SUMMER 2006: I have hardly been home since late April this year. Tradeshows, family events, friends to see, weddings to attend, both here and abroad, and I just have hardly been home all summer. 

I got back from July's Western motorbike trip which was immediately followed by travels to UK and France, and well, there I was. Nowhere to go. In Chino again. But for why?

That's the question. 

Restless, impatient, frustrated, and bored with my life as of late, as of the last ten years perhaps, perhaps even longer, I had the Great Vision of again setting off across this great country. Dammit, this exactly was how I felt in NYC right before I first drove to California in 1989! Restless, impatient, frustrated, and bored. Sing along: "Well, How did I get here?"

Here we are 2006: Alone again, as usual. Not in a VW Bug or Bus as my previous transcontinental trips. No, for a change, this time the journey would be borne by my ass planted on my motorbike, bugs hitting my shins, summer sun fading my Schott jacket from black to brown to white.....

I began this trip with 34721 miles on the odometer, Saturday August 5th by diving south on the 15 down to San Diego to visit one of my newest friends, Kathy, she of kindred retro style, but better at it than I in real practice. Respect the formica table! Do!

I felt strangely at home amongst the Scandinavian teak furniture she owned (my Dad had a bunch of it as his first wife was Norwegian) and this amazing swag light. Wow, it gave me the shivers as it was eerily very similar to a single-balled version my Mom had us living with from the early 1970's. I even remember going to this lighting store with her in about 1972 when she purchased it. Miami it was. It was very Miami for the time, in fact, for me.                                              Miami and ....flamingos?

 
August 6-9, 2006: Stopped home to rip all my Chicago CD's onto my iPod after getting an attack of goosebumps just talking about that group the night before at The Last Chance. Then ran up to the Bay Area. Catching up with: Jim & Helene, Erica, Matt, Mike, Joe, Will and Bill at UA, Kelly, DJ, and DG at Josephson, Mary and Dave at Digi, John and Jeff in SF... Love to you all........ 500+ miles San Diego to SF. Remembering CB.

Friends: maybe that's what this trip would be for me. Must go connect and reconnect with other friends, and family, that I just don't see enough. Seek 'em out. But feeling alone in the process. After a coupla days, just gotta get out, again. Got other pals leaving, and it's sad to see 'em go, but the need to linger not one moment longer is not there neither, no. Triple negafied. Gone. Already. Preoccupied. And another one just died. And another really ain't there is. And another me out wears. And another is just too damn nice. And you? Oh, I have co-starred in your movie, thrice. Booze. Away with youze. That dichotomy of pals and apartheid... How? Will it ever resolve? I dunno. Perhaps they'll collide? This is starting to read like a poetic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I have no legal excuse having never even had shock therapy......But maybe I should, would said he. Obviously knows more than me. Set it to a rap, Sabby. Jes don't forget the Vanimal's Circle-C. I'm on a roll, a Manley Roll..............

 

I've known Jim since 1990 or so when he used to come work on our pianos and install himself on call during the recording sessions, back in the day, when the studio was cranking out audiophiliac material. We have stayed friends ever since. Even if it goes a year or two or three between communiqués, we always pick it back up again like the ol' pals we are. So the gag was, "If I stay 3 or 4 days with ya, can I buy off 3 or 4 more years between visits the next time I gotta see ya?"

Jim is also slightly bored with his job lately, it seems. (It's been going around.) Here he was caught fielding a call from a customer...

 



And let us not forget the amazing morning oatmeal ritual with walnuts, strawberries, blueberries, & flaxseed.		 Ahhhhhh but Jim has hooked up with this cool lady, Helene, with whom I became fast friends. Helene was too kind and put me up for a few days in a palace of a room in her 1920's Tudor-style house, total style-cousin to my spanish Rat House. The iron work. The tile work. The lath and plaster. It felt very familiar. Only I wish I had those more upscale Italian cars in my garage, or the Rat House even had a garage... beautiful lines on the 1969 365 2+2 and the silver 1966 330 GTC. Lovely. Rare. Tho' they need to be driven.

Jim has infested Helene's garden with a few stray Pink Flamingos. They get in everywhere.

 

August 7, 2006: Tonight I attended the memorial service for my diving buddy, Christopher Bock. He was a few days shy of his 47th birthday. Just died in his sleep. So sad to lose him. He was an amazing person, very inspirational to me. Larger than life. True to himself.

I found most moving what his friend Robby Frank wrote:

CB

Christopher Norman Bock Esquire the Third.
A very large name for a very large soul.
Chris was my brother and closest friend.
On the surface we were the odd couple.
Obviously his Oscar to my Felix.
But there wasn¹t a moment in the thirty years I knew him where we didn't see eye to eye.
We got each other.
He knew early in his life that his time on the planet was short.
He consciously decided to cram as as much life as was humanly possible into the limited time he had.
He lived large with incredible gusto.
He lived with a passion that would had burned a lessor soul in seconds.
He lived as a warrior, without fear and regret.
He was always in motion and kept moving forward with love, compassion and generosity.
He was a rare individual who had the strength of character to mold the world to his vision.
To change preconceived notions of how things were done.
To make things better for all whom he touched and loved.

The Dalai Lama says that no on dies too soon or too late.
This is hard to accept with the passing of such a beautiful, caring human being.

Even though he will always be in my heart,
I miss him dearly.

--Robby Frank

 

Cherish your friends...

Tuesday August 8th I ran down to Santa Cruz to visit my wonderful  pals at Universal Audio. Here is The Great Erica at her desk. She has participated in some of our past motorbiking adventures, as chase car driver, and hostess for the wayward.... 
She's The Greatest!

