Happy Monday! Are you hanging in there with this heat? Last night felt like the hottest of the year, but I had an amazing evening and I've gotta tell you about it. First, some context. About a year ago, I recovered a memory of being "pranked" on what I thought was a Halloween night. I didn't know the year. All I initially remembered was the identity of one of the pranksters: a well-known progressive metal musician. He was in a car in what I thought was an alley in Northridge. I was walking with the late David Friedman. I recalled being told to get into the car, and I refused because the guy looked scary. He had on a Gestapo hat, had long hair and a dark moustache. He looked like a Hell's Angel. I didn't recognize him and he said something threatening. I remembered walking away quickly after the guy said what he said, but I also knew I'd been in the car with him at some point, after learning it was all a prank, and after he and the other pranksters revealed their identities.
That was the extent of my memory, and I was blown away by who this guy is, but I was also going crazy because I didn't know when or where it happened.
I tried meditating on it, as I do in memory recovery, but nothing new came up. On a side note, the original memory snippet returned spontaneously (non-meditatively) when I was just sitting around one day last Fall. I did research on the side, which included looking up this guy's touring schedule. I've seen his band nine times since 2011, three times in October. He had to be in Los Angeles for this to happen, and since he lives in Europe (and since he tours constantly), I figured that the incident had to happen when he was in L.A. for a concert. I settled on October 25, 2015 (when he played The Orpheum) or October 20, 2016 (The Belasco). In both years, he had off days around those concerts. As noted, I thought the prank happened in an alley anywhere from Lindley (just south of Lassen) to all the way up near the Granada Hills Ralphs.
Cut to the chase: in the last few days, a single detail developed, and on a side note, I suspected for a while that Friedman was involved in this prank. The new detail showed him and me walking on a dark street in lower Northridge. We were in the sector south of Nordhoff, west of Reseda, below Vons market. The memory now showed a car passing us on our walk and stopping ahead of us on the dark street. I then had a notion that either me or Friedman was intimidated by this car and wanted to reverse course and walk in the other direction.
That image became my context, and I began to suspect it was connected with a specific walk I took with David Friedman when the Northridge Mural (on the brick building at Rayen/Reseda) was unveiled in October 2014.
Last night, my feet took me there, almost on autopilot. I recreated that October walk, which (as I discovered yesterday afternoon through checking my diary) took place on the night of Saturday Oct. 4, 2014. Exactly 12 years ago last night. I walked through CSUN, past Northridge Library down to Studio 606, and then back up to Rayen. I crossed at Reseda Boulevard and walked west to the DWP facility at Yolanda. From there, I could visualize my route with Friedman from 2014, which began at the San Fernando Valley Museum at Nordhoff and Wilbur. On the night in question, Friedman wanted to look at the DWP Station (which is old and has classic architecture), so we did that, and last night in my re-creation, I turned south on Yolanda to follow this route. I checked the main DWP entry at Yolanda and Eddy St. (wondering if The Prank happened on Eddy by the curb of the Self-Storage Facility). I decided it could've occurred there, but I wasn't sure. I then turned around to head north on Yolanda toward Rayen. That's when I saw the brightly colored business signs of several shops on the east side of Yolanda (between Eddy and Gresham), and I knew I had my location.
Boom. Finding it was like magic.
I'm still unsure if The Prank began on Eddy or Gresham (probably Eddy), but last night, when I was down there, I remembered walking back and forth in that area, trying to find my way back to Rayen on the night the prank was pulled. I get dislocated when I'm under a hypnotic "scan", and I think Friedman ditched me when it was over. I still don't know how I got home that night.
The Prank backfired because I was afraid of the perps. I thought the guy really did want to assault me. They had to chase me down after I walked away from their car and explain it was a prank. That's when they revealed their identities, which I won't state online. Maybe you can guess from what I've written.
One thing I can't figure out from the year and date of this incident, October 4, 2014: the main prankster, as usual, had a major tour that year. A European leg paused on August 9, in Portugal, and didn't resume until October 10, in London. That means he could've been in Los Angeles on October 4. But why? His band wasn't scheduled to play here until December (I was of course at that show, entirely unaware of the prank).
But why was he in Northridge that night?...
I have another movie for you: "We Go On"(2015), an Indie horror flick with a "Sixth Sense" influence. I found it on Tubi. The only recognizable star is Annette O'Toole, but the acting is good all around and the story gets high marks for originality, not easy to do given the limits of the ghost story subgenre. I liked everything about this flick, especially the Los Angeles locations, one of which I'd never heard of which is used toward the end of the movie.
On another subject (my favorite), I was thinking of a meeting at your house. This is from a memory that's not yet clear. I see us standing between your driveway and front door. You are talking to me, telling me wonderful things and pointing at the sky, showing me (stars? constellations?). Did we do some kind of telepathy experiment?
Anyway, I'm still learning about us. I love you and hope you can feel it. 💗💗
