“There are two types of people in this world. Those who don’t mind stepping into the ring with nine tigers, and those who do.”
-Khris Allen

Question: When will the days stop being -following the roads where they go, and start being -using the roads to get somewhere?

Our exploration of Norwalk and it’s limits continues. Today found us in SoNo. Found us at the harbor. And in the library. Here’s what I checked out.

Venomous Reptiles.
Trips: How Hallucinogens Work in Your Brain.
The Encyclopedia of Snakes.
Drugs 101
And…
Under the Big Top: A Season With the Circus.

I found the book that I lost my first trip up back in November. The one that taught me that efficiency experts from the German army were sent here around the turn of the 20th century to study the way American circuses moved across the land.

The one that taught me a person could easily be born, go to school, learn a trade, get a job, take out a loan, buy a car, buy a house, find a spouse, have a child, raise a family, see the world, grow old, and eventually die, without ever leaving the circus lot.

I remember the last thing I read hinted that our hero had fucked up royally. I remember how anxious I was to see how pissed off the carnies and clowns got. How I couldn’t wait to know what he’d done wrong. I remember dog-earing that page, saving it for the plane.

And I remember the sad lonely trip home when I realized that I had left the book in some Connecticut Limo. No book, no music, not even a cheap Bic pen and a napkin to scrawl my thoughts. If I’d have crashed, at least it would have been exciting.

Today I flip-flopped my way around Norwalk. It was blue and warm out. Mid-fifties. Beach weather.

My flip-flops have now officially been gouged on by a member of both feline and canine families. The little jagged holes are Teddy’s teeth. The fat bite marks are Regan’s. My floppers look now like some boogie board blasted by a shark. I can see some survivor holding one up and outlining the bite radius with his finger. Showing the scar to match, on his ribcage.

I bought this big gay white bookshelf out of desperation and lack of options. But it’s good to see my DVDs and books up on display again. My knickknacks and pictures. It’s homey.

I’m gonna take a fat magic marker and draw weird shit all over it.

During “Survivor,” Rachel said, “I just punched your dog in the face by accident.”

I ate one of those Oven Bake meals from Betty Crocker or some other kitchen whore. The ones Natalie got me hooked on. Beef Stew and biscuits. I left two biscuits in the corner of the dish so’s not to slip over the top of Glutton Hill and be a super-sinner.

When alpha-male Colby got ousted I wanted him to bound away pounding his chest. I expected it. Like some Silverback gorilla who lost a dominance challenge.

Self-proclaimed “Rickshaw Cowboy,” Troy, went into Trump’s board room with Me-proclaimed “Witch-faced” Heidi, and lived to see another day. He said, “We’re looking up the ass of a dead dog with fleas,” in response to VersaCorp’s ingenious petty-cab advertising strategy. How far can Idaho charm get one person? They must grow it in the ground up there. Like their taters.

Lastly I’d like to state that Regan might have a heart murmur. So from now on I will always make reference to this in order to keep the possibility of it fresh in Christian’s mind. I will give her subconscious voices that mention her possible palpitations. I will call her Murmur, or Hiccup-Heart.

I like Hiccupheart.

Yesterday I put on three shirts. I’ve never put on three shirts before. I felt the way Adam Wekarski must feel every day of his life. I felt like a dick in a condom. I still moved and functioned the correct way, but it all felt a little constrictive. That is not to say that Adam Wekarski feels like a dick in a condom. More that there were two distinctly separate observations I had, on having three shirts on at once.

1. An overwhelming Adam Wekarskiacity.
2. A feeling like I was a dick in a condom.

We drove into Westport, where Martha Stewart lives and I felt her presence all around me. Picking up litter, and making ribbons for the light posts. Just knowing she had been there made her this ghostly felon, slinking around in the shadows and the splash of headlights Arts&Crafting shit. It was rich, and pretty. Just like you’d imagine a place that had her insider-trading fingerprints all over everything.

In an organic supermarket I bought an iced tea because the sign said, “Now serving Iced Tea.” It was iced coffee, and the one sip I had tasted like Liquid Smoke and fat corpse.

. . .


