Pilgrimage to San Diego... Or, "Katie Manifests a Giant Hamburger"

If you're wondering why Fiction Clemens isn't on the shelves yet (I keep hearing, "It was supposed to come out in July, right?")... or if you just want to know the madness that is the great 2007 Montucky ComiCon adventure, this post is for you.

Since this post is insanely long, Let me get the first question out of the way. I haven't been able to announce it publicly until now, but Fiction Clemens has changed publishers. I signed the contract at ComiCon, and my dear little cowboy is now on his way to a February release through SpaceDog Entertainment. So I apologize to those of you who bought characters and expected to see a final product last month... but just hang on a little longer :)

Now, onto the journey. The entire trip lasted exactly three weeks and a full moon cycle, which began as a sliver, hit the full at the end of the convention, and then waned as we wandered home. Summing up a three week adventure is a difficult task for a lazy bastard such as myself. Some parts that I should probably explain in detail will be glossed over, while other parts will drone on and on for all you care. If I'm lucky there will be one thing I get just right.

So it all began with ladypajama (Katie), Creature, and myself packing up the truck and camper and heading west. I'd left Lucy behind with my dad and Katie was leaving her new boyfriend. The first part of our trip consisted of a subliminal argument over who had the most right to be more sad.



As we slipped sneakily into Washington (I'd say at least 92% of the population had no idea we were even there), the conversation somehow wandered to "the Secret". I'm sure you've heard of this. It was Oprah's book of the month, it was a movie, it's been blah blah blah'ing all over the place for months. Apparently Katie can't go anywhere without someone bringing up "the Secret". The last time it came up was right before she left LA. Somehow she segued from that conversation into an affirmation that would later prove to manifest her boyfriend. Despite the overwhelming evidence of Katie's story, I still think "the Secret" is mostly the Ridiculous, so I offered this challenge right there on day one: "Manifest a giant hamburger," I said. "I'm talking life-size."

Without batting an eye, Katie said, "Done. By the end of this trip we will see an enormous hamburger."

Hoping for ground beef glories ahead, Katie and I pressed on. We reached Portland late in the evening, and the next day had a wonderful time with the Portlanders, whose ranks continue to grow. Um... I know we did something culturally interesting and devilishly unique there. Oh yeah, we drank lots of beer. Portland is just a Missoula for cool kids. Katie and I decided we are definitely not cool enough for Portland. But our friends are, and that's good enough for us. Also Portland has seventy-five thousand bridges. Last year I hated that. This year I love it.



Next morning we caught up with the Seattle crew. Joel, Craig, Freedom, and Oisin pulled up in Sven and dragged us to breakfast. From there we headed south to Crater Lake, which turned out to be a sunken mountain. As Katie said, "Screw you guys, I'm going to be a lake." The campground was absurd. Tightly packed little sites. People swarming about. A grocery store. Camping, my eye. Apparently there were bears in the campground and each site had a little locker to store food in. Oisin fell in love with our camper and demanded to sleep in the snail shell. Her dad relented, hanging off the edge of a table/bed/thing way too small for him. What that boy won't sacrifice for his kid...



After Crater Lake I have a vague memory of getting lost and how somehow this made us awesome. We hit California and made our way to the Coastal Highway. The plan was to take Highway 1 all the way to San Diego. Other than a few cheats here and there, we came pretty close to doing just that. Next stop: Redwoods. Please refer to last years post if you don't know the otherworldly glory that is Humbolt National Forest.

The next day Katie and Joel traded places. This turned out to be a disaster that I do not have sufficient journalistic integrity to report. But the drive with Joel was nice. We geeked out on audio-courses (Mostly lectures on Herodotus), and took several long stops by the ocean. We also stopped in Santa Cruz where I found a hundred dollar bill in a gas station. Being the unscrupulous sort, I snatched it up, but being the paranoid sort I gave it to Joel. Who wants that kind of cosmic responsibility? Besides, Joel deserved it. However, the universe decided to take the money back as if it had never been... such a display of quantum schenanigans, I have never seen. The above-mentioned disaster resulted in having to get an $88 dollar hotel. Joel handed over the hundred and did not get his change. Clearly the hotel clerk knew what was up, was in on the cosmic joke, and has by now slipped away into some other dimension.

