[Filshie] Its Monday. I am home now. Where is my daily dose of pictures and blog?

[Miller]Blog patching is on hold at this shop for a few days. Off to Parry Hoot for another land use survey using a Dell with a busted modem but DeLorme gps. Nice to hear you're new office is beside one of the Good brothers. How about hitting us with a paragraph about the Cambellville Good boys and their antic-filled night at the Mohawk where they crash the slots and run into Big Jake Menon coming out of Treetops with three chamber maids and an empty Jack Daniels. The Good boys make him and somebody jokes about VirgilON, Jake takes it the wrong way and one of the boys colides with the empty which takes off most of his right ear. A tussle commences in the mud and the blood for the Good ear. The gals love to mud wrestle and dive right in filling the cool night air with screams and whoops that drown out the pitch of distant sirens. VirgilON has come to Halton County.

I think I just did something bad

[Alan] ...the blog is sounding more and more like a cross between Lorne Greene and Alan Ryckman...with a Katzenjammer Kids plot line...pure and brilliant mischief...

...I love the PEZ Girl...a viper for sure...the Canadian Studies and International Development kids in Montreal love the blog...it's up their alley....their apartment is littered with PEZ dispensers of all shapes and descriptions...they have concert posters for The Constantines and The Weakerthans on their walls, and other items posted on doorways...some of them I didn't read in depth...one was a hand-lettered list titled "Fun Vagina Facts"...a father can only stand so much free thought, and then has to back off...on sunday they took the old freak to tam-tams in Jeanne Mance Park....an enormous drum circle grouped under a statue with dancers and circus acts and medieval knights errant and a flea market on the terraces leading up the hill to the The Cross at the top of the mountain and the sweet smell of grass wafting over the assembled multitude....like loaves and fishes you say?...loaves and fishes as they should be, and may have been in the first place...

Herewith a quote from the latest issue of Steps Magazine, the campus artzine, a short fiction titled Knifin' Around the Bus Stop by one Andrea Gummo..."As she got on the bus she looked back at the rain hut, she knew they hadn't been waiting for the bus. But the hut was empty, and in her glance she saw no sign of the knife lovers. They didn't get on the bus either. She checked over her shoulder as she moved towards the seats at the back, which were pooling water because some idiot left the window open. 'Fuck', she said under her breath." .April 30, 2005

[Miller] Anonymous storytellers take to the streets

My short-story odyssey began last night after leaving Base Gallery at Ossington & Queen. Walking eastward along Queen I came across a suspicious looking elderly woman who was taking huge sheets of paper down off streetposts and putting them in her bag. Looking around I notice that these big printed sheets adorn quite a handful of the posts along Queen. They aren't posters for some alt rock gig, nor political rants, nor ads for a new free daily newspaper... they're (very) short stories.

Continuing along past Bathurst and on to Spadina and still more stories. Aside from some internal bitching about those that have already beed torn or tagged, I wonder who anonymous writer could be. Almost every other streetpost holds a different tale of life in the city. Each recounts the tale of an encounter with a stranger - seemingly, all in the area. Today I had the chance to read a couple more, and snap a clearer photo (see top image!), so I thought I'd share one of them for those who aren't in the area...

"Umbrella
It's pouring rain and the streetcar is nowhere to be seen. I have no umbrella and I'm soaked. Standing at the end of the line, I try to retain some dignity while I drip into my own shoes. A businessman joins the line behind me. He's impeccable and dry under his umbrella. Without addressing me, he extends his umbrella to shield me from the downpour. I am suddenly overcome by emotion, so unexpected and gentle is this act. I keep my head down and stare at my sopping shoes to prevent tears spilling down my already wet face. I am barely able to mumble "Thank you." After several silent minutes, the streetcar finally arrives; we board, and I blend into the masses not even knowing what his face looks like."

If you enjoyed that one, head on down to pretty much anywhere on the Queen West strip -- before the April rain washes it all away. (Or before that lady turns them all into her new wallpaper.)

[Alan] Alright. That Rio is one fancy town.

Stayed at the Hotel California (rilly) mid way on the arc of Copacabana. Classic deco with etched glass fables of fox and crow and hare and tortoise in the stair well.

Sil´s driver picked us up and took us to the funky side of town. Neighbourhood with steep narrow streets and a vintage tram running up the middle. Named, get this, Santa Teresa.

