The Top of My Head

Welcome To Las Vegas, Baby!

2011-04-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

By now, most of you know that I have left the sunny climes of Southern California and Los Angeles to move to the City of Sin, Las Vegas, in the Silver State of Nevada. There were many reasons for this move, but I’ll only mention that which was most important. (I really don’t want to go into how tired of Los Angeles I was after 4 nonstop decades of living there.)

The main reason we left LA was for financial reasons. When Skip and I bought our house in Sherman Oaks, we both had jobs and had been reinsured that those jobs would be long lasting. Literally, within a few weeks after escrow closed, Skip was terminated from his job, followed a few weeks later by me.

In Skip’s case, it was the typical shenanigans that are found in corporate American business these days. They give Skip a massive raise, while telling him to buy the house and not to worry, and then a few weeks later, they tell him they’re going out of business and his job no longer exists, once it’s too late to do anything about it, of course. American corporate business sucks. They know it and we know it.

In my case, there was a lot that I liked about my job as head buyer at the Westwood Rhino Records Store, but there were a lot of business practices that were really grating on me, making it hard for me to do my job correctly, and I finally decided to be honest about it. That honesty led to me suddenly being unemployed. I was equally upset and ecstatic about this. Upset because I felt they should listen to me and make the workplace better for all. But since that obviously wasn’t going to happen, I was ecstatic to be out of there and away from the enormous pressure that job was putting on me, pressure that led to constant illness, including two separate hernias.

Now, while we were both upset at our respective jobs for terminating us just after we entered into an impossible deal with a couple of soulless banks, buying the house really saved our lives. We got the house just as the real estate boom began and within no time at all, we found that our house had more than tripled in value. This allowed us to pull from our equity to afford the simple things in life while we both looked for new jobs, jobs that we would never find due to all the reasons people can’t find jobs these days, from lack of availability, to our respective ages. If we would have been renting when we lost our jobs, we would have had nothing to fall back on and would have been homeless in less than a half-a-year or so. This also allowed us to take the time to figure out what we could do with ourselves and within the year, Skip had lined up several customers to do computer work for and I had set myself up selling stuff on the internet, for myself and for a few others. This helped bring in more money to keep us going just that much longer.

Of course, we knew we couldn’t last forever, and one of these days it would all catch up to us and we would lose the house. We didn’t know it would take ten years though. But by that time, we had set ourselves up so that we could afford to live with our meager endeavors. We just couldn’t afford to live in Los Angeles or any major California city. So, I started looking into alternatives.

Our first plan was to move to Tucson in Arizona. Most of my family lives in either Tucson or Phoenix and we’ve always liked the desert, and the Arizona desert is particularly beautiful. But as Arizona moved more politically right than was healthy and started passing crazy anti-immigrant, gun and Presidential birth certificate laws, I knew there was no way I could justify living there. I can deal with Right Wing. I just can’t deal with the crazy aspect of it.

This all came at the end of a particularly hot summer in Los Angeles, so we started thinking that maybe we should move to a climate that was generally more temperate for us, and that led to the Pacific Northwest. We knew we couldn’t afford to live in a major city, so we finally decided on the Washington town of Olympia, just about an hour south of Seattle. We could afford to live there and we were close enough to a major metropolis that we knew we wouldn’t get too bored, since both Skip and I are very social and spend a good amount of time out at clubs, theatres and restaurants.

It was just about this time that the hammer came down on us. At the end of summer, we had been convinced by a real estate broker that we should short sell the house and once we gave our okay, he convinced the bank(s) that it was the thing to do as well. (I’m still trying to decide if this was a mistake on our part or not.) We were promised that we would have “plenty of time to prepare”, but at the beginning of November we were told we had six weeks to be out of the house. Panic set in and I got in touch with some friends in the Seattle/Olympia area looking for help, and I got a lot of it. But they were also busy with their own lives and I needed someone who could go to places and pretty much do everything that I didn’t have the time to do, let alone not having the money to fly up there to do them.

That was when our friend Kathe got in touch with us. She lives in Las Vegas, or technically Henderson, which is a suburb of Las Vegas. She told us about the city and the problems it was having. Jobs had fled and the unemployment rate was the highest in the country. But because of this, it was also extremely cheap to live in. Despite the fact that she was as busy as anyone I know, she also sent along a couple dozen rental housing prospects that she had found. When I saw the rents, I knew we had found the place to live. It was about a third of the cost of living as that in LA. We were back in our much loved desert (despite the summer heat) and we were close enough to LA that I could make periodic trips there to pick up new stuff to sell, so I wouldn’t have to build a whole new client base. On top of that, I picked out a few of the rentals that looked good and Kathe went to them and looked them over, then reported back to me. Once I made my decision, she got me all the information and with only a week and a half to go before we had to leave our house, we had a nice 2 bedroom/2 bathroom condo to live in.

The trip here was a bit harrowing. We rented the biggest U-Haul truck we could get and it still wasn’t big enough. We knew our new place wouldn’t be big enough to hold everything in our house, and we had already abandoned a couch and some shelving units, plus I had sold off all our appliances through Craigslist at way too cheap prices. But we still had to leave more that wouldn’t fit in the truck, including our king-size bed that we both found extremely comfortable despite it being a decade old.

We packed the truck, drugged our cat and put him in a carrying case, and took off to Las Vegas. The cat, Chuck, didn’t like being drugged and yowled weakly through the whole five hour trip, every now and then working up enough strength to knock his carrying case over, causing me to have to pull over and readjust him. (It was all in vain, as he had to be put down a few weeks after we arrived. He was old enough at 13 and the doctor thinks the stress of the move was just too much for him. He started losing steam in January and within a week he was gone. It broke my heart as I had really bonded with the little guy. Now, for the first time in my life, I’m living without a pet of some kind. We’ll end up with a new cat soon, after I get this place organized.)

When we finally arrived in Las Vegas, we found our apartment, only to find out that the water heater was shot and we had no hot water or means to heat the place. This was in the middle of a very cold December and heat was definitely needed. This meant that we had to move into Kathe’s house, crazed cat and all, for four days while the water heater was fixed. We will always be thankful to Kathe and her husband, Buddy, for all their kindness through this.

Finally, we were able to move in and that turned out to be a major job all on its own. We had a huge truck full of stuff that had to be carried upstairs. After the first day, the first two feet of the truck was all that was empty and I began to realize that this was going to take us at least three or four more days and we would have to pay bonus time to U-Haul to keep the truck past the date it was due back.

That was when Larry showed up. I had gone out the next morning and was helplessly looking at all the crap piled in the truck when this huge, muscular black man popped up out of the trash dumpster in our parking lot. He looked at me and said, “Please tell me that you need help.” I told him to hang on and went and talked to Skip. Skip came out and we both talked to the man who introduced himself as Larry. It was decided that if Larry helped us, we would pay him $100 and a case of beer for four hours of work. He fell to his knees and thanked his Lord and immediately got to the job at hand.

Larry turned out to be an ex-boxer who was very much down on his luck. He had several kids and he needed that $100 to pay his rent. I suspect that there was an alcohol problem as well, but during his day with us, we only saw him drink two of the beers. The man was strong. He would lift up bookshelves that would have taken three of us to carry and lug them up the stairs by himself. (Kathe, Buddy, and the man who bought our stove, James, also helped out here and there.) Six hours later, the truck was almost empty and Larry told us that he had to get back home. We ended up paying him $200, that case of beer and a jar of honey. He claimed that honey gave him strength, and who was I to argue? (Larry showed up again the next day, asking if I could give him bus fair. I told him that I couldn’t have that type of thing happening and we never saw him again, which kind of makes me sad.)

The next morning, I finished clearing out the truck and got it back to U-Haul in time, so we didn’t face any penalties. But now we were faced with a medium size apartment/condo filled with boxes. We’ve been here four months now and a good many of those boxes are still stacked all over the place. The reason for this is that I’ve had to concentrate on making money more than on getting settled. And things have worked out pretty well for us so far. I’ve sold enough that we’ve finally bought a new king-size bed a few weeks ago. (We had been sleeping on the floor on a very hard futon mattress until then.) And we can occasionally afford a good meal that isn’t a $6 buffet. The boxes are slowly, but surely beginning to disappear as I sell off the stuff that was in them. I hope to have this whole place cleaned up and organized by June.

So far, we’ve liked it here quite a lot. The people who live here are nice, polite people who I enjoy talking to, despite the fact that a good many of them aren’t very bright. (But they were bright enough to realize that despite their very justified dislike of Senator Harry Reid, the alternate, Tea Party/Republican Sharron Angle, was completely bat-shit crazy.) They’re mostly honest, hard-working middle-America people. And because of them, I find living here to be a lot easier going and a lot less stressful than the run-run-run atmosphere of Los Angeles. Both of our blood pressure readings have gone down tremendously.

A lot of things are cheaper here than just the rents. We have three very nice movie theatres around us that show first run movies on Tuesdays for $5 a ticket and plenty of bars at the local casinos where we can get a top shelf drink for as little as $2 and usually not over $6. Food is a bit of a problem. There’s plenty of cheap food here, but it’s not great food, although at least it’s edible. If we want great food, we have to pay for it. I miss the amazing, cheap Mexican and Asian foods that could be found in LA. Plus, the selection is not up to what we were used to in LA. All the Mexican food here is the same, and there is no Oaxacan or Yucatan or little other regional-style foods here. But when we have the money, some of the greatest restaurants in the country are here, and because of the economy here, we’re already finding good deals used to attract the locals to these places that we use as often as we can.

It’s beautiful here as well. The view of the Las Vegas Strip from out by our place is breathtaking at night. But besides that, I never really saw or appreciated the natural beauty here. We’re surrounded by a beautiful mountainous desert. Red Rocks is to the north. Lake Mead and the Canyon of Fire are both to the south. And Utah, with Bryce and Zion Canyons, is just a few hours away. We love it out here and have already been out hiking and taking it all in.

We still haven’t experienced the summer weather here and we’ll see how well we handle that in a month or so. But the temperatures in LA regularly reached 115 degrees in the summer and it was very humid. They might have more 115 degree days here, but at least it’s very dry, so I think we’ll survive with no problem, except possibly a monster electric bill, which we also had in LA.

I was also afraid that there wouldn’t be enough to do here, but we seem to be out and about at least three nights a week. The indie-rock scene doesn’t much exist here, but there are still plenty of concerts, shows and events to keep us busy. I’m very happy about the number of country music artists who play here, as I didn’t get a chance to see many of them in LA. We saw George Jones and few months ago, and Loretta Lynn is coming up soon.

And I think that’s enough for now. I’m sure I’ll have much more to say about Las Vegas in the weeks to come, but I think this is already running too long.

I’m not going to make any promises, but I hope I can get back to writing this blog regularly now. I have a lot of tales to tell and I really want to get to it. It might only be one or two posts a month here until I can get us completely organized, but that’s better than nothing, as has been the case for most of the last year. I also hope to get my food blog up and running again by the end of the month, with an all new title and focus. More on that will follow soon.

By the way, I’ve been listening to Javier Escovedo’s newest album, “City Lights”, while typing this and I really recommend you download it and give it more than a few good listens. (It’s not available as a hard copy yet.) Javier was the guitarist and vocalist for California’s first ever Mexican-American punk rock band, the Zeros, who I spent a couple of days managing back in the 70s. I wouldn’t call his new music punk, although it retains punk’s energy. It’s just good, catchy, well written rock music that deserves to have more people listening to it than there are.

As always, thanks for reading and take care of yourselves. I hope to see you here again really soon.

Our D-Day Has Arrived!!!!

2010-11-08T16:41:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

We have sold our house and have been given a date of December 8th as the day we need to be moved out. I'm a bit pissed off about this because we were promised 45 days and we only got 30, but we'll have to make due with what we have. The house sold as a short sale, so we have no money from that. The person buying the house is a very nice woman, and we believe she'll treat the house right and be happy in it, something that was very important to us.

We can no longer afford to live in Los Angeles and have no desire to live anywhere else in California, so we have decided to move to the Pacific Northwest. We hope to move to Olympia in Washington. It will be ideal for us as the cost of living there is only about a third of what it is here. It's only an hour from Seattle and two hours from Portland in Oregon, two of our favorite cities.

The big problem is finding a place to live. We can't afford to travel up there to find an apartment and even if we could, we really don't have the time. We have a couple of friends who live in Olympia who have offered us help and it remains seen as to what type of help that will be, but one way of the other, I'm going to make it work for us. If we can't find a place in Olympia in the next couple of weeks, we'll start looking elsewhere. A friend mentioned Astoria, Oregon as a great place, so we'll see. I'll be checking Craigslist and any other rental help place I can find. Once we find that place to live, everything else will fall into place easily.

We will be renting a truck and moving ourselves. We'll be having a yard sale about a week before the move to try to cut back on the stuff we have to take with us. I know we'll be selling our washer and dryer, which is in great condition, and some furniture, such as a standard couch and our couch bed. Hopefully we'll get some good money, because we're doing this on the seat of our pants monetarily wise.

As soon as everything settles, I'll let you all know. I hope that I can get back to doing this blog again on a regular basis, but that will still have to wait a while, as we're going to be scrambling to keep from finding ourselves homeless, but you'll hear from me soon enough.

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving and hopefully you'll be hearing from us before Christmas with some good, settling news.

Love you all,

-Michael

2009 Music, Movies and an Update

2010-03-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

Well, due to my lateness once again, you’ve probably realized that getting this blog back on track is not going the way I imagined it would. But there is hope for the future as things have been looking up for us over the last month and a half. It’s been surprising as literally three weeks ago, I was on the edge of panic since we were out of cash and it looked like there was no hope for us to be anything but homeless. Then, suddenly, my online sales started skyrocketing. Shortly after that, Skip was accepted into Government Disability and now gets a good-sized check from them every month. Skip is also in the process of declaring bankruptcy, which is going to be a pain in the ass, but it’s better than trying to deal with bills we can’t pay. He is dealing with a gay bankruptcy lawyer who understands our situation completely. He also understands the laws we can take advantage of since this society will not allow us to get married, and I’m all for taking advantage of the bigotry of the US Government. (Ah Hell, I’m all for taking advantage of the US Government in any way.) Now that we’re not saddled with mortgage payments or paying off exaggerated interest rates on our credit card bills, we suddenly find ourselves with money saved in the bank and a hope for the future. And, as you can probably tell, I have no feelings of guilt about any of it.

As for the future, we’re still on track to moving out of California for good. We have dropped looking into anything on the East Coast, so New Hampshire and North Carolina are no longer possibilities. We just decided that we wanted to stay close to the West Coast. If I’m close enough to LA, I can keep my clients that I sell for. I can make a trip every two months or so to pick up new sale items and visit Disneyland and friends while we’re at it. Plus, I really don’t think I can live somewhere where I can’t find great Mexican food. So, right now we’re looking into Tucson, Arizona or Olympia, Washington (despite the lack of good Mexican food, they still have amazing seafood in the Pacific Northwest, which is almost as important to us). And New Mexico is still in the running as well. We will be in our house until at least July and I’m hoping we can stretch that into September. But one way or another, we have to make up our minds and get prepared to move this summer.

I’ll keep you posted as more develops. And I’m still going to try to get this blog up to a bi-weekly basis again, although that may not happen until we settled into our new digs later this year. So all I’ll promise is that I will get posts up on this blog as I have time to write them. I’ve come to realize that I really don’t have that many tour reports left to do. I’m sure there are plenty of stories I could tell if I could just remember them, but for now, there’s maybe two or three more blogs I can get out of my decade or so touring with bands. I’ll try to get one of those up next, probably my quick European tour with the Young Fresh Fellows and the Dharma Bums.

As for the rest of my New Year’s Resolutions, I’m not having much luck with those either. I haven’t gained any weight, but I haven’t lost any either. And my attempt to read at least one book a month has been futile as well. I have been buying books though, so I have a stack to read when I find the time. “A Single Man” by Christopher Isherwood, “The Gospel of Food” by Barry Glassner, “Footnotes in Gaza” by Joe Sacco, “Just Kids” by Patti Smith, “I Slept With Joey Ramone” by Mickey Leigh, “Kick It Till It Breaks” by Ira Robbins, “Heat” by Bill Buford, and “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” by Michael Chabon are all in that stack.

Now, I usually open the year with a column about music and then I do one about movies around Oscar time. Both of those have fallen victim to my predicament. But I’d still like to talk a bit about both, so what follows are short, cliff-note versions of what I would normally write. I’ll have to rely on you to look up things if you think they might be interesting. (http://www.myspace.com for music and http://www.imdb.com for movies)

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I no longer buy CDs much. In fact, I’ve been downloading all my own CDs and records and selling them on the internet. I used to obsess about owning and holding the covers, but no longer. I’m happy with just the music now. And with the money I’ve been making off these old CDs, I’m even happier. So I can no longer do a top ten albums of the year. But I still go see bands live a lot, or watch them on the late night TV shows and then check them out more online if I like them.

So, let me just point out a few musicians and bands that I heard this year that I think are worth your while to check out as well.

I really enjoyed seeing some younger bands for the first or second time. Amongst these were the Von Bondies, the Black Lips, the White Rabbits, Matt & Kim, Dengue Fever, No Age, Health, Melt Banana, the Doves, Travis, Adele, Xu Xu Fang, Lemon Sun, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead, for his first solo show.

A few “old timers” that I’ve seen before also toured this year. I was pleased and entertained by Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainwright, Jarvis Cocker, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Pet Shop Boys, Chick Corea, Moby, Tricky, Grace Jones, Fischerspooner, John Fogerty, Creedence Clearwater Revisited, and Kiss!

Then there were the old punk bands (and a couple of disco bands) that got back together and were still just as great as they used to be. Those included the Vaselines, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Dinosaur Jr, the Slits, Throbbing Gristle, Yummy Fur, KC & the Sunshine Band, the Village People, Kool & the Gang, and the absolutely wonderful Chic.

I was also ecstatic to see my old pals, the Zeros (http://www.myspace.com/wildweekend77), get back together and stun the audience with their greatness several times. And to top it off, even more old pals, the Last (http://www.myspace.com/10395802), reformed in their original line-up and stunned as well with their one-and-only reunion gig. Oh, and speaking of friends, I finally got to see Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds (http://www.myspace.com/kidcongoandthepinkmonkeybirds) and found them to be close to fantastic. I’m really glad to see Kid doing so well.

I should also mention that the return engagement of Los Angeles’ own Silversun Pickups was stunning as well and showed that they are only getting stronger as they tour the world to much acclaim. They are truly one of the best that L.A. has to offer these days.

I also want to point out a few artists for special attention. While I worked with Thin White Rope, I used to get kids sending me the tapes and recordings of their own bands. This usually was accompanied by a spiel or note explaining how much they loved TWR and how much they were influenced by them. More often than not, the music they gave me sucked and I couldn’t figure out where any TWR influence was at all. Most of those bands and performers have fallen to the wayside. I still get an occasional tape or CD though. The difference is that these days, the music is usually damned good. For those of you TWR fans out there, and I know a number of you read this blog, please check out:

Trent Miller & the Skeleton Jive – (http://www.myspace.com/skeletonjive) An Italian folksinger now living in the UK, Trent channels Guy Kyser’s voice without sounding like a copy of TWR. His songwriting is wonderful and well worth the effort to hunt down. And you can do that at his Myspace page, or by finding his CD, “Cerberus”, which is available in this country on Amazon.com.

The Desperate Ones – (http://www.myspace.com/thedesperateones) Paul Simmons is a long time fan of TWR and has been sending me his psychedelic recordings for years now. I’ve always liked them and now, with this new batch of songs, which will hopefully be an album sometime soon, I love them. Check out the band’s Myspace page for more recordings.

Chris C & Swingin’ Danglers – (http://www.myspace.com/chriscswingindanglers) Taking their name from TWR’s fan club, this band just plain rock in a very wonderful way. You need to check them out on Myspace as well.

Doc Holler – (http://soundcloud.com/docholler) This is Guy Kyser and Roger Kunkle’s bluegrass band, so you know you’re going to want to check them out.

And one big, last shout-out to my pal Doug Gillard (http://www.myspace.com/douggillard), from Death of Samantha, Cobra Verde and Guided by Voices, whose new album, “Call From Restricted” is a wonderful pop-rock collection that reminds me a lot of early Wire in that his catchy pop songs are not afraid to stretch out and try something new. It’s a very exciting album and you all need to check it out.

By the way, I’ve already heard some great music this year, including Yeasayer, Broken Bells, Hot Rats, Massive Attack, and an amazing new album by the Liars.

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On the movie front, I managed to see 77 new movies (and that doesn’t take into account all the movies I saw from past years either again or for the first time).

Here are my top ten movies in order:

Hurt Locker
A Single Man
Up In The Air
Up
Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Shapphire
A Serious Man
Sin Nombre
(500) Days of Summer
An Education
Inglorious Basterds

These are the other movies I thought we excellent:

Adventureland, Avatar, Big Fan, Broken Embraces, Coco Before Chanel, Coraline, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, I Love You Man, In The Loop, Invictus, Julie & Julia, The Messenger, Ponyo, A Town Called Panic

These movies were very good and well worth seeing:

Bright Star, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Crazy Heart, Disney's A Christmas Carol, District 9, Drag Me To Hell, The Girlfriend Experience, Goliath, Goodbye Solo, The Hangover, Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince, The Hole, Humpday, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Informant, The Last Station, Monsters Vs. Aliens, Moon, My One and Only, Nine, 9, Paranormal Activity, Paris 36, The Princess & the Frog, Star Trek, Sunshine Cleaning, Taking Woodstock, Zombieland

These movies were a let down for various reasons. But I still found them interesting enough that I don’t regret seeing them:

The Blind Side, Il Divo, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Loss of a Teardrop Earring, The Lovely Bones, Paper Heart, Public Enemies, Terminator Salvation, Watchmen, Where the Wild Things Are, The White Ribbon, X-Men Origins: Wolverine

And these two movies are the only two I saw this year that out-and-out sucked. Interestingly enough, they were both seen at film festivals and as far as I know, they haven’t been able to pick up distribution. So hopefully no one will have to sit through them again:

After.Life, Surveillance

These are the excellent documentaries I saw:

Capitalism: A Love Story, The Cove, Food Inc., It Might Get Loud

And these documentaries were very good and well worth the effort to try to see them:

An Englishman in New York, On/Off: Mark Stewart from The Pop Group to The Maffia, Of Time and the City, Outrage, Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech, Something's Gonna Live, Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker

I also have DVD’s of “Anvil: The Story of Anvil”, “The Damned United”, and “Hunger” sitting near my TV set and I hear they’re all great. But I haven’t had time to watch them yet, so they’ll have to go unrated in this article.

A few comments about the Oscar’s. I was pretty happy with everything that won. There were some changes I would have made with who got nominated though. For Animated Feature, I didn’t see “The Secret of Kellis”, and I don’t think many people did since it never really opened. And as much as I liked “The Princess and the Frog”, it had its problems. I would have much rather seen the absolutely wonderful “A Town Called Panic” get nominated in place of either of those two.

I liked all the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees, and I was happy with who won in both categories, but secretly I was hoping that Colin Firth would have won for Actor and either Carey Mulligan or Gabourey Sidibe would have won for Actress.

I didn’t see any of the Foreign Language Films except for “The White Ribbon”, which I didn’t much like. But, as you can see, I have “Sin Nombe” as one of my top ten movies of the year and I was very disappointed that it didn’t get a nomination.

And I thought “A Single Man” really got shorted. It should have also been nominated for Best Picture and Director. I don’t think that “Avatar”, “District 9”, or “The Blind Side” deserved Best Picture nominations. The first two were very entertaining and I liked them a lot, but there were many better pictures. “The Blind Side” just wasn’t very good, despite Sandra Bullock’s wonderful job of acting. And I’m sorry, but James Cameron just didn’t deserve a Director nomination, no matter how much his entertaining, but over-rated movie made at the box office. (And don’t even get me started about Avatar’s win for best Cinematography, in a movie that was mostly animated.)

And that’s about all I have to say about the movies of 2009. I can start concentrating on those of 2010. I’m going to be seeing “The Runaways” and “Green Zone” this week, and I’ve already seen “Alice in Wonderland”. It’s a good, entertaining movie, but it should have been a great movie. I liked all the acting and most of the dialog, but the story itself is trite and overdone. I would think that Tim Burton could have come up with something a bit more original than the “young Real Earth child saving the Magic Kingdom from Evil” story that seems to be in every fantasy movie made in the last couple of decades. And the 3D was unneeded.

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And on that note, I’ll sign off once again. I’ll be back as soon as I can, hopefully with a new tour stories entry. Take care of yourselves and thanks for reading. -MLC

Where I've Been and Why I've Been There

2010-01-17T10:50:00.000-08:00

Before I get started with this, I should tell you that I have updated my last Redd Kross tour blog with a new paragraph. I remembered a few shadowy things about couple of shows I had forgotten. So if you care, go back, find that paragraph and read it for little more insight into that tour.

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I know it’s been quite awhile since I lasted posted a blog entry. I’ve tried, but something more important always came along to foil my plans. But here I am now, hopefully back to a more regular schedule. So I’ll start by explaining exactly what’s been going on around here. Keep in mind that this is just the cliff notes version. What’s been going on is a lot more complicated than what I write below. I’ve also tried to keep it free of politics and personal comment, although I know I slip a few times in there. I’ll eventually return to this subject in a few months and you can bet you’ll hear an uncensored version of what I think about this whole thing and the path this country has taken over the last decade.

At the beginning of the year 2001, Skip and I decided that we were sick of paying so much money into the rent of an apartment. Whenever something would go wrong at the apartment, it always seemed to be like pulling teeth to get the landlord to do anything about it and there always seemed to be a neighbor right next door who was always mad at us about music or TV played too loud, or vice-versa, always seemed to be having a party that went on loudly to all hours of the morning, pissing us off. We both had good jobs and after some discussion, we decided that the time was right to buy a house we could call our own.

After searching for a few months, we finally found the house we decided we wanted to call our own. It was in a nice area of Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley, that was home to many third-tier actors. The house itself rested on land that was once owned by Mae West. The house was built by Buddy Pepper, who wrote the song “Pillow Talk” for the Rock Hudson/Doris Day film of the same name, and was in the Disney film “The Reluctant Dragon”. (Look him up on IMDB.com.) Neighbors later told us that until the current owner, a Jewish cowboy who absolutely hated the house and the area, that the house had always been owned by a gay male couple. Buddy and his partner lived there for years until they died, and then it was bought by another couple who lived there until one died of AIDS and the other moved away. It was at that time that the Jewish Cowboy and his family moved in.

We loved the place. It was unlike any house I had ever seen, and was certainly different from any of the other houses in the neighborhood, including Mae West’s old house, which was directly behind us. We had these high cathedral wood ceilings and an almost all glass room in the back that looked out over the backyard. It all looked somewhat like a small Swiss ski lodge. There were two bedrooms and two bathrooms and a large, two-car garage. We immediately started making plans for the house. We wanted to open up the back room and seal all the glass windows to the weather. We wanted to either expand the back bedroom or put a small swimming pool into the backyard. We even thought about making the garage into another room to make the living spaces of the house even that much bigger.

So, despite the fact that the Jewish Cowboy had left the house in a bit of a mess, we resolved ourselves to fixing the place up and we were happy to buy it from him and considered ourselves lucky to get it at just under $300, 000.

Unfortunately, it was almost immediately after escrow closed that the troubles began. First, Skip lost his job. He had a great job as a computer programmer for a major insurance company. They had just given him a great performance review and a large raise. He went to them before buying the house and they assured him there was nothing to worry about. Then, a week after escrow closed, they laid him off. As is the case with many large companies in the USA, they were lying sacks of shit who demanded loyalty from their employees, while actively working to screw over those same employees when it benefited the company.

Then, I lost my job. I was working as the head buyer at the Rhino Records Store in Westwood. There were some policies in the way the store did business that I just couldn’t deal with any more and told my boss that, thinking that maybe he would think about these things and maybe make some adjustments. Instead, the one adjustment he made was to hire a new head buyer the next day and wish me well. On one hand, I was relieved. While I loved what I did, I really wasn’t happy doing it at that store any more. I loved working at the store when I was just an assistant manager working on the floor. But I quickly learned that despite some perks, the head buyer’s job was a no-win situation where stress was leading me into health problems. So, in a way I was actually happy to get out of that poisonous situation. But having both Skip and I unemployed was a major problem, especially after just buying a house.

We both spent some time looking for new jobs. I applied at Amoeba Records, but didn’t get along real well with one of the owners during my initial interview. To this day, I’m glad I didn’t get that job despite my need. The last thing I needed was more ego-driven bullshit. I then cast around to record labels and other music businesses, but with no luck. The music business was changing and everyone was cutting back. Most of the people I knew were losing their jobs, so the chance of being hired was really a pipe dream. Skip was having the same trouble, and despite interviewing at a number of places, was never able to find any regular work, just finding temporary work here and there that didn’t pay very much.

After a few years of this, we both just kind of gave up and joined a huge number of people who were unemployed, but not officially according to the government’s statistics. I settled into selling mostly used CDs on the internet and was able to get a few music business people to agree to let me sell their promos and used CDs, LPs and whatever on Amazon, Gemm and EBay. (And I’m always looking for more, so if any of you want someone to sell for you and make you more money than you’ll get taking them to a used record store, let me know.) Along with selling off thousands of my own items, this has generated enough income to barely pay the bills. For awhile, Skip was able to find some work as a consultant and by fixing people’s computers, but most of that has dried up and he barely has anything to do these days.

What was able to keep us going over the last decade was the housing market. As you all know, it just went crazy and within a few years, the worth of our house skyrocketed to almost $800,000 at one point. So, while we knew it would eventually come back to haunt us, we started living off the equity of our house. And we lived very well for almost ten years. I was actually thankful that we had the house, because if both of us would have lost our jobs while living in an apartment, we would have been homeless as we wouldn’t have been able to afford the rent. The house and its equity actually kept us warm and comfy.

But as I said above, we knew this time would eventually come, especially when the economy started tanking badly and the housing market collapsed. We actually thought we had hit the end of the road a couple of times during the last several years ago, but just as we thought there was no way out, something would come along, like the settlement of a lawsuit or the death of a relative, and dump some money into our laps that would allow us to keep on keeping on.

But now it has definitely caught up with us and it remains to be seen just how much time we have left. We are out of money with all our credit cards booked to the max. I am still bringing in enough money to pay bills and our minimums, but not enough to pay the mortgage. We have been informed by our primary mortgage (IndyMac) that they have started foreclosure as of January 5th. Our second mortgage is with Bank of America and they are threatening us, but we’re just ignoring them. They stand to lose everything if we can’t work out something with the prime mortgage holder, so right now, their bark is worse than their bite. We’ve talked to some realtors and bankers and have opened up a dialog with IndyMac. They know they can’t sell this house right now and they don’t want it to sit empty, so we’ll see what we can work out. This dialog has just started, so it remains to be seen where it will go and how much time we will have before they try to kick us out, if they try to kick us out.

In the meantime, we are looking into cheaper places to live and have already made up our minds that we are going to need to move out of Los Angeles and California as a whole because it’s just too damned expensive. We’re hoping that we have until late Spring/early Summer to get it all together, but we’ll see. Right now, we’re looking at New Mexico or North Carolina as possibilities. There are a few others as well. I would love to move to New Hampshire or Vermont, but the winters are probably too much for Skip to deal with. We will have to go back to renting, but if I can find a good place at a good price, we can make that work. Besides, we never really owned this house anyways. We were just renting it from the bank.

And this is why there hasn’t been much action on my blog. I need to raise not just the money to pay the bills, but I also need to raise enough to stash some away so where ever we end up, I have at least a few thousand dollars saved up for first and last and whatever else we need it for. For the last three months, I’ve been sitting at this computer, entering CDs into for-sale data bases and selling Disney memorabilia on EBay. Any time I had open from doing that, we were at the movies catching up on this year’s selection (there will be the usual blog about that in late February), or just trying to get some much need rest and sleep. Even now I still have a couple thousand CDs sitting here; as well a few thousand LPs and a whole lot of Disney pins, all that need to be indentified, sorted and listed on whatever site they will sell the best. It kind of pisses me off that I have to sell some of this stuff now, especially the Disney stuff, as the crappy economy is keeping me from getting the prices I think I should be getting. But I’m still doing well with it and not losing money from my initial investment, so I guess its all okay. We need the money now anyway, so I have little choice in the matter.

I thought last year was going to be the big year of change for us, but it turned out to be a year of thinking about change instead. This year will be the year of acting on change. So, at the beginning of this year, I made a small series of New Year’s resolutions to myself.

The first was to lose the weight I’ve gained over the last 5 years. Back at the beginning of 2000, while I was still at the Rhino store, I had some problems with hernias and high blood pressure. So I lost about 140 pounds over the next year. Most people thought I was too skinny and I have to admit it didn’t feel comfortable. So I gained about 30 pounds back and felt very comfortable at that weight. But since we started traveling a few years ago, going to South Africa, Argentina, Italy and a number of American cities, I’ve slowly gained about half the weight back and its time to put an end to that and get rid of those extra pounds before I start having medical problems again. I don’t need that expense on top of everything else. Losing weight shouldn’t be too much of a problem since we can’t afford to eat any more like we’ve been eating the last several years. But I don’t really want to diet. I just want to eat healthier. I’m pretty confident that most of that extra weight will be gone by summer.

The second was to get back to reading more. I love reading and consider it one of the most important things a person can do. Reading enables me to understand more about the world and the people who live in this world. But it’s gotten to the point now where I just don’t have time to read any more. I now read maybe one or two books a year. I used to read two or three books a month. So I’ve resolved to read at least one book a month and make the time to do so. It will be hard to work into my schedule, but this will be done!

