I reckon Summer Heights High is the greatest Australian show on the planet. All the main characters are played by some 40 yr old australian guy. Jonah is by far the funniest character on the show. Here are all the clips he is in for the entire show.
This is the video of the hippie who's house we went to during the crazy bus ride(see Second Greatest Day of my Life).
In honor of this video nearing its 1000th view on Youtube I thought I would post it again. If you dont think this is funny you are dead on the inside.
-Corey
...then instantaneously destroyed by the heartless idiots who edit big budget films. Here are clips of the Hollywood motion picture that Spencer and I stared in with Chris Kattan and Bob Odenkirk. (You can see most of our faces and my trademark brown and yellow jacket at the 3:26 mark of the first clip, then again in the first clip at the 3:14 mark you can sorta see both of us in upper right corner. To the best of my knowledge none of our spectacular work shows up in the rest of the clips.)*
clip1-
http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/contentDetail.do?id=D81F2344BF5AC7BBF593B2F8A05A5D4D10167F39A6E759DF
clip 2-
http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/contentDetail.do?id=D81F2344BF5AC7BBCDEE6BAD3BDCCD6A843D8D8E4CFBB6BE
clip 3-
http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/contentDetail.do?id=D81F2344BF5AC7BBEF491EB14F546A3CEF2C3B2CFA6E2AD4
-Corey
*I cant get the fucking videos to show up correctly on the site
Here is a little update on what we are doing:
To the best of my knowledge Spencer is still working as an organic gardener in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the family we stayed with while there. I know for a fact Spencer knows absolutely nothing about gardening, so I have no idea why he was entrusted with this task. He often tells me he has been working on writing though I have not seen any evidence that this is in anyway true. Last time I talked to him he was cooking up a homemade batch of Ayahuasca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayawaska) in attempt to lure me to Santa Fe and pick the road trip back up. If he is reading this I want to let him know that his attempt will be successful.
As for me I went back to work for a couple months then jumped on a plane for Australia. I am traveling around here for 4 months with my girlfriend. We have been here for a little over 2 months and it has been a really good trip. Though we've seen and done some amazing things nothing has been able to break though my laziness and get me to make a post. It took a day like yesterday to shake the dust off my keyboard and get me to return to the 3 fans of our long-dead blog (my girlfriend’s dad, the tamster, that creepy gay rapist (see New Orleans post we never made)).
"The second funniest day of my life" (keep in mind I have experienced Universal Studios Florida on Acid (story to come mid 2012))
It started like every day for the last 2 months. I woke up in the back of the 91' Ford Falcon Station I have called home since we got here. There is something about waking up in the back of a station wagon that really takes the edge off your morning. You pretty much know that you won't be doing anything too stressful/useful. I slowly rolled out of the car and went and made a Ham, Pineapple, Green Pepper and Cheese Omelets (delicious). From there I headed down to the beach where I sat and attempted to meditate for a half hour. I am pretty into the meditating lately, I am starting to think that might be an answer to a lot of the questions I am having about life. I wont bore you anymore with my personal attempts to better myself though.
That morning I had a particularly unsuccessful meditation (It really is pretty difficult to center yourself when your goddamn fantasy football team scored 41 fucking points for the 5th week in a row). As I walked up to the car my fantasy football woes quickly disappeared when I realized what day it was. It was Tuesday, October 16, 2007. This day may not mean much to most but for me it was the day I was scheduled to go on Jim's Alternative Tour to Nimbin.
Where to start? Well I guess I will let you know what I knew at the time about the tour. Jim drove a bus that took you up to the little village of Nimbin. Nimbin is a hippy village that is the only place in Australia where you can sorta legally buy marijuana and other marijuana related products. From Nimbin he makes a couple stops and then drops you off back at home. After hearing this I stopped their spiel right there and handed them 35 dollars and asked where we were going to be picked up.
At 10:00 AM a psychedelic painted bus blasting Jimi Hendrix pulled up we knew our ride had arrived. Jim happily greeted us from behind the wheel of the bus. He is around 50 years old, but was 200 times cooler than I will ever be. He looked a lot like my friend Parker if at the age of 25 Parker moved to Australia and spent the next 25 yrs of his life smoking pot, surfing, slamming tunes, and smoking pot. (which Parker should really consider doing) The full sized school bus was completely filled with 18 to 26 year old backpackers from around the world all brought together by their love of getting high. We found the last 2 open seats on the bus and sat down.
Once we hit the road you could not wipe the smile off my face. Jim not only played one of the finest drug tune mix I have come across he also was able to expertly synch it in with his commentary and the surroundings. I don't know if that really makes sense, here is an example. He took us through a really catholic village and then he told a very humorous story about how shitty catholic school was then right before we passed by the Catholic Church Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in Wall" started right at the perfect point. You may think that sounds pretty retarded, but it isn't and for thinking it is retarded you have proved that you are actually retarded. The music sample: Bob Dylan, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Tom Petty, Nirvana, Sublime, Chemical Brothers, Jethro Tull, and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember. Oh yea besides just the music he also mixed in a lot of cool audio clips including: The Big Lebowski,, The Simpsons, Borat, Half Baked, The Blues Brothers, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and some stand-up. He also synched up the audio with an accompanying song. Hear me out; don’t give up on me yet.
Besides just amazing tunes on the bus we also made a 10:30 AM pit stop at a pub where everyone grabbed cold beer for the ice chest on the bus. So we are all cruising through this beautiful countryside getting drunk on a bus blasting amazing music.
At around noon we pulled over outside Nimbin so Jim could give us a Nimbin tutorial. He said there are 3 questions everyone had when they got to Nimbin.