Went to Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado. Spectacular view, almost an Epiphany, but afterward I didn~t feel much different so will carry on as always.

Real action is on the side and back streets away from the beach. Lurkers in the internet cafes taking great interest in the blog. Questions boiled down to where is the Avanti speeding to, what will the Canadian authorities do with the gringoes who (notwithstanding the emergcy on the river) entered the country illegally, and how can a country that prides itself on peace, order, and good government evolve a local political regime like Virgil ON. For the first two I told them to stay tuned. For the last I told them they will have to investigate for themselves.

Remind me to tell you about the special queue for Yanks at SP airport.

Best from Ihla Grande, former fishing village/penal colony, now island paradise...A

[Miller] Just what the blog needed. Some Brazilian content and political opinion from a former penal colony. Santa Teresa no less! The Shotgun Golf episode has been given a rather fitting ending for those of you wishing to check it. But, as the backstreet Inet lurkers on the arc of Copacabana note so insightfully, there are many loose ends hanging but that's only because of a setback caused by the sad death of one of the key characters.

On the road back to the Farkin Barn, Meech was steering the Fargo with one hand while using his teeth to twist the cap off a warm Bud when he hit a pothole. The impact shook the Bud which popped its cap down Meech's throat, causing him to gag and steer the truck into a ditch. He was smiling broadly but lost consciousness and departed this earth while the Fargo radio blared a country classic - "Stand By Your Man".

Thing was heart broken and fell back on his old drug habit. Bill managed to secure the use of the Oscar Meyer Weiner hearse from a contact in Buffalo and the Menon Boys arranged a funeral in the old Chrysler Burying Yard behind their new wonder building. During the graveside ceremony, Union Jack was heard howling from somewhere nearby.

[Alan]...they have a luscious tropical fruit here called caquis that I would almost substitute for chocolate as my prime sacrement....

...Sil is using Spongebob Colgate, insisting it´s a regular part of toothpaste rotation in a recommended program of dental hygiene, but I suspect it´s a tease...

...more late...gotta catcha boat to a beach...

[Leah] Heaven forbid that communicating with friends would stop you from getting to the beach on time. Do I sound bitter? Not my intention I assure you. Spongebob colgate? Sounds interesting. Will have to pick some up on my next shopping spree.

[Miller] Ya its got that bubble caquis fruit flavour that all Brazilians love. BubbleFruit is a registered trade mark in San Fran - go figure, we might have to check the offbeat ghey shops of Toronto to pick some up here.

Hotel California and boatin' off to beaches with a chick that brushes with bubble fruit on rotation. And people will pay to do this. A is definitely onto something better than smart rockin' in the green belt. Fridaddy 13th boatin' cruise from Dover to Long Point with a shack waiting on the beach sporting pina coladas in Falls souvenir glasses etched with fables. An epiphany those bikers would line up for. All we need is the boat. The rest is creative use of public domain. I can mind the boat coming in now, loaded with bikers singing along to an old church roof speaker blaring "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World".

[Alan from the Inet Cafes of Brazil] Word of Meesh’s death swept like a riptide from the internet cafes in Abraoa to the surfer community on the beach at Lopes Mendes. The surfers immediately took up the call in their best South Park imitations. “You bastards, you killed Meeshaw!” The Australians seemed to have big problems with “Meeshaw”, chewing it out in their usual deplorable mouth-full-of-marbles fashion. The locals, meanwhile, used their own peculiar inflection on the ‘ee’ and ‘sh’ sounds, and added the affectionate/diminutive to arrive at, “You bastards, you killed Meishzihno!” The Australian version would strike fear into the heart of any blogger. The local, a poetic lament for a romantic fallen martyr.

[Alan] Within hours the tee-shirts had appeared in all the village souvenir shops, outfitters and tattoo parlours. They came in two lines: the Lament for Meesh line, and Support for Thing in his renewed battle with addiction. I haven’t seen such an outpouring of sympathy in a long time. As soon as they appeared on the street the Avril Lavigne tees disappeared.

Both used illustrations copped from the blog. I’m telling you, we should copyright this stuff. I figure that with a real or two on every tee we could have bought our own pousada and be catering to indigent planners and European tourists with artificially enlarged breasts and/or testicles. We had an encounter up close and personal with a bikini-clad nordeuropeishche vixen on the beach at Abraoazinho who asked Sil to take her picture sitting on a rock, toes dipping demurely in the ocean. “You see”, said Sil, “They are too round, too high, too close, and simply too big.” You learn something every day.

