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On Saturday I wanted to go somewhere to take pictures. Daniel needed the car to take care of some stuff, which left me with our big burly truck. I didn’t want to drive too far, I need to conserve money/gas. So I figured I’d head over to Long Beach. I was aiming for the neighborhood my doctor’s office is in. It’s a colorful area that I’ve always wanted to wander around with a camera but haven’t yet.

So I drove to downtown Long Beach and headed north (east?) on Long Beach Blvd. I stopped a few times whenever I saw an area that looked interesting for taking pictures. My doctor’s office is a couple blocks off of Long Beach Blvd, and I thought I’d recognize the cross street when I got to it.

But I totally missed it.

I kept driving, and driving, and driving…and suddenly I was at the 710 freeway. I thought, my doctor’s office isn’t near the 710, is it? But I kept going. Soon a sign loomed up next to the road: Thank you for visiting Long Beach.

I thought, what’s past Long Beach on this side? Long Beach is a huge town. I mean, it covers a huge amount of land. 50 square miles. So I kept going.

Soon another sign loomed up: Welcome to the City of Compton.

I thought, this is Compton? Looks like any other part of southern Cali. I decided to drive around for a bit. I kept driving down Long Beach Blvd, then turned left on Compton Blvd. Daniel’s truck only has a radio in it, and he loves this radio station that only plays old school hip hop. So there I am, driving through Compton, listening to an old hip hop song about Compton. I had to change the channel. It was just a little too much irony for me. Plus I worried anyone who pulled up next to me would be insulted by a blond Mormon housewife from Orange County driving through Compton listening to a song about being from the hood.

I kept an eye out for a spot I could park and walk around a bit and take some pictures, but I was a bit nervous to. So I only hopped out of the truck to walk the length of about four store fronts in a spot with no other pedestrians around—except for one slightly older guy that I made eye contact with.

When I got home, I looked up Compton, trying to figure out just how dangerous it really is. It didn’t seem as scary as Watts did. I found some discussions online about it. Most people were saying you shouldn’t go there unless you have a reason to be there, or if you get lost and end up there on accident. (Which I thought was kind of funny—how does anyone who lives there know why you’re there? At least I qualified as someone who got there by accident.) A few people said to only wear neutral colors—no red or blue. I wore lime green, so I guess that was good.

Someone else said not to make eye contact with anyone. Whoops.

Another person said the people who live there know who else lives there, and they’ll know if you’re a local or not. And some of them don’t take kindly to visitors. This made me think of when I turned down a residential street, and a man walked out of his house and gave me a sort of mean, suspicious look as I drove by. I did sort of stand out in my big, burly, beat up and LOUD truck. That thing needs a new muffler.

A few years back it was ranked as the 4th most dangerous city in America. There are 93,000 people who live there, and a few years back, there were 67 murders there. That’s a very high rate per capita. Here’s what one person said about it:

NYC has a population of about 8 million, 80 times the population of Compton. To equal Compton’s murder rate (67 per 100,000) NYC would have to have 5,360 murders. NYC actually had about 570 murders.

But the crime rates aren’t as bad in Compton now as they were a couple years ago.

I used to live in the worst gang neighborhood in WA state, which I’m sure was nothing compared to a gang neighborhood in Los Angeles. But I know from my experience there that most of the people in those kinds areas are great people. And they have a real sense of community that you just don’t find in more affluent areas.

It was sort of weird to drive back home. I live in such a rich area. Well, the part of HB I live in is pretty crappy, actually, but because we’re near the beach it’s expensive. Compton didn’t seem any different from a lot of areas in southern Cali, though—Santa Ana, Long Beach, etc. If I hadn’t seen the signs that said Compton I wouldn’t have known I was there.

So. Daniel lost his job last week.

And my friend’s husband found out the reason he can barely walk from back pain is a big cancerous tumor in his back.

I don’t really want to talk about either right now. The job loss? Eh, we’ve been through it before. Multiple times. It’ll work out. The cancer? I don’t know any details about it yet. Whenever I try to talk to my friend, she can’t say anything about it without almost breaking down, so I haven’t ask her.

