Night. Dad and I are sitting at the top of a stone bluff in Yosemite. We're looking down on a Ku Klux Klan meeting in a small valley with a few men maneuvering around in the dark, perhaps trying to ignite a cross. I realize that Dad and I are also dressed in Klan robes but without the hoods. I have an overripe persimmon in my hand and I throw it down at one of the Klansmen below. Dad calmly scolds me, saying something like, "come on Matthew, you don't have to pick on those poor, ignorant bastards. They have their own problems to deal with."

Then I'm alone and I find myself scaling the sheer cliff that was behind us. I'm incredibly high up now and the handholds are nearly impossible to get. At an impasse actually - my arms and legs spread out wide to grip the small ledges. All of a sudden I am surrounded by a bright, shimmering light and a sense of paralyzed ecstasy. The stone explodes, shattering into dust and I feel two strong arms embrace and carry me up to the summit. I'm laid down safely on the ground, my robes covered in stone dust. Again the image of of a strong male torso, like an amputated Hellenic sculpture in marble.

First thing that dawns on me then is that I'm in Big Sur and I have to play a show for Britt. My amp is there (the Super Reverb) but where's everything else? Wandering around I come upon Paz. She's 20 years younger and she starts to flirt with me.

Running a marathon with Rachel near Hopkins Marine Station. Five more miles to go and I dust her. Moving along by myself now at a good clip. I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying this.

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I'm at the beach with another woman and we're climbing on huge pieces of granite. At one point she walks up to me and puts her open hands on my torso and slowly slides them downward. I wonder what that's going to lead to but instead we end up climbing around more. I get to the top of a large stone peak and realize that behind it on the ocean's side, protruding straight up out of the water is a huge, elongated crab's claw. Maybe forty feet long. I suspect that it is attached to an entire living creature beneath the surface, one whose enormity is terrifying to realize. Zoomorphic Chthulu. Given my position, it could have snatched me at any moment.

Perhaps it was the wind or the breaking of the waves but something caused the claw to waffle a little and that made it seem fake, like it was made out of foam rubber. Now the peak is perpendicular to how it stood before and I'm hanging from it, struggling to get back up. The woman stands above me, encouraging me and trying to help. I don't need her. An enormous physical effort accompanied by the image of a muscular torso in full flex. I never quite make it up but I'm left with a feeling of optimism.

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The sound of church bells through the open window. Sunlight, parrots screeching.

Everyone is dressed in multicolored robes and genuflecting or crawling towards something at the far end of Scott Partch's old room. I think it's a shrine (or something else he's created) and except for it the walls have none of the decorations we all loved so much. Olana comes up from behind me and says, "it's idolatry!" but she doesn't pronounce it right, has the syllables all mixed up.

I'm thinking, "Ok. So what?"

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Virginia has her office in a house in Pebble Beach. We've just finished a session and she is working with some kind of punch card system. She says, "oh, I used to be a tutor as well." Wandering out into the forest I find myself in a large hall or ballroom. It is dim, lined with dark wood, and luxuriously decorated. Perhaps it's a gentleman's club. Across the table sits Larry in an immaculate white tuxedo. He tells me that he comes here for therapy and I get the feeling it isn't doing much for him although he is thinner. As he stands up I notice that he has a corduroy sport coat that doesn't match his ensemble. Then Jered walks up behind me and gets me in a kind of gentle camel clutch but, instead of being under my chin, his fingers are clasped over my face. They smell like snot.

Now we're up on our feet and everyone is moving toward the walls. A brass band is making their entrance. I can't really see them but I get the sense that they are tactical in their approach, attacking the room like Urban Sax. It feels like a ceremony.

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Standing at the edge of a pool in my parents' back yard. It's the middle of the night. Looking into the dirty water I see the contours of a female body amongst the garbage and debris. She's on all fours at the bottom and suddenly her eyes open and we're looking at each other. An orgasm of fear.

A small tent city. We've all taken LSD. I  Patrick tells me that Matt took some of this batch and on it he realized that the world was made up of tiny spheres. It's kicking in and everything feels wrong. I have the suspicion that I have to play a set in a little while but I have no idea where my gear is.

Stepping outside I see Shimeko lying on the ground at my feet and she's been dosed too. She looks up at me and says, "everything feels so fake." At that instant, out near the horizon, we see a huge, fluffy owl floating in place and flapping its wings mechanically.

Dad and I are thrifting in the country. An array of debris spread across a hillside. Finished with the lower level we begin to climb upwards past a corrugated metal house and I point at it and tell him that's where Keigan lives. The next structure is a large, free-standing wooden cabinet and that's where Willie Nelson from Nepenthe lives. It doesn't look like there is enough room to fit a chair in there so I guess she must sleep standing up.

