"Try this trick and spin it, yeah."*

Coachella Part V  

    This is the fifth part of the story of my trip to Coachella in 2004. If you feel the need to read the earlier installments, go here: One, Two, Three, Four.

    It should be mentioned (in passing) that Scott and I had a relationship that consisted largely of twisted humor, going to bars and having petty arguments. We were thrown together by circumstance (acting in a very emotionally disturbing play) and had come to rely heavily on each other and the ability to be complete assholes together. We were both bossy and demanding but found ourselves and each other hilarious. We had a lot of fun, and we fought continually. And usually, everything was his fault. We are still friends, though less so. There, now everything is out in the open.

    “So,” Scott said between bites of French toast, “where are we headed next?”

    “The nearest, cheapest hotel we can find.” I attempted to eat eggs and drink coffee at the same time—no easy task, as my keys were clenched so hard in my hand they were leaving indentations.

    I was attempting to inhale bacon through a straw when our check arrived and Scott suggested that I pay it.

    “You’re the one who locked the keys in the car,” he reasoned.

    “Yeah, and? You’re the reason we’re here in the first place. You’re the reason $200 of my money is gone!”

    “Money you didn’t have to begin with!”

    “But money I had at one point and had grown to enjoy!”

    “True as that may be, you are the reason that we’ve been here all night!”

    “You are the reason that we left LA at midnight!”

    “The fact remains that you locked the keys in the car.”

    “Bitch, you’ll be lucky if you get a seat in the car.”

    We fumed and ate and stared hatefully at each other for a minute.

    “Fine,” I said. “We’re splitting everything from here out. Breakfast. The hotel. Gas. Decision making.”

    “Fine.”

    I threw my half on the table and stormed out in the most dramatic way I could. Functioning on zero sleep, it wasn’t a challenge. 

    Anyway, by 8 a.m. Scott and I were back on I-10 East, looking for any exit near Indio that boasted a hotel. Sadly, we were coming up pretty short. Did I mention there’s nothing in the desert between LA and Palm Springs? Because I lied. There are windmills. And they creep me out because they remind me of Mac and Me.

Windmills in the desert. Shudder.

    We passed a sign: Indio Next 3 Exits.

    “Alright,” I said, “we’re just going to have to get off and look. I don’t want to pass Indio.”

    We exited. Almost immediately we came upon a run-down motel advertising HBO and showers. I considered only briefly what exactly would have to be wrong with a place in order for showers to be a selling point. It didn’t matter. We were exhausted. I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

    I parked and we went inside.

    “We’d like a room,” Scott said. “Preferably one with two beds.”

    “We’re booked.”

    “What?”

    “It’s 8 o’clock in the morning,” the clerk said. “No one checks out until 12. There’s a concert here this weekend, you know.”

    “Yeah, we know,” Scott sighed. We walked back to the car.

    We began driving up and down the busier looking streets we could find. A few times we got lost in residential areas that reminded me of Phoenix: dry, dusty, cookie-cutter. Occasionally we’d see large landscapes of what appeared to be working farmland, dotted with pink and yellow houses and impossibly thriving flowers. But no hotels/motels/RV parks or even campgrounds.

    Every time I ended up in a residential neighborhood, Scott would get mad and I would remind him that he was free to drive at any time and then he would be quiet again. Fatigue had taken its toll on our bickering.

    Eventually we found another hotel. A Spanish-style, yellow building with pretty flower beds. We parked again and went inside. Tiled floors, fountains, flowers all around. But all the pretty had a $200 price tag, and for 6 hours and two college kids that was absurd.

    So we drove some more. We drove for 400 hours. And we died in the desert.

    Just kidding. At 9:30 we found a hotel near the freeway (how had we missed it? Who cared?) that would let us stay until noon for $80.  (I think this is where the term “highway robbery” comes from, but I could be wrong.) But Scott paid.

    We crawled up to the room. It looked like a run-down apartment complex, complete with lawn chairs and holiday decorations outside each screen door. In retrospect, it’s highly possible that we spent the night at some conniving slumlord’s tenement housing. Noisy children frolicked in the dirty pool below. Old ladies fanned themselves and drank lemonade or maybe horchata on the porch. Did they live there? It’s hard to say.

Nicer than the place we stayed. I can't find that place online.

    The inside matched the outside, but there were beds (one king-sized, one a single) and a shower (hooray!).  Scott gave me the king-size and went into the shower, and since I hadn’t brought PJ’s I just chucked my jeans and crawled into the bed. Within seconds I was asleep.

*The Pixies "Where is My Mind?"

"With your feet in the air and your head on the ground/ Try this trick and spin it, yeah/ Your head will collapse but there's nothing in it/ And you'll ask yourself/ Where is my mind?"

