2:22 PM | 
Posted by
Joe M. Owens
MOvember 2010 -- Final Update
13 years ago
Friday, April 24, 2009
There are no words to express the awesome...
Much like lobster knife fight...
Words fail me when trying to describe this video. Whether you like bikes or just rad stuff in general (yes, rad), Danny MacAskill would just like you to know one thing: he owns you.
Words fail me when trying to describe this video. Whether you like bikes or just rad stuff in general (yes, rad), Danny MacAskill would just like you to know one thing: he owns you.
An Afternoon with Ralph Steadman
I once had a creative writing professor tell me that there is no such thing as writer’s block. You only feel that way when you have nothing to say.
That very idea terrifies me beyond any words in Webster’s dictionary.
I’ve either had nothing to say for the past six months or I have a case of terminal writer’s block. No, really, it’s killing me. Or it could be that I’ve been putting too much pressure on myself, thus not liking the things I do want to say and, unwittingly, creating the writer’s block.
Ok, deep breath... Real or imagined, my creative mojo has dried up!
I’ve been told that the best recipe for a writer without ideas is traveling. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it sounds good and I need to go somewhere. Anywhere. Just get me the hell out of Dodge! The spring semester is coming to a close and I’ve decided the summer is my ticket out of writer’s purgatory.
A few weeks ago, I found a brochure tacked to the wall on the fourth floor of the English department:
London, Literature and Theater it says.
Sponsored by Such-and-such University it says.
Headed by Director What’s-her-name it says.
Perfect.
I figure I already speak the language and I’ll have three weekends to explore the countryside. This sounds like just what I need.
Immediately, I check my bank accounts to make sure funds are in order and transfer some money from my somewhat depleted savings to my checking account. Next, I browse airlines for a decent fare to the UK.
As it turns out, United Airlines is offering a “Jolly Old England” promotion and before confirming the trip’s cost with Director What’s-her-name, I immediately book a flight: $699. One way or another, come May, I’m leaving on a goddamn jet plane.
Perhaps my enthusiasm for leaving the country requires a bit of explanation.
Graduate school is a colossal testament to the power of the human will. The kind of pressure endured by most graduate students would be enough to drive most people to substance abuse. In fact, many grad students I know are addicts of some kind or another:
Caffeine, sleeping pills, prescription anti-depressants, amphetamines, alcohol; controlled substances are simply used to cope, get by, concentrate and excel. My first semester as a master’s English Literature student saw innumerable weeks of 20-hour workdays and four-hours of sleep a night.
This hellish work schedule isn’t as much a choice as it is compulsory. There simply is no other way a human being can read more than 10,000 pages in four months and live to tell about it.
Here are some tips I’ve learned: No-Doz and Red Bull cocktails should be consumed throughout the day to maintain exceptional levels of concentration (albeit with a side order of jitters).
Ny-Quil and Tylenol PM should be taken together to rid the industrious graduate student of the unsavory shakes and force his or her body into a restless coma-like state for a couple hours until the alarm goes off and he or she repeats the cycle all over again.
However, it must be stressed that this is not an ideal way for an individual to live if he or she has a nine-to-five job, and should by no means be attempted by the inexperienced. Graduate students are professionals in excess legal (and many times, illegal) pharmaceutical consumption.
Some students opt for the latter— I, the former.
For the overly ambitious, buying Adderall and Ritalin off the Internet is not unheard of. I once read in a magazine that depressives have Prozac, worrywarts have Valium, gym rats have steroids, and overachievers have Adderall. Used to treat ADHD patients, the drug is an explosive Molotov cocktail of amphetamines that increases alertness, concentration, and mental-processing speed while decreasing fatigue.
So tell me what the downside is again?
In fact, there’s a history lesson here. I promise I’ll be brief. In 1959, Jack Kerouac got hopped up on Benzedrine (a now prescription-only predecessor to Adderall) and wrote On the Road during a three-week writing bender. I assume to prove a point, Kerouac wrote the whole damn thing in a continuous 120-foot-long, single-spaced paragraph that just flowed right down a single scroll of paper.
However, for what it’s worth, possessing Adderall or Benzedrine without a prescription is a felony in many states.
And the downside rears its ugly head.
Like Kerouac, I hope three weeks will be enough time for rekindling my creative fire. Unlike Kerouac, however, I hope to do it through less extreme (and far more legal) measures.
***
For the past two months, work on my graduate thesis has come to a proverbial, and somewhat clichéd, grinding halt.
I’ve been stuck in research limbo, searching for a topic after deciding that a traditional statistics-based thesis was not for me.
Like most wide-eyed graduate students, I originally wanted to change the world with my research. This idea was probably pushing it, so I decided I’d at least settle for something different— something semi-important.
After writing conference papers for the past two years, I really don’t want to open a book, pick some established theory, create a framework and use a tried and true method to test something no one gives two shits about (technically speaking, of course).
I guess what I really want to do is talk to people.
At the end of the day, I want to gather enough information to create something meaningful to myself as well as interesting for others to read. This is getting deep, isn’t it? Bear with me.
But the first and only idea I have just plays on an endless loop in my mind like a scratched record: Hunter S. Thompson, Hunter S. Thompson, Hunter S... I guess I’ll settle for interesting.
The pressure I’ve been putting on myself to make something ingenious has been terrifying. I feel claustrophobic at all times, constantly finding myself going back to Ralph Waldo Emerson when he says, “No matter where you go, there you are.”
Truthfully, I’m beginning to hate Emerson.
I’m stuck in my own head and can’t get out from under this (mostly self-imposed) weight I feel. The only logical solution, then, is to at least get away from the everyday ebb and flow and refresh my enthusiasm.
Checking my email four days before I leave, I see an email from William McKeen, a Hunter S. Thompson biographer from the University of Florida. It read:
Joe,
I just got back. Call me in the next 10 minutes if you can. It will help me avoid a meeting.
WILLIAM McKEEN, Professor and Chair
University of Florida Department of Journalism
Now here’s some history about a guy who knows a guy.
The first guy I know is from the journalism department at my own university named David Bulla who knows William McKeen from Florida. Bulla gave me McKeen’s email address and mentioned my name. The ball was in my court now.
I dropped McKeen a line a few weeks earlier with the hope that I could do something on Hunter that no one else had done before. He said he’d been sick for the past week, so he wasn’t able to take calls— fair enough.
