Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy

Ok so its been a really long time since we posted any significant material. So, i guess this post will be functional more than anything else, just to get caught up to date and move on.

We left San Jose and went to Vasilia, CA to catch the octopus project in concert that night. They actually remembered us from the lollapalooza interview and were super nice. We spoke to Josh and Yvonne for a pretty long while, and when we told them we were going to Austin, they gave us a list of things to do and said to call them if we needed anything. The show was amazing and i got the whole thing on film. Yvonne let me play her theremin. All in all, an awesome night and around 1am we started the drive towards monument valley (10+ hours).

Let me just say that monument valley and the navajo reservation in general is one of the most depressing things ive ever seen. The landscape is beautiful and looks exactly the same as in all the John Ford westerns. But the people… the poverty, desperation, it was a lot to handle. Every time we would arrive at a scenic spot there would be some people selling poorly made jewelry or other trinkets, which no one bought (also, it was exactly the same stuff at every vendor). There was a sign at John Ford’s Point advertising “$2.00 for photo on horse) with this tired old horse being sat on hundreds of times a day in front of what was supposed to be one of the best spots in the park. It was pretty distracting, to say the least. On the way there, we saw a series of signs leading up to a “trading post” that said “Friendly Indians… Nice Indians… jewelry, souvenirs”. Nice Indians? That left me a little baffled. The worst by far however was this little ramshackle stand on the outskirts of monument valley. A blue stand with a big yellow sign that read “Sacred Monument Horse Tour” and featured info about paying to visit this sacred sight, complete with visa and mastercard logos indicating they accepteed those credit cards… in exchange for visiting their sacred monument… this just seemed really wrong for a number of reasons. We had planned to stay the night but decided against it because the place was too depressing, not to mention that the campground where we would be tenting was surrounded by buildings with barred up windows. Generally if people need to use iron bars to keep people out of their businesses and homes it doesnt seem like a good idea to be unconscious inside a thin piece of plastic in the middle of the night.

We left and headed for Carlsbad Caverns, stopping to sleep in Albuqurque at a motel that smelled like a mix of stale smoke and urine. We left the next morning and made it to Carlsbad and we saw the Caverns the next day. All in all it was pretty boring, though to be fair we didnt get to go caving inside the better parts of the cave because they only offered those tours on saturday and it was sunday. That night we saw the bats leaving out of the cave mouth at dusk which was pretty cool. We left for Texas the next day.

The drive across west Texas seemed like it took forever but i guess it really wasnt that bad. Just the monotony of the landscape makes it boring and tiresome. We got to Dallas and stayed with my friend David for a few days, in which we drank beer, watched the olympics, relaxed, read comic books and ate real food. HIs parents took us to Fogo de Chao, an unbelievably nice brazilian restaurant, and i can honestly say it was probably the best meal of my life. We saw Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot, and that was really morbid and weird (I dont know what i was expecting though). The conspiracy theorists were out selling their dvds and stuff and some actually had interesting and worthwhile info. Others however, were just bat shit crazy. Dallas didnt have much else to offer as its primarily a business town, but the visit was incredibly enjoyable. So, thanks to David and his parents for being so nice to us and letting us mooch off of them for 3 days.

We hit Austin next and spent a few days there doing things off the list that Josh and Yvonne from the octopus project had provided us with. Saw a concert, ate Tex-Mex, saw the bats flying out from under the Congress Bridge, visited the natural springs. The list was concise and excellent, a great bit of advise from locals on what to see and not see. The one time i didnt listen to them we payed for it… we were told to avoid east 6th street but we went to go see a movie there anyway. When we went into the movie, everything was normal. When we came out, it looked like there had been a spontaneous decision to hold Mardi Gras tonight and in Austin, entirely localized on this one street. There were drunk people and mounted police filling the streets (i saw a man with a blow up sex doll standing in the middle of the road) and we had to wait for the crowd to thin out before we could leave. When i finally managed to get my car out of the parking spot, i had to weave through drunk people at 3mph, while some drunk guy followed behing me banging on my trunk. Thats what you get for not listening to the advise of locals (i cant stress enough how useful of a resource this is, as our travel guide book has let us down many, many times). Austin is definitely one of the best spots we visited so far and a place i will definitely be going back to in the near future.

We hit San Antonio the next day and it sucked pretty bad. Granted we only saw the touristy downtown stuff, but even that was bad compared to other touristy downtown stuff in other cities. After leaving downtown, we headed out to the suburbs and saw the hospital where i was born. That was kind of weird, but interesting also i guess.

We left that night for New Orleans, having found out that our friend Bret was actually in town and we would be able to stay with him. We’re still in New Orleans and have been doing the various things this city has to offer for the last 2 days (eating po boys, getting very drunk, visiting Bourbon Street, going to spots frequented by Tulane kids). Last night we went to Harrah’s Casino and i lost $150 playing blackjack. In retrospect i couldnt believe myself. As strapped for cash as i am, i threw away all that money. Earlier in the trip i ate nothing but hard boiled eggs and pb&j for three days to save about $20. Now i threw away $150 in an hour and a half on nothing. This addictive personality of mine gets the better of me sometimes and even having lost all that money i sat there and thought to myself that i should take my last $50 and try to win my money back. I think that me and gambling dont mix well. So no more gambling for me… at least until the next time someone suggests going to the casino. So now its Thursday the 28th and everyone here in New Orleans is preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Gustov. Today is one day before the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and its weird to think about what happened here and what could happen again come Monday. Driving around here, there are still some remnants of Katrina, some houses still bearing their spray painted symbols inidcating the number of dead inside when people finally came to help. The mood here is strange, kids are making their exit plans, and Elliot and I are sort of glad to be leaving when we are. I think I may have a stomach flu, my two day nausea and headache leading me to believe that thats the case. Hopefully it clears up on its own. We have our last day in New Orleans today to do all the debaucherous shit we can handle, then off to St. Louis tomorrow for a Ratatat concert. All is well relatively, the trip is winding down in a way (Elliot only has one week left) and we’re just trying to make the best of everything. Thank you to Bret for letting us stay with him, and also for keeping us pretty much constantly inebriated.

That’s all for now. Hope the recap was a worthwhile read.

-jason.