Not until after the shockingly enthusiastic response to the trip idea by my folks did I fully grasp that this was the perfect time to say "fuck it". Both of them had gone West around the same age so I decided to chalk it up to an Eblen rite of a passage, forced conscious expansion. I already abhorred political science, most college students and the rat race in general, so why not take the opportunity to embark on an idyllic American adventure? I was in. We drew up some vague plans and convinced another friend to join, setting our departure date for December 26.
My companions are old high-school friends, Ben and Nate. Ben, the driver, is a gangly redhead whose absurdity mixes well with his surprising intellect, a modern bohemian of sorts. Nate is the son of two doctors. His semi-sadistic, yet razor sharp wit blends hilariously with a penchant for high shelf liquor and the occasional, accidental rendezvous with doughy girls.
So now here we are, it's 1 am, in a blinding snowstorm, traveling leftwards across the map, and I have neither a return plane ticket nor a plan. All I know for sure is that anything and everything that happens to me will be updated here, no holds barred.
The next stop was Lawrence, 45 minutes further down the road, where Kansas University is and where we planned for a night of heavy drinking. After booking a cheap hotel, our first stop was the liquor store where without a word, we went straight for the bourbon. It was 5 o'clock and we were all beat from just having gotten short bursts of shitty, neck raping car sleep. So I got a bucket of ice and we sipped our respective pints away in a quiet stupor. As our exhaustion began to subside, it was replaced by the glorious and powerful bourbon buzz. We knew it had taken hold after an irrational, full volume 15 minute screaming argument over Something I don't even know. We reconciled just as a jaunty bluegrass tune began to play, transforming any residual tension into a bourbon induced whooping and foot stomping frenzy. We stomped around a while till we woke Nate up, who had taken the brunt of the early morning drive. Ben called a cab and since the town was fairly dead, we told the driver to just take us to whichever bar was busiest. He dropped us at a pretty standard college bar called Louise's. We made our way in and bought a round, all while Ben yelled irrationally at my lack of cash. I ignored him and he eventually sauntered off. Except for a glimpse, we wouldn't see him the rest of the night.
As we sat judging the crowd, a random guy staggered over to our table rambling about Vegas, where we said we were headed. Excited by this knowledge and with convenient drunken enthusiasm, he ushered over some girls and bought us all Vegas Bombs. After which he stood swaying for a moment and eventually stumbled off, leaving the three girls with us. We were riding that bourbon fueled confidence high as we talked with the girls and bought a few more rounds. Then one of us let a rape joke slip out a little too casually, which was not received well. We reeled and made last ditch efforts as they made excuses and left, one after the other. Apparently girls aren't too receptive to rape humor, especially coming from two strangers in the furthest depths of a maniacal whiskey binge. Alas, we left. I struck up a conversation with a kid who helped me get my favorite green hangover medicine, the night's sole victory. Then we began a self imposed, hellishly cold, two hour death march back to the hotel, loudly bemoaning our nights failures and riling ourselves into an anti Kansas rage.
Today we are hauling ass out of this flat garbage state and beelining for Colorado, the Motherland.
"Not all who yonder are lost"
-Yonder Mountain String Band
We fled Kansas... Barreling down 70 West, there was nothing to see for 8
hrs straight, but we were motivated and flew. I texted my brother's
friend Charlie, who lives in Boulder, telling him we were coming asked
if he had any recommendations as to where we should stay. He replied
with what may be the best answer I've ever gotten. It read something
like, "You guys can stay at my house. Once you get here I'll have dinner
waiting, a handle we can drink, I'll pick up some bud and my brother
will dd us to a pre-game and take us downtown so we can get fucked up."
None of us expected such incredible hospitality and we were elated.
Despite arriving at night and missing the epic Rockies reveal, our
escape from Kansas was of utmost priority and made getting to Boulder
that much more glorious. Not only did his family live on a badass,
rustic old horse farm right outside of town, but as we pulled in, his
mom was just then pulling a massive, sizzling plate of pork chops off
the grill.
