Los Angeles: When I Return

Devil may cry, devil may care…

LA is a different place now.   Something's different.  Ole’  white-sides is there, just where I left her, patiently awaiting my return.    And there's a sense of it all being familiar, just  not something I know anymore.   A few days is all it takes.  Nights driving down Lincoln, past streets I used to turn on.  Waking up in a big, empty bed in a big, empty first-floor room that was always a bit colder than the rest of big, empty house.  And I just mull about.   Los Angeles is a city I remembered now, and it isn’t for me.  The ride is over.  It's time to pull the safety bar up now and walk down that path to where you see the picture of your face during the fall.  But I don’t want to get off just yet.  “Maybe another go around, Mr. Rideman?”  “Well, I dunno, kid… “ 

I’m not even listening anymore.  There’s just a few clothes to throw in the black duffle and I’m off running, galloping that Ford Explorer hard south on I-405 with the broken side-window breathin’ heavy and the sunroof vented.  The California sun’s hot in mid-August, and it’s never really cloudy.  When it’s hot in California it’s 80 degrees, and I drive in a tank top and flip-flops with that CD I love turned up real loud so I can’t hear the traffic.  It’s all those songs from last year;  all those parties, all those concerts.  All the pretty girls we’d played with and the drugs we did and the laughs and the smirks and smiling faces.  All those special little gems, spinning around in my dash, twenty-tracks long.  The 405 merges with I-5 right in Orange County, but it’s barely a dream.  My head’s in the clouds.  

Then, bam!  My eyes open and the sun’s coming in from a direction I can’t recall.  I lift my head off the pillow, and, why, would you look at that, it’s a new bed, smaller, with a thin, white metal frame that’s twisted into little curlicues on the head, and it creaks when I move to roll out.  First breaths smell different in a room you’re new to, and it’s curious so I take all in.  Which isn’t much to say, as the room’s not much bigger than the bed, but it’s cozy and cute.  And subtly girly because it’s so clean and the nightstand’s white wicker.  There nothing on it except a girly lamp with a shade and a beat-up copy of On the Road with cracked old fold lines in the paper cover.  Huh.  Ain’t ever actually read this one before.  The pages are thoroughly yellowed, so why not?  I pick it up and take it downstairs into the kitchen, and Erica’s mom’s set down at the table drinking coffee.  Monster’s mother always holds herself on a feather, she’s so light, and she looks happy when she greets me, “Good morning,” in that slow welcoming way that feels like a warm hug.  Maybe that’s why I thinks she’s the most adorable thing ever.  BB pops out of the downstairs bedroom around the corner and pretty soon we’re both making Dawn breakfast, because hell, it’s fun, and we both love her so much.  Monster’s the last one out, and my soul feels like it’s in Santa Cruz again, in that grimy Western kitchen cooking up grub with BB and Monst.  But the kitchen’s clean, and there’s no cob-webs in the windows, and the grass by the Jacuzzi is trimmed and neat, and the brick patio and padded lawn chairs try to hog the sunlight.  It’s something to chuckle about and smile, this quiet hideaway tucked down a dead-end street in Laguna Niguel where we all felt at home.   It’s something I’m just so giddy to sink into for the time being, like a bean-bag chair.   No one’s sit’s too long in a bean-bag chair though.  Not when they’re my height, it’s too awkward.  I’ll move back to Santa Cruz, I think to myself.  When Mike and Monster move back up before the quarter starts.  I can get a job up there doing something small-townish.  Yeah, that’ll be nice, I think.

Odyssey

Oh, humanity.  Our generation stands at a unique point in history.  We did not give birth to it, but I and perhaps my sister (three years my junior) are among the last to say their elementary school pockets were filled, and not to the brim, with a couple of dollars and some change I refused to let go of, including the pennies, some candy, maybe a half-eaten pack of bubble gum with a zebra on it and not much else.  No cell-phones, no iPods, a Disc-man if we were lucky.  We had so much time, and if you were an outcast dork like me with not many friends, you had a lot of time to yourself.  Time to wander and explore, eyes open and darting to and fro while your legs carried you to where you wanted to go.  The world was so much bigger back then.

There was this new fan-dangled thing called the Internet that was amazing because you could send your mail on it.  Instantly.  It seems like just yesterday that we were sitting on Dad's lap in his super comfy leather desk chair as he explained the marvels of Windows 93 and new games on floppy disk and we soaked it up like a sponge.  But you could only play these games for so long.  Where we really played was outside, in the grass, running through the sprinklers; at the park, building tunnels in the sandbox.

We didn't live vicariously through others.  We lived our own lives in our own time, and sometimes it was good and sometimes it was bad, but it was ours alone to live.  We received voicemails on an answering machine at home, and when the phone rang, everyone would race to answer it, and we only knew who it was if we recognized the number.  If we were out, we were out, and we would probably call back.

A bat-shit crazy person said once in a movie I saw, "the things you own end up owning you."  He had delusions of grandeur and terrorism, not to mention split personality disorder.  All that considered, you might think we should take his prophetic statement with a grain of salt.  But let's indulge him for a little.

In fifteen years, after all the leaps and bounds, the progress, the coming so far, what society do we find ourselves in at present?  An elementary school student without a cell-phone is about as easy to come by as a four-leaf clover.  We screen our calls based on if we want to talk to the person calling us, but most times we'd rather just text.  And should a cell-phone go misplaced, heaven forbid.  What would the world come to if we didn't have cell phone service for a day?  A week??  If we couldn't sign into Facebook for a year?  How many people would just loose it in a fit of conniptions?  I can't think of time previous in which we have come so far and yet, achieved so little.  And you can argue that point into insignificance, you can say that we are more innovative now than we have ever been, and scoff at such an observation.

In 1968, people walked on the moon, and by that meter, their projections for the future seemed endless.  By 2001, they were going to be flying their cars and embarking on space odysseys.  They had a sense of wonder and excitement for that which they hadn't seen.  Did they have cell-phones in this future?  Of course not, maybe transponders.  Did they have laptops in this future of theirs?  Please.  What the fuck was a laptop?  They were merely travelling between the stars.

I was catering an event not a month ago.  It was an office party at some tech firm in San Jose, I forget the name.  Naturally, I wondered what exactly they did at this tech firm.  They seemed ingenuitive, which is to say there were a lot of hard-working, smart-looking Asians and Indians in the crowd.  I asked a managerial looking white woman what their work was focused on and she answered me excitedly, "We're developing new touch screen technology for smart phones and tablets that incorporates all of your fingers at one time instead of just one!  We have several millions of dollars of investment locked into research and development alone.  It's really quite amazing!"

Why?  Because it's the future.

The Question Why

It's a simple question, just one word.  But we feel like it is grossly underused in its most basic and elemental context, that being our lives.  Why do we do the things we do?  One would hope that on a small scale we do things that will make us happy.

