Rob Wickings's Blog, page 40

God’s Heartbeat

Do me a favour. Dig out a copy of Be My Baby by The Ronettes.

The ideal would be a 7 inch single but I appreciate for most of you the format and the kit to play it on are either up in a loft or forever out of reach. Streaming services are fine. Look, here, I’ll even do the work for you.

All I’m asking is that you listen to the first two bars. Six seconds.

Three hits on a kick drum. One double-handed crack of the snare. And again. There it is. To my mind, the most important drum beat in history.

God’s heartbeat.

Sure, there are other contenders. Gregory Coleman’s Amen Break, without which hip-hop would be a very different animal. The insistent pounding of the four-on-the-floor that grounds virtually all dance music. The straight-up one-two bass-snare boom-bap that drives rock and pop. Whatever the hell it is Ringo Starr does.

But God’s Heartbeat? That’s something else. It’s a signifier. A standard raised, streaming out in a sudden warm breeze. The drumbeat that tells a goddamn story.

Route back to Be My Baby. Martin Scorsese understood the mythic resonance at the heart of that beat. That’s why he used it to kick off his breakthrough picture, Mean Streets. I mean just look at this and tell me you don’t want to know more…

There’s something inherently dramatic about God’s Heartbeat. A sense of anticipation. Of tension. I think it’s that tiny breath of space between the bass kicks and that huge whack of the snare. The syncopation of it all. It doesn’t fit the pulse of a metronome. God’s Heartbeat is not a march. It’s a strut. Try walking to it. You’ll find your head nodding, your shoulders working.

So where did it come from? Well, the obvious answer would be lunatic genius Phil Spector, the man behind the Wall Of Sound. Spector was many things––wig aficionado, gun nut (lest we forget, this is the guy that pulled a gun on the goddamn Ramones) but he was no drummer.

We must therefore lay flowers at the grave of Hal Blaine who sadly died in March this year, whose place on the drum stool of the crack session team known as The Wrecking Crew puts him dead centre at the pulse of an extraordinary chunk of the greatest music ever recorded. For we ordinary mortals, the creation of a cultural milestone like the Be My Baby beat would be an unreachable milestone. For Hal, it was just another day on the job. Crazy Phil needs a beat? Fine. Chew on this.

Boom. Boomboom. Crack.

History made in two bars, six seconds, eight hits on a simple studio drum kit.

There is a glorious Spotify playlist that explores all aspects of Hal’s moment of inspiration that sadly labours under the uninspiring title kick. kick-kick. snare. That is, however, the only unfortunate thing about it. Dive in and swim through favourites like the Manics’ Everything Must Go or Johnny Boy’s glorious You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve.

But start with Be My Baby. And give thanks for Hal Blaine, throwing punches at Phil Spector. Three to the gut and one hard cross to the jaw.

Boom. Boom-boom.

Crack.

On The Podding Of Peas

I am blessed to be within walking distance of two of Britain’s Greatest Food Retailers, at the brow and foot of Donkin Hill in Caversham, which I refer to as Top and Bottom Coop. They’re very good on local and seasonal produce. Which is why, for the last few weeks, I have been coming home from the weekend top-up shop with bags of peas. Actual unshelled peas in pods.

Now. The humble frozen pea is, of course, a thing of simple delight that has a place in any time-conscious, thrift-aware chef’s repertoire. Simply presented alongside a shepherd’s pie. Folded into a pea and paneer curry. As part of a prawn-heavy paella (oh the pink against the green, I swoon into a Nigel Slater-style wafting fit at the joy of it all).

HOWEVS. Peas that you have podded yourself are a different prospect. The simple, mindful meditative state that comes from eviscerating the crisp crysalids is not an activity conducive to the mid-week supper grind. This is weekend activity. Ideally, it needs a big kitchen table, small children and a grandma to hand, sunlight streaming in through high kitchen windows.

I have none of those. Well, no, I have a grandma. She’s in her nineties, knotted with arthritis. If I showed her a pea pod, she’d spit in my eye. So I pod my peas in the front room, where the light is better. Up until this year, I can’t remember the last time I unzipped a pea pod. A simple process. Two bowls needed. Tug from the root end, taking off the stringy bit. The pod pops open with a pleasingly juicy snap. One skilful swipe with the thumb sends a spoonful of peas into one bowl. Another flick and the pods go into the other. Continue as required. The odd escapee will ping away under the sofa. Oh well.

A glass of wine and some loud rock and roll help the process along no end.

There’s a lot of waste with fresh peas. The pods take up twice as much volume as the precious legumes. These are, of course, eminently compostable, or you can simmer and blitz them to make a peapod purée that works remarkably well as a simple, delicate pasta sauce. Sieve well. No stringy bits needed here.

Growing peas always felt like a ball ache to me, but I’m very happy to give up a quiet portion of my weekend to the separation of a fresh bagful of English peas, and the contemplation of what to do with them afterwards.

If nothing else, my hands smell delicious afterwards. That’s a scent some enterprising perfumery should bottle.

The Allendalek

Allendale is a pretty little village in the heart of the North Pennines, barely a spit and a whistle from the Scottish border. There’s history here–it was once a key centre of Northumbria’s lead-mining industry, and workings are scattered across the wildly lovely landscape.

The village square is home to three excellent pubs and a couple of coffee shops. There are regular gatherings of folk musicians, bike riders of all persuasions from pedal to Harley, and on New Years Eve a parade where the men of the village tote flaming barrels of pitch around.

Away from the square, around the back of the Forge Studio, the curious explorer will come across sights of a rather more science-fictional bent. A beat-up boat of an old Volvo with a Tardis on the roof, piloted by K-9. Next to it, a tiny shed houses a full-scale, studio-accurate Dalek.

