SHE’S FINGER LICKING, FINGER LICKING GOOD Y’ALL

Driving north from Washington DC to Maryland, a hop across to Delaware, a skip through New Jersey and a jump into Pennsylvania. Including DC, that’s five states in one day… Phew! We drove to a Camping World, RV service centre and a nice man called Gordon showed us how to turn on the propane gas. Four long weeks with fire-baked potatoes and beans as the only hot meal we could make (and only then when we stayed in State Parks) and with the flick of a switch, gargantuan Gordon gave us hot water for dishes and possibly a hot shower, a hob and an oven. This guy was The Second Coming. A Messiah delivered unto us to perform RV miracles.

This morning I realised why my brother had sent me a text and an e-mail in which he called me Uncle Bill. At the time I thought nothing of it, but at midnight as we lay in bed chatting I bolted upright and looked at the text again. My Brother was having a baby! My brother! Now I know you don’t know him, but trust me… that is a whole other level of weird. He met a girl on the internet and married her five months later.

I mean how stupid is that, meeting a girl on the internet and marrying her?

Walking passed a tramp in the fine city of Philadelphia, he shouted after us “Now there’s a pretty face” Then addressing me “Boy you better put a ring on that girl’s finger” He even followed us down the street to demonstrate his insistence, oh and ask us for some money. He was a nice fella, called Julius. Okay, I know what you’re gonna say. This all-in-green-tracksuited old, grey-bearded black guy was just some bum on the street, but like the Oracle of Delphi, reading between the lines, I think he spoke some words of wisdom. He lost us a bit by staying Natalie was “finer than a bucket of” some kind of foodstuff, I think some chicken-based product but who’s to say he’s any less qualified to comment on love and beauty? It may have been a broken heart that lead him to be on the street in the first place. For all I knew he was a modern-day Pennsylvanian Nostradamus bringing couples together and prognosticating on our future life together… He also gave us utterly cock-bollocks-wrong directions to the Liberty Bell.

So equally he could have been a bit mental.

We asked another man who thought he was a French beat-poet, beret and all, for directions to the famous cracked landmark. After a long walk in the chill wind we found the site of George Washington’s house. It had been pulled down, but there was a picture of how it might have looked at the time and a picture of his slave cook who won his freedom by cooking some kick-ass curries. Ok, it didn’t really say that but I had to make something inspiring up as it was pretty dull there. We found what looked like either a bus shelter in Leeds or a prison for lesbians but where was this fucking bell?

It was inside the red-bricked and glass prison. Encased in a cold, empty room, as some drunk tourist tried to put another crack in it a few years back, it was a major disappointment. I’m not surprised someone had a pop at it, these town-planners had pulled a mighty clanger building this carbunkle around it. I had expected a huge copper-green dome you could walk around, maybe even into. From behind the glass you couldn’t really make out the bell, nor its celebrated defect.

I’ve seen a better a crack hanging out of the back of a pair of jeans.

WAR... WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

We parked in Georgetown, Washington DC, a beautiful area, with cafés and boutiques and small, quaint, pastel-coloured, English-looking terraced houses. I could imagine living there…


Battling the bitter cold we took the bus downtown, where a woman thought I was mental as I tapped the glass like I’d never seen that particular material before. I didn’t want to tell her that glass is actually a liquid, and in a thousand years that particular window would have slowly melted so that the bottom of it was ten times as thick as the top, as it would have blown her tiny mind.

We alighted said bus at 17th and walked towards the Washington Memorial, the giant white Egyptian obelisk that dominates the city’s skyline. Consulting the map, this city seemed to be a town for memorials, statues and museums of past fallen heroes when at war with the English, the French, the Indians, the Japanese, the Vietnamese, the Iraqi's - you name it these guys have fucked them up... Statues and cemetaries are everywhere, but somehow the city is devoid of soul.

All these people have died in the name of their country, sometimes justly, sometimes unjustly, all no doubt thinking it was a lovely and honourable thing to do... 1776, 1914, 1941, 1960's, 1991, Gettysburg, The Alamo, Wounded Knee, Pearl Harbour, Saigon, Tikrit... and for what?

So their fat fucking grandchildren could sit on their fat fucking arses watching jailbait Hannah Montana undress on their rear seat DVD players, collecting mechanically separated McNuggets and drinking three-pint cups of cherry coke from drive ins before they get pregnant at fifteen from the one good sperm that Trey the Jock will produce in his lifetime.

Grandparents by thirty five, their ancestors spinning in the grave, secretly wishing they had surrended to the Japs or the Yankees.

Cussing.

Lots.

Happening upon a white house, Natalie asked if it was “The White House” I concurred that it was, but she wouldn’t believe me… So much so that I began doubting it myself. I remember talking at primary school how everything in America was bigger and better than home on Blighty. In what may have been my first piece of stand-up comedy I eulogised on the difference between the minutiae that Coronation Street dealt with compared to Dallas or Dynasty and how our prime minister’s residence, 10 Downing Street was little more than a terraced house compared to the size and exuberance of The President’s.

How wrong I was. It was tiny!

We deliberated as to whether this could be the single most important seat of power in the world and finally I convinced Natalie it was. We were well disappointed. When I’d seen this building decimated at the hands of an invading alien force in Independence Day, or every time I’d seen it on the news, I figured it would be ma-hoosive.

We saw the vegetable patch that the Barack and Michelle Obama plan to use and the President’s own one-hole golf course on the lawn outside. If you look closely you can see the tiny blue flag on the eighteenth hole.


The treasury building next door was more impressive, but not as white. Natalie seemed concerned at the lack of security, I didn’t tell her of the anti-aircraft guns mounted on the top of the building and suggested she should climb the gates to ascertain if there was any security. We walked around and took some pictures before seeing George Washington’s column and the lake leading to Lincoln Memorial.

We walked the downtown area, seeing some secret service men and more civilians who had convinced themselves they were real-life spies from 1970's films...



and made it as far as the Senate on Capitol Hill. Their equivalent of The Houses of Parliament, I think. Much more impressive. We walked through the freezing weather until our brains and feet ached and made it home to a ham and cheese sandwich and an early night.

The next morning we visited the statue of the dudes raising the flag at Iwo Juma, after the famous picture Joe Rosenthal took. Made famous of course by Clint Eastwood.


We sauntered passed a giant building that turned out to be a giant organ donated to the American people by the Dutch. I think they were taking the piss. At Arlington National Cemetery we took some snaps. Viewing them on the computer Natalie thought there was a ghost of a man walking in amongst the graves but it was just a road sign. Quite a spooky road sign in fairness.



I’d have liked to have seen the statue of Abraham Lincoln but I guess bumping into the incumbent President himself made up for that.


I only got one picture of him in my baseball cap, but we sat drinking white hot chocolate in a Starbucks and tried to fix the world for twenty or twenty five minutes. He vowed to pull all troop out of Iraq by 2010 and I promised to make my bed in the morning.

He was cool.

But he doesn’t know if there really are aliens at Roswell nor who shot JFK.

Plausible deniability n’all that.

SCREAM IF YOU WANNA GO FASTER

SERANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, VIRGINIA

Without even showering at her cousin’s, an experience which would last five days for her (three for me) we arrived at a state park in darkness. I made the quickest and best fire yet while Nat prepared the jacket potatoes and beans. Sometimes I feel at peace outside in the wilderness, collecting my thoughts, sometimes I’m so scared poo nearly comes out of my bottom.

This was one of those times. We could hear a group of kids way off in the distance but human voices can carry long distances, and as Natalie pointed out, in the movies they’d get it first. In fact in horror movie rules, so expertly laid out in Scream, it would be the girl who just bared her breasts for the camera who died first. Good job there were none of that going down. Ah.

