A pink blanket in the road

Got home from the store this evening, trip to Costco with Heidi and the Pickle. In the car we talked about how it gets dark so early these days. How tired we get when it's only 6:30 or 7 o'clock. At the store we picked up two crabs and spring mix to make a salad for dinner. Decided to give the kid some leftover rice and cook some ravioli, to avoid the shellfish for the first year.

We brought in the groceries and Heidi was scrubbing a few dishes to start cooking. For some reason I walked back outside with the kid. Maybe to make sure the car was locked? To check the mail that I already got? I don't know. But there I was in our front yard when I heard a screech and a thud up at the corner of Georgia and Napa. Another fender bender most likely, they happen often on that corner. We've needed a stop sign up there for a long time. When I walk the dog we need to wait at that corner, sometimes for five minutes, while cars blaze up the hill.

I looked up and saw the tail end of a large, white SUV stopped just past the crosswalk, the front half obscured by our neighbors hedge. Then I heard a high pitched wailing. The sound of a woman screaming.

I ran inside the house, yelled to Heidi to find her phone and handed her the baby.

"An accident on the corner, someone might be hurt."

I ran back out the door and up to the corner. A couple of our other neighbors were already there, huddled around the other side of the car. I made eye contact with our next door neighbor Joe and ask him if someone has called the police. He said yes and looks a little stunned. The people on the driver's side of the car are looking down at the ground. Looking down to where the woman is screaming.

I walked around to the front of the car and glanced down to see the handicapped symbol on her licence plate. The driver was sitting in the driver's seat. She was an older woman. All I could see of her was her long grey hair, tied up in a ponytail on the back of her head. Her head was in her hands. Her shoulders shaking with tears.

I walked around to the driver's side of the car. The door was open so I could not see the screaming woman, but I could hear the people who looked down at her and I could finally hear what it was she was screaming.

"No!"

"Wait, they're on the way."

"No! My baby! My baby!"

"Don't touch the stroller, you could hurt her."

"Nooooooo! My baby my baby mybabymybabymybaby!"

I looked at the gap between the car door and the street. Through the shadows I could recognize the white plastic wheels of a small umbrella-stroller, attached to a mass of mangled aluminum. From what I could see the stroller was crumpled up like a piece of paper.

I turned my head then to the right and ten feet in front of the car, laying on the double yellow line in the middle of the road, was a blanket. A pink, fleece blanket with some sort of picture drawn in blues and yellows. Like a cheap Disney blanket. The sort of thing Christina had when she was a two and three years old. When she used to pretend she was Simba and pounce on us. "Pinned ya!" she would say. She gave us our character names too. (Rey was Mufasa, Jessica was Nala and I was Uncle Scar.) It was the kind of blanket that she would have made a seat out of to sit on the carpet and watch the same cartoon for the hundredth time, eating cheerios and singing Hakuna Matata.

"No. My baby!"

I looked at the blanket, then back to the stroller wheels.

Then I backed up. I couldn't walk around that door. I couldn't see what had happened. I wasn't as brave as my neighbors to offer this woman any comfort to tell her help was on the way. I backed off.

To the sidewalk, as the sirens came over the hill. A cop arrived and looked down with the people and talked into his walkie talkie.

"It's gonna be ok."

"No! No! My Baby!"

The baby wasn't crying.

Was she ok? Shouldn't she be crying? That's all I could think.

Rey jogged up the hill, as the fire truck approached with paramedics. I stopped him. I told him it was a kid. Not to look. Not to go over there. More cops arrived and one asked us if we saw the accident, I said that I only heard it and so he waved us away. We turned away and walked back down the hill. I didn't want to see a stretcher.

I don't recall the short walk back to our gate, but I may have ran. I felt like running. When I walked back into our apartment and Heidi was in the hallway. She saw me and asked if everything was ok. I just started crying. She held me there and I couldn't tell her anything for a couple minutes. We went into the kitchen and Clara Mae was there playing on the floor. She smiled at me and when I saw her there I thought about losing her.

God dammit. Hearing that woman's anguish, seeing the stroller twisted, seeing the pink blanket laying there on the cold asphalt. It just brought all of those fears to the surface. The fears that every parent has I guess. From the sniffles, to checking that they haven't stopped breathing in their crib, to the bonks on the head and the hard falls when they're getting their sea legs. That visceral, animal, protection instict that kicks in when you have a child. I knew I had it, but when I walked up to that corner tonight, I truly felt it.

I love my baby so much. Tonight, hearing that woman screaming for her child, I felt myself there, in her voice. It was terrifying.

When I put Clara Mae to bed tonight, singing softly, Johnny Cash, Pink Floyd, whatever lyrics came to mind, I could feel her breathing, I could feel her body relax as she slipped into sleep. I never want anything bad to ever happen to her. She is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

I don't know what this all means or why I am writing this down. All I can say is, to anyone who is reading this, I guess all I'd ask is that you appreciate what you have. If you love someone and have someone who loves you, treat it like gold.

New Blog!

Alrighty kids, Here goes. I'm gonna try out this blog thing again. I'm not much of a Micro Blogger (a little too long winded I guess), so the Facebook and Twitter are not grande enough for this Hombre. That being said, I'm not much of a Macro Blogger either, but we'll go ahead and give it a try. Posted below this are a few things I transfered over from my old Tribe.net blog and one new thing! -- I adapted the first chapter from my failed attempt at NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) this year into a poem of sorts. Check it out. I'll try to get some new stuff (that's hopefully less overblown) up here soon.

Let the Narcissism begin!!

-R

Dust Devils and Tornadoes

"I couldn't sleep last night,

you know the blues walking ‘round my bed,

Oh Lord, the blues walking 'round my bed

I went to eat my breakfast, the blues was in my bread"

- Good Morning Blues by Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter

Sweat drips in the gulf stream midnight.

