It's a lazy dog-dangling afternoon. Not a care in the world. I don't know how it happened, but I really have absolutely no plans today. None. It is the greatest feeling in the world.
Seattle
AG had a show up in Seattle and, graciously, invited me along to be her roadie. All I had to do was lug a heavy ass cello around. Hell yeah.
I'd been to Seattle four or five times and I always thought it was kind of bullshit, but I'd never really given the place a chance. I mean I've never really checked out downtown or anything.
Here's the thing: I was recently in a grunge band. Well, we called ourselves grunge, but it was kind of a joke. Our songs were what we imagined grunge sounded like had any of us actually listened to it. I think we sounded like grunge, but how would I really know? I wrote the songs, but I would be hard pressed to tell the difference between Sound Garden and… well I don't know any other grunge bands. See? People often told me we sounded nothing like grunge music. I needed some vindication. So in my grand tradition of doing everything backwards it was time to discover my roots.
We flew into Seattle and rented a car. Here's the thing: I'm a sucker for up sells. I mean I love upgrading things. Salesmen love me and I love them. GPS? Hell yeah. Upgrade to a nicer car? Hell yeah. I bring this up because the GPS ended up being the bane of AG's existence. I had never really gotten to use one of those things before and I loved it. I gave it all my trust. We were a team. Me and the GPS.
A GPS sucks the spontaneity and heart out of driving around in a strange city. This comforts me, but freaks out anyone with any kind of heart or sense of adventure. I would follow the GPS's computer voice to the end of the Earth.
"In 40 yards turn left"
"In 40 yards turn left"
"In 40 yards turn left"
AG and I would end up driving in circles. She would be pointing in the direction we need to go and still I would repeat my mantra of "Trust the GPS". This would have gone on for three days, but AG, wisely, unplugged the thing and took over driving.
We had a chance to hang out downtown for a while before AG's show started. Here's the thing about downtown Seattle: It's white. I mean WHITE. And it's clean. Where was all the litter? Everyone we passed seemed happy. The natives were practically skipping down the street. It was unreal.
Where were the homeless people to step over every few feet? Why was no one asking me for money? How do all these Starbucks stay in business? There were no poor, angry, black youth menacing the corners. Shouldn't there, at least, be poor, angry white youth menacing the corners? I was not in Oakland anymore.
At first I was elated. It was pretty nice to walk around a city and feel no real or imagined tension, but I very quickly became creeped the fuck out. I complain about the East Bay a lot, but when you take away all the sketchiness and character you end up with a stepford wife metropolis. White, middle-class happy people – in great numbers – are absolutely terrifying.
AG plays "experimental sound art" and, because I want to be near her, I keep finding myself at "experimental sound art" shows. Now, I haven't listened to a new band in, like, ten years and my itunes artists are firmly split into "rock" and "hard rock" so - despite AG being hella fine – these shows are a bit trying.
I'm sarcastic to a fault and my cynicism is unwavering, but who among you could keep a straight face while listening to a guy hold a power drill up to a microphone for half an hour - as I did a few weeks prior to this trip? The performance ended to thunderous applause.
"He's a genius!"
"He's exploring the boundaries of what sound is!"
Really? Maybe. I understand that to really appreciate any new art form you may need a foundation in the medium. The first time someone hears rap or sees a Picasso they will, no doubt, have reservations at the barking rhymes and grotesque figures. I suppose that could be me. I hated Jawbreaker and Operation Ivy for years before I became, unhealthily, obsessed with them.
Fuck it. My hat is off to you Mr. Power Drill Guy. May your power drilling fill the hearts and, uhg, ears of people for years and years. May you reach the highest echelons of power-drill-sound-art and become a legend and inspiration for young aspiring power-drill-sound-artists around the world.
Anyways. Back to Seattle. AG played a great set. She rocked the cello. I tend to lurk around the back of the club when I go to shows and I overheard some guys talking about how rad she sounded. I had kind of a glowy moment of proudness and appreciation. Hearing these strangers talk fondly about AG and her music made me all gushy.
Then I got all jealous and cut their faces up. I'm kidding. I wasn't jealous. I just love cutting up faces. LOVE IT. Who doesn't?
The show ended with a quartet of balding, middle aged men plucking these little plucky instruments and fucking with various peddles creating a cornucopia of haunting, echoing plucky sounds. The music was whatever (see last sentence/everything I have ever written), but the thing I really dug was the little fantasy about these guys and their lives that brewed in my head while I watched them.
I imagined one of these guys at home or at work. Maybe at some shitty job that morning - just counting down the hours to his show. Maybe he's been counting down the hours for weeks. I do that.
