Although my trip to Whistler began in Vancouver Airport where I met my cousin Paul, it didn't really begin properly until I was sitting on a bench, looking out towards a very impressive snow capped mountain range trying BC Bud for the first time. The beautiful beautiful scenery and relative quiet of the area was quickly destroyed by my coughing the minute that stuff hit the back of my throat.
The rest of the drive was very relaxed. We listened to music and I looked out the window like it was the first time I had seen a mountain.
We arrived in Whistler where Paul has left me in charge of his dogs while he works up North. Two Jack Russels, Huntster and Minx. Huntster is the super relaxed man of the house and Minxy is the ball of energy, wants-to-lick-everything-and-do-stuff-all -the-time young lady of the manor. I am a sucker for them already. They are, in my defence, just too damn cute.
I wasn't fully prepared for a place like this. Again, I didn't really think it through. I have no walking shoes for one. Immediately I realised that tennis shoes are not the correct thing to be scaling up and down fucking hills and trails and rocks and suchlike. I am also too unfit for a place like this. The first day I was here I was on a bike. I haven't been on a bike since the time I broke my face on a wall in Italy. But here I was, on a bike, in the mountains. Not just any bike either, but a beautifully feminine bike with a basket on the front with a small dog in the basket. I had gone from sitting on the couch to being on a bike, which I then noticed was a girls bike, which my cousin then put a basket on the front so that I could give Minx a lift, all while trying not to think about the amount of peril I had put myself in by agreeing to a simple bike ride.
After what seemed like miles and miles of rocks, trees, mud and danger we were back on a paved trail. We passed through the golf course car park. I heard Paul say something, I couldn't figure out what it was but he was pointing to his left. As I caught up to where he had pointed I came face to face with a bear.
OK. I say face to face, the thing was about 6 feet away. Which is close enough. Closer than I would choose to get to a wild bear.
Thankfully the bear was just chilling out. Clearly it had just been for a swim, and was drying out in the midday sun. Regardless, I still totally shat it. More than that, I was totally affronted. My first encounter with a bear and I am on a girls bike with a basket on the front. Now, when I walk homefrom the pub in the dark, I am fully aware that in any dark patch of my peripherals there could be bears lurking. For all I know they could be conspiring, surrounding me, waiting for the chance to pounce, make reference to the fact I ride a girls bike with a basket before setting about me and kicking my head in.
With that in mind I have been spending a lot of time with the dogs. Forming a bond so that if I get jumped by bears when I am out walking with the dogs, they will step up and have my back. This means learning a few things. Adam, who lives downstairs has taught me a few things. Number 1. Don't talk to them like humans. 2. Don't be condescending. 3. Don't give them a Mexican accent. 4. Show them who is in charge. Easy. I could have my own show like The Dog Whisperer but instead of absolute control of all dogs on the planet, my show will be me thinking I know what I am doing for 5 minutes and the rest of the time is me pleading with them to listen to me, or asking what it is they want from me, or being overly condescending when one of them does something I asked them not to. Or giving them Mexican accents when they sit and stare at me like they want conversation.
When I am not hanging with Huntster and Minx I am in the village drinking. It is 4.5KM away, or the longest fucking walk you could ever imagine because you never learned KM where you come from. There is a bus, but as with almost every country I have ever been to the bus driving jobs seem to be monopolised by assholes. It's a strange phenomenon. "Quick, there is a bus driver job opened up, find me the biggest asshole you know!"
So instead of paying their wages and feeding their kids I have found it is far cheaper, more fun and more interesting if I just hitch hike. People are really friendly round here and seeing as it is off season it is mainly locals, so you have no trouble thumbing a ride around. So far I have not had my head chopped off and I haven't been buried in a shallow, snowy grave.
Whistler is a great place. It is beautiful, the people are very friendly and there is always something to do and someone to do it with. I have heard from various locals that it used to be so cool, and when you look around now you can still see it, if you look in the right places. But as with everything that is at one time cool, as soon as everyone else hears about it, it loses it's cool a bit. Then, eventually, somewhere down the line some horrible bastard in a suit swings by and sees Dollar signs and then Paradise is truly fucked. The prices go up. The quality of people visiting goes down (depending on your point of view) and thanks to the marketing everything is left covered with a subtle, but still noticeable film. This film may not completely ruin your view, but you know it's there. It's the way of the world I guess. The only way to stop it now would be the mass execution of everyone in any kind of marketing or advertising job.
Until then, you're just going to have to squint to see the good stuff.
Monday 21 May 2012
Sunday 13 May 2012
The 35 Hour Rail Adventure.
