...I think the attachment (Jan17_07) is self-explanatory, but if there are any gaps and you would like some elucidation give me a shout. Once again, my expectations for a well-thought-out response are limited, but we'll see what we get. Ryan seemed quite non-plussed over the phone when I told him he'd 'met my expectations'. Meanwhile, Professor Bill Cooper is standing by at the Biz Skool, eye patch securely in place and rubbing his hands in glee...

Alan
RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda - Step 2
January 30, 2007

Rob
March 3, 2007
RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda - Step 4

One of the nuns turned her iPod to shreak and they all seemed to lean in unison into the lead riff of the Butthole Surfers doing Hurdy Gurdy Man with the kazoo glissando. Thing recognized the piece and smiled and swung his big arms over his head in circles. He'd seen Zodiac the week before during a deep double chak massage at Lil's parlour. He popped a word balloon "The Independent Worm Saloon album is good too" and the nuns all nodded, several with buck toothy sister grins. While in the air, Thing had been thinking of the Surfers' Who Was In My Room Last Night?. It seemed so appropriate for part of the flight anyway - have a listen.

Alan
June 25, 2007 (from Oportu Portugal)
RE: Vito's Last Dance?

1. MauMau Club in Oporto.

2. If you're ever in Oporto and need to buy an 'accordeen', Antonio Duarte's your man.

3. 'Cafe Sanck-Bar' in Oporto. They got it right once, but couldn't do it twice.

...a thought bubble appeared above Thing's head. It said, "Excellent!". Then he ordered another banana daiquiri and chuckled quietly to himself, recollecting the last time he'd seen Vito flying ass-over-tea-kettle toward a stand of evergreens on Sanitorium Hill...

Rob
June 25, 2007
RE: Vito's Last Dance?

This is the most amazing set of images. I wonder if they had any kazookas?

Rob
Subject: Hot Rod Honda or how I returned to the QuesT blog
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:22:49 -0400

Well I had some time yesterday to lay back and doze and consider the state of the QuesT blog. I've re-read quite a bit of it lately, stuck in motels and such, and to tell you the truth its intimidating. Intimidating in the sense of a sort of blogo-coder-block syndrome, if self-intimidation is actually possible. I mean, the QuesT blog is just SO well written it can give you goose bumps at times. It threads and wibbles among the delicate grey channels of fact and fiction oh so well. I keep looking at the pile of raw material needing code and yesterday I got the bug again and sort of got serious about doing something. The Vito Paladino episode needs a conclusion or a denoument or some element of finality to kickstart the QuesT coding back into a new voyage in the ether where no man . . . .

Anyway, I was laying back rilly dozey in front of the TV and thinking about the last inch of vinho verde in Leah's forty pounder. Jumanji was playing on one a French channel and I was doing not a bad job of translation when the phone rang. It was Alan, looking for a sounding board for a brand new ride he had his eye on. I've rented quite a variety of cars for business trips to Parry Hoot and he wanted a compare/contrast ergonomic/efficiency rundown which comes easy - for some reason I can recall any cars that felt comfortable in the ass/back/wallet area. Those are Alan's interests too and he had a live one on his hands, featuring a high-end 16-valve four-banger with good colour and perfect ergo features - lady driven only 1800 clicks and he'd met the lady in person. He quoted a slew of names at the dealership, in typical Alan style, and he was inclined to hone in on an offer for the lady-driven roadster. The one outstanding issue was dollar tactics for the deal and the body language to carry it. After a half hour session he was honed for the deal and off he went. I watched the rest of Jumanji and swung into Altman's classic The Wedding when Alan's exhuberant voice mail told me he had a deal. A ride in a brand new car is in the works for next week just in time for the Jazz Festival. A wave of relief passed over my mind. I'd been experiencing a wierd sort of sympathetic car deal tension. I didn't need to call him back. Instead, I woke up and watched the ending to another marvelous Altman film while starting to think about Vito Paladino and the blog again.
In the Pantry Office I popped online and read through the BRAKE & ROLL BACK episode. Predictably, it soon had me holding my sides and wiping away tears. Midway through SHOTGUN GOLF Leah arrived back from her day out with Kathleen at the Shaw and dinner at the revamped Oban. Co-incidentally, the classic hotrod piece by Commander Cody & The Lost Planet Airmen came floating by on the blogo river. Downloaded, it fit perfectly with BRAKE & ROLL BACK - see clip below and enjoy the mp3 attached.

- from BRAKE & ROLL BACK
<[Alan] No way. It wasn’t me. I was all alone on that road that day. It was an essential part of the experience. Just me and the road and the bike. The road was arrow straight. The foothills were in the foreground. The mountains were coming noticeably closer, which at that distance was a neat indicator of the speed. I was on a smooth fast long trajectory that had I caught fifth and cranked it open would have landed me on the pier in White Rock, BC. Which could segue nicely into a story about going to sea in a dry rot boat, but that’s for another time.

