The Happening

"When I grow up, I'll turn the tables", once sang the underrated alt rock outfit Garbage back in the '90s. Sofia Coppola has taken this mantra to heart and promised this since her 1999 debut effort The Virgin Suicides. Adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides 1993 novel. A semi well written for what is but also inherently trashy novel. Eugenides does his best but there's no denying the immaturity of the material.

Now, I couldn't tell you if he's part of that literary Brat Pack of Brett Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney but he should be. This is more my ex's field so you'd have to ask her but even though they're sort of disconnected by decades, they're all connected to me because of how juvenile I believe they all are (a source of many arguments back in the day). At best they make edgy teenage rubbish that you could either champion out of nostalgia or ironically. Should have known there'd be trouble in that relationship from the start when I gave her a copy of my favourite book at that time, JG Ballard's Crash, and she gave it back 2 days later and deemed it to be the most vile crap she'd ever read. To put it respectably, different tastes and sensibilities. Anyway, minus the odd shot fired back and forth here and there for comedic purposes, I wish all my ex's a good day.

Whether Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides is a good movie remains to be seen but what is clear even from the outset, she's a phenomenal director of musical sequences. Every time I watch it, I care less for its feminist angle, teenage boredom and its critiques of conservative parenting and more for the scenes of the formidable Josh Hartnett walking up and down the school corridors to Heart's Magic Man. Trip Fontaine was exactly the kind of vibes a young Jacob Kelly wanted to exude after discovering the movie in his sixth form days in an all girl's school. Legend has it I brought a much needed sexiness back to that school but I'll let you be the judge of that.

Considering she was only 28 at the time, there's a lot I can forgive about The Virgin Suicides. Perhaps she wasn't as mature as Orson Welles, Dennis Hopper or my own personal favourite Paul Thomas Anderson (who gave us the actual best film ever made aged 27) but she had talent behind the camera, that much was clear. The conversion from The Virgin Suicides in to Lost In Translation is just perfect career progression. From flawed but one to keep an eye out for to arguably a masterpiece. She displayed a maturity on that one, which she hasn't displayed since. It was a false hope.

People make the mistake of thinking the feminism is the strongest aspect of Sofia Coppola's filmmaking, it isn't. The truth is, it's what brings her down. Her greatest weapon is social alienation and father/daughter relationships. Lost In Translation is her least overtly feminist, has all of these elements and is widely considered her masterpiece so there's your proof. On the other hand, Marie Antoinette, her follow up in 2006 is a return to disappointing naivety. There's been a sort of critical revival for Marie over the last few years with some now considering it a masterpiece. An interesting turn of events as I have seen myself go from being on the side of 'its underrated' to 'it's overrated' without my opinions on it not changing.

Honestly, Marie Antoinette is a very fun film with a great use of an anachronistic soundtrack. Adam and the Ants Kings of the Wild Frontier is an exceptional song choice and Kirsten Dunst is a fucking star. However, this film could be her weakest study of privilege without power. A middle class family with children of low agency? Tolerable. A photographer's wife disregarded and abandoned in hotels? Fantastic and very personal. An Australian princess? Come on, you're really pushing it, Sofia.

Neither capitalism or feudalism can provide true emancipation for women. Such a task can only be achieved through addressing the material and economic roots of women's oppression. Consequently, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette is nothing other than the product of a rich kids take on feminism without any understanding of class politics. Proper princess fairytale feminism. Fully enjoyable for the over the top camp and lavish ridiculousness but let's not fool ourselves in to thinking it's anything more than just that. If this is considered a serious feminist piece, we should all be very worried.

How does one be so clueless with regards to the material and economic issues contributing to women's oppression? In 2010, this was made abundantly clear with Somewhere, when Sofia Coppola reminded us who her father was, the incredible Francis Ford Coppola. A story about a young girl travelling around various hotels with her famous rich actor father. Undeniably warm, personal, raw and passionately written. Yet, it disobeys a few essential Funeralopolis rules. Never make your own biopic and never write your own story in such an unfiltered manner. Hide it under layers and layers of whatever project you're working on. The story should never be you but the viewer should be able find you. It's more creative and gives your audience something to decode rather than some boringly complete package.

This is why Lost In Translation is a superior work, there's a photographer's wife suffering abandonment and boredom in hotels and there's the older figure present, both appear to be Francis in some way. A contradiction of two halves making a whole. One can locate Sofia in there and her life-long fears but it's in someone else's story. The feelings the filmmaker understands are there but without the annoying inability to understand class status. Quite frankly, Somewhere, as well intentioned as it is, is too explicit. For some reason, she also loses the ability to direct, putting far too much focus on the writing. Where are the slick sequences? An ability she would lose for a long time.

Working with an ignorant liberal like Emma Watson was never going to help the situation. The less said about The Bling Ring, the better. An extremely low point. Normally, I can defend each piece as a fun hangout movie, this cannot be said for The Bling Ring. An ineffective stab at a generational statement. As time has gone by, it has only become more apparent that Spring Breakers wipes the floor with any film that wanted to say something about the 2010s. There's no competing with that kind of vulgarity so fuck off The Bling Ring.

If you thought The Bling Ring was misguided, wait 'til you see The Beguiled. A pointless and soft remake of Don Siegel's 1971 ballsy psychosexual fantasy, in which an injured soldier is taken in by a house of women. Many critics have argued over whether this is or isn't a feminist film. Siegel said himself, "women are capable of deceit, larceny, murder, anything. Behind that mask of innocence lurks just as much as evil as you'll find in members of the mafia. Any young girl, who looks perfectly harmless is capable of murder". Whereas, Kass states, "the women in The Beguiled are not all bad" Personally, I think it's a fascinating film because it depicts its women as terrifying and unwelcoming whilst still presenting them as these strongly feminist characters. When you've got the elite male in the ever snarling Clint Eastwood taking them all on, it's the ultimate battle of the sexes. Erotic, comedic and challenging in a way few movies are today.

Sofia's remake is an absolute wimp of a movie. Her problem is she tries to clean up what is essentially a dirty picture, removing all the complexities and in the process it loses much of its bite. By giving the women greater depth and agency it loses the mystery and somehow becomes less powerful. Also, what kind of casting is the feminine Colin Farrel to represent the alpha male type? No, what you're looking for here is a troubling bastard of a man who probably believes assaulting women is still acceptable and worse, could get away with it cause they're so good looking. Colin, whilst an attractive fellow, you're too much of a nice man for this kind of work, sorry.

Delicacy is what ruined The Beguiled remake. Entire strands were removed that could potentially be taken as uncomfortable racial elements such as the erasure of an African American slave. Basically, forgetting the entire context of the original movie, which was the American civil war. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't that fought over slavery? So why are we eradicating a fundamental part of the story? Why is Sofia Coppola through her overly sensitive direction, reshaping a history more appropriate for a modern white audience? Cause she's a coward finetuning feminism to appeal to the widest possible audience that will bring in the bucks, appease herself and not make a single bit of difference to the world. Respect for it being her most ambitious material she has tackled and the sort of project she should gravitate towards but the results are unmistakably spineless.

