Exactly one month since our last Music Festival (Reggae Rising). I've been in Hermit Mode at la casa de mis padres in Lake County (more detail about this experience can be found here: http://matadortravel.com/travel-blog/united-states/stirling-f/stuck-in-the-muck on my Matador Blog). Denell is in Santa Rosa swinging from ancient Redwood trees with adolescent camp goers on a massive high ropes course. And she's getting paid for it. The perfect job for that girl...
I sent the footage of our trip back to Costa Mesa (the Roadtrip Nation Headquarters), along with the bulky and beautiful Camera A, an inanimate friend that will be sorely missed. Very excited (and apprehensive) to see what they make of the ten plus hours of tape we accumulated over the course of our two month trip. The edited version will premier in FREEBORN HALL on the U.C. Davis campus on OCTOBER 21st. So be there. Denell and I will.
I watched through a lot of tape before the send off, subsequently discovering more than one sequence of D*Rock filming me napping when and where I could (audible snoring), after a few of the longer nights, including one we spent at the end of a cul-de-sac in Bend, Oregon, watching for the sunrise...
From the cave I've created out of my chilhood bedroom, after two solid weeks of recovery, I could feel the road calling. A couple trips back through Davis lessened the withdrawals and strain of remaining stationary, though the dry flat town I called home as recently as this past June is already something better pictured in memory. So many of the friends that made that place what it was to me have moved on in their own fashion. I have no bed there. The (constant) random nights of neighborhood debauchery are something from another era. I sense a shift in plan and purpose. I don't quite fit there anymore...
In another attempt to get my fix of wandering I spent a (five day) weekend gallivanting about the Bay Area with beautiful people including, but never limited to, a childhood best friend, handful of Davis transplants, and some fresh new freaky faces. The journey to a Thursday night apartment-warming party became an introduction of how best to thwart the muni ticket collector. Friday, after a day spent on Haight Street in The Most Overpriced Thrift Stores Ever, I wound up wandering dark Berkley blocks, dipping among overgrown sidewalk jungles for some solid conversation and cheap wine, before passing out on a couch as soft as Care Bear clouds. The next day I did a sort of city shuffle, from Berkley to San Francisco, eventually ending up in Richmond at a backyard BBQ With live Salsa music to spice up the fresh homemade salsa and tamales. Dancing with new friends, an afternoon themed fiesta color scheme and Spanish whispers. A Bart ride downtown, back to the Haight for dinner, and then the Sunset (after sunset) for a kitschy eighties vampire movie (Can I help it if I have a crush on sixteen year old Corey Haim?).
That Sunday night I found D*Rock. Reunited for the first time since our trip ended. Waaaaaaaay too long. The last leg of my mini-roadtrip to the bay I found myself filling the silence where my homie's voice would have been with bad pop radio. We reminisced about a trip so utterly epic it feels as though it may not have really happened. When people ask to hear stories it is relativley impossible to decide where to start, and would take too long to set the scene anyways. So much still left to process...