SHORT STORIES

JAPAN DIARIES 2006

HEY ALL!
WE WENT TO JAPAN IN FEBRUARY.
IT WAS DOPE.
HERE'S A RELATIVE PLAY BY PLAY.....
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE LIKE MYSELF AND ARE TOTALLY REPULSED BY SELF-INDULGENT SONGWRITERS MEMOIRS- - - - CHEERS!


DAY 1

It was one of those rare, uneventful, unhurried and suspiciously painless airport experiences.
It's always a pleasantly frustrating surprise to find that you've overestimated the amount of time you thought you needed at the airport, and that you could have, in fact, slept a little later, dreamed a little longer and rushed a little less. Miraculously, there was no line.
The terminal seemed empty. I didn't see any other passengers, just calm, cool, uniformed Korean ticket-taker's, welcoming us with a smile and an unspoken eager promise to be kind, swift and efficient in the handling of our baggage.
I began entertaining the notion that maybe, indeed, I was still at home sleeping, for I had never seen tranquility so displaced in all my life. Every airport experience I have had, since i've been born, has been a frantic, unenjoyable collision of stress and aggravation. As far as I'm concerned, one is not ALLOWED to enjoy going to the airport. It is something to be dreaded, and nothing more.
That's why I thought that I must be afloat in the sheets and the safety of my own bed- buried deep in Hollywood - dreaming of this glorious affair.
But quite shortly into the daydream, I was awakened by our fearless
Korean Air ticket agent who looked me right in the eye, didn't blink or flinch- hesitated for a long, mysterious second and then reached out to me, handed me my ticket and said it.
They were words that would make a sizable dent in my memory.

"Have a nice fright, Mr. Bronko".

It was a curious start.

•-

The first quick surprises arrived with the food on the plane.
Notable white fish.
I'd like to think it was lightly breaded and sautéed on a nearby grill with red and green pepper cubes, onions, salt and paprika then placed evenly next to the white rice and vegetables, but I don't think they've got a skillet in the rear of the plane. And I don't think the stewardess', competent as they had been, had the wherewithal to cook for 150 people at once at 35,000 feet.
They do, however, have the means to make fresh chocolate chip cookies.
Warm, too,
Another surprise.
Unfortunately, that was the last of the surprises.
The rest of the flight was filled with me thinking of ways to temporarily cut off my legs and arms so I can get comfortable and possibly get some sleep. Two very steep requests, apparently, for a 747.

Arrival.
After a brush w/ a malnurished Customs agent, we meet Moto and Keiji (our hosts) and ride 2 hours to Kamakura. When we roll in, Kamakura feels more like a village than a city and nothing short of the perfect place to start the tour. A soft rain fell unobserved. If you looked hard enough, you could see the street lamps admiring their reflection in the drizzled pavement. And if you looked even harder, you could see a tall American tourist scribbling mediocre witticisms about the weather into a notebook bought at STAPLES, and sadly mistaking it for poetry.
Time for bed.

DAY 2 :KAMAKURA

I awoke in the morning with a request from the white fish.
He apparently wanted an encore.

The bathroom was quite small.  I compare it to the size of a room you keep bad memories in. It was not what they called a western-style bathroom. Frankly, I don't know what style it was.  It was more like a small sink, hastily dug into the floor, and attached to a rusted pulley.

Immediately I begin thinking about an advertisement I had seen on the plane. It was for a Sony cellular phone that had a still camera, a video camera, a music player, Internet connections, and a toaster. And another ad I saw for a digital camera  the size of a quarter that was also a translator, a calculator, a DVD player and a beard-trimmer.
I wondered what prevents a culture that's so technologically advanced from doing research into somethng so simple as plumbing accessories or, at the very least, basic ceramics.

With all these thoughts circling I ventured, unaccompanied and unschooled, into the cold foreign netherworld of vulnerability. I swore I would take my time. I kept repeating over and over to myself that there was no rush and to relax. I thought if I could just relax, and take it slow, there would be less chance of an unfortunate accident. But I didn't consider how difficult it is to relax while your pants are down, especially when you're in a strange, unheated room performing a magical, unrehearsed balancing act while praying earnestly to any god who will listen. Nobody told me how difficult it would be. Nobody warned me.  And, most importantly, nobody told me I was supposed to remove my pants entirely when using a traditional Japanese bathroom.
I pee'd all over the back of my jeans.

It was 6am, Kamakura time.
The day was only ahead of me.

I walked to the beach and extended the Pacific Ocean a deep breath and a few sacrificial beach pebbles.  The sky was overcast and I was alone except for an old man with an umbrella. He was humming loudly a faded song as he faced the water. I felt like something important was happening, but I was missing it.

I walked back to the hotel to do laundry.
____

DAY 3-  NAGOYA

Mt. Fuji pulled itself through the clouds just long enough for us to take a quick picture of it. It's snow-capped teeth graciously smiled for us as we clicked.
The rest stop was filled with fish cakes and vending machines and western boys scribbling landscape narratives into a notebook bought at STAPLES and sadly mistaking them for poetry.
We were headed for Nagoya.

If Tokyo is Los Angeles, and Osaka is San Francisco, then Nagoya is like Bakersfield. It's like Bakersfield if Bakersfield had better sushi.

We checked into the hotel and had a half-hour before sound check.
I wearily opened the bathroom door to check our plumbing situation and, with luck, discovered a western style toilet.
But this bowl came with a seat-heater, a bidet, and something labeled "SPRAY".
The "Spray" function came equipped with a choice of four temperature levels and a remote to help aim the device correctly.

I was perplexed.

Yesterday, I pissed all over myself and sprained my ankle while going to the bathroom- And today, I'm about to get a personal rectal cleaning with water heated to whatever temperature I want.
There seems to be a conflict buried deep in the bowels of the Japanese people....
Or maybe it's just me.

We played a place called KD JAPON- it was packed and sweaty and dreamy.
I went looking for trouble in the red light district later on that night, but trouble seemed to be hiding from me in the warm dark places known only to locals.

I jumped on some late night noodles and smoked the last of my first pack of Japanese cigarettes. The brand is called HOPE...ironically; they are shorter and cheaper than regular cigarettes.

DAY 4 -  OSAKA

Osaka is a giant pinball machine.
Lights, bells, movement, whistles, traffic, octopus balls, bicycles, 6-story camera stores, Ferris wheels under construction, sex shops, aquariums, musty tunnels underground, rattling trains overhead, pachinko after pachinko after pachinko, department stores piled on top of each other, neon, flyers, posters, purple plastic dragon statues, 7 eleven, vending machines armed with beer and cigarettes, Denny's and western boys scribbling abstractions into a notebook bought at STAPLES and sadly mistaking them for poetry.

DAY 5 - HIROSHIMA

After our show at Kapone, I was fortunate enough to be kidnapped by some locals to witness some of Hiroshima's nightlife. It consisted of booze, live music, food and bars.
Thankfully, I am well versed in all 4 of these arenas.
The club was hosting a band called the TEENAGE NIGHT-something-or-others and they hadn't started yet. It was four sassy 20-year-old girls all dressed the same way, pink dresses, bob haircuts and oversized instruments.
I waited.
The 90-pound drummer clacked her sticks together four times and they were on...
The music hit like a strong wave with an even stronger undertow- it knocked me down and pulled me in. They were screaming at the top of their lungs and banging hard on their instruments, which were, thankfully, in tune. They keyboard player had her leg up on the keyboard. As she screamed, I wasn't sure if she was playing the right notes, but I was sure that it didn't matter. The bass player was close to me, and I counted her fillings. 12.
I started thinking about taking them to Los Angeles with me and having them open up every show for us.
It was then I knew I was drunk.
I hailed a cab and showed him the address of the hotel that was written in Japanese on my arm with a sharpie.
We had the next day off and some time to spare. We woke up and went to the Hiroshima Memorial. It was an in-depth, step-by-step walk-through of the entire bombing of Hiroshima. Diagrams, official letters, timelines, recovered artifacts, melting mannequins and more. There's a lot to say about this...but, for now, let's just say that if you are looking for a fun, uplifting way to start your day, the Hiroshima Memorial will fall quite late on your list.


we had 4 more shows...more to come!

updated 1 year ago

Christ, Pants and Five Guys Burgers

THe Last time i was in New York, My father came crouching over to me with 2 small, unpackaged and suspicious looking  pills in his hand. He said this: "Here, son, take these. For the road. I got them in Costa Rica. They're sleeping pills. MY friend Pascal got'em for me. THey're yours now. They really really work. But you gotta be careful because they are really strong. If you sleep for anything less that 9 hours then you'll feel tired all day. You have GOT to sleep 9 hours on them, or fuggetaboutit. Oh yeah, and don't worry if your nose starts bleedin', it's normal..."


That was about 2 months ago, the last time i was on the road.
NOw i'm on the road again,
I just took one of the pills.

the reason i tell you this is simple: if this blogs ends questionably, or hastily, or takes a dark turn or, worseover, i don't show up for the gig at MEssiah College tomorrow due to the fact that i had been eaten by some Costa- rican pharmaceutical version of MAd cow Disease- well, then, at least you'll know why.

onward!

