
Since the beginning of November I've had to listen to this dickhole GPS dictate directions to me almost constantly. "In three tenths of a mile, turn right at the next exit." Visions of spontaneous violence and destruction come to me in waves from my new home in the backseat of this truck as I barrel down the highway with Alex Debogorski, that guy from History Channel's outrageously successful show, Ice Road Truckers. Myself and my buddy, Loren McGinnis, have been hired to shoot a documentary of Alex's trip across the country to promote his new book, King of the Road.
Advertisement

Alex Debogorski taking a time out in the desert just outside of Arizona. Locals were blasting off handguns right behind us.If we've learned one thing so far on this trip, besides the fact that underwear can be re-used for at least a week before the bacon strips become a problem, it's that trucking ain't for pussies. Being tethered to this truck means we have become truckers too, which I've realized is a very unforgiving profession. You drive until your eyeballs start to bleed, and just as you're about to fall asleep at the wheel and smear an entire Disneyland-bound family into the guard rail, you roll into one of America's main truck stop franchises--TA, Flying J, Pilot, or the shittiest of them all, Love's. You try to find your usual parking place (a trucker shot another trucker dead over a parking spot dispute recently) but will probably fail. Your last meal was Taco Bell (at the very healthiest) 12 hours ago, so you go into the shithole Love's for their $8.99 buffet dinner where even the salad is covered in cream or chocolate pudding and has marshmallows or some shit in it. You eat a pile of weird meat, starch, grease, grits, gravy, biscuits, orange pop, watch a C-action movie starring Christopher Lambert and hit the sack. Up at 4am, have a trucker shower (none), a huge breakfast with everything meat, hammer a gigantic coffee, hack a couple Marlboro's, wolf down some mini-pink donuts, take a shit alongside every other grunting trucker and hit the road. Repeat.
Advertisement


The Red Giant barrels through the plains of Wyoming. This was shot from the edge of someone's ranch. We half expected to get attacked by a mountain lion or shot in the face for trespassing.We're a long way from our Canadian homestead of Yellowknife, where it's currently -31 and shitty, so I don't miss it yet, but I might soon, depending on how far down this asphalt lined rabbit hole we go. As the three of us barrel down this highway from truck stop to truck stop over the next month in search of fame, fortune, laughs, and a bit of weirdness, there will be stories from truckdom involving toothless women, renegade redneck trucker stores, a driver named Mad Dog, guns, God, getting fat, speed, "lot lizards," and the lonely freedom that the road giveth and taketh away. And all of this as we try to keep our sanity at least in 1st gear. Over and out.JAY BULCKAERT
Check out www.collective9.com for videos from the road.