1. Why can you legally buy weed in Nimbin? 2. Where is the best place to buy weed? 3. How much should you pay for it?
He then generously gave us the answers. I will also share this knowledge with you.
1. You can't. There is no place in Australia that you can legally sell Marijuana. It is still illegal, but simply tolerated. 30 years ago a bunch of hippies had a festival outside Nimbin were they all smoked pot. The town of Nimbin was a failing dairy town that needed a pick me up so they allowed the festival. Ever since then it has been a haven for those who seek an alternative lifestyle (pot heads).
2. Everyone on the street sells it. You can't walk down the street without having 30 strange characters ask you if you want smoke.
3. He said 220 an ounce for hydro or 180 an ounce for bush, 3 cookies for 15 dollars, DO NOT EAT A WHOLE COOKIE 1⁄2 IS GOOD, or sometimes there is a lady who sells chocolate cake, it sells for 10 dollars for a small piece of chocolate cake, DO NOT EAT THE ENTIRE CAKE OR YOU WILL LEAVE THIS UNIVERSE. 1⁄4 OF A PIECE IS MORE THAN ENOUGH. EVERY WEEK OR SO SOMEONE THINKS I AM JUST BEING AN OLD DORK AND THEY EAT THE ENTIRE PIECE OF CAKE AND THEN THEIR REALITY IS RIPPED APART AND WE HAVE A LITTLE PROBLEM ON THE BUS.
He then told us about 5 very funny stories about things that have gone wrong in 19 years of running this tour every day. I don't really remember all the stories, but here is one I remember:
“One time a girl ate an entire piece of this magical chocolate cake and when they all got off the bus for a munchie stop she got convinced that they were all going to buy weapons so she locked them all of the bus and would not let them back on till she came down 3 hrs later. “ Possibly not true, but definitely a experience to shoot for.
After our pep talk Jim piloted our bus down the one street the town of Nimbin consists of. It was without a doubt the strangest place I had ever been in my life up to that point. The very small town consisted of a Hemp Museum, a Hemp Embassy, 12 stores that specialized in the sale of marijuana smoking devices, 5 tie-die shirt shops, 10 places to buy food, and one hardware store (I assume solely for the creation of things to smoke pot with).
As we got off the bus I immediately started my search for the woman who sold these cakes that could rip apart your universe. I was keeping my eyes peeled for the most disheveled old senile women; someone around 60 in an entire outfit of rainbow print mumbling nonsense to herself, reeking of a potent mixture of cat shit and bong resin, that was my target. Well I found around 7 of the exact women I just described, but I was informed they all only sold the cookies.
When I finally met the magic cake woman I have to admit I was a little disappointed. She was in her early 20's, wore normal clothes, and didn't even smell like shit. At first I thought I must have found the wrong cake woman, but she said she was the only one in town. I then asked her what her secret was, how much weed did she put in each cake? She told me that the secret is not how much weed, but how she prepares the butter.
I will now share her secret with you: -She boils a mixture of half butter and half water. She then adds in the ground up weed. She lets this mixture boil for 12 hours. If you only boil it for 4 hours you wont get the full effect. She said that the marijuana resin will stick to the butter and then when it cools the butter and water will separate and the butter will be ready for baking. She makes normal chocolate cake, and then makes the frosting out of nothing but the marijuana butter and a little chocolate.
I gladly bought a fine piece of her chocolate cake and my girlfriend bought 3 of her cookies. After buying our baked goods we headed out on the search of some normal weed so we would have some for later. Living in a car with me had taken my girlfriend to the limit of her sanity and she was desperately in need of anything to take the edge off.
We ended up buying a 1/4-ounce mixture of bubblegum and hydro for 75. I have no idea what that means, but the guy who sold it was very scary so I just gladly paid and left it at that. Also he came with a recommendation from Jim for being the best/creepiest guy in town to buy weed from. As soon as we had the weed in hand I set off to roll one of my world famous mini joints.
While I rolled the joint we each ate the recommended amount of our baked goods. I had 1⁄4 of a piece of cake and my girlfriend had 1⁄2 a cookie. When the joint was done we smoked er' up and went into enjoy the town before we had to get back on the bus at 2.
By the time we got back on the bus I am thoroughly fucked up, yet due to my reoccurring phobia of not getting "the full experience" I decided to try to eat the rest of my cake. Like a drunken 11 year old with cerebral palsy I attempted in vain to finish the cake as the bus bounced around. After 15 minutes I had managed to eat another 1⁄4 of the cake and had to give up because I could no longer use my hands. While I was busy mangling my cake my girlfriend decided to eat the rest of her cookie against my advice.
This is where the real adventure begins. I have no idea what the fuck I just wrote up there or why I wrote so much about it because that was all shit compared to the next few hours. Also from this point on I only had a vague notion of what was going on at the time and remember much less than that so I know I am going to forget a lot of it. Luckily I was at least cognizant enough to know this was an amazing adventure and was able to jot down a few scribbled notes that triggered some recall.
Here are a few of my very helpful notes:
“Bus crazy tune”
“So crazy corner never stopped”
“See if I can become Jim for USA”
So yea we are on the bus driving away from Nimbin. The plan is we are taking the scenic route to Jim's friend Paul's house. Paul is a "real hippy" who lives "off the land" out on “80 acres” of “tropic forest”. One of his claims of fame is that he has been high everyday for the past 29 years. Yes folks every single day.