YES! Messiah College tomorrow.
YEs. MEssiah.
As in Jesus Harold Christ.
IT's a Christian school- so it shall be quite fun playing some devil music for the kids. IT reminds me of a gig we did in Glasgow in the basement of a church... The devil himself had attended that one. (Oh yeah, that's right, the devil lives in Scotland - wouldn't you if you wanted to have a good time?)

He had a VIP pass and everything for our show. He was ranting and raving about our show, and making songwriting suggestions (the nerve of this guy!) - but in the end, he didn't buy any merch. i didn't have a shirt to fit his tail or a hat to fit his horns. i have the same problem when jews wanna buy stuff too... (*footnote 1)

Anyway, the LAST time we played MEssiah it was  with Gary Jules and was a whole lotta fun, during the show AND after. These Christians are heavily armed with whatever they need to have a good time, ...Beautifully crafted flasks with Crucifix's on them, hand spun glass bongs with Holy water in them, and even the Crown-of-Thorns beer hats.
http://jimbianco.com/images/thumbs/notes-thorn_beer_crown.jpg
crazy.
IT shall be fun.

Right now i'm in my hotel room in Thurmont, MD.
I flew in from Long Beach Airport to Washington Dulles this evening. When i arrived at Washington Dulles i did what every carnivore would do when they get to Washington Dulles Airport:

Exit the plane.
Stop.
Locate FIVE GUYS Burgers and fries.
Order.
Pay.
Wait until food is cooked.
Shove food in face.

This is BEFORE you go and claim your bags.
yes, that's right. STRAIGHT to the BURGER JOINT off the plane.it's a brilliant burger , not fast foodie, just delicious...
i recommend the Jalapeno Cheeseburger.
YOu can't go wrong.




So, I eat the burger, hit the baggage claim, rent the car then hit the road. NOw I'm in the Hotel room.
I unpacked my bag and slowly came to realize that, after going through my suitcase, i brought no pants with me for the trip.
NO pants at all.
none.
nothing.
zilch.
no pants.
at all.
I brought CD's  and Merch Tee's and house keys and vest's for suits and new brown boots and laptops and flip -flops and eyedrops and dress socks and workout sneakers and ipod speakers and ointment for hives and butterfly knives and back-up zip drives and ...

...and no pants.

so, i made the phone call.
Not a phone call I've ever had to make before.
i called my bestest friend and asked if she could mail me my pants. If she could break into my apartment, find the pants and fed-ex them to a hotel in Florida.
NOw, tell me, what's more ridiculous, the fact that i asked? or the fact that she said 'yes'?

I've never had pants mailed to me at a hotel before. And i guess the best plan i've come up with so far is to walk around pant-less until i get to Miami, on Saturday, then, walk into the hotel and ask if there's a package for me. Then open it and put my pants on. And then check-in.

Man, i think these pills are really starting to get to me....

I'll see y'all in 9 hours.
xoxoxoxozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

jb

(*footnote: i'm half jewish and half christian which, in some wierd way, allows me to say whatever i want about each of those fine belief systems : )

updated 1 year ago

GRANDPA JOE

Grandpa Joe





I may have just said goodbye to my grandfather for the last time.
It was a strange thing to realize, in the moment.

He wasn't sick or on is deathbed or anything... quite the opposite, actually. We had just returned from the beach.

He's 83 years old.
I haven't seen him in 3 years.
He lives in Florida, near my mom, who I visited last weekend.
I NEVER go to Florida.
Actually, I should say I rarely go to Florida, for a myriad of reasons. Most of them being terribly insulting to the state of FLorida, but one reason being is that it's not a usual place to tour through - but the cruise gig i just played ended in Miami, so there I was.

Back to Grandpa.
Joe Levy.
Better known to me as 'Grandpa Joe' .
Grandpa JOe is, without a doubt, a wild, wild man who has led a very full life of which he's never been shy to talk about.

At the age of 83, he is married to his second wife, JOAnne, who is 20 years his junior (nice work, gramps!) -
They go out dancing every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.
Jitterbug, Charleston, you name it, he knows it.
He doesn't drink much anymore, or smoke.

Apparently, he's somewhat of a catch at the nightclub.
He tells me all the young girls (average age about 50) come on strong.
Strong enough to piss off Joanne.
She makes snide comments to Joe as he tells me the story about the one girl who put her hand on his belly, inside his blazer, while they were disco dancing. He had to insure her that he was a married man.
This was last week.
She was 45.
Again, he's eighty-three.

The last time i saw him was a few years back- he gave me a watch that didn't work anymore, a silver watch with a silver band. A watch he got before the war and a watch he wore all through the war. He said i should get it fixed and wear it, but i never did.

He's told me stories about how poor he and his family were in the depression, and how they would all eat onion sandwiches for dinner.
He told me how him and his dad (my great grandpa Louis) were walking one afternoon in Brooklyn and that a New York Times cost 2 cents back then and that Great Grandpa Louis only had one penny- so grandpa Joe begged the penny from his dad and played a pinball machine with it and, in one shot, won 2 cents. Ta-dah! They then walked and bought the Times. Grandpa said he'd never forget that. That was in 1932.

He's told me about the time when he got back from WWII and landed in Long beach, California. Back then, when you were a soldier returning from the war, people would take you in if you needed, no matter where or what. He stayed everywhere, all things extended to him from the kindness of strangers.
He said he made his way to Hollywood and Vine and screamed out
"YO! ANYONE HERE FROM BROOKLYN!?"
And there was.
(There's  ALWAYS  someone from Brooklyn around in his stories)
He told me stories of harbor brothels and Phillipino tribes, and  Okinawan bars and dead soldiers.
He cries when he tells these stories.
It's really one of the most beautiful things to see.
An old man crying, mostly out of joy.

He's got a crooked pointer finger, too. A result of being shot in the war. Ever since we were little kids, he used to show it to me and my sister. It's on his right hand and if he points straight, it actually points to the right. It's shaped like an Allen Key.

When the war was officially over he was stranded in California for 6 weeks before they finally sent him home.
He once told me a story about when he finally returned home, to Brooklyn, to his wife Winnie (my mom's mom) - they were BROKE.
Really really broke.
One day Winnie got real sick, sick enough to need an operation, an appen..omy, and he didn't have the $300 to cover the cost.
He said he had no choice but to go downstairs to the local gas station with a mask and a tire iron and rob them of their money. He said the hard part was that he knew the guy working there, too. But it didn't matter, he said, because Winnie was sick and there was no other choice.

Here's the picture Winnie sent him when he was in the war:

Grandma Winnie

On the back of it she wrote:
" It's all yours, honey, and it's waiting for you to come and get it xxxx
All my love,
Winnie."

Winnie was a fiesty little broad.

As broke as they were after the war, they weren't broke forever. He eventually opened up a dry-cleaners in Sheepshead Bay, in Brooklyn. It was his very own business- which led him to eventually buy his very own car, and then to buy his very own house on Ralph Avenue. He told me he was the first member of his family to own a living room set.
A couch and a chair and a TV.

He owned the cleaners for many many years, through the divorce of Winnie, and through the meeting and marrying of Joanne. He sold the business eventually and moved to Florida.

I wish i had a current picture of him to post here. He's a good-lookin' old Jew. He's got a full head of hair, combed back smoothly and dyed a brownish-auburn (though, i think the auburn is unintentional and evident only due to dye-chemical miscalculation).


Here's another shot of him and Winnie:

Grandpa Joe and Grandma Winnie

Certifiable rock stars, they were.


Today, he's lanky and has a fabulously gigantic nose.
His nose is the size of some peoples faces.
His NOSE has a nose.
His nostrils are the size of grapes.
REALLY really big grapes.

And it looks perfect.
It does.
It must, really, considering all the ladies who fall over him on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
Oh, poor Joanne.

So, we went to the beach last weekend.
After the beach my mother and I dropped him and Joanne off at their condominium in Delray. We took their lounge chairs out of the trunk of my mom's car and put them back in his car. Then I gave him a hug. He said we should come get dinner with them later - some of the best Chinese food buffet in Florida (the best crab legs he's ever had for $9.99, all-you-can-eat).
I thought about onion sandwiches, and wondered if he thought about them still.

My mother and I had plans for dinner, so we couldn't make the buffet. He said 'OK' and 'take care' and walked towards his door.  I started the car and was about to put it in reverse when he appeared again, knocking on the passenger window.
"I left something in the trunk" he said.
So I popped the trunk and stepped out of the car.
He was pulling a purple beach bag out slowly.
I closed the trunk down behind him and put my hand out to shake his and said "good to see you, Grandpa".
He reached out his hand with his crooked index finger and shook mine and said "Good to see you too, Jimbo. Get that watch fixed, will ya'?"

"I will Grandpa." I said.

updated 1 year ago

SILENT RETREAT - part 1

 

Silent Retreat . . . . Part 1

I sit here on an extraordinarily hot Monday evening in Los angeles.
The walls were sweating when my friend called and told me that it hasn't been this hot in Hollywood in 95 years. I don't know who exactly is keeping track of such things, but I am grateful for their tenacity.