On the Rocks passed with little fuss in 2020. Haven't got round to watching it, so I'll refrain from commenting other than to say her previous two duds (The Bling Ring and The Beguiled) put me off severely. Priscilla then is a somewhat return to form and perhaps her best film since Lost In Translation. She has successfully managed to turn the story of Priscilla's marriage to Elvis in to one of her privilege without power narratives. There are some interesting things going on here though that I commend with how she navigates the toxic relationship and it is undeniably miles better than Baz Lurhmann's Elvis movie which had very little to do with Priscilla or arguably Elvis either.

My relationship with Priscilla was at first similar to The Virgin Suicides in that you see technical greatness with the direction but on some level you are constantly fighting and disagreeing with the material. In order to embrace it you almost think you have to promote Elvis antipathy. Ok, so yeah he was a nonce, he couldn't write, he was a staunch conservative and treated her like shit but he was the King goddammit! At this point, it's hard to say whether my love for Elvis is in or out of the ironic zone. Only a fool would say though there isn't this power about him.

Exactly what I appreciate with the manner in which Sofia has gone about her most recent film is that she never tries to deflate Elvis or deny him over his dominance in the public sphere. To do so would simply be false and inaccurate. Instead, she uses his greatness to propel the Elvis entrapment. Proposing the question of, "Who wouldn't want to be Elvis's girl?". One of the sexiest scenes in film history is in Goodfellas, when Karen says, "I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn't. I got to admit the truth. It turned me on" To me, that's cinema. A real, ok game on kind of line.

Priscilla has a similar moment of irresistible sexiness where she is trying to cheat on a school test by staring over at her neighbours answers. Since, the paper is too shielded from view, she resorts to asking the person sat next to her, "are you an Elvis fan? How would you like to come to one of his parties?". Slowly, that test paper gets shifted to a more readable angle. Later, there's fantastic scenes where Elvis is taking pictures of Priscilla and wrestling. This soon switches into Elvis accidentally attacking her and taking the game too far. She then blames the incident on his pills causing a confrontation. Perfect scene that really establishes the dynamic at play here. Priscilla being taken in by his cool dominance, Elvis's strange childlike mentality being a little momma's boy and those mysterious pills he's always taking.

These scenes are the movie to me. One could accuse Sofia Coppola of being at her most plotless with Priscilla; the film is mainly made up of set pieces. Each does not increase in intensity but the sheer number of them adds to her final decision to depart Graceland. Look out for the strange play on Vertigo, where Elvis and his boys dictate Priscilla's outfits. That and Elvis constantly calling Priscilla's father about his "honourable intentions" is pretty sickening in Sofia's hands and recalls her own Freudian angst.

Semi convinced that Sofia Coppola hates her father artistically so much, her entire cinematic style is intentionally closer to Martin Scorsese's. As though sat with him doing the test together and asking, "Hey Marty, you wanna get invited back to the big house to see your old pal Francis again?". She rejects the wordy theatrical near Shakespearean prose of The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now for elaborate camera work and non-stop music choices (Santo & Johnny's Sleep Walk even makes an appearance). If this is the case, she needs to develop further as a visual storyteller the way Martin Scorsese did.

One may notice my ratings and my reviews of her work never completely line up. I can criticise her all day long but when Sofia finds the right image with the right sound in that single instance she can create a moment so achingly beautiful it lingers in the mind way after the credits have rolled. Once again resorting to anachronistic with the shoegaze and noise pop creeping in (Spectrum's How You Satisfy Me). She can't help herself, no-one's ever forgetting MBV's Sometimes and The Jesus and Mary Chain's Just Like Honey's use in Lost In Translation. Sofia honey, Slowdive are performing in February in Liverpool at the 02 Academy, I've got tickets. Get down, I'll buy you a whiskey. Heck, I'll even make it a Suntory cause you know what they say about a relaxing time.

Sofia gets off to a wonderful start on the soundtrack with Ramones Baby I Love You but the highlight for me is Crimson & Clover. Always thought that needed to be the big number in a rom-com about a hugely famous couple one day. It's the way it just goes on and on until it destroys its own beauty with these very artificial but hypnotic vocals that make you question the authenticity of the whole thing. "Over and Over" repeats on a loop until it gets damn near scary. The falseness of the message mimics Elvis and his numerous phone calls to Priscilla's father about his "honourable intentions". It wasn't that Elvis was even all that terrible physically, it was that he made all these promises to a child and then cast her aside. There was simply no room for her amongst his greatness and it harkens back to father Francis, Christ this girls got some serious Daddy issues.

The final scene being this long take of her leaving Graceland had me a little on edge. We've seen this one before in Pablo Larrain's god awful Spencer. For those that don't know, Pablo Larrain is probably the second worst director currently working after Emerald Fennell. His handiwork isn't too far from Marie Antoinette but it's a whole lot more annoying. He turns utter victim losers Jackie Kennedy and Diana Spencer, both effectively the Royal families of Britain and the US, in to these rebellious punks. Catch him humming Camelot or singing, "Lady Di, why did you have to die?". As brad Pitt says in Killing Them Softly, "Don't make me laugh"

In Spencer, he continuously makes these embarrassing connections between the "nation's princess" and Henry the 8ths wives, turning palaces in to The Overlook Hotel. Ah yeah, I'm feeling total sympathy for you, roaming the corridors of your castle prison. Then, when you didn't think it could get any worse, Diana gets in her car, picks up her kids, escapes the castle and shows her solidarity with the working class by driving to McDonalds. From castle to Maccies drive thru, she's one of us! A true spokesman of the people. The greatest character arc in cinema that one. Down on the ground, tears streaming down the face, bellowing out at my TV screen, "LADY DI, WHT DID YOU DIE?". My princess. Honestly, they should have put Pablo Larrain in prison for that one. What's the charge? Being an utter yellow belly.

Priscilla's drive is not a false freedom drive. None of Larrain's fake agency as the victim drives off like some Texas Chainsaw Massacre final girl in to the sunset and escapes their tormentor. In fact, Priscilla's is quite melancholic with this acceptance that, "If I should stay, I would only be in your way. So I'll go, but I know, I'll think of you every step of the way". Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You is an absolutely perfect choice that couldn't fit the mood of the departure any better. "Bittersweet memories that's all I'm taking with me", "We both know I'm not what you, you need" and "I hope life treats you kind" sum up the experience brilliantly. This is not the Elvis hate story it's been made out to be but rather the story of an artist's wife insignificance.

Therefore, this is not a typically strong feminist ending because it's an acceptance of weakness and inferiority, an inverse of The Bodyguard's ending but there is some power in choosing not to be subservient and to go your own path. There's some truth in it. Perhaps, Priscilla is Sofia's artistic love letter to her father saying, "Fuck you, Daddy. I choose Marty. He's my Daddy now"

And so this great cinematic battle between father and daughter, patriarchy and matriarchy wages on. Where is it next for Sofia? Time to grow up and mature already. Funny enough this path is going to lead her right back to her father. If she wants to get away from him for good, she's going to need to get in real close. Every time I watch The Godfather Part 2 and Part 3 now my attention drifts to the women caught in the mafia life. Those who sit outside the closed office doors, playing with the children and cooking the meals. How is it Connie is so able to kick Kate out the house on Michael's demands? Don't these women share entire lives together?

