn't look like a place that's just looking for a bomb.

Even my dad, in his obliviousness to Wyoming's hicks and horrors said that Colorado is a great state. Apparently it's his favorite state to travel to outside of Ohio (and telling from his constant, unsolicited editorials, it might even be nicer than California, which he apparently hates passionately. He says this almost like we're not going back there). Colorado is a pretty nice place. I have some pretty decent memories of this place and, at the very least, it isn't Wyoming.

Hey, why does Wyoming have so much wind? Because Nebraska blows.

Here's proof that I'm no longer on the frontier: This coffee shop that I'm at sells kombucha.

Part of the trip's appeal is to see things and places that I don't normally see in California. Things like indigenous trees. Things like open country. Things like fresh air. Things that LA normally doesn't care about or can't be bothered to have. Though, Colorado has the same kind of appeal that a lot of Los Angeles has, which that it doesn't make me immediately and palaply feel the specter of death.

I mean, they smoke weed and make kombucha up here. This is God's country. Clearly.

I guess I should draw more. Or just do more of something. Listening to podcasts and twiddling away on a “travelogue” is hardly actual work. I'm supposed to get stuff down out here. In a way I sort of have. I started and finished Ledfeather, a book my friend gave me. It's. . . incomprehensible, but I finished it. Since it's by an Indian and Indians, I'm just going to assume that it's a cultural thing so I don't have to live with the thought that the only Native American author I've ever read (besides, like, one Sherman Alexie short story). The idea of that makes me sad. Guilty sad. White guilty sad mess.

I am writing, though. That's nice. I also started up Jo Nesbo's Headhunters, so that should be fun. I can imagine Jamie Lannister pulling a Chigurh.

Anyways, I'm at a coffee shop. There's a flat screen TV on the wall (because what doesn't have a screen nowadays?) and the news is playing. The story is about Paris Jackson testifying in a civil trial. And now I kind want to go back to the country. I know the news over there is going to be the same. It's just that I get the sense that up there people might not watch it. The kombucha is nice, at least.

High Light of the Day: We saw a bear.

Low Light of the Day: It was a baby bear separated from it's ma. Shit suuuuucks.