Might Be Here...

Generous. Now Invest 90 Minutes...

Coachella, We're Just Gonna Play This One Through...

I got in around 4 in the afternoon after buying my tickets from an outfit in a gas station parking lot right next to the highway. Two guys would buy from people going, via the street, and two would sell them to people coming, via the parking lot. I needed GA and a VIP and my guy wanted 475 for the pair before I crossed him up enough to get the VIP for 100, GA for 150. It's now half past 7 in the AM and I just generously sold the pair to a guy from Long Beach for 60. Like I said, we're playing this one straight through...because I just got home.

I made it into the gates a little too late to hear Girls close on what had to have been Hellhole Ratrace before walking over to Beach House before Tokyo Police Club before taking a breather from the stairs in VIP while Coheed and Cambria closed with the USC marching band (little trite) by playing Welcome Home (Bone Rattling) before a blast of Hot Chip and MGMT before I stacked up to the 5th row to see Muse.

This was my first time going to Indio for the festival. Music absolutely moves my world, but something about all the people and mess and being stuck for three days in the middle of the desert had never worked for me. There were bands I wanted to see this year, lots, but since I'm an in and out kinda guy, I figured the best way to approach this monster would be to see the boys and let 'em ignite my soul before I take off and then take off. That's what I did. Everyone I saw was good, really damn good. MGMT was way more polished and potentially iconic than I thought they were capable of and Hot Chip surprised me. Beach House was perfect. Muse ripped a hole in the earth, as usual, it's just how they play, and you can tell people over and over that they have to see it and that it will change their lives, but until they do, you're just spitting words...

I feel like this has been the last thing I needed to get out before leaving this city for a good, long stretch. If I didn't go, didn't see this, didn't do this, something in me might have felt unsettled. Muse finished and I didn't want to be waiting in the parking lot until 4 AM so I said good bye to a couple friends, made a move, got in my car and got out of the festival. Then I stopped. I got some gas and some neon worms and was ready to hit the road when a girl sent me a long, long text. A Girl...

There was a party happening at some airport hangar 10 minutes away, Neon Party. I was going to get on the highway before I had no choice but to turn around. I think it's a fair statement to say that I have an incredible amount of love for this Girl. We were out last friday and she pulled me aside to tell me something almost exactly like, I have been around the world and know the world's incredible people and in the time I've known you...if I had to count them all on one hand...one of them would be you. Fuck you, her words. Her words. I took them and smiled, pretended I had never even considered something so far fetching and berserk on my own, which of course I pretty much do every day. She talked about meeting me around the world when I leave and seeing each other before I go and I think it's a fair statement to say that she has an incredible amount of love for me. Do I need to mention that love can mean a lot of things? So...

When I showed up at this party, I was told to go find a woman up front, tell her my name, and that I was friends with Girl. The woman looked down at her clipboard to the top sheet and the only name there was mine. I was my own list. Inside, the place was a carnival. No, really, a mini carnival. There was a ferris wheel and bumper cars and a super slide and dollar games and one of those rides that makes people puke (awesome with an open bar!), and these, breakdancing...

...at a tucked away airport in the middle of the desert. It was brilliant, fucking brilliant. I got there sometime after midnight and found Girl shortly after and ravishing, so damn ravishing that thinking back on it means this is as good a time as any to explain the depth of my personal evolution...

I'm not sure at what point it happened, but I bet I can guess who it was a result of, probably the one you can find on here around the day of my 27th birthday. I had a lot of love for someone in the world and absolutely lost them from my life. They didn't die, they just became dead to me...or I became dead to them - whichever of the two means I was the one who got spit out. That. I think I've spent a lot of time in this world feeling misunderstood, and because of that, I've spent a lot of time over the past year and change wondering how I can let someone who has had a profound impact on my life, someone who I thought could understand my life, escape my life...post being lovers. What I'm going through now is something new, and a lot of it is coming through my head because of this new Girl, because I now have to face this and the reality that I haven't been moved enough to confront this in myself since...well, since the last time a Girl cut me up.