[image error]Get ya time rotor runnin’…

These are the sentinels of the entrance to one of the most unusual museums in the country. If you have a love for the SFnal world, then you really need to make tracks to the Museum Of Classic Sci-Fi.

Founded by Neil Cole, a local teacher, the Museum is the culmination of years collecting film and TV ephemera, often screen-used. It’s a tiny space–Neil has set up shop in his basement. But the sheer density of goodies on offer makes his labour of love an absolute must-see.

Look! An original guard’s helmet from the 1940 Buck Rogers in the 25th Century serial! Over there! The pilot seat from Thunderbird 2, as seen in the slightly shonky AD 2000 movie version! Drokk! A working lift panel from the brilliant Dredd movie!

[image error]A Terrileptil from the 1982 Doctor Who story ‘The Visitation’.

Neil is a huge Doctor Who fan and talented artist in his own right. The second stage of the museum is dedicated to his collection of Whoviana, including storyboards, his art and that of acclaimed Whoniverse artist Andrew Skilleter.

You need to go slowly when you’re in Neil’s world of wonders. There’s just so much to see. Neil’s father-in-law, who cheerfully ushered us in, is happy to let you back in for free once you’ve had a look round–there’s always stuff you miss first time around.

[image error]We spotted this in the Forge Studios. There are Daleks everywhere in Allendale…

There is controversy around the museum, however. The Allendalek, the proud herald that shows the keen visitor they’re in the right place, is housed in a shed that does not match the Grade 2-listed exterior of Neil’s gaff. He’s been told by the local council to take it down. This has proven to be an unpopular move, and Allendale has rallied round its resident killing machine. Other homemade Allendaleks popped up around the village earlier this year, and an online petition snagged 1300 signatures.

The fate of the Allendalek remains, for now at least, uncertain. One thing is for sure, though. Neil Cole’s Museum Of Classic Sci-Fi is a brilliant example of British eccentricity, can-do attitude and sheer delightful bonkerism. You owe it to yourself to visit, and pay homage to the Dalek Of The North.

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The Museum Of Classic Sci-Fi is based at Osborne House just off Allendale’s Market Place. Head round the Back Of Allendale Forge Studios and look out for the Allendalek. It’s open Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 9 to 5. For more, check out Neil’s website.

The Skin Thing, or a reopening of negotiations with a rebellious biome.

This morning, I went for a swim. TLC and I were on a weekend away at a posh hotel, and she urged me to give the spa facilities a go. Twenty leisurely lengths of the pool and a dose of sauna heat and steam room sweat opened up my pores and left me achy but glowing.

At one point I shared the steam room with a Spanish guy in budgie-smugglers. We exchanged a friendly nod, and that was it. A simple, normal moment of small luxury.

It had been at least fifteen years since I had been able to walk into a pool or spa area with any hint of confidence. Even a year ago, the Spanish gentleman would have looked at me with a mix of horror and disgust, and probably walked right back out of the steam room.

(TW: The following contains graphic descriptions of medical symptoms).

I suffer from a version of a chronic immune-system condition commonly known as psoriasis. It causes the skin to over-produce, leading to plaques of sore, cracked and flaking skin. The urge to scratch is constant and almost unbearable.

There have been different degrees of exhibition. In the early stages the plaques were concentrated over my scalp and face, giving me a mask of inflamed raw skin across my brow and around my eyes. Later, after a first batch of treatment cleared what I now call Version One, my psoriasis retreated, regrouped and began again from the neck down.

At its worst, probably eighteen months ago, there were great patches of crust and scurf across my chest, belly and legs. My back and butt looked as if someone had blasted them with buckshot. At the lowest of points, I had raw patches on my hands and arms.

I could not bear to look at myself in the mirror.

Across the last seventeen years, I have tried almost the whole gamut of treatments. From Chinese herbs and acupuncture (useless, but the needles were great for relaxation) to the UV light treatment which solved Version One (a process remarkably similar to using stand-up tanning booths, with the same risk of sunburn and, ya know, skin cancer).

I have gone through gallons of creams, pastes, unguents and ointments. Steroids, which thinned the skin to the point where a rough rub with a flannel could cause bleeding. Coal tar emulsions which made me smell like a fresh-laid strip of tarmac.

Eventually I was moved onto the more serious stuff–immuno-suppressants. Acetretin, folic acid and finally methotrexate, a compound that in higher doses is used in cancer treatment. I was on a carefully regimented regime of pills that held the flare-ups at bay for a while, before the plaques would reform, angry and bloody at my attempts to beat them down.

Psoriasis started to appear in my writing. In a story set in an alternative Soho, it manifests as a defensive mechanism called tocsari, an airborne virus that destroys outsiders to the realm by causing them to erupt in bleeding patches of pustular ulcers before they horribly melt into a pink sludge.

I’m not the only sufferer to creatively externalise my disease, of course. Dennis Potter famously wrote his treatment for rheumatoid psoriasis (yes, that’s another thing to look forward to) into his magnum opus The Singing Detective. Horror director Eli Roth’s first feature Cabin Fever featured a malevolent disease that caused his attractive cast to bloodily shed their skin. Kim Kardashian is a fellow sufferer. I’ve yet to see how psoriasis features in her work.

Why is there no absolute cure? Well, because no-one really knows what causes it. The shift in understanding from psoriasis as a skin- to a immune-system disease happened comparatively recently. It’s heartening that a ton of research has been done around psoriasis over the last ten years, but the fact remains that there’s no one factor. Genetics plays a role, as does stress. Light helps a lot, as apparently does salt. There are plenty of reports of people returning from a holiday by The Dead Sea or volcanic spas in Iceland almost completely cured.

