A month passed. Tom was stocking the\nempty cupboards of America’s soul kitchen like a madman. And get\nthis, it was fun! Sometimes it barely required any effort. It usually\nnever cost a cent. Tom couldn’t believe how much stocking his country\nneeded. Every morning he wrote about his experiences. There was no\ngoal when writing them up. He just wrote the way the Columbia River\nused to flow before humans murdered its watershed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jimmy monitored Tom’s progress and they\nmaintained their correspondence. He went nuts with the ink pad and\nmade art everywhere with his hands, feet and tail. He opened new\ndoors of perception with his art. When people noticed these doors,\nand many did not because they were fiddling with gadgets, they walked\nthrough and saw strange faces in the rain contorted with pain and\nthey wanted to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you ever encounter art made by\nchipmunks blazing on magic mushrooms, you best pay attention. If you\ndo, your world will never be the same and it finally might start\nmaking sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One evening, Jimmy typed a message to\nTom and a conversation ensued:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ever read The Grapes of Wrath?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, decades ago.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it again on mushrooms.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jimmy left behind some of his stash.\nTom procured a copy of Steinbeck’s great novel chronicling a terrible\nAmerican diaspora. Tom ate the mushrooms, stayed up all night, and\nread the entire book. At dawn he stood outside his rig and laughed.\nAt long last, he had a title for his novel: The Grapes of Meth<\/em>.\nHe would write a great novel about the new terrible American\ndiaspora, of the new Joads who no longer wanted to work, who had\nquit, checked out, tunneled into the margins, and didn’t give a shit.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom typed a note to Jimmy about his\nbreakthrough. Jimmy wrote back, congratulated Tom, and asked for a\ndouble serving of Hamm’s, double cracklin’ cold, to celebrate. His\nwork with Tom was complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there were others in the RV park\nwho needed Jimmy’s help. There were also plenty of magic mushrooms\naround. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A month passed. Tom was stocking the empty cupboards of America’s soul kitchen like a madman. And get this, it was fun! Sometimes it barely required any effort. It usually never cost a cent. Tom couldn’t believe how much stocking his country needed. Every morning he wrote about his experiences. There was no goal when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5316,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313\/revisions\/5316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}