You know that saying about "adding insult to injury?" Well, truthfully, I never really got what it meant. I sort of had enough of an understanding to hold my own at parties, should the topic arise, but now I understand the full complexity of the idiom or whatever it's called.

I've gotten a boatload of e-mails, voice mails and text messages since "The Large Game."  Not just from fans who were bummed, but from people claiming to have seen my spot at the game.

Huh?

Then I found out someone else did a commercial with crabs. So, besides not getting my commercial on "The Large Game," a fair amount of people, including my mom, thought it was me in the other ad, where the crabs steal the beer cooler.

This is how my day started, with this e-mail from my mom (and of course a latte):

"Honey, congratulations on your wonderful new commercial. But you looked a bit tired and plump. Please do not work too hard and remember your vitamins. The entire town gathered around like they do on those American Idol Finales and we watched you. 

Everyone enjoyed the advert, but as your mom, I feel I should caution you about using such subject matter. Stealing, Gil, really? Is that what they teach you in California? And stealing alcoholic beverages, no less? I understand you were acting, but still wonder what type of message your actions send to young crabs..."

I cannot even process the mistaken identity right now.  Honestly, I would give my left claw to have been born a Hermit crab. I would so just hide in my shell and play pig pong until this whole mess is over.

Insult to injury. It's kind of a drag.

Pinch it!

Gil

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In with Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album and the road leads to the Big Easy. Magic and music. There ain't nothing mundane in New Orleans. After a ghost haunt tour and a jazz visit in the French quarter, it's just me and E, staring up at the Dixie moon in the Garden district.

I'm almost at the end of my trip, and I've got less than a day to make it to Miami.

But here in New Orleans, from the gradually returning grounds of the 9^th ward to those steadfast, still-standing bricks in the French Quarter, I'm starting to think a bit more about what this road trip really meant to me.

Tonight it was just me and E, and it was one of the best nights of my life. I'm letting the magnitude of this moment settle deep into my shell. This city is such a potent reminder that nothing should be taken for granted. And faced with that kind of reality, it's good to have what really matters by your side.

And then there's still music. I think it was Tom Waits, "my friends and me… play some pool and listen to that tenor saxophone calling me home… New Orleans, I'll be there." Me and E, we're there, and even if New Orleans isn't our home, we're in a better kind of home because we're together. And as some raspy scat singing cat and a tender trumpet blasts out over our Creole night, Miami doesn't have the pull it once did.

But I don't mean to get all mushy, because this city is still a celebration and that's what we're here to do. Cheers to that, cheers to E, cheers to Trexie, cheers to my doll of a goldfish, and cheers to midnight meanderings on the Louisiana Bayou.

New Orleans is bringing it back. I'm proud to be a part of the city, even if just for a night. 

 I'm off, mate. Next time, I'll sea you in Miami.

Pinch out,

Gil

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It's E and me, together, and we're off on the mother road. There isn't anything more American for me than this: two best buds driving, windows down, along Route 66 with the roads as flat as a tortilla on the way to a big-sky Texas town blasting a roadtrippy playlist and singing along.

I just hooked in my music into E's audio system and I had 60 gigs of tunes back on my claws. I felt like yelling turn it up, cowboy, with a little yeehaw but managed to refrain myself.

And then with some Springsteen, some Bill Withers, some Dead, and a little Texan Lyle Lovette lovin' and my hitchhiking days blow off in the dust as my American playlist blasts the speakers.

Pit stop at Cadillac Ranch, snapping some photos of the junker Cadillacs half-buried and completely spray-painted, and then we were off to visit Big Texan Steak Ranch. Props to the Texas panhandle, because everything here really is bigger: the steaks are bigger, the skies are bigger, the ladies' hair is bigger, the boots are bigger and the music is bigger. You can't play a sad song on the fiddle. It's a no-frills, offbeat, oddball, honky-tonk town and I'm really digging being two blokes, on the go, just part the authentic American road.

I chilled for a bit (literally, it's actually cold in Texas in January), bought some authentic Lucchese boots, a rad cowboy hat, tried to pinch a tractor, and E checked in with Trexy. She's all worried about the snow forecasts, and I had to reassure her E could handle the road with some killer traction control and some solid 4-wheel drive.

We're camping out at Palo Duro Canyon State Park tonight. I should be in more of a hurry to reach Miami, because the party fun stuff was supposed to start tonight and I'm still six states away. But, like I said, I'm a sentimental crab, and I'm just pretty darn happy to be back with E.

Pinch out,

Gil

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Life comes at you quickly on the road. So when an Odyssey filled with tweens offered a ride on a cold Nebraska highway, I happily crawled in. They were on their way home from a gymnastics meet; the glow of High School Musical on DVD held their attention and immediately, it held mine. 

All along the flatlands, I found myself humming "Soaring…Flying" from the movie and alternately staring at the highway sameness until my sight aligned with something spectacular. Something that brought me back to my heritage.

It was a Nebraska plains monument. An exact Stonehenge replica in the windswept prairie, constructed with old cars. I was immediately transported back to my youth, remembering my childlike awe upon first sight of that mystical stone alignment on British soil.

Being around the fossils of these vehicles only served to highlight the one I missed most, E. I plugged in my dead phone during the basketball scene, and the magic current gave it life. I quickly found I had eight messages, all from E!

He'd been worried sleepless about me being alone on the road. And with just a simple return call, I decided hitching just wasn't my cup of tea and gained back my pal; besides, claws weren't meant for thumbing the road anyway. They were meant for pinching.