I used to be attracted to someone and have a need to take them to bed, right then, like it was the only satisfying force in the world. Now, when I find someone I have a real connection to, I don't want to jeopardize it with anything that even approaches a sexual relationship. Sounds a little fucked up and a little cowardly and probably also has something to do with the fact that I don't want to get mixed up in anything before I leave. The idea behind all of it sounds noble or like the kind of thing that someone could lend support to if they were trying to be supportive of me. Anyway, because of all these factors, I now in this moment have an incredible girl who floats around in my life every now and again and we started out on fire and good and now it's morphed into this hilariously tragic thing where we're both highly suspicious of each other. It's terrible or I'm just being dramatic. She's the kind of girl that has guys pressing up against her all the time, everywhere she goes. The first night we were out, I saw this clearly and told myself that I would never, ever be that, because I understood it, because all I wanted was to preserve a connection. I didn't want to lose another one because one of us tried to take that extra step. Now, here comes important growth and this is tremendous for me to say, but sex is hardly important. Hardly. Hardly. Don't get stuck on that...

Bridges started to form between us at some point, and because of that I started to worry she would think I was trying to be the one thing I didn't want to be...and I think she started to worry that her kindness might be leading me on. At some point, one of us closed up...closing the other one. I bitch a lot on here about damage sustained over the years and I have to guess that this Girl could tell some of the same stories and tout the very same wealth of pained emotion. I have a feeling. So now when I see her I'm kind but curt and evasive because I'm trying to be courteous and not drive us any further apart, which is naturally driving us further apart. And still, we're both going absolutely out of our way to put ourselves in the same places at the same times, I think because we share a common faith for the ideal that we can and should know each other well for the rest of our lives. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm after. It doesn't take me long to realize that about someone when someone turns me. Last night, I stayed at this party until sometime after or around 4 and at some point, maybe on the drive home, I realized my situation's fatal flaw. I fuck women. Clearly I can't be trusted to mean these noble things I'm saying. Clearly all I can be is cunning and eventually damaging and potentially regrettable. Even though I never made a single play, even though I never had any intention of making a play, this thing between her and I that I was going to so carefully preserve is about to be gone. I'm not here to force and I'm not going to fight and I'm not going to repair. Maybe that's passive and maybe that's cowardly too but I just don't have the time or especially the desire to be convincing to anyone but myself. You're either on or you're off and I give a fuck but honestly...I can't. So I don't.

Look at me now. Absolutely one of the nights of my life. Absolutely.

Setting Fire To Indio...

It was sometime after their September 11th release when I saw they were in the middle of their European tour. They were coming to the states but were touring behind...BEHIND U fucking 2. I like U2 as much as the next guy...or maybe not because I lied to get out of free Rose Bowl tickets when they came to town. Anyway, it wasn't working for me that these guys could open for anyone. It shouldn't have worked for them. So what I did was buy a ticket to Berlin to see them play at the O2. The song below was from that night, the song they opened with if I recall correctly.

Absolutely worth flying around the world to see. Of course later, they announced that they would be making their way through the states, officially, so I went and caught them at the Hard Rock in Vegas sometime in December and will be heading out to the desert on Saturday to see them under the stars. Some people might look at my actions and shake their finger and say something like patience. Some people have. I just shake my head, shake my head and say something like you should have seen what I saw. 5 albums in and the states are finally opening their arms to these guys. Half the people in the crowd on Saturday are going to be walking out, unable to understand the force that just hit them. And I think that's genius, and beautiful, and I can't wait.

I Think I Have A New Hero...

Until they pull this one...


And one hell of a musical guest to go with him...

This Is My Graceland...

Tonight, after I get off work, I'm driving out to Las Vegas. It's been a few years since I've been - stretching to my days of haze and black out. This time it's different or it's going to be different. I'm buying some new running shoes on my way out that I need to break in before January 17th. That means I'm getting up to run for 90 or so minutes both mornings - no matter what. Done are the days when I set myself up to fail because of the poison I ingest the night previous. I'm meeting a friend there who hails from the city of sin. He's going to show me around - my Graceland because we're going to the trailer park where Brandon Flowers used to write his music from - during the in betweens between his shifts as a bellhop. The Killers' second album, one of the greatest rock albums of all time is either named after the trailer park he grew up in or the casino he worked at - I'm not sure which is the truth. That's why I'm going - to feel the roots of one of the great bands and a frontmen who moves me greatly.

