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23 may 2000
----- Last week at band practice, we were watching the tape of the Hollywood gig, and IceDog made a random comment to me about my playing ... "Y'know, the way you hook up with the drums on this tune, it's almost like you could be from Detroit ... not downtown, but maybe a Jewish suburb." It was one of the nicest compliments he's ever paid me. Ysee, IceDog grew up in the black ghetto of Detroit. He didn't even know he was white until he was about eight years old, when a locally famous jazz musician told IceDog to stop calling him "Uncle Joe," because people were starting to get the wrong idea about a little white kid lovingly referring to an older black man as his uncle... but I'm digressing. Last night, IceDog mentioned he was heading back to Detroit for a week in June. I idly suggested I might join him for a weekend, if only to see the "Jewish suburbs." It took off from there. Mojo then expressed an interest in going. I said if he could wing his own airfare, he could crash in my hotel room. That was about the point where I started taking the idea seriously. Next to chime in was Wamba, who mentioned how jealous he was gonna be of us. Now I've known Wamba for almost six years, and he's almost a really good friend. Without thinking, I pulled him aside and whispered in his ear ... "you just get the time off from work, and I'll get you to Detroit. I've got lots of frequent flier miles." I've never seen someone's face light up like that. It made me feel incredibly happy in turn, just to make someone else's day better. Later, he went on and on about how he hadn't been out of LA in over five years, and that trip was to visit his parents in St. Louis. He's never been to Detroit. Neither have I, and I've always been curious about Motown, the whole music scene, how it's one of the few places in the country with a worse reputation than New Jersey. I'd probably love the place. And what better way to go than with fellow musicians, and IceDog there to guide us. So, Northwest Airlines be willing, I'll be hopping on another plane for a weekend in Detroit in late June. It'll be one of the stranger trips I've taken, methinks. ~~~ Been so busy, I haven't even booted up the computer at home since Friday. Work's been hectic -- yesterday I managed to churn out 20 temporary business cards for every employee in the company and FedEx the majority of them to New York at 5pm. The reaction today was mostly positive. The gig on Saturday, it was possibly the best we've ever played, most definitely my personal best with this band. Too bad there was no-one there to see it. We'd have been lucky if there were sixty people in the room at the peak of the night. So it was kinda depressing in retrospect. I know a lot of it has to do with going on at 8pm, and finally Band Management agrees that a later start time might be to our benefit. So we're hiring a few extra roadies and we're gonna be booking later gigs from here-on out. But that's not counting Luna Park on June 16, a friday night 8pm show which we've already booked. And it's probably our most important gig, since Luna Park is the club-of-the-moment in LA, so to speak, the kind of gig that can make or break a band. Suffice to say that I find it highly ironic that both of my songs will be included in the Luna Park set. Highly ironic, and highly frightening. I feel like I should take a crash course in singing before I manage to singlehandedly destroy our band's reputation with my untrained vocal cords. More frightening to me, though, is the prospect of another bad turnout. I'm going to flier the shit out of this town to assure we don't play to a mostly empty room. Sunday was a full afternoon and evening with a woman I've just recently met. Museum, window shopping, drinks, dinner, interspersed with incredibly good conversation in such varied outdoor venues as a rooftop Japanese garden oasis in the heart of downtown LA, and culminating at the Griffith observatory, overlooking the lights of Hollywood at the waning of one of the hottest days of the year. If it reads romantic, then maybe it was, but not in any obvious sense. I don't think it's for me to figure at this time. It was a really fun day ... that's about all I can say for certain. Mom called last night, gushing about my niece, the little flirt, as mom calls her. She's walking and talking -- in other words, she takes ten steps and stumbles, sees a book, points at it, and says "bouh!" "She's soooo cute," my mom says. A brief pause. A change of tone. "You used to be cute too, y'know." I don't know if she appreciated how much that little comment scraped my self-esteem. Yep, the past. Glory days. Back before I became whatever the opposite of "cute" is in my mom's antonymical conscious. Maybe it's the fact that she hasn't even called me "handsome" since graduation from architecture school. Why do I remember these things? Why do I feel so fucking OLD lately? Then again, at my age, do I really wanna be considered "cute"??? Well, it wouldn't hurt, y'know.... Unpacked my bedroom in Malibu tonight. I'm all moved in, and yet I'm still here in Venice, at least for another couple of nights. I'm lying on the equivalent of a leaky life raft, a vinyl air mattress provided by AC and Gabby that I'm probably gonna hafe to wake up and refill at 3am when my bony butt makes uncomfortable contact with the hardwood foundation of the bedframe. In reality, I'm actually considering crashing on the living room couch. I really don't like being in-between places. It's like there's nowhere to hang my hat, even though I don't wear one to hang. Almost like the twilight zone, more like the discomfort zone. The new place ... first picture above ... the view from the living room balcony, over PCH and across Santa Monica Bay. Not the best representation, taken at dusk, but it gives an idea of how far from the city I'm gonna be. I should be sleeping there by Saturday at the latest. The phone gets turned on Thursday, and DSL sometime after that, I hope not too long. Otherwise, I'm gonna be phone-modeming it for the first time in over two years. Not a pleasant concept. Maybe I'm just spoiled by broadband. 23 may 1999: didn't write : 23 may 1998: surerotic : It must have been my dream last night, but I think I woke up with a nipple fixation today.
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