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Monday
- 10/02/06
10:44 pm
Lee Vining, CA
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Hello all-too-faithful bloggers. I must again sincerely apologize for
the huge lapse in the VSO blog. The truth of the matter is that LA really
sucked...sucked the creativity out of me both musically and in terms of
the blog. I can't even begin to tell you how much I hated being in LA.
Although I did meet some good people there, overall it was a hellish
experience and proved to me who I really am. Of this I am grateful, and
have no regrets for giving it a try. It turns out that am the complete
opposite of the stereotypical "LA type", which shall remain brainless.
After my decision to leave I told about 25 people who currently live in LA
that I was leaving. Of all the people I told, none of them disagreed with
my decision. Now I'm not sure these folks agreed with me just to get even
one car off the freeways, but it seems to me that nearly everyone living
in LA wants to leave. The following are the top 5 comments regarding my
decision to leave:
5. "Good for you"
4. "I don't blame you for leaving"
3. "LA is a great place to get out of"
2. "I hate LA, I wish I could leave"
1. "This place is a black hole"
I don't mean to knock LA for all the people who do like it there (idiots).
Not all my experiences there were bad. I had some really good times there,
and saw a lot of interesting things. My roommate/landlord Steve Reid was
probably the best person I met in LA, and is probably the nicest guy
living there. Steve isn't really the typical LA type, and is a true
artist. I will do a retrospective blogging about Steve in the future as I
have a lot to say about him. For now, check out his profile on
Mutaytor.com, located at the link below
I must extend my sincere thanks to the new friends I made in LA, including
Steve, Zen, Ms. Vegas rideshare, Jack & Connie, Jessie, Johnny, and all
the others who helped me along the way through a tough and transitional
period of my life. Your help and understanding will not be forgotten. I
would also like to thank my devoted friends from back east who have always
been there for me. There are far too many of you to list, but you know who
you are. I will however say a special thanks to my family who have always
been there to support me in good times and bad.
Before I get too mushy I'll now continue the blog. I have decided to head
back east as I feel this is where I belong for the time being, and where
"home" is. I plan to update the blog as much as hotel wireless internet
allows on my trip home.
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"the San Francisco Treat"
After leaving LA I headed to San Francisco to visit a friend from long
ago. Actually I was more a friend of her brother Jeff, but we all used to
play together back in the day when I was about 10 years old. She grew up
"through the woods" a block down from my street. Her name is Jackie and i
hadn't seen her since my sisters wedding which I just learned was almost
exactly 10 years ago. (yikes) (Happy anniversary Bob and Maggie.) Before
that I hadn't seen Jackie since way back then in the Battlestar Galactica
days. Jackie moved to San Francisco about 5 years ago, where she met her
husband Bob. They were both kind enough to let me come check out San
Francisco before my trip back east. They were both very accommodating, and
let me stay a bit longer than planned so I could recover a bit from my LA
experience and see San Francisco. The first day I arrived I was still
recovering from my near-nervous breakdown from being in LA-LA land, and I
was a little less than my usual self. I hung out at Jackie and Bob's flat
to relax a bit before going out to a club called "Butter" which was near
where Bob worked for a few beers. It took a few minutes to find the club,
as Jackie had never been there. First we went to a club called
"Margarine", and we both exclaimed "I can't believe it's not butter!"
Actually that never happened, and there was no club called "Margarine",
and we we found Butter pretty easily, it was in the door of the fridge a
couple blocks down from salad dressing. Alright enough of my ridiculous
jokes. We slid in the club, where I met Bob I then buttered him up so he'd
buy me a beer. Ok there I go again...boy it's good to be out of LA. After
meeting a bunch of people Bob worked with, and dealing with the
excessively loud music we went across the street to get some pizza. A
couple of Bob's friends came along. We ate and had some laughs. Mainly the
laughs came when Bob's friend Neil dumped an inordinate amount of hot
pepper on his pizza. Someone had unscrewed the top of the peppercorn
shaker in a vain attempt to get some laughs, which were more than
abundant. Neil ate the pizza anyway and drank 4 gallons of water to
counter the effects of the hot pepper. He said it wasn't that bad but I'm
sure he was Neil-ing in front of the porcelain alter the following day.
All that aside Bob's friends Neil and Dave were great guys, and very
amusing.
The second day I ventured out to the nearby mission district where Jackie
and Bob live, all the while humming the "Rice-a-Roni" theme song. The
neighborhood was pretty wild, and there were many colorful murals painted
on the numerous shops up and down Mission St.
I didn't take too many pictures partly because of my LA depression
aggression decompression expression, and partly because my camera battery
died. I walked around the surrounding area for about 5 hours in the
afternoon and boy were my feet killing.
I did come across these dangling damsels hanging from a nearby rooftop.
The next day Bob and Jackie went off to their part time job stomping
grapes, so I ventured out again into the Streets of San Francisco which I
think used to be a TV show. This time I drove my truck around a good part
of the city. I unloaded my VSO gear into Bob and Jackie's garage so I
wouldn't have to worry about it getting ripped off as I traveled around.
After unloading the VSO, I drove up to the famous pier 39 where
fisherman's wharf is located to take in the sights and try to blend in
with the other half million tourists who I can only assume were also
recovering from a hellish ordeal in LA.
I paid the ridiculous $6/hr parking fee in the local garage and proceeded
to jog full tilt down fisherman's wharf and back again within an hour so I
wouldn't get stuck paying an additional $6. The pier was really nice.
