We’re back from the Georgia Puppy Caravan. Now it’s time to do some much-needed maintenance on the motorcycle, review all our video and photos from the summer, and take a much needed rest.
In the meantime, here’s one of our first videos, “Frisbee Hund tanzt den Walzer”, which translates to “Waltzing Frisbee Dog”. Most of this video’s views come from Europe where I lived for many years and am a member of Dogforum.de, Germany’s largest online bulletin board for dog owners. But who knows, maybe some of you Yanks might like it too, so here it is:
I trained Bo to respond to basic commands, i.e. sit, heel, come, in German so that strangers would not be able to command him. I got this idea from a movie called “Boys Of Brazil” in which Gregory Peck tries to control an attack dog with basic commands but couldn’t do so because the owner had trained the dog using non-standard command words. Ultimately, Peck lost that one. Which is good, because he was the bad guy.
At the very end of “Waltzing Frisbee Dog”, we ask forgiveness from Herrn Strauss and Maestro van Karajan for butchering their heavenly music. We hope they’re not rolling over in their graves right now like Beethoven did.
When we left off our last post, we were frustrated, sweaty, thirsty, starving and on the verge of tears from the awful fiasco the ride to Hammonton turned out to be. But as soon as we pulled up to Hammonton Town Hall, all that went away. As we parked the bike and all these great people came up to greet us, it was as if we’d just ridden out of a convection oven into a large, cool bubble of good energy.
A picture is worth a thousand words, here’s what this all about:
The group includes Anne Fauver of the Atlanta GA City Council, John DiDonato, the mayor of Hammonton as well as David Yorke of Atlanta and Karen DeSasso and Lisa Adinolfi of New Jersey, organizers of the Georgia Puppy Caravan and their kids. Anne flew up here from Atlanta to present Karen, Lisa and David with an official Proclaimation of Gratitude from the City of Atlanta. That’s quite an honor, so it must be quite an undertaking. And it is.
The Georgia Puppy Caravan will be leaving Lindenwold NJ with over 200 vehicles full of pet food and other supplies. The destination is the Chatooga County Animal Control Shelter in Summerville GA. The task at hand upon arrival at the Chatooga Shelter is to completely empty that shelter and transport all its adoptable animals back to the Northeast where they can be adopted and fostered.
What’s The Point?
Why is this being done? Because last year alone close to a million animals were destroyed at animal control facilities in the State of Georgia. In many regions of the country, particularly in the Northeast, spay and neuter programs as well as no-kill practices have been implemented to reduce the numbers of unwanted and abandoned animals destroyed in animal care facilities. However, in Georgia as is much of the South, the neutering of animals is still seen as unnatural and undesirable and animals are still encouraged to reproduce without regard to the fates of their offspring. The goal of the Georgia Puppy Caravan is not just to empty the shelter, but to create a media event which will hopefully help change the way Georgians think about their pets.
And the media seems to have jumped on board. The Caravan will be accompanied by no less that two film crews documenting the event as well as a National Geographic crew with RescueInk, whose TV show premieres this September. We will be there as well, traveling with the Caravan and helping out wherever we can.
So our tour has been put on hold for the near future, at least until after the Caravan returns here on August 26th. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in an event that may really save animals and have a lasting impact on people’s lives. We wouldn’t miss it for the world, and we hope you stay tuned as we report from the road starting August 19th in Lindenwold, NJ.
More info on the Georgia Puppy Caravan can be found at the links below:
Last week I got a note from Al Chernoff in Philly asking me if I wanted to go for a little ride…to Georgia. Al is a cat person who’s been volunteering for Philly PAWS for over a decade. He rides a Harley but isn’t known for his long-distance ironbutt stamina. In fact, there there are only three things that could instigate Al to take such a ride: animals, animals and more animals.
