The Travels of a Mad Man

Well after all the debauchery of that weekend. We stayed with a lovely couple that lived in Woodside (Neil Young has a ranch close there, but alas I din’t meet him). So I was kinda pampered as they were nice enough to take a stranger in. One of the hosts, Steve, even read us stories, one night I smoked fine cigars and and sipped fin whiskey with him (of course I donned my Mirage bathrobe). Me and the gals went on lovely hikes. Then mid week Megan and I left lil Bethan to meet up with some friends of a friend of mine in Oakland. 

These friends of a friend I’ve heard a lot about (I’ve even been in their house before) so it was good to put a face to the stories. One thing I got to say about Oakland is, it’s cool. I know it’s where crack is from and its got shady parts. But Oakland kinda reminded me of East coast cities (mostley cuz the bums mostly left you alone after you make aware to them you really don’t think they ran outta gas). The twins and their cousin (these are my friends of a friend, who are now my friends) showed me this neat lil site which everyone should check out before someone ruins it. Its called the Landfill.

And it’s pretty fuckin sick, basically after an earthquake happened in the 80’s they dumped bunch of it in the bay. So now it’s over grown, has graffiti everywhere, but the homeless took it over. Like its a colony, one dude made a concrete castle the rest live in tents or whatever, some even have solar panels. There’s even junk sculptures and a library.Its sick look at the photos. Then the next day was back in Frisky Frisco at the Green Tortoise.

Well weekend started out with me getting out of jail and with crab races and me getting ridiculously drunk (wow!!! what are the odds). Ok, So the getting out of jail was just a tour of Alcatraz, but it was fun to tell my parents that when my dad did his routine call of making sure I’m not dead. At the hostel Bethan’s team won the crab races and I tried teaching people at the hostel the great game of Matchbox, yeah that didn’t work. So I kept drinking and picked on a Swede that I just kept calling Blondie. Somehow I was even talked into going to a titty bar with him, but left immediately after hearing the word “cover”. I dislike covers.

The next day I took my car to the shop (Midas had to correct things), but fortunately it was right by the tattoo parlor and gave me a free night of parking. Yay. Seriously tho parking in San Fran is expensive so that was nice and my buddy John got a kickass tattoo from Blackheart Tattoo. Later that day was a hostel pub crawl which was neat checkin out some places. The best was the last bar which was a club and obviously a gansta ass club. So it was great to see a bunch of foreigners prove that white guys can dance. Later that night everyone went to bed, and I had a desire for ice cream and a beer. So I go out to grab that then step out of the store. A riot on the street breaks out in front of the hostel… and there I am just licking a ice cream cone (I always stand out like a sore thumb). After all that excitement it was time for bed right after I smoke a joint on the roof and get an Aussie way to high for his comfort zone. 

The next day we left the hostel and I had to say goodbye to the girls because they had to go home to the motherland and the only thing sensible to do at this point is go back-country backpacking by myself after months of binge drinking.

Well I scrapped my first draft of this. So I’m going to try to reattempt to write about the pure mayhem that happened in Austin. It was a shitfest at the Austin hostel as loads of Brits show up along with others. Seriously after one of the nights we were told that things got massively outta of control last night and that we’d better start behaving or else. Also after the long history of the HI Hostel in Austin (I don’t know how long that it tho) they put up a sign warning us of quiet hours and what’s acceptable (this is what happens when one of your mates tells the front desk lady “why don’t you cunt off” when yelling at him for playing piano at 4am with a beer. 

But as the people flowed in, I kept on staying longer and longer in Austin (not always checked in at the hostel but sometimes in a motel, my car, or on the concrete floor with a crumpled towel as my pillow, this is what happens when you don’t plan). I stayed longer 1. cuz I was lost with what to do next, 2. because I was having a great time in Austin, 3. because I got invited to Vegas for my birthday to stay at a penthouse suite (yeah, I hoping that story will be like Hangover x2 at least), and 4. I acquired a tag along for some of my trip. 

The mayhem started when a friend of a previous hostel introduced me to 3 Brummy fucks. We decided to go swimming at Barton Creek and drink a bit. Then It turned night fall and I met bout 5 other Brits. Two young chaps I met Jack and Taliban Sam (called this only because of his lousy 19 yr old beard) started chattin and smoked with me on the dock, they then proceeded to introduce me to another young Brit who eyes I will never forget. I say this because our eyes met in the shower and I called him out on it immediately after introduction (that was to much of a weight for me to bear). This became a running joke throughout the week along with the start of several gay things done to me by Brits (this includes butt pinches, drunken kisses, and unfortunately a tea-bagging…. yeah)

Seriously though, I need to thank my small, shitty ass town raising to teach me to drink and be crazy, otherwise I would have died. Brtits can drink. They’re drinking games are solely to watch you pound beers when everyone knows you’ve had enough. These games include Matchbox, 21, HubbleDouble, and the instant classic Drink. We even drank outside in the pouring rain. 

I did have a few slower times of checking out town, watching playoffs,seein g the worlds largest urban bat colony and tubing in San Marcos river (this is awesome and in the words of some, it was gnarly). 

Also the characters I met there, were ridiculous and hard to even capture in writing. Some put a whole chicken in an aquarium, some fucked people over in drinking games, some had had a good time at punk shows, some got separated from each other, some were great spliff rollers, some could swim like an eel, some cooked and made meals and Coconut banana shakes, some couldn’t find there shoe, some played music, some had gas, some had a kick ass van, some couldn’t get into bars, some had some let me sleep on their floor, some made eye contact at awkward times, some made great fried chicken, some were uber tubers,some had bad tide experiences, some had fun dancing on stage, some had fun talking into the wee hours of the morning, but fortunately the ones that hungout, all were fun (for better or for worse).

And… That was hard as fuck to write, and I know I missed a lot, but now I’m on a new journey with some heavy drinkers detoxing in the Santa Fe, NM mountains after driving 12.5 hours. So I’m done writing this shit for now, time to kill a bottle of cider and mingle.