Hot white light buzzes from naked bulbs like electric bees. Landing with an Edison eureka on walls dripping with fever.
Hips gyrate and grind their fleshy pestles against the air, pounding moist breath into dry powder.

Eyes clutched closed, on the tightrope line with pain and ecstasy,

inside the pulse and the grind.

Fluttering.

A butterfly wing clitoris.

The plywood stage creaks, shaking dust from its hair as iron nails strip out of slippery holes in a hardware burlesque revue.

Emceed by the foot: wrapped in a uniform of wingtips and snakeskin, it taps and stomps and slides, heals scraping through worn patches shaped like mid-western states on the moth eaten rug. Chipping beer soaked black paint from the timbers.

The click and the buzz,

low hum and drone of electric tubes.

Warm crackling fingers vibrating and massaging the sounds conjured from stick and wire.

His fingers: callused and hard. Ashen rocks given unnatural life. The hands of a golem, animated by black magic and set to a task.

A coin in the tip jar, a coin in his mouth.

The man is slave and master and slave again to these mythical, arcane fingers. As they Storm-Trooper stomp down the strings, bending and scraping and clawing the soul of the note out of purgatory and down to hell.

A bead of water pushed out of his scared, chocolate skin, crawls and rolls and tumbles. Somersaults and cartwheels down his forehead, to the tip of his nose. There it swings and sways; a trapeze artist teasing death, milking the oohs and ahhs, before falling.

Without a net.

Ending her career as a clean suicide circle on a dusty boot.

Golden whiskey bones.

Teeth soaked by the road.

Clenching with lockjaw force.

Grinding against each other as he pulls a high note from another dimension through the machine in his hands (all worn chrome pegs, turning sweat rusted gears). Conjuring a wail from a science fiction beast on a planet of broken glass.

Clutched close to his chest it is impossible to tell if he is controlling the machine or barely containing its rage and fury. The guardian of the audience, saving them from being consumed by the lion. Half ring leader, half Doctor Frankenstein. Keeping the creature at bay and keeping the women and men, with their marionette gyrations, on that needle point.

Just beyond the cracking whip and leveled chair,

that thin line of agony and indulgence,

redemption and lust.

Each sound is a deadly sin. When the note fades it is absolved and sent back into the world, into the ether. Back to the darkness to growl, chomp, bite and gnaw. To pace a rut in its cage until it can feast again on the ears, on the spine, on the goose bumped pores of skin.

A tiger, a bear, a wolf.

The pick is a tooth and a claw, prehistoric bone scratching at the bars of the cage.

Trapped. Howling.

The microphone, rusted by a thousand nights of howls, soaks up the cold sweat and warm spit. Spittle stalactites form on his chapped lips and are shaken loose. Chains rattle from the dungeons of his throat where a guttural tone is forced out at knife point.

A Groan.

A Moan.

A mammoth falling dead in the show, the last of its kind, screaming into the whiteness to be remembered beyond its bones. The death rattle of a dinosaur.

Syllables massage the sound as it hits the air to form words. The words grapple with the scream and hiss of the strings, with the dusty, hollow stomp on the stage boards as the wooden stool creaks in protest at the steam engine rumble of pounding and pumping legs. The words are simple, primal;

visions of loss and regret. Of pain and emptiness. The blues.

Clawing out of the bent plosives, the sway and the meat of darkness, there is something else.

An emancipation.

Cathartic ejaculations of fear and listlessness and sin. The bondage of being human of being alive. The chains around the ankles when you rise from bed in the morning. Life as it should or could be lived played out next door, or uptown or on the back pages of towns and houses.

The key to these chains is in the song,

in the moan,

in the blues.

The build, the pulse, the repetition.

Rhythms seeping with Voodoo and Incense, God and The Devil, throbbing in the room like ancient chants. The rapture hastened with all its demons and brimstone. Babies born and mothers dying; poverty and betrayal; hard traveling and evil women.

All of these speak with smoke filled voices through his words in a seance of sin.

Shoulder to shoulder the crowd rocks and slides against each other, slick with lather like broken horses. Strangers and lovers and brothers and sisters, moving with a primal rhythm, at once sensual and innocent, confident and exposed.

Coming together as small parts of the same orgasm.

One mind and body consumed with heat and driven with the whip of the beat and the clang and stomp and the howl.

Beer bottles rescued from drowning by the twos and threes out of buckets of melted ice, dripping with condensation, warming by degrees in frenzied hands.

Fists slap against the bar, creating tiny earthquakes. Spinning ashtrays like tops. Butts flying over bottle ring shapes of gray paste on wood.

The clash of the holler of his growl against the anguished screams of his guitar, lumbers across the room, dragging with it the moans and shouts and testimony of the audience.

Yeah!

Play that thing!

Let it moan!

Sweet Jesus, Let it moan!

Rattling the tin walls. Dust devils and tornadoes are kicked up on the earthen floor by sliding boots and heels, shuffling, stomping, sliding slow.

The song builds, rattling the winds. A clap, a shake, a vibration. Clashing again.

Clashing.

Clashing.

Finally he barks out the last word like a confession at the end of the world. A testament from a mountain top, fire melting the ice caps. When the sky has fallen, and the oceans have risen. He pushes that last word off the cliff with a stomp, his bottle neck slide sustaining an unresolved tone, leaving nothing playing in the room. Nothing but an echo. A ghost.

Eyes closed, his head falls back,

face to the ceiling,

smelling the silence.

The congregation continues to move and sway in the vacuum of sound, unsure how to stop. This tin shack, this one room juke-joint, remains somehow like the eye in the hurricane. For this moment they are all one in simultaneous tension and release. Floating in the silence.

Free for now.

Soon the spell will break and bottles will clink as voices invite the mundane back into the room, into the hearts and tongues and minds of the people.

But for these tiny seconds all of them are guilty and innocent, rich and poor.

Deep inside and floating above.