I awoke this morning in a Vancouver hotel with an absolute bastard of a hangover. Within an hour of my arrival to this city I decided that seeing as it was Saturday night, and the street was filled with drunks, I would just dump my stuff in my room and head straight out.
Getting here was a little drawn out. To get to Canada I took a train from California which took 35 hours, or thereabouts. I had been staying in Santa Monica, sleeping on the couch in the house Biffy Clyro are living in while they record their 6th studio album, which you'll have heard the title of if you read that sorry excuse for a music mag NME. I stayed there for just about 2 weeks, I was meant to be there for just one week but I missed a flight to Kentucky and decided just to hang about in Santa Monica a bit longer. When you find such paradise you should absolutely stay there as long as you possibly can. Not that I don't think Kentucky and it's Decadent & Depraved Derby would have been fun, but when I realised I wasn't going I found immediate solace in the fact that my friends were kind enough to let me continue living it up in such a beautiful place, two minutes from the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. (Outwith Ayr Shore of course)
I had booked a cab from the house to Union Street Station in LA, I had booked it for 8:45am. I ended up getting a little bit wrecked the night before, and when I woke up I must have still been suffering the effects as I misread the clock and panicked. So much so, in fact, that I threw the rest of my stuff into my bag and phoned the cab company to see where the car was. The woman on the end of the line was struggling to comprehend my hungover West of Scotland Drawl, which got me riled. She was asking what the cross street was, I asked if it sounded like I knew what I was talking about and then demanded that she "just send the damn cab to the damn address I gave (her) and don't worry about the street at the end of the road." It worked because within minutes the car was there.
It was only when I was half way to the station that I realised my mistake. I was an hour early. I was a little miffed as I planned to get a few things before I left. Namely booze. Now it would seem I was a slave to the bar prices on the train.
I got to Union Station, a beautiful 1930's building which was built in order to destroy forever the original LA Chinatown. Which isn't very nice but it is a beautiful building. I checked in, got rid of my big luggage and took a seat. As I took my seat I was approached by a well dressed elderly gent with a briefcase. He stood over me staring at me as if I had just shit in his cereal. "American Pig!" he shouted at the top of his lungs in thick Russian accent. I looked him in the eyes and told him "I'm no American. But I may be a pig." Thinking that it strode the line between good humour and a subtle "go fuck yourself old man." He turned o his heels and walked out the station.
I decided that the best course of action when staring down any long journey is to consume as much caffeine as possible so that the inevitable crash would knock me out for the first part of the journey. I got a Starbucks and was happy to find out that it is just as shitty in the US as it is everywhere else. I took it outside and lit up a cig, cue everyone in a 100 mile radius asking you for a cig, with no please or thank you. Thankfully most people in this country seem to believe you when you say, in English, "Sorry, I don't speak English."
I walked back into the lobby and looked for a seat, before I could find one I noticed a woman walking towards me dressed in only a sheet. It only became apparent as she got within a few feet of me that her vagina was on show for all to see, and what a vagina it was. It was like she has stuffed Jimi Hendrix up herself feet first. Massive bush. It's too early in the morning for that kind of horror show. Although the irony wasn't lost on me, it was the closest I'd been to any kind of vagina the whole time I'd been in California.
I took a swerve past the half naked homeless lady and sat down across from an old lady. She was hugely fat. So fat that she was testing the upper limits of her velour sweat suit. She was demolishing a gigantic bag of cheese puffs. She offered me one, the bottom half of her face and her right hand were bright orange from the cheese puffs. I said no thank you. About 5 minutes later, while day dreaming, I was startled back to reality by the ignorant scream of a whistle, I looked about expecting to see a cop chasing a bad guy, but it was the old lady sitting in the same place, blowing a whistle. When she had everyone's attention she started singing. Turns out that although she looked like a normal, kind old lady, she was fucking insane.
I couldn't wait to leave LA at that point. I gathered basic supplies and boarded the train.
I am man enough to admit that I hadn't really thought the whole thing through. But I never really do that anyway so it is quite easy for me to admit that. But the 35 hour thing really got me because, as with all things, you have to view it in some kind of context. 35 hours would pass in a heartbeat in Santa Monica, or in bed with some attractive partner etc. But on a slow moving train through 3 states, 35 hours dragged at times. Specifically on Saturday. On Friday though, I just decided to get drunk. I was happy to spend most of the money in my pocket to do so.
After a few strong vodka lemonades I ended up chatting to a pretty young lady, and after a few more drinks we were wandering the train looking for mischief. We eventually stumbled upon an arcade room, where we sat and drank, chatted and then started kissing. She tasted like beer. Good beer. She liked my accent and I liked the sweet taste of IPA on her lips.
