When the cold winds blow, even here in Dealville, the heartiest soul looks abroad to other horizons so that the blood stays thin and the mind expands. Caravans can do wonder for your outlook, so planning is a must. Myself, I've been taking pills for the past two days. Destination Zero is Labadee, Haiti. The further inward we go, the larger my preparation. Which, as you know, is all good talk. It may prove fruitless - as lifeless as most art galleries.
But ay yingo, this is no caravan journey. No private plane, either. Hell, last time we tried that we flew over Mexico, when our "experienced" pilot kept wanting to land because he "knew a guy" who had real abilities. The pilot's inability to be specific was truly frustrating and led to my lack of trust. No, this is going to have to be the hard way. LAfuckinX.
I've seen the good and bad in airports...the gentle breezes of Honolulu, the "one long hallway" of Detroit, one-armed bandits in Las Vegas. But LAX seems to exist in another realm...too big to be updated, but too busy to be completely out of date. My attorney and I used to enjoy moments where we could find a gate area or even a hallway looking exactly the same as in the film Airplane! but more contemporary films will have to do. Modern problems have lead most airports to accommodate the abundance of lines, but not LAX. Two or three people are hired to tell you to stand in a line...doesn't matter what, just get in line. We've got a lot of people...so...what? Nope, not this line, that one.
It's not even that this is a necessary evil, because it's not. But this hambone left the oven under someone else's supervision so here we are. Besides, how many pioneers showed up at the grand canyon and turned to each other to say "Well, the ocean is dry, I guess?"
Knowing these folks if I make it through it will be a small miracle. And miracles...well, that's the way things ought to be. In the new year, reports from the frontline.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Naked Reality
Many people use the expression "it's not worth my time" to denote that certain activities hold lower value than what they consider themselves to be worth. It's not worth it for me to buy used shirts on eBay and try to turn them around for a profit on the street. It's not worth the time for Bill Gates to pick up a hundred dollar bill on the street, because in the time it takes him to pick it up, he has already earned more than that in interest on his fortune. It's not worth it for someone with a high-school degree who has been fired from every job they've ever had to try to make an upward move in society. These things are "knowns", and we all recite this mantra to varying degrees in our lives.
But if something has worth, such as our time, then it must be a commodity. As such, if it has value, meaning it can be compared to other things and either accentuated or diluted, then while certain activities add value to it, others take value away. If you say that something isn't "worth your time", then there has to be a finite, specific sum on what your time is worth. A cut-off. What is your time worth? If it isn't worth a sum of say 10 American dollars an hour, is it worth 15? How about 20? And what if someone came to you and offered you 400 dollars an hour? Now you're doing something that is worth way more than your time. What then?
If that passage of time positively impacts your life, then there has to be a negative side, the part that takes away from your life.
I'm obsessed with the idea of 1 and 0, the idea of being vs. not being. If the color black exists, so must white. If heaven, then hell. You tell me that there exists justice, then there must be an injustice. Imbalance from balance, and all of that.
So I think it's not reaching if I say that being here, in the Land of the White Shadow, takes something away from us, draws something out from our energy, saps us of some undefinable resource. Simply by the act of breathing in this air, looking at this sky, talking to our neighbors, a small part of our enamel is chipped away. And what's beneath? Despair. The hopelessness that rots and breeds, it stinks its way out of the sewers and flows into our brains like poison gas.
And of course it's cyclical, and of course you can't say that one causes another. The Long White Shadow descends and pulls us down into it, and then we accept it and live with it, and then it's allowed to descend further, and so on.
The point of it all is that normally, we don't allow things that cause us pain to continue to cause us pain. If every day I woke up and someone slapped me in the face, I would take the steps to stop the slapping. But if the cold does it? It's tolerated.
Some of us wear it as a badge, stripes on our uniform of bravery. Some complain, but ultimately go back to crock pots. Most deal with it internally, a sort of soul-negotiation, setting arbitrary limits on what is worth what, and constantly keeping it at a distance. A small number flee to tolerable climates, which is really anywhere in America but here.
The reason it is so cold here is because we live in a bowl, mountains to our west and east, the long fingers of rivers snaking south into the flat plains. The air masses slide over the Rockies and come to rest over the Dakotas. Systems last for days, weeks even. There's something in there about temporary permanence, the idea that change will only happen when it's the right time. As progressive as we see ourselves, we tolerate an awful lot of old ways of doing things. It's not born into us, it's drilled. It's pummeled with every storm, every sub-zero snap, every icy morning.
