mood: embarrassed music: 'we fenced other gardens with the bones of our own' by liars

yes, that is the real name of the song... it's a weird song.

rich people drive fast. but i think i'll explain that in a bit. i want to do this all chronological-like.

our show went ok despite the fact that i broke a string during the first song's guitar solo. it was a surprise party for my friend who turned 18, so i didn't elaborate too much in the last mention i made to prevent any possible info leaks. we played 14 songs, all covers, 3 of which we hadn't previously played before. one of those three, we learned especially for her, and it was a pain in the ass but worth the look on her face. yes, we got it on tape. speaking of which i just finished watching the tape of us. remember how my string broke? that was the 'b' string on my main guitar. the 'good' guitar, one might say. so i was forced to use my secondary guitar, otherwise known as the 'cheap' guitar. there's a reason it's cheap and the other one isn't: the cheap one never stays in tune. so on the video, everything went well except for that tiny bit of nickel plated steel, which ended up throwing our sound off. now i feel like an ass. it was andrea's party, but it was a new experience for us too. i just wish it would have gone as pristine as i thought it would never be. not that my fellow musicians didn't do well. on the contrary. they play so well with each other, and i'm lucky to be a part of that. plus, we've gotten really good at covering up each others' mistakes. hehe.

today, southern california's elevation plummeted to -300 miles below sealevel, bringing us all a little bit closer to hell. do you know how freaking hot it was today? i distinctly remember waking up in my pressure cooker of a room with my covers thrown off and my t-shirt soaked in sweat. i hate that feeling. i get it often though. my room gets the hottest in the summer and the coldest in the winter.

so anyway, after a cold-ish shower and an afternoon of sloth and half-na.kedness, i decided to go out to a barnes and noble. i needed to buy a journal for my english class.

allow me to digress for a moment. just how many journals does a guy need? the apparent answer is 3. my 'notebook', this blog, and now the new fancy school-assigned journal. 'all great men keep journals,' my english teacher likes to say. i know. that's why i already have two. does this mean i'm 3 times greater than everyone else now? that's egofuel if i ever heard any.

where was i? right, barnes and noble. i picked up coffee too for the sake of picking up coffee, and i did what i am known for: i drove. well this was different, though. after a while, i realized i had a tiny shred of knowledge of where i was, but i couldn't remember how i knew. then i saw a sign that told me i was at the holiday inn. then i saw the unmistakable cylindrical profile of not just any holiday inn. it was the one i remembered from when i was a tiny child on the way to universal studios for the first time. it meant that i was approaching the mountains. then i realized i didn't have any place to U-turn, so i went with the flow and took a really long road into the mountain pass and towards the valley.

then i saw something else. a street sign. the road i was on turned into none other that mulholland drive. yes, that mulholland drive. the one that inspired david lynch's movie of the same title. one of my favorite movies of all time. for all the years i've lived in los angeles, it never occurred to me how many famous places i had the ability to go see fairly easily. in this case, mulholland drive is only 14 miles from where i live. so i ventured onto the famed mountain road, i could see almost right away why this street struck mr. lynch as so special. it's like a 2-laned snake weaving back and forth, slithering to and fro. and on a half-moonlit night like tonight's, all the trees' shadows cast an ominous mood on the asphalt. the lines between the black shadows and the deep blue midnight sky are both blurred and distinct at the same time, and if you thought that wasn't possible, it is on mulholland drive.

it's not an easy street to drive on, especially at night. first off, everything is liable to distract you. the mailboxes look like deer, the trees look like giant people, and it is a rich neighborhood, so expect the ooh's and ahh's of colored lighting and gigantic estates.

next, it is a mountain road, so if the oncoming traffic cutting way too close for comfort doesn't scare you, the huge dropoff will. but, with huge dropoffs come almost endless views. this falls in the category of distractions. at one point i pulled over and went up to the railing at the edge of a cliff. it was overseeing the city. i could see so much i felt like i was a god being all omniscient-like.

lastly, it's extremely easy to get lost. god knows i did. and i was ever so freaked out. not in a panicky way, though. i was calm but had that tickle of fear in the pit of my stomach. that seems to be the worse kind of fear when you're driving through the dark unfamiliarity of those unlit roads, though. eventually i found a freeway that merged into another more familiar freeway and my fear stepped aside for inspiration.

all of these things are topped off by the fact that rich people like to drive fast. i guess that they figure they'll just buy some more lives or something. if you think mailboxes and trees are distracting, try concentrating with an suv's highbeams blinding you every so often. they take those tight turns so fast, it makes me wonder how often some trust fund teenager hurtles him or herself off a cliff. maybe if they slowed down a bit, i wouldn't have gotten lost in a rush to please their personal agendas. they should've recognized my car as one owned by a member of the middle or 'less-fortunate' class.

oh, was it ever worth it though. now i understand why the movie mulholland drive has such an eerie and strange mood to it. the street gives off the same weird vibe. tingly.

---Goei---