Episode 18: Robert Bell & Josh Caldwell

Robert Bell: We were driving through there and we're speeding and then we get pulled over by a cop. And that's not good because we have like tons of weed in the car. You know, we're speeding in Utah. We're these like outsider kids.

Josh Caldwell: Atypical daydreamers and welcome to season three. I love making this podcast and it's great to be back. Today's tale takes us through the American West on a journey that I shared many years ago with my old friend and longtime writing partner Robert Bell, or Bob as I know him. The goal was to write a Western while on the road but the road has its way of flipping the script.

Robert Bell: We had this plan. We'd been working on a screenplay idea, a story about a Mormon Western. And the plan was we were going to write the whole screenplay while being on the road in Utah. We had never been to Utah. It was going to be like firsthand research with the Mormons, drive all around Utah and Idaho where the story was supposed to take place, and write it in the car. We were going to have a laptop. I remember getting like a special charger plug that plugged into the laptop so we could write supposedly the entire time we were on the road.

We went to the rental car place and I had probably booked just a crappy compact car. That's usually what I booked, the cheapest thing. But they upgraded us to a Mustang and this became like this big fortuitous sign that this was meant to be. We're going to ride around the West in a Mustang writing a Western.

Josh Caldwell: I think we left that day and our goal was to get to Zion National Park in Utah. But first we were like, Vegas is on the way, we should stop. It would have been around dinner time. We didn't want to go to the strip. So we went downtown to Fremont Street. Right away, for both of us, it just felt like some kind of zombie land. People walking around, all their faces were like elongated, and they were drinking these giant drinks.

For some reason I asked a cop that I saw if they had any recommendations of places to eat. He told us about some Italian place right there somewhere around. I don't remember anything really about the place, if it was good or bad, but I do remember that the waiter would sometimes have an Italian accent and other times not have the Italian accent. So we just got out of town quick and headed towards Zion. On the way there was this lightning storm, all around, but there was no rain, just lightning in the sky. So we drove on through this electric night and we finally got to Zion. It was late, probably early in the morning actually. We wake up the next morning and it's like we're in some magical place. The mountains look like they were chiseled by giants. Really a mind blowing kind of place.

Robert Bell: We drove on because we were pushing through. The whole plan was within a week we were going to loop through all of Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and then back down the West Coast to LA. So that's a big trip. Right away we weren't writing. I think we were talking about the story a lot, about the characters, but I don't recall putting very much to page at all.

Josh Caldwell: Our next stop was Provo. We wanted to visit the campus of BYU, Brigham Young University, Mormon school, check out Provo, thought it was a college town. You go to the college towns to find the cool record shops and the coffee shops and like hippie food. This was not that kind of a college town. Right when we got into town there was a cop car that was following us a bit, probably just checking our plates, checking us out, who are these strangers. We made our way to BYU. Beautiful campus. We definitely were not part of the gang. A very clean campus with a lot of clean looking youth. Nice people. Everybody seemed so nice, smiling, looking at us smiling. I didn't get any dirty looks.

We looked pretty scruffy. I had a big mustache and Bob was unshaven and I was for some reason wearing like a bandana around my forehead. There was something strange about the way the campus functioned. The rhythm and the flow of the campus was different than I'd ever experienced before. I couldn't totally put my finger on what it was. Bob and I, we've been in a lot of situations that are awkward. And I think we've put ourselves in some of these on purpose, to be the outsider. It feels really good in this way. Somehow you feel more alive, more alert.

Robert Bell: I definitely felt like an outsider. I've had those experiences before of going into a place and walking around and being the outsider and getting to observe. BYU was very much like that, especially since we were writing a story about Mormons. We carried on. That was also the first taste of fall. Still summery everywhere else but that was an indicator we were going north because the leaves were changing up in Provo. So we went on to Salt Lake City that night and we were staying in a hostel. This part of the country felt very desolate to me.

Driving up from Salt Lake, we kind of cut through Wyoming and then into Idaho, Northern Utah into Wyoming. A very super desolate area of the country. There's so much beauty between Wyoming and Idaho and Utah and you get almost none of it on the route we were driving. But we were driving through there and we're speeding and then we got pulled over by a cop. And that's not good because we have like tons of weed in the car. We're speeding in Utah. We're these outsider kids. He saw the laptop and asked us what we were doing. We told him we were writing a screenplay and told him a little bit about it. It was a Western and stuff. And he just seemed kind of enchanted by it. So he let us go. He did nothing to us, which is just like the hallmark of privilege, I guess.