That’s what’s been going on around here.

I keep thinking about this lyric by Patty Griffin that I love:

In the battle of time, in the battle of will
It’s only hope and your heart that gets killed

Got any other great but depressing song lyrics? Lay ‘em on me.

Oh and we’re going to see Dethklok, Mastodon, Converge and High on Fire tonight. Converge and High on Fire are two of my favorite live bands. Mastodon are good too.

When I was a teenager, I used to take the bus from the suburbs into downtown Seattle with my brother and our friends. We’d go down there to visit the record stores, but we’d also wander around looking into art gallery windows and stuff. One time a friend of mine, Colin, told me a trick to remember the order of the streets downtown.

In downtown Seattle, the north/south streets are numbered, 1st, 2nd, etc. The streets running east/west are named. The bus I rode went north on 4th St, so it was handy to be able to remember the order of the east/west streets, to know when your stop was coming up.

Here’s the trick:

Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest

Heading north through downtown, there are two streets that start with J, two that start with C, two that start with M, etc.

So the order of the streets are:

Jesus – Jefferson and James
Christ – Cherry and Columbia
Made – Marion and Madison
Seattle – Spring and Seneca
Under – University and Union
Protest – Pike and Pine

See how easy? I want to come up with something similar to be able to remember the street order of the big main streets in the area of Orange County I travel through a lot, but not enough to have the street order memorized. Here are the streets:

Brookhurst
Euclid
Harbor
Fairview
Bristol

So I need an easy-to-remember combination of words that start with B E H F B.

Help me out, here.

Because Everyone Hates Free Baseball?

On Saturday, Daniel took Nathaniel dirt biking in the morning. Nathaniel wanted me to take him to Amoeba Records in Hollywood when he got back. I wanted to go to a few spots in downtown L.A. to take some pictures. But there wouldn’t be enough time before sunset if I waited for Nathaniel to get back from dirtbiking to go. So I went into L.A. twice.

In the morning, Elijah and I went to downtown L.A. There’s a building with graffiti that I wanted to get a picture of, and I knew what area it was in, but not the exact spot. I drove down one street thinking I’d see it, but ended up going past the area I knew it to be in, so I turned around and drove back. I ended up driving right through the edge of Skid Row and into the Toy District.

Skid Row in Los Angeles is not like Skid Row in a smaller city like Seattle. When I lived in Seattle, I worked in Pioneer Square, which is the oldest part of the city, and the place where all the homeless shelters are. The old buildings have lots of nooks and crannies and there are a lot of park benches around. I’d get to work pretty early. It wasn’t unusual for me to be stepping around homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks, in the doorways of buildings, at 7am. When I’d catch the bus on the way home, at 5pm, the bus stop was across the street from a shelter, so all the homeless would be lining up for the soup kitchen just across the street. It didn’t phase me—it was just where I worked. Lots of mentally ill homeless people around. Some I got to recognize after awhile. One old guy would talk out loud constantly and make really funny noises—like raspberries, just in the middle of his sentences. I called him The Muffin Man, because he always had a muffin he’d share with the birds. Another guy I’d pass on a certain street corner everyday, when I had my car and would park down along the waterfront. He always had a cup he’d hold out for change but would never ever make eye contact. It was like I didn’t exist to anything but his hand holding the cup out—it’d move towards me as I walked by. I’d try to carry some change in a pocket to give to him if I thought about it beforehand.

Anyway, Skid Row in L.A. is way different. There’s a large population of homeless people there–something like 8,000. I’d seen pictures and seen it depicted in movies, and I’ve been downtown many times, but I had never been into the area before. I wasn’t sure exactly where it was. I only drove through one block, really. But it was immediately recognizable as Skid Row. Garbage and stuff was piled on the sidewalks, and people were everywhere. What’s weird is the Toy District is right there.

The Toy District is an area of toy shops. Pinata stores, used videogame stores, doll stores. They’ll all in these really old run down buildings. Trash on the sidewalk. It’s all kind of surreal.

