A Day of Badassery

The day began at four thirty in the morning. I was up an hour early, not because I was excited, but because I could have sworn it was five thirty. I wander like a zombie into the shower, and bathe myself in freezing cold water for a few minutes. The life comes back to me, I have returned. After the shower, I throw on my Oakley boots, my 5.11 tac pants, the Russian tanktop, and a couple layers to keep me safe from the cold. As I make my way down my stairs, my father, who is ever vigilant; kindly let me know that I was indeed up an hour early. Back to bed, close my eyes for an hour. I got it right the second time. I make my way down to meet my brother who is in his stoic cheery mellow mood (this is a good omen). We make breakfast, and wait. And Wait...And wait... At long last the doorbell rings, and we are quick to leave the house into Michael Angelo Barragan's car. In his car I meet his two sons Juan Pablo (Juanpi) and Fabio. All these gents were way older than my brother and I, but it didn't really matter. We didn't really know them either, so... fuck it. On top of it they were late, but it is Bolivia...

In the car we drive to Las Cholas. A popular meeting place for all those who grew up in the 70's 80's and 90's. I just missed the generation for that, and we spent more time in Cafe's than Las Cholas. Nevertheless Las Cholas is famous, and is always a great meeting place. We met up with the others (who's names I'm just going to leave out, mainly because I don't rightly remember all of them). We take the costanera down into Mallasa. From there we head up towards El Alto via Achocalla. Once we make our way up to the high ghettoish city at 13,400 feet, we drive towards Patacamaya. A little town situated near the border with Chile.

The road, though asphalted was in desperate need of repair, we were all glad they were building a second lane, a project that was headed by three international companies. One of them (the Argentine one I'm told) hightailed it out with the money, and hence part of the lane will probably never be built. So in the car I get to know these gents, one is a retired rally car driver with a couple screws in him, the other is a chill dude, and the other a chill father. They all like Harley Davidsons and listened to the intro to that one show... Sons of Anarchy. They love that show.

After a quick hour and a half we made our way to Patacamaya. Now, there isn't much at Patacamaya, and you really would probably miss it if it wasn't for three things about the town. First, if you go straight(slightly left) you'll head down to Cochabamaba, Sucre, Oruro, Potosi, Tupiza, Villazon, Jujuy, Salta, Metan, El Jardin, Tucuman, (we're in Argentina as off Tupiza). Second, you turn right and head off to Chile. Now when you turn right, you're going to notice a small military outpost, and this is where today's journey had brought us. Through some type of negotiation and exchange of medicinal goods, as well as some funds for a new racketball court, we were allowed a tour, demonstration, and of course the chance to shoot a bunch of things that would usually be off limits to civilians.

After a breakfast of steak and eggs (passed on the eggs), we headed off to watch a little demonstration of our Austrian tanks from 1979. Then we sang the national anthem(both parts). Then the real fun began. The day started us off with the shooting of the FN FAL and an M1 Grand. Sadly I didn't get my chance at the m1. As for the FAL I managed to get all my shots onto the target, in a pretty concentrated area the first time around. The second time wasn't as good, but still all shots were on the target. We later went to shoot a MAC (light machine gun, not a MAC 10). By this point we were all riled up.

While we were having fun with the MAC we had five tanks and a repair tanklike thing pull up behind us. We then rode on the tanks to the tank shooting range. Before we got to see the tanks shoot off a couple of rounds, we got to try out a .50 Cal machine gun. It was pretty awesome watching the tracer rounds fly a distance of two kilometers and hit on target.

Next up, we got to see the tanks fire a couple of rounds into the mountain side, and just DECIMATE a crater. By DECIMATE a crater, I mean just make it much bigger. While watching the tanks shoot, you could feel the shots (we were maybe half a kilometer away from them) in the stomach. The neatest thing was watching the explosions go off and waiting for the original blast, and then the echo. After this demonstration of firepower came the real fun. My brother and I got to shoot a round. I remembered hearing the other shots going off, sounding like some Viking God's battle drum, each shot like small punch to the gut. Then came our turn, I could have sworn the shot before ours was ours (I loaded and aimed the bullet Axel fired it, hence we were separated by the loading mechanism). Then out of nowhere an ear shattering blast (with ear protection on) went through my body. I saw our round blow up a chunk of the mountain. AWESOME... or so I thought, it was just getting started.

