A couple of weekends ago my girlfriend (Heather) and I went on a weekend trip to Sisters–a small town in central Oregon with a population of 1706.  Central Oregon sounds like a boring place both phonetically and geographically, but it is actually quite cool.  It’s at the beginning of the high desert that comprises the portion of Oregon that is east of the Cascades.  It’s kind of the middle of nowhere, but it’s full of great places to hike and gorgeous scenery. 

Our lodging in Sisters was a vacation house owned by a co-worker of Heather’s.  Kelly was kind enough to let us stay there for the weekend for a very small fee.  The house is in a small development near Black Butte Ranch that consists mostly of people’s second homes or retirement homes (that were probably once second homes).  Very few people claim this part of Sisters as their primary residence.  Because of this, there aren’t too many lights on in the neighborhood and navigating the development at night is somewhat difficult.  On the other hand, the upside to this is that the stars are vibrant and very visible in the night sky on clear nights.  Since I spend most of my nights in urban environments where the lights of city dwellers’ homes and offices of hardworking corporate Americans eliminate the contrast that is necessary to display the stars in all of their glory at night, I always try to take some time and appreciate the nature of space when in desolate areas such as Sisters. 

On the night we arrived in Sisters, nature’s night-lights were in full fledge–the sky was so dense with bright stars that it was impossible to not notice them.  They seemed touchable yet much too distant to actually be reachable.  But, since we were so tired from the post-work drive through the mountains, we went right to bed after unloading the car and stargazing was added to our list of Saturday activities.

The next day after hikes at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument and Smith Rock State Park (follow the links for photos), a homemade dinner, some college basketball viewing, and a movie (Rachel Getting Married, which we both really enjoyed), it was finally dark enough to check off the one remaining item on our to-do list. 

Since she always has to watch movies in her pajamas, regardless of what time of day it is, Heather was obviously not dressed to go outside, so she took the blanket that kept us warm during the movie outside with her.  The plan was to lay on the deck in the backyard with the blanket around us and stare up into the night sky.  The weather that night was not as nice as it was the previous night.  It was much colder; it was rainy; and, the sky was not near as clear.  In fact, we couldn’t see any stars at all.  It was quite a disappointment.  We lasted all of about two minutes outside before deciding that what we were doing was lame, but when I turned the doorknob on the back door to go back inside, it didn’t move!  The door had locked behind us and more disappointment and lameness ensued. 

There are many things in life that I’m OCD about, but there are some that I take more ridicule for than others.  One such thing is that I constantly worry about whether or not the door to whatever vehicle or building I have most recently exited is locked.  There are times when I’m down in the parking garage of my building and I’ll go all the way back up to my place to double check that my door is locked.  It’s crazy, I know, but I can’t really help it.  The worst part of this is that I even worry about the door to my place being locked when I’m inside. I’m bringing this up because after dinner, before we watched the movie, Heather, knowing of this idiosyncrasy of mine, was shocked that the front door was not dead bolted and questioned/mocked me about it.  My response was two-fold–first, I explained that we were in the middle of nowhere and there aren’t any other people around to worry about, and secondly I told her that I had some weird feeling that the door shouldn’t be dead bolted. There was just something at this particular moment in time that made me feel okay about going against my rampant OCD tendencies. I have no idea where the hunch came from, but I tend to trust my intuition when it comes to things that probably wouldn’t matter otherwise, so I never dead bolted the door.  Heather ignored my ‘feeling’ and dead bolted the front door while I prepared the movie. 

Another thing that I’m OCD about is emptying my pockets immediately after returning “home” from somewhere.  Because of this, my keys, wallet, and my phone were all on the table next to the front door INSIDE of the house.  Because Heather’s pajamas do not have pockets, she did not have any of her essential life possessions with her either. 

All of this means that we were locked out of a house that was not even ours with only the clothes on our backs and a blanket.  My heart sunk to the floor of the deck when the doorknob failed to turn.  For good measure I tried to turn it two additional times and with each subsequent failure my heart sank further.  It bottomed out when Heather and I jointly remembered that the front door was dead bolted.  Immediately after that realization, we both started laughing because this whole situation was pretty humorous.

A few laughs later the panic fully settled in as the rain turned to snow.  It’s a good thing Heather grabbed the blanket before leaving the house because her pajamas are not as warm as they are cozy.   Despite the panic, I felt safer going through this with another person especially someone I cared so much about.  Maybe that’s why we were able to laugh about it. 

My first proposed solution was to throw a rock or a brick through one of the house’s windows and just climb back inside.  Heather told me that that was a terrible idea, but I failed to come up with any other options.  It was pitch black out, so there was no way that we could look for a hidden key in the front yard.  We don’t have phones to call anyone, and besides, who would we call?   The only person that we could call would be Kelly, but Heather said that she was on vacation and was probably not available.  There were other houses around, but most of them seemed dark.  We were in the middle of nowhere with nothing but each other, our clothes, a blanket, our wits, and our charm.  

After a few minutes of not really coming up with a solution I realized that the door wasn’t going to magically unlock itself, so I reiterated how I thought we should break a window and just get back in the house that way.  Sometime in between the two times that I mentioned this option, it was taken completely off of the table and was not even considered as a last resort.  Heather was too worried about having to go out and buy and replace the broken window before we left for home the next day.   She had a solid point and since I’m not very handy, replacing the window would probably take four times longer than it should have and even then it would probably end up being crooked or something.   Plus we’re in the middle of nowhere so the nearest window store may be a hundred miles away.  These thoughts and concerns were enough to temporarily convince me that my idea was in fact pretty stupid; however, I did take this opportunity to remind Heather that it was her idea to dead bolt the front door even when I said I had a bad feeling about it, so we were tied for the night with one stupid idea each. 

