11:16am MST (Montrose, CO) :: So it's the year anniversary from my great West trip and here I am again in a fast food restaurant in an obscure western town typing on my computer and exploiting my guest/dining room priviledges. I suppose that this is how I am happy, and I wouldn't want it otherwise, or at the least, need this every so often. The Colorado trip is coming to a close quickly. I expect to hit Durango before 5pm, spend an hour or so there exploring the town, then bolt acrosss the state line to my hotel in Farmington. I worked hard to find a hotel in the area with internet access in the rooms. There were two that I could find: one in Farmington and one in Durango, the former being about $10 cheaper. Gallup had none, which bothers me, especially since they have so many hotels and so many internet-addicted travelers coming through. I am one of these internet addicts undoubtably, and it would be my preference to have internet access available in every public place in America. Eventually...eventually.

The drive this morning consisted of a brief stop for donuts in Carbondale, an even briefer stop in Redstone to take pictures of the Crystal River, and a shot up a winding dirt road to the Yule Creek Quarry in Marble. The quarry was closed to the public, although there was a trail just off the road which I'm pretty certain led to a lookout, although it seemed to be about a mile long so I passed because of time constraints. Time is of the essence, and it bothers me. I really do wish that I didn't have to work, nor did I have to be at home at any time. After the fiasco and the disappointments (and a lot of comtemplation this weekend), I've determined that I'm going to try to find another job. I'm not going to quit SCI, just stay there until I find something else. My excuses and reasons are numerous: the ineffectiveness of my supervisor to serve in my best interest, the obstacles to doing my job as outlined in the description efficiently and properly, significant differences between the almost mandated ideology of the organization and my own. There are lots of other reasons though, and I'm not going to get into them, just as I won't get into them if and when I do leave. People search for the why, and this is ridiculous. The why resolves nothing but pointless questions and this desire that we always have to vent our frustrations out of those whom we feel have wronged us. I don't feel wronged, just kind of pissed off and underappreciated.

Despite this, the Colorado trip continues. I expect to see Silverton, Telluride (time allowing) and Durango later today. First, however, I will spend a little bit of time in Downtown Montrose, even though the town has struck me as a redneck paradise thus far (although this is from the perspective of an Arby's). All towns deserve a chance though, right?

8:50pm :: I think that very few of us would have a point in living past our mid-30's if we could become as truly immortal as Bob Marley. I don't believe that any other person has inspired as many people over the past 20 years as him, whether you think negatively or otherwise. I just read on a web site (seemingly-reputable) that mushrooms stay in your system for a maximum of one week. This is promising news for the Colorado trip, which looms in the background of next week. Not much to do until then besides chill out a little with my supposed drug music and make web site after web site. But none about mushrooms, at least not just yet.

Tonight is one of those nights where you wish you could just start breaking things and never stop. Pull out the baseball bat and destroy everything in sight. I wouldn't like to meet a person who wouldn't enjoy doing something like that. It pays to have a mean, sadistic, violent streak, but it also pays to be able to let it out only when you need it.

I think I mentioned before on here that Patty Duke is bipolar. I saw her interviewed on a really awful afternoon talk show and this came out very quickly. How ironic, eh? I remember as a kid watching her show on Nick at Nite, and really pondering the words "a hot dog makes her lose control" even before understanding the potential sexual innuendo in that. Why a hot dog? What's so wild about a sausage in a bun? It doesn't make sense to me, even today, and I've never found any explanation offered for it.

Tonight is also one of those nights that makes me want to jump into my truck and drive into the desert, to some far-off place where the wind blows silently, and the people wear huge sunglasses and tight jeans, and answer your questions as if you were the stupidest person alive. That's right: Ajo...or maybe Sells. Arizona is just so full of possibilities. But alas, it's too late, and I'm expected at my desk tomorrow morning, to sit and stare at code and ponder my life a little bit longer, trying in vain to get some sort of dibilitating physical disease. I'll have to wait until next week, for the long, desert trek. They say that the Painted Desert is not really a desert at all, but actually is part Sonoran, part Great Basin. It's what's called a transitional desert, where these two giants meet, clash, and spill out onto a landscape of ominous brown rock towers and almost alien sunsets. There are so many names for this area: northeastern Arizona, Native American Country, the Navajo Nation, and pictures of it cannot be mistaken by many for any other place. What makes that area so much more beautiful and magical than the saguaro-lined hillsides west of Tucson?
All I know is that Godspeed somehow summarizes and objectifies all of this for me.

