Gettysburg: looking inward, outward and forward!

  After having spent the last few days residing in the chaos that surrounds a family with small children, I have made an escape to Gettysburg. It is always good to be with family, and I love them - but I also love going my own way. So I spent a few days playing with the kids, drawing some silly "oddbeastie" pictures, and helping out my dear friend, their mother, with the house, and now I am holed up in Gettysburg in a small motel from the 70s. It looked slightly dingy from the outside, and for a few scary minutes I was afraid I had caught myself a sauna with no air conditioning! Then I threw myself on the bed and stared at the ceiling and realized there was an A/C way up above the mirror by the sink!
  It is all good, and on this trip I am coming to realize that those little dingy-looking motels from the 70s really are underrated. They might not have the newest and shiniest amenities, but you can see they once did - the devil is in the details - like the sauna and the big bath tub in the classic 70s-style bathrooms. I automatically feel at home - no that would be wrong; I am pantsless on a comfortable chair with my plush purple blanket around me, writing at a real desk with an icy hard lemonade and a bag of Cheetos! I think this might just be a tad better than home!
  Another thing these older places have going for them is that they usually are a lot cheaper than the new hotels, and can often be found in perfect locations - after all, they were here first! Take this one I am staying at now as an example: the Three Crowns Motor Lodge on Steinwehr Avenue in Gettysburg. Steinwehr Avenue has a motto: "Everything you want is here!" - and that is perfectly true. Everything from good food to ghost hunting to historic attractions can be found in very close proximity to the Three Crowns Motor Lodge, and I still haven't found one single thing to complain about. Exactly the same case with the Oceanic Motel in Ocean City - a view to die for and wonderfully friendly staff who seem to care about their place of employment.

  So tonight is Baytime in the town known for one of the most decisive battles of the Civil War, not to mention the self-titled Gettysburg Address ("Four score and seven years ago" and so on and so forth). Like when certain stories have a tradition of being told around Christmastime, I also have a certain story to read when I go to Gettysburg (it just occurs to me that I apparently have visited this town so much it has become a dear tradition, on a par with the aforementioned Christmas, and I kinda like that though). It is Ambrose Bierce's "Chickamauga". My father introduced me to Bierce in times long gone, back when gore was all I wanted, and back then I thought the works of Bierce were quite dull - but I have since acknowledged that much more horrible things can exist without gore, and that is what has made "Chickamauga" grow on me. You see, that story has both. The gruesome and grotesque imagery caught me when I was young, now the tale of a deaf mute boy and his personal epiphanies of civil war horror comes across much, much stronger. Funny how that is. 
 Should I throw in a teaser, show you what I mean? Ok... here, I quote blatantly from the text located in the above link:

"Something in this--something too, perhaps, in their grotesque attitudes and movements--reminded him of the painted clown whom he had seen last summer in the circus, and he laughed as he watched them. But on and ever on they crept, these maimed and bleeding men, as heedless as he of the dramatic contrast between his laughter and their own ghastly gravity. To him it was a merry spectacle. He had seen his father's negroes creep upon their hands and knees for his amusement--had ridden them so, "making believe" they were his horses. He now approached one of these crawling figures from behind and with an agile movement mounted it astride. The man sank upon his breast, recovered, flung the small boy fiercely to the ground as an unbroken colt might have done, then turned upon him a face that lacked a lower jaw--from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone."

  -See what I mean? 

  Eventually these civil war zombies make it to a creek, turning it to a stream of blood, and that is the precise same tale that envelops the stream near Devil's Den here in Gettysburg. That is where I am headed tomorrow, hopefully to find some nice woods and get some peaceful barefooting in amongst monuments of war.

  In other news, I am almost 100% over my fear of American roads - which is wonderful, and I am actually finding US speed limits more to my personal style than many of the Danish speed limits - was even playing a little with a school bus on the highway today. Or perhaps I am going slower but feeling faster because my heart is pounding with adrenaline?!
  In any case, I've gotten myself a voodoo doll co-pilot and a small turtle sidekick, between the two of them I am in good hands. Call me superstitious, but I fare much better with beasties in the vehicle!
I really am enjoying this road trip business.

