This article was published on media underground and disinformation back in June 2003.
Re-examing all this ten years on, I find it amusing to recollect the paranoid experiences of my first crazy trip to the United States - a trip that had no purpose whatsoever other than to go to a party in the middle of the Mojave Desert with comedian Doug Stanhope and friends...
The checking in queue at the airport was one of the longest I’d ever seen. Some problem with the luggage belts, they’d said, which was just the excuse two ugly American tourists needed to try and push their way to the front. They were both stereotypes of everything that we Europeans detest about America: the woman - a sick parody of Blanch from The Golden Girls, the gentleman - a miserable looking swine with pot belly, 50s style slicked back hair and a shirt that perfectly matched the pattern on his luggage.
“This queue seems to be getting longer,” remarked the businessman standing in front of me.
“Yeah, and somewhat fatter too,” retorted my dad, looking suspiciously at the two Yanks that were trying to squeeze their way in front of us.
“Excuse me,” remarked the businessman, “but the end of the queue is way back there,” he explained to the Americans.
The two ugly Yanks looked unconvincingly confused as they tried to hide their obvious lack of manners by giving us a poorly rehearsed rendition of “is it?” and “oh really?”
“What the hell is this?” I said out loud. “Exclusive preferential treatment solely for American tourists?”
“We didn’t realise,” explained Blanch.
“Hah!” I replied. “No wonder people wanna blow you up.”
Blanch looked somewhat hurt and confused, whilst Captain Brylcreem had asserted that this was all the excuse he needed to stand his ground and push on in behind us.
What was I doing going on this trip, I thought to myself? Into the lion’s den to go on some crazy wild adventure out into the Mojave Desert with comedian Doug Stanhope and crowd. This was my first ever trip to the States. Was I completely insane?
Eventually my luggage was checked in as I bid farewell to my dad, who was giving me his usual look of deep concern. Too late to back out now, I said to myself, better just ride out this crazy adventure and find out where the hell it all leads.
The flight over was smooth enough - too smooth, in fact, as I usually like a little turbulence on these long haul numbers just to keep things fresh and interesting, but I kept myself amused by eyeing up one of the air stewardesses and watching a non-descript movie or two until the scenery changed and the sheer vastness of Los Angeles was revealed.
When I arrived there was nobody there to greet me. I had assumed that Doug or his wife Renee would meet me at Baggage Claim, however, as is customary with many of my trips to faraway lands, there had been some sort of minor misunderstanding and I couldn’t even get the goddamned airport telephones to work properly.
I was fucked. A stranger in a strange land.
And just to make matters worse, the blazing Los Angeles afternoon sunshine was not deceiving my brain into thinking it was anything other than the midnight GMT my body-clock was hard-wired to. So I hung around for about an hour or so, and just as I was getting ready to go find a hotel for the evening a voice arose from out of nowhere:
“Hey Mortimer!”
It was Andy Andrist, I later discovered - a stand up comic from Eugene who had been asked by Doug to come out and collect me. Thank fuck, I said to myself, city life isn’t my forte and I wasn’t looking forward to trying to navigate my way around Los Angeles.
After some brief introductions, and once we had picked up Cocktease Kelly - a tall dark attractive brunette who had just come off an internal flight from Wisconsin - we took a short trip to pick up some beer before proceeding to Stanhope’s abode.
When we arrived I almost buckled over with the sheer irony of it all. Here was the home of one of America’s most anti-American stand up comics: painted out in red and white stripes with the blue house next door complete with stars.
Nice, I said to myself, this guy’s sense of humour must run deep.
Doug was filming for The Man Show that day and would meet up with us later that evening. So we cracked open some beer and for the first time ever I enjoyed the gratifying heat of the Los Angeles sun.
By early evening Doug’s wife Renee had arrived home and, being her birthday, we all made arrangements to go out and celebrate at O’Brien’s. I was a little apprehensive about them leaving the apartment doors unlocked whilst a homeless lady slept out on their front porch; but, as I later found out, Patty was one of the most honest and trustworthy individuals that I’ve ever met in my entire life. Clearly in Los Angeles people did things very differently indeed.