In two days it will be Wednesday. On Wednesday morning I will embark on what is called a Vipassana retreat. I took this snippet from some literature on the subject:

( Vipassana is a) non-sectarian technique that aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation. Healing, not merely the curing of diseases, but the essential healing of human suffering, is its purpose.

I know.
It's a mouthful.
And quite bold is its goal – to heal suffering. I can think of thousands of people who might have found this handy… Van Gogh, Kurt Cobain, Charlie Brown – just to name a few.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "by what means do these people expect to heal suffering and liberate one from the wild panicked compulsions of the mind? "
Good question.

To be honest, I haven't done what one might call 'extensive' research on the subject - but I do have a vague notion of what I'm in for. It looks like this:

For 10 days, one must abstain from:

•Talking

• alcohol
  
• drugs
  
• smoking
  
• cell phones
  
• computers
  
• intense physical workouts
  
• reading
  
• writing
  
• meat
  
• sexual release of any kind
  

I know, I know- I asked myself the same thing:
"If I can't have a conversation, have a drink, have a cigarette, text someone, check my email, listen to music, read, eat a ham sandwich or have sex with someone OR masturbate – what am I going to do for 10 days?"

It's a valid question.

the Answer:

Meditate.


For 10 hours a day.



Here's the Merriam Webster definition of the word 'MEDITATE":

med·i·tate

1 : to engage in contemplation or reflection
2 : to engage in mental exercise (as concentration on one's breathing or repetition of a mantra) for the purpose of reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness
3 : to focus one's thoughts on : reflect on or ponder over



I'd like to stop right here for a few disclaimers.

Firstly, I am from New York and was raised by two wonderful parents from Brooklyn who, in what I believe was the best spiritual resource available to them at the time, raised me in the Catholic Church.
I moved to California when I was 23 and guffawed at any talk of yoga, laughed in the face of what people called 'Spirituality', and snarled at any kind of belief system that involved the burning of Nag Champa.
I referred to it as 'California Voodoo' and swore off anyone who smelled remotely close to Patchouli.
If you would have asked me then if I thought I would ever take a 10 day Vipassana trip into the mountains to meditate I would have rudely suggested that you go choke on 3 ounces of wheat grass.

I'm not like that anymore.
(Actually, to be totally honest, I still hold true to the Patchouli rule.)

Anyway, what I'm saying is – back then, I would have read the opening paragraphs to this essay and as soon as I hit the word 'meditation' I would have rolled my eyes and stopped reading. Ignorant and closed minded, yes, but I would have. All I can say now to that 23 year-year-old, or to anyone reading this hesitantly for fear that I'm just another southern-California-hackey-sack-hippie-whose-mind-has-melted-from-the-sun- is this:

I just turned 33 years old and I can safely say that in the past few years the plates in my heart have shifted-and the soul's furniture has been rearranged. And the result of those changes has led me to an interest in the bigger picture, whatever the hell that is. So, I haven't drank the Kool-Aid, but I found out what it was spiked with and am making a few experimental cocktails of my own.


Alright.
End of disclaimers.


SO, where were we?
Right.
Meditation.
Synonymous with 'torture', really.
Sitting with my thoughts, My thoughts which include (but certainly aren't limited to): memories, hope, fear, sex, regret, anger, revenge, possible futures, possible pasts, possible sexual endeavors, possible escape routes, questions, answers, criticisms, sex, certainty, uncertainty, obligations, should of's, could of's, would of's, what if's, denial, desire, sex and pretty much anything else you can think of. Usually it's just a steady flow of either unnecessary jibber-jabber serving no purpose whatsoever, or a litany of undeserving criticisms and fears that, frankly, are just mean and unproductive. I often think that if I gave the voice in my head a mouth to speak from, and put that mouth on a face and that face on a head and then gave that head a neck to support it- that the neck would be attached to the body of a particular person that I would choose to spend very little time with.

But, alas, that person is with me all the time- and he seems to have become quite cozy inside of me.

So, off I go on Wednesday morning to North Fork, California to discover a new approach to dealing with my mind. Trust me, my mind thinks it's a terrible idea. I know this because of all the apprehensive thoughts I've been having about the trip.

I keep thinking that I'll NEVER be able to get up at 430am, and that the retreat supervisors are going to kick me out- that I will be the first student ejected from the course. What will I tell my friends? Maybe I can stay in a motel in Bakersfield for 10 days and just come home and lie to them? Not a bad idea….

Or, I keep thinking that I won't be able to sit still for that many hours in a day- and that I will go stir crazy from the wildness of my thoughts and flee from the meditation hall with atrophied legs screaming at the top of my lungs "Do you guys sell cigarettes here?!' as I abandon all my belongings in my bunk and race to my car to find the nearest bar.

Or, I keep thinking that 10 days without masturbating would be the longest I've gone without masturbating SINCE I STARTED MASTURBATING. And that if I successfully don't masturbate for 10 days, that I'll spend most of that time brandishing an angry erection through my sweat pants and, moreover, if ALL the men at the retreat abstain from masturbation for 10 days and suffer the same physical consequences as I do, I'll be living in one giant boner camp for 10 days.

Now THAT doesn't sound very peaceful at all.

But, once again, I realize that all of these fears are only tools the mind uses to try to discourage me from my goal: To find peace from my mind.
Now, why would my mind encourage me to do a thing like that?
IT wouldn't. Just like a girlfriend wouldn't encourage you to go to a singles bar. Instead she would say, 'Sure. Have Fun. Just remember, 33% of the population has herpes. Bye Bye."
Yikes.

So, I write to you now with plans to write again after the excursion is over.
Time will tell what will happen.
I can honestly say I am nervous, curious, and excited…
Stay tuned.

JB

updated 5 months ago

SILENT RETREAT - part 2

Well - here I am, alive and well and on a plane to Japan.
We've got about 10 hours of flight time left and I'm thinking about how exactly to write about my experience at the silent retreat.
Frankly, I'm having some difficulty.

Words are such wonderful little creatures, they truly are, but they don't convey things perfectly.
They are signposts pointing towards a destination, but they are not the destination itself.
This makes them a bit unwieldy when trying to describe something that is subtle and delicate.
It would be like trying to explain the geometric dimensions of a single blade of grass, or the exact weight of a single dandelion parachute in the wind.

Plus, on a more obvious level, trying to use words to describe the benefits of silence is, well, kinda funny. It's like trying to start a fire using dirt and a gallon of spring water.

Anyways.

One thing I can speak to is just how easy it was to go without talking for days.
It was a bit abrupt at first, but I soon realized that all the words that come from our mouths start as thoughts in our head. It seems obvious, but when I got to actually see and think the words in my head, but not speak them, it became quite evident how unnecessary most of what we say is.  We speak impulsively, compulsively almost, but rarely is it consequential.

All day, every day, for 10 days, our schedule was the same:

430am - 630am    Meditation
630am – 8am       Breakfast/break
8am - 11am         Meditation
11am - 1pm         Lunch
1pm  -  5pm        Meditation
5pm – 6pm         Fruit/ tea break
6pm – 7pm         Meditation
7pm – 830pm     Discourse  (teacher discusses next days meditation exercise)
830pm – 9pm     Meditate
9pm – 430am      Sleep


After about 12 hours of this, I forgot I even had a cell phone, or an email account, or a car, or a wallet even. It was just me and my sweat pants and my t-shirt. That's it.
If you're thinking "wow, that sounds liberating", you'd be right.
If you're thinking "I wouldn't be able to live without my phone  or  my email or  my car and especially without talking!" you'd be only partially right.

See, there is a part of you that identifies yourself with your phone, with your email, with your car, with your Ipod and laptop and lattes and career and relationships and your thoughts and your words and with your persona… and that part of you would NOT be able to live without those things-
But, strangely enough, if you take all those things away, you won't die.
SO, who is left?
~

Unfortunately, to truly understand the answer to that question one needs to discover it for themselves, which is why I'm having trouble justifying recounting my experience at the retreat
…
I should have just written about Boner Camps.

: )

Sigh.

To keep it simple, I'll say this:

Below all the chaos in you mind, there is peace.
Below all the clutter of your thoughts, there is space.
And below all the noise in your head, there is silence.

In that peace, in that space, and in that silence lies much more than I could have ever imagined.


Alright.
Gotta run...
A very pretty Korean stewardess is making her way up the aisle with my salmon teriyaki and chardonnay –  she doesn't speak a lick of English, which will preclude us from speaking niceties to each other.

Thank god.


****keep an eye out in June for more blogging, from JAPAN!

updated 5 months ago

Japanese Diaries 2009

Currently, we're on the road to Matsuyama and leaving Osaka where we had two shows last night. I can't say Osaka is my favorite city in Japan. It's the second largest and second most concentrated (after Tokyo). There was an extraordinary amount of prostitutes (both male and female) on the street near the venue we played. I'm usually tickled by such things, but for some reason I wasn't. There was a strange, subtle, intangible malaise that hovered over Osaka last night that dampened my experience of the city – that, along with an unforgivable amount of rain.

