Songs, Wine, and Stars

[NOTE: Over the course of the past several days, I've run into several technological brick walls including (but not limited to) a motel without a telephone and the desire to get away for a bit... I've got some catchin' up to do. Love, JJ.

PS. This entry comes before the one entitled "Walk Me Out" in the greater sequence of things. ]

The Chateau
Berkeley, California

Vibes, vibes, everywhere there're vibes... rushing down the coast with timely songs blasting... our perfectly timed arrival in Big Sur... the near-perfect joint... songs, wine, and stars...

The day broke in true Los Angeles fashion, sprinklers running in glorious synch. I could hear them from the bed in the basement of my Aunt Betsy's house, whooshing on the neighbor's property. We were slow in gathering our stuff together and got on the road a while after we intended to. When we did, we dropped swiftly onto the Pacific Coast Highway, busting northward with all the windows down. Inside the car, the wind was challenged by music - the sixth disc of "Hampton Comes Alive", I think - with the distorted rhythms of Sabotage occasionally peeking through the rhythmic rush, like a carefully mixed ambient track.

We passed through surfer towns and beach communities, little shacks overlooking the surf. We passed gas stations and diners. As Los Angeles disappeared in the background, so did the restless energy that goes along with the city. Things slowed to a steady chug as we moved along tiny strips of roads that hugged the cliffs tightly. No where was it more evident than during this leg of the trip how much surroundings have an effect on vibe. By the time we got in range of Big Sur, things had mellowed from the energy of Sabotage to the quiet acoustic strains of the Velvet Underground's third, self-titled, album. We discovered a path down to a secluded, rocky beach that (as it turns out) both of us had descended with our respective families the last time we were each in Big Sur.

Just before we entered the village of Big Sur proper, we found a campground.

***
After we got our tent set up, we made a quick foray to the general store for supplies. By the time we returned to camp, it was nearing sunset. Our goal for the day was to watch the sunset over the ocean, preferably in someplace quiet and free of distraction. We drove about a half-mile from the campsite and stopped at several pull-offs, trying to find a place that we could sit and watch in peace. None of them panned out, none of them providing a place far enough away from the rush of the road to let us forget it. The sun, meanwhile, was rapidly disappearing, the sky turning all sorts of magnificent shades, and we were in a dizzied panic, trying to find a place to sit down.

I was about to get in the car, ready to head off to a pedestrian lookout point and watch from there, when Jon called out "hey, hold on, let me check over here". He was stopped by the entrance to some underbrush. A well-worn trail seemed to disappear behind a layer of branches. Jon ducked his head in and called out. "Yeah, there's path in here. We've gotta duck a little, but I think it'll work."

"Eh?"

The bushes rustled. I stood on the perimeter, waiting for either a response from Jon or the distant splash of a body hitting the ocean. Then, I heard Jon's voice, blocked by thick growth. He was excited. "This is it! This is the place! C'mon... hurry up, the sun's setting."

I made my way gingerly into the bushes. Indeed, there was a path, topped off by some low hanging branches. On the other side, maybe five or six feet through, I saw an opening and, then, hanging space. I came out of the opening and gulped. In front of me was a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean from high atop a cliff. The path continued, four feet wide, and wound out of our sight. Jon was sitting with his legs dangling over. I found a spot, my body shivering towards the opening in the brush. I'm not afraid of heights, per se, I just didn't feel the urge to get closer.

Jon handed me a joint. I pulled off of it and passed it back. It went back and forth in silence. The sky turned all sorts of pink and orange, the sun itself just out of view around the corner of a jutting natural wall. Below us, we could hear the surf breaking. A noise came from below. "Is that...?" I started to ask, somewhat incredulous.

"Yeah; seals or sea lions or something."

"Shit."

"Yeah, I know," Jon agreed.

"Ya know," I said, contemplating the weight of the statement before delivering it. "This might well be almost the perfect joint."

Jon looked out towards the ocean. "Why only almost?"

 "I wanna leave room for something better, just in case."

"Makes sense."

***
When we got back, it was pitch black. While Jon made a fire out of some firewood we purchased at the entrance to the campground and the remains of a promotional pamphlet for prostitutes we picked up in Vegas, I restrung my guitar. I hadn't actually taken it out in over a year, instead commandeering my housemate's acoustic for my own purposes. After the fire got going, Jon pulled out the bottle of wine we purchased at the store. We passed it back and forth, both taking deep, cleansing gulps.

The fogs burned in several stages, appearing to die and then kicking back in with a series of small white blasts. I ran through every song that came to mind, singing quietly on top of the hill we were camped on, which overlooked the rest of the campground, and half-wondering if they could hear me. Small lines in the song took on new meanings connected to experiences I've had over the course of the last month on the road. It was great fun. Like in Las Vegas, time lost all meaning. In Vegas, one entered into a peculiar rhythm defined by whatever amusement you were sucked into at the time.

In Big Sur, we got sucked into our own rhythm. We continued to pass the wine around. Soon, we were near the bottom of the bottle. "What time is it?" I asked Jon, keeper of the watch and thinking it was probably somewhere near three in the morning.

"Let me turn on the flashlight and check my watch." Jon did so. "It's around 10:30."

"Geeze."

He shined the light on the wine bottle. "Hey, this stuff's from South Africa. It's '97."

"What year did Apartheid end?" I asked, half-kidding.

"What?"

"It'd just be weird if were drinking wine that was bottled while Apartheid was still going on and then sold later."

"Yeah," Jon agreed, "that would be kinda fucked up."

Above our campsite, a clear ring of sky was visible where - miles away from any real civilization - the stars were absolutely vibrant. Each bright spot of light we saw was bottled, shot off from its home some years ago and only arriving here, burning itself onto our retinas, at that particular point in time -- an old thought, to be sure, but still a charged one; much less chance of being eventually dated than rock records or art or architecture.

This was bottled time itself, stars and wine.

Jesse Jarnow can be reached at jesse.jarnow@oberlin.edu or by his homepage. Previous tour journals are located here.