The link Al sent me told the story of a woman in New Jersey who is organizing a caravan to take supplies and goods to an animal shelter outside Atlanta and empty out that shelter, bringing all its animals up to the Northeast for fostering and adoption. I called Al and told him I definitely am interested in taking this ride. Such a thing would definitely be worth rescheduling the westward leg of our tour for. So I emailed the organizers and asked if Bo and I could ride with them. Karen, the main organizer, said that’d be great, and she suggested I come down to Hammonton, NJ on Wednesday where some of the participants and organizers from the Georgia shelter as well as at least one Atlanta City Councilperson would be there to present an official Proclaimation Of Thanks to the NJ organizers. Karen told me the event had taken on a dimension none of the original organizers ever imagined. RescueInk, the semi-famous NY rescue group, National Geographic and two film crews had gotten involved and a feature film documentary of the event was being planned.
You Have To Go To Hell Before You Get To Heaven
Before we get to the good part about the people we met in Hammonton, we have to share a little bit of our experience in getting there. It was not a good morning. In fact, it was a very bad morning. I’d trailered up the bike the night before and was ready to go at 9:45 AM. But when I started up at the truck that morning, the trailer lights didn’t work. I tried to get them working but by 10:30 AM I had to give up, take the bike down off the trailer and gear up for the 2 hour ride. That all took 45 minutes and we didn’t get on the road until 11:30 AM. But the event didn’t start till 2 PM which gave us 2.5 hours to ride 70 miles or so. That’s fine, I thought, how bad can it be out there?
By 1 PM we’d been stuck in traffic for an hour and a half on two of Philadelphia’s three major interstates, and seemed destined to miss the event. As you probably know, Bo and I almost never ride the freeways, especially hot days. On the freeways, the road absorbs the sun’s radiation and the black tar heats up the air directly above its surface. That hot air travels upwards, mixing with the hot air generated by the motorcycle’s engine and wafting right up your legs and torso, past your face and into your helmet. Stuck in stop-and-go traffic, you sit in a bubble of hot air and sweat until you finally move 10 feet forward and stop, at which point you create another bubble of heat and sweat until you move again, creating another bubble, ad what seems like infinitum. It can be hell, and when you’re late and hungry, it can be worse than that.
The backup started 2 miles north of the I-76 merge on I-476 and the I-76 traffic appeared to be backed up all the way to Center City. Since we were going south, we stayed on I-476 and decided to forego Philadelphia completely, targeting instead the Commodore Barry Bridge to cross into New Jersey 13 miles south of Philly. We made good time for 10 miles but the backup on I-476 started again 5 miles from I-95. It took 45 minutes of sweat to travel that five miles and by the time we finally got to Chester I felt like I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown: dehydrated, frustrated, irritable, stressed and I was starting to doubt whether we’d make it at all. The road didn’t open up until we crossed the Delaware in Chester. Luckily, we didn’t experience any more delays on the Jersey side, and while our normal cruising speed is between 55 and 60 mph, today we averaged close to 70 mph on the 42 Freeway and the Atlantic City Expressway. We rolled into Hammonton NJ at 1:56 PM, but by the time we finally found the place, it was 2:06 PM. The event was scheduled to start at 2 PM. So despite waking up at 4:30 AM to be sure we’d be there on time, when we finally arrived we were late, Bo was thirsty, and I was starving and in a very foul mood indeed.
When we left yesterday’s post, the stalk of the butt pumpkin in front of the Lansdale PA Starbucks was belching more smoke than a 50’s era Rust Belt smokestack. The reactor core of the pumpkin was minutes away from a meltdown. The Starbucks staff was busy serving the customers who held their breath and deftly sidestepped the butt pumpkin as they walked in and out the door. Even the smokers were keeping a safe distance from the noxious stench surrounding the butt pumpkin, choosing instead to stand 20 feet away to smoke. If your ashtray is scary enough to repel even the smokers, you know you’ve got a problem.
It was clear that the young Starbucks employee’s mind was elsewhere and that he didn’t consider putting out fires to be in his job description. I thought about taking a seat at the table furthest away from the erupting butt pumpkin where I would have a front-row seat for the hilarious debacle that was about to unfold. But being a helpful person by nature I decided to take a minute to address the butt pumpkin and see if there was anything I could do to avert the impending calamity and save the town of Lansdale the cost of an unnecessary action by the fire department
What’s That Black Knob For?