All of them are free.

I have a beverage problem...

I have a beverage problem.

People I have spent more than a few minutes with might say that I have a drinking problem, but that’s only because the beverages I enjoy most are beer and whiskey. If I really liked orange juice for instance, than people might say “hey that guy sure isn’t going to come down with a case of scurvy anytime soon”.

The thing is, I have an irrational need to have some sort of liquid available to me at all times. It is impossible for me to attend a concert or go to a party or a bar without holding on to a pint glass of something or other. Even at home, if I’m out of beer, I will pour myself giant cups of ice water and walk up and down the hall with them or sit in front of the TV and place the glass in front of me. I may only take a couple sips, but it is important for me to know that it’s there.

As a result, I pee a lot. Sometimes once or twice an hour, I even wake up in the middle of the night to drain a few drops. People have said that I should get it checked out, that it could be diabetes or prostate cancer or something. But I know exactly what it is.

I drink stuff. Lots of stuff. All the time.

I can’t walk down a city street without a cup of coffee or a brown bag o’ suds. I can’t settle into bed at night to read without a glass of water, which the cat usually drinks half of, I couldn’t even write what you are reading right now without a cup of tea..

When I lived by the Panhandle in San Francisco, Jeff, my roommate at the time, and me realized that we were drinking too much booze and decided to take a break and detox. We agreed that for a month or so we would drink tea instead.

The first week went by fine, we felt healthier and the ritual of preparing tea was quaint and charming. By the second week however, ten minutes wouldn’t go by without a high-pitched ‘Wwwwwzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’ sound coming from the kitchen.
At the sound of the kettle bubbling to whistling temperature, Jeff and I would leap from the couch and race to the stove carrying our over sized mugs under our arms like children from a burning building.

Over the next couple of weeks we drank so much tea that our bodies sloshed loudly as we walked though the house. If one of us happened to want to have a conversation while in motion it sounded as though we were trapped inside a washing machine.

“So anyway SLOSH the other day I was GURFLUSH talking to that BRUBLEBUB girl at the coffee shop FLUMPH about the new Earl Grey they just got in”.

We consumed any and all varietals we could get our hands on with equal, ravenous gusto. In the morning it might be a Darjeeling, followed by an English Breakfast with a cup of Chai for dessert. Once caffeinated we could spiral anywhere on the map from Green, to Chamomile, to Orange Spice, to Sleepy Time. It might have been three in the morning, but if I heard the sound of the kettle bubbling, a Pavlovian response would be triggered and I would roll out of bed and shamble towards the kitchen, cup in hand.

Jeff and I finally realized that we had a problem when we found ourselves one day scouring the couch cushions for change in order to purchase the Seasonal Sampler of Celestial Seasonings that was on sale at the Safeway. Digging for change was somehow more normal or respectable when you were using the money to buy booze or drugs. Even if one didn’t agree with the substances being purchased, at least it seemed natural. Ransacking your hide-a-bed for another hit of water and dried leaves however, that bordered on loony.

One day near the end of the month we finally hit rock bottom. We had been hitting the tea in every way we new how, but nothing seemed to satisfy the thirst. Reusing tea bags from the night before, double brewed, iced, frozen into ice cubes and eaten as Tea-Sickles, anything and everything, so long as it was Tea. We needed help.

Then, one morning it simply dawned to us that our ever diligent and faithful companion had been there, waiting for us the whole time. I was just about to ask Jeff if he wanted one lump or two and as he lay on the ground holding his full, water balloon of a stomach when some other words came out instead.

“Hey…you want to go get a beer?”

Jeff looked at me as though I had just said, “Well well well, will you look at that? The Arc or the Covenant has been here in the pantry behind the Cherrios this whole time.”

Without another word we bolted to the corner store and grabbed the first six-pack we could find, then we slinked back to our apartment looking over our shoulders as though the Tea Patrol was watching us to make sure we were properly steeped. Once inside we knew we were safe. We came back into the kitchen, drew the blinds and popped the caps off those frosty, 12 once bottles of salvation. The beer tasted nothing like tea…and it was grand.

I still live with my beverage dependency to this day. It’s a daily struggle, but in times of panic I just remind myself that I will always have beer by my side. And everything is gonna be alright.

Japan Tour!

Alrighty! Here’s the super quick reader’s digest version of the trip. It was pretty much jam packed and putting things into a chronological order has been a challenge, but I’ll do it for you because I care. We pretty much eased into a schedule of sleeping every other day. At first we thought this was some form of lesson, like when a kid gets caught smoking cigarettes and they are forced to smoke the whole pack till they get sick. “So, you think you can party, huh? Well you will party like never before, that’ll show ya!” However, we came to find out that the level of activity and pace we were maintaining was merely being Japanese. Aaron, Heidi and I consider ourselves to be pretty hard core professional drinkers, and we have friends, who are probably reading this blog right now, who have legendary livers that would make most people in other circles call for an intervention. But, let me tell you, nobody parties like the Japanese. Nobody.

Here we go:

Plane ride was long. The first 8 hours on a flight are almost tolerable, but there’s something about those last 2 hours that drive you a little stir crazy. Fortunately we arrived and had no real problems with customs. At the airport we had our first vending machine purchase, something that looked weird and ended up being hot barley tea. We would start every morning thereafter with strange vending machine experiments. This morning I had to make clicking vending machine sounds while I made my coffee in order to feel at home.

Anyway, caught a train into Tokyo station and finally met, in person, our new hero Mr. Yano Tadashi. Can't say enough good things about this man, so I will sprinkle his awesomeness throughout. Let's just say as far as human beings go there is no other like Yano.