After getting settled in and taking a tour of the property, we devoured the deliciously unexpected home cooked meal and prepared to hit the town. Charlie planned for us to pre-game with his local friends, so we headed to their place, picking up a case of PBR and extra liter of Wild Turkey 101 on the way, naturally. We jumped into the pregame as soon as we got there, taking full advantage of Colorado's great new legislation, and crushing all our bourbon and beer within minutes. The rest of the night was incredibly fun, but for brevity's sake I won't go into explicit detail. Aside from Charlie's blackout friend, Brandon who collapsed onto a coffee table while screaming of Charlie's fetish for pig pussy, it was more or less a typical night of bar hopping and dancing. I did get to meet and dance with Charlie's gorgeous blond friend, Lauren, which was a definite highlight. We had all hit that perfect drunk, except Ben, who at one point took a shot of vodka, somehow wandered into the bar's kitchen, vomited in a trash can, was politely asked to leave and then hilariously tried to take the trash with him on his way out.
I woke up in the morning disoriented and with that horrible mix of bourbon aftertaste and extreme cottonmouth. Aside from my wallet, all of my pockets were empty. No phone. Fuck. I at least had my wallet, though. Then I checked for my debit card. Gone. I realized in a moment of utter horror that I might be completely fucked. Trying to relax, I remembered they both may have been in my jacket, which I then realized was also nowhere to be found. Son of a bitch. Thousands of miles from home with neither any money nor a phone is not ideal. I said fuck it, my new mantra, and assured myself the jacket had to be somewhere and would turn up. Deciding to be happier about having met a beautiful girl than distraught about losing my stuff was pretty much all I could do to not short circuit. Charlie made us breakfast as we reminisced about the night and nursed our mutual pounding headaches. With all day to kill, we decided to rape our hangovers with a long hike. All the bars were still closed and I couldn't yet look for my jacket, so we drove up to the base of the Rockies and began to hike, with Charlie as our guide. Being a local, he knew the area and we blazed our own path up the snowy mountainside. We hiked and climbed all afternoon, precariously scrambling up icy boulders, and not turning back till we were all ravenously hungry. On the way down we invented a new sport called Mountain Skating. The objective was to run down the icy winding trail as quickly as possible, slide on straightaways, swing around skinny trees to help make pinpoint turns, and not die. Everyone loved it except Nate, who was bitterly rueing his decision to wear Sperry's and spent half the time on his ass.
We lounged the rest of the afternoon, prepared to search for the remains of my life, and got ready for the bluegrass show that was really the main reason we came to Boulder. Let the search begin. The last place we were the night before was a bar called Absinthe House and I recalled having danced most frantically there, so it was the first place I went to look. The manager exuded that typical Boulder pleasantness and was pretty understanding, telling me he'd been there himself a few times. But after rifling through a massive box of jackets, I had no luck. Not until checking every other bar we'd been to, did I officially lose hope. A watermelon sized lump formed in my throat as we called off the search and headed for the show. My last ditch effort was to ask Charlie to text Lauren and ask if she remembered anything, but since I'd just checked all the bars, I could only be pessimistic. Nate spotted me some pity cash and I sat gloomily inside the concert venue, nursing a beer and thinking over the big cluster fuck these losses would add to my already precarious life situation.
Then Charlie responded. Lauren remembered me leaving the jacket on a bannister at Absinthe House. With a glimmer of hope, I chugged my beer and sprinted out. After running the 5 or 6 blocks back and briefly getting lost, I arrived red faced and panting. As soon as I walked in the manager says "You were just here right? I think I found your jacket, it has a phone in it. Thank god you came back." Waves of relief washed over me as he explained he'd found it just a few minutes after I'd left. He led me to the back room and there it was. I immediately searched the pockets and found my phone but no card. Fuck it. My iPhone 5 would've been much harder to replace than my debit card. I couldn't have been more ecstatic. I profusely thanked the manager and he gave me a free vodka shot. The night was turning around. I sprinted again back to the venue, knowing the show would soon start, and bought myself another shot and beer. My nerves were fried and I had to revel in my victory. I found Nate and Ben and we celebrated some more. The elation from having found my phone, especially after being in such a hellish pit of despair, would fuel the rest of the night. The theater filled up, people lit up and we danced, whooped, hollered and foot stomped into the night.