A quick look at the butt pumpkin revealed a two-piece construction. The receptacle at the bottom is nothing but a large plastic bowl covered by a separate upside-down bell-shaped piece. The bell fits over the bowl and is secured by a single screw with a knob. The screw passes through a hole in the bell and turns into a nut molded into the bowl. I turned the knob and removed it, grabbed the stalk of the bell piece, pulled it off of the bowl, and stepped backwards as a huge mushroom cloud of hot, putrescent vileness ballooned upwards revealing a large bucket heaped past the brim with thousands of discarded butts. This took all of ten seconds. The contents of the bowl was still smoking as I went back inside the store to give the young Starbucks employee the update on his butt pumpkin.
Me: “I took the top off the butt pumpkin. You might want to put the fire out now. But first, I’d like a Venti Iced Mocha.” Him: “Oh, the top comes off? That’ll be $4.87.”
Planet Starbucks
On Planet Earth, as on most other planets in the galaxy, it’s customary to offer a complimentary token of appreciation to a customer who does a good deed that benefits the store, especially a customer like myself who has spent well in excess of $15,000 at dozens of different Starbucks over the past 20 years. For instance, and this is just a random example, most coffeeshops on Planet Earth would offer a free drink to someone who kneels down beside a stinking, toxic, burning butt pumpkin and figures out how to put out the fire because none of the store’s employees want to be bothered with it. I guess Starbucks has its own view of courtesy, just as some countries have their own view of the Geneva Conventions. Not being a Starbucks employee, it’s not for me to judge. However, since there are issues of public safety involved, I thought I’d take another minute of my own time to rewrite the Starbucks Employee Manual, free of charge. I have included my first draft below:
Starbucks Employee Manual
Chapter One
If there is a fire, put it out.
Chapter Two
If you can’t put it out, call the Fire Department.
Butt pumpkins, as I call them, started cropping up outside the doors of retail and office spaces soon after smoking bans went into place. They’re usually green and look kind of like pumpkins with a huge green stalk coming off the top. The stalk has a hole into which people insert their cigarette butts. At the bottom is a huge bucket that collects all the butts. The butt pumpkin is designed to keep the objectionable sight and smell of spent butts out of the face of non-smokers while still respecting smoker’s right to the pursuit of their absurd form of Happiness.
Whoever designed the butt pumpkin, however, didn’t implement a mechanism for extinguishing the butt before it falls into the bucket. Smokers, being concerned only with the part of the cigarette that relieves their cravings, just drop the butt into the hole at the top of the butt pumpkin and give no thought to what happens to the butt once it has vanished down the green stalk. So I’d like to take a moment now to explain what happens to the burning butt once it disappears from view.
It Burns
Yes, it burns. Just as there is abundant life under surface of the blue sea, there are burning butts inside the butt pumpkin. As the pumpkin fills up with butts, the dead butts become fuel for the live butts. Soon, the disgusting mass is seething and smouldering within its plastic womb, building up heat until all at once it bursts into a full-blown chemical fire. Once it has achieved combustion and the green plastic ignites, it takes only seconds for the butt pumpkin to morph into a stinking, fuming, sticky greenish-black blob that will billow toxic black smoke for days or until the fire department gets there, which in a place like Lansdale PA would probably be a matter of minutes.
A Fire? I’ll Get To It As Soon As I Can
There was already a plume of foul-smelling smoke belching forth from the stalk of the butt pumpkin when I got to the Starbucks in Lansdale but nobody seemed particularly concerned. My conversation with the young man at the counter went like this:
Me: “Your butt pumpkin is burning.” Him: “Excuse me?” Me: “Your ashtray is on fire.” Him: “I know. We poured a couple quarts of water in there but it just leaked out the sides.” Me: “Did you roll the thing around to distribute the water?” Him: “Yeah, but it didn’t do any good.” Me: “Well, are you going to take a closer look at this thing? It’s really vile.” Him: “We’re busy right now, I’ll get to it as soon as I can.”
I started to tell him that once the plastic ignited, tossing a quart or two of water on the butt pumpkin would probably just make it angry, but the young man was already taking the next customer’s order. I went back outside and felt the surface of the butt pumpkin. It was already about 130 degrees. The show was about to begin.