We parked in the Toy District and walked around a bit, I took pictures. Elijah stopped at some videogame stores to check out the games. We ended up buying some used DVDs–an indie movie called Primer, Animatrix (animated shorts based on the Matrix movies), and I forget what the other one was.

One of the things I love about downtown L.A. is all the old buildings. There are a lot of cool hotels and tons of old theaters. This hotel wasn’t that cool, but it’s right on Los Angeles St:

The main reason I wanted to stop in this part of downtown is I wanted some pictures of a building I’d seen last time I was there. We managed to stumble on it completely by chance. Here it is:

Another view of it:

And another view of it (it’s the building on the right):

The building is abandoned, the windows broken out. I wish I could have gotten up onto the fire escape to take some pictures.

Then we drove over to an area on the edge of Chinatown, where there’s a building covered in awesome graffiti-like murals:

I have more pics I haven’t uploaded yet. After that, I made one more stop, still in Chinatown, but in an industrial area. Basically a junk yard.

There was some junk I wanted to get a picture of to the right of this spot, behind that barred fence, but a semi-nasty looking dog started barking at me. So I turned and headed the other direction, not realizing the dog was not confined by the fence. I took this picture:

And when I turned around, I saw the dog wandering free. It didn’t help matters that I could hear a crazy person shouting and shouting and shouting, but I couldn’t see where he was. All I heard was yelling. It was all rather surreal. So I got in the car and left.

We went back home, picked up Nathaniel, and headed back into Los Angeles. Hollywood this time, to go to Amoeba Music, the biggest indie record store around.

I made Nathaniel and Elijah stand on the other side of the bars (this is the parking garage we parked in) so I could take this shot.

I got (on vinyl):

The Commodores – Midnight Magic ($1)
Modern English – Richochet Days ($3)
Modern English – After the Snow ($4)
Coffin Break – Crawl ($1)
Hammerbox – ST ($1)
Spandau Ballet – Parade ($1)

We also went to this store, and got everyone two bottles of soda (except me, I don’t drink soda). I might have to do a continuation of this post once I’ve uploaded some more pictures.

I love L.A.

This made me laugh really hard, even the second time I saw it. Totally goes to show you how stupid movies can be.

And it went really well.

I was worried it was going to fall apart so didn’t mention it to anyone beforehand. It was at an all ages venue in Newport Beach, and the deal is, the band has to sell 30 tickets to be able to play. The boys were having a hard time finding that many people who could go. But then the bassist managed to sell a whole bunch. It turned out to be a cool deal, because they sold tickets to a lot of their friends from school, so the crowd was mostly made up of people they knew.

They had to play for 30 minutes and when they booked the gig they really only had about two songs written. And they had trouble finding time when everyone in the band could practice. They managed to write a bunch of material in time, though. I was worried when they played they’d rush through it all and be done after 15 minutes, but they played for exactly the right amount of time.

They’re called CATYRAX. Elijah’s on drums.

We videotaped the whole thing but I’m not sure when or if they’ll ever get it up on youtube.

I am way behind on posting anything to the blog. Just haven’t had the mental energy I guess. Was buried for 3 weeks with a big work deadline (actually, two deadlines that overlapped—it was painful). And Daniel was working 17 hour days for a few weeks—yes, 17 hours each day. From 7am to midnight. And since his lack of sleep is my lack of sleep, I was a bit zombielike for awhile.

So my first catch-up post: Converge, Lucero and Torche at the FYF Festival in LA!

The festival is a fundraiser for California state parks, and it was held at a state park on the edge downtown LA. It`s not much of a park, really—just a long, narrow strip of land next to Chinatown. There`s some grass and a whole lot of dirt. But a nice view of the downtown skyscrapers. There were three stages with pretty diverse lineups. I was mostly only interested in the stage at the far end of the park. We ran into some people I know from an online music forum on our way over to the stage–they were headed towards the front stage to check out Lightning Bolt.