  So tonight, under a full moon, I look inwards - tomorrow, outwards. Also, I am looking forward!

JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!!1!

Never a dull night in Ocean City!

Yeah so after fulfilling my month-long craving for a Philly Cheese Steak and loaded potato skins, we went to The Bar. It is the first bar on the boardwalk, a friendly little place at the very beginning of the boardwalk down at the inlet, usually some decent music and decent prices.

My first move was to order 3 x tequila. And then another round – I was so frivolous to give the bartender free reins on those shots. Downed ‘em movie-style (boomboomboom) and the bartender called me ‘a friggin machine’ hehe.

The night just got better and better.

Earlier that night we had encountered the First Official Zombie Bar Crawl of Ocean City – the first man to toss his attentions upon me was a banged and bloody man who might as well have been a zombie. His nose was swollen and scraped skinless, he had a massive bloody bump on his forhead, he had wounds all down his legs and was eternally grateful to a friends girlfriend for having cleaned him up. Most of his communications involved retelling the story of his ‘fall’ over and over again, and occasionally switching over to profusely thank the young girl for taking care of him. I think he might have hurt his head in a more serious way.

This brought the girl to our company.

For the first time ever, a girl hit on me! First I just thought she was as touchy-feely as the rest of these females I seem to know, but then she asked if I knew some woman who would take her home and fuck her since my friend was spoken for. I wanted to laugh my ass off from pure surprise at such a proposal, but I also didn’t want to hurt her feelings – she did seem somewhat vulnerable in her position. You see, like I mentioned, she was in a relationship with a guy at the bar.

Then the lesbian couple came out from the back room.

It was getting late, and there had been lovers’ altercations between both the lesbian couple and the young nursing woman and her boyfriend. When the young curious bisexual girl realized there was a lesbian couple in the room, she threw herself at them. The alpha lesbian, a self-proclaimed dominatrix, threatened to, and I quote her wording to maintain profundity, “fuck her shit up” if the young girl decided to mess with her sub. That didn’t stop anyone, the sub actually went for the young girl, perhaps behaving poorly on purpose to enrage and encourage her punishment from her dominatrix later that night. In any case, the dom stormed out of the bar and the sub quickly followed.

Disheartened, the young girl sadly threw her affections at everyone in the bar. This was the breaking point of her boyfriend, who seemed to accept her bi-curious ways but for her to show interest in another male, even if it was the cute bartender who was good with everyone, was enough to send him storming out as well. It was long past final call in the bar, and the few of us left were hurriedly downing the rest of our drinks.

Suddenly, BOOMBOOMBOOM! It was the boyfriend scorned, returning to the bar and pissed off because the only thing he saw was his girlfriend and my friend take each others hands and head off to the back of the bar – just to go to the bathroom facilities as girls do. Obviously he perceived the situation differently and decided to remedy the situation by trying to kick in the glass door in front of the bar. Either that was some strong-ass glass or he was a weak little thing, but in any case, that door held.

In a split second, the little old lady who had been wiping off the bar turned into a flashing fury, I faultily assumed she was too decrepit to do anything but count up the registers, but now she was a visage of her former glory: She took command of the situation, howled at the bartender out back to call the cops while she called security and then commenced to scold the drunken angry boyfriend like a bothersome neighborchild. He shortly vanished while we rushed the young girl to the wonderful semi-secret escape exit out back. That exit has also been to great advantage to myself and my friends in the many years I have been coming here, though usually used to escape unwanted affections and not reward the unrequited.

As the three of us girls stood out back, in the wild surreal landscape of the motionless, dark Trimper’s Rides, we saw a burly man approaching – after an initial fright we realized he was a security guard (the poor guy’s beat was the pier and amusement park area – he surely must have his work cut out for him!). Apparently he had also already removed the drunken angry boyfriend from the area, sent him walking down and out towards the bus station. The young bi-curious girl had no idea what to do. The boyfriend had left with her purse and phone, and she had no idea how to get to where she was staying – she only knew it was about 45 minutes away.

So yeah, we had to seek out the violent and angry boyfriend. Couldn’t have thought of a dumber idea if I wanted to.

