beautiful, funny, sad & true

I woke up yesterday to find that my phone had been shut off. Yesterday I took the day off from work to play a noontime gig with Breanna and the band down in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

I decided to take the MAX commuter train downtown, because Pioneer Square is one of its stops, and parking downtown can be tricky and expensive. So I drove to the stop and carried the cello and accordion on board the train. Two stops later, we all had to exit the train and cram onto a waiting bus, because the bridge over which the train travels is closed this month for repairs. It wasn’t fun trying to get two large instruments onto an already crowded bus, let me tell you. Not to mention the screaming kids and obnoxious people. When we arrived across the river, we all exited the bus and got back on a MAX train to follow its regular route. The exhausting trip took forty-five minutes, and it normally takes fifteen.

So then we played our gig, which was great. It was well-attended, and we sold a whole bunch of CD’s.

Came home afterwards via the exhausting and circuitous train-bus-train route. By this time, it was about ninety degrees outside. I finally got home, drenched in sweat. I had an e-mail waiting for me from J saying that PhoneCompany’s service was down for a while yesterday, so it wasn’t my phone after all. What a relief!

I took a nap and then went to meet J for sushi. She came over afterwards, and we watched an episode of Planet Earth; it was the episode about how the climate is changing drastically and rapidly, and how we are losing species (sometimes in as little as ten or fifteen years) and completely destroying the natural environment. It was very informative and influential, and it was good to be reminded about many of those things, which we tend to forget about in our daily lives.

Incidentally. . .for the record. . .I try to do my part by living near enough to where I work that I don’t need to drive, and where I can easily ride my bike, walk, or take public transportation to the places that I need to go. There have been many years where I didn’t own a car. I’ve always owned economical cars, including the one I have now. I don’t eat very much meat. I choose to live in a small apartment in the city, as opposed to a sprawling suburb. I don’t intend to have children. I try not to use disposable things when I have permanent options. These are all choices that I feel make a big difference in both the quality of life, and minimize the effects of my existence on this planet, but I still have a long way to go, and there are plenty of things that I can still do to make a difference for this little and unique planet.

So. After that, I got a call from JBJ saying that Jaime and Becky (whose CD I played on) were playing an impromptu show, so I texted Becky to say that I was going to be there, and it would be very easy for me to bring my cello with me. She thought that sounded great, so I ended up going down to join them at eight o’clock. The show was awesome, and the two other performers, Galveston and Justin Power, were amazing as well. I recommend that you check all of them out

I have another daytime gig with Breanna today, actually, so I’m going downtown again in an hour to load our equipment onto the Portland Spirit cruise ship. This is going to be a really fun gig; I’ve played it once before, last summer. It’s a lot of work, and it’s an all-day affair, but it’s just. . .totally great. I’m really honored to have such good opportunities to play with such good people.

Tonight the plan is for more J time, and then I need to do laundry and pack for the annual trip to Cannon Beach with Mom, Stepdad, and Brother and his family tomorrow morning. I’ll be staying for the weekend, until Sunday afternoon, when I’m driving back and then going to see a play at night.

SoOoOoO, it’s all a bit of a blur, but at least now you know why things have been a little quieter than usual around here lately. I’ll have my computer with me at the beach, so I should be able to check in from there too.

But now, it’s time to take a shower and get downtown to the boat.

OneYearAgo

Okay, so if you’re the kind of person who is bothered by the F-word, or the S-word, or by the mention of Satan, you’ll probably want to stop reading very soon.  Then again, I suppose you did read the title already, so there you go.

Back when l still lived in Yakima, I was in a hard rock band that will remain nameless. On July 4, 1992 (no, of course I didn’t remember that date; I had to look it up on my guitarist friend’s MySpace page, because he actually has a picture from that show), we played a house party, and a heavy metal band (who will also remain nameless) opened for us. They had only been playing together for a short time, so they only had about six songs in their repertoire. That means they played their six songs, then we played for an hour or so, and then they played their six songs again, for the people who arrived late.

Those of us who were there for both sets got a real treat, because they played everything exactly the same, including the between-song banter. My favorite introduction, which I remember so well because I heard it twice, went like this:

“This next song is for all of you who, if you really knew anything about Satan, you’d shit your fucking pants. This song is called. . .’Six-Six-Five and One Fucking Half.’ “

That was the band’s cue to launch into the song’s slow, grinding riff. We had to put our hands over our mouths to stifle our laughter, especially the second time around.

My favorite thing about that band, though, was the fact that the drummer was the only one who had a sense of rhythm. If you counted off, ‘One, two, three, four’, the bass player and two guitarists would all come in at different times around the next ‘one.’ The only way they could manage to play together was visually, if the three guys were staring at the drummer. For example, if he would hit a certain cymbal, the rest of the band knew that it was time to play the main riff. When he hit another cymbal, it was time to do the second riff. It was completely bizarre, and funny, and it took quite a while to realize that that’s what they were doing.

I wonder what those guys are doing now. The only one whose name I can recall is the singer. Something tells me that he’s the only member of that group who’s still involved with music.

And what happened to the group I was in, you may ask? Well, you’ll be glad to know that my guitarist friend is very busy these days, living in Seattle, and is booked clear into the New Year. The singer, I have no idea. I’ve looked him up from time to time, but so far it’s been to no avail. He was always a bit of a technophobe, and a suspicious one at that, so I imagine that he’s kept himself off of the usual online places. The drummer actually lives here in Portland and is married, but when he lived in Yakima, he had a kid with a horrible woman who bled him dry and completely devoured his soul.  I say that about very few people, by the way, but this woman was a leech, and a despicable human being.  Drummer sold his drums, gave her his car (which she and her drug-addicted boyfriend later wrecked), paid for her to live in an apartment, and even paid for her other daughter’s expenses as well. It just went on and on.