I purposely did not say the words “I’ll be right back” each time I went to tend the fire. These were the kind of woods that faces appear behind trees. Where willow-the-wisps trick your eyes and unseen black bears salivate over your roasting potatoes. Torchlight only makes it worse, more like a slasher-movie as you frantically reposition the spotlight in the direction of the slightest noise. An hour or so later of hair standing up on the back of your neck, our jackets uncloaked themselves to reveal luscious, perfect, creamy interiors.

I’m talking about the potatoes not Natalie.

SILENCE AIN'T GOLDEN

WINSTON-SALEM, NORTH CAROLINA

The half way point of our journey was approaching fast, and we intentionally stayed South for almost a week so we could stop off at Natalie’s cousin’s house for a weekend. I was kind of viewing it as a traveller’s rest, a place we could sit back, stay for a night or two, put our feet up and relax while someone looked after us. We rang them from the nearby town of Winston-Salem saying that we would be staying in a car park that night so they invited us over… The second we arrived that idea of us relaxing changed. We walked into their house, a lovely big, well laid-out, clinically clean, new build in homogenised suburbia not to hugs and kisses for Natalie, not even a handshake for me. We sat and I drank a beer while Natalie had a nice cup of English tea. And while Samantha prepared a meal I tried to make conversation with Dave. I’m quite good at making conversation, you know fitting in, but he would not bite. No topic; sport, football, work, America, England, accents, quality of life… all were received with one sentence answers. I know we turned up a day early but did they not want us there or something? They knew we were coming.

Michelle, their friend silently played with Grace, their five year old daughter. I had expected Grace to be a bundle of precocious trouble, but she sat compliantly playing. This was the cute-as-a-button cheerleading future prom-queen sitting making beads. They may have been tired after a busy week, but they simply had nothing to say. Not only to us but to each other. After a while I gave up trying to make small-talk and ate my dinner as the six of us stared endlessly into the nether not uttering a word. Silences of two and three minutes passed without a word. They stated they were not good hosts, with their deathly silences they would have made better ghosts. With every minute lasting at least an hour, we tried talking after dinner, about travelling and our route, planning what to see but it was all still very uncomfortable. Michelle seemed to talk the most, but she wasn’t exactly a skilled raconteur. We went to bed and didn’t sleep. There were only three rooms upstairs, the spare one we were in, Sam and Dave’s and Graces.

We figured Michelle must be downstairs in the basement in a coffin.

Natalie didn’t find it as awkward as me and said that her family don’t need to fill gaps in conversation. In the morning it was slightly better and we breakfasted on Winston-Salem’s very own Krispy Kreme doughnuts and weak coffee.

Then we drove to Pilot Mountain. A huge outcrop of forested rock encircled by ravenous vultures. Native American Indians used to use it at as a landmark. O.P. our RV made it to the top, and we set out on the one mile walk around the base of the rock on a lovely family day out. A lovely family day out without words, without the laughter and mirth and closeness you’d expect from a household with a five year old daughter. My family are not close by any means, in fact probably way more distant than Nat’s but at least we would laugh and joke and reminisce and chat and get endless cups of tea. I don’t know my cousins well at all either but I’m sure we would have been able to do our laundry, charge our computers and burn some DVDs for our journey. Now, I don’t want to come across all cynical, I am grateful that they took us in for the night so I’ll just say it was very strange.

Needless to say, I am not looking forward to meeting Natalie’s parentals.

I WANT TO LIVE IN AMERICA, EVERYTHING FREE IN AMERICA

ROCKY BAYOU, DESTIN, FL

I’ve reached the conclusion that Natalie is trying to poison me.
My fingers have gone orange. Maybe she’s given me jaundice.

Florida beckoned. The Sunshine State.

It has not stopped raining.

Yesterday we went to the Henderson Beach, again in Florida but it was freezing.


One dip in the Gulf of Mexico was enough for us so we made a baby on the beach, we have pictures - look.


Though Florida was not on our route, but we’ve decided to take a few more days getting to Natalie’s cousin, Sammy in North Carolina. We intend to arrive Friday night so they can feed, water, shower and lauder us. They have a cheerleading six year old daughter, Grace. Joy!

We’ve been staying in Rocky Bayou State Park for $12.72 a night with water and electricity. The place is littered with squirrels. We’ve been professional rambling hikers and been on two walks in the forest. We saw a pair of ospreys a atop a nest in an old dead tree, some great blue herons and some bottle-nosed dolphins in the lake. We ain’t seen no alligators yet though. We’re staying again tonight after a trip to Destin Town to get a shit-pipe from Wal Mart so far, so good, the smell has gone… for now. Ooh and we bagged some free Lindt chocolate and groceries thanks to the self service checkout. We’re staying for free tonight as I chatted up Betty, the bespectacled, septuagenarian, crocodile skinned, bleach-blond, elderly park ranger.

I think she wants my cock inside her.

WAKE UP IT’S A BEAUTIFUL MORNING

MOBILE, AL

We ventured east through Mississippi to Alabama, Mobile County to be precise. Land of Harper Lee, Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, Atticus, Gem and Scout Finch, rabid dogs and rape trials. Mobile itself was kinda what I expected, folk sitting out on their porches whittling wood. Most of the houses were white and wooden, some had been painted blue and many proudly brandished Stars and Stripes and Alabaman red and white St Andrews’ cross flags. We drove down Dauphin Street to see the antiquated Alabaman adobes, seems, like Atticus, all are Attorneys at Law. That’s the old-money in the white parts of town, but the black parts of town are just as charming, with less of the grandeur. Lean-to wooden bungalows are dwarfed by the whitey’s mansions and pimped Lincolns and Oldsmobiles replace Saabs and SUV’s.


On thing that is the same in this state though… Everyone is huge - men, women, children, black, white, blue or gray. It’s a lazy ole place, it makes you wanna do everything slower, talk indolently, lethargically spit tobacco all over your recently whitewashed porch and move sluggishly, if at all. It’s a southern hot and sticky, like licking Juliette Lewis after one of her gigs yet it’s still winter here, I guess, or maybe spring, I really don’t know as I’m seasonally challenged. It’s not like you can ask either.

Which reminds me of the time we passed through a border patrol between New Mexico and Texas. Again a lovely, brown coloured Mexican man (oh the irony) inspected our passports, asked us if we had any immigrants on board and shot the breeze about where we were from and our RV. He looked back at our megabus. “What year is it?”

“It’s 2009” Natalie shot back.

There’s no flies on her; sharp as a button that one.

Ohh, I forgot to tell you we were stopped by the cops again. They wanted to know if we were carrying any marijuana, speed, heroin, methamphetamine or dead bodies. I told him there were quite a few on the windshield. He looked at me like I was an idiot!

Anyway, back to the story… After Natalie decided it was time for a diet (I’ve put on about forty stone in this country) we wandered into Mobile town after getting the electric step of our house fixed by a tire mechanic. We had had cereal for breakfast but sat down to Seafood Eggs Benedict with “deadly” hash brown for me and a chicken Caesar salad and potato soup for my cohort. The café was probably the poshest we’ve been to in America and it was good to see black and white folk mingling.

Across the way on Cathedral Square a teenage couple practised a cross between Ballroom and Rock ’n Roll jive dancing. They were pretty good. Either they were very much in love or he was gay.

There was a St. Patrick’s Day festival in the town square and we waited on tenterhooks for the parade. At 2.04pm, exactly four minutes late, cops on motorbikes having cleared the way, it began. Now remember I mentioned Natalie’s diet? Well what’s the worst that could happen? Buy-one-get-one-free hot dogs? Nope. Free green-topped Guinness? Guess again.

It started raining sweets.


As white, gold and green floats pootled passed, old men dressed as the pope, women, children and leprechauns threw brightly coloured Mardi Gras beads and bags of sweets, cuddly toys and lucky charms (medallions, not the marshmallow breakfast cereal) into the arms of the hungry awaiting mob. Previously paraplegic people jumped like slam-dunking basketball stars to catch the booty on offer. It was like a cross between Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory and Claire’s Accessories.


Any girls dream.

