The End of the Road

Sunday 20th of July – Wednesday the 23rd of July.

The sordid exploits of Dana Point and the Ollies behind them, MT were all about set to call it a day and find the nearest sandy expanse on which to rest their calcined bones. Once again the boys managed to come incredibly close to suffering the same fate that had befallen them the last time they passed out exhausted on an American beach in summer, but this time they were in luck.

Rather than subject their skins to the Texas Barbeque treatment, MT were duly saved by the offer of accommodation by some more family friends of Nick’s: Bob and Natasha Leighton who lived in a fantastic home in the hills overlooking LA (Bob being the brother of Kevin, whose family in Houston had already rescued MT from certain death while simultaneously taking charge of the Voyager. To this this day MT believes the Voyager is still lurking somewhere in the greater Houston area having taken on a will of its own. Reports of missing children, toasted rodents and horrendous oil leaks in south-west Texas have increased almost exponentially over the last 3 weeks, though police investigations have been unable to link the three).

After being plied with fine wine and excellent chili of Natahsa’s creation, MT fell into a deep and mentally-straining conversation about architecture, politics and film with the adults around the table, unable to competently participate in any of these bar the latter.

Nick expounded his theories on why Iron Man was the greatest superhero ever, Pete, who doesn’t watch TV and whose sole DVD is ‘Why the Customer is Always Right featuring Peter Purvis’, mostly kept schtum, and together they both expressed their keenness to see the latest Batman Film.

Bob, you see, having edited such films as The Princess Bride, Spinal Tap and A Few Good Men (the latter earned him an Oscar nomination for his efforts) is on something called ‘The Academy’, and MT had caught wind of a procedure whereby early DVDs of unreleased films are sent to members for their consideration. Perhaps he would offer them a sneak preview? Perhaps he would get them to the premiere in London where they could be assaulted by Christian Bale along with his mother and sister? Maybe he’d just laugh modestly and tell them to go and watch it in the cinema like normal people? (On feeling bad about dashing MT’s optimism on selection of the third option, Bob did somewhat recklessly lend them his large and scarily powerful 4×4 to cruise around in).

The following day MT took to the wheel and went for a cruise around Hollywood and Bel-Air. Initially they lowered themselves to tourists by taking in the sights and pulling contemptuous faces at the dreadfully tacky Tinsel-Town before driving around the stars’ homes in Beverly Hills and honking obnoxiously at any sight of the slovenly tour buses whose occupants would jump, wave fists, shout, and then take pictures, depending on their ethnicity, as MT sped past.

After a couple of nights discussing films with Bob, and days of relaxing on the beach playing 60 seconds with the inimitable Doug, MT felt their adventure coming to its natural conclusion. Their final night was spent together with Kate having a civilised meal with only a modest amount of alcohol (despite their not half-heated attempts to get Kate drunk for passing her law exams) and more philosophical discussions of paradigmatic intellect. Perhaps the reassimilation of MT into British society was not going to be so difficult after all? Would they continue to go up at the end of questions and sentences as legendary anchorman Ron Burgundy? Perhaps they would no longer be able to survive off anything other than cheese burgers and be constantly plagued by nightmares of the Voyager devouring small kittens and flattening nurseries.

Whatever the case, MT had made it battered and bruised across 4 1/2 thousand miles of North American continent to find themselves at their journey’s end and they were pretty much ready to go home. All that was left was the stupendously treacherous 4 mile cab ride from Santa Monica to LAX…

The city they call Los Angeles

Moral Turpitude arrived by train at Union Station, downtown Los Angeles, feeling hungover, exhausted and pretty much ready for the flight home. However, they still had six days to survive in one of the most dangerous cities in America.

Their first stop was the township made infamous in song by Dr Dre:

“Yeah, Inglewood…
Inglewood always up to no good.”

The boys had mentioned to the girls who they had befriended on the train that they were to be staying in Inglewood and the girls’ shocked expressions, coupled with passionate exhortations for the boys to reconsider, played upon Nick, Pete and Doug’s minds. But no matter, this was an adventure and there was nothing for it but to brave the ‘hood with chests inflated and chins up.

