Drool, Britannia!

When the missus turned forty, we celebrated with a cruise through Alaska's Inside Passage (See the reportage here, from the earliest days of this tired old blog). We had a magnificent time breathing clean air, feasting on real salmon, and punting bald eagles like footballs off the rocky coast of Sitka...

Her challenge to me was: When my own 40th birthday comes, I should have a trip in mind: She gets one, I get one. Fair enough, and the choice was simple.

So despite our plummeting economy, our worthless American dollar, and the insane cost of oil/gas and air travel, it's still London calling.

I've been fascinated by England ever since I was a pup, for a variety of reasons. There was the infectious enthusiasm of my dad's preaching about family pride and English heritage, for one thing.

"Family Pride"!?!? Never mind the genetic side-trip that the family took into Maryland Native American bloodlines, and it wasn't that long ago. Was it really a dark family secret, or just long forgotten? Because it was quite a meaningful thing to discover. Eastern Woodlands indigenous blood understands the world like caucasian blood never will (read Maurice Kenny's poetry for evidence). And it explained a lot about the look of his side of the family, and of my grandfather's uncanny sense of reality. Behind his stoic face, the man just KNEW what the hell was going on, down to the freaking MOLECULES.

But anyway:

So there was the Heritage head-trip, but WETA was also working on my psyche during childhood: It was my mother's Zenith TV with its late-'60s ivory and turquoise-colored plastic and the knobs that pulled off easily and if memory serves, it only got Channel 26 (WETA, DC's public TV station), which meant that most of my viewing consisted of Sesame Street and BBC reruns. Thus, I spent many days sitting on the floor in front of that glass eyeball, absorbing the culture of England from a small apartment on Viers Mill Road in Rockville, Maryland...

Then later on, there was that dreadfully awesome, unrequited obsession with Diana Rigg's Emma Peel character in The Avengers... Holy Bouncing Hell, I thought, I simply MUST visit this island nation which gifted us with this leather-clad, karate-chopping goddess...

Fast-forward to 2008. The old Zenith is history and Diana Rigg never returned any of my (unreal) phone calls.

Side note: Rigg turned 70 last week, and is still kicking, according to wiki, on the theater stages of England. Bravo.

And we still have this 40th birthday trip of mine to figure out.

Truly, if it wasn't for our friend and his London-based fiancee offering us their good company and a place to sleep, we'd never afford this. Therefore I can say with ironic glee that I, for one, WILL be spending my "economic stimulus package" -- just not the way the President intended.

Yep. Me and my "stimulus package" are gonna go "stimulate" a foreign economy. Seriously, Dubya: if you wanted the money to be SPENT (not stashed away in savings), and spent domestically, you should have handed out Best Buy coupons or something.

No matter!

We'll happily do a few tourist things (ICA, Tate Modern, Tower of London, the Eye) but my big interest is in the true, everyday urban reality of London. I'm sure this is due to living in DC, another capital city where we're fond of complaining about slow-moving, mouth-breathing tourists clogging the Metro and making life generally miserable.

Only some of that tourist-bashing is fair, I'll admit. But it means I've become acutely aware of my own potential tourist-ness and will strive to remain blissfully invisible.

So like, any suggestions?

I'm making lists of the alleged BEST PUBS, RECORD STORES, and CURRY HOUSES in London. That would be the Intangible Arts Holy Trinity of any travel destination: pubs, vinyl, and curry. There will be side-trips to Newcastle and Edinburgh, so the Trinity Search also applies there.

As far as record stores go, it seems London's West End favorite Sister Ray is possibly shutting down, which is terrible news, since I was planning to "stimulate" a bit of economy in there as well. We might also catch an Arsenal match if we can wedge it in, and see how the game is played in the Motherland (no disrespect to DC United, I'm with you all the way)...

Eh. Much to absorb. But any recommendations in the comments would be cherished with gratitude.

[photo: outside the Burberry's shop on Connecticut Avenue, Washington DC 31july08]

faces of Maine

As soon as we returned from Michigan, we began thinking of our trip to Maine. This one wasn't as long, alas: just 3 days to cram in as much quality-time as possible, with as many people as possible. Not very possible... but a fun diversion.

First on the agenda: the Wedding of Perky Pat! I've posted his link here for a while, but the site has recently died quietly, in its sleep. But fear not, o lovers of freak folk & psychedelic strangeness: I've been assured that Perky Pat Radio will return in some form. We will be fed.

The wedding was a splendid thing, and I'm still editing the photos; expect a post with all the details (perhaps with pix of the garter-hunting ceremony, pending permission from the happy couple!), so stay tuned for that one...

