i'll always be a sucker for a good story

We were back on that track tonight, you and I. Running quietly. Orbiting Jarry Park under a full moon and nothing else kind of sky.  

I knew we probably wouldn't be up late enough to see the moon turn red. The fact that it was there was good enough. That and the email I made you read. And the fact that another long cycle, one that took us on a set of different loops, just like the ones we had imagined in that imaginary world, had maybe finally come to a key junction. Strange too that on the way to meet you, I remember thinking that, in the end, we had both actually taken the plunge. That nameless plunge into the deep. The old moment of truth. Uptown VineRise was just a blueprint, wasn't it? The conflict of our own creation. Neither of us could have imagined just how dark it could get on the way down. We suffered. Not alone, but without each other. Not enough to have forever lost touch. We just made our peace spinning in different directions. 

But nothing happens for no reason - not in the lives we want to live. 

Maybe it's time to get back to writing that happy ending.

Crime of the century

Jules and I had been hiding out for years. Made fugitives for a series of murders we had committed for nothing more than self preservation. Our hunters were no better than us. We had hid under the stairs in secret back rooms, protected by our own mothers, whenever they came knocking. I remember the feeling of holding my breath with those stairs pressed against my kidneys. It felt like we had been running forever. Traveling by jeep through barren deserts and lush gated community garden mazes reminiscent of the Shining. And then in an old Russian mansion that was bugged like a casino. Prowling from room to room like some dreamy game of Clue. All the while I could feel the paranoia swelling in my chest. Many years passed. And one Halloween, when we were both older and comfortable in masks, we spoke about our experiences with friends who lived free lives, in the garage where we had first written music together. We glanced at each other with eyes that asked if it had all been worth it. And all those people we had left behind listened while we explained how a possible end might play out. They kept their fears and their opinions to themselves. But we never let our guard down. It was our old principal who finally tricked us into coming over for a steak dinner. We had been in disguise but recognized each other right away. The decision was instantaneous. I grabbed a knife and buried it into his throat. Jules did the same to his wife. My grandmother watched the entire thing, horrified. These were innocent victims but we rationalized it away. It was either them or us. Self-preservation. My mom tried to make her understand that these were not good people. But she couldn't shake the image. I remember grabbing the steak we were invited to eat, coldly and somewhat reluctantly, and putting it in a Tupperware to have later as the sirens grew louder. This chase would never end. And we could not kill our way out of it forever.

a little more lightweight

     Today on the drive back from Subaru I didn't take that side street off the service road. The one I had taken just the other night. The one with the tiny magical church at the end of it. With the front-lit Jesus statue (or is it Mary? Jesus) just standing there, inviting and creepy. The most unassuming Heaven's Door you could ever imagine. Just sitting there. Before that final right back onto Saint-Laurent.
     Turns out it wouldn't have been the right way anyway. A large tree had cracked in half just above the trunk and crashed right into the cab of a parked truck. The truck was not spared and the street was completely blocked by a damn of thick branches. My brain registered the shape of the disaster out the corner of my eye but it took me a solid twenty five seconds and one reluctant u-turn to realize this was not the kind of thing you see everyday. So I photographed and reported back. Even though I had vaguely heard about the power outages on the way back. Even if I vaguely heard the wind howling all day. The nondescript knocking around of plastic garbage bin on asphalt as I played phone in for a bargain! with at  least three different dealers, just to see who would throw in something (anything) more than just the winter carpets that would compliment the shiny hunk of metal awaiting me at the end of the exercise. And this was a good day to be investing in metal. An auspicious day to buy a car - the start of Diwali and all.
     But today was something else. Today was so many things for so many different reasons.
     A missed birthday with no phone call. Some last-minute goodbye wishes. A day to reach out. To rebuild. To nurture. Not from the ground up. Never again from the ground up.
     Everything I set out to do today I did. The car. The hot water tanks. The re-connect and the background check. Whatever had been lingering around since I got back, really. Whatever I couldn't get away with blaming on jet lag any longer. The afterglow had dimmed a little. I had been beaten back down into reality. As if. As if I had expected anything less from life. Everything except the evil eye. And maybe the old tightening of the chest, first thing in the morning. So I had to let a little more of that weight go today. For myself and my well being. More promises followed. Tomorrow I would even start to run. And when the wind finally started to die down a little we watched the Muppets. Because it was still in the DVR. And we were all so much older than we might have been our first time watching. But there was still so much magic in those puppets. And everything seemed to come alive when I saw all those smiling faces go up on my wall. Those rows and rows of beautiful and colourful smiles. You would find no inner struggle in any of those rows of smiles. There would only always be life.
   

the long and winding road

i was standing on top of a huge flat roof, packing. it felt like i had been packing for the better part of the day but then it's hard to tell. Dave was around but he wasn't around. maybe he was distracted because Manemou was back in town. maybe he was just distracted. but i did almost all of the grunt work on my own, sometimes mistaking the door to our apartment for another that opened right into this huge empty mezzanine filled with nothing but a thin layer of fine plywood dust. it smelled freshly cut but i was still scared to look over. when i made my way back into the place i was leaving i ran into Jules, only half surprised when he opened the door to the same bedroom i was walking toward. the door was open enough so that i could make out sweaty sheets behind him - he had just gotten back into town and Kim was probably there scrambling to get dressed. he asked me if it had been me playing the drums before and i said yes, half embarrassed and half proud. "not bad, not bad" he smiled at me. "so I guess you really do have a lot to tell me these days?" i meant to answer but felt there was no need. relief gave way to a quiet joy as he said something about how maybe our own story had yet to be fully written as well.

movie magic

I can't think of a better way to spend a cold Thursday night than to stumble upon one of your all-time favourite films on TV.

