Sonora...

This is a hard place. 

The gentle sunrise behind the mountains. The cold, beige sand. The clouds that streak across the sky, swirling around the sun. And the tall cacti rising up across the landscape like the hairs on the back of your neck... It's all just a reminder of what's to come. A moment of forgiveness before the bell rings. The only mercy the Sonoran landscape might show you. 

Those first few minutes of morning, before the sun has fully shown herself, before her warmth reaches across that cold sand and up the trunk of that tall, green cactus. Afterwards, the colors change. Beige becomes yellow, becomes white. The chilayos providing a place of respite from the sun when she's not directly overhead. The clouds migrate to other parts of Mexico, leaving behind a tight blue canvass stretched all the way to the horizon.

Narcos in stolen silver trucks crisscross the land, with ski-masks and mismatched fatigues and Soviet era AK-47s slung over their shoulders. They're young, with blood in their eyes. And they're lost. Guidance comes only from an older version of their misguided selves, whose bravado wafts into the air like prom queen perfume. A stare turns to a smirk when they realize your intentions are not interfering with theirs. Hands around your neck. At their mercy. 

And this is just your first day in the desert.

Prior to the Apocalypse - LA to Detroit in a Prius

A few weeks prior to the apocalypse, four friends and a dog drove a Toyota Prius from Los Angeles to Detroit. They stopped for food, for fuel, for wi-fi, and to find old cards. Along the way they ogled Art Deco architecture in Oklahoma, drank tropical things in the Windy City, smoked cigars in a secret bunker in rural Michigan, and then finally delivered their friend to his wife and their newborn baby somewhere outside of the Motor City. Here are a few of the photos that one of them took along the way. A visual smattering of the United States, just days before a global pandemic.

A Constant State of Stagnation

How long can you sit still? How long can you wait around, twiddle your thumbs, flip pages in the proverbial seatback magazine of your own life, where the advertisements are excuses and the editorial a Flashback Friday from things you did, two, four, or forever many years ago. My fingers tap on the table as I push past the pages with the less exciting stuff. Stop and stare at an ad for the latest in distractions, time wasters and could-be-doings. I pour myself another beer, maybe my fourth, but who's counting? The sun is setting outside. The lights in the kitchen are pale and orange. Dinner is ready.

Time seems to pass so quickly when I want it to the least, and drag on endlessly in those days, weeks or months between the Action. It's the Action I'm after, you see. Feelings. Emotions. Reactions. Anything but another beer. Another night indoors, spent behind a screen, glowing blue, and pale and fat.

The Action, though, isn't your weekend trip to the ocean, your ten day vacation to some country you researched extensively. Tickets and trains, restaurants recommended, and everything else laid out ahead of you. The Action doesn't tell you it's coming. It shows up unannounced. Drops in when you're still in the shower. It yells out across the room and then pulls you by your wrists through the door. It doesn't wait.

The suffering seems so unnecessary sometimes, though. Two hours of sleep outside an old gas station, or a hotel room above a night club. Maybe ten hours at the wheel while the Italians smoke and sleep, the windows rolled down while crossing the desert. The sun comes up over the hood, out there beyond that dune. It's cold, and still and quiet. Soon, though, the wind will be working on your back, pushing sand and silt into your skin, your eyes and ears. The white wasteland of sand and sun a blank canvas for God's painful plan. To test your will, if only a little. To ask you why you'd suffer so much for so little. A frame, a photo, a few words, some kind of story to tell when you get home, when you're leaning against the bar talking to people planning their next vacation - probably somewhere exotic, to drink and golf. A vacation to numb their feelings, so they don't remember how bad it is back home. A home where they'll pour that fifth pint. Like I just did. But I'm not trying to forget, I'm trying to remember. How much it hurt. How much I want to hurt like that again.

A Morning at My Old Man's

My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. Like a kid after licking clean a spoonful of peanut butter. The world spun a bit when I sat up. It moved at one speed, myself at another. Playing catch up. I turned myself toward the television that sat in the corner of the room, one step closer to removing myself from the couch. It was still on. Stuck in an endless cycle of YouTube videos that started the night before with a query into off road racing, I think. Two tall brown bottles, empty, sat on the table. A pint glass, also. A low slung cloud sat over the lake outside. It was the end of October, when the colors of autumn had gone and the air was damp to the touch. An awful time of year, honestly. Grey, mostly. Providing a kind of cold that keep your bones brittle.