Thus, we had an opportunity to haunt some lovely places in Maine that I hadn't seen since the days of Maine Times. The carved trees (above) are the work of Belfast artist Ryan Cowan.

We couldn't resist a cruise through the stout, old town of Bangor, where Maine Times was based. The inept old fart that ran the company still hasn't rented or sold the space, and the building remains a melancholy shrine to our amazing team...

The time was too short to gather one of those classic, scorching Maine Times staff parties. We must return and do that very thing, before the old crew scatters too far...

Alpena tail on Miss Chicken

We've actually been back for a couple of days already, but it's taken a while to sort through the photos and deal with WORK after nine days away... I believe the astronauts would call the phenomenon burning up on re-entry?

My wife's family have been coming to this camp every year for a long time, and it's worth the dedication. It's located on Lake Esau, off to one side of the weeny town of Presque Isle, and the amenities were more plentiful than I expected, for "camp cabins." but no complaints here...

...apart from the weather. Still too warm. I'm a big fan of crisp autumn air, and summer was still hanging on. But we built fires anyway because, dammit, we had a fireplace.

A few canoe trips out on Esau, a few excursions into town for food & weirdness, and suddenly it was over.

Returning to civilization involved a leisurely drive down Route 23 through some wacky small towns. We encountered a few classic roadside oddities, including a peeling and rather inbred-looking Paul Bunyan, and a colossal figure of Jesus Christ perched atop a turquoise pedestal and brandishing the Earth like a bowling ball...great stuff. Gas prices have all but killed the Great American Road Trip, so this was a treat.

The flight back to DC was another treat, as there were only 12 people on the plane. This meant that everyone was upgraded to the First Class compartment. Also of note: It was my first flight in ages without being surrounded by screaming wee people... and of course, the free amenities of First Class seating (Dewars on ice and a magazine seem to make the miles fly by much faster).

And now, the healing powers of the north Michigan woods will be tested to the limit, in a small cubicle on Capitol Hill...

a brief diversion south

We left Washington DC for Florida, and the mission was to acknowledge the death of one person and the rebirth of another person.

Leaving home required a tremendous leap of faith, that the tarp-covered wreckage of our back deck would remain unmolested by wind, rain, or storms for a few days. We're still waiting for contractors to begin re-roofing back there, and we're feeling a little, uh, exposed...to the elements right now. The slightest mention of rain sends us to fits of nervous twitching, like un-medicated veterans at the sound of a helicopter.

The trip was pleasant, considering the cause, and I'm still convinced that the United States should return Florida to the Seminoles. They obviously know how to manage that land much better than we. But anyway...

In Miami was the peculiar estate known as Vizcaya (garden pictured above). The mansion home and its surrounding ornaments were built by James Deering on Biscayne Bay in about 1916. The home itself is filled with a head-spinning array of Rennaissance-era furnishings (hence, no photography inside), and is operated today by Miami-Dade County as a museum. A fun diversion.

Meanwhile, the motel television was dripping with news from home. DC appears to be having another crime wave, and the national media never tire of the irony of it all: the Capital of the Free World has a Murder problem!?!? Folks seem to forget that this city contains real people, and isn't some obscene, fascist campsite for powermad stormtroopers.... Yes, sweet motel television, it is both of those things.

Of course the sad truth is, according to the media, there are NO murders in DC until someone of status is victimized. I simply don't understand how the murder of a tourist on the Mall or a foreign journalist in Georgetown is any more important than "some guy" in Ward One.

And then Lebanon blew up. Jeez, I turn my back and go to Florida for ONE MINUTE, and see what happens... That does it. For the safety of the human race, we shall not travel in 2007.

DisneyWeird 4: Alcohol and Fast Cars

It took him at least four Rum & Cokes to get through dinner with the kids.

They sat across from us at the Coral Reef in EPCOT, and to be fair, his kids were more sedate than many we'd seen.

The Coral Reef was comparatively tranquil, with its floor-to-ceiling fishtank view and contemporary blue decor. Stingrays, sharks, and god knows what-all drifted by, pretending not to notice our plates of Blackened Salmon and Broiled Lobster Tail... After a day of punishing ourselves in the Orlando sun, it seemed the place to be. Plus, they offered a decent 22-ounce glass of their own house ale, which was surprisingly good. Or was it the heatstroke?

