Wonkette
HEY, CINDY McCAIN, LET’S MEET ON THE BEACH & TAKE PILLS TOGETHER: Your editor will soon kiss the Mexican Border for good luck (and magic Swine Flu immunity) and begin walking 1,200 miles up the coast of California, for art. There are swarms of helicopters circling above the dried-up riparian septic tank known as the Tijuana River, and all legal access to the beach appears to be closed off by some mysterious government project involving an actual signed building called “Area 50.” See you in a couple of months, maybe! Let’s hope Jim Newell doesn’t terribly abuse you all, forever. [HarperStudio]
Is there going to be a blog where we can follow this trek?
Did some driving on part of this route last year. It is a wild place in all respects.
Stop in North Bay you goddamn strong-willed rhinoceros. That is all.
And remember that most of the Coast has Malaria. (North Beach is San Francisco’s Tenderloin).
Good luck! May your red hair and white skin be your passport!
It’s so lonely … eh Jim
At the end of a 1200 mile trek your sneakers will still smell better than Glenn Beck.
Happy trails, you ambulatory reprobate!
This 1,200-mile walking trip has “just make Intern Riley do it for you” written all over it.
(Speaking of, RILEY, write three posts for me to publish under my own name tomorrow morning.)
Ken, if you decide to keep on walking all the way to Canada (you should), You’ll find the Oregon Coast even lovelier and more walkable than the California Coast, the Washington Coast just as lovely, but absurdly more challenging, and a friendly place to stayplace to stay (gratis) in my town along the Olympic Discovery Trail.
I will expect you to drop a Ken Layne and the Corvids CD on me, however, if such a thing exists.
Your editor will soon kiss the Mexican Border for good luck…
RUNS, FORREST! RUNS!
shortsshortsshorts: Wouldn’t the Tenderloin be San Francisco’s Tenderloin? North Beach is the Little Italy.
Crank Tango: Wrong editor. Ken’s the one with the bitching beard. Jim is the ginger.
Have fun, Ken. Is this site seriously going to just be Jim, Juli, and Riley until, like February?
There’s a way cool colony of bats (at least there was in ‘73) near the end of the road from BoBoLand to Pt Reyes Seashore. Surprised me when I was hiking one evening. Seemed like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Pleasepleaseplease try to get a pic.
robert altman’s “the long goodbye” is an EXCELLENT movie.
InsidiousTuna: lol then in that case, I suggest a red head-merkin.
Come break Naan with me at Shalimar on Jones St. in the Tenderloin. The gas from the Lamb Brain Masala can propel you across the bridge and into hot tub, a.k.a. John Walker Lindh, American Taliban, country!
Darkness: Is there going to be a blog where we can follow this trek?
YOU BETCHA! Visit lifeintheslowlayne.blogspot.com for monthly updates!
ZombieRichardFeynman: OMG don’t tell anyone how to get to Bolinas. The new-age meth heads will kill you.
Good luck Ken! I don’t really have much faith in you - I mean, you’re leaving Newell in charge, FFS - but hey, go prove me wrong.
twoeightnine: You dumb bastard— San Francisco is full of crooks, robbers and scum. Bill ‘O said this in May or April or something. I support him. As a resident of this awful, draconian and sinister place, North Beach is more of San Francisco’s Tenderloin then EBER AND EVER AND EBER.
Nooooooo…first SKS, and now Ken. Come back to us soon! If you’re too “busy” to write for us on the road, could you at least wear a tracking device so we can monitor your beeping red dot as it moves up the map? And if Sara wouldn’t mind installing a nanny cam with live feed here, I think we’d all enjoy seeing lil’ Butterstick fending for himself while mom reads her romance novels and gnaws on bonbons.
The Appalachian Trail from Tijuana…sure we care…. write a sparkin’ book . send a telegram. peace
Mr. Layne:
Should you make it further and possibly cut over to the I-5 and travel North to Seattle I’ll buy you a beer. Well….no promises…but we can hang out.
-KevoTron
CALLING ALL MINIONS! CALLING ALL MINIONS!
Noted Intertoobs Word-Pornographer “Ken Layne” is making his way up the west coast of the United States on foot, as part of some bizarre ‘art project’ that consists entirely of drinking, whoring and free-fire snarking. Said “Ken Layne” is the bearer of a luxuriously silky-fine Neck-Beard, well worth it’s weight in solid-gold Ameros - so get your butterfly nets ready to capture him!
The first to present Layne’s neck-beard gets a FREE lapdance from Ann Coulter!
spryte: Don’t you worry about Ken. He’s in very good hands.
Extemporanus: Sweet Christ, why have I not seen this picture before?
Extemporanus: Sacrilege! (And I forgot how scary it was, too.)
Extemporanus: Extemporanus: OMG!! Horrifying AND hilarious!
Tonight, we are all crossing dried-up riparian septic tank known as the Tijuana River.
Wear your sunscreen and don’t talk to strangers.