Erica, Matt, Mike, Joe, Will, Bill, and I hit a taco joint for lunch enjoying some precious time  together. 

My gear peers in the biz are amongst my very dearest friends. 

We are aligned.

 

Everybody's Talkin'...

And these guys.... I have known these two since about my very beginning in this biz. On the left, Dave Gordon, someone I know I can always rely on for anything, so rare, a person of this solid character... and on the right, David Josephson, Mr. Microphone, yes, he makes our gold mic capsules, and he's into so much more cool stuff and shared so much with me over the years. Appreciated always. 

Both these guys possess more knowledge and intelligence than about any other two guys I could mention. Straight up. On the mark.

They don't come better than this, folks. True blue. I love both you guys, DG & DJ.

 

And then..... Restlessness sets in again and I am off again. Heading East. From whence I came.

All I need is bungee'd on the luggage rack on the bike. My laptop rides along in the rucksack on my back. Lest my luggage rack tries to fall off the bike, again.

And I am not going to Sturgis.

 

There are 4 layers of concurrent and simultaneous thought processes for me during these long motorbike trips and they are:

1. Physical self: Body aches and position and temperature. Foot sore. Hand numb. Too sweaty. Cramp: Move leg.
2. Surroundings: Look at those_______fill-in-the-blanks________. (Example: Cows, potholes, hills, bugs, McMansions...) 
    Must change lanes. Road surface. Reading road signs. Observe fields. Smell cows. Rows of grapes. Birds flying. Scanning for cops.
3. Super-criddle obsessive thoughts of the day. Topic of thought that runs all day long. Movies play over and over. Scenarios. Ideas. 
    One topic all day long. Ding ding ding ding ding....
4. Sing along with Vanimal's iPod!

All is well. Bike running perfectly. If bike is not running perfectly then #3 gets replaced with trying to figure out plan for fixing bike.

 

I have this saying, when you're already at the bottom, and things can't possibly get any worse, you shouldn't worry: Things HAVE TO get better cuz:
"It's hard to fall off the floor."

But I dunno. This joint got me thinking... You can Fall On Floors. Things can still get worse after all.

 

August 9, 2006: I made the 400 mile trek from San Mateo, CA to Austin, NV. No cell phone service there. Offline.

US-50 past Fallon to Austin, Eureka, and Ely, Nevada and then through the long run to Delta, Utah is known as "The Loneliest Road in America" for a reason.

Sure fit my underlying mood.

 

 

See?

When there actually occurs a town along US-50, you're bound to find some interesting ol' roadside nostalgia such as these period signs in Ely, NV.

 

I'd like to be a vintage postcard photographer when I grow up.

 

 

August 10, 2006: 475 miles took me to Green River, Utah where the US-50 had been swallowed up by Interstate 70.

 

 

I like how my motorcycle mirror is mocking me, calling me a loser.

 

 

 

There's such a whole lotta nothing on Interstate 70 that they try to keep you awake with reminders of things like this.

 

 

I picked out this little motel in Green River, Utah. 

It's called the Robbers Roost.

 

 

Typing from a tiny motel in the middle of nowhere. It's late. I need to go to sleep cuz I lost an hour with Mountain Time changeover.......
 
I took a break from my giant criddle topic for a few hours today while I concentrated on my bike missing (hesitating) at very high revs... probably that fucking rubber intake boot, AGAIN. I need to buy a can of carb cleaner to check for that condition, air leak at carb-to-intake manifold... I keep going through rubber boots. All that means I can't go 95mph, just 75 or 80. Bummer. All I can say is thank God I am on the road in the middle of nowhere and not at some airport with all the new security restrictions. What a mess......

 

Plenty of cellular phone service meant I had no trouble getting online with my Cingular PCMIA cellular WIFI card in my laptop to plan the next day's route.

This is my GPS.

I carry a roll of blue painter's tape and a Sharpie® marker.

Works great.

 

 

There's this ghost town north of Moab, Utah where Interstate 70 stole away the traffic from the US-50 called Cisco. 

Two people live there. Here's one of 'em with her pet raven.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I hear banjo music starting up....

 

Cisco's Post Office.

I was good about shooting out a buncha post cards to my pals. (Not from here, tho'...)

 

This is the last time before I hit Independence Pass that my front jug's spark plug wire was attached to the spark plug. The ferrule had come unscrewed and the dang wire was hanging off for the next several miles. I did not see it. I did the pass on one cylinder. I thought I was having severe altitude and mixture problems at over 12,000 ft. No, it was much easier than that as it turned out. I felt pretty stupid when I discovered what was wrong. Easy fix.

 

Just past Aspen, Colorado, yes there are forests of 'em. Hypnotizing.

 

My buddy Aspen Pittman writes:

"Enjoy every minute, we don't get any of them back."

 

Up on Cripple Creek...

Approaching rain ahead, I donned my raingear.

It rains every day around here.

 

Family:

400 miles on August 11th brought me to my sister's house in Colorado Springs where I am spending a few days with her and my little niece, Madeline Mae.

We went hiking in The Garden of the Gods, a prehistoric uplifted beach. Pike's Peak can be seen in the background.

Spacey had the luxury of carrying the extra 30 pounds that is little Maddie Mae.

Again, with the loser sign, Miss MM mocks me too.

 

 

At 18 months old, she is growing rapidly. Some more teeth are coming in.

Little M&M sure likes her SNACKS! 

And she likes her Auntie Van pretty well too. After all, I am her original webmaster.

 

 

To be continued......................................

Motor on to PART 2...........

 

 

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