Strange Pulse

My commute on a good day is an hour. My commute on a bad day is an hour and a half, and usually involves something like, you know, a car on fire. The worst commute I’ve had? 2 hours. The best? 35 minutes.

I don’t mind an hour. (I’m talking each way.) But anything longer than that and it can really, really wear on me. An hour wears on me (two hours a day!), but I can deal with it. I love my job. And I like having the music-listening time.

My husband hates that I get home so late (around 7:30, generally). He just doesn’t seem to understand that leaving work earlier does not garauntee I’ll get home earlier. In fact it often results in a much longer commute home and a much grumpier wife walking in the door.

I’ve been super-stressed out lately because I’ve had a freelance project I’m working on at home. I don’t get much time at home so having it eaten up by work can be really stressful. I just finished it, though, and I’m hoping to get caught up on housework this weekend (instead of working), esp since my in-laws are going to be here in a couple weeks.

Things I’ve noticed about the freeway in LA:

• That movie by Steve Martin called LA Story, where he talks to a billboard, and it talks back? Totally makes sense now. I’ll tune out during my drive, not pay attention to where I am, then tune back in to check how far I’ve driven. I’ll look up and see a sign. “I’m only to the Lexus billboard?”
• It bothered me when I moved here and heard people calling I-5 “the Five.” It’s not “the Five,” it’s I-5! But I’ve come to realize that in Seattle there are only two freeways–I-5, and 405 (and hwy 167 if you’re down south). But in LA/Orange County, you have the 405, the 105, the 10, the 110, the 90, the 91, the 55, the 57, the 605, the 22, and yes, I’ll say it–the Five.
• There are huge signs with big screens that almost look like tv screens all over the place. I can’t believe more accidents don’t happen because of them. This morning as I was driving to work the car ahead of me slammed on their brakes, totally skidding out, burning rubber, to avoid hitting the car in front of it that had slowed down. Because the driver ahead of me was distracted by a big screen advertising the startup of Prisonbreak on Mar 20th at 8pm on Fox. (I’m smart enough to leave lots of space between me and the car ahead of me when I’m watching tv on the freeway.)

When we needed a new car, my dad warned me buying a used car in southern Cali was a bad idea, because people are so hard on their cars here. You know, because everyone commutes so far and drives so fast (80 on the freeway). The commuting far is true. The driving fast? Only on non-peak hours, which around here are weekends, and after 8pm. I’m lucky if I’m going 40 on the freeway.

Cops aren’t allowed to set up speed traps, though. Which is REALLY nice. In Seattle, they were always lurking, and always causing huge back ups in traffic.

I’ve figured out a different route on my way to work that takes me off of the 405 before the LAX bottleneck, where there’s a bunch of construction that makes traffic stop and it takes 30 minutes to go 3 miles. I get off earlier and go down by the shore. It’s a really nice drive, much faster (15 minutes at the most), and on a clear day, it’s really breathtaking. Of course, clear days are rare, but they’ve been happening more often than you’d think, based on how everyone complains about the smog in LA. I get a view of all the mountains, can even see the Hollywood sign–didn’t know I worked so close to Hollywood.

Sometimes I go over and drive right down along the beach, too, and it’s gorgeous.

Holy cow, I love this stuff. New album, recorded in 2006. Check out a song or two in the radio.blog, top right.

Makes me so happy that people are recording music like this today.

Also, I’m doing a series of posts over at Kulturblog.com on moments to live for in songs–basically an excuse to post a bunch of songs over there.

Stone Gossard (of Pearl Jam) has a side-project band he does with some guys from Satchel called Brad. A couple years ago they were playing an in-store at Tower Records in Seattle. I heard about it from a friend who is a huge Pearl Jam fan. So I grabbed one of my early grunge records by Green River, a band Gossard was in way back in the day, as well as my camera, and headed to Tower.

They played outside right on the ground of the parking lot, so it was impossible to see the band unless you were in the very front. I didn’t get many good pictures from where I was standing, but here’s one of Stone (he’s in the hat):

The show was good–I later picked up Brad’s album, I’ll post a song to the radio.blog. It’s mellow, end-of-summer kind of music. I like the singer’s voice a lot.

