Humblest Apologies

Alright people, here's the post where I admit to being a terrible blogger with all the updating in fits and starts, three updates in one week and then one in six months. I've been restrained by a variety of piss poor excuses: the creativity-draining administrative career, finding a new religion (Australian Rules Football, can I get an Amen brother?) and the giant hurdle that's been stuffing me about most of all - keeping the continuity. Now as much as I enjoy a bit of casual bondage, I prefer to be the one tying the devil's tongue, instead of my devil's tongue being tied.

It's not that I don't want to write because I've been overseas twice since the big US/Canada year, not to mention a massive Australia trip last Jan and there are a multitude of ideas being tossed around in my head. The problem is, I cannot write about the U.S. For the moment. It's a fantastic place and I will get around to it, but for the moment I'm being dragged down by the Memphis mire. So here's the plan.

Fuck the continuity. I'm going to write about the first places that spring to mind and then back date each post as I go along so that they're still in order. I'm going to reclaim the love that I had for recounting my experiences because believe it or not, I do love writing and whenever I cease to write for a long period of time, parts of my brain start to crumble away.

The bonus here is that now that it's the footy offseason I have absolutely nothing to do with my spare time and, having recently escaped the admin suckhole (for the moment) I have plenty of time to spare. I'm going to attempt to write something at least once a week and have designated Chloe as my arse-kicker if I fail to do so. She's a bony lass with a big butch arm, so I'll be in strife if I renege on this promise.

I'm going to kick off this revival with one of my new favourite places - Singapore. Until that's up, I'm just going to have to say it with flowers:

Sorry guys!

Sermon on the Little Rock

The Empress Hotel.

There ain't a great deal to Little Rock if you want to know the truth. It's a real Deep South kind of town - kind of quiet, kind of old-fashioned and hotter than hell in the dead of Summer. At this stage of my trip, I was begging for an opportunity to do absolutely nothing and I really found that opportunity in Little Rock. I only bothered to travel here for two reasons: one was for the Bed and Breakfast in the photo above and the other was to find the answer to a burning question I'd been asking since the primary planning stage of this whole trip:

Why the hell are Arkansas and Kansas spelt the same way but pronounced differently? Stop being so ridiculous America, you can't have it both ways all the time. After asking a few Northerners why Arkansas is pronounced Ar-kan-saw instead of Ar-kan-sas and not receiving any decent answers, I thought I'd go direct to the source.

The first thing I noticed about the city of Little Rock is that it's obsessed with lauding its one and only person of note: one former Arkansas governor-turned-president William Jefferson Clinton. The main street is named after him, as are many of the buildings and you can even visit the Clinton Presidential Center (I've heard good things about the library but do we really need to see an exact replica of Slick Willy's oval office? I really hope it has a pair of heels sticking out from underneath the desk). I didn't go because after several showerless hours on the bus I wasn't up for any more self-torture, just sleep. I was not disappointed on that front. If you ever find yourself stranded in Arkansas for whatever reason, I highly recommend crashing at The Empress.

The place is amazing. A fully renovated 1880's mansion turned into a sexy bed and breakfast, where every room is an exercise in antique overkill. I mean this in the best possible way. I was caught between feeling utterly charmed and flabbergasted by the place, it was far and away my favourite North American hotel. The rooms are reasonably priced, there's free liqueur in every room (always a drawcard) and the bed in the Eliza Cunningham room was so comfortable that I felt myself falling asleep whilst connecting the wi-fi. The housekeeper Mitzi was this wonderful Southern belle who turned out to be a total kitchen whiz as well. This was my breakfast on my first morning in Little Rock and oh my god, I'm amazed that I didn't hear a chorus of angels after the first bite.

Mind you, that would've been difficult as the chorus would've had to compete with my pontificating breakfast companions, who were some of the most insufferable people I've ever encounted. I realise that I was well and truly in the Bible belt at this point in my travels but I still didn't expect to hear a sermon over breakfast. I didn't even mean to bring Jesus into our conversation (hasn't he suffered enough already?) but the holidaying couple asked me about my university degree and well, what was I supposed to say? I can't help being a Religion major. As soon as the 'r' word tumbled from my mouth, they pounced with the obligatory "Religion major? So what faith are you a part of?."

Here's a tip, people. Never, ever say the words "Well actually you know what, after studying religion objectively I can't say I'm all that religious" to an American, unless you're talking to Steven Hawking, Richard Dawkins or someone you know full well is guaranteed to say "Oh yes, me too." and be done with it. Lie. Say you're a Pentecostal. Or a Catholic. Or a Puritanical Calvinist. If you're not an adherent to one of these and yet you still opt to tell the truth, look out.

I'm not going to elaborate too much on what happened next, but let's just say that by the end of my breakfast I was so enraged that my skin felt fit to burst, Incredible Hulk style. My eyes were flashing red and I probably could've melted the silverware with one direct glare. My breakfast preachers launched into an evangelical tirade in the vain hope that I would see the light and when, after arguing at length they realised I wasn't budging, they chalked their failure down to my mind being 'clouded by the lies of Satan, oooh look see how angry she is'. It was at this point that the tunnel vision began, so I rose from the table literally shaking with rage and politely excused myself.

The thing that annoyed me the most about that whole exchange was that they didn't even have the common decency to be from the South. They were from Los Angeles. What the hell. If you're from L.A, you're not supposed to be a friggin' Pentecostal! Be a Scientologist, follow the Kabbalah, go out and paint yourself blue and worship the Sky Father or better yet, go pay homage to the Almighty Dollar like everyone else in town. Don't give me this born again bullshit.

I took a long walk around Little Rock that morning and came to a conclusion about people in the American South. There are two very good reasons why Southerners have earnt their stereotype as fat bastards. First of all, have you ever actually gone outside in the dead of summer in a place like Little Rock? The temperature outside is warmer than the blood of a newly sacrificed virgin and on top of that, there's a thick curtain of moisture in the air. Unless there's a tornado in town, that humid air doesn't move. They get the shit end of the weather stick down in the bayou and I don't blame 'em for wanting to travel around in the air conditioned comfort of an SUV. Second, there's the matter of food. Good Southern food is enough reason to warrant being a fat bastard. Spicy fried chicken, cajun catfish, red velvet cake? That's the ultimate comfort meal right there as far as I'm concerned, oh yeah.

And what about them grits? Yes, my dear non-American readers, grits are a food now. That word used to make me think of those three last grains stuck to the bottom of a kitty litter tray. With this image in mind, I decided to take a punt and ordered a meal with grits for dinner, sitting rigid with anxiety for most of the preparation time. Believe me when I tell you my children, there's no need for this fear. They're just ground corn, fried with butter and cream and placed in a great goopy mess next to your BBQ shrimp. Grits are living proof that sometimes the greatest pleasures in life are also the simplest (and fattiest).

There's not much pleasure to be found in Little Rock unless you fancy watching a group of ducks waddle their way out of a hotel elevator (I'm not joking, that's a tourist attraction), although the Farmer's market on the waterfront was a mild diversion and there's some great architecture in the old part of town. I spent most of my time in my hotel room reading Palahniuk's Diary (boring, plodding and probably still sitting in the basket next to the bath in the Eliza room) and to be honest, I'd recommend that you do the same.

I'm going to close this entry with the tale of my last night in Little Rock. Freshly bathed, dressed and powdered from a long day of bugger all, I decided to walk the fifteen or so blocks from the Empress to the main part of town. It was about six p.m and still humid as all buggery but I thought nothing of it, even as the beads of sweat began to form at the top of my forehead. About five blocks into the trek those beads had turned into waterfalls cascading down my face, back and everywhere else. I was beginning to feel concern for my increasingly matted knot of hair at this point, but still...them's the breaks in the Deep South. I reached my reasonably swank (for Arkansas) restaurant only to have the maitre'd look at me in horror. Upon excusing myself to go to the ladies I discovered why - there was a GIGANTIC patch of black all over my cheek and nought but water where my eyeliner used to be. I looked like the lead singer of an all-panda emo band. Of course, a proper lady carries eyeliner with her at all times so within five minutes the crisis was over and I had nought but grits and dignity to fret over. I could swear the waitstaff were still snorting to themselves as I exited the restaurant that night.

P.S. I never received a satisfactory answer to The Burning Question. Whenever I stopped people to ask them, most of the time told me they'd never even thought about it before and the others appeared to be quite genuinely confused by the question. Goddamn idiotic, gun totin', tank drivin', fat bastard Southerners!

A Very Special Note From The Road: Roswell to Little Rock (via Jesus Country, TX)

It's so special that I'm not going to put this NFTR entry in its customary italics.

My new Melbournian bus buddy (I've completely forgotten his name, in fact I forgot it the moment we got off the bus, how slack is that? It was some typical white boy name - Andrew? Matt? Oh goddamnit.) and I went roaring off into the New Mexican wasteland. At this stage in my trip, I was only too grateful for the prospect of conversation as the journey to Amarillo would take the vast majority of the daylight hours and I had yet another 14+ hr bus trip to look forward to after my dinnertime stopover. The other plus about having a Melbournian around was that I finally got to speak to someone whose first words to me weren't "So, are you British?"

I was on my way to Little Rock, AK and he was on a non-stop trip heading over to a college in South Carolina for an exchange term. We spoke of our respective travels, life (he was wary about leaving his girlfriend for six months), AFL and the docudrama Supervolcano. Thankfully that was the only drama worth a mention on that bus trip, which remains a clear favourite in my memory banks.

Once you hit Texas, you know darn well you've hit Texas. The landscape is a long stretch of flat green void replacing the dust of New Mexico and the humidity goes up by 50% the second you're over the state line. The Southwest well and truly becomes the South here, with white church steeples and corn fields dotting the landscape, people sitting on their porches with a shotgun in one hand, an iced tea and the sweet sound of honky tonk permeating the air*. There are an inordinate amount of pick-up trucks and corn silos on the side of the roads. We pulled into Amarillo around 5, I farewelled the Aussie and began my epic Texan mission.