However, these are treatments for the symptoms, not the disease. But we’re getting closer, and the responses on offer to psoriasis are increasingly sophisticated and successful.

Which brings us to October last year. I was called into hospital for one of my regular, depressing consultations, with the expectation that I would be put onto a higher, more risky dose of methotrexate, with all the associated side effects and potential for liver damage (again, whoopee fun times).

Instead, I was seen by a new doctor, who cheerfully confirmed that I was now a suitable case to be put onto Adalimumab. This is a drug mostly in use to ease the joint inflammation associated with arthritis. In use with the psoriatic form of the condition, it was proven to quickly reverse the over-production of skin cells that led to the plaques. Better yet, it could be targeted specifically to the gene that caused the problem in the first place.

The one problem? It was under patent, and expensive. In order to qualify, you had to be seen to be worth the cost.

I had fifteen years of treatment under my belt, and was in the worst shape of my life. I was coming close to the end of my tether with The Skin Thing. I had to keep my nails trimmed right back to keep the scratching at bay–if I didn’t I would leave bloody tracks and drifts of dead skin everywhere. I couldn’t use light coloured towels. Crisp white bedsheets were a disaster. I felt one step removed from a leper.

I filled in a questionnaire, taking instruction not to underplay my real feelings about the situation (‘don’t be English about this’, the doctor said). Then she waved me into a waiting room, told me to strip to my undies and wait for her to come in and assess me.

Interesting sidebar: I have no issue with dropping my kecks in front of strangers anymore. As long as they ask nicely.

It was a long, nervous couple of minutes.

Would this new treatment work? Would I even qualify? What if I didn’t? I’d started to notice dry patches in my hairline. Was Version One set to make a return? There was a mirror in the room. I scrupulously avoided looking in it.

The doctor walked in. She took one look at me. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You absolutely qualify. Put your clothes back on. Let’s get you sorted.’

January. I sat on my sofa at home, holding an epipen filled with a clear liquid. Adalimumab, under the brand name Imraldi. As I was approved for treatment, the patent expired on Humira, the single version available at the time. At least three other variants were now available, and the price was starting to drop. Hopefully, this means more and more people will get access to the drug.

The nurse sitting across from me nodded. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Robert.’

I pulled up my t-shirt. As instructed, I found a fatty bit of stomach (not difficult), squeezed it and put the business end of the pen to the skin. I pushed.

Click. There was a window in the epipen, and I could see the dose drop. There was a faint, sharp pressure at the injection site.

Another click. The pressure eased. Done.

The nurse smiled. ‘There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?’

I smiled back. My mind was whirling. Was that it? Was it really that simple? There was barely a mark on my stomach from where the needle had gone in.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not so bad.’

Six weeks later the plaques were gone.

I started to see an improvement at the end of the week, although at the time I convinced myself that it was my imagination. But no. The clumps started to break down and smooth away, from hand-span to finger-width to thumbnail to gone.

This Easter, I finally took a deep breath, and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t have to look away.

I carry the marks still–there’s a staining that fades much more slowly than the prime symptoms. I can point out to you where the worst of it was. Ask nicely and I’ll drop my kecks and show you the big stains on my thigh. They are all that’s left of a war with my skin that finally took a nuclear option to win. And they’re fading too.

Now what? Well, I’m on Imraldi for the duration–it’s a chronic condition that will need continuing care. I get a fresh delivery of preloaded epipens once every six weeks or so. Once a fortnight I have to grab flab and stab. I’m still on a low dose of methotrexatate and folic acid, just to make sure my immune system doesn’t raise up a banner against the Adalimumab. At my next review, that may drop completely.

But otherwise that’s it. I’ve taken to wearing shorts in warm weather again. I can look in a mirror without despairing.

And I can share a moment with a Spanish fella in budgie-smugglers in a steam room with absolute confidence. Now that’s progress.

If you or anyone you know suffer from psoriasis, your GP will refer you for treatment to one of your local specialists. The disease is on the rise, so please be patient while you wait to be seen, but be certain that while there may not yet be a cure, there is certainly hope.

For further information, head over to The Psoriasis Foundation, or Ask For Clear.

WROB: Too Heavy For Halloween

In which yr hmbl etc goes all rocky and metallic. Black Sabbath to Red Fang, Monster Magnet to Mastodon. Tis the season. Turn it UP.

The Last Ride Of The White Buffalo

DATELINE: 22nd July 2018

Reading, Berkshire, UK

We were somewhere on Route 285, perhaps just outside Fairview, and I was deep into a fugue state. As I watched the browning landscape scud past the window to a soundtrack of 80’s goth-wave, the last three weeks swirled in my head, events sparking into focus for a moment, then popping away like a soap bubble.

We had come to Colorado to seek new experiences, and we had not needed to look hard to find them. My first time on a horse, in a hot-air balloon, down a sand-dune on a sledge, at a rodeo. My first taste of cannabis sweeties. The first time dunking my toes in the icy flow of the Colorado River.

Everything was heightened, over-saturated, heavily flavourful. The skies were bigger and brighter. The storms, when they came, were gigantic cruising cloud-monsters, thick with rain and violent bursts of lightning. The horizon seemed further away. The scenery was epic and, once we got above eleven thousand feet, breath-takingly cool.

Moments sprang to mind and smeared together as I drifted in my reverie. The first steps up to our apartment in Kalamath Avenue, Denver, to be confronted with the wall mural depicting the spirit animal that would define our time in America. The fireworks on the roof, unending cannonades of fire, both celebratory and hedonistic in the face of a state-wide fire ban.

