In May of 2011 I set off to see what this great country  has to offer. I packed up the Jeep with a tent, some sleeping bags, my meager savings, and a sack full of hope. The journey would take me seventy four days and bring me through all the Lower 48 states. I went everywhere from Acadia to Yellowstone and everywhere in between. I witnessed a slew of eccentric people living in every corner and enjoyed the vast natural beauty that there was to see. I greeted a haunted doll in Florida, I dug for fossils in Wyoming, I accidentally kicked a wild peccary in Texas. Never again would I be at a loss for stories to tell!

So please, join me on my travels in my newly moved blog – Catching Marbles – I know the photos are old and probably not the best quality by my writing is as sharp as ever and the adventure just as sharp in my mind. And if you’re still around reading by the end of that journey you are welcome to follow me on my newest adventures, traveling to the beautifully obscure spots of New England!

As always, keep strong, be brave, close your eyes, and JUMP!

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

As I started out on my journey I watched all the places I had already been speed by me on the roadway and said a silent farewell. I found myself playing a number of games to keep my minds occupied. One was Find a Hummer That’s Not Bright Frikkin’ Yellow. I get a point for every yellow one, a negative point for every on that wasn’t yellow. I spotted a white Hummer limo, two black ones, a bright orange one, and too many yellow ones to count. I decided that should I ever get filthy rich I was going to buy a Hummer and give it a make-over. First I’d paint it a vibrant bubblegum pink and then I’d add Hello Kitty decals and breast cancer awareness bumper stickers everywhere, maybe with a few fistfuls of glitter to top it all off. It’s a work in progress… Eventually I’d dare someone to drive it.

Another one of my games might seem a bit… morbid… but I decided to do this before I left. I wanted to catalogue, out of curiosity, how much road kill I’d pass. I started to write down the species and how many. So far in my trip I’ve seen one dead horse, though not roadkill, who was aside the road, as well as three squirrels, one possum, two raccoons, three cats, one crow, one bunny, one groundhog, three deer, four unidentified pieces of gut n’ fluff, and two sweaters (in different locations – guess its Spring and everyone is just peeling off their sweaters in the streets and throwing them into the air with glee.)

I drove through New York City, or at least part of it. I was always told it smelled of dirty laundry and piss… and yes, it does smell like dirty laundry, but the part of the Bronx I repeatedly wove in and out of, much to the GPS’ great amusement, smelled more of dead fish than piss. Ghettos are ghettos, depressing as can be. The bridge was rusted and scary and I left without thinking about it too hard. No time to go through the city today.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

A while back I went to a Jason Webley concert. It was a crazy night. I had no idea who he was and when I arrived at a huge house that I was pretty sure was being used as a modern day commune I couldn’t help but laugh. “Tickets” were $5. There was a tiny fairy door in the wall. The audience was delightfully strange and musician singing… well let’s just say I wasn’t really expecting an accordion recounting 1980’s hits. How could I not be drawn like a moth to the flame when I heard he’d be back in Keene to sing again, this time as a warm up to another band I’d never heard of – Humanwine.

I got there an hour early so I fussed about in the rain going to Home Depot, Wal-mart, and Target in search of an elusive folding camp table. I didn’t find any, but made due with a much smaller wrought iron table. Traveling back to Main Street I found The Starving Artist. I guess it’s just a littler performance house. I walked in, passed over the $7 admission and looked around. It was a small place, there was perhaps thirty people here. I found an old beaten up couch in back with a long rip down its front. Cozy. I was a little bit early but not too bad. I didn’t expect more people to file in at a steady pace until the place was truly packed. There were perhaps fifty people here, some sitting on the floor, others standing in back, and the majority sitting in chairs. There were more beards and berets here than I have seen in my life. There was also a number of women with flapper haircuts. Three people with blue hair, a pregnant woman, a number of lesbians, some sort of gender interloper, an ungodly amount of Caucasian dreadlocks, people of all ages from teens to middle aged, and even two piss-faced drunks. One of those was so clichéd I could have laughed as he wobbled across the room, paper bag filled with two vodka bottles, in hand.

If I thought the crowd was interesting I was about to be surprised by the band. I decided it would be far more fun not looking them up prior to coming here. I figured it’d be interesting anyway, why not surprise myself? It was a band of two, the singer was a chick running around with facial and neck tattoos, a raccoon tail pinned to her backside, and a tool belt displaying a wee Bowie knife, as if she were planning to nab another raccoon should this tail wander off. Interesting. I listened intently when she started singing her chaotic, often punderfully titled, songs about political strife and how much people suck. I smiled. It was really fucking hot in the building and upon arriving I was already really tired and ready for bed. When the heat hit me I could barely keep my eyes open… that is until she got the whole audience bouncing about and yelling the chorus to one of the songs, which just happened to be, “WAKE UP! WAKE UP!” I woke up. After that I really started to have fun, even though I really couldn’t understand what she was singing most of the time, though she did a kick ass trumpet impression. I had no idea the human voice could do that…

After intermission Jason Webley came around. Strangely enough most of the people here seemed to be here for him. He gave his usual psychotically enthusiastic performance, gently harassing the people getting up and leaving to come in and out, “Next time they come back in everyone say welcome! And maybe clap!” We all did.. This was another one of those audience participation things. After singing Icarus and a few other songs he went to his usual routine of asking the audience if they wanted to hear any 80’s music that shouldn’t be played on an accordion on an accordion… You know like the Eurythmics Sweet Dreams. Of course he also did his free-style lyrically rearranged version of Free Bird as well. It remains good for a chuckle.

