Tonight I went down to the Oakland Union Pacific train yard - the Desert Yard - to bid a ghost goodbye. Gonzo, my spiritual adviser for a few nights under the stars at Black Butte, passed in his sleep a few nights ago. I heard of the news this morning.
I knew upon getting off the phone with Bruce that whiskey would will the spirit within and outward. And therefore I'm post-train yard, half drunk, with my new Scandinavian freight hopper friends possibly on their way to crash on my couch.
I'd like to post Joey's homage to Gonzo instead of my own drunk ramblings. I think he did a brilliant job of proper tribute....
Homage to the Gonz
Fuck man. Heavy good news and bad news all in one night. Gonzo didn't seem to care about politics anyway.
Anyway, Gonzo died in his sleep, laid up in his hooch at Black Butte a day ago. He went out peacefully in the shadow of Mt. Shasta high up in the volcanic air in his little trailer surrounded by Incense Cedars and Ponderosa Pines. I think dude had cancer, but I don't think that's what killed him. I think he knew he was soon to go anyway. He always talked about all his friends (his "brothers") who had already gone before him.
I'm not going to talk about him "catching the westbound" or any of that cheesy shit because I think it's lame and it should be saved for the douchebags at Britt and cheesy fake hobo novels. This isn't 1932. And Gonzo was fucking better than that.
Gonz was the real thing, old FTRA, and he probably did a lot of sketchy shit in his lifetime but the man I knew in his old age was fucking GOLDEN. He had everything that the majority of the kids riding trains today lack - conviction, wit, street-smarts, a fucking sarcastic and great sense of humor, guts, and a strong talent at using curse words properly.
I'll never forget him telling me about when he was young and lived in Detroit..."Yeah, I used to live with six titty dancers and a monkey, and I got along with the monkey the best.", or his goofy old man laugh that sounded more like a broken chainsaw motor trying to start, or the time I walked into the Black Butte shack in the middle of December and there was Gonz watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindoor on the T.V.
, nodding out on pills and slowly singing along to "WHY AM I SUCH A MIS-FIT?!"
Motherfucker could play a mean-ass guitar, too, and not cheesy old-timey shit, but the best blues I ever heard anybody play.
I remember the time I had just gotten off of work when I was on the 12 board and decided to stop by the jungle two years ago, and there was Gonzo and Jimmy and ten other old-ass tramps and one young oogle, and everybody looked at me like "who the fuck is this?" and then Gonzo yelled out "Hey! It's Joey! Joey Alone! Get the fuck over here man!" in his thick, high-pitched midwest polock accent.
Fucking Goddamnit. I'm going to miss that guy. He was a pillar in a sea of douchebags. There's not a hundred goofy-ass youngsters riding around today who together could amount to the level of spine and street smarts that guy had, and there's some good people out there, but nobody like him.
Gonzo, you're fillin up that in-between, and I'll be taking care of the children for you. You had my word. Love Shannon
POST NOTE
...And so down under the bridge at Desert Yard I met a couple of Scandinavian boys trying to catch their first train in the US. I called Joey and heard nothin was heading towards LA, so I shared my whiskey with them, exchanged some words about our cultures, I got to ask them about all those good Scandinavian punk bands (dudes were from Copenhagen, know what I mean?), and I rode my bike home while they went to catch Greyhound instead. Then, after I posted this, I passed out drunk in my clothes on top of my sleeping bag. Woke up feeling like a million bucks. And the sun is shining over the bay....
