No helmets and the goddess of peace Part 1

Is a young man on a motorcycle in a black leather jacket, the modern male equivalent of a siren?

It's just really sexy.... until you put that bulbous helmet on, then you just look like a freak.
I had a good expensive helmet, and there was something joyful about putting it on, but running errands around town it was an awkward hulk. I would have preferred not to use it until I got out onto the highway. Then I noticed it. Some guys weren't wearing helmets at all.
I asked Samuel about it.
Arizona did not require helmets. I rejoiced.
I rode around a bit slower, not to be safer. I rode around slower because I could now make eye contact with women. I may have been a dirt bag on an undersized bike, but I was also a road warrior on a super cool mission.

I asked Samuel how to get to the university. Samuel understood my preoccupation with this reverential institution of higher learning. "Serchez les femme?" he asked doubtfully. He said it would be trouble. It was.

It would take a little heartache to prove his instincts were right. I was way too far out of mainstream society to swim in those waters.

As much as students revered the idea of adventure that I was living, the actual punk rockness of what we are doing blew their minds. It was dirty. It was unsafe, and setting up camp under a weeping willow had marked me as untouchable.

Realistically, a couple nights at a youth hostel, a shower and a clean set of clothes would have got me back in the privileged set, but being on the edge is inherently slippery. Slippery slope and all that. People judging, lower self esteem. Cheap booze, drugs help grease that slope.

We were rounding a corner, though the  privileged private homes of the university set. Privileged homes buoyed just a little higher by their basements housing the underclass (but still privileged students).

By this time I had double privilege. I had the privilege of being a well educated white male from the lower of the middle class, an awesome home, a security blanket woven from money and opportunity. And I had the privilege of (pretending?) to throw it off for a second. The equivalent of momentarily taking your hands off the handle bars of your bike, on your own street, while your parents are watching.
Like I said, double privilege.

Samuel, incredibly, seemed to be the same. His parents place was so middleclass.
It's a wonder what a little mental illness can do.

Samuels instincts were correct. We had no business there.

As we came within sight of the first big indication of the university, a yawning football field, I saw a beautiful young woman bathing in the sun, with a text book on her lap. Her house was on the corner, and when I stopped to yield to oncoming traffic I was about 20 feet away from her.

Helmetless and so emboldened, I called to her. A traditional cat call, foreign to me, but ageless.

"Sugar, you are looking fine."

I was an outsider, why wouldn't I try to raise the hackles of this fair skinned beauty.

"Peace in the middle east," she cried back, apropos nothing and pointed to a giant peace sign made out of rocks on her lawn.

"Fuck yeah," I said.

 In a conversational tone asked her if she was studying or attempting to cause a traffic accident.

"I'm not studying," she closed the book. "I'm quitting school."

"I'm going to Argentina, you should come," I said. She lowered her sunglasses.

"Okay," she said.

"Were on a mission right now," I said, I forgot to mention that I had a huge hulk of a man riding behind me. "I'll come back some time and we can exchange names?"

She ripped out a page and wrote her name and phone number.

This had never happened before.  I never had occasion to play the field.

It would get better before it got worse.

Samuel and I got out onto a major road north bound for his parent's home.
I wasn't sure what I would find, but was kind of shocked to see a Tusconian interpretation of my parent's house. Solidly middle class, with attention to detail that the Jones both noticed and reciprocated.

I was about to pull into the driveway when Samuel asked me not too.
I parked on the street.

A tall (but not nearly so tall as Samuel) middle aged man was washing a car. A complete fucking waste of water in the middle of the desert, the car wasn't even dirty. He didn't notice us pull up.

Samuel walked over. They exchanged glances, a word, then Samuel walked past him to the door of the house and rang the bell.

After a stretch the door opened, and Samuel went in.

The man washing the car gave me a good looking over.
"So that's the crowd your with?"
I didn't know what he meant so I didn't say anything back.
(*The tools, we need background about the tools)
What ever happened to the tools I don't know. Samuel didn't come out with them, how we would have brought them on the bike I don't know.

If I would have listened more closely that first night I would know all this, but Samuel was not for talking and at this point it seemed like asking him would wound his heart. He wasn't the kind of guy that you would prompt to talk about personal things. Maybe it would different now

This was a neighbourhood of privilege and that guy washing the car was Samuel's brother.


