after only three days on the road, i lost my mind and called some friends up here in upstate new york. i just needed to be around someone i already knew. i'm not kidding. this is all too strange. i could have never expected what happened to me. i mean it is really wild. i mean things are just so, well i could have never imagined, just strange. man.
so okay, i failed. well not totally but i did wig fully yesterday (thurs) so i left my friend's house in the catskills immediately even though he was one of the nicest people i'll probably ever meet. and most spent. and he knows it. well i didn't expect him to be anything like he was. now wait, that doesn't mean all bad. i just didn't expect it and couldn't adjust so yes, i failed. i wigged hard and had to leave.
but the only way i could handle being there even the slight time i was, was knowing i could leave. i couldn't change how things were there but i was able to leave. but i was still at the mercy of these strangers or some stranger. man. not having a car and being somewhere you've never been is so wierd.
i had no idea, i mean none, of how big the world is and i'm not even a day away from pittsburgh. i can't believe how stupid i was. i hope i seem to stay stupid and try and still like people. well everyone i met is so nice so that's cool.
anyway, it is really, really hot.
so i couldn't stay at his house. but part of it, and i know he's reading this, well it's absolutely shocking the difference between how i thought i knew him. well i just didn't expect him to look like santa claus. i just didn't expect so many things and the first guy's house, i know he thinks i'm excellent but we had some rough moments. mostly cause of me. cause i don't know. it's just weird going out in the world and people are much easier to deal with in here.
well i don't think it's good to go around saying how you feel about everyone and everything. i try to stick to myself. cause it's so easy to be wrong about someone else. and obviously, wrong about myself. and you learn that by being around other people.
anyway, so right now i'm right outside of woodstock, new york. man, this is the funniest place. i changed a diaper. i'm with paul and mel who have a little baby who i love and no meat for miles and melanie who is like too beautiful is making tofu.
hey, i'll eat anything.
anyway, well i suck okay? the big jo reporter going to stay in strange homes. but i mean, i had no idea what to expect. even here with paul and mel. and the people i saw are soo lonely i feel guilty for thinking i was lonely. i have my son and family and madge. and paul and mel.
man, but i just had to be with someone i knew. we were real close when i asked my friend to take me back to the bus. so i just called them. funny. jo out of the blue. so i slept a foot away from the biggest fan and slept like a baby. i was so tired. i mean i was able to relax. man. and i did wig at my friend's house. we'll call him tom. but man, his house was spent. but he cleaned up for me but i just couldn't stay there.
cause i could tell he was spent. and we talked, he's given up on life and you could see it everywhere. it broke my heart, okay? i couldn't stay. it hurt so much to see him like that. he knows exactly what i mean. he thinks i'm crazy for wanting to be famous because of the lack of privacy. but i feel like i never had any, anyway.
and he was the greatest guy. we ate some pizza and he gave me a huge bag of the best um, tea. i mean some of the best tea ever. and up here in woodstock, you can enjoy your tea right outside. and oh, we looked at apartments. they're in one room here. a big room but man. poor mel. so they're moving and so happy. and i love being around a baby. and read the coolest thing about kids. and the impact of society on how they develop consciousness. stuff i already thought of but it was nice seeing that someone else wrote it down.
so we're listening to really cool tunes. and MADGE!! mirror ball is so excellent. man. on the road to nowhere. over and over
jesus. i've only been gone for not even 6 days. hey, those of you i'm coming to see, i'll be calling. i just need to get my barings. i'll be going to new haven i think on weds. so i have to call jim. but then i think i want to stay here and drink cactus juice. i was so nervous in these people's houses.
i admit it i'm weak. but i just had no idea what a fucking priss i am.
i just swore on purpose so i could pretend i was cool. no, two days before i left, my stomach started hurting and never stopped till i got here. so you all have to go easy on me and don't expect me to enlighten or amuse you all the time.
help me out.
christ, i don't know any of you.
oh god. not even my adam. what if he drives like a dick and never lets anyone go in front of him? i'll tie him to the front of
what kind of car would adam duritz drive?
oh man, see, not having a car and going to these tiny mountain towns. scary. felt so trapped. helpless. my luggage is so heavy. it's not like i've changed my clothes, either.
oh i love it here. paul and mel and cute baby. mel doesn't eat meat. i need it. so i got a meat salad. antipasto. love it. salami really isn't meat.
