the tucumcari jump shot occurred as the sun was setting on the road up tucumcari mountain. the self-timer was set to a 10sec delay. the launch location was chosen with a test shot and a lot of skill. the jump was captured as “IMG_0495.JPG” using digital photography.
the photograph explores the relationship between timing and jumping. begging the audience to question the necessity and its explanation.
joee’s shirt reads, “richie edwards”, who is presumed dead.
i stopped in albuquerque to visit a record shop. everyone there was happy to drop albuquerque knowledge on me since i knew nothing of the city. did you know the rogue mountains that spoon the city had indians hiding in them to rob travelers until seventy years ago? or that everyone at the record store’s seen ufos and it’s no big deal.
hangry-
i arrived in gallop around 7pm and started driving up and down the route 66 motels looking for the right spot. it’s dark. in the peripherals i could see giant rocks shooting out of the ground but not clearly cause it’s dark. i hadn’t eaten. the hanger’s taking over | fuck this car | fuck that truck | how’s the la quinta inn gonna charge 9 shrimp cocktails for a night at their nursing homtel | fuck la quinta | I’m sick of all the music | why isn’t there some kind of new music I’m not sick of | I’ve heard all these notes before. why isn’t there some new note I’m not sick of | fuck notes | I’m hangry, that’s a buffet
the now-hiring sign and empty parking lot didn’t detour me from the buffet. i was sat at a dirty table. all the troughs were empty except one with some shitty chicken. i ate a couple bites of shitty chicken then left without saying anything or paying – i paid for it in the parking lot on my shoes. why do i do this to myself? i told god i’d stop eating at buffets if he’d save the shoes. i promise god i’ll stop doing shit all the time. they were good shoes. fuck that buffet.
el rancho-
d.w. griffith’s brother, r.e. griffith, was a silent film actor who opened a chain of theaters in texas and a hotel in the desert. as the western genre was rising in popularity r.e. built a quality hotel in gallup, new mexico and lobbied to everyone he knew in hollywood that gallup was the place to shoot their western and el rancho hotel was the place for them to stay.
john ford stayed there while directing the grapes of wrath, as did ronald reagan, spencer tracy, john wayne, jane fonda, joan crawford, mae west, lucille ball, rita hayworth, humphrey bogart, katharine hepburn. it was in natural born killers when nearby route 491 was named route 666 (it was changed in 2003 due to christian protest and the native americans believing the road cursed- it’s where jim morrison saw the dead indian).
armand ortega-
armand ortega grew up down the street from the hotel. his first job was pumping gas around the corner. on paydays he’d take his friends for burgers at el racho’s restaurant: they were fifteen cents a piece. later he began opening trading posts along the southwest highways and during the 70’s and 80’s when indian was chiq he and his team of salesmen were the goto guys for supplying department stores around the world with native american jewelry.
stewarts has a sensor so when i drove my car past a point the lady working turned the cameras on and they followed me as i took photos of the mannequins. stewart drives to phoenix to get mannequins and the lady dresses them the way she does to “get the mens attention”. this is sogo, the city of night and i am pygar. 
i’m driving to meet my brother and sister-in-law in vegas.
meteor crater-
50,000 years ago a fifty-meter meteorite slammed into arizona with a ten-megaton explosion making way for the barringer family to charge me and all the other suckers of the road the cost of a shrimp cocktail to see their privately-owned first-proven, best-preserved meteorite crater on earth. it was cool. my ticket’s good for 2 weeks and if i buy a subway sandwich from the gift shop i get a free cookie.
meteor crater has an am radio station. i thought it might be info about the crater like facts and stuff but no. it’s a loop about the gift shop and other places to spend money and at the end of the loop this really big radio voice with a bunch of effects yells, “Experience The Impacttttttt”. meteor crater closes at 5. it’s 4:50. i tried to record the radio but i had too much going on so it didn’t really turn out.
during the apollo missions nasa brought he astronauts here to train for the moon surface
fffffff meteor. crater. so important. that’s on this planet, guys! this is not my photo tho it could be but i don’t have a chopper yet
here is a family experiencing the impact from lower vantage point
here i am experiencing the impact from highest vantage point with subway coupon for cookie w/ purchase
huge power plant-
this is the one from sonic 2, level 3. i told security my industrial band needed a cover photo for our debut album “no more safewords” and their power plant was it. there was no one there to take me inside and security was under strict orders to deny any requests of photography. they were very interested in the band tho. – did you know you its impossible to voice memo phone calls with an iphone? apparently it’s illegal. my industrial band’s working on a new concept ep titled “voice memos of the oppressed”
the sky-
hoover dam-
i didn’t actually go to hoover dam; i went to the bridge that i took this picture from. sometimes im really good at experience. im saving going to hoover dam and the grand canyon for another time. maybe it will be when im old or im in las vegas and im up like $500 and there’s nothing at barneys or the caesars palace forum shops i want to buy cause that’s not enough money for what i want but i want to spend it bad and im like lets take a chopper to the grand canyon…now! experience.
my brother, michael, and his wife, katy, are meeting me in vegas. it’s their first vacation since they had my niece almost three years ago. my brother’s a lot like me though you wouldn’t know it till you’ve let him in – that’s how he gets’ya | that’s how he got’er
i didn’t take a lot of photographs. its pointless to take a lot pictures of las vegas. everything looks like the mall or some other place but small and clean: small and clean new york / small and clean ancient rome / small and clean pirate ship….
