Where is the hotel?

fuck you. pay me.

LA people.... and everyone world wide.  please be aware that new-ish friend and recent squatter with permission , jessica hopper will be reading at Hope Gallery, 1547 Echo Park Ave tonight, for FREE.

Please note that Jessica (pictured below, post a red lorry yellow lorry show circa 1983) will be reading something her Dad requested.  Also note that the more people attend, ostensibly the more successful she will become down the road.  at which point i will feel comfortable asking her for a little bread whenever she stays in my place posting blogs about how great the porch is and driving me homesick crazy.

also reading some fiction tonight and highly recommended, Sam Mcpheeters whom used to be in born against and wrangler brutes and is a really talented man.

zappin' rats and roaches

 

i'm sitting here in mary's apartment looking out the window thinking about what i should be doing since i am in nyc....  i can't really think of anything.  i am too lazy to go to a museum or spend money in soho.  i'd have to take my bag with my computer, etc as i wouldn't want to trek back here before heading to madison square garden for the pearl jam gig tonight.  i don't even know why i'd have to take my computer tho, come to think of it.  i don't really do much on this job but make sure that the band is getting on and off stage on time and submitting their guest list.  but i know as soon as i leave my shit at home something will come up and i will look like an asshole, unprepared to do my job. 

so i'm here, which is not a complaint, it's quite comfortable here. mary is in SF and i have the place to myself. i'm jamming feetwood mac, rumours and thinking about LA. hopper posted another blog about my apt that got me homesick all over again.  other people enjoying my apartment is a nice feeling.  she's fomenting an exodus of girls from the midwest to east la.  that's fine with me.  more opportunity for true straight talk.  it's a nice counterpoint to the beating around the bush, hang loose free-wheelin conversation style of the west coast.

i'm also thinking about the big pj show last night at MSG.  first you should know that in most arenas, the floor is below the street level.  but since penn station sits below MSG, the floor is up 4 levels from the street.  i didn't really think about this until about 3 songs into pj's show last night and i thought that nyc was experiencing an earthquake.  just like in tokyo 5 months ago, the concrete floor was moving up and down.  you could see the couch moving.  i moved out into the corridor leading to the stage and it got progressively more intense.  enough so that i really, honestly felt sea sick.  all i could picture in my head were the rebars in the concrete below and how this was actually happening without a giant sinkhole forming once the band played the opening licks of even flow.  we were talking about how surreal it is to walk out on the floor of these arena shows.  it's totally controlled chaos.  you can easily move from one side of this pretty big structure to the other through a crowd of 18000 people because everyone is obeying the lines on the floor marking their sections.  but as you walk by there are dudes pumping fists and screaming but it kind of looks like that one scene in superman 3 (or is it 2) where those dudes that had been exiled from krypton were floating through space in their prison made of like  apiece of glass or something?  it's just their screaming faces.... it feels like that, except last night it was drunk new yorkers (?).  which begs another question... where do these people come from??? i mean not to diss too hard on pearl jam (who by the way have some pretty alright faster jams) but let's be honest... it's not like they are the bastion of coolness.  and i guess there is still part of me, inexplicably, that is the same as the 18 year old me that showed up in nyc and was surprised to see people wearing button down shirts and dockers.  my naive idea of it then was all downtown '81 , ramone's punk rock and photos of straight edge matinee's at cb's circa 1988.  so, when 40,000 ny'ers show up for a pearl jam show my knee jerk reaction is "really?" what the fuck.  but really, as we all know this place can be just as uncool as lexington, ky.  but anyways... these people would have been psyched if the building collapsed in on them as ed ved was singing "i'm still alive". 

i made my way back to the holding pen of union stage hands.  the ones who's contract states the stage must be dark from 6 pm - 7 pm and by dark they mean you can NOT even go on it to grab a roll of tape or put a bottle of water down.  oh nyc and the unions.  you make it tough to be pro labor.  so many guys working and yet everything was so behind schedule yesterday.  pj actually paid the union the extra fee so that the stage would not go dark and the pharmacists could get a 15 minute sound check.  larry's giant case of guitars did not actually make it on the stage until 4 pm.  normally they are up there by 1 pm or so.  but still, there were tons of dudes milling around smoking cigs and talking in funny accents.  they were nice at least.  just not gonna do more than they have to unless it means giving me the hard sell on an embroidered Local 1 windbreaker.

i think when i get bored today i am gonna show them this, just to test their funny bone.

note to self

don't try to write a lame blog at 1:30 am on 3/4 of a bottle of wine.

anytime but now

i'm back in nyc. i was here last week for a couple days.  fuck it.  ami going to be such a wishy washy prick for the rest of my life.  i didn't care about being here. i just wanted the tour to start so i could get home to LA . which is probably the exact opposite of the way i felt 5 months ago. or 2 months ago.  i did have one night where i criss crossed the city seeing people when they were available. bottle of wine and dinner on the LES.