Makes sense.  Where it gets lost, in my opinion, is in our general inability to define our own happiness as a human population.  It is something that is unique to each individual, but at the same time, there are a myriad of constants throughout.  The constants are more easily recognizable when instead of racking our brain for all things happy, we rather ask ourselves what we know for a fact does not make us happy.  Things that are happiness adverse.

When put this way, the question becomes a lot less materialistic.  So many times we feel the giddy tingle in our chest from some new purchase - a toy, an acquisition - and we tell ourselves, "This is what happiness feels like."  I would call it more of a feeling of excitement, which is knit-picky you might say, because when you think about it, in that moment of initiation, the two almost feel like one in the same.

Our misstep most times is in confusing the two, which is understandable seeing as they both feel so similar.  But one lingers.  Something newly bought, from the minute one starts using it, becomes older and less austere to one's eye because in that individuals life, the thing, whatever it may be, has become commonplace.  And so that glowing feeling at their core fades and they lust for that fulfillment once more; a fulfillment that can now only be achieved by a thing better and more impressive than the last; something that will excite them.

Happiness isn't a feeling that fades over the passing of time.  It's either there or it isn't, and it can be there one moment and gone the next and then, maybe years later, it can come again like a flash and hold you tight.  But it doesn't fade.  It's not mood lighting.  It's a definitive on or off.  Lights on, you're happy.  Lights off, you're not.  Dimming them down is merely exciting.

And it's really just as simple as that.  Having the lights off makes us unhappy and so we turn them on.  We are encountered with two choices, and we make a decision.  Why?  Because at our basest form, it makes us happy.  By the minutest degree, of course.  Because the light off makes us unhappy.

Where this point is less mute is in a situational context.  I've come to that point in life that comes to everyone at one time or another.  For me it came after receiving my diploma and traveling through Europe.  Unfortunately for some, it's a crossroads that shows up too early.  For others, I fear they won't chance up on it until it's too late.  It's not so much a point as it is a period of time across which the importance of your passions becomes clear to you.  It doesn't happen all at once and I for one am thankful for all the events and people in my life that have made this realization so clear and so remarkably easy to pursue.  And in this day and age, it's a pursuit that so many times goes unfulfilled due to whatever set of circumstances.  In so few and cliched words, it's the pursuit of happiness.  Or maybe more specifically the attainment of happiness.  The Buddhists called it Enlightenment, but I don't think it to be so lofty.  It's the easiest thing to identify the few important aspects of life that make you sincerely happy.  Well, maybe that's not entirely true.  It's quite an enigmatic decision one has to make honestly.  Because if you're like me, you're like most people, and we're all in that constant need of financial security to survive.

[cold]

Now how secure we really need to be is up to the individual, surprisingly so.  Ignorance is bliss.  Shocking?  When I word it like that probably not, but don't be so coy.  Anyone can say that...

Accomplishment

Oh, humanity.  Our generation stands at a unique point in history.  We did not give birth to it, but mine and maybe my sister three years younger than I are perhaps among the last to say their elementary school pockets were filled with, and not to the brim, with a couple dollars and change I refused to let go of, including the pennies, some candy, some bubble gum with a zebra on it and not much else.  No cell-phones, no iPods.  Maybe a Disc-Man if we were lucky.  We had so much time, and if you were a dork like me with not many friends you had a lot of time to yourself.  Time to wander and explore, eyes open and darting to and fro while your legs carried you to where you wanted to go.  We listened to music on the radio, not because we particularly liked it, but because we couldn't afford new CDs.

There was this new fandangled thing called the Internet that you could send mail by.  But back then it was just yesterday that we were sitting on Dad's lap in his super comfy leather desk chair as he explained the marvels of Windows 93 and new games on floppy disk, and we soaked it up like a sponge.  But you cold only play these games for so long.  Where we really played was outside, in the grass, running through the sprinklers; or at the park building tunnels in the sandbox.

We didn't live vicariously through others.  We lived our own lives in our own time.  We got voicemails on an answering machine at home, and when the phone rang, everyone would race to answer it, and we only knew who it was if we recognized the number.

[a bat-shit crazy person once said, "The things you own end up owning you."]

Now we screen calls based on if we want to talk to the person calling us, but a lot of times we'd rather just text.  And should a cell-phone go misplaced, then heaven forbid.  What would the world come to if we didn't have a cell phone for a day?  A week? If we couldn't sign into Facebook for a year?  How many people would just loose it in a fit of conniptions? Never in the span of a twenty-two year old's lifetime have we come so far and achieved so little.  In 1968 people walked on the moon, and by that meter their projections for the future seemed endless.  By 2001, they were going to be flying their cars and embarking on space odysseys.  They had a sense of wonder and excitement for that which they hadn't seen.  Did they have cell phones in this future?  Of course not.  Maybe transponders.

Did they have laptops in this future of theirs?  Pftph.  What the fuck was a laptop?  They were merely traveling between the stars.

I was catering an event not a month ago.  It was an office party at some tech firm.  I asked what they did specifically.  A managerial looking woman answered me excitedly. "We're developing touch screen technology that incorporates multiple fingers at one time.  There are millions of dollars worth of investment locked in research and development alone.  It's really quite amazing."

Why?  Because it's the future.

London: Arrivals

 We arrive at Gatwick International airport at 7:20 am London time, nine hours ahead of Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and all things familiar.  Our eyes open to the voice of the captain welcoming us to the United Kingdom.  I squint out window at the approaching terminal, then over at Grant, and then Max across the aisle.  We all look like shit.  All things considered though, I feel remarkably well rested.  It was probably the ambient Max gave me before the flight, because it definitely wasn’t the handle of duty-free whiskey we had all but poured into our endless train of ginger ales courtesy of our lovely stewardess Miss Beverley who looked like she could be my godmother; you know, in that motherly, yet not immediately relatable sort of way.  What happened to all the hot stewardesses, the vixens of the sky?  Oh, that’s right.  We're on US Airways.  All the attractive flight attendants are busy canoodling Mr. Moneybags on Virgin Atlantic and Air France.

There's a buzz in head; a buzz that I’m quite sure isn’t from the whiskey.  Although now that I think about it, the whiskey could also explain this new warmth nuzzling my core.  But it can't explain the giddiness.  As we walk through the terminal to the train platforms, strapped with backpacks and duffle bags, the little child inside me is somersaulting and zig-zagging through fast-paced businessmen and vacationing families, running circles around police officers donning yellow vests and batons.  It's a feeling the likes of which I had never felt before.  A freedom, and a correlated lightness I notice in all our steps.  Despite the forty-pound pack digging into my shoulders, a yolk has been lifted up and thrown by the wayside.  Is it the passing of my collegiate years?  Is it the distance from home, or should I say the distance from our attachments at home?  Or maybe it's the previously pending, now present two-month absence of phone service at my immediate fingertips.  An iPhone on airplane mode for two months becomes simply an iPod with a camera and of course Word Warp.

