Stairway to Kevin, redux

This happened in February but it didn't occur to me to revive circusninja until today. It feels like a safe repository, virtually unseen but not invisible. Maybe Naomi will read it, or John.

My best friend died. He died. 

Kevin, see http://circusninja.blogspot.com/2016/03/stairway-to-kevin.html, had a heart attack while walking his beloved dog. My mom tells me not to let myself think about the pavement, how it was cold.

I haven't been able to do anything to comfort myself, because everything nice reminds me of Kevin. I can’t order Chinese food without remembering Sang Kee and Joy Tsin Lau. I can’t watch hockey without thinking of all the Flyers games he and I shared in person, or in different cities with our phones in hand. I can't enjoy my truck without thinking of Kevin's first company car; it was a new SUV and he was so proud of all the features. And you all know there's no music I can listen to, not a blessed thing, without remembering my friend and his sound system and all the concerts.

Finally I was so sad I just drove out to the forest for a quiet hike in the snow. Because hiking in the forest does not make me think of Kevin.

But he did like being outside. Kevin wanted to go golfing for his bachelor party. Phil and I had a much bigger celebration in mind. One thing I wanted was a blind taste test of the best bottles of scotch. Kevin had to be careful after pancreatitis, but I know he would have approved of the scotch idea, because Kevin was top shelf. He knew all the servers in the restaurants, he knew the bartenders, he knew the owner of the record store, and he got us upgraded immediately to the VIP room when we went to see the Pixies. Kevin was like the godfather, and like the godfather, I assume Kevin had all his killing done for him. 

Kevin is the one who taught me that you don't give the middle finger when other drivers cut you off in traffic; you give them a thumbs  up, because then they feel worse and you feel classy. I was once at New Delhi Indian buffet with Kevin when hip hop mogul Russell Simmons walked in. I didn't know who Russell Simmons was, and Kevin said, "That's not ok. I should be here with someone who can appreciate this." Kevin was fierce, he was opinionated, he was never more articulate than when he thought you were wrong, but I can’t think of one single time, in 25 years, that I hung out with Kevin that he didn’t say I love you.

I won’t use the cliché that Kevin had a heart of gold, but Kevin did have the heart of a golden retriever. He was so in love with the world: with music, with food, with hockey, with golf - which is stupid - with his friends, with his family, and above all with Jess. I’ll close with a text message that Kevin sent me about Jess. I wish I could say that it was the last text I got from Kevin, but actually our last texts were me recommending Bob Dylan's first five albums, and Kevin insisting that Flyers goalie Carter Hart is good enough to represent Team Canada in the Olympics. 

But this text was a recent one, and Kevin wrote it thoughtfully, in response to me saying that my independence makes relationships challenging. Kevin wrote,

"It's an exercise in letting go. Constantly deciding what is important and what isn't significant enough to bother disagreeing about. I've found I don't care enough about a lot of things so that when I do, I have a little leverage. But, I don't actually care how high off of the floor pictures should be hung, and Jess feels strongly a certain way so I just go with it. Relationships are hard work, but for me, it's the thing I want to work hardest at, because she's worth it."

Summer 2019 Road Trip, post one

My two favorite things about the Kings Inn of Birmingham, AL is that there are cigarette burns on THE TUB and it cost me $75. I haven't felt this ripped off since the time my friend and I had too much sangria and wound up buying tickets to the movie Rent.

To All the Cars I've Loved Before

I. Ivan - 1996 dark green Chevy Corsica
Mom: "What color car did you buy?" 
Me: "Green." 
Dad, simultaneously: "Grey."
Me: "Dad, it's green. Remember, you're color blind?"
Dad, dead serious: "I know I'm color blind but I'm only RED-GREEN color blind. It doesn't affect things that are grey."

II. Downhill Dave - 1993 red stick shift Honda Civic
Dave was that guy who rolled up to the beach house in Avalon with a trunk full of Zima and Gin Blossoms blasting on the stereo and everyone yelled "DAVE!"

III. The Princess Grace - 2009 harvest gold Ford Focus
I owned the Princess Grace from 2011 to 2014, making it by far the car I've had the longest. I handed the keys over without a backward glance when I met Drew Ballenger in Bowie, Maryland.

IV. Drew Ballenger - 2000 candy apple red Dodge Dakota
When this truck seized and bled out in thirty seconds on I-95, both the tow truck driver and the mechanic gave me hugs. I lost my hope for a bright future that day. I loved my first pickup truck so much. But, pro-tip, if you don’t want to your truck to die mid-trip try not to name it after the character in Deliverance who does just that.

V. Bubbles the Dickless Wonder - 2006 sunny yellow Hyundai Accent
I felt so enfeebled in this little car. In Bubbles' defense, it wasn't her fault that my previous ride was a V-6 4x4 with a stick shift that required two hands and was louder than the radio.

VI. The Blue Shark - 2011 blue Ford Ranger
After reading a series of posts unveiling the Ranger much the way one might introduce a newborn baby to Facebook, my buddy Justin said, "That's some joy, right there. I've never seen anybody love a car that much."

VII. Champion - 2003 champagne Ford Escape
Much has been written on circusninja about the Champion. I learned to replace brake shoes and remove window tint. I discovered, not the hard way, that a faulty engine mount can result in a smashed axle. I built a goddam rabbit hutch under the rear fold-down seat. But I never loved it like I loved Drew Ballenger. Both died of a drained oil pan and sudden engine failure. But the second time around I was immediately like, "You're a husk now, I need to clear out my stuff and hitchhike home to Maryland.
From Massachusetts."

