third week back

The highlight of this past week had to be when we entertained Shea and her new guy, Dave Corpus. It started off somewhat uncomfortably, until Sylv said at about 7:45 p.m. to Dave, "let me see your eyes." He took off his shades and everyone relaxed, drank wine and had a gay...I means, a good ol' time.

Shea had some wine, but didn't get wild or loud, a good sign, but still is too thin for comfort...something Sylv spoke to her about on the phone.

Sat., I did my show, didn't go to the Wilson reunion that night, and didn't really miss it...much, that is. Very hot latter week and weekend, coolness should returned, followed by more heat...not good.

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Second week back

I've been trying, I promise, to stroll an hour every morning, or whatever day or evening time might be best. Walked today, so that's cool, very cool, in fact, in the morning.

Last week, we had appts. to keep. My minor surgery was scheduled at Kaiser on Weds., so I faithfully went in, only to find that the cyst had desisted. MD and nurse concurred, so who am I to argue, so I departed, uncut. Should've showed them the spider bite - methinks - on my right arm, but it's painful and ugly, but I'm trying to deal w/ it without dying.

All week, Don Haley called us from Reno - two days actually - getting the scoop on what he'd been finding - including a pic. sleeve from Rouge Noir in Seal Beach, very cool stuff.

Thurs. it was the Gary Center, where I had a crown replaced that some gum extracted while being chewed on HiWay 5, just as we were learning of the downside of the north-south commute - don't take this road, go around.

This weekend, I contacted Gary and we went to see the world-famous Lou, who, after 2 false starts, let us in his torn up garage full o'LPs. I bought 15 - some nudie cuties, rare jazz - and about 25 45s for $20...borrowed $5 of that from Gary. Very sweat inducing, forsake the walk to Vet's Swap Meet for this, glad I did.

Shea's on a new path, moved in with David Corpus...from Propes to Corpus, not much of a change for the better. As I tell friends, we went on vacation, our daughters were living one place, we came back, they were at different addresses/phone numbers. So it goes for the Propes - Steve & Sylvia, approaching their 40th on 9/11 - what could be more perfect?

emp review

As promised, here comes the preview review of the much-heralded EMP museum in Seattle.

I had long wanted to check out a real r&r museum, hearing that Cleveland left areas to be desired, Paul Allen must have the right idea. I took a shuttle from the University district motel, and the young driver told me that I should reserve at least 4 hours to properly take in the museum. As I was about to be let out at about 11:30 and had arranged for a 1:30 pickup, I was a bit worried. Shouldn't have been. After a little more than an hour into the Experience, I was retracing my steps.

Of course, I didn't want my voice recorded on their in-house karioke system, with CD memories selling for a very reasonable about $4.99 (as I recall). Nor did I wish to go too deeply into the areas that seemed to attract the teens. I wanted history, by gum, and history I got.

The first area I looked at seriously was the singer-songwriter room, where I found a barely discernible page (on Monument label stationery) of the first lyric of "Help Me Make It Through the Night." Help me make it thru the museum. Oddly, the original lyrics of "Blue Yodel #9" were neatly typed, though corrected slightly, with handwritten notes to indicate where to yodel and in one place, indicating a "talking yodel." Fascinating. unlike Rodgers, Tori Amos lyrics were written out on "Hello Kitty" stationery.

Then I went upstairs, third floor level, where I found the men's room and a whole bunch o'great stuff, starting with the guitar room. Wow! Videos were showing, guitars were behind glass, and the impressive crowds were obviously hungry to learn, with kids along for the ride. I saw guitar breaks, guitar monsters, blues legends and old TV shows with the likes of Chet Atkins, Merle Travis, Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West and Eddie Cochran banging on their boxes or picking out serious notes. But the most dramatic was someone named Mary Osborne who was intent on her guitar break to "The Man I Love," while a somewhat glassy eyed Billie Holiday awaited her vocal, oblivious to the room, either at the studio on at the EMP monitor where sat I in a darkened toom.

One thing cool about the museum is the lack of tight-fisted rules: the nothing may be touched under the penalty of ouster and humiliation. Not to say that you could put your hands on everything and anything, but you were allowed to pick up headphones and listen in to music, interviews, that sort of thing.