We get to the area with the goods and suddenly we're back inside. I can tell that Dad wants to go soon but I'm excited about all of the outlandish stuff they have in there and ask him for five minutes. I look at a table full of carved African statuettes. A black woman next to me admires the one that I've picked up and I tell her that she can have it. She's there with her husband - mustachioed with a ball cap.

I start to scan the book cases and find a copy of Nostrilia. The last twenty pages have been mutilated but I'll get it any way. I look for the quote:

"Dog-derived girls who smelled of sex all the time."

Jeff has a crazy, lopsided A-line haircut. My dad is furious that we borrowed the van. He's strutting along in a pair of white, flowing Hollywood waist pants and that's it. I wonder why he and mom would need a van at all.

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A girl asks me why I have such crooked teeth. I don't think they're that bad and I'm surprised she noticed.

A small, indoor amphitheater shaped space used for sleeping. It's dark. Taking my place among the blankets I realize that I'm lying between two strangers. They start to stir and I hope that I can get to sleep unnoticed. I think they are squatter punk types and I start to worry about lice.

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In a huge movie theater with multiple screens. It had been renovated at some point and one of them is defunct. We are way in the back - Mom, Audrey and I. Also there are some other people with us who feel like they're part of the clan. Down the aisle, to the right of us, is a fat Persian man and his date, an insignificant woman. He asks me to come over and sit in the seat next to him. Then it's just the two of us and he starts to ask about my mother. Says that I should introduce them... maybe he can satisfy her. I get up and swing one of my shoes (a loafer) at his face, coming inches from his nose. I consider having another swipe but go back to my seat where I find Maryann sitting next to me. We clasp hands on her lap and it reminds me of the way I sat with aunt Helen in the parish hall the day of my grandmother's funeral.

Twilight. I'm in an overgrown Civil War era graveyard looking for esoteric markings on the headstones. Walking up to one of them I strain to make out the inscription until suddenly it becomes clear that it's a large swastika. Loud and clear, vaguely luminous. Then a man who looks like an old, gray Walt Whitman (but thinner and less robust) approaches from the forest and stands in front of me. He's wearing an old fashioned hat and clothes. I try to look into his eyes but I can't find them - his orbits are pools of shadow. He is expressionless and I'm worried he thinks I'm a Nazi.

Suddenly I'm back at the cabin but some of the walls have been removed to create a more open-plan space. It's dark inside and filled with unfamiliar people. There are thousands of empty beer cans on the floor, counters and every other surface and thousands more to drink. Entire cases. Fizzing. Liminal. I wonder where the guys are but I'm reluctant to go outside and look. Something dangerous is happening out there. I think they may be shooting guns. Moving amongst the crowd I come upon Eddie Vedder, drink in hand. He's shorter than I thought and worried about being recognized. He wordlessly dismisses me and slips away into the darkness.

Then Scott Partch comes up to my side and puts a hand to my ear. I can't see him but I recognize his voice. He asks: "Remember that baby we buried last time we were up here?"

What? All I can come up with is a childhood memory of burying my little orange cat in the garden. She was wrapped in her favorite afghan.

I shake my head and can feel his breath on my ear when he says:

"We dug it back up."

Madonna is missing. A search party in mountains. Wholesome Christian kids. I fall off a cliff but manage to grasp some cypress branches on the way down. Suspended over space but with a titillated, confident feeling.

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Following two men down a steep slope toward the lake at Pinecrest. Below, the lake is drained but not frozen over the way you can expect it to be this time of year. It's warm out and pleasant but I get the feeling that the world, or at least this part of it, is decadent - on the verge of rotting. Looking around I try to orient myself by finding the store and I point out where Alex's cabin is.

The guys easily negotiate down a sheer rock surface and make it to the water's edge. When it's my turn I realize that it's nearly impossible to make it down without falling. There are just a couple little hand holds and it's the kind of move that requires real rock climbing technique. Somehow I do it and find myself in a place I didn't expect. Leaving a house? Taking a look at the men I realize that they're both around 40, slightly worse for wear and tear but dressed like teenagers. We rush to a little creek and grab on to a zipline and away we go at terrific speed. The problem is that it's so close to the ground and we have to dodge the people who are in its path. Then I'm alone and it's no longer a smooth ride. I start to waffle violently. Bailing out, I find myself in a dining hall packed full of campers. Trying to move around, walking on the tables. One guy won't get out of my way. Pushes his chair up against me. I move suddenly and over he goes onto the floor.