The metro ticket seller at Union Station was not very good at his job. Upon being asked for three tickets to LAX airport (near to Inglewood), he simply said “no”. It was his opinion that we would not make it alive and that we should instead take the express bus to the airport. This concerned the boys even more but we were assured by Doug’s friend Ashley, who we were to be staying with, that there were very few shootings in her neighbourhood and that most of them were gang-related.

This cheered the boys up no end and they hopped onto the bus light of heart, with hardly a care in the world. Inglewood itself failed to live up to its reputation. The boys never got up to “no good”, nor did they see anyone else attempting to achieve this. In fact, it seemed to be a relatively typical area of LA, sprawling into the distance, with wide streets, far too many cars and liquor stores on every block.

The next day the boys made a well deserved visit to Venice Beach, where they could relax, free from the worry of being in one of the most notorious gangland areas of LA. Here Doug learned how to play ’60 seconds’, a game every good English schoolboy (mis)spent their childhood perfecting. Having been hit in the face, stubbed three toes and taken a thunderous Troen volley to the balls, Doug decried this “wretched” game and declined to play any longer, even going as far as to refuse to have the football anywhere near him.

That afternoon, with Doug still waiting for one of his balls to drop back down, MT arrived at Santa Monica. They were staying in a one bedroom flat with Nick’s friend-from-home Kate. This was to be a tight squeeze, made even tighter by the presence of the two Ollys, also friends of Kate, who had apparently been insisting for the last two weeks that they were soon to be moving on. So it happened that five boys were to be living in the poor girl’s living room for the night.

A good evening of bonding over gin-and-tonics was soon under way and pretty soon MT’s number was increased to 5 (the largest yet) as Olly and Olly agreed to join the other three in their trip to the OC on the morrow. This was especially good news as the Ollys in fact had a car, and so MT’s road trip was to be resumed once again after the train hiatus. After this was arranged, and with everybody enjoying themselves thoroughly, Nick decided that not enough carnage had been created and that he needed to try to ruin the night for someone. So he did a cluster bomb.

He claims to have done it because he thought that the barman was looking at him funny and that he wanted to show said barman that he was a man and could drink lots. I will allow you to decide for yourselves whether or not you think that this was a good reason or not; I will, however, describe the consequences of Nick downing a pint of white wine with four shots of tequila in it (he did four instead of the usual three because an American pint is slightly smaller that a British one).

Nick sat down and claimed to be fine. He then got up and began to sway. He stumbled forward and fell over. He went to the bar and ordered a glass of water. He crashed around some more and then sat down and promptly fell asleep. He was then asked to leave the bar as it was closing. Half-an-hour later he finally left the bar, supported by Doug. He then walked home slowly, pausing to lie on the pavement or to run into the road in front of cars. He then lay down in front of the apartment and refused to move any more despite Doug’s exhortations. Doug then carried him upstairs. Nick then woke up, shouted “There are no girls here Kate, this just won’t do” and then passed out for good.

In the morning, the Ladmiral returned from the lair of a Californian Cougar to find Nick still pissed off his face and abusive. Breakfast was needed and a suitable pancake house was found. After eating, the entire party, having just seen Super Troopers, turned the most enormous peer pressure on to try to get the Ladmiral to down a pint of maple syrup. Now the Ladmiral is strong-willed, but when his manliness is brought into question any other considerations go out the window so he downed it and felt sick for the next 6 hours (video to follow).

With the Ladmiral feeling decidedly under-the-weather, MT set off on the road once again. The prospect of going to the OC fair and then onto an American ‘white trash’ themed house party was terribly exciting. Upon arrival, the wonderfully named Jessica Timberlake met the 5 boys with great warmth and enthusiasm. They set off for the OC fair where they went on some real carnival rides and saw a giant horse with an even more giant knob.

The people at the white trash party were so in character that the English boys were unsure as to whether they were putting it on at all. On reflection MT are pretty sure that there was no theme at all and that they were in fact at a white trash party. The boys headed home after a good night out, the eager Jessica making at least two of them feel very at home in Orange County!

Big Sur and UCSB leave their marks.

Concept of time totally abandoned.

From San Francisco the boys hired a car and picked up Doug, their American buddy from Florida who had decided to fly out and meet MT in California to provide accompaniment on their final leg down the West Coast. Highway 1 weaves for 150 miles along a coastal path down a part of the country which had recently been ravaged by some devastating forest fires – in fact, Highway 1 was all but shut until 12 hours before the boys departed, upon which it miraculously opened to provide a unique impression of the typically beautiful scenery of the Pacific coast, only scarred and sullied by conflagration.