Katie demanded to be returned to my vehicle for the final driving day. So after a wonderful breakfast at the hotel across the street, we were back on the road. Despite her penchant for car sickness, Katie was awesome enough to let us take the Coastal Highway through Big Sur. They say Big Sur is beautiful, but that's something of a misnomer. The first beautiful place we hit into Big Sur was not Big Sur at all... it was the Coast of Ireland. Somehow they'd transported a bit of the Irish coast over to California. Katie and I hopped a fence and headed across a field of yellow flowers to a gorgeous zigzag of cliffs overlooking several jutting pirate-cave rocks, sexified by the slow in-rolling fog. We spoke in Irish accents, picked flowers, and acquired several ticks (discovered later, dammit!!)



After Ireland we got into a big discussion about Jack Kerouac, the Beat Writers, and their impact on our lives. Those of you who know what I'm talking about should reminisc over this for a moment. The rest of you probably wouldn't care anyway.

Any geographer can tell you that if you drive down from the Irish coast a few miles you will come across the Spanish coast. It's only logical. The Spanish coast consisted of several highlights including Bird Poop Rock, the first tick discovery, several starfish, my near-death in the vicious ocean, the conquering of Pirate Cave Rock, the death of my favorite boots, and way too much exercise.

Okay, let's see... Big Sur, yada yada... we drove through LA and listened to Katie's favorite radio station, arrived in Oceanside and went to bed. The next day we strolled the final 40 miles into San Diego, where the first order of business was to pick up Joiton (design and pencils for Fiction Clemens) at the airport.

Now, the actual San Diego part of the trip is kind of a blur. Thanks to the organizational wizardry that is Joel, we were able to afford a luxurious 2 bedroom suite with full kitchen by packing 10 people into the place. Overall the stay was excellent and we managed to avoid any homicides. We also met Vero Gandini, the colorist for Issue 2, and her boyfriend Leo. As soon as they arrived the room was flooded with Spanish as they and Joiton tried to dizzy our brains with their crazy moon language. We hit the zoo, as well, which was touristy bliss.



Schmoozing and wheeling and dealing all went well at the Con. I signed my contract with SpaceDog and got comp copies of 24Seven, vol. 2, an Image anthology I was lucky enough to get a story into. I met lots of great creators and people in the biz. Freedom, Joiton, and I ended up hanging out with a former gameshow host from "The Weakest Link" for a while and had some sparkling conversation.



I found myself emotionally invested in the convention this year. It was more than business, and it broke my heart to leave. The people in Comics are amazing, wonderful, enthusiastic humans, and I can't wait to see you all again in New York!!!

The journey home was relaxed, but all were anxious to get back. A few highlights from the return trip: visiting my godfather and his family, my great uncle the magician in Burbank, photos with the Warner Watertower, dinner and touristing with Higham in San Francisco, Jenna in Oakland cooked us a delicious masterpiece, my old Publisher Jeremy took us to a crazy restaurant in SF called AsiaSF where Asian he/shes danced on the bar (the curious are encouraged to google a bit on that), good cozy talks with the Khans and my mom in Santa Cruz, a dead battery, the people's park in Berekely, and an AMAZING walkabout at a place called "the Albany Bulb". We also hit Portland again to see Theo's gallery, then Seattle briefly to carouse with a thousand freaks.





And now for the moment you've been waiting for. On our way to Pier 39 in San Francisco, Katie and I stumbled upon... you guessed it... a larger-than-life, enormously huge hamburger. Amen.

Curses!!!