I was on my way out the door when I got his message. Immediately, I got out my laptop to take some notes and phoned him.
I was typing so fast that, if it were in my own handwriting, it’d be mostly unintelligible gibberish. I could barely even decipher the code I had typed, but at least it all somehow made a little sense.
McKeen gave me the contact information of two key individuals: Tom Corcoran, a friend and collaborator of Hunter’s in the late 1970s and Ralph Steadman, Hunter’s close friend and illustrator for 35 years.
From the way things were looking, I might have a little work to do on vacation— a perfectly acceptable sacrifice in my opinion.
I immediately sent emails off to the contacts I’d acquired from McKeen and began packing for London. The larger suitcase I filled with clothes, shoes and toiletry items. The smaller case I packed with books, a laptop computer, power adapters and an early 1990s tape recorder.
I decided to pack light on clothes because Director What’s-her-name told the group at an orientation meeting the previous week that we’d have washer and dryer units in the flats. For an extra $1,000 US, I could even get my own apartment. That’d be perfect working conditions (when I wasn’t relaxing, of course) so I jumped at the opportunity.
There was only three more days until departure.
***
Flash forward.
Even with my seat belt buckled and tray table in its upright position, I’m still getting a bad feeling just sitting on the runway at Chicago’s Ohare International Airport.
Not because I’m nervous about flying— I’m not— but for the fact that we have been sitting in the same spot at our gate for an hour, waiting on two passengers.
Flying to London takes enough time as it is without the absolute mind-numbing delay of waiting for people who could do the rest of us a huge favor and simply catch a later flight.
To no one in particular, I mutter that it better be the goddamn prime minister and the queen mother… Only heads of state and royalty should be allowed to delay a potentially mutinous group of international travelers for more than an hour. Cramped seats, irascible travelers, stale air, fetid breath and terrible food can only create a recipe for disaster.
During the nearly eight-hour flight, I have plenty of time to mull over two terribly exciting emails I received only the day before from Ralph Steadman, the renegade Doodaaa-Gonzo artist-extraordinaire himself.
From: Ralph Steadman
To: Joe M. Owens
Subject: Re: "The Curse of Lono" thesis
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 19:42:37 +0100
Dear Joe
Thanks for your kind comments. Re a meeting- we are here at the studio and house and the numbers are 05555 876543/house, and 05555 123456/studio. Why don't you give me a call when you are in town?
Regards
RALPH
To the untrained eye, there isn’t much to see here, but already the gears are spinning inside my head like mad.
After kicking a few ideas around with McKeen the day before, I decided to revisit a book by Thompson and Steadman called The Curse of Lono that went virtually unnoticed, receiving little acclaim when it was released in 1983. I quickly became determined to figure out why this cult classic was a critical failure. In a reply message to Steadman, I responded:
From: Joe M. Owens
To: Ralph Steadman
Subject: Re: "The Curse of Lono" thesis
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 08:39:43 -0500 (CDT)
Dear Ralph,
Your timing couldn't be better. Thank you so very much for getting back to me. I'll be boarding my flight for London tomorrow [arriving VERY early Saturday morning]. Maybe we can set something up for Sunday? I'll definitely give you a call. I cannot tell you how appreciative I am.
Best,
Joe
I assumed that, best-case scenario, I’d be able to talk to him on the phone from a cheap local number. However, I was shocked when I received a golden egg:
From: Ralph Steadman
To: Joe M. Owens
Subject: Re: "The Curse of Lono" thesis
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 18:01:35 +100
Dear Joe,
If you fancy a trip into Kent on a train (1 hour) to Maidstone East you could come to lunch on Sunday?? Any good??
RALPH
This was the break I was certainly hoping for, but not remotely expecting. Far more than I could have imagined, I would actually sit down, face-to-face, with the man himself.
I re-read the emails over and over while an exceptionally overweight man one row ahead crushes my knees with the back of his seat. He has it reclined as far back (and then some) as it can possibly go. Blocking out the pain, I begin thinking of the questions I should ask Steadman when I arrive in Kent.
***
Flash forward.
Having been inside the plane for eight hours (after the captain promised it’d be slightly less than seven) my nerves begin rapidly to fray. A line from the Curse of Lono skips along inside my head like a game of hopscotch: One, two… Why do they lie to us? Three, four… Why do they lie…
Captain No-one-in-particular comes back on the speaker and announces that due to “heavy air traffic,” we are circling London and “it will only be another five to ten minutes.”
Five and then ten minutes come and go, as does fifteen, twenty, twenty-five and thirty. Five more minutes… Five more minutes… Why do they lie to us? Goddamnit!
Forty-five minutes of airplane dodge ball and we are finally descending. I’ve completely pitted out my shirt with perspiration, brought on by fearfully watching a surplus of planes circling London, all coming unnervingly close to us, and one another.
I see flashes of news headlines that include the words: “Giant balls of flaming death!” racing through my mind like the ticker tape on CNN.
The plane finally “lands”— which is a very generous term for the actual event itself. I’ve never been so happy to deplane and wait at a baggage claim in my life.
After taking my sweet time locating and gathering my luggage, I ask for directions to the train that will take me to my flat in central London. The bad feeling I had on the runway in Chicago has insidiously crept back into the pit of my stomach.
The train is down for maintenance but there is a free bus, ferrying travelers to the first operational train stop. I begin to feel like someone is playing a joke on me, only it’s not funny at all.
I hop on the bus and pray.
I’m not particularly religious, but I do it anyway. After driving for fifteen minutes, I realize we haven’t even left the Heathrow grounds yet. It’s like an evil labyrinth and I wonder if there isn’t a Minotaur lurking somewhere on a street corner in need of slaying.
At this rate, next Sunday may prove a more timely date for my interview with Steadman. Safely arriving at the train station affirms that I’ve completed only half of the journey.
Navigating flights of stairs, up and down, with more than a hundred pounds of luggage proves every bit the Herculean task one assumes it would be. The Piccadilly train goes as far as Oxford Circus, where I switch to a Central Line train on the way to my final stop, Chancery Lane. My jetlagged brain tries to keep up with the information but is sorely over-matched.
Chancery Lane appears, not surprisingly, only after one final trial of stairs and escalators.
Three hours after arriving in London, I ring the bell to my flat. Director What’s-her-name comes down the stairs and lets me in, giving me a set of keys to my flat.