Finally in The Godfather Part 3, they address this when Sofia herself and a few of the other girls discuss some actual memories together of what happens in their quarters. We all know Sofia belongs behind the camera, it's about time she re-did this one scene as a whole movie and we actually got the lives of the women excluded from the offices. Sofia's Married to the Mob, where she can mature as an artist, finding the perfect privilege without power story that understands class, building on social alienation and bring a close to the battle between her two artistic fathers, father Francis and Marty.

Meanwhile at a barbecue at Featherhead Moss during the height of summer..."What are you filming", I ask. Nobody answers me. I turn round to face the horror. Everything was blindingly white as though the clouds suddenly took over like a swarm of flying saucers. Then came the black. Total darkness. When I came to my senses, there were no longer erect houses only debris.

Where had the other guests from the barbecue gone? I wiped ash from my face and set out looking for them, calling their names as I went. Under our hosts front living room wall, I found a trapped Bonehead Bill. Together we lifted the heavy weight off his chest.

The signals on our phones had dropped and we decided it best to get to higher ground in hopes of being able to communicate with the rest of the world. We didn't want to even think about the possibility that there wasn't even a rest of the world. We just kept moving. Before Bonehead could get to asking what he had just experienced, a nearby pool of water began to ripple and the ground began to shake. Persistent thuds could be heard in a perfect 4/4 time signature. If we survived whatever was coming our way, it would make a hell of a sample. How could I think like that at a time like this?

We increased our pace up the hill, reminding ourselves not to look back. If I couldn't convince myself, how could I convince Bonehead? We gazed upon the beast not from this world. A reptile bigger than all reptiles. A prehistoric dinosaur in the time of man. Two people cannot dream the same monster. The destroyer of worlds let out an almighty roar, loud enough to wake the dead, deafening the pair of us and bringing us to our knees. Was this stentorian howl the voice of God?

That's when the fighter pilots descended from the skies unloading round after round of firepower. Every missile struck the monster like a blunt knife. I looked in to the eyes of the holy behemoth and did not see pain, at best only mild irritation. My line of sight drifted to its tail, which was slowly beginning to turn blue. The electrifying blue spread up its body. Were its damn veins going to pop out its body? With every passing second, I knew the money shot was coming. There was no point running. The end was imminent. Death by electric blue ejaculation. I could die satisfied with that on my tombstone. The discharge blew me back in to an endless drift across the skies.

"Oh no, they say, he's got to go. Go go Godzilla, yeah. Oh no, there goes Tokyo. Go go Godzilla, yeah!", I scream in to the microphone over and over as the rest of my band, The Tokyo Bay Dwellers, unleash hell on their instruments. We're performing at a level we haven't reached in ages and this is turning in to a genuinely productive practice...until we are rudely interrupted by a restless scruffy urchin by the name of Russell. He sits us all down, informing us he had urgent news to deliver that specifically couldn't wait until after band practice.

"They're gonna put it down. Right on the strip. They're gonna put it down. On the Vegas strip! At 6.36 on December 31st". That's what Russell says. He'd been telling just about anyone that would listen. It was the typical heard it from a friend, who heard it from their cousin, who has a friend that works for the government type of situation. I didn't doubt that Russell genuinely believed Aliens would be visiting us just before the new year was coming in. From the look on his face as he told us, he wasn't trying to mess with us either. This was something he was totally convinced was going to happen. Of course, when I first heard it my initial thoughts were simply, "bullshit". I might have even said, "what the fuck do Aliens want with Vegas? What they gonna do bet 50 on black, blow all the winnings and get married in downtown Vegas by sunrise? Come on, Russell".

As you'd expect, I wasn't alone in having such a response. My right hand man, fellow songwriter and bassist in our band, Denny Collins, Couldn't help but bring Russell's track record under question. "Russell may I remind you, you're a serial conspiracy theorist and chain smoker of Marijuana". All of this was true. I think we all have a few conspiracy theories we half ashamedly believe in. You're allowed one or two as far I'm concerned but having several was very much over the line. Frankly, it was outrageous. That's when you become that kind of person. It's tin foil hat behaviour and time the men in white coats pay a visit.

Russell was a man who wore the same clothes for about 6 days straight. He regularly stank of shit. He hadn't been able to hold down a real job for more than a month in his life. We'd all taken turns housing him on our sofas. The rotation was so regular now it was like a ritual. You barely even questioned it anymore and he didn't even need to mention he needed a place to stay. All of a sudden you'd remember it was your week to house this unhygienic individual and you'd be like, "right Russell, get on the sofa". By all definitions, he was pretty useless.

You might ask yourself why we'd hang round with a reprobate like him. We'd probably tell you, it's cause occasionally he could be really funny. Now Russell, he wasn't the most moral character in the world but he could get away with a lot, purely on the basis that he could be fun to be around. As I've learned in this life, those who are funny often achieve freedoms few of us could dream of. Russell definitely would fit in to that category and certainly took advantage of such luxuries.

Many in our town could not stand him and had cut their ties long ago. He was what some would call a "social parasite". Perhaps, we were just patient or rather stupid, take your pick. When I say he was funny, it wasn't like he was some comedian or anything, it was more that he would unintentionally do and say things that would make you laugh. His head didn't work like ours. He was something else entirely. A different breed. Sometimes shit would just come out his mouth and you'd be asking yourself, "did he really just say that?". We all have our dialects and ways of speaking but his combinations of words, his idioms he seemed to create on the spot could be truly magical at times. He put words together that shouldn't belong together and made them poetic in a sort of deeply disturbing way. If he could channel it into something maybe he might get his life together at some point. However, the guy was just far too unpredictable from one day to the next. For just about everyone else (and sometimes I hate to admit even including ourselves), he was without a doubt a walking nightmare.

Truthfully though I think the real reason why we kept him around was because he provided us with a lot of free weed over the years. So there was that. Normally he didn't add much and didn't take too much away. He barely ate and definitely didn't use up the hot water. He would just sit and hang round a lot. Leaving wasn't really his thing. Outstaying his welcome was common practice for this man but we didn't mind it so much. As for him being a funny guy, that was definitely something that could be challenged right now. In fact, I would like to readjust my previous statement. He used to be a funny guy. Mostly, these days the guy was just lost and had been for quite some time. Other than the free weed, I'm not too sure why we kept him around. I think he was our friend, I guess. A force of habit I don't know. As you can probably understand, when this man turned up unannounced to my garage (as he often would when we were jamming) I struggled to take his ludicrous claims of Alien visitations seriously.

I'd be lying though if during this episode, I couldn't help but let out a brief snort or momentary chuckle at our drummer Foggy's response. After my repeated retorts of "Russell get a grip!", Foggy loudly exclaimed, "and next you'll be telling me Area 51 exists!". Denny had to explain it's proven that Area 51 exists, the debate was over what exists inside Area 51. Other than a few embarrassed mutterings of "ok. Ok", Foggy was absolutely silenced by Denny's explanation and did not continue to contribute to this discussion. As a group, this was not one of our finest moments. Stupidity was firing out from all corners today. I mean, we were never really an intellectual outfit like the mystery gang or anything but today was particularly bad. Since we were all left a little baffled by Russell's latest bag of tricks he'd chosen to unravel on us, we decided to end the jamming session a little early today. It seems when someone lays on you that aliens could be coming down in just a few weeks time, it's quite difficult to go back to plucking some strings.