The third resolution is to get the hell out of Dodge (Los Angeles). And as I’ve explained above, that will likely happen more sooner than later. It was so easy to just pick up and move when I was younger. Now it’s a pain in the ass and quite a scary prospect. But I’ve been unhappy with Los Angeles for a very long time now, only living here because it suited my music business aspirations to be here. But now I want nothing to do with the music business and I have no reason to be here any more. So while it may be scary and it may be a pain in the ass, I’m really very excited about the prospect of a change of scenery. And living somewhere cheaper, that isn’t as overgrown and frantic with humanity as this place is, will be a definite plus.

And finally, to bring this full circle, I resolved to get this blog back on track. So, I promise you all I will post more regularly. I’m going to try to get at least two blogs up a month. I would love to get back to a weekly schedule, but I have to be realistic here. I should be able to handle every other week. As for my other blog, “The Order of the Omnivores” food blog, I haven’t really been happy with that since I started it. There are so many food blogs out there and I just don’t feel like another is needed unless it can express a viewpoint that hasn’t been expressed yet. So until I find that viewpoint, I’m just going to leave it alone. Once I can figure that out, I will let you all know. But until then, “The Top of My Head” will be the only blog I will be worrying about.

And on that note, I hope to see you back here towards the end of the month. I’m hoping to have another tour story, perhaps my short European jaunt with the Young Fresh Fellows and the Dharma Bums, but I will make no promises on that front. Until then, take care of yourselves and, above all, have fun. Enjoy it now, because you might not be able to enjoy it later.

On the Road with Redd Kross

2009-10-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

Quite a few months ago, I talked about my first ever United States tour with a band called Choir Invisible. That tour had many moments of fun, but it was also extremely frustrating and exhausting, so when we called it off and came home, I promised I would never tour again.

Several years later, I was temporarily living in New York City and trying to decide if I wanted to stay there or return to LA. I was missing Skip terribly, but I loved New York and had a great job there. That was when music manager, John Silva, called me and asked if I would like to work with the Three O’clock, a band he was managing at the time. I had promised myself that I would never tour again, but I loved to travel and I really wanted to get to Europe and the rest of the world. I never had much money and the only way I could see going overseas was with a band. The Three O’clock were fairly popular and had just signed to Prince’s label, Paisley Park, through Warner Brothers Records. Getting back to Skip and possibly being able to travel the world made up my mind and I took John up on his offer.

I’ve also talked about my tours with the Three O’clock. I did several tours with them, but never got out of California, with the exception of one show in Reno, Nevada. Then the band split up. Silva was also working with another LA band with the name of Redd Kross. At the time I knew the band pretty well, or at least I knew the two brothers, Jeff and Steve McDonald. I had met them very early on at the Hong Kong Café. They were very young and embodied everything that I thought a great punk rock band should have. They were extremely fun, had great songs, and expressed a snotty attitude that tied it all together. I had them out as guests on my radio show in Riverside and would see them play live as often as I could.

They eventually morphed into a loving parody of extremely long-haired heavy metal and garage rock, but they were still loads of fun and they still had those great songs. So, when Silva asked me if I wanted to manage their first ever USA tour in 1987, I jumped at the chance. Both John and I figured that we already knew each other and got along well. I was a fan of the band, so the tour should work out well for all of us. We were all wrong.

I should stop here to say that I’ve shut a good amount of this tour out of my mind. I was miserable from almost the first moment we left on the tour, and was almost suicidal by the time the tour ended two weeks later. So there’s a lot I can not remember about this tour. But there are some basics and a couple of shows that stick out which should give you a feel of how this tour went.

At this time, along with the two McDonald Brothers, the band also consisted of Robert Hecker on guitar and Roy McDonald (no relation) on drums. As soon as we took off, I begin to find out things about these guys that I wasn’t thrilled about. They claimed to be vegetarians. By that they meant that they loved Dairy Queen, where they would eat french fries and milk shakes. And let me tell you, that was all they wanted to eat each and every day. And only at Dairy Queen. Every time we saw one on the road, they would get all excited and we would stop for a meal of fried potatoes and ice cream. As a lover of food, that began to grate on me badly after only one day.

Another big problem was that the two brothers did not get along at all. They were always bickering and many times it would get violent with lots of loud yelling and fists flying. In a small crowded van, that became a big problem and I found myself having to pull over the van many times to try to keep the two siblings from killing each other so the tour could continue. (I’ve come to discover that this is standard reality for bands that have brothers in them, although I realize that not every brother band is like that. But it sure seems like a good many of them are and I quickly resolved to never work with a band again if any of the members were brothers. Of course, several years later I would start working with the Poster Children, who had two brothers on guitars, so another promise went out the window. Those two brothers got along very well though. In fact, except for some musical stubbornness, which they were well within their rights to have despite the business frustrations it caused, they were a pleasure to work with.)

On tour in 1987, we also had a problem with the band’s public image. That was something that couldn’t be helped though, and we all just had to deal with it. I can remember at least two incidences, one in Wyoming and the other in Mississippi, where the appearance at a gas station/rest stop of four guys with tight jeans, shiny shirts and hair down to their waists brought cat calls and close confrontations with bigoted locals. In North Carolina, we had a day off and I decided to stay in the hotel and read, knowing the band was going to spend the day at Heritage USA, the Christian theme park that Jim & Tammy Faye Baker had built several hours away in South Carolina. I kind of wanted to go, but badly needed some time away from the band. When they returned hours later with stories about confrontations with Jesus Freaks and just the whole strange nature of the place, I was really disappointed that I had stayed in, but it was probably all for the best.

The biggest problem of all was the band’s utter cluelessness about how to conduct themselves on and off stage. They were young and they had never toured before. I was also fairly young and still a novice at this touring thing or I probably would have had more patience with them. (Professionally, I really should have had more patience with them.) But it was hard.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the club owner was so excited that the band was playing his club, that he threw a big surprise party for the band. He had invited lots of locals and had stocked his club with barbecues and lots of locally made sausages and beer. He didn’t know the band were “vegetarians” though and that they didn’t drink alcohol at all and since he threw it as a surprise, neither Silva nor I were able to tell him about it. The band weren’t happy, but I finally convinced them that he had his heart in the right place and he wasn’t trying to insult the band purposely. But that evening, they only played a 20 minute set and then walked off the stage. They also refused to come back on for an encore. The club owner went crazy. He was screaming at me that the band was contracted for at least an hour long set and he expected them to get their asses onstage and fulfill that contract. When I tried to talk to the band, they claimed it had nothing to do with the club owner’s party. They had just decided that if they only do 20 minutes and leave the audience wanting for more, that the next time they came back to this city, the audience would be even more excited to see them again. I was flabbergasted! In the end, I had to call Silva and somehow, by threat or sweet talk, he managed to talk the band into getting back onstage and finishing their complete set. All this took about 30 minutes and the audience stuck around the whole time, so I guess they did want more. Unfortunately, this incident left the band mad at me for ratting them out to Silva, but I didn’t see any other option.

Outside of New Orleans, we were staying at a Motel Six and since there were no Dairy Queens around, we all decided to walk across the street to a truck stop to find something to eat. Robert wasn’t hungry and wanted to stay in the room. So off the rest of us went, where I remember a pretty satisfying meal, for me at least. Several hours later, we returned to the room to find it was full of horror.

Now, while the other three guys in the band were long-haired rockers, Robert was just an out-and-out Hippie. He was completely into the peace-and-love thing and because of that, had helped break up the brother’s fights a number of times. He also loved communing with nature, and that’s exactly what he was doing when we returned to the room. He had opened all the doors and windows, claiming he needed the fresh air. The problem was that this was summer in the swampish, deep South. The room was full of insects. There wasn’t an inch in the room that wasn’t crawling with some sort of beetle or flying creature. Some of them were huge! They were embedded in the bedding. They were snuggling in our clothes. They were everywhere, buzzing and chirping and looking for flesh to bite. We were all horrified, but Robert didn’t see the problem. They were just natural. It took us hours to finally clear the room of all those creatures so we could comfortably go to bed.

In Austin, Texas, we played a show with Dinosaur Jr opening. I had met the Dinosaur guys before at Richard Kern’s apartment in New York. I had never heard of them at that time, but they seemed nice enough, although really quiet and reserved. It was during this show that I realized that Dinosaur was almost as clueless as Redd Kross and listening to the two bands talked just boggled my mind. All-in-all though, it was a fun show and I don’t remember any major problems.

I can also remember bits and pieces of a few other shows. I recall a great show in Ann Arbor, and I also remember being disappointed that we weren’t going into Detroit, although we were so close. (I still have never been to Detroit, one of the few major cities in the USA I haven’t been to.) Cleveland was a fun show. We arrived at a club along the river and were horrified to see people swimming and rafting amongst all the garbage and crap floating in the water. (I believe a few years later, that river caught on fire, finally prompting the city to clean it up.) That was also the show where I met the band Death of Samantha, who quickly became a favorite band and good friends. That friendship is still going today with some of the band members, who went on to form Cobra Verde and join Guided By Voices. And another good show was in Dallas, when a few of the Butthole Surfers showed up, bringing with them a load of chaotic fun and craziness in the dressing room.

The last thing I remember of the tour was the drive back home to LA. We were driving through the Mojave Desert and were really all on each other’s nerves. I don’t remember what it was, but something got said and Jeff and I started arguing. It escalated and escalated and before long I finally had had enough and pulled the van over. Both Jeff and I piled out of the van and we just started screaming at each other. I think there was some light pushing and maybe even a few punches that didn’t connect were thrown. It was close to really getting ugly. I believe it was Robert who waded in and calmed us both down, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We climbed back into the van and finished the trip without saying a word to each other.

When I saw Silva the next day, I immediately told him that there was no way I could ever work with that band again. He told me that that was okay because they didn’t want to work with me either. In fact, that was the last time I ever worked for Silva again. A few months later, I re-met with Thin White Rope and started working for them exclusively for a number of years. I also finally got to Europe with them. That was a job I loved.

For their next American tour, Redd Kross got local journalist/scenester/great guy, Phast Phreddie to be their tour manager. He was a whole lot mellower than I was and just took everything in stride. I heard that during one fight between the brothers in the van, one tried to kick the other and missed. Instead, he kicked out the side window of the van. I would have probably melted down over that. Phred just got the van fixed and continued on with the tour. More power to him. Everyone was happier.

As I said, I was pretty good friends with the band before the tour, but in the years after, the McDonald’s and I have rarely spoken to each other, even ignoring each other when we were at the same events together. It’s too bad that it worked out this way because I was truly a fan of the band and I really did like those guys when I didn’t have to work with them. In recent years, the tension has broken a bit and I’ve talked to both Steve and Jeff when we’ve seen each other around town. I wouldn’t call the conversations extremely friendly, but I’m glad we can acknowledge each other again after all these years. We were all young and new at the game at the time. I look back on the tour and laugh now. If I was working with them now, I would have done things a lot different. You live and learn.

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I really am trying to get this blog back on a regular schedule. I would like to do this blog every two weeks, with my food blog on alternate weeks, meaning I would have a new blog entry every week, just like the old days. I’m working towards that, but right now, I’m overwhelmed with trying to raise money so we don’t end up homeless and broke. Most of my time is spent listing items for sale on Amazon, Gemm and EBay. I’m trying to get that into a schedule as well, so I will have certain days for listing, writing and time away from home for movies and such. (I’m so far behind on movies now. I haven’t had time to see one in several months.) This will also help me find the time to work on these stories a bit more so I don’t feel I’m rushing them out, as I feel I did with this new entry. So please be patient with me and I promise that I’ll get all this together. I still have so many stories I want to tell. Keep with me and you’ll hear them all.

My Creedence Summer

2009-09-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Back in the 1960’s, when I was a young teenager, I had my favorite bands. There was lots of music that I liked, but a few bands were special to me. The Doors were the first band to ever attract my attention. I was just 13 when I first heard them and their raw sexuality was a siren’s call I couldn’t resist. Spirit was another band that I just loved to death. I actually bought their first album in 1968 when it came out. I had seen a billboard on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood one day while traveling with my mother. The band’s look shocked me. For some reason, I thought having an older, bald guy in the band (drummer Ed Cassidy) was the height of non-conformity. So I bought the album unheard and found an atmospheric collection of psychedelic, jazzy songs the likes I had never heard before. I was hooked. And, of course, there was the Beatles, who I never got seriously into until the “Sgt. Pepper” album came out in 1967.

Then there was Creedence Clearwater Revival. I first heard CCR when the edited single “Suzie Q” became a hit in 1968. I loved the song, but I didn’t pick up a CCR album until 1969 and the release of their second collection called “Bayou Country”. “Proud Mary” was a huge hit and I just couldn’t resist the old time country/blues feel of the music mixed with the overt psychedelic sounds of the time. I was surprised when I brought the album home and put it on the tiny turntable I had in my bedroom. Usually, the first thing that happened when I put a record on was that my parents would start yelling at me to turn it down. But this time my mother knocked on the door and asked what it was. She actually liked it. She was into country music and the influence it had on CCR’s music was enough to attract her attention to it.

Over the years, CCR had quite an impact on me. Their music brought me around to country and blues. They broadened my mind at the time in ways few bands had been able to. I spent my teenage years going to school in Southern California’s Orange County, and spent the summers in Northern California at my grandparent’s house in Marysville. I would usually work for my grandfather in his grocery store in Yuba City. (One of his best customers was notorious serial killer Juan Corona, whose car I packed with groceries several times.) Most of the time my whole family would make the trip, but there were a few times when I was packed onto a Greyhound bus and sent through the Central Valley overnight to be met by my grandparents at the bus depot. I was always in amazement as we passed the city of Lodi. CCR did a song about it, so to me it was an exotic, unknown place that I longed to visit. I would stare out the bus window at the Lodi city sign and wonder what mysteries laid beyond it. (Of course, in reality the place was a dump and I was probably very lucky that I never saw it in the real light of day. I actually have visited the city many times now in the last decade as it’s quickly becoming one of California’s best up-and-coming wine regions.)

One of the biggest disappointments of my teenage years is that I never managed to see any of my favorite bands live. My father would periodically take me to the Anaheim Convention Center and drop me off to see whatever band happened to be playing there that evening. I can remember seeing such bands as Iron Butterfly, Blood Sweat & Tears, the Bee Gees (in 1968 when they were still a pop/rock band), Vanilla Fudge, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Donovan, and being amazed by them all. Remember, I wasn’t even 16 years old yet and all these bands seemed new and fascinating to me. But I never managed to see my favorites, although they all played the Convention Center at one time or another. The reasons for this are lost in time, but I regret missing those bands to this day.

Over the last several decades, I’ve been able to catch various members of my favorite bands in the live setting. I saw Paul McCartney in the 70s during his first big Wings tour. I caught Ringo Starr with his All-Star Band only a few years ago. I saw Spirit in one of their Randy California led later incarnations, as well as singer Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes’ later band, Jo Jo Gunne. And I’ve seen various Doors in solo settings as well as all three surviving members backing up Iggy Pop on stage. But I had never seen any of the CCR members play live.

Until this summer, that is.

I’ve talked before about how much I love the summer seasons at the Hollywood Bowl. It’s a great place to see someone perform and I always look forward to seeing what musical legends are going to play there when they announce the summer schedule each March. I also like the fact that you can still attend the Bowl for a rather cheap price ($5 to $15 depending on the show) if you don’t mind sitting a quarter mile away from the stage. There are giant screens so you can watch the action on stage close up. They also allow you to bring your own food and wine or beer to the Bowl. So it can be a very inexpensive evening out under the LA summer sky if you choose to do it that way. Skip and I usually end up going to at least a dozen shows there every summer, usually in the cheap seats, but sometimes spending more if the headlining act calls for it.

This summer was opened by a three day 4th of July stint by CCR leader John Fogerty. When it was first announced, we were torn about it. There was no question that we were going to go. After all, it was a Creedence legend we had never seen. But it was also well known that he hated playing the old CCR songs live and most of his solo material just didn’t interest us all that much. But we bought tickets. $25 each, about half way down to the stage. We brought a couple of bottles of nice wine and relaxed, hoping for the best.

And the best is what we got. He opened his set with “Green River” and I was pretty ecstatic. I thought he didn’t do CCR songs and here he was opening with one. His voice was strong and the band sounded good. His set turned out to be almost 2/3 Creedence, with the rest filled out by his solo material. He played a good many of the hits and even pulled out a few surprises, like “Run Through the Jungle”, “Keep On Chooglin’”, “Fortunate Son” and a country version of “Lookin’ Out My Back Door”. He also did a four song set backed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra that included a beautiful “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” and an incredibly rocking “Proud Mary”. We left that night in very high spirits. It was a great set by one of rock and roll’s great talents and we were glad that we had been there to see and hear it.

A few weeks ago, Skip and I were at the LA County Fair. We were looking at the list of upcoming bands playing there and we saw that Creedence Clearwater Revisited was coming soon. This CCR was formed 15 years or so ago to allow original Creedence bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford to capitalize on the music that they were so much a part of. The two guys, rounded out with several other musicians, had toured the world playing the hits they had originally recorded with John Fogerty. Creedence had ended on a sour note at the beginning of the 70s, with Forgerty going one way and the other three members (including the late Tom Fogerty, John’s estranged brother) going the other. Over the years, the relationship between the two camps has remained strained. This led to the incident during the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 where John Fogerty refused to let Stu and Doug play with him on stage. I found this to be petty, childish and extremely embarrassing. To me, John Fogerty may be a major talent, but he’s seems to be kind of a giant asshole as well. (I did meet Forgerty once. He was on his way out of Warner Bros Records as I was on my way in. A mutual friend introduced us and we talked briefly. He seemed nice enough, but his actions towards the other guys in the band are still inexcusable.)

Anyways, Skip remembered that his niece, Shannon, had once told him that she knew the son of one of the guys in the band. So, he gave her a call and before we knew it, we were on the guest list to see them play at the County Fair. (We’ve since found out that Shannon more than knows the guy. She’s living with him. And he’s the son of drummer Doug Clifford. I look forward to actually meeting him some day soon.)

We arrived at the Fair to find stage-side tickets and back-stage passes waiting for us. Those seats cost $125 each, so we were pretty thankful. (Lesser seats cost $25 each, but most of those were way in back and off to the sides.) The place was packed, which I found amazing. I had no idea that a band like this would bring in such a crowd consisting of so many people of all ages. We bought a couple of giant Fair margaritas and settled into our seats directly in front of the stage. We had no idea what to expect.

Now, I should break here to explain that I usually really have a problem with bands that continue on after their lead singer has left. It usually doesn’t work and I have bad memories of seeing the James Gang without Joe Walsh or hearing those horrible albums the Doors made after the death of Jim Morrison. I also have a problem with bands getting back together as a tribute to their old selves. Or I should say, I did have a problem. Lately I’ve been seeing lots of those types of bands, from X to the Human League to the Zombies, and I’ve found myself enjoying them tremendously, despite the lack of new songs. Sometimes, like in the case of the Human League, they’re even better than they were when I first saw them in their original form. Then, last year, I saw From The Jam, which is the original drummer and bassist of the Jam with a new singer, touring by playing the old songs. They were tremendous; as good as they were with their original singer/guitarist, Paul Weller. (Some people even thought they were better, although I won’t go that far out on the limb. The new material the band is working on may decide that for me.) It may just be nostalgia, but there’s room for that these days and I realized that I couldn’t condemn a band for falling back on that.

Getting back to the show, on walks Creedence Clearwater Revisited to thunderous applause. Stu Cook looked chipper and happy, and Doug Clifford looked fit and trim and not much older than he did 40 years ago. They were rounded out by three other musicians; Steve Gunner on keyboards, Tal Morris on guitar, and John Tristao on vocals and guitar. They immediately broke into “Born On the Bayou” and the crowd went wild. Their hour and a half long set included most of the band’s hits, including the biggest and a few of the smaller ones like “Travelin’ Band”, “Hey Tonight”, and “Lodi” which I found to be a delight.

I had a few problems with the set. There was a bit too much guitar pyrotechnics at times, which I don’t think was needed, although the crowd seemed to respond excitedly to those moments. And although singer John Tristao has the voice down, in person he’s kind of a solidly built, bald, biker guy and I just couldn’t place the face with the voice. I found that I was watching the set without watching him and I was enjoying it more because if that. Both of these problems were small ones though and the vast, crazy audience didn’t seem to mind them at all. I guess it’s just me.

But, Oh, that rhythm section!!! Those two guys are beautiful to watch and listen to. Fogerty owes those guys a lot more than he’s given them. He could never have pulled off what he was doing without those guys there to anchor him down. I watched and listened to them in amazement. I found myself wishing that we could have found a rhythm section like that for Thin White Rope. It would have been a beautiful thing. (These days I look back and think that we may have had that rhythm section in John and Joe if we just would have been a bit more patient.)

So once again I found myself glad to be where I was. I enjoyed the show tremendously and if I put the two parts together, I can convince myself that I’ve sort of seen Creedence Clearwater Revival play live now.

Afterwards, we went back stage and Doug, or Cosmo, a nickname he seems to prefer, came out to talk. He was friendly and talkative. There were a few times when I thought we were taking up too much of his time and would start to make our goodbyes when he would suddenly change topics to another subject that we would spend a good amount of time discussing. It’s been quite a while since I’ve felt so comfortable talking to someone I respect so much but don’t know. Topics went from family matters to John Fogerty to old memories of CCR to Lodi to Dolly Parton and on and on. It was really a pleasure. (And the thought that if all works out, he may become a distant relative boggles my mind.)

So there you have it. My Creedence Summer. I fell in love with the band 40 years ago and this summer reinforced the fact that I’m still in love with them now. And I know that if by some chance I live another 40 years, I’ll still be in love with them then.

Fun at the Hollywood Bowl and Other Musical Musings

2009-09-09T15:06:00.000-07:00

Once again I’m going to ignore the rapid descent into pure insanity that we are watching this country’s right wing fall into. Instead you’re getting several music oriented tales.

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The other day Skip and I went to the Hollywood Bowl to see a concert. This isn’t unusual in the summer. We usually end up at the Bowl to see a dozen or more shows every summer season. And there was certainly nothing unusual about the show. It was jazz artists Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White, three of the four members of the 70s jazz fusion band Return to Forever. I was a big fan of the band and wanted to catch them live again after three and a half decades to see what they had been up to lately. So it should have only been a nice evening out featuring some great jazz music. Instead we got one of the most bizarre, chaotic, and ultimately rewarding shows I’ve seen all year.

We started the evening by deciding to park up on Cahuenga Blvd, which is right around the corner from the Hollywood Bowl. We usually go to North Hollywood and park at the Red Line station and then take the subway to Hollywood Blvd, where we walk up the hill to the Bowl. That way we can avoid the traffic and the long lines of cars after the show due to the Bowl’s insane policy of stack parking. But we had decided to eat at the Loteria Grill on Hollywood Blvd before the show, so we were early enough to find parking on Cahuenga, which is the only legal place you can park near the Bowl. It fills up fast, but if you’re there early, you can usually find a space. We left the wine and water we had brought for the Bowl show in the car and walked down the hill to Loteria, about half a mile walk.

Now, keep in mind that Southern California was experiencing a really bad heat wave at that time and also has one of the worst fires in recent history burning nearby, so the air was hot, muggy and full of smoke. We ate a delicious dinner and walked back up the hill to our car to get our packs full of ice, wine and water. After swinging the packs onto our backs, we walked part way back down the hill to the entrance to the Bowl, then walked all the way up this huge hill to get to our seats in the second to the last section up. By the time we got there, we were red-faced and out of breath, and we had probably worked off most of the calories we had ingested at dinner.

I knew we were in trouble when we first arrived. Sitting right next to us were a very enthusiastic Latino mother with her adult son. They were already drunk and I think quite a bit stoned and were very loud and friendly. “Hey!” “Sit Down.” “Take a load off.” “Here, have a beer.” And it wasn’t long until we were asked, “Hey, are you guys significant others?” “It’s cool, man,” “Sure you don’t want a beer?” We thanked them every time they offered us a beer and explained that we really weren’t beer guys and that we had brought our own wine and we preferred that, which was probably why they figured out we were significant others.

Everyone was distracted though when an older black man arrived along with three middle-aged black women and they sat right behind us. They were all very excited about the show and started devouring a large basket full of fried chicken, ham and booze to prove it, all the while talking about how excited they were about the show.

It was about this time that the opener, guitarist John Scofield hit the stage. Dear God, I hated him. He played a set of what he described as “New Orleans Gospel” except there was absolutely no soul involved. It was just four musicians sounding like studio hacks and they weren’t even that good of musicians. But the audience loved it. The young Latino guy next to us started “WOOing” immediately and it wasn’t long until he pulled out a tambourine to beat along with his WOOs. I looked behind us and the whole audience was on their feet, swinging their hips and dropping wine glasses and bottles, and probably themselves, onto the aisles with loud crashes. I have never seen an audience so set on partying.

Forty minutes later, the torturous music stopped and the lights went up. The young Latino guy looked at us and screamed, “I MEAN, HOW CAN YOU FOLLOW THAT?” We just grimaced back at him. I certainly hoped that Chick Corea, et al, would be able to follow that quite easily, but I was really worried that perhaps we had made a big mistake by coming to this show.

The young Latino guy got a phone call and announced he had to leave. His mother seemed upset and asked if it was “that girl” and he affirmed her suspicions. He told her that “that girl” was down in Section F and he was going to join her and with that, he was off and I was relieved as I had just told Skip that if he was going to keep up that WOOing and tambourine pounding through the rest of the evening, we were going to have to move.

Mom just sat there drinking beers and talking to us about past shows she and we had seen at the Bowl that summer. The people behind us were still eating and drinking and seemed pretty oblivious to anything else going on around them. It was about then that I noticed the crickets. They were all around us and they were damned loud. We couldn’t see them, but they could be heard all over. I was sure those crickets had to be the size of small dogs to make a sound that loud. They didn’t seem to mind all the people around them and kept up their gleeful chirping without pause. I mentioned to Skip that we should have brought a couple hundred hamsters to let loose to eat the crickets (hamsters LOVE crickets) and the thought of that sent him into insane giggles, so I wasn’t sure if I was happy I had brought it up.

Then the lights went down and Corea, Clarke and White walked out, promised a night of “illegal melodies and illegal chords”, and broke into a pretty great acoustic version of “500 Miles High” from the first Return To Forever album. Immediately, one of the middle-aged black women behind us started screaming, “I LOVE YOU, STANLEY CLARKE!”, like he could hear her a quarter of a mile back and over the music he was playing on stage. By this time, all I could do was laugh. But she quieted down after a couple of minutes and I relaxed and enjoyed the music.

The trio did a couple more acoustic numbers and then brought on violinist Jean Luc Ponty, starting into a beautiful version of Corea’s “Armando’s Rhumba”, and then into a soaring version of Ponty’s “Renaissance”. (He announced the song by claiming that he pronounces the song title as “ren-e-sance”, while us American’s pronounce it “ren-a-sance”, which Skip and I found hilarious for some unknown reason.)

Then guitarist Bill Connors joined the group and it all started going south. They started playing “Senor Mouse”, but the only guitar the audience could hear was a crunchy feedback sort of thing that took any energy out of the music the band were trying to perform. The band didn’t seem to notice the sound problems and just kept at it and after 5 minutes or so; roadies started scurrying around the guitar amp, trying to solve the problem. They eventually got it sorted out, but by the time they did, the song had been ruined. Halfway through the song, the young Latino guy came back. I guess he hadn’t scored well with “that girl”. But he got right back into it by screaming “JEAN LUC PONTY” over and over again, obviously hoping that would get the band through their sound problems and back into the groove of things.

Then things really started to get weird. Chaka Khan was introduced and out she bounced. Skip and I had seen Chaka perform at the Bowl earlier this summer and thought she was pretty good. But she wasn’t cut out for this performance. I know she has sung with Corea, et al, on the album “Echoes of an Era” in 1982, and by all accounts, it’s a good album. But she’s no Ella Fitzgerald, and I found her attempts at scat singing and jazz in general to be sorely lacking and just downright irritating.

She announced that they were going to perform a song from the first ever black opera and the old black guy behind me yelled out, “CARMAN”. I turned around and yelled back, “NO, PORGY AND BESS”, and he just stared at me before yelling out, “SUMMERTIME”. I turned to Skip and said that they were probably going to do “I Loves You, Porgy” just as Chaka announced they were going to do just that. I didn’t hear another word from the old black man that night.

But it was just at that time that Chaka Kahn decided to talk about how much she loves working with that band and ran over and started hugging Stanley Clarke. The middle aged black woman behind me screamed, “I WANT TO HUG STANLEY”. Chaka said, “I love you, Stanley” and the woman behind me screamed, “I LOVE STANLEY”. Then Chaka saw Lenny White sitting behind his drums and said, “I love you too, Lenny”. And the woman behind me screamed, “NO. I LOVE STANLEY.” Then she continued to scream “STANLEY” over and over for the next five minutes or so until she lost her voice or passed out or something.

The band started into “I Loves You, Porgy” which is a beautiful song that wasn’t quite jelling, when a stir went through the audience. Over at the side of the stage a man was being led on stage and in moments the whole audience could see that it was a black-clad Stevie Wonder. This brought the audience to its feet as Stevie pulled out his harmonica and played a perfect solo over the band. Then he joined Chaka on vocals and the song suddenly seemed to soar. Stevie sang and the crowd went wild. I have to say, it was a pretty beautiful moment. (My favorite part was when Stevie finished singing his lines and tried to hand the microphone to Chaka. But she was excited and running all over the place. Stevie just kind of waved the mic around in a confused manner, then shrugged his shoulders and started singing again. Always a professional, that Stevie.)

The young Latino guy was screaming, “STEVIE, OH, STEVIE” over and over through all this and his mother turned to us and screamed, “NOW ALL WE NEED IS AL JARREAU”, the thought of which sent shivers of terror down my spine.

Then the song ended and Stevie sat down at the electric piano across from Chick at the acoustic piano. “OH MY GOD! WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO PLAY? CHOPSTICKS?” screamed the young Latino guy and Skip told him it was going to be the best damned version of “Chopsticks” any of us had ever heard. He just looked back confused.

They started playing while the audience was still going wild. The Mom turned and screamed “IT’S SPAIN” and “THIS IS SPAIN ISN’T IT?” and “SPAIN IS MY FAVORITE SONG” before screaming again, “THIS IS SPAIN, ISN’T IT?” I assured her it was. In fact, I think a couple other people behind us also assured her it was, hoping she would shut up and listen to her favorite song.

It was a beautiful version and I was surprised at how well Stevie held his own playing jazz chops. Chick Corea threw in a bit of Stevie’s own “Ribbon in the Sky”. The audience was going crazy. And then it was over. Corea thanked the audience and Stevie was led off the stage and everyone in the audience turned to each other to talk about how amazing it had all been. I was happy. It wasn’t a perfect set, but it was full of its own fireworks and I found it to be extremely beautiful when the band was one and at least fun when they weren’t, possibly due to the company around us.

As we were leaving, the young Latino guy and his Mom told us that they enjoyed spending time with us. “Hope to see you again soon”, they said. We nodded and walked away down the hill. I was glad we had come to this show, but if I ever see those people again, I’ll run screaming in the opposite direction.

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This year’s FYF Fest was a whole different affair than past years’ have been. First, there was a name change. They used to be the Fuck Yeah Fest before becoming the F Yeah Fest. Now they’re just the FYF Fest. The organizers also took the Fest away from the Echo Park clubs, The Echo and the Echoplex, and moved it to the Downtown area’s LA State Historic Park. This enabled the Fest to be more of a legitimate, commercial-type Festival and it paid off as there were hundreds more people attending than I saw at last year’s Fest.

But the basic premise of a festival featuring up-and-coming to unknown indie rock bands is still in place and that’s a good thing. I usually go to this yearly Fest as a way to check out bands I might not have heard yet and there were a number I discovered this year.

My favorites included Woods (http://www.myspace.com/woodsfamilyband), the Thermals (http://www.myspace.com/thethermals), Eat Skull (http://www.myspace.com/eatskull), and Times New Viking (http://www.myspace.com/eatskull).

I also quite liked Dios (http://www.myspace.com/diosmalos), Darker My Love (http://www.myspace.com/darkermylove), Crystal Antlers (http://www.myspace.com/crystalantlers), Wavves (http://www.myspace.com/wavves), and the Strange Boys (http://www.myspace.com/thestrangeboys).

I was rather ambivalent about the typical punk rock of the Carbonas (http://www.myspace.com/thecarbonas) and the faceless electro-pop of Cold Cave (http://www.myspace.com/coldcave).

And I absolutely hated the chaotic noise of Lightening Bolt (http://www.myspace.com/laserbeast), which surprised me since so many people seemed to be into them.

I really wanted to see, but missed Kurt Vile (http://www.myspace.com/kurtvileofphilly), Nobunny (http://www.myspace.com/nobunnylovesyou), Avi Buffalo (http://www.myspace.com/avibuffalo), Telepathe (http://www.myspace.com/telepathe), and Glass Candy (http://www.myspace.com/glasscandy).

Dan Deacon (http://www.myspace.com/dandeacon) cancelled due to illness or I would have seen him.

I’ve seen both Mika Miko (http://www.myspace.com/mikamiko) and Peanut Butter Wolf (http://www.myspace.com/pbwolf) before. I loved Mika Miko. I’ve seen Peanut Butter Wolf do much better, but his travels through 90s hip-hop was fun and had the audience going apeshit.

We left before No Age (http://www.myspace.com/nonoage) and Black Lips (http://www.myspace.com/theblacklips) played. I love both bands, but have also seen both of them recently and just decided to get home at a decent hour.

All-in-all, I had a great time and certainly got my $20 worth. I’m already looking forward to next year.

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Finally, I just want to make a couple of movie recommendations.

“It Might Get Loud” was one of the best rock music documentaries I’ve ever seen. It’s basically a conversation between Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2) and Jack White (White Strips, Raconteurs, the Dead Weather). During this conversation, the three guitarists touch on their early years and what brought them into music in the first place. There is some absolutely amazing footage of the guys as youngsters just getting started. There is also footage of all three talking about their influences and the best footage comes out of that. The look on Page’s face as he plays and talks about Link Wray’s “The Rumble” is just priceless. More than any other movie I’ve seen, this one shows the pure joy and excitement in the love and creation of music. See it.