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I dreamed of hummingbirds, like bright chips of coloured glass, quick as a half-seen reflection. On the ranch at Palisades, they joined me early one morning when I crept out to catch the sunrise setting Grand Mesa on fire. At Lake City, they swarmed the feeders on the shop fronts, zipping past our heads, communicating in bleeps and chirrups, fighting each other in seconds-long dog fights. A sweet moment in a town best known for its dark history as the setting for the story of Alferd Packer. The Colorado Cannibal. The bar and grill named after him is well worth a look, but check the menu carefully before ordering.

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I dreamed in green. Recreational cannabis is legal in Colorado, although it’s not quite on the shelves at Walmart. The specialized shops certified to sell the herb in all its forms are part of a massive new market. It would be an unusual day not to pass a cannaboutique on your travels in the state. Some are happy to present the standard hippy vibe as a sales technique, tie-dye, patchouli and shonky hand-drawn graphics. Others go down the bespoke lifestyle choice, with clean shelving and a more discreet decor. Still others choose to look like chemists, especially those that sell a lot of CBD-laden creams, potions and unguents. In Colorado, the green cross does not have anything to do with crossing the road–an activity that itself is not wise after partaking in some of the options on display.

I discovered that cannabis edibles are not the gateway drug you’d expect. They offer a high dose of THC, which gets into the bloodstream far more effectively than smoke, and all at once. You go from flat to fukced in minutes. Not a good idea if you’re forced to cane the leftovers of the holiday stash at the airport on the way home. This one does not recommend.

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I dreamed in red. The towering formations of the National Monument, or Red Rocks, or the looming canyon walls through which the Buffalo took us. Great fortresses of sandstone shaped in infinite variety by the quiet insistence of water over stacked multiples of millennia. From sheets and sails to entwined lovers or clasped hands, at times it felt like there were new wonders around every curve of the road. I became almost miracle-blind, losing the ability to understand what I was seeing. I took so many pictures, as if they could serve as anything more than a pale reminder of the earth and the heat and the stillness of it all.

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I dreamed of air and gravity. We didn’t get below five thousand feet above sea level for the entirety of our stay. There was only one real moment when the thinner air got to us–at over twelve thousand feet, at the highest point of the spectacular Trail Ridge Road. Altitude sickness affects dozens of visitors to the state every year, though, and we were witness to a tourist ready to be stretchered down the hill at a staging area near South Fork. At a little over ten thousand feet, we were hopping around like mountain monkeys. Best to acclimate slowly.

As to the nature of gravity–the broad-beamed loom of the canyons and rock formations, the sheer drops on either side of the roads that wound up into the mountains, the worryingly crumbly nature of some of those cliff walls–well, they put Isaac Newton’s epiphany with the apple right at the forefront of my mind. A trip in a hot air balloon on our last Monday in Pagosa made us feel as if we could defy that law. The basket was solid under our feet as we rose sedately over the cares of the world below.

We were in thrall to gravity when we visited Great Sand Dunes National Park, Arrakis in miniature. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to hang onto a waxed tea-tray with a couple of handles inexpertly screwed on, and hurl myself off the steep sides of the fifty-foot high dune-slopes. I face planted more than once. The sand was scalding under my sandaled feet. I still found granules of mica in my ears three days later.

It was some of the best fun I’d ever had.

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I dreamed of water. Of the Colorado River, which followed us up until the last week on our travels, cool and blue at the bottom of the grounds at Palisade and Great Lakes. Of the San Juan, muddy and effervescent as it became part of the hot geothermal network at Pagosa Springs. Standing on a rock at the foot of Piedra Falls, staring up at the clear water barreling down, cold and sharp and welcome in the mid-day heat that often seemed to turn to rain in the afternoons.

Ah yes, the rain. We must have brought it with us, for Colorado had suffered one of its driest seasons in nearly 40 years just before we arrived. At Pagosa, we did not have a day without a cloudburst. On our last day we had to leave the local rodeo early as a giant weather front closed jaws on the arena from two sides. The lightning was comic book intense. The deluge churned the dry earth on the roadsides to mud in an instant. At the opening ceremony of the rodeo, they had actively added a plea for rain into the prayers.

Their wish came true that night, boy howdy.

I dreamed of lunch and dinner. Of the chargrilled filet mignon at the Abbey Grill in Pagosa, a melting revelation on the plate. Of Riff Raff Brewing’s goat burger–pink in the middle, deeply flavoured and a perfect accompaniment to their robust beer selection. The porchetta with green chili at Bin 707 in Grand Junction, a hot porky hug of a dish. The char Sui burrito from Chui FU’s food truck, the moment when I found that Latin-Asian cuisine was no joke but one of those simple, brilliant extrapolations of flavour profile and food styles. The simple ears of corn I cooked for dinner one night, absurdly sweet and toothsome. We tried to stay away from the chains and went with word-of-mouth recommendations. Bin 707 was lauded by three different sources, including a random woman nursing an IPA while resting her huge friendly Akita at World’s End Brewery in Grand Lake.

[image error]Beer courtesy of Ska Brewing, Durango, and Kip’s Bar and Cantina, Pagosa Springs.

I dreamed of beer. Colorado is in the middle of a craft beer revolution. There are over three hundred breweries in the state, all coming up with extensive, innovative menus. Renegade in Denver, a short walk from our apartment was a hipsters’ hangout, but the brews were sheer class. Palisade Brewing in erm, Palisade was based in an old industrial shed, but had a mellow local’s vibe. Their signature IPA, Dirty Hippie is complex and hop-heavy, and cuts through the heat of a Colorado summer afternoon like a water-knife. The choice was always maddening and worthwhile. Every bar we went in, however humble could offer a local beverage even if it was from one of the bigger players like Breckinridge or O’Dells. But if a town hosted a brewery, the bars would stock it. Local pride demanded no less.

