"The Key Is In Your Mind"

Now, what I'm about to share with you, my friend, is a tale about my journey to another world. Words will never do our animated expedition justice, but I will try. Unfortunately, due to the extreme spontaneity of the itinerary there are very limited forms of evidence. 

I'll start from the beginning...

El Dorado is a smaller dive bar in downtown that recently opened its doors to all the scenester, hipster kids of this fine city. We made a group decision to branch out and discover what San Diego has to offer, El Dorado was the perfect calling. Soon enough we discovered we were all having an "off" night. Which resulted in Allison becoming a pyro at the bar, Rachel being locked out of her house in the morning (which is actually becoming a norm), and me meeting Eric-is-rad outside of El Dorado while Allison has everything emptied out of her purse on the sidewalk in a desperate attempt to find her favorite lighter. 

 

The plan was to all (Allison, me, Dani and Rachel) crash at Allison's pad downtown but ended up just being me and her. The cab ride home was fun....

(driver was fluent in Spanish)

Amy: Vamos a segundo y mercado por favor.

Driver: Ah! Si, segundo y mercado..

Allison: NO!!! SECOND AND MARKET! IT'S SECOND AND MARKET!

After dancing around Allison's house for about 30 minutes to the same song (Zero, by Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and realizing how tired of the song and in general we were, she remembered she was invited to a festival earlier that day by her friend Mike. After looking at the line-up, venue, etc., we decided in a drunken stammer that it was the best idea EVER and we would figure it all out in the morning. 

The next thing I know it's 10 AM and I am lying on a barren apartment floor, but hearing Rachel's voice. "Allison! It's Rachel!"... ("um, where am I again?, oh yeahh Allison's a.k.a. R. Kelly's penthouse"). 

*side note: When I go out and drink, I usually go to bed/pass out with the expectation of waking up sober the next morning. It always baffles me when I don't. Isn't it a phenomenon?

After getting back to my house and somewhat recuperating and recapping the night, Allison calls. "Soooo, do you still wanna go to that concert tonight?". Now, in these types of situations its better NOT to weigh the positive and negatives. So I didn't. The next events happened rather fast. Allison came over, we made ultimate headbands and cut-off Tee's and completely electrified ourselves out for the show of our lives. Line-up included DJ Z-TRIP, THE ROOTS, TALIB KWELI & HI-TEK, ABOVE & BEYOND, CHROMEO, MENNO DE JONG, ARMAN VAN HELDEN, DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH? and more...

Around 4:00 PM we make it to Mike's house, which is right about when our hangover starts to set in. Not fun in traffic, bleh. Not to mention Mike was a complete stranger to me, nor did I have any idea what I was getting myself into. We get to Orange, where we meet two of his friends, Dana and Michelle. Dana is a 19-year-old college student, who works part time at Disneyland as freakin' Minnie, Mickey and Stitch. Yes. You know who I'm talking about. The characters who prance around in full body costume suits and take pics with you. If you have done this recently there is a good chance it was Dana. Allison and I think this is absolutely awesome.

(this is really Dana)

We get to the fairgrounds around 10:30 PM, ready to party. Oh and I should mention, when Allison and I were at Dana's house, we needed a little snack. She offered us some gummy bears and we gladly accepted and finished the whole bag... oops. So back to the concert; parked the car and danced all the way to the front gates. Thousands of people dressed (and un-dressed) in any which way you could imagine. The outfits that stood out to me the most were the ones worn by what they call "Candy Kids". Mostly consisting of females, wearing full body fish net apparatuses, with some sort of skimpy top and booty shorts. You know those Uggs, made out of fur and they're huge and hairy? Those. In all colors. Everywhere. And the bracelets, oh the bracelets! These people make hundreds of brightly colored, beaded, elastic bracelets and wear them all the way up their arms to their shoulders. It's unreal.

First stop: Electro Stage for some Does it Offend You, Yeah? Amazing. Walk outside to see Z-Trip, and then... VVOOOMMMMM.. WHOA... Me:"Allison do you feel that?" Allison:"No, What?". A wave of crazy energy was running over me and it was something close to Godliness. Weird. So I just went with it, saw another great performance and moved the trance room. And somewhere in the middle of the Menno De Jong set, Allison and I looked at each other and I knew it hit her too. We were experiencing complete elation, totally intoxicated by the bass and the synthesized beats of the DJ. We probably felt like what the Rockefeller Christmas tree feels like when it's lights get turned on for the first time. 

As the night went on it only got better. During Chromeo's marvelous performance and most incredible dance party, we managed to pick up a lone ranger, which wasn't hard to do since Allison and I were on cloud 9, ready and willing to meet everyone who was up for us. Justin was his name and he literally came out of no where. All of a sudden we were dancing like needy girls and he was giving us bonafide lovin'. It was a match made in heaven. For the rest of the night Allison, Justin, Mike and I cruised around that fair like we were on ecstasy, or something. 

J. SAUCE THE GREAT

Highlights include: Allison and I dancing on their shoulders, the lights, dancing to Above & Beyond, drinking copious amounts of water, the lights, feeling the bass in your chest, smuggling gum in, making love to my headband-scarf thing, the lights, and making a new friends... oh and having serious connections with everything we came into contact with. 

It was amazing. We didn't even know what hit us.

We left the show around 5 AM got back to San Diego around 8 AM, chilled at Mike's to pull ourselves back together and left Encinitas around 3 PM. Feeling extremely deranged and loony we stopped at a coffee shop in hopes of a cure. After an ineffective team effort of searching for the bathroom key, the only thing we found was a sign that was trying to play a psychological prank on our brains. A sign that read..

"THE KEY IS IN YOUR MIND"

Apparently, the coffee shop thought it was clever to make the customer think that the key for the bathroom was a figment of imagination, little did they know that our minds were already in concentrated bubbles of cognitive illusion.... We drove back chatting the whole way and safely arrived back home in San Diego around 4 PM. What a wild, wild ride that was.

Now, you're probably wondering how we came to that state of mind without taking any drugs. Well, Allison and I didn't come to find out until later that Dana had gotten the gummy bears we had devoured from the Genie in Aladdin at Disneyland. Our conclusion was that he probably put a spell on them....