Quote of the day:

 Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

 --Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning"
 

8 AM Friday, June 28

 Caliente El Grande

 Sitting here at a picnic table next to a natural hot spring, enjoying a half of a ripped Budweiser can of melted ice (we thought far enough ahead to make sure that we had beer, but not the precious aqua; go figure). Spent the night in the mountains above Santa Barbara. Got off 101 in SB as the day was wondrous and clear, and the ocean from Ventura onward was a relentless siren of invitation.

 So we had a couple of frozen margaritas at Moby Dick's deck on Stearn’s Wharf, watching the pelicans and seagulls cruise for food; then on to Joe's for a couple of toxic cocktails, introduced the bartender there to a margarita with no sour mix, just a splash of Quantro and Rose's lime juice; not knowing just what to call it, he decided he'd call it a Mac (go figure). The toxic cocktails at Joe's worked to perfection once again as we wandered out of there, are attitudes nicely tweaked, in search of free pizza, a beer and a couple of games of pool at Toe's; 2 outta 3 ain't bad as the free pizza wasn't scheduled to arrive until 10 PM even though there advertisement mentioned nothing of the sort (go figure); then cruising up State looking for free Happy Hour food, we scored at Alex's Cantina with a buck a piece spicy chicken burritos; and then an hour and a half climb in the Passion Mobile up into the mountains overlooking SB, over the back side to the hot springs at Caliente El Grande; hopped in for a long soak; hung with some dudes in their teens who have been up here all week; they ran out of alcohol, and I didn't see any sign of food; a couple of guys in their early twenties showed up in a VW bus; enjoyed a session of joke telling with many 'fucks', 'an' shits' and 'like . . .':

 The rope who got back into a bar he was thrown out of as a frayed knot: "Aren't you the rope I just threw out of here?" "No, I'm a fraid not.

 A hard of hearing genie: "A million ducks isn't that bad, you think I wanted a twelve inch pianist?"

 A woman who insists on ordering chocolate ice cream: "What do you get if you take the straw out of berry? What do you get if you take the van out of vanilla? What do you get when you take the fuck out of chocolate?"

 Wait, there' no fuck in chocolate."

 "That's what keep tryin' to tell ya, there's no fuckin' chocolate!"

 Guy trapped on a desert island with some other guys who have been there for a while: "You can come stick your dick in the barrel every day but Wednesday."

 "Why can't I stick it in on Wednesday?"

 "Cause Wednesday's your day."

 Finally a big, square faded white Dodge van pulled up and out hopped a woman and bongo player for a jam; Jonathan, some people call him Jon but he told us we could call him Dwight, is an idea man, Chuck, you know, the kind of guy who thought of feeding mayonnaise to tuna. He wanted to do a video of the Amish and put it on MTV; he struggled for a moment with he idea that the Amish, who of course refuse to allow any pictures to be taken of them, would probably be a little resistant to the idea; he also wanted to direct a video of my song, "I Can't Stand the Chance of Falling in Love with You", after Jon and I did a version in semi-harmony, of a woman in long flowing veils on the cliffs at Monterey; the guy was a kind of creative, I'll give him that: he made his own bongos; he said his Dad was responsible for planting many of the trees that we saw around us in the immediate vicinity, and that his dad had come up with the instrument that made the sound from Star Trek III, when Spock gets pulled the vortex: "Yeah, man, it's the real deal. It's the real deal!"

 The bluffs looked outstanding in the bathed and simmering moonlight; felt like I was walking around in a Carlos Casteneda book; sleeping under the stars, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw the bands of the Milky Way above me, first time I've seen that in some time; got a pretty good roaring fire going; Jon fired up the Coleman lantern for some reason that escapes me now; a lot of things about last night escape me now.

 Flash on a couple of quick Pokey stories:

 Pokey was the name of the 1964 Ford Falcon van that Old and Haggard Karl bought for $100.00 when He, Bob and Jon were living at the Victoria House in Santa Barbara. Everyone knew Pokey's name because it was white washed on both its side and rear in big ole' paint-brushed letters as were PEACE signs and some other more cryptic symbols. Everybody agreed: Pokey was a conspicuously friendly van.

Old and Haggard then sold it to Bob a year later for $100.00. Bob lived in Pokey for a couple years while attending CalPoly in SLO. Bob graduated and then traded Pokey to Jon for a cute little stuffed Pokey (you know, Gumby's sidekick). Eye for an eye...Pokey for a Pokey....Conservation of Everything.

 Jon, the newest owner of Pokey-that precious mobile flux center; Jon, the man entrusted with the Karmic responsibilty stemming from a long line of magical Pokey moments; Jon, the last of the Vic's-six"; carrier of the torch--I can't go on with this so I'll just say it: Jon killed Pokey and sent him to THE CRUSHER. Jon will not be receiving Karma-Rebates for some time, still. As it turns out the last Pokey story shall be first.

 Pokey Dokey.