Several years ago, when traveling with a very different crowd in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, I learned that sunstroke can make crap beer seem like God's own nectar. Tecate in the states never has the magical, life-giving quality that it did after ten hours of boiling radiation on the sun-blasted, bone-white coast of Mexico. We built an enormous, elephant-sized bonfire on the beach and watched the moon rise through a velvety gauze of cheap Tecate... it was one of those Lovely Scenes in Life that are impossible to repeat. And with good reason.

But I digress...again.

Of all our Disney dining experiences, the Coral Reef was the best. But when our anonymous Dad slumped away, leaving his rum-stained glass and credit receipt, it seemed clear that Disney must test the very limits of a parent's stamina. There was a stink of defeat about his table, and it reminded us that our weekend was almost over.

We left the restaurant with bellies full of seafood and beer, and went directly to the GM TEST TRACK ride.

The gimmick here was to simulate the stress-tests auto makers inflict upon new cars: Shock tests on bumpy hills, sudden stops, temperature shifts, etc. The ride takes you through all these stages, and it's fun without being too fun.

After this, you're thrust out on a track where you accelerate quickly in the open air. That was MUCH better, particularly with all the beer in our guts for ballast during the 65mph banked turns. It was nearly closing time, and there were no lines. NOBODY was waiting when our ride was over, and so, with some mildly desperate pleading, we were permitted to ride again.

Just please unhook and re-hook your seatbelt, and have fun!

When that ride concluded, our pleading was more desperate. We had lost all dignity. One more time? Who could say no to such an innocent group as we?

When THAT ride was complete, we were down to our last 7 minutes before the park was due to close, and we deployed the Secret Weapon: the silent, pleading eyes of inbred cocker spaniels. Around we rode again, but it was to be our last time.

The night was drawing to a close, and there was barely enough time to race back to the Magic Kingdom for their ceremonial fireworks. From there it was a mad sprint to Space Mountain, and from there, sadly, to reality.

The morbidly curious can view the full set of photos here.

DisneyWeird 3: Freakout on the Teacups, with After-Effects

DisneyWorld in its original form (The Magic Kingdom) opened to the public on a bright Florida morning in 1971. I was three years old at the time, and completely unaware of the event. Honestly, I wasn't aware of much in those days. Sesame Street was in its second season, and I was content. Oscar the Grouch was my hero. Perhaps he still is.

In the case of DisneyWorld, it seems odd that this theme park that would come to represent all the dreamy excess of the American Empire is only 35 years old. Wasn't it.....always there? It contains some of the great legends of our civilization: Cinderella's Castle, Space Mountain, and that bloody Teacup ride. These are the Great Artifacts of our culture, our fingerprint upon the earth. DisneyWorld has become a vast cathedral to Dreams, as only Americans are permitted to dream.

It's a sobering reminder of how fresh and new this Empire is. America doesn't have the strength of Real History. It doesn't have roots. Its flesh is only as deep as the glittery surface of Disney's fantasy props. We could vanish tomorrow, and the surviving nations of Earth would be left to clean up our star-spangled wreckage. The United States of America would enter the history books as a fragile experiment in mass gluttony gone horribly wrong.

But that's tomorrow...or the day after tomorrow! We live for NOW, baby, and with reckless abandon! To prove it, we will get on that teacup ride and turn ourselves inside out with spinning sickness!

The legendary Teacup ride is a great lesson in the physics of motion. The floor is split into an interweaving pattern of circular templates which turn at roughly the same rate. One teacup per circle. The whole business is mounted on a giant carousel turntable, so each teacup is spinning AND rotating at the same time. Additionally, each teacup is mobile by being freely mounted on a spindle and can be spun at will, if the rider grips the wheel and heaves in one direction.

So our mission was simple: We would claim our teacup and haul that bastard as fast as possible, for as long as possible. And we did. When the music started, we took control and rode that Fat Dragon into the heart of madness.

The world was a smear of warping space, a glittering, mercury-tinted photograph streaked with razors across a sphere of glass, roaring into the eyes and down the spinal cord like a Mother's Milk of pure, desperate motion: a primal, tumbling circus which packed all bodily fluids against the outer walls of flesh... This was the last great Spin Cycle of the Cosmos and it was happening NOW, NOW, NOW, laughing up the very dream-soaked Towels of God from our throats...

And it was over. We had been hauling at the wheel like speedfreak truckers, and it was now time to WALK amongst normal people.

Recovery was easy, but the brain still churned with delirium. We were hungry, and stumbled like zombies towards what looked like an ordinary food court.

We entered, smelled cheap pizza, and I saw THE BEAST.

