A Hoboe Finds Home...

I had never in my life considered visiting Pennsylvania, let alone moving here. The way my life has been in the past few years it sort of felt like I would just turn into a tumbleweed and blow off into the dust. Since May 2010 I have been riding the river of life wherever it took me, from the Washington coast, down to Baton Rouge, up and down the west coast to California, a few layovers in Portland, a year in South 'stralia, picking apples for a couple days in Yakima, New York City for a long week, and then suddenly I found it. Or maybe I just got sucked in. Instead of taking the train across the country back to Seattle (which I did NOT want to do), I rolled the dice again. A lady friend in Chattanooga said I could stay with her as long as I wanted (brave since we have never actually met outside the confines of the internet), and another lady friend invited me to visit her in Harrisburg PA. The clincher was when she told me she had work the very next day painting. At the time I had around $39 so it was a no-brainer. I changed my reservation and boarded the train at Penn Station. Bound for the land of Will. I. Am. Penn.

I can see Will.I.Am Penn running down this street with a no nonsense suit made of glow sticks

On the train I had no idea what to expect. It didn't matter because I was moving. The clickety clack of the railroad train was calling. The land was all ripped apart with factories and canals through New Jersey, but it was something to be seen. When we got to Philly the houses changed into brick townhouses, the graffiti came back onto the periphery and again the old factory buildings I love loomed like the ghosts of great railroad and steel magnates shaking their fists at the sky and the ravages of time. But the road wound on.

On the road we always pack it in and pack it out.

I had been helping an older gentleman figure out how to use his computer and log in to his email, and throughout the trip he narrated to me the history of the area, from his perspective. The one piece of his perspective that stuck out was how the Germans and Mennonites refuse to learn. According to him (he was a professor and small town journalist) they simply would not read anything or study anything except The Farmers Almanac and the bible. Funny that I forgot that until right now.

If the Germans encounter any books they throw them off this ledge. Devils Pulpit, Lehigh Gap.

We pulled in to the old brick train station and I got off the train and went to inspect my surroundings. It was cloudy and cold, but I could see some architecture I liked. The dome of the capitol (or some damn dome) was rising above us into the chalky gray sky. Since I was waiting for a friend to pick me up, I considered running around the corner to buy a six pack of beer to kill the time. Lucky for me I didn't, the state of Pennsylvania has to be the most difficult place in the union to buy beer. Let me tell you a little about the arcane liquor laws...

No reason for this picture, but if it makes you want to drink beer, you are in for a few surprises...

HOW TO BUY BEER IN PA! THE BUZZSAW EDITION!!!!

The first time I visited a grocery store I took a stroll around to "check the prices" of the beer. It was nowhere to be found. Was the store owned by the Amish? The were using electric light and such, so that was unlikely, unless the whole power grid was attached to a giant treadmill in the basement, but that seemed a bit of a stretch. Finally I asked my friend who told me non-plussed that you had to go to a beer store. Now this was beginning to sound disturbingly similar to Amarillo TX, a place I had the misfortune to visit in November 2010. Things were getting desperate.

The next day I worked helping a friend of a friend move, afterwards I got the chance to pick the brain of a fellow beer drinking, whom I will refer to as Beer Drinkin' Bobby Bryant. What I learned was somewhat strange. he told me that you had two options for beer buyin' in PA. Option one was the beer store, which obviously had beer. option two was at bars. Of course I have encountered bars that sell beer to go before in Ellensburg WA and in 'stralia. What I hadn't encountered was the crazy ass law which limits your purchases to two six packs. Of course Beer Drinkin' Bobby Bryant said that as long as you left and came back in and made a "different" purchase, there was no limit. In Pennsylvania you can buy as much beer to go as you want as long as you go in and out of the bar a bunch of times. It sounded like something which predated prohibition. Well, I was OK. I was alright. I was working and stuff. But a couple weeks later I was really jonesing for beer. It was time to go to the beer store...

I think it was a Saturday. It didn't matter. I was getting beer. Probably a 12 pack and maybe a couple of nice IPA's in 24 ounce bottles. Yes. That was exactly what I was after. This was going to be awesome. So into to the beer store I went. Of course I must inform you that the beer store was also a butcher shop, though the beeves and stuff were in another part of the building. OK. Hold it together. It's about to be beer time...sort of.