VIII. The John K. Samson - 1996 brown Jeep Grand Cherokee
So named because 1996 was the year I discovered Propagandhi.
Due to the presence in the Champion of a live rabbit and a large handmade gift from a former student, I did not abandon my belongings and hitchhike. I bought this car - with a $500 ATM withdrawal and a little bit of birthday money - and drove home.

IX. The Cherry Cola - 2011 cherry red Suzuki Crossover
If you're going to travel cross-country and live in your car, buy a tiny, tiny stick shift with great fuel economy and absolutely no capacity to offend anyone.


By the way, Grace and the Shark are the only cars I didn't buy outright, with cash. And if you're wondering who's most perplexed by the vehicle parade, I can tell you it's not even the guy who parks next to me at work. It's the good people over at EZ-Pass.

title credit Julio Iglesias

The Champion Takes a Dive in the Final Round

My beloved flannel-lined camper with space-blanket curtains sat atop a fifteen year old engine that I may or may not have added enough oil to between the road trip to Knoxville and the one to Massachusetts. At around 1am on the way home from a Felice Brothers show it started smoking and decelerating. I've had an engine seize under me before and it's amazing how quickly I came to terms with the fact that the car was totaled; I don't think it had even stopped moving yet. I WAS a little surprised that the 12V no longer worked, taking my phone charger with it.
I sat on the side of the Mass turnpike for at least ten minutes with a dead car and a dead phone before it occurred to me that I would actually die of exposure if I didn't do something.

Icarus in a Ford Escape

I checked out this homemade camper truck on the highway and smugly thought, "That guy put too much time into the aesthetics and not enough into functionality." FORESHADOWING, PEOPLE. THIS IS FORESHADOWING.

Knoxville Town

The kingdom of plaid

Tennessee, what have you done to me

Christmas, 2017: First proper camping trip in the Champion. 


The plan was to start with the shows in New York and then drive south until the weather felt just about warm enough to sleep in a Ford Escape. Turnpike rest stops in New Jersey post prominent “NO IDLING” signs, but I didn’t see any in Blacksburg, Virginia so twice during the night I started the ignition to get my little burrow back up to survival temp.



With a thick sleep mask and swimmer’s-grade earplugs, the rest stops are actually more, well, restful than sleeping out on the access roads. Perversely, the more remote a spot I choose, the more conspicuous I am, in a solitary vehicle, to the cops and the robbers. At the rest stops I can snug in between two other cars and no one will notice me for hours, maybe even all night. That has always been Circus Ninja’s north star, anyway: Hide in plain sight.

I found out a thing about Tennessee that I did not know previously. If you work your way up from the bottom there, STARTING AT THE SNOWFLAKE, you can see that most nights in the camper weren’t that much different from sleeping on the turnpike outside Freehold, and I already did that the previous week. 

It was the same situation almost all the way to Mobile. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit paying rent.

title credit: J.W. Teller

Nobody will stop you if your camera is an iPhone 5

Stepping outside into 12 degree weather after two days indoors feels like hitting the 11am slump after an all-nighter. I stand blinking into the sunlight on the sidewalk in front of Whole Foods. I don't have any money but I had a sudden craving for a selection of free artisanal cheeses. 

Here is a gratuitous photo of a spread.

Here are some things I'm not supposed to eat even when they are free (see July 2016 post, "The Big Potato." Turns out hypoglycemia IS a real thing.)

Here is a beverage made from birch bark*, a free sample of which I heroically swallowed as the Slavic vendor stood watching hopefully. His tee shirt said "Made from forests not formulas" and I wanted to punch him in the throat and scream "FORMULAE" but it occurred to me that that might be kind of my unique peeve and it would look to others like I was overreacting.

*This is actually a generic picture of a tiny paper cup. I did not have the heart to photograph the birch beverage in front of the hopeful vendor.

When I first developed hypoglycemia I worried that it would be impossible to keep food handy all the time. "Where am I going to get a tiny, tiny serving of all natural fruit juice?"

Turns out it’s as easy as taking cruelty-free-candy from an upper-middle-class baby.

I'm also applying products to my skin as I go.

I seriously smell right now like a Berenstain bears scratch and sniff book I had as a child in which the bear children made pizza. I was around five years old when I covertly ate the scratch and sniff pizza sticker right off the final page. After that, every time my mom reached for that book I would demand a different one before she could even open it. 

I still don't know if they ever found out what I did to that last page, because I concealed it in shame until about thirty seconds ago.

 That organic scented oil brought it all to the surface. Now I will walk around for the rest of the day with my wrist smelling of oregano like some sort of trauma therapy exercise.

I'm out of practice at being weird in public, and I realize it's because in any foreign country you can do it in plain sight. No matter what I did in Laos or Portugal or Latvia, I did it for all of America. Walk around a high-end grocery store taking pictures of plum spread and baby food, then leave without buying a damn thing, and they go, "I guess that's just what Americans do."  

That's right, World. That is just what Americans do. 

And our wrists smell of oregano.

"On the way home held your camera like a Bible..."

I don't own anything anymore so I write down Bright Eyes lyrics and take pictures of them.

title credit Conor Oberst