After the show, they had everyone who wanted anything signed or to meet the band line up on one side of the building, and the band sat at a table while we all shuffled down the line. Of course, Stone was the last person at the table, and I was feeling stupid that I’d have to pass all the other band members with nothing for them to sign. So when I saw someone handing out Brad postcards, I grabbed one, and had the band members all sign it. Here’s a scan:

I ended up sending it to my friend who is the huge Pearl Jam fan.

When I got to Stone, I had him sign the postcard, then I pulled out my ancient Green River album. I hadn’t thought about what to say to him ahead of time, and I got completely tongue-tied. Completely. No words. At all.

I just handed it to him. He looked at it like he wasn’t sure what it was at first. Some woman standing next to me said, “Wow, Green River vinyl–good find!” Like I’d bought it off eBay or something. I wanted to sock her. Stone was turning it over in his hands, and he said, “This is old school….This is the real thing.” And I could tell he hadn’t seen a copy of the record himself in a long time. I wanted to yell, “I’M old school!” but didn’t. Couldn’t. Mouth wasn’t working.

He signed it over his image on the record. Hard to see because most of it’s black, but here’s a scan:

As soon as I walked away, I thought about all these things I could’ve said to him. Like how I saw Mother Love Bone, his band after Green River but before Pearl Jam, play a roller rink in Kent with Alice in Chains. And how I’d first heard about Green River from an article in a local music zine called The Rocket when I was in high school but was too young to see them play before they broke up. And how I’d bought the record as a teen in an old Seattle indie record store called Fallout Records.

But nope. I’d blown it.

Oh well. I like to imagine him calling up Jeff Ament (another Pearl Jam band member who was in both Green River and Mother Love Bone) and saying, “This woman showed up at a Brad in-store in Seattle and had me sign a Green River vinyl record…It was a trip!”

I’ll post a Green River song to the radio.blog as well (top right).

I went to a show last night to photograph a band for a zine, but missed the band I was supposed to shoot. It was a music festival with several bands playing. Turns out I went to the wrong stage. And sat through the most excruciating performance I’ve ever seen–and I’ve seen some doozies–by this horrible hippy band. I’m still all stressed out from it. Man.

Who knew there were so many hippies in LA? Such a nightmare. With their long tangled hair, flowing shirts, leather boots, jangly bells, bare feet, moccasins, leather head bands, oversized glasses–it was tremendously annoying. I kept wondering how many of them grew up in Beverly Hills.

But I did catch half of Om’s set, another band on the line up I wanted to see. I couldn’t get close enough for any decent photos. But they were rad.

I’m going to see a band tonight that a lot of people I know rave about, I’ve had a burn of their album for a long time and just haven’t listened to it. But I’m shooting them for Skyscraper Magazine, which means I get in free, so I’m stoked. They’re called Pearls and Brass. I’m listening to a few mp3’s on their site, and they rock.

I’ve been thinking lately about how my husband will notice all these details about bands and their equipment that I never even think about. Like when we saw Hellride the other night, Stephen Perkins’ band, he asked me if I noticed how Stephen had his toms set up. I guess most drummers have them lined up from biggest to smallest, but Stephen had them mixed up. Makes for a different sound when he hits them all in sequence.

And there’s this doom band called Bottom that I love-and not just because they’re all chicks. Daniel mentioned once to me how the guitarist uses two amps for her guitar. Two different types, with different effects on them, or something, and it makes for this really cool sound. Something I never would’ve noticed.

When we were in Vegas staying at the Hard Rock Hotel, we were looking at the Nirvana/Kurt Cobain display. There were two guitars, plus a manequin with some of his clothes. I was looking at what was written on the guitars, and how frayed his clothing was, and thinking about how creepy it was. Daniel’s first words? “That guitar is strung wrong,” pointing to one. “He played like that,” pointing to the other.

How does he know this stuff? Neither of us were big Nirvana fans. He plays guitar, sure, but not very often or very well!