Above all, I dreamed of Colorado. A place of astonishing natural beauty and the friendliest people you could ever hope to meet. A place where opulence and terrible poverty seem to live cheek by jowl, often on the same block. A fiercely patriotic place, where the blunt end of the politics that disturb the rest of the world seem barely to warrant a mention. Even at the Independence Day Eve celebrations at Denver’s Civic Park, the name of the President was not mentioned. The idea of America seemed somehow more important than the reality.

[image error]Colorado is a place that is proud of its history but unafraid of the future. Legal weed, craft beer and another big cash-crop–solar–are signals that the state is keen to attract new ways to stay funded. Perhaps part of that is the sheer diversity of the population. Colorado residents are, according to urban legend at least, born elsewhere. People live here because they want to. Which has brought its own problems, as wealthy out-of-staters push up property prices, and the locals find they are priced well and truly out of the market. The main concerns, in the same way that Coloradans prefer their groceries, were local, then state, then national.

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We left the White Buffalo in idle at the Thrifty drop off at Denver International. She had taken us around Colorado with grace and style. It was a wrench to leave our noble steed behind. But the time had come to load ourselves into a hurtling death-tube and get back to our lives. In England, it would be as warm, as dry as Colorado. The parks would be brown from lack of rain, and our garden would be a disaster zone. The sky would be too close, the air too thick.

But every ride has to end somewhere, and this was where we got off.

We needed extra luggage to bring back all the memories.

[image error]The Clan of The White Buffalo (L-R) Hawkeye, Lady Red, Stretch, TLC, Doc Conejo.

Two Hours In New Mexico

DATELINE: July 17th, 2018

Somewhere on Route 285, skirting the Carson National Forest, NM

The storm had tracked us since Alamosa. As we slipped south past the border, it shouldered in, riding alongside like a good ole boy with bad teeth and a worse attitude. It was pretty darn clear it was looking to start something.

The tail end of our trip south had lost its shine. Hawkeye had struck again. His ‘slight detour’ to dip a toe into a different state took us in a loop around some of the more desolate and depressing sites New Mexico had to offer. Dead or dying farmland. Vast junkheaps piled high with the ransacked corpses of old trucks, the exoskeletons of ruined farmed equipment splaying out thorny limbs like gigantic fossilised insects.

Every building we passed was empty, windows boarded up or kicked in. Scattered stands of graying lumber stood like waiting funeral pyres. The gateway to a ranch that we could not see had deer antlers knotted over the uprights, ugly-white as a bad dental job in the frantic light that pulsed out from the heart of the storm. The gateway to another had a mannequin strung by its neck hanging from a cross post.

I hope it was a mannequin. In the shadow-carved light, it was so difficult to be certain.

The storm was still with us, effortlessly keeping up the pace. Every now and again it would fling out a handful of rain, just to keep our attention up. This wasn’t the clean, warm Colorado rain we had come to welcome. This was dirty, greasy stuff, oil-spill and septic run-off, smearing the bug-strike across the Buffalo’s windshield without ever letting it clear.

The storm grumbled, thick and heavy as the snort from a Harley’s drivetrain, a deep pulse shaking us about like beans in a can. Anytime now, the fucker would pounce. Just at the point where we were furthest from help, it would clench its bruise-dark fists and pound us into the blacktop.

We found a way west. Route 64. According to the map, heading into the heart of the Carson National Forest. Months without rain had turned the landscape into a patchwork of khaki and tan, like camouflage, as if New Mexico was trying to hide from itself. The thirsting ground would have gratefully accepted the punishment of the storm. It was too busy toying with us to care about opening up.

The leading edge of the cloud front mutated, or maybe it was our change of course that shifted our perception. It developed a snout, sharp as a shark’s tooth. An eye-shaped meniscus bulged into being. Colourless as bone at the inner edge, deepening to the flat grey of dead flesh towards the orbit. Within, where a flash of blue from the early evening sky would have given us a faint glimpse of hope, there was only darkness.

No. Not darkness. Lightning flickered in there, actinic forks and nets of light, gone before they’d really registered. A complex pulse of activity, like the workings of some vast, inhuman mind made visible, all the better to inspire dread.

We felt it, alright. Barreling down a desolate highway with a malevolent weather system at our shoulder, dread was a default. The radio had gone dead. There was no-one else on the roads. There was no sign of habitation. No lights in the houses we passed. No livestock in the fields. This was abandoned country, dead land. Tierra muerte.

For a while, we wondered if the apocalypse had already happened and we were just a little late to the party.

Finally, we hit Highway 84 at Tierra Amarilla and could start working north. The storm, bored now, tossed one last bucket of dirty water at us and turned away, sulking south. Its dark eye closed, its snout flattened. Just a weather front now. Whatever demon had possessed it for a while on a an evening in mid-July in the New Mexico hinterlands was gone. At Chama, just south of the border, civilization began to reassert itself. A petrol station open for business. Houses with lights on. A dog in a yard, barking joyfully as we span past.

We broke the Colorado border at Chromo and the sun cast aside the last of the cloud. We were bathed in red and gold dusk-light all the way home.

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A day later we would visit a town best known for its resident cannibal and bounce a deer off the Buffalo’s rear offside.

But that’s a story for another campfire.

Strange Roads And Forgotten Highways

DATELINE: 12th July, 2018

The Rim Rock Road, part of the Colorado National Monument, nr. Fruita, CO.