Too bad about that other guy. Maybe he blew a tire or something…

[Filshie] "just me and the bike and the road." - This is the perfect, cinematic image that I believe to be quite a suspect memory. I am sure it was AG on the other bike on that road on that sunny day in Alberta.

[Miller] Talk about seques. Your story minds me of summer '66 between semesters I was working for Hamilton Streets & San as a helper on a box-like machine called an asphalt burner. It made an ungodly roar as it melted cracked roadway blowing huge flames from two giant propane tanks hanging on a back rack. In summer weather the heat from the thing drove us to popping salt pills all day. One day we were working the cracks on Main Street in front of the former sunken gardens at McMaster University. We didn't hear it coming but just in the nick caught sight of a big old Indian motorcycle bearing down on us at one hellish clip. Little did I know that twenty years later I would employ the driver and he too would remember the event about to occur that day.

The guy on the back was identifiable. Waving his arms wildly, was my old school chum Fritz who, fifteen years later would be my best man. Anyway, they screamed by us with the sound of a passing Amtrac commuter and I could hear Fritz crying for help as he recognized me. I felt helpless and held my breath but the Indian turned just enough to enter the ramping turn at Hwy 102 leading down toward Dundas. The Indian, at full speed, hit the turn with its wheels bottomed in the outer concrete gutter separating the asphalt from the grass median. There was a horrendous cloud of dust as the Indian did a high speed leaning turn in the left gutter. Ron Myke, the tall Mohawk I was working with, yelled "Jethuth Chrithst" - he had no front teeth, top or bottom.

I forgot about that event until 1982 when Leah and I were restoring the Philip Shaver House in Ancaster. There was a bad recession underway and we were able to win a Canada Works grant for the plumbing. Fritz, knowing this, suggested his friend Larry Hubert who was a certified plumber and struggling to make ends meet with his small family on a nearby farm. We hired him and we both recognized each other. Hubert had been the Indian driver on that fateful day in Westdale back in the 60's. I told him I had never seen such skillful driving. Larry or "Laar", as he called himself, spoke with a classic upcountry drawl and explained " . . . ya know Miller, I had nothin' to do with that . . . I thought me and Fritz was gonna die . . . the throttle was stuck full open and Fritz was cryin' and beatin' the shit outa me . . . I was just tryin' for a crash in the grass when the Indian got its wheels stuck in that cement gutter . . . I wanted to hump the bike up onto the grass but it got locked in the trough and drove through the turn at full speed . . . I felt so lucky to be alive . . . we blew into Cootes Paradise doing over 100 heading straight for downtown Dundas when the Indian ran outa gas . . . if it hadn't been for that cement curb we was gonners".>
I leaned way back into the Pantry Office chair and let my mind drift into that wonderful grey area that bridges fact and fiction. The quads and woofer belted out Hot Rod Lincoln and the keyboard punched out Hot Rod Honda. The block is over.

Hot Rod Honda (mp3 attached)

Big Jake said "Son, you're gonna kill me 'n mamma
if you don't stop driving that hot rod Honda."

Have you heard the story of the hot rod race
where the Fords and the Hondas were setting the pace?
well that story's true, 'cause i'm here to say
i was driving the Honda that day..

it's got a Vtech motor and it's real suped up
and that sleek grey body makes it look like a pup
it's got 16 valves, uses 'em all
it's got overdrive... just won't stall

got fuel injection, and kuell exhaust
with 5 smooth gears you can really get lost
it's got safety tubes, but i ain't scared
brakes are good, tires fair.

pullin' outta VirgilON late one night
when the moon and the stars was shinin' bright
we's headed Sanitorium Hill
passing cars like they was standin' still

all of a sudden, in the wink of an eye
a Cadillac sedan passed us by
I said "Thing, its Vito, he's the mark for me."
but by then the tail lights was all you could see

now the fellas ribbed me for bein' behind
so I thought I'd let that Honda unwind
took my foot off the gas and man alive
I shoved it on down into overdrive

wound it up to a hundred and ten
my speedometer said I hit top end
my foot was glued like lead to the floor
and that's all there is and there ain't more

now, the boys all thought that I'd lost my sense
them telephone poles looked like a picket fence
Thing made a balloon "slow down! I see spots!"
the lines on the road just looked like dots

I took a corner, sideswiped a Horton's truck
crossed my fingers just for luck
my fenders' was clickin' the guardrail post
Thing ballooned "I'm white as a ghost"

I had smoke comin' from out of the back
when I started gainin' on Vito's Cadillac
I knew I could catch him, I thought I could pass
don't you know by then I'd be low on gas

flames comin' from out of the side
feel the tension, man, what a ride
I said "look out, boys! I got a license to fly!"
and then Vito pulled over and let us by

all of a sudden she started knockin'
up on The Hill she started rockin'
I look in the mirror, red lights 'n honkin'
cops is after my hot rod Honda

damn.

they arrested me and they put me in jail
called Big Jake to throw my bail
and he said "Son, you're gonna kill me 'n mamma
if you don't stop driving that hot rod Honda."