O’Brien’s was the local Irish theme bar and was exactly what I needed to gradually break into the American lifestyle. A taste of home was the impression I got, except that smoking inside was prohibited, plus there was a bunch of dipsticks in the backroom watching Friends and laughing uproariously.
“Do you guys actually find this guff funny?” I asked Andy.
“Hell no,” came his reply, “but some local chick has managed to get a small part in the show so everyone thinks she’s hit the big time.”
It was laughable but understandable. As I later learned at a Man Show shoot the next day: everyone around Hollywood wants to be a star.
By the time Stanhope arrived I was struggling to stay awake, but I was determined to reach midnight in an effort to try and kill the jetlag early so that my trip to the desert could be fully appreciated. Brian Hennigan was there (Doug’s Edinburgh based UK manager) so I talked some bullshit to him for a while before Stanhope realised that I was staggering around uncontrollably, slurring my words, and in desperate need of some rest. Promptly a taxi was hailed and I was kindly escorted back to the apartment to get some much needed sleep.
In the morning I arose early and went walkabout to find my bearings. By the time I returned everyone else was awake and chuckling about my antics the previous night. Apparently they’d all come back to Doug’s for a drink at around 2 am at which point they’d watched me ascend from bed and try to open up a wall heater cover in the sitting room.
“How the hell do I get into this taxi cab?” I had asked.
I have no recollection of this event, but apparently I was quickly put back to bed out of fear that my deranged mindset might mutate to the point that I’d assume the wall heater had become a public urinal.
“Are you still up for Drunken Crossfire tonight?” asked Stanhope.
“What the hell is that?” I replied.
“We talked about it last night, remember? All you have to do is get hammered and debate politics with some other drunken assholes.”
It sounded okay to me as I’m usually a pro at that sort of thing back home. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for that evening, but this was the American Dream, right? How many people on their first trip to the States get the opportunity to be filmed for TV within 24 hours?
That morning we took a trip out to The Man Show studios where the plans for Drunken Crossfire were discussed and I was introduced to a pretty blonde girl that just couldn’t be convinced to go on a date with me. I wasn’t doing the talking mind you, as Doug was in his element at trying to convince her of my charms.
“She’s nice.” I later remarked on the drive back to his apartment.
“Yeah,” Doug replied. “But she’s the kind of chick you’d have to talk to all night before she’d let you fuck her.”
That afternoon saw the arrival of yet another peculiar character: a long haired ex-priest that went by the name of Father Luke (from Santa Cruz). Apparently Father Luke had been kicked out of the church a number of years back for his extremely unorthodox behaviour. This had subsequently lead to him rejecting the teachings of Christ, but he had chosen to retain his collar and title for what he referred to as The Double Cross Monastery.
By the evening Doug, Andy, myself, Cocktease Kelly, Father Luke and Homeless Patty got in Renee’s VW camper van and took a hazardous trip out to the Drunken Crossfire shoot. Doug wasn’t used to driving with a manual gear stick so we pretty much kangarooed all the way to what seemed like the noisiest bar in the whole of California.
When we arrived, some 250 lb retard - whom I later learned was called Fish - was sweating like a hog and growling like a rabid animal in the corner of the pub. Clearly he had heard of the film shoot that evening and was determined to get noticed so that his ugly fat face could be seen on TV. I, at this point, wasn’t even close to being drunk (despite a number of afternoon beverages), however after signing the mandatory release form and getting wired into another couple of beers, I suddenly came over all light headed which instantly kicked me into paranoid mode:
What in the goddamned hell was I doing out here on a freaking film shoot after only a day in this crazy fucking country?
Exactly what did I just sign up for in that small print release form?
Has my drink been drugged?!
Was I being used as a tool for America’s sick entertainment?
I confronted Andy Andrist who had ordered in the first round of drinks (after all, I could recalled him making some hoo-ha about which pint glass and pitcher he wanted to specifically drink from that evening). Looking back in retrospect now he must’ve thought I was going completely out of my mind for it hadn’t even occurred to me that the jetlag would be playing twisted mind tricks on me. The paranoia passed quickly enough but there was much, much more to come. Not there in that crazy little bar, but a little later on…in the bowels of the desert.