With all of the energy I can muster, I dig out my laptop and send two emails: one to my fiancé, saying I made it safely and I love her. And one to Ralph:
From: Joe M. Owens
To: Ralph Steadman
Subject: Re: Lono and Lunch?
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 04:15:43 -0500 (CDT)
Dear Ralph,
I have arrived at my flat in Jolly Old London. The good news: We have a phone here, however there are 2 problems. One - I was told I need a phone card to use it for outgoing calls and, Two - I'm not sure what the number is for receiving incoming calls. Thus, I will be venturing out after a nap [my body is telling me it is 4:00 a.m. and I've yet to sleep] and buying a phone card. Is your offer still good for lunch tomorrow? I can definitely make it. A little Tylenol PM tonight and I'll be right as rain for tomorrow. I hope all is well.
Regards,
Joe
Sleep depravation does strange and frightening things to people. Doctors will tell you that an individual should never combine controlled prescription substances such as powerful sleeping aids with a psychological state of mind created by an over-caffeinated race through 48 straight restless hours of travel-- that is unless, he or she is a professional OR a graduate student-- potentially both. And if doctors don’t say that, then they probably should.
This alarming combination creates a new stage of sleep that even geniuses with advanced degrees have not yet discovered. Only Rod Serling has come close to defining it with The Twilight Zone series.
I awaken from my narcoleptic hangover six or maybe eleven hours later. I’m not really sure. I immediately fall back asleep and don’t get out of bed again until 10:00 p.m. When I finally manage to get back to my email, there is another message from Ralph:
From: Ralph Steadman
To: Joe M. Owens
Subject: Re: Lono and Lunch?
Date: Thu, 1 May 2007 10:42:35 +100
Dear Joe
That's OK. You can get a train from Victoria to MAIDSTONE EAST. It takes about an hour then if you wouldn't mind, get a Cab outside the station and ask for Old Loose Court- mention LANCET LANE if the cabby looks puzzled- it’s a couple of miles out of the town on the A229 route to Hastings. Down to the bottom of Lancet Lane- turn right into Old Drive- then 50 yards along to gate on the left which is our gate to House in its own grounds- Old Loose Court! We have a guest for the weekend- a writer called Sally Vincent who said she would be delighted to meet a real live American! I said I had never met you and you may be a slob- but then you sound
OK to me so let's all take pot luck....
If you arrive around 12.30- 1pm that would be fine- with your Tylenol eyes- we will be waiting to greet you.
OK
RALPH
The next day, I make my way to the Victoria train station. Mysteriously, and much to my astonishment, I encountered no problems at all. The train was on time and an hour later, I’d be stepping off the platform in Kent at Maidstone East.
Earlier this morning, I had decided to take all train and bus trips as opportunities to write. I’m hoping the countryside and isolation will help me take a literary sledgehammer to my writer’s cinder block. As it stands, I’m staring at a blank page in my Moleskine notebook.
***
Stepping from the train to the platform, I breathe in the fresh Welsh air and jokingly say to myself I’m home— in a manner of speaking anyway. Like Ralph Steadman, I happen to be Welsh.
I follow the remaining passengers off the platform and around a corner to the parking lot. People here are getting into cabs or waiting for loved ones to pick them up. I stand by a couple bickering about something in French near a payphone.
After standing in the cold Welsh drizzle for nearly ten minutes without any sign of another cab, I apprehensively ask the squabbling couple if taxis stop by this location often, or would I need to call for one? Turns out that it’s the latter and admittedly, I feel a little stupid for standing around looking like a lost tourist.
Fortunately, phone numbers are plastered over every inch of free wall space inside the station’s ticket office. I pick a number at random and pay using the only British coin I have in my pocket, a pound, to make a 20 pence phone call. Two dollars for a forty-cent phone call; you gotta love the exchange rate.
Ten minutes later, I’m picked up by a chatty cabbie and we are on our way to Old Loose Court.
After fifteen minutes or so, the cab turns left through a gate at the end of Lancet Lane. A signed adorned with an unmistakable font reads: Old Loose Court. This is undoubtedly the place.
I pay the cabbie fifteen pounds, which, for a split second, seems steep to me, but I’m too excited to pay it much attention. I ring the doorbell only to hear the muffled melody of “America, the Beautiful” playing from inside the estate. I chuckle to myself at the irony of the tune when the door opens and I’m greeted by Mr. Steadman.
He walks me through his foyer, around a corner and into the dining area, just off the kitchen. His signature artwork is framed throughout the house, as well as stacks of books, magazine articles and papers. I’m incredibly tempted to touch this and flip through that, but refrain. I remind myself that I’m a respectable graduate student here on serious research-oriented business.
Introductions are made all around. To my right sits his wife, Anna, and weekend guest, author, Sally Vincent, both busily preparing lunch. A table stands to my left where Ralph motions me toward a chair.
I’m also offered a cigarette but decline. I mention I gave up any and all tobacco for bicycling two years ago; “A healthier, but no less addicting vice,” I quip. The whole situation seems surreal and before I know it Ralph Steadman is pouring me a glass of wine and sitting down to chat.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit thin?” Steadman asks.
“Pardon?”
“Doing a thesis on The Curse of Lono,” he repeats, taking a long and thoughtful drink of his wine. “It just seems a bit thin for a Master’s thesis to me.”
I explain that questions like his are exactly the reason I am doing my thesis project on Lono.
When it was released in 1983, it was all but dismissed by critics and consumers. Only years later has it gained an underground cult following and I want to know why.
I want to know many things— everything, really. Why did Hunter hate sharing the byline with Ralph? A nugget of information I gleaned from McKeen. Why didn’t he want to write it in the first place? What did Ralph think about the project 24 years later?
Ralph sits down at his kitchen table and rolls a cigarette. In fact, I’m not really sure if Ralph ever smokes any cigarette he doesn’t roll himself.
My mind drifts a little and I ask him about his doorbell.
He tells me that, years ago, he actually considered applying for US citizenship. When Ralph told Hunter of his intentions, Hunter had other ideas. In a terrific impersonation of Hunter (And really, what else would I expect? He was Thompson’s closest friend for 35 years) he stands up and mutters:
“Ralph, er… I’m going to, uh… do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t ever happen.”
I laugh and ask Ralph, who’s still standing and gesticulating like Hunter, why Thompson didn’t want him to become a red, white and blue citizen. Ralph smiles and, again in the voice of Hunter says, “You’re Welsh Ralph— you can never be an American.”