a sixer of bud light at 22 and 1st.

one beer at the tile bar.
then i pussied out and took a cab to brooklyn.  old me would have taken the train.
people drink a LOT in nyc.

touring with ted leo / pharmacists is rad and easy.  being on tour with a true, smart, punk songwrite is a nice change of pace.plus james canty is here!  and marty violence is here. and molly neuman is their manager.  this is like a total reunion from my days of promoting punk shows in ohio. james was in make up / nation of ulysses.  marty was in (young) pioneers. molly was in bratmobile. ted was in chisel (and citizens arrest!)  i've known all these people since i was 25.  they are part, a big part, of the reason i do what i do today.  they crashed at my house. they played in bands that drove all day to get to their show and help me move furniture in a coffeeshop so they could play to 200 kids.  and best of all we became friends and remained them. over the years through random run ins, often in totally incongruent places.  ladyfests in olympia, punk clubs in germany, muddy festivals in england and now in the backstage all day long snack shop known as a shed tour with pearl jam.  here we are again, grown up pro's.

it makes me pretty happy.  happy to be around these guys and happy to see someone like pearl jam so stoked to be around them as well. whatever, scoff all you want.  pj dudes are rad.  they stop by on a daily basis to say hello and compliment the band.  their guitar techs help with buzzing amps.  their personal chef makes us coffee.  there's no weird vibes backstage.  it makes me think that if i could just meet the next PJ i could actually stay on tour for 20 years.

but best of all... there's pretty much round the clock donuts and cake backstage.

technically disfigured

what's the most annoying thing about Pennsylvania?

the lame website on the license plate. i've been all over the world and this is by far the dumbest license plate i've seen. surely if you cared enough about PA to want to look it up on the internet you could just google "pennsylvania" and find the website.  or for that matter "PA" just in case you can't actually spell the word.  it works. i just did it.

plus, the bottom kind of looks like a urine stain.

also...annoying today, this add on my myspace page:

what's so "special" about this woman?  if a sneering 30 year old barista is your idea of a "special" gf there are quite a few coffee shops i can point you towards.  and you don't have to pay a fee to get them to treat you like shit

oh yeah!  and this fucking guy. 

i ain't got time to take a fast train

(brutal)

i woke up in brooklyn this morning and the mets had fired willie randolph. my gut instinct was (especially since they had just won 3 of 4) that there is some secret formula that determines how many black men are allowed to be at the top. and since obama won that meant someone had to go to keep the balance. but then sommerstein told me that they had hired jerry manuel (whom i thought was white, but i was thinking of charlie) and since jerry manuel is black, that theory was shot.

(brutal)

so i grabbed the papers and walked down the street to peter pan's donut shop, the one with the super hot polish waitresses and the rad donuts. the thing is, these girls are like the pale skinned version of the latina girls on the subway.  neither care about you if you aren't latino or polish. or at least they don't care about you if you have greasy hair and naps forming in the back of your head. bummer. so i am flipping through the ny post (which doesn't have anything about willie being shit-canned cause the mets did it at like 3:30 AM east coast time) and i come across this little tidbit of millionaire whining.

normally i don't care how much money pro athletes make.  yes, sometimes it's absurd, but the argument that if the owners are making it hand over fist then the players should get their fair share sounds about right.  but come the fuck on.  i fly way more than these fucks do and get probably a penny on the hundred for what they make.  AND i guarantee you they are not flying fucking coach. and even if they are, surely that plane is chartered and they have plenty of room to spread out.  listen.  i've seen the flight attendants on virgin airlines (the airline they supposedly use) they are hot. i can understand the complaint if it was american airlines where they all look like relics from dynasty circa 1982.

let's break this down:

"All told, Willie Randolph's team has traveled 21,611 miles in that span, including a 2,921-mile trek to San Francisco."

whoooop deeeee dooooo.  the span willie is talking about is 6 weeks, May 1 - June 17. May 6 - June 17 i have flown 23,520 miles. and those have not been on a chartered plane and stayed at a super deluxe hotel upon arrival, being paid like tens of thousands of dollars while i was at it.

"Randolph, who called his team's schedule "brutal" when asked about it last week, repeated those concerns before the Mets' charter left Sunday night on yet another six-hour, one way trip."

whatever dude.  randolph doesn't even know what "brutal" means. PIG DESTROYER is brutal. pussy pro athletes playing pranks on each other on a private 6 hour flight is not.

"I'm not looking forward to getting on the plane. It's a long ride."

omg. met's suck. i guess it's a long ride if you know you are flying 3,000 miles to get the ax.  still... where would you rather be fired?  LA, sunny and 76?  or nyc, shitty and hot and humid?

