Portland to Bend - I think I'm in a relationship ... with a bus.

I left my house before the sunrise.

I got a ride from my mom to the bus like I was going to summer camp.  It was awesome.

We loaded up and hit the road, around 10 or 10:30.

We stopped for gas in Brooks and decided we would try the commercial truck pumps.  It took longer than it might have had we chosen the regular pumps but the turn around was easier and the bus is a magnet for former Pennsylvania State Senator turn truckers and other school bus aficionados.

Lesson 1: Truckers love old trucks - go figure.  Lesson 2: If I keep my mouth shut people assume the bus is mine. Lesson 3: I might get my picture in a copy of Truck Stop News and The Good News - okay that's not even close to a lesson.



We let out of Brooks and started climbing the hills outside of Salem and Lukati come up and tell me they are smelling something that resembles no good, creeping up from the back of the bus.  I'm praying that maybe it's just something coming off the exhaust and that it'll go away - but it doesn't.  I suspected brakes, because the further back you get the less there is to break. We found a place to pull over and when we got out the right rear brake was smoking, I mean really smoking.  Pouring out a sweet heavy white smoke that was almost steamy. Luke made a call to this guy, Brian, we refer to as "The Doctor". He either does or used to work on maintaining the school bus fleet for the Astoria Public School district. He's more like a bus magician, he makes bus problems disappear.  He talks Luke through adjusting the tolerance on the brakes and with in 1 hr we are back in business.  I didn't even get to make everyone pee on the brakes to cool them down - shame, damn shame.

So the rest of the ride into Bend was magic. We cruised right on in and we're only an hour late.

They had reserved a spot right out front and as I'm backing into the parking spots out front some dude slips into one of "my spots" behind me.  So I do what I would do if I were in my pick up; I rev the engine at him like I'm going to take off.  The thing is when I do it the Rpm's don't come back down. I freak out. I shut off the engine. Stand up and run out of the bus yelling "Ay! ... Ay! Ay!... Ay!" like I'm in New York trying to get someones attention.  Fortunately for me this guy was so cool.  He said he was just going to run into Starbucks and get a cup of coffee and offered to help me back up, he indicated that there was plenty of space and when I calmed down enough to open my eyes, he was right. When I got back to the bus Israel was in the drivers seat and he tried to back it up, but couldn't get it into gear with the RPM's so high. So we shut it off, he went into sound check and I let the guy go get his coffee. Man, I hope I thanked him for waiting around and just being cool.

I blocked off the remaining spaces so that this same scenario would not repeat itself. I thought about what needed to happen to get the bus out of the wheel chair access spot. I started the bus in reverse with the clutch in, backed out of the universal access space. That cured, I settled into diagnosis of the bus. I knew it had to be a throttle problem so I followed the linkages back to where the movement of the pedal meets the flow of diesel into the engine, but did not see anything really amiss. After sound check Luke came out and we went through it he concluded the same thing but we are out there scratching our heads like chimps - outside the streets were filling up and people are starting to recognize Luke.  

Israel's mother is awesome, okay his father is really cool too, but the story follows his mother's line.  Israel's mother has a brother names Rhomie, Rhomie K. Thompson. Israel and his family are out eating dinner and he relays the story to Uncle Rhomie, and dinner goes on. Uncle Rhomie lets it marinate like its a cross word puzzle clue and eventually the light bulb goes off.  "I bet it's the spring", he says.  I don't know if he ran right out to tell us or if he waited until a more socially acceptable moment but he comes out tells Luke and I while we're under the bus and sure enough, it's the spring.

I spend the next hour and a half trying to get the spring to hook to the throttle to no avail. Right before the opener Sara Jackson-Holman starts, Rhomie comes out and lets me know he'll take a look at it later and that at his house, which is pretty close, he's got wire and tools and anything that we'd need to get it square. So I give up like I just got the call to "Go back in there and wait for The Wolf, who should be coming directly."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojTKkfgvwvU

Greasy, frightened, hungry, exhausted and feeling out of place I enter the venue with the desire to go back stage and get some food. Sara Jackson-Holman has just come on-stage, so I don't want to make a greasy scene walking up the side stage stairs while she's up there doing her thing.  I stand and watch. My old friend Shelly Dennis comes up behind me and we hang out and watch the show.  Sara Jackson-Holman is amazing. She's really mesmerizing.  Her tone and style will kill you, if you're not vigilant. She did a cover of "hallelujah", Leonard Cohen should hear it so as he can try to do it right next time.

http://www.myspace.com/sarajacksonholman

After her set I excused myself to the rear of the auditorium, conveniently timed so that I could tell Sara Jackson-Holman that her shit was ridiculously good, that she sounded amazing and so I could tell the band that they sounded great. Which they did, from where I was standing each piece was crystal.

