by Neil Peart
Clouds and rain increased as I rode up the east side of the Salton Sea (or sewer, according to the nice old lady at the museum in Yuma), and I could just see that the scenery was probably nice, on nearly every other day of the year. Ach. I tried going east on I- 10 to Joshua Tree, but the cold and wet even put a “damper” on that. I’d planned to stop at Roy’s Motel that night, but it was still so early that if I went straight there I’d arrive by about 2:30 — too early. (For me, the corollary to the Scooter Trash rule about not drinking until I’m parked, is that as soon as I’m parked, I start drinking!)
So I thought I’d go east a ways on that 29 Palms highway, 62, where a road was shown leading up northwest to Cadiz, not far from Amboy. Nothing promising (or paved) appeared (nor existed, I learned later; how is it that with only maybe five roads and 10 towns in the whole Mojave, they can’t get it straight on the maps?), so on I went, meeting up with that road we took across from Parker and Havasu when we went to Joshua Tree (and Roy’s), then north on truck-filled 95. And the skies darkened, and it rained. (I’ve now delivered rain to all of America’s deserts, from the Great Basin to the Mojave to the Colorado to the Sonora; shouldn’t they be paying me?)
(Pause to watch sun sink behind Telescope Peak, and savor second margarita. You with me here?)
Nice, although sunset at 4:20 is a bit harsh.
As it was the day before yesterday, riding in heavy rain on a narrow desert highway, mud and sand flying up behind the trucks in long dense clouds, all over me and my bike (which had left Santa Fe gleaming; for about a minute), and I was wiping frantically at my face shield and trying to get by those trucks. Perilous, nasty, and miserable. As that early darkness came on, I crawled once again into a mediocre Best Western, in Needles, its restaurant, the “California Pantry,” rendered even more mediocre because of course I couldn’t smoke after my glutinous fettuccine and syrupy cabernet. (You with me here?)
But, yesterday morning the sun came slinking out of the clouds, slowly and reluctantly (ashamed of itself, no doubt), and I took old 66 all the way to Roy’s Motel. Walt [the owner] and I sat out front for an hour or so, and I just told him you “couldn’t make it this time” (true enough), for of course he asked. I had been tracing those old alphabetical ghost towns at the water stops [from the Santa Fe railroad], but couldn’t find “F” and “B,” which he filled in, and he hadn’t known about “H,” and was glad to learn it. So: it was Amboy, Bolo, Cadiz, Danby, Essex, Fenner, Goffs, and Homer.
Roy’s seemed much the same in its “funky splendor,” though he’s had to install those “retractable foreskin” nozzles on the old gas pumps, and a tornado came through last summer and tore up his double-wide out back, and the “CAFE” sign off the roof of the portico. This weekend, he’s got some “money-men” coming in from New York and Vegas to talk about putting in a swimming pool, a golf course (!), and fixing up the row of motel-type rooms in back. He seems to think it could happen. But we knew it when . . .
From there, after setting up a “Ghost Rider” shot with the bike on its centerstand facing down the road, with Roy’s and the Amboy Crater in the distance, I turned north up the Kelbaker Road to Kelso. Thanks to all the rain I’ve been bringing to the Southwest, the Mojave is like a green sea of creosote bushes. The doors and windows of the Kelso Depot are sealed with plexiglass sheets, with a sign out front announcing that they’re “studying the possibility” of making it the headquarters for the Mojave National Preserve. Seems like a good idea. Then through Baker, home of the Giant Thermometer (only registering about 65°F) and the Mad Greek restaurant, and right about there, life started to get a little better. From my journal:
Started to feel better looking at those Mojave vistas: sloping speckled sea with tawny, rocky islands, stretching far and wide. Missed turnoff for Dante’s View, but turned around and went back. Wasn’t going to miss that overlook to start my visit. Cold up there, but not down here! Caught last glow of sunset over Panamint Range from terrace. Yesss . . .
