Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

two thumbs now, at the gawkers...
me and some other lost kid, escaping
the place of me birth, L.A.'s outter
fringe...a place I never want
to see in person again

I, with no care of where I sleep,
he, roaming back home...you guessed it,
new mexico...
farmington via vegas...last known locale
of my dead-beat dad...I don't want to
stop, actually slept through the desert
jewel, good...

what a beautiful wasteland, wow...
missed all the sights, didn't know
nothin',
indians don't give rides to whity...
hot,dry mars-scape... kid said he knew
the routes...too late, too hungry to
turn back now, besides, he said there'd be
food in farmington...

...st, george...kanab...yea, kanab, utah
was the place...midnight and dead tired,
so we found an odd shaped barn to crash in....
(snoring sound)....
...then, out of a nice sound sleep, I open my eyes...
bright white light... ...loud noise, and the straw on
the dirt floor was, like, whirling all over the place...
the first thing I see is the kid, in the
corner, standing in his sleeping bag...
eyes big as I don't know what

still dazed, I look to where his eyes are
pointing...

...I see one figure holding the barn door
open...I see another inside a god damned
cessna! ....and he's driving/flying it right
into the barn!

he let us sleep there the rest of the night..

(note; don't plan a trip through sheepkill, AZ)


wgs
2/2/09

You capture the excitement and freedom of the road with vivid story telling. I've only dreamed of living the life you describe. You write wandering in the desert as an adventure which I so long to experience.

John

I have about 4 years and 50,000 miles of stories..
and that's just while hitching, not including truck driving


thank you so much GM

Oh, those red cliffs... that's what first hooked me.

And further on down 89 toward Page, Smokey Point Road and that bizzare Glen Canyon rockscape (not all red).

And that motel where I got drunk and accused someone of stealing my wallet (it fell behind the mini-fridge)...

The fantasy that I would someday come back and hike through the Paria wilderness area, meditate on its quiet chaos...

Ah yes, Kanab. I think they made several Western movies there...

have you heard "the tubacity big bang brothers band?

Not yet.

But I remember two horses running circles around a red rock, somewhere near Many Farms. Maybe I'll post that pic if I can find it...

Been there, been shot at by tribesmen, got stuck at trading post
near sheepkill for two days...had to trade a knife for a sack of
bullduram...ha-


Tubacity big bang bros. was a mid-late 70's jazz-rock band,
their album designer was the same for the eagles...
one cover had a painted buffalo skull...very similar to
one cover for the eagles...met them in page

Got shot at by tribesmen on the rez?
What were ya doin'?

I still remember that $20 motel in Gallup, where a Navajo woman just walked right in, sat down next to me on the bed, and just started talking like we'd known each other for years... and then for a few sentences she got angry about how the white man fucked up everything, but it never seemed threatening. We just talked. Then she left. A weird sort of normal..

Ok, here is that photo of the horses (they stopped running around the rock and ran toward me)...


And just for contrast, this shot of the Providence Mountains in the Mojave (in a dust storm). Notice the gentle curvature vs. the vertical redrock-scape...


Interesting thing, the shape of geology.

I hope these shots don't cause your computer to bog down (if so, I can remove them)...

Myself and another hitch-hiker were walking after being dropped off
somewhere. can;t recall exactly, maybe east of sheepkill...
we came upon a dirt road that lead off over the hills, north..
soon we noticed a lot of traffic coming from the dirt road, like there was a factory that had just let out for the day....these cars had to stop to make the turn onto the main highway, most going east. We could see that they were all native, but no one would take us away from that hot spot , we were dying... anyway, I would yell to some of the drivers, asking for a ride to anywhere but there...they would mostly raise a finger, and say, as they passed us, only going one mile...then one car came by, an arm with a gun attached to it pointed near us and bang-bang-bang-bang....hahahahaha
well what could we do, throw rocks? Later when we did get a ride, there was nothing one mile down the road...nothing for 50 miles down the road! I didn't tak it too personally though, it wasn't my
territory, and I knew it. I don't blame the fun they had shooting at us, we could've easily become grill-goo...that lonely desert out there hides lots of bones, I'm sure-

I want get back to the west this year, but the high deserts are a
a huge place and the time to get up there to see the beauty just
might not be worth it. Besides, I be on a bike, and the heat in the
summer, well..I remember 110 at 11am in east montana...the heat
radiates right in your face on a bike, and high speeds only make
it worse. I want to hit sturges though, then down to the big ditch to meet up with my son

Love the pics, and always love horses, scorpions..ok...snakes...ok..
black widows...NOT ok

Gallop used to be a mining town, almost got a job there, but they
were mining uranium !!!! Sorry, but I like my x-rays in a room with
lots of air conditioning