And me? Well, I’m doing all of the stuff I’m doing now, with no looking back, except to recount stories such as these, with a shudder and a huge sigh of relief.

OneYearAgo

This morning, I had a dream that I kept waking out of (thank you, alarm clock!) and going right back into every time I hit the ‘snooze’ button (thank you, brain!).

* * * * * *

My friend Andrea, one of her female friends and I are hanging out and walking around downtown Portland somewhere, late at night. We walk into a mall, which is closed. There is a huge, lighted fountain in one section of the mall, and there is a grand piano in the section that is located behind the fountain.

We walk to the piano, and Andrea starts to play something totally random and cool, with lots of banging and dissonance mixed with beauty (in A minor!). Then she steps on one of the pedals, and it repeats the phrase that she ended with. She stands up and smiles, and her friend and I start laughing and clapping. The piano is still making sound, and I sit down and play octave A’s up high, kinda slowly and rhythmically around Andrea’s loop. Then the loop fades out, and I morph the piece into a little something in A minor, and then change it into 7/8 time. I have a little cello exercise I made up, and it was based on that exercise.

After I finish, the sound of the fountain sounds like a crowd of people clapping, so I laugh, stand up from the bench, face the fountain and say, “Thank you! Everyone! Thank you!” The three of us laugh, and then turn away and walk out of the mall.

The setting for the dream changes, and we are now standing in a short line of people waiting to get into a movie theater. Once we walk through the door, however, we realize that it is actually a movie set. It is a large, wooden room, with bright lights in the ceiling. The filmmaker (who, incidentally is DrummerScotty, who I play with in IrishBand in real life) is shooting a scene involving a guy and girl making out on a chaise longue. The two are doing their thing valiantly, and Andrea seems exasperated with the whole thing. She says something like, “I hate acting. It seems like anybody could just be making out with anybody else.”

Tonight I played a show with Breanna and the band at the Doug Fir, and the stars must have been in perfect alignment or something, because this show was absolutely transcendent.  The band consisted of all the usual suspects, but we hadn’t ever played in this particular instrumental lineup before (DrummerAndy, BassistChris, ViolinistKarlee, AccordionistSlashCellistMe, and Breanna and Justin singing and playing their acoustic guitars), but it really felt great.  Nights like this are what playing music is all about.

Breanna got a glowing write-up in the Willamette Week, too.  Someone handed it around while we were back in the green room eating dinner.

I hope someone took pictures, or videos, or something.  I wish everyone could have seen this show.

I didn’t sleep well at my mom’s house, because of her three dogs. They all wear clanky chain collars, and they also have a tendency to bark in the middle of the night. I got up around 10:00 a.m., called Chris, packed up my stuff and drove over to his house at noon.

I’ve known Chris for about thirty years. He’s actually my brother’s best friend (since kindergarten!), but I consider him a very close friend as well. He, his wife and I used to work together at the ‘crazy’ video store, back in the diz-ay. Incidentally, he is an active reader of this blog (and much more frequent than my brother, I might add–HI, CHRIS!), so here I am sending a salute his way. Spent the afternoon with him, his wife, and his kids, which was great. I even got a sandwich, some homemade potato salad, and a bagpipe concert as part of the deal. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but I did. Good times.

From there, I drove to the home of GuitaristAl, who I met when I was in college. He’s a really great guy, and an amazing guitarist (both then and now), and he’s created quite a career for himself as a teacher. We sat and talked at his house, and played guitar together for a while. I wish I had a picture of him playing (and falling in love with) my old white Guild guitar. After a while, we started to get hungry, so we went to the sushi restaurant in Yakima. (I’m pretty sure it was Al’s first time having sushi.) It was surprisingly good; a bit on the expensive side, but good nonetheless. The restaurant is called Ozeki, and it’s in the location that used to be the Golden Moon, which is about two blocks from the shitty apartment I lived in for four years. Yes, I have pictures from back then, but they’re far too embarrassing to share here.

With my belly full of sushi and my brain full of good conversation, I decided that it was time to head home, so I drove back to Portland. I took a few unexciting pictures along the way, despite the fact that Highway 12 is one of the most scenic highways in the state of Washington. The problem is that the most scenic parts happen to occur at the exact same time as the curviest, narrowest stretches of road, so there’s no real opportunity to stop and take interesting photos. Oh well.

Five hours later, I got home and crashed. End of story.

Oh yeah. . .here’s a funny story. There are two hand prints, about a foot and a half apart, on the back window of my Honda. There is also – although you can only see it when the light is just right – the imprint of a woman’s back and the shoulder strap of her tank top. This means that people were either making out or getting it on while they were leaning against the back of my car! This happened on Friday night, while I was at the gig, and my car was parked in the lot behind the venue.

If you saw how dirty my car is, you’d find that even more hilarious.

Can I just take a minute to reiterate how glad I am that I don’t live in Yakima anymore? Cause it’s true. Even after almost thirteen years, I still get down on my knees and thank HigherPower that I made it out alive. Yakima is a shit-hole of a town, and I don’t use that description lightly.

And now, after that catharsis, it’s time to go to bed.