Bam!

You thought I was done posting? Not even close. O.K, what's all this hoo-ha about Tonevendor leaving? NO!!! For good? Who's gonna run it while they're gone? Are they coming back? Don't leave us to the mercy of the Beat. Please?

Also, show tonight. Distillery. Indie/poppy bands I've never heard (ex-Razorcuts, bunnygrunt?) plus the Frenchman. Welcome Charles back to town. Show starts around 10:00

Ella has written a full Poinsettia review. Here it is. Bam, as Emeril would say. Read the whole thing. It's worth it. No skimming!

Poinsettia Review

Well it was 5 days of desert doggin-it. It is amazing how tiring it is to live without shelter!! Our pioneer ancestors were hardy motherfuckers. Which reminds me of a dirty limerick:

The Pioneers had hairy ears.
They pissed through leather britches.

They wiped their ass with broken glass.
Those hardy sons of bitches.

When cunt was rare, they'd fuck a bear
and knife him, if he snitches.

They'd bang their cocks, against the rocks.
Those hardy sons of bitches.

They'd take their ass, upon the grass,
from fairies or from witches.

They used their dicks, as walking sticks.
Those hardy sons of bitches.

-------------------------------------------------

Yes, it was kind of like that, out at the old ghost town this time. The desert was taunting us. Challenging us to step up and become tough and leathery and really really dirty, just like her.
We unwittingly took up the gauntlet.....

Saturday: formal dinner party. A whole suckling pig was roasted in a pit. It was good, didn't poison anyone and there was much drinking. Notable outfits were Skipper in a tam o shanter, bow tie and immaculate tweed suit and Alice in a rainbow clown wig and gold bikini over her other clothes (Alice??? The invitation said Gown not Clown!!! I'm kidding!) As for me, I was trying to suck it in so I could wear a white evening gown. Perhaps a bit overdressed? oh well.

Sunday: most people left. At some point me and three people piled into a truck and drove the 50+ miles to try and get Ice. This means you have to drive the 50 miles back real fast, so you have some ice left. We hit the first town, CLOSED. Second town, out of ice, but they volunteered to call the next town for us to see if they had any. The phone conversation was like this: "Coldsprings? (which is the name of the next town) You got any Ice?" Coldsprings consisted of a bar/convenience store and a "motel" which was a long trailer, converted into tiny rooms, each with their own exterior door and one outhouse to share. We bought ALL of their ice for $14 including four shots of Jack Daniels. This had turned into the 150 mile ice run. We took an alternate route back to the ghost town and boy was that fortunate! We discovered Jeff and Mark Miller, broken down in the mi! ddle of the valley floor. They were at least 20 miles from any pavement and had no cell phone (not that it would have worked anyway). They had a flat tire, but for other reasons the tire wouldn't come off and they ended up breaking almost all the lug nuts OFF, trying to change the tire. They were not expecting to see us until Tuesday, when we would be driving out. They were very sunburned but happy to see us! They left the truck there and came back to Poinsettia with us for some heavy drinking. They decided to fix the car the next day.

About 30 minutes after we arrived back in town, Willy and Eason decide to take out the "Screaming Eagle" ( a 4x4 go cart kind of thing with a roll cage, goes real fast ). They should have been gone about 15 minutes. They didn't say where they were going, they just left. They were both pretty drunk. Almost everyone else left for the 160 mile round trip to the auto parts store. Well, 4 HOURS later, Willy and Eason are still missing! Eason's wife Liz and I are freaking out. We spent the whole day feverishly hiking, trying to find them and imagining them bleeding to death feebly yelling for help at the bottom of a canyon. There is no way in hell that we could have found them without a helicopter and heat sensing equipment. That valley is vast. Turns out that they went off roading to a nearby landmark, the car frame windmill. It is pretty bumpy the whole way there but they had no trouble until they cam! e across perfectly flat ground in front of the windmill. Eason attempted a high speed donut and flipped the eagle. In the crash, Willy's arm snapped the ignition key off. They realized they were not seriously hurt and tried to get it going, but the key wouldn't come out. They then walked back 9 miles to the ghost town in 95+ heat, without water. They showed up a bit bloody and bruised but fine. Yikes! They said that for the first 25 minutes, they were walking next to each other and making jokes, then the rest of the way they were 50 feet apart, in silence broken only by the occasional yell of "HELP!"

At about 9 pm there were headlight spotted comming into town. I had successfully conned two old friends from Detroit into flying out and renting a car in order to perish with us out in the desert. Awwww!

Sometime during the drunken drunken night, a girl from Portland who refused to give her real name and called herself "Sparkle", walked into the saloon and actually challenged me to a wrestling match. Now, I find that assuming pseudonyms at camping events smacks of burning man, so I wanted to take this girl out. I remember myself going through all the moves of the world famous Goulet Choke and I did it!!!!! I kicked her ass and actually made her eat dirt! Thanks Joel!

Also that night Willy invented "Fire Tong" which involves throwing burning logs down the mine shaft. Like so many things, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Everyone was mesmerized. For those of you unfamilliar with the the topography of the ghost town. The saloon is sitting on top of a maze of very deep mine shafts. The entry shaft is a few feet away, a vertical drop of about 75 feet. Fire Tong set the wood frame holding back the dirt, on fire. Had it been allowed to smolder unchecked, it would have resulted in the mine caving in and the saloon plunging into the earth. Fuck! P.S. the next morning we put out the smolder and please don't tell Tim White. It's all fine!

At some point I remember telling the world's funniest joke, about Butros-Butros Gali and the punchline was "He's Unilateral!!" People cried. I can't remember anymore than that.

Monday:
car fixing day.
Finally we got to ditch out and went on a 4x4 adventure of grand proportions, in search of a back way (inspired by much weed smoking) to Walker Lake! We took the road of dreams. It was fucked up. Thankfully the truck was powered by Tony, who is a monster of offroading. He will drive 100 miles an hour on dirt roads normally crazed people will only drive 50 on.
No kidding.
Pearls of offroading wisdom he gave us: "Never look at what scares you because you will drive right for it." "The brakes are your enemy" "The throttle is your friend".
Walker Lake was great! It is salty. There are pelicans there. How weird is that? In the middle of the desert. The Military keeps most of the munitions they have in a place called Hawthrone, Nevada, on the banks of Walker Lake. It is creepy looking. They have built thousands of bunkers which face away from town, towards the lake. It looks like a 1950's nightmare. Weird place! Got to see my first supermarket since friday. It was actually quite overwhelming and I couldn't handle it. I did handle using their bathroom however.

Tuesday: I know it's gonna sound funny that you have to clean a ghostown, but that's what we did. On the drive out we almost stopped at the new whorehouse "Wild Cat Ranch" for beer but it looked terrible in the daylight. Whorehouses love a trailer.

No significant wildlife run-ins for me. But Beckler... Desert Rat says Hi. He is still cute.