Listening to a monologue, overheard actually, where every other word was 'fuckin' or 'goddamn'... seemed almost musical if not a little ridiculous. Malice-free and habitual, curse words have taken the place of pauses. They fill the gaps in broken thoughts. The 'um' was transitional, and offensive to public speakers. fuck is offensive to old churchgoing ladies and people with small children. Back in the day was speech unbroken? Was it offensive to have gaping holes in a sentence with nothing to glue it all together? Maybe not behind closed doors, but in public! My god, who utters such lapses of synapse in public!! Heavens!!

dreamtime aborigine #44

i took a little trip up a mountain road in my truck. except i wasn't in my truck, i was in a pull cart behind my truck. i had a mechanism that could ram down the gass pedal and i thought that was all i needed. halfway to bedlam i realized steering and breaks might be handy. somehow my brain invented a crude steering mechanism that allowed me to swerve wildly back and forth, slamming into parked cars and fences.

later, on the floor, i picked up an issue of Marvel Comics presents "Vs. vs. Vs." ... which turned out to be the issue where "Dracula vs. King Arthur" takes on "the Fantastic Four vs. the Mole Men" in a mighty struggle against the others' mighty struggles.

dreamtime aborigine #18

and then she was texting me boyfriend problems. she kept referring to him as josh, and she was in love with him. "is it me?" i thought, "am I the boyfriend?". there are a lot of people named josh.

moments before, i'd been in a car, trying to get across Seattle to fine, cheap pizza. the offramp to the 405 was sheer like a waterfall, and we decided it was a bad idea.

Tid-bits

I continue to experience the unidentifiable taste in my mouth... or is it an unidentifiable smell in my brain? It's old, whatever it is. That is, it goes back years, probably back to childhood. Something I tasted once, or a taste I had in my mouth once. Or a smell I had in my brain.

Tonight the street was blocked off by police cars, flashing lights, officers talking to their shoulders. A car was parked on the other side. Someone down on their knees. This is the classic arrest-pose, but as I found out later, no one arrests were made.

It happened by a church. A beautiful old brick church where we once ate pancakes with peanut butter at a Sunday brunch, and I bought my denim oven-mit. Honest to God. Who was kneeling in the street outside a church, surrounded by the police? Surrounded by the new soft magenta police lights. Pink lights. When did they move from red to pink? Who thought it would be good to soften up police lights?

Since living here we've had our share of the cops. If downtown was a sledding hill, our house would be right at the frosty base where the screams emanate walloping WOOOO-HOOOs! And the main drag deviates here, left to the University area, right to the old Strip. Four months ago a high-speed chase ended on our lawn. Civilian car at apex, driver's side door flung wide. An inside straight of cop cars fanned out from behind. I guess the driver wanted a foot chase. A few weeks later I heard a car slam into garbage cans in the alley out back. Doors pop! "Get out of the car!", followed in short order by cries of pain, distinctly "Ow!", which is something people really say even as adults. I used to think it was only in comic books, but then I came across a devastating car wreck where a guy had cut right into a light pole, driven it right into the passenger seat. The steering wheel was jamming into his gut and they had to saw him right out of his car. No screams, no groans, just shallow breath and a recurring "owwww", like a child whining for desert. After the "Ow!" in the alley, the officer shouted a rousing "You are under arrest!" I swear to God in the very intonation of the archetype Game Show Host.

Sound-bytes are nothing new, and it isn't only laziness that attracts us to them. Life is made up of sound-bytes, tid-bits, things overheard, taken out of context. No one has the full story.

After I saw the road was blocked off, I messaged a journalist I know, a girl I met just a few weeks ago as the result of an experiment in social-anxiety. I met her on-line. We decided to get together and have a drink. I hate meeting new people, but I forced myself to do it, and it was good. She's a really sweet girl, sincere, sensitive.

There's the taste again. It only lasts a few seconds. It's a little like the taste in the mouth you get after you've been sick for a while, but that's not it. This is distinctive. I've tasted it before, but I can't place it. It's possible that I couldn't place it the first time I tasted it. A recurring de ja vu of the taste buds. Would be ironic if it tasted like onion, but it doesn't... and if it did, it really wouldn't. Be ironic that is. You may as well not have even read the last two sentences. Or this one.

My journalist friend came down and got the story. Walked right into the fray and took a statement from the cops. Braver than I who circled the scene like a vulture, batting away paranoid thoughts of stray bullets, martial-law, and mistaken identity.

"An 82-year old woman was hit by a car," she told me, shaking. Actually the first thing she said was "I hate this! I hate this!"

