beautiful, funny, sad and true

Boy, was this trip to Yakima a weird one. Quite possibly the weirdest one yet.

I was planning to go see DrummerAdam play with Chuck Prophet. Turned out that I was mistaken, and Adam’s band was OPENING for Chuck Prophet. That’s still very cool, and well worth the drive. The band he was playing with was a person whose CD I played on, and on Wednesday I got a text message from the band leader which said, “I heard you’re going to be in Yakima. Want to sit in with us?” I agreed on the spot.

This was not a band I normally play with, except one other time, and I played cello at that show. This time I decided to play lead guitar, so I spent the next two days learning all the songs by listening to them on my iPod at work and in my car on the way down. I was the first to arrive at the venue, which was the Yakima Sports Center. Those of us who grew up in Yakima know that it used to be one of the sleaziest places in town, second only to the infamous (and now nonexistent) Blue Banjo, at least in my book, but it was completely refurbished in the late 1990’s, and now it’s a perfectly respectable restaurant and music venue.

Most of my friends from Yakima have long since moved away, but I do still have some friends there, and they were all planning to come to the show. Two of them weren’t able to make it, but DrummerTy was, and he actually brought my guitar teacher with him. I took guitar lessons for about six months when I was fifteen years old, and I’d only seen my teacher a few times since then. He was a great guy back then, and he’s still a great guy now. It was an amazing surprise to see him again.

We were the opening act, but for some reason, our set was only a half hour long. We also played a few weird cover songs. I asked, “If our set is only a half hour, why are we playing ANY cover songs?” Apparently, there was some sort of promotion going on at the venue called “Guilty Pleasures”, so each of the three bands was expected to play a few songs that everyone would know, and would never admit to liking. I found out about that when we were on stage; I certainly didn’t see it coming. The ‘guilty pleasure’ songs we played were “Human Nature” by Michael Jackson, “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees, and “Night Moves” by Bob Seger. I was a bit embarrassed, to be honest, because my friends who hadn’t seen me play in at least thirteen years were there watching me play these ridiculous songs that I didn’t know. I was a little bit nervous, but the band is very good, and we all played well together, despite having no rehearsals beforehand, and despite those weird other songs. I wouldn’t say it was the best gig I’ve ever had, but I’ve certainly had plenty of worse ones.

After we were done, I packed my stuff off stage and went to talk to DrummerTy. We sat at the bar and unsuccessfully attempted to order a drink from the aloof waitress. Probably a good thing in retrospect, because Ty was already very drunk. He was silent for a few moments and just sat there looking at me. Finally, he said, in a strange voice, “You’re the best musician I’ve ever known.”

I sensed that something was up, and said, “Thank you. . .I think. I’m expecting a ‘but.’ ”

He looked away, looked back and said, “What the fuck are you doing? There was nothing entertaining about that. It was lame.” Suddenly the band leader appeared from behind me with a beer and set it on the counter in front of me, then disappeared back into the crowd. “LAME,” Ty repeated, to me.

“This is not my normal thing,” I said, “It was also a weird gig, because our set was only half an hour, which I didn’t know beforehand, and I certainly didn’t know we were playing all those crappy ‘guilty pleasure’ songs.”

Ty replied, “Are you trying to be a pop star? You’re not even a pop musician. You live in the abstract.”

“I’m not a pop star, I’m trying to be a producer. This was just one gig, on one night. I don’t know what you mean by ‘living in the abstract.’ ”

He rubbed his eyes, which seemed to be bothering him. “I listened to all the songs on your web site, and I don’t even like them.” That’s nothing that concerns me, so I didn’t say anything. Just then, his friend and friend’s girlfriend arrived. He didn’t introduce me. They talked among themselves for a minute, and then Ty said, to no one in particular, “I’m too drunk. I need to get outta here or I’m gonna get in a fight.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. They started to head toward the door, so I said good night, and then went over and gave my old guitar teacher a hug, and they all drove off. I went outside, feeling like I’d been sucker-punched. After a few minutes, Adam came outside, saw me, and noticed that I was bummed out. I told him what happened, and he said that he’s seen Ty like that pretty often. He goes out, drinks too much, and then gets belligerent. After having a few days to think about it, I feel like this conversation was Ty’s version of ‘tough love’ or something, but that’s certainly not the way to go about it.

This all happened during the second performer of the night, who is a songwriter from here in Portland who I’ve seen a couple of times before, and who I’m not particularly impressed with. Between my conversation with Ty and walking outside, I pretty much missed his entire set. I wanted to leave, but I also wanted to stay and see Chuck Prophet, who was absolutely awesome. I got a glass of wine and talked with our various band members for a while. I also saw a musician friend of mine from college, who went on to open a recording studio, which later closed down after a few years. I went and talked with him for a while, and it was okay, but not as much fun as I expected. He had to leave after about fifteen minutes, so I went back to hang out with the band. The show ended soon after, so I packed up my car, gave hugs all around to the band members, and left. I was still feeling really angry, and I was also exhausted after the three-hour drive to Yakima. I had come directly from work.

