I was thinking today about the tour I accompanied Chalk Talk on back in winter 2023 into 2024 . . . I can’t believe it has already been two years. I was their driver and roadie and we visited something like nine cities in as many days. And then I left Savannh after the final show and drove through the night back to Virginia, a long long drive.

And today I remembered also this interview they did before the tour started:

Aw :,)

For a while now I have been writing a novella-length piece called

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING
TO ST. STARSAILOR

. . . which is about those two unmoored periods of nonstop travel between August 2023 to February 2024 (which includes the Chalk Talk tour) and May 2024 to February 2025 . . . now I am on track to rack up another chunk of my life doing the same sort of thing. It has taken so long because there is so much to say. Like everything else I ever publish here, it’s OK if no one else ever reads it. I just need to write it down is all.

There are certainly worse ways to get on with the business of living as I have chosen to live if you can endure the near-constant exhaustion and occasional bouts of aimlessness. Sometimes it can be a little lonely. Still, my solo tour of the world has been my way of cooling down my brain and warding off the Darkness . . . of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Once I start thinking, I’m doomed . . . it’s better for me now if I carry on in this way until I find some other means of saving myself . . . otherwise I’m just staying up till sunrise in my vampire tower in Berlin, all the while recalling disasters despite all my efforts not to. Truthfully, I think I know what that future thing will be, the thing that will yank me out of the same Swamp of Sadness that swallows up Artax the horse in THE NEVERENDING STORY . . .

. . . but then I guess we’ll all find out together. Believe it or not, I am optimistic about getting out from under the shadow of this thing. There is some use in me yet. When I was going through a particularly rough period a few years ago, my good friend Tombo in Spain reached out and said something very nice to me, though I am not sure if he was fully aware of its life-saving potency and the effect it had and continues to have on me. I very nearly cried when I read it. He said: “You are definitely more valuable to other people alive than dead. Your sensitivity is a virtue. Everything that you have done and has happened to you, and your awareness of it, makes you more of a wonderful, unique, and precious human being, not less.” I think about that every day, specifically the first part. It really does keep me from going down to Skeleton Town, so to speak. Thanks brother.

Artax is eventually rescued from the swamp, by the way, once he is released from the prison of his own despair. And afterwards he and his best friend Arteyu ride freely and happily once again upon the plains of Fantasia. So perhaps there is hope for me still after all. It will be more difficult for me to get out from the swamp on account of my best friend has died. He has gone someplace that, at least for now, I cannot follow. So saying, I will continue to go it alone, but I will do my best all the same. Perhaps I won’t always be alone. I have to find out . . . What else is there?

unfolding enveloping missiles of soul
recall senses sadly

mirage like soft blue, like lanterns below
to light the way gladly

i was telling leila that when we are in the same room, it is rarefied air. leila is one of my closest and oldest friends. everyone should have a friend like leila . . . i am just lucky because i have the real thing

sorry, soldier . . . you’ve got a pretty bad case of midnight yearning. nurse, hand me those forceps . . . and go ahead and put on that song that makes you feel lonely

i’m in seattle with baby boy :,)

Yesterday I set off in the Great White Shark from McCune Compound in Vallejo, California and drove 630 miles north through Northern California into Oregon . . . I was badly sleep-deprived, three time zones away from New York where I had just left, and feeling a sort of drug withdrawal from being away from someone on the other side of the continent. And yet still I was all right. I was alive! I drove past grassy plains and river valleys and deciduous forests in the shadow of dormant volcanoes. I have made this same trip over a dozen times now and it is a good one, especially in the fall. Really, there is no better time I could have chosen to make that drive. And though I was alone in the car shotgunning coffee and eating fruit, AS IS MY WONT, I was visited by the disembodied voices of my many friends who called in as though I were hosting a radio show, and maybe I was in a sense . . . I gave boyfriend advice (“Dump his dumb ass”), received relationship advice from certified experts, and at the tail end of the drive I got a call that essentially added ten years to my lifespan. It was as though a celestial beam had shone down from the stars, my greatest allies, and restored me. Thought I: “Wow!”

Newly revived, I piloted the Great White Shark out from the valley of the shadow of death and rocketed through the cold rainy darkness on the outskirts of Portland . . . when I saw the red, white, and blue bridge, I knew I was coming up on Tigard, which is where my friend Molly and her cute British family live. This was my ultimate destination. Molly had told me her mother had made dinner for me, and that it would be waiting for me when I arrived. Naturally, I floored it . . .

I parked the Shark on the curb and unloaded my bags in the rain. Molly was waiting for me at the door. And behind her stood a sort of mythical creature I know well, being my nephew Bernie, the British shorthair who is so cute it almost makes me sick:

Bernie came right over to me and started rubbing his head on my hand. He sniffed at my denim jacket as though it were a T-bone steak. Molly and her cute British family were in awe . . . they said Bernie never does this sort of thing, that it takes him a while to warm up to people. I reminded them that not only am I the cat whisperer, but that perhaps Bernie remembered my scent from long ago when I met him as a baby:

That was back in November 2020, exactly five years ago. I had driven up from the Bay Area to visit Molly in Oregon and the Pink-Haired Girl across the border in Washington before I left for the East Coast against my will. That had been a good trip, back when the world could still be beautiful . . .

