30.4.10 Mariposa, CA

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I'm sitting at the bar in the 49er Club, owned and run by the enigmatic, shades-indoors-in-a-good-way (i.e. "I did stupendous amounts of acid 40 years ago and I actually HAVE to wear them") Randy, when a fellow who might almost be Stephen King's ugly brother (same glasses and too-small features, more warts) sits down and orders - are you ready for this - a pint of Budweiser with a tomato juice in it.

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I look at Randy quickly - this is the kind of thing I suspect he may refuse to serve on the grounds that it's pathetic and embarrassing. He hesitates for a yoctosecond - and goes to pour the squalid linctus. I can't not challenge it.
"Sorry old fruit - no offence - but straight to the nub, eh? That is the single most disgusting preparation I've ever seen, or indeed heard of. Pray explain yourself!"
He waffles on for some little while in an otiose attempt to justify or post-rationalize his disgraceful order, finishes it, and leaves.

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"The only thing worse than ordering a Budweiser and tomato juice," I remark to Randy, "is only having one and then going home."
"Yup. There's a dork born every minute" observes Randy.

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I'm forced to wait a few days in Mariposa for the weather to clear in Yosemite, so there's no realistic option but to return to the 49er a couple of nights later. This time I run into Gary, Dave and Stephanie from TV's England (Southampton I think), and cheeky, irony-soused banter with a side-plate of wry, sarcastic irreverence is the order of the day. After an hour, a young fellow in what one can only assume is a joke cowboy hat approaches us.

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"Yew all frum England?" he posits, though it's meant as a question.
"Indeed! Which country are you from, friend?" we respond.
"America!" comes the proud, if unsurprising disclosure.
We sort of knew that - we're in America, you've got an American accent, and you're wearing an unforgivable American hat... Never mind! His chum (quite badly sub-par on any internationally accepted educational scale, as far as I can make out) brings up the Revolutionary War, and it is eventually revealed that neither are huge fans of Obama - information less shocking, if that's even possible, than the fact that Hat-Boy is an American.
The Hatster is a "veteran" - of Iraq, I ask? Well, he wanted to go to Iraq, but sadly he was posted to Oregon; ah well; but also somehow ended up in the Oregon Coast Guard. Instead of Iraq.

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America is big 'n' busy; so much so that there are two or three things I meant to do that I've not had time for.
1) Visit Hunter S. Thompson's home town with sufficient automatic weapons, lysergic acid, dynamite, Wild Turkey, medical-grade cocaine, hunting knives, premium-strength beer, red meat, contraband cigarettes, prostitutes, hand-grenades, counterfeit $20 bills, psilocybin fungus, fake passports and hollow-point ammunition to start - and finish - World War III.
2) Visit Graceland - as in Elvis - stuff a deep-fried squirrel up my arse and shit it onto the porch in a hail of bloody, bone-studded faeces; then black up and hang myself from a tree in the front garden as a protest against Southern racism.
3) Visit Neverland - as in Michael Jackson - take an horrific crap on the doorstep and nail an anatomically correct doll with the face of Cindy Brady to an 8-foot rhinestone-studded cross on the lawn.

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2.5.10 Tracy, CA

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Two-and-a-quarter dollar pints of icy Bud; unlimited Rush on the jukie (live Xanadu now, anything I fancy to follow, cos it's an inkerneck jukebox and nobody's putting anything else on) and the promise of a box of Melancholy Fried Chicken on the way back to the motel. YOU HAVE GOT TO LUV THE MERRICKA.
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