How about a sort of roundabout explanation for my suddenly more...desperate desire to hop in the car and end up somewhere like, oh, Big Sky. Or Palm Springs...
Or Vegas.
Or Mexico.
Wherever.
Beginning of last month I made a Not-Quite-Resolution to expand my musical reportoire. Diversify. I think I figured if I listened to one new artist a week I'd be doing pretty well.
...and then I discovered this practically biological imperative compelling me to attend Coachella this year, which - when coupled with spending some time recently with a music buff who has tastes that agree with mine and a great knack for recommending stuff I'll probably like - means I'm listening to more like 3 or 4 new bands a DAY. I'll checkout the Coachella lineup and pick a handful that I'm not familiar with, filter my way through their library while curled up with the Kindle each evening and end up with a fistful of new albums that I suddenly can't figure out how I ever lived without.
Case in point: Lucero.
Southern-styled indie rock group out of Memphis. Constantly compared to both Springsteen and the Replacements, but I feel a heavier dose of Bob Seger a'la "Roll Me Away." Gritty vocals, interesting piano riffs, highly catchy. Bumps up against that "jangle-pop" genre, but with less slick, more rough-hewn production. Loved them instantly. Evoked that "they wrote this song just for me!" feeling that happens only once in awhile.
Great. So. What does that have to do with the road trip fever...? Well, the "written just for me" tune in this case was called "I can get us out of here" from their 2006 "Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers" release. The gist: pretty much just that. Car's outside waiting. Don't think. Don't waste time with saying goodbye. Just get in. He'll get us outta here.
Lucero - I Can Get Us Out of Here Play it.
Loudly.
While imagining all 4 windows windows down and wind in your eyelashes and 75-degree sunshine on your left arm.
It got me right in my wanderlust-ee sweet spot. Spoke to the "hop in car and escape with me" yearning I've had since I was sixteen years old. Played right into my "let's get to know each other on the open road" fantasy. The whole "getting the hell outta here" sentiment is a recurring theme in ALMOST all of my favorite songs, but this time of year - when it seems like summer will never come, when it feels like I've been trapped under the gloomy umbrella of Seattle's winter for at least a year, when I'm restless and desperate for a change of scenery, when I'm itching for a little adventure to splinter the months of working monotony and when I'm ready to bolt at a moment's notice - I'm even more of a sucker for a good Roat Trip Romance Tune.
It's probably why the unfinished premise of both of my "novels-in-progress" revolve around the road trip. In one version, two almost perfect strangers end up on a satisfyingly aimless ramble across the country. In the other a girl takes to the highway to heal from some trauma or another and manages to shake off the pain as the miles roll past her window. I guess I associate long stretches of asphalt with freedom, opportunity, a runway to unemcumbered peace of mind, an 80 mph straight-shot at contentment -- even if only one tank of gas at a time.
I do my best thinking in my car.
When I have a big decision to make or some sort of spiritual conflict to resolve, I grab my favorite tunes and do my agonizing at freeway speeds. Somehow the blurred scenery makes things in my head feel more focused. And being in control of the car must be some sort of metaphor for the greater sense of control I may or may not feel I have over my life in general.
The irony in all of this is that my earliest road-trippin memories were rife with enough "Chevy-Chase-esque" misadventure to permanantly deter me from so much as getting behind the wheel, let alone loading up the iPod and settling in for the long haul (ask me about the fantastic perils of a cross-country move from Indiana to Oregon in an aging Oldsmobile station wagon and you'll have a fresh appreciation for my intimate familiarity with rest stops in middle-of-nowhere Wyoming). But hey, goes to show the most elaborately constructed fantasty trumps reality for me when creativity is at stake.
I have this long-simmering idea that if I were to grab my laptop and load up a suitcase and decide to just go for it - drive until I felt like stopping, then turn around and come back - that I'd be able to finish my novel along the way. Stop for lunch, crank out a chapter. Crash at a cheap motel or sleep in the car, knock out a few more chapters. Discover myself and -- therein -- discover my characters a little more authentically. I think I'll have to try it to disprove the idea. And I might surprise myself along the way and actually finish writing one of those novels.
In the meantime....
Um....I've taken 4 days off in the end of April - just have to buy the Coachella tickets and get ready for a drive to Palm Springs. Sure...I could fly.....
What fun would that be...?
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