You see folks, I had all kinds of plans for this cowpoke town. Amarillo is the epicenter from which all the waves of tacky emanate across America and I couldn't wait to make the most of my all too few hours here. I jumped in a cab and demanded to be taken to the Cadillac Ranch. This being Texas, my cabbie was listening to a Christian radio station. To be fair, Texas may not actually have any other type of radio station outside of Austin. After a few excruciating minutes of Jesus warbling, we pulled up outside a paddock.

"That's them over there ma'am"
".....I'm sorry, where?"

Squinting into the distance I could make out ten shadowy blots on the paddock landscape. Caddy Ranch is so difficult to see from the I-40, I'm willing to bet that all first time visitors have to drive past twice before they find it. I told my driver to keep the meter running and sprinted across the cowpats. I know I've mentioned it before in this blog, but let me explain Cadillac Ranch once more. There are ten Cadillac cars buried halfway into the ground at the same angle as the Cheops pyramid, because the Cadillac is apparently the only American contribution to engineering significant enough to rival the Pyramids. The site is the brainchild of an eccentric millionaire (aren't they all?) by the name of Stan Marsh 3 (no, the three is not a typo and I don't know if he has any relation to the South Park character) who has erected all these weird pieces of 'art' all over Amarillo. After you're done at the Ranch, go see his giant pair of legs or perhaps the 'floating' mesa. Oh by the way, a small correction from one of my previous posts - as it turns out, the largest cross in North America (perhaps the world) isn't in Amarillo, it's even further out in the backwaters of the I-40 in a place called Groom.

So anyway, the Ranch. That photo at the top of the post is how they looked the day I arrived and every so often they get repainted, either for a theme, a cause (they were painted pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month) or they're blanked so that a new mob of graffiti artists can add their own personal layer of colourful rubbish. I forgot to bring spray paint, but a kind family travelling home to Oklahoma let me borrow theirs. After I spent a few minutes marvelling at my handiwork, I sprinted back across the paddock, jumped into my cab and directed the driver to The Big Texan.


Oh. My. God.

Absolutely nothing...not the rumours, not the bloggers, not even their own website can fully prepare you for the sensory explosion that is the Big Texan Eatin' Joint. It's not just an assault on the tastebuds either, from the second you arrive you are blinded by the garish blue and yellow paint job, the giant cow statue and the home-on-the-range country porch swing. Then you go *inside* and you're confronted by the faux-gunshot boom coming from the shooting gallery and the chatter from the main dining room. The air is thick with the smell of grilling cow. If you weren't blinded by the exterior decorating scheme, you'll be done in by the interior, which is mostly comprised of various stuffed animal heads adorning the bannisters all the way around both floors of the dining room**. As far as Texas is concerned, animal rights activists can fuck right off. They have two wandering minstrel cowboys who come around to every table with their guitar and fiddle in order to take song requests. I thought I'd go for the classic:

Me: "Can you play Stairway to Heaven?"
Cowboys: *blank look* Sorry ma'am.
Me: "Right. Hmm. How about some blues?"
Cowboys: *more blank looks*
Me: "You only play country, don't you?"
Cowboys: "That's right ma'am"

I requested The Yellow Rose of Texas and oh boy, they sure knew how to play that, you're darn tootin'. As they're going around the outside, your attention is frequently diverted to the centre, which is where most of the real action happens. You see, the Big Texan is home to the oft-imitiated, never equalled 72oz. Steak Challenge where suicidal people can undertake the challenge of eating a big fuckoff slab of meat, a baked potato and a side salad in an hour and get it all for free. For my metric people, 72oz is just over 2 kilograms of cow. Gross. There's a platform erected to these brave souls in the middle of the dining hall and there's even a webcam for those of you who want to watch people massacre their insides with steak from the privacy of your own home. I got to watch three idiots take the challenge. One succeeded. You'd expect the victor to be a fat bastard but he was surprisingly, if you'll pardon the pun, beefy.

To be honest, I think the challenge would be a doddle if the quality of the food is anything to go by. I didn't partake in any of the steaks but the broiled salmon was almost as delicious as the waiter who delivered it to my table. Seeing as this is Texas, you get a choice of two sides with every meal and it all arrives on a plate big enough to feed a small family. The service is as good as the food - I know that in a tourist hotspot you'd expect the waitstaff to be the picture of servitude in order to score tips, yet a lot of the time you'll have horrific service and they'll still expect a tip from you at the end. Not so at the Texan - I've never experienced hospitality as warm as it was in the South.

With a heavy stomach and a full heart, I cabbed it back to the bus terminal (I had toyed with the idea of staying the night, or better yet, taking a free limo back to the terminal but they only offered hotel transfers). That's when I found that my bus was delayed. By two hours. Gollygosh, darn and gee whiz y'all I was none too pleased about that. I attempted to read, but the guy behind the desk kept thwarting me with his incessant flirting. So I thought "What the hell, I'll flirt back." I needed the practice and it made the wait for the bus go a lot faster.

The bus to Little Rock was a long-ass trip through Texas in the dead of night with a transfer in Dallas at some godawful hour of the morning. Now there's an experience I hope never to repeat. I was sitting around in the Dallas terminal caught between listening to the televangelist on the overhead screen or listening to some scrag on army leave discuss her views on Bush, Southern food and how she was 'goin' on home' to a place called 'Leezyana' (where ever that is) with anyone in the terminal who would care to listen. I like to judge a city by the amount of dodgy people hanging around their Greyhound and based on that criterion alone I can tell that Dallas, like LA and Vegas before it, is a total shithole. When I wasn't irritated by the preaching, I was terrified/hopeful that someone was going to pull out and handgun and shoot up the place/the Louisianan. Another two hours of torture later, my bus for Little Rock arrived. I can sum up that leg of the trip with a conversation that might have taken place after they'd drawn up the official state borders down south:

Vernon: Hey Jim ya varmit, we're at the border of Texas and Arkansas and we're thinkin' we might set up camp here, even though it's a lil' groty. What d'ya wanna call this place?

Jim: Well gee Vernon, I dunno. How about Texarkana***?

Oh Texas, you crazy state. Despite the fact that you're obsessed with size, your people are mildly retarded and the air compostion is roughly 75% methane, I'd love to come back and do you properly one day. I'm not happy about missing Austin (especially with the curse of hindsight) and I'm dying to see just how crazy you get down Mexico way.


* I may be lying here.
** I am not lying here.
*** Seriously, that's what it's called.

New Mexico Part 3: There's Something A Bit Weird About Roswell

Roswell in a nutshell.

I was on the bus from Albuquerque after narrowly avoiding an abduction by my cabbie, heading to the place where the Dusty Southwest meets the Dirty South. I believe that the true South begins on Interstate 380 in New Mexico. Any place south of Soccorro in New Mexico or Arizona is cause for concern, although once you've travelled as far east as the Texas/Oklahoma border, it doesn't matter how far north you are, you're still in the South, a territory ruled by a fearsome entity known only as the Lord-ah Jeezurhs. I knew we were in trouble when I looked at the New Mexico map and saw towns with names such as 'Truth or Consequences', 'Carlsbad' and 'Loving'.

There's not much to say about the actual bus ride, seeing as I was unconscious for the vast majority of it. A nearly-empty bus of mostly Hispanic guys with a few white boys scattered in the seats meant that I didn't have to share, and the view outside the window was dusty, flat and dull - much like the foreheadless parts of Arizona. So I resumed my epic quest to find the most comfortable sleeping position on two Greyhound seats and I think I've got it. Armrest up, window seat slightly back, as many jackets/scarves/soft bags as you can squish against the window to use as a pillow, legs diagonal across the two seats so you can stretch out as close to the aisle as you can get, arms curled up to your neck, head facing the window. It's not the Ritz, but with this method you don't wake up with your extremities flopping retardedly about, deprived of proper circulation. Of course, the best spot is right up the back near the W.C. - gross if you've got an upchucker riding with you, but most Greyhounds have *three* seats in the back, so you can lie straight across them.

We hit Roswell in the late afternoon and as we were pulling into town, I thanked my lucky stars that I was only here overnight. All I saw out the window were streets with no footpaths, a military academy and fast food chains everywhere. On the main road near my hotel there was quite literally a KFC next to an Arby's next to a Wendy's next to a Sonic, next to a Dairy Queen near the McDonald's. I may have buggered up the exact order but I can guarantee that they are all in walking distance of one another. There was also a small strip mall nearby with a drive thru Starbucks across the parking lot from a drive thru pharmacy, with a drive thru ATM around the corner. I am not joking when I say that I saw a guy in a pickup drive across a fricking parking lot to get from the drive thru (I am getting so sick of writing the not-word 'thru' all the time) 'bucks to the pharmacy. Sigh.

It didn't take long before I proved my intelligence was at the same level as your average alien encountering Joe. I got off the bus, called a cab from the public phone, told them the address of the hotel and waited. Now, the Greyhound station in Roswell is even smaller than the one in Santa Fe, it is quite literally a tiny tin shed in the middle of nowhere with three people (myself, a Hispanic guy and one of the white guys from my bus) sitting around waiting for transport and two others behind the counter. It was in this tiny tin shed in the middle of nowhere that I experienced one of those strange, serendipitous occurrences (that only ever seem to happen in the most innocuous of places). Three women and two men enter and take a seat in the station. One of the women opens her mouth and this brazen, rough yet oh so familiar accent comes tumbling out. She's an Australian. All four of her companions are Aussies as well, from Queensland. They're going in the opposite direction to myself with their final destination being Las Vegas. We share travel experiences and remark how odd it is to find Australians in Roswell of all places. Their bus arrives after about fifteen minutes, we all wish each other luck on our travels and they depart.

