Four Towns

Los Angeles, CA

Four weeks. Four cities. A little same, a whole lot different. I only spent a couple of days in SoCal in December, whereas I divided my time between New Orleans, Miami, and the bulk of the Christmas holidays in NYC. The constant movement is a good thing. It jogs the brain. The constant dissonance between new and old can be an ultimate mind fuck... if you let it. Or it can be a lazy afternoon basking in the soothing warmth of yesteryear.

Los Angeles. The ubiquitous sunshine makes the holidaze seems more fake than a relgiious holiday that got hijacked to sell shit we really don't need. Nothing says I love you more than a pair of socks, or a new sweater, or a piece of electronic equipment that will become obsolete in six months if it doesn't break first. I was never really into Christmas trees (i.e. utter waste of money) until I moved to LA because I need something to make it feel like Christmas. The constant sunshine doesn't mesh well with Christmas... and the weak ass attempt with palm trees and Christmas lights is more laughable than applaudable as the denizens of Southern California desperately try to get in the Christmas spirit. Nicky knows no other holiday season (SoCal Xmas) because she is one of the rare citizens of the City of Angels who actually grew up in LA and has no other childhood point of perspective of waking up to an actual White Christmas. Me? Wasn't jungle bells written about last minute holiday shopping in New York City? In the urban decay of Gotham in the 1970s, the only thing that didn't smell like urine and rotting garbage was the rare scent of Christmas trees that invaded almost every major street corner. It's a sense memory that has been imprinted on my brain along with a numb face. It's supposed to be cold as fuck at Christmas and your nose gets numb because you spend a lot of time wandering around the streets while shopping for gifts (in the pre-Amazonian era), or spending late evenings staggering around shitfaced drunk admiring the foggy gasps of breath that roar out of everyone's mouths while hopping from Christmas/holiday party to party to party either company parties (ranging from low-end to baller bankster) to friends' tiny apartments to the odd, random party you randomly crashed in a bar somewhere. In the modern era, the LA holiday party is drenched in artisan, gluten-free hipsterfied chow and ironic blinking lights and superficial guests that are silently judging you but more worried that they'll look "pasty" in their next batch of selfies because everyone is sweating their asses off in a rare public display of their winter wardrobe. No one walks anywhere unless it's to the valet, so any sensible party people are making a cameo before Ubering to the next party up in the hills before all the medium-passable quality of drugs are inhaled by dilettantes and all the hardened dope fiends are haggling over a couple of frail lines of shitty-ass baby laxative, which you paid dearly for in actual time and mental anguish by listening to the same douchenozzle with shitty blow prattle on about his latest script conference with someone you're supposed to be impressed with and all you keep wondering is if your Uber driver knows a better coke connection.

New Orleans. Shit got crazy. Either I'm getting old, or I forgot about the darkness that oozes underneath Bourbon Street. Maybe it's a little of both. Liquor is a a true pestilence upon this land. Too much of liquid anything makes everyone's eyes look mean. I felt a little safety being with my brother, who still resides in the Bronx, and hanging with two medical doctors, a lawyer, and Iraq War vet. Just in case shit got too crazy, we had a small, yet elite crew of professional party people. When you're running AlCantHang with the bulls down Bourbon Street, the last thing you want to have to do is pull someone out of a potential all-out street brawl. Testosterone and liquor can always be tempered with cool heads, but it only takes one idiot to incite an ass-whooping. Yeah, it sounds a lot worse than the reality that everyone was safe as long as we stuck together and didn't do anything too stupid like wander off solo in the wrong direction where the shadow people can jump your schwasted ass and snatch your valuables before they haul ass back into the shadowy side streets. Partying always comes at a cost, but without a high risk, you don't get that big payoff. It's sort of like going on an animal safari and praying you don't get trampled by a stampede of irate giraffes. But New Orleans was rough without the usually indulgences of food and liquor because I had some minor dental surgery a few days before the trip and I couldn't drink heavily with the prescribed meds (it felt strangely uncomfortable actually waiting in line to acquire pharmaceutical products for a real pharmacy) and could barely eat at all because my mouth hurt too much. The first bit of solid food I had in days occurred as soon as I arrived in the French Quarter and Otis handed me something wrapped up in a napkin. Fried chicken. Damn fine-ass fried chicken. I tore into it like a vulture picking apart the dead carcass of some unlucky roadkill. Maybe the abundant dark energy was so prevalent because I spent three nights  extremely sober, which was the most coherent trip I had ever taken to New Orleans in 20+ years.

NYC. Can you ever really go home again? My favorite time of the year is also the most stressful. I equally love/loathe Christmas in NYC because... well... you know... family shit. It's never easy, but we all have to deal with it somehow. I've lost my patience the last few years. It's the product of a near-death-experience when you come out the other side not giving a fuck anymore and you come to a moment of clarity like, "Why am I wasting my time with people who will never change?" But it's the city that really brings me back. The ghosts. The memories. The forgotten memories are the best presents... just taking a wrong turn and walking down a street you had not walked down in two decades is enough to trigger an avalanche of memories. The mind is a masterful magical kingdom... and you can truly bend time and space by accessing your memory banks, but sometimes you lose too much time like I do, wandering streets that I had not wandered down in years... both physically and mentally. An old friend once said our childhood rooms are like museums to our own self, usually curated by whatever parent or family member still lives there. My childhood room is barely recognizable, but there's plenty of memories in boxes and cluttered inside a gigantic closet. I could spent a month in that room getting lost in forty years of living. But too much navel gazing is a bad thing, but too little insight into your past is also a dangerous thing. You need a healthy balance, which is the key to self-awareness. Never forget where you came from, but never forget it will never truly define where you're going because you're the one driving the bus. Or something like that.

Miami. A whole other country/city/nation state. Miami will someday sink into the ocean. Might take 500 years or 5,000 but someday most of Florida will be all underwater and delegated to a series of island chains off the coast of the US of A. Call the city water you want... New Cuba, or North Cuba, or Los Miami, or whatever... it's definitely not America anymore. I spent a lot of time covering the Latin America Poker Tour, so my time in Miami felt more like being on the road in a foreign country than visiting the southern most city in America. Miami has always been driven by its own unique rhythm, but the confluence of international travelers, ubiquitous sunshine and cheap drugs makes Miami one of the rowdiest destinations on the planet. But like any of those party-centric small cities whose magical reputation turned its legacy into a much larger city than actually exists. Miami is not so much a city as it is a state of mind. Miami... the constant flow... it's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. If anything, I got to end the year by spending a semi-romantic week in a tropical paradise with my girlfriend, who desperately needed a real vacation after a rigorous work schedule. Plus I got the added bonus of seeing old friends from college... the coolest type of friends who don't guilt trip you or make it awkward to reconnect. Oh, and one of my favorite bands played four concerts so life ain't too bad when you have all the elements for a guaranteed fun time.

Four towns. Four weeks. Last year ended like most years... on the road and hopeful for a new year.

Greasy Spoon Civil War

Miami, FL

All I wanted was a cheeseburger.

I incited a near riot in the kitchen. I mean, it really wasn't my fault per se, but I sort of put them over the edge. There's always tension between the front of the house and the kitchen staff. Doesn't matter if it's a greasy spoon diner or a Michelin star restaurant in Paris. But I showed up for breakfast at the wrong time. The kitchen staff had been feuding all morning and the waitstaff were having their own issues with all the fuck ups in the back. So it was a problem that had been festering all morning. It just so happened I was the schmuck who knocked over the bees nest.

"Breakfast or lunch?"

That was the million dollar question. I could have gone either way. Nicky opted for breakfast and got one of the diner's original specials. It originally opened in the late 1930s in a part of town called Little Havana. It was a throwback for sure to the late 1970s with movie posters on the walls... a mix of spaghetti westerns and the Godfather franchise.

I ordered the lunch. A burger named after the original owner. It was supposedly a bigger burger than usual, but it's a diner... and how can a diner fuck up a simple burger?

If our waitress was a car, she was closing in on 220K miles. She had the face like a catcher's glove. Her hair was blonde, obvious dyed because her white roots were clearly visible. She looked like she could have been a real looker three ex-husbands ago and back was JFK was still president. But in the Obama years, she's humping a morning shift on New Year's Day slinging hash to a bunch of hungover tourists with more cash in their pockets that she'll make in 5 months.

"Our waitress must be snorting Xanax in the back," I joked with Nicky when she was unable to complete more than one task at a time. Like she forgot to take our order, then didn't know what kind of toast to bring Nicky (who ordered wheat with butter, and she brought out cold, dry white). The couple next to us arrived ten minutes after us and got their order fairly quickly. The Xannied-up waitress was complaining about the cooks. They were all Haitians in the back, but the only line cook who spoke English was not working that day, so there was a huge communication gap. When our food never appeared by the 30 minute mark when the owner, a feisty Cuban woman in her 50s, checked up on our situation. She was visibly irked and embarrassed when screams were spilling out from the kitchen. Like loud as fuck, you better call the cops because someone is gonna die loud. The Xannied  waitress told me that they were short on staff so the cook brought in his wife to help out on the line, but those too were bickering all morning like most married couples do, but their home issues spilled over into the workplace, so it was a total shitshow in the back with a husband and wife at each others throats during the morning rush.

At the forty minute mark the owner ran into the back to break up another fracas. Sounded like pots were being thrown around. She had to tell everyone to shut the fuck up and start working like a team or they were all fired. Tons of tension. Everywhere. The kitchen staff hated each other. The wait staff hated the kitchen staff. The owners hated the kitchen staff. I hated everyone.

Cubans and Haitians don't like each other. Never did. Some of those century-long feuds spilled over onto the streets of Miami, where both cultures frequently clash. And there was a serious class war going on as well... well-to-do Cubans living the American dream while the Haitians were humping a min-wage job. The proletariat vs. the bourgeois.