It was a hideous lizard creature. Man-sized with the cruel beak of a carrion-bird and the calculating eyes of an alien genius...and it was seated at a keyboard, making some kind of lounge music. Amongst us weary travelers, the analysis went something like this:

CHESTER: "holy [bleep], does anybody else see that....or is it just me?"

JAY: "no...... i mean, yes. That appears to be really there."

TERRY: "this IS the holy [bleep] of restaurants."

JAY: "um, is anybody else vaguely disturbed by its legs?"

CHESTER: "dear sweet jesus, it has Fat Banker's Legs!"

go to Part 4.

DisneyWeird 2: An Orgy of Bacon in the Land of Magic

There's no pain in the world; no suffering, no trauma, no emotional distress, that a pound of bacon won't cure.

We found ourselves at the scene of what those in the Disney trade call a "character breakfast" and it promised to be the most intense thrill-ride of them all: a total psychic cleansing, a bloodbath of the psyche that would leave even the strongest cynics on their knees and weeping on the day-glo carpet.

The Character Breakfast is an intense experience, a cafeteria restaurant on LSD. The decor is a hyper frenzy of color, and the scent of bacon is stronger than the incense at a Catholic high mass.

And it was a rather religious scene: Sixteen million children ran about like crazed worshippers, falling about the heels of the seven-foot Disney creatures that visited each table. The characters pranced and strutted about behind their white plastic eyes, but it was their silence that seemed the most creepy. In cartoons, these critters always talk too much, but here, they've become enormous mute puppets.

The "characters" traveled in a very precise circuit around the restaurant, visiting each table in turn and never deviating from the path. There was a sense of military order about Disney in general, but it was more obvious here. The visitation route was designed to expose each table to one set of characters before the next wave of customers came in. Disney's grasp on people-moving is impressive.

We tried like hell to interrupt their route, to divert Minnie Mouse to our table and offer her a bit of bacon and flirtatious fun.

Wink-wink. Hang with us...we're the fun people.

She would have none of it. It was like laying sticks down in the middle of a line of army ants: they will ignore the obstacle and proceed as planned.

The Boss must have seen what we were up to, and came over to investigate (photo, above). We were released after a firm lecture about wishes coming true, believing in magic, and keeping our goddamn hands off Minnie Mouse.

go to Part 3.

DisneyWeird 1: Introduction & Captain's Discretion

We were a dangerous group for the saccharine pleasures of Orlando. There was the magazine art-director (me), a book editor (wife Marian), her supervisor (Terry, the tall one), a symphonic french horn player and brewmeister (Jay), and a graphic designer and marathon runner (Heather)...

The trip was anchored by Heather's involvement in DisneyWorld's so-called "Minnie Marathon", a 15K women's race which promised to attract a heady mix of serious runners and insane, costumed creatures.

The decision to make it a group outing arose during a typical Friday happy-hour on Capitol Hill, sometime between the third pint of Guinness and the first shot of Jameson... The spirit of adventure often comes alive in times like these.

More than simply giving aid & support to the marathon, we all had unique meta-reasons to visit that strange wonderland. I had never been to Disney-anything before. My own sense of dark humor normally protects me from such happy-chappy stuff. I was CERTAIN there was a psychic barrier at the gates of Disney; an invisible firewall that would detect people like me and deliver a mighty shock, sending all the cynical people scampering like humiliated dogs.

Saint Peter looks down from the gilded archway of paradise, sporting giant cartoon mouse ears, scowling... "christ, dude, I can't let you in here; you'd freak the children!"

No matter! The laws of irony made it IMPERATIVE! I must go to DisneyWorld...

---

The boat ride from our resort hotel to "Downtown Disney" was tense and smelled of danger. The boats were supposed to depart every 15 minutes, and we waited patiently at the dock. Below us in the water was a mallard duck, lapping the water and obsessively preening with a shattered bill. The top half had been broken clean off, revealing its jittery duck-tongue, giving it nowhere to hide. A strange omen.

The boat finally arrived (after an hour-plus of waiting), and the "captain" was a rough piece of work: Barrel-chested and stuffed into a crisp white shirt, stone-faced and staring silently through mirrored shades... he had the look of an drill sargent driven insane by sterroids. Raw hatred rose like steam from his body, and we quickly determined that, perhaps, we were about to die.

A timid tourist approached the Captain, asking if the boat could please stop at the next resort on the way to Downtown Disney...she had understood that such stops could be requested.