I'm still waiting on my cab to arrive, getting agitated when I notice that the public phone is ringing. Being the last one to use it, I pick it up and it's the cab company. They'd been calling for fifteen minutes because they couldn't find the hotel I had named in town. After some confusion, they decide to send someone around in five minutes. My cabbie arrives and she has no idea where the Springhill Suites are. I go digging about in my luggage trying to find my hotel confirmation and upon locating it, discover that I'd given them the name of my Memphis hotel instead of my Roswell hotel. What's even better is that from outside the bus station, I can see my hotel. It's 200 metres away. My wonderful cab driver realises that I've had a bitch of a day and sympathetically offers me a ride to the hotel, free of charge ("So you won't have to drag your heavy bags over"). I arrive at my hotel less than a minute later wearing my very best Dunce cap and dragging my tail between my legs. Sighh.

After the cab debacle I walked everywhere in Roswell. I was the only one who did so, even though the centre of town was only a mile away from everywhere else. The very centre of town is where all the alien-related garbage lies (all three blocks of it in the main st). You'll find the Cover-Up Cafe, the Crash Down cafe (yes shitty television fans, it really exists), the UFO Museum and Research Centre, a McDonald's that looks like a flying saucer and tackiest of all, alien shaped street lamps that glow green at night. Sighhh.

Unfortunately everything was shut as it was past 5 p.m, and the combination of not eating much on the bus and walking around Roswell in the heat made me realise I was starving. Roswell has no restaurants in the downtown that are open for dinner and if they do, then I clearly missed them. So I walked back towards my hotel with people harrassing me from inside the cars, curious as to why I was using my legs for walking (such a novel concept in this part of the world). One of the few restaurants in town was a bar and grill a few blocks in the opposite direction, devoid of gourmet delights but at least it was better than a Sonic cheeseburger deal. At about 10pm I was nowhere near sleep, so I decided to do as the Roswellians did and tried the Seppo version of Wendy's for the first time. As repulsed as I am by American fast food chains I have to say, Wendy's Chocolate Frosties are amazing.

The next morning I went back to the tin shed in order to board my bus for Texas. As I'm waiting, I hear another eerily familiar accent addressing me "Hey, excuse me...you're Australian right?" Wouldn't you know it, it's one of the white boys from my Albuquerque bus the day before. He was also the same white boy (his name sadly escapes me) who was inside the bus terminal when the other five Australians appeared, had overheard our conversation and was about to get on the same bus, as we were both heading towards Amarillo.

So there were no real aliens in Roswell, but on one bizarre afternoon in a tiny tin shed in the Middle of Nowhere there were seven (little) Australians. Yeah. There's something a bit weird about Roswell.

New Mexico Part 2: Paradise at 7,199 ft

Outside a Canyon Rd Gallery, Santa Fe.

Upon my arrival in Santa Fe, I found I had three major problems:

#1 - The Greyhound station in Santa Fe is a tiny shed in the middle of the arse end of nowhere.
#2 - There were no transport options waiting outside the terminal, as it was around 10 p.m. at night and well, you've already read #1.
#3 - I did not know any cab numbers.

Shit.

Thankfully, Santa Fe is a town full of hippies and when they're not hazed out of their brains from all that bucket bong smoking, they're full of kindness and goodwill towards humanity, two concepts I haven't quite got my head around yet. So I hitched a ride in a station wagon with your typical Mama-Bear-who-Runs-with-the-Dolphins type and her offspring who she was picking up from the bus station. I really should be nicer; when all was said and done they took pity on the sick, stranded Australian, dropped me all the way to my hotel and didn't even run off with my luggage (that happened later on in the piece).

Here's the lowdown on Santa Fe. According to our friend Wikipedia, it is the highest state capital in the country, positioned at an almost altitude sickness worthy 7,199 ft (hence the title). To all my Australians reading this, our highest peak Mt Kosciuszko is a whopping 7,310 ft. All my Canadians are probably busy exploding from laughter right now. The city itself is divided into two distinct parts: the Old Santa Fe (beautiful, full of galleries, revoltingly expensive and home to all the fancy schmancy hotels) and Stripville (low, flat chain stores, suburbs, all the cheap hotels that bargain hunting tourists frequent). To their credit, most of the cheap hotels are more confortable than they should be and run complimentary shuttle services into old town. New Mexican cabs, like most places in the South, are fairly priced as well.

The cost of living in Santa Fe is double that of Albuquerque because of all the corporate CEO's who retired, bought up half the land in New Mexico, built ranches and became artists. The guy who runs The Gap, for example, has a huge property just outside of Santa Fe. I was told this one afternoon in a gallery on Canyon Rd, a street full of nothing but galleries and a place called The Tea House at the end of it (with an extensive selection of tea and yummy cookies). In one of the Canyon Rd galleries I saw an exhibition by a Chinese artist called Ying Zhao Liu who has since become one of my favourite artists. His still life paintings look more like photographs, I wanted to reach into the canvas and tear the tablecloth away. Out of all the Santa Fe galleries, I was most interested in the Georgia O'Keeffe museum (being a huge fan of her delicate va...flowers) and I wasn't disappointed. The museum exhibited more than just her classic paintings - there were some early sketches and most exciting of all - some of the Stieglitz portraits of O'Keeffe. This one is my personal favourite.

If you're not lifting your jaw along with your skirts inside the galleries of Santa Fe, take a look outside. The New Mexican landscape covers the whole spectrum of colour, especially the Jemez Mountains. It makes me wonder if people move to Santa Fe because they are artists, or whether they became artists because they moved to Santa Fe. The town centre is equally stunning, you don't have the development issues that Albuquerque is dealing with in Santa Fe because the city tries its very best to maintain the original adobe structures. A highlight is the St Francis of Assisi cathedral. If you haven't figured yet, I'm quite the fan of churches despite my disdain where organised religion is concerned. St Francis is a particularly special memory, because I walked in seeking respite from my nagging flu and ended up catching the end of the choir rehearsal.

Everywhere you wander in Santa Fe, you'll find the tan adobe buildings and turquoise/white window frames. One of the few exceptions is that of the State Capitol building, which stands out because it looks nothing like the other cookie cutter Capitol buildings.

The adobe buildings even look gorgeous through the lens of my terrible phone camera.

The other reasons to visit Santa Fe (not that you need more reasons) are the shopping and the food. The jewellery stores are of a higher quality than the ones you find in Albuquerque, but the theme is the same - turquoise and silver. The restaurants in Old Town (outside of town is nothing but burger and other restaurant chains, pass) are pricey but you're paying for quality. I went for dinner at a place called Dinner For Two (and sheepishly asked for a table for one), the owner took pity on me and kept me company with the usual tourist/local conversation ("Oh, you're Australian? My sister/uncle/ex-teacher/brother's ex girlfriend's dad's monkey's aunt went there for a couple of months, loved the place." etc.) and I had a chance to some to try some high-end local fare, like salmon (or was it tuna?) with mole sauce. Weiiiiiird. Quality though, and their desserts were amazing. I also went for high tea at the Hotel St Francis which was the equal of Sydney's Victoria Room for taste and was my favourite American high tea overall (The Victoria Room set the benchmark for all my high tea escapades, I've yet to find a better place) - I'd really like to stay at the St Francis next time. I am convinced that the mountain air, good food and all that tea I drank in Santa Fe cured my bout of Vegas flu.

I'm going to finish this entry with a couple of stories from Santa Fe. On my last night in Santa Fe I'd just returned from Canyon Rd and was about to sniff around town for some dinner when I hear voices calling in my general direction. Whaddya know, it's the hippie kids from my first night in town. I go over and bullshit with them for a while, let them know how I got on and leave them to their 'peace pipe'.

The day I left Santa Fe (another kerfuffle, there were no Greyhounds that went direct to Roswell from Santa Fe and no buses left for Albuquerque that matched up with the bus I would have to take from Albuquerque to Roswell). The Sandia Shuttle was my salvation and naturally I spent most of my time up front chatting to the driver who doubled as a technician in the local film studios. As I left Santa Fe in the morning, I had a chance to witness the Turquoise Trail (my previous glimpses of the landscape had been through brief lightning flashes) There was a moment where the mountain road opened up to unveil a panoramic view of the valley below. The intensity of the colours in the landscape made me want to cry, I'd never seen anything like it. The fantastic views soon gave way to reality when we pulled into the Sunport, I hailed a cab back into town and my driver wanted to personally drive me to Roswell himself. He spent the entire 15 minute drive back into town trying to convince me "You come with me, pretty thing, I take you to Roswell, it'll be cheap!" "Uh...yeah, but my Greyhound bus will be free (sort of)". Gross. Unfortunately that was small potatoes when compared to what came next...

New Mexico Part 1: The Lighter Side of Purgatory

The 300 year old San Felipe de Neri Cathedral, Albuquerque.

I'm back folks. Unexpected requests for me to resume writing my Great American Saga gave me the much needed kick up the arse. I aim to be writing about Canada by the time I'm 25. Now, where were we?

I spent most of my time in New Mexico sick as a second stage syphilitic skank in the noonday sun thanks to the torments of Las Vegas, and the pain of hindsight hurts me still. Why the hell didn't I say screw Vegas altogether and go straight to New Mexico from Portland? Why didn't I charge my camera battery and take better photos of such a photogenic piece of country? Why didn't I go to Taos? I have so many regrets concerning this underrated, beautiful state and cannot wait to go back someday.

After waiting a queasy, storming hour for a cab to appear at the Albuquerque Greyhound station (always a good start), I checked into my room at the Hilton (that's not a euphemism, the hotel was on special). I awoke feeling repulsive. Not wanting to let this small bout of flu get the better of me, I pressed on with my mission to explore the architectural gems of Route 66 so I grabbed a cab going into the Old Town Plaza, which is close to the strip all the old hotels and diners are.

Oh wait, I'm sorry. Were. Albuquerque, I've got a bone to pick with you.