So this is the part of the adventure where Jim's ability to Sync music to life really gets out of hand. He says that what is going to happen from here on is like a living version of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz. (If you have ever had the pleasure to find yourself at my friends Josh’s apartment at 4 AM on a random Wednesday I am sure you can appreciate what I am talking about). Jim stops at the top of this big hill and tells us that we are about to go a roller coaster ride. He then puts on a Pink Floyd's "One of these Days" and tells us to sit back and experience the ride. Well evidentially Jim has timed this drive exactly perfect so each time we crest a hill the song hits a crescendo and certain parts of the song play exactly to what is outside. The hill was all giant drops and huge corners, which he drove as fast as the bus could possibly go. Finally, as we hit a stop sign at the bottom of the hill exactly 5 minutes and 15 seconds later, the song ended. It was fucking unbelievable. We both thought we were actually on a roller coaster as did the rest of the bus.
After the roller coaster ride he had several other synced up areas that I don't remember very well, except for the fact I thought my head was going to explode. I remember at one point he put on this really trippy song and then said we were going around the never ending corner. Low and behold the goddamn corner was damn near never ending. From my recollection we really were on the corner for approximatley 10 hrs.
After the most amazing ride of my life we finally arrived at Paul's house. This is the new undisputed champion of the strangest place I have ever been in my life contest. Paul lives absolutely in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road. His property is on 80 acres that use to be a cow pasture. Since he bought the property 29 years ago he has hand planted the entire 80 acres with thousands of tropical plants. Mind you he did all this while maintaining his 29 year Ripken-like streak of getting high every single day. Besides all the beautiful fruit trees and flowering plants he has also added his own artistic touch of throwing really creepy shit all over. Things like completely burnt baby dolls or full sized sex dolls that he has added pubic hair to. Besides his eccentric choices for decoration the place was unbelievable.
(A picture of Paul's pond house, sort of like a pool house)
Now that I have mentioned how weird Paul's place is I need to let you know that it is about 100 times less strange than Paul himself. Paul moved to Australia 29 years ago from Long Island. 29 years has not made a dent in Paul's thick Long Island accent. He talks very similar to a very stoned Woody Allen. I don't really know how old Paul is, but I assume he has to be around 60 or so. He looks like this…
(Paul, not a great photo I cut off most of his Wizard Pajama pants)
Besides the fact that he has been high every single day since 1978, I didn't really get to know that much about him sadly. I was too high to move out of the chair I sat in for most of the time at his place, so I was only able to pick up bits and pieces as I eavesdropped on his conversations with other people. Here is the first interaction I saw Paul have:
I was sitting in my chair unable to move. Paul invites everyone to go for a swim in his pond. I greatly want to go, but find that putting my bathing suit on is not going to be possible at this moment, let alone walking the 10 steps over to the pond. Paul then approaches a guy from the group and asks him what kind of working out he does to get those strong shoulders. The guy says he doesn’t workout. Paul is not buying his modesty for one moment.
"You must work out to get those big muscular shoulders"
"Nope"
"Well then you must work for a living"
"Nope"
"Well let me feel those shoulders…yea, those are too muscular you must do some shoulder work-outs."
After creeping this guy out Paul then refuses to let the guy go change in the bathroom and insists he goes and changes with Paul in "nature". Next thing I know there is a 60 year-old hippy walking around naked, never a real enjoyable sight. After a nice swim Paul eventually puts back on his wizard garb.
I am still not able to move out of my chair until Paul brings out a homegrown watermelon and cuts it up for us to enjoy. I don't even like watermelon, but I can honestly say I have never enjoyed anything as much as that watermelon. He also brought out buckets of fresh macadamia nuts that I also greatly enjoyed. The only other bits of conversation I heard was him talking about obscure science with people who had no idea what he was talking about.
After an hour of relaxing Paul invites us on a nature walk which I jump up to go on. Our nature walks consists of Paul slowly walking through his forest and then pulling down leafs for us to smell. I have no idea why he was doing this. I greatly wanted to talk to Paul about his thoughts on the world and if I could move into his house, but I was unable to put these thoughts into words.
After the nature walk we end up back at the bus and Paul asks us one final question, you want a joke or my thoughts on the world. The crowd yells out thoughts on the world and we get this speech (video to be added as soon as I can find a computer that is not a piece of shit, check back though it is definitely worth it).
After we jump on the bus the music sync is back on. We make one final stop for munchies where I buy a chocolate Carmel ice cream on Jim's advice and my taste buds explode. I also was convinced I should buy a giant pop, candy bar (which are 2 dollars here), and a giant bag of Tiziki chips, which looking back might not have been that wise of purchases. I felt better though that the entire bus seemed to follow suit.
After we all get our munchies we jump back on the bus to gorge ourselves. As we make our way for Byron Bay, or yea that is where we are staying right now. Byron Bay is the greatest place in all of Australia, maybe. Yea so we are making our way back there and Jim real life music sync takes a turn for the serious. Jim has something really important that he wants to let us know about before we leave the bus. His medium he uses to explain the message is in the form of a final 3-song music sync. What is Jim's important message he wants to share with 40 stoned backpackers? Is it something about world peace, the environment, or maybe the war in Iraq. Nope, you guessed it, it was his famous metaphysical anti-Christianity pro mind expansion manifesto. He was able to perfectly sync up his message with 3 songs, (2 of which I have sadly forgot), but ending with Tom Petty's classic "Wont back down". It was a beautiful presentation and a perfect way to leave the bus.
I have always dreamt of experiencing what it would be like being with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters as they made their way around the US on their infamous journey. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Kool_Aid_Acid_Test) * Well today I felt like I got the chance to be “on the bus”. Even if it was just for a day, it was a pretty amazing day. I hope that was halfway enjoyable to read about.