Natalie was happy and I had a black eye from one over-zealous nine-year-old candy tosser.

We enjoyed Mobile. And I didn’t even have to shoot any slavering diseased dawgs.

I’m still the best shot in the county, though.

I’D LIKE TO LEAVE THIS CITY, THIS OLD VAN DON’T SMELL TOO PRETTY

For four days and across four states we have been finding every town, city and road smells of shit. I thought we’d happened across a famous American shit-storm I read about on the cover of The National Enquirer A turd tornado. A septic cyclone.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Although the RV has everything we need, stove,, gas hob, generator, propane tank, water heater, kitchen, double sink, shower we have been staying in truck stops, showering every other day and cooking by campfire as we don’t know how to work anything. I’m a writer not a handyman. Ever since I pulled an unlabelled valve under the bus and out came a torrent of brown piss in a Wall Mart car park, said smell has permeated our lives and lungs. It’s like towing one of Glastonbury festival’s cess pit toilets behind us. Smiling faces quickly turn to anger after smelling faeces. Waving hands become fists and stones become projectiles banishing us from bumpkin towns.

We just had jacket potato with cheesey beans again. That should help.

Luckily the smell goes when we stop, else sleeping in our bed would be impossible. Natalie’s taking the RV to the RV centre tomorrow to ask a nice black man to loosen the poo from her pipes.

THE BIG EASY

The next day we went on the peasant wagon into New Orleans. We found the French Quarter and it was much nicer than the hood. Stone state buildings and yellow coffee houses, shrimp specialist restaurants all built (if this suzerain is a teenager) in this nations toddler years. It was so refreshing to see buildings with some history instead of the corrugated steel-topped shacks and giant Walmart’s of the Midwest.

We stopped at a touristy bar called Voila, with a man dressed as a football umpire touting for business with promise of $2 drinks. We had Corona’s and vodka and cranberry juice to wash down our buffalo wings and fries with two cheese, guacamole and lashings of sour cream. (Will’s guacamole is still the best though, hey Paul?)

We ambled through the narrow Creole influenced streets, at the pace The Big Easy dictates. Street performers did their thing and tourists and office-workers drank beers and margaritas on the streets as the state law encourages you to. You could even smoke in bars. We saw the cathedral and a steamboat and a statue to “the immigrants”. Natalie was T-I-P-S-Y on the M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I

Now I wanted to have a few more $2 beers, as I’ve become used to over recent weeks, you know a few relaxed, chilled beers, then treat us both to some real Cajun food; craw-fish or gumbo or jambalaya (not that it would have been as good as my ex’s jambalaya) Natalie got the face on becoming a reet mardy-bum saying I just wanted to get wasted. Not strictly true as I wanted some food too. Long story short we argued like we do every time we get drunk. I don’t understand it, it’s more than a lover’s tiff but it’s like we both have some deep seated resentment of each other that, when drunk, seethes out of us like puss or venom.

We went to another bar where seeing Natalie on her own when I was smoking outside, did a doubletake and double-backed to make a bee-line for her. I walked back in to find him sitting next to her and I was more than civil, cracking jokes and even buying him a rum. Natalie toyed with her hair and tried to look endearing. This guy Matthew was actually alright but it’s quite disconcerting that he was walking the streets, sober in a purple bandana, cowboy hat and T-shirt donated by a homeless man scouting for an unaccompanied girl to chat up. Luckily he would have carried on down the street and found someone slightly drunker, someone who didn’t have me to look out for her.

MEANWHILE DOWN AT BOSS HOGG’S…

When we’re not taking pictures of each other pissing against the side of the van from its roof, we speed down the Interstates, sometimes at 75mph. Giant water-towers signify each new town we pass. Town names like Dixie and Wells and Between emblazoned on the side. The water-towers sit silently watching over the townsfolk’s compliant behaviour like sentient mechanical beings from H.G. Wells visionary imagination or Ed Harris’s Christofl surveying Jim Carey’s Truman.

Much of Louisiana and Alabama reminds me of The Dukes of Hazzard. I don’t know if it was a real or imagined place, Hazzard County, but it was the only place in the world that mattered when I was six. Every Saturday tea-time, I’d sit speechless save for the odd whoop as the General Lee “did a jump” over a river. Before Knight Rider, before the A-Team, before Airwolf, there was Boss Hogg. Oh and the first love of my life - Daisy Duke. Every episode was the same, Boss Hogg’s immoral scheming foiled by the Duke boys whilst all the while hiding Uncle Jesse’s moonshine from Officers Roscoe P. Coltrane and Cleetus. I remember drawing the General Lee for a girl at my first primary school, she was called Mandy and I saw her knickers. That was probably the day I was scolded by mother for getting into the car after school by climbing through the window like Bo and Luke.

The last season jumped the shark, Bo and Luke went away and were replaced by their cousins. It just wasn‘t the same and part of me never recovered. I think that’s probably the day I was scolded by mother for using the phrase crock-of-shit. I also used it when Scrappy Doo was introduced to our screens and when Keith Flint became Prodigy when they released Firestarter

BOYZ IN DA HOOD

We arrived in Baton Rouge at 7pm and decided to push on to New Orleans that night. Oh how I wish we hadn’t. We inexplicably manage to find da hood in every town we visit. In Baton Rouge a bass playing, saxophonist by the name of Blaze stopped and talked to me, Nat says I always hang with my homeboys. We made the ninety miles in two hours but got lost (again) As can be expected we fall out when we get lost. When we’ve made a wrong turn, the boss behind the wheel just carries on driving as if we’re a titanic-sized cruiser that takes miles to turn around. I don’t get it. If I’m lost, instead of getting further from the last recognizable landmark, I would stop to take stock of the situation and find my bearings.

Anyway, we pulled into a gas station and out I jumped with giant map, notepad and pen in hand to ask for directions. I walked through the door and every black face in there slowly turned to me as if to say “What da fuck do you want” I looked at the floor, at the Starburst sweets on the shelf, all the time urging myself to not make eye contact. Normally smiling signifies acknowledgement or happiness but when the six foot guy behind the counter, face complete with gold-fronts smiled at me he was simply telling me to get out, I was in the wrong part of town.

On the way out, I accidentally brushed past huge guy on my way to the door.
“Sorry” He must have thought Hugh Grant was in the room, and I was his ventriloquist‘s dummy. I don’t know what I’d done to him but he hated me. I had to let two kids through the door before I could exit and these two eighteen year olds were the trouble. Hoods over baseball caps covering their eyes and a swagger I couldn’t pull off if I tried. I have never felt so uncomfortable, so scared by nothing in my life. I grew up thinking I was black; that I would be fine in any situation. I used to go clubbing, getting in all states til all hours, kick-stepping in a ring of my brothers at the Hub in Stockwell and The Fridge in Brixton Hell, I used to live in St Paul’s in Bristol But this was different. I’m not gonna say anything as dramatic as I was about to be shot o but I’m half-certain that those kids were there to rob the place. I’d also wager my house-on-wheels that they were packing a pistol. If I stayed any longer I, or worse, we would have been robbed at gun or knife-point and much as there is a have-a-go hero in all of us those are the situations where I’d gladly give over the content of my wallet to walk out alive. I think.

As I walked across the forecourt, I remembered Nat’s advice to walk like a white man. I used it as a mantra
As I minced back to our armoured house-on-wheels and, without moving my neck to face her or hardly my mouth I uttered “get the keys, we’re leaving… NOW” Natalie started the ignition and we arced round the forecourt. We started off down a road not knowing where we were nor what we were heading into. A hundred yards or so down the street Natalie screamed “Oh my God!” I missed the last half of her banshee-like scream. Cars were coming towards us blaring their horns. After what I’d just witnessed I expected the next thing I’d hear to be a barrage of gunfire. My heart was in my mouth and in all seriousness thought we might die. Forget my nearly drowning in quick-mud adventures and imagined alligators and embellished stories of nuclear attacks. Natty yelled “It’s a one way street; didn’t you see the arrows?”