Foggy picked up his drum kit and heaved it home. Naturally, Russell needed some extra persuasion to leave but eventually he went off to where ever he was meant to be staying that night too. That left just me and Denny. Unsure what else to do and remembering it was Friday after all, I threw the question out to my good friend, "wanna go for a drink?" My friend could only shrug and say, "why not?".

I fired up the van. We were greeted by the sounds of Frank Zappa screaming about being a rock and in desperate need of assistance. Despite the loud volume I had no urge to turn the song off and began bopping my head along as I rolled on out. Denny almost instinctively does the same. No words are spoken between us be we seem to be on the same wavelength, he turns up the volume some more. As soon as the song finishes, Denny replays it from the start. I could not think of a reason to stop him. Even when he played it for a third time in a row, there was no objections from myself. A good bassline is a good bassline. Denny breaks into this dance in the passenger seat and mocks all Zappa's made up words. I look over and shake my head smiling. I pulled up and switched off the engine. Even with the vans speakers now off, I could still he Frank Zappa's utter gibberish ricocheting about the walls in my head as I strolled along the street. I was ready to welcome my first drink of the Evening.

It wasn't until around drink number two that Frank Zappa's nonsense had finally departed. That was when an even bigger problem began to form in my mind. We got a few more rounds in down at our local sports bar The Admiral. Denny was watching the baseball, I was too distracted by our mutual friends extra-terrestrial ramblings. Don't get me wrong, he had not convinced me. There was no U-turn or 180.

I was mainly concerned about his mental state. Perhaps when one of your acquaintances decides to blabber on about the green men maybe it is time for the white men in coats to step in. Was it time for an intervention? Did they only do those in movies? I was plagued by many questions.

"Do you think Russell's heads come off?" I thought aloud. "It's never been on" answered Denny almost instinctively without turning his gaze from the baseball. "No but do you think he's getting worse?" I added.

Finally Denny faced me and said, "Probably yeah... But he always comes through. Ain't nothing that can kill him... Russell the Muscle". We both giggled at that one. Russell the Muscle was a nickname given to him I cannot remember who by but it had stuck. It was what most people knew him by. Russell the Muscle was actually a baseball player for the Mariners. The real Russell the Muscle that is. Russell Branyan. He was only with us about 2 seasons in total but he left quite the impression with the number of home runs he hit.

You have to remember the Seattle Mariners are the only major ball team not to ever play in a world series.

Forget winning one. We're not exactly known for our baseball skills. There was a glimmer of hope in the 90s but then...well... it passed. I do like to remind people though that there was a brief period where we could have been considered... not embarrassing. We're a team that really celebrates its players rather than the full team, if that makes sense? It's a different kind of celebration of success but when you follow a team like this you kind of have to celebrate something.

The Russell the Muscle thing always amused me though. Our companion and the pro baseball player could not be more the opposite of each other. Our Russell was a proper scrawny kid. We're talking super skinny like in Captain America before he gets the surgery. The pro baseball player though he was massive. Absolutely huge. Big like Batista. If he hadn't been a ball player he could have definitely been a wrestler. Unfortunately he used a lot of that strength and power in a bad way.

Apparently he used to beat his wife and slap her around a bit. After a restraining order was issued preventing him going within 500 feet of his wife and kids, he wouldn't stop there. He was always breaking in to her house and playing mind games. Fucking with the thermostat was one of the things he liked to do. He would make it like unbearably cold in that house. Make no mistake, he is a man of violence. One of our biggest hitters of the last few years and he turns out to be a wife beater. Oh man, it really bums me out.

If it wasn't for the grunge scene, I'm not sure if we'd been known at all across the globe. People seem to forget though that we had a helping hand in developing jazz and garage rock. Everyone always talks about New York for jazz. I don't want to take anything away from them cats but we did launch the careers of Ray Charles and Quincy Jones. As for the garage rock, I won't pretend for a second I don't love The Stooges but I really think we need to talk about The Sonics more. The god damn Sonics man! They were full of energy. We would often try to work some of their songs in to our sets. Usually we'd reserve something like Psycho for the end because whenever I went for those vocals my voice was finished for the next like 3 days.

Nothing made me happier than the time Denny made me watch this film called Henry down at the Rodeo drive in and some serial killer was dancing along to our song. I can see it now, that guy from Guardians of the Galaxy showing his best moves. Wow that dude has really mellowed out since, hasn't he? Denny's cousin from London, England informs us that one of The Sonics songs is on some British car insurance advert. I know we're supposed to be punks and against adverts or whatever but I like the exposure. Denny's cousin also says Iggy does car insurance adverts now. If he's allowed The Sonics are allowed. That's all I'm saying.

The game finishes. We lost. Imagine my shock. Suddenly, Barbara Lynn's 'You'll Lose a Good Thing' begins playing over the bar speakers. My thoughts are back with that rogue Russell. Denny returns with the next round. I don't reach for my pint when he places it in front of me. Instead, I fold my arms and ask, "do you think there's more that we can do for Russell?"

Following a loud exhale, eye roll and shake of the head, Denny takes his own drink off the table. Before raising it to his lips, he half frustratedly says, "you still on that one? If Mike Blowers had turned up to your garage and predicted Aliens are coming down on the 31st then maybe, just maybe I might have believed it. Russel's... a fuckin'... a fuckin' bonehead. He's always been that way. You know that. I know that. He ain't gonna change. Ain't gonna change". I hated to admit but Denny was right though. Some people just seem destined to make the same mistakes over and over. Unfortunately that didn't mean I could drop this quite like Denny could. For some strange reason this could not be shaken off so easily. "If we could do more, we should do more right?" was all I could muster.

Denny did give this some thought as he sucked on his beverage but could only come out with, "What more could we do?". He looks at me and shrugs. Since I didn't find this to be the answer I was looking for, I decided to push further and ask, "do you not like him or something?". This caused Denny to break into some kind of manic laughter. A manic laughter that went on for longer than was natural. Momentarily, there would be pauses as he proceeded to take a few gulps of his beer but he would eventually return to uncontrollable laughter. It seemed, he simply couldn't resist the urge to break into the giggles. What was wrong with him? How long was this shit going to go on for? Unable to bear it any longer, I burst out with, "what?"

Denny grabs his ribs, coughs in pain and wipes his eyes clean as he attempts to regain control of his own body.

Finally, he explains himself by saying, "No. No. No. It's not like that. I think I love him but I also fucking hate him". Barely even able to finish his sentence, my drinking companion breaks in to another fit of laughter. This time ending with him choking on his own beer and spilling it down his prized Sunn 0))) t shirt. What had happened to us today?

Having said good night to that unhinged and unrelenting drunken clown, I opted to take a stroll round Lincoln Park. Sleeping was a gift I could not fully manage just yet. My body would not allow it. There was too much to unravel. Luckily, I didn't have work tomorrow or any gigs happening this weekend so there was no worry about getting to bed early or any of that shit. I had the whole night to get to the bottom of things. Sometimes you need nights like this to try and figure this fucking mess out. No distractions, just the beverage and whatever's on your mind. A bit like free writing I guess but free thinking. Just letting things flow. Whatever enters your head, enters. By the end of a bottle, you either made some big decisions or forgot about everything and fell asleep. Either way, with each sip any problems you had seemed to fade away. For better or worse. The best part of the system was by the next day, I didn't want to drink. As soon as I laid my eyes upon a beverage the morning after, it made me physically sick. On that basis, I think you could call the method a success. It even got the old steps up on my phone. Can't complain with that one, can you?

