Los Angeles: An Epic Battle through Space and Time

Video, Ben? Pictures? Yeah, right. That's not for me. Let's journey back to a time before there were cameras. Before there were "blogs." Before there were people. That is where we'll begin.

Okay, that time is pretty boring, actually. Let's fast-forward a little. To a time when there were trains. To a time when two strapping fellows -- our protagonists -- boarded the 29 Capital Limited to Chicago.

Now we're back on track. (That's some train humor. Get used to it. It's the only kind of humor I'm trained in.)

It's come to my attention that people visit this blog for two reasons: 1) a semi-accurate account of our cross-country trip and 2) facsimile 19th century French erotica. Well, okay, so three reasons if you count the finely crafted grammar. And it's this third point I would like to address. You see, dear reader, Ben barely scraped by in school, passing his grammar course with a D-. Like that counts. And, every day, he's worse and worse. It started with simple errors in parallelism, then grew to ambiguous pronouns, culminating with comma splices, sentence fragments, and sentences ending with prepositions. It's sloppy writing, Ben. Sloppy!

And to think: this is my traveling companion for 30 days. 30 days!

But I digress. Let's get back on track! (Even funnier the second time around? Probably. Probably.)

The journey from Chicago to Los Angeles. One detail I'd like to add that Ben omitted: Jason, the train's fuck-up child. We never met Jason, we don't know what he looks like, we don't know where he lives. What we do know is that his parents think "that kid's hopeless." (This is an actual quote from his actual mother.) Poor, poor Jason. Ben's opinion of Jason: "Jason sucks big time. I don't even like Jason." It's true, it's true.

And then we arrived in Los Angeles. How it happened, when -- no one quite remembers. Legend says the 3 Southwest Chief arrived on a sunny Wednesday morning at 7:30, but we all know legends are bullshit.

Now, allegedly there's some video on the internet of me playing guitar, inspired from our journey. Whether this is fact or fiction, I'm not one to judge. Perhaps it was filmed (passive voice, I know [Dr. Jean Cash would cut off my arm (a JMU English majors joke!)]) on a Hollywood sound stage, or maybe in a secret government bunker, or maybe in one of Ben's cousins' apartment. Who knows.

What I can say: I'm inspired. I-N-S-P-I-R-E-D. The hippies, the love, the barefootedness. This is Los Angeles! This is so fucking rad! This is the way to live......................

Or is it? Margaritas at sunset on the beach. Oversized portions of pasta. Roaming the USC campus and stumbling upon the filming of a KFC commercial (complete with a skateboarder carrying a full box of fried chicken). Chicago deep-dish pizza in L.A. Walking in off the street to catch the end of a Thursday night sermon at a super-mega-church. A live taping of "Real Time with Bill Maher." Walks on the beach. Touring CalArts, then walking down beaten paths. Hit-or-miss sketch comedy shows.

No thanks. Like this is living. Maybe it works for the heathens here in L.A. But for myself, I'll pass.

Portland, save me from the utter ennui I've suffered since stepping upon this accursed terra.



--Where are the jokes, Mr. Funnyman? An future exposé presented by Ben in 9 installments.

A prelude to the afternoon of a Californian

First morning in LA.

Everything can be fabricated on a soundstage or, consequently, life is a soundstage and a lie.

...I got a pit named P, she niggarino/

I got a house out in the hills right next to Chino...

So goes Snoop Dogg's verse in his famous 2pac collab -- "2 Of Amerikaz Most Wanted." As Brian and I bumped to the duo's jam through N 101 towards Hollywood, I could not help but wonder if the recently deceased rapper was sending us a message from beyond the grave.

He was.

I had a dream.

Longstanding readers, you've missed a lot. I just traveled across America. By train. Meaning we need to bypass a lot of the sex and slaughter to get you up to speed. What's a train trip like, you ask? What adventures does one of modern history's most antiquated modes of transportation hold? Nothing too consistent I answer. Nothing too consistent.

Right, attractive. So get as much sleep as you can. Because on your first trip from D.C. to Chicago, you might encounter the longest cell phone conversation about Jesus's love YOU HAVE EVER FUCKING HEARD IN YOUR LIFE DIRECTLY BEHIND YOUR SEAT. Or you may be stopped in Toledo, Ohio at 4:30 in the morning when the train attendants barge into your car yelling as if no one is making it out of Toledo alive because all hell is breaking loose in Toledo, Ohio, TOLEDO, OHIO! Or, OR dear readers, on the off chance that you might one day travel through the Midwest under starry skies above, you should -- layer?

Yes layer, because your train might ice over or something. And temperatures will drop. And existence will stop. Little sister the sky is falling, but I don't mind, I don't mind. That's a Patti Smith song. What is this, Juno? (More on Juno later).

But really, the night before I woke up to ice covering my window, I was very cold. I woke up to Brian sleeping with his hoody up, tied snuggly around his head. Cute?

No. I was very cold that night. The windows didn't keep the cold out that night. Mother..mother..

But that was really the worst of it, as you can see:

Even the bathroom's are enjoyable. And the people are very interesting, whether they be aging artists traveling to Santa Fe, musical theatre majors discussing the virtues of hipsterdom, teens claiming they've been convicted of 18 misdemeanors, californianites cheating the Timeshare system, scheming businessmen who bid on vintage cars for doctors and lawyers, Germans discovering America with only a tiny sense of humor, or two, misbegotten sons holding the key to earth's future. Brian. Ben.