*This whole journey is documented in Tom Wolfe’s classic “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” which I strongly recommend.
-Corey
We saw this at Spencer's cousin's in Philly and have been meening to put it up for a while.
Mark your calenders the Roadtrippin homecoming party is this Friday. We will be at the Dutchess in Seattle around 8pm on Friday, June 15 to celebrate Josh's birthday and more importantly the completion of our cross country adventure. Make sure and tell everyone you know as I am sure that most people have forgotten that we ever existed. Everyone is invited*. There is no cover, but donations would be appreciated (psychedelic drugs or canned food preferably). Well I look forward to seeing everyone, oh and please don't ask us about anything that happened after April 10, for obvious reason we will be unable to discuss those events until the blog posts have been completed.
*This is only due to the fact that we are holding the celebration at a public bar that would not let us blacklist anyone. That being said I think everyone would appreciate if anonymous just went ahead and stayed home.
-Corey
Here is an extra little treat that Mr. No Lunch Wunsch posted which you might have missed.
http://www.collegehumor.com/picture:1747460/ls:9746
The reason we were going to Santa Fe was to meet up with my parents at our family friends’ house for Easter. Prior to the stop, the only thing we knew about it was that we would be completing a “Jesus Walk” on what we were told was Good Friday. The family includes Curtis, a 5-year-old boy trapped in the body of a middle-aged highly successful surgeon; Cathy, his wonderful wife; and Erin their extremely bright daughter. I had grown up with them as neighbors for the majority of my life and consider them to be somewhat of a second family. Naturally, I was nervous to bring Corey into their home and vouch for him as a friend and worthwhile human being.
We got into Santa Fe late that evening feeling pretty terrible from our Brazilian feast earlier that night. When we entered the gate we were greeted by a large pack of dogs and my mother. After a quick tour my mom sent us to bed with a jumbo bottle of what she described as “very bad” wine. We were staying in what my mom referred to as “the Casita”. The Casita had two large bedrooms and a bathroom, and judging by the closet full of Jnco gear had recently been inhabited by a hip time traveling middle school student from 1998. We spent the rest of the evening choking down horrible wine and enjoying a charming documentary of Stone Phillips interviewing Jeffrey Dahmer and his father. The interview consisted of Dahmer describing his murders and cannibalistic rituals in detail. Even more disturbing than that was how insanely creepy his dad was. To be honest I am not entirely sure his father didn’t kill and eat those people. Even if he didn’t kill and eat those particular people he has certainly killed and eaten someone in his life. Although the interview was interesting I wouldn’t recommend watching it before you go to sleep. Actually, on second thought, I wouldn’t recommend watching it at all.
The next morning we slept in late. Once we finally woke up we headed into the kitchen where my mom and Kathy had breakfast waiting. Breakfast consisted of an enormous bowl of Kathy’s famous chili filled with sour cream and cheddar cheese: breakfast of the transient champion. After breakfast Erin came in and asked if anyone wanted to help feed the baby goats. We immediately jumped at the opportunity to complete a life long dream. Once we were inside Goat pen we were given our baby bottles and the race was on. I was slow to find a goat and was stuck with the underdeveloped runt of the herd. The race was over pretty quick except for my goat, which evidently enjoyed savoring his milk like a fine wine. I ended up finishing the end of my bottle myself to get the embarrassment over with*. We spent the rest of the day uploading tunes to our ipods, eating chili, and slamming beers. At some point Corey had his first interaction with Curtis, who would turn out to be his arch nemesis for the weekend. Curtis introduced himself, instantly dubbed Corey the Brown Turd due to his brown shirt and hat combo, and then quickly exited the room, leaving Corey very confused and slightly infuriated.
Later that night, after a fabulous steak dinner, we all headed out to downtown Santa Fe to play pool and pound beers, as always, no chicks allowed. For some reason though, Erin decided to throw caution to the wind and come along. Once at the bar we ordered a round of beers (on the old guys) and grabbed a pool table. At the table I put together a make shift classroom while Corey crudely constructed a couple textbooks out of a pile of napkins in preparation to take my dad and Curtis to school. After the first few games we were barely winning due to Curtis’ tendency to blatantly cheat. At this point our all day chili-a-thon caught up with us and soon proved to be the deciding factor as it is somewhat difficult to play pool when you are dry heaving in a cloud of shit smoke. Seven consecutive losses and many brewdogs later, the confidence of the old dudes team was at an all time high and for some reason they began to put money on the line. Curtis also decided to up the ante in the hi-jinks department with the elementary school practical joke of putting chalk on his finger and then rubbing it on our faces. Surprisingly this was still funny the 357th time. Over the next hour we successfully ran up an expensive bar tab and won around $4,000 in a rapid series of pool wins (If the old dudes are reading this we could really use that money right now). By midnight the old guys decided to head home and get some sleep before the big Jesus walk the next morning. Corey also went home with them, breaking the number one rule of roadtripping: never let Jesus get in the way of partying. It wasn’t a complete waste though, he was treated to a personal talk from one of the world’s foremost motivational speakers on reaching your goals (as long as your goals include going to law school, studying law or attending a school of law). In the end he received some sound advice and a pretty awkward threat of what would happen to him if I somehow didn’t end up in law school. I, on the other hand, stayed out and had the time of my life in downtown Santa Fe. I don’t really remember anything from the night but I do know that I drank quite a bit and at around five in the morning I got a call from my mom telling me that I was a horrible son for not coming home, so yeah, it must have been fucking sweet.