He led us through 3 train transfers to the Shimokitazawa neighborhood where we dropped our gear at the Piece of 8 pirate bar. Yarrr!! It’s kind of funny that we can fly 6000 miles with an art band and still end up playing a song set in front of a Jolly Roger. Some things never change. While there we hoisted some Kirin cans and said the first of many Kompais! Then we set up, had a sound check (they take their sound checks seriously in Japan) then walked our excess bags over to Yano's apartment ,which was a Japanese apt, more like a like a walk in closet, but it was cozy and we came to love it. No shower there sadly, (space being an issue, not everyone in Japan can afford a place with bathing room) so we each slathered on an even coat of deodorant, (that’s right I wore deodorant, Aaron and Heidi threatened to break up the band if I didn’t) changed into our show gear and headed on back to Piece of 8.

At this point I should address the atmosphere in the standard underground Americana Japanese bar. In Japan smoking is prohibited on the street and in public parks, however it is not only allowed, but encouraged in small, windowless, unventilated bars. At first this was a bit of a drag, but we shrugged off our Bay Area smoke free pretension, went in balls deep and soon adapted nicely. The only side affect is that our skin has turned into smoked beef jerky, but hey who doesn’t like jerky?

Moving on. The opening bands were hot! In fact as we were to find out, every band we saw in Japan was the best band we’ve ever heard. It got a little silly after a while. We just wanted to see one slightly less than awesome band play with us, but no. They just kept getting better. I have a stack of impossible to find CDs and took video of most of the groups we played with, so I’ll spread the love.

We went on about 11pm and played a 45 min set. We were tired having been up for about 26 hours, but we mustered up enough energy to rock the joint. Then we proceeded to slam several dozen beers before slinking back to the casa de Yano and crashing out sometime in the wee hours.

We slept 5-6 hours then got up and explored the neighborhood of Shimokitazawa. We ended up having what turned out to be Aaron’s favorite breakfast, Loco Moco (egg, hamburger and rice). Then we regrouped at the pad, met up with Yano again and he helped us navigate our gear to the outlying town of Tskuba. At the Tskuba station we got picked up by Okami, the Banjo player from Akage No Muddys and ferried over to the East of Eden Bar. This was a James Dean themed joint with a big statue of him outside and ice cold Asahi on tap inside. We would proceed to run up our biggest bar tab of the trip that night. Gooob!

Yano (on resonator Guitar) and his girlfriend Yuko (on Sax) opened up the night. They were great, he’s a virtuoso, and we came to find out that he can play every instrument you put in front of him. Yuko rocks the Sax like nobody’s business; she blows with the soul of an old man from New Orleans. In fact that’s another point about the musicians we saw and hung out with, they all played with so much soul and conviction. There was great musicality, but no one was just showing off or going through the motions. It was deep shit.

After them it was Akage No Muddys. They blew doors, Okami was so enthusiastic and he got the crowd fired up. He ended up being one our best new friends out there and even made the drive from Tsukba on a work night to see our last gig in Tokyo. Plus he’s a dead head. Good people.

We played another good set and called up all of the musicians on stage for St. James Infirmary at the end. This became the way we ended every show and it was always stellar and huge. Funny thing is we tried to get it on video a couple times and it never happened. It was destined to be that the most magical musical moments were offered to the universe and will live as memories not You Tube videos. Kind of beautiful that way really.

We drank there till about 4am and then piled into Okami’s car and headed to the local Onsen (public bath house). There we split up, Heidi and Yuko went to the girl side and Yano, Okami, Aaron and I went to the boy side. Due to Yakuza trouble (Japanese Mafia) there was a big sign outside that said “No drunks! No men with tattoos!” It may as well have said “No 5 CENT COFFEE”. I had to wear a towel draped over my arm the whole time but it was pretty great to finally have a shower and sit in a hot tub for a while. Then we lumbered up stairs to the “relaxation room” where there were reclining chairs and a den of snoring Japanese men. We all laid down for about an hour and got a wink of sleep, then it was up again, pile into the car and drive to Yokohama for the Jug Band Festival! (see above note about nobody partying like the Japanese)

On our way we stopped at a convenience store to grab some coffee and a snack. We got some weird sandwiches (which became Heidi’s obsession throughout the trip) and after eating one I had to make everyone wait while I ran screaming to the bathroom. As I emerged, they applauded me and I had been officially dubbed “King of Poo” by Yano Tadashi. Through out the trip Yano told the story and it spread throughout the group. Now I am known in Japan as the King of Poo, and I’m pretty fucking proud of that.

Anyway, we got to ride through Tokyo on the freeway to get to Yokohama and even caught a glimpse of Mt. Fuji through the smog. We dropped our stuff, met a ton of nice folks and then went with an entourage to have the best sushi we have ever had in our lives. I cannot begin to describe how good it was. Poetry needs to be written about this sushi. Angels were singing, tears of joy…god damn it was good. Here we also had real wasabi which is mind blowing. Whew.

After that we went back to the Jug band fest building for the pre-festival meeting. The organizers named each band playing that day and they rose for applause. When our turn came around we got possibly the largest reaction from this room packed full of world class musicians. Geez, no pressure or anything.

We grabbed our gear and headed across the street to the first of our two slots at the outdoor rooftop stage. There we played a 20 min set and the crowd was maybe not as enthusiastic as we would have hoped. We played well, but realized that nervousness had gotten the best of us and we could do better. We regrouped and wrote the perfect set list for our main event slot on the big stage inside club Thumbs Up. We opened with Came Down from the Mountain and when Heidi threw that chain down the first time, we knew it was all gonna be ok. The crowd lost their minds! I started at the back of the house and snaked my way through the crowd with the Megaphone. Boy howdy it was sweet. We played pretty much flawlessly for 30 mins and left them howling for more. This would set the bar for our performances for the rest of the tour. We were officially warmed up, Look out Japan!

It was a great, long day and with 37 bands playing on 4 stages we had the opportunity to see some ridiculously awesome music. I spent most of my souvenir budget for the trip on CDs that day. Man it was good.