2:45pm :: So after an hour or so in the tenacious Redington Pass area (a somewhat lower area of the Rincon Mountains which is accessible by a small, dirt road) I visited the gleaming new Yokohama Rice Bowl on Speedway near Craycroft. When I arrived, there were few people in the restaurant, despite the hour, which was around 1pm. I ordered my food and began to eat when a group of Jehovah's Witnesses entered the establishment, dressed in formal, but still plain dresses. They consisted of a mother and four daughters, the father was not to be found. The freaky thing was that they looked exactly alike and it reminded me of the "Virgin Suicides" although slightly more religious and much more psychotic. A subdued noise radiated from them as they kept getting up for seemingly no reason, and the mother just smiled and looked at nothing, often in my direction. I was visibly struck by the whole experience, but Jevoah's Witnesses must be used to this sort of thing because they were totally oblivious to the whole situation. I chomped down my vegetables, rice and lemonade and must have seemed like some sort of dilluted wino that had spent far too long in the sun for his own good.
But alas, there's nothing wrong with these sort of appearances, right? Re-Orient Yourself! As they say.
Today is the sort of day where you sit under air-conditioning vents and watch movies. But in my case, I sit in my stuffy apartment and type gibberish to Modest Mouse. Yesterday was the anniversary of the 2003 blackout which affected much of the northeast and midwest. Ted Koppel said that "most people remember where they were during the blackout" although I think it was in reference to New Yorkers. Either way, I don't remember. I have the vague impression that I was sitting around Houston, being as jack ass as ever, and just sort of smiling about the whole thing. I never seem to be around for natural disasters, and now that I have almost completely isolated myself from them in this arid, scrub-infested valley, I can only laugh more at the misfortune of others. I have the inclination that a major hurricane will hit the Houston area either this year or next. Call it a Nostradamus hunch if you must, but I see things happening that will surely wipe that place off the map, or at the least the map of viable places to live.

5:03pm :: A few hours ago, I watched the second half of the first defeat of the American Olympic basketball team since 1988, and since NBA players were allowed to play. Two things were really pathetic about this: the loss was by about 18 points with neither team cresting the 100-point mark, and it was to Puerto Rico of all places. The American team looked terrible, and the Puerto Rican team looked great, although a good American team could have easily beaten them. This is quite a disgrace to basketball as well as to our country, but I can only laugh. I think that, in an Olympic year, the winners of the NBA finals, the full team for that, should be given the honor of representing the country in the Olympics, not some half-ass All Star team minus the guys who insist on playing for whatever country they were born in. The Detroit Pistons should have been there, and the treacherous, bloated Midwestern metropolis would have one more thing to brag about. Instead, Americans are stuck with a pathetic defeat in a sport where we are supposed to be the absolute best. This is where kids in Yugoslavia, Italy, South America and all over the rest of the world dream of playing basketball, with their idols. The American arrogance is fading into apathy, and the rest of us are stuck shaking our heads.

5:37pm :: Aye, this eruption in my stomach must be the revenge of the rice bowl, or perhaps those Jehovah's Witness brujas, poisoning my lemonade with their eyes alone. I should have gone up to them, asking who was 18 and would they be interested in work, or future work, in the adult film industry. I run a theater just down the street, and I pay top dollar to innocent, virginal blondes willing to expose themselves for my peep shows. No, you won't see their eyes, nor do you really have to be a virgin, and actually, I would rather you not be. Here's my card if you're still interested. Talk it over with your husbands and boyfriends. It's good, clean work for beautiful women like yourselves.
These are the sort of women that somehow get taken into white slavery and sold in an obscure Gulf emirate on the Arabian peninsula for a few luxury cars and an oil well or two. Innocence and ignorance are dangerous, especially in such large quantities. It's obvious, to me at least, that all of these young girls need to be fenced off from the rest of the world; isolated from the harsh reality with a separate, much holier environment. This needs to be implemented, and I think that Bush, with the help of Bob Jones and Pat Robertson, is just the man for the job. The new religious reich will reign supreme over the heathens, and so deservingly so.
I'm ridiculously tired today after downing two Sam Adams and thus running out of alcohol entirely. I thought about buying a King Cobra, but that's just too much beer for a Sunday night. I'd rather have something with a little more taste anyway.

