beautiful, funny, sad & true

This month has been one of the busiest I’ve ever had.  Recording and/or rehearsals wish IrishBand almost every night, and one night Andrea came to visit and rehearse a song she wrote for her wedding, which is happening on Friday.  I’ll be playing cello and her sister will be playing piano.  From there we went to dinner at Por Que No (one of the best and most authentic (and least expensive!) Mexican restaurants in town) and then went to have coffee and play Scrabble at Palio, one of my favorite little coffee shops.

She won, by the way, but it was really close.  330-something to 314.  There will be a rematch, but I’m not sure when, since we won’t have a chance to hang out again before her wedding, and then of course she’ll be going to Canada for another ceremony with her family and then back to Switzerland, where she lives.

A couple more nights of rehearsals followed, and then I headed up to Seattle on Friday to play bass with my friend Brandon’s classic rock band.  Super fun to play and hang out with him again.  In the morning we went to breakfast and then I raced the three hours’ drive home to Portland, in order that I’d be back to set up for the IrishBand show at 4:30.

The show was a complete blast.  It featured a pair of dancers, an aerialist, a ukelele player, a sword swallower/fire breather, a martial arts/juggling/comedy group (Nanda; check ’em out.  They’re the coolest group ever, I promise you.), then IrishBand finished up with a set.  Oh, and then there was dancing for an hour or so after that.  It was a great time.  I’m not even going to attempt to describe everything, cause it would take too long, but my modus operandi is that if people do cool things in front of me while I’m holding a camera, it’s my duty to capture those moments.  Behind the scenes is where the real show always happens, anyway.

After partying for a few hours everything was set up and ready, we went out front and mingled a bit.

This picture is fuzzy (or was it just me?  har har) and terrible as far as quality goes, but at least you can get a sense of what the people and the main room were like that night. . .

. . .and then I handed my camera off to Whit, who took some pictures of the actual event while I climbed upstairs and sat in the balcony with the rest of IrishBand to stay out of sight of the audience and watch the show.

After Nanda were finished, we set up and rocked the house for about an hour.  Oh yeah. . .and then I danced.  Yes, believe it or not, it’s true.  I did some moonwalking (both forwards and backwards. . .dang right!) and a whole bunch of ‘normal’ dancing too.   A good time was had by all.  Those of us who were left at the end of the night had the pleasure of helping clean up the place and empty all of the risers and seats and everything out of it by loading them into trucks, but even that somehow ended up being a good time.

In other news, I’m going to see Yann frickin’ Tiersen (you know, who wrote the frickin’ Amelie soundtrack!) on Wednesday night here in little old frickin’ Portland.  And he’s not even playing at a huge venue, either, but the frickin’ Wonder Ballroom, which has about a 400-person capacity, and where I MYSELF HAVE PLAYED.  I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am about this.  I play the accordion because of him.  It’s true.

Le sigh.

Day Five was the shortest of our drives. Unfortunately, it was also the earliest show. We had a three-and-a-half-hour drive, and we had to be in Cedar City by 10:30 in the morning, so you can pretty much do the math on that. It was another crazy early morning. I was the first one up, at 5:45 again, so I took a shower and packed all up my stuff before anyone else was even awake. Then I took my camera out and went for a little walk to admire the scenery. I didn’t have to go far; just through Wendy’s orchard, actually.

When I returned, everyone else was up, and getting their stuff together to load up the van and head out. Wendy gave us huckleberry pie (or was it loganberry? Can’t quite remember. . .) and muffins, and then we raced off into the morning. We stopped at a truck stop along the way, where I saw two T-shirts that made me feel very disheartened with our society. They were marriage-related. One had stick-figure drawings of a smiling bride and a frowning groom above the caption, “Sentenced to life.” The other simply said, “All men are idiots, and I married their king.” Those made me really angry. I tried to imagine if I was married, and one day either my wife or I was wearing one of those shirts. Is the other person just supposed to laugh, or look away? I mean, if my theoretical wife wore a shirt that said, “my husband is the king of idiots”. . .well, actually, I don’t even need to finish that thought, because I’m NOT the king of idiots, and everyone who knows me (certainly anyone who’s likely to marry me) knows that very well.