We arrived to Osaka from Kyoto, where we played a place called 'Kenny's'.
We met Kenny.
You should meet Kenny.

Kenny is a middle aged Japanese native who is positively obsessed with country music.
(It's a bit unhealthy, actually- but because of the harmless nature of his obsession he has yet to be diagnosed by a doctor or prescribed medication.)

Walking into the club is like walking into a bar that was somewhere in the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee circa 1979. The walls are littered with old Merle Haggard records, Willie Nelson movie posters (that's right), signed George Strait paraphernalia, framed Johnny Cash lyrics, banjos, cattle horns, bullwhips and too many autographed headshots to mention. It also seemed like he imported the very distinct smell of a honky-tonk saloon across western America, over the Pacific ocean, and into the carpet and walls of his venue- which is really more of a shrine than a bar.

Kenny himself dressed the part, too. He stood tall for a Japanese man, taller than me even, and sported a white 10-gallon hat, a dusty black blazer that was older than I am, tinted gold-rimmed Elvis Presley-esque sunglasses and a cowboy boot medallion that was visible from outer space.
His daughter, Mari, opened up the show for us and he sat in with her. When she called him onstage he walked to the stage unhurried, gently rested on a stool with his guitar, and proceeded to give a long, long introduction in Japanese. I had no idea what he was saying and, moreover, I had no idea what to expect from his performance. His demeanor and grace and casual oddball persona certainly bit my curiosity and raised my expectations. What could this man possibly do to live up to the impression he has already made? I waited impatiently for his extended introduction to end…

Now, up until that point in my life, I had never actually heard a Japanese person sing WALK THE LINE before – let alone execute it with a suspiciously flawless southern accent and a meticulously emulated Johnny Cash boom– but if I had, there would be no way it could ever compare to Kenny's epic, bullet-proof rendition of the classic song that lives and breathes in every American's heart.

It.
was.
amazing.

Just as amazing, I would assume, as it would be to hear Johnny Cash speak fluent Japanese flippantly and effortlessly from the stage at Folsom prison.
Kenny, who speaks no conversational English AT ALL, and ostensibly doesn't even know the meaning to the lyrics, executed the emotion and tone of the words perfectly, hauntingly and without reservation.
It was one of the greatest and most mysterious music lessons I have ever had.
It struck a strange and transformative chord upon my heartstrings.




Thanks for that, Kenny.
Johnny would've been proud.
A bit frightened, perhaps -- but proud nonetheless.


Earlier that day, prior to our arrival at Kenny's, we had quite an eventful afternoon.
We took a train to the edge of the city, where the asphalt ends and the mountains begin, and followed the wooden signs pointing to 'Monkey Mountain'- a place where monkeys roam free, a place that's open to the public, and a place that would host one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.
(that is, traumatic experience's that involve monkeys)

I read the sign.
EVERYONE read the sign.
You couldn't miss it.
It was written in every language imaginable.

" Welcome to Monkey Mountain.
Please do not look the monkeys in the eyes.
Please do not take pictures of the monkey's along the path"


Listen, I'm gonna be honest here. This is what I was thinking:

"Free roaming monkeys?
Are you serious?"

I'm from Long Island, New York, which, if you didn't know, is a place where there ain't no free roaming monkey's.
So that, in turn, means if I see a monkey, you can bet your button I'm going to take a picture of it and, not only that, I'm also going to get as close as humanly possible to it.

(side note: The only other time I saw a monkey in real life was when I was 5 years-old at Great adventure, when they would let you drive your car through a makeshift safari - another traumatic experience that involved elephant shit, an aggressive giraffe and permanent damage to our '77 Coup De Ville)

Anyways.
Back to Monkey Mountain.

So, there I stood, on the path, camera out and pointing at the first monkey I saw.
Now, you'd think these primates would be avoiding human contact wherever possible, but to my surprise the little rascal was actually walking towards me!
And not only that, but he was looking at me in the eyes!
(I knew that because I, too, was looking at him in the eyes.)

I smiled.

He didn't.

I held the camera still and kept thinking "Wow, this is gonna be some picture!"

But as he got closer and closer I realized that he wasn't really interested in photography.

He was about 5 feet away and still moving when I snapped a quick picture- and that's when the squealing began. Really, REALLY loud squealing. Ear-piercing squealing designed by Mother Nature to aggravate an enemy during a moment of distress and confusion. It was an animal's final defense against a predator; a natural, unstoppable reflex rooted in fear and desperation.


When I was done squealing, and opened my eyes- the monkey was walking away.
When my adrenaline finally calmed and I no longer suffered from blinding anxiety and terror, I looked towards the faces of my friends and saw only their jaws dropped.

He hit me.
The little bastard hit me!
But, worse than that, he hit me lightly.
A tap, really.
On the back of the leg.
A quiet reprimand of sorts.
Something to say, "I know you read the sign, douchebag."

He walked away slowly- leaving me without ever looking back, without a scrape, without a bruise, and without a trace of dignity or self-respect.

Johnny Cash would NOT have been proud.
Talk about a great adventure.
I felt like a boy named Sue.
I'm pretty sure my friends look at me differently now.
But I am planning on redeeming myself at the show tonight in Matsuyama-

Check back in a couple days and I'll let you know how it goes.

for now......

updated 1 year ago

JAPANESE DIARIES 2009

Currently, we're on the road to Matsuyama and leaving Osaka where we had two shows last night. I can't say Osaka is my favorite city in Japan. It's the second largest and second most concentrated (after Tokyo). There was an extraordinary amount of prostitutes (both male and female) on the street near the venue we played. I'm usually tickled by such things, but for some reason I wasn't. There was a strange, subtle, intangible malaise that hovered over Osaka last night that dampened my experience of the city – that, along with an unforgivable amount of rain.

We arrived to Osaka from Kyoto, where we played a place called 'Kenny's'.
We met Kenny.
You should meet Kenny.

Kenny is a middle aged Japanese native who is positively obsessed with country music.
(It's a bit unhealthy, actually- but because of the harmless nature of his obsession he has yet to be diagnosed by a doctor or prescribed medication.)

Walking into the club is like walking into a bar that was somewhere in the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee circa 1979. The walls are littered with old Merle Haggard records, Willie Nelson movie posters (that's right), signed George Strait paraphernalia, framed Johnny Cash lyrics, banjos, cattle horns, bullwhips and too many autographed headshots to mention. It also seemed like he imported the very distinct smell of a honky-tonk saloon across western America, over the Pacific ocean, and into the carpet and walls of his venue- which is really more of a shrine than a bar.

Kenny himself dressed the part, too. He stood tall for a Japanese man, taller than me even, and sported a white 10-gallon hat, a dusty black blazer that was older than I am, tinted gold-rimmed Elvis Presley-esque sunglasses and a cowboy boot medallion that was visible from outer space.
His daughter, Mari, opened up the show for us and he sat in with her. When she called him onstage he walked to the stage unhurried, gently rested on a stool with his guitar, and proceeded to give a long, long introduction in Japanese. I had no idea what he was saying and, moreover, I had no idea what to expect from his performance. His demeanor and grace and casual oddball persona certainly bit my curiosity and raised my expectations. What could this man possibly do to live up to the impression he has already made? I waited impatiently for his extended introduction to end…

Now, up until that point in my life, I had never actually heard a Japanese person sing WALK THE LINE before – let alone execute it with a suspiciously flawless southern accent and a meticulously emulated Johnny Cash boom– but if I had, there would be no way it could ever compare to Kenny's epic, bullet-proof rendition of the classic song that lives and breathes in every American's heart.

It.
was.
amazing.

Just as amazing, I would assume, as it would be to hear Johnny Cash speak fluent Japanese flippantly and effortlessly from the stage at Folsom prison.
Kenny, who speaks no conversational English AT ALL, and ostensibly doesn't even know the meaning to the lyrics, executed the emotion and tone of the words perfectly, hauntingly and without reservation.
It was one of the greatest and most mysterious music lessons I have ever had.
It struck a strange and transformative chord upon my heartstrings.




Thanks for that, Kenny.
Johnny would've been proud.
A bit frightened, perhaps -- but proud nonetheless.

Earlier that day, prior to our arrival at Kenny's, we had quite an eventful afternoon.
We took a train to the edge of the city, where the asphalt ends and the mountains begin, and followed the wooden signs pointing to 'Monkey Mountain'- a place where monkeys roam free, a place that's open to the public, and a place that would host one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.
(that is, traumatic experience's that involve monkeys)


I read the sign.
EVERYONE read the sign.
You couldn't miss it.
It was written in every language imaginable.

" Welcome to Monkey Mountain.
Please do not look the monkeys in the eyes.
Please do not take pictures of the monkey's along the path"


Listen, I'm gonna be honest here. This is what I was thinking:

"Free roaming monkeys?
Are you serious?"

I'm from Long Island, New York, which, if you didn't know, is a place where there ain't no free roaming monkey's.
So that, in turn, means if I see a monkey, you can bet your button I'm going to take a picture of it and, not only that, I'm also going to get as close as humanly possible to it.