A light in the next-door neighbor’s house was on, so our first plan of attack was to knock on their door and see if they have a spare key to Kelly’s house or if they can help us out at all.  After knocking three times and ringing the doorbell twice to no avail, we decided that we needed to execute Plan B.  The only problem was that we didn’t really have a Plan B, so we just start walking around the housing development in the pitch black of the night looking for lights.  We eventually saw a house that was one or two streets over with a light on, so we walked to it.  When we got there, we ended up walking around the entire house before finding the front door, and in the process we saw an old woman doing dishes in the kitchen.  The sink was right in front of the kitchen window, so she was completely visible in the window, yet she did not see us when we all but stared at her through the window.  Our hopes were elevated at the sight of another human being.  We were excited to ring the doorbell to this house, but it didn’t work, so we knocked.  And, then we pounded.  It got to the point where even if she did hear us she probably wouldn’t answer the door because she most likely suspected some crazy people on the other side of it.  When we left her house we walked back around it the same way we came, and she was still at the sink in the kitchen.  It seemed as if she did not even move at all from the last time we saw her, so she probably didn’t even hear any of our front door ruckus. One final idea would be to tap on the kitchen window to get her attention, but I was concerned that this might have killed her.  She might have had a heart attack if she saw two strangers eyeing her through her kitchen window, so we chose not do that.  We didn’t want to be responsible for the population of Sisters decrementing to 1705. 

Across the street from the focused dishwasher’s house was another house with a light on.  This house even had a truck in the driveway.  Our previous but short-lived feeling of hope that had been unknowingly crushed by the old woman’s deafness was starting to surface again.  By this time the snow was coming down pretty hard, and it was much colder out than it was when we first came outside.  I cannot emphasize how dark it was in between these houses (this is why it would have been sweet to see the stars!).  The only other darkness like this that I’ve experienced was during Hurricane Wilma in Miami after all of the power in the city went out in the middle of the night.  I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of my face.  This night in Sisters wasn’t that bad, but it was pretty close.  It is very possible that we walked through someone’s garden or shrubbery when we navigated from house to house.

The house that had a car in the driveway was a strange house.  There was a long and enclosed flight of stairs that led to the front door and the doorbell was at the top of said stairs.  At first I thought we had nothing to lose by climbing the stairs and ringing the doorbell, but then I expressed my concern to Heather that we were in Central Oregon and that people may answer the door with shotguns here.  I said Central Oregon was not much different from Middle America.  So, now it seemed like maybe we did have something to lose and on top of all of that the narrowness of the stairwell did not give us much room to maneuver if an armed person did answer the door.  I’m not sure why I thought of this at house number three and not house number one.  Maybe it was the large truck in the driveway, the strange architecture of the house, or just the fact that so much time had passed that my mind was finally letting itself wander again.  But, despite my concerns we rang the doorbell anyway. 

Soon after the first doorbell push we heard footsteps descending a flight of stairs on the other side of the front door.  My wandering thoughts were peaking in craziness at this time, but they were quickly halted when an unarmed man answered the door. I had previously told Heather to do all of the talking because I was likely to say something stupid, so she told the guy our story as he greeted us.  He invited us in and told us that he and his wife were actually expecting visitors but they weren’t sure if their friends would make the trip in the snowstorm. 

He offered us his phone and found a phonebook in the kitchen.  At first Heather tried to call Kelly, but since she did not have Kelly’s cell phone number memorized, we were only able to call her home phone number as given to us by information.  There was obviously no answer because she and her husband were not yet home from their vacation.   Next, we found the locksmith section of the phonebook.  It seemed like our only remaining option.  In my head I was thinking that, at the very least, as awkward as it would have been, we could crash on the living room floor of this place.  These people seemed nice enough to let us do that, but I was hoping it didn’t come to that.   Heather left a message with the only locksmith in Sisters and one other one in Bend (the closest ‘big’ city about 20 miles away–they probably also had a window shop there, so I guess the closest one isn’t as far as I originally thought) before she actually received an answer to her call.  The phonebook ad for Sean’s Lock Service said they offered 24-hour service for emergencies.  In our little world, this situation was an emergency.  The price they quoted us for a 10pm lockout in Sisters in the middle of a snowstorm was a very reasonable $75.  I expected it to be much more expensive than that.  Heather gave Sean directions and he said he’d be there in about an hour, so we spent the next half hour chatting by the fireplace while drinking orange juice with the couple that was kind enough to help us out. 

The couple told us that they came to Sisters that weekend from Eugene.  They were renting the house for their 40^th wedding anniversary celebration.  They insisted that it was okay for us to intrude on the festivities.  When examining the room for weapons, I noticed a guitar case in one corner of the living room and an amp in another corner, so I asked the guy if he plays.  He told us that he’s played with various bands (mostly in churches) for the last 50 years or so.  He informed us that he helps his wife run a ministry in Eugene for feeding and sheltering the homeless.  They seemed very dedicated to it.  So, I guess this situation was a familiar one to them–we were temporarily homeless and in need of shelter. They were probably very used to conversing with random strangers that had no place else to go.  They asked us what we do and where we were from so I asked them to guess where I was from.  The wife’s first response was ‘East Coast somewhere, maybe New York,’ which of course is accurate.  Apparently they could tell by my accent that everyone but me can hear.  To me I sound like everyone else in Portland, but I guess I’m the only one that thinks that.  Anyhow, Heather told them that she’s a speech and language pathologist at a school district in the Portland area and I told them that I’m an Audio DSP Engineer at a pro audio company in the Portland area.   For the next few minutes I talked to the husband about recording and mixing (since I knew he was a musician) in an attempt to explain what I do at work, which is always a challenge for me.  He seemed more confused after the conversation was over than he was when it started. 

