The Week of Summer Shows Part II: Pink Martini with Bird York @ the Chateau St. Michelle winery

It was really hot all day long, and a bitch commute to the vineyards. We ended up leaving a little later than originally planned because we just weren't moving fast enough in the heat of the afternoon. But we were thrilled that it was just the six of us gals on an inadvertent ladies' night excursion!

We had to park and take a shuttle bus to the grounds, which was about the last thing we wanted to do. But we got in the long cattle-call of a line and awaited our chariot.

When we finally got out there, the sun was behind the hills and it was cooling off. The Spirit of Washington dinner train ran by every once in a while, and there were hot air balloons drifting across the sky. It was perfect timing.

We had so much amazing food and wine out there that it was actually funny. Leave it to us to materialize such a montage of tasty and healthy treats. Betsey even brought a bottle of champagne from her wedding! Lori was excited to bring her picnic basket complete with the classic gingham lining. She also brought square paper plates with a pink stripe around the edges to go with the colorful paisley-patterned napkins. I mean, you just can't get any more coordinated than that! Of course, it's not surprising to me that it turned out this way. After all, some of these gals are so adorably domestic. We spent the time prior to the show chatting and munching to our little hearts' content.


Bird York did a brief opener. They're an eclectic group with a female vocalist, and are somewhere in the range of electronic folk music: the perfect warm up for the headliner.

Good talk continued as we sat on the blankets on the grass. We had morphed into two groups of three and were huddled together, chattering over the music, thumbing through magazines. We were drinking St. Michelle's chardonnay and Riesling as well as the wedding champagne. Betsey even did a little sketch of me that I couldn’t resist!



Pink Martini soon took the stage. They actually make great background music to the girl talk unfolding before us. They are so fun, full and varied, an orchestra really, with brass, piano, cello, more strings, and even a harp. They are warm, welcoming, and bubbly with a multi-lingual and multi-cultural flare. The nice thing about seeing a band only two and a half albums old is recognizing lots of the music in their playlist: Bolero, Let's Never Stop Falling in Love, Donde Estes Yolanda, Lilly, Clementine, Andalucia, etc.

When I lived in Dallas, I loved seeing shows at what was then the Starplex Amplitheatre, a huge outdoor arena with a sprawling lawn. These grounds reminded me of a smaller version of that. This venue is mainly for an adult contemporary crowd, which is nice not to have to deal with some of the things as an all-age show, like the infuriating kids climbing in and out of the row and all over me every five seconds at Thievery Corp.

After the show, we did as instructed by the shuttle driver on the way out, and we got in line for our respective shuttle. But when we got there, the line was so long, the people so stinky, and the evening was so arid and breezy that we opted against it and walked back instead.

All was going swimmingly until we deviated off the main path, and jutted down a little hill to follow the unlit train tracks that would take us to where our cars were parked. It was a total Stand By Me moment, and I couldn’t help asking, "Hey, you guys want to see a dead body?" We walked along, gauging our footing by staring squarely down at the wooden planks illuminated by the light the moon.



Once we reached the building by the cars, we left the tracks to cross a small "creek". It was hard enough for us to maintain balance after polishing off several bottles of alcohol among the six of us, much more so with lots of gear in our hand, maneuvering in the dark! Two of us were particularly unlucky.

Most of the others had gotten safely across when Lindsey and I stepped directly into the bottom of the calf-deep, muddy, swamp water, rich with "mitochondrial bacteria" among other things. When we lifted up our feet, we each did so adorning one less shoe! The tall, dead, prickly grass didn't really help the matter of balance either. I was able to fish around and find my shoe, not that I'm even sure if I can ever wear them again. But poor Lindsey couldn't find hers. Soon, Betsey and I were crouched around her, and Brigid came over with a key light. What were the other two doing? Well, Lori and Erica hung back snapping pictures. Before we had a chance to see them, Lori guessed that at least some of them were “nothing but a bunch of asses in the air”. Sadly, she was right.



