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47 Rides – #36 No Hitchhiking. Pickup is Illegal

These damned “no hitchiking. Pickup is illegal” signs!  So after a good long walk down the highway (away from the sign only to end up in front of another and have to continue)  we’re picked up in an unexpected spot where the shoulder is shy but apparently sufficient.

I’m getting tired of Brian telling everyone he’s been hitching with me since Kenora ON.  It screws up my stories and degrades my accomplishments but I guess it’s better for him than saying he just got out of jail.  We’re starting to get our stories straight but I don’t think we need to pitch it to anyone unless it comes up.

This guy that drove us to the skirts of Kelowna was real friendly and clean cut.  Still a long ways from town but it sure beats the side of the highway, in the middle of nowhere, beside a sign that says NO HITCHHIKING

I need to sleep for a week to really loathe being lazy

Mo’ $

They say Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems.  But less money, definitely problems.

So I think we can surmise:  Money and problems are inextricably linked.

Humans, having evolved to be the greatest problem solvers on earth (and possibly ever to exist anywhere), are bound to one day solve this one.

47 Rides – #35 Random friendlies

So we had to leave Merritt because the guy that was generous enough to let us stay at his motel, Peter, lost his job.  I blame Brian.  It definitely wasn’t my fault ’cause I didn’t sleep in the motel that night.  I woke up in somebody’s backyard.  That’s when I lost my guitar.

The people whose yard it was were concerned for me having somewhere to sleep.  I dazily explained I was staying at the Double D Inn and made my way off their property.  I somehow found my way back to the DoubleD and slept about an hour before Peter came in and told us we had to go.  Apparently his boss was coming back into town and Brian had been knocking on peoples doors the night before.  Peter had two jobs and he lost both of them somehow, if that’s even possible.  Poor Peter.

So now I’m realizing I don’t have my guitar so we retrace our steps from the night before, if that’s even possible.  The bar we were at said I had it with me when they kicked us out.  Hopefully that’s a last call kind of kicking out but I’m afeared it wasn’t.  So now we’re looking for the house I woke up at when a van pulls up asking if I’m Trevor Porter.  I am and I’m reunited with my guitar to my extreme relief.

So today’s ride is a generalization of Merritt locals, Natives, fellow travelers and random friendlies, driving us to the fire camp and back.  But, yeah, the fires don’t need any more volunteers.  So here we are in Merritt with nowhere to stay and nowhere to go.  Both of us barely slept the night before and we’re exhausted.  We even went into the police station and asked if we could sleep in some cells.  Nope, we had to break the law.  We looked around for something illegal to do but everything was too much effort so we continued down the street out of town..

You like “*****”?!! “*****” sucks.

Insert the word most applicable for your life.

We’ve said it.  We’ve heard it.  I’m glad I’m impervious to it now but I think about how much it used to affect me.  And kids say it with such expectation.  But we all know kids are ignorant (it’s not their fault. They were born that way) but where do adults get off putting down something beyond their personal tastes?  By 20 you should have it figured out that people don’t always like what you like and YOU are not supposed to like what everyone else likes.

So how does some else’s opinion change the way you feel about something.  I am happy to say I now listen to Roxette as much as I feel like and I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks.  I think they’re great.  But it wasn’t always this way….  At one point I was told they suck and away they went.  Thats when I got into more aggressive music, lets see someone try telling me this sucks!  That’s the good thing about aggressive stuff.  It’s already saying fuck anyone else who doesn’t like it.  It’s kind of a bully like that.

So lets take a look at me now.  What am I into?  I can tell you what I’m not into,  Beyonce, Lady Gaga, all that pop crap.  Why?  The lyrics are totally vacant.  No thought seems to be put into them at all.  Mark Twain once said:  ”The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”  And he is spinning in his grave.  So what does this have to do with musical bullying?  Here’s what:  I’m the bully now.  Instead of heaviness I’m an intellectual bully.  It doesn’t matter how meticulously I can pick it apart, if you like it, good.  It’s music.  It’s there to like.

But lets flex our brains for a second, I’m keeping you on your toes.  This philosophy for freedom of taste is not universal.  Lets go back to something else I heard, and all YOU heard or said, as a kid.  Math sucks.  If only I knew how much harder math was for other people and I didn’t think I was supposed to like all the same things everybody else likes.  As it turns out math, science, all that tough stuff, doesn’t suck.  I’m pretty good at math myself but think of how good I’d be if I had realized how much potential it has.  Cool stuff like building robots, real-life other dimensions and important stuff like renewable energy.  We all thought it sucked because we didn’t realize it’s connection to the world we know.  It’s a big leap from the fundamentals to a microwave (I still don’t get how microwaves work).