Today we left at dawn with a 12 hour drive ahead of us. Minus one debit card, Next stop, Vegas.
Utter and complete depravity... As I sit pecking away on my still functional shattered iPad, watered down glass of bourbon in hand, I can still hardly fathom how it played out the way it did. We left Boulder yesterday, cutting through the heart of the Rockies, speeding through desolate Utah canyon lands, and leveling out in Nevada for the final dash to Sin City. Upon cresting a large hill, we drank in the bright, sprawling decadence of Las Vegas for the very first time. At the hill's bottom, we came face to face with the snarling neon beast that would certainly spell our collective dooms. Our room was at the Hard Rock, off the Strip, a home base for absurdity, and already reeked of fear and loathing.
That night after an overpriced dinner and beers, we began to drink. High shelf vodka for Nate, Juniors Midnight Moonshine for Ben and Wild Turkey for myself. We blasted music until midnight, when we left and got tricked into paying 20 bucks for the hotels garbage nightclub that was "full of girls". After Ben and I made dancing fools of ourselves a while, he again disappeared. Around 1 Nate and I meandered back up to the room to regroup and refuel. We had lazily slunk onto the beds and were on the brink of passing out when Ben came bursting into the room. "Whoooo Eeeeeee, I HIT IT BIG! Just made a cool $300 playing roulette, were going to the strip club, I'm buying!" Ben said, in a frenzy of enthusiasm. I've never been to nor cared about strip clubs. I find them exceedingly filthy and unappealing, but I wasn't going to turn down the opportunity in Las Vegas. The hotel provided a free ride in an Escalade and we made our way to Larry Flynt's Hustler's Club. The massive glowing pink building was a poorly glorified brothel and a greasy line of perverts snaked out the door. We got in line.
Inside we found our way to the stage and met up with Ben's college buddy, who was in town for a bachelor party. I sat down, wary of the unseen filth and scores of STD's that I assumed had by now permeated every inch of my body. The dancers were expectedly a mix of sad eyed, beaten down truck stop whores and those once hot girls from high school who had mysteriously disappeared after graduation when they realized the Glory days were now over. I embraced the debauchery, throwing Ben's money around and have never felt such exhilarating power with a one dollar bill in my life. It pains me to say so but it was surprisingly enjoyable. One stripper even took a keen interest in Nate, talking intimately with him even after he declined lap dance, i.e. gauging how much money she could milk out of him, literally and figuratively.
As my interest began to wane, I turned to see Ben talking to a fairly attractive, dark skinned young stripper and pointing my direction. She walked over, said he'd bought me a dance and led me over to a white couch that I do not think started out that color. She did her thing as another older stripper joined and asked if I'd pay her too. I told her I had no money. She assured me it was fine and that Ben would pay, as she made my face the meat of a gross, fake black tit sandwich. About a minute later, they stopped and after Ben informed the older one that he was out of money, she hilariously began yelling at me about getting paid. The interaction went something like this;
"Are you serious? I didn't even want the dance or your dirty tits in my face"
"You got the dance and I'm not leaving till I get paid"
Fine, I'll just leave then, I thought.
"Alright relax just let me look for my other friend"
I scanned the room for Nate and he spotted him talking with the same stripper from earlier. I told her to follow me.
"It's hard to explain but I need another 20 and its not my fault," I said, walking up to him.
"Hahaha alright" he responded, pulling out his wallet and handing me the twenty. I begrudgingly gave it to her and she walked away jubilant that her scam had again worked, probably for the 10 billionth time.
Around 5 in the morning Ben and I had had enough. We were exhausted, couldn't find Nate and left. We got back to the hotel and were half asleep when we heard Nate talking loudly in the hall. He opened the door and walked in with a strange girl, who I thought must've been the stripper from earlier.