I was in the middle of a class war, and a domestic dispute, and clashing of economic policies. And all I wanted was a spicy cheeseburger.

We finally got our meal a good fifty minutes after we order (or at least forty minutes later than everyone else). The Xannied waitress brought Nicky a second batch of toast. It was warm, but no butter and it was white. I got my spicy jumbo burger but I inspected it closely for saliva or blood droplets. With my luck one of them spit in my burger or some blood spilled onto my plate when the line cooks shanked each other. I gobbled down my burger, paid the bill (minus a 20$ discount from the owner), and rushed out of there before someone got their face slashed.

"Happy Easter!" said the waitress to Nicky, as we quickly made an exit.

Snowed In

By Pauly
New York City

I'm supposed to be in Los Angeles right now.

Sunny Los Angeles. In the warm confines of my office, where the sun pokes in through the window and I can see palm trees and ubiquitous sunshine. But that's not the case. I'm stuck in freezing NYC for a few extra days because of a so-called blizzard. It's a storm named Hercules and it failed to live up to its billing. At first I assumed there was some promotional tie-in with Hollywood because you don't name anything these days without a corporation's evil hooks in it. But no, it was just a name that was trying to intimidate the masses.

Hercules wasn't even a huge storm. Felt like an average snowfall, which meant that the Hercules tag was sort of lame.

The tri-state area was skiddish after last year's Frankenstorm, so it's hard to blame everyone for being so skiddish. But most of the time, the fear-mongering media hypes up everything so you cannot separate fact from speculation and hyperbole.

A full day before the storm hit, JetBlue cancelled my flight (which was scheduled couple hours before the storm hit) and re-booked me on the next flight (which was just as the storm was supposed to hit), which ended up getting cancelled. I didn't trust them to re-book me a third time, so I re-booked myself. In order to not get hit with a redonkulous surplus charge, the next available flight was... Monday... or four days after my original departure date.

JetBlue is one of my favorite airlines but even then they've gotten less passenger-friendly and more corporate-bottom-line-conscious. On Wednesday night, they cancelled most flights for Thursday night and everything on Friday. They got too scared about Thursday and could have let flights leave before snowfall, but I got screwed because they were overly cautious.

I should have listened to my brother and opted for refund then bought a flight to somewhere in the south first thing on Thursday and then flew to LA from Charlotte or Atlanta.

After the second flight got cancelled, JetBlue claimed they could get me out on the first flight out on Saturday, but I'd have to pay extra because it was a premium seat... and a middle seat at that. My tall frame and bad back can't handle a middle seat on a six-hour cross-country flight and no one wants to get stuck in between a crying baby and one of those overly religious people wearing all black and reeking of mothballs. I already dropped a pretty penny on the flight and couldn't believe they had the balls to try to fleece me for another $100. Plus, there was no guarantee that the flight would leave on time, so I passed. Unfortunately it was the last seat on the only available flight on Saturday. Sunday's availability was slim (two options... both would have cost me extra dough) and the best I could do without having to pay extra was to re-book for Monday.

Luckily I could stay with family in NYC, otherwise I'd be really screwed and would have to sleep at the airport with all of the other unlucky souls.

At least one good thing came out of it... I could watch a couple of Knicks games with my brother and catch all four NFL Wild Card games with him. But that was about the only positive thing that came out of this mess. Sure, I dearly missed NYC, but I had spent at least two weeks here and I had my fill, especially dealing with crazy family members. Christmas holidays are always a chore and this year was no different.

I was ready to go back to California and wake up in my own bed next to my girlfriend and gaze out at the palm trees across the alley that shoot up out of the ground like the palm tree is on its tiptoes and trying to touch the sun. I had a ton of freelance work that was burning a hole in my desk and I was eager to start the re-write on Fried Peaches. Oh, and how could I forget about the new guitar?

Nicky gifted me an acoustic guitar for Christmas. Something I had waned to buy for years, but never did it because I didn't have spare time to dick around with it because whatever surplus time I had was devoted to writing. But she got me the perfect gift because I'm at a point in my life in which I'm actively trying to set aside to do the things I love and do things I've never done. We exchanged gifts a couple of days before I left for NYC because we spend Christmas with our own families. In a short time before I left for NYC, I played with the new guitar nonstop, so much so, that part of one fingertip was ready to fall off. I finally understood that Ryan Adams lyric, "played it til my fingers bled."

Anyway, stuck in NYC where it's cold and miserable. I miss waking up next to my girlfriend. I mis sitting at my desk and cranking shit out. I miss playing my guitar until my fingers got numb. I even miss the fucking hipsters next door with the ukulele. Hate to say it, but I miss the warmth of LA.

Stuck in NYC thanks to Hercules. Meh.

Dive Bar Sanctuary

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Sanctuary. That's the best way to describe a comforting dive bar.

I'm not talking about a local neighborhood bar, like Cheers, in which everyone knows your name. I like the kind of dive bar in which no one knows my name and I can walk in off the street and disappear for a few hours, as the bar provides a sanctuary for me and my thoughts.

Then again, I walked into a New Orleans dive bar with AlCantHang, and the barkeep shrieked, "Al!" as soon as she saw him.

I spent my fair share of time in dive bars all across America. Dive bars are my favorite kind of bars. I never liked those cool, hip bars. In college, everyone went to the same fucking meat-market bar on Thursday nights, but I opted for a quieter and more laid back dive. That was twenty years ago, when I was in peak drinking shape and could polish off a 24-pack of Schaefer in a few hours. Nowadays, it would take me a week to drink that much beer.

I'm a dive bar guy. I'm now in my 40s and I don't wait in lines with velvet ropes in order to get a drink. Worst thing I hated about Las Vegas. The fucking club scene. It might have been more my speed in my early 20s if I was jacked up on ecstasy, but I don't imbibe much these days, so when I do choose to get liquored up the last thing I'm going to do is wait in line to get in the bar, then wait another fifteen minutes at the bar to get a drink. Or worse, they fall prey to the biggest sucker bet in Vegas outside of blackjack insurance... bottle service... in which schmucks pay an redonkulously overcharged price for a bottle of vodka, just so they can feel like they're somebody. Yeah, you're somebody all right... a fucking moronic mook who is pathetically trying to buy coolness, so they're willing to dish out mega bucks on inflated liquor prices. Hey, but that's why club owners in Vegas are rolling in dough. There's no shortage of brainwashed, desperate wannabes in search of "cool." Unfortunately the only validation they get is a fat SUCKER label stamped on their forehead and a juicy credit card bill.

I hate clubs because of all the anxiety involved. The guy with the clipboard is a judgmental asswipe. The waitresses are snooty. The bouncers are itching to pound someone's head in. Clubs and hip bars are crowded with annoying vapid wankers and chicks more interested in posting selfies than carrying on a semi-legitimate conversation. Plus the DJ is too cool for your tastes and thinks he's Skillrex.

But let's face it... I'm at the right age in which it is socially acceptable to be drinking in old man's bars. It's a little pathetic if I'm hopelessly trying to get into swanky clubs with ropes, or worse, being that middle-aged guy trying to bribe a thick-necked bouncer in hopes he'll let me cut the line for a Benjamin.

I had a bartending stint at an old man's bar. Didn't work there very long. Tips were terrible. Stories were better than average. But these were grizzled alkies with perpetually bloodshot eyes that waited outside for the bar to open every morning. The atmosphere in old man bars was sullen and pathetic. Petty arguments about sports and politics that went no where. But that's what those guys wanted. They were drowning in their own melancholy and afflicted with the disease. They were all waiting to die, so all they wanted was to nurse their drinks and be shielded from the slings and arrows of the outside world. The same world that was happy to keep those sad fuckers hidden away from productive members of society.

Don't get an old man's bar confused with a dive bar. Sometimes they are one in the same. In most urban settings, the old guys drink there during the day and then stagger off when happy hour ends, when the bar becomes a haven for average working folks looking for a low key place to drink. But the problem with some dive bars is that they often get filled hipsters looking to be hip, or party people purposefully slumming. Old guys have a very low tolerance for hipsters. Then again, so does everyone.

A good dive bar attracts the wide spectrum of people, so on any given night you'll have that silent old drunk slumped in the corner, and a couple of sorority chicks doing shots, a poet trying to read a book, banksters in pinstripes (rushing off to the john to do rails), a potential Rhodes scholar or the junkie with the leather jacket that played in that so-called legendary punk band.

A good dive bar is the kind of place you can do blow in the bathroom and its totally cool. An awesome dive bar will let you do it on the bar. My favorite dives are the places where you can fire up a joint in the alley, so long as you invite the bartender.

The bartender at a good dive bar is sort of a cross between a rock star and a prison guard. They are grossly outnumbers by the inmates, but they hold the extreme authority so you never want to fuck with a bartender otherwise you'll never get a drink. The most power I ever felt as an adult happened when I was tending bar and I got to shun a potential customer by making them wait forever before I took their order. It's even a bigger fuck you if there's three people in the bar.

We spent the majority of last weekend in the same dive bar on Toulouse Street in the French Quarter. AlCantHang picked it out. It was in his DNA. It was nestled next to something called The Dungeon, which is exactly what you think it is. Cross between an S&M club and the type of bar that blasts heavy metal so loud that your ears will bleed after five minutes.

At the dive, we befriended one of the locals that we dubbed Will the Thrill. I couldn't tell if he was a pool hustler who was having an off night, or just an average player who thought he was a hustler. One thing is for certain, you never want to play pool against a guy who brought his own stick. A serious hustler doesn't want anyone to know they're good so they play with house sticks, which Will the Thrill was doing.