Then we drove on through Wyoming. We ended up in Boise. We went to a quarter of the city that's like 6th Street in Austin or Bourbon Street, just a bunch of frat boys and we weren't feeling it at all. And then we turned and went down a side street and ended up in this saloon. In my memory, it really does feel like an old timey Western saloon. Like there would be a gal named Lil and a piano player and stuff. And there's this man at the bar. He just felt like he'd always been there. Like he was sort of like the ancient mariner, waiting to tell us the story. Not so much Josh. He would talk directly to me.

We just struck up a conversation because we were sitting next to him. He right away kept saying that I was a true gentleman. And he told me a very sad story about his experience in Vietnam and the traumas he'd endured. There are these characters that come out in the story that are somewhat humorous in some ways because they sort of appear to us and do these funny things. He kept calling me a gentleman. But it's also really sad because he was a broken man. I think he did spend his days and nights at that bar stool. But he really wanted to tell someone about it. So that was my role that night, to be there to listen to him.

Josh Caldwell: Hey, Josh here. I love making this podcast and I'd love to make it my full-time gig. Besides telling the stories, I'm basically a one-man band and that takes time. If you're enjoying the podcast, please consider becoming a patron. You'll have access to loads of great bonus stories and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you're supporting a truly independent podcast. Find the Patreon link in the show notes. And thanks.

So we moved on to Oregon and there was some state park we had found along the way that we were gonna stop at and camp in. We had some mushrooms with us and we were gonna take mushrooms in the state park. We didn't have a campsite, we were just winging it. We finally found a spot to camp. First we went to the place you're supposed to camp, the area reserved for camping. There were a lot of people there. We were like, we can't take mushrooms here. So we were like, let's just go back up the road a little bit. There was another spot that was part of the park too, but you weren't supposed to camp there. We decided to camp there anyway.

Bob went into town to make a call because there was no reception there. And I stayed behind, just sitting there alone, kind of far away from where all the people were. And then kind of out of nowhere, this old couple just started walking toward me. Eventually they came over, said hello, asked what's going on. I said my friend and I are gonna camp here. And they were like, good, good. At some point I asked about bears. I said, are there bears around here? Should we be worried about bears? The older man said, no, you're fine. I grew up around here. I've been coming here my whole life. There are no bears. So I was like, great, good. That put me at ease.

But then he's like, well, if you want to know about bears though. And he starts telling me about how he spent time in Alaska in the back country. They'd have these giant fires and they would be sitting around them and you could hear the bears moving around just beyond where the light would reach. You could hear them snapping their jaws. I was like, what are you telling me all this for? And then they had somewhere to go and they just seemed to almost vanish. And it was right after that that Bob showed back up. I was like, Bob, there were these old people and they were talking about bears, but there are no bears here, but there are bears in Alaska.

After all that, with bears in our minds, we decided to still go ahead and take the mushrooms. It was fun at first. As the night went on it got pretty cold and I don't think we had a lot to eat. At some point we started hearing these really weird sounds, like spaceships. And then you would see these cars kind of go by in the distance. I think what we figured out was these kids in the area were drag racing up there, just driving around really fast. So they just kept coming by super fast. In my state of mind I was thinking they were like spaceships. So we're thinking about bears, and it's cold, and we don't have a lot of food, and there are spaceships flying around. I would say it was a little tense. Almost like, was this worth it? This is definitely not the first time I've taken mushrooms. Why did I come back here? Do I need to do this anymore?

So we eventually fall asleep and then suddenly someone is going, hey, wake up, come on, get up. We're in our tent and come out real quick. It's super early and there's a forest ranger there. He's like, guys, you're not supposed to be camping in this spot. You need to pack up quick and get out. And we were like, oh, okay. We're still out of it. So we're packing up and he just stood there while we did it. Then we jumped into our car.

Robert Bell: It was getting on evening. We got to the California border and we took the split off. There's that main highway and then you can split off toward Crescent City, which is by the bay. In my memory, I wanted seafood by the bay. So we split off from the inland highway and that takes you basically through Ewok land, through the big trees, the big old redwoods. And it's just beautiful. That was one of those moments where I felt like time stopped. There was just this hush in the woods. We were listening to like early gospel singers, something from like the anthology of American folk music. Something otherworldly.