Whatever the yolk, the feeling of it no longer there is immaculate.  Eyes darting from this sign to that, pausing at funny spellings and comma placements, we find our way over to the currency exchange, then the ticket booth, and finally to seats on a train into Central Station.  It's a pristine train, pairs of clean red captain’s chairs facing each other on either side of a clean royal blue stiff-carpeted floor and clean light gray walls with knee-to-ceiling windows; an environment that, to me, bears striking similarities to some Star Trek-esque vehicle’s interior.  If only all the dreary-looking morning rush hour English folk were wearing tight solid color long sleeves and black pants instead of their dreary-looking English clothes. Oh, well.  I think the windows are my favorite part of the train.  An attraction to the ability to focus on something for a second, maybe two, before it’s gone and you’re immediately intrigued by the next curiosity down the line.  The only constant all the way to London Central is an inclination towards masonry and brickwork (at times it feels like we're flying through old movie sets of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Harry Potter)  in most of the rail-side structures, and the weather.

It's muggy.  Big surprise right?  It's only early July, the heart of summer, and what are we greeted with as we exit the terminus out onto Wilton?  Why, a light drizzle of course, and a hot drizzle at that, not so strong as to prevent Max from lighting his first cigarette on foreign soil; a Marlboro Red.  Now Max is usually a Camel Blue kind of guy, but the Reds were going for $22.00 a carton at duty free.  Welcome to Europe.

Homesick Suburban Alien

It was somewhere around midnight, on the cusp of another turkey day full of giving thanks and togetherness and what have you.  Driving down to LA, I realized and felt that, however minor and off-handed it seemed to be, this Thanksgiving was going to be different.  Looking back on past such family gatherings, the questions always arise, “So how’s school?  What classes are you taking?  When do you graduate?”  With those inquiries no longer applicable, there’s understandably a shift in focus; a shift towards the future.  “What are you going to do now?  Are you looking for a job?”  With the brush of exaggeration stroking furiously, I coax a believable, if not altogether focused retort, hoping and quite confident that the ruse has worked.  “Are you looking for a job?”  Sure, jobs are fun.  “Look into this company.”  Ok. Except no, that sounds stupid.  I don’t think I want to do that at all. 

It was a time when that heavy satin curtain of mysticism between me and adulthood – which had slowly been falling for the last couple years – now lay motionless in a heap at the foot of reality.  I finally get the joke.  These people I had been listening to, without question, for years… my teachers, my parents, my bosses.  Whatever had separated us before is gone.

Sitting there alone on the deck, and with the mushrooms hitting the peak of their poison, I have to close my eyes to stop the incessant chatter playing back in my brain.  Deep breadth in.  Deep breadth out.  The until now distant murmur of the city, suddenly becomes a deafening growl, an orchestrated cacophony of departing planes, midnight traffic, night life, pleasures, and sins.  It feels like the glass upon glass of wine has at once soaked my entire interior, as every pore in my body seems to be exhaling the soft bitter aftertaste of a certain cab that had been enjoyed earlier.  Maybe the Coppola, maybe the Crusher, maybe the daunting twist-off top one.  The memory’s lost and unfocused behind the city’s symphony howling in my eardrums.  I open my eyes and a breath stops short as the eerie serenity of my environment floods back.  There’s a full moon’s reflection on the Pacific coming from back above and behind the house, past this balcony and that groove of palm trees, and the boardwalk lights and the lifeguard tower, hitting the water just north of the Pier.  All in one frame, and with a hand extended out, the reflection’s caught in a finger-formed crescent before my eyes and, to me, it is a thing of absolute beauty; a beauty capable of being experienced only by an over-analytical, hair-pulling man drunk silly on wine, high stupid on spliffs, and positively over the falls in a wood crate barrel named “Chocolate Mushroom Bars”.


[to be continued]

Zurich: I Only Lied About Being a Thief

We begin stealing prolifically in Zurich.  Financially, Max and I are in dire straits.  When we meet up with Mike, my account balance is at another impressive low of $10.54, which translates roughly into 8.00 EUR.  Eight euros at the halfway point of the trip.  Not ideal, especially in one of the most expensive cities in Europe.

As far as supermarkets go, COOP, Switzerland’s Safeway, offers a relatively exciting variety of products.  What isn’t so exciting are the astronomical prices they're offered at.  Four Swiss-Francs for a tiny thing of hummus, at least five Swiss-Francs for any kind of sandwich meat besides that cheap, sticky, bland salami (which is still 3.50 FRANC).  Our first meal in Zurich, one of the crown jewels of European wealth, is taken on some steps, covered overhead, near the front of the COOP.  It's raining out on the street, pouring I should say, and there's a very brisk bite in the air.  Still, we're just happy to have something to eat after sleeping in the station and catching the first train from Munich.  And we're stoked that we've finally met up with Mike, who's just generally stoked to be in Europe.  We decidedly split the cost of groceries, which comes out to about 8.00 Swiss-Franc.  And for our troubles?  With everything laid out, it looks to us to be a decently sized, albeit calorie-starved feast.

We have two loaves of bread, a bag of paprika-flavored chips, hummus, pesto, salami, some dark-colored, thinly sliced mystery meat, TUCs of course, pineapple slices, a bottle of orange juice, and a bottle of pear juice.  Now for all those of you looking at this list of items and back up at what we paid for it and subsequently having a very confused look upon your face thinking, “how did they get all that food for just 8.00 Swiss franc?  Was there some super sale at the COOP that day?” No, idiot, we stole it.  Well, most of it.  The long bread, the orange juice, and the puffy bag of chips aren’t exactly ideal articles for sliding into my waistband or Max’s already stuffed backpack.

Let’s call it morality.  Or at least something like it.  Whatever it is, I like to think that throughout these petty thefts, there's at least a shadow of the ideal present.  We keep our thievery to major chain supermarkets. And there's never really been that guilty feeling for me whenever stealing from corporate chain stores.  Especially when my stomach's about as empty as my wallet.

Perhaps this absence of guilt stems from a two-year stint I had working for a shitty corporate retail store.  Perhaps it comes from all those nights watching Business News Nightly back at home and hearing about how corporate super stores were muscling out small family owned businesses.  Who knows, but for whatever reason, walking out of the COOP with packaged meats and a container of hummus and a bottle of pear juice digging hard into the small of my back under my waistband, there's no hint of guilt on my conscience or on face or in my stride.

As Max so succinctly puts it, “It’s a way to stick it to the man.  Europe should all just be on Euro…  Fuckin’ western union… And any other fuckin’ money exchange can suck my balls too.”