“Taking Woodstock” isn’t even close to being the best movie that Ang Lee has made, but it’s still a very likable and enjoyable film. It’s the story of how the Woodstock Festival came to be. Some people have complained that it didn’t include a lot of the music and performances, but that’s not what the movie is about. It’s about how some people with big dreams made them come true. There are some problems. Some of the characters aren’t properly fleshed out and at times the story seems to meander a bit. But I still enjoyed the movie quite a lot and so I’ll recommend it. You can wait for this to come out on DVD, but some of the cinematography is beautiful and is better suited for the big screen. Either way, try to see it eventually. I think you’ll enjoy it as well.

Thin White Rope in the United Kingdom

2009-08-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted a blog here and I apologize for it. All the usual excuses apply. Not enough time while trying to make money; various minor medical problems; lack of motivation and pure laziness; etc, etc. I was tempted several times to write a political rant about all these ignorant anti-healthcare asswipes, but as bothersome as they are, I just can’t get myself all that worked up any more. These people will get the government and the healthcare they deserve, and both will hasten the downslide this country has been in for decades now. I’m going to spend my anger time looking for a way out instead. (If there’s any of you non-Americans out there who need a manservant or cook, let me know. I’d be glad to dust, wash your dishes and/or cook your meals, and I’m a damned good cook, in exchange for getting out of this hellhole and having a place to live.)

So, lacking a rant, I’m going to give you all what you really want and present a new Thin White Rope road story. In fact, I’ll give you a whole bunch of them. So, I present to you: Thin White Rope in the United Kingdom!

Please keep in mind that I still can’t find my journal that had all the TWR tour dates and information in it. It’s around somewhere and when I do finally find it, I will make all corrections that need to be made. But until then, I have to trust my memory, and that means that some of what follows is a bit sketchy. In the case of this report, I have called in help from the members of the band as well as the always accountable Andy Bean, who provided me with his data base of TWR dates he was at, which was a good many of them. But even with all that help, I know some of the dates and events will be a bit off. (And if any of you have additional information, please send it to me so I can make corrections.) One of these days, when I can find all the information I need, I’m going to take all these tour stories and upgrade them, but until then, this is what you get, which I think is better than nothing.

This is a long one, so get that cup of coffee, or whatever beverage you prefer, and whatever snack you’re partial to and sit back and enjoy.

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After playing several tours in Italy, our booking agent, Paulo, decided that the time was right for us to start making inroads throughout the rest of Europe. He hired a driver for us, a dapper guy named Pino, who’s various adventures and idiosyncrasies I’ve documented in an earlier blog, and we headed out on our first great European adventure.

One of the shows we were really looking forward to was our first in London. The UK was very much responsible for a good amount of the reason the band was where they were at the time. The English magazine, “Bucket Full of Brains” wrote one of the first articles on the band, an article that led to their signing to Frontier Records and the attention that enabled the group to tour Europe in the first place. So we were pretty excited about this show. The only problem was that we didn’t have any work permits and that’s a big problem when playing in the UK.

We got around this by packing all the equipment, including the guitars, in the van and as we approached the Belgium ferry that would take us over the English Channel, we all got out and walked into the building and onto the ferry, while Pino drove the van onto the ship. Once we arrived at Dover, we walked off the ship, claiming we were all on vacation and were going to catch a bus to London. Once cleared, we walked a ways down the main road until Pino met us with the van. We climbed aboard and headed straight to London, where we played our show with the British government none the wiser. (The customs people did question Pino about all the band equipment, but he didn’t speak any English and after several long minutes of babel-confusion, the customs agents grew impatient and waved him through, since he had all the correct paperwork allowing him to possess all the stuff.)

We arrived in London in early afternoon and had the rest of the day off. We were met by a member of our European record label, Demon. I believe his name was Spike. He asked if we wanted to go to a club called Dingwalls to see the band playing that night, a band called Spaceman Three. The band created a deafening drone using guitars and old analog synthesizers. They were extremely loud and we thought they were great.

The next day our show was at a hole-in-the-wall bar by the name of the Sir George Robey. We were the middle band, opening for the great British punk-poet John Cooper Clarke. The opening band was some forgotten band from Canada who was terrible and had the distinction of having one of the slimiest managers I had ever met. (Andy has this date as being in March of 1988, but I believe it was in the fall of 1987. I think we put out the “Bottom Feeders” EP in Europe only so we would have a record to tour on, and that record came out in ’87.) I remember the show as going very well for us and John Cooper Clarke was amazing and extremely nice, which thrilled me to no end, as I had a lot of respect for the man.

This show started a particular thing that puzzled me, but I found was par-for-the course in England. One of the three weekly music newspapers in England, Melody Maker, took a strong liking to us, but because of that, the other two, Sounds and New Musical Express, decided that we weren’t to be bothered with. This was highly frustrating to me and to the people at Demon. During the run of the band, MM gave us the cover once and always had a major article about the band for every new record and tour, even sending journalists on tour with us in the UK, throughout Europe, and in one instance, directly to LA to cover the recording of the “The Ruby Sea” album. We managed to get a few small articles out of Sounds, most notably a short interview that took place at Stonehenge and Hampton Court Palace, but NMN never acknowledged us at all, as far as I can remember. This was an attitude I never really understood. I also had problems with the nation’s foremost disc jockey, John Peel. He would bring bands into his studio and record them for broadcast. Those recordings always received a lot of attention, but I was never able to get any interest out of him for TWR. The people at Demon simply told me that he didn’t like the band, but I was never able to talk to the man myself, not due to lack of trying, so I never got any real reason that I could understand. Because of this, I don’t have the respect for Peel that most people in the music business have for him. I understand that he made many careers, but he didn’t help me out and didn’t even give me the courtesy of an answer when I tried to contact him.

Things get a little sketchy for the next year or so. We met Andy and Duncan during a spring 1988 Dutch tour with Nikki Sudden and the French Revolution. They were playing drums and bass in the band and they became great friends and an even greater help to us during our UK tours and with the European tours in general. We started splitting up in London, with some of us staying with Andy, Duncan, or their friend, Chim, in order to save money. When we could afford it, we would give them a break by staying at the Columbia Hotel near Hyde Park, which was the rock and roll hotel in the city and always provided a good time. But we always ended up back at Andy, Duncan and Chim’s, since we preferred staying with friends and they would always feed us with great English breakfasts.

(I remember one tour when we stayed at a hotel near the British Museum. There was absolutely no place to park the van. It wouldn’t fit in any of the parking structures and the posted hours on the street meant we would be towed. I asked a street cop what we should do. He simply told me to find a parking space where the meter was broken. If I found one of those, I could stay in that space as long as I wanted. So, we got back from our show that night and found an empty space. We then pulled out our tool box and proceeded to completely dismantle the parking meter for that space. We were making a horrible racket, but only one person, who was staying in the hotel room near where we were parked, asked what we were doing. We just told him to shut his window and go back to bed. The meter was in pieces all over the sidewalk and we just collected it up and threw it away. The next morning I woke up and went out to check on the van. There was already a brand new meter placed on the spot, but our van was un-ticketed and left alone. I saw the same cop I had talked to the day before walking towards me. He said, “I see you found a broken meter.” Then he winked at me and walked away. I always look back in amazement on that moment.)

I don’t think we did a UK show during that early 1988 tour. There were two shows in London in late 1988. One was at Dingwalls and the other was a week later at the Sir George Robey, but for the life of me, I can’t recall anything about those shows.

Then, in July of 1989, we came back to do a show at the Marquee Club. We were using a new English booking agent at the time. I believe his name was Mike Hink and he was supposed to be a big deal, booking Morrissey and many of the more popular British bands. We were starting our tour in the UK this time, which meant picking up a van that would drive from the right side of the car (left side of the road). We would have to get used to this, as we were taking it over to Europe with us. We also found that we didn’t have as much room as we wanted for us and all our equipment, so we took all the rental amps out of their cases and left the cases in Andy’s house, which took up quite a lot of space in his flat. Let me tell you, that man was a saint to put up with all the stuff we put him through. (He can tell you of all our increasingly crazy favors asked of him, as well as nightmare tales of broken down vehicles, fried equipment, and drunken escapades throughout the countryside.)

We had a few days before our first official show at the Marquee, so we hastily arrange a surprise show that would be attended by word-of-mouth. That show was at the Camden Falcon and became one of the most infamous shows the band ever played. The place was packed and the band was spot on that evening. But it was hot as hell in that club. Sweat was evaporating, rising to the ceiling and then condensing and raining down on the band and the audience. And there was no air in the place. Our drummer, Matt, passed out part way through the show due to lack of oxygen. We got him back behind his drums eventually, but it wasn’t long until everyone finally just gave in to the heat exhaustion and depletion of H2O. It was a wonderful show; one that people still talk about to this day. In contrast, I can’t remember the official show at the Marquee at all.

I think this is when we did our first official English tour. As I mentioned above, we were happy because we had a real booking agent and the tour should have been a great one. It was anything but great. We arrived in Birmingham to find that we had been booked into a black soul/reggae club. Once they took a look at us, they didn’t really want us to play and told us that there was no PA. I was insistent though and along with our genius soundman, Elliot Dicks (another saint in the history of the band), we dug up enough equipment around the club to put together a PA and play the show. It actually did okay, with enough people coming out to see the band that the club was relatively happy. I fell in love, or I should say in lust, with one fan and kept the band waiting long after the end of the gig while we chatted. But we finally got on the road and realizing we were starving, found an Indian restaurant that was open late and indulged in some of the tastiest and spicy-hottest food we’ve ever eaten. That unfortunately led to a late night farting contest in the hotel that found me hiding in a closet and trying to sleep through the hideous stench.

We were met on the road by a Melody Maker journalist, who went with us to the next gig in a town called Morecombe, which is one of those seaside tourist towns that seem to be planted in several places along the English coast. But the next day we discovered that the club was a new one that hadn’t even opened yet and because of that, there was no show to do no matter how bad we wanted to do it. So we spent the day walking along the seaside attractions with the journalist and his photographer. I remember getting my fortune told and the fortune teller telling me that I would realize that my choice to be a band manager would eventually be proven to be a correct one. (I’m still waiting on that.) And we bought a bunch of candy nougat, which was supposedly the one claim to fame of this town, to find it inedible. So we threw it to the seagulls, who would swallow it and then spit it out in disgust. That kept us amused for quite awhile. You know something’s horrible when the gulls won’t even eat it.

In Glasgow, Scotland, we arrived to find that our gig was being advertised for a week later. The first person we met at the club was impossible to understand, his brogue was so strong. But we finally found the club owner and through all sorts of apologies, let us know he still wanted us to play. We went out to dinner and met a group of fans at the local Wimpey’s Burger. When they found out we were in town at that time, they rushed around and told people about it. We ended up with a small, but very rowdy group of fans and the show turned out to be quite fun. At one point, a group of fans were in the balcony above the stage and Guy handed his guitar to them, which they strummed and made all sorts of unholy racket with. It all fit into the set very well though.

We had a day off the next day and I wanted to drive up to Loch Ness, but the band rebelled at that idea. They didn’t want to be in the van any more than they had to, so we took the train to Edinburgh and toured the castle there, marveling at Mon’s Meg, the big cannon they have in the museum. (I eventually made it to Loch Ness during a vacation with Skip years later. It was wonderful, but so was the castle. Glasgow is one of my favorite cities anywhere in the world.)

There were other English shows that weren’t as bad as these. Some of them were part of this tour and some weren’t, although I can’t remember where they fit in. By the way, we never used Mike Hink to book any date ever again.

On that same tour, we showed up for a show in Hull to a panicked club owner. It seemed that he had accidentally booked two headlining bands on the same night. The first was us. The second was a band that was beginning to make waves all over England, My Bloody Valentine. I hadn’t heard MBV at this time, but I knew they were on the cover of the Melody Maker that week. (We had been on the cover the week before.) It was decided that we would both play, but it couldn’t be decided who was the headliner. Since they were on the magazine cover that week, I thought they should headline, but they didn’t want to follow us. We finally decided by flipping a coin. We lost and had to headline. I walked out to watch their set and upon the first note, my jaw hit the ground. They were amazing. One of the best live groups I’d ever seen. I have to say, I was rather nervous about the band following them, but in pure TWR style, they rose to the challenge and played an amazing set that had the audience going wild. To this day, that was one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen thousands of them. And it turned out that Hull had the best fish and chips I have ever eaten, making it a double-good place.

We did a show early on in Milton Keynes, which at the time was known for having fake cows in their meadows for whatever reason people have fake cows in meadows. Paul Weller and Style Council even did a song making fun of the town. It had been described to us as a leisure town, whatever that means, and we were worried it would be a horrible show. But we showed up at some community center there and ended up having a really pleasant show after all.

I was always disappointed we didn’t make it to Liverpool, but we did do a show in Warrington, which was between Liverpool and Manchester. Opening for us was the Charlatans. This was before they were well known. They had a different lead singer, but their sound was developing towards the one that gave them hit singles. I remember them as being very nice guys, but I don’t remember the show at all. We also did a show in Manchester and I was very excited to be playing there, it being the home of the Fall and Joy Division, but I really remember nothing about that show except some frustration in finding a place to park our van when we arrived at the club.

We did several shows in Leeds and they were always fun, except the one time we played a university community center where the Who recorded “Live at Leeds”. I was excited about being there, but the show has left an unpleasant taste in my memories, and I can’t remember why. I know Guy has the same memories, so something didn’t work with that show. (I do remember being lightly hassled for being gay at that show, which was the only show in Europe or America I was ever hassled at.) Much better memories of Leeds come from the three shows we did at the Duchess of York. Those shows always did great. One of them was a Halloween themed show (the club’s idea) that turned out to be a whole lot of fun. We eventually met some of the Mekons, a great Leeds punk/country band, on the road in Germany and that gave us a place to stay the last show we did there. I always looked forward to Leeds.

In 1990, we arrived in London to do a show at a club called the Subterrainia. We arrived at the club and I immediately got excited when I realized it was the same club I had seen Joy Division in during my first trip to London in 1979, except it was called the Acklam Hall back then. That show went great and led into a very drunken party at the Columbia Hotel that included our visiting German booking agent, Christof, as well as the head of our label, Lisa. That party wound down after guy mistook an occupied phone booth for a urinal and peed all over it and the poor guy inside. The next day we headed off for a month long tour of continental Europe, before returning to London for another show at a big venue called the Astoria. At the last moment though, the Astoria got cancelled for reasons I don’t remember and we hastily put together a show back at the Subterrania. For whatever reasons, that show did terrible though and Roger cracked the neck of his guitar in frustration. We left London feeling rather blue. But before we left England, we did another great show in Leeds, that show in Manchester and a show in Doncaster at a club called the Jug.

In 1991, we had three shows in London. Two of those shows were busts for us. The first was at the Marquee in June. Unfortunately, there was a tube strike that day, so attendance for the show was terrible. That was too bad, because it could have been great. It was followed the next day by a free in-store concert at the HMV Record Store on Oxford Street that went well and saved the day for us. In late August, we were back to play the Reading Festival and then played again at the Subterrainia, this time with two great bands, the God Machine and Whipped Cream. (The same line-up played the next night at the Joiner’s Arms in Southampton.) That same tour took us to shows in Sheffield, Wendover, Leeds (again), Leicester (where there was a great jukebox on which I played Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine”, impressing the band so much it later became a cover in their set), and Nottingham.

The Nottingham show is notable for a number of reasons. The promoters were a couple named Anton and Linda who were huge fans of the band. They were so excited about TWR playing their club it was almost frightening. (They showed up for the last show ever in Gent, Belgium a year later and cried over the band breaking up.) I recall that it was a great show that night.

I also recall the day before. We had a day off and decided to visit the Sherwood Forest. As usual, we all drank a little too much. I bought a Robin Hood outfit, put it on, and then we proceeded to rage about the forest in mock battle, with me being Robin and Andy being the Sheriff of Nottingham. Before long, we stumbled across a couple of standard-size poodles someone was walking, and started shooting rubber-tipped arrows at them, which didn’t please either the dogs or their masters. I think it all ended out of pure exhaustion. And yes, there are pictures of the battles. I recall one of Andy and me trying to clock each other with tree branches. Oh, the fun we had.

The Reading Festival was great fun and I felt very proud having the band there, since I had been trying to get them into a European Festival for some time. (The next year they played Roskilde in Denmark.) We were only playing the small tent to the side, but I was just happy to have the band there on any stage. We ran into some old friends (Babes in Toyland, American Music Club), made some new friends (meeting the guys who would go on to form Swervedriver), and generally had a great old time despite the rain that turned the ground into a giant mud pit.

Our last show in England was on October 17th, 1991. It was at a big place in London called the Venue New Cross. We were playing with a band made up of TWR fans called the Gorgeous Space Virus, I believe. I remember having all sorts of anxieties about playing there, but being told by the label and booking agents not to worry. I also remember that it did terrible and that few people showed up. I never got a logical reason for that.

The band played their last ever European tour June of 1992. They didn’t have time to schedule a London date in there. A lot of English fans came over to Belgium for that last show and it was great to see them there, but I’ve always regretted not having a show in London for the last tour. Everything kind of started there and it would have been nice to put a formal finish to it all there. But that’s the way it goes sometimes.

(By the way, the English tours always turned out to be a great place for me to check out and discover bands. While on tour there, I became fans of Spaceman Three, Cornershop, Blur, My Bloody Valentine and the Young Gods (thanks to That Petrol Emotion, who insisted we show up to their show on time to see the opening band),. I also saw the Fall play one their shows with dancer Michael Clarke, including guitarist Brix riding around on a giant hamburger. And I was able to experience the Velvet Underground reunion, which was pretty damned exciting for me. This doesn’t even include all the local and visiting bands that we played with, some deservedly going on to greater things.)

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And that’s all I have for now. As I said, I’ll eventually find my logs and this will all get updated with correct dates and events. Sometimes memories work out just fine, so I hope you enjoyed these stories. So, until next time, which I hope will be more sooner than later, take care and be sure to have fun. It’s about all we have left in this world. -ML

Punk Rock Stories – The Furys

2009-07-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

To say I was inspired by the 70s punk rock explosion is to put it mildly. It was exactly what I was looking for in my life. I lived through the late 60s/early 70s in a schizophrenic haze. I had long hair and loved much of the heavy metal (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin) and prog-rock (Yes, King Crimson, Genesis) of the time. But I was also attracted to the garage rock scene and loved the Stooges, the Velvet Underground, MC5 and the New York Dolls just as much. (And for your information, I still love all these bands.)

Somewhere around late 1973 or early 1974, I got fed up with the peace/love, drugged-out Hippie culture and in an inspired moment, I cut off all my hair and visited several thrift shops, buying a couple of ill-fitting suits, 60s-style skinny ties and a beat-up fedora hat. I wore this outfit until the end of the decade. But for those first couple of years, wearing such items made me a real outcast. The people I worked with, the crew and customers at the Licorice Pizza record store in Santa Ana, California, were puzzled and bemused. But elsewhere, I was met with suspicion and anger. I remember taking my sister to a Black Sabbath concert at the Long Beach Arena for her birthday and having one stoned, young hippie walking up to me and asking loudly, “What’s a redneck like you doing at a show like this?” I answered by picking him up and dumping him in a trash dumpster. My sister was horrified and spent the rest of the concert mad at me for embarrassing her.

So, I was really excited when in 1975, I saw a picture of New York poetess Patti Smith in a music magazine wearing a black suit over a white shirt and a skinny tie. The article was talking about her upcoming album “Horses”, but said that she had already released a 7’ single, “Hey Joe”/”Piss Factory”. I tried to get the single through Licorice Pizza, but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. That started a day long journey, where I finally found the single at Wallach’s Music City in Costa Mesa. I ran home, put it on my turntable, and was immediately lost in a sound I hadn’t heard before. It was just guitar and vocals, but it packed more power than most four-piece bands of the time. I was sold!

It was then that I started reading about this new music scene out of New York, which the music writers were calling “punk”. Patti Smith was joined by bands like the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Voidoids and so many more. It wasn’t much longer until the British groups, influenced by those New York groups, started up and stories about them were dominating the music rags.

During all this, one of my best friends was a fellow named Jeff Wolfe. He was the brother of the manager, Scott, at the Licorice Pizza I worked at. We would hang out at his parent’s house or at the house I was renting in Orange and listen to music and talk about all the new bands breaking into the scene. Both of us were taking trips up to Los Angeles to see bands like the Motels, Pop, the Dogs, and then, after the Damned played at the Starwood, a whole slew of new bands at the Masque in Hollywood. We both liked the idea that there were hardcore punk bands like the Weirdos and the Zeros existing in the same scene as energetic “power pop” bands like the Nerves and 20/20. (This wouldn’t last for long though, as those pop bands eventually were labeled as “new wave” and a whole different scene sprung up around them.)

Jeff had been writing songs with a musician named Gregg Embrey and after a short discussion it was decided to form a band and get ourselves up to Hollywood to join this new scene. Jeff was the singer and Gregg played keyboards and guitar. I didn’t play anything, so I became the manager. The first thing we decided on was to get a record out. Bands all over were now ignoring the major label system and recording and releasing records on their own through independent distribution. We corralled Gregg’s brother, Gary, in to play drums and the band went into Inland Studios to record a couple of songs.

In the meantime, I was looking into what we had to do to press up records, print covers and get distribution. We all pooled our money together with some help from various parents and such and before we knew it, we had our own 7” record ready for release. It was mid-1977. We named the record company Double R Records. The single had two songs, “Hey Ma” and “Jim Stark Dark”. The sleeve was black ink printed on a white envelope. We cut the top off the envelopes so the top would be open like a regular record sleeve. For the next few weeks, Jeff and I spent all our time taking the single around to record stores, talking small distributors into selling it and sending copies off to local clubs so we could try to book shows for the band. In no time, we had sold out of our initial pressing and took the single back to press. For the second pressing, we decided we didn’t like the cheapness of the original cover, so we raised a few more dollars and got a proper sleeve on glossy stock printed with brand new photos.

We started getting interest from clubs so we needed to get a full live band together. On that front, we brought in Charlie (Chaz) Maley on guitars and a friend of Gregg’s, Doug Martin, on bass. So the band started doing some live shows and started attracting a small, but loyal following. Now it was 1978 and we knew we needed to get another single out. We decided on one of the live favorites, “Say Goodbye to the Black Sheep” and backed it with a new song, “Suburbia Suburbia”. The cover of the single was taken by our friend, Donna Santisi, in the living room of my rented house. Behind the band, I had taken the sleeves off of my punk singles and pinned them on the wall. I still think it’s a great photo. (Just for the record, all three Furys singles sleeves were designed by our friend, Matt Powers, who also worked with me at Licorice Pizza.)

“Say Goodbye” was received even better than the first single and the band began playing a lot. They were the first band to play at Madame Wong’s in Chinatown, opening for Gary Valentine and the Know. They played the Cuckoo’s Nest in Costa Mesa, usually opening for some up-and-coming English band. There were shows at the Starwood and the Whiskey. As usual with these memoirs, I don’t remember much about any of the shows. A few still stick out in my mind though.

The very first show the band played was at the Surf Theatre in Hunting Beach. They were sandwiched between two prog-metal bands and the audience didn’t know what to make of them. Around the same time, they also played at Huntington Beach High School at a noon-time assembly, and again the audience didn’t know what to make of them. One kid even threw an egg, hitting Charlie’s black Rickenbacker 12-string guitar. Charlie screamed “This is sacrilege,” and left the stage. The kid got expelled from school. Of course, it wasn’t long until most of the kids were dressing the same way as the band and listening to the same kind of music.

My favorite show was at the Troubadour. The Furys were opening for the Knack. From the minute we walked into the club, things were tense. The Knack were taking forever on their soundcheck and we had no choice but to sit around and listen to them screw around. About an hour after we arrived, someone from the club approached us and said that the Knack had accused us of stealing some equipment out of their dressing room. The accusation was complete bullshit and we said so. Since there was no proof, the club took no action, but the tension in the air was stifling. We all proceeded to get very drunk. My family was coming to the show, so it was decided that I was going to sing a song with the band. (I’m a frustrated lead singer, although I really can’t sing. I sang with the band several times. My favorite time was singing “I Can See For Miles” at Blackies.) By the time I got on stage towards the end of the set, I was completely blottoed. Singing “Hound Dog”, I walked out on the tables in front of the stage, knocking over drinks and finally losing my balance and falling to the floor, where I writhed around and finished the song in the middle of an irritated audience. The set ended sloppy and drunk.

(My family thought it was a lot of fun, or so they told me. They didn’t seem to realize that I was drunk at all.)

We all headed upstairs to our dressing room. Charlie looked out the window and saw Knack leader, Doug Feiger, standing in the alley right under the window. Before any of us knew what was happening, Charlie unzipped and sent a torrent of urine out the window and all over Feiger. We were rolling all over the floor in laughter. The Knack probably still hates us to this day. Hopefully they learned their lesson and never accused another band of false charges. We were expecting to get in a lot of trouble, but the club seemed unfazed by the whole thing. We didn’t hear a word from them. At the end of the evening, I walked up to Doug Weston’s office, where he paid me in full while a young, blonde boy sat on his lap. Those were the days.

It came time to do a third single, but I was broke and didn’t want to put any more money into it. There was also some friction between me and Gregg. I really had no idea what I was doing. I worshiped outspoken managers like Jake Riviera (Elvis Costello) and Miles Copeland (Squeeze, the Police), both of whom I had met and had given me advice. But Gregg thought I was being too much of an asshole and that was hurting the band. I was also living up in Los Angeles by this time, and we were feeling a bit of disconnect between each other. By the time the third single, produced by Danny Holloway, came out on Steve Zepeda’s Beat Records in 1979, I had gone my own way (which eventually lead me to BPeople, which is a whole other story). I was still very good friends with Jeff, though, and a big fan of the band.

This third single was “Moving Target”/ “We Talk, We Dance”. The band had also parted company with Doug, as he was really a metal-kind-of-guy and never really understood where the band was coming from. They brought in Joe Conti to play keyboards and Gregg switched to bass. I believe Steve Zepeda became their acting manager, at least for a short time.

The band continued off and on for quite awhile. They released one more record, this time a 12” EP called “Indoor/Outdoor”, in 1986. I think there was some friction between Jeff and Gregg and the band split up for good shortly after that.

These days, I still hear fond remembrances about the band from old fans. Rhino Records licensed and released “Say Goodbye to the Black Sheep” on one of their Los Angeles compilations in the 90s. I hear the original singles are going for good money on EBay. And, although we’ve lost contact a few times for long periods over the years, I’m still friends with Jeff Wolfe and a fan of his newest band, the Horse Soldiers.

One more story. Shortly after leaving the Furys, Charlie was working at Rickenbacker. I was asking him about guitars because I was thinking of forming a band of my own, which eventually became Jes Grew. He sent me a brand new Rickenbacker guitar as a gift. It was beautiful, but I had no idea how to play it, so I eventually gave it to a friend of mine who wanted to learn how to play. That friend was one Brian Tristan, who would become Kid Congo Powers in a just a few years. I saw him playing that guitar in the early Gun Club. I think Kid is a great talent and I’m proud to have been able to help him along. I lost track of Charlie shortly after that, so I was never able to tell him about it, but I’m sure he would be proud as well.

And that’s it for this journey. Keep in mind that these memoirs are as I remember them, which doesn’t always mean that it was the way it happened. I’m sure various members of the Furys would have completely different views on what happened when, but they’re not writing this, are they?

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back here with something completely different soon, I’m sure. And don’t forget my brand new food blog, “The Order of the Omnivores”, which you can find here: http://theorderoftheomnivores.blogspot.com/

This and That

2009-07-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

I’m still working on the stories of my days with the Furys, so that will be another week or two away. That was really a long time ago, so trying to get everything together is taking some thinking and talking. I hope it will be worth the wait.

This week, I want to get a bunch of stuff off my chest, so I thought I would do so this way. First I’m going to talk about some things that I really dislike at the moment. That will be followed by a few things that I’m enjoying.

It would be easy for me to fall into another rant about my dislike of Barack Obama and almost the whole of the Democratic Party. Or I could easily fall into screaming about that insane asylum known as the Republican Party. But I’ll keep away from politics this time around and just say that next election I’ll be voting for a third party candidate. And if that means we have to endure more Republican years, then that’s the price we have to pay to get the fool Democrats to start acting like real Democrats again. And that’s enough of that for this week.

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The hysteria over Michael Jackson is really getting on my nerves. I thought this would all be over after his overblown memorial, but every time I turn on the news, it’s still full of un-newsworthy stories about Jackson and his creepy family.

Look, I know that Michael Jackson changed the face of music as we knew it. He helped make it possible for black music to make it into the mainstream. A lot of good music would have been ignored if not for his groundbreaking. But the last good music Jackson made was two decades ago. About the time his hair caught on fire during a video shoot, he fell apart, both personally and artistically. As far as I’m concerned, he died way back then and I had already come to terms with it. That Michael Jackson was replaced by some freak-of-nature, child-obsessed doppelganger who just kept pumping out the same unoriginal dreck over and over again until the world was bored by the repetition. The only attention he was able to get was when he pulled some crazy stunt, usually involving a child or two. He had become a laughing stock to the world. So then he dies in a suitable fashion and suddenly the whole world forgets history and becomes lunatic fans of his again.

I know plenty of people who have met Jackson and claim he was one of the nicest people they’ve ever met. Interestingly enough, almost all those meetings took place way back when he was an actual artist. I ran into him a few years ago while I was shopping at a local comic book store called Meltdown. I was the only customer in the store at the time, when a giant black limo pulled up. A large black man got out and walked into the store. After talking to the owner, Gaston, for a few minutes, Gaston called me over and asked me to leave. He told me that Michael Jackson was outside and wanted to come in to shop, so he didn’t want anyone else in the store. I told Gaston that if I left under those circumstances, I would never come back in again. Well, I was one of their best customers at the time, so after some talking with the large black man, who would run out to the car periodically to let the occupant know what was going on, we came to an agreement that I would stay on one side of the store (the comics side), while Jackson shopped on the other side (the toy side, which I didn’t care about). Once I left, he could come over to the side I was on and shop some more.

The large black man ran out to the car and after a few minutes, two small white boys stepped out of the car, followed by Jackson, who was wearing a surgical mask over his face. They entered the toy side of the store and the kids went wild, running around picking up toys and oohing and aahing over them. Jackson just stood there and glared at me for about 15 minutes until I finally decided to buy my comics and leave, getting away from that freak show. So all I remember of my encounter with Jackson is a creepy asshole.

I always find it interesting that when a famous person dies, thousands come out of the woodwork wanting to buy music, movies or books by that person. They always claim that they were the biggest fan of such person. But if they were, why didn’t they already own the objects they were now buying? It all actually gives me the creeps.

So enough of it already. Most of you didn’t care about Jackson for the last two decades. He died years ago. He was no longer important and it’s time to get over it.

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I loved the movie, “Borat”. I thought it was one of the ten best pictures of 2006. It was a pitch perfect skewing of American bigotry and ignorance. I laughed so hard I had to see the movie twice so I catch the parts I missed through all the noise.

So I was very excited when I found out Sacha Baron Cohen was doing a movie about his gay fashion “expert”, “Bruno”. I always liked the character on his TV show and I was looking forward to a deeper comic examination of American bigotry, considering that homosexuals are the only minority these days that it’s still okay to be bigoted against.

Well, the movie’s been open for only a week now and I’m already sick of hearing about it. He really struck out on this one. Yes, there were a few funny parts that worked, but most of it is just forced and silly. It just wasn’t funny except to stereotypical straight audiences that want to laugh at the funny queer guy. I mean, come on, the guy goes camping with some Southern good-ol’-boys who are trying their best to tolerate him. Then, late at night, he shows up in one of their tents completely naked and when the guy goes berserk, that’s supposed to show the homophobia of the mass American public? I’ve got news for you; I would have gone berserk if that asshole would have shown up naked in my tent, and I’m gay. It’s quite a presumption to think you can enter anyone’s tent naked without an invitation.

This type of thing was almost throughout the whole movie and I found myself feeling sorry for the poor heterosexuals who found themselves punked in this way. I even felt sorry for Conservative chowderhead Ron Paul, and I thought that would never happen. Face it folks, Sacha Baron Cohen was shooting blanks this time. It wasn’t funny and anyone who thinks it is needs to take a good look at their mind frame and maturity level.

But then, maybe that’s exactly the message he wanted to make through this waste of celluloid.

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On the other hand, I saw a movie the other day that I loved. It’s called “The Hurt Locker” and it’s just amazing. It’s directed by Kathryn Bigalow (Near Dark, Point Break, Strange Days) and is about an elite Army bomb squad unit in Iraq. It’s easily the best summer action movie playing right now. And yes, that includes the new Terminator and Transformers movies. Unlike those two dumb films, this is a thinking man’s action picture. I don’t want to say too much about it, but through most of it, you can cut the tension in the theatre with a knife. I think it stands a great chance of getting Oscar nods for best picture, director and actor. Jeremy Renner (Dahmer) puts in an amazing performance as a bomb expert with a devil-may-care attitude. Although the story takes place in Iraq, and people don’t like seeing movies about Iraq, don’t make the mistake of skipping over this because of that. It just happens to be set there. The story could take place anywhere. There is no political agenda to this movie. It’s just a superior human story that deserves a really wide and appreciative audience. This is the best movie of the year so far and I suspect it will be one of the best at the end of the year as well.

(Among other recent movies I’ve seen, I thought “Up” was brilliant; “Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince” was the perfect set-up to the final chapter of the story, “Drag Me To Hell” was stupid and fun; “Iced Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” was also quite fun and deserved better than it got from the critics; “Public Enemies” was good, but got more than it deserved from the critics; “Moon” was a promising debut from director Duncan Jones; “Surveillance” was the second dull strike out for David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer; and “An Englishman in New York” had a great performance from John Hurt as Quentin Crisp, but overall felt like a rushed TV movie.)