Ihla Grande is far out, as tropical paradises go. At dinner one evening on the quayside in the Bar Banana Blu, run by an albino Italian and his slinky Brazilian wife, after polishing off a plate of linguini in orange cachaca sauce topped with salmon, I rolled my eyes heavenward and was about to murmur, “Take me now…” when I checked my natural impetuosity and shouted, “Hell No!, I’ve got to get the word out!” The other diners, unaware of the origins of my outburst, stared in astonishment.

There is an old-timer who does odd jobs in our pousada. There are 109 beaches on Ihla Grande, and he knows them all. He said, “Before the tourists came the beaches did not have names. Now, when a tourist asks me about a beach, and names it by name, I don’t know whether I’ve been there or not.”

The ferry from Angra Dos Reis to Ihla Grande costs $3.

Back on the mainland, rolling in a bus through the squalor on the outskirts of Rio, Silvania said, “Now let’s see you make a plan to improve this.” I had to admit that at that moment I didn’t know where to begin.

Some days later we went to a village in the mountains of Minas Gerais to visit the woman who was wet-nurse to Silvania and her sister. As I entered the house I heard the familiar strains of “…to be on your own…like a rolling stone…” coming from somewhere nearby. I pinched myself. The house was immediately filled by three generations of the extended family. Coffee was served. I was the only white skinned stranger in sight. One of the family asked if I came from the same place as Father Geraldo. Father Geraldo, a Belgian, is the Vatican’s local rep. Sil just told them I do not come from the same place as Father Geraldo.

[Miller] The word reached Manaus over the front desk of the No Hotel. On a chat room that followed the Quest blog as a weird sort of reality check. Belgium was interesting but life around Niagara Falls was considered tres Americana and followed with great interest. "Croikey mate Meishzihno is dead" came the yell of an Aussie who rarely spoke coherently. "Oye wasn't he the Cajun bloke wat came 'ere sellin' rattler skins with a monkey?"

"He was Canadian" came a reply from the dark end of the bar "and that was no ordinary monkey". It was Clintia, a very different sort of bar fly herself. She had been following news of Big O Day in VirgilON and now hearing of Thing's dilemma she knew it was finally time to leave Manaus. A tramp steamer bound for Havanna was taking on passengers within view of the hotel. The air was pierced with the scream of its last call. She chugged a straight tangerine cachaca and struck a sacerdotal image as she swished by the front desk into the harsh light of noonday Amazonia.

[Filshie] Good story-telling. That Father Geraldo thing keeps dogging you doesn't it?
How doers it make you feel I wonder.
Great snap of the chimp-beauty at the end of the Rob's addition.

[Miller] Clintia has been waiting in the wings for a while now. I discovered her while researching the story line for Meech's funeral. In that I discovered the home base of the Oscar Mayer Weiner bus is in the Henry Ford Museum outside Detroit. The Museum looks truly amazing and appears to have a pedal car section. We should all lock on a date and go. Speaking of locking, I'm told that we should tour part of Dearborn but not to stop and lock all doors in the process. More info on that part is pending. We may need to take some of the Angels along riding shotgun.

[Alan]...count me in for the trip to the pedal car museum...I'm still packed and ready to go....

[Alan] Brasilia was locked down for our arrival. There was a big parlez-vous between Mercosur and the Arab League. The conference program described it as a ‘summit…in search of peace and economic development with social justice’. The entire east end of the Plano Piloto, from the cathedral to the congress, was closed off. The road to the airport and the streets around the hotel sector were lined with troops. The troops wore camouflage uniforms to avoid being shot, and bright orange safety vests so they wouldn’t be hit by traffic.

Only a fool, or a fundamentalist nutter from Iowa, could ignore such a gathering. But apparently Curious George and the neo-cons in Washington did. The American media were covering late-braking news elsewhere, like the lite plane over the White House, so the rubes in Des Moines will never hear about this latest in a series of economic and political alignments that will eventually bring down the empire. Meanwhile the locals were having a huge laugh over the lite plane.

Our first stop was the embassy to extend greetings and pick up any mail. The charge is a graduate of the Real University, so of course the considerable resources of the embassy were placed immediately at our disposal. Over dinner that night in an anonymous pizzeria in an anonymous Quadra in the Zona Sul the station chief told us, sotto voce, that the blog has caused quite a stir at the highest levels.

