Going away for the weekend up to Tahoe for some 24 hour bike-race thingy. No, I'm not gonna race in it (yeah, right), I'm just gonna hang, drink some beer and give "support" to my friends who are doing it. Which means no postings til I come back. Don't know why I'm saying that since pretty much the only people who read this are either on the trip or know I'm gone, but, here's some meaty piece of sappiness that'll tide you over til then. Hearing that people love when the bring the sap on…

On Saturday, it'll be the ten-year Anniversary of when I plopped my somewhat scared yet excited butt onto a plane to begin a two and a half-month odyssey through Europe. The ole backpacking thing through Europe thing, with my always trusty sidekick Stoner and not so trusty sidekick Butthead (okay, that's not nice. Let's call him Beavis) instead. I always like to mark the occasion in some way because it still means a lot to me. It involved some of the best times of my life. It was a time in which I had immeasurable amounts of fun in immeasurable ways. And it was the occasion in which EVERYTHING CHANGED.

There's a whole bunch of stuff that happens when you travel. There is, for instance, something about plopping yourself into some random foreign city armed only with your backpack, American Express Traveler's Checks, a copy of Let's Go Europe, and your travelling companions and have it all come out right that does wonderful things for the soul. And there's nothing like singing "Summer Loving" from Grease in Greece with a bunch of drunken Irish, Brits, Aussies, Israeli's and Belgians (Belgians?) that'll give you that Bob Marleyesque fuzzy one world feeling. And there's also nothing like seeing some mullet-headed Jersey guy strut around during a USA/Ireland Volleyball trampling to make you realize why most of the rest of the world reacts to Americans with a giant roll of the eyes.

But travelling like that gives you a sense of what life should be all about. What life can be all about. About adventure and learning and having your mind blown on a regular basis. Of meeting great and interesting people almost daily and being secure and happy enough that even if you've only known them for a few hours, you still feel like you're best friends. And knowing that when you wake up, you have nothing to worry about other than what amazing thing you were going to see and do and where the party will be.
Sadly, as we all know, life is often not like that at all.

Which is why whenever I come upon the Anniversary, or recount in my head where I was when x number of years ago, I can't help but feel bittersweet about it, almost veering into Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness land. I have, for instance, an entire drawer full of photos from that trip, hundreds of them, which I once said I was going to go through and put in a photo album, but haven't done yet. Which isn't that amazing considering how lazy I am, but I haven't even really looked through the photos in years. I don't want to.

I'm not big into nostalgia. Don’t' get the warm fuzzies by looking back and constantly reminiscing about the past. Guess I haven't acquired those rose-colored glasses yet. And while this particular moment was all good, unlike other moments, that's the problem in looking back, the fact that it was so good. That's especially true know, in the middle of my "woe is me, I need a job" funk. It's particularly hard to look at photos of a smiling, happy me on a motor scooter somewhere on Naxos, or with Stoner and Beavis clinging together steins of beer at Oktoberfest, or looking oh so chic and full of je ne sais quis in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background. It's also particularly hard because during times like these, there are times that parts of that trip still come out in the middle of the night and whisper to me about roads not taken.

But enough with the depressing stuff. This shouldn't be all doomy gloomy. It was a great trip.
So let's put things this way because it'll put it all in perspective….

San Francisco has this new radio station, the technoy, danncey station that plays dance tunes (92.7). Now, I hate the very idea of Dance Music. I want to rock. But sometimes, as I'm flipping through the dial, I'll hear a song on that station and stop for a few moments.

It's not, for God's sake, because I like the music (fucking Raaaawkkkk dude), but what the music represents.
Because I don't like the music, I never really hear it. It's not the music I have in my CD collection, not the music I listen to on the radio, and not the music that I go to bars to listen to. As a result, the only time I really hear that kind of music is when I travel cause everyone else loves that music. So, when I hear that music on the radio, especially a certain song or certain sound, I'm no longer really right here, right now in San Francisco. I'm thousands of miles away.

I'm dancing in a club in Phuket with the only woman in the club who doesn't cost $100 bucks a night. I'm in a pub somewhere in London drinking a pint with a bunch of old dudes in leather with football (that's real football, not American football) on the Telly and techno tunes playing in between Motorhead songs.

And I'm always, always at the Pink Palace on Corfu, totally toasted on Ouzo after doing the Ouzo circle, so blisfully drunk that Stoner and I- two of the whitest, dorkiest, non dancingest guys ever- find outselves boogying our butts off til 4 in the morning, loving every moment of it. And everytime I think of that moment, no matter what the state of my burnt out haze, I can't help but get a big, huge smile on my face.