The Big Sur coastline still retained a form of beauty, just one that felt more weary and understated; no doubt the vegetation will grow back and the sun will shine again (MT continued their tradition of bringing the weather with them by caking the surroundings in cloud), but for the moment an ashen stench lingered over the countryside, and many of the hillsides were clearly scorched and lifeless.

What really astounded MT was the sudden appearance of an ‘Oscar Mayer Weiner’ truck, of which there is apparently only one in the whole world, negotiating the harsh bend around the bluff ahead. This vehicle’s uniqueness is not difficult to describe: it is a giant hot dog-shaped car. But here’s a video anyway:

Quickly, radio-broadcasts failed to make it through the rocky peaks and MT were reduced to the garbled mutterings of the BBC World Service. Unable to bear this for much longer they pulled over at a local mini-mart and begged them to sell them whatever CDs they possibly had. On handing over $10 they received Carly Simon’s Greatest Hits, A 50s Megamix and John Meredith on Instrumental Guitar. Predictably, the first two cases proved to be empty leaving MT no choice but to be serenaded by the repetitively awful incarnations of Stairway to Heaven, The Entertainer and Killing Me Softly, all of which that were rendered so badly that Mr Meredith was hastily and unsurreptitiously consigned to the adjacent Pacific.

With Pete proving his sensational driving skills once more by bringing Doug and Nick constantly to the brink of vomiting through his binary use of the brake pedal, particularly when nearly mowing down a steroid taking druggie (cyclist), MT moved on to Santa Barbara, home of the now ubiquitous UCSB, where they found parties and beaches aplenty. There is no point in elaborating on what went on here – merely lots of the usual stuff when MT reaches a college town. Highlights mostly included waking up in the morning alive, and with clothes on, drinking everything under the sun, and appreciating the many beautiful sights of the town, both animate and inanimate. With SB satisfied the last major trip of the tour was about to be undertaken – onward to the City of Angels.

San Francisco Video Update

Moral Turpitude did actually quite enjoy San Francisco with its European atmosphere and undulating roads. They also left the city with a pair of very sore bottoms not, as your lewd minds may assume, from some accidental, and quite feasible, act of sodomy, but from a rather gruelling cycle ride that took the boys across 26 miles of hillocks, inclined gradients and bridges.

Incidentally this beautiful encapsulation of America was captured while walking to the bike shop:

Bad weather obscures the vision; temperature diminishing quickly; spirits high regardless:

The other bridge; bad becomes worse; questions of San Franciscan engineering ability:

The other side; clarity of view; still not very impressive; MT considers going to pub:

The windiest road in the world; no one bikes down it because it’s almost impossible to get to its summit (especially if you’re American):

Disclaimer

Somewhere in Los Angeles. Time irrelevant.

MT apologies for not filling your inboxes, minifeeds and other assorted RSS-clones with dense diatribe – they have spent the last two weeks in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles perpetually drunk despite their dwindling funds (ladmiral, after a very complex operation to transport his new barclaycard from England to San Francisco involving Pete’s mum and Big Per managed to lose it three days after acquisition which made Nick mad).

They are currently also with Doug, their new-found American pal from Ohio whom they met in Florida. He liked MT so much that he flew out to meet them in California and has thus restored MT to a trio. He has also got them astoundingly hammered every night to the point where Nick finally decided it was time for a cluster bomb (to the apparent amazement of the gringo ‘bar men’ (MT pride themselves on being ingles, not the ever-derided inhabitants of gringolandia)).

MT also wonders whether they will make it to Wednesday alive with an impending party in the OC state fair looming…

Frisco (we call it that because the natives hate it when you do)

Well readers, you will be pleased (hopefully) to learn that MT are alive and kicking. The near-death experience on the road to California left the boys shaken, but with a new-found respect for life and an urge to enjoy however much they have left of it to the full.

That feeling didn’t last long as Nick and Pete entered the over-liberal, hippie-loving, pot-smoking waste of space they call San Francisco. Now, you may think that this introduction is a little harsh. It isn’t. Nick and Pete are hardly what you would call Liberal Democrat voters, but in the right-leaning world of American politics they would naturally lean towards the Democratic party. Not any more. SF has turned the boys into hippie-hating (they already were that), gun-slinging (if they were allowed to have one), red-necked (more from sun burn than anything else) Republicans.