Maybe it's the only time these four, all life, friends ever get together. His wife doesn't get the plucky sounds, but she humors him. She knows that one night a month he's going to disappear for a couple of hours to a shitty little club downtown and do the thing he loves more than anything.
He's going to stand on stage, oblivious to the crowd, and play trippy plucky sounds with his three best friends in the whole world.
And I got to sit - hunched in a dark corner sipping a bud light - and watch.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Oh and D totally almost got bit by a rattlesnake
See, the thing is D and I have been working on all these things. A sitcom and a movie. We’ve been trying to keep it real, like, he’s always flying up from LA and we write all day long. We take lunch breaks and everything - like a real job. I have a real job. I’m a web development engineer. Mostly he flies up here to Oakland, but sometimes I fly down to LA and we write there. That’s what I did a few weeks ago.
Here’s the thing: He’s got this new girlfriend and a new place. I’d never been there before, but you know how it is when you, sort of, invade a friend’s world? It’s kind of amazing to see someone in a place you don’t usually see them or to see a good friend out of their element. I guess this was his element, but he looked like a fish out of water. He girlfriend is amazing, but it was funny watching him run around trying to make us both comfortable.
The thing with D is he’s this brilliant, good looking, charming guy right? He doesn’t really work. He dropped out of med school. He has a degree in physics or something, but what he really wants is to get paid to write. I do too. We’ll get paid to write soon enough, but I’m writing all this so you know how surprised I was when he picked me up at the airport and took me to his 3.5 million dollar mansion.
Fuck Yeah.
I guess he worked out some deal through a friend or his girlfriend’s friend where they could live in this mansion until it sells. His place was tight. It was all up in the hills of Topanga. There were rattlesnakes and coyotes and this wicked view. Miles of hills everywhere. We wrote twelve hours a day and once in a while it would hit us: If we wrote well enough this house could turn into our house. Not necessarily the house (i don’t want a big house), but it was like we were chipping away at a safe. Building towards our reward. On top of it.
His place was on this hill and you could see LA lighted in the valley at night. Nature and poison right there. Coyotes and hollywood. It was all right there and fuck if that didn’t motivate us.
On our last night we were driving up the dark windy road to his place and this owl flew past the windshield and perched (perched?) on the side of the road. Right next to us, like, ten feet away. I had never seen an owl that close up before and it was like it was posing for us. We stopped the car and just watched it for, maybe, five minutes. The thing had these huge eyes. It didn’t sweat us at all. It was, jesus I can’t believe i’m saying this, magical.
When it flew away we drove up the hill to D’s mansion and wrote our asses off.
**********************************************
Oh hey. J and I started a website. We write about video games. This is our site: www.yetihunt.com
Here’s the thing: He’s got this new girlfriend and a new place. I’d never been there before, but you know how it is when you, sort of, invade a friend’s world? It’s kind of amazing to see someone in a place you don’t usually see them or to see a good friend out of their element. I guess this was his element, but he looked like a fish out of water. He girlfriend is amazing, but it was funny watching him run around trying to make us both comfortable.
The thing with D is he’s this brilliant, good looking, charming guy right? He doesn’t really work. He dropped out of med school. He has a degree in physics or something, but what he really wants is to get paid to write. I do too. We’ll get paid to write soon enough, but I’m writing all this so you know how surprised I was when he picked me up at the airport and took me to his 3.5 million dollar mansion.
Fuck Yeah.
I guess he worked out some deal through a friend or his girlfriend’s friend where they could live in this mansion until it sells. His place was tight. It was all up in the hills of Topanga. There were rattlesnakes and coyotes and this wicked view. Miles of hills everywhere. We wrote twelve hours a day and once in a while it would hit us: If we wrote well enough this house could turn into our house. Not necessarily the house (i don’t want a big house), but it was like we were chipping away at a safe. Building towards our reward. On top of it.
His place was on this hill and you could see LA lighted in the valley at night. Nature and poison right there. Coyotes and hollywood. It was all right there and fuck if that didn’t motivate us.
On our last night we were driving up the dark windy road to his place and this owl flew past the windshield and perched (perched?) on the side of the road. Right next to us, like, ten feet away. I had never seen an owl that close up before and it was like it was posing for us. We stopped the car and just watched it for, maybe, five minutes. The thing had these huge eyes. It didn’t sweat us at all. It was, jesus I can’t believe i’m saying this, magical.
When it flew away we drove up the hill to D’s mansion and wrote our asses off.