And while were on film, I’m quite enjoying the summer TV season this year. I heartily recommend “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List”, “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations”, “Nurse Jackie”, “Rescue Me”, “Warehouse 13”, “Top Chef Masters”, “Burn Notice”, “Royal Pains”, “Eureka”, “Primeval”, “Merlin”, “True Blood”, “Hung”, and “In Plain Sight”. They all make for some great and fun television watching.

(I’m also watching “Big Brother 11” but I don’t know how long I can last with this dysfunctional group of bigoted asswipes. I think maybe its time for this show to be retired.)

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I’ve had several people ask me about my cat, so I’ll take this time for a quick cat update.

As most of you know, I’ve lost two of my cats over the last two years. First my beloved Frankie, the first pet I could truly call a soul-mate, died of liver disease two summers ago. That was a traumatic death that I still haven’t completely gotten over even after all this time. Then, earlier this year, quiet and sweet little Squeek lost her life to feline hepatitis.

That left us with one cat. His name is Chuck and he was the unfriendly, skittish one of the bunch. We rarely saw him around the house (all our cats are always indoor cats) and just never saw him if anyone but us was visiting.

Well, that’s all changed now. Chuck still hides when people come over, but he tends to come out sooner than he ever did before to check visitors out. He never hides from us anymore. In fact, he wants more attention than I can sometimes give him. Fortunately, like Frankie, he’s learned what “lay down” means and when I say it he immediately lays on his pillow on the floor and leaves us alone, at least for awhile. He also sleeps curled up next to me every night, something he never did when we had all three cats. And he loves his “kitty goodies”, which I give him every other day and he goes apeshit for. He still won’t eat canned food, preferring to chomp away on dry stuff I leave down for him 24-7.

In short, he’s become quite a sweet and loving pet and I find myself growing closer to him each day. I think he’s made this turn around because he’s suddenly found himself to be the only cat in the house. I think that he’s actually lonely and misses the other cats. I know he doesn’t like it at all when we go away for any length of time. I feel bad about that, but I can’t get another cat at this time with the financial situation were in. He’s just going to have to cope and I pet him and play with him as much as I can to help. He’s getting up there in years as well, so I know I’m really going to miss him when his time comes. But I’ll enjoy his loving company until then.

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I want to mention a few other things I’m enjoying at the moment.

I’ve been in contact with a folk singer named Trent Miller for a while now. He’s from Italy, but now lives in London, where he hopes it will be easier to get noticed. He’s been sending me demos on and off for a few years, but now he finally has his first real album out, credited to Trent Miller & the Skeleton Jive (http://www.myspace.com/skeletonjive). The album is called “Cerebus” and is really something quite enjoyable. Of course, the first thing that attracted me to Trent’s music was the obvious influence of Thin White Rope on him. Not so much in the music, but his singing voice is very reminiscent of TWR’s Guy Kyser. That gives his songs a wonderful blues/folk feeling. His lyrics are haunting and wonderful and I find myself slipping his CD into my computer and listening to it over and over again while I work here. Give him a listen, especially you Thin White Rope fans. I think you’ll like what you hear.

My friend, Paula Yoo, has just published her second children’s picture book. Her first was “Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story”, which told the story of the first Asian American to win a gold medal in the Olympics. This new one is “Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story”, which tells of the Chinese American’s rise as a movie star during the 1930’s. Since these are books that aim to tell a story in simple ways for children to understand, they are easy to read and illustrated with beautiful pictures, in this case by artist Lin Wang. I really feel these types of books are important for kids to read. Asian American kids will find much to inspire them in these stories, and other kids will learn that the history of America wasn’t just made by white men. Despite their simplicity, both books make for a very interesting read. If you have kids, you can do a lot worse than get them these colorful, interesting and educational books. Paula also has a young adult novel out called “Good Enough”. Despite the heroine of this book being a teenage Korean American girl, I found I really related to her story, especially her search for understanding through music. You can find out more about Paula here: http://www.paulayoo.com/. There’s lots of great writing information and entertaining stories there. Check it out, especially if you’re an aspiring writer.

I think that’s as good a place as any to end this. Hopefully I’ll have something a little more structured for you next time. As always, thanks for reading.

Oh, by the way, I’m thinking about starting another blog. This one would focus on food & wine. Lots of people seemed to enjoy my short reviews of restaurants and food events. If you get the time, let me know what you think of that idea and any suggestions you may have.

-ML

You Kids Get Off My Lawn

2009-07-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

I was originally planning on writing about the subject of the paths that life takes when I returned from Arizona several months ago. In some ways I’m glad I didn’t have the time because so much has happened since then that has broadened the subject and given me much more to think about. In fact, it’s blended with another subject; that of growing older.

These subjects are something I’ve rarely thought about over the years, but they finally seems to be forcing themselves on me this year. I turned fifty-five years old this last June. Growing older never really meant much to me. I knew it was happening, but it never really felt like it to me. With the exception of a few aches and pains I never had when I was younger, I still pretty much feel like I did in my early twenties. I still go to clubs to see indie rock bands. I still love roller coasters. I still love to drink and eat too much. (To be fair, I don’t drink as much as I did in my twenties and I’ve completely stopped taking any drugs, which is probably the only real change in my lifestyle from back then.) But for some reason, this is the year I started really realizing that I wasn’t a youngster anymore.

All this introspection started when I went to visit my family in Arizona. During one conversation with my Mom and my two younger brothers, high school came up. When IQ jumped into the conversation, my brother Steve said that they all figured that out of the whole family, I was probably the smartest of them all. This statement alone caught me by surprise, but I steered the conversation towards the fact that I hated high school. I just never felt I was accomplishing anything in school. I was always bored. I was just seemingly uninterested in most of the subject materials. That was when my Mom said that the school teachers had told her the same thing. They told her they felt I wasn’t challenged by what they were teaching, but they didn’t know what to do about it.

This came as a complete surprise to me. I had never heard any discussion at all about this in my family. At first I was pretty pissed off about it. It never dawned on me that the fault wasn’t mine for hating school. I’ve spent my whole life wondering what was wrong with me. Why was I so lazy when I knew how important education was? Even when I got to college I was bored and only lasted there for two years. My whole life could have been different if someone; anyone would have just talked to me about this.

Now days, this is a recognized trait in kids and teachers know how to handle the situation when given the right tools. Kids who aren’t challenged in their school year are now sent to advanced classrooms with other kids like them. Or they’re moved up a grade or two to put them where they feel they’re challenged and have something to learn. I wasn’t given this opportunity due to either adult ignorance or the fact that someone just didn’t care enough. So I just turned inward and became rebellious. My last couple years of school were spent in a drug haze, although I still managed to pass my classes and graduate high school.

Now, given time to think on the subject, I can’t regret it any more. If I would have received the help I needed to succeed in school, my life certainly would have been different. I would probably have a degree and be making much more money, for one thing. But thinking about it, would I have been happier? Despite the dire financial straights I find myself in these days, I’m pretty damned happy with my life. I’ve been able to travel a good portion of the world. I worked closely in the music business, which was a life dream. I’ve eaten and drank some of the best food and wine in the world. I’ve met so many wonderful people, including the love of my life. I don’t know if any of that would have happened if my school days would have been handled differently. And to tell you the truth, if I could go back in time to change things, I don’t think I would choose for any of it to be different.

So while I can wonder about where I would have ended up, I have no regrets. I got the education I needed by teaching myself for the most part. I read all the time, taking on any subject. History didn’t interest me in school, but I loved reading books about it. I found I could do anything I wanted to, although I couldn’t always convince other people of that. (One incident that comes to mind was when I applied at one company to work in their shipping and receiving department. They told me I didn’t have any experience and eventually hired me to be a part time filing clerk. Six months later I was running their shipping and receiving department.) My life has been great. I’ve gotten by and I’ve come to realize that even a formal education couldn’t help me today with the world the way it is. And to tell the truth, I don’t even know if a formal school education would have changed the way I feel about the world. I have little taste for the business world and I really can’t see where I ever could have succeeded in that. The cut-throat attitude and greed I’ve run across in business just leaves me cold and I would prefer to starve to death than join those faceless emoticons in their back-stabbing and money grubbing. I think I’m exactly where I should be.

So that’s what started the process. My birthday brought new focus to it all. Then I saw a couple of events that helped keep the introspection going.

The first was seeing the stage play “Big: The Musical”. Anyone who has seen the movie knows this is the story of a boy who, fed up with not being taken seriously, gets his wish granted to become an adult. The movie was great and so was the musical. The overall theme of both is not only that you should think about what you wish for before you wish for it, but that a young outlook can be a great help negotiating the adult paths of life.

I also saw the new Pixar animated movie, “Up”, and that affected me strongly. The story is about an old man who, having just lost his wife, realizes that they wasted their lives away by not doing the things they dreamed about. Instead they just kept working away and making excuses for not taking the time to search for the adventures they always wanted. So he sets out to rectify that mistake by flying his house to South America, where they always dreamed of living. He accidentally takes an insecure, young Scout along with him and through their adventures, they both learn their self worth and their places in life. It was a wonderful movie that meant a lot to me, mostly because I have always refused to let the realities of life keep me from doing the things I dream about doing and enjoy tremendously.

Thinking young has always been important to me and I’ve tried to never forget what it was like when I was a teenager, and even when I was younger. I’ve tried to relate to younger people, without being the creepy older guy dancing in the back of the club, and without being condescending. (I was always afraid that I would turn into that dancing old guy in the back of the club and that helped me focus on not becoming him.) I don’t always succeed, but I get along with kids and younger adults well enough that I feel I must be doing something right.

I realize now that I’m no longer young, but I also don’t feel that I’m old either, at least not yet. When I was a teenager, I always thought I would be dead by the time I was thirty. When I made it to thirty, I was sure I wouldn’t see forty. Then I thought there was no way I could allow myself to be fifty. Now I’ve given up all those thoughts. I know I can be any age and still be as young as I feel. And as long as I continue to enjoy life and refuse to give up, I don’t think I’ll ever feel old.

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Thanks for reading. I’m going to try to get back here in a week’s time. I think what you’ll read is a history of my involvement with The Furys, the first band I managed at the dawn of the punk era. Comments about any subject are always appreciated. Please, don’t be shy. Take care and always have fun. -ML

Paper Thin Rights for our First Year

2009-06-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today is Wednesday, June 17, 2009 and one year ago today, Skip and I were legally married in West Hollywood, California. Tonight we’re going to celebrate with dinner at Comme Ca, the French bistro in West Hollywood we celebrated at the day we tied the knot. But the celebration will be muted due to the constitutionally bullshit ruling by the California Supreme Court that left us married, but denied the same right to thousands of others. Now this confusion has to be worked out in the courts, probably the Supreme Court of the United States, and that’s going to take a while. So once again we’re forced by haters to sit and wait for the rights that logically should be ours. In the meantime, at least I can take solace in the fact that my marriage to Skip is continuing to undermining heterosexual marriages, especially those of straight black men.

It’s hard to be happy about a President who promised to end two discriminatory policies, DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell), that the government has been practicing for the last decade thanks to the cowardice of our last Democratic President, and now is turning his head away from those promises. In the meantime, qualified soldiers are getting kicked out of the military, which is ruining their lives and hurting the quality of our Armed Forces, at a time when quality is really needed. It’s not just a gay issue, people.

Despite its claims to want to end DOMA, the Obama administration sided with it in court this week, arguing that it was needed and comparing homosexual relationships with incest and pedophilia. When the expected outrage happened, Obama announced that he was going to sign a proclamation giving limited benefits to partners of same-sex federal workers, but stopping short of the really important benefit of full health insurance. Thanks for the bone, Obama, but pardon me if I don’t grovel and lick your hand.

The reason he can’t give full benefits to same-sex partners is because of DOMA, so the discrimination folds in on itself.

Now, I know Obama is only six months into his administration, but so far he seems to be a whole lot of good talk and not very much positive action. And not only on same-sex issues. I’m not really happy with the way he continues to bail out big business while ignoring the real people hurt in this economic depression. And I’m not happy with his about-face plans for the wars in the Middle East. His health care plan just isn’t enough. His Supreme Court nominee is too centrist. And…and…and…

Right now “change we can believe in” just seems to be business as usual. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Well, at least he can construct a logical sentence and has good speaking skills, which is more than can be said of the evil moron he replaced.

We’ll see where the rest of this term takes us. He may still surprise me and actually act on the promises he ran on that got him elected. If he does, then I’ll owe him a big apology for being so impatient. But if he’s just another Clinton, then next time I’m voting for Nader.

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That’s all I have for you this week. I’m still overwhelmed with stuff I need to get done and it doesn’t look like its going to end any time soon. This can be a good thing, because I’m bringing in much needed money. We’re hoping we have enough now to carry us to the end of the year, but our credit cards are maxed out and we have little remaining equity in our house. So I’ve still got to do a lot more. I’ve got plenty to sell here; I just need the time.

So while I’d love to get a new blog up every week, I can’t promise anything. I have a whole list of topics I want to write about and eventually I’ll get to them all. I just ask you to be patient with me.

Last week was my 55 birthday. June 9. Since that day is the same birthday as Donald Duck, although he’s 75, I decided to spend the day in celebration at Disneyland. This year, Disneyland has a marketing celebration allowing everyone to get into Disneyland for free on their birthdays. I already have a season pass, so I got a $69 gift certificate instead. I bought a brand new “Grumpy” hat to match Skip’s hat that says “I ‘heart’ Grumpy Guys” and still have a good portion of it left to spend. I’m sure I’ll find something in the near future.

I’ve got a lot to write about growing older and feeling young and I hope I can get to that in my next blog. I’m going to try to start writing it this weekend, so I can post it next week.

As always, thanks for reading and for your support. I hope all of you are doing fine and that life is treating you well. See you in a week or two.

Thin White Rope in Lithuania

2009-05-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

I figured that most of you are probably expecting me to rant on about the latest chapter in California’s Proposition 8 battle. I have some pretty strong feelings about the whole thing, of course. But right now I’m still processing the whole thing. I do think that the Supreme Court’s decision was gutless and cynical. The Chief Justice embarrassingly waffled on his earlier decision, and leaving me, Skip and some 18,000 other gay couples still married is just confusing nonsense. I suspect the Court was playing duck-and-cover while trying to satisfy everyone. Instead they satisfied no one. But I’ll wax poetically on this whole thing on another date. I just don’t feel like it now.

But I’ll leave this subject with a few links to some heroes:

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-thomas/the-big-gay-chip-on-my-sh_b_208183.html)

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/why-childless-straight-co_b_208457.html)

And one that doesn’t please me much:

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/28/obama-makes-light-of-prop_n_208786.html)

Obama needs to realize that kicking qualified people out of the military is not a fringe issue. What they are doing is hurting our military chances for success during a time when we are in two wars. It’s not something to joke about. I’m willing to wait on DOMA and other gay issues, but this one is hurting the whole damned country and the longer he waits to act on it, the more he’ll look like a fool in the end.

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Now, enough of that. I really want to tell another Thin White Rope road story. This one is another from the three week long tour of the Soviet Union in December of 1988. During that trip, we visited Moscow and Tbilisi in Soviet Georgia. We also visited two cities in Lithuania and that’s where these stories come from.

We visited two cities in Lithuania at the end of the tour. The first city was Vilnius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilnius), where we played three nights, I believe. Then we went on to Kaunas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaunas), where we played another two.

I don’t remember much about Kaunas. I vaguely remember touring an old castle covered in ice and snow. I remember hearing the Go-Gos on a tape playing at a restaurant we were at, which was the first sign of any Western Culture I had experienced since arriving in the Soviet Union several weeks before. I also remember that the place we played was a giant sports hall. When the band hit the stage for the first show, the local crew poured so much smoke out of their smoke machine that the band had to stop playing until some of it cleared and they could see what they were doing. I also remember being lured into a janitor’s room by a group of young men, who produced a bottle of homemade schnapps that was clear, beautiful and practically blew the top of my skull off when I drank some of it. Unfortunately, I don’t remember anything else of that particular escapade. (Oh, the chances I took back then. It all made so much sense when I was younger.)

Vilnius is much clearer in my memories. It was the coldest place I had ever been in my life. We went out shopping one day and had to duck into each store along the way to warm up. We could feel our eyes freezing in our skulls. That shopping trip was pretty fun in its own way. We had been told that the Soviets were paying us in rubles, which were worthless to us. It was also against the law to take their money out of the country, although I still own a nice selection of Soviet coins to this day. So we had to spend any money we they gave us and take it out of the country in product. We found a musical instrument store and went wild in there. I wanted to buy this old synthesizer that was huge and looked more like Sputnik than an instrument, but it was way too big and heavy for me to carry on to a plane. I satisfied myself instead by buying an assortment of cheap balalaikas, domras and accordions, which I brought home and gave to friends for Christmas presents.

The hall we played was a rather nice place. When we arrived, a group of women were walking down the aisles of seats affixing numbers into the back of each seat. When I asked about it, our guide told us that it was what they did. They put the numbers on the seats each night and then took them all off that evening, even if there wasn’t a show that day. When I asked why they did it if there wasn’t a show, I was simply told, “because it’s their job.” I guess that policy kept people working and to this day I still wonder about the contrasts of working mindlessly versus not working at all.

As was usual with the Soviets, the sound system wasn’t up to what we asked for and a search started up for the items we needed to get the right sound. Our drummer, Matt, was also running low on snare drum heads and we needed some replacements. That turned out to be the hardest search though. The only replacement drumheads we could find were owned by a local band, who told us that we could borrow theirs. But as soon as Matt hit a drum head, it broke and the band started screaming bloody murder. They had to get their drumheads from out of the country and they were terribly expensive. But the ones they had were like tissue paper, especially for a drummer who played as hard as Matt did. It was a huge problem, but somehow, with the use of duct tape and ingenuity, we managed to make it work until the end of the tour. I believe that once we made it home from this tour, we sent the band a whole slew of new drumheads. We never heard from them, but I imagine it they must had freaked them out, the sight of such wealth.

I also remember our bus getting in an accident with a car one afternoon. The drivers got out and the two talked for awhile. Then they exchanged some info and both got in their vehicles and went their ways. When I asked about it, I was told that it was no problem because the government would pay for whatever damage needed to be fixed. This was all my first exposure to a socialized anything.

There was also another one of our drunken evenings that almost caused an international incident. One night, after we returned from one of our shows, we all went to one room and continued drinking some of the beer and vodka that had been provided for us. Someone, and I believe it could have been Guy, was looking out the window at the snow covered ground. He mentioned how much fun it would be to go sledding if we only had sleds. And that’s all it took. Before I knew it, toilet seats were being ripped off toilets and everyone was outside sledding down icy hills and crashing into trees. It was truly a whole lot of frozen fun.

The next morning the hotel didn’t think it was that much fun though. There had been several complaints of noise and when the maids discovered the damaged toilets and reported that to the front desk, all hell broke loose. At first the hotel demanded that we find another hotel to stay at, which I was told would have been a difficult thing at that late notice. But then the promoters greased some palms and promised to have all the toilets fixed. And of course, we put on our halos and promised not to misbehave anymore. The hotel relented and we were allowed to stay.

But the event that would haunt us for years also happened at the hotel. Lithuania was the closest country we had played on this Soviet tour to the Western border. They were able to get some Western radio stations there, so there was a bit more of a knowledge of Western art and politics there. Most of the people who came to our packed shows had no idea who we were. Just like everywhere else in the country, they just came to see the Western Band. But there were a few people we met there who were aware of just who the band was and wanted to see the band for fan reasons. The first morning there, we were met in the hotel lobby by a small group of fans wanting autographs, which the band gladly supplied. One of those fans was a dour and frumpy looking girl, with way too much black eye makeup, by the name of Teresa. After that first day, she went to every show and we would wake up each morning to find her waiting in the hotel lobby with a little home made sign that said “MATTHEW” on it. That led us to believe that she was hot for the drummer. It would have been kind of cute if it wasn’t so desperate. She would approach Matt every morning and made it clear through our interpreter, as she didn’t speak a word of English, that she was hoping to come back to America with us, where she would set up house with Matt and live happily ever after.

It got worse and worse. We tried to ignore her, but she would start crying and it was just so pathetic that we felt sorry for the poor girl. She was obviously very unhappy with her life there. But it also was getting kind of creepy, so on the day we were preparing to leave, Matt decided that he couldn’t face her for final goodbyes. She was just sitting in the lobby with black tears streaming down her face and he didn’t want to deal with it. None of us did. So, we decided to sneak him out through a back door. The problem was, we couldn’t find a back door that was unlocked. We went to all the emergency exits to find them all locked as well. Thank the gods there hadn’t been a fire while we were there. No one would have escaped.

In the end, Matt decided to take responsibility for what he really wasn’t responsible for and went into the lobby to face Teresa and tell her goodbye. It was really quite heartbreaking. I finally had to tell Matt it was time to go and he boarded the bus and we left. Teresa was crying hard, with her face pressed to the glass of the hotel and black eye makeup streaming down her face. We thought that was the last we would hear from her.

We were wrong. For the first couple of years after we left the Soviet Union, we would receive letters, addressed to Matt, at the Swingin’ Danglers Fan Club mailing address. These would arrive about every other month and would usually contain some frilly card written in Russian or Lithuanian. She would switch between the two languages, hoping I guess that we would finally be able to understand one of them. There was also usually a picture or two of her with maybe a favorite chicken or other animal. In these pictures, she always looked depressed. I would usually pass these on to Matt, but after a short while, he asked me not to send them, so I stored them away. We never answered them. Then the cards stopped for a long while.

But a couple of years later, we started receiving the cards again. The weird thing was, they were no longer addressed to Matt. Now they were addressed to Stooert, who wasn’t even playing bass with the band at the time of the Soviet tour. This led me to believe that she must have gotten her hands on a copy of “The Ruby Sea” and decided to try some one else since she wasn’t getting any response out of Matt. She must have liked Stoo’s looks, I guess. We received maybe four or five cards addressed like this. Just like the cards sent to Matt, these were usually manufactured frilly greeting cards in Lithuanian. But the pictures in them now contained her posing with other people, usually a stern looking young man and later, a young baby. I finally had a friend translate one of the letters she enclosed and found out that she had been married and had a baby, something I suspected from the pictures.

The final letter we got contained a picture of all three smiling. It was the first picture I had ever seen of her where she looked happy. We never got another letter from her after that. It’s been about ten years now. I hope she finally found the happiness that was so desperately missing from her life.

The only other event I can remember from this tour was meeting the leader of the Free Lithuania Movement and going to dinner with him. The main reason for this was that he was in a band that was very popular in Lithuania. They were very political and the people loved them for it. The government wasn’t that happy about them, but the band was so popular, they decided to ignore them instead. I no longer remember the name of the man or the name of his band. That actually makes me feel kind of sad.

The main reason he wanted to go to dinner was that his band was being noticed by a promoter from America who wanted to bring them over to tour and he wanted to show me the contract he was being offered. He did and I was appalled. The contract basically made the band responsible for everything and the promoter responsible for nothing. If the tour went good, the band would make a little money, but the bulk of it would go to the promoter. If the tour did terrible, and the chances were that it would, then the promoter would not be responsible for any of the monetary damage, the band would have to pay for everything.

I told the guy to forget it. He was going to get ripped off. This led to a long and rather interesting conversation about what was expected when Lithuania finally achieved its independence, which was going to happen sooner than either of us suspected. This guy and the organization he ran had no idea of the economic realities of the real world. I warned him that he needed to investigate those realities, not just for the sake of his band, but for the sake of his country. He didn’t seem convinced and the last I saw of him, he was still saying that he wanted to bring the band here and he could handle whatever problems arose.

In never heard another word from him or his band, so I assume they never made it to America to tour. Lithuania found itself to be a free country a year later when the Berlin Wall fell. Now they have one of the fastest growing economies in the European Union, so somebody knew what they were doing, or at least found out really fast.

I liked what I saw of Lithuania, although I imagine it must be a very different country now than when I visited it under Soviet rule. Someday I’d like to go back and visit again, especially in the summer time when it isn’t covered with ice and snow. The pictures I’ve seen show a beautiful place and it’s on my list of future vacation spots.

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That’s it for this week. I’ll be back again with something else in the next week or so. I’m playing with a few ideas and we’ll see how they develop. As always, thanks for reading and supporting me with this venture. Stay happy and stay well. -ML

Where the Hell Have I been?

2009-05-20T11:29:00.001-07:00

I know…I know. It’s been way too long since I posted a blog on this site. It’s been over a month now. I’m truly sorry. It’s been really crazy here. I shouldn’t even be writing this blog now.

As you all know, I took two short trips at the end of April. First, I visited my family in Arizona. I spent a couple of days with my father in Tucson and a couple more days with my younger brother and his family in Phoenix. While in Phoenix, I also visited my other, even younger brother and his family, as well as my mom. The only immediate family member I didn’t see was my sister, probably because she lives outside of Seattle. These family trips always put me in an introspective mood and this one was no different. Talking to my family is always a revelation. None of them are really like me in attitude. Most of them are conservative and religious to some extent, with varying degrees of open-mindness. They’re not the type of people I talk to a lot, but it’s good for me to get this view into another world every once in a while. Then my mom dropped a mini-bomb on me about my early school years that put a lot of past events into focus for me. I really couldn’t wait to get home to write all about it.

But then I found myself swamped for the two days I was home, before we left for a second short trip up to San Francisco. (I should at least mention a great restaurant we found in Tucson called Café Poca Cosa. - http://cafepocacosatucson.com/ - It’s a regional Mexican place that cooks up all kinds of wonderful moles. I wish it was located here in Los Angeles. We liked it so much the first day, we went back to eat there again the next day. If you’re ever in Tucson, go there!)

We were going up to San Francisco for the sole purpose of seeing English industrial band, Throbbing Gristle play live. They did an LA show two nights before, but that show was just the band playing a live soundtrack for the Derek Jarman film, “In the Shadow of the Sun” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080920/), and we wanted to see them do a regular show as well. We also wanted to visit with several friends. We stayed with Karl, who used to be a roommate and who we see several times a year. We also saw Stoo, the old bass player from Thin White Rope and now leader of the great band, the Graves Brothers Deluxe (http://www.myspace.com/thegravesbrothersdeluxe). I was also excited to be meeting up with Arno, who I haven’t seen since Skip and I got married up in Portland five years ago. I used to work with Arno at Rhino over a decade ago and am saddened that I see him so seldom these days. Seeing all these friends and hearing about their lives now also worked to send me into introspection, and once again I was planning on writing about it as soon as I got home. (And I should also mention that Throbbing Gristle were amazing and we were really glad we made the trip up to see them. They did one of my favorite songs, “Hamburger Lady” and that alone was worth the trip.)

But once again, I arrived home to tons of work and due to the traveling, I was about three weeks behind. One of my clients I sell for had given me thousands of CDs. The longer I sat on those, the less money I would make on them. So I had to get them listed on Amazon as soon as possible. That took weeks, and the many days of those weeks were interrupted by several events.

The big event was a traumatic one. A year and a half ago, I lost the greatest cat that I had ever had as a companion. I wrote about Frankie then and you can find that in my blog archives. (http://mlcompton.blogspot.com/2009/01/frankie-1993-2007-and-cats-i-have-known.html) We were left with two other cats, neither as close to me as Frankie was, but loved none-the-less. That was Chuck and Squeek, who we found as weeks-old kittens in the engine block of our car one morning. Within a few hours of getting home, I noticed that the female, Squeek, who we named after one of Charles Manson’s female sidekicks, Squeaky Fromme, was looking very thin and was rather haggard. That’s not a good sign, so I ran her down to the vet, who after a series if tests found that she was suffering from some rare form of feline hepatitis. The vet told me they knew very little about this disease and there was only a small chance of her recovering from it. Considering our dwindling financial situation, I really should have put her down right then and there. But our pets are part of our family and I feel that I owe it to them to at least try. So we authorized the vet to spend the next three days trying to flush the disease out of her system. Of course, that failed and we were out $1000 for the effort, but at least we tried as much as we could. After a week of worry, I found myself at the vet trying to comfort Squeek as she was given the injection that would end her life.

Now I should explain that while it is always extremely traumatic for me to be with these loved pets as they are put down, I also feel that I should be there with them. They have brought so much happiness and comfort to my life and I should at least do the same for them by being a familiar, comfortable face for them as they breathe their last. Skip can’t deal with it, but I feel I owe it to them. I wasn’t as close to Squeek as I was to Frankie, but it still destroyed me for a couple of days and I couldn’t convince myself to do anything, let alone write. Even now I can feel a painfully empty pit in my stomach as I write about it.

So that leaves us with one cat, Chuck, and you must be able to figure out who he was named after. Like Squeek, I wasn’t all that close to Chuck. They were good cats, but kind of stuck to themselves, appearing only now and then for a quick petting or the feeding of snacks. But Chuck has dramatically changed now that he’s the only cat in the house. He now loves to lie next to me on the couch as we watch TV and he spends the night curled up next to me on the bed, purring loudly. He even plays with a string now, which he never did. He still doesn’t like to be picked up and held, but I find myself rapidly growing closer to him and am finding great comfort in his animal friendship. I know I’m just setting myself up for more traumas in the future, but it’s the price we pay for companionship with these little creatures. Until the day I have to put him down, I will enjoy his company and love him as much as I can.

The other reason I’m so far behind is a happier one. That would be the annual Disney’s California Adventure Food & Wine Festival, held for six weeks at the theme park next to Disneyland. (http://disneyland.disney.go.com/disneyland/en_US/calendar/specialEvents/detail?name=FoodWineLandingPage) This is always great fun and although we can’t afford to do many of the guest dinners and signature events this year, there is still plenty to do for free or for very cheap. We especially like the complimentary wine tastings, where we get to drink a few of our favorites and try new wines we haven’t discovered yet. During this event, we usually end up spending three or four days a week down at the Disneyland Resort, which is about what we are averaging this year as well.

On top of that, we love to see bands at the House of Blues in Anaheim, which is on Disney property. We saw Rufus Wainwright (http://www.rufuswainwright.com/), who was wonderful and also helped to send me into introspection on my early life. (I promise to get to all that someday. I still think I need to sort it out a bit before I tackle making the subject into a public discussion.)

We also just saw Doves (http://www.doves.net/), who I liked. I found myself wishing that they would just cut loose a bit more though, instead of being so safely structured. They are heavily influenced by late 80s-early 90s guitar rock, like Swervedriver and, I swear, Thin White Rope, but they refuse to let their sound get out of control and it holds them back in the live setting. A little chaos can go a long way towards an exciting set.

Coming up, we’re seeing Fischerspooner, New York Dolls, and the Orb all do separate shows at the club and I’m looking forward to it. We’re also planning on seeing the White Rabbits at the Troubadour in a few weeks. In June is the start of the Hollywood Bowl season (this year includes a Henry Mancini tribute, Adele, Etta James, Grace Jones, Of Montreal, John Fogerty, Toots & the Maytals, Gregory Isaacs, Sergio Mendez, Eddie Palmieri and Poncho Sanchez) and we’re also seeing “Spamalot” on stage and Jarvis Cocker in concert.

But despite it all, I promise to get back on schedule and have new blogs up close to every week. I still have a good many road stories to tell about Thin White Rope and I’m trying to work on stories that feature some of the other bands I worked with, like Poster Children, BPeople and Young Fresh Fellows. There’s a lot more on a number of other subjects I would like to get into as well. So keep checking and I’ll be here.

In a lot of ways, you may be lucky I wasn’t able to write because most of my attention was drawn towards the political question of gay marriage. I was going to do a column on that “stupid bitch” Miss California, but have now decided that her 15 minutes are up and she just bores me. There have also been some quite dumb comments made by RNC Michael Steele, but Keith Olbermann has said it better than I ever could (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2BOMPKhPwA#). And of course, there’s Obama’s continuing ability to talk-the-talk and not walk-the-walk, especially with his inactivity on his promise to end “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/dontfiredan). I’m not going to write at length about any of this stuff now, but I reserve the right to visit these events in the future.

I’d like to thank those of you who have left me comments or sent emails about various blogs and subjects. Thanks for those and believe me when I say that they’re extremely important to me. Any sign that you are out there reading and enjoying these words I’m writing helps keep me going.

You probably also noticed that I’ve already taken the ads down off my site. While I get more hits here than I ever expected to get, I don’t get enough at this time to really translate into much cash. I’ve decided that the payoff isn’t worth subjecting you all to ads on my site. Maybe someday, but not now.

So thanks again for reading and supporting me and I hope to see you all back here next week.

Punk Rock Stories - My Days at Vinyl Fetish

2009-04-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a lot of jobs over the last 38 years. I’ve worked at fast food places early in my life (Baskin Robbins, KFC, Der Wienerschnitzel); and I hope I don’t get forced to go back to those soulless places in my latter years. I’ve built computers and ran the shipping/receiving department of a major pneumatic tool distributor. I’ve also worked in two book stores. One was the Baruck College book store in New York, one of the only jobs I feel I was ever truly appreciated at. The other was a Crown Books retail book store in Pasadena, a job I enjoyed despite our drug addicted manager, who was the catalyst for my leaving. I spent a short time at Meltdown, a comic book store in Hollywood. As most people who read this blog know, I’ve also worked as both a business manager and tour manager for various bands, touring throughout the United States and into most of the Western European countries as well as a few of the Eastern ones.

Most of my working years have been spent in a variety of record stores throughout Southern California. I’ve worked at Licorice Pizza (Santa Ana, Riverside, North Hollywood and Pasadena), Music Plus (Sherman Oaks), Moby Disc (Sherman Oaks, Canoga Park and Pasadena), Texas Hotel in Santa Monica and Rhino in Westwood. There was also a year long stint a record store in Hollywood called Vinyl Fetish, although this store came close to being more of a lifestyle store than just a record store.

Before I go further, a disclaimer about what follows is called for. This all took place back in the early 80s (I believe it was late 1981 and into 1982). I was still in my 20s and was heavily into my alcohol and drug years, although those days would come to a close in just a few years. So what follows is how I remember it. That doesn’t mean it’s exactly what happened, it’s just how I remember it now, years later through a fog of time and past drug usage. These days are really hazy in my memory and I having a hard time remembering it all, including everyone who worked for the store while I was there. I suspect a number of people who also lived through this period will remember some of these events clearer than me and I welcome all feedback correcting me on facts and adding to the story.