That part of the journey passed too quickly and before I knew it she had got off the train an out of my life somewhere near Sacramento. I stumbled towards my seat and crashed out until an ungodly hour in the morning when the train shook me awake and off my seat.
The next day of the trip which would take me through Oregon and Washington before getting off in Seattle and getting on a bus into Vancouver, I had to deal with my decision to spend most of my money on booze the day before. I had enough to eat lunch or dinner, not both, and I had about 10 cigs left. It was going to be tight.
As we moved closer to Seattle I blasted Pearl Jam on my pod. The sense of relief that washed over me knowing that I would be getting off the train soon was almost too much to handle. It was a long slog, but the scenery and the like minded people you meet on such a journey made the whole thing worth it. I would recomend it to every single one of you. In my opinion there are few more beautiful places in the world as Scotland, but this came very, very close.
Eventually, after having to deal with potentially the world's dumbest cunt at the Canadian border, I was in Vancouver and in search of a hotel (nothing like leaving it to the last minute). Now it is late afternoon on Sunday and I am in a different hotel in an attempt to save a bit of money. I will probably just stay in tonight. Maybe I will go for one or two. But that's it.
I made it to Canada. Which is incredible to me because I genuinely didn't think I would leave California. I know I won't last the two months I have booked, but that was just a ball park number. This is an adventure and no adventure can be genuine if you know exactly what you're doing, or indeed if you pass up opportunity simply because you might run out of money. You either go all in, and risk busting out early, or you play safe and coast along, bored, for as long as you can hold on, but never increasing your odds. The latter is not an option. Not when the sense of adventure is telling you "fuck it, go all in, worry about it in the morning."
Lots of Love from Canada, eh!
Getting here was a little drawn out. To get to Canada I took a train from California which took 35 hours, or thereabouts. I had been staying in Santa Monica, sleeping on the couch in the house Biffy Clyro are living in while they record their 6th studio album, which you'll have heard the title of if you read that sorry excuse for a music mag NME. I stayed there for just about 2 weeks, I was meant to be there for just one week but I missed a flight to Kentucky and decided just to hang about in Santa Monica a bit longer. When you find such paradise you should absolutely stay there as long as you possibly can. Not that I don't think Kentucky and it's Decadent & Depraved Derby would have been fun, but when I realised I wasn't going I found immediate solace in the fact that my friends were kind enough to let me continue living it up in such a beautiful place, two minutes from the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. (Outwith Ayr Shore of course)
I had booked a cab from the house to Union Street Station in LA, I had booked it for 8:45am. I ended up getting a little bit wrecked the night before, and when I woke up I must have still been suffering the effects as I misread the clock and panicked. So much so, in fact, that I threw the rest of my stuff into my bag and phoned the cab company to see where the car was. The woman on the end of the line was struggling to comprehend my hungover West of Scotland Drawl, which got me riled. She was asking what the cross street was, I asked if it sounded like I knew what I was talking about and then demanded that she "just send the damn cab to the damn address I gave (her) and don't worry about the street at the end of the road." It worked because within minutes the car was there.
It was only when I was half way to the station that I realised my mistake. I was an hour early. I was a little miffed as I planned to get a few things before I left. Namely booze. Now it would seem I was a slave to the bar prices on the train.
I got to Union Station, a beautiful 1930's building which was built in order to destroy forever the original LA Chinatown. Which isn't very nice but it is a beautiful building. I checked in, got rid of my big luggage and took a seat. As I took my seat I was approached by a well dressed elderly gent with a briefcase. He stood over me staring at me as if I had just shit in his cereal. "American Pig!" he shouted at the top of his lungs in thick Russian accent. I looked him in the eyes and told him "I'm no American. But I may be a pig." Thinking that it strode the line between good humour and a subtle "go fuck yourself old man." He turned o his heels and walked out the station.
I decided that the best course of action when staring down any long journey is to consume as much caffeine as possible so that the inevitable crash would knock me out for the first part of the journey. I got a Starbucks and was happy to find out that it is just as shitty in the US as it is everywhere else. I took it outside and lit up a cig, cue everyone in a 100 mile radius asking you for a cig, with no please or thank you. Thankfully most people in this country seem to believe you when you say, in English, "Sorry, I don't speak English."
I walked back into the lobby and looked for a seat, before I could find one I noticed a woman walking towards me dressed in only a sheet. It only became apparent as she got within a few feet of me that her vagina was on show for all to see, and what a vagina it was. It was like she has stuffed Jimi Hendrix up herself feet first. Massive bush. It's too early in the morning for that kind of horror show. Although the irony wasn't lost on me, it was the closest I'd been to any kind of vagina the whole time I'd been in California.