"Looks like we're spooning tonight Benny boy," I said, as I got up to give them the bed.
"No that's ok, we can just use the bathroom" she responded in an oddly casual tone, as if it was business as usual.
"Well I can't watch and listen if you're in there," I joked. No one laughed but me and they closed the door.
30 seconds later they both walked out and Nate was apologizing. She left and he turned to us laughing hysterically.
"Dude, that girl was a fucking prostitute, HAHAHA!"
We all burst out laughing as Nate told the story.
"I'm walking through the lobby and about to get on the elevator when this girl strikes up a conversation. She seemed really into me and asked if had a room. In my drunken stupor and with 'first time in Vegas naiveté', I didn't think twice about it said yes, and she rode up with me. So we walk in the bathroom, and she suddenly starts rambling on about her 'donation.' Then in a moment of sudden, fortunate clarity I realized what she meant and what her job must've been. I apologized, told her 'no thanks' and said she should go."
We laughed hysterically before passing out, just as the first rays of the red Vegas sun peaked over the distant desert mountains.
Tonight, New Years. Good God.
Toasting to our hell of a trip, bourbon shots, Ben climbing out onto a narrow ledge 8 stories up, Wild Turkey fireballs, flamboyant drunken dancing, Moonshine blueberries, screaming along to Bohemian Rhapsody, hurling glass cups over the balcony, shouting desperate pleas into the dark at whoever was smoking the weed we wanted some of, and finally spotting a sign for a Fun. concert on the Strip which we decided would be well, fun. We stumbled out the hotel doors into the snapping jaws of the vicious beast that is Las Vegas.
After getting a ride and with Nate thoroughly impressing the cabbie with his random knowledge of Ethiopia, we arrived on the Strip a few blocks from our destination, the Aria Hotel. We walked in it's general direction and quickly lost site of Ben, surprise. Nate and I began to run, for no particular reason, and screamed happy New Years at just about every person we passed. Along the way a completely random Middle Eastern kid inexplicably starting running with us, which was hilarious. We convinced him to come to the concert and continued to run. Once there, we found some people sketchily selling tickets and talked them down to a mere $120 per ticket. The fools. The concert was in a big nightclub type place and was packed with the type of pretentious sleazy types who would not find our outfits hilarious. It didn't matter, my mental capacity was near rock bottom and I was incapable of self consciousness. I didn't even try to buy a shitty, sugary, watered down, twenty dollar drink...But that's mostly cause I was broke. Nate, on the other hand, indulged heavily. They blared standard techno music till midnight and I spent most of that time enraged at the fat, sweaty Asian kid rubbing up behind me, who apparently thought sodomizing a stranger is an appropriate form of dance. The countdown was pretty fun though and I did get to bring in the New Year getting to hear "Some Nights" live which can only be described as fucking epic.
After the show we kept dancing for a minute and I eventually spotted Ben, whose neck was being vigorously sucked on by a fat girl. Good form Ben. I hollered at him and motioned for us to leave. With a loud sucking noise he unattached the vampire fatty from his neck and we walked out. Nate was nowhere to be found. Outside was chaos, the cops looked antsy, hands flipping their holster buckles open and closed, ready for the kind of legitimate brute force that only a Las Vegas New Years could warrant. We stumbled back to the hotel room, getting into a hotly contested screaming argument about how far a block technically was and eventually each collapsing in a heap. A few hours later I woke up just as the sun was illuminating the nights wreckage and Nate burst through the door in Kramer-esque fashion. We later learned that he'd befriended a random couple, followed them around for some reason. When he walked in, my only was reaction was to burst out laughing. Unfortunately for him, what happened in Vegas didn't stay in Vegas but instead was publicly posted to hopefully enshroud him in shame.
That day, since we were in a town that probably had the most regrets per person of any other place on Earth, we checked out and sought a bookstore to rewind in. Nate was flying out that night and we had a few hours to kill. We drove around for hours and not surprisingly could not find a single bookstore in the entire fucking city. Exasperated, exhausted and generally harboring feelings of complete and thorough disgust, we needed to leave. Ben and I dumped Nate at the airport, joined the mass hell exodus, blasted "Thrift Shop", and made our way to the next stop, San Clemente, California with the Gates of Hell at our backs.