8:23pm :: So that marks about the third time I've fallen asleep today, and I am in fact very glad that I'm getting such a good rest. The next week will be a deluge of complaints from upstairs, members and a bog of the kind of sheer boredom that makes me want to just shoot some half-wit bum in the knees to break the monotony of it all. I've decided though that I will leave for Colorado as originally planned quite a while ago, on the night of the 25th, first stopping in Phoenix to see Furiosa and the 30-minute-long Mogwai performance. After all, I already have my ticket, and I doubt anyone will go with me for that price. I'll probably sleep somewhere in the mountains near Mormon Lake that night, which is a place I had always wanted to go to, but just never got around to for various reasons. It's quite a large lake, on an isolated, but paved road about 20 miles southeast of Flagstaff. Again, I've never been there, but know its location quite well. I stayed at a cheap motel with a cheap girl near there once in a place called Munds Park. All of this is etched in my memory.
So where is the rain? That's what I want to know. It scared me off the Rincons but refused to visit my apartment where I felt more comfortable. I think I'm just going to have to stop running away from it and finally stand up to it with my head held high. Being struck by lightning would be a great end, I believe. Not too undignified (although, from what I understand, you do shit yourself when you're struck) and fairly painless. Plus, it would be outdoors, doing what I love: senseless desert exploration. Ed would be proud I think.

11:04am :: So I guess it has really been a week since my last entry, but this isn't surprising. There was very little that I could have added without feeling the guilt of boring the potential audience, or possibly forcing myself to read senseless ramblings in the future.
This morning began about 6am. I was awoken by my punctual alarm clock which, because of some strange fluke in the electronics, can only be silenced for a maximum of 24 hours, whereupon it will again erupt proudly, no matter how early on a Saturday it is. I was lying on futon against the brown suede pillows, having fallen asleep to a Nightline interview with a miscellaneous old woman and being woken up to what seemed to be a gardening-related infomercial. All of this is trivial though. It was cool this morning, and the temperature at this time still has yet to crest 85. I am somehow prohibiting myself from going into the depths of the mountains today because of the fact that I have few clean socks, and in reality, no clean socks without holes in them. Relegating myself to flip-flops is only an excuse though, and the real reason is most likely the fear of rain. Although I deny it, just like any desert dweller during the monsoons, I fear the rain like the wrath of God. It's not really the lightning, but rather the idea of being stuck for hours because of, what was 15 minutes priot, an dry wash, but is now a torrent of brown debris running downhill at 30-40mph. It will definitely rain today, it's just a matter of where. I'm too paranoid about existing mileage to make any city trips (Bisbee, Nogales, Tubac) so may just sit around and read. But who knows what the day will bring. I may go to a public meeting on South Alvernon discussing a proposed resolution that would allow states jurisdiction over road construction in the national forests. This is a major issue, as there are many areas, inaccessible by car now, that might be paved into Chevron-lined super-highways if the State of Arizona had its way. The NFS is respectably conservative, and this has disallowed any sort of major encroachment, in the Tucson area and otherwise. I don't know how interesting this would be too me, and I don't know how I would enjoy myself considering the typical sort of nuts that frequent these sorts of things. Although, I may just fit right in.

So last night was the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Athens. I don't normally watch these things, and in fact, I don't remember watching any sort of Olympic event in 2000 at all. Either way, I was at a friend's house and had little choice in the matter, as they were set on it. The ceremony opened up with lots of lights, pyrotechnics, an over-rehearsed man walking on a spinning cube, and a plastic-faced Greek woman who uncomfortably hugged the asexual mascot child who had crossed an enormous fake waterway in an origami boat in some sort of incomprehensible symbolic gesture. The next event was an endless parade of men and women in full body make-up and inflexible, metallic costumes riding some sort of steady conveyance representing the history of Greece. This is the Greek olympics and this is what we have come to. The torch, traditionally carried from a point in Greece to the actual site of the Olympics, was only slightly detoured around the world, so that the yokels in each country could see a big flame roll by and cheer at the meaningless gesture. In America, the whole stunt was arranged to boost the ratings of NBC, who still holds on to the Olympics in a vain effort to stay at the top after losing their two highest-rated sitcoms this year. I think many Americans feel almost obligated to watch this sort of display, as many of us still consider ourselves world citizens even though we denounce 90% of the rest of the world as terrorists and general cretons. The American arrogance surely must be suffering at this sudden 8 year loss of the Olympic games, although it may be that we see this as sort of our sympathetic permission for our metaphorical little brother to ride in the front seat and feel a little bit better about himself. Cheer up though, we'll have it again soon enough. At least soon enough to make it into the sort of vicious mockery that we have the tendency to do. In Atlanta of '96 it was the bombings, and in Salt Lake in '01 it was the scandals. Nothing really out of the ordinary, but it just seems to get more press here.