I got back stage and got some pizza, celery, Odwalla and a couple of breadsticks, which set things right and headed out before the band took the stage.

It's been a couple of months since Blind Pilot's played in front of an audience but the musicians in the band all take their art with ferocious seriousness.  I wish I had the capacity to look at residential real estate appraisal in the same way that this band looks at music. Maybe that's why they're so successful;  They don't fuck around. They played some new songs, in which Lukati and Israel are all singing out in harmony. I like it when they sing out, it's like they're pushing out the words with as much force as they can, they get to the point right before it all breaks and that's when it's the best.

There's a guy that lives in Bend, he's originally from Portland, his name is Ray Ray, but for the reminder of this article he'll be referred to as nipple guy.  He saunters up to the stage and when he passes I can see the mania on his face.  He walks up to the front of the stage and pulls up his shirt and flashes his nipples to the band.  It was funny.  He later attempted and partially succeeded in getting the band to autograph his sweatshirt. 

Israel switched guitars before playing "One Red Thread" and said something like "so much for broken strings" and then proceeded to break three strings during the song.  By the end he had so few strings that he didn't even need to chord.

He plays this old martin that he bought like ten years ago, it's notorious for breaking strings.  I don't know if the one he brought is the one with the burn on the neck.  I'll have to take a look, get some pictures and talk to him about it.  I suppose that'll be the topic of an upcoming article.

After the show Uncle Rhomie came out.  I showed him what we were working with.  Luke and I had been kicking ourselves for not bringing a pair of pliers or a pair of needle nose pliers specifically. Uncle Rhomie's first question when climbing under the bus is "you got a leatherman?" I'm slapping my head as I realize I wear a set of pliers everyday. 10 minutes later with the help has of nipple guy and his side kick (no jive) relaying messages between me in the cab and Rhomie under the bus. Rhomie's got the spring hooked up and has good suggestions for me to minimize the probability that this will happen again.  He leaves out the real important ones: be mindful, compassionate and, above all, remain calm.

I think somewhere I might of heard about some book maybe it was a guide book for adventures like this sayin' sumthin' 'bout Don't Panic. I have the sudden urge to go buy myself a towel.

Test Run.

Last night I drove up to Portland to take the bus on a test run. I've been trying to name the bus Loretta, but I think Israel wants to call it Carpenteria, because that's the California city it gave most of its life to.  I drove it around  Ryan Dobrowski's neighborhood (apx. SE 17th and Powell) for about an hour and that included sometime in the Fred Meyer headquarters parking lot. Ryan's originally from Eugene he paints, the cool Degas, Monet, Picasso way, not the way I do - the Sherman Williams, Benjamin Moore way, and plays drums for the Portland band Blind Pilot.  I got to catch the end of their practice which included some new songs of theirs I've never heard them play and a cover that the band hasn't played together but that I've heard Israel play a few times this summer,once was while I was painting Zoe Fenton's house in Astoria.

I'm not going to ruin it, you'll have to come to the show but I'm stoked, in the Carpenteria California way (God I hope Carpenteria is in So-cal on the coast or in the valley because if it's not then that joke doesn't make sense - Oh Snap! it is.) Not the, uh - um coal fired engine way ... or is that the same is there any other kind of stoked? - the wood stove way?

The interior of the bus is pretty much finished, minus a couple of details that we'll get hammered out as we go.

Israel and Ryan painted the exterior of the bus - with brushes.  I painted a car with a brush for Hank Tallman of Nehalem, OR. It was a fun exercise in: the wet edge, topping off and brush strokes. I underestimated the effect of brush strokes in the prime coat showing through.  Israel and Ryan's paint job looked really good, in the dark. I guess I'll see it tomorrow morning when we are packing up and I bet it still looks good - artists!

