beautiful, funny, sad & true

Yesterday I got a text message from RockShowGirl saying, “I don’t have to work today.  What are you up to?”  (I took the liberty of changing her ‘r u’ to ‘are you’, by the way.  You’re welcome.)  I called her back and we decided that a day trip was just what we needed.  We were originally thinking of going to Astoria, but she called back to say that it was warmer at the beach, so she suggested Oceanside, where I’d never been.  On the way is Cape Meares lighthouse, which I’ve also never seen, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity for some exploring.

First stop was Cape Meares, where you can see the top of the lighthouse from the walking path, which is odd.  We came around the corner and were startled to find that “Oh. . .that’s it right there. Crazy!”  The path takes you right up next to it, and then snakes around so you can enter the site.  The lighthouse turned out to be a cute li’l guy, too, not even forty feet tall.  (Click the pics to view them larger.)

Admission is free, so we climbed clear to the top.  (I know, right?  Can you believe it?  All that way. . .)  I took a few pictures, but the ones from inside the lighthouse structure were much better than the ones I got of the view.  See for yourself.

We didn’t spend too much time there, because we’d been driving for more than two hours over crazy roads paved with potholes, and then hiking around the lighthouse site, so by this time we were both getting really hungry and excited to get to the beach.  We got back in the car and headed the rest of the way to Oceanside, a town perched beautifully but precariously on the edge of a cliff, with one main road and about five hundred residents.  The great thing about going to the Oregon coast on a weekday is that wherever you go you will pretty much have the place to yourself, especially if you are off of the main highway.

Our first stop was Roseanna’s Cafe, where we shared an excellent lunch of clam chowder, salad, and a halibut burger.  We were the only customers for about half of our meal, when another couple arrived.  The place is excellent, and really cute, and I would highly recommend it.  They have lots of seafood and pasta dishes in the $15-20 range that gave us Pavlovian salivation responses while reading their descriptions, but both of us are on a pretty tight budget these days, so we put it on our Places-To-Come-Back-To-In-The-Future list.

Finally, with our bellies full and satisfied, it was time to walk down to the ocean.  The town of Oceanside is perched on a cliff, like I said, and the main beach near the town is run-of-the-mill as far as beaches go.  I mean, it’s pretty and everything, but as a long-time Oregon resident, I have to admit that I’m pretty spoiled.   The pictures I took of that part of the beach weren’t especially exciting either, quite frankly, so here’s a picture of the town instead that I took from there.

For the real beach experience of Oceanside, you walk through this tunnel. . .

. . .which, on the other side of the cliff, guides you onto a beautiful, secluded, rocky (and true–ha ha) beach that still feels very wild and unspoiled by civilization.  We hiked around for an hour or two, climbing on the rocks, exploring caves, and taking pictures until the wind chilled us sufficiently and we decided to head back, but the beach and the town are exquisite, and I recommend a trip there.  Here’s a little pictorial incentive for you.

Then it’s into the tunnel again. . .

. . .and you’re back in the real world of the twenty-first century.  We walked back to the car and took the opportunity to drive up through the hills and explore the rest of the little town.  All the roads except the main street are steep, narrow, serpentine one-lane switchbacks with signs posted saying how motor homes and trailers are not recommended.  The houses are beautiful, almost without exception.  In many of the yards were posted small signs telling us to boycott this certain place that was across the street from the restaurant at which we ate lunch.  A quick Internet search just revealed the reason why:  it’s now a strip club, and it seems that many of the residents are all up in arms about that.  Kinda funny, really.  For the record, I’m not a fan of strip clubs, but I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy.  If I don’t like a place, I won’t boycott it, I’ll just choose not to go there.

But that’s a story for another day.  This is the story of a beautiful place, on a beautiful day, with a great friend.

Well, it finally happened; I and at least ten other people got laid off on Friday.

It wasn’t at all a surprise.  There have been many rounds of layoffs over the last six months, so we lasted quite a bit longer than most.  Two or three months ago, the company was taken over by another, and the new company seems to have decided to simply dismantle much of the original, and send the work elsewhere in the country, leaving us high and dry in the process.

