El Camino: Borderland States

Crossroads

January 1997, Mt. Sinai, 4:30 AM}   

We climb Mt Sinai with flashlights in our hands.  We cling to the rocks.   Camel Jockeys shout in the dim light, “You want Camel?  Twenty-five dollars!” 

I reply, “We’re American’s I need no camel to get up this darn mountain.” 

Our flashlights go out.  

We quickly stumble on.

El Camino: Borderland States

{March 17th 1988 (Daniel is 19)}

My hands ache warming up. 

Angela drives determined.

I turn on “Wyoming Radio”.  All I hear is crop projections, sales of Mrs. Augers junk, and an occasional cowboy crooner.   Then I hear “Today, a Colombian Boeing 727, crashed into the side of mountain, killing 143 passengers.  There were no survivors.”  

What were there fleeting thoughts?(48:365)

El Camino: Borderland States

{November 21, 1979 (Daniel is 5)}

Again and again the witch visited my dreams.   She did it again, and I pulled up, my star wars bed sheets, over my head.   I attempted to create a cave where the witch would not get me. Tonight was a repeat show; I alone had to kill this ugly hag, could I do it? (46:365)

El Camino: Borderland States

{March 17th 1988 (Angela is 18)}

Yes the road seems long when the journeys all alone for six hours on end, and never a soul in site. Occasional tumbleweed blew across Interstate eighty. He's mom called... waking me... Daniel's dad had been called away on business, and did not want to strand him,  so I came quickly…so now I am here.

(45:365)
Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot; Tragicomedy in 2 Acts,. New York: Grove, 1954. Print.

El Camino-Borderland States

{March 17th 1988, Daniel 19, Angela 18}

Angela picks me up.  She is wearing a fur coat. I can only imagine what is beneath the fur; perfumed imagination makes me hard.

“ I have a present for you!”

She winks and circles her tongue around her red lips.

“But where's my father!?”

We wipe the snow from the window of her Eclipse. (42:365)

El Camino- Borderland States

{Headed North Bound} 

MARCH 16, 5:00 A.m, 1988: (Daniel IS 27)

I keep an eye on the oncoming tracks; everything is blanketed by a white-grey sheet of snow.   January’s snow had not yet melted, and in parts there is a snow wall, on the side of the tracks, about six feet high.  Looking at my Thermowatch, I see that the temperature outside is thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit.  (41:365)

Note on New Project!

Dear Readers, 

Tending Turnips new project is El Camino-Borderland states.   El Camino uses Carl Jung’s study on dreams to explore one’s “dream existence”.  It is a mixture of media. I am a writer, so it will be mostly writing.   But a song track will be listed between scenes.    

I also want to try my attempt at other forms of media: short films and drawings.  I hope you enjoy the trip.

Thanks for your time, 
Gregory D. Rothbard

El Camino: Borderland States

March 16, 1988: Greg is 27

…and then after the Tsunami;   I woke up wearing a striped conductor hat, and overalls  smelling the steam of the engine moving past the mountains on my left.   The mountains were the ones I remembered being in front of my junior high school, years of torment and pain.  I was thinking just keep moving; don't look back at the 100 cars of Sugar Beats.(40:365)

El Camino: Borderland States

{March 15 1988, (Greg is 15)}

Before I can smash the window, a flood of water wipes away the ten year older Greg.   He disappears, like someone shaking an “Etch a Sketch”.   Only puddles of water are left.  Is this when I go crazy? Was he a spirited ghost? Should I follow the direction of the wave?  Now I am shaken.

(39:365)  

Hypnagogia article in Wikipedia.
By the sea shore.  The sea breaks into the land, flooding everything. Then the dreamer is sitting on a lonely island. Jung, C. G. Dreams. New York: MJF, 1974. Print. pg 122

Bard of Roth Jukebox: El Camino-Borderland States

Part of  El Camino: Borderland States

Bard of Roth's Jukebox: El Camino Borderland States

{And the Days Go By}

Tracing your past is difficult.  What did my original house look like?  What was the wallpaper in my bedroom?  Who were my friends?   Why did some friendships end?  These ghosts haunt me more than any Horror Movie.  I guess I understand what the Talking Heads meant when David Byrne said, “And the days go by!”

El Camino: Borderland States

{March 15, 1988 (Greg is 15, and 25.)}

 The fear happened in the dark night.  Nightly, I ran  in between my bedroom and the living room, for I imagined finding a night walker outside staring at me.

 I toughened up, (Taxi Driver like). 

I looked in the window holding my stalker, but all I saw was ME, then that ME mouthed: “I-AM-LOOKING-AT-YOU!” (33:365) (Pre-Dream using Jung's book of Dreams)