I drove down I-5 for about an hour and back for an hour in the middle of the night last night just to make sure that Israel, Luke and Kati could sleep on the bus while it was in motion.  I brought my brother-in-law Drew Woodworth along because he's my brother and because he likes the band. We have this fascination with the "thanks for letting me in" running lights flash that truckers'll give you if you let them in, or give them the "the all clear" with your head lights when they are merging, or lane changing. I was trying to show Drew that I can flip on and off my running lights and I accidentally hit the head lights but then I got the running lights.  The trucker in front of me thought maybe I was trying to tell him something so as we approached the exit where I was going to turn around he blinked his running lights twice, and then when I didn't respond and as we got to be about a 1/4 mile out he did it again.  I think he was angling for an H.J. "Sorry it took me so long to pull over... had to get my pants back up.", as a truck driver once said to a hitchhiking friend of mine.

Sound Check is at 3:pm tomorrow in Bend.

Fawn Fawn and The Fawns

Sometime in the past, I image it to have been a rainy spring night, a car struck a little dear, not an uncommon occurrence in Oregon.  Someone took the time to rehabilitate the injured deer.  The consequence being that there is a tame deer that roams the greater Olney, Oregon metropolitan area.

More info on Olney can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olney,_Oregon

This is a picture of the Elk that live in the wildlife refuge just outside of Olney.

This deer is named Fawn Fawn.

  If you bring a couple of apples and hang out with Luke Ydstie at dusk, you might be able to feed her.  Oh and it turns out, she's had a twins (look for the giant ears sticking out behind Luke).

Blind Pilot's fall tour has been dubbed "The Fawn Fawn and The Fawns tour". 

http://www.blindpilotmusic.com/


When I arrived in Olney, Luke was working on the bus. He's an excellent finish carpenter and he's been using wood that's been stored out at Big Red, the building Israel's Dad owns out on pilings in the middle of the Columbia River, that we lived there the summer/fall of 2003.

 The bus is going to be the tour bus for Blind Pilot's fall tour. Which, as of the effective date if these photo's was about a week and a half out.

The bus is a 1971 Crown Coach


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Coach_Corporation


The Odometer says "386,606" but it stopped working some time ago.

According to a very trusted source (Luke and Israel) "these things can run for a million miles given proper care." ... given proper care.  This bus apparently has the proclivity for blowing hoses (fuel, radiator, etc.).

It's manufacture date was 10/25/1971.  It has a Cummins Diesel with 220 horse power (that's it!). It's gross vehicle weight is 32,500 lbs. and it's unladen weight is 19,700 lbs (almost ten tons). Turns out it has a top speed of 61 Mph. - So no, Sal Paradise, I will not be balling this jack up to 90.

I'll be operating it from September 29th to October 17th for the fall tour from Bend to Austin and Back throughout the West and Southwest. 

Dates, Venues, Times and tickets can be found here.

http://www.blindpilotmusic.com/

Starvin' Marvin and Mars

My wife got into horses- Oh man this is starting out rough! My wife started her horse addiction last winter.  She stumbled onto a discussion group called Auction Horses, at http://auctionhorses.proboards.com/

I was opposed to the idea from the very beginning. The motivation behind my opposition is that I hold it to be true that the less responsibilities I have the more I can focus on sitting around, not doing anything. Which is the point to life, as far as I'm aware. The pattern of compromises - or breakdowns (depending on how you look at it) include but are not limited to: taking horse riding lessons, to leasing a horse (where I assumed it would end because of the daily removal of horse shit), joining a local rescue organization - which turned into starting one when no suitable local organization could be found. Her organization can be found at:

http://www.valleyhomelesshorse.proboards.com 

It turns out that I like horses, they are a lot like giant dogs, only smarter and if you are cool enough and not too much of a dick weed they'll let you climb on their backs and take you pretty much wherever you want to go. Also ... they speak a language that is similar to Dog, except they are averse to movement, and really - quick movement, in certain vectors in and around the face area. It turns out I like cleaning stalls. It's like painting a wall (I was a house painter from 1992 to 2005). Stall cleaning  seems to fill a hole in my art.

The Sunday after TMR (the subject of the Blog prior to this one- roughly) was the Eugene horse auction. It happens on the second Sunday of every month. 