After firing the rounds and performing a "good" failure free demonstration the people who fire the shells and aim them must pick them up, fill them with a liter of beer and chug the beer, if you stopped drinking you were dishonored. I am proud to say I was the first one to finish. When you finish your...shell you are supposed to yell TANQUISTA!!! Which I did with a primal shout, that really sounded like a Whisper due to the ringing in my ears. I just realized I chugged a liter of beer out a tank shell that was just fired, I immediately could taste residues of gunpowder and probably sulfer. At this point I just realized I had one hell of a fucking day. Not only did I get to indulge my addiction to the smell of gunpowder, shooting things, explosions, and got to aid in shooting a tank which my brother fired, I just chugged a liter of beer faster than anyone in a group of nine adults... out of a tank shell. To make things better we headed back to the military base at Patacamaya and had lunch and drank with the officers got to know each other, and well just got drunk. Driving back we chilled out to Pink Floyd, Lenny Kravitz, and other stuff. Headed back to Las Cholas then home, hauling our tank shells as proof of our bad ass day.

I just realized I found a new Kings Cup for New Vegas. Awesome. 

 

*Tanquista kinda of means he who drives a tank, a tank driver, but made into one word.

Sexy Breakfast Drink

Recipe:

In a glass fitted for the hand of Andre the Giant mix;

Lots of ice
A splash of lime juice
Then equal parts gin and tonic water
Garnish with a slice of orange

Pour this concoction into a second grandiose mug to mix it and voila, you've just cooked up a sexy breakfast.

Green River

After a fantastic road trip down the coast with some of my favorite people in the world (which is a different story altogether) I find myself in Green River, Arizona visiting my dad. Since I am feeling pretty lazy and hate typing on the keyboard that I’m using, I’m writing this post in bullet format. So here goes:

*Green River is located about 40 minutes out of Tucson and 30 minutes away from Mexico (yessss)

*It is basically a retirement town/community. You aren’t allowed to live here unless you are 55 years of age or older, but most are closer to 80 something. Since I am significantly younger than the required age, I need a youth pass to be here. I don’t have one. There is the possibility that I might actually get stopped and asked for my papers.

*Almost everyone drives a golf cart around here. They are safer than cars for old people…mostly. They also all have little yippy dogs….the worst kind of dog you could ever own.

*My dad and step mom are possibly the youngest residents here.

*How did they end up here? A relative lived here before and she died, so instead of moving into a little one bedroom apartment in Tucson, they decided to rent this house from the living relative who owns it. *Since I don’t remember the name of the lady who lived here, Ill call her Snow White, because everything from the no longer imported Chinese rug to the walls, tiles and furniture is white. Snow White was a smoker, and would throw talcum powder around the house to cover the smell of cigarettes. My dad and Christine have been living here for over 6 months and are still finding talcum powder in random places.

*Snow White was apparently a total recluse. She hardly ever left the house and even refused to have a mailbox on the street and put one on the side of the house instead (apparently the street was too far?) As a result, none of the neighbors have ever even seen the interior of the house. When they moved in, some of the more nosy neighbors craned their necks to peek in and asked if they could come inside. Christine said no. Way to keep up the tradition. Apparently Snow White was such a hermit (or she just hated her neighbors that much) she even stated in her will that after her death she didn’t want anybody going through her stuff or her house. To this day the neighbors still haven’t seen the interior.

*Not only have they made a friendly impression with the neighbors, they are also at ends with the mailman. As soon as he learned that Snow White had died, he told my dad and Christine that they needed a mailbox on the street because he doesn’t deliver to houses. Being as stubborn as he is (you can see where I get it) my dad told him no. They got a PO box instead and left the mailbox on the side of the house just to piss him off, and occasionally they still get mail addressed to the house, and the mailman ends up on their doorstep at least once or twice a month in an angry huff. Occasionally my dad will answer the door in boxers, a wife beater and a beer in hand just to watch his reaction. They get a kick out of it.

*Since a lot of these people are on medications and such, they aren’t allowed to drink alcohol. I don’t know how they enforce that, maybe someone checks on them something, but a lot of the residents go to the liquor store to buy those airplane sized bottles and once they get to the intersection before the neighborhood they chug them and toss them as they cart home. True story, I saw all the little bottles the other day. It’s both funny and sad.

*I just love this, it blows my mind. The sheriffs department is strictly volunteer. What kind of authority could an 85 year old volunteer sheriff possibly have?!

*Big news…there was a shootout in the neighborhood the other week! A man was on the golf course and saw his wife’s golf cart at another man’s house. So he jumped into his golf cart, ran home and grabbed his pistol, and shot his wife’s empty golf cart as he rolled past. (Quick! Someone call the sheriff! Oh wait…)

And that’s Green Valley. Yesterday we drove out to Elgin for a wine tasting tour and then I wandered through the desert with a mule hugging my left side and a cute but stubborn little burro on my right. It was actually a lot of fun! Today I might run around the neighborhood evading the pretend police and trying not to get run over by a golf cart. And tomorrow maybe shoot on down to Mexico to grab some dinner. Or a picnic. Or another adventure. Who knows.

