Antparty United

Greetings from Central Oregon's Bend Public Library!

I am driving in a zig-zag fashion from California to DC with my friend Jan. We camped last night atop Mount Garfield on Crater Lake. It got a bit cold up there. We forgot our tent so that means we are camping under the stars. I think a bat landed on me last night (which is nice because it meant that the flies and mosquitos had to leave me alone for a bit). And the Lodge at Crater Lake was serving $3 dollar microbrews--which have a devastating effect at 6,000 feet--and made the night hike to the summit all the more tricky. Woke up for sunrise (because of?). Tonight we are headed to Hell's Canyon on the border of Oregon and Idaho to do a little fishing.

Apparently 45,000 people live in Bend, Oregon. They have a mercedes, BMW, and Audi dealership. Also, a sweet public library.

We've gone swimming everyday (to continue the Resing-swimming theme), first at a Orr Springs 200 miles north of San Francisco. Nice place, if a little official and hippy-ish. The road there was certainly much more interesting than the place itself. Fresh Blackberry bushes though.

Next we took the coolest road in all of California, Route 211 out of Humbolt State Park to Ferndale via Petrolia. We tried to find some fish amongst the wild Petrolia River, but were unsuccessful. The road, though, was a crazy one and a half lane affair through Redwood Forest, up-over-and-along the mountain and valley systems, and then a final descent to the Pacific shore. Fun driving.

The next day we headed into Oregon along the Smith River. At one point I saw a neat bridge in the distance, so we headed for it. And went over it. And drove along Craig's Creek for awhile. It looked pretty cool, so we pulled over to take a closer look and realized it was really cool. The water was aquamarine (sort of fake-green looking) and deep and the creek was at the bottom of a rocky gorge through the hillside. After a vaguely-disconcerting decent to water over mossy boulders we hopped in. It was bracingly cold and that combined with the altitude made me feel dizzy for pretty much the rest of the day. But it was fun swimming amongst the boulders.

The trip is pretty much up for grabs after that. There is a chinese place I really like in Butte, Montana. Grand Tetons? A little Northern Utah, too. Then a trudge across the midwest.

Any ideas?

patrick

don't be decieved. i'm not patrick. i mean, would pat really misspell "deceived" like that? of course not. the boy is college educated for fuck's sake. pat may be a silly, silly man. but i love him anyway. we were friends once, perhaps good friends. and maybe we'll be friends once again if we find ourselves, magically, in the same place.
for now he's but a collection of pleasant and sundry memories.

like jack.

and jan.

whither gents?

xoxo,
notpbr

No word from Jack or Jan from their new outposts in Norfolk and San Francisco.

They must be dead.

As for me, I am not dead, but the Capital Children's Museum is almost dead. And I killed it.

Then it killed me.


I'm voting for Marion Barry for President. Say no to the Washington Senators because we don't got any. Washington Expos all the way.


xoxo,
pbr

So, last night, I finally won an adversarial confrontation in my neighborhood.

I got out of the bus in front of the Wah Sing chinese restaurant at about 10pm last night and crossed Pennsylvania Avenue to pick-up some beer at the Mom n' Pop store. Unfortunately for me, they were already closed (they had possibly been closed for an hour). Anyway, on my way across the street I noticed a group of kiddies hanging-out in front of the juvie-house nextdoor to the store. I thought it was odd, but my spidey-sense wasn't really tingling. So I turn away from the closed door of the store and start walking up the street towards my house, when my path is blocked by two street toughs. Mini street toughs.

They start in with the, "Yo, man, what'ch you doing in this neighborhood?"

As I had lived in the neighborhood for many years and had never seen these two particular homies before, I naturally responded with "What are you doing here?"

[An aside: I could tell that these were imported hoodrats because anyone worth their salt knows who the fuck I am. I am the stupid-ass whiteboy with all the twin brothers]

Kid: "Didn't scare you did I?" [follows this with a head and shoulder feint]

Me: "No." [simulates a chest-bump]

Kid: "Awww, It's all good, we just messing with you"

Me: "Yo man, that's great. I'm glad we're cool like that."

