beautiful, funny, sad & true

This past week was one of the best and most memorable of my whole life. I had the opportunity to tour with Breanna and Justin through the American West, and let me just take a minute to say that it was a total blast.

The cast of characters:

Breanna

Justin

and me. :)

Breanna and I both took hundreds of pictures on this trip. After I get done with the entries for the individual days, I’ll post another entry called ‘Best Pictures of the Tour’ or something. But you’ll find that out for yourself soon enough, I suppose.

So here we are, van packed, ready to hit the road.

Somehow it became our ‘thing’ to pose for every group picture twice; one in which we pose normally and the other in which we pose ‘gangsta’. Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with us either, but it did make for some funny pictures.

One other thing that’s important to know about Breanna and Justin is that after a year of friendship, they recently started dating. This, by the way, is awesome and gets my full blessing.

Okay, so on with the story. We started the tour in Eugene, Oregon, at a pizza place with a cosmic theme. We shared the evening with a duo from Los Angeles called Homesick Elephant.

They were really great, and super nice people as well. Their music was very influenced by Simon and Garfunkel, in a good way. One of their songs is entitled “Ghost of Philadelphia”, which is actually a phrase that Justin had randomly said earlier in the day, so we both kinda perked up and looked at each other when they sang that line in the song, as if to say, ‘Did they just say that? That’s so weird.’

One of the waiters had a very funny and effeminate way of inhaling through his teeth while he was thinking of something to say.

For example, when we asked him about good places to explore, he answered, “Well. . .sssssss. . .try going downtown–” which Justin and I immediately adopted and incorporated into our own speech patterns for the rest of the trip. The three of us walked all over downtown, and went shopping for clothes at Buffalo Exchange, but somehow we ended up empty-handed.

There were two guys in the audience who kept making me laugh. One guy was drunk by 5:30, while we were arriving and setting up. He came in to have some pizza and sober up, but he kept having difficulty sitting up straight, while dealing with his duffel bag at the same time, so I kept trying to surreptitiously take a picture of him. Here’s the only one that actually came out:

There was another guy who sat right up front and clapped for an uncomfortable (and slightly creepy) length of time after every single song. You can see what I mean from this picture:

He seemed a bit loaded also, but harmless enough. He was just a little bit weird, that’s all I’m saying. But the night was a blast, and the show went off without a hitch. Afterwards, we backtracked and drove an hour back up north to Salem, to stay at Breanna’s aunt’s house.

It was the perfect way to start a tour.

OneYearAgo

It’s midnight on Saturday, and I’m writing this entry from Meridian, Idaho, after our end-of-tour show in Nampa. Tonight’s show was one of our best shows ever. Every note on the cello sounded perfect, and our vocal harmonies were spot-on. We made tons of money in tips, including a fifty-dollar tip from a woman who came to see Breanna the last time she played there.

This week has been amazing. I have tons to write about, and both Breanna and I have about a million pictures to plow through and copy for each other. I’ll be writing each day of the tour as its own separate entry, because if I didn’t, the entry would be thousands of words long.

Tomorrow morning, we’re getting up early and driving back home to Portland. It’s about a six-hour drive, which will feel like a walk in the park compared to the ten- and twelve-hour marathon drives we’ve endured this week.

Talk to you when I get back!

OneYearAgo

I’m listening to This American Life right now, the episode called Duty Calls, and I just feel the need to say wow.  What an amazing episode.  It’s all about the contrast between two sides of a divorced family; one side high-achieving and the other side completely unable to function because of long-term drug abuse and various other problems.

It made me think that I should appreciate my own family, friends, and situation more than I have.  I very rarely step back and think about where I’m headed, or where I’ve been, or even smell the flowers.  I just kind of keep on keepin’ on, whether it’s with a mind-numbing day job or an insanely busy musical life, or other diversions, but I really need to focus more on what I want my own life to be like, and to appreciate the people who are important to me.  Since we’re on the subject, let me take this moment to say that I APPRECIATE YOU, and I’m glad you’re here.  You could be anywhere else on the web, but you chose to visit me, and I appreciate that.