Here I am, I made it. Good god, a lot has happened... I'm writing now from the back seat of a busted up 95 Chevy Caprice, driven by a white knuckled, radiant, pale blue eyed artist, with fire in her eyes and her foot hard on the gas, winding up a mountainside. My tall, blonde cousin, Esme (ez-may), rides shotgun. She has been my guide to Los Angeles and greatest West Coast asset. Since a few days have passed since Las Vegas, and my fragile, hobo-esque life situation doesn't allow for easy Internet access, nor charge opportunities, nor much time to write, I'll try to sum everything up as briefly and hilariously as possible.
Ben and I quietly crossed into California in the dark. The first order of business was a stop at In-N-Out Burger. I made love to a Double-Double. We headed for the weird hills of Orange County, where a good friend of mine lived, Nick. What was supposed to be a four hour journey turned into six. We arrived weary and beaten. Nick, a California kid and MMA fighter, greeted us with enthusiasm and we went out for beers. Returning late that evening, Ben went to sleep, and Nick and I talked into the night about old adventures and new plans, Spartacus blared loudly in the background.
In the morning, and in his usual offbeat and wrenchy fashion, Ben was nowhere to be found. I knew he planned to leave early but expected a wake up so I could unpack my life from his car. Of course he had unloaded everything except my iPhone cord. And yes, having a bullshit, randomly sized, iPhone 5 cord is every bit as irritating as it sounds, especially when even starving, penniless African children have spares of the old iPhone cord. I had $11 left in cash, still no debit card and my only cord was doing somewhere around 70 mph on a beeline back into the desert, headed for Palm Springs. Enraged, I wrote him via Facebook to verify it was gone. He found it still plugged in to his dash, realized the severity of his mistake and officially had fucked me. He said he'd ship it, but I planned to head to an unknown place in LA that day and told him not to bother, since I'd have to find a replacement before then anyways. I called my cousin Esmé from Nicks phone, arranged for my parents to wire her some money and got the address of where she'd arranged for me to stay. Nick drove us north up "the 5" toward Venice beach, where I apparently would be staying, and dropped me off sometime late that afternoon.
I met Esme and her friend Ava, with whom I was staying, and begged them drive me to buy a cord. We made moves, Esmé took out $160 of the $300 my parents wired for me, I bought a cord, checked in with my folks and we prepared for her friends birthday that night. With my "fuck it" mindset I put on my gold jacket and argyle sweater for the occasion. No better way to meet strangers than with a pre-guarantee that you'll be the most bizarre person there. I poured a whiskey on the rocks, smoked weed, and waited for Esmé to return with her friend Heather. They arrived primped and prim, and I struggled to make a non- awkward introduction in a haze of weed and whiskey. We piled into Heather's Chevy Caprice and hopped onto "the 101" towards Hollywood, where we were already late for sushi dinner at a Japanese place called Kabuki. I met Jessica, the birthday girl, ate sushi, drank saki, and we left soon thereafter for the bars to begin yet another night of debauchery.
Arriving at an upscale, deserted place called Broadway Bar, I immediately bought Jessica and I a shot and inquired with the bartender as to where a more exciting bar might be. It being a Thursday he guessed a place called Los Cita's might be fun and I, despite having just met everyone there, insisted with drunken excitement that we leave immediately. For some reason they trusted my methods and we left. Of course we got to the other bar and it was also dead. I was infuriated and ordered more drinks for Jessica and I. At this point the brown out began to take hold. I was still conscious but with that absurd, potentially and probably humiliating, complete disregard of self consciousness. As I continued to fiendishly order shots for myself, the girls and any stranger in sight, my self control drifted to that rock bottom level of sad hilarity that I'd recently become a little too casual in reaching. With no regard to the type of music playing, I grabbed Heathers hand and semi-impressively laid down some merengue dance skills, my last composed move of the night.