I had grand plans to stay in a place called the El Vado motel when I was first planning my trip, primarily because of its history as one of the classic motor courts during the Mother Highway's heyday. My slightly dated Lonely Planet told me it was possible to stay here, but I couldn't find a website. It turns out that the El Vado was purchased by some bastard developer who wanted to raze the hotel and build luxury townhouses on the site. If you take away the white dots of old motels then the area around the El Vado is, despite it being tourist central, pretty much an unattractive, strip-malled dust bowl and luxury townhouses would've looked ridiculous. In conclusion, developers are idiots. As a result of the ongoing tussle between those who wished to preserve history and those who are the personification of Satan's colonic emissions, when I visited Albuquerque most of the Route 66 motels were crumbling to pieces, boarded up behind wire fencing. I was heartbroken. The good news is, just under a year later moves were made to save the El Vado. I hope the other historic Route 66 buildings are blessed with a similar fate.

If the wanton destruction of history is Albuquerque's downfall, its weirdness will be its saving grace. Their museums are a great example. They've got an Atomic Museum (the building with the giant warhead out front), a Rattlesnake Museum (awesome, cheap and characterised by the tortoises in a tub out front) and weirdest of all, a Holocaust Museum (I'm sorry, but when I think of New Mexico, I don't think of Jews). The Plaza area (home to the Rattlesnake museum) is a shameless, touristy place but I loved it anyway. They have a bunch of rough cowboy types trolling about shooting (blanks) at each other. They have this wonderful ability to blend the (pardon the English/Religion Major expression here) sacred and profane (yeah, sorry, I can hardly forgive myself for saying that but there's really no better way of explaining it. It's a place designed for religious reflection and yet it's so...tacky). Best of all, they have an entire store devoted to chilli sauce.

Yes. Oh God yes.

I bought one marked 10 + (they started at 5 and ended at 10 +++). It took me six months and the bitterest part of the Canadian winter for me to work up the courage to actually try some. I now think I've scorched off half my tastebuds.

At this point of my trip I had no working tastebuds to speak of. Wandering around in the heat did not help my illness, so after killing some time checking out the rattlesnakes and turquoise jewellery hawkers, I dined at a New Mexican restaurant in order to try some of the local fare. Big mistake. I'd consumed barely a quarter of my lunch when my sickness grew upon me, so I promptly paid my check (the staff noticed that I looked like death warmed over and thus knocked the price of my food off the bill. I tipped them the equivalent of my meal because I'm not a heinous bitch) and scarpered off, trying to will the horrific cramps away whilst waiting for my wonderful lady taxi driver (for some reason the name Rosie springs to mind). If you get on well with your cabbie when travelling around the smaller cities of America, always get their personal number. They'll reward your business with a bit of local history and, when you're about to puke in their cab, a bloody fast trip back to your hotel.

And that's right about the time that I projectile vomited. Joy.

After a night in with pay-per-view movies and room service, I woke up feeling decent enough to wander about the city again although this time I decided on eating my meals in places that didn't smother everything in green chile. I can't help but think now that I would've gotten more out of the city if I'd planned ahead. Albuquerque isn't really meant for aimless wandering unlike its richer cousin Santa Fe, but at the same time you cannot accuse it of being boring. I've got another American trip itinerary brewing in my mind in which I do Albuquerque & New Mexico justice and get a chance to do everything I missed out on this time like see the Balloon Fiesta, go up the Sandia Peak and find the 66 Diner.

Anyway, this blog isn't about what I didn't do. After my whirlwind tour of Albuquerque, I caught an evening bus to Santa Fe. The bus trip is only one hour, so it's not worth me doing a traditional note from the road post. I did end up chatting to a girl I met on the bus to Santa Fe who was originally from Denver, Colorado. She'd found the cost of living was becoming way too expensive (in Colorado?!) so she moved out of her apartment, married a Mexican and was in the process of shifting her stuff from home to her new ranch just south of the border where the cost of living was 1/3rd that of her former city, but her standard of living was, if anything, better. And Americans bag out Mexico because...why?

A Note From The Road - Vegas to Albuquerque

There's a woman and her two brats in front of me in the queue at the gates to get the hell out of Hell. The daughter is fairly undisturbed, despite the fact that she is toddler age, but I can already tell that the son is going to make my next twelve hours on the bus my penance for not giving in to the various temptations of Sin City. He will not stop moving around. My patience is wearing thinner than usual, as not only am I still trying to gather my ramshackle shreds of sanity together after my experiences of Vegas, but there's a tell-tale catch in my throat and I know something is festering in my chest cavity. It's not a good situation from the outset.

And wouldn't you know it, it gets worse.

I'm somewhere in the backdeserts of Nowhere, Arizona en route to Flagstaff. The bastard spawn is sitting directly in front of me. The girl, quiet though she was at the beginning, has been screaming at random intervals throughout the trip and the boy is giving his long-suffering mother grief by hassling the yelling girl. That catch has developed into a full blown sore throat, I'm red hot from fever and white hot with rage. Worse still, we've picked up a drunk. He's been hollering from the back of the bus since Henderson, NV and the bus driver's protests do nothing, because he doesn't speak a work of English and the driver isn't fluent in imbecile. We get held up as he gets kicked off the bus. That's my favourite part of Greyhound's policy - you cause trouble, you get packed off at the next stop and left there to sober up and wait for the next form of transport to shoot through and rescue you. The stop the drunk is stranded at won't see a bus for the next TEN HOURS and there's nothing around except for tumbleweed and skin cancer.

At the next stop, a guy gets on the bus and he has NO FOREHEAD. A huge chunk is missing from the top of his head. It's concave. His nose is grizzled, his hair is barely hanging onto his tightly-skinned skull and oh my god, if this was a film I'd be dead in an hour's time after he hijacks the bus and drives it off a cliff. And he's one of the more attractive patrons.

Some many hours later, I've managed to get a good two hours worth of rest and I'm gradually feeling worse as the minutes progress. The kid in front of me keeps looking back in my direction and every so often he shoots me a cheeky look, but there's also a note of concern in his eyes. As the sunlight fades and we near Albuquerque, his mother and sister fast asleep nearby, he works his tiny hand through the gap so that it reaches beyond the head rest and over into my side where my hand is resting against the window and the little fucker grabs hold. He looks about as tired as I feel, and we sit holding hands on and off for the rest of the bus ride. To this day it remains one of the most heart-warming and innocent gestures I've ever received from another human being.

Damn kids.

As we step off the bus a storm erupts around us, the stifling heat from the day erased by the downpour. The air instantly felt fresher. I waved goodbye to my little buddy and mouthed a thank you. I don't think he understood.

Las Vegas - July 30th - August 4th: The Inferno

Isn't Vegas photogenic!?! Mm. Good. Now that I've said something kind and loving and Christian, let's get down to the nasty stuff.

Attention: Potential Terrorists (if you're reading this) - stop attacking London, Glasgow & Tanzania and go for Las Vegas instead. You'll be doing myself, God and Darwin a favour by wiping out a huge chunk of stupid from the gene pool.

Attention: CIA/ASIO/etc agents (if you're reading this) - I don't condone terrorism nor am I plotting anything, I'm simply a humble would-be despot, waiting for her little revolution to begin. There will be no need for any water boarding here, thanks.

Looking back over a year on from my time in Vegas and having read the entire Divine Comedy since then, I can't help but compare myself to Dante. The both of us have been to Hell and back. This is the story of how I suffered through the circles of Hell in The City of Sin (irrelevant circles have been omitted for the sake of my fingers and your sanity).

THE FIRST CIRCLE: LIMBO

From the outset I have to say that Vegas, despite it being a godforsaken dust bowl that only a bunch of morons and Mormons would call home (that was something of a tautology wasn't it...) , has a few not-horrible elements to it. Take that photo up there for example. That's a shot of the water show outside the Bellagio hotel where they've a rigged series of fountains to go off in time with music (the word music is here used in its loosest possible definition, seeing as one of the 'tunes' used in the fountain show was 'God Bless The U.S.A). The Bellagio Cafe is also the only place in Vegas where you can get a decent meal without needing to tart yourself up in your best D&G or suffer the horrors of the fried chicken buffets. It's also home to this stunning ceiling artwork in the lobby. The other not-horrible casino is The Mirage/Treasure Island, purely because they've managed to cover the stench of cigarette smoke by filling the entire place with the scent of coconut oil and frangipani. That being said, I still wouldn't want to be shipwrecked there, especially seeing as this is supposed to be paradise, but there are worse places you could be stuck in, such as...


THE SECOND CIRCLE: LUST

On my first day in town, bewildered by the scorching 40+ heat in the desert outside and the masses of people inside my hotel the Sahara, I somehow stumbled into a near-empty (for no place in Vegas is completely devoid of people) alley way. A couple pulled over in a convertible next to me and the 'gentleman' driver called out "Do you swing? She wants to know!" I'd been in Vegas for two hours at this point and the fun did not stop there.

Of course I was expecting Vegas to be rife with opportunities to indulge in the sins of the flesh and I am by no means a prude, but come on Vegas. Try and have some class. Is it really necessary to replace ALL of your legit newspaper boxes with row upon row of call girl catalogues? Must there be filthy looking proles giving out burlesque show leaflets to every single guy that walks past every single casino? In regards to the porn proles, I couldn't help but admire their tact - I must have passed over 150 of them (no, that's not an exaggerated figure...if anything it's a conservative estimate) in my three evenings out on the town and I was not given a single leaflet. The married couples were similarly spared. They also advertise burlesque production on huge billboards outside each casino and around town. All this, and the jury's still out on whether you're legally allowed to see completely unclothed tits.

That's right. Prostitution is illegal in Vegas (although I get the feeling it's illegal in the same sense that pot is technically illegal in Vancouver) and if I recall my U.S law correctly, you're only allowed to see nipple tasseled bosom in strip joints (please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). The state of Nevada may be exempt from this, but knowing Vegas and its 'tease and please without actually delivering' culture, I would not be surprised. For the record, you're allowed to see tits in Portland (heaven knows I saw a lot more than that) and they've got a more subtle way of going about it.

The Third Circle containing the Gluttons has been omitted because you already know about the buffets. Yes, there are some fat people in Vegas. No one should be surprised there.


