Link:

http://mog.com/playlists/719937

Open Wide,

Dickie LeRoo

List:

The Link:

http://mog.com/playlists/714901

The List:

Open wide & Enjoy,

Dickie LeRoo

The Wolf Is Loose by Mastodon
Dead Souls by Joy Division
Truth Or Consequences by Soledad Brothers
The Hanging Garden by The Cure
Dear Doctor by The Rolling Stones
I Wanna Make It Wit Chu by Desert Sessions
Time Of The Season by Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
Sea Of Love by Iggy Pop
Bass Phenomenon by Krafty Kuts
Religion by Public Image Ltd.
Wardance (Live) by Killing Joke
Flat Beat by Mr. Oizo
Songs Of Thunder by High on Fire
The Ghost Of Tom Joad by Rage Against The Machine
Hand On The Pump by Cypress Hill
The Rose With The Broken Ne… by Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi
One For My Baby by Frank Sinatra

Open wide,

Dickie LeRoo

P.S. As usual the tracklisting is as follows;

http://mog.com/playlists/660414

Open wide and listen,

Dickie LeRoo

P.S. You know what follows for those of you that do not have access to MOG:

http://mog.com/playlists/645018

Open wide,

Dickie LeRoo

P.S. If you cannot listen due to over-the-seas copyright complications, here is the tracklisting for you to put into Spotify or some other music service:

Open wide,

Dickie LeRoo

NARRATOR (V.O)

So go on, light another cigarette.

Take a sip from that glass.

The melted ice inside is just a faint reminder of what once was.

So suck it up buttercup, it’s time to let the fun begin.

Open wide and let us begin (again),

Dickie LeRoo

Written by Dickie LeRoo and Slutty Biscuits

“The son of a bitch down the bar from me should write himself a suicide note, so that what he forgets to do tonight, he can accomplish tomorrow.”

Day One: Drove from Portland to the Oregon Coast (somewhere around Reedsport) and stayed a night in a yurt. Quite realistically, fought bears, smiled at crocodiles and heard Perry Farrell trying to break into our cooler that we had mistakenly left outside all night. It was filled with sausages. Aileen successfully built a fire. Ate more potato salad than is realistically healthy for anyone without Irish blood. Read a steamy novel in bed together. Shook more sticks than you can shake a stick at. Oh, and saw some elk that looked suspiciously like nothing more than deer.

Day Two: Awoke at 6ish, 7ish, 8ish, 9ish and 10ish. Finally got out of bed at 10:37am precisely. Late. Drove from the Oregon Coast (still around Reedsport somewhere) back to the I-5 to continue our trip down to California in search of the American Dream (and to scatter some ashes on it). Ate Fiberful bars, banana’s, Babybel cheese, bread rolls and washed it all down with really shitty coffee. Stumptown felt a million miles away, literally. Searched for ice. Found ice. Searched for a toilet. Found a toilet. (The toilet was not filled with ice.) Didn’t find a toilet until we reached Medford (a.k.a Methford). Aileen nearly wet herself. Bought Starbucks, which as you drink you really can’t help but feel like it tastes similar to what the tears of Ethiopians would probably taste of. Sour. I attempted to throw rotten strawberries (not the packaging) from the window of our moving vehicle, although unsurprisingly, the packaging followed. Arrived at the Californian border holding out the rest of our moldy fruit for them to confiscate. The Californian patrolmen and women are notoriously fruit Nazi’s. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t confiscate our rotten fruit. Of course. Talked about how people in Montana don’t like people from anywhere else. Cleared the border successfully with our immigrant banana’s and plums in tow. 327 miles to San Francisco.

Today’s most important destination; In and Out Burger. Had In and Out Burger. Feel sick. Double Double Animal Style is built for consumption by something else than a human. Aileen wanted to scatter some of her Father’s ashes there. (In a planter, not in a Double Double of course, that would be untoward). He loved it there and it seemed appropriate. Apparently the wooden boxes (known as “urns” we’ll come to learn) that store our beloved’s ashes are devastatingly secured with screws. We don’t have a screwdriver, but we do now have a better excuse to return to In and Out Burger. Scratch Card #1: Loss. Scratch Card #2: Loss. Aileen serenaded me with an awful rendition of California Dreamin’. I threatened to play Hotel California instead. She stopped singing. However, her following rendition of Redemption Song, it’s clear to see her singing voice is definitely coming along. Sounds less like cats. 162 miles to San Francisco and we’re already 2 hours and 53 minutes late. On the plus side of arriving in the evening we have a far greater chance of seeing someone try to jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. What? Too far? Never. Aileen told me to write it anyway, since she’s driving and all. Aileen tailgated a policeman on the freeway, fortunately the cop seemed to see something a little more distracting going the other way. It could have been a horse driving a car, although it seemed more likely to be a car overloaded with people of non-Caucasian appearance. But then again, we’re no longer in Portland and I wonder if the police are as blatantly racist down here. Anyway, he chased that speeding horse instead. What I’ve noticed so far about California; it smells sporadically like skunks, farm animals, burgers and even sometimes vomit. Went over a bridge. Not the Golden Gate bridge. Went over another bridge. Still not the Golden Gate bridge. Thought maybe we were lost. We weren’t. Arrived at hostel. Drove around for 17 minutes exactly looking for a parking spot, although for San Francisco (apparently) that’s only 17 minutes out of the possible damn near 3 hours it could have been. Checked in. Went to old bars frequented by the late Kerouac and other such Beat alcoholics during their heyday. Somewhat appropriately I thought of the ending to my book, although not this one. When we arrived at the hostel initially we found a German sleeping soundly. How do you know he was German if he had not spoken a word you ask? Good question. I caught a glimpse of his disastrously multi-coloured clothes scattered across the floor. When we returned back to the hostel that night, he was still sleeping.