(*Colour of Tuscon burbs, the inanity of the middle class, the wastefulness of living in the desert).





.... write this encounter

That is until a slight breeze blew up and puts sand in my eye. Tearing, one hand instinctively trying to extract the foreign object that made it into my eye, while the open eye starts to tear, the sunglasses seem to act as a vacuum cleaner, forcing harmless particles towards my retinas. I switch hands, and the bike starts slowing down in the middle of busy traffic, I switch hands back and lerch one handed,
In Canada there would have been some advantage in not having a helmet.
(Helmet from mexico)

Street meets feet, stash the stuff, leave the bike

I put my luggage and camping gear into storage. I wanted to be able to amble about with out this junk, I've always like travelling light. I found a storage place and rented a small locker. I made my first intercontinental trip with a tiny backpack. The storage unit, $20 for 30 days seemed steep, but I could not fathom what would happen if my gear was stolen. ripped off. The side benefit was that I was able to wander away from my bike, and by this time it was clear that would make for new kinds of interactions. It did strike me as odd that for $20 I could find a dry clean space for my stuff for a month while multitudes were camped out in the wilderness. I wondered what would happen if the homeless hoards of Tuscon had the opportunity to live as well as my shit did for the same price. Possibly a revolution. Though I kept the bike parked at camp, I was comfortable leaving it there. Something just seemed a little sketch about this bike parked by a big old tree. Scene of a crime, something wicked. Something private. Motorcycle in the small wood close to a fire ring. There were plenty of easier things to steal.

3 Sally Ann and Carny

Over all themes.
Fearlessness - playing my privilege, just a stereotype.

Sam talked all fucking night.
I tried to be polite. I answered the way you answer when you are for all intents and purposed, totally asleep.
I did hear bits.
He was in town awaiting trial.
He normally didn't talk to people much.
His mother had just died of cancer and he wasn't okay with that.
Though he had never touched a flea, his brother and father were afraid of him. That hurt him the most.

In the morning he asked if I had been awake while he was talking. Mostly, I lied.
He said it had felt good. He hadn't talked to anyone since his mom died.
I got my stove from the bike and made us coffee.
Sam was truly happy, and in the time I would know him, I think that this must have been the happiest I had ever seen him.
He asked me what my plans were.
I told him I had to get on the road because my bank account was dwindling.
"Why don't you stay here and you can check out all the places homeless people go?"
It was a good idea. Actually, it was exactly what I wanted. In truth it was exactly what my trip was about. It didn't appear that it would cost too much. And though it would occur in the degenerate states of America, it was  such an opportunity. A trip extension, new experiences with a gigantic protector in a city I had never imagined coming to until the day before.
Though I was in denial about the insecurity of Mexico, Reginald's frantic campaign against Mexico caused me some concern.
Our campsite was truly a shithole. I preferred not to look to close. It was basically an opening in some bushes behind a convenience store. A vacant lot between the end of a forgotten street and an on ramp to the interstate.
There were beer bottles and litter everywhere and if I'd cared to inspect, likely much worse.
The mess had Sam on edge, but even before I got there he had a plan to upgrade his accommodation. Maybe 40 feet away a middle aged couple with a puppy had a camp under a big tree. They had had a fire going the night prior.
Sam said it was a good spot, and if they moved on he would make a play for it.
I'd come to meet that couple and when I did I introduced myself by my real name. They spotted it and counseled me that it was unwise. I would try and come up with something I said, but never did.

Now the man was another story. He had some charm. His name was Wolfman and he spoke in a gruff voice and it worked with his sideburns. He said he was called Wolfman because of his likeness to Wolfman Jack.
I only vaguely knew who Wolfman Jack was and admitted it.

"The DJ? who transformed rock and roll history?" he cried in disbelief. Then he did some impressions, I'm sure they were just like the Wolfman.

She called herself Carny. Not a very attractive name, though kind of apt, because when the two of them were working, they worked at carnivals. I'm not a very discerning fellow, but if I did have kids, I wouldn't want them riding in a metal contraption run by these two.

 The dog's name was Smoke.

