Overture.

"When I make it to Moab, I'll get my canteen filled.
There's nothing that the road cannot heal." - Conor Oberst


Can an agnostic make a pilgrimage?

Not a trip.
Not a journey.
A pilgrimage.

My road trip was born of a kaleidoscope of motives. The necessity of getting my car to Pennsylvania from California, the consummation of a decade-long desire to cross America with friends, of experiencing cities I should have long before. 2,500 miles of break-up sex with the country I'm so anxious to leave.

Most of the stops were obvious: Chicago, Denver, Omaha the logical equidistant choice between the two. But the first night wasn't as simple. Vegas was too close, too tempting of a money drain, too familiar to me. Mapping the trip online, Cedar City, Utah seemed to be the only city of any size on the way to stop off in. But it was such a boring option, at best a waste of a night.

There's one more thing this road trip was to be: a prologue. Five days of travel to prep myself for the five months of wandering across Europe and Asia that begins a week from today. The appetizer. The overture. And that's why Cedar City didn't feel right to me. Yes... a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But that step should at least be a purposeful one.

Lacking a launch pad, I at least had a mantra. There is nothing that the road cannot heal, taken from the Conor Oberst song "Moab."

Moab, Utah.

Without knowing why I chose it, I did. Even if you can't see the tumblers aligning, falling in to place, that sound is unmistakable. Moab. I was drawn to it, without knowing why. A week ago, one of my oldest friends and I got in my car and left Los Angeles for Moab, Utah- a 50 mile deviation from our path, but one I was compelled to explore. Even on the way there, we had to pull over at least a dozen times on the 70 East to take in the wondrous nature that surrounded us. Your eyes can breathe deeper than your lungs.

A quiet night in Moab, and the next day hiking throughout the town's signature attraction, Arches National Park. We stood on the earthen floor surrounded by stoic giants, silent as awed children. We did more than inhale the view; we tapped deeply in to that Jungian Eden, the collective unconscious. A vivid, overwhelming rush of memories made by strangers, but remembered by me. Visitors from all throughout the country, the world, drawn here. To Moab. And they were everpresent, the eager ghosts of their faded wonder reawakened by our arrival. An experience I've savored only once before, in Brooklyn riding the Coney Island Cyclone. Two places entirely dissimilar, except for their fundamental effect upon the visitor- to strip away all layers of preconception, all idiosyncrasies of personality, to penetrate deeply, immediately to the single common denominator all humanity shares. Call it our basic innocence, the soul, the Atman, the karma... as an agnostic it is inexpressible, unclassifiable. But no less real, no less mesmerizing, no less available. If you find the right setting.

Moab. A reminder that tapping in to the collective unconscious is not a one-way transaction. Justin and I stirred up the memories of a century of visitors, famous and anonymous. But we also deposited our emotions, our innocent elation, back in to that intangible reservoir as well. The closest an agnostic can come to infinity. Pilgrimage by happenstance.

(more photos)http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2098648&id=35804394&l=aed563481e

Road trip soundtrack:
Conor Oberst - "Moab"
Counting Crows - "Omaha" & "Holiday in Spain"
Tapes 'n Tapes - "Omaha"
Common ft. Kanye West - "Southside"
Kings of Leon - "Frontier City"
The Cardigans - "You're the Storm"
Taking Back Sunday - "Where My Mouth Is" & "Everything Must Go"

The twice-a-year addict.

"If you find yourself alone, riding in green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium." - Gladiator


This is the moment where the polygamist becomes the full-fledged traitor.

A child of America, thus a child of sport. No matter how strong a Europhile I may be, I cannot deny my love for the great American pastime. Baseball. Not my favorite sport, (nothing can touch the beautiful game in my passions), but only baseball can rival football (by which I mean soccer) for transcendence. It's piecemeal attrition. Politics. Ecstasy. Greed. A choir of 50,000 breaths hinge on a pitch, the crack of an ash bat, a runner's sprint to second. Games end in unbridled elation, only for everyone to realize there are 161 others just as important. All those victories yet to capture. All those emotions yet to be swayed.

