Flims: Incubus

"There's a band playing tonight, open-air.  It will be fun." Stephii's Swiss accent's so cute and adorable.  It's something you always want to say, "yes" to.  Of course we're in.  There's still a little bit of weed left from Prague and we lounge the day away, in a sun-soaked, spliff-high frolick around her mountain.  Heaven's divine, I love this place.  Another day by the lake, the Evian shores.  Caumasee.  Grant does gainers off the diving board that's floating out where it's deep, and we all jump off the big rock holding hands.  And trove around that sweet-grassed wooded island in the middle, like over-grown Huck Finns and Tom Sawyers.  We're old now.  Graduates at the collegiate level.  It's a long kiss good-bye to our care-free youth, still holding on, or trying anyways.  The child's still in my eye.  Still that innocent awe of the beauty of this place and it's capacity to fill with such joy.  These are the lazy days.  The one's of nothing in particular that'll weigh down the memory banks with our platismic bliss in the evergreen woods at the foot of Mount Flims.  A little part of me knows that, I think, so I savor every last bit.  Every hour of windless sunshine.  Every can of cheap beer consumed.  Every piece of beef and sausage slipped into Max's backpack at the supermarket for our BBQ's.  Every spliff, every hike.  I stash it all away in that secret place, where things never get lost, and everytime I flip to it, it's going to be that much better because it was the best of times.  I could live here.  Hell, I never want to leave.  But the time always comes to pick up and go, sooner or later, it comes creeping up like an itch on your bum after a while.  It's already been a week, and only, and there's no itch yet, just a train to catch to Rome.  In the morning.  Tonight we rage.

Our last night.  One last hurrah in that magic town where the mountain tips dip into the realm of the gods so that the days are just right, and the nights are still warm with a little booze in you.  As far as drinkings go, we go for the fur coat, which isn't quite necessary, but always more fun to wear.  It's shots in the Swiss kitchen, vodka, whiskey, then more shots in the cool night on the balcony.  And the Berlin-hippy coin game.  And always a beer or wine glass in hand.  Yeah, always spills to be had on nights like this.  But it's fine because no one minds, and it's wiped up and forgotten before the next shot.  And another.  Stephii's snowboard friend don't fuck about.  Still, we hold our own.  I'm besides myself with this tolerance I've developed, and it just barely keeps me balanced on the sway-eyed jaunt, the whole lot of us, to the open-air bar on the other side of town.  When we get there, there's no need to buy drinks because we're smashed, but we all get beers anyways and sit down at one of the long tables pointing towards the stage.  The band's about ready to play now, listen up.

The lights come alive on the alpine crafted stage and the twenties-something Swiss alt-rock quartet begins their routine, which I don't even remember because we're all too busy talkin' and drunk-laughing, and bumming cigarettes.  It wasn't a concert, per se, but more like (announcer voice:) "tonight's entertainment."  A suitable description, I think, as it was indeed tonight, and the whole thing is entertaining.  When the music does catch my ear, and will my eyes to focus out the my double vision of the stage, There's the lead singer sweating his passion through the microphone.  It's a Brandon Boyd stage presence, and he's wielding that front-man glory, with all the fury and anguish that alt-rock can muster as the rest of the band goes through those slow pensive paces and focus on the music.  I bet they listen to Incubus.  Hey wait, "Ha! This sounds exactly like Incubus, hehe."  If they were all Swiss and sang English as a second language.  No actual Incubus songs, just everything else.  Grant, Max, and Mike listen intently for a second and concur and we all laugh and cheer, "Woo!  Whaa!"  And rock on salutes flung high.  And it's not long before we find our way to the clearing right in front of the stage and start jumping and shoving and raging in our own little mosh pit, taking turn to team up on one each other.  The locals join in.  Pretty soon we got ourselves a quaint little alt-rock dance mosh thing goin' on.  Someone falls or jumps or flies to the side of the stage where the meadow dips down a soft hill.  We all do, I think.  They play late, but we always keep asking for one more song in our wasted American.  One more, and then it's that stumble back home to Stephii's, a quick fifty meter hill roll on the way, and we all pass out in the living room.  Tomorrow, Italy.