I could hear my father in the other room. On the phone, indecipherable, but likely with his "friend" in Thailand. Short, staccato sentences, augmented by paraphrasing. He had a habit of waking up early. Reading for a few hours. And taking a shower as soon as I imply I should. The nights prior had been a blur. Friends, negronis, and toast at 2am after we'd come back from the same bar we always sat at, but rarely ate in. Toast is, as it turns out, a staple of my diet, and a habit I acquired from late nights like those, often spent with my father. So, maybe it was peanut butter keeping my tongue attached to the top of my mouth. Whatever the culprit, it was my impatience that separated muscle, skin and hard palate. I knocked back the glass of water I'd prepared myself the night before. It sat on small table adorned by a lamp brought to the States by my grandparents in the early 1950s.

The post Millennial generation won't understand what waking up without a phone was like. I do, though. Mornings like this, before, were spent gazing across the lake, watching the De Havilland Beavers lift off over kayaks, canoes and anyone else suffering from that after summer cabin fever. My father would roust me, often in his underwear, drain the hot water tank in our apartment, and then suggest I take 'Navy Showers,' before trying his hand at breakfast. We'd pitch ideas around about what to do afterward. Always some kind of adventure.

Now, though... The phone is the first thing I think of, and the last thing I see. As it is for him, I presume. We still spar for hot water rights, but are mornings are bookended by emails and updates, notifications and whatever else keeps our eyes cast. Like the skies painted that pale grey over the lake, our mornings became overcast.

Alcohol helps keep the boredom from taking over entirely. But like any addiction, it simply stunts the growth. It does not remove the tumor.

I had slept in my clothing. Jeans and a t-shirt. An old pillow clad in Christmas sleeving, and a yellowing wool blanket have been my bedmates for years now. I lifted myself from the old, brown, sunken couch, with its cushions so tired and sad that they wander apart like old lovers. Gently, gradually, but inevitably. It has a smell. The whole house does. Old furniture and burnt toast. And peanut butter, perhaps. The sliding door to the deck is always locked. Precautions in case someone scaled the walls or descended from an apartment above, with ropes and tackle and loaded firearms. I always thought it was silly. But my father is a caution man. To a fault at times. As much, however, as I am not cautious. Ying and Yang and all that, I guess.

He emerges from his room. The sound of his door sliding across carpet is a familiar sound. He's curious what I have to do that day, tells me he has a meeting in an hour. I suggest I should shower. He tells me not to use all the hot water.

Some days you win, you know?

Western Aloha

My family hails from the Island of Hawaii, near Honoka'a, on the Hilo side. They're some hard working, family-comes-first, no bullshit kind of people. They're also Portuguese, and arrived on the Big Island in the 1800's to work the cane fields. My grandmother and her siblings were born in a plantation home on the Kuka'iau Ranch during the Roaring Twenties. She was one of ten - nine girls and a boy.

All but her brother, Antone, the first born and only male of the bunch, would leave the islands following WWII. My grandmother, for example, traveled to Honolulu when she was 26, met a tall fella from Eastern Washington after the War, and then moved to the mainland in 1951. But Antone stayed, and his son, Anthony, carries on a tradition that's little known outside of the Hawaiian Islands. The Paniolo are the original American cowboys. Born from necessity, they were trained by the vaqueros of Mexico and have maintained the livestock of HI since 1832.

Photographed for Western Aloha

Hustlers

My ex-wife once once told me, in the midst of her post-departure-angst, that I was "nothing but a goddamn hustler!" At the time I wasn't sure what to make of that. How to take it... Was that a bad thing? Shit to be ashamed of? I've spent the better part of my adult life working for myself. For better or for worse. Cleaning cars, writing about racing stuff, and most recently marketing for the motorcycle. It's all uphill. Treading water with weights around your ankles. But those big, deep breaths you get to take, when the air is ripe with opportunity and you can see everyone along the shoreline crossing tasks off their lists and tackling to-dos, for someone else? That's when you know this hustle shit is worth it. When I replay that comment she made, reflect for a second, and then, yep... I'm out here hustling like a motherfucker. For me. Because I'd rather die drowning than be sunburned on the shore.

