bein round

We've been in the Bay Area for nearly three weeks now. Most of the time here has been spent in San Francisco at 5lowershop. DWe have turned the back yard into a self-sustained coffee/art/music spot, going as far as to build a wood-pallet patio containing a burn barrel and occasional tv/vcr combo on extention cord from the warehouse, upon which last night we watched Bruce Springsteen's video anthology 1978-89. "It's 1985!" He yells, "Blind faith in leaders, or anything, will get you killed..." and then he goes to play "War." It was a good night. We drank dumpstered Powerade and ate beans over the fire.


My sister, Alison, came up the the bay to work on a photo essay about Leanne and my lifestyle. We took up the photo project idea in exchange for riding in her car to dumpsters, especially Trader Joe's in Berkeley, where we got mad sushi and salads. Some of the people at 5lowershop were so happy, they cooked us vegetarian meals (rare).

For a few nights, we stayed in Berkeley with my old roommate and friend Andy Jones, and then we tried staying at this tree sit on campus only to be aggravated by oogles and homebums all night. And rain. Rain with a tarp tooooooo little.

Dave Salad came up to visit us over the weekend, which was wonderful. We went down to Ocean Beach and watched the sun set.

I have a lot to tell and not the time to do it, as we're about to hitch to Santa Cruz for a few days before returning to the bay for Halloween.

Sean and Sharky

New Toothpaste!

Monday is the New Sunday

(Tuesday is the new Friday)

OK, LINEARLY:

We got a ride out of Portland from some beekeepers, who dropped us in Ashland, Oregon after they took us dumpstering for chocolate and nut butters. We camped on the side of I-5 and woke in the morning to roll down the hill and hitch off the highway, cause in Oregon it is actually legal to hitch right off the side of any size highway... so we got a ride in about five minutes.
The person who picked us up was the front man of the 80's sort-of successful rock band Lotus, who toured with the likes of Bon Jovi and some other total bullshit like Bon Jovi. He thought he was cool for it though, so whatever, Paul Carey, thanks for the ride and keep on believing that you are something else, you schizophrenic racist scumbag (Paul Carey of Lotus hate website coming soon)

And so we arrived in San Francisco and got together with our good friends Johnny Ace and Patrick Ritchey from St. Louis. After misfitting around the Tenderloin and getting two free rounds of drinks by dancing with an old bar queen named Wanda, we spent the night at Johnny's place which is actually a hotel room in a week-by-week hotel up on the edge of North Beach and Chinatown.

Honestly I'm extremely exhausted and mentally worn out so this is a very brief account of my last week of living... and I'm too tired of talking about things to explain much more by phone or otherwise so uh I'll be sure to fill ya'll in when I'm feeling less nuts.

Camp in Ashland

Johnny Ace and Wanda

Leanne, Pat, and Johnny

Rooftop breakfast at an abandoned warehouse

5lowershop yard

Hannah, Leanne, Alyssa, Me