Shoes of the Dead

September 28, 2011 at 5:57 pm (fashion, Gas, Justice, Pop Culture)

The gas tank read empty, but I thought I might make it. The car was sluggish and uncooperative. I loved my car, but I was clearly in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately mood. Bloody hell, it was like driving a dinosaur. I drove a little longer before I noticed the parking brake was on.

The streets were full of billboards with the face of a dead actor selling shoes. What agreements are these corporations making with the dead? What psychic are they using to make these necromantic deals? Is that what people want? Shoes of the dead? Why is this appealing to me? It reminded me of that tour of the crypts under the St. Michael’s Church in Vienna. A coffin from years ago had been broken open and the corpse had on wedges. I had no idea that style of shoe had been around so long.

The aftershock, phase 2 of our recession was in full swing. Yet every turn I made, I saw old buildings being torn down and new buildings being built. The deck seemed stacked. Someone is getting rich as the majority take the hit. If this were another country, the people would be in the streets with pitchforks and hoes (hoes for gardening, just to be clear). There should be a big hunt that ends with a barbecue. But who would hunt the elite we admire and strive to be?

There might be a few: https://occupywallst.org/

1 Comment

Stories from the Street

July 26, 2011 at 9:44 am (fashion, Homless, Nothing)

The homeless are rearranging the furniture on my street today. The furniture of the more recent homeless. The corporate wolves are hungry. The locals talk of morality and myth, like modern shamans corrupted by the franchise state.

Someone called the police… I guess they thought it was their duty.

“Can’t have a couch in the middle of the street.” ” Something must be done.” Said a man with a fauxhawk in an Affliction t-shirt.

The LAPD (I once heard someone call them “the army of the rich”) came wearing blue rubber gloves. They took the homeless…”somewhere else.” That seemed to satisfy the mob. It upsets and frightens them to see the people of the streets. Like it might be contagious.

There once was a game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, where we would align famous people or ourselves to Kevin Bacon’s fame. (Just for the record, I am 2 degrees from Kevin Bacon.) We may want to consider Six Degrees of the Homeless.

It’s really easy to pretend that the homeless are not connected to us in any way. Like they couldn’t possibly be our mother, brother, sister, etc.. We fear the homeless and we call them lazy or crazy (I’ve heard that about myself, by the way). But what we really fear is that we will become one of them, and everyone will shun us and call the police on us, like we do to them. Maybe if we took better care of each other, we wouldn’t be so afraid of ending up at the bottom, and maybe spend less time clawing our way to the top. Maybe, with a little compassion, the bottom could be as nice as the top.

7 Comments

The gas war is over. Gas won.

July 19, 2011 at 8:58 am (Gas)

In the gas crisis of the 1970s, people were outraged that gas cost over one dollar a gallon. They waited in long lines to get gas, sometimes running out of gas in the process.

My grandfather used to have a key chain that said, “The gas war is over. Gas won.”

In protest, my grandfather bought an electric lawn mower. I have a vague recollection of that lawn mower. It had a really long extension cord. My grandfather drove over the cord and cut it in half. My memories of that orange and green electric lawn mower include an extension cord spliced back together with black electrical tape.

1 Comment

Schoolyard Justice

July 10, 2011 at 10:55 am (Justice, Nothing, Pop Culture)

The gardeners were blow-drying the lawn in front of my apartment complex. I closed the shades and changed my clothes. As I pulled up my Levi’s, I looked up and saw the eye of the gardener with the loud tools looking through the crack in my blinds. While I was shocked, I was somehow also indifferent.

Susie was quite young when she got the reputation in that midwestern schoolyard. It’s the kind of thing you can’t live down in those  towns. She would forever be “the girl that…”. Until the day she disappeared to start a new life in Los Angeles… a leader of a rock-and-roll band, a yoga teacher, or something equally obtuse, like running for office.

The elementary schoolyards of the midwest were fierce. Jockeying for acceptance, solitude or power. Lions roamed the basketball courts without nets and broken swing sets.

