IN THE SUMMER OF 1997 MY WORLD WAS LOOKING PRETTY DAMN SWEET. I had a great girlfriend. A big, healthy family. Lots of interesting friends. And I had just gotten a $50,000 advance from Bantam Books – with no prior book writing experience – to write a memoir. And not just any memoir.

I was being paid to take a road trip.

I was to get $50k to write about a journey I’d be taking all over America in the summer of ‘97. My own private Summer of Love. A trip that was to take me barhopping for 100 consecutive days. Talking to anyone and everyone I met about love. Marriage. Fidelity. All in the hopes of solving my alleged “commitment issues.”

By the time I returned to Southern California early that fall I was supposed to know whether or not I wanted to marry my girlfriend, P., who I’d been dating for nearly two years at that point. She was a rising star at InStyle magazine. And I was a 36-year-old freelance writer who’d never even been engaged, let alone married. Ready to hit the road in my ’72 VW bus on someone else’s dime.

It was the biggest break in my writing career. A career full of close calls, bad choices, blown opportunities and a pinch of rotten luck.

BARSTOOL BLUES, the working title of my book, was gonna be my ticket to fame and fortune. Or at least a little financial stability and some professional pedigree.

Besides P., among the people I was leaving behind in LA were: Ernie, the orphaned teenager I began mentoring when he was 9, who seemed to be doing well at his foster home in Woodland Hills; Sister Tracy, my biggest fan among my 7 siblings, who was loving her apartment and her new job at a prestigious investment firm in Pasadena; and Henrietta, the sweet 88-year-old Jewish lady I’d been visiting once-a-week during the previous two years, who was alert and smiling when we said our goodbyes at her assisted living home in Beverly Hills.


* * *



And then I left. On a trip that truly changed me forever. Over the course of 100 days – in 164 bars across 42 states and one Canadian province – I had an experience worthy of a classic novel. Full of drama. Sex. Betrayal. Heartache. And transcendence. So much so that when I pulled my sputtering VW bus – VanGo – back into LA on Oct. 15, 1997, I felt like I had just lived my generation’s “On the Road.”

I felt an obligation, a calling, to get it all on the page. My stories. The stories of the hundreds of people who opened up to me. The story of my family. My girlfriend. My exes. An endless raging river of subjects to cover.

So I wrote. And I wrote. And I wrote…

Some of the stuff I liked. A lot of the stuff I didn’t. Before long, the seeds of self-doubt were blooming. I lost all my confidence. I felt a pressure like I’ve never experienced before. Something between John Turturro in “Barton Fink” and Michael Douglas in “The Wonder Boys.”

I was on the verge of losing it.

Then the rest of my world began to disintegrate. And my problems started to look pretty insignificant. Weeks before I was set to turn in a draft of the book to my patient editor in New York, Sister Tracy was in an SUV accident that left her a quadriplegic. Then Ernie ran away from his foster home, eventually got arrested and was sentenced to a year in jail a mere 5 months after his 18th birthday. A few months later, Henrietta got cancer and died.

Two years ago, though, the shit truly hit the fan. P.’s successful businessman dad was arrested for – and clearly guilty of - molesting two of his grandchildren. The day before the trial was to begin, he blew his brains out. (But not before writing P. and her sisters – and his wife of 40 years – out of the will.)

Less than 2 months later, Sister Tracy killed herself.

Her suicide options were limited, however. So while my step mom was off running errands for a half hour, Tracy rolled her motorized wheelchair into the deep end of the family swimming pool. Exactly six weeks after P.’s dad shot himself in the head.

Oh, and I never finished the book.

P. and I eventually made our big decision, too. After 7 1/2 years – more than 5 years after our self-imposed deadline to decide back in ’97 – we finally split up early this year.

It’s been a strange five or six years.


* * *



Which is what THIS is all about. I figure that after everything I’ve experienced the last few years, I’m due for another road trip. So in March and into early April I moved out of the apartment I shared with P. for 4 1/2 years. I had a yard sale. (I sold my bookcase to one of the nannies for Rocco Ritchie, Madonna’s boy.) The leftover personal flotsam filled up a 5’X10’ Public Storage closet that’s costing me $100 bucks a month.

Everything else I own has been stuffed into my old VW bus. And I’ve decided to just wander. With no agenda this time. I’m simply out to marinate in humanity and goodness and optimism. I refuse to buy into the fear and paranoia the propaganda machine has shoved down my throat.

I want to hit the road because it’s always been good to me. Always been enlightening. Always inspiring. The greatest teacher I’ve known.

So it’s time to mosey. I intend to have the Greatest Year of My Life. Despite a few not-so-good ones in my rearview mirror. Or maybe because of them.

I want to see how far a little faith and a lot of positive thinking will get me.

I also intend to do volunteer work once a week. Because it feels good. Because it’s the right thing to do. And because I’m hoping to build up a nice protective armor of good karma. (Hey, I AM driving a VW bus.) My experience has shown me that when you give – your time, your ears, your heart – the rewards come back to you tenfold.

To add a little drama and conflict, my funds are limited for this 9-month adventure. My old friend Jon and my new friend Carl – the founders of the BeachBody.com fitness juggernaut – have offered to pay for my gas during my trip. In exchange, I will document my attempt to complete their Power 90 fitness program, a 3-month workout plan that I’ve unsuccessfully tried to finish about, oh, 15 times over the last two years. Thanks, guys.

I’m also gonna try and pick up some freelance magazine and/or newspaper writing work. And I take great candid wedding photos. Plus, I’m willing to videotape bar mitzvahs. (I made my friend Phil’s wedding video.) I’m also contemplating playing my guitar on a street corner for nickels. And I’m willing to pick apples for a fair wage.

I want to hit as many states as possible. I want to see places like Cooperstown, Asheville, Charlottesville and Mount Rushmore. Places I’ve never been to. And I want to return to places I’ve already visited and loved – New York City, the Florida Keys, Montana, among many others.

And I’m taking suggestions. If someone feels passionately about a place, I may just decide to go check it out for myself.

I also want to see lots of old friends. High school buddies. UCLA friends. People I’ve met on previous crazy road trips. Old girlfriends. Anyone from my past who’ll have me is a potential pit stop.

I also want to meet plenty of strangers. I want to hang out with musicians and construction workers. Cabbies and cooks. Writers and housewives. Hookers and holy rollers. College kids and cops. I want to be around people who radiate joy. I may be chronically drawn to the wounded and the suffering. But I’d also like to search out people whose souls churn with passion and warmth and optimism.

I’m going out into America utterly open to the world. I’m the blank canvas. And this road trip will be my piece of art.

Along the way I intend to document my journey and send it out into the great abyss of cyberspace, thanks to Brother Brunk, my brilliant young brother-in-law, who built my idiot-proof web site for a handshake and a pat on the back. Thanks, bro.

So I’m going into this adventure with no expectations. No game plan. No itinerary. Just an open mind. And a busload of faith.

I’ll get to where I need to go when I need to get there.

Until then…

The road beckons.


~The Notorious B.O.B.