DAY 5: DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SANTA FE?

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DAY 4: LIMPING TO GALLUP

From the Road Trip Journal:

DAY 4
Destination: Flagstaff, AZ to Gallup, NM
Date: 7.11.97 (Friday)
Mileage: 19,700 to 19,888 (188 miles)
Bar(s): Panz Alegra
Imbibed: 2 margaritas

Mr. Goodwrench is borne. After a vodka-impaired, restless night of sleep, only to be awakened by a BLARING train whistle at 6:45 a.m., I got up and showered — P. would've been proud — [and] rode my bike over to the joint rated best breakfast in town. After a damn hearty meal I return to the dirt and rock parking lot where my beloved red beast is parked and commence with a fitful 5-hour valve adjustment, the 1st such mechanical procedure I've ever attempted.

By 3:00 I was ready to crank her up. Okay...here goes...hey, what's that weird noise? I've never heard that before.

So I call a local foreign car repair guy, who tells me he probably couldn't get to it until Monday. The fact that I got lost on the way to his establishment only confirmed my fears of a lost weekend in Flagstaff.

So I bolted.

At 4:00 I pulled back onto the highway, headed towards Santa Fe. But first, a stop at the El Ranchero motel in Gallup, which was built by D.W. Griffith's brother as a place to house the stars when they were shooting nearby. And damn if I didn't get the Bogey room. The seance is a bust, but I get a barely digestible steak and lobster dinner up the street at Panz something or other (it's on the video) and get 2 hours of journal writing in. Taming a hangover with 2 margaritas.

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Today's quote from the Road Trip Journal:

No other man-made device since the shields and lances of the ancient knights fulfills a man's ego like an automobile." ~Lord William Rootes

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From the Pocket-Sized Notebook, written during my pit stop at the Panz Allegra restaurant and bar in Gallup, NM:

I'm staying in Bogey's old room on 7.11. If there were any night to test my resolve, to wrestle my demons on paper, this one's looking pretty good. Not that I've met anyone who's been enough to let my fantasy life run amok. Although technically I can tryst and shout, it would be in poor taste to do it on the day I talked to P. on the phone and soothed her when she broke down crying. Even I'm not that much of a heel. At least I hope I'm not.

It was quite a sight, I tell you. Me riding my mountain bike down the dusty Gallop street, Mexicans and Indians — people of color that wasn't mine — cruising by in their trucks and beat Impalas blasting some Snoop. And me, the paranoid white guy from L.A., who's lived through race riots and a kamikazee substitute teaching stint at a junior high in South Central L.A. — you, motherfucker, are suddenly terrified. In your 501s, flannel shirt and Melrose-bought cowboy boots. You look like a fucking idiot.

But then your paranoia is squelched when you walk into a crowded restaurant lounge and you realize they're playing Boston — "More Than a Feeling." How appropriate. You peruse the bar. The usual suspects. Tourists. Local lonely hearts. And there's the ESPN, reminding you you're still in America, boy, and it's not such a bad place. Even the salad served in the same faux Hawaiian wood bowls we ate salad in during the [Sgt. Stepdad] years in El Monte, a place where you used to hang with lots of people like the people here in this place. So get off your high horse and smell the guacamole.

Even my waitress has a little bit of a Geena Davis thing going back when her hair was frizzy. I would have taken her for a naive, but cute, bumpkin were it not for the ankle tattoo poking out the top of her white sock, which nicely sets off the black patent leather shoes, short black skirt and white T-shirt. Not to worry. She's shown me nothing close to warmth yet, her perfunctory politeness aside. And the radio station is now playing, I swear to God, Sammy Johns' classic '70s kitsch hit, "Chevy Van." You know, "We made love in my Chevy van and that's alright with me."

So I do the only thing reasonable: order a margarita. "No ice," I fumble to Geena.

"Did you mean 'no salt'? Because I've never heard of a..."

"Oh, yeah. No salt. That's exactly what I meant. Oh, and I'll have the steak and lobster dinner."

And when the radio station plays Styx's "Come Sail Away," I truly am back in high school. Eating bad food after a Friday night basketball game. It doesn't matter that the "steak" takes 43 chews per bite before it's ready to slide down my throat.

Sorry, Geena, but this is the worst steak and lobster I've ever had. But you were still worth that 23.6% tip. Live long and prosper.