We made the last train back to Shimokitazawa and after a couple shots of Japanese whiskey, we finally went to sleep on the morning of April 6th.

A few hours later we were up again, Aaron had his Loco Moco and we set off for what would become my favorite neighborhood ever, Koenji. There we dropped our gear and sound checked for the first of a three night residency at the Tokyo Moonstomp. The Moonstomp is a cool little Irish themed basement bar maybe the size of our living room, bar included. We packed at least 60 people in there that first night and they were literally hanging off of the walls. We played with some hot bands as usual including an explosive swing outfit called Mo’ Lets and a great blues band called the Lightning Stacks who’s front man/harp player Ryoma sat in with us for a few songs on the rest of our Moonstomp nights and our last gig at the Son House. Super hot shit, I tell you what. At this stage we were still a little intimidated headlining nights with these great bands, but we jumped right in and blew doors off the joint.

What we came to realize about these musicians is that although they have studied vigorously and are more accomplished at their instruments than anyone I know here state side, there is none of the same jaded feelings of superiority and ego that one sometimes encounters here. In Japan (Koenji especially) there was more of an honest appreciation for art and original expression than I’ve ever seen. It was inspiring really, and I have made a resolution of sorts to curb my own tendencies towards that sort of negativity.

Yasu, the bar owner gave us a bottle of Jamesons as a gift for our 3 day stint there which we slurped down the first night of course. After the show we had some heat on and stumbled along with Yano, Yasu, the Lighting Stacks and a few other Koenji denizens to a nearby Izikaya. An Izikaya is a place where you take off your shoes sit cross legged on the floor around a low table in a traditional fashion, then guzzle beer and sake all night long. We ordered little dishes of sashimi and fried things and laughed about as hard as we ever have with some great people. Before we knew it the sun was up, people were piling into trains to go to work and we were being poured into a cab back to Shimokitazawa. What a night-- I have some video of it, I’m afraid to watch.

After a handful of hours of sleep we were on the train back over to Koenji to sound check for the show that night. I was carrying with me one of the top ten hangovers of my life. While freshening up at Yuko’s house (near Moonstomp) I puked up some blood and felt much better. That night we got back in the saddle and raged. More great music and we threw down. We made it an early night this time and were in bed by 3:30am.

The next day I twisted my ankle and fell down some stairs and I was pretty sure my stomach lining was deteriorating, also Heidi’s hips began to give out and Aaron developed shin splints. We were convinced that we were not all gonna make it through this thing alive. However, after that we started to fully acclimatize and gain some of that fabled Japanese Jug Band Musician stamina. By the end of the trip we were invincible!

We played that night, drank, jammed, and said our sad farewells to the Moonstomp. It was amazing to settle into a place for three nights and have people come back again and again. We made some great connections with some fantastic people.

The next day we piled on to the Shinkansen bullet train for Osaka which whisked us across the country in 3.5 hours. Plus a little man came by with a cart full of beer and whiskey for sale…I love Japan. We made our way to Taisho station (which Aaron and I kept referring to as Tashi station of Star Wars fame while Heidi pretended that we weren’t there) and loaded into the Bar Pow Wow. This joint was decked out like an Arizona Adobe complete with dream catchers and longhorns on the walls. It was under the train tracks so every couple minutes the whole place would rumble as the train went by. Awesome. The place was owned by a man named Mu-Chan who was such a ray of mirth and joy, it was infectious.

This place was about 1/3 smaller than the Moonstomp and I practically had to crawl under the low ceilings by the bar. We packed 68 people in there that night and it was so packed shoulder to shoulder, we had to watch the opening bands under an umbrella in the rain outside. When it was time to go on, we wiggled though the crowd and shook the walls with possibly the best set we had played thus far. Afterwards Aaron befriended a rockabilly hairdresser named Billy and started trading whiskey shots with him. I got to witness the one that put him over the edge (anyone who’s seen Aaron get the ‘Whiskey Eyes’ knows what I’m talking about). Moments later he was calling for water and after holding up the bar for a few minutes Yano stepped in and shuffled him off to the hotel up the street. Heidi and I held forth and drunkenly jammed all night with the Bigood Band (the Pow Wow house band), Yano, Mu and a handful of other musically inclined drunks. We eventually made our way to have some late night Ramen a few blocks away and then to the hotel, which turned out to be a super cheap “Love Hotel” where you can take a prostitute and rent the rooms by the hour. After 9pm you can rent on all night for $30. Cheaper than a Motel 6 and they supplied a basket of condoms and free pixilated Japanese porn on Channel One! In fact we already started work on a blues song with Yano called the Channel One Blues, two verses written, look for it soon!

The next day was our first night off and we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. With no traveling or sound check to run to we wandered around like zombies. We tried to go to the Suntory Museum in Osaka because we thought it would be a Whiskey Museum. We got there and all they had was art, so we left and went to get some beer. Tourism wasn’t in the cards on this trip. That night we ended up back at the Pow Wow and knocked back some booze with the local Osaka bar flies. We exchanged gifts with Mu and it escalated as it always did until we were running out of things to exchange. You see there is this great gift giving tradition in Japan where you give a small gift to people when they host you in someway or you appreciate what they do. The funny thing that happens here is when they give a gift to you and you return the favor with a t-shirt or what not and then they give you something else and so on. It can get pretty crazy, but it’s pretty amazing too. Like Christmas everyday. Mu was a great example of the generosity, happiness and support we felt on every stage of the journey. As weird as it may sound, spending time with the Japanese bohemian community inspired me to try to be a better person. I think if the whole world were a little more Japanese it would be a better place.

Whew. Ok, so the next day we hit the Shinkensen again and rolled down to Okayama home of “Momotaro the peach boy”, another song we are going to write based on the legend of a little boy who comes out of a peach pit and with the help of a dog, peacock and monkey defeats a three eyed demon. It’s gonna be an A major swing thing I think.

