One Street Over

Yesterday as I was heading towards the apartment from my recently parked van, I was inspired to take pictures of the street next to mine. I thought to myself: "This will be a special compliment to the blog I wrote yesterday." And so it shall.

Enjoy

The Sunny Side Up The Street

I enjoy my street, I'm fond of how it looks. It adds something to my life in the way of psychic good vibrations. It can improve my mood.
The first picture below is not from my street, it's from one block over, Ogden. I snapped it because I found it funny that someone carved Yesir into the tree, which I was thinking of as Yes Sir, now I realize given my neighborhood it was probably just some young Russian gang members name.

The other pics were taken walking back to my apartment from Whole Foods Market. This is as my street looked at 6:15 on April 30th. I had two bottles of wine, some sushi and other assorted snacks. I decided to snap the pictures because I'm always made to take note of how I feel about the palm trees. I like how the perspective blurs big time in at least two of the photos, it fist the purpose of the blog that even a photo should not be exact.

Take not if you will of what I enjoy about West Hollywood's building code, because there is a height restriction you can very seldom see a building from another street when you look up. I think this allows the mind to not feel as trapped in. Even though there is metro for miles in all directions the mind isn't reminded. Lets keep that in mind, it may be nice to live in a tall building, but is it nice enough to fuck up other peoples day?

That last sentence was almost Carrie Bradshaw.

Distracted Tractor

I've been dead baby tired this past I don't know how many weeks, and this is my stated reason for not blogging about all things I will later wonder why I didn't blog about. I'm comfortable with this, and because you can see words begining to be worded again you can be comfortable with this as well.

I'm pretty happy today, because I've had good sleep. It's too bad that we humans have to often get up when we are not yet ready, I think we'd all be in much better moods if this were not the case. Wouldn't you agree? An alarm is in fact alarming, and it's pretty well understood that waking up to something alarming is bad, yet we do it nearly everyday. There have got to be some serious social ramifications to this method of dealing with sleep. I for one as a result can be a total non blogging dick face when I have been forced from bed by something alarming at an hour which is in fact nothing less than shocking and illogical.



So I've been a distracted tractor, which is to say I've been working, just not always in the most useful of ways. A tractor when not properly operated can cause much damage, thus far Iv'e only taken down a hedge row and a barb wire fence. Luck would have it.

I'm excited though. Things are good. The new CD is fun for me, people are hearing it and liking it. It's avaliable for purchase where ever it is avaliable. I think everyone should own a copy.

Playing at Los Angeles Pride was good. I wore a lot of gold and black. I have played better shows. I enjoyed myself.

The parade which predeeded Pride was great too. I really enjoyed handing out flyers for the first time in a long time. We handed out something like 2500 of them. Wowza.

This is a picture of wine with Katherine Hepburn.

I wish I had more pictures of wine.

This variety is a $9 French Pinot Noir. I enjoy it.

I don't know why it's posing in our restroom with Kat.

Good Luck everyone, we've all got a lot to do, lets get to it!

I Feel a Sin Coming On

Today our new CD Sidesaddle Sweet Talk is in stores. Our goal was to have it finished and ready to go in time for LA Pride, and we did it. The packaging looks lovely and the sounds are great. I'm very pleased with the finished product.

Now we gear up for Pride, the biggest weekend for our beloved chosen home of West Hollywood. You can always tell as Pride approaches there are more people around, going out to eat and out to bars.





Here is a window display at some clothing place, LASC I think, it advertises an appearance by Angeline:

Last night Amy and I ate at Tango Grill, I took this picture because I love where Tango Grill is and the way Santa Monica Blvd looks from a table there.
This photo was taken Sunday by the afternoon drink that got totally out of bounds and ended up being a mobile party of folks that gained steam and picked up people through a variety of scene settings. Several unfortunate people ended up going into work having just hit the pillow before the alarm went off. Do we ever learn?
This is me, on the other side of that there camera/phone.

Bob - RIP

Amy's Dad would have just celebrated his birthday Sunday, were he still alive, here are some photos for him:



A very dear friend Myless Matisse lost his mother yesterday, I copied his myspace bulletin and post it here with love. Myles is a wonderful soul and he gives sound advice at the end.

Date:
Jun 4, 2007 02:54 PM

Subject:
My Mother Died Today...

Body:
I wanted to reach out through this bulletin and let everyone know at one time about my world...

