It occurred to me today that it has been over six months since I have last been on the road, and although to most people this wouldn’t seem like long, to me it feels like a lifetime.
Granted we did have a quick trip half way through to California, but that was so a DJ could make their gig, and the state of mind was different than the normal one I have when getting out on the road.
Usually when I’m headed out on the road I’m ready to get lost, on purpose. Ready to let whoever I was before, die, and to be reborn as some crazy new dude who lives now. It’s sort of like a multiverse. The universe I left before the trip is not the universe I came back to, and there’s nobody else who will never know that but me. It’s really heavy stuff.
What I’ve come to call it over the years is Mondo Journalism, as a subtle tribute to a hero of mine in writing, the late Hunter S. Thompson. Although, I know deep down the person I was out there wasn’t any type of Mando at all, but rather Montez. Montez took over for a while. I suppose he still does.
Hell, most people I have met out there still know me as Montez, and frankly I have no interest in ever changing that. I am as much him as I have ever been myself, and that comes with the territory of traveling and living on the road for as long as I did.
Back and forth. Here and There. Always planning the next one. It was a good life to live while I lived it, but as with anything else it had to stop. It just had to. I said this once and I’ll say it again, not every payment made will be in gold, and the road is the place that teaches you that the most.
The goal is to get to the show, obviously, but also a bit more than that. I have to be able to see the trip back home while still taking the trip out there.
The ability to know and consider all the details and scenarios is not something you just have. You learn it. The old fashioned way. The way I like.
So with that I’m happy to say I’m hitting the road again, and this time it feels different, but then again, it always does. I have spent the last six months committed to this city and this culture in a way I don’t feel I ever was before.
I’ve written about shows I suppose I didn’t expect to write about, and I’ve interacted with DJ’s in a way I never expected either. It’s been truly great writing about them and seeing their reaction to what I say. Especially because I’m not writing these things for acceptance or profit.
I’m doing it because I’ll never be able to spin a record properly, or paint a picture with a steady hand, or even throw a show like I see so many do so well. As I learn and evolve I don’t see the need to do everything, but rather to support what I can with what I have. And what I have right now are my words.
I don’t have the arrogance I had when I started out on the road, but then again I’m not so naïve or immature. I’m not allowed to be. I have been forced over and over again to swallow my pride and face my own demons, and yet that is why I wish to share my words with this city and this culture.
New Mexico has to face its own demons as well, but don’t be so quick to assume you are the only ones. This process happens over and over across everywhere you go. We are simply next in line. Next to see who is ready to move forward. To carry on. To start again.
I want so badly for this scene to come together, and to be what I believe it to be, so with that I will share my optimism and hope with you. I will keep seeing the good in you, and my hope is that you will live up to the words that are written. If I take the time to write them you can take the chance to live them.
I can’t go out like I used to, though. I can’t let go in this city like I once did so many times before. And it’s not cause of one person or two, or even anything that they or I have done. Because we’ve got to all let go. Let’s allow each other that.
The reason I can’t go out anymore in this town is because I see too many ghosts on the dancefloor, and I just can’t handle that at this moment. I’ve got to wait for the time the universe will allow it, and until then you’ll have my words.
I’ve got go back on the road, again.
This time It’s an all night long with Patrice Baumel in Denver. Then another in Brooklyn for Charlotte De Witte. And then Hernan Cattaneo and Nick Warren the next night in New York. And then back to Chicago. Oh, Chicago. I have so much more to say about Chicago, but this isn’t some grand speech.
It’s merely, me, Mando, checking in with the rest of you. Saying, I see you guys, and I hope you see me too. And I want you to keep going. I’ll keep writing and you keep doing what you’re doing, and maybe I’ll see you soon.
Maybe I’ll be able to make it to one of these nights I write about. Maybe I won’t. I just can’t say. All I know is I’m going on the road again. Let’s talk when I get back? Maybe we can do something in a warehouse? Or that play? Or maybe I’ll find the guts to finally go back downtown. Maybe not.
See you on the dancefloor.
I just don’t know which one it will be.
Do we ever?
Ourdancefloor.net 