One thing I’ve felt the need to do since my friend was hospitalized is to contact people more, now that I feel up to it, and just check in with them.  It’s all still new and recent, and there are plenty of people who I haven’t contacted yet, but it’s really felt important to do that, even if we don’t talk for very long.  It’s as if I just need to know that they’re alive and well, and to reach out to them in some way.

Wow, this is a surprisingly maudlin entry.  And it all started with a radio show.

My friend is out of the hospital and back at home, with her cat, a bunch of new furniture and a whole new lease on life. I can’t even tell you how relieved that makes me feel.

Next week I’m taking time off from work to go on tour with Breanna and Justin. We’re playing in Eugene, Redding, Reno, Torrey (Utah) and Nampa (Idaho) by way of GrooveFest, next Friday. Very exciting. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to write from the road, but I’ll at least take some notes, and some pictures, and get online whenever I can. I’ll still be able to send text messages to Twitter, at the very least.

Went out with JBJ last night to see Jenny Conlee of the Decemberists. That was the plan, anyway. We got there and the show was cancelled. Plus, the third guy who was supposed to join us got there early, ate dinner by himself, then found out that the show was cancelled, so he left. Bummer! It was supposed to be BoyzNiteOut/NoGurlsAloud. Oh well; it still was, there was just one fewer Boy, that’s all. Good times, and good jambalaya, were had while we kept taking care of each other. That’s a little inside joke for you long-time readers, by the way.

I started to drift off to sleep, and a female voice said, “Do you want to learn? I can show you how.” I somehow knew she was telling me she would teach me how to lucid-dream. I rolled my eyes in an attempt to mimic the REM cycle and hopefully enter the dream state. In response to the voice, I thought, “What do I do?” I turned over into a more comfortable position, and in the instant before I drifted off to sleep, the same voice said, “I’ll be there,” meaning that once I fell asleep, she’d be there waiting to guide me.

Then my alarm went off.

I pushed the button and went back to the same position I’d been lying in. I started to drift off once again, and had the same almost-lucid feeling. The voice told me gently, “Now do something.” I started to reach my arm out into the darkness in my dream. The alarm went off. I hit the button and turned back onto my other side and rolled my eyes again. As I finally drifted off, the alarm went off a third time, and I had to get up.

So incredibly beautiful, and so frustrating at the same time. I wish I could have stayed in bed for a few more hours, because I’m certain that I would finally have learned how to lucid-dream.

OneYearAgo

I took the day off from work today, so that I can go to my friend Dori’s wedding at the beach.  The ceremony is going to be on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  I’ll be playing accordion.  They had a bonfire last night, but I had to give it a miss because of bad planning on my part.  I hadn’t arranged a place to stay, and I’m kinda broke again this month, so I thought I’d just go over today.  I’m really looking forward to it.  It’s kinda cloudy, but it’s supposed to be nice.  Road trips are the perfect environment for Sigur Ros’s music, so that’s what I’m going to bring.  That and a few compilations that I found, but haven’t had a chance to listen to yet.  I’ll try to take some pictures, but since I’ll be playing also, no guarantees about that.

Last night I was invited to join Andrea and CellistSkip out at the Edgefield winery.  It was a nice surprise for all three of us.  It was also quite possibly Andrea’s last Portland show, so I jumped at the chance.  She’ll be moving to Europe in a little over a week.  I’m totally happy for her.

Since the highway goes right by the hospital my friend is in, I’m going to stop in and surprise her on the way out of town.

Great paté, Mom, but I’d better motor if I’m gonna get over to the hospital and the beach.  (That’s a reference to the movie “Heathers”, by the way.)  It’s my own way of saying I have to go now.  Gotta eat breakfast, take a shower, find something nice to wear, throw my accordion in the car and head out.   I’m bringing my backup accordion this time, because the wet ocean mist and breeze would ruin my good one, and my backup one is perfect for things like this.  It was an inexpensive instrument, so I don’t worry about what’s going to happen to it.  Not that I’d want it to get run over by a train or something, but I think you know what I’m saying.

Wait a minute; what am I DOING?  I have to go.  I’ll talk to you later.

