If a Coyote Crosses Your Path

Antelope Canyon, Navajo Tribal Land, Arizona

I'm a little nervous about offending anyone on the Navajo tribal lands, so I brush up on do's and don'ts. The problem is that there are hundreds so I memorize a few of the most relevant. Most of them seem sensible or whimsical.


The Navajo guide leads us into the otherworldly slot canyon.


If a Coyote crosses your path, turn back and do not continue. If you keep traveling, something terrible will happen to you. You will be in an accident, hurt, or killed.


Don't point at a rainbow with your finger. The rainbow will cut it off or break it.


Don't throw rocks at a whirlwind. It will throw them back and chase you


Don't call whirlwinds a name. Evil Spirits will get you.


Do not roll a rock from a mountain. The holy people put them there and it will be bad luck.


Do not watch a river flowing swiftly, or you will get dizzy and fall in.


Do not run over a snake in your car or you will have a bad life.


Do not talk to dogs or other animals because they might talk back and you will die.


Do not say, "I wish I had some meat" when you have the hiccups or your livestock won't grow.


Do not eat frogs because you will have bad luck or bad breath.


Do not eat the heel of a loaf of bread or you will have lots of children.


Do not bite on roasting corn and then put it back or it will get cold and ruin the rest of your crop. Also, your teeth will fall out.


Do not burn blood from a nosebleed because you will get headaches and your head will split.


Do not have three people comb each other's hair at the same time or they will get stuck.

Do not turn pages backwards or you will go blind.

Do not peel potatoes or apples when you are pregnant or the baby will have a flat face.

Checking Into the Morrison Motel

Let's talk about death. There are more death euphemisms than there are for body parts or even sex. Jim Morrison, for example, has been dead for 40 years.. We've been to his grave in Paris four times. Jim's headstones are frequently stolen and the graffiti changes often. The last time we visited a bored Paris cop was watching Jim's grave...They have Jim far enough away from Proust, Oscar Wilde, and Heloise and Abelard that those graves don't get much punk vandalism...Oscar's grave featured a lovely angel with a full set of male genitalia. those organs ended up on the desk of the cemetery superintendent and eventually disappeared...

Jim stole an umbrella from a police car in 1963 while he was a student in Tallahassee at Florida State University. He was drunk at the time and got busted for urinating in the wrong place while holding the wrong umbrella. Jim was born, like me, in 1943. I was also arrested in Tallahassee as a student in 1964. I drove my Harley Davidson at speeds over 100 MPH past the Tallahassee police station at 2 AM...I was drunk on 151 rum at the time...The policeman who arrested me was shaking badly...I remember the judge asking me if I was insane...I pleaded out with the simple military serviceman ID card and paid the $110 fine...

Jim was a roommate of my friends, the West brothers. They played "Strange Days" for me on vinyl and told me that Jim had moved out just before I moved in. You would have thought that Jim would have outlasted me based on his feeble law-breaking attempts at umbrella theft and my own high-speed drunken exploits...Instead, here I am 52 years later having a good time...and Jim, at age 27, is in the great Golf course where we all get a hole in one...Taking a dirt nap...Pushing up the daisies ...Passed on...Deceased...At room temperature...Stone-dead ...Demised ... Ceased to be..No more expired ..Gone to meet his maker ..Stiff ..Bereft of life ..Resting in peace ..Off the twig ..Kicked the bucket ..Shuffled off the mortal coil ..Run down the curtain ..Joined the choir invisible ...That good night ..In a better place.. Six feet under ..Crossed over ..crossed the bar. Crossed the River Styx ....Wandering the Elysian Fields ...Paid Charon's fare...Sleeping with the fishes.. belly up ..bloodless...defunct ..departed..done for.. erased .extinct ..gone ..inanimate.. .late.. .lifeless..liquidated ..mortified ..offed ..perished ..in repose ..rubbed out ..snuffed out ..wasted ..lost ..be taken ..bumped off ..bought it ..cashed in..checked out ..conked ..croaked ..Danced the last dance ..ate it ..finished .Kicked off ...Got a one-way ticket ..Popped off ..Snuffed ..Sprouted wings ..Succumbed..No longer with us ..Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ..Returned to the ground ..With the ancestors. Gave up the ghost ..Wacked. Terminated ..Put down.. going to the big ___(whatever) in the sky"...Wormfood ..Fragged.. Bought a pine condo. Gone into the fertilizer business .....Become living-challenged ...tits up