And that’s where we’ll end today’s post, minutes away from a chemical fire that would at best disrupt traffic, interrupt business and leave a hideous black stain on the freshly-resurfaced concrete in front of the door. In closing, we reiterate the young Starbucks employees’ approach to this impending extravaganza:
“We’re busy right now. I’ll get to it as soon as I can.”
We left Providence about 1 PM and decided to take the Interstate all the way through Connecticut and down into New York. MapQuest calculated the trip at about 175 miles and three hours, so we had ample time to get to Citi Field in Queens well before game time. With a couple stops for ice cream and poop (the former for me and the latter for Bo, if that wasn’t clear already) we were on schedule to hit the Whitestone Bridge before 6 PM, which would give us 45 minutes to get to know Mets fans before continuing on through Manhattan, with an ETA at our base north of Philly of about 9:30 PM.
Everything was cool until we got off I-95 and headed straight south towards Queens. At that point, it started to suck, and the suckage continued at 4.5 mph for two hours, as illustrated in the pictures at right. The pictures were shot at approximately 10 minute intervals. I could have shut off the bike and pushed it and made better time than we did with the engine running, but you can’t do that in stop and go traffic because people get all impatient and start honking, as if they were really going to get there any faster by honking. Instead of honking, they should ALL just shut down their engines and push. Look at all the fuel they’d save, not to mention all that money wasted on things like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers.
It took two hours to travel the six miles from I-95 to the Whitestone Bridge. And why was traffic backed up six miles? What were we all waiting for? We waited in stop-and-go traffic for two hours just so we could pay the toll!!!!
Apocalyptic Vision
During this time, I concluded that a society that requires its people to spit out greenhouse gasses for two hours just to pay $5.50 is doomed, and I spent a good deal of time pondering which Biblical verses forsee that the Apocalypse will be immediately preceeded by a two-hour backup at the Whitestone Bridge. In fact, the only thing that stopped me from shutting off my bike, standing on the handlebars and delivering a fire-and-brimstone sermon was the fact that people kept smiling and taking pictures of Bo. Plus, I couldn’t remember any specific verse in Revelations that referred to I-678 or the Hutchinson River Parkway, so I really had nothing to back it up.
By the time we reached the toll booth, my left hand was sore from working the clutch and my butt hurt from sitting. What a consolation it was for us that the attendant only charged us $2.50 for the motorcycle instead of the full $5.50! This, however, after a lengthy discussion with one of his colleagues as to whether the sidecar wheel was actually just a wheel or a third axle and thus whether our vehicle really a motorcycle or a semi-trailer in disguise. During this casual teleconference, I could feel the guns of the people waiting behind us being trained on my head and my only thought was: “Shoot me. Let the dog live.”
Sorry We’re Late…Did We Miss Anything?
It was well past the third inning when we arrived at Citi Field and all the Mets fans were inside the ballpark, but we did get a nice picture with pleasant rosy overtones from the sunset to prove that we were there.
Then we crossed the Queensboro bridge and headed down 2nd Avenue, crossed Manhattan at 23rd and headed for the Holland Tunnel, stopping in the Village to look for a cafe that dispensed caffeine intravenously. I say that nonchalantly but crossing from Queens into Manhattan at sunset on a bed of pinks and blues is an experience you’ll never forget. The entire Big Apple is laid out in front of you like props on a stage. We have footage from the helmet cam but we want you to come back for more so it’ll have to wait.
By the time we came out of the tunnel on the Jersey side it was almost 10 PM, and we didn’t roll into base until after midnight. As usual, Bo had his snout out front the entire ride and didn’t lay down once. He deserves a day off. To think of it, we both do.
Hero Of The Day
Our Hero Of The Day is Courtney, who actually did what hundreds of people say they’re going to do but rarely ever do, that is, send us the picture they took. Thanks Courtney! We do appreciate it and you get huge karma points for coming through. You made our day!