So as not to be rude, I left the comfort of my reveries and returned to the Dark World in which we dwell, in the Here and Now, and found myself seated at Molly’s dining room table. I was eating what I think was an eggplant lasagna. Molly informed me that she and her entire family go to sleep at ten, and so they were off to do just that. I think I may have called her a dork. I hugged her good-night, and she and her boyfriend Chad padded up the stairs to dream little angel dreams. Meanwhile, Bernie and I chilled in the living room like a couple of cool dudes.

Eventually I made my way up to the guest bedroom and ate a gummy. I took a hot shower and brushed my teeth and lay down in the dark. I thought about a certain person who was far away from me now, and whose body I missed now that it was not pressed up against mine. I once again felt that drug withdrawal from the chemical crash of distance. Heaven help me, I felt too an intense longing, the depths of which I had never felt until that moment. In the last forty-eight hours, I had run my body about a thousand miles on a completely empty tank, and now it was crashing. I closed my eyes and plunged dick-first into a fever dream.

In the morning, Molly brought me a cup of coffee from the French press, which I drank in bed. It was a luxurious feeling. I had slept well . . . I sat upright against a wall of pillows and remembered my dreams. Eventually I put on some clothes and went out into the mini upstairs living room where Molly and Chad were gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes. Thought I: “Aw.”

The plan was to have a cute little cozy day in Portland, which is just about the only thing the place is good for. We got into Chad’s little red hatchback and cruised through the autumnal wonderland of Oregon while I did what I do best, which is to riff nonstop from the backseat.

We got breakfast at some cute little place along a winding rural road . . . Molly got one vegetarian sandwich, and I got another, and then we exchanged halves. Upon spying it through the display box, I had no choice but to order the Marionberry Puff Tart.

Marionberry is a special type of blackberry you can find in Oregon . . . they sell marionberry jam at the grocery store, make wine out of it, you name it . . . I used to get the marionberry pie at Tom’s Diner every Sunday when I lived here:

We ate our food so disgustingly fast that everyone around us gasped in disbelief. Now satiated, we drove into Portland proper to get coffee and hang out at Powell’s Books. I had not been back in many years . . . I used to hang out in the cafe for hours back when I was a jobless and girlfriendless bum like every other guy in Portland. Yet today in the Dark World of A.D. 2025, I stood in the lobby and wondered at it all . . . I allowed myself to believe I am much cooler than I was back then. Satisfied with my coolness, I went looking for postcards. Along the way I made a lot of friends:

. . . afterwards we went to some little Japanese stores where I made more little friends:

The sun now setting over dreary Portland, I coerced Molly and Chad into posing for a cute little picture:

. . . and coerced Chad to drive me to the Star Theater where Molly took a hero shot of me beneath the marquee:

Thanks Molly!

Back at Molly’s cute little British family’s house, I took a power nap, had another life-affirming phone call, and joined everyone downstairs to eat Molly’s mum’s mushroom risotto while seated in Dad’s Chair at the head of the table where I did what I do best: hold court and riff like hell.

Afterwards we watched THE LAST PICTURE SHOW while Bernie caterpillar’d around in the cabinet beneath the TV:

Now it is nearly four in the morning and I’m up writing this space trash while the rain comes down hard outside . . . I have to be on a train to Seattle at eight, so I really ought to go to sleep. I’m cat-sitting up there, don’t you know. I am excited to go to sleep because I get to dream. I dream every night. Often I luck out and dream about certain people. Sorry everyone, but there is of course one person I want to dream about most of all. Well . . . here’s hoping!!! ☆彡

i’m over here saying stuff i’ve never said before

I’ve been listening to THE IDIOT at least once a week for like thirteen years . . . yeah . . . far out . . .

it is always a blessing to receive the wisdom of sister monty

Today was such a bad day . . . something was askew but I cannot quite figure out what it was. I felt like a stranger in my own life, that sort of eerie uncanny phony feeling of being two clicks of the dial away from the real thing, whatever that may be . . .

I spent most of the day completely sleep-deprived in airplane seats and in airports. When I finally got to San Francisco thirteen hours later, I felt a deep sadness. I really do not like being here anymore. It reminds of me too many bad things. And on top of a dismal day, that feeling was heavier by orders of magnitude for reasons that aren’t worth talking about.

So I wandered San Francisco and the East Bay with all my bags on zero sleep all through the evening and into the night. I walked many miles in the dark, my body running on fumes as I had not eaten nor drank anything. I sat on park benches for hours having no place else to go. I felt lonelier than hell until I called Leila from a bleacher next to a baseball field close to my old apartment in Berkeley. Leila made me feel better. She told me to go home and sleep and to stop worrying.

Close to midnight, McCune came and got me along a lonely road leading to the highway on-ramp. I told him I was completely depleted of everything and he tried to cheer me up. Now I am in my room here at McCune Compound in Vallejo and have tears of exhaustion coming out of my eyes whether I want them to or not. I am going to drink a liter of cold water and go to sleep.

In the early morning I have to wake up and drive ten hours north to Portland. I have to be in Seattle by Wednesday morning. I was insane to plan this trip like I did, but I promised I’d be in Seattle, and really I want to be there to watch those cats. I just wish I didn’t feel this way, which is like a fool. Sorry to be a bummer, but at least it’s the truth.

Well! It’s like the fella said: I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that my own tears do scald like molten lead (lol)~