Surf Mat Shenanigans

"Some of the best ideas are born after many beers. Like when your father spots an inflatable surf mat at a shop on Sunset Boulevard – shortly after pouring back a few pints at Mohawk Bend, I might add – and then pulls the trigger, suggesting you pack it onto your motorcycle and ride up the coast looking for waves to surf along the way. Great idea, dad! And so just like that a trip was born, two actually. The first was as mentioned, from San Diego to Seattle on big American cruiser machines. Kyra and I stopped to surf in San Clemente, again in Santa Cruz and then a third and final time on the coast of Oregon. The second trip, though, was into Baja on our Indian Scouts. And unlike our first little adventure, which had us riding well-known roads and surfing even better-known spots, our surf mat shenanigans south of the border were a bit more off the beaten path. That trip was the focal point of ‘Baja Norte,’ the first episode of our new moto-travel show, Perpetual Motion. So, I’ll let you watch that, and save the story. And instead of waxing on about what we did, I’d like to explain a bit more about the mat itself, how to surf one and why they’re so awesome."

I wrote about the awesomeness of inflatable surf apparatuses for Wayward. Click this to read the story.

Hoh. No. Kah. Ah.

My grandmother, Mary Jane Texeira, was born in a plantation home on the Kukaiau Ranch outside of Pa'auilo, HI in August of 1920. Her father, Antone, worked the cane fields of the Honokaa Sugar Co. and lived in a small house near the mill with his wife, Cozy, and their ten children. When she was 26, my grandmother moved to Honolulu and opened a little laundry service. A few years later, she met a tall fella from Eastern Washington by the name of Merlin 'Doc' Coffey, my grandfather. They moved to the mainland in 1951 with two children from her previous marriage, as well as one on the way - my father, David. Much of my family is still on the Big Island of Hawaii, living in the small town of Honokaʻa, working as paniolo. That little guy hiding behind his mother's leg is my grandmother's great-great nephew, the next generation of Hawaiian cowboy. And that old guy with the devious look in his eye? That's my grandfather, Doc, at 97.

Mainly We Work, David...

"No, I don't do that... I'm a binge writer."

But this one is better, because, Conan.

drkrm

Note: I wrote this poem, probably intoxicated, in June of 2014.

This.
It occurs often.
Taking it’s time.
Your face, conflicted.
Mine, understood.
I see past the previous.
Forward.
I am eager.
You are optimistic.
The sun through the kitchen window.
Above the sink.
The sound.
Jazz.
I look at you through an open eye.
It’s enough.
My arm reaches out.
Reels you in.
The same thing.
Sunday.
She’s something else.
Incredible.
And there’s so much more.

Merlin's Merlins

When WWII ended, my grandfather purchased an 85-ft ASR boat from AAF surplus. The boat was designed to rescue downed pilots off the coast of HI. It was powered by three Merlin V12 engines making a total of 4500 horsepower, consuming 125 gallons of fuel per motor, per hour. His boat, 'The Adventure,' had a 4000 gallon fuel capacity, and if my math is right, could burn the entire tank in ten hours at full throttle. He paid $8000 for the vessel, when fuel was $0.32/gallon, so again, if my math is correct, filling the tank would run him $1280. He ran an illegal poker game on the boat during his post war years in Hawaii. The vessel was eventually sold and spent the rest of its life ferrying tourists to the USS Arizona memorial site.

He turns 97 in May.

Beau Geste

A film I must have seen a million times. Most influential in my life. Tragic, and yet wildly inspiring.

Interdependence

Note: This post was written in May of 2015 while I was living in Japan.

I'm on an elevated train leaving Tokyo. Surrounding me on all sides are young men and women, staring straight down, with one hand holding onto the safety circles that hang from the ceiling. Why, I wonder? Perhaps some kind of shame system developed during the rice paper wall period? Keep quiet because everyone can hear everything? No, they're just staring at their screens. Cell phones, tablets and handheld gaming devices occupy the palms of almost everyone. They glance up only to make sure they haven't missed their stop. The rest of the train's occupants are older, and they're asleep in their seats. A sign of the times, I suppose. And yet here I stand, phone and face in the same position as everyone else, getting things done with what little down time I have today. It's essential, this connectedness. One can shun the convenience of modern technology, run to their 'cabin in the woods' and get all Thoreau on us. But let's be honest, in order to succeed in society these days, one must swallow the proverbial pill. And that's alright.