Back in The Angel's Arms in VirgilON, the stranger lifted himself onto a stool at the bar and asked ... "Say friend, ya got any more a that good sarsaparilla?".

From: Alan
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2007 1:21 PM
Subject: RE: Hot Rod Honda or how I returned to the QuesT blog

heh heh...definitely Commander Cody at his best. One of my all time favourite albums is Tales from the Ozone with none other than Hoyt Axton on dobro and background vocals. There's a couple of tunes on there with road references, one of which, Lightnin-Bar Blues, has a chorus that goes,

I don't need no diamond ring
I don't need no Cadillac car
I just want to drink my Lone Star beer
Down in the Lighnin Bar.

The last and final letter to Vito will be grinding off the printer in the subpenthouse before too long. Bill's already given me the perfect Finishing Touch for it... .

From: Alan
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 9:13 PM
Subject: RE: Hot Rod Honda or how I returned to the QuesT blog

...here's what started it. The Honda Accord, graphite metallic on the outside, black on the inside. The sun roof is very cool, and the stereo sounds great. My dear friend Janice says this car is the perfect manifestation of hedonism, and that's alright. I expect to listen to a lot of Astrid Gilberto as I drive along in this car...

Also attached: the Alfa Romeo Duetto. If I had it to do over again I would do it a thousand times.

In addition: hedonism in the making in the Kananaskis country, circa 1969.

Meanwhile, Vito had just returned to work after his life-altering experience strapped to the trunk rack of the Excalibur on Sanitorium Hill. A new letter was waiting in his in-basket. His medical team had advised him not to read any more letters with suspicious subject lines...

From: Rob
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 9:56 PM
Subject: Re: Hot Rod Honda or how I returned to the QuesT blog

I guess if you were looking for a perfect string, this would be what Danny Galivan would have called a "candidating shot on goal". The wall of heat sort of hit me square-on when I stepped out the Altima this afternoon, back from a refreshing couple of days along the big rivers of Almaquin. I took three flats of Red Havens north and came back tired but with some nice memories which were sort of bouncing around my mind as I dozed off watching Charlie Gibson. Leah said there was a car in the drive and by the time I blinked awake it was peeling off down Bayview without a sound. She described it and I knew right off that we'd had a visit from the Hot Rod Honda. Damn I wish I'd been undopey enough to answer the tap on the door but, as it is, I'm getting a lot outa just the thoughts of Alan's new ride. And in the lonely cool before dawn you hear that engine roaring on. But when you get to the porch he's gone . . .

From: Alan
Sent: August 27, 2007 9:06 PM
Subject: Dog Days of Summer

...I believe that if I ever set out to explore the waterways of the Great Lakes Basin I would want to go on board Rosebud, tied up at Picton harbour this past weekend...

From: Rivers
Subject: RE: Dog Days of Summer
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:14:48 -0400

I'll be in the galley matey!

From: Alan
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 9:55 PM
Subject: RE: Dog Days of Summer

...excellent!...full speed ahead!...great lashings of rum all round!...(now we need a few Able Seamen who know how to cast off...)

From: Rob
Sent: August 27, 2007 10:22 PM
Subject: Re: Dog Days of Summer

And awah we go, thru ald Oswego . . . on our canal hame in a quest for salt water.

From: Rivers
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 10:44 PM
Subject: RE: Dog Days of Summer

Watch out for the low bridges!

From: Rob
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 6:21 AM
Subject: Re: Dog Days of Summer

Rosebud (A Pantry Office Muse)

I am all the way from Picton,
Upon the good boat Rosebud
A long, long trip we had, my boys,
Me head feels like its packed o'mud.
Petty fogs, artful storms,
Forget them l never shall
I am every inch a sailor, boys,
On the Erie Canal.

Chorus:
So haul in yer bowlines,
Stand by the saddle mule;
Low bridge, boys, dodge yer head,
Don't stand up like a fool.
For the Erie [sing as "ear eye ee"] is a-risin,
An' the whiskey's gettin' low;
l hardly think we'll get a little drink
Till we get to Buffalo. [sing as "Buffalo-ho-ho" and note: this line often sung twice with dramatic emphasis on Buffalo-ho-ho]

We left old Picton harbour
About the break of day;
If rightly I remember,
'Twas the second day of May.
We trusted to our driver
Although he was but small,
Yet he knew all the windings
Of that raging Canawl.