(side note: The only other time I saw a monkey in real life was when I was 5 years-old at Great adventure, when they would let you drive your car through a makeshift safari - another traumatic experience that involved elephant shit, an aggressive giraffe and permanent damage to our '77 Coup De Ville)

Anyways.
Back to Monkey Mountain.

So, there I stood, on the path, camera out and pointing at the first monkey I saw.
Now, you'd think these primates would be avoiding human contact wherever possible, but to my surprise the little rascal was actually walking towards me!
And not only that, but he was looking at me in the eyes!
(I knew that because I, too, was looking at him in the eyes.)

I smiled.

He didn't.

I held the camera still and kept thinking "Wow, this is gonna be some picture!"

But as he got closer and closer I realized that he wasn't really interested in photography.

He was about 5 feet away and still moving when I snapped a quick picture- and that's when the squealing began. Really, REALLY loud squealing. Ear-piercing squealing designed by Mother Nature to aggravate an enemy during a moment of distress and confusion. It was an animal's final defense against a predator; a natural, unstoppable reflex rooted in fear and desperation.


When I was done squealing, and opened my eyes- the monkey was walking away.
When my adrenaline finally calmed and I no longer suffered from blinding anxiety and terror, I looked towards the faces of my friends and saw only their jaws dropped.

He hit me.
The little bastard hit me!
But, worse than that, he hit me lightly.
A tap, really.
On the back of the leg.
A quiet reprimand of sorts.
Something to say, "I know you read the sign, douchebag."

He walked away slowly- leaving me without ever looking back, without a scrape, without a bruise, and without a trace of dignity or self-respect.

Johnny Cash would NOT have been proud.
Talk about a great adventure.
I felt like a boy named Sue.
I'm pretty sure my friends look at me differently now.
But I am planning on redeeming myself at the show tonight in Matsuyama-

Check back in a couple days and I'll let you know how it goes.

for now......

updated 5 months ago

A Bright White Flash of Somethingness

A bright white flash of somethingness
the wild, fleeting fashion of connection

an untraceable, uncatchable feeling of purpose

the presence of a muted television
the unexpected appearance of an invited guest
the quick, unnoticed exit of the host

pedaling uphill with great might
being drawn back by the weight of oneself
the legs and heart burn
pedaling motionless

still, but still moving

updated 1 year ago

European Tour REcollections

 


Not so long a ago, I learned that we, as human beings, use the same part of our brain to dream as we do to remember. This made sense to me when I heard it. Mostly, I guess, because a dream can sometimes feel like it actually happened, and memories have a strange tendency to feel like dreams.

I just finished up the HOTEL CAFÉ EUROPE tour with Tom Mcrae and Friends.
Currently, I am drinking a beer in Prague.
I planned this post-tour trip to the Czech Republic knowing full well that if I flew directly back to Los Angeles, immediately after the tour, I would find myself in my apartment in Hollywood wondering 'Where the hell am I?' and 'What the hell should I do now?', and mostly, 'Where the hell are my friends?'.

After a tour, it usually takes a few weeks to fully ingest what happened. It's Like the problem with trying to recall a dream as soon as you wake from it- There's too much still boiling over in your mind; it needs to sit a little while- to cool off so that the flavor can settle.
Hence the beer in Prague.

And much like recollecting a dream, the order of things is jumbled. I know when and where the tour started, and where and how it ended, but it doesn't sit consecutively in my memory. There's so much going on when you're on the road,- constantly moving, playing, drinking, loading, trying to sleep, laughing- all the while looking around and seeing new cities and new faces. On this tour we played 10 shows in England, 2 in Scotland, 2 in Norway, 2 in France, 2 in Sweden, 1 in Denmark and Switzerland, and 2 in Holland. That's a lot of shows, a lot of miles and a lot of new faces. Now that it's over, it truly does seem like a dream.

The thought of actually digging out facts and correct dates of shows sounds far too uninteresting and unnecessary. So, in relating the tour through words, I figured a hodge-podge of images and events would be best.

Here goes:

Whale sandwiches in Norway.
•Not as good as I would have hoped.

Swedish girls on bicycles.
•The opposite of whale sandwiches.

Playing devil songs in the basement of a church in Glasgow.
•With the hellish wildfire hearts of the Scottish!

The absolute enormity of the Alps in Switzerland.
•I looked for them through the clouds, and finally saw the tips of them when I looked ABOVE the clouds.

Dutch girls on Bicycles.
•Smoking and pedaling. A sight for tour eyes, indeed…

Drinking Hoegarten and rolling cigarettes for 6 hours at an outdoor café in Utrecht, Holland, with all 14 members of the tour.
•It's possible that our bill helped pay their rent for the rest of the summer.

Watching Deadwood in the back lounge of the bus- wishing, secretly, that I was Ian McShane.

• C-cks-cker! (…if you haven't seen it, go get it!)
  

Watching the crowd sing along to Tom Mcrae's "Dose me up".
•An unstoppable force of Mcrazies…

Sticking my head out of the sunroof of the bus while it rolled through the chilly night.
•And grateful for still having my head after. Though, I wish I could say the same for my hat. (lost somewhere on a French highway)

Late night kababs and early morning groans of regret.
•IT's amazing just HOW addicting shredded salted meat can be.

Wondering where Professor Beeg's hat would land after he threw it each night at the end of Goodness Gracious.

• frankly, I think he's got a hat-throwing practice room somewhere. It never EVER lands in the audience. How does he do it?
  

Performing to a fabulous crowd in the belly of a ship in Bristol, UK.
Cheers, mates!

At the Alto Café in Amsterdam with Brian Wright, Willie Golden and Ollie Krauss, watching a jazz trio who are still probably playing…
•A part of me will always be there, in that bar, watching that old
Dutchman play the piano while smoking with a black, plastic cigarette holder dangling from his lips. The man had style…

Cinco de Mayo in Oslo, Norway…tequila shots and extra jalepenos in our late night Kebabs.
•Hey, it's the best we could do. Would YOU eat Mexican food in Norway?

Cary Brothers shaving Jason Kanakis' beard into a handlebar moustache on-stage in London accompanied by Greg Laswell playing 'Right Here Waiting' (by Richard Marx) on the piano. And, to top it off, our drummer Marco giving the play by play in his notorious Italian accent…

• Available on Youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbr6LPh9osw )
  

Doing a 50-yard dash butt-naked down a rural highway, somewhere in Sweden.
•NOT available on Youtube

Watching my friends full frontally flash the oncoming traffic on that same Swedish highway.
•Possibly available on Youtube, depending on how much blackmail money my friends offer.

Hearing the crowd's sing along to "Sing, I know you know the words" – with accents abound.

• BRILLIANT!
  

Thanks to all those fine people at all the shows for making it such a great tour for all of us. And thanks to all my friends on tour; Brian, Cary, Tom, Greg, Catherine, Kanakis, Marko, Brad, Tammy, Ollie, Amy, Glen (the greatest tour manager in history!) Johnny (the Scottish firecracker soundman that should win awards!), and, of course, Warren- our bold bus driver who steered us through one of the greatest dreams of my life.

updated 1 year ago

x's and o's

X's and O's

The wheels of the plane hit the tarmac hard and I immediately turned my phone on.
There wasn't a second to waste.
There might be a text filled with x's and o's that serve as affirmations for my heart.

I was to get my bags, take a shuttle to the rental car place, then drive to Malibu where she was waiting. It would only take one hour, but it seemed like an hour might last far longer than it usually does.
TIme has absolutely no role for her and I.
Or, I should say, it has a role, but it's not true to itself when it comes to us.
Einstein, when giving an example of how time is relative, pointed out how if you were standing on a bed of hot coals, 10 seconds could seem like an eternity- but if you were courting a pretty young lady, an hour could seem like a minute.
He must have known her, too….


Baggage claim is a drag.
Everything is a drag for the next hour.
Everything that stands in my way of her must be defeated quickly, cleanly and regardless of tact.

After 5 excruciating minutes, my 50 –pound bag comes around the filthy merry-go-round. I grab it with one hand and, in one throw, toss it onto the baggage rack on the moving Avis shuttle bus 500 meters away.
In one step I'm out of the building, across the street and sitting on the bus staring coldly at the driver. Any activity that he pursues that I deem a waste of time will go severely punished. I am watching the road through the giant windshield. I am waiting for him to make the wrong move that might obstruct my plan…that might delay our love!

He follows what I assume is his normal route and begins to slow down at the next terminal. This really wasn't going to work for me. I took out my keychain and quietly stuck my house key into the jugular vein on the right side of his neck. He grabbed hold of my arm for a second, but slowly weakened as he fell from the drivers seat to the floor. I grabbed the wheel with my left hand as I placed him down to lie with my right. I slipped my legs under the wheel and began to accelerate.

The other passengers on the shuttle bus began to grumble, but once they realized that I was only interested in hastening our trip, they calmed and quieted.
I felt like a captain of a great ship, I felt like the wheel was made of wood and I was steering us across the wild seas of El Segundo.
The time passed quickly.
It was only a few minutes to the AVIS lot.
I turned into the gate and ran over the guard who was on duty.
A hesitant yet audible applause came from the back of the bus.
We were here.