The parking lot was full of children. Children of the just-below-middle-class. Joey had a new box of crayons. He ran through the crowd yelling, “I have new crayons!” and laughing. I had crayons, but they were not new. They were community crayons kept in an empty cigar box. We shared them. The black crayon was only a small stump. The children of the schoolyard/parking lot eyeballed Joey with his new crayons and his pride, running faster and yelling louder, “Haha! I have new crayons!” holding them high above his head.

Alan stuck a foot out and Joey took flight. But nothing like his new crayons, that spread out like shrapnel across the crowd of the crayonless. Joey grunted something as his knees met the asphalt. The crayons fell around his crumpled body. At once, as if there was an unspoken command, all of the children of that midwestern playground/parking lot began jumping in the air, stamping Joey’s new crayons into oblivion. Mary Sue Snarky was jumping so high I could see her white underwear as her Catholic school-girl’s dress lifted on her descent, patent leather shoes crushing Joey’s rich-boy pride into the crumbs of adult ambition.

1 Comment

A thank you letter from Odanadi to you

June 16, 2011 at 9:51 am (India, Yoga)

Dear Yoga Stops Traffickers,
We hope this email finds you all well and we would like to, once again, thank you for all your amazing efforts for YST 2011.
Amazingly, funds are still coming in from the 93 events around the world, which you organized, participated in and made such a huge success. The last count was roughly £30,000, which constitutes about two-thirds of Odanadi India’s annual running costs! This is a huge achievement, so well done!
The following list should give you a better idea of the crucial ways in which your financial contributions are helping Odanadi India:
• First and foremost, a significant portion of the money raised from YST will go towards PREVENTION, a cornerstone of Odanadi’s work in the fight against human trafficking. Through its 60 pioneering village vigilance committees(which cost thousands to run each year), Odanadi will be able to continue its work, educating and empowering some of the most vulnerable communities in southern India – including the Dalits and Adivasi tribal communities. There have been times when Odanadi has had to stop its crucial prevention work due to lack of funding, so this is a hugely significant achievement for them and you.

• Over £1,500 will be spent each year on rescue operations. This includes transportation costs  and financial support for those rescued and reintegrated. A further £1000 pays for legal fees incurred by Odanadi as it takes action against traffickers in the courts.

• £9,000 will pay for all the food for the residents at Odanadi for a year, currently 60 in total.  With food inflation running at over 10% this is vital.  The residents are also working to grow their own organic food and your money will also help with this.

Home grown produce.JPGRadishes and gardeners.JPG

• £1,000 pays the salary of the cook for a year.

• £2,000 will pay for the upkeep of the buildings at Odanadi for a year.  This includes repainting large parts of the building, repairing the floor in the kitchen and fixing broken windows.
odanadi 08-1.jpg

• £1,500 pays for a counselor for a year. The counselor deals with family disputes, domestic violence issues as well as working with the residents to help with their issues and concerns.

• £2,000 pays for the education of the children.  This includes materials such as book and pens and also the fees for the five residents currently studying at university.  Informal education also takes place.  In this picture the residents are working on a project where they say what they like at Odanadi and what they would like to do in the future.  Many of them want to be doctors, teachers or social workers.

Consultation with children.JPG• There is also a range of other rehabilitation activity that the students also partake in, such as yoga, art therapy, ceramics, dance, drama and Karate!
Yoga Practice.JPG• Lastly and most importantly, every remaining penny, dollar and cent will be needed for The Boys’ Home Fund, which is one of Odanadi’s most crucial – and ambitious – fundraising projects. The Odanadi boys currently live in temporary mud structures on a piece of land just outside Mysore. They have been waiting years to build a safe, permanent home with basic necessities such as electricity, running water, bathrooms, a kitchen, and new dormitories so Odanadi can provide a home for up to 60 more boys and young men, so many of whom are desperate need. The cost of the project is an estimated £90,000, so every penny you have raised counts! 