But the best thing about science is, by it’s nature, there is no accounts for taste.  That’s the point of it.  If you’re gonna fudge the numbers to prove yourself right you’re a lousy scientist.  Not a scientist at all, actually.  You’re a ********* (add your own witty jab here).

Tune in next time for my article about 82% of the US population (and similar numbers for the rest of the world) being in the Service Industry where I begin my campaign to change it’s name to the Handjob Industry for all it’s accomplishments.

47 Rides – #34 Lady and Mother

It started pouring so Brian and I took shelter under an overpass.  The wind was cold so we made a small fire between the lanes.

A lady and her quiet mother stopped way down the road and reversed back to us, to our relief.  We dashed through the downpour and hopped in.  She recommended the  llama ranch for work if the firefighting didn’t work out.

I wouldn’t recommend going to Merritt but I also wouldn’t miss the mad adventures I was thrust into there.

Think of it

I grew up in the ’90s when apathy was cool.  Maybe I’m getting old but what the kids seem to be into today is willful ignorance (I think that’s what they call it).  When all the problems of the world are coming to dinner, out there in the open almost daring anyone to do something about them, how is nothing still getting done?  Oh wait, shut up!  Stephan Harper’s playing the piano.

What a kick in the face that was to anybody paying attention, eh?  Harper makes deep cuts to arts funding in Canada saying “ordinary folks don’t care about the arts” and then appears on stage covering a Beatles song and up goes his approval ratings.  Haha, get it!?  He’s being ironic I think!

Yeah, ordinary Canadians don’t care about the arts.  They’re to focused on their two jobs, the family they never get to see and keeping up with buying all the newest cars, computers and other crap they don’t need.  They don’t have time for anything that is fulfilling or that makes them happy.

That’s something else there seems to be an inexplicable disconnect from, happiness.  Everyone’s up in arms when anything threatens their FREEDOM but happiness no one seems too attached to.  What they ARE attached to is stuff and ironically the more stuff you got the less free you are. Full circle!

So we’re working crappy jobs that we hate because they’re unfulfilling because they’re made up jobs designed to keep the economy going after all our jobs were taken by machines.  Damn rich machines!  Now, shouldn’t all this time freed up by not having to work labour jobs lead to a society with more time dedicated to the arts?  You’d think so.

If getting stuff makes you happy you should realize how gluttonous that is and feel appropriately bad about it.  If you really want to be happy create something, do something creative or do something for someone else.  I suggest getting creative about your survival because there’s happier ways to live and there’s a more fulfilling society possible.  Someone’s just gotta think of it..

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47 Rides – #33 Me and Brian in the newspaper

After spending some days in the shelter in Kamloops, busking for money in front of liquor stores and supermarkets, I befriended some fellow shelter stayers and we decided to head to Merritt to help out with the forest fires (2003).  The good fight.  Helpin out the people in need.  Money.  It had it all.

Of everyone talking about going only Brian actually did and that was cool ’cause he reminded me of Hunter Thompson.  He had just gotten out of jail for pushing his sister’s asshole boyfriend down some stairs.

We had a sign made from 5 pieces of cardboard strung together the said Merritt Going TO FightFires Please.  A lady picked us up after a long uphill hike out of town and asked if she could take our picture.  She was a journalist in Kamloops and was working on stories about the FireFighters.  So she drove us to around Logan Lake and took our picture from a couple of angles.  So maybe we got our pictures in the paper..

47 Rides – #32 and a 1/2 Hell’s Angel

Where I had gotten to was Kamloops.  I’m gonna stray a bit from only talking about the people who gave me rides so I can tell you how I got to bed that night.

I walked downhill from the outskirts of town towards the center as far as I could see it.  I was stopped and looking around by a gas station when a big guy in a leather jacket asked me, “Do you know where you’re goin?”  It was pretty obvious that I didn’t and I tried to act like I did but he knew where the shelter was so I went with him.  I took comfort in having a knife in my pocket.  He was a really nice guy though, Hell’s Angel with rotted teeth, but very helpful.  He led me to the shelter and told me about two places that give out meals.  There was an hour til the shelter closed it’s doors for the night so we sat outside and he regaled me with horrible prison stories and fights and stuff as I smoked and listened.