The world is nothing but change, and we, its parts, fear it.
The slow beast moves on, time and value left to the fans of corn dogs, our vast system simply a network of loosely-connected, self-delusional cells. And what do we have to fight for?
Another day, another slap.
But if something has worth, such as our time, then it must be a commodity. As such, if it has value, meaning it can be compared to other things and either accentuated or diluted, then while certain activities add value to it, others take value away. If you say that something isn't "worth your time", then there has to be a finite, specific sum on what your time is worth. A cut-off. What is your time worth? If it isn't worth a sum of say 10 American dollars an hour, is it worth 15? How about 20? And what if someone came to you and offered you 400 dollars an hour? Now you're doing something that is worth way more than your time. What then?
If that passage of time positively impacts your life, then there has to be a negative side, the part that takes away from your life.
I'm obsessed with the idea of 1 and 0, the idea of being vs. not being. If the color black exists, so must white. If heaven, then hell. You tell me that there exists justice, then there must be an injustice. Imbalance from balance, and all of that.
So I think it's not reaching if I say that being here, in the Land of the White Shadow, takes something away from us, draws something out from our energy, saps us of some undefinable resource. Simply by the act of breathing in this air, looking at this sky, talking to our neighbors, a small part of our enamel is chipped away. And what's beneath? Despair. The hopelessness that rots and breeds, it stinks its way out of the sewers and flows into our brains like poison gas.
And of course it's cyclical, and of course you can't say that one causes another. The Long White Shadow descends and pulls us down into it, and then we accept it and live with it, and then it's allowed to descend further, and so on.
The point of it all is that normally, we don't allow things that cause us pain to continue to cause us pain. If every day I woke up and someone slapped me in the face, I would take the steps to stop the slapping. But if the cold does it? It's tolerated.
Some of us wear it as a badge, stripes on our uniform of bravery. Some complain, but ultimately go back to crock pots. Most deal with it internally, a sort of soul-negotiation, setting arbitrary limits on what is worth what, and constantly keeping it at a distance. A small number flee to tolerable climates, which is really anywhere in America but here.
The reason it is so cold here is because we live in a bowl, mountains to our west and east, the long fingers of rivers snaking south into the flat plains. The air masses slide over the Rockies and come to rest over the Dakotas. Systems last for days, weeks even. There's something in there about temporary permanence, the idea that change will only happen when it's the right time. As progressive as we see ourselves, we tolerate an awful lot of old ways of doing things. It's not born into us, it's drilled. It's pummeled with every storm, every sub-zero snap, every icy morning.
The world is nothing but change, and we, its parts, fear it.
The slow beast moves on, time and value left to the fans of corn dogs, our vast system simply a network of loosely-connected, self-delusional cells. And what do we have to fight for?
Another day, another slap.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
A New Wave Christmas?
(Editor's Note: With Trip Darvez the sole surviving member of the California Gold team, we present an article from long ago as he prepares his newest entry coming next week. This comes from the L.A. Reader, a since-defunct newspaper)
I don't feel like I'm alone in saying that already this Christmas season seems a lot more positive than the last. Maybe it was just bad timing that had things erupt within the same month, but by New Years, we found ourselves exhausted. It was a summer and fall with great music, culminating with X's fantastic set at the Whisky...and a handful of the crowd was Go-Go's fans. Did this mean there was going to be an actual combined scene? Moreover, did there have to be? The crowds are shifting night from night and I get a knowing happiness as I watch club owners look confused. The "riot" at the Troubadour included, it seemed to be the most physical (and costly) rebellion to the buy-in of new music.
As this was happening we were treated by the touring and expansion of whatever this "new wave" thing is. Seeing the Toasters at the Bla Bla Cafe (yes, we hit the valley) or Split Enz (their performance on Fridays was nothing short of perfection) provided an interesting alternative when it came to the tripe played on most radio stations. These two parallels co-existed in a way that confounded the author. It's happened - an owner booking a new wave and then punk act for the same night, and I'd rather not get into the results. We're not talking those get-togethers in Orange County: you know how that one ended.
But December of 1980 seemed like a boot to the head, from behind and out of nowhere. Darby's suicide, and John's murder...and we all have no energy. The BS report on "punkers" on Channel 5 was the kind of thing that, while good to know they included Chuck's viewpoint, doesn't help matters. How many want to guess the number of fathers of the valley saw that and made calls to the police right away? It's old, it got in the way of the music...it made you not want to go to these shows. Basically, it's what the LAPD wanted.