 Pokey made everybody who came in contact with him happy; kids would flash it peace signs on the freeway, old ladies would stop and start-up conversations, even the dogs hiked their legs elsewhere; so, this one day Bob runs out of gas on the highway in the pouring down rain; cop pulls over, asks Bob what's up, Bob tells him he ran out of gas; Cop says, "Let's see if we can get Pokey home, takes Bob to get gas. Even cops liked Pokey.

 So Pokey's got a light out, cop pulls him over, walks up to the driver's side, Bob rolls down the window, cop says, "Looks like ole Pokey's got a problem." Doesn't give him a ticket. Bob's Pokey was a 1964 Ford Falcon Van, Jon's also had a van at the Vic'; a 1963 Ford Falcon Van, but since Bob's one year older than Jon, and since Jon's Falcon is one year older than Pokey, it all adds up: again, Conservation of Everything.

 Bob was born on August 15, 1960, Jon on August 16, 1961. Bob and Jon truely believed, as they celebrated Bob's birthday, that at midnight there existed an infinitesimally small slice of time when it was both of their birthday's. So for several years, as a tradition, they went to Mel's Bar in SB and at the stroke of midnight would both get up on their bar stools with arms raised and the patrons would spin them around and around while singing Happy Birthday. Cool, huh?

 Just pulled into Los Alamos, moving north on 101 toward Big Sur, it's high noon. The day is hot, the sky is clear. Just passed one of those Litter Removal signs, but instead of the name of the organization responsible for picking up trash these two miles, there was the name, Bob Kaufman, and a picture of dear old Bob, mustachioed and sporting a smart looking beret. Way to go, Bob!

 Had breakfast this morning in SB at a place called Esau's. Best breakfast place in Santa Barbara according to Jon, "the most best food"; Jon provided illustration by leaving over half of his full stack of blueberry pancakes with wheat germ uneaten; I knocked off my breakfast burrito but left a bisquet; what can you do?

 Rolling into San Luis Obispo, flashback: Jon and I got picked up by two young women, sisters, 15 yrs. ago, who brought us into SLO and actually to their house so that they could do something (can't quite remember what), and then they were going to bring us further along the road to SF. But when we got their house, the family house it proved to be, their mother, who was baby-sitting the driver's newborn, wanted to know who the hell we were and what the hell her daughters thought they were doing driving around with slimedowskis like us in the car--I've got to admit, we were kind of in between showers. The driver fired from the hip without a blink, but got caught up in some conflicting stories as to our identities and explanations of our existences (I always have trouble with that one, too); it was finally discovered that we were--shudder, gasp--lowly hitchhikers. Mom exploded. The daughters were under no circumstances to bring us even one more mile more than they actually had to; as a matter of fact, dear old gal Ma wanted us to hit the highway right then and there, from their residential home in the middle of SLO, miles from a highway; but the daughters somehow manage to prevail on her sense of justice and compassion. They took us to a hitchhiking center for the military at the edge of town, several miles further than they had promised their nurturing matron. Bad girls, bad, awful, terrible, naughty, mustn’t pick-up nasty-asty-dirty-werty-hitchhikers. Bad! Mustn’t!

 On 1 just outside of Morro Bay and San Simeon, Charles Parker Kane's, a.k.a. William Hearst's, the pre-Rupert Murdoch's, humble abode. It's 12:57 PM.

 Jon question about car passed on highway: "Who the hell would buy a car called a Charade?" Mac response:

 "The same people who fall for the car dealership slogan we saw on the road a couple of days ago, 'We won't sell you a lemon,' or the slogan, 'We promise not to fuck you over, come on down." Jon's capper:

 "Hi, I'm looking for a Mockery or a Sham..." "Well, we happen to have a brand new Charade right over here.

 Running joke overheard/witnessed frequently on the trip: bending a plastic cut-out on the dash where the passenger's side air-bag is supposed to be and moving the plastic, mouthing the words as if the plastic was lips while saying: You're fucked! No air-bag here.

 The car by the way, A Mercury Trace subtly intimates that there in fact a passenger's side air-bar with a sign on the passenger's side sun visor which reads: AIR BAG, and then below in smaller letters: See Other Side. Tricky.

 Nice to see the ocean again. Still no clouds, but there is an offshore fog.

 Well, I'm sure you saw it coming: wandered through Big Sur just sec ago, saw the first place we arrived those many moons ago, the Riverside Campground, where the paranoid punk people worked; the cafe where we had that killer breakfast that morning. The view, the terrain is still to die for, breathtaking; Jon and I saw so much beauty today that by the end of the day we were literally numb. Driving along a most beauteous stretch of coastal route one, balanced precipitously on the edge of a cliff where reasonably no road nor car should dare go, Jon turned to the blazing ocean and cliffs magnifique and said: beautiful, gorgeous, never seen anything like it in my entire life, outstanding, ok, lets drive faster so we can get somewhere (maybe that had something to do with the previous night? Nah).

 7:10 PM Just rolled through Cannery Row; what a tourist trap/dump! Heading into SF tonight; perhaps stay with Pete?

 Your amigo, Mac Pilsner