Friends asked me to please blog my drive from St. Louis to my new (temporary) home in Huntington Beach, CA, so forgive me for interrupting my usual commentary with this ridiculousness. I didn't want to start a new blog for this foolishness.
Day 1 (StL through Amarillo, TX)
The trip began innocently enough. The weather was 45 degrees F and cloudy as I and the loaded-down Jag embarked on our journey. Fully vetted, the Jag roared down the road as I sniffled, partly because of the cold that had attacked my sinuses over recent days, and partly because of the way my dog looked at me as I backed out of the doorway that day. "I'm crying over a dog," I chided myself, knowing how ridiculous this would sound relaying it to others. Then again, those who have seen this dog know how she has that way of looking, all adoring and innocent and trusting...ugh, it is TOO much! MO started to mist a bit, about an hour out. By then, all signs of moisture on the inside of the vehicle had left. I was hard tacked on the open road. My wanderlust had kicked in, and I could not WAIT to get to another state! The further West in Missouri one goes, the weirder it gets. Yes, it's on the Bible Belt, so there are a lot of Jesus billboards. One sign implored people to attend the "church of your choice" this Sunday. Who is paying for that one? Of course, next to the church and Jesus signs, there are signs for guns and ammo warehouses. Guns, guns, guns! As far as the eye can see! Down the way from the firearms, pro-life and Jesus billboards are the ever-present "Adult Video" supercenters. Oh, Missouri, you are a conundrum! Suddenly the rain came down in big splats, which the weighted-down vehicle handled well, until we hit mildly flooded roads outside of Springfield. Orange road sign flashed: "Road closed ahead. All traffic must exit at 64." Greeaaattt. Then, I hit what we French like to call, the "bouchon." We crawled down the road so slowly that I was sure that the dead possum I'd seen a while back could have moved faster. Even off the highway on the exit ramp and down the main road, the pace was excruciating. The diverted highway traffic snaked through Springfield, and finally I found myself back on the highway, slightly annoyed, but no worse for the wear. By the time that I FINALLY got out of Missouri and into Oklahoma, I was more than ready. OK isn't much better than MO, I must say. It is just as flat and there are just as many non-noteworthy cow fields there as in my home state. However, the slight change in the look of the fields, accented by red brush plants, gave the scenery a more Southwesterly feel. Like a starving artist, I ate up the scenery, trying to figure out what I'd do with it later in sitting down and writing. Wide open plains, cattle, brush...aaaand that was it, pretty much. Not much fodder for amazing writing. Wait, they wrote an award-winning musical production about this state! However, the wavin' wheat was gone, and the winds were muggy and still on account of the rain. I guessed that I belonged to the land, so long as it would let me go after I crossed state lines. "Don't stay too long in Texas," my friend, Robb, had said, semi-jokingly. I ended up staying the night in Amarillo, mostly because I feared that I would die if I went any further that night. I had already decided to bypass staying in Oklahoma City because, after taking a "Stacker" pill, after feeling drowsy that afternoon (I hadn't had a full night's sleep at all Friday through Tuesday), I was still bright-eyed and full steam. However, as night's pitch black drapery fell across the landscape, the misty rain that had been drizzling all damn day created patches of pea soupey fog in the middle of Nowheresville, TX. Images of Ed Gein and his family flashing through my head as my eyes tried to make heads or tails of the blackness, I sought the comfort of the lights of a well-lit cattle semi. I hugged the guy's tail all 200 miles to Amarillo. Trucks make great lighthouses in the fog, rain, snow and mist--especially the ones with the lights that go all the way up the sides. About 30 miles outside of Amarillo, we encountered a flipped truck, flames shooting from its underside. The smoke added to the fog that blanketed the highway. You could smell the thing burning for miles. The driver might have been pulled from the wreck, but he was clearly injured. Ten miles or so up the road, I saw the ambulance screaming down the highway on the other side. It must be awful to be in a wreck out in the middle of nowhere, where the nearest hospital is miles and miles away. Terrible. I hoped that the guy was okay. Once in Amarillo, I found the closest, decent-looking inn in town. My father had insisted that I try to find a hotel in favor of a motel, which I guess that this place was. Baymont Inn. It wasn't too shabby looking, inside or out. By the time I pulled up, I had been holding my bladder for way too long. I ran inside. "Can I help you?" The girl at the front desk looked up to ask. "Yes-I need to book a room for the night, but first, do you have a restroom I could use?" I shot her a plaintive look as I said this. She