On this evening, I found myself listening repeatedly to Maurice Williams and The Zodiac's, 'Stay'.

I'd left the car parked just round the corner. It was going to have be a morning pick up job. It was only about a 5 minute drive from the park to my house but I was not in a fit state to drive. It was scenic enough out here anyway. When you've got this on the doorstep, let's just say you'd be a fool to turn it down.

I kept resorting back to my mental files on Russell. Who was this man? What was his story again? I'm a man who gets confused by time. I have to keep going back and going back. Sometimes you forget things. Sometimes you revisit these memories and you get back on good terms with them and lose where you're at in the present. You have this overwhelming urge to get back to the way things were. How on earth does one keep track of all this?

I recall Russell's past and I feel a kind of sympathy wash over me. Originally, he had these parents who killed themselves when he was young. A double hanging suicide. Really nasty shit. I'm told Russell was the first to walk in on the bodies. He refused to let his little sister see what had happened and called the police. The last thing he wanted was for her to bear the constant scars of seeing something like that. He bear it for both of them. Maybe there are some things you just don't recover from. After this he gets fostered and ends up living with these rich parents in Ballard. One would think he had a kind of second chance but this life simply wasn't for him. I'm not sure if he keeps in touch with his adoptive family or what happened to his sister. Come to think of it, I don't even know if I know this man at all. What does that say about me? This man had sat with us for hours, heard all our bullshit and we'd barely even listened to him. Some of us were kind of angry about how he seemed to fuck up such a guaranteed easy life. However, thinking about it, would I really want to live anywhere other than West Seattle?

Deep down I am a beaches kind of guy. Call me the fucking sand man. Whenever I go inland further, it kind of freaks me out. I need to see the sea. It's where I feel most comfortable. I need beaches. I need trees. Otherwise it's not home. I didn't mind playing gigs in the centre but I could never live there. Settling anywhere else just seemed crazy. How could I judge anyone else for making the same decision? There's no answering these questions.

The alcohol takes its hold and about the most intellectual thought possible is, "Jesus Christ that's a nice tree". I was gawping at this big boy for what seemed like hours. If anyone was walking past they would have been rather baffled. I hadn't moved. I couldn't move. It was so big. My eyes stretched out as wide as they could. I stared this giant out from top to bottom. Drunk or not drunk, we do get some gorgeous trees out here it must be said. Agent Dale Cooper would be right at home. We have plenty of Douglas Firs. A very popular tree out here it seems. My favourite hands down had to be the Giant Sequioa. That's a fucking gorgeous tree you know. No question about it. Top tier tree. My mind goes blank and I half sober up for a second. What the fuck was

I thinking about trees for? It was almost certainly time for bed. The early morning birds made their presence known. I heard songs so delicate and graceful, they weren't meant for human ears. They had spoken. The message was clear. The time of the human had passed, it was bird time. An evacuation of the premises was necessary. Vision all blurry, movement jagged and brain completely fried I somehow managed to make it home.

That night I dreamt of stray dogs. Well just the one dog actually. It wouldn't leave me alone. This rough looking salt and pepper miniature schnauzer. It didn't look like it had seen a house in some time. It's fur coat poorly kept and in desperate need of a wash. A job that I did not want. A constant barking followed my every move. No matter where I would try to go, this dog could be heard. Even if I could not see it, I could hear it. To be clear, this was an aggressive type of barking. There was nothing inviting about this. It was loud and noisy. Had it been a welcoming call perhaps things would have gone differently. As soon as the sound could be heard, I was turning my body in another direction. All efforts made to leave and pay no attention to this trouble seeking stray in the hopes it would soon give up became increasingly futile. This dog was not going to leave and it was something that just had to be accepted.

So the next time he barked into the night, I weirdly decided to return a "woof woof". Whether this meant something in dog language was impossible to tell. After all, I was no expert in the language of dogs. Had this been said in the correct tone or manner? How could one know? In that moment it seemed the perfect thing to say. Before I could fully question my actions, the stray was at my heels in a flash. A quick stroking meant we were bonded. Despite the first impression with the loud barking, it was soon clear this good dog posed no threat. Once this had been established, a name was needed. There was no way of explaining it but "Danny Boy" just seemed the perfect name for this dog. It felt right. No matter how far he drifted from my side, I spent the rest of the night feeling safe and protected by this one dog. He was my assigned escort and nothing could distract him from his duties. Assigned by whom, I could not say, all I knew is this was happening. The sun slowly began to rise and I would call out much like John Lennon, "Oh Danny boy!", without fail my four legged friend would appear.

The next morning was one filled with regret. Sure I needed the alcohol but was that much necessary? Ladies and gentleman, I have to announce...it was a rough one. My whole life I had been searching for the perfect amount of alcohol to drink before stopping. There had to be a perfect amount. I was convinced. Maybe one day I would find it. My green ray so to speak. It was out there. After spending way too long in bed, I decided to go for a walk across the beach. The crunching sounds of the sand was too much for my distorted noodle and so headphones were an absolute necessity. These strange sounds needed to be drained out and drained out fast before insanity washed over me. Normally the ambient sounds were all that were needed but in this fragile condition they could not be handled or trusted. I was on the ropes. One unexpected noise separating me from total madness. One unusual sound and I might just be finished. Risks could not be taken. All stations on death con one. It was that kind of hangover. I remember feeling briefly sad that no dog attached themselves to me like in the dream. Reality could be so cruel sometimes.

Alright so maybe I didn't have a dog but Bob Dylan was sure doing a lot for me in that moment. I was listening to, 'All I Really Want to Do' on my little sea side adventure. I watched the kids running past and the adults trying to keep up. Frozen to the spot in mere confusion, the thought crossed my mind -how could they have such energy at this hour? I hadn't even had my fucking coffee yet. Not even a god damn Gatorade. A big mistake from myself. Since when did I get this fucking sloppy? Maintaining a standing position and putting one foot in front of the other was a struggle for me right now. These kids were relentless. They never seemed to run out of energy. It was a different world for them. At the age of 26, I was just an intruder here. The morning is their time so you have to play by their rules. This meant saying hello to the imagination and bye bye to reality. A kid stuck gun fingers out at me and screamed, "pew pew". Instinctively, I knew I was dead. On the outside, I was giving the performance of my life. I theatrically fell to the floor, giving the kind of performance that would have got me an A in Drama. On the inside, I was cursing this kid, wondering if once down, I'd ever be able to get up again.

The kid was off in a flash. He'd forgotten about me already and moved on to terrorising the next person he could find. I lay on my back watching the latest victim awaiting a similar fate to my own. Slowly I crawled over to the nearest bench. Usually I'd be asleep at this hour, I felt like a guest in their world. All I could do was smile and watch. Time wasn't acting like time should right now. There was a sense of freedom in the air. How could anyone grow tired of watching this?

We have this gift for the first few years of our lives and we don't even know it. Then we spend the next 10 years or so running from it. Scrutinising every single aspect of the way we were raised. Staging our own personal rebellion. Our own war with the past. Trying to put as much distance as you can between you and it. Running and running in total rejection of everything that has come before.

Then one day all that stops and we spend the rest of our lives trying to... come back home. But you can't, it's too late so you have to try to re-do the same experiences. Walks across the beaches. Trips to the local drive in. Retracing all the old steps of what physically remains unchanged just to capture one drop of that feeling you once had.

