i was here august 10, 2011

north shore river walk, pittsburgh, pa

absolute trust keeps me moving in the Right Di-rec-tion

**since getting back from my road trip i've been getting back into the postcard writing groove. i wrote this while sitting outside Kaldi coffee in Atwater Village. when i walked in to order my drink, "The Good Thing" by Talking Heads was playing. Made me smile.
below is a card i wrote to my friends stacey & harlan in texas. the picture on the p-card is of a quilt sewn by Annie Mae Young. it's from the photos of quilts from Gee's Bend.**

5.14.10 Thurs
Things Rad & Not So Rad (NSR): talked myself into riding my bike to this cafe (Rad). On the way mailed 2 bills, 4 postcards & 1 letter (Rad). All the patio umbrellas have gone missing from the cafe (NSR), but it is cool & breezy enough to sit in the direct sun (Rad!). was served a stellar cappuccino (rad). Decided to try a Japanese drink b/c it's clear & carbonated. turned out to be soda pop (NSR) alas. A Eurythmics song from 1988 or so just came up on the shufle (Rad). For a few boyfriends between 1988 - 1997 this served as my record to listen to upon breaking up. Now, I just love it. :) (neat) Im in week 3 of what I hope will turn out to be hiatus (not just unemployment) (Rad). Grant-Lee Phillips played Largo last night for the first time in many months (super rad). The old casket store/funeral service shop has moved up the street. in its place: some kind of medical marijuana UNIVERSITY. (just plain odd). for the first time since my job ended i have nowhere i have to be tonight (fucking awesome). took a week long solo road trip (rad). saw 2 minor league b-ball games (OH, SC) & 5 concerts in 5 states (rad). Brilliant way to leave my old gig behind. :)

**follow up: i sat in the sun writing p-cards and knitting long enough to get a sun burn on my shoulders. sigh. amateur hour, i tell you! also: it's official, the show i worked on last season was cancelled. so: we call it unemployment, not hiatus.**

also, after typing this it took me 15 min of jumping through log in & transfer links and pages to post it b/c blogger switched something around. i wasn't notified BEFORE i typed it. pain.in.my.ass. grr.

Quaker Brand is the Favorite Brand of Grits of the Charleston Riverdogs

**friday morning. i've definitely caught some kind of bug. sore throat, exhausted. eh. i'm still in the hotel, waiting for the food to arrive. my bags are all packed and waiting by the door, so as soon as i eat, i'll be back on the road, heading for raleigh.

here is the second half of my annotated show notes from wednesday's my morning jacket show in charleston sc. again, this is a cut and paste from the mmj forum.**


ok. in the interest of finishing what i started, but not being up until 2am, i'm going to list my set list notes as written. this might be comedy since the notes are not so clear. ;D

another great thing about seeing the show with Ruckus is that i could say to him, "there's only one bass in tom's guitar rack. you think their travelling light on this trip?" without him looking at me like i was speaking to him in a foreign language.

when the band came out carl sat at the pedal steel, so i had no idea what they were going to play. here begins the transcription...

--tonight i want to celebrate with you: IT'S ON.

--@ dawn! diff jim bit (i think this was referring to a really loud, or odd key start to the song by jim)

--gideon --diff outro. (i think this was an uptempo outro. i love when you're digging a song and it takes an unexpected turn. i was thinking "where are you going?!" it's exciting {i sound like an absolute dork, but it's been a loooong time since i've seen a show. so.})

--OTR: the sun is down now, but still dusk. tom & carl exchange a "ready?" type look. the eyes in back drop are lit red

--wonderful man!

--amazed: at end jim shoots pat w/toy gun as he falls

--touch me pt 1: enter drunken bargers

--golden: ok. side bar: overall the crowd was great. the people around me were having a great time without being creeps. but. the drunk chick contingent was strong. the "this is my song! let me tell you why while they play it!" girls were out in force.

--thank you too: jim's gretch beautiful! (i'm not a guitarist but i have a soft spot for the sound of these.) end of song patrick mimed shooting jim

--mags! mid-set mahgeetah. it's crazy to hear it coming out of such a slow groove like TYT. starts off a bit swingy. fucking brilliant.

--lay low

--low down!

