Turkey Day

Thanksgiving, a national holiday in the US (and there's only about 5 holidays country wide).

I don't really have anything to say about the topless waitress showing her boobs for spare change at a pub, the guy who ratted out his best friend for drag racing on the streets, and throwing rocks at jelly fish. Except it's all true. But I should say the topless waitress seemed like a nice girl.

I'm in a tent on top of Mt. Baldy. It's raining and windy and water is pooling inside my tent. It's November 24 and I just ate half a chicken and some bread. Isn't Thanksgiving soon?

The day before Turkey Day was spent in the rain at Mt. Baldy. That's just outside of Atherton. Out in The Tablelands. I followed a random dirt road towards the powerlines. Someone told me the roads out here follow the powerlines and if you take a dirt road, there's instant camping. It works out.

I show up, in the rain and wind, and set up my tent in the small rocks. My water-proof tent starts leaking so everything I have, that hasn't been extra waterproofed is wet.

I'm running out of Keppra, the anti-seizure drug I'm on. I'm heading back to Cairns hoping that the Keppra mailed to me shows up. My brain docs secretary is a cunt and faxing in my prescription was too hard for her both times I asked when I was still Stateside. Cary, one of my sisters, bitched at her another couple times after I left trying to get the prescription filled.

Oh yeah, that's "cunt" in the Aussie way which is the same as the Irish way which is probably the same as the British way. It seems to be slightly worse than saying "hell" in the US. Same with "fuck off". Although I did see a kid fuckin' full of bloody cunts get hollered at for saying "asshole".

Fuck doesn't seem to hold much weight here. Australia would make Holden Caulfield happy. Or at least happier. I haven't seen one "fuck" or "fuck you" carved or written on anything.

So by my way of thinking which is what has you slacking off at work reading this, is, in Australia, Jody Foster wouldn't need an army, and JFA would have chosen another name. Probably "Son of Sam" because there's always a homicidal nut with a gun around in the Good Ol' US of A.

If that above paragraph made no sense to you, you need to re-read JD Salinger's psychotic bible, also known as, Catcher in the Rye. David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz was croaking folks in New York City in the 1970s because his neighbor's dog told him too. I'm sure he was a fan of Catcher in the Rye. They usually are and it's this Divine Belief that keeps Salinger from publishing.

That and his other stuff isn't as good and he lives like a king from his royalties. Oh, and JFA (Jody Foster's Army) is a great skate rock band from Arizona from the early 1980s. I'm sure you saw them play with Aggression and Steve Cabellero's band, The Faction, at a Bones Brigade show. The local band that would've played with them in Sacto would've probably been Team Urinal, although the Hot Spit Dancers would've been a better choice for me.

Which is a long way of saying, I should've switched from Keppra to Dilantin before this trip. Dilantin is 80 years old and is available everywhere in the world for cheap. Keppra is newer, has less side effects, but is expensive and hard to find. With my 20/20 hindsite, I should've switched to Dilantin.

When I took Dilantin before, I slept about 20 hours a day for the first week. After that it was down to 12 hours, and after 14 days it was around 8 hours. With the time I've been waiting for my tank, I should've switched to Dilantin at Bob Dumma's house in Mackay. You have to ween yourself off and on epileptic drugs just like coffee, cigarettes and Russian roulet.

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Today is Thanksgiving and I'm wet in a pub called Hotel Tully Pubs eating curried sausage and rice. It's okay, nothing special but a lot of food. The barkeep wasn't friendly. Don't know if it's because I've got a few days of road grime on me, or if he doesn't cotton to foreigners. He's nice to the locals. So next time you're here in Ravenshoe, Queensland's Highest Town at 3003.99 feet, skip out of this joint. I run out of pills tomorrow.

I need somewhere to go and the Millaa Millaa falls aren't too far away. Not that the name will ring a bell but you've seen 'em in commercials and in magazine ads. I'll post a photo of me, with a few days of scruff, out in front. I'm sure I'll
look just like a make-up ad.

Luckily Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in Australia. I'm not quite up to spending a national holiday by myself in a foreign country. I'm planning on going to Melbourne and imposing myself onto a friend and drinking beer with her family at the traditional Australian Christmas bbq.

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Another update as I post this. I'm skipping around too much. I'm in Darwin right now and it's Saturday Dec. 5. I've got another post of Cairns that leads up to Dimitri, the German with the Greek name. Then a short bit about making my way west to Katherine to Darwin. Although I'll leave Darwin tomorrow and head towards Broome to Perth.

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Posted by DaveSmith at December 3, 2004 06:37 PM