At one point he tapped me as his partner to play a match against two locals. One kid looked like a meth dealer and the other looked like he lived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They all knew each other, which made me a little leery. I spotted myself as the sucker. But Will the Thrill wanted to use me as bait. I was clearly off my game. I haven't played bar pool in a very long time. For one, I never hang out in bars anymore, and haven't been inside a pool hall in years. In our 20s, Senor and I used to go out and shoot pool all the time in NYC. We'd hit up the dive bar circuit in the East Village, and when he wanted to cruise for hot Korean girls, we'd migrate to midtown. NYC pool halls gave non-drinkers a chance to socialize without having to be inside a bar.

In New Orleans, I played the roll as the bad pool player perfectly. It was a performance worthy of an Oscar nod. I didn't even have to try to be bad. I was bad. I think they call that method acting, right?

The dive bar had a pool table with two crooked sticks and a piece of chalk on its last licks. The worn table only cost 50 cents which was a throw back to my college days. Shit there was one hipster bar in San Francisco where pool cost $2 a game, so you better win your games otherwise it was going to be an expensive night out.

But I wasn't that bad all weekend. At one point Iggy and I held the table for over ninety minutes before we lost to Otis and his brother in a rematch game. Then again, we weren't really paying attention much so the games dragged on and on. It was one of those types of games when no one was shooting for a few minutes and you had to walk across the bar and say, "I think you're up.... but I forget if we're low or high."

No wonder Will the Thrill wanted to use one of us as bait to hustle the other locals.

Besides a pool table, the most important element to any bar is the jukebox. The pool table lures in the degenerate gamblers, but the jukebox is how you woo women. Well, that and some roofies and tequila.

At one point, an incredulous Iggy lectured the tandem of AlCantHang and Bad Blood on their affinity for heavy metal. I had a heavy metal phase when I was a kid, but these days it's nowhere close to my favorite genre. I could tolerate a few songs, especially because I dug the one Tool song that they played, but the bartender turned it down a few notches. You could also sense the few other customers in the bar weren't keen on the thrashing. Iggy lost his cool after one song.

"What up with this crap?" snarled Iggy. "If you want to listen to death metal, go next door!"

The Dungeon next door had a jukebox filled with heavy metal. When I walked in the previous night with Al and Dave, I was bombarded with Iron Maiden. It felt like 7th grade all over again. The Dungeon's jukebox also had Steel Panther, a heavy metal cover band that played weekly gigs in Vegas and LA. They had an original tune called Asian Hooker. Al and Dave put it on, but we had to wait an hour before their songs came up in the queue. By then I was nearly deaf. After seeing almost a thousand loud concerts since I was a teenager, my hearing is not the best anymore. After the Dungeon, I felt like I had blown out my ear drums.

Back at the dive bar, while Iggy was lecturing Al and Bad Blood, I jokingly rallied the troops and told everyone to throw a few bucks into the Jukebox to make sure we didn't have to suffer another wave of heavy metal from the headbangers in the bar. But I offered up my own expertise on selecting the proper Jukebox songs.

"You're essentially taking on the roll as DJ for a few minutes, which means you have a responsibility to entertain the bar, keep the ladies swaying, but most importantly, you have to keep the bartender happy. You can't shove your music down people's throats. In most bars, the bartender has the volume controls. In some bars, the bartender has supreme veto power. Nothing sucks more than dumping a few bucks into a jukebox and then getting cockblocked because the bartender has an issue with whatever song you picked."

If you pay for three songs (it was three songs for a buck), the rule I adhere to is this: one for the bar, one for you, and one deep cut to make the bar go "Wow! Haven't heard this in a while!" The softball pick is the easiest. The one for you is touchy because you want to pick something that you love, but you also want something that you think everyone else will dig. And the deep cut is problematic if the jukebox has a limited selection. But if you can find the right combination, then there's nothing like  jubilant bar patrons singing along to something you put on. I even put on some Sublime to keep my brother interested.

The dive bar's jukebox was filled with standard classic rock, lots of grunge, and more heavy metal than the average bar should have. They also had some bizarre and weird stuff like industrial music from Germany and the Hinterlands. But it lacked contemporary music (I don't think I saw anything older than Pearl Jam) and didn't have anything that the ladies would love like Motown, disco, and other dance-inducing songs.

Old man bars are rarely happy, but dive bars are different. Depends on the ebbs and flows of the clientele and what gets played on the jukebox. A cozy dive might emit good vibes, but it's really a place to hide out for a few hours.

Most bars are depressing because of its clientele or what they are trying to achieve.You can drink at home and its much cheaper. You can drink on the street if you do not have a home, which is also cheaper than a bar. But you go to a bar to be social, but if you go to an old man's bar or a dive bar, you are passive-aggressively looking to be social. We're all lonely. Some of us life-long addicts would rather succumb to addiction in the privacy of your own home, which is why there's millions of Americans every night hopped up on pills and getting sloshed on their couches. For the adventurous lonely souls, dive bars gives them a chance to potentially interact with other lonely souls, who want to hide out but not banish themselves into complete seclusion.

Some bars are technicolor. Most dive bars are black and white. Like stepping back into an old photograph leaping back into the past. Bending time. Sometimes its sepia. Sometimes its blue. Or green-tinged. A proper dive bar has no proper distinction. Perspective is "as is" while living precisely in the moment.

Dive bars are supposed to be a place where kindred spirits gather. Sort of the opposite of a family gathering. Because family holidays have a certain amount of animosity and hatred involved. You usually do not go to places where you're not wanted. You tend to avoid people who hate your guts. Which is why high school is so painful and why holiday gatherings are so stressful because you're forced to interact with people who hate your guts and they do a bad job trying to shine it on for the holidays.

Balance is the key. If a dive becomes too popular then it gets gentrified with hipsters and then it loses its laid back appeal. If it gets too dismal and dark, then it becomes an utter shit hole of misery. The entire point of a dive bar is to find momentary solace from the rigors of life and escape the other shit holes you're stuck in whether its home, work, or school. You don't trade one shit hole for another. You just want a place where you can be yourself and truly relax.

As I started drinking less and less (and more and more at home), I discovered that I missed out on dive bars, which were an oasis from the barren grind of everyday life. Amsterdam had a heady alternative with hash bars and coffeeshops, which certainly appealed to me much more than a regular bar. San Francisco had a few dives in my hood in LoPac, but it was always crowded with hipsters slumming it.

But in New Orleans, Al found the right dive. Which is why we spend more time there than any other place. It was centrally located. A few blocks from where we were all staying. It had a pizza join half a block away and a Lucky Dog cart in front. It was right off Bourbon Street so we could see the lewd behavior of shitfaced tourists like the one 20-something guy who was fingering a cougar right in front of the bar, or the barbacks from a popular bar across the street who wandered over to roll joints in front of the dive bar.

The dive even had bathrooms behind hidden bookcases, so if you went in for the first time, you'd have no idea where you should do your business. Even those secret doors did not have locks, which provided some sense of security of you were dropping a deuce or trying to do a few lines.
 
The only thing the dive did not have was its own breathalyzer. Luckily one was located across the street inside the Tropical Isle. I somehow got the task of setting the lines of our friends BAC. It was not an exact science. I'd quiz them on what they had drank that day, but more importantly, what did they consume in the previous hour. It was a simple over/under. You'd be shocked to see what some of the crew blew. AlCantHang's BAC was so high one time I had no idea how he was standing, let alone breathing. Then again, that's why he's AlCantHang.

A perfect dive bar never changes. It's a sanctuary for your battered soul.

NOLA Pic Dump

By Pauly

New Orleans, LA

Some images from the weekend...

The Return to the Big Easy

By Pauly
New Orleans, LA

Feels weird to be back. But a good weird.

I had not been back to New Orleans since Katrina. Has it really been 10 years since I last roamed the streets of NOLA? I think Jazzfest 2003 was the last time I partied here.

For most of my 20s, New Orleans was my favorite city in America before it was overtaken by Las Vegas. But I've been burnt out on Vegas for a few years now, and San Francisco or Denver have been vying for my favorite city. But walking through New Orleans brought back a flood of memories.

I got hooked on New Orleans during my first visit in college, back when the drinking age was actually 18 and I didn't need a fake ID to get sloshed in bars for Mardi Gras. New Orleans was a quick 6-hour trip from Atlanta. Actually it is seven hours, but you get an extra hour due to the time change. I don't know how many times we made the sojourn.

When you're a young aspiring writer, you think about what will be your first attempt at writing the Great American Novel. For a few years, I thought I was going to write a manuscript about heading to New Orleans for Mardi Gras during my senior year in college. Seven of my friends chipped in and we rented an RV. Drove it from Atlanta to New Orleans, and then back to Atlanta with a sidetrip to Biloxi, MS for a little blackjack and poker. Much like the characters in Easy Rider, we were headed to New Orleans but really searching for a short cut to the American Dream.

The ride down was a little hectic. We had dropped liquid sunshine and a friend of a friend invited himself along at the last second. We only let him tag along because he offered to drive half of the way to NOLA. He drove fast, very fast, especially for an RV. My bud Dutch, who was in the middle of his Jim Morrison phase, was concerned about our lead-foot driver.

A RV blazing down an interstate in the deep south, filled with frat boys, weed, acid, and who knows what, was definite probable cause.

Dutch was concerned and rightfully so. We had a few extra doses on us and we made a pact that if we happened to get pulled over, then we'd take one for the team and eat the remainder of the doses, which were on sugarcubes.

At one point somewhere in Southern Alabama, we noticed flashing red and blue lights. Then the RV abruptly pulled over to the side of the road. Dutch freaked out. He thought we were about to get pinched. "We gotta do it," he said with his hands shaking as he pulled out the last of the sugarcubes. I ate two, which brought my intake to three since we had left Atlanta a few hours earlier.