**********************************************
Oh hey. J and I started a website. We write about video games. This is our site: www.yetihunt.com
Sunday, March 2, 2008
$750 close to BART
It's an olive, beat-up, apartment complex. Totally looks like a hotel. Grey, weirdo neighbor, stands on the balcony laughing about it with me. We joke about painting a pool on the parking lot below. We're completists. Jewish immigrants down in the corner apartment on halloween with their kid. He's dressed up as a dragon. Says "raaaaaaaaawwwwwwwr" when I walk by. Cute as hell. It breaks your heart. Guy downstairs gets his kid once in a while. Must be some divorce. He wants a yard. He wants a garden. He's always trying to make the tiny space in front of his door into a garden. More plants than can fit. Watering all the time in his sandals. Cars try to edge by without breaking his pots, but they can't. He waters other people's plants. Wants to make this cheap hotel into something. We all do. Teenager downstairs is a trouble maker. His mom says so. He sneaks behind the complex to smoke pot with hot high school girls. His mom says he's always up to no good. N and I lurk into some indian place downtown and see this kid in the corner playing the most beautiful guitar ever. He's in some trance. Just playing his heart out. Do the hot high schools even know about that? Old black lady in number four is in some pyramid scheme. She's always giving me samples. Tubes of liquid that are supposed to revitalize your day and sketchy vitamins like you'd see on the counter of some liquor store. When she walks by i'm out smoking and I say "hey thanks those things did wonders for me" and she says "thanks sweetie". I've got a cabinet full of this stuff. Never touched it. Land Lady speaks in a thick accent. Her son always wanted to play music. He's got to come around and move the trashcans out to the street etc. I'm pretty sure his wife hit on me when he was out of town once and my kitchen sink was fucked up. He's got this little kid with curly blond hair. Looks like an Aryan angel poster child. Kid hangs out in my studio while his dad fixes things. I know one magic trick. It's some cheap disappearing coin thing and it always cracks the kid up. We all listen to NPR and joke around. It's this trashy olive apartment complex filled with starts and middles and ends. We share laundry detergent and sometimes say "hi" when we pass each other.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Mothers: Lock up your daughters. They’re stupid.
Last night, after experiencing for the first time in my life the human emotion they call "boredom", i decided to meet N and Crazy D at the stork club for some drinks.
Well, actually, we were supposed to meet some common friends of ours at this "art show/hip fuck/band/house party" thing on San Pablo, but then I remembered that I'd rather stick an ice pick into my eye while listening to led zeppelin then go to an "art show/hip fuck/band/house party" thing unless, of course, I knew for a fact that Mary Louise Parker was going to be there waiting for me with a can of gasoline, a lighter and two tickets to a secret Jawbreaker reunion show.
So Stork Club it was. This was my first time meeting Crazy D and let me tell you, as someone who tends to err on the side of "hate" on first impressions, I immediately liked the guy. Glasses, slight build, biology teacher by day, karate teacher by night and way too drunk to be out in public. He radiated that cross between manic energy and comforting warmth that I just love in people.
Shortly after ordering drinks a band took the stage. N and Crazy D disappeared into the crowd for a better view. I kind of slunked off to a corner by myself to watch the band in peace and got the fuck rocked out of me. Really. This band was the most amazing thing I'd seen in a long time. They were kind of an east bay TurboNegro. The singer worked the crowd with this vicious energy and was about the coolest, most good looking guy I have ever seen. Ever.
Seriously, I would have even remembered their name if they hadn't been such annoying pricks between songs. Got to work on that witty banter kids. You'll go places.
About two or three songs in N tapped me on the shoulder and said we had to get out of there. Behind her, looking dazed and swaying, was Crazy D. He looked like he wanted nothing more then to cuddle up, right there, on the stork club's filthy floor and crash out for a few days.
We hopped in her truck, threw his bike in the back and got the guy home. After saying goodbye to him and pushing him off in the general direction of his front door I asked N what happened.
"He kept saying people in the club wanted to start a fight with him so I thought we should get him out of there. Why would anyone want to start a fight that guy? He's so nice."
"The last thing he said to me before running into the crowd was 'I feel like breaking things and fucking shit up.'"
"Oh. Well that makes more sense then."
I got home around midnight, wrote this and went to sleep.
*****************************
Christmas Eve N and I bought a six pack and walked down to the bay. From the pier by my house The City is perfectly framed, dead center, and you can even see all three bridges. We played with her dog and listened to some guys near us pass an old acoustic guitar around and talk about music. We talked about christmas. We talked about christmas so much that we got christmas fever and decided to go christmas crazy.
We tore off down university in search of all things Yule. We found a christmas tree lot by my house and as soon as I walked in I knew exactly which tree I wanted.