Since those days, Ralph’s intentions have changed somewhat. Blame it on the current political climate, I assume.
As the day progresses, Ralph and I begin talking, not only about Lono, but everything before and after as well.
Ralph’s wife calls us to lunch but Ralph doesn’t appear to hear her and I am too entrenched in the conversation to stop him.
Ralph asks what I’m studying and I tell him I’m getting a Master’s degree in English-- Literature, in fact. A deep philosophical discussion concerning fate and free will is born from my mentioning a paper I’d recently written on Paradise Lost. Talk of John Milton then prompts Ralph to show me a copy of his book, The Big I Am, which he says is his own version of religion, God and why the hell he’s so damn vindictive.
Anna calls us to lunch for the fourth time and Ralph tells her again, “We’ll be right in.” With an empty stomach, I can feel the wine going quickly to my head, especially when I stand up to make my way into the giant dining room, following my nose toward the smell of something delicious.
The table is laid out with a wonderful assortment of English food: steamed asparagus, a warm potato and bean mash, Welsh sausages and of course, more wine.
We continue to talk throughout lunch. Ralph asks if I like the wine and I affirm that I do. He tells me that it’s his own. He shows me the bottle and sure enough, his signature artwork is on the label. After gawking at the bottle for probably a little too long, he fills up my glass, which, since I have been here, I haven’t quite managed to empty.
After lunch, Ralph asks me to get the books I brought for him to sign.
He gets out his signature fountain pen and fills it with ink. He then begins sketching on the inside title pages and signs each one.
The wine makes this process seem even more exciting and I quietly hope I’m not outwardly embarrassing myself.
Ralph goes on to ask me whether or not I have seen any number of books he has either written, illustrated or both. I tell him truthfully that, many of them, I have not. He and his wife begin whipping books from the shelves and he shows them to me. I must look like a (drunken) kid in a candy store because he starts signing and sketching inside these as well.
I’m left with a giant stack of books in the middle of the dining room table: DoooDaaa, The Devil’s Dictionary (in Greek no less as he’s out of English copies), Untrodden Grapes, I, Leonardo, Paranoids, plus my own three books.
Now finished with lunch and the slightly-tipsy mini-fan session, Ralph asks if I’d like to see his studio. This is an opportunity many people would give limbs for. I tell Ralph I mean this quite literally, as a cashier at a Borders bookstore in the middle of Iowa told me he’d give his left arm to meet the Gonzo artist.
We walk around the back of his house, past his heated in-ground pool, to a garage-like structure with an electronic security keypad. As I wait for the security door to rise, I peer in through giant picture windows.
There are bottles of paint, every size and color imaginable sitting on an enormous drawing table. In the middle of the room is a new piece Ralph is working on, depicting the 1968 riots in Chicago.
I emphatically tell him I could get a lot more writing done if I had a studio like this.
He takes me across the main floor, through a doorway wrapping around toward the back, leading into a room I can only describe as “the gallery”. Here, there are countless pieces of Gonzo artwork, most of which have never been seen by fans of Steadman and Thompson— at least not in person.
Ralph pulls out a bin full of items I can’t quite make out from across the gallery. As I step a little closer, I see that it is collection of Hunter’s various effects: sunglasses, hat, cigarette holder, and many other items.
Ralph puts them on and asks if I’d like a picture.
Ecstatically, I snap a couple of photos of Ralph wearing Hunter’s things and can’t help but feel that I’m slightly cooler than everyone else in the world right now. (Two of these photos would later go on to be published in McKeen’s definitive Hunter Thompson biography, Outlaw Journalist.)
Ralph opens drawer after drawer, revealing spectacular piece after spectacular piece of Gonzo artwork, some of which I have seen, many of which are brand new to me. Finally, he takes out a piece I am intimately familiar with— the original artwork for The Curse of Lono book cover and I immediately ask if he’d pose with it.
Done and done.
After spending a great deal of time with the artwork, Ralph takes me around the rest of the studio.
He shows me the camera room where he creates slides to send to magazines for print. He also takes me into a side chamber, which houses more books he has written, illustrated or both.
The studio building is deceptive in its seemingly diminutive size.
When you think you’ve seen the whole thing, it snakes around another corner into yet another chamber. We end up back in the main section of the studio and begin talking about music.
He puts in a CD of his son’s recording and we stand around listening. I tell Ralph that his son is really talented, to which he unabashedly agrees. We are standing around listening and talking when Anna comes in and let’s us know that it’s beginning to get late and asks if I’d like her to call for a cab.
Much to my surprise, five-and-a-half hours have ticked away.
Ralph, Anna, Sally Vincent and I are all sitting around a table in the back yard by the heated pool. We begin chatting about this and that but it’s hard for me to recall about what exactly. I think my brain has finally reached the point of Gonzo overload.
Ten minutes later, a cab pulls into the drive of Old Loose Court and I say my goodbyes.
It’s really hard to put into words how I’m feeling right now. I’m terribly excited for the opportunity, yet already feeling the weight of my thesis bearing down on me. How can I write anything sub-par and show it to Ralph Steadman? Everything is happening so fast. My own expectations for the project have now skyrocketed out of sight.
***
On the train ride home, the cabin is deathly silent. For an hour, the only voice I hear is from a young boy repeatedly asking his mother, “Have you got another half a banana?”
I become intensely contemplative, reviewing all of the day’s events over and over.
The wine has worn off, yet my head is still spinning. In five-and-a-half hours, we didn’t end up talking much about The Curse of Lono itself per se, but I felt like I’d gained an invaluable wealth of knowledge into the Gonzo subculture.
It almost felt as though I had gone through a phase of initiation to a secret society or something to that effect. I was no longer a mere reader, a simple fan and wayward outsider. I had gained at least a general admission pass to be on the inside.
When I returned to my flat, I composed an email to Ralph and Anna, thanking them for their hospitality. I didn’t send it right away, however. I wanted to wait until I got back to the States after I had time to let the experience fully sink in. The rest of the trip went by and I saw many incredible things, but there was little doubt that the excitement had peaked on day two. Once I got back home, I finally sent the email.
Two days later, I got a response:
From: Ralph Steadman
To: Joe M. Owens
Subject: Re: Thank You
Date: Tue, 5 June 2007 11:24:53 +100
Dear JOE M.