I mentioned that if only I had a stick to hold onto, I'd get in and find her shoe. I was convinced that it was sucked to the very bottom, as mine was. Brigid found a good sturdy stake, so in I went. Amidst showering praise of my dedication and friendship, I scaled the bottom of the muddy ditch with my toes. Lindsey and Betsey did the same with their hands. To no avail and Lindsey's dismay, we never found her shoe. She and I walked back to the car barefooted, and spent the rest of the weekend scouring our feet and hands.



Once we hit the road, all was well. Aside from the swamp smell engrained in Lindsey's skirt, there was cool and arid air, starry skies, great music and a serendipitous evening of female bonding. Though Latin lounge is not the kind of music men (at least our friends) typically favor, it was still not an intended girls' night out. I guess it wasn’t until the evening was upon us that we realized it was kind of a no-boys-allowed situation.

On the wild side: Life of a pedestrian commuter

For the last five years, I have walked to and from work everyday. During most of this time, I was without a car in general. I did miss having that convenience for running errands and taking the spontaneous road trip, but aside from that, walking to commute has been a pleasant departure from traffic, road rage, outrageous parking fees, and the skyrocketing gas prices of late.

My walks have become as precious to me as early-morning solitude: I have a chance to arrange my racing thoughts while I take in simultaneous fresh air and exercise. And if there’s one thing I like, it’s multi-tasking!

But lately I’ve noticed that road rage has found me again, just on the other end of the spectrum. Most drivers I encounter in the city are infuriatingly unaware of their surroundings in general, and palpably self-absorbed, which means of course that I have to factor in an awareness level for myself and everyone else. Since I am always walking with headphones on and sometimes after dark, I’m hyperaware as it is. Anything additional is frustrating and burdensome.

The worst is the intersection of Denny & Olive. In the mornings, I’m going downhill on Olive, the same direction as all the cars eager to turn right onto Denny, a major artery to the highway. In that case, we’re starting out on the same side of the street, the cars are turning right-on-red and have to stop for pedestrians when the light turns green. So, I understand that it must be a backward concept for them, especially when there seems to be some kind of kinetic reaction at work: one car turns, so does the next and the next as though they’re blindly pulling each other along. That the light be green or red is merely incidental. Needless to say, I never step foot into the street without an assertive backward glance over my left shoulder, like a territorial pissing to the driver screeching the car to a halt: “Stop right there. It’s our turn and we’re going!”

Unfortunately, the same intersection is almost worse in the afternoon when I’m heading home. Naturally, there is heavier pedestrian traffic heading back up the hill than going downtown, just as the opposite is true in the morning. So when the cars turning right-on-red get the green light, chances are there are no walkers to keep them from continuing to turn. That is, until we get to that side of the street. The tricky thing is the blind kinetics I mentioned earlier: each car just going and going like falling dominoes with little regard for anything else. When all of a sudden, there’s a person on top of them in the crosswalk. A collision is narrowly escaped. I’ve almost gotten plowed in this very spot more times than I can count or remember.

Have I mentioned that my biggest pet peeve is people who aren’t aware of their surroundings? Somehow it elevates from just peevish when I find my life in perpetual danger.

Amidst the bounty of stupid, ignorant drivers, is a smattering of good old-fashioned pricks: the cab drivers who crawl so far up your ass as you’re when you’re in the crosswalk that you can taste the exhaust fumes; The USPS truck that actually revved his engine at me last week. The United States Postal Service, ladies and gentlemen…

At the end of the day, I’m still happier to be walking. It's gotten to be kind of addictive. When I do drive, I hope to bring to the road a little more appreciation for the fellow pedestrian, and a little more patience in general (in my constant attempt to be as zen as possible).

Oh yeah, and I know this is unrelated, but if you’re one of those bikers who ride in the middle of the street when there’s also an available bike lane and sidewalk, just get the hell out of the way.