This is a city which needs a modern day Barry Goldwater (whose policies, it has been said, were somewhere to the right of Adolf Hitler’s) to pick it up, give it a good shake and get rid of the rottenness.

The boys spent their first two nights in a crappy, run-down hostel in an area littered with crack-dens and tramps. They then moved to a better hostel near the financial district where they were shown a map of the city by the friendly receptionist, who drew on the map all the good places to go and visit. The first thing she did was draw a big box around the area where the boys had been staying previously and then proceed to colour it in saying ‘Whatever you do, don’t go there.’

The map was finally completed one intensely tedious hour later and Nick and Pete sat down and mulled it over. Where to go for a drink and some dinner? Either to one of the many places where the hippie’s live and idle around singing and smoking pot? Or to the area where the tramps and prostitutes hang out? Or perhaps the gay district would be fun? Nowhere on the map had any appeal whatsoever.

In fact, MT spent the next two days trying to find a bar where there were some hetrosexual women. In vain. The city is the gay capital of the world and there just didn’t seem to be any popular bars in it. Despite taking advice from countless natives, no appropriate bar was found after 2 days and nights of looking. Unbelievable.

The highlight was the 25 mile bike ride undertaken across the city. Mostly, there were just hippies. But the boys did cross the Golden Gate bridge (although an appallingly-timed fog meant that they could only see 20 yards in front of them) and go down the only winding street in America. They also met Molly. The one shining light of virtue and respectability in an entire city. She was a beautiful Irish girl from Cork and she lit up Nick and Pete’s lives up for the 20 minutes it took them to rent their bicycles from her. And so SF will always be remembered in the boys hearts as the city where Molly lived. And for that, and that alone, it is a great city which they love.

The perils of the Mojave: A very close shave for MT

Monday 7th June

Leaving Vegas was not difficult. MT was pretty drained, but the promise of cool comfort in San Francisco was enough to force them on in their Hertz hire car.

Pete was driving the newly acquired Pontiac Malibu down the single-lane highway 58 towards Bakersfield, California. Nick was lost in thoughts of how to possibly end Maurice’s life in a number of elaborate ways (most of them involving blunt metal instruments) when an enormous plume of brown dust erupted from the left, about 50 metres in front of the boys. Out of this plume of dust flew a silver 4-door ford, at least 5 metres in the air, and rotating slightly with its nose pointed towards the ground, and the back of the car raised high in the air, almost perpendicular to the road.

The car driving towards them at 60 mph had presumably hit the verge, jumped several metres towards the desert sky, and for what seemed like an eternity, hung in the air, pirouetting noiselessly before falling down to earth with a shockingly violent crash, and skidding ominously towards MT’s Pontiac. Pete took evasive action and swerved right as the oncoming car slid upside-down on its roof towards them – thankfully the vehicle then somehow curved towards the left hand side of the road, flipping once more onto its tyres and then coming to a rest on the desert beside the road.

Nick sprang out the passenger side and moved towards the smashed up Ford. Almost immediately two men were now at the car’s side, wrenching off the driver’s door. The driver then miraculously staggered out of the car clearly shaken, but seemingly unhurt. More passers by were coming to her help now and after a few minutes MT decided that the best they could was to move on, still in a dream-like state of nervousness, shock and awe.

The local country and western radio quickly informed MT that the driver had in fact been a victim of a hit and run accident (the actual mechanics of which remain a mystery), and that the suspect had just been apprehended heading west. In another moment of outstanding coincidence, MT passed 2 police cars arresting a man 10 minutes west of the position of the accident. MT were left feeling rather perturbed by this whole adventure and, with a new-found respect for life, they made for Frisco hoping to eradicate thoughts of death and debauchery with some cool Pacific air and some liberal nancy-boys to laugh at.

Beer and clothing (or lack of) in Las Vegas

Friday 4th of July

There is little point in trying to describe the events of this night, in no small part due to the horrific levels of anti-freeze that were probably consumed in the strongest punches this side of Bruce Lee. MT spent a good time drinking, getting shoved in pools, fighting each other with girls on their shoulders, and generally wishing everyone a very happy ‘re-colonisation day’ (Nick was pushed in the pool on at least 2 separate occasions for this by a pugnacious door manager, Dave).