Good job you are back in the States. It was high time! We don't need
your kind in this country. We have important work to do. I hope you
got what you wanted but I sure as hell wasn't going to do it twice.
Remind me to circle around Kansas City on my next trip...
Now get on it and sweat the bastard out. It's the best way.
GOOD LUCK!!
RALPH
That very idea terrifies me beyond any words in Webster’s dictionary.
I’ve either had nothing to say for the past six months or I have a case of terminal writer’s block. No, really, it’s killing me. Or it could be that I’ve been putting too much pressure on myself, thus not liking the things I do want to say and, unwittingly, creating the writer’s block.
Ok, deep breath... Real or imagined, my creative mojo has dried up!
I’ve been told that the best recipe for a writer without ideas is traveling. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it sounds good and I need to go somewhere. Anywhere. Just get me the hell out of Dodge! The spring semester is coming to a close and I’ve decided the summer is my ticket out of writer’s purgatory.
A few weeks ago, I found a brochure tacked to the wall on the fourth floor of the English department:
London, Literature and Theater it says.
Sponsored by Such-and-such University it says.
Headed by Director What’s-her-name it says.
Perfect.
I figure I already speak the language and I’ll have three weekends to explore the countryside. This sounds like just what I need.
Immediately, I check my bank accounts to make sure funds are in order and transfer some money from my somewhat depleted savings to my checking account. Next, I browse airlines for a decent fare to the UK.
As it turns out, United Airlines is offering a “Jolly Old England” promotion and before confirming the trip’s cost with Director What’s-her-name, I immediately book a flight: $699. One way or another, come May, I’m leaving on a goddamn jet plane.
Perhaps my enthusiasm for leaving the country requires a bit of explanation.
Graduate school is a colossal testament to the power of the human will. The kind of pressure endured by most graduate students would be enough to drive most people to substance abuse. In fact, many grad students I know are addicts of some kind or another:
Caffeine, sleeping pills, prescription anti-depressants, amphetamines, alcohol; controlled substances are simply used to cope, get by, concentrate and excel. My first semester as a master’s English Literature student saw innumerable weeks of 20-hour workdays and four-hours of sleep a night.
This hellish work schedule isn’t as much a choice as it is compulsory. There simply is no other way a human being can read more than 10,000 pages in four months and live to tell about it.
Here are some tips I’ve learned: No-Doz and Red Bull cocktails should be consumed throughout the day to maintain exceptional levels of concentration (albeit with a side order of jitters).
Ny-Quil and Tylenol PM should be taken together to rid the industrious graduate student of the unsavory shakes and force his or her body into a restless coma-like state for a couple hours until the alarm goes off and he or she repeats the cycle all over again.
However, it must be stressed that this is not an ideal way for an individual to live if he or she has a nine-to-five job, and should by no means be attempted by the inexperienced. Graduate students are professionals in excess legal (and many times, illegal) pharmaceutical consumption.
Some students opt for the latter— I, the former.
For the overly ambitious, buying Adderall and Ritalin off the Internet is not unheard of. I once read in a magazine that depressives have Prozac, worrywarts have Valium, gym rats have steroids, and overachievers have Adderall. Used to treat ADHD patients, the drug is an explosive Molotov cocktail of amphetamines that increases alertness, concentration, and mental-processing speed while decreasing fatigue.
So tell me what the downside is again?
In fact, there’s a history lesson here. I promise I’ll be brief. In 1959, Jack Kerouac got hopped up on Benzedrine (a now prescription-only predecessor to Adderall) and wrote On the Road during a three-week writing bender. I assume to prove a point, Kerouac wrote the whole damn thing in a continuous 120-foot-long, single-spaced paragraph that just flowed right down a single scroll of paper.
However, for what it’s worth, possessing Adderall or Benzedrine without a prescription is a felony in many states.
And the downside rears its ugly head.
Like Kerouac, I hope three weeks will be enough time for rekindling my creative fire. Unlike Kerouac, however, I hope to do it through less extreme (and far more legal) measures.
***
For the past two months, work on my graduate thesis has come to a proverbial, and somewhat clichéd, grinding halt.
I’ve been stuck in research limbo, searching for a topic after deciding that a traditional statistics-based thesis was not for me.
Like most wide-eyed graduate students, I originally wanted to change the world with my research. This idea was probably pushing it, so I decided I’d at least settle for something different— something semi-important.
After writing conference papers for the past two years, I really don’t want to open a book, pick some established theory, create a framework and use a tried and true method to test something no one gives two shits about (technically speaking, of course).
I guess what I really want to do is talk to people.
At the end of the day, I want to gather enough information to create something meaningful to myself as well as interesting for others to read. This is getting deep, isn’t it? Bear with me.
But the first and only idea I have just plays on an endless loop in my mind like a scratched record: Hunter S. Thompson, Hunter S. Thompson, Hunter S... I guess I’ll settle for interesting.
The pressure I’ve been putting on myself to make something ingenious has been terrifying. I feel claustrophobic at all times, constantly finding myself going back to Ralph Waldo Emerson when he says, “No matter where you go, there you are.”
Truthfully, I’m beginning to hate Emerson.
I’m stuck in my own head and can’t get out from under this (mostly self-imposed) weight I feel. The only logical solution, then, is to at least get away from the everyday ebb and flow and refresh my enthusiasm.
Checking my email four days before I leave, I see an email from William McKeen, a Hunter S. Thompson biographer from the University of Florida. It read:
Joe,
I just got back. Call me in the next 10 minutes if you can. It will help me avoid a meeting.
WILLIAM McKEEN, Professor and Chair
University of Florida Department of Journalism
Now here’s some history about a guy who knows a guy.
The first guy I know is from the journalism department at my own university named David Bulla who knows William McKeen from Florida. Bulla gave me McKeen’s email address and mentioned my name. The ball was in my court now.
I dropped McKeen a line a few weeks earlier with the hope that I could do something on Hunter that no one else had done before. He said he’d been sick for the past week, so he wasn’t able to take calls— fair enough.
I was on my way out the door when I got his message. Immediately, I got out my laptop to take some notes and phoned him.
I was typing so fast that, if it were in my own handwriting, it’d be mostly unintelligible gibberish. I could barely even decipher the code I had typed, but at least it all somehow made a little sense.