THE FOURTH CIRCLE: AVARICE

This one should be obvious. The goal of most visitors to Hell is to amass as much cash as possible by feeding great wads of the stuff into a blinking machine's mouth. I'm not going to discuss gambling here, mostly because I'm not stupid enough to partake in the activity. Unfortunately I was stupid enough to fall for some of the other tricks and pitfalls that Vegas employs in order to rob you blind.

For starters, good luck getting cheap internet access, much less FREE internet access on the Strip. You can't even hack into someone else's Wi-Fi network. Unlike most hotels/cities the nearest cheap internet in Vegas is a good five miles out of town, in the arse end of nowhere. Secondly, don't take a cab if you're heading off the Strip. In my quest for teh internets I handed over a decent portion of my cherished green trying to get to the internet cafe out in the Styx, thus eradicating any savings I thought I'd make by not using the Sahara's internet. I walked the five miles back that night and got hopelessly lost after realising that the main road into town doesn't have a footpath for a large chunk of the drag. This is southern America, people. Nobody walks here. I almost missed my scheduled Cirque Du Soleil performance but thankfully a wandering hobo helped me find my way back into town.

Now just what in the hell is the deal with Cirque Du Soleil? I saw the Love show because I felt like I should experience at least one major Vegas event and when it comes to these kinds of shows I'll take the Beatles over a stock standard wank circus, a vaguely gothic take on life in an Ewok village, and tits, tits and more tits. It's a decent enough diversion for one evening - there were a couple of cute little effects and tricks. That being said, the ticket price is ridiculous, the soundtrack doesn't include Across The Universe (my mind boggles at the exclusion of the most lyrically stunning track the Fab Four ever produced) and GOOD LORD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING MAKES A LICK OF SENSE. Why is there a drag queen tottering around the stage dressed as the bastard child of Elizabeth I and the talking wardrobe from Beauty and the Beast?!
I cannae understand it.

In conclusion: next time I think I'll opt for the titties titties titties.

THE FIFTH CIRCLE: WRATH/SLOTH

By the third morning of Vegas, I was ready to make a break for Purgatory. Unfortunately, I'd prepaid my room at the Sahara in advance so I decided to say fuck it all and barricaded myself in my room, with my pay-per-view movies and my room service and my steadily growing collection of novels as my means of survival. The night after Cirque Du Soleil, I watched Knocked Up for the first time and dear lord, I very nearly killed myself laughing when I realised what I was missing from my Vegas experience (scroll to the bottom of the interview).

I'm omitting the Sixth Circle of Heretics because I've already mentioned the huge Mormon population there and if you want some Latter Day Vitrol, go see my Utah entry.


THE SEVENTH CIRCLE: THE VIOLENT

It's hard not to be a lazy bitch in Vegas, seeing as your alternative is to walk around in the hot, sandy desert all the live long day/night. It's even harder to be a woman out on your own in a place like Vegas because this place really does take all kinds. If you are dumb enough to go off the Strip, ladies, I implore you to never go alone. On the Strip you're relatively ok simply because there are millions of people outside at all hours and most are too dumb/drunk/busy trying to pick up the dumb drunkards to bother hassling you. The second you go off the strip, however, is when the crazies begin to swoop and Las Vegas becomes frightening.

For the record, I am dumb enough.

I spotted a gigantic Vintage store out the window of my cab on my first day in Vegas, so I made a mental note to go and check it out before I left town. The Attic Vintage Store is one and a half miles away from the Sahara, so not that far to walk and it's not even that far off the Strip. I walked down Main St and was about three quarters of the way to my destination when I crossed in front of a white van at one of the blocks. It takes me three more blocks before I realise that I'm walking in front of the same white van every single time I hit a street corner and that's when the hair on the back of my neck starts to rise. That's also when the driver picks up on the fact that I've picked up on the fact that he wants to pick me up and begins motioning for me to get in the van. I'm not that dumb, so I keep walking. After another block, he starts driving down Main St at my walking speed, repeatedly motioning for me to get in the car before he starts to hit the brakes harder. That's the moment when I discover that I'm right near the Attic, so I bolt inside and spend the next half hour examining tatty old showgirl costumes and contracting rabies from the resident cat. The creepy driver is not stupid enough to follow me inside.

THE EIGHTH CIRCLE: THE FRAUDULENT

Let us go straight to Bolgia #10 which in the Inferno contains The Falsifiers. I'd like to throw a whole heap of the people who recommended Vegas to me straight into that pit. Before I left, a bunch of people inquired as to whether I was going to Vegas and when I stated that I wasn't quite sure, people were aghast. "WHAT? YOU DON'T WANT TO GO TO VEGAS? YOU HAVE TO DUDE, IT'S LIKE ONE OF THE MAIN PLACES TO SEE IN AMERICA, EVERYONE GOES THERE".

The next time I hear that come out of someone's mouth, I'll have two words for them. Fuck. Off. The most popular parts of America (I'm thinking LA, Vegas, NYC, D.C. here) are also the worst. Don't let anyone try and tell you different. The best thing to do in Vegas is leave - stay longer than a day and the city, like the ring of the Falsifiers, will make you sick. If you're really that desperate to see the place, search for the Strip on Google Maps and try and look at it during their daytime. You're in for a shock.

Contrary to what's in the rest of this blog, the worst element of Vegas isn't the gambling or the titties. It's the environment. Outside it's hot enough to boil the buttocks of a thousand ice monkeys and if the heat doesn't get you, the dust blown around from the construction sites will. Inside the casinos it is freezing. The constant blinking, buzzing and glowing from the slot machines envelopes your senses. The confusing aromas of perfume, food, boozehounds and cigarettes permeate the air. Everything is made to distract your mind from reality and a result, you end up in a state of stimuli overkill. I developed my pulsing headache on my second night, which all the Nurofen in the world could not kill off. As a novelty, I even tried one of the oxygen bars that are all over the Strip and while it dulled the ache enough for me to last another hour of wandering, my head was still bitching when I went to bed and it only got worse from there.

Despite all the false information relayed to me about Vegas, no outright acts of betrayal occured, so the Ninth Circle is not included.

As the sun was setting on my last day in Hell I boarded my Greyhound bus to the heart of New Mexico . We may have been travelling through the darkness, but I felt that I was finally making my way back to the Light.

Discography:

Surprisingly, not that many songs remind me of Vegas but special mention goes to Luscious Jackson's Sexy Hypnotist (yes, I did hum it constantly as I wandered around) and Tom Jones' It's Not Unusual because it always reminds me of that scene in Fear and Loathing.

A Note From The Road: San Francisco To Vegas

If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, then it is walled with posters for bad conventions. All along Interstate 15 the view out the window is nothing but visual pollution (Lance Burton, one of these days I will hunt you down and take a scythe to your testicles...I had to see reproductions of your bastard, ugly mug no less than seventeen times down that endless stretch of desert and by the end I was praying that I would be given the opportunity to make you and your boyband-chic bangs magically disappear) and bat country. No, I did not get to pull over to the side of the road and utter that line from Fear & Loathing. Yes, I thought about running to the front of the bus and ordering the driver to hit the brakes, but the bus was packed and I figured such an act would be considered poor form.

This is not where our story begins.

Our story begins, as always, in a Greyhound station...and in this case it's L.A. I've been in Los Angeles for approximately forty five minutes and thirty seven seconds waiting to change buses and I'm already desperate to leave, mostly because it's getting hotter every minute and uglier every second. We were given a small tour of the city before we reached the main depot, even briefly pulling into North Hollywood and the only remotely interesting sight out the window was the sign for Mullholland Drive. Yes, I squealed. Inwardly. As for the rest of the place? If you're unfamiliar with the sights and smells of Los Angeles, well, think of everything negative you've ever heard about it. It's all true. Think of everything positive you've ever heard about it. Right. I'm going to assume they were talking about Disneyland which, for the record, is in Anaheim. Not L.A.

Twenty two minutes and sixty three seconds later, the line for the Vegas bus gets moving and we're off into the desert. I have found the secret to scoring your own seat on a Greyhound bus. If the bus is packed to the rafters, you have no chance whatesoever, suck it up and spray some perfume so you don't have to choke on the aroma of stale rum wafting over from the drunk next to you. If there's only one seat left and you want to be the lucky bastard who gets to sleep horizontal, nay, the bastard who gets to sleep period, then here's what you do:

1. Gather up all your hand luggage (you will need at least two items) and pile it on the empty seat next to you.
2. Assume the position: scowl on face, arms crossed over your chest, knees up near your hand luggage on the seat next to you.
3. As soon as passengers start boarding, cough up a lung. As loudly as possible. Hack up some phlegm if you wish. Your chances are doubled if you mutter to yourself afterwards.

It never fails. I should know - I've taken over fifteen Greyhound trips and I've only had to suffer the company of strangers four times. I got lucky on the LA - Vegas bus, the people you get on this route are all the American weekenders with dreams of cash windfalls that are the size of their triple-stacked, cheese-laden Louisiana fried chicken buffet platters. Unlike everyone else on the bus, I didn't have to spend the next few hours with my cheeks pressed against the window and someone else's cheeks spilling over onto my thigh.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the boredom began to take hold. You know you're in trouble when this is the sight that greets you out the window. I loathe to think of what the road is like beyond Vegas if the next place of note is Salt Lake City, christ. We scored a lunch break in the delightful dustbowl that is Barstow. The blast of air that floated upwards as we all exited the bus was furnace hot and through the haze and face-melting I could spot little more than a Starbucks, a Macca's and...well...I think you're starting to get the picture. I'm considering my options for instant heart failure when a stray black kitten pops up from behind a rock under the bus station, spys me, freaks and crosses my path in order to get away. I'm not usually one for superstition, dear readers, but you can and should look upon that event as foreshadowing.