Probably my favorite room was the Northwest Passsage, closely followed by the Dylan room, the Hendrix room and down the list, the hip hop room, for obvious reasons. I really don't need to gaze upon a panel from a graffitied over subway car to understand what used to be called rap, and the aeresol paint cans don't really add to my desire to submit to this culture. After all, how would a proper spray effectively showcase the Geary designed exterior of the museum or am I just showing my age? You think?

Northwest passage. Now we're talking.

Placerville

We arrived for lunch...easily the most relaxing leg of the trip. Don & Louise actually seemed happy to have us there. At night, we went to Bill & Donna Emery's across the way for drinks & dinner...fun and boozy...accidentally did I drink from Sylvia's scotch, thinking it was water. Almost lights out after that.

Don & I commenced on a major trade, all sorts of major items from the records I brought, to things he thought looked interesting. It took days, but we finished it on Friday...after an Aretha Franklin Checker to a Python Lee Jackson on GNP. Then he complained that the latter wasn't getting any Ebay action.

Next day, we did a grand tour down 49, but only to Sonora, great fun being out there antiquing. A night, more drinking, more food. So was Thursday, more junking around the area, going to an Indian mkt. for samosas (perogues equivalent) with Taj Mahal, then on Friday, packing and fooling around.

Left for home on Sat. at 9 a.m., thinking this would be a 7 hour trip. Good luck. Half an hour later, outside of Folsom, we experienced our first major glitch, a hiway 50 flat tire! Stuck on the side of the road for an hour. I tried one freeway phone, no luck, so we went over the rise, found one that worked. As I waited, up pulls the CHP, responding not to us so much as to the use of the first phone! Our plight was obvious, he was friendly enough, thought we shouldn't attempt to limp into Folsom, gave a half laugh when I mentioned my world-class experience with L.A. area CHP pursuits on TV made me an expert as to how tires disintegrate and catch fire.

After an hour exactly, help arrived, but only to change, not replace the tire. So into Folsom we limped on a donut tire and waited almost 2 hours for our turn at the tire shop...half the time at the Mimis down the street eating bkfst. The tire guy told me that the same thing happened with another rental car just days before and the agency told him, "you just bought a new tire." Hertz, to their credit, agreed to pay for it, after they found out they didn't have an acct with the dealer.

After noon, we were on our way. Halfway down the 5, we saw a sign: Grapevine closed, use alternate route! What alternate route? The one oh one, the 14? Nothing on the radio about this, it's all syndicated slop, no local news or hiway reports...local radio does not serve locals we found. Finally, at a place called Kettleman City, we talked to some truckers in a truck stop. They had heard nothing - whatever happened to CBs good buddy? One trucker advised us to use 46 instead of 58 to get to the 99, then cross over. Great advice as we found out, because when we got the 58 on the 99, it was jammed up!! Slid through and got on the 58 with minimal delay. Now the 58 going east thru Tehachapi and eventually Mojave was extra-jammed and near stopped in spots because of the extra heavy traffic...guy in mattress in the back of a pickup jumped a lane in front of us and it was hell to get past him.

At the 14, a CHP car monitored the jammed up transition which ended in stop sign. Had he actually gotten out of his car and directed traffic, there would have been much less of a jam to monitor, but what do I know? Finally on the 14, and hours and miles past our original arrival estimate, the sun went down as we left Lancaster/Palmdale and headed south into the heavy 14 traffic, all the way and time back to the 5.

Got home at 9:30, instead of the more viable 4, but afer it's done, it's done. The news had the bottom line, a Kern County trash truck "with low level radiation" caught fire and the lanes were shut down from 2:50 to 5:30, so who knows where we would've been when that happened. One of three in the truck was hospitalized.

Lots of precautions and problems for a very small hazard.

Next day, we rested, organized and slept! Then I returned the Chrysler Sebring to Hertz and the woman asked me, "did you call road service?" Why would I do that? And "why didn't you change cars?" Because no one suggested it, I told her. By now I was angry and they just stood there as I vented. After all that stress, I wasn't in the mood to be cross examined by some critical clerk.