Later I asked Sam about them. According to Sam, they would feed the puppy Everclear, until it passed out and then use him as a prop to panhandle for change. The dog evoked sympathy and people were more willing to give money for dogs than humans. It was apparently enough to sustain a good drug habit, but not enough for accommodation.

Sam showed me Tuscon from a homeless perspective.

Starting out, it was awesome.
Heady with our new friendship and warm under the bright sun we wandered around Tuscon on foot.
We took a footpath next to a dry river bed to get across town. The Rillito, or little river, was dry as a bone. Fucking deserts. Amazing that people would live in a place so inhospitable to life. Not a drop of water and signs everywhere, not to drive into the overpass when the water was above this marker. Floods and droughts.  It was evident that God, if such a one existed, did not want people living in the middle of a fucking desert. Didn't Americans read and take the bible literally? Don't build your house on sand stupid! A moronic people, Americans.

As much as I was dreading a foray into America, it was fun to visit the backwards people.

And Sam was alright and good company.

We heard some music coming from one of the yards that backed the river. Someone was playing Great White North on a record player. Truly odd.

Sam giggled, exclaiming, "How about that!"

Bob and Doug MacKenzie were hiliarious and I resented it. This was Sam's impression of my homeland. My vision of his homeland was just about as generous. Sam was a pretty sensitive dude though and quickly followed up with a complement about the Tragically Hip.

We both loved New Orleans is sinking.

Our first mission was to get some lunch, and that meant hiking across town to the Sally Ann. I knew my dad would have been proud of me in that moment.

Except for short hair, sandals and belief in a higher power,  I was pretty much walking the exact path of Jesus.

(* Maybe describe the industrial side of town, lowlife, sheepish in the harsh light coming out of the city's dark places. Describe the building)

The Salvation Army was more army than salvation.

There was lunch, and the anemic sandwiches and thin soup were welcome after a hike across town in the heat,  but it was served by beligerant, belittling assholes who were clearly only putting in time to get to heaven.

There must have been three hundred people there, and all Jesus' people too, drug addicts and prostitutes. But so much yelling and judging, my dad would have had a fit or got the drill seargants fired. They were basically assualting Jesus every day at lunch time.

I thought it would be a good chance to connect with other vagabond travellers, but even as a voyeur it was humiliating and no one was in a mood to share. I thought about coming back later and talking some sense in to the screaming,  judgmental drill sergeant. This made the Food Not Bombs outfit in Edmonton seem like a utopian dream. The only discomfort was the minty fresh burps from men high as kites on mouth wash. That was awkward. This was just fucking sad.

I glanced at Sam doubtfully. We ate, but the trek across town didn't seem worth it, we wouldn't be back.
Things would get better.

Our accommodations got a lot better.

When we returned, Carny was gone and Wolfman was beside himself. He said that she was off to live on A mountain with another man. Wolfman, destroyed at his loss was going to hit the road with his puppy.

"Where to?" I asked.

He really didn't seem to know. He just wanted to get moving.

