Happy Birthday, MLKJ - Part 1 of 2
The friday before the long weekend, I asked the IT director, an enormous black man, what he was doing over the weekend. He told me:
I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm not coming in to work on Tuesday...'Cause I'm BLACK!
I think this was in reference to the inaguration, but I want to be racially sensitive and not jump to any conculsions. Personally, I celebrated the life of MLKJ,an avid motorcyclist,* by taking off on a four-day motorcycle trip.
Day I
I knew I would have some company upon leaving Los Angeles at 3:30pm on the Friday before a long weekend, I just did not realize how many people were bucking the trend of the staycation. I headed east, and traffic was so bad (how bad was it?) traffic was so bad there was more bumper-to-bumpers than at a Sir Mix a Lot orgy.
I must have passed ten thousand cars at a virtual stand still, riding in-between lanes for more than 50 miles, my brain locked in concentration. One of of twenty cars pulled out of the way, one of of twenty pulled into the gap between lanes to block me, but most people had fallen asleep at the wheel.
So I didn't make it to Twenty-nine palms, CA until well after dark. I found a motel that was a bargain at $45. It remind me of the $25, jizz-stained motels I stayed in on my Route 66 trip. There were cigarette holes in the bedspread, no shampoo, and salvation army decor. The place felt defiled. Horrible things had been done in the room over the years, you could just feel it.
I went to bed early, but woke up around midnight to the sound of a couple, along with a 14-year old kid, loudly rousing the inn-keeper. The couple checked into the room next to me, and had loud sexual intercourse for about 45 minutes while the adolescent waited outside. The kid smoked to kill time, and periodically banged on the door, and asked the couple if they were finished. Finally, they let him in. About an hour later, I heard the copulating resume, forcing me to assume that the kid was trying to sleep in the bed next to the couple while they carried on their love-making. I imagine he slept soundly knowing his mother was being gratified to such an extent. I know I did.
Day II
The next morning, I was having a ball hurtling through the desert. At one stretch, there was 100 miles between towns, and scaresely an automobile on the road. It's a great feeling tearing ass through the middle of nowhere, one hand on the throttle, white lines zipping by underfoot.
Fortunately, I made a wrong turn, and headed north via Needles. I say fortunately because when I arrived in Needles, turned off the Dirty Whore to fill the tank, and turned the key into the "On" position, nothing happened. This was bad.
I parked the bike, and pulled out a couple of wrenches that I always take with me on long road trips. I hear them jangle together, and it puts a smile on my face knowing that I am a guy that carries around tools in case shit goes down. I'm the guy on the camping trip who packed extra iodine tablets and toilet paper. I'm the guy with Shout Wipe stain removal in his office desk drawer. I'm the guy with supplmental oxygen on a 40-foot dive off the reef, I seem to have gum on hand after garlicy meals, I light your cigarette while you're searching for matches, I have extra beer at the party, a map of the area, a method for calculating the number of minutes until sunset, a corkscrew, knowledge of the weather over the next 48 hours, residential street parking next to the airport, and a guy that can score you drugs in every major metropolitan area west of the Mississippi. I am fucking prepared.
The wrenches were not the proper size to do anything except adjust the rear view mirrors. I walked into a garage attached to the gas station where a very large man was sitting on a stool, sucking on a lollypop, and eyeing me with contempt as I approached.
"Everything was fine with my bike until I filled up the tank and tried to turn her on...I think the problem might be the battery..."
The man sprang to life, and wheeled my motorcycle into the shop. Apparently, he used to be a motorcycle mechanic, and owned several motorcycles the same make, model, and color as the Dirty Whore. In fact, he had experienced the same problem with his own bikes.
Actually, he just looked at me slack-jawed, not in slack-jawed ignorance, but in slack-jawed indifference. I was inconvinancing him, and he was not happy about it. Not "unhappy" per se as much as disinterested. I was his wife telling him about the gals at the office.
"So if you have an 11mm wrench, I think I can access the battery and maybe figure out what's wrong."
"I don't have an 11mm wrench," he grunted. With great effort, he stood up and rummaged around a loose set of dirty tools. He found one, and handed it to me. I walked back to the bike, and took off the seat. The negative terminal on the battery was coroded with white shit. I blew off the white shit, and unscrewed the screw. Only half of the screw came off, hence the white shit. I cleaned it, screwed it back in, turned the key to "On" and viola, I saved the Dirty Whore from her certain demise in Needles.
I was still 210 miles to Flagstaff, riding on a windy highway, and racing against the setting sun. I hadn't counted on riding in the dark, and daylight temps were supposed to be in the 60's. It got cold quickly as I made my way east. I didn't realize I would have to cross a 7300 foot mountain pass, or that there would be snow on the ground, or that temps would get down to 30.
I was fucking cold, but Wal-Mart came through by providing me with low cost consumer goods manufactuered in foreign countries with cheap labor and limited trade barriers. $9.99 for a pair of sweat pants to wear under my jeans. About the same for a wrench set and universal screw driver. A man in a Wal-Mart is a man prepared for anything.
Even with the additional clothing, by the time I hit 89 south in Flagstaff, I was shivering unctrollably, and I couldn't feel my hands and feet. I carefully decended 1500 hundred feet on windy roads into Sedona in the dark and upon checking in, immediately jumped into the shower to try to save my finger tips.
The Dirty Whore had been ridden enough for one night, so I walked into town. I sat next to a flakey nutritionist at a restaraunt's bar. She advised me to "follow my soul [while on vacation]" Yep. I was in Sedona alright, the only place in the United States you could order a shakra rebalancing at 3:00am on a weeknight. Beautiful place and shiny, happy people. It's one of my favorite places in the world.
