Well, hopefully not the last, but with some technical changes over at blogger.com, my ability to publish here will end tomorrow and won’t return until I “create a custom URL” with blogger, or move to another blogging platform like WordPress.
Anyway… Tonight I’ll be doing something I’ve only dreamed about for a long, long time. No, not that… I try not to dwell on time lost to the past. It’s gone, and without it, I’m not sure I’d be at this point in the journey today. It’s beautiful here. I always envisioned it as a special place, but reality has soundly trumped expectation.
I’ll try to assimilate some thoughts in the flying tube and share them before the lights go out.
Next stop… San Francisco. Can’t wait to try the “Rice a’ Roni.”
Friday night while doing my best rat in a cage impression on an elliptical machine, I read in Rolling Stone that over 60% of their survey participants said “listening to music” would be their choice if faced with just one leisure activity. I guess it depends how “leisure activity” is defined and on the survey demographics. Readers of “Astounding B Monster” or “The Electric Playground” may not have opted for simply sonic spare time… Regular readers of this space know music has been a regular inspiration of words here, second only to my primary muse. I’m not sure what my third one is… Maybe just vanity venting like the sign says.
Anyway, at about the 49 ½ minute mark of my workout mix, the Drive By Truckers “After the Scene Dies” (lyrics by Patterson Hood) welcomed me into the final third of my ½ hour cardio kick. The grinding beat pushed me on, but the words pulled me down and reminded me of one sad fucking soul.
“The graffiti on the back stage wall gets painted over in muted shade
The club becomes an Old Navy
After the scene dies”
“I gotta change my scene.” He used to say that thirty years ago to describe life changes he thought necessary. His “scene” was metaphor for his life and even back then it was one muted by drinking, smoking, inhaling or injecting various poisons that would blur the perceived horror of reality.
“When the last six-string slinger has to bow down for health insurance
and accept the mundane
After the scene dies”
Over the years, partying acquaintances eventually settled down and had to leave his “scene” that wasn’t progressing. One by one, even the hardest partiers achieved some level of clarity and moved on. Not “the scene” though. That season’s lowlight was a hallucinogenic powered one on eight battle with the local town police conducted from the top of the station’s main entry desk.
“When the last one leaves and the last note fades and the last dream’s been put away
Shut the light off / Shut the light off”
Something moved me to open a door that otherwise was ignored so many mornings before. The pale, shaking body was headed toward permanent lights off. A bottle of pills indicated the last dream had been put away. EMT’s and narcan kept the scene alive that day, but began to squeeze the life from others in it.
“When the front man turns to Jesus and the drummer moves away
I’ll still be doing what pleases me
After the scene dies”
“Jesus loves you” was inscribed in crayon and illustrated with the desperate scribbles of a mind stuck back when the abuse began, and a body incarcerated from a toxin fueled rage. Not long after release, Jesus went back to the sidelines and “the scene” went back to only what pleased him.
“When the bartender passes and the owner cashes out
And they box up the glasses and take the sound system down
Guitars back in their cases
Don’t forget my fries
After the scene dies”
Life recently took an old friend long gone from “the scene” and the long tolerant employer finally said “enough.” The sad “scene” reality show is now essentially played out from the proverbial “mother’s basement” and shows no direction for a new season, except for the episode when the stress of “the scene” takes its final toll on Mom.
“Whatcha gonna do when the club shuts down
After the scene dies?”
I worry about what’s going to happen when that scene dies.
One week from this moment, I should be asleep in a San Francisco boutique hotel given high praise from friend and frequent visitor, Jeffro. Our long-weekend itinerary is flexible, but will likely begin with a Friday day-trip to wine country. Since many of you have been to the city by the bay, I’d like your opinions on what you suggest not be missed while we’re there. Here are some of our possibilities:
Napa:
Crushpad
Maisonry Napa Valley
Hendry Vineyard and Winery
Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves
Domaine Chandon
Cornerstone Gardens (Sonoma)
Bistro Jeantry (Dinner)
Other Road Trips:
Big Sur
Half Moon Bay and Pacifica
Bodega Bay
Monterey-Carmel
Mendocino
In the city:
Amoeba Records in Haight-Ashbury
Legion of Honor
farmerbrown
Museum of Modern Art
Chinatown
Golden Gate Park
Italian Dinner in North Beach
Top of the Mark
Buena Vista (to warm the chill only…)
If you were going to SF for the weekend, what would you not miss?
An acrid, burning asbestos smell caused nasal curiosity for several miles climbing the topology of Route 2 West homeward Wednesday night. Looking for the 18 wheel suspect, I passed several, but the nose nastiness remained. Traffic thinned and about 5 miles from my destination, a white trailer belched grey smoke 100 years ahead. After cutting half the distance, suddenly a dense cloud emerged from mid-undercarriage along with airborne black debris bouncing along the highway. Most of it landed and harmlessly slid to rest, except one piece bouncing along the pavement with the trajectory of a golf ball. I slowed, but with cars behind and aside me, there was very little room for evasion and the object seemed to be erratically fluttering like it was thrown by Tim Wakefield. This all happened very quickly, and as the black plastic defied physics and fell to earth, there was little doubt it would get a piece of me. “F%$#, that’s going to…” A loud, heavy bang thumped over the iPod’s efforts, followed by another along with the feeling my front, passenger tire ran over the heavy metal.
