this is freedom

the passed few days i have been disconnected from this modern century, i have been in saint louis, branson, silver dollar city, and anderson.
anderson doesn't even know what a public library is.
here is an attempt at catching up.

got into saint louis and went to a bar/club with caitlins friends, where a professional photographer was taking pictures of me that were going to be used as promotional shots. it was akward. it reminded me of when i was in chicago after the explosions in the sky show a kid from LA wanted to photograph me with his friend as a souvenier. we then walked around the loop, the main street of night events and looked at the stars on the ground, Miles Davis, William Burroughs, Pulitzer Prize guy are just a few famous people from this city. Went to a late night Diner called the Courtesy Diner where drunken people were dancing in the parking lot. They served sides of burritos.

checked out huge record shops, walked the arch grounds. some guy backed into the mississippi river with a pick up truck. Sat on a bridge drinking beer watching trains and a pigeon get run over by one. went to a bar to get 49 cent beers and ate white castle. honestly its not that amazing. i heard that they are made of liver. but theyre alright for like a quarter a burger.
i have about 32 mosquito bites.

rode bikes by the budweiser factory, monsanto factory, and saw where the real exorcist girl was hospitalized. we checked out the city museum, its a giant playground with school buses, airplanes and huge pipes hanging out a 10 story brick factory. it houses basically anything the city is going to throw out during an excavation, so theres ancient entertainment pharaphenelia (elvis, carnival, traffic, newspaper presses) and a huge cave in the basement that had us on our knees crawling through 2 foot passways under the entire building. rode home, drove around the hill, an italian district, saw an old fat woman bring in bed pillows to the restaraunt to sit on. had ted drews frozen custard for desert (i have adopted an american heartland value appetite-theres no other option). Freedom is the ability to tattoo a retard.

woke up early to start our drive to anderson, where we are staying with caitlin's friend tony's mom. we stopped at a rest area where the handwashing equipment was a "No-touch, no-move handwashing experience!" You stick your hands in, soap dispenses then wait, water will start spewing, then after 2 songs of happy birthday is sung (approx 30 seconds) hot air is blown, all in one box. Caitlin said once when she was biking around st. louis at 3am in a wal-mart parking lot she saw a trailer full of zebras. we stopped at a town where huge americans sat in the back of their pick up trucks because they couldn't fit on the inside. got really greasy pizza, deepfried catfish and these things called hushpuppies and crab rangooon. these teenage kids kept giving caitlin, tony and i the gun sign, and the call me sign followed by winking. it was weird. after 3 or so more hours we arrived in anderson missouri, a really, really small town with a local watering hole, but no library, no town centre, where the only grocery store is a gas station. we stayed with tonys mom who lives in a small, comfortable house with old relics scattered throughout the house and the yard (cars, candles, trinkits and other old crap). She had a motor boat and we all took it to a lake in Oklahoma. Tony put it in full throttle and we made it to the middle of the lake when the engine started to putter then die. We couldnt get the engine to start again and we only had one paddle. We tried to paddle but the lake was moving us fast in the wrong direction. Tonys sister blew some whistles and we waved and yelled at people at the trailer park across the lake. Luckiy some sun burned fellow drove up in a sea-do and towed us back to land. apparently the alternator blew. we drove to tonys sisters house. she is a 16 year old living in her own house across from city hall (an old shed like structure that was a train station) with her boyfriend a guy 22 who skates all day long and collects guitars. That night we drove out to an Oklahoma Casino, where it seemed the entire town was, as the parking lot was full at 1am. they offered endless free sodas in a neon light decorated box. we got alot of strange glances by old people chain-smoking playing 2 to 3 slot machines at one time. caitlin ended up wining maybe $3 dollars, i lost $15, and tony lost nearly $300. luckily most of his loosings were the casinos money. we were there well into 4am.

"can you make jerky out of human meat?" -tonys sister.

drove to a boat shop to repair the boat. it was nauseatingly hot. filled up a raft, drove it to the baptist church on elk creek and floated down the creek for a few hours. as we waited for tony to drive and pick us up at the town hole, this local started talking to caitlin and i. he asked us if we liked knives and showed us his switch blade (which he uses to give haircuts to his friends when they are sleeping), and said how most people in anderson were assholes and we should watch out. and how he carries 3 spare tires in his dodge dakota in case his tires get slashed.ate biscuits and gravy for lunch, then waited until midnight for dinner as the family argued regular family squaler. the dinner was huge, but i was so tired that my eyes were cloudy, i wasnt making any sense and i thought i was going to pass out leaving my head dunked in the shrimp cocktail.

woke up and started to drive to silver dollar city after moe biscuits and gravy. it is an 1880s deep-south themed amusement park with roller coasters and other rides. the workers look amish and look at city people as if they are wearing strange clothing. the accent is so intense, i sometimes have a little twang. i have never seen so many fat, white americans in one place before. after the park closed we sat in the parking lot and had beer and befriended the parking-lot patrol man to let us ride in his golf cart around the lot. We then drove down the main streets of Branson. It is so american, campy, disgustingly touristy that it is depressingly beautiful. Its like a Las Vegas for overweight rednecks that collect porcelain dolls. Huge We parked in a wal-mart lot. i went to the local mall to use the washroom and ran into a Jerry Lee Lewis impersonator in the centre hall. He was making this lady in the audience cluck like a chicken. She was an easy target for Jerry as there were only 4-6 people watching. The mall smelled like a dentist crossed with a leather store. The wal-mart sold 99 cent shirts with american pride symbols all over them. we took our bikes to Branson and started to ride them in the parking lot and we had these guys pull up in a white escalade ask us if we were putting on a bicycle show. On the way home we stopped at a gas station called QT and i had caffeine enhanced coffee.

woke up to a huge crock-pot roast for breakfast with gravy. Sat around in anderson watching trashy television shows and gilbert grape, which actually reminded me of where i was. Tony had a mini bike, a Honda that we took out for a spin. It was great, I felt like an old Shriner. headed for st. louis and stopped to eat at a jack in the box. i was told i had to experience the diverse flavors of this restaraunt. drove and slept, drove and slept until we reached the city. we had late night sushi. they have fucking cheeseburger rolls! went to a few bars where people thought i looked like either frank zappa, weird al, or richard simmons.

woke up and went to a few estate sales with caitlins mom and mark. strange experience looking through dead peoples shit. a giant market, and got a huge Reuben sandwich. and a few thrift shops. we went to this drug store called globe drugs that gets shit that doesn't sell from around the world, and sells it at a discount. they have imported wines for a few dollars, apple cinnamon cheddar cheetos, surprise gift wrap boxes where you don't know whats in them for only $2. tonight we are having a fun bbq with really good food.

that took everything out of me....