The Aftermath
Trip Start
Oct 08, 2006
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3
6
Trip End
Feb 04, 2008
Virginia Beach,
Virginia,
United States
Monday, October 23, 2006
So I had a couple whiskeys the night after the wedding and wrote the
last blog, pretty happy with it. Woke up nice and early at 9am the next
day. Had a shower and was on the way to Williamsburg by 9.30.
Williamsburg is about 1.5 hours west of VB, so I get some more kip in
the car. The place consists of: A University, Busch Gardens (huge
amusement park), Colonial Williamsburg (a recreation of colonial times
around the time of the American Civil war) some retirement villages, an
outlet store, and some kind of housing. Me and Andy went along with his
parents, being promised that we would go to the outlet. Let me tell you
something. 62 year olds are god damn dirty liars. They drive us
straight into Colonial Williamsburg, which costs $48 fucking dollars.
For $48 fucking dollars I want to see someone get bayoneted, or at
least trampled by a horse. Nope. We get out there and there is about 15
people done up in the clothing of "ye olden times", working on a village.
There is a shed the size of a living room with no doors or windows, and
a half built barn, and one small small house (like the size of Boy
George's self respect). Two gardens, which consist of: Leaves. No fruit
or veg, just little plants with leaves on them. Finally there is a
field which is getting plowed by some oxen, which has been plowed to
the extent that it is no longer a plowed field, it is a fine powder
that once resembled dirt. Next to this is their crop. I think it was
corn, but this shit was the living dead of corn. If any living corn was
to be found nearby, the zombie corn would rise in the dead of night and
devour the very soul of the living corn to sustain it's dark existence.
So we move to ask some questions of one of the "actors" and I use the
term very loosely. There is a black guy doing manual labour. I look
around, and if there is anyone doing any sort of work.... they're black. I'm
thinking goddam, I hope you boys got a sweet price for your self
respect, cos I hear degradation don't pay too well. Well the first
thing he tells us is a five minute speech explaining in great detail
how he does not in fact live here full time, but goes back to a real
house after work, and is in fact living in 2006. No shit. I can't even
imagine what life would be like trying to live in this place.
"Hey boy, close that dang door, there's a draft tonight"
"But massa' we ain't put the doors on yet"
"Dang it. Hey Shelley-Mae, whats for dinner tonight?"
"Oh Pa, we got leaf soup, leaf stew, and cos it's Jimmy bob's birthday I done made leaf pie!"
"Leaf pie! What you use for pastry?"
"Leaves."
"aw, can I go plow the field some more? I reckons I seen a couple pieces of dirt still stuck together out there!"
"No Jim-Bob, it's dark out."
"(Defeated sigh) - hey whats that there rustling from outside?"
"Corn's got the scent of some fresh stalks. Dey on the move again"
Well that was fun. So after that, we ask this guy how long they have
been working on this. He very proudly tells us they have been working
on this for 4 year. Four. Fucking.Years. I have seen retarded kids who
have no arms build better cubby houses than your house in a matter of
days. What the fuck are you guys doing out here? I would fire your
slave asses!
So anyway, we move on from the settlement to the city. A drunken tramp
then comes up and starts yelling at us. I start to fish a few dollars
out of my pocket for the poor bum, then realise he is in fact an actor in the "show", and I use the term very loosely. He is still dressed in
dirty rags, I can't understand a single rambling syllable that comes
from his scurvy-ridden mouth, and he is still spitting on me with
every word. But apparently he gets a wage for this, so I put the
dollars back in my pocket. We then move off to tour the place at our
own pace. They have a disclaimer asking people not to swear while in
Colonial Williamsburg. This is because everyone who goes there says
"This place is Fucked. I want my $48 Fucking dollars back." (Thanks
Hughsey). So we eventually get to the capitol in time to watch an
enacted debate. First, a black "actor", and I use the term very
loosely,comes up in full costume, and tells us "Hey, all y'all crackers
gots to move the fuck away from the speaker, aight? The Governor be
trippin' when all y'all be up in his speaker space, know wha' I'm
sayin?" We look up and there is a massive Samsung speaker hanging
incredibly conspicuously from a tree branch in front of the "Authentic"
and I use the term very loosely, Capitol. Between the scenery and the
acting, well, it was hard not to beleive we really were in the 1700's,
know what I'm sayin ya'll? So then the debate began. It may have been
interesting, but I couldn't really hear. Not because the obviously 17th
century speaker was booming like a an Ibiza subwoofer, but because every time two
"actors", and I use the term very loosely, walk too close together, the
feedback causes the speaker to scream like a banshee with a megaphone
who has just got her left nipple snagged on a shark fishing hook. Between that noise, and
of course the screaming of all the people watching the show as they
writhe in agony on the ground, slipping in the pools of blood spewing
forth from their ears, caused by said banshee scream speakers, I
couldn't really hear so I just played with my nuts. I'd found a couple
of acorns earlier, and was trying to see if I could balance them on one
another. Didn't work. Anyway, we eventually fucked off from Colonial
"The cheesy dickhole of history" Williamsburg, and here I need to take
five.