My love for baseball doesn't mean I'm in a fantasy league, or can rattle off obscure decades-old stats, or even the rosters of my favorite team, but I get a rush from merely sitting in the grandstands.... I don't think it's strange that Roger Kahn's descriptions of Pee Wee Reese or Roy Campanella can bring me nearly (nearly) to tears. I think it's strange if it can't do the same to you.

My confession is that I've had 2 loves. The Cleveland Indians I grew up following, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, whom I know far more intimately, whose majestic park I've been to 40? 60? times in the past 15 years. The Dodgers of Jackie Robinson. The Dodgers of Elysian Park. You have to be there to appreciate that name, why the grounds around the ballpark carry that title. That's where I stood yesterday morning, visiting the stadium to pick up tickets for that night's game. I purchased the seats, aware that they would be for my last game here for I don't know how long. Years at least. I turned around from the ticket window with them in hand, and looked up to see the view above. The view from Elysium.

It's a view I've seen before, and one that I would see again several hours later, with the full spectrum of the skyline lights bursting through the palm trees, under a rich violet canopy of night. It was also the view that fans had leaving the Kirk Gibson pinch-hit home run game, the view during the summer fervors of Valenzuela and Nomo. More than a view. A Rubicon. What cemented the pendulum of my loyalty in favor of Dodger blue, even over the team I was born in to following. Traitor? Maybe. But I don't find it strange that it meant that to me. I find it strange if it can't do the same to you.

This shift has very little practical impact. I'll be in Middle East during the World Series, and living in New York by next baseball season... in both cases far from the view from Elysian Park. But if you're looking for practicality, don't start with baseball fans. Even if I only attend 2 or 3 games a year, can't tell you the batting order Joe Torre favors, or what pitches were in Sandy Koufax's arsenal, the love remains the same. My rationed presence only heightens the senses, devotion magnified by distance. Until the next time I hear the crack of the bat echo throughout Dodger Stadium, join in the chorus of roars. Walk through Elysium with the sun on my face, taking in the view.

Los angeles, i'm yours.

I prefer microcosms, not mosaics.

In remembering a country or a city that I've been, I don't try to recall the dozens, or even hundreds of moments that make up the bank of memories that I have about it. Not when I want to define what the city itself meant to me.

Such focus is much easier the shorter you're in a certain place. Living in Los Angeles off and on for 18 years , I don't know what that moment would have been if you'd asked me a week ago. I've had lots of nights I love to remember, a few that for the life of me I can't, and a wealth of friends to populate the vast majority of both, as well as many, many more.

Last night for the 4th of July, I went to see a movie under the stars at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, one of the few things in Los Angeles that even the L.A. haters are forced to admit is something unique to cherish about this city. The setting was enhanced by the fact that the film was Jaws, a quintessential American movie to watch on a summer night. But I was cold, hungry, still hungover 14 hours after waking up, annoyed by a drunk lady who repeatedly fell into me while stumbling back and forth between her friends in front of and behind us, and a little impatient for the movie to finally start. All the while the DJ's continued to spin, moving away from the ambient filler of instrumental tribal electronica, eventually to a few Michael Jackson songs in a row. And with that, you could sense a sort of collective cathartic appreciation, and even a few people standing up to dance at "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." And then the inevitable happened. They played "Thriller." And even cold, hungry, hungover, only-somewhat-coordinated-white-boy Joshua got up to dance with his friends and the thousand other people there.

The music faded, as did the unabashed smiles of dancing in an actual graveyard to "Thriller," and one of the greatest summer movies ever made started playing, while we sat surrounded by the daguerreotype silhouettes of trees against a sky that held the quality of soft steel, peppered with the firework bursts from surrounding celebrations, and I thought of the word "fraternity." A word that, if you remove your initial instincts of Greek letters, keg stands, and hazing that may or may not involve livestock, can really be a powerful concept. One that relays a collective, unspoken harmony. The idea that you can be surrounded by a thousand friends you've never met.

This is how I will remember Los Angeles. Not the congested freeways, the pathetic exclusivity of clubs, or the hordes of Lakers fans that arrive just in time for the playoffs. But rather the absurd feeling of unity for those few hours in the simplest of pleasures. It was that moment of the embrace when you clutch just a bit tighter before releasing for good.