And what a treat it is to be here. Just finished spicy corn/crab chowder, in elegant dining room, and have my cozy little room to go back to. Especially appreciate this after three Best Westerns, and three rough days.
Outside for coffee, cognac, and smoke. Stars brilliant. Remember seeing Hale-Bopp [comet] from this very table, only a year and a half ago. So much has changed . . .
Are you with me here? I know you are.
Unfortunately it’s a bit busy around here: some kind of a “49ers Days” convention in Furnace Creek, with about a gigajillion RVs packed around the ranch. I went to the Visitors Center to get the “passport stamp” for the front of my journal (I noticed the stamp and pad back at Zion, and started collecting them from the National Parks and Monuments — or “Money-mints,” as Abbey says — and I’ve got nine of them now), but ran away from there pretty fast. Rows of booths selling “Western Art,” live old-time music (scraping fiddles), and crowds of silver-haired, tightjeaned, cowboy-booted, big-bellied RV people.
Fortunately, not much of that penetrates up here, though I was greeted by a trio of guitar, upright bass, and sawing fiddle in the lobby, and I could hear distant waves of noise carrying up the hill last night from the RV park, as I sat by the outdoor fireplace down by the pool (how’d we miss that?) poking away at my own personal fire (smelled like mesquite, too) and looked up at the smoke drifting across the stars. Then, as usual, I was asleep by nine.
After a month in Mountain Time, that’s understandable, and would be alright, except that I’m awake at five. When I’m riding, there’s no point in setting off too early in the morning freeze (not when I don’t have some lunatic’s insanely complicated and impossibly long itinerary to an unreachably far destination!), but on the other hand, that’s a bad time of the day to be laying there thinking. (I imagine you’re with me here too.)
So, one reads, doesn’t one? Today I finished the Best of Abbey, which I’ll send you soon. Lots of great stuff in it, but I was especially blown away by his riff on Death Valley, which seems untoppable, and it’s immediately followed by another on New York, believe it or not, in which he captures all the beauty and horror of that place. I hope you have received The Monkey Wrench Gang and the Stegner book by now. Abbey’s The Brave Cowboy was another great read, but I was unsure about sending it to you, as most of it takes place in jail! The movie version of that, Lonely are the Brave (hey, that’s us, right?), was for sale in that excellent Moab bookstore (called “Back of Beyond,” after Seldom Seen’s company, and apparently opened by some of Abbey’s friends), and I think I’ll get it when I mail-order a bunch of stuff from there.
Anyway, I was finding all the jailhouse minutiae a little harsh, but maybe you’d just find it, I don’t know — well-researched?
On that subject, I was sure surprised to hear your voice on the phone last week. Alex had said it was your lawyer calling me back, which I’d been expecting, but when I heard your dulcet tones, well, the old “could have knocked me down with a feather” cliché seems apt. I hope I wasn’t too “jingled” (to use Jack London’s excellent word), for the three of us had started to get into it about then, but it sure seemed like a good conversation to me. Definitely set at rest all the questions I’d raised in my last letter, anyway, and gave me a better sense of where you’re “at” (man). (Besides with me here, I mean.) I feel a little bad that I haven’t been in touch with Mr. Bloomenfeld this week (being wrapped in my own miseries as well as the three-hour time difference) so I don’t know the latest on the “reserved judgement.”
Out of guilt for not having called my Mom in about a week, I called her the other night, but I must call again and let her know that I’m a little better than that now. A little. Otherwise, I’ve pretty much done the turtle thing and crawled into my shell, for protection.
Today I went for a hike up Golden Canyon to Zabriskie Point, from -190 feet to +710 feet, then down through Gower’s Gulch, with a picnic lunch on a shady rock along the way. You’ll remember the lifeless and
surreal vista from that overlook, and that’s what I was hiking through. It worked for me . . .