Post-mediocre meal, I retire to the "lounge," margarita "no ice" in tow. I park my ass at a shiny varnished wood table with swizzle faux leather chairs. Tonight it's all '70s tunes. Bar music is great for zapping you into the time machine. Back to that high school, where you played Bob Seger on the 8-track in your Pinto. To hear "Main Street" in a restaurant bar in Gallup, New Mexico is to go back to pre-dawn, pre-2nd period typing surf sessions down to Huntington Beach with Tom, who was driving a baby blue VW bus a little nicer than yours now.

And that's when the Bob Seger reverie is broken by the sudden realization that you're driving the same car your best friend drove in high school. And now you feel there's a royal purple "L" for loser tattooed on your forehead.

But there's A.J. Foyt smacking Arie Luyendyk on one TV and Jay Leno enduring Howie Mandel on the other box. And, hey, isn't that those adorable Hansen brothers singing their precious new hit song? And next to the neon Bud sign hanging on the brick wall is a framed b&w of Bogey. He's everywhere! I think I'll have a seance tonight back in the room. Maybe that sweet, kind Lauren Bacall will show, too...Oh, that's right. She's still among the living, as her painfully forced smile at this year's Oscars attested.

...So how much does Budweiser spend on giveaway neon signs?

Now I'm getting surfing highlights on ESPN. The fates are laughing at me right now, serving up irony after calm shattering irony. I'm the only person in this place — 1 of maybe 15 — who gives a rat's ass that there's a surf contest on ESPN now. I'm at an I-40 off-ramp burg, seeped in raw desert ambiance, watching perfect head-high tubes in Hawaii. Bartender, get me another margarita.

Unless you've surfed, you can't understand. That's not being snobbish. It's the truth. Until you've paddled into black 4-foot glass before dawn, until you've longboarded peeling San Onofre peaks with your best friend and your brother, until you've been humbled by echoes of booming North Shore shapelyness, you can't know what it's like to stand on a plank of fiberglassed foam and slide along one of the most majestic of God's creations.

I was introduced to surfing at about the time I was learning to read the sports page. (A habit that hasn't endeared me to any of the women of my past or present.) After my parents divorced when I was 6, the bi-weekly weekend visits my younger Brother Deke and I took with our Dad often included 1-hour drives to Doheny — Killer Dana (for Dana Point) as it was known then, so Dad could take his trusty Wardy longboard out into the crowded surf. (I would later assume temporary ownership of the old school, 2-ton Wardy in high school, after my beloved Robert August shortboard, purchased with my hard-earned Tastee Freeze money, was ripped off out of our garage.)

In high school, with a driver's license, a root beer brown Pinto and a colorful coterie of Covina surf cronies, I surfed a few times a week, never mind the 45-minute drive to the nearest surf spot. After UCLA, I moved to Manhattan Beach and surfed anywhere from 3 times a week to once every 3 months. Now that I've moved to the fringes of Hollywood and Beverly Hills I get into the water only sporadically.

But surfing is something I'll never give up. I always had the fantasy of falling in love with a girl who surfs.

Now I'll settle for someone who'll tolerate my occasional ill-advised surf trip.

It's always sort of infuriated me, the typical Hollywood depiction of the Spiccoli surf dude. I know plenty of decent, intelligent, kind people who surf. I hear Tom Hanks, King of the Hollywood Good Guys, surfs.

A few years ago I somehow wrangled an interview to be editor of Surfer magazine. I was told it came down to me and one other guy, someone eminently more qualified than I. [Steve Hawk, brother of Tony.] At the conclusion of my interview with the magazine's publisher — after which we headed off to paddle out in pumping overhead surf at Upper Trestles — I was given the name and number of a former editor at Surfing, who'd traded in his Quiksilvers for a laptop and a crack at writing for Hollywood.

At the time [this guy] was just another anonymous script scribe developing pilots for NBC. But I'd remembered his name for a brief essay he'd penned for Surfing, a recollection of a sandy San Onofre camping trip tryst with an Orange County high schooler who grew up to be Belinda Carlisle.

So I called the guy and reminded him of the story. We had a laugh and talked about how there has yet to be a definitive surf movie. "I'll do it one day," he told me. "But first I've got to do something else that'll give me some credibility in Hollywood."

A few years later, Chris Carter created a little show called The X-Files. I wonder if Hollywood is ready to hear his surf story [now]?

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It's 12:25 on a 7.11 in Gallup and I'm gonna head back to room 213 and summon Sam Spade. I didn't talk to anyone about love tonight. But that's okay. I can't hit a home run every night. Last night was bountiful and I paid the price this morning. Pacing is everything. Solitude and 2 $3.00 margaritas, on the rocks, no salt, is hitting the spot just fine.