Thank you so much for your ongoing support! 
With best wishes from all of us at Odanadi

Leave a Comment

The Last of the Americans

April 9, 2011 at 9:53 am (Travel)

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the car began to shake and tremble. I slowed down some but the convulsions only seemed to get worse. Panic is rarely any help. I pulled into the right lane. Something seemed terribly wrong with this Honda. I put the hazards on and drove about 40 miles an hour. A black Jaguar zooms up behind us and decides to pass us in the gravel on the right while blowing his horn. I thought if anyone would understand car trouble it would be someone with a Jaguar. As the Jaguar cut back in front of us from the right a semi also passing us but from the left  cuts into the space in font of us. Just as the Jaguar and the semi moved into the same lane in front of us 2 feet away from smashing into each other—which would have inevitably led to a 3-car pile up that included us—the Jaguar and semi bounced apart as if they both had a force field around them. Nancy yells, “Fucking Hell!” as my hands clenched the steering wheel of a possessed Honda that definitely wanted to be in control.

We took exit 221 off the I-15 that led us onto a gravel path to an abandoned gas-station-turned-market. Behind the counter of the Market was a man with  long wild hair that looked like he cut it himself. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and had a big smile. We were waiting for Triple A to come and let us know how fucked we were and if we would be sleeping in some strange desert hotel or our car. I took 2 waters to the man behind the counter with the wild hair. He  stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Eric.” I gave him the money for the  2 waters and he said, “It might take me a couple times to give you the correct change because it’s after 4:20.” We laughed.

There was an unopened bar in the next room with gear set up for a band to perform. I thought to myself, what would Keith Richards do in this situation – if he was sober? So I asked Eric, “You have live music here?” He said, “Yes, do you play?” as he brought me out his guitar from behind the bar. We sat around playing as customers came and went. I played a little Spanish guitar and a  John Lee Hooker song while we waited for Triple A. A guy came in with a beard and long hair. He looked like Osho or some Desert Guru. He took a couple pictures of me playing. The owner (Jim) came in and invited me to come by and jam with him and his desert band any time. The Desert Guru (Andrew) said they had a 1600-watt PA system and he could hear the band clear across the freeway in his trailer. We were having so much fun we lost track of time… before we knew it, Triple A was attending to our car.

The front left tire had an interior break that had caused a bubble. They put the donut tire on for us and said we would be able to make it to Vegas if we wanted to. Andrew said he wouldn’t advise us to do that and that in Baker we could get a tire at any number of places and gave us details on each place and how to get there. Then he said there is a Mom and Pop tire place next to the old Denny’s at the first exit in Baker. I asked how late they were open and he said, “Until sundown.”

The car was gliding along smoothly on our donut tire. I saw a sign that said Death Valley.  We took the first exit in Baker. In between a Denny’s and a Valero with a Pizza Hut and a Subway inside sat a garage with no lights on. A man was standing in front of the building and waved at us when we pulled in and said, “I got what you need.” Preston said he had a tire for us and took about 20 minutes to put it on as the last of the sun set behind us. When he finished we asked how much and he said, “Forty dollars”. That’s forty dollars for a tire and putting it on the car. As we paid, another car pulled in with a donut tire. Driving away I looked out the passenger side window and saw Preston changing the tire with a flashlight in one hand. Nancy said, “That guy’s a bad ass.”

The Sahara Hotel and Casino that Frank Sinatra used to hang at closes in May 2011. The sign will become part of the Neon Museum in Las Vegas.  The rest will be trashed. Change is the only constant. But maybe there are some things we should try to support and hang on to. The people and  business owners   that will extend a helping hand beyond the confines of their job description and the bottom line. The last of the Mom and Pop businesses that stay open until the sun goes down or until the job is done.  The last of the Americans. The last of America left standing between the corporate franchises in the dust of the desert.

I’d like to keep the Angels of  Death Valley out of the Museums and in my world.