I saw the car, flooded with light. The back door was open. Someone was still sitting in the back seat. I couldn't see if anyone was in the driver's seat, but someone was sitting in the back. What did they see? How had it gone down? Who hit the breaks? Who called the cops? The ambulance must have come before we even knew what was going on. Just the cops now to clean up, give their statement, and deal with this guy who wouldn't get out of the back seat of the car.

"There were chalk outlines," she said. "I should have gotten more pictures." She was shaking.

The first thing that comes into my head is my Grandfather, surely asleep by now in the old-folks home. He's been there three weeks. First time ever in a home. He has a severe Parkinson's that has twisted up his spine so that he can't walk. He falls a lot and his new wife can't take care of him on her own. So he's in a home. This man is a riot. I saw him wheel down the hallway last week grinning like a six year old and shoving his thumb up like he was looking for a ride. He recently walked out of the home and crawled on his hands and knees into someone's yard. He thought they were trying to poison him in the cafeteria. He wanted to escape. Who wouldn't want to escape from a place like that?

The way my Grandfather tells it the cops came and got him. The cops! 80-year old men wandering into yards. 82-year old ladies walking out into traffic. Did she do it on purpose? "They'll put me in a home soon. Fuck that, I'd rather get the soul slammed out of me from the front fender of an Oldsmobile." People are getting itchier for escape. My mom says take her out to the woods before putting her in a home. "Go for a walk with my gun," says my Dad. I'm inclined to agree. My Grandpa probably would be too, but when it comes down to it, we can't do it. We put them in homes. We look away, look for alternatives. Otherwise we'd end up in the back seat of a car, trembling.

"I'm still shaking," she says, and we're about to part ways. "Can I tell you something?" she asks... "I'm very attracted to you."

Tid-bits. Everything we say and hear is out of context. There's not enough room in our heads for the context. The threads that belong to the end of each word, that go back to undefinable tastes on the tongue.

An 82-year old woman just walked in front of a car. I'm thinking, "Did she do it on purpose? And if so, did she mean to do it right in front of her church? Give the angels an easy pick-up and delivery?"

My friend is thinking, "I'm very attracted to you, and worried about how you'll react if I say so."

I'm thinking, "I'm crazy about a girl who barely acknowledges my existence, and I live inside that shell of longing every day."

She's saying, "I have to tell you this or I'll burst." And I know the feeling. Is anyone ever attracted to someone who's attracted to them back?

This journalist friend of mine is very pretty. Really lovely eyes... my lord! Attractive, but not my type, and I can't bring myself to say that. The girl just put herself out on the wire, so I try to appreciate it and not ruin it, and yet she probably wants to know if I reciprocate. But I can't say anything.

I've been living a fantasy life in my head with a different girl who barely acknowledges my existence, and I know in my deepest core that this girl would make perfect sense as a partner in life. The girl who is very attracted to me, I know in my very core, would not. Suddenly the car chase juxtaposes over the chase of a boy for a girl or vice versa. Keystone romance. "You are under arrest!" I should say that to a girl some day, then tackle her.

I'm sick and overwhelmed with the bits and pieces that flash out of a normal day. So many have gotten lost already.

Somehow it seems unsatisfying to say that it is our disconnectedness which ultimately connects us... but if the only alternative is to say that nothing connects us at all, I'll take bad irony any day.

When I'm 82 years old I will feel exactly like I do right now. I will fell that THIS is the moment of my life. It does not reference anything but itself, and yet I experience it as a connected moment anyway. Like the taste. What the hell is going on? I couldn't trace it before and I can't trace it now. Maybe this taste will come into my mouth again, when I'm 82, and I'll think, "What is that taste? I know I've had it before... I've felt it... on the tip of my tongue. Can't place it," and distracted by thoughts I will step out in front of a car.

The girl I want, don't want me, the girl who want me, I don't want. That should be a nursery rhyme for infants.