Early every morning
Ye can hear Cap'n Gummo call,
Come aft and git your lime juice,
Come aft, flunkies one and all;
Come aft and git your lime juice,
And don't bring any back,
Before you git to Syracuse
Ye's goin' to get the sack.

Three days out from Albany
A pirate we did spy!
The black flag with the skull and bones
Was a-wavin' up on high;
We signaled to the driver
To hoist the flag o' truce,
When we found it was the Mary Jane
Just out o' Syracuse.

Two days out from Syracuse
The vessel struck a shoal,
And we like to all been foundered
On a chunk of Lackawanna coal.
We hollered to Alan the captain
On the towpath treadin' dirt
He jumped on board and stopped the leak
With his Queen's red flannel shirt.

The cook she was a kind soul
She had a ragged dress.
We hoisted her upon a pole
As a signal of distress;
The winds began to whistle
And the waves began to roll,
And we had to reef our royal
On the raging Canawl.

When we finally got to Syracuse
The off mule he was dead,
The nigh mule got blind staggers
And we cracked him on the head;
Captain Alan he got married,
The cook she went to jail,
And I was the only son of a bitch
That's left to tell the tale.

Four long days we sailed the Hudson,
Steve, Hutch and me just drank,
We greased ourselves with tallow fat
And slid out on a plank;
The crew are in the poorhouse,
Captain Gummo he's gone to jail,
And I'm the sole survivin' man
That's left to tell the tale.

Alan
September 3, 2007
RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda - Step 4

I’ve attached the latest and probably last letter to Vito. I doubt I’m going to miss his correspondence, although I confess his Gino-like syntax gave me the odd chuckle. Ironically, the nazis in Records Retention probably won’t let him shred it. It will sit in a climate-controlled or digital archive like a silent disturbance waiting to be found by some young hot shot customer relations type who needs Vito’s neck in a noose to advance his own career.

The Mazda, meanwhile, is now sitting on the lot at Henley Honda. It looks really sharp, for anyone looking for a good used car. Which it is, incidentally, all kidding about the water pump aside.

This afternoon I went to sit on the end of the pier at Port Dalhooz. I watched the ‘personal water craft’ roar by, and wondered if Eric Moog had managed to disconnect his life-support yet.

By some perversity of mind a recollection popped into my head of an energetic discussion we had in an undergrad Marketing class at the Real University. This is the same school where we were told (Day One Orientation) by the elegant and articulate head of the school that we were being trained to be ‘Canada’s Business Leaders of the Future!’

Anyway, this discussion was about a case study for a new brand of pet food. The case study raised a number of issues about the development and marketing of pet food. The energy around the discussion arose over a dispute among the students as to whether the packaging should be in tones of blue or red. The packaging experts had been unable to reach a consensus, and kicked the decision up to Executive Management (us). Ruled irrelevant by the class, and therefore inadmissible in the discussion, was the fact mentioned in the case study that fully 10% of the ‘pet sample’ had died after trying the new product.

This recollection immediately linked to the ‘Chinese pet food’ scandal of recent past. I wondered where the Chinese learned that trick? Or is it a notion that’s just ‘floating around’ out there, waiting for some ‘bottom line’ to attach itself to?

Then my mind jumped to a political pronouncement made by a biz skool class-mate from Alberta at the height of Trudeaumania that, ‘What this Country needs is a good Prairie Prime Minister to stomp those Frogs!’ This pronouncement was met by general approval from the class, and in some quarters was considered a highly astute understanding of the Canadian political context.

I tried to distract myself by focusing on the fishers along the pier, but failed. My brain insisted on continuing to connect random and unrelated dots.

I remembered that last week on the bus into Toronto I read an op ed piece in the Globe from the head of the Taxpayers’ Federation complaining that Steve Happer can’t deliver in the ‘war of ideas’ against the ‘leftists’, and should be replaced. Jesus H., I wondered, does this mean we’re gunna get a putsch? Is this the beginning of the anschluss? Is this the final solution for the ‘Frogs’?

I decided that if there is such a thing as reincarnation, and I’m demoted back here as an accountant, bank economist, or car dealer I’ll know I did something rilly rilly bad.

Meanwhile, Naomi Klein’s new book Disaster Capitalism promises to be a landmark item like No Logo.

Some of you probably expect I’m going to link Vito to Naomi’s book. But I’m not going to. I don’t want to over-sensationalize Vito’s role in the greater scheme of things.

When I got home from the pier I had two phone messages: one from my sister telling me she and Ken were on her way to Chez Piggy for supper and she’d call me when they got back, and the second from Howard Hampton urging me to vote on October 10th. Hah! You can count on it!

Hope you had a great Labour Day, had a good parade, enjoyed the picnic, and have your order in for Naomi’s new book! See you all in Curatiba next year on May Day!