I got there about 7pm, but the fest had been going since 1 or 2. I was mainly there to see Converge, but wanted to check out Lucero because I`d heard good things about them and also heard bits of a live album that impressed me at a record store awhile back. They have a sort of Southern/alt country thing going on. I think what really makes them stand out is the singer`s voice, it`s rather distinctive. I enjoyed their set. They played a lot of new material. People kept calling out for songs and the singer would say, “I`ve gotta do a new one.” Once he added, “But we can do that next.”

The sound for their set was really great. And the sound was super loud—I had to stay back aways from the stage for every band because it was so loud. (I didn`t have earplugs, just wadded up bits of napkins, and my ears literally hurt when I got home.) There were a lot of Lucero fans there—people singing along with lots of songs. At the end the band left the stage and just the singer/guitarist did a song solo.

Some of the people I knew there from the music web forum popped up after Lucero while I was waiting for Torche to come on. It was fun catching up with them.

Torche were good in spite of gear problems. I didn`t really notice what all was going on with their gear, but there was a lot of feedback that hurt my ears. At one point Steve said, sarcastically, “This is our best show ever!” But with a big smile. He`s always fun to see live because he just enjoys himself so much, it`s hard not to like him. Big smiles constantly. They did one Floor song, “Downed Star.” I was hoping they might also do “Tales of Lolita” (they did last time I caught them, just a few weeks ago) but they didn`t. They`re down to just a three piece right now, so no harmonized vocals.

One of the people I know from online had a press pass and an extra camera she offered to let me use. (I`d only brought a couple toy film cameras which I never used, it got dark so early). I didn`t bother for Torche, but when I realized I could be in front of the barrier for a bit during Converge, I took her up on it. Fortunately I was wearing a long sleeve sweater that hid my lack of press-pass wristband. I was so nervous the whole time because security kept asking to see people`s wristbands. I just pretended I didn`t hear, messing with the camera and stuff, and they never did ask me. I`ve never seen so many photographers at a show before. The crowd got huge for Converge and the security guards were freaking out a bit, calling for more guards on their radio. My son Nathaniel and his friend Dillon managed to snag a stage spot right behind me.

Nate, the bassist, dedicated their set to a friend of his that had passed away the morning previous from cancer.

I don`t really remember what happened for the first two songs or so, I was just snap snap snapping as many pictures as I could. It seemed like security cleared us out earlier than they would have because they had crowdsurfers to deal with, and there were so many photogs there was no room to maneuver at all. I was just glad I hadn`t gotten caught and thrown out.

I was really hoping for “You Fail Me” and “Plagues,” but they didn`t play either. I remember these songs, but they did more than this:

Heartache
Hellbound
Axe to Fall (title track to their upcoming album)
No Heroes
Cutter (new song)
Eagles Become Vultures
The Broken Vow
Last Light

After “Hellbound,” I think it was, Jacob mentioned that he wrote that song for a friend who had died from heroin a few years back and that he still misses him. My friend who’d gotten me into the press area leaned over to me and said, “These guys have lost a lot of friends!” Jacob gave a shoutout to the other bands and introduced “No Heroes” by saying something like, “Don`t live your life vicariously through anyone else.”

I think they must have done quite a few new songs. There was one I`d never heard before that was slow and doomy and the guitarist and bassist sang vocals. It reminded me of the Melvins. Kinda tripped me out. I *loved* the new material I heard.

They closed with “Last Light,” and it was fantastic. Great song to go out on. Jacob introduced it saying “Music saved my life.”

I can`t remember the last time I felt so happy after a show. Not sure why Converge make me so happy, but they do. And it was great to have my online acquantaince there. It`s rare I get to see a show like Converge and stand next to another female who`s got a giant smile on her face.

I didn`t stick around for Dillinger Escape Plan, who were headlining. I would have liked to check them out but I was really tired (flip flops are not good for shows, I`ve got to remember that) and I wanted to go out on the high point of Converge. I was still hyped from the show a couple days later.

Pictures:

Here’s video someone took of their last song. Gives you an idea of what it was like being in the press area–in front of the crowd barrier! So awesome.

(People are yelling the singer’s name, Jake Bannion.)