I even managed to get a few lyrics written up. You could say I was feeling inspired. What a turn around. Everything's coming up Millhouse. The notepad was out, Cup of coffee in one hand and pen in the other. Oh yeah that's one thing about us Seattleites. We love our coffee. Other Americans may joke about "don't talk to me til I've had my coffee" but out here we really fucking mean it. It's engrained from birth. It's pure petrol. Gives the much needed energy to keep that pen scribbling away day to day. The original Starbucks was out here. Going all the way back 1971 when the green mermaid first made her mark. Back then she was brown though and she had her boobies out. The name itself came from Herman Melville's Moby Dick. A very well chosen mythological figure but Starbucks is so big and universal now you could almost forget its origins. I definitely didn't. As my mum constantly reminded me, the original Starbucks was where my father first took her on a date. I'm sure the situation could be the same for many Seattlites like myself, we owe our existence to Starbucks. Times had changed and the identity was no longer the same with the massive expansion. However, for a time you could say in the late 70s Starbucks achieved their intention of creating a utopian hang out spot which could be deemed what urban psychologist Ray Oldenburg referred to as 'the third place'.

My first place was on 34th Avenue South West. My second place was Forever roofing (or whatever roof my boss put me on that day). My third place? What was that? I don't know. Maybe The Admiral? Ah the good Admiral. How I loved her. When I wasn't with my boys having a drink, I did have a place I went for some peace and quiet. A very specific part on Alki beach. This was the spot. Right on the rocks. The sea just a few yards from myself. This was where it became easiest to write.

They say every Seattleite has a relationship with the sea. Since the beginning of our time here it has presented such enormous difficulties. For those who have met it so head on though have found they have been repaid by it. They found their comeuppance or retribution. Some great reward. We are the Seattle Mariners for a reason. Years back, we had a vote and there were over 600 names suggested for the team. Although, he wasn't the only one to suggest the name, it was Roger Szmodis beautiful explanation that won everyone over. He said, "I've selected Mariners because of the natural association between sea and Seattle and her people, who have been challenged and rewarded by it".

Some of the most poetic shit I've ever heard. Many of us have often wondered what happened to Szmodis. The prize at the time for his contribution was free season tickets. Yet when it came to collecting the tickets Szmodis couldn't be found. It was like he never even existed. The man who had collectively captured the spirit of Seattle had vanished. He'd gone. Completely disappeared without so much as a word. I'd like to think this was just a one off but people did have a habit of just disappearing or just getting up and leaving in a flash round here. We were a place of great mystery. "Writing something good there Pike?" called a voice from somewhere behind me. Being so distracted, I hadn't even noticed Russell advancing towards me. "Let's hope so", I through back at him. "Can I see it", he asks. "Sure", I said and gave him the pad.

Russell had a glance through the scribblings and read aloud, "Once there was the old man and the sea, but now the tides wash away the debris. His boat became his coffin, it's a tale we speak of often. Of how every man has a debt to the ocean and you can't interfere with what she has chosen". I always got a little nervous when people read my things and they weren't ready yet. Russell did have weirdly good instincts about what was good or bad though.

Before I could even work out what he thought of the lyrics, Russell responded with "Wow. That's fucking beautiful man. Can't wait til it's finished". I looked him in the eye and said, "Thanks. It's definitely a slower one. I think I was going for something like Leonard. I don't know if it fits what we normally go for". Russell waved all that to the side with just one comment, "Hey Pike. What's good is good". It was all I needed to hear. All doubts left me. Russell could do that sometimes.

"What brings you round here, pilgrim?", I asked him. It turned out these were his stomping grounds, especially at this time in the morning. Shared it with the kids. He would regularly go exploring the land. Miles and miles all round Seattle. He knew every single street name. Every short cut. Since he didn't have a fixed address, it was all he could do. It was all he had. He told me, "a place can't let you down, just it's people". Shit I thought, you're not wrong Russell, you're not wrong. He then proceeded to go on a rant about how this morning he'd come across a load of smashed glass not far from here. People had been having a party last night and left a dangerous mess only a few yards from where the kids normally play. That strangely bothered Russell, that bothered him a lot. He'd spent his morning trying to clear some of it but as he said, "the people having the party had really gone to town smashing bottles for fun". It seemed like a two man job and something that had really irritated him. I don't know whether just to shut him up or because I also cared about the kids, I decided to give him a hand. Maybe a bit of both.

Once reaching the site of the damage, I instantly came round to Russell's way of thinking. Kids definitely would be coming through this way any minute and it was absolutely a two man operation. We carefully picked up the individual pieces of glass and placed them in the nearby bin. As delicate as I was trying to be, I still managed to cut myself and let off a sharp, "ah!".

Russell returned from the bin and glanced over. He picked up the next big chunk of glass in front of him, whilst still looking at the sliced skin on my fingers and said, "stings don't it?". I stopped investigating the trickle of blood and focused my attention on Russell. That was when I noticed the numerous cuts running down his fingers. Christ this man baffled me. His track record was far from perfect. His reputation in this town was that of a scrounger. Someone who owned money all over town and could cause quite the scene when drunk on a Friday night. Yet here he was a on Saturday morning clearing broken glass and keeping the children in his community safe. The anonymous protector from the shadows. I didn't get this guy. If other people were to see this, what would they think? Was this the duality of man? Was there sense to be made of this?

After the two man operation was complete, Russell made a passing comment about the paint coming off the boat in the children's playground. Without even hesitating, I told him that we would have to make a stop at the shop for some paint. While we were on it, we were on it. We'd crossed over to the other side as decent respectable citizens who provide for the community. It took the rest of the morning to finish re-painting the boat but we managed it. There was always the fear that the council might come over and ask us what the fuck we were doing. We'd have to promise them our intentions were good. Would they have believed us? We didn't get to find out. Not even a parent questioned us. Then again, I was something of a handyman labourer type. Perhaps we looked professional. The thought did occur to me that maybe I should look in to seeing if I could get Russell a job at my work. As I was attending to the last touches of going over the letters on the side, Russell stopped and stared as though caught in a trance admiring our work. "Sasha Eli. Who's Sasha Eli?" asked Russell.

For the first time, having been going over the lettering for the last 5 minutes, I stopped and really took in the name of the boat. Who might that have been I wondered? Was there a story here wrapped on this boat that I'd walked past so often and yet never bothered to think about? I shook my head at Russell cluelessly and replied, "I don't know"

Together, we admired our handiwork. Our only hope was the kids would enjoy it and whoever Sasha Eli was, she could rest well knowing her legacy was intact. Unsure of what to say, Russell and I stood in silence. I think Russell was close to breaking out a smile. We were males on the brink of emotion, unsure what to do or say in that situation, I asked my companion whether he wanted to go for a drink. Russell accepted. Since, I wasn't really feeling up for a drink after last night, this changed to lunch at Ampersand by the beach. I went with the Ham and Brie sandwich and a soda. Russell seemed a little nervous at the prospect of switching to food and it took me a little longer than it should have to realise why. "You not got enough money for this?", I asked Russell. An awkward shake of the head was his response. "You want me to stick this on the Russell tab?" was my next question. This was greeted with a smile and a nod of the head. I nodded too and asked the waiter to "make that two".