TANGENT

Anna and her friends Erin Stangel (Stangelectronic) went to the one in July and it was emotionally traumatizing to Erin and I think maybe for Anna too.  So I promised I go to the one in August. Which turned out to be much better.  There are horses at this and other auctions throughout the United States of America that are purchased for the sole purpose of being fattened at a feed lot and shipped to Canada or Mexico.In order to be rendered as meat for consumption by humans, primarily Europeans.  I shit you not. You can look it up. I know you're on the internet right now. Wikipedia that shit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_slaughter).  I should probably state here that I try to not eat meat and generally I don't buy meat.  If it is served to me, I'll eat it or if it is going to be thrown away, I'll eat it. But my caloric intake is high enough that meat is a luxury my body can do without.  I also try to be Vegan but I'm lazy and when I think about the consequences of my choices (consuming meat,eggs, cheese and milk) I see the suffering it causes and am saddened by it. I also generally don't like killing things or otherwise causing things to suffer. Anyway, at The Auction in July, there was a guy that makes a living buying horses and shipping them to Canada for meat. He made several purchases of horses that were usable, riding horses.  Anna did get involved in saving a horse, she helped a young lady, Kelly Brantley of Eugene, score a sweet horse at auction betting against the dude who buys horses in order to kill them so that they can be eaten by people. We went to the Auction in August and that dude wasn't there. All the horses went to places that we estimate to have the intention of minimizing suffering, but who really knows what curses Jesus chooses to reign down on us. 

COTANGENT

The Sunday after TMR (the topic of my last Blog - in which I forgot to give props to my Uncle Dan for turning 50 and my Aunt Loraine for staying married to his honky ass for 25 years) Anna and I went to the Eugene horse auction.  The entire morning, really the entire Men's retreat weekend, I was bitching to anyone that would give me 5 seconds about this whole horse thing. Slaid Cleaves wrote a song called "Horses" that goes something like "If it weren't for horses and divorces. I'd have a lot more money and less gray hair. I might even be a millionaire." I had just seen him play it on Friday night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T79xwtvbazM&feature=related

I've been worried about getting a horse, and still am, but that's okay. I hold it to be true that, it is good for me to be worried about the welfare of the beings I assume rely upon my labor for survival and/or well being. Anna had been talking about the horse she leases, Roxy, and how Roxy gets a saddle sore on her withers when she's ridden. The sore is from starvation and neglect prior to being adopted by Debbie Blando of Fenmere Farms in Dallas, the stable owner that gives us lessons.  Anna feels guilty about riding Roxy and giving her the sore, so she'd brought it up to me a week or so before that she was considering getting a horse.  She's been working as pharmacist this summer and will be working every other weekend during school. I've got obligations elsewhere that prevent me from considering being the capital behind this adventure. So anyway, we are at the horse auction and were running around getting to know all the horses and I'm checking out all the one's without papers and without descriptions. The ones that are probably going to be coming through the auction and are not going to be purchased by typically motivated buyers because they have a higher degree of uncertainty. Anna asks me to go to Costco with Stangelectronic so that she can get the Costco price on their bomb ass dog food and as I'm rolling out, I'm walking and talking to the co-founder of http://www.valleyhomelesshorse.proboards.com  Kim Jenkins and we see this horse that some lady is bringing in.  Kim says "oh that's too bad, look at that little guy, why do people do that, it just makes me mad!" At first glance he looked like a young horse that just never got fed.  It would be very hard luck case if you were, like, a yearling that's been starved and has no training and you show up at an auction.  So I take off for Costco and on my way back I get a call from Anna saying that we've got a horse. And the auction hasn't even started.

The lady that brought the horse in hadn't told the auction people that the horse was a bag on bones.  They weren't going to let him go through the auction.  The dude that buys horse to feed to people wouldn't even buy this horse because there's not enough meat on him.  The lady said that she didn't do it, starve the horse, and that she's tried to put weight on him but that he was just a poor doer. But that she'd owned him before and sold him to somebody only to wind up checking him out a couple of months later where she found hin like this. She took him back. She also told Anna she had a vet come take a look at him and that the vet had said he had organ damage and that he needed to be put down. She indicated to Anna that the Vet hadn't done any blood work but just knew by looking at him. She said he was about 20 or 25 and that he's been on a drill team (horse drill is a choreographed horse performance with flags and a bunch of horses - this link is sufficiently entertaining on multiple levels).  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM6o-YLlrL8

Anna said that she'd take him.  The lady gave Anna $30 to take the horse. We were going to call him Conor like Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes fame - because he's like a skinny emo kid 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIBoEZOVLIE

  

His name is now Starvin' Marvin - yes as in "Mom, we kind of found an E3nopean. Can we keep him?" 