I took a swerve past the half naked homeless lady and sat down across from an old lady. She was hugely fat. So fat that she was testing the upper limits of her velour sweat suit. She was demolishing a gigantic bag of cheese puffs. She offered me one, the bottom half of her face and her right hand were bright orange from the cheese puffs. I said no thank you. About 5 minutes later, while day dreaming, I was startled back to reality by the ignorant scream of a whistle, I looked about expecting to see a cop chasing a bad guy, but it was the old lady sitting in the same place, blowing a whistle. When she had everyone's attention she started singing. Turns out that although she looked like a normal, kind old lady, she was fucking insane.
I couldn't wait to leave LA at that point. I gathered basic supplies and boarded the train.
I am man enough to admit that I hadn't really thought the whole thing through. But I never really do that anyway so it is quite easy for me to admit that. But the 35 hour thing really got me because, as with all things, you have to view it in some kind of context. 35 hours would pass in a heartbeat in Santa Monica, or in bed with some attractive partner etc. But on a slow moving train through 3 states, 35 hours dragged at times. Specifically on Saturday. On Friday though, I just decided to get drunk. I was happy to spend most of the money in my pocket to do so.
After a few strong vodka lemonades I ended up chatting to a pretty young lady, and after a few more drinks we were wandering the train looking for mischief. We eventually stumbled upon an arcade room, where we sat and drank, chatted and then started kissing. She tasted like beer. Good beer. She liked my accent and I liked the sweet taste of IPA on her lips.
That part of the journey passed too quickly and before I knew it she had got off the train an out of my life somewhere near Sacramento. I stumbled towards my seat and crashed out until an ungodly hour in the morning when the train shook me awake and off my seat.
The next day of the trip which would take me through Oregon and Washington before getting off in Seattle and getting on a bus into Vancouver, I had to deal with my decision to spend most of my money on booze the day before. I had enough to eat lunch or dinner, not both, and I had about 10 cigs left. It was going to be tight.
As we moved closer to Seattle I blasted Pearl Jam on my pod. The sense of relief that washed over me knowing that I would be getting off the train soon was almost too much to handle. It was a long slog, but the scenery and the like minded people you meet on such a journey made the whole thing worth it. I would recomend it to every single one of you. In my opinion there are few more beautiful places in the world as Scotland, but this came very, very close.
Eventually, after having to deal with potentially the world's dumbest cunt at the Canadian border, I was in Vancouver and in search of a hotel (nothing like leaving it to the last minute). Now it is late afternoon on Sunday and I am in a different hotel in an attempt to save a bit of money. I will probably just stay in tonight. Maybe I will go for one or two. But that's it.
I made it to Canada. Which is incredible to me because I genuinely didn't think I would leave California. I know I won't last the two months I have booked, but that was just a ball park number. This is an adventure and no adventure can be genuine if you know exactly what you're doing, or indeed if you pass up opportunity simply because you might run out of money. You either go all in, and risk busting out early, or you play safe and coast along, bored, for as long as you can hold on, but never increasing your odds. The latter is not an option. Not when the sense of adventure is telling you "fuck it, go all in, worry about it in the morning."
Lots of Love from Canada, eh!
Friday 4 May 2012
Sun, Sea, Sand and Sitting On A Couch Watching Videos of Racists.
I went on YouTube this morning and typed in “funny”.
I have ended up spending most of my morning watching videos of Ultra Right Wing Diet-Anarchists roaming the streets of Bumfuck County USA sponsored and, indeed, encouraged by the Fair and Balanced Fox News. Which is disturbing at the best of times. But it is more disturbing and really worrying being on American soil while watching them.
I am in no real danger. I’d imagine their kind of diseased mind wouldn’t last two minutes in the Liberal Orgy of Santa Monica. They have places here that don’t serve meat, and they have legal medicinal marijuana. It is exactly like Sodom and Gomorrah. The End of Days is upon us.
Before we get too far into anything, because this could go anywhere, Blame Reagan. That would be my best advice, if any, for Americans wishing to debate or cast blame on who exactly killed the American Dream. When in doubt, blame Ronald Reagan.: The mumbling puppet. Don’t feel too bad about it either, your parents (or maybe Grandparents) voted an actor from shitty B Movies to be your President. Blame Reagan and your parents. Read a history book that isn’t about the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, Teabaggers seem to have an insane knowledge on that subject. If Obama was the Hitler-esque Dictator that the Tea Party are making him out to be they would all be dead or rotting away in camps. These cunts should have a bit more respect for the atrocities committed in the past, that were only able to be accomplished thanks to the kind of misinformation and misplaced hatred that these imbeciles are spreading. They hate the people they hate for hating them in return, when there is enough of the planet between them to just get on with their own lives. “I can’t believe there is a guy in a cave thousands of miles away who hates my god, and wants me to die!” It’s the kind of paranoia you would expect to encounter with someone who’s been on a week long cocaine binge. They don’t need coke though, or weed, they have Fox News and The Lord God Almighty to mess with their minds.