Williamsburg Night life
Right, so we finished up at Colonial Williamsburg, and the oldies and Andy took off home. Mel met me at Speeks, or something like that, a coffee shop where I burned the shit out of my tongue on a cup of mint chocolate tea, I can't taste a damn thing. Mel is a girl I went to highschool with, and met up with on myspace a few months earlier, as serendipitious luck would have it. She took me on an hour and a half tour of William and Mary uni, which is a beautiful campus, and it was nice to soak up some intellect from my surroundings. Mel is quite the talker, so I had a constant commentary about things, which was nice. She had to work that night so she took me to the reataurant she works in, Eat, Think Drink, which was awesome. The menu is set up as a book, and all over the walls are quotes from great leaders and thinkers, bio's on various people who changed the world, and a book shop. I also got a free steak and free beers, one of which was "Dogfish Head 90 minute IPO", a 9% beer that tastes like a light - very dangerous. Met Ray and Steve, Ray who is finishing his degree in Hispanics (I've studied a few hispanics in my time, nudge nudge wink wink) and Steve who is an educational book salesman from Nashville. They actually offered me a job, they reckon you can earn 10 - 12k in 3 months, which would be nice, but I have no working Visa here, so thats fucked. Anyway Mel finished up and got changed, took me out to Greenleaf, a uni bar. I had finally run out of Winnie Golds, and it was time to find an american brand to smoke. I had smoked "Lucky Strikes" in England, so I got a pack of them. As they handed them over to me, I was a little taken aback at the small size of the packet lengthwise. Oh well I thought, they are probly just smokes for kids, thats why they are so small. Nope. No filters. Just a piece of paper full of tobacco. I tried one and not only inhaled half of the tobacco before it was lit, but could hardly speak after. So I went back and asked for a pack of Marlboro light. "Oh, Camel golds?" The rocket scientist behind the counter asks. "Why not?" I sighed. I'm at the point where if the person I am speaking to has at least a vague idea of what I am speaking about then I'm happy with that. Camel Gold are actually a decent smoke, so it was alright. Got back to the bar and met Ken, a chef from the greenleaf who was pretty cool. He has a border who lives in the crawlspace in his attic, and apparently worships demons. He had to move there after he urinated all over his flatmates bed. This is all I recollect from the conversation. I then became accepted in the group when I sung a few lines from Total Eclipse (Dan Band Version) and they thought I was cool. Since I was in with the staff, Ken kindly offered me a kiss. I politely declined. To great entertainment on the behalf of the staff, they bought me a kiss, which is a shot of knob creek, Americas worst Bourbon. I put two away without a single grimace, and won the respect of all and sundry, then had a shot of Jager to follow. I am currently at an Olympic standard of drinking ability, nothing seems to phase me. Then had a few pints of Bavik while meeting new people. First was Sheryl, a little red head pocket rocket, who was trashed and giggled like she'd been on nitrous every time I spoke. We then sat down with a bunch of random people. Big Indian guy, who I just called chief. Ken, Dude With Beard Who Likes Rugby Union, Dude Without A Beard, and Guy With A Beard Who Doesn't Like Rugby Union, Mel and Sheryl. We then decided to play "I have never" with them, as you do with a gang of complete strangers. "I have never" is a drinking game where you make a statement, i.e. "I have never had sex on top of a cow with an ageing farmhand watching me playing Pachelbel's Canon no.5 on a Yamaha keyboard" (they are usually not so specific), and anyone who HAS done this act must drink. The things you have never done must be sexual in nature. It is an eye opening game. Sheryl was a bit of a dark horse - I think on the first round I pulled out the old "I have never had sex with 2 women at once"(I know, it's true, I can barely beleive it either) and Sheryl was the only one drinking. The night went on in this vein, with Sheryl drinking to damn near anything, including "In the back seat while my mum was driving". Thus she got all kinds of fucked up, and got left in the toilet vomiting for about 3 hours. Mel went to look after her, and another chick joined the table. I had been warned ealier about Crazy Lisa, and that she was pretty "cracked out" (meaning has done way too many drugs, one of my favourite new phrases) but nothing could prepare me for this. She sits down - looks half asian, jet black hair and glasses, constant smile with a gap in her front teeth that not only puts Madonna's to shame, could probly house a small family of creatures that live in gaps - she dives into the game with no invitation, well before it was her turn, and goes something along the lines of "I have never been to the mexican archipelago to collect sand to eat vegetarian." First of all, I'm pretty sure there is no mexican archipelago (I don't know what an archipelago is, so I can't be certain). Second of all, the statement makes no sense. I wonder if she is trying to be funny. Oh no. The rest of the table makes hasty excuses and gets the fuck out of there. I am left with crazy Lisa, and Dude With Beard Who Likes Rugby Union. She asks me about myself, when I say I'm Australian (and this is the absolute truth) she goes "Oh, you're Australian? Thats funny because I was thinking about Michealangelo the other day." Riiiiight. I look at her with my head on the side and an eyebrow raised. She eventually expands..."You know, the Cistine Chapel?" uh huh. I wait. Nothing more is coming. So I have to ask. She goes on to explain that the position of Jesus, Mary and Judas are perfectly positioned to map out the position Australia, NZ and Indonesia. I laugh, and she goes "Have you never heard this theory before?" Noooo. "Is it popular?" I enquire, frightened of the response. "Well, I beleive it" she states with deadpan seriousness. And shit went downhill from there, she linked Buddha to Aborigines and a few other of the most amazing and random leaps of logic I have ever heard. It was entertaining. I then had to hang with the bartender, who is like the third identical twin for Scotty the Rat I have met. I told him so and he was flattered. Went home with Mel and we stayed up until 6am discussing travel, philosophy, politics and everything under the sun. It was very intellectual. Got about 3 hours sleep, then she dropped me back home, the hour and a half drive taking three cos we got lost. Great night though, I made yet another friend for life. I am going to town now to apply for a Canadian Visa, if it goes through I will not be home until some time 2008.
