though i don’t have internet access, i do sorta remember where i left off in the blog… so i’ll start with saying that trinh, bryan, and bushaud are great folks.

trinh took me to the first vietnamese food i have had in what feels like forever. this doesn’t seem like a big deal, unless you realize that i haven’t had rice or any other asian food since i set out on this trip. seeing, smelling, sensing vietnamese food made me realize there was a definite gap in my life. the fact that there were fresh vegetables, which i hadn’t been ingesting much of, just tied the whole thing together for me.

also, vietnamese food is just such a good type of food for talking… though there wasn’t that much talking in the first few minutes after we got our dinner, the ability of vietnamese food to be edible even if not quickly eaten allowed us to have a relatively deep conversation. hanging out with trinh and co made me realize a few things… that people from all sorts of places are fundamentally able to connect to one another as long as they allow themselves to be open to the experience. this was especially pushed into my head for the simple fact that these folks did not know me from job, but were still willing to take me in and to talk with me and to open themselves up.

bun nem nuong, so good

friendly atlanteans

therefore, i’m trying to make myself as open to a variety of experiences as humanly possible while i’m here… letting whatever comes come. so it was with some trepidation but an open mind that i ended up going to a hipster party that was sposed to have a moonbounce there. imagine my utter disappointment when the moonbounce was not there. which is why we then went to a strip club.

no moonbounce, but ghost instead

stuttttttttter

trinh stutttter

bushaud stutter

drunk eyes

as a matter of fact, we went to the clearmont lounge, which is apparently an atlanta institution. the trip club par excellence. this was not your average strip club though… as it wasn’t really about how enticing the women on stage were… if anything, most of the strippers looked badly used, old and resigned to their jobs. the entire place had this air of unrefinement… in keeping with the dancers. one of the draws was apparently the fact that one of the strippers was able to crush beer cans with her tits, something i did not get to see. your feet stuck to the floor. i still can’t get the smell of cigarettes out of my skin. thankfully… we got out of there before bryan could buy me a lap dance from one of the older models.

pennies

but even though my experience in atlanta was brief… i had such a great, if surreal, experience while i was there. locals are awesome.

that morning i jumped on a 12 hour bus ride to pensacola florida, where i was met up by my friend Jason, who is also a bully from bullshido.net. pensacola reminded me of how fundamentally different every place i’ve been is from one another. it is this like small town, even if it’s the biggest in its region, that is hella spread out with cul de sacs and suburban sprawl everywhere. you gotta understand that this is fundamentally different from my experiences in other cities.

WTF? kfc has a fucking BUFFET?! sorry for the interruption, i just saw the sign. jesus christ. that sounds disgusting.

but getting back to it, after i got back to jay’s place, i stored my stuff, met his really friendly family, his wife casey, his kids tyler (not durden) and blake. after a brief rest, we ended up rolling. jay, though not belted, is a pretty decent player, with a knack for finding submissions from weird positions. he showed me some unorthodox stuff as we talked about lfie and about th jits scene in florida… which is apparently non existent.

jits and son

that night, we went off to watch the ufc at his father-in-law’s house, who goes by the name of greg, and who is by far one of the most well traveled and just generally nice folks i know… even if we fundamentally disagree one what is natural for the human animal.

i don’t want to talk much about the ufc… except to say fuck brock lesnar. and go sexyyama! and roflmfao @ bisping

that night… i almost suffocated. i am REALLY allergic to cats and jay had cats that apparently had some demon dander. but whatever, it happens. i ended up sleeping the next night at greg’s house, saving me a trip to a hotel. the concern for my wellbeing that jay and his family showed was so heartwarming that i wished i could express it to you through a medium more solid than this ethereal electronic transmission.

as i recovered from the swollen nodes in my throat, we went to the beach to veg out and to give my lungs a chance to take in the salt air. jay was telling me that the job market in pensacola was real hard up, and that even though property values were ridiculously low, there weren’t that many people moving down here. which blew my mind once i saw the beach.

holy crap. i swear to god, i thought i was in paradise. beautiful white powder, crystal clear water that had the temperature that was just enough to welcome you, the beautiful sun. kayaking! awesomeness. i swam and i frolicked and i even kayak’ed, seeing a school of manta rays. greg actually ended up seeing a massive sea turtle. how cool is that?