McKeen gave me the contact information of two key individuals: Tom Corcoran, a friend and collaborator of Hunter’s in the late 1970s and Ralph Steadman, Hunter’s close friend and illustrator for 35 years.
From the way things were looking, I might have a little work to do on vacation— a perfectly acceptable sacrifice in my opinion.
I immediately sent emails off to the contacts I’d acquired from McKeen and began packing for London. The larger suitcase I filled with clothes, shoes and toiletry items. The smaller case I packed with books, a laptop computer, power adapters and an early 1990s tape recorder.
I decided to pack light on clothes because Director What’s-her-name told the group at an orientation meeting the previous week that we’d have washer and dryer units in the flats. For an extra $1,000 US, I could even get my own apartment. That’d be perfect working conditions (when I wasn’t relaxing, of course) so I jumped at the opportunity.
There was only three more days until departure.
***
Flash forward.
Even with my seat belt buckled and tray table in its upright position, I’m still getting a bad feeling just sitting on the runway at Chicago’s Ohare International Airport.
Not because I’m nervous about flying— I’m not— but for the fact that we have been sitting in the same spot at our gate for an hour, waiting on two passengers.
Flying to London takes enough time as it is without the absolute mind-numbing delay of waiting for people who could do the rest of us a huge favor and simply catch a later flight.
To no one in particular, I mutter that it better be the goddamn prime minister and the queen mother… Only heads of state and royalty should be allowed to delay a potentially mutinous group of international travelers for more than an hour. Cramped seats, irascible travelers, stale air, fetid breath and terrible food can only create a recipe for disaster.
During the nearly eight-hour flight, I have plenty of time to mull over two terribly exciting emails I received only the day before from Ralph Steadman, the renegade Doodaaa-Gonzo artist-extraordinaire himself.
From: Ralph Steadman
To: Joe M. Owens
Subject: Re: "The Curse of Lono" thesis
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 19:42:37 +0100
Dear Joe
Thanks for your kind comments. Re a meeting- we are here at the studio and house and the numbers are 05555 876543/house, and 05555 123456/studio. Why don't you give me a call when you are in town?
Regards
RALPH
To the untrained eye, there isn’t much to see here, but already the gears are spinning inside my head like mad.
After kicking a few ideas around with McKeen the day before, I decided to revisit a book by Thompson and Steadman called The Curse of Lono that went virtually unnoticed, receiving little acclaim when it was released in 1983. I quickly became determined to figure out why this cult classic was a critical failure. In a reply message to Steadman, I responded:
From: Joe M. Owens
To: Ralph Steadman
Subject: Re: "The Curse of Lono" thesis
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 08:39:43 -0500 (CDT)
Dear Ralph,
Your timing couldn't be better. Thank you so very much for getting back to me. I'll be boarding my flight for London tomorrow [arriving VERY early Saturday morning]. Maybe we can set something up for Sunday? I'll definitely give you a call. I cannot tell you how appreciative I am.
Best,
Joe
I assumed that, best-case scenario, I’d be able to talk to him on the phone from a cheap local number. However, I was shocked when I received a golden egg:
From: Ralph Steadman
To: Joe M. Owens
Subject: Re: "The Curse of Lono" thesis
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 18:01:35 +100
Dear Joe,
If you fancy a trip into Kent on a train (1 hour) to Maidstone East you could come to lunch on Sunday?? Any good??
RALPH
This was the break I was certainly hoping for, but not remotely expecting. Far more than I could have imagined, I would actually sit down, face-to-face, with the man himself.
I re-read the emails over and over while an exceptionally overweight man one row ahead crushes my knees with the back of his seat. He has it reclined as far back (and then some) as it can possibly go. Blocking out the pain, I begin thinking of the questions I should ask Steadman when I arrive in Kent.
***
Flash forward.
Having been inside the plane for eight hours (after the captain promised it’d be slightly less than seven) my nerves begin rapidly to fray. A line from the Curse of Lono skips along inside my head like a game of hopscotch: One, two… Why do they lie to us? Three, four… Why do they lie…
Captain No-one-in-particular comes back on the speaker and announces that due to “heavy air traffic,” we are circling London and “it will only be another five to ten minutes.”
Five and then ten minutes come and go, as does fifteen, twenty, twenty-five and thirty. Five more minutes… Five more minutes… Why do they lie to us? Goddamnit!
Forty-five minutes of airplane dodge ball and we are finally descending. I’ve completely pitted out my shirt with perspiration, brought on by fearfully watching a surplus of planes circling London, all coming unnervingly close to us, and one another.
I see flashes of news headlines that include the words: “Giant balls of flaming death!” racing through my mind like the ticker tape on CNN.
The plane finally “lands”— which is a very generous term for the actual event itself. I’ve never been so happy to deplane and wait at a baggage claim in my life.
After taking my sweet time locating and gathering my luggage, I ask for directions to the train that will take me to my flat in central London. The bad feeling I had on the runway in Chicago has insidiously crept back into the pit of my stomach.
The train is down for maintenance but there is a free bus, ferrying travelers to the first operational train stop. I begin to feel like someone is playing a joke on me, only it’s not funny at all.
I hop on the bus and pray.
I’m not particularly religious, but I do it anyway. After driving for fifteen minutes, I realize we haven’t even left the Heathrow grounds yet. It’s like an evil labyrinth and I wonder if there isn’t a Minotaur lurking somewhere on a street corner in need of slaying.
At this rate, next Sunday may prove a more timely date for my interview with Steadman. Safely arriving at the train station affirms that I’ve completed only half of the journey.
Navigating flights of stairs, up and down, with more than a hundred pounds of luggage proves every bit the Herculean task one assumes it would be. The Piccadilly train goes as far as Oxford Circus, where I switch to a Central Line train on the way to my final stop, Chancery Lane. My jetlagged brain tries to keep up with the information but is sorely over-matched.
Chancery Lane appears, not surprisingly, only after one final trial of stairs and escalators.
Three hours after arriving in London, I ring the bell to my flat. Director What’s-her-name comes down the stairs and lets me in, giving me a set of keys to my flat.
With all of the energy I can muster, I dig out my laptop and send two emails: one to my fiancé, saying I made it safely and I love her. And one to Ralph:
From: Joe M. Owens
To: Ralph Steadman
Subject: Re: Lono and Lunch?