maybe i took photographs…
a casino-
none of casino security is ok with cameras anywhere. it doesn’t matter what hotel/casino it is or how much of a dump it is or how tragic that man was- you’re not allowed to take photos on a casino floor no matter what. they’re not going to ask again
the aria’s do not disturb / maid service door-hanger is now a convenient a light switch
girls-
on the strip, a lot of mexicans flick full-color double-sided business cards of prostitutes at tourists. they wear shirts with big-block letters that read “girls direct to you in 20 minutes”. i helped them pass the cards cards out. katy got me one of their shirts. FLICK
one of blackjack dealers told me that if i call i shouldn’t expect the girl on the card to come. he also said i should tell the girl that this is my fantasy and i won’t pay if she cums. he was fat, sported spiky blonde hair and wore the kind of rings guys who buy rings at spencers wear. he told me table dealers are the gods of the hotel/casino employees and all the janitors and maids rush to open doors for him- huge money says he’s you know…insanely good at xbox live.
–i won a lot of money and i spent it all.
i love la. it’s not everywhere that everyday is a live-action sunset boulevard (1950).
generations of pioneers have found the american dream in los angeles, california: a bliss of consumption and an awakening of spirit across 4,850 square miles of coast, mountains, desert, fashion, music, movies and glorious chain homogeny. i spent most of my time in hermosa beach ’cause i like beach more than city right now. it’s probably ’cause i’m more like a phoenix than i was before i started becoming like a phoenix. a man phoenix. the real man phoenix. trans am.
the accord was pushed to its limits as i soared the curves of the coast. the prisoner built, new deal funded california state route 1 was my wind for hunting sunsets and skeletons. i love this road.
celebrities like clark gable stayed at the santa maria inn on the way to hearst castle. the “historic hotel” was upgraded in 1988 and has stayed the same since. it wasn’t worth half the asking price. the holiday motel next door wasn’t worth the two shrimp cocktails they charged. the all-night partiers in the local meth scene had set up camp there. the frenzy had been raging at least a few weeks if not longer. why did i feel it was acceptable to juxtapose such a magnificent day of driving with a real life i am legend? is saving seven shrimp cocktails that important? apparently.
above is the one from sonic 2, level 7 – oil ocean
i picked up a couple hitchhikers, wwoofers (world wide opportunities on organic farms). they stay at organic farms and trade work for room and board. they’d been standing at a bend in big sur at dusk for over an hour waiting for a lift. i barely saw them when i flew past. i picked them up and recorded the conversation because my mom reads this and i want to show her how good i am at hitchhikers. i could probably start picking up all the hitchhikers. even the ones who clearly aren’t the type to stay at hostels. that could be my thing: driving really fast on dangerous mountain roads and eluding knives as i pick up all the hitchhikers. fuck it
hearst castle – i wasn’t feeling very well and it’s valentine’s day but not because it’s valentine’s day; i simply wasn’t feeling well. i’m ok being alone on valentine’s day and not-valentine’s-days because i’m not one for settling tho sometimes… i’ve been known to make exceptions. there are three options for tours: grand rooms, upstairs suites, and cottages & kitchen. i chose the grand rooms tour because it’s next. we can’t wait around for tours all day can we? no we can’t
william randolph hearst was the first media tycoon. the only child of a wealthy miner and the inspiration for citizen kane. he spent 30 years building his unfinished palace on the top of a mountain overlooking the ocean. there’s a lot of money in yellow journalism and wealthy parents
a school bus takes visitors up the winding road to “la cuesta encantada”. i climbed on and got a seat by myself. everyone else was coupled up. holding hands. holding each other. reading pamphlets. staring at the guy sitting alone in dark clothes, coughing, chanting “what- the- fuck- this is nuts- what- the- fuck-”
alex trebek narrated the bus ride up.
at the top of the mountain we’re greeted by our tour guide, rick. he’ll take us inside the castle and talk at us for forty-five minutes before setting us free to enjoy the grounds on our own. he’s in his 40’s and charismatic in a vegas lounge lizard who does tourist tours during the day kind of way. the delivery of his script is like a dry run of a high school play: fast and abrasive, insincere
“folksssss mr hearst looooooooooved entertaining-and celebritiessss were regular guests here. at. the-ranchhhhh. it was not uncommon to-find the likes of…… clark gable- greta garbo- cary grant- joan crawford but for those of you young people that’s your ben affleck, courtney cox, ashton kutcher, and kim kardashian” skjenfkjewnr fjh serjv wejfnaw No they are not!!
hearst bought entire rooms of 16th century castles and kept them in storage for decades while he tailored his enchanted slope for them. exotic animals grazed on worldly plants across 60 miles of private land. it is entirely self-contained: it’s own water source, power station, and farm. the only rule for guests is “no shacking up unless married”
rick had the old couples eating out of his hand as he led us from room to room but i felt his affectation like an icicle on the skin of my empathy. i didn’t say a word and smiled the best i could cause it’d be wrong to disrupt The Other’s experience, but he knew. he knew i wasn’t entertained and he knew i was insulted by his lack of free form and inability to match golden-age celebs with their “of this generation”s.
after a short movie he let us go. the rest of my time at hearst castle was spent in the sun: taking pictures of the grounds, chilling by the neptune pool, throwing up in the bathroom without asking rick’s permission. i don’t want to write extensively about rick because this is a positive and uplifting blog of my American experiences but if you gave me $25 for a rick tour i’d spend forty-five minutes comparing him to a lawnmower | rosebud…
the gift shop was closed by the time i got back to the visitors center but i was feeling much better
alex trebek narrated the bus ride down.
listening to raw material’s time and illusion (1969)
irl is the new rpg 