Especially when Bob Seger comes back for one last encore of "Main Street." Goodnight, John Boy.

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DAY 3: DRUNK WITH THE LOCALS

THIS WAS MY 1ST REAL NIGHT OF TRUE BARSTOOL drinking-'til-you're-drunk and philosophizing with my fellow barflies about love and marriage. I met a character from Pink, Oklahoma who left an indelible impression after he juggled 5 pool balls and told me about the hole-in-1 he had just buried a few days days ago. He also had some interesting opinions about love.

A dozen years later, I caught up with Kerwyn thanks to the odd magic of Facebook.

From the Road Trip Journal:

DAY 3
Destination: Prescott, AZ to Flagstaff, AZ
Date: 7.10.97 (Thursday)
Mileage: 19,602 to 19,700 (98 miles)
Bar(s): the Blaze Club & the Monte V.
Imbibed: 4 screwdrivers and half a rum & Coke

Check out time at my fancy digs was 11:00, but I'd strewn so much of my shit around that I didn't get my last over-packed bag out 'til 11:15. But not before Uncle Joe's cleaning lady, who resembles someone named Dot working at a truck stop diner, sneers as I ferry my modern home electronics to my antiquated vehicle.

"You almost outta there? You're running way over already, and I gotta get in there. I got lots of stuff to do and I'm in a hurry."

No problem, lady. Thanks for your hospitality.

After spending $40 bucks for the tools necessary to do a home valve adjustment, I sputter into Flagstaff, where I descend onto Beaver Street, looking for the SAE chapter at Northern Arizona University. At this point, I just want to give my wheezing red box the day off, so I check into the Downtowner hostel on San Francisco St.

After a delicious dinner spent watching Dog Man [who we'll hear more about later], followed by a trip to the village book store, where I ruminate on the legacy of infidelity in the Kennedy family, I went to the Blaze Club across the street from the hostel. I got there early, so I chatted with the doorman, who, it turns out, is friends with Neil Preston, [the photographer] who I worked with on my Tom Jones story [for Who Weekly].

I ended up hanging out with a pair of cool locals — Kerwyn, who juggled 5 pool balls for me, and Jonas, [who told me he moved to Flagstaff on a whim from Pennsylvania, never having been here before]. After they were largely responsible for my maiden 1-4 pool hall ass kicking, we retire to the Monte V. for some barstool poetry.

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From the Pocket-Sized Notebook:

1:35 [p.m.] Pit stop in Jerome, AZ. Walking around the "Ghost Town," athough it seems to be prospering as a quaint little town, full of southwestern art galleries and ice cream shops. The town is built on the side of a hill and it's got the feel of Berkeley or Laurel Canyon, except that the view looks out onto orange Arizona desert and limestone hills.

I'm having a $4.00 cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice. This place is frozen in time, more '60s hippie retreat — with flashes of the Old West — than turn-of-the-century cowboy town. I'm at the Flatiron Cafe, run by a pair of Melissa Etheridge-loving lesbians with hairy pits. A flyer on the door announces an event at the pizza joint next door. "Recylings, Misappropriations and Flights of Fancy: A 3-person, all pizza box art show at The Wedge on the Edge. Come to the least pretentious art opening ever!" promises the flyer.

Time to blow, on to Sedona, where I think I'll spend the night, wake up and adjust the valves, then move on to Roswell tomorrow.

In the 1st of many examples of how fluid and flexible my life was, Sedona got scraped for Flagstaff. It would be another 6 years before I made it to Roswell.

Later that evening. Flagstaff. Eating a Mexican food dinner at an outdoor patio area that could just turn into the happening rage place later that night. Cell phone alert, cell phone alert! A cute blonde in an orange summer dress is making small talk a la L.A. Land of the "I'm cool if I'm cell phoning in the loudest, busiest place possible" creature. Yet another reason to flee mighty L.A.

Strange to read this 13 years later — when cell phones are everywhere. Now you're a freak if you don't have one. The day is approaching in the not-so-distant future when there won't be anyone left who remembers what life was like before cell phones. This was the early days of cell phone use. When they were still a novelty and people seemed to be showing off when they used them in public.

...You go to bars long enough and you have some odd realizations. Like how chips — that quintessential bar nosh — are, essentially, edible eating utensils. Like [how] this trip is the adult version of Let's Go, Europe [the backpacker's bible that I'd toted with me 13 summers earlier after I graduated from UCLA in 1984].