So the plot twists once again, dear reader. E is on his way after leaving Trexie with some friends and a kiss, Real-Time 4WD helping him fight through snow, rain, black ice and lonely Nebraska highways to find his crawl-mate.

I exited the Odyssey and chilled with the strangeness of this Stonehenge replica, waiting for E. Only in the gray stillness before his imminent arrival did I truly understand the depth of our friendship. And the whole point of the journey, to deliver my Super New Commercial, has seemingly taken a backseat in my mind. I just want E back. Because when I'm with E, "there's not a star in heaven that we can't reach." I sort of stole that line from one of the songs, but it applies. And not just because of his moon roof, either.


Keep on pinching,
Gil

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So now I'm in Boulder, Colorado, shivering my claws off and browsing the server at an internet café for pictures of Santa Rosa goldfish and feeling pretty darn lonely.

I'm also feeling fairly dejected. Not only did I leave the love of my life in a tourist trap eighty feet deep where she could easily be hoodwinked by the adorations of some goggly-eyed blowfish, but I'm far from Hollywood where no-one knows the "it" factor of Gil the Crab. I can't even get a free latte around here.

So to fluff my vanity a little, I decide to search the web for my name. Yeah, I know, lame, but everyone's guilty of it, even if only once. And on my ego-surfing trip, I happened upon a News Article announcing my arrival at the Large Game!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you why I'm in cold Colorado and not on my way to hot Miami. I happened to get picked up by some traveling salesman, selling, of all items, a revolutionary toilet bowl cleaner. While I was daydreaming of glittering gold fins and the gloom of dawn departures, he manages to go straight north instead of east.

And apparently this guy's the only person east of the Nevada-Arizona border who knows my name. In fact, last summer he did some sales in southern California and stumbled upon my signed photo in a Malibu coffee shop. He refused to let me out of the vehicle until I'd autographed one of the revolutionary toilet bowl cleaners with an "I Pinch, Gil the Crab." I was so angry about the northern swing he'd taken that I refused to sign. Then I realized my stubbornness would just buy more time in the car with this man. So I signed.  He had terrible taste in music and a very uncomfortable front seat, anyway. Man, if only E was here, I could just plug in my mp3 player and be blasting some Rocky Mountain High right now. And E's seats are soooo much more comfortable.  I think I made a mistake going at it alone.

Signing off for now, missing my buddy E all kinds.

Keep on pinching,

Gil

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It's only been a couple days and I am slightly embarrassed to divulge this: I'm jonesing for the golden sands and sunshine of my Malibu beaches. So when two chill, dreadlocked dudes and their rickety, rattling green truck picked me up on their way to some crazy hippy hot springs town in Jemez Spring, New Mexico, I told myself: big sky Texas can wait and scuttled in.

And let me tell you, sulfurous hot springs are not the Pacific Ocean. Let me also tell you, lounging in some cliff-side, nudist hot springs naked as a serving of yellowtail sashimi didn't do a whole lot for my self esteem. A crab can be self conscious sometimes. Good thing no-one around these parts knows who I am (that is until about eighteen gazillion people watch me in Miami) or the "stalk"arazzi would be all over shots of my naked shell.

In a coin toss between diving into Santa Rosa or rambling on to Truth or Consequences (that's really a town name in New Mexico – the things you learn on the road), tails decided we were on to the Blue Hole, this unlikely 80-foot deep artesian spring in the midst of arid ranch country New Mexico.

Then out of the blue, I struck gold. Or rather, in the Blue Hole, I struck a goldfish. Accidentally, with my left clumsy claw. Lucky for me, this lovely lady had an enormous sense of humor and struck me back with this gleaming gold tail of hers and winked. I got a wink from a goldfish. Instantly, I sank deeply in love.

We spent the evening cuddling on algae eighty feet deep, staring up through the water at the stars and the sliver of a moon.

Four nights on the road and I'm already a starry-eyed sap, driven insane with love by the fins of a goldfish. But as in all love stories, there's a beginning and an end, and when we parted ways I scuttled again to the side of the freeway, gazing back only once to peer at her puckered, pouting lips. I clutched my Super New Commercial under my right claw and thumbing my left up to the road, headed still for the Mecca of Miami. That's the truth, and the consequence is I left a goldfish alone and myself with a nostalgic but stalwart heart.

I'm gonna miss this fish, but I might be missing someone else more.

Take it reel,

Gil

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Hi, I'm Gil and I'm afraid to fly. There I said it. I know, it's hard to be a jetsetter when you're afraid to ride on one, but alas, it is true.

I've been a bit wary to share that, thinking it could potentially tarnish my macho image, but if the open road is good enough for Madden, it's good enough for me.  But I have found a silver lining, one that includes my best bud, E.

                                You see, I sort of get a free trip to the "Large Game" as part of my deal. Being the symbolic crab that I am, I asked to personally hand-deliver the spot to the video people in Miami.

Anyway, I was originally supposed to fly, but talked Honda into letting me and E make it a total road trip. And what better way to roadtrip than with E. I don't even need to get a hotel room, although I could probably get it free. Like I said, I'm a symbolic crab.

                                So we will begin our journey from ..:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 />Malibu to Miami, from sea to shining sea across the America, and I will document my travels right here. I'll try to stay away from the tourist traps and the seafood restaurants, but other than that, anything is fair game.

                                Look for my reports from the road, chums!

Take it reel,

Gil

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