I’m not bummed about this at all.  If anything, it’s a relief not to have to wonder what’s going to happen anymore, and I can put it all behind me and move on toward the future now.  I’m going to go on unemployment, like so many others are right now, and sort out my life while I figure what to do next.  I have a fairly simple and ‘low overhead’ lifestyle, and I also have friends, resources and talents that I haven’t had before.  I also know that it’s possible to survive on extremely meager means–I’ve certainly done that before–so that won’t slow me down much.  I’m not being a Pollyanna about it, either.  I think any of my friends could tell you that I’m good at assessing situations, and that I’m nothing if not a realist.  I think the glass is neither half-empty nor half-full, but that it’s twice as big as it needs to be.

I know; I’m clever.

I’m going to reach out and promote myself more for musical work.  I’m going to ask my friends and colleagues to refer me for producing, recording, mixing, et cetera, and I’ll also be available for playing with more people too.  I’m looking forward to all of this.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, and send me good thoughts throughout this transitional time, and don’t hesitate to ask me about musical endeavors, or refer me to people you think would appreciate my talents.

Thanks!

This whole getting-laid-off thing is going to be a blessing, I can just feel it.

p.s. – Now I’ll have much more time for blogging!

As I promised, here are my favorite pictures from this past year, in no particular order.

The landscape between Utah and Idaho is vast, and seems quintessentially American somehow.

This picture was taken outside the studio when we were mixing Andrea’s CD.  There had been a freak snowstorm overnight, and we all woke up to this beautiful scene. Amazingly, the snow was all gone by the afternoon.  We finished mixing the songs, and then I drove back to Portland and went on a great first date.  That was a good day.

Andrea had just read and been inspired by the book Blue Like Jazz, and she wanted to take a little hike around the campus of the college here in town in which the book is set. Though it has changed in the decades since the book was written, this was and still is a beautiful place to hike and explore.

This is one of my favorite locations to take pictures.  It’s an abandoned cannery town along the Columbia river. Sorry about the small size.

When Breanna and Justin and I were on tour in Reno, Justin was getting his CD mixed in Portland, and the guy would send Justin mixes via e-mail, for him either to approve or to request some small changes. After our show, he and Bre were listening to the final mixes, so I left and walked around for an hour, and took about a million pictures of the city at night.  Came back and listened for a while, and when they went to bed, our host and I stayed up talking for another hour and a half afterwards. That was my favorite day (and night) of the tour.

ViolinistKarlee, me, Breanna and Justin on our tour, after our show in Redding.  This picture just puts a smile on my face every time I see it.  Karlee is such a lil thug.

This is my car, all loaded up with instruments to go to the studio and record my parts for Andrea’s CD.  I’m always amazed at just how much stuff this car can carry, despite its diminutive size.

ChefDave, in an instantly classic pose.  I love the way the light is gleaming off the knife.  Incidentally, you owe to it yourself to eat at the Sego Lily Cafe in Bountiful, Utah, by the way, next time you’re there.  Dave’s food is phenomenal.

There are lots of abandoned military bunkers outside Port Townsend, Washington, and I could easily spend a weekend just taking pictures of them. I love the way the light interacts and contrasts from room to room.

Ah, beautiful Astoria, Oregon, seen from the highest point in town.  That’s another place that provides an almost endless supply of photographic opportunities.

This picture I didn’t take, but it’s such a classic that it warranted inclusion on the best pictures of the year.  It’s the Cinemagic theater here in Portland, when they were in transition from the movie Hancock to the Dark Knight, and this was the sign change, in progress.

I love looking back over the year in this way. Even though this was a particularly difficult, painful, and challenging year, there were certainly plenty of good times too.

Here’s to a better 2009, though.

Today is Election Day here in the U.S., and this is one of the only times I will ever use this blog to write about politics.

I was old enough to vote in 1988, just barely, but I wasn’t politically aware enough yet to make any kind of educated decision, so I declined to vote. 1992 was the first election in which I participated somewhat actively. 1996 and 1998 were the first ones in which I was really old enough (and informed enough) to have my own opinions, and we also had some very important ballot measures here in Oregon (such as physician-assisted suicide) that I felt the need to weigh in on.