Outside now. Walking up a hill I see Clay Payton sitting down with a cigarette. He's waiting for something. When he sees me he asks how I liked his friend in the dining hall.

With Patrick and Fishbeck outside a party and we can't get in because someone inside keeps throwing full bottles of beer at us as we try to approach the door. They break and fizz, spinning like fireworks. Fine, we'll just hang out on the porch. At some point we do get inside and it's almost pitch dark in there.  Everyone is laying around on the floor amongst the broken glass and puddles of beer. Incapacitated. This is the other side of the Bacchanal.

Starting in medias res with some idea of what came before. Travel of some kind, perhaps a tour. I'm trying to pass through a security check point behind a house in the country, close to where we flipped the Volvo. In spite of the long line I get to the front quickly and the official standing next to the scanner is dressed in an antiquated police uniform. He looks at me and, although it's still daytime, shines his flashlight in my face point blank and says, "oh, you're under arrest." He says this with a vague sense of surprise, as though he never expected to catch me. I get the idea that there was an all points bulletin. He starts to walk away and I follow him.

He leads me away to a holding cell in a building further down the dirt road. It feels like Nicasio. Inside I'm left with a guard and he explains to me that I am wanted for murder. He doesn't say who and for some reason I keep picturing Jim Sullivan though I have no recollection of killing him. As he speaks to me I lose all sense of the room we are in and I begin to experience a rapid fire series of images. I ask him if I can have a copy of the book that I've been reading and he says, "we're going to put you down in a hole and you'll get nothing. What makes you think you have the right to a book?" I get the impression that it will be a life sentence with no trial and the corresponding image is that of an old rusted out truck whose tires have sunk into the earth. Between the rubber and the dirt is a cold, dark interstitial space where they will keep me. A total suspension of human rights. Intense grief. I'm weeping profusely.

Someone else comes in from outside and my awareness returns to the room. The guard frantically gestures at something on the table in front of me. I look down and there is a pair of handcuffs but of an unfamiliar, incomprehensible design and I can tell he wants me to put them on. Not sure how to do that but apparently I was supposed to be wearing them the whole time. I'm unsure if this was lenience or negligence on his part. In spite of the awful feelings of oppression and helplessness there is never any overt force on the part of the police.

At first I think the new person is another cop but once I get a look at him I realize it's a prisoner who has come in voluntarily. He is a giant swaddled in baggy white cloth and looking at him makes me think of junkies, retardation, filth, sepsis, Lazarus. He sits down with us at the table and I can see that he is covered in scars where he has picked away his own skin and has large, white keratinized growths on the backs of his hands where he has bitten himself compulsively. His face doesn't have the alienated blankness that typifies autism. Rather there is something sensitive and sincere about his expression. Although he never speaks I can tell he is a cockney. We sit across from each other and I wait for him to do something, to attack someone. Either me or himself.

Woke up with an overwhelming sense of relief.

Some remote dirt road near Sebastopol. Riding four deep in Alex Rinehart's P-1800: him, Kaila, Raina and I. We stop, a destination or a road block. A non-descript group approching the car. Police men. Now it's just Kaila and I in the car and she starts freaking out. She wants to escape. I try to tell her that we're fine. Not doing anything wrong. Even though she isn't in the driver's seat she manages to step hard on the gas and it sends the car up onto a steep shoulder and it flips over. As this happens, I'm surprised that it doesn't hurt at all.

Trapped. The enclosure starts feeling smaller than before, like a poorly designed space capsule or a tandem coffin. I'm considering which window to break. Thinking about the price of vintage auto glass. Suddenly I'm being sucked out of the car and find myself standing on the wet grass outside. Amongst a crowd of passive onlookers, we look down at the vehicle and marvel at how I was able to fit through such a small space. A little slot beneath the rear window. I feel proud, self-possessed, healthy. I wonder how she's going to get out.

Amongst a group of people (the CBK gang?) looking down at the coastline from Jake's place at Nepenthe. Someone points out a couple of leathery bodies on the shore and speculates that they were murdered. I say they could have come over in the debris from Fukushima. Images of the ocean saturated with trash. Sounding into clear water. Dark blue.

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I enter a vitamin shop in an indoor mall with an ambitious list of things to buy, including a tee shirt. Looking around I realize that I don't have enough money for anything but one bottle of my men's once-a-day. Walking away it inexplicably starts to drizzle inside the mall and I realize that I bought the wrong thing - something for the prostate. I go back to exchange it. The woman inside is not amused, doesn't want to take it back. Jesus, how banal.