Well before web streaming and BitTorrent piracy, I would bargain hunt for movies on DVD.  The goal was to pluck cinematic gold from digital dung heaps in unorganized Wal-Mart bins, used record store collections and pawn shops.  I'd attempt to scour long and hard enough to find titles costing ten dollars or less that werr worthy of an Indie film festival. I came across great stuff: Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Repo Man, The Beast. A public demanding formulaic Hollywood crap over creativity, plot and character development made it easy for me.


Similarly, but much more difficult, I've been trying to find lodging under fifty dollars in the cities and towns I end up in. I don't seek out offers to stay with strangers and accept only if affirmatively prodded. I mailed home my tent and sleeping bag yesterday to dump more weight. It's a credit card tour the rest of the way.  Addituonally, Katy's going to join me for the final push and I don't want to subject her to insects and unknown hosts. 

I've failed to find a place that doesn't reek of mildew and sweat for under 50 bucks until today.  In one shanty, I slept in my sleeping bag on top of the mattress as a buffer between me and bedbugs/roaches.  Alas, I stumbled upon the Villa Vista this morning and I have a tiny immaculate room. The older couple running the place let me check in at 9.30 a.m. and I slept like the Chessie kitten all day long.

It's evening now and I decided to see the latest scary movie, "The Conjuring."  One reviewer says, "All the contorting girls and pea-soup vomit in the world can hardly compete with a blood-stained sheet and a well-placed doll."    If that's true, I'll be up all night wondering when that waterlogged Japanese horror archetype is going to crawl out of the flatscreen in my room. It'll help me get an early start tomorrow!

(Note: I'm posting this after I've seen the film. The only conjuring going on is the theft of my ten bucks! This movie is only scary if you grew up with ridiculous Catholic superstition and if you believe in witches. Thanks for nothing Hollywood. If you want to make a scary movie, focus on a creepy priest and the millions put into covering up his pedophilia. Oh wait a sec, I'm confusing reality with improbable gore fantasy.)

Last night on the deck of the ferry under the stars, I began to peacefully doze off.  It was as close to getting back to the womb as I can recall. Tonight, I expect fright will negate all that calm.  Life's a roller-coaster.

debra wade
7/19/2013 06:38:26 am

Jon
To be an equal opportunity disparager (or whatever you choose to call it) let's not just include pedophile priests. The Orthodox Jewish
community has some heavy duty abusers that take advantage of their positions to do some awful acts to minors too. Gross SOB's
all that should be hung by their abusive anatomical parts. Trying to
keep it clean as you have a vast following that shouldn't have to be exposed to what I think they deserve....keep on trucking, er I mean cycling-the goal is in sight and with Katy joining you I'm sure you'll get the extra boost to the finish line. Of course, it may have the exact opposite effect as she may "drain" all of your energy!!!!!

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Jonathan Leahey
7/19/2013 10:53:05 am

True dat, Deb. a much better equal opportunity offender than me was H.L. Mencken, my hero. Heed what he had to say:

"“One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. …[This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency."

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