We left their house with a flashlight that they let us borrow about 30 minutes before the locksmith said he’d arrive.  We thanked them for their hospitality and said that we would stop by the next day to return the flashlight.  It took us about 10 minutes to get back to Kelly’s house where we were greeted by a few inches of snow on the front porch and zero stars in the sky.  We stood on the front porch shivering in each other’s arms telling each other stories about anything we could think of.  The gaps between the stories were filled with our (mainly my) concerns about the locksmith.  We wondered if he’d be able to find the place, if the weather was too bad to drive in, and if he’d even be able to get us inside if/when he arrived.  At least we had a flashlight to aid him in finding us.  Time seems to crawl by when waiting is the only thing happening, and this time was no exception.  I have no idea how long we waited, but with each minute that passed I grew a bit more nervous that we’d have to go back and sleep on the floor of the anniversary couple’s house.  Fortunately, Sean and Sara of Sean’s Lock Service eventually showed up in a jeep with their dog.  They told us how there was a total whiteout in between Sisters and Bend on their way to help us out and that’s why they were a little late.  Sean immediately went to work on the lock.  He told us that sometimes it’s like the movies and he’s able to pick the lock in seconds and other times it takes forever.  Our situation fell into the ‘other’ category.  As he was working he was explaining everything he was doing to his partner Sara because she was new to the business and he was mentoring her.  It was interesting to hear of all of the different ways to break into a home.  While they were at work I asked Heather if she had any cash on her with which to pay these people.  She only had $10 and since I had nothing, we concluded that we’d have to drive into town once we got our keys to go to an ATM so that we could pay these people.  I kept on hoping that this was an acceptable solution.  When my mind began to wander (again), I thought they might sick the dog on us if we were unable to pay them immediately after they let us in the house.  I didn’t want to tell them about our situation while they were still working, though because they may have decided to quit working once they found out that they would not be paid immediately

They had to go to their last resort to pick our lock.  The last resort was to use some tool built to remove the doorknob and then examine the locations of the ticks (I think that’s what they called them) inside of the knob and make a key to hit all of the tick locations.  He took the knob to the back of his jeep where he had a full-fledged key-making machine installed.  Evidently our particular lock had three ticks with the deepest possible depth at the end of the key, which is why it was so difficult to pick with standard methods.  Eventually he made us a key that let us back into the house.  It was pretty impressive, but also scary at the same time.  There is a huge moral standard that accompanies anyone of the locksmith profession.  

Once we got inside we found out that Sean’s Lock Service does accept payment via credit card, so we didn’t have to worry about an ATM trip and everything ended happily, but I still think we should have chosen the broken window option!

After someone on American Idol performed one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite films during the show’s movie night tonight, I was reminded of the best concert that I’ve ever attended.  It was almost a year ago, and immediately after I got home that night, I wrote this in my journal:

04-28-2008
Keller Auditorium
Portland, OR

Prior to tonight, I had only been forcibly moved out of my seat at a concert one other time.  It was when I heard Art Garfunkel sing Bridge Over Troubled Water in some tiny, yet acoustically perfect, venue in Tonawanda, NY.  During the crescendo of the song I got up out of my seat without my brain telling me to do so.  It was like the jumping out of bed that happens when you’re having a nightmare only this was the opposite-it was a dream come true.   I’ll even admit that a few other times I have been moved to tears by live music.  The most notable one was in Cleveland, Ohio at a show on the Simon & Garfunkel reunion tour.  When I heard the first few bars of America hummed in harmony by the two greatest harmonizers in the history of popular music, tears came down my cheek.  I remember squeezing my dad’s hand on our shared armrest and saying “here we go!”  One other time was when fireworks coincidentally went off at the amusement park adjacent to the outdoor concert venue during the line “Hey babe the sky’s on fire” as James Taylor sang Carolina In My Mind.  Somehow, today’s experience trumped all of these even though the music was not as popular and the musicians were not as legendary.  

The first time that I saw the movie ONCE I remember not being able to keep myself from smiling throughout the entire movie.  I never wanted the film to end, and today I finally got the cinematic extension that I craved when the credits rolled after my first viewing last year, and it was absolutely 100% worth the wait. 

Glen and Marketa toured with 3 people from Glen’s band (the Frames) and two life-long buskers (street musicians) from Ireland.  The latter two folks were the opening act.  The one guy was pretty old and dressed in what looked like a karate gi sans belt.  This guy played the guitar and a few different bottomless drums (only one at a time, though) that he held against his side and struck with various implements.  His partner played everything else including some metal instrument that he alleged was 40,000 years old that sounded like an xylophone except it was more tonal and had longer attack and decay times.  They played ancient tribal music from civilizations all over the world and sang in languages that no one in the crowd understood.  Even the songs that were in English were mostly unintelligible due to the singer’s thick Irish accent.  During their performances they encouraged participation from the audience, and even though the crowd couldn’t keep time very well, the clapping and stomping added a palpable layer of feeling the performance.  During another song (one of the few in English), the audience sang the simple chorus (the only intelligible part).  Even though I wasn’t familiar with any of this music or these musicians (which is usually a requirement for me to enjoy myself at a concert), I could already tell that I was in for a treat tonight. 