And be careful between San Diego and San Clemente. There’s no messing around from Camp Pendleton to the San Onofre nuclear power station.
Also, have a blast.
Ken, keep the sunrise always on your right, the sunset always on your left, and the stench of over-priced coffee straight ahead of you. YOU CAN NOT GET LOST.
Kev-O-Tron: Haha! Caveman on a rainy November Tuesday in Port Angeles, then Kevotron on a rainy November Thursday in Seattle. Hope Ken likes good beer! Hope he’s got strong legs. (I guess if he’s made it this far, he has.)
Testing. Testing. Check ONE. Check TWO.
What, is this some kind of follow-up to a walking tour of Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia or something?
InsidiousTuna: dementor: DemmeFatale:
Oh, there’s plenty more desecration where that came from…
Oh this is stupid. I can’t put a fucking apostrophe in my “nickname” and my ancestors are Irish and I take offense to that.
I want it to say Kev O’Tron but no luck. Trix are for kids. Sinn Fein!
Who approved of this for a book deal? Are they still drunk? Also, I thought you already did this. Also. ps: the last line of the book should be “Also”.
Okay…another test but here’s a joke:
A brunette says to a blonde “I slept with a Brazilian last night.” The blonde replies “Oh my God you Slut! How many is a Brazilian?”
There’s some good thing that’s cool somewhere. Maybe you can blog about it. Or something.
I sense future apologies pertaining to certain latina-based transgressions.
Please come out of this with a twenty minute folk song.
All the best, Ken. Return in one piece, your Wonkett children need you.
WAAAAAAAAAAAYdaminute. The book deal is with HarperStudio, of HarperCollins, owned by News Corp, a/k/a Rupert Murdoch.
Ken Layne is taking money from the father of Faux Nooze?
At first I find this repulsive. Then I find it awesome, kind of like planting IEDs in Sean Hannity’s driveway that otherwise would be used to blow up American soldiers in Afghanistan.
But I have a very bad feeling that Ken is gonna get screwed on this deal. Didn’t Harper change the whole payout-to-authors metric to screw them over? Something about book returns being charged back, too?
So we can hope that *two* books come out of this, the second one being “How Rupert Murdoch F***ed me Over and I F***ed Him Back.”
InsidiousTuna: It is a reference to the co-founder of RedState’s most recent retarded comments.
I suppose some good will come of this provided Monterey County’s endangered condors are allowed to pick your bones clean.
Yeah, Right. Have fun in Buenos Aires.
Also: “For those who don’t you”? Is HarperCollins going to edit this book? Do they actually employ proofreaders? Or do they mean the opposite of “For those who do you”?
Good luck and best wishes. There will be plenty of opportunities for snark along the way.
It would be great to meet you on your way through Laguna Beach. I can introduce you to Kristin Cavalleri’s ex- friend’s best friend’s ex. It’s the OC, bitch.
No kidding- would be honored to buy you the beverage of your choice.
Carry either a really old board or a gun til you get north of Ventura. Then, relax until you encounter a drum circle, whereupon… you’re fucked.
Good luck Ken. It should be interesting. And when your body washes up after being caught in the crossfire of whatever drug-, immigration-, surf-, environmental-, or tax-war happens to be going on in California this week, at least you didn’t die in a wild fire or mudslide.
And don’t worry, upon your return and on your order, we will gladly sacrifice Jim in your honor.
Excelsior!
Oh, and along with Kev O’ Tron and Lascauxcaveman, if you make it up to Tacoma, the City of Destiny, I will gladly buy you a very good beer.
At this rate all we’re going to have left is intern Riley “I love BOLD text” Waggaman.
We’re gonna lose Juli when midterms roll around, and Jim’ll disappear once the new FIFA videogame comes out, and then Riley… Well, I don’t know what the fuck Riley does, but we’ll be stuck with him. Goddammit.
Sara has a baby (because she’s sexist), Ken goes on a Mexican walkabout, wtf is next? Riley and Jim wear matching turtlenecks?
Jeez … get a grip people!
InsidiousTuna: Watch for Baby K’s byline, coming soon.
Don’t worry about Cindy McCain, she’ll drop off the trail at Coronado.
CU, Ken! Have fun on your walkabout!
Ken, watch out for Orly Taitz! She has a cease and desist order with your name on it.
Are you going beyond UC Irvine?
Well at least Jim has been earning his keep around here– what with 10 or more posts a day. Ken, babe, you’ve been slacking off.
California: America’s mentally unstable and chemically inbalanced stepchild.
Oh, and…
California: Killing sane public policy one crazy ballot initiative at a time.
I love you guys, because your government makes my state’s government (Michigan) look halfway sane, cordial, and non-partisan.
Good luck Ken. I’ve never been to Cali, and probably after reading your book, I never will have to.
God Speed Ken, and just plain ole’ good speed as well. It’ll help with the trek.