Unearthing the Treasure of Aberdeen

A couple of months ago, one of my dearest friends from Dallas came up to Seattle for a visit. We go way back, went to school together in Texas more than a decade ago, but had been out of touch for several years until recently.

Since it would be his first time in the Pacific Northwest, I had mentioned some typical activities suited to virgin visitors that might interest him: the obvious stuff but not ultra-touristy. I asked him if there was anything on his mind that I hadn’t brought up. He said, “Well, I would never dream of boring you with this, but I always told myself that I would make the trip to Aberdeen and go on the Kurt Cobain tour.”

This didn’t surprise me a bit. After all, though I hadn’t thought about it in years, Drew had loved Nirvana. Not that I didn’t also at least appreciate them at the time. I was in awe of them, but it was nothing compared to him. All things punk considered, if Kurt and Drew had known one another, they’d likely have been friends. I doubt the same would have been true had I known him. I say this without remorse or regret, just as a matter of fact.

We were in college in the early 90s, when it was all playing out in the first place, and I could all but assume the fascination was still there because it was that genuine. What did surprise me was the impression it would all leave on me.

So, I wouldn’t take no for an answer. After all, this was his trip to Seattle, and something that he had wanted to do for a long, long time. He never missed an opportunity to tell me how much he appreciated what I was doing, and I thought nothing of it. But didn’t really see it as a choice: this was something I had to do for my friend. The next day at work, I did some research online, which wasn’t hard. I came across the Aberdeen Museum of History webpage, with a link dedicated to a Kurt Cobain walking tour, complete with addresses and photos of each site. Perfect. I printed out the webpage and mapped out all of the locations.

Many of our conversations just prior to his trip up to Seattle centralized around the topic of Nirvana. He mentioned Michael Azzerad’s book, Come As You Are, which had originally been printed at the end of 1993, prior to Kurt’s death. (The subsequent version contains the final chapter, chronicling the last year of his life.) Drew said that he thought I should read it. I agreed. There wasn’t much time, about a week, before the drive to Aberdeen, and I knew it would be a huge challenge for me, a very slow reader, to get through the roughly three hundred fifty page book in that amount of time. But I feared that if I read it later, I wouldn’t have any of the background while we were there, save patient explanations from Drew, and by the time I got around to reading it, I might not even remember what the hell I saw when I was there.

The obsession began. I bought the book the following day, sacrificed everything else in my life except work (which just became a supreme inconvenience), and dove right in. To sweeten the deal, I was thrilled and lucky to have the infinite world of downloadable music at my fingertips, and began looking for all of the rare and unreleased tracks I could find. I would walk the mile each way to work and back digesting all sorts of related material through my iPod, everything from Fecal Matter demos and covers, to The Melvins with Kurt, Kurt and Courtney, acoustic cuts, radio show visits, B-sides, and unreleased live recordings of all things Nirvana. There were times I was completely transcended back to when it was all unfolding, what was happening in my life at that time. Others, I was overwhelmed by the fact that this music was born here in this atmosphere, this climate, and these specific circumstances. I felt privileged by my own circumstances of living here now, and being able to experience it all in that light for the first time. I think in a sense mourning Kurt Cobain and studying Nirvana in Washington State is the same as, say, mourning Stevie Ray Vaughan in Texas. It’s an unspoken understanding. It takes just hearing the music to know.

The day we drove to Aberdeen was actually two days later than we had originally planned. In the end, the day could not have been more serendipitous: accommodating gray sky and all.

The drive down surprised us both, and that’s coming from someone who has lived in Washington State for almost eight years, and someone who has been limited by his imagination. What we had both anticipated as being a wasteland was actually endlessly rolling and lush. Forsythia grew rampantly on both sides of the highway for most of the trek. Flowers would make two more significant appearances later on in the day.