My mom died today at 3.05pm in Atlanta at my sister's after struggling with cancer. In April, I got to spend an entire month back east with her and spend some amazing time loving, caring for and helping. Playing cards, preparing her food, watching TV, talking, laughing, putting scrapbooks together...it was a great month. Coming back out to California last month was tough, but it was what she wanted. Not knowing how long she really had left, she didn't want me to leave my life on hold indefinately. I'm just glad I got to spend a month full of meaning with her...knowing it would more than likely be the last time I see her again.

Over this past weekend, my sister called and had me speak one last time with her on the phone. By this point, she couldn't answer back, but could hear so I thanked her, let her know I loved her and that all was okay with me here in Hollywood.

Just to let everyone know, I'm doing well considering and realize I'm in a place in life that is on the right path. I'm happy, healthy and working on my talents daily. That's what my mom wanted for me most.

Make sure and take time for those closest to you and for those whose mothers are still alive, each moment is an opportunity to share, talk, love, laugh, cry and treasure with them. Before you know it, they'll be gone.

This is where we walked

Last weekend, for the first time in some years, I was able to visit the farm where I first lived. You can go home again, but it's not going to be your home anymore when you get there. I wasn't completely prepared to deal with this little section of land not being my little section of land.
This photo is taken from the main parking area of the farm, just to the side of the house. This is a view I had nearly ever day for the first 12 years of my puff.
Notice there are 3 Telephone poles in this photo, between the middle one and the one on the right in the photo there used to be an extremely well worn path where I used to walk when I had some urgent business to attend to in the north western portion of the farm. The trail was even more pronounced by my extreme love of driving our 4 wheel ATV up the same path.
To me it's eye opening that there is no evidence whatsoever of my path. We left the farm in 1991, or 1992. Footprints don't all last 15 years.
This used to be building, with four walls and roof. It was corrugated tin like you see in the remaining sections of the wall. We called it "the machine shed". Sounds like an industrial metal band to me now, but it had been called that because it was were we parked farm machines. A quick inventory of the machines in my mind proves how sadly I don't remember some aspects of farm life. I recall a small white david brown tractor calling the machine shed home during the latter part of my life there, in addition there used to be a hay baler parked there, which is what you see parked there now, in this photo. Ours however was yellow. I remember there used to be an unplugged deep freezer in this building, that had a very horrid smell to it, that I would like to open just to smell how bad that smell was. Later the deep freeze played home to two very large bags of grass seed, which I believe was grass left over from one of the first years my dad entered acreage into the CRP. (on day I might try and touch more on just how much this government program effected the direction of my family)
Another aspect of this building that I was always fascinated by was the texture of the dirt floor. There is something about soil that has clung to the bottom of a tractor and mixed with who knows what else only to fall off at night. It is the softest dirt I've ever encountered. I would sometimes collect portions of the dirt in a bucket or cup, and take it to places on the farm which I thought could benefit from this magical dirt.
A last thought comes to me when I think of this building. Bob white Quail. This is a very memorable bird to me, the dwell on the ground and the live in large groups r "
"coveys". One of these grouped used to live up the hill behind the machine shed. They have a particular instinct to not flush from their cover until a predator is nearly directly upon them. I believe the advantage of surprise in the having 10 to 15 birds suddenly springing to flight from the grass all around while making an odd noise has proven itself useful for this species. It also proved to startle the living shit out of me.
More specific to this memory is the reason they are named Bob White, they male birds call each spring sounds as if they are actually saying "Bob White". I have a memory of walking with my Father and my Sister next to the machine shed and being told about Bob Whites, and why they are called what they are called. I seem to remember my sister making the call sound very funny.
This building is a grainery. In it's day it was used for the storage of grain. I can only recall one occasion where one of the rooms was actually used for the purpose it was intended for while we lived on this farm. The rest of the time the grainery was quite simply the coolest building on our farm. When it was ours, the outside was a visible faded red worn wood, not this childish white sighting which now adorns the exterior you see here.
This building was the sight of Darth Vadar's base of operation in my most often re-occurring childhood dream. The one where Darth and his crew come and take over my farm. Nothing upsets a child more then having the dark side take over the farm.
This building was also at times a club house, a boxing club, a dojo and an apartment building. In my imagination of course. It was also the sight of what we mistook for really awesome secret passage ways. They were in fact just conduits for the cycling of grain.