Rob
September 3, 2007
RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda - Step 4

I read this and I was like whoah. And Leah read it and she was like wow. And as we listened to Alan's new discovery Alison Krauss + Union Station I was like this is sort of a cross-over between Stevie Nicks and Nekko Case and Leah was like ya. And then we ate the rest of the peach cobbler and I was like I think I should buy that stepclimber and Leah was like I could use it too and I was like whoah dude this could involve some serious loss of weight and Leah was like ya I think that could happen.

Alan
September 3, 2007
RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda - Step 4

heh heh...that peach cobbler is a dream come true! Not to mention that watermelon soup made with liberal quantities of prosecco. Very refreshing...

The album referred to in Rob's gamer argot is Alison Krauss + Union Station Live. Recorded at the Louisville Palace in Louisville, KY, home of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, on April 29 and 30, 2002. A product of Rounder Records, long one of my favourite record companies (Rounder 1166105152, album design by Steven Jurgensmeyer). Rounder Records is located at One Camp Street in Cambridge, MA.

All the songs on this two-disc set are my favourites, and one of my most favourite is the bluegrass instrumental that leads off Disc 2, A Tribute to Peador O'Donnell/Monkey Let the Hogs Out.

I spent the day, other than at the Port Dalhoozy pier, totally blissed out listening to Lenny Breau and Dave Young Live at Bourbon Street, courtesy of the Pantry Office. Many thanks!

Alan
Sent: September 4, 2007 9:09 PM
Subject: September 5, 1957

I don’t remember September 5, 1957. I must have woken up that day, and I must have done something, but I don’t remember what.
That same day Jack Kerouac’s On the Road was published. I was unaware of it at the time, and had no idea how it would eventually influence my life. Historians are now saying it influenced the lives of millions, and provided the explosive and infectious energy that inspired many of the dramatic and liberating social movements that characterized the ‘Sixties’.

In recognition here’s an excerpt, selected at random by flipping open my dog-eared Third Printing copy from July, 1966. It describes the first few hours of a trip Kerouac and company took by car from New York to San Francisco, with a side-trip to visit William S. Burroughs in New Orleans.

It was drizzling and mysterious at the beginning of our journey. I could see that it was all going to be one big saga of the mist. “Whooee!” yelled Dean. “Here we go!” And he hunched over the wheel and gunned her; he was back in his element, everybody could see that. We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and non-sense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move. And we moved! We flashed past the mysterious white signs in the night somewhere in New Jersey that say SOUTH (with an arrow) and WEST (with an arrow) and took the south one. New Orleans! It burned in our brains. From the dirty snows of “frosty fagtown New York,” as Dean called it, all the way to the greeneries and river smells of old New Orleans at the washed-out bottom of American; then west. Ed was in the back seat; Marylou and Dean and I sat in front and had the warmest talk about the goodness and joy of life. Dean suddenly became tender. “Now dammit, look here, all of you, we all must admit that everything is fine and realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we’re not REALLY worried about ANYTHING. Am I right?” We all agreed. “Here we go, we’re all together…What did we do in New York? Let’s forgive.” We all had our spats back there. “That’s behind us, merely by miles and inclinations. Now we’re heading down to New Orleans to dig Old Bull Lee and ain’t that going to be kicks and listen will you to this old tenorman blow his top” – he shot up the radio volume till the car shuddered - “and listen to him tell the story and put down true relaxation and knowledge.”

We all jumped to the music and agreed. The purity of the road. The white line in the middle of the highway unrolled and hugged our left front tire as if glued to our groove. Dean hunched his muscular neck, T-shirted in the winter night, and blasted the car along. He insisted I drive through Baltimore for traffic practice; that was all right, except he and Marylou insisted on steering while they kissed and fooled around. It was crazy; the radio was on full blast. Dean beat drums on the dashboard till a great sag developed in it; I did too. The poor Hudson – the slow boat to China – was receiving her beating.

“Oh man, what kicks!” yelled Dean. “Now Marylou, listen really, honey, you know that I’m hotrock capable of everything at the same time and I have unlimited energy – now in San Francisco we must go on living together. I know just the place for you – at the end of the regular chain-gang run – I’ll be home just a cut-hair less than every two days and for twelve hours at a stretch, and man, you know what we can do in twelve hours, darling. Meanwhile I’ll go right on living at Camille’s like nothin, see, she won’t know. We can work it, we’ve done it before.” It was all right with Marylou, she was really out for Camille’s scalp. The understanding had been that Marylou would switch to me in Frisco, but I now began to see they were going to stick and I was going to be left alone on my butt at the other end of the continent. But why think about that when all the golden land’s ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait in lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?

…’make you glad you’re alive to see’, indeed…

Andrea and Carolyn have continued the tradition of taking long road trips of discovery and exploration to this day. I prefer not to think about what they get up to!