There was no way of determining what the Russell tab was at that point. Could have been hundreds, could have been thousands. Was it ever going to be paid back? Probably not. They say in life you make deals, based on what you can receive back. You do for others in the hopes of receiving yourself. This can be straight away or even at a later date. The idea is that of reciprocation. Fundamentally, we give so we can get. I'd given Russell a lot over the years and seen very little back. Yet I continued to give to Russell time and time again. This could mean three things. Either that system is bullshit and a load of scientists are wrong. Or maybe it was that I believed Russell would still one day pay me back at a later date. And then there was a final possibility. Russell's payback was a different form of currency that I didn't fully understand.

I considered all three possibilities whilst eating my sandwich but came no closer to finding the answer. It was a good sandwich though and Russell's reminiscing on some of our previous nights out together meant I was never far away from giggling. What could I say? I was in high spirits. We were like Walt and Jesse sharing a welldeserved meal together having completed a difficult mission. Even when I was walking back to my van, having said goodbye to Russell, I was still laughing to myself. Laughing about what I was unsure. When you're in that kind of mood, you're in that kind of mood. After about an hour of walking, I made it back to the van and smiled as I laid eyes on her. Such a beautiful thing. She'd never looked more gorgeous. Just where I left her the night before. I gave her a good old pat as I entered and sat down.

It suddenly dawned on me that I had the rest of the afternoon and evening to engage in a form of 'social activity'. Such is the gift of the weekend. That nasty work business could wait. It was like for a brief moment, I had forgotten what weekends were for. I remembered that I had a phone in my pocket and took it out to check what was showing at the Rodeo drive in. Following a brief double take, I saw they were reshowing The Blob (1958). A drive in classic starring Steve Mcqueen. In an over excited manner, I began cheering. A passerby looked at me confused. There was no explaining this one. I simply loved The Blob. I'd seen a few monster movies in my time and had always taken pleasure in seeing a town be destroyed by whoever the titular creature was. It had to be said though The Blob was something else. It has this surreal effect on you. Watching that fucker go to work could not be described. I managed to get a hold of myself and started to drop Denny an invite. Just before I started typing, it came back to me that he was out of town over the weekend seeing family. It was time to message our other friend. This was to be an adventure I'd share with Foggy. Filled with excitement, my fingers typed away. Once it was completed, I tucked the phone back in my pocket. Before driving off, I put my hands together on the steering wheel, looked up with my eyes closed and held a cheeky grin. As though thanking some unknown higher power for curing me of a dreadful hangover.

The next day, I arranged to meet up with the future wife, Laura Cotton. We'd been dating just a few months but I could tell there was something here. Normally, I wasn't the dating type but sometimes you have to make exceptions. If it wasn't her looks, it was that she could hold a conversation for more than 5 minutes and she knew who Quincy Jones was. This meant a lot. We met officially after one of our gigs in the centre but we'd known of each other for years, such is the one single pleasure of social media. On our first date we found we both shared dreams of being signed by Southern Lord, the greatest record label in the country. She was in a riot grrrl band called Supercoven and envisioned herself as the next Courtney Love. She played fast and she sang poorly, if her music wasn't going to make her a success then her fists would. As she said, if the demos didn't work she could always physically intimidate Greg Anderson in to submission. She had the reputation for being a brawler when the crowds invaded the stage or heckled once too often. I found this out myself only hours in the first date when she piled straight in to a bar fight.

By date number two we were already discussing our intentions to buy a house together in Los Angeles once our respective bands got the record deals that would soon be coming our way. We would spend our summers there, taking walks along the star paved paths and performing in every bar The Doors had set foot in. Laura was obsessed with the idea of performing live. "That kind of energy. It's raw. No-one knows where it comes from, where it goes. It's momentary and then it's gone. But it's just about the closest thing to something real", she told me. Her favourite movie was Green Room

According to her, this was the closest a movie had come to capturing the true spirit of punk since Repo Man She had plans of permanently relocating to LA but there was only one home for me. Having said that, this was the kind of girl you could break your own rules for, your own routines for, your own dignity for. Why didn't these girls come with a warning label? If they did would that even stop me? Laura had me from the start.

Sadly, we'd been a little off these last few days and by we, I meant her. How had we gone from such a glorious honeymoon, living life as one to this? Pangea was splitting from the seams. Surely we hadn't reached our expiration date. Not on my watch. Checking for a pulse might be difficult in the dead silences we shared that afternoon. You wouldn't want to get in that close. Not even the waitress stood around long. There was an undeniable awkward aroma in the air that neither of us were commenting on. Nervous another silence may cause her to blow the whole thing off, I went in with a wildcard, I gave her the preposterous news Russell shared with us recently. Of anything said in the last few hours, this produced the greatest reaction. She thought it was hilarious so I pushed it further and we began fooling around and fantasising about the idea of heading out to Vegas for a road trip to go meet our visitors. "It would be the polite thing to do", I said. As I walked out the café, Hank Williams's Ramblin Man was playing out the speakers, I looked up to the skies and wondered are the aliens really coming? Then I laughed at the thought. Oh Russell.

And that was how we ended up driving east across the country to go see some aliens on the account of a joke. I called up Denny and he just said, "Well I'm not doing anything this week so I could do that, yeah". Foggy's one request was that there was a good playlist. As for Russell, he was always planning on going, although I'm unsure how he would have got there. With the new year coming, we all headed in to my van, turned up the sound on The Kingsmen's Louie Louie and hit the road. We referred to the on-coming visitation as, "The Happening". It was never how long until we get to Vegas, it was how long until The Happening. None of us, other than Russell, actually believed we were going to encounter some aliens, each of us had our own individual reasons, ranging from perpetual boredom to trying to save a failing relationship. They call America the land of opportunity. A place where you can make things happen. I needed some of that belief right now. Our forefathers had travelled out west in order to build this country. Now we were on the return leg in search of similar greatness.

We drove to Portland and just kept going south east passed Oregon and Nevada, eventually stopping at Yosemite National Park. I spotted a few giant sequioas and nearly lost my mind. This led to an uncontrollable rant to Laura about how these trees are on the endangered list with only about 80,000 of them left standing. She didn't seem to mind, being a bit of a nature freak herself. "You know the oldest giant sequioa is meant to be somewhere between 3,200 and 3,266 years old. If we can't keep something like that going. What does that say about us?", I told her. After our brief detour, Russell spun round with his hands on hips and said, "Let's get back on the road, boys!". Our spiritual guide. Our problematic leader. We piled back in to the van and I let the Pixies pump out the speakers with Down to the Well. Denny whispered in to my ear, "You know how you said you and Laura were having a few issues lately. I think you two might just be back". I tapped the steering wheel a few times and nodded. The forefathers must have been watching over us.

By the time we were going past Death Valley, we realised we weren't alone on this journey. In the scorching heat, everything became near apocalyptic with waves and waves of cars and hikers going past with one destination in mind. No regard was paid to the laws of the road, the only rule was get to Las Vegas by any means. Personalised t-shirts with messages such as, "we welcome you green men!", humoured us greatly. We honked our horn at every walking party we saw, we raced cars across the desert strip. Pirate radios had let the news slip and eventually it became a social media craze. At first, the government tried to deny it was happening and went to great lengths to control the hysteria but eventually gave up and embraced the jokes online. I couldn't recall a moment in my life time where people came together more united as one. All work stopped and people were glued to their tellies and phones. Managers didn't even bother to berate their staff. Everyone rallied behind it. The people decided this was a good thing. Why would such an event cause people to react with such joy and euphoria? No-one even knew for sure whether the aliens were coming and if their intentions were friendly.