Rest of the night: Drank far too much Old Crow and talked about how overrated poetry was, trying to not make our conversation equally overrated, and Aileen nearly got into a fight with 6 gentlemen (or not so, as the case may have been) in a pizza house.

Day Three: We woke up dehydrated. Unsurprisingly and horribly so. We were gasping for both air and water. Had breakfast. Shitty coffee and, well, bagels. Hostel food. Walked to the car, Thought for a second that it had been towed from a not-so-safe parking space. Thought also how funny it would have been had Aileen’s fathers’ ashes also gotten towed still sitting in the back of the car. Just another part of the saga. Walked up some vastly steep hills of which there were many. No one could possibly really like climbing these hills. They’re lying. Or driving instead.

Currently we’re sitting in Caffe Trieste. This place is old, one of the oldest coffee shops in America, and probably also claims to have housed the infamous drunk Kerouac and his friends at some point in time. Don’t get me wrong, I like the drunk bastard. I just hate Haiku’s and seeing pictures of him everywhere in this district when if in fact he were still alive, he would merely be heralded as nothing more than a rambling fool and not the genius that is making these places the money they’re raking in. That said, I’m still here. Whatever. Their coffee is outstanding. Also, Ian has no opinions. It’s like sitting with a cardboard cut-out, looks good, but doesn’t say much. Wait! It’s the perfect man! (Ian’s having a bad day and I’m bored).

Fisherman’s Wharf is a big shit show. Saw some sea lions which should be more effectively known as the “Retards of the Sea.” Before this; ate Dim Sum from a quaint restaurant we only trusted because we saw only Asians eating there. This is a golden rule. 14 pies, some vegetable rolls and a chow mein-esque dish later we rolled down a hill to H&M and spent some pretty pennies and a lot of hours. No one honks their horns here. You can judge a place well by its graffiti, and therefore, San Francisco is much more intelligent than Redding, CA. Walked up another hill. Saw Alcatraz. Coined a nickname for Alcatraz that was simply “Ol’ Catraz.” I’m not sure it will catch on. There are so many hills. And so little bars. Men play tennis by themselves and failed actresses become tour guides. People drive like lunatics and I genuinely think that crossing the street here may be worse than warfare. Saw some genuine Jewish. I wanted desperately to have a photo with them but Ian put the “kabbash” on it. Instead I thought it better to ask them for change. Evidently, I thought wrong. My hat is better anyway.

Tonight the hostel we’re staying at is making “food”. I wonder if the German in our room will sleep through it, or rise in hope of some schnitzel. I also wonder if Aileen will try and fight anyone tonight. We just realised that we have left our cooler, thankfully minus the sausages that lured Perry Farrell, in our car. That said, there is food in it. Perishable food. It has been there for a day and a half.

The last half of the day came as quite a shock to everyone involved when, something that I’ve been successfully avoiding for 24 years of my life, the infamous “hostel pub crawl”, finally happened. This was entirely due to Aileen’s insistence and we definitely took advantage of those free drinks. I counted 6 or so, each, in less than an hour and a half. And they were cocktails too. Nightmare. As if being herded through the streets of San Francisco like drunken, debauched cattle wasn’t bad enough. Suddenly we were obliterated and those other obnoxious pricks were trying to communicate with us. When the clock struck eleven and the bar/club started to charge full price for the drinks, it was time for us, both slippers on, to move to another venue of hopelessness. Briefly headed to another bar only to find that the marketed $1 drinks actually cost $3 instead. Decided to visit the exact same dive bar we were in earlier when I was originally writing the part about the hostel “food” for everyone. (Turns out the food was burrito’s). Aileen fell asleep on the bar. Our German friend left, who by now we had discovered his name was actually Mathias and not Sleepy German as we wished to call him and will continue to do so. We ate pizza, again, and Aileen didn’t try to fight anyone this time. And those burrito’s? They were definitely made by the hands of very unskilled, not crafty, utterly white people. But they were free.