I pulled the lever and opened the door. I reached back with one arm and grabbed my 50-pound bag from the baggage rack on the bus and tossed it across the sidewalk, through the doors and into the Avis station, right in front of the next available agent.
In one step I was off the bus, across the sidewalk and waiting with my wallet in my hand.

The agent asked for my confirmation number.
I gave it to her.
She asked for my license.
I gave it to her.
She asked for my credit card.
I gave it to her.

I counted to 20.

She asked for another government form of ID.

I punched her directly in the throat.
She fell back as I grabbed my license and my credit card.

I lifted my bag and walked outside to the nearest car-
The door was unlocked and the key was in the ignition.
I started it up and drove it to the exit gate. The guard I had run over earlier with the bus was still unconscious. I made a left and headed for the 405.

I'm not sure if Toyota Tercel's are supposed to go 115 miles per hour, it certainly sounded like it wasn't- but it was no concern of mine.
I had a woman to see.
Not just ANY woman, but the woman I was madly in love with.
And love knows no speed limits.

There was construction on the highway.
There were men working.
There were bright lights and orange cones and sounds of concrete being drilled into.
It was the soundtrack to my pilgrimage back to the holy mecca of Alecia's heart.

I turned off the 405 and onto sunset and was headed for the PCH.

As I made my way through Brentwood I wondered what she was doing. I wondered if maybe she was taking a shower. I thought maybe she was making a drink for herself, anticipating our rendezvous.
Or maybe she was playing with the dogs?

As I breezed passed Bundy and into The Palisades I pondered as to what she might be wearing when I arrived. Perhaps a pair of jeans and a T-shirt?
I've seen men cry in public when seeing her dressed like that.
Or maybe a dress? One of her secret weapon dresses that makes me feel like an 8th grade boy. One of those dresses that you only see once, and remember forever.
She has a few of those.

Or perhaps a skirt?
To even IMAGINE her in a loose, white cotton skirt gives me goose pimples.
I look down at my forearms and confirm that the little bumps have risen off my skin in sheer uncontrollable excitement. This woman has powers over me that I cannot control.
I am turned on.

As I headed up the PCH I realized that I was going to have to face some stop lights.
I would face them cautiously and, if they were green, I would accelerate through them- if they were red, I would accelerate through them.
Love knows no stoplights.

I knew I was getting closer to her because I could hear my heartbeat louder than the pistons in the engine of the car. Yes, my heart has more horsepower than a Toyota Tercel.
It can barely keep up with the double jet engines in her chest.
You should hear them.


I turn and turn and turn until finally I arrive at her developement.
The gate was made of wood and wasn't strong enough to hold my Rental back.
Like the sound of a wooden bat breaking from a fastball, the gate snapped, I fumbled over the speed bumps and left the bewildered security guard running and screaming.

I hear the propellers in her heart start up.
I smell the rocket fuel burning.
I feel the unseen magnetism that is our love pulling us towards each other.

She is there.
She is waiting for me in her driveway.
She is sitting on her car.
She is holding a drink.
She is with her dog.
She is wearing the white skirt.
She is smiling.

i'm no Einstein, I'm pretty sure this is a good sign.

updated 1 year ago

NOV '08 - Autumn in NY, Nightmare in NJ.

Autumn in New YOrk. Nightmare in New Jersey.

Chester Greenwood was born in 1858.
He dropped out of grammar school in 1868 and then, in 1873; at the age of fifteen, he invented the earmuffs.
He made an American fortune selling them to US soldiers during World War I.
They have a parade for him every year in Farmington, Maine, his hometown, where all the local police cruisers in the parade are decorated as giant earmuffs.
Maine's legislation declared December 21st as 'Chester Greenwood Day'.
On day's like today, we might want to consider it a national holiday.

It's November in New York.
The wind has teeth.
it rushes between the buildings and barks through the alleys and charges across the crosswalks and tears through my jacket and bites to the bone.
The brick buildings stand stubbornly in defiance like blisters, or middle fingers.
It shouldn't be this cold without snow. It just seems unfair.

Still, New York and New Yorkers wear all of it effortlessly.
They successfully make suffering look sexy.
It's mesmerizing.
Meanwhile, I bought a dirty-water hot dog from an Eskimo on St. Marks,
the scarf industry is positively booming, and I'm pretty sure I saw a polar bear in a cossack on the F train.

Autumn in New York,
Someone should write a song about it.

The last few shows have been quite fun-
i played a japanese themed ballroom in New York City on Friday and a Mexican Restaurant/venue in Teaneck, New Jersey on Saturday. At the latter, the paramedics had to come and carry someone out on a stretcher. Seriously. i'm still not sure what happened, but it happened right before i went on stage. maybe it was sheer anticipation that made him pass out cold?
maybe.
i think it was the chimichangas.

thou shalt not eat mexican in Teaneck.
noted.

An old friend of mine came to that show. She lives and has lived in New Jersey since she was born. She has bartended at more than 40 jersey nightclubs, she speaks with a jersey accent, works at a hair salon, she smokes Newport regulars, has never owned a car she hasn't crashed, and is one of my favorite people on earth.

After the show, she invited me to a 'reunion party' for the staff of the bar she used to work at.The party would be in the V.i.P section of a club called BLISS in CLifton, New Jersey.

BLISS.
In Clifton, new jersey.
I had a feeling the name might be misleading.

I definitely should have said no, which is precisely why i said yes.

We drove to CLifton.
I was a bit excited because i hadn't been to a nightclub like this since i lived in Long Island (which, for all intents and purposes, is the bastard cousin of New Jersey).
I hated them then, but i thought that maybe if i exercised a little sense of humor, a little less adolescent judgment and the wisdom i like to think i've acquired since my teenage years, then maybe this time might be different.


Sometimes it truly astonishes me how wrong i can be.


I think that it's mostly the music that bothered me. But not even the TYPE of music; i mean, c'mon, it's a dance club; of COURSE they're playing dance music, it's to be expected.
But the sheer VOLUME of the music was truly amazing.
and by that, i mean i was AMAZED by how loud it was. I think they make it that loud so that people can't think to themselves or ask one another "what the hell am i doing at Bliss in Clifton, NEw Jersey?"
Most of the people weren't even dancing. They weren't even talking because it would be impossible to hear. They were just standing there, staring at each other blankly with Red Bull cans glued to their faces as they slowly, systematically went deaf. I couldn't think of anything more stupid.
I walked over to the DJ and asked him if he thought the music was kind of loud.
I said "hey man, sounds great. Don't you think it's kinda loud?"
he looked at me like i was trying to teach a cat how to swim.
i felt old.
Or sane, i'm not sure which.

Right then the DJ reached across the booth and pulled on a little rope that was hanging there-
for a second i thought the floor would drop out from under me and i would be violently removed from the dance floor.
instead, a giant fog horn blew.
It blew louder than the music, and people cheered.
WOOOOOOOOO!
Smoke came out from under the bar.
The party had started, i guess.

I walked across the thickened sea of Drakkar Noir and found my friend.
I exercised my usual tactic when i'm in a situation that i no longer want to be in:
i tactically and jovially annoy the shit out of whoever can get me out of there.
It usually takes about 5 minutes to successfully get myself out of any place using this method, and this time was no different.
I insisted that i needed pharmaceutical drugs if i was going to stay another minute. She scoffed. I told her that i would go shake my ass on the dance floor until somebody hit me. She dared me. I threatened to pee in the plotted plant of the VIP room. She laughed. Finally, I said that i was going to get very drunk and throw up all over her car on the way back to New York.
That broke her.

As she grabbed her coat and said goodbye to her friends, i inquired with the bartender about pills. No luck. We walked out of the club into the night, across the street and against the crippling wind. We were dead smack in the middle of a Bruce Springsteen song.

She pulled the hood of her jacket over her head, reached into her pocket for a Newport and spoke from the side of her mouth:
"You better not fucking blog about this"

updated 1 year ago

DEC '08 - Homemade Marrionberry Pie

i eat a lot.
not only because i like good food, i do, but because i also get bored sometimes, especially when i'm driving, and food is a great activity to do when you are bored of driving.
My guitar player Kenny has a road rule: Never buy food where you buy gas.
pretty straight ahead and simple, though, easier said then done.

i've been guilty of eating junk food at gas stations before, especially below the Mason-Dixon line, where they sell fabulous bar-b-q and fried chicken at the deli/mart of almost EVERY gas station. yummy.

Oh, and FLying-J has remarkable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
seriously.
Funny thing, too, is that when you buy a PB&J, it comes wrapped in cellophane and in 3 halves. Not ONE sandwich cut 3 ways, but one and a Half sandwiches.
Wierd, i know, but perfectly understandable. You think just ONE peanut butter and jelly sandwich is gonna fill up a hungry american truck driver?
get real, dude.

it's funny to think that the number of sandwiches that the Flying-J sandwich maker had to prepare HAS to be divisible by 3 or else there will be retail chaos. I've always imagined the sandwich-maker with a giant vat of peanut butter, a tub of jelly, 3 loaves of bread and a calculator.