In Okayama we met Fats Fujiwara (who is really quite thin) and went to do sound check at the Bar Blue Blues which was huge by Japan standards, had a green room and everything. We played there that night with Fats and Yano/Yuko. After the show, Fats and his girlfriend busted out this huge sushi spread right there in the bar and we all feasted and took breaks to jam on a few songs around the table. Woowee, pretty magical.

We spent that night in a cheap motel which sadly had no free porn, but a super weird Japanese breakfast was included, so that’s something. Then we moseyed back to the train station to roll to Fukuoka and play at Space Terra with the Chorinure boys. It was a cool little jazz venue with a more ‘high end’ clientele then we were used to but they seemed to dig it. There were some hot swing dancers who showed up. It was sweet.

Afterwards we hit the bar Nois Noiz down the street for a few post-show beers before retiring to Mitunori’s house( one of the Choinure Boys) to crash out. Aaron and I ended up staying up with Mitunori and a DJ named “Slap Happy” drinking Glen Morangie till 5am in the living room. Just seemed like the right thing to do.

The next day we spent most of on the train back to Tokyo. Around 8pm we arrived and dropped our stuff at the Son House bar. We hung out for a few beers with Kumai, the owner then rolled back to our old pad at Shimakitazawa to rest up for our final night.

We got up in the mid morning and Aaron had his final Loco Moco before we met up with Yano, who led us to some super cheap shopping in the Koenji area. Heidi got a great second hand Kimono for her and Jessica, Aaron got some new shirts. It was good and efficient, but very thirsty work. We soon found a bar and took care of that.

That night was our last gig in Japan and probably the smallest place we played. All of our friends we had made at the Moonstomp gigs came back to see us, the place was packed and the vibes were sublime. It was like playing in your living room for some of your closest pals. We had Ryoma sit in on harp again and played the best version of Devil Woman we will ever play. Yano sat in on guitar for October which was epic. Then literally the entire bar grabbed an instrument or banged a table or clinked a glass together for a version of St. James Infirmary that would make Cab Callaway take his hat off.

As an encore, Yano lead us all in a chorus of Goodnight Irene that made everyone tear up a little. We finished out the night with a steamy bowl of late night ramen and then crashed out on the floor of the bar. It was the perfect ending to a perfect trip.

We made it onto the train with all of our stuff the next day thanks to Yano and Kumai and barely made it to our flight home due to oversized baggage confusion. Running for the gate etc. Then, 10 hours later we were back on US soil.

None of it could have happened without Yano Tadashi. He is an amazing person, funny as hell, talented and smart. I am working hard to get him to come out in August for the SF Jug Fest. I look forward to all of you meeting him.

It is still a little weird to be back, eat with a fork instead of a chopstick, not speak broken English or pigeon Japanese. I miss it actually. I really love that country, the culture, the music and most of all the people. We were fully immersed in modern Japanese bohemian culture the whole time. (In fact only hung out with a westerner briefly twice.) Other than that it was just us and the people of Japan. I consider us extremely lucky to have had this chance, and to live this experience. Not only did we get to spend time with these people, but we had the opportunity to make music with them, to express our art and have it appreciated and celebrated. Wow, its such a huge feeling, its hard to form into a coherent thought.. I’ve had some great journeys in my life so far, but this just may take the cake as the best thing I have ever done.

…They want us to come back next year. Hmmmm, let me think about that for a second.

Thanks for reading if you got this far!

The Black Hole

I wrote this article a couple years ago and submitted it to Modern Drunkard magazine, I haven't heard back, so either they are drunk or the don't like it. So, I thought I'd post it here. Enjoy! (based on actual events a.k.a. my life)

“The Black Hole”

Tips on preparing for the inevitable

By Ricardo Zegri 2007

That’s right cadet, tonight as you burst through the airlock of your favorite saloon with visions of happy hour buzzing in your head, you will be transformed from a mere pie-eyed pilot to a stewed and sotted superstar! Eschewing your usual rapier wit, you will instead unsheathe a glowing light saber of god-like prose that would make Shakespeare blush and snap his unworthy quill in half. With each gin and tonic, boiler maker and syrupy mud slide thrown shamelessly down your golden gullet you will grow in power and grace like an Egyptian man-god. Women will swoon at your every mumbled utterance and compete viscously for just one bloodshot wink from your swarthy cosmonaut brow. The bartender, with tears of admiration in his eyes will thrust fresh libations into your hand long before you hear the sad sound of a straw searching for the perspiration of vodka tinted ice cubes at the bottom of the glass.

Yes, tonight is sure to be your finest hour, but beware; the controls of a soused shuttle can be tricky. As you travel high above the hooch horizon, you will undoubtedly put a little too much canned heat into the turbo thrusters and before you know it your red-nosed rocket will be spiraling wildly off course, out of radio communication and into the warm embrace of nihility.

It is the great irony of human existence that a true drunkard at the height of his glory is doomed to never recall his greatest achievements. To make matters worse, jealousy breeds contempt in the hearts of lesser men. They will slander you and your grand exploits by falsifying some sort of defamatory tale of how you played the same Lynyrd Skynyrd song on the juke box twenty seven times in a row, or loudly insisted that the bar-back was actually Herve Villechaize in disguise and that he is not in fact dead, he is merely hiding out from the mob in a witness protection program. I mean, just look at him man!

So what can be done to stop this tragedy? Alas there is no avoiding it. With each satisfying gulp of firewater, the great void opens its memory enveloping maw an inch wider and before you know it, you will be sliding off of that nagahide stool and into oblivion.