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John Otto was a bit of a strange one. A reclusive canyon-dweller, he was one of those guys for whom mid-nineteenth century America was made–a rugged individualist finding a place to call his own in the vast open spaces of the heartland.

He was a little late for the heyday, alas. But Otto’s spirit and love for the land north of Grand Junction he called home would have a lasting effect. In 1907 he began carving out paths and tracks to make the rugged canyons he trod so easily more accessible to the outside world. At the same time, he began agitating to make his ‘backyard’ into a place that everyone could enjoy. He was a recluse, but would happily abandon his privacy given any excuse to evangelize the spires and canyons amongst which he lived. Otto was tireless at writing petitions, conducting tours and seeking out sponsors to get the message out.

In 1911, his efforts were rewarded. President Taft signed papers that turned John Otto’s backyard into the Colorado National Monument. Otto was rewarded personally, with the creation of a new post–the Monument’s first custodian, with a stipend of a dollar a month. I get the feeling that he would have done it regardless of pay. He called the land ‘the heart of the world.’

Without him, we would not be in Fruita, Colorado, pointing the nose of the White Buffalo up onto the Rim Ridge Road.

Now, that road is a whole other story. 23 miles from Grand Junction to Fruita, it takes the high route up and through some of the most spectacular sights in John Otto’s backyard. 20 years in the making, carved out of the sparking red sandstone by gangs of young men with pickaxes, shovels and fistfuls of dynamite.

The Monument is geology laid bare. Millions of years of erosion have carved towers and sheets of rocks out of the landscape. They take on a myriad of forms–a pair of hands clasped in prayer, a couple kissing.

Steep-faced canyons drop hundreds of feet to green-scumbled valley floors. Brave souls can take the switchback trails that Otto cut into the rock down into these valleys, but they are not recommended if you’re unprepared. These are not paths to lightly tread. One false step and the express route to Plummetville awaits.

We stayed on the road, and chose to enjoy the views instead.

At sunset, those views change completely. The red rocks lose their angry hue in the face of the blazing crimson of the lowering sun. They blush instead, sweetening into coral and madder rose, lilac and damson. As we chased the gloaming back towards the jewel-lights of Grand Junction, a couple of thousand feet below, I thought again about John Otto, a man so intent on living life as he chose that his one attempt at normality, marriage to local artist Beatrice Farnham, foundered after three weeks. She left in despair, saying, “I tried hard to live his way, but I could not do it, I could not live with a man to whom even a cabin was an encumbrance.”

There was only ever room for one true love in John Otto’s life, and she would never try to make him change.

DATELINE: 12th July 2018

Somewhere on Highway 6, on the Colorado/Utah border

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Hawkeye did it again. We had a little time to kill before our last stop of the day, so he coaxed the Buffalo in a westerly direction and fired us out towards Utah. Hawkeye being Hawkeye, he didn’t choose the obvious route–Interstate 70, a clean, fast road. Instead he hung a tight left at a half-horse town called Loma, and put us onto Highway 6.

Once, this would have been one of the main drags through the western part of the state. Now it’s neglected. The surface is unmaintained, the blacktop gently devolving to rubble and potholes that tested the Buffalo’s shocks. There are no services, no people, no ambulant life at all. Low, scrubby plains march off to the green hills of the McInnis National Park. We were utterly alone. No other vehicles passed us for the entire time we were on Highway 6. The silence was deep and full in our heads.

The border between Utah and Colorado is marked by a handmade sign, deliberately hammered at an angle to a post. A shot-pocked can of peaches sits alongside. There is a sense of utter isolation, of abandonment at this sentry post. We paused for photos, but were soon chased back onto the road. There was a distinctly eerie atmosphere about the place. The feel of somewhere haunted by a history that had been almost completely erased.

A few miles into Utah, there was a spur road back onto I-70 which we took with a sigh of relief. It ran on the other side of the McInnis Ridge, a greener and much more pleasant drive. Less than a mile separated us from the forgotten road that waited quietly to the north, a road that you would now actively have to seek out.

I wondered why the road was so completely un-used. Surely an enterprising person could set up a little 420-friendly operation close to the state line. A simple shack with a pull-in. You could even do it as a mobile, food-truck style business on the weekends. A way to perhaps bring a spark of life back to this forgotten highway.

Call it The Last Chance Cannabis Saloon. I might set up a Kickstarter.

DATELINE: 12th July 2018

Somewhere in the hills above Fruita, CO.

[image error]Like butter wouldn’t melt…

Eventually, Star and I came to an understanding. I would stop kicking her in the side, and she would stay away from the tasty snacks on either side of the trail and pick up the pace. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t try it on. She was too damn stubborn not to test the boundaries of our fragile relationship. Typical redhead.

I am no natural horseman. Donkeys at the seaside were always more my speed. But it seemed foolish not to give it a go while we were in the heart of cowboy country. Besides, I had dropped sixty bucks on a fine hat back in Denver. We took a recommendation from our landlord in Palisades and booked a sunset ride with the fine folks at Rim Rock Adventures.

‘How you doing back there, Rob?’ Crysta, our guide, looked back down the line at Star and I.. She was a rangy, loud blonde cowgirl, constantly cracking jokes and chatting away. I managed a shaky thumbs up. This would not beat me.

I could understand Star’s attitude. This was her fourth ride of the day. It was hot and dusty up on the trail. Given the choice, I certainly wouldn’t fancy being loaded up with 12 stones of lanky Brit at the end of a long shift. She had definitely given me a look when we were introduced back at the ranch. I could tell she was distinctly under-impressed.

