Friday, February 5, 2010

Calvin, Jeff and Cosmo
Drive to California in Calvin's Car,
a 1939 Pontiac he bought for $75.

April 1968 [dialog: 1993]

(Calvin, already nearly a year working for the fab Nifty, Tough & Bitchin', and meanwhile Jeff & Cosmo have quit art school and the three of them are on their way to California.)

CALVIN: OK, I remember Mars.

JEFF: Oh yeah, I remember that, I remember standing out by the sign. We took some pictures there.



C: It was late, it was really late- so do you remember when we left here?

J: Oh yeah- it was dark, it was night. I remember Michigan- it nearly ripped the doors off the car! When we got out...

C: What did?

J: Michigan.

C: Whataya mean?

J: We went through Michigan.

C: We did?

J: Yep.

C: Why would we go through Michigan?

J: Well maybe we were near lake Michigan in... OK- below. OK...

C: Ohio?

J: Uh... We probably... Indiana. Near Chicago. It might have been just past Chicago. But I remember right in that section- right there somewhere... right in there... I know we were near Lake Michigan.

C: What happened?

J: We stopped at a roadside place. It was pretty modern.

C: Um hm...

J: I think it was one of these places on the side- on the Interstate... It was like one of the early highways that we took... we stopped in this modern place... and I remember getting out and the wind almost blew the door off.

C: Oh, the wind.

J: Yeah.

C: I don't remember that.

J: Yeah, I remember saying: "Man, now I know what they mean by Chicago."

C: Well did we go- like take the turnpike I guess. From Pennsylvania. We just kept drivin' didn't we.

J: We took turns.

C: Yeah- we took the back seat out, we had a mattress like stuck back into the trunk.

C: We drove through Nebraska. I don't remember anything up 'till then except for Mars. (Pennsylvania has some rather ...odd towns: Mars, California, East Texas ...Intercourse)

J: I don't remember Nebraska.

C: Now here's what I remember about Nebraska- 'cause I took a bunch of photos.

J: OK.

C: That's why I remember. I have those photos somewhere... Just shots taken out in the very flat... Nebraska. Just flat, you know, with us and the car and some... a couple of 'em are us sitting on the car, remember?



J: That was uh, Wyoming.

C: Was it Wyoming?

J: Yeah, see that's what I...

C: Well whatever it was, it was like the flat part. Nebraska. Wyoming.

J: Wyoming... Nebraska... Oh yeah, they're next to each other.

C: It's like basically we took Route 66.

J: Right.

C: No wait that's not 66. 66 doesn't go through Nebraska. We might of gone through Kansas City, then Nebraska, Wyoming. No we didn't go... We weren't in Wyoming!

J: Wait- we went through Iowa. Remember stopping at Iowa City?

C: To visit Eggy Hoog?

J: Yeah. So then we did go through Nebraska. And we went through the tip of Wyoming- went through Cheyenne. And I think we went just through the corner of that...

C: We went through four corners. No wait, that was later.

J: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. See this? I thought this was in Wyoming, just after we got out of Nebraska.

C: I think it was Nebraska --cause I have it labeled Nebraska and it really has that flat flat Nebraska look. It's possible it was Wyoming but I don't think so. I think it was Nebraska cause I have it labeled Nebraska and I wrote that a long time ago. Might have been wrong but...

C: You know the Log Cabin burnt down, did I tell you that ?

J: Yeah? yeah? Oh the Log Cabin did ? NO!

C: Couple years ago.

J: No!

C: At least five,six, seven years ago.

J: Oh my.

C: I think Harry Houdini's is still there...

J: Well they demolished that, didn't they?

C: All the landscaping is still there, you know the terraces and stuff.

C: All right, so we went through Wyoming then down into Colorado. We went to Denver. I remember now, when we left Denver we stopped at this diner and they had horrible food.

J: Okay.

C: Remember that ? Before we went up into the mountains.

J: Right, and it started snowing while we were in the diner.

C: Yeah.

J: And when we got out there was like a quarter inch of snow on the ground.

C: Yeah right--little did we know!

J: A nice dusting.

C: And then we go up into the mountains.

J: And then fifteen minutes later we're in fifteen feet of snow.

C: Drivin' up that hill, that's for sure.... there was ice everyehere and the snow...I think we came down through Leadville....and down here, you know um, down to.....Yeah cause this is where we got in trouble was in the mountains up in here. [almost slid off a cliff!]

J: Yeah.

C: I think that's where that funky motel with the deer-heads, we stayed at that night.

J: It took us three days to get to here.

J: And then we drove all the way up to Four Corners.

C: ...and all it was was this little cement thing in the ground.

J: Yeah right, right.

C: Okay, then we went to Arizona. Is that where you got in that fight?

J: Flagstaff, wasn't it? They had like twenty people in the restaurant and they were closed.

C: That's right, is that what the fight was all about?

J: Yeahhh. Because somebody flipped them the bird when they wouldn't let us in?

C: And then what happened?

J: They came out and we ran into the '39 and they came out chasing us.

C: I don't remember anything until we crossed the river.

J: I thought we stopped in the desert.

C: Been through the desert so many times, I can't remember really.

J: Death Valley.

C: No that was later. we would've been by Barstow.

J: Yeah.

C: 'Cause that's the way we were going.

J: We just got out, looked for rocks, and drove on. By then we were pretty exhausted.

C: Okay, well then what happened, so then.....I remember drivin' into L.A. through San Bernardino and all that and I was anxious to hook up with Maddie. And then did we just, did we just move into the Log Cabin?...Frank wasn't there yet was he?

J: I think we pulled right into the Log Cabin, and then you were talking to Frank for a while and then about an hour later....

C: No--don't you remember Gail & Zarubica were staying at that hotel on Sunset?

J: We moved into the tree house.

C: Then what happened to Cosmo, did he disappear? I don't really remember him being involved in....

[end tape]

4 comments:

  1. Amazing that I happened to find this blog. I will be perusing the back posts to catch up. I have a Zappa blog, nothing special really, which I haven't been able to update recently because my laptop got fried. But wow, amazing I found this, via a follower of my Buddhist blog. Sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Common Bra dis is no Zukkin Zappa Blog.
    Oh, i dforget, delaah da MUSIK.
    Uh! Remembah!
    Das ist die gute alte traditionelle Musik unserer fruehen Tage. Des 17. Jahrhunderts, der Pest, die Hexenverfolgung und all das.
    In Dinslaken. Ruhrgebiet. Duisburg. Deutschland.

    Genau. Jetzt lehnt Ihr Euch erstmal weit zurueck und dann ...
    Reissverschluss zuuu.Reissverschluss zuuuuu. Reissverschluss zuuuuuuuuu.
    Schlusswort: mein Geburtstag im Braustuberl war gut

    ReplyDelete
  3. hmmmmmmmm... Vas ist dat, Pottsylvania Dutch?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello, I just wanted to say this is a greatly designed blog. One can see you are taking a lot of care and patience to make an internet link beautiful! You set an example, and it inspired me to struggle hard just for the sacred comfort of the viewer. Calvin is a man of taste, in fact, he's the Master of all things graphic and ovale orientated art. Did I get it right ?

    ReplyDelete