Today at work, a person returned who was a temp about three months ago. She and I were friends the last time she worked there, so our supervisor had her sit with me for training. I was showing her the way I did some particular thing on the computer, and I told her, “I don’t know if everyone does it that way, but I do. I guess I’m just that anal. I mean obsessive. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Said what?”

“Anal.” Forehead slap. “I really shouldn’t have said it twice!”

It was accidental, and funny.

OneYearAgo

One of my musician friends hates the phrase ‘mixed bag’, but I’m going to go ahead and use it (albeit with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek), because that’s what this week has been. After a debilitatingly sad couple of weeks, I’m finally feeling able to go and do all the things I normally do. Wednesday night was the play-reading group, and I feel like that’s what brought me back to life. The play we read was the story of a quirky pianist (so naturally I played piano) who had lots of children, and the story was set in an Irish Catholic neighborhood of Chicago, around the time of Prohibition. Very well-written and humorous, and I got the honor of reading the lead role. After that, two of the guys from the group and I went out and talked, and shared a basket of French fries, and caught up on each others’ lives. It was nice, and genuine, and I appreciated it.

Thursday I raced over to my favorite new sushi place to meet Genie-Wa. She’s here visiting her mom and interviewing for jobs so that she can move back here again, which I for one am very glad about. Her rental car was a white convertible, and after some trial and error, we finally figured out how to put the top down. Perfect timing, too, because the seemingly interminable months of shitty, depressing weather are finally starting to break here in Portland, so I’m sure she’ll have plenty of opportunities to race around and enjoy it.

As we were heading our separate ways, my hospitalized friend called. Since she doesn’t have a phone in her room, she has to walk clear across the building into a public area, and sometimes there are people milling around, and other times the place is empty. Sometimes people are using the phone, so she has to walk clear back to her room and try again later. She spends most of her days sleeping. Weekends are particularly long, because the doctors aren’t on duty, so I’m going to go visit her this morning, actually, before my afternoon cello gig and evening accordion gig. These will be the first shows I’ve played in over two weeks. I had to back out of four different gigs since this happened, but now I feel ready to play again.

Last night I went to Slabtown to see three bands; Lasers All The Time, Shim, and Hockey. All amazing. I already had Hockey’s CD because the drummer works with me. I first listened to their CD in my car, and I was so impressed with it that it stayed in constant rotation (as they say in radio jargon) for two weeks.

I was supposed to meet my dad for breakfast at 9:00 this morning. Around 8:00 I heard a strange tapping on my door. It wasn’t a knock, but it sounded like someone was tapping my door with something wooden, or maybe metal. Freaked me out, because strange knocks that early in the morning, particularly in my hidden apartment, are almost never because of good news. So I nervously opened the door, to find my dad on my doorstep. “Would you believe. . .I’m early?” he asked. Sheesh. Naturally, my place is a complete disaster area, because I haven’t been home for the last three nights, and I just rearranged my furniture and everything, so I felt nervous about the early-morning knocks, and also about the disarray of my place.

The visit went okay, though. He asked about my friend, and asked a bit about what our relationship was like, and how she was doing, and seemed (somewhat uncharacteristically) empathetic and understanding. But again, he was nice, and genuine, so I certainly appreciated that.

I’ve noticed quite a few blog visits from two different places recently; one of which is in the Portland area, and the other is in the Bay Area. I have a pretty good idea of the places that the regular readers are from, and of those of my friends who read this blog, but these are both new ones. If you’re one of the long-term readers of BFST, you’ll understand why I raise an eyebrow at sudden bursts of energy like that. That’s all I’ll say about it.

Took my cello in for a quick and easy repair the other day. It has a ‘wolf’ tone, which is a common affliction for cellos. It’s hard to explain, but certain notes make the body vibrate excessively, and the horrible, warbling tone it produces when that happens is called a wolf. I don’t know why it’s called that, but I’m just glad that it’s minimized now. They never completely go away, apparently. The repair guy said that the cello instructor at the main university here in town has a cello that’s worth nine hundred thousand dollars, but it has that wolf tone, which was minimized by sticking a piece of a wine cork down between the body and the tailpiece. So funny, and now I have one there too.

And now it’s time to drive out to the hospital.

OneYearAgo