Jim is definitely done dancing....He checked into the Morrison Motel...Jim's eating at the Rotten Skull Cafe...Jim's gone belly up...He's gone to the last roundup...He went past his "sell-by" date...Jim has left the building...Jim's no longer with us...He's on the unable to breathe list...Jim's permanently out of print...The lizard king is six feet under...Jim is sleeping with the fishes...He's wearing a toe tag...He's in the past people plantation...Been assigned to the Hale Bopp project...Become peasant under grass...He's playing harp duets with Hoffa...

So...Jim was a pretty boy, but, actually, I think I was at least as good looking as Jim. Not only that, but my crimes were more exciting...and I appear to be a much better survivor type...C'mon baby light my fire...As far as Jim goes, he's at room temperature...belly-up....bought a pine condo...ceased to bee...danced the last dance...inanimate...no longer running the human race...pushing daisies...paid Charon's fare...stiff...wandering the Elysian fields...gone into the fertilizer business...worm food....resurrection eligible...kicked the oxygen habit...passed his sell-by date...examining the radishes from below...

Mrs. Phred went into Newport, Oregon to get her hair done yesterday. I took the camera downtown to get pictures of all the seafood processing plants and marine mammals.

I liked this T-shirt. It reminded me of certain degenerate English gambler friends...

Today we passed over the mighty Columbia River to an RV park north of Portland in Vancouver, Washington. We want to see Mount Saint Helen's again. It blew in 1980. The last time we went there was 1992. Looking at the recovery after another 20 years should be interesting.

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Laura came to visit Mrs. Phred back on the Siletz River. Mrs. Phred has her own online life with the women's RV Forum...Personally, my own online activities are at "Second Life", where my avatar is extremely attractive and rich...I spend a lot of time in "dance bubbles" with attractive avatars who claim to be female...Probably most of them are unshaven middle-aged fat men from Cincinnati, fingering keyboards while wearing their "wife-beater" T-shirts and drinking Budweisers...

M.T. Liggett – Kansas Highway Artist

Mullinville, Kansas

We’re cruising highway 400 West on the way to Dodge City. “Free Bird” is coming in clear on a Wichita FM station. We come around the curve and see a half-mile of tightly packed spinning windmills, whirligigs, and political caricatures made of abandoned farm equipment, old cars and railroad parts. Mrs. Phred swerves the RV to the shoulder and I grab the camera.


This guy is 73 years old and completely outrageous. He’s been writing an insanely clever political blog in solid steel for at least 20 years.


"Evolution is wrong," one display reads, "Only a miracle from the Almighty could have created the moronic dumb asses on the Kansas State Board of Education." Mrs. Phred points out an "intelligent design" totem with the words upside down. The Kansas Board objected to teaching evolution in 2005.


Hillary Clinton is, "Our Jack-Booted Eva Braun,” Mr. and Mrs. Clinton caricatures are labeled, “Pothead” and “Porkadolf”. Mrs. Clinton is done up with swastikas.


He’s got one that equates Waco with Auschwitz. Janet Reno has her head stuffed up her butt. A right wing Republican has his thumb in the same position. Halliburton is represented by a dark pig’s head.


It’s tough to figure out Liggett’s political position. He seems equally pissed by just about everything and everyone, especially politicians.


We passed a town destroyed by a tornado a few miles back. Liggett devotes quite a few displays to FEMA. “Tornados blow, FEMA sucks!” he proclaims.


Lots of the “totems” are devoted to M.T.’s old girlfriends, who he has immortalized in junk. You have to wonder about his relationships with neighbors. My money says he doesn’t much care much what other people think.


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