SwampLog 3.0

Mind On The Road

Leaving for Los Angeles in five hours, or thereabouts. It'll be a bittersweet trip for a lot of reasons, but it's a trip I need to make.

I was going to wax philosophic about Rafael Palmeiro's suspension for steroid use, but everyone's already covered it to death. Personally, I don't know what to believe. David Hulse, on the P1 Wild Ass Circus last night, told me that his workout partner of ten years hadn't recovered any differently after a gym session than Hulse did, and Hulse was never on the juice. Yet the independent arbiter assigned to the Palmeiro case by MLB could not let the suspension go -- that's how strong the case against him was.

Then, you have Jose Canseco, who categorically says he gave Raffy the juice in the first place. Has he been wrong so far?

Bring out the Lie Detector Brigade!

I'm taking my copy of Juiced on the road with me, and should bump into Jose. I'm going to see if he'll sign it again, putting the inscription "See? I told you Raffy was on the juice" above his signature.

I don't know why, but biopics about country musicians are better than the ones for anyone else. 'Coal Miner's Daughter,' 'Sweet Dreams,' and now 'Walk the Line.' Watch the trailer and tell me it doesn't give you chills.

Time For a Hot Shower

Back home, safely. As soon as I get my gear situated, I'm going to take a long hot shower and sleep for eight hours. In a row. Without something falling on me.

2,750 Miles

I'm sitting at the front of the RV that, once this is all said and done, will have taken the P1 Wild-Ass Traveling Circus from Dallas to Fort Lauderdale and back in less than 72 hours. It appears that the very front of the bus is the only place where I can have my Powerbook out without thinking it will shake apart.

Originally, I was going to attempt to write an account of this trip la Jack Kerouac, but the trip will be too short to allow for the kind of navel-gazing rambling that would do the treatment justice.

This trip has been an amazing adventure. When I was telling people that I was part of a traveling party that would go to Miami to interview Jose Canseco while he was under house arrest, they figured it would be a posh trip, flying out and hanging at Jose's palatial estate.

"What? You're driving?"

Yep, we drove. The guy who was behind the wheel for the vast majority of the endeavor, Greg, has now taken the name "Highway." (We wanted to call him "Captain Highway," but he thought that was much too formal.) The RV that has been our home for the last three days is quite a piece of work. While not the most modern, we can all stretch out an be comfortable without invading each other's space. The TV at the front of the bus has seen more than a few Madden 2004 XBOX games (best team to play with: the 1995 Dallas Cowboys), and after watching the Yankees beat the Red Sox this afternoon (Mike Turley was happy; I was miffed, at best), I'm watching the Cubs take on the Marlins as I type this.

I knew most of the Intrepid Seven, but even the guys I didn't know, like "Highway," Chris the engineer, and Josh the New Dad have been incredibly cool. As if there were any doubt. A trip like this tends to polarize people, and we're all fast friends now. The conversation has been as wild and varied as you would expect, with topics ranging from the merits of Hooters waitstaff to the Pope's declining health. No topic was off-limits, and all viewpoints were welcome. A little RV of utopia.

Bringing along all of the technology I did was a boon to the trip, since being able to edit video on the fly saved our ass (which you'll read about in a bit). Having my iPod along has been a lifesaver as well -- the late-night Beastie Boys sing-along was proof enough of that. However, my packing was really slipshod, since I packed a bag full of shirts and pants, but only one pair of sandals. This would bite me in the ass the whole trip.

Whole lot of hijinks, as you can expect on a trip like this. "Highway" likes to play RV Pinball with us as we try and stumble to the bathroom by swaying back and forth in the lane. (Don't worry, Rose, it was perfectly safe.) There was the creation of the Wild-Ass Circus Road Trip, a drink created out of necessity during the Friday Night Card Game. (12 ounce glass; 3 ozs J&B, a splash of Coke, and the rest is refrigerated Sprite, since we had no ice.)

Then, there were my shoes. My poor, stinky shoes. I haven't been this mortified in quite some time.

When we got to our destination, and didn't have to wolf down our food and run back to the RV, our fearless leader 'Big Dick' Hunter commented on how odd it felt to not have the ground beneath our feet swaying with road wind. While our host wasn't sure what the Wild-Ass Circus was about when he signed off on broadcasting from his house, I think he gained a bit of respect for the dedication and determination we had to the show -- and most of us aren't getting paid to make the trip. The adventure is its own reward.

Jose Canseco... I really wasn't sure what to think of the man, and I'm still not. I was expecting a man who was cordial, but who would put up with our presence like a necessary nuisance. Instead, Jose was genial, fun, and really in to the whole endeavor. He seemed like a big kid, not the prima-donna athlete I had been told to expect by people who had met him previously.

When he offered to walk us through the Halloween 2001 nightclub incident that eventually landed him and his brother Ozzie in jail within the first hour we were there, I knew this would not be anything like we had anticipated, but a lot more entertaining. Then, when I showed him the edited video of the performance (which played out a lot like CrimeStoppers: Canseco), he was almost gleeful.

There was so much to do at first, it didn't sink in until the fourth or fifth hour we were there -- "Holy FUCK, we're lounging at Jose Canseco's house, eating his food, drinking his beer, swimming in his pool, stealing his furnishings... This isn't real."

While we stopped for a few hours in Mobile, Alabama to do Thursday night's show, we're driving straight back to Dallas tonight. We started once the equipment was loaded up from Jose's house last night, and the goal is to get back to Dallas by midnight tonight. Both breakfast and dinner were Burger King.