The only other real town on the desert road is Baker and all I've got to say about Baker is that I witnessed the towering structure that is World's Largest Thermometer as we flew past and I now feel that my life is complete. Sleep overcame me, and I woke up just in time to see a giant pyramid. And a castle, which looks inflatable and would probably be a lot more entertaining if that were true. And a rollercoaster circling the landmarks of New York City. There is only one place in the universe pathetic enough to contain all three of these complexes. I had arrived.

Six Days in San Francisco - July 23rd - 30th

I was expecting a lot from San Francisco, having been immersed in its pop culture ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper. At any moment I was expecting to see John Stamos, Bob Saget and the whole Full House gang (except for Joey who, in my universe, died from cancer shortly after the show went off the air) walking around Golden Gate Park holding hands with a miniskirted Margaret Cho and Harold Perrineau dressed in a sequinned frock and suspenders.

Imagine. They'd be the Tranners!

Instead picture this scene: It's 11 a.m and I'm arguing with a chick with blue dreadlocks over the fact that she won't let me check into my hostel, despite my bringing the pity party and relaying my story of the nightmare bus trip from Portland. I've just had a 'white knuckle, knee buckle' cab trip because people in the Bay City don't drive, they drag (*boom tish*), and the taxi drivers are the worst.

Sam's Tips for Surviving San Francisco #1 - Don't take taxis. Just don't. Walk from the airport if you need to, your chances of survival are greater and, with all those godforsaken hills, you'll be a few kgs lighter in a matter of days.

Needless to say, I lose the argument with Gonzo but she budges a millimetre and allows me to check my bags into storage. I decide to blow off the city for a day because I'm feeling completely shagged and even after I wash my face and attempt to shake off the bus-lag I still resemble the Creature From The Grease Lagoon. There's a huge screen TV in the lobby and free internets which means I'm set for the day, but the one thing I'm lacking in is food and I'm starving after wisely avoiding the 3 a.m Taco Bell pit stop. That warrants a wander to the nearest place with edibles. Unfortunately, the view from my cab was a building-tinged blur so I have no idea where I am or what I'm surrounded by. I discover just how unfortunate am I the second I step outside.

A woman in a raggy turban is muttering to herself and swatting away an unseen person. There's a man sitting huddled in a doorway. Another guy is surveying the street, eyes wide and bloodshot, as though he hasn't slept in weeks. There are unidentified suspicious substances all over the footpath. The street is devoid of well-dressed, sane individuals so in my present state I fit right in. My hostel is smack bang in the middle of the...quaint neighbourhood of San Fran known as the Tenderloin. Oh. Shit.

Welcome, my friends, to San Francisco.

Sam's Tips for Surviving The Bay City #2 - Whatever you do, if you're on the cheap accomodation-wise...DON'T, I REPEAT, DO NOT stay at the HI City Center. Stick with the HI Fisherman's Wharf which may be in the middle of Tackyland, USA (Fisherman's Wharf is like Darling Harbour except drenched in visual pollution, full of candy stores & bad tourist attractions and completely charmless) but at least you don't have to mess up your hair and put on a crazy face in order to avoid stalkers & drive-by shootings. YES IT IS THAT BAD.

I do have one good thing to say about the San Franciscan HI hostels and it is that they offer great walking tours of the city. I went on the trip to the Museum of Modern Art (great for Warhol but the rest of the collection was quite wanky) and got to meet a few people but the guy from the hostel we had as our tour guide creeped me out.

So, back to my finding eats. After some average pancakes at the nearest place I could find that looked relatively safe and drug hustler free, I scooted back to the hostel as quickly as possible to glare at Gonzo and settle down to a nice afternoon watching...the Sci Fi channel. What is it with hostellers and sci-fi shows? Is it because some of the people who frequent hostels resemble creature people usually found only on Star Trek? Or is it just a general rule that the most social of living arrangements end up attracting the most antisocial of inhabitants (eg: prison, hostels, comic conventions)? As I enter, there's a guy sitting on one of the couches who, without warning, hacks up a great glob of phlegm and spits it into his cup. I make it my business to slide along my couch to be as far away from him as possible. Come now, my fellow tera'ngans*, let's try and show a little decency, there's a lady present...

Two things happen which save me from my first day in The Hades Hostel. 1. Hugh Jackman's left bicep appears on screen. 2. Hugh Jackman's right bicep appears on screen. Yeah. X-Men 2 comes on and this is how I meet Meika. She comes into the TV room and since she is normal and hasn't run screaming from the room at the sight of unwashed Sam we do the awkward 'Who is going to say something first' dance, she wins, and we chat.

Approximately four hours later I'm in Jazz at Pearl's with Meika and her equally lovely sister listening to some big band numbers after a meal of average Italian with far too much cheese, some cheap beer and amateur palm reading. This is a hell of a lot better than the original night I had in mind. What amazes me on this first night in San Francisco and continues to amaze me all throughout this trip is the variety of people I've managed to come across and even, dare I say, appreciate as members of the human race. There were and are a lot of people who inspire the opposite emotion, but let's not discuss them just yet. Over the course of the next six days I meet Emma, a chick from New Zealand via the States with the most confused accent I've ever heard, two more Kiwi girls who are my roommates for a brief period of time, one who snores like the running engine of a Mack Truck and doesn't look much better, but they're both out for a good party and they're good people so I like them and then there was the most exciting meeting of all.

Picture this next scene: I've been trekking up and down the fucking San Franciscan hills all day and I'm in need of a break. I'm wandering around The Cannery near the Waterfront area, snacking on two huge scoops of Norman's delicious Gelato. That's when the most beautiful music begins and I realise that it's two buskers, a man and a woman of the usual opera build performing 'O Sole Mio', the one opera piece that I'm familiar with. I'm intrigued, so I grab a pew. Unfortunately the performance ends, the small crowd disperses and it's just me and the opera duo. That's when the woman pulls out a copy of Harry Potter 7, smiles at me and we get talking. Her name is Litz Plummer, but some may know her as the Opera Lady of San Francisco and you can listen to her here. Myspace does not do the great lady justice. The gentleman's name is Robert Close, he's performed as Piangi in the Broadway production of Phantom and he is hilarious.

Robert: (this was after extensive conversation) You know what I like about you? The fact that you're from Australia, which is famous for all the sun and beaches and yet...*lifts trouser leg* you're about as pale as I am.

(For the record, I managed to tan slightly after a week or two in the Nevadan/New Mexican/Texan sun but then I moved to the West Coast of Canada for the winter and any hope I had of retaining my slightly less translucent colouring was shot to shit).

Those three viginettes basically sum up San Francisco. It's not so much a city as it is a collection of neighbourhoods smashed together - some are naughty, some are nice. If you've got no idea what you're meant to be doing when you get there, then my advice would be don't move, siddown kid and listen to me.

Sam's Tips For Surviving San Francisco #3 - Places To See & Places To Avoid Like The Plague

Consult this map and be wowed by my MS Paint skills. You may notice that there's a clear path you can take to get around San Francisco whilst still avoiding the sketchy areas.

You can't travel to San Francisco and not visit Haight/Ashbury as it is easily the greatest neighbourhood of them all, although I'm sorry to say you will be disappointed if you're wanting to recreate the '69 Summer of Love. Unfortunately, some of the hippies survived to see the 80's. As the haze of pot smoke began to fade, they discovered the joys of creating outfits made from the trashed remainder of their marijuana plants before selling them to hapless tourists at a mark-up rate of 800%. Fucking business hippies man, is there any greater contradiction? They and their love children invaded the area, ditched the 60's spirit, kept the rainbow decor and now it's an expensive shopping district full of decent vintage outlets and stores hawking pot/acid paraphenalia (even though all the users moved to British Columbia some decades ago. You want to see real hippies? Go to Saltspring Island, not San Francisco).

So I had a look around the Castro because we all know of my relentless fag-haggotry and again, I was disappointed. Yes, the area is gayer than a cluster of antique dealers at a Margaret Cho show, but so is Darlinghurst and that suburb is twice the size of the tiny Castro. I did enjoy the sight of the local public school and it's definitely worth a look if you can avoid going near the neighbouring Mission area, you're gay and you fancy going clubbing.

One of the neighbourhoods I had no preconceptions about is the Nihon Machi district. It's the more sterile, less tacky Chinatown and on the map, it's situated somewhere in the Western Addition area. Eat here, as there are a few decent hole-in-the-wall Japanese places and you're guaranteed to be served a meal that isn't covered in cheese for a change. Your other option for food is Haight/Ashbury where I would suggest the Ethiopian restaurant in the middle of the main strip for a similarly cheese-free and cheap meal. After you're done, go check out the Asian grocery with the Great Wall of Pocky. Yes. You now know where I made a significant portion of my spending money disappear...

The worst part of San Francisco, Tenderloin aside, has to be the South of Market area, which is full of sketchy run-down buildings and the only thing more run-down than the buildings are the people. I walked around this area (thankfully not for very long) and I found myself questioning how San Francisco manages to be regularly ranked as one of America's most liveable cities, (especially seeing as I'm inclined to agree with most of the of other selections on Places Rated, except Portland should be #1 with Pittsburgh as #2).

Another suggestion I'd make to visitors heading to California is...don't (you have no idea how badly I want to make a shirt that says "Fuck California...I'd rather be in Oregon") but if you must head to the Bay area, take a day out and roadtrip. Your options are to head to the Napa valley and/or Sausalito which I didn't get around to visiting but if I had the opportunity again I'd go there or alternatively, you can head down south to San Jose, if only for the sunshine, relative warmth and the opportunity to sing "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?" on the Greyhound. I checked out the Winchester Mystery House (which isn't exactly mysterious so much as it is gigantic and full of unnecessary rooms and doors that lead to nowhere), and wandered aimlessly around the strip malls. My one recommendation for San Jose goes to Lisa's Tea Treasures mostly because I found the funkiest pair of teapot earrings there (sadly I didn't get to sample the tea).

After six days, too many hills and not enough scoops of Norman's finest ice cream later I left my a shoe in my locker at the HI, packed my gear and prepared, with a heavy heart to start my journey eastwards to Las Vegas (the one place I wasn't looking forward to visiting) and beyond.