The long white trailer pulled over by the Route 70 exit and I pulled up right behind. Getting out of the car, there was no doubt where the smell was coming from. After checking oncoming traffic in the side-view, I got out and walked forward for inspection. The front lower “fin” was pretty badly smashed, and the plastic housing around the running light was hanging off.
Back in my car, I sent a text message as the trailed driver inspected his undercarriage. A State Trooper pulled up behind me and proceeded to walk around my car. “Are you OK? Is it just the front and the door?” “The door,” I replied surprised. Yeah, the door. Whatever the piece was, it somehow ripped into the lower grill, went under the tire, then exited out the side, ripping a gouge between the front quarter-panel and the door, which now makes a loud, metallic wrenching sound when opened.
Not too bad, I suppose. It’s just a car. Although, it did occur to me what the damage might have been if the mind of metal picked my windshield for a hello kiss. In that case, the trooper might have inspected permanent and irreparable damage. I was lucky.
You know those “mile markers” along highways? Yeah, them. Wikipedia states, “Milestones are constructed to provide reference points along the road. This can be used to reassure travellers that the proper path is being followed, and to indicate either distance travelled or the remaining distance to a destination.”
Modern milestones along highways also reflect, which is what we humans do when we reach one. We consider the span traversed and perhaps ponder the proper path proposition (sorry, the cheesy alliteration was irresistible…). In some cases we calculate the remaining distance to a destination…
Obviously what’s really important is everything between what gets measured… The infinity of life lives between those markers and they reflect to remind us to live as if every single moment is a milestone. What milestones have you experienced lately? Here are some of mine.
An unsolicited, “I love you” from Maddy one morning this week as I left for work.
Smiles.
The crushing blow (not) of a 1-3 Red Sox start.
Seeing two of my favorite bands in 6 days.
The bright beauty of fire.
Megan’s job joy.
Professional affirmation.
The girls.
The Kronos cafeteria featuring Buffalo chicken wrap and Italian Wedding soup on the same day!
A beer with my brother.
July in April.
Walking.
Empathy.
Love.
Red cleats.
The spiritual void of a home without that little life.
Wilco’s thirty-five song, near three hour long march was otherworldly last night in “Con-Cord” (Jeff Tweedy butchered it…) New Hampshire. It may have been the best Wilco show I’ve seen among the 8-10 I’ve attended. Um, on second thought, one I attended in 1995 is probably tops, given I stood about 10 feet from Boston’s Paradise stage, and the brand new band had to dip into the Tweedy Uncle Tupelo catalog to play a whole show. My date was a trooper, but with about 14 stress balls in the air, she might have been who Tweedy was addressing when he said, “Concord, have we worn you out?” By song thirty or so she was on the ropes, but wrote this morning: “The band really is good, I enjoyed both the hard guitars and the acoustic sounds, everything except for when the spaceship landed.” (For a sample of the spaceship, you can sample some of the bands sonic seismology beginning at the 5:15 mark of “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” below. )
Walking out of the beautiful Capitol Theatre into the warm July night, we were just an hour and a half and a near exhaustion of petrol away from home. “Maybe next time I’ll know more Wilco…” Yeah, I think so. You can start with my favorites in this set list, courtesy of Wilco fan site, Via Chicago.
I’d like to write more tonight, but Wilco wore me out…
“Enjoy your show.” Those words were comforting text from a loved one who was carrying a heart full of Good Friday heaviness. My body was at Boston’s House of Blues, but my head and heart were home. I needed the towering amps to blow through my soul and I asked the Facebook faithful to pray, vibe or use the force… for good. And they both did.
I’d really been looking forward to the Drive By Truckers, and they brought it, but the set list was so catalog deep and of such varied tempo, that to me, it was like a frustrating at bat against an aging Mike Mussina, full of change ups, slow curveballs and the occasional number one. I wanted all high heat.
Not to say it wasn’t a good show. It was, and the 2,449 other people carpeting the floor and papering the walls with sticky spilled drinks seemed to be in unified sway. “Patterson, you’re the f&^%ing man,” was the very direct review of a guy near me. Yeah, Patterson Hood is the man, and his songwriting is stellar, but “the moment” of the show for me was during a song by Hood’s number two, Mike Cooley. “Birthday Boy” is such a fun, rockin’ song, and the moment came at the 3:08 – 3:18 point in this video. At the HOB, that’s when Patterson rose to his Mike with the biggest smile to sing this harmony with his partner Cooley who penned the words:
“I guess that’s why they give us names
So a few old men can say they saw us rain when we were young.”
To see that unadulterated joy of a guy who loves what he does and really appreciated the words of another, got me. I thought about one “Mr. G.,” Tony Gonnella. He got so much joy out of seeing his son Mike and I rain when we were young. Then I thought about Mike. And Arizona in August. And how I got here. And three words. And how I couldn’t wait to get home.
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