This morning my Facebook memories were full of serendipity...

Two years ago today I was in San Francisco, a continuation of that trip that took me through Santa Carla and would eventually conclude at Fest in Gainsville (fuck you everyone who's going this year,  by the way, fuck you all to hell). I was travelling alone and when I travel alone I like to walk. American cities are great to get lost in. Two years ago today I got lost in the Musee Mecanique, San Francisco's museum of penny arcades. It was quite a place.

I have no idea what brought me to Zoltar. Probably childhood memories of Tom Hank's finest movie. I certainly didn't go there to have my fortune read in any sort of a serious context because... well, because its nonsense isn't it, complete bloody nonsense.

I blame the magic feeling of freedom that travel allows us for dropping my quarter in Zoltar. The same feeling of freedom that gave me the mad idea to start a coffee roasting company I guess. 

Zoltar was full of encouragement

I didn't shell out for the secret information.

One year ago today The Dead Anyways played a show in Hastings. It was the first time I'd been down here in many years and my first introduction to Lisa and The Clockwork Crow. Me and Jed, Dead Anyways drummer and a man with such patience he has managed to put up with my friendship for over 3 decades, came down early in the day to eat chips and play on the 2p machines.

We bloody won too.

Then we got drunk. Really drunk. I was getting really drunk a lot this time last year.

I think we played a gig too.

I fell in love with Hastings that day.

I live here now.

Life can be a funny thing.

Months later, when I was coming down to Hastings quite regularly to meet with Lisa and plan me taking over the cafe I had a mad idea, I went back to Zoltar... This time it was a pound coin I dropped in the slot. I was starting to feel free again I guess. 

He was full of encouragement again.

Sometimes you just need an excuse to take a plunge and anything that pushes you to head in the direction of your dreams can't be a bad thing. I can't believe how much my life has changed over the last 2 years, I feel like a different person to the guy who ran away to America in October 2014 and who got wasted in Hastings one cold night in October 2015... I'm still pinching myself regularly. 

Fortunes are all nonsense of course but inspiration comes from strange places sometimes.