So from what I can recall the Drunken Crossfire filming had been successful enough. To my joy I was seated next to Fish for part of the shoot whom I think I wound up with some flag burning comments (or something as equally provocative and tactless). I thought I was lucky to get away alive that evening when I later met the fat bastard outside. After having smoked some of his grass which he had kindly offered me, I then told him that his lack of compassion for the number of innocent Iraqis killed during Gulf War II was a classic example of the selfish arrogance most Europeans have come to expect from stereotypical Americans such as himself. We made a rapid departure shortly after that as Andy Andrist wasn’t exactly in the guy’s good books either, having also wound him up during the shoot.
The next morning we arose early and got ready to proceed out into the Mojave Desert. There was myself and Stanhope sitting up front in the car with Father Luke chilling out up back. The rest of the vehicle was practically loaded with beer so anyone else that was coming along on the trip was following closely behind in Renee’s VW camper.
Somewhere around Palmdale the camper van’s accelerator cable snapped, and we were forced to attempt some unsuccessful repairs. By what can only be described as divine intervention, Father Luke was in possession of a Triple A Plus card. This meant that we could exchange the vehicle for a rental whilst remaining content in the knowledge that Father’s holy card would allow us free towing back to LA on our return.
“So when was the last time you drove a car?” Doug asked the Good Father.
“Oh, about 15 years ago,” came his unexpected reply.
“So why do you have Triple A Plus?” asked Doug.
“Well, a lot of my friends drive cars,” replied the Father.
And at that there was no more doubts in any of our minds that this man was a representative of God.
The trip to Panamint Springs took another couple of hours, but there was plenty of weird shit to check out on the way. First up was what appeared to be a commercial aeroplane storage facility - a huge area of desert that eerily held what looked like virtually hundreds of brand new passenger planes. This was followed up by Trona - an old borax mining town that clearly went out of fashion around the same time Flash Liquid was invented. From here it was only 26 miles to Panamint Springs, and on the last stretch of road the beers were cracked open and the music cranked up.
Panamint Springs is a 15 room resort comprising of restaurant, bar and camping ground (situated directly across the street). There’s about 15 or so ex-cons living up behind the motel in trailers and a pig pen off to the side with the fattest looking swine that I’d seen since leaving LA.
“What makes you think they’re all ex-criminals living up there behind the motel in those trailers?” I asked Brian Hennigan.
“Well,” he replied, “there’s only two reasons why you’d want to live out here in the middle of the desert. The first is that you really like the desert; and the second is that you’ve got nowhere else to go.”
He had a valid point, although surely the seventeen year old girl and her parents who run the place didn’t have any criminal records.
“You can clearly see all those guys that work in this joint just itching for that girl to turn eighteen,” remarked Stanhope.
“What?” I enquired. “Is the legal age for consent as late as eighteen in this country?”
“Oh yeah,” he replied.
“Good God!” I remarked. “Thanks for telling me before I tried something criminally stupid.”
As the afternoon rolled on, more and more of the party rolled in, however things didn’t really kick off until a bus load of Japanese tourists arrived to look solely at three rare cacti plants out by the side of the road.
“What the fuck are they doing?” someone remarked.
And before anyone could answer, Renee had taken off her top and was running down towards the bus to greet them with open arms. They didn’t stay long after that. In fact many of the Japs were averting their eyes from Renee’s tits (weird oriental fuckers).
Things got kinda twisted from that moment on. As more and more of the party arrived (some 40-odd in total) there was some minor apprehension as Renee received a call on her cell phone to learn that "the mushroom driver", by a strange twist of fate, had blown his transmission right around Palmdale. I was beginning to think Palmdale was the Village of the Damned, although I wasn’t all that bothered myself as there was plenty of beer lying around and I’d never really participated in a shroom trip before. Something about someone called Mohawk Bob is all I can remember, and then I went back to getting shit-faced.
By this time the barbeque was underway and Tommy Rocker had arrived from Vegas to set up his gear. As the sun began to set on the desert horizon Stanhope appeared in front of me like a sand genie and told me to open my hand.
“Here, swallow these,” he instructed, and then he dropped around seven or eight dried mushrooms into my palm.
Being my ever cautious self I ate just one and then stuck the rest of the shrooms in my back pocket.