"No. That would be Captain's Discretion" the man replied. He carried himself with all the severity of a shopping-mall security guard lost in a fever-dream of authority. We all boarded the craft and proceeded to CREEP down the river at a pace that barely broke the water. Other boats shot past like rockets while we puttered along. He was doing this deliberately to infuriate us, we thought. Captain's Discretion... We whispered amongst ourselves about about staging a mutiny, a full-blown uprising. Would any of these tourists have the raw chutzpah to join the revolution, I wondered... a quick look around the boat confirmed my fears. We were surrounded by sunburned potato people, and the mutiny died before it ever had a chance.

The Captain ran his boat with all the subtlety of Mussolini, stopping the engine once to turn and glare at a tourist who dared to shift in his seat. "SIR...all persons must remain seated until we reach our destination."

We finally DID reach our destination some 90 minutes later than planned, and the phrase "Captain's Discretion" had become a new term for the Unstoppable Forces of Nature. I figured this captain was on the brink of quitting his job, and refused to babysit these whining, caucasian beasts any more.

Perhaps we'd see something in the news about a Disney boat captain that went mad, brain eaten by syphillis and caffeine pills, who scaled the tower of Cinderella's Castle with a bayonet in his teeth and an automatic rifle strapped to his back, unloading on all the world's tourists while beating his chest and making awful croaking noises at the blood-red sky...

--- Go to Part 2

Christmas among the cacti

The idea is simple enough, and maybe we can actually stick to it: a yearly pilgrimage back to Tucson for the week between Christmas and New Year. A break from the gray sleet of DC, and a return to the spot where Mrs. and I lived for the better part of a decade. It's a chance to check Tucson's progress as it schlumps towards a gentrified void of strip-malls and flimsy, mission-style McMansions like ready-made colonies for affluent lepers in need of private golf courses...

But also to remember the lovely town we first saw, and to glean where those ribbons of cool still hide behind woodframe/stucco nightmares. For the intrepid explorer with magnifying glass and pickaxe, the cool IS still there.

...and the mountains are still there, praise Allah. The Catalinas still stand firm against it all, catching the nightly firestorm of dusk and bouncing it back to the citizens as a reminder: there is still beauty in the world.

So we haunted the old neighborhoods, which included a trip up Mt.Lemmon to check on the condition of Summerhaven, the tiny town that nearly vanished when the Aspen Fire of 2003 cooked the top of the mountain. Charred trees still stand like pagan gravestones, and the forest is nude to the bones. Two and a half years later, the scene is still quite chilling.

As soon as it began, our week of hikes, margaritas, and street-wandering was over. The siren-call of The Day Job reached me with its amphetamine stutter, and I knew there was no use in hiding out here for the rest of my days. There's no publishing scene in Tucson anyway. But many lovely sights. We will surely do this again.

A much larger collection of photos is here, complete with larger versions, captions, etc. Good stuff.

Alaska #4

Hubbard Glacier. It calved a few times while we watched, sending giant plumes of water into the air. Bergs of blue ice littered the sea around us. Unlike retreating Mendenhall, this glacier is growing like a weed. It groans and explodes with massive, internal movements, sounding like thunder...or shotgun blasts...or like the brittle bones of old, frozen ghosts leaning over the glacier to see what that boat is doing, just sitting there...


We disembarked in Seward and bade farewell to the Statendam and all its surreal luxury. From there, we boarded the Alaskan Railway coach to Anchorage. A very scenic trip. The only way to take a photo in clean space (not through a window) was to lean (foolishly) out of the jointed space between railcars...as I did often.


Anchorage. A seal, sculpted in whalebone by an Alaskan Native artist with the most infectious smile...We arrived just in time to dig the insanely huge downtown "Saturday Market," a weekly fair held in Buttress Park. This event attracts thousands of craft people, musicians, and food vendors (I didn't try the halibut quesadilla, but reindeer sausage was fantastic).


Anchorage. Still at the Saturday Market. A fur vendor and her two companions.


Anchorage. 3rd Ave & E Street. I found that standing polar bear DEEPLY DISTURBING. Then it handed me a coupon, good for 10% off my next purchase of trinkets at Polar Bear Gifts' two convenient locations... An hour later, with souvenir Alaska shotglass and bobble-head puffin in the bag, we boogied back to the room to pack.

A fantastic trip, fueled by the aforementioned Alaskan Summer Ale and the VERY EXCELLENT Raven's Brew coffee. Sitka and Juneau were easy favorites, and we're already planning the return trip--probably involving a rented vehicle and a plunge inland to Denali and north to the arctic coast. But that's later. Now is now. We return to DC and its humid suburbs, to put on our Responsible Skins again. (east-coast time is what, again...?)