The Golden Gate to Cotton Candy and the Hard Road for All

Hey Everyone,
I'm posting to you from one of the many coffee shops in the beautiful city of Seattle, drinking, you guessed it....coffee.  Black.  My good friend Milena's getting me acquainted with the place and its good to be in the same room with another good friend after all these years.  She's drinking coffee, too, yep.

The road to Seattle began in LA, where I got on a bus around 11pm.  Across the parking lot was a big Hollywood party complete with paparazzi and flashing lights.  Blond gals and brawn fellas, smiling perfect smiles in front of a poster of an alcoholic brand that sponsored the event.  Back at the station was another event of sorts.  The Hollywood homeless began tucking themselves in all around Luis and me as we waited for the bus.  They were drinking too, but I doubt it was the same brand.  The conversations between the hobos was probably vastly different from the photo flash musings of the blond perfectlings.  That's probably why the hobos weren't invited, it was a matter of taste.  On one end the super fortunate bathing in the breaking flashes of the cameras, on the other, the half pints of a bad vodka and a stained bed roll, if that.  Nobody was taking the hobos picture, but the cops came and lights were flashing on them in due time.  They were run off by LA's finest.  I guess the stars weren't shining as bright as they could for the cameras, with the dark part of Hollywood so close by.  It was such a small parking lot between the two goings on....but it was pretty easy to see it was an uncrossable one, bottomless even.  They were rounding up the ner do wells as my bus pulled off into the darkness between LA and San Francisco.

I rolled into Frisco just before dawn.  I put my bag in day storage and figured I'd walk to the Golden Gate Bridge.  I did walk that jaunt, to the bark of the occasional seal, the frequent fog horns of the ships rolling through the dense fog rolling in.  Some fog.  It seemed the city revealed itself to me at its own choosing, letting me know its still there.  It gave the walk a much welcomed spooky feel which helped me stay awake and on my toes and out of traffic, that revealed itself to me faster than the houses and buildings.  The many, many joggers kept me on my toes too, as I walked up the Embarcadero along the bay, trying not to get runned down, or stared down.  Before I could take offense, however, the fog pulled them into the other world.  I couldn't see the bridge until I was right about to enter its walk way, which is a good thing.  Had I known it was five miles away I would have probably just ordered another cup of coffee, quite content on telling you I SAW the Golden Gate Bridge.  Instead I walked out to the middle of it and turned around.  I marveled at the huge thing.  I felt its strength as I pondered just what kind of pain one must have to lift their legs over and jump off.  I looked down at the water.  Funny, it looks like its just right there, an easy jump and you can get out and do it again over and over.  But each year so many prove the water's much farther down.  A poor soul doesn't have a chance between the weight of its problems and that frigid water, bones and consciousness snap like twigs.  I wonder how trivial those big problems get in the final nanoseconds before the big splash.

San Francisco to Sacramento went off without a hitch.  Sacramento to Portland was dreadful.  It was a night trip, so I thought I could catch some z's.  However, two drunk gals drenched me with their spittle flecked profanity as they turned that bus out and created more and more of a world just between the two, yet for all of us to be annoyed by.  I sat in my seat and practiced patience and politely said no to their occasional invitations to join them on their planet.  I did listen, however.  One was the only black girl in her choir, the other one was the only white girl in hers.  One was Jamaican, at least in theory, and the other was Irish.  They just couldn't get over that whopping similarity, they were practically sisters.  And, boy, they could laugh it up in between accusing each other of reprehensible flatulence.  One was 33 and had 7 children, the other gave her two kids away, somewhere along the way.  The Irish gal tried to get serious and tell the story of how she was beaten to a pulp in all of the foster homes she was raised in, but the other gal would shout and say its time for a drink...and there was no time for trivial things on the best bus ride ever!!!!  Besides, she had the money, she was buying, so therapy had to wait for the orphan, maybe on another bus ride.  They left and a couple with two kids took the glitzy ditzys' seats.  The father kept telling the toddlers to shut the fuck up over and over.  He told the gal he's a gettin' off the bus if they don't shut up.  She just sat there, looking like a mother with three kids instead of two.  Portland to Seattle wasn't bad, just two girls who both talked about how their respective boyfriends knock them around if they screw around with their pickups...hell, shouldn't they know better?  Oh, and one, all of the age of 30, was a grandmother.

We just took a quick stop and go at Portland, but I thought it was beautiful with its 18 wheelers full of fresh timber and the mills and factories on the river.  Maybe not so clean, but I was captivated by industry.  I hope that is forgivable.  All in all, Portland, through the rain drops on my window, looked like a green and grey smeared painting.  I couldn't quite make it all out, but I knew it was all there.

Well, Seattle looks good at dusk and I'm gonna go try to find the Ghost of Layne Staley....I'm sure Kurt Cobain's has already been found.  I liked Alice In Chains more, anyway.  Tis a shame I don't have any flannel.  Oh well, looks like no one else here has any, anymore, anyway.

Take care and I'll talk to you soon...

Todd