It turned out that our driver had to take a leak, so he pulled over the side of the road to relieve himself. The flashing lights? Not for us. We ate the extra cubes for no reason other than sheer paranoia. We were tripping balls the rest of the ride to New Orleans. We must;e got in around 2am or 3am. I wandered around the French Quarter until sunrise before I was finally somewhat right. We ended up parking the RV in front of a church for the duration of Mardi Gras. I barely slept. Drank my weight in booze. And somehow won enough money in Biloxi to pay for the trip.

But that was almost 20 years ago. Memories run deep.

I always wanted to visit New Orleans with AlCantHang. For some reason, we've known each other for almost a decade but we never pulled off a trip.... until now. Life and work had gotten into the way and we could never find the proper time. Luckily, Otis gave us a great excuse to fulfill one of those bucket list items (17. Go to New Orleans with AlCantHang.).

Al found us a quaint local's house to rent. It's in the heart of the Quarter and hidden so much so that it's easy to miss. Feel kind of cool not being in a hotel. No intrusive maids. No industrial soap smell. We can pretend to be locals. There's a corner bar on the corner, a few steps away. One of the oldest in New Orleans, one of the oldest in America. I have not drank much the last few months, but I have a feeling I'll make up for all that missed time over the next few days. At least rum is in my wheelhouse. I'm ready for a hurricane of Hurricanes.

But more importantly, I have all those memories and all those ghosts to keep me company. Anything that can jog and jilt my memory is a good thing. Especially considering how fried my brain was during previous trips. I wish I could write more, but it's time to lose time.

Another Pic Dump

By Pauly

New York City

Here are a few images from a blurry week  on the road in NYC and New England...

A Few More Lingering Flashbacks from the Circus

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I forgot about the ceiling. A snooty art collector would dismiss it. From a distance it looks like a stained-glass masterpiece. Up close, it's definitely not Tiffany glass. Upon closer inspection, you can see the autumn leaves. It's ubiquitous sunshine in Southern California and I rarely get a whiff of the four seasons in a part of the world where its perpetual summer. I missed the seasonal differences of the East Coast. The only brown leaves on trees in LA can be found on the ceiling at Canter's.

I forgot about how trippy the ceiling is if... 1) you see it for the first time, and 2) crocked on psychedelics. Neither was the case for me. I totally forgot about it until we were seated in a booth and Schwilly Meg could not stop looking up. We had our faces buried in the oversized menu, yet Schwilly Meg was gazing at the show up on the ceiling.

I elbowed Nicky and motioned toward Schwilly Meg. Nicky giggled and said, "Yeah, I forgot the ceiling. Must be a dozen people in here still fucked up from the concert and getting a cool after-show."

For a city as big as Los Angeles, there are limited places to eat after Midnight. One of the few 24/7 places -- Canter's Deli -- is not far from our apartment. It was on our way home from the Hollywood Bowl. None of us ate dinner. We drove down from San Francisco to LA earlier that day and woofed down a few beers before heading to the Bowl. We got caught in traffic and never had a chance to grab food... until after the show when we were starving.

Canter's used to be the "Esquire Theatre" (for movies in the 1940s and early 50s) before it was converted into a deli. It's sort of a late-night LA institution and you usually end up there after a night of partying. Canter's was on my radar because I knew it would be open, plus there was a dive bar attached to it, so I knew they served liquor until at least 2am. If you really want a wasted celebrity encounter in LA, then hang out at Canter's at 3:33am and maybe you'll spot someone "famous" at the tail end of a bender. But it was closer to Midnight and Canter's was packed, while Schwilly Meg got lost in the leaves on the ceiling.

The waitress lumbered over. That's when Broseph belted out his order. Four drinks. Water. Coffee. Beer. Whiskey. Pretty simple. I thought she'd screw it up because the place was packed and she was in the weeds. To her credit, the drinks arrived... as ordered. The waitress did manage to fuck up Schwilly Meg's order. She wanted banana pancakes, but the waitress dropped off potato pancakes. Huge difference.

* * * *

One day in Chicago, I met Grubby for lunch. He's been living there for a couple of years and we always missed each other whenever I was in town. He told Senor old Vegas war stories... like the time he tried to pick a stripper but somehow a midget was involved and that added variable threw everything out of whack. Got flashbacks of when I first moved to Vegas and used to hang out with Grubby. But now he's living in Chicago, a safe distance from Vegas. Yet no matter where we go, Vegas stories are always somewhere beneath the surface waiting to bubble up like a batch of swamp gas.

In Chicago, I lost a hit of acid in the park when I fumbled it during the exchange. A gust of wind blew up out of nowhere and poof! The dose fluttered away in the wind. I tried to look for it... but it was the side of a sharp hill. Like finding a needle in a haystack. I hope a squirrel doesn't stumble upon it, otherwise that rascal will be tripping balls.

* * * *

I got addicted to mint M&Ms. In the green bag. I have not seen them in L.A. but I saw them all over Seattle, Tahoe and San Francisco. It's like biting into a mint, but with an M&M coating.

Iced tea was tough on the road. I was brewing my own batch of tea every morning and made it super strong almost equivalent to a cup of coffee (tea is typically 50% the strength of coffee). I don't drink coffee, but Starbucks is fucking everywhere. I don't like to give those corporate-tards my money, but someone had given me a gift card so I busted it out on the trip for a "gourmet" iced tea, which is pretty meh. Starbucks tea is just average compared to Coffee Bean.

We camped out at the Gorge and I resorted to cold brewing Lipton using bottles of water and three tea bags. It's methadone more than anything else. But, when I mixed it with Nicky's lemonade (Hubert's... tasty shit in skinny glass bottles), I made a palatable Arnold Palmer. Just add molly and or vodka.

In Chicago, the W was next to a 24-hour McDonalds. Yeah, I know... an odd pairing. I popped into McDs three or four times a day. Large drinks were $1. I picked up 2 iced teas at a time. In San Francisco, there was a Jack in the Box around the corner. The Joker popped over one morning and got me a big-assed tea, which was perfect because I was about to sit down and write and crank out a review of the Tahoe shows.

* * * *

3:30am. San Francisco. We heard a shooting. Nothing sobers you up quick enough than gunshots. Two quick pops. Ironic that we were in the nicer, more touristy area and one block from Union Square, versus the edge of the Tenderloin where we stayed.

* * * *

We lucked out with the cool cabins in Tahoe. The Joker, Wildo, and Carrie had more of a suite. We had room that overlooked the pool. We were three stories up and I quickly tried to remember my high school physics formulas to see if someone could jump off my third-floor balcony and survived the dive into a six foot deep pool (the answer was no fucking way).  Now the second floor? That was doable. Funny to see a random family sitting at the pool while it was invaded by Phishy types and people trying to a quick nap poolside before the show began.

I got to see Zobo, who I had not seen in years. We met each other in Japan during Phish tour in 2000. He had a cabin really close to the venue, so we could sit on his porch and listen to the soundcheck. He's friends with the Japhans whom stream some of the shows. I even got to meet a former Japanese rockstar, who was enjoying the anonymous life in America... while he embedded himself with hippies on Phish tour.

Nicky went deep in a charity poker tournament. I was a bounty player and busted early again... but not as early as the last two charity events (when I was also a bounty). I was hoping to finally prove my worthiness and had my sights set on the final table. Alas, I took a bad beat and busted mid-way. Jesse Martin, a friend who happens to be a poker pro, took a seat at my table and I didn't get a chance to play a hand with him (the one hand I shoved... he got out of the way). Wildo almost made the final table... but he busted out in 12th place. But Nicky? She's rusty, yet still has tournament skills.

* * * *

Good to see the "2001" stickers made cameos in different cities on this trip. Splattered all over the mean streets of Chicago, Seattle, Tahoe, and San Francisco. I also saw a bunch in the port-o-pots at the Gorge and one vendor in Shakedown let me put up a sticker  on his menu board. I sold a bunch at the Gorge and a few in Tahoe. Rained too much in Chicago and it seriously lacked a Shakedown area, so no real spot to hawk goods.

* * * *

I listened to Wild Belle's album nonstop. You might have heard their song It's Too Late. I had a similar postmodern-hipster-pop phase when I got my hands on Foxygen's album earlier in the year. But there's something about the lead singer from WB. She reminds me of that hot chick from college who flirts with you all night and you foolishly let her snort/smoke all your drugs because you're convinced you're gonna hook up, but you get nadda, not even a hand job as she waltzes out the door and off to another party.

When I was in Seattle visiting old friends, Kung-fu Tom turned me onto Albert King's greatest hits. Some funky-ass soulful blues-funk right there. Glad I got to hang out with Tom... he always turns me onto good music. He wants me to pick up bass so we can start a band together. I said we'd call it... "White Men Can't Funk."

In Seattle, I stopped by where I used to work and wandered around the Seattle Art Museum and the Frye Art Museum. I dug the fact that SAM is "suggested" donation. I offered to pay half price. I usually only donate $1 to the Met because they try to dupe the public into paying redonkulous price. I thought about putting $1 on my credit card, but then thought that'd be a dick move.

But at SAM at a special gallery for Aboriginal art, I got lost in one of the trippiest paintings I had seen in years. This fucker was alive and breathing when I walked by...

Red Plastic Bag

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

Taking a shit on airplanes is never an easy task. I traveled enough to know that defecating on airplanes is an arduous undertaking so I avoid the scenario as much as possible. The key to avoiding having to take a shit on an airplane is to do it before hand somewhere in the airport, but that means you have to take a shit in a huge public area. It's kind of a catch-22. Take a dump where the entire bathroom is a petri dish of every possible internationally-known fecal disease, or roll the dice and hope you don't have to take a dump at 35,000 feet while whizzing through the air in a metal tube.