6 Comments

Unsolicited Advice

March 29, 2011 at 8:49 am (food, Uncategorized, Yoga)

I had this friend that did phone sex. It was an easy way for her to pay the bills until her career as a Rock and Roll singer took off. I went to see her play one night and she had a song called “Coming on Deaf Ears”. After the show, I asked her if that song was about her phone sex job. She said, “It’s not cumming on deaf ears, it’s coming, and it’s about people not listening or caring.” Which is kind of what I thought in the first place.

Sky writing drifts illegibly across blue horizon.

Sunset Boulevard is busy today. Several men are working the traffic stops with cardboard signs. One guy seems to have an entire paragraph written on his sign. When he finishes his strut up and down the cars waiting for green lights, I decide to talk to him. I say, “Hey, bud, what does your sign say?” He tells me a long story about how it explains he is not a criminal and just needs a little help. I suggest to him that it might be too much information to expect anyone to grasp in his limited interaction with the public. I say, ” You know the MTV generation has turned into the Twitter generation. You need to be concise these days. Could you get to the point faster with your sign?” He looks at me blankly and I say, ” Something like ‘Please Help,’ ‘God Bless’ or the simple ‘Out-of-work Yoga Teacher’”.

He says it’s important to tell a story. I guess it’s his line of work… I’m not going to argue. A man approaches us and says something I can’t understand. I say, “What?” and he talks louder and food falls out of his mouth. But I still don’t understand him. He then turns to my guy with the sign and I finally understand him. “Spare a quarter for the homeless?” My guy with the sign waves his sign at the guy who is hard to understand because he is talking with his mouth full and is also wearing no shoes, socks only, and one of the socks is almost falling all the way off his foot so it jumps around like a fish out of water as he walks. The guy with the sign continues waving his sign wildly and says, “Can’t you read, mother fucker?!?”

Nine times out of ten, unsolicited advice is unwanted. I would even venture to say 5 times out of ten, advice that is asked for is unwanted.  I’m learning “slowly” to be quiet.  People just want someone to listen to them, not to have to listen to me. It’s no wonder therapists get paid so much.

Want to do something to help the homeless in Los Angeles?  You can Start here: Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition

About  Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition

Every night between 6:15 and 7:30 a community comes together at the barren street corner of Sycamore and Romaine, along the border of Hollywood and West Hollywood. On the one hand – on one side of the table – are the volunteers of The Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition, a broad-based grass-roots organization which for the past 22 years has served a hot, fresh, and nutritious meal every night to the homeless and hungry. On the other hand are between 100 and 150 men and women who have somehow or other fallen through the cracks, and for whom the meal they are about to eat, sumptuous as it is, might well be the only meal they have all day.

The Food Coalition is comprised of actors, producers, writers, artists, teachers, journalists, lawyers, housewives, and a corps of former “clients” who help us pick up donated food all over town and prepare it in a kitchen just a mile from Sycamore and Romaine. Serving a meal to the “homeless and hungry” is the smallest part of what we do. We meet them on their own turf and talk to them – and listen. We get to know them as individuals, and, little by little, in all kinds of ways, we then help them to think better of themselves and to not be shy about asking for specific, practical help – which the Food Coalition, entirely unsystematically, then tries to provide. All together, volunteers and homeless, form a kind of microcosm of what the larger community ought to be, but now, in the big city, is no longer. The motto of The Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition is simply this (with no religious strings attached): I Am My Brother’s Keeper.

3 Comments

Yoga Stops Traffick Benefit

March 9, 2011 at 10:16 am (India, Yoga)

Runyon Canyon Yoga Benefit to Stop Human Trafficking 3/12/2011

Find an Event in Your Area : Here

Both times I  was in India, I did work with Odanadi, a non-profit group devoted to ending human trafficking.