But now, a year later, some of the clubs have adjusted and fully embraced new wave (even if it means relegating punk a night or two). Missing Persons has completely taken off, even within the past 3-6 months, now headlining the Roxy. Funny how we saw them a year ago at the Topanga Corral in front of 30 others who also "knew." But they deserve everything, even if KROQ playing them to death doesn't hurt. Add to that The Motels and Josie Cotton (among a long list of others) and it's as if one of them in this line-up is usually playing somewhere. Don't think KROQ's DJ's don't know it either...but they have a hand in this and so as I watched two-unnamed complain of the lack of snacks backstage at the Whisky not long ago...well, that's California Gold. I didn't have the heart to remind them that, if someone hadn't dropped off that Missing Persons EP in 1980, who knows where they'd be...the band and the station for that matter.
Not everyone is getting this, but it's just as well. We're not getting the polarizing split from Fear's Christmas song, but when The Waitresses' Christmas song comes on, with equally nutty lyrics, everyone dances for joy. Perhaps that will end up the ultimate appeal of this music, or maybe I'm hanging with the wrong crowd. There's something amazing about both bands, but if you're going to survive in the 80s you'll have to appreciate both for what they are. Simply as a metaphor, of course...plug in Black Flag, Flipper, Sparks...the list is too long.
Anyway, The Fleshtones and Hunt Sales will be at Club Lingerie early next week...with Social Distortion in OC at the Old Vic. Next week - what will happen of the Starwood, and new clubs booking punk bands. Onward!
I don't feel like I'm alone in saying that already this Christmas season seems a lot more positive than the last. Maybe it was just bad timing that had things erupt within the same month, but by New Years, we found ourselves exhausted. It was a summer and fall with great music, culminating with X's fantastic set at the Whisky...and a handful of the crowd was Go-Go's fans. Did this mean there was going to be an actual combined scene? Moreover, did there have to be? The crowds are shifting night from night and I get a knowing happiness as I watch club owners look confused. The "riot" at the Troubadour included, it seemed to be the most physical (and costly) rebellion to the buy-in of new music.
As this was happening we were treated by the touring and expansion of whatever this "new wave" thing is. Seeing the Toasters at the Bla Bla Cafe (yes, we hit the valley) or Split Enz (their performance on Fridays was nothing short of perfection) provided an interesting alternative when it came to the tripe played on most radio stations. These two parallels co-existed in a way that confounded the author. It's happened - an owner booking a new wave and then punk act for the same night, and I'd rather not get into the results. We're not talking those get-togethers in Orange County: you know how that one ended.
But December of 1980 seemed like a boot to the head, from behind and out of nowhere. Darby's suicide, and John's murder...and we all have no energy. The BS report on "punkers" on Channel 5 was the kind of thing that, while good to know they included Chuck's viewpoint, doesn't help matters. How many want to guess the number of fathers of the valley saw that and made calls to the police right away? It's old, it got in the way of the music...it made you not want to go to these shows. Basically, it's what the LAPD wanted.
But now, a year later, some of the clubs have adjusted and fully embraced new wave (even if it means relegating punk a night or two). Missing Persons has completely taken off, even within the past 3-6 months, now headlining the Roxy. Funny how we saw them a year ago at the Topanga Corral in front of 30 others who also "knew." But they deserve everything, even if KROQ playing them to death doesn't hurt. Add to that The Motels and Josie Cotton (among a long list of others) and it's as if one of them in this line-up is usually playing somewhere. Don't think KROQ's DJ's don't know it either...but they have a hand in this and so as I watched two-unnamed complain of the lack of snacks backstage at the Whisky not long ago...well, that's California Gold. I didn't have the heart to remind them that, if someone hadn't dropped off that Missing Persons EP in 1980, who knows where they'd be...the band and the station for that matter.Not everyone is getting this, but it's just as well. We're not getting the polarizing split from Fear's Christmas song, but when The Waitresses' Christmas song comes on, with equally nutty lyrics, everyone dances for joy. Perhaps that will end up the ultimate appeal of this music, or maybe I'm hanging with the wrong crowd. There's something amazing about both bands, but if you're going to survive in the 80s you'll have to appreciate both for what they are. Simply as a metaphor, of course...plug in Black Flag, Flipper, Sparks...the list is too long.
Anyway, The Fleshtones and Hunt Sales will be at Club Lingerie early next week...with Social Distortion in OC at the Old Vic. Next week - what will happen of the Starwood, and new clubs booking punk bands. Onward!
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