When we drove over the bridge into town, our first impression was, “Wow, this isn’t bad!” I think we both expected the dregs of small town life to hit us at the onset. Straight ahead of us was Whiskah Blvd, which was thrilling in and of itself for anyone who understands the history involved. It seemed to be the “main street” in town, and was adorably cliche, lined with mom & pop storefronts and hanging flower boxes. But it wasn’t until we deviated just a block or so from that path that we realized just what we were dealing with. We had merely to peel back the single layer that was the shiny surface to reveal the true rickety nature of Aberdeen.

Each of the stops we made throughout town (with the exception of the Novoselic’s up on the hill) were about the same: small-town, meager, humble, on the verge of both mobility and dilapidation. First on the list was Kurt’s childhood home, which I think was the most fascinating to me. When we drove up, my heart was racing with the anticipation of discovery. Almost the kind of discovery that you’re not even supposed to make, as though you’re about to read a sibling’s journal or something. It was a tiny house with brown painted siding, a dirty, screened-in mud porch, and brightly colored but ravenously unkempt flowers growing from the trim by the front door. I don’t know why it struck me so: perhaps the candy-coated optimism of the flowers disguising the dark dysfunction of Kurt’s tainted youth, or that someone who would become a transcendent musical icon hailed from such a seemingly tiny and insignificant place.

The afternoon wore on, and soon the last thing we had to do was find the bridge where Kurt had sought refuge from home. By going on instinct alone, we felt that it wouldn’t be one of the big industrial bridges that lead in and out of town. Knowing what we did about the storyline, it didn’t seem to fit. Drew pulled out some of the information we had printed for the trip, and read something that pointed us in the right direction. We parked on the closest residential street and walked up the hill to the bridge. What we saw at the top of the hill was kind of lovely, with daffodils blooming wildly in a neighbor’s yard across the river, and lots of tall green grass. It was toward the outskirts of town, and a little quieter than it is the closer to Whiskah you get. I was taking some pictures of the bridge itself, when Drew called out from underneath it, “You don’t happen to have a marker do you?” I looked at him quizzically and he smiled, “Just come here.”

It was like finding the honey pot, unearthing the hidden treasure. A phantasm of graffitied messages of all types and colors stood before us. Their common thread, unlike any graffiti I’d ever seen, was love and empathy:

“Welcome to Cobain Bridge”

“We miss you Kurt”

“Thanks for all you have done for me”

“I need an easy friend”

“Kurt you took me away to where I always want to be…love your in utero goddess."

We wandered around silently and in awe, taking it all in. When we spoke, it was with a museum-like reverence. I knew I had a purple marker in the car, so we went back to get it. We took a moment to leave our own mark, and left. This was a most befitting final stop.

In talking about the trip since then, we have both reflected on it a lot. It left similar impressions for both of us, and offered individual perspectives as well. Drew grew up in a small town that reminded him a lot of Aberdeen, and being there has resurrected some of the claustrophobia that he felt as a child. Though I never lived in an Aberdeen, most of my family did, so I understand what a small town is, and being there was both unsettlingly familiar and oddly comforting to me. Whether that familiarity came from everything that I read in the book, and merely absorbing the spirit of it all, or it was something more inherent to the nature of life in a small town in general, I’m not sure but it was probably some of both, as it tends to be.

I managed to finish all but two chapters of Come As you Are, and that’s not counting the subsequently printed final chapter. I have found myself unable to finish the book, and have since begun another one in a desperate attempt to prolong the living and perpetuating story in my mind. But I think it was best said in post-pilgrimage conversations between Drew and I:

Me: Nirvana propels me to heights of joy and energy as well! Certainly not just the feeling of encapsulated angst, or even pleasurable anger, stickin’-it-to-the-man kind of thing, as it used to be. All new stuff that I’m getting this time around. This is the reason why I can’t finish the book: I didn’t have the information the first time around that I do now; and knowing what I know, what I didn’t understand then, makes the story much sadder than I anticipated.

