on the road

On The Road

The rain has not left me alone since L.A. Camera man Clark tells me Toyota made the Sunrader for warm weather, and the Dolphin for moist climates. To get technical, the weather has been freakish. Downtown San Diego looked like the National Guard had rolled through, sand bags bunkered every shop door on Ocean Beach. Some streets were closed with a foot of water.

Inside the old RV, I discovered more leaks. Almost all the windows were letting moisture in. My clothes in the closet were soaked – the duct tape patch on the roof apparently was a brainless decision. The toilet has a plastic pipe that goes up and out the roof. Perhaps for ventilation, or to allow for pressure for flushing. I ripped the toilet out a long time ago, and don’t know the real function of it. But it leaks. So I went to a hardware store to buy a cap for the pipe and was told RV plumbing is wider by an 1/8 of an inch than regular plumbing. Of course I was told this after I had bought a cap and tried to hammer it on in the parking lot, to no avail. That’s when I decided to try duct taping it. It’s supposed to fix anything, but this time it didn’t help. The most horrifying moment was realizing the vent in the shower ceiling was also leaking, which is where all the most sensitive and delicate equipment was stored, along with the footage Clark had shot for the documentary – footage that is irreplaceable.
”That’s the stuff heart attacks are made of,” Clark said, after we had yanked the plastic bins open and found some things damp, but nothing ruined.

Camping

I drove from L.A. to San Deigo, after leaving my friend Hak’s place

He edited a ton of footage on his professional editing equipment, so I would have something to give to the news crew that wanted to meet me in San Diego in the morning. In exchange for his services, I took a series of swanky portraits that he can post online to woo the ladies with. They won’t know it is Manishevitz in the glass. That’s the beauty of film.

We left at 2 in the morning, so as to avoid getting caught in L.A. Monday-morning-commute-with-a-monsoon-to-boot-traffic. At 4:10 a.m. I pulled the leaky vessel into her berth: beneath the awning of a drive-through self-serve car wash. This was to prevent any further water damage, if possible.

I had to get some sleep, since I’d be waking up in three hours to have a telephone interview with Robin Young of Here and Now, on NPR. Take a listen on this link, and you can hear how tired I am. I felt like I was on acid, after so little sleep and my nerves shot from piloting this Albotross RV down Highway Five, which looked more like the Mississippi than a seven lane freeway. Thank god not many big rigs were on the road, they would have pushed me right off the tar. My hand was still formed in the pattern of it clutching the steering wheel when I awoke. Using them both like blunt instruments I was able to maneuver my cell phone open and up to my ear. Robin mentioned it was Presidents’ Day, and I didn’t need to drive all night in a misaligned RV, there would be no commuter traffic. I got off the phone and slept until 10 in the morning, when a nice lady from the car wash pounded on the hood and alerted me to my need for a cup of coffee. She needed to clean the Car Wash. I got behind the wheel and headed to my next dinner host, Brad.