From: Rivers
Subject: RE: September 5, 1957
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2007 00:16:27 -0400

I immediately set down les Miserables and dove into On the Road Again.

From: Alan
Subject: RE: September 5, 1957
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2007 20:08:47 -0400

heh heh..."For Hunter S. Thompson, perhaps the leading alternative journalist of our time, reading On the Road was a gestalt experience. His memory of the impact of Kerouac's novel appears in The Proud Highway, a collection of his letters [available in the subpenthouse lending library] :'...a great truth blundered out of the sky and imbedded itself in my skull. With a great thunderous clatter, a million jangled pieces of a long-scrambled puzzle fell miraculously into place.'"
Carolyn Cassady, widow of Neal Cassady, who outlived both Cassady and Kerouac, is reputed to have said, 'that she would get Kerouac in another life, and pursue him for eternities.'
From Paradise Outlaws: Remembering the Beats by John Tytell, with photographs by Mellon, New York, 1999 [also available in the subpenthouse lending library]...
Allen Ginsberg in a PBS documentary coolly observed that, 'Jack had this wheel karma.'...

Reactions to Kerouac are varied, and numerous. Not all are positive. For me he has meant the energy of freedom and the excitement of new experiences, exploration, and discovery. And a hand with prose that's unbeatable.

We drove on. Across the immense plain of night lay the first Texas town, Dalhart, which I'd crossed in 1947. It lay glimmering on the dark floor of the earth, fifty miles away. The land by moonlight was all mesquite, and wastes. On the horizon was the moon. She fattened, she grew huge and rusty, she mellowed and rolled, till the morning star contended and dews began to blow in our windows - and still we rolled. After Dalhart - empty crackerbox town - we bowled for Amarillo, and reached it in the morning among windy panhandle grasses that only a few years ago waved around a collection of buffalo tents. Now there were gas stations and new 1950 jukeboxes with immense ornate snouts and ten-cent slots and awful songs.

From: Rob (motel along the Big East in Huntsville)
Subject: RE: September 5, 1957
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 01:19:35 +0000

Welp, I for one would like to reserve The Proud Highway as something to read in Maine, although I seldom read in Maine, preferring the picture books in the cottage library. After a week along the ocean I sometimes pick up a pencil and sketch stuff, if'n I'm in the right zone. The Proud Highway appeals for some reason, probably because the main thing I like about doing rural planning on a consulting basis is the folks I meet on the road.

Take tonight for example. I got kicked out of the committee of the whole a tad early because they decided to go in camera, after a smoke break. On the break I talked to old Jim Cushman, the deputy Mayor. He got around to remembering his youth in Grantham Township [north St. Catharines/NOTL/canal], as he always does eventually, and how the new Welland Canal had taken his grampa's farms near Homer. When all was said and done, grampa Cushman let the farms go on condition that the road running up the west side of the Canal would be named after the male side of the family [Cushman Road] and the road running up the east side of the Canal would be named after his wife's family gramma Stewart [voila Stewart Road]. The two farm houses were pushed over, though they were of great heritage value. The only Shawnee people to settle in the area were the Cushmans from Indiana and many of the family on the land/canal in unmarked graves behind where the two houses were. My fifth great grandfather [with Col. Butler] and family suffered the same fate in Thorold under the flight locks.

Jim went on to tell me how Drago's Restaurant [Queenston Rd at Homer Bridge] is actually one of the oldest houses in Ontario and is log underneath the siding. He said they called it the Cloverleaf Restaurant when the original QEW had a cloverleaf there before the new canal went through. The DHO allowed the old house to sit inside the southwest cloverleaf. At that point Jim had to go back into the meeting but he left me with a committment to look me up when he "takes the wife" [also a Stewart] down for a peach sundae at the Avondale Dairy on Stewart Road. Her family, the Stewarts, own the Dairy to this day and most of the Avondale Stores in Niagara for that matter. As Jim walked away it occured to me that he likely shares much of his wife's gene pool. Could be why none of his boys ever leave the granite quarry. The wife runs the scales and the loader too when the boys are too busy fighting with each other.

Old Olie Rand had been sitting in the peanut gallery enjoying the show when he too was ejected for the in camera session. We talked hockey in the dark, long enough for him to crush out two rollyerowns, smoked dangerously short. Olie is the sort of old guy that just makes your day with stories. We got talking about the size and speed of the current NHL players. He looked at me and said "My old CEO played for the Uke Line ya know, Johnny Bucyk." "No shit" I said, "I used to love the Bruins back in the 50's - I had Bronco Horvath, Johnny Bucyk and Vic Stasiuk hockey cards and I would never trade them." "Ya wanna hear sumpin' nobody knows about Johnny Bucyk?" Olie asked with a wicked toothless grin. I nodded and he said "He was really a goalie, not a winger. He had over 200 stitches in his face when the Bruins got him." Wow, Johnny Bucyk is a Hall of Famer, the 4th highest NHL goal scorer of all time. Hearing that, to me, rare trivia about Johnny Bucyk is what consulting on the road is really all about. The rest is just another way of making money.