While the security guard kept an eye on my friend and the girl, I took a quick stroll down the block and rounded the bus station. Sure enough, there he was in the back of a waiting bus, frowning and looking most of all like a petulant child. His head turned and recognition flashed in his eyes as he stared me down with a scowl. I shrugged nonchalantly as I walked past the bus by myself, and for a short second it seemed as though he thought I was in a like situation, my friend having been ‘hijacked’ by his woman and that I might also be depressed.

I strolled out of his sight and returned to the small host of people I had left, reporting my findings, and we left the security guard to do his thing while we walked to the bus. Before you even saw him standing, the boyfriend was already outside the bus shaking the girl, then throwing her shit at him and screaming that he was over her broke ass as he stormed back to the back seat of the bus.

So naturally, we followed him right onto the bus. Where we also found the aforementioned lesbian couple!

It was at this point I started chanting “JERRY! JERRY!”. I felt so sorry for that poor little black kid in the back of the bus; he had no idea what he was getting in to. My friend brought out the big guns, using all her charms to convince the bus driver to let us on for free, quoting “We don’t want to go anywhere, we just want to watch this Jerry-bus!” and the elderly bearded bus driver nodded and grinned in understanding. Free ride, as long as we promised to get off again soon.

On the bus were only patrons from The Bar to begin with. None of us were sober, most of us were angry for some reason, and I was only along for the ride.

As the bus started to work its way northwards on the isle, the now ex-boyfriend crawled into a fetal position on the back seat of the bus, while his e-girlfriend was chittering with my friend in that best-drunken-buddy way that only occurs after a certain amount of alcohol, the lesbians were trying to get my friends facebook out of me.

It must have been a scene to behold!

And then the newlyweds got on the bus.

A bride, in a wedding dress and veil, her groom in a suit, had no idea either. My friend welcomed them loudly to the Jerry-bus, saying “Welcome to the world of real love!”. The bride looked confused, but would soon recognize the scenes playing out in front of her.

As the bus proceeded to fill up with others, the quantity of sheer humanity cut off any interactions between those of us coming from The Bar. In some ways a beautiful metaphor – people from a common destination letting the world coming between them and such. It was bizarrely anticlimactic.

At some or other point my friend realized we would have to get off the bus. The drama had cooled in the packed bus, aided by the presence of a female cop. Eventually we said goodbye and good luck to the girl, hoping that she and him would work things out we crawled off the bus up by 40^th street, meaning we were about 45 blocks from home. I ended up pissing myself in a random parking lot up north, old acquaintances were rekindled and my friend learned a new word, but that is a tale for another day.

'Lost in the Funhouse' v.2.0: for the hipster individualist

Barth’s 'Lost in the Funhouse' sure had one thing right about the great Ocean City, and that is that this is a place for couples. Maybe even groups. But not singles.

What precisely makes this true is difficult to put a finger on.

It’s in the way waitresses search your eyes for a sign of what ails you, as if no sane person would eat breakfast alone unless they were abandoned, deathly ill, or in some other way a pariah.

It’s in the way parents call their children to their places when the children grow curious and ask friendly questions of a loner by the poolside.

It’s in the way the bartender calls you honey and gives you a sympathetic show of teeth, the same apologetic look you give handicapped people playing music on the streets for a living.

There also seems to be more to this than just an underlying expectation of people coming in pairs. The roots go deep of this collective understanding go deep, so deep it even becomes apparent in the very language of this society, in the expectation that a loner must be lonesome, that you might be one of a kind, and not necessarily in the good way.

An interesting note on this observation is the fact that the elderly and children are exempt from this generalization of Ocean City society. Children haven’t become permeated with the unwritten laws of society, they haven’t heard of all those things of which we shall not speak and in their innocence ask questions that wiser men would be ashamed of asking. The elderly see the other side of the spectrum, they have lived long enough to achieve insight into the lawlessness of the world and accept that it is out of their hands. In the meantime, the lowest common denominator has lived long enough to see patterns in their surroundings, but hasn’t been around long enough to realize that there is much more they don’t know.