This is the north east corner of the house we lived in. It looks essentially like it did when we lived there, though a bit worse for time. The concrete steps in the center of the photo lead to the backdoor, which was basically the only door we ever used, so really it was our front door.
Though I have no memory of the event, I once fell from the top of these steps and cracked my skull. I was a young one, I think around 2, and a Jehovah's witness out making the testifying rounds of local farms had just pulled down our drive way to annoy my parents before being sent away. I suppose the arrival of a vehicle, not an entirely common occurrence, pulled me onto the porch to see what gave. I was most likely following my mother. The wind picked up after I was on the porch, probably driven in some part by the universe's distaste for followers of ridiculous wet blanket religions, and threw the screen door into me, catapulting me off the porch. This was mother nature's way of setting it clearly to me, early in life that the talk of man is no match for the actions of nature.

This building was our 2 car garage. It also has received a makeover, for what I would call the worse. This building used to be of aged weather faded green wood on the outside. Much more pleasing to the eye. I'm having some memory that the door used to note actually close and lock, until the roof had to be re-done in the style in which it appears now. That happened one summer around the time I and all my siblings fell ill w/ the chicken pox, and were allowed and entire week out of school to play outside and itch.

The roof of this building was the burial spot of Kittie Kiffany, who founded the village who's name I've forgotten. The village began in the sandbox, which we called in a sand pile. Building the village, which was small, approximately 1/32 scale, and creating the lives and drama's of the little people that lived there was a game my siblings and I played called out in the sand pile. The name took on a symbolic meaning when the game out lived and and out grew the sand pile by 100 feet and at least 6 years. I call upon both of my siblings and my mother to blog further on the culture of "out in the sand pile. I should mention that the origins of the game are between the garage and the silver propane tank. (which I almost mistook for the Anhydrous Ammonia Tank which we would rent every year to fertilize with) There is no evidence of the game left. All the people that never lived there don't live there anymore, sad.

Here is yet another view of the back-front porch. Notice the Trees on the left of the picture. This was the home of our rather no nonsense tree house which our father built for us. In thinking about it now, I think that is what became of the original garage door which never closed nor locked. There is no longer any sign of the tree house.

I was once sitting in the yard, about 15 ft from the back-front door, playing in the dirt, which was not of any remarkable texture, when my cat Pirate, who'd been missing for over a month came calmly trotting through the field you can now see in the background of this picture. At this time the field had been plowed under, so it was nothing but dirt and my white and black friend stood out like vision. Where he was for that entire month he wouldn't say, but he made it clear that he came back because he loved me and missed my fellowship.

This pile of stones, was actually some sort of water storage well which we called "The Reservoir". I think this is actually an incorrect usage of this word, but it was Kansas and we did that sort of language vagary often. In considering it now I would love to now who built it. I would love to now how deep it is. Why they put the stones around it and where the stones came from. It really only just now strikes me as striking. It's really a striking feature, and unlike so much else, "The Reservoir" is just like it always was. I can't help but feel that it will remain just like it always was for sometime to come.

This picture is interesting. Notice the overall distortion of perspective, most obvious near the top of the telephone pole. I like that cell phone camera's do this. I also like that they don't flip images the way all other camera's do, so text appears backwards. I'm a fan of cell phone cameras. I've said that before. I did not have a cell phone when I lived on the farm, that too has changed. My father had a cell phone, possibly towards the end of our time on the farm until it was stolen from the cab of his pickup, which would later be my pick up, in the parking lot of the football stadium where we had parked to see my very first K-state football game. The team my father used to be the mascot of. He talked to the mascot that day, and they had just finally bought a new wildcat head for the poor fool to run around in.

I apologize for running on there. In the foreground of this picture, that tangled mess of plant that you see there is a cactus. It, like "The Reservoir" it sits in front of is amazingly still there. I took a cutting of this cactus, on this trip, and kept it in a Styrofoam container all the way back to Kansas City, where I planted it in a soil/sand mixture, named it spike, and trusted to the care of my mother, who no doubt feels the significance of this plants survival.
This photo looks north west of "The Reservoir", it looks on what2 of the three tree belts of our farm. The third one was planted later, by my father, in what I can only assume was further participation in a government agriculture program a few years before we moved.