By the time we got to Crescent City, the sun was setting and there's a ton of sea lions on the bay. Giant old bodies. I remember walking toward them at a certain point and they just all started barking at me. You don't want to get near the sea lions.

Josh Caldwell: So then we find our way into some seafood shack and order some food and we're sitting down. I think we're at like a community table. And there's this older fella sitting with us who starts talking to us and immediately it was like, this guy is a pirate. His voice was insane. Deep and gravelly. He had barnacles growing inside of his throat. And not to reduce everybody that you meet on the road to a character, but this was like another strange character. I couldn't tell you what we talked about but he was very encouraging. I think we told him about our trip.

And I think after the Redwoods and the music and this seafood, really in this moment, it felt like this is exactly where we're supposed to be. Like nothing else really matters. We are where we're supposed to be at this point in our lives.

So we finish up our meal and we move on and we're trying to get to Arcata that night. Another college town. The home of Humboldt State University. This town has got to be all lit up, right? And we hadn't gotten gas in Crescent City. This is a stretch of Northern California where there are just no gas stations and it was getting late. If there were gas stations, they were closed. And you go through that one town where there's like the giant Paul Bunyan statue with Babe the Blue Ox. At night that is super spooky and ghostly. Misty up there. But somehow we found a gas station. We made it to Arcata.

We have these high hopes and right as we get in town, it's like, no, this is a rough spot. It just felt like a town full of roughnecks and crusty dudes. It felt hostile. People were yelling a lot. And of course we went to a bar. At one point this guy is running across the bar and he pukes exorcist style, just puke flies out of his mouth and hits the ground right behind us. And I felt like nobody did anything.

Now, this is toward the end of a really intense trip. We were doing a lot of miles every day. We were smoking a lot of weed and drinking every night pretty hard. Probably not getting enough sleep and constantly pushing everything to the edge. So our state of mind also could have been a big part of this. I do think that town was kind of intense, but I think also we were getting a little dark at this point. This was just where those two things met, this intense place and our twisted state of mind. So that was Arcata.

Robert Bell: And here's the crazy thing. This is like the length of California and we had to make it back to LA that night. We decided to drive the coastal road, which is like the slowest way you can make it through Northern California. It was beautiful but we didn't make San Francisco until like probably six o'clock. The sun was going down and we still stopped for dinner there. And then once that was over, holy shit, we've got to make it to LA.

I think we were both pretty well spent by the end of this trip. And I don't think we had probably 100 or 200 words of our screenplay written by the end of this trip either. I don't think we'd written anything. But it was really fun, obviously. It was such a time, you know, late 20s for me and just turning 30 for you. That always stands out. I haven't had that sort of intimate experience with driving across America since then. I've taken other driving trips but not like an epic road trip like that where you're really getting into each town and going to the bars and talking to the people. That was really indelible. I'll always remember that.

Josh Caldwell: I drove the last little leg through the night. I think I was pretty high actually when I did this part. I don't know why I got high before this because it was just like interstate and big trucks and maneuvering around them. It felt like they were just like a really horrible video game. And there was a bit of apprehension, a bit of tension, a bit of anxiety about going back to LA. Almost like this idea of like we went to space and now we're in the capsule and we're coming back into the atmosphere and it's burning up the side of the capsule as you re-enter.

And one thing to remember with this whole trip is this is before smartphones. You're not constantly taking pictures and posting or reading about something online. You're just disconnected. This is really the last little stretch of time when you could travel like this and just really kind of be lost wherever you are and forget about the rest of the world. I think that's partly why this trip feels like the last of its kind for me. And I think for Bob too. I've never taken a trip like this since, not anywhere close. I have kids now and I would probably be freaked out if I heard this story from one of them. But it makes sense. This is what you do at this time in your life, possibly. Maybe the Butthole Surfers had it right when they said, well son, a funny thing about regret is it's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done.

Josh Caldwell: I want to thank Bob for helping me bring this story to life. This podcast was created and produced by me, Josh Caldwell. Music by Visual Aid, my side music project. General support and copywriting by Miranda Caldwell. If you like the show, please follow, subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you'd like to financially support the show, check out my Patreon page. You'll have access to loads of great bonus stories. You can find the link in the show notes. Thank you for listening and I hope you come back next week.