In the last month some people have hit my blog via Google/Yahoo/MSN/etc searches. Some of the search words they’ve used crack me up (my comments in parenthesis):

bloooood (yes!)
motocross poems (really? motocross? poems?)
mohawk (via a blogger search)
gooder a word? (no, it’s not)
I am gooder than you? (apparently)
info poem on the pulse of the merging (I think they want my crazy uncle’s blog)
mormon husband blog (close, but no)
“party” room to rent laie (good luck)
mike muir mormon (the resulting post of mine for this was titled “The Devil’s Music”, gotta love it)
Metal Church (yes! my husband would be proud!)
redheads in tacoma (someone needs to get out more)
oil rigs pictures (ditto)
fake pregnant belly (don’t ask me–no clue)
stevie wonder/where he lives now (ditto)
neopuritan (huh?)
Sarah McLachlan is she mormon (no, she’s not)
heavy metal poetry (and it’s beautiful, too)
What is “Mia” a nickname for? (bulemia, or Euphemia, if you must know)
insane drums (how cool is that)
strange pics (hope I delivered)
weird miracles (ditto)
teens wearing socks (nice one)
love (my blog is the third result!)
snowboarder poems (who knew?)
Pictures of a damage reproductive system cause by crack (whoa)
leo sayer (even better than Metal Church!)
Mormon redheads (in Tacoma?)

I’d been hoping for weeks that I’d be able to make it to see my friend’s band (Fatso Jetson) play in Hollywood last night, but things did not go well at work yesterday, and I was just too stressed to contemplate the trek to LA. So my husband and I were lying in bed last night, in our pajamas, watching tv, when my husband’s boss called.

He told us Stephen Perkins, drummer from Jane’s Addiction, was playing a show in Long Beach with Mike Watt from the Minutemen on bass/vocals, and Peter DiStefano of Porno For Pyros on guitar/vocals. They call themselves Hellride, and they play Stooges songs.

And we had to go because Daniel’s boss had gotten us on the guestlist. (He’s friends with a friend of Perkins’.)

We got there and Daniel was looking around for his boss to get us in for free, but we didn’t see him anywhere, so he was just going to go pay our way, when I spotted our names chicken-scratched on a piece of paper in front of the guy manning the door. I love being on the guestlist. :)

Stephen Perkins is one of my favorite drummers–one of the best I’ve ever seen live (back in the Jane’s Addiction days). Hellride played a really fun, energetic set, with the drums front and center.

And they had an artist in the back with a big plastic sheet for a canvas who would slop paint on it, then proceed to turn the blobs into these really incredible paintings by etching stuff into the paint. He’d do about one painting a song, and he took pictures of them all. I don’t remember his name. But he was pretty rad. Sometimes instead of wiping the canvas clean to start another one, he’d
just put some more blobs of paint up and change the existing painting into something else.

Mike Watt:

Peter DiStefano:

Stephen Perkins/Artwork:

Do you see his blurred face off to the right in this one (above)? Kinda cool.

I’ll post a Jane’s Addiction and a Stooges song to the radio.blog, top right.

Walking outside on my lunch break to 80 degree weather. In February.

Blueberries. Strawberries. Strawberries. Blueberries.

A cold glass of water.

Sleeping in.

Mountains. Lakes.

Poetry.

A good book, an extraordinary turn of phrase.

Really bad tv. So bad it’s good.

The Internet!

Aw, isn’t he cute, falling asleep with his bottle still in his hand? But wait, what is he lying on?

Oh. Somehow his mother let him fall asleep in his high chair. What kind of a mom does that?

What a cutie pie. Showing off the rock he found. But wait, why is it all wet?

Eww. Bad mommy.

I said to my friend yesterday: “Do you know what’s weird about having kids, Dave? They turn into people. People who are turning 16 next month.” He looked at Nathaniel like, “you can’t be THAT old.” And I knew what was running through both our minds: everything Dave was doing when he was 16.

Yikes.

Dave when he was 16. Dave now.

Nathaniel yesterday. Nathaniel now.

I can’t believe he’ll be old enough to drive next month. But he doesn’t even have his permit yet–and California just changed their driving laws for teens. They have to have a permit for six months, and for the first year of having their license, they’re not allowed to transport other teens without an adult in the car. There’s also a nighttime curfew of no driving at all for teens. I think it’s reasonable, since they’re basing the new laws on when accidents that have been happening.