Brain dead in Tucson

The trip from San Diego to Tucson was punishing.
Somewhere along the way the speed limit turned to 75 mph and most traffic was now doing upwards of 80. My little bike could just handle it, but getting out from underfoot of vehicles jockeying for position was unnerving.
I've had the bike up to 100 mph, but that was for kicks on an open road in the sunshine.
Between California and Arizona people drove differently, as if accidents didn't matter. Like they were bored. Bored at high speed.
By the time I closed in on Tucson it was getting dark. Traffic was heavy.
The semi trailers weren't focused either. Drifting all over. Were they racing each other? A few times I dropped the bike from sixth gear into fifth to power out of an ugly tangle, a lovers spat between amorous truck drivers. But the bike was no jack rabbit going from 85 to 90 and the tiny shoulder on my right didn't look like a safe place to go in a jam, more like a place to be smashed up against a concrete barrier.
I dodged and weaved, exposed. I was out gunned and nervous, by people driving fast and carefree.
Though I wouldn't admit it at the time, it might have been safer on a bigger bike.
By the time I pulled off the interstate into a gas station in Tucson I was exhausted the way a hunted animal must get exhausted.
I was brain dead, thirsty for a drink to celebrate my survival, and though I hadn't planned on it, ready to pay for another night in a hostel.
I fueled up and went inside to pay. Walking up to the doors, a very tall, very well groomed man in a tidy brown leather jacket with long straight brown hair asked me if I had any change. He was standing in front of a pop machine. I assumed he wanted change: quarters for a dollar or something. He didn't look like any bum I had ever seen. I told him I didn't have any and entered the Circle K.
You've got to love those American gas station convenience stores. Each is it's own empire of vice. Tobacco, fireworks, pornography, junk food, gasoline and liquor. Chinese trinkets with American flags on 'em. This one had the typical wall of coolers, filled with cases and cases of terrible American beer.
I paid for gas and asked the cashier if he knew of a hostel close by.
He didn't know what a hostel was.
I asked if there was a YMCA and he didn't know that either.
“What about a cheap hotel?” I pleaded.
I got a blank look in return and he offered me a phonebook.
There was nothing under “Cheap place to stay.”
Life before smartphones. It was a riot.
I needed someone who knew the local scene. I needed to talk to someone a little closer to the edge the cashier to find out where I could get a room that wouldn't break me or a good place to camp.
I walked back to the beer display and pondered my situation. The beer was here, but where to drink it? It would be nice to camp tonight, drink a little and then sleep the sleep of angels.
It came to me in a flash. The guy I had passed on the way might know.
I walked back outside.
“Were you asking for money to buy alcohol?” I asked, awkwardly.
This huge white guy, I'm guessing 6 foot 4, turned red and sheepishly bowed his head as if he were about to be judged and found guilty.
"Yes,” he said.
“Great,” I said. “Where do you live?”
“Nowhere.”
'Great!' I exclaimed. 'Where are you camped?
He hesitated. 
“Like where are you staying?” I asked again.
I don't believe he hesitated because he couldn't understand my Canadian dialect. I believe he was wondering about the wisdom of telling a greasy guy who just rolled in on a motorcycle where he lived.
 “Behind this place,” he said.
"Perfect. Would I be able to camp with you?”
He hesitated again.
What I would later come to know about down and out folks, is that just because they've come onto hard luck doesn't mean they aren't fussy. This guy more than most really didn't like sharing his space.
I told him my situation, my lack of funds and showed him my bike and my camping gear.
"You're from Canada then?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Looking back, I might have been a little more circumspect and a little less cheap. At the very least this guy was a candidate a mental health case. A gigantic, well dress homeless guy.
We came to an arrangement. I'd buy beer, he'd show me a place to camp. I bought a 15 pack of Budweiser and walked beyond the parking lot of the Circle K.
On the upside, it was close, but he was apologetic about how dirty it was. He had just made camp there recently and hadn't had a chance to clean it up, he explained.
His camping spot was quite literally between some low bushes. It was dark and I couldn't see a thing.
He found me some spare cardboard and I laid out my sleeping bag 10 feet from his. Setting up the tent seemed impertinent.
Typically this would have been the time to light a small fire, but my new friend new better than to try. We each cracked a beer.
After two beers I was ready for sleep, but my new friend had some things he needed to get off his chest.
That's how I got to meet Samuel James Hazard.

As far as you can go on land

This is the story of how I got to Tucson, Arizona and what happened there.

When I was 21 I wanted to explore the world. Not the whole world, just as far as I could go on land.  I decided to go to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. I was frustrated with University and the  idea that everyone around me seemed to be giving all their attention to surviving, little to learning, and nothing to living. So I left school, saved money, bought a motorcycle and went.

I travelled alone. My purpose was to find the meaning of life. I didn't bring a map.

I can't start from the beginning, too much happened, so I will begin in Mulegé, Baja California Sur, Mexico.

Davide, my flamenco guitar instructor, suggested when I should leave. “Wednesday night,” he said mysteriously, after practice.  “...is a good night to travel.”

He talked like a sage at times. So I just let it sit. But a few days later when I was pushing my bike out to the highway in the moonlight the sense in his words came to me.  It was moonlight. You could see like it was day time. And the roads were eerily empty, the weekend traffic hadn't started yet.

It was not uncommon to see vehicles racing down the road without headlights on the Baja Coast. In fact I had done a 17 hour grocery run in a van without the benefit of headlights just a few weeks before. A full moon aided travellers.

I couldn't say if Davide knew I had plans to leave yet or if he was talking about his own plans to leave.

