Merry Christmas

I sit in that rattling van - the hobo express - and morosely stare out the great, dusty window as the orange sun slips behind the Juarez mountains. The van is packed with smelly and tattered homeless men, the tight air stale with their funk.

We are deposited at the brand new El Paso Rescue Mission. The weary dart into the building, but I stay outside in the biting cold and light a cigarette, gazing out across the twinkling, yellow lights of Juarez City across the silent, black Rio Grande. The faint pop-pop of gunfire on Christmas eve.

I sigh. I have spent December in El Paso. I realized after my third day that I had made a dire mistake in coming back. A mistake quickly amended. I have set my sights at the beginning of 2014 to make my way to Calexico and will dig that scene before heading on to Tijuana.

As 2014 rapidly approaches and you snuggle securely into your comfortable middle class ever darkening future shrouded by quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress, let us take a moment to remember the Lost Angels who inherit this continent, the other people, the people in motion, of various races and ethnicity, speaking many tongues, migrating from one place to another as seasonal laborers, wandering around as hobos and hitchhikers, meeting each other in brief yet somehow lasting encounters.

These are the wild, alive, mad, undesirable, crazy individuals who soar like flaming comets across starry nights, who chuckle a hearty fuck you to your soul sucking society of petty, fruitless acceptance from bitter, overly judgmental constituents. They exist in stark contrast to your 'I am an individual yet I must be like everyone else' status quo. I have joined their ranks and will never turn my back on them. I have reached that point of no return and I've never felt more alive.