The next morning I woke up after a couple hours of sleep with the worst hangover I’ve had since that summer I went on tour playing keytar for Andrew W.K.’s “Party ‘Til You Die of Partying Tour.” My misery was only compounded by the fact that everyone else was chipper with the spirit of Jesus and Erin, the only other person with a hangover, somehow got out of the walk. To make it even worse, I missed the first wave of walkers (my mom and Kathy) and was forced to walk eight miles with nothing to listen to but my dad and Corey’s rehearsed presentation about law school. Curtis had recently bought a fancy new camcorder and Corey was commissioned to record around thirty minutes of brilliant footage of our insightful banter, but, unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain the dvd so for now you’ll have to make due with your imagination.
Prior to the walk my mom had hyped the fact that people give away free burritos all along the road. We were disappointed to discover that in reality there was only one place that gave away burritos and they were filled with scrambled eggs and peppers (Catholics don’t eat meat on Good Friday). Despite my hangover and the lack of free Mexican food, the overall experience of the walk was very positive. It was crazy to see thousands of people making the long pilgrimage (we only did a small portion of the full walk) for something they truly had faith in. Some walkers carried large burdensome crosses on their backs, some carried small not-so-burdensome novelty crosses in their hands, but everyone appeared to be walking with conviction. The atmosphere was so inspirational that at several points it moved my dad to pick up the pace into his version of running. If we ever get our hands on that footage you are in for a real treat. At the end of the walk we arrived at the goal, a historically relevant church. The line to get into this church was at least a two hour wait though, and that coupled with the fact that Jesus is our least favorite fictional character caused us to just head straight to the restaurant. In order to avoid us walking home Curtis had been graciously waiting with the car at a Mexican restaurant all morning…and by waiting I, of course, mean drinking heavily. Once we got to the restaurant we joined him for a couple rounds and then ate some wonderful Mexican food before driving back home. I spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping but Corey was a little more productive with his time. While checking his email he discovered that his blind internet search for psychedelic churches had finally paid off in the form of a response from the Peyote Way Church. The Peyote Way Church is located in Southern Arizona and has some strange affiliation with Mormonism. As a member of the church you are entitled to two legal peyote-guided spiritual quests in the dessert every year. Though it was unfeasible to do anything with the church on this trip, it was a “wise” investment for our “futures.”
Later that night we played a game of that no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em that we had seen on the moving picture box. Before the game Curtis pulled out a large pile of crumpled bills from his pockets and placed them into what we assumed was the winner’s pot. The game went fairly quickly with the imposters being pushed out early, leaving only Corey, the hotheaded rookie, and my mom, the wily veteran, going head-to-head. In the end Corey somehow came out on top (my mom suspects cheating) finally validating the hundreds of hours he has spent playing free online poker throughout his life. His victory was short-lived though, as Curtis quickly gathered up his pile of money and went to bed. Apparently he could not bear to see any good come to the Brown Turd. We were exhausted from our long day of walking so Corey decided not to protest it and we called it a night.
The next morning my dad woke us up fairly early with an exciting proposal of breakfast at the greasy spoon restaurant across town. After a mediocre breakfast we headed over to the hardware store. We were a little confused why we needed to go to the hardware store since they had already made several stops there in the past two days, but we soon found out that it was just a clever cover for hanging out at the sports bar/casino next door. We spent the majority of the day drinking the bar special of Miller Chills** and trying our hand at the gentleman’s pastime of betting on the dog races. After a rough start we were able to recover our losses and even began making some money with key picks on such dogs as The Ogmonster, Whiskey Pete and Chili Sanchez. Our streak didn’t last long though and we learned a valuable lesson of never putting all your winnings on Grandfunk Railroad to win anything. Not only did the G-Funk fail to place, he was the only dog that failed to even finish the race.
We were feeling pretty down about our big loss but decided to throw our last remaining dollar into the slot machines near the entrance. I lost my share instantly but Corey hit the jackpot, winning around forty dollars in quarters. He decided not to cash it in and left the casino with his oversized cup of quarters, head held high. We drove back to the house after making one last stop at the liquor store to replenish the beer and wine supply.
Upon our return we set up shop on the back porch and got to drinking canoe beers with the old dudes***. What was left of the afternoon was spent drinking to a classic rock soundtrack provided by Corey’s media machine and discussing how they don’t make tunes like they used to.
The women chose to take a night off from cooking so we all went out to eat at a Spanish restaurant. Dinner was delicious and we took full advantage of Curtis’ tendency to order multiple bottles of expensive wine. Once the alcohol kicked in and the live band started up my dad and Curtis whisked their wives onto the dance floor and kicked off what would prove to be an epic night of dancing. While I had previously experienced the spectacle of my dad on a dance floor many times in my life and was familiar with his vast repertoire of classic moves, Curtis blew me away with his sprinkler to shoulder shrug back to sprinkler combo that he employed religiously throughout the night. As the rest of the table was destroying the dance floor, Corey and I set to destroying an entire bottle of eighty-dollar wine. After a few songs they returned to the table leaving just an old man in a beret strutting his stuff solo on the dance floor. The entire restaurant watched on enthusiastically as this dinosaur displayed an array of “dance moves” that had remained unaltered since his days as the creepy old guy hand jiving at a Duke Ellington concert. As the song ended he finished up the routine with a textbook arm worm to answering the Hand Telephone and the crowd erupted with cheers. It was nice to see a man clearly past his prime getting recognition for his only life talent, but when no one moved toward the dance floor and he began his next routine I knew it was time to step up and put him in his place. I confidently walked up next to him and as my adrenaline surged I noticed a look of deep fear in his eyes. I knew I had to make my presence felt early so I opened up with my lawn maintenance trifecta of mower, weed whacker, hedge clipper (not in that order). He was obviously shaken up as he retaliated with his tired out 50’s Beatnik hand dance, which had been seen on multiple occasions that night. I had him right where I wanted but felt bad about landing a knockout punch so early so I decided to take the crowd on a simple little shopping trip. He obviously sensed the weakness of my move and gained the confidence needed to throw out a mood-shifting shuffling robot with more skill than I had expected. At this point it was clearly time to put the old dog down and I unleashed a flurry of highly difficult, unthinkable moves that can only be described as the Drunken Croatian Tornado. I then added an unnecessary dance in your face celebration and as I reached for my victory handshake I was met with a cold stare and a physical threat. From there things kind of escalated as my drunken temper and his pathetic sense of desperation got the best of us and before I knew it he was being restrained by a bouncer and harshly scolded by my mother. I felt slightly sorry for him as he moped back to his seat at the bar never to return to the dance floor that night. I soon forgot about him, however, and basked in the glory of being Santa Fe’s newest King of Gimmick Dancing. Although nothing could compare to the dance-off some other highlights of the night included celebratory dancing with old ladies, Corey’s attempt at revenge on Curtis by seducing his wife on the dance floor and my dad trying to convince us he was having a good time despite his blunder of volunteering for DD.