adam drives
well i don't know. but i was in the most illegal car known to man yesterday. yeah, tom, man. you know it was a little much. i mean this car, the mirror was taped on, i mean it was spent. i told him. he knew why i was wigging. i just hate myself for being so wimpy. but man, the brakes were so bad he'd have to back up cause he'd miss turns and shit. and we were on these winding mountain roads. oh god it was wild. but he got it running just for my trip and i felt like such a dick leaving. but my stomach was hurting and my eyes were swollen and red and i was almost crying cause it was 100 degrees and no phone in the middle of nowhere with a complete stranger no where near, even close to what i expected which i didn't think was anything.
i mean i don't know what to expect but my stomach hurts thinking about rolling in to new york city on sunday after meeting pauls ritzy ritzy parents. but i can't wait cause they raised him and he is so cool so i can't wait to talk to them.
and we went to the top of an excellent back road. could see all the way to connecticut. yeah, and mel eats so healthy but doesn't wear a seatbelt. seatbelts are so much easier. but i must admit, i like the different food. funny how much a part of culture food is. i just love how it smells here.
so it's health food for jo kinda. got some rasberries. and blueberries. woodstock. funny. miserable hippies. but everyone's miserable in this heat. i really like it here. like it's a lost dream. lots of english people. and gays. very funny. i always wonder if some day i'm going to roll into a town and finally, finally look around and see a bunch of jo's and know i'm home. maybe new york new york.
of course it will be on the other planet where me and adam are from.
tom had the counting crows ready for me, too. i blew it. i should have promised myself to just deal with it. i have to make an intinerary and stick with it no matter what. even if i get locked in a basement. you know, it's just so strange. i have no idea how crazy any of you are.
i was almost in tears yesterday, so sick and hot and seeing my friend and knowing how spent he was, and he knows. but he's the best guy. spends all his time helping other people. man. that only made it worse. i swear. this world swallows people whole. helping out others is the only way to stay alive. for someone like him.
but i had to keep rolling on. i tried to get back to the bus to go into the city or call my mommy in new jersey. plus, i had that unlimited bus ticket. busses are clean and the brakes work and there are people there and i can come and go if i please and no one's staring at me and i can just close me eyes.
there are so many aspects of this i couldn't have possibly thought of. or i wouldn't have gone. no shit.
no i would have. and i'd have been able to handle it. i feel like, well such a loser. like if i had been dropped in the middle of the jungle, i couldn't say "oh take me back to the greyhound station."
but i did spend the day with him and his friend and they both had excellent stories.
and you know what? i'm starting to get an idea of who you all are. thousands of you. funny. i think everyone who likes me is in some real way, spent. funny. we all are. what a career i have for me. funny.
so i was going to just go in the city and call rob (it's just your first name don't get all pissed i won't tell everyone everything)
yet.
hey hey hey. no, this is very difficult. it's very easy for me to crawl into the fetid crevis of my skull and spew. about how brutally honest i am sometimes. it's all on me. it is really hard to write about myself without betraying someone else's privacy. but who needs privacy? i mean i just think it kills you. if you think tons of people are watching you, well i not as easy to be full of shit.
i just want people to be free. that's all.
but it's not right to profile anyone else unless you like them. i'd read some of the shit written about the crow's and even smile thinking how stupid the person was, how utterly blind they were. not even about liking the music or not, just about basic shit about adam. anyway, profling another is not like writing about someone else makes you more honest. or objective. you're using the same lens to examine both of you so you have no right to say shit about anyone else.
but we do this almost instictinvely. trying to figure each other out so you can diffuse the threat. so yes, i do it. but i try to consider the people way way ahead of just the story.
but i had to leave yesterday. and i have to write my column so delicately. being honest about how i felt, which i was with both people, but i felt wildly uncomfortable.
i mean wigdom levels i haven't felt like since i was arrested.
yeah, out in the middle of nowhere, oppresive heat, i mean i was like in a whole nother world all alone no phone i mean, the man was so nice but the environment was so forgien. and i don't like animals. sorry. cats and dogs. they reek. i am a jo-pourri kinda girl.
i really am a little wimp. man.
no more. i'm going to look at this a whole new way. and you guys better too. i am not out looking for love. laugh at me. but i know who i want. and not even that, i know who i have to focus on, who i have to be with.
see, i have to act on the feelings. but man. i could be so wrong. no way. i mean if i am, i swear to god i'm done with men forever and sex and all of it. oh i'm funny but i've just about done that now. i never want the men who want me. i get whacked when i look at certain men and i'm gone. i'm so glad this doesn't happen often. but i don't care what happens. i know i have to trust my instincts. and if i'm wrong, more fool me.
but i can't be with someone just to do it. and after living alone, excelling academically, now professionally, too, and raising leo and all this, well i am a cocky bitch. i'm a dame who knows she don't need a man for nothing. i'm unbareable.