*I don't think this is true, but I have not read or heard anything to contradic it
The friday before the long weekend, I asked the IT director, an enormous black man, what he was doing over the weekend. He told me:
I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm not coming in to work on Tuesday...'Cause I'm BLACK!
I think this was in reference to the inaguration, but I want to be racially sensitive and not jump to any conculsions. Personally, I celebrated the life of MLKJ,an avid motorcyclist,* by taking off on a four-day motorcycle trip.
Day I
I knew I would have some company upon leaving Los Angeles at 3:30pm on the Friday before a long weekend, I just did not realize how many people were bucking the trend of the staycation. I headed east, and traffic was so bad (how bad was it?) traffic was so bad there was more bumper-to-bumpers than at a Sir Mix a Lot orgy.
I must have passed ten thousand cars at a virtual stand still, riding in-between lanes for more than 50 miles, my brain locked in concentration. One of of twenty cars pulled out of the way, one of of twenty pulled into the gap between lanes to block me, but most people had fallen asleep at the wheel.
So I didn't make it to Twenty-nine palms, CA until well after dark. I found a motel that was a bargain at $45. It remind me of the $25, jizz-stained motels I stayed in on my Route 66 trip. There were cigarette holes in the bedspread, no shampoo, and salvation army decor. The place felt defiled. Horrible things had been done in the room over the years, you could just feel it.
I went to bed early, but woke up around midnight to the sound of a couple, along with a 14-year old kid, loudly rousing the inn-keeper. The couple checked into the room next to me, and had loud sexual intercourse for about 45 minutes while the adolescent waited outside. The kid smoked to kill time, and periodically banged on the door, and asked the couple if they were finished. Finally, they let him in. About an hour later, I heard the copulating resume, forcing me to assume that the kid was trying to sleep in the bed next to the couple while they carried on their love-making. I imagine he slept soundly knowing his mother was being gratified to such an extent. I know I did.
Day II
The next morning, I was having a ball hurtling through the desert. At one stretch, there was 100 miles between towns, and scaresely an automobile on the road. It's a great feeling tearing ass through the middle of nowhere, one hand on the throttle, white lines zipping by underfoot.
Fortunately, I made a wrong turn, and headed north via Needles. I say fortunately because when I arrived in Needles, turned off the Dirty Whore to fill the tank, and turned the key into the "On" position, nothing happened. This was bad.
I parked the bike, and pulled out a couple of wrenches that I always take with me on long road trips. I hear them jangle together, and it puts a smile on my face knowing that I am a guy that carries around tools in case shit goes down. I'm the guy on the camping trip who packed extra iodine tablets and toilet paper. I'm the guy with Shout Wipe stain removal in his office desk drawer. I'm the guy with supplmental oxygen on a 40-foot dive off the reef, I seem to have gum on hand after garlicy meals, I light your cigarette while you're searching for matches, I have extra beer at the party, a map of the area, a method for calculating the number of minutes until sunset, a corkscrew, knowledge of the weather over the next 48 hours, residential street parking next to the airport, and a guy that can score you drugs in every major metropolitan area west of the Mississippi. I am fucking prepared.
The wrenches were not the proper size to do anything except adjust the rear view mirrors. I walked into a garage attached to the gas station where a very large man was sitting on a stool, sucking on a lollypop, and eyeing me with contempt as I approached.
"Everything was fine with my bike until I filled up the tank and tried to turn her on...I think the problem might be the battery..."
The man sprang to life, and wheeled my motorcycle into the shop. Apparently, he used to be a motorcycle mechanic, and owned several motorcycles the same make, model, and color as the Dirty Whore. In fact, he had experienced the same problem with his own bikes.
Actually, he just looked at me slack-jawed, not in slack-jawed ignorance, but in slack-jawed indifference. I was inconvinancing him, and he was not happy about it. Not "unhappy" per se as much as disinterested. I was his wife telling him about the gals at the office.
"So if you have an 11mm wrench, I think I can access the battery and maybe figure out what's wrong."
"I don't have an 11mm wrench," he grunted. With great effort, he stood up and rummaged around a loose set of dirty tools. He found one, and handed it to me. I walked back to the bike, and took off the seat. The negative terminal on the battery was coroded with white shit. I blew off the white shit, and unscrewed the screw. Only half of the screw came off, hence the white shit. I cleaned it, screwed it back in, turned the key to "On" and viola, I saved the Dirty Whore from her certain demise in Needles.
I was still 210 miles to Flagstaff, riding on a windy highway, and racing against the setting sun. I hadn't counted on riding in the dark, and daylight temps were supposed to be in the 60's. It got cold quickly as I made my way east. I didn't realize I would have to cross a 7300 foot mountain pass, or that there would be snow on the ground, or that temps would get down to 30.
I was fucking cold, but Wal-Mart came through by providing me with low cost consumer goods manufactuered in foreign countries with cheap labor and limited trade barriers. $9.99 for a pair of sweat pants to wear under my jeans. About the same for a wrench set and universal screw driver. A man in a Wal-Mart is a man prepared for anything.
Even with the additional clothing, by the time I hit 89 south in Flagstaff, I was shivering unctrollably, and I couldn't feel my hands and feet. I carefully decended 1500 hundred feet on windy roads into Sedona in the dark and upon checking in, immediately jumped into the shower to try to save my finger tips.
The Dirty Whore had been ridden enough for one night, so I walked into town. I sat next to a flakey nutritionist at a restaraunt's bar. She advised me to "follow my soul [while on vacation]" Yep. I was in Sedona alright, the only place in the United States you could order a shakra rebalancing at 3:00am on a weeknight. Beautiful place and shiny, happy people. It's one of my favorite places in the world.
*I don't think this is true, but I have not read or heard anything to contradic it
Labels: Dirty Whore, Travel
posted by Mezz0 at 3:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home