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This was my first encounter with Interstellar Transmissions. As we were leaving Elysée Wednesday on the Sunset Strip, the bus pulled to the curb and we were invited aboard. The sound overwhelms the iPhone microphone at times... #interstellartransmissions #sunsetstrip #happening #musicbus #felliniesque #filmmakerslife https://www.instagram.com/p/B3ZG5UAFFeC/?igshid=1dzo8843cuabs
One evening as we were leaving Elysée Wednesday, we encountered Gavin Robert McGowen and boarded his Interstellar Transmissions bus as it cruised the Sunset Strip--a surreal scene and some 'interstellar' music! #interstellartransmissions #gavinrobertmcgowen #sunsetstrip #filmmaker #filmmakerslife https://www.instagram.com/p/BmDxNEun6OM/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=xt3hvlgsy9g3
On the Mothership with Interstellar Transmissions--leaving my Elysée Wednesday gathering as Caffe Primo was closing for the night, the converted school bus appeared and we were beckoned aboard for a memorable and surreal drive along the Sunset Strip...#interstellartransmissions #sunsetstrip #filmmaker #altrockmusic
#interstellartransmissions jamming on their psychedelic school bus! W @emilyyoucis @interstellartransmissions
Positive vibes 🙌🏼 @msvindictive #interstellartransmissions
#InterstellarTransmissions we're on a bus damn it
#interstellartransmissions
To Infinity and Beyond
New Orleans, Louisiana. Sunday night, February 22nd, 2015.
Down in New Orleans with four of my absolute closest friends, the five of us shared an experience that, as a writer, is going to be a bit difficult to put into words. However, I will do my best, as the tale deserves every shred of my ability to tell it.
Every single person in their life can trace back through the years and point to a single point, a moment in their lives that stands above all the rest. A moment where something was accomplished that forever changed them. Star Wars fanboys call that their Death Star, an allusion to the storyline in Star Wars that destroying the Death Star was the single greatest accomplishment Luke Skywalker could ever speak of.
Down on Decatur Street, we're looking out for a new place to go. In the last 24 hours, we had collectively scoured the majority of downtown Nola and there were very few stones left unturned by that point. What none of us expected though, was that the universe was mere moments from sweeping us up and showing us something that would forever be a notable turning point in all our lives.
Walking along the sidewalk, from behind us, a white bus rode past, blasting rock-n-roll out all the windows. Curiosity grows. All of us start darting our eyes around the group, each of us quietly speaking the same thing: "PLEASE say you want to get on the bus!" Opal was the first to go. Thoroughly convinced that she was getting on the bus with or without us, we all started running to chase down the bus. We walked alongside its white chassis and blue design work, grasping the words "INTERSTELLAR TRANSMISSIONS" in our heads.
We had done a lot of things during our time in Nola, but the majority of those things were geared around things that didn't interest me or I couldn't participate in. I wanted to do the best I could to show the girls a good time. I came down here knowing this trip was going to be about them, and I needed to put any of my interests on the back burner to ensure they got the most out of the trip. However, when that bus drove past us, all the geometry made sense. This was my thing. This is what I loved the most. Music. And that bus was the point of origin. I was elated before I even stepped into the bus. The fact that I had a group full of good friends that were eager to share that experience with me made the bus impossible to resist.
When we got on the bus, we arranged ourselves on both sides: two on the left, three on the right. Then, we all started actually listening to the music; and suddenly, everything changed. This was it. This was our Death Star.
We hadn't found the bus. The bus had found us. The universe spun silently above and around us until we were standing outside the bus, eagerly awaiting entry. The bus isn't a place: it's an ideal. It is the physical embodiment of the universe. We had been transported across space and time to literal nirvana. Everything that had happened, was happening, and will ever happen, took place that night inside that bus. Our lives basked deeply in the euphoria that was slipping into our minds from a crack in the universe.
That's when I revisited my "point of origin" train of thought. And it finally hit me what feeling had been at the heart of this bliss. I closed my eyes, and took myself back in time fourteen years. Getting off the schoolbus, unlocking the door, and walking inside. And when I opened my eyes, that's when I felt it.
I was home.