Tomorrow, alas, I’m off to L.A., there to get the bike looked after (new tires and major pre-Mexico service) as well as sorting out the Mexican “insurance” and such, and I’ve booked in for four nights at the old Sunset Marquis in Hollywood to get all that stuff done. After that, I don’t know. Truth to tell, I’m in no hurry to head down to Mexico. Everything will get just a little more difficult, you know, and I’m not exactly up for that right now. In Tucson, I picked up Clement Salvadori’s book on motorcycling in Baja, and all of the great-sounding roads are treacherous dirt, of course, and I don’t think I want to try those on my own. (Yes, it’s all your fault again; because you’re not with me here!) However, my “arena of operations” is ever-shrinking, weather-wise, so I’ll be more-or-less forced to get adventurous pretty soon. And I’m sure I will. I can’t stay lost and flailing like this forever. (Can I?)
When my speedometer broke the other day, it became one of those “turning points.” I pulled over and “took a meeting” with myself — should I just head back to Tucson and park it, “put on my parachute,” and bail? No, I decided. Not ready to hole up in Quebec, and especially, to face Christmas there. So, onward. Walt suggested I come back to Roy’s Motel and stay there for a day or two, “we’ll get some wine and sit and watch the cars go by” (like you and I did), and I wouldn’t mind coming back here for a longer stay (once the “49ers” are gone; I was just reading in the lobby that they’ve been having an “Encampment” here every year since 1949, and next year, the 50th, will be really big. Don’t miss it).
There are sure lots more hiking possibilities around here, and it’s a great place to stay. But I guess I’ll decide when I get to L.A. At least I’m getting used to not knowing where I’m going, even on a given day, and I can live with that. My Standard Operating Procedure these days: “Something will come up.”
There’s a nice phrase Salvadori uses in giving directions, “Just follow your front wheel.” So I will.
All this has taken us right through another excellent meal (on days when I hike I’m allowed to have dessert), coffee and smoke outside at “our table,” cognac at the bar (better light for writing) and back to my room after a look at the stars. Now, my “captive audience,” it’s getting late (almost nine), and time for me to plot a route into The Big Smoke (oh joy). I’ll try to call your “special number” there and leave the number for you. (I’m sure I’ll have exciting Hollywood Tales for you, which you will have heard before you get this letter. It’s all getting too confusing.)
You with me here?
I know you are.
Follow your front wheel . . .
Ghost Rider
The band’s long-time photographer, and our personal assistant during two tours in the early ’90s (Presto and Roll The Bones), Andrew MacNaughtan, had recently moved from Toronto to Los Angeles, and he sent me a message through Sheila at the office inviting me to call him if I travelled that way. I hadn’t much desire to deal with the sprawling madness of Los Angeles, but if I was going to Mexico (still uncertain), I needed to sort out some insurance, get the bike serviced, and generally prepare myself for further adventures, so I decided I might as well do it there.
When my motorcycle was parked in the garage below the Sunset Marquis hotel, where I had so often stayed with the band on tours going back to our first one in 1974, I sat by the pool and ordered a margarita, drinking to what I hoped would be a tolerable few days.
I strolled around Hollywood and along Sunset Boulevard on various errands, while the bike went into the BMW shop. I left my number at Brutus’s “residence,” for he could only make outgoing calls, and he was able to call me for another good conversation. I bought a few more books to mail to him, now that I knew he was allowed to receive them (though no more than four at a time, and no hardcovers — apparently drugs or razor blades could be hidden in those).
Andrew drove me to the AAA offices to arrange my Mexican insurance, and as another loyal, caring friend, he also made me get “out of myself ” a little bit, introducing me to a group of Canadian ex-patriates he’d met up with, including Dave Foley from the comedy troupe “Kids in the Hall,” easy-going, boyish, and dry-witted; the amiable, dreadlocked musician John Kastner; his friend Rob, a young actor and writer who also had interesting hair and good conversation; and their friend, Tim, who ran an independent record company, and with quiet awareness, often seemed to be our “tour manager” when we were out on the town.