I replied “I didn’t even see the Indians”

I did the only thing I could think of; get us to a white part of town. Now that sounds like the words of a daft racist, but please believe me, you’d have done the same. I know for a fact that any black friends I have would have done the same. So we drove to the centre of town, aiming for the massive Marriot hotel. Natalie stressed out driving the bus down New Orleans streets and I didn’t do too well keeping my calm. A series of bad navigations and wrong turns had me shouting and Natalie in tears. I had not yet told her what had just gone down in the gas station. So we headed to the State Park on a bayou. Only when we got there it was so scary we drove straight passed. Again the kind of place horror movies are set and young out-of-town couples get raped and murdered.

We spent the night in a brightly-lit Lowes car-park, the American equivalent of Homebase.

Needless to say, neither of us slept well.

SEE YA LATER...

MARTIN DIES JR STATE PARK, TX)

We travelled from Garland, North West Dallas through Jacksonville, Lufkin and Rusk. Despite the fact that we were passing the first greenery we’d seen in over a week in grey-soiled, sun-bleached, southern dustbowl America, and almost an English scenery unfolding before us, this was still deepest darkest Texas. We stopped for gasoline at a Mobil garage called “Nu Cabin” you know like Fiddy cent would spell ‘new‘ Natty stayed in O.P while I went to pay for the fuel as you have to in this country. Inside West Coast gangsta rap blared from the radio while booted, bearded and hatted old-timers nodded along in time. At the front of the shop were black hair extensions, thousands of them while at the back framed pictures of Barack Obama and pastille etchings of Nubian queens being seduced by Afro-American brothers were on sale at only $59.99. As I thanked the fifty year old white woman for my receipt she told me to “have a psyche day”

I haven’t heard that word since Ant and Dec had a music career.

We pulled off the highway in a town called Jasper, rocked passed a few brothers and sister’s houses and rounded a corner, stopping in a scrap yard. Smoking a roll-up we looked in the windows of old, beaten-up junked cars and an RV in a worse state than ours. The sun was cracking the over-green tarmac before it set for dusk and the wrecking yard was like the set of a deserted stop you’d see in a recently remade Wes Craven horror movie. If you imagine a cross between Freddy Krueger and Ice Cube what boogeyman would drag us to his cellar? A kick-stepping, hip-hop son of a thousand rapists. Hick-hop.

Speaking of horror movies, envisage a race of dreadlocked, warrior aliens descending on Jane Austen’s 19th century England. “Pride and Predator”

Anyway, back to the point… I wanted to go swimming in the lake, but Natalie wouldn’t come, nor allow me to go after we saw the signs saying DO NOT FEED OR APPROACH THE ALLIGATORS.


We set up camp in the forest bayou by parking the RV, I plugged in the electrics and water, which we still don’t fully understand how to work properly. I collected firewood ($5000 fine) and built a fire while Nat showered, before like real cowboys we had jacket potatoes and smoky beans with bacon and brown sugar and Monterey Jack cheese with Jalapenos. It was the best meal we’ve had in America so far. English comfort food.

Every time I went out to tend the fire or for a wee, I took the knife, pepper spray and the “fuck-off big stick”. The full moon was the only thing that wasn’t scary; we could almost have been in Burkittville, Maryland - Blair Witch territory. A raccoon made an almighty racket in the forest and I ran back inside quivering. When I knew what it was I was fine, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t a ’gator. I soon realised that standing with my back to the van might help warn me of any human, hillbilly or witch attack, but not if an alligator wanted my calves instead of milk and Oreos as a midnight snack.

At the time of writing we are in Louisiana on our way to the capital Baton Rouge. We woke up late again and while I was having my second shower in 12 hours (score, but we needed it after a really hot night) the park ranger accosted and reprimanded Natalie not for stealing sandwiches like Yogi Bear, but for not paying yet We did pay $19 at the Ranger’s station but have vowed to try not paying again…

We’ve turned into right thieves, like a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde I shoplifted some massage oil the other day as $14 seemed too much for such a cute, pocket-sized jar. At Wal-Mart I send Natty away when I abuse the self-checkout counter, since she’s rubbish at acting innocent, but she did steal a whole clove of garlic today.. This kind of behaviour can only end in one thing; being shot down by the authorities in a hail of bullets. If it makes you feel better we wouldn’t steal from little shops, just the big, corporate fat-cats. Every Little Helps.

ROUND ‘ERE WE SAY BIRDS NOT BITCHES

(ABELINE, TX)

We drove from Carlsbad to Abeline, Texas and pulled up to a cinema that was showing Watchmen. Woo-hoo! But it wasn’t on for an hour and a half, and Natty was tired from driving all day. Oh well. I guess I can’t complain, but I did feel a bit like a kid who just missed High School Musical 3. After nineteen years waiting to see the greatest graphic novel ever put to celluloid, I could wait one more day.

So we parked in United Supermarket’s giant car park. Then they arrived. They were from the crow family but had long tails. A murder of crows I believe the collective noun is. Only this was more like a genocide. Thousands of them were roosting in the ten or twelve trees encompassing the car park. Every tree was black with them, every single branch or twig acting as a perch. As we approached on foot they took flight, several hundred of them squawking to the next tree in a deafenining fit to wake their master, the devil himself. We successfully avoided being poo’d on. Eerily they stopped their chorus at midnight on the dot, then they were gone. Invisible, imagined, winged denizens of the night preparing to attack like Hitchcock’s Birds. They occupied Natalie’s head, flying in through her oversized cake-hole, invading her brain and plaguing her dreams.

STAND BY ME

(WHITE’S CITY, NM)

Breaking sleep for a cigarette at 06.00 hours something startled me. It was still pitch black but I could just make out the silhouette of a doe deer and two young, one I guess a yearling and one from this summer. He was tiny. I called Rip Van Winkle from her beauty sleep and she came to see them. I never know whether to keep those moments to myself or share them. I felt like Gordy in Stand By Me. It was ace.

We keep waking up so late, we promised each other we’d be organised but we ain’t. We don’t know from one day to the next where we’re driving to and I tend to make it up as we go along. Should we go to see the NASA space centre at Houston, or go see where John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in Dallas. I had to explain to Nat who JFK was and what happened at Dealey Plaza that fateful day.

Ah, bless. They don’t have school up north.

So Houston or Dallas?

If only there was a way someone else could make my mind up for me.

We’re 1233 miles into our adventure and part of my tooth just fell out eating some pistachio nuts, the rest of the tooth that fell apart in Sydney. It does not hurt, but what with my broken nose, bad shoulder, scars and now this I feel I’m falling apart.

It’s 18.00 hours on Sunday night - Corona with lime time.

ARMAGEDDON OUT OF HERE

Driving through the desert of New Mexico towards White Sands Missile Base I fell asleep. Without her co-pilot, Natalie missed the warning signs. I imagine they were quite obvious since they were kind of important… I don’t understand how in some ways she’s so very bright and alert and in other ways so dumb. Not only had we driven on to private property, we were trespassing on Military land…. on testing day. Whatever that meant. Bizarrely there were no other vehicles on the road, not even dark green military jeeps we had become accustomed to. No people, no roadside wildlife, not even a bird, just a solitary Lockheed SR-71 Stealth Bomber silently patrolling the skies Oh well, at least I might get see the intergalactic prisoners the Government holds there.

I was woken up by the sounds of sirens, not the police helicopter kind, more the ones we’ve heard from World War Two footage of Von Braun’s V2 doodlebug rockets landing on the east end of London. This was weird, why were sirens sounding in the middle of the desert? Crossing a sign pointing us toward the world’s first atomic bomb site, I quickly realised what was going down. We were going down, soon to be engulfed by an annihilating, million degree Fahrenheit ball of atomic energy. From many miles away, an authoritative male voice instructed us via a tannoy that the we had ninety seconds to reach the safe distance from the blast. 25 miles away.