"oh yeah... there's my bitch. Who's my mother fucking christmas tree? You are."
It was a tiny little tree, small enough for us to carry off, and only cost us $20. We got the tree to my studio and then split off, scavenger hunt style, to hunt for more christmasy goodness. N hit Andronico's for christmas food and some popcorn we could thread for the tree. I hit the dollar store for some decorations and lights and found plenty of both.
"God bless you dollar store. God bless you dollar store, everyone."
Back at my place we decorated the tree, listened to Bing Crosby, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas (see? my christmas cheer is so huge that it overrides the part of my brain that would, normally, mention that I had never noticed what a hard core christian message that cartoon ends with) and ate N's famous french onion soup.
Merry Christmas.
*****************************
The colder seasons are the time to make changes. Overcast days with firewood chimney smoke smells. The rain just explodes at your window and that's when you start making lists.
Time to hunker down and plot your escape. Camp down. Stay in. Read some books. Make decisions. Winter is when you're sun deprived and depressed enough to really dive deep and get things done.
You have to come out of the other side cold, well planned and ready to strike.
Well, actually, we were supposed to meet some common friends of ours at this "art show/hip fuck/band/house party" thing on San Pablo, but then I remembered that I'd rather stick an ice pick into my eye while listening to led zeppelin then go to an "art show/hip fuck/band/house party" thing unless, of course, I knew for a fact that Mary Louise Parker was going to be there waiting for me with a can of gasoline, a lighter and two tickets to a secret Jawbreaker reunion show.
So Stork Club it was. This was my first time meeting Crazy D and let me tell you, as someone who tends to err on the side of "hate" on first impressions, I immediately liked the guy. Glasses, slight build, biology teacher by day, karate teacher by night and way too drunk to be out in public. He radiated that cross between manic energy and comforting warmth that I just love in people.
Shortly after ordering drinks a band took the stage. N and Crazy D disappeared into the crowd for a better view. I kind of slunked off to a corner by myself to watch the band in peace and got the fuck rocked out of me. Really. This band was the most amazing thing I'd seen in a long time. They were kind of an east bay TurboNegro. The singer worked the crowd with this vicious energy and was about the coolest, most good looking guy I have ever seen. Ever.
Seriously, I would have even remembered their name if they hadn't been such annoying pricks between songs. Got to work on that witty banter kids. You'll go places.
About two or three songs in N tapped me on the shoulder and said we had to get out of there. Behind her, looking dazed and swaying, was Crazy D. He looked like he wanted nothing more then to cuddle up, right there, on the stork club's filthy floor and crash out for a few days.
We hopped in her truck, threw his bike in the back and got the guy home. After saying goodbye to him and pushing him off in the general direction of his front door I asked N what happened.
"He kept saying people in the club wanted to start a fight with him so I thought we should get him out of there. Why would anyone want to start a fight that guy? He's so nice."
"The last thing he said to me before running into the crowd was 'I feel like breaking things and fucking shit up.'"
"Oh. Well that makes more sense then."
I got home around midnight, wrote this and went to sleep.
*****************************
Christmas Eve N and I bought a six pack and walked down to the bay. From the pier by my house The City is perfectly framed, dead center, and you can even see all three bridges. We played with her dog and listened to some guys near us pass an old acoustic guitar around and talk about music. We talked about christmas. We talked about christmas so much that we got christmas fever and decided to go christmas crazy.
We tore off down university in search of all things Yule. We found a christmas tree lot by my house and as soon as I walked in I knew exactly which tree I wanted.
"oh yeah... there's my bitch. Who's my mother fucking christmas tree? You are."
It was a tiny little tree, small enough for us to carry off, and only cost us $20. We got the tree to my studio and then split off, scavenger hunt style, to hunt for more christmasy goodness. N hit Andronico's for christmas food and some popcorn we could thread for the tree. I hit the dollar store for some decorations and lights and found plenty of both.
"God bless you dollar store. God bless you dollar store, everyone."
Back at my place we decorated the tree, listened to Bing Crosby, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas (see? my christmas cheer is so huge that it overrides the part of my brain that would, normally, mention that I had never noticed what a hard core christian message that cartoon ends with) and ate N's famous french onion soup.
Merry Christmas.
*****************************
The colder seasons are the time to make changes. Overcast days with firewood chimney smoke smells. The rain just explodes at your window and that's when you start making lists.
Time to hunker down and plot your escape. Camp down. Stay in. Read some books. Make decisions. Winter is when you're sun deprived and depressed enough to really dive deep and get things done.
You have to come out of the other side cold, well planned and ready to strike.
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