The next two days were very boring and spent mainly inside due to an unrelenting rainstorm. Basically we ate some fantastic meals and reloaded the car with an insane amount of food (most notably five pounds of unwanted frozen venison sausage).
On the morning of our fifth day in Santa Fe we packed up the car in the rain and said our heartfelt goodbyes. We were somewhat glad to be leaving the strangely foreign fancy meals and warm beds, getting back to the only road we’ve ever known, like grifters born to walk alone****.
*I did not actually finish the goat’s bottle of milk.
**Miller Chills are a disgusting mixture of equal parts Miller Light and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. It is not advised to drink this product unless you are of Hispanic descent.
***A term my dad uses very heavily for beers that are “fucking near water!”
****You guys like Whitesnake? Guys?
-Spencer
Hey Guys,
You might be wondering what the fuck we’ve been doing. Well we’re still alive and the trip has been going very well. We aren’t having fun whatsoever, but we’ve been doing lots of strange/illegal/dangerous things so we should have some pretty good stories. Lately we have been really busy and have been trying to use all our free time to take down notes so we don’t completely forget everything we’ve done. No worries though I can assure you that this entire epic journey will be documented. Well thanks again for all the comments and emails.
Corey
Just across the border of New Mexico we spotted the deal of a lifetime, Chinese food for only $1.50 an item. Once inside we realized that this was also the restaurant of choice for the local high school’s scared straight program but we remained unphased by their gang signs and JNCO jeans. The orange chicken and Mongolian beef we ordered were nowhere near worth the price, but the conversations we overheard involving knife fight stories and enjoyment of the prison-style Chinese food more than made up for it. We left the restaurant with our pants full of your standard sub-$2 chinese food diarrhea, headed toward Grants, NM.
We were planning to camp somewhere near Grants but as we drove through town we realized that it was below freezing outside and the city was home to the world’s cheapest motels. It turns out that you can get yourself a pretty decent room for twenty dollars if you don’t mind sharing a bed and sleeping less than three feet from the United States’ last functioning railroad. After paying for the motel I decided to reward our hard work and sweet find with two ice cold light beers from the motel bar. As I walked across the parking lot I noticed that Spencer, who was evidently a little more stoked about the room, had decided to reward himself with an eight-bomb of King Cobra malt liquor from the gas station next door. We slammed our beers in about two seconds and then went out to catch Country Western Night at Dirty Dick’s Saloon down the street. As soon as I walked into the bar I was hit by a severe case of Line Dance Fever. After several failed attempts to recreate the magic of my 6th grade P.E. boot scootin boogie championship I was asked to leave the dance floor so I sulked off to the bar where Spencer had already made himself at home. Luckily, the bartender felt sorry for me and offered me a free drink. Apparently, she also felt that I was a gay baby because the free drink she brought me was a thimbleful of Apple Puckers. Although nothing exciting happened, the night wasn’t a complete waste because when I got home my favorite comedian, Doug Stanhope, had returned my myspace message about how to acquire psychedelic drugs in the southwest. To help you understand how I felt, imagine if Ashanti text messaged Tho about a great new deal on crew neck sweaters*.
The next morning we woke up and visited the town’s only attraction, the Northwestern New Mexico Museum of Mining. It was free to go into the museum but three dollars to tour the underground mineshaft underneath the building. With a little fancy footwork and a couple fake mustaches, however, we were able to get the whole thing for free. They got the last laugh though; the tour was almost as boring as writing this post so far.
The rest of the afternoon was spent hiking around some pretty sweet lava fields. After the hike we began driving south hoping to finally get out of the shitty weather that we had been stuck in since we left Lake Havasu. On the way south we stumbled upon a little slice of heaven, and by heaven I mean my wrists, I want to slit my fucking wrist this post is so fucking boring. No sorry I meant pie, not my wrists, pie. We stumbled upon Pie Town, and would you believe it we ate a couple slices of pie. What a fucking interesting story, I can certainly see why someone would want to read about two guys eating pie in central New Mexico. What the fuck am I doing with my life…
Any who while eating the delicious pie the really cool old acidhead turned Pie-smith gave us a pretty detailed rundown of what we needed to do for the next 3 days. His itinerary consisted almost entirely of natural hot springs in the surrounding area. Apparently decades of abusing psychedelic drugs leaves you with a particular fondness for hot tubs, but without the necessary means to actually purchase one. I bet you just cant fucking wait to hear about the great time we had sitting in hot springs.