From: Alan
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 9:55 PM
Subject: RE: September 5, 1957

Fantastic! And you shall have The Proud Highway to take to Maine.

The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, covering the years 1955 to 1967, is volume one of Thompson's letters. The Author's Note at the beginning says:

Today is Friday the thirteenth in Louisville. The sky is low and the view from the penthouse suite at the Brown Hotel is dense. There is only one window in the hotel that opens, and I have it right here in my room. My chief of security had it chiseled open yesterday, despite the whining of the manager, who said it was an invitation to suicide.
...
I am no stranger to the Brown Hotel. I am well known here and I have been for forty years. When I was five years old my grandfather brought me into the dining room on Easter morning and we watched a Korean waitress stab an ice pick into the groin of the governor of Kentucky. I have never forgotten it.
...
When I glance at this eerie collection and remember all the datelines and all the people I met in that moveable feast of violence and passion and constant revolution that lived at the core of the Sixties, there are two things I wonder about.

1)Where are all the people who did the same things I did and wrote the same kinds of frenzied berserk letters that I did, sometimes even from the same weird towns and with the same desperate feelings that I had and knew and genuinely suffered with because I was young and dumb and arrogant and utterly unemployable, except at great distance?
And 2) where are those people who helped me and hid me and took the same risks I did on that high-speed underground railroad that ran almost anywhere you wanted to go, in those days?

Chapter 1 is titled: 1955: Louisville in the Fifties...Sloe Gin, Sleazy Debutantes, and the Good Life in Cherokee Park...From Athenaeum Hill to the Jefferson County Jail...Welcome to the Proud Highway...

I think Leah will enjoy it if you read her a few excerpts while yer on Bailey Island!

Rob
October 14, 2007
RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI

Breaking News!!! The Mau-Mauing Mazda episodes of the QuesT blog are now positioned extremely highly in Google. This only comes with lots of hits and I can tell you all that Mau-Mauing Mazda is very popular with our European, middle eastern, and college students among the ivy league set of New England

This is a testament to the peculiar writing skills of Alan G___o. Stand up and take a round of applause Alan. His innocent looking but lethal poke at injustice served up by Mazda Canada is sincere by laced with freewheeling jibberish which I of course do my best to emulate and enhance. For example, Thing the Ape with word balloons and a pack of nuns figure prominently in Mau-Mauing Mazda.

The Mau-Mauing episode is right up to date and actually finalized. It is a wonderful read, complete with appropriate music downloads by the Butthead Surfers. Also, for you Hunter Thompson fans, we have a Dr. H.S.Thompson STORE on line which features the most amazing selection of T's - just in time for Christmas shopping.

In conclusion, let me verify the above claims to greatness with statistics:

In Google, "g___o mazda" ranks MAU-MAUING MAZDA number ONE (1) of 939 hits. On Google.ca, "mazda complaint" ranks MAU-MAUING MAZDA as number EIGHT (8) of 10,300 hits. And last but not least, "mazda complaint" on Google.com ranks MAU-MAUING MAZDA as number THIRTY-FIVE (35) of 378,000+ hits. That is 35/378,000!!!! It take writing of uncommon talent to rank that high on the Google database.

Congratulations Alan. Perhaps you would like to sell some cars on the QuesT site. Over 378,000 hits says YOO DA MAN!!

From: susan f
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007
Subject: RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI

Fabulous! I knew it was wrong to keep that story to ourselves. It had to be shared. Thank you Rob for putting it where the rest of the world could get it too. Wheeeeee…..

>From: Alan
>Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 8:20 PM
>Subject: RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI

>...well, I'm humbled of course...now I can sit back and wait for the
>Mazda Lawsuit to arrive in the mail...
>
>...we've just spent the weekend rambling thru Kensington Market, with a
>stop at Roach-O-Rama for some Xmas shopping, then over to the ROM for
>our first close-up look at the now-finished Krystal...the first thing I
>noticed was the yellow danger tape strung around the sidewalk benches
>as if the damned thing was about to topple over...once inside I started
>to imagine the string of emails as Michael Lee-Chin writes to Thorsell
>to get his money back...in the meantime I would like to make it quite
>clear that I have NOT dipped into the deep reserves of the family
>fortune to commission a new book, to be written and illustrated by a
>team of crack architecture historians and theorists from the University
>of Dresden, with the working title Patrons of the Fascist Movement in
>Architecture: From Benito Mussolini to William Thorsell, and
>back-to-back appendices on the work of Albert Speer and Daniel
>Libeskind...
>
>...many thanks to Terry and Ken for a great weekend of conversation and
>dining, Susan for being there in great spirits as always...
>
>...and don't forget, check out Michael Clayton at the picture show if
>you get a chance, and hurry to Blockbuster to pick up The Radiant City,
>a CBC/NFB co-production with cameos by Ken Greenberg, Mark Kingswell,
>Duany and Kunstler...Kunstler steals the show with colourful language...
>
>...and one of Dr. Thompson's best books, which Ken has on his shelves
>and I'm sure would lend out, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail,
>his telling of the '72 Presidential election campaign and one of the
>best books on politics ever...