Occasionally, when on the road, one get's lucky and get's off the main highway and into a small mountain town and chooses the right restaurant and discovers some homemade goodies.

Today was that day.

Welcome to Manning's Cafe in Oakridge, Oregon.


The waitress told us that the specials were up on the white board, and that the pie specials were up on the black board.
'Pie Specials?' i said, with a scooby-doo type melody.

i love pie.

scratch that.

i love homemade pie.

I like it when my friends make pie.
My mom makes the best apple pie on earth.
i've even been made a peach pie from a fan in Baltimore that was positively delicious.

In LA, i go to Dupars which has some pretty good F'ing pie, i must say.
Whether it be gooseberry or blackberry or raspberry or boysenberry (which is a hybrid of blackberry and raspberry) or huckleberry. And i usually have a glass of milk with it.
maybe, if i'm feeling feisty, some whipped cream too.

I have a thing for pie.

needless to say when our extraordinarily unattractive waitress told us that there was fresh pie ready, i licked my chops and asked what kind.

she called back to the woman behind the counter and asked "what's that you said's coming out 'the oven?"
the lady from behind the counter retorted slowly "Marrionberry".

The Waitress turned to me and said "Looks like we've got fresh, homemade marrionberry pie"

Fresh. Homemade. Marrionberry. PIe.

HO.
ly.
Shit.

i wet myself.

MArrionberry Pie?

MARRIONBERRY PIE?

WHAT THE FUCK IS MARRIONBERRY PIE?!?!?!?!

AND HOW MUCH OF IT CAN I BUY FROM YOU!!!??

Also, do you have a towel for my pants?

She went on to explain that Marrionberry pie is an Oregonian hybrid, combining boysenberry and blackberry.
These people are like scientists with their berries.
It's BRILLIANT for fat pie-devouring connoisseurs like myself.

I ordered a slice and she asked if i wanted it warmed up with vanilla ice-cream.
I shot her a stiff glare.
Was this woman working hand in hand with the devil? or with heavenly angels?
it was tough to tell.

I asked her to warm it up, but hold the ice-cream.
See, when i try a pie for the first time i like it bare; i like it raw, naked, lonely, and vulnerable. How god intended. I don't want any superfluous details to distract me from the essence of the marrionberry.

Minutes later she came over with a bowl of marrionberry pie.
NOT a plate. A bowl.

It was purple-ish.
the marrionberry juices were surrounding the berries and the crust like a mote.
It was warm.
the crust was soft on the inside and flaky on the outside.
It smelled of an angel fragrance that would make Sara Lee cry herself to sleep.
I gently lifted my fork and penetrated the precious skin of our little pie.
i strategized the amounts of berry, juice and crust into the perfect commingling.
A good pie, upon tasting, should remind your mouth of kisses from your favorite kisser.

I brought it to my lips.
I inhaled slowly.
I softly brought my teeth down, slowly, feeling the berries breaking their juices off into my mouth.
I exhaled.

i smiled.

it was a marrionberry masterpiece.
A Masterrionberrypiece.

updated 1 year ago

NOV '08 - Mexican food in MAryland

yo!

Last night i played the Birchmere in Alexandria. In all it's glory it effortlessly muscled it's way onto the top of my list of favorite places to play. Great crowd, Great Crew, Great sound. Great food, too...
THanks to everyone there for making it a killer night - -

i'm in Easton, Maryland now-
a fine, fine quaint little town that boasts to be "...a place where the sun is always bright, the cookies are always coming out of the oven, the paint is always shiny, and the flowers are always in full bloom ..."
i know, i know. . . sounds like a nightmare right?
it's gorgeous.
And quaint.
Dover street, the main road into town, is lined by white picket fences. There are more antique shops than there are liquor stores, and sun is always seems to be smiling proudly over Talbot square, baby's seem to be laughing, and a new litter of kittens is born every fifteen minutes.
it's the town Santa Claus comes to for summer vacation.
did i mention quaint?

i'm sitting in front of the fireplace in the hotel lobby (with real firewood burning, mind you) - and next to me is a batch of freshly picked apples in a wicker basket, free for the guests to take. Free apples? i'll most certainly check for a serpent under the rug before i grab one.

the show's at the historic Avalon Theater.
it's from 1927.
BC.

built by Jesus's ancestors.
i haven't been in yet, but i hear it's glorious.
My room's ready, but it's hard to pull away from this fireplace.
what is it that's in a fire that draws us in so mesmerized?

the bellhop just returned from taking my stuff up to the room and he asked if the guitar i have is expensive.
then he told me that the crime rate in Easton is 2%- and that if someone steals your bike here, your best move is to just wait awhile because they'll most likely bring it back when they're done.
i told him i didn't have a bike here.
He said if i wanted one, just grab anyone's that isn't locked up.
just make sure i return it.
seriously!

it's just like LA.

: )


Actually, the one thing it IS similar to LA to is some surprisingly impressive mexican food.
i just had a fish burrito at what looked like the only mexican place in town.
It was stuffed with grilled mushrooms, rice, and Habenero peppers.
ALOT of Habenero peppers.
To drink i had a fire extinguisher, and for desert i had a blanket- just to smother the remaining flames.

i 'm always thankful for good mexican food.
especially in Maryland.

off to the bar.
Hopefully, they'll have Corona.

x

jb

updated 1 year ago

NOV '08 - A Day Off - Rock n' Roll?

alright, so after 2 flights to get to philly from west virginia, and one rental car ride to wilmington, delaware, i arrived yesterday at the Grand Opera HOuse and played the show to a sold out audience.
The room was dreamy and the crowd was terribly fun, which made for a great show-
WHo'da guessed that Wilmington, Delaware on a Monday in November could be so hot?

I left immediately after my set and drove an hour to DC to catch the tail end of Butch Walker's set at DC9. I walked in on the last 3 songs.
one word: mindblowing.
my mind was blown out the back of my head.
I haven't seen butch with a full band since we toured together in '05.
Senfuckingsational.

today is a day off.
i decided to spoil myself rotten.
Being half-jewish makes this very difficult.

I'm currently in the Five Gables Inn and Spa in St. Michaels, Maryland- i'm sitting on my bed next to the fireplace with the balcony door open. There's a rocking chair on the balcony that overlooks Talbot Street, St. Michael's main thoroughfare. I just took a whirlpool bath with oils and fragrances that were extracted from the liver of some exotic dinosaur from the French Alps. I used soap with little flecks in it that, apparently, contain the dust from crushed bones of small peasant children from Guatamala . Really good stuff.
I finished the whole thing off with moisturizer that, according to legend, comes straight from the nipple of god herself.
For dinner, i'm going to meet a friend and head to St. Michaels Lobster and Crab house where I'll partake in the local specialty: Oysters and beer.
Tomorrow morning at 930 am i have a Caribbean Massage scheduled where i'll receive (and i quote): "A rejuvenating and nurturing body treatment that uses the healing touch and ingredients of the Caribbean to create inner calm. Beginning with a dry exfoliation, followed by a detoxifying seaweed masque, body wrap, scalp and face massage. After a refreshing shower, a restorative body massage completes this experience. "
i can't MAKE this stuff up!

After the massage i think they infuse my heart with honey and eucalyptus and then, to end it all, they drain my memory of any passed tragedies.
it's a package plan.

So, i got to thinking.
This doesn't feel very rock n' roll.
But, at the same time, it feels TOTALLY rock n' roll.
After some deliberation i've decided that it is, indeed, very rock n' roll.

Traditionally, the idea of rock n roll is connected to images like televisions being thrown out of hotel windows, or shoving live animals in places where they weren't meant to go, or being arrested in church for public nudity or choking on your own vomit.
That's the Rock n' roll imagery I grew up loving.
But nowadays i hear about all sorts of legendary rock folks who have turned a corner and started to pull away from the old image.
Alice Cooper likes golf.
John Lennon used to soothe his demons by kneading bread.
Robert Plant loves playing tennis.
Pete Townsend loves little boys.

SO, whaddya think?
i pose to you a multiple choice question:

a visit to a spa is:
a) Not very Rock n' Roll
b) TOTALLY rock n' roll
c) i don't care.
d) jim, wake up. you're a singer/songwriter which, as a genre, has NOTHING to do with rock n' roll.

updated 1 year ago

NOV '08 - Mountain Stage

Day 4: Mountain Stage in West Virginia

I'm at the airport in Charleston, West Virginia, ready to head to Philadelphia, via Washington D.C, to get to the gig in Wilmington, Delaware tonight.
This airport is a little bigger than my apartment -
The plane is out on the tarmac and it, too, is remarkably small.
It's lightly snowing and the winds are picking up.
Richie Valens and Stevie Ray Vaughn are waiting to board-
it's not looking good, folks.

LAst night i played a live radio show called MOUNTAIN STAGE.
to be succinct, it's like a Prairie HOme Companion, but with only music.
the people who run it are not only kind and generous but talented as well-

the folks who set up the broadcast, book the artists and organize the weekly event also sing in the band and play. THey pick you up at the airport, put you up at a swank hotel, learn your songs and play with you. It's pretty fabulous. it's a syndicated show on NPR- you can check it out online....