        I thought in honor of Coachella, the annual, epic music extravaganza in the California desert (Indio, if you want to get specific) just happening last weekend (and also, apparently, the weekend before that) I’d tell a little story about my time(s) at that whack-a-do place.

        The first time I went was the Spring of 2002, so I guess that was the fourth year of the festival (at one time a line-up of indie rock bands playing in side-show tents with an occasional big name thrown in as a headliner performing on one of the actual stages). It was fun and sweaty and tiresome in a good way, but nothing to write home about. There were lots of hippies (and people who just smelled bad for no good reason), expensive bottled water and mind-numbingly foul port-o-potties. Sigh. It’s an outdoor concert/all day event. What are you gonna do? But to quote a calendar I once had, “I love not camping.”**

Hot hot heat, a batrillion people and no bathrooms? Sounds awesome!

        But the second time I went is what I really wanted to write about. That happened in the Spring of 2004 and I was deeply into The Cure at that moment in time and so agreed to head into Indio yet again for the concert. But this time, I wasn’t going for one day. I was going for THE WHOLE WEEKEND. The Pixies were playing, along with The Cure, Radiohead, Blonde Redhead, and Belle and Sebastian. I think. I could have my years confused. But definitely The Cure, The Pixies and Radiohead. Come on. You gotta go, right?

Robert Smith of The Cure. Wore this man on a t-shirt. Truth.

        I want to address briefly the way I feel about concerts: not super stoked. I like music. Hell, I love music. But concerts make me feel anxious and annoyed and trapped; and like something is maybe really wrong with me. I don’t like to dance (where anyone can see me, anyway) and I can’t sit because usually the people in front of me stand up to dance and then I can’t see. I like to know the music before I go, and most of my favorite bands are comprised of people that are no longer with us or are too old to feel like jammin’. So I’m relegated to loving a new(ish) band and going to see only them(Belle and Sebastian), waiting for an old band to plan a reunion tour and sit with a bunch of middle-aged hippies (Loggins and Messina; Simon and Garfunkel; a group of people covering Joni Mitchell songs) or—horror of horrors—seeing a band I know nothing about. Shoot me now. I’d rather stay at home and watch Monk all night, truthfully.

        But my good buddy, Scott, and I decided that the line-up was too good to pass up, and we bought our tickets early in April (for a May concert). Our plan was to drive down to Indio Friday night, the day before the concert, check into a hotel and then hit the concert grounds running in the morning. This way, we figured, we’d beat traffic, be well rested, and get a relatively decent parking spot Saturday morning.

        I remember I went to his apartment that Friday night and he made me a “White Trash Burrito,” instructing me to try it before he would reveal his secret ingredient. The burrito was delicious and the secret turned out to be pork rinds, but he obviously didn’t know me very well if he thought that was going to be some kind of deterrent. Scott explained, mid burrito, that he was hoping we could stop at Morongo Casino on our way to Indio. A short stop, he said, just to play a couple rounds of black jack and hit the roulette tables and then we’d be on our way. I said I’d think about it. He said we were going. I said sure, I’d totally think about it. He said we were going. I asked if he wanted a ride. He said we were going. We were very accustomed to fighting (we were in a play together at the time).

        So we set out on the road sometime around 12 a.m. and began blasting The Cure as soon as we hit the freeway. We were young, excited, on our way to a musical extravaganza, like young people are supposed to want to be.

        Within 15 minutes, Scott was asleep in the passenger seat and I was so relieved. I actually felt a little crafty and clever. We’d just skip right past the casino and he wouldn’t know anything until he woke up. By then, it would be too late. He was 26 to my 21 and I figured the old man would sleep all the way to our hotel—wherever that might be.

        Unfortunately, as it sometimes does, the 10 Interstate East suddenly came to a standstill right around Cabazon, CA, an hour-and-a-half into our trip. At 1:45 in the morning. Apparently we weren’t the only yahoos that thought we would get to Indio a day early.  Guess what’s in Cabazon? Nothing at all except for one thing: Morongo Casino Resort and Spa. I have to say that they use the terms both “resort” and “spa” incredibly loosely out there in Cabazon. Because you can tell that joint’s a shit-hole all the way from the freeway. 

Morongo Casino. Blech. Trust me, it's worse in daylight.

         But Scott woke up and insisted that we stop. “Just for 30 minutes,” he kept saying. He also pointed out that I could get a cocktail, if I chose not to gamble.

        “It’s last call,” I said, pointing at the clock.

        “Not on an Indian Reservation.” He seemed so sure of himself.

        I pulled (very reluctantly) into the parking lot and we got out.

        I want you to know that the Indian Reservations stop serving drinks at 2 a.m., same as everywhere else. The rest can wait for next time.

Read parts two, three, four, and five.

*The Pixies "Where Is My Mind?"

**Anne Taintor.