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 04:15:43 -0500 (CDT)
Dear Ralph,
I have arrived at my flat in Jolly Old London. The good news: We have a phone here, however there are 2 problems. One - I was told I need a phone card to use it for outgoing calls and, Two - I'm not sure what the number is for receiving incoming calls. Thus, I will be venturing out after a nap [my body is telling me it is 4:00 a.m. and I've yet to sleep] and buying a phone card. Is your offer still good for lunch tomorrow? I can definitely make it. A little Tylenol PM tonight and I'll be right as rain for tomorrow. I hope all is well.
Regards,
Joe
Sleep depravation does strange and frightening things to people. Doctors will tell you that an individual should never combine controlled prescription substances such as powerful sleeping aids with a psychological state of mind created by an over-caffeinated race through 48 straight restless hours of travel-- that is unless, he or she is a professional OR a graduate student-- potentially both. And if doctors don’t say that, then they probably should.
This alarming combination creates a new stage of sleep that even geniuses with advanced degrees have not yet discovered. Only Rod Serling has come close to defining it with The Twilight Zone series.
I awaken from my narcoleptic hangover six or maybe eleven hours later. I’m not really sure. I immediately fall back asleep and don’t get out of bed again until 10:00 p.m. When I finally manage to get back to my email, there is another message from Ralph:
From: Ralph Steadman
To: Joe M. Owens
Subject: Re: Lono and Lunch?
Date: Thu, 1 May 2007 10:42:35 +100
Dear Joe
That's OK. You can get a train from Victoria to MAIDSTONE EAST. It takes about an hour then if you wouldn't mind, get a Cab outside the station and ask for Old Loose Court- mention LANCET LANE if the cabby looks puzzled- it’s a couple of miles out of the town on the A229 route to Hastings. Down to the bottom of Lancet Lane- turn right into Old Drive- then 50 yards along to gate on the left which is our gate to House in its own grounds- Old Loose Court! We have a guest for the weekend- a writer called Sally Vincent who said she would be delighted to meet a real live American! I said I had never met you and you may be a slob- but then you sound
OK to me so let's all take pot luck....
If you arrive around 12.30- 1pm that would be fine- with your Tylenol eyes- we will be waiting to greet you.
OK
RALPH
The next day, I make my way to the Victoria train station. Mysteriously, and much to my astonishment, I encountered no problems at all. The train was on time and an hour later, I’d be stepping off the platform in Kent at Maidstone East.
Earlier this morning, I had decided to take all train and bus trips as opportunities to write. I’m hoping the countryside and isolation will help me take a literary sledgehammer to my writer’s cinder block. As it stands, I’m staring at a blank page in my Moleskine notebook.
***
Stepping from the train to the platform, I breathe in the fresh Welsh air and jokingly say to myself I’m home— in a manner of speaking anyway. Like Ralph Steadman, I happen to be Welsh.
I follow the remaining passengers off the platform and around a corner to the parking lot. People here are getting into cabs or waiting for loved ones to pick them up. I stand by a couple bickering about something in French near a payphone.
After standing in the cold Welsh drizzle for nearly ten minutes without any sign of another cab, I apprehensively ask the squabbling couple if taxis stop by this location often, or would I need to call for one? Turns out that it’s the latter and admittedly, I feel a little stupid for standing around looking like a lost tourist.
Fortunately, phone numbers are plastered over every inch of free wall space inside the station’s ticket office. I pick a number at random and pay using the only British coin I have in my pocket, a pound, to make a 20 pence phone call. Two dollars for a forty-cent phone call; you gotta love the exchange rate.
Ten minutes later, I’m picked up by a chatty cabbie and we are on our way to Old Loose Court.
After fifteen minutes or so, the cab turns left through a gate at the end of Lancet Lane. A signed adorned with an unmistakable font reads: Old Loose Court. This is undoubtedly the place.
I pay the cabbie fifteen pounds, which, for a split second, seems steep to me, but I’m too excited to pay it much attention. I ring the doorbell only to hear the muffled melody of “America, the Beautiful” playing from inside the estate. I chuckle to myself at the irony of the tune when the door opens and I’m greeted by Mr. Steadman.
He walks me through his foyer, around a corner and into the dining area, just off the kitchen. His signature artwork is framed throughout the house, as well as stacks of books, magazine articles and papers. I’m incredibly tempted to touch this and flip through that, but refrain. I remind myself that I’m a respectable graduate student here on serious research-oriented business.
Introductions are made all around. To my right sits his wife, Anna, and weekend guest, author, Sally Vincent, both busily preparing lunch. A table stands to my left where Ralph motions me toward a chair.
I’m also offered a cigarette but decline. I mention I gave up any and all tobacco for bicycling two years ago; “A healthier, but no less addicting vice,” I quip. The whole situation seems surreal and before I know it Ralph Steadman is pouring me a glass of wine and sitting down to chat.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit thin?” Steadman asks.
“Pardon?”
“Doing a thesis on The Curse of Lono,” he repeats, taking a long and thoughtful drink of his wine. “It just seems a bit thin for a Master’s thesis to me.”
I explain that questions like his are exactly the reason I am doing my thesis project on Lono.
When it was released in 1983, it was all but dismissed by critics and consumers. Only years later has it gained an underground cult following and I want to know why.
I want to know many things— everything, really. Why did Hunter hate sharing the byline with Ralph? A nugget of information I gleaned from McKeen. Why didn’t he want to write it in the first place? What did Ralph think about the project 24 years later?
Ralph sits down at his kitchen table and rolls a cigarette. In fact, I’m not really sure if Ralph ever smokes any cigarette he doesn’t roll himself.
My mind drifts a little and I ask him about his doorbell.
He tells me that, years ago, he actually considered applying for US citizenship. When Ralph told Hunter of his intentions, Hunter had other ideas. In a terrific impersonation of Hunter (And really, what else would I expect? He was Thompson’s closest friend for 35 years) he stands up and mutters:
“Ralph, er… I’m going to, uh… do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t ever happen.”
I laugh and ask Ralph, who’s still standing and gesticulating like Hunter, why Thompson didn’t want him to become a red, white and blue citizen. Ralph smiles and, again in the voice of Hunter says, “You’re Welsh Ralph— you can never be an American.”
Since those days, Ralph’s intentions have changed somewhat. Blame it on the current political climate, I assume.
As the day progresses, Ralph and I begin talking, not only about Lono, but everything before and after as well.