My buddy David Perluck used to work in a pub in Providence RI. He tells me one day a dog walked into the bar around lunchtime, ordered up a beer and a sandwich and started reading the newspaper. Dave brought the dog his beer and said, “You know, I don’t have many customers who are dogs. In fact, you’re the very first one. I hope don’t mind if I ask what you do here in Providence.”
“Well”, said the dog, “I do drywall at the big construction site across the street. I get 45 minutes for lunch, and I don’t want to offend you but I really don’t have time to chat. All I want to do is come in here for lunch, drink a beer, eat my sandwich, read the paper and go back to work.”
Dave, having been just as good a bartender as he is a photographer, said that was fine and left the dog alone with his beer, sandwich and paper. A couple nights later the circus rolled into town, and the circus boss stopped at Dave’s bar. Dave told him about the dog and said a dog like that was a sure-fire box office smash. The circus boss gave Dave his card and told Dave to have the dog give him a call.
The next day Dave brought the dog his sandwich and beer and said, “You know, I hate to bother you, but I met someone who might have a job that’s right up your alley.”
“Yeah?” said the dog. “What’s the gig?”
“Well”, said Dave, “I met the boss of the big circus that’s rolling through town and he’s really interested in what you have to offer.”
“The circus”, said the dog, “is the thing with the three rings under a big tent, right?”
“Yeah,” said Dave, “You could make a mint.”
“And tents are made of canvas, right?” the dog asked.
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Dave.
“Well”, said the dog, “then what the hell do they need a drywaller for?”
We’re not sure we remember exactly which nice young woman it was who took the picture in Philadelphia and sent it to her father in Providence, RI. All we know now is that the picture bounced off a satellite hundreds of miles above us to reach their ultimate destination on her Dad’s cell phone, who looked at the picture, got a good laugh and sent us an email. Thus, a friendship was born, and here’s the picture that instigated the whole thing.
One of the biggest problems we have posting from the road if finding a space to kick back and work on the nuts and bolts of telling our story. Maintaining a website and video blog takes a lot of time. A comfortable place to work is priceless, and hanging out in David Perluck’s photography studio here in Providence for a couple days of web updates, reviewing video, and having a few good laughs with good company was a real treat.
Our Heroes Of The Day for yesterday and today are Dave and Sandy Perluck and their son Ben for giving us a place to take a huge chill pill while the storms dump inches of water over Rhode Island. David is a master photographer with 35 years experience. When he creates an image, you don’t see what the subject looks like, but rather what it is supposed to look like. Check out the images below, each one speaks for itself.
Fenway Park. The Green Monster. The Red Seat in the right field bleachers. All this great stuff was there inside the ballpark, but as usual we didn’t get to see it because one of us has a big snout and pees on trees and the other one of us is a dog. Continue reading "Fenway Park in Boston"
So your dog likes to hang his head out the window of your car at 70 mph? Cool! See you at the vet, where you’ll be taking your dog to have road grit plucked out of his eyes at $100 per eyeball. Continue reading "Red Doggles Saga"
Our goal for the day was to find Car Talk Plaza. It’s not on the map but Tom and Ray have been talking about it for years so it must be there somewhere. Cambridge, Massachussets isn’t very big and they say it’s on or near Harvard Square so it can’t be too hard to find. Continue reading "Car Talk Plaza - True Or False?"
Last week I got a note from Al Chernoff in Philly asking me if I wanted to go for a little ride…to Georgia. Al is a cat person who’s been volunteering for Philly PAWS for over a decade. He rides a Harley but isn’t known for his long-distance ironbutt stamina. In fact, there there are only three things that could instigate Al to take such a ride: animals, animals and more animals.
We left Providence about 1 PM and decided to take the Interstate all the way through Connecticut and down into New York. MapQuest calculated the trip at about 175 miles and three hours, so we had ample time to get to Citi Field in Queens well before game time. With a couple stops for ice cream and poop (the former for me and the latter for Bo, if that wasn’t clear already) we were on schedule to hit the Whitestone Bridge before 6 PM, which would give us 45 minutes to get to know Mets fans before continuing on through Manhattan, with an ETA at our base north of Philly of about 9:30 PM. 