--wonderful

--librarian: the girl to the left of me (non-drunken contingent) was miming some of the story of the song. kind of sweet, really. :)

--STEAM: NONE OF THIS IS PHYSICAL really beautiful. really. (this tour coincided with the end of a very demanding job. so, being outdoors, singing, hollering, dancing, being on the road, it's all part of a big joyous picture. and that is what i was thinking here.)
at the end ruckus tapped me on the shoulder and said, "best steam engine ever"

--smokin from shootin: WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! soooo good to see mmj doing this again! at the top of the song the stage was bathed in read light, by the end it was glowing white. striking!

(crazy how they ride the momentum of smokin into...)

--end of run thru: carl leap! 3 guitars up front just badass (this is just rock show fucking badassery. i just kept shaking my head at the epic-ness of what was happening up there.)

--touch me pt 2: tom uses a pick on this song. who knew?

(here they tried something new...insteading of ending cold after TM pt2, they segued into OBH. they may have done it last week: i've kept myself in strict set-list black out since the tour started. ;) )

--OBH: big fun! carl came out to the edge of the stage, playing and dancing with the crowd
--------------
ok. nothing could have prepared us for this:
--over the rainbow: the sax player in PHJB, the man whose name i don't know, but is listed on the set list as Weenie, stepped into a spot and played this solo. fucking stunning. just heart breakingly beautiful.
soooo happy this call was made. (whoever suggested this in the set-list, this was an inspired move. cheers! )

--wordless: knee slide!

(phjb comes out...)

--evil urges! (not used to hearing this in the middle of a set!)

--DANCE: OUT OF CON... (this is what i scrawled as i was leaping around, grinning at ruckus and losing my shit. WHAT A GREAT TIME!! currently i am nursing a bit of a sore throat. all evidence points to my activity during this song. ;D )

--HIGHLY: continued mayhem with the band and PHJB

--carnival time: love watching many of the guys on stage singing along to this

--move on up: curtis mayfield. curtis mayfield. curtis mayfield. huge!

the sound was terrific! even up front. the mix coming thru the audience monitors on stage was so even. often bo's music gets lost amid the guitar amps close to the stage, but not last night.
as i was leaving the show i kept singing out loud the bright horn part from move on up. ;D and i realized that i was in such a hurry to get to the show (arrived in charleston just in time for rush hour) that i didn't make note of where i parked. since this wasn't the oakland coliseum, that was not an issue {like that roger waters show in 1985...}.

there were a few cars post-show tailgating as i left. the people behind me were playing james brown. fucking a.

it's been so long since i've (we've) seen mmj perform these songs live that everyone is a surprise.
and now it is 2am. and i intend to leave here at 9. so.
thanks for tolerating, and often encouraging my profanity-laced stream o' consciousness reviews. :D


damn. what a great fucking time!

**for the record, i was up until 2am writing this. it never goes as quickly as i'd like to think.**

don't you need zoning for a day care?

**this from an unfinished letter to my sister. it's on what is possibly the most adorable stationery i've ever used.
after more than 2 weeks of it sitting unfinished in my back pack, i'm putting it in the post tomorrow.**


4.2.10 Friday, 1pm

Today is a union holiday: Good Friday. I decided to spend some time @ a cafe that I usually visit on the weekend. It's in an old residential neighborhood in Echo Park. I have to drive here.
On the weekend it's pretty quiet. The patio out front has a tall bamboo hedge along the sidewalk which helps temper the bus noise & stuff. The week days, however, are proving to be a different story...something i'd not noticed before: there is a pre-school across the street. or maybe it's just day care. (some of those kids are at least 7 yrs. old.) They are all running, playing and HOLLERING. In the house next to the cafe (directly behind me) there is a small dog who has been barking for at least 20 min, and who shows no signs of stopping.
Usually in this situation I have headphones on, but i've been reading a book. (oh my god, one of the kids actually just said this, "nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah." i'm going in for a coffee refill, then coming out to put my headphones on.)
{ok, i'm back w-a fresh hot cuppa joe. and as if by miracle, the children have gone indoors! hooray! also, the little dog is quiet. perhaps the two were linked.}