Vinyl Fetish was a record store on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood that was owned and operated by two local scene-makers named Joseph Brooks and Henry Peck. They were well known in the Hollywood post-punk crowd for running several popular late-night dance clubs around town. Henry was also one of the hair-cutters of the stars. The store was one of the best and most trendy in town, carrying all the most obscure punk and post-punk recordings. At the time, the so-called New Romantic movement was heating up and Vinyl Fetish was the only place to find records by these mostly unknown bands. I was hanging out there one day talking to the two guys and mentioned that I needed a job. Before I knew it, I was hired on as a full time counter clerk.

At the time, I was living with Skip in a very small, one-bedroom apartment out in Arcadia, which is about 15 minutes east of Pasadena. My years at Licorice Pizza had finally ended on an extremely bad note and I was jobless and without a car, as my piece of shit Chevy Chevette had finally crapped out once and for all. I had to take the bus to work and this was way before the days of direct Rapid busses and Metro Subways. I hopped on a bus near my apartment, which headed to downtown LA. There, I had to change buses to get to Hollywood. I think in total, I had to change busses three times. The total trip took me close to 2 ½ hours. Skip was working even further east out in Monrovia, but sometimes when he could, he would drive to Hollywood to pick me up and we’d both drive back to Arcadia. That would happen most of the time, but there were many days that I found myself sitting on various busses for close to 5 hours a day. I didn’t mind so much because I loved to read and this gave me plenty of time to catch up on books I had stacked around the apartment. I also found that I was really enjoying working at Vinyl Fetish. Joseph and Henry were easy to work for and didn’t put me through the micromanaging bullshit I usually had to put up with. So it was worth the bus time, including dealing with the various crazies who haunted the bus line. (I remember one old woman in downtown LA falling to the ground and latching on to my ankle in a death-grip, begging me to take her home with me.)

Besides Henry, Joseph and myself, I also remember working with Marcy Blaustein, Lisa Fancher, Randy Kaye (RIP), Steven Schayer, and a guy named Billy, who I believe is also RIP and whose last name I unfortunately can’t quite pull out of the fog. I know there were others as well. We quickly became known as the meanest record store staff in Los Angeles. None of us had much patience, especially for the typical record store buyer who wanted something off the top ten Billboard charts, especially since it was so extremely obvious they weren’t going to find that kind of thing at this store. But I would also get belligerent with many of the so-called scenester music buyers as well. This period was during the beginning of the dark Goth scene, and while many of those people were embracing the current bands, like Sisters of Mercy, Death Cult and Sex Gang Children, they would come into the store and complain while I was playing my own current favorites, such as Virgin Prunes and Einsturzende Neubauten. The irony, of course, is that these same people would later champion these bands once they were told to do so by their peers in the bands they listened to that were more popular. We were a know-it-all, better-than-you bunch of record store employees, but despite the meanness, people seemed to accept it as part of the Vinyl Fetish experience.

(Of course, these days, I have little tolerance for that kind of record store employee and refuse to shop at any store I get that attitude from. More irony, I guess.)

This attitude stretch out to even visiting celebrities who either frequented the store as customers or were there doing an in-store appearance to promote an upcoming show or album. I think I was a tad more enthusiastic about putting the “stars” in their place than the other employees and there were a few times that Henry and/or Joseph asked me to tone it down, to no real effect. Following is a few incidences that I remember.

Depeche Mode did an in-store and brought their girlfriends with them. These girls were the loudest, most obnoxious group of females I can ever recall experiencing. My answer to them was the toss them out of the store. This didn’t sit well with these girls and before long I was facing the (road) manager and after a short talk, the girls were sent to the hotel. I expected all sorts of anger, but one of the band members told me after the in-store that they were embarrassed as well and planned to send their women back home the next day. I had lots of respect for that.

During a Duran Duran in-store for their first album, I did something I seldom do. I asked for the band’s autographs. I’m not star-struck enough to ask people for autographs, although I did make an exception for Ringo Starr year’s earlier. But my sister was a big fan and I wanted to surprise her with a signed photo. All the band members happily signed, until I got to Simon Le Bon. When I asked him to sign, he asked my name. I told him it was for my sister and her name is Rhonda. But he wanted to know my name. So I told him it was Jet, which was the name I was still going by at that time. He laughed and said that Jet didn’t sound like a legitimate name. I shot right back that Le Bon didn’t sound all that legitimate to me either. That made him mad. He threw the picture back and told me to “fuck off” and that his name was very legitimate. (It was. I just wanted to get under his skin. And I did.) I muttered a “whatever” or something back at him and left him alone. By the end of the day though, one of the other band members asked for the picture and came back a moment later with his signature on it. He still wouldn’t talk to me though. (My sister has lost that picture and I wish I had it. It would probably be worth good money these days.) By the way, I loved Duran Duran at the Roxy that night. They reminded me of Slade, a band I always had a soft spot for. I wish their albums could have sounded so powerful.

Siouxsie and the Banshees did an in-store and Siouxsie arrived in her usually state at the time, drunk. While drinking, Sioux spilt her wine and picked up a towel and threw in it my face. “Clean this up”, she demanded. I threw the towel right back at her and told her to clean it up herself, which caused a bit of tension between me and her lackey/drummer Budgie. Steve Severin and the wonderful late guitarist, John McGeoch, later apologized to me. (Siouxsie was later denied entry into Disneyland because she was wearing a leather miniskirt, although I suspect alcohol played a part in that as well. She mentioned the incident last year when I saw her show at House of Blues Anaheim, which is on Disney property. By the way, the show was really good.)

Billy Idol, who lived in town at the time, came in one evening while I was working alone. I loved his early punk band, Generation X, but had little time or patience for his solo material. He started the conversation with, “What’s this shit you’re playing? You need to listen to this”, handing me a cassette tape he wanted to me to play. He had immediately gotten on my bad side with that comment. I started the cassette only to be accosted by his new recording, a song called “White Wedding”. He was dancing around the store, singing the song loudly while it played. I was appalled. After the song was over, he said, “Isn’t that the greatest song you’ve ever heard?” I replied with, “No. It was about the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever been exposed to.” (I wasn’t just being mean, I was being truthful.) He sputtered a few times and then stormed out of the store, yelling an angry “Fuck You Mate!” to me as he left. Not too long later, the phone rang. Joseph was on the other end and asked me what had just happened. Billy Idol had called him and was mad as hell. I told him exactly what had happened and all I heard was a sigh. I don’t know how Joseph was so patient with me, but he once again explained that I needed to try to be nice to these people and I told him once again that I would try. And that’s the last I heard about that incident. (Billy Idol left town shortly after that when too many people started to realize that he was a sexist, racist drunk. I have no idea what he’s like these days. Nor do I care.)

But not every in-store was like those. Steve Strange, of Visage, did an in-store one day. I was dreading it, but he turned out to be one of the greatest, friendliest, most fun people who ever came into the store. We spent some fun time drinking with him at the One Bar, a gay bar across the street from the store that a pre-out Freddie Mercury (Queen) used to frequent.

One day, a large, black limousine pulled up outside and Billy Gibbons, from ZZ Top, came into the store to buy punk singles and leather wrist bands. He was a great guy and even gave us all tickets to their Forum show that evening (which I didn’t go to for reasons I no longer remember).

I became friends with New Music musician Harold Budd after he stopped in to talk and was amazed I knew who he was. (I always knew anyone who had worked with Brian Eno.) He came in a lot to talk and listen to records. (I still talk to him on and off these days, although with his illness, it’s been awhile.)

The same thing happened with John Belushi, who walked in one day just to check things out. We got in a long conversation about his movie “Neighbors” and the differences between it and the book it was based on. He started coming in once or twice a week when he was in town just to talk with me about things. We would also laugh about the fact that I was always wearing a black suit and tie at the time with a porkpie hat and I would always get “John Belushi” or “Blues Brothers” yelled at me. It turned out that he was walking around one day when someone yelled “Jet” at him. He thought that was pretty funny. I was on vacation when he died. We were at Bryce Canyon in Utah when I called home to make sure our cats were okay and a friend checking in told me that Henry was looking for me. So I called the store to find out what was going on. Henry said that some reporter had found out that Belushi enjoyed our conversations and he wanted to talk to me about the man. I didn’t want to talk to anyone and extended our vacation for a week. By the time I got back, the guy had stopped calling. To tell the truth, I saw no signs of the drug abuse that killed him, at least during the conversations we had at the store.

And Matt Groening, who was just a local cartoonist and music writer around town at the time, used to come in to talk often. He didn’t own a car and would frequently miss his bus, so Skip and I would give him a ride home. A few years later, “The Simpsons” was on the air and he didn’t have to worry about busses ever again. I still see him now and again, and we pleasantly exchange hellos, but I don’t really know him anymore.

There were two incidences I remember with Henry that still bring smiles to me whenever I think of them. One day, the two of us were working on a slow day. Not many customers had come in and Henry was not in the best of moods. We were getting bothered because two drag queens kept running by the store over and over again, causing a commotion out on the street. Henry finally got tired of it and said he was going to put a stop to it. He stormed out of the store and was gone for a fairly long time. When he finally returned, he was laughing. It turned out that the drag queens were actually actors filming an upcoming TV series. The series was called “Bosom Buddies”. Henry had gone out and yelled at future movie star, Tom Hanks, when the crew had intervened to explain the situation.

The other incident had to do with a local musician, Rick Wilder. He was a member of a group called the MauMaus. He was also a terrible junkie who was annoying as hell to talk to most of the time. One afternoon, Henry was looking out the window when he saw Rick approaching. He told me that he didn’t want to talk to him and asked me to get rid of him. With that, he hid behind the counter. When Rick stumbled in, he immediately asked for Henry. I told him he wasn’t there and that I didn’t know when he was going to be there. But Rick wasn’t to be deterred. He plopped down on the couch and slurred to me that he would wait. Henry was signaling to me from behind the counter to get rid of him, but I couldn’t convince the guy tom leave. No matter what I said to him, he persisted. Suddenly, Henry grabbed a brown paper bag. He drew a smiley face on it and put it over his head. With that, he stood up and walked past Rick and out the door. Rick never even seemed to notice. I think Rick stayed about an hour before giving up. Henry came back shortly after and all was right with the world once again.

Joseph and Henry were also running the Veil Club at Club Lingerie at the time. That was a New Romantic dance club and we would all fill the place. It was always a lot of fun, but I remember less about that then I do about the store.

I had a blast working at that store, but the time finally came for me to leave. A local band named Choir Invisible was going out on tour and had asked me to road manage for them. That was something I always wanted to do, so I put in my notice at Vinyl Fetish and hit the road with the band. The details of that tour can be found somewhere in the archives of this blog. My time at the store was great and left me with many fond memories. I just wish I could remember more of them. After the Choir Invisible tour, I went to work for another up-and-coming, trend setter record store called Texas Hotel, but that’s a story of its own. I’ll get to that some day.

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Last blog, I gave a shout-out to Iowa for passing gay marriage rights. Now I want to do the same for Vermont, which made history by becoming the first state to pass gay marriage rights through its legislature instead of through the courts. The list of States I can move to is becoming larger and its looking like a few more States might be added to that list before the end of the year. It’s about time. Now all I can hope for is that my own State of California doesn’t become an embarrassment due to its own lack of progress. We’ll know in a month or so. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

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I’m leaving town again. First a week (actually 5 days) in Arizona visiting family and then a week (actually 4 days) in San Francisco to see Throbbing Gristle play live. That means there won’t be another blog until the end of April or the first of May. At that time, I hope to get back to my usual weekly schedule. I hope you enjoyed the stories above. Thanks for reading and take care of yourselves. -ML

The Third Trip – Rome, Italy

2009-04-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

Before I get started today, I want to give props to the Iowan Supreme Court. It isn’t always easy to make the correct decision in the atmosphere this country has fostered the last decade or so, but these nine judges, from a very conservative state, did just that, ignoring the irrational and bigoted cries from the still powerful religious right. Let’s just hope that the California judges have to courage to do the same thing. This country needs more “activist” judges.

(For those who don’t know, the Iowan Supreme Court ruled that denying gays and lesbians the right to marriage was unconstitutional, specifically sighting the fact that dislike of homosexuals is based in religious teachings and government has no right to side with religious doctrine. All nine judges ruled this way. It wasn’t a split decision like it was in California.)

I’ve been looking for a good place to live that is easier and cheaper than California. I may have found it.

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A while ago, I decided that I didn’t want to vacation in any place that I had already been to. There are so many places in the world I want to experience, so going back to a country I’ve spent time in seemed ridiculous to me. But about a year or so ago, I ran into an old friend from Italy on MySpace that I used to know back in the days that Thin White Rope used to tour Europe twice a year. In fact, Daniela started out as a fan and friend of the band’s, but eventually became our booking agent in Italy for the last couple of tours.

Daniela told me that she had done quite well in her life. She was now an artist. She was married and had two young children. And she spent her time between and apartment in central Rome and a villa out on the edge of the city. She invited Skip and me to visit and spend a relaxing vacation in her villa any time we wanted. Now, I didn’t think I would ever want to go back to Italy, despite the fact that I love the country tremendously. But Daniela’s offer was too much to pass up, so after a week or so of discussion, Skip and I decided to book the trip with some existing frequent flyer miles and let Daniela know we were taking her up on her generous offer.

Due to restrictions on using frequent flyer miles, we had to book the trip almost a year in advance. I thought it would seem like forever before we were able to leave, but as time seems to do, it went by fast and before we knew it, we were preparing to pack up and head to the airport. We hadn’t made any plans except for a possible trip to Naples and Pompeii. I had been to Pompeii twice before, but Skip had never been and I wanted him to see it. Not having the whole trip planned in advance is very unusual for me. When we vacation, I usually know every move we’re going to make and every day we’re going to make it. But I had been to Rome so many times in the past (Skip had also been there a couple of times), that I was just looking forward to settling in and relaxing out in the country. I really didn’t want to do anything at all.

Our flights were leaving very early in the morning and I have trouble sleeping on planes, so we decided to stay up all the night before we were to leave, hoping exhaustion would help us sleep on the trip over the Atlantic Ocean. Our friend Nate came down from Oregon to house sit for us and take care of our cats. He went to sleep, but we woke him up to drive us to the airport. Nate dropped us off at 5 AM on Monday in front of the American terminal and then took off for home, probably dreaming of the sleep we had interrupted. But much to our surprise, when we tried to check in for our flight, we were told that we weren’t leaving until 11 PM on Tuesday, a full day and a half later than we were originally scheduled. It seemed that there were some intense snowstorms on the East Coast and JFK Airport in New York was closed down, so we couldn’t leave until the airport reopened. This was a surprise to us. We knew about the storm, but had checked the American website just before leaving, only to be told that all flights were still on schedule. We weren’t happy that no one at American had thought to update their website. But there wasn’t much we could do, so we had to call Nate back (he was about half way home) and just go home and try to get back some of that sleep we missed the night before.

Tuesday night came fast though and before we knew it; we were checked in and on our way to New York. We were scheduled to arrive in Rome a full two days after we were originally supposed to arrive and we were very disappointed about missing those two days of our vacation. But an added bonus was having a nine hour layover in New York City. It had been almost twenty years since I had been to the city and I was anxious to spend even that short time seeing what had changed over those two decades.

We arrived at JFK, jumped on the subway and immediately headed to what used to be the World Trade Center. There we saw the beginnings of new construction. Then we just started walking uptown to see what we could see. There were some new buildings we saw along the way, but it mostly felt like the same city I knew back then. We walked within a block of where CBGB’s used to be, but I couldn’t bring myself to go look. I just thought it would depress me too much. We walked all the way up to 24th Street and then over to Madison Avenue, where we were scheduled to have lunch at 11 Madison Park (http://www.elevenmadisonpark.com/), a totally amazing restaurant opened by Danny Meyer of Union Square Café, an old favorite of ours from the days we used to visit New York a lot.

I had called 11 Madison Park a day before and made a reservation. I was worried because they listed their dress code as preferring a coat. I warned them that we were coming in from the airport with only travel clothes on our backs and they told me not to worry. That made me very happy. The room was a beautiful one and by the looks of the other diners, we were woefully underdressed, but the restaurant greeted us happily and seated us next to one of the high windows along the side for a great view of the park across the street.

We had plenty of time, so we decided on the five course prie fix meal pared with wines. It was probably the best, most elegant meal I’d ever had in New York. From the opening course of Atlantic Fluke Carpaccio with Seaweed and Sea Urchin, to the final savory course of Herb Crusted Colorado Lamb with Cumin, Panisse & Sheep’s Milk Yogurt, to the Mango Linzer Tart dessert, the meal was practically flawless. We struck up a conversation with a man sitting next to us who was dining alone. We talked about restaurants in New York and Los Angeles. He was going to visit LA in a few days and we recommended Bazaar and Providence as must visit places. They were already on his list. When he finished, he passed the remains of his bottle of wine to us, claiming he couldn’t drink any more. There was more than half left. It was a bottle of Louis Carillon, Puligny-Montrachet, Les Combettes, 1er Cru, Burgundy, 2000. Skip estimated that it was a $300 bottle of wine. It was wonderful and we were very grateful. In fact, we were grateful for the whole afternoon and the chance to once again have an amazing meal at a place we’d never been to before.

But all good things must come to an end and we thanked the restaurant staff and jumped back on a subway car to the airport. Before we knew it, we were once again in the air on our way to Italy.

We arrived in Italy early and gave Daniela’s husband, Tino, a call. He explained how to take the train into Rome and then find the right bus to get on to get to their apartment. A few hours later, he met us at the bus stop and after introductions; we walked the block to their apartment.

It was a fantastic place, right across the street from Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Vatican City. You could walk out on their balcony and see the Dome of the Cathedral rising in front of you. (In fact, the next day, after a visit to the Sistine Chapel, we walked to the top of the Dome and gave the family a call. They all came out on the balcony and we spent time waving at each other while laughing about it on the phone.) The apartment had a small dining/living room and kitchen, three large bedrooms and two full bathrooms. Five people lived there; Daniela, Tino, their two kids, Francesco and Norma, and their Romanian housekeeper, Basilica. The housekeeper slept with the kids in their room. The third bedroom was used as Tino’s office and it was in that room that we had been sat up with a futon so we could sleep.

Tino had picked up several books in English for us, including an extremely comprehensive book listing all the restaurants in Rome, giving short reviews and information about every one. This, in combination with my own tourist’s books, became very helpful. Within a few hours, Daniela arrived home. She had been in London with friends. Then the kids arrived from school and we were able to get to know the entire family.

From here, I’m going to resist the urge to tell you about this trip in my usual day-by-day way. It had been at least 18 years since I’d been to Rome, but I had been there probably a dozen times, including taking two vacations there after TWR tours had ended. I thought I had seen everything the city had to offer, but I quickly realized that there were still lots of sights in the city I hadn’t seen. Walking around Rome is a wonder. There is something new to see down every street and around every corner. For example, I had never seen the Pantheon, a Roman temple built in 27 B.C. before, despite it being in the middle of downtown Rome. I had also never seen the Piazza del Popolo despite how close it is to the Spanish Steps, which I had seen several times in the past. I had also never been to the top of Gianicolo Hill, and seen the magnificent Fontana dell’Acqua Felice, a beautiful fountain that is one of the few still fed from the ancient aqueducts. And I had never been in the Castel Sant’Angelo, although I had driven by it many times before. There was so much I hadn’t seen before, and I’m sure there’s plenty I still haven’t seen. In fact, we had to cancel plans to take day trips to Ostia Antica and Tivoli due to the loss of our two days due to the New York storms. And the last day we were there, we missed out on going to the top of the Victor Emmanuel Monument and seeing a couple of museums due to an accident Skip had that I’ll get to later. Missing all that just gives me more reason to go back some day.

But this all also led to our decision not to go out to the family’s villa at all. There was just too much to do in Rome. It all worked out in the long run. The family usually stays in Rome during the week so the kids can go to school and then retires to the country for the weekends. But this particular weekend was full of business for both the adults. As I said before, Daniela is an artist, but Tino (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1445409/) makes his living as a film maker. He has made one award winning short called “Space Off” (www.spaceoff.it) and a series of short TV episodes called, “Italiani Nello Spazio“ (www.floptv.tv/series/italiani-nello-spazio/1x02-star-crash/98e99cc3-9ae5-475f-92df-ae9ac65eac09.aspx). These had been shown on Fox TV in Italy. (We saw all of his films and liked them tremendously. “Italiani Nello Spazio“ was in Italian and we still found the episodes funny.) If we wanted to go out to the villa, they would have to take us out there, go back to the city, and then come back out to pick us up again when we wanted to return. And there was no TV or internet hookup in the country. So we decided staying in Rome would be the best plan for everyone.

On Sunday, we walked over early to the Vatican and took part in the Pope’s Sunday Mass with several thousand other visitors. I’m not much on religion and I tend to think that the Pope is one of the World’s most evil men, but I was interested in seeing what it was all about. What I saw were crowds of Catholics cheering, crying and making the sign of the cross after every sentence the Pope spoke. It was all a bit crazy, but we grew bored fast and left. All we could see of the Pope was his small figure looking out a window a long ways away while he spoke to his admirers through a microphone. They can have him.

We spent the rest of that Sunday with the family celebrating Daniela’s birthday. We had a wonderful meal at her favorite pizza restaurant, Pizza Ciro (www.pizzaciro.it), which specializes in Naples style pizza, and then spent the rest of the afternoon strolling through the city and window shopping. It was very nice and relaxing and I appreciated being able to see Roman family life through a real Roman family’s eyes.

We found time to meet up with other friends, like Mario and Francesca, who both worked for the TWR’s original booking agent. It was great to see both of them again. It’s been way too long.

We spent a full day at Pompeii. We took the bullet train from Rome to Naples and then jumped on the subway for the half hour ride to Pompeii. Then we spent the next eight hours wandering around the beautiful ruins of the city. Much of the art and architecture of the city still remains in some form and seeing it is awe inspiring. There are also plaster casts of the bodies of people trapped in the magma that enveloped the city. It’s amazing and like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Most of our time was spent walking around the city, or eating and drinking. We visited two wine bars, Enoteca Cul de Sac and Antica Enoteca (www.anticaenoteca.com), where we enjoyed some amazing glasses of wine with delicious little snacks of meat and cheese. We were on our way to a third wine bar, Trimani Il Winebar, which is supposed to be one of the city’s best, when Skip had his unfortunate accident. We also visited the bar at the Hotel Excelsior, where we were told we could get the perfect martini, and I’ll be damned, but it really was.

On the food front, we had really good meals at Ristorante al Piccolo Arancio, Ristorante Antico Arco (www.anticoarco.it), Ristorante Il Barroccio (www.ilbarroccio-erfaciolaro.com) and Trattoria Monti. I think it’s pretty hard to have a bad meal in Rome unless you frequent the tourist’s spots that cater to those with no love of food. We had two lovely meals prepared by Basilica, that were just delicious in their simplicity and flavors. We also woke every morning to breakfast, which usually consisted of blood orange juice, cappuccino and whatever baked goods Daniela had baked the night before. I’m not much for breakfast, but that was a perfect way to begin the day.

We had two great meals. The first was at Taverna Angelica (www.tavernaangelica.it), a restaurant near the Vatican that is frequented by priests and nuns. In fact, the night we were there, we were sitting next to a table of tipsy nuns who tittered and gossiped about the Pope, not realizing we were listening closely. My chicory risotto and grilled tuna steak were next to perfectly prepared. The restaurant is hard to find, but well worth the effort.

The best meal of all was at a restaurant called Ristorante Il Convivio (www.ilconviviotroiani.com). Amongst the wonderful courses we had there was a single sea snail cooked in its shell and served with a fried gnocchi; Rigatoni with fresh and dried mullet roe; White fish and clams in a sour cream sauce with Roman-style artichokes; and the best damned cannoli I’ve ever eaten. But nothing beat the Crudo. Crudo is an Italian take on Sashimi. It’s an Italian take on raw fish. My Sea Bream, Sepia, Oyster and Shrimp with Onion Sorbet and Bottarga (shaved tuna roe) were all so delicious I almost started crying. Wine was poured liberally for every course and a perfect grappa was served at the end of the meal. We were so enthusiastic about the meal that the chef came out to greet us. It was the perfect four-hour meal.

Our biggest adventure was on our last day there. We were a block from the wine bar we were headed to for lunch, when I large group of girls heading to or from school forced Skip to the side of the walkway. He hit something jutting up and fell face-first into a metal grate in a brick wall. He immediately started screaming. Not in pain, but out of frustration because he knew this meant the end of our vacation. His hands were stuck in his pockets and he couldn’t move. Blood was streaming everywhere and I noticed his sunglasses had shattered. It was probably the glass from them that had cut his eyelid.

The girls took off in a flash, but a group of older men immediately appeared to help me. We got Skip on his feet and put him in a chair one of the men had brought out to the street. They also brought out wet rags that I held to Skip’s head to stop the blood. It was shooting out of his cut like a fountain. One of the men got on his phone and in less than five minutes, an ambulance was right there. As the medical crew prepared him, I tried to clean up the mess that was left. The men told me not to worry about it, that they would take care of it and I should worry about getting Skip to the hospital. So I climbed into the ambulance after Skip was loaded in and off we went.

(Keep in mind that little English was spoken at all during this whole event and I don’t speak Italian. This was the case throughout most of our trip, but I’ve found that communication is easy if you really want to make it work.)

After a short trip to the hospital that was more frightening than any roller coaster ride I’ve ever taken, Skip was loaded off the ambulance and taken into the emergency room. He was immediately looked at and a large band-aid was put over his eyebrow to slow down the bleeding. The hospital staff started asking questions and also wanted to know details about Skip, including his passport information. I called Tino and told him what happened. He wanted to talk to the hospital staff and after a short conversation, came back to me. The first thing he told me was not to worry about cost; that it would all be covered. I was suspicious about that. Tino asked me to keep in touch and he would come pick us up when we were ready.

The doctors were worried about Skip’s injuries and wanted to take x-rays and a MRI to make sure he had no internal injuries. After that was done, they cleaned Skip’s cuts again and re-bandaged them again and then asked us to wait for awhile until they could get Skip’s results. In the meantime, they started seeing other patients who were waiting, some of them in much worse shape than Skip. (In fact, I watched one older man die despite the efforts of the medical team to keep him alive. It was a sobering experience and I felt so badly for the family members who were working through their grief right there.)

About half an hour later, Skip started bleeding again and I found a doctor to let him know about it. They immediately wheeled him into a room and 15 minutes later, he was out and on his feet, with three stitches in his eyebrow. A doctor who spoke English approached me to tell me that they wanted to keep Skip for 24 hours for observation, but he was refusing. We were leaving the country in less than 24 hours as it was. So they wanted me to watch him and if he grew dizzy or started having headaches, they wanted me to bring him back right away. And with that he was released, although another doctor checked him over once more and helped clean him up. His hair was matted with blood and blood was all over his clothes. This doctor also gave me a prescription for antibiotics and told me where to go to get it filled.

I called Tino and Daniela answered the phone, telling me that Tino was already there waiting for us. I looked over my shoulder and there he was. We packed Skip into his car and drove to the apothecary, who filled our prescription and charged us 20 Euros. And that was the total cost for the whole thing.

Tino took us back home and they fed us a nice meal. After a few hours of rest, Skip was antsy to get back out and see things, despite his bandaged and extremely bruised face. So we left again and took the bus to the center of town. But it was too late and everything was closed down. We spent the next couple hours walking around town, enjoying a drink here and there, and making our way to our dinner reservation at Trattoria Monti.

Our whole experience with socialized medicine left us wondering what the hell all these conservatives are talking about when they speak of the evils it brings and how ineffective it is. It may not be the best medicine available, if you can afford the best medicine, but it sure beats having nothing, which is what millions of people in America have. And it sure seemed to work fine for us. I suspect most of them are talking out of their assholes, as usual.

But that pretty much sums up our trip to Rome. I was happy to see that the feel of the city hadn’t changed since I was last there. Things are more efficient, the busses and trains run on time, for example. And I didn’t see the large numbers of beggars and their children that used to flood the streets preying on tourists. We had a shortened, but wonderful time. For that, we mostly have to thank the generosity and friendliness of Daniela, Tino and their family. Being with their family for that short time was wonderful way to experience life in that city. It’s a wonderful country and an amazing city. I sure hope we can make it back there again someday.

And I hope our friends can visit here someday so we can repay them in turn. (They are huge Disney fans and have been to Walt Disney World in Florida, but I’m trying to convince them they have to visit the original park. The one in Florida is fun, but it’s not the same or as good as the original.)

Skip's pictures of our trip can be found at: http://community.webshots.com/user/kingcompton

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I’d also like to express my grief about the major earthquake that struck Italy this morning. I’ve already talked to Daniela and her family is okay, although they were woken up by the shaking. The earthquake was only 60 miles away from Rome. I’ve been in major earthquakes and they are frightening. My heart goes out to the victims.

And that’s it for this week. Next week, I hope to get to my stories about Vinyl Fetish, the record store I worked at in Hollywood in the early 80s. Thanks for reading and pay attention to those ads. -ML

Trip Number Two – A Return to Las Vegas

2009-03-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

Before I get into my second visit to Las Vegas, I have to explain a change to this site. After thinking about it long and hard, I have decided to allow advertisements to appear here on my site. On one hand, I’m loath to do so. I think crass commercialism is already too prevalent in this society. There are ads everywhere and having a place to escape those appeals to me. But, I have to face the reality of my situation. The only way I generate an income is through two means. One is the equity on my house, and just like everyone else, I’m facing the end of that cash flow within a month or two. The other way I get any income is to sell things on the internet. Depending on what I have to sell, that can generate good money or not much of anything in any given month. Right now, with the economy the way it is, I’m not generating much. The demand for collectables is not very high when people are afraid to spend. Like millions of other people, I’m facing the all-to-real possibility that I may be homeless by the end of summer. So, any way I can generate any income is a welcome prospect for me at this time. If I can raise a few more bucks by placing ads on my blog, then that’s what I’m going to do.

But this only works if you click on those ads. So I’m asking every reader of this blog to please do so each and every time you visit this site. The more money I can generate, the longer I can keep a roof over my head, and the longer I can keep writing this blog. If I’m living in a box in downtown LA, there won’t be any electricity for me to plug in my computer and write and post these things. So click on those ads. Every time you do so helps me out tremendously. Thanks and I hope you understand.

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It had been just a few short weeks since we had last visited Las Vegas, but we found ourselves packing up the car to return once again to the City of Sin. Usually, the drive from Los Angeles doesn’t bother me that much, but for some reason, the trip this time seemed to take forever. I usually break down the trip into segments; LA to Victorville; Victorville to Barstow; Barstow to Baker; Baker to Stateline; and Stateline to Las Vegas. Breaking the trip into smaller segments seems to make the trip go faster, at least psychologically. But doing that this time didn’t seem to work and the drive just kept going and going. The drive usually takes about 4 hours, but we finally pulled into the Mirage parking lot a little over 5 hours after we started. I guess traffic and road conditions slowed us down more than I would have liked.

We dragged all of our luggage into the Mirage Hotel & Casino (http://www.mirage.com/) and found the check-in desk. The clerk at the desk told that there was a good deal going on that week. For only $30 a night, we could upgrade our room to a suite. We agreed that it was good deal and went for it, and a few minutes later we found ourselves dragging our luggage through the casino to the elevators at the back of the building. I don’t really understand why these hotel/casinos always put the elevators at the back. It’s a pain in the ass to drag suitcases through all the Midwest yokels wandering around looking for just the right slot machine to park their asses at. I guess they’re hoping to introduce you to the casino right away in the hopes that you’ll throw your luggage in your room and run down to whatever gambling poison you’re addicted to and start losing your hard-earned cash immediately.

We managed to escape any major accident with the gamblers and made it to what we found was a private elevator to the floor our room was on. There was a security guard planted in front of that elevator and he demanded to see our keycards before he would let us pass, but he quickly became civil once he saw that we in fact belonged right where we were.

An elevator ride and a short walk down a hallway and we found ourselves in front of our room. The front door was a large double-door with a doorbell affixed in the wall next to it. We opened the door and walked in. Now, we had expected a large room. What we found was a room that was slightly bigger than our own house. It was HUGE! As we walked in, there was little kitchenette/wetbar to the right that opened up to a monstrous living room with a television and computer station and an attached dining room. That led into the king-size bedroom, complete with a television that rose out of a wooden chest with the push of a button. The bathroom took up a full third of the space, with a large glassed-in shower and a Jacuzzi bathtub along one wall and a giant walk-in closet along the other wall. There were only two floors above us and the view of the strip from our room was breathtaking. I would say that this was well worth the extra $30 to upgrade into.

But we were running late, so after ooh-ing and aah-ing at the room for a few minutes; we quickly changed into more presentable clothes and headed downstairs. The first thing we wanted to do was pick up our tickets for the Cirque du Soleil show we were seeing that night, “The Beatles’ Love” (http://www.mirage.com/entertainment/love.aspx). We found the box office and were immediately given tickets that were in the fourth row from the stage. Now it was time for dinner.

We had dinner reservations at our favorite restaurant in Las Vegas, Picasso at the Bellagio (http://www.bellagio.com/restaurants/picasso.aspx), which was on the other side of Caesar’s Palace from us, or about half a mile away. We had eaten at this restaurant almost a decade ago, but we were running late to a show (I believe it was the Pet Shop Boys at the Hard Rock) and we had to rush the meal. We had always regretted that, as the meal was amazing and rushing it like that just seemed sacrilegious. So we were happy to get the chance to eat there again at a more leisured pace. We were going to the show that night, but that wasn’t until 9:30 and our restaurant reservations were at 5. We had plenty of time to relax and enjoy.