"We've been out to the West Coast four times in a [month] and a half," said Randolph, who was including a trip to Denver in that count."

dude... again.  boo fuckin hoo. ya know what you did in the last month and a half?  you went to the west coast on a chartered plane.  you stayed in rad hotels. and you got paid a shit ton to sit on your ass in a dugout and basically hang out.  i know. i know he is the manager, he has some responsibility.  but anyone that has been to a baseball game with me has heard me wax about how rad it would be to be a pro.  it's like you get paid to hang out with your bro's.  especially the pitchers that sit on their ass all summer long in the bullpen on patio chairs watching baseball games.  sorry but 3 time zones does not warrant the complaint.

all i am saying is... you guys already play a sport that many of my non - sporty friends do not consider to be that difficult or hard (i disagree). and i spend a considerable amount of time trying to convince people that you aren't in fact pussies.  and that you are legitimate athletes. so quit acting like little babies.

(not brutal)

now let me tell you about a real brutal flight!  i flew to nyc on sunday. left my house at 10:00 am.  boarded a flight at 12:25 pm and arrived at mary's house in brooklyn at 4:30 AM.  that is 15 hours and 30 minutes door to door.  my flight landed at jfk after circling nyc for an hour due to a storm. then diverted to boston to get more fuel. in boston we were trapped on the ground for almost 2 hours due to the storm still over jfk.  then we flew to nyc landed and got jammed up in gridlock on the tarmac for an hour and twenty minutes.

 

the best part?  neil patrick harris (doogie howser) and his boyfriend were in the same aisle as me on the opposite side of the plane. this is the business class section, the first row. there is a big screen
showing movies and tv shows right in front of this row.  and for the last 2 hours they showed episodes of neil's show "how i met your mother" over and over again.  he handled it well. but i must admit i was praying for a freak out. anything to alleviate the boredom and make the delay worthwhile.

after we got to the gate we waitied 97 minutes for our bags.  (the mom from friday night lights was there too!  total fox.) and then i waited about 55 minutes for a taxi crab.  the thing is... it wasn't that brutal. i was in business class.  see willie... that's how you complain.

actually, we all could have it worse.  we could be like this random semi full of chickens i found parked on the street in a desolate part of greenpoint last night.  just a truck of chickens clucking and shitting on each other in the middle of brooklyn.

ridin' around in the breeze

have you ever had someone tell you what they really thought about you?
have you ever had someone that you thought was your friend (and was at one time more) tell you that you are basically a piece of shit?

yesterday someone i thought i was friends with told me what she really thought about me.  described in detail, much to my surprise, how i had done her wrong.  laid it all out, out of the blue.  a real, straight up telling off.  the kind where you're on the phone pulled over on sunset, 76 degrees, sunny (of course), traffic whizzing by, screaming in my ear.  to explain why, the catalyst, isn't even important.  beyond that it is straight up dumb. i wish it could be something as exciting as another woman, a secret drug problem where i stole all her shit and pawned it around the corner from the house or an accidental fire in her house. that would be exciting.

instead it's something pretty banal, just a straight up miscommunication. i get it though. i understand where she's coming from... i just never knew she felt that way and it came as quite a shock on the side of the road down the street from the shitty restaurant we went to after or cross country road trip. the one that's called good, even though it isn't.  we were just too tired to fine somewhere else that was open at 9 pm (oh LA).  but that's what happens when you get older, maybe.  you get it. it's not nice to hear and you don't even have to agree with it (i don't) but you understand that there are other point of views. valid?  maybe not. but it's how someone feels.  so who's to say?

so there on sunset our friendship ended. 4 doors down from the fucking comfort inn that has had the sign saying they are under construction but still open.  even though it's been like that for close to 8 months and i have never seen any thing even resembling a pick up truck let alone a hammer anywhere near there.

today, i was on the same part of sunset, still a little shell shocked, coming back from coffee and crossword puzzle.  and there was rollins, on the radio during the day filling in for steve jones.  he's telling some insane fairy tale about brian jones, steve jones and himself on a beach in the south of france talking to a journalist in 1968.  that's his segue into a beach boys song.  and then he played a roy orbison song.  and it sounded amazing!  even though i only have one speaker and it sucks.  it was like i had never heard roy orbison before.  i can't remember the song, which is a shame. it was one, maybe it was in blue velvet, where he's singing about letting him die, he sounds happy (or content, at least) about it.  and it sounded perfect on another sunny day, 76˚.  and i felt better.  again, i wasn't feeling that badly in the first place.