However, all is not lost. As the great Groucho Marx once said “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but as the bible says, Love thy enemy!” In that spirit we must accept this treachery from our beloved brother booze, but that doesn’t mean we have to stumble out blindly into the night. Here are a few tips to prepare for your nightly journey into The Black Hole…

The Flight Suit:

An important first step before an evening in the abyss is choosing the proper attire. Say for example it’s snowing outside, your first impulse may be to pull on your designer down jacket and angora scarf, and scamper happily on down to the pub. That’s a fine idea, assuming that you own a down jacket and angora scarf factory and can just pick up a new set tomorrow. There is a Murphy’s Law of sorts pertaining to drinking until you blackout and coming home with the nice clothes and accessories you left the house with. Try to resist the temptation to wear your Sunday best (even if you are drinking on a Sunday). Jesus wore a loin cloth when he drank wine because it was both comfortable and practical. Plus if he decided to trade it with a homeless guy the bus station at 3am for a swig of Night Train, we was only out a couple yards of muslin and not the only pair of slacks he had for work in the morning.

Instead, consider a series of disposable layers. If you start out with the assumption that you will be waking up somewhere tomorrow morning in nothing but a tutu, a trucker hat and some imaginative new body piercing, then you will be pleasantly surprised to find you are still squeezed into your little brother’s flood-water corduroys and REO Speedwagon t-shirt.

Navigational Components:

So now that you are all suited up, I suppose you think that you are ready to boldly go where many inebriates have gone before eh? Whoa, ease off on the throttle there fly boy. You’ll still need to make sure you have the proper accessories for your journey into the unknown.

First, since they have not yet invented a machine that distributes free cocktails to charming, apple cheeked, revelers such as yourself, you’ll need some monetary resources. Your best bet is to carry cash in small denominations. Choose a designated pocket for the greenbacks and keep your ID in the other. Keep it simple and consistent.

Avoid dependence on unnecessary bric-a-brac like wallets, fanny packs, humility and self respect. If you can help it, try not to bring a credit card of any kind. You will most likely open a tab and next thing you know you will have bought seventeen drinks for that guy Ernie who really understands the conclusive parallel you’ve just discovered between Three’s Company and Romeo and Juliet.

Next, a cell phone can be a bit of a Catch 22. Sure you may muster the clarity to dial a cab company and get yourself home at the end of the night. Also it could come in handy when you show up at a random acquaintance’s house at 4:30 in the morning and for some reason they won’t answer the door, just keep calling, they’ll pick up eventually. An experienced adventurer in the black tar pits of the mind will tell you that it is wise to weigh these pros against the obvious cons involved. The largest drawback to being connected to the world when you are no longer on it is, of course the dreaded and infamous drunk dialing through your phone list. On a normal bender it is always embarrassing to call up your ex in the middle of the night and tell her how much better she was in bed than your current girlfriend, then ask her if she would like to come down to the bar and…well you know, make out a little for old time’s sake. The danger is that while in the clutches of The Black Hole the fall-out from this transgression will be exponentially increased when you accidentally call your current girlfriend with the same speech.

The Homing Beacon:

You may well end up shivering in the bus stop outside of the bar or wake up in a strange bed with Bernice, the fifty year old dive-bar-denizen who always offers to read your palm in exchange for shots of butterscotch schnapps. These are the risks we must take, however believe it or not you can leave a maraschino cherry and cocktail olive trail back to your drool encrusted captain’s chair. Here are a couple of ideas.

Drink close to the space station. You can’t go wrong with the local watering hole and even in your most blurry state of madness, you’ll probably be able to navigate a course to your home planet if it’s within walking distance.

Bring a buddy. No matter how hammered Han Solo got at the Cantina, he always had good ol’ Chewie waiting in the wings to drive him home. A teetotaler friend would be ideal for this task, but unfortunately you don’t have any of those, so instead call up one of your moderate drinking pals for a night out. You know, the kind of guy who says “I’ll just nurse this Cosmo. You go ahead and have fun”. The big risk involved with this plan of action is that once you blackout it is likely that you will call your friend a sissy and force him to pound ten successive tequila shots to prove he’s a man, then you’re back to square one.

As a back up plan, during your first few drinks let it drop in casual conversation where you live or at least a landmark in your neighborhood. This way, when you get scooped off of the bar stool and poured into a cab after last call, you’ll be able to honestly tell the cops you are watering your plants when they bust you for peeing on the bushes outside of your house.

The Captain’s Log:

Whose number is that in your pocket? Is it the hot new bartender or that shell shocked Vietnam vet at the end of the bar who kept cracking walnuts open with bare hands? Why is it that when you go to check out that new tavern down the street they stop you at the door and tell you that you owe them $300 and a new condom machine for the bathroom? Well, sadly these instances are at the root of the nefarious machinations of The Black Hole. While there’s not much you can do about it, here are a couple of (admittedly futile) tips to try to spark your memory.

First consider creating some physical evidence. Bring along a digital camera with a date and time stamp option and take periodic pictures of yourself and your surroundings throughout the night. Upon reviewing the slides the next day, you can trick your wine soaked grey matter into recalling at least some key moments, then hopefully you can slowly fill in the rest. For example if at 11:34pm there’s a shot of you arm wrestling a midget at the bar and the next picture was taken at 1:17am and has you breaking into the monkey cage at the zoo; there’s good chance that you lost the arm wrestling competition and that there was some sort of monkey related bet involved. The big risk here is that you will most likely either lose your camera along the way or trade it for the backwash in someone’s Michelob after they cut you off for shoving all of the bar peanuts down your pants.

A more low-tech and perhaps more accurate solution is The Oral Tradition. This is another great use of that moderate drinking, wet sponge of a friend you have. Simply drag him along for the adventure and then the next morning as you lay on the floor with six aspirin and a bloody mary, he can regale you with the cringe inducing details of the night before. This is assuming of course that he will talk you again after you snuck into the bathroom with his camera phone and took forty seven different pictures of your poop.