And enjoy we did. We were very happy that after a decade, the quality of this restaurant hadn’t diminished at all. Our table was right at the window, so we could see the water show out on “Lake Como” easily. The real Picasso paintings hung around the walls were stunning to look at. The service was impeccable. And the food was just wonderful, especially Skip’s main course of stuffed and roasted pigeon that actually tasted like a wild game bird (as opposed to a farmed game bird) and could have been made in Heaven. But everything was great and about three and half hours later, we left the restaurant happily with a bottle of wine tucked under our arm to drink later in our room.

(I don’t think the restaurant was supposed to sell us that bottle. I know it’s against the law for restaurants to do that here in LA. But we were dying to try this wine and after begging, the restaurant allowed it. We never did get around to drinking it in our room. Once we got home, we opened it and found that it was corked, or spoiled. We got in touch with the restaurant and several days later, we received a box through UPS that contained THREE bottles of wine, including a very nice bottle of aged sherry. Now, that’s service, and it just endures us to this restaurant even more.)

We got back to the Mirage and dumped the wine in our room. We also took the time to watch the Mirage’s volcano eruption show from above in our room. Even without the soundtrack, it was quite stunning to watch the volcano “erupt” from that high up. We got back downstairs just in time for the doors to open for the late show of “Love”. We grabbed a drink and found our seats. The show was performed “in the round”, a large stage in the middle surrounded by seats on all sides. There were already Cirque performers in costume wandering around the stage and setting the mood for the upcoming show.

I’ve always been suspicious of these Cirque shows. I’ve seen bits and pieces performed various times on TV and it just never appealed to me. It all just seemed like gymnastics in costume and I got very bored very fast watching the routines on television. But I’d heard so much about this show and, after all, it was set to the Beatles’ music and was sanctioned by all the various Beatles’ parties, so I felt it was something I needed to experience. And I’m glad I did. The show was great. There was some of that costumed gymnastics aspect to it, but mostly it was like a beautiful modern dance performance linked together in theme by the Beatles’ music. One of my favorite parts came during the song “Yellow Submarine”, when the performers covered the entire audience with a large, white satin bag, letting everyone experience John & Yoko’s “Baggism” project. All the while, projections of the Yellow Submarine were coasting over the bag. It’s hard to describe here, but it was a wonderful moment. The show was full of wonderful, beautiful moments though, and got a well deserved standing ovation when it all came to an end.

Skip and I were too jacked up about the show to retire back to our room, so instead we used free passes to get into the Revolution Lounge (http://www.mirage.com/nightlife/the-beatles-revolution-lounge.aspx), which was designed by the Cirque organization to add on to the Beatles experience of the show. It was a nice looking bar, but was sparsely populated by what seemed to be Eastern Europeans and the music of choice that evening seemed to be early hip-hop, which made no sense to us at all. So we fled after a few minutes and made our way to BLT Burger (http://www.mirage.com/restaurants/blt-burger.aspx), which was one of the only late night restaurants still open in the area. It turned out to be a great choice. We split a wonderful burger and I enjoyed a great caramel/vanilla milkshake spiked with Makers’ Mark Bourbon. It was a perfect way to end the day.

We woke up late the next day and took our time getting ready. By the time we left our room, it was well past noon. We walked next door to Caesar’s Palace (http://www.caesarspalace.com/casinos/caesars-palace/hotel-casino/property-home.shtml?source=OGY0000028558) Forum Shops and watched the statues come to life before having lunch at Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois (http://www.wolfgangpuck.com/restaurants/finedining/chinois/lasvegas/). It was a nice lunch of upscale Chinese food, but it in no way came near the brilliance of the Chinois here in Los Angeles.

After that we walked back over to the Bellagio and visited their Gallery of Fine Arts (http://www.bellagio.com/amenities/gallery-of-fine-art.aspx), which was presenting a modern art show called “Lichtenstein, Warhol and Friends”. It was a rather small instillation, but featured a couple of wonderful pieces I had never seen before, including Sol LeWitt’s “Floor Piece #4”, making it well worth the time to check it out.

It was getting late in the afternoon, so we went back and got our car and drove over to the Stratosphere (http://www.stratospherehotel.com/). This is the tallest hotel in Las Vegas. You can see it poking above the other hotels from miles away. I was there because I wanted to ride the thrill rides that had been built at the top of the tower (http://www.stratospherehotel.com/thrills/). I had ridden Big Shot several times before. This is a ride that shoots you straight up at 45 MPH, until you are over 1000 feet above the Strip. I rode it again and it was no problem for me. Thrilling, but I’ve done it before at other parks, although not quite so high up. The roller coaster that used to run around the top of the tower had been removed thankfully. I had always found that rather dull. But two new rides had replaced it and those were what I was there to ride. The first one, Insanity, is a mechanical arm that swings out over the Strip and twirls you in your seat at 3 Gs until you are staring straight down at the ground. This was rather nerve-wracking and I was glad when the ride was over. But it was nowhere near as horrifying as the final ride. This one, named X-Scream, is a large teeter-totter that propels the car you’re sitting in 28 feet over the edge of the tower. It then swings down so you’re facing the ground, before swinging back up and then down again. I came close to losing it completely on that ride. I have to say that now that it’s over and done that I’m proud of myself and I’m really glad I rode those rides. But I doubt I’ll ever do it again. And I’m someone who really liked the extreme rides at most parks.

By this time it was getting late and we had dinner reservations we had to get to. We headed down the tower, found our car and drove across the Strip to the MGM Grand Hotel for our dinner at Fiamma Tratorria (http://www.mgmgrand.com/dining/fiamma-italian-restaurant-bar.aspx). Several years ago, Skip and I enjoyed a meal cooked by Fiamma chef Carlos Buscaglia, during a guest stint at Napa Rose restaurant in the Disneyland Resort. It was an amazing meal and we were so enthusiastic about it that the chef came out to meet us. He told us that if we really wanted a good meal that we should come to his Las Vegas restaurant and let him know we were coming. After all this time, we were going to call him on that. We had written him several weeks before, but he told us that he was unfortunately going to be out of town on the day we were visiting. But he also told us that he would let his staff know and they would take good care of us. That they did. Skip and I had decided to share an opener and then ordered a main course each. But the kitchen sent out so much food that we couldn’t eat it all and we ended up passing on dessert completely (which always breaks my heart). Everything was amazing, but the highlight of the meal was my Pink Snapper with Roasted Vegetables and Pine Nuts. It was wonderful in the simplicity of its preparation and flavors. The Spaghetti and Kobe meatballs the kitchen sent out were pretty wonderful as well, as was Skip’s Lobster Gnocchi with Black Truffles. It was a great meal and I hope we can return again some day.

But now we had to run as we had less than an hour to get out to the Stateline and Buffalo Bill’s Hotel & Casino so we could see Blondie (http://www.blondie.net/index.php) play at their arena. We arrived just in time and made our way to our third row center seats we had bought several weeks earlier. I had seen Blondie several times in the 70’s, including a show at the Whiskey in Hollywood where they opened for Tom Petty and the place was less than half full. This was when they had their original, and best, bass player, Gary Valentine. But I had never seen them once they hit the big time and Skip had never seen them at all. I was there mainly for Skip’s benefit, and entered the show feeling suspicious about the whole thing and convinced I was going to have a terrible time. I tried, but the onslaught of so many wonderful hit songs and the fact that even at an advanced age, Debby Harry still had an exuberant stage presence, and before I knew it I was enjoying myself, while watching in wonder as aging gamblers danced in front of the stage with their walkers. (To be fair, the young ones seemed to be dancing a lot as well.) I had to admit it was a great show, and we left for the return to Las Vegas happy and exhausted.

We woke up the next day early, as we had a wine tasting event in Los Angeles, so we needed to get home. We packed up our belongings and took the elevator downstairs to check out. Somehow or other, the total check we received from the hotel was about $60 lighter than what we expected. We saw that the show tickets were only $99 each, and we had been quoted $124 each. There were a few other discrepancies, but since it was all in our favor, we kept quite and enjoyed the fact that we had upgraded to an amazing room without it costing us any more in the long run.

We had a quick lunch at Simon at Palm’s Place (http://www.simonatpalmsplace.com/) on our way out of town. Kerry Simon’s restaurant here in Los Angeles is one of our favorite mid-priced restaurants. This one in Las Vegas is a beautiful room, but the food at lunch, mostly salads and sandwiches, was only okay. We’ll have to return someday for dinner.

And with that we were gone again. In these two trips we managed to see and do everything we had wanted (with the exception of a few restaurants). We had missed a lot in the nine years since we had last been there. I feel liked we’ve caught up now. We’re hoping for a return trip before the end of the year. Then we can stretch out and visit friends and see the city through their eyes. I’m sure the local Las Vegas will be an entirely different experience than what we had as visitors.

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Next week I’ll be back with the final trip of the three in Rome, Italy. There are a few more trips coming up. We are going to Arizona for 5 days in a couple of weeks. We’ll be visiting relatives in Tucson and Phoenix. We’re also taking a quick trip to San Francisco right after returning from Arizona so we can see Throbbing Gristle perform live. I’ll wait until after those trips to decide about writing about them. I’m hoping to get to some band and record store stories soon. Until then, thanks for reading and enjoy yourselves. And click on those ads!

Trip Number One - LAs Vegas

2009-03-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything in these pages. Most of the reason behind that is that I’ve just been so busy traveling that I haven’t been able to take the time to write. My travels aren’t over yet. Next month I’ll be spending a week in Arizona to visit my family and another 4 days in San Francisco to see the band Throbbing Gristle play live. After that, I have no concrete plans. I would like to travel more and have plans in the back of my head to visit both Thailand and London, England. Lack of money may sidetrack those plans though. The next few months will tell. But for now, let me tell you about the last month or so and the events that have taken up all my time.

The first two trips we took were to Las Vegas. This is going to piss off several friends I have in the city. We had a very limited time there and we decided not to tell friends we were visiting either trip so that we could make complete use of that time. All I can do is apologize and let you know that we have tentative plans to visit again and this time we will make time to get together with friends we rarely see.

The first trip was at the end of January. It came about because Buffalo Bill’s Hotel (http://www.primmvalleyresorts.com/hotel_buffalobill.php) in Primm Valley on the Stateline offered us a free two night stay. We couldn’t pass that up. Primm is about 40 minutes from Las Vegas and we decided that we would drive to the hotel and get there late on Thursday. We would pass up all the free offers that Buffalo Bill’s tried to give us. (Those included a free showing of their show “The Sin City Kitties” and free tickets to see Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers play live in their auditorium. We did take them up on their $25 of free gambling for each of us. Skip turned that into a $100 profit and I made and extra $25.) Instead, we would spend all day Friday in Las Vegas. Then we would leave early Saturday for home.

That was pretty much how it went, except that we arrived a lot earlier on Wednesday then we thought we would due to a lack of traffic. We took advantage of this by driving into Vegas and having dinner at Lavo Restaurant (http://www.palazzolasvegas.com/lavo.aspx) at the Palazzo Hotel. We had eaten Chef Ludo Lefebvre’s food several times before here in Los Angeles at several food festivals. He is a very creative chef; one dish I remember is pasta with shrimp in a cinnamon cream sauce, so we were looking forward to eating his food at his own place. Unfortunately, we found a rather standard menu and when we asked about it, our serve told us that the menu was very creative at the beginning, but it was confusing all the tourists, so the owners made the chef tone it down. That was depressing, but there’s no accounting for taste, especially when it comes to the mainstream American tourist. The food was very good, but unremarkable, with the exception of a plate of various Crudo (Italian style raw fish) that was just amazing. So we left our first meal rather disappointed.

We would have loved to have dined at Restaurant Charlie (http://www.palazzolasvegas.com/restaurantcharlie.aspx) in the same hotel. This is Charlie Trotter’s new place. Trotter is a chef from Chicago who is one of America’s finest. The best meal I’ve ever eaten in my life was at his Chicago restaurant. But this restaurant in Las Vegas is too expensive for us at this time. We figured that to do it correctly would have cost us about $600 each. That’s not do-able at the place we are right now in this economy. But after Lavo, we walked over to look at the restaurant and when the receptionist saw us staring in the doorway, she invited us in and gave us a full tour of the place, including the kitchen and the chef’s table. They even gave us chocolates that were being freshly made by the pastry chef. That was a really nice thing to do and the restaurant looks great. Someday, if we ever win the lottery, we’ll try to eat there.

After our Restaurant Charlie tour, we made our way upstairs to the Double Helix Wine Bar (http://www.doublehelixwine.com/) where we enjoyed a couple of glasses of great wine from their impressive “by the glass” list. We talked for awhile with some of the servers about wine and travel, but it was getting late, so we decided to head back to Buffalo Bill’s and call it a night. We were afraid that the rooms would be cheesy and cheap, but our room there was large and very comfortable. Quite a deal for free!

We had a lot to do on Friday. It had been nine years since we had been to Las Vegas and the whole strip had grown and changed so that it was barely recognizable. We wanted to tour each and every hotel and casino on the Strip and we started out early to do so.

We walked the whole way, from one end of the Strip to the other and we managed to see it all. Some of the older hotels, like Caesar’s Palace, hadn’t changed much at all, except for some new towers that had been built onto the hotel. But others, like the MGM Grand, had completely changed on the inside, adding many more shops and restaurants to areas of the hotels. We also saw the Palazzo, The Wynn and the Encore, and the new Trump Hotel, where we actually saw Donald Trump as we were sitting in the bar enjoying a glass of champagne. (A very expensive glass that was provided free due to the bar being out of the bubbly we originally wanted.) And we managed to walk up and see the Palms Hotel that was used in MTV’s “Real World Las Vegas”. We also studied the new “city-within-a-city” being built, called “CityCenter” (http://www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com/citycenter.htm) between the Monte Carlo and the Bellagio. This place is massive and is the most expensive privately funded construction project in US history. It’s really going to be impressive when it’s done. There are at least several more construction projects going on. The growth is insane. But I also found it distracting. You used to be able to stand on the Strip and make out each and every unique hotel/casino placed there. Now, so much has been built that it kind of all fades into one big mess, with bits of Italy, France, New York, etc. sticking out here and there. It’s kind of stunning and overwhelming to see, but it substitutes the artificial beauty that I love about the Las Vegas of a decade or more ago, with an artificial chaos that is not as pleasurable to experience.

During this trek, we stopped frequently for a drink at one bar or another, but we made three longer stops. For lunch, we ate at the Mesa Grill (http://www.mesagrill.com/lasvegas/), which is Iron Chef Bobby Flay’s restaurant in Caesar’s Palace. With that, I have now eaten food from each one of the Iron Chef’s! We had been warned that Mesa Grill was not very good, but I found the food tasty and very good, although not remarkable. I suspect it would have been much better at dinnertime.

We stopped at Red Square (http://www.mandalaybay.com/dining/redsquare.aspx) in Mandalay Bay for glasses of really good vodka and found that they had a Happy Hour offer of a free ounce of great caviar for every two shots of Russian Vodka ordered. We drank two shots and consumed an ounce of the wonderful caviar each. Good caviar has gotten so expensive that I rarely eat it these days. This was such a great deal that I wanted to sit there all night, but our dinner reservations were calling and we had to leave.

Dinner that evening was at the MGM Grand. We wanted to eat at Restaurant Joel Robuchon, but we were faced with the same expense problem that we faced at Restaurant Charlie. It was just too much for us to afford. So we opted for his next level restaurant right next door, L’Atelier de Joel Rubuchon (http://www.mgmgrand.com/dining/atelier-joel-robuchon-french-restaurant.aspx). This restaurant was more affordable, although still a bit expensive. We couldn’t resist eating food from one of France’s greatest chefs though. In fact, he is known as “the chef of the century” in most food circles. It is a one-star Michelin restaurant. This restaurant was a strange and different experience. Most diners sit at a counter facing the kitchen where you are able to watch your dinner prepared right before your eyes. (There are tables, but they are reserved for larger parties.) The plates are all small and designed to be shared. It was absolutely delicious, easily one of the best ten meals of my life. There were too many dishes to list here, but everything was wonderful. There was not a bad dish among them. And the wines that were paired with each phase of dishes were lovely and spot on. This is just an amazing restaurant. The food and wine, added with the overall experience makes it a one-of-a-kind special kind of place. I hope I can return someday.

It was late by the time we finished dinner, which took us more than three hours, so we decided to call it a day and return back to Buffalo Bill’s.

The next morning we woke and decided to ride the roller coaster at Buffalo Bill’s, the Desperado, which for a short time a decade or so ago was the World’s tallest and fastest coaster. It was still a whole lot of fun, although a bit old and rough these days. As we were getting ready to leave, Skip saw a poster saying that Blondie was playing the hotel in February. Skip had never seen Blondie back in the day and made a quick decision that we were going to go see them now. So he went to the hotel’s ticket office and managed to get tickets for the show that were in the 5^th row center.

While we were walking around the hotels the day before, we made our way to the Mirage. The big show there at the moment is a Cirque De Soleil production called “The Beatles’ Love”. I’m not much on Cirque shows, but we discussed how if we were going to see any of them, this would be the one since we were both huge Beatles fans. So, instead of leaving for home as we originally planned, we headed back into Las Vegas to see what kind of deal we could get on a room/show package at the Mirage. We got a good one that included two great seats for the “Love” show and two nights for the price of the show and $30 for the room. We booked that for the night before Blondie. That meant we would be returning to Vegas within a few weeks.

It was now well past noon and we realized that we were very hungry, so we walked to the Bellagio Hotel and had lunch at another restaurant we had been wanting to eat at for awhile. Olives (http://www.bellagio.com/restaurants/olives.aspx), the Las Vegas version of Todd English’s original Boston restaurant, was another very good restaurant that would probably be great at dinner time. My salmon was a wee bit overcooked, but was still delicious. I’m not used to eating that much food that early in the day though, and I left overstuffed and uncomfortable. I should have stuck to a salad or a sandwich, but that’s my own fault.

And with that, we left for the four hour drive home. There were a few things that we hadn’t got to yet, such as the ultimately scary rides on the top of the Stratosphere, but we knew we would be back soon, so I wasn’t too worried about missing them.

That’s it for this segment. I’ll be back soon with the tales of our second trip to Las Vegas, a trip that included room upgrades, late-night burgers, Beatles’ music, and those rides that took the fight out of me.

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By the way, I heartily recommend “Coraline” (http://www.coraline.com/) if you haven’t seen it by now. See it in 3D if you can. It really adds to the experience. The story is rather dark and scary, so I would leave the youngsters at home. But it was still beautifully written and animated. It should easily be one of the animated pictures of the year.

The other movie I’ve seen this year is “Watchmen” (http://watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com/). I liked it. In fact, I really liked it. But I didn’t love it. It was beautiful to watch and they stayed true to the source material. I think they did the best job possible with a movie I never thought could be made. But the film also felt like it was trying to hard. I kind of wish the director would have stayed truer to the heart of the story instead of trying to shove so much information into every second of the film. I recommend it, but only for people who know the original graphic novel.

The Movies of 2008

2009-02-21T11:35:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of a blog last week. I tried very hard to get my memories of working at the Hollywood record store, Vinyl Fetish, finished and put up on this site. But the last couple of weeks have been difficult to say the least. After paying $750 to fix a skylight in our kitchen roof that our ex-handyman put in badly, the rains came and it still leaked all over the house, ruining some records and books I had in shelves in the leaky room. It turns out that the new air conditioner we had installed on our roof ($9000) was installed badly. The idiots who installed it didn’t replace the old pan that held the thing up. It’s rusted and full of holes and the rain just pours in. The air conditioner guy refuses to take any blame and we’re looking into small claims court. In the meantime, it’s going to take another $1600 to fix the roof and we just don’t have that money now. I’m trying to get our insurance to pay for part of it, but that doesn’t look good. I think they’ll pay for water damage, which is minimal, but not for roof repairs. So for now, we just have to deal with water everywhere in our kitchen and guest bedroom every time it rains. Towels and pans will hopefully keep it at bay.

A little over a month ago, Skip got in a bad accident and totaled our primary car. He was okay, although quite a bit banged up and bruised. We got a nice insurance settlement for that and used a good chunk of the money to fix up our second car. After pumping several thousand into that, I thought it was good to go. Then last week I was raising the driver’s side window when it just jammed halfway up. Of course, the next day the rains came, but at least I had time to put plastic all over the window so it didn’t leak. Our mechanic fixed it and that cost us another $400. The problem is that the gears operating the window are now made of plastic and they wear out after a few years. They used to be made of metal, but things just aren’t designed to last anymore like they used to be. It’s a big scam, but the auto manufacturers seem to be paying for things like that now. Or they will be soon, hopefully, if the government doesn’t bail out their incompetency, greed and dishonesty.

We also have our upcoming trip to Italy in less than a week and a half and we absolutely refuse to cancel that, although we cutting it back greatly. We are still going to take a day trip to Naples, but planned trips to Venice and Pisa are now off due to finances. Making plans for this trip have taken up a good portion of my time as well.

When we get back, I’m going to have to start selling everything we own to try to make ends meet, including many collectables and personal items I got from my years on the road that I don’t really want to part with. As it stands now, it looks like we may run out of cash by summertime. So I hope Obama’s stimulus and homebuyers relief packages start working fast, or I may be writing future blogs from a cardboard box on a street corner in downtown LA.

I got too tangled up in all this crap to be able to concentrate on my writing. I hope you’ll forgive me. This will be the last blog until late March, when I return from Italy and get caught up with everything that will back up on me in my absence. I have a lot of things I want to write about, including those Vinyl Fetish days, a two-part record company blog starring all the bands I’ve managed, a story about the late Stiv Bators and many more road stories from the Thin White Rope days. You’ll get all of those in late spring or early summer.

But now it’s time for my yearly Oscar discussion. You all take care of yourselves and I’ll think about you while touring the ruins in Pompeii and eating amazing pizza with a glass of wonderful wine.

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It’s time to talk movies again since the Academy Awards are airing on television this weekend. I saw a lot of movies this year and still managed to miss many I wanted to see. As usual, I thought there were many more good movies than bad, at least in the choices I picked to see. Most of the movies listed below I reviewed after I saw them, so I’m going to leave minimal comments about them here. If you’re curious, look them up on IMDB.com, where you’ll get comments, plots and a whole lot more.

The movies I absolutely loved:

Bolt,
Everlasting Moments,
Frost/Nixon,
Kung Fu Panda,
Milk,
Patrik 1.5 (which hasn’t even been released in this country yet.),
Slumdog Millionaire,
The Baader-Meinhoff Complex,
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
The Dark Knight,
The Reader,
The Visitor,
The Wrestler,
Wall-E,
Waltz With Bashir

The movies I liked a lot:

Australia,
Bottle Shock,
Burn After Reading,
Changeling,
Che parts One & Two,
Cloverfield,
Forgetting Sarah Marshall,
Frozen River,
Gran Torino,
Hancock ,
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army,
In Bruges,
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,
Iron Man,
I've Loved You So Long,
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D,
Last Chance Harvey,
Love Songs,
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa,
Mamma Mia,
Paranoid Park,
Quantum of Solace,
Rachel Getting Married,
Savage Grace,
Sex and the City,
The Duchess,
The Incredible Hulk,
The Killing of John Lennon,
Valkyrie,
Vicky Cristina Barcelona,
Wanted,
XXY,
Young People Fucking

The movies I thought were just okay:

Doubt,
Get Smart,
Horton Hears A Who,
Pineapple Express,
Speed Racer,
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,
Tropic Thunder

The movies that disappointed me:

Cassandra's Dream,
Flight of the Red Balloon,
Gomorrah,
Happy-Go-Lucky,
Revolutionary Road,
The X-Files: I Want To Believe

And the movies I absolutely hated:

The Day the Earth Stood Still,
The Happening,
The Spirit

I saw these documentaries and loved them:

Derek,
Encounters at the End of the World,
Man on Wire,
My Winnipeg,
Patti Smith: Dream of Life,
The Wrecking Crew

I saw these documentaries and liked them a lot:

Imaginadores,
Of All the Things,
The Polymath or the Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany Gentleman,
The Universe of Keith Haring,
Until The Light Takes Us,
You Weren't There

And I saw these two films in unfinished form and although I enjoyed them, I never felt the urge to see the completed films:

Flash of Genius (unfinished),
Ghost Town (unfinished)

As for the Oscars, here’s how I would vote. If I didn’t list a category, it’s because I have no preference for a winner in that one. I managed to see every major release this year, although I did miss some movies in the Foreign Film, Documentary and Shorts categories. I also missed “Defiance”, which was up for Original Score, so in this case I’m not going to comment on that one, especially since I liked all four of the other scores.

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Best Picture: I loved all five pictures up, but for me “Slumdog Millionaire” was easily the best movie I saw all year. While it had moments that were hard to watch due to violence or just plain grossness, it still left me happy and loving life by the end of it. It was a wonderful film.

Actor: Again, all five actors in this category did amazing jobs. But my vote goes to the extraordinary job Sean Penn did in “Milk”. I won’t be too upset if either Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) or Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) wins though.

Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in “The Dark Knight” was easily the best acting job in this category and I think he would have been nominated even if he was still alive.

Actress: Yet again, there were five very strong performances in this category. I think Kate Winslet will win it for “The Reader”, but I’m secretly wishing for Anne Hathaway to win for her amazing portrayal in “Rachel Getting Married”.

Supporting Actress: I would have liked to have seen Rosemarie DeWitt get nominated for “Rachel Getting Married”, but in her absence, I think Marisa Tomei once again proved she really can act in “The Wrestler”. I wouldn’t be too upset if either Viola Davis (Doubt) or Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) wins it though.

Director: All were strong in this category and I would have liked to see Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) get a nomination. But Danny Boyle’s joyous work on “Slumdog Millionaire” should win it for him.

Documentary Feature: I only saw two of these movies, “Man on Wire” and “Encounters at the End of the World”. “Man on Wire” was absolutely amazing and should win this.

Animated Feature: I loved all three movies in this category, but “Wall-E” was extra special and will hopefully win.

Foreign Language: I only saw two of the movies in this category, “The Baader-Meinhoff Complex” and “Waltz with Bashir” and I loved them both. But I think “The Baader-Meinhoff Complex” was the better film and my vote goes to that. I have to say though that “Everlasting Moments” was the best foreign film I saw all year and it should have at least been nominated. (I’ve been meaning to see “The Class” and just haven’t been able to find the time. I’ll get to it eventually, but not in time for the Oscar ceremony.)

Original Screenplay: I found “Happy-Go-Lucky” to be extremely irritating and I don’t even think the screenplay should have been nominated. Of the other four, I think that Martin McDonagh’s witty “In Bruges” should win, although I won’t be upset if either Dustin Lance Black (Milk) or Andrew Staton & Jim Reardon (Wall-E) wins it.

Adapted Screenplay: I loved Peter Morgan’s script for “Frost/Nixon” and the way it was adapted for the movie. David Hare (The Reader) and Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) are up there as well, though, so any of them can win and make me happy.

Cinematography: All five films were stunning to look at, but “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” just took my breath away.

Art Direction: Again, all five were beautiful to look at, but “Changeling” really transported me to the past and I think that should win.

Original Song: This is rare year where I actually like all three songs nominated. But “Jai Ho” (Slumdog Millionaire) closed the movie in such an infectiously joyous way that my vote has to go to that.

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And that’s that. I’ll be watching the Awards and I’ll see how much the Academy agrees with me. In the meantime, I’m going to start on this year’s movies. I’ve seen “Coraline” in 3D and when I return from Italy, I’m really looking forward to “Watchmen”, one of the greatest graphic novels I’ve ever read. I hope the film does it justice.

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I’d also like to make a quick mention of a few shows I saw this last week.

Thanks to my friend Gary, I was able to see the band Sparks (http://www.allsparks.com/ & http://www.myspace.com/allsparks) make their triumphant LA return. They opened the evening with a complete live rendition of their newest album, “Exotic Creatures of the Deep” and it was glorious. I think the album is easily one of the best albums of last year and the live version was even better. Then the band came back and did the complete “Kimono My House”, the album that launched their stardom both here and in the UK. It was an amazing evening that I would have missed if it wasn’t for Gary, so I will be forever grateful.

I also saw “Lovelace: A Rock Opera” (http://www.lovelacearockopera.com/) with music by Charlotte Caffey (the Go-Gos) and Anna Waronker (That Dog). I wasn’t sure what to make of this musical telling of porno star Linda Lovelace’s life, but it turned out to be a great time. The music was fun, without cheapening the woman’s story. Hopefully it will go on to better things in the future. It’s a hit here in Los Angeles, but deserves a much bigger audience.

And I finally got around to seeing “Coraline” in 3D (http://www.coraline.com/) and absolutely loved it. (Director Henry Selick also gave us such classics as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach”.) It’s dreamlike and absolutely frightening, so very young kids should be kept away. But to tell the truth, I would have loved it when I was a kid, even through my tears of terror. It’s not just a beautiful job of animation; it’s a beautiful movie period. It’s already on my top pick list for 2009.

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I talk to you in three or four weeks.

Welcome, Politics and Tour Stories

2009-02-08T10:22:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to my new Blogspot! Over the next weeks and months, I’ll be tweaking this space, adding things here and there and changing others around. Eventually, I’ll settle on something that I’m totally satisfied with. Please let me know if you have any recommendations or ideas. I’m happy to be here. I have an “adult content” warning, so I can write what I want and how I want now. And so far, I have had none of the problems with posting that I had over at MySpace. I think this will be a good home for my ranting.

You’ll also find most of my old blogs from MySpace on the Archive. I edited out most of the reviews and a small bit of content that was no longer relevant, but the blogs are mostly the same ones I originally published.

I thought I’d start out this week with a couple of topics.

I’m really getting tired of listening to Republicans whine about Obama’s policies this close to the beginning of his administration and policies. These conservatives had eight years of mostly uninterrupted power plays to get the country where it is now, on the brink of collapse. Now it’s time for them to step aside and shut the fuck up and let someone else try to fix what they broke.

For eight years we heard how “un-American” it was to criticize Bush and his cronies. Less than a week into his administration, we have Republican conservatives like Rush Limbaugh telling the public that they hope Obama fails. And this drug addict had the nerve to refer to others as un-American? What an ass. Every time I turn on the TV or head online to places like Facebook, I see or hear some conservative crying about Obama. Get over it.

Look, I don’t believe that Obama’s Economic Stimulus Package is going to work. I think it’s too little too late. But you’d think these conservative voices would just leave it alone. It’s a win-win situation for them, I would think. If Obama gets his way and this package fails, then it’s a good chance the Republicans can take back the government in four years. Hell, they can start making inroads into congress in two years.

And if it does work, well then everyone in the country will be a hell of a lot better off and even Republicans should be happy about that. So maybe they should just shut their traps and wait and see. They can’t lose.

What I, and everyone else, know already is that tax cuts aren’t going to help. It’s just another thinly veiled attempt to make the rich even richer. We’ve had eight years of tax cuts and look where we are. And all this whining about “tax-and-spend” Democrats is just ridiculous following eight years of “no-tax-and-spend” Republicans. You can’t spend money you don’t have to fight your wars and reward your cronies. So once again, shut the fuck up. I’m tired of hearing it, and I’m sure most of the rest of the country is as well.

If anything, it’s just nice to have someone in office who takes responsibility for the mistakes of his administration. Bush, Cheney and their henchmen never did that. In fact, they’re still denying their mistakes and they’re still using their fear tactics to do so.

But I know that the above is just politics as usual. I’m really more upset about several music related events that happened of the last few weeks.

First, Los Angeles radio station, Indie 103.1, shuttered their doors and changed over to a Spanish language station, as if Los Angeles doesn’t have enough of those already. Indie was the home of ex-Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones wonderful daily broadcast, “Jonesy’s Jukebox”. As a station, it wasn’t perfect. There aren’t any that are. But Indie managed to play music I like probably 75% of the time, and that is a great thing. I would listen to the station constantly while driving around the city. I found out about a lot of bands I had never heard before and I became fans of many of them. Now we’re left with Oldies stations and KROQ, which bills itself as an “alternative” station, but is really nothing more than a “hard rock” station. They bore the hell out of me. I’ve stopped listening to the radio except for the occasional newscast. Indie will be missed.

RIP to Lux Interior of the Cramps (http://www.myspace.com/cramping & http://www.thecramps.com/). He blew my mind when I saw the Cramps at the first LA show at the Whiskey. I had never quite seen anything like it before that. He and his band’s music helped shape me into the man I am today, for better or worse.

I was also very sad to hear about the death of folk musician John Martyn (http://www.johnmartyn.com/ & http://www.myspace.com/johnmartynfans) a week ago. He was an amazing musician and a great guy. I once spent an evening in Sicily with him drinking and talking about his life and music in general. I was there with Thin White Rope and we were playing a festival held in some ruins in the city of Syracuse. There were lots of bands on the bill, but the only two I remember besides TWR was That Petrol Emotion and John Martyn. I was excited about seeing both and after Martyn’s set, I introduced myself and told him that I was fan. He told me how much he enjoyed TWR. After the show, we went back to the hotel and I walked to a bar, where we talked for several hours about drinking, music and any other pleasures we could think of. It was one of the best moments of my life. Here’s to you, John. Your music will live on.

But since I started it, I should go ahead and finish the story. That festival was one of my favorite shows that TWR (http://www.myspace.com/thinwhiteropefanpage) played. Before the show, the promoters took us up into the hills of Syracuse for dinner. We dined outdoors and on each side of us where beautiful Greek ruins illuminated on neighboring hills. These had been left over from the days the Greeks occupied the island. It was absolutely gorgeous and the food was great as well.

During the show, which I remember as being a great one, I also vaguely remember a big fall on my part. I usually stood off to the side of the stage when the band played. I was the tour manager, but I also acted as a roadie when it was needed, plus the side of the stage was a great place to watch the band. Halfway through the set, a problem happened and I ran out to fix it. As I went to return to my spot off to the side, I stepped back too far and all I remember is falling for what seemed an eternity. I landed flat on my back on the ground below the stage. Somehow, I managed to escape any injury, but it knocked the wind out of my lungs and scared the hell out of me. John von Feldt still laughs about it to this day. He told me he was playing and looked over to see me there and suddenly I just disappeared. Then he saw me climbing back on stage with this sheepish look on my face. All I know is that I was very careful to know the boundaries of the stage area after that.