I am so far removed from the art of film critique that the anticipation of reviewing the film “Dummy,” has got me all popped in the head. One of my goals with this blog, was to reinstitute my habit of wordy, in-depth movie reviews if for no one other than myself, and my movie-lovin’ self. However, so long out of the game, I fear my observation skills are in serious need of some jolting. Some jolts. They need to be jolted, and jostled.

Now apparently, I dove head first into a shallow review of the film last night, post-viewing. Which I found on my desktop today, which sadly, was also written post-wine. Here, for your reading displeasure, is a sample of said review.

“… About a recluse who lives with his parents finally deciding to follow his dream of becoming a ventriloquist. I can’t believe I just spelled ventriloquist considering how full up on gross wine I am. All swimmy and stupid but I spelled ventriloquist good and right. Adrien Brody is something to behold. A caricature of a man, all nose and sharp bone angles. All wandering eyes and reserved voice. Dummy was filled with interesting actresses. Illeana Douglas, my long suffering weird indie woman crush. Milla Jovovich, Joan of the fifth Element. And Vera Formiga, the blue-eyed wonder I first loved in 15 Minutes.”

It isn’t fair to Dummy, that it fell victim to my first review. My drunken critique which touched on nothing but a reworded back-of-the-box-blurb, and the “interesting actresses” who were in it. But first review it was… and first review it shall stay. Because this should be an improvement year. Anything I feel I do well now, I should do better one spin around the sun. Be it acting, writing, or understanding this medium which I love so much, to the point that I feel confident in my critique of it.

In one of his kitchen counter ramblings- that I miss so dearly -Napoleon expressed to me the importance of art critique. Expressed to him by some professor. Some book. And I kind of wish I hadn’t been cooked out of my gourd at the time. Maybe then I may have retained the list. Those reasons that art critique matters.

Napoleon if you’re reading this, shuffle through your old notes and refresh me here. I remember it was like, a list of three.

That’s all I got.

So tomorrow expect a review of Secret Window. But don’t expect it to be great.

My last two days here. My first two days here, were filled with fluttery white stuff. And it wasn’t soap suds blasted out of an industrial fan to rain down on rich people and their kids, no ma’am. No Disney “magic” here.

If you’ve never seen it snow, and I’m not talking flurries, it’s like the sky is filled with soft white locusts. I’ve never seen the air so busy. Swarming with snow. Fat flakes settling on tree branches, and car tops. They fleck up against your face gentle like a bubble from a plastic wand.

If you’ve never seen it snow like that, you smile when they come to rest in your hair, on your shoulders, in your eyelashes. Cans of soda, bottles of wine sit on the ground out back of people’s houses to keep cold.

If you’ve never seen it snow, start cramming dollars in a jar, plan that trip, winter always swings back around.

If you’ve only seen snow on the ground it does no justice to it falling. And if you have seen it falling, I do no justice to it with words.

The Saturn is a big teal suitcase. Packed tight and zipped shut. The only way all my clothes will fit is balled up and crammed into the natural cubbies made by my less malleable shit. For all the cloth you’d never know there are twenty-seven inches of television behind me. A computer behind Christian. Slipped in and around the center console, the emergency brake, are essentials. Sugar-free chocolates, my journal. My new camera, my Kissimmee book, and a hefty loaf of grandma’s fresh-baked banana nut bread. The Saturn is all gassed up and I’m freshly kissed goodbye.

Taxed from all the fond adieus I’m just glad not to be saying “I’ll see you soon,” to anyone else. I’m tired of wondering whether my goodbyes were all sufficient enough. Like wondering if you forgot to mention anyone in an award speech. The gas will get us three-hundred miles, the kiss will get me three times that, and hopefully the Saturn will get us to Norwalk.

Connecticut.

My new home.

Who woulda friggin thought?

The car wash with the fiberglass dinosaur is celebrating its ten year Tyranniversary.

The Jelly Factory has been gutted of its mason jars and jelly ingredients. Filled back up with pipes and plungers as a plumbing supply store.

The woods north of Cadillac Drive where I once got caught too deep in a briar thicket and wailed like a toddler, are now an apartment complex I deliver pizzas to. All pavement and stucco and small cheap cars with big expensive rims.