Eventually everyone was handed bottles with change or rocks in them to shake violently along with one of the songs. Everyone was clapping and stamping their feet a good amount of the time too, singing along when instructed to. It was all very noisy and fun. A strange moment of focus was given when he read an excerpt from a book but this was lost as he gave a farewell speech, saying he was leaving the music world for awhile… He struggled with words on that one so badly it was almost painful to watch but eventually ended the whole performance with something bouncy. We all left happy.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

I always thought Jeeps were the go-anywhere car that didn’t stop working until they die of exhaustion, like a mining pony! But alas, this Jeep seems to have needed a few little boosts. First the tire winch in the back was broken due to the hasty unprofessional treatment it received at the mechanics some time ago. The result was that the spare tire, an enormous twist of rubber, could only be carried in the car itself, and not riding the undercarriage as it was intended. I called my brother, who happens to be a mechanic, and asked where I could get a wheel winch. He replied, “What the hell is a wheel winch?” My brother’s a good mechanic but a very cheap one, I think he works mostly on $2 lemons the local teenagers get for their first car. When he realized what I was talking about he directed us towards three local junkyards, all of which first asked the same question my brother had, and then replied they didn’t have any Jeep parts that young. A quick search online revealed they also were not available for sale new. I figured I was screwed until after a week of searching I found one in Connecticut and had it sent right up here. Now I actually have enough space in the car to use the new SUV air mattress. My life as a Jeep wheelin’ gypsy is about to begin.

After the wheel winch was fixed a new shiny “radio” was installed. It was a magical music device that could read files off of a memory stick or something similar. I hadn’t realized the technology existed. I’m still stuck in the age of FM and AM I guess. In any event I had to search numerous local stores before I found what I needed at the Wal-Mart in Keene. It came with a jumble of wires that didn’t match the Jeep in any way shape or form. Apparently this Jeep was a prissy little thing that had a “premium” radio which was apparently another species to the regular ones. Back to the store to get different parts. Finally it was working, but now the car battery was dead from sitting in the driveway for two weeks. A quick jump, a little ride to Gardner, and low and behold the radio actually worked! It was loaded up with a psychotic cornucopia of music, anything for any mood, any day. I think if anything this may have given the new device a touch of schizophrenia. It’s OK though, I was having a lot of fun with it and laughing our asses off at various points. I guess trolling for “best of” albums gives you a lot of random weirdness, in addition to the already strange music singing about bifurcated tourists and lessons on how to spell damnation. “With the d and the a and the m and the n and the a and the t-i-o-n!”

So after the battery was charged it was time for some more DIY customizations. First the car needed screens so that if I did sleep in the car we could roll down the windows for air and avoid the bugs. This was easily solved with some sticky Velcro and plastic screening. $12 for one and a half windows worth of Velcro which melted off in the heat, though it is still mostly stuck… for now…

The other thing I needed was a privacy curtain so that people could not look through the windshield and see my sorry figure drooling in my sleep. So I pulled some leopard spotted polyfleece through the handloops on the ceiling and safety pinned it up. Polyfleece blocks out a substantial amount of light for its weight and it doesn’t fray. As an added bonus the leopard print adds 100% kitsch!

Lastly the roof rack need to be added. As sad as it sounds the Jeep’s roof rack did not have horizontal bars, meaning I could not attach a roof container onto it for storage. So it was another trip to Keene, this time to Home Depot where some wood, plastic tubing, and metal bits were procured, to create what was needed. It looks like a pretty sturdy, if not rustic-looking, contraption. I think it’ll work just fine!

For now the car customizations and repairs are done, but this will probably be an ongoing process as necessity arises. Meanwhile everyone is biding us adieu and asking all sorts of questions. The family in particular are concerned I’ll be eaten by bears, other scary wildlife, or in the case of my mother, the crazy homeless people she hears live at free camping sites. I have no doubts whatsoever I’ll see at least a few people with more than a screw loose but I think I can deal with it. As for bears… they’ve got nothing on me.

And to end this entry I decided to post a photo of a couple adorable Chihuahua Dachshund cross puppies. Why? Because my cousin Tanya is visiting this weekend and she brought them with her so I decided their cute must not be kept secret! Though I can testify the solid brown one hates me. Can’t win them all…

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!