It can be compared to the most dangerous phase of mechanics, doctors and computer tinkerers: it is well known there is a specific type that is most dangerous to their surroundings; It is not the novice who recognizes their limits, not the experienced expert who has seen a little bit of everything and if they can’t fix it then they know somebody who can. It is the one in the middle, the one who knows enough to take things apart, who has fixed enough small things to have confidence, but doesn’t yet have the experience required to deal with unexpected surprises and doesn’t have a backup plan because the lesson of SHIT HAPPENS has not yet been learned. For more, read up on the Dunning Kruger Effect – a governing concept in the world of politics and capitalism.

The Dunning Krugers are the Joneses of our world. Those extrovertedly bland happy couples in their mid-thirties with 2.3 kids, a house, a mortgage, an economically friendly vehicle and a small dog or two. The males can often be seen walking around the area where I live in the evening hours, alternating between chain smoking and chewing gum as if their lives depend on it – which, in some cases, I only can assume is true. I am sure they at some point in their lives will be shaken out of the mediocre humdrum of now: work, dinner, sleep, and sex 2.3 times a week, rinse, repeat. For some it has already happened, they have had success ignoring their shrieking sensibilities for now, for others it won’t happen until it is too late. Very few of the latter kind survive their wake-up calls. 

Wake-up calls have a tendency to get louder and increase their violent attention-seeking methods until they are perceived or lethal for the receiver. I have a strong belief that most of the strange, interesting and wonderful things that take place in this world are driven by subconscious needs for personal freedom. Sometimes fish fall from the sky, sometimes loyal horses kick, and sometimes tractors kill – better keep your eyes open, lest a cosmic prank smack you right in the face. In the same manner I believe I must keep my eyes open, lest the world of the Joneses will smack me right in the face. 

All humans become dangerous in their complacency, but I suspect that those who entertain complacency in the company of like minds possess a certain strength in numbers. As we have learned power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Some dusty corner of my inner being, where the hoodlum paints red and black lightning on the walls, fears a world run by the wants and fears of strong impersonal numbers rather than individual people who can relate.

In any case. I am me, and perfectly content in my own company. As you might have noticed, my brain is quite prolific in jabbering on, that is more than enough noise for me. Though I am looking forward to the arrival of my best friend in the whole country, who I haven’t seen for a year now. I just wish people didn’t side-eye me when I say so, as if I somehow am deviant and lesbian or something. Friend - if I meant lover, rock musician, relative or jarhead, then I would choose those words instead. I don’t come in couples. I am me, just a lump of flesh and thoughts that can be easily transported from one corner of the world to another, not an extension of specific geographically-restricted societal conventions. Have you tried being a lump?

Shipwrecks, Seadragons and Other Sælsoms

(sælsoms, yes, I am integrating that Danish word into the English language – and with the audacity to use it as a noun rather than its traditional adjectival personality! The horror!)

Yesterday I found myself wandering the dragonfly dunes of Assateague. Later that day, I heard a man refer to it as Gilligan’s Island, but more on that further on. There was a historic exhibit in the Assatague Island park, and, driven both by genuine interest and a need to relieve myself of the confines of my trusty Ford Focus rental, I went to check it out. There was much poison ivy. And even more dragonflies - you can hear them approaching, hovering, checking you out; their presence is about as non-intrusive as those helicopters that would hover over the fields when I was little. Their buzzing/humming sound is so inherent to the ambience of the Island that you can believe you can feel it in your bones, not unlike the sound and feel of the high tide crashing upon the rocks.

But back to the exibit – there was a worn plexiglass sign, barely legible in its entirety, but what it read is certainly worth transcribing:

“Some local Indians, including the Assateague tribe, had an unusual burial custom. They removed the skin from the body after death and scraped the bones free of flesh. Remains were then placed on shelves in a log structure. Periodically, the remains were collected and buried in a common grave or ossuary. Several ossuaries have been discovered on the Eastern Shore.”

That sounds infinitely much as though they were in contact, or were at some point, with the natives of Central and South America, who also had a tendency to keep groups of their dead around for a while. And why not, the trade routes between more westerly Northern American Indians leading all the way to South America have been verified – if they could get from Cali to Peru, no reason the East Coast should be made to feel like a stranger.