After 40 minutes of sound checks and stage rearrangements during the intermission, Glen came out with the guitar that he played in the movie and at the Oscars-the one that is so worn out from playing so much that there are large holes in it that no doubt alter the resonant frequency of the thing (perhaps that’s what makes the sound so unique)–and opened with Say It To Me Now.  He proceeded to tune his guitar while playing the song — and laugh about it — all while somehow not missing a note.  During the dynamic parts of the song, I could hear the reverb of his voice after it bounced off of the wall in the back of the hall.  It was weird because I could also hear his unamplified voice since I was sitting so close to the stage.  The imperfection of this, among other things, made it seem like he was just sitting in my living room and playing for me.  That feeling continued throughout the show especially after he brought out the rest of his crew.  The idea of having someone play in your living room exudes awkwardness, but these people were so real and pure and interesting and talented and down-to-earth that throughout the entire show I felt like I was just having a conversation with a life-long friend even though I never said a word to anyone on stage.  The dialogue in between songs was so spontaneous and authentic that it could not have been rehearsed, which is unfortunately not the case at most concerts.   It was almost like he was doing an improvised stand-up routine although most of the time what he said was only funny because he really didn’t know how to say what he wanted to say.  I guess that’s why he’s a musician-it’s easier for him to get his thoughts out that way.  It was obvious that he put every ounce of emotion that he had into every single thing he did on stage.  I never got the feeling that he was just going through the motions just to appease a crowd that paid a hefty ticket price.  He single-handedly gave everyone much more than what they paid for. 

There was one person in the crowd, however, that got much more than what they paid for.  It was a priceless experience straight out of a Mastercard commercial, if you will.  After performing the song that deservingly earned Glen and Marketa an Oscar, Glen told a story about how when he was walking in the park along the river (a park in which I frequently run) with Marketa and his band during the day today he met a kid named Paul.  Paul shook his hand and told him he was a musician, and Glen said that he could tell from the sparkle in the kid’s eyes that he really had something going for himself.  He then questioned the crowd to see if Paul was in the audience.  A voice responded, “It is Joseph,” and Glen immediately said “Yes, you are right your name was Joseph-I even wrote it on my hand to remember, only I forgot to look at my hand before I made the announcement.”  Fortunately I was sitting close enough to see that he actually had the name Joseph written on his hand.  After the whole name issue was squared away, he asked Joseph if he wanted to come up on stage and sing a song for everyone.  After about two minutes of applause, the kid clumsily climbed on stage and almost tripped over a few mic cables on his way to greet Glen.  The moments that followed were too precious for American Idol-just as this entire show was too good for any kind of commercial exploitation.  The band did not know the song that Joseph wanted to sing, but Glen encouraged him to just sing and they would go with it, so the kid starting singing Brandy You’re a Fine Girl a capella in front of about 5000 people.  About 5 lines into it the two opening act musicians came on stage and played instruments behind Joseph’s singing.  Glen and the rest of his band soon followed suit.  Even though they did not know the song, they improvised some impressive backing music.  When the song was over, the kid did not want to stop singing, but he didn’t have any lyrics left to sing.  The song was done, so he and Glen just started singing random notes into the mic until eventually everything sunk in and the kid sort of froze up on stage.  The whole thing was genius (even though Joseph’s singing was nothing special).  Glen had taken the premise of the movie and let some random Portland musician experience for five minutes all that the movie has done for him.  Glen seemed to have a better time doing it than Joseph did.  Even if Joseph never sings another note in his entire life, he at least has this moment to cherish forever. 

After the five minute standing ovation for Joseph calmed down, Glen starting playing some familiar notes on his seasoned guitar from a song that was not his.  He introduced the song with the following, and got a little choked up while doing so, “This is a song by the man of all Irish men.  This is a song by Van Morrison.”  I had already recognized it from the few notes that he played before introducing the song, so my heart was already pounding.  Even after all of the success that his songs have brought him this year, Glen chose to end the show with a song by one of his idols, and it was a great decision even though the cover of this song on the collector’s edition of the ONCE soundtrack is only decent at best.  Being decent still says a lot, though, because the original version of this song is one of the most perfect pieces of music every recorded.  But, tonight their cover was far more than decent.  I don’t know if it is just because of all of the moments that led up to this song, or the fact that it was live, or because it is one of my favorite songs ever, or just because it was performed very well, but their performance of Into the Mystic was one of the greatest experiences of my life, musical or otherwise.  It gave me goose bumps; it made my eyes watery; it took the air out of my lungs; and, it made me involuntarily jump out of my seat quicker than I did in NY for Bridge Over Troubled Water-another perfect song that is among my all-time favorites.  Even without the saxophone to produce the foghorn sound and with an arrangement that was drastically different from the original, Glen & Co. transferred all of the emotion of the song into the souls of everyone in the audience.  Everyone, for those three and a half minutes, did sail off into the mystic.  I just wish that I had a bottle to capture that moment in time because no recording of it ever will, and I don’t want to ever forget this feeling, so thank you Glen, thank you Marketa, thank you band, thank you Joseph, and thank you Van.  Tonight, you all rocked my gypsy soul.