Drew: This never ceases to fascinate me!

Me: Think of it this way: I never knew Nirvana before they were suddenly huge. I didn’t understand the background, or the message. I thought destroying their instruments after a set meant a disrespect for the medium and their fans in general, and not just the corporate big-wigs they were fighting for the distribution of their message against. I thought they were just a bunch of … punk ASSES! I didn’t know or want to understand that Kurt Cobain changed forever at the age of 8, or that he was constantly in pain, or that empathy seemed to situationally evade him throughout his life or whenever he sought it, or anything that Nirvana went through with Sub Pop and Bleach, or that they had such a hard time with finding a permanent drummer, and all the reasons that went into that. In general, I feel very ashamed to have embodied the very idea of how easy and how wrong it is to make snap judgments.

Drew: It's OK, honey. You may be Pisces, but you're still human. A really outstanding one, but a human. Not a thing wrong with that. Back to the subject, this does help me understand. It still fascinates me. I'm really glad that you've come to have this understanding of a band that I've always felt this way about. I do hope someday you'll finish the book, and that that won't mean an ending for you.

Me: This is the part I need help with.

Drew: Do you mean that if you finish the book, you'll have some closure, that'll end it for you or something?

Me: I mean that I’m thinking of it too much like finishing the book would be the definitive ending. And I don’t want that to be the case. It makes me sad.