Something else we found at this particular truck stop was hard-boiled eggs. We each bought a pack of two and devoured them, only to regret our decision about an hour later, when we all started to have stomach issues. We pulled over, ran inside, and absolutely destroyed the bathrooms at that next truck stop we arrived at. I hereby apologize to anyone who was in those bathrooms at the same time the three of us were.

But it wasn’t all eggs and poop. This was Utah, after all, so the scenery, even in the not-special areas, is breathtakingly beautiful. Breanna and I each took a lot of pictures just by rolling down the window of the van.

I’m sure there’s a way to get rid of those stupid power lines using Photoshop or something, but I don’t know how to do it, and the picture is pretty enough that I figured I’d include it nonetheless. Most of the pictures didn’t end up looking very good, but I managed to keep a few of my friends updated through pictures sent by text message also.

So finally we arrived in Cedar City, and we weren’t even very late. The sound crew had been working out some technical difficulties, so they were running a bit behind also. This bought us a little time to walk around, take pictures, get souvenirs, that sort of thing.

Each of the participating musicians got a T-shirt, but I splurged for a second one in a different color, and then I got a pin and a kazoo also. Breanna and Justin bought a frisbee, and a pin, and a nice little cloth bag. I walked around the grounds and talked for a while on the phone until Justin motioned for me that the group before us was almost done. We were the second group in the entire festival, so we watched the first group, tuned our instruments, and paced around the grassy backstage area.

Finally it was our turn. We were pretty nervous. We didn’t make any mistakes, but we just felt like mimes or something up there. There was one guy in the audience who kept yelling things to us. He wasn’t heckling us, but he was extremely drunk (incidentally, it was well before noon) and it was obnoxious. Luckily he liked us, or it could have been much worse. He clapped extremely slowly and out of time with the songs, on purpose. He also pointed at each of us in turn and yelled things like (to Breanna) “You have a really good voice!” and (to Justin) “Dude! You’re a really good guitar player!” and (to me, after I’d played a song on the melodica instead of the cello) “You’re good at. . .everything that. . .you do!” See what I mean? It was nice enough, but he still affected the flow of the show, and made us nervous.

So we finished our set and got off stage by about 1:30. We found the photographer guy who we’d been talking with earlier, and asked him to take a picture of us as soon as we put away our instruments.

It was really hot, and we were planning to be out and about for quite a while, so I wanted to go looking for a hat to protect myself from the sun. Breanna suggested that I wear her cowboy hat, which ended up looking really cool, so I wore it for the rest of the day, and actually got lots of compliments.

I know; I’m hot.

We were very relieved by the fact that we now had the rest of the day to ourselves. We went and checked into BestMotelInTheWest. There was an older couple checking in at the same time, who kept making jokes like, “Oh, we didn’t know that there would be live music in our room.” Ha ha. “Hey, that’s really great that we have musicians playing a free show just for us.” Ha ha. “Want to play us a song right here?” Ha ha.

After checking in, we went to our separate rooms and collapsed for a while. I unpacked my stuff and took a little mini-nap, and Justin and Breanna presumably did whatever young couples do when they’ve been cooped up in a van, or a house, or a studio apartment, for days on end, being constantly surrounded by at least one other person, then finally get some time to themselves. We met up afterwards, and walked over to get our complimentary meal at PizzaPlaceNamedAfterMafia. Naturally, our next plan was to find a bottle of wine or something for later.

That takes a bit of doing in Utah, where anything stronger than beer is controlled by the state, and has to be purchased at a liquor store. We were so sick of driving around in the van by this time that we were prepared to walk anywhere in Cedar City, no matter the distance or the heat. The nearest place was about a mile and a half away, and it was ninety-five degrees. Perfect.

Hey, look, it’s the Village People!

Nothing like a little shock value for the street full of locals driving by. But as you can see, I’m all about da ladeez. Howdy, ma’am. Much obliged.

So the three of us got what we wanted at the store, and then we walked the mile and a half back. We left our bounty in our respective motel rooms, and then went across the street to the festival to listen to some music and just check out The Scene a bit. We must have been there for a couple of hours, buying gifts, watching bands and getting more food, before we decided we were completely exhausted and done for the day. We headed back to the hotel, took some pictures. . .