Quote of the Day: And Now You'll Never Forget

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, and make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life.” -~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Passenger Seat

It's a longing.  The pulling of the hair, the restless nights, the heavy eyes.  It all points to an almost incomprehensible longing.  I've been stuck in this limbo too long, waiting for the scale to tip this way or that, to root me here or suck me back to the bustle and familiar routine of Los Angeles.  True, the turn of events that brought me to this point, sprawled on a full-size bed in this first-floor apartment living room is ridiculous to say the least; vagabonding up and down the coast before stopping to breathe in Santa Cruz.  And still, there's a sense of settlement missing that I haven't felt since before leaving for Europe.  That was four months ago.

I can feel my brain trying to fill this void, and the lapse in time is beginning to take it's toll.  It's like a race-engine running in the red for too long, and for my sake I hope it's got a few more laps in it.

The Article: RipCurl Surf Outlet

                               

When people think of westside Santa Cruz surfing, their minds jump to O’Neil, Hotline, and the Haut Shop, the Arrow shop… but there is another.  Located at the corner of Bay Street and Mission Street, the Rip Curl Surf Outlet is a relatively new addition to the Westside shop scene, having opened only four years ago.  Rip Curl has gone through a hazing of sorts if you will.  It’s had a brick or two thrown through the front window in its day.  “You got to understand, man.  This isn’t a local shop. It’s a corporate chain, and that doesn’t really go over well sometimes with some people.  I don’t let it bother me.” 

That’s Mike, one of the supervisors at Rip Curl.  He’s been working at the shop, on and off, since its opening.  So what’s the difference between working at a surf shop and a surf outlet? “Not much really.  Except everything’s on SAAAY-EL!! It’s a pretty sick little place,” he explains laughing. 

Looking around the stained-wood walls, there are definitely a lot of things on sale.  They’ve got everything from flannels to wetsuits discounted, and even a number of the new boards.  Erica Kohler, a sophomore at UCSC can’t get enough of it.  “Oh, I love this place.  Everything’s so cheap!  And everyone who works here’s so mellow and pleasant to talk to.  And every weekend they have that tent sale thing in the parking lot.”

If you’ve ever driven down Mission on a weekend, you know exactly what tent sale thing Erica’s talking about.  There’s usually a shop grom sitting under the tent with his sunglasses on surrounded by racks of discounted wetsuits and sale-priced Rip Curl surf swag, and maybe you think he’s asleep.  “He’s not asleep, or at least he shouldn’t be,” Mike jokes.  “I’ve had my fair share of shifts under the tent, and I know how it is.  You get really good at looking asleep, but you’re always so happy when someone comes and talks to you.  So just go talk to him next time.”  It’s a deal.  “And if he doesn’t say anything, just give him a little tickle under the chin.” He’s all smiles, and requested a few parting words:

“Yeah, if you’re looking for some sweet surf gear, or if you just want to hang out and watch some surf movies slash hear my epic jokes (they’re ok), come on down and get you some.”

All in all, the Rip Curl Surf Outlet is a super friendly, mellow shop.  And if you’re looking for a good wetsuit, some cheap clothes, and some good conversation on the Westside, it’s definitely a spot to check out.  Rip Curl Surf Outlet is located on the corner of Bay and Mission, and it holds open store hours from 9:00am – 7:00pm daily.

Mike’s Steez

Movie Most Likely On: Modern Collective

Song Most Likely On: probably something by Kid Cudi

Favorite Joke: What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? A stick…

Courtesy of Callan

Rome: Stairwell Love

Rome's a dirty city. It smells like any other city would smell, except pronounced. To the point, in fact, that one could think he may differentiate each particular scent individually. The unique essence of hot car exhausts marinating in an Italian summer sun, falafel joints and metro vents, that indescribable stench of heavy tourism and 1 star hotels; it’s like a muggy amalgamation of these and others hug the buildings and the streets, hanging thick in the air.

I’m of the idea that one’s environment has a profound if not altogether encompassing effect on his or her demeanor and inclinations. Under that guise, our uncertain step into the bubble of social interaction known as the pub-crawl is simply a product of our environment. In laymen’s terms, things get messy. But things have to get messy to get your money’s worth, because when the open bar only lasts for an hour, it’s almost a necessity to max yourself out in the misconstrued hope that you won’t have to buy another drink for the rest of the night.

In reality, what happens is that you get wasted at the open bar and find yourself barely able to walk between the remaining rendezvous, happily taking the courtesy shot at each stop. And of course there are girls on the pub-crawl, going through the exact same set of decisions. Except they’re smaller and at the end of it all they’re drunker, but as the night progresses their promiscuity goes up tenfold.

A little timid and short-phrased at the 10:00pm meet in front of the Spanish steps, flirtatious at the open bar, and more flirtatious at the place by the river. When the finality of the whole night settles in around 3:00am at the open-air, flirtatiousness has turned quite unanimously into friskiness, body held tight, almost to the point of dry humping. Lips agape and pressing hard against mine. Her tongue tastes of 5 EUR redbull-vodkas, but then again so does mine I’m assuming.

We’re both slipping in and out of memorable consciousness when we board the bus, and when we get off at the stop after the stop we want. But at this point it doesn’t matter. After stumbling the seven or so blocks to the apartment she’s staying in, we barge into a stark realization. She’s one of three blonde mid-westerners crashing in the living room for the night before flying home the next day, which means one thing. Well… maybe two things. Firstly, she has to be up early in the morning. Secondly, and alas, the root of our rump is that we can't have sex there. Where to then? Why, to the roof of course! It’s an embalming summer night in the old city, it’ll be lovely!

Fantasies are cut short at the top of the stairwell when we come into the knowledge that there isn’t any roof access. In life we learn to play with the cards God deals us. So is this minor misfortune going to bring to a screeching halt all manners of coitus that are running through both our eyes? No, no it isn't.

Our bodies turn the cold stone stairs moist with love-making. I chuckle even at the mention of it because only a callous man can call what happened at the top of that stairwell love-making. It falls most closely under the definition of what I consider drunken sport-fucking. There's no loving embrace, but only a slew of competitive thrusts, and after we re-dress and I bid her goodnight, there's one prominent thing lingering in the back of my mind; I don’t believe I ever caught her name.

ROME

Quote of the Day

"Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life."
— Bob Marley

Berlin: Our Friend Shahar

Shahar's from Israel, Tel Aviv to be exact. But he's not one of the ones bent on informing the world about the atrocities and incivilities going on in his country. The land disputes. The Jews. The Palestinians. In all our two days with him, these things were never once brought up. I can't even tell you if he was Jewish or Muslim, or if he even viewed himself through these secular filters. What I can tell you is that he has very long hair that skips and trots, always falling to about his shoulders. His chin's equally long, made only more so by his prominent chin covered by a scruffy puff of goat tee to compliment his mustache. Like his chin, most of his facial features are quite over-emphasized. There's the nose that clearly dominates his face, followed closely by a mouth which, along with his ever present smile stretches ear to ear. This coupled with some massive chompers and a tendency to never wear sleeves and always wear parachute pants makes it hard for your first thought upon meeting to not be some kind of hippy Mr. Tumnus frolicking through some magical Narnian forest. Except that forest is his life, and we were just four unknowing Americans chanced upon The Wardrobe.