The feeble attempt to snag the Summer Olympics with the Kissimmee beautification act has turned 192 into thirty miles of Bob’s Barricades. A slalom course of tourists and traffic. All cones and construction and constantly shifting lanes. All cops and car crashes.

The arcade theater where I have the vaguest memory of The Rescuers.
Where I saw Forest Gump with a girl I had a crush on.
Where I spilled my popcorn TWICE before I even got into the theater to see The Lion King.
Where I saw Mighty Joe Young with a girl I had a crush on.
Where I saw Jurassic Park for the seventh time, is now a colossal basement to a few ramshackle apartments.

But only now, now that all the billboards are in Spanish. Now that the lakefront park is all rubber and safe. Only now that Gatorland sucks, do I sweat nostalgia. Apparently even impending distance makes the heart grow fonder.

I even think I love Palm Trees now. The fuck is that all about?

So goodbye Kissimmee. Kiss me goodbye. You know, now that I love you.


. . .

An eighteen hour trip. In four days. In fragments.

Natalie botches the trip off the bat. Out of habit I shoot straight up the turnpike to I-75. Expecting it to be 95. All those Tallahassee trips.

Sixty miles in the wrong direction.

First day a bust we exit in Gainesville and call Tony. The payphone is gay but here’s what I gather in the four minutes.

The Exchange. Off of 20th. Off of 34th. Off of Archer.

Anthony and Kelly’s apartment is quaint. Cute. Cozy. Save the rat-sized marsupials with skin-flap wings. Sugar Gliders. Johnny (Depp), Ashton (Kutcher), and Maggie (Gyllenhaal). We smoke and watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The Brak Show.

Survivor. Sue flips out about Hatch’s wang.
Rupert says, “You hungry Sue?…You wanna cook up those eyeballs?”

Kelly buys us lots of food with her Super Awesome College kid Card. It’s very sweet.

I work my Doolittle charm on the screaming wannabe bats. Start to really love them. Ashton’s my boy now. I hope he misses me.

I fall asleep to Depp and Walken in Nick of Time.

Bye Tony Kelly Ashton Johnny and Maggie. Its been real and its been fun. But it ain’t been real fun.

In Kissimmee, the flea market mascot is a flea.

In Georgia it’s a very relaxed dog. Relaxed because he is devoid of fleas.

How can we resist “The Smallest Church in America.?”

It is small. Old. Deeded to Jesus Christ himself way back in the forties. Makes me respect religious devotion a little more. Not sure why.

There is a sign on the donation box.

“This box is for donations for the upkeep of this church. Box is checked twice a day. Please stop cutting the lock.”

And then under it, in pencil.

“If you cut the lock, you steal from God.”

A woman has dancing bananas painted on her car. She gives us the sign language “Y” wiggle when we snap a picture. Christian says it means “tubular.”

In Kissimmee, the flea market mascot is a flea.

In Georgia it’s a flea-free hound dog.

In South Carolina… it’s a cow. ?

In Santee, South Carolina all black employees sell fishing tackle and rebel flag smeared books like “Defending My Heritage,” to redneck hunters.

We eat at a diner. White trash girl begs white trash boy to kiss her over a tabletop.

I don’t think he does.

Christian’s macaroni and cheese sits in a filmy pond of yellow juice. Butter maybe?

Two stoplights in Santee. One big fucking Russell Stover’s candy outlet store. We stock up on maltitol. Peanut butter eggs, mint patties, jelly beans. All sugar-free.

Barreling down on South of the Border Christian tells me it’s Mexico in North Carolina.

He says it’s the desert.

That it’s old and pathetic and really just an elaborate gift shop.

We can’t wait to get there.

A cabbage truck gives us quite a scare. Leaning like the cabbage is stacked uneven in the trailer. Chewing up asphalt like it has to be coleslaw by sundown. We think it might tip over on us. Crushed by cabbage.

We stop in some South Carolina town with retarded parallel roads. We check in to the Thunderbird Inn, and for some reason I never tell Christian that a thunderbird is a cryptozoological enigma.