4:38pm :: So I got this letter yesterday from the AZ Motor Vehicle Division doing a "routine" check on my '97 Nissan Sentra which was sold to my dad about two months ago for a few plantains and a bottle of Chivas. According to the Grandy Candy State, I was supposed to fill out a form telling them that I had sold my vehicle 10 days after the sale as well as turn in the license plate. This is going to be difficult, but I think I can just get away with filling out the form. Governments always seem very anal about their red tape, and AZ seems to have some crazy fetish involving license plates. They took my Texas plates when I originally registered the Sentra and now they want my Arizona plate back. It just seems strange. I would expect that all of these license plates go to the Peoria home of Gov. Napolitano's lesbian lover, secretly stockpiling them for the Day of Reckoning. And it's soon to come. Concrete Blonde, with their singer having almost the exact same name as this governor, played last night. I missed it, and in fact, completely forget, even going so far as to call and leave a message with someone I knew was going. No need to worry. The Colorado trip will be in two weeks. I have it planned as such:

• Leave Saturday morning for Flagstaff, go via Phoenix, make maybe one miscellaneous stop

• Stay in Flagstaff until Saturday evening, leave around 8pm, drive through Navajo Nation and Cortez, CO and sleep somewhere in the mountains near Telluride

• Drive Sunday to see Telluride and arrive in Snowmass feeling as fresh as canned tuna

• Stay in Snowmass until Tuesday night, whereupon I will leave suddenly and viciously

• Drive through the night to near Durango and again sleep in the mountains

• Spend Wednesday exploring: Durango, Farmington, Shiprock, Navajo, NM, etc.

• Arrive Tucson on Wednesday night feeling as fresh as a jungle monkey

It all comes together doesn't it? This is the plan at least. And if all goes well, the plan will work the same. This only constitutes 24 hours of PTO and thus I should have plenty for the September trip to CA and the days off near Thanksgiving. I feel like a blind monkey now.
So I just woke up from about a 90 minute nap, waking up and finding Globetrekker on. He was in the Himalayas. One of those stupid dreams to climb Everest, as if this would justify your existence. I'm cynnical towards it for no reason, but I have no real desire to do this in my own lifetime. I can relate to it, I guess, but I certainly don't share it.

7:20pm :: So I discovered the reasoning behind the 30-minute-long funeral procession this late morning that blocked traffic on Congress, and Granada while the 100+ cars moved about with headlights on. It was for Carlos, the little boy with all sorts of health problems who finally and mercifully died a few days ago. You feel sorry for people like that, but it's just a fact of life that some were meant to die. As Blake says: "Some were born to sweet the light, some were born to everlasting night." I know that that's not really what he meant, but I'm using it for my advantages at this point and taking it into my context.
"I love it when this place is hummin'" or so says the Denny's waitress on the commercial. The peons and proletariat are always made to look so happy and overjoyed participating in their slave labor all day, dealing with the yokel, terrorist- and God-fearing customers all day, complaining about the status of their eggs and bacon and the amount of water in their glasses.
Heroes...all dead.

6:46pm :: Yeah, I know it's August, and I know that COPS is on in 14 minutes and I am not yet glued to the TV, wading through the pre-emptive ads for soap and gas relief miracles. No, I had to write, for I'm feeling writey (a new word for Webster, I'll email him in a sec). I just finished off Steibeck's "The Winter of Our Discontent" and drew from it very few conclusions, which is rare for me and novels. They often drive me to this very introspective, creative part of myself which rarely comes out between 9 and 5, but they rarely leave me without a lesson or new perspective, however this one has. I don't feel cheated however, it was still a very good book, as is what I had expected from it. It made me want to read it thoroughly, getting involved with the characters, maybe moreso than I normally would have allowed myself to, although I suppose I indentified with them, however it did not give me that enlightenment that comes after watching a good movie, or reading a very good book. Miller has always had this effect on me. Each Miller book I've read, I've come out with a new perspective and if not new ideas themselves, the seeds for them have surely been planted. I hope that this isn't the age thing, and that my creative lust and zeal has not been lost amongst paychecks and senseless worries.
But alas, the pizza is ready.

8:49pm :: So, yeah, that was a long slice of pizza. But I did get to watch all of COPS and drink a couple of glasses of some great Italian red wine. I'm bordering on the inclination to leave my apartment for the night or to maintain my already very relaxing weekend. I suppose that a relaxing weekend does not hinge necessarily on isolation, but rather a balance of stressless activities that isolate the rush to an acceptable minimum.
It is time to leave though, and I am sorrowed that I can't dwell on my content for, what has been thus far, a really good weekend. I will attempt to keep the alcoholic gluttony to a comfortable minimum (or at least medium) and not to insult my peers to the point of their resentment.