Acceptance:

Now you are almost ready for your mission. All of these tips are meant to ease the discomfort of this unavoidable occurrence, but the best preparation you can have is purely in the mind. Condition yourself for this solemn duty. Know that you will be sucked into The Black Hole tonight, there’s no doubt about that. You knew that this would be your fate when you joined the academy with that first sip of your dad’s Heineken. Do not walk with shame into the unknown; wear your self inflicted amnesia as a badge of pride. This is your destiny!

Countdown commencing, set your course for the obsidian horizon, flip the controls to auto-pilot and raise a glass to the blissful ignorance of booze drenched nirvana.

Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

The prince of Darkness ate my cell phone

So, it's been over a year now since I've had a cell phone. Many of you have heard the story of the demise of my last phone, but here it is again.

It was late June I believe. Tygre, Keith Haddock and I went to Ozzfest at the Shoreline Amphitheater to see Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath (fuck yeah)!

Mike Rudd, an old bass player from Crumpled Napkin had somehow secured us VIP tickets. So, we had a private bar with catered food and scantily clad rocker chicks giving people temporary tattoos (I got one of a Scorpion on my neck I think). Anyway, we whiled away the hours of "Nu Metal" opening bands between the private bar and running out to mix drinks in the VIP parking lot, (with the exception of Rob Zombie where I was sandwiched between shirtless, sweaty frat boys trying to mosh and Tygre and Keith making out literally on top of me while simultaneously bobbing my head deftly from side to side to avoid having my eyeballs burned out of my head by Tygre's smothering clove cigarette. I retreated back to the sanctuary of the private bar).

Finally it was time to go to our VIP box seat section (with waitress service) to watch the main event. At this point the extremely generous guy who we had secured the VIP tickets from said drunkenly those magical little words: "hey guys, order what ever you want...it's on me!"

Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and an unlimited open tab...I almost wept.

So, as you can probably guess, I instantly ordered two large beers and a double shot of Jameson...I repeated this order again 10 minutes later...it was all downhill from there.

By the time Maiden was encoring with "Number of the Beast" I was proposing marriage to Keith's shoe. I wasn't sure which planet I was on when Black Sabbath took the stage, but after they rocked "Fairies Wear Boots" I knew I needed to order two more beers and a whiskey.

Anyway, as Ozzy raised his arms and encouraged the crowd to sing along with "Paranoid" I pulled out my cellular phone to digitally capture the moment. The phone had a big button with a picture of a camera on it. I knew intuitively that I merely had to press this candy like button and the Ozzy would be forever immortalized. Unfortunately in the state I was in, basic motor function was virtually impossible.

I quickly grew frustrated with my phone. Clearly it was unwilling to cooperate. The button kept moving around. Finally, fed up and disgusted that my phone was not as big of a Sabbath fan as I was, I chucked it into the crowd where is disappeared in a head-banging sea of mullets...never to be seen again.

I puked all over myself in the back of Mike's truck on the way home, but that has little to do with my phone.

So, the point of this story is: I finally got a new phone! It's one of those pay by the minute things from Virgin Mobile. It's super cheap and doesn't have a camera function...which is probably for best.

p.s. Sabbath Rules!

High Five

I’m not a big “High Fiver”

Some of you already know this about me and/or have heard me drunkenly pontificate about it at some point. But here it comes again.

While I can appreciate the sentiment behind holding ones hand above their head in an effort to persuasively connect with a comrade’s palm in a shared moment of unbridled jubilation, it’s simply not my cup of tea. In fact if I get any sort of inclination that there is an impending ‘High Five’ on the horizon, be it from a friend, family member, lover or statesman, I immediately locate the most awkward and fragile objects available in my vicinity and gather as many of them into my hands as possible. As a result, when a well intentioned, meaty paw of a compatriot or boon companion is thrust into the air, I am saved from the social faux pas of “leaving him/her hanging”. Juggling a jar of mayonnaise, glass menagerie giraffe and framed picture of Walter Mondale in my unspoiled and un-high fived hands, I am able to convey the same feeling of mirth and mutual achievement with a raised eyebrow and a hearty “right on brother!”

This strategy has worked flawlessly until today…

This may shock and dismay some you and I'm not proud to say it but...I just participated in an “office high five”.

That’s right the worst and most insincere of all high fives, and to my further dismay it was neither a slip up with a jolly co-worker at the copy machine, nor an oversight brought about by too much coffee in the break room. Nay I say on to thee, this was the very personification of “office high five exhibitionism”.

Here’s how it played out:

It all started very innocently. A man from the City of Vallejo came into the office, he had been in a meeting with a project manager in one of our conference rooms earlier this morning and had forgotten his hand held electronic organization device (commonly referred to as a Palm Pilot). He inquired as to its whereabouts and it just so happened that I had located the device earlier and had stored it in my desk drawer awaiting the return of its owner. I returned it to him; he gratefully thanked me and left. Crisis averted, it was all over…or was it.

As I was busy searching my drawer to reunite the man with his electronic leash, I had not noticed that the General Manager, the big cheese, the main guy in charge of my office had walked by my desk.

Carelessly, I rose from my desk drunk with my recent lost and found victory and ventured towards the break room for some icy-cold liquid refreshment… foolishly empty handed. As I turned the corner from the lobby into the bare, featureless, glass menagerie deficient hallway I saw him heading towards me not five feet away.

I knew then that it was already too late.

Following a hearty guffaw he loudly remarked “good job Ricardo, you’ve earned your keep today!” Suddenly everything was in slow motion…he lifted his arm and before I knew it, his luxury watch adorned, executive privileged hand was heading towards me at an intercept speed too intense for even the most deft and experienced “High Five Ninja” to dodge. Uncontrollably my defeated phalanges had been wind-milled reflexively by my traitorous arm and were sailing through the air towards the inevitable impact…

After the incident I returned to my desk. I felt cheap, used, and ashamed…but finally after some deep reflection and soul searching I had to admit it to myself.

It is time to stop pretending…

…I’m a high fiver now…