So, I’m in line at some coffee shop in the Newark Airport waiting to get my standard post-redeye meal: a bagel and a smoothie. The guy in line in front of me, who seemed to be about my age, has a Dunkin Donuts bag and cup in his hand. When he gets up to the counter, he asks the woman if she has some honey. At first she gave him a weird look because i think she thought it was some sort of lame pick up line or something, but then he explains that he wants honey for his coffee. She points to the Dunkin Donuts bag and cup and says “for that? Oh no sir we don’t do that here.” He then makes some remark about how they don’t cost all that much and it’s ridiculous that she can’t spare two honey packets for him. After that he proceeds to the condiments counter and uses their milk and cream in his Dunkin Donuts purchased beverage. This sets the lady off even more and she starts yelling at him from across the small restaurant. He proceeds as if nothing is going on. As he’s leaving he tells her to call airport security on him if what he’s doing is so bad.
All i could think, while I was still in my redeye haze, was what a way to be welcomed ‘home.’ I don’t think anything like this would happen in Portland. In NY it’s all about making money and making ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ may actually be. In Portland, i’ve never felt like that was the case. If this same encounter happened in PDX, there wouldn’t be a spectacle at all. The person behind the counter would give them honey and probably offer to put it in their drink for them.
I’ve never subscribed to the belief that people in NY are particularly rude, or maybe i’m just one of them and i’m oblivious to the rudeness, but there is definitely a lifestyle/personality difference between here and PDX. As much as i love NY, I’ve gotten very used to the genuine hospitality of the people in Portland. I’m not sure if i can say that i’m a true Portlander in that sense yet, but hopefully i’m well on my way! On the other hand, I’ll probably always have my alleged NY accent, though. I kind of don’t want to let that go. So, for now, i’m temporarily trapped somewhere between the two cities.

It’s time for a story.  About a month and a half ago, a week or so before I started this blog, I was on the phone with my dad and somehow a Paul Simon lyric came up in the conversation.  It was the last line of a song that is arguably Mr. Simon’s most poetic (Kathy’s Song).  I then questioned whether or not the phrase was coined by Paul Simon because I remembered that it sounded familiar a while back when I heard the song for the first time.  When I Googled “There but for the grace of you go I” plus some other keywords, the first match provided me with the answer I was looking for.  The phrase is much older than Paul Simon and has a spiritual origin.  Its initial form is “There but for the grace of God go I.”

The second match that Google provided me with was also interesting.  It was a link to this blog post that someone somewhere had written nearly two years ago about Kathy’s Song.  That lyric in question was the title of the post.  I really loved this blogger’s artistic voice and enjoyed reading what she had to say.  I’ve always had a secret interest in blogging, but I never thought that I was self-important enough or interesting enough to start one.  However, after reading the aforementioned blog post, I realized that it is possible to blog about stuff that can be related to by others even if they don’t know you, which, in my opinion, validates the purpose of blogging.  Blogs do not always have to be pretentious pieces of trash that people just write to make themselves feel important.  That was just my jaded generalization of them.  That night I read nearly all of the other posts on that blog and left the author a message telling her that her work has inspired me to finally revisit my love of written word.  The next day I couldn’t stop writing; material was coming to me at a speed that was difficult to keep up with.  I’ve always enjoyed writing, but it is most fun during those rare times when I’m experiencing an inverse writer’s block (IVB).  Soon after that day I started this blog.

About a month later I finished this post, which was something I started but couldn’t quite finish on that day of IVB.  A lot of people seemed to like it (either that or they’re just being very nice).  One such fan was my aunt — Sister Barb.  She commented on it in the comments section of the post (see the bottom of the page linked to at the beginning of this paragraph), and she concluded her comment with the spiritual version of the Paul Simon quote that was indirectly my catalyst for this whole blogging thing.  While it is possible that this is simply a coincidence, I’m not cynical enough to think that anymore.  It’s moments like this that make me proud of being a blogger.  I don’t blog solely for my own sake.  If I did, I’d just keep a journal and not post its contents online.  I do the online thing to share my thoughts and experiences with my fellow citizens of the planet with the hopes that they can benefit from them.  I mean isn’t that what art and life is all about?  So, with that said, there but for the grace of you go I.

Featured in this post:

Fuzzy Purple Socks

Simon & Garfunkel - Kathy’s Song (from Sounds of Silence)

Seeing homeless people has always had a huge effect on me, but, for some reason, seeing homeless people here in Portland has an even more profound effect on me. The eyes of the PDX’s homeless residents radiate desperation in a way that I’ve never experienced before. The longer their eye contact with you is held, the deeper their desperation laser burns an impression into your soul. It is hard to deal with.

The homeless people in San Francisco are belligerent; in Miami they come up to your car while you’re at a stop light, try to wash your windshield with a dirty piece of newspaper, and then they pound on your window asking for money; and, in New York they either have funny signs or they’re obviously addicts of some sort. In Portland, they stand by the highway entrance and exit ramps as still as the light posts next to which they are situated. The ink used to compose the letters on their signs runs in skinny strands like the mascara of a teary eyed woman all of the way off of the bottom of the cardboard, but the rain does not faze them at all like it does their signs. The trash bag or shopping cart containing their possessions is soaking wet next to them, yet they remain perfectly still as if there is some invisible umbrella sheltering them from the raindrops. But, there isn’t. They stare ahead blankly, and it never seems as if they are actually interested in people giving them spare change—regardless of what their waterlogged signs (that are rarely humorous) say. During the moments before my inevitable eye contact with such people, I feel like the automobile that I am in is a buffer between my world and theirs. And, It is–until we lock eyes. Then our worlds are temporarily merged.  This immediately causes me to imagine nightly sleepovers next to complete strangers at the campsite known as underside of the Burnside Bridge—a campground where no stars are visible in the sky because the city lights from all of the sheltered residents’ homes prevent the night sky from having enough contrast to expose them. And, that is where the lucky ones spend their nights. Others curl up on park benches without the luxury of the blankets or the sleeping bags that the people under the bridges have.