We needed showers desperately by the time we got to California. Which has been another story altogether. And maybe another post. Or Brian can take it on. Either way, YOU KNOW ABOUT OUR JOURNEY. Also, Brian will post pictures from the trip on facebook. Expect that soon.

I'm aware that this was supposed to come full circle and lead back into the 2pac dream, but it didn't. That's because the dream never occured. That's because life is a dream.

Also, I didn't come back to Juno. Which I hated.

My Version of the Events Transcribed or Conversely: a Colonoscopy.

Bourbon Street? Marty Gras? Dancing Greeks with Lemons? Guess what Brian: It didn't happen. I wasn't there! And here's another thing: nothing makes sense. You were coked: out of your mind. Conversely:Colon:oscopy!

***
Imagine my surprise when Brian storms into my luxury flat atop the lofty heights of Reston Town(e) Centr(e) Monday, wearing nothing but his over-zealousness, boxer briefs, and a poorly concealed magnum (opus!) of a pistol.

Right. Surprises in January.

"Ben," he says, whirling his gun about recklessly, "we need to go on a cross-country journey. And we need to leave in less than a week."

"Ok," says I, "But wipe that damn powder from your nose before we hit the station."

It was a joke until the words came sputtering from my mouth -- why not take a cross country trip through America? Why not get out of the big city for a while and see the heartland? Hell -- maybe old Brian and I would even find a God. Maybe even love. Train love. It all washes over me as another one hits.

This time it's a bullet. Gnawing deep into my knee cap.

Bleeding, I retaliate. With words. A sonnet. Yeats or something. A sudden blow: the great wings beating still / It breaks his heart... That does him in. He was always a sucker for Yeats. And a face beating. I punch him in the mouth two or three times to drive it home. He's angry at this point, knocking out my Ming Vase with a stray -- Zhu Yunwen era (don't get me started).

For a finale he grabs one of my cats.

"I'll blow her goddamn head off you crazy son of a bitch!"

I can tell he's feeling really guilty about the vase.

"Look, I'll go on this trip," I say, "but you need to cut the crap -- and the coke. And I need to find a God. Roll your eyes at me if you will, but I've got a lot of things to sort out, and by the looks of it, well, you're no model for future generations."

At this point, between Brian's revolver and his unkempt Joe Boxer, nylon sports edition drawers that he stole from me last May, Misty has gotten a little squirmy. Understandably squirmy, if you're a cat at gun point. I start to think how I'm going to reposition the joint that connects my femur to my tibia, and what diversion will allow me to fly across the room into Brian's face, when the man himself lets the feline drop and lets out a groan.

"I need a God too."

"That one's Persian Brian. So don't touch her again," I say, ignoring his plea for diety. And we make reservations that same night. End of story.

And I bleed and I die.

***
Haha! Aw! And that's exactly how it happened! Don't let newfangled technocracy fill or fool you ladies and gentlemen! The truth is in the written word! My written word! Hand typed by men-women and women-men like yourselves! Beware the mensch machine! Beware the robo-nazi! And for God sakes! Tune in next time for:

BEN TRUMPS BRIAN'S TRUTH IN AN AMAZING, ACID-FUELED-BLOG-RACE-THROUGHOUT-SPACE-AND-TIME!

***
We are also, of course, going on a train trip, and documenting the whole experience. So, look here for that too?

Prologue: The Road to New Orleans

A recent study found that over half of all recorded marriages occurred in 2007. The December 29th wedding in New Orleans (Ashley and Yannos') was, according to a groomsman, "the first recorded marriage ever." I took his words to heart. This meant something.

My arrival on 26 December 2007 turned me slightly European. It was a clear night, temperature around 18.5 degrees centigrade (again, slightly European). I met up with the groom -- a descendant of Greek heritage -- and felt even more European. This, too, meant something.

The agenda for that fateful night: a bachelor party and divine inspiration.

The fun started innocently enough. Dinner at a restaurant with enough local color to turn you bayou-green (I was also beginning to feel like a pulp writer). The waitress, a petite brunette sporting a bandanna, spilled water on me. Later, she juggled lemons for us. It was good, clean fun, among good, clean people. But that all changed after the alcohol set in.

Next stop: Bourbon Street. We started at the end. Not the end next to Canal, but the other end. Out near Oz. Oz, it turned out, is nothing like the wonderland portrayed in the movies. It's a dark, isolated bar with plasma screen TVs of shirtless men gyrating to techno music. "There's no place like home," indeed.

Oh, but if only it had ended there! Curse those demons that set us afoot down that damned street of debauchery! There were the hand grenades (drinks, not artillery). The large-ass beers to go. The drunk man from Delaware who, upon seeing Yannos' ball and chain, said, "I know what that means!" then kept asserting the fact that he was from Delaware. The strip clubs. The strip clubs. The strip clubs.

And it was then, on Bourbon Street, somewhere between Barely Legal and Lipstixx, that it came to me. My European ancestors had already spread Christianity to the Americas. However, I could do them one better. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Ben's number.

"Ben," I said, "we need to go on a cross-country journey. And we need to leave in less than a week."

Ben's response: "Less than a week? That's not a lot of time for me to pr-"

"Let's bookend our trip with two of the most liberal, the most godless cities we can. Surely there we will find God."

And so that is how it came to pass. Amtrak's rule of having to enter Canada at some point accounts for the stops in Toronto and Montreal. Otherwise, this would be a clean, simple journey in only the most Christian of nations.

But in Canada... In Canada, God help us.