I also mentioned that That Petrol Emotion (http://www.thatpetrolemotion.com/ & http://www.myspace.com/thatpetrolemotion) were playing the festival. They were a band made up of several ex-members of the Irish punk band, the Undertones, and I was a huge fan of both bands. I was very excited about seeing them live and they didn’t disappoint me. I think everyone played a great set that night.

After everything was done and all the equipment was packed up, we were taken to our hotel. This hotel was right on the beach. When I got back from my drinking with John Martyn, I noticed a bunch of people sitting on the lounge furniture on the beach. I walked over to discover some of the TWR and TPE guys drinking and talking in the dark. So of course I joined them. Most of the conversation was just talk of the kind that traveling musicians do when they get together. But I do remember TPE lead singer, Steve Mack, an American, complaining about touring Italy. He didn’t like it at all. He didn’t like the chaos. He didn’t like the attitude. He didn’t even like the food. He didn’t like anything about Italy and claimed that if he had his way, he would never tour there again.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that touring Italy could be a giant pain in the ass. They were always disorganized. We almost always arrived for soundcheck to find a club or venue with no PA set up yet and little knowledge about what was going to happen that evening. It was almost always impossible to get a show to run with any sign of organization. But I have never run into fans as enthusiastic and passionate. I thought the food was amongst the best I’ve ever eaten in any country and always looked forward to whatever restaurant we were taken to. And the place was just so damned beautiful, from the cities to the country. It was a pain, but we always had a great time there.

I said all this to Stave and then waved my hand to the ocean. I said, “I’m sitting here on the beach in Italy, drinking wine and talking to friends, and I’m getting paid to do it. I have nothing to complain about.”

And that seemed to shut him up.

(Steve and I later became good friends, despite this one disagreement and he later told me that he was just being crabby that night. Several years later, TPE broke up and he moved to Seattle, where I visited him several times. I even stayed with him once when I flew up to see Yoko Ono after I missed her here due to a show I was working. But we eventually lost touch and I haven’t talked to him in years.) *

We sat up talking all night long and watched the sunrise over the ocean. It was wonderful. The unfortunate thing was that we had a show that evening somewhere in the North of Italy. We had to pack up and leave for the airport very early that morning and then drive for several hours to the small town we were playing that night. (The name of that town escapes me right now.) That was a grueling drive, especially without sleep, but it’s also a story for another day.

We ran into That Petrol Emotion and Steve Mack several more times during our road trips. We saw them play in London once where we discovered opening band, The Young Gods, and became immediate fans. Steve insisted that we get there in time to see them or he wouldn’t put us on the guestlist. I’m thankful to him for that to this day. That was also the show were I ran into a very drunk Robyn Hitchcock after the aftershow party. He tried to take the cab I had stopped and I knocked him on his ass in the gutter for his attempt. (I love the Soft Boys, but I’ve never been much of a fan of his solo work and I’ve never been a fan of drunken obnoxiousness, although I’ve been guilty of it myself several times in the past.)

I just recently heard that That Petrol Emotion got back together late last year for some shows in Ireland and are now thinking of doing more shows elsewhere in the world. I hope so. I would love to see them again.

*(As of yesterday, I just made contact with Steve again through Facebook. He’s doing fine and the band is playing the South by Southwest festival. If you’re in Austin during that time, you should go see them. They’ve always been a great live act. I’m hoping they eventually make their way to Los Angeles.)

And that’s it for this week. I’ve got many more stories I’m working on at the moment and I’ll get them up in the space when I can. I’m working on more band stories, including one about the second band I ever worked for, BPeople, and I’m putting together a blog of stories of the days I worked at the one-of-a-kind record store, Vinyl Fetish. I hope to get at least one of them up here before I go to Italy in three weeks. As I said at the beginning of all this, if you have anything to suggest or comment on, please do. I can use all the help you want to give me.

Take care and I’ll see you all again soon.

Thin White Rope in the Land of Christmas Trees

2009-01-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

(Originally posted on MySpace on Sunday, January 11, 2009)

Okay folks, we finally get to another Thin White Rope road story. I know I promised our adventures in Lithuania but I just spent this last week catching up on the Golden Globe nominations for Best Foreign Film. Those last three I needed to see were truly remarkable films. There was ‘The Baader-Meinhoff Complex” from Germany,“Waltz with Bashir” from Israel, and “Everlasting Moments” from Sweden. It was that last film that really amazed me and I feel that it may be my favorite movie of 2008 so far. It was also that film that drove me to change my mind on the road story I wanted to tell. There was a scene in the film where a young girl walks out onto the ice of a frozen lake and the ice cracks with menace. This brought to mind an event that happened during one of our several tours of Sweden and for this month, I think I’d rather tell those stories, leaving Lithuania for next time.

Scandinavia was a strange and distant place to me before our agent finally booked a tour there. We had played Copenhagen once before and I had caught a glimpse of the Swedish shore from there. That show in Copenhagen was extremely successful. We played a free show in a park and close to 10,000 people showed up, about twice as many as the promoters ever expected. So we were anxious to try our hand elsewhere in Scandinavia. When we were told we had dates in Sweden, it was pretty exciting.

(We ended up doing three tours of Sweden, I think, although I don’t remember what years they were in and where the shows fell in those tours. We also used Sweden to launch tours of Finland and Norway, since we had to drive through the country to get to both of them. We actually had to take a huge passenger ferry that was like a floating city to get to Finland, which we did twice, but those are stories for another time.)

Our first time in Sweden consisted of only three shows I think. It came after our second show in Copenhagen, our first club show there, at a strange place called Christiana, which is yet another story for a later time. The day after Christiana, we drove to the coast and boarded a ferry for the short trip across the Øresund strait to Sweden. (Now days, there’s a bridge across that strait and the ferry is no longer needed.)The ferry docked in the port town of Malmo (where a good portion of “Everlasting Moments” takes place) and we made a very short drive north to the college town of Lund where we were to play our first show.

I don’t remember much about this show and how it went. But I do remember a few things that happened. On our way to Lund, we all started joking about Swedish names, referring to everyone, and each other, as Swen or Lars. When we arrived at the venue, which was on a beautiful college campus in town, they showed us to our dressing room, which actually was a locker room under the main hall. The first locker we looked at had a name stenciled on it: Swen Swensen. In our giddy and tour exhausted mood, this just struck us as hilarious and we spent quite a while rolling around in laughter.If the next one would have been Lars Larsen, which it wasn’t, it probably would have killed us. I also remember a great dinner provided by the venue that had a main course consisting of potatoes and eggs that we found unusually delicious(although it also started a new round of jokes about Swedish meatballs, which our hosts seemed to think was funny as well, or maybe they were just being polite).

After Lund, we drove way up north to Stockholm. Here we had a show at some shack just outside of the city. It turned out to be a hard-core punk rock place and somehow we had been booked into it. I remember the owner-promoter as being extremely nice and apologetic, and we were very worried that the punks were going to hate us and we’d never get out of Sweden alive. But we needn’t have worried. The show was not packed, but a good amount of people came out and everything went fine. (This show also played into what we called “The Pig Tour of Europe”, which is something else that will have to wait for another time.) We also had a show in a small town outside of Uppsala, but I’ll be damned if I can remember the name of it. It was at another punk club and that’s all I can remember about it.

The drive in and out of Stockholm was a beautiful one, especially at winter, where it looked like a land of Christmas trees. I was obsessed with seeing a wild moose during these drives, something I never saw during any of our trips, although the jokes about my moose obsession returned for each tour. I think it was Roger who said that one of the nights I was driving in the Swedish countryside; I would eventually see a moose as it ran in front of our van. The last thing I would see was a giant moose head crashing through our windshield. Playing out that situation in my mind seemed pretty funny and at least I would have seen a damned moose, which the locals claimed were all over the place.

I believe we also had a show in Oslo this first tour and it was on our way to this show that we ran into a speed trap on the main highway. The highway patrol would post signs saying that the speed limit was a certain speed and then almost immediately post another sign dropping that speed limit. Then they would just sit on the side of the road and pull over car after car to give a speeding ticket to. I talked about this once before in my stories about our infamous Italian driver, Pino, when he almost got arrested for arguing with the cops. But we quieted him down, paid the fine,and headed to Norway.

Norway was the first, and one of the only, countries to actually pull us over and search us and our van at the border. It was a bit scary, but we got out of that after a bit of time and headed to Oslo. Now the reason I’m talking about this in a series of stories about Sweden is because of the opening band. This was a band called Union Carbide Productions and I was very excited to be doing a show with them. They were from Sweden and the industrial town of Gothenburg. Lydia Lunch had told me all about them and I was dying to see what they were all about.

We arrived at the Oslo venue to find that Union Carbide had arrived earlier and were waiting for us so they could do a sound check. They weren’t provided a dressing room and had no food or drink provided by the club. So we invited them into our room and shared what food and drink we could, as we had plenty of it as according to our rider.

As it grew time for the show, the lead singer, Ebbot Lundberg, approached us dressed in a nice suit and tie and asked if he looked okay. We reassured him that he looked great and time was called for them to hit the stage. I went out on the floor to check them out. It was packed with Norwegians who were drinking rather heavily. Union Carbide hit the stage in a blast of noise and before the first song was half over, Ebbot had stripped off all his clothes and did the set completely naked. They were an amazing, energetic, Stooges-inspired rock band,but for whatever reason, the Norwegian crowd wasn’t buying it and heckled the band through their whole set. I was exhausted and extremely excited when they ended, but the crowd just filed back to the bar.

(This show was also notable because my friend, Fredrik Nilsen, of the BPeople, was living in Norway at the time and came down for the show. It was great to see him, of course, and I think he enjoyed the show quite a lot as well.)

Backstage, Ebbot asked if I thought they were okay and I told him I thought they were great, which he seemed pleased with. Thin White Rope went on shortly afterwards and the drunk crowd went wild. By the end of our set, the dance floor looked like it had been carpeted with drunken Norwegian bodies. People were laying everywhere. I was happy for that reception, but I’ve never understood why they hated Union Carbide so much.

Afterwards, as we were getting ready to leave, the Union Carbide guys came up to us to tell us that they had been stranded. It seemed that their soundman had met some guy and taken off with him and their van and they had no idea where he was or how they were going to get home. There wasn’t much we could do for them, so after an exchange of phone numbers and addresses, we headed off to our hotel.

The next tour, a year later, we had a date in Gothenburg and I gave both Ebbot and guitarist Bjorn Olsson a call and invited them to the show. Ebbot never showed,but Bjorn showed up and seemed depressed. He told me that the band had just split up and he didn’t know what to do. Our show that evening was crazy, with some excited fan leaping onto the mixing desk and collapsing it. Our soundman, Eliott, and I were rushing around trying to patch things together while keeping the show going. While it was a great and exciting show, I was glad when it was over. I was going to talk some more to Bjorn, but he had slipped out sometime during the show.

(I later found out that Union Carbide were typically an unstable group of people.They were constantly breaking up and getting back together and when they were together, craziness like that Oslo show was typical. They actually got back together for two more albums after our Gothenburg show and then split up for good. A year or so later, I heard from Bjorn, wondering of he could stay at my house during an upcoming visit to Los Angeles. I said sure and he showed up for what was to be a week’s stay. More than a month later, he was still visiting and just as I was going to mention to him that perhaps it was time for him to leave, he just disappeared. I heard he was in San Francisco, but never heard from him again until years later when he and Ebbot formed Soundtracks of Our Lives, and I think Bjorn is out of that equally amazing band now as well. Whatever. My time with them started an obsession with Swedish rock bands at the time and I started buying albums like mad. Now I can’t remember any of them.)

We had one more notable time in Sweden. During one of our tours, we had a down period of about 4 or 5 days. We couldn’t afford that much time off, so our Swedish booking agent, a guy named Gunter, I believe, invited us to stay at his house in Hultsfred, where he would shelter us from the winter and feed us. It actually turned out to be a nice time, although I wish we could have had a show there. (There was lots of talk of the band coming back for the Hultsfred Festival, one of Sweden’s biggest rock festivals,but it never happened.) We spent most of the days wandering around town and roaming the woods futilely looking for those elusive moose that everyone told us were everywhere.

One night, we were all pretty bored and drunk, so we decided to walk down by the lake. It was very cold and the lake was frozen with a thick coat of mist resting on the surface. It was beautiful under the moonlight and it wasn’t long in our drunken state that we decided we needed to walk out on the ice. So we started playing a game to see who could get the furthest out before chickening out. One, or sometimes several of us would walk out on the ice until we got scared and then would race back to the shore and the next person or group would see if they could go out further. It got to the point where we were going out far enough that we could hear the ice cracking under our feet and we would race back. It was exhilarating, exciting and, in retrospect, extremely foolish, but it wasn’t the first or last foolish thing that one or all of us would do on tour. When we finally got bored, and went back into the house, Gunter was horrified. We always seemed to get away with these things without injury though. It was this event that would inspire Guy to write the song, “On the Floe”, which showed up on the next album, “Sack Full of Silver”.

We ended up doing another show in Stockholm at a proper club that went really well and got us into the center of the city. I remember that show doing well and that I thought that Stockholm was on of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. And that’s about all I can remember about Sweden.

So, that’s it. I still have stories to tell from Norway, Finland and Denmark. Those will hopefully come later this year. I don’t know what I’ll be back with next week, but something will inspire me, I’m sure. Until then, thanks for reading and enjoy yourselves.

-ML

PS:By the way, as of this week, I’m now on Facebook. If you want to friend me there, and I would love for you to, visit my site: http://www.facebook.com/people/Ml-Compton/1173287479

HAPPY (?!?!) NEW YEARS

2009-01-28T14:59:00.000-08:00

(Originally posted on MySpace on Sunday, January 04, 2009)

Welcome to 2009. Let's hope it's a better year than 2008, although I'm not about to hold my breath waiting. I think this coming year will be a hard one for many people…probably even most people. I've had a few friends ask me how 2009 could be any worse than 2008. Just wait and see. I think the recession/depression is going to get much worse before it gets better, which will probably be a few years away. There are going to be few new jobs and as stores close due to lack of sales, there will be even fewer. That will make more people who can't pay their mortgages, so more people will find themselves homeless. Sorry to rain on the new President's "Hope" parade and I truly hope I'm wrong. We'll see if I'm proved to be mistaken, but I doubt it.

Obama's pissing me off already, but I'm going to try not to criticize him until he actually gets into office and shows his stuff. At the worst, I'm afraid he's going to be another Clinton, but even that will be better than four more years of Bush, which was what McCain offered. I'll be watching Obama with interest over these first six months or so and we'll see if he has it in him to actually get any change done. I hope so, but again, I doubt it.

But enough of this. It's a New Year and I should try to look on the positive side of things. This New Year promises a whole lot of change for Skip and me. Change always excites me, even while it fills me with dread. There are going to be a lot of things different this year, although I'm not prepared to talk about most of those things now. You'll probably here about them as they happen, if they happen. But the big change is our financial situation. We fully expect to run out of money sometime this year and join the ranks of Americans who have lost their homes to unscrupulous banks.

Now, I'm been saying this for a few years and it always seems that we find money someplace every time just as we're about to pack it in. Even this year we've received a few months reprieve due to Skip's auto accident. As I said before, the car was totaled and Skip was pretty banged up, although uninjured except for the bruises. When we first contacted our insurance agent we were told that we would get between $4,000 and $5,000 for it. But now we've received the final assessment and we're actually getting over $10,000 for it, after our deductable! This is really good news as it gives us enough money to fix up our old car so we can take it out of town and it enables us to stay in the house for another couple of months. With any luck, we'll make it into summer and possibly even through it depending on how much of this stuff we have sitting around our house that I can sell on the internet.

I'm not stupid or irresponsible enough to not admit that part of this money problem is our own fault. We travel a lot and we love expensive restaurants. But we look at it this way. We can not go to Argentina and then we'll save about $3000 (which is what a normal vacation costs us). That will allow us to stay in the house another month. So we have the choice of just staying here and losing the house anyways, although a month later, or we go to Argentina, which we won't get a chance to go to again that we know of. You know the choice we made. We both want to live our lives to the fullest while we're alive. I would rather die an early death and travel and eat great food than live a long life sitting in front of the TV and eating McDonalds. I already sit in front of the TV enough in my life. We've made a conscious choice to live the way we do and I don't regret a minute of it, even if we do end up homeless later this year. But like I said, we always seem to find our way to another year and I have faith that we'll do so again.

Of course, it would help if either of us could actually find a job. I mean, I could find a job at Wal-Mart or Home Depot, although I can make as much money doing what I'm doing now, selling things on the internet, so why bother? (The health insurance would help though and that's the one reason that may have me working at one of these soulless places later this year.) And again, we'll see if the government under Obama can help this situation.

In the meantime, we're not going to worry about it. The future will bring what it brings. I'm going to concentrate now on our upcoming visit to Italy in March during our 29th anniversary together. We're also planning a short trip to Arizona to visit my family at the end of this month if we can get our car fixed up enough to make it there. We'll probably spend a few days in Las Vegas as well if we can. I'm dying to eat Bobby Flay's food. After that, we have no concrete plans, which is weird since I usually have most of the year booked up at the beginning of January. But we'll have to wait and see what the situation is later this year. I would love to get to Thailand or even back to Argentina to visit the wine regions.

As for 2008, I usually fill this space with my year-end best of lists. My Top Friends list on my home page is full of things I liked in 2008, so you can check that out.

Every year for as long as I remember I've written a best-of music list. This is the first year I won't have one. The problem is that I didn't really listen to any records this year. I bought only 15 CDs in the last twelve months, which has to be a record for the least I've ever bought since I turned 16 years old. There's no real reason for this except I just didn't feel like buying more. I still hear lots of music I like; I just didn't get around to buying it. Here's what I did buy:

American Music Club – The Golden Age
B-52s – Funplex
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
Cold War Kids – Loyalty to Loyalty
Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
Deerhunter – Microcastle/Weird Era Continued The Fall – Imperial Wax Solvent Mark E. Smith (of the Fall) and Ed Blaney – Smith and Blaney Magnetic Morning – EP and A.M.
No Age – Nouns
Conor Orbest – Conor Orbest
Portishead – Third
Spiritualized – Songs in A & E
TV on the Radio – Dear Science
Wire – Object 47

I also picked up a promo-only Real Tuesday Weld retrospective that was released by their American publishing company.

With the exception of the two Fall albums (which are great) and the Wire CD (which I found disappointing on my one listening), I haven't taken the time to listen to any of them. I don't know why. For a whole year, I just haven't felt the need. In the meantime, I still go to lots of live shows and I listen to music on the radio (Indie103.1), TV (late night talk shows and NewNowNext on Logo) and on MySpace. It's because of this that I bought these albums when I heard something I really liked. Then I didn't listen to them. I also got a Zune for my birthday and now it just sits here on my desk. I haven't found the time to download any music into it. This has all got to change this year and I do resolve to make more time for the pursuit of music. Music has always been very important in my life and it still is. It's just that so many other things have become important as well, especially food, drink and travel. Film has also become more important to me, especially animated film. If I was in my teens now, I don't know if I would choose to pursue music any more. I think I may have chosen to go to cooking school or into animation instead. Both obsess me these days.

I can say that there is a lot I love on TV. My favorite TV shows this year were:

Comanche Moon
Pioneers of Television
Breaking Bad
Lost
Battlestar Galactica
30 Days
Long Way Down
Mad Men
Dexter
The Shield
Sons of Anarchy

I also quite like Chuck, Heroes, My Own Worst Enemy, Terminator: the Sarah Conner Chronicles, Samantha Who, Fringe, Top Chef, Top Design, Project Runway, Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Ugly Betty, Survivor, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Desperate Housewives, Lipstick Jungle, Kyle XY, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Nip/Tuck, Damages, Psyche, Burn Notice, Californication, Medium, Amazing Race, Reaper, and a whole lot more that I just can't remember now. I watch way too much TV and will probably continue to do so through 2009. I think most of these shows are at least as good as movies that showed up in theatres this year.

As for movies, I'll discuss those at the end of February, just before the Academy Awards broadcast. That gives me time to catch up on several movies I still want to see before I set my list in stone.

My favorite meals this year, in no particular order, were at:

Bazaar
Chung King
Craft
Destrito (Philadelphia)
Foundry on Melrose
Il Moro
Incanto (San Francisco)
Napa Rose
Osteria Mozza
Palate Food & Wine
Providence
Spago

And just about every meal in Buenos Aires.

I only had time to read two and a half books this year and since the only new book I read was by my friend Paula Yoo, I have to say that the best book I read this year was her young adult novel "Good Enough". It really was great and it probably would have ended up on a top ten list if I would have read more than ten books. (I bought two other new books this year. "Maps and Legends" by Michael Chabon and "The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America" by David Hajdu. But I haven't had time to read either of them.)

That's about it. I'm just going to sit back and watch as our new year develops. Even in my cynicism I'm hoping for the best. After the last eight years, it would be wonderful if this one would finally be a good one from beginning to end.

Of course, I can't let a new year present itself without a rant. Right now there's something that's particularly bugging me and I should just get it out before it grows and festers.

I'm really bothered by the newest trend in reinterpreting words. This new reinterpretation seems to have flowed from the pro-Proposition 8 crowd and I've just about had enough of it.

First of all, this comes from many of the black voters who voted to pass the proposition. It seems that many of these voters don't think that gay rights falls under the civil rights banner. They seem to think that civil rights means black rights and that's were it ends. I read one voter say something like "Civil rights is about jobs, not about your sexual choices". Others have expressed dismay at gays fighting for their rights being compared to the black struggle. Hey, it's not like gays have ever lost jobs for being who they are. It's not like gays have ever been killed for being who they are. Our struggle is nothing like their struggle.

These people need to grow up and join the real world. There are fundamental differences between the gay rights struggle and the black rights struggle, but at the core, they are both for the same thing. Both struggles are for the right to live as you are born, the same as every other person supposedly has the right to. This denial of gay rights as civil rights reminds me of the whole "blacks can't be racist" arguments that were around a decade or so ago. That argument was stupid and it thankfully died out rapidly. Hopefully this new argument will die out just as rapidly because it's not based on anything except bigotry.

This brings us to the biggest thing bugging the hell out of me. That's the argument that religious people are not bigots just because they are against gay rights. They argue that it's all about religious freedom and not based on bigotry at all. That argument is, of course, bullshit at its finest. The "American Heritage Dictionary" defines a bigot as: "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ." Webster's Dictionary defines a bigot as: "a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion". Both of these definitions, and many more I looked up on other dictionaries, all describe these religious people who now claim they aren't bigots at all. Again, they need to join the real world. Religion isn't an excuse. A bigot is a bigot and no amount of crying about religious freedom is going to change that. You can't change the definition just because you don't like that it applies to you.

And that brings me to one positive thing that has come out of the passing of Proposition 8. For years now I've been decrying the passiveness of our so called gay leaders. The Human Rights Campaign and Geoffrey Kors of Equality California have especially pissed me off with their seemingly "let's be nice" attitude towards protest. The passing of Proposition 8 has proved that attitude to be as wrong and ineffectual as I've been saying it was for the better part of the last decade. And now these gay leaders are on the way out, replaced by a slew of young queers who understand how the world really works and are willing to take it on forcefully. These new leaders are also not afraid to reach out to those black and Hispanic voters who are still living in the dark ages, to get them to realize that unless everyone is free, no one will be free. The older guard seemed to fear these people and excluded them from every plan they came up with. This "changing of the guard" is a very positive thing and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for the gay rights struggle with these new people leading the charge.

Okay. That's enough for this week. Next week I plan to finally get to those Thin White Rope in Lithuania stories I've been promising for several months now. I'm going to try to get to road stories more often in the future. Until then, thanks for reading and enjoy your life. Let's keep our fingers crossed for this New Year and hope for the best.

The Year End Note

2009-01-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

(Originally posted on MySpace on Sunday, December 28, 2008)

Well folks, Once again I have to let you down. I know I promised you all another Thin White Rope road story and up until a day or so ago, I was planning on writing it all down for you. But I've just been too busy this last week catching up on movies and eating great meals to sit down and write much. The story I wanted to tell, about the band's Lithuanian shows during the Soviet tour in 1988, is just too long of a tale and I don't want to skimp on it at all. I WILL get to it in January. I know its been way too long since I last told a tour story, so maybe I'll even get to a couple of them next month if something else doesn't distract me from them. But I will get to at least the Lithuanian one.

2009 is going to be a year of big changes for Skip and me. I'll get to talking about those sometime next month as well. One of those changes is a small one and pertains to this blog. After today, I'm going to drop the reviews as a regular item. I just don't enjoy writing them much. But I do enjoy turning other people on to things I'm enthusiastic about, so I'll still write an occasional column when I'm really crazy about something. I'll probably end each blog with a few recommendations that will just have the title (movie, TV, music, etc) and some stars after it. Feel free to contact me if you want to know more about something. I'm always happy to discuss things with people and yammer on about something I like.

I'm going to be pretty busy this week as well. We're seeing several more movies ("Last Chance Harvey" with Dustin Hoffman doing a Q&A, "The Changeling", "The Reader" and possibly "I've Loved You So Long") and we're spending New Year's Eve at Disneyland once again with a great meal at our favorite Napa Rose restaurant. Our New Year's Eve is going to be great. I just hope the following New Year will be as well. It remains to be seen. But we'll discuss all that in the near future.

Until then, have a great time this week. Don't get too drunk and if you do, be safe. I'll see you back here next week with some more un-poetic waxing. Take care and HAPPY NEW YEAR'S!!!

The Buenos Aires Chronicles - Part Three

2009-01-28T14:54:00.002-08:00

(Originally posted on MySpace on Sunday, December 21, 2008)

There are so many more distractions this week, all of them of the personal nature instead of the political. (Well, except the Rick Warren thing, but I don't fell that's as big of a deal as some people seem to think it is.) The roof of our house decided to spring a whole slew of leaks during our recent rain storm and I awoke to find the kitchen looked like a built-in swimming pool. On the same day, the kitchen sinks backed up and everything smelled like rotting vegetables. Then, that evening, Skip hit a patch of icy water and lost control of the car. He totaled it. He's banged up, but okay. But we can't afford to buy another car, even with the insurance payout (which we expect to be only around $5000). We have a second car, but it's in bad condition and I don't trust driving it anywhere but close by. (When I drove it to pick Skip up, it wouldn't start again once I got there and the tow truck had to give us a jump start.) We'll have to try to fix that piece of crap up. With all these costs, we may have to cancel our trip to Rome, but we'll see how it goes over the next couple of months. This type of thing always seems to happen to us at the end of every year, but this year is so much more…intense…than past years. When it rains, it pours…no pun intended.

So okay folks! Here we go with the final three days of our trip to Buenos Aires. Next week I'll be back with a Thin White Rope tour story. I just have to decide what story to tell, but I think it's going to be a story that took place during our Soviet Union tour in Lithuania, where I was colder than I've ever been in my life. After that, it will be a new year and I have a lot to talk about, including the best of 2008 and what the future holds for 2009. But now, let's return to Argentina, where Skip and I are just waking after a visit to Uruguay the day before.

Check out the other two segments of this report here: http://www.myspace.com/melcompton and Skip's trip photos here: http://community.webshots.com/user/kingcompton.

On Sunday October 19th, we woke early and were met by a large van outside the hotel. We were packed in with a bunch of other tourists and taken to the square that was just across the street from the Casa Rosado. At that point, we were told that we had half an hour and we were urged to walk down the street where a street fair was going on. There were lots of leather goods for sale cheap, but it really didn't interest us much, so we walked back to the square and after a short wait, we were all herded onto a large bus for the trip to the Pampas. This was a drive that lasted a couple of hours, with one stop at a gas station for a bathroom break and some yummy empanadas for snacks.

We finally arrived at Fiesta Gaucha Don Silvano (http://www.donsilvano.com/english/index.php), which is a sprawling ranch in the middle of a countryside that reminded me of the Inland Empire region of Southern California (Riverside, San Bernardino). I was really looking forward to riding some horses with the gauchos. I partially grew up on a ranch in Northern California and loved horseback riding. Although I haven't done it in years, I was a pretty good rider and the thought of running through the Argentine countryside on a horse sounded like the best thing in the world to me at that moment.

Unfortunately, we arrived to find a rather touristy, almost theme-park version of a gaucho ranch, although it was a working ranch. The horseback riding consisted of a bunch of tired looking horses that trudged around a large field, looking rather depressed and hungry. I opted out of that. It didn't look fun at all.

When we first arrived, we were shown to a shack where we were handed our choice of empanadas and then led to an area where we were briefed on our afternoon on the ranch. We could ride the depressed horses, shop for cheap leather goods, go visit some of the other dozen or so animals caged in a livestock area, or drink heavily and wander around aimlessly. We choose the later. Eventually, there was to be a huge lunch held in the barn with entertainment that included song and dance. After lunch would be a gaucho demonstration of horse and roping skills. And then we would all head home.

The place was extremely crowded, but it seemed to be mostly local Argentines instead of foreign tourists. We asked about that and we were told that it was Argentina's Mother's Day and families were out in force to celebrate with their matriarchs. We also asked about the lunch and the head gaucho told us that it would be opening in about an hour and that we could head in any time. He stressed that there was no hurry and we should take the time to see the ranch. But we noticed a huge line already forming at the door, so we decided to stay close by.

About a half hour later the doors opened and everyone jammed inside. We waited for awhile to let everything calm down and then walked to the door, only to have our tour guide rush us in, telling us that everyone was waiting. We were led to our table to find everyone already sitting and talking and drinking beer, wine and water. So we joined right in. We were seated across from a Mexican woman and her daughter, who now lived in San Diego, and right next to four loud and crazy Dutch people, who seemed to be having the time of their lives and were noisily letting everyone else know it. After a short period of irritation, we started finding them to be lots of fun though, perhaps because we were catching up to them in inebriation.

As soon as one wine or beer bottle would empty, a full one would replace it. Then the food started arriving and I thought that it would never stop. There were sides of salads and potatoes. There were local chorizo sausages and earthy and wonderful black sausages (that most of the tourists wouldn't touch). There was grilled chicken, beef, pork and mutton. And there was ice cream and dolce de leche for dessert. It was endless and didn't end until we begged the servers to stop.

While this food orgy was going on, a man took the stage with a guitar and introduced himself as that afternoon's master of ceremonies. Before the show, they had asked where everyone came from, and the man now started playing national anthems and theme songs from each of the countries represented. Every now and then, one of the tourists from that country would get up on stage and sing the song with the man. I found it curious that when he got to the United States, he sang, "When the Saints Go Marching In"! It was a strange choice.

After he got done with his musical tour of the world, he introduced a pair of dancers, who took us through the history of Argentine dance, including some beautiful versions of the Tango. It was during this that the dancers decided that they wanted some audience participation. Making a beeline down several aisles and through the crowd, the female dancer went directly to me, and despite protests, managed to drag me out of my seat and up to the front of the stage where several other tourists were trying to learn the dance steps. I was full of meat and woozy with alcohol, but I do remember bouncing around embarrassingly with the dancer for a few minutes before she kissed me on the cheek and allowed me to return to the relative safety of my seat. Thankfully, Skip was also tipsy enough to forget to take pictures of the incident, although I'm sure some tourists somewhere has all the blackmail material they need on a digital camera to keep me in their employ if the need should arise.

The lunch broke up shortly after that and we all headed out to the field to watch some well built cowboys, or gauchos, ride horses, rope inanimate objects and pluck rings from posts that enabled them to requests kisses from various females in the audience. It was actually quite entertaining and despite the touristy aspect of the whole afternoon, Skip and I decided we had really had a great time out there.

We were all packed back on the bus, except the Dutch tourists who decided to spend the night out there, and a few hours later, we found ourselves back in front of our hotel. We only had a few minutes to get ready before we had to leave to walk to the Niceto Club (http://www.nicetoclub.com) where we were slated to see Mudhoney (http://www.myspace.com/mudhoney), a grungy rock band from Seattle. I'm not the biggest Mudhoney fan, but I enjoy them and the chance to see an American band in a setting like this was too much to pass up on. And it was great. It was packed in the typical rock club (they're the same all over) and the kids went crazy, practically swinging from the rafters. The band responded in kind with a blistering set of Stooges inspired rock.

I had introduced myself to the manager of the opening band, Los Natas (http://www.myspace.com/losnatasrock), during their set because I was enjoying them. They were the perfect Subpop-like band to open for Mudhoney. He invited me to their after show party, but towards the end of their set, they brought on their lead singer, who was missing for the first two-thirds for some reason. He was horrible, like some bad copy of David Lee Roth. So I passed on the party because I didn't want to face the band and tell them they should dump the idiot. (Although looking at their Myspace page, it looks like the idiot has been dumped.)

Instead, we walked down the street and had some great Argentine pizza and beer at a late-night restaurant called Pekin. It was delicious and after a few more beers, we walked the rest of the way to the hotel and called it a night. After the events of the day, we were exhausted.

We decided that for our last two days, we would take it easy and just see a few things that we hadn't had time to make it to yet. It was Monday the 20th and we woke up and took the subway a few stops and then walked down to Cementerio de la Recoleta (http://www.cementeriorecoleta.com.ar). Along the way, we stopped at a small place called La Juvenil, where we bought a selection of empanadas and dolce de leche for brunch. Recoleta is the cemetery that Eva Peron is buried at, which makes it a must see tourist destination for anyone visiting the city. It was absolutely gorgeous, reminding me of the cemeteries around New Orleans, where all the dead rest in mausoleums above the ground. Here, they were huge and beautiful. Some were classically done. Others were art deco in style. We spent several hours walking around looking at these structures and visiting with the wild cats that made their home there. And we visited Eva Peron's resting place, which had the largest crowd around it, of course.