Walking through the door I found myself being funneled through a sort of maze made out of different kinds of beer. Stacks and stacks! Cases and cases! It was amazing really. They had so many kinds of beer it was silly. It was also quite nice and a bit out of my price range. I realized that they were all in cases, and cases of IPA is in the $30-40 range, so I moved on through the beer fort (it was like a cross between a maze and a fort, so maybe I will call it a "mort"). Finally I found something up my alley, cans of Yuengling lager, the local brew. I figured I could get a 12 pack and then find my IPA's...I figured dead damn wrong! It took me about 20 minutes of wandering through the mort to realize that they ONLY SOLD IN INCREMENTS OF 24!!! That means, no IPA bottles unless I am going to pony up for the whole deal. It was surreal to finally understand that in PA the only way to get less than 24 beers was in a bar, but you can not buy 18 beers anywhere, unless you go to a bar, leave and come back! As much as I strove to find reason within this madness I couldn't get past the idea that it was actually just a really dumb law.

This is what everyone does here when they finally actually get beer (I was actually dead sober).

 That said, my liver has been doing well since I moved here. The town is beautiful, the people are kind of crazy (which works for me), and the Susquehanna river flows on past. Maybe I didn't provide you with any actual reasons I am staying here, but hell, I never signed a contract, you get what you get!

How to fly to Australia (like a total rock star)!!!!

I am currently sitting in the “coach” section of a United Airlines flight en route from San Francisco to Sydney AU. To begin with, I am simply happy to be here (that is unless we plunge into the Pacific at some point, or a baby starts caterwauling). It was tense at the gate, flying standby; I was terrified that I would miss the plane, and thus my connecting flight from Sydney to Adelaide. Needless to say, I made it. But the fact that I was pacing the concourse muttering vulgarities when I thought I would not be called is less interesting than the items presently of note.

Item 1: Business class. Yes, I am in coach, and if I had chosen to fly out tomorrow I could have gotten the upgrade. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for you, I can only watch the proceedings up there through a mesh screen. This is what I know about business class. Clearly there is a lot of towel play up there. The one man I can see has a towel draped over his shoulders (which he much enjoys). He was also delivered a towel after his meal. I just saw one of the flight attendants flourishing a towel, an extra towel that she draped over the food/towel cart, just perhaps to flaunt the fact that they have as surplus of towels. In the coach section I see nary a napkin, let alone, a soothing, milky, delicious towel…

Item 2:  The classical music. It is said that classical music makes your brain grow. If this is truly the case I plan on growing my brain at an alarming rate. I have been listening to classical music (sonatas and symphonies for the idiots out there) for OVER AN HOUR!!!!! By the time we touchdown that will be more like 12 HOURS! Which in my opinion is similar to being a genius!

Item 3: Pirates of the Caribbean. Number 3? Watching without sound, I will attempt to summarize it. I do not think this is the first movie, I have yet to see Orlando Gloom. But let me try and summarize it for you. At some point the gay handicapped British naval officer was peeping at Depp (who is sort of a cross between Bob Marley and that pick up artist guy). The officer had a “moment” with a closeted naval officer. Also Johnny Depp's dad (they look the same) was making the ropes turn into the snake from Anaconda and tie up Depp’s men on their own volition (in a painful sequence I call “Rope-Anaconda). Also the female lead is very good at fighting without getting dirty. I then stopped watching in order to eat. When I looked up the useless guy who was previously tied to the mast was stabling a hot mermaid through the tail. Now Depp and the female lead (she is wearing a hat I think I saw Sheryl Crow wearing) are in a jungle. The mermaid is pining to death in a tiny aquarium. Zombie Laurence Fishburn is hoping to kill the mermaid. Now Depp is flirting with Sheryl Crow. Funny, he kind of looks like Kid Rock might look like if he were gayer and a pirate. Well, since this movie is bound to last for another 8 hours, I better stop watching it. It stands to reason that the idiocy which is the Pirates of The Caribbean series will undo all the work that classical music is accomplishing in my mind. I cannot risk this.

Item 4: The chicken meal. Having seen the movie airplane, and knowing what airlines can do to “meat” I opted for the ravioli. It tasted like a Hungry Man dinner. Decent.

Item 5: I would like to thank my friend, code name L.O.G. for getting me a buddy pass. It allowed me to fly for $372 from San Francisco to Sydney. That my friends, is a very good thing. For now, I bid you farewell.

Postscript: This movie is almost making me wish they were showing Avatar. Not really, but sadly that might be an improvement. Several of the passengers have freaked out and had to be restrained. If they were listening to the “movements” I am engrossed in, their lives might have been stable enough to allow them to watch this vulgarity. I am depressed to inform you that it was a huge hit. A terrible and huge blockbuster.

Postscript two: The “piece” I am listening to has a refrain which was lifted directly from Alan Shermans “Camp Granada”! See, I am already getting smart!

