cock the hammer

and there's your march. Maybe it's about deciding what choices you want to make, but doing it in a way that doesn't really seem like you had to decide very much. You know, sort of living by braille.

I remember the first time i learned about driving by braille. I was 17, had a schweet Hosoi Hammerhead and a bunch of piercings. This goes back to the days when beers had pull tabs, and it was cool to hang them from safety pins through your ear. I had just quit highschool and taken a one-way flight to California. Dag Nasty was playing at The Farm that night, but we weren't going there. We were going to this party in the hills.

It was me, doctor jay, and kimberly, our host. This incidentally was my first experience with Tequiza by the way, still at least a decade from making an official splash in the united states. You'll recall that Ronald Reagan was running things, and Oliver North was in the frying pan that summer. He always reminded me of Henry Rollins for some reason.

Well anyways, we were going to this party in the hills somewhere, north of Palo Alto and south of San Francisco. I was already about 2 days familiar with the difference between California Green and New Hampshire Flat grass. It was a teenager's dream you might say. As an adult i have a hard time really really remembering just how impressive it all was, but my mental picture of it all is still strong enough to make me smile as i write about it.

This was a party at one of those Northern California Hillside homes, you know, the rich dad with the hot daughters and the cool bro's hanging around by the bbq. Vintage porsche in the driveway. Everybody's got surfboards and skateboards around the house. it's like, 65 and it's march.

Well anyhow, we danced and partied and laughed with a bunch of hot cali girls and they were mixing tequila with burgie! which is basically the same as tequiza any day of the week. We were drinking them out of red solo cups and with lime in em.

after smoking a bunch of joints and having a few pints of the bathtub tequiza, we all piled into this one dude's International Scout, (california style, no doors, no top, kind of yellow or something, nice stereo, roll bar, etcetera) and we took off for a ride to some make out spot away from the house and up in the hills.

While we were going there, you know, of course it's real twisty mountain roads and all that, real beautiful style, and the music is great, even if i can't remember what it was, i'm sure it was great, because everyone in the truck was pretty cool, and what the hell? Why wouldn't cool people be rocking the cool tunes when they're 17?

So anyway, the dude driving, he's all, "check it out man, we're driving braille." And then he closed his eyes and just drifted to the center line where they have all them dots you know, the reflective ones, except this was mid eighties, so they weren't reflective yet, they were just like round plastic buttons in the road. yellow, sure, but not reflectors. And then he just drove along following the bumps with the wheels and his eyes closed while we hooted and hollared like maniacs standing in the back holding the roll bar.

yar. March was good like that. And right now, that's how life feels. I mean, i'm sort of closing my eyes and following the bumps, keeping to my side of the road, but right out at the edge.

these photos are about the events that opened my month of march.

Also, here is a little story that derin thorpe told outside Piano's in the LES tonight. It's about The Fonz.

dTown | 40˚ | listening to Cypress Hill