“Swallow them all,” he advised.
“I will do,” I replied, “but this is my first ever shroom trip and I’d like to test out the terrain.”
I had no idea at that point that the shrooms were extremely scarce. For all I knew the mysterious mushroom driver had somehow finally managed to get to the party. But, give Doug his due, he left me alone to figure it all out on my own.
It didn’t take me long before I swallowed the rest of the shrooms. After about 15 minutes of waiting for something interesting to happen I’d come to the conclusion that a much larger dose was definitely required - so I swallowed the lot and then promptly forgot all about it.
It is now, however, that things get kinda hazy for me:
I have images of Tommy Rocker playing an AC/DC number and Stanhope running around wearing a huge pair of sunglasses, leopard print trousers, and a weird sparkly jacket. There was a freaky looking dude called Uncle Fucker there, whose face kept changing every time I took a look at him. Ghostbusters and Jerry Springer comes instantly to mind, although I’ve absolutely no idea why.
Showers seemed to be my way of coping with the shroom trip and I must have had what seems like 180 of them, at least. Until I lay on the bed and watched the dents in the ceiling move around like spaced out amoebas - at which point I rolled around on the floor of my apartment and laughed in uncontrollable hysterics.
I recall approaching Brett Alan, a stand up comic from New York, who asked me if I was tripping. I replied that I was, to which he said: “Aw you’ve gotta have sex when you’re trippin’ man.”
“Why’s that? I enquired.
“Cos it’ll feel like the tip of your dick will shoot off and explode into space!” came his reply.
I buckled over and fell into a frenzy again, and thought about that concept for at least two hours straight.
Things didn’t get any more sensible as the night rolled on, although after around two or three hours I had began to straighten up quite nicely.
Suddenly Andy appeared, in a pair of denim dungarees, with one strap hanging off a shoulder, and a bunch of pink flowers held tightly in his hand. Meticulous accuracy, I thought to myself: the ultimate in redneck attire.
“It’s time for some Piggy Courtin’!” he exclaimed, and then ran off like a deranged spastic in the direction of the pig pen.
I had to follow. I mean, what in the hell was this lunatic gonna do next for Christsakes?
Andy leapt the fence of the pig pen and got down on his hands and knees.
“Here piggy piggy!” he wooed. “Come on home to daddy!”
“Brave motherfucker,” I found myself saying out loud, “those goddamned pigs have got tusks!”
Andy was undeterred, until the local pig-tender arrived and put a stop to his antics. Probably just as well, I thought. Those pigs were beginning to sound pretty fucking angry.
The next morning I awoke relatively early - without any hot chicks in my bed - and went off to get a breakfast beer from the bar. I wasn’t all that bothered. Getting laid wasn’t what this trip was all about for me, and besides, sex might’ve put a damper on things since from previous experience it can have a tendency to lead to such emotions of jealousy, suspicion and resentment.
The breakfast beer was called Sierra Nevada and comprised of what looked like a 3 pint glass consisting of the weirdest tasting real ale that I’d ever tried in my life. Primordial soup springs to mind, but it was wet and I was thirsty and to my astonishment we had virtually run out of all our own alcoholic refreshments.
Erica, Hennigan and Paulie were the heroes of the day, who shot off on a 26 mile beer run to the sinister town of Trona. How had we managed to get through so much booze? Good god, it wasn’t like there wasn’t any other substances floating around the camp.
After my second glass of primordial soup, I was well in need of yet another shower, and so I took a brief leave of absence and missed a major event in military history.
Andy had appeared with a Super-Soaker on his back and a twisted evil plan. There were a group of Asian tourists just waking up over in the campground, and in Andy’s eyes they were just provoking him into “a pre-emptive strike”.
Water cannons, squirt guns, Super-Soakers and other weapons of mass destruction were amassed, whilst an assault team of around eight to ten were gathered for what can only be described as Operation Ethnic Cleansing.
Across the highway and through the trees they made low until finally those “Yellow Devils” were in their line of sight. Screaming Japanese were outnumbered by the militia and taken out by their own camp. With the stars and stripes flying over the motel behind them, it must’ve been a fitting image of victory and a proud moment for all in American history.