pointed me to the public pee spot. I looked in the mirror after I relieved myself and saw that both of my eyes were black underneath. "Ugh. I look like death. This woman probably thinks I'm some sort of drug addict," I thought as I examined my pale, makeup-less face and washed my hands. I came back and booked the room, trying to throw out light-hearted, jovial comments, which this humorless woman was not quite receiving. She gave me my room keys and pointed me to the parking area. I parked and lugged a few things to the outer door, which, she said, would open with my key. It did not. I looped around to the front desk again and she told me that the door was not always mechanically reliable, and to come through the inside. Yippeedee. I went through the inside corridor, found my room, and tried my key. No dice. I tried again. Red light. The third time, the door flashed green and the lock popped open. Ahh, finally! Respite! Sanctuary! Re...what was this? A neat little row of suitcases propped on the couch? A laptop on the desk? Someone's been sleeping in my bed! My heart pounded for fear that the occupant was still somehow occupying the room, perhaps hiding in a closet or something. I backed out slowly and headed back to the front desk. "Was there someone in that room?" The woman at the front desk drawled. "Yeeesss..." How did she know? "I was afraid of that. I switched someone to that room just a little bit ago, but I assigned him the wrong room in the computer." She explained. "It's a good thing that he wasn't in there. I would have been in big trouble!" She drawled her statement with such a lack of intensity, I worried if she really understood the gravity of her mistake. She should thank her lucky stars that she had goofed on good-natured (albeit drained) me. And that the guy hadn't been in there. Naked. *shudder to think* Finally, I found my bed and a good night's rest. A hot scrambled egg and biscuit breakfast had me up and ready to scramble for the Texas border. Not before stopping at a fill station and discovering that, in Texas, both pickup trucks and mullets will never go out of style.
As a music journalist, seeing hundreds of shows, speaking with hundreds of music celebrities, I'm always amazed that I'm still able to be impressed by musicians. It doesn't happen as much as it used to, as the "adult" critic in me has been conditioned to be jaded and skeptical by the "cool kids" in the biz. Bump that though, I can't help it: Much of the time I'm as sparkley-eyed and grinney as the 16-year-olds crowding the stage, flailing their "MINOR" hand stamps high. I'm a total dork, and I'm okay with that. Especially when it comes to a band of the caliber of Tortoise. Maybe they're called Tortoise because they tour about as often as Giant Tortoises mate. It's been about five years since the last album release, and the fans were clearly hungry for a little turtle soup. For a Tuesday night at the Firebird in St. Louis, the turnout filled half the venue, which was more than I could say for any band or artist I'd ever seen in the place on a week night. The turnout always surprises me in this place because it is, in my opinion, one of the best rock venues in all of St. Louis. Then again, the place isn't exactly advertising itself from the road (it's about as conspicuous as an ant's ear), but anyway, I digress. For those who haven't heard Tortoise, they are a five-member experimental group that hails from Chicago. The group uses a variety of organic instruments and also electronic toys to create its vast wealth of sounds. Each member of the group comes from some other project, and somehow they all seem to piece themselves together in a way that creates a multi-layered symbiosis. Instead of egos clashing, I guess that somehow they've learned to work with each person's individual talents in a way that, for most bands, is a veritable impossibility. The stage at the Firebird held a wealth of instruments: Bass guitars, regular electric babies, two drum kits, a fantasy-inducing Moog synth, keyboards, an electronic marimba and a xylophone. As the band took tot he stage, the disjointed lot of instruments all came to life and each element had its turn in the spotlight. Jeff Parker's wicked guitar fingers send melodic waves cascading like an avalanche over the opening track. His jaw clenches and a hard grin of concentration flashes in and out as his lips draw back in time with the unrelenting rhythm. In whomps the drum kit. Not one of them, two. It comes as a pleasant surprise that Dan Bitney, not usually known for his percussion, takes up the sticks for a flashy and syncopated drum duet with John Herndon. McCombs, the bassist, takes up the keys, and that turns everything we thought about Tortoise right on its head. And that is awesome. The dizzy rockadelic frolic is brought on by a banquet of electronics (having never seen an electronic marimba, I was quite intrigued by its light-up action). Bitney and Herndon take up that and the xylophone in another duet. Herndon at one point scratches at the xylophone with the sticks like a cave man carving bones, then flips them