A Musical Guide To San Francisco:

Honeymoon - Phoenix: I didn't have many romantic moments in San Francisco but driving over the Bay Bridge at night, listening to this song felt like one of those perfect instances of universal timing where everything just fit. I suggest you try it.

O Sole Mio - for obvious reasons.

Do You Know The Way To San Jose - Dionne Warwick: Again, obvious but very funny if you're me and you're quietly humming to yourself on a crowded public coach.

Any of Margaret Cho's comedy albums are great for commentary while you're walking around, the best of the bunch being Notorious C.H.O.



* that would be the Klingon word for human. You have no idea of the shame I felt when I googled the words 'Klingon Dictionary'.

A Note From The Road: Portland to San Francisco

I loved the ride from Seattle to Portland. It was short, it was smooth, the people were few and spaced out and we left Seattle and arrived in Portland on schedule. There was no muss and very minimal amounts of fuss. I thought, "How good is this?! Buying a Greyhound Discovery Pass was the greatest idea I've ever had." First impressions last. They're also, more often than not, completely and totally wrong and you don't have to be a character in a Bollywood film to realise this. I figured out just how incorrect my first impression of Greyhound the minute I witnessed the queue going to San Francisco on the 6:15 coach. They were packing the bus to the rafters. I realised that this ride was going to be considerably more confined than my previous journey but I retained a sense of cautious optimism after all, what's the worst that could happen...right?

Why on earth are people stupid enough to be optimists? Being optimistic and telling onesself Hey things aren't that bad/They could be worse/Let's look on the bright side is basically dangling the proverbial carrot in front of the fates and begging them to show you just how far they can stick it in. Don't be optimistic, kids. A semester of first year Philosophy will teach to listen to the greats: Hobbes, Voltaire and well, me. We'll tell you that if expect the worst, then you'll leave enough room to be pleasantly surprised. The only people who wax lyrical about the joys of optimism are tools like Rousseau...an idiot, communist and I hear he tortures puppies on the weekends he doesn't spend jacking off to his own doctrine regarding the state of nature. If the symptoms of optimism persist, fine...be that way, but at least try and suppress these instincts if you ever plan on travelling with Greyhound.

So, I realise five seconds after I sat down that I've made a huge mistake. I'm leaving the greatest city in these United States to get on a night flight bus that's filling up with your regular circus sideshow acts and the ringmaster is heading straight towards me. I could smell this guy before I saw him. It's a combination of stale beer, crusty sweat stains and cigarettes with a hint of the military. I was still in my stage of cautious optimism as there were a few seats left and I thought that maybe I'll be that lucky one who doesn't have to fight for elbow room for sixteen hours. However. As soon as I caught that scent, I knew that fate had once again taken up the orange rod and was aiming squarely for buttocks. I heard the slurred words "Anyone sitting here? You look like you'll be good for conversation" and had no choice but to take one last look around before uttering "Uh...er...ohbuggerit. No. I won't be chatting though, because this is a night bus and I intend on sleeping."

"We'll see about that." say the Fates.

Joining myself and the lead tenor in the 'Down With Personal Hygeine' acapella chorus on the bus to Sacramento were three girls around my age taking up the three seats behind me and a mother and daughter directly across the way. One of the girls looked as though she required the extra two seats for herself alone and well, she was fortunate enough to be able to take up two. Bitch. One would spend the next 9 hours talking aimless, vowel-elongating trash on her cell phone (re: 'Yeeeeeahhh....liiiike...I knooooow etc etc), causing me to fantasise about hijacking the bus and taking it on a trip to Facestab city. The other one would spend most of her time sleeping and if you think that would give her an exemption from a taste of my critical bile then you're wrong, because she snores and therefore I hate her. Not as much as I do the King of the Four Whiffs next to me, because he proceeds to pull from his bag of ancient relics one pre-(Gulf) war cassette deck and over the ear headphones which will allow him...and everyone else within a four seat radius...a chance to listen to his collection of 80's metal and hardcore hip-hop at full volume. It is so loud through his headphones that I can hear lyrics.
Thankfully, this is why phones now double as mp3 players. I look at mine only to discover that I'd forgotten to charge the battery last night. I have 18% of my battery power left and even when I become desperate and play Golden Skans for the 14th time that day, I can still hear a half-arsed riff spewing forth from the wax-laden inner ears of the Arizonian Asshole next to me.

This is why I hate the human race. I sit back and think of drag queens.

Too many godforsaken hours later, I can no longer feel my toes, it's the next day, we're somewhere just outside of Medford. I am not sleeping. I have not slept. Sgt. Blotto, despite my protestations, is still playing his music. That bitch behind me is still on her phone and the other two are bonding with my cellmate because they appreciate his taste in tuneage. I'm going to allow you to Madlib the emotion I was feeling at that moment, which you can feel free to insert [here]. Our one meal stop is at Taco Bell so I decide to pass and maybe get a glorious half hour's worth of snoozy goodness. Approximately 13 and a half winks later, we're back on the road again, the bus driver/my hero is warning The Cell Phone Trio to shut up before they're evicted from the Big Greyhound House and I'm using my last 5% of battery to play Golden Skans. Yes, again. I'm just at the point of reaching peace when the old lady in the front row heads to the back of the bus and promptly begins retching. This is why I don't eat at Taco Bell. Her contralto solo lasts for three rounds of five awkward minutes and suddenly, the Military Breath Monster and his collection of 'It Came From Planet Journey' cassettes doesn't seem so bad. It's right about now that my batteries decide to breathe their last. I sit back and think of sweet transvestites.

I wake up just in time for the sunrise, somewhere outside of Sacramento. We roll in at around six and finally the Fates decide to play it my way and I see that Captain Puce Heart and the Skankettes are queueing for the San Diego bus. I even manage to score a seat all to myself on the way to San Francisco and there may have been a few more half hours (although still not enough) of poorly-positioned napping because the Californian desert scene outside can only hold my interest for a short while. We roll across the Bay Bridge on time and all I can do is sit back and think about the Pearl I left behind.

Portland - July 19th - 22nd: Home Is Where The Horror Is.

Wave goodbye to living alone, I think we've found our home - Patrick Wolf - The Railway House.

Three groins in a fountain...and one girl smirking on a street corner.

I came to Portland with three indispensable guides - the Frommer's Guide to Portland, generously donated by Astha, Chuck Palahniuk's Fugitives & Refugees (my favourite author's guided tour of the place he calls home) and Katherine Dunne's Geek Love, which isn't really a guide but is an essential read as a couple of the characters call the city home. I only had three and a half days to spend here, which didn't seem like enough time when I first left Seattle. By the time I had climbed aboard the bus to leave Portland, I knew for sure that I needed to stay longer and halfway into my week in San Francisco, I had half a mind to board the next bus, forget the rest of the trip and spend two months in The City of Roses.

You know why they call it the City of Roses? It's to cover up the smell of sex, drugs, booze, sweat and other illicit indiscretions that occur in this most interesting of cities. How do I know this? Because I witnessed it. Mum, if you're reading this...you might want to go back and read my Utah entry because we all know how wholesome Utah is and well...this one ain't gonna be pretty.

Portland isn't a pretty city by any stretch of the imagination. For a major city, it's really small (two million people in the entire metropolitan area) The tallest building is big, pink and fabulous and the residents of Portland, a city which has given the world plenty of writers (Chuck, Katherine and Ursula K. LeGuin among others), musicians (The Shins, Dandy Warhols etc.) and other assorted brilliant minds, naturally they all call it The Big Pink. There are tons of bridges of all different shapes and sizes crossing the Willamette River, which divides the city in half. It has beautiful parts (The Pearl District, The International Test Rose Garden, Washington Park) but it has a lot of not-so-beautiful bits as well. Skidmore immediately springs to mind and well, whatever immediately springs to your mind when pondering over a word like Skidmore, that's probably what you'll find in that part of Portland.

So why did the place have such a profound effect on me? Buggered if I know.

Whilst in Portland, I stayed at two hotels, The Benson & The Paramount. One of these hotels still has one of my precious black and white heeled shoes. I don't like to play favourites with my shoes but these were particularly special, however if Portland needs a tithe from each visitor then I suppose a shoe is the least I could be giving up (for the record, the other one is in San Francisco, as there was no point in me carrying around one shoe, was there?). The Benson was classy. What happened because of the Benson was um...possibly ever so slightly less classy. During my first night in Portland I heard they had free live jazz down at the bar. I also didn't want to pay for my internet (damn cheapskate classy hotels), and (reasons to move to Portland: #1) the city has free wi-fi covering the whole of the Downtown area. Free. Hell yes, quoth I, so I put on my glad rags and wandered down to the bar area to hear some jazz and maybe gather up some inspiration for that entry about Utah that I was planning. Yeah, that was the plan...

When I get to the bar there's an assortment of middle-aged folks clustered around and most of them turned to see what the hell this young whippersnapper thinks she's doing with her laptop and that crazy flower adorning her head. Cripes. There's a young guy behind the bar who pours me a glass of Viognier which, surprisingly, I don't hate. A few gulps of wine later, I'm still not able to think of an opening line but at least the jazz is kickin'. A younger woman with a Southern accent wanders over to the bar, sits next to me and strikes up a conversation with the young bartender. Then, she spots me, the only other person in the area who isn't nearing the blue-rinse decade and comments: "Well, that looks like a lotta fun there, honey."

I've given up trying to think at this point, so I chat to the Texan woman for a while. Her name is Denelle, she's in Portland for a high school teachers' conference, her favourite word is ‘groty’ (pronounced ‘grow-ty, a synonym for ‘gross’ and yes, Texans are hilarious) and she's thinking of hitting up a strip club as soon as her friend comes down. She's got no idea where my accent originates from, so it's a good thing that she doesn't teach geography. Her friend, Ron, who I initially think is her boyfriend, arrives shortly thereafter and they depart for the club around the corner and I'm stuck being bored and surrounded by baby boomers once again. Cut to two drinks and about an hour later...

