News from Jupiter
The (Old) News from Jupiter
January 21, 2024
In July of 1975 I left Los Angeles with a fully functioning motorcycle (and the same silly paper air filter) and made my way to some new friends who lived south of San Francisco, and then, after a week or two, travelled North on Highway 101 to get to the commune that Bob and Annie had told me about. I lived on the commune for […]
Things On My Mind
January 14, 2024
Dear friends and virtual acquaintances, It would be nice to hear that you’ve had a wonderful few days or weeks of festive joy. I’ve certainly stretched my holiday out as long as I could, but I daren’t cut out any longer in case it becomes permanent. When you last heard from me I was writing about my arrival in Los Angeles, and if I were […]
The End Days of Triumph LA
December 17, 2023
This may well be the last bulletin from Jupiter in 2023, so here’s hoping you aren’t hiding in the ruins of Gaza or freezing in the trenches of Ukraine, and I can wish you a warm and happy Christmas holiday – whatever your religion, even if, like me, you don’t have one. At the end of last week’s piece I offered a ten-dollar […]
From My Notebook in 1975: Coming to the Promised Land
December 10, 2023
If you remember, I came through the US border at Nogales with remarkable ease. It was late afternoon on a Saturday in May of 1975. I was tired after a day of riding through hot Mexican desert. My bike was limping along and would only run on full choke. I had no real sense of the distances I would have to cover in America and […]
Riding The Gringo Trail (The Sunday Times – September 1975)
December 3, 2023
Two weeks ago I buried myself in the past to avoid the present, and today I can’t see any point in coming back. Almost anything I might have to say about current events would almost certainly provoke fury and outrage. So please join me again in 1975. I had just crossed into the USA, limping along with a sick engine to Los Angeles where […]
From My Notebook in 1975: All Roads Lead To Los Angeles
November 19, 2023
Good day everybody. The news in general is so awful that I’m ignoring it, and finding some peace and pleasure in going back into my journey notes again. It’s May in 1975, and I left you last in the beautiful town of Guanajuato, but the USA looms large on the horizon of my thoughts. From Guanajuato I reckoned that I was three days away […]
From My Notebook in 1975: On the Road to the Land of Gringos
November 5, 2023
Still in Oaxaca 1975, I was going to continue with extracts from my notebooks as I moved on through Mexico to the USA, but I find them harder to transcribe. Compared with the bare-bones existence of the Andean lands of “No Hay” Mexico seemed quite prosperous, but the prosperity was an illusion. It was created by the availability of goods from the USA which only […]
From My Notebook in 1975: To Mexico
October 29, 2023
I left you last week in Guatemala on my way north. Already in Gringo country – more and more influenced by American tourists and commerce, and I became unreasonably upset that the word “American” now only means the USA. After all I’ve been in America for almost a year. And yet I’m beginning to long for the comforts that I imagine waiting for me when […]
Onwards and Upwards
October 22, 2023
The last time I regaled you with extracts from my notebooks I had crossed Honduras to Copán, on the border with Guatemala on my way up through Central America to the USA. Sadly, I was beginning to long for those first world comforts. And, so it goes on: Left Copán at 9-ish. Emigration is in the town. Transit is at the border. The two […]
A WorldWideWeb
October 8, 2023
Dear Friends, It was heart-warming to read of all the kind people – from Orkney to Australia – who toasted my Jupiter anniversary. I myself celebrated by riding my MP3 down the coast towards Spain and, in true Jupiter fashion, got lost and found myself negotiating a goat track in that very rugged country we call garigue. I made up for that though with a […]