Sometimes these are easier to write. The situation lends itself to words. Like if you drive up to the top of the highest peak in Los Angeles County, a gorgeous view with a house, up in Malibu. It was owned by a free spirit of a lady named Peggy, who says she met Mr. Fullbright at SXSW a few years back, and offered him one hell of a crash pad whenever he and his minstrels rolled through LA.
We parked beside a row of horned skulls, just down the hill from a cave where Peggy showed me an etching from 1873. Or at least, it said 1873, and looked old, and this didn’t seem like the type of place to question that sort of thing. We were only there a few hours, set up, load the band in, they played three songs, hung out and shot the shit for a little bit, then we saddled up and headed back down the winding road towards the beach, towards where we live, our “real lives.”
When you roll in and out of a story that quick, you’ve got to keep the traces fresh, because not all of it will stick with you. The conversations and faces will fade, but the skulls, the caves, the songs, the view, the fog rolling through the hills on the way down, that stuff tends to linger.
Looking back, on all of it, not just this ride, but all the rides, it’s that constant feeling of finding new places to marvel at and new songs to marvel with that keep us fresh. Like Mr. Fullbright says “all it takes is getting used to getting lost.” I don’t believe we’re fully there yet, it’s not second nature, but if we keep meeting up with good folks like this in wild places like this was, then I think we’ll get there, slow and steady right?