This Week's Hoax Well, it's a blog, but when I started writing these in 1996, I called them "hoaxes."

Gold Country and Smoking Guns

I love California's gold hills. I don't mind the green ones all over the rest of America right now, but to me, summer means bumpy mounds of earth covered with prickly gold brush and the occasional green tree. They're laid back, these hills, but don't let them fool you, they'll burn down your house in ten minutes. And they're kind of ugly, if you like your Julys lush and fertile. I've been away for so long, I forgot. I kinda wish KilBaby could grow up here, surrounded by gold hills, a honey sun and a million outdoor, baby blue swimming pools that never close unless there's visible lightening.

Oh well.

California is really sucking right now. I'm not a Californian anymore, and New York is sinking too, but man. At some point, you get so low, you can't even pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Maybe I'm extra grim because I drove by my old swim club, the place I lived at, every day, all summer. A few years ago, Las Juntas Swim Club was turned into a parking lot, a parking lot that was locked behind a chain link fence- not even being used. It's like someone poured concrete all over my memories just to be a dick.

In three nights, I drove about 900 miles. First to Mill Valley, which is probably the best little city on earth. It's beautiful, it's darling, it's progressive. Every resident is working on their memoir. The show was in a hundred year old theater, the tickets were $20.00 and the audience was wildly attentive and the hotel was amazing. Aveda soap, thick towels and a thick, sparkling white bedspread. I love me a fat bedspread that smells clean. It hurt to leave, especially since I was headed for conservative farm country- Oroville. The two lane highway up to Oroville was peppered with fruit stands that sold, "nick-nacks" and "avocodos."

Jesus buys billboards in Central California, asking that I please choose life. The land is flat and quilted with ranches. The venue was a casino, the cover charge was $0.00. The less the audience pays, the more they heckle, talk or text. Not an ounce of gratitude that ought to come with a free show, just a increased sense of entitlement. And, as the audience had to maneuver through a casino to get to the show, they probably arrived twenty bucks in the hole. Cause those casinos will get you. They know all your moves, you are an easy mark.

The next day, I drove south to Sonora, near the entrance to Yosemite National Park. Tuolumne County is hugely attractive to motorcycle enthusiasts and the people who tattoo them. Lots of farms too, and 150 year-old gold rush history. Same deal- a casino show. But the audience was in a better mood. Maybe they had been told that Sarah Palin would resign the next day, or maybe they just knew how to spell avocado. They acted like they paid at least four dollars to get in.

I arrived in Sonora early enough to exercise, which bummed me out. I was hoping for a legitimate excuse to stay in my hotel room. But a place called the Smoking Guns Gym was open and I dare anyone not to work out at a gym called the Smoking Guns. Because look it, if you are in the market for smoking guns, this is where you get them. Fucking duh. A kid, maybe 13 or so, was manning the front desk. He didn't have change for a twenty, so instead paying the normal day fee of eight dollars, I was allowed to just give all six of my ones. No air conditioning (it was 101 outside) but plenty of fans. Plus a ton of free weights, heavy metal on the loudspeakers and one treadmill. Hey, if you want cardio and the JoBros, sister, take your unloaded guns to Curves.