Oil wrestling was next on the agenda and I was put up against Kimmie. But how was I gonna intimidate this girl when she was armed with a whiffle baseball bat?
It was time for Doktor Throbb!
Father Luke sought out some eye mascara and by the time I had finished I had made myself out to look like a cross between Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons and King Diamond. With the remaining mascara I emblazoned the words “Doktor Throbb” across my chest. Well, nothing scares a chick more than the concept of an evil looking medical type dude with a dick the size of a chainsaw.
Complete with ladies straw hat I entered the ring (a tarpaulin sheet smeared heavily with baby oil). The sprinklers were switched on and the bout commenced.
At first I was struck repeatedly by the bat, but quickly I took control of the fight before being caught unaware and wrestled to the ground. Kimmie was weak however, and I overcame her quickly. Damnit, why is there always an audience around when your sliding about in baby oil with a scantly clad eighteen year old?
The next event of the day was Naked Hitchhiking. This would double up quite nicely, Doug thought, as a sketch for The Man Show. The plan was relatively simple:
Take the minivan a mile down the highway and set Cocktease Kelly outside of it to hitchhike. The wheel of the van had to be removed of course, so that it would look like she’d genuinely broken down. When a car would stop to offer her a lift, four naked dudes could then jump out of the van and try to get in the car.
The concept sounded perfect and prior to a smoke of grass across at the campsite I was up for getting in on the antics myself. But the dope had shifted the pace on me and I had just entered in on an intense introspective nightmare.
Now I’m one of those guys that shouldn’t smoke the weed, that’s plain and simple. Some people can relax and let go (or at least stare into space for over an hour), however, I’m no longer one of them. Sure, I smoked a shit-load of dope in my youth, but I’ve found over the past few years that I’m completely incapable of getting anything out of it these days other than paranoia.
And by fuck did the paranoia kick in.
I suppose it could only be a native of Scotland that could get suspicious of happiness, but that’s exactly what happened to me as the sheer liberation of not being rained on, physically threatened or in anyway involved in an argument all became quite alien.
Could freedom such as this truly be for real, or did there have to be some kind of catch?
I was going to find out.
Suddenly thoughts of television contracts and those small print release forms came pounding into my head as I spotted a large camper van with tinted dark windows sitting over by the campsite.
Could they stick hidden cameras in there? Were we all part of a reality TV show?
Damnit, those release forms! That had to be it! There was hardly a person in this resort that hadn’t signed a goddamned release. Was everything else just a means of getting us to sign on the dotted line?
Drunken Crossfire?
Naked Hitchhiking?
Sure they’d make amusing pieces in themselves but shit, these TV guys could depict us however the hell they wanted! We were all fucked!
Hidden Camera Reality TV. It was a damn clever concept and the only logical next step in entertaining the bored masses. Everything else had been done except for filming unaware people in a Big Brother type senario.
This was the first step towards The Truman Show.
I took a walk over to the campsite to check out the van. A thick black cable protruded from the back of the vehicle and ran in the direction of a similar van several yards away.
Oh my god, I thought, this place is all rigged up (it hadn’t even occurred to me that the campsite would supply its campers with electricity).
I promptly returned to my room.
Was there hidden cameras rigged up in here too?
I looked along the walls and in the corners for any holes.
What the fuck was this behind the picture?
And as I removed the picture off its hook I found a large circular hole, approximately six inches in diameter, cut straight through to the cavity of the wall. My mind was spinning in circles. So much so in fact that eventually mental exhaustion overcame me and I collapsed onto the bed.
Two hours later I woke up and chuckled at the sheer stupidity of my paranoia. Make a mental note, I said to myself, these fuckers smoke pure grass joints out here, and the equivalent of six pints of beer before elevensies is probably not a good idea in this 110° heat.
So I went out to find the rest of the party, who were thankfully oblivious to my suspicions, and I grabbed a beer and got right back in with it all. Shit, what was I worried about: that at worst the rest of the world might realise that we were all having some fun?
After ordering some food in the restaurant and drinking some much needed water I joined the rest of the party who had progressed across to the campsite.
Where was everyone?
Was the party beginning to wane?
Damnit I was pro. I could keep going.