Ralph’s wife calls us to lunch but Ralph doesn’t appear to hear her and I am too entrenched in the conversation to stop him.
Ralph asks what I’m studying and I tell him I’m getting a Master’s degree in English-- Literature, in fact. A deep philosophical discussion concerning fate and free will is born from my mentioning a paper I’d recently written on Paradise Lost. Talk of John Milton then prompts Ralph to show me a copy of his book, The Big I Am, which he says is his own version of religion, God and why the hell he’s so damn vindictive.
Anna calls us to lunch for the fourth time and Ralph tells her again, “We’ll be right in.” With an empty stomach, I can feel the wine going quickly to my head, especially when I stand up to make my way into the giant dining room, following my nose toward the smell of something delicious.
The table is laid out with a wonderful assortment of English food: steamed asparagus, a warm potato and bean mash, Welsh sausages and of course, more wine.
We continue to talk throughout lunch. Ralph asks if I like the wine and I affirm that I do. He tells me that it’s his own. He shows me the bottle and sure enough, his signature artwork is on the label. After gawking at the bottle for probably a little too long, he fills up my glass, which, since I have been here, I haven’t quite managed to empty.
After lunch, Ralph asks me to get the books I brought for him to sign.
He gets out his signature fountain pen and fills it with ink. He then begins sketching on the inside title pages and signs each one.
The wine makes this process seem even more exciting and I quietly hope I’m not outwardly embarrassing myself.
Ralph goes on to ask me whether or not I have seen any number of books he has either written, illustrated or both. I tell him truthfully that, many of them, I have not. He and his wife begin whipping books from the shelves and he shows them to me. I must look like a (drunken) kid in a candy store because he starts signing and sketching inside these as well.
I’m left with a giant stack of books in the middle of the dining room table: DoooDaaa, The Devil’s Dictionary (in Greek no less as he’s out of English copies), Untrodden Grapes, I, Leonardo, Paranoids, plus my own three books.
Now finished with lunch and the slightly-tipsy mini-fan session, Ralph asks if I’d like to see his studio. This is an opportunity many people would give limbs for. I tell Ralph I mean this quite literally, as a cashier at a Borders bookstore in the middle of Iowa told me he’d give his left arm to meet the Gonzo artist.
We walk around the back of his house, past his heated in-ground pool, to a garage-like structure with an electronic security keypad. As I wait for the security door to rise, I peer in through giant picture windows.
There are bottles of paint, every size and color imaginable sitting on an enormous drawing table. In the middle of the room is a new piece Ralph is working on, depicting the 1968 riots in Chicago.
I emphatically tell him I could get a lot more writing done if I had a studio like this.
He takes me across the main floor, through a doorway wrapping around toward the back, leading into a room I can only describe as “the gallery”. Here, there are countless pieces of Gonzo artwork, most of which have never been seen by fans of Steadman and Thompson— at least not in person.
Ralph pulls out a bin full of items I can’t quite make out from across the gallery. As I step a little closer, I see that it is collection of Hunter’s various effects: sunglasses, hat, cigarette holder, and many other items.
Ralph puts them on and asks if I’d like a picture.
Ecstatically, I snap a couple of photos of Ralph wearing Hunter’s things and can’t help but feel that I’m slightly cooler than everyone else in the world right now. (Two of these photos would later go on to be published in McKeen’s definitive Hunter Thompson biography, Outlaw Journalist.)
Ralph opens drawer after drawer, revealing spectacular piece after spectacular piece of Gonzo artwork, some of which I have seen, many of which are brand new to me. Finally, he takes out a piece I am intimately familiar with— the original artwork for The Curse of Lono book cover and I immediately ask if he’d pose with it.
Done and done.
After spending a great deal of time with the artwork, Ralph takes me around the rest of the studio.
He shows me the camera room where he creates slides to send to magazines for print. He also takes me into a side chamber, which houses more books he has written, illustrated or both.
The studio building is deceptive in its seemingly diminutive size.
When you think you’ve seen the whole thing, it snakes around another corner into yet another chamber. We end up back in the main section of the studio and begin talking about music.
He puts in a CD of his son’s recording and we stand around listening. I tell Ralph that his son is really talented, to which he unabashedly agrees. We are standing around listening and talking when Anna comes in and let’s us know that it’s beginning to get late and asks if I’d like her to call for a cab.
Much to my surprise, five-and-a-half hours have ticked away.
Ralph, Anna, Sally Vincent and I are all sitting around a table in the back yard by the heated pool. We begin chatting about this and that but it’s hard for me to recall about what exactly. I think my brain has finally reached the point of Gonzo overload.
Ten minutes later, a cab pulls into the drive of Old Loose Court and I say my goodbyes.
It’s really hard to put into words how I’m feeling right now. I’m terribly excited for the opportunity, yet already feeling the weight of my thesis bearing down on me. How can I write anything sub-par and show it to Ralph Steadman? Everything is happening so fast. My own expectations for the project have now skyrocketed out of sight.
***
On the train ride home, the cabin is deathly silent. For an hour, the only voice I hear is from a young boy repeatedly asking his mother, “Have you got another half a banana?”
I become intensely contemplative, reviewing all of the day’s events over and over.
The wine has worn off, yet my head is still spinning. In five-and-a-half hours, we didn’t end up talking much about The Curse of Lono itself per se, but I felt like I’d gained an invaluable wealth of knowledge into the Gonzo subculture.
It almost felt as though I had gone through a phase of initiation to a secret society or something to that effect. I was no longer a mere reader, a simple fan and wayward outsider. I had gained at least a general admission pass to be on the inside.
When I returned to my flat, I composed an email to Ralph and Anna, thanking them for their hospitality. I didn’t send it right away, however. I wanted to wait until I got back to the States after I had time to let the experience fully sink in. The rest of the trip went by and I saw many incredible things, but there was little doubt that the excitement had peaked on day two. Once I got back home, I finally sent the email.
Two days later, I got a response:
From: Ralph Steadman
To: Joe M. Owens
Subject: Re: Thank You
Date: Tue, 5 June 2007 11:24:53 +100
Dear JOE M.
Good job you are back in the States. It was high time! We don't need
your kind in this country. We have important work to do. I hope you
got what you wanted but I sure as hell wasn't going to do it twice.
Remind me to circle around Kansas City on my next trip...
Now get on it and sweat the bastard out. It's the best way.
GOOD LUCK!!
RALPH
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