A Native American legend.

A bird so big it swoops down and picks up people. Probably rips them up and drops them into its huge chicks’ screaming beaks in some gargantuan nest somewhere.

Probably in a Sequoia or Redwood.

I’m secretly pleased by the name of the hotel.

We settle in and hit the town. Find a Wal-Mart Supercenter and I say my goodbyes.
No Supercenters in the great white north.

We buy a bottle of wine and some reduced fat Cheez-Its.

Christian buys some Russell Stover’s gummy bears and some Rolaids. Rolaids because he believes he can curb the roiling of his stomach. The impending maltitol-induced gas.

Rolaids because Bean-O is embarrassing.

Rolaids because R-O-L-A-I-D-S spells Relief.

We drink a huge bottle of white merlot and watch Christian and his parents on 48 Hours. On CBS. On a national television program. With millions of viewers.

It’s surreal.

When its over he says that he was just seen in every state in America.

All 50.

That’s unfair.

In the morning with mild hangovers we check out and head to the lobby restaurant to collect on our free breakfast buffet.

Cereal. Twice-fried bacon. Grits. Potatoes. Blood sausage. Waffles upon request.

On our way out, the front desk tells us we left some things in our room. Not the front desk, but the woman behind it. She says, a blanket and some other thing.

I am deflated. Just thinking I might have forgotten my afghan in the Thunderbird Inn is devastating. What if desk woman hadn’t stopped us?

We find Lillian the darling housekeeper woman roaming the halls. She gives us the bag packed tight with my precious blankey. I’m Linus. A security blanket pussy.

And I don’t care.

In the bottom of the bag is the other “thing.”

ALL OF OUR GODDAM MUSIC!

In one tiny little blue box called, Christian’s-tiny-little-blue-box-looking-thing-that-holds-hundreds-of-CDs-and-is-the-beating-heart-of-this-trip.

Wine + CheckingoutoftheThunderbirdInn = forgetting important shit.

Crisis averted.

The signs for South of the Border are lame. Scattered every two miles or so, they make me miss South Dakota.

Wall Drug.

Finally like an oasis it appears. All huge Sombrero shaped restaurants and buildings. All decrepit and pathetic.

We park in front of some closed-down place. The wind is eerily manufactured and I keep expecting tumbleweeds.

All the rides are shut down. Everything is old and broken save the two massive gift shops. And the t-shirt shop. And the Africa shop. ? And the Hats of the World shop.

If there is shit for sale inside. It’s open.

In Mexico Shop East I buy a rubber “Horny Hillbilly,” this Rip Van Winkle looking cheap ass novelty with an enormous dick.

I buy the big-dicked hillbilly to remind me exactly of what South of the Border truly stands for. Broken rides and perverted toys.

Outside we snap pictures with the various fiberglass animals. The giant gorilla in an orange T-shirt hailing Hitler. The dinosaur with a sombrero on. The Jackalope. The big fake cows.

In the T-shirt shop a girl kindly snaps a photo of us with officer R. Culp. A ghostly faded cardboard policeman.

In Mexico shop West I buy a rubber snake to add to my dashboard menagerie.

Of snakes.

And the scariest temporary tattoo I’ve ever seen.

A colorful scorpion with a rose for a stinger and hellfire skulls dissolving up its frightening exoskeleton. It comes with a tiny pink skull demon wagging a beckoning finger.

South of the Border is truly shit.

I can’t wait to go back there someday.

Martha Stewart is convicted on all counts. How gay is that?

Our first stop in North Carolina is a rest stop that advertises free coffee for bikers.

Its suddenly chilly out and there are these gorgeous trees blossoming pink flowers.

The coffee is free for all, not just bikers. But you’ve got to be willing to chat it up with the Christian Biker’s Coalition or some shit. God-fearing Hell’s angels with decaf and talk of salvation.

I don’t even like coffee.

In Virginia I’ve never been to Virginia before. So we stop to eat.

Hopewell, VA. Mama Rosa’s Italian ristorante. It’s a gorgeous little place. Some local honeys tell me they like my shirt. My human anatomy muscle shirt.