Following his advice we drove south to a campground in hot spring country. That night we created our best fire ever!!! Fuck yea. After we got the fire going we prepared a feast of fruit cocktail and Bush’s “Boston Baked Beans.” After the bean feast I spent the rest of the night staring into the fire thinking about how hilarious this was going to be to write about. Spencer had a slightly different plan for the night involving a 4-pack of 16 ounce Bud bottles and his own intrapersonal demons.
The next day we went on a beautiful hike through “The Catacombs” an old mining trail that cut through a small canyon…boring…Next we went for a amazing trek through a river valley to a natural hot springs, where we relaxed by a peaceful river…boring. I’ll tell you what isn’t boring though getting free pizza while chatting about mother earth with a couple hippies and an old cowboy, while their “friend” is writhing in pain in the car about to go into a poison oak induced seizure. On second thought maybe that was boring. How about you try this one on for size, Silver City, New Mexico’s KFC dining room we order not one but two orders of the $2.99 chicken-fried steak plate. While we are ordering we overheard a morbidly obese female employee tell her brother to keep still and that she’ll be off in only 5 hrs. Every eight-year-old’s dream: sitting by yourself at a Podunk KFC with nothing to do but anticipate how badly your methed up “dad” will switch-whip you for not behaving yourself at the babysitter’s.
(Catacombs) 
After our feast at KFC we met our diarrhea quota for the post with our second obligatory case and headed up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. We weren’t entirely sure what exactly the cliff dwellings were but the dead head pie shop owner had assured us that the park included numerous “far out” hot springs. It was getting late so we found a campground on the way and set up camp next to a creepy old VW bus, hoping to score some drugs but risking a late night stabbing. Surprisingly, the following morning we woke up both stab wound and drug free and drove up to the park. It was a short hike up to the cliff dwellings, which turned out to be unexpectedly impressive. The attraction was an entire town built inside seven large caves on the side of a cliff, which had been inhabited by an Indian civilization somewhere around eight hundred ago. We spent quite a bit of time walking around the site and talking about how amazingly simple life would have been for these people. They had basically everything you need in life (abundant food and water, ideally-located shelter and a true sense of community) without all the trivial worries and stress of life today. I found something really beautiful about this simple existence and it made me realize how people in our society build their lives around status and material possessions, completely missing the whole point of what life was meant to be about. This really got me thinking about the new self-sufficient psychedelic cult that I am planning on forming (I’ll keep you posted but I can assure you that you are not going to want to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity).
After the dwellings we stopped by the Ranger station to ask about these far out hot springs. We he had no idea that he meant far out so literally. The hot spring was located 7 miles away from the nearest road. The ranger did not recommend the hike and suggested a few easier and more enjoyable ones. We misinterpreted this as a challenge and decided we would go for our first overnight backpacking adventure. We grabbed a trail map and headed to the car. Once there, we threw a random assortment of stuff into our bags and set out on our hike. The trail started out winding through a merciless dessert. About fifteen minutes into it we realized that this was a horrible idea: it was over ninety degrees, there was no shade and we had already drank about half our water supply. Thankfully, as we got closer to the river the hike became much more bearable and at some points even something close to enjoyable. That was of course until we reached the river. Our trail guide said that the hot spring was located just past river crossing fifteen, which I interpreted to mean the fifteenth bridge where you could cross the river. It turned out that the true meaning was that in order to reach the hot spring you were forced to ford a thirty-foot wide, waist deep, raging artic river full of very slippery rocks on 15 separate occasions. To compound the shittiness it was getting dark and the temperature was quickly dropping.
After dragging our frostbitten legs three miles through fifteen river crossings, with a large number of near falls we had finally arrived to where, according to the map, the hot spring was located. At first we were more than a little disappointed, thinking that the hot spring was no more than a dirty lukewarm puddle next to the river. Ever the optimist, however, Spencer immediately jumped in and basked in the fruits of our labor. While Spencer was enjoying the swamp hole I went off to find a quiet place to cry and just happened to stumble upon the most incredible hot spring known to man. Once I set eyes upon the hot spring I knew it was more than worth the last three and a half excruciatingly miserable hours. It looked like what I assume a resort spa would look like, and absolutely nothing like any of the KOA fly-filled hot tubs we had been partying/sleeping in recently. My first inclination, as always, was to hide my new find from my “friend” Spencer. For some reason though I decided against my better judgment and went to haul his unconscious body out of the leech pool.
After taking in the majesty of the hot spring Spencer rewarded my honesty by telling me that he had brought along the remainder of our toadstool stash and that now he wouldn’t take them all himself. I was pretty excited about the drugs, but even more excited to learn that using the term toadstools to describe magic mushrooms was making a comeback. This was going to be the first time I had eaten mushrooms at night so we began a firewood gathering frenzy to prepare. Once we had collected a fortnight’s worth of wood we set to creating a cuzi-side fire pit so we wouldn’t have to get out of the water to stare at the fire like retards. Though the hot spring was beautiful and a perfect ninety degrees, I failed to realize that it was by far the creepiest place you could possibly take hallucinogenic drugs. It had dark creepy caves in two corners, spider webs nearly everywhere, and there were bats flying directly overhead. The creepiness was only heightened by the fact that Spencer refused to talk about anything except whether or not the devil existed. After a couple hours we decided that we should have something to eat, namely a delicious can of Boston Baked Beans. Though we had previously been opening our canned goods and cooking them on a grill over a fire we decided to speed up the process by cutting out the middleman and just throwing the unopened can of beans directly into the fire. While it seemed like a good idea at the time we quickly discovered that it was, in fact, a terrible idea as the can began to bulge and nearly exploded. This would have been quite the disaster seeing that we neglected to bring any other food items on our hike. Luckily though, my attempt to save the can was highly successful**. The rest of the night went pretty mushroomly. The only notable events were my discovery of a stick that was harder than rock and Spencer’s unrelenting insistence that we talk about the devil***.