I'm staying at The Hard Rock tonight and Friday before taking in what I'm really in town to take in. About a month ago, I jumped on a plane and flew to Berlin, mostly because I didn't think these boys, the Muse boys, were going to make it over to the States...

On Saturday night, they're playing The Joint - at The Hard Rock. I'm there to take them in again - this time on my home soil. After the show, I'm driving home to make my 9am Sunday class. That's what the weekend is going to be like - something to look forward to. I put out an invite to Durban for Friday because I miss him and because I could use him and because we need to talk about these new book and life developments. He said he might show but I never know for sure. It's Durban.

An Afternoon With Team Nelms...

My scabs have finally peeled away. All I have are pale spots and slashes of what recently was.

Last Saturday, me and the boys made a drive up north to Mt. Pinos. They had been talking for months about taking bikes up the mountain and then bombing down in full armor and of the dives they'd taken and how I should come and see it and feel it and take it on. When my car broke down, I bought a bike that could handle that sort of excursion and then we went. And then there was snow. I knew that no matter what was going to come was just going to come, because fear or anticipation are by the day becoming useless traits to me. I remember thinking something like, fuck we're really doing this, before we dropped into the first trail and then I remember just hanging on. It was fast and rugged and I was such a rook to these flying maniacs, but they took me through. The first run, I rode a lot of brake. The second, considerably less. There's a fucked up drop in on the second of three paths that takes a lot of faith, especially for a kid who had both never seen it and was scared to hell of heights - also the cause of the great closing wreck to the following video. I remember dropping through and then thinking I'd be alright. I took my first dive into a patch of thorn bushes and survived it and loved it and then remember thinking I'd be alright.

We rode until the sun was setting, until a rider we passed said something like, if you guys go down that trail again it's frostbite for sure...before we rode the trail again, until the sun set, until we couldn't even see the damn trail anymore. We packed up, hit some bottom of the hill pizza joint, drank some hot chocolate and drove home. At some point, I pulled a thorn from my leg that was at least a quarter inch inside. It felt fitting, and even one week away, it still feels like a damn good day.

Esh even let me pick the music...

Better...

For Now, This One's Pretty Good...

Muse - Berlin O2 Arena - 10/29/09...

I woke up at 430 Berlin time, before my alarm, wondering who and where the fuck I was. Seriously. I felt like I was going to die so I turned to drugs, resurrection in the form of 15mg's and was on my feet in no time - or at least in anticipation of being back on my feet in no time. In the morning I had eaten some bizarre form of yogurt Haribos and that was it so I crossed the river and found a small Italian place with a table by the door...

I ordered house made penne with prawns in a lobster cream sauce and a small margherita pizza and a Warsteiner. Half-way through the beer I started to feel my guts, shooting - like all that I was going to be was coming to life. It would have happened without the drugs, sure...I just don't know to what extent, and I don't know how exhaustion would have played its hand. The night was too big to leave things up to chance so I didn't. By the time the food came, I was rolling and starving and all I wanted to do was devour it so I did. Incredible. One of the better meals I have ever had - absolute comfort. I was reading the map and memorizing the subways and squares and parks like a machine and the waitresses were softening to me because I am who I am. I started to ask them how to say things in German, maybe telling them I loved them for teaching me, for bringing me along, for giving me such incredible hospitality while all the while thinking I'm on drugs I'm on drugs I'm on drugs. They sat down at my table and we talked because it was slow and because I am who I am and I promised them I would return. Of course I would return. Of course I would never forget them. Of course. The more oncoming of the two told me I could walk to the O2 and that made me very excited, crossing town in 20 minutes while relying entirely on myself and my feet and my toes, knees, heart, eyes...my brewing fucking insanity.