The bunch of us spent some long, memorable nights around the kitchen table of Dave’s house in the Hollywood Hills, and I met some other good characters, like Matt Stone, one of the creators of the cartoon series “South Park.” I was glad to tell him that his work had helped to sustain me, and even make me laugh, during some very dark times, and his funny stories of dealing with the corporate world were so reminiscent of my own conflicts with the “business” side of the music world that I felt an instant empathy for him and his partner, Trey. Like me and my own partners, they were just a couple of more-or-less goofy guys from the suburbs (of Denver in their case) who had made it big with something they loved to do, and were now running up against people who did not really understand them at all.
One night, Andrew and I attended a live taping of Dave’s TV show, “News Radio,” and another night Dave invited us to a stand-up comedy show at Club Largo. Both of those gave me some rare laughter, and reminded me of how much more “accessible” live comedy is (like live music), and of how seldom a man alone laughs out loud. Especially a man who is alone with a lot of ghosts.
Dave was dating a pretty young Canadian girl at the time, Gabrielle, and Andrew and I met the two of them for dinner before the comedy show. Later, Andrew told me she had called me “a hottie,” and he laughed and teased me about that. I just blushed (no one had ever called me “a hottie” before — must be that Air of Tragedy again) and thought no more about it.
In the end, I stayed in Los Angeles for a whole week, which I certainly hadn’t expected to do — much less mostly enjoy — but by the last day I was feeling restless and a little shaky. Walking around West Hollywood on a few last errands, I saw a BMW convertible that was exactly the same as Jackie’s, then a movie poster of Drew Barrymore, who looked a bit like Selena, and suddenly the tears were pouring down my face.
Early the next morning, I got myself back on the road and headed down to Mexico, still thinking about everything I saw and did as a “letter to Brutus.”
Nov. 25, ’98 Loreto, Baja California Sur
¡Hola! Paddle-Wheeler —
As a matter of fact, it was Walt who recommended this town, and so far it’s pretty nice. The Hotel Oasis, almost empty, and right on the beach of the Sea of Cortez, which is also almost empty. This being the week of American Thanksgiving, I thought things might start getting a bit crazy, but no sign of it so far. Not here, anyway. I’ve been trying to pace myself to stay away from the “Cabos” until after the weekend, so hopefully that will work out.
Mainly I’ve been following Clement Salvadori’s advice so far, and I’m so glad I picked up his Motorcycle Adventures in Baja back in Tucson. It’s been a great help, and has taken me to places I wouldn’t have found, and on roads I definitely wouldn’t have found.
From L.A., I headed east on I-10, and cut south on that mountain road you and I took to San Diego, up through those high forests, meadows, and ranchlands, and down into the Anza-Borrego desert. Once again, it was nice taking it slow, poking around the state park and the weird RV oasis of Borrego Springs, the west side of the Salton Sea, then through El Centro and the massive irrigations of the Imperial Valley. Salvadori’s recommendation in Calexico, the De Anza, looked nice, but unfortunately was no longer a hotel, but an apartment building, so I ended up in the heinous “El Rancho,” which was not even worth its $30 tariff. I had wanted to be central, as usual, but for no good reason. The “town,” such as it was, catered strictly to “cro
ss-border shoppers,” and there was nowhere to eat but suspect-looking Chinese and franchise burger joints. I ended up at some name-brand pizza place eating lousy spaghetti with Pepsi. And getting depressed. As it was I’d spent one too many days in L.A., just as I’d done in Santa Fe; I’d go along thinking, “this is alright, this is alright,” until suddenly, it wasn’t alright, and I was freaking!
Here’s how I told it to my journal (your “alter ego” in some ways) that night in Calexico.
This should be the last entry in this U.S. journal, covering almost two months. Ups and downs. Have thought of so much that didn’t get written, as usual, but one recurring reflection is the feeling of being hurt. Beyond grief, sorrow, pain, and usual, expected responses, it’s a state of feeling tender, wounded, as if betrayed (ah yes — by life), and scarred beyond even my present understanding.