pith…

WESTWARD HO…THE COLD BACKHANDED SLAP OF REAL WINTER…THIN-SKINNED MIDWESTERNERS WOULDN’T SURVIVE OUT HERE…THE CRYOGENICALLY FROZEN PRESIDENT AND THE SAD STATE OF THE UNION

From the frozen Canadian metropolis of Calgary, Alberta, the time has finally come for an initial assessment of this launch across, around, and out of the great American landscape. Finally breaking out of the lagged Milwaukee mentality, I have embarked on a journey fueled by restlessness, blind ambition, booze and friendship, while armed to the teeth with the true physical and mystical potencies of pith…While back on the shores of a festering Lake Michigan, the early snows of a deranged winter were just beginning to wail on the streets of my hometown, and the usual waves of bitching and unwarranted surprise at the dank cold and slush that covered the city whined through the air and ground my nerves. I whipped out a screed, self-centeredly titled PLATFORM OF MY PITH, but that has seemingly been lost somewhere in the haste of my flight. It involved a strange but undeniable theme of primal mountaintop expression that I can only attribute to the overwhelming stagnancy of day to day life, and with any hope I can dig it up to use as a blatant and bizarre preface to however this saga will unfold.

In the onset of our Westward journey, my cohort being a longtime friend, fellow vandal and punk in our misled adolescence, and also owner of The Holy Ranger, the sturdy Jeep that gives us road warrior wheels, we careened out into the plains of North Dakota. Intent on burning straight through the night and all the way up to Whitefish, Montana in one long strung-out burst, the extreme wickedness of the wind-battered plains snuffed out that notion as fast as our snot froze whenever we stopped for gas. The still air temp was a mere -25 degrees, but with 50-75mph wind gusts that swept horizontally across the barren highway, whipping up blinding clouds of snow, the low temperature was somewhere around a hell-freezing -50 degrees. Violent gusts ripped at the soft-top of the Jeep like a sail, and without a white-knuckle grip on the wheel and a wild-eyed stare on the only 20 feet of iced pavement visible ahead, things would have gotten ugly as hell. One serious huff of wind and even the slightest skid, and we could have been found days later buried in a snowdrift, Jeep upside down, frozen solid with a bottle of bourbon in hand and a pile of half-burned books between our blue bodies.

Stranded in Bismarck, the sprawled out default capital of North Dakota we holed up in a cheap motel to weather the frozen shit-storm out on the Westward highway for a night. Being out in the stinging winds was like having any exposed skin slapped repeatedly with slabs of dry ice, and as we worked our way through a twelve-pack in the dingy room, the icy face of our dumbfounded child president glared from the television in his last, thank fucking god, State of the Union Address. As I watched the Address in a stupor of rage and bewilderment, I could barely restrain myself from hurling a beer bottle at the shit-eating grin on George W’s face as he deliberately tried to pull himself out of the ignorant sunken oil well that he has dragged the country into over the past seven and a half backward years. How could this beady-eyed puppet seriously stand there and try to justify his reign of stupidity, the leader of our “free world” that has dragged the dark clouds of his father’s first Gulf War over our generation? These shameful clouds have gotten thicker and more polluted with every bill, act and right-stripping decision that he and his gang of cowboy tycoons has implemented. It is hard to believe that through the warm smoky confines of a $60 motel, hiding from the brutal Dakota winter that roars outside, that a colder and more demonic chill could radiate from an outdated TV screen, but once again George W. Bush has proved that his idiotic power vacuum epitomizes a deep freeze of American rationality.