but then there is a man who i need so much i accept him in the most distant form. i don't care. oh and he makes me so mad for ever even thinking he has a right to be mad or even just frustrated with me. what? am i some little reject, an embarrassment?
no, it can be that. the way i write. but man, suddenly that is exactly how i feel. like i should laugh at myself for declaring that i want him like i do. but i still feel like i am a very special jo and a gift for him. i do. and damn it, if not him, someone. i have a talent for touch. and god won't let me waste it. and i can't just love someone on command and no way would that one dame have married forest gump because ifshe'd have been attracted in the first place? to me it's the grossest thing, to think about having sex with someone you're not wildly attracted to. to have sex with a man who would be good for you but does nothing for you is suicide. you will die slowly. i just know. i had been promisquous you know. wildly. you have no idea. funny. on the road to never. i need to rescue adam. oh adam, let down your dreadlocks.
so anyway, if i told everyone that i was done with men, does that mean like 90% of you are going to just vanish? if i could garuntee that i would never have sex ever not even to get to adam (he will come to me. or it will never happen. i kid you not. well that's how i ruined the thing i had when i was in love with mitch. i *refused* to speak to him. cause he should've came to me. and i made it a point to speak to every man who worked there in his precense. man. i am one tough jo like that. but i still can't imagine being intimadating. i don't know. i just think i'm easy to understand and just need to be dealt with like a defiant child.)
anyway, if i said, and i could with some confidence, well except for, well who knows,
no, if i told you for sure, that i would never ever have sex with you even if you ptomach to hear them say really stupid and even brutal shit. oh fetid roses...oh hollywood
anyway. this really is some of the best tea i've ever had.
woodstock baby. the band lived up by here with bob dylan. i have to buy a pipe. and we are right next to a church that looks just like the one on the caution horses cover and one indigo girls one. unbelievable. and i drank cactus juice. and i will go to a headshop in woodstock. it's just that these people are so high class like.
but there new house is so cool. and everyone's like into this community thing. HEY, that's right. pittsburgh hippies suck. we went into a health store/juice bar and mel used food stamps and there was no wigdom about it at all. man. no prejudice like that up here.
maybe me and adam will come out here when we have our first baby. oh, i do love little babies. gosh, as long as you have time to care for them, they are so cool. so sweet. too much.
but i will be moving on, on sunday. but i know him pretty well.
oh god i don't. what if he has like, i don't know. i can't even imagine. oh man.
well too damn bad. i am going to meet everyone and just have a good time and deal with it somehow.
i am on such an excellent powerbook. a 520. but i miss my computer. i miss my house and madge. man, i am more wigged about things than i thought. so i'll just relax. play with the baby so mel can move things and pack and stuff. so quiet. i mean it is sooo calm up here. the vibe. i mean it's wild. i'm not smoking as much. i don't feel hungry. man. they have the coolest stuff in here. big trunks and spotlights and like 15 guitars, bongo drums, amps, tunes for days. cool feather masks and velvet roses on straw hats. and she weaves. and turns wool into yarn. yep. and she made yogurt.
so i have to adjust or something. but i'm telling you. i'm not even going to make jokes about sex. i mean look at me. not one word about it. and it is just all too weird. i mean i am blown away. i had no idea how strange things could have gotten.
mel's going to partake of some of this supberb tea later. she's running around doing all kinds of stuff. both of them. i feel guilty doing this but it's really wildly important.
my gosh, this may change some things about how i conduct myself out here. na.
man, what a tea i'm smoking now. you know it's good when you have to keep lighting it. madge, i'll save you some. i got a ton of it. oh little baby is crying again. mel is so intense about health food. i just can't even think about it.
i had some warm silami in oil. oh, and these tunes. huge ceilings. this used to be a theater. i am the birkenstock poster jo up here. i must say i love it.
by principal, they would have to be nice to me. i love that. i love when people have to be nice to me even if they hate me. but i am so nice and only like it cause then it gives me a chance to be nice to them and get to know them a little so then they don't hate me.
anyway, oh, and please don't misunderstand me. everyone i met, well they were of the most excellent type of people. but they are spent. lonely. spent. spent.
oh poughkeepsie
and it hurts to think about how sad so many of us are. all i want from the counting crows is the beautiful reminder that i'm somehow not in it alone. that there's someone else who isn't afraid to go straight into the center, hard.
that was the name of a song dave losi wrote that is one of the best songs i ever heard adam needs to hear it. straight into the center, hard.
anyway, yeah, so that, that i'm not alone, that i don't have to be afraid, and that it can all be so fucking beautiful.
i can't even swear around you strangers . but maybe if we met somewhere normal, instead of me like meeting you and moving in with you for a few days.