Kid: "Yeah, but this is our hood." [another feint, this one more of a shadowbox]

As we were speaking, I noticed with my third eye (that's the one in the back of my head) that another hoodie was creeping through the bushes and circling behind me. Well anyway, our sparkling repartee continued:

Me: "Isn't it a little late for you kids?"

Kid 1: "Yo man, give me a dollar."

Kid 2 (a little smaller than the first): "Empty out your pockets and give us all your shit."

At this point, I don't know quite what got into me. Maybe it was the kid in the bushes waiting to jump me or the other five kids in front of the house walking over that I just noticed, but whatever it was, it was kind of intense. My first move was to take a couple steps into the street so that no one other than a manned-vehicle could club me over the back of the head. The next was to start gesticulating wildly with my head and my arms as I said:

"I don't have to give you shit."

And I threw my newspaper in his face.

I can only start to explain this response in regard to my tremendous advantage in stature to these little muggins. I had to have atleast 8 inches and 40 pounds on the biggest one of them. It was a slight oversight on my part I realized, as I backed up into the street and all 10 kids came after me shouting various epitaphs like:

"Jump him!"

"Let's jump that bitch"

"Oh shit!"

"Did you just touch me?" (because I just touched Kid Number One while attempting to diffuse the situation with a high-five)

Now it might look like I was in trouble at this point, but I was in the grips of an insane confidence--a confidence founded on no previous life experience--that I could actually kick some serious ass in this situation. This was my kind of fight. Although out-numberbed, not one of them was older than 13. Which is almost ass-kicking age. Like, give them two years to grow and mature and practice their ass-kicking on the streets and I am a goner. Possibly they continue beating me until I lose consciousness and then they leave me in the street to get run over by cars.

But, that is two years from now. At this point it is me on ten 11-13 year-olds. The youngest of them has already picked up some rocks and commenced to throwing them. So they come at me, about six or seven strong. They keep the rest as a sort-of rearguard. Possibly to serve as archers, whatever. Fortunately I am a giant. I stand tall. They circle. I circle. Why am I circling? There are seven of them? I circle anyway. One of them has gotten larger. The hoodie from the bushes is actually kind of big.

As two or three make their initial run at me

[all I'm thinking is don't get knocked to the ground/ don't get knocked to the ground/ don't get knocked]

the traffic on Pennslyvania starts coming in full force and the ridiculousness of our position becomes apparent. We are dispersed wildly over three lanes of Northbound Pennslyvania Avenue and a half-dozen cars start blaring their horns.

It is as if someone yelled "Car" and we all had to clear the street before we could commence with our street-fight.

I moved to the sidewalk to put a little distance between me and my hoodies, also positioning myself closer to home. I did not relish the prospect of running the three blocks to my house with a blood-thirsty mob at my back. But, just then, there came the old familiar whine of a siren. And the kids bolted.

Except one.

This little fat kid.

Who continued to throw rocks at me.

Me: "Stop throwing rocks, you little bitch." (and I meant it)

Him: [throws one more rock and runs away]

Me: "27th Street Krew iz Bitchez."




Okay, well, I didn't say that last part exactly, but one my way home (with occasional over-the-shoulder glances) I sure as hell thought it: "27th Street Krew iz Bitchez." Yeah.

Anyway, the moral of the story is: Whenever you are getting hassled by people that are smaller than you (even if there are more of them), say cool shit that you might hear in a movie because the next day you will feel alot better about it."




patrick b.

oooh! I am about to eat a philly cheese steak from Pat's on Philly's South Street.

a little shout out to Adam and Paul:

"Yo Dudes, I bought you guys a vintage turquoise Chris Carter Viking's jersey in a Chicago thrift store. Unfortunately, my nephew Josh saw it and wanted it to hang up in his room (inexplicably). So, atleast you guys know that Carter ended up in a good place. Also, when were the viking's light purple/pink?"

maybe a stop at the ordinance museum off 95? or the cal ripken birthplace?

pbr

The rolling crime wave that is the ANTPARTY EXPRESS creeped into Breckinridge yesterday and the Police were on alert. Obviously their brethren in Reno, Neveda and Salina City, Utah had alerted them to our devious plans. What the podunk officers in Breck [sic] couldn't possibly have been informed of was that we were preparing to change vehicles. That insight on their part was pure detective genius.