They don’t even mention Christian’s Jurassic Park 3 Spinosaur children’s shirt.

The roads are different now. Southern hospitality has apparently stayed down south and I’m amazed that I’m zipping along the beltway. Zooming around Washington Fucking D.C., our great nation’s capitol with four thousand assholes.

Anyone driving in the north is an asshole.

We exit three times in Maryland.

I’ve never been to Maryland.

First, some no-name-ville where a hotel draws us in advertising “Movies In Room.”

Christian drops a 70 spot for the night, and the big black man behind him wants to know how much they charge per hour.

Ewwww.

In the room the TV gets five channels. And all of them flicker and fuzz with static like the goddam videotape in The Ring.

We pack up and I snap a picture of Christian asking the Asian man for his money back.

In White Marsh, MD there are no hotels less than forty stories tall.

Tall = Expensive.

We go to Best Buy and Target for the fuck of it before slipping back onto 95.

Baltimore is beautiful. At least at night. At least from far away. It’s all black with flecks of silver and gold.

They have Orioles and Ravens there.

In Joppa, the Motel 8 has got deer heads and ducks and sits in front of a perfect little pond.

We check in and head out for food.

If you drive one way in Joppa. You will come to…

Joppatowne

Joppa Road.

I think there were some Joppa Rivers.

And eventually, you will end up in Baltimore.

In the turn lane in Joppatowne some hot-ass Joppaskanks ask if we’re living out of our car. I tell them I’m relocating from Florida to Connecticut.

The blonde tells me that Baltimore girls give great head. She offers her brunette friend up for the dong gobbling.

The green arrow glows green for at least thirty seconds before the Joppadick behind me starts honking. I turn, because it’s the law. And the Joppaskanks head off to blow some Baltimoron.

Depressed I find solace in the slowest McDonalds drive-thru in America. In all white McNuggets and a quarter-pounder with cheese.

Christian tells a computer what kind of sandwich he wants in some Joppa gas station. A man makes it for him. He thinks if they are going to remove the human interaction of ordering food, why not have a robot make it too.

It would have been nice to watch some robot arm make and wrap his sandwich. To hear the whir of tiny servos as it handed it to him.

In the hotel we watch Colin Firth on SNL.

In the morning I adhere my dream-boiling demon scorpion tattoo to my chest and feel that much closer to Satan.

In the snack machine at the end of the hall there are Rap Snacks.

Bags of potato chips with badly animated hip-hop stars on the front. Offering public service announcements and clever pun-tato chip names.

Our favorite was Lil’ Romeo. Preaching “Stay In School” and offering up his delicious “Bar-B-Quing with my HONEY flavored chips.

I am not fucking kidding you.

Outside the day is cold and crisp. We pack the car and walk to the pond to take pictures.

Where there are GEESE.

I’m quite sure I’ve never seen a live goose. But beyond the geese there is a goose. A big black mother goose. She is honking and gathering leaves to make a nest. She lets us get real close. Taking pictures. Her fat womb sagging with eggs. It is beautiful.

We hit Delaware.

I’ve never been to Delaware.

They have no tax in Delaware. Delaware is the first state.

Delaware is in the rearview.

We stop in New Jersey for lunch.

I’ve never been to New Jersey.

We stop in Mt. Ephraim at the Black Horse Diner. There are billions of people here. I fill up on Roast beef and whipped potatoes. I mourn iced tea.

Home Stretch now.

The Jersey Turnpike eats dollars. Five and six at a time.

You’re better off just going around. Taking a five hundred mile detour.

Your better off chartering a helicopter to zoom you over the roofs of the poor bastards being drained by the NJTP so’s you can laugh and pee on them.

NEW YORK.

The GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE

Connecticut.

An 18 hour trip in four days.

Countless rivers. The same I-95 sign for 1300 miles.

A little disheveled. A little homesick. A little stinky.

Welcome to NORWALK. Your new home.

Welcome Home.

The Saturn got us here. The snakes in the dashboard scream Florida Boy. Something I always hated and am now so prideful of.

I’m from Kissimmee, Florida.

And now I live in Norwalk, Connecticut.