My biggest problems happened on international flights, especially ones that were redeyes from NYC to Europe, or long-ass trans-pacific flights from LAX to Sydney, Australia. I couldn't fade a trip to the bathroom in those instances. I got good at holding my dump until I arrived in Europe, but I couldn't cut it too close because no one wants to shit themselves while standing in immigration. Luckily, I often connected in Amsterdam and immigration is efficient and went very fast.

One morning after a long flight from America, I wandered into the first toilet I could find at Schiphol Airport. The meal KLM served was a horrendous, lukewarm lasagna and I struggled and struggled and struggled to take a massive dump and after twenty minutes of a sweating it out, I only ejected a couple of pebble-shits. I was exhausted and in a Xannie haze and sweating my ass off and trying to hold my breath because a couple of Hungarians occupied the surrounding stalls and they launched an all out ass-bombing campaign, while I was saying Hail Marys in Latin and drenched in a waterfall of sweat.

I realized that those toilet battles were the last thing I should have doing upon landing, then wandering out sweating profusely and a ashen look over my face and a pair of big-ass glassy eyes. If anything, it looked like I was a drug courier shitting out bundles of smack wrapped in condoms.

So what's wrong about shitting on airplanes? For one, I get pretty nauseous whenever I'm on deck and anxiously waiting and then finally get my chance and rush into the bathroom and scrunch the folding door then catch a whiff at the remnants of someone's ass-bombing. Yeah, going into a toilet inside a phone booth after someone else dropped a deuce (and God knows how many people before you dropped a deuce) is one of the most disgusting aspects of air travel.

The worst seats on any airplane are in the row closest to a rear bathroom and the two or three aisles seats in the rows toward the back where you get stuck having to deal with a line of passengers waiting to use the shitter or pisser.

I thought about David Foster Wallace and his cruise ship piece, Shipping Out, when I heard about the broken-down cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm too much of a control freak and don't like being stuck on a boat for extended periods of time with spoiled people looking to be decadent and self-indulgent. Those are the last people you want to experience a disaster scenario with, because they'll just bitch and moan the entire time and act like selfish assholes instead of coming together as a group to overcome a terrible situation. One or two spoiled dickheads can make a break a large group before its all out mutiny. I can only imagine how crazy it got on that ship. I would love to find out if one of the survivors was a writer who penned a DFW-like essay about surviving the ship disaster and all those nasty red bags.

All of those cruise people had to shit in red plastic bags when the ship lost power and they were adrift at sea and the vacuum-system that sucked up all the human waste was not working. Even if the so-called housekeeping staff collected the shit bags, at some point they threw all the bags off the side when no one was looking. The Gulf of Mexico is destroyed after the BP oil spill, so what a few thousand tons of fecal matter going to make the different?

You know you reached a new low when you have to shit in a bag. Sadly, those folks paid for an exotic adventure... which included shitting in a bag.  

Today's activities include watercolor painting, shuffleboard, and a shitting in a bag contest. The fastest person to shit three pounds gets a free roll of toilet paper. 

I feel bad about those poor folks on that boat. Their dream vacation ended up a complete nightmare. Hell is stuck on a boat with other annoying, self-absorbed people and forced to shit in a bag.

Side note... I'm always afraid to take a dump at Denver Airport because of all the freaky occult artifacts and art strewn around the massive airport and I'm paranoid that some of the stalls are attached to secret passages, and as soon as you sit on the throne, you get sucked into the depths of the underground complex underneath DIA, where you get gassed and stacked in holding pen with other unsuspecting tourists, only to boiled in a vat of olive oil and fed to Reptilian overlords.

Early Birds

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

Nicky and I made run too many times to count. She manned the wheel and I rode shotgun. Like peas and carrots.

I occasionally did solo sojourns from Los Angeles to Vegas and always got up at 5am to guarantee a quick exit out of the City of Plastic Angels to beat the first wave of rush hour traffic  and climb the Cajon Pass and reach Victorville before the bulk of truckers began their day. Before I knew it, I had burned through a full set of a Grateful Dead bootleg and racing through prime bat country... just outside Barstow on the edge of the desert. At that point it's smooth sailing... smooth flying... smooth driving. Set the gearshift on cruise control, roll down that hill, reach the state line and welcome yourself into the heart, soul and loins of the Nevada universe.

The drive is always 264 miles. Las Vegas. Founded by Mormons. Invaded by mobsters. Overrun by suits. From eternal salvation to overindulgence and eternal damnation. It's one crazy ride any way you cut it.

Nicky and I departed before lunchtime which meant our actual lunchtime was spent honoring a tradition at one of the few In and Out Burger weigh stations en route to Las Vegas. We listened to music and podcasts, which added something special in the background to compliment the scenery. The mountain tops had a light sprinkling of snow, just enough to make it noticeable that you were driving through bat country in the winter and not a 120 degree summer scorcher. We spent too much time in Vegas during the blistering summers; it was refreshing to make a quick trip in the middle of a SoCal/Southwest winter.

I didn't pack much. I also travel light. Habits are hard to break. I brought along a book because I figured my late nights would be devoted to reading. Expanding the mind. Feeding the vocabulary. I used to love late nights in Vegas... I was a vampire on the prowl, lurking in the shadows and ready to flirt with the Pai Gow gods at any given moment. But that was an edgy side of me I smoothed out over the years. The jagged edges are now mellowed and smooth. I curtailed the huge gambling leaks and no longer waste my breathing moments trying to beat the house. The house always wins which is why I only bet on sports these days. I'll only play Pai Gow as a social event with friends, but those uber-degenerate days sitting down to play heads-up against an old Asian lady dealer are a thing of the past.  Instead of embedding myself in the "cavern of shame" and donking it up in the pits with the other restless crazy Asians, I embraced a zen-like approach to just be myself... which means I sit around and read and reflect late nights. Just because I'm in Vegas doesn't mean I have to altermy current routine. I brushed aside the urges and welcomed the tranquility of listening to music while I read and listened to more music. Cultivate the mind and nourish the musical soul.

No more late night hijinks... at least for now. I finished a two-week bender in NYC and returned to the West Coast to get back on track. Writing and work.  I needed to be sharp. Very sharp. I didn't go to Vegas to party; it was all business. It was work. All work. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But I had my time to play in Vegas during previous trips. It's time for work.

The adult playground that is Las Vegas? Been there. Done that. It's not that sort of Mecca anymore. It's weird how living in Vegas tweaks your perception on the world, and then leaving Vegas sort of re-boots your brain and you realize it was all just a dream. But thus its appeal. It's where people go who never want to grow up. Degenerate Peter Pan. Disneyworld for alkies and hard luck gamblers. But that's not my vibe anymore. I'm not a fucking tourist looking for a cheap thrill and to suck out in blackjack or maybe go into an alcove in some whomping-ear-destroying-whomping club and get a sloppified handjob by a frisky cougar jacked up on diet pills and Appletinis.

I went to work as soon as I got into town. I got caught with my pants down backing my hometown Knicks... a team in complete disarray.  I told ya that Amare's return would upset the balance of the Knicks universe, right? But Melo was back in the lineup after sitting out a one-game suspension after losing his mud and going on Honey Nut Cheerios Mega Tilt (HNCMT). Ugly game. Knicks looked like shit. We tore up that ticket. Somehow, I bailed myself out with a couple of late night games.

Golden State is my new favorite team because they generated the most money. It's paying my bills. Putting food in my belly. I should be walking around my neighborhood with a David Lee jersey and taunting spoiled douche-tard Lakers' fans. And the Lakers? Disgusting. I'm a Jets fan so I can tell you it's not pretty when the wheels fall off the bus... and the bus falls off itself. Ugly. Fugly. Fucking fugly. I've cherry picked spots to bet against the Lakers all season. It was easy for me to walk up to the Cantor counter and take a position with Oklahoma City. The youngsters from OKC blew through town and Kevin Durant dropped 25 in the first half and 40 by the end of the 3Q. He finished with 42 and made Kobe his bitch. It was fun to watch the clerk cash my ticket. It was Friday. Pay day. Nothing is sweeter than turning the tables on the Man and taking away money from corporations.

I woke early on Saturday morning to write and check the latest lines at Cantor. They don't post their lines online which is why they are evil geniuses. I was up early. Light was still absent. Darkness everywhere. Very early in the morning for Vegas standards that I could have passed for a guy who was just going to bed. I had a rare opportunity to take advantage of multiple venues to wager on sports... legally... without the Man and his crooked Uncle Sam wagging his finger at me for doing something (betting on sports) that everyone does irregardless of laws and enforcement. My morning included a significant amount of running around. Back. Forth. Too bad I don't trust anyone to do the legwork for me, because I could have been curled up in a warm bed with my girlfriend. Instead, I got a good workout. Sprinting back and forth to different casinos and cross-checking offshore to get the best price. Bargain betting. The difference between a half-a-point has broken many a man's spirit, and bankroll, and skull, and backbone, and the will to live.

The early bird gets the worm. The worms eat our bodies when we die. There's lots of holes in the desert. It all comes full circle.

Hills, Dive Bars, and Walking Around City Streets

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

I've been in San Francisco since Monday. I won't gush too much about the change in my post-WSOP routine. In the past, I spent a week on the beach in Malibu decompressing with Nicky. This year, we opted for a few days in San Francisco. It was the wise choice.

Our friend Halli lives in Lower Pacific Heights and has the entire second story of one of those Victorians you see on TV and in the movies. We let her crash at our house in Vegas for a couple of days and she wanted to pay us back with an open invite to San Francisco. It was hard to pass up even though we had to head back on the road only three days after unpacking from Vegas. But hell, it was worth it.