I woke up on an unfamiliar leather couch with what felt like a mouthful of tequila soaked cotton balls, a jackhammer in my skull and couldn't see a thing through my dried out contacts. My phone was missing, and I only had $20 left in my wallet. It was hilarious. Stumbling around in my gold blazer and argyle sweater and blinking furiously, I looked like a freshly lobotomized gypsy troublemaker. I found a door, walked into a sunlit kitchen, which I had by now ascertained was in a glass roofed house in the woods on a mountainside, and came upon a charming old Australian woman cooking breakfast. Still buzzed, I introduced myself and ended up having a lively conversation with her, who I learned was Heather's mother, and talked about her awesome house and of my adventures. Our conversation awoke Esmé and Heather, who came down and joined us for breakfast. They informed me I was a ridiculous fool, as usual, and had ranted for the entire car ride to a party in the mountainous Topanga, north of L.A., before passing out and turning into an unresponsive corpse. Fortunately I found my phone in Heather's car and chalked the night up to a complete success, minus having spent nearly half my money in one fell swoop of tequila induced idiocy.
I spent the morning recovering and Esmé made plans with Heather for us to go to her cabin in a town called Running Springs, which up in the mountains that overlook the San Bernadino valley. We are headed there now with plans to drink, smoke, relax the weekend away and hopefully dabble in some depravity.
Last Saturday Heather and Esmé made plans for us and two other friends to go to Heather's cabin in Running Springs for a few days. They dropped me off at Ava's the night before, as I was in the midst of a belligerent rant about having been slighted by some selfish Californian fuck who refused me a singe hit of his joint, which in my opinion warranted all, if not further unchecked infuriation. So the next morning I waited for them to pick me up before we headed to the mountains, where we planned to meet their friends Sunny and Andrew. They arrived, we hopped in Heathers Chevy Caprice, and despite having just parked, found that it wouldn't start. We called AAA and they pulled up approximately 10 seconds later. After determining that it wasn't the battery, they called us a tow truck and said it would be about 30 minutes. After waiting 50 minutes I called AAA back and asked what the deal was. The lady proceeded to bitch me out, saying the tow truck had been waiting by our car for 30 minutes and calling us non-stop. "We'll that's just Wrong" I replied. "We've literally been sitting on the car this entire time, you think we want to be waiting here and I'd lie just to spite you?" She huffed and puffed and I was a dick because she deserved it and she said, with enraging smugness, that another truck would come in an hour. Eventually the truck came, towed us one fucking mile to Pep Boys, we had the starter replaced and were on our way.
I was exhausted, passed out in the back, woke up at dusk to a snow covered mountainside and started to write my last post. We finally reached her cabin around 7 that night. It sat on a steep, snow covered slope, and Heather and I spent a good hour shoveling out their driveway before finally getting to sit and enjoy its idyllic glory. When we came inside, Esme had a roaring fire going and we relished in its warmth. A short time later their friends Andrew and Sunny arrived, whom I'd met the night before. Sunny was a long, blonde haired, stereotypical Californian and Andrew was a short brown haired half-Brazilian. Both were smart, likable and talented guitarists, which made for lively conversation and fun drunken singing throughout the weekend.
I could describe the next two days in explicit detail, but it wouldn't be worth it. We basically just laid around the fireplace, ate, drank, went sledding and smoked. Some highlights were a conversation about how Californians hilariously refer to all numbered roads as "the 101" or "the 405", something they didn't realize no one else does (it sounds EXACTLY like this...The Californian's), the Inglourious Bastards drinking game, dodging trees while perilously sledding through a foggy, night blizzard, homemade pizza and highly contentious games of Othello which made Esmé and I both enraged and briefly despise each other.
Actually the awesomeness of the weekend can be summed up by one event. We were standing on the deck, smoking spliffs, when the next door neighbor, an older man, came stumbling through the snow over to our deck, clearly shitfaced at 10 AM, and handed me a freshly rolled joint. He said it was from his homegrown supply, we thanked him profusely and as he stumbled away, I yelled after him "I Fucking Love California!".