8:37pm :: Enough of this solemn, pissant moaning. I need to just drink my beer, blast my music and yell wildly at the passing proletariat. Last night I left suddenly and inexplicably from the Motel 6 around 10pm. I packed what little stuff I had, turned in the key and left my bed as fresh as it had been the previous night. I wonder what maids think about these beds when they come across them. Do they wonder about what sort of crazy psychosis, depression or all-night binge led to this? I think they just take it as a good sign, as they have less work to do. I have lots of work to do however, killing myself as I am. The drive was one of those crazy blasts through the desert where your eyes notice every out-of-place light in between sulking themselves down on the asphalt. The 87 led me through Coolidge and onto Picacho and Interstate 10. Where I made the remaining drive to Brian Eno, something I thought I would never be able to do for fear of falling asleep. Alive and well is a disappointment in the way of excitement, but prolific in itself in that you live to tell of what you saw. The ghost of Tom Mix and Rex Allen haunt those highways amongst the depressing, dilapidated pink government housing of the reservations, and the bright lights of state and federal prisons. I wonder if I should have cut over to Highway 79 in Florence instead, taking that hairline crack through the desert, dodging jackrabbits, tarantulas and drunk Arizonan cowboys. But instead I woke up at 7:15 and got to work a little after 8, a few minutes before my boss.

I'd still like to explore this suddent onslaught of depression or illness. Whatever the fuck it is, I need to return myself to my prior state of manual schizophrenia, starving myself with silence until the words shoot out at the reactionaries. I oftentimes watch the behavior of Hispanics, and have begun to believe that they are, in all best definitions of the term, the least crazy of the lot. They seem to have a firm grip on the reality around them, and are often unphased by drama and the larger macro events. Whites seem to worry way too much about nothing, and generally are prone to sporadic emotional outbursts caused by years of socially-induced suppression. Blacks seem to be less concerned about the drama, but self-concious enough to let the slightest indignity drag them into a helpless spiral of denial. Native Americans seem to be the worst off. They often ride around, typically either only on their land, or near it, at 25 miles per hour below the speed limit, heading no where in particular, completely oblivious to the greater world around them. This ends only occassionally when a trip to town for Sam's or Wal-Mart is made, and even then, they seem content with ignoring the rest of society, concentrating on only a sub-set world where the style of clothing, the music and even the language have separated themselves enough to make it a different culture.
That's what really forms culture: inability to conform. It's in our nature to conform and those who don't aren't anti-social or purposely non-conformitive, but rather just ignorant or oblivious to the surrounding culture, choosing instead to isolate themselves amongst those with whom they can identify.
But enough of this racism, I need to focus on my surroundings: the music, the alcohol, the desire to produce schizophrenic art so that it may be posted on my web site. My phone, which rings every so often to no avail. My ceiling fan, which twirls around, always fearing that I may just decide to pull the plug, making the exchange for some much more worthy electronic device. My wall art, which stares at my blankly until the lights go off and they begin to dance.
This is the setting, so why is it not moving sufficiently? Why is it so subtle in its explicit texture? I need to roll around on the carpet until my neck and arms are red and raw, I need to find what this place is truly about: what it's trying to tell me. Maybe I just need drugs: something to calm me down. Or maybe I just need sex: something to poison all emotional and creative drive so that it can no longer come out spordically.
Christian Klein hammers along on his miscellaneous tracks, and I can only look for his web site. I should be making my own tracks. Hammering. This music without language is what I need: no barriers. Or at least kill all of the barriers, blow them down with sound.
I really need to get off of this.

8:47pm (Tempe) :: Tonight I plan to look back upon my writings of the previous year or so, not necessarily in retrospect or for nostalgic purposes, but I've begun theorizing that I can no longer write sufficiently because I've lost my muse, whatever it was. Whatever gave me a reason to vent in a creative manner seems to be gone. I read a poem I had written a little over a year ago (I don't actually remember when exactly I wrote it) and I just don't feel confident that I could write like that again. I think maybe by looking back, and capture those feelings, at least for the moment, since most of the emotions back then were despair and loneliness.

Enough of that depressing shit. Right now I sit in the Tempe Motel 6 drinking a Mike's hoochie drink and watching Adult Swim, something I haven't really done since the Lubbock Motel 6. The past two days I've wondered into an inexplicable funk where I'm feeling physically and mentally uncomfortable most of the time. I've become irritable, depressed, overly quiet and I really don't know why. It came on suddenly and it's been coming and going quite suddenly since it started. I expect that it's just an emotional down in my history of long mood swings and will be over in due time. Until then I can only exploit, typing to low lamp light and the incessant buzz of wall unit air-conditioning. I suppose life doesn't get better, but then I'd be lying.

I was hoping that you could simply join us for a simple kind of effort.
The promosing thing to me is that much of the best things that I have discovered written from my college years was later in my senior year I believe.