Perplexed by this fascinating albeit morbid detail on the life of the long-gone natives, I walked further onto the wooden, fenced-in viewing platform, located seemingly –nowhere- interesting, there was simply a small parking lot surrounded by bushes and a small Coast Guard boathouse of questionable purpose. How could anything of any historical interest be here? It’s just sand and dragonflies – even the droppings of the local wild ponies, which freely roam the island, seemed to be very old, abandoned like so much else on the island to dissolve under the beating sun. A shipwreck greeted me. I never did find out when it was from, but there was still one metal tubish part rusting in the salty breeze, so it certainly wasn’t of Viking origin, despite the way the corroded skeleton of woodwork reminded me of the turfed roofs of Viking huts and the ancient blackened bows of dragonships used in burials. Apparently, naturally, the sands around here seem to be littered with the remnants of unlucky vessels.

Being 50% Danish, having spent most of my life traversing the Atlantic, I have always felt a certain kinship with my forefathers, knowing that some of them as well have spent large portions of their lives crossing that stormy ocean – for this reason I also wondered if not once, over a thousand years ago, a dragonship might’ve faceplanted itself upon the dragonfly shores where I now stood. If so, I felt somewhat sorry for the poor travelers. The island is stark, back in the Viking times, there was still another good thousand years until the Spanish galleon would wreck itself upon the Assateague shores, breaking open, hatching like an egg to let the ponies on board escape and eventually become the hardy breed of Assateague ponies we now know and love. Misty of Chincoteague anyone? In any case, if ancient Scandinavians found themselves lost on the island, they might still have felt at home. You see, there isn’t that great a difference between the Danish west coast and the Maryland coastline – the dunes might be a bit bigger in Denmark than they are in Maryland at the moment, but the stark dunes and wirey plantlife is just the same. I could imagine in a world touched only by people of nature, it looked very much alike. Another notable archaeological find relating to this is the correlation of North American Indians engraving tattoo-like patterns on their teeth – and so did the Vikings. Cultures in contact. Then there is also the issue of mound-building as well as building those stone settings. But that is a subject for an entirely different historical article. I still think it is fascinating that looking at a pile of rubble on a beach can set off all these connections.

After my trip to the park I stopped past the highly recommendable Smokers’ BBQ Grill – if you EVER get the chance, go – it might be because I haven’t had pulled pork in a couple years, but their pulled pork sandwich was to die for! I brought the sandwich back to my apartment, where I got myself a nice cold alcoholic beverage and went out to sit on the deck, watch the boats pass by in the inlet between myself and Assateague.

Not 5 minutes had passed before a horrendous cracking noise echoed across the inlet. It was almost the crunching sound your shoes make when you are walking in snow and its gathering under your shoes, but much, much louder. A beautifully expensive boat coming northwards up the coast had planted itself on the rock jetty sticking out from the end of the opposing island. Danish expectations of a drunkard having a long day at sea immediately kicked in, while the elderly bearded fisherman next to me had suspicions of theft, a loose captain-less ship or drug-running.

(“Yeah – no Jed – I swear, I was just boatin’ along mindin' my own business when those rocks just sprung up at me outta nowhere!”)

In the hours that followed, I entertained myself watching the coming and goings of police boats. According to the elderly fisherman, there wasn’t a Coast Guard vessel to be seen. Initially they sped out to the wreck with red and blue lights a-flashing, but upon arrival their lights became blue flashers, much more like those of ambulances. But they didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry at any point. When the boat wrecked, no emergency lights came on or anything, it was all dark until the police boats arrived. In the gathering darkness, we could barely make out the figures of 3 people walking along the top of the jetty, but whether they belonged to the wreck or were rescuers, we had no idea. For hours the boats shone spotlights, occasionally making odd up-and-down movements at 45 degree angles with their searchlights – I assume this was some sort of communication with others on the mainland, it was more than just the motion of the ocean and in any other context it simply makes no sense. At one point a truck came driving slowly up the island, as if they were looking for someone, but otherwise uneventful. Eventually all the police boats went home, the projectors shining across the inlet were darkened, and the wreck was left with nothing but its own company overnight. After the lights went out, all you could make out was a pale trapezoid ghost flailing about at a wild angle every now and then.

