Songs from the Big Stink

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Good evening my recurring word lovers, im glad you have decided to revisit my loose ramblings about the US of A.. lets see what this intrepid little anthrotripper has been up to since last time, shall we?

So we begin in Las Vegas. Las Vegas should be called 'Holy Shit! City'. It is some kinda crazy freaky dream land filled with insanity and depravity and the smiles of drunk folk reflecting of dazzling fake water, fake buildings, fake promises and fake love. but a good fake, yes indeed.. Grandmas with blue hair smoke cigars and sip big cups of beer, gigantic men walk around with yard glasses of margarita and EVERYONE is trashed, from or until morning.
So we get into our little hostel and make a silly decision to go to an organized 'club night'.. like sheep we all followed our leader to the entrance, then to the bar, then chatted to him mandatorily about the mess of a city we were about to encounter.. but didnt achieve one ounce of culture since we were all obviously not a part of the scene yet. The next day is when things got a bit silly. So we were told by a friend that there was only one way to do this town. Like this:

Step 1. Find casino, head in and follow a little skimpy lady waitress to her little door where all the drinks come from

step 2. Find a pokie machine thats close, put a dollar in and wait for said skimpy lady to appear

step 3. Order whatever thing your taste desires.. we recommend whiskey and sodas, followed by mohitos, followed by a cheeky martini or 2

step 4. Retrieve your dollar when the girl finds out you arent gambling or you are blind drunk, whichever is first.

step 5. find another casino and repeat.

We did this from early afternoon Saturday til brunch time on Sunday and decided that because Tony was meeting us the next day, we'd better rest up. We scooped him up from the airport, all green and seedy, and guess what? We did it again! woohoo!! Sadly, the $150 i'd managed to bluff my way into winning on craps the night before was robbed from me over the course of the night.. but we still rocked it.

After that we got the hell outta Vegas very quickly. Dangerous place, Vegas. The hoover dam was seen but through blurred eyes, and the Grand Canyon induced awe inspired nausea that at once cured our hangovers and gave us a new sensation of 'what the..fuck?' Amazing amazing amazing place.. its so big u cant actually see it. Know what i mean? its like a painted landscape , unreal and in the literal sense unbelieveable, a big, big big big damn thing. like.. get it? its capital m Massive, real, real sorta.. big.

Okay so we went through Arizona and Utah without too much to report, much camping in desert, cacti, monolithic crazy obelisk towering masses of rock that resemble exactly the coyote/roadrunner cartoon.. Picture a scene in an amerian movie, the tired vagabond staring off into the jagged sunset thinkin about women and glasses of beer.. that was our drive. The only thing of note in Utah was a slight bit of strife with a sherrif, midnight and some mild trespassing and 3 young men wildly running for their freedom.. but dont worry, we hit the deck and the stupid ol' boy drove straight past us.

Colorado is next. What a place, let me tell you. The rockies went by with us in a gleeful songwriting car party, and we headed to Boulder with a revived vibe. Boulder isnt normal. College frat houses line the leafy burbs, kids literally run the whole town and everybody is as high as a fucking kite. The second night we were there we went to a festival called the 'Boulder Cannabis and Music Festival'. I dont really need to describe much about that. 2 days later we met up in the Quad at April 20th, at 4.20 with 15000 uni kids to 'have a bit of a smoke..' The crowd cheered, then coughed, then trudged with mild paranoia to all the bars in town and more joy was had. Again, we left that place.. its a damn hard lifestyle these folks seem to live.

Next. hm. Oh yeah, so we partied in Denver slightly with about a third of a brain between us and had a good old time of it, and did some soul revival at some hot springs outta town, where we got a bit sloshed with 2 Ultimate Fighting Club members who ran a bar.. Tony was so drunk that in between challenging them to arm wrestles, he wrote the Keepsakes website down about 7 times on a bit of paper, each of them completely ILLEGIBLE, strolling out the door promising to play gigs for them through the summer 'coz your winter is fucking bullshit, muscles'. Yep, awesome night.

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnext was a huge drive down into New Mexico, a barren place that scared the shit out of us, me and Shad both saw a bonified UFO hovering in the sky. A little metallic thing just floating about a mile off, that would dart left and right and up and down, and then stop, and then it just faded away into nothing. Weird. So we went to the Roswell alien 'research center' and ACTUALLY found out that UFOs are real, and the government is covering it all up and its a conspiracy and farmers have been silenced and ALIENS ARE AMONG US and one of these days, like, we just need to evolve a bit more first and the Mayans and the Aborigines and the Egyptians knew all about it and we are ignorant. So just watch out, and be careful folks.. this shit is real.

So we head into Texas now.. after being told at least a dozen times 'Dont fuck with Texas!!' and reading their official road signs that say DONT MESS WITH TEXAS we decide we aint stopping for nobody or nothing, the highways are long and lonely. So can u guess what happened? Yep, flat tire.
Luckily for us, and i cant stress how lucky we were enough, a policeman (well, 'man' could be a bit misleading.. this humanoid was a policemountain) He looks at our thongs with disbelief, utters 'well sheeeet, i juz caint on bileeeev yew boys gettin on out here'n Teczus n' all'. Uh.. sir we need a tow truck? 'Ah Guddam know you do boy!!' but it was all good.. tow truck arrived, we survived.

That pretty much brings us to where i am now, which is Austin Texas. Wild but ultra rad. We have only been here a night but it is so far the best best best town i have seen in this gigantic messy crazy jambalaya of a country.. 6th street alone has about 20 bars next to each other, each of them with their own style of music and patrons and each of them dirt cheap and friendly. Our bartender, prompted by my gentle request of 'how much would it cost to have a double shot?' fills the glass to the top and overfills it with a drop of coke syrup.. SO, uh.. really, how much dude? $3.25. Oh and everyone actually wears boots and cowboy hats.. and they are all armed all the time. That is the truth.

Here we all are, over a month into the trip sittin around all comfortable with some guitars and some laptops and no wine but a belly full of my signature stuffed chicken and asparagus sorta just mellowing with our thoughts and our story and our journey so far. Much more has happened but this is a damn epic already, and anyway i gotta have something to talk to you all about when i get back. So, much lovely love and peace to you all, this boy and his boys are immersed, in the deep end, shorts off skinny dipping in this country of crazy, beautiful, painfully outright and unique people and places just sorta floating around. Just lovely. Miss you all like I miss sparkling ale, and will be there in a jiffy im sure. Peace!!

Lockie

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