the big kid

the little kids

the kids and casey

look at that water, goddamn

fat but happy

afterwards we went to flounder’s, which is their favourite nearby restaurant, where i tried my first bushwacker and found out that grouper is a fucking amazing fish to eat. sure, the bottom feeders the restaurant made weren’t awesome, but goddamn, the fish was MINDBLOWING good. and then we walked down the boardwalk… which is just like a jersey shore.

not so much.

but still, alcohol and people watching and country music from a pretty girl.

awesome food

flash fried goodness

the whole family

i ended up moving to greg’s house that evening, watched four brothers and kicked it with greg and jay.

as a final note, i just wanted to say thank you again to them for opening up their homes and treating me like family. i usually think southern hospitality is kinda of bullshit. i’ve seen it be bullshit in a lot of places, but these folks, who are NOT southerners, definitely showed it to me. awesomeness.

ole me

more pennies

life is like a bus ride, you never know when you gon’ get where you’re going.

either that or i just really don’t feel like it when i’m tired and recovering from one of the worst allergy attacks of my life. demon cats. they’re everywhere, watch yourselves.

but yes, returning to the original point, i suck at good byes. i’m too much the sentimental type. so let me gloss over my final hoursi n nashville by saying that i had an awesome southern style breakfast and then waved goodbye to folks who’d made my stay in nashville one of the best times of my life. awersome sauce.

yes... sausage, eggs, fluffy-est pancakes evar... and to cap it, CHEESE GRITS

two englishmen and an oz woman walk into a bar...

with that… let me also skip over the ride. who wantsa know about the actual hours passed on the road? what is there to know but that they suck? yet cheap… and can sometimes be less of a hassle than airplane travel.

instead let me start talking about my time in hotlanta.

i think the energy coming off of the good byes at the nashville made me less down to hang out with hostel folks. you gotta understand… i was still being emo about the whole thing when i arrived in atlanta.

and boy was i in a terrible mood, none definitely to be hanging out with hostel folks. so what did i do? i went out to the only available restaurant/bar for a bite a mite of alky. at top flr, the food was good if overpriced, the drinks were interesting, even if their irish whiskey was wack, and their setting was very new york lounge reminiscent.

but more importantly, i’ll recommend the place’s patrons any day. i always go to locals, because locals are always in the know… but no group of locals so far on this trip have been as randomly open and just generally dope as this one. i met my first new vietnamese person, kim at the bar and from there we ended up on an odd-yssey of sorts.

we somehow ended up at the house of LaFace record’s lawyer. yes, that means this dude was the lawyer for outkast in its early days, as well as for TLC before no more scrubs. like whoa. platinum and gold records everywhere.

WATER = COLD

and BALLER mansion. so if it isn’t already weird enough drinking mango rum drinks and eating pigs in blankets, dude has a pool, with a massive slide. which i end up getting to enjoy. while an almost full moon shined its enigmatic countenance down upon us. how fucking weird is that? what set of serendipitous stoner angels must’ve colluded for that to happen? how dope is it that i left that night with my contact for the next night’s entertainment?

gorgeous and fay.

not tired at all, really.

jeebus. i have no idea how i ended up there. how the hell i ended up soaking wet in the pool. or even how i got home. or even why there’s this vague impression of having visited martin luther king jr’s house and church that’s stuck in my head. and it wasn’t even drunkeness… i was just so tired… from the night before partying, from the bus ride, from the cold i was getting.

so i slept in the next day.

you did not read about this earlier for the simple fact that i was having internet troubles like whoa in atlanta… and then i was just exhausted and already feeling the effects of demon cats when i got to pensacola. but i’m getting ahead of myself.

dope cuban food across the street from the hostel in atlanta. i recommend to anyone. good folks at the hostel as well… though i didn’t get to know that many folks.

after a hella late start, i ended up walking to The High, Atlanta’s art museum, after first checking out some local galleries. being from new york city and boston, i’m used to impressive museums… and while the high won’t ever top the met or mfa, it at least gives it a damned decent effort. i had a really good time there, enjoying art. which has always been one of my favourite past times. and of course, monet’s water lilies, which i didn’t get to photograph, were amazingly dope.

little local gallery in between shows

AWESOME use of found objects

who's that sexy beast in the reflection?

that evening, which was also a lot of fun and the entirety of my time in pensacola will come sometime tomorrow. hopefully, when i’m on the bus to norleans.

until then, i bid you adieu.

living is like a coke can, it’s bad for you, but sure is good going down.