The Raccoon Stories, The End of the Road

Sadly enough, though, we all eventually grew up and left school and the Raccoons took a long hiatus. They have reappeared now and then – in a morbidly serious glossy rag (thankfully now dead) called A Critique of America, in the Ocean Beach Beacon, I think, or at least its shortlived competitor, the OBserver. And on various party flyers, post cards and other moments when Layne is bored ...

This isn't a career – it's a fucking nightmare

This one, for instance, was drawn on a cocktail napkin at my wedding in 1990; I don't know that Ken even remembers drawing it. (I think that was also the first time he sang with the RoadHogs, a roots revival band he played with for awhile ...)

They briefly revived their careers on a flyer for a party when a whole passel of us lived in the same apartment building down in Ocean Beach (below) ...

And they made another reappearance for a housewarming I threw some years back ... needless to say, the liquor cabinet was empty after they were done ... and notice the defiant message ... Party at Trag's

Postcard from Berlin ... but why the French stamps?

Finally, though, they disappeared altogether. The above postcard was the last the Raccoons were heard from – barrelling across Europe on a crazed search for action. Been seven years since they've been seen, but some of us still hold out hope that they'll reappear again one of these days, sowing discord and anarchy in their wake ...

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