Whether it is when I’m running along the river at night or when I’m driving to work in the morning, I see these people at least once a day. And, every day this leads me to two main thoughts—one of which is serious. I think that what makes me feel so bummed (no pun intended) when I share a part of my day with these people is that I can never really figure out what separates them from me. What did I do to end up with a nice home and food to eat? I guess the Republican thing to say is that those people did something to force that life upon themselves and because of that they deserve to be where they are, but that seems like a bunch of nonsense to me. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone makes huge mistakes. Everyone is stupid. Everyone is smart. Everyone has character traits that are detrimental to their ideal well being; however, everyone has traits that make them great individuals–traits that allow them to thrive. What I’m trying to say is that I feel like I’m always one or two bad luck moments/bad decisions away from being in their position, and that they are one or two good luck moments/good decisions away from being me – the guy that is scared to make eye contact with them through defrosted car windows yet also scared to ignore the eyes that speak louder than the misspelled words on their cardboard signs. Such moments make me thankful for what I have, but at the same time, they also make me feel ashamed of my life. These people would be happy with a fraction of what I have, yet I’d flip out if someone took my Netflix subscription away from me.

With that said (here comes the not-so-serious part), if I ever become homeless, the first thing that I’m going to do is hitchhike to Vegas. It’s pretty far from here, but I think I could eventually get there. LA is about 1000 miles south, and the entire route is on a major highway which should make hitchhiking that far much easier. Once I get there I know for sure I could find my way east to Vegas. The only hurdle of that journey would be the Death Valley area near the Cali/Nevada border. If I were stranded there for too long, I’d probably die. Its name is no joke. People actually do die there—I saw a special about it on the Discovery Channel. But, I digress. The reason I would try so hard to get to Vegas is because I feel like there is no better place in the country to be a homeless panhandler. Sure it is true that most people leave Vegas with less money than they came with, but if I got lucky once a day and made eye contact with someone who had just won relatively big, maybe I could get a decent amount of money from them. With that money I could definitely eat because food in Vegas is cheap, and then I could go to the blackjack tables and try to double the leftover money. At night, I’d claim a bench in front of the Bellagio fountains as my bed because no matter how miserable my life may be, I’d never get sick of waking up in front of the Bellagio fountains. The one time that I was in Vegas I was mesmerized by those things. They are pretty freaking sweet. They are one of my favorite man made things in the country. Yankee stadium may top that list, but that place will be bulldozed very soon thus effectively removing itself from the list. Besides, I don’t think I could compete with the homeless people in the Bronx.

I have this dream that one day I will be some kind of mad scientist/researcher/artist.  I will live in an inspiring loft so high above a metropolis that in the morning before the fog lifts, I can’t see the matchbox sized cars scurrying on the street far below me.  All I see are the tops of the clouds that the ground level citizens see the bottoms of.  The walls of this loft are populated with photographs that I’ve taken of past vacation destinations.  Recently shot photos are attached via clothes pins to a slack piece of rope that is fastened to the loft’s concrete ceiling at both ends.  Some of these shots may eventually make the wall.  Others will not.  It’s quite a process to go from clothesline to frame to wall.  Unfortunately, not everything survives.   

In one corner of this loft are three stacks—one of LPs, one of CDs, and one of DVDs– all of which reach the ceiling.  I need one of those mini step ladder things that they have in libraries to reach the tops of these skinny piles.  Any of these three stacks could collapse to the floor at any moment from the slightest unintentional contact, but that would be a disaster because even though it doesn’t appear so, there is a method to the stacking, and I know exactly where everything is at any given time.  And, if I push a stack so that it leans into the corner, I can access anything in the middle of the stack without disturbing the rest of it. 

In another corner there are similar stacks but these are of text books, novels, maps, and academic papers/journals.  Most of the loft’s floor is covered in manuscript pages, scribbled on sheets of loose leaf notebook paper, crumbled up pieces of paper that missed the trash can, and books opened facedown as if the floor were reading their exposed pages.  The precious pages being memorized by the floor contain something that is of immediate interest to me, but I’m not sure exactly why yet. 

There are multiple paths carved from the papers on the floor that mark trails from my desk to the kitchen, my bed to the bathroom, the bathroom to the closet, and the closet back to my desk.  Sometimes I pace around on these sometimes interconnected trails when stumped or when on the verge of a breakthrough.  I frequently confuse the two states of mind, but one often leads to the other, so I eventually come back to where I never thought I was. 

All of the time that I spend in this loft involves learning, thinking, and creating–even when I’m eating or sleeping.  The metaphorical wheels are always turning.  I have no other job but to just produce stuff, anything, that someone, somewhere might find brilliant.  Something that I’m also proud of.  It’s kind of like grad school only there are no deadlines, no formal assignments, and no real pressure.  Nothing is forced and every idea is given the time it needs to fully blossom. 

I’m never giving up on this dream. 

(Originally written 12.01.2006)

     Everyone has memories of the where they were, what they were doing, and who they were with when they heard certain songs for the first time. Often, the thoughts and feelings of those times are rekindled with every subsequent listen to that particular tune; however, the moments that seem to resonate the most with me are those of exotic settings, fictional characters, and heart-wrenching feelings that are created by the crisp imagery and almost-tangible emotions present in fine musical artistry.  I remember where these songs take me rather than where I first heard them.  I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been touched so deeply by someone else’s work but, for me, chasing these moments is what makes being addicted to listening to music a rewarding experience. In a way, music is my drug of choice.    

     Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is the cause of my most recent musical epiphany.  Up until about a few weeks ago Moondance had always been my Van Morrison album of choice, and it occupied a firm position on my all time top ten list.  Astral Weeks remained subconsciously very enigmatic.  Its complex sounds lingered with me for months after listening, but it still never quite made sense.  The initial image I experienced from it was one of Van frolicking around a mystical Irish countryside during his formative years and commenting on every small detail he observed while remaining invisible to everything around him.  It was as if he was part of the wind: heard and felt but not seen.
     The catalyst for this revelation happened on a pilgrimage to the first post-Katrina Jazzfest with some fellow music connoisseurs.  The twelve plus hour trek from Miami to New Orleans was to be conquered primarily during nocturnal hours.  My stretch of driving was the second third of the trip and involved crossing over into the central time zone.  Everyone else in the car was fast asleep–-as were most other people at that time of day.  The only person keeping me company was Van the man.  I had already listened to most of his catalog during my stint behind the wheel.  The only un-listened to Van album left in the car was Astral Weeks, so I popped in it.

     Not long after the first note played the darkness surrounding the highway began to give way to the birth of the next day.  Along with the rising of the sun came a great deal of thick fog that hovered over the landscape.  My hazy subconscious interpreted the greens of the surrounding areas through the fog as having a subtle bluish hue to them.  A glance in my rearview mirror revealed the sun at the same location in the sky as it was five minutes ago.  It was then that I realized we were traveling west—into a different time zone nonetheless—away from the rising sun.  It was a race against nature that we would obviously lose.
     The loss occurred sooner than I expected.  The sun was now at an angle in the sky such that even motioning my eyes towards the rearview mirror was a blinding experience.  Just above the road in front of me a few of the sun’s rays met the clouds of fog to form a series of rainbows.  A scene of sereneness was born and at that moment that the music matched the countryside.  During prior listens to Astral Weeks a vision had been created in my head that was far too complex for me to totally grasp.  That image had now manifested itself on the other side of my windshield via the greenish blue hues, the numinous quality of the fog, and the pestering–yet necessary sun.  It was all drawn out in front of me like a scene in a childhood dream.
     Having what was previously only in my head now plainly visible allowed my brain to open for further interpretation of what these fifty minutes of music truly captured only to realize that the imagery itself tells the story.  It is one of youthful exuberance and uncertain destinies.  It is told as if everything is occurring at one small instant in time at the dawn of a new beginning.  That new beginning and everything after is cloudy and ambiguous like the foggy road ahead, yet the beauty of it is only possible with what that of the sun—a reminder of what is behind and the places from which we’ve come.  To look back at it is blinding but the urge to do so is hard to fight—much like the past and the regrets that often accompany it.  Even if such things are blinding they contribute to the beauty of the present and they shape the future.  The beauty of the fog would not exist without the sun from behind.  The solution: to just love the moment you’re living.
     By the time the album ended we were in the central time zone.  With the clock regressing an hour, the entire time spent listening to the album had just been erased.   It was all experienced in one small instant in time as if Van had planned it to be that way.  I drove the rest of my shift in silence with the album on repeat in my head.  I did not aurally revisit the album until four months later.  It was a day when I wanted to escape and feel young again.  That’s when I finally got it.

Featured in this post:

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

Van Morrison - Moondance

Today I received and hooked up my first real turntable. When i was little, I had a Fisher Price turntable, but i don’t think that qualifies as ‘real.’  On second thought, that thing may have been the catalyst for my obsession with music, so I may have to reconsider. I remember listening to Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits on that thing while staring at the shiny silver resonator guitar that was surrounded by clouds on the record’s cover and wondering how it could float in the sky like that. With that said, I’ve decided to rewrite my opening statement: today I received and hooked up my first audiophile turntable. That plastic Fisher Price thing was definitely not a piece of hi-fi gear.

Even though I just got the hardware today, I started collecting LPs a few months ago–back when I decided that listening to vinyl was in my future.  During that time I bought some new 180 gram records from 2nd Ave Records here in Portland and Bleecker Street Records in NYC.  My dad also gave me all of his old LPs the last time I visited the east coast.  While there is a certain sort of vintage feeling associated with this whole spinning of vinyl thing, it isn’t quite the same when I’m listening to shiny new records with really low noise floors because they are pressed onto thick vinyl.  With the beat up album art of the LPs that my dad gave me in my hand, i really feel like I’m holding a piece of history.  And, as much of a purist as i am, hearing the clicks and pops that result from the stylus riding the 40+ year old grooves of those originals kind of adds to the whole experience.  I also like being able to tell which songs my dad listened to most when he was my age. Of all the tracks on all of the records he gave to me, The Boxer is the song with the most wear.  It’s barely even listenable.  The stylus got stuck one of the two times i attempted to listen to it.  The jacket for that album features an advertisement to buy various Paul Simon songbooks for $2.00 (plus .50 for S&H), and at the bottom of the coupon the fine print reads: “Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.  Offer expires Dec. 31, 1970.”  I know for a fact that I’ve seen used copies of at least one of these songbooks at Powell’s Bookstore for much more than $2.00.  I’m not really sure why, but seeing that coupon on the record jacket made me feel special.  I felt like i was reading an old newspaper from an important day in history.  I kind of want to fill out the coupon and mail it off to the Terre Haute, IN address that is provided on it just to see what happens.  Either that or i want to laminate it.  This kind of stuff belongs in a museum somewhere.  Maybe that’s one of my callings in life. . . to start up a museum that praises and displays such things. 

If anyone that reads this has any LPs that are collecting dust and taking up space in their basement, I’d be more than glad to take them off of your hands.  Consider them donations to the aforementioned museum of random things that I find fascinating.  They will be displayed right next to the museum’s centerpiece — my Fisher Price turntable.

Featured in this post:
 
Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

 
Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms 

About four times per week I wake up with a completely random song playing on repeat in my head.  By completely random I mean that I haven’t heard the song with my ears in at least a couple of weeks.  Maybe the content of the song is tied into my most recent dream-I have no idea.  Usually it is only one or two lines of a particular song, and sometimes I don’t even know the song the lines are from until later in the day.