Our plan was to walk back to the subway and take it out to the Puerto since we were having dinner in the area that evening, but we ran into a wine store on the way and found a couple of bottles and a fake Anvil wine case, that we had to have, so we ended up buying those and taking them back to the hotel. Then we made our way to the Puerto because we wanted to spend some time walking around the marshes that surround the area and were supposed to be an amazing wildlife preserve according to our tourist's books. But when we got there, we found the whole area closed off, so we just walked around the outskirts for awhile and peered in, which allowed us to see a few birds and plants growing nearby. We never did find out why that was closed, although there was a heavy homeless presence there, so we thought that might have something to do with it.

So instead we walked into the Puerto and ended up at a restaurant called Asia de Cuba (http://www.asiadecuba.com.ar), which I believe is a world-wide chain, where we enjoyed more wine and ate some light appetizers that weren't very good. The restaurant we were having dinner at was a ways away, in the San Telmo region, so we left and slowly made our way to the address. We arrived much earlier than we thought we would, so we settled into a bar across the street, Territorio Bar y Provisiones, where we enjoyed even more wine. And when the time came, we walked over to the restaurant, which was very crowded, and after a very short wait, we were taken upstairs and seated next to a party of Argentines who were eating very enthusiastically.

The restaurant, La Brigada (http://www.labrigada.com) is considered one of the best parrillas in the city. A parrilla specializes in grilled meats, much like you get in the pampas with the gauchos. As per our other restaurant experiences, this one included tons of meat and great wines. My favorite thing was the short rib roast, which is one of the only cuts of meat in the country that is recommended to be served very rare. I have never had short ribs that weren't cooked like a pot roast, falling off the bone. These were grilled rare and were delicious. Afterwards, there was a whole menu containing nothing but desserts and after a short time to look through the dozens offered, I decide on crepes filled with dolce de leche, which is always a good choice. The place was almost like a big party and everyone was talking and enjoying the company of the tables around them. Our waiter was quite a character and his friendliness, and that of our neighbors, helped make the meal one of our best.

Afterwards, the restaurant called a cab for us and we went back to the hotel. It was our last night there and we made the best of it by sitting up and drinking wine with Rodrigo. Then it was to bed, so we could at least get a little done on our last day.

We woke up and decided that we didn't feel like going anywhere, so we walked over to Oro & Candido for lunch. It was a great lunch of new Andean food and we enjoyed a llama Carpaccio and some yacare on a stick, which is a small alligator found along the rivers in Argentina. We talked at length to the owner this time and discovered he used to live here in Los Angeles, and we talked about the vast differences between the two cities.

But we were running out of time and we wanted to see Nacho again, so we made our goodbyes and left to go to the Lobby Wine Bar. There we gave Nacho an Andrew Murray baseball cap, and took a picture of him in it so we could send it to Andrew. We also enjoyed another bottle of wine. As we made our goodbyes to Nacho and his staff, he presented us with a bottle of wine that he said was one of his favorites. (We drank it once we got home and it was wonderful.) And with that, we were gone, although Skip and I are going to get a bottle of the Andrew Murray Roasted Slope Syrah that Nacho is so obsessed with and send it to him. We wanted to get it to him before Christmas, but still haven't found the exact bottle we want. We'll get it to him soon though and Nacho can finally try it. I suspect he'll love it.

When we got back to the hotel, we found our cab driver waiting there already. Earlier that day, we wanted to take advantage of the return fare discount that was offered to us on our initial cab ride from the airport. So Rodrigo called the company and arranged for the cab to meet us in time to get to the airport with a couple hours to spare. But the guy was about an hour and half early and we didn't want to leave that soon and just sit around the airport. We would rather sit around the hotel and drink and talk to Rodrigo. The cab driver didn't seem to mind and we invited him in for a glass of wine, which he turned down. After a bottle or so of wine, it was time to leave, so we got our luggage and made our goodbyes to the wonderful staff of Che Lulu. And with that, we were gone on our final drive through the city to the airport.

We arrived and gave the driver a giant tip, which I'm sure made his wait really worthwhile and made our way into check-in, where we found out that our suitcase weighed too much and we had to pay about $100 in excess fees. Next time we'll know to bring two suitcases, even if one is empty on the way over. Then we found out we had to pay airport fees and they got us for another $50 or so. But we finally found our way out of there, through customs and on the plane. It was early evening and once again we were flying at night. But this time I had no problem sleeping. A day later, after another short stop in Miami, we were home.

As I said in my initial thoughts, I really loved Buenos Aires. ArgentinaSouth Africa did. It was very foreign, but intriguing and inviting. After Cape Town, I was obsessed with Africa and wanted to go back to every country, something I would still like to do. I feel the same way about South America now. It's strange, but very inviting, society that has a history built on revolutions, dictatorships and strife. I find it all terribly interesting and look forward to experiencing more of it in the future. The more places I travel, the less I feel like I'm strictly an American. With each trip, I feel more like I live in this world and not just in this country. It's a feeling I like and it's a feeling I wish more people had. Perhaps the world wouldn't be filled with so many human problems if they did.

The Buenos Aires Chronicles - Part Two

2009-01-28T14:54:00.001-08:00

(Originally posted on MySpace on Sunday, December 14, 2008)

There are so many diversions this week. There's that washed up singer/actor, Pat Boone, stating that gay activists are just like the terrorist Muslims who shot up Mumbai. There is the Reverend Richard Cizik, a top evangelical Christian, who was forced to step down when he stated in an interview that he had reversed his opinion and was now for gay unions. There's the Bush administration, who are wasting no time in their last month in power making it easier for their friends in big business at the expense of the environment (not to mention many other sneaky actions aimed at abortion rights). There're the deaths of Bettie Page, Van Johnson and Forrest Ackerman. And on the bright side, there's Disneyland and its 2008 Christmas celebration that includes a magical "snow" down Main Street USA.

But I promised Buenos Aires and that's what you're gonna get. I'll have to revisit everything else after the first of the year. Again, Skip's pictures of our trip can be found at: http://community.webshots.com/user/kingcompton.

I left off at the end of our second day in the city, when we met an American couple from Oregon who were going to hang around, but suddenly disappeared the next morning. While we enjoyed sitting up most of the night and talking to the pair of them, they had this story about how the were supposed to stay with a friend for five weeks, but when they arrived, they found out that he had been deported to Lebanon, although he was an American, and now they had no place to stay, which was why they were checked into the hotel. Whatever! They disappeared and we never found out exactly what was going on. We were probably better off for it.

That next morning was Thursday October 16. After we woke up and realized the Americans were gone, we decided to have lunch at a local wine bar we had wanted to try out. This bar was about a 15 minute walk away in the Palermo Hollywood section of town. It was called the Lobby (http://www.lobbybsas.com.ar). As with most bars in Buenos Aires, it was also a small restaurant. We sat and enjoyed a couple of great sandwiches and tried several glasses of wine. It was at that point that the owner, a guy named Ignacio Issazadeh, or Nacho for short, introduced himself and sat down to talk with us about wine. He had a great bar there and it was full of the best of the Argentine wineries, but he was curious about American wines. He had seen very few outside of the big names that make it everywhere in the world. We got to talking about the movie "Sideways", which he loved. He told us that his favorite part was when Miles and Maya were talking in her apartment and drinking an Andrew Murray wine. He was dying to try that wine. We told him that we knew Andrew Murray that we would be back later in the week with a present for him.

At that point, Nacho had to go talk with a woman from one of the Mendoza wineries, Barrandica, but he came back a few minutes later with glasses of her wine for us to try. They were all interested in what we thought, and as expected, we thought it was wonderful. That started a conversation about Mendoza and we were told by both Nacho and the lady from the winery that if we ever returned, they could arrange for a place to stay and some insider tours of many of the wineries there. We hope to take them up on it someday soon. (Skip has the lady's card filled away somewhere and I can't find it right now.)

But it was time to leave, so we walked up and around Palermo Hollywood to the Niceto Club, where we bought tickets to the upcoming Mudhoney show and then walked down to the subway station and took a train to downtown. We were eating dinner that night on the Puerto, so decided to spend the time walking around the city and looking at some of its oldest buildings. We spent a few hours hunting these buildings down and finding some beautiful places. Then we made our way to Puerto Madero and dinner at Cabana Las Lilas (http://www.laslilas.com/restaurant.php), one of the most popular steakhouses in town.

This restaurant is so popular, that even at the early hour of 7:30, when we arrived, it was packed. We didn't have reservations. The hotel had called for us the day before, but we were told that it was completely booked. We thought that if we just showed up, they might find a place for us. At first we were told that we would have an hour or more wait, but after talking to the receptionist for a few minutes, she took a liking to us. Walking us to a prime table, she whisked off the "reserved" sign and told us she hoped we would enjoy ourselves. There was no reason to worry about that as the place was fantastic. We were once again filled with amazing meat and wine and the meal ended with two large bottles, one filled with grappa and the other with lemoncello, placed at our table on the house! We took full advantage of that and left full and extremely happy, thanking the receptionist once again on the way out.

(While we ate meat once again, we were intrigued by the Patagonic Spider Crab entrée that was listed on the menu. We promised ourselves that we would come back and try that, but we never got the chance.)

We decided to walk to the subway and go back to the hotel. Unfortunately, full of food and various alcoholic spirits, we got our bearings mixed up and ended up lost in a dark and lightly populated part of the city. About an hour later, around 10:30, we found our way back to the Obelisco and the subway station, only to find out that the subway closes around 10 PM. I found it to be absolutely ridiculous that the city's subway system would close so early when the city is such a late night place, but some bad logic somewhere dictated the rules and we found ourselves stranded too far to walk with no option but to grab one of the dreaded cabs we had been warned not to take.

I put my hand out and a cab stopped almost immediately. We climbed in to find a driver who spoke no English and could not make heads or tales out of the address we were giving him. So we pulled out our trusty Frommer's guide and found a map, pointing to the place that the hotel was at. He headed right off and took us straight to the hotel. There were no threats, robbery attempts or pretending to drive around the city to force the fare up. The only problem I saw was that people there drive like maniacs and I spent a good portion of the trip white knuckling the seat in front of me while hiding my eyes from the accident that seemed to be about to happen at any time. (Skip seemed to think it was all well, which says something about the way he drives.)

Back at the hotel, we sat up with Rodrigo again, drinking wine and talking until 1 AM or so and then hit the sack for a deep sleep.

On Friday, we awoke to another bright, shiny spring day and took the subway into town so we could have lunch at the Marriott Plaza Hotel's Plaza Grill (http://www.marriott.com/hotels/hotel-information/restaurant/buear-marriott-plaza-hotel-buenos-aires/). The Plaza Hotel is close to 100 years old and is one of the most expensive and traditional hotels in the city. It's where the rich, famous and powerful stay. The Plaza Grill restaurant in the hotel is a favorite amongst businessmen and is one of the only places in the city to still get that old-style formal experience of dining. It's sort of like their version of the old Hollywood restaurant Musso and Frank's Grill. It's also considered formal dress, but when we showed up in bluejeans and untucked shirts, they seated us among the suited businessmen without batting an eyelid. As expected, it was a beautiful room and a wonderful experience. It's the type of place where the waiters bring out the dishes under silver domes and then pull them away at the same time to expose the food to your view. Once again, our waiters took a liking to us and poured some special wines for us to try on the house. We had a blast and it was a wonderful meal. We left another restaurant full and very happy.

We had to go back to our hotel early as we had booked a guide to take us to a soccer game that night. We wanted to experience soccer in this country as it should be experienced, but we were afraid to try it on our own. We knew the stories about hooligans and crazy fans and considering we couldn't speak the language, we figured it would be safer to pay someone to take care of us. It was also more expensive as we paid over $100 US for the privilege. But everything else we spent money on there was so cheap and we decided it we were better off safe than dead.

Our guide showed up with a bus and about a dozen other tourists he had picked up from other hotels. The drive was a long one into the west side of the city where subways didn't go. It was interesting to see this part of the city that few tourists venture into. We arrived at our stadium to find that streets had been blocked off for two blocks around the place. People could walk in, but driving was not allowed. We got off the bus and followed our guide through the heavy crowd to a stairway on the side of the stadium. We were patted down and sent through a metal detector and then we had to walk up about five flights, where we were led to our seats, which were perched over the field right at the center line. Cokes and suspicious looking hotdogs were offered, but we had eaten our big lunch, so we passed on them. We found out that beer and alcohol had been banned from games several decades ago.

It was about a half hour before the game and everything was already on the verge of pandemonium. The stadium was divided into sections and each section was surrounded by chain link fences topped with barbed wire, and in a few cases, electrical wires. The fanatical home team fans had all been placed at the head of the field. The visiting team fans were crowded into a much smaller space at the other end of the field. In these enclosures with the fans were full groups of musicians and colorful banners were hung over the edges and down the isles of each section. One group of fans would start a chant backed by their musicians. Then the other group would chant louder. The original group would even get louder and it would go back and forth until it sounded like a sonic boom.

We were told that we were rooting for the home team, which was the Argentinos. When the players arrived on the field, they were brought on through an inflatable tunnel onto the middle of the field. That way, opposing fans could not throw debris on them from the seats. As soon as play started, the fans on each side went wild, chanting, singing, and jumping around. It was like a zoo full of crazed apes. The game itself was a thing of beauty. I love soccer and have seen some of the greats play, including the legendary David Beckham, but I have never seen such an aggressive show of choreographed ball control as this one. These players were incredible. It was wonderful to watch and a little bit painful as they had no qualms about taking out a player on the opposing team in any way they could and red and yellow cards were flashed frequently. The fans went apeshit through the whole thing.

It finally ended with our home team winning by three points. While the home fans celebrated in the stands, the visiting team fans were let out. We were told that we had to stay put for 45 minutes or so. The police were making sure all the visiting fans were put on busses and cleared out of the area. They didn't want any fights breaking out. After the police were sure it was safe, we were finally let out of our section and made our way down the stairs to the street and our bus. By this time everything was completely calm.

Then we had a long drive back to the hotel. At one point we passed several police cars that were full of German Shepherds. There were probably about ten dogs in each car and each car was also full of police men. The dogs seemed happy sitting in the officer's laps and hanging out the windows, but it was a strange and somewhat disturbing sight.

We had enjoyed ourselves tremendously, but we were glad we had paid the extra money to our guide to take care of everything. We would have had no idea what we were doing and we easily could have ended up sitting someplace that would have gotten us bashed or worse. I've seen games played in Europe several times and they were exciting as well. But I've never seen anything as on the edge as this game was. I was thrilled.

Back at the hotel, it was about 10:30 and we decided we were hungry. We didn't want to go back to the Mexican restaurant, so we asked Rodrigo for a suggestion and once again he told us we should go to Oro & Candido around the corner. This time we took him up on it and we were glad we did.

Oro & Candido (http://www.oroycandido.com.ar) is a small restaurant and store that bills itself as serving "new Andean" food. Skip decided to try a pasta from the menu, which were raviolis filled with minced water buffalo meat. I had a special entrée for that evening, a lamb roll that was served on a bed of several types of Andean fingerling potatoes. Both our dishes were wonderful, but my potatoes were something special. There were about six or seven kinds, from a regular looking white potato, the purple potatoes and an amazing green potato that had a peppery bite to it. Dessert was a cake filled with dulce de cayote, or spaghetti squash jam. The menu was full of other weird items, so once again we swore to ourselves that we would return and try some of these other items we would never find here at home.

On Saturday, we woke early as we had to get down to the Buquebus ferry to take the boat over to Colonia Del Sacramento in Uruguay. The ferry ride was an hour (by fast boat – three hours by slow) across the bay to one of the oldest towns in Uruguay. It has been preserved to look like the original town and is one of the top tourists' destinations in the country. The ride over was fine. We just sat in seats and drank wine. To go upstairs and look out of windows cost a first class ticket and we decided we didn't need to splurge for this trip.

Once we got there, we went through customs and entered the city, grabbing maps at a tourist kiosk on the way. It was a nice enough town and we had fun climbing the narrow stairway up to the top of the local lighthouse to see the sights from the sky. After about an hour of sightseeing, we ended up at a small restaurant called Pulperia de los Faroles, where we enjoyed a small lunch. I had fresh palm hearts that had been baked in cheese and then placed on a bed of fresh spinach. I had never had fresh palm hearts before, although I love the canned ones that can be found on grocery shelves in the States. But the fresh ones were creamy and wonderful and the dish turned out to be one of my favorites during this vacation.

After lunch we walked around the city some more, but we quickly got bored and decided to go back to the ferry and try to get on the 6 o'clock ferry back instead of the 8:30 o'clock one we were booked on. Unfortunately we were told that it was completely booked, so we headed back into town trying to figure out how we were going to spend these extra hours.

There, we ran into the Radisson Hotel and Casino and noticed a restaurant inside. When we entered, we were told that they only served guests, but after a short talk with the manager, we got him to agree to let us sit on their patio and drink some wine while the sun set over the water. We ended up drinking two bottles of wine, both of them Uruguayan and both of them wonderful. We had no idea they had such amazing wines there. Just like the Argentines though, the hotel staff got worried about us drinking without food and before we knew they brought us a huge plate of cheeses, meats and fruits on the house! It made for a wonderful time. It's been awhile since I've seen something as lovely as the sun setting over that ocean.

But we finally decided that it was time to make our way back to the ferry and thanking our hosts, we left and calmly walked the 15 minutes to the dock. There we were met with panic. It seemed that there was a time change that afternoon and the ferry was scheduled to leave in five minutes, not the hour we thought we had. (We thought it was 7:25 at the moment, but it was actually 8:25.) No one had bothered to tell us about that time change. I would have thought it would have been mentioned when we bought our tickets. Plus, who schedules a time change in the middle of the afternoon? Whatever. We were rushed through customs and practically thrown on the boat just as the gangplank was being lifted. And we were on our way back to Argentina.

It was on this ferry trip that we ran into the only two assholes we experienced during the whole vacation. These were two guys working at the bar. They decided to give Skip some shit for some reason and wouldn't sell him a drink, claiming the bar was closed, although they kept serving other people. We told them in no uncertain terms what they could do to themselves and that led to security guards watching us closely the rest of the trip, which fortunately was over rather quickly.

After another trip through customs, we were glad to be back in Buenos Aires. We had just enough time to make it to the subway before it closed and before we knew it, we were back at our hotel, where we sat and talked and drank with Rodrigo before hitting the sack earlier than we were used to. We had an early morning date with the Gauchos the next morning.

And that's it for this week. I'll be back next week with the last three days of the trip.

The Buenos Aires Chronicles - Part One

2009-01-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

(Originally posted on MySpace on Sunday, December 07, 2008)

Hey folks. Today you're going to get the first part of my report on my recent trip to Buenos Aires. I've been trying to decide how to document this trip. My first thought was to divide it into categories; such as food, wine, culture, sport, etc. But that idea just didn't seem to work very well. So I'm back at the tried-and-true formula of unfolding the trip in day-by-day episodes. That worked fine for Cape Town and I guess it will work fine for Buenos Aires as well.

First of all, you can find all of Skip's pictures of the trip at: http://community.webshots.com/user/kingcompton

We spent a total of eight days on this trip and I'm realizing that it's going to take me longer to tell you about this trip than I thought it would. This week I'll talk about the first couple of days. Next week I'll talk about more. And we'll continue with that until I wrap up the whole trip. That should take three or four weeks. The week after that, you'll be getting another Thin White Rope road story. That will probably be over New Year's weekend. After that, into 2009, I have plenty I want to write about and it should run every week without interruption until I leave for Rome in March.

This week's reviews will be up and out on Thursday morning. I'm postponing it a day because I'm going to a special Christmas show Wednesday night that features the Pretenders, Bloc Party, CSS and the Black Kids and I want to talk about that. After that show, I have no night time plans except for some movies and a few dinners until next year. I'm actually looking forward to the nothing we have planned. I can finally relax and catch up on TV we have stored on our DVR.

So enjoy this first part of our Argentina Chronicles. (If you haven't read it yet, I posted some opening thoughts on this trip last week.) Have a great week and I'll see you here next week at the same Bat-time, on the same Bat-channel.

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We woke early on Monday, October 13th and headed to the airport. Our flight wasn't until 1 PM, but we liked to get to the airport as early as possible to avoid long lines and the confusion that has been a regular event while traveling due to 9/11 and our Homeland Security's incompetence. It was a good thing we did, because things were pretty crazy there. We only had one bag to check between us and we both had small carry-ons, but there was enough meandering craziness going on around us to keep us in lines until just before boarding time. We settled into our too-small seats and after a short battle with another traveler who seemed to think that our footspace was where she got to store her carry-on; we were able to relax and enjoy the trip as much as we possibly could.

There was a time when I used to get extremely excited whenever I knew I was going to fly. Now I just face it with dread. The terrorists have been successful in ruining travel for me. It used to be relaxing and fun. Now it's always a battle against rude and ignorant airport and security personnel, rude and ignorant fellow passengers who seem to think their full-size baggage is small enough to carry on, and a lack of time, space and comfort that I don't remember dealing with on trips I took a decade ago.

Anyways, we had a few hours to Miami, where we had a two hour layover before boarding the plane to Buenos Aires. The layover happened without any major incident and we settled in for the all-night flight. I have trouble sleeping on moving vehicles, so I prepared for this flight by taking a dose of Tylenol PM, a double dose of melatonin and an over-the-counter sleeping pill. They did no good. I couldn't sleep and sat up all night in a drug-daze and read the complete "Don't Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs", a book of true stories by famous chefs about the most major cooking disasters each of them had faced in their careers. It was entertaining as hell, especially the stories from Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, Anthony Bourdain, and Mario Batali.

I was disappointed that our flight was at night (as was our return trip in eight days) as I was hoping to catch glimpses of the Amazon and the Brazilian Rainforest and the Andes Mountains from the air. I managed to catch the Andes as we flew along the Peru and Chile/Argentina border in the morning, but that was about all I could see on that flight.

We arrived in Buenos Aires about 9 AM on the 14th. I was in a real daze after our trip, but it wasn't any worse than I'd experienced before on the band tours I'd participated in, where sometimes sleep just wasn't an option. We breezed through passport control and customs with no problems. Now I was faced with finding the easiest and most logical way to get into the city. There were buses, but I'm always wary of trying to figure out those schedules. I had been warned by several guide books that we should stay away from cabs. There were supposedly many bootleg cabbies that had been known to rob, strand or even kill foreign travelers. But once we walked into the central terminal, I saw a kiosk for the National Cab Service. The traveler told the representative where they want to go and was charged a flat fee at the kiosk for the trip. There was no need to deal with money with the driver and so there was no worry about cabs taking a longer route or other rip-off things that cabbies love to do to people not from that particular city. We paid about $30 US, a cabbie was called and met us by the kiosk, where he carried our luggage to the cab and got us all in comfortably. The journey to the hotel ended up being over an hour long, so we felt the price for the service was quite a deal, but a lot of that was because of the difference between dollar and peso, which was about 3 to 1 at that time. We were told that it was standard to tip can drivers with whatever change was left from the transaction, but we gave our driver a 50 peso tip and he was so happy that he gave us a coupon that stated if we called him the day we were going to leave, he would take us back to the airport for about 2/3 of the price it cost us to get there. That was a deal!

We were staying at a hotel called Che Lulu Trendy Hotel (http://www.chelulu.com/index2.php?idiom=i). Check in wasn't until 3 PM and we were there at noon, but we were told that they knew we were coming in early, so they had made sure our room was ready. We were staying in one of the few "private bathroom" rooms, Lulu 1. It was a small, but comfortable, room with a shower and toilet right off the main room. The hotel is located in the Palermo district of town, which is one of the most up and coming areas. There is lots of new construction going on and many of the new, popular restaurants, bars and clubs are located there.

The hotel seemed surprised that we didn't want to take a few hours to sleep off our trip. I was exhausted, but I knew better than to try to sleep. If I slept during the afternoon, I'd have a hell of a time trying to sleep that night and jetlag would be a problem for the rest of the trip. I knew from experience that I should just force myself to stay awake until my normal hour of bedtime. It would be hard, but I was excited to be there and was running on quite a bit of adrenaline. It also helped to keep moving, so we decided to see the city the best way possible, by walking. We planned to walk down through Palermo to the main street of Av. Del Libertador and then walk until we ran out of steam.

We walked for miles. We saw parks and statues and fountains and amazing buildings. It was all a wonder and before we knew it, we were at the Port area, Puerto Madero, and we had been walking for more than six hours. The Puerto is a beautiful section of town and one of the most expensive. There is lots of upscale construction going on there and many big hotels are set to open soon. There are also a lot of great restaurants there. We found that we ended up there a lot on this trip. It's also the place where you'll find the Puente de la Mujer, or Woman's Bridge, a footbridge, dedicated in 2001, that we found stunningly beautiful. (http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2389510950041657556Qefluk)

We decided that it was a good time to stop for a drink, but we noticed that we had actually not seen any bars. So we stopped at a restaurant called Claxxon and asked them if we could just buy a bottle of win and sit on their deck and drink it. They had no problem, but the fact that we didn't want any food seemed to surprise and somewhat disturb them and this was the first time we experienced the Argentines reluctance to drink alcohol without eating.

I should state here again that we ran into very few people who could speak English fluently. Most of the people who worked at out hotel could understand if we spoke slowly and we found people who could speak a few words here and there. But I know from experience that it's possible to communicate with anyone if you really want to. At one point, while trying to find our way to the Puerto, we got a bit lost and a man stopped to help us get our bearings. He didn't speak a word of English and we know little Spanish, especially the strange Spanish that these people spoke. But he still managed to get us going in the right direction and followed us a ways to make sure we didn't stray wrong. People were like this everywhere we went.

So it took us some time to convince the restaurant to let us drink wine on their patio. Once the figured out that we were barbarians and we didn't want any food with our wine, they were fine with it and we enjoyed a great bottle of Pinot Noir from Argentina, the first we had ever had. We didn't even know they made Pinot there.

From there, we decided that we were too tired to walk all the way back. We really didn't have the time anyways. So we made our way into the city center where we were going to try to figure out their subway system. That trip took us past Casa Rosado, where Evita Peron spoke to the Argentine public from the balcony, and the Obelisco, the famous tall, white tower in the middle of the world's widest street, Avenida 9 de Julio. This brought us to our subway station and we quickly figured out the system. (http://www.metrovias.com.ar) It's the oldest in the Southern hemisphere (1913) and is shaped liked a fork, which can be inconvenient as you have to travel all the way into downtown and then transfer to one of the six lines to take you back out to where you want to go. We were already downtown, so it was no problem and we found our line to Palermo. We got to the platform to find a huge crowd waiting and when the train came, it was packed. It actually took a couple of trains before we were able to squeeze on, but trains come frequently, so we didn't have to wait long. We found the subway to be like this all day long, rush hour or not.

We arrived at our station in Palermo and walked up the few blocks to our hotel, where we met Rodrigo, the night manager, who would become a good friend during our stay in the city. He spoke English well, as he used to be a flight attendant for American Airlines. We asked him about a place for a quick and quiet dinner and he suggested a restaurant just around the corner called Oro & Candido, but we had seen the place and it didn't look that impressive, so we opted for a Mexican Restaurant right next door called Maria Felix (http://www.mariafelix.com.ar/). The food there was good, but not great. There are few places outside of the Southwest of North America that really know how to make Mexican food, but we like to try their attempts when we can. It came in huge portions though, so it was lucky we were very hungry.

After a few hours and many margaritas, we went back to the hotel and chatted with Rodrigo for awhile over a glass of wine. It was about midnight when we finally hit the sack. After almost 48 hours being awake, I wasted no time in falling into deep sleep.

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It was Wednesday, the 15th and we woke up late, around 10 AM. I seldom sleep longer than seven hours, but considering the lack of sleep I had for the two days following, ten hours probably wasn't too much at all. I quickly showered and got ready and while Skip was preparing, I went into the lobby to figure out what we would do for that day.

While I was sitting in the lobby, the lady who worked the morning shift (whose name sadly escapes me and who we found out later was Rodrigo's mother) asked me if there was anything I wanted. I told her that I had read about mate, a tea-like drink that Argentines love, but is supposedly an acquired taste for foreigners. She agreed to make me a cup and showed me how to drink it. The cup was packed with the herb and the hot water was poured down the side, so it wouldn't soak the mixture. The liquid was then sipped up through a silver straw. It was very bitter and I loved it, although she later told me that she had added lots of sugar to it to soften the taste.

(I later found out that not only was asking for mate considered rude, but keeping the whole cup for me was rude as well. One needs to be invited to drink it and then it's a very social event, with everyone sharing the same cup and straw. It's not something for the germ-phobic. By the time I found this out, I had stopped drinking it though. I asked for it again the next morning and asked them to make it with no sugar at all. They were reluctant, but did so and were very surprised when I loved it more than the sugared version. But I found I was making frequent trips to the restroom and then I read that mate was a natural diuretic, which may answer why these people can eat so much and stay so slim. I gave it up, but I have a great mate cup, with Che Guevara on it, and a bag of mate here anytime I want to take it up again.)

By this time, Skip was ready to go. I had picked up a few postcards the day before and wanted to mail them today, so I asked where the post office was. It turned out that it was right across the street from the Botanical Gardens, which was right next to the Zoo, where we had planned to spend the day anyways. So we made our way down to Av. Santa Fe, where we found the post office after a bit of a search, and then stopped in for a delicious ham and cheese sandwich and glass of wine at Al Queso Queso, an amazing little cheese shop on the avenue.

After we ate, we walked along the Botanical Gardens, talking to and petting some of the wild cats that beg passing humans for food on a daily basis. There were hundreds of them. That took us to the zoo. (http://www.zoobuenosaires.com.ar/) I like to visit zoos in foreign countries. There're always a few animals in every zoo that you can't find elsewhere and I also think zoos show a city's personality. This zoo turned out to be a strange one.

The first thing we noticed was that there were several small animals running free amongst the humans. One of these looked sort of like a jackalope without the horns. (http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2236663640041657556LabdXm) The other looked sort of like a muskrat. (http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2553362810041657556OmfHSU) It had large, orange teeth. Both animals were not shy about begging for food, but I was a bit worried about putting my hand down next to those teeth. They were awfully cute though and were everywhere in the zoo, along with various water birds and turtles, and even more of those wild cats.

The zoo itself was in a bit of disrepair, but it was obvious that the city was doing what it could to spruce up the place and get it ready for summer crowds. (Since Argentina is in the Southern hemisphere, summer was rapidly approaching.) There were lots of animals there that were indigenous to Argentina and Brazil that I hadn't seen before. Spending the whole afternoon there was a fun pleasure.

We then headed back to the hotel for some rest before dinner. Buenos Aires is a late eating city, like many in Southern Europe are, and most restaurants don't even open until 8:30 PM. It turned out that the restaurant we choose for the evening was also in Palermo, just a few blocks from our hotel. La Cabrera is a parrilla, or charcoal grill restaurant, that is very popular and is becoming well known by tourists, much to the concern of locals who love the place. As per most Argentine restaurants, it focuses on meat, and lots of it. With your meal, you get a whole array of appetizers and side dishes that is really a meal in itself. I ordered the rabbit stuffed with ham and cheese. Skip ordered the sweetbreads. When our dishes came, they were such huge portions that despite how delicious they were, we couldn't even come close to finishing them. I basically had a whole stuffed rabbit sitting in front of me. This turned out to be a problem at almost every restaurant we went to and we quickly learned to order one main course to share. But locals were woofing down the meal like it was their last on earth. Their lunches tend to be equally huge and they also enjoy tapas after work. I have no idea how they can pack so much away and stay so fit. Our meal was washed down with an amazing bottle of Argentine Malbec. And for some reason, our waiter kept refilling my glass of champagne I had ordered upon arriving at the restaurant. I must have drunk eight glasses of the wonderful stuff on top of everything else I drank.

(One of the main reasons we went to Argentina was for the wine. We have drunken Malbecs from the country here before, but had remained unimpressed for the most part. We had heard that they keep the real good stuff for themselves and after our visit, we realized how true that was. We had some stellar wines there, both expensive and cheap. Fortunately, the exchange rate allowed us to order the equivalent of $300 bottles of wine for a third of the cost. More on wine next week.)

After dinner, we were walking to the hotel when we passed a bar that was covered with punk rock graffiti. Loud music by the Clash was pouring out the door, so we went it. It was called the Post Street Bar and the bartender was a friendly guy who spoke limited English and gladly made me fernet cokas, a drink combining the bitter Italian Fernet Branca aperitif with Coca-Cola. I had been told by someone at the hotel that the drink was very popular in Buenos Aires and I was eager to try it. Needless to say, I loved it and drank a lot of them in the city when I wasn't drinking wine. I had heard that the Ramones were almost the equivalent of the Rolling Stones in Argentina and it was here that we found out how true that was. Every person we met had a story about how the Ramones saved their lives, even if their favorite music was now New Order or Madonna. The bartender here told us his story and then led us to a private room upstairs. All the bands who had visited the bar had signed spaces on the wall and there were hundreds of them. The Ramones got a whole wall to themselves and the graffiti and art they had left there was a wonder for any Ramones fan to see. (Unfortunately, Skip's pictures didn't turn out.)

After a couple hours of talking, we wobbled back to the hotel where we ran into a couple of American tourists from Portland Oregon who had just checked in. Their names also escape me, but the guy was a 40-something music fan who loved Thin White Rope and was eager to talk to me about the music business once he realized who I was. His girlfriend was in her early 20s and had a whole different viewpoint of the music business than any of us older folks. She quickly grew frustrated because she didn't believe we knew where she was coming from. I think she was too drunk to realize we understood her more than she thought. We sat up for several hours and finished four bottles of wine between the five of us. (Rodrigo was also included.) Plans were made and we made plans to do a bunch of stuff together, including going to an upcoming Mudhoney show at a club near the hotel. We finally turned in around 3 AM, but when we woke up the next morning, they were gone and we never saw them again. We have no idea what their true story was.

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And that's it for this week. Next week we'll eat some weird meat, visit an amazing wine bar and see a crazy soccer game. And if I have time and space, we'll go to Uruguay. Until then, thanks for reading. And have fun.