Around 1:30 a.m., I arrived at my mom’s empty house (she and my stepdad were in Seattle visiting my brother’s family), and when I was bringing my instruments in from the car, I noticed that I was missing my amp stand, so I had to drive clear back downtown to retrieve it. Finally, I was able to go to bed. Didn’t sleep too well, either, because my mom has three dogs, all of which wear clanky chain collars and walk around barking in the middle of the night.

This entry is getting a bit on the long side, so I think I’m going to turn this into a two-part entry.

You’ll be glad to know that Saturday was great. The second part of this story isn’t negative at all.

OneYearAgo

I don’t know who this guy is, but I do know that it was 1991, and mullets were hot.

June 29th was homecoming day. We slept at Breanna’s uncle and aunt’s house in Meridian, Idaho, but we had arrived so late the night before that everyone was either already in bed or pretty much comatose in front of the television. The morning was when we actually got to socialize.

Say hello to Breanna’s nephew and two nieces.

Kids kinda freak me out, especially when they’re either little, or if there are lots of ‘em. Doesn’t matter how cute they are (and these kids are VERY cute), they still make me feel really anxious and weird. So I kinda kept to myself for a while, reading and then coming back in and out, or talking with Breanna’s uncle and aunt. Their house was great; it’s a shame we didn’t get any pictures of that too. Her uncle cooked Swedish pancakes and bacon and sliced some cantaloupe for breakfast, which was all completely amazing. They were very open and generous people, and I hope our paths cross again.

The drive back was beautiful and remote. Idaho and Eastern Oregon are sort of interchangeable in my mind. Every once in a while we’d pass a lovely ravine. . .

. . .or mountain (I THINK that’s Mount Hood). . .

. . .but for the most part, it looks like this.

The landscape went from greenish yellow to brownish yellow, and we went from the high desert down into the rolling hills. There are actually signs stating things like ‘now entering the Pacific Time Zone’ and ‘now crossing the 45th Parallel.’ We stopped to eat in Pendleton, at a great little 1950’s restaurant called the Main Street Diner. The way we found out about the diner was priceless. We stopped in at a convenience store to buy some water, and I asked the young guy behind the counter, “Is there a good cafe here in town?” The guy’s response was, “Uhhhh. . .for food?” Justin turned away and tried not to laugh.

After our lunch, ‘we continued on’ (Lewis and Clark’s phrase), and the temperature climbed and climbed all through eastern Oregon. I tried to take a picture of the thermometer when it read 108 degrees, but my camera’s battery was completely dead by then, so I wasn’t able to. By the time we thought to try with Breanna’s camera, the temperature had fallen to a mere 105.

The windows of the van were unpleasantly hot to the touch. We would roll them down if we wanted to take a a picture, but other than that, we kept the air conditioner turned on full blast that day. We passed what appeared to be a tree farm, in which all of the trees looked exactly the same, and were planted the exact same distance from each other, and were in plots of land that were perfectly square. On each side of those plots was normal Oregon desert. It was like, yellow desert/LUSH FOREST/yellow desert/LUSH FOREST/yellow desert. How’s that for a verbal visual aid?

Interesting.

Finally we got to the Columbia River, which is when we really started to feel like we were close to home. If you’ve ever lived in or spent much time in Portland or northern Oregon, then you know that the Columbia is the lifeline for this part of the world, and there’s something comforting about looking over and seeing that huge river beside you after you’ve been away from it for a while.

The last couple of hours we spent listening to Kathleen Edwards. If you haven’t heard her music before, you owe it to yourself. I now completely associate her music with road trips, because the first time I heard her was on last year’s trip to Nevada. Her songwriting is strong and catchy, and brutally honest. She’s really one to watch for. And her music is perfect for long, open roads.

True to form, it also started to get cloudy as we got nearer to the city, and by the time we pulled up to Breanna’s place, there was thunder and lightning, and big, threatening raindrops.

We took some end-of-the-trip pictures. . .

. . .and then I packed my stuff from the van into my own car and raced home before the rain really started. I just barely made it, too.

A trip is never really over until the rental car has been returned. This van served us so well, and was the perfect road trip vehicle. It was flawless, and quiet, and comfortable in all the heat, and it even got good gas mileage, even though it was pretty crammed full of people and their stuff.

Parting thoughts about the trip:

1) Justin and Breanna are amazing, and sweet, and talented, and genuine, and I’m very proud to call them my friends.

2) I can’t wait to hit the road again. This country has some breathtaking landscapes.

3) I want a better camera, dang it.

4) I need to work on my gangsta pouts and poses.

So that’s it. Trip’s over. Hope you enjoyed reading about it. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled witty and insightful blog, already in progress. . .

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

My friend got moved to a new room today, on a different floor, with different nurses and stricter rules about calls and visits. She called while I was driving home on my lunch break, so I didn’t know that my phone was vibrating. She sounded worried and sad in her message. She said she’d try to call back this evening, and wasn’t sure how I’d even be able to contact her. She left a number, which I called as soon as I got her message. It was busy, so I kept trying and trying. After a couple of minutes, I finally got through, but instead of my friend I found myself talking to a disoriented stoner guy.

Worried. Concerned. Frustrated.

Dammit.