So by this stage I'm still at the bar, talking to a guy named Cliff who's in Portland on business and another guy named Mike about my trip and their work and, you know, just shootin' the breeze. Both are around the 40 something mark but they're kind of cool, I'm kind of smashed, they're kind of smashed and Cliff's from San Francisco so at least I'm getting some decent travel advice. Also, I'm no longer paying for my own drinks. My head is yelling at me. Denelle and Ron arrive once again, fresh from their adventures in the strip club and they ask the bartender, who I've discovered is a Jonah from Hawaii where he plans to go once his shift ends. Somehow, we all end up talking and before I know it, all of us bar Cliff who has retired by this stage, are wandering drunkenly around the streets of Portland, with NFI where we're headed. It's around this point in time that I realise Mike is tagging along because he's drunk enough to have developed the idea that he has a shot at me however it would take a wide variety of simultaneous intoxicants before I lose both my equilibrium AND my dignity, so we all know nothing's going to happen there (you can breathe out now Mum, why are you still reading this?). Denelle is frightened when she discovers my age (I'm the baby of the group at 22), I'm shocked when I learn hers (no way does she look 30) and the fact that she only met Ron about a week ago, he’s married with kids, she’s also married but with without the kids, and when the shocks subside, we resume our drinking. Mike is the next to retire when he realises he's out of his depth, I'm also considering retiring however, somehow time leaps forward, it's 3:00 in the morning, we've all left the bar which closed an hour ago and are sitting around Jonah's studio apartment eating Doritos and I've been tagged as the wild one because these guys have assumed that since I don't talk much, I must have a lot to hide (I don’t). I become acquainted with my bed at around 3:45 a.m and for the record, there's no one else in it but me.

Did I mention that was my first night?

I wake up the next noon expecting a bitch of a hangover but I'm proud to say that I'm still every inch the hangover virgin. Muahaha. A long history of alcoholism in the bloodline certainly does have its uses, doesn’t it?

I dedicated my second day to wandering around aimlessly around the local area and I discover the joys of The Pearl (and its many galleries and excellent Peruvian restaurants…for such a small blue-collared city, Portland sure produces a lot of artists), the cleanest Chinatown I’ve ever seen (which is not many mind you, but the number is steadily growing and Portland is still winning), and the smells of Skidmore (ick) which to its detriment is kinda dodgy but to its credit, they’ve got a pretty cool Saturday street market there and Portland still has less homeless people than Seattle. Portland is a mecca for vintage clothing and Magpie is easily the pick of the bunch, two blocks from The Benson and as I would discover soon enough, indispensable to my Portland experience. Portland is also to home to the Greatest. Book. Store. Ever. It is called Powell’s, it covers an entire city block and it is so good that people are literally, dying to get in there. On the corner, there’s a sculpture of books containing the ashes of a guy who wanted to be buried in the store. I could have spent my entire travel allowance in a matter of hours, however I restrained myself and simply bought a copy of Geek Love.

Only Portland could provide the inspiration for such a novel. It’s a city filled with freaks: young kids proving punk isn’t dead as long as there is hair gel and various shades of electric blue still present in the colour spectrum, undiscovered prophets covered in rags and dreads, spreading their unique gospel to an audience who can’t be fucked with listening and gorgeous little gay boys running around hand in hand, knowing full well that if there’s ever a place where the marginalised can find their kin, it’s here. Then there’s me. By the time the sun has set, I’m in love with a city all over again.

That night, I’m buggered but not yet beaten. I grab some Thai food and head over to the celebrations at Powell’s, because it’s the 21^st, it’s Harry Potter 7 and they’re throwing a block party. It’s the Pacific Northwest which means it’s drizzling with rain (my two and a half weeks of sunshine in Seattle were sheer, dumb luck) but nothing can dampen the spirit of a couple of thousand people of all ages, watching some dudes in purple, red and green ribbons dance around, beating each other with sticks whilst singing traditional English tunes. There are fire-eaters, jugglers, people dressed as Dumbledore and Hagrid standing around for photo opportunities and the biggest sea of black-cloaked Hogwarts students seen since last Halloween. I stick around for a while but since I’m not buying the book (I was spoiled and happy about it, because that ending…ew!), I decide to bugger off and catch a bit of shut-eye after a quick nightcap.

The next morning I move hotels to the Paramount and catch an Asian brunch in the hotel bistro which is meh, average, but I’m seated next to a couple with kids, their daughter takes a shine to me and we chat. They’re Portland natives (also known as lucky bastards) who have previously lived in cities all over the world and chose to raise the ankle biters in The City of Roses because there was no better place. They give me all these brilliant suggestions for places to go and I realise I’ve only got one and a half days and there’s no way I can manage to fit it all in. Sigh.

I spend most of my day hiking up to the International Test Rose Garden (after going the wrong way. Note to self and others – the Rose Garden and the International Test Rose Garden are NOT the same thing. One is a sports area and the other is an actual Rose Garden and they’re on opposite sides of town. I am an idiot, but we already knew that. When I manage to find my way to Washington Park, the first thing I notice are the squirrels (how cute!) and the first thing the squirrels notice is me, and the possibility of food somewhere on my person. After taking a breather on a bench, one springs its way over to me (the way they move is so funny, to me at least), with a curious look. I fake as though I’ve got something nutty and delicious in my hand and the adorable little rodent is brave enough to come all the way over to sniff my hand. It discovers I’m a liar, shoots me a look of squirrelly wrath and runs off, probably so it can plot the destruction of the human species and rant about how shit everything is to a freaky Goth girl.

As for The Test Rose Garden…I’ll let the following photo speak for itself:

Yeah. There's a reason why half of my Portland photos have a distinct floral motif.

The other great part of this side of town is at the foot of the hill, there’s Elephants Deli. It’s bloody huge and full of good looking gourmet food and sweets. Because I’m predictable, I choose the rose flavoured lollies and they’re now responsible for keeping me awake on Greyhound trips. That night I had myself a burger at Virginia’s…one of the oldest cafes in Portland, where you can still smoke inside (a minus, but at least it’s well ventilated), it looks like a dive (quite cool) and they serve up an awesome Cajun burger. This is all so I can mentally prepare myself for this evening’s entertainment.

I’m off to Rocky Horror.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show holds the record for the longest theatrical release in history. Right now as you’re not reading this, somewhere in the world it is midnight and there is a cinema playing the film. It is also the only film in the world which is a comedic, dramatic horror/sci-fi/musical where by the end of the film, all the characters are in drag and know each other in the biblical sense. The Clinton St Theatre has been screening the film since its first release and as a result their shows have become legendary. If you’ve never seen the film before, then you’re not my friend and I don’t want to talk to you. Also, don’t go to a midnight screening, hire the dvd first, be mesmerised and THEN go to a screening. Preferably at the Clinton St. Theatre, a classic cinema on the outside, buggered and worn on the inside. You don’t know what kind of substances make your feet stick to floor. Purely by chance, I’m there on an over-18’s night. Outside of the cinema there’s a girl running around in her underwear, a man who is the spitting image of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, a lady wearing more clothing than half the queue who reveals she’s a stripper by trade and a girl clutching a Potter book who, like me, is a Rocky Horror virgin and she becomes my buddy as we’re both not a little terrified. Yes, you’re labelled a virgin if you’ve never gone to a screening at the Clinton and tales of all the horrible things the regulars do to ‘devirginise’ the newbies have become a part of the Portland folklore. I rocked up in a makeshift Magenta costume (it’s a dream of mine to play her at least once in my life) including this perfect white apron I scored from Magpie that afternoon, ten minutes before the store was due to close.

As for the show itself…I’m not breathing a word, at least not in writing. As far as I’m concerned, what happens at Rocky Horror stays at Rocky Horror. What I will say is that I’m going back at least twice before I leave Vancouver, if only so that I can confirm that what happened that night wasn’t all a twisted figment of my imagination. Did I feel violated during my Rocky Horror experience? Oh yes. It was such a relief to find some Americans who have made it their personal mission to be as offensive as possible. What I will tell you is to drive there and park nearby. Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT rely on cabs, as I spent a frightening half hour waiting around in the deserted streets for my cab to arrive and in my fishnets, apron and somewhat revealing top I had a couple of guys in cars pull over in an attempt to well...you know. I ended up hiding out in a pub for ten minutes to ward off more potential stalkers and gave my cabbie an earful when he finally arrived.

On my final day in Portland, I wandered across the river and into the Hawthorne district, which is full of funky stores, people with dreadlocks and the largest assortment of tools for Wicca that I’ve ever seen. I make it back into the city in time to take some happy snaps of downtown before I go off witness the world record attempt for the worlds longest all drag queen chorus line in Portland’s main square. Only in Portland could such an event happen. A lot of the ladies were professionals but many were volunteers, the oldest in his 60s and the youngest was a mere 11 (get them young, get them forever!). His drag alias for the day? Miss Samantha. Of course. Also in attendance was the legendary Darcelle, who has been doing drag shows for donkey’s years and her club is yet another Portland staple which I didn’t get a chance to check out (next time…). They broke the record, with over 60 people donning a frock and dancing to ‘I’m Coming Out’ (of course!) by Diana Ross. Fantastic. I’m so pleased I was there to witness it.

With four hours to go before I had to head off to the Greyhound station and parts beyond, I grab a coffee, stumble across a craft show four blocks away from the main square (there’s always something going on in this city) and bid a temporary farewell to a place I know I’ll be seeing again very soon (but not soon enough for my liking).

To all the people of Portland, Oregon…thank you. If there’s any hope for the United States of America, it can be found within your city walls.

Discography

The Shins – Sea Legs

The Rocky Horror Picture Show Cast – The Time Warp

Diana Ross – I’m Coming Out

Wilco – Impossible Germany

Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position/The Railway House

The Rapture – Get Myself Into It