Mounting Shasta

Good thing we didn't leave much earlier for Shasta as the Econo Motel was posting an "out to lunch, back later sign," until about 2 p.m., and out to lunch they were, the young female Chinese proprietor, even when they were there. The code key never worked right, had to get it reprogrammed all the time, no ice bucket, after room servicing...no towels!...but it worked OK. On the first day, I found 6 lps in an antique shop, then finally got our room. Next day, went to McCloud, which Sylvia remembered distinctly from c.1957...found the falls and river after we visited the town & museum...dropped $29 for a comforter(???), very nice town museum, old bldgs, logging town, all houses essentially same size & design w/ sharply sloping tin roofs. Sylvia was excited to be standing where she dove into water decades earlier.

After dinner at Black Bear Diner, big up in Yreka-Shasta area, took 7:15 leave of Shasta on Tues. a.m. to get to Haley's by lunchtime, which we did, altho had pretty grueling and stupid argument for about 100 miles of Sylvia driving...all about...oh, what the hell. Hot the whole time.

Ashland & Grant's Pass

Friday day, we went over to Mrs. Qs, had good bkfst & Ron comped us!!! Shoulda ordered a bigger bkfst. With Ron sitting there, waitress screwed up Sylvia's oatmeal, gave her CoWheat...then we went over to Ron's house, big impressive, sorta cold, so full of collectibles that it makes you sneeze and breathe funny. Lots of junk records, some good ones.

Friday nite, we took Joe, Susan & Evan out to dinner, met up with Lloyd, Maureen, & several out of towners in for Ben's party - Peg & Dave from Seattle & Tom Clark from Bend.

Both Peg & Tom are a little strange; she's a teener not unlike Lloyd, he's more of an r&ber...but an odd guy, very conservative, tho his wife is very liberal, and wasn't with him for dinner. He wanted to meet...guess who? Me? Yup.

Fun.

Sat a.m.: wow. We get in our respective cars and drive to Grant's Pass, knowing that Lloyd will be there first. He was, so were most of the other folks. Turned out it was a combo party & record swap, with the Thursday night theme of guess the artist, win some dough, in which I won $7....Olympics on What'd I Say & Roy Hamilton on something. Then came the trivia constest in which I kicked butt, got a score of 39, Warren was second with 28, then Lloyd with 22 and Steve Roberts with 20. I won $10, all the dough was reinvested into 45s, which is sort of the idea. As an example, I invested $20 in a copy of Hot Rod Race on Mtn. Dew, tho I knew it might well be a fantasy 45 - from Ron...woulda paid close to that for bkfst.

Found out that before we got there, Lloyd asked Joe: "where's Steve?" Joe RFed him by saying we had a big fight, I'd left, don't want to talk about it. Joe was convincing, but finally broke a grin, Lloyd had been had and talked about it the rest of the day.

Ben turns out to have little to do with the L.A. R&R scene, much less the R&B scene than locals credit him for, was in a surf band called the Gestures out of Pedro, but cut a 45 backing a country singer in which he etched out the group name with a church key: the Rocking Hillbillies - don't blame him. He's a real enthusiast.

The record dealing took place in a garage where 45s were set out and picked out, on a table & one the back of a pickup. I picked up about 15, prices from $5 to 20.

We left, leaving about 15 records I'd bought, didn't realize it until we were in GP, had to turn around, 15 miles or so back, only to find out that Ben had given them to Floyd to get to me. Ben was hazy about directions but drew me a map on the back of a trivia page. I had to find Floyd's in the dead of a Medford night in badly light streets, but by luck and avoiding serveal ditches, got to Floyd's - Tom Clark was there, going thru records - got them back, returned to Ashland at about 10 instead of 8:30 or 9.

Next day, cut out to Shasta after having a nice bkfst in town. Good trip, so far.

Ashland Pt. 1

A grueling drive was the way out of Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia into Oregon, big jam in Portland, into Eugene & finally Ashland at about 6:30. Wow! Then someone asked why didn't you use the 205 bypass? Well, maybe because NO ONE TOLD US ABOUT IT...like you, maybe?

Anyhows, we relaxed the next a.m., because that evening - Thurs. - was the record group - Joe, Ron, Warren, Lloyd, Roger, over and out, another two Steves and me. Good fun again.

Saturday at Ben Piper's began well, ended sorta badly.

two weeks on the road and I'm gonna make it home next week (end), probably

Where startest me on this description? Perchance the start? You think?