I never try to figure out why a particular song is in my head because doing so seems impossible (although trying to do so seems pretty freaking interesting).  The song always accompanies me to the shower and it usually lasts until a new song reaches my ears via my car speakers on my way to work.  Sometimes the song I wake up hearing makes a big enough impression on me that I feel inspired to either listen to it while I’m eating breakfast or while I’m on my way to work so that it isn’t replaced in my head by something else.  Today the song was “Stop This Train” by John Mayer.  I’m not too big of a fan of John Mayer’s work, but his most recent album (Continuum) is brilliant.

I first heard this particular song when it came out during my second year of grad school in Miami.  A friend whose musical tastes I trust told me to give the album a listen even though he knew I wasn’t a fan of his John’s previous work.  He was right in knowing that I would enjoy it.  “Stop This Train” is the one song on the record that immediately made an impression on me.  I listened to it off and on without listening to anything else from that album during the seven months that I was plugging away at my thesis.   The song is somewhat up-tempo but also very deep, which is a rare combination.  The main thing that hit me from it was that the thought of my parents dying scares the crap out of me, just like the same idea scares John in the song.  What is also equally scary to him is how he is getting older very quickly-too quickly-and he feels unprepared for what lies ahead.  He’s only good at being young.

On my way to work this morning, this song choked me up a bit.  My eyes got as cloudy and drippy as my windshield.  Perhaps this happened because today was the beginning of the long rainy season here in Portland which is a reminder that my birthday–a day that I use to analyze the year of my life that just ended–is less than a month away.  Every year in recent memory I was able to look back at the last year of my life and have some solid accomplishments of which to be proud.  Last year I traveled to Europe, wrote a thesis, graduated from grad school, moved out west to Portland, landed a sweet job, and ran the Hood to Coast relay for the first time.  That’s a lot of stuff.  The year before that I moved to Miami, wrote a chapter of the novel that I started the previous year, attended my first New Orleans Jazzfest (because Paul Simon, among others that were exponentially less important, was playing), and I survived two hurricanes (I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with anything, but I felt like including it because it was a huge character building experience).

This year–my first full year in ‘the real world’–I feel like I haven’t done anything that really measures up to my experiences of the previous two years.  Some highlights include attending the best concert of my life (which I will post about soon), visiting Yosemite National Park-one of the most beautiful places on the planet, attending the wedding of my good friend and former teammate from high school in Carolina (which also served as a mini high school reunion), and that’s about it other than saving a lot of money and buying some cool stuff.  Nothing else really stands out to me.

The one thing that is common to all of these experiences is that while I don’t share most of them with my parents, I get to tell them all about the ones of which they were not part.  It will be a very sad day when I can’t do that anymore because they are no longer with us.  Maybe that’s why that song got to me so much today.  The thought of having to experience life on my own is frightening no matter how old I may be when it happens.  Sometimes I question moving 3000 miles away from my family for this very reason, but I always come to the conclusion that I did the right thing.  I think I’m closer to them now even though I’m so far away and somehow it makes these experiences more interesting.  I don’t want to stop the train and go home again like John does; I just wish that I could stop the train and hit the pause button on life.  If the train were stopped, then I’d know my parents will always be with me, but now it seems like it’s moving so fast that I can’t even see what’s passing by when i look out of the window.  Is it because each passing year becomes less of a percentage of my life than the previous year?  Am I asking too much to keep having equally memorable experiences every year?   I feel like while I was in school, I constantly looked forward the point in my life that I’m at now, and now all I do try to hang onto every new moment while simultaneously longing for yester-year.  This year, and for every year until I’m 30-the birthday that I fear the most-I’m documenting (in here) specific goals for each remaining year of my twenties.   That way when I wake up at age 30 + x with ‘Stop This Train’ in my head and I listen to it on my way to work, it won’t scare me as much.  And I have Mr. Mayer to thank for the wakeup call.

Featured in this post:

John Mayer - Continuum

It’s amazing how small the world seems—not in the sense that a friend of a friend is related to my sister’s friend who grew up in the same town as us and I just ran into them on the street (although I do love those moments), but in the sense that sometimes when you’re totally living in the moment, it’s hard to imagine life being lived elsewhere.  The thoughts going through your head and the emotions being felt seem to put everything else around you at a distance.  I used to get like this all of the time back when I ran track races in high school.  It seemed to happen very often back then.  For less than two minutes, my world was whatever was in front of me on the 400 meter oval that was surrounded and occupied by people that I never noticed.  Unfortunately that feeling wore off when I raced in college.  Now, every time I travel I get like this.  When visiting a place for the first time and meeting the people that live there, it’s amazing to think that my friends and family back home are still going about business as usual.  In this sense, this small world feeling is great.  I live for such moments. 

Other times such small world feelings are not so great, and for some reason it seems like the older I get, the smaller and more focused my world gets.  It’s weird how gathering more experiences makes me feel more alone.  I guess each experience makes it easier to realize that I’m just one of the billions of people that live on this planet and I will never get to see where each and every one of my fellow inhabitants of Earth go about their daily lives.  I think this is why I enjoy art so much.  It’s an escape from my ever-shrinking world to a place that has been visited by someone else, which makes me feel, at least for that moment, that my world is bigger than it actually is.  Also, knowing that someone else has experienced some of the same feelings and emotions that I have, and they were affected by them enough to write about them, makes me feel less alone in this huge world that is comprised of far too many small worlds.  This is why I am starting this blog—to introduce my world to many other worlds with the hopes of benefiting all involved.   Stay tuned!