but the first man gave me a copy of mirror ball and i am in love with these tunes. it is like the perfect combination.
anyway, wow.
what a long strange trip and shit. woodstock was a little departure. but i needed to get my barings. and set a different tone. i do not want to be romanced. i wasn't really. i mean you guys like love me so much it really makes me stomach hurt.
i sure hope i don't have that effect on adam cause believe me, well no man is in danger of me adulating him to a ridiculous degree because i'm really demanding in many ways, well emotionally and that is the hardest terrain for a man to deal with. so, well he'll never be able to fully relax with me and i think he needs that but eventually he'll be able to and then he'll know
and it always falls on my shoulder to diffuse the wigdom by talking about the real business instead of just commenting on stupid shit like billboards and the weather while wigging steadily towards too much liquor and then just stupid shit.
this is wonderland. so easy to manipulate reality into falling into exact peices to the happiness puzzle.
but one day, bastard. adam duritz is mine to make read _Manhood in the Making_ by david gilmore. i have a copy i'm taking to all of you. like gideon jo. spewing my pretty tea seeds all over the country. i am you know...always leave a mark.
i will leave marks on adam duritz and he'll think he was attacked by a lion but there won't be a mark on the rosy glow of what had been his skin, pre-jo scars faded into a rash of cool tingles.
ah huh, so like what if i meet adam and he slobbers all over me cause he's been drinking ouzo (ooze-o) all night? well i'll slap him around for awhile.
no, i know exactly what i'd do. make him sit and look at the sun rise over the most beautiful mountain. and make him *see* it. see how really beautiful something that happens every damn day, without us having anything to do with it, is. that's exactly what my woodstock vibes are telling me he needs. if he has to find a jo-substitue, well good fucking luck.
i would never be afraid of him. it is so weird. sure my heart would be thwacking and i couldn't think or breath but i've never wanted anything so much. but he is a man. you can not win them. they must surrender to themselves. and they never do. so sad. so we'll see.
i suck. i am sooo funny. see how easy it is to be full of shit without meaning any intent let alone malice? i mean who knows?
but i've *seen* him. yep, i'd sell my soul to dive directly into his. i would. i just know. but i am a strong-willed jo. i took a punch to the head and i'm cut, i'm cut joey, but i ain't down yet so back off ron dodrugsme.
it's just so sad cause these people, well they are the ones who are like so kind. i start my intense blabbering and they feel honored to hear me talk. it's a little hard to take. i mean i have to laugh at myself and when someone thinks i'm like beyond the realm of mortals, i have to laugh it off or i'll suddenly lose this and be a dick. the great jo with a sore, sore stomach.
i mean even if i'd have had to sit in the new york city greyhound bus terminal and hope rob wasn't with some big-city dame (i was three days early and he is a beast with dames. only kidding. i mean how would i know and what does it matter cause i don't know him. i mean there may be the tiniest quirk that makes my stomach hurt. like, i don't know. i have no idea. i'd have never thought i'd wig like this.
but i did picture people living differently. i feel like my apaprtment is like a delux apartment. we have all kinds of room and it's real real clean and the bathroom is immactulate white tile with black diamonds. and pink christmas lights. so cool.
oh my little house. but the terrain around here is gorgeous. niagra falls is a monolith to consumerism. that is the language i understand. the thrills and spills in carefully measured doses so we can feel unafraid. and as soon as i get even near the falls and see the mist and slowly feel the rumbling increasing climbing creeping rumbling up through the tires closer and closer and i want a barrel and i want to go shooting over the edge of the earth oh man, and the people on the maiden of the mist slapping your picture and man you are flying and always, right at the last minute, when it doesn't even matter, you look down.
and you feel the rocks long before you hit them
so you never really feel them at all.
see, i couldn't even write amoung strangers. i mean. well, holy shit. i don't know. i am spent. i never thought anything would bother me. but the tiniest little things did. well i just felt like, well i could never relax. yeah, if i was quiet, just sitting there, i felt like i was in violation of the silence law and no one knows what to say to me so i have to talk and it's not that you can even shut me up but when i feel like i *have* to talk, it's exhausting.
you don't get to know someone like this or i don't know how many people i'd know. anyway, i don't care.
hey, i just got a wiff of dinner and it's great. funny. i have some olives in case. i'm on an olive binge. hey, i don't eat as much as i thought i did. or that i feel like i do. hey, i'm going to eat some mango with home made woodstock yogurt. man. i'm growing bean sprouts out the
never mind.
oh, hey, i'm trying to amuse you so you all won't think i'm totally full of shit.
there is a kitty laying on me. funny. okay, i'll be back. need a little smig. outside. hold on.