Also on the bill was Shelby Lynne, James McMurtry, the Lee boys and Malcome Holcombe.

I happened to catch MAlcome Holcombe's set and was blown away.
It's been a long time since i've been blown away like that.
He is the realest of the real deal- he's what Bob Dylan was trying to do.
do yourself a favor and check it out.... i'm about to download his entire catalogue.

Me and Shelby Lynne and her band found some trouble after the show, back at the hotel.

• -somehow or another we all ended up dancing in the back lounge of the bus to Bobby Womack. i'm paying for it a little this morning, but it was worth it entirely.
  

After the show in Wilmington tonight, i'm planning on heading to DC to see my friend Butch Walker set fire to the stage at DC9. Tomorrow's a day off.
well needed.
i'll have the whole day to sit around and reprimand myself for missing my blog obligations yesterday. Blogligations, if you will.

ok, the pilot just stumbled out of the bar, peed on a plastic plant in the waiting area, and then walked onto the plane and into the cockpit.
i guess it's time to go.

talk to ya later!
i hope....
x

updated 1 year ago

NOV '08 - Long Island with my Dad and Billy Joel

DAY THREE: LONG ISLAND with MY DAD and BILLY JOEL.

help.
I"m in Long Island, NY.
I'm backstage at the Landmark Theater, which is in Port Washington, which is in Nassau county, which is on Long Island.

i grew up 15 minutes away from here.
A million years ago.

For those of you who've never been here, Long Island has many different aesthetics to it-
Mainly, when I think of it, i think of moderate sized brick houses partially draped in white aluminum siding. I think of malls, golf courses, beach houses, country clubs, outstanding bagels, gutteral accents, the 86' Mets, and high school.
Its like driving through your favorite Billy Joel song with the windows down.
(a little known local fact: one cannot step foot onto Long Island for more than one hour without hearing a Billy Joel song on the radio. Go ahead, Big Shot, try it.)

In 1988, i saw Gun's N' Roses live at the Nassau Coliseum.
in 1994, i saw Pearljam at the Jones Beach Amphitheater.

Now, regardless if you like either of these bands, i think it's still noteworthy that they represent a certain generation and, in the specific years mentioned above, they were FUCKING EPIC.

So, my father still lives here and he drove me to the show tonight.

A quick note about my dad, who's name is Jim too:
he's got the last remaining pompador in the United States. It's brilliant.
The amount of sheer courage he has to sport that thing is beyond measure.
I think i saw a couple birds nesting in it this morning...
Italian birds, mind you.
The hair on his head only compliments the hair on his chest, which is fantastically abundant and must be a marker of pride for him because he wears all his shirts unbuttoned down to the stomach.
Then, top the whole thing off with a gold eagle medallion that dangles from his neck.

It's serious.
It's for real.
It's my dad.
and it's AMAZING.

Anyways, my dad and i are in the car and he starts giving me hell about my pho-hawk hairdo:
"you look like an indian wit dat thing"
oh, really dad?
"yeah- i don't know why you do dat to ya'self- you got a beautiful head a'hair, kid"
thanks, pops, but i like it this way.
"yeah, well, look at this.."
he proceeds to take the wallet out of his back pocket- he flips it open and, as if he had prepared it, there was a picture of him and I. Circa 1988.

In the picture I'm sporting a full-fledged 80's mullet, complete with duck's ass on top.
i'm wearing some ridiculously striped, corduroy button-up shirt thing, a hoop earring, z. cavaricci 's, and my nose is 3 times bigger than my face.
Basically, i looked like an asshole.

my Dad shows me this picture and he says:
"see, jimmy, THERE! THAT was the look for you. What was wrong wit dat?"
Right at that moment, the opening notes to New York State Of Mind came on the radio.
i smiled.

ahhh.
home sweet home.
x

updated 1 year ago

NOV '08 - Ridgefield, Ct.

DAY TWO: Ridgefiled, ct.

(Gosh golly, i'll tell ya'...
blogging 2 days in a row is kinda' like fishing 2 days in a row.
The first day's fun 'cause it's something different than what i'm used to doing.
but the second day is just hot and smelly and full of worms and dead fish.
ONWARD, BRAVE READERS!)

i'm clean shaven for the first time in years.
My face looks like a baby's ass.
A FAT baby's ass.

i woke up this morning in my luxurious 2 star motel in Somerset, Massachusetts and decided that my beard/shadow had gotten too long and that it was time to trim it.
i pulled out my trusty trimmer and brought it up to my face and within 10 seconds i knew i had made a grave mistake. When the battery on my trimmer is dying it makes this desperate whining sound that reminds me of the whimperings of a wounded cat, or maybe the final exhalation of a dying horse.
when it started making this sound i realized that i had lost the charger on the last tour.
Now, i was standing in front of the mirror half-shaven, resembling Abraham Lincoln if his barber had been maimed and blinded.
Ridiculous.
i looked like an old ferret was dangling from the left side of my face, or someone slapped me with a hair pie.
whatever it looked like, i needed to fix it before the show tonight.

i left the hotel and waved goodbye to the cleaning lady who did a double-take.
I wondered, how do you say 'schmuck' in Punjabi?

i got in my car and headed for the highway with a very vague plan:
shave my face.

That's all i had.
I figured i could stop and buy some razors and shaving cream at a supermarket.
The rest was up in the air.

right near the entrance of the highway was a supermarket chain called Stop N Shop.
if the universe were revolving ENTIRELY around me, it would have been called Stop N Shave; but, alas, it isn't.

no matter-
i pulled in, shut the car and walked quickly passed the lines of linked shopping carts, through the automatic glass doors and into bright, colorful American paradise.

I ignored the confused looks from strangers and the giggles from children and found the
row that would ostensibly house the products i was looking for - i think it was row 68.

Only in America can there be 18 different razors to choose from.
it's a bit overwhelming at first, but I managed to chose one:
the Mega XXXtreme Blade 2000 with 'Patented Super Ice slicing mechanisms built-in, to cut through even the toughest facial hair!'
it looked very much like the Bic my sister used in 1991 to shave her legs.
Perfect.

I grabbed the goodies and some shaving cream and walked to the check-out counter.
The sweet old Asian lady behind the till laughed at my obvious situation...
here's a guy with half-a rat on his cheek stumbling quickly towards her only with proper shaving tools in hand. How do you say "schmuck" in Chinese?

i paid.
i walked to my car.
i really needed to fix this situation; i certainly didn't want to walk into soundcheck looking like this. Let's just say it wasn't an ideal situation to meet new people.

i rolled the window of the rent-a-car down, took my dress shirt off, grabbed my bottle of water, opened the can of shaving cream and fixed the side-view mirror to face me properly.
I still had the driver's side door open as i lathered up my face.
One foot out on the pavement, leaning on my left knee, i opened the box of blades and started shaving in the Stop n Shop parking lot.

This certainly wasn't in the Rock n' roll brochure I read when i was sixteen.

i will say, however, that outside of a few dirty looks and a verbal comment from a security guard , it was quite a successful event.

i'm in the green room in Ridgefield now looking like a boxer after a fight.
specifically like a boxer after a fight he lost.
people are concerned.
they're asking questions.
i'm lying.

i really really need to find that charger.

updated 1 year ago

NOV '08 - Hydroplaning across Connecticut

Hydroplaning across Connecticut

i haven't been back east at this time of year in a long while.
It's windy and raining and dark at 430pm.
one might think it might be a bit dismal- and one might be right.
The northeast is a very particular place to be in the fall.
To be fair though, November is it's own animal- no matter where you are.

I just drove north up the I-95 from NYC to get to the gig tonight (in Fall River, MA).
it felt like i was driving through a Bob Ross painting- - one that he did off-camera,
and subsequently hung in his own living room.

The trees beside the highway were almost completely bear, and the ground appeared to be on fire. The leaves, which were once dangling green from the limbs above, had been scorched by autumn and found themselves spread in orange ash piles upon the roots of the very same tree from which they fell.

talk about being kicked while your down.
Not only were they exiled from they're own home, but now they are forced to live the remainder of their lives on their own doorstep- staring up at the place from which they came.
They've been castaway from they're summer branches; they stick together and huddle close for warmth.

Not ALL leaves share this fate, though.
Occasionally i'll see a few of them chasing each other across the road, like field mice on fire or orange chipmunks. They move wildly and without hesitation. Arguably, it's the wind that's pushing them around, but I like to think that these leaves might be different from the others. And maybe it's not necessarily the wind driving them, but they're mysterious hearts and restless nature instead. I swerve to avoid hitting them like one would avoid hitting a rabbit or dog.

Obviously i know that the leaves turned orange and brown and fell from the tree's because they are dead. Still, it's hard to think of death when you're looking at something so alluring.
The landscape makes me wish i had a fireplace in my car.

If today were a sentence, I feel like Massachusetts would be an adjective.
and NEw York City an exclamation point.
and Connecticut the preposition connecting the two.
Gladly, I am the subject - but only because i know that you, reading all this, are the predicate.

off to the show...

updated 1 year ago