In the light of morning, the wreck has become a tourist attraction. All sorts of boats are congregating across the inlet, even a large tourist boat was contracted to ferry the gawkers closer to the wreckage. It seems to have been ripped to 3 large pieces by the tides and rocks.

As for me, I can’t help but feel that having a shipwreck in plain sight of my hotel room is the perfect spice for this American adventure of mine. Between the palm trees, the hammocks and the sea gulls, all I needed was a wrecked vessel in the distance to complete the image. I still haven’t been able to find any news articles or any information at all pertaining to all last nights activity in the inlet – and it would be nice to satisfy my morbid curiosity in regards to the people involved – but for now, I just watch and write such things for myself instead. And I cant help but wonder at the coincidence of my first genuine interest in a historical wreck happening the same day I get to see a modern vessel plow right into a jetty in front of my eyes.

SMELLY EAGLE HAS LANDED

I made it! Given it was past 3AM and everything was closed when I got there, but I made it!
SEE!!!
So my first driving experience wasnt too bad! Actually it was the GPS that sent me through the ghettos of Baltimore, over a hydroelectric plant, past Bel Air and down the road of Rising Sun, where there is a town with 5 houses, of which 2 are bars. But I got
Which leads me to breakfast at Denny's and cant wait to see my dear friend who will join me in Ocean City!

Greetings from Iceland!

So far, so good! Or - PROTIP: stay away from Azadis cheap daytime pizzas that will have you sick and feverish all night before traveling early in the morning.
In any case, I am waiting for a while for my next plane to Dulles DC. The train trip went ok, except for the massive confusion permeating the masses due to torrential rains knocking out all the clocks and messaging systems in Copenhagen Central Station. Or they just had some people they wanted to keep busy. 
On my first leg of flight, if that can even be said, I had the privelege of sitting next to a teenager who was easily impressed. OMG birds! OMG Iceland is like, nothing but desert and roads! OMG Where is Sweden?!? Good entertainment.
And my butt is already sore. Six hours of seated travel to go yet. That last hour is like wearing underwear of fire, if you want to know what it feels like. But at least I've got a sandwich in my belly and finally got rid of that nausea pizza plague.

Gut-butterflies with ice-rimmed wings!

Destination: Ocean City

WEBCAM LINK TO LIVE FEED VIEW OF DESTINATION 

(just click 'boardwalk' for The Bar perspective) 

 

Planned trajectory/July 6:

train:

08,30-10,49 DSB IC3 KOL-KBH H

11,01-11,13 KBH H-KBH airport

plane:

14,00-15,10 (local time) FI205 KBH-REY

16,50-19,00 (local time) FI645 REY-DUL

 automobile:

20,45 Pickup Argus Car Hire 

 

MapQuest route

Hotel room in OC opens at 3PM July 7

So about those butterflies in my gut with the ice-cold touch: I have had my drivers license for a good 10 years now, but having always been the visiting kid, I never had the honor of taking care of myself. This time around, I am going to be self-sufficient, roaming the countryside creeping for free WiFi. This will be my first real stateside driving experience, and I am friggin scared. 

In any case, I will land at Dulles Airport after a good 10-12 hours of traveling. Then I must find out how to find Argus Car Rental, which doesn't appear to have its own desk on location. Afterwards, drive out of the parking lot, up the onramp, and on to pop my vehicular cherry directly on one of the worst highways in America: The Beltway. Five lanes of hellish big-city traffic going both ways, circling the capitol. Like losing your virginity to John Holmes.

Over here in Denmark we have small clusters of small-er trucks on the road, who aren't permitted to pass each other or even drive more than 80km/h (thats just under 50m/h for the Americans out there). Where herds of buffalo used to pound across the open plains, there now are giant herds of gleaming metal beasts dominating the roads, consuming the miles between home ports and destinations, stampeding past a small economic vehicle as were it nothing more than tumbleweed, and just as capable of crushing it. Scary. Afraid my drivers'-balls will shrink and I will be the little old lady giving other drivers the jazzhands of apology.

Oh - and by the way - I checked up on the barefoot-driving question. Dunno if you've heard those rumors of it being illegal to drive without shoes in some states, but I have. Urban legend, the whole 9 yards.

Driving barefoot until I hit that beach baby!