Drew: In that case, I don't want you to finish the book. Dammit, where's my copy of In Utero?!
~~~~~~~~~~
Me: I wanted to clarify one thing from yesterday’s email. I said that I will feel like it’s all over when I finish the book. But actually, that of course is not the case! There is still new information for me out there, and always the immeasurable possibility that the old material will be redefined to me over and over again, as I evolve in life.

Drew: This is what has happened for me. The thing is, I've been a fan for a long time, understanding certain things about the music (partly implicitly "getting it", partly learning some of the specifics by reading about them) and the history all this time. But what fascinated me was seeing how you have become so immersed in this, coming to understand and feel what I felt, that you got me completely on board your journey. I've seen in you the magic and mystery of it all unfolding in a way that I guess reminds me of falling in love with Nirvana for the first time myself.

Me: This is half what I meant anyway …

Drew: I've been able to see them and hear them again through virgin senses. I guess that's just me empathizing with you, and also empathizing with you having to go through, in a way, something I went through twelve years ago--the finality of Kurt's death.

Me: Yes, exactly.

Drew: Nirvana's music meant so much to me, and saved me, and spoke to me and for me.

Me: I remember all of that fondly, I mean how it affected you.

Drew: …facing the prospect of No New Nirvana Albums Ever was heartbreaking for me. It was more, I thought, than I could bear. I of course, did not know what you already do: the way the story ends. I guess I shared your feeling of fear of the end, too, and wanted to negate Kurt's death, that terrible loss, along with you by not facing it.

Me: You were very accommodating in that way. Being distracted with visiting his hometown and walking through the steps of his LIFE, it was easy to do.

Drew: I was willing to let you have something--oh shit, I'm getting misty here! -that I never got to: a Nirvana story that never has to end.

Me: I would like very much to adjust my thinking this way. I believe is possible!

Drew: Your emotion and your love were…

Me: …ARE…

Drew: …so strong, I didn't want to take that from you, the way it was from me.

Me: You haven’t and won’t – no worries there, but thank you for this gesture. I appreciate this advantage over your experience, and am very empathetic to it.

Drew: But "you know, you're right," (*wink*) it's not an end.

Me: No!

Drew: I had to come to terms with no more new Nirvana ever a long time ago, but part of that was learning that just because there's no new music doesn't mean there's no music.

Me: I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Drew: The music will always be with us.

Me: As old favorites, or new revelations. Always.

Drew: That's his gift to us. The music will grow and change with you, as it has for me. The book, too, in time, will come to hold new keys to new (and old) doors, also as it has for me--through you. And for that, I say thank you.

Me: Your sentiments echo my thoughts, and I am truly touched, by all of this. I think it’s just about the best side effect ever. I’m getting a little misty myself taking all of this in…

Drew: We'll always have the music, and we're always going to have Aberdeen. Remember your message you wrote under the bridge? There is a persistence to the love we give when the feeling is strong enough--your message will be there for Kurt, just as his message will be there for us. These messages of peace, love, and empathy go on. They go on, because they are stronger than those of hate.

Me: A practically tearful thank you. Well done. Well said. And to that I will add something that I have had enough time to believe. This, what I’m experiencing now, and everything yet to be revealed to me, is permanent. Once a person makes their way to my most upper echelon of reverence, they never come down. Ever. (Crap, okay this actually is making me cry!) That’s for my forever.

Early to Rise?

I’ve always considered myself a nocturnal person. I don’t know if that comes from some kind of fascination with the kinds of things that typically happen at night, or just that I really like sleeping and the morning eternally comes too early for my taste. I think it’s safe to say it’s a combination.

When I started school, I somehow knew without knowing that the further I advanced in my college career, the earlier I would have to schedule my classes. There were always plenty of options for the 100-levels, but sure enough, they dwindled significantly by my senior year. I still don’t know why they couldn’t have offered a 10a.m. instead of an 8, but whatever.

So, because I had this random foresight into the inner workings of university life, I spoiled myself fervently while I could. My parents would tease me about this, and chuckle at my reasoning. My mom insisted that I would grow out of this one day, that she had been the same when she was my age. And I would chuckle right back at her, convinced that delighting to get up early was simply not part of the fabric of my existence.

And so it was. I enjoyed blissful ignorance up to my 30th birthday. Most would consider this adult life, and I became even more convinced that I would never change. Then, one Saturday morning, it happened. And once is all it takes to change something, even as deeply engrained as this.

It happened around 9a.m. A time that would never shock an early bird, but an hour of the day (a weekend day) that I never had any desire to know.

A batch of intrusive thoughts began to disturb me from my peaceful repose. They mainly took the form of, “Hmm, what do I have to do today? Do I need any groceries? How’s the laundry looking?” But they persisted to no end.

Initially, I was put off by the extremely menial nature of these thoughts, that they would be the very ideas to rouse me from my precious sleep. But this is how it all began.

Now, it’s not that this transition happened overnight. I didn’t immediately embrace the seemingly forced nature of this lifestyle shift, and spring energetically from my bed as soon as I awoke each and every free morning. On the contrary, it was met with a great resistance. But it did start to happen with a bit more ease, and eventually, will.

And it was only then that I began to embrace the underrated contentment that is morning solitude.

Perhaps the most priceless aspect of these morning hours is the fact that it’s outside of the confines of generally accepted social behavior to call anyone. (I say this with the caveat that I’m sure this is relative to same age groups.) So, that tends to leave one with an active mind, a rested body, and some free time: a sublimely rare and gorgeous combination!

While I was more reluctant to acknowledge the value of these early menial thoughts, I can’t deny the feeling of liberation and accomplishment when all of my weekend “have-to’s” are behind me by noon on Saturday.

Then, there are other mornings where I would be awake with no real agenda. These are the best-case scenarios: quiet time all to myself, without having to share it with any pesky chores or obligations. There’s a potent optimism to this time of the day. It simply hasn’t been around long enough yet for anything or anyone to spoil.

My parents live two times zones ahead of me. When they would call me on the weekends in their early afternoon, my dad would only be half-kidding when he would say, “You just get up?” When I would tell him that I’d been up since 9, he’d then say, “So, you’re getting up early in your old age,” to which I begrudgingly concur. Damnit all, I can’t deny it any longer. I just have to wonder how much worse it will get in the next twenty years or so …