Suddenly Andy had an idea: he wanted to be painted blue. So quickly he stripped off all his clothes and got some of the others to paint his entire body.
“I think I’ll have my knob done white,” he remarked. And so it was done.
“We should get the telescope,” said Stanhope. And off someone went to find the damn thing. Fifteen minutes later there was still no sign of the telescope or the person who had gone to fetch it, so someone else disappeared in an effort to try and find it too. This pattern continued until there was only about five people left around the campfire, at which point Renee was now painted blue with some of Uncle Fucker’s skeletal artwork decorated all over her chest.
I was sure I could see Uncle Fucker beginning to drool, but this was nothing really unusual I later learned, as he had a bit of a reputation for being a bit of a pervert.
Father Luke arrived back at the campsite, with a story about some jerks giving him shit up on the grassy knoll. So we all got naked, set off some fireworks and cheered like we were invincible.
In many ways we were: completely lawless - gods of the desert - masters of our own reality.
As we proceeded back to the resort I spied some decorative scarecrows standing out by the side of the restaurant. Don’t ask me why I picked them up, perhaps I thought it would make the diminishing party look larger, but minutes later someone had set them ablaze and a mass of people appeared dancing manically around them.
There had been a much needed delivery of shroomage.
I decided to pass on the trip, despite the previous night’s positive experience, but instead made plans to prepare an assault on one of the nearest desert hills. I was completely drunk of course, and had absolutely no idea before I departed that the desert surface would resemble that of Mars; but as I clambered over jagged rocks and boulders for half an hour I was not disappointed by the celestial view at the top of the hill.
Things got kinda scary on the way back however, as noises I hadn’t heard on my ascent were very much present on my descent. Exactly how I didn’t get bitten by rattle snakes, stung by scorpions or eaten by coyotes is a fucking miracle to me.
Things were also getting pretty crazy down at the resort. The Japs from the campsite opposite were kindly setting off fireworks, whilst the rest of the party ran around in a twisted drug fuelled frenzy. I needed to get close to their mindset, so I grabbed the next best thing: a half-full bottle of Tequila; and with a Sombrero on my head and my by now broken sunglasses, I wandered around for what seemed like hours putting on my poorest Mexican voice.
My memory blanks out at this point, I merely recall going to bed, but by the morning we all knew that we had participated in something very special. Never in my life had I met such a wonderful group of people; all of whom were unique and all of whom had the ability to check their egos upon arrival at the location. This was pure brotherhood, and although we had no direct affiliation, we were now forever related by the mysteries of the desert.
However life turns out and whatever fate dishes out, none of us will ever be able to look each other in the eye again without letting out a smile. To me that’s something very special and amazing, and on a planet where people are forever in hostility, Panamint Springs 2003 stands as a perfect example of human equality, tolerance and amity.
For many the story ends right here, but for me I had another five days in California before returning home to the UK. In that time I got closer to some of my new friends and on each occasion that we met, we always met with an evil smile.
By Tuesday, Father Luke had gotten the dates of the party tattooed onto his forearm, whilst on Wednesday Brett Alan came down to hang out for the whole of the Thursday. Erica took us all out that day to see a baseball game, which was pretty incredible for me since I haven’t even been to see a football/soccer match (my country’s national sport).
Baseball’s a weird fucking game, mind you. By pure chance I walked in on the Seventh Inning Stretch to find a stadium full of Dodgers fans clapping and swaying along to what seemed very much like cartoon music. I’d swallowed part of a space-cake earlier, of course, which certainly added to the surreality of the event.
I think the most amusing part of the game for me was having a cigarette in the smoking box. This was an area of the stadium which resembled a prison cell, as though America specifically knew that all of its dissidents would be smokers. There was a TV within the box, however, showing live coverage of the game. It’s function I imagine was to beckon all undesirables back into the patriotic land of cartoons, hotdogs and blind obedience to the flag.
I tried to take Doug and Renee out for a meal on my final night in the States, simply as a gesture of thanks. Damnit, they wouldn’t even let me pay the goddamned bill. Father Luke had said it best on Monday when he remarked: “It doesn’t seem to matter how fucking hard I try to show some kindness towards them, they have always been kinder to me than I could ever hope to match.”
media-underground.net