At any rate I needed to leave Mulegé, and while I was sorry about leaving without saying goodbye, I needed to get out of there.

In a perfect world I would have just went south and took a ferry from Cabo San Lucas to the mainland, but I desperately need a clutch cable, and there wasn't a shop in Mexico that carried the piece I needed.

It's a little more than 600 miles from Mulegé to San Diego. I left Wednesday night and arrived in San Diego midday Friday.

So this was an unwanted and expensive detour. But by this time my approach was admittedly non-linear, a week at a monastery, driving a piece of the Baja 1000 race course, a month feeding donkeys and cooking the books at a Mexican resort. My goal was still Argentina, but the important thing was to experience things, to meet people. To live.

Without a clutch, driving a motorcycle is tricky. It is jerky, graceless, and dangerous. My bike was heavy with gear and that made starting out without the aid of a hill awkward. There are lots of pieces of a motorcycle that aren't completely necessary to its operation, but a clutch isn't one of them. In spite of this I'd travelled about a thousand miles without the benefit of a clutch, but not having a clutch was getting in the way of my idea of being a smooth operator. Both literally and figuratively.

In San Diego I drove straight to the dealership. Lo and behold, as if they had been expecting a visitation from a time traveller from 1978, the year my motorcycle  rolled off the assembly line, they had the part in stock and on hand. The parts guy offered to book a time to have it installed, but it was an operation I was waiting to perform. To have it installed at this point would have been sacrilege.

To say that I was attached to the bike would have been an understatement. Fear, love, hate. It was all there. It wasn't a pet object to me. It was a crazy lover that I knew was trying to kill me. It was the one I'd trust taking a hair pin turn laid down flat like it was resting on the pavement, only it was moving so fast that there were only inches to spare across two lanes of traffic shoulder to shoulder. Sometimes I'd notice sparks flying from the footpegs as they grazed the ground.

To American onlookers it was a silly looking affair, so much gear stacked on top of a tiny, donkey-shaped Japanese machine. Few people would consider taking such a huge trip on a motorcycle so small and under powered. But to me the bike was beautiful in the way a pocketknife is beautiful. Simple, spare, all utility.  Despite it's simplicity, this bike threatened my life daily.

With a tiny toolkit pieced together from pawnshops and second hand stores I could pretty much tear down the entire bike. In the parking lot, I went over the same motions I had made two months before, but this time, replacing the cable assembly with the right one. With the new clutch cable, it was like a new bike.



A trip to the city meant a stay in a hostel, and the cost was unnerving. I was beginning to worry about my ability to complete the trip with the funds I had left. $25 USD for a bunk. It was robbery. And what did I get? A night with a bunch of starry-eyed travellers pretending to have real life experiences with other starry eyed travellers. I didn't have the time or patience to connect with these fakes.

Out there on the street, that was real. If I had had more time I would have found a place to camp in some abandoned building or vacant lot. I would have met the people of the street and warmed my hands around a fire burning in a barrel. That's what I told myself, though I had never done any of those things.

In the morning I was glad to leave. I brought my gear out to the bike and loaded up. I was putting on my helmet when someone from behind me asked me about my license plate.

"You've got roses on your license plate? What's that about?"

I turned around to see a 30 something man with a beard.

“I'm from Alberta,” I explained. “It's a province in Canada. We've all got roses on our licence plate there.”

“Oh yeah," he said. "Where you headed to?"

“Mexico.”

He was instantly alarmed.

“Damn, son, it's dangerous down there.”

I asked him if he had ever been 'down there.'

“No,” he replied, as if it were proof backing up his story. “That's how bad it is.”

Beside being security guard at a mall, his job appeared to be convincing random travellers not to go to Mexico. He asked me if I'd have a coffee with him.

He was a caricature of an American and I liked him for it. His name was Reginald.

It was amazing, this guy's perception of Mexico; it wasn't 5 km from where we stood, but he thought it was some kind hell on earth. Anarchy and death. Random acts of violence.

Over coffee he continued to preach about the dangers of Mexico. He also offered me a place to stay and a reference for a security job in San Diego. Not a bad opportunity by my metric: a random job in a city I knew nothing about. But it didn't feel right, a little too milk toast. Too safe. I had idled for more than a month in Mulege, and I just wanted to get moving. America was an uninteresting and expensive detour, Mexico was interesting and inexpensive.