You see, I've been “on the road” for more than a year now - travelling in my converted cargo van up and down the west coast of the United States, then travelling into Baja aboard my dual-sport motorcycle for more than a month, and now I’m traversing Asia, riding motorcycles, surfing and exploring for the next few months. This could not happen, however, without the availability of Internet. I am considered a journalist by most conventional standards. I participate, document and debate a range of subjects, centering primarily around surfing and adventure motorcycling. I am also a "social media manager," a job title new to the working world, and one that wouldn't exist if it weren't for the Internet. It is a job title that, unlike all of my previous employments within corporate America, allows me to wander aimlessly around the world, working whenever and wherever the Internet is available.

I peer over the shoulder of the person pressed against me - a young woman of ripe working age. She's typing feverishly in Facebook Messenger. Then she adds an image on Instagram and reads what I assume to be a blog post about some kind of beauty product, given the pictures. I, on the other hand, am hammering out a story I've been commissioned to write about the importance of the Internet, and how it allows me to travel freely and yet still maintain an income level at or above where I'd be if I were stuck Stateside. An hour later, I exit the train with what feels like eight hundred other people, take the escalator up, and make my way back to my friend's house in Fussa where I'll be staying for the next few months. Parked outside his front door is the motorcycle I've rented. Inside is the surfboard I've borrowed. And upstairs is my laptop, which, like a pair of pistols strapped to the side of some 20th century gunfighter, pays my bills. Without it, I'd be riding desks not dual-sports for the foreseeable future. I think Thoreau would understand.

The Trials & Tribulations of a Millennial Nomad

It had been raining for days, maybe weeks. We were in Seattle where I grew up, where my father still resides. We were parked in front of his apartment on a narrow street, lined with cars on one side and apartments overlooking Lake Union on the other. Our van, a 2008 Ford Econoline E-150, was sandwiched between an orange VW Beetle and something silver and sedan-like. It was cold. It was wet. It was October. And we had been in the city for far too long.

Living in a van, or out of one in our case, is a romantic idea to many Millennials. Traveling here and there, making a living off the Internet, parking at picturesque campgrounds, overlooking the ocean, or on great swatches of land, where your lady can do yoga and you can brew up a cup of freshly ground coffee on your camp stove. At least that’s what Instagram tells us #vanlife is all about. But I’m here to tell you about the harsh realities of living this nomadic life, when it’s no longer a “journey” and instead just life, lived in a van, maybe down by a river.

Read my thoughts on Expedition Portal (LINK).

Five Rolls, Four Countries, Three Months...

Five rolls of 35mm film shot in four countries over the course of three months... There's a bit of everything; an Italian SUV in the Alps, a cocaine palace in Puerto Peñasco, pet pigs, dick doodles at dinner, the Ducati museum, classic cars in Verona, et al. If you're interested, you can seen more film photographs that Kyra and I have taken over the years on this Tumblr thing.

Arkansas to Arizona

1,706 miles separate Arkansas and Arizona...

It's a distance we've traveled numerous times this year, riding up the East Coast on Indians with my old man, from San Diego to Seattle on a Victory Octane and XC, around England on Royal Enfields, and now from Little Rock to Phoenix through some of the worst weather we've ever encountered. This time, however, we were riding a pair of Scouts we purchased (!) from our friend, Rob Gregory.

The decision to own Indians was made during our cross-country adventure last April. We wanted something we could travel aimlessly on, loaded only with what we need and nothing more. We wanted something American but reliable. Classic but contemporary. And so we settled on Scouts. One red, one black, with zero miles on the odometers.

On our way back to Arizona we hit 40 MPH sustained winds with gusts up to 60 MPH, temperatures that topped out at 42 degrees (which feels like 32 with a wind chill), rain and an army of tumbleweeds that busted a headlight and stopped us dead in our tracks. I suppose this is just the start...

An assortment of 35mm photographs taken with a Yashica T4 are attached.

You Should Probably Go To Puerto Rico

If America is Budweiser, then Puerto Rico is Bud Light Lime; the lighter, maybe I’ll have one-too-many, Caribbean step-sister of the USA. It’s affordable, relatively speaking, offers a wide array of cultural oddities and a plethora of tropical treats that make a box of Mike & Ike’s look like kid’s play. And so with that said, allow me to explain why Puerto Rico should be your next ‘adventurous vacation’ destination.