The Journey Down South.

You know you are in deep shit when your grandfather calls you asking you when you're flight is.  It is six in the morning, and you casually respond "the twenty seventh..." there is a pause and then your grandfather says "It's the twenty eighth".  You think, "poor old man probably forgot to set his watch properly".  A few seconds later I checked the clock on my night table...it was the twenty eighth.  So began my journey down south, oh yea I almost forgot, a friend of mine was dead and I just ended a relationship, and was planning on getting out of another one.

While the beginning of the journey seemed... well just screwed and doomed to fail, through some odd miracle I actually made money off the missing of my flight, and was able to celebrate the birthday of assless chap boy (pictured below).  On the way down I stopped in Denver(I can only think of Moriarty, and Marx), where I had an ex-alcoholic bartender who worked for American Airlines at the Admirals club treat me to I think 12 shots of high quality Colorado Berry whiskey. This lady was OBSESSED with the serenity prayer, said the thing had gotten her through her life, and that God was looking out for her.  I have to admit I admire her resolve.  Any ex-alcoholic fighting the airlines for her old job as a bar tender is clearly...just a different kind of being. As for the whiskey...this was GOOD stuff, I mean I hate whiskey, but this was on a whole different level.  So in a slightly tipsy daze I strolled off to my next flight which would lead me down to Miami.  Yes, I also met an Australian soccer player who had a broken leg(before the whiskey).  It's amazing how being an ex-cripple lets you associate with people, he was going to Spain for the running of the bulls, I'm not sure if he survived, I never wrote him back.

When you get to Miami, the world on it's own ceases to exist, especially MIA (Miami International Airport).  People stop speaking English, they also stop speaking real Spanish, and speak this weird Caribbean/Central American Dialect.  Yes you can understand it, but if I had a beard this Spanish would make it twitch.  By the time I get to Miami I am low on sleep, and still have my mind a little jumbled from an empty stomach mixed with a couple of shots of premium Whiskey.  I was just nodding, and grumbling my way through the mispronounced vowels (whether it was in English or in Spanish) of Miamy Eenternashyonal AirpOrt personnel.  It was at this point where I began inboxing/chatting with an old friend I guess one of my best if not the best friend in high school.  A day later the guy ended his relationship with his girlfriend (my fault I convinced him too, but he agrees it was the best thing ever).

At this point my mind stopped and just went over the events that had transpired in the past two days.  Not only had I missed a flight, gotten a new one, and made money off of it.  I had also met a crippled Australian soccer player who was going to Spain to run away from Bulls, met an ex-alcoholic bartender to buy me alcohol, I had also gotten one of my better friends to break up with his girlfriend.  If this wasn't enough, I had to find a way to tell a girl not to keep her hopes up for us, mainly because she was a single mother, and quite honestly I wasn't interested.  What a mess, way to go out in a bang.

At long last the time came to board the flight from Miami to La Paz.  My journey came slowly to a close.  With just a haze of "holly shit that just happenedness" in my mind I stumbled off the airline at nine at night (an odd time to arrive to La Paz) taking in the thin mountain air getting high off of oxygen and sleep deprivation; I found myself thinking... what a way to travel. 


****I would like to point out that La Paz it at thirteen thousand feet, hence the lack of oxygen. 

A Sunday Drive

Yesterday I took a drive from Billings to my favorite camping spot, Basin, located just outside of the little town Red Lodge.  Along the way I realized what amazing local attractions Montana has to offer.  What follows is a simple one hour photographic journey that I have taken many times and only documented yesterday. Now I share it with you. 

The Beartooth Mountains while driving along 212

The first stop on our journey is a "Pathway thru the Bible" made by a farmer in his spare time by using rocks from his fields.  I didn't stop to visit Esther or Moses today, but my mom took me here when I was in 5th grade.  It's a rockin' good time.  Every major bible story is laid out from Lot's wife--now a pillar of sandstone--to a granite Jesus in a bolder gethsemane. 

Popular attractions include: Eve and Adam with a pebble snake, stone-hearted Abraham sacrificing a granite Issac, an ark of slate with stuffed animals on board, blind Samson pushing down two pillars and the crowning jewel is a baby Jesus sleeping on his manger of bedrock.  

Next on our venture is the front lawn of an art gallery in Joliet, MT. It brings to mind what our futures might look like.

Only a hop,skip, and a jump from that is Boyd, MT. Home to this car since 1977 the car has been looking for a new owner since the last one died in a tragic farm fire. Jared, I do believe this may be Big Chief Red Feather's long lost older brother.