This was the night we made friends with the Sleepy German. He had quit his job as a civil engineer to travel and in the process may have also discovered a new found love for whiskey gingers. What Ian failed to mention was that at the end of this (preposterous) pub crawl there was promise of a very gimmicky (preposterous) bar, with expensive drinks and a slide that happened to be its only way in. We did not make it there. The thing that Aileen failed to mention was something that she remembered and I only just did. After the pizza we wound up drinking a variation of absinthe from a plastic cup (or a China mug) with a Frenchman. His name neither of us remember though, for reasons already disclosed. Aileen will never talk me into a “pub crawl” again.

Day Four: Scratch Card #3: Loss. Goodbye hostel and Sleepy German. The Sleepy German (Mathias) invited us to stay with him in Germany before we left. We probably never will. These are the promises that everyone who ever stays in a hostel makes with their “hostel friends” and those very same recipients of the offer, offer the very same thing in return. The sad fact of it being that no matter how many times you sleep in the same room as a “hostel friend”, you know deep down that you’ll never be quite as close as Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan are. This is upsetting but true. I do hope that we prove this pop culture referenced theory to be wrong though. And speaking of LiLo, Aileen has a profound hatred for her for the most unusual of reasons. Reason #1: LiLo somehow, during one of her many drink driving debacles, managed to get one of Aileen’s favourite Kombucha’s banned from Whole Foods. Not only Whole Foods, but everywhere it would seem. That’s it really. Strange girl. (And I’m not sure if I mean Aileen or LiLo as I write this).

Objectives for today: Go to Burma Superstar, scatter some ashes, leave for Santa Cruz. But first: Get a screwdriver. We do things backwards. Went to Burma Superstar and had a Catfish curry, a rainbow salad and 5 samosa’s. It was devine. Had a Burmese cocktail that tasted just like any other cocktail though. Got a screwdriver. Got coffee. Got milk. Drove to Golden Gate park for the first illegal distribution of ashes. Failed. The screwdriver was too big. In preparation though, we successfully removed moldy hot dog buns from their plastic bag creating an empty, temporary faux-urn in which to transport the ashes around the streets. That is, once we get the damn urn open. Probably murdered at least 6 pigeons in the process by leaving 3, said, moldy buns on the side of the street. Aileen took photographic and also incriminating evidence of the whole ordeal. Now to find a smaller screwdriver. Screwdrivers are both hard and easy to come by here. At some point, whilst parking, Aileen backed into a truck and momentarily became stuck underneath its bumper. We parked around the corner instead. Found a smaller screwdriver (minus its handle). Turns out we’re actually probably going to need an electric screwdriver instead. The adventure continues. Did some drive-by recycling on our way out of San Francisco and narrowly avoided a driver, who was either haemorrhaging at the wheel and having a stroke or who was just simply fucked at the wheel, swerving from side to side.

Beaten down by our failures over and over we decided to do what we do best; drink. Went to the gayest of the most gay district of anywhere in the world to do so. This was the Castro in San Francisco, and there we found a little bar. In this bar there was probably the most gay man I have ever met. He was born a Catholic with the name Brian D. Fery. Read his surname aloud. Yes, really. Watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Wizard of Oz at the bar and we ridiculed their outfits with said gay man. Yes, they were really playing that. Regaled our stories of misadventure and met a guy who claimed to have vaguely known Janis Joplin at some time, or at least he’s vaguely known by her, or something along those lines. Saw a bum get brutalised (OK, pun intended) by security and thrown out into the street for drinking another mans beer. Followed Brian D. Fery to two other bars where they poured pints as beer backs and gin and tonic’s that were mostly gin. We were too drunk to drive to Santa Cruz by now and almost too drunk to get out of the Castro. Brian D. Fery offered us a place on his sofa and promised us that we would not be molested. However, after making that promise he swiftly ditched us in the last bar that he had taken us to. Disappearing and leaving us without a place to stay but also thankfully with our un-molested dignity intact. Square one. Called the hostel from the night before. Rooms were all book. Fuck. Lady suspiciously insisted  on keeping me on hold as from out of nowhere she may of seemed to had found one last remaining room. Miracle. Apparently if you mention that you’ve stayed there before, more rooms (cash only ominously enough) will mysteriously become available. Private rooms. FOR THE SAME PRICE. One less Sleepy German.

The time in-between the last bar and making it back to the hostel is hazy. Brian D. Fery may, or may not have, slipped us some drugs. That, or we were just very, very drunk. Both were entirely possible. In the morning when the vision began to clear, I began to see things I’d mostly forgotten about the time during the bar and waking up: We were eating pizza (again) and watching 9 ½ Weeks on one of the two TV’s there seemed to be in the room. This was not confusing only because there was two TV’s but because attached to those TV’s were two archaic VHS players too. This obviously confused me into passing out, pizza in hand. Realisation of the day: There’s a bizarre amount of Mini Coopers in San Francisco.

Open wide and embrace the fictional past,

Dickie LeRoo