right-side and flows right into a gorgeously bone-melting ditty on the metal. All the while, John McIntire dabbles the keys and tosses in robotic noise and "fun" stuff like dimestore beads at a MardiGras parade. Somehow with Tortoise, tacky is tasteful. That 70s cop-show, slouchy polyester vibe suddenly feels like it's en vogue; it just feels right on your skin. A guy in the crowd told me that he could "feel the music in [his] pants." If that isn't rock-tastic, I don't know what is. I'd like to say that I was fully music-critic sharp and "with it" during this show, that my brain was actively analyzing the elements 100 percent of the time, but if I said that I would be lying. I did get a little bit lost in the music for a while. The psychedelic elements whisked my brain off to another place for a few minutes before I realized what was happening. Listening to Tortoise is like hearing interpreted into music every dream you ever had--or every dream you wish that you ever had. John Herndon really snapped me back to reality with his incredible guttural drumming. After a good hour of drumming, I imagine anyone would be exhausted, but Herndon, sweat flowing off of his nose like a mini-waterfall, took it to the next level, hitting harder and faster. Whipping the music into a froth, he brought the backbeat to the foreground. I haven't seen dedication like that in years. Hats off, buddy. All the rock, wonk and jazz add up to a fantastic mystery flavor. As always, Tortoise delivers a rare treat.
Perhaps the movie Fight Club's scene where Pitt and Norton raid the liposuction clinic's rear dumpsters for bags of human lard to be delicately repackaged into flavored body products isn't so far fetched these days. With the world growing ever larger, and the people's rear ends in proportion to the exponential explosion of the population, people are finding fairly creative ways to get rid of the excess blub. One particularly enterprising Beverly Hills doc used patient fat, converting it into a bio-fuel for his vehicle. Innovative, ingenious even, but unfortunately too risky to be put into place. I do wonder, however: How much fat does it take to fuel one vehicle? Wow, I could totally imagine what life would be like if the world took such ideas seriously. Something like that could lead to an entire industry of couch potatos, or "fat farmers", who sit around, gorging on ice cream and bon bons for months while watching their 800 channels on a sunken divan. Then, when sufficiently "ripe," they turn a profit on the sucked-out cells for four bucks a pound, turning the lazy American stereotype into a brilliant entrepreneur. Wild. I even came across a website for a Dutch organization that claimed to offer free liposuction to people, then converted the fat into baked goods for starving people. It at first appeared far-fetched, but the site that I investigated appeared legitimate. However, I have been unable to relocate the site, and the Dutch are known for their pranks, so I'm not quite certain that this was not just a beat-all take-em-to-the-cleaners. If not, the bioethics issues are the size of the cookies at Diddy Riese...
It's funny how history repeats itself over and over. It makes me think that perhaps history and human experience is just a series oflogarithmic patterns, bound to repeat sooner or later. Perhaps it is, or perhaps we, as humans, naturally gravitate toward certain highs and lows. Who knows? I always find it immensely fascinating whenever I locate a person in history who has been through almost the exact same scenario that I'm currently facing on personal scale. Recently I came upon the bio of Gene Kelly, not very disputably one of the most talented entertainers the United States has ever seen. Sifting through the details of his early years before MGM fame and glitz, I discovered that a 17-year-old Kelly originally set out to study journalism (parallel exhibit A) at Pennsylvania State College. Because of economic conditions at the time (1929), Kelly quit his studies in order to find a more stable position to make ends meet (parallel exhibit B). In 1930, his family opened a dance studio, where he taught while eventually going back to school and earning a BA (family business parallel exhibit C). He actually enrolled in law school (consideration of a law degree parallel exhibit D), but dropped out after two months to pursue dance teaching and choreography. Finally,in 1937, he moved to New York City to pursue his dreams and expand on his natural given talents (moving to a big city parallel exhibit E). The life of Gene Kelly not only draws personal parallels for me, but also for others facing economic and career hardships at this time. It's an inspiring history lesson for people today. So a person's career of choice is facing a slump, uncertainty, or even complete elimination from the viable marketplace; that doesn't mean that a person cannot make a go at a fabulous career. Now is the time to ramp up the creativity, perhaps, to explore our other talents and natural gifts. You never know where it could lead. You may one day be dancing in roller skates, eh, Gene?