In the tree belt on the left I planted my first garden, in horrid soil with no sunlight. Odd that nothing ever grew. It would have been my secret garden, not it's just my forgotten folly.

In the other tree belt Devin used the remains of the chicken coop we tore down on a whim to build a very nice club house. He should blog about that in further detail.


This is looking north east of "The Reservoir". That building that you see that's falling in on itself used to be our cattle barn. A bit west of that and tad bit south there is now no evidence of the place where my brother and I once fed bucket calves. Before that my father had pigs there, not even I remember the pigs.


I really liked growing up on this farm, there is no other spot in the world that I could ever love as much as I love this place. Moving away from this farm was also the single most important factor in my development as a person. My family are all better people for having made this move and been given the opportunity to have experiences that are simply not possible in rural life.

If you trace my steps, they begin here.

Back in the Alley

I've been slack, so in Interest of regaining good blogging habits I will now dump a few memory marks down here and move on.

Below, the post with pictures and no words, is a chronicle of items surrounding our recent helter skelter tour. That was one super fun thing that happened recently which I never got around to blogging about.

I've spent a good deal of my time lately working on aspects of the upcoming Shitting Glitter single. At the figurative last minute Devin inspired us to bash out one last b-side, produced and mixed by yours truly. After mixing it and remixing it at least every night last week, I finally got to the point last night where I could call it done enough. I must say I feel that it's the best production and mixing I've ever done. It helped that I had a good song, and great performances by band members. I also had the added benefiet of having not really mixed anything too seriously in the last couple of years which helped me to enjoy it. Of course most important was that I had excellent help just an email or a phone call away in the form of a seamonster.

Yesterday we rehearsed with the drummer I found to play pride with. This was our second rehearsal with her, and It was really a lot of fun. We have a really great set worked up for pride. I feel very confident about how this show will come across. I'm more excited about this show then I've been about one in a long time. A lot of that feeling comes from the fact that I feel really confident in the band I'll be there with. Exciting.

After the rehearsal Amy and I drove out to Malibu, to see Hoagie and consider the upcoming EP. The considering went well in my opinion. We got home around midnight, I got to sleep around 2:30. I went to work at 8:30. I'm going to take a 10 Minute nap.

"Murder, Death, Bodies, Blood!"

Good to Meat You.

This is disgusting. Don't Look.

Really.

This is gross.


Friday morning when I got to work, there was something hanging in the tree in front of our office. Some said it was voodoo, others said it was an arm. I wasn't sure.

I just knew I didn't like it. EW.

We were all baffled and a little disturbed. After some debate we decided we should call the police and leave them to deal with it. A real cracker jack duo arrived to take charge.

They saunter over to the object in the tree and had a look. Then another look. Then another. Finally a man of origins obviously at least one country south of here walked bye and said: "It's beef tongue, some voodoo shit. Only in LA!"
And he was correct. What you see in the horrid picture is in fact a cow's tongue, ritualistically wrapped and hung for some purpose which is not all together clear. I have read that it's used as a curse to keep someone quiet.

The police for there part were more baffled than anything. They made about 15 phone calls on their cell phones, which I have a hunch went something like this:
"No dude, seriously, it's a fucking cows tongue!" "Yeah, It's gnarly lookin'."

They met for a huddle by their car for a long while after that, shifting around on their feet and looking confused, then they walked back over and had another look. Finally they came over to our office to let us know that they didn't know what to do. They said: "We don't really have a report to fill out on something like this, and our supervisor is busy right now, so we are gonna go and then when we know what to do we'll be back to tell you. We can't really cut it down cause we don't have any way to dispose of it, but as soon as we know who will cut it down we'll come tell you."

Eventually the sanitation department came and took the tongue. I was not sad to see it go.

Folks at home may be asking what cow died for that tongue. For my money it was a store bought tongue that died for your hamburger somewhere else, in addition to your belt and you shoes and your gello®.

As for the purpose my theory is that it was a rivalry among two competing Roach Coaches. For my Kansas readers I've found you this picture, I don't recall seeing them around those parts. They are basically a dirty lunch counter on wheels. The wheels are handy when you are operating with out license from the health department. At our office block there is one coach that has been feeding the desperate (I am not one of these people) for the entire time I've worked here. He comes every weekday at the same time, pulls into the parking lot, honks his horn and those who don't care what they eat run out and order. So this fellow has been coming every day for years, then last Thursday this johnny come lately roach coach pulls in early into the parking lot, parks and stays all day, doing business hand over fist, which no doubt cut into the OG roach coach's business. These folks are basically drug pusher's with a shittier product, I would certainly not put the tongue in a tree move past them. If the people that drive those coaches are not the type of people that would buy a beef tongue in the supermarket, then I don't know who would.