The Plastic Camera Project

It happened at the Hard-Off, what the Japanese would call a thrift store, but what I would describe as a lightly-used shopping experience, where last year's Omega Submariner and DSLR cameras go to die. Or to find a new home if you're a frugal American looking for a steal. Anyhow. While browsing the used camera inventory, my eyes crossed paths with a bright blue plastic camera sitting on a shelf. Round1 was written atop the hot-shoe, and a price tag with a meager sum was siting beside it. Something like $10 when all was said and done. I had to have it. What the fuck it was, however, I had no idea.

Japan is notorious for gifts and gift giving, so when we discovered this was a prize someone might win at the local Round1 bowling alley, it all started to make sense. It came complete with cardboard box, filters, a flash and an instruction manual... in Japanese. I picked up a few rolls of cheap 35mm film and fired away. I took the camera to Italy a few months later where I covered the efforts of a few friends racing in the Sardegna Rally. After that it traveled with me on more than a few surf trips in Japan, to include a week long stay on the Izu Peninsula. Before departing Bousou Island, I entrusted my new toy to my friend Rabbitt. I instructed him to shoot a few rolls and share the shots. We'll see what happens. What follows, however, are a handful of photographs I took with the camera in Italy and elsewhere.

I'm Pretty Sure You Suck

A photo posted by Justin W. Coffey (@justinwcoffey) on Apr 14, 2016 at 1:51pm PDT

I've gotta be honest, you and I probably wouldn't get along all that good. It's nothing personal, I just don't get on with that many people, especially all you 'surf enthusiasts.' I don't like the kind of music you like, the kind of car you drive, your dolphin friendly diet, and our political opinions are probably about as far apart as they can be. I like bad rap music, El Camino's and Box Chevy's on big wheels, 12-gauge shotguns, two-stroke dirt bikes, rye whiskey and people that I can get good and fucked up with and not have to worry about what I say. I keep my circle small. And I don't trust anyone. I guess I just figure it was about time I said something. I used to put a lot of music on here that I don't really listen to, videos that I couldn't care less about, and occasionally something perhaps a little too personal - like dribbling on about my divorce, or marijuana induced ramblings about being on the road forever. The reality is, I'm pretty sure you're interests and mine are at opposite ends of the spectrum. And that we probably wouldn't get along if we ever met. Sorry. You can still read this shit, but I think I am going to stop posting the sort of stuff I think you'd like, and instead share the kind of nonsense that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Like this photo of my godbrother Kell and his son Malcolm squattin' hard next to my 95-year-old grandfather's Chevy Avalanche sitting on 22's.

A Nightmare of Note

I had a nightmare the other night. The kind that startles you out of sleep and won't allow you to go back bed. A perplexing experience. I was running late to catch a bus to go to a class that I was already late for. I was in Washington, as evidenced by the damp grass and grey skies that surrounded me. It was either early morning, or perhaps shortly after sunset. An ambient light was just over the horizon and the air was cool but not cold. I was walking along a narrow stretch of trail that ran alongside a parking lot for some kind of massive shopping complex. Negotiating my way around some caution tape that was laid out in an oblong shape directing me around some unknown obstacle, I felt anxious.

I looked at my watch - it was nearly nine. I hurried. The trail twisted out ahead of me - a lone stretch of single track across an otherwise empty grass field. Just as I was about to enter a dark space in a tree lined patch of woods, what appeared to be some type of tunnel that would eventually lead me to my beckoning bus stop, a voice called out... "Part of you is ready to meet him, but part of you isn't." At that moment a man, or maybe a creature, shrouded in darkness came bounding toward me down the path from whence I came. It traveled in a neolithic fashion, hunched over using its arms to propel itself forward at a pace I couldn't outrun. But I tried. It was too dark to see. Too dark to know what it was. I ran, looking over my shoulder, trying to decipher what was chasing me, and why. All I knew is that I wasn't ready to encounter it. Whatever it was. And that I needed more time. As the creature drew close, its shadow enveloping me, I called out, "No! Not yet," holding my arm outstretched in an attempt to prevent this thing from doing its bidding. And then I was awake.