There were many boats moored in the surrounding docks.
I got a good view of Alcatrazz which was perched in the middle of the
harbor
I took a panoramic image of the bay, including Alcatrazz.
Click on image below to view panoramic
There were abundant sea lions barking in the noonday sun...also recovering
from LA
On the way out I happened upon a couple street performers. One woman
looked like someone my ex-landlord Steve had talked about. This woman
tours the world street performing, and apparently makes over $100,000 a
year selling cd's and collecting money from her tip jar which was
overflowing. I was wrong in my assumption that this woman was the same one
Steve had mentioned, but it turns out that she used to perform with her in
Santa Monica and Venice. Enduring the torturous onslaught from the local
deranged clowns in the area. I talked to the woman for a few minutes and
she told me the procedure for street performing on fisherman's wharf. I
wasn't ready to set down my anchor in San Francisco so I moved on,
thanking her for the info.
Just then I came across another street performer.
You guessed it...Silver dude
Actually this was a different silver dude than the guy who chased me
around the Santa Monica Promenade begging for my spare silver. Apparently
there are several silverish dudes who infiltrate public street performing
areas with their own breed of talent, which is a stretch. Most of these
silver dudes are black, or in this case, silver.
After narrowly escaping silver dudes greedy clutches, I headed up to see
the Golden gate bridge and nearby Crissy field, which Jackie's parents
recommended I see while I was in town. The area around the bridge was
really nice. Many people were gathered there to enjoy the day, and the
abundant free parking.
I walked out to the end of the pier, where many people
were fishing.
I took another panoramic from the pier.
Click on image below to view panoramic
I took one last panoramic image before my camera battery died of the Golden Gate bridge.
Click on image below to view panoramic
After leaving the Golden gate bridge, I drove aimlessly around San
Francisco taking in the sights, and trying to find my way back to Bob and
Jackie's place. I zig-zagged around the city, up and down the hills,
wondering why on earth they had decided to build a city here. The
landscape seemed pretty ill-suited to housing a mini megalopolis, but I
guess it worked out alright. On the way back to the apartment, my ex
roommate Steve Reid called and said he had an extra ticket for the show he
was playing with Mutaytor at the Shoreline Ampitheatre. Feeling adventurus,
I agreed to drive the 50 miles to the amphitheatre and collect my ticket
at the will call. Steve said he could get me backstage once I got into the
show. The Mutaytor had their own stage set up outside near the concession
stands, and I found it after looking for the famed fire dancers of
Mutaytor. I didn't bring my camera in to the show, which I really should
have, as it turns out they were allowed. there was a sign that said "no
professional style cameras", and although my camera is pretty sweet, is
not a pro camera. Due to the lack of pictures I will take a moment to
describe the show. The Mutaytor is a blue man-esque, cirque de soleil in a
roundabout way musical group that started out in the desert east of San
Francisco at burning man. For those of you who don't know what burning man
is, just do a google search, I'm not about to get into that. The Mutaytor
consists of about 30 performers ranging from multiple drummers and
percussionists, to fire dancers, and DJ's, all backed by the
former bass player
from Oingo Boingo. The show is really something to see. The dancing girls
and guys twirled fire while the multi-talented band raged on in the
background. There are over 100 drums on stage, and equipment of all kind.
You never know what to expect at a Mutaytor show. A giant dragon came
onstage (presumably fake) and one of the drummers had a "junkyard kit"
featuring a bed pan drum. They played 3 extremely lively and colorful sets
which lasted about 45 minutes each. Steve had talked about Mutaytor many
times, but this is the first time I had seen them. After the show I felt
compelled to help them tear down the stage and pack up, which took about 2
hours even with all 30 performers helping out as psuedo-roadies. The
amount of gear they have is incredulous. In the midst of breaking down, I
noticed that in the junkyard kit they had a sink, which proved my theory
that they had everything including the kitchen sink onstage. After packing
up the band, we headed to the VIP booth to check out the final act which
was the artist Beck. I had never paid too much attention to Beck in the
past but his show was really good. The best part by far was the puppet
show they had going on behind the band. There were a bunch of puppeteers
off to the side of the stage performing a puppet show of the band's
performance in real-time. It was pretty wild, and highly clever. The
puppet masters were masterfully reproducing the band's performance until
the puppets were eaten by a giant snake, but that's a story for another
day. Since I am getting tired, and since I need to go to the hotel lobby
to upload all this onto the VSO blog before 11pm, I'll just say that the
rest of my stay in San Francisco was really relaxing. I can't thank Bob
and Jackie enough for letting me stay with them. The experience was sort
of a decompression chamber from my long arduous stay in LA. Without them I
wouldn't have been able to see the show at the Ampitheatre which was the
best time I'd had in awhile. One final note- I played VSO for Bob, Jackie,
and Bob's sister Caroline the day before I left. Since I had unloaded the
whole thing from my truck, I figured I'd offer a pre ravioli dinner
concert demo for them in the garage, once again bring back the concept of
the garage orchestra. I'm glad I played for them, if only for a half hour.
They really seemed to enjoy it, and they had some good comments and
insight on the project, as people often do. Thanks again to Bob and Jackie
for a great and much needed visit to San Francisco. After leaving San
Francisco, I headed east to see Yosemite national park, which was somewhat
of a religious experience, and a tale for another day.
Good night and Blog bless