. . .and then went our own ways. I can only imagine what those two ended up doing, but I talked on the phone with my friend again for about an hour and a half, and then watched cable TV shows, like Home Movies. The movie War Games also happened to be on, so I kept an eye on that while I wrote in my little notebook about the things I wanted to remember about the day. Things such as this; there are Gideon Bibles in just about every motel room in the country, but if you’re in a motel in Utah, you get a special bonus.

Hey, it’s a rock star’s life for me. Phone calls, Home Movies, War Games, the Book of Mormon. . .the debauchery just never ends.

Or DOES it? Find out for yourself in the next edition of. . .ON TOUR.

OneYearAgo

I took the day off from work today, so that I can go to my friend Dori’s wedding at the beach.  The ceremony is going to be on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  I’ll be playing accordion.  They had a bonfire last night, but I had to give it a miss because of bad planning on my part.  I hadn’t arranged a place to stay, and I’m kinda broke again this month, so I thought I’d just go over today.  I’m really looking forward to it.  It’s kinda cloudy, but it’s supposed to be nice.  Road trips are the perfect environment for Sigur Ros’s music, so that’s what I’m going to bring.  That and a few compilations that I found, but haven’t had a chance to listen to yet.  I’ll try to take some pictures, but since I’ll be playing also, no guarantees about that.

Last night I was invited to join Andrea and CellistSkip out at the Edgefield winery.  It was a nice surprise for all three of us.  It was also quite possibly Andrea’s last Portland show, so I jumped at the chance.  She’ll be moving to Europe in a little over a week.  I’m totally happy for her.

Since the highway goes right by the hospital my friend is in, I’m going to stop in and surprise her on the way out of town.

Great paté, Mom, but I’d better motor if I’m gonna get over to the hospital and the beach.  (That’s a reference to the movie “Heathers”, by the way.)  It’s my own way of saying I have to go now.  Gotta eat breakfast, take a shower, find something nice to wear, throw my accordion in the car and head out.   I’m bringing my backup accordion this time, because the wet ocean mist and breeze would ruin my good one, and my backup one is perfect for things like this.  It was an inexpensive instrument, so I don’t worry about what’s going to happen to it.  Not that I’d want it to get run over by a train or something, but I think you know what I’m saying.

Wait a minute; what am I DOING?  I have to go.  I’ll talk to you later.

Be advised; this will be a very long entry.

Here’s my weekend, in chronological order, with quite a few ‘visual aids’ to help out. As usual, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

I left Portland and turned off at the Historic Columbia River Highway. It’s in the process of being restored and gradually reopened bit by bit, so I always like to see what’s been done since the last time I’ve been through.

This cleared-out tunnel made me very happy.

I’m a big fan of abandoned places, and this road has been a fascination of mine ever since I was a little kid. I’m also fascinated by Sam Hill, who is a very influential and interesting person in his own right, and who is tangentially related to the construction of this road. More on him later.

So I continued along the old road, to the eastern section that I rarely get to, and I was rewarded with a clear day and a stunning view.

Then, on the other side of the summit, a view of the road looping back onto itself, in a similar way to that of Crown Point.

From there, I crossed over to the Washington side of the river, and stopped in for a rest on the lawn at the Maryhill Museum. Remember Sam Hill, who I mentioned earlier? He’s the turn-of-the-century multi-millionaire who built this huge ‘castle’ for his wife Mary, along with the recreation of Stonehenge, and the entire little town of Maryhill.

This place is remote now, but a hundred years ago, it was almost unthinkably remote. Sam’s wife Mary was a Seattle socialite, and she was less than thrilled with the idea of living out in this desert wasteland, so she hardly spent any time there before saying, “Thanks, hon, but let’s go back to Seattle now.” Construction of the mansion was completed after Sam’s death, and it was turned into an art museum soon after. Today it boasts one of the largest collections of Rodin sculptures in the world.

And while we’re on the subject of Maryhill Museum, I should mention the peacocks, because there are tons of them living all around the grounds, and they’re an integral part of any visit, as far as I’m concerned.