2000 was another milestone election, in so many ways. We had no way of knowing at the time, but it was full of many historical lessons and pitfalls that have been documented at great length, not to mention greater eloquence and erudition, elsewhere.

In 2004, I did my part, albeit somewhat grudgingly, but this is the first time that I’ve been very engaged in the entire process, from the earliest candidates’ nominations clear through to the end of the election process.  I feel that this is the most important election our country has seen in at least fifty years, and that we would be remiss if we let it pass without taking part in it.

I’ve never felt an adrenaline rush as I filled in the little oval on the ballot with my pencil before. I’ve never felt an adrenaline rush as I dropped my ballot into the mailbox before. I’ve never listened to every single newscast while biting at my fingernails before. This is the most important political time I’ve ever lived through.

Many people seem to be of the opinion that it “doesn’t matter who you vote for, it just matters that you DO vote.”  I’m not one of those people.  The Bush administration and their cronies have run roughshod, pretty much unchecked and without serious opposition, for too long over the country and the world, and destroyed our country’s status and reputation in the eyes of the world, and they need to be stopped. Those of us who consider ourselves progressives need to do everything we can to promote change.

Here ends the diatribe.

We now return you to the witty and insightful (and non-political!) blog you’ve come to expect and love, already in progress.

One of the things you experience as a cellist (aside from people constantly telling you how much they love it, and how it’s the sexiest instrument EVER) is the myriad of jokes about the case.  Every time I leave home with it, I get comments.

For tonight’s gig, I rode the bus because my Honda’s alternator is on its last legs, and I’ll be left stranded if I drive it too much.  So I got on the bus and the conversation instantly went like this:

Driver:  “I’m pretty sure that’s not a body in there.”

Me:  “Heh.  Yeah, it’d be a pretty small body.”

Driver:  “Well, you could’ve chopped it up into a bunch of little pieces.”

Me:  (awkwardly)   “Ha ha. . .okay, I’m just gonna go. . .uhh. . .sit over here.”

Luckily, one of the passengers struck up a conversation, asking if I’ve ever seen the movie August Rush, which apparently includes a cellist as part of the story.  I haven’t seen it, but I told him that it sounds really great, and that I’ll check it out.

My all-time favorite odd cello-related conversation took place a couple of months ago, when I had the cello in the back of the car, on my way to a gig down in Salem, and I stopped at CarapaceGasStation to fill up the tank.  The back seats were folded down, and the cello case was clearly visible through the window.  This being Oregon, where it’s illegal for us to pump our own gas, I opened the sunroof to tell the attendant to ‘fill it up with Plus, please.’  While he was doing that, he looked in the back window and noticed the cello case.  “Hey,” he said, “you got a body in there?  Looks like a pregnant woman.”

Me:  (nonchalantly; heard it a hundred times before)  “Nope, it’s a cello.”

Attendant:  “Oh. . .heh heh. . .cause it looks like you killed my wife and crammed her in there.”

Me:  “. . .”  (silent. . .don’t know what to say.)

The attendant flitted between the various cars that were having their gas tanks filled, and when mine was done, he handed me my debit card and receipt through the open sunroof and called out, uncomfortably loudly, “Thanks a lot, sir.  GOOD LUCK DRIVING AROUND WITH MY DEAD, PREGNANT WIFE.” I laughed and gave him a half-hearted salute as I closed the sunroof and drove off into the twilight.

Luckily I got a ride home from the gig tonight, so I didn’t have to suffer the slings and the arrows of lame cello case humor.  And since we’re on the subject, here are some lame cello jokes that I just scrounged up from the Interweb:

Q: What’s the difference between a cello and a coffin?
A: The coffin has the dead person on the inside.

Q: Why did the cellist marry the accordion player?
A: Upward mobility.  [Note:  I’m both a cellist AND an accordion player!]

Q: Did you hear about the cellist who played in tune?
A: Neither did I.

Q: How can you tell when a cellist is playing out of tune?
A: The bow is moving.

Ah, praise the Lord for the gift of laughter.