The streets were cold. LA has thinned me in too many ways. My guts were pumping and I was thinking about all the small things it took to land me in this town - alarms to shuttles to flights to flights to hotels to maps to millions of things I wasn't even capable to comprehend. It was too much and there was still so much that would need to happen - like getting a ticket to the show I flew in to see. When I got there around 7, it happened quick. Face value from will call, floor - exactly and all I was looking for - something like 50 Euros. I told the will call girl that I loved her. She blushed.

I was standing about 4 rows from the gates when they, the band, came on. It's been a while since I took something in from the floor. The people surrounding were all German, everyone, naturally and surprisingly, and one out of every 3 was wearing a Muse T-shirt. Amazing! Concert T's and they didn't give a fuck about it or to know any better. Exactly where I wanted to be...right in the shit.

I can't really say what it was like. We all have a form of art that for a lack of better words simply speaks to us. These guys so simply speak to me...but with blazing force. The motherfuckers in the crowd surrounding me were crazy and rabid and I left the show wearing a jacket soaked with sweat. It was exactly what I came to see, exactly what I came to feel -- everything and then the drop in Cydonia to close. Every human should experience a moment like the one I caught before they die. I'd speak of it, but to speak of magic is to kill it. I'm certainly not here to do that.

Berlin...

I don't think I'll ever get tired of the feeling behind getting on a plane and falling into a daze for hours or days and waking up in a very different country in a very different part of the world. Last time I came to Germany, I remember it being somewhat scary and overwhelming. It was Munich for Oktoberfest and it was the second stop on my tour and it just felt so foreign. This time, the feeling is different, like I'm catching it in stride, like any town in the world I want to be mine can instantly become that. It's cold here, and drizzling, and the colors are beautiful, so fucking beautiful. I came to check into my room and my hands were so cold, I couldn't hold a pen...like that. It looks like this...

I haven't slept in days and my eyes are caving into my skull. I didn't sleep on the plane because I sat next to a Girl who is in town for a runway show - we picked her up in New York. I don't like to talk much on planes or in life, but we started talking and never really stopped. Beautiful girl. Model. Dark. Funny. Precious. She was on the plane with an entire staff of girls in town for the same show - flown in from New York. She was afraid of turbulence and for stretches, I wanted to kiss her or hold her hand because of it and for the sake of neither of us forgetting that flight. I didn't - can't assume the entire world behaves in the manner I do all the time. Instead, we agreed to meet at some place, at some point...out on this town. See what's what, fall for a couple hours or days or never see each other again. I prefer to make life behave in such a manner.

It's one or something in the afternoon here. I have to make my way over to the O2 at some point, or to some ticket broker at some point to get this Muse ticket. Of course I don't have it yet. I'm exhausted but fueled, oh so fucking fueled. I just spent the last 2 hours wandering the city on foot, waiting to stumble upon my hotel or the street of my hotel before I stopped to buy a map...so I've seen a lot. I don't care why I do the things I do anymore and have instead learned to accept them and myself. This city feels heavy to me, beautifully and romantically and tragically heavy and I'm floating through it. I need to sleep but I need to wander, I need to walk, I need to see what's out there. And when the legs start to give and there appears that tired ache behind my eyes and my beating heart tells me to stop to fucking stop to take a fucking breath, I compromise on something that looks something like this...

And press the fuck on.

Just Precious...

One of my girls who looks out for all things good just sent this link to me. So that band I'm chasing down in Germany booked this below Italian TV show to promote the release of their album which came out something like 10 days ago. Apparently, the show's producers demanded that the band lip sync their song for whatever reason...and then likely got very serious about it saying something like, don't you know who we are peasant band...we're an Italian TV show! At least I'm guessing that's what happened because when the band members playing on your show decide to swap instruments and positions before they "perform", you're not exactly holding a storm of clout. Douche.

My Empty Words Were Growing Far Too Tiresome...