so i went home, happy that rollins was alive and playing music on the radio in southern california.  and i looked for that song on the computer to buy. but i couldn't find it and i didn't feel like buying a roy best of and not having it be on there.  i don't think it was a huge hit, i might be wrong tho.  but then i saw the traveling wilburys, and i remembered that i had always meant to buy this recently reissued comp of all their songs.  dudes. it is amazing.  it made me even happier than rollins already had.  i mean, there is a sort of weird kraftwerky meets so cal rock from the 70's jam. and of course there are the hits.  and they are so good. it even included this video.

how rad do all those guys look? harrison is really intense and looks like he just flew his private plane to practice. petty is straight deadwood old west, and looks amazing.  what a smile.  lynne looks like a cross between will ferell and my dad circa '80.  roy orbison is a ghost and his voice sounds so sick.  and dylan, well, he just looks like a furry dylan.  watching this vid i thought, "man, to be in that train with those dudes.  how insane would that have been?" or to be in the studio when they wrote this record?  i mean, i was pretty stoked when once i was in the same car as j mascis, mike watt, ron asheton and kevin shields. (well, i just namedropped, which is one of my faults i was called out for yesterday).  but these dudes were beatles, ELO, dylans and petty and orbison.  i couldn't help but think how rad it would be for any of these dudes to be my dad. the funny thing being i know a daughter of one of them and it doesn't sound like it was always how i imagined... i don't even know what that is... i think it was more of those dudes in that train. that particular moment in that video, if that was your dad and you were just watching him and his friends jamming.  and they aren't even famous.  they are just some bros jamming on the train.  ha!  that was my day dream.

have you ever realized where you finally stood with someone? whoa!  it's liberating.  and it doesn't even matter. i would have felt just as fine about it with or without that TW song.  but i was walking in the park, thinking about what a relief it was to know what was up and not worrying about it.  and when i paid attention to the song it was the line "don't have to be ashamed of the car i drive. i'm just glad to be here, happy to be alive. it don't matter if you're by my side, i'm satisified" and i thought.. "petty!  you read my mind." it's corny or silly. but lynne and company totally summed up how i was feeling. and that rollins is responsible for being the catalyst for this realization....well, my week which started out on a shit note looked up by tuesday.

if it's what it takes...

i feel sorry for any of the three car loads of dudes (potential rapists?) that cat called me as i was walking home from the Dodgers game tonight. must be a real bummer to ask what you think is a woman if she wants a ride only to realize, as i am looking around "who me?" style, that you just asked a dude to get in your car (the polite one). or that you just asked a dude to "suck your dick" (the rudest, and ugliest of the three, naturally) and then because 38,000 other people were leaving as well these guys could only stew in their embarrassment as the cars in front of them inched along. i suppose i could have just been cruised by three separate car loads of gay dudes.  but this was elysian park, not griffith park where i hear the action usually is.

yeah.  my second game in a month, both against the rockies.  i fucked up by my lack of posts.  last time i went for free due to the benevolence of my old boss (and friend) greg dulli's season tickets.  such a kind, kind man to offer up his tickets on the first of TWO(!) joe torre bobblehead nights. and since part of our deal was a blog about the game that i never wrote, i couldn't bring myself to ask again.  (if you read this dude, i checked your seats tonight hoping to see you there, but i guess a Penny vs Francis game is not an intriguing enough match up to get you out to the game.  i don't blame you.)

which brings me to my lack of posting... not sure how it started. and it can't all be blamed on the last tour i just finished.  at least not the start of the dry spell.  i most definitely can blame the longevity of it on the tour.  oh, the tour.... for some reason one i thought would be (and was told would be) easier than the last (pretty easy) was grim.  and grim is just one word, others that might be used according to the thesaurus are:

forbidding

uninviting

formidable

dour

harsh

menacing

implacable

ruthless

and perhaps most apprropriate

m e r c i l e s s

two lost passports.  one stolen passport.  more drunk, more often band members since interpol 2003. more drunk crew members than i have ever been around.  there's nothing worse than forgetting the monitor guy at the moscow hotel at 7 AM, turning back from the airport to get him to find him passed out in his bed angry about being woken up.  all because he was drinking vodka until 6 AM.  fuck that shit. 

it's too early to go into details.  so MERCILESS it was that i am only just recovering thanks to the aforementioned baseball game and just general calmness of being home. i think you'll have to wait for the tv show or the book that is most def forthcoming as i can't see any other way out of this lifestyle than a tell all account in a few years.  i've even gotten a request for a feature film.  and that came from a record company employee i worked with a couple of years ago. i just found out i tortured her so that she fantasized about pulling my hair out and slapping me across the face.  too bad she didn't encounter me on my walk home tonight.  i am sure she isn't the only one, exes notwithstanding.

don't believe me?  randy randall got a nice shot of me in the midst of the misery and put it up on the no age blog, here. i am pretty close to forming some dreads in that photo.  i know, i know it's all about tie dye this summer. but when i get a beard that long and little naps forming in the back of my head... you know i've been spending too much time around canadians.