We talk. He tells us about all his friends back in Tel Aviv, about how he's a party promoter, and about how he hasn't been in Israel for eleven months. Among other adventures, Shahar had spent seven months traveling around India with two friends and throwing parties. Their mode of transportation? Motorcycles. Yes, motorcycles. The fact that he had smuggled back roughly nine grams of Indian hashish (he coated it all in beeswax and swallowed it before going through security at the New Delhi airport), and for the entirety of the time he's staying here in Berlin we're blitzed and smoked sky high on almost continuous weed/hash king spliffs does not detract at all from the magnitude of Shahar’s dictated journeys through India. If anything, it makes his stories exponentially more incredible and unbelievable.

According to Shahar, he and his two buddies purchased a pair of motorcycles as soon as they were off the tarmac and fashioned together a few racks to carry their party speakers and equipment on said motorcycles. Shahar and company traveled up and down and all across India, taking turns doubling up on one of the motorcycles. In the bigger towns and cities, pretty much anything with a decent-sized bar/club, they would set up shop and proceed to burn the house down with every type of electro/techno/trance you can think of. Naturally, I don't believe half the stock he's selling. But it just so happens  that Shahar's a prolific picture taker and provides photographic documentation of all these hair-brained tales of his.

“See now, this is when we were riding from Jaipur to Mumbai. It was something like 1200 kilometers and it took us just about two days. I loved those bikes…” and he goes on in his thick Israeli accent, emphasizing words and syllables I would never dream emphasizing. All the while, Grant, Max, and I are sitting there stoned out of our gourds looking at photos; some taken from behind the handlebars of a motorcycle on highways, on mountain roads, through dense forests, sometimes behind another motorcycle ladled down with speaker equipment on either side of the back wheel, sometimes with nothing but open road and Shahar’s wonderfully detailed backscapes ahead of them.  He's a hell-man, Shahar, bent on living.

BERLIN

Copenhagen: Anus, Casper, and the Aussie

Walking through Norrebro, we begin to realize that Marie does not really live near the city center. In fact, the place of our first encounter is in the abandoned lot adjacent to her building. She's sitting outside with an Aussie, a fellow couch-surfer, in a pair of rusted fold-up chairs around a tiny woebegone coffee table next to a tiny abandoned building covered in graffiti, beers in hand. The Aussie promptly offers us all Carlsbergs, raving about them and their factory that he'd just visited. After inquiring because of the strange label, Marie tells us her beer's not a beer at all, but in fact canned cider. Classy.

[stop]

We're soon joined by a couple of Danes Marie had met at a music festival the previous week.  Anus pronounced "ahh-noose") and Casper (pronounced like the ghost) are their names.  Looking around, we all look apparently the same age.  Not so apparent is the fact that, unbeknownst to me, the Danes age at an incredibly slower rate than normal human beings.  Casper's actually turning 28 at midnight.  Marie is already 28, and Anus is 27.  The Aussie's only 20 though.  And we're those middle-of-the-road, early-twenties Americans, fresh out of college with a penchant for overindulging in alcohol.  We're going to rage tonight.  The Aussie has a hefty case of Carlsberg left.  We had bought a bottle of whiskey on the ferry duty-free.  And while Marie hurried back up to her place to fetch some vodka and juice and more cigarettes, Anus and Casper hustle around to the corner market and purchased some more beer.  We're raging tonight, Denmark style.  It's still dusk when Casper's watch alarm goes off at midnight. We all stopp talking, confused in the moment.  "It's my birthday!" exclaims Casper in drunken Danish-English.  Whaaa?  But the sun's still out, kind of!  Nutty.  We all cheer and hoot and holler and empty our drinks and pour another.  The Danes teach us how to sing happy birthday in Danish, and after a couple minutes of sloppy, slap-happy practice tries, we belt it proper and at full volume.  It still seems so early.  Oh, how the Nordic countries continue to keep astounding us.  It's a riot. When it finally gets a little nippy, we all stagger up to Marie's place, a lot slower than sober people, and resume right where we left off, trying with all our might to finish the mountain of booze in front of us.  We have to.  It's Casper's birthday.  We introduce them to our American college drinking games, like Fuck The Dealer, and King's Cup.  They love them.  Progress is being made, but my vision had already begun to blur a while back, and I notice that we're all swaying quite drastically in our chairs.  And there's still more to come.

We roll up a monster spliff of Amsterdam weed  and present it to Casper as a birthday present.  We all handily dispense of it, so we roll another.  And pass him another shot of whiskey.  We all take one, and next thing you know, we're taking turns running to the bathroom to hurl.  Max still can't believe Marie's out-chain-smoking him.  Neither can I for that matter.  All these Danes smoke like chimneys.  It's incredible.

COPENHAGEN

Amsterdam: D-Squad

As our ferry arrived at the Hoek van Holland around 7:00, we find ourselves walking out of Amsterdam Central Station not fewer than ten minutes before 9:00. On a Sunday morning. Needless to say (or not?), Amsterdam isn't exactly the picturesque ideal of a bustling Dutch city around 9:00 Sunday. There's foot traffic sure, and more bikes than you can shake a stick at if you were to keep shaking for the rest of your days. That much stick shaking would inevitably drive you crazy, and that's without taking the rest of the city into account. All the coffee shops are open so we decide on some breakfast at a little cafe (not to be confused with coffee shops, which have marijuana for sale) called Soup Kitchen that you can pretty much see from the station.

Before you ask, no, we don't get soup. It's more of a bacon and eggs on toast kind of morning anyways, cloudy, with the sun still low on the horizon.  Sunlight doesn't even reach the road on some of the narrower streets we encounter between the post-breakfast coffee shop we chance into and our destination; just something with grass we can sit on and a canal we can look over, a little out of the way. Not too specific, but then again one tends to shy away from specificity with a 50 lb. pack on his back. So it is in this still tired, not altogether nourished tunnel-vision state that we begin to street guess our way northwest through the city in hopes of finding this mystical park of our dreams.

And it is in this state and around this time that we have our first run in with professional prostitutes in what many refer to as the Red Light District. Except at this time of day there are no red lights illuminating the canals and storefronts. Most of the window curtains on the main street by the canal are pulled close. The only ladies working are on narrow side-streets we venture down half-heartedly in our weed-craving induced trek. And let me say this; they definitely aren't A-squad. A few of them, agewise, could be my mother. The few women not quite at that motherly age more than make up for it in pure grotesqueness; faces, bodies, and teeth more suited to gargoyles. But instead of looking all awe-inspiring and gothic, cast of stone and exquisite craftsmanship, they're very much alive and trying to have sex with us for money. We politely decline their offers, and after the first few times, avoid the tiny side streets of the Red Light District like the fucking plague.

My Name in the Snow

It's been a while now since I've seen her. Too long now since I've feigned small talk for a second lost in those playful brown eyes. I can say today with certainty that I do not love her. That's not right. What I mean to say is that I'm not IN love with her, you know the way - to that point of utter infatuation. It's the time and distance between us that deadens these feelings, and not much else. I know it for a fact (mostly from past experience) that when the inevitable time comes when we are face-to-face once again, everything will come flushing back anew and altogether more invigorating, to conquer my thoughts and enslave my emotions. And yet, I look forward to the day with almost, but not quite giddy anticipation. It's her presence. There's a preciousness in the way that she looks at you that's disarmingly beautiful. I do hope she still possesses this because there's a bit of longing for those feelings to return, and a part of me is afraid I may never find them again.

[DRUNK]

And So it Starts

I call Wes around 12:30 pm just about after Grant and Max show up. Now usually 12:30 pm is no time to be calling a friend you haven't spoken to in a year on the sideways mention of his presence in LA earlier that week. But then again, Wes is no usual friend, and it just so happens that Steve had alerted me to his return to the LA area not but three days prior.

Now Steve is a bit of a wild spirit. I'd worked with him at the shop for some time and he was that kind of asshole music guy who you weren't really sure if his brain had acquired more general knowledge than yours, but he definitely had an air about him that led you to believe he did indeed know more than you, especially about the music and movie industries. This was not an uncommon attribute among many of the wayward souls of his condition. He bought turntables and vinyl and prided himself on the number of obscure good bands he listened to. Fucked up girls were attracted to this and the asshole he personified, but for all this, all the LA parties, all the LA girls, all the music, all the shows, Steve was isolated. A life of isolation grows heavy the heart and hardens the soul, and upon meeting Steve the first few times one wouldn't be hard pressed to envision his heart heavy or his soul hardened. He is a character though, and although there is hardly any scientific evidence behind it, I am of the belief that characters attract other characters. It is this reason, in part, that lends to the fact that Steve and Wes being roommates did not in the least bit surprise me.

They'd shared a two bedroom, two bath second story unit just off Lincoln and Venice. Their building was on Penmar, a street with a quaint and not altogether wealthy demographic on which financial stability was more or less dictated by the width of the street between any two given intersections; which in person is as quizzical as it sounds. Steve and Wes lived on the block where Penmar got the skinniest. From their second story balcony at the back of the building they were privileged to a lovely view of the back alley and some of the more disheartening backyards in Mar Vista.

Wes didn't mind it so much. He has his roots up north in the small mountain town of Bishop just outside of Mammoth; he's a man very in touch with Nature, and he's a vagabond. In fact, since the last time I'd seen him Wes had traveled across the country. By car. By himself. For six months, and apparently without a razor.

[to be continued]


Or so his story goes, but you never would've guessed it when he answered the door.  Two knocks on the small red door perfectly centered on the small light blue box house; the house is on a street with lots only on one side, and that side of the block looks particularly squashed together because of it.  Instead of facing a similar row of skinny single story homes, the door looks out across the street and over the intrepid Ballona Creek.  Now for those of you who know it, intrepid is hardly the word one would use to describe the fickle Ballona.  It kind of trudges drearily along from its origins in the LA city basin down it's miles and miles of concrete-coated river valleys until it finally finds its pompous run in the Pacific Ocean via the marina.  At this particular hour, it's illuminated by the orange-tint street lights that throw long shadows and give the whole place somewhat industrial demeanor, to the point that when Wes finally answers the door, Max and Grant and I are only too happy to scuttle inside.

There's a slight instance when Wes seems a bit different than his normal self; a sense of eagerness behind his eyes.  Or maybe it's just the year and a half it had been since I'd seen him. Nevertheless we feel safer.  Part in due to the lovely, cozy, and tastefully not lavish living room we now find ourselves in.  It turns out that Wes is house-sitting for a surfing friend, Chris, that I had met once or twice.  Chris was no older than twenty-seven and a construction site foreman.  Pictures of him and his beautiful wife (he had met her a couple years prior while backpacking through the Nordic countries of Europe) litter the bookshelves and counter-space.

[to be continued]


Wes feels obliged to give us all a tour of the humble little abode he's inhabiting while Chris and Mrs. Chris Nordic were off traipsing through central america on vacation.  It's small.  But for being so small, the place is a beautiful home.  A beautiful one bedroom, one bath home looking out over the concrete Ballona Creek valley.  Wes informs us that Chris had actually built a lot of the furnishings throughout the house; a couple bookshelves, a chair, a padded wood bench that looked sort of like a futon, and a tall desk that I'm particularly fond of.  The writing surface is maybe 4' x 2' and comes up to about my chest (roughly 5 feet).  It is made of a heavy wood and stained a dark mahogany brown, and I want it, most probably because of my unexplainable attraction to all things mahogany.  Or it could been the fact that I've just never seen a desk like that before.  It looks sort of like a movie prop.  I imagine it's the type of desk Ebenezer Scrooge would slave away at, sitting atop a high chair, bottles of ink, quills and parchment, all strewn across it and the ground in the surrounding vicinity.  The desk is truly a work of art.

Another sight to behold of awaits us in the backyard, which isn't so much a backyard as it is a patch of grass next to a high-gated driveway no one used that opened out onto a back alley.  But on that petite patch of grass Chris had erected a rather conservatively sized wood deck, just big enough for one of the lovelier daybeds I've ever seen.  Lovelier still, on a kind of high shelf next to the daybed, are a number of potted plants one could compare to a beautiful batch of budding roses.  Metaphorically speaking of course, because the rose buds are actually fuzzy bulbous marijuana nugs, and the thorns are actually pretty little marijuana leaves, or just more nugs.   And instead of breathing in and smelling the familiar rich aromatic perfume that makes girls weak in the knees and tempts passers-by to stop and appreciate, we breath in perhaps a more familiar scent that evokes giggles and giddiness and eventually grumbles from my stomach.  It's about time for a spliff.


[to be continued]


We'd rolled two in my room at my parent's house, and they're at this time procured from the chest pocket of my favorite flannel.  And in sets the welcoming rotation... Wes proceeds to captivate us with all the crazy mind-boggling details of his journey, highly animated as only Wes can.  He draws you in, and as he's telling us stories of the two weeks he'd spent sleeping in the back of his car in the pouring rain, of the fourteen hundred dollars he spent on gas,  of the incredible flatness of the Midwest, the flight to Puetro Rico, all of it, piling one on top of the other, he begins to take in the gravity of what he'd done as if he were experiencing it anew.  Looking into our awe-shocked stoned faces, his eyebrows would periodically raise, face rapt in astonishment at his own statements, only emphasizing the point further.

Weston Kinney had moved back home to Bishop, California for four months and saved up approximately four thousand dollars working restaurant jobs.  Then, at the prime age of twenty-two, he put the back seats of  his Ford Explorer down and slapped down a twin-size mattress on top of it.  Heading east, he'd pushed foot to pedal with a small bag of supplies and didn't look back, and somewhere along the way a beard had sprung up on his face.  It's not there now though.  He's shaven and clean-cut, but he shows us pictures of when he'd returned and lived in San Diego for a spell, working at the Wave House in PB.  He looked like a mountain man in the photos, his hair grown out long too.  But wait, I digress.  This ain't about Wes.  This is about us, Max and Grant and I, and this fucker of a field trip we're about to embark on.  Leave it to a spliff to get me ramblin' though.  And what's wrong with rambling?  That's right, nothing.  So we ramble and pretty soon our mouths taste like cotton balls so we head on over to La Cabana on Lincoln and Rose.  It's late, but that place don't close 'til two and the tacos are dank and cheap and the chips and salsa are free.  And the beers ain't too expensive either.  But at two they close up shop and kick us out.  We drop Wes off and head home for some shut-eye before our flight in the morning.  LAX > CLT >LGW.  It's hard to sleep when one's so excited; thank God for beer and spliffs.

Amsterdam: North American Scum

"I'm not normally like this."


Really?  How are you normally then?  And for that matter, why aren't you acting normally, in your eyes at least?  Because, in my eyes at least, you seem to be the very definition of normal.  More specifically, forgettable and by all means personifying the bland .  Was I, too, such a bland teenager?  I should hope not, but one can never be quite sure.  All this talk of boyfriends and ex-boyfriends, and girlfriends and ex-girlfriends, of Facebook profiles and bad pictures ("that's not a good picture of me, let me show you another").  They're English, and what's more is that they're from London.  Glitzy London.  From the beginning because that's the London we knew, home of the posh.  And of the misguidedly proper accents.  London, where the girls aren't cute or hot, but fair, and you would find one to be so, properly speaking anyways.  It's a clever disguise to be certain, especially at face value.  They sound smart, or at least as if, as if they should be.  In that tone and meter we usually reserve and stereotype for learned scholars and such in the States.  But on this ferry, such stereotypes are as light and withstanding as those discarded Winston's left on the outside tables, empty and tossed asunder by the heavy deck winds, lost in the Channel somewhere between Hoek van Holland and Harwick.


They're teenagers.  They're teenagers and the boys act like any group of boy teenagers do when confronted by a sexually attractive girl.  It is quite a specific attraction given by this description, one brought on by an attention to detail, played up from head to toe in all the wrong ways.  The leather zip-up boots, the constantly applied make-up, and of course, letting those heaving chest kittens breathe.  How old was she again?  Oh, that's right, seventeen.  And so the boys are loud and excited, giddy and without a doubt confused by any thought of sexuality in their constant battle of one-up's-manship.  There are tales of strength , primary school conquests (they're a bit younger than she), and the inevitable chest baring on this heavily air-conditioned, cloudy day on the Stenna Holland.  The girl reacts in kind and not all too surprisingly, basking in the light of attention, surrounded by this troupe of under-experienced and over zealous suitors clinging to her few and every word.


[from recollection]


I guess I too was once one of those excited bright-eyed boys.  But the distance between that time and this is growing, and as the wonder leaves my eyes, these eyes standing here on the back deck port side, they chance  upon a rainbow materializing in the ocean spray.  A smile.  They haven't lost their wonder just yet.  Maybe it's all the LCD.

In My Mind, Sound Like...

The clouds are hanging heavy on the thickly wooded mountains, like eyes, tears slipping by as if the Swiss countryside itself was somber at our departure. I'd be lying if I said my feelings didn't mirror those to a tee. Just three days in Flims has one questioning the basic principles and priorities that an individual has to live by. Still malleable to a certain extent I feel as if the time is soon approaching in which these lifestyle choices will be set in stone. And Flims is one of the few places where I wouldn't mind having roots. This would be true strictly based on the raw beauty of the town. The sheer magnitude of the Swiss Alps, for lack of a more contrived cliché, is awe-inspiring. Lag la Cuama is something out of a fairy-tale tucked away in a small valley with a green meadow island fenced in by tree groves and crystal blue water. The altitude and brisk summer water make the simple act of swimming to the diving rock an exhilarating experience, nearly as exhilarating as jumping the seven meters off the rock itself. It's a land that we all want to retire to, but at the same time, it pains me to leave now. Swisseland, you will always hold a special place in my heart. Danke, Steppii.

[TIME TO TRAIN SLEEP]

Berlin: Last Day of Magic, Where were You

It's a short train ride.  Not really.  But there's a silent excitement in the air that pushes down on the fast forward button in times like these.  The mind's already racing.  The itch of Coachella in my limbs.  And I just close my eyes, and that Dead Mouse is there in my ears to take me back, me back, that electric orchestra, that deep mist echo, deep breaths.  Ahhhhhh.  And we're there.


Butt-fuck middle-of-nowhere Germany, that is.  West of the old, modern city.  Down the stairs to the bus-stop where our other like-minded kin has gathered, with backpacks, and tent- and sleeping-bags.  And that bouncing step when their standing, unfocused eyes looking past it all.  And the anonymous camaraderie, between lost souls.  The shuttle to the forest is a old metro bus, and it's packed, standing, for the twenty minute cruise through the green open countryside with just a row of old, thick trees on either side.  We pass people on cycles, we pass people walking, all cheering our trek, waving as we fly by.  We'll see them soon enough.  And it's down a little village street to the right, and we pile out, walk down some wide, dirt path into the woods, pay the twenty euros, and we're in.


Throw the headphones.  The trees open onto this massive meadow to grand to measure, this open freespace in the middle of the forest and there's cars and tents in lines making aisles like Coachella.  Except it's grittier, and dirtier, and not so big.  But wilder.  Surrounded by dense woods, not polo field lights, and the animal inside is jumping.  The bass from the stage on the far side comes over the whole place in waves.  Even by our little plot near the rear where the New Zealander and his chick, and a few others (who had driven straight to in the morning) had already set up a little huddle of tents and Subaru Outbacks.  We help Corinna and Toni and Dajana with their tent and squeeze in for a quick couple spliffs and the speed comes out so hey, why not. No booze.  Just waters and orange juice by the liter, and graham crackers and peanut butter, and some bread and ham and cheese.  Maybe a beer or three, you know, for the carbs, because this is rage, rage, rage time, survival-style like an episode with Bear Grillz in the Berlin countryside.  The whole gang from Corinna's house last night's all back together in fine form.  I turn to Max and Grant and them, "Man, I wish Sharhar was here.  He would fuckin' love this place."  But he's out in Tel Aviv again, probably up to some of the same, so we all "Prost!"  to him and pass another spliff around, king spliff, with all the Indian hash he left us.  What a vagabond of world-intellect class he was.  A survivor.  With parachute pants and a goatee.  The sun was getting super, super low in the afternoon, almost twilight.  This night was for him.


But it was mostly for us as well.  It's why we stayed those four crazy days, the bait at the end of the line and we got it baby.  Prague tomorrow.  No line, no sinker, we'll snip that shit off at the hook and spit the metal out.   We're firing on all cylinders as we bounce-skip down the aisles of dry brown grass, barefoot, towards a cluster of food tents and a euro-firetruck.  And behind that, and then just two hippy Burning Man lookin' music tents and a three story tower of lights, all flanked by hordes of people on both sides.    There's a all covered in long trails of tee-pee flailing in the wind from the East.  The music's getting louder, and the skin hairs bristle to life.  We got the Molly still and some E, but we'll save that for later.  This shit never stops, remember, so pacing is the game, and this ain't our first rodeo.  It's a fuckin' rodeo though.


Just dive right in and start dancing.  Minimalist techno.  The cool evening breeze turns to a sauna in the stew of bouncing, swaying souls, and the lights aren't even on yet.  They will be though, in an hour when the sun goes down.  Ah, but what's this?  Through a  thinned out patch in the meadow wall, there's another area we didn't even see before.  It's a sand beach shoring a still, little lake, reeded on both sides, with a disco ball hanging hanging by a thin wire over of it's entirety.  Up on the beach, there's a long makeshift bar with a DJ playin' some jazzy, older tunes, and a huge tree-top canopy all facing the other stage in the meadow.  What heaven is this in the Berlin forest??  The sun goes down, the light tower explodes to life with strobing whites and colors like Pleasure-town, and smoke, and fire out the top.  We parachute the first of the Molly, and away we go.  Every inch of muscle's moving and flexing and dancing, raising chest, rolling shoulders, curving hips to the beat.  The Beat.  That. Never. Stops.  And rises and falls like the tides.  Through forever build ups, slow, methodical, in no need to rush.  But oh, mercy, when that drop comes it's something like an orgasmic rebirth, and I open my eyes to the crystal summer skies and the stars are smiling down by the millions.  And if you thought, for some reason, I didn't bring my safety goggles, well, you're dead wrong.  Of course I had those shits, and everything was magic.




When you're in the middle of all that, talking's useless, there's too much other stuff going on that's more important.  But when we do communicate, it's with eyes and nods, with expressions and touches.  And with girls.  Lovely girls from everywhere, the free spirited youth of Europe, and everything's in the moment, the passion, the dancing, the looks, holds.  The young, Italian girl with daring in her naked eyes, who would take my sunglasses off to kiss me.  She speaks English with a firey sex, and she knows how to lick her lips and look at you with sly-grin desire.  And she wraps her body around me with her hands up my shirt, her hips moving on mine through the music.  And then like that, she's gone, off with her friends into the midnight human jungle, under the rainbow lights.


Always have meeting points, kids.  Because drugs wear off, and then you need some more because it's 3:00.  Our meeting place is in the trees between the beach and the mainstage.  We'd meet up, all coming in at different times to rest and drink the water we brought, and eat graham crackers.  And watch the Kiwi slack-line in the night.  The forest was lit up with a herd of multi-colored, chest-high light poles stuck in the ground.  Nothing fancy, and everything's still shadows in the slightly lighter dark.  And there's a spotlight on the disco ball, throwing diamonds onto the lake and into the reeds and the trees around.  There's enough light to a spliff around anyways.  And when we're all present, or at least most of us.  It's down the hatch with the rest of the stash, and we all split off into our little snakes through the people towards the stage, towards some open space to dance with our shirts off.  It's amazing.  Max, Grant, the Colorado Kid and me all get pretty close. And dance-off, bitches.  Then I give this Dutch girl the kitty-paw growl, laughing between my dance hands, and she's smiles and kitty growls back and dances over with her friend, and they put a big, thin cloth scarf around my neck, and paint on my face.  "Whoa!  You guys are from Holland!  We love Holland!" Max says.  And then, "Whoa!  You are from California!" they say.  And we all grab hands and spin together, and the music takes over.  Everyone's high, and so in love with everyone they meet eye-to-eye.  Everything I see, everything I hear is so visceral.  Ah-mazing.  The Dutch girl and I hold each other like old lovers.  Then her friends need water and go to the bar, but we're not quite ready for that yet.  We're still dancing, and gliding through the crowd with hands in the air.  and head tilted back, chin up, so my neck's stretching and swaying in the cool air above the shoulders, where the sauna's not so strong.  It feels so good.  There's a spot-light on the disco ball.


We dance. And we dance, dance, dance until the sky gets lighter, and the sun comes up.  The feeling of sitting in the sand on the lake-shore sounds so appealing now, so we do.  We sink in,  lay down and watch the cotton-ball clouds in the sky get brighter with the sunrise with some slow-step tune drawling from the bar.  The lakes only about waist-deep, even out in the middle, and there's a couple frolicking nude under the disco ball, making love.  What a place.  I pick in the sand at a lump digging into my back and, of course, it's a little zip-lock baggy packed full of weed.  So we roll up a little (not so little) joint and I suck it in slow before I pass it, holding my breath trying to freeze the moment forever in my mind.  Where we are, how we got here.  With all that non-planning.  It's some kind of wonderful.




I was tucked away not far from a small rural town just west of Berlin. Tucked away in a clearing surrounded by dense German forests and accompanied by a mystically tranquil lake, or pond, or something of the like. A solitary disco ball had been suspended not too tautly over the middle of the lake as a constant reminder of our objective, and that objective was to D.A.N.C.E. Bare-foot at times, freezing at times with nothing but a cocktail of drugs and others' body heat providing warmth, dance is what we did. Into the sunset and through the sunrise, my body is in a constant undulation in time with the music and my brain doesn't dream of sleeping.  As I am flung farther away from that rabbit hole there is a tinge of longing for a love un-matured in the form of that dirty-blonde blue-eyed German siren with an Aussie accent and a laughing smile of pure ecstasy. Her name was Anya, and this was her proclamation (as she toted an old sock on a stick with a little plastic windmill):

"Socke. Fische. De socke fische dantze."

Her name was Anya and I haven’t a clue why our paths chanced to meet. It’s an encounter I can quite confidently say will never happen again, and for that reason, coupled with others, but primarily that singular fact allows her to be perfect for me in every way I can think of; a kindred spirit, destined to meet just once.


I rolled us a spliff and she put Molly on my tongue and hers, and we played together all day in her tent and the fields and the forest.