The next morning, after a quick dip in the cooz, Lucifer and I packed up the campsite and headed out on our second river-crossing bonanza. It was another hot day so to avoid the miserable stretch of dessert we decided to follow the river all the way to the ranger station, adding around three miles and exactly thirty-two river crossings to the hike. Around river crossing #8 we had our first, of what would prove to be several, near-death experiences on this road trip. We heard what sounded like a rattlesnake, which, in fact, turned out to be a real life motherfucking monster rattlesnake. Yeah, who’s writing the boring blog now? With a complete disregard for my wellbeing I was able to get up close and personal with the deadly beast and snap these dynamite action shots for our adventure-hungry fan base.
(Don't let this giant venomous monster fool you he is actually in this photo) 
The remainder of the hike was challenging, spectacular, and, you guessed it, boring.
We reached the car around four and began driving east. As soon as we hit the highway we had our first run in with Johnny Law. I was only going fifty in a forty five but once I saw the stater pull a U-turn I knew that one of our lives would be ending soon. Luckily for him he was pretty cool as far as staters go and only gave me a verbal warning**** . I stood my ground though and gave him a verbal warning of my own that the next goddamn dirty stater that pulled me over would get a face full of my fist. Although this warning was given after he had driven off and I had rolled up my window I believe I got my point across. This would prove to be a very idle threat less than twenty minutes later when we were pulled over by a small smelly herd of staters. This time I was caught breaking New Mexico’s land speed record attempting to take the Stink Wagon of a sweet jump. They clocked me going 63 in a 45 but I’m willing to guess it was closer to 163. After three separate staters came to the car and harassed us with tips on their favorite local campgrounds and restaurants I was let off with a written warning. Apparently, after reviewing our rap sheets, New Mexican staters tremble with fear at the thought of dealing with two criminal trespassers. As they were leaving Spencer reminded me of my promise to serve up a heaping helping of knuckle sandwich to the next stater who pulled me over. I vowed then and there that the next stater I saw, regardless of whether or not he pulled me over, would be getting socked the fuck out. Around ten minutes later I would get my opportunity when we stopped for gas in Hatch, New Mexico, chili capital of the world. After an unsuccessful chili-related bumper sticker search I walked out to the car and saw Spencer talking to what appeared to be a pair of gay cowboys. When I got out there I realized that it was even worse; it was a pair of undercover staters. One of the staters approached me and flashed his badge and that’s when I knew something had to be done to teach these staters a lesson in pain. Right as I was about to punch him, though, I saw the fear in his eyes and realized that he was just a small town boy who never had an opportunity to learn what a stupid and useless job being a stater really is. I’m sure if he had been given that knowledge he might have become something worthwhile, possibly even a fellow tripper. I base this on the fact that he asked us repeatedly if we were carrying any BC Bud as he illegally searched our trunk. Fortunately we had recently exhausted the majority of our drug supply and he failed to find our cleverly hidden Halls bag of acid and let us go on our way.
Exhausted from our day of hiking and stater-dodging we went of to find a nearby campground. Assuming that the staters were planning some sort of sting operation we decided to stay at the only park in the area that they did not recommend to us. When we got to the campground the office was closed so we helped ourselves to a primo spot and went to sleep. A surly old lady in a golf cart woke us up the next morning by loudly asking if we had paid our fees for the night. We, of course, had not paid but were considering paying on the way out until her verbal assault and questioning of our character changed our minds. We drove right by the office on our way to Albuquerque, yelling “you’ve been boondoggled” out the window.
Our drive to Albuquerque was fairly quick and uneventful except for our spotting of several signs reading “life is good, don’t meth it up.” We weren’t sure if this was a public service announcement regarding the dangers of methamphetamines or lisps but decided to hedge our bets and cut both crutches out of our lives.
We got to Albuquerque, my favorite city of the southwest, late in the afternoon. At Trevor’s suggestion we went to an all you can eat Brazilian restaurant downtown. Though, at fifteen dollars a piece, it was well outside of a roadtripper’s budget, the food was amazing. At least that was our opinion until we had spent over four hours eating there in an attempt to get our money’s worth and, in the process, making ourselves violently sick. The rest of the night was spent watching 300 (enjoyable) and losing badly to Spencer “while other kids were out practicing real sports I was in my basement practicing air hockey” Morgan at a best of seven air hockey showdown (not so enjoyable). It was getting late and we had spent all our money on Brazilian food and air hockey tokens so we decided to move on to Santa Fe and meet Spencer’s parents earlier than expected. Thus concludes the longest, most uneventful internet blog post in history.
*Joke only funny to three people and two of them are writing this blog.
**My attempt to fix the situation consisted of awkwardly pointing at the fire and then pointing at Spencer, shielding my face from what I thought to be an imminent bean explosion.
***Spencer’s note: Corey spent the rest of the night banging a piece of wood against a rock like a five-year-old mongoloid idiot child. And, for the record, I was merely attempting to discuss the existence of a negative essence that happened to be in the back of a cave, beckoning me to a life of evil. If that makes you creepy, then yeah, I guess I’m creepy.
****Not saying much, on the ladder of coolness staters are one step below guys who take shirtless flexing pictures for their myspace profile.
-Corey