I forgot how much I missed living in a real city. LA is a fake city and Vegas is hardly a city -- it's America's playground and a tourist destination, but it hardly constitutes my definition of real city. Think NYC, London, Tokyo. I've always said that I'd feel more comfortable living in Tokyo than having to live in a small town in Iowa. I'm a city guy. That's just how I am, which complicated my living situation in LA the last few years. Let's be honest -- I was only in LA because it's where my girlfriend lived and it was somewhat close to Vegas, which I had to be for work.

But San Francisco... is definitely more akin to my personality than the plasticity of Los Angeles. Best example is this -- inside of 2 days, I visited more bars in San Francisco than I did living in LA for four fucking years. Yeah, Nicky and I never went out to bars, and if we did it was to see a band at a club or other music venue. We're fans of Stout, but we're really there for the burgers and not the bar aspect of the joint. I think the last time we went out to a different bars was when Benjo was visiting two summers ago and last summer when a couple of colleagues (Remko the Dutchie and Alex the Aussie) stopped by to visit LA. Aside from that, the bars are simply too pretentious to visit. And don't get Nicky started on the annoyance of parking and drinking/driving.

Drinking in San Francisco is a different beast. You can hit up a few bars within a few block radius. Throw in a couple of cabs and some walking, and you can hit up ten different bars in an evening.

Nicky and I have been to San Francisco numerous times so we didn't give a shit about doing nay tourist stuff. We had a chance to stay with Halli and experience the city as a local. We basically asked Halli to do what she usually does and we'd just tag along. Monday night was a poker game with her brother and close friends. Tuesday night included bar hopping -- in the Haight, in Lower Haight, in Lower Pacific Heights, and the Marina. I made a joke that we think Halli's an alcoholic because in two days the only places she showed us were dive bars. In her defense, that's what I requested.

Bars in Vegas are either bars in casinos that hav video poker machines embedded into them, or it's a trendy, chic club with red ropes and long ass lines to get in. Neither are not my speed. I'm not a club guy and I'm not an alkie/degen slots player that I'd spend all my time at those types of casino bars. Alas, I'm not usually drinking unless it's at a Pai Gow table with friends.

In Denver, the Joker introduced us to a couple of cool spots where you could hang out and listen to kick ass music without dealing with the uber-Vegas party scene or stuck-up lounge LA scene. Nicky preferred those bars because she didn't get annoying glances from other chicks judging her on her selection of shoes and purse. Me? I liked Denver bars because you don't have to shout to be heard (no thumping terrible DJ) and you can toke a doobie in the back without being 86'd by a burly security guard.

San Francisco bars have the similar vibe to Denver. Sure, there's a few hipster-laden joints and clubs with ropes that I'd never be caught dead in, but the city has more than its share of places where I'd be comfortable to drink. Halli took us to a few of those places over the last two nights. I'm not much of a bar person, but I definitely enjoyed myself -- especially because I wasn't drinking that much and never felt pressured to keep on drinking. Laid back. That's what I like about going out to have fun. A laid back approach to socializing. Yep, I'm all about kicking back and enjoying life with a small group of people, enlightened and loosened-up by booze but involved in stimulating conversation. The alternative is going out to be seen or heading a specific club to increase your coolness factor, or have pics to brag to your fake Facebook friends.

Then again, I'm approaching 40. You don't go out to bars when you're 40+ unless you're in a mid-life crisis or trying to get laid or an alcoholic. At least, that's how I felt in Vegas and LA. Both cities were blunt about not catering to my needs as a social drinker. That's what I missed about New York City -- because within a ten block radius you could usually find a bar to cater to different groups of people and personalities. Same thing applies to San Francisco. Just a quick jaunt around the San Francisco with Halli and we were aware of so many more fun options.

Ah, enough about bars. How about those hills? Yeah, the hills are tough, especially someone like me with a bum back and sore hip. But luckily Halli lives near the bottom of Pacific Heights so we didn't have any of those monstrous hills to deal with. I definitely enjoyed the ability to walk around the city -- something I never do in Vegas (it's too hot and everything is spread out) and in LA (I'm like the only person walking around sometimes that isn't walking to their parked car). Yeah, whenever I went back to NYC, I also set aside a few hours to just walk around the city and let my mind wander. I always feel as though I write better after those meandering sessions, because it allows me to work out a few things. The alternative is to sit on your ass and nu,b yourself with bad TV shows and handcuff yourself to the machines/intertubes and get caught up in the static stream (Twitter) or wasting hours and hours on random stupid sites like Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Beiber.

Walking around. Hanging out in dive bars. Listening to people make fun of LA. Yeah, it's been a fun few days. I'm actually bummed out that I have to go back to LA, but at least I will return in a couple of weeks to see Phish play in Golden Gate Park. Now, if I can only figure out how to actually stay here longer and ditch the plastic hills of Hollyweird...

Cusco > Ollantaytambo > Aguas Calientes > Machu Picchu

By Pauly
Cusco,Peru

The wake-up call was set for 4:30 -- that's AM, in the fucking morning -- a time when I'm usually winding down the night and going to sleep. I passed out around around Midnight after chewing on a Vicodin to help ease the throbbing headache that accompanied altitude sickness after my abrupt ascent into the 11,000+ zone.

Our caravan had to ship out of Cusco no later than 6am if we wanted to catch the 8am train out of Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, which was at least a 100-minute drive away. The breakfast buffet started at 5am and I was still in bed at that time, although I heard the shower running in the adjacent room where Sos and Shirley were staying. I assumed the former military man in Sos was up and at 'em before the wake call echoed in the room. I skipped a shower in favor of checking the previous night's scores from the NBA playoffs via wifi that was a step quicker than dial-up, before I made my way downstairs to the dim dining area.

The majority of the lights were shut off in the lobby with the exception of a few stray lights illuminating the dining room. I peeked into the metal buffet tins and didn't see much edible fare to my liking. No bacon, instead, they offered up what looked like mini-hot dogs as their breakfast meat du jour, the Peruvian version of nitrate-riddled breakfast sausages. I skipped the dogs and scooped up two spoonfuls of runny puke-yellow tinged scrambled eggs, then tossed a couple of hard rolls on my plate next to a couple of slices of fruit. Along with a glass of orange juice and a cup of coca tea -- that might have been my only fuel to carry me atop of Machu Picchu. The runny eggs tasted as expected -- like runny eggs. I just prayed that the eggs wouldn't run right through me with a two hour ride in the Peruvian countryside ahead of me. I'd really hate to have to shit on the side of the road and I made sure I took some extra TP with me -- just in case.

By 5:55am, I checked out of my room and waited in the lobby with Sos and Shirley for the little old lady with the limp who spearheaded our entire tour. Two large groups of other travelers surrounded us, one American and the other Brits, where the median age was anywhere from 15-20 years old than us and everyone looked like wealthy retirees of the adventurous sort, spending a portion of their savings on a trip of a lifetime. I felt a tinge of luck because I got to embark on the same trip at a much earlier juncture in my life and sorta got paid to do it because my client got me halfway there -- I was already in Peru, all I had to do was figure out how to get from Lima to Machu Picchu in order to cross off an exotic destination that appeared in the Top 5 on my bucket list. That's where the little old lady with the limp came in.

Two huge buses idled in front of our hotel, but we were not on neither bus. The little old lady with the limp waved over to us and we followed her to a white station wagon parked behind the buses. She arranged a private car to take us from Cusco to Ollantaytambo. Our driver, Joseph, spoke passable English and cranked up a mix of reggae songs on his car stereo. I stuffed my bag in the back and slid into the front seat. I was gonna be riding shotgun all the way to Ollantaytambo and hoped that I didn't have to shit my pants.


Our route took us up to the outskirts of Cusco up into the hills and we quickly passed any of the big buses on the way. We reached a valley surrounded by rolling hills and farmland that was flanked by the ominous Andes Mountains in the background. At one point, Joseph stopped the car and parked on top of a vista for us to snap a few photos. After an hour or so of driving, we reached the town of Ollantaytambo, located in a valley, and we made our way down from the mountain. We drove through the main part of town, the only route to the train station on the outskirts. We got caught up in traffic at the end of one square. A clusterfuck of small vans and buses filled with tourists were trying to force themselves into a one-way cobblestone road. An exhausted solider with a rifle slung over his shoulder acted as a traffic cop, but there was nowhere to go. We had about ten minutes before our train left the station. At some point I wondered if we should start walking...but then the traffic miraculously subsided and Joseph dropped us off in a parking lot adjacent to the train station.

Vendors as young as six years old swarmed us as we walked down a hill to the depot. It reminded me of Shakedown Street in the parking lot of a Phish or Grateful Dead show -- minus the spun-out wooks slinging drugs -- instead locals were hawking hats, sunscreen, bottles of water, and batteries.

We found the toilet, but it cost 1 soles (35 cents) to get in, and an old lady on a stool front handed you two squares of toilet paper -- hardly enough to clean yourself if you seriously busted ass. The runny eggs were rumbling inside of me and I rushed for one of the two stalls. I was greeted by no toilet seat and the toilet itself was rather small, only a few inches off the dirt floor. I had a false alarm, which was good, because I wasn't prepared to shit in a hole in the ground.

We approached the platform and got caught in a crossfire of mass confusion. People were streaming in all directions from all areas. A group of Peruvian guides, all short men around 5 feet in height with reddish brown skin in alpaca hats, had disembarked from what looked like a cattle car and two Peruvian rail workers at the train's doors hurled backpacks into a pile on the platform, where the guides hovered to retrieve their gear. Meanwhile, hundreds of tourists were getting off the train, while hundreds more were scrambling to catch the train before the doors closed. The train from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu ran on the same singular track. A couple of times a day it transported tourists and supplies back and forth, back and forth.