...Overheard: "I prefer to think of training a dog like building a foundation."

This guy is in the middle of walking a client's 2 dogs when he breaks off and pitches Cell Phone Girl and her boyfriend on his program for their beloved black lab. I gotta say, the man's got passion for his work. Gotta admire that. Still, it does seem odd to be talking dog training — and loudly — in the middle of the [restaurant's] crowded outdoor patio. He's even got his Dog Guy T-shirt, complete with a goofy/cute dog cartoon on his proud Dog Guy chest.

"$350 is what I charge for puppies. $400 for adults."

3 minutes later he brings over his client, a cute woman in her late 20s, and her 2 dogs, an irish setter and a mangy mix of greyhound and other mysterious strains of canine, for a testamonial. She raves to Cell Phone Girl. Another satisfied customer. Thanks, Dog Guy. You saved my marriage!

Things you notice: The train that runs intermittantly 100 yards away across the street. And it is loud. The guy at the hostel warned me about it. (Did I mention I was staying at a hostel?)...

I sometimes get the feeling that people who have peculiar dogs are starved for attention. Like the guy across the way, who strikes a pose in the Cool Guy Half-Squat-With-Thumb-On-Chin. Smiling, chatting to the couple walking by who've made the mistake of commenting on his goofy basset hound...

Another train barrels through town. That horn is fucking loud....

I don't believe it. Dog Guy is back. Boy, this guy's got some nerve. Now he's pulled up a chair and joined Cell Phone Girl, her boyfriend and 2 of his buddies. Dog Guy brings out the dog training story in everybody.

"Hi, I'm Mike Vaughn," he says, extending his hand to the 3 young dudes who are a good 10 years younger than him.

Is Dog Guy really a pathetic weasel? Or am I having a subconscious kiniption fit because he's a) about my age b) going bald and c) striking up a conversation with the Barfly Youth, something I've been unable to do yet. I've felt a bit self-conscious so far. I've travelled like this numerous times, usually with equally challenging budgetary constraints.

But I've never been this self-conscious, aware of the fact that every single person I encounter could end up being a story to be shared with the whole world for all of eternity in a book. That's fucking weird. And the fact that I will be forced to face some potentially ugly truths about myself also has, I admit, fanned the flames of my anxiety. I'm in early denial now, knowing that the potential for some crash-and-burn realizations looms somewhere out there on the horizon. And the fact that I'll find some semblance of "the truth" in a loud, smoky bar strikes me as twisted and absurd. So maybe that's why I'm content to sit back and observe for now.

I don't need to be Dog Guy, selling the Barstool Youth on my product — me — quite yet. I just finished off a lard-heavy Mexican meal and I need to get back to the hostel and throw on some jeans. There's a slight chill blowing in the wind. And I'm cold.

After this hour-long run of restaurant voyeurism, my Flagstaff pit stop turned into a night of pool playing and barstool philosophizing. Kerwyn and Jonas shared their stories with me, in between games of kicking my ass in pool. My last few scribblings from the evening were a series of quotes, the 1st one from Kerwyn in response to my question of what he did when he worked at an ice cream parlor in Aspen:

"Scooped ice cream and embellished."

Another quote from Kerwyn about a girl he'd been involved with:

"She turned me into a misogynist." ~Kerwyn.

I wrote down another snippet of conversation, where he confesses to having a "philanthropic penis" before serving up this piece of wisdom: "Abstinence makes the dick grow harder."

With a good buzz in a strange bar, this stuff sounded brilliant. When I got back home I spent many hours writing and re-writing about my Flagstaff pit stop, mostly because Kerwyn was such a wise, funny barstool sage. Though you'd hardly know it by the quotes I'm sharing here. "You gotta make the Tijuana donkey show on your last night" was the last Kerywn quote I wrote down. Then someone named Josh (or was that Jonas?) said:

"When's the last time you had an emotion that wasn't sanitized and nice-ified for your career?"

I'm not quite sure in what context this was said or why I felt compelled to write it down. Maybe I was talking about how fortunate, and a little anxious, I felt about getting the chance to be truthful, without pulling punches, in this Big Break.

Several months later, while in the midst of trying to write The Book, that chance to be brutally honest had brought out all my fears and self-doubt. I found out it wasn't so easy to be unsanitized.