Apparently the sea-faring types among The Joint Chiefs have taken great offence at the treatment of the mariners by those ‘Commie sympathizers’ in Virgil ON. I assumed at first they took umbrage at Thing feeding Billy Bob Nelson windowpane. But I was wrong. The Joint Chiefs believe the men are trained for any kind of mistreatment, in combat or otherwise, and expect the men to ‘tough it out’. As it happens, the real cause of their upset is the insinuation that Billy Bob and the crew knew about windowpane. Strange attitude for a group who call themselves The Joint Chiefs, but it’s not the only attitude I find inexplicable.

To make a long and diplomatically shrouded story short, the DFA is working 24/7 to contain the situation. It was tactfully suggested none of us go near the border for a while unless we would like an extended detour to an undisclosed Middle Eastern destination. In reply to my attempt to help out, it was most strongly expressed that not even a substantial donation to the National Association of Evangelicals will assure our safe passage. We are also specifically warned to avoid tailgate parties should the Bills play this season, as even a minor misdemeanor will be treated as a major felony and consecutive life sentences will be sought.

All that aside, Brasilia is a place like no other. It has an outstanding monumentality gained from the spaciousness of the public realm. It was designed that way on purpose. The buildings aren’t allowed to dominate. In fact, the cathedral and the national theatre are both partially underground. Intellectually and stylistically it fits in a remarkable historic context. Andre Malraux called it the ‘Capital of Hope’. It originated in an off-the-cuff promise made by Juscelino Kubitscheck at a rally in the run-up to the 1955 Presidential election. After he was elected he made good on it, and built the city as a symbol of larger political, social and economic reforms.

We stayed with Paulo and Telma. Paulo is an authentic char-acter, a mathematician retired from the cryptography section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He described his job this way: “I wrote the algorithms so that when Brazil wanted to speak to another, ‘the others’ would not understand.” Then he added with a chuckle, “And in this business, there are always ‘others’”. Telma is a retired administrator from the University of Brasilia with a heart of gold. She said it was scary after the coup when the military occupied the campus.

Once the Arabs had left, Paulo and Telma, who have lived in Brasilia almost since its founding, gave us an extensive tour full of stories and urban legends. I had an uncanny flash-back to my first visit to Israel, circa 1969. There was that same sense of pride in a new and somewhat revolutionary beginning.

We visited Catetinha, the ‘Board Palace’ that Oscar Niemeyer designed and personally nailed together so Juscelino Kubitscheck, Israel Pinhiero, and Lucio Costa would have somewhere to stay while they built the new city in the middle of the bush. Quite unlike the other buildings that he designed for the new capital, the ‘Palace’ looks like a far-north hunting camp circa 1954. Standing in the common room, I had a sudden sense of the power of their vision and the creative energy that drove them. It felt like an epiphany.

We also visited the JK memorial. This was a profoundly moving experience. The memorial is an elegant yet dramatic symbol of affection and respect for the social democrat whose presidency was founded on the slogan ’50 years in 5’. There is a widely held belief that Kubitscheck’s death in a car accident in 1976 was no accident. Placed in the context of Allende’s death in 1973 and US involvement in Latin America at the time, and the historic behavior of the generals and oligarchs in Brazilian politics, these suspicions are more than plausible.

On our last day in Brasilia we attended a session of the Deputies in the Congresso. We listened to impassioned speeches on the government’s plan to grant 0.1% wage increases to the federal civil service. The opposition felt it was an insult. Tensions were running palpably high and there was talk of a general strike.

Afterwards, thanks to Telma’s access to the MFA, we lunched in the Deputies’ dining room, and had a good feed off the prix fixe buffet including several trips to the excellent dessert buffet. We admitted we have no shame.

Later that evening we jetted to Sao Paulo and were taken to a jam-packed late night deli just off the Avenida Paulista. I met a Brazilian guitarist whose favorite band is the Cowboy Junkies. The buzz was about the Gay SpongeBob scandal in the States. The locals found it as ridiculous as the lite plane at the White House.