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/149990/

Starvin' Marvin

Starvin' Marvin

When the auction started one of the first horses to go was a nice horse, her name was Bonnie, she was about 15 or so and she was calm, and friendly to people.  I have no idea if she was broke to ride.  I do know she had a halter, was in a stall with no food or water but that she wasn't tied to the rail. She didn't seem to bite, kick, pester her neighbors, chew on the rail or dig.  When I went into her pen she didn't bite at me, kick at me, whinny, or try to push me around, nor did she run away, pull her ears back, or put her back to me.  She lifted up her feet when I asked her to.  She sold to the man who takes horses to Canada, kills them and feeds them to people for $10. I didn't know who he was, he looked like a nice old man that maybe had a place and wanted a nice horse. You can't save them all and you can't do more than you can. As I like to say and my brother in-law likes to repeat back to me: You do what you can, you can what you do.  Sometimes you call it marde de artist and sell it for the price of gold. 

There was a guy at the auction and he was adamant that this horse (Starvin' Marvin) would not put on weight he told us he knew the horse, he'd heard the horse was about 30 and if we needed his services he shoots horses and takes them out to feed to cougars. My theory is that he likes to kill things and so this might be his hobby. He tends to wear clothing indicating that he is a member of a segment of our society that takes pride in being very well trained to kill the greatest number of people in the most efficient possible manner.  I don't know if he's a member of the USMC or whether he just likes to wear the t-shirt.  I actually consider the latter more perverse.

Anna came to the auction with a mission, to get a very well trained horse to ride, at a very good price.  She found a very nice horse, one with papers. A 9 year old quarter horse that's spent the last two years working cattle.  The rancher was just looking to get rid of him, "got too many horses" ...  apparently ... and "this one isn't the best at cattle work, he's fine at it just not as good as some of the others."

Mars

We had the vet come by and look at the horses.  He says that Mars looks good, he could use about 50 lbs so we've added a little corn oil to the grain. He's a huge horse, If I recall correctly weights about 50 lbs more than a 1/2 a ton. He's about 16 hands.  

Starvin' Marvin weighed 657 lbs and is 14.2 Hands.  The blood work came back good, no liver or kidney damage.  He looks better already.  We put him on alfalfa hay and a little bit of grain, and put them both on a multi-vitamin for horses.  Oh and it turns out he's only 12 or so.  His teeth are real worn like he's been chewing the nutrition out of rocks trying to survive - there's a line that works its way down the lateral teeth starting at about ten - if I recall the Vet correctly, and Starvin' Marvin's line is still near the gum line.

Anna's got a horse to ride that doesn't get saddle sores. When they canter it looks like a horse you'd see in the movies.  Starvin' Marvin is like a dog.  I'm teaching him to come when I whistle for him and to follow behind me without a line, neither of which is hard to do. Treats work really well to motivate a starving horse. We weighed him yesterday and he weighs about 690, still 14.2 hands.

New URL

I think I may have a problem with spelling.  I've changed the URL of my Blog to

http://mickmoriarty.blogspot.com

but you already knew that because you're here.

The SFF and TMR

It has been a tradition in the Taylor Clan for decades, the men gather, at least once a year -but no more than twice, in a location sufficiently removed from the rest of their lives to promote fluidity.   The past two years the location and timing of The Men's Retreat (TMR) has coincided - more or less, with the Sister's Folk Festival.  Last year Blind Pilot played and I got to hang out with the band a few times.  It was there that I got to know Dave Jorgensen and his lovely wife, and I got more than just a far off first impression of Ian Krist. Last years festival was amazing and I really enjoyed just drifting from tent to tent getting to see bands that I had not heard of and to which I had very little, or no exposure. I really enjoyed Pancake Breakfast they caused a ruckus, when they wanted to.