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DAY 2: FEAR AND LOATHING

THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN IN THE POCKET-SIZED notebook in today's photo. On the morning of July 9th I noted:

Day 1 has come and gone. A quick screwdriver at the Swashbucker in the casino at Treasure Island. After all I went through to get here, the only bar I wanted to sit in was one attached to a casino. Pulled an all-nighter. Bars in casinos are strange. We'll elaborate more. But, basically, the point is—who but the conversationally challenged would opt to sit in a casino bar, pay for drinks and throw nickels in the video poker machine? More tk...

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Every other page of my Road Trip Journal (RTJ) featured a travel-related quote. Here's today's dollop of wisdom:

"Travel seems not just a way of having a good time, but something that every self-respecting citizen ought to undertake, like a high-fiber diet, say, or a deodorant." ~Jan Morris

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DAY 2
Destination: Las Vegas, NV to Prescott, AZ
Date: 7.9.97 (Wednesday)
Mileage: 19,327 to 19,602 (275 miles)
Bar(s): Lyzzard's Lounge
Imbibed: 1 Miller Genuine Draft

Left Dennis at Western VW [outside Las Vegas] at just this side of 5:00 [p.m.]. Arrived in Prescott at about 11:45. Checked into the motel on Beaver Street (I think), run by a toothless Uncle Joe-from-Petticoat Junction lookalike. I made it safely only due to the jolt of coffee and quart of peach Snapple, procured at the HWY 66 Exxon in Seligman, AZ. Had I not become infused with the stuff, death surely awaited me, thanks to a tragic moment of falling asleep at the wheel. Ah, sweet Snapple. Nectar of the gods.

I was a little too into channeling Hunter Thompson during the opening 24 hours of my adventure. No, I wasn't popping pills and sucking down ether with my attorney. But an all-nighter at the blackjack tables on my 1st night? I had another 99 nights to get crazy.

I remember thinking as I drove out of Las Vegas — dozing off at the wheel a growing possibility — these kinds of irresponsible decisions were gonna get me killed.

After a quick shower, I hopped a ride with a cabbie, who'd just been pressed into pizza delivery service by the outfit that employed him, which also doubled as a karaoke bar. But that's where I didn't go. The bar which I'd driven long into the night to have a beer at was closed. After Jim the Cabbie gave me about five walkable options that weren't his place of employment, I settled in at his #5 option: Lyzzard's Lounge. I was alone. But I was alive. As I sipped my three dollar Miller Genuine Draft, I rejoiced in the knowledge that I'd dodged a bullet. I'd avoided becoming road hamburger. Oh, yeah. I won $400 bucks in Vegas. And I had a marijuana growing ex-con work on my van, telling me, "I've had two of 'em myself whose engines I blew out pulling a hill." Great.

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Many a night I sat alone in a bar, scribbling intently in my Pocket-Sized Notebook (PSN). Observing the bar culture and jotting down my thoughts while the barflies and lonely hearts looked at me like I was nuts. Here's a record of my 1st such experience:

Made it to Prescott, AZ. It's 12:30 and I've just checked out five recommended bars. I've decided to park it at number five—Lyzzard's Lounge, just off the main drag in picturesque—at least at night, anyway—Prescott. I've come here with the intention of visiting The Palace, which I was [recommended] by Dennis the Mechanic today in Vegas. He said I have to go. "It's the oldest bar in America," was the direct quote, I think.

So I haul ass to get here. Driving six hours from Vegas—actually, I left Vegas at 5:00. By the time I reached Prescott, got a motel room ($42.00), showered and jumped in a cab, it was 12:15. And I'm on my first real barstool. So here we are. Sitting alone at 12:40 in a town you've never set foot in. Bowie's singing "Young Americans," pro soccer plays on ESPN.

This place is very cool. High ceilings, with ornate detailing, like something you'd see in a Newport, Rhode Island mansion. Behind the bar, massive mahogany pillars frame the giant mirrors. My first beer is a Miller Genuine Draft. I pay two bucks for it, three with tip. And of course, seconds after I've ordered my first of several hundred beers this summer, the bartender—a stern young woman with a Janet from Three's Company haircut—announces last call.

I'm gonna need to ease into this. A hundred bars in a hundred nights is gonna be an odyssey of Homeric proportions. At least it's not too crowded now. I nearly passed out on the road before I resorted to an insta energy boost from some coffee and a pint of peach Snapple. There will be days when I don't feel like talking to anybody. That's when I can write all the other shit that's gonna be in the book...