Sos found a Peru Rail worker who pointed out our exact train. We had less than a few minutes to spare when we boarded what appeared to be a "first class" car. The little old lady with the limp arranged us passage in the "vistadome" car which had windows partially built into the ceilings to view the Andes on our two hour trip to Aguas Calientes.

I had a window seat and noticed that a Japanese guy sat in the aisle seat in my row and his girlfriend sat across from him in the aisle. With the few Japanese phrases I knew, I excused myself and asked him if they wanted to sit together. They were extremely grateful for the gesture and continuously thanked me as the train pulled out of the station, even offering to take a photo of me. Sos gave me a little guff for becoming their new best friend and a celebrity in Japan.

I kept my camera out of sight. I shot a few minutes of video en route to Ollantaytambo, but didn't want to shoot my load taking photos/videos of the mountains along the Urubamba River, an uniquely dangerous waterway where no boats could traverse the narrow river because of all the jagged rocks underneath the water that created rapids that were unnavigable, even for the most astute class five rapids adventurers. I understood why the Spanish never conquered or reached Machu Picchu, because it was in such a remote place, then boats could not get in and the only way to reach the spiritual center of the Incan empire as by foot on the Incan trail.

The railroad had been built at the turn of the 20th century and it followed alongside the Urubamba River, which I nicknamed as the Chocolate Milk River because of it's milky brown color. On the other side of the river, you could see the infamous Incan trail, and a few brave souls were in the middle of their arduous hike.

Our first class car was filled with tourists from all over the globe, which I quickly learned from the variety of languages spoken. A teenager next to me was from Argentina. In front of Shirley and Sos were Germans. A few Brits were in front and a horde of Brazilians were behind us. They went a little loco when the train pulled out of the station and made its first turn through the mountains. Everyone with a video camera or professional camera went berserk in the narrow aisle of the train, elbowing each other for a shot of the mountains. At first I was perplexed -- it was just mountains and not Machu Picchu -- why the fuck was everyone going apeshit trying to get a few seconds of videos in the mountains?

That frenzy died down after twenty minutes and it felt good not to have someone's sweaty ass in my face trying to steady themselves to snap photos of cloudy mountains. I ignored the vapid jackals and settled in with my iPod and mentally prepared myself for the eventual summit at Machu Picchu.

An hour into our voyage, the crew served us a snack in baskets comprised of cookies, fruit, and a roll with a slice of ham and cheese. I skipped the cheese and ate everything. I ordered a coca matte to drink because I needed another injection of Incan Red Bull before we reached the end of the line.

As we inched closer to Aguas Calinetes, the rolling hills and farmland gave way to thick, jungle canopy cover. The mugginess set in and the train grew eerily quiet as we inched into the station. Aguas Calinetes had hot springs at the edge of town, but the mood seemed somber and intense. The lush, green mountains shot up all around us like New York City skyscrapers, but it was surrounded by puffy white and grey clouds, which blocked out the sun and gave the air a smoky, dreamlike quality to it.

We found a woman in an orange jacket at the station waving a piece of paper with Shirley's name on it, after a slight miscommunication about our accommodations, we figured out what hotel we were booked in, but our rooms weren't ready. We had to dump our bags into a metal wagon, which was guarded by a guy in a green doorman's outfit with a name tag for our hotel. The process seemed a little sketchy, but we had no choice but to leave our bags with the wagon because we were scheduled to be on a private tour in less then thirty minutes.

We ditched our bags and I only took a liter of water and my camera with me. The lady in an orange jacket practically dragged us out of the train station, begging us to hurry every few seconds, because we needed to get to the bus depot as soon as possible. I had just stepped off the train and was still trying to get my bearings when the lady in the orange jacket was leading us through a darkened maze of a market with tin roofs and filled with tons of cheap tourist stuff. I told Sos that I'd catch up with them, so I stopped at a stand to purchase a contraption that allowed you to carry a water bottle in a pouch slung over your shoulder. It cost me 5 soles and ended up being a clutch purchase. I also picked up a couple of crystal stones which I intended to carry the top of Machu Picchu with me, whereby allow the rocks to absorb the energy of the pyramids, and then take those rocks back to the States with me to disperse to a couple of friends who actually believed in that sort of mystical power.

We crossed a bridge into the actual town of Aguas Calientes, practically jogging in order to keep up with the lady in the orange jacket. She eventually stopped alongside a street that had two big tour buses. We stood in a single queue and waited to board the bus. The first one filled up and sped away, literally leaving behind a cough-inducing dust cloud. We were the last people to board the second bus as dozens and dozens of other tourists stood in line behind us.

The entire morning had been hectic -- wake up at 4:30am, breakfast at 5am, check out of the hotel, get a ride from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, then take the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Caliente, only to be rushed off the train, dragged through a darkened market, and tossed on a bus. I was a tad frazzled, but Sos bubbled over with excitement. He couldn't contain himself and he looked like a kid on Christmas morning. We all sat in the last row of the bus and I took the center seat. Shirley had the window and I could tell that she was slightly freaked out at the sheer drop off from the menacing cliffs as the bus rocketed up the mountain on a dirt road that kept winding up and around, and up and around, and up and around.

It's at that moment when terror set in. We've all experienced that moment in a foreign land when you start questioning and doubting everything. My mind was paralyzed with a morbid thought: if the bus fell off the side of the mountain, then we were properly fucked because if the rescue teams got to us by the end of the day, maybe we'd have a slight chance of reaching a hospital by the next day, so I calculated how much blood could I lose before I either 1) passed out, or 2) died.

At that point I blurted out, "Machu Picchu is a wonderful place to die."

Sos didn't blink and said, "Absolutely."

That's when the terror subsided into a calming, soothing realization that I had no control over the next twenty minutes, let alone major aspects of my life. Surrender to the flow, even if it's morbid flashes of death.

I sincerely hoped that the driver was well paid and more importantly, that he was having a good day. Personally, I got paid an absurd amount of money to visit exotic locations to write about people playing cards, so I hoped that whomever owned the buses (the Peruvian government or Ministry of Tourism), paid the drivers, especially our driver, a very good and competitive wage. After all, our lives were in his capable hands as he swerved to the side to allow a bus pass us in the opposite direction.

"Holy shit! I thought this was a one-way road!"

Yes, despite the narrow, windy road, buses traversed both ways.

I always thought that I'd die in a place crash, but I looked off the side of the cliff and reminded myself, "Machu Picchu would be a good place to die."

By the look of Shirley's face, I assumed she had similar thoughts as me with her eyes fixated on the drop off from the side of the mountain, whereas Sos was all smiles for the entire ride. He was a kid in a candy store on Christmas morning and he couldn't have run off the bus fast enough.

We were greeted by a man named Augustine, our private guide for the morning. He assembled a small group of about eight of us including a British couple in their late 60s and an American woman about my age and her elderly mother. Both older women carried walking sticks, and I kinda wished I had bug spray. Our guide pointed to the toilets, "This is your only chance to relieve yourself because there are no toilets inside Machu Picchu."

As per the norm in Peru, you had to pay 1 soles to use public toilets. The guard handed me a receipt and pointed at a roll of toilet paper next to her guard desk. We got unlimited TP, unlike the train station in Ollantaytambo. Sos and I joked that were were going to take a shit and that we should have made shirts that said, "I dropped a deuce at Machu Picchu."

With a cleared out digestive tract, I was ready to enter the holy sanctuary of Machu Picchu. The guards checked your passport and scanned your ticket. Our guide pointed out that you could go to a different window to get your passport stamped with Machu Picchu on it and I decided that was going to be the coolest stamp on my passport (with the exception of Antarctica which I probably will never achieve, but it's on the bucket list).

Once inside, I followed the guide along a narrow path. To the left, a couple of tourists snapped photos of the dedication plaques while to the right, a flimsy wooden rail as the only thing that prevented me from falling off the side of the mountain.

I never heard the introduction from the guide. I was caught up in my own world, soaking up the truly awesome sight. The journey had taken over 24 hours since I left Lima for Machu Picchu and despite the stay over in Cusco, we had finally arrived. I kept snapping my own internal photos to ensure memory burns, whereas I could hear Sos muttering, "This is so fucking cool. This is so fucking cool."

I got smiles writing that because his phrase succinctly described what was going on inside my head.


Our guide
After the initial shock of being at Machu Picchu wore off, I began documenting my visit with videos and pictures, and I attentively listened to our guide reveal insights into Machu Picchu.

Sos went nuts when we reached the Temple of the Sun. I joined in on his enthusiasm, because that was the one piece of masonry that I was the most curious about. The theory goes that the Incas constructed almost all of the structures on top of Machu Picchu, but aliens built the original temples, like the Temple of the Sun, and the Incans built on top of them. The vast difference in construction styles were staggering from other structures compared to the Temple of the Sun, which had smooth, polished rocks that were earthquake proof and so densely stacked together that I couldn't squeeze a business card through the cracks.


Temple of the Sun
The question remains -- how the hell did the original architects get those huge stones to the top of the mountain? And how were they able to create such a flawless structure that withstood seismic events and hundreds of years of inclement weather?

Like I wrote in my last piece Lima > Cusco: Coca Tea, Alien Stonework, and Saqsayhuaman, many Peruvians get pissed at you if you even hint at alien technological assistance, let alone theorize that aliens built it themselves. I understand how they view those assertions without proof as insulting, but then again, do they have any proof that their ancestors did it all by themselves? The lack of evidence on both sides allows speculation from half-baked scribes and amateur philosophers like myself.