Reginald saw I was still set on Mexico and changed his tactics.

He started talking about Tucson. If I was headed East to the Gulf Coast, why wouldn't I head through the states on those fast American highways?  Wouldn't that actually save me time overall?

It made sense. If I made my own food and camped illegally it would be fast and pretty cheap, maybe cheaper.

And there was that name, Tucson.

It was like a poem.

“Oh,” he expounded, “It's a beautiful little college town, mild climate, friendly people. Beautiful college girls.”

Images of college girls sunbathing played in my mind.

I told him it was too expensive state side, and that his fears of Mexico were unfounded. We finished our coffees and I thanked him.

He waved goodbye as I eased the bike into first gear. The newly repaired clutch made starting out effortless.

Two intersections later I pulled up at a light and a beautiful woman crossed the street a few feet from my bike. I got her attention and asked,  “If I was going to go to Tuscon which way would I go?"

"Turn left and watch for a sign," she said.

"What will the sign say?" I asked.

"Tuscon," she smiled, and continued walking.

Reginald would never know it, but his magic had worked. And in Tucson things would go in a completely new direction.

Corin's call

Corin called a few days ago. He wanted to know a few more details about the trip. As it turns out, a second hand account of it inspired one of his songs that will be released soon. It was twenty years ago this month, and because I am endowed with both a sense of nostalgia and time to reflect, I am going to give an account of that journey.

This is my version of the events that led me into what Corin calls the Hobo Jungle.

Lost and Found

One night on a beer run next door a beautiful young women approached me and asked me if I wanted to buy some handcrafted jewelery. I was stunned. I said yes, oddly.
Really I just wanted to spend a little time with her.
She showed me a bunch of items I could buy for my girlfriend. They really didn't appeal. Do you have anything fit for a guy?
She pulled out a bead necklace with mushroom penants hanging off. The necklace was nice, but the mushrooms made it look really odd.
How much I asked?
You make an offer.
$10 I said. she blanched. Her boyfriend popped out of the shadows and said the materials to make it were 10 bucks.
I apologized,  offered $15 and they took it.
It was bad before, but having in my possession it was truly ugly thing, likely crafted after a hallucinatory mushroom session. The mushroom penants were gigantic and childish looking.
Do you want me to put it on you?
Yep, I said. That had been the point.
She tied it on. Later on I came to appreciate it. It really completed my hobo look.
We got to talking. They had run off together and were camped up on A mountain.
(*What were their names? Did I write about it anywhere?)

It was a sketchy situation they admitted. Things could get pretty wild out there, but they could be together, and that was important.
I told them about my situation and asked them to come visit sometime and hang out around the fire.
It was odd that I was so drawn to this young woman when she was so clearly taken. Her boyfriend was right there.
They asked about my bike.
Want to see my Harley Davidson? he pulled out his bicycle from beside the building. "It's Hardley a  Davidson," he said more clearly.

 and want to spend a little time with the girl, stunning beauty at Winks. She was selling necklaces she made
Lost and Found
Lost's special craft was writing signs for people. He  had decent penmanship, but more than that, he had a terrific sense of humour. Perfect for sign writing.

When they had fires at their camp the police were called out. Some nasty neighbour just didn't want homeless people keeping warm.

Who are they, where were they from. What would happen to them.
They did show up after all. It was the festive season, and although it was a bruising season for people on the street, the evening was filled with cheer, Tusconians had been generous to the panhandlers and there was beer and everclear too.
Lost asked if anyone else knew the lyrics to the Lion King songs. We all knew of the movie, but no one knew the songs.
That was okay, Lost knew all of the songs by heart. Also all of the dialog. He had been on acid watching the film and was able to commit the whole thing to memory.
too bad really, he had a thin wavering singing voice.
He was inspired by Jim Carey, who himslef had been a street person and now was worth a tonne of money.
Found getting pregnant. Her brother.
Lost said the doctor said he could have children.
Interestingly, it seemed to be everybody's business that she was pregnant and that she get off the street, get back to her parents, go to a shelter. this odd collection of hustling addicts who wouldn't so much as share their real names suddenly wanted to advise this girl. It seemed like a heart warming activity to partake in, but I just didn't believe in it.