I refuse to get into watching soccer on ESPN this summer...

The people I really want to talk to are the lonley solo guys at the bar, the ones in John Deere hats sitting a little too high on the head, with 20-year-old tattoos running down their forearms. The stories these guys could tell. There's one such character down [the bar] now. But tonite is a night of acclimation. Of mentally preparing for what's to come. Bar people. Will they drive me fucking insane?!

The first real night—night #2 in the consecutive barflying streak—is about to end. Time to call a cab. Get a real night's sleep. Then take care of business—the van is the wild card. And if it works okay, the trip will be awesome. But so far, the thing has been a headache.

Waiting for the cab I just got out of less than 45 minutes ago. Never again (hopefully).

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DAY 1: LET THE JOURNEY BEGIN!

TODAY MARKS THE 13-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE DAY I began what was, at the time, the craziest road trip I'd ever been on.

I was being paid to go barhopping across America for 100 consecutive days and nights by a big New York City book publisher, who commissioned me to write a memoir about my long, strange trip.

I didn't know it at the time, but the journey—both the 3+ months of barhopping and trying to write about it for the next 2 years—would shape my life for years to come. My failure to capitalize on the biggest break in my writing career would have a ripple effect on my world. Few people have heard many of the details of what I experienced, let alone read what I wrote about the adventure.

Which is why I've created this site. I'm gonna use this to, basically, transcribe my notes and journal entries—with random reflections and reactions from my perspective 13 years later thrown in.

The journal you see above you was where I kept a daily log of where I was, how far I traveled, who I met, how much I imbibed, etc. I also have a few other notebooks I jotted down my thoughts in. It's been years since I read this stuff. I figured I needed to record it for posterity sooner or later.

13 years later, the memories are still fresh.

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DAY 1
Destination: Los Angeles, CA to Las Vegas, NV
Date: 7.8.97 (Tuesday)
Mileage: 19,051 to 19,327 (276 miles)
Bar(s): Swashbuckler
Imbibed: 2 free screwdrivers and 5 OJ's

6:10pm. Left the broiling Beverly Hills Adjacent apartment of Ms. P. The tears flowed freely when she left for work this morning. We've been putting this off for so long that it was strange.

Free flowing tears were not unusual back then. When I got the news that the Bantam deal was actually happening—news that should've been greeted by a joyful celebration—my girlfriend was simultaneously happy for me and distraught over the idea of what me going barhopping all over America would do to our relationship. Which, of course, was understandable. And a bit of a buzz kill.

The book deal was made at the end of March, but I wasn't able to leave until early July. Which gave us about 100 days to obsess and analyze the impact this project would have on our future.

It ripped my guts out to see her crying. "I love you soooooo much," she cried through puffy eyes and a moist, ruddy face. And then she was gone. I was left alone with the mutts at Lazer and Bunky's, left to input my changes in the King of Blind Dates script I've been rewriting for Blinky. (Blinky is, thankfully, out of the picture now.)

It never fails. Every time I'm heading out on a big road trip, I've always got a zillion things to take care of before leaving. And this departure was particularly stressful. We'd been dogsitting for our friends Lazer and Bunky in Manhattan Beach, where my mechanic Randy had a shop on Sepulveda. Plus I was rushing to finish up a polish on a script of mine that a cheesy East Coast trust fund kid said he was definitely gonna make. Blinky insisted I have it done before I left town, which I did. And after I got home 100 days later, I realized I didn't want Blinky anywhere near the script. (A few months later a production company in Arizona optioned that very same screenplay, armed with their promises that the movie was definitely getting made.)

Randy had told me that my car would be ready by this morning. Then he called to say it would be more like 12:30-1:00. By 2:00 I still hadn't heard back from him, so I called. Come on down, he tells me. It's ready. Twelve hundred bucks later, I've got my Big Red Box back—only to have her sputter and stall at Pico and Robertson, then at In-N-Out in Covina, and at the off-ramp to an AM/PM minimart just outside of Victorville. What the fuck, Randy?!

These were the days before I came to the conclusion that my VW bus was a male named VanGo. The 1st day car troubles were all too familiar though. Still, after forking out $1200 bucks you'd think the thing wouldn't be stalling less than 13 blocks from my apartment.

Car troubles would be haunting me daily for the first week of the trip.

It's 9:45 [a.m.) at Treasure Island, Vegas [the following day]. Got here at midnight. Called P. twice. Got the machine both times. Auspicious beginnings...

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