I didn't climb Machu Picchu as a religious quest, especially because I don't consider myself religious or spiritual at all. I'm a born skeptic, and an existentialist Jeffersonian anarchist, even though I was raised in the Christian diet of buffet Catholicism. But it's hard for me to deny what I saw with my own eyes on top of Machu Picchu.

So, does God exist? If so, where was God on Black Friday when all of my friends lost their jobs? Or how about on 9/11 when the world as we know it shifted into a paradigm of fear mongering and disaster capitalism? Is God really a singular, omnipotent God, or a collection of celestial gods? Or are we really an experiment by the Anunnaki, who left us all behind?

Was I really ready to tackle all of those impossible-to-answer questions on this trip? Or was I supposed to confront those exact tough queries if all of my Catholic upbringing and rigorous education from the Jesuits aptly prepared me to engage in an internal symposium of religion, astrology, engineering, and philosophy... and if not on top of Machu Picchu, then where else was I going to seek answers to those questions?

I stood inside the Temple of the Sun passing my hands over the smooth stones and asking the same questions that many greater, more intelligent, more pious men before me asked...

Who is God? What is God? Does God exist?

Our guide, Augustine, mentioned that he's a devout Catholic and he believed that Jesus was the Son of God (and thereby believed in the Holy Trinity of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost aka the Holy Spirit), but he also was adamant when he said that he believed in Inti, the Sun God and Viracocha (the ocean god, or sea foam, which Incans believe is the source of life).

Although it was cloudy all morning, we were fortunate to experience huge chunks of time when the clouds dissipated and the strong sun shone directly onto our faces. I was bummed out that I didn't come better prepared (no sunscreen or bug spray), but at least I heeded Owen's advice of taking water with me to Machu Picchu since they didn't sell anything inside the ruins. With the powerful sun hovering above us, it was easy to understand the relationship between Incans worshiping Inti the Sun God, because the sun is the source of life in our solar system, because without it, Earth would be a frozen rock at the edge of the universe. But with the sun's warmth, we have life, and it's a life enriched by rivers, oceans, mountains, fruits, vegetation, cattle to be slaughtered for In-N-Out Burgers, and most importantly, Atlanta Braves baseball (I once heard a story, and sincerely doubt that it's true, but it's fun to spread the urban myth that Ted Turner said he was positive that God's favorite baseball team was the Atlanta Braves).

You didn't have to scan back and forth on top of Machu Picchu for more than a few seconds to understand why that particular mountain top was chosen as the spiritual epicenter of the Incan Empire. Cusco was the political and commercial center, but the mountainous retreat of Machu Picchu allowed the intellectuals and religious leaders to get as close to the gods as possible.


The steps that our guide pointed out as farmland were amazing. He gave us a quick tutorial on step farming that included building a retaining wall and filling in the gaps with materials as it flushed against the side of the mountain. Among the fillers included sand -- mainly from the bottom of the chocolate-milk covered Urubamba River -- but he also noted that archeologists noted that Machu Picchu's farming steps included sand from the beaches alongside the Pacific Ocean, imported from several hundred miles away. The Incans treated sand as a powerful commodity and I wondered the hell they were able to transport all that sand from the ocean to Machu Picchu -- that takes a lot of llamas dragging sandbags through the jungle and mountains.

Animals and wildlife were prevalent on top of Machu Picchu, including llamas and lizards, both incidentally were titles for Phish songs. The llamas roamed freely in Machu Picchu grazing on grass in the large courtyards, but they were nimble enough to climb up and down steps that were five feet or higher. I tried to visualize a few hundred or so people living up on Machu Picchu all year round -- farming high-altitude crops of potatoes, maize, quinona, passion fruit, and coca leaves. Our guide mentioned that the Incans feasted on guinea pigs and even llamas. He even referenced human sacrifice to appease the gods during times of tumultuous natural disasters.

We made our way to the top of one pyramid like structure where the Inca Stone was located. The Stone had been rumored to have special magical powers due to its mystical energy. The stone didn't look like many of the other stones at Machu Picchu and was the source of controversy among archeologists, ufologists and geologists. Much like the stones at Saqsayhuaman, it had a "porcelaneous" quality to them. I read somewhere that the Inca Stone could not have been cut that way and that it was thermally disaggregated, just like the stones from the Temple of the Sun. If that's the case, then how did the original engineers acquire a heat source to alter the thermal dynamics of the stones?

You're not supposed to touch the Inca Stone, rather, you're supposed to get as close to it as possible without touching it in order to harness the positive energy of the stone.


After visiting the stone, I was struck with an emotional moment after being jarred with the spirit of my grandmother. I never fully had any closure because I never got to say goodbye before she died while I was away on an assignment when I first got into poker. In many ways, I achieved closure on top of Machu Picchu with a lot of internal family stuff. The entire trip to Machu Picchu was surrounded with many "opened" and "closed" doors in my inner reality as I realized I was standing on the most powerful fields of energy on the planet. Whether or not it was its intention, but I was confronted with an opportunity to let a lot of mental baggage go, and at the same time, find the courage to deal with a monumental tsunami of change that is headed my way as the insanity of the world seems to be accelerating at a rapid pace that any day now, it can all blow up.

After an intense few hours, our guide said it was time for a lunch break and that he'd be leaving us behind to explore Machu Picchu on our own. We exited the park and grabbed a quick bite at the snack bar because paying $33 for a buffet that was not the Bellagio seemed absurd. After lunch, we hiked up to the highest point of Machu Picchu to snap some photos. I almost slipped on one of the stone paths but caught myself before anything bad happened. The way my body spasticly jerked, Shirley freaked out because it appeared as though I was about to tumble off the side. I assured her it looked more dangerous than my body responded, but I was lucky -- it was a lot closer of a call than I suggested.

At that point, I needed some alone time after an intense situation with the Inca Stone, so Sos and Shirley decided to see if they could keep hiking up to the top of the mountain, meanwhile, I settled into a grassy knoll on one of the farming steps and fired up my iPod. I specifically wanted to listen to a version of 2001 by Phish when I reached the top of Machu Picchu -- and I got my wish. I listened to 2001 and highlights from the infamous Charleston, SC show from last October. I actually dozed off for a few minutes and could only wonder what sort of dreams I had because I couldn't recall any of them when I woke up.

By the time Sos and Shirley returned it was mid-afternoon and had spent almost six hours at Machu Picchu. It was time to head back to reality and take a bus back to the bottom of the mountain. It wasn't as scary going down as you were going up, probably because of the calming nature of visiting Machu Picchu had on everyone, particularly me.


We checked into our hotel without an problems, and we were set up in one of the nicest joints in town on the same block that ran along the Chocolate Milk River. I could see and hear the raging rapids out of my window as I slowly took off my drenched clothes. My room was swanky enough that it had DirectTV and the bathroom had a bidet. I actually broke the toilet in my room.... I flushed it, hopped into the shower, and when I ended my shower I heard water running. I thought I left the bidet running but it was the toilet that couldn't stop flushing. I had to call down to the front desk and explain in broken Spanish that I broke the toilet. It was fixed, but I'm sure they made fun of me as the gringo who broke the toilet.

Shirley, Sos, and I were famished so we ate at one of the dozens of "pizzerias" in Aguas Calientes. The menus looked the same and I assume one guy probably owned all of them, so it didn't matter which one we ate at because it was a virtual monopoly. The thin crust pizza was surprisingly good for South America and fired up in a wood-burning oven. I opted for bacon pizza and a Susquena, a local beer... and that beer never tasted better after a long day. Machu Picchu was a few thousand feet lower than Cusco, so we adjusted to the altitude with ease. No headaches, but I had wicked sunburn on my neck and ears, plus my back was sore and I had a shin splint in one of my legs (opposite my bum knee). I was hurting like beat-up veteran catcher Jake Taylor after his first Spring Training game with the Indians, but all of that pain was welcomed because it came at the expense of a bit of spiritual clarity and revitalization.

After dinner, I collapsed in bed and watched the Yankees-Blue Jays game on satellite TV. The announcers were Mexican and I was in the Andes of Peru watching my Bronx Bombers play a team from Canada. Thomas Friedman would call that globalization at its finest hour. I passed out as the game went into extra innings. After an hour or so nap, I looked in the mirror at my bright red ears, popped a Vicodin, and decided to wander around town in search of the local produce or hash. I noticed signs for hostels and figured an influx of hippies could mean potential flourishing black market for hashish. After all, at all the tourist shops in town, they had a decent collection of stone pipes. Now only to find something to put in it...

The main square had a three-story tall 24-hour cafe and restaurant across the street from the police station, which was bigger than the school. I ordered a beer and made small chit-chat with a trio of Scandis. They were in their 50s and looked more like European businessmen on a holiday, than the hemp-toking beatniks I was hoping to find. The waiter suggested I checkout the disco or one of the karaoke bars around the corner, but the directions he gave me were bunk and I didn't find any karaoke joints, nor a disco. I found a shoeless wook sitting in front of a hostel strumming a guitar and thought I hit the jackpot, but he was Brazilian and didn't know what the fuck I was taking about when I asked, "Donde esta la mota?"

I gave up, bought a big-assed orange Gatorade and chocolate-covered wafers at an all night store for the equivalent of $1.75, and went back to my hotel room. I uploaded all of the photos off my camera and onto my laptop. The hotel didn't have wifi, which was good. I didn't want to jump onto the grid just yet. Instead, I created a blank word document, slid open the window to hear the raging Chocolate River, and began writing... "The wake-up call was set for 4:30."

* * *
I posted four complete galleries of photos, including almost 180 photos of Machu Picchu...

Machu Picchu
Aguas Calientes
Cusco, Peru and Saqsayhuaman Ruins
Lima, Peru

Stay tuned for a video(s).