"Home" has been a word I've been scarce to associate with any place I've lived since I first moved out of my mother's house. But this bus was giving me the same "at peace" feeling I used to get walking home from school and laying on my bed. The sheer amount of that feeling overwhelmed me, and took me to a place that can be described as heaven: it took me home. I am home with four of the most beautiful women on the planet, surrounded by the most beautiful people. The auras inside the bus turned chromatic, as each person experienced the bus in a way that defied the laws of space and time.
We passed three joints around this bus, the first three joints that were ever rolled in the history of mankind, joints that would resonate throughout space and time and be passed down from smoker to smoker throughout the ages. And to my amazement, as the first joint makes its way around, not a single passenger turned it down. Even the bus driver, the announcer, and the photographer were partaking of the chronic, and I was amazed that in such a short time, all of us had been elevated to such a level that without even knowing each others' names, we were sharing the peace pipe like we'd been family all along.
The music was lush, eccentric, upbeat and alive. These three musicians were powering all of creation with the vibrations in their instruments. And that's when I realized what the engine was doing. We weren't moving throughout the universe, the bus was moving the universe around us! This experience was denying the laws of reality.
When we finally exited the bus a lifetime later, we got off in roughly the place we'd began, and only about an hour had passed. We made acquaintances with a couple of our other passengers, who were now members of our Bus family. The girls gushed openly about the experience, overflowing with eccentricity from the sheer high the experience had given them. Out of nowhere, Opal says "We should all quit our jobs and go live on the bus."
In the last several years, I've stopped taking chances. I've stopped taking risks with my life. I've learned to always play it safe and to play for the long game, because in my younger days, taking chances often backfired or didn't work out in any way. But knowing what had just happened to us, hearing her say that, for about three solid seconds, every fiber of my being agreed with her. The fact that "no, Opal, that would never work" wasn't the first thing to come to my mind stands as testament to the omnipotent nature of the bus. For a noticeable amount of time, I legitimately wanted to live on that bus.
We parted ways with our new family and began the long walk back to the hotel. Conversation and exposition erupted from all sides about the experience we had all just shared and how we wished it didn't have to end. We got back to the hotel and one by one, we turned in for the night.
When I woke up the next day, something was different. I had the tiniest negative feeling in the back of my mind, and I couldn't put my finger on it. While the girls began to pack their things, I went down to the lobby to smoke a cigarette. I walked around the corner of the building, lit up, and turned on my Pandora to listen to some music while I smoked to pass the time better. On my station, the one I used more than any other, I found myself skipping track after track, burning out all of my skips in less than a minute. Something was bothersome. I'd skipped over Tool, A Perfect Circle, Seether, Chevelle... I couldn't put my finger on it. I swapped over to Spotify and pulled up a throwback playlist. Tal Bachman, Bush, Semisonic, Third Eye Blind, Oasis, Dishwalla, the Verve... nothing was satisfying me. That's when I realized where that negative inkling had come from earlier.
All of my music sucked now.
Songs that I'd listened to a week ago, songs I'd loved half my life, were now dull in comparison to Interstellar Transmissions. The negativity grew. I felt winded, confused. Music was my religion. Listening to the radio was like praying. Going to concerts was like going to church. Every good memory and every bad memory I have, I can attach to a song. Music is my religion. Music is my god. And Interstellar Transmissions had just killed my god.
I slid down the wall to the ground, and curled up into myself to cry. It felt like someone had just told me that everyone I had ever loved just died. That moment redefined my limits of pain. That moment was what it was like to hurt deeper than anything you ever conceived to be possible. That moment was like taking a sword and driving it into my chest so deep that it pierced my soul. I turned off my music and just wept. I missed the bus. I missed home. I missed my friends. I missed heaven. I wanted to go back. I wanted to chase down the bus, get back on, and never leave. I realized that no experience I'd ever had or ever would have, would so much as hold a candle to the longest and most beautiful hour I'd ever lived.
It has been almost 48 hours since the event happened, and none of us can stop talking about the bus. Swapping photos, digging all over the internet, and reminiscing about the wonderment and elation that is the Interstellar Transmission. We are doing the best we can to live off of the high, and ride the fumes of that night as long as we can, because none of us are willing to face the reality of the worst decision we ever made:
We got off the bus.