Moving on we arrive at a sign just before you pull into the lost village bar and grill. Remember, we are in conservative country here, keep your fruity drinks and liberal ideas locked up.

Down the road from Joliet is one of the greatest road signs ever. If you need further information please call 406-425-2222 now.  Remember: Talk. Teach. Listen. Lead.  



 Pausing outside of Red Lodge we find my favorite microbrewery; it is run completely on solar power and contains the infamous Bent Nail Porter.



Down the street is the Snow Creek Saloon, cash and cowboys only.

Towards the end of Red Lodge lies the Yodeler Motel; a prime honeymoon motel.  No joke. If you are too poor to go to Yellowstone on your honeymoon, the Yodeler is the happenin' place. Plus it is within walking distance of the Snow Creek Saloon.

Finally we reach our destination, Basin campground, spot 7, the most luxurious camping you will find outside of KOA fake camping.

Bullwinkle says hi. 

Giddyup

This delicious piece of Kodak deserves a small addendum:

Our original purpose for visiting the ass-less chaps store, (Big R), was to buy tickets for the Cheney Rodeo. My coworker, Great Aunt Jenny Lou, had told me the day before that, at last year’s rodeo her friend had gotten so inebriated that she had forgotten to pull her pants down in the honey bucket and ended up urinating herself while she sat on the toilet. Being the dependable compadre that she is, Jenny Lou told her wet compatriot that you couldn’t smell or see the mess, (you could), and that they should just stay at the rodeo talking to all the boyz (a horrifying experience for the unfortunate girl the next sobering morning).

Needless to say this peaked my interest in rodeos; I having , until this day, a shameless rodeo virgin. So we bought the ticket and took the ride. The most interesting thing that we saw there was a French-Canadian’s chest. It was just shining bare and bright as Kristoff’s ass. Tronzor, this man and I had been the only three people smoking at the rodeo so we, necessarily, became friends. The night was getting cold so I made a jealous comment about the thermal efficiency of the French-Canadian’s mustache. He was proud of it, but then pulled his shirt away and bemoaned that as much heat as he trapped around his upper lip he would lose even more from his naked chest. However, after saying this his memory sparked, “but this one time I dated a german girl who had hair all over her tits…a lot of hair.” The moral of this story being, even if you don’t piss your pants at a rodeo you can still have fun with ass-less chaps and those silly French-Canadians.

Eco-Terrorism?

Genesis 1:28, bitches.

When I was a little kid, my rich-ass, hippie-dippie aunt (for the record, the irony of those two characteristics going together was not lost on me, even at such a young age) would take my mom, her other sister, and all us cousins to Sun Valley, Idaho every other summer; we once went for a hike. I remember the first fifteen minutes or so were incredibly boring. Fortunately, as is usual in early summer in the mountains, there was quite a bit of running water on the footpath. Like any little boys would, my brother and I started to collect rocks and dirt and such to dam up and divert one of the little streams, but when we got down to actually doing so, our aunt literally ran back down the path toward us, kicked our marvel of engineering into oblivion, and scolded us saying, "Stop it! You'll mess up the ecosystem!" This was news to me, and I've never forgotten the experience.


Fast forward ten years.

Last weekend, I was on a hike up the Bitterroot valley in Montana with my dad. It was gorgeous. About 40 minutes in, we found a cliff with a creek at the bottom.

                                     You can't see it, but there's about 200 feet of vertical death just behind me.

The Bible instructs us to take nature and subdue it. And at that moment, it dawned on me that all those years ago, my aunt had caused me to sin. Seeking atonement, I began to scrounge for rocks. Though I did not find one of those teetering, tree-shattering behemoths seemingly placed on hillsides by the good Lord himself for the express purpose of trundling, I did manage to pick up a stone big enough for my purposes. I fervently strode to the edge of the cliff, then released the rock with a "Here's to you, Aunt Al!" and happily watched it fall for several seconds before exploding into thousands of glorious pieces on the edge of the cliff, causing a small avalanche of dirt, rocks, and other debris to slide into the creek. And the weight of my conscience slid off my shoulders...

                                                                    Fuck the ecosystem.

Wet Hot Alaskan Summer.

Living the dream... subsisting off the land.

Salutations and Howdies

Greetings and salutations esteemed colleges of the lexical arts. This here is the testament of our trials and triumphs in our never ending battle against all things bad and boring. We invite you now to participate in this archetypic apocalyptic struggle. Just let us know how it goes. On this blog. Have fun.

So, may our cups runneth over with poems, short stories, whimsical slanders, and various adventure chronicles.

As the great prophet of apathetic semi-doom Bokonon once said:

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' 
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."