Then there's the girl I am closest to these days, who I can talk to about anything, ANYTHING... and who clicks with me, laughs with me, cries with me... nothing there either. It's fucked. I only want the girl who barely acknowledges my existence. Are our souls carrot-and-stick machines, gnawing illusions in the dark straw corners of stray thoughts, disconnected ideas, tid-bits? I only want my future-self to wander out in the woods with a gun. But when my future-self becomes my real-self, he will probably have none of it. I feel no connection to who I was or who I will be. I'm severed even now, like an asshole who saw police lights out the corner of his eye and thought he was Kafka. Even this post should have ended paragraphs ago, but it's lingering on like a dying woman, like a bad news story, like an unrequited crush, like a church brunch, like a familiar taste in the mouth, like the back seat of a car you just can't get out of. God, you fucked your girlfriend in that car two days ago, and now the front fender has impacted with the hips of a frail ghost of a woman in the dark. Your hands are shaking and you don't know what she was doing in the street, why it had to be you and your car, what you're doing looking for stories in the shadows cast by magenta police lights, why I am confessing my feelings, trembling with paranoia, swallowing saliva, looking for an excuse to walk around the block.

If anything is true, it's that life lingers. It doesn't slam to a stop until someone steps out defiantly into the street. Please, make it stop. Here we go.

in the interest of posting something of interest...

an older story... first published a few years ago at The Cafe Irreal. i'm fond enough to want to keep sharing it. also, it's short.

A long time ago I lived with a woman with whom I was madly in love. She had flat fingers and long white hair, and she coughed in the bathtub through the lungs of a lingering cold. We never spoke a single word to each other.

Instead of conversations we would make love. If she wanted to tell me about her day she would climb on top of me. If I needed to ask her to pass me the salt at dinner I would make love to her, and when we were done she would wink and hand me the pepper.

I always wondered what it would sound like for her to say my name. Would I even recognize the word?

In the early months of our relationship we made love as if we were planning an expedition to another planet. We figured let's at least plan it if we can't do it. Planning is the fun part anyway. The doing of the thing would only be a lot of peril and hard work and who needs that?

The old folks told me, You're wasting your time on this relationship. The two of you never even talk anymore.

We never talked to begin with, I told them.

Wasting your youth, they said. You're wasting your youth on pipe dreams and outer space and expeditions and silent romances.

But isn't that what youth is for--to be wasted?

My youth was like a spring storm in a monastery. It was making love with my clothes on in a field where those who have lost their faith come to be baptized into profanity. She was like a baptism of sleep, submerged in the dreams of the mute.

One morning I woke up after a good long three years with her. Three years with a woman I never spoke a word to. I was thirsty and she walked me to the door. She seemed to know what was coming even though I did not. I had only decided to go out for some orange juice.

She kissed my forehead and unlocked the locks and let me out. "Goodbye," she said.

Happy now, Brad?

The idea of a writer starting his own blog seems like the most natural thing in the world. But to the dismay and repeated outcries of Brad (a.k.a "The" Brad, a.k.a "Kalimdor Wilson", a.k.a "Dave Smith Motors"), I have resisted the very idea of blogging for years now.

Part of my reason for this is that I am a fiction writer, and most blogs are arguably non-fiction. So branch out, you say... there must be something in the real world that you are passionate about, you say... Well, the fact is, I am a control freak. And fiction is a beautiful medium for a control freak. I make the rules. In fiction, stupid ideas (of which I have a surplus), are a benefit. They can be framed on a character, while reflecting brilliantly on the writer who framed them. It's fine with me if my characters have ridiculous opinions, or are morbidly wrong on issues. They can, and often should, make total fools of themselves. The question facing me now is, can I?

Am I comfortable enough to risk being absolutely wrong in public? As I mull over this question, one of my favorite writers, Soren Kierkegaard, keeps coming to my mind. He wrote in various persona's. Alter-egos, you could say. I imagine if I were to do anything non-fiction I would have to do something like that.

This is all a mater of comfort-zones. It is in fictionalization and outright LYING where my words really sparkle. Then again, I'm 31 years old. I finally have a grip on my fiction... maybe it's time to stretch my legs. Maybe it's time to wear a plain face somewhere.

Maybe.

The prospect still seems all too fucking boring. Who wants to read yet more self-conscious ramblings of yet another silly human in the thousand-full sea of blogg blogg blogg...

We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, this post should keep Brad happy. For a few minutes anyway.