On Saturday, March 12, 2011 at 10:30am, I will be teaching the 2nd annual Yoga Stops Traffick benefit class at Runyon Canyon, joining yogis all over the world in solidarity with the children of Odanadi, who will be holding their own class at the Mysore Palace in India. This international event is to raise awareness and money to help bring and end to human trafficking. Even if you don’t do yoga, come out and show your support.

This is a donation-based class. All proceeds from the March 12th class at Runyon Canyon and the sister classes around the world will go directly to Odanadi in Mysore, India.

If you can’t make the class, you can still donate at: http://www.odanadi-uk.org/

Find an Event in Your Area : Here


INTERNATIONAL YOGA BENEFIT
YOGA STOPS TRAFFICK is a one-day global Yoga event to raise awareness about human trafficking in India and across the world. On MARCH 12th 2011, yogis everywhere will roll out their Yoga mats to take a stand against trafficking and show their support to its millions of victims.

Yoga Stops Traffick India will be led from the grounds of the Mysore Royal Palace by 90 young people from local anti-trafficking organization Odanadi Seva Trust, many of whom are survivors of slavery, domestic abuse and forced prostitution. Over the years, Astanga Yoga has come to play a vital role in their rehabilitation process: building their physical and mental strength, and restoring a sense of peace, confidence and self-worth.

Over the past 21 years, Odanadi has rescued more than 1850 women and children, carried out over 60 brothel raids and brought 137 traffickers to justice. 100% of the money raised by this event will go directly to Odanadi, to support them in carrying out this crucial work.

LA Yoga Magazine

Video from last years:

Leave a Comment

Oscar Spoiler

February 27, 2011 at 12:11 pm (cow, food, Nothing, Travel)

It was unusually cold this February in Los Angeles.

My car had been sitting in the sun. When I got in, I noticed immediately how warm it was. It was like sitting next to the heating vent eating your cereal before the long walk to school in the snow, in long ago days growing up in the Midwest.

The warm car was so comfortable, I just sat for a while experiencing the simple pleasure of the sun and a windshield.

In truth, I was reluctant to leave my apartment parking lot. The Oscars were scheduled for tomorrow just up the street. Traffic was already getting heavy and aggressive on the street I lived on. I didn’t really want to face it.

I don’t care much about the Oscars. I like movies and all. But, when I watched anything like that, it used to be the Grammys. Every year I would watch and say, “Next year I’ll be there.” It got a little depressing, so I stopped.

When I pulled out, there was a lot of horn blowing as cars trolled the street for parking. In the chaos, I made a mistake and turned right towards Orange Drive. Orange spills right onto Sunset Boulevard but it cuts at a strange angle. So it is normally an intersection that is congested and hard to navigate. I would like to talk to the city planner who made these decisions. I doubt he is alive, and from the design of this intersection, I’m sure was a man not interested in my or anyone’s unsolicited advice or opinion.

To make matters worse, someone -who is probably still alive- gave someone a permit to put an In-and-Out Burger on this corner. So now, everyday near lunch and dinner, cars full of carnivores turn the already congested Sunset and Orange into a parking lot that smells like grease, death and religious fundamentalists.

I finally break through and am speeding down the familiar streets of Hollywood. I drive past a Bank of America. People are out front with signs protesting. It seems Bank Of America has all of their money in off-shore accounts and investments so they can claim they are not keeping their heads above water. Our government then gives them your tax dollars – $2.3 billion for 2009 – in tax benefits.

It makes me happy to see people standing up and saying “NO MORE!” But there are not enough of them. Most of us are picking out what we are going to wear next year at the Oscars.

As I drive past the BoA, I look back over my shoulder and see a man holding his protest sign. It says ” MORE LUBE, PLEASE”. I smile and drive on. It’s a good day to be alive in Los Angeles.

Best Picture 2011

  • “Black Swan” Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
  • “The Fighter” David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
  • “Inception” Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
  • “The Kids Are All Right” Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
  • “The King’s Speech” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
  • “127 Hours” Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
  • “The Social Network” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
  • “Toy Story 3” Darla K. Anderson, Producer
  • “True Grit” Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
  • “Winter’s Bone” Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

1 Comment

1991 Gibson Les Paul Standard (Lestat)

February 3, 2011 at 11:51 pm (Guitars, Music, Suffering)

Serial # 90921344

This is the fourth Les Paul I have owned.