Hence her refusal to stay with the group, lagging behind the line of horses that picked their way up into the hills. She’d follow along, sure. But she was gonna take her own sweet time about it, find her own path and if she spotted a tasty bit of grass along the way, well, why not.

Star and I quickly became the comic relief of the group. Over the course of the ride, my hat would blow off my head, Star would get herself tangled in her hitching loop, and I would nearly come out of the saddle when she suddenly decided to break into a trot on a steep uphill gradient. Star was definitely the boss here. I was just along for the ride.

But what a ride. The trail snaked up through the foothills of the McInnis National Conservation Area, skirting the edge of Devil’s Canyon before plunging back through sagebrush-fringed coves. You couldn’t do this road by car, and the steep inclines and declines would have been an exhausting chore by foot. ‘Trust your horses,’ Crysta said, and they brought us over the hills and home again.

The sun was setting as we arrived back at the ranch, and we dismounted, a little saddle-sore but eyes shining. TLC reported whenever she looked back to see how I was doing, I was grinning like a loon and cackling. I guess maybe Star and I got along a little better than I thought.

I gave my stubborn, greedy slowpoke a hug before we left. She leaned in and huffed out a hot breath from her velvety snout. I don’t think we’d ever be friends, but I’d like to hope we shared a little something as we clattered over the red rocks at the foot of the Coronado National Monument.

Who knows? Maybe she was just glad to get me off her back at last.

Four Feet In The Colorado River

DATELINE: July 7th, 2018

Adams Falls, The Kawaneechee Valley, nr. Grand Lakes, CO.

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Adventure is only ever the turn of a wheel away for the Clan Of The White Buffalo. We were acclimating to the opening section of the Rocky Mountain National Park before hitting the Trail Ridge Road, when Hawkeye spotted a turn-off for a place called Adam’s Falls. We like us a waterfall. In we went.

The problem was no-one was really dressed for what developed into a mile-long hike up a rocky and uneven path. Lady Red was in a pair of flappy Birkenstocks. She was mildly scolded by a ranger for the inappropriateness of her footwear. We all pointed at Hawkeye, who put on his innocent face. Which fools no-one.

The Falls were worth the scramble. Clear water boiling in a surge around a ninety-degree cut in the rock face, a good thirty feet below us. Utterly spectacular. Stretch was having the time of his life, hopping about like a jumping bean from rock to rock. He managed to straddle the flow further up the falls when the shoreline dipped down to meet the water, perching on a beaver-dam like a forest pixie.

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As we stumbled back to the Buffalo, I realised that we’d left Lady Red behind, and I circled around to find her. She had found a place where the river had calmed, and you could stand safely in the stream without being swept away to a watery end.

I couldn’t resist. I pulled off my shoes and joined her.

The water was diamond-clear, and cold as a politician’s handshake. My feet, which had been quietly steam-baking in the heat in the trail, tingled and came back to life. I had to hop from one to the other. It was too cold to stand with both feet immersed.

It was utterly delicious, and a wrench to shake off the water and rejoin the party. I made a vow to myself there and then. This would not be the first time I was baptized in the clean waters of the Colorado River.

DATELINE: July 7th 2018

Shadow Mountain Lake, CO.

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It turned out I didn’t have long to wait. Our simple shack on the outskirts of Grand Lake had a tributary of the Colorado bubbling away just past the back porch. It was low–our neighbour, an affable chap called Michael who fished the stream every morning before sun-up for brown trout, said he had never seen the water levels drop so far.

The riverbed was treacherous. Muddy and filled with jutting slabs and humps of rock, I couldn’t get more than a foot away from the bank before a sense of imminent collapse came over me. I found a place where I could wedge my feet in place, and made my stand.

The water was cool now, the icy chill from the rushing streams of Adams Falls mellowed down to a temperature that you could bear for more than ten seconds at a time. Over on the other bank, a tiny shack stood on stilts amongst the reeds. I had no idea what it was for. Perhaps it was where Michael poked his rod out in his quest for fish. It would make, I pondered, one heck of a writing nook.

The Lord only knows how I’d get across to it, though. One more step on this slippery bed would likely see my feet fly out from under me. I picked my way back to the bank. Dinner was not going to make itself, and Lady Red was already eyeing up the hash jellies.

DATELINE: July 9th, 2018

Grizzly Creek Trail, Glenwood Canyon, CO.

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It was a long drive from Shadow Mountain Lake to Palisade. It didn’t have to be–if we were keen to get to our final destination then we could just sit on I-70 and put the hammer down. But what’s the point to that when there’s adventure to be found?

Far west of Vail, the steep walls of Glenwood Canyon rose up above us. Blocky, striated monoliths, capped and shod in green. Our old friend and traveling companion surged alongside us, slate-blue and foam-white. There was activity on the river now, kayakers and paddle-boarders testing their mettle against the fast-running stream.

At Grizzly Creek, there was an embarkation point, and we couldn’t resist. Hawkeye pulled the White Buffalo over, and Lady Red and I scurried across the inlet road and down to the bank.

I dug my toes into fine white sand, just cool enough to walk on comfortably. Then I waded out. After five hours in a car, even one with the comfort and leg-room of the Buffalo, letting cool Colorado meltwater lap over your ankles is something close to ecstasy. The walls of the canyon skyscrapered up on either side like temples, like God’s own business district.

Stretch and Hawkeye joined us, although they didn’t enter the waters. They were happy to hop around on the rocks by the bank, snapping off photos and videos. Just before we left, a trio of kayak-bros scudded up. I snapped a photo, and they immediately posed and stunted for the lens. Stretch was oblivious to their antics. There was a big bug on the rock ahead that consumed his entire attention.