Usually I would watch one or two of these videos and then disconnect from the internet and try my best not to let the words they shite out their mouths ruin my day. But today, I don’t have much to do today. I am currently lying on a couch in a house in Santa Monica. It is stupidly close to the beach. Stupidly close. Despite the Roman Blood coursing through my veins, I burn easy. It’s what happens when you cover Roman Blood with Scottish skin. So I think I might just stay in today and trawl the doldrums of YouTube in the hope I find a real gem. It’s highly likely because within the first 5 videos I had found a woman saying “There’s nothing better than a dead liberal.” and other, equally fucked humans saying that all Muslims should have coded tattoos on their arm, or at the very least be made to wear a badge so that the White God Fearing folks can tell if a Muslim is in their midst.
One thing I have noticed in the many videos I have seen so far is how happy Right Wing Lunatics are when they are spouting some nonsense. It gives them great pride, but I don’t think it is them fuelling up off of the hatred. Because I think I could deal with that. I think it is simply smugness, anchored in the fact that they think they happen to be lucky enough to be born in to the correct way of life. They believe that being white, following white god and comparing everyone who they disagree with to Hitler is the proper order of things.
And to think I just went on YouTube and typed in “funny”.
I have ended up spending most of my morning watching videos of Ultra Right Wing Diet-Anarchists roaming the streets of Bumfuck County USA sponsored and, indeed, encouraged by the Fair and Balanced Fox News. Which is disturbing at the best of times. But it is more disturbing and really worrying being on American soil while watching them.
I am in no real danger. I’d imagine their kind of diseased mind wouldn’t last two minutes in the Liberal Orgy of Santa Monica. They have places here that don’t serve meat, and they have legal medicinal marijuana. It is exactly like Sodom and Gomorrah. The End of Days is upon us.
Before we get too far into anything, because this could go anywhere, Blame Reagan. That would be my best advice, if any, for Americans wishing to debate or cast blame on who exactly killed the American Dream. When in doubt, blame Ronald Reagan.: The mumbling puppet. Don’t feel too bad about it either, your parents (or maybe Grandparents) voted an actor from shitty B Movies to be your President. Blame Reagan and your parents. Read a history book that isn’t about the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, Teabaggers seem to have an insane knowledge on that subject. If Obama was the Hitler-esque Dictator that the Tea Party are making him out to be they would all be dead or rotting away in camps. These cunts should have a bit more respect for the atrocities committed in the past, that were only able to be accomplished thanks to the kind of misinformation and misplaced hatred that these imbeciles are spreading. They hate the people they hate for hating them in return, when there is enough of the planet between them to just get on with their own lives. “I can’t believe there is a guy in a cave thousands of miles away who hates my god, and wants me to die!” It’s the kind of paranoia you would expect to encounter with someone who’s been on a week long cocaine binge. They don’t need coke though, or weed, they have Fox News and The Lord God Almighty to mess with their minds.
Usually I would watch one or two of these videos and then disconnect from the internet and try my best not to let the words they shite out their mouths ruin my day. But today, I don’t have much to do today. I am currently lying on a couch in a house in Santa Monica. It is stupidly close to the beach. Stupidly close. Despite the Roman Blood coursing through my veins, I burn easy. It’s what happens when you cover Roman Blood with Scottish skin. So I think I might just stay in today and trawl the doldrums of YouTube in the hope I find a real gem. It’s highly likely because within the first 5 videos I had found a woman saying “There’s nothing better than a dead liberal.” and other, equally fucked humans saying that all Muslims should have coded tattoos on their arm, or at the very least be made to wear a badge so that the White God Fearing folks can tell if a Muslim is in their midst.
One thing I have noticed in the many videos I have seen so far is how happy Right Wing Lunatics are when they are spouting some nonsense. It gives them great pride, but I don’t think it is them fuelling up off of the hatred. Because I think I could deal with that. I think it is simply smugness, anchored in the fact that they think they happen to be lucky enough to be born in to the correct way of life. They believe that being white, following white god and comparing everyone who they disagree with to Hitler is the proper order of things.
And to think I just went on YouTube and typed in “funny”.
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