It's hard to pinpoint just what it is about Big Fish that gets me every time. Not sure if it's the fantastical fairytale side of it or the more heart wrenching story of father and son. Or the way Tim Burton is able to burn these magnificent scenes into your brain. (Yes, even a brain as elusive as my own) Like the impossibly green grass and draping lights that make up the town square of Spectre, with all the shoes of past visitors just dangling from the electrical lines. It's almost like you've walked into that same town and met the love of your life in your own dreams - except he was smart enough to jot down every detail the second he woke up from his.

This movie was huge for Jules and I when we were writing Uptown VineRise. As the album's own story was coming to life, films like this reminded us that we really were onto something bigger than just the two of us. Tonight, I let those same tears well up for what felt like forever as the son recounted his father's last tale, its beautiful and timeless lesson unchanged:

Your life is only as magical as you choose to live and tell it.

in the simple words of Dellardi

we were downstairs in my parent's old basement, Jules and my brother and myself. catching up. and you could tell it had been a while. i had to replace a shelf and was taking measurements that i kept having to double check because i was too distracted by the conversation. Jules was talking about his latest project, some surreal video they had cooked up in another one of those crazy weekends. like usual, he insisted. it sounded like some strange Lynchian Beatleesque Number Nine piece with Italian narration and what sounded like the word Dellardi being stretched out and repeated over and over again while images of blue ceramic cats and bicycles and a girl walking through grey skies in some bleak city kept unfurling for the camera. he was super proud of it and i was watching, half confused and half jealous, trying to remember those measurements. he kept pointing out to my brother how every last syllable of the narrator's dreamy words were being manipulated for effect. perhaps he figured i would have noticed on my own. my bro simply responded by assuring him he was cooking up something of his own as well. i said nothing. when I had originally asked what he had been up to, he had given me the snippy "maybe you should go online and find out" answer. now, it almost felt like he was ignoring me. like it was only the video that was speaking directly to me.

happy meal. happy thoughts

For a good half hour last night, bordered between the indoor kids park and the drive through, we sat on our bikes and talked about death. I think it probably started with near-death experiences of the snowboarder, neck-breaking variety and then kind of took off from there. The unnecessary costs of caskets and the absurdity of renting a space in the old marble wall. The strange feel of a cold, exposed body. (Tigger, I haven't forgotten) Living wills and the legality of having your ashes spread on land or at sea. All very grim stuff for a bunch of young thirty somethings. It kind of made me feel a little bit better about everything, oddly enough. Like getting to celebrate life all over again without the fuss of an untimely funeral.   

grace by the gun

at the end of it all i was sitting in the kitchen with Dom. after some good times drifting bikes like madmen, he asked me outright if i truly accepted his relationship with Jules. "my father always believed i had sent my brother back in time to do the dirty work - you know, iron out the kinks so i would have it all figured out in this life," he explained. i could feel his persistence. it was hard to deny. and somewhere in my mind i heard Jules tell him that even if the other band mates simply humoured him with their one good eye on the prize, he was the only one who actually listened and took the time to learn what he really wanted; the only one who was able to look into his eyes and see through his soul. it was hard to deny the connection. but I never admitted so, assuming the silence was enough. he had already asked me when i'd be coming back to LA to visit again. not right away, i replied. i would let them do their thing. besides, i don't even remember being in LA at all. all i could remember was a desert, somewhere between Damascus and Beirut. and i remembered Reda but not Dom. and it was no vacation. Jules and i were being stalked by fighter jets and hounded by a militia jeep. i had been amazed by Jules' calm in the whole situation, like he had been there before. so i followed his lead. i hid where he hid and shot where he shot. still, there came a point where the only place to escape the streaking jet and his wild-eyed pilot was in some cannibalistic town where you were allowed to choose how you were executed. some of the guys caught before us had been shot and then emptied like ripe avocados. their bodies were then filled and used to flavour whatever food was being cooked inside them. i got an image of those edible soup bowls and then those soft shells they used to serve ice cream in at weddings. it was disgusting to watch. and yet, somehow, there was a tinge of poetic justice. like it all made sense out there in the lonely desert.

