Rufus Dumont: The scene is highway 5. Two brothers embark on what was supposed to be a 2day-long road trip up to Portland. It's early morning- we eat black beans and blast Ewe drumming. Lips, Paul's the affectionately named '79 Light Blue leopard-skinned VW Van was running great. Along the way, we meet an old veteran at a fruit stand. He suggests we make it to Weed and told us of their storied local bar. So we made that our goal and laid heavy on the gas————— but it wouldn't make a difference. Lips made it past Sacramento when her engine gave out. We call AAA. Thank God for AAA- and their policy of 100 free miles of towing. They towed us to Chico. While waiting for the auto mechanics diagnosis, Paul befriends a man who we subsequently named 'the awakener'. He gives Paul a book on the spirituality of the Plains Native Americans then tries to convince us to bring him along on our trip. Paul is taken by the awakener and wanted to bring him along. I didn't know about that. A gregarious fellow, he dashed from subject to subject - the state-wide warrant for his arrest, the great spiritual benefits of LSD and DMT, the Conspiracy of the Federal Reserve. Fraternal paranoia ensues and I dash any chance of him fucking the trip up more that it was already fucked. Upon hearing the auto mechanic's sad news that the engine was a lost cause (with two of her cylinders blown), we went to supermarket and got kale which we ate outright. That raw, bitter kale became a metaphor for the whole trip in my mind: unmediated, shitting in the woods, sleeping in Lips, drinking stale gas station coffee, feeling the night cold all night. The machinery of Paul and your narrator was not so different from Lips' sad cylinders. We were two brothers that fit the description of the 1st lines of "Howl". Burning for the 5th level of Maslow's without having attainted the 2nd. 4 days and 5 AAA tows later, we arrived in Eugene. We're so close- 100 miles away from Portland but no way to get there! The next day, Paul is supposed to start his programming job and I was to catch my flight back to LA. How to make it? We say "hey, the mechanic said that two cylinders were blown, but what about the other two?"". In hopes of a miracle, we start that engine, hit the road, and heroically trek on. —————————- 5 minutes later, I find myself pushing the van in mid-traffic, exhaust fills my lungs as onlookers watch in pity. Desperate to make it to Portland, we leave Lips at the mechanics shop, and parked ourselves on the side of the highway where we constructed a large cardboard sign that said "North". After an hour's fruitless attempt, it was getting dark and we say “let’s breakdown, let’s breakdown and spend way too much on a rental car and just get there”. We get there. Hollow-eyed and in tatters, Paul makes his 1st day of work, I make my flight, and Lips makes her rest in the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

Lips: I will live again