The testing day they warned us of meant nuclear testing day…

Frantically, blankly looking at the map, we were only an estimated 18 miles from where I decided the epicentre would be.

“Drive!” I screamed to Nat. Behind us a car appeared also trying to escape the blast. We both had seven miles to cover in about 75 seconds. I don’t wanna be enveloped by a miniature, man-made star. The one thing in our favour was that if Indiana Jones survived this in a refrigerator, our home was essentially one giant baked bean can.

After just four miles the countdown from ten to our Armageddon began, nine short seconds later the fireball lit up our rear view mirrors.



We were still three miles within the blast zone. At zero I turned to Nat, “If we’re going to burn alive, I best tell you I love you”. She smiled and said “The only thing burning round here is rubber!” She had seen the brow of a hill and put her foot flat to the floor, our RV was doing over a hundred miles an hour when the white flash of absolute energy blinded us.


Then darkness, as if all the light and matter in the universe had been consumed by a New Mexican black hole.


Like a glow-in-the-dark lollipop, the giant yellow explosion turned the cyan sky behind us to navy blue I’ve never wanted to be so very far away from something so intensely beautiful. The atomic fireball was approaching fast; catching us up. I swear I could see an evil grin on it’s flammable face as it prepared to overtake our vehicle and devour our souls.


Motor parts were falling off O.P. as we bumped along the road. There goes our exhaust pipe, a second later it was a mangled mess of liquid metal, like Robert Patrick’s T1000 Terminator merged with the road. It was hotter than a whole jar of Colman’s English Mustard
Our back end was on fire, the opposite of Apollo 11 re-entering earth’s atmosphere. The back window smashed. Still in pitch darkness, Natalie careened us over a small ditch/cliff as a halo of fire entered the back window of our home. It set light to our cabin roof and then like fairy dust, it was gone.

We landed on our side, our home still on fire and skidded along the sand until we silently stopped. Optimus Prime was a little scorched and blackened on the outside but now we know he’s immune to nuclear blasts and radioactivity as well as zombies.

But that’s a whole other story…

Later that night, camped up we realised that O.P. isn’t as hermetically sealed as we thought. Some radioactivity had seeped in and scrambled our DNA, giving us mutant powers. Cool! We possessed superhero abilities. According to Nat, my two are the ability to not come in any human amount of time and making my head burst into flames like Ghost Rider...

while my sidekick’s are not being able to construct a complete sentence and lactating fire from her tits.

OUT OF GAS

Last night we drove from Lordsburg, New Mexico through El Paso, where we could see the giant Mexican flag signalling the border crossing - we have decided not to drive through Mexico on account of the stories everyone has told us, including Mexicans. They are cutting off tourists hands.

Oh, I haven’t mentioned how much we love our new home. We look forward to bedtime, its just like a proper home. There I said it. Happy now?

We made it onto the highway and soon Natalie started making noises about running out of gas. Panicking, we didn’t take the turn for Dell City and pushed on for an RV park in the Guadalupe Mountain National Park. We only just made it. O.P. was coughing and spluttering like one of Reverend Autry’s tank engines and we glided in on fumes alone. Two phone calls to the American Automobile Association later we were told that our fuel would arrive by 10.24pm. Very precise. We found a way of killing time and I was rudely interrupted filling Natalie’s tank with my fuel by a mechanic with more of the same.

I have come to the conclusion that Natalie is quite, quite insane…

This morning she dressed like this to use restroom:



That said, I did have my boxer shorts on backwards all day yesterday.

This afternoon we went to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. They are the biggest caves in the Western World, which only serves to make me want to see the biggest in the Eastern World. They were pretty impressive, my second favourite cave after… No, not Wookey Hole.

There were some familiar looking, lit up sights, like this one

and this one.

We secretly renamed them Natalie’s Caves, I think on account that she liked them so much.

I’m not sure, I’m confused.

APACHE INDIAN

O.P. made it up some mountain passes, which surprised us, she did good. Entering Apache Country, my mobile phone lost its signal - in terms of mobile coverage, it really was a-patchy area. I wondered what it must be like being a native on horseback a hundred years ago, before these roads dissected their valleys and mountain passes. Natty commented no wonder the Indians hate our society as we passed giant quarries, plundered by us palefaces. Although it is wrong on so many levels we wouldn’t be able to make our trip across America without roads and gasoline though.

As Chief Sitting Bull famously said “Only when the last tree has been felled, only when the last river has been poisoned, only when the last fish has been caught will white man learn that money cannot be eaten”

I only know that from the Ringo’s Pizza delivery menu. Hammersmith’s finest pizza.

Driving from just outside Phoenix through Arizona we passed through a half deserted ghost town by the name of Globe. We did not stop to talk to anyone, we did not want to. From the looks of it I guess it was once a mining town, but from the looks of the locals I reckon they had one mind between them.

As we cross more and more of the Arizona and New Mexico desert, buffeted by crosswinds and attacked by tumbleweed, Optimus Prime gets through more gasoline than Pacman gets through PacPellets. Last night we shoplifted showers from Pilot’s Trucker’s Stop. The door to the shower room was unlocked so in we crept; malodorous gypsies of the night, stealing hot water and electricity for 2 laptops, 2 cameras, 2 speakers, 1 phone, 1 ipod and 1 iphone. Thanks Pilot’s, we owe you.

Twenty five years on and I’m still making Pacman references, they do say that video games influence children, but I don’t believe them. If that were true, my generation who grew up with Pacman would all be listening to electronic music and munching pills in darkened rooms eh?

WE GOT OURSELVES A CONVOY

We spent last night in a truck stop. I’ve never done that before, but I figured its actually a safe place to stop for the night as I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?

Truckers carry guns. Science Fact. If Jason Bourne says so, that's good enough for me.

The thing that enticed us was the promise of vending machines, but their glass facades and no quarters acted as barriers twixt us and the trans-fatty carb-heavy chocolate paradises they held within. 24 wheelers pulled in next to us, dwarfing our behemoth of a home and somehow making it look cute. There were restrooms but no showers. We stink.

YOU’RE TWISTING MY MELON MAN

We’re in the Grand Canyon State and just got pulled over by Arizona‘s finest. Officer Gonzalez, a light brown boy in blue made Natalie produce her licence, registration and passport and made her walk back to his awaiting black and white while I was instructed to sit on the step like a naughty schoolboy. This did give me the opportunity to take the knife off my belt and throw it in the firewood cupboard along with the other weaponry; a fuck-off big stick, pepper spray and in extreme cases Natalie can do a rather good impression of a German Shepherd. Not a dog, just a Bavarian sheepherder called Dieter who has lost his lambs.

We knew our back light was broken, we will, of course get it fixed in the next town, Officer.

Negative thoughts flashed across both our minds as we were split up, what if it was full of drugs when we bought it, or there were hundreds of tiny Mexicans living under the thing? Cortez’s cooking chimichangas in the carburettor, Salazar’s seeking sanctuary in the spark plugs, Escobar’s eating enchilladas in the exhaust pipe?

He asked us a list of questions… where had we come from, how long we had been there, where were we headed, how long we had known each other, what relationship we were to each other, how much had we paid for the RV and whether it was full of drugs.

Luckily our answers were consistent, even if they were a pack of lies. According to US Law unfortunately we are now boyfriend and girlfriend; we both said it. Natalie with a long “errrrr…” as a prefix and me with “but it’s a long story” as a suffix. Nevertheless, it’s on record. I wish I told him I was going to fuck and eat her now, it would have been easier.

I was made to go stand by a road sign so I couldn’t jump him but Natalie thought he was going to use me and the sign as target practice so my lifeless body would slump effortlessly into the ditch but instead he searched our home for marijuana, cocaine, heroin and his fellow Mexicans. He did not find the ounce of crystal methamphetamine I plan to sell to New York celebrities or Marty, but he did totally check out Natalie’s permanently on-display arse-crack and smell her jar. He gave her a verbal warning.

WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME

We woke on a crisp-clear day, had chocolate cake and strawberry milk for breakfast and hiked a short way into the desert. Clambering under a precariously balanced twenty ton boulder down a gap Natalie did well to get her amazing child-baring hips through we sat and watched chipmunks and unknown critters sun themselves on the rocks. We climbed a stack of rocks, all of which seem to have been made of fibre-glass and placed there by a film crew or by Indian giants playing a game of granite Jenga. Or for you Christians out there, placed there by Jesus like colossal Sticklebricks. I can imagine the conversation “What’s that meant to be, Son?”

“It’s you Daddy”


We drove away for about a year and a day to the land where the Joshua Trees grow. Dressed in Elvis shades and a cowboy hat, we tried to recreate Anton Corbin’s black and white imagery of the eponymous album; only Natalie had never seen the cover. Then I drove Optimus Prime a couple of miles through the National Park and did good,. We walked some more and drove to Keyes Viewpoint where you can see the Salton Sea and a mountain on the Mexican border.

As I type Natalie is expertly driving us across the border into Arizona.

(Yes she told me write that bit - minus 20 cool points for her, even though she is an excellent driver)

We just passed a sign for the state penitentiary (or prison)

Under that another sign reading “DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS”

Marty who’s asleep on our bed in the back says he was “just passin’ thru” but seems nice enough…

Next stop - Flying J’s Truck Stop, outside Phoenix.

We didn’t want to go there, but Marty insists.

IT'S MY PARTY AND I'LL...

So it’s my birthday. If we get three score years and ten I’m exactly half way through my life. I woke up after our first night in our new home to… no presents. Not a single one. Not even a card. Not even a homemade card. Not even the words “Happy Birthday, Will” I’m so angry with Natalie right now; I’ve given her three strikes before I leave and she’s already used up two. If you’re reading this backwards, you’ll hear the first strike soon enough; it’s hilarious, you’ll piss and I’ll receive another flotilla of e-mails…

After an all-American breakfast served to us by Loretta


we went back to the RV site to ask Jolene the owner how the fucking thing works, but it was her husband’s day off, so instead of solving how to fill water tanks and suchlike we swung on swings and I made like a chimp across the monkey bars. Showing Natalie how to do pull-ups I cracked the back of my head on the metal bar behind me. My knee-jerk reaction was to lurch forward. Something in my nose crunched on the bar in front. Not good.

Two hours into my birthday I felt sick from eating too much chocolate and cream cake and had a broken nose. There was no blood, just the sensation of knitting needles being slowly forced into my brain via my sinuses. With no frozen peas, I spent a good half hour or forty-five minutes of my birthday driving round Arizona with slices of honey roast ham held firmly against my nose. Happy Birthday me. The mechanically separated, reformed pork may have helped alleviate any black eyes but the pain got progressively worse over the next few hours so I grinned and bared it through the Palm Springs Windmills - the thousands of white wind turbines that punctuate the highway (They appear in the film Alpha Dog with Justin Timberlake, if you haven’t seen it check it out, he’s really rather good, as is an unrecognizable Sharon Stone)

As we made our way up to the giant white structures, which seem like a cross between a bizarrely symmetrical invasion by John Wyndham’s Tripods and a thousand scissor-kicking Peter Crouch’s another helicopter buzzed overhead.











We were clearly not meant to be where we were; trespassing enemies of the state once again. There was no encircling this time, no sirens, no dash for safety yet the chill wind was hurting my nose like it never had before… I spent the next forty eight hours secretly necking ibuprofen behind Natalie’s back as she doesn’t even take paracetemol; what am I doing with this girl again?

One hour long stop for food and our first official argument later (naturally about her selfish lack of thought or planning to do anything whatsoever for my birthday) we arrived at The Joshua Tree National Park. We pulled in at dusk and set up camp,… well we parked the RV, I built my first fire for a girl and we drank Nat’s new fave tipple, Corona beers then stopped sharking a minute to eat chips and dips. We listened to the first album I ever bought - U2’s Joshua Tree. I reckon we must be the first people in history to have ever done that there.


After four beers we went to bed, only I couldn’t sleep and went out for a pee and a cigarette on my own in the wilderness. I prepared to be scared witless, like Somerset or Indonesia there are all sorts of wildlife out here; coyotes, mountain lions, pumas and peckerwood axe-wielding mutant in-breds, so the dash to the kasi had to be quick, like when you’re a kid frightened of the dark, hand already on the flush before you shake your pecker dry.

Outside, there was an eerie stillness. I felt completely at ease peeing under the silver light of the moon and about a billion stars. Coyote’s howled in the distance as I shivered, silently smoked and gazed up into space; above and beyond. I saw constellations I’ve never ever seen or heard of before, even one shaped like a cartoon heart. A shooting star blazed horizontally across the heavens, then ten seconds later another fell vertically to the earth. I waited for a third to make another wish, but it did not come.

SHOULD OLD AQUAINTENCE BE FORGOT

onday morning, our last day in LA and the day before my birthday...

After over a week couchsurfing at Leon’s apartment. My insomniac ways are back to haunt me and needed another three or four hours sleep over and above the pre-planned 07.30 alarm call. Leon took us out to a fast-food joint called In and Out. If you ever visit America go there. It beats what we know as hamburgers hands down… tenfold. The burgers are actually edible, the fries are hand-cut on the premises and each paper cup has a bible verse on the bottom. Mine was Levi 3.4 which I think means I’ve just gained a jeans size.



We’ll miss Leon, he is a strange one what with his dancing like a robot in Thai restaurants and musings on life but he let us live in his house for ten days rent-free (saving us $700 in hostels) showed us round, bought us meals twice and entertained or let us lounge around. The night before, Sunday Leon’s friend with benefits, Sunday came round. She seemed really nice but apparently has multiple personality disorder. I guess that’s good for Leon as he’s essentially having a gangbang with Sunday and four other, different girls. I didn’t enquire but for convenience, one assumes they’re named Monday through Thursday.


Earlier on Sunday we took the twenty five cent bus to Griffith Observatory as seen in Rebel Without A Cause. It boasts magnificent views south over LA and we hiked down to take some great snaps.

I'M A PING PONG WIZARD, IT HAS TO BE SAID

Not for the first time in her life, Natalie had a Big Wang - amazing chicken wings. Will’s friend A arrived and the Wills drank Bud cos the girls were driving. We went to a bar and played ping pong. We were all much better than I thought we would be. Will and I had a goliath game, I somehow had my killer serve intact though I hadn’t played since the fifth form common room. Nat was good and A took on and beat two random guys.

Me drunk, Natalie drove us nearly all the way home to Leon’s before we realised that I’d left my rucksack, containing her purse, my laptop, hard drive and both our passports in. What a complete dick. She turned us round, I rang a sober "A" who jumped into rescue mode and arrived miraculously to find my backpack lying there on the sidewalk where I'd left in. Intact.

What are the chances of that? In a city where bums pick up and sell aluminum cans and fag ends, it was still there. I secretly said a thank you prayer as imagine the trouble I’d have been in with the wife.

As we'd say in Briz; what a idiot.

The next day we spent about four hours cleaning the van and it was perhaps the first time I’d seen Natalie being homely. She put new apple-covered fablon on the fridge and was surprisingly house-proud. I reckon she’s lulling me into a false sense of security on that front and will lapse back to the messy slag I know she is from having lived with her before.

Joking aside, this is a big step for us both. I never thought I’d be buying my second home after what happened with the first. If you don’t know, I’m sure I’ll explain one day. I also never thought I’d be buying that home with Natalie. It’s possibly a bigger step for her, having lived with one other man in her life - her Dad.

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

One day we drove our hire-car to Hacienda Heights to see a camper van, only for the vendor to shout across his lawn that he’d just sold it ten minutes before. We didn’t like his tone.