We stayed overnight and had breakfast with a linguistics professor from the federal university. Giselle mentioned using videoclips from Friends as a teaching aid for colloquial English instruction. Of course I volunteered Trailer Park Boys as possibly being useful for the same purpose. Giselle replied that she’d heard about them at an international linguists’ convention in London, England, in March. My second mention of them reinforced her intention to investigate further. I left her the web address.

On my last weekend away I attended a two day barbecue in Sao Carlos. Sao Carlos is a university town about three hours from SP, and a ‘center of excellence’ for hi-tech research. While lounging pool-side I met a scientist from the state university who is part of a pioneering movement to bring The Blues to Brazil. He plays regularly in a blues band, and is teaching himself bottleneck slide guitar. He really digs Doctor John and Professor Longhair, is familiar with David Essig, and is a huge fan of Jeff Healey. I pinched myself again.

I also met a young architect who has designed a sheet plastic and bamboo tent that makes it easier and more efficient for the Landless Workers Movement to squat on abandoned farmland, and pull up stakes if they have to. It’s saved the Movement a small fortune by making better use of plastic.

Later in the afternoon we drove through huge landscapes of orange groves and sugar cane plantations under an immense blue sky to the airport. My seatmate on the plane was a young Brazilian who dances with Cirque de Soleil. By this point I was on full sensory overload.

[Miller] News from abroad can really get ya down sometimes. Like being told "man ya shoulda been there, man what a great time, man too bad you worked the whole weekend, man did you miss a rare time." My friend Harrison is having his third breakdown in a year and I try to be nice and the fucker calls me a "Pollyanna". I had to ask somebody what that meant. I never paid attention to Pollyanna for christ sake. Then Avril Lavigne comes into the blog and aw crap I havn't a gawdam clue who the hell that is. So I google it and discover that I seem to be out of touch with the real world or something. Figures. And then tonight, tonight I hear yet *again* about "windowpane" and I have no clue what the hell that is all about. I google that somabitch and get "about" 173,000 hits. Will somebody out there receiving this please hit reply and tell me what the fuck is with windowpane? Please?

On a less stressful note, I think I just discovered a couple of fender magnets that could create disturbance at a Bills tailgate soiree.

[Alan] ...if you have 173,000 hits of windowpane you're going to have a far out time...figure on coming back in about 2553 with Dr. Tim himself...

[Miller] Well I guess I'll just chalk it up with Avril Lavigne as something else that benefits the masses.

[Alan] A Short History of Windowpane

Acid was invented by Nazi scientists in a chemical lab before WW2. After the war the Americans got their hands on it.

Thomas Pynchon alluded to an acid cult on the loose in 1945 in the Occupied Zone of Germany in his seminal novel titled Gravity’s Rainbow. The cult included renegade Germans and Russians who came in contact with the novel’s hero, Tyrone P. Slothrop.

In the 1950’s the CIA did experiments with acid. They did these experiments on unknowing subjects to see the effects. Some of this work was contracted out to McGill University. The experiments were considered a failure because the subjects’ behavior could not be controlled when under the influence of the chemical. In retrospect this should not have been surprising, since the subjects had various mental and psychological problems to begin with.

Dr. Timothy Leary was a psychologist working at a university in the eastern US. He experimented with acid too, and invented a handy mantra that went: ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’.

Someone made the connection between the effects of acid on the mind, and the effects of certain ‘mind expanding’ substances written about in a seminal book by Aldous Huxley. The acid parallel to Huxley’s ‘inner journey’ became known as a ‘trip.’

Acid was exported to the west coast of the US, perhaps by Leary. It fell into the hands of Ken Kesey. Kesey was a writer who wrote a seminal book titled One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He became the center of a group called the Merry Pranksters. They all took acid and ‘dropped out’.

Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were written about in a seminal book by Tom Wolfe titled The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

The reason the heat came down so hard on Kesey was that he could do what they couldn’t: control large numbers of people tripping on acid. When cultists made jokes about dumping acid into the drinking water of New York City, the authorities, being familiar with the CIA failures, were quite alarmed.

The acid produced on the west coast, originally by a chemist named Owlsley, made its way quickly around the continent. By the mid-sixties there was quite a large acid cult who self-identified as ‘heads’.

I first encountered such a cult in Vancouver in early 1967. After that it seemed I couldn’t avoid them. They were everywhere.

The cult became so large it subdivided into two main groups: one group who took the Huxleian approach and went about expanding their minds, or, in Leary’s terms, ‘dropped out’; and a second group who became known as ‘recreational drug users’. The latter group proved to have less commitment than the ‘heads’, and moved on to other things like selling cars or becoming partners in accounting practices.