The night continued much the same across the whole of Las Vegas, as did the party atmosphere for the next couple of days and, by Monday, the boys were tired and worn out from hanging around high-stakes gamblers, semi-naked ladies and free alcohol.

Nick gambled a bit and had lost about $80 (though he made $28 on the last night playing black-jack, only to spend it all on a celebratory round of beer), whereas Pete had only bet a little, but lost it all the same in about 24 seconds. Nothing compared to one of their aquaintances, Andy, an ex-radio presenter for Wyvern FM of Essex, who made $1500 betting all his money on black, only to lose everything and possibly more the next night.

With the presence of He, a Korean dorm companion of MT, trying ever so hard to latch on to the duo’s last leg to the Pacific coast, the decision was taken to get the hell out of there and make for San Francisco. Vegas had certainly lived up to MT’s expectations, but the most enduring and notorious moment was to come but a couple of hours later as the boys made west for the Californian coast…

Arizona Video Update

Here are a few videos from MT’s 26 hour non-stop trip from Houston to Vegas which included more than a couple of very necessary detours.

06:12. Waking to early light of an Arizona sunrise; Pete is still alive; Laurence’s trousers have slipped down a bit.

09:16. The inspiringly named Meteor Crater; general excitement all round; lack of people appreciated.

11:35. Slight detour north; The Grand Canyon.

14.02. The Mojave Desert; exceptionally high temperatures yet drier than a sec cup of hyper-sec.

15:39. A large dam; ball soup takes on a new meaning; the last stop before Las Vegas.

The Meadow

So, after 1,500 miles, 26 hours driving and just 2 hours sleep each, Nick and Pete reached their destination. The city of sin.

Scholars maintain that the meaning of ‘Las Vegas’ was lost centuries ago but some still claim that it means ‘the meadow’. A place less like a meadow you will never see. Vegas sits in the middle of a desert. It is hot. Not just quite hot, but cripplingly hot. The hot air dries your throat and your eyes so that they hurt and nothing can satiate them except a cold beer and diving into the nearest casino to cool down. The climate forces you to sin, even if you didn’t want to.

Mother Theresa, on a visit here a long time ago, ended up drinking and gambling so much that she had to declare herself bankrupt and join a monastery. Even the corner shops have slot machines. It is almost farcical, if you don’t have enough money for your groceries you can make it up at the slots. Just as the lottery is a tax on the stupid, so the slots are reverse ATMs for the vulnerable. The sin pervades everything and seeps into your very soul.

So you can understand why MT fitted in so well here.

Arriving at the USA hostel in downtown, MT were unloading their car as two squad cars pulled up, the officers leapt out and jumped on two passing African-Americans, who put up a stiff resistance to their unexpected handcuffing. Not knowing whether to be worried about the probity of the neighbourhood, or to be pleased at the police presence, MT entered their home for the next few days and lay down, ready to die.

Except that there was one more mission to be completed. The car had to be returned to the nearest Hertz outlet and there was only half an hour before it closed. So Nick left the hostel to return the car, leaving Pete to make friends with the assortment of odd characters who they were sharing a dorm with. Soon Pete began to get frantic text messages about how Nick could not find Hertz, then about how he didn’t have enough money on him to pay the $660 that were owed, then telling how Nick was running around trying to find a cash point which would accept his card, then more about how Nick could not find the Hertz (again, despite having already been there) and finally the triumphant elation describing Nick’s success and how he had somehow managed to get $300 off (still not sure how that happened but sexual favours is the most likely explanation).

The boys celebrated this success by buying some beers and pizza and then going down to the infamous ‘Strip’ where all the major hotel/casinos are located. The night was spent mainly in Margaritaville, where most of the money saved on the car was expediently blown on frozen Maragritas. On two hours sleep and very little food, MT very quickly became blind drunk and knowledge of the rest of the nights antics has been mainly lost. But suffice to say it was a whir of dancing, drinking, girls and quite possibly some climbing.

MT did, somehow, manage to find their way home and awoke on July 4th, ready to celebrate American Independence (not) in the city they humbly call ‘the meadow’.