riders on the storm

we settled in for the night ahead of what felt like the storm of the century. the abandoned building looked like a stretched architectural rendition of the Mothership; wider rooms, higher ceilings and bigger windows. there were tiny leaks everywhere. during the night, the wind got so strong that all i could make out was the wild shadows dancing off the walls. i was convinced the windows were going to burst into a million little pieces but i couldn't help but press my face right up to them. the rattling eventually died down, enough for us to step outside the room and survey the damage to the building. more leaks, but nothing more than that. what we did find was that we hadn't been the only ones hiding from the storm. the first person I recognized was my cousin Chantal. she came out of the room next to ours with a bunch of random women and praised the soothing guitar lines I never actually played. there were lots more people upstairs on the mezzanine. one particular couple had spent the night high painting designs on the dirty bare walls. it struck me as senseless art for the most part but i was particularly fond of the man and woman drawings on the bathroom doors. they reminded me of a Dali, i explained. his girlfriend replied with a told-you-so shrug. survival was the talk of the building as we continued to climb higher toward the terrace. it had almost the same dimensions as the real Mothership terrace except this one was many stories higher and worlds more intimidating. the entire cement platform was slowly heaving like the haul of a small boat on a giant wave in an even bigger ocean. it felt like we were all balancing on the world's biggest marble. so much so that i was constantly checking the railing to make sure it was stable. it seemed loose and way too short. but there were too many people to warn. my brother was busy building some kind of roof structure to keep the rain out but it only seemed to exasperate the swaying motion. there was no longer any solid point of reference to the ground. i was nauseous and completely terrified at this point. i half-slid to the bar and ran into Jules and the group of strangers he was with. i told him i would do the gig, half joking. a couple of days to practice would never be enough for me. and yet everyone seemed happy on hearing it. Jules suddenly became some weird Freddy Krueger character and i urged him to look into my eyes to see just how scared i really was. he did.

deep down. down in the trenches

the streets were all torn up and the soggy screening was bubbling out of the trenches like puss from an open wound. the city was a haemophiliac, slowly bleeding to death. 

i drove straight to the Mothership, where i found John Watters and some other tenants packing up in a hurry, like a hundred-year storm was just around the corner. i went in through the back and found an angry Berretta kicking around stuff that belonged to me without very much remorse. he looked extremely frustrated - Hulk-like, almost - and didn't seem to notice me watching him. my high school best friend David Lettieri was watching as well, laughing and exaggerating every last detail of this apparent freak out. i left and found another room under the terrace where Jules and a group of musicians were listening to a song with a killer Motown baseline. one guy was gushing over every last note, declaring the player in question a genius on the spot after being unable to fathom how such a groove could be written in the first place. i just looked at Jules and we laughed silently to ourselves. i had to get to a supper at my parents' but assured everyone i'd be back later. on my way out the door I was ambushed by some strange girl with a bottomless super soaker. she wet all my hair and ruined my mood. i grabbed a hose and sprayed back so hard her body was being flung back under all the pressure. satisfied that i had earned my proper revenge, i got into the car with Amy and my brother and drove to RDP. 

there were giant black bears and huge mutant lions mauling everything in sight - like a mutant zoo had inexplicably exploded and released all its dangerous contents into the city. it felt like the end of the world had arrived in cartoon format, so as not to be taken too seriously. Amy's little Civic finally met its match and came under the grip of a huge 15-foot cat. the wheels were spinning in mid air before the animal finally let go for a second. we managed to drive away but quickly came across one of those giant trenches that couldn't be crossed. i screamed for everyone to get out of the car but my brother never made it. the giant cat pounced and flung him at least 30 feet into the air with one powerful swing of his paw. my brother hit the side of LDV Elementary with a sickening thud and then bounced another two or three times before his body sank into the grass. his eyes were glazed over like those of a dead soldier. 

nowhere near the head of the class

we were all sitting around in some stuffy elementary school classroom waiting to have our music projects graded by the teacher. i was sitting in the back doing my best to remain fairly invisible - the way i might have done when it was public speaking week back in high school English class. he started with the Curious Case record and directed his comments to Gianni, even though Dom and Jules were also in the room. he said the overall work was good - if not a little strange - but he hadn't been a huge fan of the Godfather theme they chose as a cover. i wanted to chime in with my own two cents but Gianni interrupted me, justifying all the eccentricities on the album as cool in a language that sounded like it was coming out of that strange dwarf from Twin Peaks. then the teacher looked over at me and made some flattering comments about my solo album. something about how i had captured the simplicity of the song structure and how it was an easy listen. i don't think he meant to be making comparisons but it kind of felt like he was anyway. after the presentations were over i stepped into a crowded hallway and just hung out with Coco talking music while people just brushed by on their way to class.

help me miss you

i`m starting to miss a lot of things.

i miss writing music. i miss having Jules crack me up. i miss going to see a show and feeling like we`re all in it together. i miss the butterflies. i miss the struggle. i miss sharing amazing moments with perfect strangers. i miss being an open book. i miss those late-night conversations and the cigarettes that go with them. i miss the magic and the morning afters.

i miss going through life with only a single thought in my head. and seeing the sparkle in my own eyes.