So it was: we left the Goat Soup and Whiskey at approximately 10:30pm on Sunday night. Amy was driving her 2004 Toyota Tacoma from the Goat (where she works) to Breck (where she lives) with Me, Jan, and Jack in tow. Jan was riding in the truck bed (for no good reason) and Jack in the back seat. As we entered Breck city limits, we were pulled over for going 58 in a 50.

The officer also informed Amy that she was weaving and asked her why she was weaving. She responded with the immortal words of "Sorry Officer, I am a weaver." Which, apparently, was the right answer because the cop wrote us up a warning and sent us on our way.

This episode, though not in itself very exciting, capped off a 36 hour strech in which we were pulled over three times in three different states and marks our fifth time being pulled over for the trip. If you include Jack's run-in with John Q. Law in Baton Rouge for sleeping in the library, that is six cop-related interactions. What do we have to show for all this hoopla? 4 warnings and one very superficial "search" of our car for drugs. We were very helpful during that event, pointing out various good places for him to search, though we did get slightly persnickedy when the officer picked up green burrs from the carpet of the car and shout "Eureaka". He was like "I've made over 1300 narcotics arrests, I just have a sixth sense about these things." And Jan was just like "Dude, that's a burr."

Anyway, he sent us on our way with a verbal warning to, uh, well, I don't know exactly what. He pulled us over because Jack made a wide lefthand turn onto the freeway entrance ramp.

Our Reno warning was karmic gold though. The speed limit dropped from 70 to 50 for a construction zone and Jan was immediately pulled over for going twenty miles per hour over the limit in a construction zone. Which would have been some combination of reckless driving ($100) and $15 per mph over the limit. Then the total would have been doubled because it is a contstruction zone. Me and Jack calculated a $400 to $600 ticket. Jan did not want to calculate. When the officer came back with the writen warning, it was pretty sweet. So, even though we might give the cops a hard time in our blogs, our overall rating for them has been A+. Even that narcotics dick in Utah.

xoxo,
pbr

A lot has transpired since San Diego. We made our way back up to LA for a Dogers game with Nora Lawrence (who knows all the tricks for sneaking into Doger Stadium). When we drove up to the park, the parking attendants were all like "The game's sold out, Dudes, sorry."

But Nora was just like "Whatever, bitch." And we turned around and parked on this random neighborhood street. We were like "Aren't you worried that we are going to get towed?" Nora just looked at us, all steely-eyed.

So we walked up to the gates and Jan asked the ticket lady if there was anyway we could get tickets for tonight. She offered to sell us $45 Club Seats. We balked. Next we went around to a side entrance and this one ticket taker dude was like "Yo, hommies, I'll let you in right here for $20. You won't have seats or anything, but you can get your bobblehead and leave."

We were like "Bobblehead? Whatever."

Next we went around to a gate where people were already starting to leave the game (with their bobbleheads). It was maybe the third inning and people were pretty much just psyched to have their Eric Gagne bobblehead. Apparently, even though it was a tuesday and the Dogers were playing the Expos, Gagne Bobblehead night was the Sixth largest attendance in Doger Stadium history: 56,450 or so. So we got to this exit with people leaving and I was just like "Man this is going to suck, getting to the game and not being able to go in..." when Nora is just like "YOINK!" and darts into one of these closing doors and into the stadium.

Me, Jan, and Jack were just left there standing (outside the stadium). So I go next. I time it perfectly and get in right before the door closes. I look out at Jan and Jack and they are just standing there holding each other and shaking, terrified. I think I see Jan crying. It takes them about 5 minutes to muster up whatever little courage they possess and then they finally make it in, jabbering-bawling-and-caterwauling.

The game was good and we learned about a new drink "Southern Comfort and Pepsi". It was a bleacher seat special. Thank you Los Angeles. Even though you didn't give us a bobble head we will always remember you.

xoxo,
pbr