Places I slept this year: Part One

In my line of work there is always the daunting thought that I must get up in the morning and immediately do something hilarious. Perhaps this is the reason I stayed in bed until 2 pm today. It could also be that after almost 6 weeks of traveling I found a place to hang out in for an entire week! And I don't have to get up if I don't want to! So today, instead of being hilarious I figured I would just tell you about some of the places I have slept in over the past 6 weeks.

For me, sleep has always been tough to come by, and beer has always been my favorite vitamin (for better or worse, but let's not open that can of worms). This has is a combination which has found me "sleeping" upright  in a straight backed chair and in some guys tree house on leap year day 2008. During the last four weeks of university I lived in my friend Jacob's laundry room. It was great. In the morning he would get up and cook his breakfast and I would worm around on the kitchen floor (it was adjacent my "bedroom") saying hilarious things. Well he laughs easy it could have been less hilarious than I remember. Anyway, we were not talking about ancient history but the near past, so without further ado...

This was my home. A Mercedes. Any guesses why I named him "Adolf"?

Flash back to June of this year (given time travel works) and you will find a much hairier version of me working at The Oriental Green Party Hydroponic Farm in Mount Compass South Australia. That is really the name and I highly recommend not working there. Well as the story goes, I was living unhappily with my bosses Mr and Mrs Luoung, who by the way have their own rooms. Probably because of their incredible dickishness. One day however they presented a paper thin ruse to get me out of the house and back into the van (we do not have time to explore the madness which was the Oriental Green Party fully at this time and I apologize). So from then on I lived in the van and had a mouse roommate named Chad. I think I named him so I would not kill him. My bad was made of cardboard boxes stuffed in cardboard boxes, then I taped 5 together. It worked OK. In the end I had $4,500 shoved into it as well so it was a pretty great bed.

Of course when I was done working I stayed at a couple mates places before I went on my BIG OVERNIGHT CAMPING TRIP! Seriously, the whole time I was in Australia I never really traveled. First because I was in a relationship, second because I was working at the damn Oriental Green Party. Well I finally got to go on a camp out to a music festival, and damned if I didn't do the exact opposite of what you are supposed to do. I camped right under a beautiful white gum tree!

I'm not telling what went on with the tree, but it was a hoot!

The problem is the gum trees can just be sitting there all gummily and then suddenly branches will just fall the hell off! Of course they didn't that night, but I was camping on a spring and when I woke up I thought I had pee'd the bed (there was beer involved). But unless I had a whole keg in my bladder and some other stuff there is no explaining the fact that my pillow was soaked through and the bottom of the tent had standing water (which did not smell like pee). So that was my second to last night in Australia...




Just kidding! I got stuck in Sydney Airport for a week! Because of this mild transportation debacle, I ended up here:

The Germans insisted on calling it "The Jolly Jumpa!"

As things go it was nice. In 7 days I slept in 5 different rooms and with countless international women. Oh wait no. Just rooms. It was brilliant because I had been stuck out in woop woop with a passel of bogans. Being in one of the most beautiful cities in the world was quite alright. I am including a picture of a bogan below so you take a peek over the proverbial shoulder of Buzzsaw.

'stralian!

Well I finally got out of Australia, but I don't count 40 hours and three flights as exactly a place to sleep, even if I did fly first class from Osaka to Oakland. I landed in CA after more than a year abroad, sick with the plague and paranoid as hell about losing the files from the album I recorded with music legend Chris Finnen before I left Adelaide. Did I mention the plague? So anyhow I ended up taking the bus through Oakland to the house my sister lives in. Jerry Garcia's daughter lives next door and I happened to spot her.

Chris Finnen had the awesome habit of calling him "Garcy"!

Well I rested and coughed there for a couple days before I flew standby to Portland to work on the album at Troubador Studios. It was a near heart stopping experience, I got on the flight 2 minutes before take off. So the next couple nights I spent in Portland...to be continued at the point where I found myself working for the eccentric pot smoking chiropractor...