Acid had some influence on mainstream culture, and started to show up very tentatively in music, books, and movies. For example, “Magic Carpet Ride” is a song that alludes to an acid ‘trip’. But the fact is that an acid ‘trip’ was so intense it was generally beyond the ability of most to describe fully. This was mostly because of the hallucinations.

An acid ‘trip’ could be a busy time. Larry S., who was from Marathon, Ontario, used to say that he could drop acid and stuff his head in a snow bank and find a million things to do.

By the early 1970’s acid use was waning. Production had been taken over by amateur or criminal labs, and impurities had begun to appear. This development was alluded to briefly in the Woodstock movie of 1969. For example, strychnine was sometimes used to give an inferior or bogus product some extra ‘buzz’.

I have heard complaints that acid use lead to harder drugs. I have seen evidence of a connection of an exploratory nature with organic substances like peyote, mescaline, and ‘magic mushrooms’, all of which fit neatly into the Huxleian scheme of things.

I have never seen a direct link between acid and heroin use, although I have seen some linkage between acid and cocaine. There is some anecdotal evidence, mostly popularized in movies, of a link between marijuana and heroin use, particularly among musicians. However, I know of several musicians who have never used heroin. Conversely, a friend who worked at a high responsibility level in the civil service had heroin use in his background. So you never know for sure.

At its peak, acid was available in several formulations. The choice of formulation was most often determined by supply chain and distribution requirements, rather than consumer preference.

Two common formulations were ‘blotter acid’, and ‘windowpane’. A blotter was an absorbent material used at the time to soak up excess ink on a page of paper. ‘Blotter acid’ was a drop of acid transshipped in blotter material. ‘Windowpane’ was a sheet-like formulation resembling mica, but a translucent amber colour.

Both formulations were ingested through the mouth in doses known as ‘hits’. Both ‘blotter acid’ and ‘windowpane’ had the same effect: they would send you on a ‘trip’.

[Miller] Amazing. And here I thought windowpane was likely a limited release Pez dispenser. Your Larry S. from Marathon sounds suspiciously like my Larry Sage from Madoc. Larry has my MGA1600 from Guelph days, stored in a hay barn or at least he claimed it was five years ago. Hartley Strauss has encouraged Leah to encourage me to go on a rescue mission. That would first require a call to Larry Maw at Minnesing to confirm Larry's story. Maw sings in a barber shop quartet that swings through VirgilON every once in a while. They like to do corvette car shows the best. And if trap and skeet facilities are available, all the better. Larry claims the Minnesing Shoppers can call "pull" in perfect harmony.

[Filshie back on pedal car musee] This all sounds like fun. I want to go too.

[Miller] Sounds good, you're in Susan. Just found out the only pedal car at Ford is a commuter plane that Henry envisaged as the first Model T of the sky. pic attached of replica available in the gift shop. The best pedal car musee of all time is in LA as in Cal. Alan was there in '67 on his way elsewhere I suppose. Anyway, that presents a problemo but Ford still sounds doable. In the meantime I plan to talk to the Kerouac bus man in NOTL and see if we could join the plan. Route 66 in a '59 Orion bus would be a real trip. We should do it while the demand for fuel is still almost met by supply.

[Filshie] That wasn't invented by Ford - sorry to disappoint you. It was designed by an RKO cartoonist but then it was industrial-espionaged-away by those sneaky guys at Walt Disney's studio. I distinctly rememebr stumbling across this little known caper during my classical animation days. It was part of a research paper I was doing on the early studios and the fierce competition amongst the early film animaters. The Ford people took it over eventually as a result of a King Solomon-like 'judgement from a U.S Federal court judgement ie if the 2 principal parties couldn't come to terms then then it was best to give the design to a third property, i.e Henry Ford.

[Miller] Owned by the bloggers.

[Alan] ....(i think that worked out pretty well...)... ...it's clearly time to dust off our old copies of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test which details Kesey's epoch-making cross-continental trip with the Merry Pranksters in a reclaimed school bus christened Further. The "designated driver", by the way, was Neal Cassady, Kerouac's model for the Dean Moriarty character in On the Road. Cassady was an authentic char-acter (see previous post on this very subject)....This is going to be very cool, and Real Fun!!