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DATELINE: July 10th, 2018

Palisade, CO.

Late afternoon, and we amble out from the ranch-house for a glass of wine in the sun. Palisade is the heart of the Colorado wine industry, a verdant and fertile plain surrounded by the towering cliffs of Mount Garfield and Grand Mesa. We had spent the early part of the afternoon in a couple of wineries, tasting and spending. Now it was time to enjoy the fruits of our ‘labour’.

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Past the chicken-shack, where the chickadees cluck and burble, friendly and inquisitive. Then down the track, where a red outhouse stands over a reed-fringed pond. Even now, at five in the afternoon, it’s almost thirty degrees in the shade. We’re drinking more water than wine, and the sweat-band of my Rockmount Stetson is quickly saturated.

Eventually, I feel the need to unstick my arse from the plastic seat, and take a stroll down to the riverbank behind the outhouse. My old friend awaits, the stream running low and gentle over a rock-strewn bed.

I kick off my flip flops and walk into the water. It’s almost warm here, and I feel my feet start to expand, flattening out against the rock and sand. It’s completely quiet. There’s no traffic noise. I can’t hear the voices of my clan. I would take a photo, but the battery has dried on my camera and my phone is playing music up on the deck.

It’s just me, and the river, and the rock, and the sky.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so utterly, peacefully happy.

Breakfast And Lunch And Dinner In America

DATELINE: 9th July 2018

Vail, CO

Pepi’s Bar And Restaurant is a little bit of Austria in the Rockies. OK, sorry, let’s track back a little. The Hotel Gasthof Gramshammer is a little bit of Austria in the Rockies. Pepi Gramshammer was a member of the 1960 Olympic Ski Team, and saw the birth of Vail, effectively an Alpine-themed Milton Keynes, as an opportunity. 54 years later, it’s still there, the cheerfully orange frontage inviting you in as an antidote to the blando corporate blah on show elsewhere.

It’s unapologetically Austrian, offering schnitzel, spatzle and hearty rib-sticking winter fare all year round. As a stop off for lunch on our way through from Great Lakes to Palisades, it suited rather well. There was a sense of history and personality to the place, a sense of ‘fuck you, I was here first, and the big orange building stays.’ It’s an attitude that the rest of Vail could do well to copy or at least look at.

We snagged an end table on the terrace (which I have a nasty feeling was reserved for someone else but hey we got there first and we were English and polite therefore fuck youse) which made the hangout much more choice. We watched the rich and privileged of Vail waft past, sweetly invulnerable to the world around them.

Pepi does a damned good Reuben. You don’t have to unhinge your jaw to eat it.

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DATELINE: 9th July 2018

Grand Junction, CO

When a place gets independently recommended by three different sources, you know you have to check it out. Bin 707 in Grand Junction got shout-outs from our next-door neighbor in Grand Lakes, a random lady at the World’s End brewpub down the way, and our hosts at Palisades.

Sure, ok, you have our attention.

Tucked into the business district of Grand Junction, Bin 707 is a gem of a place that you could walk past and miss and that would be a fuckup on your part. Highwalled, with a long low patio that allows you to make the most of the hazy 25 degree evening, Bin 707 is serious about their provenance. Local first, then state, then national. Which means Colorado lamb and pork is strong on the menu, with some great river-food in support. Alongside an amazing porchetta with green chili and hominy, and a lamb tenderloin so tender it almost melted on the fork, we enjoyed a glorious bavette that succumbed to the blade like a giallo victim, and duck breast that offered the perfect payoff between fat, crisp and melting tenderness. Stretch hit the jackpot, though. A simple Thai-spiced bowl of mussels won with the sweetest, plumpest bivalves I’ve ever tasted. The only criticism–more sourdough toast needed to soak up the precious juices.

Oh, and the beer menu was genuinely intimidating. In a good way, I mean. Thank the gods that our friendly and knowledgeable server could guide my way.

Relaxed, confident, delicious. You guys have to try this place out.

DATELINE: 10th July 2018

Clifton, CO.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you play it right, it can be the only meal of the day. If you want a serious, old-school American carbo-load, then Starvin Arvins on the main drag through Clifton is a must stop.

It’s dark wood and cozy booths. It’s stuffed animal heads on every wall. It’s stacked platefuls of food for absurdly small outlays of cash. It’s more coffee than you can drink in one go, and I never thought I’d write that sentence.

At Starvin, your waitress will be bright, blonde and heavily tattooed and it’s not a hipster affectation. At Starvin, I finally saw the point to breakfast. Here’s the buffer zone between you and the world. Here’s where you armour up against the challenges ahead.

A plateful of hash browns, cheese, sausage gravy and a cats-head biscuit with home-made peach and strawberry jelly on the side. Whatever else happens in your day, you know you’ve got breakfast right at least.

Fruit And Fibre? Bitch, please.

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DATELINE: 10th July, 2018

Palisade, CO.

One last thing, that isn’t breakfast, lunch or dinner, but needs to be raised to the group. The Grand Junction area is incredibly fertile, and Palisade, our base for this week, is rich in fruit of all kinds. It’s a big wine-growing region, and you have to know we’ve been tasting our faces off. The Dry Rosé at Grand River Winery is a crisp, flinty revelation.

But oh, the fruit. Summer season peaches are absurdly juicy and full-flavoured, spilling honeyed nectar down your chin with every bite. The Bing cherries on offer at every stall are so sweet and rich, almost alcoholic in their roundness and complexity. We spent money at Get Peachy, but you can do as well at Nana’s Fruit and Jam Shack, Herman’s Produce… oh, man, you honestly can’t go wrong.

Five-a-day never felt so easy.