All the while Denzel, I mean Morris was leaving aggravated voicemails for us. Another day we drove to meet Tom who was selling a great 23 foot RV. We really liked it and promised to come back in the morning to take it to a mechanic. Despite being assured we had first refusal he rang the next day to inform us that his wife had sold it that morning without his knowledge. Thanks a bunch Tom’s wife. If she can sell your car behind your back I suggest you check to see who she’s fucking behind your back, Tom. Back-stabbing, cock-hungry, on-all-fours, arse-in-the-air, sperm-gargling, money-grabbing Jezebel whore.

One day we drove to Lancaster, eighty miles away to see an RV that the owner informed us was out of petrol and wouldn’t start when we got there. Complete fucking waste of a day, still staying at Lisa’s house in Hollywood was cool. Lisa used to work in film and TV fashion but had given it all up aged 35 to retrain as a radiographer. She looked after us, letting us sleep in when she was out at early morning lectures or jogging and even took up my new jeans. What a star!

After two days at hers, we needed to find somewhere else to live. Preferably rent-free!

And that’s when Leon entered our lives, or we entered his; crashing at his flat and never leaving! At first we found him pretty strange, but realised he was just nervous. His real name was Leon yet his couch surfing name said Robert Patterson, who it turns out is the vampire in Twilight. Leon took us to a Thai restaurant on the second night where he started to dance like a robot, listening to Electro-pop from 1984.

Leon has been married twice, once for $10,000 to marry someone for a visa (the fake wife) and once for love (the real wife) We slept late and crashed early at his, all this walking round LA looking for an RV and jumpers with Canada Geese on was exhausting.

Then one day we went to see a van on Crenshaw, in da ghetto. It was huge, silver/grey and visible from space. As we were viewing it a car full of Mexicans screeched to a halt and offered to buy it for $3000 cash there and then. We were not sure if it was a plant. Natalie drove it like she was the one caught in headlights and we went away to consider our options.

After a day at HSBC and Western Union we travelled on the bus to meet Michael to give him the thirty-two hundred bucks for the beast. He said we were braver than him travelling on the bus to the hood, especially carrying $3,200. Michael did all the paperwork, some of which I swear is dodgy but it was fine. We drove away in our new home, our house on wheels and straight up the 101 to North Hollywood to see my friend Will from Bristol.

WELCOME TO THE HOSTEL CALIFORNIA

We stayed three days in total at the hostel, three days too long in our minds. Like every big hostel it was full of brash twenty four year olds who think they are God’s gift to life. They drink, shout and… well; that’s abut all they can do. One Swedish kid particularly annoyed me, so as a parting shot I conversed with a Japanese kid he was talking to, he thought I was taking the piss and showed himself up in a fit of cheap beer and teenage-like angst.

I expected to feel unsafe in LA, but when examples like walking down an alley and three black guys walk towards you only for them to greet you with a smile and the words “how’s it going” you have to re-evaluate those indoctrinations. That would not happen in London, f’shizzle.

After a few days staying at the awful hostel we spent our days at Dana’s flat between Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, looking in vintage clothes shops and pretending to look for camper vans. We had met Morris, a Denzel Washington look-a-like, part-time actor, poet and basketball scout who “helps kids find camper vans” We learnt a lot about what we did and didn’t want from a camper van from Morris but essentially he was a dodgy geezer trying to bully us into parting with our cash for something highly unsuitable. We saw Dodge Rams (too small) to RV’s the length of eight school buses.

Dana was wicked, you never know what reception you might get from long-lost friends, let alone long-lost ex-colleagues you knew for a few weeks in the Australian jungle and Fijian beaches. She welcomed us with open arms, picking us up and even giving up her bed for us. She cooked us a meal the first night and I drank her beer while Natty was too tired and off the booze, begging questions of “is she alright, she’s very quiet” We bought Thai take-out the next night and looked for somewhere to stay on couchsurfing.com.

Dana recently got a job on Dancing with the Stars - America’s stolen version of Strictly Come Dancing. I saw an advert for it and it looks huge, bigger even than I’m A Celebrity, which with 400 crew and 18 million viewers was once the biggest TV show in the world. She’s done really well. I’m proud for her and she deserves to be proud of herself, uprooting from Oz to set up a life here. It seems you make your own luck here in Hollywood even more than London.

I contacted someone I've known for 27 years, a film maker I went to school with only to be told that he'd be too busy to see me. Why did I remove him as a facebook friend again. Oh yes. Seems real people like Dana are much more reliable and well... genuine.

GHETTO BIRD

On the second full day in LA we rambled up Beechwood Avenue to find a good place to get photos of the Hollywood Hills Sign. It used to say Hollywoodland, don’t you know. We traipsed up hill roads passed rich people’s houses until we found a plateau overlooking the city and with a great view of those nine famous letters. We sat and joked around, a German couple took a really nice photo of us both, then we decided to see if we could get to the sign itself.

Clambering up a trail-of-sorts we passed an electricity station, the point of no return,. There were no signs so we continued. I was in my new, going-out trainers so had to be extra vigilant on the scree escarpment. Stopping a couple of times we questioned whether putting ourselves in this much danger on our second day of our adventure was worth it. If either of us had lost our footing we would have fallen to our deaths. Pulling ourselves up the mountain with the aide of a rusty pipe, and avoiding snakes all the way, it took us forty five minutes to ascend the hill. We were way above the sign in fact, just a few metres away from the chain-link fence at the top surrounding the radio antenna. We were definitely not meant to be here, but like I say, there were no signs.

We took some snaps of the Los Angeles Reservoir and of the traverse of the sign.



It was then that we first heard the helicopter. It circled once, then disappeared behind the top of the hill. No problemo. Then we heard it coming nearer, taking a smaller orbit around us. It was dark, green or blue against the burning sun. It wasn’t a military chopper, it was definitely blue, yep you guessed it - a police helicopter. A siren blasted out. We looked at each other for what seemed an eternity. What the fuck were we going to do? The whirlybird disappeared behind the mountain only to return, closer this time blaring it’s siren at us.

If we scaled the chain link fence the cops were certain to be there, waiting for us, handcuffs at the ready. I didn’t want mine nor Natalie’s third night in LA to be spent getting bum-raped in a police cell. Somehow, it was up to me to make a decision… Although Nat’s legs had turned to Jell-O, we were going back down the mountain the same way we came up it… Only faster.

It had taken us three quarters of an hour to get up, five minutes to get down. We essentially ran down a mountain. Buzzing from adrenaline, we resigned ourselves to the fact that the cops would be waiting for us at the bottom and even heard the bark of their dogs, to be released from their traps to rip our throats to shreds. Legs not working, as they were shaking and donning our hoodies at the bottom, we disguised ourselves as special needs kids and did our best to innocently amble down the avenue. Police and private patrol cars glided past, each time Natalie nearly giving the game away, she’s not too hot at looking cool.

THE MONTH I HATE THE MOST IS ALWAYS FEBRUARY

My Friday the thirteenth of February 2009 lasted about 44 hours, crossing the International Date Line from The Land of the Long White Cloud to The Land of the Free, but amazingly nothing went wrong. I waited five hours at LAX airport, taking over an hour to get through customs and immigration, yes “lax” is the word. I waited at the arrivals terminal for the world’s worst kept secret to arrive…

Obviously I didn't bump into her in the Hollywood Hills - Natalie had asked me in Thailand if she could meet me in LA.

I stupidly agreed.

So part of the reason you’re reading this is for the goss between me and the other (almost) omnipresent character in this story - Natalie. Well, you’ll need to read on for that, but first off I guess you need to know my thoughts and feelings towards her on Friday 13th … After numerous arguments-by-skype and some other stuff I didn’t feel the same about her as I once did. You know that paranoid, possessive, jealous dude that turned up and took over my brain like a bodysnatcher? Well we’ve seen the last of him… I’m not sure whether it happened to me or I made it happen, but either way I wasn’t head over heels with her any more. Look to be honest, I didn’t know how I felt about seeing her, if I had to put it in numbers it would be 5% excitement, 95% dread.

