An Erosion of Interstate Values?

There is a section of freeway in the San Francisco Bay Area that is both the I-80 East and I-580 West. When you drive on this freeway, you are headed almost due North. This must certainly be fundamentally damaging traditional definitions of East and West, and undermining the sanctity of our cardinal directions. Or perhaps the Bay Area should be applauded for liberating itself from the tyranny of arbitrary definitions of directions based on some invisible force. Direction is just wherever you go! Don't oppress me with your magnetic fields.

Best... Cioppino... Everrr...

So, again I have to resist my genetic predisposition towards describing the minutia of my travel day. The way we hit the road from El Cajon at 4:25am. Headed up the 52, to the 805. Then from the 5 to the 101 as we came down out of the Sepulveda Pass into the Valley, 101 up through--

No! Must... not... bore readers...

Fast forward to the afternoon.

We took the 183 out of Salinas. Passed the National Steinbeck Center (they have Rocinante, right there in the building!), into Castroville. Resisted the urge to stop at the Giant Artichoke. Then down to the coast and into Moss Landing.

There are two distinctive features of Moss Landing, CA. One is a pair of giant smokestacks at a power station of some sort. The other is Phil's Fish Market and Eatery. (The snazzy website with flash animation belies the funkiness of the place a bit. Rest assured, you won't need to wear a tie.)

If you don't know where you're going, you have no chance of stumbling on Phil's. If you do know where you're going, you have a chance, but it's a long shot. The road twists through the Moss Landing marina, past all sorts of industrial-looking buildings and boats, with sea lions barking in the background, until finally you see Phil's.

But that is not the right Phil's.

You have found Phil's Lunch Shack, or Phil's Snack Shack, or something like that. Same Phil, different business. What you want to do now is turn down the least promising-looking road you can, and drive past a bunch of warehouses and docks. The actual Phil's is down there, on the left.

Phil's Fish Market and Eatery lives in a big warehousey type building, with a menu on dry-erase whiteboards that stretch all the way to the cavernous ceiling. There is indeed a full-on fish market in the front, and, as with any respectable fish seller, it does not smell remotely like fish. Just kind of briny.

The food is fresh and there is plenty of it. You can't take a forkful your grilled halibut without having a little salad and rice pilaf spill off the side of the plate. At least I can't. Maybe you can.

The specialty is a huge pot of thick cioppino, full of mussels, clams, &c., that looks like a big helping of primordial ooze with sourdough bread for dipping. I am not very good at those food-writer type fawning descriptions of taste, so I will just say that it is muthaf@kin' AWESOME. Worth a several hour detour the next time you are traveling through central California.

Sing, Muse, of State Route 80

Tomorrow, I will get up at 4am, get in my parents' Volkswagen Passat, and head up the 5 towards San Francisco. We'll head up through Gorman in the Tejon Pass, where we will switch drivers, and then cut off the interstate somewhere in the Central Valley - maybe the 46 down into Paso Robles, maybe the 198 through Coalinga to the 25, winding through the San Benito Valley...

Just writing that intro makes me feel like I'm chanting the beginning of some ancient epic. I can almost hear the drumming and the crackle of the campfire.

Nearly every story my dad tells about his youth begins like this.

"We loaded up the '59 Ford wagon and left before dawn. Headed out route 80 through Descanso, and Pine Valley, and had breakfast at the Space Age Lodge in Gila Bend" - my dad remembers things like where he had breakfast on a certain day in 1962 - "crossed into New Mexico, then over the Rio Grande at midnight..."

I'm sure that back in Germany, hundreds of years ago, there was some Keller telling his kids about loading up the old wagon, hitching the mule, and heading down towards Stuttgart. And hundreds of years from now, some Keller will be talking about loading up the old flying car...

Panels! Panels!

Once more, I will attempt to resuscitate this blog. I have developed a bit of a pattern, I must say - one post about every two and a half months. But this time it's different, I swear. Baby, I'm a changed man. You can now expect posts to appear weekly - no, daily! Daily? No, hourly! Why not! Hourly posts from yours truly, about whatever whim strikes my fancy. So. Here's the whim:

Humm... No whim coming... Better improvise-

I know. Random subjects.

I keep a notebook. One of those little Moleskine dealies with the black cover and the built-in rubber band. (Why, you ask, do I keep a notebook? When I seldom if ever write or do anything as a result of those notes? A good question. Maybe one day, I'll write about that. In fact, I'll make a note to do so in my Moleskine right now.) I'll flip to a random page, and write about the note.

Here's the random note:

"I may be imagining this, but I always perceive a veiled hostility in the service in poor countries. Or maybe I'm just projecting my own guilt."

I have no recollection of the specific events that prompted this note.

But I do have a general recollection of... well, not of any specific events at all, but of an interaction which is likely a composite of many actual events I have experienced while traveling.

I am sitting in a restaurant. Its walls are dirty, bare concrete, and one features a poster of a Hindu god, or the King of Thailand, or perhaps a ripped shirtless Aztec cradling a voluptuous woman in his arms. There is a young waiter, and his demeanor (I talk about his demeanor because I can't remember the details. A good writer would describe his face or the position of his shoulders, but I describe his demeanor because I remember my impression of him, but not him actually.) - his demeanor was a strange admixture of obsequious and diffident...

Or it's a hotel. And there is a concierge. Or a bellhop. He wears a dingy uniform, or maybe just his own shirt - one of the two he owns. I know he resents me for parading my wealth in front of him - a backpack overflowing with shirts, ten, twenty, maybe fifty shirts. A shirt for every day of my life, to be used and discarded that evening. This is what he is thinking. I can sense it.