Went to see Mike Watt, he had an organ player with him, it led to some very Kraftwerkesque music. He was playing, strangely enough, in a place called the Handlebar, which is the name of the place I did most of my drinkin before I came down here. This one had burned down so they just took the remaining two walls and built a temporary bar out of the materials that u-stor-its are usually made out of.

One of Frankie's friends got home from Creature Makeup school out in LA. So we put on a bunch of fake herpes and went out to the bars:



Out near Fort Morgan is a long stretch of mostly deserted beaches backed by dunes. The only signs of human presence are the dim silouttes of oil rigs on the horizon. Here are some pictures from a hike through this desolate and untouched state park:

My grandparents have this little farm, 80 acres with another 80 on the back of it that belongs to my uncle. It used to be an active farm, growing whatever was the cash crop that year- soybeans, corn, even gladiolas at one point. Sod nowadays. But my grandparents have long since retired and their son Sonny had to cut back on his farming to work in the machine shop on the farm. They do tractor repairs, mostly, just welding together farm equipment that broke. Recently an old feller brought my grandpa a pump, and said, "It broke, and you should be able to fix it, because you welded it together for me in 1939!" That kind of shop.

However, my grandparents still run a little u-pick-we-pick garden on a couple of acres. They grow and sell onions, rutabagas, cabbage, potatos, gourds, broccoli, snap beans, turnips, tomatos, blackberries, butterbeans, peas, scuppernogs, squash, mayhaws, chestnuts, okra, pecans, cukes, field peas, kumquats, pole beans, persimmons, satsumas, figs, beets, corn, honey, and eggs. Of course, within any of those types of fruits and vegetables you have your individual breeds, such as Baldwin County Silver Queen corn or Cherry 1000 tomatoes. They are every bit as geeky about plants as I am about bikes.

They refuse to eat store-bought vegetables. Out-of-season foods are spoken of as if you couldn't just go down to the market and get some that were shipped in. If you'd ever had English Peas that were two hours old, you'd understand. I never thought peas could be toe-curlingly good. At one meal my grandpa said, "Them peas were picked just an hour ago, but the taters were dug before 9 AM, they're stale." He was joking, of course, but it reflects their mentality.

Butter beans are the most expensive produce, costing more than steak by the pound. Like the corn, we usually just end up eating most of them ourselves.

It's so exciting to be a part of this, as many of my ancestors up to my parents were, and see cucumbers starting to form, knowing that in a week or two there will be a bowl of iced vinegar filled with cuke slices at every meal. I'm not getting sick of onions and cabbage, like I thought I would. I shoulda come down for tomato season.

The onions this year look a little flat for their strain, though. Too many of them are coming up rotten, and some are purple. "I've never seen a 1049-A rot," my grandpa says, so they drove 300 miles with a handful of onions to show them to the breeder. Turns out there must have been a mixup with the seeds. On the way back, outside of Tallahasee, my grandma found some corn, no doubt trucked up from lower Florida. She eats so much corn that she's eaten her diabetes allotment "up to 2017".

I always perceived farming as the process of encouraging little planties to grow and live. It's not that way at all. Stuff grows so fast here in the subtropics that farming is a process of killing off whatever you don't want to grow. So many vicious weeds to hoe and trim. Killing and eating the chickens who aren't laying. Feeding the scraps to pigs who will be made into bacon. Farming, I've discovered, is about killing in order to live.

The farm.



Fishin.




My grandpa's workshop.



Joyriding.



1939 Farmall A.



Slow down there, Hoss!



Practicing on scrap steel.



Such intense concentration!



Buster is an ole moon-eyed stray that started hanging around the farm.

My daily routine goes something like this:

I wake up somewhere between 7 and 9, but even at 7 I'm greeted by a chorus of "good afternoon!" since everybody else has been up since five-thirty. Then I usually do some hoeing, a simple task that I can't really get wrong. I find it peaceful, and there's always more hoeing to be done.

At noon dinnertime comes, a huge meal that always leaves me stuffed and aching. This does not keep my relatives from trying to shove more food into me. After lunch there's a sort of siesta period where g-ma and g-pa sit and read the paper, take a little nap in the easy chair, stuff like that. If I'm feeling adventurous I could collect the eggs for my uncle but I don't think he likes that, since strangers disturb the hens, make them lay less.

My grandpa usually has some mechanical task reserved for the afternoon. This often involves me "practicing" welding which means making something he needs. His eyes are getting to where he can't weld anymore even with cheaters in his helmet.

Towards late afternoon, I usually go to the beach, with my Aunt Barbara or my cousin Frankie, depending on who's available. Then in the evening, Grandpa and Barbara and I fix a drink and usually stories end up being told, about the family or the farm or the olden days. They go to bed by nine and then I'll go hang out with Frankie, in a beachfront bar or at one of his friends' houses.

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It's Spring Break down here, so the cops are on the lookout for underage drinkers on the beach. My grandpa's machine shop was commissioned by the Gulf Shores PD to build this big stainless steel railing that would run the length of the police headquarters lobby. Turns out you can't jail minors so they came up with this rail- they just handcuff them all to it like a big long hitching post of drunken teenagers.

Met a crazy guy on the train who claimed to have invented the reverse microwave. He had a lot of other claims as well. I eventually had to resort to propositioning him for sex just to get him to leave us alone.

Got way too drunk and then sick from the swaying and the speeding up, slowing down, sway sway...

Had a quick dinner in N'awlins with Chopper Bob's friend... soft-shell crab.

Arrived in Foley AL at 2 AM Sunday, having left 8 PM Friday... stopped in on my cousin's friends who had an amazing collection of ash trays.

The next day, Matt the Rat and Chopper Bob and I practiced some welding down at the shop. We practiced on Oxy/Acetaline and arc, but they have MIG and TIG as well... in fact, my grandpa had the first TIG welder in Baldwin county, meaning he was the only person who could weld aluminum. He still uses it today.

Went to Souvineir City and looked at the crap, including a bumper sticker that said, "IF I'D KNOWN THIS I WOULDA PICKED MY OWN COTTON".

Hit up a Waffle House (by Bob's request) and played all the waffle-themed songs on the jukebox. Some good ole boy with cowboy boots and hat came in and started singing along to Under the Boardwalk.

Spent the evening at a redneck tiki bar. The tables were wire spools wrapped in rattan.

You know what? They have stars here.

Bought about ten pounds of crawdads at $1.29 a pound, and was subsequently shamed by Chopper Bob's superior tail-pinching and head-sucking skills. He schooled me in my own grandma's house, how cruel.

We went fishing and then joyriding on my grandpa's 1939 Farmall A tractor. He exclaimed, "It's not an antique, it's from 1939!"

Spent the evening at my aunt's house where I met another damn cousin.

The next day I made sure to jump in the sea.

We had to take CB to New Orleans again so we hung out a bit in the French Quarter. That place is like a thin layer of chocolate wrapped around a turd. I guess you have to be shitfaced to appreciate it. My big goal was to see some chicks with dicks but those establisments seemed to have closed or moved since I was there last.

I did take the ferry to Algiers Point, though, fulfilling my deep love of mass transit.

We tried to visit Mardi Gras World, the place where they store the floats the rest of the year, but arrived as soon as they were locking up. So instead we dived in their dumpster and got as many mardi gras beads as we could carry. Must come up with some use for them.

Since MtR left I've just been helping out on the farm. Right now they're selling onions, rutabagas, cabbages, and honey.

Today I planted a lemon tree.