This year, because of a Dan and Lorraine Colwell's 25th Anniversary party and Dan's 50th Birthday, TMR was moved forward a day, which meant that my exposure to the Folk Festival was truncated. It turned out that I pretty much got to see everything I wanted to see.  John Hammond blew my mind. He played the mouth harp like it's not in a neck holder. The guitar like he wasn't singing and sung like he wasn't doin' nuthin' else neither.  There was a point in his show where he'd knocked his resonator, which was on a guitar stand, off balance and as it slowly began to fall he kept playing with his right hand, reached out with his left, grabbed it, put it back into place, allowed a measure between verses to finish passing and smiled like "yeah you know what time it is", to those of us that even caught what he'd let drop, and then went back to it.  It was acrobatic Blues.

I tend not to like happy music.  It's difficult to do well. I much prefer desperate, desolate music.  It's like the beauty of Wyoming's purple rocks, or The Red Desert, or I-10 between Quartzite and Phoenix.  It gets you in the joints, like arthritis, and let's you know the knowledge of good and evil has a price but somehow there's joy in the pain of getting along - tricky little devil. Which is why I didn't particularly like the Jonas - I mean Makepeace Brothers, but admired their ability to write songs that don't suck real heavy, yet are still light like a daffodil. I watched their workshop, which was apparently lighter than their later show.

I listened to what comes up from a google search of The Eilen Jewell Band and thought "this is going to be excellent, self destruction to sweet desperate county swing", but I think it's a hard thing to sell to a small audience of primarily AARP card holders at 9:00 on a Friday night in the back tent. I did, however, catch Ray Wylie Hubbard - or really the last half of RWH. He is everything you'd expect him to be: dirty, greasy, outlaw country. He was hilarious and awesome.

I said ah man, wait a minute there's gotta be something wrong
I aint a bad guy just write these little songs
I always pay my union dues don't stay in the passing lane
And he said what about all that whiskey and the cocaine
I said well yeah but that's no reason to throw me in Hell
Cause I didn't use the cocaine to get high, I just liked the way it smelled"

-Ray Wylie Hubbard, Conversation With The Devil

Did I mention I'm not a fan of happy music? You know that analogy above about arthritis being a pain of living, I pretty much straight jacked that shit from Martha Scanlan. She's an amazing song writer.  She's pretty much a female Townes Van Zandt, minus the severe and debilitating addictions - which is what I want from a song writer- more Lungs, less German Mustard. I really enjoyed her set on Saturday afternoon on the main stage. I will have some Martha Scanlan in my collection before the week ends.  I promise you that! You can take that to the Bank! Fo' Sho'!

We (Uncle Johnny, Uncle Jose, and I) made some new friends.  I'd like to give a shout out to my homie Jim Stark, he can be found at Scoot's Bar and Grill, chillin' on weekend nights, or rambling the National Forest Land looking for folks up to no good on weekdays.  I'd also like to give a shout out to the Brew Master at Three Creeks Brewing for telling us about his beer's at the SFF sponsor night, The Amber Anvil was a very well balanced, not over hopped beer - which is rare for an amber and the Hoodoo Voodoo IPA which was a rainbow of hop flavors and I like that because I like complicated Sudoku puzzles.  Also please, if you are getting married or have an event in the Central Oregon region that you would like documented please investigate Kara McGinn Jensen of Expectations Video. It's not often that you make friends with real life free-lance documentary film makers - unless your me, because it seems like I can now name 3.  Okay if I count aspiring documentary film makers and myself then it's 4.

We, TMR participants, plan on hitting the SFF again next year. While I was there I was talking to Israel on the phone about The Bus and The Tour and the like.  He directly said that he had a very good time playing the festival last year and that he'd love to play it again. So hey, Sisters Folk Festival listen the eff up!

Open

This is the beginning of a series of entries that are a description of my experiences and sometimes my analysis of those experiences. My name is Mick. I'm a college educated. I'm 32. I'm a suburban American, with a wife and a profession that basically allows me to do whatever I want and at the same keeps me so busy that I don't even have time enough to blog. I have been afforded the opportunity to drive my friends band, Blind Pilot, around in a converted school bus from the end of September to the middle of October and I mean this to be a journal, albeit public.

The name of this Blog is Moriarty in honor of the famous bus driver Neal Cassady.

This is a repost, I've changed my URL.