Of note: We now have four hours left. The in flight movies were: Water For Elephants, in which Robert Pattinson does all he can to be taken seriously and Reese Witherspoon has a weird chin. Next we watched  Rio (I wish we were watching Brazil). It was like every Pixar movie, I could summarize it by taking a review from Toy Story and changing the characters and setting.  But that is uninteresting. In front of me an Aussie guy is trying to drink himself to sleep (6 wine bottles in three hours). He has been cut off by the flight attendants. His last bottle was delivered about 20 minutes ago, and the flight attendant said it would be the last for awhile. So he rang the bell, and when she arrived she asked him if he needed a bikkie. He drunkenly said “you’re not gonna like this” at which point she told him that they had been discussing it and he was getting cut off for the time being. She brought another attendant up to help say no. Lastly, the man with the towels is now completely draped in a bundle of white. He could be a polar bear for all I know. Thank god he isn’t hungry. And the drunk guy was asleep less than a minute after his last attempt at wine. That is all for now.

Of note: we are now watching a Discovery channel show in which people do their jobs. Perhaps it is called “Marble Slab Extractors” or “Snow Slabbers” because they are doing that.

The current situation: Drunk guy roused himself and has attempted to get wine twice. I think he is currently asleep. Instead of a movie, they are showing an episode of “House” in which Hugh Laurie grimaces, pops pills and acts like a dick, all while saving lives. It also seems odd to me that at this hospital the staff will go to your home and go through your things to figure out what is wrong with you. Perhaps they are doing this for all the illegal aliens who are sucking the American health care system dry. Also in this episode, Hugh Laurie hobbles a lot. I find it amazing that they continue to find subject matter for this show. Oh, and some guy tried to kill himself, the nurses went and looked through his freezer, showing each other his steak. House is as watchable as road striping.

Any attractive, Christian women, who aren't alchoholics?

In a desperate attempt to pretend to work, I have been surfing Craigslist for the past couple of hours. I decided to do a Valentine's Day special. So if you are still single this is a must read. This posting is so alluring that it is sure to be successful. From the opening headline to the powerful ending, our author is pulling out all the stops. Read and enjoy:

·         Any good looking Christian women who aren't alchoholics?! A Valentine! - 26 (Sacramento)

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·         Date: 2011-02-13, 2:27PM

     

      I am an honest good guy. I have a job. I don't need to get hammered every night to have fun. I'm just looking for a girl who shares the same qualities. I come from a good family. I treat people with respect. I have a car. I'm athletic. I don't hook up with every girl I meet. I'm not a drug addict. If you are a decent girl who is looking for a good guy maybe we can chat. Please reply with "It's a good day" is your subject line. I'm not a creep and I'm not looking for a sexual encounter. Prefferably an attractice girl with some self respect who keeps her clothes on until she really knows a guy. Who knows.. maybe we will hit it off before Valentines day. P.S.. I will reply with some more real pictures if you do. I am not unattractive by any means. I'll let you be the judge of that. Just am kind of hesitant to post pictures of myself on here. Reply with a pic and I'll return the favor! Obviously, this posting starts out really specific. He is looking for attractive Christian women who are NOT, I repeat, NOT alcoholics! It makes sense because as soon as someone who falls into that demographic reads it, they are sure to respond. In his opening sentence he says "I am an honest good guy" I like that. I don't doubt it. I am sure the last booze-hound Episcopalian he dated walked all over him for it. In my heart of hearts I want this man to find true love. He strikes me as a truly wonderful man. Why do I think this? Because he has a job. Not only that he doesn't get rip roaring drunk every night! Probably every other, but not EVERY night! This is a man who cares about his family. AND OWNS A CAR! LADIES, START FORMING AN ORDERLY LINE! This guy is a saint! He is up front and honest about the fact that he doesn't sleep around too much! Not only that, if you are "attractice" and have enough self respect to keep your clothes on when you meet this hunk, you might get a second date. I am sure he has this policy because of the drunken hordes of ladies who have molested him after bible study or choir practice. This poor guy just wants someone special. He is NOT going to sleep with you. Even if in an inebriated state you read him your favorite bible passage. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! All he wants is for you to keep your clothes on. Get to know him. Put the liquor down. Maybe after church, when you sober up, he might take your top off. Probably not, but there is a chance. I know he wants to give you time to get to know him. He posted it today, he is hoping to find someone who clicks before Valentines day, which is tomorrow. In that time all potential candidates are required to put down the Fireball, pick up the bible, keep your clothes on and get to know this guy. Tomorrow, he will do you the honor of ravishing you after taking you out to Applebee's. It's your choice, you know what he wants. I will tell you this though, if you are a whiskey swilling Methodist who just wants to be a pole dancer for a living, you better stay the hell away. This man is a keeper.