From: rob
Subject: Re: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 02:09:41 -0400

The night shift always has the best reading. It took 10 months on the world wide web to achieve that incredible Google ranking for Mau-Mauing. I first noticed it when Alan fired off a final post to Vito in September, which sort of caught me by surprise. I published it on line with the rest of the uploads from Bailey Island Maine, and ran a Google search out of curiosity. I was pretty relaxed at the time, and a little drunk, so I just chuckled and fell asleep, oblivious to what I'd akshee discovered. Personally, I think the loyal QuesT readership from the Indian subcontinent made it all happen at Google. Aided by students, the north country Brits and the New Zealand readers of course. Its an evolving world wide cumulative thing. I expect that somebody connected to Mazda or Vito's family will soon hear of or stumble into Mau-Mauing and all hell will break loose. That's when the traffic on Google will go through the roof and we may get mail from Rolling Stone.

I'm also slowly working on the code for The Twisted Back Road episode but that email was so voluminous it required my printing and story-boarding it. Mau-Mauing Mazda required story-boarding too but was not so complex, having fewer images and no convoluted over-topping sub-plots. The overlapping strings of posts and rollback plots in The Twisted Back Road make my head spin as I code and populate it with themed imagery, creatively liberated from other web sites. For example, the saga of Christo and Sister Tommy's Surf Shop interweaves with a four-part tale of the Pile-up At Farkin Barn and nuns popping in and out as they visit Thing at the donut shop on the Hill and poor Vito smashed all to hell in that crash landing. The nuns are pretty weird at first but they work. Its the strangest kind of almost gonzo-reality story telling, like I think it may be touching the higher levels to which writing is evolving - like this is where *everything* else is headed too, someday.

I printed the story board for Twisted on the back of the paper used for the Mau-Mauing board but I need another run to Staples to stock up again. For a while I had serious doubts about whether I was losing my mind but when I hold this thing up to the light the shear brilliance of it keeps me determined to push on deeper into the ether on line. My strong sense now is that QuesT is not a string of email or even what you would call a blog in the current schema. Alan is no doubt da man in this initiative but something amazing happens when we mix it up jointly. Like the day I introduced Thing - I'll never forget what happened. There's another case where all hell will break loose someday when The Pie Hole Flap episode is discovered by certain people on Queen Street.

From: Alan
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 7:25 PM
Subject: RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI

...you're not going to believe this, but...tonight when I got home from work there was a personally addressed mail-out from St. Catharines Mazda inviting me to drop by for the 2007 Model Clear-out...they're discounting up to 10K on some models...makes my 140 bucks look like chump change...Sil says I should get in there and deal...what the hell, the Honda's just turned over 5,000 km and is coming up for its first oil change...

From: rob
Subject: Re: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:28:12 -0400

The time has come to drop the marmot

From: Alan
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 8:38 PM
Subject: RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI

...and mail the toe...

From: rob
Subject: Re: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:35:01 -0400

Mau-Mauing swings into a Nihilist un-Duder twist in the road <g>.

From: Alan
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:41 PM
Subject: RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI

...they're nihilists, dude, nihilists...at least national socialists stand for something...

From: Alan
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 8:12 PM
Subject: RE: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI

...IN THE MEANTIME...we are mounting an expedition to the 8TH ANNUAL TORONTO INTERNATIONAL AHT FAIR on Saturday, October 27th at the Metro Convention Centre...anyone interested in the aht PLUS grabbing a red hot from a sidewalk vendor can contact this address...bring your chequebooks...I'll be looking for something snazzy to hang on the subpenthouse walls, and some mustard on that red hot...

From: Rob
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI

Of course, nihilists don't mail toes, I forgot. But they would make quite an impression at a Mazda model car clearout! "Vee are hear because of Alan . . . vee can fack you up."

From: Rob
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 7:25 AM
Subject: Re: Mau-Mauing Mazda positions HI

Welp, after due consideration, Leah and I have concluded that the subpenthouse needs a whack of aht, good aht, like a colour poster of Walter and Duder or something like that. I can see it - the great subpenthouse aht hunt in the big smoke.