I've been walking around lately telling people something exactly like, well I'm far too good looking and far too charming to ever pay for any lodging in any city outside the confines of Los Angeles. I only say this because it makes the burden of having little money less of a burden. My intolerance for stillness is absolute and I haven't done anything to bury it for a long, long time.

So I decided to do something about it. Last week, I bought a ticket to Germany to land in town the day Muse lands. The boys are playing at the O2 in Berlin on October 29th and I'm gonna crash it. You can only talk so much shit about taking off and chasing something in a faraway country for a weekend for so long until you become full of shit and I can't ever let that happen. Sometimes, I get stuck waiting for a boat to come in before I get out and do the things that move me in this world and I'm ashamed to admit that because it's cowardly. I can't ever let that happen again. I wont ever let that happen again.

Berlin On My Mind...

Muse - The Resistance...

It's been a long time since I took something up to Mulholland. Sometimes I wonder how many times I have left to take something up to Mulholland...like right now. I can think of nothing better to glide me through my winds and turns.

Got it. Go get it. The album. It's out right now. Go steal it. Or don't. I don't care. But if we're on the same page, I think you should. Feel like this is going to be a big week...

Fanboy...

I find myself continuously returning to Wembley on here or on empty nights or when I feel like a posting slacker...because it's not only brilliantly produced, but to me, it strikes as the finest live performance in the history of the world - and that's me trying not to sound as dramatic as I instinctually should.

The new album is about a month away - and the tour follows. I have these grand plans of working my ass off all of September to make an extra 1500 to blow it flying to Berlin to see a show on October 29th. You can pre-order their coming album on I-Tunes for the release date of September 15th and read the track list, 11 songs, ending with three called Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1, Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2, and Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3. I read grandeur like that and feel so inspired, I want to cry. When I hear them, I probably will. Because I'm like that, and fucking proud.

Muse...

I was absolutely planning on going into Tower Bar to see my old friend Dimitri tonight. Now I'm occupied, can't stop listening to this...

This Fall is going to be something else. A couple years ago, it felt like everyone was lining up and dropping at the same time. Within the next 2 months, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, MGMT and Vampire Weekend (both not quite in the company yet) and most importantly Muse all have new stuff coming. My deities are returning. I will say again what I have said a thousand times in this limited life -- this is the finest band that has ever walked the earth. Take me away Bellamy. Take me away...

Let's Stay On Music...

Because I'm starting to feel that pull. I think it has something to do with daylight savings and the light staying around longer than usual - and the world waking up again - and this this idea of elevated happiness for 7 months until time comes calling for the world to tuck itself away...and I always follow suit, maybe because I'm a creature of habit, maybe because I've yet to fully figure myself out.

Anyway, all of this leads us back into Muse...who released Black Holes And Revelations a few years ago. You can certainly dig through my posts and find me writing up all their glory over and repeatedly on here...

Countless mentions on shows or nights spent chasing them on YouTube, or proclaiming to any willing ears, the title Rock God upon Matt Bellamy - because when it comes to them, maybe more than anything else in this artistic world, I am a fanboy and have no problem saying that. And when I watch the videos of Wembley in '07, I feel like I'd give a year of my life to have been there. That's where I'm at.

So tonight, I was fishing around a little bit, because it's time. It's time to give me something new to root for in life. Time for a new album. I respect the fact that they take exactly that...time, usually a couple years between releases and usually tour like monsters before, during and after dropping an album...but like I said, again, for the 5th and 6th time, it's time.

So this was nice...

"I'd say we're about halfway there. We're creating a lot of material now and a lot of it's going off in all sorts of directions... Over the next couple of months I think we're gonna have to start narrowing it down and start saying, 'Right, what are we going to do here?' Because at the moment we're just enjoying totally exploring everything that we've got to offer really, but I think it's going very well... We've got to finish the album first, but I'd hope that we're on for a tour later in the year sometime... Probably autumn time or something like that I should think we'll be back on the road."

It'll be October. Good date to chase music around the world...somewhere that trades winter for summer. Yeah.

Watchmen...

Pretty big stuff. And listen...catch that?

Because Here, We Always Support Genius...