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WHITEFISH IS BURIED AND THE HEADS LOVE IT…SEVEN FEET IN SEVEN DAYS…THE BONFIRE THAT SOME SCIENTIST FROM 1974 BUILT

Skidding into the most Northwestern corner of the monstrous state of Montana on a late night, the mountain town was already blanketed heavily in several feet of fresh snow that had been pouring down for days. Whitefish had been and would continue to be buried in unrelenting and record breaking dumps of powder, and the locals couldn’t have loved it anymore. Neither could we for that matter, landing there for the same reason, with the snow lust that comes with getting ripped to the tits on pure clean adrenaline and flying down a mountain at top speed, on skis or a snowboard or whatever vehicle fits. The mix of the population in Whitefish, seasonal and permanent, is a strange brew of old-school mountain ranchers and business owners on one side of the bar, and long haired transient ski bums and fun seeking adrenaline fiends like ourselves on the other side. It is a beautiful thing, and everyone seems to be alright with it, and beery mingling and comradeship create a good vibe. It was the perfect atmosphere for two thirsty good-old Milwaukee boys to roam through and relish in for a while…

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SUPERBOWL XLII SUPER COMMERCIAL…

*Editorial Note: A truly terrible scene was manifested, or created around a backyard bonfire on a crisp starlit Sunday night in the yard of a tucked-away log cabin on the silent outskirts of Whitefish, Montana. What follows is the vague retelling of that demented campfire story, or episode, that was drummed-up from who knows where, by unexplainable forces, none of which the author accepts responsibility for.

For some reason the scene bursts into action as a sharp interruption, cutting flawlessly to a multi-million dollar a minute television commercial during Superbowl XLII. The main event is a frightening homoerotic leg wrestling match, with two burly men wearing crotchless leotards the colors of opposing football teams. As they try desperately to out-muscle each other with their feet, they are surrounded by topless cheerleaders who smear guacamole all over themselves and fling the chunky green slime at the contenders. Hairy nuts slap violently and high-pitched cheers roar from the girls up into the sky where all of the stars are shooting stars. The back-alley smut riddled sporting event is lit up right in front of a 10 foot bonfire. A rabid and mangy golden retriever named Kona trounces laps around the fire in chest deep snow with a chain-smoking monkey wearing a cowboy hat on its back.

Almost human yelps come out of the shadows, and following the warning comes a belligerent Kansan who plows through the massive snowdrifts and appears panting, with a beer in each hand and one more in his jacket pocket. Unintelligible mutterings belch from his mouth while he tries to light a cigarette on the red coals, and in the light of the fire, it becomes disturbingly vivid that he has the feet of a small Chinese girl, in white stockings and tiny leather shoes, he balances in a tight toe touching wedge to keep from slipping on the ice slick that dangerously surrounds the blazing flames. Then, all of a sudden, the late great Reggie White comes leaping through the inferno, from who knows where and flattens the mumbling cross-bred man-girl deep into the snow.

The topless cheerleaders are going completely berserk with ear-piercing shouts while the losing wrestler is hurled into the bonfire by the victor, the golden retriever is rearing up on its hind legs like a bronco while the chain-smoking monkey fires dual pistols into the air, Reggie White is going into a Minister of Defense sermon that ends with the commercial tagline, demanding that everyone watching eat fistfuls of 2C-B.

The fine print of a car commercial quickly rolls across the screen:

While waves of strange vibrations hum through the head vision is a blurred clarity that leads you drifting through a hyper-real wonderland…everything is buried under a seven foot blanket of fresh snow, but underneath it all it’s a hell furnace of intensified altered perceptions that rips you right out of everyday normality and numbs and excites a few of the right places on the brain and body.

Quick cut back to the non-action of the big game…

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FERNIE, BRITISH COLUMBIA…FROM CALGARY, THE ONLY GOOD PLACE TO LIVE IN ALBERTA

The sleepy back-mountain town that’s also buried deep in snow, but has nothing really worthwhile to offer except a badass ski area that’ll set you back 77 Canadian dollars, which is even harder to fork out as an American with a plummeting currency. Flooded with Kiwis and other people from down under somewhere, the beer is overpriced and the women are severely outnumbered and hunted by horny Canadian ski bums.

So now we’ve been hunkered down in the metropolis of Calgary, where there are more good people, blurry nights and days, and a day of overcrowded riding at Sunshine Mountain which was as crowded as Disney World and along with the icy tracked-up snow, the place gave me a stomachache. Enough money burning city dwelling for now though, and back into the easy paced, thirst quenching mountain towns of the upper range of the beastly Rocky Mountains.