There were of course still some who would destroy the jubilant celebrations by resorting to violence and looting. We found an old man lying in the road, having been physically assaulted and left for dead. He told us some youngsters had stolen his car so we decided to give him a ride. Along the way, he filled us in on his life story. He referred to himself as Max, the oldest ecoterrorist in California. Wherever he went, he planted seeds and monitored the growth of various plants. "It wasn't that I hated people, it was just that I preferred to spend my precious remaining time with plants. Ok, so maybe I had become a little of a misanthrope in my old age but with the kids these days how could one not? I mean you guys seem ok. But they confuse me so it was for the best. Here in my own little bubble things made sense. Things were able to go at the speeds I could handle. There's a time in your life when You're Jim Stark. You're a rebel without a cause. Then there's a time in your life when you become the forgotten grandparents in Tokyo Story. Unfortunately, I'm moving towards the latter", he informed us.

He went on to discuss some more cinema that had impacted him too, adding, "The other night I rewatched one of Scorsese's lesser appreciated works. Gangs of New York. Nothing can prepare you for that final shot. It could be perhaps the most poignant closer in cinema history. The two big characters lie in coffins side by side. Their legacies are forgotten about. A scrap heap of rubbish piled on and piled on. These are two men that arguably made America becoming erased from history, as though they weren't even there. I am just an old man from California who has achieved almost nothing. The second I go in to the ground, I'm done for. It's a sad thought to take in but it's the truth. And we all know it. I think everyone wants to leave something behind. Death is so final, that's what scares us all. We need to let some part of us survive. One final cry that we were here and made some kind of difference...

...What that is and what that could be is difficult to say. I've thought more and more it over the years as my time in the ring draws to a close. I still don't know. All I know is that it has to be something. I can't go with nothing. Something has to stay. The only way through is to distract yourself as long as you can. Hopefully along the way figure it all out. Was it all worth it in the end? Was anything achieved? Did it mean anything? None of this is clear. When it comes to leaving some kind of personal item behind as a mark of presence, what is that going to be? I can't stop thinking about any of this. I am just a scared old man. A scared old man waiting for the end"

Max's words had a real impact on me. As though I wasn't meant to hear this, as though the information had come to soon. A premature crisis intended for a later date. What a horrible way to die. When my time is to come, I want to go surrounded by people. There was a certain sadness and loneliness in Max's voice that unnerved me. As a group, we'd mainly done alright so far, having all been friends since school. Yet, there was no denying that maybe the gang was on its last days and people were beginning to go the separate ways life takes them. Denny would soon be leaving for Berkeley to do a masters, Russell was Russell, Laura and I were on the ropes. On some level I hoped this trip would keep us all together. Was that foolish of me? Foggy asked Max why he was wanting to see the aliens. "my wife would have wanted to come, she was always fascinated with space. She died of the cancer. I owe it to her in some way", he answered. We all had our individual reasons for coming.

Rain began to fall from the heavens but we took no notice of this and the rain drops fell where they fell. I soon forgot the break and hammered the accelerator. It got so crowded on the road, so I started driving in the sand. My head was feeling scared but my heart was feeling free. The desert turned to mud under the weight of a thousand tyres. Everybody was remembering to forget they had the chills.

Banners waved in the wind. Families sat in porches and gardens with their eyes glued to the skies. We heard ecstatic voices on the radio, they were getting interviewed by some good man whose name was Bonehead Bill. We're almost there to Vegas where they're putting on a show. They've come so far, I've lived this long at least I must go and say hello.

We find a spot in the crowd, as close to the action as possible, roll down a blanket on the ground and pass round a pair of binoculars recently purchased by Russell the Muscle. I was honoured to call him my friend. The aliens took their time but sure enough at 6.36 on new year's eve, a spacecraft slowly descended on to the strip. Three of them came down to greet us, they waved to their spectators and were surprisingly media trained. One woman handed over a baby and an alien raised it to the sky. A symbol of peace between galaxies. An image that would stick in time for centuries. One of hope and positivity to combat children running from nuclear bombs and point blank executions. All three aliens would later be awarded Times Man of the Year. Nearly as soon as they arrived, they departed again. We shall never know the reason for their brief visit. Leaving Earth's citizens to repeatedly strive to find some meaning in The Happening.

Throughout all this, Old Max sat in a deck chair, barely saying a word but he had this strange goofy grin on his face going from ear to ear. Lost in his own world listening to Brian Eno's Silver Morning. Later, he would tell me, "We're all just passing through. Nobody really knows anything. We want the answers. We want to control everything but everybody has their own course. Fate may play into your favour, it may not... accept the mystery. When you're young, You think this sort of thing will happen a lot in life. These things don't come along often, kid". Something told me he wasn't talking about the aliens.

The partying went on for 4 days. People filled the streets and danced from sun up 'til sun down. We passed around a guitar and sung 'til we could no more. Foggy hammered away at his drum kit and never failed to stay on beat. Laura and I went in to a duet singing, "There's a starman waiting in the sky. He'd like to come and meet us. But he think he'd blow our minds. There's a starman waiting in the sky. He's told us not to blow it. Cause he knows it's all worthwhile. He told me. Let the children lose it. Let the Children use it. Let all the children boogie!"

In the hordes of partying people, we realised we had lost Laura. She text us on the day we were leaving to pick her up from some diner. I turned down Townes Van Zandt who was mid-way through singing Dead Flowers on the car speakers and switched the engine off. Everyone stayed in the car, whilst I went in to retrieve our lost comrade. I scanned the room for her and she waved over at me to get my attention. There was a free seat opposite her and we sat down just the two of us. "You know, I somehow thought doing all this would save us", I declared. "You thought coming all the way across the country to see a bunch of aliens land would fix our relationship?", replied Laura. "Well, yeah", I fired back unable to disagree with the statement at hand. "I guess if aliens are real that opens a door for a whole new way of thinking. Things that we thought weren't possible could be possible", conceded Laura. "I think maybe you're coming round to my thinking", I proposed.

Laura leans back in her seat and takes a long sip of her beverage and saying, "what if you had this whole thing figured out wrong? You thought it was one thing and all this time it was another" "I don't know what it is but I just don't want to lose it", I state. "Nothing's lost. Just transferred maybe", says Laura. "I just wish I could see what you saw. So I could be sure", I follow up. "But if you did then maybe this would have ended differently. Somehow I think everything's lining up perfectly. The forces in the galaxy moving us along in the exact way we're supposed to. Maybe it's hard now but in time...sunrise doesn't last all morning. A cloudburst doesn't last all day", shares Laura. "All Things Must Pass?", I query. "All Things Must Pass", repeats Laura. "I guess so", I concede.

Two friends get up and leave the quiet diner. Their rest stop is over and life truly begins. A waitress heads over to clear their plates. In the corner, a disregarded jukebox that has seen many strangers come and go with its glass screen eyes, as though with a mind of its own, begins to play George Harrison's I Live For You for no-one in particular.