There is a young guy working in the cafe, I've not seen him here before. When i went in for my 1st cup I ordered drip coffee and asked him what the difference is between the 2 they have brewed. When I chose the one he described as "lighter but stronger" he actually had a "yes!" reaction that was really funny. It felt good that the cafe guy thought i'd made the right choice. ha! i'm a dork. but he is cute.
I'm in a bit of a weird state today. I blame 3 things:
1. this is a holiday wknd but i may have to work tomorrow, but don't know yet.
2. I'm starting to get crampy
3. i'm doing a dance with fed-ex to receive a pkg. I paid for 2 day shipping, but it will be 4 days before I can get it. it's my fault: i thought the pkg was being sent via US Post, so i gave them our mail room address @ work, not the office address.
Also, my job ends in a few weeks and i haven't made an effort to find my next one. This is b/c i've got a short road trip planned at the end of April. I don't want to back to work right away.
I am really hoping that "Mercy" gets picked up for another season, or my old boss' pilot gets picked up for series. Either way I could take a couple months off knowing I have a job to come back to. Next week i'll whip up an "i'm looking for a gig" email and send it out. That will do for now. :)
(wow, the temperature has dropped about 10˚ since I got here. And the clouds are rolling in. am now lamenting my decision to wear flip-flops, not sneakers. hmmm. I'm also learning that trying to write a letter w/o wearing my headphones is difficult b/c i am easily distracted by other peoples' conversations.)
How are things in Yuba City? Are you feeling settled? I'm hoping that since you've been there for awhile drama and newness are starting to taper off. :)
i've been loosely formulating a road trip up north to see family. I don't have any dates yet, but would like to hit the Bay Area, Sacramento, Yuba City, see some baseball...Again, i'm hoping to have some time off this summer. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
now 4.18.10, sunday night-- i never got back to finish this letter. thought i'd send on what i'd written. 3+ pages and i feel like i was just ramping up...

**if all goes well, i will have this in the post tomorrow.
beer of note: rogue dead guy
radio: gary calamar just played "white girl" by X**

11.22.08, postcard & letter medley

*this first bit is a postcard. i met the recipient when i was first learning to knit 7 years ago. she hosted a knitting group that i joined. this postcard is a bit weedy in the knitting content. if you're not a knitter it might just give you a little window into what i'm pondering while staring into space in the back of a cafe.*

Sat 11.22.08...9pm?
Sitting at the back counter @ Intelligentsia. Just about to dip into round 2: Americano. *heart*
It may be overstating it, but i'm feeling like a physicist who's just cracked an equation: i've been crunching numbers trying to alter a knitting pattern to make it bigger. Evidently the woman who designed this-quite lovely-beret has a noggin 6 inches smaller than mine. the math involves increasing the number o' sts to be picked up around he i-cord band (not ribbed), then calculating how many would result in the correct # o'sts after increasing, to follow the pattern repeat. i'm crediting, at least partially, the cappuccino. and the patsy cline songs on the stereo here. :)
I've been on a bit of a craft hiatus the last few months. work and concert travel have kept me busy.
However: the urban craft center is re-opening @ their new location on main st. in santa monica, so i can feel the craft wheels begin to turn in my head. hooray! writing to you has me wanting to start a knitting group...or maybe its the coffee...

**a letter written a few minutes later...**

11.22.08--saturday night, sitting at the back counter at the cafe with the best espresso in town. the best part: it's in my neighborhood.
been wanting to thanks you for the wonderful fall gift! the leaves you sent are sitting atop my piano. even if the weather here is slow to co-operate, i know what season it really is.
i've been a little low energy today. have guests in town. decided to bail on the movie we'd planned to see--ended up napping for 2 hours. perfect! am now skipping the concert i was planning to attend tonight in favor of a little cafe loitering. when the days get shorter here evening cafe sitting gets mellower. those long hot days keep all my fave places too busy to hang out for long. (the nerve. ha!)
jumping topics: this has been an odd employment year out here: the writers' strike last fall really made things very unstable. i've worked on 3 shows this year (after spending 4 mos. out of work.) am finally in a pretty stable situation. then this morning i heard news that the actors' guild is close to striking. this has been looming for months, but i've been hopeful that they would resolve the contract disputes w/o striking. there is just no goodwill from the other unions left after the writers' strike. and in this economic climate? i had some choice expletives this morning when i heard the news. i still feel that as a union member myself (4th generation) any strike should be honored b/c that is your power. but this is just too much now. i'm just happy to be working on a show that doesn't give me grief about billing for overtime that the show incurs.
ok. time to shift this again: for the record i bought this card @ an amazing coffee house in kansas city, mo. a couple summers ago. i was there for a wedding. one of my firends there found a hotel for me w/in walking distance of this cafe. turned out to be so hot & humid there, i walked once, ddrove the rest of the time i was in town. sometime i will tell you about the conversation i had w/a guy there that started with, "can i ask you a question?" a memorable day, that. :)
it's almost 10p. i'll head home & do the dishes while this espresso is still working.

ps. miss you like crazy and am itching for a road trip. good combo!