I’d never seen an albino peacock before. Its tail was particularly amazing; I couldn’t get enough of it. I was hoping it would display for me, but none of them did. They’re all completely unfazed by people walking, picnicking and driving amongst them, and the alpha male went so far as to challenge my car. He walked straight over to it while I was photographing the albino one, and made it clear who was boss, in no uncertain terms. He strutted clear around the back of it, along the passenger side, and then stopped at the front to stare down my unsuspecting Honda.

It was at this point that I started to wonder just what was going to happen next. This little tough guy could quite easily have climbed or jumped onto the hood, and I wasn’t too excited about that prospect. I also knew better than to physically mess with him (there are signs everywhere warning against doing that), but luckily he just circled around until he found what he determined to be its weak spot; just behind the door on the driver’s side quarter panel. He stalked over and started doing this display with his neck, trying to pick a fight, and then began to peck the side of the car repeatedly. He didn’t seem to be doing any damage, so I knelt down and took a bunch of pictures, trying to capture one of those moments. I was able to get close, but capturing a split-second peck is nearly impossible to do, so here’s the best one.

This picture wasn’t touched up with Photoshop or anything. His coloring is really that vivid and beautiful. I decided that I’d had enough of his pecking, so I walked around behind him and opened the door. He was so intent on winning the battle that he didn’t even notice me walking or opening the door (I even leaned out and took a few more pictures of him through the open window), and he watched in triumph as I drove away.

Next picture stop was just outside of Goldendale, Washington, at this abandoned house, with Mount Adams in the background. This view is different every day, and is also especially beautiful when the fog has rolled in. I was glad to have the view of the mountain, though.

Finally rolled in to Yakima in the mid-afternoon, to go to the rehearsal for Chris and Nicole’s wedding. I was the best man, and I also brought my accordion, in order to provide music for the ceremony, which was simple, but very touching and nice. One of my music teachers from high school was there – an amazing surprise – and it was great to see him. Here are some of the pics from the rehearsal night and from the actual wedding the next day.

You can take the girl out of the 80’s, but apparently you can’t take the 80’s out of the girl.

The reception finished about 7:30 or 8:00, and then I drove home for a bit, before DrummerAdam (who lives in Yakima) called to invite me to the SportsCenter to watch my drummer friend Ty play in a cover band. I hadn’t seen Ty since I moved to Portland, so he was completely blown away to see me there on his turf. Very nice. Got home around one in the morning.

Next morning, my mom’s friend came by to join us for lunch, and during that conversation I was reminded of lots of the things that have always driven me crazy about Yakima, and how empty life can be there. I also kept thinking how much more I enjoy life now, in a way I never did back then. Friends are much better, music is much better, dating is much better, natural surroundings are much better. . .in fact, the only thing I can think of that’s better in Yakima is the Mexican food. There’s some good stuff to be had here in Portland, but you can get the real thing in Yakima.

After lunch, I headed out to meet my college friend GuitaristAl at one of said excellent Mexican restaurants. Since I had eaten at my mom’s house, I stuck to chips and salsa (which were fan-friggin’-tastic, by the way) and talked while Al ate his taco salad. So much fun to see him again. He’s really a great guy.

I drove home to Portland via another scenic route, this time over the switchbacks and hills of Highway 142 – it narrows to one lane for a few miles, with a sheer drop of hundreds of feet on one side – and down along the Klickitat River, to the point where it meets up with the Columbia and I turned back downriver toward home. I stopped to take a picture of one of my favorite spots along the way, which is Cape Horn, Washington, where the road clings precariously to the edge of the high cliff wall. Here’s the view.

This view never gets boring. Not even a little bit.

Finally arrived in Portland at 8:30 p.m., unpacked my clothes and climbed right into bed, where I slept for the next ten hours.

Great weekend. Great times. Great friends. Great memories. I can’t believe it was all compressed into three days.

Been way too busy this week to write much. It’s not for lack of subject matter, simply for lack of time being free to compose. But here’s the latest.

Out of town last weekend, three gigs this week (tonight is the third), found a perfect suit, going to Yakima for a wedding this weekend.

Last night’s show was SO much fun, and my favorite group of the night was one that was absolutely jaw-dropping, and that requires me to share them with you, and to write about them at more length. But that won’t be today, unfortunately.

I’ll write more and fill you in when I get back.

OneYearAgo