First off, to list what we missed...a party thrown in my honor by the 2 Debbies, a Bernie Pearl annual blues bash on July 24, a doo wop society do with the Chantels, Studio Z concert via Dino Dupre, a Riverside soul concert via Rubin Molina, a Carpenter Center concert via Jay Beeler.

Getting the idea it's freeload time?

So, on Sunday, July 23, off we go on a grinding drive to beautiful ... Redding, CA. Stayed at the Hilltop Motel. Had I locked the back door. Called home, sp0ke with Brian who was eating my cheese!!! said everything was a-okay.

Next day, arrived at the Pecks in Ashland, next day. Did some hot and heavy swapping with Lloyd Davis, two sessions...saw a buyer in from Seal Beach...Jim who was buying what made sense to him.

Next night, went to dinner at Steve Roberts remote mansion in Gold Hill, did some record stuff, at great meal, left in rush as I was intimidated about the drive back in the woods, late at night, few beers, you know the drill. Drive back was limited by road construction.

Next day, Seattle...wow...what a drive...after negotiating a Renton traffic nightmare, got to the Silver Cloud, in which I slept like one. Great motel.

Just before midnight, got a wake up call from Anders...they're stranded in Chicago...we got there early for no reason. Turned out that we saw them a 3 that p.m., not 10 a.m. as we had hoped, not much of a problem.

Found out the way to get from east to west...520 bridge, then north into Univ. Dist., pretty nice drive.

Met Camilla for the first time, Torben for about the 4th or 5th, both really sweethearts. Seattle was hot and Heather doesn't like air conditioning, so we tolerated their in-room sweat box, but it was worth it to hand with them.

In Renton, we junk shopped, antiqued, Sylv found a great paint by numbers painting that she had a hard time protecting while Heather & I pulled out, stuffed in the heavy stroller to take Camilla around. Very happy infant. We went to a burger place the first nite, then to Safeway where we got some pop left in the parking lot, unpickedup, which we had to deal with too.

Anders couldn't have any interruptions, especially when he found out his talk was moved from Friday to Thursday, so we at out often, but only 2wice with Anders, at a Paki/Indian restaurant, also at a Vietnamese, went motel hopping, various parks.

First full day with Heather, Torbin & Camilla wasn't exactly well planned. We had been sold a load of goods that Pike Place was the place to be, so there we drove. Not only is it a crowded tourist destination, it's in a valley where it's impossible to get to, and once you do...well, why? I spent a good hour after dropping off my women (& Torben) looking for a parking place, and once I did, couldn't conquer the weird system of payment...credit cards get stuck, not authorized, so I walked down there, got them out of the restuaurant, walked back up the hill to the car, got them, crunched the tire of the rental against the curb that it makes a noise when I back up...hoping against hope they don't connect the dots...but why should they?

Moved out o' the Silver Cloud to a place called the Red Lion in Bellvue, not as nice as the Cloud, more 'spensive and less offered. Friday, we ate at the fast food sushi, prepackaged place up on 45th, then swam in the pool.

On Sat., we drove out to the country, and hung out at a paragliding site, which Torben was fascinated with, talked with some guys, shared some beers, had a good ol' country drinking time, and Heather walked a few yards into the wilderness on her quest for a "hike" with the family.

On Sunday, visited a lovely yet not touristy fishing pier in Ballard...ate at a fast food fish lunch nearby. Very relaxing p.m., then we checked into the University Inn, more expensive, less satisfcatory, but since I'd been drinking their coffee, using their internet, eating their mid p.m. snacks, parking in their garage and swimming in their pool, one night seemed reasonable.

On Monday, I visited the EMP near the Space Needle...review follows later. Saw all I needed to see in an hour and a half.

Tuesday, culled out all the viable 45s (a dozen) at Golden Oldies, spent but $36...best record? stereo version of Johnny Otis's "Castin' My Spell".

Final two nights were at the Econolodge in Kirkland, by far the best place, woodsy, quiet, sociable. I went to a 5:00 reception there, free wine, regaled some Japanese h.s. teachers about Yokahama low riders. I think I'd been under the spell of the wine. Great fun.

Next, leaving Seattle. Onward toward Ashland...about 9 hours away, in a day.