After an hour stood trying to look cool for when she walked through the gate I received a text on my Australian mobile saying “Where the fuck are you?” She had done better than me, flying with BA; every time I tried he said “You ain’t getting me on no plane, fool!”

So actually seeing Natalie again wasn’t what I expected. First of all, I knew I didn’t feel the same way about her, but that didn’t stop me picking her up, twirling her round and planting kisses on her full, ample lips. I put her down and took a step back to admire her… Wait a God-damned minute. Where was the serene seraphim I left three months ago in Thailand? What have you done with the real Natalie?

Instead I was presented with grungy, hooded emo-girl. She looked like a groupie that had been travelling on a tour bus for the last month. I was gobsmacked; what the fuck was this? I want my Natalie, not this impostor, this pretender to the throne. That said I was also in a hoodie and my third new pair of sneakers in a little over a week, these are my favourite; DC’s.

Hugs and kisses made way for the bus ride to our hostel where we cuddled up on the back seat, exhausted from our flights. Here, I worked out why we both looked so different to each other, we were dressed as we normally dressed for England. We’d only seen each other in Thailand costume before. Shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops for me, the same or floral dresses for her. As we intertwined legs at the back of the bus I couldn’t help feeling that his was strange, at several junctures I very nearly didn’t meet her, to tell the truth although I really wanted to see her, I was dreading it. Over the next few days as we walked hand in hand or arm in arm, everything felt okay. Not what I was bargaining for.

We alighted the bus and train and walked down Hollywood Boulevard to our hostel. I had the foresight to ask for our own room for the first night as we needed peace and quiet after our flights. The next day we walked along The Walk of Fame where we found our favourite stars.

Mine was Orson Welles, child genius and cinematic auteur, actor, ham, writer, director of the constantly ranked best film of all time, raconteur and broadcaster.

Natty’s was Lassie, fluffy, life-saving Collie.

FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH

I needed the new passport so quickly as I was due on the 1.00pm ferry to the south island where my friend was collecting me in Picton. I doubt I’ve seen Ben in 17 years, he still looked the same as at school and so did I. We look remarkably similar in fact. Maybe it was the same postman or something in the Mendip water?
We got on well straight away as he drove from the ferry port to a hostel where he cooked a rather good Massaman curry and we shared a bottle of white wine.

The next day we drove to the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park, changed direction and travelled through the Southern Alps before hitting the Canterbury Plains and finally arriving at Ben’s in Christchurch. Phew! What a drive; well done Ben. The scenery was stunning, we stopped lots for photo’s which I must upload onto FB.

That night after fish and chips (pronounced fush n’ chups) we headed out into Christchurch for a few beers. Ben was tired but a few pints later we were laughing at old names from school. He has almost completely forgotten everything from school, blocking it out which is odd, but then again my memory is quite good. We bumped into a friend of his, but Ben went home leaving me clinging to a window insisting that the night was young. Again somehow I made it home to my bed.

We spent the next afternoon with Ben’s friend Pippa, originally from Exeter. I think they should sort themselves out and get together, but they insist they are just friends. The whole afternoon Pippa was gagging for it as she hadn’t been laid in a while. This amused me Becs, his housemate arrived home and we all drank a little wine. Well, Becs had a bottle while we shared one. She’s from Burnham-on-Sea, next to Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset. It was comforting to be surrounded by silly accents, and the wet weather made it seem like home,

I separated with forty English pounds for my third pair of trainers in ten days (sneaker junkie, moi?) Ben bought me a book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which sounds brilliant, I’ll definitely read it in the USA. Ben had looked after me amazingly well, especially as we hadn’t seen each other in so long and hardly knew each other so I treated Ben to his and my favourite - eggs Benedict before he dropped me at the airport. I wish I could have stayed longer, I hope he finds gainful employment, a great girl (Pippa!) and to see him again. On the plane I was seated next to an American for my flight from Auckland to Los Angeles. Joy. Turns out Mark is a writer, director and performer in New York. Despite his nationality he was really cool. I have to get over this indoctrinated hatred of Yanks, like soooon.

I introduced him to Peep Show on the plane and chatted rubbish as he matched my wine consumption glass for glass with vodka on the rocks. After getting to know me for just a few hours he wouldn’t give me his sister’s number who was sat in the next row as he already labelled me a “scandalous rogue” Another potential travel partner bites the dust…

I waited at the airport for about five hours, had a cream cheese bagel and almost forgot what I was hanging around for. Cute girls walked passed and then I saw one that…

AS I WALKED OUT ONE MIDSUMMER MORNING

I finally left Veranada’s backpackers hostel on the Sunday. How can I be a travel writer if I don’t go anywhere? I was meant to bee seeing and documenting the beauty and majesty of these islands yet I had set up permanent camp in Auckland. I liked being around my new, surrogate family. I spent most of my time with Emily. When she arrived home from work, Irene and I would cook fried rice, stealing food from the free shelf. If nothing else, backpacking has taught me to be a thief and a vagabond; it started with me finding a pack of cigarette papers on the floor and slippery slope that petty criminality is, a few days later anything not bolted down or labelled was ours. Hair gel left in the shower, hot chocolate for our late night porch-side sit-ins, bread, Nutella, all became the property of our shared, hippy-like commune love-triangle. Emily loved me, Irene loved Emily and I loved Irene. I know I’ll really miss staying up til the wee hours, cuddling up with Emily for warmth talking to Tim. We shared something pretty cool, and I love the fact that she genuinely loved all my music, which we spent hours downloading to her ipod; from The Jones to Sabbath back to KLF. I’ll miss Tini too although I only knew her a couple of days.

Why doesn’t Karl Marx like chamomile tea?

Because all proper tea is theft.

I gave up drinking after a while as I was drinking wayyyyyy too much; it was affecting my decision making and turning me lonely and paranoid when my two girls weren’t by my side. Arguments with Natalie became a daily occurrence by facebook chat or skype and I began to question my sanity (again) when I was meant to be working on my new project in Coby’s café. Whatever low Nat would take me to, my saviour Kate would breathe life back into me. I know one day she’ll save me in the end.

One night at a particular booze-induced low some jovial bastard called Riaz arrived and interrupted our peaceful commune. We skulked round the corner to leave him and his loud, inebriated English accent to it. He returned a few nights later when me and Em were off the booze, and drank about nine beers while we puritanically drank stolen Cabdury’s hot choc.

A few nights later after I had had seen some of New Zealand’s majesty from above the clouds, in Wellington, in the south of the north island while sat smoking on a street corner, who should walk passed?

Riaz, the last honorary member of the washnut gang.. We went for a beer which turned into about forty making him almost miss his 7am ferry. He recounted the story of how his bike went off a small cliff and ended up in a tree shortly after throwing him from it. A man took him back to his house and let him stay while his friends removed and repaired Riaz’s bike as he sat dazed and stoned in said man’s house.

God knows how but I somehow made it back to Rowena’s. The hostel I was staying at. I think,

The next day I went to get a new passport to replace the one I had “lost” as my then-current one ran out in August 09. I don’t know where I’ll be in six days, let alone six months. NZ$ 328, yet another charm offensive and one and three quarter hours later I had a new ten year passport. I need never come home again. Now all I need is a girl to travel with…

I'M BACK!

So, here I am folks. Back after an unscheduled haitus. I've been away as I was first concentrating really hard on a secret project which will come to light soon, then buying a house and hurtling across the southern states in it.

Places to park and free wifi are difficult to come by, so I'll have to upload quite a bit at a time from now on... I'm writing this from a car park in Mobile County, Alabama - To Kill A Mockingbird territory.

God I know how to treat a girl...

Life has been sweet, a few ups and downs, a few brushes with death and the law, but you'll be reading all about them imminently.

So sit back, relax, make a cup of cocoa, ignore any smelling pistakes and enjoy...

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY