Copenhagen: EuroRail Fail

Oh, Copenhagen.  You were so pretty to us, so dismissively so, so as to seem as if you weren't even trying.  Your stonework, your lakes, your people of angel descent.  Your delightfullness, your midnight twilight, your fluent English, and that devil-may-care attitude towards chain smoking.  I loved it all.  But the Danish Krooners can suck my balls.  Good-bye, Denmark.  Hej hej.

And to the trains!  We bid Marie a fond fare-thee-well and leave her puffing like a smokestack on a Marlboro Red.  It's one of Max's.  His carton from Duty-Free in North Carolina is something of a whirlwind memory and all that's left is this last pack.  And we aren't even in Berlin yet.  Although that time is fast approaching and as we hump our way down to the bus stop we'd arrived at just two days ago, talk turns to Germany with an excited air.  Everyone we meet who'd been to Berlin like it.  Hell, they love it.  They want more of it.  When we get to the Copenhagen Central, there's ten or so minutes to spare before our train departs (we had checked the times online and found a route to Berlin via a lovely little sleeper train leaving Malmo, Sweden sometime around midnight).  Perfect.  And we're going to get a little taste of Sweden as well.  Things can't be going any sweller.

The train to Malmo is a somewhat commonplace affair now.  Headphones in and Willem Maker drolls raspy, twang-blues through a mind wandering.  My temple finds its familiar rest on the wide and high double-paned train window as all the soft water and green coastlines of Denmark fly by and behind us.

[stop]

It's funny how sometimes you don't realize you've fallen asleep until your eyes open.  And for a split second you have no idea where you are.  My eyes open with a giggle as we slow down and pull into Malmo station.  Ah, Sweden.  How similarly Danish.  There's a five minute wait until the train to Berlin departs and when it pulls up and we jump on, we're thoroughly excited.  Marie and Denmark are in the memory banks and we're off to another new adventure.  And what's this?  There're bunks and sinks in all the cabins!  What a way to travel!  We de-bag ourselves and the train starts moving.  When the conductor comes by, we happily show him our EuRail passes.

But something's wrong.  The conductor doesn't return our smiles.  He's quite livid, in fact.  First in Swedish, then (I assume he gathered from the blank looks on our faces) in English.  "You have to get off!  You did not pay!"

Like hell we didn't.  I paid almost five hundred dollars for that stupid pass.  "What do you mean?" we exclaim waving our passes in the air.

But he's adamant. "This is a sleeper train!  You do not have a ticket! Your passes do not work here!"  That last part takes a second to click.  "You are getting off at the next stop."

He stands menacingly over us as we gather our things and shoo's us down the narrow corridor towards the exit like dogs that have peed where they ought not to have, always standing right behind us.  When we're in front of the door, mashed together at the end of the car, he spouts something in Swedish over the blower and the train suddenly slows to a stop, and we find ourselves booted off on some train platform (Persborg it says) just outside Malmo proper.  We watch the sleeper train disappear off into the distance down the line, the reality of our situation slowly setting in.  It's late.  Twilight's already upon us, and it'll be dark soon, and we're in the middle of this Swedish suburban nowhere.  It looks like where Ikea was born.

[stop]

It's takes us a few minutes to figure where exactly we are on the map (It's all in Swedish and looks about as foreign as Middle Earth) and that our best bet is to try and get back to Copenhagen (via Malmo), and by the time we realize we need to be on the other side of the tracks, our train's already pulling in.  The platform's is a cast-iron and bolt simple monstrosity raised high above a quiet street and empty bus stop below.  We grab all our things and fly down the three flights of stairs to sidewalk and under the bridge and up again, three more flights, bags jumping and jostling and cutting in shoulders with each hop of the step.  We make it to the top just in time to see the doors close and the train zoom off, and we yell and shout and wave our tired arms like crazy travelling misers, but it's no use. Trains stop for no one, especially not young, stupid Americans who thought they could just ride the sleeper train to Berlin with no qualms.  The next train back to Malmo won't be for another hour.  What a colossal fail.  The world's gone to sleep around us it seems.  There's not another moving soul about, and the sky's gone that richest of dark blues, lit faintly florescent by the platform lights and the street lamps below.  Persborg's a ghost town.

We look at each other, and I see it for the first time.  That slow-building, tired desperation in the eyes.  Maybe I only see it because I feel it in myself as well.  The conscious giggles at our follies as if to say, "Way to go, idiot!" And I smile and sigh deep and heavy, still reeling from our trans-platform sprint.

"Well, what now guys?"  Grant suggests, "Movie time?" Ha, we've got an hour to kill I suppose.

"Movie time," Max and I chime together.  God, what would we do without each other (and Grant's laptop).

Not to much surprise, but a quick look around the platform reveals no outlet so we suck Grant's trusty macBook battery dry with an old classic to lift our spirits; Grandma's Boy, recently downloaded.  The world's not what it used to be, and it melts away between familiar laughs as we try to forget all our present misfortunes, almost too easily.  The time flies by on fairies' wings.  They're a present from my roommates.

Quote of the Day: The Children Are Our Future

"Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again.  And what do we teach our children?  We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France.  When will we also teach them what they are?  We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are?  You are a marvel.  You are unique.  In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you.  Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move.  You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven.  You have the capacity for anything.  Yes, you are a marvel."

~ Pablo Picasso

Up, Up, and Away

It's a feeling like standing on the fulcrum point.  A see-saw parallel with both ends in the air.  I don't want to fall in place on one side, but it's going to happen.  It always does.  Can't be avoided.  Oh well.  My legs are still strong.  I can stand up here a bit longer, but it's getting more and more difficult.  It's a balancing act, a tight rope walk with reality on either side.  I tell myself to breathe because I realize I'm holding my breath waiting for something to happen.  So they're forced, deep breaths.  The kind that you suck in until your lungs are full before letting it all go.

And that's when I get the tickle in the back of my mind that I'm stuck here in the middle.  And the ground below looks inviting, so I close my eyes and stand with my feet close together.  To no avail though.  I'm trapped in a balance, there's not even a teeter.  When I open my eyes again and look out the window, the plane's descending on New York.  That slow, airline descent, and it's just started.  We're below the high feather-wisp clouds now, but the low-level ones are still far below.  They're not puffy white anymore, but pewter grey.  The sun's just set over that west horizon and that red rose glow's slowly waning in that wide space between the two cloud layers.  It's eerie.  Like some marshmallow martian landscape with dark cloud mountain ranges pushing up in the distance, silhouetted by the running sun before it's all gone through the low clouds.  It's night in New York, and our colonies of orange light come into view.  Scattered at first, then gradually thickening and rising up closer.  It's easy to get lost in the window seat.  I always do, and next thing I know the landing gear rumbles out and we're touching down at JFK.  And grabbing bags, and shuffling down the aisle.  Long strides on the catwalk to stretch the legs that yearn to move after sitting for so long.  The hunger pangs are nauseating.  Maybe it's just the new pressure in my ears.  Maybe it was that god-awful penguin movie showing on the plane.  Maybe it was the hangover from last night.  Either way, JFK is a two hour insomnia.  My eyelids want to close, but how's sleep supposed to come when my body feels this awful.  The gears in my head are grinding much too loud.  It's all I'm coherent enough to do to buy some $7.00 vacuum sealed club sandwich and a $5.00 bag of gummy worms and an apple juice.  Fuck airports.  

Barcelona: Little Deals with God

"Holy shit."  I know that tone.  And I know that face on Mike.  The distress and the pain.  He's scrolling feverishly through texts or BBMs or whatever on his phone.  Something's grievously wrong.  Max and Grant sense it too.  We're like girls who've lived together too long and our emotions and menstruation cycles are syncing up.

"What's up, dude," I pry, and softly, because most times I hate to pry at all.  But this shit seems serious.

"Fuck man, Drew was in a car accident."

"Drew Dellis?"

"Who's that on the phone?" asks Grant.

"It's Taylor.  Yeah, Dellis.  Two girls and a guy he was with died.  He's in critical, just hanging on, and they don't know if he's going to make it.  He's got third degree burns to pretty much his entire body," he says with no emphasis on anything.  His eyes are unfocused and way off somewhere else, not in Barcelona anymore.

That stone I sometimes feel in my gut drops hard like an upper-cut to the stomach and my breath gets stuck in the back of my throat.  "Was he with Nanaz?"

"No.  Er - I don't think so..."

"Fuck, man.  That fucking sucks."  Max has always had a way with words.  He'd always seem round up the mood of a situation so succinctly, and today was no different.  Such a sunny late morning walk to the San Cugat train station had suddenly turned somber, and his words echoed the ones sounding off in my head.  Burning through neurons.  I hadn't known Drew like Mike and Taylor had.  They'd been as thick as thieves in those first two years at UC Santa Cruz while Grant and Max and I were dicking around in community college.  The year I transferred up, he had transferred down to USD to play soccer, but he would come up all the time to visit the boys, and I'd met him just a handful of times.  That's all I'd needed though.  That guy was a class act. A gentleman.  A handsome charmer.  One of the nicest guys I'd ever met.  He was loaded, but it was impossible to hate him for it.  I'd feel like a dick if I did.  Nanaz was his girlfriend, and she was just about everything he was, except, of course, she was a girl, and instead of playing soccer, she smoked weed.  They fit together like some jigsaw puzzle of grand love.  No, he didn't deserve this.

"He's a fighter," I say.  "An athlete.  He's too good.  He'll hang on."  And in my mind I pray that it's so.  I'm not a Church going man.  Hell, I can't even remember the last time I'd been.  But me and God are like this. Like criss-crossed fingers.  My omnipotent friend, the old man upstairs.  I ask him for things, I pray, I plead, for situations, for turns of events.  "I just want to kiss her once more."  He's a listener, I think, it may take years for them to sort out, but miraculously they almost always do.  I'll find myself in front of the girl that I wanted so bad all those years ago, together and alone in the middle of an empty street, and inside I laugh at all the silly things I wanted way back when, trying so hard not to let it spill out and ruin things.  I'd see him smiling down on me in that moment when my eyes are closed, laughing with me, and I'd thank him.  And when I do I know I never thank him enough.  Not nearly.  Even though I find myself thanking him all the time.  For pretty days, for good waves, for health, for happiness, for the little things.  And it's funny because finding those little things, small nothings to be thankful for that can tip frowns upside down and bring fullness to an empty soul.  He's a G, and he's always there for me no matter how many times I fuck up or forget.

He's always ready for a little deal on the barter system.  A good challenge, I think, does him well, keeps him on his toes in the clouds.  I remember the moment back in Marseille, on the train in the station waiting to go to Nice, ready drugs and dancing and reckless abandon.  I was in a window seat, leaning against it looking out, watching the people sheep-ing by, en masse.  Except one wasn't because you can't sheep by in a wheelchair.  She was young, and her scalp was bald and she didn't have eyebrows, and that far-off look in Mike's eyes now were in hers then.  It was a look more permanent for her though, and in those moments I can't help it, especially with my own dim reflection in the window glass, ready to rage.  "C'mon, God."  I didn't talk to him out loud, obviously.  That's for crazy people or priests, and I'd like to think I'm neither.  It was an inner-dialogue.  Well, monologue really.  It's always just me talking, but he hears it when I ask.  He heard it that time, "C'mon God.  Please.  Just let her have an awesome day.  Hell, you want to make an impression?  Give her the best day, y'hear?  It probably wouldn't take much.  And you can just throw me your worst.  Throw all the wrenches you can into my plan you can man.  I dare you.  I mean, I don't know how bad you could fuck my day up, I already got tickets to this madhouse dance party, but hey, bring it.  I'm sure you've got a couple silly scenarios that might tickle your fancy.  I'm ready.  Just a good day.  A great day.  A smile and a look of wonder.  Pure joy, for however long, yeah?  But pure.  The purest."  And I watched her shrink in the distance as the train pulled out.  She didn't see me.  I was on my toes from then on though.  Alert because that wasn't the first time I'd hucked that dare at him.

He's a wiley buggar, and he always inevitably gets me, and I'd find myself in a dill pickle.  When that shit and fan meet, yeah it sucks, but I'll manage, and I can't help but smile back on our agreement. I like to think he's a man of his word.  I know he is.  And so now I find myself asking him again.  Daring.  Pleading.  Begging him not to take dear Drew from this Earth just yet.  He's too young.  Too lively.  Too kind and caring.  And Lord knows (pardon the cliche) we don't have enough of his type down here.  He's fighting, I'm sure.  Let him fight, but let him win.  If anyone deserves it, it's him.  Shit, I'm just a shadow in comparison, so give me your worst. Your worstest.  Today.  Tomorrow.  Through the week.  Fuck it, I'm down.  I'll trudge through some shit, no worries.  Get a good laugh out of it, if that helps.  Bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it.  I'm ready, and I'm willing.

We're off to Tibidabo and the old amusement park and the church on the hill.  Max and Grant put their arms around Mike.  "We'll light a candle for him at the church, a'ight?" says Grant.

"Yeah... Let's do that."  Mike's still a way's away.

I give his shoulder a good firm squeeze and a shake as we enter the station, "He's gonna be fine, man."  Then we hop the turnstiles and when we get to the platform it's empty, and the train's just left, the last car making the first turn down the track.  The next one won't be here for twenty minutes.  Ha.  Thank you.  Keep it coming.

"Fuck.  Really?  What a day."  So succinct Max.

We're Your Friends Tonight: Second Day

DAY 2

My eyes opened.  Monster was to my left and Abby was to my right. We were snuggled up cozy in the back of that white Ford clubhouse, the rear window was popped and open and so were the side vanes.  It was a second before the last night came flooding back to consciousness.  Ahh, surreality.  I looked at Monster and she opened her eyes and we smiled "good morning" with squinted eyes as the sun was already lit.  But not yet the spliff.  Soon though.  "What time is it?" she asked.

I hadn't a clue and fumbled for my phone a little longer than usual.  "Holy mackerel!  It's just past 7:30." And it's already getting hot.  But there was a breeze breezing through, and we weren't sweating yet.  I closed the rear window so I could pop the trunk.  Abby was up too, and we wanted to stretch our legs.  Chloe, Callan, and the tent company were mulling about.  Callan's dreamcatchers were busy in the light wind.  Taylor was up, but Max, Grant, and BB were still lying where they'd fallen asleep late last night; on the ground on the side of the car where the shade hit.  Everyone was happy.  And looking back I can say it was such a treat it is to wake so, smiling in the early sun, and already giddy for the day.  We could not to be disappointed, and nothing even came close.  It was a perfect day.  One of the few in a young life, and something special that stands out all the more when they're so rare.

A perfect day is one filled with pleasant surprises and smiles and friends by your side.  And so it was to be, a day such as this graced me that spring Saturday in Indio.  We nibbled on muffins and bread and gulped down Gatorade by the mouthful, and then Max made an announcement.  His mother was picking us up and driving us to his aunt's house on a nearby golf course for a proper breakfast and a dip in the pool.  What a treat this was, and before I knew it we were walking to the outskirts of the campground and Max's mom and brother Adam were there to greet us in a 4Runner.  We piled in, the six of us - Grant, Max, Taylor, and myself in the back seat; Monster, BB, and Abby in the trunk - and were off.  There was a present from the family; a joint in some inconspicuous tube for pool cleaner.  We were already high, but it still warmed the heart.  We pulled into an austere-looking neighborhood, then a driveway to some Nancy Botwin abode by the ninth hole.  We walked through the house barefoot and light on our balls.  The tile floor was cool to my feet.  Max's aunt was already cooking up breakfast burritos as we passed the kitchen and she smiled and waved us through to the back patio and an infinity pool and a cooler of cold beer.

I didn't know what else to say but, "Thank you so much!"

"Don't mention it, darling," she said.  "Now there's some cold Coronas out there and some cans of coke.  I'll have some orange juice out in a bit and the burritos are almost ready.  You're gonna love 'em."

I already do.  "Thank you, thank you." A thousand times, thank you.  She hadn't stopped smiling and she was the most precious thing ever.  Max whispered something about chocolate chip cookies and that feeling of happiness was there sponging the mind like a pretty nurse.

"Oh, hush, hush.  Those are for later, Maxwell."  She was incorrigible.  "Now if you want to wait, I can heat up the pool for you guys."

"How cold is it?" asked Grant.

Adam mozied over to the pool shed and chuckles, "Seventy-five degrees," he said.  "I think it'll be okay for now."  And we all laughed like little tikes just arrived at a sand-box and jumped in.  The water was perfect.

It seemed to just float over the far edge and onto the fairway.  And I floated there myself, on my back, in the middle of it all with a deep breath in my lungs so that my chest stayed just above the surface.  And when I opened my eyes, it was all blue with cotton balls floating by and the white puffs you see when you dream in the day.  They'd change slowly to please me and drift away.  The taste of cold beer with lime was on my tongue, that blanket of Mary Jane in my mind and a room temperature water soaking into my skin.  Happiness was served up and consumed by the lot of us floating lazily in our lives and the water lapped our ankles.  Then burritos and burritos and orange juice and more beer.  We lit the joint and killed it just before Max's aunt came out with some cookies.  And not just any cookies.  Those were the best damned cookies I believe I've ever had the pleasure to chomped on.  They were miraculous.  Satiating and soft.  They bear-hugged our tired souls in that commercial bliss, the kind you see in TV ads.  The too-good-to-be-true kind.  Award-winning in my eyes.  But there was still more.  We had to see the casitas. Max's aunt insisted, we just had to.  She was very adamant.

So we saw the casitas.  It was lovely; entirely comfortable.  And we all just sort of fell to slumber on the big bed, or to shower in the bathroom of glass and fair tile flooded by skylight.  What a casitas.  Sweet dreams came and went gently, and before we left, we felt rejuvenated to a pinnacle and ready for the day.  It was the feeling only a casitas can bring, and that day it paid in full, and we loved it for that.  One more beer was to be had before driving back into the fray.  2:00 and the grounds for camping were dry grass that padded each step as we walked.  We stopped by the car for a spell to smoke another spliff. And a blunt. And suck Gatorade from the bottle and shotgun beers under the high afternoon sun.  It was not long before we were once again frolicking towards the main gates, gatorade in hand, spliffs and molly in pocket.  Silly, joy-caked faces in tank tops and shorts and sunglasses.  No shoes on; just another day in Wonderland.

[stop]

We were washed, and the grass felt greener and my lungs sucked in the sweet surrender.  It was already four in the afternoon so we decided to go to the Outside Stage and take in the Temper Trap.  And when I say we decided, I mean of course, that we floated over to it, through Spring Break 2010 and past the giant origami swan in a spliffy haze that felt so alive.  At the Do Lab, I flexed my toes and they sank into the swampy marsh of grass in front of the stage.  We breathed in the spring desert air and the sun was shining and there was water falling from above.  The water on the ground danced with the bass, and it wasn't long at all before my shirt soaked through so i took it off.  When I closed my eyes, thoughts flashed to those days in the summer in the front yard when Dad would hose down the grass and make an arch with the water.  My sister and I would always try and run through it and Dad would always bring the hose down at the last minute and spray us.  The feeling warmed me more than the Indio sun.  And the smile on my face widened. It brought everything together into a swirly amalgam as BB and Erica grabbed my hands in the air, and we spun and twirled and jumped, high as we could because nothing was sore from the night before.  The feeling was something incredible and the soul at my core was full of light that shone through to the skin and made it tingle.

Eyes open again and we were laying in the grass and the mind erupted at the overwhelming perfection of it all.  To every sense.  The frontman for Temper Trap had the voice of a whining angel, so much so that we'd sit up straight and crane to see him far-off on the distant stage.  We weren't close.  But we moved up for Edward Sharpe as Temper Trap closed out and people began to disperse.  We got close.  Really close, and just hung out until Sharpe and the Zeros came out to set up. It was time to stand, but there was room around us and we weren't sardine-packed.  It wasn't Jay-Z.  The crowd wasn't so thick at that hour, which was nice because another spliff was gone and the breathing room was nice.  Alex Ebert was already fucked up, something pronounced by his scraggly beard and hair tied in a the dirty knot of long hair on his head.  He dressed in dirty off-white from head to bare toe, save for the thin, weathered scarf of red mahogany loose around his neck.  Before the first song, he fell into the crowd and elbowed some guy in the face, so he threw him his sweaty white shirt. I couldn't help but laugh because I imagine it stunk like booze and cigarettes and BO.

Then they broke into "40 Day Dream" - the whistling came first and sent a shiver down my back -  and all was forgotten and forgiven because I wanted so badly for each precious moment to last forever; presently in that short breath between just then and what comes next.  They oozed dreary and excitable love, and all that happened just before was in that fog of the distant past that one did not care for.  All that mattered was striving to feel as they all felt onstage.  That carefree living to the fullest.  We wanted to feel the look in their eyes , the love, the crisp laughing chorus, the way Alex and Jane sang to each other.  Maybe I was too high because I wanted to sing along, but my lips moved without the noise as the words got caught in my throat.  I was so in shock at how beautiful it was, I just stood there and breathed in deep.  All those little hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood at attention.  So in love with the other they were, those two.  We were just their fuzzy background with the aperture wide, wide open.

[stop]

That's what happens when you're in love.  Everything else fades to fuzzy backdrops with that true and only in focus, center stage.  All starry-faced and smiling, eyes whispering that sweet secret back and forth so that everybody who cares to notice sees it like a flare going off, but no one else knows what they're saying except you.  It's precious. It's treasured.  Guarded.  Intrigued upon and held close.  And it's not meticulous, and they had it in spades, shoveling it out over the crowd so that when their set was over, we didn't want to leave.

We stayed at the Outdoor stage and let the XX croon us and sink us in the grass where we lay.  Max simply had to see Coheed and Cambria's set.  He ambled off to our left towards where the Main Stage was literally burning  down during Coheed.  They both played into the sunset, but I didn't see it.  T'was like a hole in a redwood forest. I was laying on my back next to Monster and the sky framed itself within the people standing around us and shot bright orange before getting darker.

[stop]

Hot Chip took the Outside Stage next, so we all took our shirts off and took molly by the hand.  With some Emergen-C and a water bottle.  Then we waited.  The stage lights were up now.  In a few minutes the high changed and it was a thing like laying on a cloud, and we floated up to our feet and started dancing.  The come-up was beautiful.  It was soft.  And color-full.  And it was warm and cozy and sweet.  Skin breathed and everything was more real.  Real to the touch.  Real to the ears.  Real to the eyes.  Real to the heart and to the soul.  Love swelled like a river through, and it shared with everyone close.  There was a certain magic in it.

A guide to goodness, it was and shortly pulled us away towards the Sahara Tent and Kaskade and David Guetta.  There was a pause between songs and we pranced off through the crowd.  Monster on my back for a piggyback ride.  But the next song was too good, and we were dancing again in the open grass.  Over and over again.  Every body part moved to the beat and flexed in the desert heat.  We couldn't stop because we never wanted to not feel this euphoric.  It was a triple negative maybe, but still oh, so positive.  Love.  The feeling of it became a reason for living.  A bookmark for saving every minute of it.  Because it was all so crystal clear.  Living with purpose, the dreamer, walking through it with eyes closed and a hand outstretched wanting that dream to be real and tangible.  Eyelids fluttering, waiting to take grasp.  Keep on dreaming.

So simply, it never ended.  And the we found ourselves dancing towards the farthest tent.  Hot Chip's bass slowly faded and as we walked past the Gobi and Mojave, a new bass grabbed us in the loins, and the Sahara drew ever closer.  It opened in sections on the side and was all pulsing pink and white light.  The entire thing appeared to be moving, breathing, and alive with all tenacity, but it was just the crowd inside.  So we refilled our water bottles, dance-pranced in one side, and soon we were in the thick of it.  And it was absolutely, incontrovertibly amazing.  It was bright and wild, even with our sunglasses on.  There were lights before me and above me.  It was hot, even with our shirts off.  But not too hot.  The place was embalming.  A slight breeze coming in through the sides was felt, but just barely though.  Like the heat, we rose.  And soon everything was lighter and loftier and we floated in the air as we danced to Move For Me and held each other.  There was that Imogen song and I Remember.  Then David Guetta, and I danced and danced and half the time it was just by myself.  But I've never noticed until now, or thought to think if I cared really.  Probably because I didn't.

Salivating and ears in orgasm.  The music took over and was felt in every inch of being.  Now and again we'd grab everyone in a group hug and take off our sunglasses and look at how high we all were.  And we smiled because we'd never been so happy before.  Still, it wasn't over.

That night I wanted so badly to meet the inventor of the glow stick and shake his hand.  We wrapped those twisty little light rods around our heads and wrist and ankles, and when we left the Sahara Tent for the rest of Muse's set and Tiesto at the Main Stage, we were a glowing snake in the crowd outside.  The polo fields were now dark and thick with people.  But nobody got lost, not once.  Thanks to our trusty glows sticks, the tribe never separated, and it was only too easy to find each other after using the restrooms (which some will tell you, truthfully, isn't so easy, especially when you're really high).  Muse was a wholly different experience.  Their performance was beautiful like a herd of wild horses is beautiful.  It was wild and fast and went everywhere with no inhibition.  And the drums stampeded and the guitar riffs cut to the core, but not one horse would ever fall or falter and it was all spot-on.  Every key.  Every note.  Matthew Bellamy was one of those beings from another place.  The kind of thing one stands in awe of.  It was overwhelming to say the least.

Muse finished in a flash of white light, and we cheered, stupified.  We yelled at the top of our lungs, then it all went dark.  Tiesto.  People-training, we went to the center of it all in a glowie-stick dream.  The crowd closed in around us until it could close no further, and we just had enough room to dance.  And Max and I looked at one another and grabbed molly once more.  When I sat down to rest my legs, it was once again a people forest, but it was different this time.  It was darker, and at knee level in a mass that thick the middle music was muffled and above me.  Thick darkness by the ground was punctuated with glow-stick blues and greens and pinks and yellows and the bass vibrated through the grass.  The cool of the night wasn't felt down there.  It was all body heat and a phantom breeze.  Then it stopped.  There was a cheer.  A wild ecstatic howl, and it grew louder and louder until it was all I heard in that forest of feet.  It was pulsing in my ears, so I stood and just then the stage exploded into light and lasers whizzing overhead, and it started.  It was everything.  Perfect.

Lost Angeles: In the dark, I'm dreaming

Through the dark, I'm flying.  The wings stroke slow.  And that cool breeze never cools because the air's still hot from the day.  I see, and it's something to note because it never gets too dark.  The city's glow hangs on the haze, caught in that dreary mist blanket that rolls out from the ocean.  The tall, thin alleys are still lit and it's not that black pitch like Santa Cruz.  It's a night light.  It's a full moon that never wanes.  So bright it still leaves shadows in midnight hours.  I'm not high so much anymore as I had been, and the dreams come flooding back, and I walk through the day wondering what memories are real now.  Is this real?  Am I watching these people finish their meal?  Talk politenesses to each other as my mind races at what the future holds.  Paris.  Barcelona.  The Old World.  A break from this LA daydream.  I want to feel alive again.  To breath in the air and know it's real, without second-guessing.  I want to sleep sound in that welcome dark.  To feel the contrast.  The differences shouldn't be muddled like this.  It's not right.  Those gray areas in between.  Where the sun hits the horizon and you can't see the line anymore.  The shadows in the night.  The star-less skies.  I've had enough, I think.  The hiccup's due.  That two week candle burns too slow.  It seems so far and yet, all that I've passed by to now is a blur of speed.  And the present just never ends.  It's all I see.  Because I'm twenty-three and nobody knows me, really.  Not my parents.  My friends, maybe.  And the girls haven't a clue.  You'd think one ought to by now.  I will say this, so that somebody may piece it all together; I can't wait for my skin to once again tingle with adventure; with prospect of paths unknown.  To death with this California routine.  It's going to taste like cheap port.

Occupy Wallstreet

Why are we so pathetic?  You can't simply march back and forth and sit around "in protest".  That won't enact change, you idiots.  Especially in this day and age.  It's a spectacle, nothing more.  Someone needs to speak out, strong-voiced and sincere.  Someone needs to rise above the clamor and raise an impassioned call to action.  That's why I've always seen protesters as a bunch of fuckin' idiots. And I've come to love the word idiot as well, mostly due in part I believe to my dear friend Boom, that idiot.  It's blunt and to the point and kind of just rolls off the tongue to aptly describe such denizens.  Those human road blocks, chanting their pithy slogans, and holding their signs with quotes from some old movement on them.  But to what avail?  To incite anger?  Check.  Cause a bother?  Check again.  Annoying?  Definitely.  But if that's all you've accomplished, you haven't really accomplished anything now have you.  Is there no one in that crowd to speak out?  (I guess there is, but still.)