For trying to do something environmentally sound, I get burned. My resume/news show website, www.maglama.com is currently down. I decided to switch to a new hosting service that used wind energy to power its servers, and now am faced with a lengthy domain transfer that could take up to five days. Right. Just before I skipperdeedee off to find my fame and fortune in Los Angeles (or at least find someone who will take a shine to my skills). How annoying. I am now going to try to squash everything into a file and likely create resume multimedia CDs for the event (inevitably) that I can't get the site functional in time. Plus, I will have my Maglama YouTube, the measley thing that it is at the moment, as well. Ughughughughugh...
Neglecting my blog has become a bad habit that I need to overcome. I have been busy working on several video projects, articles, reviews and profiles, and have actually been pouring my heart and soul out on personal blogs in light of this depressing economic times. Frankly, I haven't had much emotional energy for this sort of commentatorship. Sure, I'll chew the fat about it over coffee with an intellectually elevated colleague or friend, but formulating ideas that I think are worth something in writing takes a lot out of a person. Besides, most of my other spare time is taken up by scouring online ads for full time work. Speaking of online job ads, leave it to scammers to take full advantage that every other human being in this country is looking for work. Via Craigslist especially, I will apply to a position, only to receive an email shortly thereafter prompting me to follow a link to "complete my application online." Perhaps some of these sorts of human resource websites are legitimate, but somehow I doubt it. Somehow I wonder if it's all a ploy to get people's addresses, phone numbers and other such information. To me, it seems like quite a hassel to go through to get people's info, but you never know. Anything's possible in this day and age. I have yet to find any significant "buyer beware" articles online regarding this sort of thing. However, when someone I don't know directs me to an unfamiliar link and asks me to put in my information, I have every right, as a web-savvy consumer, to be wary. It's taxing on the mind and emotions to constantly be looking over one's digitized shoulder, but nowadays, with the free-wheeling information exchange of the Internet, we have no choice. I feel increasingly pained for those individuals who lived through the era of handshakes and heartfelt promises. The Harold Hills were few and far between, and a man or woman's word was just as good as signatures and certificates. Now we practically have to require a blood test for every transaction. And, thanks to people like Bernie Madoff, our trust in friends, colleagues and business people is in even more of a shambles. It disgusts me that scammers prey on people's emotions and seek to kick them while they are down. One recent scamming ring would call elderly folks pretending to be their grandchildren, claiming to be stranded in a foreign country needing money to get home. It's crazy what these people will do. I've heard of some shameful phishing scams in my life, but this one was probably one of the worst. We'll never be able to avoid these scams completely. A sucker is born every minute, as they say. People will run to the broken back window and forget about the front door. Here's a good site that offers SOME hints on avoiding these crazy schemes online: http://www.fightidentitytheft.com/sucker.html. Also, if you haven't already, check out www.snopes.com for information on chain emails, fake giveaways, and other stories that sound too surreal to be true (usually they are).
A number of topics concerning women have arisen in the news as of late: some pleasant, some not so pleasant.
Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor is a pleasant story. Not only is she the arguably first Hispanic (Justice Benjamin Cardozo in the 1930s was thought to have Hispanic blood), but she is the third woman. Although she will likely sympathize with the left point of view while serving with the court, Sotomayor is no pantywaste. As a judge, she's hard as granite and lionness aggressive. She will give the other seasoned justices a hard kick in their robed backsides. For all that's worth, methinks she is a good choice, the best of both the female perspective and upholding the law. As all of Hollywood would say, work it, Girl.
Not-so-pleasant are the number of female murderers in the news as of late. According to the Bureau of Statistics, women account for 14 % of all violent crimes. I wonder what that will be the next time that gets calculated. Among the disturbing acts are the crimes where women murder their own children or the children of neighbors, however, most disturbing are the numbers of women who attempt to steal babies from other women by cutting the babies out of the wombs of pregnant women. I cannot imagine anything more horrifying. What may be even more horrifying, perhaps, are the possibilities of women getting away with these murders and raising the children as their own. I shudder to think...
At any rate, I thought that I would weigh in here as I have been grossly neglecting my blog in favor of video production and also attempting to find a full time gig in the world. Keep the faith.