Come What May

I've been not blogging with the verve I had last month because I'm spending a lot of time working on SG related projects, specifically a new track for our upcoiming ep. The track is called "Trance Ego", and a while back I did a post of Devin cutting his keyboard parts.
Monday Night Devin and Amy cut vocals in this contraption:

Before that Amy toiled on the couch, making sure her lyrics were in order:


I spent several hours last night going through the first stage of mixing, which other than some trouble with getting the vocals to sit, I felt pretty confident in the results. It's been fun to take a song from embryo to completion rapidly, and it's also been a good time for me to be able to concentrate on just one song and do the best I can with production and mixing. The results, will hopefully be avaliable for listening pleasure on the upcoming cd, "Sidesaddle Sweet Talk"

The Day Blurs Evening

Carrie, who long time readers of this blog will remember from post far too numerous to mention arrived here in Los Angeles yesterday after an absence of several years. In the time that has passed since I last eyed her, Carrie has paid some debts to society and more importantly to herself.
Carrie was at Devin and Dylan's apartment when I got of work last night. I drove home and met Amy and we walked over to their apartment. We popped up and said hello to Dylan and then collected Carrie and were on our way.
We decided to do our catching up at this establishment, Blvd Lounge. This picture was actually taken as we were leaving, and fitting it would be blurry. Nary a one of the three of us had been to this establishment before, but Devin had recommended it.
I'll also be open about the fact that I'm not just indulging myself with this blog, but also my mother, who requested a blog about dinner.
From the outside Blvd. Lounge has always looked like a trailer house to me, but from the inside it's very nice and upscale. The view is nice, it over looks the "Mathew Shepard Human Rights Triangle", sadly I lack the city infrastructure vocabulary to describe exactly what that is. I enjoyed looking out at passing cars, catching up with an old friend.These two fine people arrived shortly after we did. They ordered wine and some sort of martini. Check out the profile on the fellow. That is the stuff that children's book villains are made of.
I'm finding that my cellphone camera has some difficulty conveying light, which sad, because it was beautiful at the time this photo was taken last night.
Here Amy is telling Carrie a story, a story that has left Carrie obviously saying something to the effect of "Serious Dude?"
You maybe can't tell from where you sit, but Carrie is wearing a shirt that says: "Cheesy and Delicious". She's from Wisconsin you know.
Here I am surprised, by just about everything. Life in general, the evening in specific. I'm conveying through this self portrait my complete wonder at where the world takes you, and what it does with you when it gets you there.
I would have never predicted the evening this picture captures in progress, and I'm thrilled to have my world unfold that way.

Apparently the bar was not prepared for us. You are looking at the last three Large Sapporo's in the place. Apparently the fellow that does there ordering couldn't have predicted that we'd stop by for happy hour.
This is a flat bread pizza, with some type of very spicy sausage on it. It was pretty scrumptious.
As we talked along last night and I listened when my mouth wasn't speaking, I was reminded of something that I wanted to mention here, a bit about memory. I've often heard it say amongst my friends, that remembering things can be a real problem, and that it probably has something to do with getting older. I find when I catch myself forgetting something, like a name or the answer to a question I've already asked it's not because I didn't remember it, but because I was paying attention enough to even learn what I've since convinced myself I've forgotten. It's not often about memory, it's about participating fully in the gathering of information. Burgers... I watched the movie Fast Food Nation last night. The burger in this picture may well be my last. That movie or the book, should be required prior to the frequenting of a cooked food on the go establishment. I am reminded again that I should eat ethically. I wonder if I really needed reminded, or if I should have just paid attention.
With this final blurry shot I'll let you in on a little secret about me. When I go to a new restaurant I will always excuse myself to the restaurant at some point during my stay, weather I need to go or not. How someone can go into a restaurant and not check out what the bathroom looks like is beyond me. Also, on the chance the bathroom is what we call a "Onesy" I like to lock the door and take a moment of piece. Outside the conversation is flowing with drinks, and catching up is in progress so it's good to pause and allow the self a moment to reflect and reset.