Dearest Ken,
I cannot ken why you would do such a thing. You realize that most of your book will be about mosquito-infested-sub-prime-mcmansions right? NPR already wrote most of this. But hey, maybe you’ll catch some “local color” and then you won’t have to eat for a while. Plz to be coming back. kthxbai!
Wow, two months of getting paid to smoke pot, rent hookers and stuff money into go go boys g-strings!
I can only give this absence my stamp of approval on two conditions:
1) no trimming of beard for entirety of trip;
2) resulting luxuriant growth to be featured (with or without Ken attached) as the dust jacket photo.
If you are sold into slavery by desperate civil servants, this will give you some appreciation for Riley. That’s all to the good.
As someone who did the AIDS Ride and have been on a bike between SF and LA, I think I have some street cred. Here are some super tips- go to Red, White and Blue beach just north of Santa Cruz. There’s also “Taco Bell” Beach in Pacifica (there is a Taco Bell set up in a building right on the beach, mmmmm surfing and burritos… hike to the plateau just north of the beach for some outstanding beach views and waves crashing about 200 yards below.) And finally, be sure to hit up Bubba’s Diner in San Anselmo– it’s best of diner grub with a Northern California feel. Truly joy beyond words.
The question is whether baby Layne (often a background character in the “essays” recounting trips to forlorn and rusty playgrounds of the Inland Empire) will be making the trip. Either way, the kid will have loads of material for future therapy sessions….
Riparian, eh? Hyacinth Bucket approves!
Lionel Hutz Esq.: Have they cleaned up Hilltop by now? Make through Tacoma, and I have a drink waiting for you in Seattle. Stay strong!
Um, isn’t there a faster way to cover 1,200 miles of shoreline? Why don’t you just charter an airplane or something? Anyway, have fun in Argentina! Here’s hoping that Jim Newell continues to terribly abuse us at least until Baby K. Smith is old enough to blog.
Quitter! Monsanto got to KL. FIGHT THE POWERZ THAT BE !
So, with Sara on maternity leave, Juli and Jim are going to be running things here? It’s going to be a long, alt-text-free couple of months.
Watch out for the trip wires and booby traps in Humboldt Co.
Ken,
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it.
TGY
OMG GOOD LUCK KEN! Don’t spend the night with any vaguely-creepy-but-basically-okay seeming families, as they will hang your skin on the wall of their masturbatorium.
Don’t you all see that this is a desperate cry for help?!?! Ken intends to walk into the sea like Jon Voigt in Coming Home. Should we do something?
I’m jealous. Except for the walking part.
Norbert: That was Bruce Dern, honey.
jagorev: And then Juli will end up with a baby via mystery dad “Jim”.
BigDupa: Two of my (male) friends ghey-married each other at “Taco Bell beach” about a year ago… they brought along a big bucket of coins to pay for the ‘catering’…
Norbert: Hey man - art for art’s sake, right?
I’m also writing a book based on my solo walk up the coast of Rhode Island!
Small world!
Keep an eye out for them Tsunamis!
Click: Oh yeah, thanks….uh, honeybunch. I must have a subliminal desire for Jon Voigt to walk into the ocean.
Johnny Zhivago: Yeah, and other illegals.
Norbert: Completely understandable.
CINDY McCAIN;
Ridicule all legitimate questions concerning 9/11.
~ Charlie Sheen
Ok, @ 8 miles per day, this walkabout should take you 150 days. I figure your point of ‘no return’ should be reached in 25 days as you approach L.A. I’ll gladly buy you a glass of wheat grassand send you on your merry way.
Ken, if it’s not too late, get a little NEA money, too, and write about how, by the time you got to Malibu, you realized there was no God. It would be fun to see someone I know reviled as the Anti-Christ.
Ken, once you get to LA, if you need a guide to get you from LAX to Pacific Palisades, let me know. It’s a rough area and you wouldn’t want to get caught in any inter-surf-gang warfare. But seriously, I’ll get you a beer (read: joint) and spill all of my Hollywood secrets (spoiler alert: everyone’s gay). Just keep us posted when you’re going through each area and I’m sure us Californians will be happy to help you on your way.
Um, if you get really, really lost and end up in Rochester, NY, I will buy you a beer.
Will you do a Twitter of this trek? And we’d like to see pictures of the weird & wacky folks you’ll meet to remind of us why California is California.
Any of you f****rs ever read Two Years Before The Mast, about 1840’s sea voyages to the Mexican empire of California? Zorro-land? Tells you all you need to know about wildfires and the general unihabitability of most of coastal SOCAL.
chascates: You want pictures of gay sex and farmer’s markets? Actually, that sounds pretty good - I second the motion!
We walked from the Golden Gate to Oregon (and into Oregon). Are you taking the California Coastal Trail? Going North is harder and make sure at Point Reyes to get a permit before you arrive or tell Ranger Angelina to take *this* to the sustainability committee (moon and run). I’d better make my art about my walk before you’re through.