The plan is to go back on the show Monday night and recap all of the stuff that happened on the way there and back, that we didn't get to go into while talking to Canseco. I highly recommend that you listen, if you can.

Meanwhile, Marty is in Prague. He got to fly -- the RV route to Czechoslovakia was a little perilous.

I know I talked about starting Atkins earlier, but I mean it this time: I'm really going back on the wagon Monday, 13 October.

Laurence!

The second batch of photos from the Three Amigos' Cancun trip are now up. The photos, taken during our day trip to the archeological site at Chichen Itza, are adequate but fail to capture the majesty of the site.

There's a lot more to the site than the main pyramid. Various observatories, housing complexes and other ruins are scattered across the acres of the site. Our tour guide, Jorge (pronouced 'George,' much to my chagrin), told us stories upon stories of how the Mayans married astrophysics and geophysics. Synchronicity at its finest, and centuries before the Europeans wre hip to the way the cosmos worked.

I can only point to a handful of times where my mind was truly broadened, and this one tops the list.

A Lil' Somethin' Somethin'

A 5.6 MB gift from us to you.

The contents will be up shortly, in Piccies, with captions and everything. I simply didn't want to wait.

Home Again

...to 1366 pieces of spam in my Inbox, a loud cat, and a big-ass chunk of the backyard tree lying on top of what used to be a piece of our fence, and a neighbor's house. Long day ahead tomorrow.

The vacation entries are in chron order below. Enjoy, while we pick up the pieces and pick the photos.

Cancun Travelogue, Part Eight

Just killed two hours in the airport watching 'High Fidelity.' I've always loved John Cusack's work, not only as an actor but as a writer and director. While he didn't direct 'High Fidelity,' he did co-write the screenplay with his two "writing partners," Steve Pink and D.V. DeVincentis. They'd done theatre together in Chicago growing up, and stayed together as writers even while Cusack's acting career took off.

I always picture what would happen if Marty and I ever got our acts together and started writing, the way we'll threaten to do when a bolt of inspiration would come around. We already have two full-length features planned out, one television series that we're trying to figure out how to do, and one short film that is outlined and ready to flesh out. It's just getting our shiz together and doing it. I'm not scared of doing it, nor is Marty. We just need to make the time, and that seems to be the worst aspect of it. How do you balance out the career and the passion, when the passion doesn't pay the bills?

My flight will be boarding soon. Though I loved the vacation, I am so ready to be home. My bed, my car, my family.

And by family, I mean my friends. The people I love. You.

The last couple of years, after things disintegrated between Lisa and me, I got closer to a lot of my family members that I had been distant from. That said, it almost seems to be an entirely different part of my life. I trust them, and of course I love them, but there's a lot of things in my life that I simply can't talk to them about. Does that make me less of a person? Does it make me a horrible person? Or does it just mean that I've got my own support structure?

I feel really empty at times, and I see people who are close -- super close -- to their family, and they get a lot of comfort from them. I'm just not wired that way, and haven't been for a while.

Cancun Travelogue, Part Seven

I'm going to post these travelogue entries from the time they were written, rather than all in one big clump, so if you want to get caught up, head down to where I was posting from Houston last Friday.

At least the international travelers at Aeropuerto Internacional a Ciudad de Mexico don't have to sit around in a huge holding pen, as domestic travelers do. I knew where my gate was and didn't have any problems getting to it.

I was starting to worry about that as well, because when I got in to Mexico there wasn't anywhere to secure my travel visa. All of the paperwork was filled out, and I looked! I swear! But the opportunity never arose. So, Marty & Thomas were busy all week putting the fear of God into me. However, so far no problems have arisen. The only obstacle I face now is getting past customs in Houston, and there's nothing in any of my bags that give me any reason to think it would be a big problem.

So, four hours until I leave Mexico. This trip has gone better than I could have hoped. Granted, there was no public nudity, but this was the traditional Mexican vacation season -- something I hadn't know previously, and would have avoided had I known -- so there were a lot more families than I would have expected.

My knee is killing me. The closer I get to home, the more it hurts. Must be a sign I'm supposed to stay in Cancun.

One of the shots I took on the beach is now my desktop on Superfly, my Powerbook. The HD icons I'm using are body piercing barbells, and the way they're drawn, the shadows make it look like the barbells are piercing the sky of Cancun. Damned cool effect.

Cancun Travelogue, Part Six

Made it to the airport on time -- barely. The shuttle I booked yesterday never got there, but the fine folks at the Best Western Clipper Club Hotel made sure I got to the flight by paying for my cab. Greatness.

Five hours in Mexico City this time. Heading back to the Swamp as soon as I can get back to the car, though I'll likely go to Kinko's again as long as I see one along the way. I'll post all of these entries as soon as I hit a fat connection.

Last night, after getting back from the booze cruise (which ended up being nothing of the sort -- we cruised to nearby Isla Mujeres for a night of food and festivities) I couldn't sleep. Ended up heading out to Bar Del Mar and discussing Chichen Itza with Oscar the waitron. Walked back to the hotel slowly, signing "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" at a decent volume. A nice walk. Slept for a couple of hours in the hotel's lobby.

Not a lot else to say at this point. See you in Mexico City.

Cancun Travelogue, Part Five

Oh mi dios de mierda.

The person who decided that August would be the best time to go to Cancun needs to be drawn, quartered and shot, and perhaps not in that order.

That's just frustration from coming in from the sun and the humidity on Day Five of the trip. This excursion has been amazing, unparalleled. Let's see, where to begin... Let's try Saturday night, where I left off.