It was the mid-90s. I’m bad with timelines, sorry. I had just left a band that had been taken out to dinner by all the major label A+R guys and girls. It was strange leaving the band because it was my band. I really thought we were going to do it. But the closer we got, the more heroin and cocaine our singer shot into his arm. He was talented, but the destruction of himself and the people around him outweighed his gifts as a singer and front man. A fact I only recognize in hindsight.

I had started a couple of other bands and was staying low-key and independent, which was actually quite fashionable at the time. One afternoon I get a call from the ex-singer. He needs to get out of town quick and need some cash. He wonders if I would like to buy his black Les Paul nicknamed Lestat for 450 dollars. I had played the guitar a couple of times and thought it was a decent instrument. It had all original parts except the tuning keys had been replaced with Sperzel tuning keys and the truss rod cover that originally said standard had been replaced with a cover that now said Lestat. I said I would buy the guitar. But he said there was a catch, which there always was.

He (ex-singer) was at a bus stop several blocks past Sunset Boulevard and Western Avenue, then a very bad part of town. He was in front of the pawn shop his Les Paul was in. I would have to find a way down there – I didn’t have a car at the time- give him the 450, he would then go in the pawn shop get his guitar and then give it to me. 450 for a Les Paul Standard was a pretty good deal. I wasn’t doing much else that afternoon so I said yes.

I walked to Sunset and La Brea and started to hitchhike. This was much more acceptable than it seems to be now. I was walking and hitchhiking for a couple blocks when a white jeep pulled up to the curb. In it was the sometime girlfriend of a bass player I had worked with. She was an ex-porn star now supporting herself doing “this and that”. She gave me a ride all the way past Western Avenue to the pawn shop. I was very thankful for the ride and told her so, then got out. Not too long after she gave me this ride she got into methamphetamine. One night she called my then-girlfriend and said that I was hitting on her during the ride.

The ex-singer was sitting on the bus stop. Not on the seat but on the back of the seat, so he was higher up. He was wearing his black leather trench coat that he had worn on-stage so many times after the day he stole it off the sidewalk rack in front of a store on Melrose Avenue. He also had on wrap-around sunglasses. His girlfriend was sitting on the seat below him. They had some old luggage and grocery store bags full of their belongings. They looked like people you would normally avoid.

The ex-singer jumps of the bench and says hello. We small talk a little but don’t make eye contact. I give him the cash and he goes inside the pawn shop. I sit next to his girlfriend on the bus stop. I remember when they met. She seemed so clean and straight. She really loved our band. She barley spoke a word as we sat together. Her hair was really stringy and she looked dirty and despondent. I had tried to help them a couple of times in the past. But there is really not anything you can do. I had spent a lot of times feeling helpless, angry and confused. It wasn’t that long ago we were talking to record executives. I remember realizing I had put all my hopes, dreams and hard work into the same basket as a time bomb. It was a bad joke. I tried to hold it together. You start feeling like you’re bailing water on a sinking ship and you go below and your crew is drilling holes in the bottom of the boat. I grew a little hardened and distant in those moments.  The fact that my friends were now at a bus stop, homeless with a couple of suitcases barley fazed me.

He comes out of the pawn shop with the guitar and hands it to me. We shake hands. His hands are clammy and dirty. I say goodbye, turn and walk away. I didn’t see or hear from him again for a long time. He’s a Republican now and his parents bought him a house or two. But he can’t drive because he’s had a few DUIs.  I don’t know what happened to the girl.

I played this guitar on most projects I have recorded since. Mostly a bunch of  independent stuff you would never have heard of. It has a very dark tone, never bright. Through a Marshall jcm 800 this guitar is magic.

2 Comments

« Older entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.